Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT or any of the characters, they all belong to the genius minds of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz.

Prologue

Once upon a time, a prophesy was made. A girl would be born as the product of true love. As such she would have a power so pure and powerful, she would be the undoing of the most powerful and most feared sorcerer of them all, The Dark One.

For centuries the dark one, or Rumplestiltskin for that is his real name, searched for child born out of true love. According to the prophesy, this saviour would gain her full powers at the age of twenty one, so he needed to make sure that this threat to his life, and his power, would be eliminated before that. But after years and years of searching, he was starting to believe that maybe the prophesy was wrong and he started to feel like he was safe.

What he didn't know was that somewhere in the enchanted forest, a certain princess who was on the run from her evil stepmother/queen, met a dashing Prince, whom she nicknamed 'Charming'. It was love at first sight, and it was at that moment that they knew, no matter what happened, they would always find each other.

But fate wasn't kind on the couple. Every time they found each other, something terrible occurred. It was when the princess fell victim to a sleeping curse, that a grief-stricken Prince Charming sought out Rumplestiltskin for help.

Rumplestiltskin knew immediately that the love of Charming and Snow White was the truest of it's kind. He knew that if they ever got a chance of a happy ending, the product of that would be his undoing. And so he thought out a plan to make sure that their child would not be his undoing.

He made a deal with the Prince. He agreed to help the Prince find his love and safe her, if the prince would agreed to whatever favor Rumplestiltskin would ask of him in the future, no questions asked. Desperate as the prince was, he agreed. Rumplestiltskin gave him an enchanted ring, which would guide him to his hearts desire, and told him that the sleeping curse could be broken by a true love's kiss.

Prince Charming raced off on his horse, found his beloved Snow White and woke her with a true love's kiss. Not long after that they got married. But as fate has it, their happiness was once again disrupted, as the evil queen showed up as an uninvited wedding guest. She claimed that she would take away their happiness once and for all by casting a curse that would send them to a land without magic, a land without happy endings.

The newly weds rallied their forces and set out to hunt down the evil queen, before she had a chance to cast the curse. When they finally managed to capture the queen and defeat her once and for all, the kingdom rejoiced. Snow and Charming took back the kingdom and restored it to it's former glory, they finally found their happy ending. Or so they thought.

Exactly one year after the demise of the evil queen, a princess was born. With beautiful golden hair, stormy green eyes and the most beautiful smile, she was a spitting image of both her parents and from the very start she had everybody wrapped around her little finger. She just possessed that power that made everybody fall in love with her.

When the news that a princess was born reached Rumplestiltskin he immediately knew that she had to be the prophesied one, the child born out of true love and he knew he had to act fast.

A ball was held at the royal palace, to celebrate the birth of the little princess. Charming and Snow White looked radiant when they presented their daughter, Emma. But just when they announced her name, a cold gust of wind blew through the ballroom and a high-pitched laugh was heard. With a puff of purple smoke Rumplestiltskin appeared before the king and queen. All the guests gasped in surprise, while Charming shoved his wife and daughter behind him protectively.

"You have no business here, Rumplestiltskin." he said through gritted teeth.

"Well, dearie." Rumplestiltskin answered. "I recall we made a deal, when your beloved wife was under a sleeping curse." Charming visibly stiffened and Rumplestiltskin went on. "The deal was that I would help you find Snow White, and you would owe me a favor, No. Questions. Asked."

"What is it you want?" Charming demanded.

Rumplestiltskin snapped his fingers and the little princess appeared in his arms. "Your firstborn child!"

"No!" Charming bellowed, while lunging for Rumplestiltskin. But he was too late, for the Dark one had already disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. He turned around to see his wife on the ground sobbing violently. He walked over to her and took her in his arms and let his tears stream down freely. Their baby girl was gone, and it was his fault. And at that moment he swore, that no matter how long it would take him, he would find their daughter and bring her home.

After that one faithful night, years went by. And each year, on the birthday of Emma, they would light thousands of floating lanterns, hoping that one day their little girl would find her way home. Snow White and Charming never lost their hope, for they knew that they would always find each other.

Ok, so this is my first attempt at writing a fanfic for Once Upon a Time. I came across a fanvid which compared CS/Tangled ( watch?v=ekLLJ2RiFiA really worth a watch!), and the idea kind of stuck with me (since I'm a huge OUAT and Tangled fan). From the first chapter on it will roughly follow the storyline of tangled, but then with our beloved characters from OUAT.

Normally I'm not such a shipper kind of girl, but then *poof* there's hook and emma, so yeah ever since their first scene's together I've been an avid Captain Swan shipper (I just love their chemistry!).

I'd like to apologise for any grammatical errors, since English is not my first language (I'm from the Netherlands ;)) but I've tried my best ;) So, anyway, I hope you liked it, and I would love to hear your thoughts/ideas for improvement!