Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

CHAPTER THREE

THE INCESTUOSITY OF TRUE LOVE

Death rolled her eyes at Emma's expression.

"Yeah, that's right, honey child, you've been having marital relations with your great grandpappy. Makes the whole bit about Milah seem tame in comparison. Ain't no amount of douching gonna cleanse your insides of all that incestuous sexytime!"

"No..." Emma shook her head, fighting a panic attack. "That's not... he can't be..."

"Oh, he can be, and he is," said Death, arms crossed, nails tapping against her silky black robe. "How are you not surprised given the degree to which all your family relations have had relations with each other while secretly swapping their unwanted offspring like a seventies key party for infants? Not to mention the oddity of little Queen Eva being the only royal in the Seven Kingdoms in that generation with a half a brain, what with not being an inbreed imbecile like her husband. Just a pity it was a brain with syphilis and a genetic predisposition for a complete and utter lack of empathy."

Death clicked her tongue, amending, "You're just damn lucky that your son didn't bang one of his step daddy-slash-step-grandpa-slash-great-great-grandpappy's illegitimate children or grandchildren. He seems like a good kid, but when it comes to demerits on your life record, you don't wanna have to work off incest when your number's up. God tolerates all manner of debauchery from humanity, but doing the nasty with your blood kin is up there with genocide, diddling little kids, and using good people's hard-earned money to kill endangered species just because the Almighty gave you a small dick."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Emma uttered, clutching her stomach right before she vomited, splashing bile on her boots... and Death's robe.

Death made a disgusted face. "Well, at least it's an appropriate response to your family's debauchery. Maybe there's still hope for you yet."

Death returned attention to the scroll of demerits.

"Let's see... Petty thievery. Possession of stolen goods. Gave up your baby for what you said was his 'best chance', but really you were just a scared shitless kid who didn't want to put in the effort to be better than everyone said you were by raising the reminder of your perceived betrayer..."

Emma deflated in shame at that. "I did want him to have his best chance. I just... it couldn't be with me."

"Because you couldn't get past his paternity," Death retorted. "Both selfish and selfless. I suppose that one cancels out. Oh, I almost forgot the aiding and abetting adultery. Boinking a married man? That's not good, honey child..."

She made another check mark. "Oh, and the whole bailbonds system, now that's just taking advantage of the poor and destitute."

Another check.

"Got a lot of hypocrisy on here. Hauling in dirtbags while having one night stands with other dirtbags. You really are Great Grand Daddy's little privateer, aren't you? Which brings us to all the murdering... Your family and the murdering... I suppose, all things considered, it should be a positive that you never raped anyone. Or rape and then murdered them."

She licked the quill and shook her head, "Naw, scratch that. You lose points for sacrificing your soul on the grounds of a genocidal rapist murderer having earned her happy ending by not murdering her adulterous lover's first wife simply on account of your time travel making it so her crazy sister murdered said wife instead and then raped her honorless dbag of a lover who squatted in your baby daddy's apartment, tossed out your kid's grandfather in the middle of his having a heart attack, and then threw Neal Cassidy's worldly possessions into a dumpster such that anything your son might have been given to remember his father is now rotting under tons of garbage on Staten Island - all because your primary concern was the ensure the happy ending of a psychopath and an amoral chump. I mean, honey child, the woman raped and murdered your boyfriend, and you were willing to sacrifice your soul for her to get laid by some adulterous dolt she'd known for a week? What is wrong with you?"

Death reached out, smacking Emma on the forehead and causing her to stumble back.

Emma blinked and rubbed her forehead. "Wait... Regina...? She... raped... and killed Graham?"

"Girl, you dumb," sighed Death. "And that was before you fell down a world-splintering time portal. Did you not even read that Once Upon A Time book or do you just have the reading comprehension skills of a troll?"

"I... I never read the whole thing," Emma mumbled.

"Of course not. You were too busy glorifying an amoral clusterfuck from Charlie Manson's dream journal than to bother with something like a morality tale."

"Okay, I messed up," Emma conceded, "I messed up a lot. Please, I can... I can do better, be better. What do I have to do to be... be worthy of forgiveness?"

"Who do I look like Deepak Chopra and Stewart Smalley's fanfiction m-preg love child? You're good enough. You're smart enough. And your best teams are your friends and your siblings."

She shoved Emma in front of one the mirrors and stated, "You ain't good enough. You ain't smart enough. And your friends and siblings are psychopaths and sycophants who should have their asses thrown in prison, their tubes tied, and their balls cut off!"

Hands on her hips, Death stated, "I'm more like chocolate Dr. Phil with tits and scary-ass supernatural powers. And you're too much like Captain Hot Guy McDouchebag Great Grandpappy for your own good. Which, granted is not entirely your fault. You got shitty genetics and a crap upbringing. But damn, you'd think an extra dose of goodness and having your darker inclinations cut out would have led you to better choices before that all got resolved with a Dark One sized trainwreck."

Emma didn't know what to say to that, so she mumbled, "Yeah, well, I guess you thought wrong."

"Apparently," scoffed Death. "Of course, you were rather screwed either way. Between your papa's caring more about swords and saving damsels. And your mama's distraction with matchmaking and having a uterus... having a couple of tragically cliché stereotypes for role models wouldn't have done you any favors, so getting abandoned in an orphanage by a pint-sized compulsive liar freak of nature that should never have existed - damn fucking fairies - might have been the lesser of two evils."

She shook her head, amending, "Though proclaiming Dildocchio the bestest friend you've ever had since childhood sure as shit doesn't say much for your childhood or your concept of bestfriendship when he repeatedly screwed you, your son, and your baby daddy over for money, sex, and booze. Personally, I'd have thrown his ass in a woodchipper after he re-adult-sized, not hugged him and squeezed him and called him George. But that's just me. You know, a rational minded entity with a concept of justice and a lack of happy bits," said Death, drawing up her hemline to reveal a crotch like a Barbie doll.

"Yeah, take a good look. Beings can accomplish a lot when they're not constantly distracted by pussy."

Letting her skirt fall back around her ankles, the Grim Reaper continued, "You mortals need to get your shit together. Charity for transgressors is all well and good, but if you don't balance it out with justice for their victims, because you're too busy fucking the villains, then it's a crock of bullshit.

"In other words, honey child, you stink."

Emma hung her head in abject shame. "I get it. I've made a mess of my life. I screwed up as a mother and a friend and a lover, as a daughter, as a savior. I just... I never had time to think. It was always one crisis after the next and everyone was telling me what my happy ending was supposed to be that I just... I went along with it."

Death tapped her nails against her arms. "Yeah you did. And because of that, you failed at your most important tasks in life, Emma Swan. Instead of being a champion for those without a voice, instead of fighting for those who were wronged and incapable of fighting back, you sold out to royalty and rum. You stuck your head in the sand and cried ignorance and passed the blame off on others so you could pretend that you deserved Tallahassee.

"Well, honey child, you don't."

Emma shrunk back and Death continued, a long pink nail now pointed at her, "Frankly, I shouldn't even have to take the time to weed through the amoral cesspool that is your fairy tale princess existence to decide your fate - but then you had to go and die selflessly trying to save that girl..."

As Death made a "pshaaa" sound, Emma suddenly remembered the moment of her death. The screams were Cassidy's, Henry's ten year old daughter, caught up in yet another magical scheme against their family.

"My granddaughter, is she all right?" Emma asked, pleading. "Did I save her?"

"Can't answer that," replied Death with a shrug. "This is the moment of your death in a place out of time and space where either is possible, theoretically. So, Cassidy is like a dead cat that is and is not in a box. But don't get me started on Schrödinger. He was a real atheist piece of work."

After a pause, Death amended, "And technically speaking, the kid's not your granddaughter. Her mama knows it too, but instead of coming clean, she went and one-up'd your 'rents on the 'hypocritical namesaking' front. Named their son after the guy they told to go fuck himself when he wanted help keeping their family together - well, Little Lady Lampshade topped that by sheething some other sword in her hot little scabbard and popping out a bastard not the son of the bastard she married. Shoulda named that baby Ashley Madison!"

While Emma looked increasingly distraught and dismayed, Death smoothed wrinkles from her cloak and declared, "Speaking of deviant nymphos, let's talk about that other spawn of your unfortunate womb whose having an incestuous fling with your brother."

Emma's head snapped up and her eyes widened. "What!?"

"Oh, yeah, and not just Prince Neal. She's also doing Roland and his half-sister, sometimes the later pair at the same time. Y'all spawned a generation of freaks!"

"Oh God..."

"Not God. That's the point. God's got nothing to do with the trainwreck you called home. There sure as shit is no place like it. But, thankfully, it won't be around much longer, what with Princess Fucks Her Uncle resurrecting the Dark One after all those warped-to-make-you-hot stories her daddy-slash-great-great grandaddy told her about your split personality romp on the Dark Side - hence that magical shitstorm that brought you here."

Emma's eyes widened even more. "My daughter is the Dark One!?"

"Oh, worse, honey child. That ancient, unquenchable evil latched itself onto the twice incestuous spawn in her belly and is about to bring forth a universe-ending apocalypse! Your magical multiverse is about to be wiped from existence. And the giant shitstorm that rains turds will leave a trail of clouds in the sky spelling out your name."

For a good minute Emma just stared, slack-jawed, trying to process that her child, her incestuously conceived daughter was going to resurrect an evil she'd fought to destroy that would unmake existence.

"You have to let me do something!" she finally exclaimed. "Let me go back, let me stop her. I'm supposed to be the Savior, I-"

"Not anymore. Not here. Dead is dead, remember?"

"But..." Emma argued, "what about magic? I died by magic, so... so that means there has to be a loophole, right?"

"Your baby daddy died by magic, and I didn't see you lifting a finger on that one. Instead you decided to take your sex-offender great grand pappy boyfriend on a trip to destroy an entire universe and replace it with a Xerox copy of someone's asscrack where good families are shattered to make bad people happy and good people don't exist. A universe that should be destroyed. This is existence preserving the rest of existence, honey child. That which was never meant to be, that which was brought into existence by the arrogance and folly of mortals cannot last.

"And thank the Pearly Gates for that!" Death exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved in dealing with deaths caused by fraudulently created universes? How much shit I have to shovel because of you? I'm Sisyphus carrying a giant turd boulder up Bullshit Mountain!"

Death conjured a scythe as she spoke, slamming the butt end against the floor with a resounding bang that shattered all the mirrors and the rather trashy looking woman suddenly looked damn scary, the floozy mall cop look melting away and replaced by glowing red eyes, a serpentine tail, and massive black wings that unfurled from her back.

"Nuh-uh," sneered Death. "Even if your coven of crackers tries some fancy shmancy necromancy shit to pull your unworthy ass back to your counterfeit Earth in your fraud of a universal construct, it ain't gonna happen. Y'all think you can play God, bring back who you want when you want, rewrite the laws of magic, chat with the dead whenever it's convent to solving your familial fiascoes and remake and entire plains of existence. Those are not the actions of a pure and humble a soul, a soul that could be trusted with such a task as saving an entire universe. Even if it was worth saving, which it's not."

"But... my family," Emma cried. "They're just going to... cease to exist?"

"Basically."

"So... I died trying to save Cassidy for nothing?"

"Yep. You died trying to save a kid that's not even your grandchild and whether you succeeded or, not dead cat or no dead cat, the box is going to cease to exist. Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Of course it sucks!" Emma shouted, flailing her arms in anger. "They're my family! My parents! My children!"

"Well, some of them," Death responded, "but also, not really. No more than you're you."

"I'm sorry, what the hell does that mean?" Emma exclaimed.

"I'm saying, if Dr. Seuss wrote a physics textbook, it'd be about the fuckfest that is your reality. Y'all are counterfeit copies of the originals, begot when you altered the past, destroyed that timeline, and created another one filled with small compounding changes like errors in a computer code on a course toward cascade failure with your evil grandbaby as the Blue Screen of Death. Basically, honey child, you're not real."

"I am real!" said Emma and began to cry. She'd thought it was hard to deal with essentially being two people when she became the Dark One, but this was making her head hurt even worse than lessons with Rumplestiltskin.

"You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying," Death remarked. "There's nothing to cry about."

"Nothing to cry about? You just said I created a universe that's going to implode and everyone I love is going to cease to exist!" Emma shouted. "And if I wasn't real," she said — half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous — "I shouldn't be able to cry."

"I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?" Death interrupted in a tone of great contempt and rolled her eyes. "I already told you, Honey child, nothing in this 'place' is real... though it's more tangible than the bullshit and nonsense of your world in a spiritual sense.

"See, God had nothing to do with your world. It all began with your mama killing your papa and splitting her heart to bring back the dead. That shit doesn't work. You can't bend the laws of magic like that without major consequences - that being your time travel. When you baby brother got his magic sucked out and you fell down that portal, the universe split, the original was destroyed, and what came after from those alchemal ruins on that barn floor - and your sweet step mommy's resilient heart - is a bunch of freaky little homunculi with philosopher's stones for tickers. They look a lot like the real thing, but in these parts, they don't count for nearly as much as the real deal."

"What... what are you saying?" asked Emma, not wanting to believe it.

"I'm saying: what you are, honey child, is a replica for a dead woman, an aberrations of nature created by violating the flow of the natural universe, and as such, have no soul - because I already weighed Emma Swan's soul years ago when she fucked it all up. You're just the fuck-up that came after, transmuted from your own remains at the moment of poor Emma's incineration.

"What you are," continued Death, "is an amoral, sadistic, sociopathic freak with a superiority complex that just like rest of you assholes derives pleasure from witnessing and inflicting human suffering and death, and perceives yourself as better. Sure, you're layered, complex individuals capable of love, grief, guilt and despair, and your superiority-complexes mask complementing inferiority-complexes, because you subconsciously know you're not real and desire to become fully human - but your incompleteness, your lack of identity, has made you not seek to become the person you were meant to be, but rather someone different than Emma Swan was supposed to become: someone who would betray and defile all the good that came from your absent soul, all the good that was connected to it."

After a pause, Death concluded, "You always blamed Neal for your problems, for your inability to connect, to love, and that he's the one who resurrected the Dark One that you ended up becoming, well... deep down, the monster in you wants to prove you are not connected to the people who made you into an abomination. Emma Swan, on the other hand, merely wanted to have a mother and be accepted and loved as a person instead of being cast aside as an unwanted orphan. You... well... your mother is a freak just like you, and your maker is the real you."

"Then... then what's to become of me?" Emma pitiably cried.

"Well, you got two options. You find your true self or you cease to exist."

"Find her?"

"Did you think all the original souls just disappeared?" retorted Death. "That universe ended, and the lot of them, your true self included, got thrown into limbo, unable to find peace - or damnation - so long as that little magical experiment endures."

Death waved a hand and the mirrors began to reform all around them.

0"Somewhere in this place," the Grim Reaper told her, "your true self resides. She's been waiting for you, suffering the torment of what she created. You must find her and free her. You must help her get home."

After a pause, Death amended, "Just try not to fuck up again, honey child. I can't take losing another bet to Gabriel. If I have to listen to another trumpet recital, I swear to my employer..."

With a snap of pink-nailed fingers, the Grim Reaper vanished, leaving Emma facing her own reflection and a rather unexpected existential crisis.

So she brushed away her tears, and went on as bravely as she could.

AN #1: Death's line about turd precipitation is Cisco to Ollie in Mr. Robot: "Listen, pussy. If you don't do what I say, then the giant shitstorm that rains turds later will leave a trail of clouds in the sky spelling out your name." Emma's conversation with Death about crying and reality as the final line (with one word change), if it seems familiar, is a scene between Alice and Tweedledee in Through the Looking Glass. And the bit about Homunculi is taken, specifically, from the Fullmetal Alchemist portrayal of the homunculus. I haven't watched that show in years, so thanks to FMA Wikia for the refresher!

AN #2: Okay, here's where I need suggestions. What hell should I rain down upon Emma in this carnival of horrors? Who or what is in the mirrors now? What other trials (rides and attractions and villains perhaps?) should Emma endure on a possible road to redeeming herself for boning her own great grandpa... and, you know, the killing and stuff?