"Then I'll just have to kill him." Rumplestiltskin walked away from the dying seer. Images formed and vanished in front of his eyes, a jumbled kaleidoscope of colors. Some images stayed still while others moved. Some were silent while others had sounds, voices, a cacophony of noises. It was too much to take in all at once. He stumbled over a tree root hidden by a picture and as he flailed his arms, trying unsuccessfully to regain his balance, he discovered that he could move the pictures. He landed unceremoniously on the ground with a twisted knee and scraped palms. "Ow," he muttered and quickly looked around to see if there was anyone around to notice. Not that they would remember his falling. Bugs don't really remember anything after they've been squashed...

A brief wish of magic and his injuries and dignity were fixed. But he decided to continue sitting while he figured out how to control what he saw. No sense falling over again. After a few mis-starts, he found that if he 'touched' a picture with one hand, he could move it left or right, up or down, or even swish it out of sight. If he 'touched' it with two hands, he could stretch it or shrink it. He paused at one picture: a beautiful young woman with raven black hair, pale skin, and a midnight blue dress that hugged every curve of her body. He swished it gone. He closed his eyes and concentrated on bringing the image back. When he opened his eyes, every image, still and moving, was of this woman. Sitting, standing, riding horses, sitting in carriages, sitting on a throne, lying in bed with young man asleep at her side, caught by vines that held her feet above the ground. He swished all the pictures away but one; a moving picture of her riding. She was smiling as she moved with her horse, galloping across the fields. He concentrated on the sound of the hoofbeats and found that he could think them louder or softer or gone entirely. He 'touched' the middle of the image and it froze. He dragged his finger to the left and the horse and rider moved backwards in time. He giggled. A horse running backwards is funny looking. The faster his finger moved, the faster they moved backwards. His finger slid off the image and it reverted to moving forward in time. He placed his finger on the left most part of the image and it went backwards, past where he had seen it start, back to the girl mounting her horse outside the stables. If I touch left, it moves backwards, so touching right means it moves forwards? He froze the image and swished it away.

He closed his eyes and concentrated again. I want to see my home. When he opened his eyes, he saw a few pictures of his house. But most of the pictures were of a castle made in blue-gray stone, towers and turrets shining in the sun. Nestled in the mountains, there was only one road leading up to the castle. And the nearest village was miles away. "I know this place!" he sputtered. "I burned it down!" He swished all the images away. A wish of magic, a puff of black smoke, and Rumplestiltskin was standing outside the ruins of the former Duke of the Frontier's castle.

He picked his way through the rubbled courtyard and walked into what would have been the main entryway. What had been the doors to the great hall were charred and broken on the floor. Long piles of cinders lay on the floor: the remains of the tapestries and curtains that had once hung on the walls, the ashes of tables and chairs. Broken glass lay scattered everywhere, shattered from the heat of the flames. He sent out tendrils of magic to the stones of the castle, pushing to see if they were still strong or also destroyed by the fire. There were a few broken and in need of replacement, a few loosened by cracked mortar, but for the most part, the bones of the castle looked structurally sound.

The seclusion of the site was perfect. He could practice his magic in peace and quiet, away from the prying eyes and ears of nosy neighbors. He could learn how to write curses, to create The Curse, and wait for the caster to be born. One of those towers was ideal for his work space. There were bound to be dungeons to hold any intruders. And no one around to hear them scream. And with the changes he had seen in the image, the new wall around the castle, the new turrets, there were bound to be plenty of bedrooms for Bae to choose from when he came home.

First things first. He wished magic into the castle's walls, strengthening them, fixing the broken stones and replacing the cracked mortar. He magicked the debris that filled the castle and courtyard away. And magicked the vermin into the forest and placed a spell so that they could never return.

That's enough for one day, he thought. I need to read a book on building before I attempt to add the outer walls and roofs and stuff. A thought and he was outside a bookshop. He walked in and, ignoring the nervous bowing of the proprietor, removed every book on building from the shelves. He poured some coins into the man's hand, certain it was more than enough. And if not? Oh well. That's what you get when you do business with the Dark One! He wished himself and his books back to his home, his hovel.

The emptiness was overwhelming. The silence deafening. Bae's belongings lay just as he had left them; the cleaning woman was not allowed to touch anything that was Bae's. Rumplestiltskin sat at the table to eat the now cold dinner she had left and began to read.