Milah
"I know it's not much, but it's all I have."
The young spinner held out a plain, cheap ring in his callused hands.
She just stared down at it dumbly.
"I want you for my wife."
Cora
It burns when he watches her with the Prince.
How she prances, so fully aware of her beauty and power.
Henry thinks he's won a prize in her, that he'll pluck her flower on their nuptial night.
A sickening grin danced across his gold flecked face.
How little the Prince knows...
Regina
"Do you even realize how beautiful you are Regina?"
He stood behind the fledgling with his gnarled claws resting comfortably on her bared shoulders.
She cocked her head oddly and squinted her eyes at the flawless face reflected before her; the same face she saw everyday.
Daniel had called her beautiful.
To him, she had been beautiful in every sense of the word.
"But your heart Regina," Daniel would say," is where your true beauty lies."
Regina frowned.
"Where does beauty get you? Nowhere. My mother was a celebrated beauty and just look where it got her."
She tried not to sound bitter, but a hard edge laced her words.
"Tut, tut, tut!" He warned as he shook one long finger, "you're looking at it all wrong my pet! With beauty you can rule the world."
Regina only rolled her eyes at the imp.
"Here!" He said as he slid his hands down her bare arms, "Skin smoother than silk."
She sharply shrugged his hands away.
"Don't be churlish with me you ungrateful chit."
His tone was dark, his face was stoic.
Regina glared at him in the mirror.
"I'm not ungrateful to you." She said, low.
"Any girl would kill to be in your position dearie."
"I know."
She looked down at her gloved hands.
Her engagement ring sparkled mockingly.
"Stand up, let me look at you."
Regina obeyed.
"How wise of you to wear white."
Belle
"Where do you go at night?"
Belle sat on the rug across from him with her knees pulled up to her chest.
"What do you mean dearie?"
She wiggled her little toes deeper into the threads of the carpet, "Do you sleep? Sometimes, late at night, I hear you banging about, I just wondered..."
"You lie awake at night and wonder about the beast?"
"You're not a beast." She reprimanded.
He chuckled and rested his curly head against the high back of his chair.
"I do my best work at night, but if I bother you I shall make an effort to stop."
Belle started, "Oh no, it's not that! I don't mind your noise really! I was just curious I suppose.."
She fiddled with the embroidered hem of one of her petticoats idly.
"What do you suppose?"
Belle smiled shyly, "I suppose I expected you to hang from the ceiling like a bat."
He giggled that high, sharp giggle and cocked his head at her.
"No my dear, I sleep, be it very little, but when I do I prefer my bed."
"To think of you curled amidst a sea of down and damask is quite funny." She quipped.
He giggled again and rested his chin in his palm.
"Well, I' must show you my bed sometime Belle, maybe then you won't find it so comical."
Milah
And so they were married.
He brought her into his small, sparse home as his wife.
After the wedding party, torches lit their way home.
He was so proud.
Milah was his now, and he was hers.
Silently they climbed the weathered porch stairs.
His hand itched to reach out for hers but he didn't.
His little house was plain and nearly bare except for his wheel, a table and chairs, and an ancient china hutch pushed into a faraway corner.
No curtains hung on the three windows, no rugs were laid over the rough plank floors.
He closed the door and latched it as she solemnly placed her bouquet on the little kitchen table.
"This is yours now."
Cora
"Must you hang on him so?!" He railed at her.
Cora only smiled at the Dark One.
He was no different from any other man, jealous, possessive, and lustful.
"Just because it's not you..." She taunted as she pulled the silver brush through her dark hair.
In less than a second he was upon her, his hideous hands steadfast around her white neck.
"You'll not play me as you do him, as you do his father, as you do the stable lads when they scrape the mud from your boots."
She didn't fight him.
She didn't cry or tear at his hands.
She just smiled that blank, well-bred smile.
Regina
"She will be called Regina, for one day she shall become Queen!"
He appeared out of thin air with his long arms outstretched in a beckoning gesture.
Regina looked up from her piano with a start.
He grinned.
"Did I scare you?"
"No, of course not."
She folded her hands daintily in her lap.
"Now, now my pet, no one cottons to a liar."
One raven brow shot up impertinently, "If you couldn't already see Master, I am occupied."
Belle
As they sat together, Beauty resting at the feet of the Beast, he fought the urge to touch her.
She was lost in her novel, as always, and blissfully unaware of his inner tortures.
His thoughts of her were improper.
She was so young and kind...
"Belle?" He said in a tight voice.
"I'm here Master." She replied in a distracted voice, her eyes and mind still within her book.
"Won't you pour me a cup of tea?"
"Hmm?" She hummed absently.
"Tea my dear, a nice cup of tea if you please."
He hisses over the "nice" like it burns him.
His nails dig into the rich wood of the chair.
"Oh, oh yes of course." She smiles obligingly.
Dutifully she rises and goes to the tea cart.
Her pretty little feet sink into the rich carpet with each step.
She pours his tea, sugars it and creams it perfectly, then makes her way back to him.
"Here you are."
He takes the delicate cup and saucer in shaking hands, the jittering of bone china splits his ears but Belle seems not to notice.
"Aren't you going to taste it?"
He smiles wistfully into the cup.
"No Belle, I know it's...perfect."
Milah
He knew very well what was to be expected of him tonight.
Awkwardly he walked to his wife and touched her shoulder.
The soft calico of her wedding dress eased him a little and when she turned to face him with a tiny smile he felt relieved.
"Where's your bed?"
He swallowed, shocked by her abrupt question, and pointed to a doorway with a red plaid blanket tacked over it.
She took his sweating hand in her own and together they made their way into the tiny, neat bedroom.
Cora
"I saw you." He says from the shadows of her chamber.
"I saw you with the King."
Slowly, he stepped from the darkness, hands clasped in front of his groin.
"Lots of people see me with King everyday, what makes you so special?" She says in a matter-of-fact tone as she ties a pale pink ribbon on the end of her long braid.
His upper lip twitched with suppressed anger.
"Yes, but I wager they've never seen the King with his hand buried in your bodice as I just did."
Cora rolled her chocolate eyes, "Oh. That."
"Yessss," he hissed, "That."
She crossed to him and shrugged off her wrapper, "Will you help me with this?" She gazed at him over one creamy shoulder, her corset ties exposed and ready to be plucked.
He looked at her, the woman he loved.
He had saw her in the arms of another man.
She had kissed another man.
But, she could never love another man, not as she loves him.
Roughly he pulls her to him and yanks at the ribbons until they're undone and her body is free from it's steel cage.
She only loves me...