The Evil Queen watched the child grow happy and carefree. Not a single radish had appeared since that first meeting and the Evil Queen worried that the girl's powers were not as strong as she'd suspected. She feared that the Rapunzel could not keep its presence for long in a human and had weakened and died. She worried constantly, seeing the girl chase butterflies, that she was wasting her time on a useless little girl.

On the child's third birthday, the Evil Queen took her to the Dark One's home. He was surprised by the visit but intrigued by the girl, so he agreed to discuss a bargain. He admitted that a few years ago he had told a couple wishing for a child about the rapunzels. But he was not sure how it would affect the child.

He agreed to do a test on the child, to check for the rapunzel's abilities, on the condition that if she truly was a rapunzel, the Dark One may take a lock of her golden hair. The Evil Queen agreed and the dark One took the child in his arms. She smiled at him, no sign of evil to be seen, only a happy child.

He took the girl out of the Evil Queen's sight and left her hidden in a small dark room. He locked the door and returned to the Evil Queen. When she asked about the child he said it would take time and it would be best for her majesty to leave. The Evil Queen refused and waited in the Dark One's house the whole night. In the morning, he told the Evil Queen what he had done and told her to come with him to see what had happened.

He unlocked the door and looked in. In front of their eyes was a terrible scene. The child sat crying in the center, black blood staining her chewed up hands, and radishes, hundreds of black radishes. Some were as big as pumpkins and others as small as strawberries. The room smelled of blood which oozed from the radishes.

The Evil Queen used magic to lift the girl from the floor and bring her out of the room without having to go in or touch any part of the horrifying room. The Dark One carefully stepped in, avoiding all the blood and radishes, and looked at the wall. He laughed at the sight of a blood painted picture of a little girl being eaten by a monster. He walked back out and smiled brightly at the Evil Queen, saying she had nothing to worry about.

When magic had cleaned the girl, bandaged her hands, and she had stopped crying, the Dark One gathered her in his arms again and sat her down on a stool. He carefully picked up his scissors and snipped a lock of hair from the little girl's head. The hair grew brown in his fingers and so did the hair still on her head. The Dark One stared curiously at the brown hair and told the Evil Queen to not have anyone cut it again. The Evil Queen left with the little girl, now aware of her natural power.

(AN: Hello there! So I have decided to continue this story and thought it might be helpful to explain the structure I've set up. In this story, every other chapter will be told in the present in the way you would expect a modern day novel to be written with dialogue and such, chapter 2 is the first chapter in this style. In between the normal present day chapters will be chapters like this, told in a very vague fairytale style and all of them explaining Rapunzel and Regina's backstory. Thank you for reading!)