Author's note: Some dialogue taken from canon. I still don't own OUAT! Taking liberties with my version of the Apprentice and the Author.
Snow White was lost. Her sleeve had snagged on a wayward branch for the last time, one final tear taking it clean off. She stopped and looked at it, knowing that she wouldn't be able to mend it, not here in the middle of the Infinite Forest. At least she was wearing what she thought of as her bandit garb, which was more practical under the circumstances than the royal finery she had grown up in.
David saw the direction of her gaze and murmured ruefully, "At this rate, we'll be wearing animal skins by winter."
She glanced at him, smiling despite everything. "Then we'll have to find a way out before then!"
David sighed. "I'm sorry, Snow. I thought I'd be able to retrace our route."
"Well, we're alive, and if we're lost, so are King George's assassins and Regina's Black Knights." In fact, they hadn't seen anyone at all since they had fled into the forest. At first, they had been too happy to have survived to worry about it, welcoming a moment of peace before the next battle, but now—
"But we're no closer to winning back your kingdom," said David, voicing her thought aloud.
Snow nodded with a grimace. "I hate to think what Regina is doing to our people. We can do this. Don't lose hope, Charming."
"That's what I told myself last time. I knew I had to find you." Then he shook his head. "But Snow, it's been months. Maybe we have to consider our options..."
"No! You can't call him." Snow grabbed David's hand in alarm. "Not after what we did. He'd kill us!"
"He didn't strike me as the forgiving type," David admitted. "But he isn't the only one who has magic in the world."
"I've tried wishing upon a star." She had tried more than once. "But we must be too deep in the forest for the fairies to hear us."
"Not the fairies. There's a legend my mother told me, about tree spirits that come to the aid of the heroes."
"Your mother sounds like a wise woman," said a voice from behind them.
David and Snow spun at once, he drawing his sword and she whipping out her bow and nocking an arrow before the stranger had finished speaking.
"Maleficent!" David aimed the sword at the infamous sorceress. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for valiant heroes." Maleficent paid no heed to sword or bow, merely eyeing Snow and her husband up and down. "And the two of you seem to be in that line, or so I hear."
Snow kept the arrow nocked but didn't draw the bow, as Maleficent showed no inclination to attack. "And why would a villain be looking for heroes?"
"Relax. I'm not here to fight." Maleficent kept her crystal-topped staff resting loosely on the ground. "We can help each other. You want to escape this forest. I want the answer to a question."
Snow and David exchanged a glance. Could they risk cooperating with evil? Hoping she wasn't making a mistake, Snow lowered her bow. "What question?"
The Tree of Wisdom.
Sunlight shone through its wide, spreading branches, giving it an unearthly golden glow. A ring of stones set it apart from the rest of the forest. Two larger rocks formed an opening in the ring, each one marked by a golden handprint.
As it turned out, Maleficent's question was for this magical tree, but it would only share its knowledge if asked by two 'valiant heroes'. "My question is, how may I open the gate of Tartarus?"
"What? No!" Snow, who had been about to try placing a hand in the print embedded in the rock, stumbled back in shock. Tartarus? That was where the gods had imprisoned all sorts of monsters and villains from the dawn of time. "You would release so much evil on the world?"
"I would right a great injustice," said Maleficent evenly.
"You're a villain," David pointed out. "What you consider injustice is more likely to be justice!"
"Then don't think of me as a villain," said the woman with the ominous black headdress complete with wicked-looking horns. "Think of me as a mother. Trust that no mother wants her child to hatch into a world full of evil..."
Snow eyed her warily. "You're..."
"Expecting, yes." Maleficent's expression softened. "And I want her to have the chance to know her family... wouldn't you want the same for your children?"
"If your family is locked in Tartarus, they must have been locked away for good reason."
Maleficent lowered her gaze. "Even if they were guilty and deserved punishment, it's been over three thousand years. Isn't that long enough?"
It was longer than Snow could really imagine. She felt a pang of sympathy. "Maybe." She wavered. "But what if they haven't changed? It's too dangerous."
"I thought heroes understood mercy and forgiveness..." Maleficent's words were soft, but the challenge was clear. Were they heroes or not?
Snow and David exchanged another glance. Then David suggested, "Why don't we ask the tree if it's safe to let them out?"
Snow nodded. "Good idea." She reached forward again towards the handprint, David mirroring her on the other side. After she asked the question, the handprints glowed gold. A matching light shone from the tree. Then it darkened to an angry red, and a burst of force sent both of them flying back. Snow scrambled back to her feet, suspicious and confused. "Why didn't it answer our question?"
"Unless the witch was lying..." David looked accusingly at Maleficent.
"I didn't lie about anything." Maleficent frowned, looking just as baffled as she studied them. "Maybe you aren't as valiant as I thought."
"Let's go, Charming. This is a waste of time." As Snow made to walk off, Maleficent tilted her staff to block her way.
"No. It should have worked. Unless..." Maleficent's gaze sharpened. "Ah! Why didn't I see it sooner? The sparkle in your eye, the glow of your Snow White skin. You're carrying a child, my dear."
Snow froze. "What?"
"That's why the tree of wisdom knocked you back."
A child? She was pregnant? Could she trust the word of a monster? But Snow White felt it in her heart that it was true. "We're going to be parents."
But what did that have to do with the tree? Then Maleficent explained. Even the child of two heroes could grow up to be a villain, as dark as its parents were light.
Snow wrapped her arms around her abdomen in denial. No. Not their child! "Never. We won't allow it! Our child will not succumb to darkness!"
Maleficent sighed. "Believe what you will. It won't change the truth." She gestured with her staff, transforming herself in a cloud of purple smoke into a dragon.
"Our child will be nothing like her," Snow insisted as the dragon flew off over the trees.
"Of course not," agreed David. "Come on, Snow, we'll find our own way out of this forest."
Rumplestiltskin didn't want to hate his mother, but it was difficult when faced with the misery of her young prisoners.
"I was looking for you." That was the Black Fairy's explanation for the children she had taken. "The only time I could leave this dark realm was when summoned by the last desperate wish of an abandoned child."
With Belle's steadying presence at his side, Rumplestiltskin could calm his inner turmoil enough to listen to what his mother had to say, rather than reverting to the desperate abandoned child he remained in his deepest memories. She's not like Malcolm, he told himself. She WANTED me.
"But why did you keep them?" asked Belle.
"What was I to do, leave them to be supper for wild animals?" She shook her head. "And once here, I had no choice to send them back. That's a door that only opens one way."
Rumplestiltskin nodded in understanding. Without the wand, this realm was a trap. And yet... and yet. He asked quietly, "Did you curse them?"
"What do you take me for? They were born that way... that was why they were abandoned!" The Black Fairy looked hurt to be so accused.
Rumplestiltskin looked away, knowing all too well how that felt. Didn't people throw similar accusations at him? And wasn't he just as eager to have his own child think well of him?
"I have no reason to wish them harm," said the Black Fairy.
"Rumple, she only brought them here." Belle had apparently gained the confidence of the children already. Rumplestiltskin wasn't surprised. "It's true. They were cast out for their... flaws. Exposed to the elements..." She shuddered as she spoke, and he cradled her in his arms. "It's horrible. Do people really...?"
"I'm afraid so." Rumplestiltskin sighed, feeling the truth of it in his bones. It wasn't spoken of openly and only rarely written in books, but the people of the Enchanted Forest were not kind to the disabled. As a mortal, he had been bullied as a cripple even by those who didn't know his reputation as a coward. Children born with any visible defect were seen as cursed. They would be abandoned, or allowed to waste away, an underfed baby too frail to fight off disease. The story put about would be that they had been sickly and died naturally. Children born out of wedlock and children born to parents too poor to feed another mouth often fared no better, witness Cora's daughter given to the cyclone. "Not all children are worth the effort..."
"You can't believe that!" Belle twisted in his grasp to stare up at him.
Rumplestiltskin stole a glance at his father, who had at least left him with family and not left him in the woods for the wolves. "Ah, but the Dark One is quite, quite mad. My beliefs are anathema and go against the natural order. Everyone knows that!"
Only in Schlaraffenland was it considered acceptable to call upon the Dark One to help such a child. In any other kingdom, it was thought preferable for the infant to die with its soul unstained than damn it through a demonic bargain. Nonsense. Healing through dark magic always left a scar, but it healed all the same, and all magic came with a price, light or dark. It was only that people excused it if it was done according to the will of the gods, or of fate.
"You're young." The Black Fairy looked dismissively at Belle. "You've never been with child. I suppose your family never explained the 'facts of life' to you."
"No...but... my mother," protested Belle. "She wouldn't. She's not like that."
"No." Rumplestiltskin remembered Belle's mother as someone whose sincere piety probably crossed a line into secret heresy, but as a noblewoman, she could get away with it. Belle had inherited her mother's soft-heartedness, even extending it to monsters, which Rumplestiltskin deeply appreciated.
"And you're not, either." Belle turned to the Black Fairy. "Or you wouldn't have saved them. But why didn't you use your magic to heal them?"
"That would require more light than this dark realm permits." Which was not the answer Rumplestiltskin had expected. The Black Fairy went on to explain that she could preserve their lives, but to do more was to risk their humanity.
Rumplestiltskin frowned. He closed his eyes, reaching out with his own magic to probe the fabric of this realm. Its nature was strange, almost as strange as Neverland.
"And meanwhile, you force them to mine for dark fairy dust?" Tiger Lily had shifted back into human form, and now her eyes were distant, as if she was listening to something at the edge of hearing.
It was the sound they had heard all along in the background: Tap tap tap %#8212; a distant sound of metal on rock, chipping away at the realm.
"That's what I don't understand." Belle leaned forward to run a finger along one of the prison bars. She met the eyes of the child sitting sullenly inside. "They say... the miners there are the same children that are here. Simultaneously."
"Time in this realm doesn't flow in a neat channel," said the Black Fairy. "It runs back and forth in a thousand different currents. I keep them here, as I said, for their own safety, to keep them from being corrupted by the dust."
"I think," said Tiger Lily in a low voice, "I think it wasn't enough..."
"They're monsters." Blue's eyes blazed with certainty.
Some of the children glared back. Others wept silently. Belle spoke quietly to them, comforting them. Her words were lost under Pan's (and when had he slipped back into behind the child's mask? wondered Rumplestiltskin) laughter. "I didn't know when I was well off. I don't envy you, Fiona."
"Fiona is dead," hissed the Black Fairy. "But I wouldn't expect you to understand anything."
Rumplestiltskin tried to ignore their squabbling. It brought back too many painful memories of Milah always finding him wanting, a constant disappointment to her. He concentrated on the texture of magic and time in this realm, seeking to understand its nature better, but he couldn't completely avoid hearing the argument going on around him.
"I understand power. That's all it is, under your pretty words," mocked Pan. "Dark fairy dust. Heady stuff, isn't it?" He inhaled deeply. "I can smell it in the air."
"I need the power to break free of this realm. To free all of us."
"A foolish ambition," said the Blue Fairy. "And luckily for the realms above, an impossible one."
The Black Fairy glared at Blue. "Well, as it turns out, it comes in handy for other things, too."
The Blue Fairy didn't deign to ask, but Pan grinned and couldn't resist. "Oh? Do tell."
"For one thing, it means I'm more powerful than you!" The Black Fairy's tore free again, sending Pan flying into the ground and splintering time around them. "If anyone's going to be freed or healed, we start with our son."
A torrent of power rushed through Rumplestiltskin, power unlike the darkness of his curse, but something more elusive, innocent. He fought back tears.
Papa, I remember... Rumplestiltskin sank to his knees, seized by sudden vertigo.
"No!" Pan cried out, his shape melting away as he became Malcolm again.
The moment overlapped with another. A chorus of voices filled the air.
Help us.
One worse than the other. You deserve better.
Free us. She hates us. She never listens.
I'm listening.
Who are you?
I am the one who will help you.
Child, no, you can't!
Oh, yes, I can. Dark One, give me the wand.
"And why would I do that?" Rumplestiltskin shook his head, trying to sort out the fragmented moments. It was the ghost, Adele, asking him. His fingers closed around the Black Fairy's wand. He had brought it for his mother, but now he wasn't sure if his mother hadn't died after all.
The ghost confirmed his thought. As long as she is the Black Fairy, she can't truly be your mother.
"She means to kill me," said the Black Fairy. "For a new Black Fairy to be born, the old one must die. Son, please..."
"Rumple!" Warm arms closed around him. "Rumple, the shears. You can use the shears of destiny to cut her free from the realm. She doesn't have to die."
"Yes!" Tiger Lily seized on the idea with all the fervor of the one who had suggested it first. "You have another chance to do the right thing."
"But she would lose her power," Rumplestiltskin said blankly. "Isn't that how it goes?"
"Serves you right, Fiona," Malcolm laughed. "You've ripped the magic from me. Isn't it only fair to do the same to you?"
"I...I don't..." the Black Fairy stammered.
"You said you had to protect your son. Well, he's the Dark One, now. I think he can protect himself. Please, think," urged Tiger Lily.
"Mother?" Rumplestiltskin could read the hesitation in her face. Of course she wouldn't want to. Far easier to destroy the upstart spirit now, before it ever touched the wand. Or he could blast Adele and Blue both out of existence himself, using that same wand. If his mother asked him, he thought he might. Didn't he owe her that much?
The Black Fairy met his eyes. "I failed you, my son. As I failed all these others. Perhaps it's time."
"Time?"
The Black Fairy bowed her head. "Time for a change. Time to make a clean break. Use the shears. Cut me free."
Rumplestiltskin shuddered, hearing the echoes of the previous Dark One behind his mother's words. My life was such a burden.
"Quickly!" hissed the Black Fairy. "Before my resolution fails. Before I become your death after all!"
He stopped thinking and moved. And as simply as that, he had cut the thread of his mother's fate. Even as she gasped and fell to her knees, the Blue Fairy flew down to snatch the wand from his hand.
Darkness exploded outwards from the tiny form, a burst of magic too powerful to contain. Dimly, Rumplestiltskin was aware of Belle and Tiger Lily throwing up a shield to protect the imprisoned children. His own magic was in chaos, off balance. He was there, but not there, standing in another time to face the new master of the dark fairy realm.
Rumplestiltskin. She was no longer the Blue Fairy, no longer the ghost, but someone who was both, someone more.
He inclined his head in acknowledgement, pulled a thought from the darkness. Dorcha Ghorm. At her puzzled, but not unpleased, look, he told her, Names are my stock in trade. I think that one is yours."
Then I thank you. For that, and the wand. Dorcha Ghorm smiled. And as a token of my gratitude, I give you this...
Magic surged all around him again, overwhelming his senses.
When he opened his eyes again, everything was too bright. He felt the others stumbling around him, just as dazzled. Hearing the flutter of wings close by, he turned to see two crows blazing a path into the sky, one black, one white.
"Rumple, are you all right?" Belle was holding him upright before he even realized he was about to fall over.
He clung to her gratefully. "Fine. I'll be fine." He blinked, lowering his gaze as a cacophony of youthful voices filled his ears. "Oh. She sent them with us." Whatever terrible darkness Reul Ghorm had feared from them, at this moment, they sounded like an ordinary gaggle of children. But the old Blue Fairy was no more, and Rumplestiltskin didn't care if they were tainted by dark magic — she would have said the same of Baelfire (much less Rumplestiltskin himself) — they deserved a chance at life.
"The new Black Fairy? Did you talk to her?" asked Belle.
"Dorcha Ghorm. Yes." Rumplestiltskin caught Tiger Lily's eye. "Tiger Lily. Seeing as I'm a few centuries too old for a fairy godmother, perhaps you can take these lost souls under your wing before they wander off into the Infinite Forest."
"Oh. Yes, yes, of course." Tiger Lily looked around, then moved to herd the children into some kind of order. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere in the Snowcap Mountains between the Frontlands and Cockayne." He squinted at the closest peak. "Not far from the Dark Castle, in fact."
Then Belle tugged at his arm. "Rumple, where are your parents? Did she keep them in the dark realm?"
"Ah. As to that..." He looked at the sky again, but the two crows were long gone. He sighed. Abandoned again. But this time, not quite their fault. "Our hybrid fairy friend called it a 'gift'."
Belle frowned. "What?"
He gestured vaguely. "She... let them drink from the deep springs of the dark fairy realm."
"There's springs in the dark fairy realm? I only saw rocks and tunnels!"
"Yes, well, springs of dark magic." He thought about the visions he had glimpsed in his mind's eye. "And then she sent them back. And, well..." He mimed fluttering wings. "They left."
"It turned them into birds? They don't even remember who they are?"
He shrugged. "The nature of such magic is transformative. Let's call it a 'fresh start'. That sounds better than 'cursed'."
"Rumple! Did you ask her to do that? Can't you forgive your parents?"
"Ah." He couldn't meet that clear blue gaze, not when he knew he was still a monster who hated his own parents. Hated. Loved. He didn't even know, anymore. "They're alive, aren't they? And they... they have magic. That's part of the gift of the dark springs. Even if they can't harness it yet."
"I see." Belle took a deep breath, then let it go. "At least she freed the children. That bodes well, don't you think? I mean, for how she'll handle her post as the new Black Fairy."
Rumplestiltskin nodded, relieved that Belle didn't seem to fault him for his part in the change. "Let's hope so."
"And can you do anything for them...?"
"Actually, sweetheart, your magic is far more suited than mine for this kind of healing. Let's go back to the Dark Castle, and I can teach you the spells."
Belle shot him a brilliant smile, and he thought, looking at her, that maybe he could forgive his mother for cutting his fate, after all.
Unicorns were more easily found than the way out of the Infinite Forest.
Well, it was a unicorn Snow White wanted right now. She had to know the future of their child. The unicorn could give her the answer. "According to legend, all we need to do is touch its horn... and we'll get a glimpse of our child's future."
David wasn't as worried, but for his wife's sake, he walked up beside her as she fed the pure white beast an apple, and placed his hand next to hers as she reached up to touch the spiraling horn.
Suddenly Snow was alone. The unicorn was gone, and David no longer beside her. She blinked. Even the trees looked different. Then she heard a leafy rustle, and a girl stepped out to meet her. It had to be her daughter! Snow's heart swelled with love. She was so beautiful.
The girl stepped closer. Snow was about to welcome her with a hug when a hand plunged into her chest and tore out her heart. The vision had turned into a nightmare.
What are you doing? Please, I'm your mother!
I don't care.
Her daughter contemplated the glowing red heart for a moment, then crushed it in her fist. Dark dust trickled between her fingers.
Snow White woke up with a gasp. Charming, oblivious to her vision, babbled on about their child being fine.
"No. No, it's not. It's evil." Cold fear turned her daughter into an it, but Snow could let it go no further, not even telling David what she had seen lest it become too real. (It was real, she knew, but they could still save their child's future... somehow.) "There must be a way to change it."
David sighed. "Well, this is a magical forest. Things have a way of happening. We found the unicorn, didn't we?"
"I don't know what we should be looking for this time," Snow admitted.
When they came upon a dirt path that glittered in the sunlight, butterflies dancing in the air above it, David shot Snow a knowing look.
"Do you think it's a trap?" whispered Snow, looking around warily. It was obviously magical — probably not dark, but one could never be sure.
"Or the answer to our prayers." He shrugged. "Only one way to find out!"
Snow nodded. This was no time to turn coward. "Shall we?"
The path led them to the first building they had seen in months. It stood alone in a clearing as if it had every right to be there, a sturdy wood-shingled cottage as might belong to a well-to-do peasant. The man inside was something else entirely.
He opened the door before they had a chance to knock. "I was wondering when you would arrive."
He had been expecting them! Snow was uneasy at first, but the sorcerer (surely he was a sorcerer, with his bald head and bushy white beard and deep red robe, more suitable for a scholar than a farmer) invited them inside for tea, and she sensed nothing but kindly wisdom from him. Somehow he had already sensed that she was troubled about her unborn child, and Snow decided to trust him with her worries.
To her horror, he confirmed what Maleficent had said — there was no guarantee that their child would turn out good! Everyone had the potential for good or evil? But that would be terrible! Snow knew she couldn't let her child go down such a bleak path, full of pain and darkness. She had to save her! She pleaded with the sorcerer, "Is there nothing we can do to ensure our child's goodness?"
He was reluctant at first, but Snow refused to let go of even the remotest possibility. There was a way to banish the potential for darkness from her child's soul, but the laws of magic demanded a balance. Another child would have to absorb that darkness, condemning it to precisely that life which Snow was deternined to save her own child from.
"Even if it's to save our own, it's wrong," said David with a sigh.
Snow White knew he was right, yet there had to be a way, somehow. Then she remembered. "Maleficent! She said something... something about her egg hatching? She's a dragon! What if we can use the egg as our vessel?"
"Snow..."
"A dragon egg. Don't you see? We won't be harming a real child." Snow turned eagerly to the sorcerer. "We'll do it. We just need to find Maleficent's lair and borrow the egg..."
The sorcerer nodded slowly. "It's possible, if that is your choice."
"It is." She would do anything to save her child from darkness. Maleficent's offspring would surely take after its mother and be another villain anyway.
The sorcerer sighed. "Then take this." He handed them a compass. "It's enchanted to lead you to her lair and allow you to slip past her enchantments."
With the help of the compass, they found the dragon egg hidden in a nest inside a cave. By the time Maleficent noticed the intrusion, it was too late. The dragon couldn't flame the thieves without destroying her own egg.
Maleficent had nothing left but words. "What kind of people are you, threatening a child?"
Snow remembered her own child and refused to be swayed. "Child? This isn't a child. This will become a monster, just like you."
"And what are you?"
Snow couldn't listen anymore. She pushed down a twinge of guilt and pity and fled the cave with a promise to return the egg later.
But the sorcerer had other ideas. Once the transfer of darkness was complete, he opened a portal and dropped the egg through. "You would not want anything with darkness like this living on in your realm, my lady. I am sending it where it belongs, where it can hurt no one there."
To Snow's horror, as the egg fell into the maelstrom of magic, it opened, revealing a baby inside, and its cries were all too human. Then the portal shut, and it was too late to take it back.
"Charming, it's a baby!"
"My baby!" Maleficent's roar rattled the cottage.
The sorcerer paled. "She found us. Quickly, you must go!" He whipped out a piece of paper and shoved it at Snow White. "Your child is now pure of intent and heroic of spirit. It is now up to the two of you to guide it... And keep it in the light..."
"Wait!" said David.
"No time!" The sorcerer muttered an incantation.
Snow White looked at the paper in her hand. Before she could make out the colorful illustration that took up most of one side, the image blurred out of focus and flew at her. She felt as if she was falling and grabbed reflexively for David's hand. The cottage faded around them.
Then she tumbled onto the floor, David rolling next to her, both of them knocking into the legs of a plain wooden table. It skidded across the floor, books and papers flying loose. They sat up, catching their breaths.
"What the hell?" A pale-skinned man with short-cropped black hair stared down at them in outrage. Then his eyes widened. "It's you two!" His gaze focused on the paper still clutched in Snow's fingers. "You brought it back?" Then he reached forward and ripped it free.
Snow was too disoriented by the magic to react in time. "What are you talking about?"
"My page! That bastard stole it." Then he held up the paper, and Snow saw the last faded remnants of the illustration vanish. "And used it. Well, well, well. Who'd have thought? So? What did you choose?"