Trials of Tradition
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms series. You do not need to read any of the series to understand this story, but I recommend reading The Fairy Godmother, One Good Knight, and Fortune's Fool to avoid spoilers. The others of the series should be a concept only grab, but characters from the above mentioned might pop up in dialogue or narrative.
A Very Short Prologue
The Enchanted Forest was a well-known part of the world, at least to those who knew of the Tradition. The Godmothers and their apprentices have spent hours upon hours of their lives cursing that part of their world...
Well, not literally cursing it, because it - well, they were supposed to be the caretakers of the Tradition...and cursing a place was very wrong. Unfortunately for the five hundred kingdoms, the Enchanted Forest was the world's epicenter of Tradition.
There the Tradition was so powerful and so potent that instead of workable echoes of fate, the Tradition repeated its tales almost word for word, name for name. The difference, of course depended completely on how closely the new princes, princesses, shepherds, sorcerers, godmothers (not Godmothers), step-mothers, and witches all around fit into the roles assigned to them by the Tradition.
It did not help that the Enchanted Forest had no real Godmothers, just fairies, who should have known of the Tradition, but didn't.
Without anyone to guide and counteract the power of the Tradition, more often than not, the lines of Traditional fate got tangled. When the Tradition folded in on itself, tangling and coiling around even just one person, an abundance of magic appears.
This was how Cora gained her magic. This was why Rumpelstiltskin looked fondly upon Regina and amusedly at Zelena. This was how the manipulative Dark One created, empowered, and loop-holed his dark curse.
And how he knew to get Snow White's path to True Love to work in his favor.
But even the Dark One did not know of the Tradition. He knew magic coiled around certain people, but not why. He knew how to use the magic of the Tradition, but thought of it only as magic, because it was always there in the forest and there was no way to use it all. He could use the Tradition to read the future, but never once has the Dark One learned of the Tradition. The Tradition would never allow it.
Once the dark curse was cast, the realm of the Five Hundred Kingdoms felt a new tension upon them. Although the Tradition began to gather more in other kingdoms, it was never as satisfied with the free reign it had in the Enchanted Forest.
And it did not help at all that the Lilac fairy began spreading practicality around like confetti. Especially when she started training Elena Klovis.
The Godmothers kept the Tradition satisfied in their kingdoms, so it let them be. However, it ached and mourned its forest and its princesses. There the Tradition was almost alive, and it wanted its people back.
So when one Snow White, now also Mary Margret and her daughter Emma returned to the Five Hundred Kingdoms (along with a wraith), the magic of the Tradition seized the two with a desperation not seen in its long, long history.
And that is how this story begins.
Chapter One: A Traditional Quest
A groan and an angry shriek disturbed the awakening of Princess Aurora. Phillip jerked up, glancing at his long term companion in confusion.
Taking off her helmet, Mulan, a most disciplined and cautious warrior, motioned for the prince to break his true love's curse. She would investigate.
She did not bother to remove her gauntlets as she began moving bits of stone, gloved hands would protect her from contact with most curses, and a good majority of things that could bite her. She uncovered a medallion that she recognizes instantly. "The mark of the Wraith," she whispered in fearful wonder.
She was tempted to keep it, to use as a weapon or just to keep it from someone with ill intentions, but a groan caught her attention.
A slab is pushed aside and a bleary eyed, strangely dressed blonde woman meets her eyes. "Be careful with that!" She warned instantly. "You didn't get marked did you?"
Mulan frowned. "No," she replied flatly. "I am unmarked. Who are you and why do you have such a dangerous object in your possession?"
"Emma?" A soft voice called through the rest of the rubble.
Green eyes widened in shock, "Mary Margret? What are you doing here?" The blonde, Emma asked. The real question swimming in her eyes was why. 'Why would you, why would anyone risk their life just to follow after me?'
"Did you really think I would let you come here alone?" The response was quick and sure. No doubt was present in the slightest, and Mulan was certain that whoever was speaking would go to the ends of the five hundred kingdoms for this Emma.
Still, as heartwarming as that was...
"How did you come to be here? And why do you have this?" She thrust the medallion towards the blonde, who quickly snatched it by the ribbons and stuffed it in a strange bag.
As the blonde unearthed her friend, she explained. "A...friend of mine got marked by that medallion. We were going to send it here, to another realm so it wouldn't be able to get her...but the portal opened too late...I fell through and I guess Mary Margret jumped in after me."
"And the medallion? Why send it through?" Mulan asked firmly.
Emma winced and looked away from her friend's shocked eyes. "Emma?"
"It was the bait," she responded guiltily. "Gold gave it to me after Belle found out what he did. Because Belle wanted me...us to save...our friend."
Mary Margret huffed. "You risked your life for her?"
The 'after all she's done to us?' was heavily implied. Mulan was easily forgotten in the midst of the budding fight. That was fine, she reasoned. It would let her observe.
Enough to learn if these two strangers were friends or foes.
"Because Henry asked me to!" Emma snapped, angry that Mary Margret was okay with fighting the Wraith by her side and jumping through a portal after her, so if they would do this for her, why not Regina. She may still hate Emma, but Emma knew with every bit of her mangled and broken heart that Regina loved Henry. And that - "Henry loves her," she continued with a bit of resignation. "So I had to do everything I could."
Mary Margret looked abashed. "Next time," she began weakly. "Next time, please don't put yourself as the bait...without consulting me...please." She pulled Emma into a firm hug, hiding her almost tears in her daughter's golden hair.
Emma only nodded. "I'll try."
"Good," her firm tone was filled with promise.
It was at that precise moment that something ominous crawled against their skin. With a jolt, Emma was suddenly aware of Mulan's watching, of Philip and Aurora staring not at them, but at the sky, and of Mary Margret's grip tightening against her shoulder.
A presence began to build inside her winding and winding like a tight coil preparing to spring out. But instead it kept winding until it was painful. Emma had to do something. She had to be somewhere. Now. Now, now, now, NOW!
And it was almost no better for Mary Margret.
They collapsed on each other, with near identical looks of pain-under-pressure. They were Princesses with no happy ending, no Traditional happy ending. They needed to be in the Tradition's care. They needed its guidance...and so did that warrior, but maybe not as much.
The Tradition began looking for the proper path to place its princesses in. Nothing came forward, but it would push and push until it found the right path.
"Did - did you feel that?" Emma asked shakily, earning a nod from her mother. "We have to move or something. I - I feel like I need to be somewhere else."
Mulan grunted. "I am satisfied that you are not a threat to my company, but I cannot let you leave here as long as you carry that medallion."
Emma stared blankly at the warrior. "I'm not giving it to you or anyone else. As far as I'm concerned this medallion is my responsibility."
"As long as that Wraith is in this realm, that medallion is a danger and -" Mulan stopped. The Tradition decided on a path for the warrior, and temporarily for them all.
It seized Snow White, not Mary Margret, who in the face of the Tradition was slowly fading, not Snow, wife and mother, but Snow White, Princess of the Enchanted Forest (actually a queen, but as far as the Tradition was concerned she was a princess). It took hold of her and pushed. "Ch-champion Mulan," she spoke with a voice not her own, and Mulan stopped. She had not told the two her name. "You must - you must work with us to defeat this Wraith once and for all."
If not for Emma, she would have tumbled back into the rubble. It felt as if whatever had been coiling around them had eased slightly. It was a quest, and now, though they did not know it, the three women had fallen into the path of Questers. Inadvertently carving a new path for female Questers.
And Mulan had found she could not say no.
Literally, she tried at least three different times.
And Phillip and Aurora watched as Mulan turned to them and nodded. It was time for them to return to their people, Mulan would find them later. She promised.
They walked through the forest in silence. Emma could still feel the strange looming-ness of whatever had made Mary Margret go all weird. She kept sneaking glances at her...mother. Life, her life had gone six types of crazy, and now they were on some sort of journey or something for no other reason than they felt a pull. A need to move forward.
Not one of them knew how to kill a Wraith, and before when she had asked Gold, he said they were unkillable.
But something and taken a hold of her mother and forced its voice out of her. It said they had to kill the Wraith. They had to trust and work with Mulan.
And really? Mulan? Wasn't Mulan supposed to be a real person from her home? Why was she in this fairy tale land?
"Mary Margret?" Emma asked. "What was all that about? Before - I mean - do things like that just happen?"
"No," her voice a bit melancholy. "Nothing like that has ever happened before, at least not to me."
"Oh." So the weird and creepy just happened around Emma. Joy.
But something tugged at the edge of her mind. Emma was no Henry when it came to the real stories and fairy tales of the Enchanted Forest. She hadn't read the book, only glanced at a page or two when Henry was persistent, but something was important about those stories, stories in general, something was there.
Emma didn't know the real stories, but she did grow up on Disney and other classics. In most of the indifferent homes she lived in, the TV was a free babysitter, and so they watched old movies, because it was that or the news.
That was why she felt an urge to look, really look for things she just knew would show up. Maybe it was an old lady they had to be nice to or some kind of animal that needed help. They were on a quest, right? That's what happened in the stories...but then again, this wasn't that kind of quest...
"How are we supposed to kill this Wraith anyways?" She asked suddenly and blinked when she realized she had.
Mulan and Mary Margret heard a twittering trill in the distance and a rumbling hoot to their right. Emma, who had the (un)fortunate chance of tasting dragon's blood heard something else.
Now, while Maleficent could sometimes be a person, Gina the dragon, Champion of Glass Mountain, would tell you a dragon is a dragon, whether they were born a dragon or not is very much unimportant.
"You can't kill such a thing," Emma heard the answer clear as day. She shifted anxiously and looked. A regally posed tawny owl blinked at her. "Oh, you can hear me?" It - she asked, amused.
"Um, yes ma'am?" Emma replied hesitantly.
The others glanced back at her, confused. "Who are you talking to, Emma?"
The owl tilted her head and clicked its beak. "Have you anything to eat, dear? It's rather Traditional for me to ask."
Emma ignored her mother's fussing and Mulan's wary glances. This was important. She ransacked her pockets and winced. All she had was a packet of saltine crackers that maybe survived the trip through the portal.
She pulled it open and blinked. 'What the hell?' The crackers were perfectly intact, like perfectly intact, no crumbs whatsoever...then again, what was she doing with crackers in the first place?
"Sorry, um," Emma held them out awkwardly. "It's all I have."
The owl flew to her arm and snapped them up. "Oh yes, I like these. They're very new. And they're salted." As luck would have it, they were also not stale.
"Emma!" Mary Margret gasped. "That's - you're talking to an owl!"
"Is that strange?" Emma asked quite honestly. 'I mean Disney princesses talked to animals all the time...'
"Of course it's strange! Emma people can't understand animals," she was very adamant about this.
Mulan agreed. "It is very strange. I have never seen anyone uncursed actually talk to a creature of any kind." And it was heavily implied that those creatures did not talk back.
Emma looked at the amused owl on her arm. "Then how come I can hear you?" She nearly whispered. Emma was usually a skeptic, about everything, but just yesterday she got a very real, very big dose of holy-shit-magic-is-real and I-just-killed-a-fucking-dragon, so at this point, talking to animals was believable enough that she just went with it.
"Well, for one thing, princess," the owl began almost fondly. "I am a Wise One. You may call me Tawny. I prefer that over the Traditional title of Owl. If none of you had been able to understand me of your own right, the Tradition would have seen to it that I would have enough power to speak to you all."
There was a pause and Tawny puffed up her feathers and waited. Emma quickly translated. "The reason you are able to understand me is simple. Sometime in your past you have tasted dragon's blood."
That made Mulan's eyes widen and Mary Margret nearly hysterical. "You faced a dragon?"
Emma shrugged. "It was - Gold tricked me into it...I don't really remember much of the fight, I think I got really lucky, but I do remember swallowing the blood."
"Eww. Really, Emma?" Mary Margret wrinkled her nose.
Emma shuddered. "It was way worse than you can possibly imagine. I almost threw up three times after getting Gold's potion thing, but if I started that - well I didn't really have much time..."
"It's a good thing you didn't expel the blood," Tawny informed them plainly. "A taste gives you a temporary effect, but a full drink, well you will forever be able to understand all creatures, and your other human languages will come to you much more easily."
Emma made a face. "That doesn't make the memory any less awful." Well, at least it made sense...in a weird fairy tale sort of way.
"Of course not," Tawny crooned, "but it is Traditional that helpful things are to be unpleasant just as harmful things are to be more than pleasant." And she meant so fucking tempting you abandon all common sense and get yourself cursed.
"Hold on," Mary Margret called out stubbornly. "What is all this talk about tradition? Why are you making it sound so important?"
The owl fluttered from Emma's arm to her shoulder. "The Tradition is important," she warned gravely. "The Tradition is the force that guides the fate of the kingdoms."
"We write our own fate," Mary Margret spoke defiantly. "I know that more than anyone."
Mulan looked intrigued, but her mind was not one that forgot purpose easily. "This is all very interesting, but I need to get back to Aurora and Phillip. How do we kill the Wraith?"
"Quite plainly, you can't," Tawny replied. "Even only a Champion has only a chance to imprison a Wraith. Only a Child of Prophecy can actually kill one."
Emma sighed, "So, if we can't kill a Wraith, how do we defeat one?"
Tawny's eyes danced with pride. And as she began to explain, they continued to walk, blindly following the path the Tradition laid out for them...even if only one of them truly believed.
It was Snow's turn to worry. If the furtive glances at Emma and the owl meant Snow was questioning Emma's sanity, well no one needed to know. Because in all honesty, Snow had never heard of anyone talking to animals, or maybe it was the talking back part that freaked her out.
If it weren't for the fact that the owl, Tawny actually looked like she was talking, Snow would have forced Emma to sleep off whatever madness she had caught from their fall through the hat.
But then Tawny mentioned a dragon.
And then Emma confirmed she had recently killed a dragon.
That was not okay with Snow. Emma should have never been near a dragon, ever! It was not okay! And neither was that owl saying something, some tradition controlled fate.
Snow fought hard for her life. She fought against fate with every breath. How dare that...that owl suggest it was all planned! Regina made her choices. Charming made his and she made her own.
That owl might know how to get rid of the Wraith that the whatever-magic-thing commanded them to defeat, but she wasn't just going to believe in anything but herself and Emma. They would write their own fate, not some faceless Tradition.
Far away, in what looked to be a small cottage in the woods, a mirror-servant by the name of Randolf began calling for the Godmother who lived there.
A young woman with a kind smile and long golden locks walked through the door at a brisk pace. Her shoulders were squared, prepared for a conference with anyone. Her work-hard hands smoothed down the practical pale rose dress and reached through a slit in her dress for her day wand.
"Godmother!" He greeted in relief as she pushed aside his mirror's curtain. "There is something I need to show you." The servant's face was handsome, even in his green-colored tones. His hands were only inches from his chin, being nervously wrung again and again. It was all she could see of him, all anyone could see of any mirror-servant or slave.
"What is it Randolf?" The Godmother asked swiftly. "An emergency? Or just another Godmother looking for some dragon's blood?"
"Closer to an emergency, I'm afraid," the mirror replied, and without further preamble, he displayed a worrisome scene.
"Where is this?" She snapped hurriedly. She had an inkling, one she did not want to be true.
"The Enchanted Forest," Randolf replied gravely. "Currently Dark One free, if it helps." He knew it was the one answer she did not want. It meant that someone would have to go there and make contact.
Briefly the Godmother wondered if she should send someone else, she was currently in charge of the Champion's Guild and Godmother communications. Not to mention her own kingdoms which had grown from her first seven to fifteen, maybe even more if she could not get the soon-to-be Cardinal Fairy trained up quickly enough.
But no, no one else would want to go either, well...at least no one competent. She sighed. "It would be easier to ask someone to substitute for me," she told Randolf. "Maybe...Klava could use the practice?"
"She has grasped Godmothering almost as quickly as you did," Randolf remarked fondly. "She'll take proper care of your kingdoms for the week or so you'll be absent."
"Week?" She asked with just a hint of relief. "Are you sure?"
"Not as sure as wish I could be," Randolf informed her, "but definitely no more than a month. A Wise Beast is guiding them, all you need to do is teach them magic, especially the Champion."
With a small sigh of relief, the Godmother stood. Preparations needed to be made, potions first, some disguises, some dragon's blood for the Champion...and some wine to wash it down...
"Oh, and Elena, perhaps you should make it a family affair," Randolf called out as she left.
A/N: Let me know what needs more explanation so I can weave it into the story. For those wondering why Tawny calls herself a 'Wise One' over a 'Wise Beast,' well, who wants to call themselves a beast? Maybe a wolf or a bear, but certainly not an owl.
Review if you'd like.