Cora signed the contract, and they did indeed get right to work. They didn't have much choice. It was after midnight, and he felt very confident that the moment the sun rose, the King would be banging on the door demanding his gold or Cora's head. He'd anticipated having enough time to allow himself to spin a room full of straw into gold, but now he had no choice but to teach Cora to do it herself.
There was a lot of straw in the room, it covered the walls, but he didn't panic, for he knew that the King was no fool. If Cora could prove that she could do as she said, then she didn't need to transform all of it. If she could just transform one piece of it, it would be enough. The King would be foolish to toss away the life of someone who could spin money for him just because she didn't spin an entire roomful. Cora held more power in this than she thought, but he wouldn't tell her that, not yet. After watching her all day, he knew that the last thing he needed at a moment like this was for her to be at ease.
So they began with the basics. She was, up until this day, only a miller's daughter. She'd spent her life working around a mill not a spinning wheel and so they began much the same way that his aunts had taught him to spin, just introducing her to the machine. He didn't go into details, of course. He didn't name parts or explain what their part was in making ropes of straw, there was no need, in his mind, for her to know what made up a Mother-of-All or Flyer Assembly because if she failed this task then she'd be dead, and if she succeeded, well she'd become a Princess, not a spinner. If the King demanded more golden straw from her in the future, they could get to all that later. For now, she just needed to know that the peddle worked the wheel, which braided the straw that was fed into the little cup. It took her all of a half hour to learn. It was the next part that wasn't easy.
"You simply must push your magic into the machine, your desire to make straw into gold, combined with what's already in you, is enough to make the spell work.
"How do I know what's inside of me! I've never used magic before!" she countered. He only smiled, dropping all pretense of an act as he recalled all he'd seen earlier in the day.
"There is something inside of you," he explained, moving around her. "Something that demands it's freedom and takes it when you are not looking. I've already seen it once today."
"You were watching me," she commented plainly. No accusation was in her voice, no hint of anger or fear that so many others would have. It was just a casual observation to her. What a good thing to keep in mind.
"Let's call it 'getting to know you'."
Cora smirked and sat forward on her stool a bit more. "And what, pray tell, did you learn?"
It was a challenge, disguised as an inquiry. She was looking for ruthlessness, for honesty. Had he seen her take the dress? Chastise her father? Talk back at the bar? Yes, yes, he'd seen all of that. But he'd seen more than that too. And if anyone knew how to play intimidation, it was him.
He leaned forward over the wheel, so they were nearly face to face. "I learned that there is more to you than meets the eye," he muttered. "There is magic inside of you. Powerful, strong magic lashing against your very skin for freedom. I learned that you have all the power you need to do this…you just need to know how to use it."
She closed her eyes as he'd whispered to her, she sat back and confronted the wheel before letting out a shiver that had him smiling.
"You can feel it now, can't you?" he questioned, standing up tall and moving around her once more. "The way it crawls just below the surface, tickling that pristine flesh, urging you to use it the way it was meant to be used…"
"They say my mother was a witch," she commented suddenly, opening her eyes and looking over the wheel in front of her. "But my father said witches were evil and tried to beat it out of her."
He let out a sharp giggle that drew her eyes right back to him and out of whatever past she'd been imagining. "Well, you can't beat the magic out of those who have it, dearie! And no one is one thing or the other outright. You have to choose how you use your magic. So…how do you choose to use it, miller's daughter?"
He'd addressed her to rile her up to get a response. And he got it. A small fire caught in her eyes as she stared him down. "I'd be content to save my skin and get far away from that wretch man people call my father."
Perfect.
"Then tell me…when did you first feel the magic inside of you?"
She knew. Now that she had the identity of what she'd been feeling all her life, he could tell that she could recognize what it had been and all the times she'd felt it. That was the reason she didn't pull her gaze off of him when he'd asked the question or take long to answer. She knew.
"When I watched my father beat my mother to death," she commented as casually as if they were discussing the weather. "I was only six, he thought I was asleep."
"And you wanted to save her," he assumed.
"At first…" she practically growled. There it was. It was the emotion of anger. That was the emotion that made the spark in her come alive, and as her stare bored into him, he had a feeling she could feel it as well. "But when I sensed that I had magic too, I wanted to hide lest he come after me too."
"Use that!" he encouraged, stepping forward and placing his hands on her shoulders so that she sat back and looked at the wheel before her. "Draw from it. See before you the task at hand, and then drag that feeling to the surface, push it into your work, and let yourself have what you need."
She took a breath as he stepped away from her, then put some straw in the cup, and moved her foot. She stopped after a few seconds to examine her work. Nothing, from here, even with his back to the fireplace, he could see it was nothing.
"Again," he urged. "Focus."
Again she let out a frustrated breath and got back to the spinning. Frustration was fine. Frustration could lead to anger, which was exactly why time and time again when she stopped to look at what she'd done, to see if she'd accomplished her goal, he kept egging her on. "Again…" he said. "Again…again…again…again…again…"
"Stop repeating yourself and-"
Behind him, before her voice could rise entirely, he felt heat swell that distracted them both. The fireplace. The dying fire inside of it had flared to engulf practically the entire thing and was now blazing and strong again. Impressive…though…
"Not quite what I was expecting," he commented.
"You didn't do that?" she questioned with shock.
"No," he answered. "I believe that was you." Frustration and anger were going to be key for her, but a little confidence boost obviously hadn't hurt either. Before he could utter the words "try again" she'd already turned back to the wheel and was moving her foot over the treadle with determination.
He, on the other hand, was trying desperately not to show his own emotions, not to show how excited he was that it was working, that he was capable of teaching those he met the craft he'd dedicated his life to studying all for his son. He was trying not to watch her with admiration in his own eyes lest her gift of perception catch him. And he was trying most of all to ignore the feeling that wanted him to sit down, take her in his arms and confess just how impressed he was with what she could do. That would be a mistake, he acknowledged. But at the same time, every time the top of her white foot came into view working the treadle, he had to admit that perhaps admiration of her had gone too far.
He was staring at her again. Her shoulders were delicate and perfect for a miller's daughter, not a single flaw on her skin. Perhaps it was the magic within her, he theorized, perhaps she'd been using it all these years to keep herself beautiful since she'd never known how to manifest it before. The more he stared at her, the fire he felt in his own soul kindled in a way it hadn't before. Ever.
"Ugh!" she cried hours later, bringing his eyes back to her and not her shoulders. He had to, that that cry the magical flare he'd been feeling dissipate inside of her finally died. "It's not happening."
No. It wasn't. He had to acknowledge that. And there were many reasons for that. The tower was cold, the situation was stressful, and she was slow. Obviously, she wasn't as gifted with the wheel as he was at such a young age, or even as gifted as Baelfire and Milah had been, but even Milah had some working knowledge of spinning when he'd taught her. Still, she was getting the wheel to work, the problem wasn't in getting the straw to twine together, her problem was that she wasn't using her magic right. She felt it inside of her, but she wasn't pushing it out of herself, she was savoring it, holding on to it, when what she needed to do was let it go entirely. The more she tried the less she succeeded. The less she succeeded, the more frustrated she became. The more frustrated she became, the more she tried and on and on the cycle repeated itself. And besides that, they were running into another problem.
She was exhausting herself. Using magic, even for the most experienced of witches and wizards, could take a toll. Using it this much all at once was draining her, and besides that, it was past three in the morning. There were only a couple of hours left until sunrise, she'd been up nearly all night, and that made her tired, on top of using the magic. He'd noticed it just in the last half hour or so, the way she wobbled on her stool. She was practically falling asleep at her chair.
The power he'd seen throughout her the previous day was still there, but its glow was only that of an ember now. She'd never succeed like this. The memory of the day the magic had made itself known to her wasn't strong enough. There had to be a way to wake her up, spark her power back to life again, to give her more energy…to fuel her anger.
"You just need to stop thinking about it," he urged. He never thought about what he was doing, and it worked for him. It would work for her too as soon as she tapped into the emotion she'd had earlier in the day! But her tired eyes stared up at him now reminding him far more of a doe than a dragon. That wouldn't do. He needed the dragon he'd seen earlier. He wanted that dragon. "Magic is about emotion. Summon up that moment that made you so angry…you would've killed if you could."
There was a long pause as she stared up at him, the sleep disappeared from her eyes little by little, and he felt as though he could see her mind working. On what, he wondered.
"You do that?" she questioned. Her voice was filled with curiosity. Curiosity about him. But…for a question like that, he would have expected a woman to question him with fear, not with something like…like fascination.
"I do," he admitted quietly, with a gentle smile, suddenly feeling there was no need to impress or scare the girl. She was already looking at him with eyes like…like…like he'd never seen before. Not lusty, like so many of the barmaids he'd met, not fearfully like so many he made deals with. It was a hungry gaze. It was…it was wanted. And it stirred him up in a way he hadn't for near a hundred years.
"What's your moment?" she asked next with an interest that made him want to grin. It made him need to grin.
In truth, there were many times since he'd become the Dark One that made him so angry he wanted to kill. Ripping Milah's heart from her chest and crushing it after she'd told him she never loved him was a particularly delightful memory. But it wouldn't do, simply because while it had made him angry, the fulfillment of his anger meant it wasn't quite right. The nasty Blue Fairy telling him he'd never find his son was another terrible memory, but he had confidence that he'd deal with her in his own time. Then there was that time he'd realized the Captian, Captain Hook, as he supposed he was now, had tricked him out of his bean…another rivalry had been born that day, but it wasn't what he thought about. There were so many wonderful, beautiful memories that made him want to kill, but only one that stuck out to him because he'd never acted on the moment. There was only truly one of those moments before he became the Dark One that still made him want to murder to this day. It was the only memory that grated against him because he hadn't had the power to act on it at that moment.
"Once…a man made me kiss his boots in front of my son," he admitted in a low whisper. "Now, in my mind, I go back, and I rip out his throat…and I crunch his veins with my teeth…and that, dearie, is how magic is made." He been graphic on purpose, more vulgar than necessary at first just to see how she responded, but when he saw her smile, her interest in his story he'd wanted to continue just to please her. If her gaze was any indication now, she was pleased.
"Bloodlust…" she muttered in a deep husky voice that had him breathing rough. That was an excellent way to look at it. And at the moment, he certainly had a new respect for it. Thinking back on that day, looking at a captive audience who almost seemed happy at his wishes…bloodlust was certainly something he felt in certain parts of his body. "I like the phrase…" His fingers were twitching, itching, like they did when he needed to spin, but this time it wasn't wool he was dying to get his hands on. And if he was correctly interpreting her gaze, he wasn't the only one…
"Let me help you…" he muttered, despite the little voice in the back of his head that told him to stay far away. She was just too delectable! And he…he couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to touch a woman who wanted him to touch her. Not since he'd become the Dark One. But now, he put his hands on her shoulders, and instead of the tension he'd so clearly felt when he touched Milah, he felt the opposite.
She softened. She leaned back ever so slightly so that her skin was pressed into his palms, and suddenly he understood what if felt like to be a fish on a lure. The stool they'd given her to sit upon wasn't big, but she sat so far forward on it that if he moved his body right up next to her own, pressed her legs against her own, her back against his belly and her bottom against his groin…they fit together upon that stool, just barely, but only if they continued to sit this close together.
He arms moved then, beginning to spin again, and he moved his hands up and down her arms feeling smooth, soft skin, remarkably unmarred by the life she'd led. And despite her work, her nerves and stress she smelled…she smelled too amazing not to put his nose down over her shoulder and sniff. He was so close he could kiss that it of flesh. In fact, if pressed…he could put his mouth to all of it, and make the growing throb he felt between them content.
"They made me kneel," she muttered in a low voice as her hands continued to move and his mouth…it had been too long, and he just couldn't resist the urge to kiss her. Oh, it had been so long! "I didn't do anything wrong, but they made me apologize…to a child!"
Oh, there it was. She was reliving the events of earlier in the day, and with it, what he felt suddenly went beyond physical and into mystical. Her power, it was shivering, quivering inside of her body, seeping out through her skin and her breath. It filled the room. And he was so close it tickled in all the right places that had seemed dead until this moment.
"I realized, no matter how good I was, or how hard I worked… I was never going to be more than I am now."
Yes…but she was more…could be so, so much more.
"What do you want to do to them?" he urged, whispering the words in her ear and wondering if her neck would taste the same as her shoulder did.
"I want to make them bow," she whispered as her magic flared. "I want their kneecaps…to crack and freeze on the stones. I want their necks to break from bending."
Oh…bloodlust indeed. He couldn't have kept his hands off of her if he tried, not with her bending into him and pushing so much magic into their space that…
The thought of pushing magic had him glancing up to check on the wheel. What he saw there, he knew, would make her nearly as happy as it made him. He only prayed it wasn't enough to make her want to stop.
"Look," he muttered in her ear, letting just a few of her curls fall over his face. Her hair smelled just as good as her skin did.
Cora tensed for a moment, the softening of her muscles died as she glanced at the wheel, and he saw a smile, far different from her look of bloodlust grace her face. "I did it," she wondered. "I'm going to live."
And have a baby that would get him to Baelfire…and if the magic he'd felt in her was any indication, it was only the beginning. He should have known. It wasn't anger that motivated her. It was revenge. Her trigger emotion was the same as his own.
"You're going to do much more than that, dearie. Don't stop…until they are on their knees!" he hissed in her ear. And with that, she fell back into him as she had been, leaned into his chest, into his touch, and sighed.
"Let's keep going…." she whispered, turning back to her work.
He continued to do his own.
And so there you have it, the scene that launched the ship of Golden Heart and also made Rumbellers everywhere say "ew". I had to back into it from a different place as the scene we were given was obviously one we came into the middle of but I hope you liked where it started, if not how it ended.
Thank you Grace5231973 and Jennifer Baratta for your very kind reviews. We have one more chapter that deals with this part of the 2x16 episode and then we'll be moving on. We will still be in the Cora section, but it might not go one hundred percent as you expect it to be. Intrigued? Let's keep reading! Peace and Happy Reading!
