My entry for Cherish the Peanut Week Day 2-Daddy's Girl! This is a scene I came up with that could be extended into a longer piece, if people are interested. It's a take one what could have happened if Zelena succeeded in taking her daughter back to Oz after she was born, and how she finds out about her father.
Just a note, this piece is not pro-Zelena. It's not intended to bash her, but it certainly doesn't make her look good, so just wanted to be upfront with everyone.
Emerald slowly opened the door to her mother's bed chamber and walked toward the bed. She got nervous and froze when the floor creaked, but it seemed the sleeping powder she had mixed into the woman's drink before dinner had done the trick. She didn't stir at all as her daughter approached her with a dream catcher clutched in her hand.
Emerald held up the dream catcher over her mother's face, but hesitated in activating it. She was afraid that she was wrong. Maybe her mother had been telling the truth, and her father really hadn't wanted her at all because of her magic? Did she want to see him leaving them?
But Emerald still felt the remnants of the shock from removing her six leaf clover necklace for the first time, and seeing a different reflection in the mirror. Her mother had lied to her about something as simple as what she looked like. Her friend William was probably right, it wasn't the only lie.
She took a deep breath and whispered,
"Show me the memories of my father."
The center of the dream catcher illuminated and showed her an image. She saw a man who looked like her, or at least looked like the face she'd only recently learned she had. She relaxed slightly as she watched a man who seemed brave and kind. He was called "Robin" by the men around saw him in what looked like a barn, aiming some kind of bow to protect someone. He had the same sandy hair and dark blue eyes she'd found in the mirror. And he loved a woman, whom he called Regina, who was not her mother. This woman had dark hair and eyes, and was just in love with this man who must be her father. He did everything he could to get this woman's heart back, from her mother, who had taken it.
And there was her mother, hating this woman, who seemed to love her father very much. Emerald watched in horror as her mother now pretended to be someone else, another woman her father had once loved, and lured him away from the dark haired woman he didn't really want to say goodbye to. And then, Emerald saw his reaction when her disguised mother told him she was pregnant. And he was happy. He didn't react like someone who didn't want to be a father. And then he learned the truth, when the dark haired woman, who was called Regina, came to help him. And she started to cry as she realized the real reason he left.
Or so she thought. She almost shut it off there, her mother's betrayal too much to stomach. No wonder he had left her, she'd been created just to hurt him.
But then, the image changed again, and she saw the day she was born. Her father smiled as he held her, happily saying to Regina that he had a daughter. And she smiled and told him it was wonderful. Her father kept smiling over her. It was the smile of someone who loved his child, and wanted her more than anything. Who would never leave her.
'He wanted me,' Emerald thought to herself, as everything her mother had ever told her collapsed around her. 'He wanted me.'
Her mother suddenly stirred, a sign the sleeping powder was wearing off. Emerald snapped out of her haze and ran out of the room before she was caught. When she got back to her own room, she had too much energy and couldn't sit down. She paced her room, the scenes she had witnessed going through her mind over and over again. Shock and anger at her mother, collided with a new burning desire to know the man who she looked so much like.
As she walked past her mirror again, Emerald paused to look at herself. Right now, she still had the charm on that gave her the face her mother wanted her to have. Red curls, porcelain skin, light blue eyes.
When she took it off, her real face looked back. The straight and sandy hair, the darker blue eyes, and the still fair but slightly darker complexion stared back at her. She took the dream catcher out again and looked at her father, trying to see what else she had of his. He had dimples just like hers, and those her mother hadn't been able to erase.
"I will find you Daddy," she whispered to the dream catcher, as a plan began to form in her mind. "I promise, I will find a way back to you."