Sorry about taking a few days to post this; I've been writing quite a lot lately but I've also had to focus on my thesis, which I have to be basically done with in two weeks, so I haven't remembered to post new chapters. I know that these chapters follow the outline of the episodes quite closely but some of the ones that follow them will not :) And there'll be more Master-Apprentice-training happening soon and friendships/romances happening as well
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I've never seen her before in my life."
Emma placed her hands on her hips as she tried to discern if Gold was lying or not. She might not like to admit it, but he was one of the few her old superpower did not seem to be working on.
"So how did she end up inside your urn, inside your secret vault of terror?" she questioned.
"Look", Gold sighed, "if you really want to know how she wound up there she's standing right beside you, miss Swan."
This was, of course, true. After failing to take down the wall, on multiple occasions, throughout the weekend Emma, Elsa and Killian had resolved to visiting Gold and talk to him about all of this. He was, after all, the one who had been in possession of the urn that had brought Elsa to this land, by accident. Emma remembered Killian taking it out of a cupboard back in Rumplestiltskin's castle, but she had not realized that it had been pulled through the time portal with them and Marian until Elsa told her that that was where she had emerged from.
"She's already asked me", Elsa now said, "but I can't remember. Something happened to my memories."
Gold raised an eyebrow at her.
"An all too common affliction in these parts", he said. "Pity. But as you can see..."
He gestured at the crammed shop they were standing in.
"Many objects fall into my possession. Urns, necklaces, all manner of things, and I can't know the history behind all of them."
"Only if there's something in it for you", Killian pointed out.
"Hook", Indira, standing on Gold's right side, said, narrowing her eyes. The Indian girl had been at the shop when the trio entered, obviously trying to catch up with the man she had, in a short period of time, become a close friend of.
"Well, that may have been true once", Gold replied to the pirate with a sad smile, "but recently my life has been... turned upside-down."
He turned towards Belle, who was standing on his left.
"I've lost a son and gained a wife", he continued, holding out his hand towards the brunette who took it in both of hers. "You might say I've decided to turn over a new leaf."
He paused and looked at Emma for a few moments.
"Miss Swan", he then said, "I know you're trying to tell if I'm lying or not. Let me do you one better; Belle can use the Dagger on me."
Belle immediately let go of his hand.
"No", she protested, shaking her head. "No, Rumple, no; you don't have to..."
"No, it's alright", Gold said. "Miss Swan wants proof and I'm happy to cooperate."
Emma wondered if she looked as surprised as she felt. Gold must truly love and trust Belle if he let her do this to him, but even more; he must have really decided to leave all of his past behind him after what had happened some months before. It still hurt to think about the events that had perspired in town during the terror of the Wicked Witch.
"You sure you will be alright?" Indira asked, eying both Belle and Gold as she spoke. The man nodded.
"Of course."
Belle then, slowly, turned towards her bag and pulled out the familiar, crudely shaped dagger from it. She held it out between the two of them, angling it so that his engraved name was visible to them both.
"I command you, Dark One, to tell them the truth."
"The truth", Gold replied, "is just as I said. I had no idea there was someone inside that urn. I know nothing about Elsa or her sister, but I wish you the best of luck finding her."
Emma watched as Belle quickly returned the Dark One's Dagger to her bag, as if it burned her to hold it. It might as well have; it could not be fun to know that you had the power to command your husband to do anything, even if it was against his will, if you were as kind-hearted as the brunette in question was known to be. However good it felt to have received a truthful confession from Gold, it also felt terrible to know that their only trace to where Anna might be had gone cold. They were back to square one.
"So Gold's not behind Anna's disappearance?" Rachel asked.
"How could you possibly believe that in the first place?" Indira asked in return. "You know he's not the Dark One anymore, not really. I mean, he has the powers of the Dark One, but Belle's..."
"It doesn't matter if he's the Dark One anymore or not in this case", Rachel replied, sipping on the coffee in her take-away cup from Granny's. "Elsa was brought from the Dark Castle thirty years in the past and we don't know how long she had been in that urn before that. She doesn't remember how she was put in the urn in the first place; her last memory before coming here is of her and Anna preparing for Anna's wedding to Kristoff. Something happened in Arendelle after that last memory that caused Anna's disappearance and Elsa's entrapment."
"And you're saying it might be Gold after all?" Indira asked, staring out over the pond they were sitting by.
"Well, it doesn't seem likely if he was commanded to tell the truth by Belle. Someone else's likely behind it."
"Perhaps the same person who's maintaining that ice wall", Indira suggested and sipped on her own drink. Her friend nodded in agreement.
"When I was a kid", she said after a while, "I used to love reading fairytales about people with the ability to create ice and snow. The Chronicles of Narnia was my favourite, of course, but then there was another, a tale by HC Andersen. The Snow Queen."
"Wasn't Frozen, the movie, based off of that tale?" Indira asked.
"Very, very loosely", Rachel replied with a small smile, "but the original tale is far better in my opinion. And since they are so different, perhaps, in this world, they are two different stories?"
"So you're saying that the Snow Queen from The Snow Queen fairytale might be the one who's causing the wall to remain upright?" Indira asked.
"It's a possibility."
"But why do this now, then? If she's a powerful ice witch, like the White Witch from Narnia, couldn't she have frozen Zelena once we got here and then taken over?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Rachel sighed and leaned back on the bench. "Why now? What's changed and made all of this possible now?"
"Us coming back?" Indira suggested after a while.
"Not just us", her friend replied. "There was someone else who got... out of her entrapment the same night that we got here. Elsa."
Indira frowned slightly.
"Do you think, whoever this Snow Queen is, she has some business with Elsa?"
"Either that or she has some business with our group."
Indira groaned.
"Don't tell anyone I said this", she said, "but I'd much rather have her have business with Elsa than with us. We have enough to deal with, what with being masters and having apprentices and everything."
Rachel chuckled, before emptying her coffee cup.
"Mary Margaret's invited those of us who can come to a meeting at the town hall", she said and rose. "We should probably get going if we want to get there on time."
Indira nodded and rose as well.
"You know", she said as they walked along the path leading away from the pond in the middle of the small park, "I never really understood what happened between you and Sam. You seemed perfectly happy back in New York, but then..."
"It's in the past", Rachel replied, her jaw tensing slightly. "Over and done."
"He doesn't seem to think so."
"What about you and Josh?" Rachel retorted. Indira sighed.
"If everything was fine for us before we came here, everything's bad now. Him and Gold do not like one another. Or Josh seems to have decided that Gold's still evil."
"So convince him otherwise", Rachel said. "You know Gold a lot better than he does, don't you?"
"Yeah", Indira sighed, throwing her now empty cup in a trashcan. Rachel did the same and then they walked in silence in the direction of the town hall.
Once inside the town hall they joined a group of people heading upstairs, greeting Archie Hopper and Granny on the way. Indira smiled slightly when she thought about her first visit to this house, on the night of their arrival in Storybrooke; Zelena had broken into the Mayor's office to destroy any kind of progress Regina had made on a memory potion. Regina had tried to seal the office with a blood lock to trap the Witch in there, but since Zelena was her half-sister she had managed to escape anyway. In short, it had been quite an eventful first night.
Now the house was lit up and outside the Mayor's office, where the secretary was supposed to be seated, stood Mary Margaret with baby Neal in her arms. She smiled as they appeared.
"Hi, welcome", she said and handed them and the others who had arrived with them a flyer. "This is the meeting agenda of today, feel free to head inside and take a seat. There are refreshments available in there."
"Sure you don't need a hand?" Rachel asked, nodding at the sleeping baby.
"Oh, no, I've got it", Mary Margaret replied.
"You're planning on running your first fireside chat holding a newborn?" Indira asked, cocking her head at the woman.
"I'm fine. Mothers are natural multi-taskers."
"Nothing you can do about it, girls", David said, appearing through the door leading into the Mayor's office. "I've already tried. Seems like my wife enjoys to juggle a dozen things."
"Well, maybe I do", Mary Margaret replied. "You know, I'm starting to have more and more respect for our court jester every day."
"Yeah", David chuckled, "Rupert was special."
"You had a court jester called Rupert?" Indira asked.
"A long time ago", David replied with a grin. Then he turned towards his wife again, frowning slightly.
"But you're absolutely sure you can..."
"We took back a kingdom, remember?" Mary Margaret pointed out. "I can handle this."
Then she marched past them into the Mayor's office. From the corner of her eye Indira saw David and Rachel share an exasperated look, before the former Prince Charming guided them into the office. Right before he closed the door a family of three appeared; Robin Hood, Marian and Roland. Roland's face lit up as he saw Indira and Rachel and while Rachel walked over to stand with her brother opposite the door, Indira walked over to the newly reunited family. Robin smiled at her as she approached.
"Nice to have you guys back", he said.
"Thank you", Indira said, before holding out her hand towards Marian. "Hi, I'm Indira."
"Marian", she replied with a smile. "Are you a friend of Jade's?"
"Yeah", Indira replied. "Rachel is too; she's standing over there with David."
Then Mary Margaret cleared her throat.
"Hi everyone", she said, standing in front of the large, white desk with baby Neal in her arms, "and welcome to the very first Mayor's fireside chat. For too long this office was a place to be feared, but I want every citizen to feel welcome and included here. So..."
She waved the flyers with the meeting agenda she was still holding in one hand.
"If we could just refer to the meeting agenda I've printed, there are..."
"Excuse me", Archie Hopper said, "but what's this about an ice wall?"
"Oh, that's item number four", Mary Margaret replied with a smile. "We'll get there in a minute."
"I vote we skip items one two and three", Leroy called. "Show of hands, people!"
An ocean of hands shot up into the air at once, taking Mary Margaret aback.
"Oh", she said, "well, alright. I can be flexible."
She cleared her throat again.
"The ice wall is nothing to worry about."
She smiled reassuringly at the crowd.
"For the time being it does surround the entire town..."
Indira groaned when the room erupted into a chaos as people shouted in confusion, fear and anger. The crowd had been seemingly fine with just knowing that it would not harm them and now Mary Margaret had to tell them the fact that they were trapped? Her hormones must have gone to her head! From across the room Indira could see Rachel making a similar face as she herself was probably making.
Then Neal started crying.
"Everyone, please, calm down", Mary Margaret said, trying to make her son go back to sleep again. After a minute of rocking him back and forth he seemed content enough to fall silent again.
"The wall isn't hurting anyone", the newly appointed Mayor then said.
"We've been through this before", Leroy said. "I'm not worried about the damn wall; I'm worried about who made it!"
"Oh, that's item five", Mary Margaret said. "Her name is Elsa and she's a friend."
"I've spoken to Elsa", David filled in, "and I promise you we will have all of this under control very soon. There will be no more danger of any kind."
"So", Mary Margaret said with a new smile, "if we could all just circle back to item one..."
"Marian!"
Indira spun around just as Robin dropped everything he was carrying in his arms to catch his wife.
"Marian!" he called again, trying to shake her awake. Her head lolled to the side and Indira heard more than felt a gasp escape her own lips, one that somehow was now audible to everyone in the room stunned to silence. Robin looked up at her, seemingly trying to understand why she had made that sound, but Indira simply knelt next to the woman who had fainted. With a trembling hand she reached out and brushed away some of the black strands of hair, revealing a part that had suddenly taken on a very different colour; white, like newly fallen snow.