The Seer had been far more powerful than he ever could have dreamed.

It had taken him less than one year to embrace the powers that came with being the Dark One and destroy his life in the process. But here he was, ten years later, with a power he still had yet to master and a life that was still in ruins.

Her power was mysterious, like broken pieces of a plate that only made sense when put back together, but the pieces were so fragmented they were practically dust. The powers of the Dark One helped him with recall a bit, but it was the Chronicles that became his most cherished partner in deciphering her power. It was where he wrote down everything that came to mind because of her visions, where he sketched faces and wrote names and recorded the results of his experiments in trying to control it.

Focusing on a particular question could sometimes help, but the true issue lay in the "focus" aspect. If what he was working on was too broad, then he got nothing but a jumble. Words were spoken in his head, often in the voice of the Seer whispering rhymed riddles he didn't know what to make of. Those words were accompanied by images he didn't understand, faces he'd never seen before and were sometimes hazy, and voices that weren't the Seers peppered the visions speaking in small sentences or fragments; pieces of conversations that didn't exist yet. Trying to focus on the search for Baelfire simply yielded too much information for him to sort through and put together. But that didn't stop him from recording it.

The prediction he'd first heard when he'd taken the Seer's power, it was scattered about in the vision, but he'd strained his brain until he was certain that he'd come up with all of it and written it down.

"First born of Princess Cora to cast the curse to end all curses, by summoning a Dark One a twin will become a false prince. Snow White and Prince Charming shall bear the Savior who will return to break the curse on her twenty-eighth birthday. A precious debt from a woman of ash will find the boy of fire, the final battle between good and evil will begin…"

Those were his clues, confirmation that what the Seer said about the curse, not casting it and not breaking it, were true. And they were hints that told him even now that what he was seeking to do might ignite far more than just locating his son. It would lead to a final battle between good and evil, and he had little doubt as to which side that would place him on. But he was years, maybe even decades away from that. And whatever role he might play in this final battle was a worthy price in order to find his son. That was all he cared about. So he'd continued to dissect the vision, continued to put it into categories. He'd heard names. Gideon and Neal and Cora. He wrote them down with question marks as he'd never known anyone by those names. And then there were the riddles. Snow White and Prince Charming were to bear a Savior…Snow…perhaps a witch? An elemental? And Prince Charming…well the vision had referenced a false prince; they could be one and the same or different. A woman of ash? Ash as in fire? Another elemental, perhaps? And there was the troubling notion that it was the debt with this woman who would find Bae, but the Seer had told him the leader would be a boy, and most disturbing of all that boy would be his undoing. It was gibberish to him, even ten years later.

He sketched what he could, those things that he could remember, but even then, he was left in the dark. Some sketches, like the blonde woman standing beside Killian Jones with a smile on her face were clear and disturbing, a stark reminder that the Pirate who had bested him not once but twice was still out there. The smile he'd had in the vision only made him want to slip acid over the drawing and make it disappear for good. He resisted for Baelfire's sake but made an effort not to return to that sketch unless necessary.

Other images, perhaps for the better, were more difficult to see clearly. The sandy-haired boy, for instance, the truth was that other than his hair cut and ears, the rest of his face was too hazy to get details. The woman in the bed beside him was another mystery, curled under the covers as she was in a dark room, he saw only bare shoulders, the curve of a slender neck, and a mess of dark brown hair on the pillow. A pink house…it was most curious of all as it looked nothing like any house he'd ever known before. Tall and wooden, proud, and elaborate; it was like a castle, and he hadn't even seen the inside yet! But he felt attached to it somehow, he felt like there was something special inside of it something that made him smile. There were people who lived there that he loved. Liked? No...the feeling when he saw it was clear. Loved. Baelfire's home? In the Land Without Magic?

Sometimes he focused on that one vision for days before finally putting it aside and letting his mind rest. This vision he'd had, it would come to him eventually, with more information. And if nothing else, this new power was content to give him information, sometimes in the ways that he'd received the first vision from the seer, but he'd quickly learned that it came in other ways too.

Sometimes it was a quick warning vision, something he could change if he tried hard enough. He discovered it first when he'd gone to the home of a woman hoping to make a deal with him. She'd been upstairs as he waited downstairs, in one breath he was standing, looking out the window, in another he was at the base of the stairs watching as the woman slipped and fell down those stairs, her screeches shrieking in his ear from her broken leg and arm. And then in the next breath, he was back before that window, the woman was upstairs, and no time had passed as he'd just experienced it. A moment later he heard the woman's feet on the stairs, he heard her gasp, same as it had been in his vision, but this time his magic reacted on instinct and he was on the stairs, reaching out to balance her before she fell.

"Oh!" she gasped when she realized just how close she was to him. "Thank you, sir," she muttered as a darkness came over her eyes and she looked up at him under her long eyelashes. "You are so much kinder than I ever imagined." And that was when he'd left her, without even hearing out the deal she'd wanted to offer him. He knew the look she'd had in her eyes, it was the same one a small percentage of women had when he encountered them, a look that reminded him of the way his old maid had once looked when she'd proposed he make her his queen, and he didn't want what he was certain she was suddenly after. How they found him attractive was just as much a mystery as his power of foresight. But that was a mystery that would endure, unlike the gifts he now possessed. The next time he saw an incident like that in his head, a farmer's wife dropping over a dozen eggs to the ground after a horse and cart nearly ran her down, he simply let it happen.

Sometimes the power manifested in remarkable ways. He could see and hear the future most times, but other times, it manifested as nothing more than a feeling. Not like the emotions he felt inside of him when he recalled the pink house or the woman in the bed. It felt like something pressing, something that egged him on, and urged him not to walk on by but rather to seek more answers. It was a feeling of importance that sometimes led from one thing to another. That was how he'd found Martin and Myrna.

He'd made a deal with a cobbler late one night, a deal to enchant his workshop so that he might make shoes without actually having to do the work himself. It was a deal the Cobbler would come to regret, but he was certain he wouldn't. For he'd enchanted his shop to do the work for him, but without a human heart, without a passion for the craft, the quality of the shoes was soon to suffer, and when it did he was sure the cobbler would call him back and beg him for more help. He'd left tonight with a pearl necklace in his pocket, but that wasn't his true target. It was a hammer that the cobbler kept, one that had some sentimental value to the cobbler, but he recognized as an ancient hammer that was said to cross space. Foresight or not, he was hoping that it was real. And perhaps if it was, it might take him to the Land Without Magic. When the cobbler called him back and groveled for him to undo what he'd done, that was when he'd take the hammer.

It was as he was considering all this that he happened to walk by the town jail. Two stories of the filthiest criminals in the land, locked in cells, crying out for release. Years ago, he'd have walked on by, but now…

It came to him in the form of pressure. Something small easing against his back, as if it was shoving him forward, telling him to go inside. Curiosity got the better of him, and he went, just as the power demanded. The jailer was asleep inside, sitting against a wall by the fire snoring; he never even heard him come in. He wasn't the reason for the pressure he felt. It was…upstairs? He let the power lead him, let it take him around corners and through the hall until he arrived at a set of stairs and climbed. It was here. Something here. Or someone. It was the people that the power led him too. Row after row of cells and he could almost hear the Seers voice saying "no, not that one" with each one that he looked at. He must have passed a dozen enough to make him think, "if not these, then who?" The focus helped. They were at the end of the row, he noted. In a cell of five individuals, he was drawn most of all to a man and a woman. Filthy creatures, vile. And to make it worse, they smelled. Of course, it also could have been the jail.

It didn't take him long to realize that Martin and Myrna were the worst sort of individuals. Puppeteers in jail for stealing during their shows, they were due to be hanged tomorrow for their crimes. And they didn't care. Something as serious as they were in for and they made jokes, they played off one another in the confidence that they didn't need help they'd get out of the predicament they were in on their own and get back to their boy…

And he was ready to leave until he'd heard that. Get back to their boy?

The boy.

"Our son Jiminy!" she explained. "Poor boy!"

"Sweet boy! Won't stand a chance without us!" he went on.

"Oh, I'm sure someone will take him in, we'd best just hope it isn't robbers."

"Or murderers!"

"Or thieves! And that's if he ever leaves that wagon!"

"Such a good boy, and we did tell him to wait."

"Not very birght"

"Wouldn't surprise me if he waited for us until he died himself."

"Yes, always looking down the road."

"For his dear sweet mummy and papa to come home to him."

Oh, he hated these people. They were irritating in the worst way, like listening to a cat whine. And if it were up to him, he would have left them where he found them to die, but that push, that shove he felt pointed him in another direction. Toward them. There was something important about them. And so, with a wave of his hand, he freed them. He took them into the forest, and using their bodies in his magic was able to locate a simple wagon in the woods. There was a light lit inside.

"Oh! Oh, Martin! The nice creature has brought us home! Jiminy?! Jiminy!"

Someone burst out of the back of the wagon, but it wasn't a child, and it wasn't really a man either. Tall and lanky, red hair and glasses. "Mom! Dad!" he cried. "I was so worried when you didn't come back!"

The moment he laid eyes on him, the push at his back became a tug at his chest. The telltale sign of significance. It wasn't them he was supposed to find. It was the boy. Something about the child before him was significant, but in what way? A vision answered his question.

A man appeared in his mind's eye. Pale. Dark, curly hair. A man who was not fond of the razor. He wore a black leather jacket and when he smiled the seer whispered "August" in his head. Along with another feeling, one that he could somehow identify without words.

The boy, Jiminy, he was important to this man in some way. And the information he'd just acquired told him without a shadow of a doubt that he needed whoever that man had been. The boy was his only connection, his only lead on whoever it might be. It was imperative that he keep him close. But they were gypsies, they were thieves ,and all too often they were better than he was when they wanted to disappear, unless he made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

"Hold on now!" he called as they sought to hurry off to the wagon. "I've an offer for two upstanding thieves such as yourself!"

"We're listening."

"Go on!" They urged as they pushed the teenager to the side and rounded on him like hungry wolves. They took the bait, though it wasn't as satisfying as it hadn't nearly required as much as he'd been willing to truly were the worst sort of people, but still, not worse than he was.

He offered them freedom. Permanent freedom. They wanted to live this way? He could ensure that they lived this way forever, and should they ever get in trouble like this again, they had only to say his name three times, and he would come to their aid. But there was a catch, there always was.

He required treasures, precious objects belonging to those they encountered, as well as their names for his…"business".

"Oh, is that all?"

"Is that it?"

"It's so simple."

"So fair!"

"How nice!"

"How generous!"

Yes. So long as they continued to bring him treasures, they would be free to live their life as they wanted without the fear of consequence. And not only would he be able to have access to items and people he might potentially deal with as he continued to work out the puzzle the future presented him with, but he'd be able to keep their child in his sights, at least until he worked out who the dark-haired man was and could deal with him directly.

He didn't know who he was yet, but the gift had given him one vital piece of information that let him know he wasn't willing to let him slip through his fingers.

Somehow, someway, the dark-haired man knew Baelfire.


This isn't really a filler chapter, though I know it seems like it. I think this chapter is more of a continuation from the previous chapter where Rumple got "The Prophecy". Here we see that he's getting more information about the future in his day to day life that is helping him. But he's also got that one prophecy and he's working on deciphering it. I think of it as The Prophecy gave him hints, but time will unravel each of those hints step by step as he goes along. Then, of course, we also see the start of Jiminy and how Rumple came to use him as well as his parents. I know it's less interesting but all of this is really important. I was very careful about how I gave Rumple information. In most cases, I gave him just enough to attract his attention, but at the same time, I didn't give him so much that he couldn't make mistakes or not get surprises.

Big thank yous to MerlockVonBaron, Enomisje, Fox24, Grace5231973, and Jennifer Baratta for your reviews. I always appreciate the encouragement. As far as this chapter goes, Myrna and Martin...I hope that I got their character right. After watching Jiminy's episode they seemed really easy, I just had to be super obnoxious and then pass the comments back and forth between the two of them to make it work. But, of course, because I overthink everything, it was the fact that they were too easy to write that I worried it might not be right. I hope you'll let me know what you think of them, even if this encounter is very brief. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Peace and Happy Reading!