Neil was starting to bite his nails, his father had told him not to do so as it might bleed his hands and he couldn't stand anything happening to his precious boy. But his friend had been gone a while now, did he need to go for help? Was he brave enough to go in after her? Emma was his best friend. He wanted to cry for his daddy but he wouldn't hear him all the way down here.

He took a deep breath and watched his feet as he put one foot in front of the other. He parely made it five paces when other feet appeared accompanied by a loud "Boo!"

He jumped and wet himself a little blushing.

"Emma! That's not funny!"

Emma gave him a quick hug, ignoring the slight smell of urine.

"Neil I one I went to the back. We'll need to find another challenge next week."

She started to walk up the stairs past him.

He ran to catch up and lowered his voice.

"So um, Em was there…. Was she down there for real?"

Emma stopped and turned to look at her friend and rolled her eyes.

"Of course not Neil, she's just a story I told you."

….

Regina had no concept of time. Only of how cold she was every blasted second she was awake. Years could be passing or just hours. She was wasn't able to do too much as her magic didn't extend out of the cell. But she could duplicate her food and water to stay alive, and dump her feces down a pipe and rinse it out.

She kept her cell clean to keep her health up, one day she would get out of here. Snow had had a spell placed on this cell so not a moment of youth would be stolen from Regina. Either to assuage her guilt that when the queen was finally released she still had the rest of her life, or to make sure she knew she was beaten for all of eternity.

Regina picked up her long forgotten books and created some light to read by, but there wasn't much interest there. She really wanted the young princess to come back. Her mind had started to spin. If she could just get Emma to come that close again she could snap her neck…or just hold her hostage and parlee her into freedom.

The girl had entertained her, she would try and not scar her too much. She had been young once, innocent and brave, and stupid. Oh so stupid. Why would the child come up to her?

She grew weary waiting, figuring she must have lost her chance and the princess was not to return, perhaps her mother had found out about her flirting with death, or the child had become too enamored with her birthday party to return to see the woman wasting away in the dungeon.

She was deep in sleep when she heard a voice enter her dreams.

"Regina? It's Emma…"

She saw a little girl join her in the field she was guiding her horse through but the girl wouldn't look at her.

"It was my birthday today. I'm six. I asked mommy what your name used to be, I hope I remembered it right?"

Regina started to leaved her dream and slowly returned to her cold cell, still facing the wall she remained still so the young blond would not realize she was awake.

Emma's voice got a bit quieter.

"Sorry if you're sleeping… I brought cupcakes down for us to eat but… I'll just leave them here, I don't need one anyway…Oh and I brought you something else."

Regina could hear items set into her cell.

"I… I hope this is a bit better…good night Regina."

She waited a long time till she could no longer hear sounds in the hall.

When she rose she saw that this time the princess had left her her lantern just outside of the cell for light, the girl didn't know she could create her own.

A thick wool blanket was stuffed through the bars and there were two cupcakes sitting on the floor. One dark purple and one red.

Regina shivered and moved towards the blanket and felt how thick it was, a smile to her face. She would never be cold again. Gratitude rushed through her as she lifted the item and set it on her bed. Then she carefully picked up the cupcakes and set them on her table. Then moving quickly to cover up her legs in the new blanket. She pulled the purple one from the table as she wanted to enjoy the red one's company a bit more.

She gazed at the dark purple with white crystal sprinkles and she smiled,

"Happy birthday Emma."