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Rumpelstiltskin is bored. Yes, of course chipped cup and everything that Regina wanted to tell him, everything she wanted to torment him with is important. In fact he can’t wait to get out of cell and start doing something. But they stubborn new Sheriff isn’t quite ready to let him out and there is nothing to do, but think – and he swears if he thinks about all “ifs” and “mights” and “maybes” and “what to do” – his head will explode. Never mind how impossible that fit would be in normal world. So he choose to be bored, because insane? No, but thank you very much Your Evil Bitchness.
Suddenly his boredom is interrupted by a quite ‘pop’ and he is not alone in the cell anymore and short ruffles man is looking at him expectantly. And this is interesting, and not because of his magic entrance, like that would faze him. No, what is really interesting about his visitor is that no Rumpelstiltskin, no Mr. Gold have ever seen him in they collectively quite long life.
“Who are you?”
Newcomer shrugs and produces a milkshake out of thin air.
“A colleague.”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Ah! You think I won’t sniff a fellow trickster?”
Rumpelstiltskin signs, this is one of this days, it seems.
“I’m really not.”
“Well, if you chip paint a bit, all tricksters aren’t really trickster at all. That’s one of the tricks, isn’t it?”
“You are insane,” he says. It’s not a question, merely an observation.
“Yep, didn’t have all my marbles since Ice age. But I got in covered, so no harm.”
There is nothing he could say to that, so he just nods politely and waits for his colleague, and considering everything so far description is quite fitting after all.
“So…”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing around here for fun?”
An idea starts to form in Rumpelstiltskin mind and boredom sleeps away like a dream.
“Why, you are interested in staying?” he probes carefully, not showing his interest in the slightest.
“Kinda? Because back home I really pissed my big brothers, and now I’m like a punch line in that old anecdote about donkey.”
“Donkey?”
“Yeah, you know,” the trickster wiggles fingers in vaguely indecent manner. “I had to wait till one of them dies? Donkey, emir or merchant? No?”
“I think I start to understand.”
His guest relaxes and plops on the thin prison mattress and declares:
“And that was a start of beautiful friendship.”
Somehow Rumpelstiltskin highly doubts it.