Maids and Merchandise (Chapter Three-A)

[audreyii_fic]

Title: Maids and Merchandise
Author: audreyii_fic
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Rating: PG
Characters: Rumpelstiltskin, Belle, Regina, Cora (Rumbelle)
Genre: Romance/Angst
Warnings: None.

Summary:
Wherein Rumpelstiltskin doesn't modify his deal with Cora, and Belle's responsibilities at the Dark Castle include the girl who will cast the curse to end all curses. (FTL AU. Rumbelle.)


The days at the Dark Castle settle into a routine that would be monotonous if not for the inimitable comfort of certainty, especially in such a strange place.

Each morning Regina and Rumpelstiltskin rise early, take their breakfast from Belle -- who rises even before them, and discovers to her relief that porridge is both accepted and not beyond her capabilities -- and then disappear into the laboratory tower until lunchtime. These hours often feature ear-splitting blasts which confirm to Belle the estate's magical properties, because otherwise the stones would have shaken apart by now. Occasionally there are bad smells, and on a memorable day smoke seeps from under the door and leaves an orange muck in its wake that takes Belle three days to scrub from the staircase. For the first few days she had waited anxiously for burns or bruises to appear on her body, but apparently Rumpelstiltskin was keeping Regina was safe from whatever explosions they were causing, and after a week Belle relaxed and continued to go about her work.

And there is so much work. No matter how many rooms she dusts, sweeps, mops, and polishes, there is always one more door that she has somehow failed to notice, and it is always full of every bit as much clutter as those she has just completed. As she washes, she bitterly reflects that there is no way in the world this piccolo or that windmill could matter to anyone, especially given that they are caked in a hundred years of filth.

No. Her employer is a packrat. A slovenly, inconsiderate packrat, and that is all there is to it.

After one particularly trying morning in which Belle had dedicated herself to a spacious ballroom and managed to scour only a mere ten square feet of tile, she delivered a tray of sandwiches to the tower and asked Rumpelstiltskin irritably: "Can't you just magic this place clean?"

He'd set aside a foul-smelling potion with a titter. "Grown weary of your deal, little maid?"

"No. It just seems... inefficient to do it all by hand, that's all."

Rumpelstiltskin considered her for a moment, then glanced at Regina, who had been perched on a stool and grinding something to dust with a granite pestle bigger than her forearm. "Answer her, dearie. Why don't I poof all the dust and dirt away?"

"Because there's too much magic in the castle," Regina recited at once, not even looking up from the mortar. "If big spells are cast on top of little spells, there may be unexpected results."

"Example."

This made Regina pause. She'd started tying her hair atop her head to keep it out of the potions, but refused all of Belle's offers to help with ribbons or scarves; as a result, strands were forever coming loose. She had pushed back the fallen locks as she answered: "A cleaning spell might... might polish some of the things that ought not be touched. Belle knows not to handle the golden lamp, but a spell wouldn't, and it could release the genie, and it's difficult to get genies to go back into their lamps without using wishes, and besides the genie might think the spell was his master, since technically it would be what had rubbed the lamp, and... uh, I don't know what would happen then, since spells aren't alive, but probably nothing good."

A smile had twitched at Rumpelstiltskin's lips -- Belle saw it, she knew she had -- before he caught himself and told Regina severely: "Don't ramble. The more words you uses, the more opportunities there are to make mistakes. Always be concise."

Regina's shoulders slumped. "You're not," she'd muttered.

"Yes, well, I'm a great deal better at this than you." He turned back to Belle. "Mind you, loquacious though that answer was, she's not wrong. The more spells one layers, the more unpredictable the magic becomes." Then he waved his hand dismissively and returned to his potions. "So less complaining and more scrubbing, if you please!"

Belle hadn't stomped from the tower, exactly, but she may have closed the door with more force than strictly necessary.

The afternoons belong to Belle and Regina. Depending on how her morning with Rumpelstiltskin has gone, Regina can be difficult, but she at least pays attention as Belle attempts to teach her what she knows. It is more demanding than she expected -- Belle has never been trained as a governess, and with every passing day she develops more respect for those who were -- but once she discovers the best way to tempt Regina into learning is to be circumspect and wait for her to ask questions, progress is slowly made. Regina still refuses to admit her illiteracy, but Belle finds that reading aloud while subtly drawing her finger across the lines seems to be making a difference; certainly more pages in Regina's books are showing signs of wear, even ones without illustrations. The girl has only a passing interest in history, and cares nothing for literature, but mathematics she takes to like a duck to water. Belle suspects this is because numbers are easier to memorize than words, but it is clear there is also an inherent talent, and Belle has to brush up on her own studies before her pupil outstrips her entirely.

By the end of their lessons each day Regina is often so tired she falls asleep at her letter desk, making Belle wonder if Rumpelstiltskin hadn't been entirely joking about the potential of the girl's brains leaking out her ears. Belle prepares the evening meal, returns to wake Regina a half hour before supper, then serves she and Rumpelstiltskin in the great room, the latter of whom never fails to make some sarcastic comment about her cooking. Belle learns not to be offended by his quips, which are clearly said with no greater purpose than to get a rise out of her. Some of them are even rather funny -- though she makes a point never to smile, let alone laugh. For if there is one thing Belle has learned, it is that the Dark One does not need encouraging. In anything.

After dinner Belle gathers the dishes, Rumpelstiltskin spins at his wheel, and Regina settles in front of the fire to watch the flames and think whatever it is that ten-year-old sorceresses-in-training thought.

The only differences are the days that Rumpelstiltskin travels, for which he gives no explanation and sometimes vanishes during the night without even a note. Regina is beyond impossible at those times and Belle simply leaves her to her own devices. But thankfully, unlike before, their master is never gone for more than two days at a stretch; he comes back, Regina recovers from her sulk, and the cycle continues as before.

When Belle crawls into bed at night she occasionally reflects that, all things considered, there are worse lives to live. But that is only when she has energy to reflect at all.

***

It all begins to change the night Belle catches the thief.

She has stayed up late, burnishing the mirrors in the second floor hallway with all the grim determination of a death march. She has been at them with vinegar and polish for the better part of a week; now she is down to the very last spotty looking glass, and she will finish it, even if she has to stay up all night, because by all the Gods she is not spending one more day on the horrid things.

Regina is long in bed; Rumpelstiltskin is off doing heaven-knows-what -- Belle has yet to see any sign that he sleeps, for she has gathered discarded shirts in his chambers yet never has to straighten the bedclothes; therefore Belle is the first to hear the unexpected sound of breaking glass.

"Regina?" she calls. "Regina, is that you?"

But, no; the girl's bedroom opens a moment later, far down the hall. Her tousled head pokes out from around the door. "What was that?" she asks fretfully.

Belle is about to reassure her that it's likely Rumpelstiltskin up to something strange -- again -- when another sound of shattering stops her. It is clearly echoing up the stairway.

"Stay here," Belle orders, tossing her rag into the bucket of vinegar water and rushing down the stairs as best she can in her kitten heels. If it is Rumpelstiltskin making the racket, well, she'd best make sure he's all right; if it's something else... as the caretaker, it's probably her job to greet it.

It's something else.

The first thing Belle sees in the smashed-in windowpane in the foyer; the second thing she sees is the doors to the great room thrown open; the third thing she sees is a tall man on the other side of the fireplace, his hand clasped about a bow, his face hidden by a hooded cloak. He is lifting Rumpelstiltskin's fairy wand from its display.

She is struck by a sudden flash of anger. "Excuse me!" she says indignantly, storming into the great room without a thought. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

The stranger turns towards her; she can't see his face in the shadows, but his head bobs up and down as he takes her in. It occurs to her that she ought to be frightened, but she isn't. This is an intruder sneaking about her home, touching items that she has dusted -- furthermore, she is the one who will have to sweep up all that glass in the entryway.

"Hello," replies the stranger calmly, not a hint of chagrin in his tone at being caught breaking and entering. "Let me guess: a maiden in need of rescue."

"I-- wait, what?"

"My apologies, but I don't have the time to help you tonight. But if you can hold on for a few days, I've a whole passel of merry men who'd take great pleasure in coming to your assistance--"

"I'd stop talking now, dearie." As he tends to do, Rumpelstiltskin appears in the room soundlessly, as though he's been standing next to the hearth the entire time and no one has cared to look. His smile is wide in a way that bodes ill for them all. "You've already been caught taking something that doesn't belong to you; do you really want to make it worse by stealing something else of mine?"

"Hardly stealing to save a woman held captive by a monster," the stranger retorts. He pushes back his hood, and Belle blinks; even in the shadows he's impressively handsome, in a rakish sort of way. If one likes that sort of thing. "And as for this--" he holds up the wand "--from what I hear, it wasn't yours to begin with, Dark One."

"Is that so? I can't imagine who could have told you that." Rumpelstiltskin giggles. "A piece of advice, dearie: take fairy tales with a grain of salt. When they spin their stories the truth can get a little, ah, tangled."

"I'll take my chances," says the stranger, tucking the wand into his quiver.

"Oh, no, I wasn't talking to you. Your edification I could care less about." Without looking away from the stranger, Rumpelstiltskin crooks a finger in Belle's direction -- or rather, she realizes quickly, in the direction of the entryway. "Come on out, now."

Belle has to stifle a groan as Regina slinks around the doorframe sheepishly. "I told you to stay in your room," she hisses.

Regina shrinks at Belle's tone, but Rumpelstiltskin just gestures her forward. "No, no, it's quite all right," he says, his sing-song words honed to their sharpest. "We'll use this opportunity for a practical learning experience."

The stranger's bow is strung from the moment Regina steps into the room. "Holding maidens and children," he says bitingly, arrow pointed at Rumpelstiltskin's chest. "You are everything the whispers say."

"And more, I should think. Stop there." The last is said to Regina, who freezes in place ten paces away, well out of the line of fire. "Tell me: what is our guest doing?"

"He's stealing," Regina says.

"More specific."

"He's stealing magic."

"Still more specific."

"He's..." She frowns for a moment -- then her expression clears and she adds triumphantly: "He's stealing magic from you!"

"You are correct!" Rumpelstiltskin claps his hands with delight. "And what does that mean, dearie?"

"Um... that he's really stupid?"

Belle, who has been creeping closer to Regina, has to work hard not to roll her eyes in exasperation; Rumpelstiltskin just snickers and looks at the girl with what could almost be considered pride. "Not quite the answer I was looking for, but, as it's true--"

"Enough of this," says the thief. He pulls the bow taunt. Belle is no sorceress, but she's been caretaker here for almost three months now; she knows an enchanted object when she sees it, and this weapon positively reeks of magic. "A grown woman could manage for a few days while I summon a rescue party, but I will not leave this castle while you have a child in your clutches."

"Well, you're right about one thing, dearie: you won't leave this castle." Rumpelstiltskin vanishes, and Belle has a moment of utterly irrational fear that he's abandoned them before he reappears a heartbeat later on the opposite side of the room. "And if you want to hit me, you'll have to be an exceptional shot."

The thief just readjusts his aim. "Clever trick, Dark One," he says, "but it won't work. An arrow fired from this bow always finds its target."

Rumpelstiltskin smirks. "Shall we test that?"

The thief looses the arrow, and Rumpelstiltskin vanishes again. But rather than imbed itself in the wall, the arrow arcs through the air, confused, searching for its lost quarry--

--and Regina stands right in the way of its path.

Belle acts without thinking, tackling the girl to the stone floor before the hearth, coals nearly singing the edge of her skirts. Regina yelps with pain, and an instant later Belle feels the matching hurt of a bruise forming on her right knee. The arrow, oblivious as any inanimate object, circles once more through the room... and buries itself in Rumpelstiltskin's heart as he materializes at the thief's side.

Belle gasps. She tries to shield Regina's eyes, but too late; the girl sees the arrow sticking from her master's chest and cries out a second time, scrabbling under Belle's weight. "Let me go! Let me..."

Her shrieks trail off at the familiar, utterly unchanged sound of Rumpelstiltskin's eerie laugh; Belle's heart restarts as he pulls the arrow from his. There's not a drop of blood on it. "Looks like you didn't do your research, dearie," he trills to the thief, whose eyes are wide with shock and a sudden dash of fear. "Or did you really think your little toy was powerful enough to kill me?"

His eyes flick from the thief to Belle, then to Regina as they climb off the floor, both wincing; though his voice is as careless as ever, there's not the slightest amusement in it as he says to Regina: "Just one more question, dearie, and then it's back to bed. What was the first lesson that I taught you?"

Regina is still trembling, but she gulps down a breath and answers: "All-- all m-magic comes a price."

"Exactly." He turns back to the thief. "And in your case--" he bares his teeth in a malevolent smile "--that's me."

***

For the next two days Belle tells Regina that they will take their meals as well as their lessons in the library, ostensibly to spend more time working on the language studies the girl has been intent upon skirting. Regina gripes to no end, but at least it keeps her out of earshot of the dungeon.

Belle has no such luxury. The washroom is very near the cells, and screams carry easily in stone halls.

The third evening, after Belle allows Regina to go conjugate her verbs on the front grounds -- knowing full well the girl will ignore her and play in the apple orchard instead -- she returns to the great room to sweep, something she's been avoiding. She discovered while cleaning up the morning after the break-in that the dungeons can be heard from this part of the castle as well.

Belle is no stranger to the sounds of men in pain. She has heard the cries of the soldiers cut and crushed in the ogre war. The instruments of torture Rumpelstiltskin has carelessly left on the table are much like the tools used by surgeons to slice free the decaying limbs of those lucky enough to return from the battlefront. So the screams do not frighten her. She knows them.

But that was war. This is... something else.

"I'm going to need another apron," says Rumpelstiltskin, entering the room without so much as a 'hello'. Belle winces as he throws the offending leather to the table with a slap; bits of something fly free.

"They're on the line, drying." She swallows back against the sudden nausea. "It'll be some time."

"Fine, fine; get to cleaning this one as well." His voice is nearly human and absolutely humorless; he's been in a black mood since this began. Belle wonders whether what he's doing bothers him more than he lets on; she also wonders whether there's room for this new apron on the smaller line outside the kitchen, which is where she's been hiding the aprons from Regina.

Blood oozes across the table; Belle catches it with a rag before it drips off the edge and onto the fine carpet. She thinks she sees the faintest hint of uneasiness in Rumpelstiltskin, but it's gone before she can be sure; maybe it's just wishful thinking. "I'll be back later," he announces tersely, striding for the entryway.

Belle bites her lip, hesitates, and asks: "Can you take the side door?" When he turns to face her in confusion, she explains, "It's-- it's just... Regina's out front."

Rumpelstiltskin blinks, then glances down at himself; there are crimson streaks across his shins. "Ah," he says, and this time Belle is very certain she's not misreading the discomfort in his expression, slight though it is.

Her heart lifts. She was right. He knows this is wrong.

She shouldn't say anything -- she knows she shouldn't, and that no good is likely to come of it -- but she can't hold herself back any longer. "All this," she says, "because he tried to steal a magic wand?"

"No, because he tried to steal from me -- the Dark One." Oh, yes, she'd been wrong to press the point; any sign of remorse has vanished under a wave of his determined theatrics. "Which, as I've been reliably informed, makes him really stupid. Not to mention, dearie, that he seemed to think he could help himself to my maid and my apprentice as well." Something shadowed crosses his face, and he croons: "So sorry to interrupt before you and the handsome hero could work out the details."

"Wh-- what? What are you talking about?"

"What is who talking about?"

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin both freeze as Regina comes into the room, apple blossoms stuck to her hair. "I've decided to write a spell that translates all languages," she declares, "and therefore I will not be conjugating verbs from now on." Then she frowns, and matter-of-factly informs Rumpelstiltskin: "There are stains on your boots."

Rumpelstiltskin's green-gold skin pales to a sickly gray; he doesn't answer.

Regina reaches for the tools on the table. "What's that?"

"Don't touch those!" Belle cries -- and looks up in shock to realize Rumpelstiltskin has said the same, with nearly the same level of urgency.

Regina drops her hand at once, but still leans in closer, nose nearly touching the sticky hacksaw. "Mr. Berkshire used this stuff for slaughtering cows," she observes. "Are we having steak for dinner?"

Belle might be sick on the floor. "Yes," she says, dropping the broom to pull Regina away. "Yes, we are. Now run back outside and--"

Another moan echoes through the halls. Belle shudders; Regina perks up; and Rumpelstiltskin, if anything, looks paler.

"That's... that's the thief." Regina glances from Belle, to the tools, to Rumpelstiltskin. Her eyes widen. "We're not having him for dinner, are we?"

"Of course not." Belle is more than a little unnerved by the blunt manner of Regina's speaking.

"We don't eat thieves," adds Rumpelstiltskin. "They're gamey."

Belle glares at him.

"That's good." A loose apple blossoms falls from Regina's hair onto the carving knife. "So-- so you're torturing him?" She peeks up at Rumpelstiltskin, then straightens. "I knew that," she lies at once. "I knew that, and it's a good idea. He deserves it. All magic comes with a price."

For a long moment, Rumpelstiltskin stares at the girl, so still that Belle begins to worry that something has happened to him. But then, very, very slowly, a fearsome smile starts to spread across his face. "You're right, dearie," he says lightly. "You are right. All magic comes with a price." He steps forward. "Would you like to learn more about his?"

"No!" exclaims Belle, at the same moment Regina says "Yes."

"Good! I think you're ready for it. I have a few little things to do tonight... but tomorrow, we'll get started on the next step in your training." He turns his smirk on Belle, who shudders. "It seems our thief may prove useful after all."

When Rumpelstiltskin is gone, Belle turns to Regina -- who is beaming with pride -- and says, "You'll have supper in your room tonight. Go." She's surprised by the calm, even tone of her words; everything inside her is trembling.

"You can't tell me--"

"Go. Now."

Visibly pouting, the girl obeys, adding a few stomps up the stairs for emphasis. Belle holds herself still for several minutes after she hears the door slam; she uses the time to take deep breaths, trying to cleanse the horror from her body. She tastes the salty tang of blood in the air with each inhale.

She made a promise to look after Regina, and she will. Whether Rumpelstiltskin likes it or not.

Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow.

***

Belle waits an hour, even though Regina is safely in her room and there's no one to hear her but those thrice-damned mice, which have spawned many hundreds of generations in the Dark Castle and clearly have no intention of vacating, in spite of Belle's best efforts.

She creeps down to the dungeons. She follows the trail of blood splatters like breadcrumbs to the correct cell. She swings the splintered door wide. She stares at the prisoner who hangs like a piece of meat in a butcher's shop.

Bizarrely, Belle's first reaction is relief. He's not nearly as bad off as she had feared, given the tools she's had to polish and aprons she's had to clean. There is a scalp wound -- those always bleed terribly -- as well as a number of bruises; he's strung up by his arms but appears to still have his fingers and toes, as well as all of his hide, in spite of Rumpelstiltskin's repeated threats to skin the man alive. Perhaps even the Dark One cannot stomach flaying. She herself can't imagine a worse fate.

As she lingers in the doorway, the thief's eyes open -- well, one eye, at least. The other is swollen shut. "Hello again," he rasps, a sardonic smile on his cracked lips. "Has he sent you to finish the job?"

Belle shakes herself. "No, no. Of course not. I'm here to help." The iron chains about his wrists are attached to a rope, which is fastened to the far wall; his weight makes it difficult to untie, but after a moment of struggle, she manages to loosen the knots enough to lower him to the ground with a thud. "I couldn't let this continue," she tells him as he groans and rubs his legs. "No one deserves to be tortured."

"I couldn't agree more," the thief says as Belle helps him free of the manacles. "But he may beg to differ."

"I don't care; he doesn't frighten me. And even if he did, some things are more important." Such as not allowing a child to witness a scene such as this. "Hurry up, now; he'll be back soon. Take the south passageway, past the giant mushroom, through the larder; there's a gate--"

"--beyond the orchard, yes." The thief grins, then winces and spits out a cracked tooth. "That's how I got in the first time."

This makes Belle frown, in spite of her compassion. Just because this man shouldn't be tortured doesn't mean she's not still a bit angry at his invasion. This is her home now. "You shouldn't have tried to get in at all," she tells him. "Stealing from the Dark One is--"

"--really stupid. I heard. But, as you said, some things are more important." Leaning heavily on the door frame, the thief glances up and down the hallway before turning back to Belle, a speculative gleam in his eye. "He will kill you for this," he says, "unless you run away with me. I said I have friends who would be able to help you. I meant it."

Belle allows herself one brief, sparkling moment of fantasy wherein she returns to her village and her father's arms... until she recalls that the moment that happened, the ogres would turn the village to ash. And, unlike before, she would have no one to blame but herself. "I can't," she says. "I made a deal to serve him. I gave my word. I won't break it."

"But he'll--"

"He won't kill me. He wouldn't-- it's-- that's not the way he does things." She hopes.

"The girl, then," the thief presses. "Please. She must have family searching for her. Her parents?"

Parents who would surely not consider exposing their daughter to what happens in dungeons such as these. For a moment Belle considers saying yes, just bundling Regina up and sending her away from all this, but... "It wouldn't work," she says regretfully. "She'll call for Rumpelstiltskin the moment you try to pull her from the castle. She wants to be here." The thief frowns, and Belle assures him, "I won't let any harm come to her. I promise. Now go, quickly, or you'll never get away before he returns."

Later that night, Belle tries to figure out why doing the right thing can leave a sick feeling in one's stomach. She gets nowhere.

***

Rumpelstiltskin, unsurprisingly, doesn't take the news well. "Where is he?" he demands, storming into the great room after breakfast, carving knife in hand, a pale Regina hard on his heels.

"Gone." Belle sets aside her book on the divan and works to keep her voice level. "I let him go."

"What? He was a thief!"

Behind Rumpelstiltskin, Regina shakes her head at Belle and mouths Shouldn't have done that, twisting her fingers together nervously.

But this only reminds Belle why she did what she did, and why she would do it again if she had to. "That doesn't give you the right to kill him." She looks directly at Regina. "Not even if he was a thief. No matter what. It doesn't give anyone the right."

"It gives me every right! It--" Rumpelstiltskin breaks off, glancing between Belle and Regina. Then his expression darkens, and his lips curl into a sneer as he turns back to Belle. "Oh, I see. Squeamish over the way I'm educating my apprentice, are you?"

"Yes," Belle answers simply. To Regina, she says: "I saw good in him. That man only wanted to escape with his life."

"Oh, is that what you thought?" Rumpelstiltskin's words are filled with such disdain that Belle can nearly feel herself shrinking. Hopefully it's only in her head and not the beginnings of a curse. "Tell me, Regina: what's missing from this room?"

Regina narrows her eyes in concentration and spins in a slow circle. She stops facing the cabinet. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh is right." Rumpelstiltskin waves at one of the pedestals. A pedestal that sits disturbingly empty.

The fairy wand is gone.

"You were tricked," snarls Rumpelstiltskin to Belle, and Regina steps back quickly, "you foolish, gullible girl!"

While she does not condone flaying or mutilation, at this exact moment Belle would not mind at all to discover that the thief has been kicked by a horse in his personal regions. But she remembers how he agreed that some things are more important, and though her cheeks begin to burn with humiliation, she forces herself to stand nonetheless. She will not cower like a child before the Dark One's rage. "I'm sure there is an explanation," she offers as earnestly as she can. "We-- we don't know why he needed that wand."

"He took the wand because he wanted magic!" Both Belle and Regina jump back; Belle is still fairly certain Rumpelstiltskin won't kill her, at least not on purpose, but he's wielding the carving knife with a little too much enthusiasm. Dead is dead whether by design or mishap. "People who steal magic never have good intentions!" Regina recoils as he points the knife at her for emphasis.

"You can't-- but you can't know for certain," Belle insists. "And will you please stop waving that thing around before you hurt someone?"

Rumpelstiltskin glances down, looking vaguely puzzled, as though he's forgotten the blade in his hand. He shakes his head, mutters something unintelligible and probably obscene, and tosses the knife into the table.

Regina is gnawing on her lower lip, shifting her weight as she looks from her maid and her master. "I... I thought intent was meaningless?" Rumpelstiltskin glowers at her, and she shrinks back. "I mean, that is what you said. Isn't it?"

Regina's right, but Belle isn't sure whose argument is better helped by this, so she doesn't respond. Neither does Rumpelstiltskin -- possibly for the same reason.

Frankly, it's beside the point. "I wasn't going to stand by and watch you teach a child how to torture," she says quietly, praying Regina can't see how she's trembling. "It isn't right."

"Oh, it isn't, is it? Well, since you're so very concerned about how the lessons are going, perhaps you'd like to attend one." Rumpelstiltskin waves through the air, and when the cloud of purple smoke clears, the thief's bow is in his hand. Another gesture, and the bow shrinks down to the size of a child's weapon. "A field trip, perhaps." He hands the bow to Regina, who takes it gingerly.

"No," Belle gasps. "No, you can't--"

"Actually, dearie, I can. And because this is your fault, you're coming too." He spins on his heel, and with a clap of his hands, the great room and castle doors swing open. Bright morning sunlight streams in, making Belle cringe.

"Grab your cloaks," Rumpelstiltskin tells them both. "We're going hunting."

***

Next : Wherein Regina receives an archery lesson.