So I got a bit impatient. The chapter was getting very long and I was nowhere near finishing it, so I decided to post the first half and the second half will be its own chapter.

If you've been looking closely, you might have noticed that I mentioned Merlin and Nimue in previous chapters. Will they play a part in the future? We'll see ;)

I borrowed some dialogue from "Pilot" and "The Thing You Love Most".

xxxXXXxxx

Chapter 8

The sky was a blanket of grey clouds and the wind blew fallen leaves onto the path. It was going to rain later. In the distance, Emma could hear the sails of the abandoned mill creaking. Much like her first trip to the village, she felt a sense of foreboding in the air. She shivered against the breeze, trying to pull her cloak tighter.

"Henry?" Emma called, crouching by his hiding place's entrance. "Are you in there?"

There was no answer but inside she could faintly hear the sound of sniffling.

After Emma's last encounter with him, she knew that they needed to be alone if she wanted more information. The village was no longer safe for them. Regina was going to be there, discussing her "plan" for the occupants. And while she seemed slightly fond of the boy, she would certainly start to get suspicious of Emma. The last thing Emma needed was her mother's ire. She knew that she was already in trouble.

This morning when Emma went to the stables, Icarus wasn't there. Puzzled, she asked various groomsmen about his whereabouts. They all gave conflicting answers, ranging from an injured leg that needed immediate treatment to an unknown ailment that took a bad turn during the night, but assured her that all was well with the horse.

Emma, however, didn't believe them. She had a sickening feeling that this was her mother's way of retaliating for yesterday. No doubt Cora was furious that Regina was no longer fully under her thumb and she blamed Emma for that.

There was no chance of taking Rocinante instead. The horse was much bigger than Icarus and often displayed a bad temperament towards anyone that wasn't Regina.

Emma chose one of the horses that pulled the royal carriage instead.

"I promise I'm not angry at you. I just need to talk to you about something."

Still no reply, much to Emma's dismay. She knew that she had damaged Henry's trust in her yesterday and rebuilding that was going to take some time. But Emma couldn't wait that long. She needed to get to the bottom of things.

"Look kid, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings yesterday. But you can't go around saying that. Especially in front of other people. They'll think you're crazy or worse." She sighed at Henry's continued silence and sat down, the hem of white cloak almost immediately turning a light shade of brown. Carefully, she leaned against the entrance wall.

"I know things have been hard for you." Emma said compassionately. "You were alone for a long time and now you're living somewhere that's pretty rotten. So you come up with all these stories in your mind that you can escape to every now and then. Where things are different but better and pretty soon… you start to believe they could be real."

There was some slight rustling, then his head appeared at the entrance. Emma tried to smile at him but he refused to look at her, as he sat down beside her. He picked up a stick and began tracing idle patterns in the dirt. For a long while, neither of them said anything.

"You promised you'd help me." He wasn't accusing her, but the hurt in his tone stung even more.

"I still want to, kid."

"Then why did you say all those things yesterday? About the Black Knights? I thought that you were different. I thought that you…" He trailed off, voice slightly wobbling.

Emma suddenly felt ashamed. She wanted to reach over and hug Henry close. She wanted to say how sorry she was for giving him hope and then cruelly snatching it away. But she just stared at him.

"I'm so sorry, Henry. But just because you believe in something doesn't make it true."

"That's exactly what makes it true," Henry said, finally turning to look at her. "I know you don't believe me right now. And that's alright. The hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn't be a very good story."

"But this isn't a story, Henry. This is my life," said Emma, firmly. "And I am definitely not a hero."

"Yes, you are. I can prove it!" Before Emma could ask more, Henry disappeared back into his shelter. A few seconds later, he reappeared with the leatherbound book in his hands. He flipped through it until he found the page he was looking for. "Your parents and the Evil Queen had been preparing to go to war with each other just before you were born. So they built a wardrobe made from one of the last few trees that had magic. When the curse hit, they used it to send you someplace safe. See?"

Accompanying the text was an illustration of a man in armor, placing a swaddled baby inside a wardrobe. Emma raised an eyebrow. "Henry, you do realize this is just a book? It's fiction."

Henry smiled. "I had a feeling you'd say that. But this is more than just a book. Every story in here is true." He thumbed his way to the book's first page and held it out to here. "Look."

The Tale of Merlin and Nimue .

The drawing below pictured them; Nimue, grey-faced and clad in black robes, pointing her jeweled longstaff, and Merlin, in silver robes, holding aloft his sword, Excalibur.

It suddenly felt like yesterday that she was in the middle of her lessons, learning about these two famed wizards. Their battle from thousands of years ago was well-known throughout the kingdom. Two powerful wielders of magic, one light and one dark, battling for the future of magic. But in the end, their powers were evenly matched. Both Nimue and Merlin succumbed to their wounds, resulting in magic being absorbed into the earth. It took another five hundred years for it to be slowly reintroduced to the world.

Emma swallowed heavily. "Even if I was this so-called 'Warrior in White', wouldn't my mot- the queen know about this?"

"That's the thing, she doesn't. The queen thought Snow White was the Warrior. That's why she cast the Dark Curse. She wanted to stop the prophecy from happening."

"What prophecy?"

"This one." He flipped through the pages again and pointed. Written in gold ink, was a small passage:

"The Evil Queen and Warrior in White,

A clash of dark magic and the light

One shall rise and one shall fall

The Final Battle shall decide

the fate of all"

Emma felt the hair on her arms stand up. "So, what happened to Snow White?"

"I don't know," Henry said, turning the pages. "The book says the queen imprisoned her somewhere."

The clocktower started ringing. She had run out of time. Henry seized a handful of pages and tore them free.

"Here," He offered them to her. "Take them, read them. But whatever you do, don't let the queen see these. They're dangerous. If she finds out who you are, then it would be bad." He then smiled. "I knew you'd believe me!"

Emma frowned as she folded the pages. "I never said I did."

"Why else would you be here?"