Damn nobility and their noble intentions. Or perhaps he should damn the farm boy who respected such traditions of public love that kept him from sleeping with the Queen!

He tried to even the odds. After seeing Cinderella to the ball and taking his final wand home with him, he'd gone to great lengths to ensure when Snow and David finally set out to return they were stuck in the woods together, alone, on a chilly night, with several blankets and plenty of kindling for a fire. He'd practically spelled it out for them. Still, it hadn't worked. They'd made a fire and a shelter, then hunkered down and slept together but with hands in respectable positions and clothes securely fastened to the body. That night he'd surrendered to the fact that until they married in front of others, they would not consummate their marriage.

Wedding planning was good, as asinine as he thought it was, at least it excited him that they would finally be beyond silly human expectations. The biggest problem that faced them now was that Snow and David were not the only ones planning. Regina is up to something too.

After being exiled by Snow and David, she'd returned to her palace. She'd gathered together a few who were faithful and loyal to her, mostly members of her private guard who she'd always treated well. Her father had taken on the duties of running the household. How they managed to pay everyone eluded him, but that wasn't the part that he really cared about.

What he minded was the moment that he'd lost track of her. On the evening that he'd tried to get Snow and David together, Regina had mysteriously and without explanation vanished. He'd searched the realm for her but came up with nothing, not until morning when she reappeared and what he saw her doing…it made little sense to him.

He saw Regina chasing villagers out of a small town, all but one; one that she'd brought with her; one she talked to and seemed to know well. It was someone he'd never seen before.

After she finished burning the village to the ground, she talked to the man again, and he sat down against a wall as if he belonged there. He was tempted to follow Regina when she left, but instinct told him it wasn't her he needed to watch, but him. They were planning something, something she wasn't going to do but rather use him to do. So he kept his eyes on the man and the town, watched as he just sat there with his chin to his chest. He was pretty sure that he had fallen asleep at one point, but then, maybe a few hours later, Snow and David rode in and made contact with the stranger, after Charlotte saw to his hand, with an awkward pause between them if he'd ever seen one, they took him back to their palace. They gave him clothes and a bedroom and showed him the wine cellar. The entire time he kept glancing at Charlotte. And he kept talking about the attack on the town. But…

No, that wasn't right. He spoke of how Regina invaded, how she burned everything that he'd own, everything that he had! But he knew that wasn't true. He knew it because he'd seen her bring him with her. He hadn't lived there as he told the King and Queen. Why would he say he had? Unless he was a plant. Regina had left him there for a purpose, this purpose. She knew her step-daughter and the King well; she had to have known that she would take in a stray dog.

That evening, when they finally left him alone for a time, he snuck out of the palace. He wasn't surprised to see him ride a horse into Regina's palace grounds. Curious and unwilling to let her get her way by working around a loophole, he made himself invisible and appeared in her bedroom. He cocked his head to one side at the sight that met him.

Regina was in her room, but she wasn't lounging or reading or even having her way with the hunter she still kept in her possession. She was fighting—sword fighting. A member of her guard was facing off against her. Was…past tense, for no sooner had the stranger showed up did he watch her run him through, and the guard's heartbeat stopped. The guard died, fell to the floor in a heap with Regina grinning like a fool. The man, the fighting, the disappearance…what was she doing?

"Impressive, Your Majesty."

He looked up to see the stranger standing there in the entryway to her bedroom. He stood tall, properly. He was dressed well in the clothes that the King and Queen had given him, there was a scar over his eye, and now that he heard him speak, he had to admit that it was eloquent. Who had she hunted down? And for what purpose?

"Well, what can I say?" Regina smiled, running her fingers over her blade and smelling the blood of her guard. Sometimes he thought she grew crazier every day. "You inspired me. Perhaps you can give me a lesson. Or two."

So he was a swordsman. Not a Viner as he'd told the King and Queen. But with everyone in her private guard, what did she want with him?

"As much as I'd enjoy that, I can't be late for my first meal with Snow White and her prince," he reported with pride.

"So they believed you," Regina squealed, laughing in delight as she went to her vanity and fetched something from a small box. "I knew their insufferable kindness would be their downfall." In her hands was a vial, small and dark blue. She worked her way slowly across the room, maintaining her eye contact before giving it to him. "Venom of the Agrabahn viper. A bitter draft...slow and painful."

Fuck.

So that was her play. She could no longer touch the King and Queen, so she was going to use a third party to do it instead of just getting the Curse that he'd already gotten to her. Foolish little girl, how many times did he have to go through this with her?! He was so angry he was ready to reveal himself, to use his magic to fling the man across his room and out the window, so he cracked his head on something hard, and Regina could no longer use him. But one look at the Count told him he didn't have to, not yet. He was timid, eying the vial she'd placed in his hands questionably.

"Is there a problem, Count?" Count. Not an ordinary man, but a Count. That explained the accent and how he spoke so well, but it didn't explain who he was or where he was from.

"What did they do to deserve this?" the Count asked. "They've shown me nothing but kindness."

"Don't tell me you're starting to grow a conscience."

"Call it professional curiosity."

Regina sighed with irritation. "Well, what they did doesn't matter. Only one thing should be on your mind right now...how badly you want your revenge," when she turned, he saw a small piece of paper rolled up in her hand. The Count's eyes narrowed at that paper and then widened with desire. Suddenly his demeanor changed, and without further question or even finishing their conversation, he turned and left.

Regina laughed. "I thought so," she snarled, clearly celebrating her victory, but he had already put enough together to want nothing of her celebration. The Count, whoever he was, wherever he was from, was here to do her dirty work. Revenge motivated him. He'd made a deal with her to get that piece of paper. Whatever it held was probably related to his revenge, perhaps a name or location.

"Names…" the Seer whispered helpfully in his head. That was something to know, but it didn't help him now. Only Regina could do that. Not a poor deal, not another who was good with a sword, it had to be Regina! Why did he have to keep going over this?!

"Well, this is very disappointing," he drawled, letting his invisibility spell vanish so she could see him appear. Foolish child had been too busy fighting when he'd arrived to notice the extra magic in the room; that was a mistake her mother and sister wouldn't have made. Sometimes it surprised him how far she had come while standing still. "I mean…I didn't spend years training you so you could spend your days fencing and get someone else to do your dirty work."

"Oh, you know exactly why I'm doing this," Regina said, turning back around to face him. "You put a spell on Snow and Charming so I can't hurt them." Technically it was only on Snow, but he was content to let her think that for the moment until the pair were married and pregnant. After that, she could do whatever she wanted with David so long as the child and Snow were fine…until they wouldn't be.

"Yeah. And then I gave you the Dark Curse so you could take them somewhere where you can," he pointed out.

"I don't care. I'm going to get what I want, and I'll get it without you!" she snapped so quickly he wasn't even sure she'd heard the lifeline he'd just offered. The childish fool didn't need a road map. She just needed to shut up long enough to listen to his suggestions.

"Oh! Are you sure about that?" he questioned, taking another step closer to her. She smelled strange. Her magic smelled…different. Why did it smell so…alluring? And familiar at the same time…

"If you think you can stop the Count, think again."

"Is that a threat?"

She made a sound of confirmation, but he barely heard because she'd turned in just such a way that he'd caught another whiff. He knew that smell. It meant something. It was important to all of this. What was it? What was he missing?

"It's a fact." She stuttered as he moved in closer, put his nose nearly up against her flesh, and inhaled the familiar scent hoping to give himself a hint. Yes, familiar, but not a scent that he'd ever smelled on her. Something he'd smelled somewhere else; on something else. Who? Where did he know it from? "That protection spell you put on the Charmings…" He backed away as her tone suggested menace. "I put the same enchantment on the Count to protect him from you."

Now that had him draw a breath and take a few steps back as she chuckled. Was that true?

"Looks like the student has finally outgrown the teacher," she laughed gaily before puckering her lips in a mock kiss.

He knew what he wanted to do to those lips, to the smirk he saw on them. He'd be happy to wipe both off her face. If she knew what he'd been through, the lengths that he'd gone to so that everything would run smoothly up to this point…she'd understand that no one, not even Merlin, would ever surpass him. If he had to force her to see that the hard way, then so be it.

"We'll see about that, dearie," he threatened before waving his arm and vanishing from her sight.

I hated this entire episode. It was just so...pointless. By season six, OUAT was having a hard time keeping their story straight and precise as it was, and then they threw this in there, and not only was the entire thing useless, but it was also contradictory. They introduced new characters we'd never see again; sure, they put that little bit of Rumple "sensually" smelling Regina in there, I suppose, to make it seem like they could have an attraction to each other (though I used it for something else here, allowing it to be interpreted one way by Regina while it meant something different to Rumple; points if you know what he's smelling), but the true "problem" comes in two little lines! "You took away my ability to kill them." "Sure did, but then I gave you the Curse so you could." And I just...couldn't. Because for all their touting, saying they are keeping track of the timeline, there is no way for that to work. No possible way. We know that Rumple protected them after the war, clearly. And like I said chapters ago, while we might never have seen the scene where Rumple gives the Curse to Regina, we know that she exchanges it for the Sleeping Curse she puts on Snow, which is before the war. So really, I did my best with those statements, truly I did, but at the same time, I know that it's an error on the show. It's correct in my timeline, and that's all that really matters to me.

Thank you, Grace5231973, Jennifer Baratta, and Alarda, for your reviews on the last chapter. Good to know I'd shocked some of you by heading to Cinderella. Trust me, we are not done with her yet, but this was the best place to put this episode, odd and problematic as it was. But hey, I hope I gave you a laugh at the beginning. So many are enjoying the fact that right now, Rumple is the biggest Snowing shipper just sitting around waiting for them to have sex. I like that he tried to arrange it for them, but in my mind...yeah, they're just too precious to follow through. Not to mention we sort of know from 3x10 that they do wait until after their wedding. Up next, we'll wrap up this epic failure of an episode and move on in the story! Peace and Happy Reading.