Darkness Becomes Her

Poptarts, Porridge and Protection Spells

Chapter 11

Late in the Afternoon – Storybrooke

Robin appealed to Granny to take on The Burden of The Frog. Robin was insecure enough about custodianship of an enchanted frog that he wanted help, or at least involvement, from others. He felt there should be some round-the-clock supervision just to make sure nothing happened to it . . . eh . . . him. But talking to Granny, he could tell right away that it would be a hard sell.

"This is a place people come to eat," Granny told him, "not a zoo."

"It adds something to the ambiance," he tried cajoling her. "A conversation starter."

Granny looked over the aquarium and the frog inside. She shook her head. "People don't have any problems finding things to talk about here in the diner." She wasn't going for it. "Why don't you try the nuns? If this is a bespelled frog, they might be the best people to take care of it."

The Next Morning

Belle stretched. She hadn't slept, the Dark One, not needing to sleep, but she had lain quietly on the cot trying to sort things out. The voice of the Dark One was an unrelenting murmur, right now it was in approval of her cleverness. She had started a fire that kept the room at a constant cozy temperature and plumped up the mattresses for herself and Henry so they had spent a comfortable night. She had changed her silks to a combination of navy and black. She'd added a couple of jet and silver necklaces and some dangling earrings.

"You look beautiful, Miss Belle," Henry told her.

"Even with the lizard skin?" she asked.

"You sparkle . . . all over. I bet Grandpa Gold would think you're beautiful too."

Belle stiffened but made no response. Henry had reached an age where he had some sensitivity to female behavior. "Miss Belle? There are problems between you and Grandpa, aren't there? Even though you two have True Love?"

"Why would you ask?" she asked him not looking at him.

"Well, you've said you're kinda mad at him and you changed how you were sitting when I said his name. You got all quiet and stiff-like . . . but mostly because blue sparks came out of your fingertips and a couple of plates shattered when I said that he would think that you're beautiful."

Belle answered him slowly, "I am . . . a little put out with your grandfather at the moment, Henry."

"You're mad because he left you in Storybrooke and he came here to find Merlin?" Henry guessed.

"Exactly," she admitted. After telling me how much he loved me and wanted to be with me.

"You know he really, really loves you and anything he does, it's because he loves you."

"He doesn't love me, Henry. He loves . . . Belle French. I'm no longer Belle French."

"A lot of you is still Belle. You still like books and iced tea, don't you?" Henry asked her.

"Well, the Dark One can like those things too," she told him.

"Yeah, he . . . uh . . . she didn't before you came along," Henry reminded her.

Belle glared at him. His unrelenting faith in her potential for goodness annoyed her. Maybe she should turn him into a snail or something – not permanently, mind you, just to show him that she was a force to be reckoned with.

She rose. "We'll see," she told Henry. "Let's get going."

"Can't we get breakfast or something?" Henry asked her pulling on his shoes.

Belle sighed. It was really hard being a total badass when one had a trusting teenager in tow. Henry didn't seem to have any fear of her. He seemed to actually . . . like her. She shuddered. "Power bar or poptart?" she asked him.

"Oh, mom never lets me have poptarts," he told her. "Poptart please. Can I get one with icing?"

Belle concentrated and something with pink goo inside and multi-colored sprinkles outside appeared. She tossed it to him.

"Thanks, Miss Belle."

In the Dragons' Lair

Lily had apparently spent the some of the night talking with her father, reminiscing, catching up, re-telling the story of her life, her altered destiny, her finding her mother – well more specifically how the Savior had found her and brought her to her mother. Her father had listened, often overcome with sympathy.

"You do know that if I had had any inkling of your existence, I would have reached out to you. Dragons are very family oriented. We treasure our children. Even more so now that we have virtually no breeding females and dragonettes are few and far between. "

"What happened?" Lily asked him.

"There was a great war between the powers of good and evil. In the course of the war, the barriers between realms thinned and our kind were scattered, not just over different realms, but even over different times. We were able to track down a few but so many, so many, we never heard from again. Even some that we did find . . . they had lost their memories of who and what they were. It was as if they had gone feral. When your mother arrived here, we were so excited. Me, especially. I had not thought to love again, ever, but here was this extraordinary and extra-beautiful dragon, I had to woo her. She was not familiar with the ways of our kind, but she was . . . receptive to my charms," Uther smiled at his daughter. She caught a hint of those charms that would have been plied on her mother.

The old king signed. "When she disappeared, I tore this world apart and searched in many other realms for her but. . . obviously I never found her. When you appeared, well, Lilith, as a dragon, you are the very image of your mother. I knew who you were instantly. You are welcome to stay here. I hope you will stay here."

"I might, at least for a while. I've never been welcomed anywhere before, so this is a nice change."

"You are more than welcomed, my dear. There are at least ten young males who are exceedingly happy to meet you – or haven't you noticed?"

"I noticed," Lily told him with a smile of her own. "I might need some fatherly advice as how best to handle this situation."

"Well, I'm quite prejudiced, but I would have to say my grandson is the best of the lot. He's rather glum and serious and really needs a female's touch to lighten him up."

"Wait a minute," Lily cautioned, doing the math. "I'm your daughter and you want to match me up with your grandson? Isn't that a bit . . . consanguineous?"

He waved her off. "Dragon relationships tend to be a bit convoluted but . . . ahem. . . reproduction between related dragons tends to produce strong dragons – the best of the blood line always comes out. I don't know how well you can understand the complex interrelationships."

"Hey, I've been living in Storybrooke for the past couple of weeks, so complex interrelationships are pretty easy for me. Now, which one is your grandson?"

Same Morning – Just a Bit Later

Emma had gotten up, wishing there was some way to get a shower. After Mordred's confession she had tried to talk with him, but he had cut her off. She had wanted to find out more about him and his history and his relationship with Arthur and . . . everything he could tell her but he had left her cold and alone in the hallway outside of her room. She had rinsed off as she could in a basin, re-dressed and made her way through the maze of hallways to find the kitchen.

It was a grey stone room with a large center hearth. There was a large long wooden table with benches on two sides along one wall. The stove appeared to be a cast-iron oven heated with wood. There was one large pot on top of the stove. Emma looked inside.

"Hmm, oatmeal, yum," she served herself from the cauldron and sat down on the bench, enjoying the filling breakfast.

Gold soon joined her, limping badly. He looked into the cauldron. "So it's gruel," he turned up his nose but served himself nonetheless. He sat down next to Emma. "Sleep well?"

"Not really. Late last night, I met a character from the Days of Yore that was totally different from the character I had been taught. I always thought that Mordred was King Arthur's illegitimate son from an incestuous relationship with his half-sister and he wanted the throne for himself."

"Partly right," Gold told her. "Although brother-sister liaisons between humans were frowned upon in this realm, it's a common enough occurrence among those with dragon blood. It doesn't seem to have any ill effects."

"Eeuu. Be that as it may, I had always thought of him as a villain. That he wanted Arthur's throne and conspired to have the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere revealed and tore the country apart in civil war."

"That part's not right," Gold told her layering a prodigious amount of honey into his oatmeal.

"I think I may have figured that out. I gather Mordred was one of the Knights of the Round Table, picked because he was stalwart and true."

"Mordred wasn't part of the Round Table. And there was no affair between Lancelot and Guinevere – they were friends, all were faithful and devoted to Arthur, although Arthur didn't believe it. It was through Arthur's most famous sword, Excalibur, that men were selected for the Round Table. It was able to assess the heart of a man and only those who were pure and brave were admitted to the Round Table. Mordred wasn't interested in his father's throne nor in being part of the Round Table, although he probably would have passed if he'd ever been put to the sword test. He did work with Lancelot and the others to hold the kingdom together after Arthur began to spiral down. Mordred was a true dragon although the transforming talent had apparently skipped his father.

"All right. My head hurts now." Emma took a couple of bites of oatmeal. "I'm still trying to get that my oldest friend is really Princess Lily?" she asked.

"She is," Gold confirmed.

"Cool. And you knew all along?"

"Of course. Babies have long been my stock in trade Miss Swan. You should be well aware of that by now."

"Yeah, I should," she glared at him. "So what happened with Arthur? You said he began to spiral down. It was because of the Dagger, right?"

Gold looked at her. "Of course. For many, many years the Darkness had gone about freely, corrupting, instigating trouble, being an all-around pain in the arse. Merlin harnessed it and put it into the dagger." he paused. "Then Merlin looked long and hard for a human who was pure enough, strong enough, brave enough to withstand the lure of the dark powers. He had . . . encouraged some matches and urged some selected . . . couplings trying to breed this exemplary human."

Emma sucked her teeth. "Sounds a bit like someone else I know."

Gold sighed, "In the end, there was Arthur. He was bright, handsome, caring, very moral, the bravest, the strongest, the truest, the best person ever. And Arthur voluntarily took on the Dagger and the dark forces."

"Let me guess. It went really well in the beginning but then . . ."

"The Dark One began to exert itself, whispering things into Arthur's ear. His wife was cheating on him with his best friend. His child wanted him to die so that he could ascend the throne. Even his great wizard friend was more interested in spending time with his fae wife than in spending time with him. None of his friends liked him anymore – they all thought he was slipping. It went on and on."

"It had begun to take over him," Emma could see.

"It fed on his soul. And ultimately the most pure, most incorruptible human . . . was corrupted."

"So then what happened?" Emma asked him. "I mean, obviously at some point, someone stabbed Arthur with the dagger and took on the curse themselves, right?"

Gold gazed out in front of himself. "It took me a while to find this out. Most of my predecessors had no interest in the history of the dagger or what had happened to previous Dark Ones. They had no interest in anything except securing their own power and because they did not take time to understand the past they were doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past."

Emma looked at him and smiled, "But you were different."

He nodded in agreement, "I was different. I traced the history back. There was a book at the Dark Castle – I don't know if it came through with the curse or not – it was a book that I had written even before I moved into the Dark Castle. In it is the lineage, the entire history of the dagger with only a few small gaps, everything I was able to find out, with little footnotes and asides. Who had the dagger, who controlled the possessors of the dagger, who killed whom to possess the dagger. It's a history of blood-letting, back-stabbing, vengeance and every vice known to mankind – the Dark Ones have practiced it all."

"So who took it from Arthur?"

"Ah. None of them wanted it. They were good and pure men, understand. All the knights of the Round Table took a chance and they drew straws. The first few chosen, Percival, Galahad, Gawaine, they failed. They were not able to go through with the task and kill Arthur. It finally fell to a young knight, Sir Belvedere."

"If I'm remembering my King Arthur stories he was the one that Arthur selected to throw Excalibur back into the lake," Emma said.

"I'm impressed, Miss Swan."

"What, that I know the Arthurian story or that I can read," she retorted.

"Either one," he said with a slight smile. "Well, the others helped Belvedere secure the dagger, distracted Arthur and guarded the doorways while he did the deed. He became the next Dark One."

"So then what happened?" Emma was intrigued. Gold was rarely this forthcoming and this history was unlike anything else she had heard.

"Belvedere, while good and pure, was not quite cut from the same caliber cloth that Arthur had been and very soon succumbed to the dark side of the dagger. The kingdom began to fall apart. Many of the knights returned to their own homes. Some decided to go to Merlin with the intention of asking him to undo the dagger curse but they didn't make it to Merlin. Dark One Belvedere confronted them and, of course, they were no match for the Dark One. And there began a great battle, not just with iron weapons but magical ones. Merlin, to protect his wife and his fae children, opened a portal and sent them through to the Enchanted Forest. I don't know exactly what happened, but I know his wife didn't make it, but most of the children did, along with Guinevere. Those fae children swore eternal vigilance and eternal vengeance against the Dark One. You know them as . . ."

"The fairies! The fairies are Merlin's children?" Emma guessed.

"Merlin had lived a very long time and had several wives over the course of his life. His last one, Nimue, was his favorite and his most powerful children were born to her," Gold nodded.

"So the animosity between you, well the Dark One, and the fairies . . ."

"Is very long standing," Gold admitted.

"So how did the Dark One get to the Enchanted Forest?"

"He went through the same portal as the fairies, killing Nimue on the way through. I would guess that she remained alive just long enough to close the portal, probably in the hope of trapping the Dark One in some smaller realm."

"Wow," Emma said. "You figured all this out?"

"From my perspective as the Dark One, yeah, so I'm not exactly sure how accurate it is," Gold told her. "Uhhhh, Miss Swan," he began hesitantly.

She looked at him expectantly.

"I tried to conjure one of those pills you gave me yesterday but . . . I didn't exactly know what I was trying to do. I think I got a tic-tac. I have minty-fresh breath, but my knee is still hurting. Your pill did seem to help . . ." he looked at her and she could tell this was costing him in pride.

"Here," she handed him another high-powered pain killer.

He popped it with a wan smile. "I will owe you a favor, my dear, for these."

"We've been through all that before. We're family now. We do things for each other," she told him warmly.

Regina came in, yawning and rubbing her backside. Her clothes were wrinkled and her hair was just a bit frizzy. "Next time let's go to a place with at least a half star rating on Trip Advisor. My room was cold until I heated it up, the covers were threadbare, the pillow flat, the mattress lumpy. I had to wash in a bowl with a rough bar of soap. There wasn't a mirror. I've got to look a fright." She sat down at the table. "Please, dear god, let there at least be some coffee."

Gold glanced over at Emma and they shared a moment of bonding. Regina had never roughed anything in her life and to be bereft of luxuries was a struggle for her. Gold and Emma both had known real hardship at different points in their lives and they valued simple necessities.

"It's not exactly coffee," Gold explained. "It's brewed from the chicory root and sweetened with honey."

"It'll have to do," Regina complained and took the cup that Emma poured for her. She sipped some, pulled a face, shrugged and sipped some more.

"When do we need to leave out?" Emma asked

Gold closed his eyes. "There's a protection spell around this place that's difficult to see through. My best guess is that Belle made it to the castle where we spent last night. She'll be up early and will likely be scrying for where Merlin is. So, I guess, we need to be up and out of here as soon as we can."

"Are we walking or is there a chance we can fly?" Regina asked, rubbing one of her feet.

"I suspect Lily is going to want to stay here, at least for a while and learn about her father's people," Emma said. The other two looked at her and she explained, "She came into my room late last night and told me this."

Gold nodded. "Well, if you two ladies don't mind, I think I feel strong enough to change over and transport you two."

The two women looked at each other and both of them bit their tongues. They were in agreement with riding better than walking for sure but the prospect of 'riding Gold' was something they would never speak of again to each other or to anyone else.

Later that morning with their meager possessions gathered and standing on the topmost landing area of the Dragon's Lair they were joined by Lily and Uther. Gold closed his eyes and focused, changing into his rather magnificent green-gold dragon.

"You really make an excellent dragon, Rumplestiltskin," Uther complimented him. Gold blinked his large golden eyes with the cat-eye slits. He stretched out his golden wings and bowed his head so that Regina and Emma could climb on.

"Good luck," Lily called to them. Regina and Emma weren't able to wave; they were holding on tightly to Gold as he flew directly up and then out over the island. Emma noted again that his movements were smooth and she didn't feel nearly as nauseated as she had been riding Lily. He labored less, taking advantage of wind currents and she realized that this was a combination of size, experience and strength.

They were covering ground very quickly.

Storybrooke – That Same Afternoon

"Hi, Robin," it was bubbly Astrid . . . or Nova, the pleasant but ditsy nun who had caught the eye of Grumpy Leroy. She was sitting at the front desk of the main building in the convent. "Hello Sister," Robin greeted her.

"Wow, that is one handsome frog," she said immediately noticing the animal. She had come over to Robin and was leaning over, talking to the frog, "Hello there, how are you Mr. Froggy."

"Is the Mother Superior in?" Robin asked.

"Yes. Do you want to see her?" Astrid had straightened up.

"That would be good," he told her.

Astrid was gone a moment and Ruel Ghorm came out to the entry hall to see him. "What can I do for you, Mr. Locksley?"

"I have a bit of a situation. Since Regina, Gold and Emma are all gone, I thought you might be able to help."

"Follow me," she directed him. They went through the quiet, subdued hallways of the convent. It was a peaceful place dedicated to work and contemplation. Ruel led him back to her office. "What's the problem?"

"This frog . . ." he began.

She looked at the frog, "Mr. Jones, I see. He had an altercation with Belle, I take it."

"Yes. I wanted to keep him safe until we can change him back and I think I need some help."

"What kind of help?" Ruel was obviously on her guard.

"Two things. Does Jones . . . does he know he's Jones?" he asked the old fairy.

She reached in and picked up the frog. She looked into its eyes. "I don't think so. Most people under this type of spell have no idea who they are. It's only a particularly involved and sophisticated spell in which the person retains their identity while under the spell. Mr. Dove who works for Mr. Gold is an example of someone who has retained his memories of before."

"Mr. Dove was . . . I don't understand," began Robin.

"He was a bird, before. He swore eternal allegiance to Rumplestiltskin after the Dark One saved all of Mr. Dove's children from a fox. His wife had already been killed defending the nest. Rumplestiltskin saved the children and changed Dove's form."

"Didn't know that," Robin said.

The frog croaked while she talked and she put him back in the aquarium. "It worked out well for both, I guess. Now some of these changelings will have reactions to certain settings as if memories are triggered, but they don't go seeking out people or places, not usually. I think it's safe to say that you just have a big frog here that at some point in time, may become Mr. Jones again."

"You wouldn't consider keeping him here . . . at the convent . . . where he'd be safe?" Robin asked.

Ruel considered but shook her head. "It is a thing of such dark magic, Mr. Locksley. I don't think I would be comfortable having it . . . him here. I'm sorry."

"Yes ma'am," Robin nodded. And he picked up the aquarium. He was running out of places.

In Another Part of Camelot

Belle had stood outside of the castle ruins trying to decide which way to go. She hadn't brought any more of the locator potion and she certainly didn't know how to brew more. There was still that flavor of pain that allowed her to know in what direction Rumple was.

Henry had come up beside her and was also surveying the area.

"Where do we go from here, Miss Belle?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said honestly.

"Are we looking for Merlin or are we looking for my moms and Grandpa?" he asked.

"Good question." Belle considered. She wanted to catch up to Rumple and . . . and . . . what? Slap him around? Throw him down and have her way with him? Skin him alive? But . . the focus of the mission, the primary purpose the Dark One whispered to her the real reason for this trip was to find Merlin and destroy him, destroy the one, true enemy of the Dark One, destroy the one who could destroy the Dark One, destroy, destroy, destroy him.

"We are looking for Merlin," Belle finally responded. She consulted with the Dark One again. "Where is he? How do I find him?" She closed her eyes and listened.

Good girl, smart girl, clever girl. Listen to the Dark One. Yes, listen to the Dark One. Merlin is cloaked, in hiding. There will be a fog around him. He had retreated to a far island to the West. Go West to the ocean.

"We go west," Belle decided. "We go away from the rising sun." And she and Henry mounted the small all-terrain vehicle and took off.

Camelot - Later in the Afternoon

Gold had taken them far, across rolling hills and deeply shadowed valleys. They could see the ruins of other castles, even small villages now and then. He seemed to be following a particular road which got wider and wider as the miles went by under them. In the distance they could see water and realized that they were getting close to the ocean. Gold began to descend and soon enough, he landed and they dismounted.

"Do we have time for lunch?" Emma asked. Uther and his people had packed them some sandwiches, a slab of meat between two chunky pieces of bread. Gold shook himself and morphed back into his usual form. He took one of the sandwiches, answering her question regarding time for lunch.

"We have to find a boat," he told them.

"We can't fly?" Regina asked.

"No, Merlin has a shield, a powerful ward around the island. It protects him from the dragons who have not always been his friends. There is only one way that I know to get to him and that is with a boat," Gold told them.

They walked to the edge of the water. They were on a wharf with several boats docked. Gold walked over to one with the name Beauty inscribed on the bow.

"We're taking this one. Ladies, would you please do the honor of sinking these other boats and then come aboard. We need to be heading out as soon as possible. My intuition tells me that Belle is closing in on us."

"You still have your intuition?" Emma asked him as she fire bolted one of the boats.

"I never lost that. I just can't pull out my fire," he told her. He watched as Regina and Emma took out the remaining four boats and then jumped aboard the Beauty.

Gold took the ship out of dock and they launched out into the ocean. As they pulled away from the dock, they spotted something moving, coming up over the hill and down to the shoreline, leaving a wall of dust behind it. It was some type of self-propelled wheeled vehicle, an extreme novelty in medieval Camelot. It slowed up and pulled up to a stop. They could make out two figures.

Gold's eyes went to Belle. He recognized her with no difficulties, her slight form draped in silks and fringe. The other . . . the other . . . it took him a moment to recognize the slender figure next to his wife.

"Crap," he heard Emma say.

"It's Henry," Regina said. "She's got Henry with her."

Thanks (of course) to my faithful reviewers: TheGoldenHawk, Grace5231973, deweymay, orthankg1, Erik'sTrueAngel, ladybugsmomma, MyraValhallah, and Guest(Jewel415).

NEXT: More Frog antics and tales of Sailing West to Merlin's island