Helloooo Dearies!
Sorry I've been taking so long!
I don't know about ya'll but I'm like excited as f*** for *Once* Sunday night….
But what I'm really, really, really ready for is "The Miller's Daughter"
I'm ready to find out about this Cora-Rumplestiltskin-Regina triangle of mystery shit.
Seriously.
But, here we go with some new!
Chapter 16!
"Cowardice was all I had to cloak myself with." he sighed heavily, "Before magic that is…."
"Magic…"
Belle echoed as she turned and walked over to the mantle and leaned against the edge, cradling her head in her hands.
The word left a bitter taste in her mouth.
Rumplestitlskin remained silent as he watched her, twirling the dagger absently between his thumb and forefinger.
"Sometimes I regret coming here." She said quietly.
She turned to him to gage his reaction; but saw nothing but an empty pair of smothering eyes.
"There are times when Iwish that I could erase you from my mind…" she looked thoughtfully at herself in the mirror above the mantle and touched her collarbone lightly.
"…and my body."
Pausing, she glanced at him and continued, "If it wasn't for the kiss I would never-"
"Never what?" he snapped, digging the blade into the arm of his chair.
" -think it was True Love."
He rolled his eyes and casually slung one leg over the other, totally ignoring the frayed edges of the now-ruined crimson covering.
"Well, I am a difficult man to love." He replied flippantly as his hands danced in a dismissive gesture.
Belle shot him a hateful glare and narrowed her icy eyes.
"Believe me…" she hissed with growing ire, "I know."
He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
Her eyes grazed him up and down slumped in that chair; assessing their painful silence and waiting for him to do something, say something…
"You're just going to leave it at that then?" she seethed.
Rumplestiltskin rested his head against the back of his chair, "What do you want me to say dearie? That everything will be alright? That "True Love" will find a way?"
He forcefully yanked the blade out of the chair and stared at it.
"You know that I love you Belle, what more do you want of me?"
"What more do I want of you?!"
Her hands tangled wildly in her loose waves as she stared at him in disbelief.
"I want for you to trust me, to be honest with me!"
She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, "And to be a man."
As soon as the words had left her mouth she knew she had made a grievous error.
His cutting laugh assaulted Belle's ears.
He leapt from his seat and was before her in one stride, anger and amusement both danced across his ruddy face.
"So the truth comes out at last!"
The dagger clattered to the floor abandoned; but he was oblivious as he laughed heartily in her face.
Hearing that laugh made her blood run cold.
It was terrifying.
That evil, manic shrill could make grown men cower in fear; but Belle never was one to cower.
She had always faced her beasts head on.
"You mean you don't love me the way that I am? I thought you loved the monster as well as the….man."
He trailed a spindly finger down the side of her face and whispered huskily, "We all cannot hide behind beauty Belle."
"There's no decent way of talking to you. You twist and distort my words like you do people, Rumplestitlskin."
She slapped his offending hand away from her clean face.
"Oooohhh dearie…." he cackled as one long arm coiled around her waist. "You know it drives me simply mad when you say my name."
"Stop it Rumplestiltskin."
She forced her voice into an emotionless timbre.
He could not do this to her now.
"Love is blind." He purred into her ear. "Isn't that what you've always preached to me?"
"Yes." She bit out as she struggled against him, "But I'm not so sure that this is love anymore."
"And you're always so sure of yourself."
He grabbed a handful of her hair and inhaled deeply, "...aren't you Belle dear?"
"I thought I was once." She whispered hatefully as she locked eyes with him.
"Hmph." He mumbled dejectedly, letting his arm drop from her waist.
His mirth had disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Belle's novel melancholy sometimes had that effect on him.
He turned from her staunch figure and rubbed his forehead; a sign of annoyance that Belle knew all too well.
"You just keep clawing deeper and deeper don't you?" he sighed.
Belle angrily wiped away the swift clear tears that had unwillingly leaked from her stubborn eyes as she brushed gracelessly past him.
She paused however, and looked down at the knife lying by the chair.
"I suggest you pick that up Rumplestiltskin."
Her shimmering eyes darted to his dull gold face.
"You graduated me remember?"
She pulled her free-flowing hair away from the white column of her neck to reveal several angry bruises littered across the snowy terrain of her throat.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she trailed her delicate fingers down the path of savage bite marks; and then in a frosty voice she dug her claws even deeper into his haunted psyche.
"From your maid to your whore."