Darkness/Quotes

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Yes, I am. Or rather, *he* is.

**Emma Swan**: What are you?

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: I'm many things. I'm the voice in your head, the Dark One's powers inside you - Inside *all* the Dark Ones. Rumplestiltskin is but one of many. Perhaps I can be another. How about Gorgon the Invincible? (*shapeshifts into a fire-breathing boar*)

**Emma Swan**: Gold! Stop!

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Yes, probably easier this way. Now, are you ready to begin?

**Emma Swan**: Begin what?

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Well, learning to be the Dark One, of course. Think of me as your guide, but only until you've learned to embrace your powers.

**Emma Swan**: I will never embrace the darkness.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Ah, they all say that! Everyone who steps from this well enjoys the taste too much. The only way to stop is to *be* stopped. This is the fate of all Dark Ones. You can't just walk away from it.

**Emma Swan**: I'm in the Enchanted Forest now, which means Merlin can't be far from here, and the Apprentice told me he can destroy the darkness, so I'm going to find him.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Merlin? Oh, you're much better off with me!

**Emma Swan**: No! I'll never be like all of you! I'll never hurt the people I love; the people who love me.

**Emma Swan**: In case you haven't noticed, I'm doing good here. I'm helping Merida, and then when she's done with the wisp, it will be my turn.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: The wisp isn't a toy you can share! She can't just *give* it to you. The person who whispers to it becomes its owner, forever.

**Emma Swan**: So if I let her use it, I can never use it?

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Not while her heart beats.

**Emma Swan**: You want me to take it for myself?

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: I want to you start behaving like a Dark One.

**Emma Swan**: You knew this would happen! That's why you lead me to her... You want me to betray Merida.

(*Emma prepares to crush Merida's heart*)

**Captain Hook**: Swan! Don't!

**Emma Swan**: What? How?

**Captain Hook**: It doesn't matter how. Has anything ever stopped us before?

**Emma Swan**: You don't know what's happening. This is the only way to find Merlin. He's the only one who can stop the darkness.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Quite right. Crush it.

**Emma Swan**: The only way to protect all of you.

**Regina Mills**: But to stop the darkness, you're going to let it consume you.

**Emma Swan**: You don't know that.

**Snow White**: We're not going to take the chance. (*holds up Dark One Dagger*)

**Captain Hook**: No, wait. You can't do that. This has to be her choice.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Don't listen to them. They don't understand what's at stake.

**Emma Swan**: You don't understand what's at stake. If I don't find Merlin, the darkness will destroy all of you.

**Captain Hook**: Emma, please. No.

**Emma Swan**: The Dark One destroys everyone near it. Look at Gold. I can't do that to my family, and to you.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: She has to die.

**Emma Swan**: She has to die.

**Captain Hook**: Listen to your words. It's not you speaking, Emma. We can find another way together. Look at us. Heroes and villains together for you, *because* of you. And if we can overcome it, if we can overcome our demons, then so can you.

*(Emma returns Merida's heart*)

### *Nimue* (Season 5, Episode 7)

**Emma Swan**: Why are you doing this? You loved him.

**Darkness as Nimue**: Even when you love someone, you have to say, "No, this is mine. You can't take it away from me." And if they don't listen, if they try to stop you from being you, then you have no choice. You *have* to kill them. Oh, and *you're* doing this... (*Emma starts choking Merlin*) ...because we are one and the same now, all Dark Ones, and we must destroy the threat to us. We must *destroy* Merlin.

**Merlin**: Emma, please!

**Emma Swan**: It's not me!

**Darkness as Nimue**: Finish the job!

**Merlin**: Don't listen!

**Darkness as Nimue**: He wants you to make a sword to destroy me, to destroy *us*.

**Merlin**: You can control this.

**Darkness as Nimue**: Don't listen to him! He doesn't understand what you and I do. He doesn't understand the power. If you don't kill him now, you'll go back to being powerless.

**Merlin**: Killing is the dark path.

**Darkness as Nimue**: No! It's power to protect yourself *and* your loved ones!

**Merlin**: Let the light win!

**Darkness as Nimue**: *Kill* him! Don't go back to being *nothing*!

**Emma Swan**: (*stops choking Merlin*) I'm not nothing, I was *never* nothing! The power you have I *don't* need! Now I am going to take that ember from you, and you are going to let me. (*takes the Promethean Spark from Nimue's soul*)

### *Broken Heart* (Season 5, Episode 10)

**Merlin**: What do you want?

**Dark Hook**: My revenge. And for that, I need to get back to Storybrooke.

**Merlin**: Do you want to cast a curse? It's not possible. Not without crushing the heart of the thing you love most.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Which is why I am not going to crush it. But someone else will! Someone who might actually have feelings for you, dearie. And that's not me -

**Darkness as Nimue**: But it *is* me.

**Merlin**: Nimue.

**Darkness as Nimue**: Remember? I am all Dark Ones. It's romantic, isn't it? After all that's happened between us, you're still the thing I love most. And I *do* love you. I always have.

**Merlin**: But you're not really here.

**Dark Hook**: Aye, mate, but she *is*. She lives in all Dark Ones. So when *I* crush your heart, so will she!

(*Hook kills Merlin and enacts the Dark Curse*)

**Dark Hook**: It's over, Emma.

**Dark Swan**: I told you I would never abandon you. I'm not going to start now.

**Dark Hook**: I'm sorry, love - Once a curse has been enacted, you can't stop it.

**Dark Swan**: Yes, I might not be able to stop it, but I can make you forget why you cast it... And that you were ever the Dark One in the first place.

(*Emma uses a dreamcatcher to erase Hook's memories*)

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Clever, dearie.

**Dark Swan**: When you wake up, you'll be the man you were. The man I love. The man who loves me.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Ah, you'll have to do more than that if you want him to forget he was ever a Dark One.

**Dark Swan**: I know. I need to erase the memories of everyone who knew that I turned Hook into a Dark One.

(*erases everyone's memories as the Dark Curse engulfs*)

## After Third Curse

### *The Price* (Season 5, Episode 2)

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: As long as the Dark One's existed, one thing has always held us back. The pull of the family we were so desperate to protect. The friendships that make it impossible to forget who we used to be. The magic that threatens to undo our most evil deeds. And, worst of all, the love that refuses to give up on us.

### *Broken Heart* (Season 5, Episode 10)

(*after Hook duels Rumplestiltskin and loses*)

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Congratulations. You didn't completely fail. You returned from your duel with exactly the right ingredients for our plan; the blood of a man who'd been to hell and back. Rumplestiltskin has done what few can claim. He died, and then he returned. This pond holds a portal to the Underworld itself.

**Dark Hook**: This is where the fury tried to drag Robin Hood to hell. I thought the portal only appeared when the moon reaches its zenith?

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: Yes, for a fury. But it's always existed, dearie. You just have to know how to open it.

(*previous Dark Ones arrive from the Underworld*)

**Dark Hook**: Bloody hell.

**Darkness as Rumplestiltskin**: That's exactly where that came from.

**Dark Hook**: Nimue.

**Nimue**: We're here. All of us, as promised, in the flesh. And now it's time to get to work, to do what Dark Ones do best. Snuff out the light.

**Dark Hook**: Welcome to Storybrooke, love.