"Let me out of here," Ivy screeches pulling and shoving against the makeshift cage the huntsmen had put her tiny fairy form in. Despite being nothing but cold-hearted killers by trade, they were very crafty. And she had been far too easy of a target.

She had been too giddy and happy being called out for her first job in weeks. She merely had to cut through a small forest and help a small trading village with their gardens. Easy work, but no, she had to go and help the forest look a little greener and let her guard down.

"We can probably get a good price for her." One of the two huntsmen says flicking her cage over with a shove of his finger. "She's also quite the looker." His beady little eyes inspect her over all appearance, which was quite hard to do due to her miniature size. "I wouldn't mind having her."

Ivy wanted to rip that smirk right off his face. She quietly plotted her escape while sitting in her cage, dozing off to the gentle rocking of the horse her cage was attached to. The sudden stop jolts her from her sleep. They had reached a tavern, how joyful.

The tavern is busy, the smell of drinking, sweat, and smoke assault Ivy's sense of smell when the huntsmen walk in. The huntsmen walk straight up to the bar, making sure that everyone had a good view of Ivy.

"Know of anyone willing to pay for a fairy?" the huntsman with the beard asks, setting the cage down on the table. No one speaks up, dealing in information is always risky business due to the high risks that came with it.

However, the rest of the tavern seems to silence when a new stranger walks in. Next to him is a snow white wolf with mismatched colored eyes. They take a seat at an empty table, a tavern girl bringing the huntsman a drink.

"What, they're letting animals in here now?" The bearded huntsman asks watching the stranger feed something to his wolf companion. "This isn't a slaughter house."

"Forget him, he might as well be one too." Ivy falls over as the bearded man's partner, a man with a boat shaped hat on, grabs a hold of her cage. "I heard he was raised by them."

"He sure smells like one." The bearded man says. "Pathetic."

"I heard he cries over his kills."

Ivy kicks the hand wrapped around her cage. "Stop being so mean all the time you smelly old man."

"You shut your mouth." The bearded man says, walking over to the stranger. His partner picks up the cage, making sure that Ivy wasn't panning anything suspicious. "Tell me huntsman, what kind of man cries over an animal?"

"An honorable one." The stranger replies, he had some sort of accent that wasn't native to the area they were in.

"What do you know of heart?"

"I have it, they have it," he indicates to his wolf friend. "She has it." He points to Ivy sitting woefully in her little cage. "You don't."

The bearded huntsman scoffs. "They have it?"

"They are pure of heart." The stranger says in almost a mocking tone that one would use towards a child who needed to be taught a lesson. "Not selfish, self-serving, like people."

The wolf growls at the bearded huntsman. "You tell your pet to stop threatening me. Do you know what I do to meets, I hang them on my wall." It would seem that he was going to initiate an altercation by pulling out his sword. Only the stranger was faster, sticking his dagger quickly in the bearded man's neck.

After a few second of initial shock, the man with the oddly shaped hat dropped the cage in his hand and goes in to take revenge. Only to have his head smashed into a mirror hanging on the wall. None of the other customers move, the wolf picks up the cage as they both leave the tavern. "Hey, can you let me out now?"

The huntsman easily pulls apart the cage. "Are you alright?"

Ivy lets her green insect like wings spring out of her back. "Perfect fine." She assures fluttering in the air. The huntsman and his friend start to head away from the tavern. "Perhaps, I could do something for you, in return." Ivy says fly up next to them.

"Some food would be nice." The huntsman admits, absently rubbing the wolf's head. "And something for my friend here as well."

Ivy grins at the simple request. She flies a tad bit ahead of them, finding a nice little seedling popping out of the soil. Ivy flies around it feeding it magic to create a nice healthy apple tree. "Apple?" She plucks one from the tree, holding it for the huntsman to take.

It would appear that neither of them really had the luxury to eat fresh juicy apples as the two of them easy clear off half the apples from the tree. "You're not going to eat any?" He asks the little fairy who is easily sitting on an apple, watching them with a smile on her tiny face.

"Not hungry, I suppose." She says shrieking slightly when the wolf noses her off the apple to take the apple for himself. "I see that food is a slight problem for the two of you." She rubs the wolf's wet nose.

"It's not only us." The huntsman explains as they had set off on their journey once again. "It's the poachers; they kill off the wolves for their pelts, scaring the other animals so they don't come out for a hunt."

A small deer runs past them, the signs of malnutrition in its body. "But there's plenty of berries and greens around for the animals to eat." Ivy says, the entire situation clearly out of her grasp.

"True, but the villagers need to eat as well; they come into the forest and take the animal's food. Then the animals go hungry and the wolves go hungry as well." The huntsman explains feeding another apple to the wolf. "There isn't enough food to go around so one party must give."

"Here." Ivy plugs a small reed out of the ground, poking holes into it. "If you ever need help with food or anything, uses this whistle and I will come find you. If you get in trouble, I'll come and feed the wolves and the other animals of the forest." The huntsman takes the small reed whistle.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks tuck the whistle in one of his pouches.

Ivy shrugs. "Because it's my job to care about the forest and its inhabitants, it's very important to me." She tosses up some bursts of magic, letting them land around the forest group or high in the tree leaves. "I have to help the villagers but, maybe this will be enough to help you survive until we meet again." She does a mock bow before zooming off towards the exit.

"Guess who I ran into in the forest during the wee hours of the morning?" Mr. Gold asks after coming back from his little pruning of the forest weeds.

Eirys takes a hearty bite out of the carrot cake Mr. Gold had bought on his way back. "Who?"

"The sheriff," Mr. Gold replies taking a swig of his own tea, fondly remembering the time he sold the apple tea set to his next door shop owner. "He claims to be looking for a wolf."

Eirys's eyebrows come together in a look of confusion. "A wolf? Here in Storybrooke? I've never heard of such a thing. But I suppose there could be some roaming around the forest."

"It certainly is strange." Mr. Gold agrees. "He says that he saw it in a dream, and then saw it in real life, a strange coincidence, don't you think?" he plucks a nice piece of carrot cake out of the box in front of him.

"I hope he's ok." Eirys says obviously starting to worry a little. "It's not healthy to be running around in the forest when you don't know the difference between dreams and reality. Perhaps he had too much to drink last night?"

Mr. Gold merely shrugs. "Perhaps, one can never know for sure."

"I sure hope he's ok." Eirys says taking a nervous sip of her tea. "Maybe we should take him to the hospital and have them see if there's something wrong with him. This could be serious."

Now she's just blowing things out of proportion. "I hardly think so; he just had a dream and woke up with a hang over, nothing to worry about." Mr. Gold reassures her. "Did you know that people used to think that dreams were memories from a past life?"

"I did not know that." Eirys says thinking of her latest dreams. "What do you think it means when you dream about apple trees and meadows in a forest with a little river nearby?"

"Maybe you had a lot of picnics in your past life." Mr. Gold replies leaning back in the chair, letting the metal back hit his aching muscles which were sore from not being used. "Or because you are thinking of baking an apple pie to eat tomorrow morning."

She tosses a napkin at him. "That's what you want me to do."

The grandfather clock dings, signaling the end of their time and that Ashley, the new temporary worker would be arriving soon. "I really must be going then." Mr. Gold says, quickly excusing himself. The last time he didn't, he was stuck babysitting a crying child in the backroom for much of the morning.

"And remember to offer each customer with a freebie before they leave." Eirys says pointing out the little freebie corner. "So, I guess I'll leave you to work the cashier while I do some work out front, call if you need anything."

Ashley nods, sitting down on the chair behind the counter. She always had a different 'how to be a mom' type book with her. Eirys pulls up the dead flowers that were sitting in the pots next to the door. "Um, Eirys, can I talk to you?"

Eirys glances up over her shoulder. "Graham, is something the matter? You look terrible." He looked as if he had gotten no sleep during the night and the fact that it seemed like he was running a fever didn't help. "Do you want to go inside?"

"No, I was wondering if it's possible that we met in a past life." He asks, sitting on the steps to the store. "One with Mary Margaret in it."

Eirys glances at him strangely. "Not that I can recall." His face falls, obviously expecting a different answer. "But it would seem like I'm having certain problems recalling when I've done certain things during my childhood or when I've met someone. I'm sure you'll figure it lot."

Graham nods, "I suppose I should let you get back to work right now." He says getting ready to go. "You wouldn't know where Henry is right now, would you?"

"Henry? I suppose he's either with Emma or at home." Eirys says finding the train of the conversation starting to derail and head off in a different direction. "Did something happen to the mayor?"

"No, everything is fine." Graham replies getting into his sheriff's car. "Thank you for your help." And he pulls out of the parking lot, heading down the street. Eirys guessed that he was going to the mayor's house.

Eirys shrugs glancing back at her work, which had been neglected for while sometime as she never found the motivation to actually do the work. "How strange."

It came as a great surprise when the sheriff suddenly died of a heart attack that very night. "Why are you here, Eirys?" Mr. Gold asks not looking up from his work in waterproofing some antique book.

"I'm on a self proclaimed holiday, and Ashley needs a break once in a while so I sent her home to spend some more time with Alexandra and Sean." Eirys explains sitting at his front counter, leaving the curtain between the two rooms up as to let the air circulate. "You should take a break too; you've been working since you got back here."

Mr. Gold was saved by the bell signaling a customer. "Oh, hey, Eirys, I'm looking for Mr. Gold, is he here?"

Eirys could hear him mumbling something under his breathe in the backroom. She jerks her thumb towards the room, a gleeful smile on her face. "He's waiting for you."

Emma takes one step into room and automatically tries to escape; the smell of the waterproofing chemical is overwhelming. "What is that stuff? It smells like livestock."

They bring their conversation outside into fresh air. Mr. Gold pulls a box from under the counter with all of Graham's personal items in it. "I was wondering if you would like a small token." As it turns out Graham didn't really have anything interesting, most of it would head to the trash if no one claimed them.

"Oh, how about these?" Eirys asks spying a pair of walkie talkies that she often saw Graham using when he cruised around the town. "You can play with Henry with these."

Emma reluctantly takes them. "The time you have with your boy is precious. The thing about kids is that they grow up so fast, and before you know it, they leave." Mr. Gold's words of wisdom seem to convince her to take the walkie talkies.

Ivy couldn't contain her laughter any longer, her loud laugh ringing above the childish giggles of the orphans around her. And as usual, it was all at the expense of her "most trusted assistant". "Come on Bae you look marvelous!"

Bae tosses the blonde wig on the ground and moves the remove the shabby costume he was forced to wear. They had somehow been dragged into producing a little show of the orphans of the village. Orphans from the Orc Wars. "I refuse to play this role any longer."

"Ok kids, how about we stop for some lunch now." Ivy suggests feeling the slightest bit sorry for Bae as he was mercilessly bossed by the small miniature humans. The children all run towards the kitchen, hoping to get something warm before the older kids got there. "You're surprising good spirited about all of this." She gestures to her own little costume, which was a simple blue dress with a tattered hem.

Bae shrugs finding some nicely wrapped sandwiches in his traveling bag. It wasn't often that Ivy needed to buy stuff from a human village; most of the items that she required to live off of could be made within the Fairy Grounds. However, some items just couldn't be made with magic and must be traded for. "Don't you have some things to buy while we're here?"

"The lady running this orphanage is purchasing them for me." Ivy explains finishing off her sandwich. "She said that she knows a really good place to get fresh spices."

"I don't trust her," Bae says suddenly. "She seemed a bit too excited about buying these spices for you."

Ivy taps her chin, she wasn't like Bae in the sense that she didn't watch people to see what their deep dark secrets were, she couldn't read people like he could. And by being a fairy, she automatically thought about the good in people and the thought of suspecting some bad to happen was always far from her mind. "I guess her ring was a bit fishy. I would think a place so short on money wouldn't be able to afford nice gems."

"Nice gems you say." Bae glances over at the small castle like structure just outside the village's boundaries. "The lady has been gone for quite a while, hasn't she?"

Ivy glances over at the castle. The ring on the lady's finger could have easily come from the castle's treasury. "You don't think she's stealing from those people, do you?"

"Let's go see." Bae says getting up, brushing the crumbs from his trousers. "Watch the children will you." The old cook nods her head, waving them off with the rest of the orphans.

Ivy glances around them, feeling guilty about what they were about to do. "Are you sure we should be doing this, I mean what if someone sees us?" She fixes her eyes on any sign of movement from the back kitchen door.

There were essentially two easy ways to get into the castle. One would be to walk straight through the front door. And the second was through the kitchen door where servants usually bustled through and where deliveries were made. Bae knocks his knuckles against her head, warning her to keep her mouth shut.

They silent crouch behind some bushes, waiting for any signs of people coming out of the door. And just when Ivy thought that they were doing something foolish, the door creaks open.

"Glad to do business with you as usual." A toothless smuggling servant says, handing the orphanage lady a cloth sac in exchange for a pouch of rattling coins. "Come again soon, my master won't be back for a while. He won't notice a thing."

Ivy looks to Bae for direction. "Wait here, and don't do anything stupid like running off and screaming, alright?" he doesn't wait for her response before stepping out of the bushes.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" He briskly makes his way up to the lady, plucking the sac out of her hands. "I see someone's been a naughty little girl." He spills the contents of the sac onto the ground.

"I paid for those you know." She replies angrily, her pride not letting her stoop down and picking up her items. "And these people won't be using this stuff; it'll just sit on shelves rotting away. Many people will be better off with this stuff."

"And what about this little ring on your finger?" He magically pulls it out of his pocket. "Very nice, wonderfully crafted and ingeniously put together. I suppose you found it which you were clearing out your closet?" he glances at the glare of the toothless servant. "Or perhaps, you saw and decided to keep it for yourself. There's not harm in treating yourself to a little luxury once in a while, right, dearie?"

The lady snatches the ring back. "You have no idea what I go through everyday with those noisy little brats. All the yelling and screaming, there's always something to do for them."

"And you think that letting them stave in that run down little shack is going to help them?" Bae asks dropping his usual mocking voice. "Or perhaps, you like smacking around little children who can't defend themselves?"

"How dare you?" She reaches up to try and slap Bae. And as quickly as she does that, he blocks her hand faster still. "Unhand me you fowl fiend."

"Or what?" he asks leaning close to her face. "Because I'm not a two foot tall five year old crying at your feet, I can easily destroy you. And you, you better disappear from my sight right now." He says to the servant who quickly shuts the kitchen door. "Now I'm going to let you go."

The lady just blinks at him and Ivy shoves her hand into her mouth to keep herself from screaming some sort of profanity at him. "You're just going to let me go, just like that."

Bae wags his finger in her face. "On two conditions, one you leave the orphanage and return all the jewelry and money you took from this place and two you dedicate the rest of your life to serving this castle and its inhabitants as a nanny."

"Fine," The lady rips her hand out of Bae's grip, tossing the ring at his face. She picks up the items and stalks away towards the orphanage.

Ivy steps out of the bushes once the lady is out of sight. "That was very unexpected."

"Those children need good parents to tell them what is right and what is wrong." Bae explains. "And she will spend the rest of her days making it up to those children she has wronged."

Ivy pats him on the shoulder. "For someone who cares very little about the world around you, you have a very big heart. I'm sure the children are going to enjoy the rest of the show."

It wasn't very surprising to see tearful eyes of the orphans when they returned. And of course, their eyes dried up easily when Bae offered to get back into his outrageous outfit to finish the show.

"Now, you wouldn't be planning on stealing more from this place, now would you?" Bae asks watching the shadowy figure tiptoe across the room towards the room of treasures.

The figure jumps backwards, falling over a nearby vase and toppling a suit of armor over. Bae claps his hands causing the lights in the room to come alive. "What are you doing here?" the orphanage lady demands, a large basket with her personal items sitting nicely on the floor next to her.

"Why, I just so happen to live here." Bae explains, he had changed out of his usual torn clothes and into more suitable attire for a castle owner. "I think the question now is, what are you doing here?"

He ignores any argument the lady tried to make. "I gave you a chance to live a redeemable life, but I suppose I was too soft on a person like yourself. You see, children, are quite precious, and I can't have you corrupting them with your lifestyle. So I've decided to donate this castle and all of its contents to the orphanage, and when those little kids come running through here, they'll glance at this wall and wonder why this woman looks like their former guardian."

The lady glances at the blank wall. "What are you talking about? There's nothing here."

"Not yet anyways." Bae says, and with a flick of his hand, a sparkling purple smog wraps around the poor woman, changing her physically and planting her straight into the wall as a beautiful painting. "Now you can listen to the shouts and screams of children till the day you die."

"Tell me again, why am I driving you to Mary Margaret's place?" Eirys asks pulling up next to Mary Margaret's building. "I mean, I never thought that you would be requesting to visit Mary Margaret."

"Well, let's just say that I have some business with a certain roommate of hers." Mr. Gold replies stepping out of the passenger side of the car, a large white binder tucked under his arm. Eirys sighs following behind him, closing the passenger side door on her way up to Mary Margaret's room. "Good evening Miss. Swan, sorry for the intrusion, but there's something I'd like to discuss with you."

"Mary Margaret, I've brought cheese and crackers!" Eirys says figuring that Mr. Gold only made her come with him in order to distract Mary Margaret. The two of them wander towards Mary Margaret's room. "So, what did Emma do to the toaster?"

"Regina fired her." Mary Margaret explains making messy cheese and cracker sandwiches. "What do you think they're talking about?" She tries to eavesdrop on their conversation; unfortunately, they were probably sitting at the table which is across the room from Mary's own room.

Eirys licks the goat cheese off her fingers. "Mr. Gold brought the town charter, maybe they're going to plan an overthrowing of Regina's mayor status. Or I suppose he's trying to help Emma keep her job."

"He's been doing a lot of nice things these days." Mary Margaret admits going back to her bed to eat more cheese and crackers. "Do you think he likes her, Emma that is?"

Eirys shrugs, the thought of Mr. Gold actually liking some like that was a strange concept for her brain to wrap itself around. Not to mention that it did something strange to her chest. "It's possible, but one can never know what Mr. Gold is thinking, he's like an enigma."

Mary Margaret laughs, almost choking on her sandwich. Their little banter goes on until Mr. Gold interrupts them by poking his head through the door. "Ready to go?"

Eirys gives a small hug to her friends before leaving them. "I suppose you and Emma are now up to something that won't please Regina at all."

Mr. Gold gives her a lopsided grin. "Of course."

And Regina was not pleased at all. Ashley and Eirys were carefully peeking out of the window the through the blinds when Regina's car parked in Mr. Gold's parking lot. "What do you think she's doing in there?" Ashley asks she gently rocks Alexandra to sleep, signs of exhaustion written all over her face.

"Probably venting her anger out on him." Eirys whispers, unsure why they were even watching the pawn shop as there was no way to tell what was actually going on inside the tiny little store. "I wouldn't want to be his shoes right now."

"I sure hope she doesn't come here." Ashley says finally putting Alexandra to sleep, "she's absolutely frightening."

"Well she's certainly fuming right now." Eriys says when Regina finally comes out of the store. There is literally steam coming out of her ears. "This is not going to be good."

Despite being quite the distance from the mayor's office the little flower felt a small tremor when the mini-explosion took place. "What do you think that was?" Ashley asks once the ground was steady again.

"I don't know, but why don't you go home early today." Eirys says untying her apron. "You can also come in late tomorrow; I'm sure everyone's going to be talking about this and the whole sheriff election."

Ashley smiles, quickly getting ready to leave for the day, and Eirys skips over to Mr. Gold's shop. "Mr. Gold, do you want to go see what happened?"

"No thank you." His voice replies from the back room. "I'm in the middle of something at the moment; you can tell me all about it tomorrow over tea."

Eirys manages to get to the scene of the explosion just as Mary Margaret, Archie, and many others get there including the fire department and Sidney with his camera, taking pictures for the next morning's newspaper. "What happened here?"

"Emma saved Regina from the fire." Mary Margaret explains, their little friend group crowding around a slightly charred looking Emma.

Eirys pats Emma on the back. "You're a hero, oh, we should see if they have a picture of the rescue and make campaign posters for her."

Ruby and her grandma nod. "That's a great idea." And with that Archie and Grandma go off to write posters while Ruby and Mary Margaret gather pictures. "Oh and I can put them up all over town." Eirys adds helping Archie with the posters. "Where did Emma go?"

Somehow, through the haze of the fire, Emma managed to sneak off. "Probably resting from all the action." Archie suggests already writing stuff down. "Right now, she needs all the support we can give her."

"Mary Margaret, these posters don't look right." Eirys says staring at the stapled posters on the bulletin board outside of the city hall. Mary Margaret had a very interesting way of stapling the posters to the board. "I don't think you should staple it through the middle." And of course the school teacher wasn't even listening.

It is the day of the long awaited debate and vote for sheriff. Everyone was busy with the debate preparations, last minute campaigning, and of course, many were still talking about the fire. "Hey, Eirys do you have any more posters?"

Eirys could see David Nolan stapling posters of Sidney next to Emma's campaign posters. "You have to get over him sooner rather than later you know." She places some more glossy posters in Mary Margaret's hands.

"Thanks," she goes to a bulletin away from David's stapling. It felt like the calm before a major storm, all the townsfolk were on edge about the debate. As far as anyone could remember, this would be the first recent debate for the position of sheriff.

"Well aren't you in the cheery mood." Mr. Gold says walking up the white steps to the City hall, the debate is just about the start and most of the seats were already taken. "I thought you would be the first person here."

"I was I even saved us some seats." Eirys replies leading him to a pair of seats in the second to last row on Emma's side of the room. "Now sit down, the debate is about to begin." Archie made a very bad attempt at easing the tense mood of the room with very lame jokes which Eirys would admit, were slightly funny.

"And when Mr. Gold said that he would support me in this race, I didn't know that he was going to set a fire." In one single statement, Eirys's face practically crumbled. She didn't have the courage to look at her friend sitting in the seat next to her nor did she really hear the rest of Emma's speech. What she did hear were the fading footsteps of Mr. Gold and his clanking cane walking away from the debate.

If it weren't for Mary Margaret and the fact that Emma is still her good friend Eirys would have driven her car like a mad woman to find Mr. Gold and give him a good piece of her mind. "Are you hung over?" So the fact that this is the first thing that comes out of Mr. Gold's mouth the next morning was very disturbing.

"You set a fire just to help Emma win? There are easier ways to support a candidate no matter how much you might hate Regina." Eirys says knowing that the only reason Mr. Gold would support Emma was to go against Regina, whom he was often bantering with. "And you could've told me so I didn't need to drink my life away."

She rubs her face, the after election party was intense and she had let herself go completely. "You would have told everyone and that would not get Emma elected. People seem to like a sheriff who can go up against me, and I don't mind playing the bad guy part."

"You should care more about what other people think of you." Eirys says trying to ingest as much sugar as humanly possible. "Even if you don't, I care about what people think about you so keep that in mind the next time you do something completely stupid."