A/N: Thank you to thewalkingswen for editing this for me! I had a dream that I was at the nail salon picking out a color of polish. I picked up one bottle to get a closer look and there was a whole galaxy inside. I shook it.

….

"A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..." ~Elizabeth Gilbert "Eat, Pray, Love"

One would think that being a magical, endless creation that I wouldn't care so much. I have to admit, I do. It's a thankless job: being the Dark Curse. You humans, I'm sorry, people as you prefer to be called, always view me as dark and evil, but I'm here to tell you I'm only performing my function. You just don't see it. You don't see what I see. You don't see the millions of tiny threads that connect your every thought with the physical world. You don't see that you have just as little free will as I do.

My maker was very powerful, and he'd whisper secrets to me. He'd coo and cackle as I was brewing up. I don't have a strong memory of those early times of my existence. My main purpose is to implant and reset memories in people so it is imperative that I keep the memories of all possibilities within me. I do know I have always been here, I've always been everywhere, but my maker was the first person to arrange me in an order to fulfill a purpose. He was the Dark One, and that's how I got my name: the Dark Curse. I'm special as far as curses go, because I have a power that my maker didn't intend for me. I don't suffer from emotions, but I can sense you…you people's feelings, quite vividly. Most of the time, it doesn't make any difference what someone feels, but every once in a while, it makes all the difference.

There was a time between my creation and my casting where I was locked in a tall tower. I was waiting. Just waiting to be rescued from my imprisonment and put into action and live my destiny.

I was merely a scroll with some directions scrawled on my surface. Nothing more than an existential recipe card; I always knew my purpose. Somehow I knew what I would become. The woman who rescued me from my glass prison atop that tall tower is the woman who I know best. We worked together very closely, when she whispered her dreams and desires I did everything in my power to please her. There were stipulations. There are always stipulations.

Let me give you an example of how I see things. Take the child called Henry. He was so confusing to me. He wasn't part of my original casting, but he came to live with the caster, the woman who I know so well: Regina. I can always feel her emotions and they are complex. It's my job to sift through her dark threads: her hurt, rage, impatience, to look at those connections and find what she loves. She rescued me and my happy ending was being cast. She made sacrifices for me and I have a duty toward her.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to Henry, he wasn't with me, but he was living under me. He had his full memories; I didn't have control over keeping his body neutral so he grew up.

Now, all you people have those tiny threads that branch off and sprout and twist and grow with every thought and feeling. Sometimes it's very difficult to find the right string hanging off of you, and tug it in the right direction. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I pull the wrong one. It's the difference between what you think need and what you actually need.

Back to my example: say young Henry goes to Granny's diner to order lunch. He tries to choose between an Italian beef or fish and chips. There will be two threads linking him to the choices, but then once he picks one over the other, the other thread vanishes. Sometimes he'll have the beef and fish in mind and then when it comes time to order he'll seemingly randomly order a burger. It's not random. The little, miniscule thread was always there -as the burger is always a possibility. He ordered a burger because he was thinking about his Emma mom, (more about Her later) and how she loves to eat, how she loves to eat burgers and she's not here right now, but a burger could be. In some way there's a connection, to him, the burger and Her.

The interesting part is that he doesn't even know that he's thinking all of that. He thinks he just decided on the burger when he really wanted Italian beef or fish. But Henry ordering a burger would just make my day harder. He was like a pen scribbling all over an already painted portrait and I had to chase behind him, trying to anticipate his every move. That was the only way to do my job: paint over the ripples and scribbles he constantly made.

Regina loved him so much and I understood that. The people who are most special in your lives often have a bigger thread that connects you all of the time. Regina has very few of these threads, but the ones she does have shine bright gold. There's one thread that I still don't fully understand: the one connecting Regina to Her.

One of Regina's threads connects the other Henry. I didn't set my own price, I would not have required the heart of the thing she loved most to enact me. Those are the rules the Dark One set up, because and only because he didn't want just any old fool casting me. I am pretty powerful. The person who casts me has to be worthy and meticulous. Nothing would be worse than a sloppy caster. When Snow White cast me, she didn't give me much to go on, and then the Witch sprinkled her burning green magic all over me when I was in the middle of activating, how rude. Not my best work.

Anyway, I digress. Regina and her father always had a bright thread linking them, Regina had a bright thread to her mother, Cora, but it was a one way. Cora's thread didn't ever connect fully with Regina until Cora was taking her last breaths. Cora's golden threads connected to power, currency, and magic. Those threads all outshined the one for her daughter. Usually, in my experience mother/daughter threads always shine the brightest. Not so in Storybrooke.

I'm getting ahead of myself. You do know the whole story, right? Regina adopted Henry who was the Savior's birth child. I was kind of responsible for that. It was written into me a long, long time before I was even made. I don't even know who set that one up. It makes me wonder what lies outside my purview of the worlds and the realms. We all wonder the things we cannot see.

Regina used her golden thread like a lasso she tried it on Daniel and held it to him, even when it fell away in death. Not to say you can't be connected to your soul mate in death, but she had a true soul mate waiting. She even tried her thread on Robin Hood, but seriously, if a fairy thinks pixie dust is stronger than me and stronger than whatever makes me all that I am, she's foolish. I try not to inject personal opinion, but Tinkerbelle is a horrible fairy, she should have been disbarred or de-winged way before she was. (By the way, from me to you, never trust the blue fairy. She's got an agenda. That's all I'm saying.)

When I saw what was really a thick golden rope sprouting out of Regina's head and pulled tight and so very long, it connected with the woman called Emma, the Savior. Yes, I knew that she was coming all along. I knew that she was coming to break me. Henry, his golden threads reach both of his moms. They are all bound together, so it was only a matter of time and circumstance before they all could be together.

Let me be clear, a lot has been said about Emma weakening me with her very presence in Storybrooke. I am not weak. She simply gave me the run around. She got inside my head and threw a wrench into the works. I give credit to Regina. She was always trying to protect me and strengthen me. In many ways, that was my purpose with her too: to protect and strengthen her.

It was not really my job to predict events or how things would play out. The Author always asked me, but I kept tight lipped. I'm the only one who can see the threads, but when one action happens I have to adjust and readjust the threads accordingly to keep things in line. As I said before, Henry was difficult to keep in order, but Emma was the worst. She ran around and did things that didn't make sense in the world that I worked so hard to maintain.

It was like she made little cracks in the dam until it just couldn't hold anymore and everything came pouring through in a powerful rush. Regina was beside herself, but she didn't have much control over any of it. She'd hate knowing that I told you all this, but it's true. It's also true that I was always going to be broken. I didn't fear the Savior, but I did fear what she did to Regina. I am very protective of my caster.

I must confess however that he story did not go the way it was supposed to, and for that I claim responsibility as well. It didn't seem like a big difference at the time, but now I see that Regina is still suffering. She's still looking for her happy ending. She needs her soul mate, but her soul mate is right in front of her. You see, Emma broke me with true love's kiss -given to Henry. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. Emma was supposed to break me with true love's kiss given to Regina.

That was how it was always written, and since what was supposed to happen did not come to pass a new story is being written. I have to continue and exist and be broken and manipulated until the universe rights itself.

It's my fault. I must have pulled the wrong string. I've gone over it a million times to pinpoint the exact moment when it all went wrong: Henry should have ordered Italian beef instead of a burger.