Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time.

Chapter Seven

"So who was she?" Emma asked as she, Lily and Ingrid sat at the table to the main hall.

In front of them was a wide range of food. Personally, Emma had never seen so much food before in one place in all her life. The food was so rich and tasty, she didn't know what to eat first. Across from her, Lily was staring at the food wide eyed.

Ingrid looked up at Emma, "Who was who?"

"The women in the painting: Gothel Stabbington."

Ingrid shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cleared her throat, "My family does not speak of it. Even when I was a child, my mother and father refused to speak of it. I only know what was rumoured amongst the towns' people, but that was more folklore than fact."

Ingrid paused for a moment.

"Gothel Stabbington was my great grandmother's sister. My grandmother was the first ruling queen of Arendelle, her name was Rapunzel."

Lily and Emma glanced at each other. Rapunzel was a well-known fairy tale in the realm they come from… It couldn't possibly be true, could it? They did have the Snow Queen as a mother after all, so maybe anything was possible.

"Legend has it that Gothel had a child, who was foretold to the most beautiful maiden in all the land. My great grandmother's than betrothed, was jealous. He wanted any children he fathered to be the greatest in every way and none could be better. So one stormy winter's night he and his men kill the child.

"Gothel vowed vengeance on their first born child. So five years later when my great-grandmother gave birth to her first child, a baby girl she named Rapunzel, the kingdom was on high alert. After seven months Gothel still hadn't done anything and she hadn't been seen since her child's death, so the king declared it safe and the guards were lessened.

"A week later the baby Rapunzel was taken in the night. But Gothel could not bring herself to kill the child, so instead, she hid the child away in a tower, hidden deep within the mountain, where no person had stepped foot before. Every day Gothel would visit Rapunzel and she grew into a beautiful young woman.

"But one day a prince from a visiting kingdom, Prince Eugene, heard Rapunzel singing from her tower window and followed her voice. He rescued Rapunzel from her tower and they were later married and Rapunzel became the first ruling Queen of Arendelle."

"What happened to Gothel?" Lily asked.

Ingrid shook her head, "I do not know. My parents never spoke of it and the tale I told you is the story they tell in the town… How much of it is true, I do not know."

Emma glanced towards the door to the hall they were eating in.

"This castle has a library, right? Maybe there's a book or something that can tell us more."

"I don't believe you would be able to read it, even if there was a book," Ingrid answered before Lily and Emma could get their hopes up. "The written language of this kingdom is different from the language in your realm."

"What?!" Lily exclaimed.

"But we could read the inscription on the painting," Emma pointed out. "It was written in English."

Ingrid frowned. "No, it's written in runes. Everything older than fifty years is."

"I swear it was written in English, Ingrid," Emma replied. "How else could I have read it?"

Ingrid got to her feet, looking alarmed, fearful and worried all in one.

"Please excuse me, girls, there is a small matter I just remembered I have to take care of."

)o(

"What do you think got Ingrid so worried like that?" Emma asked Lily, as the two of them walk through the castle.

"I don't know," Lily answered. "But I bet it had something to do with that painting."

"Yeah, maybe." Emma agreed. "The inscription was written in English, I swear it was!"

"I believe you," Lily said. "It's possible someone changed the inscription. Ingrid obviously hasn't been living here while she was in the realm we came from and if everything older than fifty years is written in runes, maybe a scribe from the town has been up here translating things."

"Maybe we should get a closer look at that painting," Emma reasoned. "We could have missed something, there has to be some sort of clue. Maybe it'd be easier to find out about that tower than it would be to find out about Gothel and Rapunzel."

"How are we going to get in there though?" Lily asked. "Ingrid locked the doors."

"We both have magic, right?" Emma replied. "It shouldn't be too hard."

Lily rolled her eyes, "We both have magic but neither of us know how to use it."

"It can't be that hard, Lily." Emma answered. "If not we'll just have to pick the lock. We broke into that holiday home after all."

"Yeah," Lily agreed. "But I smashed a window and I've never picked a lock before, I wouldn't even know where to start!"

Emma smiled. "Good thing I have then."

"When have you ever picked a lock?" Lily asked, curious.

"At the third foster home I was sent to," Emma answered. "One of the older boys taught me how to pick the lock on the storage shed out the back. It was one of those old, chunky pad locks, it can't be much different to the locks here."

"Why did he teach you to do it?" Lily questioned, in past experiences no one ever gave you anything for free, everything came with a price.

"Well the older kids used to dare the younger kids to go in there and get something from the back shelf. I was the only kid to ever do it, so it was like a reward for doing it."

"You were the only one who ever did it?" Lily shook her head. "You're either really brave or all the other kids were the world's greatest wimps!"

Emma laughed. "I think they were all just wimps. It really wasn't that bad. The place was really old, everything was covered in dust, and there were cobwebs everywhere, hundreds of spider and creepy crawlies all over the place. There were even these old glass jars full of different coloured liquids, I was half expecting to find a served hand in one… That's what I got, a jar full of this weird red-pink liquid. One of the boys opened it, it smelt horrible!"

Lily grinned. "You should have dared one of them to drink it."

Emma glanced at Lily. "I wish I had, there was this real jerk at the home. He got a pair of scissors and cut of one of the other girl's ponytails…"

"We have magic now," Lily pointed out. "We could curse him."

"Do you think Ingrid would let us?" Emma asked in mock excitement, dark magic didn't really appeal to her and she was pretty sure cursing someone was dark magic. "Maybe we could curse him with misfortune."

"Or to grow a pig's tail," Lily suggested.

)o(

Hey, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update this story, I will complete it, I swear. Until next time,

Blessed be,

TreeOfLife1997.