Baelfire met Emma Swan when she was seventeen.
"It's my birthday," she told him, and he was smitten. She was tall, though shorter than him, and beautiful. She reminded him of a land he hadn't seen since he was fourteen. She looked like a princess with her bright blue eyes, creamy white skin and blonde curls that fell around her like a waterfall and she smiled like an angel.
Emma Swan was no angel. It took him exactly ten minutes to discover that. He didn't have a lot of experience with princesses, having grown up in the flat lands; but imagined princesses were less angry, and not so jaded. For a seventeen year old woman, Emma Swan was angrier than most people became in their lifetime. She didn't talk much about her past, but he knew she came out of the foster system, same as he. Bae remembered his seventeenth birthday and the joy he felt walking out and never looking back. Dying in the Ogre Wars would have been a preferable fate over four years in the foster system.
She didn't like him; that much was clear. She was working in a diner, trying to make enough to scrape by and pay the rent in her tiny, roach infested apartment. Baelfire was making a living stealing things and selling them in pawn shops, including the occasional car. Chop shops paid a decent amount depending on the car, allowing Bae to live better than Emma was. He often wondered what his father would have thought if he could see Baelfire now, jacking cars, breaking into homes, pick pocketing in crowds, but the thought was too painful. His father had made his choice, and Bae had made his; there was no point in wondering what might have been. Here he was alive, not made to die in a pointless war. As a boy he had dreams of being a great warrior, slaying Ogres and evil men alike. There he could have been worthy of a beautiful woman such as Emma Swan.
There Emma Swan would have been a princess, and she would not have wanted him still. That didn't stop him from going into her diner every night and ordering pie. She always served it to him with a side of sarcasm, and it had quickly become his favorite. He craved hearing her voice, even if it was cutting him to ribbons. He could still remember the first time he had wandered in to that diner. It was a greasy spoon right off the interstate that seemed to cater to night owls and truckers. Bae would have fallen in the former category as thieving was easier when people couldn't quite identify his features. That night he had found a nice Mercedes that had been unlocked, and after a bit of rewiring had driven it off. Now he had a pocket full of money and was hungry.
He had found himself a lonely bar stool at the end of the counter and began sizing up the pies displayed on the counter, hoping they had his favorite. Pumpkin. It reminded him of home, it felt earthy and simple, just the way life had been when it was just him and Papa, before daggers and magic had come between them.
"What can I get you?" A sharp voice interrupted his reminiscing and there she had been. It felt like he had been looking for her his entire life, searching for someone he had never seemed to be able to find, and he was suddenly ashamed of what he had done that night. His first thought was, 'Oh, it's you. Of course.'
"Hello?" She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and he snapped back to reality.
"Pie. Pumpkin," he told her, watching as she walked away to cut him a slice. He liked the uniform, tight khaki pants and a black t-shirt with white lettering on it advertising the diner. Around her waist was a black apron and to his surprise she wore boots. That was unusual; women here didn't tend to favor boots unless it was with an equally ridiculous get up.
She came back over with a plate of pie, a fork, and a can of whipped cream. She set the plate in front of him and shook the can in her and. "Want some?"
He stared for a moment. "Yes," he finally choked out. No one had made him feel so unsure of himself, not since his father backed out of their deal and he was left standing in the middle of nowhere in a land without magic.
She sprayed some on his pie and then walked off, but it didn't matter. He was smitten.
She came back over a little while later with a rag. "So what's your deal?" She asked in that no nonsense voice of hers.
"Just looking for pie," he told her, not adding that he had also apparently been looking for her; although he'd not realized it until this moment, right now. She raised an eyebrow that suggested she didn't quite believe him.
"What's your name?" She asked him, wiping down the counter.
"Baelfire," he told her. He had refused to change his name when he had come here, even when the women in the foster system insisted that could not possibly be his actual name. It was all he had left.
"Got a last name?" She asked him, not questioning his name.
"Nope. Just Baelfire. Call me Bae."
"Okay Bae," she agreed. She indicated to a white name tag pinned to her shirt that read Emma.
"Emma. Pretty," he told her. The more she spoke, the more he learned, the more he was sure she was a princess trapped here as well.
"What do you do, Bae?" She asked him.
"I slay Ogres," he said without missing a beat. He didn't want her to know who he actually was because he was ashamed, and princesses never fell for the bad guy. Princesses fell in love with the hero, and that's who he wanted to be.
"Right," she said, sarcasm coating the word. She walked away after that, and shortly after Bae went home, but not before generously tipping her. She didn't acknowledge him again but he didn't care. He would be back the next night, and every night after that until he could convince her to like him, and then maybe love him. It was the first bright spot he'd had in his life since he got here eight years earlier when he was fourteen. In this land without magic, where no one believed, Emma Swan was a lost princess, the first real piece of magic he had seen without being a magical being. He never thought in all his life he would be so happy to find it, to find her.
He told himself he would win her. All he needed was one more night.
rie!