Hello, everyone! I'm so happy you guys seem to be enjoying my writing! I realize the last few chapters have been mostly Lara and Tink talking, but I really had some things I had to explain and I couldn't find another way to do it. Plus, I really miss Tinkerbell, I feel like Regina needs a friend outside the Charming family. Anyway, I promise we'll see more of other characters in future chapters. Maybe not in the next one, but soon. Without further ado, enjoy!

The New Dark One - Chapter 4

"Okay, can you maybe let me finish this time before you faint again?" said Lara in an annoyed tone and wearing a matching facial expression. The girl had obviously inherited her mother's lack of patience, she looked and sounded just like a mini Regina with the snarky remark.

"Bear with me, what you just told me, that's a lot to process"

"Fine, but we don't have a lot of time. Now, where was I?"

"Something about Henry becoming the Dark One? Or did I just dream that?" I hope I did, thought the fairy.

"Oh, right! That's why I need your help. We need to save Marian" said Lara, matter-of-factly.

"I don't get it, what does it have to do with your brother turning evil?"

"Because if Marian stays frozen my parents can never be together"

"See, I'm sorry (Lara, is it?), I understand that you want your parents to be together, hell I'm one of the people who wants them to be together the most. I've known Regina even before she met your father, I was in fact the very person who led her to him, and I've seen the hardships they've had to endure throughout the years. I know true love when see it, and theirs is the purest and strongest kind of love, they are soul mates. What I don't understand is how this leads to he who holds the heart of the truest believer choosing the path of dark magic.

"Aun… Tinkerbell" she corrected herself quickly "are you familiar with something called Operation Mongoose?"

"Can't say that I am, nope"

"Well, that's what my mother and brother called their little mission to find the Author of the Story Book." seeing the blonde hand't quite gotten where she was going with that, the fourteen-year-old brunette continued "after Marian came back and mom's happy ending was ripped of again she concluded that no matter what she did or how much she changed, she could never be truly happy, for the Book would always portrait her as a villain. Henry offered to help her find the Author and have him change her story".

"Are you implying that nothing we do ir our own doing, and that there's someone out there controlling our every action? Deciding who gets a happy ending and who doesn't?" the room around the fairy started to spin really fast "Oh my God, that's a disturbing thought!" she said, more to herself than to the teenager.

"They could never prove that, its just a theory. I honestly don't know whether that's true or not."

"Thank God!"

"Anyway, they searched for a while. When she found out she was having me, mother decided to stop. She wanted to focus on raising me without making the same mistakes she made with Henry. She said we were enough, that we were everything she needed to be happy. Henry didn't believe it to be true, so he kept searching. He took an after school job at Rumplestiltskin's shop. One day, after endless dead ends, my brother decided the only way to achieve his goal was through magic, so he accepted Gold's offer to make him his apprentice. The power changed him over the years. He slowly forgot about Operation Mongoose. He was blind by the power and they only thing he cared about was becoming increasingly stronger, until the day he realized there was nothing else left to do except defeating his master."

Tinkerbell listen to the girl speechless. What she was saying was surreal, unimaginable. Yet, there was a part of her that felt she could trust her.

"Okay" she swallowed "how do you suggest we save Marian?"

So, are you guys curious about Lara's plan? I had these first four chapters already very clear in my mind, so it didn't take me very long to write them. The next ones might take a little bit more time to be posted, for I still have some details to figure out about how I'm gonna get the characters to the places I want them to be in. I promise it won't take too long though. I'm planing a chapter that centers basically around a conversation between Robin and Regina, I hope you look forward to it. I realize that for and OutlawQueen fic there hasn't been much interaction between the two of them, but I promise to make up for it! XOXO