Milah
"You shouldn't be made to carry so heavy a burden."
Those two extraordinary eyes found his, alert and sparkling.
"And who's going to bear it for me?"
She hefted the wash basket higher on her hip and eyed Rumplestiltskin expectantly.
The young man looked to his feet making imprints in the red dust of the lane.
After a few awkwardly silent seconds, he stopped.
"If you would permit me, I should like to carry it for you."
Passing girls and women of the village giggle and gave admonishing glares to the pretty lass and humble spinner.
Rumplestiltskin didn't mind though, he only held out his arms for the basket.
Milah cocked her head, the thick, dark waves fell over her shoulder gracefully, and smiled.
"Well, here you are then," she passed the basket over into his hands, "you can sit and talk with me while I do my washing if you like."
"I don't think it would be proper, the other women might take offense."
She rolled those aquamarine eyes and raked a calloused, reddened hand through her hair.
"To the Devil with those old bawds," Milah cursed, laughing a little at Rumplestiltskin when his eyes grew wide with shock.
"I'm no coward Rumplestiltskin and if you're ashamed of being seen with a girl so common born as myself then you can give me back my washing and be on your way."
"Oh no," he babbled apologetically, "I'm not ashamed nor am I a coward, I don't mind them talking if you don't."
Milah grinned, satisfied that her spell had been cast, and began walking towards the well with Rumplestiltskin fast in tow.
Cora
"You make me sick."
King Xavier said calmly, never looking up from the piles of state papers and pending treaties that littered his desk.
His son and daughter-in-law had just returned from their Honeymoon tour and the King was noticeably absent from the royal receiving party.
That infuriated Cora.
So there she stood, muffed in rich furs and beautifully gowned, glaring at the King: her father.
But, decorum overpowered the scene and Cora dropped into a graceful curtsy, spreading her skirts wide and bending her neck respectfully.
"As pleasant and complimentary as the first time we met, Majesty."
Her hard sarcasm was noted by the King with a frown.
"Why are you here?"
She smiled.
"Casting me off so quickly? There was a time when you never wanted me to leave..."
"You have no business remembering that."
Her coyness shifted abruptly to anger at his admonishment.
"You don't tell me what not to remember, I'm no longer a dirty mill slut carrying a sack of flour!"
Cora slapped his desk hard in an effort to control herself and the magic that was quivering eagerly in her fingertips.
Xavier stood before he spoke, the lines in his face shadowed and pronounced.
"Are you still keeping illicit company with that demonic Creature my daughter?"
Her bowed crimson mouth pouted out a tight, "No."
They both knew she was lying blatantly, she would never give up Rumplestiltskin.
He was thing they never spoke of outright; he was the wall between Cora and absolute power.
"Very good, at least you done one thing I asked of you."
"What do you want from me?!"
Cora slammed both hands, palms down, onto the desk; her eyes locked hatefully with Xavier's.
"I want you to obey!" He bellowed back at her, "I want you to stop fighting me, testing me, and pushing my temper to its limit!"
Cora recovered herself and stepped back from the King's desk awkwardly.
Her eyes searched his aged, handsome, biased face, darting from the crown settled atop his thick dark hair, to the many gleaming medals that were pinned to his breast.
"You want me to kneel," she hissed, "You want my knees to crack and bruise from kneeling to those who I was born inferior, yet now eclipse. You want me to apologize for becoming one of them. You never will forget where I came from will you? No matter how much gold I spin or grandsons I beget for you, I shall always have to bend until you have passed."
Regina
So many times Regina had sat in her carriage, invisible due to magic, and watched the serving wench carrying her basket to the distant village to fetch straw.
He would dispatch her before dawn sometimes, and the poor bedraggled thing wouldn't return until long after dark.
Regina knew from the mirror, the brief moments of pinching redness into her pale cheeks and biting chapped lips so as to appear healthy and appealing always heralded a visit to the village.
And he always sent her on the most miserable of days.
Rain storms, sweltering heat, and knee deep snows greeted her when she passed through the gates of his battlements.
He manipulated the elements just to discomfort the maid.
Her state of dress was always deplorable, her pretty hair was fuzzy and tangled.
"Poor child." Regina sighed to herself.
She has been caught by him; ensnared in his trap.
He will throw her away when he's satisfied himself with her, when she's no more good to him or anyone.
She'll be hardened and cold, she won't be able to trust.
He will leave the servant girl as had he left all of them...
Belle
After she had read the final word on the final page, Belle solemnly closed the book and tried to will the hot, salty tears flooding her eyes back to their internal spring.
The ending had been poignant, yet devastatingly sad.
Rumplestiltskin sat unmoved, his legs splayed out crookedly before him and his shimmering green eyes locked on the leaping fire as if entranced.
For a few moments they sat in silence, then suddenly he spoke, clear and sharp.
"And what do you make of Faustus, Belle? What can you think of a man who would sell his own soul for vainglory and wickedness?"
"I pity him truly," one trembling hand caressed the cover of the book as she spoke, "Faust did not strike the bargain with ill intention, evil was not his aim, he began with the purest and most noble of intentions."
"Yes!"
Rumplestiltskin snapped his fingers and pointed at Belle, his brow hatefully wrinkled.
"That is how it always opens," one long hand wound into his waves where it sunk and tangled itself, "even the most deplorable of actions seem to hold no consequence...until one day they do, and then the price is far too great..."
A gaunt, haunted shadow crossed his face, the pain evident.
A hot stab of longing pierced Belle's heart.
To chase that pain away, how badly she wanted to crack that hard veneer of the monster so as to catch a glimpse of the man who suffocated beneath...
But from the faraway gaze in his eyes and slumped, broken position of his body, Rumplestiltskin's ghosts were his own tonight.
"I-I do believe I'm for my bed."
Belle rose and placed the book on the mantle, making mental note to find some obscure home for it in back of the bookcase.
Her gowned figure and delicate profile became highlighted in the licking flames.
She had bound her hair in one long peasant braid, a thousand different shades of red and brown danced and shone.
Rumplestiltskin saw her before the spinning wheel; he saw her with the jewel box he left secretly...
She was Marguerite.
He would choke her with diamonds and emeralds then lay her beautiful body onto the raw straw beside the wheel.
As Belle passed him by, Rumplestiltskin caught fast her wrist.
Tightly he pressed blackened nails into the delicate skin that gave protection to those precious, thundering veins.
"Verweile doch du bist so schon Marguerite."
Milah
Feelings Rumplestiltskin had never known existed within his body suddenly and passionately emerged.
A fever had settled.
Her body, her mind, it all was so...arousing.
He wanted to give Milah pleasure; he wanted to worship her with his body.
Her full mouth, warm against his own and the feel of her in his arms was all he could think of.
Gods, how he ached for her.
Then just kissing wasn't enough, nor just holding her loosely.
He wanted to make her his own and no one else's.
Cora
"How happily my quill glides across this rough page, I cannot tell you dearie."
The graceful, familiar pen made Cora's stomach drop and a cool perspiration bloom across the bridge of her powdered nose.
"A treasure most rare, magic the likes of which I've never seen..."
Warm blush crept across her bosom, the old surge of jealousy recalled itself to Cora.
"She reminds me of you, my dear. Her eagerness to seek retribution upon those who abandoned her as a wee babe in a basket..."
The word abandoned had been underlined three times with violent black lines.
It couldn't be.
"She's crude, but most promising. She warmed the cockles of my withered old heart when I watched spun straw into gold, without ever being instructed how..."
No.
"...and she told me the most wretched thing, she said she was tired of bending and kneeling to others deemed by nature superior to her. The child's words put me in mind of yours once upon a time my dear..."
Regina
How violently her hands trembled after pushing her mother through the looking glass.
Tremors that seemed to quake outward from her soul.
Her mind was an addled, swirling mess.
"I have killed my mother...I have killed my mother..."
Then there was thick purple smoke snaking it's way around her ankles, spreading strange perfume.
Two arms appeared and wrapped themselves comfortingly around Regina's waist.
A sharp, pointed chin rested upon her bare shoulder.
"It is well, just as well..."
That awful voice.
His rank breath made her nose burn.
Regina's body swayed unsteadily, the magical fumes nauseated her.
A great pounding started somewhere deep inside of her brain, her body felt so heavy.
Then, nothing but darkness.
Belle
The hard tapping of a late night rainstorm roused Belle easily from her sleep.
She rolled over and flung back the cool sheets, groaning slightly from stiffness.
Her hair settled itself around her shoulders in fuzzy ringlets; a loud bellow of thunder made the window panes quake in their frames.
Belle drew back a curtain and saw the rain running down in pretty rivulets.
How she loved summer rain.
She stood watching it, entranced by nature and noise, when suddenly she grabbed a velvet cloak, threw it haphazardly across her shoulders, and made her way quickly down the staircase toward the green castle gardens.
As soon as Belle's bared feet met with cool, wet grass she beamed.
She ran gaily from the atrium to the high hedge labyrinth, letting her cloak fall forgotten to the ground when it became sodden and mud splattered.
The earthy smelling rain slapped against her face and drenched her night shift through, but she paid it no heed.
When she slipped on the grass and fell to her back, Belle only laughed and rolled, soaking herself completely.
She had lost herself and did not see Rumplestiltskin stalking angrily toward her, blouse open and billowing about him and the forgotten cloak knotted in his hand.
"What are you doing out of doors during a maelstrom such as this?!"
"Master!"
Belle leapt up, terrified beyond reason to be caught off guard before him of all people.
"Have you lost what remains of your mind foolish girl?!"
Rumplestiltskin bore his teeth in an awful snarl, his wet hair laid slick against his face with his chest and stomach fully exposed.
"I am sorry, I love the rain you see, I meant no harm, I would never try and run."
She was earnest, but imploring.
Belle did not wish to feel the weight of his unfair wrath over something this trivial.
"I-I couldn't sleep, I wanted but to feel the rain against my skin."
She babbled, trying to soothe his anger and make him understand it was an innocent gesture.
Rumplestiltskin's eyes dropped from her beseeching face, to her body in the now transparent nightgown.
"Here!"
He thrust the cape at her and she grabbed it, shamefully yanking it around her nearly naked breasts.
"How dare you leave without my permission! How dare you cause me such distress!"
Rumplestiltskin pushed the wet hair back from his brow and turned on the heels of his knee high boots, throwing hateful instructions over his shoulder to Belle.
"Come along girl! Haven't you sense enough to get from the rain?!"
She had been standing in sort of a daze, half frightened and half shocked, but his harsh words brought her back.
"Do not order me about like some sort of pack mule! You carry on as though I were committing some sort of horrible crime!"
"You were," he snapped with a quick turn, "you made an action without my consent, here that is as good as a crime!"
Belle frowned, "I shan't move by the command of a fool such as yourself."
In two moves he had her arms pinned behind her back, the cape she had been wearing fell to the ground with a thud.
"You agreed to forever with me dearie, forever on my terms!"
Belle squirmed in his grasp, but he only held her tighter.
"Turn me loose please," she looked him the eyes, "you frighten me."
"Don't act as though you've never been held steadfastly by a man, how many times did your betrothed embrace you thus?"
They struggled against one another then, until the slimy grass caused them both to lose their footing.
Belle attempted to scramble away, but Rumplestiltskin caught her by the hips and pulled her down hard, pinning her arms by either side of her tangled head.
"What do you want from me?" She asked in a scared, defeated voice.
Rumplestiltskin looked into those impossibly blue eyes and saw the reflection of a monster.
Instantly he recoiled, aware and ashamed of himself.
He turned his mud-stained back to where she still lay on the ground and thrust his hands to his hips.
He kicked a wad of mud and grass with the pointed toe of his boot, then spoke with a dull, hollow tone:
"Go to your chambers and do not leave without my permission again or the repercussions shall be great indeed."
