There's a town in Maine, filled with thousands of stories. Stories of queens and witches, pirates and woodsman and other people that you thought only existed in fairy tales. And once they did. They were nothing more to the world than a bedtime story or a movie on television. Now they are a part of the normal world.
In this little town were two little children, a boy and a girl, staring out of their window, looking at the stars. Two little children that should have been asleep.
It had been a very long day, when Auriel finally opened the door to her apartment. Storybrook may not have been under threat (for once), but that didn't mean that it was calm and quiet. She didn't know how, but Leroy had almost managed to cut of his arm and Devin almost his own foot. She loved her job in the hospital, really, but days like this were really tiresome sometimes and all she wanted was see her children, before going to bed.
Quietly, she walked to the living room where a light was burning.
'Hey sweetheart.' She was greeted and a little smile came on her face, while she greeted the man with a hug.
'Hey dad.' Fortunately, it didn't happen often that both her and her husband were working at the same time, but at least she always had a whole list of people they could call to babysit.
'Are you okay? How was your day?' She let go of the hug and put down her bag, while looking at him with sleepy eyes.
'It was fine, until one of the dwarves decided to almost cut of his hand at the time that my shift should have been over. Seriously, we almost had a dwarf Hook, instead of captain Hook.' Her father gave her a small smile and then nodded to the chamber of her children.
'They are asleep. Bae got some peas in his sisters hair, but we got it out, fortunately.' She gave a soft giggle. Both of her children were mischievous just like their father, but little Baelfire had the trait a little stronger than his sister.
'I bet Milah liked that very much.' Her father nodded.
'Oh yeah, almost threw the mashed potatoes at him. I could stop her in the nick of time.' And her daughter had inherited her fire.
'Thanks for babysitting.'
'You know I love to do it. You guys are still coming tomorrow right?' Her father asked and she nodded. Family days were a regular thing right now, but she wouldn't miss it for the world. There was a time that she saw it as a terrible thing, but times had changed and so did people.
She said goodbye to her father and decided to quickly check on her children before going to bed. She walked quietly to the door filled with drawings and tests from school and opened it quietly.
'Look Bae, that's the second star to the right from mama's stories. That's the way to Neverland.' Yeah, dad. Her children were totally asleep. Not that she was mad. She herself had been like that when she was younger. Her brother and she would stare out of the window for hours and would play games. He would imagine pictures in the stars and she made up the stories that went with them.
'Really?' her youngest whispered and Milah nodded. That's when she decided to make herself known.
'Really. It's a portal for the shadow.' Her children jumped up and quickly ran to their beds.
'Hi mom, how was work?' Milah asked innocently and she began to chuckle.
'I thought that your grandfather said that you two should go to sleep.' She walked over to Baelfire's bed and began to properly tuck him in.
'He did, but the light of the moon kept us awake and grandfather didn't tell us a good story.' Her son said, while she gave him a kiss on his head.
'Oh really? And why wasn't it good?'
'It was boring. It was the princess needed to be saved by a princess from a dragon.' Milah said with a pout and she crossed her arms. Yeah, far too boring for her daughter.
'Mommy, can't you tell us a story?' Bae asked with his little puppy eyes and Milah quickly joined him. Why did her children have to be so very convincing when they looked at her like that? Of all the things that they could get from her, they could the one thing that they could use against her. She sighed, but nodded.
'Alright then. Move aside, than your sister and I can join you.' Bae did what she asked and soon they all said in his bed. Bae on her right, Milah on her left. 'Let's see, what kind of story do you want?'
'Witches.'
'Pirates!' They said at the same time. Great that they were so on the same line. She thought for a couple of seconds and then got an idea.
'What about the story of your father and me?' Immediately they began to nod enthusiastically.
'Alright then…Once upon a time…'