A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing lovelies! Also, last night: mother of plot twist…. Who else did not see that coming?
~8~8~
"Did you enjoy the book, Belle?" The Dark One inquired happily as he arrived back in the main hall enveloped in a womb of magic. Ominous thunder heads of dark purple roiled and swarmed through the room as he appeared in a wicked bloom of his sinister magic's.
Magic crackled off his gray-gold flesh like lightening in a gale as he stepped free from the chariot of magic that ferried him to and fro. A bulging gray bundle made of navy blue seal skin and wrapped with white twine rested in his right hand as he stepped unto the plush carpet of the main hall.
Tossing the hefty package carelessly upon the oaken table, the fiend slowly pulled the twine that bound the package together with his pinch talons. Sonorous jangling of iron upon iron rattled luridly through the draft laden air as the bundle became undone.
A sinister smile curled upon his scaled visage whilst his sable eyes stared down at the unloosed burden. Before him laid a few dastardly treasures he had no means to use in many a day.
Vile implements crafted for a torturers art sat displayed upon the table from the bulging package. Rusted, curved tools that looked like hooks, cast iron pincers, molded brands, blood crusted thumb severs, eye gouges still laced with gore, cat o nine tail entwined with razors, and other tools from a bygone age crafted only for the means of pain and agony spread from the sinister package like some morbid gift given from thoughtful demons.
Spiked teeth, nails, iron balls meant to snap bone were all Cora truly had in her repertoire of torture devices. She had always preferred her magic to cause blistering agony and not stain her skin with the workings of pain. Her store of torments had been sorely lacking, but with the package plucked up from his dusty Dark Castle, other tools now awaited for tortuous delight upon the foolish thief hanging in the cell.
Picking out a jagged tooth saw from his abhorrent collection, the fiend casually inspected the tool as though the torturing implement were some fine bibelot. Golden light from the windows glinted from the well kept teeth of the surgeons saw, but stopped at the long ago dried blood eternally encrusted on the blade. After gathering the tools from his dreaded citadel and finding a few trinkets to please Cora and sooth the ire lurking just beneath her lovely flesh, he was in a much finer mood than when he had departed.
"I'll try not to be too loud." He wielded the frightening many teethed tool expertly in his scaled grip. "I can't promise the same courtesy from our prisoner." A chuckle at his own clever, morbid joke escaped his lips.
Carelessly waving his hand the malicious imp smiled. "Cora won't be along for a while so you may read more if you like."
Nodding tremulously the enslaved beauty sat down nervously upon a gold hued divan nestled in the main hall. For once in a long time she was glad for her tattered dress of gold, for the ragged folds kept the sight of her shaking knees from showing.
Her calloused fingers fumbled nervously for the book, she'd placed under a pillow, which he had so graciously given her before departing on his tasks with his vile lover. In her mind she could not help but think the tome to be his last act of kindness towards her. Surely he would not be pleased with finding their prisoner bereft of his cell and that he had not escaped on his own wits and sly merits. Oh no, he would be furious to learn there had been a helper in his emancipation, and she was that rescuer.
Taking her silence and the book in her hands as a good sign, the Dark One retied his gray butcher's apron about his sinewy figure. At least she hadn't brought up the prisoner again, he conceded happily in his ancient mind. Perhaps she finally succumbed to leaving well enough alone and worrying about herself and her plight instead of others she need not concern herself.
Humming a pleasant tune, his spirits buoyed by the pleasant change, the magical monster stalked down the stairs. Scaled talons twirling the saw lazily in his grip, the Dark One descended the dreaded halls and the black stairwell leading into the maw of the personal hellish pit Cora had constructed for those who opposed her.
An impish grin stole upon his lips as he neared the door of their unfortunate guest. Belle had a bit of freedom, his lover was busy, happily working on her plots and gathering magic's, and there was a prisoner to make beg for the sweet kiss of death to steal the breath from his lunges. Chuckling vilely at the good and evil thoughts swarming together as one about his black heart, the Dark One pushed open the door, his heart light. Today was turning out to be a rather pleasant day after all….
Though the dungeons rested in the dark belly of the sordid keep, sound traveled amazing well upon the drafty winds floating amidst the dread corridors and the gilt rooms that pockmarked Cora's vast citadel. Even a loud enough moan of agony could carry through the castle, filling every niche with the deathly wail.
To Belle, there was no doubt in her mind she was about to hear something. Even if sound was mute upon the gray stone, she held no inkling of dubiousness in her heart there was going to be noise. In no way would the Dark One appreciate his prisoner spirited away after he'd so painstaking gathered such tools for the thief's demise.
Gathering the courage to her stalwart heart, Belle stared hard upon the letters in the tome the Dark One had given her. The words so neatly scrawled page by yellowed paged looked akin to a foreign tongue as her cobalt eyes ran the lines. In her head, the letters went only to her vision and stopped. She didn't even have an inkling of a clue what the book was about.
How could she enjoy such a treat with what was about to transpire?
As she numbly glanced over the pages, her mind followed the route to the cells. In five years she had learned every step, every movement to the cages in the black belly of the keep. He would be near the last stairs; she ran the course along in her mind. Stalking through a small corridor he would arrive at the door. He would pause for a moment for keys or magic to unlock the door, she noted. After that he would open the portal and….
"Belle!" The beast barked furiously from the foul bowels of the keep.
A shivered trailed Belle's spine at his voice roared from the hellish depths of the castles. His voice seemed like the cry of a raging dragon newly awakened by some foolish knight from a deep slumber.
Though she had been expecting something of that nature, her body involuntarily flinched in a spasm of dire terror. The beauty's heart back flipped crazily in her chest with the angry tone carrying her moniker.
Wariness cowled her lovely face behind the tomes brown hide as she kept staring at the indecipherable words inscripted upon the fresh pages. Oh yes, she was in titanic trouble for what she'd done.
Breathing deep, Belle tried to sooth her quivering nerves. There was no going back now, and she wouldn't even if she could. The die was cast and whatever came after just had to happen.
"Where is he?" Rumpelstiltskin grounded out through his clenched black and yellowed teeth as he appeared like a rampant dragon in the main hall of his lover's manse. His boots stomped in some thunderous crescendo about the echoing stone walls as he neared the enslaved beauty.
Though she had tried to calm herself, the action was in vain. Horror froze her blood in her veins as he loomed over her like some gray-gold tower of death. His sable depths glinted unknown fury and his fists clenched in vices at his sides.
Part of her wished to play dumb, but they both knew that would avail her nothing in the long run. All acting oblivious would do was make him angrier.
Swallowing her terror in a boulder down her throat, the beauty serenely placed the gifted book on her lap. "Gone." She stated simply, her voice calm and steady. Blue depths looked up bravely into his jet black dots, showing not a hint of fabulist falsehood to her words. "I set him free."
"What?" The fiend's scaled brow crinkled into thin lines disbelief. His sable orbs stared at her for a moment as though her words were spoken in a foreign tongue his brain could not comprehend.
Let him free…?
Belle's chin jutted high, her crystal blue eyes filled with righteous defiance to his kindling wrath. "I couldn't just sit here and let you torture someone."
"He was a thief!" The magical monster bellowed in her face, his eyes glaring with pernicious murder.
Anger roared in a conflagration in his oily soul, his rage a tempest that could not be contained. How dare she do something so foolish.
Before she could stab out with her reasons he scoffed at her. A dangerous snarl wrenched his thin lips. "Oh but let me guess, you think he's a hero for stealing from the cruel witch and trying to slay the beast. You read too many books!" Summoning magic to his bidding, he slashed his talons thought the air as though cutting through intangible skin.
Immediately a purple cloud enveloped his gift from her work calloused hands. Strands of purple turned into a thick smog, taking the gifted tome away page by yellowed page from her lap.
There, the fiend felt an inch of dark satisfaction. He had lost something enjoyable and now she had as well. Taking the book was puerile in the face of his anger, but he wanted to lash out at something, and her rare moment of pleasure seemed the only available target to harm.
Looking down, Belle felt her heart sink with the slight weight of the tome banished. Fear swirled through her brave heart but she disbanded any feeling of regret for what she had done. A person was more important than books.
"There." The fiend spat down, his words blistering of acrid bile. "Perhaps that will stop filling your head with poisonous thoughts.!"
"I didn't free him from what I read." Belle protested firmly, her words strong as she faced the raging beast eye to eye. Courage against his barbarous roaring overtook the ample fear that bound cords of terror about her heart. "I saw good in him. That man only wanted to escape with his life."
A hallow scoff fell from the beasts lips, his eyes cool obsidian at her. Nothing was ever that clear cut, even from someone being tormented. "Is that what you thought?" Dark mocking laced his words. "Our thief escaped with more than his life." Backing up, he proffered his hand to the pedestal the wand had once rested.
Almost hypnotized, Belle could not help but followed his scaled claws. He was like some wicked salesmen drawing her gaze to some anathema. In slow horror her cobalt eyes rested upon the barren holder.
Where the crystal wand had been was nothing more than air. The entire reason the prisoner had been locked away was gone from the perch, spirited away by a bloodied but undaunted thief.
Despair plunged her heart in the tundra of her frosty stomach as she stared forlornly at the emptiness. Confidence fell like extinguished fire from her lovely features. Oh no, that was not good.
"You were tricked." The Dark One hissed angrily, his timbre low and cutting into her heart. "You foolish, gullible girl!"
How could someone so bright have been so foolish, the Dark One questioned in his ancient mind. Did she not give one spare thought of the tormenting consequences for letting him go? Did she not think of Cora? Was some malice in the slave girl so great she was willing to brave her mistress' wrath all to know she lost a wand she would never have again?
Vapidly rising from the plush divan, the beauty stared in blank horror at the bereft stand. Thoughts and explanations swarmed her mind in a whirlwind of scenarios that would explain the disappearance. Perhaps Cora had moved the wand and he didn't know. Perhaps… perhaps….
Betrayal and cheated bile swam heatedly through boiling lava in her stoic heart. No matter what excuses she doled to her heart, she knew the truth of the matter. The thief, after her clemency and courage to face her mistress blistering rage, had stolen his quarry all the same.
Staring at the barren perch a sprig of hate slashed a dark swath across her bright heart. After what she had done, how could he have stolen the wand? How could he have doused her into more trouble?
"We don't know why he needed that wand." Belle countered insipidly, her voice holding an inch of quaking. Despite Hood's thievery, part of her knew there was some dire importance to the wand. No one would have braved such a journey into Cora's castle for mere selfish means.
Angrily turning, the fiend muttered a stinging black profanity to the drafty air. "He took the wand because he wanted magic." Frustrated, he tossed the rusted saw back to the table. The tool clattered against its tortuous brothers and slid away as the Dark One neared the table once more. "People who want magic never have good intentions. Never!"
"That's not true." Belle took a brazen step forward. Even with his shield of anger up, she dared face him, trying to break through his carapace. Choking back a stew of courage, fear, tenderness, and betray all bubbling inside her heart, she neared close. "You can't know what's in a person's heart until you truly know them."
"What are you babbling about to your master, slave?" Cora queried curiously as she appeared in the main hall.
Like a vile shadow oozing over the room, the witch entered into her terrible home; a ghost returning to a mausoleum. Nightmarish black feathers fell and evaporated like burst of breathing mist into the floor that fell apart as she strode fully into the ostentation chamber. Slowly the darkness peeled away revealing her in all her cruel beauty.
A dark blue dress donned her form as though she had been to some gathering or other. Her hair was pinned up and a velvet cloak of blue lightly trailed the floor behind her every step.
A curious glint danced in her almond orbs a she flashed a stare from the Dark One to the enslaved beauty. She's only a moment to catch a snatch of their conversation, but she couldn't place what any of the words meant.
A brow perch she focused her attention on the magical monster. By the look in his midnight eyes he was less than happy. "Something amiss Rumpel, dear?"
Breath caught in a chilled vice in Belle's throat at the sudden inquiry. All that would be need was one word of her treachery and most likely Cora would put her in place of the prisoner that had once dangled in the cell awaiting torment.
Goosebumps involuntarily rose on the beauty's peach toned skin as the witch cast her glance on her. Her skin itched under the gaze of her mistress. Already she could feel the implements of the Dark One's collection set to work on her supple flesh for what she had done.
Clawing a hand through his dirty brown hair, the Dark One snarled. The words came out before the darkness lurking inside could argue with them. "Our prisoner escaped and stole your wand."
Immediately shock and anger laced Cora's features. Surprise branded her face giving her an awed reflection. Her cunning eyes studied his as though not comprehending. "What, how?"
"Obviously by some magical means we must have overlooked." The magical monster lied smoothly. "He had the arrows and the bow perhaps he held more magic just in case of some moment to make free."
"And you just let him go?" Cora shrieked luridly into Belle's ear. Fury bubbled from her lips like rabid froth coating her ruby mouth. There was no way she couldn't have heard the prisoner escape, much less not viewed him take his leave.
Fumbling for words, the beauty fought to grasp what to say to appease her furious mistress. Her mouth moved, but not the smallest sound escaped. The Dark One, surprisingly still had covered her, but that meant little if she could find nary a recourse of explanation.
"You pathetic, little traitorous worm!" The vile harpy screamed maliciously. "You let him waltz right out that door! I know you did, and with my wand!" Magic crackled dangerously about her. "Well, lets see how a few torments work on you then since you're so keen on letting thieves simply pass you by."
"I've a better idea, Cora." The Dark One growled in tandem to his lover's pernicious fury. In no way was his blood sated from his cheated torture, but he still did not wish to view Belle harmed. She had done something foolish, but that did not give leave to rend her flesh from bone. "We will hunt down this cur." He turned his fathomless black orbs to Belle. 'We will see what's in his heart when I shoot and arrow through it! And because I am a showman." The fiend snapped his dexterous talons and summoned the bow of the thief in a spurt of damson magic without hint of pausing. "It will be with his bow, and because this is your fault you get to come and watch and know as the blood oozes from his stuck body, it will be you and your rags to wipe it up!"
Cora clapped her magic laden hands in wicked delight for his inferno of anger. A grin of purest evil pleasure marred her paled visage. This was the Dark One she loved. "An excellent idea, Rumpel!" She crowed. Her snake eyes turned back to the beauty in wicked glee. "And perhaps this shall teach you not to cross your betters." Nodding she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll prepare the carriage Rumpel. You put affairs in order before we leave to hunt our runaway."
As she disappeared once more, the fiend glowered pernicious murder towards the girl. Anger at himself and her both mingled into one congruent entity of wrath. Of course he was in no way sated of his bursting anger, but even in his rage he shuddered to think of the girl bound and tortured like the thief.
The darkness wished to see her punished in the most tortuous of way, be he denied the evil such delight. For the so called Robin Hood, such things were fine, even welcomed, but for kind, gentle, fire-behind-her-sky-blue-eyes Belle, never.
Pain sluiced her cobalt depths as they found his midnight depths again. Though he had just inexplicably saved her from horrendous torments, he had sentenced her to watch the death of one she had just saved.
Guilt pointed the Dark One's equally as dark soul as he stared into the pain behind the sapphire orbs he adored. That should have been relief, not agony. Did she still feel pity for the prisoner who had plunged her into so much chaos?
"You should feel grateful!" The magical monster hissed in a low, feral growl to the girl. "Cora would have done much worse than this. This is a mercy to you!"
A sea of words lapped upon Belle's tongue and near burst from her swelling heart to the open air to tangle with his anger. He had a very good point, and she was grateful to be at least spared such torments, but at the cost of another's blood, still was not right.
Averting her cobalt eyes, the beauty remained silent, not certain what to say. If she exclaimed her thanks, he might think himself justified in slaughter but if she didn't he might think her ungrateful for lying for her sake to Cora even in his anger. Least of all she didn't want him to think she did not care he had spared her from the vile implements housed in his lover's foul dungeons.
"Ready to depart, Rumpel?" Cora asked almost jovially, reappearing in their midst. The witch practically skipped about as though they were headed to a picnic and not a killing. Her almond eyes glowed cheerfully and her wicked watermelon smile split nearly from ear to ear in unmitigated delight of the suffering at hand.
She was always so joyous to cause pain, of course.
Sable eyes boring into the beauty, the fiend glared daggers at her. His mouth set in a grim line as he stepped back a pace. "Already, Cora." The fiend nodded tersely, his eyes never leaving Belle's.
"Actually, no, almost ready." The vile witch remarked afterwards. Stalking towards the beauty, the sorceress stared in cruel delight to her slave. "We need to take special precaution bringing her along. Who knows she might have planned this. Perhaps she hopes escape in the outdoors from the castle walls. I don't want her to get tempted on a whiff of freedom outside these walls."
Whisking her black gloved hands through the air, the witch brought forth an item once lodged in the belly of her foul dungeons. Clouds of oily black covered whatever Cora held in her hand, leaving Belle's imagination swirling in horror.
Before Belle could move from the unknown thing inside the miasma of darkness, the sinister harpy grasped her hands in her strong, raven like fingers. A click and a jangling of iron echoed through the main hall as the witch clamped down on Belle's wrist. Her carnelian smile was a cruel grin that branded upon the beauty's heart as Cora held her wrists for a moment more to make certain whatever she had done remained.
As the acrid black smoke departed, Belle felt her limbs heavy and metal digging into her skin. Looking down as though viewing some horrid gift, the beauty saw at last what the witch intended. Black iron shackles wrapped in a cruel vice against her skin, restricting her freedom to a few motions.
The iron bracelets dug mercilessly into her flesh, and the black links were scourged with old blood telling of some long ago, unhappy wearer of the shackles before death had cast them off. In the center of the chain binding her wrist one to the other an iron lead dangled in Cora's hands giving her full control of her slave's whereabouts in the outside world.
"There. Just to make certain you don't get any ideas of running away, slave." The dark mistress smiled cruelly and gave the iron lead a tug causing Belle to lurch forward in a jangling of iron. Turning to the Dark One she assented a faint, demure nod. "Now we're ready to hunt down our thief."