The Titan was larger than a man, but nowhere near the bulk of a full-grown ogre, much less a giant. Yet Rumplestiltskin felt the force of his presence, a solidity that enabled him to push himself through the storm with all the weight of a small moon contained inside a humanoid skin.
A challenge, snarled the darkness. What he had done to Gaston, Rumplestiltskin could do to this new target. And why end there? All the dead, imprisoned for eternity in Tartarus. If he reached deeper into the abyss, pulled that darkness into himself, he could rip this prison apart, just as he had done to Gaston's scaled-down version of hell. And why not? The thought filled him with a pure, unholy joy.
But the silent plea in Belle's eyes stayed his hand. Beneath the deafening roar of the wind, he heard a whisper of thought: Rumplestiltskin, wait...
It was enough. Because it was her. Because she had asked him. Because when he followed the direction of her glance, it was not the Titan he saw but Baelfire. His son, who was miraculously alive, and deserved better than the abyss. For their sake, he forced himself to release the darkness and let the storm attenuate. He turned back to the Titan. A sliver of sanity returned to the Dark One, and a name, and his voice. "Prometheus, I presume."
"Rumplestiltskin. Belle." Shockingly, he bowed his head — the Titan who by all accounts bowed to no one — and when he lifted his eyes to theirs, something fierce burned behind his words. "I see you found a way to free yourselves. It seems even little monsters can cast large shadows..."
"I have what you said." Belle spun the globe of light she held trapped between her hands. "The lands of the dead can be freed."
Rumplestiltskin hadn't asked her intentions in capturing the broken shards of divinity he had stripped from Gaston, but Prometheus seemed to know already.
"A seed of divinity without a vessel."
"We make our own gods," Belle said.
"One more suited to the burden than dear Gaston, one hopes," Rumplestiltskin muttered, beginning to catch on. "Did you have someone in mind?"
"It must be one of the dead," Prometheus noted. "No one living can truly hold these realms. Hades made a mistake in restarting his heart."
"He has his eye on grander vistas than the Underworld." Rumplestiltskin remembered how Hades had spoken of his brother. He remembered envy and hatred and ambition.
"His loss, then." Belle scanned the crowd that had gathered around them on the edge of the battered field where Gaston's house had once stood. "But as it happens, I do have an idea. Her." She indicated a shriveled figure sunken into an overlarge chair. "The Old Wife of Mulctowne."
Out of all the shades and demons and living mortals, she was the only one seated. Rumplestiltskin wondered at it, then saw that she was bound into the chair by golden nails. He inhaled sharply, recognizing the magic in it, a divine curse on gold that he had once spun, and he remembered her. A desperate soul. A desperate mother, with nothing left to trade except herself. He had taken her name. It had given him a foothold into Cockayne, then wracked by peasant uprisings and bloody crusades.
"She never recanted, Rumple," Belle said softly. "All these years, she has endured. As much a saint as anyone ever canonized by the church..."
"A saint of Schlaraffenland?" Rumplestiltskin scoffed, but he looked again, and saw what Belle saw. She was right. A step, and he stood in front of the accursed shade. "It's time to renegotiate our deal, dearie..."
And such was the stature of the Old Wife that none of the others would stand in her way. The dead knew the dead. Even those souls that had crawled down the mountain of blades recognized the strength of an indomitable soul. Demons, too, knew a spirit unbroken by all the travails of Tartarus. And the Titan, having given the gift of fire to mortal kind, left them free to burn as they would.
Only one opposed.
"No!" Hyan Luize stepped between the Dark One and the Old Wife. "You can't do this to her. She's sacrificed enough already." She glared at Belle. "All she asked was an end to eternity. Does she not deserve peace?"
"She does." Belle took a breath, then continued implacably, "But so do all the dead, those here now and the untold numbers still to come. The Old Wife is their best chance..."
The Old Wife, unable to speak, only let out a soft sigh. Hyan Luize seemed to read something in the sound. "But not hers! Please..."
"Will you let selfishness rule when the stakes are so high? It's not only your eternity in question, but everyone's eternity." Belle moved forward to speak past Hyan Luize, making her appeal directly to the Old Wife.
It was difficult to resist those clear blue eyes when they looked at you like that. Rumplestiltskin knew that better than anyone, and he felt a pang of sympathy for the tormented shade. The Old Wife would accept the burden. For the greater good. Because she wanted to save her people, because she couldn't do less than save them when she had the power to do so. It was what she had done before. What she would do again. He saw the weary resignation in the Old Wife's eyes, then glanced at Belle and saw the determined glow lighting her features.
He felt a pang for what had been lost. "Belle..." He fumbled for words, settled on a plaintive question, "Isn't it only human to be selfish?"
She turned the force of her demand on him, then. "But we can always try to be better. I know it's a heavy burden, but someone must bear it, and I believe the Old Wife has the strength for it..."
"Even Atlas has begged for release," argued Hyan Luize, "and he is a Titan. My great-grandmother was mortal-born, and you would force her to carry the weight of a world?"
The Old Wife croaked a rough syllable.
Hyan Luize stiffened, shaking her head obstinately. "No! There must be another way. Ask another."
"You're not wrong. We do have choices here," said Rumplestiltskin. He surveyed the crowd watching them. "After all, the burden comes with a certain amount of power..."
"But someone who wants that power can't be trusted to wield it for the greater good," objected Belle.
"Maybe not. I was hardly a saint when I murdered Zoso," said Rumplestiltskin. "Would it have been better to end the Ogres War without bloodshed? Mmm. But we are where we are, and we do what we must, even if it is less than the 'best'. Let the Old Wife go." The Belle who, against all odds, had fallen in love with a monster and saw the best in him, despite all his weakness and dark deeds, would have understood. If she had forgotten, he would remember it for her, just as she kept a spark of light aflame in his black heart and wrenched him back from the abyss. "Please, Belle..."
"You have another candidate in mind?" Belle said at last, reluctantly.
He didn't even have to look. He raised his voice, knowing she was listening, had been listening all along. "I think it's obvious, isn't it? Cora."
And Cora, whose ambition and talent were not in doubt, stepped forward as if following a script. "Why, thank you, my dear."
A gasp of shock rose from more than one throat. A muttered discontent, not least from Cora's daughter.
"This... are you mad, Rumple?" demanded Regina. "You know my mother. You know—"
Rumplestiltskin held up a hand, cutting off an outraged rant. He turned to meet Cora's eyes. "Not without conditions, of course. All magic comes at a price, and you haven't banked as much credit as our Old Wife!"
A flicker of understanding in Cora's smile, but Belle's fingers closed around Rumplestiltskin's forearm.
"Are you sure?" Belle herself sounded less certain than she had a moment ago, dragged back into the muddy waters of compromise and imperfection. "This is that Cora? Your former student?"
A bit more, a bit worse than that, but thankfully neither had the bad taste to say it out loud. Rumplestiltskin covered Belle's hand with a reassuring touch. "Who else?"
He chose Cora with a vindictive glee that she was not blind to, damning her to hell for her old betrayal, but it was a damnation she embraced. She would become a greater monarch than any earthly ruler. She would be the god of the dead, that all souls must bow before in the end.
"What price will you put on my ascension?" Cora asked.
Before he answered her, Rumplestiltskin turned to the Old Wife again. He pulled away from Belle and reached for the golden spikes piercing the shade. They had become a strange, powerful alloy combined from his magic, her magic, the magic of the gods, and the magic of the realms of the dead. Through the spikes, he had a clearer sense of her than mere speech allowed.
You would make a new bargain?
You've been sitting in that chair long enough, I think.
Not as long as you've been the Dark One... Underneath the words, a sense of relief at the promise of a burden lifted at last.
Time is not so straightforward as that, in Tartarus.
My freedom, then, and in exchange?
This yoke of responsibility you created for yourself — let Cora wear it. Let her benefit from your experience. Let duty temper her ambition.
After he had her agreement, he wrapped his magic around the spikes and wrenched them free. A gasp from the Old Wife, but no blood — her veins had run dry long ago. He bent closer, whispering something in her ear: her name, returned to her in exchange for everything she had channeled into the golden spikes. He brandished them before the crowd, and more pointedly, at Cora. "Your heart, dearie, nailed to the bedrock of Tartarus."
Cora didn't hesitate. He had to give her that. The heart that she counted as a weakness in life, she offered up in death. Once pierced by the golden nails, it wouldn't matter anymore whether it lay inside her chest or not.
And so it was done.
Prometheus stripped the mastery of the domain away from Hades, while Rumplestiltskin and Belle combined their power to transplant Gaston's seed of divinity into Cora.
The first of the duties that fell to her was one she had carried with her. "Regina. It's time for you to return to your life." Cora raised a hand and summoned her new magic, but before the portal could take shape, her daughter interrupted her.
"Mother, wait!" At Cora's questioning look, Regina explained, "I have to know..." Her voice fell to a near-whisper. "Daniel."
"Ah. You want to know if your stableboy is here." Cora didn't exactly look regretful, but her tone was accommodating. With a heart now alloyed with the compassion of the enlightened dead, she couldn't so easily look past another person's humanity when it suited her. Rumplestiltskin thought that perhaps the Cora now standing before them wouldn't so easily crush an innocent man simply because he stood in the way of her ambitions for her daughter.
Regina nodded jerkily.
Cora closed her eyes and concentrated. The nascent portal faded. A few heartbeats later, Cora had an answer. "He is not in Tartarus..." She chuckled softly.
"What is it?" Regina's voice rose, sharp with suspicion. "What happened to him?"
Cora shook her head, still looking amused. "He is with the gods. Little changed, except in the location of his employment..."
"What do you mean?"
"The horses of heaven may awe mortals with their glory, but their attendants still have manure on their boots." She gestured, conjuring an image of the shade in question to float in the air. "He seems content enough, don't you think? His ambitions never reached higher than you, and he would have dragged you down into the muck with him..."
"We would have been happy," hissed Regina, "had you not murdered him!"
Cora sighed. "Perhaps I should have chosen a different name for you. But we must move on as we are. Your Daniel is at peace, basking in the light of Elysium. You still have your life before you."
This time, Regina allowed her mother to send her back.
"Now the rest of us," Rumplestiltskin said to Cora. Not that he meant to leave just yet, with his obligation to the elves still unresolved, and the future of the dead hanging in the balance. If Cora turned out to be worse than Hades, then he would need to do something about it. His position would be stronger once his family was safely out of reach. Gaston had come too close to destroying them already; Rumplestiltskin didn't want to tempt fate with any more risks.
Cora nodded, narrowing her eyes at the swirling portal. "To the Dark Castle?"
"It will serve," agreed Rumplestiltskin, though it didn't matter much as long as they crossed back to the land of the living. But before he could usher his family through, the portal crackled with an alarming burst of sparks.
"Not so fast." A shape formed in the portal, blocking their passage.
"Hades!" Rumplestiltskin instinctively flung up a protection spell as soon as he heard the voice. He sensed the others doing the same.
Cora's power was aimed at shutting the portal, but the god was too strong.
Hades forced the passage open and stepped through, the smile on his face promising pain and death all around. "Full marks for audacity. Stealing the realm from under the reigning god, now that doesn't happen every day."
"It was never truly yours," spat Prometheus. "You're nothing but a jailer appointed by Olympus. And now not even that."
Hades scoffed. "While you, what, set your puppet on a throne while you hold the strings?" He looked at Cora. "To be honest, this dreary place lost its appeal a long time ago. These days, my sights are set on Olympus, so I could do with a viceroy to look after the old stomping grounds."
Rumplestiltskin snorted, shaking his head as Cora smiled with a veneer of courtesy, inviting Hades to continue.
"I mean, why work for this washed-up traitor of a Titan when you could have a seat at the table of the next king of Olympus? Hmm?" Hades smirked, seeming confident in his impending victory. "Swear fealty to me and I'll say no more about any little irregularities in your ascension. Remember, it is in your own interests to aid me in this war. If I lose, I doubt my dear brother will look kindly on a mortal usurping the position. Your reign will be over... just like that!" He snapped his fingers in illustration. "So, my dear Mom-in-law, what do you say?"
Cora's smile turned icy. "What I say is that I owe no allegiance to the Titan. As for you... what I say is that I will never kneel for anyone again."
So much for courtesy, reflected Rumplestiltskin. This was the Cora he remembered from the tower where he had first met her, a few heartbeats away from throwing herself to her death on her own terms rather than submit to the royal order.
Hades didn't take it any better than any earthly king would. His hair burst into blue flames, and his expression hardened. "You have a chance to better yourself. Think carefully before you throw it away."
"And you have a chance to walk away. You've already lost this realm. Do you want to lose everything else?" Cora glanced at the crowd gathered around her, gauging their support. With the Titan on their side, Rumplestiltskin reckoned their odds to be better than even.
Belle's hand slipped into his, and he felt her presence through the link. Together.
"You should listen to her, Hades. Fire is fire," said Prometheus. "Don't fool yourself into thinking it burns any less fiercely in the hands of the mortal-born..."
Hades' confidence, whether true or false, didn't waver. "Stay out of this, or you'll suffer worse than being bird food." He glared at Cora, his will pressing against hers. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Last chance, Cora."
"No." Cora's resistance solidified against the divine power demanding their submission.
Another voice rang through the air. "You should have listened, Mother."
Zelena.
"But you never have. So let me show you what your future looks like..." The green-skinned witch stepped through the portal, but not alone. A crouched figure appeared beside her, wings tattered and bleeding darkness, while a spiked collar twisted around her neck, metal teeth digging deep into demonic flesh and anchoring it to the will of the one holding the other end of the chain. "Down, pet!" With a jerk of the chain, the prisoner crashed to its hands and knees.
Rumplestiltskin shuddered, catching a flash of memory that wasn't his.
Somewhere behind him, Marceline cried out in horror. "Alec!"
The Fury lifted her head then, but her eyes were dull with pain and no words came from her mouth, only a thin, ragged whimper.
"You monster!" Marceline surged forward, as if to tear the chain from Zelena's hand, but a flick of magic threw her back. Maleficent caught her, shielding her from Zelena's spell.
"I don't appreciate spies," said Hades. Power strained the air between Hades and Cora as she strove to shut the portal while he opposed her. In the moment of distraction, he gained the upper hand. The portal burst open, tearing a rift in reality long enough for an army of his loyal demons and shades to pour through.
The battle was joined. Demon against demon, shade against shade.
If he had been given the choice, Rumplestiltskin would have fled with his family to keep them safe. Coward, he knew of himself. But Belle was there, trusting him to stand with her to protect their children. He dared not raise the storm from the abyss, not where Bae could so easily be caught in the crossfire. Lesser spells, then, and an eye on his allies with magic flying everywhere.
A moment came in the midst of the chaos when the Fury broke free of her chain.
Another moment, when it seemed their forces, overwhelmed, were on the verge of breaking. If scattered — but Maleficent was there to hold them together as fiercely as she had ever reformed herself from dust and ashes, and the moment passed and they fought on.
And then came the turning point, when the Titan lured Hades into a fatal mistake.
Not only fatal for Prometheus as it first seemed, with the Olympian crystal piercing his chest, but for the deposed god of the dead.
It's a trick. Rumplestiltskin felt it before he understood, as a resonance in the crystal he wore in his ring — that lesser cousin to the Olympian crystal. Prometheus couldn't have had more than a few seconds of warning, but he had turned the inevitable into one last theft from the gods. Long thought broken and useless, the legendary weapon of Zeus had been restored by Hades. No doubt he had been keeping it in reserve, intending it for his brother, but when the tide of battle turned against him, surprise was discarded in favor of survival.
The Titan had come too close, hence the blaze of the great crystal. A crystal born out of the same trees that grew in Nevethe, differing only in their degrees of power. Love, always vulnerable to sacrifice. So Prometheus, seeing it coming, made of his death a gift.
Trick or not, the great crystal responded, returning sacrifice with sacrifice. The crystal shivered at the touch of the Titan's blood, clear light stained with red. It crumbled to dust in the wound, leaving Hades grasping at nothing.
And Prometheus ended with a smile on his face. He fell to his knees, hands splayed out on the ground. "Do not think I kneel to you, Hades. Your time is past. As is mine. But the power of the crystal I bequeath to this realm and those it chooses as its own..." His voice faded until the last words were inaudible. Then he disintegrated, following the crystal into dust.
The shock of his passing rippled outwards, shaking the combatants into a sudden, uneasy pause.
Into the unnatural silence, Hades forced a laugh. "Empty words from an old windbag." He turned to Cora. "But without him, you're just a mob of unruly children rioting on the playground..." A glance at Maleficent. "...and one half-breed disappointment."
"Look in the mirror if you want disappointment," drawled Maleficent, but she restrained her daughter from rushing to her defense.
Because it was true that the dragon was no match for an Olympian. Gaston, as a newly invested god, had only had a fraction of the power of the previous ruler of the dead. No doubt Hades was counting on Cora, as a former mortal, being on much the same level.
But Rumplestiltskin, who had stabbed the golden nails through Cora's heart, knew better. The dead of Schlaraffenland still carried some of the magic that had bound them together in life. The blood magic and necromancy that damned them as demons in the eyes of the other realms — it was in Cora now. It had only taken her a little time to grasp its power.
This time, the battle turned against Hades. This time, it was Cora who wielded the power of the Olympian Crystal against Hades — who lacked the madness or vision of Prometheus to be able to turn his own death into a true sacrifice.
"Wait!" A blaze of light magic shielded Hades at the last moment.
Belle, what are you doing? Rumplestiltskin wasn't the only one caught by surprise. For a moment, everyone froze, confused by the sudden shift in the battle lines.
Even Cora raised an eyebrow in silent query.
"Please, don't do this. You don't have to kill him." Belle said. She must have sensed Rumplestiltskin moving to her side, a whispered thought channeled through their link. Gaston. Prometheus. Two souls lost to this war. There doesn't have to be a third.
"Well, it is something of a tradition," Rumplestiltskin said aloud. "Kronos to his father, and Zeus to Kronos. Nothing seals a change in sovereignty like bloodshed and destruction!"
"We can be better than that!" Belle appealed to Cora. "If we don't change things, if we can't find a better path, then what's the point of all this?"
But Rumplestiltskin saw from the calculating look in Cora's eyes that Belle's plea was doomed.
Cora shook her head. "The point is to take power over our own fates. How can we do that as long as these Olympians hold us in servitude? This is the only way to be sure." She gestured, dispelling Belle's shield.
"No." Belle instantly raised it again.
Cora sighed. "Are you challenging me for the throne? I don't imagine Rumple would appreciate his wife taking on that curse, even if you were willing..." She dispelled Belle's magic a second time.
This time Belle hesitated. Her head tilted slightly as if to ask for her husband's support.
Cora has the right of judgement in this realm, Rumplestiltskin reminded Belle. Or do you want us to take the choice from her? He would back whatever Belle decided, but his heart sank at the thought of going down that road.
But she's wrong, Belle started, then shook her head. Or we were wrong to spare the Old Wife. She wouldn't have...
You think not? Then again, you never met her when she was alive. And indeed, there was no outcry from the dead of Schlaraffenland to spare Hades. With obvious reluctance, Belle let Rumplestiltskin draw her back a few steps, leaving Cora to her decision.
But the spontaneous truce had given another shade the opportunity to oppose her.
"No!" Zelena stood between Hades and Cora, facing her mother with a sincerity Rumplestiltskin had never seen in Zelena before. "You're not doing this. I'm not Regina, and I'm not letting you murder my true love!"
"Love?" The corner of Cora's mouth twisted briefly. Her voice softened, "He's a god. He may love you as he understands it, but a man may love his dog..."
"You..." Zelena turned pale with rage underneath her unnaturally green complexion. "How dare you!"
"Don't listen to her," said Hades with a softness Rumplestiltskin had never heard from the god before. Two firsts, then! The Dark One watched as Hades wrapped his arms around Zelena and tried to pull her behind him. "This wouldn't be the first time a parent takes issue with their child's suitor, but let's not get carried away."
Zelena resisted. "She'll kill you!"
Hades pressed a kiss to the top of Zelena's head. "But if you don't get out of the way, she'll kill you first." Then he turned back to face Cora, eyes narrowing. "It seems fate is on your side today, fate being an evil bitch, but your daughter is no threat to you. Let her go."
"No, I won't let her separate us." Zelena clung even tighter to her lover. The sight filled Rumplestiltskin with an unreasoning distaste, but he couldn't deny what he saw.
"Ah, smells like twue wuv," he warned Cora.
"You mean blind servitude," hissed Cora. "This is no relationship of equals."
Rumplestiltskin snorted. Well, given her marriage, she would know, wouldn't she?
"If they're willing to sacrifice themselves for each other..." said Belle, leaving the rest unsaid — ...then the Olympian Crystal would submit to them.
Cora's expression hardened. "Then so be it." She raised her hands, weaving a new pattern of power around herself. She snapped her fingers and pointed at Hades and Zelena.
The ground shuddered, jagged rocks bursting upwards. One of them cracked open. Water shot out in a spray.
"Get back!" Rumplestiltskin reacted instantly, yanking everyone else out of range to higher ground.
Only Hades and Zelena remained, caught in the splash. The waters of the underworld transported souls. The ghostly bodies left behind dissipated back into the vapor they had been conjured from originally.
Silence, then, except for the soft gurgling of the newly created spring. Those who had fought for Hades quietly laid down their weapons and surrendered, all hope of victory vanished with their leader.
Finally, Belle cleared her throat, the first one bold enough to ask, "What... what did you do to them?"
Cora chuckled. "I gave them their best chance, as the saying goes. Stripped them down to essentials and sent them to a place where they'll never be a threat to us."
"Stripped them down... you mean you took their memories?" At Cora's nod, Belle pressed on, "Where did you send them?"
"Somewhere far far away. A place called, what was it? Oh yes, 'San Francisco.'" Cora looked insufferably pleased with herself. "In a land without magic, where gods and mortals stand as equals."
"It's more than they deserve," grumbled Maleficent. "But perhaps Prometheus would have approved."
Before Cora could respond, the ground shuddered again. Her eyes widened. "Oh dear."
"Never mind approval, Prometheus would be envious!" One of the demons who had been fighting for Hades called out, ducking a vicious slap aimed at his head by the victors. "Damn fool mortals, you don't even know what you've done!"
Rumplestiltskin looked sharply at Cora, a bad feeling sinking into his gut. "What have you done?"
"It seems someone took advantage of my little geographical rearrangement to open a locked door." Cora pursed her lips, looking faintly troubled. "In other words..."
The 'helpful' demon supplied the rest: "The Titans are out!"