ENCHANTED FOREST:
Belle had to admit, she was getting a tad bit frustrated.
She was lost.
Again.
A week of having the room Rumpelstiltskin gifted her, Belle found that finding any other room besides so was exhaustingly difficult.
She turned down another identical corridor with an exasperated sigh. Staying here forever, she was sure she still would never get the hang of it.
Then, she saw it.
The lanterns were dim, so she had to squint to peer down the hallway.
At the very end was not a heavy wooden, identical door just like every other one in this castle...
But one of shimmering...
Gold?
She raced down the hallway excitedly, glad to at least see something fresh of mind.
The door handles were the heads of two fierce, roaring lions, with intriquite detail wiring it's way around the entrance's frame. Belle paced closer and realized that it was of the same shining substance as the door itself.
The beauty hesitated. It was of nothing she had seen before in the castle, what if there was something important in there? Some dark and wicked magic, or worse, the very beast that the door handles suggested?
Belle decided she had to take chances sometime.
She grabbed the left lion by its mane and gave an almighty heave.
The door creaked open.
It took almost a full minute for Belle's eyes to adjust to the even darker lighting. Once she could focus, she realized the walls were not shown, as they were covered by stack upon stack of spun gold piled neatly in lines and rows along the exterior, each more glimmering then the next.
Belle knew all too well that the Dark One spun such substance, but she never knew what he did with it all, but now, it was apparent.
But something else drew her attention.
Out of the corner of her eye, the beauty saw a great light shining down admist the darkness in the center of the circular room.
Belle gasped, not believing that she didn't see it before.
There, in a round glass casing and standing on a beautiful gold pedestal,
was a rose.
Her rose, too be exact.
It was the brightest red she had seen it, and it's leaves were of a healthy green.
As she walked closer, she noticed the flower seemed to be floating in mid air, a strange trait for such a thing.
Why had Rumpelstiltskin kept it? She knew she had offered it to him, but Belle never thought he had actually kept the thing.
Once she was close enough that she could reach out and touch it if preferred, Belle saw that two of it's delicate petals had fallen, leaving the rest of the blossom with only five left.
The two already subjected to the cases' bottom were dry, brittle, and a deep, withering brown. It looked almost depressing to look at, as if it was affecting a sort of magic aura the flower had.
Magic.
Was it magic?
Belle thought back to Rumpelstiltskin's comment when he presented her her room.
'You brought me a flower.'
What did he mean by that?
The enchanted rose riveted Belle and pulled her toward it like a magnet, and with a curious finger she reached-
"Out."
Belle gasped at the hiss in front of her, and she looked up from the flower to see Rumpelstiltskin at the other side of the case. His features were of a seething anger she had never seen of him before. His slightly crooked nose let out a deep breath, as if the man was trying to control himself. The greenish-yellow contrast of his skin was much more apparent in the gentle glow, and made him seem a type of an unworldly serpent.
Belle opened her mouth. "I-"
"Out." He gritted a tad bit louder.
Belle had never been more terrified in her life.
Yet she could not move just yet.
Though she was going to stand her ground, Rumpelstiltskin conjured up a glowing ball of fire in his hand, and had a smirk on his face that he had never given Belle before.
Of pure malice.
He had never threatened her. Never shown her anything but what was considered kindness. Belle gasped in realization that he would actually hurt her.
With a swallow, she turned from a man she no longer knew, and ran, ran like her life depended on it.
With every intention of leaving.
Leaving this place. Leaving this castle.
Leaving this monster.
But as Belle ran down the endless hallways, she could've sworn she heard an unmistakable high pitched voice:
"What have I done?"
Torn, the beauty still kept going.
She couldn't stop running, even when her efforts to find a way out, or at least a way out of her confusion, proved fruitless.
After what seemed like hours, she stopped, gasping for breath, and collapsed in a random corridor, on the cold stone floor.
How do you like it so far? ﾟﾒﾕ?