Gold was currently sitting in his study, thinking about life and other things. Winter knocked on the door and then stuck her head in. "Michael's here to see you Gold." She said.
Gold couldn't help looking at her for a moment, thinking about the circumstances of when they met, how it is she came to live with him in the enchanted forest, of how short that time had been, and all sorts of little things. He could remember the young girl crying because of the siblings she had harmed, of parents who were afraid of her, of all the times he came to check up on her and how she was slowly succumbing to fear. "Yes, send him in." And then as an afterthought he said. "Oh and Winter, have the day off."
"Thank you sir." Winter said in a mixture of shock and thanks.
A few moments later Michael came in and after shutting the door, he sat down. "Letting the staff have a day off, dear heavens are you feeling all right?"
"I've been known to do generous things and you know it."
"No you actually haven't." Michael said smiling. "So what's on your mind, I'm pretty sure I could hear you thinking all the way from my house."
"Children, lost opportunities, regret. When I looked at Winter I saw the young girl I should've helped when she was eight years old, not when she was 24."
"All this is a terrible line of thinking, what brought you on to it?"
"Eight months ago I got my wife pregnant. In one month I will have children, and the curse will be broken soon. I'm thinking of, what the heck I should do." Gold said before sitting back in his chair and drinking a large gulp of scotch.
"Well there are many things you could do, would you mind being a little more specific."
"How on earth am I supposed to defend my children when this darned curse breaks? For 28 years I've been thinking of nothing more than this curse breaking, and now if it does there is a very good chance I will have an angry mob outside my door with pitchforks and torches calling for my blood, and the blood of three innocents. And as much as I like to delude myself into thinking that I could possibly be there for them to always protect them, I know for a fact that won't be possible. I'll have to leave town in order to find Bae, I may have to go and help Emma with something, with the luck I've had with children previously, a meteor might as well just fall out of the sky and land right on their nursery." He said, knocking on wood after he said it. "And I know what you are going to say, that you would of course be there to help guard them whenever I couldn't. That's not good enough to put my mind at ease."
"Well it's good to know you have so much faith in me old friend." Michael said laughing. "But I do hope you realize that there are no other power sorcerers around who are capable of protecting your children, at least none that you trust. Unless of course you've been meaning to tell me that you suddenly developed an overwhelming case of stupidity and decided that Regina or Maleficent in Dragon form should be trusted in guarding them. Or that you secretly been hiding someone more powerful than me in your basements."
"No, something quite worse, and far more drastic." Gold then handed Michael a thin book. And only a moment after Michael had opened it, he gasped in horror and dropped it.
"You are joking. Please tell me that this is some joke, or an act of lunacy, or some way of hoping that this will convince me to take a blood oath to protect those children, not that I would need much convincing, or the oath." Michal said.
"I take it you disapprove."
"Wholeheartedly, completely, with every fiber of my being; and this is me being very understated in my opinion." Michal said sternly.
"Will you help me do it?"
"Would you give up this madness and not do it if I said no?" Michael asked, and Gold simply responded by shaking his head. "Then yes I will help you. But I want it on the record that I think this is a horrible idea."
"Your comments have been recorded, reviewed, and ignored." Gold said chuckling.
"I hope you realize what you're getting yourself into."
"My old friend, since when have we truly known what we were getting ourselves into."
A long, long, time ago. In the Enchanted Forest.
Rumplestiltskin had been dark one for nearly 10 years now, and self-appointed ruler of the dark Castle for almost 5. He had by now well established himself as The Dark One, and he greatly enjoyed the perks of said title, namely the fact that everyone feared him, and he feared no one.
It has not taken him long to realize just how desperate people were when it comes to making a deal, and that he can get almost anything from them if he offered them just the right thing.
It was on this day however that he realized one small flaw in his business model. The Princess or lady or something, of some small country or something, honestly he really didn't care much. She had made a deal with him for 100 spools of gold thread in order to act as a dowry so that she could marry some Prince or something, and in return she had promised him an ancient tome of magic, and if the marriage was successful the Prince was rumored to have a few rather rare books in his own library.
The flaw in Rumple's business model that he had found today was that while the Princess was traveling to his home in order to give him his payment, bandits had come in the night and stolen anything that wasn't nailed to the ground. Clothing, jewelry, the carriage, the horses, and most importantly the books. Apparently this is what he got for not having a policy of paying in advance.
Luckily the bandits were sloppy, and stupid. It took him barely a day to find their camp, the glittering gold of the carriage easily being seen from quite a distance even in the forest, that and the loud hooting and hollering of the bandits as they danced around the campfire, obviously enjoying a great deal of alcohol that they bought with their ill-gotten gains.
Rumpelstiltskin walked right up into the middle of the camp, and with but a wave of his hand put all the bandits to sleep. He would have killed them, but he was focused on first finding the books and making sure they were safe, after all what good was it if he got them stained with blood, or couldn't find them because the thieves had enough intelligence to hide them.
When he finally managed to find the books, not only were there the four or five he been promised, but another seven.
What shocked him the most was the fact that there were also books about ancient magic. "I don't suppose you'd consider giving me my books back easily?"
Rumpelstiltskin quickly turned around to see an old man with a grey beard and a long wooden staff standing no more than 10 feet behind him. "I might, but I can't help but wonder if they're worth anything. And if you might consider trading for them."
"I'm not sure." The man said, looking around. "I'm going to guess that because there simply a large number of drunken sleeping men on the ground, that not only are you responsible, but they stole from you as well."
"From the client actually, Mr. I didn't catch your name."
"I didn't give it. But it's Merlin in case you were wondering."
"Merlin, really." Rumplestiltskin then turned and bowed. "And I am Rumpelstiltskin, The Dark One."
"Another Dark One, dear heavens you bunch die too easily."
"I beg your pardon." Rumple said confused. "And just what does that mean?"
"I have met three dark ones in my lifetime. Habenar, Zozo, and now Rumpelstiltskin. What is with being a Dark One and having such an interesting name?"
"This coming from man named Merlin."
"Good point good point. But you still haven't answered my original question. Are you going to let me have my books and be on my merry way?"
"And you haven't answered mine, do you think there is anything I could give you that might be worth parting with them."
"There might be. If you want the books, how about a story. That seems like a rather fair trade to me."
"And just what kind of story would you like?"
"You may have been the Dark One for some time, but it's not hard to detect certain little details that give away your roots. I'm curious as the story behind why, a man who appears to be from the lower classes, and was more than likely a spinner at one point, whatever would make him decide to face Zozo and gain his power. What could've possibly made you so desperate?"
Rumpelstiltskin was taken aback by this. "You seem to think you know me already, why would you want that?"
"All I'm sure I can guess. If you were spinner, I would put you in one of the higher tiers of the lower class. This means you are probably married, but as I've never heard of the Dark One in the last few years having wife I'm assuming she is dead. And since you are at least 35 years of age when you took on the curse, one can assume you had a child. But once again as I've not heard of a Dark One having a child recently, one can also assume that he or she is dead. Then we must go by what I heard about Zozo which was that he went insane. He was forcing children to go to the battlefields of the ogre wars. So one can assume that it was desperation to save your child that caused you to seek him out and gain his power. How am I doing?" Merlin said looking at Rumpelstiltskin. The latter was far too shocked to be able to speak. "I'll take that as a yes. But what I would like to know is the full story, about the wife and the child and all those little details."
"And why would you want to know when you know all that?"
"I have lived some 400 years already, and I am growing old and lonely. Perhaps I wish to know if it is possible that we might become friends."
Rumple couldn't help but laugh at that. "Us? Friends? Whatever would give you that idea?"
"A very simple one actually, when you've been around long enough, and seeing civilizations grow and crumble, seen entire families go through a dozen generations before finally dying out. You get a little lonely, and since neither of us is likely to die of old age, why not?"
Rumple just stood there for a moment, thinking. And then stretching out his hand, Merlin came forward to shake it. "You have a deal."
Merlin and Rumplestiltskin had, to say the least, an unusual friendship. It was tentative at first; they occasionally traded information and what not, but rarely anything else. They didn't go down to the tavern and just chat, or go through a marketplace looking for deals and commenting on all the pretty women, or just have one of them over for tea to discuss every day boring life things.
That is until The Tragedy. For that is what they called it, as it was too painful of an event to give it a more descriptive, and therefore a memorable name, and then certain dots connected.
Merlin had known The Tragedy was coming, and he knew he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years to stop it. He had made a deal with The Blue Fairy years ago, and paid for in advance. The deal was for a portal bean, supposedly the last of its kind, but The Blue Fairy said that it had been stolen from her. And Merlin was far too busy searching all the lands for another one in order to really scrutinize that statement.
Rumpelstiltskin had found Merlin in his tower, weeping. Once the whole thing had been explained to him, Rumple also wept. While Merlin and he may not have been the best of friends, he had gotten to know who was affected by the tragedy, and when Rumple told Merlin the story of how Baelfire had been lost to him, they both suddenly developed a newfound hatred for a certain fairy.
From then on they had become very good friends, united in grief, and a new goal. Their purpose now was to finish the dark curse, and to make sure it was cast.
While in private they had a very good relationship, in public they made sure to have the worst of one. One of the most famous of those disagreements was when Rumple came and stole the Gauntlet of Weakness from Camelot, and almost destroyed half the Castle when he was doing it. Merlin had to commend him for showmanship, and rebuke him because Merlin was the one that had to clean up the mess.
Storybrooke.
"I know you're not going to, but would my begging make you consider stopping this idiotic plan?" Michael asked.
"It would make me consider sure, stopping me on the other hand..." Gold replied. Michael had been attempting to convince him to stop for the full 10 minute walk through the forest, and 20 minute drive up to the path. "This is my only option, it's not the worst one all things considered."
"There's only four ways this can end. All of them are bad and three of them we don't want, I can't think of many options that could possibly be worse."
"Something that can end four ways and all of them we don't want that are all bad."
"Hardy har har, and just out of curiosity, how many plans do you have like that, that will end with your soul possibly being torn asunder?"
"Not many I'll admit, but if you have a better plan than don't do this, speak up now or shut up and help."
"I don't. Doesn't mean this is a good idea."
"I know." Gold said. They then came to a flat piece of land, with a rather nice view of town. They instantly got to work.
First they set out a wood table, and then Michael got out a rather large syringe. "Roll up your sleeve, hopefully this will hurt lots." Gold did what he said, and Michael stuck a needle into Gold's arm and drew out a sizable amount of blood. When the syringe was full, he set it aside and pulled out another one. He repeated the process until they had five syringes.
Taking one of the syringes, Michael poured the blood into a bowl with a little bit of oil, and then with the paintbrush made a large circle in the center of the table, and then put four lines out and made four smaller circles, all of them in equal distance apart. They then put the dark one's dagger in the northern circle; the ball Rumple had made for Baelfire in the southern circle; in the Western circle they placed a ring that Mr. Gold had always worn; and the Eastern circle they placed the wedding ring he wore. They then placed a large clay bowl in the center.
"Let's see, we have blood, earwax, the nose hairs, the eyelash, the tear, the fingernails, and the scrapings from your tongue. I miss anything?" Michael said looking at Gold.
"No, that's everything." Gold said. And he then poured all the ingredients into the bowl and with a puff of magic from Michael; they managed to stir together quite nicely. They then added some oil into the mixture and along the sides of the bowl, and then placed in some bark from the dark forest. Striking a match lit the entire concoction on fire, which slowly spread to the outside of the bowl and went along the blood and circled the four objects.
Oh higher powers of the earth.
We come to you now on bended knees with a plea for your help.
To take the soul of the man you see here.
To take the darkness from within that even now lays dormant.
To bind it to this parchment.
Of which these words are written.
And to part the soul in two.
So that this darkness may be controlled and fought.
So that he may finally overcome the darkness within.
When they finished, the flames suddenly jumped up and became green before settling back down, and then a moment later went out. "Well, now for the hard part." Gold said.
"I don't know if it's the hard part anymore, at least in this world they have balloons instead of glass." Michael said pulling out a balloon. "Now this is definitely going to hurt." Michael then put up his hand and began making a pulling motion, his fingers closing as his hand moved backwards, and then opening as it went forward again. Slowly but surely a fine white sand came up out of Gold's skin, Michael was slowly pulling out a small amount of his bone in a fine powdered form. He then put a funnel that you might use for a car into a balloon and poured the powder down, and then taking the dark one's dagger, cut a sizable amount of flesh off of Gold's arm. He then healed him before placing it into the balloon as well.
He then placed a photo of Gold into the balloon, followed by a piece of note paper with some writing on it, and some hair. "Imagine, in the old days you'd need to get some glass and blow up an orb and then keep it hot while you place the ingredients inside and then cut it off while your breath was still inside. Now all you need is a child's plaything." He said handing the balloon to Gold.
"Convenience of the modern world and all that." Gold then blew up the balloon.
"So before we do this, did we forget anything?" Michael asked.
"Mind, body, and spirit, the image, some skin and bone. Nothing I can think of." Gold said looking at the book with the instructions. "Looks like we have everything." He then looked at Michael. "Are you trying to slow us down so I'll not do this?"
"No, it's just best to be sure, I'd hate for this idiotic idea to go wrong because of us be neglectful. After all I want to give you a fighting chance at not dying, and more importantly me."
And with that Michael cast the spell over the balloon, and it began to glow from blue to pink to red, and then a moment later transformed into a very long piece of parchment, wrapped up as a scroll which was still glowing.
Oh power of the ancients.
Hear our plea.
Allow this scroll to become a worthy vessel for an ancient power.
May it be untouchable by Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.
Let it hold within it the power of Quintessence.
Bind it to the power of its creator.
Whose image is held within.
And may it forever act.
As a housing for part of their soul.
When they finished the scroll also stopped glowing. "Okay, now for the hard part." Michael then made a fountain pen appear. "The book says you have to write, every single little memory or detail you can about being the dark one, not just what happened, but what you felt, what you smelled, what you tasted, anything and everything you can possibly remember you need to put on this scroll."
"And then we wait for magic to come back and hope and pray it worked." Gold said.
"Yep, and pray that we don't die in the process of "working"."
Thank you to Twyla Mercedes as always for your kind review, and Skyeward MusicLover of course, and of course to my wonderful beta Grace5231973, and last but not least as lozzy035.
And today's question of the week. What are Gold and Michal up to?
And what do you think The Tragedy is? You have been given a clue already, and you've even met someone(s) who are connected with what happened, other than Rumple, Merlin, and Blue that is.
2014.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
2015.
Resolution- to do better at updateing.