“Well, in that case, I have to imagine you’ve never really explored all the many options there are,” Lilith countered, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. “So many people, so many creatures, walk that fine line between pain and pleasure, knowing precisely how to find the joys of both in the same violent act. Of course,” she added, “no pain has ever brought me greater pleasure than…thrusting a blade into the back of the very fallen angel who had made my own life painful for millennia. His screams were…” Lilith trailed off, her mind going back to that day, that blissful memory, the sound of his pain and his suffering, the way he’d begged for the smallest slice of mercy, trying to win her over. “positively life-giving.”
Lilith gave Rumple a knowing look. “Well, I can’t deny that victory over an enemy is always a cause for celebration, easing any pain” She admitted, before cocking her head a little, studying him curiously. “Didn’t you feel that with your own enemies? Your own…persistently irritating adversaries?” No one lived as long as they did, had the power they had, made their choices, without some enemies being…collected along the way. “When you outwitted them, saw them crumpled beneath your feet, defeated, didn’t that victory ease your own pains, those losses?” It didn’t undo things, or bring people back, but there was something there…something Lilith found herself taking strength from, giving her the…inspiration for whatever came next.
Lilith studied Rumple for a long moment, her blue eyes flickering over his features as she read every piece of him, trying to gauge just how sincere the offer was, how genuine.
“Alright,” she finally said quietly, nodding a little in agreement. “Show me. Though if you really are unwelcome in some realms, I have to admit I’m curious about just what precisely it was you did to offend them so permanently. But you’re right; I’m more than prepared for any…hostile situations,” she confirmed. “If you are captured, however, I won’t be coming after you. Not unless I need you in order to leave,” she added with a smile, only half-joking.
There was something entirely captivating about how she spoke. So much so that he found his chin lifting at her pointed words, a shiver running through him. There would always be a part of him drawn to the darkness - how could he not be when he carried the embodiment of it within him as the darkness - even though he strove to be a better man. The delicate balance was one he liked to think he had learned to master, but yet there was always a risk of not.
What also struck him was the immediate guilt he felt at the thrill Lilith gave him. There was something electric between the two of them, a connection that was more than surface. Much more. Yet, his mind drifted to Belle and the guilt hit him. She was dead, she wasn’t here and yet even the smallest of attraction he felt for someone, a flicker of a thought made him feel guilt. Yet, how could he not feel a connection to someone who so thoroughly understood what it was like to carry the darkness with you as Lilith did?
“Well,” he began, a slight chuckle as he tried to shift his thoughts to more polite ones. “I don’t doubt for a single second how satisfying that felt. I’m pleased for you that you have that experience to hold on to.” To exact such revenge against someone who so wronged you was, he could not deny, exceptional to experience.
There was a hint of a smile to his lips, a tilt of his head as he couldn’t deny that there were moments when the pain was eased, albeit temporarily, by his victories. “Hm,” he mused, “There were moments when the pain eased. When I carried the pleasure of victory and enjoyed it for what it was. But, my pain stemmed primarily from losing my son. Even now, that pain can override the good of a day if I allow it. I’ve learned better to manage it, and to embrace the joys of other experiences. Sometimes, in the moment, the victory felt good. But then I’d return to my castle and see his shawl, or sit alone at my spinning wheel, and the joys would fade. I’m more accustomed to melancholy than joy, I must confess. Brief celebrations through victory, but brief being the operative word.” Even when he’d killed his Father - for the second time - the joy he’d felt in victory, in outwitting him had been replaced by a sadness through loss. Every moment he had enjoyed through his years of victory, however small or large, somehow had been overshadowed by something else. At his very core, Rumplestiltskin was a lonely man, the shadow of which had always cast over the light and bright.
Only when he and Belle had escaped away to live a lifetime together had the balance tipped and he’d found joy in his life, with very little sorrow in the background.
Still. Life had to go on, and he had to try his best to hold on to the lessons of those years. To see and experience life, instead of allowing that melancholy to settle. So far he was doing a fine enough job.
A laugh, his lips curving once more in a very real smile, he tilted his head towards her. “I suppose I need to make sure I make myself thoroughly useful in that case,” he joked, briefly waving his hand over both of their glasses in order to refill them with their drink of choice. He didn’t tend to use magic so frivolously these days, but just this one wouldn’t hurt. It allowed him to lift his glass up in a toast, offering his glass outward for her to clink against her own. “To seeing just how welcome, or unwelcome I prove to be in these realms.”