A/N: Happy Wednesday, everyone! It's the time of week when you've still got halfway to go until the weekend, so I thought I'd cheer you up with an update. Several people were curious about the scars Emma mentioned last chapter, and while this isn't a full explanation, it'll answer a few questions for you. (Because they're important, plot-wise.)

Enjoy!

The Handmaiden's Philosophy
Chapter Four

Two years ago...

Emma's POV

Tugging the cowl of her black traveling cloak more securely over her features, Emma peered cautiously around the corner of the narrow servant's passage, ears sharp for any sounds of human activity. It was a calculated risk to take this route. It was more likely that she'd encounter someone else along this corridor as opposed to the grander one used by the nobility, but it was far less suspicious to find a hooded figure hurrying along the servant's route on a cold night than it was to find the same so close to where the royal family slept. She'd be questioned for certain if she were caught then.

And she couldn't have that.

Emma needed to get away. Far away. She needed to leave, and never return to this place. And she would. Tonight. Failure was an option that she refused to contemplate.

As she walked, Emma hunched her shoulders slightly and introduced a shuffling quality to her normally poised gait. She walked like a royal, she knew, and that just wouldn't do for tonight. In just over a week, she was to wed Prince Damian. No matter how much she had begged and pleaded with her parents to halt the engagement, she had come to accept that they just weren't interested in her opinion when it came to the person she was fated to spend the rest of her life with. The wedding would go forward, her father had told her sternly, and she mustn't make a scene with another of her childish tantrums. Damian was a crowned prince, and their union would ensure that she would one day be Queen. That was why tomorrow, she was scheduled to be brought by coach down to the eastern seaport on the far side of the Silverwoods to set sail for the Southern Isles –a two-day journey that would culminate in her permanent imprisonment into marriage with a pompous, lecherous ass of a man twelve years her senior, whom she most certainly did not love.

Emma had been a prisoner for as long as she could remember, but as she was so often reminded, she was the daughter of Snow White. And she was not going to allow herself to marry Prince Damian. Therefore, if her parents would not advocate for her, Emma would take matters into her own hands. She was just stubborn enough to decide for herself that if she was going to escape the prison of her birth for another land, she might as well be fully free. She would not allow herself to simply exchange one gilded cage for another. Control over her own body had been stolen from her at the tender age of three, and while she would never be able to fully recover what she had lost to her parents' 'good intentions', she could prevent them from selling what was left to a spoiled Prince in a desperate attempt to atone for their own mistakes.

No, Emma would not be marrying Damian. She was going to escape the life of royalty forever.

The echoes of approaching footsteps reached Emma's ears and startled her from her thoughts; she ducked her head and quickened her pace as she passed a night guard in the hall, hoping he wouldn't question her. Unfortunately, luck didn't seem to be on her side tonight, as the guard eyed her suspiciously as she approached before snagging her upper arm in one meaty hand and forcing her to a stop. Almost impatiently, he yanked the hood of her cloak from her head, muttering something about the Captain bringing whores in again.

Instead of the sight of the call girl he expected beneath the hood though, the unfortunate soldier was met with the visage of his Princess. His eyes widened in shock and he dropped his hand from her person as if she had burned him. "Your Highne—"

He never got to finish. As soon as he had released her, Emma had snatched the dagger from her waist and stabbed it between two plates in the armor that covered his torso, clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle his shout of pain and surprise.

Served him right for calling her a whore.

"My apologies," she whispered to him even as the light in his eyes was dimming. "But I cannot allow anyone to stop me."

The guard went limp, and Emma took a short moment to position the man in a corner as if he had simply fallen asleep on his late night rounds. With any luck, the body wouldn't be discovered until she was long gone.

While Emma had been extensively trained to defend herself with various weapons, this was the first time she'd ever killed someone. She felt… slightly queasy. But it had been necessary, and Emma resolved not to think on it further. Her freedom was of greater value to her than the life of one of her many jailers, and that was all there was to it.

Thankfully, Emma made her way through the various twist and turns of the lesser-known passageways she travelled (which she'd carefully mapped out days ago in preparation for this night) without encountering another soul. When she reached the door that lead to the outside courtyard, however, Emma was slightly dismayed to find it locked. It was a foolish mistake to not have expected this though, she realized. All but the main entrances to the castle were sealed at night, and she should have had the foresight to steal a master key from one of the stewards. Stupid.

There was little she could do about it now though, despite the clarity of hindsight. Taking a steadying breath, Emma instead pressed her palms against the empty lock on the door, gathering her swirling emotions and clamping down on them until they reached a manageable state. Then and only then did she reach for the power within her: a comforting warmth that suffused through her body like sunlight but became searing agony the moment it reached her wrists, cringing away from the block there like a frightened child. Emma forced her magic to channel through the barrier despite this setback though, whimpering in anguish as the scarred flesh of her wrists was seared anew by its passage.

The lock released with a thunk, and Emma relinquished her hold on her magic immediately, sagging against the doorframe for a few heartbeats before collecting herself and moving forwards into the cool outside air.

Emma had chosen this particular exit for a reason, for it led almost directly to the stables. She'd never be able to escape the Royal Guard on foot, she was well aware. The runaway Princess stepped outside and carefully shut the broad oak door once more. Not a soul was in sight. It was a chilly night for the season, and she was grateful for it. The pair of stable boys put on the night's watch were leaning against the back wall behind the stables as they always did on such nights, sipping at the hot cider that a gullible scullery maid had sneaked them from the castle kitchens. If she hurried, and made little sound, Emma estimated that she'd have just enough time to make her escape without them seeing her.

Emma had always liked the stables. Liked riding. It was one of the few scraps of freedom that she had ever been permitted and had enjoyed. The smell of hay and horse and wood and oiled leather soothed her racing heart as she slipped inside the stables, and the girl proceeded on her quest with a little less fear than before. At first, she intended to retrieve her own horse, Lily, but she stopped instead in front of the adjacent stall. The horse that lived there, Aziz, was far larger than Lily, and could run faster for longer. He was a horse meant for strenuous work, and not docile pleasure riding (as was befitting a Princess) like sweet Lily was. Aziz was her brother the Prince's horse, and was magnificent in his size and power.

Grinning impishly, Emma snagged a set of tack and hurriedly began buckling the saddle onto Aziz's back. Leopold would be livid when he found out she'd taken him.

And it would serve him right. Her precious little brother was the reason all of this was happening in the first place, after all. Or, at least, he was the excuse her parents used to validate their selfish decisions regarding her life. Which was just as bad, really.

She had to marry Damian, they'd told her. For the good of the kingdom. The kingdom that would one day belong to Leopold, who would have the privilege of marrying for love, unlike her. And didn't she, as a doting sister, want that for her little brother? She and Damian could come to love each other after all, her mother had argued. Just like her grandparents, Leopold and Eva. Her brother Leopold would grow up to be King, and wasn't Emma just so proud of him for that? Marrying Prince Damian was the least she could do to help him, and he was the best she could have hoped to do for herself anyways.

But it had always been that way. Emma was under no delusions of just who the favored child was between the two of them. Emma had always been a handful. A willful child, they'd called her. Unappreciative of everything her parents had done for her and her brother, perfect Prince Leopold. The royal heir that didn't throw tantrums, or want to skip lessons in needlework to climb trees, or ride horses like a man instead of like a lady, or question her parents' decisions, or study the theory of magic in the back of the library instead of the history tomes. He wasn't born wrong. He was everything their parents had wanted, and she wasn't. Leopold, with his charming smile and tongue always ready with 'Yes, mother,' and 'Of course, father,' and his infinite patience to make nice with even the most infuriating of nobles at the endless events he was allowed to attend while Emma was confined to the castle. He was the perfect Prince, and Emma was… not.

So Emma was going to take his horse.

On Aziz's broad back, it was easy to escape the castle. It was the dead of night, and the few guards still on duty were slow to spot suspicious things in the dark. Emma simply walked the stallion right through the gates and the winding streets of the castletown. As soon as she'd cleared the outlying buildings, Emma kicked Aziz into a surging gallop, laughing breathlessly as she rode west, beholden for the first time to none but herself.

She'd had her first taste of freedom in her entire existence, and she already loved it.

There was still work to be done though, Emma knew. Riding west was the logical thing for a runaway princess to do. The majority of the kingdom was spread in that direction, including large swaths of forest perfect for hiding in. Forests that Snow White herself had occupied during her stint as an outlaw, in point of fact.

So, naturally, west is the first place that the Royal Guard would look for her.

It took two hours at a gallop for Emma to reach Lily Rock, a moderately-sized town that wasn't as mired in squalor and poverty as many of the villages dotted across the Silverwoods were. Glancing thoughtfully up at the sky, Emma estimated that the sun would rise within the hour. That didn't leave her much time.

Her plan was simple. As amusing as it had been to steal Leopold's horse, the Royal Guard would recognize the beautiful stallion in a heartbeat. Emma wouldn't be able to disappear while riding him. So, under the cover of the slowly fading darkness, the runaway princess crept into the stables of an inn she selected arbitrarily. There were three horses boarded inside, and Emma chose the strongest-looking of the bunch for her purposes, leading the new mare from her stall and leaving Aziz in her place. (She refused to feel remorseful for the swap. Aziz was worth three of the mare anyways.) Without further ceremony, Emma snuck out again, mounted the bay mare, and rode away from Lily Rock at a fast clip.

The town would be one of the first places that was searched. Inevitably, Aziz would be found in the inn's stables, and it would be assumed that Emma left him there and continued west.

A pity that she was riding south then.

And Emma had to. South was the one direction that would be ruled out of the search for her, because as desperate as the Princess was to escape her arranged marriage, no child of Snow White would ever flee towards the Summerlands and the Evil Queen. Right?

Wrong. Because that was exactly what Emma intended to do. The Summerlands was the one place that her parents dared not venture for fear of incurring the Queen's wrath, and therefore the one kingdom in which Emma could simply disappear without the constant fear of recognition. The Evil Queen might have hated her parents, but that just meant that she wouldn't be actively searching for the lost Princess within her borders. Moreover, unlike in the Silverwoods, magic was not a crime in the Summerlands and was practiced openly. Emma might not have been capable of practical magic without incurring great pain now, but she appreciated the fact that she'd at least have the option there, should she be feeling somewhat masochistic. She could always practice the less painful herbal magics too, should she stumble across the proper materials. Or she could do without it, if she wanted. It didn't really matter. She could, for the first time, do exactly as she pleased.

Emma was free now. She would remain free.

And that was all she'd ever wanted.