#alien!rumple

“It’s a plant.” He explained, obviously miffed by the way she was keeping him between her and the deadly…thing. It had uncurled to show four long, spiny leaves slightly lighter in color than the black under-leaves, and covered on the inside with short green and black thorns, lighter on the edges of the leaves and gradually shading to black at the middle of each leaf and the center of the plant. She still couldn’t see any sort to stem or flower…but the foot-long leaves were moving towards her in a threatening manner and the thorns were still standing straight up.

She could tell it was a plant now, for some alien definition of the word…but not why it was on her desk.

“What is it doing here?” She all but yelped as one of the sharp leaves managed to get a few inches closer. She ducked behind her captain, a gesture he received by tensing up and frowning.

He shrugged, guarded and defensive. “I picked it up at the last port. I thought…” He cleared his throat, a sign of discomfort that Belle didn’t notice, riveted as she was on the lethal-looking spikes that seemed to be reaching for her. “I thought…”

“You thought what? That it would stab me?”

“What-no! I just thought it would be a good addition to hydroponics! Jekka spine-flowers are well known for their oxygen-producing qualities, you know.”

“I-I see. But what’s it doing in here then?

“You said you liked to see new things.” He smirked at her, an expression full of sharp edges that she hadn’t seen in a while.

He must still be angry. Either that, or he’d taken the opportunity to play a prank on her and she’d responded differently than he’d expected, embarrassing him enough to make him lash out.

She took a deep breath, fighting to keep her voice even and not give into her own anger that he’d put the dangerous thing in her work space. It would do no good for both of them to become upset. “Alright. I’ve seen it. Now, please get it out of here.”

“As you wish.” He grumbled. To her surprise, instead of poofing it away in a cloud of purple smoke, he stalked forward and picked it up. When he touched it, the leaves curled back in around the center, turning it into a thorny cactus-like black bundle. Distantly, Belle noticed that the light blue ceramic pot holding it was surprisingly detailed and ornate for what Rumple intended.

“If that will be all?” He snapped, irritated. Belatedly, Belle recalled that she had summoned him away from whatever he’d been doing.

She managed to work up a wan smile of thanks. “Yes. Um, thank you.”

He brushed past her in a huff, taking the plant with him, and Belle made sure to stay far from the vicious leaves on its way out. It was only after she’d scoured her workplace for signs of any others, or of seeds, that she managed to get her mind back on her work.

In the hallway on his way to the arboretum, Rumpelstiltskin stared at the gift he’d gotten for Belle, feeling embarrassed and put out. At least he’d come up with an excuse for having the plant other than “I heard human females desire plants as courting gifts.”

He’d spent an hour picking which one and decided on the Jekka spine-flower because it was rare and interesting to look at. None of the other specimens were quite so complicated or fascinating. Spine-flowers had a number of abilities that were rare in other species – including the ability to move. They even had a lengthy history, having been harvested and various parts refined for use as food, weapons, textiles, medicine, and oxygen sources on their home planet before being taken into space and extending their reach even further.

He’d thought that sort of complexity would be the sort of thing Belle wanted.

Well, he’d been wrong. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought.

Now he was out a good deal of money, owned a rare plant he neither needed nor wanted, and Belle probably thought he was trying to kill her.

Prompt: @Anonymous: There's been Vampire fics, WW fics, undead fics... There's only a quite a few alien fics though. And usually its Belle being the alien with the Dr. Rush idea. But what about Belle being like an agent like Scully form the X-files, and Rumpel, imp form, being an alien who has abducted her?

It was a spaceship. A real, live spaceship! Director White would have to believe her now!

Trembling with excitement and the validation of finally having proof that her life’s work was not a fool’s errand, Belle fumbled her phone as she pulled it out of her pocket, dropping it twice. Unfortunately, when she finally managed to swipe across the screen so she could call in backup, nothing happened. Her wallpaper remained frozen in place. And when she tried again, the screen went dark, the phone died completely, and Belle was left staring at it in bewildered annoyance.

Her pause didn’t last long – Belle wasn’t one for resting on her laurels. Her jaw firmed and she tucked the dead phone back in her pocket. “Well then, I guess I’ll do this myself!”

Thankfully, she was well-prepared with a flashlight and camera. Her quest to find out the truth about extraterrestrial life never rested and for once her vigilance had paid off.

Sticking close to the futuristic vessel, Belle worked her way slowly around the clearing, thoroughly documenting the ship as she went. It was massive- longer than two jumbo jets placed end to end – and roughly circular in shape – just like the flying saucers from old movies. The crash had done nothing to hide its true nature, though there were some impressive scorch marks on one side and a gaping hole in the other.

It was the hole that grabbed Belle’s attention. She’d always been a curious soul and the deep shadows inside of the ship beckoned her. The hole was conveniently butted up against a protruding boulder so she wouldn’t even have to climb much. Granted, she had no idea what she might find in an alien spaceship but so far it seemed abandoned. And what harm would there be in just taking a peek? She could just stick her head in, glance around, and then go for backup with her pictures as proof.

“Okay Belle, you can do this.” She whispered to herself, for some reason loathe to break the silence. “Just a peek, one peek and one picture…”

Belle took a cautious step inside of the gaping hole, camera held out in front of her in a death grip in one hand and her small flashlight gripped tightly in the other. Inside the ship, she found what looked like a long metal hallway – disappointingly, it didn’t look very alien. She waited to see if anything would happen and when it didn’t, she took another tentative step further inside, looking for anything interesting.

Then another step.

And another.

And another.

In light of her search for proof of alien life and the apparent lack of immediate danger, she completely forgot that she’d vowed to only take a peek and swiftly found herself walking steadily down the hallway, out of range of the small circle of sunlight that came through the hole and relying entirely on the small beam of her flashlight

The hallway curved inward, apparently circling the outside of the saucer-shaped ship. Shortly, she came across a perpendicular corridor leading inwards towards the center. At the other end, she could see a faint purple light.

By this point, Belle had lost sight of the danger of the situation. Her curiosity was her greatest strength…but also her greatest weakness. Without stopping to think, she turned down the hallway to investigate the source of the light. There were many closed ovular doors along the wall and when she tried to open one, it was locked. In the darkness, she could see no sign of any decorations or…well…alien-ness. Other than the fact that she was inside of a spaceship, of course.

When the purple glow grew strong enough for her to see her surroundings without assistance, she shoved her flashlight into her pocket and started taking pictures; the doors, the hallway, the walls, the purple light…none of it looked obviously ‘alien’ but it was certainly eerie.

However, the room she found at the end of the corridor met all of her expectations.

It was a perfectly circular room, obviously at the center of the ship, that was lined with tiny purple lights along the floor – emergency lighting. There were dark screens lining the walls and padded, human-sized chairs scattered in front of futuristic consoles. There was a dome in the ceiling at the center that was made of metal. The dome provided a bubble with just enough space to house a large official looking chair set above the rest of the room on a five-foot tall pedestal.

When she craned her neck, she could see panels and grips on the wide armrests and strange wires and devices attached to the headrest of the ‘big chair’. Belle’s sci-fi movie experience with UFOs informed her that this was probably the captain’s chair – and that the dome was some sort of window or screen to the outside.

Belle stood spellbound, staring at the obviously alien surroundings, feeling the same awe she’d felt upon seeing the outside of the ship for the first time. Slowly, validation crept in around her amazement.

She was right! Aliens were real!

The diffuse purple light cast dancing shadows but it was just bright enough to allow her to take pictures. For the next half hour, she did her best to document the room, photographing anything and everything and picking up little pieces of debris from the floor to tuck away in her pockets – gathering as much proof of the existence of aliens that she could get to take back to the Director.

No one would question her with this proof! Area 51 was nothing in comparison!

When time passed with no sign of extraterrestrial life, her wariness vanished completely and a false sense of security grew. Maybe the ship had been abandoned or the crew had died (though she’d seen no sign of bodies or internal damage to the ship) – they obviously weren’t there.

Little did she know, but there was one alien on board.

The ship was split into multiple levels, and not far below Belle’s feet, another living being was struggling with repairing the ship. His ship.

Rumpelstiltskin lay flat under a generator in an engineering alcove, one of many on the level and the last one he had to repair. There were tools scattered around his head and tiny sparks and darts of magic generated by his nanites reaching into the machine from the tips of his fingers. The procedure required concentration and finesse, which were wavering alarmingly for the tired imp.

He was exhausted, bruised, and mentally spent from the crash and the fight beforehand, but there was no chance to rest. As the owner, captain, and sole occupant of the Spinner’s Gold, he was responsible for filling all of the roles that would normally be managed by a dozen or more crew members on a ship this size – usually an easy prospect, with his nanite-enhanced magical abilities, but this was far from a normal situation. He’d been working to restore power ever since he’d been shot down – on a pre-warp world like this, keeping the locals away was his paramount concern, followed by evading the bounty hunters no doubt already on his tail.

Damn Cora and her goons!

With a final spark of magic to repair the last cracked energy crystal, the circuit completed and power returned.

Rumple groaned and finally allowed his shoulders to relax and his aching hands to release the magic and fall limply on his chest as the ship slowly restarted around him. The nanobot generators in the hull were the first thing to come online, creating an airtight seal over the hull breaches and turning on the image generators that would camouflage the ship from nosy locals.

He sent out a thread of magic, connecting the nanites in his body, and especially his brain, to the nanobots in the ship to tap into the mainframe, monitoring the progress of the repairs.

The engineering nanobots came next, repairing the hull to its previous strength through basic molecular manipulation of raw materials. Then the door mechanics returned, followed by the oxygen circulators, the environmental controls, and finally the greater functionality of the main computers that he’d need to control his ship, escape this backwards mudball, and navigate to safety in space.

The lights were the last thing to return – imps were naturally adapted to see in the dark, so the overhead lights were technically unnecessary and a waste of precious resources at this point. Tapped into the computer with his mind, he watched the various systems restarting with exhausted relief and satisfaction. He watched until they were all restarted, working at only 5 percent peak efficiency but steadily increasing. At this rate, his ship would be repaired and ready to leave in two hours.

With that in mind, he rolled out from underneath the generator and stood up in the cramped maintenance corridor, stretching and groaning when his back cracked in protest. All he really wanted to do was collapse in bed and let the automated nanobots take over…but the situation was still too dangerous.

Slowly, he became aware of an alert calling for his attention through his nanites. He didn’t know how long it had been there – so many other things had been so much more important than a non-urgent notification. A simple thought brought him details and he stopped short.

Life signs.

An intruder.

The alien appeared next to Belle in a mist of purple smoke the same color as the lights, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, screaming in shock and accidentally shining her flashlight full in its face. She scrambled backwards as fast as possible, her survival instincts finally warning her that this was probably a very bad idea.

It snarled out what sounded like a curse when the flash hit its eyes and stumbled away from her, shaking its head.

She only made it a few steps before running into one of the consoles and being forced to stop short. What precious few seconds she might have used to flee were instead occupied by gaping in shock at what looked surprisingly like a human with greyish-green scales.

“Who are you?” It – he ­– snarled. “What do you want?” He quickly recovered, rounding on her with a dangerous, violent edge to his voice. She noted distantly that his eyes were not human at all. “You’re trespassing on my ship, dearie. You’d best have a good reason!”

“I…I just wanted some pictures?” She explained feebly, holding out her camera as proof. She wasn’t prepared for this. She’d been hunting aliens for over a decade but somehow face-to-face with one, she faltered.

His expression was cold as he looked down at her camera…and hardened further as his gaze strayed to her pockets, full to brimming with little pieces of debris she’d picked up.

“Thief.” He hissed, lips curling back to bare sharp black snaggleteeth. “Did you think I would not find you?”

“I’m not a thief!” Indignation finally broke through Belle’s shock, though not in a constructive way.

“Oh, no? And I suppose you picked all this up on accident?” He waved his hand, and abruptly her pockets were empty, their contents floating – floating – in midair between her and the alien. For the first time, she realized that her ‘proof’, the debris she’d found littering the ground around the crash site, technically did belong to the owner of the ship. She had been stealing. And she’d also been trespassing when she took her pictures.

“Well, no, but I didn’t mean-.”

A shrill cackle cut her off. “Excuses, excuses, dearie! I hate excuses. Little thieves do not get second chances.” With a wave of his hand and sparkle of electricity from his fingertips, the world dissolved into purple smoke.

Rumple sent the girl to the brig without a second thought. Her contraband went straight to the engineering department to be broken down and re-constituted as building material by the nanobots. Everything else he’d confiscated actually did belong to her.

As he was collecting her possessions (he was no thief – he’d return it when she left), he stumbled upon her camera. Curious, he flicked the button and clicked through picture after picture of his ship, face darkening with every image. It didn’t take long for him to decide that they could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Not just those of humans – there were plenty of interstellar bounty hunters that would love to find him grounded and helpless, or even just to see what the Spinner’s Gold looked like on the inside.

With a single click of his claw on the garbage can icon, the camera’s memory was wiped. One of the first things he’d done upon landing was set up an EM shield to disable any local technology that happened to find him – this one just happened to be too low-tech to be effected. That was easily remedied – a slight adjustment to the EM shield generator made it so the camera and any similar devices wouldn’t work within the damping field surrounding his ship, just like the girl’s phone.

Now he just had to decide what to do with her.

In the end, the choice was not Rumpelstiltskin’s to make. Cora’s bounty hunters found him before his ship was completely repaired and he had to make an emergency escape to avoid being captured or blown to pieces. Thankfully, he was repaired enough to make it out of orbit and into a nearby meteor storm, throwing off his pursuers with his own expert flying and clever navigation.

Unfortunately, the three warp jumps he used to get out of their reach depleted the ship’s resources too much for his comfort. He’d be limping along for more than a week to make up for it and avoiding Earth’s galaxy – no doubt under Cora’s surveillance now – for far longer.

The girl was an annoyance, but ultimately not a factor in his decision. If he even tried to take her back, they would both be killed.

Apparently, she was along for the ride.

Beneath Belle, the landscape of stars consumed her entire view. The entire floor of the prison-level – the very bottom of the ship – was transparent, so she could see everything that happened beneath the ship. It left an odd feeling of weightlessness, of drifting and falling – not doubt meant to be a tool to unnerve prisoners. However, even through Belle’s terror at the situation, the sight of the vast blackness of space filled her with awe. There were stars so close she felt like she could reach out and touch them and distant twinkling constellations that no human had ever seen.

Her entire life, Belle had dreamed of space and the stars and this one moment was all she’d ever hoped for. For a brief time, everything was worth it.

“Having fun?” Her captor’s mocking voice cut through her awestruck daze and she looked up.

“What…what are you going to do with me?” Her voice was trembling and small – far more frightened than she’d meant to let on.

The alien simply shrugged, mincing around the outside of her cell in odd dancing steps. “That is for me to know and you…well, I’m sure you’ll find out eventually.”

Belle swallowed heavily and let out a weak protest. “I can’t just stay in here forever.”

He stopped abruptly and cocked his head. “Well, I suppose you should make yourself useful.” He sounded reluctant. “If only to earn your keep. Food’s not easy to come by out here, after all.”

“Then let me go!” She snapped, unable to hold her tongue in the face of his, what, blame? Like this was her fault?!

The alien tittered. “Certainly! I’m sure it’s quite pleasant outside of the airlock. I can let you go right now.”

All of the blood drained from Belle’s face at the implied threat and the realization that her very fragile life lay in his hands. Even if he chose to ignore her completely in her cell, she had no food or water to survive on her own.

She flinched back in defeat. “I’ll-I’ll do what you say.” Her whisper was defeated.

“Well…good.” But he didn’t seem happy. If anything, he seemed irritated. “Maybe next time, you’ll think twice before trespassing on some else’s property!”

Belle’s surge of resentment (this was not a suitable punishment for her accidental crime) was overshadowed by hope. Her head snapped up.

“Next time?” The alien took a startled step back when she came closer to the glass as her fear dissipated. His obvious confusion fueled her hope. “You’re going to let me go?”

“Well I’m certainly not going to keep you.”

Her relief was a crushing weight lifted from her shoulders. She had no problem with paying her way provided he took her back home at some point. It could even be an adventure! This was a spaceship!

There was only one small concern left, which she knew was probably ridiculous but she’d been raised on sci-fi Saturday alien monster movies and there was always one thing the abducted victims suffered…

“And you won’t…you know?”

“I know…what?” His confusion was comical enough to make her uncomfortable at what she was trying to imply.

“You won’t - er - ‘study’ me?”

“Study?”

“…Physically?”

“Why would I do that? Your planet’s internet was highly informative. I doubt there’s anything I could learn from you that I haven’t learned from that.”

“Right. Of course.” She squared her shoulders. This was a situation she could handle. It might even be fun. “What should I do then? To earn my keep, like you said.”

The alien seemed taken aback by Belle’s sudden eagerness and the surprising confusion encouraged her. Who said being an alien meant he was cruel? She might think his reaction was disproportionate to her crime, but it was still understandable.

From that point onward, she inwardly vowed to see him just as another person, not an alien or monster. To him, she was probably the alien, especially since they were no longer on Earth.

“What do you want me to do?”

“So eager to start your punishment, dearie?” He sneered but the vicious expression was belied by the way he jittered backwards when she tried to approach him. It was hard to be frightened of him when half of the time he seemed poised to flee.

He shifted uncomfortably when her only response was to cross her arms and arch an unimpressed eyebrow. After a long, awkward moment, he straightened his shoulders and called his anger back to the forefront. With a flourish of his hand – Belle still couldn’t get a good look at whatever technology allowed him to generate electricity – the world dissolved in purple smoke.

Belle materialized gasping and coughing, feeling like she’d been squeezed through a tube of toothpaste. It took a long moment for the world to stop spinning and she staggered, pin-wheeling her arms.

Her vision returned to normal just as her hand landed on a leather-clad arm and she felt the muscles beneath it suddenly tense up. She found herself staring into the alien’s reptilian eyes, wide in apparent shock that she dared to touch him. For a long moment, the two of them stood there nose to nose, Belle increasingly worried he’d be angry – until he cleared his throat awkwardly and shook her away.

He stalked towards a desk in the corner, trying his best to make it look like he wasn’t running away (and failing).

“I’ve acquired much information from your Earth ‘internet’, a knowledge database on your species. You will organize it and add it to my ship’s database.”

“The entire internet?”

“Of course not. Don’t be daft. I only acquired specific, impartial information that suits the galactic criteria for known sapient species. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with my archive first, of course, but you’ll likely be here a while. Not like you’ve got anything better to do.”

His nasty snigger barely daunted Belle.

“How will I translate it? I don’t know your language…”

“Don’t worry about that. The ship will do it for you.” He waved an unconcerned hand and Belle glanced around the room, taking in the wide window on the wall that opened out into space – an amazing view – and the high-tech facilities that were about to be at her fingertips.

The alien was giving her the chance to research data on every known sapient species. Aliens. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of kinds of aliens. And he wasn’t only giving her the chance – he wanted her read up on them.

In trying to punish her, he’d given her nearly everything she’d ever wanted.

“Do you understand?” He finally snapped, and she abruptly realized she was supposed to be saying something.

“Oh! Oh, yes. I understand.”

“Good, then you can get started right away.” He vanished in a poof of purple smoke before she could respond. Reverently, she laid her hand on the desk’s keyboard-esque touchscreen and watched with wide-eyed excitement as a couple dozen icons appeared on the larger view-screen, each one showing an image of a different species.

Oh yes, she was definitely ready to start.

Notes on this Universe:

- Rumple’s nanites - the force that allows him to do magic - are rare and valuable, highly sought after by other space-faring factions. There are many people would pay a lot of money, or even kill, to have him at their side or under their thumb.

-Spinner’s Gold was originally a derelict wreck that Rumple fixed up with his own two hands (and magic), modifying it to suit his own special needs. He’s never had a normal sized crew, though occasionally he’s picked up an ally or two to help him on his way.

- Belle has believed in aliens almost her entire life but has been laughed at whenever she tells anyone. Her intelligence and credentials got her a job at the FBI, but the other agents still look down on her. (I tried to base her on the X-Files, but accidentally picked Mulder instead of Scully. Oops!)