Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Once Upon a Time. This is story is not intended for profit, just as a tribute to the amazing writing, characters, and intricate plots therein.
Author's Note RE: Continuity: In my head-canon, if Snow and David had a second child in Storybrooke, they probably also would have had a second child without a curse. And obviously they would not have named him Neal, so the only other person they could name him after—besides Leopold, and we all know how David felt about that—was David's lost twin, James. Plus, since David is still sort of impersonating James as the rightful heir to King George's throne (which sure makes it easier to usurp the throne from ol' Georgie), it makes sense to keep the name alive for political reasons, as well. So, from here on out, when you see a reference to "James," "Prince James," or "Jamie," I'm talking about Emma's little brother, not the Prince James who was David's identical twin. Okay? Good.
Chapter 8: The Search is Over, But the Quest Continues
Killian watched almost in shock as the Princess sobbed into her father's shoulder. One of David's hands gently cupped the back of his daughter's head while the other rubbed soothing circles on her back. He could just make out the meaningless inanities David repeated over and over, his lips pressed into his daughter's hair: It's all right, I love you, you're fine now, I love you, it's going to be alright, I love you.
Well, Killian thought. That explained a few things.
Details about the humble shepherd had bothered him from the start: David's military knowledge, for one, his fine boots, his commanding airs, and his dedication to finding the lost princess. Correction, his dedication in finding his daughter, Princess Emma. Killian huffed a breath out and sheathed his sword while he connected all of the pieces in his mind.
He glanced over at his traveling companions to gauge their reactions. Most of the wolves appeared as surprised as he, though Red was smiling and teary. David had said they were old friends. It stood to reason that Red had known all along who David was, who the lost princess was. Another person who had kept vital information from him. And here had decided to like the lady wolf.
Finally, her face buried in her father's shoulder so that Killian could barely make out the words, the swan Princess spoke. "You found me."
David choked on a laugh, his eyes squeezed tight which did nothing to stop his tears. "Did you doubt I would?"
Princess Emma lifted her head. Her face was flushed and tear tracks lined her, but the look she gave David—her father—was one of fond annoyance. "Well, the decade-long wait did give me pause," she admitted. "What took you so long?"
David sighed, shaking his head. "After we sent you away, a lot happened. The castle fell…"
She grabbed his shirtsleeves in tight fists. "If you're alive… Mother? Jamie? I assumed, when I heard that Regina had won, that you were all dead, but if you're here—"
David shook his head, his eyes closed. "Your brother got pinned down with Pinocchio's squad in the inner bailey. Your mother went to help."
"Which means Lancelot was with her," the Princess said. "He wouldn't have let her go off alone."
"Of course not," David said. "One of my only comforts during the siege was that Lancelot and ten of his best knights were with her, watching her back. I was covering the outer baily so that as many people could get out of the castle through the tunnels as possible. I had no knowledge of what happened until later, or I would have gone with her." David swallowed hard. "For a long time, I wished I had."
Princess Emma took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Tell me."
"Regina convinced Maleficent to work with her," David said. "That sorceress had her own reasons for hating us, so she gladly agreed. She transformed and burned everything in the courtyard to ash in minutes. Your mother and James, Lancelot, Pinocchio, and all of their knights never made it out."
A sorceress transformed…into a dragon? Killian recalled David's comment about the only intelligent dragon being a magician in disguise. It was no stretch at all to assume he meant Maleficent.
"Without Snow…" David rasped, "and without your brother, and with you being lost…I did the one thing your mother would have been most disappointed in me for doing. I lost hope." He cleared his throat and then chuckled. "I needed someone to come along and help me find it again. And speaking of which..."
He formally held his daughter out at arm's length, as though they were in a ballroom about to be introduced to a visiting dignitary, and stepped toward the boy watching proceedings with an awed and wondering expression. "Emma," David announced. "Meet Henry."
Killian felt his stomach sink and knot. It would be his luck, it would be just his luck… Hadn't Henry mentioned something about the Evil Queen taking him in? Hadn't he insisted, in fact, that Regina was not his mother? Killian had discounted it at the time, but now…
The boy stepped forward, a hesitant smile on his face. "Hi, Mom."
Aye, Killian thought. Saw that one coming.
The Princess looked at the boy, dumbfounded. She reached out a hesitant hand to touch the lad's cheek. Henry was having none of that and threw himself into his mother's arms much the way she had done with her father. The look of surprise and discomfort that quickly melted into tenderness as she—much as David had done—reached down to cup her child's head and rest her chin on his crown. Even through his irritation, Killian felt touched by the gesture.
He narrowed his eyes at the Princess and watched as she gazed in awe and shock at her son. She seemed genuinely surprised to see the boy. Her face was an open book, and the joy and something like terror written there reminded him of his own mother's face the day she died. She had looked at him the same way, as if memorizing every feature to take with her.
Regina had taken the boy and raised him as her own, and the Princess had been separated from her family for a decade, she'd said. Henry could not have been more than ten. When had the separation occurred?
"Wait!" a voice interrupted. "What?"
Killian looked over, glad that he was not the one to call attention to the glaring omission in the shepherd's story. Instead, it was Tanner. Ah, irritating, disgruntled, ever-obtuse Tanner. This one time, Killian was willing to be glad for the werewolf's ignorance since it matched his own.
Red collapsed her crossbow and stowed it once more beneath her red cape, all the while moving forward toward the three royals. "I would think it was obvious, Tanner. We found the lost princess."
As soon as she reached the trio, Red wrapped her arms around the Princess, as well, enveloping both the younger woman and the boy in the folds of her cloak. Killian heard Princess Emma murmur something to "Aunt Red" before finally extracting herself from her family. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, pulling on a more regal—or at least less tearful—face.
Killian thought about the situation as he understood it. It made sense, in a political way, for David to have kept his true identity secret, and if he had suspected that Henry was his grandson—for surly he must have guessed—all the more reason to keep quiet about it, to protect the boy. It was not as if there hadn't been clues. Even so, it was galling to have been lied to by royalty again, having Killian risk his life for royal ends, damned be the peons lost along the way. And he could tell that some of the wolves felt the same. They had all been used.
He burned with the knowledge that he had been led through the woods like a fool, not knowing that he aided a fallen king and the bloody heir apparent. From the first, Henry had lied about his origins—doubly so if this Princess was indeed his birth mother—and then David had proceeded to give him lies and half-truths. Always, royalty lied and used those beneath them with no care for the consequences of their actions. Why was he even here? How could he have allowed himself to get into this situation again?
Killian pulled in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. True, he had been used to further David's agenda to reach his daughter, but that did not mean that Killian could not in turn use them to reach his own goal and finally get revenge upon the Crocodile for killing Milah and taking his hand. This woman was the key. Whatever or whoever had gotten him here, he had found the Princess, the promised Savior, and that was the important thing.
It had been foolish of him not to think that his companions had their own agendas and their own secrets. And, if he were to be completely honest with himself, to protect a child—to protect two children, for the Princess was David's child—he probably would have done the same. If Bae had accepted him, Killian would have taken on Pan and the Lost Boys to protect him, lied to them and misled them all in order to keep Milah's son safe. Hell, he had lied to the Black Knights in order to protect Henry, even when he thought the lad was potentially insane.
It wasn't forgiveness, he reassured himself. It was understanding and pragmatism. A father protected his child. Further explanation, however, and justification for the ruse was required before Killian was completely willing to let go of his idea of calling the shepherd out and demanding satisfaction.
"I believe what the wolf meant was, why were we," Killian used his hook to indicate the rest of the werewolves and himself, "left out of this delightful secret. And after that question is answered, I have a few more."
"We can explain," David promised.
"But first," the Princess said, "can we sit? It's been a long day flying over you all, and I haven't eaten yet."
The group moved back from the water's edge. David helped his daughter find a dry patch where she could spread out the sodden hem of her dress, and Henry flopped down right next to her and shrugged off his knapsack. David took her other side, and Red sat on his left, each pulling out morsels and passing them to the Princess. The wolves arrayed themselves about, leaving Killian to stand almost directly opposite the lovely swan-maiden.
Well, Killian considered, glancing at Henry. Perhaps not strictly a maiden.
"Thank you," she said. "I appreciate it." She cleared her throat and seemed to shake herself, pulling up some memory of proper protocol from her royal past. "I am Princess Emma of Sainte-George and Terrapompuria, by the way. And you all are?"
He waited while Red introduced her pack before Killian swept the lady a bow, pulling out all of his own largely wasted etiquette lessons. "Captain Killian Jones, your Highness. A pleasure to finally meet you."
"He's a pirate," Henry shared.
Princess Emma eyed him, her brow furrowing. "How did a pirate end up searching for me?"
"The boy found himself at the docks, where my ship was moored to take on supplies," he explained. "When he told me of his quest, I decided to join him. I was in the mood for an adventure," he added with a careless shrug.
"Glad I could provide you with some entertainment," she rebutted.
"The pleasure is mine," he returned with, admittedly, more innuendo than was probably appropriate when addressing a princess. David's sharp look communicated that he certainly thought so.
"And now, to answer your question," David said, still glaring at him. "We didn't tell anyone who I was or who Emma is to me, in case we ran into Regina's Black Knights. We were afraid that someone could be captured and tortured for information. We couldn't allow Regina to find out that the former king of Sainte-George and one of the Princess's godparents," he gestured to Red, "were trying to find Emma."
"We all know that Regina's Black Knights carry mirrors with them so that they can report to her," Red pointed out. "We've killed enough of them while we were out hunting. That' s why I always went through their belongings and tossed the mirrors as soon as I found them."
"You always just said that it was a precaution," Mara pointed out. "You never said why."
"And you're royalty?" Jeb blurted, astonished.
Tanner, Killian noticed, was looking at his alpha with a new gleam in his eye.
Red shook her head, as did both David and the Princess.
"No," Red said. "I was never royalty. I'm commoner to the core, but Snow White was my best friend. We met when we were much younger, when Snow was first on the run from the Queen. She had spent two nights alone in the forest before she stumbled upon my Granny's farm. I found her—cold, hungry, and very frightened—hiding in the chicken coop one morning. And not long after, I discovered my Wolf…"
Whatever memory her discovery triggered, it was easy to see it was not a good one. Killian watched Red press her eyes tightly shut for a moment before she took a deep breath to go on.
"As most of you know, when your Wolf first comes out, it can be horrible, terrifying, and bloody," Red summarized. "Snow stuck by me, even when most others would have run. We became each other's family."
"And as I've said many times while on this journey, werewolves make excellent allies," David added. "After the first war with Regina and King George, we offered Red and a few select others a place on our council. And when Emma was born, with Red being as good as a sister to Snow, it made sense to make her Emma's godmother."
Red smiled and ducked her head.
Now, Killian was no expert on werewolf mannerisms, but if the ripple of surprise and almost anger that filtered through the pack was any indication, Red bowing her head to anyone was a rarity. And if their leader bowed to this shepherd king, what did that mean for them, Killian wondered. Then he smirked. At least he did not have to worry about unnecessary shows of acquiescence and obedience. A pirate was his own man, always.
"So, you kept the secret of who you were," Link mused, "so that if anyone was captured, you wouldn't be found?"
"So that the last of the royal family wouldn't be found," Red corrected. "Even if he lost his way for a while, David is still a king." When the shepherd grimaced and tilted his hand in a so-so motion, Red rolled her eyes. "Technically, you are, even if the circumstances of your inheritance were a little…odd."
That sounded like another story David owed him, Killian reckoned.
"As long as David and Emma are free," Red continued, "there is still hope that Regina can be defeated and the kingdoms saved."
"If the Evil Queen found out that one of her Most Wanted was alive and well, and searching for the one person prophesized to defeat her, we would have been hunted down aggressively," David finished. "I'm sorry if you feel that we misled you, but our stated mission was true: to find the Princess and defeat the Evil Queen."
"Whoa!" Princess Emma said, waving her hands. "Wait. I never volunteered to defeat anybody."
Killian arched a brow at the Princess's outburst, surprised she jumped in so vehemently.
"Emma?" David questioned.
"I just want this curse lifted off of me," she explained. "I'm not…" She almost appeared to deflate, looking less like a princess and more like a frightened child. "I can't defeat anyone. I just want my family back and to be human full time. Regina can have the kingdom."
"You would let your people down?" Killian asked, his anger returning. "We've been led to believe that you, Princess, are the Savior meant to bring back the happy endings." He casting a quick look to both David and Henry. It sounded a great deal like no one had notified the Princess of her role, which put a certain crimp in his plans.
Princess Emma grimaced, shaking her head. "I'm not…a 'savior.' I never was."
She looked over at her father who, despite his determination in finding her, seemed at a loss how to respond.
"The curse that I was supposed to break?" she continued, looking around at each of them. "Well it was never cast. Which kind of means I don't really have a purpose."
Killian wondered if it was possible for royalty not to know who they were. It was a thought that had never occurred to him. Surely the lucky classes were born entitled and snobbish about their place in the world? Princess Emma looked, for all that, lost. The brow pinched in frustration, the clenched jaw, the gleam of impotence and anger in her eyes, and most telling, a flicker of a wish deep in her soul that all of the hardship and pain was all a terrible dream she would awake from, all bespoke of a path through the darkness long since vanished from sight, leaving her alone. He had seen the expression often enough on his own face to recognize it.
She took a deep breath and glanced at her father out of the corner of her eye. "Look, I've thought about it a lot, even before Regina attacked. Mother told me what the Dark One prophesized: that when the Queen cast her curse, everyone would be swept away to a new land where all of the happy endings would be taken away, and on my twenty-eighth birthday, the battle to defeat her and break the curse would begin. And in case anybody missed it, my destiny was 'to break the Dark Curse.' The Curse was never cast, which makes me pretty useless. It's like having a carving knife when you've been served soup."
"Emma," David murmured, sliding an arm around his daughter's shoulders, "you have a purpose. You have always had a purpose. You're a princess. You're a fighter. You have it in you to be a hero." He kissed the crown of her head.
"And you're still the Savior," Henry insisted, rolling up onto his knees. "You have the power to defeat Regina. You always have. So it's not the Dark Curse you have to break." He shrugged. "That doesn't take away your ability to save everyone."
She shook her head, slowly, sadly. "Henry…"
The Princess was clearly at a loss on how to deal with her son. Her every movement bespoke hesitance and formality, confusion. She clearly had no idea what to do with a child.
Which brought up the next question on Killian's ever-growing list. "How does the lad factor into all of this, anyway? How did he come to be raised by the Evil Queen?"
"Was his father killed in the fighting?" Fay, the littlest wolf, asked.
Perhaps one of the names David had listed earlier was the boy's father—Lancelot, or the other one with the odd name, started with a P. Whoever he was, Princess Emma didn't seem too worried about him. Of course, royal marriages were often arranged. The Princess had asked about the fate of her mother and brother, but had made no reference to a dear husband. Perhaps she truly did not grieve for the lost spouse.
"No, he wasn't. Henry…" she began, then stopped to glance around her circle of watchers. For a moment she ducked her head, but then, jaw firming, she raised her chin and stated clearly, "Henry is illegitimate."
Killian's eyebrows shot up.
Clearly David and Red were already aware of the Princess's transgression, and Henry did not seem surprised, either, which made Killian wonder what Regina had told him about his origins. It seemed crass, to him, to tell a child that he was born on the wrong side of the blanket, but perhaps a woman who earned the moniker of "Evil Queen" was not known for tact. From his admittedly limited experience with the upper classes, illegitimacy was as sinful as deformity. Possibly more so. And that David—Henry's grandfather—seemed so accepting was another surprise. Royal bastards were not generally acknowledged, much less doted on.
And David must have suspected. Perhaps not known, not without a doubt, but strongly suspected. Even Killian could now see a family resemblance between the two. They had the same shape eyes, though Henry's were brown, and they shared the shape of their faces, their jaw lines. They even had many of the same mannerisms.
It was Tanner, the oaf, who voiced the question, "How did a princess end up with an illegitimate child?"
"Heavy handed there, mate," Killian criticized him, wincing on the Princess's behalf. "I don't think that's any of your business."
Admittedly, he was equally curious. He was surprised David had let his daughter out of his sight when she was younger. She was beautiful, and David was not careless. But he would hardly have asked a perfect stranger the details of her love life. Not with her aforementioned illegitimate son right there.
"Actually," Henry piped up, "I'd like to know, too. Regina…said some things. About you, how you were…" he hesitated, looking down, "not a good person. I don't think what she said is true, but..."
His big, guileless eyes looked up at his mother, half in fear and half in hope.
Princess Emma, surprisingly, did not blush or stammer. She scanned the faces around her, and her brow tightened in discomfort at having an audience for this confession. But he could hear the honestly in her words when she spoke.
"I was an idiot. I was seventeen and wanted an adventure. I ran away for a while." She shook her head. "My brother James was always the one who was meant to succeed my parents. Even when we were younger, Jamie just had this spark about him, the same one my mother had. People loved him, listened to him. Not just peasants, but the nobility, the military. And he wasn't vain about it. I was glad to abdicate in favor of him because I always felt that I was the wrong choice to lead the kingdom. But abdicating the throne left me at loose ends. So I borrowed my mother's old clothes—"
"Stole your mother's clothes, you mean," David corrected. "And the fact that her old bandit's jerkin was missing was the only way we knew for certain that you hadn't been kidnapped."
"I left a note," she argued.
"Which could have been forged, or you may have been forced to write by someone who was kidnapping you."
"Well, I wasn't kidnapped," she said. "I ran away. I didn't have a good reason for it. I wasn't mistreated or stifled or ignored. I always knew my parents loved me and would support me. It wasn't anything like that. I was just…bored, and searching for some kind of meaning to my life. Like I said, without my duty to be the savior who broke Regina's curse, I didn't know what I was supposed to do with my life, and I wanted to find out."
She stopped and shook her head. "But it turns out that living on your wits in the Infinite Forest is harder than I thought, even with all of Mother's stories memorized. In a week, I was cold, starving, and ready to give up and go home. That was when I met Neal."
"Was that my father?" Henry asked eagerly.
She hesitated, mouth opening and closing a few times. Her brow furrowed, and Killian wondered what she would tell him. It was clear to him that a lie was trembling on her tongue.
Henry placed his hand on her shoulder. "You can tell me the truth, you know. It was bad, wasn't it?"
She smiled at him. "Depends on what you mean by 'bad.' He said his name was Neal Cassidy, and that he was from the Enchanted Forest originally, but that he had spent many years travelling through different Realms. He had come back home by mistake and was looking for a way back to a Realm he called Phoenix. I remember thinking that he meant a Realm of phoenixes, but he laughed when I asked. We…spent some time together. Stealing, mostly. Neal knew how to misdirect and play on people's sympathies while I pocketed food or bottles of wine or clothing or something we could sell later. We were together for three months.
"By then, I would have followed him anywhere," she murmured.
An echo of his past rose up, and Killian winced. He closed his eyes for a moment and saw his brother standing before the chipped and faded mirror in the cabin, re-buttoning his waistcoat as he prepared to meet the admiralty and denounce their king. Such faith…such loyalty.
I will follow you to the ends of the earth, brother.
"He kept talking about us finding a way back to Phoenix," Emma continued. "But he was leery about going to the fairies, and magic beans are extinct. So…I told him that I might have another way."
Killian watched her relive the moment her life fell apart. He wondered if the others understood what they were seeing. The long pause, the deep breaths. It was all so familiar; as well it should be, after seeing it in the mirror every day for centuries. First his brother, then Milah, all because of magic portals to cross Realms. It seemed to him that traveling outside of their Realm demanded the greatest price of all, regardless of how it was done.
Her father put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him but refused to crumple entirely. She held her head up, swallowed once, and resumed.
"I told Neal that the Dark One was being kept in a cell in one of the abandoned dwarf mines near Castle Saint-George, and I knew how to find my way to it, and that the guards would let me pass when they saw me. I thought that we could offer the Dark One freedom in return for him helping us leave the Enchanted Forest. Neal…"
Emma took a deep breath, shaking her head. "I don't know how to describe it. He became very distant. Not afraid, just… he wouldn't hear of it. We argued. I told him that it was our best chance, and that I would go alone, and he could wait for me. We found an abandoned home to hunker down for the night, but we didn't…" She shrugged. "It was the first time we'd ever had a fight. He was gone when I woke up the next morning. Just gone. I waited for him for two days, but by then someone had spotted us stealing from a jeweler's cart and told the village sheriff where we were camping. The sheriff found me and took me to the local magistrate, who luckily identified me as the princess, and I was escorted home. A few weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant."
Red growled and her eyes flashed. "You can bet I went hunting for the whelp when I found out, intent on drag him to the castle and make him take some responsibility, but there was no trace of him. The scent from their camp was too old, and no one had seen him in the area since he deserted Emma."
Emma shrugged off her father's arm and chuckled, if you could call that dark sound humor. "It was quite the scandal. If Regina hadn't become a threat again, I don't know what would have been done with me." She smiled at Henry. "Or with you."
"You would both have been loved and cherished by your mother and me," David asserted. By his tone and the disapproving frown he leveled at his daughter for doubting him, he appeared sincere.
"Loved and cherished, yes," Emma agreed, "but at a distance. The nobles would have insisted I be banished from court. Can't have the disgraced princess making people uncomfortable or giving their own daughters ideas."
David opened his mouth to protest, but his daughter effectively cut him off by continuing the tale.
"As it happened, I was removed from the castle, but not because of my disgrace. We received word that Black Knights were mustering on the northern border, and suddenly everyone was almost relieved I was pregnant. My brother was only sixteen at the time, and he had no heirs—legitimate or otherwise—so you, Henry, were the last of the royal family of our kingdom, should… should everyone else fall."
This time when David wrapped her in his arms, she didn't fight it. She curled into her father, her eyes shut tight as a few stray tears leaked from their corners. Red reached out and pulled Henry to her side, allowing the boy to place his one head against her shoulder, and rocked him as if he were very young.
"No one ever thought that the precautions would be needed, you see?" Red said. "No one thought the Queen would win. No one imagined that Snow and Prince James would die. You were a contingency, but we always thought that you would both be brought home after you were born, and you would be raised in the castle."
"Here's the part we don't know," David said softly. "What happened after we sent you to the Forest Tower, Emma? How did Henry end up with Regina? How were you cursed? What happened to you after the castle fell?"
Emma pushed herself upright again, and shifted into a more comfortable position. She scrubbed at her eyes, and Killian, remembering his manners, retrieved a handkerchief and offered it to her. She eyed it, and then him, as if judging his sincerity. "Quite the gentleman for a pirate."
"I assure you, I'm always a gentleman," he parried with a wink.
He decided he liked her better when she was frowning at him than when she was crying.
After she had wiped her eyes and dabbed at her nose, the Princess cleared her throat. "Regina found the Tower only hours after I gave birth. She had her knights with her, and the contingent you had assigned to me was cut down quickly. She found me in my room. I could barely walk, but I grabbed a poker from the fireplace. She used magic to turn it into a snake, and I dropped it. Stupid of me."
She shook her head.
"One of her knights grabbed me, and she went straight for the baby." Emma's gaze fell softly on her son. "Regina said she would raise you as her own, and I would never see you again. She told me that my family was dead. There wouldn't be anyone to come save me this time, and she had made sure that Rumpelstiltskin was busy elsewhere, so he couldn't interfere. The spell that prevented her from killing me didn't stop her from casting a non-lethal spell. She transformed me into a swan, but she made sure that I knew that I would be, and I quote, 'as helpless caged animal while the sun rules the sky, and a human only by the light of the moon.'"
Red chuckled, and teased, "So you're the reverse of a werewolf."
Emma smiled back at her godmother. "I thought of that. She said she wanted me to be human at night, when the loneliness creeps in, so that she could watch me suffer. I think she'd planned to cage me and take me with her to the Northern Palace, but I got away. I flew right through the window went as far as I could until the sun set."
"Why didn't you try to search for help?" David asked.
"I did. But every ally I knew of was dead or captured. Regina loved telling me that my family was gone and the castle in ruins. I even flew over it to see if it was true, and the tallest turret was still in flames." She clenched her teeth and blinked rapidly to forestall more tears. "I learned the hard way not to fly too close to humans during the day; it's dangerous for a game bird. People like to shoot at them. And within days Regina had put up wanted posters along the King's Road offering a reward that rivaled the one she put on Mother. The one time I tried to go to one of the peasants for help as a human…it didn't end well."
Killian watched her face as she said it. The anger, the pain, the betrayal, all scrawled themselves across her face. It left the circumstances in question, but he could make a few guesses. A lovely, unattached young woman, alone in the forest, claiming to be the Princess for whom the usurping Queen was searching, and a reward was on offer…well, betrayal was inevitable. Perhaps someone had even tried to take advantage of her before handing her over to the Queen. He could imagine what kind of reticence that would breed in a woman. It would explain why she flew over them all day. She'd had to make sure they were friend, not foe.
"How did you know it was your father who sought you now?" he wondered.
"It took me a few passes to be sure," she confirmed. "A swan's eyesight isn't the best, but he's my father." She smiled at the man in question. "I know what he looks like, how he moves. I knew, if anyone was going to find me, it would be him."
"How?" Tanner butted in.
Emma smiled, a real, true smile, and it was an echo of David's as the shepherd shrugged. "In our family," he said, "we always find each other."
"So, you've been here all this time?" Mara asked.
"No, only for the past two years or so," Emma said. "At first, I stayed in ornamental ponds in the estates of a few of our nobles during the day, but they were all cowed by Regina and more than once, Black Knights came to the ponds to try to capture me. I shudder to think how many natural swans must have been rounded up and had their wings broken or clipped to wait for nightfall to see if they would transform.
"After a few months, I discovered that Rumpelstiltskin had escaped his cell, so I went in search of him to see if he could reverse the enchantment on me." She shook her head. "I couldn't even get close to his castle. Some kind of barrier kept me away.
"Then, a few years ago, I crossed over the border to stay with Princess Ella at the estate her father-in-law banished her to live in. I've known her since I was a child," Princess Emma explained. "She harbored me, but she flat-out refused to try to contact the Dark One. Eventually King Thomas the Elder got word that I was there. I think one of Ella's servants was a spy. He planned to use me as a bargaining chip to see if Regina could return his son to him. But her daughter, Princess Alexandra, got word to her mother in time, and I was able to escape. I thought the mountains of the Enchanted Forest would be a better hiding place, and when I found this pond, I settled in and…hoped."
Killian could tell by her tone, Princess Emma had never actually expected to be found—at least not by an ally—despite her assertion that she knew her father would be the one to find her. He knew by the way she avoided David's proud eye that she almost felt absurd for expecting the rescue, or for simply waiting around for one. He commended her efforts to try to save herself, but he knew enough about magic to know that it couldn't have been easy on her own.
But the Princess was not sorry for herself. She didn't cower or whine. She was terribly lost, believing that she had no purpose, and had been lonely, but she did not allow her father or her godmother to coddle her. In fact, when Henry—blinking and yawning as the day's exertions caught up with him—lay his head down on her lap, she started in surprise before moving away from her father to hold her son, brushing the lad's hair back from his face, and rubbing his back.
An owl hooted somewhere close by, and Killian pulled his attention away from his study of the Swan Princess and glanced toward the sky.
"It's close to midnight now," he observed. "We've all had a long journey. I think those of us who are not nocturnal need our rest."
David nodded. "Do you think we ought to set watches?"
"This place is pretty secluded," Emma said. "You're the first people I've seen come this way."
"We're probably safe for the night, then," David concluded.
"It gets cool on the shore after the sun goes down," the Princess volunteered. "There's a hut I built a little to the east, under the trees."
"Then we'll settle in there for the night," David said.
"Much obliged, Princess," Killian thanked her.
She looked at him with wide eyes so solemn he had to stop himself from stepping closer to her and offering comfort. "I haven't done anything. Don't thank me yet."
Author's Note: Thank you again to my Guest reviewers and to andria for taking the time to post a review to this fic. I appreciate every review, and I'm very glad that this story is inspiring loyalty and leaving you eager for more. I hope this chapter gave everyone some answers to questions they may have had. And don't worry, Emma and Killian get to have a long talk coming up next chapter as they get to know one another. It's a long process, and they've got other stuff (like a curse and an evil queen and black knights and a potential war) to deal with. But every relationship has to start somewhere.
