Staring up at the hole in the sky, Emma drummed her fingers on the prison floor. She thought of the man from the night before whose words had struck her as odd. He did not look like the magical type, and the instinct that came from the lost memories that she could not find inside her mind confirmed this. The man had looked determined with a hint of sorrow which had seemed to be directed toward her. Who was he?
A woman whose appearance made her look the same age as Emma clipped in her heels down the stone staircase. Snow White was her name and also the fairest of the land. Her tale was told by the people as a legendary one, one of a young princess who was beautiful on the outside and inside as well.
Now queen, she was not who she once was. Back in that other land, the One Without Magic, she had killed a certain miller's daughter, the mother of Snow's own stepmother. That darkness formed in her heart was only a drop at the time, but like ink in water, it expanded to fill her entire soul. With no magic, and no love, she had only the power to lock up her daughter and stain the name of the once Savior.
"Emma, dear." Snow's voice was sweet but hidden within was a mocking tone that her daughter recognized immediately. There was a drawl to her words that suggested the sneer on her beautiful face. Emma did not respond, but continued the rhythm of her long uncut nails against the cobblestone floor. "Would you like the chance of being set free?" The words were an evident trap, and Emma did not know why the trap had been set so simply. She was not the type to be captured by these attempts at pulling out her inner darkness. She would not show vulnerability or any sign that she cared. She did not even move her head that was positioned to stare at her twitching fingers.
"When I order you to speak, you speak." The voice had turned cold, a sudden whip of icy winter wind. This specialized cell had been enchanted by ancient magic to make the prisoner follow every direct order of the royals who had imprisoned her. The manacles singed her skin as Emma croaked out "No" which came with a sharpened point though her neck and wrists were burning.
"Are you sure with your answer? I can offer you freedom and the return of all your tainted," the word was spat out, "magic." A pause to wait for a response, any response at all.
Emma finally lifted her head, "What are your conditions? With you, there is always a condition."
"You know, there was a past where I was not like this, and you were not as you are now either. Even back when we hadn't known we were mother and daughter, I had been your friend in Storybrooke."
"I don't know of the past you speak of, but that is no longer what we are like and the past does not matter."
"Oh, on the contrary, the past is everything, just that you don't remember."