Summary: Rumplestiltskin finds an injured mermaid among the debris of a shipwreck, who just might have the information he needs to get him to the Land Without Magic. A/N: Lots of fluff until there’s not. I’m sorry. Rating: E | Chapter: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six
He’d acquired the necklace from Snow White. All it had taken was a quick warning that Regina intended to poison her drink, and she'd offered Rumplestiltskin the enchanted pearl without question. She was even grateful, although suspiciously so.
Mermaid magic rejected dark magic. Rumple wouldn't have been able to use his magic to alter Belle's body in any way - to heal her or to give her legs - but the necklace contained no dark magic. It was the perfect loophole, and it meant stopping Regina from getting her revenge on Snow White. Pushing the queen closer to casting his Dark Curse was another bonus.
Now Belle had had her legs for two days, thanks to his bargaining, and rather than wandering freely around the castle as he’d expected her to, the mermaid had only used her new freedom to move around the library.
Rumplestiltskin’s library had a wide and varied collection of books. Some of them had illustrations, some were leatherbound, and some were so old they were fraying and falling apart. He could try to teach her to read, she was a quick learner, but Belle seemed to have got the hang of it fairly quickly by herself. That, or she was only looking at the illustrations.
She powered through one book after another; books on princesses trapped in far off castles, books about cooking, books about dragons and knights, and factual books about humans. Those were the most worrying. He’d had to hide one particular volume with a detailed sketch of a naked human, after she kept holding it up and pointing at him. He didn’t know what she wanted, and he didn’t want to know. It was now sitting on one of the highest shelves where she couldn’t reach it.
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