Strings of Gold, part 1

Notes: This chapter introduces an OC, Mira, who is, from a running joke, the Frog Princess aka Vasilisa Prekrasnaya (aka the 'flame bird, since this is OUAT), that WI and I have dreamed up. Her name is the more feminine version of the Russian word for peace. Since Disney have made a movie featuring Russian fairy tales, I am waiting for them to introduce at least one more character from one of those.

Also, I am borrowing Cam, Worryingly Innocent's construct and, with her permission, turning her into the snow girl Snegurohka aka the Ice Queen.

Emma had come home to one of the strangest sights yet.

Killian Jones was sitting in her parent's living room at the dinner table in the company of her mother, working a sewing machine. And not just working it, but making clothes.

The Sheriff was rather surprised and stopped in the doorway, observing the pair at work. Both her mother and... Flatmate? Friend? were hunched over the machine, pressing buttons, feeding through material and discussing measurements. It was not until about 10 minutes later that Mary Margaret looked up, spotted her daughter, smiled, and politely excused herself for a minute.

"So, Sailor, whatcha making?"

The man was clearly not surprised to find her in the room. "Well, as we have discovered, my leather," his eyebrows rose, "attire is not very practical for this place. And the jeans and other clothes are nice, but they tend to rub my scars AND wearing a harness for the hook is rather uncomfortable with them on, whether it is below or above the layers. And quite honestly lass, wearing a shirt to a rooftop or a tree is just a waste of good material.

Emma nodded her accent, before realising that she had been very skilfully sidestepped. She decided to try again.

"And what is that supposed to be then, a burlap sack?"

She regretted her words instantly, when Killian looked up and fixed her for a second with a sad, disapproving stare.

"Actually, this is linen. Normally, it crinkles, but your mother helped me find a wonderfully crafted material that does not. This land truly has it's advantages." Silence. "It will be a simple shirt. Easy to put on with a hook, will withstand anything that normal work can throw at it. Nothing fancy and much like a burlap sack."

Emma could feel her face burn with shame. It was so easy to forget that he had a disability and difficulty to adjusting that she often found herself saying things that she did not really mean. Instead, she decided to steer away from the topic.

"So, how come you can make clothes? The sewing machine is not the simplest thing to handle." This was true - Emma could not, for the life of her, figure out how to work the infernal device and got tangled instead. It could be that her mother, who had warmed up to her new resident since he had come to stay with them, probably taught him how to use the machine while they were waiting for one pie or another to cook.

"Believe it or not, this machine is much better than the one I learnt on. It's uniform, controllable and I do not need to peddle away."

She raised her eyebrow, questioning what he had just told her.

"Well, Princess, I did have a family trade that I was apprenticing into. My father was a tailor. He had won his land from a vaguely intelligent ogre, back in the day. Told him that stitching with short strings was better than with long. Beat the creature into losing the land. Had to kill him, of course, later, but he had gained respect from the creatures."

Emma sunk down into a chair on the other side of the table, feeling slightly lightheaded. "Your father was the tailor who had a bet against the devil? And won?"

The man opposite her chucked. "Really, lass, are you truly surprised? The Crocodile is also the Beast and Rumplestiltskin, Jack was a woman, Cora was the Miller's daughter and Queen of Hearts. Ruby is both Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. It stand to reason that any and all of us could be in more than one of your stories."

"That does make a disturbing amount of sense…"

They lapsed into silence.

Suddenly, Emma jumped up. Killian looked at her, slightly surprised by the quick movement. Instead of responding, she stretched out her hand to him. "Lets go."


Had Emma not overheard Granny talking about it a few weeks ago, she would never have known it existed. Two streets from Main was a large house fronted with a shop that read: "Red String of Fate"

The chimes above the door should have alerted the owner or shopkeeper to their presence, but the woman that sat behind the counter paid no attention. Everything was quiet as there was no movement. Then Emma's eyes widened.

The woman was stitching, only occasionally look at the design, and reading from a book at the same time. What was astounding was that the book was floating in mid air, always directly in the line of the woman's sight.

"Vasilisa?"

That got the owner's attention. She looked up, slightly confused for a second, and then a radiant smile broke over her face. "Killian!" Emma's eyes widened further as the woman stood. She was quite tall and reminded the woman of a willow. Her hair was a rich brown with hints of red, thick and braided, reaching halfway down her back; the eyes were a matching brown eyes. Emma's eyes continued as the woman flicked her wrist and the book FLEW to it's space on the shelf. Emma's shock was such that she almost missed the woman in front of her throwing her arms around the pirate and was lifted into the air and spun by him, laughing all the while.

Emma was sure that the feeling in her stomach was in no ways related to jealousy.

The two were exchanging giggled pleasantries when she decided enough was enough and coughed. Both turned to her. "Cam, we have customers!"

Another woman walked in from the back room, eyed the scene and rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Nastiya?"

The new comer, who apparently went by two names (not that irregular in Storybrooke) sighed and pointedly ignored the pirate captain. "Apologies for Mira, Sheriff. We have not seen Killian in years, and she gets a little hyper when the man who introduced her to her husband comes around. She's not had a chance to feed him *cough*motherhim * cough* in at least three decades. Now, how can we help?"


Emma sat in a large embroidered armchair and watched the force that was now known to her as Hurricane Mira, aka the granddaughter of the original Frog Princess, aka Vasilisa the Wise, aka daughter of the ruler of the Netherworld ran around the store, opening storage bins, pouring over material and rattling off advantages of different cloths.

"Here you go. They will probably be a while." Emma looked up to find Cam, sitting down next to her, holding out a cup of coffee. This one seemed to be the more sensible of the two, so Emma decided to satisfy her curiosity.

"So, who were you before the curse?" Cam looked at Emma sadly. "There was no 'during the curse' for us, Sheriff."

Emma furrowed her eyebrows, not meaning to. Then, it fell into place. "You have been fully aware of everything for 28 years?! Like Jefferson?!" She was incredulous. It had obviously driven Jefferson insane - the two women must have been made of steel. And very powerful.

As though reading her mind, her companion took a seat on the sofa opposite before went on. "Mira is the daughter of the Netherworld ruler - the fire room, the mirrors - they are all in his realm. I am her distant cousin. She had spent her entire life under ALL the realms, never seeing the world, until Killian showed up, wanting to know how to defeat Rumplestiltskin. When Uncle would not help, Vasilisa and I offered to make the pain of his love's loss bearable with our magic, in return for taking us to the Enchanted Forest. Introduced us to Mira's husband as well - a fisherman's son. You can understand, Uncle was livid." She paused for a moment, and took a sip of her drink. "Of course, when the curse hit, we were amongst the few who could do anything about it. Not break it, but assure we would not forget or be separated. To write out own fate." She smiled sadly. "But let me tell you, 28 years with your own thoughts, stepping around Regina and the Weaver was a long time."

Emma had to feel the woman's pain - being alone in the world, not sure if the curse would ever be broken. Cut off from home and living in fear of being discovered. She was relieved when she did not have to reply - Mira swung around, winked at Cam and motioned for her to join them. "Killian needs some practical clothes, to fit the harness. Wanna join us?" The gleam in the smaller, almost blonde girl's eyes told her that neither of them were entirely sane.

And maybe it was better that way.


Emma and Killian stumbled though the door of her family's home two hours later, laden with bags of various cloth of all kinds and sizes. It was only once they had stopped laughing at their new and found anew friends antics that they noticed a very peculiar scene.

Henry was sitting on the sofa, Snow at his side with scissors, dressed in his favourite hoodie. He appeared to have stitched himself (or rather said hoodie) to the flower cushion and wore a rather grumpy expression on his face.

"I believe, Miss Swan, that the good Captain is rubbing of on our son. " It appeared that Regina was in their home as well and doing her best not to laugh at her son's predicament, no malice present in her voice. "He seems to be slightly inept around technology."

Henry piped up: "I only wanted to help. Killian made it look so easy. And I didn't want Mary Margaret to notice the hole." He looked genuinely sad.

"So you decided to stitch yourself to it instead." Henry nodded.

The four adults exchanged glances.

And then their serious expressions dissolved into laughter.

AN: Thank you for all you lovely reviews and worrying about my health. Thankfully I have avoided the hospital this time, but am really weak, so the scheduling will go back to just one chapter a week. I am sorry, but at the moment I need to concentrate on not getting worse.

xxx Miran ^_^