Dearie

Haltia's prompt: When Harry is young, he makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin (Rumplestiltskin) to take him away from his horrible relatives.

(Holy crap, this thing grew teeth~! This story mixes Once Upon A Time's Enchanted Land with more Grimm-like tales of Rapunzel (where she had twins, and her prince was blinded until he heard her singing and her tears healed him) and a Sleeping Beauty who is named Rosamond (whose twin is Briar the miller father of Cora) who is Harry's mother (his twin is Eva, Snow White's mother; they being "Sun and Moon")…and the Dark One and the Dark Fairy the origin of Orges and Robin Hood's Much the Miller's son, and, well, you'll have to read it to really understand it – and even then, it isn't much of a guarantee…)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Rosamond speaks….

How the Lands came to be is a story for the likes of wise women such as green clad Flora and red robed Fauna and blue cloaked Merryweather to tell as they spin flax, spin straw, spin and spin as the world turns.

This is not that tale.

Nor is the glorious begetting of giants by magic beans - or the miracle of dwarf kind from egg and pixie dust (that power that runs through all Lands) – or how Ursula was once the moon and came to love how the sea reflected her face and how by her lovely and lonely tears she became the mother of mermaids, who call her goddess.

No, this is a darker, truer, sort of story.

In the Enchanted Land, that is the rarest and most precious kind of story.

(For the roots of magic lay with lies and truth….)

It is Reul Ghorm's story, too, after she – the blue star – had fell and became the first fairy. (A godmother, some can claim still.)

She who was the first - the darkest power, the most ancient, ruler of the night; the blue star, who mankind (sprung from the blood of earth, the mud which they master) calls Maleficent – she who is both malevolent and magnificent.

(She can be one or the other, or one without the other, but prefers to be both at once and so is awful and awes.) She is called too the Dark Fairy, for she was the first fairy to be- the blue star which became a falling star, the first to be wished upon (what that wish was, and who made it - she will never say – some say she made all the Lands ever dreamed, by pixie dust and will).

Yes – it is Reul Ghorm's tale, but it is mine too, as much mine as hers, in fact.

You may call me Sleeping Beauty, for I am green clad Flora's granddaughter and Rumplestiltskin calls me kin – by red robed Fauna his mother. If Flora and Fauna are sisters with Merryweather, it is not for me to say that truth or lie – but they do call each other sister quite fondly while spinning, and so it must be so.

My mother, Flora told me upon her knee, was Rapunzel – taken by Reul Ghorm, stolen by a Northern prince. What became of my mother I do not know, but of me and my twin brother Briar, who took up the art of the mill – this, I will recall to you…

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

"Aunt Rosa?" Cora comes to her aunt's knees, wide eyed and shivering, for Rosamond who has pale cheeks and red lips and is a young Queen is weeping; holding two bundles to her bosom is if she can keep them there with her forever.

Her King is dead; Cora's father told his wife and daughter in hushed tones – killed by his Ogress mother, and Reul Ghorm had given Rosamond her vengeance - had made it so all from the land of Ogres had outsides to match their insides – where before they could mingle among other folk without stirring worry, now they were twisted and blind now, raging brutes.

Merryweather had been horrified by this, and so too Flora and Fauna, so a blade was being crafted, of magic made into metal shape- a Dark Curse for the Dark Fairy, and it would take the Dark Fairy's powers and give it to the One who had pierced her skin with it's blade.

She had fled her Northern towers and castles and palaces to come here, to her brother's lowly mill – it is peaceful here, all wide green countryside and wild lands. Here, she gives birth to twins, and knows she must return to her lands where the Duke rules in her stead, awaiting her return – and the King's heir.

"Oh, Cora dear, come here." Rosamond smiles down at her, showing Cora her twins. These are Cora's niece and nephew, those two babes, twins, one girl and one boy – just as Rosamond and Briar had been – Briar who was Cora's father.

"They are lovely, like the Sun and Moon." Cora explains, but her eyes linger on them, their pale cheeks and dark hair. Rosa laughs, surprised and delighted at her flattering words.

"Why, that is not a bad naming, so shall be their secret names – just between us, I think, yet…only one I can take, only one can rule – I would fear to raise two, to give the North twin heirs." Cora knows only a little of the dangerous of the North, of the War, and the Ogres – but what she does know makes her fear for the one taken with her Aunt Rosa. Makes her want to keep them both here safe – and it is a wish that she sees all too clearly on Queen Rosamond's face.

"So one must stay here…." It is Talia, Cora's mother who speaks. She was a miler's daughter – and a wise woman, and Briar would rather be with her than in his sister's court (in truth Rosamond would stay all her days here too, but knows her duty). Rosa nods, solemn faced and Talia bows her head pensively.

Cora's eyes widen as she realizes that in the end of her mother's choice she will have a new little brother or sister.

"I would wish so, if you would not nay say me." Rosa says, softly, and Talia looks up and at the twins.

"The girl you will call Eve aloud, but Moon in your mind – the boy we will call Much, for the Sun is more mighty here – and you will miss him; but the North is cold and calm and Eve would serve a throne better there." Rosamond kisses the baby boy Talia will keep, and gets up with Eve - before the dusk; she is gone, riding north.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Cora grows and so too does Much, her brother, and they learn that the Dark Fairy has lost her wings – but not her life – and her power is stolen by the blade that gives her power to some poor mortal called the Dark One under the control of the Duke. Her revenge for the curse was to curse in turn the one who had helped Merryweather take her power – so was Rosamond sleeps, her finger pricked by a spinning wheel's spindle.

Blue cloaked Merryweather takes up those fairy wings and Reul Ghorm's true name (and never sees Flora and Fauna anymore).

Princess Eva will not return Briar's letters, not about "the Sleeping Beauty", his sister, will not write back even when Talia dies. If she does not get the letters or does not care, they do not know (not for many, many years too late).

Cora never means to leave Much behind her, she tucks him into bed every night with stories about their namesakes, the maiden goddess Cora and the Sun and the Moon.

He is almost ten, and is ill, so when she returns to the mill to find her father drunk and 'resting' the day away, she goes to the palace to deliver the flour because no one else will do it – and she wants to eat and make sure Much has enough to eat, he is a growing boy, and sick in bed with a cough that makes Cora fear he will die just as her mother – his aunt – had.

So she goes to the palace and is tripped by a spoiled Princess (Eva, Eva, Eva – a name she never again forgets – never forgives). She means to treat herself to a bit of a trick after her humiliation (what could be more humiliating to the royals if they realized the pretty little Princess she appears in that stolen dress is nothing more than a miller's daughter – although they must not know (until, perhaps, after), or would take offense to the jest.)

She is caught – and caught twice by her own words, spin straw into gold or die by daybreak.

Cora meets her Rumplestiltskin then and there, and he offers her first born child for doing what she could not, spinning straw into gold. Teach me, she asks – and he does, and she loves him with all her heart. The king's son asks her to marry him, and she is trapped and caught - between wealth and power and love – and she thinks with her heart that she will chose her Rumplestiltskin.

(…if only Rumplestiltskin had never taught her to take hearts…)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

The last time Cora comes to see Much (before the wedding, she will whisper into his sleeping ear before she goes) at the mill, Cora creeps into her own house, her own old rooms, the offer of Prince Henry still ringing in her ears – to marry a Prince!

It's more than she; the miller's daughter has ever dared dream for. She looks for her brother's bed, a tiny thing of wood and straw (she has learned to spin that common straw into gold thanks to … and her heart twists and thumps to think of him, the Dark One as hers) and barely fits the boy within it.

He is quickly outgrowing it.

(No matter, she will have another built for him, a finer one, one that will last him a lifetime.)

He stirs sleepily, and at the sight of him looking about in the darkness, searching it, and fixing his green eyes on her, love for him wells up in her, for her brother who she's raised as if he is her own child. How can she make a life without a place for him within it?

It's a simple problem with a simple solution – she won't, he only has to wait a bit, not much.

"Cora?" He calls out into the dark for her, and she goes to his side as if he's summoned her – as if that is where she belongs. He is a little boy and should not have such power over her, or her heart – yet he does. She is sure he is as magical as she is, as magical as Rumplestiltskin – but good, so good –too good - and of the Light, not the Dark.

"I'm here." Cora takes his hands into hers, and he curls his tiny body to be nearer to her. She wonders if she will love the child she carries as much as she loves her precious brother.

"Where did you go, Dad…he...he…" Her brother's green eyes flick away, unwilling to admit what her father has done to him in her absence – not wanting her to feel the guilt of the condemn and the betrayer - and Cora sees the bruise on his arm, and rage bubbles up in her, hot and scorching.

"I did not go very far, only to the palace, where I live now - but I will have to go back again. I only wanted to visit you now, but when, when things are settled – I will come back for you, you hear me?" She holds onto him, and he holds her just as tightly. He has always been frail looking, but she's always felt he was stronger than he looked, and she knows now what she sensed was his magic.

"I have something for you." Cora shows him it, a red gleaming jewel, her heart within it makes it lovelier than any ruby.

She presses it into his hands.

"It isn't much." She admits, but what is hers – is his, and he looks up at her with wide eyes.

"It's a promise." Her brother says, whisper soft, putting her heart about his neck. She kisses his brow in agreement, ruffling his black hair, and leaves as quietly as she had came.

In the morning the miller wakes him with blows and shouts, and the boy Much – who in Briar's eyes hasn't got a proper name, for sometimes the miller makes him answer to others (and if the boy does not answer, he is beaten) going by Mills, or Greene (for his eyes), or Hairy (for his hair is like his sister Cora's if nothing else is) – but today, he holds tight to Cora's heart and tells the man who took him in for the sake of Cora that is name is Much.

Briar the miller, the brother of Sleeping Beauty, the widower, he laughs and laughs.

"Your right, right to be called that – you're not Much to look at boy, not worth Much at all."

Much hates him.

Says so – and is beaten harder than any other time before.

He is bruised and blooded when the miller puts him to bed, sick in both heath and body now.

It is the middle of the night and Much watches the red jewel that used to gleam lovelier than any heart grow dim and fade. He thinks she's died – or forgotten him – and he cries into his pillow at night and makes wishes he could just leave Briar and the mill and never come back.

(He doesn't know that he just saw Cora's heart break, her true love denied.)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Rumplestiltskin has lost his son, his Baelfire, his boy, his first born, so he knows bone deep just how precious children are – he has watched them slaughtered, and taken by the likes of Peter Pan (his own father the Pied Piper).

So he seeks most of all to save them. To make their parents – who are flawed men and women who will one day have power and not know what power does best is take their own flaws and corrupt them – he takes their parents, the parents of children who will be born with that power, and he teaches them, threatens them – and mostly, it's fun.

Mostly, it doesn't hurt him.

Cora's broken his heart, Rumplestiltskin fears – and his heart is already in so many pieces, burnt and blackened and he thinks there is no mending it.

All he has is power, his magic, he is the Dark One.

(The Light cries out and he hears.)

"Wish (the image of a fist, coming down fast) that I (a bloodied boy a broken boy a sick boy) could be free (the sight of endless fields, of the woods that are wild and the blue sky above it all) of him (a man with a mean face and bloody fist) here (a mill house, between village and palace)."

It is because of the Dark Fairy's wand in his hand that Rumplestiltskin hears. (A gift of the wise women clad in green and red who taught him to use the spinning wheel.)

It is because Rumplestiltskin is who he is (was) that he goes to see the boy whose wish tastes like weeping tears.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

"Hello, little lad…." Rumplestiltskin speaks up from the shadows he's appeared from, so the boy won't be frightened. His own son had been older when taken from him, but this boy has been roughly and harshly used.

He is otherwise delicate looking, almost elfin - with green eyes like grass and milky white skin – it would be smooth and unblemished, if not for the bruises and blood on his cheeks and arms and shoulders (Rumplestiltskin's eyes narrow, but he can not tell where else that little body is bruised because of his rough sleeping clothes).

It is wrong, and everything in Rumplestiltskin that is a father… hates the sight of it.

"Who are you?" Much demands, sitting up in bed, the light of the moon filling his room, so he can see Rumplestiltskin quite easily. He stands before the boy's bed, tall and slender in leather and green skinned like a toad, and he bows, elegant as any lady in a Queen's court.

"Rumplestiltskin, dear lad, is my name - wishes, well, wishes are my pleasure." Much's green eyes widen at that, and Rumplestiltskin smiles.

"You'd take me away with you?" The boy does not ask where he would go with him, and Rumplestiltskin offers his hand for the boy to take. He looks at that hand, its scales and green flicked skin, hard looking like leather – but the boy, Much, he takes it.

"I'm Much." The boy offers, but Rumplestiltskin only smiles, because Much offered his name – and Rumplestiltskin heard more in that name than what others would. He hears Might and Sun, and Mills and Hairy.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Much demands, and Rumplestiltskin laughs, giggles gleefully, feeling like a child to kick up his heels and dance and clap to a flute tune and a voice.

"Not Much!" Rumplestiltskin quips for the boy wants to go more than he, and the boy giggles (his first after a very long time) – and Rumplestiltskin follows what his heart says to do and does a little jig, dancing about the room with the boy and spinning him away into shadow to be taken to Rumplestiltskin's castle.

Rumplestiltskin grins very differently then, and his teeth are sharp and gleaming and he flicks his fingers (because the Dark Fairy's wand would be wasted upon this task) and leaves in his wake a fire that will burn and burn for three days thereafter.

The boy Much eats bread and cheese off golden plates and sips milk from a silver cup.

He will never want for anything.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

It is days after her wedding – but it is the first time she has been able to get away from everyone, and she thought to see Much at the wedding – but her adopted brother had not been there and neither had her father. She thought it a slight on her father's part but now she sees why that can not be so. They never got the invitations – and no one ever told her why.

The mill is a blackened smear upon the land, of the fire's remains, there is nothing to call home here.

Yet Much and her father Briar had died here – and for Much she hopes it was the easier death of smoke and suffocation rather than burning and pain. The burning and pain she hopes her father Briar suffered – and suffers still in the afterlife.

Cora sees life thought where there should be none, the climbing rose Queen Viking sheltering slumbering Evening Primrose which under the light of the moon would be yellow like the sunlight. There she plants Heliotropium, which reminds her of her brother whose secret name had been Sun.

(That there are Hurricane Lily growing nearby the pond, which Much had named her flower, she does not linger long upon thinking of.)

She will name her daughter Regina - for like Rosamond, Cora's aunt and Harry's mother, she will be a Queen.

Yet it is the red Poppy, sacred plant to the goddess Cora that she thinks of in truth suits her daughter best.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Regina is raised in court full of cold elegance with stilted graces, as a child she knows she is barely royalty for all that her name means queen – she is the daughter of a miller's daughter, and that her grandfather King Xavier makes sure she knows, is no kind of linage to claim a throne by.

Her mother's claim otherwise is bold and bright and a dream that Regina doesn't dare grasp for. Regina admires her mother from afar; in Cora's shadow no one dares mock or harm her, it is far safer.

Yet it is an ache, to be her mother's daughter.

Her father Prince Henry seems to see what it does to Regina to be at court, and he moves them to a manor house with stables and an apple orchard; it is when she takes a walk to see the apple blossoms that Regina meets her first friend.

"Hail, child of the land, hello my niece, how do you fair fine day?" Regina can't help but yelp at the first sight of him up in the tree above her.

His shadow, she remembers it as if he is a giant peering down at her and his curling black hair hung down into his face and the limbs of the tree were as horns upon his head. Something red winked down at her, and she thought it eyes or bloody teeth and so gasped so hard it was like stifling a scream, she fell back, her hands raised up and eyes shut tight – sure she would die.

(Many years later she will see in another Land image upon ancient imagine of that Land's old gods and the ones they call Green Man and Horned Gods and she will wonder at her uncle as she smiles sadly and misses (mourns) him.)

His laughter, for all his looks had at first been frightening, were like a light rain falling from his lips.

"Why so low?" He teases, as he leaps down from the tree, landing in a crouch at her side – face to face, he makes her breath again catch, this time at his beauty – he has it, like Cora her mother does, beauty that is natural and full. Like looking at an ocean for the first time, or the landscape of places untouched – it is a beauty that Regina envies him.

Despite his taunt, his green eyes look over her with care, seeking to see if she is bruised or bloodied from her tripping – it a look like her father gives her when she is foolish. She sits up stiffly and briskly flicks her skirts to rightness, as if shrugging away her indignities. She looks to him under her lashes, and sees by his smile that he is amused by her antics – but he is a boy, as little as she is, and has no horns although he is too lovely to look at without it being called staring.

"Who are you, to claim me as kin…? I do not know you, not even your name!" Regina stands and the boy stands before her, blinking in the sunlight that reaches through the apple tress as if to touch him.

"You do not know my name…? That, that is your mother's fault, not mine! My name is Much, and once – once your mother called me brother, but that…that was before she left me behind. I'm not surprised she didn't tell you about me, probably doesn't want to remember me…" The boy, Much, he cradles in his hand the red thing, and it gleams like a jewel, winking and twinkling – yet for the first time Regina sees the darkness in it too, how a shadow of darkness, like mist, whirls through the red like a mist that warns of a storm.

"She… she left you behind too?" Regina must ask it, because this boy is like her – a child – and Cora has gone off to speak at court, and she won't be back until nearly winter.

"Yes, long ago - do you think…think she's forgotten me? Forgotten in her heart too?" He looks down at the red jewel with such sorrow, that Regina thinks she might cry too if he starts to.

"No, no, I am sure you are wrong – Mother doesn't forget things. I will tell her your name, Much – when I see her next - and she will remember you in her heart." Regina offers her hand and Much puts away the shining red stone and holds onto her hand as she pulls him laughingly through the apple orchard, playing the whole day long and when she gets hungry he fetches apples from the trees (though the trees are not yet ripe, and other fruit too he brings down – grapes and oranges and peaches and mangos and more, yet she knows this for magic and does not question how or why – for it is magic).

Before he goes away he and she meet Daniel at the stables, where Much says goodbye, and Regina never gets to ask what the red jewel about his neck is.

(She never asks, and sometimes after he is gone, she wonders if this is a kind of magic too, and thinks its best not to question it- or to ask of Much too much.)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Queen Eva curls away from her husband King Leopold in their bed, and looks to the window where across the Moon's light a shadow stirs, it beckons to her. Eva rises as silently as the snow outside falls and goes to the window where a shadow stands waiting for her.

"Sister, twin, isn't lovely?" Much greets her, winking, and she clasps her hands with his in welcome; the world that she can see is white. She shivers in the wake of the sight of it. She is in awe of it. Above it the Moon hovers, protective, shining.

His hands have always been warm to her, earthy; once she saw a mountain spew forth fire that she later found was in nature melted stone. His warmth reminds her of that. Power, in so little thing like his hands, he thinks nothing of what he is. On a cold night such as this, all Eva thinks of is that her own hands are so very cold, like the dust upon the Moon. She is to the Moon, what Much is to the Sun.

"It is snow white out there - the worst winter storm the North has seen yet." Eva kisses Much's brow and thanks all the stars in the heavens for her twin to be at her side, their black hair mingles together. There is not much difference between her hair length and his, nor the care and curl of the locks.

He is a youth of only eleven in looks, and this is the doing of Rumplestiltskin – for reasons that Much either does not know, or can not say. Eva is a woman grown, young and lovely like the Moon itself on a summer night, her belly swollen and her beauty and pride shining fully upon her face.

Once she had hated everyone, was wary of everyone, cold to anyone and everyone she deemed beneath her (but, truly, her heart had been lonely).

Those days had passed her by the day her brother came to her and told her that he had been told about her for the first time in his life (and this day too, she had learned that into this world she had not been born alone) and had to see. See her. She had treasured every sight of him since, and it was easy to see he felt at ease with her as well.

"It is the worst storm in the Land, sister – the worst that will ever be." Much looked upon that sight, and smiled, glancing to her swollen belly – Eva felt her face suddenly lose its color and look as white as the snow they saw outside.

"Now?" Eva asks, demands, as if Much could stop it –or has chosen it. He throws his head back and laughs.

"Now, sister, yes. The Land says so." She holds tight to his hands.

"You will not leave me." Much kisses her cheeks and nods his head.

"So I vow, as our Mother sleeps, I will not leave you side in her stead." He whispers it, as if it is a secret – and that Eva remembers, clings to, despite pain (more pain than she has ever known before) and blood and tears and words.

"It is Snow White." She claims, as Much coddles his littlest niece, making a great fool of himself as he smiles so largely at her as if had born her daughter himself (or if he thought that Snow White could smile and coo right back, which she can't, all she manages is a stunned and sleepy look) – he's cleaned her up under the watchful eye of Eva and Joanna, her midwife and most trusted servant.

His eyes spark with pride as he passes her up for Eva to take.

"So she is, sister, so she is." Eva nods, and Much gets up to let King Leopold into her chambers, where he sees his heir and through Snow White is a odd name, he does not dare protest while Much sits by his sister's side and tells little Snow of his - her mother's family, of all the good and wicked within it, it is a story Leopold will never forget, for it is told with magic, illusions and shadows and whispers, and while the King can not say he is threatened by Much, who is all but Rumplestiltskin's adored fostered child – nor can he say for certain that he isn't.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Belle changes things, Much knows this upon seeing her for the first time – when Rumplestiltskin brings her home with him (this is a first, for despite many "deals" for first-born babes Much has noticed that Rumplestiltskin never brings home anyone – some might come looking for him, being welcome to try - while there is that occasional unwelcome strangers, no one is in Much's home who does not want to be there).

So she is here willingly.

She just cleans things, at first, and Much just watches her from the shadows where he can see her but she can not see him – and that is safer; because Much does not know her and does not trust her and wonders what Rumplestiltskin is doing.

The Dark Wand, though – that is not hers (not, now, Rumplestiltskin's either), and she tries to clean it – and it is his, it is Much's and he can't let her clean it.

(Of all things!)

So, he protests, most spectacularly.

(Perhaps a bit too Much.)

"Don't!" It's a snarl from the very shadows of the castle that the likes of Much and Rumplestiltskin call home, it is theirs – they who made it a home, where before it had been anything but. Much is the rolling thick shadows of the room, the darkness given breath, thick with life and magic.

He remembers that when she screams, too late. She cries out again and covers her eyes and does not see Much as he forces another form, this of a youth of eleven – his true form, the truth.

"I'm sorry if I scared you. You startled me, it's just – that - that is mine – and you mustn't touch it, not even Rumplestiltskin can take it without my say so." Much goes to it, because it calls to him, it's in his blood, the Dark Wand's magic.

Once, long ago, they hadn't known that, and Much had taken up the Dark Wand and used what had not been his - but the Dark Fairy's and it remembered her, not him; so when he used it–it had used him.

(To Wake her, Maleficent once called Reul Ghorm – but that name was no longer hers, as the Dark Wand wasn't.)

Rumplestiltskin had stood by, helpless to do anything but calling out to all the most powerful people he knew to help, to Flora and Fauna who in those days still spin their wheel among the men and women of this Land (had once, long ago, taught to Rumplestiltskin their art).

Maleficent had come to claim what was hers, she had hunched over Much as a dragon, amour black hide and snarling smoke, as if he were her egg or treasure. That he was Sleeping Beauty's son that was simply an ironic icing – through pleasing. The Dark Wand would wake in him the blood of his Mother, that of the Land itself, and that power Maleficent could use, could twist.

Help had come – as Cora, as green thumbed Flora and red clothed Fauna and tiny winged blue adorned Merryweather and Ursula her sea loving daughter.

Maleficent laughed in the face of them all, hissing and spitting fire, until Cora met her fire with fire and they were so well matched that Maleficent had to try.

(And in trying, Cora had won – for Much was snatched away from underneath her belly.)

Such things that Much had learned that day were ingrained in his blood, his Sleeping Beauty mother's name, Rosamond – it's meaning as the rose of the world, pure rose, the protector of horses (all the king's horses, all the kings) she who could make Lands of her dreams and who the Land loved.

His sister, Eva – shining, radiant, beautiful as their Mother (as Much is, as Cora is, as Regina will be and Briar's terrible beauty had been) life in the darkness - she was living and so long as she was, so too did Much feel compelled to do the same. (Now he lives for Regina and little Snow White.)

That very day he had gone to meet Eva, to see her – and never regretted it.

Maleficent had forgotten her ire with him in losing her Dark Wand for the change and challenge and the chance to have an ally in Cora (and while Much did not like that – Cora did not seem to care) it gave her no more power than what she had had, but a student and someone to trade spells (curses too) with.

So Much knows what change is – and know that Belle is it, and Belle must see something in his gaze, for she glances away.

"I wouldn't, I won't – take it, I…I was just trying to be useful to him, he doesn't seem to know what to do with me." Belle looks about the castle, and Much knows that here she doesn't know what to do with herself either.

"We are all a little lost here. You'll find yourself, and one day Rumplestiltskin will find his son." Belle's eyes are wide, but she follows Much to the garden where heliotropium and golden moon wishbone flowers tangle together underneath a tree with golden apples which Much warns her not to eat.

"You'll be like me if you do, I think." Rumplestiltskin never warned him, but he warns her – but it isn't a warning she heeds.

She eats and never ages, like he. (Like Cora, like Regina will…)

They are apples that Flora grows and gifts to those of her blood she loves.

(Much never dares ask her, what about Eva…)

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Snow White learns to walk with Much at her side, on a sunny winter day in the courtyard, it isn't until her feet stand upon the ground under her own power that she notices – too late –that she stands on the Moon Drop, white and delicate snow flower.

She doesn't see why the fuss (it's just a flower) until Much is joined by Eva and the ground underneath their feet which had been cold and frosted is warmed and melted and muddy, and from beneath Eva's bare feet Evening Primrose grow, and between Much's toes Heliotropium spring to life.

It is not long after that Eva dies - in her favorite fountain pool, triumphant red Hurricane Lily grows, poisonous.

Much sees it, and goes, and no matter how good or bad Snow White is – she never sees him again.

He becomes a faint memory – and then a fading one – and then one that she thinks she dreamed.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Regina knows her mother loved her, once, for once Much showed to her mother's heart. How warm it was, how red despite the swelling black.

Yet Much does not come to her when Regina's heart is broken – when Daniel dies, when Regina marries King Leopold, Snow White's father.

He is gone, she decides, when Regina sends her mother into a mirror and it shatters it trapping her mother in another world.

Gone forever – and maybe Cora knew what became of him, but she won't say – and neither will Rumplestiltskin, and of what she knows Belle never says despite once being but a stupid girl.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Such men as Robin Hood are rare, Much knows – there is something about him that Much likes at first sight and perhaps it is that his sister Eva is dead and Regina will have nothing to do with him and he will not show Snow White his face for fear of what she will think (she thinks Regina is jealous of her beauty, Snow White's beauty, her power, it is as frail as it is terrible, and Regina's is noble and steadfast – his, his is not like Eva's kind and enduring lively beauty, but the beauty of the darkest day, brightness tainted and Snow need not see no more of that).

Cora he can not – dare not – reach out to. Wonderland would take Much if it could, it would bend him and breath him and break him and remake him. Better not to take the risk, and Cora knows it and does not spite him for it.

(Much knows because a Seer says, much later, that Robin Hood should be Regina's true love. They were to meet after she ran away with Daniel and Daniel grew cold and cruel and she would wander about in the woods and Robin would save her and love her. Cora, knowing or unknowing, keeps her fate from his – and so one day, Robin Hood will save Snow White and never know that she could have been his adopted daughter too.)

It is the Dark Wand that Robin Hood wants, and Much wonders why, but tells to Belle that it is okay and that Robin Hood may take what is Much's (although Rumplestiltskin would have it otherwise). Much follows Robin Hood, like a child would follow the Pied Piper (father Peter Pan to Rumplestiltskin) out into the deep woods near a castle where Maleficent dwells.

Robin Hood takes up the Dark Wand and uses it for healing the fair and lovely maid Marian, Robin Hood's lovely wife, her belly swollen and her body sick.

Much knows that Belle and Rumplestiltskin had followed him, and when they go – he does not follow. Robin Hood gives him back his Dark Wand and offers Much a place among his band of Merry Men. It is one which Much takes up gladly.

Something to do, steal from the rich, give to the poor.

It is Much that tattoo's Robin Hood with a Lion and tells him he should one day be a King.

It is the day maiden Marian dies, and little Roland is born.

Roland who Much talks to when he can talk to few others, of everything and anything, for Roland knows Much can be trusted though there are things that he giggles at that Much tells to him off hand, always with a smile and a wave of his hand – as if it doesn't matter now, or yet (but Roland listens to the stories about Shadows and Never Land and how he must never say in the darkest of nights that he believes – that is why all of Much's stories are told under the full light of day when there aren't many shadows to be seen).

Little John, when Roland one day asks him what of Much's stories where true and which are not, says all of them are the truth– for Much, who isn't with them now because of that no good damned-to-hell (in Wonderland) Will Scarlet, was Rumplestiltskin's fostered child – a child fostered here in the castle that Robin and his father's Merry Men call home.

Once it was Much's, and Roland treasures the knowing of that.

He doesn't dare ask what happened to Much because of Will Scarlet.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

What happened is this – one day Maleficent was away from her castle, and Robin Hood and his Merry Men (Will Scarlet among them) stole away gold and money –things that Maleficent cares not about, but Will Scarlet stole something priceless. A glass which with Maleficent and her old friend Cora spoke, planned, plotted and traded spell for spell (Cora's daughter will trade Maleficent curses, and call her friend for it).

She warned them fairly, that – not even Much can argue.

"Steal from the rich and give to the poor, indeed, my dear." Maleficent smiles upon Much who rears up upon his hind legs, protesting with his height and the swinging of his hooves. His hide is black and his horn is sharp and she finds it funny that he is a unicorn, a horned horse and his mother's name was Rosamond, horse protector indeed.

"Only be wary, what is taken is paid for thrice over, such are magic's laws." Maleficent preens, flicking her hair, smirking at her black unicorn companion.

They learn to – if not like – to tolerate each other, and Cora is pleased that Maleficent cares for her brother (if he is not in human shape, so be it, for he rarely was when he could have been) while she is away.

She promises to return.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Cora keeps her promises.

She sees to it that Much is let lose from Maleficent's castle, she leads him to Rumplestiltskin's own, which once he called home. In a garden with golden apples, she tells to him what Regina will do to the Enchanted Land – and how, if he is awake and aware to feel it – it will hurt him badly. His body that of a black unicorn, would take it badly, that pain – and Cora has not the time to give him his own form back again.

She loves her brother; she offers the Curse of Sleep. He lays down before her, forelegs tucked to his chest and back legs by his side and he takes the red apple she would have him eat, and swallows it down, piece by piece.

Cora holds and coddles him until he is still and sleeps like the dead.

She goes to Hook – who does not miss her and probably did not notice she'd gone – and casts a protective spell that will ensure that when the time comes she will be there for her daughter – and her brother.

*~o~*~o~*~o~*

Much dreams of a world where he is not Much, but a boy, a wizard, and his aunt and uncle and cousin are cruel but not evil, where he knows the face of evil and speaks to serpents.

He lives in a town (a village, a world) that does not see magic, does not know it – but he does, and tries to win against evil all but alone. (Is that not how heroes do it?)

He dreams again of a life, in it he sees books – seven long ones and three short – that tell of the life he lived in the other dream. In them he is called Harry Potter – it is like the name he takes in the town Harry Greene.

Like that of the butterfly that dreamed it was a man (or a man not knowing he was a man dreaming of being a butterfly); he dreams too of a Mr. Gold who takes him away from sour adoptive relatives, who cares, and who sends him away for school to be taught (he and Mr. Gold and Mayor Mills, they laugh a little every day over what he has learned when he comes back to Mr. Gold's home in Storybrooke.

One day Mayor Mills brings by her son, Henry – and Harry-who-is-Much tells Henry of the Egyptian god Nefertem who in rising from primal dark waters brought life and light to the world, how people still call that flower the lotus but Harry tells him the name of it is the Blue Egyptian Water Lily – and that Henry smells like that, and one day Henry will do great and wonderful things.

He isn't surprised when Emma comes to town – and time starts to tick; and how bright she becomes, like the Gladiolus, spearing into the dark, their Savior. Harry Greene disappears that day, the day she succeeds and no one but she – and her son Henry – remember him.

(They had been his friends, and Henry doesn't need to make Emma promise to try everything – anything – to find him.)

Much does not, in the end, know how many lives he has lived dreaming – he only knows now that he waits – and when he wakes it is to the smell of the Blue Morning Glory's petals to his lips, a sweet innocent kiss, the true love of a sibling.

He opens his eyes to see a sister he never knew he had, Aurora is her name, and it is fitting he see her – it is dawn when he wakes.

"Brother." Aurora smiles and it's like the rays of the sun touching his face, warming him outside and in, her belly is heavy but she manages to crouch beside the black unicorn and kiss its nose and pet it soothingly as he wakes. True Love is a magic, and magic has its threes, there is love in romance – yes, but love too in family, and in undying loyalty.

He looks and sees her lover (Phillip, he finds the name on his tongue, that he has dreamed not only his own lives but of those close to him) – and Mulan, who nods standing at Roland's side – there too is Robin Hood and Little John, and Will Scarlet looking strangely shy (he smells of Genie) a girl Alice and her Cyrus and Anastasia standing by her sister Cinderella who holds in her arms her daughter Alexandra and at her side is Sean-who-is-Thomas and Regina who meets his eyes and raises her brow to Robin with a small smirk.

She knows he is meant to be hers, and must smell his magic about the Lion marking by now.

Others are there too – Never Land's Wendy and her two brothers, and the seven Dwarves and one Merryweather (who winks for him to keep his silence and her secret).

Snow White weeps to see him, stoking him gently as if he is a dream that might flee from her touch. Her Prince Charming at her side and Much can smell the child kindling within (not the first, the first is Emma – who is not here, who is elsewhere, left behind with Henry).

"Oh, I thought you were a thing out of a child's imagination, forgive me, uncle." Under Snow's touch Much shudders into his proper shape, a boy of eleven, tangled black hair peering up at them all with green eyes like living things.

"We need help." Killian Jones – Captain Hook, pleads. And Much agrees silently, he gets to his feet as unsteady as a newborn foal, but he takes his steps and is glad he's kept his cloven feet- one can't be one thing for so very long and not expect consequences. Regina offers her arm to steady him and he takes it, Snow White touches his back for balance as he finds it.

The Dark within him would grow and twist and take, but he is Rosamond's son, named for the Sun, and he can not be turned Dark unless he wants to be. He will not take up the Dark Fairy's Wand, for it is an Elder thing – and deadly.

"Can you help us?" Aurora, his sister, does not seem to think it likely by the look on her face. He does not blame her.

"You do not need me, but Emma and Henry – and to get them, that I can help with." He tells them of a cottage between cliffs upon the shore by the sea where once Giants peaceably passed, where Rosamond and her mother Rapunzel keep it, as it has always been home to Flora and Fauna. It is where magic beans grow in the Enchanted Land, kept from fairies and mankind alike at the request of their sister Merryweather – a cove where mermaids play and Pegasus comes to shed his winter feathers.

A sea side cottage where Aurora was born after a King had visited, and when he left, he took her away with him – for the children of Rosamond are meant for the protection of the Land.

He sends Hook on his way, with directions fixed upon a compus, for of them he's the one who has a ship and can be spared.

"You have hooves, brother." Aurora says, looking down upon his cloven hooves. He laughs a little, for the others do not ask.

"So I do, sister, so I do." His green eyes glint behind his black hair and he offers his hand to her, which is just as human looking as it always has been.

"And, two horns, brother..." Aurora continues, for they are there – and it is better to address what she sees than to ignore it and hope it goes away one day, the Dark does not so easily let go of what it once claimed in a Curse.

"Two horns? Perhaps to match the trouble of your twins…." Aurora giggles, and touches her swollen stomach fondly. She does not doubt it. Twins run in the family, Aurora is a rare child her heart and soul is twin to Emma's own, he thinks – just as Regina and Snow White are at heart the same.

"Twins? What will we do, Philip? We only have one name!" Names, Much knows are important things. At his look, Philip gives him the name.

"Lea." Philip offers, proudly, and Much nods thoughtfully. It reminds him of light, and rays of dawn. Dawn and Day, Much thinks- but does not say yet, are their secret names.

"Perhaps the boy should be named something like Aether, perhaps Borealis or Dagr." The children, Much can tell already will smell of the Sunflower and Daffodil, bright living things, Light lovers. He will do what he can to ensure that they grow up happily in the Enchanted Land.

"Dagr, I like it." Aurora muses and Philip nods.

"Now tell me what of who stirs the Dark." Much looks to each of them in the eye, and is told all of what they know – some of which he knows from his dreaming, and some which he had not. None of it makes them –or him - very happy in the telling.

Yet it is the happy moments and glorious legends that the magic shines out of from, stories out of myths and lore that another Land might call fae tales (for the mermaids which swim in every sea and sing, Muses of the sailors who are the first story tellers) from such as this is the pixie dust and fairy dust made.

So there is no true ending.

Only moments in Dark or Light where the story stops, but heed the stories and love them, and you will see the lines of thread that the spinning sisters weave, all together, always, all ways.

(Don't you believe?)