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The Enchanted Forest - The Dark Castle[/center]

He hated letters. By far they were the most annoying way to contact him and yet it seemed that’s how a good majority of the desperate souls looking to make a deal were able to get his attention. There were the braver few who called upon him by name; those were by far easier to filter though than the mundane task of sifting through mountains upon mountains of letters.

Absentmindedly tuning out the agonized noises coming from the dungeon below, Rumpelstiltskin began to thumb through the sealed envelopes, first looking for any seal that he recognized or that caught his interest. Finding none in the small pile he had separated earlier, he reached out and broke the seal of the first one he grabbed and began the tedious task of dissecting the written word of their intent, task, and of course most interesting to him, payment.

It wasn't until the eighth letter of then ten that he felt his curiosity even remotely stirred. A woman, a noble at that, felt it in her need to inform The Dark One that Prince Thomas would be holding a royal ball in search for a princess. Rumpelstiltskin snorted, he was very well aware of these particular functions, it always brought in a higher volume of letters from young women all wanting the same thing… a guarantee to their fate. This woman, however, didn't ask for beauty or status or anything of the sort, at least not for herself, but for her two daughters, that they would be granted a highly favorable chance to catch the Prince's attention, and his heart. It wasn't the contents within this letter that had the gears in his twisted little mind grinding, but the name signed at the bottom.

Lady Tremaine. A name he knew not by encounter, but by the Fairy Godmother bestowed upon the family through generation upon generation. For years now he had been trying to pinpoint the location of that pesky little flea, and now the opportunity seemed to have fallen right into his lap without him so much as lifting a finger. Of course he had no intent to help out Lady Tremaine and her two daughters. He would simply stop by, unnoticed, and cause something to happen that would illicit a visit from their family guardian and finally take back what was rightfully his, a particular wand that once in his possession, his power of foresight would be increased. A twisted giggle came from the dark sorcerer as he moved himself from his writing desk and tucked the letter safely away in his breast pocket underneath his dragon hide coat. 

Rumpelstiltskin descended the spiral stone staircase of the tower and shortly found himself in the Dining Hall. With a quick flourish of his right hand, the candelabras lining the cold, stone walls lit to life and with a quick snap of his fingers, a fire began to crackle in the stone hearth to his left. He felt nothing for the cold of his castle, but the flickering lighting and quiet sputters from the fireplace always seemed to bring him some small amount of comfort, able to pull his mind from the present and leave it in a place where he had once been happy… so many years ago…

Pulling out the single leather chair that sat at the head of the polished wooden table, Rumpelstiltskin took a seat and rested his bony elbows onto the table's wooden surface. Steepling his hands together just under his chin, his dead eyes peered over the top of his fingertips at the lone spinning wheel towards the corner of the room.

It was there that just this morning during a rather aggravated spinning session, when his mind was no longer a victim of the hypnotic lull of the creak of the spinning wheel, he had forced himself up and to his study in the tower. There, he retrieved an old, battered, child’s cloak from a magically sealed box and laid it out on his work bench. Retrieving a small potion from his cabinet, he sprinkled a few drops of the shimmering blue liquid onto the cloak and watched with bated breath. The cloak did not move, the locator spell did not activate, and Baelfire was still lost. Aggravated after thirteen years of the same thing, day after day, Rumpelstiltskin had grabbed onto the first thing he could get his hand on and threw the spell book of common poisons halfway across the room before it [i]thumped[/i] against the stone wall of the tower and slid down onto the floor.

The Dark One would have had quite the expansive collection of books if he had ever gotten around to organizing them. There wasn't even a separate room in which to keep them in, despite the large castle he resided in. It wasn't by any means because there was no room, he just had better things to do than to organize the books into a library; he was able to find what he wanted in his organized chaos, so there was no need.

Instead with every new book he obtained it only added to the piles of books in every room in the castle, unsorted and ungrouped merely collecting dust. Most of these books he had collected over the many passing years in deals as a petty price when they had nothing else he would want. He had no use for those books, but he never came out of a deal without anything to show for it. There were books, though a select few, that he had gone great lengths to have in his possession. Spell books, ancient tomes, anything that could help to increase his knowledge on who and what he was, magic, and how to gain more power. And then of course there was the most recent book he had wriggled out the grasp of a previous student of his to finish his collection on more... potent poisons that the common person wouldn't normally stumble across. Regina had a hard time parting with it, but her desire for blood lust over her step-daughter Snow White won out in the end and the deal was made.

Snarling as he watched the book fall to the floor, knowing that peace would be far from his mind now, the sorcerer magicked a letter into his hand with a quick flick of the wrist, and read it over. It did not matter how petty the request that lay in the letter was, he needed the distraction and so reading over the contents, he vanished in a puff of crimson smoke to call upon the desperate soul who had written to him.

Presently, The Dark One pulled himself from his activities that morning lest he lose his temper again and sat back in his leather chair, trying to enjoy the quiet of his castle. Now completely immersed in the silence he had become so accustomed to, Rumpelstiltskin quickly shoved an idea from his mind as soon as it came. He would never admit it to anyone, he hadn't even been able to admit it to himself, but the realization hit his gut harder than he thought possible as he finally began to accept the hard truth. He was lonely. He had always been lonely. Over the last thirteen years, he had only enjoyed the company of a few select people that weren’t limited to the comings and goings of the deals he made daily.

He had tried to fill that empty void left behind by his wife and child with apprentices, broadening their magical horizons and teaching them what thousands of centuries of memories of previous Dark One’s had mastered and for the most part, it worked out quite well. Then there was his last caretaker-turned-apprentice Zelena. Taking a minute to run his finger along the wooden table, inspecting the pad of his finger of the dust, he rubbed his finger and thumb together to dispel of the small mess, his lingering suspicion now confirmed. Had it truly been that long since The Wicked Witch had taken her leave?

Rumpelstiltskin folded his hands back into his lap as he relaxed back into his leather chair, letting his eyes flutter closed as he allowed his mind to drift back to the last person he had shared his castle with. She was a different sort of crazy, that much was clear, but she had been... necessary. Meeting her nearly a year ago, it was the first time he had doubted his foresight ability. It wasn't very often The Dark One was caught off guard for that very reason and yet, he never saw her coming.

He had taken Zelena up almost immediately as his apprentice, pleased with the raw power she already held within her and though she showed little control, she showed promise. He was sure that together, their powers could help him in finding his son, but he had to be sure, and that self-served test cost him the only woman who had enjoyed keeping his castle clean and cooking his meals.

Zelena wasn't the best company by any means, as she had found some strange fixation- no, obsession on him (more likely his power than him as a person), but the witch had been someone to talk to, someone to keep his mind from slipping into desolate madness despite her skin literally turning green with envy while he continued to tutor other apprentices. With her gone now, an emptiness had made itself known in his castle, something he hadn't ever noticed before in his time there. He wouldn't shudder away from the idea of having another caretaker... however this time, he would hold the magic lessons. The women he taught magic to tended to turn on him in one way or another.

A smile split his lips apart as he craned his neck to the side, rewarded by a few cracking sounds that immediately brought a release in pressure to his left shoulder. After his dealings with the Tremaine Godmother, he would look for another to fill Zelena’s place as his caretaker. God’s knew he missed the home-cooked meals and overall warmness having a second person in his castle brought (of course not counting his current prisoner locked up tight in his dungeon). So without even so much as a snap of his fingers, he was gone from The Dark Castle in an instant to pay the house of Tremaine a quiet visit.