Mother and daughter were left standing in the cold tower room. Their breaths swirled visible in the usually warm air that had turned chilly at the rage of the goddess. Neither spoke a word until the large mirror in the room cracked and then shattered with a spectacular crush, sending splinters of glass flying around the room, boring in their hands with small stings that woke them up from their stupor.
"Emma, are you okay? She didn't touch you did she?" Snow breathed out, striding towards her daughter and running her hands over her daughters hands. The girl was taller than her, having outgrown her over a year ago, but once again Snow saw how young her daughter still was. Just a young girl who had another one of her dreams shattered. Snow tried to protect her, but despair always wormed it's way back into her life somehow. "Emma." She urged softly when her daughter failed to respond.
"She's gone." Emma said, turning towards her mother for the first time since the goddess had disappeared from the room. "She was going to help, but you told her to go away." Emma gasped, her eyes focusing on her mother's, a slow burning anger making its way through her veins. "She was the only one that ever answered your- our prayers and you sent her away."
"Sweetheart…" Snow knew the despair all too well, the anger at the fire of hope that would flare up brightly, only to be put out at the slightest drop of water, leaving only a slumbering disdain behind. "She couldn't help us. She told you herself, remember."
"She was lying. I don't know why, but she was." Emma said stubbornly. She couldn't tell if she had really been able to tell if the woman spoke the truth, or if it was just her desperation speaking, but she didn't care. "If you had just given me a chance to talk to her…"
"She wouldn't have done it, Emma, even if she could. You know what she is called…"
Emma turned around is frustration and kicked away a piece of mirror. "Yeah 'The Evil Queen', 'The Goddess of death…" She paused, letting the words filter through her find as if she was trying to figure them out. Then she turned back towards her mother. "Well I don't believe that. I've seen her, I've seen humanity in her eyes, emotion!"
"Humanity and emotion don't mean anything, Emma. They are the things that made us do bad things." Snow answered, taking her daughters hands and leading her to her father's bedside. She put her daughter's hand over her father's chest, letting her feel the heart still beating after all those years. "It's what made her do this, Emma. Humanity and emotion is why you don't know your father."
"Did she do this?" Emma asked slowly, tracing her fingertips over her father's eyelids. As a child she used to go to her father's room every evening to tell him about her day. Age had taken away the habit and she didn't go to the tower often anymore. It made her weary, being face to face with the pain of the world. "Did she curse him?"
"She is the goddess of death, sweetheart, she cursed everyone." Snow said on a whisper, taking her gaze away from her husband to look into her daughter's eyes. Emma nodded slowly, but when she brought her eyes up to her mother's eyes there was something different. Something that shouldn't be there: Pity. Pity for the woman that had cursed the world.
Emma knew there was something her mother wasn't telling her.
She prayed again to the goddess that night.
She didn't get an answer.
But Emma had never been a girl to give up easily, It was a feat that was both prized and scolded, so she decided that she would do the same thing her mother had been doing for the past eighteen years: pray until you get an answer. So she prayed every minute she could find the time. Sometimes the prayers were long: stories about her father and how she could hear her mother crying in his room sometimes. Sometimes they were short: just calling for the Queen in her head while saddling her horse or gripping the hilt of her sword. She prayed until she couldn't.
After nearly a week had passed, her prayers got answered. She was sitting on her bed, dressed in a lilac sleeping gown and gazed out of her window. She could have tried wishing upon the blue star that was clearly visible that day, but had instead opted for the Evil Queen again. It was arrogant, but sometimes she thought of the goddess as her personal guardian angel. She scoffed at herself at the thought: the queen of death as her guardian angel, maybe she was really going mad.
"You're persistent, I have to give you that." She startled at the sudden snappy voice behind her. She had only heard the voice once before, but immediately knew who it belonged to. There was only one person who spoke to her that way, who didn't treat her as the princess that should be pitied. She suppressed a smile and reminded herself why she had desperately called upon the Queen: she had questions and wanted answers, simple enough. She straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat, covering up her insecurity about being in the presence of the goddess.
"Well, you wouldn't listen to me. And I am not about to let you go yet." Emma declared, mildly satisfied with the way the words left her mouth. The Queen scrunched up her nose, but the corners of her mouth lifted almost unperceivably.
"That much is clear. Your cries for help were rather … aggravating."
"I try my best." Emma shot back, getting more accustomed to the presence of the goddess every minute. She crossed her arms in front of her and kept her eyes firmly locked with the Queen. The latter pursed her lips and let her eyes travel over the rather short, nearly translucent gown that the princess wore. Emma felt a blush creep up her neck, but tried to refrain from covering herself up.
"However; I already told you, I can't help you." The Queen drawled, shrugging with a lack of interest in the fate of the former prince. Her eyes kept travelling over the blonde's body, locking in on a circular pendant the princess wore around her neck. She cocked her head, stepping in slightly to get a better look at the pendant. She stretched out her hand and traced her fingers over the silver chain the pendant – a ring it turned out – was attached to. Emma felt the cold dread radiating from the woman's hand. It made her heart stutter, like it struggled to keep beating. The woman's face closed in upon her, her breath washing over her lips as she brought the pendant up to her face. Her lips cracked with the cold as the woman's breath washed over it. Emma's entire existence froze in place. Time froze for a few long seconds, before the queen let the necklace drop down and stepped away from Emma, warmth flowing back to where she had previously been. The Queen took a slightly stuttering breath and seemed to regain her composure. "I can't restore his life." She breathed again, more to herself than to Emma, it seemed. Emma's eyes remained frozen in place, not able to look away from the eyes of the Queen that were so full of emotion that it made Emma's heart stutter again, only this time it was not from the cold.
"I don't believe that." Emma whispered slowly. She couldn't tell if the goddess of telling the truth, but her heart believed that the goddess of death could restore life It was desperation, Emma knew, but it was true. "You're just choosing not to."
The Queen remained silent, confirming nor denying Emma's statement. The princess closed her eyes, balled her fists and mustered her courage. She was afraid to ask the question, afraid that there wouldn't be an answer to her question, that there wouldn't be a reason. But she needed to know, to ask.
"Did you do it? I mean, did you do it on purpose? Did you curse my father?"
She could have lied, could have said that death and disease were part of life and that it wasn't for her to decide upon whom the curse fell. But Emma wouldn't have believed her, and the notion of the young girl losing faith in her awoke something she hadn't felt in a very long time: fear. Fear of losing the only person that had shown any faith in her in centuries. The only person that believed she was actually capable of something other than dread and misery.
She wouldn't lose that to another sin, so she did the only thing she could think of.
She told the truth.
"Yes." She whispered. "Yes, I cursed him."
Thanks for your kind reviews, favorites and follows ^.^ I'm glad you are all enjoying this story.
I apologise for the crappy English at times, it's not my first language but I try my best =).