All Magic Comes With a Price Chapter 9: A Brewing Storm, an once upon a time fanfic

I would like to start with saying I am sooooo sorry for the wait… I have been really busy and uninspired to write. I also lost my journal so I've been having to write the rough draft of the chapters on separate sheets of paper, so you'll have to forgive me for the time between chapters.

I'm also grounded. Like, completely right now... Grades... blehh... '-.- I'm grounded from the computer at home now so I have to use the ones at school. When I can sit down and write the next chapter I will. Again, I'm sorry.

That being said…

The first long bit in italics is a Brothers Grimm story.

Anyways, here's chapter nine. Enjoy!

-OUAT-

Chapter Nine- A Brewing Storm

There was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house, and one daughter. Then said the daughter, "We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land." When the King heard of their poverty, he presented them with a piece of land, which she and her father dug up, and intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind. When they had dug nearly the whole of the field, they found in the earth a mortar made of pure gold. "Listen," said the father to the girl, "as our lord the King has been so gracious and presented us with the field, we ought to give him this mortar in return for it." The daughter, however, would not consent to this, and said, "Father, if we have the mortar without having the pestle as well, we shall have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it." He would, however, not obey her, but took the mortar and carried it to the King, said that he had found it in the cleared land, and asked if he would accept it as a present. The King took the mortar, and asked if he had found nothing besides that? "No," answered the countryman. Then the King said that he must now bring him the pestle. The peasant said they had not found that, but he might just as well have spoken to the wind; he was put in prison, and was to stay there until he produced the pestle. The servants had daily to carry him bread and water, which is what people get in prison, and they heard how the man cried out continually, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter! Alas, alas, if I had but listened to my daughter!" and would neither eat nor drink. So he commanded the servants to bring the prisoner before him, and then the King asked the peasant why he was always crying, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter!" and what it was that his daughter had said. "She told me that I ought not to take the mortar to you, for I should have to produce the pestle as well." "If you have a daughter who is as wise as that, let her come here." She was therefore obliged to appear before the King, who asked her if she really was so wise, and said he would set her a riddle, and if she could guess that, he would marry her. She at once said yes, she would guess it. Then said the King, "Come to me not clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the road, and not out of the road, and if thou canst do that I will marry thee." So she went away, put off everything she had on, and then she was not clothed, and took a great fishing net, and seated herself in it and wrapped it entirely round and round her, so that she was not naked, and she hired an ass, and tied the fisherman's net to its tail, so that it was forced to drag her along, and that was neither riding nor walking. The ass had also to drag her in the ruts, so that she only touched the ground with her great toe, and that was neither being in the road nor out of the road. And when she arrived in that fashion, the King said she had guessed the riddle and fulfilled all the conditions. Then he ordered her father to be released from the prison, took her to wife, and gave into her care all the royal possessions.

Now when some years had passed, the King was once drawing up his troops on parade, when it happened that some peasants who had been selling wood stopped with their waggons before the palace; some of them had oxen yoked to them, and some horses. There was one peasant who had three horses, one of which was delivered of a young foal, and it ran away and lay down between two oxen which were in front of the waggon. When the peasants came together, they began to dispute, to beat each other and make a disturbance, and the peasant with the oxen wanted to keep the foal, and said one of the oxen had given birth to it, and the other said his horse had had it, and that it was his. The quarrel came before the King, and he give the verdict that the foal should stay where it had been found, and so the peasant with the oxen, to whom it did not belong, got it. Then the other went away, and wept and lamented over his foal. Now he had heard how gracious his lady the Queen was because she herself had sprung from poor peasant folks, so he went to her and begged her to see if she could not help him to get his foal back again. Said she, "Yes, I will tell you what to do, if thou wilt promise me not to betray me. Early to-morrow morning, when the King parades the guard, place thyself there in the middle of the road by which he must pass, take a great fishing-net and pretend to be fishing; go on fishing, too, and empty out the net as if thou hadst got it full" and then she told him also what he was to say if he was questioned by the King. The next day, therefore, the peasant stood there, and fished on dry ground. When the King passed by, and saw that, he sent his messenger to ask what the stupid man was about? He answered, "I am fishing." The messenger asked how he could fish when there was no water there? The peasant said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a foal." The messenger went back and took the answer to the King, who ordered the peasant to be brought to him and told him that this was not his own idea, and he wanted to know whose it was? The peasant must confess this at once. The peasant, however, would not do so, and said always, God forbid he should! the idea was his own. They laid him, however, on a heap of straw, and beat him and tormented him so long that at last he admitted that he had got the idea from the Queen.

When the King reached home again, he said to his wife, "Why hast thou behaved so falsely to me? I will not have thee any longer for a wife; thy time is up, go back to the place from whence thou camest to thy peasant's hut." One favour, however, he granted her; she might take with her the one thing that was dearest and best in her eyes; and thus was she dismissed. She said, "Yes, my dear husband, if you command this, I will do it," and she embraced him and kissed him, and said she would take leave of him. Then she ordered a powerful sleeping draught to be brought, to drink farewell to him; the King took a long draught, but she took only a little. He soon fell into a deep sleep, and when she perceived that, she called a servant and took a fair white linen cloth and wrapped the King in it, and the servant was forced to carry him into a carriage that stood before the door, and she drove with him to her own little house. She laid him in her own little bed, and he slept one day and one night without awakening, and when he awoke he looked round and said, "Good God! where am I?" He called his attendants, but none of them were there. At length his wife came to his bedside and said, "My dear lord and King, you told me I might bring away with me from the palace that which was dearest and most precious in my eyes I have nothing more precious and dear than yourself, so I have brought you with me." Tears rose to the King's eyes and he said, "Dear wife, thou shalt be mine and I will be thine," and he took her back with him to the royal palace and was married again to her, and at the present time they are very likely still living…

(The Brothers Grimm, KHM 094)

Kaia sat in her bedroom, on the bed, at Granny's, looking out the large window blankly, listening to the kids playing in the street. A cold, icy grip was holding onto her heart and her throat was swollen feeling. Her hands were in fists, the knuckles turning white.

"Do you understand your position now?" A dark, male voice whispered softly from the corner of the room Kaia's back was facing.

"Yes." She said tightly.

"Good." Footsteps, towards the door. She didn't need to turn around to know that the man was gathering his coat. "I expect to see you later tonight." Kaia shut her eyes.

"And he'll be safe? If I do this?" A dark chuckle.

"You don't have much of a choice, if he was safe or not." Came the reply.

"Will he be safe?" She asked, louder, sterner. The man chuckled again and reached for the handle.

"Yes," His voice showed the grin. "He will be as safe as he can be."

"What's that supposed to mean?" There was no answer. She stood up abruptly and spun around only to see that no one was there and the door was left slightly ajar. She wanted to scream, to demand for him to come back and tell her what his words meant but she knew that it was pointless. He was already gone and he wouldn't come back and answer her.

And she hated him more for it.

She collapsed back onto her bed and covered her mouth as she closed her eyes and tears leaked out. It wasn't far that she had to deal with all this pain when everyone else in Storybrooke was able to forget their past lives and be numb to losing those they once loved. They were lucky that they were able to forget who they truly were while she was stuck remembering; always remembering and thinking.

That's what put her in danger of the queen, her memories. But those were also her weapons against everyone, including the queen. Even Rumpelstiltskin.

At the thought of the trickster-gone-pawnbroker, Kaia couldn't help but smirk darkly through her tears. He was just as weak as everyone else here; he crumbled under her power over him. She had yet to decide if that was a good or bad thing…

She had to take her mind off everything so, forcing back her tears, she wiped her face and stood quickly and changed into more exposing clothes. She grabbed her wallet off her nightstand and a picture slipped out of it, fluttering to the ground. She hesitated, looking at it, before bending down and gently picking it up, looking at the faces that looked up at her.

A young man, an older man, and a little girl who was smiling, giggling, and reaching for the dog's tail that sat beside her, a cat held tightly in her arms. She was maybe two or three.

Kaia closed her eyes and opened a drawer, throwing the picture into it and quickly leaving the room. She put her wallet into her pocket and just kept walking down the street, head down, unaware of someone in front of her. Her shoulder rammed into someone else's and she looked up about to apologize when she realized who it was.

"Kaia," Regina said, placing a fake smile on her face. "How… nice it is to see you." A pause. "Where are you heading off to?"

She opened her mouth to reply but something told her not to. She closed her mouth turned away, continuing on her way, feeling the queen-gone-mayor watching her back the entire time with cold, dagger-like eyes. And Kaia had to resist the urge to shudder.

She put her headphones in and pressed play, drowning herself in music.