Emma and Charming headed right over to Regina's place, to have a look around.
"She probably turned someone into a bush, and forgot about them", Emma quipped.
"Be nice, Emma", her dad piped up, but he chuckled anyway and doesn't necessarily disagree with what she said.
Emma smirks at her father, but keeps walking slowly around the house. She hears nothing, sees nothing unexpected, and thinks it's a just a big waste of time.
That is until she hears a tiny sigh, and her dad is more than a dozen feet away from her. It was almost as if the column itself on the front porch sighed from the weight of the world on top of it. She stares at the column, trying to reconcile her brain to the thoughts that sprang unbidden into existence. Columns don't sigh, don't cry, don't do anything but exist where a human placed them. This column was no different from the others, all standing sentinel around the porch. Pointedly looking at each one, but seeing just a column, or four columns actually, and hearing nothing else, Emma believes she may not have heard a sigh after all.
"Why are you staring at the porch like that", Charming asked her.
Apparently she hadn't been paying attention to his approach, because she jumped at the sound of his voice. Putting a hand on her chest over the area of her heart trying in vain to get it to slow back down, Emma replied, "I know it sounds crazy, but I almost thought for a minute that I heard a sigh from the column itself. Obviously, it's crazy, but there are times I swear Storybrooke is Crazy-Town. So of course why shouldn't the column get tired of holding up the balcony, am I right? Dad, tell me the column can't sigh. Tell me strange things aren't bound to happen every single day around here. Convince me, that we can have a quiet normal life."
"Uh, sure. All of that. But first, what exactly did you hear?"
"A sigh. You know… inhale, exhale audibly. Like you are tired, like you are so very sad, like there is no hope. A sigh, but it was quiet, or small. And I'm trying to convince myself I didn't hear it, it must have been something else, but I did hear it. I know I did. Someone, or something, is here with us right now on this porch."
"It's no good, Thalia, no one ever looks down. Might as well give up."
Emma stared blankly at her father, matching his vacant stare back at his daughter. A full minute passes before Charming finally spoke.
"Are you staring at me because you heard that, too, or because I have egg on my face left over from breakfast?"
"So I'm not insane then. You heard that. What was it?"
"It was a voice. Someone spoke. Something about giving up. I didn't catch it all."
"Me either. I heard snow's good, and tall, or coming down, but it's not snowing, not since Elsa got a handle on her magic. I'm so confused."
"Snow? Maybe it has to do with your mother? I think I will call to check on her." As he whipped out his phone he took a few steps away from the porch, and Emma looked back at the column willing herself to find something there this time.
All of the columns were identical in every way. She put her hand on one of them and walked a complete circle around it. Nothing. She does it to the next one and also finds nothing. The third one, seems the same story, except this one has a small marking just above the base. Like an artist signature. She gets down on her hands and knees to really look at it, and it appears to be an engraved image of a very small, very round woman with her hair in a fountain shape on top of her head.
"What a very strange carving on this post. Dad, Come have a look."
Charming hung up with Snow, and dropped down next to Emma. "Oh cute, must be the carver's mark, you think?"
"I could be wrong, but I swear it keeps moving."
And then of course, it did move. And spoke. "Well of course I'm moving! I been trying to talk to you since you walked up here! I need help! My sisters have all gone missing! I'm in a strange place, and I don't know what to do!" She began to cry in earnest, making anything she was saying utterly indistinguishable from her sobs.
Emma and Charming just looked at each other, dumbfounded. Neither one knowing what could even be said about this new revelation, nor having the desire to say anything that did come to mind.
"Sorry", the figure choked out, and she sobbed a few more times. "It's just that, I've never been without my sisters before, and I'm so afraid, and for a week I have been trying to get someone to hear me, but no one ever did."
"So, do you have a name?" Emma asked.
"Yes, I'm Thalia."
"Nice to meet you Thalia, I'm Emma, and this is my dad. Some call him David, but most call him Charming. Where did you come from?"
"I can see why they call him Charming", Thalia giggled. "I came from Rome. My sisters and I all live in the columns of the Ancient buildings there."
"Wait, you are one of the five muses?" Charming finally was able to speak again.
"That's right, you have been to Rome before?"
"Not exactly. My grandson recently introduced us to something called Netflix, and we watched 'Hercules' just a week ago."
Thalia looked at him like he was transforming into Titan before her eyes.
"Nevermind, what can we do? Only a couple of us in this town can even leave it", said Charming.
"Wait, there's magic in Rome" Emma asked.
"Magic? What is magic", Thalia was beginning to fall apart again. Was anyone going to be able to help her? This place was so confusing.
"There was a Rome back in Fairytale Land," Charming remembered. "It was very far from our kingdom, and I have never seen it, but one of the warriors that fought with my brother shortly before his death had spoke of a Rome, with creatures half horse-half man, and half goat-half man, and a dog with 3 heads. I never believed it, but now… well, can we possibly doubt anything anymore?"
Emma just sat back onto her rump, not even sure what to say. Would the oddities of the world she was born to never cease to shock her? Dropping her head into her hands she began to moan.
"I can't take this anymore. Should we call Regina?"
Charming dialed Regina, "I think you should come over to your house, we kind of found something that we aren't even sure what to do about."