You have to cut the heart out of the thing you love the most.

Cora stepped back from Rumpelstiltskin's cell.

"What's wrong, dearie? You look a little pale."

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall, and Cora quickly turned herself back into a rat. Even in rodent form, the dark one could practically hear her heart pounding.

"You need to decide how far you're willing to go, dearie. You know what you love. Go kill it."

She scampered out of the building, and once she was outside, she turned herself into a hawk and flew away. Her heart never stopped pounding the whole time as long forgotten memories flashed before her eyes…

There was a pale pink blanket outside. Little Cora was sitting on it. Watching a large wheel turn. A woman who's face she could not see smiled at her and called her baby daughter. Then a pale figure entered in rags. The woman's eyes lit up.

"Have the ogre wars finally ended?"

The figure shook his head. "Your husband isn't coming home. He was killed in battle last night."

The woman's face turned white and she began screaming. The screams echoed around and pounded in Cora's head.

Cora felt the cold wooded floors stinging her bare feet. Everything was dark. She made her way into a room, nudged the door open, and whispered, "Mama?" The woman she was referring to was crumpled on the floor with an empty bottle of poison in her hand.

Soon after, a new man came to the mill. "Hi, Cora. I'm Ed. Your father's mill is mine now. And so are you. Go sweep the floor."

From that moment on, Cora was no longer anyone's child or anyone's family. She was a servant. She wasn't comforted when she cried at night or helped up when she fell. Work was all she was good for. Ed made that clear every day of her life. She was barely allowed any playtime at first, by the time she was seven she was allowed none. When she cried out in frustration, she was beaten and expected to get right back up and work after.

Cora was standing on the kitchen cooking dinner for Ed and all his hired workers. A worker came in and smiled at her. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

The child shrugged. "I suppose so." The crisp spring air and smell of roses blooming didn't make this day any different from every other day.

"Tsk, tsk. Such a bitter child." The man walked away.

That summer, Cora was following Ed around at the market. She was carrying his satchel and a few other things he had bought. Cora glanced at the toy cart and saw a girl her exact height run up to it. She pointed excitedly to a little music box, the older man she was with pulled some coins out of his pocket and counted them, and the treasure was hers. The girl squealed and ran away.

"Let's stop by the toy cart, Ed."

Ed laughed. "Cora, we wouldn't have money for toys even if you did have any time to play with them."

Cora stopped in her tracks. "That man over there just bought a toy for a girl my age. Why can't I have one, too?"

Ed let out an exasperated sigh. "It's simple, Cora. You're a servant. That girl isn't. Servants aren't allowed to have nice things. And they don't deserve to be loved."

Cora didn't budge. "I want it. If you don't get me that toy now, I'm not going to work for you anymore."

"Come here for a moment," Ed grabbed Cora by the hand and pulled her back behind a building so hard she was scared her arm was going to pop off. Then he slapped her across the face hard enough to make her head spin. And that was the end of that.

Three years later, Cora was outside washing clothes on a washboard. Around her, men were working. The youngest man, just slightly older-looking than Cora herself, kept glancing over and starring at her. Cora noticed but never looked back at him.

The next day, Cora was outside giving water to the thirsty men. The youngest man thanked her after he took his drink.

"My name's Alan," he said.

Cora glanced up. "Huh?" Alan just smiled and handed her a tiny bouquet of daisies. Cora accepted them and just giggled.

"I'm a servant. I'm not allowed to have nice things."

"Everybody deserves nice things."

Cora just looked away from him and continued distributing water.

A few days later, Alan came to Cora at the end of his workday and brought her a perfect white rose. This time she took it and put it in a vase. "Where did you get it?" she asked him.

"I found it in one of my mother's bushes. It took me days to find the perfect one."

Cora just turned her back and didn't say anything.

A few days after that, Alan gave Cora a pretty rock he'd looked for for her. She just took it and didn't say anything at all in response.

For ten days after that, he didn't give her anything. He just smiled at her every time he saw her and told her she was pretty.

What does he know? Thought Cora. Ed says servants can't be pretty.

Then on the eleventh day after work, Alan walked over to Cora and motioned for her to come over again. Because she knew that Ed would get mad at her if she refused one of his workers a request, she obliged.

"This is for you," said Alan. Cora gave her sarcastic smile and held out her hand, expecting another rock or flower. She gasped when what he pulled out of his satchel was a little hand-painted music box.

"I bought it for you myself," said Alan.

Cora's mouth dropped open in shock as she took it. "How…how much did this cost you?" she managed.

Alan shrugged. "Just half this week's wages."

"Alan," whispered Cora, quickly tucking the music box into a pocket so that no one would notice it, "Why did you spend money on me? I'm only a servant."

Alan blushed. "And I'm only a boy who works at a mill. There's not much difference, right?"

"Of course there is!" said Cora. "Servants don't get paid, and they don't get nice things, and they don't deserve to be loved."

Alan shook his head. "I don't believe that. I think you deserve to be loved more than any other girl I've ever seen." He turned and walked away, leaving Cora to stare after him in awe.

From that day on, Alan and Cora found a few minutes to talk at the end of each workday. Each flower he gave her was carefully pressed, and each pretty stone or rock was tucked away into the secret music box Cora kept under her pillow. In return for the gift he gave her, she gave him extra biscuits at mealtime and even the occasional cookie. Ed never found Cora's music box because she changed her own sheets, and he never noticed her friendship with Alan because he was too busy hanging out with the older workers.

By the time three years passed, what Cora and Alan had was no longer nearly as innocent as what it had been before. They loved each other as much as a thirteen and fifteen-year-old were capable of loving one another. He stayed after work often to help her with whatever she was doing just so that he could talk to her, and often snuck back later so they could talk and whisper in the darkness. She was the light of his life, and he was her reason to continue getting up in the morning.

"Alan," Cora whispered on evening. "Marry me."

Alan squeezed her hand in the darkness. "We're too young and poor to get married." Cora shook her head. Too young. Too poor. Whatever. Whenever she wasn't with Alan, Cora felt like her life was about as bad as it could possibly get.

"I do intend to marry you," Alan insisted. "Just not now. I want to marry you when I have enough money to buy you a house and pretty things to put in it."

"Cora?" called Ed. "Cora, I need you to bring me some ice water."

"Coming, Ed!" Cora lowered her voice again and whispered, "I don't need pretty things. I just need you." She felt his lips meet hers briefly in the darkness, and then he snuck out.

The next couple of years went by slowly. Alan promised Cora he was saving money to get their own place and showed her the money he was collecting.

"I don't understand why you don't get paid too," said Alan. "Servants are supposed to get paid."

"Ed says my payment is getting to sleep under his roof and eat his food," said Cora. "It has been my whole life. My parents died when I was two, and he inherited me and my father's mill."

"But why would your parents have chosen him to inherit and not some other guy who was going to treat you well?"

Cora shrugged. "My mother killed herself after she knew my father had died. It's not like she really cared about me."

If it wasn't for the fact that the pay was the best he'd find in town and the fact that it was the only inconspicuous way for him to continue seeing Cora every day, Ed never would have stayed working at that mill knowing how she was being treated. It didn't help that now that she was fifteen and looked like a woman, some of the other workers were starting to make remarks about her that Alan didn't like.

"What can I say?" said one worker about ten years Alan's senior to another. "I have a thing for young brunettes."

"Really?" teased his companion. "Then show it to her."

Alan clamped his jaw shut and continued what he was doing. The rest of the surrounding men laughed.

"You'd best not be letting the boss man hear you say that. I doubt he'd like hearing anyone talk about his niece that way."

Alan froze. His what?

"Don't worry. He doesn't care about her any more than he cared about his sister. He probably works her like a slave because of how much she reminds him of her."

"I'll bet there won't be too terribly high a bride price for the girl, either. Young, fresh, and cheap. Whoever he decides to let marry her is gonna be one lucky bastard."

That did it. Alan put down what he was doing and marched away from the group of men.

"Where do you think you're going, son?" hollered the oldest of the men.

"I'm getting a drink!" Alan yelled back.

Cora was in the kitchen mixing batter for a loaf of bread when she saw Alan marching away from the men and towards her. The door of the kitchen was flung open just as she was wiping the flour from her face. Wordlessly, Alan grabbed her and pulled her into a quick kiss.

"Marry me," he whispered. "I'm done waiting for you. Pack your things, at the end of my workday I'll tell Ed I'm quitting, and then you'll meet me at the crossroads by the mercantile. I'd rather we stay with my parents for a few months than stick around here any longer."

"Yes," Cora whispered back. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

For the first time, Cora couldn't help but smile as she finished making lunch for the workers and dinner for her uncle and cleaning the house and sweeping the floor. She and Alan exchanged deliriously happy smiles whenever they could.

All the while, Ed was upstairs doing his taxes. He got up when he heard a knock on his door and grumbled. Three of his workers were standing in his doorway.

"How many times do I have to tell you, you don't get your wages until the end of the workday on payday?"

"We're not here for our wages."

"We're here to tell you there might be something going on between Alan and your niece."

"He told us he was going in to get a drink, but we took a look at what he was doing in the kitchen with her, and that wasn't it."

Ed's scowl deepened.

"We didn't see him take her innocence," one of the workers clarified quickly. "But they were doing…other things." Actually, they hadn't even seen them kissing. The fact that Alan had run off to the kitchen during their particular conversation had just been a strong hint.

Ed still didn't say anything. "We came here to tell you that for one silver apiece, we will gladly walk the boy home from work today. You know…just in case something tragic should happen to him."

"It's a dangerous world out there, boss. He could get mauled by a wolf, or run over by a wagon, or trampled by a horse, or even fall in the lake." The three men grinned meaningfully.

Ed held up his hand and shook his head. "You've done enough. I'll take care of the boy myself. You'll get a copper apiece added to your wages for the warning." Wordlessly, Ed motioned for his workers to leave and go back to work.

It was true that Ed had no compassion for Cora as his niece. Or even as his servant. But that didn't change the fact that she was the cheapest labor he would ever have, and there was no way he was losing that to a poor boy. Ed opened up a box which he told people, if asked, contained his deceased mother's jewelry. What it really contained was a potion that he'd been saving for a special occasion for a long, long time.

In the storage room down the hall, Cora vaguely heard Ed walking past her as she removed her pillow from it's pillowcase and stuffed the pillowcase with her few outfits and wrapped them around all her secret presents from Alan. A little book full of pressed flowers. Two music boxes full of stones, hair ribbons, and other little things. Even a small doll. Her heart was beating wildly with excitement. It was finally happening. She was finally getting away from Ed and the mill and going to be with her true love.

"Alan, come here for a second," Ed called out as he approached his working men. Alan walked away from the group, who was looking at him behind his back as if he were a meal. "I'm not sure why, but Cora told me to give this to you to drink." He held out the little cup he'd poured the potion into. Alan took the cup eagerly and downed the potion.

"Why are all of you starring at me?" snapped Alan a second later. "Morons."

"Because they know I'm about to tell you you're fired," said Ed. "You don't work here anymore."

Alan spat at the ground. "Whatever. I don't need to deal with your boneheaded arrogance anyway."

Ed smiled. "Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to Cora before you leave?"

Alan's eyes narrowed. "Cora? Who's Cora?"

He had never showed up.

Shakily, Cora shut the front door behind her, sat down on the floor inside the doorway, and tucked her knees under her chin and cried.

"Did you really think you would come?"

Cora's head shot up. There was Ed sneering at her in the doorway.

"Oh, come on now. You didn't really think you could keep a secret from me, did you? I've known about the two of you all along." Ed picked up the packed pillowcase that she had sitting next to her and emptied its contents onto the table. Cora screamed.

"Did you really think he could love you?" Ed shook his head. "How many times have I told you that servants don't deserve to be loved?"

Cora gulped, her eyes glued to the treasures Ed now had in his possession. "But I love him. Why shouldn't he be able to love me back?"

"You really think you're the first person to ever let yourself love someone who's never going to care about you? Or who doesn't want you?" Ed shook his head. "No. Sorry to have to break this to you, but love is weakness. It's giving someone the power to break your heart and expecting them not to. And I'll tell you that never in my life have I seen that work out. The fact is, the world would be better off without it. And you of all people, a servant your whole life, should have known never to risk putting your heart on the line."

Cora began to cry. Her tears morphed into uncontrollable sobs as Ed went through her bundle and picked out everything of value she had in there. The music boxes, the doll, even most of the stones went in a crate he no doubt planned to take to the market. Everything that he deemed worthless was thrown in the wastebasket. He threw Cora's outfits and the pillowcase down at her feet and walked away.

Later that night, when Cora brought her outfits up to the room she slept in and put them away, she found dozens of pressed flowers from over the years clinging to the fabric. She cried and screamed as she pulled each one off and crushed it in her fist the way Alan had crushed her heart.

The one thing from him that she had and decided not to destroy was a figurine of a girl that had somehow slipped into the pocket of her apron. She decided to keep it to remind herself never to love anyone ever again.

The next few months passed in a blur of tears and pain and sometimes distress to the point of physical sickness. Alan never came back to work again. Cora later heard that his father had sent him to go live with relatives deeper in the country due to insolent behavior.

"You might have noticed that quite a few of my men have their eye on you, Cora," said Ed one day. "I think it's time you considered choosing a husband."

Cora glared and shook her head. "Love is weakness. You told me so yourself." Ed smiled. Exactly what he had wanted to hear.

One of the men came in and asked Cora for a quick sip of water. She gave it to him. "Lovely day outside, isn't it Cora?"

"It's fine," Cora replied coldly, retaining her glare.

The worker shook his head at her. "Bitter girl," he remarked.

As the years turned, Cora slowly hardened back into the spiteful, resentful girl that she was before Alan had come into her life. With every season, her discontent grew. She loathed Ed and all his men, but without them she wouldn't have food or a place to live. Occasionally she would try and refuse to work for a few hours, but even if she faked sick Ed would beat her until every inch of her body felt sore.

"I hate this place!" Cora screamed to herself when she thought nobody could hear her. She looked around at the walls around her and slammed herself into one. She wanted to beat them until they crumbled around her. She wanted the wheel turning outside burnt to a crisp along with the stacks of grain bags waiting to be made into flour and the bags of flour waiting to be shipped out. She wanted Ed and his men to die and burn.

"Are you okay, miss?"

Cora whipped around and saw one of Ed's newer hands standing behind her.

"No!" she snapped bitterly. "Now go away!"

He took a step towards her instead. "I've only been here for a few weeks, and I couldn't help but notice you're just about the unhappiest person I've ever seen in my life." Cora didn't respond. "How old are you, girl?"

"Twenty. So you can consider me a spinster."

"I'm actually married," said the worker, flashing a ring as evidence. "I just thought you might like to know how you can get away from this place."

"I can't get away," said Cora. "There's no one who would care enough to help me."

"Maybe so," said the man sympathetically. "But I do know where you can find a great and powerful being-a wizard, of sorts-who loves to make deals and can use magic to accomplish anything."

Cora raised her eyebrows. "I've never heard of such a man. What is he called?"

"Rumpelstiltskin."

A/N: Dammit, did I really just make Cora a sympathetic character? I promise you that was not my intention going in, honest! I totally ship Coralan now…but there's no way they can be together for my story to work.

Hope you enjoyed. Please review!