The smallest details are the most important

A man shielded by a dark cloak led the royal couple deep underground to the rank. As their guide he held the only light, a burning torch, and he warned the two to stay in the shadows, and not let the man learn their names. Then the guard called out to him "Rumplestiltskin. Rumplestiltskin! I have a question for you." His voice was deep and commanding, and echoed across the cavern. The voice that answered was mocking and high. "No, you don't." A lithe figure dropped from its place at the top of the bars of its cage, and landed with a soft thud on the dusty floor. "They do." The figure was crouched and animalistic. "They do. Snow White, and Prince Charming!" His voice soared higher in pitch, the mockery evident. A maniacal laugh fell from betwixt crooked teeth.

"You insult me! Step into the light and take of those ridiculous robes." The man motioned them forwards. He chuckled as they followed his command and moved closer to his prison. "That's much better." When the Prince tried to speak the strange man cut him off with a yell, preempting their purpose. "You want to know about the Queen's threat." As the guard moved forwards and the light fell upon the prisoner's face, and his reptilian eyes glinted in the firelight. His expression was cruel and matched his voice, his skin mottled and grey, the light bouncing off it.

When the young Queen spoke he cut her off too and said, with a deep and serious voice "Fear not!" His voice became higher "For I can ease your minds..." Then he grasped the bars with one hand and lowered the other. "But... It's going to cost you something in return." He nodded and gave a grin, his stained teeth visible now. The King refused but his wife stepped forwards. "What do you want?" The man acted as if to consider it. "Ohh.. The name of your unborn child?" His eyes were wide and staring, and where the man refused the woman said "Deal."

And so the prisoner told them what they wanted to know. "You'll all be in a prison, just like mine." He motioned to the dank cell around him. "Only worse. Your prison, all of our prisons, will be time. Time will stop, and we will be trapped. And everything we hold dear, everything we love will be ripped from us while we suffer for all eternity. While the Queen celebrates, victorious at last. No more happy endings." Throughout his small speech Rumplestiltskin's volume varied, his pitch climbing and falling like a feather on a breeze. Venom was poured into his voice at the end, and it was only when he said 'everything we love will be ripped from us' that his eyelids flickered closed for the barest of moments, his focus shifting to the right for little more than half a second.

At the Queen's question he told how they would be saved, that the thing 'growing inside her belly' would be the one to free them all. The King struck the demon's hand away, and was thus tutted at, the prisoner saying "The infant is our only hope. Get the child to safety, and on its (there was a pregnant pause) 28th birthday, the child will return. The child will find you. And the final battle will begin!" The excitement re-entered his voice, and manic laughter filled the cave once more. It was only as the couple began to leave that the imp called out for them to stop. They had a deal, and he wanted her name. Fair Snow turned back, pain in her eyes and said "Emma. Her name is Emma." And with that, they left.

What none of them saw, however, not the King nor the Queen nor even the guard, was the shift in the illusion before them. As soon as the name was spoken there was a brief flicker, and had they looked closely they would have seen Rumplestiltskin shift to the back of his prison for a short moment, before the wall came back up. Because the real Rumplestiltskin sat at the back of the cavern on a small stone outcropping, his hair straight and his skin smooth, his brown eyes staring at a staff on the floor. In his hands he held a crooked dagger, running it along his fingers.

The cage he was kept in cut off any magic, but the dagger's commands remained in place, and so the person just outside the cage was forced to maintain the magic. Belle did so gladly. The Dark One's curse had finally overwhelmed her body, and where at first her scales had been ever shifting and rough, her skin was now softly pebbled and gold. She held her arms before her and controlled a puppet-Rumplestiltskin that could interact with those beyond the bars. The bars the puppet touched were not really there, tangible only through magic. The illusion had to be maintained that Rumplestiltskin had the power, when truly it was lost to the woman just outside the bars. Her magic had flickered when the name was uttered because she made a point to remember it, and secured it in the back of her mind.

When all others had left the dark space she left the illusion in its place, the puppet perched atop his bars once more. It concealed her movements just outside the real bars. She reached through them and Rumplestiltskin reached back, now stood up once more. She sighed as the man leaned heavily on his staff as he moved towards the woman and said "Not long now, my sweetheart, and the dagger shall be yours again, and Baelfire shall be mine."

A/N In the part two of this, whenever I get around to writing it, who's pov would you prefer it be written from? Belle's, Rumple's, Regina's, alternating... Please review and let me know ^-^