The Coward's Daughter [An OUAT Fanfic]

From The Eyes Of A Mouse

{22 Years Before the Curse}

It was pitch black as Y/N stood in the shadow of Snow White and Prince Charming's castle, she clutched the vial of transfiguration potion tighter, there was only enough left for around a half-hour's effects.

She slowly crept behind a group of guards and gently blew a puff of sleeping powder, knocking them out cold. She searched the wall for an of opening, a drain pipe, a loose brick, anything. Thats when she noticed it, a small crack in between two bricks, barely 3 inches wide.

Fortunately three inches was all she needed. Y/N uncorked the potion and chugged it down, wincing a the taste.

Why did mouse droppings have to be a key ingredient?

The one difference between shapeshifting via potions and via magic, is that you could feel a potions effects as they occurred, and Y/N felt this one in ful. Her limbs shrunk and as she began to grow course brown fur, her ears growing larger and rounder as her teeth extended.

By the time her ragged black dress had fallen to the ground around her, she had taken on the size and shape a field mouse, her only recognizable feature being her (Y/C/E) eyes, which has shrunk alongside her head.

She scurried up the wall and darted through the crack. Once on the other side she sped through the castle grounds, dodging amour-clad feet and the boots of insomniac servants. Until she squeezed herself under the castle doors, and made her way to a mouse-hole tucked behind a tapestry.

She'd snuck into the palace this way dozens of times, sometimes to gather intel, others to search for hard to find ingredients locked in the vault, and other times for the fine food in the cupboards.

But tonight was different, tonight Y/N would free her father.

He'd been missing for months, rumors swirled in every tavern and royal court about where the Dark One might be.

She'd searched all across the Enchanted forest and had yet to find him. But she'd discovered something while listening in on a guard at Cinderella's castle.

Rumplestilskin had been trapped somehow, and imprisoned somewhere deep beneath Snow White and Prince Charming's palace.

She didn't know where in the palace he'd been hidden or how the royals had accomplished such a feat, but she knew she would free her father.

She emerged from the mouse hole onto a flight of chipping stone stairs, spiraling further down into the castles depths.

It grew only darker and damper the further down she climbed, but once she reached the threshold of the steps, her powerful nose could detect a horrific mix of scents, blood, urine, iron bars.

This was it, the dungeon, and it was crawling with guards. She scuttled along the ground slinking in shadowy corners, trying her best to stay out of sight. As she ducked behind a pile of chains, the door to the stairwell opened. Two figures cloaked in elegant white robes swept inside, illuminated by the dim torchlight.

The figures walked closely in unison, as the guards bowed their heads in respect.
"We need to see... him." A woman's voice rang out from under the hood. A guard wearing a thick burlap cloak took a torch from the wall.
"Follow me." The guard said gravely as he started down the long block of cells.

Voices moaned and cackled as the figures followed the guard.

"Come to visit us have youuuu?" A hoarse voice crowed.

"Let me out!" A pair of thin gnarled hands rattled the bars.

"Soon everything will be taken Princess... remember that." Another captive hissed.

Princess? That meant the woman in the hood could only be person. Y/N quietly sprinted behind them, taking care to remain out of sight. Could Snow White be here to see Rumplestilskin? Why would she have any reason to? Torture, information, a deal?

"When we reach the cell, stay out of the light." The guard ordered. "And whatever you do, do not let him know your name. If he knows your name then he will have power over you."

The group of hooded figures walked through a series of heavy bolted doors, the dungeon gradually growing darker and danker. As they crossed the final threshold the guard spoke up.

"Rumplestiltskin." The guard boomed. "Rumplestiltskin!"Y/N hid behind a pile of filthy plates, and peered at the cell, it was one of the strangest prisons she'd ever seen. Sharp bars jutted out like teeth in the mouth of a small cave, inside piles of paper filled the cell, ink splattered against the walls. But where was her father? "I have a question for you!"

"No, you don't." She heard a cooing voice echo through the cell. Then saw a shadow slowly descend from the ceiling of the little cell, its body climbing the bars, before landing on the ground with a thud. "They do, Snow White... and Prince Charming!" The shadow laughed, it was unmistakable: cold, high and childlike, it was the laugh of the Dark One.

She'd found her father.