Silvery light from undulating, glowing orbs hung from the rafters and illumed the stony, oval room of Regina's tower chamber. Macabre shadows clung to the walls the mass-less light could not touch like looming vultures huddled along the rim of the room. The dark, glossy marble of the floor reflected the fluttering flames with a startling clarity. Tattered scrolls written with anathema and dark books of the forbidden arcane lined the flaking walls in their own little cubbies gouged from the stone; waiting to be used for sinister devices.
A large oaken table sat dead center upon the marble floor akin to some heathen altar awaiting a morbid sacrifice. Faded maps and leather bound ledgers cluttered the ancient, polished wood as that the contents seemed on the fringe of tumbling to the ground with but a firm gust of wind.
A sly, shrewd grin played upon Regina's scarlet lips as she fully entered the towers pinnacle. Her form radiated a sense of tranquil ease and assurance she did no at all feel stir within. Surprise was not a word the queen enjoyed to hear, especially when that surprise had Rumpelstiltskin involved in some way.
Astonishment had seized the fair monarch when she realized another soul had entered her private quarters were she dabbled in magic and brewed her own mediocre concoctions. Snow White was the first culprit in her mind, but then again she relished to meet with her enemy and attempt to end her horrid life. Joy filled her heart to have the thorn in her side in the heart of her kingdom to be destroyed and she had made all haste to her tower. Instead, she'd clapped eyes on a copper haired beauty with a message from the Dark One.
Though the monarch traipsed about with austere, dainty dignity of that of any royal born, to Belle the famed witch seemed more a cunning lioness slinking through the grass to near her wary prey.
Oh she was a dangerous one indeed.
Insincere laughter fell from her painted mouth as she smiled wickedly at the beauty. "You have a message from Rumpel? What has that imp been up to nowadays, hmm? No one has seen hide or hair of him in many months around these lands. I had almost begun to believe he had forgotten this part of our world and went to go dabble in other realms affairs for his amusement."
Long months ago he had been slithering around consistently, popping up when he most certainly was not wanted, and causing havoc by tampering with things of mortal device. His presence had almost become routine in a sense and then he had simply halted his clandestine visits as though vanished from the face of the world.
Jefferson claimed he could not locate the fiend, so where or what had the scaly toad been plying his hands to? Questions whirled madly through the sorceress's mind, but she maintained the easy, feigned smile of complete clam and control.
"We haven't much time." Belle explained to the prim woman garbed in lacy black and reeking of sinister power. Forcing her voice from trembling she made herself appear urgent, but calm. "The Dark One needs aid."
"Aid!" The queen blurted an involuntary chuckle at the sheer absurdity of the notion. Desperate people of noble or peasant rank called upon the nefarious Dark One for aid, not the other way around.
Magic heavily tinged her black gloved fingers as her laughter died away as mist in the summer's sun. Her mouth became a thin red line of incredulity and impatience. "I don't know if this is a ruse, but rest assured if it is your consequences will be dire." She spat easily. "Speak quickly and if you words are true, you just might live. What sort of aid does he need exactly; what game is he playing at now?"
"Rumpelstiltskin is trapped." Belle began; her voice hinting with relief the vile monarch had not transformed her into a roach or a rat just yet. One hurdle had been leaped, though there were taller ones to scale coming along in her frantic pace.
Brazenly striding over to the heavily carved table, the beauty began to shift through the maps hurriedly as she explained to the dubious witch. "A cruel man named Gaston has taken the Dark One thrall. Rum has no choice but to obey his every command." Rifling through the sheets of aged yellow parchments, she gratefully found one that could aid.
The map was an old one, perhaps even older than her father. The edges were frayed and the once gaily painted lines of trade routes and wagon trails were dulled and the colors insipid and fading into the yellow vellum.
Spreading out the map as best she could upon the cluttered table, she pointed to a gray pained city miniature. "Gaston lives there where King Maurice once ruled. He now calls himself High King and forces the Dark One to do his dirty work. Everyday he sends Rumpelstiltskin out to do his bidding and quell uprisings and dole out vengeance."
The Dark One captured, Regina repeated almost unbelievingly in her malicious mind. Her jade eyes stared intensively upon the map as her mind spun. Was the girl insane or simply trying to pull off the world's most fabulous jesters joke? But then, how had she bypassed all her carefully constructed wards into her tower with naught but child's ease breaking through a cobweb and seemed to know the Dark One personally?
Regina's pallid brow beetled dubiously, her eyes flashing with unabashed suspicion. "Why should I believe a word you say?" She stalked closer to the beauty, a lioness ready to pounce and maul at a moments notice.
"Can you risk not to?" Belle parried as she let the map free. The paper snapped back into a roll and tumbled to the marble but neither paid heed to the wobbling parchment. Staring courageously into Regina's teal eyes she posed another inquiry. "Will you truly take the risk of thinking me mad and let a man who controls the Dark One wanders about unchecked? His ownership of the Dark One is foul for everyone. What if decides to turn his sights on all you've built?"
Gaston had made it no secret he was bitter for Regina not sending aid in the ogres war. Often he groused after a bloody battle of how the war could be won and the ogres vanquished if the queen had but sent one legion to crush the marauders.
"I would still be a fool to trust you without confirmation from the Dark One. What if this is a trap? Surely you do not think me so foolish to simply call to my soldiers and march away to this city at first light?" The queen replied succinctly, her tone sharp as a thorn.
If she did believe the girl at a whim so many things could go wrong in so little time. Snow White could try to sneak in and lock her out of the kingdom, she could be ambushed, or even the Dark One could be toying with her simply for his tittering giggles that infuriated her so.
Coldness whisked about the ominous room causing Belle to shiver unpleasantly. Goosebumps prickled her porcelain skin and her breath misted before her eyes. Now above all times did she wish her Rum was near. He could have easily dealt with the witch, were she was all but floundering.
Nodding to concede Regina's fair point, the beauty rubbed her cold arms in the process. "He is willing to compensate you for your aid." She revealed as he had instructed. Now would come the tricky part, if she did not accept, her life could be all but ended by a queen who had no need to aid the nefarious Dark One or accept his offer of payment.
The royal perched a thinly plucked brow? "Payment?" Rolling her eyes, she scoffed tritely as though insulted. "Does he think me some mace wielding mercenary to be bought off with promises of gold and riches?"
Casually, Regina flicked her gloved hand towards the beauty as though she were an irksome gnat. Dark magic erupted from her fingertips in streaks of bloody crimson.
In an instant the magic slammed into the beauty like a wildly charging horse gotten loose from the reigns. Cold, skeleton hands curled about Belle, squeezing her in an iron vice of newly forged fetters.
Pain wracked the beauty as the vile magic crackled through her and squeezed slowly to draw out her agony of strangulation. Invisible hands clamped tightly about her throat and curled tighter inch by agonizing inch as though reveling in her panic and torment.
Panic raced through the beauty as she struggled like a snake caught in the hands of a child. The alarm did not truly come from worry of her life, but for her failure to secure a way to hopefully see the Dark One saved. She would die at the hands of foul magic without saving her Rum.
"He promises you a special potion!" Belle choked out through the vice as the thought of failing her love speared a lance of icy dread through her belly. Her clever fingers pulled desperately at the sightless skeleton hands to allow her simply another breath to speak. "He…he promises you an elixir than will give you the revenge you've always sought!" Even as the words darted past her bluing lips she was swiftly succumbing to the darkness awaiting her. Blackness began to cloud her vision as her heart began to beat at an insipid patter. Barely conscious she whispered weakly . "He is willing to give you what you want the most; a way to utterly defeat your mortal enemy."
Surprise played upon Regina's features at the hasty words of the intruder. Her dainty hand flickered once more relieving the beauty of the bony hands seeking to throttle her into oblivion.
Falling to her knees, the beauty touched a hand at her bruised throat in abject relief. Coughs sputtered from her mouth as she realized how close to death she had strayed. A moment more and she would have been in the lands of twilight with her mother and wishing with all her spirit she could have seen her Rum one last time.
"A potion you say?" She stared down with interest at the shaken, gasping beauty nonchalantly. "Rumpelstiltskin rarely gives up a potion and when he does it is for no small fee. What sort of potion does he mean?"
Belle swallowed hard, her throat burning. Even now she could feel the marks the claw had left upon her skin like brands. "He…said it was a potion of rarest quality; a serum that can induce a death-like sleep upon a person but that they do not die. Instead, they are bound to a restless sleep in nightmares for all eternity, reliving their flaws and sins and drowned in pain from the life now denied them."
"Yes." Regina's hissed like a victorious viper having found a hapless prey. Embers of revenge smoldered in her jade depths at the thought of such a strong potion in her clutches. To think Snow White would be damned to an eternity of torment wrought by her own heart sent pleasure thrilling upon her nerves.
Rising unsteadily to her feet, Belle glanced at where the portal had deposited her in the veritable snakes den. Time was waning for her to be expected back. "Does that mean you will help?"
"Perhaps." The queen sobered into her normal composure yet again, though a trace of the fire did not abate from her eyes. "But there is so much you are not telling me."
Though the potion was a coaxing temptation there was no guarantee of what Rumpelstiltskin really wanted in exchange.
"I can't risk to." Belle rebuffed humbly, her eyes averted from meeting Regina's
A smirk donned her lips as she clucked reprovingly at the beauty. "And yet you risked your life to see me?" Her gloved hand, looking more akin to raven's talons, lifted Belle's chin upon her fingertips. "Why would you do this for him?" The queen murmured ponderously as she peered searchingly into Belle's azure eyes. Her gaze was akin to twin pools of green flame that coaxed the beauty to look upon her dancing irises.
"He is but an ally." Belle replied obediently, entranced by the dark flecks in Regina's pale, green eyes.
The harpy laughed sharply, her timbre low. "Oh but I can see it in your eyes there is much more to it than that. Even without magic, I can see an alliance with the imp is far from what truly is. You speak his name with affection; you plead for me to aid him as though you were fond of him." She sniffed slightly, her mouth creasing into a knowing grin. "You even smell of him. So tell me…" She curled a finger over a strand of the beauty's wayward hair. "How far does relationship delve with the Dark One? Is he a master or lover?"
"Will you aid or not?" The beauty forced her to speak those words instead of admitting what the queen already suspected. Rumpelstiltskin had not been lying when he claimed she was a dangerous one indeed!
Satisfied, at what she learned from the simply stare, the queen released her chin and turned upon her heel all in the same smooth motion. "I suppose I shall. The reward is great and I have no desire to see my kingdom under siege by an enslaved Dark One. I will send you back from wherever you came and proceed to your paltry kingdom as soon as possible to see for myself." Flourishing her hand she erected a swirling blue portal. "I suppose if you go back whole, he will know I agree to aid."
Belle nodded gratefully as she shuffled to the azure portal. Only when she reached the lip of the glassy exit did she notice she was quivered like a storm tossed leaf. She had made it through the serpents den of queen Regina and came out with a temporary ally if nothing else.
Though she was glad the witch had thrown he lot in with them, part of her could not help but think was it the right thing to do. How would she use such a potion upon and why and what would occur when she discovered Rumpelstiltskin had a way to be enslaved? Rum had assured her the potion would be used, but would not last long in the clutches of Regina. Still, she had to ponder its importance.
Banishing the troublesome thoughts from the forefront of her mind, Belle tiredly advanced into the tear through time and space.
The jolt of magic that powered the portals raced through her body like a lance of pain at all her nerves. Stumbling out the other end, the cold of the Dark One's lair seemed a warm welcome compared to the witch's tower where not an inkling of goodness dwelled within its stone confines.
Even as she pitched forward through the iris of the timeline tear, her love was there to steady her. His strong arms wrapped about her, holding her tightly to his chest as though she were some found treasure he had nearly lost.
Claws lightly rubbed her back in small circles as he buried his face into the crook of her neck elatedly. "You're alive." Relief choked his throat as he held her close to his hammering heart.
How he wished to proclaim to the world above that she was alive. How he wished for his lair to be filled with the sounds of his glee.
"Barely." Belle laughed blandly as she laid her head upon his heaving chest. "Regina will aid us, but I cannot help but wonder what else she is planning."
Petting her umber hair, the Dark One allowed a touch of ease to slip through his tense nerves. The moments she had been away felt akin to centuries crawling by at a snails pace. With each heart beat he had wondered was she dead or was Regina putting her under vile, ignoble torments to seek answers by the tearing of flesh. Until he held her once more in her arms he had not even been able to breathe properly.
Disentangling himself from her arms, the fiend held out a hand to lead her back to his bed of furs. Happiness glowed upon his gray-gold scales through the bickering torches flames. "You've done far more than enough. I can take care of Regina when the time comes."
"She's very cunning." Belle admitted troublingly, her brow bunched with worry.
What horror would occur if she unearthed the dagger and pried it from Gaston's clutches? What darkness would loom over the world then?
A displeased frown pulled upon Rumpelstiltskin's lips at the sight of her so wary. Offering a delicate kiss on her temple he whispered comfortingly in her ear. "Don't worry about Regina."
Regina was but a pawn in his grand game of life he had maneuvered for centuries. True, she was a powerful pawn, but a piece to be manipulated for his means nonetheless.
Abruptly a sly, eager grin inched upon his face. "Speaking of cunning, do you think perhaps we should play our part in not raising Gaston's suspicions?"
"What do you mean by that?" She perched and inquisitive brow as the Dark One pulled her down languorously upon the bed of furs.
The fiend gave his shoulders an indolent shrug as his Belle happily rested atop him, their legs becoming entangled. "He will grow suspicious if he finds us on less than ill terms."
The entire knight needed was one moment an alliance they had forged and both their lives would be forfeit.
"I see." Belle replied, her tone slightly mischievous as she lay atop the Dark One. "What will he think if he finds us crooning to one another like lovers, wrapped happily in each others arms?"
He would know he had made a perilous error. If he stomped down to the fetid dungeon and found them enwrapped happily with one another's arms he would surely know something was amiss. Rumpelstiltskin was to hate her, and she to be a defeated woman, beaten low my hard fists and cruel words.
Her bright smiled darkened with gray clouds of sadness. A sigh breathed heavily from her lips as she laid her head on his chest. "As much as I loathe it, we're going to have to make him think his judgment was right."
The Dark One's lips thinned with distaste. "Which means we shall have to make him think you were an innocent maid dishonored, and I was a Beast who had his way with his former mistress."
The whole situation left scalding, bitter bile upon his tongue. A monster he was but never would he think of defiling a woman so.
"It isn't all untrue." Belle remarked with a low coyness that suddenly perked his interest to a vast degree. "You did take my virtue."
He grunted a slight, flirtatious laugh. "If I recall, you begged for it, Dearie."
A sly smile carved upon Belle's lips as she eyed the fiend mischievously. "But Gaston doesn't have to know that."
"Indeed he doesn't." The Dark One crooned into her ear as she peppered his jaw with kisses. Closing his eyes in bliss, he allowed the moment of togetherness to bind them in their will.
Gaston would indeed see a woman without her virtue, but not know until he was on his knees and begging for life she had chosen the Dark One long before he had managed to take the dagger.
~8~8~
What had he been thinking! Gaston cursed himself vehemently with the darkest of vulgarities as he plodded like a surly bull down the incredibility bright corridors of his palace.
Torches, low with oil, seemed to glare brighter than the sun in his marred vision. Every step was a titanic crash of thunder that resounded about the stone. Smells of breakfast that wafted up from the scullery below set his stomach to pitch and heave worse than the roughest of seas in a summer gale
From the moment he had awakened with his mind murky and fogged, he had felt some instinct tug at his mind at a situation amiss. Only until he had seen the woman he had taken to bed, trying to creep away in the searing morn light had he recalled what thought troubled him so.
How had he let himself deliver Belle, the Beasts former mistress, into the creature's claws? Yes, he wished to see Belle hurt for rejecting his drunken advances, but he could have found some other way, not give them a chance to plot under the cover of darkness and away from his ears!
"The Beast wouldn't plot with her?" He rubbed his thick hand anxiously over the back of his clammy neck as he made the last turn to the doorway. "He hates her; he wants to see her hurt."
But then again, he worried, he could be so very, very wrong. Already they could have formulized a course to see him defeated.
Shaken beyond all comprehension, the knight all but kicked open the thick portal that barred the way to the Dark One's lair. Clutching the kris expertly in his clammy hand, he pushed the nausea of his hangover away as he trekked briskly down the slimy stone steps.
The dimness was a boon to his throbbing skull as he slowly paced his steps as though he were stalking a skittish deer. Light from the sparse torches glinted insipidly off the daggers magical steel as he delved deeper into the foul lair with the dagger poised at a ready.
He did not dare call the beast to him least he find a way to hide whatever they planned, if they truly had conspired against him. Each step was as silently as a shadow as he maneuvered through the fanged forest of rocky pinnacles.
He barely dared to breathe as he neared where the fiend slept. The dagger felt uncomfortably warm in his sweating hand, telling the knight, the Dark One was nearby, but that did not mean they had nothing awaiting him in the bleak blackness.
Finally, after what felt akin to ages, Gaston came upon the pair. His eyes measured the situation intently, leaving nothing out of his intrinsic search for malice against him.
The pair lay asleep upon the warm furs. The multi-hued pelts were mussed terribly as though some tussle had occurred all through the night, throwing them hither and thither. Dollops of faded blood spotted the stone and a few of the skins and even parts of the Dark One under his nails and flecking his hair.
Hatred and anger mingled with vile hints of satisfaction marred the beast's gray-gold visage. His talons were curled into tight fists as he slept fitfully.
Belle laid an arms length away from the monster that had captured her the entire night. Her body was miserably curled into a ball as she struggled to be as far away from the fiend as possible without leaveing the furs.
To Gaston it seemed she had tried to run, only for the Dark One to drag her back. Her milky skin was healed as though to keep her from death, but her dress was nearly ripped to shreds.
Her entire body rippled defeat and agony and humiliation that no woman should endure.
Gaston smiled with relief as he allowed his coiled muscles to ease. They had not succumbed to plots, he felt certain, by the looks of things; Belle would now probably hate him with the same fervency as the beast did she. To know this was to be her fate, seemed a sweet revenge to the knight she had rebuffed.
When other women heard her tale they would think twice of refusing him Gaston preened pleasantly. They would all know the fate of turning their eyes from him and finds another.
Sheathing the steel talisman, Gaston lightly nudged Belle's foot with his boot. Bulging arms crossed, he stared down maliciously as the beauty opened bleary red eyes that simpered with misery.
"You know better now than to deny me?" He glared down upon her with a cruel air of victory.
Belle merely nodded in reply, forcing the ruse to go on and make the ostentatious knight seem superior and right in every way. Part of her thought to add to the deception by begging to be away, but the thought tasted sour on her tongue. Never could she deny her love, her Rum in such a way, even at their direst.
Leering down at the still figure, his triumphant grin twisted into an ugly sneer. Rage flared like gouts of flames in his red rimmed eyes as he remarked insouciantly. "Pity it's to late. No man would want you know; you're tainted with…It."
Abruptly, the knight moved with a startling quickness. War scarred fingers clutched over Belle's arms covetously. With a slight grunt he hauled her upward.
The beauty staggered slightly as though she were weighed by some boulder upon her heart. Keeping her eyes down to the cold stone, she dared not spare a glance at her Rum or peer hatefully into the eyes of Gaston.
Never shifting from his prone 'sleep', the fiend grit his teeth to keep from leaping up and snarling at the brute of a knight to keep his hands off his love. To have Belle back in his clutches was a torture to his soul that only grew by the moment.
There would be no telling what the brute would do to her now that she was a woman bereft of her virtue. In ages past he had seen fathers who found their daughters with child, but without a father or husbands, enraged by infidelity, drag their mates out to the villages and proclaim their harlotry to all who greedily stopped to listen. Would Gaston ply his hand at something so utterly cruel?
"Where are you taking me?" Belle mumbled dourly as she plodded slightly behind Gaston. Her words reverberated off the conical pinnacles with enough strength to allow the Dark One to hear every word clearly.
A mirthless chuckle rumbled like thunder from his throat as he forged his way through the dark confines. "Back to your room, 'princess'." He mocked her now needless position with a sniveling voice. "There you will await the pleasure of the Dark One; the only one who would have you now."
"Better I threw myself from my window." She lied promptly. If she did not appear miserable he would assuredly grow suspicious.
Gaston tossed his head with obvious amusement towards her dread. Foolishness welled within him to think she and the monster would conspire. They now loathed one another and would be bound together for the rest of their lives.
As the pair resurfaced to the world of morn above, a bent servitor raced to meet them. An elderly man with a balding, sweating head bowed lowly to the knight, his gnarled hands clasped in front of him. His blue and gold livery was wrinkled as though he had only just managed to hop into his clothes and his dark eyes glittered with fear and worry and fatigue all at once.
His weary eyes flashed once to Belle, but shifted away in a hearts beat; unable to endure the beloved princess in such a foul state. All knew already what fate she had been succumbed in the night. The knight bragged about her punishment to wary guardsmen and the servants who walked by.
He had wanted them to know of her fate, a fate that could not have been worse to one of noble esteem and so loved by her people.
He had given their vaunted princess to a monster.
"My lord Gaston I was told to find you immediately." The aging man explained in a stuttering, humble voice.
The knight's cheery mood dissipated as smoke upon the wind. His jaw knotted with a violent surge of fury at the proclamation. No one requested him of anything any longer. "What fool gave you those orders?" He boomed ferociously down upon the glistering bald orb.
Belle flinched as his grip tightened angrily about her arm though he heart soared at the words that spelled hope for her Rum.
The servant's knees shook crazily as he cringed like a beaten dog. "My king, she came in a black, gilded chariot carrying the royal insignia engraved upon its side in gold. Queen Regina is waiting in the best parlor, seeking your attendance."