A/N: So this is my first Once Upon a Time fan fic. Because I really miss the show and just can't wait a whole month more to be back in the OUAT world. So this story is totally set in the magical world / Enchanted Forest, kind of a take on what life might have been like for Emma and the rest of the gang if there hadn't been a curse (maybe if Regina had talked to Robin that time in the tavern?). But I've also changed a lot of stuff, Neal / Emma/ Killian are younger, the magic is a bit different and of course the quest isn't cannon. But I'll hope you'll like it and hopefully recognize your favorite characters.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Title: The Heir's Quest

Summary: To prove she's the rightful heir to the kingdom Princess Emma must undertake a quest. Baelfire - the Dark Prince - disguised as a knight wins the honor to be her champion and after a mishap on the road Killian, a pirate captain without a ship, agree to be their guide in return for Emma promising to help destroy his sister Milah's killer, Baelfire's father; the evil Dark One.

Ship: Both SwanFire and CaptainSwan. But I'm on the Captain Swan boat so that will be endgame.

Chapter One - Heir

Sometimes Emma felt like maybe she hadn't been meant to be a princess. She was a rather terrible dancer (her mom claimed this was because she'd yet to find the right partner), no good with small talk - and don't even get started on her lack of skills when it came to embroidery. Most of all she always felt like maybe there was something else she should be doing. Like fighting dragons or breaking curses or helping people who had no one to help them. Important stuff.

Instead she was getting ready to watch a tournament where all the knights from the kingdom, and some from the island nations, were competing for the honor to be her protector - her champion - on the quest she was meant to undertake right after her eighteenth birthday party just three days away.

The Quest was something each heir to the throne must do, to prove they were worthy to be King or Queen. Her mom had done it and her grandfather before that. It was a pretty easy thing really, not like the exciting quests Emma sometimes read about. In the throne room there was a large glass egg of sorts. Bigger than a chicken egg but not as big as a dragon's egg. Like a ostrich egg maybe. Emma had actually never seen either and ostrich or an ostrich egg but she'd read about them.

Anyway once the heir became of age he or she had to take the egg north, through the Enchanted Forest and to a hidden place called the Valley of Dreams. In the valley there was a lake with magical glowing water. The heir just had to submerge the egg in the water and if she was the rightful heir the egg would fill with the magical water and it would make the whole egg glow. The egg would continue to glow until the heir had a child of her own. Then the water would disappear until the next heir came of age and could go and refill the egg.

In the old days the heir would set out on his or her own with only one faithful champion - chosen in a tournament just like the one Emma was getting dressed for - but now days usually a whole procession of guards went along. Emma was pretty sure her parents were going to double it for her. Just because they could. And because Emma was both the heir and the spare, having no brothers or sisters, so nothing could happen to her or the Heir's Quest would be impossible to perform. Emma had asked once, when she was younger, just what would happen if she didn't manage to complete the quest. No one had been able to tell her but they all had said it wouldn't be anything good.

"Oh Honey, you look lovely," Emma's mom Mary Margaret said as she entered Emma's room, her ladies in waiting and a set of servants following behind her. Emma's handmaiden Ruby had just finished curling Emma's long blonde hair with a strange new magical device that made perfect curls without half burning up in the process.

"I did say the red dress would look lovely, didn't I?" Blue said. She was one of her mother's ladies in waiting along with the very pregnant Princess Ella of Esance. Emma's mother third lady in waiting was Lady Lucas whom most called Granny but she hadn't entered with Mary Margaret, probably not wanting to ascend the hundred steps that lead up to Emma's fabulous tower bedroom.

"Thanks Mom," Emma said, glad that Ruby was finally done with her and that her mom was finally there to escort her down to the tournament. Even though she thought the was sure with half the kingdom's soldiers going with her on the quest, she wasn't really going to need a champion. Besides even if the soldiers hadn't been coming along Emma was pretty good at taking care of herself, both her mom and dad had thought it was important that she learn to shoot a bow and to fight both with and without a sword.

"We got quite the turnout," Mary Margaret said, walking over to one of the tower's windows. Emma had been looking out through it herself in between Ruby beautifying her, watching the arena that had been built over the past few weeks fill with people. "Then again, it's not every year the winner gets such a price."

"Yeah, the price of riding through a magical forest with half a dozen guards and a princess," Emma said, trying not to sound moody. "What a treat."

"Half a dozen?" Mary Margaret said playfully, walking over to take Emma's arm. "How about two dozen."

"Great," Emma muttered as she let her mother lead her out of her room and down the many steps. The other women in the room following like chickens after their mother hen. "Just great."

Thoughts? Worth continuing?