CHAPTER FOUR - In Cora's Bed-Chamber
Rumpelstiltskin absently paced the tiny room above the tavern in which Cora slept. A room which, judging by the jumbled assembly of clothes and other sundry, was shared by several other serving wenches, possibly taking it in turns as the bed looked too small to accommodate two grown people comfortably. Of course by comfortably he meant not touching one another in the night. An idea that was quite familiar to him from his marriage to Mela. But the end result was that he couldn't single out any one hair he saw laying about the place as definitely being from Cora. There was no other option; he was going to have to get one directly from her head. If only she would turn her back...
"My love, why are you so shy?" Cora asked, interrupting the Dark One's ruminations from her place on the bed, "You we not reluctant at all last night." she said rising from the bed and approaching 'Prince Jonathan', "... I'm truly sorry if my enthusiasm embarrassed you in front of your servants..." she reached out and touched him lightly on the chest. He flinched away.
"Sorry, my... dearest Cora." he stammered, "I'm afraid I've been rather distracted lately by matters of state and I simply must step outside for a moment, but..." he hesitated, then slowly raised his hand to brush her cheek, "...don't fret, My dear," he said, surreptitiously collecting a strand of her hair as his thumb drew circles on her cheek, "I'll return to you shortly and... perhaps then we may discuss plans for the wedding..."
The blissful look on Cora's face nauseated him. Rumple slipped out the flimsy door.
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Outside the door he magically produced a vile and dropped the strand of hair in. A simple swirl of magic told him all he needed to know.
She's... barren?! but how could that be? Magic doesn't lie. But if she had been barren when he met her for the first time (about two years from now) then he would've noticed when he first drew up the contract for her firstborn. The Dark One simply did not make mistakes like that. Clearly something else was at work here, but what?
A new plan began to form in his mind, a way to stop Zelena and gain repayment from a long held debt. "What a delightful turn of events that would be." he whispered, remembering the amended contract that Cora would sign in two years, a contract that promised him not Cora's firstborn child, but quite specifically his child. He smiled, "Well a deal's a deal after all." He thought of all those years where Cora had believed that she'd won, that she'd outsmarted The Dark One, cheated him out of his child. When the truth would be that he'd gotten that contracted child from her before they'd even met! For the first time in an eternity, Rumpelstiltskin laughed and it was a much more lighthearted Prince who graced Cora's bed that night...
