The group had traveled for about five hours, stopping at around 8 o'clock if Emma's watch was still to be believed. "We make camp for the night. I'll take the first watch."
"I'll have second. Let's let Philip, Aurora, and Emma rest, after having your soul removed and put back and having to put said soul back I can't imagine either of them would be able to stay up." Mary Margret said.
"What about me?" Aurora asked.
"Trust me I've been through sleeping curse before, you feel like you could never sleep again, I'm guessing after how long you were under that only feels truer. But trust me, one moment you'll feel wide awake, the next you could fall asleep standing up."
"I don't think I want to sleep anymore." Aurora said.
"Yes. But since when did the feeling of tiredness ever listen to what you want?" Mary asked.
Emma opened her eyes and found herself in what she could only describe as the middle of the Arizona desert. She got up off the dusty ground and after looking around realized that she was 20 feet away from the road.
Looking around she had absolutely no idea why in earth she would be there. Until she saw a can of Mountain Dew lying crushed in front of her.
Gold had asked her if she had ever taken a leap of blind faith before. When he told her she should pray to get her friend out of the murder charges.
What he didn't know was just how difficult that was for her.
Seeing that can of Mountain Dew told her exactly where she was. If she followed that road another 30 miles or so she would find herself in front of a prison in Phoenix. The bus that had been transporting her in about seven other women has been driving along the road, and she had been praying to anyone who would listen to give her a sign that everything would be all right. A moment later she had seen that can tossed of the side of the road after being hit by the bus.
It was not exactly the sign she had been looking for.
But then as she looked around she noticed something that was definitely not there the day she had been transported to that prison. There was a small black box just lying on the ground.
She walked over and picked it up. Noticing it was perfectly square and she couldn't find an opening.
But then of blinding flash of light came from it.
When her eyes opened she was no longer standing near the road in Arizona, but in the middle of the forest around the cabin in Storybrooke. "Took you long enough to get my little gift."
She turned around and they are sitting on the porch of the cabin, in one of the very comfortable rocking chairs, was her dear husband. "What is this place?"
"It's a shared memory." Gold said standing up and walking to her, without his cane. "It is a place both of us remember in detail, and share similar emotions about Very enjoyable memories and emotions" He said licking his lips. They most certainly had made some memories here. "But on to more important matters. I have set this place up so we shall be able to communicate, back and forth over the realms through our dreams."
"How can you do that?"
"When we dream, our minds go to a realm of our own making, now it is possible with either practice or simply by accident for dreams to, crash into one another, for lack of a better term, and merg. When this happens interaction is possible. Because our minds are links through our rings, we are able to do this at will."
"So other than wanting to see me again I'm assuming you had a reason for this."
"Of course Dearie." He said smiling. Then of fire appeared a few feet away. "I have constructed this place inside of my mind to allow you to learn magic in a practical way like you would in the real world."
"And why do I need to learn magic?" Emma asked, she was slightly apprehensive about the idea.
"Other than the fact that wasting as much potential as yours would be a crime. If you want to survive where you off or get home you will need magic."
"And if I don't want to learn or use magic?"
"I'd tell you the same thing I told her father so many years ago when we had a lovely little sword fight in the infinite forest. Bravery won't get you out of this situation, magic will. Because you see as much as you would like, like him, to be able to do things your way without needing to rely on someone else to help you, simple fact is there's only one way to leave the enchanted forest just like there was only one way to leave the infinite forest. A portal. And only someone with a great deal of magic is able to make a portal."
As much as Emma really didn't want to have to admit it, he was right. But there was just something about using magic that didn't quite settle right with her. Maybe it was all the talk about it having a price for the fact that last time she'd been exposed to magic it was in the form of a Dragon and her son dying. "And because I know you're thinking it, there is a difference between your father's situation and yours. He had to rely on my magic and by extension me. And for some reason he just wasn't comfortable with that, not sure why really." He said smiling, the sarcasm was obvious. "You on the other hand have your own magic and would be able to do this on your own."
Emma laughed out a sigh. He was of coerce right, that was what she was thinking. "Okay, what's first teacher."
"First. A change of wardrobe." And in a puff of purple smoke, Gold was standing before her in a leather jacket. But what she found most enjoyable was the fact that he was also wearing leather pants. "Second. A more appropriate outfit for my lovely wife." And then purple smoke surrounded her. A moment later she was standing there in an exact copy, but more feminine version of his outfit. However she did notice the neckline was slightly lower, by about 6 inches, she had black heels on, and her hair was done up in a ponytail. "What are you think?"
"I think I liked what I had before."
"How about a deal. All you have to do is figure out how to change her clothes back, and the whole closing her eyes and just picturing it won't work, you have to do it like you would any mage in the real world. Until then you have two choices, this outfit, or no outfit. To be perfectly honest I'd be fine with either, but the second choice does seem like it would be a little more distracting."
Emma looked down at the amount of cleavage she was showing. "And this one won't be distracting?" She asked raising an eyebrow.
"You get to ogle at my leather pants; I get to ogle at the lack of your leather shirt." He said. And Emma blushed. "Yes. Don't think I didn't notice your eyes wandering." He said turning around, which she could've sworn he done with an unusual flourish for her benefit. And walked over to the other side of the fire. "Lesson one is quite simple. Calling a flame. This is one of the first lessons anyone learns because it not only teaches you control, but symbolizes the danger of magic should you lose control. You call the flame to you and you have a wide variety of options, cook your food, provide warmth, destroy an enemy or obstacle. But should you lose control of it and you will be the one ending up destroyed. Which is why I think it's best we begin your lessons here, where you can't actually do any physical damage to yourself."
"But making a fire in your hand, that sounds a little advanced."
"It's not actually. That's lesson number two, summoning a flame. Lesson number one is calling a flame to you, the flame coming from a source such as a candle or a torch or a fire. Unlike other magic which requires visualization and emotions and a certain clearness and readiness of mind, calling the flame is simply sticking out your hand and with your mind basically telling the fire to come to you." He said sticking out his hand, and just like he said a stream of flame left the campfire and he then turned his hands so it could come to rest above his open palm.
Emma stuck her hand out with her palm up and thought to herself, 'come here please.'
"That's not how it's done." Gold said throwing the fire back. "You have to think of magic as a tug-of-war. Magic has a mind of its own, especially when you are first using it. It seeks to do what it wants, when it wants. Over the course of your training shall basically be telling the magic inside of you to listen to you or I can't do anything. Now telling a fire to come to you, and say please, is telling the magic that you are weak and that it can walk all over you. Had you really called to the fire, like that, it would've leapt up and consumed to you an instant."
"So what should I tell it?"
"First of all, the hand gestures all wrong. You must stick your hand out like a claw, as if you really reaching out to grasp something. Having an open palm is like you are about to put your hand down with some seed so that a bird can eat out of it. Entirely the wrong frame of mind. And then when you look at the fire you must glare at it, and with a stern look to say ' come here now I command you!' You must be forceful and make it sound as if it doesn't do what you say you will dump bucket of water on it."
"So I'm supposed to threaten, a campfire."
"It's symbolic. This is quite literally the easiest thing any mage has ever done that wasn't involving cards at a festival. There is no visualization involved, there are no complicated emotions. You simply have to tell the object you want to come to you and be forceful when you're doing it. And then let magic do the rest. After you learn this you could do the same thing with a sword or shield or the last slice of birthday cake. But in order to do what you must have at least one magical bone in your body, you must want it to happen, you must have the strength to make it happen, and direct line of sight to the object."
"Okay. What happens if you don't have a direct line of sight?"
"Then you are summoning the object. That requires you being able to visualize it and know where it's general position in the world is. It also requires you being able to clear your mind and then truly feel the object falling into your hand. But once it is mastered you could steal the Constitution, or find your car keys from wherever it is they've been lost."
Emma had to admit, he was definitely making magic sound appealing. If for no other reason than never having to scrounge around the entire house looking for her car keys again, she still had no idea how they ended up in the freezer that one time.
So Emma put her hand out just like Gold had said, and commanded a flame to come to her.
She almost jumped out of her skin when a stream of fire slowly came to her hand. She then did what he had done in turned her hand so that it could rest in her palm.
But then the realization of what she was doing actually hit her in the fire exploded around her.
"Well. I guess I was right to bring you here." Gold said walking over to kneel where she was lying. "The next thing you have to learn is that the magic controlling the flame, keeping it from burning you, and keeping it the size it was, is directly related to your emotions. Get angry enough while holding a ball of fire and you can throw flames that would put a Dragon to shame. But do it when you're unprepared and you'll end up turning yourself and everything around you into barbecue."
"Thanks for warning me." Emma said sarcastically sitting up.
"I figured of visual example would be more effective in providing the proper motivation for you to not want that to happen again."
Emma wasn't sure if she should punch him or kiss him. He was right of course; she just wasn't sure how she should feel about that. "You could always offer to reward your favorite student with certain privialges."
"Oh I had every intention of rewarding you. I was thinking your reward for being a good student was finding out whether or not it's possible to get tired in a dream. And my reward for being good teacher was getting to see how just how long you would be able to wait while I undid those boots and the laces of that shirt, before you started begging me and promising all sorts of things if I would just flick them away with magic."
"See. Now that is good motivation." Emma said laughing.
Gold's Home. His Bedroom.
Gold woke up feeling rather good. Apparently you couldn't tire yourself out in a dream.
But then as he shifted in bed he realized he was in the middle of a puddle. "Whhhh…" He tried to talk but his throat was extremely dry.
Throwing off his blankets he realized that they also were extremely wet. And then when he sat up the entire world started to spin. "Rumple, you're up." Belle said happily walking into the room. She stopped when she noticed a puddle around the bed.
Gold tried to look at her but then instantly noticed the glass of water on the tray of food she's bringing in. The moment she set it down, and noticed that wet bed, he reached the glass and drank all of it except for a mouthful of water that he kept swishing around for about 30 seconds.
It didn't help much, but the marching band that was inside of his skull must've decided to stop using jackhammers to get around and started walking through the stereo factory instead. Which meant he had enough magic to proof up a large pitcher of water. He then downed the entire picture before proofing up a garden hose attachment for the bathroom sink.
And Belle in the meantime just stood with an open mouth as he turned on the faucet and began chugging water from the hose. "Do I want to know?"
After another 30 seconds of chugging he turned off the water and answered. "Dark Ones are immortal. We can't die of dehydration, but it's very unpleasant."
"And what caused you to sweat out enough to make every one of your blankets and sheets waterlogged and your bedroom into a swimming pool?"
"Any number of things probably. How are the children?" Gold said quickly changing the subject. He didn't want anyone to know the real reason why would be sweating so much. And the idea of having to tell Belle the only other logical explanation, having cream sex with his wife, did not seem like the most appealing idea.
"I'm certain I already heard one of them drawing up plans for world domination. They are most certainly your children." Belle said smiling.
"Thank you for the complement." Gold said picking up a piece of bacon off the tray and taking a bite. "I think."
Granny's Diner.
"Are you having caffeine pills with your coffee?" David asked as he walked into the diner and spotted Gold sitting at a booth with a pill bottle and a pot of black liquid. "You do realize if you're drinking decaf, those kind of defeat the purpose. And if you're not drinking decaf, then I think I just figured out why it is you went loony inside of that prison."
"I made contact with Emma." Gold said, instantly shutting the Prince up. "I decided to let it put most of the strain on me. Considering I have access to caffeine and Emma's probably suffering enough from the caffeine and bathroom withdrawals I thought it was best, I just didn't realize how hard it would be." He said taking a drink and refilling his cup. "They're fine, and in the good graces of the people they are with."
"Well that's good."
The Enchanted Forest.
Coming into the camp was, interesting if nothing else. They all looked like refugees, and while this wasn't some starving camp like you might see on the news, they certainly weren't thriving. They went towards the middle of the camp, where and only slightly nicer tent was situated. "Our leader will want to speak with you. Wait here moment." Phillip said stepping into the tent.
Emma tried to suppress a yawn. "You tired." Mary Margret said.
"Yeah. Probably just caffeine withdrawals. In a few days I'll probably become a raving lunatic who will kill for a coffee bean." Emma said.
"Well, at least you get some fair warning." Mary then looked out over the camp and noticed a hole in the ground. "Mulan. What's down that hole?"
"It's where we keep our only prisoner, Cora."
"Cora. As in Regina's mom." Emma said astonished. Mary nodded to confirm. "Boy. What a shrink wouldn't give for five minutes alone in there, heck even I'd like to go on there and have a quick chat with her."
"Why don't we save that particular unpleasantness for some other time." Mary said, she then looked back towards the tent in time to see a man in blueish armor step out.
Emma noticed Mary's eyes widened in recognition, and then the man took off his helmet to reveal a rather okay looking, because he had nothing on her husband, black guy in his mid-30s or so probably with very short black hair. "Lancelot?"
"Snow?" The two of them embrace. "What are you doing here? Rumor had it you were swept up in the great curse."
"Let's just say we took an unexpected vacation back home."
"Lancelot? Really?" Emma said in disbelief. "You know one of the Knights of the round table."
"Former knight." Lancelot said.
"He's an old friend. We can trust him."
About 10 minutes later they were seated at a large table with some rather nice chairs. If only the main course looked as nice. "What the hell is that?"
"That is chimera. An acquired taste, but all our hunting party could bring back. One part lion, one part serpent, one part goat."
"Like turducken?" She said poking at it, and almost looked like they were solid logs. "With a Mediterranean twist."
"I don't understand. We were told this land was all but destroyed in that there was no way actual people were still here. How did you all escape the curse?"
"It is a mystery. The curse struck and when the smoke cleared, most of us had been torn from this land. But some of us here, in this particular region, were left behind. We don't know how, and we don't know why. Finding this safe haven wasn't easy. Took some spilled blood. But worry not. You're safe here."
"We can't stay. My husband's back there, Emma's husband and children – my grandchildren. We have to get back to them. Can you help us find a portal?"
"No, leaving is unwise. The Enchanted Forest is not as you remember it. The ogres have returned."
"Ogres? Like, as in fee-fi-fo-fum?" Emma said in disbelief.
"Those would be giants."
"Ogres are far worse. And that's why we live here. On this island, where it's safe. Please, Snow. Stay here. There are no more portals left."
"I might know of one."
"You do?" Emma asked astonished.
"Where?" Lancelot asked, and Emma couldn't help but notice that he sounded a little too interested.
"Cora's near. I don't feel comfortable voicing my plans. She's powerful."
"Not anymore. The curse stripped her of her powers. But, given her reputation, we kept her locked up as a precaution."
"Nevertheless, I'm not taking chances. Just trust me. I may have a way." Let us go?"
Lancelot side, and Emma once again got the feeling it was from the wrong emotions. "I'll allow it. But on one condition – take my bravest warriors with you. Allow Mulan and Phillip to defend you." He said calling the two over.
"We can defend ourselves. Besides I wouldn't want to take lovebird over here away from his Princess."
But Mary just ignored her. "Deal. Thank you, Lancelot. For always looking out for me." Mary said smiling before hugging her old friend again.
"And don't worry about me Emma. After searching for so long a day or two apart will not be much. Besides I owe you a great debt." Phillip said smiling.
"Choose wisely." Mulan said opening a chest full of weapons. "We must be vigilant if we hope to survive the journey."
Mary Margaret chooses a sword and straps it to her waist. While Emma looked around for her gun. "Where's my gun? I want it back."
Mulan took the gun out of her pocket and inspects it before handing it to Emma. "Is it magic?"
"Depends on who's pulling the trigger."
Mary Margaret takes a bow and a quiver of arrows as a second weapon.
"A bow and a sword, good choice."
"You learn a thing or two after you've fought a few wars."
"Well, be that as it may. Follow my lead. Step where I step. Do exactly as I say, and you might survive."
"Thanks for the pep talk, but I think we're okay. I just killed a dragon last week."
"A dragon, who?"
"Maleficent." Emma said and Philip's eyes went wide.
"Have you ever seen an ogre?" Mulan asked.
"Pretty sure I've dated a few."
"Legend has it, that when they kill you, the last thing you see is yourself dying in the reflection in their eyes. Let's walk. It'll be dark soon."
Mulan and Philip stalks ahead. Mary Margaret and Emma follow behind. "Don't let her rattle you. I won't let anything happen to us. Stick to the plan." Mary said.
"What is the plan? You haven't told me anything. What's going on?"
"The wardrobe."
"The wardrobe? The wardrobe? Like, the wardrobe that sent little baby me to Maine? You think that can get us back to Storybrooke?"
"I don't know. First, we have to see if it survived the curse, then we'll worry about making it work."
"Where is it?"
"My place. Want to see where you're from, Emma? That's right. We're going home."
They walked for several hours before getting ready to make camp.
"This will do. We'll make camp here for the night. We just need to find water, collect some firewood." Mulan said.
"Uh, if we're hiding from ogres, shouldn't we maybe, I don't know, not start a fire?"
"Ogres are blind. They hunt by sound alone."
"Right. Because that's something everyone would know about ogres."
"Look, I know you're out of your element…" Mary said.
"I'm fine."
"I know. But, maybe you should just stay here while we get wood and water. Guard the campsite?"
"You mean the big, empty clearing?"
"It's the safest place. We'll be right back." Mary said before leaving.
The whole camping thing was going great, more or less. Emma was more than a little upset about the whole watching the empty space thing, but she had found that thinking about her husband and children quickly removed any other thoughts from her mind quickly, so much so that she didn't even realize she was staring at the fire and fiddling with her ring for several minutes, or the Philip had noticed.
"You miss him I take it." Emma jumped a little when she heard his voice, she didn't even notice him come and sit down. "I remember the years of searching, the feeling of needing to get back getting bigger every moment, want to know what I learned?"
Emma waited a moment, but eventually nodded. "Don't let it blind you. I have to use more than a few hands to count the number of times I thought I could have gotten back to Aurora and ended up with some sharp object a little too close to my person then I am comfortable with."
"How'd you get out of it?"
"Once or twice simply begging worked, the rest of the times Mulan ended up saving my hide and holding it over my head for a week."
Emma had to laugh when she heard that. "Yes, I miss him, my son and our children."
Philip looked confused. "Years ago when I was younger and hopefully more foolish then I am now, I met a man and he made me feel loved for the first time."
Philip nodded. "And let me guess, it turned out to not be as real as you thought and he left you with a child to raise on your own."
"Yep." Emma then looked at him. "You look like you know something about that."
"My mother was placed under one of the many sleeping curses that have ever been created. I studied most of them while I looked for Aurora. My mother's curse could only be broken by true love's kiss, or the pain of child birth. I'll let you guess which one woke her up, but let's just say it was said it was the screams of pain my mother made that brought the man I think of as my father to her."
Emma winced. "That sounds unpleasant."
"I'm sure it was. In the end my father told the kingdom that my mother was his secret lover. But I've never been one to judge a bastard child too quickly."
"Bastard!" Emma said shocked.
"I mean no disrespect, but your son is a bastard. I wouldn't bear him any ill will, but other might, unless of coerce he was officially adopted by you husband, then it would simply be forgotten that he is not your son, what is his name any way."
"Gold."
"You named your son after a metal." Philip said looking like he wanted to laugh.
"Oh, no. Gold is the name of my husband; Henry is my son's name."
"Well, have Gold adopt Henry when you get back, barren kings did it all the time, and at least in public, no one ever mentioned that the child wasn't his."
"People really do that?"
"In a royal court, they are trained since birth not to notice anything wrong inside the monarchy's personal life, I remember once when my uncle Hermon got drunk and had a tavern whore, he was yelling at the top of his lungs in great detail how they were going to spend the next several days in bed and how he would shower her in gems. The next day nothing changed but the fact that no one went near his room, a week later when she left, only a little richer, no one, not even aunt Abby, said anything or acted as if anything had happened."
Emma's jaw had dropped and she was trying not to laugh hysterically, keeping it to a low-ish chuckle. "Wow, they really do that."
"Yes. No one but the kitchen staff even dared to whisper about it." He said laughing. "The best advice I ever had was, make a friend in every kitchen, and you will know every secret in a castle."
"I'll keep that in mind." Emma said smiling, she liked Philip, he had a good head.
And then Emma noticed that both he and Mulan grabbed at their swords and were looking around. "What is it?" Mary asked getting her bow ready.
"I thought I heard something."
Emma lessened. "If it's an ogre, wouldn't it be a lot louder."
"They can be surprisingly quite when not extremely angry." Philip said, right before Aurora came up to them on horseback. Riding fast.
"Aurora?" Philip said in confusion, but he figured out quickly why she was moving so quickly, because about half a dozen ogres came out from behind the tree line.
"Oh hell." Emma said drawing her gun.
"Emma, don't shoot." Mary said in a loud whisper. "That loud of a noise will have them charging up and smashing us in two seconds flat."
Emma put the gun down, but looked at the ogres in fear, when she was with Gold last night; he had mentioned that ogres were extremely dangerous, very powerful creatures.
'Imagine a monster with the destructive attitude and reasonability of a three year old having a tantrum with the strength of an elephant and the temper of a bull during the running of the bulls with the same level of unstoppable rage times ten, add on a stench that is 100 times worse than any high school locker room or public bathroom, and give it a level of blood lust the likes of which would make Hitler's stomach flip, and you have an ogre in a nut shell.' Gold had said. 'If you have any sense of self preservation, avoid them; if they find you, you need to either get a ring of fire around you because no wild animal likes fire or find a silent weapon that can hit their eye, it's the only place that allows you to make a fatal shot that isn't protected by about a foot think hide that is tougher then bronze.'
Emma noticed they had had a small fire going, and that the ogres seemed to be sniffing the air and lessening, trying to find their targets. Emma realized that there was really no chance they could fight them all, so she made a quick decision.
Taking a step forward, she reached for the fire, and while it took a moment and earned her a confused stare from Mary Margret, the fire slowly came to her in an even stream of fire, resting over her open palm.
Then, focusing only on the fire in her hand, she turned around and thrust her hand out at the ogres, fueling the flame with the anger she had been feeling all day from people saying she couldn't do things to help. The moment she did the fire grew in size, quickly changing from a small stream of flame into a giant fire ball after it got about five or six feet away from her.
And the results were a giant wall of fire coming and throwing four of the six ogres back and causing a big wall of flames to form all around the clearing.
The ogres quickly left and then Emma tried to call the flames back.
This was unbelievably difficult, but she eventually managed to put all the fire back into the camp fire.
Emma then finally looked around and noticed that everyone's jaw had hit the ground.
"Emma… What?" Mary said stunned.
"Any wild animal has an innate fear of fire; I figured that would get rid of them."
"Yes. But you just through the fire, with magic."
"I might've had one or two lessons, more about the theory than anything else. I figured now was good time to see if any that was practical." Emma said. She then went and sat back down in front of the campfire. "So does it would have marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers?"
"A large part of me wants to be proud of you Emma. Another large part of me wants to be extremely angry that you did something so reckless. And another large part wants me to just be glad you manage to find such a practical use so early in your lessons for what I taught you." Gold said as they sat around a campfire in the little dream world. With marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers; not to mention some very comfy chairs.
"Well you know, desperate times, desperate measures and stuff. You should've seen the look on Aurora's face slow when Mulan slapped her. No one apologized afterwards of course, and then started yelling at the poor girl about how foolish and stupid that was. And how dangerous it was leading all those ogres write to us. It was very funny, and very sad, how she kept flip-flopping between the roles of a caring friend and scolding parent."
"I'm sure it was very funny." Gold then stood up and walked over to Emma was enjoying her s'more. "And now onto your next lesson." He then made a bottle appear. "Take a whiff."
Emma did, but she couldn't describe what it is she smelled. "This my dear is magic. In a pure undiluted form." He said putting a stopper on the bottle. "Basically impossible to get, but here it's rather easy. Should you ever encounter the smell, you know there is a great deal of magic at work." He then made two apples appear in front of her. "Go ahead and smell them, feel them, taste them if you should so wish, trying tell me what the differences.
So Emma took both of the apples and smelled them, and they both smelled apple-y. She felt both of them, and didn't notice anything strange. "I'm a little afraid of what will happen if I taste them."
"One of them will taste like chicken." Gold said waving his hand over one of the apples which turned into a chicken leg. "Now try smelling this one again and feeling it." He said turning it back into an apple.
This time when Emma felt and smelled the apple, she still couldn't find a difference. She then picked up the other one and felt and smelled it, still nothing.
She then did this about six times before noticing something. Whenever she picked up the apple that had once been a chicken leg, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up just slightly. And if you really focused on the smell, there was something just barely there that shouldn't have been.
"I take it you found it now." Gold said noticing the change in her.
"The apple you changed has the slightest scent of magic to it. When I touched it makes me slightly tense."
"Very good. Now you can't very easily going to touch and/or smell everything you come into contact with to make sure it's really what it appears to be. But if you do it long enough, become trained enough, you'll be able to just walk into a room and instantly sense if someone is not to they appear to be, or something. You that it is the dog with you, most animals are able to sense when someone's under an illusion spell. But dogs are especially sensitive and can even sense when an object is under an illusion."
"While the person get suspicious if a dog starts barking at it."
"No. A dog won't bark it a shape shifted person or thing, or any animal really. They'll have a natural instinct to cow or away from it." Gold said. "The tricky part however is realizing that if someone's magic is stronger than you, or if there simply better trained, then you won't be able to sense them, so have a dog you might just think that person is overly intimidating or they just don't like them. Of course there is a chance that if the person is stronger they might have become lax with holding up the appearance and so would be very easy to sense. But you must be careful whenever you try and dispel someone's disguise or confront someone in disguise, because if they are stronger than you, who knows what they might do to shut you up."
"So what do you do if you find someone in disguise?"
"Try to get behind them and hit them with the largest and heaviest metal object you can find. Or if that doesn't work getting behind them and shooting them with a fireball would probably do the trick."
"And what happens if it turns out that your wrong?"
"Well then just apologize profusely and tell them it was an honest mistake." Gold said taking a bite of his s'more. "And probably removing any pointy objects they might have with them before explaining yourself would be a good idea."
Emma seemed to be thinking for a few minutes. "On to complete different subject, were going after the wardrobe to see if that will let us get back home. Any ideas on the subject?"
"One or two. If you can keep the wardrobe intact, if not the ashes would work just as well."
"The ashes?"
"Magic can never truly be destroyed, I can only change form. Like this world's understanding of matter in physics. The ashes would be far easier to transport, but just like if you break apart atoms in this world, something will be lost. The floor wardrobe would probably allow you just pop up in this world, the ashes would more than likely require some way of directing the portal."
"And will we need to do that?"
"I can think of a number of things. But why you trying to cover the wardrobe first, and then see what it is you have to work with. Once we know that, I'll be able to narrow down what the things are that you need."
"We're getting close." Mary said as they moving up a Cliff.
"Aurora, you've got to keep up." Mulan yelled down to rub. The group had forced her to give up the horse let Emma could ride, and she was still extremely tired, so Philip loved the horse..
"Sorry, but I'm not exactly dressed for the woods. It's cold out here." Aurora yelled back.
"Then maybe, you should have listened to me and stayed back."
Emma decided to take pity upon the poor Princess and took off her jacket. And then had Philip slow the horse so that are working catch up. "Here."
"But I almost got you all killed, including your friend."
"Actually, she's my mom. And I have a feeling she can take could've taken care of all those ogres herself. And I get it. You're not the only one who's been screwing up lately, he is want to be with the guy you love." She said pointing at Philip. "And just out of curiosity, when was the last time Mulan smiled?"
"Right before our friend Belle left us."
"Belle?"
"Yes. She was the one that knew how to lift my curse." Phillip explained, but he could see that they were still confused. "Maleficent turned me into a giant fiery hell hound and sent me far away so I'd be unable to awaken Aurora. Mulan had been sent to hunt, but Belle figured out that I was simply under a curse. Sadly she left only hours later to return to the man she loved. We never heard from her again."
"She was captured by Regina." Emma said. This caught both Mulan and Phillip's attention. "She didn't even make it a day before the Evil Queen captured her and threw her in a dungeon. She wanted to use Belle try and get leverage over the man that loved her. In the end she escaped the Evil Queen's dungeon and reunited with the man she loved, but found that he had moved on with another. In the end she accepted that her love had found another, and was content to help raise their children."
"How do you know that?" Mulan asked amazed.
"I play the role of the woman the man she loved fell in love with after the Evil Queen came and told him she was dead."
"All that must have been an awkward conversation." Aurora said.
"It went over better than you would think. But it was certainly not something I'd want doing regular basis."
"There it is." Mary yelled.
Emma looked up and her jaw dropped. "Is that it?"
"Yeah. That's our home."
"Could probably do with the new coat of paint"
"Oh my god… I recognize this from Henry's book." Emma says walking around the room. Ignore a few smashed bookcases and the toys littering the ground, and the lack of a unicorn mobile, and it was a perfect replica of the nursery drawing and Henry's book.
"Come – we'll stand watch at the gate." Mulan said assuring Aurora and Philip out the room.
"I never thought I'd see this place again. This room… It was your nursery." Mary said with a tear in her eye.
"I lived here?"
"You never even got to spend a night. This is the life I wanted you to have. I was going to teach you how to walk in here. How to talk, how to dress for your first ball… You never got to do any of it. We never got to be a family."
"We have a family – in Storybrooke. And, right now, they need us to get back there. So, how do we get this to work?" Emma said gesturing to the wardrobe. She then went over and looked around it. "Where's the 'on' switch?"
"It's more complicated than that. We'll have to get it back to the island. Hopefully, someone there has access to enough magic to make it work again."
"How are we going to carry this thing?"
"With the help of an old friend." Lancelot said entering the room.
"Lancelot. What are you doing here?"
"We heard about the ogre attack, and I had to make sure you were alright."
"Where are the others?" Emma asked.
"I sent them to find food. Tonight we'll make camp and then, in the morning, we'll head back. So, this is it – the portal you were after."
"The same one Emma went through. That's how she skipped the curse."
"Remarkable…" Lancelot said. And if Emma didn't know any better, and she did know better, he looked like he was about ready to make out with the wardrobe. And then she noticed the hairs on the back of her neck standing up slightly.
"Geppetto carved it from an enchanted tree, but there's no magic left."
"Well, a portal this powerful… There must be another way to recharge it."
"Why are you so interested in the wardrobe?"
"Well, I just want you to get home to your husband… And Emma needs to return to her husband and children."
"Yeah about that." Emma then summon some of the fire from the torch and hit Lancelot in the face with it."
"Emma!"
"Get the rest of the group quickly, we need to leave." Emma said urgently, and no sooner had you said it then Mulan came charging in, sword drawn, followed by Philip and Aurora.
"What's going on?" But the question quickly answered itself when cloud of smoke enveloped Lancelot and all that was left behind was a red haired woman.
"Cora." Mary said in surprise.
"Search her; see if she has a vial or something capable of holding ashes." Emma said.
"Why?" Aurora asked. But then Emma took another fireball and threw it into the wardrobe.
Before Mary could scream at Emma she explained. "Magical objects can never be completely destroyed, they can only change form. So unless you have a way of carrying the entire wardrobe back to camp this is the only way. The ashes will be much more transportable and allow us to get the hell away from here before a very angry and very powerful which wakes up and decides she wants to kill us."
Philip would listen to Emma and have been searching Cora found a vial, he then gave it to her. And when the flame died down, there was a very large amount of ash and a lot less wardrobe. Emma quickly scooped as much of the ashes she could into the vial. And then grabbing one of the small rugs that was still in one piece. She quickly flapped it at the wardrobe and scattered the rest of the ashes.
"Okay let's get out of here."
The group quickly exited, but before he left Philip noticed a chain on the ground. And he had an idea.
When Cora finally woke up, she found herself chained to the wall. Now of course considering how powerful she was it wouldn't have taken her more than a few seconds to escape such a crude form of imprisonment. But it was the concept of the things that was currently making her blood boil. That, and the fact that she could smell burning, and then looked over and saw the remains of the wardrobe.
"Well. The poor fools have decided they want to make me angry."
She then quickly made the chains disappear, stood up, dusted herself off, and reached for the vial in her dress. Which wasn't there. "It appears congratulations are in order, perhaps one of them is not quite so foolish and I thought." She looked over at some of the shattered glass on the floor and with a wave of her hand created a new vial. But then when she went over to the burned remains of the wardrobe, there were no ashes. "Well now that's just being rude. Now I'll have to kill them all."
It wasn't that Cora couldn't have scoured the room and slowly collected the remaining ashes, but that were taken hours. And those were hours she did not want to spend wasting her time on searching for wardrobe ash.
"Lancelot was one of the most noble knights I ever knew." Mary said sadly activate gotten a good distance from the castle.
"How could I be so blind? How could I not see that it was Cora?" Mulan said angrily.
"Let's be fair – the whole shape shifting thing threw everybody."
"Except for you." Phillip said. "How did you know?"
"If a person or object has been magically changed, the hairs in the back of your neck stand up. Takes a little while for you to be able to sense it, we had dog or something they would've noticed right away, most animals are pretty sensitive to that kind of thing."
"And how do you know this?" Mary asked.
"Good teacher."
"What are we going to tell the people on the island?" Philip asked.
"The truth. That Lancelot was cut down by a terrible villain. He died an honourable death. We just forget to mention exactly when he was killed." Mary said.
"Cora's still out there. We need to find her. We need to defend what's left of the kingdom." Mulan said.
"Who's going to lead us? You?" Aurora asked.
"No. Her." Mulan said looking pointedly at Mary Margaret.
"I'm honoured. But Emma and I still have to find a way back to Storybrooke."
"We'll help you. We'll find a way, won't we?"
"Yes." Both Philip and Aurora said in unison.
"And while you're helping us, who knows. Perhaps we shall find some way to stop Cora while we're at it." Mulan said. "Come, we have to keep moving." The rest the group went ahead, but Mary and Emma liked behind on purpose.
"I'm, uh, sorry I torched our ride home. I couldn't let her get to Henry. I just-"
"You had to put Henry first."
Emma nodded sadly. "I was angry at you for so long… Wondering how you could choose to let me grow up without you. But then I just… Seeing all this… You gave up everything for me. And you're still doing that. I'm sorry, I'm not good at this. I… I guess I just… I'm not… I'm not used to someone putting me first, even Gold is a hard time forcing me to accept his help."
Mary Margaret then hugged Emma. "Well, get used to it." They then began walking after the rest of the group in earnest. "And just out of curiosity, how do you know so much about magic? I know Gold couldn't possibly teach you really anything before we ended up here. And don't tell me was all magical theory, you wouldn't have listened to word of it."
"Is a very interesting, and unbelievable story. One to be told somewhere else." Emma said smiling.
Storybrooke.
"So Henry. I hear from your grandfather you had quite an exciting day. Talking to Jefferson, looking for your mother's vault, and something about almost getting bitten by an extremely deadly Viper." Gold said looking down at his son disapproval. "Am I such a bad teacher they you forgotten one of the first rules a layman should always follow when encountering magical objects."
"When encountering anything you think could possibly be magical, keep an extremely safe distance, and whatever you do don't touch, open, breathe on, spit on, or look at unnecessarily, said object." Henry said. "I just wanted to help."
"Well luckily David and I understand that. And so when ordered to help you wanting to help." Gold then handed Henry a wooden sword.
"You serious. You can it teach me a sword fight."
"While I am one of the greatest sword fighters ever to live, it appears my record might be in question by certain people considering I use magic in order to win one or two of my fights. Plus with his bad ankle I wouldn't be able to do any fancy footwork. So a small compromise." Gold then pointed behind Henry.
And when Henry turned around he saw his grandfather holding a wooden sword. "My liege. En garde!" He said pointing sorted Henry.
Henry quickly turned around and gave Gold the biggest bear hug to end all bear hugs. "Thank you dad!"
Gold's heart melt slightly when he heard that. "You're welcome son." He said smiling. "Now turn around before your own grandfather stabs you in the back." Henry quickly turned around and pointed his sword at David. "You to have fun, I expect him home by seven." Gold said before he left them alone to go tend to shop.
And suck on in ice cube because even though was only 60 degrees out, Gold felt like it was 100.
Unknown to anyone in the small group, Albert Spencer was watching them with a sneer on his face as Henry and David laughed, clashing swords with a vengeance.
I am so sorry this took so long, but I'd a very good excuse.
Went to Disney World for spring break, had a wonderful time.
I had intended on using a few hours each day to do some writing, but my grandfather who booked the hotel somehow managed to find the only hotel in the entire world that still charges unreasonable prices for Internet. Anywhere from $5-$15 each day or $20-$35 for a week. And while you might be thinking that's not unreasonable, it gets better. Those prices are for each device you want to have work, so he want Wi-Fi for your laptop one day it's five dollars, smart phone at another five dollars, your tablet another five dollars, I think you can see where this is going.
So instead of paying for Wi-Fi, we decide to put that money towards going to the parks a few more days, and small pleasures like eating.
Speaking of which, if you live on the East Coast, might I suggest the Golden Corral, it was extremely delicious.
But enough about my enjoyable experiences during spring break, let's get to the thank you-s.
Thank you to PumpkinKitten, and yes everything will turn out fine for Gold, and probably even the rest of the group. Thank you of course to my lovely beta Grace5231973, and I'll explain all of the Easter eggs I've been leaving to you poor (unfortunate) (and ignorant) souls.
Thank you of course to Twyla Mercedes, and last but not least lozzy035.
And now for the reveal of all the Easter eggs.
In Chapter 26, I had Gold in the second section was more or less a direct quote Raymond 'Red' Redington from The Blacklist, season two episode 10, when he is confronting the villain of the week. You can probably find it on YouTube under "I told you so". If you have nothing to watch on Thursday, there you go, it's on NBC. And I have written some fic for that show.
In Chapter 27, the character of Napoleon is a nod to one of my favorite shows from back in the day. W.I.T.C.H. was a fantastic show on Toon Disney and Jetix, and Napoleon was a cat introduced in the second season, who about halfway through was revealed to be a familiar one of the characters. He is also a blackish/grey cat, who enjoys calling females doll.
And in Chapter 28, you all really broke my heart. I don't suppose any of you have heard of Kim Possible, only one of the most popular Disney animated shows ever. Once again in the second part, Gold's warning about how the vortex of pure chaos would be formed it would be the size Nevada was also more or less a direct quote from Prof. Dementor when we first meet him, it's his last few lines that we see him that episode.