Firstly, a shout out to htwoh66, thanks so much for your encouragement! And, as you wished, I continued writing, as my fickle muse decided to stick around a bit. As to botany957, yes, this is set just after season one, magic has been brought back so the blue fairy could open the portal home.
So, without further ado, I present the first "real" chapter!
I.
It had been almost a week since they'd made their way back to the palace, which, in turn, meant that this was the third morning that Emma woke in the rooms her parents had given her for the time being during the refurbishing of the nursery. They'd kept Regina close, which had been mostly due to the mistrust Snow and Charming still held against her, and even Henry had his doubts about her being able to reign herself in. It had been a quite effective strategy to tell her exactly that, Emma had figured that quickly. Henry was the only thing – or rather, person – Regina still loved, and with him showing her that he'd only want to be close to her if she behaved herself, there was no way she'd still threaten Snow and her family.
There was too much to be done to think about wardrobe right now, so she was, as she had always been, in her leather jacket, boots, a white shirt and jeans when she walked down the hallways of the palace, keeping herself from admiring how diligently the dwarves were already working on restoring it to its former glory with Gepetto as she walked past them, waving her hand in a short greeting. Approaching the breakfast room after a few turns, she could hear her parents and Regina arguing through the thick wood of the door, and hesitated to enter for a moment.
Apart from Henry, who was sitting quietly on his chair and waiting for breakfast to be served, everyone was standing, Snow rounding on Regina as David leaned is forearms on the backrest of what Emma assumed was going to be his chair when they finally settled down. He was also the first to notice her entering the room, the noise of the door drowned by the voices of Snow and Regina. "So you're suggesting we just sit here and let your magic do the work? I don't think so!"
A dismissive gesture from Regina caught Emma's eye, and for a fraction of a second she wondered if the Dowager Queen even wanted to get anywhere with this argument or if her aim was solely to annoy her stepdaughter. "So you'd rather send thousands of innocent men to their deaths?"
Emma angled her head towards David as he raised his voice the first time she could actually understand it. "That's not the point", he interjected, looking up from the probably highly interesting spot on the table he'd been staring at beforehand. "We want to beat them without magic. With honour. What we're lacking is the manpower."
"What's going on? Three days and we're talking about sending men to their deaths?" She walked past her mother and Regina to the place next to Henry, sitting down on her chair and ruffling his hair. "I thought the ogre attack on our way here was a one time thing?" She had decidedly avoided the word Home so far when referring to the Summer Palace, and given her past, she was sure, noone could blame her for that. There hadn't been much of a home for her anywhere the past 28 years, and even though she was with her family, her parents and son, she didn't feel as though this was going to change anytime soon. She might have been born here, but everything felt strange to her.
Regina just scoffed, turning her head away from Emma, and before Snow could speak, it was David who spoke up. "Sadly, it wasn't. There've been attacks all over the countryside the last days", he explained before Snow continued.
"You see, time in Storybrooke might have stood still, but here, a lot of things can happen in twenty-eight years." Emma gulped, not sure whether she still had the appetite for breakfast, but before she knew, the doors flew open and a few maids entered. The fact that they were being served the probably most decadent breakfast she'd had in ages made her feel even more guilty about the people in the country who weren't even protected from the ogres roaming the woods.
"So? What happened during the ogre wars, weren't humans able to beat them once before?" Furrowing her eyebrows, she watched everyone taking their seats at the table as she mused, "If they were once, they can win again?"
She saw Regina roll her eyes and shaking her head and, after an inquisitive glance, asked: "What? Isn't that what was in the book? How else should all those other stories have worked out if the wars hadn't ended in human victory?"
"We... had help", Snow admitted, being the first to put some of the scrambled eggs and bacon on her plate. "You see, kingdoms work together. But right now, this is an anarchic wasteland. Nobody will help us if we can't give them anything in return."
Dumbfounded, Emma watched everyone filling their plates, she herself remaining the only one not eating yet. "And what would that be? You've merged two kingdoms together, come on! It can't be that hard to find something! You are the ones who taught me that there's always hope."
Pressing her lips together, Snow glanced at David and then her daughter. "Usually, such treaties are sealed with a wedding." She cleared her throat. "Which is clearly not an option, since there aren't any princes out there. And... and our only opportunity would be you or... there aren't any little girls to get Henry engaged to."
For a second, Emma saw her son making a face at the possibility of getting engaged at his young age, and smiled compassionately. "What about the Maritime Kingdom?"
"Not a warfaring country. They're too busy keeping pirates at bay to even think of helping us against the ogres", Regina rejected.
Emma glinted at her parents. "The Northern Kingdom? Isn't that your mother's home country? Surely, they'll help her daughter retake her throne..." Snow's face already told the tale before her lips even parted.
"I don't think that's an option. They are struggling with the ogres, too, there's no point in even asking."
"Ask Rumplestilzkin, then!", Emma suggested, her hand hitting the table a little too hard as she began losing her patience. Not that there had been much of that to begin with.
"Are you insane?" Reginas voice roared across the table. "He lies, he tricks everyone into deals they only make because they're desperate, and you want to entrust him with the fate of your parents' kingdom?!"
She shook her head. "This is not a question of wanting, but something has to happen here." Her fingernails scratched the surface of the wooden table, green eyes fixed on the map hanging on the opposite wall. "And what about that one, over there?"
All eyes followed, and Henry was the first one to read out loud what was written across the mountains. "Arendelle?" It was on the other side of an ocean, which made it rather improbable for ogres to be a problem there, and even if there was no prince, anyone could trade things like wood, livestock, and other valuable goods, not to mention the fairydust the dwarves mined.
"Haven't been there in a while", Snow admitted. "Last thing I heard the King and Queen died on sea." An apologetic look found Emma, who looked more dead set by the minute.
King Charming, on the other hand, seemed caught up in his thoughts, smiling at the map as though remembering something about Arendelle that he hasn't told anyone yet. "Oh, I think we could make some friends there.
She looked at David, waiting for his eyes to leave the map. "You wanna be a Dad?", she asked challengingly. "Could use a few swordfighting lessons before leading armies into battle."
"Let's not be premature about this." Reginas barely constrained anger – though, to Emma, she always seemed angry, so what was the harm? - let everyone's heads snap back to her. "Shouldn't you ask first?"
Grabbing a piece of toast and spreading some butter over it, Emma nodded, leaning back when she bit into it. She deliberately spoke with a mouth full of food when she answered. "I'm not much of a princess, but I could make one hell of a military commander. I'm my parents' daughter, after all, might as well show them." It didn't take much to realise the awe Henry was in when his eyes found hers, smiling proudly at his Mom's courage.
It took only a few hours for David to take Emma up on her offer of letting him be the Dad he always wanted to be, and when she entered the courtyard, he threw her a sparring sword.
"So, let's see how much of a Charming you are", he snickered as she picked it up, her hair tied into a ponytail so it didn't get in her way.
To be honest, at first, she sucked at swordfighting, though David did his best to lighten up the mood when she had to yield for the seventh time after only a few seconds of fighting. Telling her stories of how he'd lost his first swordfights against a girl who was a good bit younger than her, Joan, before he'd even met Snow, before he'd been a prince, back when all he'd ever thought to be was a lowly shepherd. The laughing almost made the long line of defeats bearable.
It wasn't until the early evening hours, after a short lunch pause and a few more laughs, yields, and clumsy stumbles that Emma disarmed her father and he, smiling his brightest smile, raised his hands in defeat.
And a big thanks to the guest who already reviewed this chapter! I've been looking for that piece of information on the wiki and couldn't find it there, thank you for helping me out there!