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It occurs to Princess Emma that she has never truly known grief. What it means to be in mourning or how one is to properly conduct themselves while in the process of dealing with it.
She is terribly sad, and she has never really been sad before. Until this singular event, her life had been the very essence of perfection.
Her parents tell her that she must give it time. That all things even as unbearable as they may seem to be will eventually settle and pass. Remind her that, despite her great loss, a glimmer of hope remains and grows steadily inside of her each and every day.
It is enough, they say.
It has to be enough, is what they are really trying to say.
‘For what?’ she wonders instead pitifully when they do, because it’s not enough. That cannot be the only answer to this pain. Not the only choice to make it fade and go away.
She is terribly torn, and unspeakably heartbroken.
So for once in her young and admittedly sheltered life the need for direct action outweighs the fair Princess’ usual deposition for conceding to her parent’s wisdom and wishes. Uncommonly and stubbornly convincing herself that she must do something about it, desperate now for anything to quell this suffering she feels so deeply within her, even if only in the slightest.
What she wants is someone to know the depth of her agony, for someone to share in it. A companion in her loss, perhaps that it what she wishes for above all else.
And she now knows that there is only one person left in the world for that.
So she seeks him out; for he is not a difficult man to find these days. One must only look in a single place.
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Emma sets out doing so under the deep cover of night. Her servants and subjects none the wiser to her deeds, for who would ever expect their docile mistress to ever willingly sneak off on her own?
(One thing she was quickly coming to learn about herself during this tragic period in her life was that the moment her mind was set on a task there was nothing or no one that could stop her from following through on it, regardless of the danger and the risks it posed. Even if she may come to regret such a headstrong resolve, the decision was already made and set in stone as far as she was concerned.)
It does not take long to find the forbidden cave. It’s a hard place to miss when you’re actively looking for it—hard to miss even if you were not—but most wayward travelers knew to turn back and find another way round if they ever happened to stumble upon its path.
The area around it is nearly desolate, she notes, as she approaches. The dark magic residing inside having likely seeped out after all these years to spoil and rot the terrain surrounding it. The Princess had heard the ongoing discussion and concerns of it becoming a hunting ground for magic users to collect the rare but valuable flowers and plants of the darkest variety sprouting out there increasingly since the Dark One's confinement during the occasional council meetings the King and Queen would encourage her to sit in on.
Arriving, the cloaked heiress to the throne gracefully dismounted her steed. Giving the flustered horse a gentle stroke along its mane to help calm it as she guided it towards a dead tree trunk nearest to the rocky entrance to secure its reins around it with a firm and sturdy knot. Offering one last reassuring pat to her trusted companion before she turned and made her way inside.
Despite her determination into getting this far the Princess still outwardly cringes as she enters the cave dwelling for she has never been very fond of such dreary places having spent most of her time in the bright and carefree realm of her parents’ kingdom. The dank air and reek of this cursed place makes her skin crawl. She feels tainted by it, by simply allowing herself to walk within the company of such known evil.
The rational need to flee such a dangerous place stalls her from approaching too closely to the bars of the makeshift and magically infused prison cell once she reaches it. Unconsciously resting a hand on her stomach; the motion of it calms her and gives her strength to carry on in its own way.
She then frowned and fidgeted, not really sure what to do next.
How does one summon the Dark One forward?
This place, long since abandoned, there are no guards to be found wondering about the tunnels to guide her in her endeavors. So Emma decides to clear her throat pointedly, a tad bit awkwardly, and hopes for the best.
And surprisingly something does shift at the noise, ending any opportunity she had left to back out of this, admittedly, irrational plan of hers and run away unnoticed. The creature in the cage was now fully aware of her presence in his darkly dungeon. So the Princess mustered up all her courage, realizing all too quickly she had very little of it to offer. Her voice quivered as she spoke.
“Do you know who I am?”
The notorious Imp had not yet bothered to show himself but he did choose to answer her question, “Of course I do, dearie.”
Another sharp movement was made but still not enough so for his face to fall into her sights. He did continue to speak though.
“Do tell, what compels the fairest swan in the land into gracing us with her enchanted and royal presence in this most humble abode of ours?”
It abruptly unnerves Emma, his candidness and overall lack of appearance. And what was that moniker all about? Why refer to her as a swan? She had heard many a stories of the Dark One’s deliberate deceptions with word choices and interpretations but this she could not make light of.
It had on an odd effect, hearing it in that context; directed at her in that way. And so the Princess opted to do what she always did when flustered and put on the spot with difficult matters, she elected to ignore it and carry on forward with the simpler task at hand.
“I am here on behalf of man known by the name Neal,” she explained, “I wanted to personally inform you of his untimely death.”
“What of it?” he snaps back irritably, startling her. He sounded mostly inconvenienced by the news. But still, the slightest hint of curiosity followed. “Why would that matter to me? That he’s dead?”
She gives herself a moment, maybe to give him one too. “Because I know he was your son.”
Her beloved had shared that dark secret to her in the end. But only compelled to do so at the very end. He hadn’t trusted her enough with the truth of it, she’d realized after with a sharp and unexpected flare of anger and hurt. Even despite committing the whole of her heart to him for the rest of her life Neal—Baelfire—hadn’t intended to tell her the truth of his parentage. Not until the consequence of his deception was seemingly beyond personal cost or repercussion. For him, that is.
He had lived his life with her as one man but had died as someone else to her entirely.
It felt akin to betrayal.
That, too, was a new emotion to be felt for the young royal. Most days she found it difficult to decipher which of the two—Neal’s death or his lie—was causing the worst and the most unrestful of the strange and conflicted tides within her.
Forcibly, she ceased her somber judgements, so as not to upset herself further in her delicate state. And gave herself a quick shake for good measure, compelling herself back into the present. Best not to dwell on that, she chided within, best get this next part over and done with.
“I simply thought you should know.” Resolute, Emma declared, “I am carrying his child.”
There was only silence that followed; thick and heavy, fluid.
Then, “You’re lying.”
The monstrosity of a man subsequently elected to appear then and the Princess had never been more fully aware or terrified of another living being in her entire life. She blinks rapidly at the very sight of the infamous and revered Rumplestiltskin as if doing so would somehow change the horrid visage of the caged beast who stares back at her, filthy and seemingly unhinged.
“Naughty little liar,” he sneers again high-strung like a sing along song.
Then he snickers at her. "You have lost your way. Misplaced yourself amongst fairytales"
He tuts as his laughter eases and dies down. He shakes his head, unruly and frayed strands of crimped hair thrashing along back and forth as he contemplates his own thoughts and words. An explanation it seemed is what she would be getting for he leans heavily against the bar woefully but with an almost artificial quality to it as if doing so solely for the added effect of telling a sad story to a naïve child.
“My son was long ago lost to this world. The only means I had left to finding him was struck down the moment Snow White defeated her Evil Queen. That is what happened.”
Clawed fingernails pointed at her willfully. “Not this, nothing like this.”
But as soon as he finishes speaking Rumplestiltskin whips his head around as if catching an unexpected sound lurking amongst the black depths behind him.
“Ahh…I see, I see.” He murmurs, seemingly nodding along understandably with the unknown.
“Yes, yes, I’d nearly forgotten about the time. I’ve been trapped in this wretched prison for too long then.” He nods again, deciphering something. “But this was only meant for show; to get the final cogs in place to spin for me. What’s happened to that part of the tale? It appears something has been made terribly amiss.”
He appears scattered but diligent in his musings and with his strange discussion with himself. The Princess could only watch and wonder what it all meant with a worrying fascination.
“Oh, yes, I have lost my place in this story as is. I suppose I’ll need to reclaim it once more to find out what it is.”
The Dark One twirls back around to face her again with a new type of performance at play, one with an overt sense of flair; a newer character to be portrayed and acted out accordingly.
Solely for her. “Shall we try this again?”
“What is this?” she asked cautiously instead, as her confusion and shell shock at his rabid fire personality shift settles enough so for her to speak up once more to try and understand all that had just transpired. “Is this some sort of trick?”
“No tricks to be had here by my doing, I assure you,” he tried.
Naturally, she wasn’t buying it. Instead, Emma felt oddly compelled and brave enough to push the issue further.
”What did you mean about your son being lost a long time ago?”
“Let’s ignore all that,” he waved away her concern dismissively. “It’s not important.”
She would not.
“Are you suggesting that the man I knew—the man who claimed to me to be your son Baelfire was, in fact, not actually him at all?
“He was,” he guaranteed swiftly, but seemed oddly compelled to add in, “but only to a point.”
Emma purses her red lips, unsure what to say or what to do with that. She was growing frustrated while he seemed undeterred by her confusion and subsequent silence. Instead he appeared to be inspired to carry on in this direction without her, pacing along his cell as he did so.
“A means to an end for a story that needed to be told is what he was for.” Rumplestiltskin looked to be assessing his own flourishing thoughts on the matter, aligning a stray set of fragments together in a complex equation as he spoke; the words spilling forth unchecked.
Finally, his stare shifts, fell to her, to look. And to really see. “One made up just for you.”
The Princess remains dumbstruck. A revelation was being made, one evidently associated with her and her alone. But she has no clue what it was about. Nor did she want to find out.
Some things were better left staying in the dark.
“I believe—I have accomplished what I sought out to do here as best I could,” she stammers as she speaks. “I think—I think it’s time for me to go.”
“No, no. Not yet.”
He stills. And she falters.
Her green eyes watch as he moves. Lifting up his right arm and slipping it through the jagged bars of his cage; rotted flesh glistening, beckoning her to come a little closer.
“May I?” he asks softly.
It was a sudden and strange sensation but in that moment the Princess did not feel quite like herself anymore. Not afraid, nor unsure, not even desperate for her parents to tell her what to do. She was someone else entirely. Not frightened of the unknown but one curious enough to seek it out instead.
So Emma in that moment steps forward, not back; step after step. Until she is close enough for the outstretched palm to touch. Exhaling slowly as his hand lays itself on the slight and still hidden curve of her stomach. She catches the slow drawl of his lips upwards as he feels the life growing inside of her but didn’t know exactly what to make of it.
“Your knight in shining armor,” he mulls, fingers digging in slightly as he speaks.
She couldn’t help the swell of excitement that washes over her despite the discomfort.
“It’s a boy.”
But her joy was to be short-lived. For she immediately feels her heart drop the instant he looks away from her belly and back up into her eyes, unceremoniously braking out into another wild fit of giggles.
He laughs at her freely, cruelly. “You foolish girl,” he says. “What have you done to yourself? To us all?”
She tears herself away, stumbling back and nearly falling over her own feet. Only just managing to steady herself once she’s collided against the furthest wall from the cell.
Becoming the frightened Princess once more.
While the Dark One hadn’t ceased his crazed bout of festering cackles, seemingly delighted even further by her open display of cowardice. But something quickly changes the timber of it; a dawning realization.
“She didn’t do this. This was done to her. This is punishment,” he concludes while turning away. Once again speaking candidly to the shadows that were lurking about eagerly around him.
“More precisely, wish fulfillment.”
Rumplestiltskin hisses then knowingly, “This reeks of our dearly departed disciple Regina. It appears she did find a way to get her revenge. Deliciously clever of her, I must admit.”
The Princess tenses at the mere mention of that monstrous woman. She knew that the Evil Queen had once been his student. Everyone in the kingdom did. It was all part of the grand story; that of Snow White and her Prince Charming who had come together despite the odds piled up against them to heroically defeat their villainous foes and banished them from the lands once and for all.
They got their happy ending. They had gotten all their happy endings.
To suggest anything else was just wrong. It was so wrong.
All of this is wrong.
“This was a mistake.”
She declares pushing herself to move away. Certain that she needed to leave this unholy place, get as far from this terrible creature as she could and whatever threat he imposed with his looming knowledge.
The Dark One seems unbothered as she makes her escape.
“You’ll come around again, won’t you?” he calls out pleasantly, his voice echoing and cutting at her flesh like a well-aimed strike of a dagger.
The Princess only runs faster, runs as if her very life and happiness depended on it.
Maybe it did.
“We are one big happy family now, after all.”