Trick or... Surprise me!
Asked by italymystery-swanqueen via tumblr.
This story is one deeply based on the world presented in the one about Emma being a selkie but rooted in another type of fae creature. (Because give me a fantasy setting and I will write nonstop about it) I wrote something similar a year ago on Burnt Pumpkins (Chapter 3) in where Emma was a spirit of the woods (I didn't truly say which one but I picked details regarding Dryads) just in case someone likes this type of setting.
Chapter 10: Or the one in where there are treats (But no tricks) and Emma is a fae.
"Don't open the door, wear your clothes backwards, don't look at them in the eye…"
The words had been repeated over and over again by her mother and the servants, by her father and the stable boy, the one she had become friends with before her mother had sent him away.
"Don't eat their food, don't speak at them, don't enter on their domains…."
And every year that it passed, in the nights preceding the big one, Regina could feel a humming on her veins from the magic her mother claimed she possessed with every scream and every punishment. And every year, when the night came and passed, the day after it she would listen to the servants, would hear tales of people foolish enough to have let them enter only to disappear and not be seen ever again.
She would hear about their tricks and the lights that changed colors as travelers tried to see from where they came; of flowers and presents and honey and whispers in the nighttime breeze. She would hear about their laughter, the most beautiful one a human would hear before disappearing, and about slender fingers the beckoned the ones willing to enter into the deeper part of the forest; in where everything was made of shadows and branches could be mistaken by those same fingers -now claws- that trapped you and never let you go.
And so, as her magic developed, as she studied sorcery and let the power on her veins grow and grow under her mother's watchful eye, she grew dreaming about the forest and the shadows that filled it with a mixture of fear and longing from the creatures that could use their magic and be free. She, however, not once opened the door or the windows when the night came, closing her door room as tightly as she was instructed and waiting for the sweet voices she could her rattling against her window to go and be swallowed by the forest once again.
Until, one year, in where she had been hiding from Mother until very very late and the night had found her looking through the books Father had giving her in where other stories were told about Queens and prophecies that could have been. This time, when the window rattled and the voices called for her, she glanced curiously at it only to find a green-eyed girl no older than her with hair gold hued and a skin so pale the moon reflected on it.
She didn't open the window but the girl and she stared at each other for a long time, her face getting embedded on Regina's mind as she stared and waited, the air on her lungs escaping in the form of a sigh as the figure of the creature disappeared in the form of hundreds of stars. It wasn't until the sunrays touched the ledge of the window Regina found one single treat though; a flower. Its petals as red as blood.
She hid the flower away from her mother and took it with her when she was given to the King, its fragrance never losing its strength, no matter the moons that passed. Until the following year arrived and this time, already in court with the title of Queen dangling from her head, she waited for the night to come, nervous and afraid and not entirely sure the one who would look at her from the other side of the window would be the same that had done it a year ago.
The same green eyes, however, stared back at her that night, a smile and one single finger pointing at the world outside. The one Regina felt that it had been robbed from her. She still could hear the words of the maids and the servants though "Don't give them your name, don't touch them." and she shook her head. Her magic burnt and sparkled for a moment, enough to elicit a frown from the creature who pointed outside one more time before seeming to sigh and turn towards the vast night sky in where the twinkling lights were alive with the power the night hold.
"Don't come close to them, don't talk to them."
The creature bit down her bottom lip and muttered one single syllable. One that reached Regina and made her shiver as the other left, leaving behind a silhouette that disappeared the second the brunette blinked.
"Emma."
The following day there was a rock, a pebble from the river, what awaited her on the window's ledge, its colors as changing as the riverbend.
And so, each year Regina waited for the creature, for Emma, never saying her own name but each year coming closer to the window until six years after that second coming, with the king dead and nothing but her powers -the ones she hated, the ones she despised, the ones that burnt on her veins every time she felt anger, despair, loss- to keep her sane, she left the window open.
"Don't take their hand, don't accept their gifts, don't pick their treats."
And that year, when Emma appeared on her window, she smiled and called for her in silence, two fingers curling. The blonde creature stared at her for the longest of times before she nodded, her body just crossing the invisible barrier that had been there before.
She was taller than her. Regina realized. Tall and slender, with clothes she seemed to have seen on humans but didn't know how to properly use them, with leather and a strange fabric Regina couldn't pinpoint covering her legs. Her fingers running through her head, those green eyes looking, staring at her.
"Don't speak at them. Don't trust them."
"My name is Regina."
Emma's kiss stole Regina's breath away and it tasted like honey and something else, something that made her magic climb through her throat, mixing with the power she could feel running through Emma's body, strong, powerful and ancient.
The following day she opened her eyes only to find herself on her bed. Two threads of hair trapped in a crystal cage and a note hanging from its corner.
"I'll be back."