#rumplestitlskin

Fandom: Once Upon A Time

Summary: reimagined ending of, Skin Deep, Season 1 Episode 12. Belle is being held captive by the Dark One. With the help of isolation he hopes to break her down and mold her back into his own imagine.

Warnings: isolation, imprisonment, and brainwashing

@fuckyeahbelleandrumpelstiltskin @dontshootmespence @reiding-and-writing @beautifulfccl

The self made tally marks on the limestone wall blurred together as Belle’s eyes drifted shut, trying to pull up memories of stories to keep her sane, of stories that would help her solve this nightmare she found herself in. But as each day passed and as each minute came, the illusion of time became it’s own form of torture. She watches the sun rise and fall each day, watched the sky turn colors throughout the day from the small window before returning to the deep ebony of nightfall. Food, a measly portion of gruel, was delivered and eaten but Belle kept no memory of it, somethings just fell away with time.

It was one morning when the white marks against the cold stone became unfocused in her eyes that Belle slowly felt the slip. It was not a shove or a harsh pull but a soft little tug, like a temptation to eat a delectable dessert but she knew she needed to stay on top of her game, she had to resist the pull to give up.

Belle began reciting facts, basic ones at first and then more elaborate ones to keep her grounded. To the outside viewer it seems like trifles that she was rattling off. She always ending by confidently saying “My name is Belle French. I am 23 years old. This will not break me down. I will not be defeated!”

Day after day Belle would do this, pace around the room talking to herself, stopping only to eat quickly before resuming her pacing before eventually falling into a fitful sleep. Each time she tried to open her eyes the tug became a little stronger and a little more desirable.

Belle had left her town of Avonlea only to find herself imprisoned in a tower of the Dark One’s mansion, which she had no idea of the location. She thought accepted this deal was the right thing to do, her father need that Beast’s help in a war they were losing against the ogres. Belle’s servitude was the price for their protection but she had never imagined she would have ended up like this. He showed Belle to her "room", which was a dungeon cell and locked the door behind her. The white chalk ran out at 124 tally marks which is when he started coming over less and that was some while ago. She screamed and screamed and screamed. The overwhelming loneliness was too much to bear!

She begins to think of home and the many books that filled the rooms, to avoid letting the lonely in and slipping away from reality. Belle began to reminisce about her childhood. Her mother was the reason she adored reading after she introduced Belle to Her Handsome Hero, a tale of compassion and forgiveness, when she was a small child. This novel went on to be Belle’s favorite, even into her adult life.

Her Handsome Hero preached benevolence when Gideon was traveling through the war torn countries of Copros and Ashela. He was an outlaw running from Copros. Gideon passed by a pretty pauper who was steal a loaf of bread which instilled in him a desire to help this young lady. Gideon later found out her name, Guinevere. During the climax of the novel Guinevere, who’s secretly the princess of Ashela turns in Gideon to Copros Officials. After realizing this action didn’t win her, her father’s love Guinevere Rescued Gideon. It was hard for Gideon to forgive her but with time forgiveness came. Eventually their were able to rekindle their romance and get married. Belle has always admired these two characters. She thought back to morals of the story and started to question whether the Dark One had any compassion for her.

“Obviously not! I mean only a sick masochistic beast could do this to another human being,” Belle yelled in frustration. Belle pondered weather she could find the man behind the monster. He is this repulsive carcass, who seems a beast. But what if he secretly dreams of beauty, Belle questioned.

The smell of books was always a comforting one and even as Belle laid on her freezing iron cot still under the paper thin blanket she felt a wave wash over her. Her memory was taking her back, inviting her to remember the smell of something that gave her so much comfort, just like the stories in the books she read. They filled her with joy and hope. A reminder of being safe and happy when nothing else could make her that way. The images became a steady stream, a story wrapped around her taking her away from the tower and the ever encroaching feeling of loneliness. Each day that Belle awoke was a day spent in a dream. The edges of reality blurred as the stories became reality and reality became nothing more than a dream.

It was not a single moment that Belle decided to surrender herself to the loneliness but slowly over time. There was this overwhelming urge to let go, the tugging in Belle’s chest was unbearable.

She was tired of muffling her cries of anguish.

Tired of feeling hopeless.

Tired of feeling empty.

Sad.

Useless.

Belle was just tired.

“I surrender,” She admits, softly, as if it is a sin.

unexpectedly, the heavy wooden door creaked opened. Belle was unfazed by the intruder, remaining as she was, sitting at the edge of her bed with her knees tucked into her chest while her arms wrapped around her legs. It was only when the intruder kneeled down in front of her that she bothered to meet their gaze.

It was the Dark One.

Of course.

Who else would it be.

“You all right, Dearie?” He coos, bringing his hand up to tuck a couple of stray ebony locks behind Belle’s ear.

Her expression was forlorn. Belle continued to stare at the Beast with her dead vacant grey eyes which held force life behind those dreary eyes. They were once a cheerful Sapphire color which now reflects her current predicament. The Dark One turned away and began pacing the small cell.

“The physician diagnosed you with hysterical tendency,” he said “you were acting out your erotic fantasies which came from the bad habit of reading novels.” The Dark One hissed though a clenched jaw. “Remember Belle, You kissed me after returning from town when I sent you on an Errand to buy straw for my spinning.” He Shouted, recalling that moment when he became furious and broke off the kiss. “I threw you in my dungeon in hopes that the doctor’s remedy of the Resting Cure will heal you!”

Belle did not have the strength to say anything, she just nodded in response.

“you know reading books will confuse your thoughts...I just wanted to take action to help after you came onto me” He coos, while lending his hand to help her off the bed.

Just like Gideon did for Guinevere, Belle Thought to herself. All of this was to help me. I should have know that he only had my best interest at heart. There was only ever a man, no Monster to be found in him.

Belle stares at him for a second, and then a smile, a real smile, as beautiful as the dawn, blooms on her face. She has found her handsome hero.

“You are not trapped,” he said, gliding her towards the dimly lit hallway with a predator’s grace.

“You know, as much as I’ve known you to be a sanctimonious hypocrite, I never quite understood why you lied to my boy. Why you gave a child a magic bean, one of the last ones, instead of telling him about True Love’s Kiss.”

Reul Ghorm tried not to startle as the Dark One’s voice emerged from somewhere deep in the woods. She’d been heeding the call of a village nearby, hounded by a demonic creature that she could see was actually a cursed prince. Neither the prince nor the village, remote and not particularly devoted to fairies, merited the expenditure of fairy dust, so she had left them with instructions to use water against it, and slay it. She was sure that sooner or later the problem would be taken care of.

“Come out of the shadows, Dark One, if you wish to have a proper conversation.”

There was a rustle nearby and then the Dark One’s silhouette became partly visible. The fairy frowned, her centuries-old instincts telling her there was something odd about the creature in front of her: his skin had lost some of its typical Dark One colouring, looking more like it had when he had first gotten the curse, and there was something strangely familiar about his magic, the way it vibrated around him. Something she felt she should recognise instantly.

“True Love’s Kiss... capable of breaking any curse. When I learned of it, after my boy was gone, I simply assumed someone as dark as I had become was incapable of it. But I’ve come to know that Dark One’s are not immune to the feeling of true love, or its effects. But that’s not what stopped you from mentioning true love to Baelfire, was it?”

Something twitched behind Rumplestiltskin and, for some reason, the Blue fairy felt herself tremble. 

“You knew. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. You knew who I was, what I was, and you were... disgusted. Intolerant. Afraid. Such dirty little secret, that almighty fairies can get as down and dirty as the rest of us.”

Blue intensified her glow, trying to see what was moving behind the Dark One. She caught a glimpse of burnt orange and ochre.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Was it just that I was a half-fairy or was it also the fact that it meant one of your girls had fucked Peter Pan. Can’t imagine that would inspire a lot of confidence in you or your kind.”

Rumplestiltskin cupped hand in front of him and deftly produced a fireball. But it wasn’t the ball itself that made Blue gasp and retreat but rather the enormous wings it illuminated. Fairy wings, no doubt, even if they were in many ways. Changeling wings, unnatural in every way, shape and form.

“Impossible.”

“Quite the contrary, dearie. All too possible. Painful at first, but I’ve gotten past the change. Not with your help, of course, but that’s in the past. Though, as my mate pointed out, my past. There might be... others out there. You’d know, wouldn’t you?”

Of course she knew. She kept track of all those... abominations, made sure they lived unremarkable lives untouched by anything magical, specially something as precious as true love. She’d thought that, out of all of them, Rumplestiltskin would be the one she’d never have to worry about going through the change.

She’d been wrong, apparently.

“What do you want?”

As she said this she tried to think about how she could spin this, how she could somehow pin Rumplestiltskin’s new appendages and his magical changes to his curse, or perhaps to his extreme experiments with magical curses.

“Oh, don’t worry, dearie. I have no desire to... reveal myself. I am quite happy with people thinking I’m still the Dark One. It’s not... entirely false. I have no desire to show my changed nature to anyone outside my beloved. But you... you’re the one person I can be sure it’s never going to tattle-tale. The only person, too, that could tell me who other changelings are.”

“What do you want with them?”

“To do better by them than you. Changing was... an excruciating process. And only made worse by my ignorance. I want others to be luckier if they ever get to experience it. And there’s also the fact that I know fairies can sense the potential for true love. I’d hate to think you’ve been keeping people apart to prevent your dirty little secret from coming to the light.”

The way Rumplestiltskin said it sounded evil, but Blue knew it wasn’t. She was doing what was right, keeping the magical order. Fairies aren’t suppose to mingle with humans... or others. But every now and then one of her charges was led astray, and she had to ensure her mistake wouldn’t carry horrible consequences.

Then again, it seemed that keeping the secret would mean agreeing to the Dark One’s terms. She studied him for a few seconds, seeing now how much he resembled Fiona. Same stubborn chin, same defiant gaze. She produced the list she kept in her chambers, under lock and key, and held it out to the Dark One.

“The list for your silence.”

“Only if you tell me of any future changelings too. And believe me, dearie, as much as I’d hate to have my true nature revealed to the world, I will endure it if I so much as hear a whisper of a changeling child you’ve failed to tell me about.”

He snatched the list from her hands as soon as she agreed and laughed at her indignant little squeak.

“Now I suggest you make yourself scarce, dearie. My mate, you see, has gone to the village you’ve just flown from to help them with their pesky yoaguai problem. I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy with you once they realise all it took was a handful of fairy dust to vanquish.”

Belle hates it; Rumple loves it.

Belle thinks it makes her look much older than she really is; Rumple thinks it doesn’t make her look any older than when they first met.

Belle was the last of her friends to get a greys.

When Belle got her first grey hair, Rumple saw it first and told her she looked more beatiful that whole day.

We’re still months away, but Season 7 of Once Upon a Time is already bringing about a lot of change — including a new accent for Robert Carlyle’s character. The actor, and Colin O’Donoghue, sat down with reporters at Comic-Con and revealed that plot details about the forthcoming season were so vague at the beginning, that he didn’t have much to go on.

So, he started with one accent and then, presumably upon learning more about his character and the season ahead, changed it to another.

Which means, he’ll have to re-record his previous lines for continuity, and that’s dedication.

“I kind of started off going in a slightly different direction, and I actually changed the accent in Episode 2,” he said. “So, I’m going to [ADR] out all the stuff that I did in Episode 1, because in Episode 2 I suddenly went, ‘Wait a minute…You’ve got to remember you ain’t that character anymore.’ It’s so incredibly different, so to walk in there as Gold — or even have Gold’s voice or Gold’s mannerisms — it would be very confusing.”

O’Donoghue had a very similar experience.

 “For me it’s exciting to get to explore my character in a completely different way,” he began, calling it a great exercise. And it is that, sure, but the new character also took some getting used to. “We had a scene the other day and I played it a certain way,” he recalled. “I suddenly remembered, I have to do it different. For five years, we’ve played these characters a certain way with each other, and it’s different now.

”That it is — so the tension between the two onscreen will, naturally, be different too — but there are still a lot of similarities.

For instance, O’Donoghue teases that, “My character looks very similar to the other character…He might not have a hook, but he doesn’t have a hand.” (Wait a minute, he still doesn’t have a HAND?!) And more broadly, “We are Rumplestiltskin, we are Hook. Lana [Parrilla’s] still Regina. So, there will be elements of our old characters there, but there will be new personas in that.