Inspired by many generic posts on Tumblr. This takes place post-season 3 though assumes a normal Snow Falls timeline (because I started it before Snow Drifts).
Angie is the best beta ever ever ever.
Title and epigraph taken from Vienna Teng's 'Gravity'.
the fate you've carved on me
Hey love, is that the name you're meant to have; for me to call?
-Vienna Teng, 'Gravity'
...
-Emma-
The Enchanted Forest is anything but a fairytale. They've hardly been here a day and they've been knocked unconscious (twice), held prisoner, and now there's even talk of ogres. And worst of all, Emma feels something pulling at her, crackling around her like static electricity, almost like - what the-?
"Ah!" she yelps and immediately tugs at the bootlace wound round her wrist, revealing an expanse of angry red flesh beneath. "What the hell?"
"Oh," says Mary Margaret, and it's only then that Emma sees the way the other woman is rubbing insistently at the inside of her left forearm. "Don't worry; it's normal."
Emma hisses, scraping at the peeling skin. The itching had begun back in Storybrooke, moments after the wave of purple smoke had washed over them. But now here - where she feels the very air around her pull at her bones - it strikes her hard, raising blisters on her skin. "Normal? You call sudden third degree burns normal?"
"Here it is," Mary Margaret explains, her tone almost wistful as she rolls up her sleeve. "It must have taken a while to come back."
"Come back?"
"One of the downsides to a land ruled by magic is that-" she pauses, hissing as the fabric of her sweater catches on a patch of raw skin, "we know the name of our True Love from the morning of our thirteenth birthdays."
Emma frowns. "What do you-" And then she sees it - the patch of gnarled flesh on Mary Margaret's arm giving way to normal, healthy skin, ridges of black ink just barely forming, spelling out a familiar name in light, flowing script - 'David'.
"It's called the Mark."
…
…
...
-Killian-
The Mark doesn't matter.
It's gone. Gone with his hand. Gone with Milah and gone with his happy ending of eternal youth and glittering shores.
It's gone and so he replaces it - the bite of the needle sharper than the spinning of magic - the name 'Milah' nestled in a heart on his arm; forever near, and forever his.
…
-Baelfire-
He's no longer Baelfire.
That name holds no place in this world; it drifts away, just as the Mark on his thigh had faded and faded until nothing remained.
Nothing. There's nothing left.
And as the years pass - as centuries pass - the name itself has slid from memory, slipping between his fingers like grains of sand.
...
-Regina-
"Love is weakness," the imp says, and Regina watches the magic ink fade from her skin, dissipating into a puff of smoke. "And so in order to harness magic, we must purge ourselves of such frivolities."
The Mark is gone.
And for an instant, she regrets it.
So she tries to hold onto that name, repeats it over and over in her mind, eyes squeezed shut as even the memory fades away.
…
-Belle-
Belle's Mark is different.
It's dark and always moving, rippling just below the surface of her skin, winding round her neck and around itself with letters that won't stay still; ever-shifting symbols from a language long dead.
She can't read it, she thinks, and pulls another book from the shelf.
Not yet at least.
…
-Charming-
A bandit.
Really?
He's hardly been a prince for a fortnight and a bandit has already ambushed his carriage and taken off with his mother's ring. Somehow, even after slaying a dragon, he's managed to be bested by some wild woman. He doesn't really have a choice, though;he'll have to go back and track her.
(And maybe then again he should be grateful to the little thief, because he's barely had time to stable the horses before he overhears Abigail squawking out orders to the staff, terrorizing her servants just as she'd terrorized him through the entirety of their journey.)
He sighs, turning from the stables to leave the way they'd come, knowing that traveling on foot will afford them stealth … and walks right into the face of the woman who'd robbed him.
Well, a drawing of her anyway.
WANTED
.
SNOW WHITE
For crimes against the Queen:
MURDER,
TREASON,
TREACHERY
Snow. He reads the name once, twice; three, four, perhaps a dozen times, and though he's spent over a decade staring at those same four letters, he has to be sure. He tugs off his left glove, turning into the shadows as that same word stares back at him in the form of tiny tendrils of magical ink just beneath his skin.
He groans.
Surely, this is someone's idea of a cruel joke.
...
-Rumplestiltskin-
He can see the future, but he can't remember the past.
He knows where the Mark had once been - curling into the arch of a foot now scarred by cowardice - but all magic comes at a price, and he's paid it tenfold. He's settled for a life without love - true or otherwise - a life with the sole purpose of finding his son once more.
And then there's that girl - that … Belle - staring at him and fussing with the scarf tied round her neck.
"What is it, dearie?" he bites out, more harshly than he'd intended.
"N-nothing," she stammers, and smooths the cloth one last time before resuming her work. "It's nothing."
…
-Snow-
No.
No no no no no. No. There is no way in all the realms that she's going to be swept off some Prince Charming after some whirlwind adventure. Her life is anything but a fairytale, and she isn't about to fall prey to such childish notions now of all times, not when she's a wanted fugitive and Charming's smile could very easily be a trap; not when she's so close to freedom and the only thing holding her back is Prince Charming and his infuriatingly noble nature.
No.
So she brushes it off. "Anyway, how could I let Prince Charming die?"
"I told you, I have a name," he says, and she feels her heart leap in her chest. "It's James."
And just as quickly, her heart breaks.
"It's nice to meet you, James," she forces out through a feigned smile, even as the name 'David' burns as a painful reminder on her arm.
…
…
...
-Emma-
The Mark fades.
So appropriately covered by Graham's bootlace, his name fades from her skin, though not entirely. It remains, just barely legible, arched around her flower tattoo - a reminder of all that can be lost.
And maybe knowing hurts more than not knowing, but she moves on, and heeds her father's words to cherish the moments - both good and bad; both lazy Sunday mornings of videogames and hot chocolate, and late nights of soothing her baby brother's colic.
And maybe she's a little jealous of the way her mother's thumb brushes against the Mark on her father's hand; and maybe she feels a little twist of longing when she catches her father kissing the ink on her mother's arm-
"Ah!"
Mom frowns, putting aside the stack of onesies she'd been folding. "Emma, honey? What is it?"
"My back," she grumbles, reaching and twisting to reach the spot between her shoulderblades, but to no avail. "I think there's something-"
"C'mere," Mom frowns, waving her over, then stands to pull up the back of Emma's shirt to inspect. "Oh."
" 'Oh'? What does that mean?"
"It looks like a - a Mark," Mom says, and Emma can hear the smile in those words.
"A Mark? You mean like-" She hisses as her mother's fingers prod carefully at the tender skin. "No, it can't be. I already have one."
"Well, it looks like you've got a new one too," Mom laughs. "It's just coming in."
Emma hesitates, wondering if she'd rather know; if this will be just another source of heartache, or another opportunity to mess everything up. "... What does it say?"
"Can't tell yet," Mom says, pulling the shirt back down, and when Emma turns - rubbing her thumb over the last remnants of Graham's name - her mother is beaming back at her. "I guess you'll just have to wait and find out then."
And maybe - just maybe - even as one story ends, another is just waiting to begin.