A/N: Hello dearies! I hope you all are having a day/night, whatever the time is wherever you are! Once more, thanks all of you who have reviewed and followed this story, it encourages me to continue on with this story as fast as I can, and of course to try and do my best! As of now, I have all of this story planned out, and have written the draft of half of the chapters, so I can keep on posting twice a week! Yay!

Chapter 3. Change of Plans.

The moment Killian's feet finally landed back on the ground, he found Emma to be lying on the grass, with her eyes shut. As he neared her, she seemed to be so still he was about to believe she had fallen back to sleep. However, the princess seemed to hear him approaching, since she opened her eyes, which she directed towards him.

"I thought no one would ever come and rescue me. That I would stay on that tower forever," she got up into a sitting position. "Thank you for getting me out of there."

"No need to thank me, love." Killian answered with a nod. He could see the girl was happy, being out of the tower for the first time in many years. And seeing her like that, smiling as she took in all of her surroundings, for some reason made him not want to ruin the princess' happy moment. "Are you hungry, Swan?"

Emma bit her lip, perhaps a little ashamed, but in the end she nodded. "Really hungry."

"Wait here," he told her.

Killian then walked over to where the horse was. They still had three more days of travelling left, and he had to make sure they didn't run out of food before that time. Taking one of the bags off the horse, he returned to where Emma was.

"It's not a meal worthy of a princess, but it'll have to do." He told her as he sat down next to her. Pulling out a bread from the bag, he broke it in half, giving one of the halves to Emma. "I'll make sure, however, we get a nicer meal when we get to the port."

"Thank you." Emma replied, offering him a small smile. She took the bread from Killian's hand, and took a bite out of it. "You shouldn't worry about that, you've already done too much for me."

They ate in silence, until Emma finally spoke after she finished.

"I had forgotten how it was like to be out of there. The smell of the grass, how much it hurt to stare directly at the sun... To have the wind blowing in your face," she fixed her eyes on him, and Killian had to admit freedom did her good. Being out in the sun, her hair seemed to be even blonder, and her eyes glistened with emotion. "I could stay sitting right here forever."

"Aye, love, it's a lovely view for sure." Killian replied, throwing the bag over his shoulder and rising up to his feet. "But I don't believe it's a good idea to stay here wasting any more time."

The blonde nodded in agreement and got up as well.

"How long will it take us to get there?" She inquired as they walked towards the horse, her being a couple of steps behind the pirate.

"It's a three day ride from here to the port," he answered. "From there, we will traveling on my ship for a couple of days. And then, we'll only have to ride towards the castle for half a day."

"And who's castle are we exactly heading to?" Emma wondered.

"King Edgar's, it's his son you will be marrying, or whatever." Killian spoke, getting to the horse and untied its reins. As he looked behind himself, he noticed Emma had stopped a few steps behind, and she was staring at Killian and the horse. "What's wrong, Swan? Let's go."

"It's just... I haven't been on a horse in a long time." She said, taking a few careful steps forward. Just as Killian was about to hop on the horse, it started neighing. Killian grabbed its reins as it raised its forelegs, being obvious now that the horse was upset.

"Wow, wow, easy there!" Killian exclaimed, however, the horse's strength was bigger than his, and he wasn't able to hold on to the reins for too long. Taking a hand to his hair, he let out a frustrated growl as he watched how the horse galloped far from them.

"Well," he turned around to face Emma, as he spoke in a sarcastically positive tone. "At least we still have half of our supplies."

"I'm sorry." Emma seemed to have stayed frozen in her place, not taking her eyes off of the place where the horse had disappeared out of sight. "Perhaps the horse didn't like me."

"Please, love, I doubt that." He replied, not giving her words much importance. "The horse was upset for some reason, and I doubt it was because she saw you as some horse-eating creature. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The important thing now is that we have a change of plans. Walking will delay us a couple of days."

"Well..." Emma seemed to have snapped out of her trance, and began walking, heading into the woods. "We better start now, then."

They hadn't been walking for too much time when Killian decided to break the silence. There was something he could not get out of his head since the moment they had spoken on that tower.

"Care to explain something to me, Swan?" He asked her, turning his head to look at her as they walked side by side.

"Tell me." She answered, nodding.

"Your tower. The magic it possesses. I had never heard of such a thing." He said, and he had indeed seen many types of magic in his long life.

The blonde pursed her lips.

"Every night, as the clock strikes midnight, a door appears." She explained to him. "And as soon as the sun rises, it disappears."

"And so does the beast." Killian replied, and Emma nodded in response. "Did you ever see it? The beast?"

He was curious to know what the beast was like, what made it as terrible as what the stories said. At least he knew it had very large claws, because of the marks on the walls of her tower. He smiled to himself thinking how would deliver the princess to the king, and how he probably would be interrogated on how he had survived facing the beast. And yet, he had no idea of what the beast even looked like.

"No, I never saw it." Emma said, shifting her eyes to her feet. "I just know that it is powerful enough to kill whoever faces it. Hundreds of people faced the beast, and none were left to tell the tale."

Emma returned to sink her eyes on Killian.

"I never left my room, you know?" She confessed. "I never left, I just waited for someone to arrive there. I was too afraid to go down and see them, find what was left of those who came to help me."

"I..." Killian began to speak, and he actually felt sorry for the princess. He sighed, "I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been."

"All those people died, and it is my fault." Emma's gaze was filled with guilt now.

He took her arm with his hook, stopping her. She jumped slightly.

"Don't blame yourself, Swan," he spoke, frowning. "Blame the one who put you in that tower."

Emma hesitated for a second, then looked down.

"But it was my fault. Those people died because of me." She replied decidedly, getting away from his grip and continued on walking.

They spent several hours walking. Occasionally, Killian would pull his compass out of his jacket, making sure they were on the right track. When he noticed it had begun to darken, Killian decided it would be good time to stop.

"It's starting to get dark." Killian told her. "We should get some rest now, and early tomorrow we'll continue walking."

Emma nodded. She seemed to be exhausted. "I hadn't walked that much in nearly two decades." She spoke, quickly sitting down, her back against a tree trunk.

"And we still have a long way to go, love." Killian said, sitting beside her. He grabbed his bag and pulled out a handful of blueberries, which he gave to Emma.

"Thanks."

"Since the horse ran off with half of our supplies, and we will also be on these woods for a longer time than what I had originally planned, we will have to ration food." Killian told Emma, looking at what was left in the bag. "Unfortunately, the water was in the other bag. That means tomorrow we will have to deviate a little, to find food and water."

"Sounds good to me." Emma replied after chewing up and swallowing a couple of blueberries.

"Thankfully, the horse didn't take the rum." Killian murmured as he pulled his bottle out to take a sip. He noticed how Emma stared at him, and smiled amusedly. "Want some?"

Emma watched the bottle for a few seconds and then nodded. She took the bottle and raised it to her lips, and almost immediately she grimaced, wiping her lips quickly.

"What the hell is that?" She asked, handing it back to the pirate.

"Rum, love," Killian said, laughing at the face she had made. "With time you'll get used to the taste."

Emma put some more blueberries in her mouth, trying to get the rum's taste out of her mouth. A few moments later, she spoke once more.

"What can my parents give you, besides from gold?" Emma asked.

Killian couldn't help thinking that she was an insistent woman.

"I told you already, love, that it is none of your business." He replied, taking a sip of his rum. "Besides, it is a very long history, and this has been quite a long day. I bet you must be tired, lass."

Emma looked up, the branches would not let them see the moon or the stars, making them both be already submerged in darkness.

"I suppose you're right," The girl said, settling into the ground. "Good night, Hook."

"Goodnight love." Killian replied, staring as the girl closed her eyes and turned to her side, facing away from him. After a couple of sips from his drink, he also settled down to sleep.

A noise made him slightly open his eyes.

Between his sleepiness and darkness, he was not able to see much, and he chose to believe it to have been nothing to worry about, turn around and continue sleeping. If he'd been more awake, he would have felt alarmed. And no, there weren't any strangers around, no thieves trying to steal from them. The night was peaceful.

The only odd thing was, however, that around him there was nothing more than grass and fallen leaves from the trees.

Between his sleepiness and darkness, he failed to see that the princess wasn't next to him.