"Do you remember?"

"Do I remember what?"

"A little boy who helped you through the woods? With that she turns from the campfire in his arms to look at him. He thinks it was her. He has to know for sure.

"A young Lord's son that tells tale of a small girl no more than 10 with dark eyes and dark hair. How he had found her lost in the woods."

"Robin?" Her face scrunched in confusion.

So he tells her a story about a small little girl by a winding river who he watched from afar. Braids halfway down her back skipping and playing, ever careful to keep her dress clean. He followed the little girl deeper and deeper into the woods mesmerized by this young girl who his father forbade him to speak to. For her father had wed a witch who could spin straw into gold and would kill a man just as readily as say hello. The girl didn't seem evil despite his father saying such a wretched woman could only produce subpar spawn. The little girl looked nice from what he could tell, lonely perhaps but not evil. And yet at the castle it was her mother who kept all the children away for her. That's why he had to follow her to see if maybe her real self would emerge once alone. And it did she came to life out in the fresh air spinning around till her dress spun higher and higher and her laughter flowed on the breeze, till the sun was setting low upon the tree line. It was that damned laughter had caused him to fall from his hiding space. It had startled her, to his presence, to how late it was getting and brought on her fear. He had tried to soothe the young girls fear but she was adamant that he didn't know her mother and she's been gone far to long and now it was dark and she knew not the way back to The Lord's castle.

Regina relaxed in his arms to listen brings her fingers up to caress her lips. "The little girl was right you know. You didn't know her mother or what she was capable of.

"Shhh... I haven't gotten to the best part yet."

"Oh no?"

"No"

So the young man all ages of 12 held his arm out for the wayward girl.

"Princess." She corrects with a stifled laugh.

"Ahh yes princess, as we now know her to be."

So the young man offers his arm to the wayward princess. Through perilous situations he leads her gallantly out of the forest and delivers her safely to her father. Who takes her into his arms with a warm hug and kiss to the brow welcoming her back. The young man is ushered away n'er seeing the wayward princess again.

"I like your version of the story. I never realized it was you after all this time."

"Is your version different Milady?"

"No but my night has just begun and while father welcomed me with open arm, mother said I was treading a dangerous line to be alone with a boy, as lowly as a lord. That my trajectory had not even begun to rise and I was already trying to shoot it down. I had tried to explain to her you had found me lost in the woods but she saw it as back talk. I had angered her to the point where she tried to contain me with magic... It frightened me and I fell awkwardly hitting my face on the way down. My lip bled so badly we left that night."

"I was the cause" her lips cover his effectively silencing him. The soft pressing of her lips eases his guilt over knowing the scar he loves was caused from his youthful innocence. When she pulls back she has a soft smile just for him.

"Don't be sorry, this reminds me of the kindness shown to me when no one else would have dared. To this day I was thankful to that boy, even at my worst. I won't let you skew it with guilt. Now hush and hold me" she says leaning deeper into his embrace "and if you'd be so bold I'd like to hear more about the lord's son who stalked young princesses while they played."

His laughter jostles her in his hold and he tells her more about a young boy who had just lost his mother and found hopes by a stream in a powder blue dress with braids, to young to understand then what exactly has been her pull.