Welcome to the second installment of A Thousand Paper Stars. I'm going to keep this brief unlike the author's note in the last prologue. For those of who read A Thousand Paper Stars, welcome back and I hope we continue to enjoy this journey together. Anyone that hasn't read that, don't worry you'll only understand absolutely nothing.
As a recap this story has the same kinda function as the show, focusing on multiple points in time. One point is the beginning of the second half of season 3, where Henry and Emma have spent a year in New York, except I've copied and pasted Trinity in as well. The other is in the Enchanted forest where the crew has just traveled back and are getting used to things. Peter and Felix are full of angst while Auria is playing tennis trying to work through everyone's emotions and issues.
There's a lot to cover, but I'm dying to just jump in. Thank you to everyone reading this! And a special thanks to those who've stayed with this since the first few chapters! Okay well, I hope you enjoy!
Trinity's POV
The street behind me rages with cars and pedestrians, yet the noise all seems to fade into the background when I look over the man and boy standing in front of me. I can feel the morning sun hit my back, yet the boy doesn't look away or even squint from the glare. My family's cozy apartment is just above me as I stand below with my hand on my phone, ready to hit the call button.
The man is dressed in layers of slick, black leather and other fairytale like clothing articles, with a golden belt buckle and knee high boots. His jacket goes past the top of his, also leather, boots, and he apparently has no inhibition with showing off his chest hair. As the for the boy, who I would guess to be maybe a little older than me by his looks, he's dressed in a similar fashion. Although the clothes he wears is made of green clothe, and the outfit holds less layers and leather, it has the same essence to it. Like it's been blown by weather and caked in dirt before.
The boy has brown boots that hit his knees, and a very dark green tunic. I glance over him from his grey pants to his wild, dusty hair. My eyes widen when I hit a shade of green I've never known an iris to hold. He looks as shocked to see me as I to see him, but it's the eyes that strike me as the most surprising. Maybe it's just because they caught me eavesdropping on their conversation about me, mom, and Henry, but the two look like they've been caught in major headlights.
My own winter hat has ear flaps that keep the chill off my ears, while the rest of my hair falls to my middle back, warming my neck. I blink and shift a bit, my hair swaying to make me feel like a hand is brushing my back. Somewhere, in the loud roaring city of people going to work and school, I hear a murmur that speaks at the same time as a voice in my head. Its words are incoherent, but the feeling it gives me settles a melancholy over chest, lifting the panic from it.
No one else is under the apartment building except for a woman and her young daughter, who's playing with a small doll and running circles around the place. The woman is on the phone, and doesn't appear to be paying us much attention at all.
I debate what to do in my head, confront them or run? The smart thing to do would be to skedaddle and call mom or the police, after those two were talking about the three of us like that. What did they mean? 'Jogging her memory?' 'Only have enough for Emma?' It sounds like they're some type of drug dealers, but mom is not a druggy. My curiosity overwhelms me, and I raise an eyebrow as I slide a hand to my hip.
"Spill it, before I call the cops. I won't let you go anywhere near my family." I say threateningly, breaking the silence with a deadbeat tone of 'I'm not messing around.' It takes me a second, but I grow even more on edge when I realize this is the boy Henry had described before. "Actually forget it, explain it to the cops." I say, my worry for Henry drenching my curious mind's fire.
"Wait, hold on we aren't here to hurt you." The boy says and takes a step forward, but I just take two back. My head is tilted slightly down, and my eyes are guarded and full of warning. For some reason, I start noticing things in the area me that I could maneuver myself around in a fight. As if I could actually pull it off. The closest thing to a fight I've done is get in the face of the bullies back at the orphanage. "We're private detectors!" The boys' voice is nervous, but oddly carrying a happy tone.
"Excuse me?" The man mutters to the boy and I raise an eyebrow. The boy elbows the man and I shake my head, suddenly a tad amused.
"You two? What would investigators being doing dressed like this?" I ask, not really expecting a straight answer. Still the boy wiggles his fingers and shifts his eyes as if trying to figure out what to say. The pirate-looking man quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head to the left a bit. The woman shoots us an annoyed glance and ushers her daughter to move away, and they take a spot near the busy road a distance away from us.
"Social experiment?" Pirate guy suggests and I see the boy glance over to the taller man with a strange look in his eye.
The boy lightly kicks the man and I cross my arms, finding the whole scene to feel strangely normal. Maybe I've just been watching too many cheesy anime shows. "He's just kidding." The boy says before smiling nervously. "It's disguises. People never think the ones dressed like us are private investigators." He sounds like he's improvising, but none the less I turn off my phone and slip it into my pocket.
Nut-jobs. "Listen you can cosplay all you want, but don't go involving actual people in your strange roleplaying habits." I say with a dubious tone and look on my face. They look confused, and the boy mouths the word 'role-play' like he's never heard it before. I shrug and just decide to tell mom after her date tonight, this would ruin it for her. Besides, if I walk Henry home then I can make sure these two don't hurt him.
I turn and began to walk away, wondering if I'll be able to make it on time, when the boy grabs wrist. "Wait! It's the truth." He proclaims and I pivot one heel and meet a confident grin and a shining eyes. He looks bright and happy, like a child picking out a piece of candy from the store. "Emma's family is looking for her!" I rip my wrist out of his and see the other man face-palm in my peripheral.
Everything in my 'common sense file' is telling me to run as fast as I can, but looking into this boy's face gives me a wicked sense of Deja vu. My eyes drift around his face, from his slightly red cheeks to the long lashes that shade his apple green eyes. I watch his eyes as he searches mine, and slowly I pick out each shade of green in his irises. I shake my head and turn around, taking long strides away from them and into the crowd on the sidewalk. "My name's Peter!" He calls after me and I cross my arms, a tingly feeling dancing on my skin.
Wait a second, did he say something about Emma's family. My feet seem to get heavier and at the corner of the next block I stop and look back. My stomach twists and I ignore the motorcycle that zooms a little too close to the sidewalk for comfort. The motorcycle continues on the road, but it doesn't appear to be slowing down at all despite all the people near the road.
I chew my lip, feeling something wrong, and keep watching back the way I came. It takes a few seconds of searching to finally see what's nagging at my mind. The woman from before is talking angrily into her phone, and the little girl is still playing around with her doll, just running on and off the street. The motorcycle gets closer and I push through the crowd screaming "Look out" futilely into the busy morning commotion.
Just as the motorcycle gets close, the girl runs onto the street again. Eyes widening, I clasp my hand over my mouth, preparing for the conflict to play out. Then, a hand reaches out from the crowd of passerby's not paying attention, and it pulls the girl back onto the sidewalk at the very last second possible. The motorcycle swerves a bit, but continues speeding down the road. A police officer waves it down, and I find myself hardly able to move my legs. The closest crosswalk opens and the crowd starts to move.
Through the walking bodies I catch glimpses of the boy, apparently named Peter, laying with his back on the cement with the little girl beside him. The woman exclaims and offers the boy a hand, while a few pedestrians clap him on the back as they move by. My phone buzzes, and I realize it must be my friends complaining about how late I am.
I turn and run to the school, wiping the wetness from my eyes. Strange stalkers or not, that boy just saved a little girl's life! Several minutes later I just barely slide into my chair in time for my first class. My lungs heave for breath and Carlie and Racheal try to hide their giggles. My teacher gives me a disapproving look, but I just apologize and continue pumping oxygen into me via my lungs.
It's not long before the class goes by, and my two bestfriends start pestering me with question after question. My answers just entice them into asking more, and my head begins to complain. I'm almost grateful to have math as an excuse to tell them to be quiet. That is, until my head begins hurting even more with logarithms and exponential graphs flooding my attention. Fractions are the last straw, causing me to raise my hand and take a trip to the nurse.
Guy teachers will let you do anything if you tell them it's your monthly time. The better part of that class is spent in the nurse, lying down after proclaiming I have wicked cramps. The next class should pass by relatively quickly, as it's my photographic art course. Racheal and Carlie head down to their gym class, waving goodbye and whispering to each other.
My headache finally goes away after that class, and someone pulls me out of my collage with a tap on my shoulder. "Hey, what's up Trinity?" Caden asks, leaning on his elbow and looking over my collage. He smiles and I push a lock of hair behind my ear. "Nice collage. I love how you did this part." He says and gestures to a portion I'd spent twenty minutes perfecting.
"T-thanks Caden. Nothing much, as you can see." I say and he grins and taps his finger on his chin. He raises an eyebrow at me and I notice something behind the usual friendly gleam in his cobalt blue eyes. His dark black hair is most likely filled with gel, and he has to lean over far to have at least his nose eye level with me, especially since I sitting on a stool. He's one of those guys that definitely hit puberty early, and could pass for a freshman in college if he really tried.
"I heard you barely made it to class today, you're normally here early." He points out and I laugh nervously, trying to hide the discomfort on my face from remembering the two men. The bell rings and as I move to gather my things, Caden follows me.
"Oh well, I walked my little brother to school today." I say lamely and he looks strangely serious for a moment before returning his usual smile.
"I didn't know you had a little brother." He comments and I shrug.
"I'm adopted, but we're probably closer than most siblings." Thinking of game night with Henry makes me smile, but the smile is wiped off my face when a voice barks through the room.
"Trinity Swan!" Racheal's call is friendly, but I can tell she's eager to get all of the details from me about the slip up I made, mentioning two weird guys outside my apartment. "You're taking too long." She says teasingly, and I blow air out my nose.
"I'd better go. See you later, Caden." I begin to turn away but he puts a hand on my shoulder.
"Wait, can I eat lunch with you and those two today?" He asks and just as I'm about to come up with a good excuse, Racheal gives him two big thumbs up. Just great. Now Caden gets to hear Racheal and Carlie interrogate me, too. I grit my teeth and nod with a smile, while shooting Racheal an annoyed look as we leave the room.
Auria's POV
Storybrooke is gloomy, a light rain paints the sky with grey as the streets desert themselves. She pulls a jacket from Trinity's closet around her, wondering why she's not back here with them. Somehow Auria ended up in the apartment Trinity, Felix, and her shared for a few days before they were pulled back to the Enchanted Forest. Auria stares out the window as Pazi, Al, and Ollie dump a few bags of groceries on the kitchen counter.
David brings in more, and Auria wonders why he bothers. The lost boys, Pazi, Al, and Ollie, will probably stay here as well. Auria's mind drifts to her little, well kinda, little brother Rufio. One thing she and Trinity had understood about was being responsible for protecting a little brother. Somehow, they both knew that they would do anything to keep them safe. It's hard for her to imagine Trinity living a quiet life, away from Storybrooke. It's easy for her to come up with a thousand different scenarios in which Trinity returns.
Some of them Rufio comes to see, some of them he doesn't. Some of them Trinity is able to talk to him and bring him home, some of them she's not.
Auria stands up and silently helps the boys sort the food into the small cabinets. A tiny kitchen sits in the middle of the apartment, connected to a few empty rooms with nothing but dust and an air current in them. On one side of the apartment is lot's of windows, yet the whole place still seems cut off from anything outside of it. A large bedroom connects to a bathroom, and a smaller bedroom's door is only a few feet from the kitchen.
Auria could run her finger against the walls of the apartment and have enough dust to build a sand castle. The floor isn't much better, with dust bunnies and ants making a home for themselves. Thumbtacked to a board beside the sink are different notes Trinity left for herself, with penmanship that appears as if her pen was running out of ink. Auria opens a drawer and inside, aside from some thumbtacks and sticky notes, is a single blue pen.
"She never had much here, but she always preferred to be outside." David comments, looking into the drawer Auria had opened before she softly lets it shut. She starts gathering the grocery bags and shoving them inside one another. The nape of Auria's neck tingles, and she tilts her head to see Regina walking through the open apartment door.
Auria notices David clench a fist, and the man strides toward the old queen after shooting Auria a look. The three lost boys, who are perpetually lively, whisper to themselves and clump together against the wall furthest from Regina. Auria sighs, remembering how the woman had reacted to seeing Rufio as the Dark One.
The three foot wide hole in the pavement near the diner now stands as all that needs to be said about that interaction. She at first felt a bit apprehensive about forgiving Regina for attacking Rufio first, but after the numbness of the shock ebbed it was easier to think about. Regina had just been shocked and worried, especially about what this entails for the man Rumpelstiltskin.
Regina and David walk a bit away from the apartment, but Auria can still hear their argument by it's whispered climaxes. With a rub on Ollie's head as she passes him, Auria finds her determination fading. Instead of joining David and Regina, she plops herself back down to stare out the window.
The argument continues, twisting her guts into knots, but for once Auria is only worried about keeping her own feelings inside. After a few minutes of David and Regina throwing words back and forth, each harsh rebuke- a hit Auria takes, she crosses her arms to hide her shaking. She can't handle the tension, and despite wanting with all her heart to be strong, she fails.
Tears slip down her cheek, eyes as bright as the sun that does not show itself. Auria's arms tighten across themselves as her sobs send spasms throughout her chest. With her body folding inside of itself, her chin brushes against the orange wing pendant that has always kept Auria from loosing sight of her goal. Now it's a reminder that she will never fully understand what she claims she's mastered.
If Auria squeezes her hand around the pendant, it could crack and crumble. With texture like a sugar cookie it would fall apart until it finally crumbles to dust, and then it would spread around her like it's bound to her. She doesn't even move her hand to stroke the pendant like she normally would, and her fingers also sit idle from wiping the tears streaming down her cheeks.
A few moments pass by, but as she struggles to compose herself a hand brushes her back. Auria stiffens, and even if she's unable to ease her sobbing she at least recognizes who the hand belongs to. "Stupid fairy." Felix murmurs and kneels next to her. Auria turns away from him, wanting to hide her crying face, yet he just sighs and rubs a piece of her shorter hair between his fingers. "Most girls would've been crying way before now, why'd you wait until I'd left." He grumbles.
She doesn't even try to decipher what he means, just allowing herself to be hugged by him. It's strange, because he hardly gives anyone hugs, much less her. "F-Felix?" Auria stammers and jumps as thunder erupts from a sudden storm outside. What was light rain is now rumbling electricity.
"Don't get the wrong idea." He drawls bluntly, and Auria tries to ignore the inkling to lay her head on his chest. "Trinity told me to look after you. That's it." He pulls back and gives her a sour look. "I'm not mushy like you two. She wouldn't cry very often either, and when she did it was usually alone. You're both similar like that, thinking you're alone." Auria wipes away her tears and frowns, sniffing as he stares out the window momentarily. He's thinking of her, and probably Peter too.
"Him too." She says, before more tears fall out of her eyes. "Rufio thinks he's alone too." She wonders if Rufio is feeling the same as her right now. "He's not alone, and even though I'm terrified of what's happened to him, I love him!" She proclaims and Felix nods. Auria slumps forward, her head hitting Felix's shoulder. She somehow forgets momentarily to be conscious of him, and the awkwardness dissipates as if a trace of a memory has resurfaced.
Felix puts his hand on her head, and it's like a sandstorm has suddenly stopped. The swirling dust has frozen in midair, not yet to settle, but gathering it's bearings. Auria recognizes the shift in her emotions, and although she continues to cry, it's less frustrated, and simply sad. "It'll be okay, sweetheart." Felix says softly, and Auria, not for the first time, wonders if Felix also thinks he's all alone.
Somewhere in Storybrooke
"I want to meet her...Ahaha, no it's nothing like that. There's just so few people you've insisted on me not harming. The other one is so far away, so I'll only be able to really talk to one of your weaknesses."
"...You don't want to make me angry."
"You're a child. You won't be able to hold all that darkness for long, little boy. Not without some...guidance."
"Zelena!"
"Oh fine. Besides, she interests me anyway. A fairy without wings isn't common. She's also got some sort of, connection to my little sis."
"Don't even try to bring her into your schemes."
"I'll do what I want. When and where I want to. Remember that, little beast."
Peter's POV
He rests his head on his chin and sighs contently, forgetting about the stirring trouble, and focuses on the memory of her long hair. After the Shadow had cut it a year ago, he'd only been able to imagine it grown back to full length. Even if he knows his magic is still there, somewhere, he hadn't been able to use it then. Otherwise he would've just used it to fix her hair.
It's still the same. He can feel his magic, but he doesn't know what the key to unlock it is. Hook walks out of the old apartment's bathroom, pulling at the normal clothes with a twisted expression on his face. "Listen, mate, I don't think this is really necessary." Hook grumbles, wearing a leather jacket, thin t-shirt, and jeans from Baelfire's closet.
Peter stifles a laugh, having already taken what he could from the man's closet a few minutes before. Sure they're old and dusty, but Peter knows it'll be easier to convince Trinity and the other two to trust them if they aren't 'role-playing.' Or appear to be, at least. "Nonsense, you look great." Peter says and raises an eyebrow. They don't suit the gruff pirate at all.
"Aye. Let's just get what we need and be over with it." Hook scratches his beard, and eyes Peter strangely. "Tell me again what you saw at the docks, back then." Peter let's his features go slack, and grips the Pan flute he'd brought with him tightly. The abandoned apartment sets the right mood for the conversation, but Peter just wishes that he didn't have to talk about it.
"It was the Dark one, but it wasn't Rumpelstiltskin. It was...Shade. Well, Rufio that is. He handed me this and told me to take a ship very far away. 'Fast enough to outrun a curse.'" Peter explains, turning the pipes in his hands. "I don't know what happened, he just said that if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have the chance to find Trinity again. Or you, Emma."
Hook nodded and took a seat on the dusty couch, pulling out his flask to find it empty. "So the crocodiles been done in. Can't say I'm not disappointed, kinda wanted to do it myself." Hook joked, but the death of Rumpelstiltskin hits a false note in Peter. Long ago, he dreamed of building home for the three orphaned boys at the spinstrisses' house. Neverland was the sight of that dream, but never had it been a home. Now the days where Peter, Felix, and Rumpelstiltskin fooled around in the small village was less than a memory. The little boy he used to take care of has been dead long before the rise of this new dark one.
"Right. It had to have happened after I left to find you, but Auria would never let that boy get into Rumpelstiltskin level danger." Peter says with a thoughtful tone, burying his past regrets. He kinks an eyebrow as he thinks of leaving Felix and Auria together. With the curse having struck the kingdom, Peter worries about them both.
"The kiss didn't work..." Hook grumbles, and Peter realizes that the pirate had let his thoughts drift elsewhere. "Should've worked, right?" Hook asks and Peter dons a dubious look, shaking his head and chuckling a bit at Hook's annoyance.
He'd promised Trinity he'd rid himself of the darkness inside of him. While Peter had needed help, and though the darkness still appears in some aspects occasionally, it will never control him again. He remembers the first time he fully felt like himself again, just before he'd went to search for Hook. Now he's found Trinity again, and he's determined to do it right this time.
Even if he has to make her fall for him all over again.
Tada! Well that's that! How do you like it? Thank you so much for reading and please leave a review, I love the feedback!
