Work Text:
Belle carefully lifted her teacup from where it had sat on the saucer, allowing the last of the tea to drain away. After turning the cup three times, Belle took a deep breath and gazed down at the little clumps of tea leaves scattered over the delicate white china.
“Right,” she muttered to herself, consulting the book open on the little table next to her.
The seer must use her intuition , the book said. The message of the leaves is open to interpretation, and much depends upon the seer’s talent and concentration. What appears to be an ill omen to one seer may indicate a pleasant surprise to another.
Frustrated, Belle shook her head and returned her attention to the tea leaves. She knew that her future was more or less established - Rumplestiltskin had been clear that her promise to stay with him forever was inescapable - but surely there must be something more. The restlessness that had recently seized her felt very different from the wanderlust that had consumed her as a girl; it was most powerful in the vicinity of her master, and seemed to thrum throughout her whole body.
As her thoughts wandered to Rumplestiltskin, Belle felt her cheeks begin to glow. Her master was not what she’d expected, and she was glad. Tales of his ruthlessness and cruelty had been used to frighten the children of Avonlea into good behavior, lest he appear in the night to carry them away and make them into pies and stews. It had been an enormous relief to discover that Rumplestiltskin preferred chocolate biscuits and tea to the blood of innocents, and that he could be by turns wicked, mischievous, gallant, or shy, depending on his mood. She felt there was something more beneath his glittering skin, something he wished to keep hidden, and she had always loved a mystery.
Of all things, why was he so attached to his spinning wheel? Why did he sometimes stare off into thin air as if seeing things no one else could see? Why, if he was such a trafficker of children, had she never seen a single child in the castle? Why did he attend to the requests of some and not of others, and why did he appear to despise nobility and royalty so thoroughly?
Why did he insist on drinking tea from the cup she had chipped on her first day there?
Belle turned the cup absently in her hand as she thought about that last. Was she imagining the increased softness in his manner towards her? She didn’t think she was. A few weeks ago he had placed her in a bedroom rather than the cold, damp dungeons, muttering something about dead maids being even more useless than clumsy ones. She’d also discovered several warm, sensible dresses in the wardrobe and shoes more suited to walking up and down stairs than her own. And considering his fearsome reputation, she was rather surprised that he so readily tolerated her; she knew she made an even worse servant than she had a noblewoman. She was stubborn and impulsive and clumsy and odd, and what had been idiosyncrasies in a lady must be intolerable in a maid.
Yet here she was, surrounded by books in front of a warm fire, and fearing nothing worse than her master’s grousing if he came home and found her thus - perhaps a few muttered comments about what little maids ought to be doing.
He must be very lonely indeed.
“I suppose I should be glad that my books will never acquire the coats of dust that cover everything else in this castle.”
Belle started, the teacup nearly flying from her hands, and turned to glare reproachfully at her master. “You scared me!” she scolded.
“I scare most people,” he tittered, twirling one hand. “Now, what are you doing with my best china?”
Glancing down at the sodden lumps of leaves, Belle felt her cheeks begin to redden. She could see nothing there, but then she hadn’t been concentrating, had she? “I was trying to…”
“Ah, tasseography,” he said, looking down at the book nearest her. “Notoriously tricky art.”
“I thought if I could do any kind of magic it would be this,” Belle said a little tartly, setting her cup down. “I was wrong, though. I can’t see anything.”
"Well, you didn’t have my expertise at hand,” Rumplestiltskin said, moving to stand over her. “Go on then, give it another try.”
Rolling her eyes, Belle looked down at her cup again and stared at the leaves, but she was finding it difficult to concentrate. Rumplestiltskin rarely stood so close to her, and she imagined she could feel the warmth of him. Seated in a low chair as she was, she dared not look up, and she could feel her face warming as she tried to think of what the shapes in the cup could mean instead of thinking of how very, very close he was...and how much closer he’d been the day she’d pulled down the curtains.
Shaking her head slightly, she squinted at the leaves. She saw an anchor...something to do with love? A few lines...happiness and long life? A couple of triangles...good luck. And the letter R nearby the anchor. She bit her lip, her heart beating a little more quickly, as she thought of what that could mean.
A sound like a gasp came from above her, and Belle glanced up in spite of herself to see that Rumplestiltskin’s eyes, wide and panicked, were fixed on her teacup.
“Rumplestiltskin?”
He reached down and snatched the cup out of her hands and stared at it, then at her, his mouth slightly open and his expression dumbfounded.
“What is it?” Belle scrambled to her feet and placed on hand on his arm. “What do you see?”
He jerked his arm away from her and stumbled back.
“Rumple…”
In a swirl of purple smoke, he disappeared, taking the cup with him. Belle crossed her arms and sat down again with a huff. She hated when he did that.
Safe in his laboratory, Rumplestiltskin studied Belle’s tea leaves, turning the delicate cup around and around in his hands. A cross and a snake, a mountain...and an unmistakable letter R. His hands were shaking as he placed the cup on the table. His Sight was unreliable regarding Belle for reasons he couldn’t quite work out, but the indications of these leaves were unmistakable.
He was a danger to his little caretaker.
Rumplestiltskin took a shaky breath and leaned against his work table, staring broodily at the cup. Belle, with her sunny smiles and off-key singing and relentless optimism - she deserved better than to waste away in a gloomy castle with a dark master. He’d known that for a while, known that soon he would have to let her go, but he’d put it off because he had convinced himself that she liked it here, that she would not want to go, that it was safer here than out there, where any wretched villain would take advantage of her sweet nature. The truth, of course, was that he was a selfish old beast and he did not want her to go.
The future, however, was set. There was nothing that could change his fate, he knew that of old. Unless he wanted some terrible harm to come to her, he would have to send Belle away, and he would be once again alone.
Just as well. He deserved nothing better.