#think of it like youre a seer glimpsing a possible future in your tea cup

[orbital-inclination]

Hello, what is the story of molten dreamtale?

Ok so, answering this took a lot of words.  So I've hidden the great wall of text under the cut! I apologize in advance for the sheer length. 

Molten!Dreamtale Summarized:

The Story of Molten!Dreamtale begins similarly to Dreamtale with a slight twist. Instead of one of the Negative Apples being corrupted, the positive side of the tree is cursed. (the events leading to this will be expanded on at a later date.) Dream and Nightmare’s childhood follows the events of Dreamtale closely. Dream’s kindness is taken advantage of while Nightmare is relentlessly bullied and shunned by the village. Gradually, Dream finds it harder to say no to what is asked of him. He spends less and less time guarding the tree with his brother. They grow distant and frustrated with each other. 

One day, while Dream is sent away on an errand outside the villager, a group of humans and monsters approach the tree and demand apples from it. Their village had been suffering from a drought for months, and the Tree of Emotions, sacred as it may be, was the only thing bearing fruit. When Nightmare refuses, they turn violent.

To defend himself and the tree, Nightmare consumes one black apple but in the end he’s not able to protect himself in time. Dream returns just in time to take a blow that would have severely injured his brother. Barely clinging to consciousness, Dream bites into a golden apple for the same reason his brother had, unaware that side of the tree had been infected by a curse born of greed. The act of consuming the apple brands the curse onto Dream’s soul. He consumes more than one after that, unable to stop himself.

The bulk of the Story takes place centuries later, as Nightmare and Dream travel from au to au. Driven by guilt and a sense of responsibility, Nightmare is determined to find a way to get rid of the goop that Dream is covered in. Dream struggles with and attempts to hide his own demons. In the meantime, the pair work to archive balance in a multiverse that is over-saturated with positivity. The brothers are often viewed with ambivalence and sometimes outright hostility, both by the inhabitants of local AUs and sometimes by fellow outcodes.

Morality:

I know I’ve answered this before and I can’t find the post rn but I would define Molt as somewhere on the chaotic good-to-neutral scale. He will not hurt you unless he believes he has good reason to. (which is a rare situation. he will only do so as a last resort.) and when given the choice, he will pick the option he believes will benefit the most people in the long run. A more specific line of questioning would be: 

“Does he have bad intentions?” No. “Will his actions occasionally cause conflict for others?” Yes. “Can Molt be viewed as the antagonist in someone else’s story?” Yes. “Can Molt also be viewed as heroic though? Isn't he a good guy in this AU?” Of course! It all depends on your perspective, but again, I consider Molt to be much closer to the Good side of the spectrum than Evil.

Keep in mind too, that like his counterpart, Molt can feel what you're feeling. It’s in his best interest to keep his company content. He has the power set of a temptress without the motivation behind it. He does not WANT you to fall victim to your vices but believes you will if he sticks around for too long.

But he is more selfish than canonical!Dream. His priorities are as follows: his brother’s extended family, himself, and the multiverse last. In his mind, the last dark apple is perfectly safe where it is. It's the rest of the multiverse that has problems.

On the Subject of Endings:

I don’t have a set of endings in mind right now. I’m still in the “build-up, flesh out, play around and find out” phase of the creative process but for the sake of this ask, I will throw a tart at the wall to give you an idea of what these endings could potentially look like. Consider these, dubiously canon, or canon adjacent.

Bad Ending 1: Consumed by the weight of corruption in the multiverse, Molt becomes delusional and loses his sense of self. He fatally wounds his brother during a heated argument (read: battle.) Once Molt comes back to himself and realizes what he’s done, he’s inconsolable. He refuses to take the dark apple for himself (and thus refuses to assume guardianship of both dark and light). Instead, he plants it in a desolate AU where he tasks the remaining “bad sanses” with guarding it. 

Killer leaves the group and refuses to associate with Molt again.

Molt never forgives himself. 

Bad Ending 2: Plays out like the first bad ending, but it’s Rem who fatally wounds his brother. Rem assumes guardianship of both aspects and plants the last golden apple in the courtyard of the AU he’s chosen to reside in. He carefully monitors the sapling and hopes that one day, Molt might reform under it. He waits for a long, long time.

Cross and Blue leave the group. They don’t come back.

Bad Ending 3: Ink teams up with Error to stop Molt for good. Molt is defeated, unable to defend himself against Ink and Error combined. Ink gives the last golden apple to Error to hold. He trusts no one else with it. Rem swears revenge.

Neutral Ending 1: Balance is achieved at a great cost. Molt’s body is shattered by a powerful enemy, but as a piece of him remains, he lives trapped in a state of limbo. His slayer traps his soul in a lantern and keeps it in a hidden place. Molt sleeps eternally. Aware, yet not aware of time passing.

Rem never gives up searching for him. 

Bad Ending 4: Neutral Ending 1, but Rem is shattered instead. Molt has better luck finding his brother’s trapped soul. Overcome by the selfish desire to see those responsible suffer, he encourages them to fall victim to their own vices, one by one. 

When Rem reforms, he almost doesn’t recognize his brother, so twisted Molt’s heart has become.

This is the closest we will get to an “Evil Molten!Dream”

Good Ending 1: Molt and Rem are able to achieve perfect balance in the multiverse. As a result, Molt regains his sight but is never cured of the goop. He learns to control it and he is happy. Rem decides to build his own library. Good Ending 2: Molt and Rem are able to achieve perfect balance in the multiverse. A cure for the goop is found at a price: Molt will never regain his sight. The brothers find peace and Molt takes up baking as a hobby.

Secret Comedic Ending: Rem dies so Molt begs Error for help. Error pulls a few strings and teams up with Geno to tag team Reaper. Paralyzed by the Bad Bitch Energy TM of Geno and Error combined, Reaper is helplessly unaware of the theft taking place. It’s only after Molt has successfully stolen back his brother’s soul and revived him, that Reaper realizes he’s been had but by then it’s too late. In a scene straight out of Mean Girls, Geno and Error mock him into submission while the brothers make their escape.

[hyrule-kingdom-updates]

🌼 any of them

Whoops, wrote a fic

Describe one of your OC’s worst nightmares.

An optimist would look at the world of divination with wonder. The universe is a but a magnificent hall of tapestries, beautiful pieces of art woven into anything you could imagine. Tapestries where you are a hero, tapestries where you are royalty, tapestries where your people live with riches, tapestries depicting your eternal victory over your enemies. The universe is endless and bountiful, for in the future, all futures are possible.

This is how Astor usually can depict the good fortune tellers from the worse.

If they’re an optimist, they’re most likely a faker.

The only true divinator that he had met that was even a bit of an optimist was his mother, and even then, he had always had the sinking feeling that she hid a deeper sorrow behind her simple shoes of colorful flames and shining moon and starlight. No, it was quite hard to stick to true, unfiltered optimism in this field, as while it was true that all futures and choices were possible, that freewill ran its course through all who walked the vast possibilities of the universe, the issue came in the fact that you could not travel it to and fro.

There are futures where you live, there are futures where you achieve your wildest dreams, timelines where your childhood is happier, and timelines where you find true love and satisfaction.

But you aren’t in those timelines. The future you have is this one, and it is set in stone.

Walk all the roads you want, say all the words, read all the stories, but when a seer analyzed exactly what world we live in, exactly what end is destined for this string of the universe, there will be no holding back. There is only the unfiltered, raw, typically pessimistic truth of the end. Savor it.

“In truth, Elane, I hate my job. Fear it, even,” Astor set his teacup down, looking out the balcony towards the inky, midnight view. “I fear one day I will find the prediction—the true, ultimate glimpse into the night, that seals in the fact that we’re doomed.”

The Queen only cocked her head with a smile. “Well, I’m flattered that there’s still a ‘we’ in this scenario. Good to know I’ll be joining you in the lockup when my mother find our contraband cucco nuggets—“

“I’m serious, Elane.”

She only laughed quietly, before leaning back in her chair, and gazing out into the pleasant evening. “I know...”

There was a quiet between them, not quite awkward or stiffening, but quiet in the way that you might hold your breath after someone embraces you warmly. Quiet in acceptance, quiet to make room for the sounds of something rare and fickle.

“I swear, I might retire early,” Astor finally said. “Quit while I’m ahead. Head off to Hateno or Mabe and bury my head in the sand.”

“You might want to try Gerudo then, if sand is what you’re searching for. I’m sure Urbosa would be thrilled.”

“Tsk. I am inclined to disagree.”

Elane chuckled again, and she let the quiet embrace her for a moment.

“Eternal doom aside, for a moment, I would posit that there’s hardly anything to fear. You’ve foreseen my daughter’s growth, analyzed the future livelihood of the kingdom, and predicted our victory over Ganon. I’d say it’s hard to bargain with that.”

“Maybe, but I could be wrong.” Astor circled his finger on the lip of his cup. “It happens, people make a prediction, but miss one star, or slip up one word...or perhaps one cow suddenly dies, or one ember quickly fades, and suddenly we’re actually in an entirely different timeline than predicted.”

“Didymos Astor? Wrong about something? Oh my, I never thought I’d see the day...” Elane smiled to herself again as she lifted her cup for another sip.

Astor clicked his tongue. “Well. You should hope I’m not wrong about anything. If someone of my skill makes an incorrect prediction, it would probably be disastrous for everyone.”

Elane winked as she set down her cup. “Well, good thing you’re a prodigy, then.”

“Good thing, indeed.”

Quiet keep their third company once again. Astor still had not sipped from his cup, but Elane was already heading for her fourth refill, no doubt begging for any energy after tucking her daughter to bed. A young toddler with enough energy to power a Guardian army, Elane has always found it quite odd that she used up a lot of her energy to annoy the Royal Seer. It was charming to see him get put off by a Mallory’s boundless curious aura, but mostly relieving in the sense that the Queen could get a moments rest and trust little Zelda would be alright.

Elane looked back inside through the half open door, and smiled at a bundled sleeping figure, surrounded by an army of stuffed animals. She then turned back and finally noticed Astor’s continued silence on the next refill.

She sighed. “Although I would be saddened to see you leave,” she began, “If a retirement would make you happy, Astor, I would loathe to do anything to stand in your way.”

He looked up at her, analyzing her body language and expression. She was genuine, of course, as she always was in these sorts of talks. Astor finally let himself exhale in peace, as he smiled and shook his head.

“Unfortunately I don’t think it would do me much good, anyways. Location won’t let me escape my own thoughts and visions.” He took a sip of his tea—a bit citrusy this evening, a hint of apple—and relaxed. “I’d imagine His Majesty would miss me dearly, and I simply wouldn’t want to leave him in distress.”

“Ha! Oh yes of course, Rhoam would be crying tears if you left us...” she replied, sarcastically. “Tears of deep, deep sorrow.”

Astor looked out into the night in silence again, not touching his cup.

“But I’ll tell you what Astor,” Elane began again. “If you ever receive that world dooming prediction, whatever may happen that may instigate your view of the deepest hells,” she raised her cup. “You come find me, and we’ll have a drink.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A drink? What sort of drink?”

She shrugged. “Whatever you like. Tea, wine, beer, water or juice if it’s your fancy. Whatever will keep your spirits high.”

Astor smirked, solemnly. “I don’t think you understand just how severe and dreadful certain predictions can be. When we say ‘all futures are possible,’ we do mean all possibilities.”

“And I understand, dear seer. I truly do.” She tilted her head as she kept her cup in the air. “But the way I see it, is that with divination or not, doom and hell come into people’s lives one way or the other. But it hasn’t really stopped the majority from loving their lives now, has it?” Her eyes twinkled like starlight. “Dearest Astor, if our destined doom is predicted one day, I command you to at least smile through our tea party.”

Quiet.

He finally sighed, the corners of his lips perking. His protests drowning in her expression.

“I suppose if you’re the one pouring, it’d be difficult to refuse.” He raised his cup and clinked it with hers.

She was dead eight days later.

With her death came the final factor. The final star.

“Your daughter is destined to fail us,” he said again. “The Calamity shall rise and consume us all, and she won’t stop it in time.”

Rhoam slammed his fists on the desk, but the seer did not flinch. “We’ll train her hard, we’ll start now, even! I’ll get those clerics from the temple to teach her the starting prayers!” he yelled.

“It won’t work.” Astor replied, simply. “Perhaps she might attain them down the line, but she most certainly won’t awaken her powers by Ganon’s rise. It’s over.”

“You told me we could do this!” Rhoam pointed a finger, accusingly. “You saw our prosperity, our victory!”

“That was what I initially saw, yes. But unfortunately we live in world where the Queen of Hyrule is dead, and thus the threads of our future weave accordingly.”

“You’re a liar!” Rhoam bellowed again. “You saw her death, saw our end and lied to us since the beginning, haven’t you?!!”

“Don’t you think that if I knew Elane would die, I would say something?! That I would give ample time for her to say goodbye to you and her daughter??” Astor finally raised his voice, met with equal silence. “I failed to correctly analyze our timeline the first time around, and for that I am sorry. But I can not control what pieces of the future fate allows me to see. It’s not an open novel for you to give me a bad book report grade on. It’s a museum of endless tapestries, of which I am task with analyzing one stroke at a time to identify which is woven to a singular man, and the fact that I have given you a complete enough answer now is a gift within itself, so don’t even try to accuse me forgery and lies.”

The two men clenched their jaws, staring angrily at each other.

Astor finally whispered. “Overtime I might gather more specifics, but overall—this is over.”

Rhoam balles his hand into a fist. “We’ll start a new schedule for Zelda first thing in the morning—“

“It won’t work, it’s futile—“

“We’ll make it work—“

“This is set in stone, this is the world you live in—“

“Well what if you’re wrong again?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if you are?”

“I’m. Not. I’ve read the signs again and again and again, in fact I’ve been reaching the same conclusions repeatedly for the last four weeks. It. Is set. In stone.” He tapped his finger on the wood with each syllable to emphasize. “Perhaps the futures of prosperity are accurate for the Rhoams and Mallorys that live in a different time, but unfortunately for us, we live in one where Elane is dead. This is our reality and you’re doing no good denying as such.”

Silence.

Rhoam made his way towards the door. “You’re a liar.” The seer scoffed. “You’re a liar and you don’t know what you’re saying! Borderline treason if I’m being honest! You’re pathetic, and a rotten fake—“

“If it pleases His Majesty to confirm the integrity of his humble subject,” Astor cut in, sarcastically, “It might be good to know that also I’ve predicted you won’t imprison me, or exile me, or execute me, given you’re still ever reliant on my uncontested skills for more personal matters. That, and you wish to try and keep me around to hopefully prove me wrong, in which you can then tell yourself you’d be in the right to truly punish me.” He stared the regent dead in the eyes. “But don’t worry, you won’t.”

Rhoam slammed the door shut as he stomped off.

That night, Astor has another dream. Or perhaps it was a vision, he wasn’t sure, as the details were so surreal and horrific and captivating that it would have surely been a blessing to chalk it up entirely to vivid imagination.

There were screams and the sound of rocks crumbling. Bones were cracking and monsters were squealing and shrieking. And be felt his arms burn, and he felt his soul drain, and he looked down to see his skin peeling into dark flakes, his muscles, sludge. And in the distance, a young woman with golden hair laughed at him, but her eyes were hollow and gold. And she laughed and laughed as his body was slowly broken to pieces, bones torn asunder, skin burned to smoldering malice, senses vivid until the final moment when he woke.

But the good thing about nightmares, was that...that was it. There was no where else to go. There was nothing left to offer. No more pain to fear.

It made sense of course. Of course, of course. He never went to the funeral, he never offered his sympathies. There was no longer anything to mourn, as he allowed himself to view the world in its true, disgusting form. The people were doomed, and the dead, well...perhaps they might have deserved it. Yes, that was the only way this all made sense, of course. He even stopped trying to warn other folk after a few too many dozen harsh rejections to his character. No, now in complete isolation and resignation of his path, there was nothing else that could possibly drag him back to—

“How do I die?” Zelda Mallory Hyrule asked, one day.

At first, he was confused, and he turned in his chair. “What?”

She was seven at the time, and it was truly an odd and concerning thing to be coming from a seven year old girl’s mouth. Or perhaps it wasn’t, given the circumstances.

“How do I die?” she said again. She was laying down on his worn carpet, fiddling with the frilled edge.

Was she truly that bored? Already out of other questions? Hmph, he had always warned her to stay away, as a seer’s office wasn’t really meant for childish entertainment. Yet still she always came and asked to hide away from her father, and, well...anything to spite that man...

“Why do you ask?” he finally replied. Had someone said something to her? A threat? He clenched his jaw. I swear, if that fool tried to force her powers by—

“You’re always going on about how I’m wasting my time with praying and stuff...but father says I still gotta to stop the Calamity or else we could all die.” She didn’t look up from the bits of carpet string she was playing with (and contemplating on popping in her mouth), “So I figured if you tell me how I die we can settle the debate for good!”

Astor just sighed. “Well, of course you d—“

He stopped himself, but not for the reasons a more put together person, might. Not because of the generally frowned upon action of telling a child how she dies, no, that was not exactly beyond him. No, Astor cut off his sentence simply because it had crossed his mind that—

“...I’m not entirely sure...” he whispered.

He suddenly stood. Walking towards the other end of his office, carefully stepping over the child. “E-Excuse me a moment.”

Why had he never considered this? Of course, he had seen the signs clearly enough, the visions, the stars. A girl cries over a corpse, a light vanishes in the night. Malice plagued the sky and dooms the day. But did the Calamity actually kill her? Does she drown in rubble and malice like the others? Slain by a demon or monster perhaps? Or if not, then, would that mean...?

The princess soon forgot about the question by the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next.

Astor spent nearly eight sleepless nights into finding an answer.

But he never truly did.

These things happened more times than one may think, when it came to predictions. Vagueness was commonplace, but specificities and straightforward answers were about as rare as a green sunset. Of course, he knew she would die, goddess blood or not, she lived the life of a mortal. But how? When? While it certainly wasn’t impossible to predict a person’s death, but whatever the circumstances of Mallory’s was made the process was infuriatingly impossible.

It was possible she would die of malice or suffocation under rubble, even circumstances where she dies at the Ganon’s hand himself. But then there were clear visions of her living, walking through a grassy field, ruins in the distance covered in leaves and moss, her turning and calling to a friend to keep up with her pace.

But no, nonono. She would die during the Calamity’s rise, that was the majority of what the futures offered to her were. That was the probable outcome.

But the factors and visions and signs and alignments were so fine and minuscule in difference, that Astor truly couldn’t a true statement, a true prediction, a true answer to the question. What timeline did we live in?

It taunted him.

Maybe it was better if the question was put to rest, did it even matter?

“Mallory?” he asked. “That’s a stupid name.”

“What?! No it’s not!” Elane laughed and shoved his shoulder. “Please, YOU’RE not one to talk.”

“Well as a victim of stupid first names, I think I’m qualified to speak accurately on the subject.”

“Aha! But it’s not technically a first name.” Elane tapped his head. “It’s a middle name, her first name would be ‘Zelda,’ of course.”

“Yes, and that is also a s—“

The queen shoved his shoulder into the wall before he even finished the sentence. “Oh would you shut up...”

He laughed, unconventionally carefree. Her Majesty’s happiness these days truly was contagious. Or perhaps that was a side effect of pregnancy? Did all expecting mother’s give off this aura?

“I think it’s a wonderful name.” Elane said. “Reminds me of a cute little duck, like a mallard!” She tucked her arms and flapped her elbows to imitate as such. “Quack, quack!”

“This is further adding to my argument actually”

“Hmph! Ok then Mr. Overseer of all names” She tapped a finger to his chest. “If it’s such a stupid name, then when she starts getting bullied for it around the castle, I shall expect you to take care of her in full.”

He scoffed. “Oh, I’ll be sure to do so. She’ll definitely need it.”

Elane pecked his head with a kiss.

“Good! I grant you my blessing lovingly tease her, as well. And I expect the best from you, Astor!”

His face suddenly warmed for some reason, and he couldn’t form words.

“What?”

“.....W...”

He was suddenly whack in the head with a rolled up piece of paper. Astor sprang awake from his desk. “...W...What...?”

“Morning, Mr. Astor!!” Princess Zelda-Mallory beamed. “And happy birthday!!! Sorry I woke you up early, but I needed to give this to you before the winter solstice festival later and—“

She continued to ramble on and on, but Astor simply opened the rolled up paper she had handed to him. It was simply filled with dozens and dozens, arguably hundreds, of hand drawn stars. In the corner was written, “You always look at the same stars so here’s some new ones!” in crude purple crayon. At the time, he failed to notice the accompanying note on the back that read “One for each year of how old you are!” Thankfully he was too busy looking through the different stars, with varying degrees of sparkles and smiley faces.

He finally looked back at the princess, who was still rambling on and on about her day, and her father’s day, and her newest stuffy dress, and her latest adventures with her stuffed toys, and—

“Why are you always here, Zelda?” Astor finally said. She stopped talking, looking at him, quizzically. “I mean...” he grumbled, “You know I don’t really like you, right?

“Eh, I don’t care. I think you’re neat!!” She held out her arms as she zoomed around his circular office. “Your room is so cool! And you got fun books!”

“Necromancy isn’t necessarily what I would consider ‘fun’ reading material—“

“Plus your outfits are cool, and you’re super smart, like my mom.”

He blinked.

“Plus, you’re the only one that’s not mean to me about my dumb powers. But really that’s just a chair on the top!”

“Do you mean cherry on top?”

“No! I meant chair! Watch me!! I’m gonna do a backflip off of this—“

“NO.” Astor immediately stood up, and snatched the girl off of the wooden chair. “NO. No backflips.” He set her down on the rug and pointed to a side of the room which held a broken table, stool, and a few old chairs—the victims of the princess’ previous acrobatic attempts.

She crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue. “You’re no fun!”

“I’m running out of furniture, is what I am.”

“But I’ll let this slide since it’s your birthday! Hmph.”

She started pulling at the loose threads of the carpet. “Don’t know why you had to stop my birthday backflip! Who cares if I get a little scratch?”

“I do—“

“YOU DO?!” Mallory was immediately up and clinging to his robes.

Astor sputtered, instinctively waving his arms to free himself from the child’s grip. But then he finally processed her question, and...

“I...” He looked at her starlight eyes. She had that stupid, naive grin that he always remembered from her mother. A stupid, pathetic, horrible, terrible, optimistic smile.

He finally scoffed. “I just can’t have you getting hurt on my watch, as otherwise, I’d probably be a dead man. That’s all.”

The princess lifted her hands in a “hooray!” fashion, and yelled the exclamation, accordingly. She then resumed her zipping and zooming around the room, much to Astor’s unexpected relief.

That night, he visited the question again.

Why? He didn’t really know.

The question wouldn’t offer him anything, it wouldn’t relieve him of anything—in fact it really did just the opposite. If he found that died miserably, it would be another scream in the nightmare, another nail in the comforting coffin of despair. But if he someone found that she lived, that there was a day after the Calamity, where even a child such as her could possibly prosper...

Having hope and seeing it fail anyway would probably be the most torturous of all.

Again, he had a dream, of a world tainted by blood and malice. But this time he was floating. He was floating and watching the end of it all.

Castle Town was nothing but ruins and ash, and no colors existed but red, black, and grey.

He couldn’t hear anything but a shrill hum in his ears, but he knew there was screaming. He looked to his hand, expecting to see malice or blackened skin, but instead found a strange floating device in his palm. It spin slowly, pink constellations drifting across its surface.

The hum in his ears turned into a groan, and then a whisper. It said something familiar, but he was sure he had never heard it before.

It is time.

The next night he had a dream of a girl standing in a green field, calling out to her friends somewhere behind her. She rested under the ruins of a collapsed pillar, and ate a homemade sandwich with a memorable smile.

Astor reached a conclusion.

In most futures, the girl dies horribly. He wrote in his journal. To be expected, I would assume the rise of the Calamity isn’t exactly easy to survive from.

But what I have discovered is a very specific set of circumstances that lead to a more favorable outcome, at least for her.

I have no way of knowing if it accurately depicts the comings of our time, or another. There are too many variables and specifics. Too long I have spent trying to discern our fate, but the probabilities and possibilities for doom are so interchangeable that it really go either way. The only truth I know is that she lives if—

He paused, tapping the dry quill to the desk again in thought. He dipped it once more.

I’ve decided that if I ever find myself in the scenario where I can solidify her a more favorable destiny, I will take it. I can only hope dare to alter my existing nightmare into something different, there’s really nothing left to lose, is there?

Astor leaned in his chair for a moment, savoring the silence of his office. He looked out the window and took in the night. The stars were gorgeous this evening.

Although if it fails I hope it kills me.

Call it arrogance, but I don’t think I can handle being wrong again.

The seer sighed, then suddenly flipped to the next blank page, angrily.

If I had never met her it would have been fine. If I had just minded my own damn business and continued to work in being resigned to our fate, at least then I could have—

There was a soft knock at his door.

He knew who it was.

Astor pinched the bridge of his nose as he opened it. “It’s past 2am, Princess, what could you possibly have to tell me?”

She looked down and shuffled her feet. “I had a nightmare...”

“Yes, people do have those sometimes.” He immediately closed the door.

Another knock.

After a moment, Astor opened it again. “Don’t you have guards outside your room, how did you sneak up here?”

“Secret tunnel!” She grinned, proudly, as she replied with a sort of sing-song tone.

“That’s nice.”

The door slammed shut again.

She knocked once more. There was the longest pause.

“FFFFFFine!” The world was out of his lips before he even fully swung open the door, and Mallory happily scrambled inside. “But no touching anything, I’m working.”

“It’s ok, I just wanna stay up all night and read your books!” She was already scrambling for the necromancy section, again.

Astor sighed, and went to slump back into his desk. The princess was already sprawled across the floor, distracting herself with another stack of wondrous, ill-recommended book. He didn’t really care.

I don’t really care. He wrote once again. I know there are futures where I dedicate myself to the Calamity, and she dies anyway. I know it doesn’t really matter, I know it’s hopeless to care, and that’s why I don’t.

He looked back at Zelda, he saw her slowly blink back her tiredness. He knew in a few hours or so, he’d have to drop her sleepy figure back off to those useless guards, and berate then for letting her wander off again, as it always was.

If I do this and it’s all for nothing, he began, I fear it will be worse than if I had just stood to the side and perished. It’s already doomed, and this pathetic, foolish optimism might cause me to turn this nightmare into something even worse.

He sighed, and the hours passed as he just sat with his thoughts.

Zelda was using and open book as a pillow.

Astor opened the door, and went to pick her up.

I’m not living through another nightmare. He thought, as he descended the stairs from the observatory. The girl’s breathing was steady as she wrapped an arm by his shoulder.

If it fails I hope it kills me before I see it. He repeated again.

I can’t handle being wrong again.

[aldahi-rp]

Saving Rumplestiltskin

Rumplestiltskin steals a cursed artifact. Now he must deal with the increasingly debilitating effects of the curse while he and Belle go on a quest to collect the ingredients to make a cure before it is too late.

(Set in Dark Castle Time)

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Chapter 1: The Eye of Eternity

The Eye of Eternity was a an inky, midnight blue stone, with flecks of gold and white that resembled stars strewn across the night sky. If no one was observing it, it was said that the stars churned in galaxies eternally spinning, but whenever it was looked at they were always still.

But the trick wasn't to look AT the stone itself. The trick, was to look at your OWN reflection in the polished surface. THAT was when it showed you the FUTURE.

True, Rumplestiltskin already had a way to look into the future with his seer sight, but it was in bits and pieces, sometimes tangled, sometimes confusing, and always imperfect. And anyway, if there was one thing Rumplestiltskin knew, it was that one could never have too much magic. Even if The Eye didn't bring clearity to what he already saw, at least in taking it no one ELSE would have it, and so he would have no competition in his foreknowledge of the future.

Rumplestiltskin examined his prize with giddy excitement. All he had to do was reach out and take it. But first, a little test....

Clearing his mind he let his eyes rest on his reflection, slightly distorted in the shiney, domed surface... At first there was nothing. Perhaps he had come all this way on a false lead, or perhaps someone else had already taken the prize and this was a mere decoy.

But then his reflection began to shift. The Rumplestiltskin looking back at him was pale, shivering, with empty eyes, barely clinging to consciousness.

Wracked with sudden fear, Rumplestiltskin began to search the tangled web that was his own seer's sight for a corresponding image, and how to avoid it. Images, possible futures, likely and unlikely, branched, and looped, and twisted back on themselves in his mind's eye. If he could only find the thread that lead to this conclusion he could snip it off at the base and prevent this future from ever happening...

But even as he searched though the jumbled images in his mind, the image reflected on the stone changed again, and now it was Belle. Belle, his flicker of light in an ocean of darkness. Belle, who's sweet, heart shaped face was distorted by pain, curled into a tight ball admits broken glass, crying despretly on the floor. The only good thing in Rumplestiltskin's cold and dark world was in obvious pain!

And Rumplestiltskin's fear at his own fate temporarily dissolved into a boiling hot rage. Whoever had caused Belle to be in that pain had just forfeited their exsistence. He moved from searching his sight for the image of himself pale and empty-eyed, to the image of Belle, crying in desperation and pain. He was going to find out who or what it was that had caused Belle to be in such turmoil... And then he would gleefully destroy it!

With one quick motion Rumple snatches up the Eye of Eternity....

...And drew back his hand with a sudden sharp hiss!

Perhaps he should have checked it for enchantments or curses before touching it (he definitely should have) but he had been distracted, reaching into his future sight searching for answers to two very upsetting problems, rather then here, in the present, paying attention to what he was doing.

An icy cold was seeping into his hand from his palm where he had touched The Eye, into his fingers, and up his wrist. A deep, throbbing, bone chilling cold.

With a nasty snarl at the gem (as though to let it know how personally displeased with it he was), and a flick of his wrist, the gem vanished in a cloud of dark smoke, to re-appear in a locked safe, behind a locked vault, behind a locked door deep in the recesses of his dark castle (he wouldn't want his maid to accidentally FIND it while snooping rather then cleaning... Particularly not now that he knew what touching it could do).

The numbing cold was creeping up into his fore arm. Rumplestiltskin held his hand at the wrist and flexed it twice making a pained expression. He would have to take care of this. With a flamboyant gesture for the benefit of noone, and a plume of dark smoke, Rumplestiltskin was back in his lab, the cold creeping now up his elbow and towards his shoulder.

He started at once with a series of spells and enchantments to stop the progression of the curse, or at least to slow it down. He wasn't entirely sure what it did (other then that bone chilling cold) but he would definitely prefer it not go any further then it already had.

Even as he worked on the spells to nullify the creeping cold, he went through his cupboards, pulling out bottles, setting up a heat distiller, measuring this and that, and then slicing into his frozen hand, to drop curse darkened blood into a vile of shimmering clear liquid. He set the vile on the distiller to draw out and isolate the elements of the curse in order to discover their exact effect...

...and now nothing to do but wait....

Rumplestiltskin went back to his seer's sight, searching for those two disturbing images he had seen in The Eye. Shifting through the various possible futures was tricky. Bits and pieces branched off in different directions based on choices made by billions of individuals thousands of times a day. The future split and branched, split and branched, until the potential outcomes overlapped, twisting back on themselves into a tangled mass.

Even after all this time it still wasn't easy to straitened out the twisted threads of fate (hence The Eye). But with enough patient searching he found what he was looking for. The two images, it turned out, were actually quite close together and on the same time line, which made it easy: he could avoid them BOTH by preventing the same event... Now, all he had to do was follow that thread back to it's source so that he could see what he must avoid in order to...

...there was a gentle tap at the door.

Rumplestiltskin scowled, but with a wave of his hand the door opened on its own.

"What?" He demanded impatiently. (Despite his spellwork the cold had seeped passed his shoulder and was moving into his torso.)

"You're, uh, your tea is ready." Belle said, glancing around him curiously to get a glimpse of the contents of the lab (because she wasn't strictly allowed in there).

Rumplestiltskin glanced at the dark vile being concentrated on the distiller. There was time still to wait. He might as well have a cup of tea, it may help him think as he tried to mentally unwind the tangled threads of fate to find what must be avoided.

"Very well." he said, and he stepped out, with a flippant gesture the door swung shut and locked itself, while Belle craned her neck to see the forbidden mysteries disappear behind it.

She poured him his tea, and Rumplestiltskin wrapped his cold hand around the warm cup. He lifted the cup (his favorite, chipped cup) to his face to inhale the heat of the steam, and then sipped the warming liquid, trying to counter the bitter cold that was rapidly overtaking him.

The heat, if not the tea itsself, did help him to think, and since he had found the disturbing images once, he could relatively easily find them again. Now all he had to do was untangle the thread and follow it back to its source to see what he must avoid to prevent this particular future....

And suddenly he was so furious he wanted to hurl the fragile cup he was holding across the room into the adjacent wall!

Belle was at his side at once. "What is it?!" She asked in alarm. One moment he had been calmly sipping tea, the NEXT Belle felt like she might just have to try to prevent murder!

"Stay out of the room with the black door on the third floor!" He snapped at her.

"What?" She was shocked, confused. Where had THAT come from?

"Why? What's behind it?"' her bright eyes were burning with that same curiosity she had had when she had tried to peer into his lab.

"None of your concern!" He shot back, but then thought better of it. That would only make her MORE curious, and thus MORE likely to go into the forbidden room. He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.

"I have recently acquired a very powerful magical item" he amendmended, "It's CURSED." He wrinkled his nose on the word "cursed" and pointed at her for emphasis. "If you touch it" he spread his hands in mock invitation, "I won't be able to cure you."

Belle blinked, then her eyes warmed and she smiled, leaning in a little TOO close.

"So, uh...." She said slowly, feeling out the taste of the words as she said them. "You're.... Just trying to... protect me."

She took one of his hands in both of her's and tried to calm him with her touch.

Her hands were warm..... They melted some of the aching, numbing curse induced cold... She looked into his eyes and smiled like the sun itself melting him on the inside as well.

Rumplestiltskin looked down at her delicate hands wrapped around his. He soaked up her thawing warmth, then looked up into her eyes....

...And then all of a sudden realized what was happening and jerked his hand away.

"Don't read too much into it, Dearie. I look after all my things, you're just another one of my pretty possessions I don't want damaged."

Belle froze... Her warm eyes turned hurt, then angry, then cold. Then she straitened up and smoothed her apron in a professional, detached manor. And then Belle: Rumplestiltskin's one and only friend, was gone, to be replaced by Belle: the Dark One's unpaid employee.

"I have dishes to wash" she said curtly. "I'll be back for the cups and saucers when your finished." And she turned on her heels and walked out of the room at a clipped, brisk pace.

Rumple watched her go. He wanted to stop her. He wanted to order her to stay. Her warmth had almost melted the ice that was now seeping through most of his torso and into his other arm...

But it was better this way. Safer for both of them.

The Dark One couldn't have "friends". "Friends" were a liability. They could be used against you (Belle already had been used against him once) and even if you kept them safe, they could betray you, and would certainly eventually die. No, friends were not a safe endeavor. Not for the Dark One.

It was better this way.

His tea had grown cold (or maybe he could just no longer feel it's heat?) Anyway, he had no further interest in it. He left his cup, still half full and returned to the lab where, by now, the consentration should be almost complete.

At the end of a long array of twisting tubes and candles was a little vile of black liquid. Rumplestiltskin picked it up and examined it. He extended his magical awareness and examined it that way too. It was done enough...

With a wave of his hand 3 different bottles of various colors appeared before him. Rumplestiltskin dripped exactly one drop of the concentrated curse into each bottle, then set the consentration aside for future use.

The first bottle was a vivid glowing purple, and this he tipped into a stone basin lined with ruins and sigils. The potion began to smoke and boil, and Rumplestiltskin waved a hand over it. With a delicate balance of magic, chemistry, and force of will he wafted through the smoke searching for answers....

It wasn't a curse of cold, or freezing, as he had thought. It was a curse of un-life. And the cold was just the first of 6 stages.... The last of which would be...

...well, it wasn't death, exactly...

It was something WORSE.

It was...

Not alive, but not dead. Not here, but not entirely gone either.... life without a mind, or will, or soul.... Unable to think or move or feel... Just cold.... Cold, and alive, but empty... forever.

Rumple wanted to smash something again... but he didn't. He was under something of a time constraint just now.

...and just how MUCH of a time constraint exactly?

With a wave of his hand the basin was empty and the smoke cleared. He took the second bottle, this one a grey and white swirl.... And tipped it in.

It turned gold and green.... Rumple leaned forward to read the swirling patterns in the liquid.

48 hours.

He had two days.

He MIGHT be able to slow it down some with all of his magic and careful spellwork, but that wouldn't hold it back by much. He had done what he could already and the cold had managed to spread throughout most of his body.

....So....

So, he had two days.

With a wave of his hand this too vanished and he reached for the third bottle. This one electric green. Rumple touched the bottle almost affectionately. This was the important one. This, hopefully, would tell him how to BREAK this curse... Or at least where to start.

He poured it carefully into the basin, his hands dancing just above the surface of the liquid, plucking at invisible cords of magic, playing a tune only the magically adept could hear, until the glowing green liquor turned to something like molten glass

Rumple grinned in manic anticipation, forgetting for the moment the icey cold that numbed his hands and enveloped most of his body

He pulled up all his dark power, filling his freezing hands with it, dropping in a gold thread, a flower petals, a bit of this and a touch of that, a drop from each of the other potions.... A snip of his own hair....

He took a deep breathe, pushed away the feeling of ice and numbing cold, pushed away unhelpful thoughts such as "I'm going to die", and with a combination of magic and will he reached into the basin and pulled out a glowing crystal....

He felt it with his mind, more then looking directly at it. It wasn't a complete answer... But it wasn't bad at all. Certainly something he could work with. The crystal showed a repeated list of ingredients that SHOULD make up a potion, and a cure (though, Rumple would have to experiment with the exact amounts).

Most of the ingredients he already had on hand, save for two. That would be alright tho, they could be tricky to come by, but not difficult for the Dark One.

....That only left....

With a wave of his hand the basin and the liquor inside it vanished (though he kept the crystal for future reference.) Then he sat down at his spinning wheel to think....

The event that lead to the two disturbing images, the event that had started the thread of fate he had been trying so hard to avoid, the image that had made him want to hurl his favorite tea cup across the room...

...had been TOUCHING The EYE OF ETERNITY.

Rumplestiltskin scowled. He should have known better! ...but it was too late for that now.

The problem, was that this particular thread of fate branched into two distinct outcomes. In one outcome Rumplestiltskin was ultimately reunited with his son, as it should be. In the other, his thread of fate darkened, and no longer crossed the threads of other people, or of the timeline itsself...

And what was the difference between these two drastically different outcomes? What must he do to ensure he got the one he wanted?

The cold in his hands had receded somewhat to be replaced with a stiff numbness. It was difficult to judge the tension in his spinning when he couldn't feel the thread between his fingers. Oh well, the purpose wasn't to make uniform strands of golden thread. The purpose, was to clear his mind, and shift through the competing time lines of fate to insure he got the one he wanted.

He carefully examined the branching strands of time in his minds eye, while before him the familiar wheel turned and turned.

...He didn't like what he was seeing.

Always in the futures where Rumplestiltskin recovered and ultimately found his son, Belle was to stay by his side until he completed the cure. That was bad enough in and of itself... but in absolutely all of the potential futures where he survived there was also that image of Belle, shattered and sobbing in pain admits the broken glass. And worse still, (he couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him) that HE was the cause of her pain...

Did this mean he would have to hurt her somehow? That he himself was going to be the source of her suffering that he had been so eager to destroy only hours ago? Would Rumplestiltskin end up having to sacrifice his one and only friend in order to save himself?

"Your supper's ready." Belle said, startling him out of his dark thoughts. Apparently she had gotten over her hurt feelings because she was once again sweet, friendly, and warm.

Rumplestiltskin eyed her in an almost predatory fashion, doing his best to shove aside unhelpful feelings such as 'she's too precious to endanger.' He stood from the spinning wheel and began to pace around her in slow, calculating circles, like a shark circling it's prey.

"Would you like to come with me" he asked very slowly, "On one of my little.... adventures?"

He pitched his voice higher then usual, secretive, entreating... threatening?

"Yes" Belle said, both excited and a little wary. She wanted to go, but why was he acting so strangely?

"Get your things then," He missed a step, as though he had tripped on nothing, bearly noticable, but it stopped his pacing "I'm in a bit of a hurry."

Chapter 2: Alone in the Dark

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