Milah
She will never have to know the pain of walking home that evening.
How awful the trek to their hovel knowing that he must tell their son his mother would not ever be coming back.
Can he look into those young eyes and tell Baelfire that his mother chose another man over him?
A filthy pirate who dips his wick into anything that moves.
The lowest of men, raping and pillaging through every port in The Ten Kingdoms.
Her own wantoness.
She couldn't fight the disgusting urges of her body for her own child?
Now she's left their son without his mother.
Left as Rumplestiltskin was.
He should've killed her in the bar.
He would've smiled as the Pirate held her lifeless body, shock and awe in his prettily lashed eyes.
He'll kill her indeed.
She is as good as dead anyhow if she lives with that diseased wretch of a man, and he can spare Baelfire.
He'll say she died by accident, she didn't hurt or suffer.
After all, the boy did love his mother.
He's doing Milah a great service, making her selfish abandonment into a beautiful tragedy.
He can just imagine Milah at this moment hiking up her skirt, that rogue Jones slipping between her lean thighs and rutting her like the whore she really is.
He'll pass her around to his shipmates, then leave her destitute and shamed in some far away kingdom.
Maybe Milah will die then, withered and regretful in her decision.
"Let it haunt her until her dying day."
The little shack has a comforting glow in the one thatched window, a fire he kept low for Bae lest he become frightened of the night.
Rumplestiltskin's leg screamed from the time spent upon it, his shoes were soaked through and muddy.
It wasn't fair.
Milah shucked her responsibilities like an old cape.
Here he is, left with a toddling son and a ruined reputation.
"Mother's in a better place son," Rumplestiltskin reassures his dearest boy through his sobs and screams.
"She loved you more than anything in this world Bae, she truly did."
Cora
It was her beauty, her wit, her flagrant desirability that drew men into her like a son to his mother's bosom.
Her parties and morals were notorious.
Her past sketchy and controversial.
She was red.
Her name begot images of rich fabrics and priceless jewels.
Pleasure was her credo; she lived it to excess.
She wanted too much of everything.
That included Rumplestiltskin...
"My love," his voice hot and low behind her ear, "is this how you like it?"
Cora whimpers, her face twisted.
"Tell me," he bites her neck, "no one else knows but me, no one else can but me."
These moments are all that connects them now really.
Their mutual heat; their ability to carnally please one another.
Politics have no leeway here in the bedroom.
Kings and Princes hold no court.
There is nothing but lust; mutual pleasure.
They masquerade it as love.
No one else wants him except her.
She who is wanted by everyone.
Regina
She cannot pinpoint the exact moment her humanity was lost.
Did it happen all at once, or slowly?
Like a sickness growing within her.
Like a possession or sorts.
How she longed to be free of it!
She wanted to be a girl again, uncorrupted by the darkest of magic and thoughts.
She is cursed.
Every thought, every incantation removes a little more of her.
Her clothing itches her, her skin feels too tight.
Her hands begin to numb.
Murder is inconsequential to her, just a small thing in this world of thrones and hearts and mirrors.
How can she reverse this?
She cannot bear to look upon herself in the glass.
Loathed by her populace, she has no where to turn.
In her grasp everything turns to ash.
She is an evil, gnarled, witch of a woman.
She is the monster lying in wait beneath every peasant child's bed.
She is as feared as The Dark One now and that gives her little pride.
There is no solace; no where is she safe from herself.
She only wanted to marry Daniel and ride her horse.
She only wanted her mother to love her for herself.
She only wanted Rumplestiltskin's guidance through the heartbreak of murder.
She only wanted to be Regina, never The Evil Queen.
Belle
"Beautiful Belle...pretty..."
"Goodness Master," her hands brush the wild hair from his face, "I think it's passed your bedtime."
"Pretty..."
His fingers grab at her loose hair; the flames make it shine like new copper.
"Far from it My Lord." She smiles as she gently swats his hand away.
He attempts to roll his eyes.
"You do yourself grievous disservice."
"As do you, you've been in your cups this night."
She places her hands on her lovely waist, one eyebrow raised accusingly.
"And what of it? All gentlemen drink m'dear."
His head lolls back against the chair.
Belle sees the empty bottle and glass on the floor.
"Just one bottle then?"
"Add three more to that one dearie, as well as a few glasses of wine from my cellar."
Rumplestiltskin looked at her, his eyes glazed.
"Wine as red as your precious, precious blood."
She pays him no mind.
"You should get to bed, you'll feel this in the morning."
"You're the only thing I long to feel."
He reaches out and catches her full skirt, tugging her into his lap.
"Master-"
Her hands push at his chest, he buries his face into her neck.
"Don't get up yet, not yet...don't get up.."
She doesn't.
He smells of strong spirits and smoke.
His blouse is undone nearly to his navel.
His golden, scaly chest unveiled.
Belle feels the heat of his body upon her own.
"You're a welcomed weight," he whispers, "After all, I'm just a randy old demon who wants to feel a beautiful girl again."
She's tense, unsure of him in this state.
"How my hands itch to uncover what's beneath your frock, your corset, your petticoat..."
She clenches her thighs tight together.
Drunken men have a difficult time comprehending the word "No" at times.
A lump of fear welled in her throat.
"I won't do it though Belle," he inhales deeply at her shoulder, "I know you don't want me."
She feels sad at that.
"I-I've never been touched by a man, exactly."
An effort to comfort him.
Smooth over that ever so fragile ego.
"What? No midnight trysts in the gardens with your True Love? No stolen kisses, no desperate, pawing hands..."
He tightened his grip about her waist, his lips grazed her collarbone.
Belle fisted his shirt in her small hands, trying not to let him think she was enjoying this.
"Do you actually mean to tell me he never wandered beneath your skirts? I envy his restraint."
Rumplestiltskin teased her innocence, he knew full well she was as white as snow.
"Please don't treat me as a whore Rumplestiltskin, I know not of such bawdy talk!"
Her words were a stinging hiss.
Her hands left his shirt.
"Ive forgotten myself, pray blame my state dear girl," he rested his forehead on her shoulder like a scowled pup, "do not hold such things against me."
Belle sighed, it felt good to be held by a man...by anyone.
And his scent was...intoxicating.
"You must promise to mind your tongue from here on Master."
Rumplestiltskin placed a light kiss to the fabric covering her shoulder.
"You are nothing more than a mind reader m'dear."
She did not catch his cheek.
They sat in quiet a few moments before Belle found herself fingering the ruffles across his breast.
He was content with her smell in his nose, her lush rump atop his lap, and the pleasing view down her bodice.
"Have you taken many women to your bed Master?"
The question was so forward, so Belle.
Rumplestiltskin giggled, "Didn't you just chastise me against common talk?"
"It's not common talk! It's a legitimate question! I told you of my...inexperience in love."
She pushed against him, shifting herself and causing him to groan.
"Why do you care? I ought to dump you out and let you crack that inquisitive head of yours."
She gave him a smug look, "Sounds like guilty talk, there must've been quite a few for you to turn so sour."
Rumplestiltskin slapped her thigh, "You've too beguiling a mouth to be using it so disgracefully!"
Belle erupted something between a scream and laugh.
Her arms looped around her Master's neck and her face burrowed into his shoulder.
"Your cruelty towards me is unbearable!"
He took the opportunity to snake his hands under her skirts, stopping at her hips.
"No dearie, you're the cruel one, teasing an old dragon with your...treasures."
Belle felt comfortable in his grasp, even a little wanton.
There was a dull throb between her thighs and a dryness in her throat.
Her mind whizzed.
How she longed to kiss him, feel his warm mouth against her neck again.
Those thoughts were unladylike she knew, yet there was something about it all that felt so good.
Too soon she's pulling away, frightened by the heat and lightheaded fog arousal brings to the inexperienced.
It is another shaking step into the unknown thing between them.
Milah
Her heart felt so good in his hand.
Rumplestiltskin finds comfort in that after the fiasco.
Crushing Milah's heart made everything feel alright again.
And when he severed the Pirate's hand...elation is not the word.
More along the lines of a blessed rapture.
Happiness he could have never dreamed overtook him in that joyous moment the deck became crimson.
But they tricked him.
No one tricks the Dark One and lives to tell the tale.
This needs to become a new chapter in his lore; weakness in this new skin cannot stand.
No one from now on can renege on his deals...for it will mean certain death.
Cora
Solely he destroyed the oppression of her girlhood days.
He brought forth the old ache from those young burgeoning years when all at once the veil was pulled back and men were suddenly...men.
Every daydream, every fantasy, every frustrated promise she made to herself from her filthy straw ticked mattress was him.
From the first bright blossom of red that stained her petticoat, she knew he would be there somewhere in the darkness waiting for her.
And he was.
He appeared in full form, arms outstretched and mouth dripping honey, just as she had dreamt him.
The shapeless being she looked for behind every tree, expected in every well-to-do Baker's son who winked at her or slid a sugar cookie into her callused hand, had been finally realized in flesh.
If she possessed any virginity, it would have been his within the instant.
There would never be any Knight with armor shining, no honest love, nothing pure.
He made that somehow alright.
She had climbed so high and far out of the tarpits to get to him.
He named the price and she paid it readily.
She loved him when he was nothing but a phantom that freed her from the weight of her sex and incessant grinding of the millstone.
He is the reason for her absolute beauty; he is the steel between her bare breasts and the red silk of her gown.
She is everything he would covet.
She stinks of the mill; of poverty and despair.
But that, of course, can be washed away.
It will all be washed away.
Regina
She should have known it.
Her mother and...him.
A memory recalls itself to her, a thundering night from so many years ago.
She could not have been more than four or five, still in the nursery.
How cold the stone floor against her feet, how long the journey to her mother's chambers.
No matter how much distance Cora placed between herself and Regina, somehow that only elevated her daughters desire to be with her.
Cora will send her back to the nursery with no comforting words, no kisses, not even a candle to light her way.
Yet Regina still loves her mother fiercely.
She clings to her no matter how hard Cora pushes her away.
That was when Regina saw him.
But she didn't know it was him.
A man, lithe and adroit, stood with his back towards the door.
His hair was wild like an unpruned bush and he wore slick looking hides.
Cora appeared to listen to him with a stony, unpleasant expression.
Regina knew never to interrupt her mother's meetings.
She was gone before Cora could see her and the entire thing was forgotten.
Until decades later when Regina was a woman and the little man with wild hair wearing hides came into her chambers during a midsummer storm.
Then she knew the reason her mother had looked so hard and old that night as he talked.
Belle
"Do be careful dearie, your slipper has unlaced itself."
No sooner had Rumplestiltskin warned Belle of her step she wound up in a pile upon the rug, less than five inches from the toe of his boot.
Her light sprinkle of a laugh told him she wasn't hurt in anyway, just somewhat clumsy.
She saw him upside down as she lay upon her back.
Her creamy breasts jumped with her laughter, she folded her hands across her stomach and smiled at her Master.
"Aren't you going to help me up? It would be the chivalrous thing to do."
Rumplestiltskin grinned down at the pretty lump at his feet.
"You're a clumsy shrew, heft yourself up."