It took him nearly two hours to make his way back down to the room that held the cylinder. One of those hours he'd spent in bed, staring at Belle as she slept, trying to talk himself out of it all while listening to Zoso talk him into it. After that, he'd grabbed the dagger from where Belle had left it resting and managed to leave the room, but trying to get down the hall had been yet another task. For every two steps he took forward, there was one backward, second guessing himself and the conclusion he was coming to every second he meandered. All the while, Zoso and Nimue and Gorgon, and every other fucking Dark One in his head, had something to say, some opinion to give on the topic!
We'd never have to fear someone like Zelena again!
It's not as if we know the future anymore!
Where is the downside?
"This will give us the ultimate power. It'll put us in charge of our own life forever!"
It's what we've all worked for, what the next Dark One will work for if you don't do it!
Don't take this opportunity from us!
"Baelfire would do anything for his family, even if it was stupid, you do want to be like the boy, yes?!"
Just do it!
"Belle will be just as relieved as you…"
And then he was there, finally hovering over the small box on the table, looking down into its plastic-looking depths when he glanced up at Zoso over that comment.
"Belle won't like the cost," he argued against him. He could feel how frustrated his false teacher was, but he was the convincer, the negotiator. Somehow, Zoso knew his mind better than the others; he always knew exactly the thing to say and managed to keep his calm through it so that no matter what he was selling sounded like the best idea in the world. When Nimue failed in her plans, she always sent Zoso to clean up the mess and appeal to his mortal side…just as he was now.
"You know…I've never understood this idea of telling one's partner everything about their lives," he reasoned. "Do you think David tells Mary Margaret what he had for lunch, or how many left turns he took to get to work, or how many shits he took when she wasn't there?"
Actually, given their relationship, yes, sometimes he did think that.
"Couples don't 'tell each other everything,'" Zoso insisted. "They tell each other what they need to know. And you…you have time! This…this will take time! You'll have time to come up with exactly what parts of the tale Belle needs to know on the day you tell her that the dagger is no longer a threat to the family you'll create together. But first, you have to open the box to know what we're working with!"
Open the box. Confirm it was what Zoso and the others thought it was, what he thought it was!
"Remember what the First told you, long ago?"
Yes. He'd had many conversations with Nimue since he'd become the Dark One but somehow he knew exactly which conversation Zoso was referencing to so very long ago. He'd never forget it. He'd been new to being the Dark One when she'd first shown him her past and confessed that he was one of the few she thought might actually be capable of fulfilling the purpose of the Dark One!
"The destruction of Light Magic…" That was what she claimed their purpose was. But it was more than just destroying Light Magic, it was freeing Dark Magic, freeing himself from the dagger and the blackness in his heart it was…everything! To destroy Light Magic, he'd need to get into Merlin's Tower, to get into Merline's Tower he'd have to kill the Apprentice, the one Merlin had entrusted with his secrets, with the pen of the Author…with the Sorcerer's Hat.
He looked down at the cylinder before him, recalling not his own memory but one from Zoso when he'd finally managed to track the hat down and found the Apprentice guarding it. His magic was unparalleled then, and the hat was protected by a spell that could only be broken by one who had never given into the Darkness in their heart. But years later, after Zoso had passed the Curse of the Dark One on to him, after he'd set the Dark Curse in motion, he'd found that Apprentice and the hat he guarded. He'd managed to separate the pair of them and break the spell that would have prevented him from using Merlin's creation.
Of course, he'd then been separated from the hat as well. Somehow, he'd assumed the Apprentice had regained it, but here it was, in a mansion with shimmering Light Magic that Nimue now helped him recognize was something that tasted like Merlin. He wasn't here. That man would be rooted to the ground in Camelot right where Nimue had left him. But perhaps that was why the hat and this mansion felt only lightly sprinkled with his flavor of magic. He was too far away to give it true power. Perhaps it wasn't even strong enough for the Apprentice to sense it was here. Otherwise, he couldn't imagine the box just sitting out on the table for anyone to see, completely unprotected.
Unless it wasn't what he thought it was. Unless it was a fake…
"There is only one way to find out…" Zoso whispered beside him.
Only one way to know…
He glanced down at the dagger in his hand, the one he'd barely managed to give back to Belle before taking it from her again. Another sin that he dismissed simply because he knew she'd never be against him having it if he needed it, though he tried to forget that she wouldn't like him taking it without her knowledge because there was no good he could do with it. But still…this was for them…
So he summoned up the magic of the dagger and waved it over the box, letting it pour into the thing. Zoso's memories forced him to tense up, preparing for the blast of paralyzing magic he'd felt all those years ago. Surely, just one tear given decades ago in another land wouldn't be enough…would it?
The magic he sent into the cylinder poured off it in waves, finding the crevices, seeping into every spot of weakness, twisting, turning…unlocking. Until he felt it expand and grow, not just magically but before his eyes as well. That plastic-looking sea of stars began to shimmer; the stars themselves lost their five points and began to burn bright against the darkness. The gold trim of the box melted away and a ribbed brim emerged, purple and blue and every shade in between. The object before him grew taller and slimmer until it came to a point, and he stared mesmerized at what appeared to be a galaxy, planets and stars swirling gently inside of it.
The voices in his head were silent, but he felt their jaws drop. He felt their wonder as they stared at it with him. A plan more than thirty years in the making, and he didn't even know it…
"You've done it…" Zoso muttered beside him.
"We've done it," he corrected staring back down at it.
"We will do it," Nimue insisted, suddenly standing in the spot Zoso had been. "You are one step closer to our goal, but there is still much you will need to do. The magic in the hat has been neglected; it will need charged, you'll need to chart the night sky, you'll still need to find the Apprentice-"
"No!" he insisted, Nimue's words rattling him back into his mind, back into the present and his own plans, not theirs!
"No?"
"No…I don't want to destroy Light Magic or unleash Dark Magic." Using the dagger, he hovered over the hat again, forcing it back into its little inconspicuous box.
"Destroying Light Magic is what we've been dedicated to for our entire existence!"
"Destroying Light Magic was your plan. If you wanted to do it, then perhaps you should have accomplished it before someone destroyed you."
Nimue's eyes widened and bulged as she glared at him. "How dare-"
"How dare I? How dare you? If there's anything to learn from our time in the Underworld, from the encounter with Gorgon, it's that you only get one life! I refuse to spend my life, fulfilling your goals and plans, I have my own."
Nimue huffed out a laugh. "What? Lie and cheat on your wife to get what you want?"
"What we want! What we want is to live a happy life together. I don't need to destroy Light Magic to get it, I only need to destroy this," he pointed out, holding the dagger up before him as evidence and looking her over to discover…there was one other thing he needed to destroy in the process, one other thing that needed to do so that he could be himself, have complete free will over his body and his mind. "And you…"
"You speak blasphemy."
"You've been in my head too long, whispering and muttering away, memories commentating a life that's not yours because you perished long ago. It needs to end."
"We provide memories and knowledge."
"And I shall figure a way to preserve that, just as I shall figure out how to get you out of my head."
"You need us."
He shook his head, and with a wave of his hand, the box vanished from the table, stashed into the bag he'd packed upstairs. "I only need my family."
And now, he had everything he needed to have just that.
Nimue had more to say. Zoso had opinions; all of them wanted to have a vote right then and there, but he wouldn't allow it. He was in control again. But what he wanted was so much more than just control. He wanted ownership of his own mind! He wanted to call it his own and not share it with the ghosts of Dark Ones past. And with that hat…that was exactly what he was going to do.
Whew! Okay, so I know this is a shorter chapter, but there is actually quite a bit going on here. For starters, with the hat, one of my goals with this fiction was not just to show what was shown, but to also show it with an explanation. And yes, his past trauma is certainly going to be part of that explanation, you see a bit of that in this chapter. But there's also more too it. One of the things I wanted to show was how quickly one bad decision can run away from us so quickly. His intentions here are not terrible ones. They become terrible later, but for now, they're really quite innocent. He doesn't want to be taken advantage of again and so he wants to make it so that he never can be. I see nothing wrong with that. Now, later, when he finds out how that has to happen and still goes along with it, that's where he gets into trouble.
Thank you so much to all who are reading and especially to Rsbeall for reviewing the chapters for me! I'm hoping you'll see the good and bad in this one. I think this is really where we can start to see the power Belle has over him. As RC said in so many interviews, she's very much his North Star and I think that if he had made the choice to involve her in this plan of his, then things would have turned out quite different than they did. Peace and Happy Reading!