A/N: So sorry for the delay! I've been swamped with a large helping of personal and family drama, and there's been a few too many tears to write properly. Still, I'm really excited for this chapter, and I hope you all love reading it as much as I loved writing it!

The Handmaiden's Philosophy
Chapter Nine

Twelve years ago...

Emma's POV

"Oh, Leopold. You look so very droll. Are you not enjoying yourself, brother?" Emmaline asked sweetly, tossing her carefully stylized golden curls and grinning at her younger sibling who trudged dutifully by her side. They made a handsome pair, walking side by side, as they were very close in age and were near enough in size to pass as twins, not to mention physically similar in nearly every other respect as well. Were the Prince's dirty blonde locks kept longer, or were his older sister to exchange her puffy blue gown for a tunic and trousers, they would be nearly indistinguishable in the youthful way that siblings often are, with their soft cheeks, immature bodies, and identical colorations.

Aside from these similarities, however, Emmaline and Leopold could not be more different. Leopold was a calm child. Studious, chivalrous, and dutiful. Emmaline would call that boring, were she able to do so aloud without fear of reprimand. (Though this did not prevent her from thinking it, when her brother refused to play or sneak or otherwise participate in her much-loved shenanigans.) The Princess of the Silverwoods was an adventurous spirit, much like her mother had been in her youth (or so her godmother Red insisted). Though she was confined to the castle grounds at all times, this did not stop the child from running off to explore and play by herself, even when she was intended to be sitting with her tutors or attending her needlework, as was befitting a woman of her birth.

And yet despite all of that… it was Emmaline's dearest wish to be like Leopold. The siblings did not interact much outside of meals and the occasional shared lesson, but that didn't mean the girl didn't love her younger brother dearly. Boring or not, he was her brother, and he had always been kind to her if not a little distant. And Leopold… it was nearly impossible not to love him. He was nothing short of perfect, really. A beautiful, well-behaved, charming Prince that their parents doted upon.

He was everything Emmaline was not. Though the Princess had not yet reached her ninth Name Day, and despite any other flaws, she had never been accused of being unintelligent. Her parents looked upon her brother with more fondness than they did her, she knew. It was painfully obvious really. This behavior wasn't always uncalled for though, she could concede, as Emmaline was well aware that she was not as perfect as her brother was. She had always been criticized far more heavily than he, after all, which was probably indicative of just how often she failed, and she was constantly disappointing her parents and tutors with her wild tendencies. Emmaline supposed that this record of less than satisfactory behavior was why she had been confined to the castle and its surrounding town from a very young age, and why she had to wear her special bracelets that punished her when she got too sad or angry. Once, Emmaline had asked her mother why she and Father always looked afraid when her special bracelets reminded her to behave as a Princess should. Mother had told her that they were simply afraid that she would never learn to be a lady, and didn't like to be reminded of her need for correction.

Sometimes, Emmaline thought that they were lying when they said that. But most of all, she just wished that the King and Queen would look upon her with the same unburdened love in their eyes as they did every day to her brother. She tried so very hard to be good. She did. Truly. But she always managed to somehow mess it up.

Emmaline wished she could be like Leopold.

Today was special though. Emmaline's dancing instructor had given a glowing report of her improved skill to her parents, and they were so pleased with her that they'd offered her a reward. Immediately, Emmaline had requested that her brother accompany her on a trip into the castletown on market day.

That was today. The royal siblings had arrived early that morning with eight of the Palace Guard in tow, and had been wandering the bustling streets together for hours yet beneath their watchful eye. Emmaline was over the moon with joy at the rare trip outside of the castle grounds, but Leopold was visibly bored with the scene. Hence her earlier question.

"I don't understand why you like this place, sister," Leopold answered her with a roll of his blue-green eyes, breaking his sister from her musings. "It is crowded and dirty, and certainly no different than it was from the last time we visited."

The pair –encircled by their guards—was walking sedately down one of the many dirt roads lined by open-air stalls manned by crudely dressed peasants peddling their goods. Occasionally, they would stop and inspect one of the offerings, but they rarely purchased anything. (After all, they were provided with anything and everything their hearts could desire at the palace. Buying sub-par duplicates of what they already owned would be rather pointless.) Still, Emmaline enjoyed the experience. Enjoyed the liveliness, and the change, despite the bows and stares she was constantly subjected to by the passerby.

She shook her head at her brother's summarization of the situation. "Do you not find it lovely?" she asked of him curiously. She honestly couldn't understand her brother's apathy towards the people they shared their world with. "It is so very different from home. So lively and gay. There are new people and sights and smells to see and touch and taste, here. Is it not an exciting change from routine?"

Leopold scoffed. "There is nothing exciting here," he said firmly, full of the wisdom of a young boy. "No knights, nor fine horses… and I find the smell distasteful. You always claim yourself unhappy with being left behind whilst Mother and Father and I travel, but each place we go is the same. Commoners doing common things. You'd be bored too, if you came."

"I still wish to see the world for myself, brother," Emmaline admitted with a scowl of displeasure as they made a turn and set off down another street. This one, at least, was slightly less crowded.

"Mother and Father said that it isn't safe for you to travel with us, sister," Leopold reminded her, having witnessed her beg their parents many times to allow her to accompany them on their journeys. They always asked that she remained safely at the palace no matter what tactics she tried, and the boy was well acquainted with their proclaimed reasoning for the decision. "They do not wish for you to be harmed."

Emmaline's plump pink child's-lips pulled down into a heartbreaking frown. "I know," she muttered. "Yet I am the eldest of the two of us. Why is it that you are safe, and yet I am not?"

The blonde Prince shrugged, not having an answer to provide her with. They continued on in silence, Leopold still bored and Emmaline brooding. They were soon distracted, however, by a call of greeting by one of the peddlers. She was an old woman with shiny silver hair and laugh lines around her eyes, perched neatly upon a stool situated in front of a cart loaded with oranges.

"Hail, Your Highnesses!" she cried, brandishing a fruit clutched in her weathered hand in their general direction. "Allow my to gift you with a sample of my wares, to ease the heat of a hot day."

Immediately, Leopold donned a charming grin and accepted the gift, moving past the circle of guards as they parted for him. He'd always a fondness for citrus. "My thanks, good woman. Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated."

Emmaline held up a quelling hand before the old woman could retrieve a second fruit. "My thanks as well, but I do not care for oranges," she refuted politely.

The old woman seemed genuinely distressed by this for a moment before she perked up and snagged a satchel that had been lying by her feet. "Fear not, Your Highness," she assured the Princess, unclasping the bag and rifling through what appeared to be a ration of salted pork before withdrawing a red fruit the likes of which Emmaline had never seen before. "Fortunately I have not yet taken my midday meal. Perhaps you would care for an apple instead?"

The reaction was immediate. Their guards –who previously had been as bored as their Prince by their surroundings—suddenly snapped to attention, and the nearest one reached out and slapped the crimson fruit from the old woman's hand before the girl could even think to ask what an apple even was while two others moved to seize her by her upper arms. The remaining guards yanked their two diminutive young charges back into the safety of their encircling presence.

"Treason!" the first guard snarled at the old woman in his comrades' grasp. Her eyes were wide and pleading, and she looked terrified.

"Please," she begged, flicking her eyes to Emmaline briefly, then to the man addressing her before returning her gaze to the girl. "Your Highness. I meant no harm. I—"

"Silence, witch!" he cut her off. The guard then addressed the two holding her in place. "Take her to the castle dungeons," he ordered. They complied, frog-marching the old orange peddler away.

Emmaline was stunned. She did not know what an apple was, but from they way the fruit rested innocuously in the dirt at her feet, it didn't seem harmful. She was fairly certain that the old woman was simply attempting to show her Princess kindness, and it upset her greatly that she was treated so poorly because of this. "Guard, what is the meaning of this?" she demanded as the armored men assigned to her and her brother's protection began herding them back to the safety of the palace, ignoring how the entirety of the market street had gone still and silent. The Princess could feel the frightened and angry eyes of the people on her with every step she took, and she didn't like it.

Leopold was curious too, she could tell. Despite the fact that he had not vocalized his displeasure with the entire scenario, he was eyeing the guard in the calculating sort of way that she'd seen their mother regard the occasional visiting dignitary from countries they weren't formally allied with.

"Apples are banned in the Silverwoods," the man explained with a shrug. "The peasants still eat them from time to time when they aren't in view of a member of the guard, but to offer an apple to the member of the royal family is high treason. Punishable by lifelong imprisonment or death."

Horrified at the thought of the kind old woman suffering such a sorry fate simply because Emmaline did not care for oranges, the girl made to protest, but a light touch on the arm from her brother stopped her words in her throat. Instead, she allowed herself to be led back to the palace in silence. She knew Leopold wanted to wait and discuss this with their parents, and once she stopped to think about it, she really did have to agree that it would be the best course of action. Surely the King and Queen would have an explanation for what happened today that actually made sense, wouldn't they?

As it turned out, they didn't.

Well, not one that Emmaline agreed with anyways. Not that her opinion actually mattered.

Upon their arrival at the castle, Emmaline and Leopold had been ushered into their mother's favorite drawing room to wait. Perhaps ten minutes later, the King and Queen of the Silverwoods rushed into the room, hugged their two fair-haired children tightly, and peppered their faces with kisses. Emmaline wasn't sure if they meant to comfort them from an apparently traumatic experience, or if they were really only comforting themselves after learning that one of their children had been offered an apple. A seemingly harmless fruit that clearly carried a heavy symbolism.

So Emmaline and Leopold had asked their parents to explain.

Emmaline knew the story of the Evil Queen well. Before she retired to bed each night, her parents would often regale she and her brother with laudable tales of their many heroic adventures and quests to thwart the horrible, jealous Evil Queen who hated love and happiness and wanted to destroy everyone who had ever been good. Emmaline knew that the Evil Queen had, at one point, put her mother under a sleeping curse that was eventually broken by the kiss of her father. What she had not known, however, was that this curse was delivered via apple. After initiating the Treaty that had banished the Evil Queen to the Dark Realm of the Summerlands where she could no longer bring harm to the people living within the pure forests of the Silverwoods , King James and Queen Snow had not only declared the practice of magic to be illegal and Evil, but prohibited the growth, sale, and consumption of apples in the Silverlands in remembrance of this famous curse.

"I do not understand, Mother," Emmaline finally stated after taking a few silent moments to absorb this explanation for the treatment the old woman had received at the market that day. "The Evil Queen was the evil one, not the apple. Why should we force the peasants to be hungry when we are throwing away food? If you hold on to your fear, you are letting the Evil Queen win even now, are you not?"

Because, to Emmaline, fearing apples because you were put under a sleeping curse made as little sense as fearing a garden because you were stung by a bee.

Her parents did not share this opinion, and frowned at her in such a way that implied they could not understand that their logic was in any way questionable. Emmaline wasn't certain if she should feel offended at the implications of those looks or simply very foolish for questioning her elders.

"The people need hope, Emmaline," her mother replied, speaking very slowly and clearly while reaching over and squeezing the Princess' hands, as if to ensure her concentration. From beside her, her father just scoffed at the question. "We banned apples so that no one ever forgets that evil is not tolerated in our kingdom, and that we will keep our people safe from the Evil Queen and others like her."

"Like people with magic?" Leopold offered, nodding his head thoughtfully. He was clearly mulling over the explanation provided, though he seemed generally satisfied with it even though Emmaline was not. Their father was gazing at him proudly, his smile of approval making his face practically glow with the emotion as he looked upon his son.

She wished she could be like Leopold.

"Exactly," the King confirmed. "Magic is evil. It can corrupt even the best of people, which is why those who have it must be stopped."

Emmaline frowned and stared down to where her hands were folded demurely in her lap, as she had been taught to hold them. "But… are not my bracelets magic?" she asked, baffled. If magic was evil, why did she have to touch it? She didn't want to be evil. She wanted to be good. Mother said the bracelets would make her a better Princess even though they hurt, but they were clearly magic, and magic was evil.

For the first time during the conversation, her parents seemed uncomfortable with the subject matter. They shifted in their seats before stilling, and shared a lingering glance between them even as Emmaline stiffened in alarm at their hesitant body language and Leopold cast her a frightened look.

"Your special bracelets aren't evil," the Queen finally told her with a saccharine smile that oozed insincerity. "They stop magic."

"I… I don't understand," Emmaline stammered, blue-green eyes wide.

Her mother sighed. "Sometimes, children are cursed with magic when they are born," she explained delicately. "If the magic is not stopped, it will turn them evil. Emmaline… your special bracelets take away the magic you were cursed with at birth. They are not evil. They will stop you from ever being evil, do you understand, my love? You have nothing to fear."

The little blonde blanched, the blood draining from her face as her stomach abruptly twisted itself into a painful knot. It couldn't be… She wasn't born evil, was she? But the idea that she was born with magic suddenly made a sickening amount of sense. It explained some of her vague early childhood impressions and dreams of light bursting from her hands. It explained the special bracelets her parents had asked her to wear so many years ago and the searing pain that was inflicted upon her by them if her emotions got the better of her. It explained the delightful warmth that sometimes tingled inside of her like sunshine if she called to it. It explained why she had never been allowed out of the castle, and why it sometimes felt like her parents loved Leopold more than they loved her. Because it was true. He was better than her. He was good, and she was… not.

Why? Why had she been cursed like this? Was she born this way, or made this way by some unnamed enemy? What had she done wrong to have magic? Would her special bracelets really stop her from becoming evil, as her mother promised? She'd never liked them. They hurt her. But if she was evil, then she deserved to be hurt, didn't she? Had Emmaline done something evil as a baby that had forced her parents to find the special bracelets? Where did they even get them? She was afraid. So afraid. She felt like her own body had betrayed her by being magic. Her parents hated magic. It was evil. She didn't want her parents to hate her. She'd had eight years of their love, and had no interest in losing it now. And why did it have to be her? Why not Leopold?

Oh, how Emmaline wished she was like Leopold.

Emmaline burst into tears, and none of her family members said anything. They just watched. And Emmaline couldn't find it within herself to blame them for it.

A/N: Poor baby Emma! This chapter is an important part of understanding their family dynamic though, and it'll be important to know this later on. So power through guys, and please feel free to drop a review for me! Kisses!