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Emma Swan is so completely and utterly over this fucking magical fairytale kingdom that it isn’t even funny. She is done, and is getting to the point of being twitchy as all get out because they’re running around in circles trying to figure out how to get out of this fucking Groundhog Day inspired forest.
“Didn’t Henry’s book say something about David – excuse me – Charming getting stuck in a place like this?” she asks, pausing and resting her hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. They’ve been going for days after getting away from the beanstalk and Captain Hook.
(Who is absolutely not charming, thank you very much.)
Snow pauses, leaning on her bow as she thinks about Emma’s question. It’s only been in the past few days that she’s really started to look at Emma like they might not ever make it out of there. The forest is a circle of death and unpleasantness. Emma’s beyond over it.
She wants to go home. She wants a goddamn shower and to pee and be able to use goddamn toilet paper. She’s due to start her period soon too and she’s really not looking forward to asking either Snow or – god forbid – Mulan for the fairy tale land version of a tampon. She’s sure that Mulan will murder her. Actually, she’s positive.
Good thing she’ll already be dead from the utter mortification of it all.
Aurora, bless her heart, rests her hand on Emma’s forearm as Snow contemplates this question. Emma likes Aurora, because she’s quiet and actually a lady. She sometimes reminds Emma of Regina (only without the whole I-will-destroy-your-happiness-and-be-an-absolute-freak-in-bed) in her regal-ness. It’s something that Snow doesn’t really seem to have – or at least it doesn’t seem to follow her as naturally.
“James once mentioned something like this,” Snow muses, staring out into the stupid looping forest and winkling her forehead in concentration. She looks a lot like Henry when she does that, and it makes the lump in Emma’s throat that she likes to pretend really isn’t there lurch painfully forward.
Emma misses Henry. She can’t quite shake the guilt of leaving him so soon after what had happened to him. Snow seems to understand, and she sits with her arm curled protectively around Emma’s shoulder when Emma gets sad about it. Which is a lot now that they’re stuck in the fairy tale version of Groundhog Day – Emma wishes that Bill Murray would roll up and make it better.
“Your husband?” Mulan clarifies, and Snow nods. Emma doesn’t really blame her, because Prince Charming is sometimes James and sometimes David and even sometimes just Charming, which makes for all sorts of communication hiccups keeping track of him in casual conversation.
“He said that he made a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to get him out,” Snow sits down on a rock and pulls at her hair. She makes a frustrated sounding noise at the back of her throat and Emma can’t help but smile just a little bit. She’s done that.
She maybe could be getting use to this whole having parents thing. Maybe. She still thinks David Nolan is a jerk of the highest order. So there is that. She rocks back on her heels, sword scraping the ground as she does so. Aurora grins at her and Emma smiles easily back. Mulan just scowls, because she’s a hard ass. “Well,” Emma announces as Snow makes more hilarious noises. “I, for one, am glad that he’s not running around raining on our parade?”
Cora and Captain fucking Hook (she’s really not over that and fully expects to run into the three little pigs or Atrayu or whatever the fuck those crazy orange muppets were in Labyrinth any moment now) are enough. Adding in Rumpelstiltskin after what he had done with Regina and the wraith seemed like overkill to their collection of villains.
Aurora tilts her head to the side, “Raining on our parade?”
“It’s an expression from the other world that means messing things up,” Snow explains, running a hand through her hair and straightening.
Emma folds her arms across her chest and eyes Mulan. “You don’t happen to have some sort of magic thread or something in there,” she gestures to Mulan’s pack, “do you?”
Mulan kicks at the ground and Emma’s tempted to join Snow in her frustrated noise-making episode. This is getting them nowhere. They’ve been running around in circles since they’d gone looking to make a deal with the Goblin King (which had been a trip and a half). Snow had tried to marry Emma off to get them both home and Emma had had to shut that shit down. They’d found Hook – Killian – and the compass that was currently burning a hole in Emma’s back pocket. Now they’re stuck in a loop forest and it’s getting to be really goddamn annoying.
“Such objects are usually closely guarded,” Mulan says, setting her pack down and leaning against a tree. “They are not available to people like me.”
“Why?” Emma asks, because she’s genuinely curious. Mulan seems to be from a decent upbringing, and she’s a fucking badass warrior. She’s not entirely sure why there would be a lack of hero-upgrade and bonus items for people like Mulan.
“Because such objects are coveted by royalty,” Snow explains. “And because of that they are not available to the common hero.”
“Oh,” Emma rubs at the back of her head, thinking. “I just thought that maybe she hadn’t rolled for it or something.”
Snow’s eyes narrow and she shakes her head at Emma, as though she can’t believe that Emma’s making a goddamn Dungeons and Dragons reference. Emma sticks her tongue out at Snow, because Snow had contemplated the Goblin King’s offer and Emma hasn’t forgotten it. They’re pretty bad at being a family sometimes.
“So,” Emma squats down. “What do we do?”
They put their heads together and try to figure out how to get out of this place. The day fades and Emma slumps against her tree. They’d spent the afternoon talking loudly among themselves, gathering firewood because their plan probably was going to require a full day’s worth of work.
Snow squats down next to Emma as Mulan messes around with a flint and steel, trying to light the fire that they’ve built. “Why are you so quiet?” Snow asks.
Emma stares off into the stupid forest. She bites her lip and exhales though her nose. “I don’t like it here,” she says quietly. She doesn’t want to upset Aurora or Mulan, but it’s really the truth. This place is downright shitty and she wants her kid and she almost is to the point where she’ll openly admit to missing Regina as well. Almost being the key word there. “I miss Henry,” she adds when Snow opens her mouth to protest Emma hatin’ on her homeland. “And showers.”
That earns a laugh, and Snow’s hand affectionately squeezes at Emma’s shoulder. “I know this isn’t the best circumstances-”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Emma snorts.
“But this is your home Emma,” Snow reiterates for what must be the millionth time now. “You were born here.”
Emma doesn’t know how to tell her that she was born on the streets of Providence, and then New York. That her innocence was ripped away in Cleveland, and that her heart was broken in Portland. Storybrooke was the one place that made her life seem to make sense, even if it was fucking nuts there all the time. Now she’s stuck in a world where absolutely nothing makes sense and Regina’s crazy as all get out mother is trying to kill them and use their dead bodies as portal activators or something equally creepy.
Cora wants to get to Henry, she wants to get to Regina, and Emma cannot let that happen. No way in hell can that happen. Mulan and Snow agree, and they’re all watching their backs constantly.
“I guess,” Emma replies sullenly and Snow leans against her, arm around her shoulders. It’s nice, warm, welcoming. A little weird because she knows Mary Margaret too and while affectionate, Mary Margaret had seemed to understand Emma’s need for a personal space bubble.
Night falls and Emma is entertaining Aurora (and Mulan, although Emma’s sure she’ll be damned if she actually admits to enjoying the story) with some stories of the great U.S. of A. She’s not entirely sure why she’s talking about the sixties and all the crazy shit that went on there, but she’s ended up singing some Bob Dylan and Snow’s chimed in as well. Emma just wishes she had a guitar.
The fire snap, crackles and pops and Emma wants marshmallows. She managed to shoot a rabbit with a bow and arrow, and Snow’s pretty damn proud of her. Rabbit, as it turns out, is pretty good when you’re hungry.
“What’s that,” Aurora is staring out into the woods, watching as a light bounces back and forth. It looks like bad news bears, but Snow’s already on her feet and stepping towards it the edge of the circle of light cast by their fire.
Mulan, naturally, takes this as the moment to be creepy as all get out. “Don’t follow the lights,” she hisses, reaching forward and grabbing Snow’s arm before Snow can step into the forest and to almost certain doom.
Emma leans over and touches Aurora’s arm, as Aurora is looking all sorts of freaked out over the fact that Mulan’s so close to the edge of the clearing as well. They’re getting there, Emma thinks. Aurora’s really started to figure this sort of thing out. And Mulan’s really trying not to be as intentionally obtuse as she’s been up till now, although it is a tall order.
Snow’s shoulders slump, and then Emma can hear a tinkling in the distance and Snow’s face positively lights up. “Tink?” she calls, her voice echoing around the clearing and out into the stupid looping forest. “Tink, Is that you?”
The light pauses, as though shocked to hear a voice in these woods, and it surges forward. Emma lunges for her sword and tries to put herself between the light and Aurora, because Mulan is too busy trying to be a badass and take out a tiny glowing orb.
Aurora’s eyes are wide as she produces a knife from what Emma can only hope is her corset and holds it up to protect herself as best she can. “Tinkerbelle?” Emma glowers at Snow, who got wide eyes and looks like she’s about to panic. “Are you shitting me?”
Snow shakes her head violently and the little orb comes to hover in front of Emma’s eyes, and Emma feels an acute sting at the tip of her nose and she yelps in pain, falling backwards behind Aurora and damn near into the fire. “Owwww,” she mutters, pushing herself up on her elbows and watching as the orb joyously flitters around Snow.
Emma exchanges a long look with both Aurora and Mulan and they come to the collective silent conclusion that Snow’s lost her shit. Still, Snow is giggling and she’s dropped her bow. The light pauses and eventually lands on her cupped palms. Emma’s widen as the glow fades and they’re left with just the small figure of an impishly smiling girl clad all in green, leaning against Snow’s index finger.
“Holy shit,” Emma breathes, and Snow shoots her a dirty look that Emma feels is entirely unwarranted because it’s not every day you see a fairy. Well, Emma supposes that that’s not entirely true, because Leroy’s not-girlfriend is totally a fairy, as are most of the teachers in Henry’s school. The irony of that particular element of the curse was not at all lost on Emma, only she couldn’t really work out why Regina wanted the fairies all beholden to Rumpelstiltskin.
“Holy shit yourself,” the tiny fairy replies and Emma decides instantly that this fairy rules and they need to be best friends. Hopefully this best friend won’t end up secretly her sister or something. Emma’s sort of batting double zeros on that regard at the moment.
The fairy turns her attention back to Snow, who’s grinning like an idiot, and Mulan, who’s got a hilariously distrustful look on her face. “Snow White,” the fairy says, floating up on nearly invisible wings to hover right before Snow’s face. “As I live and breathe.”
“Hey,” Snow says with an affectionate smile. “Long time, eh, Tink?”
“Too long,” The fairy agrees. She glances around to Emma and the rest of them, “Why’re you traveling with the lady-goon squad, you lose that prince of yours again?”
Emma can see Snow’s upper lip quiver a bit at that and rolls her eyes, she’s all about missing people in Storybrooke – she misses Henry (and Regina) not to the point of crying about it. Maybe she’s just a stronger person than Snow’s ever been forced to be. She’s not sure, and it sucks because she knows that she’s in no position to point out that Snow’s self-worth is really not tied up in David Fucking Nolan. Who is apparently her father. Fuck.
The fairy reaches out and brushes away the tear that grows at the corner of Snow’s eye, a sad expression on her tiny face. “I figured as much,” she tutted.
Tink, well, Tinkerbelle had apparently met Snow when she was just barely sixteen, before shit had gotten real with Regina. Well, real-er. From the precious little that Regina had let Emma know of her past, it seemed as though she’d always hated Snow.
Snow and the fairy sit back around the fire and tell the fairly ridiculous story of how they first met, a little boy named Peter and the local tribe of people (Tink called them ‘Injuns’ but that was really uncomfortably racist for Emma and she was gonna stay right the fuck away from such nomenclature).
"How did you not end up cursed?" Emma asks during a lull in the story, as Aurora's head droops sleepily on Mulan's shoulder and Snow doesn't quite succeed in covering up a yawn.
Tinkerbelle hovers in front of Emma and Emma can truly see her face for a moment. It's young, far younger than Emma would have anticipated for a friend from Snow's childhood. Maybe fairies are like elves and just don't age. "I wasn't here for a while," she explains, gesturing around to the forest as a whole.
They'd told her of how they'd met Killian Jones - Hook - and how he'd mentioned Neverland a good bit in his fire-side tales.
"Neverland?" Emma asks, because she's seen this movie before.
Tink nods, and Snow asks after some character from her past that Emma's not familiar with and the conversation begins anew.
The conversation wanes as the night fades and Snow slumps tiredly against Emma’s shoulder. “Tink knows the way out of here,” she whispers as Mulan and Aurora are totally not discrete and curl up far closer to each other than friends normally would. Tinkerbelle has settled down on the top of Mulan’s bag, reclining and staring up at the sky. “We’ll get out of here in the morning.”
Emma smiles, because that’s fucking brilliant news, and tilts her head backwards, to stare up at the sky as well. The trees are short here, and the window of sky that’s offered to them is large. “Do they name the constellations here,” she asks as Snow pulls Mulan’s spare bedroll up over the pair of them.
The look she earns is distant, but fair. Emma settles down, her arm under her head. It’s uncomfortable, but she’s not going to get any sleep otherwise.
Snow’s head is heavy on her shoulder and Emma can hear the hesitation in her voice as she whispers, “The first person who taught me how to read the stars was Regina.” Emma’s not really sure how to respond to that, because she knows that Regina’s a good mother. Snow seems to have turned out alright, after all – and Henry’s a good kid.
“Teach them to me?” Emma asks, because it’s something that mothers and daughters seem to do with each other here in this world.
Snow raises her hand, and paints the path home across the sky.