Emma Swan was born the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.
'She' should have felt as if 'her' life was perfect. After all, the parents she had been born with, had the perfect romance, the perfect meeting, love, a prince that found a beautiful lost princess.
Yet, growing up, she had never felt more wrong. Sometimes, she felt right. Sometimes she was satisfied. Pretty dresses, her hair styled by her nanny, her cute little shoes, and ribbons, so many ribbons.
There were days however, when Emma wanted to play like the boys. She wanted to be them. She wanted to wear their clothing. She would often be reprimanded for torn dresses, ruined shoes, dirt in her hair and skin. She would rough it up just as hard as any of the boys.
She wanted what they had. She wanted to look like them. To talk like them.
She would watch her father practicing in the yards with his guards. She longed to hold the sword in her own hand.
Emma saw his interactions with her mother, what it meant to be a king, and a gentleman to his wife. She did not know which she desired to be more; her mother, soft, demure, yet commanding, or her father; strong, quiet, thoughtful.
She would watch the men and women around her and the flurry of their actions as they went through their days. The separation between station and gender and her confusion would only turn greater. She watched the interactions between men and women, knights and ladies, servant boys, and maids. She even once walked in on a stable boy and one such maid, their pants shed, his hands about her waist and the maid's head thrown back in passion.
Emma did know in her awakening puberty, she desired to be him. She desired to be him, riding that maid in passion. Though parts of her too, desired to know, the passion the maid felt, she knew she also wanted to have what he had. To have the body he had.
She feared her feelings. She feared what they might mean, even though she still did not understand what they meant.
Emma Swan was 15 when it all finally made sense.
She ran through corridors. She wasn't supposed to run, she would ruin her delicate shoes. Her mother constantly reminded her of that.
She had just kissed one of the maids. Curiousity had finally won out and Emma had taken the alluring creatures lips in a chaste, and clumsy kiss.
It was her first. It didn't make sense to her.
It both felt right and wrong to her.
Today was one of those days when Emma's body felt wrong. There were were whole weeks she went without that feeling. When she would feel perfectly right. She was happy to pick out a dress. She enjoyed the feeling of her delicate shoes. She loved the feel of her stylist's fingers as they fixed up her hair. On those days, she would happily walk through the gardens and meet her mother for whatever social function she chose to arrange that day.
Emma would enjoy the looks and compliments of the courtesans as she played her part of the pretty princess of the White Kingdom.
Then there were days like today, days when her body felt wrong. Her dress was itchy, her shoes too tight, she hated her pretty face in the mirror.
Emma tore into her room and slammed the door.
She ripped off her dress and wrapped her arms around herself, wracked with sobs. She felt to her knees as she cried, dressed only in her slip.
Emma hated this body. It felt wrong. Everything about it felt wrong.
The maid had touched her, deepened the kiss.
Emma had frozen when the maid's pelvis pressed into her own. An image of a stable boy, a maid, pressed against him, her back turned to him fell into her mind. That desire to be the stable boy flooded her and she pushed the maid away and ran.
Trembling, Emma stood and made her way toward the mirror within her room. She frowned at the person she saw reflected back at her.
Blonde locks, blue-green eyes, those she loved no matter what day it was.
She dropped her arms to her sides.
Breasts. She closed her arms and took a deep breath. Feminine curves. On a day like today, she hated that about herself. Her face was girlish.
She wasn't allowed to build up muscle. She looked soft. Weak to herself.
Emma lashed out, crying. Her knuckles smashed into the mirror, cracks flashed along it's surface.
Emma held her hand, moaning in pain. A single shard of mirror stuck out of a knuckle. Roughly, Emma jerked the shard out and stomped to her armoire. She dug into a drawer, lifting a handkerchief and wrapping the bleeding knuckles.
She sighed. She had these tantrums once in a while. Her parents would have to replace a vase, or window once, a broken frame, this was her third mirror.
She sat on the edge of her bed.
Emma sighed.
I wish I didn't have to be... This all the time. She yearned.
A flash of blue in front of her caused her to scrambled backwards on her bed. She grabbed a pillow to shield herself and cursed inwardly at her foolishness. What good would a pillow be?
"I heard the summoning of a wish." A woman, small, dressed in blue, tiny wings fluttering behind her hovered before Emma.
Emma's eyes widened as her jaw dropped.
"The-the Blue Fairy?" She gasped.
The tiny woman nodded.
"I am guessing your mother told you of me?" She smiled at Emma kindly.
Emma let go of the pillow she had been holding before herself. She scooted toward the Blue Fairy.
"She did." Emma confirmed. She had heard the story growing up. The Blue Fairy had helped her reunite with her prince after a chance meeting.
"Your wish, will you clarify your meaning?" Blue looked curious.
Emma gulped. Her face reddened as she looked away.
"I-I mean... I don't-," she stuttered.
Blue waited.
Emma pulled her knees up and tucked them under her chin.
"I want to be..." She hesitated. "I want to be a boy. But not a boy all the time, like, I like being a girl sometimes, but I want to be a boy too."
Blue watched her thoughtfully.
Emma, after the Blue Fairy seemed to think for longer than she would have like, tensed. Blue seemed to notice.
"It is not the strangest request." She tapped her wand against her other hand.
"I have changed a wooden puppet into a boy, so that a woodcarver might have a son." Blue told her.
"I can do this for you, Emma, but it will not be perfect." She held up her wand.
Emma perked up. She grew eager.
"What do you mean?" She bit back her growing excitement.
"You will change month to month from female to male and male to female. However, Emma, there will be days you want to be a boy when you are a girl, and a girl when you are a boy." Blue informed her.
Emma nodded eagerly. She felt as if she could burst. If what The Blue Fairy was saying was true, she could truly feel like the person she was.
She could be a he for a month at a time, every other month!
What would her name as a male be?
"Emma, there will be those that will not accept you for what you will become. They will not like what makes you different." Blue warned.
Emma noticed the gravity of her expression.
"I understand." She spoke gravely.
She thought of her parents. She might have to hide this for the first few turns until she figured out a way to ease them into it.
"Do you still want this?" Blue prodded.
"Yes!" Emma nodded.
"I must hear you make a wish." Blue held out her wand.
Emma took a deep breath. She smiled as a very simple, easy male name came to her.
"I, Emma Swan, wish to be Emmet Swan every other month."
With a flash of blue light, Emma Swan blacked out.
Groaning, Emma woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows.
Emma looked around in a haze.
Weird dream. Emma thought.
Emma attempted to sit up, then noticed something.
The weight that normally sat in Emma's chest was no longer there. Emma looked down. And frowned.
Where breasts once were, it was flat. Emma's hands flew to the now flattened planes of her? His chest.
Emma smiled. Emmet. She, no he sighed happily.
Curious, Emmet pulled on the edges of the slip he still wore when a knock sounded on the door.
"Wh-," His eyes widened. His voice wasn't deep but still not light as it had been.
He tried again, this time forcing himself to pitch his voice so that it was lighter, more feminine.
"Who is it?"
"Your highness, it is time to wake." Emmet's usual maid called through the door. Emmet sighed. He couldn't let her see him like this.
"I must bathe." He lied. "I will ring for you when I have need of you."
He didn't hear anything in return so Emmet guessed the maid, understanding took her leave.
Emmet scrambled from his bed and hurried toward the mirror in the corner of his room, forgetting it was cracked.
He groaned. It would have to do. He struggled to pull the slip off.
He looked himself over as best as he could in the cracked mirror.
Emmet was generally the same build as Emma. His shoulders were slightly broader, the hips
narrower. His muscles seemed more defined. His chest flat, Emma was devoid of much fat, so it was no surprise Emmet was the same.
Emmet's hands slipped lower to his drawers. He pulled the garment off.
He couldn't believe he was staring at a male appendage. His own fully functional, (so he hoped.) male appendage.
He smiled.
Emmet and Emma Swan could finally live as real people.
Emmet scrambled off to pull on a dress.
He would play the part of pretty princess until later in the day.
Perhaps he could feign an illness and get to know this new body.
Smiling at the thought, Emmet completed Emma's ritual of dressing, stuffing a breastband with cloth in order to create false breasts.
He would find a better way to create this womanly image eventually.
Dressed, Emmet began his first day of being himself.
Despite having to pretend to be Emma, he was willing to deal, if it meant beneath the dress and at the end of the day, he would get to be Emmet.