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Yes, this is another short chapter, but the next one will be much, much longer.
I have someone who has volunteered to be a beta reader for me. I appreciate that, and I'm very excited. However, I haven't worked with my beta on this chapter because I was too impatient to get it out. My next chapter will be edited.
Hope you enjoy.
Again, Once Upon a Time and all characters belonging to the show are not mine.
….
Courses, Cups and Courage
Chapter 3
On his journey the Huntsman "lost" the small mirror the Queen used to keep track of him. It wasn't the first piece of glass to be displaced under a rock, and it likely wouldn't be the last, but to protect himself from the wrath of the woman who could still look out of the shattered pieces, the scruffed man trudged a few miles onward before whistling sharply.
A white and gray blur emerged from the darkness. The wolf that had been the Huntsman's companion since he was a small boy nudged his hip with his snout before trotting ahead, scouting the area with his nose just as thoroughly as the man did with his eyes.
The Huntsman smiled, thinking that he would never find better companionship, even if he couldn't feel the familiar warmth in his absent heart.
His smile wilted.
"What do you think is more bearable?" he asked his companion. "To be cursed and caged, or cursed and free?"
The wolf stopped on a hill ahead of the man, his head cocked.
"The Queen has sent us to a village where she suspects the Dark One has hidden a dagger." When he passed the wolf it began to walk at his side, his strides matching the man's pace. "I'm no fool, and I've heard the legends. This could very well be the source of the Dark One's power."
The wolf huffed and sped up to match the quickening pace of the Huntsman.
"If I have that dagger in my grasp just long enough to use it, we could very well be free of Her Majesty."
He took off at a run, his lifelong companion at his side, ducking under branches and leaping over roots and fallen trees without changing pace.
….
His actions had been careless.
That was why, while he sat at his untouched spinning wheel in his elaborate but empty Dark Castle, watching flecks of dust gather on different surfaces, Rumplestiltskin wasn't surprised to feel the hot prickling at his skin that told him that someone was too close to the source of his magic. Warning bells went off in his mind, but he still sat there and he clenched his hands until his claws dug into his palms instead of magically transporting to the source of the eminent danger.
Rumplestiltskin… a call from far away, but it wasn't far enough for him to be immune. It would never be far enough. The imp shivered before the feeling like an ice cold grip wrapped around the base of his spine. He jerked rigidly up from his slouched position, and took what he dreaded was one last look at the cup across the room from him. I summon thee!
Rumplestiltskin was magically torn away, leaving only dust to occupy the castle.
The Dark One stood in a familiar clearing. The sun was setting, but it wasn't dark enough for him to miss the engravings on the tombstone. It wasn't dark enough for him to miss the sight of the mounds of disturbed dirt in front of the tombstone, nearly obscuring the second line of writing on it.
Rage boiled inside of him, a rising tide threatening to overwhelm him. He clenched his fists.
He hadn't noticed the figure.
The huntsman stepped from the wall of willows, the dagger held firmly in his hand before him. A wolf followed a few paces behind, snarling a warning at the sorcerer.
Rumplestiltskin narrowed his eyes as he studied the man holding his power. Every time the Huntsman's fingers clamped around the hilt of the blade, it felt as if his fingers were squeezing around his bones, a feeling that made him grit his teeth and suppress a shiver.
He shook off his rage with a shifting of his shoulders and a discreet pop of his neck. He shifted to face the other man, slipping into his flamboyant comedic persona to hide the rage and turmoil boiling within him.
"Well well! What have we here? It's the Queen's dog…" his gaze shifted from the man to the wolf. "And his dog!"
The wolf bared his teeth. The man's face was stoic, his grip on the dagger firm.
Rumplestiltskin lifted one arm in a flourish and gave a mock bow. As he stood he could not hide how his attempt at a smile became a glaring sneer. "Whatever can I do for you?"
The stoic hunter didn't answer. He moved closer by slow, steady steps while the wolf remained silently behind, hackles raised, licking his chops.
Rumplestiltskin's energy was a bundled mass inside of him, unable to escape. The huntsman was getting close to him, close enough for him to have to look up to see the man's hazel eyes, close enough for him to count the hairs on his beard, even if he still couldn't decipher an expression.
The Huntsman studied him; his gold skin and reptilian eyes. Though he didn't show it, the man of the wilderness was surprised to see the sorcerer unkempt – his hair scraggly from lack of care, his dragonhide vest open, and the cream colored silk shirt underneath wrinkled. The sorcerer's hands were dirty with soil like his own.
The Dark One tempered his expression with a cold but mild distaste, even as his desperate foolish heart hammered in his chest. His fingers clenched and rubbed together for want of an end to the stillness he was forced to endure. His eyes darted to the tombstone to take in Belle's name. It might have soothed him if not for the disturbed earth in front of it.
The sorcerer looked back at the Huntsman, searing him with the barely restrained hate in his eyes. "Grave robbing a hobby of yours, dearie?" His voice rose in pitch and his body nearly shook with fury. But despite his desire to be solely focused on his rage, he couldn't help but see himself and Zoso together in a forest in the dark, a smug, knowing grimace of a smile on the former dark one's face and the desperate lunge of his own that took his benefactor's life and power away…
The Huntsman stepped closer still, and the sorcerer wished he could step back away from him. His patience snapped. "What. Do. You. Want?" The last word was a hiss, and his restrained power sparked at his fingertips. He could imagine many outcomes from the encounter, and none of them meant good things for him.
"I want you…" The Huntsman spoke softly, stepped too close for comfort and then shoved Rumplestiltskin hard, using his body weight to slam the slighter framed man into the trunk of a tree, "…to forgive me."
And he did. For a moment, forgiveness washed over the Dark One like a numbing balm until the hunter plunged the dagger into his chest, cutting through flesh, muscle, rib…the Dark One automatically wrapped his hands around the hilt with a tortured gasp.
The hunter had only plunged the knife half way. Rumplestiltskin's heart still hammered even as the tip of the blade threatened to pierce it, and even as his panicked breathing became wet with blood. He looked down at the dagger in his chest. He breathed hard and looked up at the man who would murder him and take his power, but all he could really see was his boy disappearing into a glowing void that he was too cowardly to enter. All his failures compounded into that one crushing moment when he realized that he had chosen his power for nothing. He would never see his son again. All he could hear was a ringing in his ears that sounded like a shrill scream of you promised! You promised!
He couldn't understand the Huntsman's hesitance. At first he didn't realize that he was exerting force, that his hands wrapped around the hilt of the blade were holding it in place, just before it could reach his heart. He could exert no force to push the dagger away from him, but while it was in his hands as well, he could almost try to stop it.
But it wouldn't be enough.
The Huntsman noticed the meager struggle that the Dark One seemed able to put up even as the blade being in the Huntsman's hands kept him from truly fighting. So, he leaned his weight harder into it, bore the blade down harder. The imp gasped raggedly when he finally felt it sink deeper to pierce his heart.
"I'm sorry," the hazel eyed man said to him," I wish you had the chance to fight back –"
Rumplestiltskin jerked his head up, glared into his attacker's eyes, leaned his face close and lifted his lip in a sneer. "Wish granted."
He brought his foot up between them, planted it on the Huntsman's sternum and shoved him off with all his tightly coiled might.
The hunter flew across the clearing, slammed into another tree with a thud and crack of his skull, fell down and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
The wolf ran snarling towards Rumplestiltskin. The imp, dagger still lodged in his chest, snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light, just as the wolf leapt at the spot he stood.