A/N: Glad to be back to bring you guys more of this. It took my friend a lot longer than he expected to proofread all this because he was so busy. With Season 5 starting up(looks pretty awesome! Still on the fence on bringing Asgeir into it.) I want to get started on Season 4 as soon as I can, which is why I'm releasing 2 chapters at once here. I might do it again with the next set of chapters, which I plan on both being flashbacks. The first chapter shows the flashbacks of Bleeding Through in the eyes of Asgeir's grandfather, who had known Cora. And the second flashback chapter I will save as a surprise. All I will say is that I'm skipping the episode "The Jolly Roger" beacuse it was kind of a waste of time even with the Ariel plot. The Snow and Charming subplot was stupid, and everything that happened in it could have been shrank down to a briefer subplot in another episode. I'm skipping this one to do something better. So expect the surprise chapter to be coming along with the "Bleeding Through" flashbacks. Enjoy!

Chapter 19: Past- Far Behind Us

It was more than just a simpler time when I was young. It was an easier life. Happier, even. I won't say I was happy running from the Templars with no real home or aim in life aside from "hide" and "survive" as the goals for the day. I wasn't even all that happy knowing that I had two sisters out there that could have been my family as opposed to my now-dead father. But what I faced though my earlier years beat slaughtering people one by one on my anger induced path of vengeance to find and kill Ingrid. There were good reasons my hood was taken from me, if I'm being honest with myself now.

Matthew had taken my father's place as Mentor when I was 6, after he had been captured and executed in Arendelle's town square. I'll never forget the look on my father's face as the blade fell onto his neck. He only looked at me from far away as the other Assassins and I escaped the town. And he smiled at me. Six years old, and I saw my own father's head cut off for crimes that Agdar only made up so that people didn't call the death of my father murder. And in all honesty, I think the real reason that he killed my father was not because he was a Templar, and my father an Assassin. It was because of me. How I came into this world through an Assassin Mentor and his wife, Gerda.

To see my own father die in front of me would make any child cry their eyes out for most of their early years, accept that their father was the man that king said he was, wish that they hadn't gotten swept up in this bloody war in the first place, and try their best to move on. But I've always been an Assassin. My father before me, and his father before him, and his father before him, they were all Assassins that fought as I did. It's always been in my blood. Too many will only roll over and give themselves up to the Templars out of fear. So if they would not take them down, whom else to take the blades than us?

I took the rank of novice at the age of 9. I killed my first high-ranking Templar within a year of that time, and when I was 15, I became the youngest living Master Assassin of our branch. I took up arms against scoundrels by the names of Prince John, and King George. Through fighting them I met Robin of Locksley, and it was how we became such good friends. Ironically, it was because of most of the Templars I fought that I met my closest friends and brothers.

I've read how most fathers would keep much of the Assassins hidden from their sons, but not mine. I always seemed to think Daniel was upfront and honest with me as best he could. He raised me to learn as much as I could about the other worlds and our war across them, and when I was 5, he revealed the truth about my mother and the family she was starting with Agdar. He always seemed to think that Gerda cared for me in some light, and when I saw the first picture of Elsa and Anna, I felt a real uplift for once in my life. I had a family that was still alive then.

After my father was killed, I kept that memory as close to me as I could. If I were allowed to catch glimpses of both my sisters, they would only be for split seconds, especially when Agdar locked the gates. By then I could only remember seeing Anna regularly knock on Elsa's door, hoping that she would leave her room and play with her again. There were times where I could only watch from afar in the shadows of the castle halls, and the looks that Anna gave around the castle as I snuck around only gave me more assurance that she knew I was watching. She couldn't figure out exactly what it was that was watching over her, but I knew that she could feel me around.

One fall, when I was 17, Matthew had called me to the Cracked Lute, an inn run by a small group of Assassins in Misthaven. When I arrived I was sent to the cellar meeting room where I saw him talking with an Assassin who only looked to be a few years older than me. He had short blonde hair he had trimmed into a buzz cut, and a long spear holstered to his back.

"Rory Woods." He introduced himself as I walked in. "Asgeir Swortssen, eh? Glad to be workin' with yah, brother. Heard lot 'bout yah. Yer father was a good man."

His accent was quite thick but Matthew soon cleared it up.

"Rory is a good friend of ours from the Irish branch in Dublin. He's helping us out because his Mentor owes me a favor."

"So who are we killing today?" I asked, sitting down. Rory sat down across from me and took a long drink of his pint.

"You're both not killing anyone today. Or rather, that won't be necessary." Matthew explained. He unfolded a piece of parchment on the table and smoothed it out on the table. "Today it's breaking, entering, and stealing."

"Been waitin' for somethin' like this." Rory said, excitedly rubbing his hands together.

Matthew ran his finger down what appeared to be a list on the paper before stopping at an item on it and pointing at it. He slid the list over to me, keeping his finger on the spot on the list.

The list looked to be a kind of ledger with various descriptions of items that sounded like they had magic around them. But I knew exactly what Matthew was meaning when I saw the writing he was pointing at: "Grapefruit-sized sphere, made with unknown metal-like materials."

"This list is talking about an Apple!" I said.

"Aye." Rory replied. "Never seen the thing before, but there's no mistaking it considering the person that has all these items."

"What do you mean?"

"This list was taken from an office in a castle where the items are kept, but not in the same room as the place that they are kept. If we can find the room that they're kept in, we can find the Apple among them."

"So you're talking about Rory and me breaking into this castle so that we can get our hands on the Piece? What about the Templars? My money would assume that this place is under their control."

"Not at all, mate." Rory replied. "I've been to this land many times before, and the Templars have close to no presence there. If we can make it past the Witch that's guardin' all of the items, then it'll be an easy in and out job."

"So where are we heading?" I asked in return.

Rory chuckled. "Oh, mate. You'll love this." Then he started singing that song, bringing back my memories of that movie and realizing just what kind of Witch we were up against.

"We're off to see the Wizard…"

Rory took the front as we cut through the forest, slicing through the foliage with his machete. We had gone through the portal to Oz less than an hour ago, and were now looking for the road we all knew of.

"So The Wicked Witch has taken over the castle now?"

"Yep. In this world, she exposed the Wizard for his illusions and turned him into a flyin' monkey. Dunno if that means she'll be just as evil as we know of considerin' we haven't seen her facin' off 'gainst a girl named Dorothy and chasin' after some ruby slippers on 'er feet."

It was at this point in my life as an Assassin that despite my ranking of Master Assassin, I was still learning what the Creed meant. Rory was a few years older than me, but now we would be around the same age, so I could almost see the same wisdom in his eyes that a true Assassin had. I could have asked him any questions. What did the Creed mean to him? Did he become an Assassin because of his father like me, or by himself much like the ones I helped recruit. Any question was mine. But I chose what I now know was the worst one possible.

"Shay Cormac?"

Rory stopped in front of me, and swung around, staring me right in the eye. "Careful, brother." He trilled. "I'm enjoyin' workin' with yah, and Matthew speaks highly of yah. But we never speak of the bastard. Not in Dublin"

I held my hands up. "Sorry. I didn't realize he was worse with you than me. I was raised on his journals to know what kind of man he was."

"Ah, it's alright lad." Rory turned back around and kept cutting through. "Truth be told, everythin' we have on Shay is nothin' new. All of the knowledge we have of Shay lies in his journals. You're wonderin' about the pages."

"Yes."

The elusive missing pages of his journals. All the books on Shay that I had read all had one thing in common: the last pages in them were torn out. Father had said that the Templars ripped them all out, so all we really knew about Shay ended at when he killed Charles Dorian.

"Whatever happened to Shay afterwards has never been confirmed. He became the only Templar of that time to disappear into history's shadows and never reappear as a notable figure. The theories on what happened are all different. Some say he returned to the Colonies only to be killed by Connor. Others say he retired to Dublin, and even more are convinced that he kept servin' under Haytham Kenway. That's the only rumor we're convinced is true considerin' Kenway wasn't murdered by his son for another five years."

What lied in those pages were like a shard of glass lodged in my head. Boring a hole through my mind, teasing me of what I was missing from Shay's life. Any clue I found gave me some relief, and I hadn't heard of these rumors before. I would take what I could get.

The foliage before us started to thin out, and soon enough, Rory swung his machete through the branches to have them fall onto the polished golden bricks in the ground. We had found the road, and now we had our clear path. The green lights of the city were just over the horizon.

It was a longer journey than either one of us expected when we finally neared the Emerald City. When we got a better look at it, I realized that we needed a game plan. The walls were over a hundred feet high, and guards were stationed on the tops of them. Making things more difficult than they already were was the moat that circled the castle. The only way I saw us being able to go was the bridge on this side of the castle we were facing. But that was heavily guarded with barely anyone being able to get across. More than half of the people trying to get in were given a response with the guards drawing their weapons on them.

"Oh, brother." Rory said when I inquired about the plan on how to get in. "It's easy. See there?"

He pointed towards the bridge, then under it. There were poles sticking out of the moat that I realized we could easily use to get across. From there the hard part would start of trying to find a gap in the spikes atop the walls that we could use to get above, and then into the castle.

"Follow me lead, brother." Rory said. When the guard keeping watch near that part of the moat turned his head, Rory took off, jumping onto the pole and then tiptoeing with light speed across each and every one until he was at the base of the wall. He then started scaling it with a pair of small pickaxes as soon as he was able to see the opening we were looking for. It took me a little longer than him, but I eventually found my way across and tossed my hook before starting to pull myself up. It's now that I realize how useful the Rope Blades would have been to me then just as they are to me now.

Rory helped me up onto the wall, and we started for the open window he spotted.

"So what's next?"

"Find the throne room, or at the very least where the Wizard kept his trinkets, find the Apple, then get the hell out of here. Again, just follow my lead."

The window that we climbed into led us to an office in the higher towers. We found nothing useful in the drawers or desks. Most of them were cleaned out, and the few books that we did find didn't mention the Apple. We decided to try the throne room next.

"Best we keep to the light fixtures just to be safe." Rory said before we headed out.

"Excuse me?"

"Your father never taught you, lad? You'd be amazed at the weight that light fixtures can support. Guards never really look up when they're indoors, so stickin' to the light fixtures is our best move."

"Good advice." I replied.

Rory kept the lead ahead of me, taking off down the hallway. I followed close behind as we neared the throne room. I could feel it from the whispers in my head telling me how close we were, but I also felt the unease that would be hanging over me like a shroud for more than half my life.

Rory stopped at the corner of the hallway as it turned sharply to the right. He peered past the corner, and then gave me the signal to keep moving with him. However, just as I rounded the corner I slammed right into someone else.

"Hey!" The guard cried when he realized who I was. "What're you-*haugh*!"

Rory seemed to fall right from the ceiling as he grabbed the guard from behind. Remembering in that moment what he told me about the light fixtures caused me to retain any surprise about how he appeared out of nowhere. What surprised me instead, was that even though he had every opportunity to kill the guard, he only choked him out.

"I told you to stick to the light fixtures if there were any guards." He said. "I expect you to be more careful."

I only looked down at the unconscious guard. Rory held up his hand, easily reading what I was thinking of doing.

"Nay, lad. Some people aren't worth killin'. C'mon, let's get what we came for."

After finding a trunk in a room off to the side of the hallway to hide the guard in, and placing the guard in it, Rory took the lead again and we started down the hallway. Sad to say that Rory's strategy didn't do us much help afterwards. That would be the last guard we would run into before the throne room.

When we got inside, we didn't spare a second and got straight to work. Rory and I took opposite sides of the room behind the curtain and started looking. I found items strew about the table that only confused me. Every item made me more curious than the last, and convinced me that some of them needed to be taken for the Assassins. But Rory wouldn't have it.

"If the Witch finds out we've been rootin' around in her stuff, she'll fry us both." He trilled in his accent. "We only need the Apple. If she sees anythin' else missin', we're doomed."

"She's coming." I heard.

I looked up. "She already knows we're here." I exclaimed. "We need to hide!"

Rory looked at me uncertainly. "You got the Sight, brother?" He asked. He then nodded, figuring it out on his own. "Let's hurry."

Rory grabbed one of the curtains and hid behind it in the corner of the room. I started towards the other curtain, but then realized that it would be too easy for the Witch to find the other one of us if she found the first one hiding there. So I took it a step further and started climbing the rope connected to the curtain.

"Hurry." I heard the whispers. "She's coming."

I wasn't high up enough, so I started climbing even harder and faster, but now I was too high to get down. But I then reached over with my free hand and grabbed the curtain before swinging over into the corner. I could barely see the rest of the throne room around, but Rory was in my view completely. I just hoped that he wasn't so easy to see for the Witch.

"She's here."

The doors slammed open and a figure dressed all in black strode up towards the room.

"It's useless to hide here, thieves." I heard her say. "I already know you're here. However, I demand you tell me why."

I made it my every effort to try and keep as still as I could, but back then I was still a younger Assassin trying to learn as best I could. I almost think I purposely let go of the rope now, judging by what I was thinking in the next five minutes. I thought that there could have been hope for that green-eyed monster.

The next thing I knew I was on the ground, on my back. The Witch stood above me, green faced and furious, looking down on me with a shine in her eyes that almost seemed to remind me of a butcher's knife. I smiled nervously, trying to think of something other than the massive amount of pain shooting through my foot.

"I've already had one theft in here. I think I'll kill you right now just to make sure there won't be a third." She grabbed me by the neck and tossed me towards the center of the room.

I don't know what delusional thoughts ran into my head at that moment, but for some reason I could see something that wasn't there with Zelena: hope.

"Please!" I said, holding up a hand. "We don't mean trouble! We just need something out of your vault!"

The Witch conjured up a fireball and held it up. "If you want something from there, then I know I need it for my work."

Rory must have thought I was using this opportunity to distract The Witch, because he resumed searching the drawers for the Apple. So I continued talking with her.

"What work is that?" I asked her curiously. "You might be surprised. Some of us might have answers you seek."

"No one can help me do what I intend to do, boy. Destroy my sister and take what is rightfully mine!"

I stood up. "I know a thing or two about claiming our birthrights." I said, remembering Elsa and Anna. "I'm the firstborn in my family. But my mother and her husband left me in the woods to die. I found my purpose among my brothers."

She looked at me suspiciously. "What are you playing at? How do you know my past?"

I glanced over at Rory discreetly as I kept talking. He was still looking.

"I don't." I replied. "I told you my past. So that's something we might share. We had a chance to be given what was ours by rights, but they were stolen from us. A sibling, I'm assuming?"

She sneered. "Regina! The Queen where she comes from! She doesn't deserve the blessings she's been handed."

I smirked. "Then there's another thing we have in common: an enemy. Wallowing in self-pity trying to take down people like Regina's not going to get you anywhere, love. But we always welcome people with your passion to fight alongside us. Why don't you let us get what we came for, and then let's talk about joining up with us?"

Rory suddenly opened another drawer and pulled out the Appl e. He held it up, triumphantly. But then the Witch turned around and saw Rory. She held up her hand and caught him by the throat in her grip, levitating him in the air.

"THIEVES!" She cried. "Thieves are what you are! Nothing more! I won't join a sad gang of petty criminals just so I can have a chance to take down Regina and have a family. I realized that family is overrated when the last people to approach me abandoned me! When I destroy her, I will do it my way and on my own!"

She whistled loudly, and a dark shape swooped down from the raised ceiling; a large monkey with wings.

"Suppertime, beautiful one." She said. She waved her hand and the monkey dive-bombed Rory. He landed on his shoulder and raised his head, looking to take a large bite out of my brother.

I suddenly grabbed my flintlock and shot it at the Witch. She held her side in shock as the bullet hit her, then I rushed over and grabbed the Apple from Rory. I didn't really know how to use it exactly, but I seemed to do it right when the golden room suddenly flashed even brighter than it already had. I heard voices with this as well.

"Reaper…"

"Kenway…"

"The Long Night approaches…"

The Witch sneered at me as she pulled the shot out of her side. "It's going to take a lot more than that to kill me, thief!"

She started for me. I looked at her defiantly and held up the Apple.

"Back off!" I ordered her.

But it wasn't working. I wasn't doing something right. The Witch grabbed the Apple in my hands, but we both got a surprise instead.

I saw a man with a scaly face and rotten teeth, instructing the girl who stood before me. But the vision showed her without a green face. Then I saw her name as well: Zelena.

I saw Zelena working hard cleaning and cooking for a man who looked to be her father, but was treating her like a servant.

"Remember, Zelena." He said as she was shaving him. "Whatever we're feeling on the inside, we must always put on our best face."

And what this girl planned to do. Going back in time to change her past and steal Regina's future away,

The visions ended and Zelena stumbled away from me. She looked horrified, but shook that off and only sneered instead,

"That was your father?" I asked. "I saw your memories! The Apple showed me!"

"He was a drunken old fool who didn't care for me!" She snapped back. She grinned at the winged monkey, who flapped back towards her, landed at her feet, and turned towards me, snapping and snarling. "He makes a better pet, don't you think?" She said, stroking his head.

I was disgusted. "I was wrong. People like you don't deserve to join proud warriors like us." I said. "You're too busy stewing in the soup of envy that is your pathetic life. Quite frankly I'd wish you luck trying to go back in time if you weren't so selfish!"

"Oh, like your so perfect, Asgeir!" She shot back. "Your sisters? Elsa and Anna? Tell me that you've thought that they deserve what privileges they have and you don't? That'd be the biggest lie I'd ever hear!"

"It's not my place to rule like that!" I replied. "I already have a responsibility to the realms. Protecting them from scum like Regina and the other Templars. I wouldn't trade this life of fighting for something that I believe in for living in the lap of luxury and watching the smallfolk below me barely have enough to wish for coins to rub together. My place is here, fighting injustice. Not as Prince Asgeir of Arendelle."

"But you are a coward, Asgeir. I saw everything. Some things that I won't allow them to come true for how they tried to haunt me, and some that only amuse me." Zelena laughed. "You value those little girls for whatever godsforsaken reason that I won't even try to understand, but you'll only hide in the shadows and never try to approach them. You're afraid of what they'll think of you if you showed them who you are, and with good reason. Because you know they'd hate you!"

"Shut up!"

Rory had yelled out and charged for Zelena with his spear outwards. He slashed at her with speed and fury I had never seen before in any Assassin. Blood was running down his hood from the monkey who had bitten him. Zelena only deflected every hit he gave her with little effort, laughing and sneering more and more.

"Go, Asgeir!" He cried out as he kept fighting out against her. "I'll cover you, lad! Take this ya feckin' green faced bitch!"

"No use fighting, thief! Soon the only reason you'll fight is to serve my best interests."

I only stood by in silence. We had what we came for, but I saw how badly wounded Rory was. He only kept fighting as hard as he humanly can and beyond. And no matter how hopeless it seemed to me, he only kept slashing at Zelena. With little options left I made the first of many impossible decisions I would make: I turned and ran with the Apple still in my hands. I couldn't look back as I heard Rory's screams turn into monkey like shrieks.

The Apple had shown me something else when I saw through Zelena's head. A door in the forest, who hid inside, and the rhyme that went with it.

"Through the door. Step inside. If pure of heart, she will not hide."

At my young age I always firmly believed that all Assassins had pure hearts. We fought bravely to give hope and freedom to people who deserved something better than what the Templar bastards forced them to conform to. However what I was thinking of doing wasn't at all pure. It was the first step I was taking towards the half-dark heart I would have one day.

The door was right before me after I had gone through the portal with one of the beans I had. I envisioned the door and it now stood before me.

I walked towards it, half-expecting to find myself in another place or some other room. Instead I walked right through and out the other side. I was confused, but then I realized that this was all part of the test. Glinda was judging me and saying that in her eyes, my heart wasn't pure enough to live up to her impossible standards.

"Let's see if you can stop me when I have this."

I pulled the Apple out of my satchel and held it up. The sparks flashed from the Apple as I heard the energies from it release. I concentrated and focused all my thoughts into making the door open for me. This Apple was capable of making others do what I wished, so I hoped that it would work for this.

"Let me in now!" I commanded.

I stopped, the Apple going dark in my hand. Now I walked through, and when I came out the door, I was in the middle of a snowy forest. After spending most of my winters in Arendelle's forests, this wasn't a bad place to now be.

"Oi!" I called out. "Glinda the 'Good'! Get out here! I got a thing or two to say!"

"As do I."

I looked up. She had shiny blonde hair tied up in a bun and was dressed in all shimmering white. She would look beautiful if I didn't hate her now.

"I've heard much of you, Asgeir Swortssen." She said. "People are hearing of your deeds all over the realms. They've even given you a name to accompany them."

"Save it." I snapped. "I saw the truth. I was given a job by my Mentors to retrieve this." I held up the Apple. "But I had to get it from the sister who you abandoned. And she cost me a brother. It's your fault he's dead."

Glinda didn't flinch or glare at me from my accusations. "Rory is not dead, Asgeir. Zelena turned him into one of her pets. Until someone defeats her, Rory will remain her slave."

"Then she has given the worst fate that can ever befall an Assassin. How could you let this evil loose on Oz?"

"I didn't want to. Zelena made her choice. She chose to only see threats to what she had and was too greedy and envious to see the good life offered to her."

I scoffed. "And letting that little girl replace her like that sure helped out a lot, didn't it? As soon as Dorothy landed you pushed Zelena away!"

"I'm not going to stand here and take these insults from a boy like you. If you have something you wish to do to me, go ahead and be done with it."

The Apple sparked lightly in my hand. I was more than just furious right now. I was the most conflicted I had ever felt. I had just seen my brother face a fate almost worse than death, and now I was standing before someone who hadn't done anything and was actually considering killing them.

"I could kill you right now with this thing." I said. "I don't know how it can do it, but I could do it. But it's not what you deserve. I'll only walk away if I'm sure you know that your actions cost a good man his freedom. That what has happened today is your fault and your name as the Good Witch has been tarnished. That is something that I'll make sure people know."

I thought I saw a slight tear come from her eye as she said. "Yes."

I looked at her for a moment, then nodded and turned.

"Your name is one that the Templars now speak with fear striking their hearts. You should know that despite the darkness that's infecting your heart, you're giving some people hope. They now call you the White Reaper for the hood you wear, and the fate you bring to those that oppose you."

I smirked without turning back to her. "I like that name. It works."

I stared back at the Apple in my hands. I really couldn't tell how much this thing was worth. All I knew was that our war against the Templars was driven by these artifacts, and we had just bought another one with the transaction being Rory's life. It wasn't fair. That Witch, Zelena didn't even pay a second thought to the Apple, and she still thought it to be worth her while to take Rory for it. Dead or enslaved, it made no difference to me. All that mattered was that I now had another name to my currently small list of people I hated for what they had done to me. Some I would kill, but there were two I wouldn't for the sake of my family. My only real blood left.

I heard footsteps down the corridor. Remembering Rory's strategy, I climbed up into the rafters just as the source of the steps was rounding the corner.

A little girl in a green dress. She had strawberry blonde hair tied up in twin braids, and freckles across her nose. I watched from the shadows as she laughed. She stopped at a door a little ways down the hall from where I now stood. She knocked on it rhythmically.

"Elsa?" She called. Then she sang to herself. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

There was silence for a second before I heard a muffled "Go away, Anna!"

Anna looked crushed as she sadly sang, "Okay, bye."

I shifted slightly, suddenly slipping. I saved my footing, but it didn't stop the squeaking noise I made.

Anna looked up from her feet, and around the hall. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Please don't look up. Please don't look up." I whispered. "Please, please!"

Anna looked behind her, then in front of her again before walking off and heading off to look for the source of the noise.

I shook my head with shame. Because of a lie deadlier than Elsa's own secret, neither she nor Anna could know I existed. The rage of knowing that Zelena was right, that I was a coward hiding from both of them for the shame I felt of my life compared to theirs, how they can live their lives without having to kill anyone to protect their own lives, and I inflict pain and suffering on so many souls. All of it burned me up. That name that people called me, The White Reaper. It's all I was at that point. And now it's all I am. They're dead because of me, and now all I see is blood. Blood and Mirrors.

"I would build a snowman with you, Anna." I whispered with pain.