Hi! This was written for my friend's birthday, before "Mother" aired last night. Thought I'd share it anyways!
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, events or locations portrayed below.
Dedication: Humus and Peeta, happy birthday girl! Sorry your ship died miserably and unfairly in Age of Ultron. Joss Whedon is a dick, hope this provides you with at least a bit of happiness in this cold, cold world.
Children Without Magic
I don't want to change a thing when there's magic
I don't want to change a thing when there's magic
In here, now the coast is clear
You've got no time for fear
-Magic Is Here, the Go-Betweens
There wasn't a real reason for anyone in Storybrooke to celebrate the fourth of July, come to think of it. Maybe Emma, considering she'd been raised in the United States, but other than that? Politics and budgets and laws and wars didn't affect anybody in the town; they were mostly self-sufficient. And what they couldn't get from Storybrooke, their complex network of thoroughly trained portal jumpers would provide from other realms.
Yet all of Storybrooke was celebrating today. The mayor's office organised a barbecue as per usual. The elementary school was organising crafts. Granny was dishing out free ice cream (but only vanilla, bubble-gum and strawberry to match the day's colour scheme of course). The schoolyard had been turned into a carnival with races, a treasure hunt in the morning, apple-bobbing, and even a dunk tank that the seven dwarfs took turns sitting on (the line became especially long when Grumpy was up). The Merry Men were teaching children how to use bow and arrows and celebrating every single shot arrow or pierced apple with rowdy, fierce encouragement. Their master bowmen competed towards the end of the day and since Robin Hood was the judge this year, there was an element of competition. Gepetto and his apprentices had organised a puppet show which had completely hypnotised Storybrooke's children for a solid hour. Older children snuck into Jefferson's Abandoned Manor and told scary stories and played truth or dare until the sheriff's office booted them out.
Most were at the elementary school now, properly gorged on popcorn and cotton candy and hot-dogs and waiting for the Fairies' Firework Shows. Picnic blankets and lawn chairs formed colourful clusters of intertwined couples, young families and friends picking at the grass. Still, clusters of children had wandered their own way however. Notably Alexandra Herman, Phillip Knight, Elise Jones, Alina Scarlett and the Loxley children.
Alexandra, Phillip, Roland, Faye and Neal talked, trying to ignore the youngest. They got rid of them easily after Faye suggested that the little ones go catch fireflies. They gossiped about kids at school, about a party the next day…
They were interrupted by a chorus of excited children who came at them proud and delighted with themselves.
"What is it?" Roland asked. Most of the little ones with them were his siblings anyways.
"Look," Lucy said showing him an empty mason jar, just like any other jar ever used to catch fireflies. "Look, look, look!"
"It's just a firefly," Phillip said.
"No," Faye said. "Look closer."
"Lookit, lookit!" The tiny, albeit very determined, Maria Whale said.
It was a fairy. A tiny, woodland fairy small enough to curl up in little Lucy's palm was fussing in the jar, knocking her fists against the glass. She wore her hair in twisted braids and a few orange petals had been glued into a dress with tree sap.
"We caught her by accident," Elise Jones said breathless. "We thought she was a firefly, I swear."
It wasn't as if Elise ever lied anyways. Between the saviour and a pirate who'd done his fair share of lying, how was she supposed to get away with it- regardless of whether she was named after a pirate or not.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Sawyer asked, tugging on Roland's shirt.
"Vey," Phillip said investigating her. "But you can't keep fairies in jars, guys."
"We just wanted to look at her," Alina Scarlett said defensively. "It was for learning! We've never seen fairies before! Only in my mama's books."
"The nuns are fairies," Neal said. "You see them every day at school, now bring this one home and apologise to her."
"Neal," Faye said gently, touching his arm. "Neal, they've never seen a fairy that… you know… is being a fairy. They've only ever seen magic when it's masquerading or pretending it's human or controlled."
"It's true," Samuel Charming said. He took the jar from Phillip. "We've never seen a fairy up close before."
"My mother told me that's why the grown-ups call us children without magic," Alina said.
The term carried a lot of weight.
Now: there were some children with magic in Storybrooke. There was Faye of Loxley, whose disconnected fits of anger and confusion and flickering sparks were the direct manifestation of Zelena's genetic baggage and complex pregnancy. And Sofie Nielsen, the little match girl, who was the town's newest ward and could create and wield magical items as if it was her second nature. And there was Thumbelina, a little girl who was born in a flower and could shrink herself to sleep in half a walnut's shell. But most of the children in Storybrooke had fallen into the cracks between one world and the next.
There was something about being born in the mortal world that completely broke one's ability to bear or sustain magic. The only exception to the rule was Neal Charming, who'd been born in a building under a protective spell. But the others? Elise Jones, Ash and Sawyer and Lucy of Loxley, Alina Scarlett, Samuel Charming, Hugo Booth, Maria Whale and most of their school grades? Their parents may have been sorcerers, healers, potion makers, witches, warriors and realm-jumpers- saviours even… but they were firmly fixed in this realm and its physical ways now. Trapped in their mundaneness, literally intolerant to magic. Even the smallest magical charm or the smallest drop of a magical potion could be a recipe for disaster with them. They could barely touch magical items, much less learn magic themselves. And above all: they could never return to lands with magic.
For the last two years, children were born with an entourage of fairies and charms and enchanters to avoid further cases. But it was too late for the first few generations of Storybrooke-born children. Despite the magical creatures and openly magic-friendly atmosphere of the town, their curiosity was often stumped and shushed which made this little fairy a precious discovery indeed.
"Keeping a fairy in a jar isn't the right way to get magic," Faye said crouching down and gently taking the jar from Samuel.
"You can't say that," Sawyer mouthed back at her elder half-sister. "You have magic."
"And I wouldn't want to be put in a jar and shaken around for it either," Faye snapped. "We're releasing the fairy and that's final."
She may not be the Evil Queen's biological daughter, but there was something about the way she formed her words that could shut people up the way the Queen could.
"Come off of it," Phillip Knight said. "Some of us older kids don't have magic either. It isn't so bad. You can do other things."
"You wouldn't have had magic even if you'd have been born well," Elise Jones said impulsively. "Your parents weren't magic, they were just parents."
"My dad was magic," Hugo Booth said. "He was brought to life by magic, and he used magic items all the time. And I'm telling you the same thing: it isn't so bad."
"But when you're older your parents tell you things," Lucy of Loxley said. "Not when you're little."
Neal took a deep breath. They could easily ditch the little ones, apologise to the fairy themselves and let her go- but that would be beside the point (also it would infuriate all of the little kids). The point was that these kids were curious. Some more than others, but all of them would get worst and worst, ask increasingly complex questions and crave stories and knowledge like never before. The increasing fairy population in the woods, the constant coming-and-going of portal jumpers and the way that mermaids splashed in the sea all the time was an insult to the injury of being so normal. Knowing their parents' Enchanted Forests Identities wasn't enough: magic or no magic, they wanted in on their origins. And horseback riding, weapons training and all the old-fashioned, old world stuff they'd been promised when they grew up wasn't exactly the right flavour.
The solution only came to him when he spotted Elise who looked pouty and disappointed. He remembered Henry, and the way he'd read stories to the three of them –Neal, Samuel and even Elise- when he was home from college. From the book…
"Okay," Neal said. "Okay. Let's make a deal. You let the fairy go, and I'll tell you about how fairies are born and where they mine their magic from."
The little ones all whispered amongst themselves.
"How fairies are born?" Maria Whale asked, frowning.
"Yeah," Neal said. "Or would you rather hear about how a dwarf once fell in love with a fairy? How about this: how a fairy once brought true lovers together and lost her wings?"
"I've got one about a band of outlaws who used a ball of yarn and a mirror to defeat a hundred armed guards and sneak into the castle of the terrible Prince John to steal his fortune- all in one night," Roland said.
"I know a story with a princess who rides in a pumpkin," Alexandra grinned.
"She wasn't a princess yet," Roland said.
"She was a week later," Alexandra said, making a face.
"I think I have the best story," Philip said. "About a witch who can turn into a dragon and a curse that made even the strongest heroes sleep for hundreds of years!"
"That's no interesting!" One little girl piped up. "My mama put a sleeping charm on me yesterday!"
"But not for a thousand years," Philip protested.
"I want to hear about the dragon!" Samuel Charming said.
"No, the outlaws!" Alina said. "My daddy never talks about the outlaws, mama says he'll corrupt me!"
"Settle down, don't fight," Alexandra said.
"That's right," Neal said with a grin. "We have time for all of them."