#indifferent to Zelena really

[tragedybunny]

A FATE WRITTEN IN INDIFFERENT STARS - CHAPTER 5

The Republic has fallen and the Empire has risen. Obi-Wan lives in exile on Tatooine, the distant guardian of Luke Skywalker. Amidst the desperation and desolation, the mysterious appearance of a Nightsister draws his curiosity. As he tries to piece together her true intentions, he finds himself more deeply entangled with her than he ever intended.

Hello again, I'm back with another chapter. Things are certainly getting interesting for poor Obi-Wan and Zelena. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read, I really appreciate all of you.

The four of them crept from the shadows of the surrounding buildings, blasters drawn. Dulled senses and the distraction of Zelena meant he'd never detected them. The building at their back prevented retreat, and the four blasters suggested stepping forward would be unwise. Zelena tensed beneath his palms, slowly pulling herself from his grip. She frowned, coming to the same conclusion he had.

"I bet you thought you were really tough back there," the leader spoke with a cocky grin, the rest of his crew looking eager for the fight. 

“Don’t do this.” The only course of action was to diffuse the situation. They couldn’t fight, not outnumbered and the Force no longer there for him to rely on. There had to be a way to satisfy the armed and leering group, or send them on their way. Next to him Zelena shifted, and the air filled  with energy - like a gathering storm. 

“Trash like you aren’t allowed to get away with that behavior. Do you know who I am?” Frequently he'd found that when someone felt the need to ask that question, they weren’t worth recognizing. Obi-Wan did not know who he was, and would not have particularly cared if not for the current, rapidly deteriorating, situation.

“My apologies for the misunderstanding. Let’s not do anything rash.” Not a single hand in the group wavered, and he longed for the lightsaber that was once always by his side. 

“Too late for that.” He  glanced at his three companions, an unspoken command passing between them. “Leave her alive.” 

With attention rapt on their would be assailants, he almost missed the flash of red from the corner of his eye that was Zelena stepping forward. He fought a powerful instinct to push her back behind him, any sharp movement could provoke things. “No,” he said quietly, to her or the group, he wasn’t sure. 

The hand Zelena had hidden within her cloak emerged, a vial of green liquid clutched in her fingers. It shimmered with its own light and, in one swift motion, she chugged the contents. Darkness brushed against the edge of his consciousness. “Leave,” she ordered, her voice filled with menace and power. The Ichor of Dathomoir, that which fueled the power of the Witches. There was no doubt to him what had been in that vial. 

A wiser member of the group trembled, blaster losing its aim. “Maybe we should let this go.” 

Whatever power she had conjured must be palpable, even to them. “Enough.” The leader tightened his grip on his blaster, prepping for a point-blank shot;instinctively Obi-Wan grabbed his wrist. Pulling him forward, he directed the man's mass over his hip and sent him sprawling to the ground.,He wrenched the blaster from the leader’s grasp before he recovered. 

Around him, green tendrils snaked through the air as Zelena whispered words that sent shivers through his spine. Two of their attackers collapsed, eyes rolling into their heads, knees buckling, as the phosphorescent menaces encircled them. Hands clutched at their skulls while their mouths hung open in a silent scream. Instinctively he recoiled at the display of the Force twisted through the Witch's Magick, but fought against it. Later, he told himself, right now their lives were at stake. 

The last of them, the wise one from earlier, appeared as though in stasis before finally breaking free and making a desperate charge at Zelena. Reacting, Obi-Wan pulled up the stolen blaster and took aim. One shot sent him tumbling forward, lifeless and still. Obi-Wan turned his  attention back to the writhing pair; her defense had become torture. "Zelena, that's enough."

"Fine," she hissed, releasing the spell with a final pulse of green light. It seemed his plea for mercy annoyed her, another thing to worry about later. For now, he searched the two for signs of life, finding that whatever Zelena had done finished them off. "Don't waste your sympathy," her words dripped with venom, "they're sc-" 

A shocked gasp had him turning back sharply. He found Zelena now struggling with the leader. Careless. He hadn't made sure the man was out of the fight permanently. The vibroknife he now brandished swung wildly as she struggled, trying to pull away from the grip he had on her arm. As he made another chaotic lunge, his hand loosened enough for her to pull free and dodge. It put space between them, but his hands grasped desperately at her cloak, trying to regain his advantage. Zelena had proven herself more than capable, but he felt the cold grip of fear as he watched her struggle. The momentary space between them was his best chance to protect her. With tenuous hope that it was still possible, and silent pleading to the Force, he desperately reached out his hand. Somehow, in the midst of his desperation, it answered him. A wave of energy threw the man into the building with a wet snapping sound. 

“Zel, are you alright?” He’d started towards her but froze,realizing  she was staring at him wide-eyed. 

“You’re a … Jedi.” Her face screwed up in revulsion and his heart stuttered.

Hesitantly, he took a step toward her, trying to plead his case. “I can explain.” 

Her hand came up as though to ward him back; her other, he noticed with alarm, clutched at her ribs. Something wet stained the cloth beneath it. “Stay away from me, Jedi deceiver." 

That stain was spreading quickly. She'd need help soon, which meant he needed her to see sense. "We both weren't honest. You never mentioned Dathomir." It was an attempt to put them back on equal footing, to throw off her indignation long enough to see to that wound.  

"You know? Why would a Jedi talk to a-" There was a long pause and he watched her piece it together with a heavy heart, realizing the tactic had taken a turn against him.  "You're not my friend, you've just been watching me." Zelena's voice sounded so small, and he realized just how deeply he'd hurt her. There wasn't long to think on it though as a gurgling cough punctuated her words, blood dripping from her mouth in its wake. 

There was no time for debate, she could hate him all she wanted later. "Please Zel, you need help-"

He caught her as her knees buckled, and she collapsed into his arms. “I don’t even know who you are,” she gasped out through a wracking cough. 

There wasn’t any denying her comment so he let it pass, focusing  on the need at hand. “I’ll find a doctor.” Her silver skin had turned bone white. 

“No time. My apartment.Trust me.” He owed her that much at least, so he complied, holding her tight as she attempted to push forward. Even with his support, the steps she tried to take were stumbling and weak. 

They would never make it time. “Forgive me.” Scooping her legs out from under, he gathered her into his arms and  rushed through the deserted street. Zelena didn’t have the strength to protest, instead she wrapped an arm around his neck and closed her eyes. "Stay with me Zel.” His voice remained calm despite the circumstances, though he was on the brink of running. 

“I’m trying,” she snipped at him. Though she was quiet, it was feisty enough to know she was still fighting. 

By some mercy of the Force, there was not a crowd of neighbors in the courtyard when they made it to her apartment. Zelena stirred when they reached the door, slapping at the keypad until the door slid open. “Bedroom,” she ordered, eyes now open, strength saved for this moment. It only took seconds and a few steps in the dim light to get her settled on the bed, resting against a pile of pillows. Turning she gestured toward the shrine in the corner that she had been so protective of. “That box you found irresistible that day.” 

Without hesitating, he rose and retrieved it from its resting place. The ancient wood still resonated with dark power as he placed it beside her. Reverently, her fingers traced the multifaceted star engraved in the lid while she whispered in Dathomirian. A faint light emanated from it in the wake of her touch, and the sigil slowly rotated.It stopped with a click, the lid rising. Whatever was contained inside whispered to him about ancient and sinister things. Unsteady hands reached in to pull out a small jar and almost sent it tumbling back in as it escaped her grasp. Deftly, he snatched it from the air before it was lost, and gently handed it back to her. With another weak cough, she shut the lid of the box and gestured for him to set it aside, fighting to open the jar as he did so. 

"Here, let me." Delicately taking it from her hands, he pulled the stopper out to reveal a pale, viscous liquid. Despite its plain appearance, it thrummed with the same energy as the box - a thing made of Nightsister magick. 

"The wound," she said breathily, fighting to remove her cloak. 

Carefully, he took the worn, frayed material in hand - her loved reminder of home - and helped her remove it before guiding her to lay on her side. The juxtaposition of the ridiculous Famina's uniform against the grim circumstances made the scene border on absurd. She didn't resist or argue, letting him do what needed to be done. The wound was jagged and raw; he gave her credit for enduring the pain. "Just pour it in,." she whispered, eyes now closed. She was fading again. Without a second of hesitation, he upended the bottle into the hole in her flesh.  The reaction would’ve been fascinating in other circumstances. The pale liquid glowed that familiar green as her body seemed to drink it in, ethereal voices whispering around them as the wound scabbed over. Zelena whimpered.

"I'm here Zel, I won't leave," he spoke softly, brushing a hand through her curls. It was possible he wasn't actually comforting to her, but he didn't want to think about that. Unsure what else to do, he removed the bright gold heels that were part of her work uniform. The gold ribbons that laced up her calf required a bit of fussing. Zelena lay still and quiet throughout it and he decided to believe she was healing.  

Sitting beside her, Obi-Wan took her hand in his and gently held it, remembering the few times she'd gripped his arm roughly with her long black nails. He'd never had the heart to point out the sudden pain of them biting into his flesh. Usually, the carelessness was caused by exuberance over something and he hated to ruin her mood.

Just after they had kissed, she'd claimed he'd always had feelings for her. While that wasn't entirely true, after the night's events he could finally admit that he'd come to care for her some time ago - his vivacious, exasperating, wonderous Zelena. To think, that soft moment hadn’t been more than an hour ago, and now…there was nothing for it but to wait and see, so he made himself comfortable and kept watch. 

Time crawled as he observed the labored rise and fall of her chest, she was still in pain, though the glowing wound seemed smaller each time he glanced at it. Through it all, he held her hand and told her over and over that he was at her side, that she wasn’t alone. After what seemed like hours, Zelena inhaled sharply, eyes fluttering open. “Zel, you’re awake.” Releasing her hand, he reached out to cup her cheek with his palm, the warm rush of relief momentarily making him forget all that had happened earlier. She was alive and well, and that was all that mattered. 

Reality came crashing back in painfully when she swatted away his hand. “Awake and fine, no need for you to be bothered any longer.” Pushing herself into a seated position, she made it known she didn’t need his help. “You can go now.” 

A hollow ache settled in Obi-Wan’s chest. She hated him. He should’ve known it would end like this after their night under the stars and how she spoke of Jedi. Why would she have found him to be an exception? “There’s no way we can talk about this?” He offered, one last grasping attempt. 

"Absolutely not Ben, or whatever your name is," she sneered.

"Obi-Wan." It slipped out so quickly, desperation to appease her making him careless.

A noise of frustration escaped her. "Just go. We're done talking," she practically growled.

Standing slowly, he gave her one last lingering look. Even after everything they'd been through tonight, she was still breathtaking. He was going to miss her. It’s for the best he told himself, no attachments. "I'm so sorry, for all of it," he said, turning away and hearing no reply. Without further hesitation, he fled her apartment into the darkness of the night.

The Black Sun safehouse was an old factory, what it once produced was a mystery as the space had been emptied of most equipment in favor of storage and living space for the gang. Confidently, Zelena led them through the structure, seemingly unbothered by the occasional gang member sporting a blaster and leering at her. Again he found himself questioning her need for assistance to get out of this situation as none of them seemed to give her a second thought more either. They moved swiftly through the cavernous space, barriers of old equipment created dimly lit makeshift rooms, sounds echoed off aged metallic walls, and shadows twistred around them. Several gonk droids ambled past them headed in the direction of what appeared to be the main factory floor. He could hear and sense through the Force a number of beings in that direction. Whatever was going on he hoped it would prove a sufficient distraction when he and Zelena made their move. 

Zelena led them to a series of small rooms tucked away and isolated. The leftovers of a computer system remained scattered about, along with rough-looking furniture. Once this must have been the central control system for the plant, now he wasn't sure if it was meant to be a spot for private business or to contain someone they didn't trust. Vinox gestured inside with a dubious smile and Obi-Wan complied.

The Falleen and Zelena followed, the door sliding shut behind them. "I'll leave you here with Zee while I look into arrangements for your business endeavor. Don't test her though, she can be a feisty one." Obi-Wan felt a flash of anger coming from her at his patronizing tone. 

Without a sound, Zelena slipped behind Vinox while he still faced Obi-Wan. Their eyes locked and she gave him a slight nod. "I'll make myself comfortable then," he gestured to the worn couch in the corner. 

Vinox turned in Zelena's direction and inhaled as though he were about to speak. The chance never came. Green dust filled the air around him, spreading from Zelena's palm with one soft exhale from her. Wracking coughs shook his body and he fell forward with a thud. Obi-wan was thankful the room was so remote from all the activity they had seen. "How long will he be out?"

"A few hours. And is that how you're going to say hello after all this time?" Despite the years that had passed, it seemed almost like how they once had been, hearing her tease him and seeing her smile.

"Forgive my manners, I thought we were in some sort of life-and-death situation." He'd barely finished the snappy comeback before her arms wrapped around him and he was pulled tight against her. 

"It's good to see you Obi," she murmured softly and overwhelmed his senses with her presence; the feel of her against him, the scent of smoky incense she somehow always had, and the mesmerizing cadence of her voice.

Reigning in his emotions, he forced himself to focus. "You too, Zel." Letting go he took a step back from her, it wouldn't be wise to let things get confused between them. "I suppose we should get out of here." He glanced over at the downed Falleen. Again, it all seemed too easy. 

Leaning down, Zelena took hold of Vinox. "Help me real quick," she gestured to a corner.  

The two of them wedged him into thr corner and pulled a couch across it. "There wasn't much of anyone around, do you think we'll encounter much resistance sneaking out?" The sense of misgiving had settled into the pit of his stomach, a sinking feeling. "Honestly, I'm a little surprised you needed help."

"Well…" At least she had the decency to look contrite. 

Sighing he gripped the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "What is it Zel?"

"It's not just me that needs rescuing." Of course there was someone else, did he expect her to live her life completely alone forever?

"And where are they holding them?" Stay on task, he told himself, focus on what needs to be done. 

"It's my daughter," Zelena said in a voice that was suddenly small and weary. 

"Oh…," feeling foolish and irritated with himself, he took her hand, ready to be the strength she needed. "We'll get her out, I promise." 

"They keep her locked away on the upper floors. I don't even get to see her every day." Now her words came in a torrent, rushing together while her eyes looked watery. "They put a slave collar on her to make sure I stay obedient." Tears flowed freely down her cheek. "She's just a little girl, Obi-Wan." 

It was heart-wrenching to listen to her, and any frustrations he'd had were long gone. Instead, he was thankful she'd reached out to him and not anyone else, he was her best shot at getting them out of here and off planet safely. Squeezing her hand, he reached up and wiped the tears from pale skin and dark tattoo lines. "Zel, we'll get her out, I promise." 

The conviction of his words strengthened her, tears drying. “I can never thank you enough for this, you know that right?” There was a look in her golden eyes, one he knew well. A look he could get lost in. 

“Let’s focus on getting it done first.” Slowly, he released her hand. “What’s our best option for getting to her and getting out without too much trouble?” 

His head ached, that was the only thing Obi-Wan was sure of. The rest, including where he was and the time, was a mystery. He moved slightly and his stomach heaved. He groaned. Akkani made an indignant noise from somewhere behind him. He’d fallen asleep in the stable. That’s what his life had come to it seemed. 

Slowly, he sat up reluctantly opening  his eyes. The bight daylight seeping into the small stall he’d rented for the Eopie nearly blinded him. Sounds of Mos Eisley’s daily life began to seep through his haze, and with it the last few days. Images started filtering back to him in snatches, like clips from a holovid playing out of focus. “Zelena,” he whispered, irritatedly to himself. 

Ever since she’d thrown him out of her home, and her life, he’d been wandering Mos Eisley, drinking and feeling miserable and embarrassed for himself. Things between them should never have gotten as far as they did. Pulling his knees to his chest, he leaned his head against them. Besides what his behavior could have endangered, he couldn’t find himself worthy of the comfort of another. He’d failed so much, so deeply. He should remain alone and focus on the one thing he might still do right. The diversion, even if it had been pleasant at times, was rightly over. 

The first place he’d found had been another cantina, far away from the gaudy neon of the noisy district around Famina’s. He’d been shaking, his breath coming rapidly as he wandered through the streets, nearly colliding with a few errant speeders. That first drink had done wonders to calm him. Zelena’s eyes had burned with contempt and in them, he’d seen the specter of Anakin’s dying hatred. Another he’d lost, not dead, but gone as surely as his other failures: Qui-Gon, Satine, Padme, Anakin. 

When that place eventually forced him back into the streets as it closed, he’d found something to eat and a deserted alley to sleep off the drink. Sobriety had made his pain fresh and sharp though, so he’d wandered to the next place to hole up and drink more of her away. He’d spent several broken, foggy days in that self-destructive cycle. The last place he came to eventually kicked him out when he’d run out of credits and become a nuisance. 

He needed to get out of the city, to get back to the cave and check on Luke. Standing slowly, smells and sounds overwhelming his senses, he started to sort through Akkani's saddlebags. At least there were enough spare provisions to make it back and he was pleasantly surprised by the rattle of credit chips from deep down inside one. He hadn't been daft enough to take everything with him. There was one thing he felt he should do before leaving though. "Sorry my friend, you have to wait a little while longer to get out of here." His stomach gave another rough lurch. Maybe there were a couple of things he should do before heading out. 

Food would have to wait though. It was still early enough that his first errand might go without any unwanted encounters. So, head still throbbing and mouth dry, he headed back to Zelena's apartment building. The little courtyard was still thankfully nearly empty. He really didn't want to answer any of her neighbors if they had heard anything. With resigned melancholy, he ventured a glance at her door which may as well have been lightyears away.  She was still likely asleep at this hour, dreaming serenely and blissfully unaware of his sad presence. 

Turning away he focused on an apartment one building down. Only once before had he seen the inside of it. Kyrsta and Zelena had shared a whole shift that night, a rarity since Malk preferred to split them, up insisting they chatted too much. Obi-Wan had walked them both home and Kyrsta had reluctantly invited him inside with Zelena. She'd never completely warmed to him after spotting him that first day. When he'd asked Zelena about that moment she'd shrugged and answered, "she said you looked like a broke drifter and there were a lot of that sort around to watch out for." Then she teased him about it not exactly being untrue. 

For today, he hoped Kyrsta could put aside her dislike. With one last look around to make sure he wasn't noticed, he rang the buzzer and waited awkwardly. The door opened a moment later, accompanied by an annoyed voice. "Oh, it's you, great." The Mirialan wore nothing but an oversized dark shirt she clearly had been sleeping in. "What do you want”, she demanded, not just suspicious but also slightly aggressive. 

"I'm just making sure she's alright." It wouldn't do him any favors to dance around the subject. Kyrsta seemed the type to pull a blaster on him if she got annoyed enough. 

She rolled her eyes but unexpectedly moved back from the door to wave him in. "Better to talk in private, she might get offended if she sees you here." Thankfully she was feeling merciful. He stepped inside to an apartment identical to Zelena's, and probably every other unit in the housing block. Once the door slid shut and they were cut off from any outside eyes and ears, she spoke. "She's fine, all things considered." Kyrsta beckoned him towards the kitchen where she started a small caf machine which started gurgling with a rough clank. "Still pretty karking mad at you. And no, she didn't say why and I don't want to know." 

That was a relief at least. "It doesn't matter as long as she's fine." His head was still hurting but it was no longer the most prominent pain he was feeling.

"You too huh," she gave him a look of knowing pity. 

"What's that supposed to mean," he asked, genuinely not knowing what she was getting at. 

"You're not the first to become infatuated with her. Zelena tends to have that effect on people. It's like she's the right mix of mysterious and vulnerable. Didn't think you were the type though." The caf finished its cycle with a hiss and she poured them a couple of mugs while he contemplated her accusation.

"Black is fine," he remarked as he saw her hesitating. "I don't know what you mean, she's just a friend. Or was." Taking the mug from her hands he clutched it as though he were drowning and it was the only thing keeping him afloat.

"Sure." Obi-Wan chose to ignore that her tone sounded like she was dealing with a child caught in a lie. "To be honest, there is one thing though." She hesitated a moment, maybe second-guessing confiding in him. "She's missed her last couple of shifts. Malk has decided to not fire her since he was still mad about the whole incident. He said it's good space for both their sakes."  Pausing, she took a sip from her mug.

"That doesn't sound like she's fine," he prodded, concern returning. 

"She'll get there. I've known her long enough to be sure of that. It'll just take a little more time. I'm more worried about her making the rent." 

Perhaps fate had intervened, or perhaps deep down this had been what he intended all along. Either way, for the second time, he was relieved that he hadn't burned through every credit he had. Opening the pouch on his belt, he pulled out most of them and dropped them onto the counter between them. "Take them and make sure she gets them if need be."

Kyrsta looked skeptical. "You know she won't accept it." 

"Don't tell her. Say you've been saving them, say a customer left them for her, say whatever." It wasn't much but it was the last kindness he could do for her. At this point, he didn't even want her to know where they came from. If guilt were to reunite them he wouldn't be able to live with himself. 

"If you insist," she shrugged and for a moment they stood silently sipping caf. "Look, I'm sorry about whatever happened." It was begrudging and he could tell it was mostly done out of obligation for the gesture of the credits.

"You don't have to be. It was my mistake. Just make sure she's taken care of." Obi-Wan contemplated asking her to pass along a last farewell but it would likely just upset Zelena again. Setting the mug down, he looked back up at Kyrsta. "Thanks for the caf, I should be on my way." 

Nodding, she followed him to the door. "See you around."

"Right." He doubted that would be the case.

Once he had collected Akkani, he started back towards the cave. He should pick up extra shifts in the mine. After his misadventure and gift to Zelena he’d diminished any spare funds he had. First rest, then Luke. Turning back he gave Mos Eisley one last look. Whatever happened, he hoped she was alright and that she would find the sense of belonging she was searching for. 

[thecompletebookworm]

Yes it is the middle of the night, yes it is mere hours after I said I wanted to get off Tumblr to focus on studies.  But I’m almost caught up on OUAT and I have some quick things to say.  (I was doing something tedious as well.)  Below cut are thoughts on 7.16 and 7.17

I really wish Facilier hadn’t killed Hansel.  I really loved Gretel and Hansel was a rational villain.  He was seeking revenge just like Regina did in Season 1.  Everyone associated with Zelena (and the candy witch as well) were his targets just like everyone associated with Snow’s was Regina’s.   I want to know why he slipped, why he was no longer content just being Jack, why his second chance wasn’t good enough anymore.   Like was it just the reappearance of Zelena or did it have more to do with the death of Gretel (which happened at roughly the same time, according to my very bad math).   Did it hurt especially bad that here comes the woman he thinks ruined his and his sister’s life with a happy ending, that his sister will never be able to get now.   So much of this show is done out of grief (for Regina, it was Daniel, for Rumple, it was Bae).  So was this also grief?  But the show’s never going to answer that.  Also I loved the Henry and Jack/Hansel relationship,  it still felt like Hansel cared even at the end.   

Best part hands down in the episode (4.16) was all of the Henry & Weaver.  “He’s my favorite character” *squeals*  This has always been one of the relationships, if not THE relationship I wanted explored more on the show.  They’re each other’s last link to Bae, but Rumple watched Henry grow as a person and there’s such love in his eyes.  And the line where he’s all I’ve had a significant change of heart, that made me so happy. 

Beyond that EVERY MARGOT- TILLY INTERACTION IS THE PUREST THING I’VE EVER SEEN!  The anatomical heart beignet,  Targot, Margot sticking around, even Zelena teasing her about the cute blonde.  I love them individually but then together it’s just like wow, this is a mood.  

I honestly didn’t really have too many feelings on the whole Zelena arc.  I thought it brought out some cool lines, especially Rumple’s about the little bit of our old self that lets us see how far we’ve come.   But it just wasn’t all that interesting to me.  The show’s been claiming for a while that Zelena’s been redeemed. And even the conversation with Rumple, it wasn’t like he even had anything in his power to help her one way or the other, just her necklace from Oz and a Lion King be true to yourself moment.  (It’s almost like with Snow gone, he needed to take over the hope speech this episode, granted with a little well-deserved snark.)  And the fact that he “protected” Robin at the station didn’t really mean much in means of helping Zelena either.   Based on what we know so far, he would have done it already for Alice.    I really wouldn’t have even paid too much attention to the Rumple-Zelena interactions, besides the typical ick in my stomach whenever she gets too close, if it hadn’t been for the anons last week.   

Also Sabine and Drew are cute, and so are Sabine and Rogers.  Actually Sabine can go fall in love with whoever she pleases and I’ll be happy.  (Or not fall in love you know do what you like.)   I could even get behind Tiana/Cinderella, if found family (especially found sistership)  wasn’t my favorite thing.   Though imagine it, Cinderella, attempted assassin,  joins the rebel leader and then falls in love.  Man the fanfics that could exist in such a world.  

[darkpoisonouslove]

Scooby Doo or Ouat if you're feeling any of those :)?

I’ll do it for both of those! :D

Scooby-Doo:

the character i least understand

Fred. I just do not vibe with him. He’s okay in the original series but Mystery Inc Fred was just a mess and BCSD Fred is annoying as hell with his control freakishness. And in the original he didn’t have much personality (not that any of them did but still). He has always been a mystery of a character to me.

interactions i enjoyed the most

Velma and Daphne interacting is just really cool a lot of the time. The original series are a little... bland from character development PoV so there isn’t that much there but I really liked their relationship in Mystery Inc. I do not recall a lot from the other reboots but they’ve had really cute moments in some of the movies as well. Ooh, and live-action Daphne and Velma interactions are the best!

the character who scares me the most

I guess the werecats from Zombie Island. I have watched it only once and I do not want to repeat because they really freaked me out.

the character who is mostly like me

Velma. I don’t have her IQ but her personality (when she has it) is a lot like me tbh. Especially Mystery Inc Velma but live-action Velma is also very close to me.

hottest looks character

I have always loved Daphne’s design, especially in Mystery Inc (can you tell that’s my fave reboot by the number of times I have already mentioned it?). She’s really beautiful.

one thing i dislike about my fave character

I actually don’t like the fact that they make Velma more... bitchy in the newest reboots. Like, original Velma had her sass but she was actually pretty chill and cared about her friends. Mystery Inc Velma was an emotional wreck (like the rest of them) but at least she had some moments that really showed her love for the gang. BCSD Velma seems a lot more distanced from the rest and that bugs me a little.

one thing i like about my hated character

I... don’t really have a hated character in Scooby-Doo. Not one I can remember anyway. Any of the clown monsters but I don’t have a favorite thing about them so...

a quote or scene that haunts me

Well, Scooby Doo isn’t all that deep. Well, Mystery Inc kinda was actually but I cannot really think of something that is ha... Oh, wait, Cassidy Williams’ death in Mystery Inc was actually pretty haunting. Like, that scene where they find her broken swimming gear and you don’t actually see her die but you know she did and it hits really hard after she promised that she’ll be right behind them because she swims very fast. It brings out tears even now although I have watched that so many times at this point.

a death that left me indifferent

There isn’t that much death on Scooby Doo and the ones that I can remember were actually pretty impacting so... Idk what to put here.

a character i wish died but didn’t

I... don’t really have one? Like, no one in Scooby Doo is that annoying (I just want to put a disclaimer that I have watched the series with Scrappy but I do not remember them so this might be subject to change if I rewatch them).

my ship that never sailed

I guess Daphne and Velma (since Shaggy and Velma and Daphne and Fred kind of did in Mystery Inc). I kinda ship them but I also don’t mind that they’re just friends.

Once Upon a Time:

the character i least understand

Tamara. Like, what the fuck was her goddamn problem? They never really gave her good motivation for being the absolute bitch that she was and I still want to punch her in the face every time I see her on screen to this very day.

interactions i enjoyed the most

Regina and Facilier XD But if we’re talking non shippy, then probably Ruby and Granny. Ooh! And Mal and Lily. Even though we didn’t see much of either. I just loved those relationships so much. And I love the hell out of the Frozen Swan dynamic. And of course, Regina and Zelena. Ugh, it’s impossible to pick just one! There are so many good relationships. And some that are just interesting (Henry and Rumple and Emma and Rumple for example).

the character who scares me the most

I guess Pan was the scariest villain even though I can’t say that he particularly made me feel scared. None of them really made me feel scared but he felt like the biggest threat... Possible contender for this would be Gothel. But again, I wouldn’t say I was truly scared by any character.

the character who is mostly like me

Regina used to be when I was watching it. Now I am not too sure. There have been some major changes and I don’t know if that still holds true.

hottest looks character

Well... Regina. And Maleficent as well. So I was basically dying when they were on screen together.

one thing i dislike about my fave character

The way that she just fell so hard into hypocrisy in the later seasons (I’m talking about Regina). Season 6 Regina was a fucking mess also with splitting herself in two and blaming Zelena for something that wasn’t her fault. But season 6 was a mess in general and I have elected to ignore it.

one thing i like about my hated character

Well, my most hated character would probably be the Blue Fairy but there isn’t anything I like about her. Also, Tamara, but again - I cannot think of anything I like about her.

a quote or scene that haunts me

Too many to choose from. But I guess something that will always haunt me in the worst way possible would be Facilier’s death because it was just so goddamn unnecessary and stupid. I have not gotten over it and I don’t know if I ever will.

a death that left me indifferent

Well... Greg’s death. It just didn’t really have anything to it for me. Tamara’s death was actually more emotionally impacting because of her interaction with Rumple. I am not saying that I liked it. It actually made me like her even less because she was all high and mighty while she thought she had the upper hand but then started crawling and begging once things weren’t in her favor anymore and that is always something that puts me off. But it definitely evoked more emotion.

a character i wish died but didn’t

You know what? I’m just gonna say it. They should have just let the Blue Fairy die.

my ship that never sailed

Boy, too many to count. But I guess that Red Queen is the one that I will always hold closest to my heart. (Dragon Queen was implied so I count it as one that sailed.) Also, honorable mention to Drizella x Gretel 2.0 because they deserved better!

[searchingwardrobes]

For the Salty OuaT Asks, would you mind doing 7, 11, 20 & 23?

So sorry I am just now getting to this! I got busy with stuff. Anyways . . . 

#7 Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

I liked Outlaw Queen in 3B, but the Marian storyline ruined it for me. It just didn’t seem to fit with Robin’s personality to cheat on his wife while she was frozen. I mean, it’s like stories you hear of people cheating on someone while they are dying of cancer. Just ick. It’s also when I started despising Regina. In season one, she was a fantastic, “love to hate her” villain. Then in season three she really started to grow into a wonderful redemption arc, but again, it was all obliterated by the Marian storyline. And is everyone just supposed to ignore the fact that if Emma hadn’t rescued her, Regina would have murdered Robin’s wife? The writers just didn’t think all that mess through. 

In modern AUs or canon divergence, I will still write Outlaw Queen, however. Just ignoring the mess the writers made of that ship in season four onward.

#11 Is there an unpopular character that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? 

Hmmm . . . I have to really think about this one. Most characters I like aren’t universally unpopular, just divisive. I like Alice, even though some adamantly don’t. I like the name Hope for the CS baby, though some passionately despise it. I think Zelena was a fun and campy villain (no need to redeem some villains, Once, just let some revel in their evil) while others think she’s too over the top. I thought Lucy was cute and the perfect daughter for Henry (though I was indifferent about Jacinda), while others found her irritating. So yeah, that’s all I’ve got. 

#20 What is the purest ship in the fandom?

I think this is really easy - Snowing. Without them, why would you even watch Once? And though they aren’t perfect, they are still adorable #relationship goals.

#23 Unpopular character that you love?

Maybe I’m confused, but this seems really similar to #11. But, to go a different direction, I love young Baelfire. I feel like he is almost a completely different character from adult Neal. I loved his relationship with the Darlings, I felt his pain when his father became the Dark One, and I loved his relationship with Hook. What happened to him? He grew up to be just like his father! Both cowards, both willing to turn on the people they claim to love when it’s more convenient for them, and both emotionally abusive to the women they are in relationships with. (Yes, I stand by that statement for Neal. The condescending way he talks to Emma will forever irk me.) And am I the only one who thinks the actors for young Baelfire / adult Neal don’t even look alike? 

Send me a salty ask!  https://searchingwardrobes.tumblr.com/post/636597486272872448/salty-ask-list

[wistfulcynic]

Their Way By Moonlight: The Magic (Chapter 17)

In which the last of the curse is swept away and Zelena gets what’s coming to her. 

-

This chapter took me sooo loooonnggg to write. Partly because of writing other things, partly because I’m struggling to focus during the lockdown. Normally I spend at least one afternoon a week writing at a local coffee shop but of course that’s not possible right now and it’s wreaking a bit of havoc with my productivity. 

BUT! There is now a chapter count for this story! It will be 18 chapters in total, this one and a final one to wrap things up. Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with it for the past *gulp* more than a year. I love you all, but especially @thisonesatellite​ @ohmightydevviepuu​ and @katie-dub​​ whose enthusiasm and support means the world to me ❤️❤️❤️

-

SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might  help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.

Rating: M

AO3

-

The Magic:

Snow White had heard the expression ‘earth-shattering orgasm’ before, of course she had, but like any sensible woman with a realistic perspective on men and their limitations, she’d never taken the phrase literally. 

Until now. 

Now she lay sprawled and trembling in her once-lonely bed, panting harshly wondering if the world had always spun so damned fast. She chuckled breathlessly against the sweat-slicked skin of David’s shoulder. 

“Damn, Charming, you’ve always been good but I’ve never felt the earth move before,” she teased. 

David rolled over and grinned at her, his hand trailing down her side and over her hip. “What can I say? It’s been a long time and I was highly motivated.”  He leaned in to nuzzle her neck as his words echoed through her mind. 

It’s been a long time… a long time… long time…

Snow gasped as realisation struck, just as David pulled back with a start and she could see he understood as well. “The curse,” she exclaimed. “Is it broken?” 

“I think it is,” he replied. “I remember…” His eyes filled with regret and he pulled her close again. “Snow. I remember.” 

Snow wrapped her arms around him and they held each other in silence for a moment, far too tightly for comfort and still not nearly tight enough as their cursed memories washed over them. Everything that had happened over the past year, the wretchedness of it, living together and feeling nothing for each other. It should have been impossible, Snow thought, they were True Love. She could certainly feel her love for him now, surging up almost indignantly as if it resented having gone un-felt for so long, and yet she remembered looking at him with pure indifference. She shuddered and David’s arms tightened still further. She knew he was wondering the same thing she was. Who, what, could possibly have done this to them? 

She tried to sort through the memories, of Regina—as their maid, of all unbelievable things—and Zelena—wait, who exactly was Zelena?—and Emma, and— 

“Emma!” she cried, jerking her head back so abruptly it narrowly missed a collision with David’s chin. “David, she’s here in Storybrooke! How is she here?” 

“I was just wondering that,” he said grimly. “What do you say we go find out?” 

~

“We should go to Granny’s,” suggested Henry. “That’s where everyone went when the last curse broke. I bet they’ll go there again.” 

“Good thinking.” Emma nodded in agreement but Killian shook his head.

“What about Zelena?” he asked. “Do we know how the curse breaking will affect her? Perhaps we should stop by the sheriff’s station first.” 

“I think Zelena will be okay in her cell for a bit longer,” Emma replied. “She’s still behind that shielding spell I put around her.” 

“Nevertheless I’d feel better if we checked,” said Killian. “Not that I don’t have every faith in you, Swan, but we should err on the side of caution. Zelena is nothing if not unpredictable.” 

“Hmmm, yeah that is a point. And she has been one step ahead of us for most of this.” Emma’s expression turned thoughtful. “Okay, we can go to the sheriff’s station, but I’d actually kind of like to go find my parents first.” She shrugged. “Just to see them, you know. Before we get caught up with the rest of the town.”

Killian smiled. “Of course, love.”

“And, um, actually, can I go to Regina’s?” asked Henry. “I want to make sure she’s okay, and I can tell her about the plan to meet at Granny’s.” 

“That’s probably a good idea,” said Emma. “The rest of us can go to my parents—” 

“It might be better if you did that without me,” Killian interjected. “Your father and I were still on rather shaky terms when I saw him last and my presence with you would likely raise some questions best kept for later.” 

Neal snorted, then shrugged when the other three glared at him. “What? He’s not wrong.” 

“So where will you go?” Emma asked. 

“I was thinking I could stop at the sheriff’s station by myself. If Zelena is as secure as you think then you needn’t come along unless you wish to. I can check on her quickly then head to Granny’s and meet you there.” 

“Okay, that sounds like a good plan,” said Emma. “Henry goes to get Regina—” 

“And Robin, they have a date tonight so he should be with her.” Henry’s eyes lit up. “I bet Robin Hood will be useful in—well, in whatever comes now.” 

“Yeah, okay, so Henry goes to get Regina and Robin while I go to find my parents, and Killian will go to the station to check on Zelena. We’ll meet back at Granny’s as soon as possible. Everyone okay with that?” They all nodded except Neal, who still stood in the corner with his arms crossed. Emma fixed him with a glare and he scowled in reply. “Neal?” she said in a warning tone. “What about you?” 

Neal swept the room with his scowl and shrugged again. “I’ll go with Hook,” he said. “Check on Zelena then meet you at Granny’s.” 

“Really?” Emma demanded. “That’s what you want to do?”

“Hey don’t forget I worked for Zelena under the curse. I saw what she’s capable of, and that was without magic. If she’s even a little bit free then trust me, the pirate’s gonna need backup.” 

Emma looked questioningly at Killian. “I wouldn’t mind some backup, actually,” he said. 

“And you’re sure you’ll—be okay?” Emma asked, turning to Neal again. 

“If you’re asking can I go half an hour without punching your husband, yeah I can,” he replied with a sneer. “But those questions your parents are gonna have? I’ve got them too. Just as long as both of you remember that.” 

“Once we’re sure the town’s safe we will tell all of you everything,” Emma assured him. “We promise. Just behave yourselves until then. Both of you.” 

Killian and Neal exchanged a long look, then nodded stiffly to each other. 

“Fine by me,” said Neal. 

“Aye, and me.” Killian tightened the arm that still rested around Emma’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Be careful, love,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll see you at Granny’s.” 

Emma tightened her hold around his waist and quickly checked the protection spells around him. They were still firmly in place, and as strong as ever. Even if she somehow managed to gain control of the curse magic, there was no way Zelena could use it to harm Killian. Emma drew a deep breath and told herself to relax. Killian was safe, thoroughly protected, and there was no reason for him to know that she’d never let him go alone to face Zelena unless she was certain of that. 

She gave him a final squeeze and then released him, stepping back and gathering her magic. 

“Everyone ready?” she asked. 

“Just one last thing.” Killian disappeared into their bedroom and returned a moment later, tightening the straps of the brace that held his hook. 

“Just in case,” he said, as he tugged the sleeve of his sweater down over it and Emma nodded. “Ready when you are, love.”

She poofed Henry first, sending him straight to the living room of the loft. Killian and Neal she directed to a safe corner of the sheriff’s station, then took herself to the doorstep of the house where her parents now lived. 

~

The Rabbit Hole was silent but for the low drone of the dwarves’ conversation across the room. The Merry Men sat in a circle, beer mugs clutched in white-knuckled grips, every ear turned to the large man standing at their centre. 

“And that,” concluded Little John, with one final flourish to his rapt audience, “is how I reorganised the entire filing system at the library!” 

The Merry Men erupted into cheers, pounding on their tables or leaping to their feet to clap the hero Little John on his back in hearty congratulation. All but Will Scarlet, who sat back in his chair with his arms folded and a scowl on his face. 

“Pah,” he scoffed, once the furore had died down. 

“What’s that, Scarlet?” said Little John. “Did you say something?” 

“Pah, is what I said,” Will replied. “You’re always biggin’ yourself up, John.” 

“Oh? You think you could do better?” 

“I’m the bloody town records clerk, mate, of course I could do better. Let me tell you about my filing system—” 

Alan-a-Dale took a deep swig of his beer and shook his head fondly. “I never thought I’d live to see a day on which Will bloody Scarlet boasted about his filing system, eh, Stutely?” He elbowed the man sitting next to him. “I could see you doing that perhaps… but...” his words trailed off as he realised what he’d said. 

Scarlet... Stutely... filing systems... 

The curse. 

At the bar, Grumpy was having an epiphany. 

It hurt a bit. 

“Dopey,” he growled. “Did you… talk?” 

Dopey’s eyes went wide and he slowly nodded his head. His mouth opened but no words emerged, closing and reopening again in increasing confusion, his expression shifting to one of panic as he felt in his pockets for his notepad.

“Here.” Doc fished a piece of paper and a pen from his own pocket and handed them to his brother. Dopey took them with a grateful smile and wrote a single word. 

How? 

“I’ll tell you how,” said Grumpy. “The curse.” 

“The curse,” his brothers repeated, exchanging nods amongst themselves. 

The curse? wrote Dopey on his paper. 

“It’s broken, you idiots,” growled Grumpy. “THE CURSE IS BROKEN!” 

Comprehension dawned on the Merry Men’s faces as Grumpy’s words rang through the bar. They turned to each other in delight and began slapping backs and shaking hands once again. 

“Will Stutely, as I live and breathe!” cried Alan-a-Dale. 

His companion’s face broke into a wide grin. “Alan-a-Dale, well met indeed, my man! Has it been you all this time?” 

“It has!” said Alan, laughing and clapping his friend on the shoulder as they hugged, observing from the corner of his eye Will Scarlet almost lost in the bear-like embrace of Little John. “The devil’s own curse, this was. I wonder who cast it?” 

“Who else?” snarled Grumpy as he and the other dwarves approached. “The Evil Queen. She did it before and she’s done it again, and this time she’s not getting away with it.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Little John. 

“We’re going to find our axes and do what we should’ve done the last time. Make certain the Queen can never hurt us again. Now, who’s with me?”

~

Regina was too distracted to notice the curse’s magic begin to shift and creak but she felt it shatter. She gasped as the razor shards of it prickled against her skin, jerking backwards and breaking her kiss with Robin. His arms were still tight around her, stopping her from stumbling, but his forehead wrinkled in confusion and she watched with her heart in her throat as he shook his head and blinked rapidly, and an expression of apprehension crept across his face. 

“Your Majesty,” he said cautiously. 

Regina refused to feel hurt, reminding herself that he probably thought she’d been under the curse as well and things hadn’t exactly been friendly between them in the Enchanted Forest. Of course he’d be concerned about her reaction to finding herself kissing him. 

“It’s still Regina to you,” she said softly. 

“Er—” his frown deepened. “Is it?” 

“Yes. Robin—” she reached up to touch his face and he flinched, his muscles tensing. Fear made her heart pound as she let her hand fall to his shoulder and groped for the best words to explain. “You were cursed.” 

“I remember. It was—wait, why do you say I was cursed? Weren’t you as well?”

“No.” 

“But you—er, we—” 

She nodded. “I had quite a lot of time to think this past year, with everyone else in town under the curse and with my son gone—” her voice broke and she paused for a moment to get hold of herself. “And I realised how much I regretted not being more… receptive to you in the Enchanted Forest.” 

“‘More receptive,’” he repeated. “That’s an interesting way to phrase it.” 

She felt herself flush. “I was a bitch,” she said flatly. “And I’m sorry.” 

His eyes widened at this blunt statement and then a smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Not a bitch,” he said. “Forceful. Determined. Prickly, perhaps.” His arms tightened around her, and her heart fluttered when she realised he’d never removed them. “Fascinating,” he murmured, his voice dropping lower.  

She caught her breath then slowly lifted her hand again and laid it flat against his cheek, stroking her fingers across his cheekbone when he didn’t flinch away. He leaned closer and her hand curled around the back of his neck as his lips claimed hers. 

Regina sighed into the kiss, shivering at the electric frisson down her spine as his hand slid up it and into her hair. Her arm wound around his shoulders and his tongue slipped into her mouth and then a cloud of white swirled up from the living room floor and Henry appeared. 

~

Emma took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door but before she could it swung open to reveal Snow and David, looking flushed and mussed and very surprised to find her standing there. 

“Um,” said Snow, blinking in confusion, and then joy broke across her face. “Emma!” she cried, throwing her arms around her daughter. “Oh, Emma!”

Tears welled in Emma’s eyes as she returned the hug and they rolled freely down David’s cheeks as he wrapped his arms around them both, cradling the back of Emma’s head in his hand in that fatherly way he had that always made her choke up a little. 

“I’ve missed you guys,” she said, sniffing and blinking rapidly. 

“We—well, we didn’t actually miss you, but oh, I wish we had,” cried Snow, hugging her harder, and Emma and David both chuckled though their tears. 

“Is it bad that I know exactly what she means?” David mused. 

They clung to each other for another minute, a sniffling mess of limbs, then Emma pulled back. “We need to go to Granny’s,” she informed them, wiping her eyes. 

“Yeah,” David agreed. “We had the same thought. That’s where people will congregate and they’re going to want reassurance. And honestly probably some vengeance. They let Regina go the last time but now—” 

“Regina didn’t cast the curse,” Emma interrupted. 

David and Snow exchanged confused looks. “Didn’t she?” David asked. 

“Don’t you remember?” 

“All I remember was that the curse came on so fast, almost out of nowhere,” said Snow. “And Regina had been working on finding a way to get back to Henry. I guess I just assumed.” 

“Mom, she was cursed as your maid. And Henry wasn’t even here. She was miserable. Do you really think she’d do that to herself?”

“Good point,” Snow conceded. “But if Regina didn’t cast the curse then who did?”

“Zelena,” replied Emma grimly.

“Zelena!” 

“Yep. Oh, and she’s the Wicked Witch of the West.” 

“The Wicked—” 

“But we don’t really have time to get into that now,” said Emma. “We need to get to Granny’s in case there’s another mob like when the last curse broke. We’ll need to give everyone that reassurance.” 

David nodded in agreement but Snow had clearly not been listening. “But Emma,” she said, “weren’t you cursed too? How do you know—” 

“Look, I promise I’ll tell you everything, but we kinda do have to hurry.” Emma tried to keep the impatience from her voice. “I can transport us with magic—” 

“You can?” 

“Mom!” 

“Sorry, I just—this is a lot to take in.” 

“Well, take it in at Granny’s. Can we go now?” 

Her parents nodded but before Emma could gather her magic, her phone buzzed with a text. A scowl darkened her face as she read it. “Change of plans,” she said, tucking the phone back into her pocket. “I’m sending you two to Granny’s now, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.” 

“Where are you going?” David demanded. 

“To the sheriff’s station,” said Emma grimly. “And I’m going in hot.” 

~

White smoke swirled and dissipated, leaving Killan and Neal in the sheriff’s station, just around the corner from the main room and out of sight of the cells. Neal started to move forward but Killian held out his arm to stop him and gave a small shake of his head. He pulled a mirror from his pocket, the same half of a broken compact that he had used to signal his location at Zelena’s farmhouse to Regina. It was just a mirror now, as far as he knew, the enchantment on it lifted or possibly expired, but a mirror was all he needed. 

He flattened himself against the wall as close to the corner as he dared and carefully angled the mirror until it reflected the image of Zelena in her cell. She was reclining on the cot with her legs tucked beneath her, examining her fingernails. Everything else appeared normal.

Killian slowly released the breath he’d been holding and returned the mirror to his pocket. 

“Looks fine,” he whispered to Neal. “I’m going in.” 

“Wait.” Neal kept his voice low but the urgency in it was unmistakable. Killian turned to look at him, carefully holding on to his patience. 

“What?”

Neal shifted his feet, grimacing slightly. “Look, man, I—I need to know something before we go in there. If I’m gonna trust you to have my back I need to know.” 

“Know what?” 

“Why you married her.” 

“Neal—” 

“Yeah, yeah, now’s not the time, curse is broken, gotta save the town, I get it. We will. But I need to know why.” 

Killian sighed. The timing wasn’t great but he would prefer to have this conversation with Neal alone, with no David around to bluster or Snow to cluck. He reminded himself that Neal still didn’t know about the connection Killian and Emma shared, or what had happened between them over the past two years. Their last conversation had been in Granny’s, when Killian had promised to back off. Finding him married to Emma now must surely look to Neal like blatant betrayal of that promise. His anger, however inconvenient, was understandable. 

“Because I love her,” Killian replied. The simplest explanations were always the strongest, and there wasn’t time right now for nuance. “I love her and she loves me and we want to spend our lives together.”

Neal’s scowl softened and some of the tension left his shoulders. He gave a small nod. “Okay.” 

Killian nodded in return and together they moved towards the main room of the station. Just as they turned the corner a rush of magic struck them, with the strength of a storm surge on an angry sea. It flung them both off their feet and sent them flying backwards to land in an undignified heap in front of the door. 

Killian shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears then realised that it wasn’t ringing at all, but a shrill cackle proceeding from the direction of the cells. He ground his teeth, even as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, grabbed his phone from his pocket and thrust it at Neal. 

“Text Emma,” he snarled. “Tell her to get here right away. Then stay out of sight until she arrives.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Stall the bloody witch until Emma can deal with her. Now hurry!” He scrambled to his feet and rounded the corner again, pushing his way through air made thick by magic. It resisted him, no longer a storm surge but a fen, the magic clinging to his clothes and sucking at his feet as he fought his way forward towards the cell where Zelena was still lounging, her pose ostentatiously casual and her expression far too pleased for Killian’s liking. 

~

“Mom!” Henry cried, not seeing them at first. “Mom, you—whoa!” His eyes bugged comically and he clapped his hand over them. “Bloody hell!”

Regina leapt back, shoving at Robin’s shoulders until he released her and smoothing her hair. She knew she must be blushing furiously, and Robin’s amused expression only confirmed it. “Henry!” she exclaimed. “What—what are you doing here?” 

“The curse broke,” said Henry. He peered cautiously through the gap between his fingers then seeing them standing a good foot apart removed his hand. “My mom and dad—er, both my dads are gathering everyone at Granny’s to figure out what happens now,” he explained. “I said I’d come here to get you, but I wasn’t expecting—I mean, I knew you weren’t alone, but—I thought people kissed at the end of dates!” 

“They do, but… well…” Regina looked helplessly at Robin.

“But it’s not every day that a curse breaks in the middle of one,” concluded Robin smoothly, stepping forward and offering Henry his hand. “Hello, Henry, it’s good to meet you properly,” he said. “I’m—” 

“Robin Hood,” interjected Henry with a wide grin, shaking the proffered hand enthusiastically. “I know. That’s so cool.” 

Robin chuckled. “I’m pleased you think so,” he said, with a teasing glance at Regina. “Your mum was somewhat less impressed.” 

Regina rolled her eyes dramatically, but she couldn’t quite suppress her pleased smile. “What do you want from me?” she huffed. “I said I was sorry.”   

“So you did but I’m not sure I’m quite convinced—”

“Look, this is great,” said Henry, with a smirk and an eye-roll of his own. “I’m glad you guys are, you know, bantering or whatever, but the thing is we’ve got this curse that’s just broken, and—” 

‘The curse!” Regina’s smile evaporated as a thought struck her, and she snatched up the flowers Robin had brought, scowling as she examined them. 

“Um, yeah,” said Henry. “It is broken, right? Emma said—” 

“Yes, it’s broken.” Regina plucked one of the flowers from the vase and peered at it. “Shattered, actually.” 

“Shattered!” 

“Yes.” Regina shivered. “It was always unstable and with all the pressure you’ve been putting on it lately, bringing love back, it was only a matter of time before the cracks burst open. Which leaves us with a new problem. That curse was made with magic from several different realms, and now it’s loose in the air and sort of—fighting with itself. Can’t you feel it?” 

She looked up to find two pairs of concerned eyes on her. “I—maybe?” said Henry. “What does magic feel like?” 

“Different magics feel different but this is like… well, to me it feels like shards of glass but for you it would be more like pinpricks all over your skin.” 

“Shards of glass?” Robin exclaimed as Henry nodded. 

“Yeah. I think I feel it.” 

“As do I.” Robin put his arm around her, running his hand up her back. “Are you all right?” 

She smiled, more touched than she could express by his care. “I’m fine. But we have to get rid of this magic. Storybrooke isn’t big enough to hold it all, and the longer it stays here the more dangerous it will become.” 

“How do we get rid of magic?” asked Henry. 

 Regina looked again at the flower she held. “I think I might have an idea.” She looked up at Robin. “This flower,” she said. “Can you show me where you picked it? The exact spot?” 

He nodded. “Yes, I remember it perfectly. But it’s deep in the forest.” 

Carefully Regina probed at the magic swirling around her. Most of it had been loosed by the curse, far too sharp and dangerous to use, but there was enough of Emma’s light magic remaining in the loft for what she needed. “I can take us to the start of the footpath by magic, we’ll walk from there,” she said. “Henry—” 

“I’m coming too,” Henry interrupted firmly, already on his phone. “I’m texting Emma now, so she’ll know where we are.” 

“Good idea.” Regina looked again at Robin, who was watching her intently with a small smile on his face. Her belly gave a little flutter. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“I am.” He curled his hand around her shoulder as Henry tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Though I wish I had my bow. Unfortunately I’ve no notion of where it may be.” 

“Oh, hey, I do!” said Henry said brightly. “I saw it at the pawn shop!” 

“Do we have time to stop there and fetch it?” 

“No,” said Regina. “But Henry if you tell me exactly where it is, I can summon it as we transport.” 

“It’s in the back, hung on a mannequin in the far left corner.” 

Regina closed her eyes and did her best to envision the back room of the pawn shop. She gathered all the magic she could touch and wrapped it tight around the bow, and the three of them. “Okay,” she said. “Here we go.” 

~

“Well, hello, Captain,” Zelena purred as Killian struggled up to the bars of her cell. “What an interesting situation we find ourselves in.”

“Do we?” Killian kept his expression bland, carefully not revealing either the effort it took to hold himself upright against the crushing force of the magic in the room or the little details he observed, such as the fact that Zelena’s cell was still securely locked and the catlike smugness in her smile. 

“I’d say we do,” she replied. “You must have noticed that the curse is broken.” 

“Aye, that I did. The curse you told us we would never break. I suppose that is interesting.” 

Irritation flashed across Zelena’s features, just for a second but he was watching too closely to miss it. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve done me quite a favour, you and your wife.” 

“Have we? Things seem to have changed remarkably little for you.” 

Zelena’s smile slipped again, for longer this time. “Breaking the curse released all its magic,” she spat. “It’s free now and it’s everywhere. There’s no escape from it.” 

Killian fought to keep his own face from revealing anything. That was exactly what Emma had said. Its magic is everywhere. 

“And yet, you’re still in a cell,” he pointed out. 

Zelena snarled and he felt the air surge again. This time he was prepared for it, with his feet well-braced. It was rather like standing on the deck of a ship in reverse, he thought. On a ship the sea moved beneath him and here the air moved around him, but the rolling waves and the importance of keeping a wide stance with one’s feet firmly planted remained the same. Zelena’s lip curled in a snarl when he teetered but did not fall, and when the air ceased moving a moment later she fell back against the wall with a little huff. 

She can affect the magic, Killian thought, but she can’t properly use it and the effort tires her. That’s good to know.  

But where the devil was Emma? 

White smoke swirled up just behind him and Emma appeared as though his thoughts had conjured her, wearing the darkest scowl Killian had ever seen on her face. Another surge of magic waved outward from Zelena’s cell, quick as the lash of a whip and giving Emma no time to brace against it. She threw up her hands in a makeshift shield but she was not quite quick enough to block the whole wave and she stumbled backwards, just for a moment—before Killian even had time to react she had righted herself and spun about to face Zelena. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snapped. 

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Zelena, outwardly calm once again. 

“What are you trying to do with the curse magic?” Emma demanded. “How are you even touching it?” 

“It’s my magic,” Zelena hissed. “Did you really believe you could just cut me off from it?”

Something flashed in Emma’s eyes and her lips curled into a smile Killian recognised as highly dangerous. “There’s a thought,” she said. 

“Well you’ll have no time to think it,” sneered Zelena. 

A startled shout sounded from the hallway and Neal appeared, sliding on his back along the floor as a force invisible to Killian’s eyes dragged him by his ankle. Killian darted forward to help him but the moment his balance shifted he felt the magic in the air grab him, felt a crushing pressure on his chest as he was hauled backwards and slammed hard against the bars of Zelena’s cell. Dazed and winded from the impact, he drew a wheezing breath and shook his head to clear it, only vaguely aware as seconds later Neal was flung against the bars next to him, choking and gasping for air, his fingers scrabbling uselessly at his neck. 

When Killian’s vision cleared he looked up to see Emma charging towards him, fury snapping in her eyes as she used her own magic to push through the sucking resistance of the force that tried to hold her back. Their gazes met and Killian could read her intentions perfectly in her determined glare and the set of her jaw; he knew her far too well to think even for a second that she might do anything other than what she now intended. She meant to save him and damn the cost, but if she went for him first it would be too late. 

Which was precisely what Zelena was counting on. 

“No, Swan,” he gasped, “Neal! Save Neal!” 

Zelena cackled. “You’ll have to choose, Saviour,” she spat. “You’ve no time to save both. But the moment you release me from your shielding spell, I’ll release them.”

Emma’s eyebrows drew together and she looked sharply at Neal, whose face had gone mottled purple as he struggled for air. As difficult as breathing was for Killian, it was plain to him that for Neal it was far more so. He was choking to death and had mere seconds left. 

“Protection… spell,” he ground out, trusting that Emma would understand.

She did. Relief washed over him as she nodded and shifted direction, heading instead for Neal. Zelena snarled and Killian could feel the force around him shifting, the pressure on his chest lessening. Zelena couldn’t maintain such a strong hold on to him while also keeping Emma away from Neal, he realised, and he could see the moment the same realisation struck Emma. With a furious shout she sent a burst of magic from her hands that burned clean through the curse magic, blazing an open path to Neal. 

Zelena gave a cackle, triumphant on its face but with desperation ringing through. “Careful, Saviour,” she hissed. “One wrong move and he dies!” 

Emma was frowning in concentration. She appeared to be feeling with her magic, Killian thought, probing at the force that was choking Neal in search of weaknesses. 

“You’re right,” she conceded, with what he considered to be remarkable calm. “I don’t know how you’re influencing the magic like this, but I can’t untangle it without killing him. This, though,” she held up her hand and the subtle knife appeared in a swirl of smoke upon its palm. “This can.” 

Zelena screeched in fury as Emma held the knife out with its sharp edge pointing downwards and with a single strong, controlled movement slashed through the air, severing nothing that Killian could see but Neal fell to the ground in a heap, clutching his chest as he sucked in huge gulps of air. In the same instant Killian realised that the pressure on his own chest was gone, that the air had shifted again, shoring up the space between Zelena and the door of her cell as Emma slowly turned to face her. 

~

Robin strode along the footpath through the forest, his pace brisk and his steps sure. His bow and quiver were slung across his shoulder and Regina had to admit, wanted to admit after having wasted far too much time already in denying it, that his whole ‘rugged outdoorsman’ thing really did it for her. She hadn’t felt such simple animal attraction to anyone since—she winced as a spear of something that felt uncomfortably like guilt lanced her heart—since Graham. 

She squirmed a bit before she could stop herself, and though neither Henry nor Robin was looking at her she adjusted her jacket and smoothed its lapels, wishing she could smooth away her conscience as easily. The thing was a damned nuisance, always pestering her with reminders of the terrible things she’d done, and all she had to atone for. It would keep doing that, according to Killian, until she’d made an effort to redress her wrongs. Regina grimaced. Graham was one of those wrongs, she knew, and she knew that there were consequences she would have to face—wanted to face, she reminded herself, she was genuinely tired of being a villain—for killing him. 

But not just yet. Right now there were more pressing matters that needed her attention. 

The path dipped, steeply and without warning, and the light through the trees shifted. It shimmered along the description of a downward curve, as if reflected off the edge of a blade, and when its arc was completed they found themselves standing in a wide clearing where the sunlight was dappled through shifting leaves and the ground a riot of colour. 

“This is it,” said Robin, gesturing. “This is where I picked the flowers I brought you.” 

Regina knelt and plucked a blossom from the ground, the twin of the one she had selected from Robin’s bouquet. “A mist lily,” she said, examining the trumpet-shaped head with its soft blue-grey petals, bobbing atop a slender stem. “I thought it was.” 

“What’s a mist lily?” asked Henry. 

“Just a flower.” Regina stood again and offered it to him. “It has no special properties, except that it only grows in the Enchanted Forest.” 

Henry’s eyes went wide. “The Enchanted Forest!” he exclaimed. 

Regina smiled. “Yes. This is the Enchanted Forest. Well, part of it anyway. I’m not sure exactly where.” 

The trees surrounding the clearing were densely set, tall and wide and with thick-leaved branches that formed a canopy above their heads. It was impossible to see beyond it. 

“At a guess, I’d say we’re at the northwest edge of your kingdom,” said Robin, frowning at the forest floor and then up at the sky. “Where it borders the ogres’ land. About, oh, two or so days’ trek from your castle.” 

Regina felt a flutter in her belly. “How can you possibly know that?” she demanded. 

“Mom, he’s Robin Hood!” 

“Indeed.” Robin’s smile edged into a smirk, one she would dearly love to kiss off his face. “I’m an excellent tracker, as you know, and the first rule of tracking is to know where you’re starting from.” 

“So cool,” breathed Henry. “Can you teach me how to do that?” 

“Of course, if you wish. Though I think before we attempt to track anything through this forest I’d like to know exactly how we got here.” 

“Ah,” said Regina with a smirk of her own. “That is the question. I believe…” she turned back to the path behind them and peered closely at the way the light hung in the air. “I believe this is a portal.” 

It was a thin, neat slice through nothing, no wider than the breadth of a hair and invisible at most angles. Approaching from the correct one, however, one could simply step through it, out of one world and into another. 

“But how?” Henry frowned as he circled it, poked his head through then pulled it back again. 

“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” replied Regina, “it was cut by the subtle knife.” 

“The knife Zelena had!” 

“The very one. This is how she got the curse magic from the Enchanted Forest and into Storybrooke. And,” she added, her lips curving into a triumphant, vicious smile, “it’s how we’re going to get it back out again.” 

~

Emma unlocked Zelena’s cell with a wave of her hand and stepped inside, still moving with some difficulty through the magic-thickened air, but more easily than before. Zelena was weakening, Killian thought. Pushing against Emma’s shielding spell to manipulate the curse magic was exhausting her. 

Emma halted a foot or two in front of the cot where Zelena still reclined. Her previously triumphant pose now much more closely resembled cowering, Killian remarked, despite her attempts at bravado.

“I wanted to give you a chance, you know,” said Emma. “A chance to change and redeem your mistakes. The same chance we offered Regina. The same chance everyone deserves, at least once.” Though she wasn’t looking at him, Killian felt her words powerfully, deep in his heart. 

“But,” Emma continued, “you refused that chance, again and again, and now it’s obvious that you can’t be trusted not to keep trying to harm us, even when you’re behind a shielding spell. There’s nothing I can do, no magic I can use that will keep my family safe from you. You’ve made it so my only option is to kill you, and that I won’t do.” 

“Because you’re weak,” snarled Zelena. “Too weak to do what’s necessary.” 

“The fact that you think that,” said Emma calmly, “is your weakness.” 

She raised the knife again and probed the air with it, feeling for something Killian could not perceive—but Zelena could. For the first time he saw genuine fear in her eyes as it began to dawn on her what Emma intended. 

“No!” she cried, leaping up off the cot. “No… you can’t! You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t!” 

An expression of grim determination settled on Emma’s face as she located what she had been seeking with the point of the knife. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish there was another way.” 

“No—” Zelena’s cry was cut off as Emma made another slashing motion with the knife, a single short downward thrust. Zelena gasped, a heartrending sound of pain and unspeakable loss, then collapsed onto the floor, her eyes gaping wide in shock and horror. 

The sucking resistance in the air was gone, Killian realised, replaced by buzzing noise that started low then grew perceptibly louder as the air itself began to vibrate. “Emma—” he began, but he was cut of by Zelena’s shriek of pure rage. 

“What have you done?” she howled. “What have you done? My magic… my magic—” 

There was sorrow in Emma’s eyes, and a deep compassion, but no remorse. “You’ll never touch your magic again,” she said. “I’ve cut your link to it forever. The subtle knife can cut anything, you know.” 

“You’ve ruined me! You bitch, you—” 

“I did what I had to do to keep the people I love safe from you,” snapped Emma. “You would never have stopped trying to hurt us. Now you can’t.” 

“Swan.” Killian reached cautiously into the cell, dizzy and discombobulated by the increasingly frantic vibrations that surrounded them. He slipped his hook around Emma’s arm, holding tight to the bars with his hand. “Love—what’s happened to the magic?” 

Emma allowed him to tug her out of the cell and closed and locked the door behind them. She turned to him and frowned. “What do you mean—oh.” Her eyes went wide and she gripped Killian’s arm. “Oh. Shit.” 

The buzzing was deafening now and the vibrations frantic, pinpricks of magic crackling and snapping around them with electric vigour. 

“You can feel that?” asked Emma. 

“Aye, I think even my organs can feel it.” 

“It’s like an army of chainsaws in my head,” groaned Neal, struggling to stand. Emma held out her hand to help him and Killian his hook, still keeping a tight hold on the bars of the cell to balance all three of them. “What is it?”

“It’s the curse magic,” Emma replied. “It’s sort of—untethered. But it’s been that way since the curse broke, I don’t know why it’s acting this way now.” 

As she spoke purple smoke swirled and Regina appeared, flanked by Henry and Robin. “I think I can answer that,” she said, turning to glare at her sister where she lay slumped on the floor of her cell. 

“Hah,” said Zelena, with an attempt at her old sneer. “I’d love to see you try.” 

“As would I,” said Killian. “Sooner rather than later, love, before we all turn to liquid.” 

Regina shifted her glare to him, then began to explain. “We already know that this curse is not like the last one,” she said, and Emma nodded. “Zelena patched it together out of a hodgepodge of different magics, some of which should never have met. That’s what made the curse so unstable. And now that all of that disparate magic is loose it’s clashing and reacting, and that’s what we—what all of us, I guess—can feel.” 

“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Emma. 

“Storybrooke is too small to hold all of it safely,” said Regina. “It’s stuck within the boundaries of the town and there’s just too much of it. We need to send it somewhere where it has room to disperse, and the different kinds of magic can repel away from each other. We need to send it back to the Enchanted Forest.” 

Killian scowled. “How the bloody hell do we manage that?”

Regina shot him another glare. “There’s a portal in the woods, one that Zelena must have used to cast the curse in the first place. One cut by the subtle knife.” She and Emma exchanged a significant glance. “Robin found it.” 

“Stumbled upon it, more like,” said Robin. 

“But what does that mean?” Killian pressed. 

“It means we have an outlet,” said Emma, and Regina nodded. “We can funnel the magic through that portal and out of Storybrooke.” 

“Exactly.” 

“But then, how do we close the portal? Oisín said only the knife bearer can do that, and—” 

“We’ll have to worry about that another time,” said Regina. “Once the magic is back in the Enchanted Forest it won’t be a danger to us anymore, and I can make a temporary patch to block the portal. It’s not a permanent solution but it’s the best we’ve got, and we have to move fast. The longer we wait the more dangerous the magic will become. We need to do this now.” 

“Okay,” said Emma. “You go back to this portal, then. I’ll gather the magic here and send it to you, and you funnel it out. Does that work?” 

Regina nodded. “It should.” 

“Um.” Emma frowned. “How do we—do you have something, like a signal or something to let me know where exactly you are?” 

“Take this.” Killian withdrew the broken compact mirror from his jacket pocket. “You still have the other half?” he asked Regina. 

“I do.” Regina took the mirror’s twin from her own pocket. “These should work perfectly.” She waved her hand over both mirrors. “I’ve modified the spell so they’ll act like beacons. Once you have the magic under control, press your thumb on this mirror—” she handed Killian’s half to Emma “—and my mirror will send up a signal to show you exactly where I am.” 

“Got it.” 

“Okay.” Regina flexed her fingers. “Are we ready?” 

“I’m coming with you.” They all turned to stare at Robin, who looked alarmed at the ferocity on their faces. 

“I don’t think there’s much you can do to help,” said Regina. 

“Perhaps not, but I’d prefer it if you weren’t alone,” he replied, and Regina’s expression softened to an almost girlish smile. Killian exchanged a glance with Emma, who just shook her head. Henry beamed. 

“All right,” said Emma. “Regina and er—” 

“Robin Hood.” 

“Right. Regina and Robin, um, Hood will go to the woods and make sure the magic gets through the portal. I’ll collect it and send it to them and the rest of you—” she glared at Neal and at Henry, and finally at Killian, narrowing her eyes. “The rest of you stay out of my way.” 

~

Flanked by his fellow dwarves and trailed by the Merry Men, Grumpy burst through the doors of the Rabbit Hole and headed down the street.

“We’ll go to Granny’s,” he said. “Gather a nice mob. Then we’ll hunt down the Evil Queen and this time she’ll get what’s coming to her.”

The dwarves chimed in a chorus of agreement but from the Merry Men it more resembled concerned muttering.

“A mob sounds like the wrong kind of justice,” said Little John. “Are you even sure it was the Queen?”

“Of course I am,” snarled Grumpy. “Who else would it be?”

“Well—”

“It was her,” Grumpy declared as they turned into Granny’s outdoor seating area. “It’s always her. Trust me.” 

The door to the diner swung open with a cheerful chime of its bell and Snow and Charming emerged, she with a wide, delighted smile and he with his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

“It’s so good to see you all!” cried Snow.

“But you’re all going to need to turn around and go back home,” said Charming.

“Home?” growled Grumpy. “I don’t think so, Your Highness. We were cursed, again, and we’re going to make sure that this time is the last.”

“Oh we will make sure of that. But if your plan is to go after Regina I’m going to need you to rethink it. Regina didn’t cast this curse.”

“Ha,” said Little John, earning him a glare from the irate dwarf. 

“Well then who did?” he demanded. 

Charming’s expression was grim. “Zelena.”

“Zelena!” echoed Grumpy, as voices rose around him, dwarves and Merry Men all speaking at once. 

“What, the mayor?”

“Ex-mayor.”

“Why would she curse us?” 

“What does she get out of it?” 

“Who was she in our world, anyway?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember her.”

“She was the Wicked Witch of the West,” said Charming, raising his voice above the din.

“Like from Oz?” called Will Scarlet. 

“How do you know?” Grumpy demanded. 

“Emma told us,” said Snow, smiling proudly. “She figured it out.” 

“Oh yeah? And where’s Emma now?”

“Dealing with the witch, we hope,” said Charming with a scowl. “Look, why don’t you all come inside and we’ll tell you everything we know.”

~

The magic snapped through the air, almost snarling in its growing fury. Emma focused her attention on it, clearing her mind as she concentrated on it, on feeling it and reaching out to it. Its jagged shards sliced at her, and though she knew the pain she felt wasn’t physical that didn't stop her feeling it. The others felt it too, she reminded herself, less acutely than she did but it still hurt them. She needed to get this magic gone before it could cause any real damage. 

Closing her eyes, she stretched her senses as far as they could go, feeling for the magic as it spread through Storybrooke, catching it and gathering it together, weaving it securely into a shape that could easily be sent to Regina. It was not unlike trying to wrestle angry cats into a sack and though her attention was entirely focused on her task she was grateful for Killian’s calming presence, close beside her with his hand rubbing circles on her back. She reached out blindly and gripped his hook, clutching it to keep herself grounded as she pulled the last bits of the magic together. 

“Okay,” she gasped. “I’ve got it.” 

Killian handed her the mirror and she pressed her thumb against it. Seconds later it buzzed as the magic that linked it to its twin formed a connection. Not an especially strong one—a bit like two tin cans joined by a string—but strong enough tho show her where to send the magic. She pointed it in the right direction and then with a mental heave she flung it away, imagining the sack of angry cats sailing through the air towards Regina and becoming her problem. 

She could feel the moment Regina took control of the curse magic and when she was certain it was not going to get loose again she let it go, stumbling a bit at the release of her burden and leaning into Killian’s arms when he caught her. He hugged her tight and stroked her hair as she breathed a heavy sigh into his shoulder. 

“Is it done then, love?” he asked, his voice low in her ear. 

She nodded. “It’s up to Regina now.” 

~

Regina and Robin stood in Storybrooke’s woods, one on each side of the portal’s slender arc, waiting. 

Robin had his bow in hand, not fully drawn but with an arrow nocked and at the ready. A gust of wind rose up, sending leaves swirling around them and he tensed, his eyes sharp on the path before them.  

“You think arrows are going to help against magic?” sneered Regina, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The snarky attitude she wore like a cloak had become simple habit, born of anxiety and the need to appear strong, but she didn’t truly wish to be so nasty. Not to him.  

“I’m sorry,” she said, and suppressed a smirk at his look of surprise. “I’m worried, and that makes me snappish. But I shouldn’t take my feelings out on you.” 

“You have nothing to worry about,” he replied, with such earnestness she gaped at him. He smiled. “You forget I’ve seen your magic firsthand, Your Majesty,” he said. “I have no doubt you can perform this task with ease.” 

His simple faith in her despite the hesitancy and uncertain tension that still hung between them warmed Regina to her very depths and made her wish that she were better at feelings. “Robin, I—” she began, and then felt the mirror in her pocket grow hot. “I—I think it’s time.” 

She removed the mirror and pressed her thumb against it to answer Emma’s call. The mirror buzzed faintly in her hand as it linked with its counterpart and a moment later Regina saw the curse magic winding its way towards them from the direction of Storybrooke, woven into a tight and impressively tidy rope. Oisín had clearly met with more success in teaching Emma how to use magic than she herself had, Regina thought. 

She reached out with her own magic, stable tendrils of it pulled through the portal from the Enchanted Forest, and took control of the rope. There was a moment of tension when both she and Emma held it at once, then Emma released her end and Regina stumbled at the abrupt shift. Instantly Robin was there, catching her before she could fall and keeping a steady hand on her arm as she wrestled the snapping and writhing magic through the portal. 

As soon as the tail end of the rope had gone she released it from her hold and followed it, slipping cautiously through the narrow opening with Robin keeping a secure grip on her had from the other side, and watched anxiously to see how the magic would react to its new surroundings. For the space of several heartbeats nothing happened, but then slowly, almost cautiously, the rope began to unravel. It uncoiled itself, picking up speed when it met with no resistance, spreading out as far as it could, all the disparate magics skittering away from each other and dissipating into the atmosphere. 

Regina exhaled in relief then drew a deep breath, full of the familiar scents of her homeland, and felt a tiny twinge of melancholy. Someday she should probably go back to the Enchanted Forest again, she thought, to fix the ravages her curse—and likely now Zelena’s curse—had wrought upon it. But not today. 

She stepped back through the portal and wove a protection spell around it, to prevent anyone from stumbling through it by accident as Robin had. 

If it had truly been an accident. Regina had some theories on that subject. 

She turned to Robin, who was smiling softly. “Well done,” he said. “I knew you could do it.” 

She felt herself flush under his praise. “I had help,” she replied with a small shrug, surprised to realise that the modesty was genuine. She would never have managed to defeat Zelena or break the curse all on her own. Without Emma and Henry, and perhaps most of all Killian—she would have been trapped forever in the special hell her sister had made for her. More surprising still was the realisation that working with them had been... nice. Nice to have people on her side, sharing her burdens, nice not to have to handle everything alone. Nice to have friends.   

She shook her head at the foolish thought. They were far from calling each other friends, she and Emma and Killian—it was a long path to friendship from ‘reluctant allies,’ after all—and yet Regina had a stirring of a suspicion, a tiny fragile bud of a feeling, that someday this might actually become a reality. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real friend. 

“Speaking of which, we should get back to the station and make sure they’re all okay,” she said, taking up her magic again. “Are you ready?” 

Robin nodded. “Always.” 

~

@katie-dub​​​​​​ @kmomof4​​​​​​ @teamhook​​​​ @stahlop​​​​​​ @mariakov81​​​​​​ @snowbellewells​ @thejollyroger-writer​​​ @jennjenn615​​​ @tiganasummertree​​​ @lfh1226-linda​​​​ @winterbaby89​​​ @ultraluckycatnd​​​​ @resident-of-storybrooke​

[terreisa]

The Perfect Gift

Emma Swan has gotten away with trading out her pick for Secret Santa for three years. When she’s finally forced to keep the first name she pulls from the Santa hat it happens to be Killian Jones, the one person in the office that irritates her to no end.  She makes it her mission to find him a perfect gift and ends up discovering there’s more to the office Casanova than she’d ever suspected.

AO3

~*~CS~*~

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.  Let me pick again!”

Emma Swan groaned as her friend and co-worker Mary Margaret twisted at the waist so the Santa hat in her hands was well out of her reach.

“No.  I’ve let you, and only you by the way, re-pick for the past three years,” Mary Margaret said pointedly, raising her brow at her. “It’s not fair to the others who actually follow the rules of Secret Santa.”

“Rules you came up with,” Emma grumbled, scowling down at the name on the slip of paper in her hands.

“It can’t be that bad-” Mary Margaret sighed, “Zelena was transferred and Walsh was fired so there’s really no one truly terrible participating this year.”

“I think I’d prefer them over the one I did get.  Forget the fact that I can’t stand him, I don’t know what the hell to get him!”

“Who-” Mary Margaret began before her eyes widened and a pleased smile unfurled on her face, “You know exactly what he wants and it won’t even cost you twenty-five dollars.”

“Mary Margaret!” Emma hissed, embarrassed and shocked that her normally prim and proper friend went straight for an innuendo. “Gross.”

“Oh, come on, it’s no secret that Killian has had a crush on you from the moment he stepped foot in this office.”

Emma rolled her eyes at the familiar and franky ridiculous refrain.  Killian Jones was a well known film critic from England that had been hired two years before in an effort by the higher ups to expand their newspaper’s readership.  When he had walked in on his first day, with artfully tousled inky black hair, ocean blue eyes glittering with excitement, and tailored clothes that showed off a trim and toned physique, nearly every single woman in the office had attempted to help him set up his desk.  Emma, on the other hand, had appreciated the new eye candy and then returned her attention to the article she had been working on at the time.

She figured that it was her indifference that had Killian asking her later that day if she’d wanted to get coffee with him.  Of course, after watching him flirt and banter with all the helpful women in the office all morning she’d given him a withering look and a resounding no.  She’d been burned badly before by interoffice dating and she wasn’t looking for a repeat performance, let alone dealing with a no shame lothario.  He had merely given her a puzzled smile and wished her a good day before retreating to his desk. What followed was a year of watching him pull the same tricks with every available woman in the building while still brushing him off every few weeks.  As glad as she was that she hadn’t fallen for any of his pretenses there was an annoying stab of something in her gut whenever he walked someone new out the door with his hand low on their back.

Things had only taken a turn for the worse when Emma had been promoted to a full time writing position in the entertainment section.  While she’d been vying for a byline in that section for years she almost turned it down knowing she’d have to work almost daily near the man that had become the bane of her existence.  There had been an intervention from Mary Margaret, her husband David, and her roommate Belle to convince her to take the position. Even her own boss Tink, editor of the home and garden section, had had to sit her down and talk sense into her.  She’d emerged from her office an hour later, cheeks burning with the praise Tink had heaped on her and ears ringing with the passionate arguments she’d made in her favor. By the end of the week she’d moved her things to a desk across the office, one that was unfortunately situated next to Killian’s.

From the moment she’d unpacked her admittedly meager personal belongings Killian had seemed to take it upon himself to get on her last nerve.  He was constantly leaning over to ask her inane questions about her day or bore her with random bits of trivia he collected like a magpie with shiny things.  Though, she had to admit, it broke up the monotony of trying to think of a new way to write a review for a show that had jumped the shark three seasons before.  She also couldn’t find it in her to really complain about the perfectly made cup of coffee that was always annoyingly waiting for her when she was running late, which happened to be almost every day.  What really got on her nerves, however, was that his movie reviews were insightful, hilarious, respectful even when he hated the movie, and aligned with her own opinions so perfectly that she’d wondered more than once if he could read her mind.

Of course, everyone in the office saw all of that as tantamount to Killian having feelings for her.  Worst of all they saw her laughing at something he said, or drinking the coffee he made, hell even talking civilly with him as her returning those non-existent feelings. When it was really that she just found it easier to go along with his ridiculousness than to wear herself out actively loathing him.  She truly couldn’t stand him but no one else seemed to believe her.

“It’s not a crush,” she refuted though there was no heat behind it because she knew Mary Margaret wouldn’t believe her.

“Sure, uh-huh,” Mary Margaret singsonged with a grin.  She walked backwards away from her, still grinning, “Twenty-five dollars and we’re doing the exchange at the holiday party.  Good luck!”

Emma stuck her tongue out at Mary Margaret as she pivoted on her heel and made her way to the advice column's and editorial’s small cluster of desks.  She sighed, slightly glad she’d been cornered in the breakroom instead of at her desk where Killian would have definitely overheard something she didn’t need him to.  Then again she wouldn’t have had to once again brush of Mary Margaret’s ridiculous ideas of crushes and might have even stood a chance at getting to repick a name. With a groan of frustration she grabbed her now lukewarm mug of coffee and a random loose granola bar and headed back to her own desk, already mulling over and rejecting ideas for what to get Killian.

Twenty minutes and a thorough search of Killian’s almost too neat desk later and she was still at a loss.  She was fiddling with a paperclip to open the locked bottom drawer but knew she had already pushed her luck, time wise.  Killian and Robin, the editor of the sports section, always went out for lunch on Wednesdays and were always back in the office by ten till one.  Glancing at her watch she saw she had less than five minutes to jimmy the lock, dig through the drawer’s contents, get everything back in order, and be sitting innocently back at her desk.  Gritting her teeth in frustration she stood, tossing the half straightened paperclip onto her desk as she looked over the personal effects on his desk once more.

There were a couple framed photos: one was of him and another dark haired, blue eyed man, brother she figured from the resemblance; another was of a woman in soft focus with dark auburn hair that was curled to eighties perfection, his mother probably though Emma could only guess why he chose that photo to put up; the third and final frame wasn’t a photo but his review for the movie The Village, clipped from a newspaper and yellowed with age.  Aside from the frames there were only a few knick knacks: a small replica ship’s compass, a Rubick’s cube she’d seen him fiddle with when he was on the phone or stuck on wording for an article, and a potted plant she didn’t know the name of that he had somehow kept alive in their nearly windowless office. The only thing that seemed to give her any real insight was a thick, well worn paperback. She didn’t recognize the author’s name but the title rang a bell and having no other leads she resigned herself to jotting both down on a Post-It as a starting point.

“Interested in the works of Edwin Stephens?”

Emma jumped at the sound of Killian’s voice next to her.  She breathed a sigh of relief that she’d sat at her own desk to write the name down before realizing she had to come up with a reason for doing it.

“Uh, looking for present ideas-” she winced at her own stupidity, rushing on hoping he wouldn’t catch on to her, “For David.  Mary Margaret’s husband? He’s a big reader. Of everything. Hard to get him something he hasn’t read yet, you know? Thought I’d check if he had any of this Stephens guy’s books the next time I go over for dinner.”

Killian chuckled, settling into his chair, “He might, Stephens isn’t particularly popular but now that his work is finally getting the quality adaptations it deserves more people are starting to read his books.”

“So he’s your favorite author then?” She teased, delighting in the tips of his ears going pink.

“Since I was twelve and a neighbor let me borrow Absolute Bearing.  I was a bit young to be reading it but I loved it. Didn’t actually give it back to the neighbor, now that I think about it,” he hummed thoughtfully before shrugging and picking up the book on his desk. “If Mary Margaret’s husband doesn’t have Siege Perilous then it’s the one to get.  It’s considered to be one of Stephens’ best, and not only by me I’ll have you know. It’s also going to be a limited series on HBO next fall.”

“Really?  ‘Cause it kinda looks like you don’t like it at all,” she deadpanned, eyeing the well bent spine and slight discoloration of the pages.

He rolled his eyes at her, “Ha, bloody, ha, Swan.  I’ll have you know this is the third copy I’ve had to buy since I keep rereading it until it falls apart in my hands.”

Surprised by his utter sincerity she burst into laughter.  He grinned widely at her, absently thumbing at the pages of the book.  As her chuckles subsided she realized that she’d never actually initiated a conversation with Killian, let alone one where she joked around with him.  Suddenly feeling awkward she dropped her gaze to the note she’d written herself and tried to ignore the way she saw his shoulders slump out of the corner of her eye.

“Siege Perilous,” she muttered, carefully adding the title to her note just so she’d have something to do.  She peeled off the Post-It and stuck it to her monitor, “Got it.”

“He should enjoy it-” she looked at him, confused for a moment until he clarified, “David.  Don’t let the nautical themes put you off.”

“Right, thanks.”

She gave him a fleeting smile before turning back to her desk and made a show of throwing herself into her work.  Nevermind that she’d already finished her assignment for the week. Cursing to herself she opened a new document and began typing nonsense until the feeling of him watching her subsided.  She was highly annoyed when at the end of the day that all she’d accomplished was a page full of ridiculous phrases and the tiniest sliver of insight into the man she had to buy a gift for.

A week later she was no closer to narrowing down from over a dozen options.  She knew she was way overthinking it and that if she asked Mary Margaret or Robin she’d have a gift purchased by the end of the day.  Yet, somehow, she felt like that was cheating. It had become a challenge almost, the urge to crack the code to get her sworn enemy the perfect gift.  Though, since their conversation about Edwin Stephens she’d let her guard down and had a few more surprising talks with Killian about the things they liked to do on their downtime.  Which is how Emma found herself arguing with him over the best place to get pizza.

“Are you kidding?  Their crust is garbage!  The only good thing about that place is the sauce.”

“The sauce makes the pie, love,” he said vehemently. “Just because you prefer a paper thin crust doesn’t mean that every other option should automatically be disqualified in your book.”

She rolled her eyes, “Fine, I’ll give you that, I guess, but they don’t even deliver.  Not even Postmates! How are they still in business when they’re missing out on all those potential customers?”

“Ah, so the truth emerges!” Killian said smugly as he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at her, “You probably don’t venture to eat anywhere that doesn’t have the option of showing up at your front door.  Think of all the delicacies you’re missing out on, Swan!”

“I eat at places that don’t deliver.  There’s a great Dominican place that’s a whole twenty minutes away from my apartment and I go there at least three times a month,” she shot back before realizing she’d revealed a part of her life she hadn’t meant to.  She scrambled to keep him from thinking too deeply over it, “Besides you can’t say that Angelo’s is the best when you haven’t even tried Pizza on Fourth.”

“With such an uninspired name how can their fare be any good?” He scoffed.  Then he hesitated, looking at her consideringly, “How about we put it to a test?”

“Meaning?” She asked warily.

“Do you have plans for lunch or vehement standards about eating the same thing twice in a day?” He asked, matching her wariness.

She blinked at him, “You want to see whose pizza place is better?”

“It’s the only way to know for sure,” he answered seriously, though she could see the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile.

“For scientific purposes or bragging rights?”

“Bragging rights, of course,” he said with a wink.

Ignoring the small flutter in her stomach she pretended to mull it over, “Will there be a medal?  A trophy perhaps?”

“How about a free lunch?”

“Deal!”

He chuckled, “Since Angelo’s is closer shall we get Pizza on Fourth delivered for lunch, then we can walk over to Angelo’s after work?”

“Sounds good to me,” she said happily, already opening the app to order. “Should we go with the classic pepperoni at both to keep it fair?”

“I like the way you think, love, and add on a round of garlic knots to really spice up the competition.  Just let me know when you need my card.”

“Uh-huh,” she murmured, busy tapping away at the ordering options.

Later that night, with a lot of hedging and dragging her feet she admitted that Angelo’s was the better pizza.  What she couldn’t seem to admit, even to herself, was that she’d had fun hanging out with Killian outside of work.  She also toyed with and then dismissed the idea of getting him a giftcard to Pizza on Fourth just for the petty satisfaction.

Four days before Christmas and two before the company party Emma found herself wearily scrolling through article after article on Buzzfeed for any kind of inspiration for a gift.  She felt as though she’d had a hundred ideas but none of them felt right. It didn’t help that every time her and Killian hung out that a dozen new options for a gift presented themselves.

“I don’t think he’d want a Tub Shroom, no matter how many people have given it five stars on Amazon.”

Emma groaned at the sound of Mary Margaret’s voice, dropping her forehead to her desk.  She felt a gentle commiserating pat on her shoulder and rolled her head to look up at her.

“He’s impossible to shop for,” she whined. “Is it too late to switch with someone?”

“He is not and yes it is,” Mary Margaret tsked. “Unlike you everyone else doesn’t wait until the last minute to buy something.”

“It’s not the last minute.  I still have two days,” she grumbled, pushing herself up only to slump down in her chair.

Mary Margaret frowned, “Which is not enough time for Amazon to send something.  You’re making this harder than it has to be, especially if you hate the guy.”

“I don’t hate him,” she mumbled, barely above a whisper.

“What?”

“I said-” she sighed and prepared herself for a torrent of ‘I told you so’s’ and squeals, “I don’t hate him.  He’s actually a good guy.”

Mary Margaret smiled widely but surprised Emma by remaining calm, “Then it should be even easier to find something.  Right?”

“That’s just it!” She huffed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “There’s too many options now that I’ve actually gotten to know him.  I should just buy him the best bottle of rum twenty-five bucks can buy and be done with it.”

“Then why don’t you do that?” Mary Margaret asked puzzled, though her smile was still too wide for Emma’s liking.

“It’s so…” she cast about for the right word and nearly let out a frustrated growl when none came to her. “Generic, boring, thoughtless?  I don’t know but I can do better.”

Mary Margaret laughed, “It’s not a competition.  He’ll appreciate whatever you get him. Probably even more so now that you’re friends.”

Emma opened her mouth to refute the claim but found that she couldn’t.  Since their impromptu pizza competition they’d gone to several more restaurants under the guise of deciding who had the better taste.  Even more than that they’d also gone out for after work drinks a few times, talking about nothing and everything, and once she’d gone with him to a critics screening of a movie she’d been looking forward to seeing for months.  That he’d been just as excited to see it and they’d spent hours dissecting it afterward at a twenty-four hour diner down the street from the theater only drove home the fact that he was, for lack of a better term, her friend. She tried to push down the sudden feeling of disappointment she felt at that.

“Ooo, Siege Perilous?  Isn’t that the set you get to visit next month?”

Mary Margaret’s voice dragged her back to the discussion at hand.  She nodded absently, “Yeah, they start filming after the holidays and it’s the only time they’re allowing reporters on set.”

“Lucky, David wouldn’t let me read anything else until I gave it a chance.  I was annoyed at first but it’s really good. You should read it too, get ready for that set visit.”

“I should,” she said slowly, staring thoughtfully at the Post-It she hadn’t thought about since she’d stuck it to her monitor.  An idea started to form in her mind and with it a realization. She looked up at Mary Margaret, “It’s totally a crush isn’t it?”

Mary Margaret’s smile somehow grew wider, “For him?  Or for you?”

Emma surprised them both by smiling herself, “Is it okay if I skip out on our lunch?  I’ll make it up to you.”

“Totally fine,” Mary Margaret said, waving her off. “I think I’ll go out to eat with Tink, she owes me.”

She barely paid attention as Mary Margaret left, already distracted by figuring out what she needed to do and how little time she had to do it.

Two days later, when Emma arrived at the restaurant that was hosting their company party it was already in full swing.  She snuck Killian’s present onto the table that held the other gifts before weaving through her coworkers to get to the bar.  When she got there she was pleased to see Killian already there, chatting with the bartender.

“Gonna buy me a drink, Jones?” she asked as she sidled up next to him and grinned.

“It’s an open bar, Swan, so I’d be delighted to,” he said with a grin of his own.  Then his eyes widened and she watched his adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, “You look-”

“I know,” she said demurely, pleased that her blush pink dress had made the impression she was going for.  She turned to the bartender and ordered a glass of wine, conscious of his gaze lingering on her. When she was handed her glass she turned back to see him still staring at her, “I know I probably already asked this but you’re not flying home for Christmas?”

“Uh, no-” he blinked, shaking his head slightly.  It seemed to clear his thoughts and he gave her a shrug, “Never had a place there to truly call home if I’m honest.  I tend to fly wherever my brother Liam is stationed at the time but seeing as he’s doing the whole first holiday with his girlfriend and her parents I figured I’d stick it out here this year.  It’ll just be me and a yet undecided Netflix marathon to celebrate. What about you, off to visit your own family tomorrow?”

“Oh, I, uh,” she stuttered, caught off guard by the suspicion that his past seemed to mirror hers.  She took a sip of wine to fortify herself, “I don’t have a, uh, family. I usually sleep in and then watch Die Hard before going to Mary Margaret’s house for the day.  Nothing too exciting.”

She took another sip of wine to cover what was sure to be an awkward moment between them.  Killian was watching her with a look she couldn’t understand, not saying a word. Finally after a few seconds that felt like lifetimes she glared back.

“What?”

“Sorry, love,” he said sheepishly, a blush blooming in his cheeks. “It’s just… sometimes you’re quite the open book but then you’ll do or say something that surprises me.  I never would have guessed- well, I knew there was something but I didn’t want to pry and it didn’t occur to me-”

“Killian-” she interrupted, grabbing his arm to stop his rambling. “It’s okay, you can say ‘orphan’.  It’s not like you’re breaking a story I don’t already know.”

He let out a tense laugh, nervously scratching behind his ear, “Perhaps I didn’t want to say it because I loathe the moniker myself.  Schoolyard taunts will do that to a lad.”

Her breath caught in her throat.  She had gone through most of her life not having much in common with people because of how she had grown up without parents or even a stable home.  It was almost ironic that she had been so determined to dislike Killian when he had more in common with her than she ever could have expected. A hiccuping laugh escaped her as she realized just how much she had grown to like him over the weeks since she’d drawn his name from Mary Margaret’s Santa hat.

“I propose a toast,” she said with a wide grin, lifting her glass, “To a couple of orphans not letting a little thing like that get us down.”

Killian gave her a soft smile, raising his glass to hers and tapping them together lightly, “To a couple of orphans.”

They drank, though neither of them took their eyes off of each other.  Emma felt the warmth from the wine spreading down to her toes, though she could have also blamed the look in Killian’s eyes with having something to do with it.  Just as she was about to comment on it and possibly ruining whatever it was that was growing between them the music that had been playing in the background cut out and Mary Margaret was calling for their attention.

“Merry Christmas everybody!” She chirped merrily.  David was at her side with two wrapped presents in his hands, “It’s time to hand out the Secret Santa gifts so when you hear your name come on up!”

Emma felt a thrill of anticipation zip across her stomach.  She turned towards Killian with what she hoped was a calm demeanor only to find that he was still looking at her with a gentle smile, not even paying attention to the names Mary Margaret was calling out.

“Not looking forward to your gift?” She prodded, worried that he’d already figured out that she was his Secret Santa.

“Oh, I’ve never signed up,” he said, giving a fleeting glance towards Mary Margaret before looking back at her. “The past couple years I was flying to England and missing this lovely party.  By the time I had my plans settled for this year it was far too late to sign up.”

“Emma Swan.”

Emma stared at him uncomprehendingly.  She knew she had pulled his name, for one it wasn’t like anyone else in their office had the name Killian even though Jones was pretty common and for another she’d stared at the slip of paper for at least an hour when she’d gotten home the night she’d drawn it, willing it to be any name other than his.  The only logical explanation was that he’d signed up and forgotten.

“Emma Swan?”

Killian’s gaze darted away and then back to her, “Er, Swan?”

“You forgot,” she blurted out. “You signed up and forgot.  Right?”

“No,” he said slowly. “You know how tenacious Mary Margaret is about making sure everyone remembers their gift.  I’ve never done it and still know what a terror she can be.”

With a dawning horror she realized exactly how much of a terror Mary Margaret could be.

“Has anyone seen Emma?”

Killian tilted his head towards the front of the room, “I believe you’ve been summoned for your own gift, love.”

“Yep,” she ground out, narrowing her gaze at Mary Margaret who was scanning the crowd for her.  With extreme care she set down her wine glass, afraid she would shatter it in her anger, “Just going to go get my gift now.”

Wasting no time she stormed to the front of the room, pushing past everyone and ignoring their grumbles in her wake.  Mary Margaret beamed when she caught sight of her but it quickly turned sheepish as Emma got closer. By the time Emma made it to her she was already whispering a rushed explanation.

“-sorry but you would barely give him the time of day and he’s really a great guy.  I figured if you had to get him a gift you’d get to know him and see that he’s not actually terrible.  And it worked! You’re friends now.”

Emma felt her anger leave her in a rush at Mary Margaret’s sincerity and the ridiculous lengths she’d gone to.  It helped that she was right, even though Emma would never admit it to her.

“What if I had just bought him a Starbucks gift card and been done with it?” She asked with feigned annoyance, wanting to know just how invested Mary Margaret was in her scheme.

Mary Magaret scoffed, “I knew you wouldn’t do that.  You complained about him too much to get him something that boring.  I knew you’d use your gift as a way to prove something.”

She gaped at her, surprised by the confidence she’d had in her plan.  Then a thought occurred to her, “You wouldn’t let me repick because every name in that hat was his wasn’t it?”

“Yep,” Mary Margaret grinned. “And don’t worry about someone else getting left out.  I kept your name out of the main draw to keep things even.”

“Then how do I have a present?” She asked, bewildered.

“Santa works in mysterious ways,” Mary Margaret said cryptically, still grinning like a fool.  She plucked a green bag, its handles tied together with a length of red ribbon, from the table, “Here you go.”

Emma took it in one hand and held out the other, “Can I at least give Killian his gift myself?  I don’t want him making a big deal about how he didn’t sign up and embarrassing us both.”

“Can’t-” Mary Margaret frowned dramatically, though her eyes were alight with mischief, “I sent David to give it to him when I first called your name.”

Sure enough, when Emma looked back at Killian he was trying to keep David from handing him the present Emma had brought.  Giving Mary Margaret a withering look she hightailed it back to the bar before anyone else’s attention was grabbed by the escalating argument between the two men.  She arrived as David pushed the wrapped box into Killian’s hands.

“Just take the present, man.  It’s got your name on it so it has to be yours.”

“And I’m telling you there’s a mistake, mate,” Killian bit out, refusing to hold onto the box. “I didn’t participate in Secret Santa.”

“I got it David,” she broke in, grabbing the gift and stepping between them. “Tell Mary Margaret she still owes me answers.”

David looked at her apologetically, “I really tried to talk her out of it.”

“And yet you’re still her accomplice,” she pointed out.  David gave her the same sheepish grin his wife had and she shook her head at him, “You’re both getting coal for Christmas.”

“Bah humbug,” David said cheerfully before giving her a hug and disappearing in the crowd.

“So that charming gentleman is Mary Margaret’s husband?” Killian intoned bemused behind her.

“The one and only,” she said, thinking about how she could cheerfully strangle the couple with tinsel for all their scheming.  She placed both his and her presents on the bar and faced him, “They’ve been together since their freshman year of college and are really bad influences on each other.  I sometimes have to remind myself that David’s a cop when he gets caught up in one of Mary Margaret’s grand plans.”

Killian’s eyes went wide, “Oh?  And what was her grand plan tonight?”

“Well, it looks like you getting a present would be part of it,” she hedged, not ready for him to hear Mary Margaret’s true motivation.

“So it would seem,” he said thoughtfully, tracing the gift tag on his present with his finger.  Then he frowned and pushed her gift towards her, “You should do the honors first, love, since you were actually expecting a gift.”

“Yeah?” She asked, relieved that she could put off an explanation for a few more minutes and highly curious what Mary Margaret’s Santa comment meant.

Killian nodded and said softly, “Go ahead, Swan.”

The tag attached to the ribbon gave her no clues since it was a square of paper with her name printed on it and aside from the ribbon holding the bag closed there were no other adornments.  The ribbon was tied in a simple bow and with a gentle tug it came undone. When she pulled out her gift she couldn’t help but laugh at the copy of Siege Perilous in her hand.

“Mary Margaret was in a tither in the breakroom last week,” Killian murmured, keeping his gaze on the book when she looked up at him, “She was going on about how the person who had picked your name had quit unexpectedly and that she needed to find someone to replace them.  I volunteered, of course.”

“Of course?” She breathed.

He gave her a lopsided smile, “It’s no secret that I quite fancy you when you’re not yelling at me.”

She felt the warmth of a blush in her cheeks and dropped her gaze to the book, running her hand over the cover, “Why get me this, though?”

“You were so skittish when we first talked about it and when you kept the note on your monitor I realized you never intended it as a gift for David.  I overheard you telling Mary Margaret that you would be visiting the set of the new show but felt guilty about never having read the book.  It seemed to me that getting you the book was rather fitting on all accounts.”

Looking back up at him she felt a swooping in her stomach as her eyes met his.  He was still smiling at her but she could sense his nervousness at her reaction to his gift and his confession in the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot and scratched behind his ear.  It was his nervousness that gave her the courage she needed to lay her own feelings on the line.

“It’s your turn to open your present,” she stated, nudging the wrapped box with her new book.

He looked askance at it, “It has to be a mistake and I don’t want to open a gift intended for someone else.”

“It’s part of Mary Margaret’s plan, remember?  So you should open it,” she encouraged.

“Fine,” Killian sighed, picking up the wrapped box, “But I’d feel better about it if I knew what her plan was.  Though you seem to have it all figured out.”

Emma kept quiet wanting to explain everything once he’d opened his gift.  He waited for a moment, watching her, before shaking his head and focusing on picking at the tape holding the wrapping paper together.  She bit her tongue at his fastidiousness, glad that she hadn’t used more than a few pieces of tape for the whole thing. Finally he pulled the paper off, without a single tear, and opened the box only to go absolutely still as he stared down at the present inside.  Glancing up at her with a perplexed look he reached into the box and pulled out the hardback copy of Siege Perilous she’d luckily found at the small bookstore near their office.

“I know the one you have now probably has a few read throughs left before it completely falls apart but I figured you’d want a pristine copy for next month.”

“You bought me-” his gaze darted from hers to the book and back, his confusion easy to see, “Why would you- no, wait, what’s happening next month?”

“Mary Margaret thought that I wasn’t giving you a fair chance, which I wasn’t,” she started, ignoring his last question for the moment, knowing that she had to explain the whys first. “It was mostly me judging you off of my first impression of you and what I’d seen when you first got hired and not by actually taking the time to know you.”

“What was your impression of me, Swan?  It must have been not very favorable for you to not have warmed up to me until recently.”

"I, uh,-" she felt herself flush and she only grew warmer in her embarrassment when he noticed and leaned closer.  Rolling her eyes she huffed, "To be fair you flirt with everyone and there were a lot of women you left the office with when you first got hired."

"Were you… were you jealous, Swan?" He asked incredulously.

“No, not jealous.” she contested hotly. “I thought you were making the rounds and I’d been cheated on by my last boyfriend with our former editor.  I didn’t need to be a notch in someone else’s belt and I really didn’t want to be the focus of office drama again.”

Killian’s demeanor fell but she saw no pity in his gaze, “Oh, Swan, I didn’t know.”

“It is what it is,” she said with a shrug, “The gossip had finally stopped by the time you were hired and I wasn’t going to bring it all back up again with someone I thought was the same type of guy.  Though I know now I was completely wrong about that.”

“You truly didn't know, Emma?” He asked so softly she could barely hear him over the music that had started back up.

“Know what?”

He grabbed her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles as he held her gaze, soft and sincere, “You saw me chatting and going places with those women because I didn’t know a soul when I first moved here.  I never led them on or asked for anything more than camaraderie while I got settled because it’s only ever been you.

"I first saw you by chance, you walked by in the background in my last Skype interview and I was smitten.  Of course when I was hired and you rebuffed me while others were clamoring for my attention I was intrigued.  Then we became desk neighbors and I got to know you, one small piece at a time, and I fell. For you. And then with these past few weeks of going for meals and drinks, talking for hours with you I began to think, even hope, that perhaps you might be beginning to feel the same.”

As much as she’d had an idea that he liked her, as well as been told numerous times by multiple people, hearing him say it out loud was like hearing it for the first time.  In a way it was because there was a small part of her that couldn’t believe it wasn’t another conjecture of the office rumor mill. She felt her cheeks begin to ache and realized she had been grinning at him like a fool but had yet to address how she actually felt about him.

“I was really annoyed when I picked your name-” Killian winced and tried to take his hand from hers but she held fast, “and Mary Margaret wouldn’t let me switch and now I know it’s because she rigged it so it was only your name in the hat.  So I was stuck with having to get you a present and practically knowing nothing about you. When we talked about Stephens I realized that it was the first time we’d had a whole conversation. Then we just kept talking and you were nothing like I’d believed you were and I liked spending time with you.  Really liked spending time with you.

“The thing was I kept telling myself that I was only hanging out with you because I needed to figure out what gift to get you and it was impossible.  I wanted to get you a perfect gift, something that was thoughtful and that you’d really appreciate. When I complained to Mary Margaret about it I realized why I wanted my gift to be perfect.”

“And why was that, love?” He asked hopefully.

“Because I fell,” she said simply. “For You.”

Killian beamed at her before swooping down to capture her lips in a surprisingly gentle kiss.  She sighed into him, reveling in the warmth of him encompassing her as his arms wrapped around her.  All too soon for her liking he pulled back, resting his forehead on hers with his eyes closed.

“One more thing,” she whispered, playing with the soft hair at the back of his head.

His eyes opened and he leaned back, looking at her quizzically, “What’s that, love?”

She grinned at the pet name she’d practically ignored before, “How good of a photographer are you?”

“Fair enough to keep things in focus.  Why?”

“Because the other part of your gift is that you’re going to pretend to be one of our photographers so you can come to the Siege Perilous set visit with me.  Edwin Stephens will be there too and I thought you’d like to get an autogra-”

Emma squealed as Killian picked her up and twirled her around.  When he finally set her down she paid no mind to the stares that they’d surely attracted and pulled him into a kiss far more passionate than the one he’d given her.

Much later, after they’d allowed Mary Margaret a moment of smug elation and left the party to a couple of whistles courtesy of Tink and Robin they were laying in her bed, sweatpant clad legs entwined.  Killian was running his fingers through her hair as she laid curled against his chest, listening to the rumble of his voice as he read Siege Perilous to her. With a contented sigh she figured that maybe Mary Margaret didn't quite deserve that lump of coal she'd threatened her with.

[itwasmagic]

How about OUAT? 😁

my all-time ultimate fave character: regina mills

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: hmm maybe zelena but i dont know if i cared about her much in the show and i didnt finish it (i think maybe she gets better later on?) so i didnt see much of her arc but i like her in fanfics

a character I used to like but now don’t: i don’t dislike emma but she’s the only one who i loved and then it went downhill the rest i mostly stayed the same with

a character I’m indifferent about: snow white

a character who deserved better: emma swan

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: basically all the m/f ones that i’ll get attacked if i list

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: SWAN QUEEN

a cute, low-key ship: red beauty

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: hmm does dragon queen count? not really unpopular bc they were liked but... not as big?

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: lmao i think u can guess

my favourite storyline/moment: idk if it counts as a full on storyline but swan queens development?? ? going from hating each other and “my son” to “our son” to “you thought we were friends?” and “drinking buddies” to regina looking at emma directly as she says she’ll lose her friends if she goes back to being the evil queen they’re so fdjdfnjdndfj

a storyline that never should have been written: basically all of the random side characters?? i do like the characters individually like elsa/anna/zelena etc but it got really boring bc past s2 the story never felt focused on the og’s any more they just tried to add in as many profitable side stories as they could and then went totally off track why tf did they do a show about fairytales and think “you know what this needs? greek gods and british arthurian legends that add nothing to the plot”

my first thoughts on the show: that it was a really cool twist on fairytales

my thoughts now: it’s a mess im only here for swan queen

send me a show

[aenslem]

ouat

my all-time ultimate fave character: if it was not obvious before... Regina Mills :D

a character I didn’t used to like but now do: that’s actually hard, Henry? Rogers? i was kinda angry with henry in the beginning, like, so easily naming the woman who raised you your entire life the evil queen, without second thought... i mean, yeah i get it, but still don’t like it :D also, Rogers was kinda not a bad character, i liked the story with Alice, i know why they brought him in the show, they could not have hook without emma, because honestly, those two in the end were not characters on their own at all, but they needed old face that everyone liked?? so they brought wish realm hook and somehow he became much better character than the original :D that’s how it is when the entire character is not just created for a ship lmao can;t say i love him or smth, but i did enjoy watching him ;) maybe there are some more, but i can;t remember all the characters right now :D

a character I used to like but now don’t: not that i don’t like her now, i do like Emma, but honestly, after s2 and Hook... she was more like a copy of old Emma. Not that i loved her before, i wanted to punch her every time lmao but she did have personality before.

a character I’m indifferent about: lmao almost everyone in the show??? snow and charming mostly, i guess. 

a character who deserved better: would be weird to say Regina? yes, she got her redemption arc but at what cost... she could become a good girl much faster and better than it was done in the show. but they just could not make her as blank but good as other characters who were annoying af with their kindness, while also doing shit which they were forgiven for, so they threw her from one side to another so viewers are still into evil queen, but in the end it became so boring, like again?? and Emma, she did not deserve to become a blank half of the ship instead of a character. Also Ruby, i know it was actress leaving the show, but honestly, almost every character from the first season who was such a huge part of the story got lost somewhere and if brought back it was done so bad. 

a ship I’ve never been able to get into: lmao i guess we both know which one it is :D emma x hook, but also the ship that just made me cringe and i don’t even want to mention it but... gold x evil queen, no, just no.

a ship I’ve never been able to get over: swaaan queeeeen of course, literally all of my ouat posts are either regina or swen :’D

a cute, low-key ship: ummm... because of fics: belle x ruby maybe? im not really shipping anyone else there, like i ship sq.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it: idk honestly, i don’t remember which ships happened in the show :’D except those obvious ones. ummm, idk from fics i remember Zelena x Mulan, but im pretty sure they never met on screen?? :D fanfiction did so much better for those characters then the show itself. 

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened: ok, emma and hook was obvious af, but at least it was not unexpected because we live in a straight world and emma ‘needed a man’ pffttt horrible, but gold and evil queen was totally unexpected for me and then zelena and evil queen fighting over gold?? lol what actual fcuk it was?? no, nooo eeeww. i loved rumple and regina as father and daughter kinda relationship, but they just ruined it with it...

my favourite storyline/moment: my favorite parts are connected to regina and emma and henry, both sacrificing themselves for their son and each other.

a storyline that never should have been written: literally entire beginning was full of so much random shit and then we never saw it again, regina using that forbidden curse with help of who were those??? did we see them ever again? no one needed those side creatures ever again and let’s be honest that curse was not done once lmao them forgetting everything every fuckin season! all of those characters in the show never used, we are just getting references and have an epic characters but they do nothing, the latest seasons are just bunch of heroes moving from one place to another, and we hardly see any of them ALONE! there were too many characters on screen that they did not have actual time for heroes that mattered for the plot. the entire latest seasons with all those not fairytale characters but gods??? GODS???? underworld? arthur and merlin? suddenly things appear from nowhere but they mean so much, but we never heard of them before??? but they are super important, like that hat? what was with all that merlin stuff? he just appeared and died. and there were so much more... and bringing hook back, it could be so much better if he just died, not because i don’t like hook, but it was like some characters can get back from dead, but when it comes to regina she can’t have anything. if we have robin hood and he is so important for regina than make him important without her also! i hated that some characters could not exist without their ship. that was so bad... and also entire gideon arc?? what was that, and where was gideon after??? like he just got better and then poof, his parents are dying but we never see him again and the entire plot was based on gold wanting to bring his son back, but when he has a son he just is not with him??? dude, i can go forever on what was wrong with this show :D

my first thoughts on the show: as i already mentioned before, i started this show back when it was airing, but never continued, watched half of an episode or smth and it was boring and not interesting for me, and then i started and i got angry with the way this show shows so many things and how it handles it and how it treats some characters, i was sure i will get a headache from it and i was not wrong lmao

my thoughts now: my head hurts :D it really could be a great show if the writers were not such a cowards, if they could handle some things better, but it feels like they wanted to put as much in the show as they can to attract viewers and in the end it was so crowded that the plot was long gone. i am not sure they paid attention to what they write, because in the end they would forget their own rules of the world they created. that was the worst, like they did not care for it, they was sure we will take everything just because we already like some characters. but it had potential in the beginning, though they could not handle their own creation in the end so they just gave up and we got this mess. but if they would follow their own rules, like magic has the price, which is really great, and would not throw random characters just for the sake of having them in the show, it really could be a great show. and maybe if they were not such a cowards we would at least have the best enemies to friends to lovers ship ever, because honestly, if one of the main heroes were man, we would have had it. but they were women so they brought another bad character and made him good just for the ship, and then ruined the main character and made her part of the ship instead of the character on her own, while with regina emma was emma and not part of the ship. this show has a lot of issues and i hate the fact that regina mills is part of it, she deserves so much better than this mess :’D

Thank you ^-^send me a tv series and I’ll tell you

[lilacmoon83]

Dreaming Out Loud

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 94: Happy Little Bluebirds Fly

The Enchanted Forest

19 Years Before the Dark Curse

Snow fidgeted impatiently, as her mother and step-father led her by her hands to their cottage, which was located in a beautiful meadow near the foot of Mount Olympus. The meadow was filled with just about every breed of flower that existed on Earth and was home to many creatures, for they flocked to it, knowing it was a safe, peaceful place.

"Can I open my eyes yet?" Snow asked anxiously.

"Not yet, snowdrop," Persephone replied.

"Hmm...impatient. Wonder where she gets that from?" Hades teased, glancing at her.

"You just love that joke, don't you," she replied, with an eye roll.

"As much as you love the one where you insist she gets her penchant for mischief from me," he retorted.

"Oh please...you take pride in that. You boast it," she said. He chuckled.

"Yes, I do," he admitted.

"And it's true. No one can find trouble like the two of you," she added and he didn't attempt to refute it.

"Can I open them now?" Snow asked in a huff. He chuckled. Persephone smiled, as she saw the surprise make its way into the meadow.

"Okay Snowdrop...you can open them now," she said. Snow did so and in her line of vision was a beautiful, white Unicorn. The majestic animal galloped gently toward them and bowed its long head to them.

"A unicorn?" Snow asked in awe.

"Well...we're going to teach you to ride and I thought a Princess such as you should have a fitting beast to learn on," Hades replied.

"And it eases my nerves knowing that a Unicorn won't get spooked and throw her like a horse might," Persephone muttered to him. He smiled.

"Relax, my love...this Unicorn has been trained by the best, I assure you. Raised from birth specifically to protect our little Snow," he assured.

"What's his name?" Snow asked, as she pet the Unicorn and he nuzzled her affectionately.

"That is entirely up to you, sweet pea," Hades answered, as he lifted her onto the animal, intending to take her on her first ride around the meadow. And the timing would be good, for they heard the approach of a carriage. A royal carriage and Eli stepped out. Though his guards were extremely leery of leaving the King alone, he insisted and sent the carriage away, though the Knights would not be far away.

"Hi Daddy! Papa Hades got me a Unicorn!" Snow gushed.

"That's wonderful, baby. I need to talk to mommy, but then I want you tell me all about it," he called back. Hades exchanged a glance with his wife, silently agreeing to keep Snow out of earshot.

"Come on, sweet pea, let's take that first ride," he said.

"Can we go fast?" she asked.

"Sure," he answered.

"Hades…" Persephone warned. He winced.

"We'll start with a slow prance," he promised, as they proceeded to venture around the meadow. Eli sighed.

"A Unicorn? He just has to upstage me at every chance he gets, doesn't he?" Eli asked in annoyance.

"That's not what he's doing," Persephone protested and he raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe a little...but I actually insisted on the Unicorn. They don't get spooked and won't throw Snow," she replied.

"That was one nightmare you had," he admonished.

"I don't have nightmares. I have premonitions and I've woken up more than once to the image of our daughter being thrown from a horse. It's a Unicorn or nothing," she insisted. He put his hands up in surrender.

"Fine…" he relented.

"I assume this isn't what you summoned me here about?" he questioned.

"No...but it is about Snow's safety," she replied. He scoffed.

"Not this again...Snow is safe with me, I assure you," he insisted.

"Your wife hates our little girl!" she exclaimed.

"Hate is a strong word," he said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Oh please...she's so jealous that I'm surprised she hasn't turned green yet," she retorted.

"Why would she be jealous of a ten-year-old? That ridiculous," he commented.

"No Eli...it's not. Ravenna sees how much you love Snow and how much you adore her, as a father should. But you don't love her and she knows it," Persephone said.

"Are you really going to go there? You're going to comment on my relationship when you're married to him?" he snapped back.

"This isn't about Hades! He loves Snow...he loves her as if she were his own," she snapped back.

"Don't remind me!" he spat.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to have to watch that man with my daughter and watch her adore him right back?" he exclaimed. Persephone sighed.

"Eli…" she started to say.

"Do you think this is the life I wanted? I hate it...I hate not being with you...I hate not being Snow all the time," he admitted.

"And I'll confess...it's harder, because you're happy in your marriage. You're happy with a man that you once insisted wasn't capable of love," he added. She looked down for a moment and then back up.

"He changed...he saw the error in his ways. And then when Snow was born, that was it. He turned away from all darkness and let love guide him," she told him.

"Yes...I remember. I had to watch Snow being born on your mother's crystal ball, while he got to be there," Eli spat bitterly.

~*~

Persephone's screams echoed through their chambers and could be heard throughout the Underworld. It was a day unlike any other, for the land of the dead never saw life being born. But today was an exception, as Queen Persephone gave birth.

"Her head is crowning, darling. A few more big pushes and it's over," Demeter said, as Hades held her tightly.

"I can't…" Persephone cried.

"You can, my love...you're the strongest woman I know," he encouraged, as she pushed through the pain with more screams, until the cry of an infant rang out. Persephone and Hades became stunned, as their eyes became fixated on the wriggling baby that Demeter now held and proceeded to clean off.

"Look…" Hades said, as they saw snowdrops suddenly sprout from the ground in their chamber. Demeter smiled and placed the baby in her arms and they both were in awe.

~*~

Tears came to Persephone's eyes at the memory. It was the one and only thing the three of them could agree on. It was the best day of their lives.

"We can lament the past all day or we can deal with the present. And that present is that I fear for our daughter's safety in your Kingdom," she pleaded.

"And I'm begging you not to take her away...please, she's all I really have," he begged.

"I don't want to do that, Eli. Snow loves you, so you know I would never want to separate you from her. But you have to put your foot down with your wife and your court," she insisted.

"I will try...but they do not always listen. They know I am not a strong King," he said shamefully. She sighed.

"But you can be. And if you can't do it for yourself, do it for Snow," she pleaded.

"I'll try...just please don't take her away from me," he begged again.

"You know that is the last thing I would ever want to do. Snow loves you and I know how much you love her," Persephone stated.

"I hate this...I hate being married to someone that I not only don't love, but hates my daughter," he confessed.

"Then do something. Ravenna has helped lead to poverty in your Kingdom and she can't produce an heir. I fear what she may try to do to our daughter if she is left unchecked," Persephone said.

"I will try, but you know I have to tread lightly. The Southern Isles has a very large army. If I were to oust her completely, such would be an act of war and that would not protect our daughter," he replied.

"But I'll protect her, Persephone. I promise," he added, as Hades returned with Snow and her new Unicorn.

"Daddy...I'm naming my Unicorn Stardust," Snow told him. He smiled and lifted her off the animal.

"That's a wonderful name," he told her, as he hugged her tightly.

"I love you Snow," he said, feeling the need to tell her that.

"I love you too, Daddy," she replied.

~*~

Rumple observed his new student, as she used her magic on the task he had given her. Zelena was very powerful, with almost unlimited potential. And on the surface, this made her the perfect person to cast his curse. But he needed someone with more than just purely magic to cast it. After watching her over the past few years, he quickly determined that this wicked girl loved absolutely nothing, aside from herself, perhaps. She had learned lessons of coldness and cruelty well from her mother and had developed a reputation for being a bully. Clearly, Cora's raising and Leopold's aloof indifference had nurtured this future monster. He wasn't sure if the King suspected that his daughters were not his or if he just didn't care whether they were or not. But his complete disinterest in his family was hard to ignore. Many surmised that he just didn't love his family, but no one seemed to mind much. Royals weren't required to love anyone. In fact, it was not uncommon for a royal to be as cold and indifferent as the King was. But Rumple knew the real reason for Leopold's aloof indifference.

Cora needed the King as a figurehead until Zelena was ready to ascend to the Throne as Queen. At that point, she was sure that Leopold would meet some seemingly accidental end. Then Zelena would become Queen and Cora Queen mother. Young Princess Regina, who had by some miracle retained some kindness and good nature, would likely be married off to a Prince so Cora could see that both her daughters became Queens. And to achieve the level of indifference that Leopold had made Rumple suspect he was under the influence of Cora's magic. He knew of several spells off the top of his head that would allow Cora to influence his every thought and move.

He might actually feel bad for the King if he did not know what kind of person Leopold truly was. Even under the influence of all of Cora's spells, he had seen the King's eyes wander to young, beautiful maidens more than once. His own daughters had no idea what they were really escaping with him and he wondered if Cora had an inkling. He was under enough of her control that he had not dared to touch one of them. But notably, he had shown quite an interest in King Eli's young daughter, whom he had only met for the first time a few weeks ago at a ball. It was the first moment of clarity he had seen in the King for years. Had Persephone been there to notice it...well, the King would have been sent straight to the Underworld for Hades to deal with. It definitely interested him to see how this would all play out.

But his thoughts returned to the glaring problem at hand. He had the power to cast the curse in Zelena...but this girl did not love. He had two paths he could take now. He could consult his seer powers to see if there was anyone she might actually love or he could find another. On one hand, teaching and cultivating magic in another was a daunting task. But he felt it might be a safer option. He still had time, after all. Snow White was only ten-years-old, and the Savior wouldn't be born for another eighteen years now. He didn't like reaching into the future much. It had proven too risky to gaze upon and what he saw was rarely the whole story. He only got bits and pieces and it was almost too difficult to read. In fact, the only real clear visions he had were that there would be a Savior. And she would be born from a love between Princess Snow White and a charming shepherd named David. But he knew the reason that vision was so clear was because the Goddess Athena had written this love in the stars. It was a true love that would be unprecedented and unlike any other to ever exist. But seeing Zelena's future proved to be trickier.

"Her magic is magnificent...isn't?" Cora asked, as she appeared next to him.

"Truly...but natural aptitude isn't everything," he answered.

"Isn't this what you want, Rumple?" Cora cooed.

"Isn't this what you need?" she added.

"Power is only half the equation, dearie…" he retorted.

"What more could there be than power?" she asked, as she looked at him.

"She loves nothing...except power, perhaps. You've taught her well," he replied.

"Love is weakness," Cora commented. And he offhandedly wondered how a smart woman like Cora could be so short sighted when it came to love. What she said could be true at times. Love could breed weakness in some. But love could be so many more things. He had seen it turn to hatred. He had seen it destroy people and leave them as shadows of their former selves. He had seen it start and end wars. And in the future, he could see one particular love saving the world. People did insane things for love. They committed atrocities for it. They killed for it. And from one particular love...true love's magic would be born. Love was many things, but he believed that weakness was not one of them.

"That's a very narrow view, dearie...and one that might cost you someday," he commented cryptically. She smirked.

"I'll take my chances," she responded.

"At any rate...Zelena will cast your curse and it will be what you need to find your son," she added. But he knew that wasn't true. If Zelena cast his curse, he was becoming more convinced by the minute that he would never find Bae.

"Where is Princess Regina?" he inquired.

"She is at a riding lesson...or pretending to be. She thinks me ignorant to her dalliances with the stable boy," Cora responded. Hmm...now that was interesting. Despite Cora's disdain for love, it would seem that Regina had found it. And he knew what love lost could breed in someone like Regina. Cora would let her have it until she decided it was time to end it and marry her off. It was definitely an opportunity he might be able to explore. For now though, he became quite interested in the scene below.

"Ah...King Eli and his little bastard daughter are visiting. Eli's Kingdom is having financial troubles and I suggested to Leopold that he extend an olive branch," Cora said.

"Of course...once we become involved with the northern Kingdom, hostile takeover will be easy and inevitable," she added.

"Oh, I'd be careful there, dearie. That retch you're referring to is the daughter of Persephone and step-daughter of Hades. If one hair on her head is harmed...their wrath will know no bounds," he warned.

"Hmmm...you're quite right about that," Cora said, noticing how her husband was suddenly doting on the child.

"That girl certainly has a way about her. Many become so enamored by her," Cora commented. Rumple was watching what she was and it even made him uncomfortable. As the Dark One, he was many things and had committed atrocities in his reign, but the type of evil that he was seeing in Leopold's eyes was beyond even him. He would have to monitor that situation. He did not doubt that the young Princess could overcome anything. He had seen glimpses of the fierce woman she would become, but this was not one obstacle that he thought anyone should have to overcome. It was uncharacteristic for him to care about anyone and at the end of the day, his concern was still more about his curse. But she was vital to that success of that curse. Having her innocence stolen at this tender age could jeopardize his design. He didn't doubt that she would find her true love; that was written in the stars and awaken hope in her. But there were already enough obstacles for her to overcome on her path to being a hero. And this was not one that was required or necessary for that matter. If King Eli didn't notice the signs, Persephone would and he knew she often looked in on her daughter from the Underworld. He could only hope she was watching today.

~*~

King Eli held his little girl's tiny hand in his own larger one, as he discussed diplomacy with King Leopold. They had been invited to attend a ball that evening at King Leopold's palace and had come early to discuss matters of state.

"Your Kingdom is in a financial crisis it seems," Leopold mentioned.

"It is. I am afraid that I have a Queen that is not easily pleased," Eli responded.

"Yes...it is not hard to spot the friction between the two of you. I know your Court is demanding a viable heir to the Throne," Leopold stated. Eli glanced at him.

"They are...but if we are being frank, I already have an heir. But getting my narrow minded court to accept my daughter will not be an easy task," Eli replied.

"Take it from an old King...it will not be something they will ever accept. A child born out of wedlock is seen as a disgrace. Your daughter has fared much better simply because people fear her mother and step-father," Leopold advised.

"Snow is everything to me. It should not matter how she came to be. She is my daughter," Eli replied.

"Oh, I am inclined to agree with you. However, the ways of our Kingdoms are steeped in centuries of tradition and change is not easy for some to take. You should take heart though," Leopold mentioned, as Eli glanced at him again.

"She is a lovely little girl and I think she may fair much better than other royal children born out of wedlock," he said, as his eyes locked on Snow. Eli looked down at his little girl, whose attention was occupied by some of the birds and rabbits that scurried about and therefore did not notice the King's predatory stare.

"You should not have difficulty finding suitors for her. She is still of royal blood and Godly blood," he mentioned.

"Oh, I won't be finding a suitor for Snow. There will be no need. There is no much I have been able to promise my precious little girl, but I will promise to let her marry for love," he said wistfully.

"I was unable to and I won't burden her with an arranged marriage. Such would be ill suited to her free spirit," he said, as he watched her kneel down in the dirt, her dress be damned, to play with the animals. Leopold watched the small animals, birds, and even a fawn approach the little girl.

"Extraordinary," Leopold commented. Eli smiled.

"As beautiful and kind and as extraordinary as her mother," the younger King mentioned.

"May I give you some advice?" Leopold questioned.

"Yes, of course," Eli replied.

"Letting Snow marry for love is a romantic notion. But I encourage you to find her a royal that would be able to protect her. I don't think I have to tell you the dangers posed to one such as her," Leopold said.

"Her mother and Hades would never let any harm come to her, nor will I," Eli replied. Leopold was about to continue to press the issue, but was interrupted.

"Snow…" Ravenna snapped, as she entered the garden and the little girl looked up. At her presence, all the creatures scurried away.

"Ravenna…" Eli warned.

"Save it Eli...look at her! She's filthy again! There is a ball tonight and now I have to clean her up! She looks like an urchin," Ravenna growled, as she grabbed Snow's arm.

"Owe!" Snow cried, as the angry Queen began to drag her away.

"Ravenna...stop! Johanna will tend to her," Eli promised. Ravenna let go and huffed, before storming off.

"My, my...are you sure you can protect her? It seems you cannot, even from your own Queen," Leopold mentioned.

"I can and I will. I won't let what Ravenna just did stand," he said, obviously angry at his wife's handling of his daughter.

"And nor will I," Demeter agreed, as she appeared with Artemis.

"Nana!" Snow called, as she rushed to her.

"Aunt Arty!" she called again, as the two woman hugged her tightly.

"Hello my little one...I need to speak to your father and then we'll go have some fun," she promised.

"Then I don't have to go to the ball?" Snow asked hopefully. Eli sighed and smiled at her, as she looked at him.

"No sweet pea...you can spend the evening with your grandmother if you'd rather," he said. Despite the fact that his court did not accept Snow, they were hypocritical enough to demand that she still act like a Princess. But Eli loved her too much to force this life on her.

"Come on, snowdrop. We'll go practice with your bow," Artemis said, as she took her hand and led her into the woods outside the palace.

"Excuse me," Leopold said, as he withered under Demeter's icy glare and left them alone.

"I know what you're going to say," Eli stated.

"I doubt that," Demeter countered, as she swept into the garden.

"I will speak with Ravenna...I won't let this stand. She knows how displeased I am with her treatment of Snow," he defended himself.

"And she does not care. She does not fear you. In fact, the only reason she has not abused my granddaughter further is that she fears me, Persephone, and most of all Hades," Demeter snapped.

"What will you have me do?" Eli asked.

"Oust her! She's ruining your Kingdom. You have cause!" Demeter responded.

"You know that would cause war with the Southern Isles!" Eli argued.

"They have an army twice the size of mine and resources that we do not have," he continued. Demeter sighed. She wished that he was wrong about that, but knew that he wasn't.

"Then you must be firm with your Queen. Unfortunately, she is not the only reason I am here," the Goddess replied.

"What else is there?" he asked.

"King Leopold for starters...I want that man no where near our little Snow," she replied.

"He is a bit set in his ways, but do you really think he is a danger to Snow?" Eli asked.

"He is a bigger danger to her than Ravenna is. You did not see the look in his eyes when he gazed at her," Demeter replied, confusing the King.

"But...she's just a little girl. Surely you can't mean he has those kinds of designs on her," he said in confusion.

"That's exactly what I mean. You must never bring Snow to his castle again and guard her if he comes to yours," she warned. Eli sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

"I know you are under a lot of pressure and stress," she offered.

"It doesn't matter...I promise you that Snow is always my first priority," he promised.

"I believe that...and that's why you need to watch your back too. Your Queen is not above putting a knife in it," she warned. He sighed and couldn't deny that. He knew how unhappy Ravenna was.

"I will. But if anything ever happens to me...you'll get Snow out? Can you promise me that?" he asked. Demeter nodded.

"We will all do whatever is necessary to keep her safe," she promised.

~*~

Ravenna huffed, as she stormed into her chambers and let out a yell of frustration.

"It's good to vent your anger. Holding it in only causes more pain," a voice said. The Queen gasped and turned, finding a man on the balcony of the guest chambers that she was residing in.

"Who are you?" she demanded to know.

"My name is Deimos...I am the God of Terror," he introduced himself.

"Are you here to champion that little retch too?" Ravenna questioned, as she slowly backed away from him. He chuckled.

"On the contrary...I'm here to help you make her and her parents pay," he responded. She relaxed slightly and regarded him.

"Zeus is very displeased by the existence of that little parasite and the fact that most of the Gods favor Persephone and Hades over him," Deimos revealed.

"Then why doesn't Zeus do us all a favor and smite the little nuisance?" she questioned.

"Contrary to popular belief, Zeus is not all powerful. Most of the Gods would rise up against him if he made such a bold move upon Persephone's family. But with the right plan, we can all get what we want," he replied.

"You want me to work with you?" she questioned. He chuckled.

"I can make you Queen...eventually," he reasoned.

"I already am Queen," she reminded.

"I mean you could rule without your sad sack of a husband if we do this right," he corrected.

"And just what is it that we would do?" she inquired.

"For now...nothing. But when Snow comes of age, it will cause great turmoil, especially when her father advocates for her to be his rightful heir...or at the very least insist that she be recognized as the Princess of his Kingdom," Deimos stated. She scoffed.

"If Eli thinks this Kingdom will ever bow to his little bastard daughter...he's more a fool than I thought," she hissed.

"We agree on that. But an opportunity will come to make sure Snow is not only ousted from this Kingdom, but that you can see to it that she is hunted. We will stage a crime and she will take the fall. Then you can chase her out of your life and take the Throne," he offered.

"And what of Hades and Persephone?" she queried.

"You leave them to me. Trust me, they will be too busy trying to keep Snow alive than to worry about you. The details on how all this will come to be are sparse for now...but it will come to pass. The question is...are you willing to participate?" he questioned. Ravenna smirked.

"If it means I can see that little urchin burned at the stake...then I am not only willing to participate, I want to light the bonfire," she replied with an evil smile. Deimos smiled back, his own smile as evil as hers.

"Then let's begin,"

[theonceoverthinker]

Nick/Hansel

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite 

I find this gif quite appropriate to use for Nick/Hansel/Jack, because I feel like Jack’s time with Henry was the very heart of his character and a completely overlooked part of Season 7.

More than even by his cursed dynamics with Ella and his real dynamic with his sister and Zelena, Jack’s character is given life through his dynamic with Henry. For one thing, the friendship painted between the two of them gives a very palatable bit of a love triangle between the two of them and Jacinda, possibly the best one ever done in the series. Secondly, Henry’s friendship with Hansel is what almost transforms him into a better man and I feel like there’s a really unexplored level of tragedy there. Henry is to him as Glinda was to Zelena: A friend who is almost enough to inspire reformation (Kindness, forgivingness, welcoming personality), but the very qualities that allow for that friendship to build also unintentionally are the reasons why it can’t go on. Henry’s friendship is able to inspire Hansel/Jack in a vacuum, but because that also obviously extends towards his family of witches, it can’t fully sustain Jack.

I feel like Jack kind of got the short end of the stick here in that his friendship with Henry was denied the potential to fully extend its proverbial wings. 

As it stands, a lot of what I just said, for as much as I love it, is contained to just a small handful of lines in the same episode that features his death. There’s no time for the tragedy of who he is and his circumstances to sink in or be nearly as effective as they wanted it to be. And while I appreciate the love triangle for its palatability, I don’t appreciate it because it wasted time in a season that had barely any to spare.

[emospritelet]

Kiss of Life - chapter 2

@rumple-belle prompted Gold’s POV about the first meeting and Belle asking about Gold at girls’ night.  This is an entirely new chapter, btw, nothing from the ficlets is in here.

AO3 link

Dr Gold would be the first to admit that he wasn't the most sociable of people, but he had never seen that as a personal failing, telling himself that he was alone by choice, and he preferred it that way.  He lived at the edge of town in a house which was beautifully presented and very comfortable, and if it was of a size more suited to a family than a single man, he told himself that he had a lot of things that needed a good home.  On the occasions when he was not at work, he would read in his study, tend his garden or cook himself something delicious with a glass of wine in hand and music filling the kitchen.  All in all, the move to Storybrooke had been one of his better ideas, although given the path his life had taken, the competition for good decisions wasn't exactly fierce.  He had worked at Storybrooke General for almost two years, and by and large he enjoyed it.  The hospital was large enough for him to see a number of different ailments, and to keep his medical skills honed, but not so large that he didn't know the names of every member of staff, and most of the patients.

He cast his eyes over the chart at the end of David Nolan's bed again.  The man had been in a coma for eight months, but he was stable.  If he would only wake up, he would no doubt make a full recovery, lengthy physiotherapy sessions notwithstanding.  Out of the corner of his eye he could still see Miss French, now being berated by Miss Mills, no doubt over some minor perceived infraction.  He really ought to have a word with Miss South about her.  The woman had already scared off previous applicants to the post, not to mention one or two fellow nurses, who had decided that working in the convalescent home at the convent was easier than putting up with Miss Mills' waspish tongue.  There was also a new nurse due to start on Friday - Miss Gale - and the last thing they needed was anyone else quitting.

Miss French appeared to take her chastisement with nothing but a placid smile, but her eyes were narrowing, and he could sense she wanted to say something in response.  Miss Mills appeared to finish, storming out of the room with a swing of her hips, and Miss French stuck out her tongue after her, making his mouth twitch in amusement.  She glanced around, catching his eye, and blushed, aware he had caught her in her insolence.  He gave her a tiny smile, and she licked her lips and dashed from the room after Miss Mills. His smile widened a little.  She seemed to have something about her, something more than he had come to expect from the assistants the town could produce.  Intelligence, strength, and what he suspected was a good heart.  He wondered how she had ended up in Storybrooke.  It wasn't the kind of place that anyone would choose to come to.  Not without good reason, anyway.  Yes.  He would have words with Miss South.  He didn’t want to lose Miss French.

Belle turned back and forth in front of the mirror, eyeing herself critically. Ruby's suggestion of a girls' night had been a welcome one, and she thought she looked okay, the black dress with its cap sleeves cute enough for an evening of drinks and gossip.  It would be nice to meet some of the other young women in town; thus far she had only really talked to Ruby and Mary Margaret.  She smoothed her hands over her hips, nodding to herself.  Good enough.

She grabbed her purse and coat, pulling a woollen hat down over her ears against the bitter cold, and shouted to her father that she was going out.  He grunted something over the blare of sports coverage, and she rolled her eyes.  In all likelihood he'd be drunk by nine, and she was pleased to be doing something else that evening.  Moe French wasn't the most sociable of drunks, inclined to get belligerent and repetitive, and she had no desire to listen to a rant about the government, taxes, or worse, her lack of a career.

The night air was bitter, and she tugged her coat around herself, shivering as she trotted down the path and headed for town.  Ruby had given her directions to The Rabbit Hole, the only club that Storybrooke possessed, but she took a wrong turning or two, heading down two dank, narrow alleys near the harbour before finding her way again.  Foul-smelling things squished beneath her shoes, making her wrinkle her nose and hurry on.  It was a relief to spy the gleaming red sign above a doorway, a stylised white rabbit popping its head out of a black hole, and she ducked into the club with a sigh.  Heat and noise hit her immediately, the club warm and humid and filled with the mingled scents of spilled beer, deep-fried snacks and body spray.

"Belle!"

Ruby's voice made her smile, and she turned on her toes, spying Ruby and Mary Margaret at a table in the corner.  Ruby was waving enthusiastically, clad in leather pants and a red top to match the streaks in her hair.  Mary Margaret was in blue, sipping a tall drink and staring dreamily off into the distance.  She smiled when Belle pulled out a chair.

"What are you having?" asked Ruby.  "My round.  Mary Margaret?"

"Same again," said Mary Margaret, holding up her glass, and Belle chewed her lip.

"I'll have a gin and tonic," she said, and Ruby beamed and bounced out of her seat, heading for the bar.

Belle took off her coat, settling in her chair and glancing around the bar.  She didn't recognise any of the other customers by name, but she had seen a few of the faces in Granny's or in the streets.  The crowd was mostly made up of young men who were drunk and loud, and she turned back to Mary Margaret, who sucked up the last of her drink and put down her glass.

"Yeah, I know this place isn't the best," she said.  "I'm afraid it's all Storybrooke has to offer.  It was this place or Granny's, and Ruby's usually had enough of the diner by the end of a shift."

"Oh, it's fine," said Belle hastily.  "It was good of you guys to invite me.  Are we expecting anyone else?"

Mary Margaret shook her head regretfully.

"Kathryn has a date with Jim.  Oh - he's a gym teacher at the school," she added, when Belle looked confused.

"Jim the gym teacher?" she remarked, with a grin.

"I know."  Mary Margaret giggled a little.  "He's nice, though.  And she's had a thing for him for a while now.  And Ashley was gonna come, but she's sick.  I'm afraid you're stuck with me and Ruby."

"Which means you get to hang out with the best people," chirped Ruby, setting down glasses.  "Here, drink up."

Belle took her drink, taking a sip as she glanced around the club.

"So," said Ruby, leaning on the table with a grin.  "How was your first day at work?"

"Okay, actually," said Belle.  "I don't think Zelena likes me, but apart from that..."

"Oh, she doesn't like anyone," Mary Margaret assured her.  "Except Dr Gold, of course."

"Yeah, what's that about?" asked Belle, puzzled.  "She was practically drooling on him."

Mary Margaret giggled.

"I guess she interprets indifference as a come-on," she said, and shook her head, dark hair shining in the light.  "She's wasting her time, the guy never dates, as far as I've seen."

"What's his story?" asked Belle, and Mary Margaret wrinkled her nose.

"Came to town about two years ago," she said.  "He moved here from New York - flawless reputation, head of department - and threw it all away to come to Storybrooke."

"How come?" asked Belle, puzzled, and she shrugged.

"Pace of life, maybe?" she suggested.  "I guess all that responsibility gets to you after a while.  Storybrooke has to be less stressful."

"Apart from Zelena," remarked Ruby, and Mary Margaret giggled.

"She needs a change of focus," she said, stirring her drink with a straw.

"So does this conversation," said Ruby.  "Screw Zelena!  What about you, Belle?  You in the dating game?"

"Not since college," admitted Belle.  "I never seem to have much luck with guys."

"We can totally set you up!" said Ruby excitedly.  "What about Sean?"

"Ashley's still hung up on him," Mary Margaret reminded her, and Ruby pulled a face.

"Okay, who else..." she mused.

"Rubes, the pickings in this town are somewhat slim," said Mary Margaret dryly.  "I'd go as far as to say skinny."

"There's Dr Whale," suggested Ruby.  "Cute, eligible..."

"...and a total womaniser," added Mary Margaret.  "Not bad in bed, though."

"Not as good as he thinks he is," muttered Ruby, and they all giggled.

"This is seeming more and more like a lost cause," remarked Belle.

"Hey, don't lose faith!" said Ruby, and pursed her lips as she scanned the bar.

"Over there you have Killian, Arthur and Keith," she said, nodding towards a group of three dark-haired men, one of whom smirked and raised a glass.  "All good-looking assholes, if you're into that sort of thing."

Belle shuddered.  "Definitely not."

Ruby sighed in a defeated manner.

"Okay - how about Lance?" she suggested, gesturing to the bar, where a broad-chested man with kind, dark eyes was leaning close to the man next to him, gesturing as he talked.  "New in town, polite, tips well..."

"Oh, he's really nice," added Mary Margaret.

"There!" said Ruby triumphantly.

"He's also gay."

"Dammit!"

Belle giggled.

"Look, it's not as though I'm desperate," she said.  "I don't think I'm likely to find the love of my life in this bar, you know?"

"Okay, let's deal with this more scientifically," said Ruby, taking a slurp of her drink.  "What do you look for in a man?"

"Um..."  Belle pursed her lips, trying to chase the unbidden image of Dr Gold from her mind.  "Well, how he looks isn't important.  I mean, I have to find him attractive, obviously, but that usually comes after getting to know someone.  And I don't really have a type, I'm more interested in what he's like, you know?"

"Any interests?" prompted Ruby.

"Well, I do love books," she said eagerly.  "My dream is to be a librarian, actually."

"Books, huh?" said Ruby, with a grin.  "I may have just the guy."

[sprnklersplashes]

Season 7 Characters

I am a good bit of the way through season 7 now, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on the characters. Overall, there’s no character I outwardly dislike (except Gothel but I’m meant to dislike her), but I only really like two characters, Drizella and Robin. As in, these are the only two characters who engage me on an emotional level. Everyone else is just sort of..... there. I am leaving out Rumple, Regina and Zelena because I’m lazy as fuck I have made my opinions known about them already and nothing as really changed. I am also not doing Naveen/Drew or Anastasia because as much as I like them.... they barely qualify for characters.

Anyway, if that didn’t put you of, then let’s-a go!

Drizella Tremaine/Ivy Belfrey- Oh my precious, crazy Drizella, you stole my heart in episode 6 (Wake Up Call) and have kept it. I think the main reason she is so sympathetic is because she has a relatable backstory-I’m sure a good number of people in the audience can relate to the frustration of being the second favourite child and living in the shadow of an older sibling. And Adelaide plays her so amazingly, small upset, dejected looks at her mother’s indifference to her in Hyperion Heights so that you can’t help but be on her side, even when I learn she is evil I still sort of rooted for her to make her mother regret what she did. Even after she drugs Ana, her tearful “I don’t want to die” made my heart ache for her. Wrong decision, completely wrong decision, but I can so, so get where she is coming from with it. I like how her arc centered on family and making amends with her sister. And then her redemption came and sent such a compelling character to hell with “well you ended up not hurting your sister for your own gain so good for you, don’t worry about us,your victims,  just go live your life.” Oh Drizzy, I wish I could have given you the redemption you so richly deserved. I also would have liked less focus on Henry, because their relationship felt sort of random. And more exploration of her relationship with Ella.

Robin Hood-Mills/Margot- I’m so happy with how they used Robin. I find her such an interesting blend of the LWM and the Enchanted Forest, like watching her use the word “jerkwad” to a troll hunting mob in the Enchanted Forest. And I find her to be the most realistic character; her struggle with finding herself and her identity, the contrast between the “popular girl” she was in high school which just gave her a superficial happiness, and then finding her true calling as Robin Hood, doing something worthwhile, was so nice to watch. I cheered when she picked up that bow! And same in Hyperion Heights, Margot’s conflict with her mother is something very realistic, they never communicated enough. I also like her sense of humour a lot. And how she stands up for her beliefs and fights for the little guy-or girl, Alice, in her case-like a real Robin Hood. However, I don’t like how most of her main development took place in flashbacks, an issue I have with most characters. And I do find her present day character to be a bit... two dimensional. But hey, I have more episodes to go, so I could be wrong. I’d like to see more of her as a character, but from what I have seen I feel like she mainly exists as Alice’s love interest.

After this I think my reviews/analysis/whatever we’re calling this post are going to be less in-depth because Drizzy and Robin are the only two I really care for.

Rapunzel Tremaine/Victoria Belfrey- Well damn if season 7 did one thing, it was make a sympathetic villain with Victoria. I did find her a bit “knock off Evil Queen” until her backstory was revealed in 7x09. The whole theme of that episode was Punzy’s love for her family and even as a villain she is still doing everything because she loves Ana. My favourite kind of villains always have a sort of code or justification that makes them think they’re in the right. In a way, she reminds me of s1 Rumple, who kept his love for his son, but was still corrupted and evil with it. A moment for her that sticks out a lot is when Gothel has kidnapped and bound her and yet her concern is still for Ana, the first thing she does when she sees her is ask her if she is okay. That right there is some complex characterisation; she’s evil but with a tiny nugget of goodness left inside her. Now her redemption is where she falls down; she starts to realise that she should have focussed more on Drizella and less on the deceased Ana, which was good, and she saved Drizzy at the cost of her own life, but like I said before, Drizella was one out of many victims who never got any closure, most importantly Ella.

Lucy Mills- I do think Lucy is a lot like her father and that’s why I like her so much; her belief, her drive, and her sass. She isn’t really the most complex character there is, btu she’s just so loveable. She sees the best in everyone, even Tremaine (even if I sideeyed that part because come on bb). I don’t know what else to say about her; I can’t really say I love her development because imo, there is not much development to love, but who doesn’t love a funny, heart of gold munchkin running around believing in people all the time?

Tiana/Sabine-Well she’s... a good person. I like her development in becoming “her own knight in shining armour”. But like..... That’s sort of all their is to her. I do like her, she’s cute, her relationship with Naveen is adorable. She’ confident and strong but.... there isn’t a whole load of depth to her. Or maybe there is and I just forgot. I would say “I can’t believe ouat messed up the Princess and the Frog” but... it’s OUAT. She seems to fulfil the role of “supportive best friend” more than she does her own character arc.

Ella Mills/Jacinda-Okay for one thing-Dania does not deserve the hate she gets. She is a fine actress. Leave her alone demons. That said, she’s kind of like Tiana for me. Yeah she’s a good person but there’s not much depth to her. I feel like her lack of a backstory is bad for her because it makes it hard to sympathise with her. Sure we know she had a hard life but we don’t see it. I like her more in HH funnily enough, despite overall preferring the EF flashbacks. Watching her fight for Lucy is pretty cool to watch. The narrative fucks her over a lot, especially when t comes to Tremaine and how she did not once factor into her redemption arc despite being hurt severely by her.

Wish Hook/Detective Rogers- Sigh. Like Ella and Tiana, he’s a good person who deserves a happy ending, but that’s really all there is. He gets a little bit of complexity in 7x13 and 7x16 (I think), which is nice. They did skip over his redemption arc, which works for story purposes, but part of what I loved about Killian was his redemption arc. My favourite moments of his were him showing how much he had changed so WHook doesn’t fit that for me. I sort of see him as fundamentally the original character but less-less flawed, less self loathing, less redemption arc (that’s not grammatically correct but let’s move on). They also seem to have taken away the cheeky and sarcastic humour, which may make him more appealing to some people but I miss it. Objectively he’s pretty unproblematic, which I think in a way makes him boring, but undeserving of all the hate the CS fandom throws his way. He also gets manipulated and used a lot, which does make me feel sympathy for him. His scenes with Alice, young Alice in particular, are cute. And I do like that he stopped drinking. He’s a good man who deserves happiness probably more than anyone else, but kind of a watered down version of OG Killian. Don’t get me wrong, I tried really hard to love him but... I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Who knows, maybe at the end of the day, I did jsut see Killian as a prop for Emma, which is why I feel little attachment to a version that isn’t with her.

Henry Mills Swan- Henry is one of my favourite original show characters, so what drew me to this season was a grown up Henry. I am glad that despite being an adult, we still have that cute nerdy wide eyed dreamer of a kid. He does some things and I just think “that is so freaking Henry” like his fist pumping and Star Wars references and using his lunchbox as a weapon. And a lot of his child personality is still there, still an optimist who believes in people, but I feel like he’s matured a bit now. At the same time, he wants to be like the kind of heroes he read about and grew up with. He wants to give Ella a special ring like his grandparents had. I’ll admit there re bits where I don’t feel that he is Henry, but I think that’s because there is such a big jump between Gilmore!Henry and West!Henry.

Alice Jones/Tilly- I went in expecting Tilly to become my favourite, which is weird now because I am fairly neutral on her. I find it interesting the way she sometimes acts like an overgrown child because I think it is a way of showing how emotionally stunted she is, which is pretty neat. She is definitely very cute and makes an eccentric, bouncy kind of Alice, which is what I do think of when I think “Alice In Wonderland” (although my Alice knowledge is limited to the animated film and the Tim Burton one so I may not be very knowledgeable in that respect). I like her dynamic with Robin a lot. She isn’t really that well developed but she is fun to watch. I also wonder sometimes if her eccentricity and “strangeness” for a lack of better word is just her hiding how upset she is. I don’t really have anything else to say about her.

Gothel-To be honest, Gothel seems fairly one dimensional. There is very little to her. She wants to kill everyone because people killed her family. I feel like the writers have kept trying to make villains “bigger and badder” since s5 and then Gothel was just overkill. She has pretty much 0 redeeming qualities, which is cool, she’s the bad guy, but I don’t know, I think it just comes off as pretty shallow. Maybe a “she was always evil” story a la Cruella de Vil would have worked better? I will give it to them that she is very very creepy sometimes. 

Dr Facilier/Samdi-I love how on the one hand, he is so, so like his animated counterpart but with enough uniqueness to stand apart. Daniel plays him so amazingly, his movements are so fluid, he’s charming but there’s a danger to him. He is a slimy little bastard (kinda like a... frog. See what I did there?). He intrigues me but I don’t see much to him. But he does remind me of s1 Rumple with his deals and general tomfoolery. I’ll come back to this section ocne I have watched more of s7, but for now my general perception is that he is fun to watch but I don’t see much below the surface.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

1/2 I think of all the Rumbelle separations, the end of 2x11 set the tone of how A&E would go on to treat the ship as well as Rumple and Belle. Here we saw Belle defined as a character outside of Rumple, making it on her own, working things out, making friends. Rumple continues to let Belle in & beating the darkness (though Hook didn’t deserve it). And importantly, we see them grow as a couple. And then BANG it’s all undone. Belle will be forever fridged or used as a plot device against Rumple,

2/2 Rumple’s redemption & growth is continuously undone & Rumbellers must be subjected to yearly grief – in a show about Hope!

I know, Nonnie, I know. Though I don’t really resent it until the end of S3 beginning of S4.

I can understand Rumple being desperate after Neal’s death, seeing that being good doesn’t pay. I can understand Rumple feeling the need to hoard power, because everyone has proved him that if he hasn’t power nobody gives a damn about him (The way they abandoned him at the Dark Castle and flat out ignored him in the barn scene in Kansas), and that he needs power to protect the ones he loves.

What I cannot understand is the cartoonish villainy. He knows as much as Regina knew at the start of 3B that becoming evil wouldn’t amount to anything. 

In my opinion, they decided to “reboot” Rumple’s character, and in the process they dumbed down Belle. The woman that in the Dark Castle could read Rumple like a book can’t see the guilt in his behavior in Family Business. The scholar forgets that someone’s biggest weakness isn’t always the thing they love most.

I know some people say that Belle wanted to believe that everything was ok and that’s why she somehow forced herself to believe that time would heal everything. It could be that, but her speech at the town line on 4x11 makes me think of someone that tried to reach out again and again and was rejected. I wanted to be chosen. I wanted to be everything for you.

I think 4x06 was the point of no return in the way the writers decided to write Rumbelle. What would have happened if Belle, consistently with her character, had noticed that Rumple was ashamed in 4x06 and he had confessed? They could have developed Belle’s character. They could have explored her dealing with a husband consumed by grief and PSTD; dealing with the indifference of others; feeling impotent because she can’t fix things; feeling guilty of hating Zelena and being incapable of forgiving her; becoming aware of the grey areas in life. The writers could have followed that path since the end of S3 but they decided not to. 4x06 was the last chance and they said “No.” It showed that they didn’t care for Rumbelle in the least, and that that wasn’t going to change.

Thank you for the ask!

Ask me anything

[freechoicedreamer]

Body and Soul (Ch.1)

AO3

Opening theme

For the almost 1.5 million inhabitants of Maine, whose capital is Augusta, autumn continues its natural course indifferent to an equally natural autumnal course overlapping theirs in that same - albeit another - Maine, one where enchanted lands and waters, paradoxically so close yet so far away from them, constitute the United Realms, whose capital is Storybrooke. In these magic domains, isolated from theirs by an invisible barrier, autumn follows an especially ‘sweet’ summertime that brought together Wish Killian and Wish Emma to their new home, in Storybrooke. Their arrival in the town inaugurated a period of unprecedented harmony whose intensity, while vibrating in frequencies of light, peace and love, foreshadows other frequencies, warped in the shadows, synchronized with disharmony, conflicts and challenges. Although the citizens' awareness is still oblivious to these hidden plots, the subtle energies of intuition are already being activated at a collective unconscious level, as if to prepare everyone for what is coming…

*

Storybrooke, the Swan-Jones home, late at night

Silence is not an absolute quantity and does not necessarily translate into a sound scale. Silence may be the state of two souls at rest, peacefully floating and dancing in an atmosphere that is vibrating in harmony with Billie Holiday's voice echoing with her orchestra in the dimness of the room in almost silent quietude. Silence may be the calmness of two naked bodies relaxing after their fusion in a rite of love. And in silence is how Emma and Killian, lying on their bed, communicate in this autumnal night: without words, simply two lives synchronized by the beating of their hearts deeply and eternally enamored with each other.

“... You know I'm yours for just the taking Oh I tell you I mean it…”

"… I'm all for you, body and soul!"

Breaking their silence but not out of the pace, Killian sings softly and along while turning to Emma, who smiles back at him, snuggling into his arms.

"And in what distant fields was the fertile mind of yours wandering, out of this body and soul that is so all for me, may I know?" Emma asks mischievously.

“Quite impressive, Swan, you almost hit the mark”, he nods admired, “the fertile mind of mine, out of this body and soul so very much all for you, was wandering in Persephone’s gardens”, he continues, muttering enigmatically with a slight wink, “but let Zelena not hear us!”

After a pause reflecting on Killian's last words, Emma smiles with the satisfaction of who deciphered a riddle. “You mean in the garden of Hades’ wife - actually, Hades's widow”, she corrects herself before concluding, “in the Underworld, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is indeed. Persephone’s myth has been always associated with Hades’ although, obviously, by the time he disintegrated they were not together anymore,” he conjectures. Then, elaborating more for an attentive and inquiring Emma, he clarifies, “You see, Zelena may have been Hades' True Love, the one that unleashed the curse on his heart, but in the perspective of his very long – and now we know - quasi-immortal life, she was not his only love. In fact, we can't dismiss the importance of Persephone in his story - he committed a lot of insanity for her sake, even though his ‘love’ for her may be morally questionable and deeply driven by bad form.  Of course, the moral compass for gods is based on a different standard than that for mortals but… I have known Zeus, Poseidon and Hades so, in my own way, I can draw parallels and state that, knowing Hades as I did, none of his well-known behavior surprises me. Hades was inclined to abuse and cruelty. And I could add: taking Persephone’s myth as a reference, inclined to non-consenting sex, driven by an egoism that is characteristic of serious personality deviations. Even his ‘true love’ for Zelena was not able to bring out the best of him; on the contrary, it was able to accentuate his worst side. Our good Cricket, Dr. Hopper, would have had a unique opportunity in Hades to study the nature and origin of many mental illnesses. At least, I guess, in his own distorted way, he truly loved Zelena and Persephone. And that leads us back to Persephone and why I was thinking of her garden.”

After Emma's expectant nod, he goes on to explain: “Based on my knowledge of Greek mythology, she used to spend six months of the year as queen of the Underworld alternating with the other six months on Earth and Olympus. What I'm not sure about is why or when she broke this cycle of alternating permanence between worlds. I’m not even sure if she really broke it. That's because the Underworld, as we have known it, is only a tiny fraction of an infinitely larger kingdom; we only got to know a Decayed Storybrooke, Underbrooke, built by Hades to impress Zelena.”

Stopping to absently curly a lock of Emma’s blond hair spread on his arm, Killian reaches out to turn off the playlist and thus, more literally, to plunge with her into the deep silence of the night with all the chirping and chilling it brings. Hugging tight his wife as if seeking courage and warmth to continue, he then whispers: “You know, Billie Holiday's piercing voice chanting such meaningful words ignited the memories of my unique experience of stripping myself of my body and finding myself in my essence, in my soul - in other words, my experience of dying. And then, from thinking about the life-death dichotomy to strolling around Persephone's gardens only took a small leap of thought, I guess…”

There are silences that precede confessions; there are silences that anticipate the intimacy and complicity of knowing how to listen, in silence. The silence that followed Killian's words was broken, this time, by Emma. Nestling in his hug she magically covers their bodies with a blanket, closes her eyes to focus her attention on his next words, and says warmly “I’m listening…” thus giving him the comfort and the pass to continue.

Though unresponsive at first, Killian also closes his eyes, searching for the thread that will lead him to the recently interrupted thoughts. Finding them, he reopens his eyes, fixes his gaze on the ceiling as if it were a huge canvas ready to receive the vivid strokes of a painting, and re-starts:

“Persephone is closely associated with both death and rebirth because of the alternation of the autumn-winter season, while she is in the Underworld, and spring-summer when she returns to the world. As a result she has been portrayed as a liminal figure, a symbol of the inexorability of life and death. There is a poem, the one I was thinking about when you asked me where my mind was, written by an English poet, Swinburne, that explores this complementary nature of life and death. He draws a comparison between this garden in the Underworld, associated with Persephone (whom he calls Proserpine), and earthly life. He describes the Garden as a place where the world is quiet and peaceful - although in a comparison seemingly less favorable to the Garden. I mean, while Earth is colorful and productive the Garden is pale, deathly, and incapable of sustaining life.”

A new pause follows, as if he is not sure if she is still with him, thus a new propelling impulse comes from Emma: “And… so?”

“So, while the flowers in the Garden are necessarily bloom-less,” he continues, “the flowers of the Earth are periodically bloom-less during the winter, implying that life is full of little deaths, so to speak, because everything in life is temporary. Everything in nature is constantly cycling similarly to how, inevitably, Persephone alternates from death to life every year, or at least, to how she used to do. Anyway, because of this inevitability of death being a part of life, I believe that an immortal goddess such as Persephone inevitably would keep her cyclic dwelling. Even though we haven’t seen her during our stay in the Underworld, I believe we should (have seen) because by that time it was winter on Earth, maybe she was in another sector of the Underworld. You know, Swan, having been there as a soul without a body, as a bloom-less flower, sometimes makes this old ‘man wander…”

There are silences that foretell a response that is up to long and reverent silences and expresses the impulses dictated by the deepest layers of the heart, such as in Emma’s reply while stroking his chest hair, randomly combing it:

“Oh Killian, my adored dashing rapscallion pirate, I did not experience death on my skin as you did, but… as the other side of the same coin, I can imagine the impact it has had on you based on the impact it has had on me. I say this because the trauma extended to me, an active instrument for all that drama to unfold. Truth is: I went through many stages of regret, sorrow and grief, that I did, but it was your soul that endured the worst part, the torture imposed by Hades added to your own regret, sorrow and grief. It was your soul that went through the death of your body, but… you also went through the plenitude of experiencing your body's resurrection, your rebirth, which brought fullness and eternal happiness to my soul - and to my body, by the way...” She smiles, pensive, before concluding, “You see, I feel that as a result of death or of the simple passage of time, life, like a flower, or like a young skin, eventually finds its end, but we are living proof that love transcends human life and is eternal. Besides, your description of Persephone as a harbinger of death is contrasted with her association with spring and rebirth, never forget that...”

“Never, Emma, never…” he sighs and completes: “I think it is time to sleep, my love, have sweet dreams, Swan,” followed by a slow kiss on her strawberry scented hair as they both board the sleeping ship that will rock them for the rest of the night.

“Good night, Killian, while it's still night and we still can sleep at least for a little while… Soon, our solar child will come to cheer us up!” Emma remembers with a yawn before immersing herself into dreamland.

Storybrooke, the Sweet-Jones home, early in the morning

Storybrooke is waking up as slowly as the sun, whose first rays still don't compete with the glow of the streetlamps. Despite that, as the recent beginning of the school year officially marked the end of summer, in student-friendly homes the day's movement has already begun. In the streets, the first passers-by have quietly started to circulate – mainly workers who, from behind the scenes at the bakery, at Grannys' diner and at the docks’ cafeteria, will set the stages for another day's curtains to open.

Yawning, Emma inhales and exhales slowly her good morning before stating that “the days are already taking longer to dawn and the mornings are much cooler. I had almost forgotten what autumn mornings were like”. She then looks up at the grey sky through the window curtain, over their bed, feeling Killian's movement beside her as he turns his head towards the window and pulls an extra blanket over them, nestling in the warmth of her arms as he mutters “and our bed gets warmer and inviting for a morning love session, don't you think?”

“That would be great but I need to pee first,'' Emma replies with a peck on Killain's lips while uncovering and getting off the bed. The abrupt gesture of getting up quickly, however, causes Emma to lean against the headboard slowly, as if unsure of her surroundings, as if fearing to lose her balance and fall to the floor.

With a shout, “EMMA!” and a lightning jump, Killian rushes to catch her. "What is happening, love?"

"I’m dizzy," replies a completely pale Emma, "the vision darkened, then brightened, and is now red with little lilac spots flashing."

Killian helps her lie down, adjusting the pillows so that her body is slightly raised. "Just lie down a bit, love, I'll get you a glass of water and will be back in half a minute."

With her body still shaking, Emma reaches out her cold hands to take the glass of water with a trembling "thank you".

"Still dizzy?"

"No, it's gone, but I'm shaky and still needing to pee, will you help me, please?"

"Sure, lean on me... Hey Luna, good morning Missy, excuse me, you two!" he says kicking the two pets lightly.

"Not now, girls," Emma also addresses them as they follow closely while she creeps under Killian's support, "wait a bit and we'll get you some attention and your breakfast potions, okay?”

…

One hour and a shower shared with Killian later, Luna and Missy are already fed and Emma feels much better. Her morning uneasiness is just a reminder now, a topic of conversation over a frugal breakfast — just tea, juice, toast with jam and some light fruits - to keep from weighing in on her stomach. Still worried, Killian insists on persuading her to see a doctor this same day, but she doesn’t think it’s necessary, not yet.

"Killian, we have talked about this and, hypothetically, considered the possibility... Since our encounter at Hearty Island, we have been making love on a daily basis completely and utterly unprotected and without attention to my fertile periods." Taking another sip of her juice and already teary-eyed, Emma continues with a voice choked with emotion, "It has been amazing but we have always been aware of the risks. So, my period is long overdue, though my cycle used to be punctually lunar. Adding to that: the need to urinate more often, my aching breasts and this morning dizziness, and... "she can't even finish the sentence, cutting it with a loud sob and bending down her head.

Taking her hands to hold them tenderly and lifting her chin to look into her eyes, Killian whispers, "Emma, Sweet, listen to me. If what we suspect is true… this means that our life will be complete with a new life, the product of our love. This little miracle of creation is a divine blessing that you and I will embrace with gratitude and love. I know it is scary, believe me, I am scared too, but we are in this together. If you trust your intuition and what your body is telling you through so many signs, who am I to not trust you too. It’s just…It is one thing to guess around hypotheses; it is another to look reality in the face. As incredible and wonderful as it may be, it is natural that the magnitude of this huge reality takes us by surprise. It’s just telling us that it is happening!!” At that, as if realizing for the first time the dimension of the facts, he also begins to cry, almost sobbing too, “it’s happening, Emma… you see, for me, despite the deep love I feel for Alice, despite the wonderful parenting experience she brings me, experiencing pregnancy with you, my love, is an infinite grace that I cannot describe with words. It’s unbelievable yet true, our little bean or… would be beans…?” he tilts his head and raises an eyebrow, looking at her belly pensive, before concluding “…the bean - or the beans, is/are already here, with us!" A smiling Killian then gets up from his chair, kneels before Emma in reverence, caresses her belly with adoration and lays his head on her lap, holding her legs and crying silently while her fingers absently comb his hair and tears run serenely down her face. They stay in this position for a few more minutes until they get up and head for the sofa in the living room, which welcomes them like a mother's warm lap. Cautiously, Luna and Missy approach and join them, snuggling into their favorite pillows.

…

“Thank you, Killian Rogers Jones, for being an active part in making, with me, this dream come true.” Emma confides, after having processed the news for a little while. “You know, even with my biological clock still in full swing, it is a gods’ blessing to revisit motherhood now, 39 years old, and to enjoy the privilege of having you as a partner in such unique adventure. I was so young, so naive and inexperienced when Henry was born. Everything was so... different from now. You know, I feel like I’m living another life, as if my soul has reincarnated in my own body bringing with me another worldview while keeping the memories of my past life. From them, I keep a wonderful son, who is now a young adult discovering romantic love with his Violet, many good friends from a transformed realm, and the longing of those who have gone to the afterlife. And in the present life, after having found my true love, a new home, a daughter, two daughters in law, a new family, new friends, two pets… receiving now the grace of a new baby overflows my heart with happiness. And I concede, you're right; I'll soon consult with a doctor to unravel the mystery you have just planted in my brain with this creative and imaginative mind of yours, this 'hypothesis' of twins!” She reckons mischievously.

“Right, right,” Killian gets up, feeling like entering a new configuration of time and space, and helps her up, hugging her tightly and protectively, as if instinctively he needed to make sure that she and the baby were safe from any threat. "I would suggest to keep the news only between us until we go see a doctor but… since I don't know too much regarding Storybrooke's healthcare system, it might be good to share the news with Emma Swan or Snow, I'm sure one of them, or both, will lead you in the best direction to be taken. I remember hearing someone commenting about the Minister of Health, Dr. Victor Whale, a general practitioner, like the doctor who everybody used to call in any emergency. Ah! Killian once mentioned something about his origins, a sort of Dr. Frankenstein tale, but it seems that said Doctor has modernized himself and is, in fact, very competent and reliable. Anyway, we’ll find out."

“We may find out sooner than you thought”, Emma ponders. "That’s because I was planning to go grocery shopping this morning and, after that, having lunch at Grannys'. That could be an opportunity to invite Emma, or maybe even the Swan-Joneses, thus including the whole pack, to lunch there with us. I see no problem in sharing the news with them all, so you and Killian – and Hope, could be there too.” With the sound of what she just said, she adds, “It is still weird when we refer to them with our names, and that is practically inevitable, since their names are our names too. Perhaps, in addition to meeting them and their sweet little child we both adore so much,“ she pauses to dream of the adorable girl for a bit, “we could practice with the names she taught us: her mom is Emma, I'm (aunt) Emm, her dad is Killian and you're (uncle) Key! What do you think? I’m thinking about starting to call you Key, it kind of suits you, you know…”

“Actually, I don’t know… but it doesn’t matter. You see, I used to be called Hook, then Rogers, now Key… What I mean is whatever name we use for calling ourselves won’t change who we are. So, we can do that, no problem, why not? But, when we are alone, I’m Killian and you are Emma, okay? Other than that, thinking on practicalities, you are right, my dear Emm!” Killian agrees with a wink.

Awakening at the same time from their nap, Luna and Missy get up from their pillows and utter happy meows and barks of approval.

Storybrooke, Grannies', lunch time

From the head of the table, with Mommy and Daddy on her right, and Uncle Key and Aunt Emm on the left, a very talkative Hope brightens the scene and reigns over the conversation.  "Mommy, please, tomorrow's lunch has to be at Aunt Emm’s, cause Luna and Missy cannot be alone…” she tells Emma and then, turning to Emm, she asks: “you promise they're alright, Aunt Emm?”

“I promise, honey,” Emm answers reassuringly. “This morning Uncle Key and I took them for a little walk before he went to work – with your dad - and I went to the grocery store. They ran a lot during our walk and I think they got tired. When we got back home they had lunch and needed to rest - they love to take a nap because they weren't used to a colder weather. You know, before, on the island where we lived, the weather was always warm during the day and only at night, sometimes, a little cold..."

"I know! I remember the island!" Hope exclaims waving her little hands excitedly. "I went flying over there a lot, and I knew that Uncle Key was bringing you home!" The four adults don’t say any questioning word but exchange significant glimpses, multiple raised eyebrows and slight smiles at the girl’s words, reacting as naturally as they must to her unexpected tirade.

“About that…”, Key clears his throat and scratches behind his ear before resuming the conversation, "about bringing new beings to live among us," he smiles reluctantly, glancing over at Emma, Killian and Emm and, even more timidly over Hope, "Emm and I would like to share some good news with you..." he pauses to look at them, reticent.

“Wait a minute,” Killian cuts him, “Does this mean what I think it means? Guys, that’s great news, congratulations you two!!” Killian exclaims stretching over the table to pat Key on the back, “welcome back aboard the baby parenting club, mate!!”

“I’m so happy for you two!!” Emma also reaches out to hold Emm’s hands, both women nearly crying, “These are great news on so many levels, you know? Each new life is a new promise of more life cycles to come. I'm sure you'll be immensely happy with the arrival of your baby... Hey, that means…” she thinks for a bit and then adds, “I think it'll be around spring of next year, isn’t it? Do you know the due date?"

“Thanks for your support, Emma, it means the world to us,” Emm responds, “and no, we don’t know the due date. Actually, we don’t know for sure about the pregnancy, I mean, technically sure, because we haven’t seen a doctor yet neither used any domestic test. But the evidence is too strong for us to deny it. You see, despite our intense activity we never used any kind of prevention or protection and there have been so many reliable pregnancy signals lately, all of them practically pointing towards a ‘positive’ result that they left us with no doubt. I mean, morning dizziness, check; extra sensitive breast, check; my highly emotional mood – much more than usual, Key has been really patient with me, check; and my late period when the usual is a punctual lunar cycle… check!”

“Don’t I know that? Perfectly lunar cycles, a patient Killian… check!” Emma winks reassuringly, with the complicity that only non-wish and wish people could understand, and then proceeds, “look, it will be a pleasure to help you with these formalities and technicalities on your first steps into pregnancy in a modern world. You could make an appointment with the same doctor who accompanied me, Dr. Maturin, he was great with us: really competent and considerate, a nice person. Like almost all of us here, Dr. Stephen Maturin is known outside our realms as a book (and movie) character - in his case, from a series of nautical tales. Anyway, it was his navy-related origin – and that the books got right - that caught our attention. Killian and I really like him. About him, I know that he came from the Land of Untold Stories and has since worked with other surgeons at Storybrooke Hospital – one of them we know and is also a very good option for you, Dr. Victor Whale, although he has been busier now because he accumulates the duties of Minister of Health. Anyway, there are more names, but I think these are two good ones for you to choose.”

“MOOOMMYYY!!! DAAADDYYY!!!” Hope cuts them shouting at the top of her voice, drawing everyone's immediate attention to her. In a flash, Emma reaches out to pat the girl’s hair while asking softly “what is it, Sweetheart?”

“We need to protect everyone: you, daddy, me, Uncle'Key, Aunt'Em, ba-baby, baby, everyone, everywhere, pleaaasssse!!!” she screams, scared, between sobs.

The four get up immediately and stand around the girl. Emma, already with her daughter on her lap, whispers comforting words in her ears, walking out of the diner and motioning for the others to follow her. “It’s okay, honey, everything's alright, nothing happened, you see? Everyone's here, we’re alright, don’t worry sweet baby… it’s okay… schhh… schhh… it’s okay…”

“What happened? We heard a commotion…” ask the diner owners, Granny and W.Granny, coming from the kitchen.

“The Swan-Jones girl”, says a customer, “she looked like she had a scary vision, a premonition, maybe. They went outside with her, I think the situation is already more under control and the little girl seems calmer,“ he says, looking out through the window.

…

Embracing her father's neck, the girl still sobs but is calmer. They are all sitting at the diner garden tables, waiting a bit to get inside and pay for the lunch. Hope refused to elaborate on what she has seen rather than explaining that she doesn’t understand what it was but she didn’t like it - and no one insisted on her. She seems relaxed, more confident. Turning her head to Uncle Key and Aunt Emm, she tries to comfort them, "The babies will be alright, okay? We will protect them, no problem, I promise."

"Ba-babies?" Emm mutters under her breath.

"Babies," Hope nods with a playful smile.

Shaking his head and hugging Emm, Key smiles, muttering "I was kidding this morning but who would know…maybe there'll be indeed an ‘I told you so’ here! We need to see a doctor, love, more than ever now. Let’s make an appointment with this… Dr. Stephen Maturin, what do you think?"

“I agree, let’s do it.”

“Very well then, I’ll send you his contact,” Emma says, already picking up her cell phone to send the contact. "Emm, have you gotten used to everyday technology?"

"Easier than I thought, I think spending six years watching all of you from a distance was an excellent training about this kind of routine, it prepared me well..." Sensing her phone vibration, Emm picks it up and confirms, "I've got it, I'll just wait another half hour because of lunchtime, and then I'll call this number to make an appointment. Thank you, my dear my sister in every way possible."

The embrace that follows between the 'sisters' is intense, as deep as the bond that connects them. Witnessing the scene, the other 'twins' exchange silent glances as Hope slowly begins to relax in her father's lap foreshadowing a nap. Due to the incident, Key suggests they go to the loft, which is much closer to Granny's, so Hope can play with Luna and Missy when waking up. Besides, it's also closer for him and Killian to go to the police station in the sequence. "Go ahead,” he says, “I'll just go inside to pay for lunch, I’ll catch you in a minute.” Noticing Killian’s gesture, he adds: “and don't even think about sharing the bill, Killian, you were our guests today."

“Thank you, mate," Killian sighs deeply, letting the women move forward to exchange a few words with his brother. “I'm still stunned by what happened inside. This afternoon we need to contact David. Since becoming the Minister of Defense he has traveled a lot, I hope he'll pick up his phone. We know that today he and Snow are in Camelot, as well as Regina, for the closing ceremony of the Summer School held there. Perhaps he is aware of any recent anomalies, anything unusual in other realms..."

"Aye, I thought the same; you have no idea how worried I am. Even here in the capital, there may have been some incident that has not yet been reported. Anyway, this afternoon we'll see.” Also sighing, Key remembers, “Emm and I finally got together, breaking the last barrier that still separated us, thanks to your daughter’s intuition guiding you three into a magic aid; we are living proof that Hope’s visions are to be taken very seriously. But you know that more than I do, of course. Anyway, let's go onwards, this story is just beginning, I'm afraid. "

Enchanted Lakes, Camelot, in the afternoon

Snow, Guinevere, Gideon, Jasmine, Aurora, Tiana, Ella (Ashley), Cindy (Henry's wife), Ariel, Abigail (Kathryn), Merida and Elsa gather in the round table room to celebrate and evaluate the First United Realms Summer School, promoted and coordinated by the Education Minister, Snow White. In parallel, in an enclosed office, David, Lancelot, and Regina also gather in an emergency meeting to address the notifications David has been receiving in the last few hours from some realms.

Clearing her throat and with an affectionate look directed at those present, Snow starts her speech. “Over the course of two weeks, nearly 500 students from all realms, aged 5 to 17 and housed in three different sectors of the Merlin Tower Lodge, participated of 4 Light Magic workshops, 2 Astronomy & Astrology workshops, and 2 Mythology & Literature workshops conducted by experienced teachers, writers, wizards, fairies and scientists from all realms. Each workshop was offered in 3 versions, adapted for school-level children, pre-teens and teens, which required special logistics and a large number of monitors and assistants. The courses gave them a broad overview of the many cultures, costumes and approaches practiced everywhere. In addition to these knowledge-integrating activities, they also participated in social-integrating activities, culminating in the First Lake-Nostos Festival, with music, dance, painting, theater, sports and cuisine from various regions. I consider this event to have been an enormous success and I am immensely grateful to all of you who have committed yourselves to the organization of the School and have ensured its success. I know that many people from your realms in special  your partners, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and your in-laws, who could not be here today, supported the hard work of coordinating the logistics of the event, ensuring the comfort and safety of all. I therefore ask you to convey to them my deep gratitude. I hope this was the first summer school in a series of many summer schools to come. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, my dear friends."

…

“So… in short, David, you're saying that from four different locations came reports stating that almost at the same time - around noon today, frightened seer children, frightening everyone in the process, predicted a scary threat hanging over our heads. They do not know exactly what they saw but did not like it at all.”

"Exactly, and one of these children is my granddaughter. Regina, we know Hope - and someone could say ‘just a 2-year-old girl’, but we also know that she has the lucidity and premonitory precision of an elder visionary. She was specific about the need to protect everyone. She practically said that everyone is in danger."

After a pause when the three remained pensive, David continues. “As far as I can see, trying to map a network of widespread evil in the United Realms today, it's possible to spot only one outbreak of a more intense evil radiation – I’m not referring to villainy usually associated with different degrees of sociopathy, which is sadly present everywhere, but to that combined with dark magic. Although they have been permanently monitored and, apparently, have had no suspicious behavior, we know that Wish Pan and Wish Cruella have teamed up and are living in the castle that once belonged to Wish Rumpelstiltskin. Therefore, obviously, from the meeting of those two we can expect nothing good. Besides them, according to Aladdin and Eric, Jafar has been kept paralyzed – and safely hidden; that means that he has been neutralized. Furthermore, fortunately there is no Dark One threatening us anymore. Finally, it seems - I think it's good to confirm with the Minister of Science and Technology, Captain Nemo - in the Enchanted Sea there is no dangerous villain we have heard of...”

“David, Regina,” a worried Lancelot intervenes, “I was thinking… before the reports of these events arrived, you were just telling me the good news about the Dragon moving to the United Realms and taking a prominent position in the newly created Ministry of Communication at the same hierarchical level alongside Maleficent and Lily. Then the reports began to arrive so quickly that I didn't even have time to comment with you that I really liked this news because I know the Dragon; he traveled to Camelot earlier this year to visit Merlin’s Museum and commented about his magic having now fully incorporated the technology from the Land without Magic. This means that he can develop and produce media devices that combine Magic and Technology with unprecedented performance. Now, more than ever, he could come in handy. You see, news of the seer children premonitions can run fast, escalate and spread panic in the population, it is important that you, Regina, as Queen of all realms, be prepared to quickly address, in a broadcasting, a reassuring message so that everyone will stay calm.”

“Yeah… you are right, I’ll contact the Dragon right way and ask for his help on this task. Even Sydney could help on that, now that he has managed to forgive me and is able to get in and out with freedom from the Mirror World. In the meantime, we gain time to pursue the more investigative and preventive work, especially on tracking the latest activities of Wish Pan and Wish Cruella - could you make sure of that, David? Other than that, I think it's time to interrupt the round table meeting and share the bad news with them. I hate to do that. I was looking forward to be there celebrating with them, appraising and applauding them for the huge success of the Summer School; it’s really frustrating to cut their celebration this way…”

“But you must to that,” Lancelot advises reassuringly and, trying to lighten up her mood a little, he adds, “look at the bright side: you’ll have in front of you a unique opportunity to gain time in gathering many heads of state, most of them are already here, with the important addition of Gideon. He is a powerful wizard with an enormous knowledge on the legacy of his father. I know that Wish Rumple was not his father, but he might be a great advisor on smart strategies for us to approach Wish Rumpelstiltskin’s castle.”

“You know, Lance,” David remarks, “you just reminded me of another possible source of evilness, one that I hadn’t considered yet because of its low likability but who could tell…. Actually, it might be a huge one and I'd have absolutely no idea on how to deal with it if my suspicion turned out to be true: the Underworld. Would that be possible? And how would we know the answer to that? How could we try and find out? Contact Arthur’s soul, maybe? I have no clue…”

“Questions… questions....” Regina mumbles in between teeth as she walks self-assertive to the door that separates the adjoining office from the round table hall, opening it and transposing it after a break to breathe deeply: "Ladies and Gentlemen please excuse me..."

Elysium, sunset in the timeless eternity

“This landscape reminds me a lot the landscapes of the Edge of Realms: a beautiful painting with vibrant colors foreshadowing, then, the everlasting that we would meet in the afterlife…” Belle turns to Rumple and smiles.

"Similar but with some fundamental differences, Belle," Rumple returns the smile and walks along the axis of the plateau, extending his arms over the abyss. ”We can establish two levels of difference. First, let's look at your case: a mortal woman whose body could not stand alive if she jumped from a height like this. But for your soul? Nothing would change, your soul was already vibrating in the frequency of Light, Peace and Love, regardless of whether being in a physical body or not. Intimately, you were already living in your private Paradise. However, despite all happiness we found there, deep down, your kind, compassionate, heart was also suffering. You suffered because of a man whose soul was trapped in the artificial immortality of his body and the only way for him to want to be mortal, again, was to live the experience of witnessing your death, of losing you. So, let's think about my case. The Dark One immortality prevented my body from dying, but my soul, for centuries, was nearly dead already, erased, enslaved by an ego clinging to material power, to power over other people exercised through fear – which was imposed by dark magic. Fundamentally, the difference between the false immortality, which imprisoned me, and the eternal life I experience now, beside you, Belle, is what I call Inner Peace. The period we lived at the Edge of Realms, in that landscape looking so much like this one, represented for me the closest to the feeling of inner Peace in many years, perhaps in all my long life on earth. So, having tasted that sample of real, true, happiness was enough to give me the strength to fight for our love, for us, for our everlasting.”

“I know, my love,” Belle replies, “whenever I thought of you, your image was reflected by the calm waters of the lake in front of our house and on the banks of which many of our friends live. I could, then, watch you from here and I know how hard and challenging your path was - but I never lost my faith in you… and after everything you went through, I’m so proud of you, Rumple. Now, in the eternal now, from the perspective of a timeless realm, our past struggles are just that, an abstract past, a distant memory still pulsating in our ethereal hearts; they became just another painting on display in an art gallery.” Belle smiles as she walks, arm in arm with her forever husband, during an apparently late afternoon. “Our lives have become beautiful canvas, a beautiful sunset: eternized by a divine artist in a painting that does not correspond to the end of the day and beginning of a night. However, for those in the Wheel of Time, in the duality, the cycles are still happening. Now I’ve finally realized that all that dichotomy like day-night, chiaroscuro, good-evil, all that bipolarity… they were essential for the learning by comparison, which is the only way to learn discernment  between right and wrong. And, most importantly, without falling into any ego’s trap, without escaping through loopholes like the ones you've always been so good at identifying...”

"Sometimes I wouldn't mind being able to identify any of those loopholes just to be able to visit Gideon, or Alice, the daughter my heart adopted, or some friends. I miss them, Belle, and I know you do too..."

Still walking, they talk about their life on the resting place known as Elysian Fields. Belle remembers reading about them – and she realizes that the books got a lot right, but not everything. As described by the books, there are two distinguished Elysian realms: the islands of the Blessed and the Lethean Fields. They live in the first, also known as the White Islands, an afterlife realm reserved for heroes and virtuous people. They are not trapped there, though. In fact, as they are allowed to travel to the second resting place by crossing the river Oceanus, they have been there once, travelling in Captain’s Liam ship in the company of a group of souls who, in other circumstances, would never agree to fraternize in a journey together. However, having gained the right to access Elysium through heroic acts, they have freed themselves from old enmities that would have prevented them from gathering in a ship. Among them, the closest ones are Belle’s mother(s) (Collete and Wish Collete), Merida’s father (Fergus), Wish Gepetto, Dorothy’s aunt (Em), Baelfire with his brother (Wish Baelfire) and their mother (Milah), Liam’s mother (Alice), Wish Snow, Wish David with his mother(s) (Ruth and Wish Ruth), Merlin with Jack, his Apprentice, Midas with his wife (in both versions, wish and non-wish), Marian (Robin Hood's first wife), and Ingrid with her sisters and brother in law. The second Elysian area is also an underworld realm with pleasant fields: an afterlife to initiates of the Mysteries. The gods of the Mysteries associated with the passage to Elysium are chaired by Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld.

“These Mysteries really intrigue me. I know that they are called Mysteries for a reason”, Rumple gushes, “and once a Mystery they are not supposed to be decoded, I know that, but I would love to understand them on a deeper level, beyond that of an initiate. You see, during our trip to the Lethean Fields, Merlin and I talked quite a lot about these Mysteries and for him, too, there are still many riddles to decipher. The concept of a heroic act or the code of morals and ethics governing the gods’ judgments, what would they be? Certainly one of the biggest mysteries concerns the afterlife sector in which we find ourselves, also known as White Islands. In one thing Merlin and I agreed one hundred percent: to us, supposedly characters of tales and mythological legends, the codes of morals and ethics differ from those that govern the conduct of mortals at the Land without Magic. Otherwise, there would be none of us left in the Elysium!!" Rumple and Belle laugh, imagining how they would all be forbidden to cross the Gate to Paradise.

“By the way,” he recalls, “besides Eva and Leopold, I mean, (W.) Snow’s parents, whom we met during our travel to the Lethean Fields, I’ve heard that Cora and Henry Sr., as well as Robert - David’s father, and the two Hunters - Graham and Wish Graham, are also living there,” Rumple comments, “ah! and Liam and Killian’s father, Brennan Jones, with his second wife, actually, according to Merlin, with both of them to be more precise, in other words, his Wish and Non-Wish second wives. Can you imagine that? A real paradise whose permanence can only be guaranteed by the waters of oblivion provided by Lethe river!” both chuckle at Rumple’s keen sense of humor although, jokes aside, feelings like jealousy are no longer part of their existence neither of the Lethean Fields' souls.

“I see what you mean, Rumple, and that intrigues me too. I don’t get how the gods of the Mysteries judge and decide about who has been hero enough to come here or to go the Lethean Fields. We do know that those fields are crossed by the gentle river Lethe, whose name means oblivion, and we also know, because we talked to many souls we visited there that, probably because of the effect of their river waters, have totally forgotten former events of their past lives. Although we have eternity to find out the criteria, the Mysteries seem to be endless, it seems that they amount to infinity and the more we know and decipher them the more we need to know. I really would love to find a book with a more detailed explanation about the afterlife; I should go the Elysium’s Library more times, I guess, I have so many doubts... For instance, I’m not sure exactly how reincarnation works in the Underworld...” Belle wonders.

“Why, Belle, thinking about going back?”

“No, it’s not that, although I miss our son quite a lot. I asked out of curiosity, I mean, once a bookworm, eternally a bookworm…” she claims and continues, “It’s just that... I was thinking about those souls in eternal suffering, those who do not want to evolve, to find the Light. Or even, those souls who may desire not to have existed at all, or for humanity not to have existed at all - so why would they desire eternal life instead of eternal oblivion? ”

“You’re talking about the souls who go Tartarus after being in Underworld sectors like the one ruled by Arthur, isn’t it? Well, I’m not sure about them; I guess their punishment may be associated with an eternal loneliness subordinated to the duality evil versus good. They become slaves of not being ever sure of what they really want other than to hate and blame all the rest of humanity for their own fate and their own faults. Considering the evolutionary cycles, though, they should be allowed to evolve through reincarnation cycles. Perhaps, as you said, they are locked to the idea that they don’t want to evolve, or to exist as just a soul without a body. Perhaps they are slaves of the idea of never ceasing to exist in the physical world even if the price is to become a dark soul. I know from experience, Belle, darkness doesn’t accept the body’s – neither the ego’s - mortality.”

After a silence, Rumples concludes, “about reincarnation for souls from our realm, I know that it is possible, usually to accomplish a special mission or, perhaps, to ascend to more subtle levels of energy and bodies. Anyway, apparently the two Elysian realms are sometimes tiered - a soul which reincarnates and has won passage three times to the Lethean Fields will, with the fourth death, be transferred to the Islands of the Blessed for all eternity.”

“I see… the four reincarnations could, if fulfilled correctly, be the equivalent to heroic acts like the ones that gave us a pass to the Islands of the Blessed. I wonder about how could we be given a pass to the Olympus, I mean for a visit… what should we do to deserve that? I guess we should be allowed to visit the Olympus. Can you imagine having a personal conversation with the gods in their own temples or palaces, how great that would be?” Belle continues dreamily, “I would have so many questions…”

“As far as I know, Belle, normally only gods can be there. Except for Meg, who is Hercules’s partner, I’m afraid I have never heard of other souls of mortals living or staying in the Olympus. But I agree, we should be allowed to visit them sometimes, they go down to earth, to visit the mortals whenever they want…“

“But they are gods, Rumple, they can do everything whenever they want!!”

“I know, but we could try and find out more about them. If the gods can visit the mortals, the other way around should be valid too… If we think and look at it more closely, even eternity may take us by surprise. You see, we tend to think of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the other siblings as being the ultimate powers but I know, and you know as well, that these Olympian gods weren’t the first—or even the second—group of immortals who had a hand in shaping the world. Remember the books?”

“Yeah… I see where you are going with this line of thought: Rumpelstiltskin, the loopholes’ hunter” Belle winks at him.

“That may be... Anyway, if you remember what you read, first there was…?”

“Chaos!!” Belle exclaims, excitedly.

“Exactly, from which came the Earth (Gaia) and love (Eros),” Rumple continues, “then, occasionally, Tartarus, the Underworld, was created from Chaos. Want to continue?”

“Right…” she sighs and takes on the narrative, “You know, these are ancient stories, there are contradictory narratives and some of them are twisted versions of others - just one more reason to visit them, to know the truth from the real source… One of the books I read said that Gaia gave birth to the Sky, to the Sea, and the Mountains and married one of her sons, Uranus (the Sky), giving birth to Cronus, a Titan. Cronus, in turn, took his sister Rhea as his wife and only then, from their union, came the original Olympian Immortals Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Hades and Zeus, the youngest. Eventually, they surpassed Cronus in power... What a tale, no wonder their moral code cannot apply to the mortals’ world.”

“And they called me a Villain!!” Rumple giggles. “Loopholes apart, what should we do if we needed to talk to them, to ask them a favor, such as to intervene on earth in exceptional occasions? Belle, I think we should visit the Wish Charmings and talk to them, I know that they have been able to contact their daughter while she was trapped in the Heart Shaped Island…”

“Let’s do that then, Rumple, let’s wish to be in their house.” At that, hand in hand, both disappear and reappear in front of Wish Charming’s farmhouse.

Nautilus, evening under the Enchanted Sea

Sitting at the pipe organ, Nemo plays the chords that accompany Ursula's enchanting voice. The calming sound waves, undulating in harmony with the finally placated ocean, do not reveal the turbulence that has been overcome a few hours ago. The crew of 3 Joneses, 2 lieutenants  and their Captain relax at the sound along with Wish Ariel, who arrived with her aunt soon after the greatest perils had passed.

Eyes closed, souls pacified after the storm, they open them occasionally to look around as if certifying about their safety and to sip the special vintage wine served by Nemo. Then they close their eyes again, internalizing the feeling of being alive and having survived the suddenly raging sea.

"Beautiful," Brennan mutters after the last chords echo in the air, "sublime balm.... Nothing better than the softness of your voice, Ursula, to placate this old soul of mine and make me forget this afternoon's fright, what the hell was that?"

"Nor do I know, Brennan," Ursula replies, "a few times I saw the sea creatures so agitated; it was as if some kind of dark magic controlled them. I felt the effect too, all the nymphs and mermaids as well, but our nature allowed us to resist it. Nevertheless, neither my brother nor I could counteract the dark magic; a direct intervention from our father was the only way to placate the creatures. I talked a little with him, after the incident, then I came straight to the Nautilus to see how you were doing, but the little he said was that it didn't seem a magic coming just from this world. According to Poseidon, the source of the turmoil seemed to be a combination of dark magic coming from multiple realms, perhaps from the Upperworld and Underworld, now that I’m thinking about.... Perhaps a visit to cousin Persephone would be in handy; maybe she'll be able to clarify, or at least to have an idea about what happened. Anyway, the anomaly served to wake us up and keep us more alert. "

"Indeed," Nemo agrees, "since the epic adventure of Wish Realm's Killian and Emma, a complete harmony reigned so intensely in the Enchanted Sea that we forgot that, quietly, in the shadows, evil is always plotting. Liam Senior, we need to get in touch with Queen Regina to find out if there were any occurrences inland, could you help me with that? And if you can't find the Good Queen, try talking to one of the other 'triplets', Wish Regina and Split Regina. I remember seeing Queen Regina explaining to you the means to contact them, am I right?"

“In part.” Senior explains. ”She only gave me her Wish sister’s phone number; it seems that she doesn’t live far away from the seashore near Storybrooke. As for Split Regina, I’m afraid I don’t know how to contact her, but I think that it won’t be necessary. I mean, I hope so…”

"For beards and mustaches of the Sacred Shrimp!" Wish Ariel exclaims, "These form of treatment we use, including ‘Wishes’ and ‘non-Wishes’ sound so weird but, ‘Split Regina’? What even is this? That is another level of weird! Wouldn’t there be a smarter way for us to recognize ourselves and call each other? Nemo, as the Science & Technology Wizard you could find a more sophisticated solution to this identification problem..."

"Minister," Liam Jr. corrects her in a flirtatious way, "Minister of Science and Technology..."

"Whatever you say, Liam..." W. Ariel replies even more flirtatiously. “But...the problem remains,” she winks at him.

“I don't see much alternative, Wish Ariel,” Nemo replies. “You see, I could develop badges/electronic displays for people to use, but the difficulty of addressing them wouldn't be resolved like that. Imagine the 3 Reginas in the same room: they are physically identical. Last time I met them, I suggested a numbering system, they wondered a bit and asked for a time to think about but still haven't given me their answer. In this system, Queen Regina would be Regina 1, Wish Regina, Regina 2 and Split Regina, Regina 3. I really believe that the simplest method is numbering but it’s up to them to choose. Particularly, here at Nautilus we have our system well equated, but our case is atypical: Liam Jr is 34 years old and Liam Senior, for choosing not to submit to the rejuvenating magic, kept his 53 years, then he is physically distinguishable from his brother. As for Brennan, his non-wish counterpart is not alive, so in this world, he is the only Brennan Jones. As for you, Ariel, and your sister, also Ariel, it's best to use the good old ‘Double U’, or even the word ‘Wish’, as a prefix, a treatment pronoun - a title! We could call you Princess Ariel, but chose Wish Ariel, instead. What do you think?”

“I think that's okay for when the two ‘versions’ are in the same room, or when we want to refer to one of us, I agree that the treatment pronoun is necessary to differentiate the two. But, if my twin is not nearby, I think that the best treatment would be just ‘Ariel’. What do YOU think?”

“I think that your suggestion is perfectly reasonable, let’s make it a deal,” Nemo replies raising his glass and everyone agrees cheering up.

“Now, back to the bigger problems,” Brennan reminds them, I propose we retreat now, after such an intense day, to rest a bit and renovate our energies. Then tomorrow, if the Captain agrees, I would like to go to Storybrooke, to learn of the events inland, if there was any, and meet my sons. I'm really worried about my Killians and their families..."

"Wise advice, old'friend, we should go there all together," Nemo agrees, and addressing Ursula and Ariel, he invites them to stay on the Nautilus and go with them to the capital.

"Thanks for the hospitality, Nemo, after today I really need a change for a while and I guess Ariel needs that too, so we accept your kind invitation."

"Captain," Liam Senior approaches them; “could you please help in accommodating our guests on their cabin? Meanwhile I will try to contact one of the Reginas and find out how things are going on solid ground..."

“Well, then…” Nemo nods and signs to Lieutenants Harris and Martin, who were heading to their quarters, to open the way to Ariel and Liam Jr. They are followed by Brennan and Ursula, who takes Nemo's arm singing melodiously as they float on the seabed...

"Now it's time to say good night Good night sleep tight Now the sun turns out his light Good night sleep tight Dream sweet dreams for you Dream sweet dreams for me. Close your eyes and I'll close mine Good night sleep tight Now the moon begins to shine Good night sleep tight Dream sweet dreams for you Dream sweet dreams for me. Close your eyes and I'll close mine Good night sleep tight Now the moon begins to shine Good night sleep tight Dream sweet dreams for you Dream sweet dreams for me.

Humm... Humm... Good-night... Good-night babe..."  

*

[lizacstuff]

Anons 7x06

Lots of anons in my inbox, a few under the cut. The tone of most asks is not complimentary towards the season or episode, you have been warned. 

Anonymous said:Seems like there must not be a lot of Regina fans out there, despite the ER making a lot of noise. Demos held steady. 

I wouldn’t count those numbers before they’re hatched.  Sound like the show was preempted in certain markets (Boston, a huge DMA, for one) so the numbers should be adjusted for that when the nationals come out on Monday. Right now OUAT is getting credit for whatever replacement programming the affiliate put in it’s place. 

Anonymous said:I'm seeing that for some areas the episode got pushed back till early Saturday morning. Do they take into account when figuring out the ratings? I'm already seeing ERs complaining about it and saying if the ratings are bad that's the only reason why. 😒

See above. The overnights (today's ratings) include viewership for whatever aired in OUAT’s place.  Monday they should adjust to reflect more accurately how many people watched the actual episode. They are right, though, in it negatively impacting the live numbers. However, it shouldn't really impact the L+3 or L+7 numbers. 

Anonymous said:Is it bad that I laughed outloud when I saw that Regina gave everything Ivy she needed to cast her curse? Just like the time Regina pushed Lily too far and she turned into a dragon and endanger the town? Or the time she told Zelena to go after Hades and change him and refused to listen to anyone's concerns and everyone almost ended up trapped in Hell? I'm surprised the writer's still don't see the pattern like fans do.

Even without malicious intentions, she’s a disaster who ruins everyone’s lives. It’s bizarre that the writers continually follow the pattern, but never have Regina question her own judgement when she’s doing it. Whatever else happens, Regina makes emotional, unilateral decisions that usually end up biting other people in the ass. 

Anonymous said:Why would Regina stop henry for having a tlk with jacinda to break the curse? they don't have chemistry but they have been written as tl, at least make them kiss to destroy this stupid season one for all

Because Ivy did something, that Regina remembers, that will put the people that Regina “loves” in jeopardy if the curse is broken.  We don’t know who is in jeopardy or how. 

Anonymous said:So the reboot it's all Regina's fault? Why am I not surprised? Having Henry all for her and without snowing and captain swan, obviously a villain like her was behind this

Regina isn’t being purposefully villainous, but her stupid choices have landed them in this position.

Anonymous said:So regina thought she never adopted a child and its now forced to live with him not knowing her and can't break the curse?? Also her soulmate still dead and she is away from sb and her "family"&"friends"? Hahahahahaha karma is a beautiful thing!!! So she is alone and miserable and childless? Jefferson, snowing of the early seasons and the whole ef1 is laughing and partying

I suppose she is getting a little bit of karmic retribution, but I wouldn’t consider her knowing Henry is her adult son, and still being close to him even though he doesn't know, as quite the same thing as orphaning Emma and Snowing missing out on raising her or knowing her for 28 years.  

Anonymous said:Its weird since I thought Shoe Believer had an okay start in the beginning. It wasn't anywhere near CS or Snowing but they were still okay. With every episode they just feel more and more dull and forced.

I always thought it was forced, particularly in the pilot, but I thought it might grow as the season progressed. I’m not feeling it.  They are telling us it’s true love, not showing us.  Unlike CS, Snowing or RB where we saw those relationships develop over time, this feels completely unearned, and a TLK would be like  Zades or Red Warrior where it feels like complete out-of-nowhere nonsense.  CS had to go through multiple seasons of trials and tribulations, both proving they would go to the end of the world or time for one another, before the show would even whisper True Love at them.  The writers have lost their mojo when it comes to writing a love story.

Anonymous said:After this weeks episode I'm more thankful than ever that Regina is far away from Captain Swan and everyone in storybrooke. They don't need to suffer the consequences of someone who has failed as a queen and a mayor.

Honestly, it being canon that Regina and Rumple are out of Storybrooke, is the silver lining to S7.  

Anonymous said:I’m kind of confused , since 7x02 I’ve been trying to keep up with show . But I haven’t been paying that much attention ( I usually just put it on the tv while I’m on my computer or something, so it’s really just background noise ) but I do have a question, who is that hag in lady tremaine’s basement thing ? And also ..... can you list the people who are aware that there was a curse / who’s now awake . Cuz I can’t keep up

That’s the witch.  Right now I think the only characters awake are Ivy, Regina, and sometimes Alice when she isn’t on medication.  I could be wrong though, because my ability to stay focused during this show has not been great. 

Anonymous said:I stopped watching s7 after 7x02 but as someone who still watches it/keeps tabs on it do you know if the timeline is explained like now that Lucy is born and is 10 years old does that mean captain swan's child is around that age or is Emma still pregnant cause time moves differently?

They haven’t really answered that question yet as far as I know. My gut is that very little time has passed in Storybrooke and as we speak Captain Swan is preparing for their baby. But that’s my gut, not fact. 

Anonymous said:I'm so mad - this was the last drop for me with this show. I have been watching S7 for Colin (I'm a Nielsen family and my viewing does count for the ratings) but what they had Henry say last night was the last straw. Swan Believer and their amazing dynamic in season 1 was what kept me watching the show (until CS came along ) and to have to see the writers IGNORE what was once the backbone of the original show (Emma/Henry) to prop an abusive mother/son relationship is absolute bullshit.

cont - previous ask about Swan Believer. I feel sorry for Colin and for the cast and crew, but from now on I will not be watching the show anymore. Nothing about it excites me/makes me happy. It feels like a chore. And these writers do NOT deserve to get renewed nor to get anymore chances to ruin their own canon of what was once a beautiful show.

Describing it as a chore is pretty spot on. I understand you wanting to watch for Colin (especially as a Nielsen household) but you gotta do what’s right for you.  That line seemed completely unnecessary. There were a lot of ways they could have had a nice mother/son moment without going there. 

Anonymous said:I just saw a gifset of Regina waking up from the curse. So that's really the reaction she chose to go with? She really hasn't seemed to grasp the subtleties of acting, has she?

No, she has not. However, I have to say that Lana’s acting as Roni in Hyperion Heights this episode was the least of the episode’s problems. 

Anonymous said:Did you see any of Lana's answers to her fans on Twitter? Besides laughing at the idea of her wanting to do a remake of Silence of the Lambs and play Clarice, when she was asked what she's learned from Bex she said that red heads have more fun than blondes. I imagine in this situation you answer these questions quickly and don't contemplate on your answers, but wow did that seem like a dig. And if you look through the comments all of her rabid fans seemed to think so too and were loving it.

I thought a more accurate tweet would have been  “Red heads kiss my ass better than blondes."  ‘Cause Bex has had her lips permanently affixed to her ass for years now, just the way Lana likes it. 

Anonymous said:I'm indifferent about Wish Hook, and I wouldn't mind if his daughter was Alice and they got a storyline together, but they got nowhere in this episode? And going by the promo, the mess of the wish realm strikes again as Wish Hook was realm-traveling apparently. How did a non-wish Rapunzel from a separate realm come across someone who didn't exist until present-day 6x10? This is unexplainable.

Do we know that Rapunzel is from a separate realm and not from the Wish Realm?  It would be unbelievable to think that WishHook left the WISHAU before it was created with EQ’s “wish” in 6x10.  I think looking for any sort of logic or even in-universe fairy tale logic to make sense of anything to do with the WishRealm, including WishHook, is an exercise in futility.

It simply doesn’t make sense, and each episodes they change the rules to accommodate anything they want to do.  Of course I think it’s nonsense, but I’d still rather this and have CS safely tucked away from this ridiculous season, than have them using the real Hook this season.  Because honestly I don’t care about the integrity of the storytelling in S7, I only care about CS. (though that doesn’t stop me from poking fun at it.)

Anonymous said:I honestly was not one bit surprised when Colin said he was still under contract this season, but at the same time I do believe he enjoys playing this character and I'm sure he feels loyal to the show, it has been his big break. But I have to believe with the storylines and the material he's given, if not already, then by the end of filming he'll probably be in the same mind frame as Bobby. 100% only there for a paycheck. I just hope his agent is actively seeking better opportunities for him.

We really don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling, but low ratings have got to affect things on set in some way, so it sucks if he’s in any kind of stressful environment.  Even if it’s just them getting pressured to send out scripted PR tweets for each episode. On the upside, other than 7x02, he’s been in these eps so rarely, that I’d guess he’s not working more than 1-2 days per episode, which probably means a lot of time that he can be home with his family and newborn.  It might be a blessing for them right now. As I said we can’t know, but I just wish the best for him and his future career.

Anonymous said:Was there something wrong with the Rogers' scenes? I thought they were pretty decent, especially his interactions with Alice.

To all my anons wanting to know about Rogers scenes, you’ll have to come off anon if you want to chat about it. 

[sxmethingbreaking-a]

//Cora was probably the best post-season one villain on this show not because she was my favorite but because she was someone already connected to a main cast member prior to her introduction as the primary villain of season two. 

think about it. did any of the other villains have that pre-established relationship before their arc was introduced? No. 

Pan was revealed to be Rumple’s father after the Neverland arc began. Same with the Black Fairy- she was revealed as his mother after her arc started. Hades was revealed to be connected to Zelena after his arc began. Hook, Ingrid, Arthur, Jekyll/Hyde, Drizella, Gothel, Zelena, and the Queens of Darkness (aside from Maleficent) were all revealed to have connections to main cast members only after they were introduced as the villain of their arcs. 

The exception is Maleficent- but Maleficent didn’t wind up being the primary villain of the 4B arc. She got a........redemption isn’t quite right? But kind of a redemption arc. 

The other two exceptions to that are characters introduced in season one that had resurging villain arcs in later seasons. Rumple went back and forth between being antagonist and antihero for five seasons, and the Evil Queen, who was an extension of Regina and not really a separate character.

But Cora was different. She was introduced in season one as Regina’s mother. That connection already existed. We had two flashbacks with her (if you count 1x17) before the episode that introduced her as our arc villain, which was 2x02. I really think that made the connection stronger, the stakes higher, and our investment greater. We already knew this woman. We knew what she could do and why she mattered. They didn’t need to waste time with any flashy “reveal” of who she was related to. 

Her arc was better planned, better mapped out, and ultimately better executed as a result. And because of that, we cared more. No one was indifferent to Cora. You loved her, you hated her- but you cared about what happened to her. You were invested. And I really don’t think any other ouat villain (other than Rumple and Regina) was that universally successful at holding the audience’s attention.