"You're still a man who makes wrong choices."
Rumpelstiltskin's mother severed his destiny when he was a baby, turning him from the path of a saviour to one of darkness and disappointment as he made one bad decision after another. The good choices he could have made haunted him when he was a man, he refused to let that continue when he was the Dark One.
Tilla Farmer was five years old when she was approached in the woods by her cottage, a man shrouded in darkness asking if she wanted to make everyone happy. For the next hundred years she bounced around, doing everything she could to make the Enchanted Forest a better place. Until, one night, she was captured by the Lost Boys. She fought, she was rescued, and she danced on the waters of Neverland until, somehow, she became trapped in a magic bottle and the whole world forgot she existed.
Killian Jones warred with Peter Pan for decades. It was in his past and he was grateful for the new life he'd begun to create with Emma Swan. He had no memory of the blonde woman who fell from a bottle that Tinkerbell had swiped, nor of the heartbreak that she smiled through. But, for the first time in a while, he found someone who loved the stars as much as he did and another unlikely friendship formed in his life.
~0~0~0~
The Ogre War was nowhere from being a memory of the past. Thousands of children were at home, safe and un-slaughtered. The towns and villages were safe for the first time in a long time, but fear took time to leave and wounds took time to heal. There were so many lost, so many harmed, that it would take more than a few years for people to feel safe in their homes. And then there was the fact that the Dark One, the source of all dark magic in the kingdom, sat in his house overlooking them all and no one knew what that meant. They only knew that it wasn't good.
Of course, to a five-year-old, none of that meant anything at all. Tilla Farmer just wanted to play. She wanted to be in the woods, where it was said fairies lived, and she really didn't want to be inside where her older brothers were sat, talking quietly and keeping secrets she wasn't allowed in on. Who cared what her stupid brothers were talking about, anyway? War seemed scary; it was like they wanted to go back. She just wanted to play.
The woods by her house were wonderful. She sometimes wished she had friends who lived nearby, but the woods were so wonderful that she didn't actually mind it much of the time. The lights sparkled around her and made her happy. One day she was sure she was going to see a real fairy. There was a blue one, apparently, and that was her favourite colour. Maybe one day she could be a fairy as well. They made everyone happy.
She stopped, suddenly, in the sparkles and the leaves as something changed. She wasn't sure what it was, but she could feel it all around her and she knew something was different. It was behind her, so she turned.
There was a person behind her. Someone who hadn't been there before, in a heavy, fancy robe with the hood up hiding their face. They made her feel uneasy, but mainly she was curious so she looked up at them like she did every adult she met. And, like with every adult she met, she was incredibly polite.
"Hello," she greeted. "Are you lost?"
The person tilted their head down, shadowing their face even more. "Are you?" they asked in return. She couldn't help but smile; their voice was weird, she liked it.
"No, I live here," she said. "My mom said I can't wander too far away, but I don't have to be home until it's dark."
"It's always a little bit dark, my dear," they replied before pulling their hood down. Tilla's smile grew even bigger.
"You're sparkling," she exclaimed. The man underneath the robe had messy, curly hair, but his skin shone green with scales. "How do you do that?"
He stared at her for a moment before pointing at her. "What's your name?" he asked.
She shuffled on the spot. "I'm not supposed to tell people I don't know," she explained. "My mom said so."
"Your mother is a shrewd woman," he replied, and she guessed he meant 'clever', which she agreed.
"She is. She knows everything," she stated. The man crouched down in front of her, his robe bunching up like a big blanket. It looked very warm.
"Tell you what, let's make a deal," he offered. "If I tell you my name, you tell me yours?"
Tilla looked back at him, her little brain working hard to see if she should tell him or not. But he shot her a wide smile and she nodded. "Good choice," he praised. "I am Rumplestiltskin." He waved his arm with a flourish, over exaggerating his declaration and Tilla giggled in amusement. He then motioned to her. "Now it's your turn."
"Tilla," she replied. "I'm Tilla." She caught herself and gave a little curtsey. "It's very nice to meet you."
The man chuckled and she liked the noise. "Tilla, can I ask you a question?" She nodded. "Do you like to make people happy?"
"I do," she said. "Especially my mom."
"I thought you would," he praised. "And, and this is a special question; can you see all the sparkles?"
He waved his hand in the air, making the light swim around them and she watched, mesmerised. "I'm going to take that as a yes," he muttered to himself. "Tilla—" she looked back at him; "-would you like to make everything sparkle? Even outside of the woods?" She nodded eagerly.
"Like the fairies?" she asked and he pointed at her like she had gotten the answer correct.
"Just like the fairies," he agreed. "And how would you like to make everyone happy? All of the time? How do you think that would make you feel?"
Tilla thought back on her very short life. She thought on her mother smiling when her brothers came home, and when her father followed shortly after. She remembered running and playing with her friends in the village, and seeing birds fly overhead and how happy that made her feel.
"I think I would like that," she said slowly and the man grinned again.
"Well, today is your lucky day," he told her. "I'm going to give you the ability to make everybody happy all the time. You'll feel like you'll never be able to stop."
"I'm not supposed to take things from strangers," Tilla immediately cut in. "My mom…"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure she did say that," he quickly interrupted. "But, but, this will help you mother, and your father, and the rest of your little family. Wouldn't you like that?"
And when she nodded, something amazing happened. Something that made her light up all over her body and made her feel like she was going to be happy forever. She rushed off home, leaving Rumplestiltskin stood in the forest, watching the little girl dash away.
He did feel bad, if he thought on it too long. He knew how terrible, and angry, he would have felt had something happened to Baelfire like he had just done to Tilla. But then when he thought on Bae, he thought on everything that had gone wrong in his short life. On how he had almost died, and how his mother had left him all alone, with only a coward of a father to look after him. How the people in the village treated them both. Every decision Rumplestiltskin had made to try and make his son's world a better place was always the wrong one. And then, eventually, his choices had led him to watch his son fall out of his world and be gone forever.
His wrong choices had always been tainted by the right ones he should have made. Every wrong turn had shone a light on the right one he could have taken, but instead he had walked down the wrong path. He couldn't bear to live with those ghosts anymore.
He didn't wait around to watch run home anymore. He felt bad, but that was nothing new. Now, finally, at least he'd have peace.
~0~0~0~
This is just a plot bunny that I come back to time and time again, and I thought you might like it :)
