In Storybrooke, Mr. Gold strives to be the man Bae used to love--until Belle is kidnapped to Neverland. If he resumes his Dark One powers to save her, can he control them? In the Enchanted Forest, Emma battles ogres, zombies and her ex to get back h...
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Sheriff Graham Humbert: I thought you were a wolf. (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter)
"Mr. Gold."
He continued exhaling a steady soft stream of air, guiding the tail end of the feather-light gold leaf until the sheet settled smooth and unwrinkled on the side of the music box. He looked up from his magnifying apparatus to see Ruby standing in the doorway holding a child-sized crossbow and three small arrows.
"The wolf charm works," she said. "Granny made me these when I was four."
"But no cloak." Mr. Gold swept his hand across his office. "Hopefully, your luck will improve in here."
As Ruby entered, Mr. Gold looked to his tool holder for his agate burnisher.
Abruptly, she said, "It's not a curse."
Mr. Gold looked up to see Ruby dangling her wolf at arm's length, stalking it around the shelf-lined walls of his office.
"My condition," she continued. "At least, I don't think it's a curse. It runs in the family. Wouldn't that make it... genetic?"
"With magic that's meaningless. The originator of the curse could have visited it on all future generations in perpetuity." As he spoke, Mr. Gold observed a sign of opposition in Ruby's eyes. Ahh, he said to himself and readjusted his answer. "But whether a condition is a curse or a natural trait, it's the individual that determines how it manifests." He leaned forward as if he were telling a secret. "What you're thinking is that some aspects of the wolf are so much a part of you that nothing and no one could make you give them up."
A deep sigh went through Ruby. She lowered the glowing glass trinket.
I'm in. Tread cautiously. "You like the ability to distinguish scents and know what they mean, to bound and leap like a wolf, to feel no fear." Mr. Gold noted Ruby's reaction to each word before adding, "Only someone who's navigated the benefits and the risks of such power would understand it."
Ruby cocked her head, betraying a hint of suspicion. "Someone like you?"
Mr. Gold shrugged. "Before I took on the Dark One curse, I was one of the multitudes of powerless peasants under the boot of any nobleman's henchman who staked a claim to our hard-earned property, our skilled labor, our self-respect, even our children. Unlike you, I had a choice about taking on a beast nature. When I think of the consequences of my decision, I regret nearly everything... except this: having the power to face the bullies on their own terms."
Ruby nodded. "I hear you. Before I knew what I could do, the village jerks used to make me kiss them or they'd trample my berry baskets. I put up with it. But after, during the rebellion, I was Charming's best warrior. Hard core. All I had to do was touch the clasp on my red cape, and King George's twits would run screaming. I loved that." She bit her lip. "But the risks... I'm afraid that without my cloak, I'll do something awful."
