The sky was burning.
He supposed from there on the ground it looked like an ordinary sunset to those around him. The clouds were pink and orange and red, but he knew the carefully trained observer would notice that there was a color missing required to make it truly an "ordinary" sunset. Purple. There was not a hint of blue in those clouds. On the contrary, the black and gray speckling them might even seem like perhaps a storm would roll in that night. But he knew the difference, and he smiled up at it, proud of what he'd done.
"No more beans," the little blue witch had once told him; no beans, no spell, no way to get from this world to the World Without Magic but the hint of a curse. In the last year, he had searched the realm and not managed to find a single reference to any curse that was so powerful as to do that!
But he never trusted anything a fairy said. They all worked under their "Mother Superior's" orders and so nothing that came from any of their mouths could be trusted. Which was why he hadn't let something like "there are no more beans in this world" stop him from searching. It may have taken him a year, but he'd finally found a beanstalk, one of the few left in their world, and climbed it to the top. And what had he found but a colony of giants…and nothing else.
"No beans," they'd cried. "We haven't managed to grow any for centuries." Fearful of him, they'd taken him to the fields atop the clouds where the beans used to grow, and what stared back at him was nothing but a barren, empty field. Well then, if they couldn't be of any use to him anymore, what was the point? He'd set the entire village on fire before he left and then used his magic to rot and whither that beanstalk so that it fell, and there truly was no escape for them up there. If they'd lied to him and had beans, well now they'd regret that decision. If they were truthful and didn't have beans…well, he couldn't very well risk the fact that one day they might crack their problem open and leave others with the ability to realm jump when he couldn't. What was the point in that? And besides, what purpose did the giants have if they didn't have beans to tend to? The way he saw it, he was sparing them meaningless lives.
As he turned his back and walked away from the smell of burnt flesh and rotting vegetation, his mind was already beginning to move ahead, to focus on a new strategy. He was certain that he held even more firm in his belief that the Blue Fairy had been wrong. There were beans still left in this world. He just had to find them! Or a realm jumper, or that blasted curse he'd been searching for!
He paused for a moment as his stomach twisted into knots. It often did whenever he thought about the beans and the curse and a way back to Baelfire. A year of searching, a year since he'd been by his son's side, a year since he'd made the worst mistake of his life…that was always when the fear slithered up inside of him and threatened to take hold. What could happen to a boy Bae's age in a year? What could happen in a world where there was no such thing as magic? Without a father to protect him?
No.
He wasn't going to do this anymore. He wasn't going to wonder or worry because they took too much energy; energy he could use to find Baelfire instead of grieving him too early. He would find his son. There was no question about that. He only wondered how and when. He was the Dark One, he could do anything. Though, sometimes, he acknowledged that his curse, which so often felt like a balloon, carrying him up into a sky of limitless possibilities, could also be an anchor weighing him down.
He'd barely begun to walk onward again when he felt a familiar tug. It was a pull on his soul that he hated and loved, resented and was thankful for all at the same time. It was a summoning. Someone was trying to call him, a weak individual, by the feel of the magic. A year ago, he would have ignored a summons like this, but then he'd also believed that the path to finding Baelfire and joining him would be quick and simple. As much as he hated it, he'd learned that in this predicament, it was better to be patient and cautious rather than unreasonably ignorant. Over the course of the last year, he'd come to find that not only was the magic of the Dark One useful for finding his son, but the dealings that came with it were useful for distraction during times like these. Instead of clinging to the sorrow of missing magical beans and knots in his stomach, a summoning at least gave him something to focus on.
And so he found that long chord the amateur sorcerer had created between them in his summoning, wrapped his hands around it, pulled back and-
Oh! Sorceress! A she...
"APPEAR NOW O DARK ONE! DO NOT HIDE YOURSELF FROM-"
"Well, there's no need to shout, Dearie!"
The woman on the other side of the fire jumped, opening her eyes to take him in as he cast quick glances around, learning his surroundings. He was in a temporary building, a tent of some kind. Dirt floors, knick-knacks pressed against the sides, fire in the center, which only served to make it swelteringly hot, and of course, the woman across from him. She was barely taller than the pedestal she stood behind, her hair was dirty and clumped together, dirt was smeared over her face, and her glasses magnified her eyes so that she had a bug-like appearance. The hump on her back didn't help that, of course, and the shuddering she was now doing only made her look more like an insect. If he was a gambler, as his father had once been, he would have been willing to bet she was the town witch. But if the magic that came through her summons and the way she'd been shouting for him was any indication, she wasn't very good at it. Odd. And a shame, really. Physically, she fit the role perfectly.
"You called," he pointed out as she gathered her arms closer together and moved from behind her pedestal. "Now presenting The Dark One, at your service!" With a flourish of his arms, he swept into a wide bow that so often confirmed they'd called the right person but also served as false assurance that he was friendly. It was a nice trick he'd learned. "May I have the name of the one who called me?"
Finally, the woman took a step forward and let her straight spine relax a bit. She smirked as she shook her head. "I'm no fool, I know how precious a name can be, and I won't be giving it to you."
"Oh, shame, shame, shame…I don't do business with those who won't do business with me. And for those who waste my time-"
"It's not my name you should be interested in, but another! He's the one you want, not me!"
"I'll be the judge of that. Who exactly is this 'he' we are discussing?" he inquired. It might be something, a worthy distraction worth following up on, or it might be nothing. He'd never know until he had a name.
"A merchant by the name of William Smee."
"William Smee…" The name was foreign to him but not worthless. No name was worthless. Only people.
"He's a trader." All of a sudden, the woman moved a quarter way around the tent and picked up a small delicate yellow flower from a table. "He travels all over, but whenever he passes through, he always brings me butter blossoms! Rare, from the mountains of the south. They're perfect for working spells of chance."
Now that was a useful bit of information. But as for this Smee, he'd rather have the butter blossoms…
"And what good will this William Smee be to me?"
"I assure you, Sir, I have no idea."
He stared at the woman, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her. If it wasn't that her oddness reminded him of one of his aunt's he probably would have. It was lucky that she had innocent and blank eyes behind those glasses. There was nothing he hated more than time-wasters.
"Then why summon me here?" he questioned through gritted teeth. But as he turned to walk out the door, her hand caught his own, and he quickly pulled it from her grasp. "How dare-"
"Please, Sir, he's looking for you!"
"Who?!"
"William Smee! He asks about you every time he visits."
"About me?"
"About the Dark One! He says you need him."
"Me? Need him? A merchant? Are you sure it wasn't the other way around?"
"I know it sounds crazy, sir, but he does."
"In what way? Nothing and no one is stronger than I am! What can he give me that I can't fetch away for myself?"
"I don't know, Sir. I simply know that the last few times I've seen him, he's asked if there have been any sightings of the Dark One nearby. I always tell him 'no.'"
And yet here he was before her now with no William Smee in sight. He wasn't exactly sure who this woman was, but one thing was for sure, she wasn't exactly a planner. Or was she? Within his cloak, he could feel his dagger resting against his chest as it should be. The last thing he needed was for this William Smee to emerge from hiding and take the blade from him. He'd never get back to Baelfire that way.
"Did he ask you to summon me?"
"Oh, no!" The threat passed. This time he did roll his eyes. She was neither a planner nor a talented witch. How had she gotten this far?
"Then perhaps you should summon me again the next time he comes around! Then we can meet, have a talk, make a deal. But until then-"
"Oh, but he's leaving for the mountains again in a few days and when I found the spell in my new book to summon you…I figured, 'why not?'"
Why not? He was the most feared and respected creature in this realm, and she thought "why not"? On a whim? No…there was innocence in her eyes, but for just a flash of a second there wasn't. There was more to her story. And he was dying to find out. She'd hooked him...
"Oh, I think there is more to it, Dearie! What did you hope to gain from this little meeting? Tell me…when two people both have something the other wants, a deal can always be struck! What do you hope to gain from a meeting between the Dark One and William Smee?"
The air went out of the poor woman's lungs. She looked defeated. "Please, it's just…he's been looking for you everywhere and I thought that if I was successful at arranging a meeting between the two of you and he proved to be useful then…there might be some kind of prize in it for me."
"A prize…"
For wasting his time? For summoning him to schedule someone else potentially wasting his time? Not likely. Still, if this Smee truly had been asking about him everywhere, telling people that the Dark One needed him, he could be someone he needed to know. Or needed to kill. One or the other. No matter which it was sure to bring him some kind of entertainment, at least for an hour or so. And he was the most powerful creature in the realm, what harm could a meeting be with a simple merchant too dull to summon him himself?
"Tell this Smee that I'll meet him in your tavern tomorrow at sunset, that should be plenty of time to let him know and as for you…your prize is your life. Keep it today, but summon me again tomorrow over nothing, and you shall not be so lucky again."
For good measure, he glanced over at the pedestal she'd been standing behind, the place where the book she'd been reading was still perched, and with barely any energy at all, he set it ablaze. She jumped, and dropped the flower in her hands as she slapped them to her mouth, looking on in horror and terror. That was the reaction he'd wanted from her all along. He'd learned how to conduct his business over the years: he presented himself in the beginning as friendly, then ended the conversations with a reminder of who he truly was. This would do it for the old woman. He reached down to grab the discarded butter blossom. If it meant so little to her…
"This is for my time. Forget that spell!" he growled, before using his magic to take him far away from that place.
Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of The Dark One Chronicles, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the 3rd in The Dark One Chronicles, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Rumple's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in the Enchanted Forest from after Baelfire has left the realm up to the moment that the Dark Curse has been cast.
The Dark One Chronicles is meant to be a companion series with my previously released series The Moments Series, which explores Once Upon a Time from Belle's perspective. This means that everything you read in the Chronicles where Belle is concerned will show up in Moments as well, it is just told from a different point of view. If you'd like to see Belle's chapters from her perspective, The Dark One Chronicles: The Dark Curse is the companion story to both Moments Lost and Moments Known and Unknown! You can find it by checking out my profile.
If you enjoy this fiction, please review! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!