[center]Collaboration between YoshiSkittlez and I[/center]

Rumpelstiltskin remained frozen in place until he felt the presense of Mushu leave his castle entirely. Only then did he walk to the opposite side of the room where a number of small pedastals showed off various objects; some appearing to be of great, magical worth, and some appearing to be junk. It was a small, chipped tea-cup that Rumpelstiltskin approached and gently took it off the pedastal, turning it in his hand as he gently looked it over. Silently, he walked over to a locked glass cabinet and placed the teacup inside and pushed it towards the back where it could be easily forgotten about, and pulled out an old, rolled up scroll in which he placed on the pedastal where the teacup had once been.

"Goodbye Belle..."

He paid the teacup no more attention as he walked back to the table, stopping to pick up the thrown apple first and set it on one of the fruit plates that Heather had laid out earlier. He had entirely forgotten that she was even still in the room with him.

Heather watched Rumpelstiltskin carefully and heard his quiet goodbye and she asked as he placed the apple back on a plate, "Belle? Who is she?" 
Heather cursed herself for blurting out the question. She feared that he may decide to kill her for stopping him and asking something that might have been personal. 

Rumpelstiltskin looked up from the table, slowly coming to realize that Heather had never left. He straightened his back and walked away from Heather and the table, going to the only window not covered by old curtains and rested his hands behind his back, watching the morning sun light-up the far reaches of the Enchanted Forest. He was quiet for some time, as he usually was before speaking from his heart as Heather would come to realize during her stay in his castle.

"She was a servant here, not too long ago..." He spoke softly.

Heather looked to Rumpelstiltskin, noting the connection between the silence and his answers. She was slightly disappointed that he didn't answer in more detail. There was clearly more to this Belle than her just being a previous servant. 

Rumpeltilstskin turned from the window to face Heather, uncomfortable in the silence. The gentle light reflected off his golden-flecked skin in a peculiar way, almost as if it the sun itself were trying to illuminate the person beyond the monster inside of him.

"You're not the first to clean my castle dearie, not in the slightest."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the last comment, she had already figured that she wasn't the first person to work in his castle. She commented logically, 

"Ah, but this Belle seems much more important to you than just a mere servant. If that wasn't the case, then why try to push her away and try very hard to forget about her?" 

"She was important, yes." He said quietly, turning his head to look back out the window for a moment. At first it seemed that he was going to ignore her later remark, however he did eventually speak again, though this time back to his child-like-self in the way he spoke, mocking his very own words as if the entire thing were a joke to him. 

"There once was a monster that kidnapped a young woman. She cooked and cleaned and did everything he asked. Over the months, the monster FOOLISHLY mistook her company for love and had to cut his losses before he lost himself." He said theatrically. Again, Rumpelstiltskin turned to face Heather, though this time he walked away from the window and towards the table where she was. "Why the sudden interest?" He asked, his cold eyes narrowing slightly; not in anger, but in curiosity, causing Heather to raise her eyebrows at his question.

She shrugged answering him, 
"Curiosity. The human mind is one of the things I researched before I came here," 
She could see, from how he spoke about Baelfire and Belle, that Rumpelstiltskin had a good side, just like everyone else, despite the dark side that he flaunted. 

"Ah, yes..." Rumpelstiltskin straightened up once more and gestured flamboyantly towards Heather's head. "I can see from the way your head swells at the top that you are quite the researcher!" He giggled at his own remark, allowing her to take that in whatever way she wished. 

Heather narrowed her gaze at Rumpelstiltskin to show that she wasn't amused when he made his comment about her head. She knew that he wasn't being serious about her head size. 

"However!" Rumpelstiltskin held up a finger. "Books can only get you so far..." He held out his hand and a swirl of purple smoke appeared, disappearing to show that in his hand was the spell book that he had given her just the night before which she had kept in her room. And as if to prove his previous statement, he tossed it behind him without a care in the world. "Chapter One: Get angry. That one you passed with flying colors dearie! And so on we go!"

Heather crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to get to the point.

Rumpelstiltskin had turned the somewhat revealing conversation about himself into a magic lesson with the blink of an eye. He waved his hand just as he did before he summoned the spell book in an effort to show her what it was that he did before the book had appeared in his hand, indicating that he wanted her to do the same thing, and summon the spell book that was now a couple feet away from her on the floor to her hand directly.

She watched his gestures carefully, and knew what he wanted her to do. She sighed through her nose, calling upon her anger again, and recalling what she read last night. She mimicked his gesture, and the spell book appeared in her hand, in a cloud of blue smoke. 

Rumpelstiltskin observed Heather with a straight face, however his body language let on that he wasn't unhappy with her progress. He stared at the book in her hand, expecting...something to transpire. Perhaps for it to dematerialize or catch on fire...but when the book remained solid and unwavering, Rumpelstiltskin cracked a smile.

Heather didn't expect the book to remain in one piece. She honestly thought she wasn't going to succeed the first time, and yet, it seemed that she had managed to perform the spell perfectly. 

"It seems that you have more magical aptitude than I initially gave you credit for dearie." He said making the book disappear out of her hand and into his own. He flipped the book open and turned a few pages, insuring that everything was still in order. After the book passed it's 'test' he waved his hand and the book was gone, back in the bedroom Heather had slept in the night before.

"Enlighten me...how is a woman of your particular upbringing so well practiced in dark magic?" He asked, genuine curiosity playing into his amused, child-like voice. "A day ago you didn't even know what magic was! And yet, here you are continuing to impress me. THAT doesn't happen very often!"

She shrugged at his question to show that his guess was as good as hers. She commented, "I can only hypothesize that it may have to do with my being an academic prodigy back in London. And I'd like to think that studying beforehand helps," 

"WRONG!" Rumpelstiltskin said immediately, holding up a single finger and causing Heather to jump slightly. "What is it with you book people? Always...'thinking!'" He said gesturing wildly with his arms and grimacing, as if it were a bad thing. "As I said, magic comes from [i]emotion[/i]! There is no..."thinking" involved." He rested himself back so that he was halfly sitting on the edge of the table and held his hands in his lap loosly. "You have a dark anger; that memory you hold...it must be quite powerful..." He went on, his voice calming down a bit but letting on that he wished for her to share her memory with him. He had only caught onto bits of it from last night. 

She narrowed her gaze at him when he complained about how people think. She wondered if Rumpelstiltskin knew what happened to people who don't think. She retorted after he made his comments about her memory, sensing that he wanted her to share, 

"It's not that powerful...After all, Frankenstein isn't worth anything," She muttered the last part under her breath. Despite her anger towards Frankenstein, she knew very well, that this wasn't her darkest memory. Her darkest memory, she believed, were the ones buried under the false memories her younger subconscious imagined. 

Rumpelstiltskin couldn't help but to raise his eyebrow at the mention of a name. He cocked his head to the side in a curious manner and cupped his hand around his ear. "That name...what was it again?" He asked, goading her to tell him once more with his other hand.

Heather quirked an eyebrow when he asked about the name, and she uttered it out, like just saying his name would poison her, "Frankenstein. Dr. Victor Frankenstein," 
Did this imp know the scientist? Why was he so interested in the name she had mentioned. 

Rumpelstiltskin practically bounced off of the table as he belted out a sudden, and very short "HA!" He brought his hands together and clapped them together in his excitement, now sitting fully on the table and swung his legs back and forth like a toddler with a secret. Finally, though, he managed to calm down.

"Would this be the same man who made it his entire life's work to raise the dead?" He queried, though his voice let on instantly that he already knew the answer.

When he asked, she could tell there was clearly more going on when it came to Frankenstein and Rumpelstiltskin. She answered, 

"Yes. That's him," She silently complained about how the Board thought that his research about raising the dead was much more important than research into the human mind. 

Rumpelstiltskin let his head fall slightly and let out a laugh; not a childish giggle like usual, but a normal, human-like laugh. He raised his head up once again, his brown hair somewhat messily splayed infront of his eyes as he looked at her with an amused grin.

"When you have a hand in everyone's lives, irony is everywhere." He said more to himself than to Heather, but then went on. "He was here, you know. In The Enchanted Forest..." 

Heather blinked at his comment and she let out a flat toned "What?" in response. Her seething anger towards Frankenstein was starting to come to the front of her mind.

Rumpelstiltskin hopped off the table and gestured around the general area with a wide sweep of his arm, generally ignoring her outburst. "In this very room, in fact..." He took a couple steps back from Heather but brought his attention back to her. "Is he the one who told you about me? I can't imagine why he'd do that, after all...the heart he came here for didn't exactly work-" He went on, trailing off as he began to talk to himself.

She answered him, stopping him before he could trail off and ignore her completely, "He wasn't the one who told me about you. I read about you in a book. Now, Frankenstein came here...for a heart?" 

"That IS correct!" Rumpelstiltskin replied jovially. "He needed a heart, and...let's be honest dearie, the hearts that come from your world are weak. TOO weak, in fact, to be able to sustain the work of your Doctor Fr-r-r-r-rankenstein! His work was limited to that of his very own world, and so, I offered him a way. He came here for a heart, a heart that held magical properties, a heart that was strong and could withstand his experimentations..." Rumpelstiltskin stopped to sneer lightly. "Well...we both know how that turned out..."

As Rumpelstiltskin spoke, and Heather thought more and more about Frankenstein's experiment and its results, her anger grew. She sneered in return after he made his last statement, "His experiment was a failure, and yet his...[i]work[/i] was considered more important than mine was," She clenched her fists tighter and tighter, as though she was going to draw blood from her palms, and the lights of the castle started to flicker on and off again as she seethed in silence. 

Rumpelstiltskin began to circle her, though he knew that she wouldn't be paying him much attention anymore, not when he had raised her anger to nearly the right amount of anger he wanted her at. Finally, now behind her, Rumpelstiltskin delicately placed his hands on each of her shoulders and bent his head forward to whisper into her ear.

"Keep going..."

Heather continued, ignoring the fact that Rumpelstiltskin was now behind her and his hands were on her shoulders, her clenched fists were now shaking in rage and her voice raising itself until she was shouting angrily, "And yet, he had the gall, the [i]GALL[/i], to present that farce of an experiment! But that's not enough for him! NO! He rubs it in my face and mocks me, telling me that women have no place in the science and medical fields! That...That [i][b]FRAUD[/b][/i]!"

As Heather ranted, her body went through the subtle changes once again, until she had Evelyn Hyde's appearance once again, "Evelyn Hyde came to be through science alone! No magic was required, WHAT! SO! EVER!!!"

After that shout, Heather's conscious was pushed back, and Evelyn took over once again. Evelyn looked at Rumpelstiltskin, as Heather's blue eyes turned to almost black again, and she looked somewhat bored. As she looked at her nails, she commented "You know magic isn't the only result from anger. I thought you already knew that,"

"I did." Rumpelstiltskin then grinned and stepped away from Evelyn, walking the semi-circle until he was facing her instead of being behind her, though kept a fair distance of three or so feet between the two of them.

"I'm glad you decided to come out and chat; I have a few...questions." He let his fingers dance around in the air a bit, grinning all the while indicating that he was rather eager to get started.

"Dr. Jekyll created you from contents within a bottle..." His hand shot forward and plucked a single hair from Evelyn and brought it before his face, holding it up to the light to examine the single strand of hair better. "...why?" He then ended his sentence, the last word stabbing and demanding sounding.

Evelyn looked up from her nails to see Rumpelstiltskin as he walked back into her line of sight. She noticed that he kept a fair distance away from her, but he still had that grin on his face. She raised an eyebrow when he started asked his question. She looked bored and disinterested as she rolled her eyes, and retorted "Testy, aren't we? And you're asking me to explain the boring motivations of the boring Doctor, when she could've rambled on about it to you herself," 

Rumpelstiltskin seemed to not be listening as he walked over to the cabinet and opened up the door, pulling out what looked like an empty bottle and let the hair drop down inside of it.

She smirked and answered, as she walked past him, "I'm an unforeseen consequence from Jekyll's experiment. She tried to create a concoction that would allow people to live without human-based evils, such as murder. She thought splitting the mind, psychologically speaking, would do the trick. And voila! Here I am! A new and improved version of Dr. Jekyll! Existing as my own person through the Doctor's body,"

She stopped and faced Rumpelstiltskin after she passed him, and she answered "So, to shorten that lengthy explanation, she wanted to help people. That's why she created me. Ironic isn't it?"

"Just a bit." Rumpelstiltskin mused with her in agreement, and promptly capped the glass vial with a cork before stowing it away, back into the cupboard from where it came, his eyes darting just for a minute onto the chipped teacup now stashed in the back.

"I have what I needed, you may...uh, change back if you like..." He said, using his hands to 'shoo' away Evelyn as he spoke. "Or stay, it really doesn't matter." He crossed to the opposite side of the room and pulled down the canvas that had been previously covering a mirror, and for a moment, he couldn't take his eyes off his reflection. Forcing himself out of his deep thoughts, he waved his hand over the mirror and the glass began to shift, rippling like a clear river with a small pebble dropped into it. The image of Rumpelstiltskin's reflection changed, and instead turned into an image of two people in an alley in some unknown city, miles away.

Evelyn carefully watched Rumpelstiltskin as he stored a strand of Evelyn's hair into a glass vial. She was going to let Heather take control again because she was bored, but when Rumpel said that it didn't matter and started doing something with the mirror, she stayed and watched Rumpelstiltskin.

[i]"I know, I know, but I need Snow, now more than ever. Regina's taken over our castle, she's carrying my child...I won't stop at anything to get her back."[/i] The male said to the female, obviously completely unaware that they were being watched.

[i]"Then we get Snow, and take back your castle...together."[/i] The female replied to the male with a reassuring smile. It was quite plain that the female was badly injured, and could of done with some immediate tending to. This caused Rumpelstiltskin to roll his eyes.

"Well I wasn't expecting [i]two[/i]!" He practically hissed. "However, she just might come in handy..." He waved his hand and through the mirror, a cloud of purple smoke began to form underneath the duo's feet. The female fell into the male, and Rumpelstiltskin watched with little-to-no-interest as the smoke engulfed them. When the smoke had cleared, they were gone, only to appear just seconds later in the middle of the dining room between himself and Evelyn Hyde.