I wanted to get this posted before I start back to school tomorrow and cease to have much of a life. 3
Emma doesn't see Killian for a few days.
It is not for lack of trying, of course. Day after day, each day that she gets the chance, she finds herself at the shore looking for the silhouette of his ship against the horizon. Her mother is starting to seriously worry about her wayward daughter, but Emma pretends not to hear her mother's distressed voice when she starts to speak of where she went wrong.
Emma thinks she's only being dramatic.
At least, she lets herself think that in order to make herself feel a little less guilty.
(But just a little.)
It's just over a week later when she finally feels the weight of disappointment lifted off of her shoulders. She sees his ship before she even sees the shore itself, the shape and color of it so burned into her memory that she recognizes it immediately. Her heart starts pounding, rushing blood through her veins at a pace she's certain is not safe. When she sees him, she smiles so wide it hurts her cheeks. As if sensing her, he turns his head from where he stands on the dock and catches her eye. His eyes widen and a grin splits his features before he starts heading her way.
"Emma," he says as he approaches, and the way he says her name makes a thrill rush through her. "I was hoping you would be here."
"You were?" she stammers out, playing absentmindedly with a button on her dress.
His cheeks flush (she's sure they match her own) and he purses his lips, taking a deep breath before smiling. "I was." Everything in her is singing, and she swears that her heart will never function normally again. "However, I do have some business to attend to at the current moment." Before she can deflate from his words, he reaches out to take her hand in his. "Decide on a place for us to meet in an hour. Anywhere you want, I'll be there."
Emma takes only a moment, and then she nods. "If you follow the road to the North of where your ship is docked, you'll come across a tree with very low hanging branches on your right. The leaves are dark green, the darkest I have ever seen. The trunk is thick and it isn't very tall. If you'll look on the opposite side of the road from there, you'll find a small path. It leads to the river, where there is a bench made of several stones. Meet me there."
His palm closes tightly around hers for the briefest of moments. "I will, love."
And then he's gone, leaving her fingers tingling where his own just were.
With nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, she gets to the spot within ten minutes of leaving the shore, sitting down on one of the stones and watching the way the water in the river flows. If she looks closely, she just can see fish swimming underneath the surface. She grabs a small rock and tosses it into the water, focusing on how the waves ripple out from the spot.
Her parents always tell their story, of how when they first met, Snow had hit her father with a stone to escape him after trying to steal a piece of jewelry. In any other story, after he got the ring back, they would have parted ways and never seen each other again. However, like the ripples from a rock falling in a river, one event started another, which led to another, and somehow, they winded up getting married and being the rulers of the Enchanted Forest.
It's an insane ripple effect, and it's the one she carries around just over her shoulder.
She hasn't figured out yet if that's positive or not.
Regardless, her parents are happy and forever flaunting their True Love, and she thinks sometimes that the phrase should be shouted every time it's spoken, written out in the largest letters possible. At least, that's how they act. Meanwhile, she's fawning over a Lieutenant that she's talked to all of two times for just the chance to feel a fraction of what her parents seem to have.
She may get tired of hearing about it, but at the same time, she always wonders how it feels to love so deeply and to be loved so much in return. Nearly constantly, she questions whether or not it's even worth the attempt to find such affection. Is True Love, all large letters and yelled out for the world to hear, a common occurrence? Or is she doomed to forever live in the shadows of her parents, never to find it for herself?
And then, there's another part of her that, as much as she may love her parents, doesn't yearn for what they have at all. The love they share is safe, tucked neatly into a large castle with looming gray walls and doors so heavy it's a feat simply to open them. Their love is collected and calm, floating along the tamest of rivers at a slow, steady pace.
She hates herself for thinking it, but it's a rather tedious romance, and that is not what her heart desires. The strength of the love they feel for each other is admirable, but perhaps she yearns for love of a different timbre. Though she shares her mother's nose and heart, the contrasts between them stretch far and wide.
Time passes while she thinks, staring so intently into the water as if it will give her the innumerable wishes that she craves despite her not even knowing what all of them are, all the answers that she seeks even though she may not yet know the questions. When a hand touches her shoulder, she nearly jumps out of her skin.
"Killian." His name falls past her lips in a rush, and she immediately loves the way it sounds.
"I am truly sorry. It was not my intention to frighten you," he says, giving her a small smile.
It takes her much too long to respond, caught up in the way his eyes look reflecting the water in front of him and the way his dark hair looks against the background of an emerald green forest. "No," she finally manages, giving him a smile that she's sure is completely without grace. "I was just thinking. It is not your fault."
"What were you thinking of, Princess?" he asks casually as he takes a seat beside her, and she almost tells him. It feels as if it would be easy to simply spill all her thoughts, insecurities, and fears. She figures that it must be the way he looks at her, so open, as if he would take in every single problem and hold it close like each were his own.
And then never tell a soul.
"Just... daydreaming," she says instead, her stomach loosening a few of the knots it had formed.
He hums in response, tilting his head at her, and somehow she knows he doesn't believe her. Regardless, he simply nods and puts his gaze on the river for the longest of moments until he looks over at her. "So, story?"
It's effortless to fall into talking with him. He tells her of an island he'd been to with legend of a horrible monster that could easily wipe out armies. She listens with intent, asking questions every few minutes for clarification or teasing purposes. His story is full of everything she wants to know and everything she craves - action, adventure, a little bit of danger - and he plays it up so well that she finds herself leaning toward him. His words are grand and he speaks in such a way that Emma tucks away in her memory how each syllable sounds as it falls past his lips. She may not know what she wants from him and she may not ever experience what it feels like to love a person as her parents do, but his voice is easy enough to fall in love with. Each word only draws her closer to him, and, as a result, by the time he finishes telling of his very brief and minor brush with the beast where he barely escaped with his life, she's so close that she could kiss him if she wanted.
And she wants to, more than she's ever wanted anything. She wonders how his lips would taste, how his hair would feel beneath her fingertips. His eyes bore into hers as she smiles, saying something about how interesting his story is, and it would be so easy to close the space between them.
But she barely knows the man, and she should not be thinking of kissing someone who is somewhere between being a stranger and being an acquaintance. So, despite the strong desire to capture his lips in hers, she leans back enough to give herself air to breathe.
Something flashes in his eyes, bright and burning, and she knows that he was thinking of kissing her just as heavily as she was thinking of kissing him.
And it only makes her want to kiss him more.
They take turns throwing stones into the river for a moment, and then he smiles without looking at her. "I do believe it's your turn, Emma."
She sighs, already feeling the sting of not knowing what to say. "I'm very afraid, Killian, that if we continue this little game of ours, I will run out of stories before you run out of adventures to tell."
Silence stretches, and for the longest time the only sound is of water crashing over rocks and the occasional woodland creature. Then, she feels him next to her, much too close for the comfort that she's so strongly attempted to seclude herself into where he is concerned.
(She's failing at it, she knows she is, but she has to try, right?)
Slowly, she turns her head toward him and he's just there, in front of her, staring at her with a curious expression on his face as he reaches over to place his hand over where hers rests.
"Just because you do not see your tales as adventurous does not mean I am not equally as enraptured to hear them," he tells her, his eyes gentle and coaxing.
Emma swallows thickly, lost in the way he's looking at her, with no hope of ever being found again. Part of her thinks that she has to stop this affair before it goes too far, and another part of her is aware that she may already be too far gone.
"I don't see how," she tells him honestly with a small shrug of her shoulders.
"I know this may seem difficult for you to believe," he says, and she focuses intently on his words, trying not to think about how warm his hand is and failing to restrain her imagination from wondering what would happen if she turned her hand over. Her breath backs up into her lungs and stays there no matter how strongly she tries to force the organs to resume working. "But I find you quite fascinating. I want to hear your stories, love."
The warmth from his palm on hers spreads into her arm and through her in a rush, and she can feel heat rising in her cheeks as she looks away. A rabbit scurries from one bush to another on the other side of the river, and she watches the bush for a moment while she tries to catch her breath.
"That can't be true," she whispers into the air between them. "I am just a princess of nineteen years who has never been outside of her small kingdom's boundaries and wishes that she could say the opposite. The most interesting thing about me is my parents, because they broke a curse with a kiss, and I don't want to be cared for or adored just by association with them, but then... that's the only fascinating fact about me." The words are heavy as they taint the air around them, and she hates that she's ruining their afternoon with her own discontent.
She sighs as she looks away, knowing that everything she's said is true but still hoping that maybe he is being honest with her. Her heart beats on a rhythm that she is unfamiliar with as the pause lengthens, and then it stops completely when she feels his finger underneath her chin, guiding her face back toward his own.
"I swear to you," he breathes, his eyes piercing and too much as he brushes his thumb over her jaw. The skin he touches is on fire, she swears, branding her with the weight of his caress."What I tell you is very much the truth."
Something catches inside her, lighting and burning so bright that she fears for a moment that she's going to cave in on herself, a collapsing fortress being reduced to ashes. She smiles, her stomach turning rapidly, and if he weren't holding her together with his gaze, she fears she'd fall apart completely. This mysterious man, so untroubled and so knowledgeable and so beautiful, is sweeping her off her feet and she's gets the feeling that, if he asked, she would follow him anywhere without a second thought.
Let her parents version of love and everything that says it's a bad idea be damned.
"You promised to tell me of a time when you ran away, or wanted to," Emma says after closing a story of her childhood best friend trying to talk Emma into "giving away her parent's magic", and how they learned the hard way that it does not quite work in that manner.
"Ah, I did, didn't I?" He glances over at her for a moment and then looks away. There's a pause where he stares off into the forest, and she can see contemplation on his features as he seems to ponder something. After swallowing and taking a shaky breath, he turns back to her and tries to smile. "I used to try to hide from my brother all the time. He hated it, of course, because... he always worried about me. I loved it, however, and so I was always trying to find new hiding places. One time, I saw a horse and carriage pass by us, and when it stopped near us to let the horse get a drink of water, I tried to climb up into it. I knew... I knew that if my brother did not find me, the man might would carry me away. But... our father had left a few years prior and our mother had died recently and I was young, so at the time, I didn't care the slightest."
Emma lets out a breath that she didn't realize she was holding as he stops, glancing over at her as if to gauge her reaction to his heartbreaking admission. There are many options as to what she could say, from a sympathetic apology that he had to grow up without a mother and father to a joke about him being mischievous. In the end, she settles on sliding just close enough to push her knee against his gently.
"Was your brother upset?" she asks, and his mood lightens just the slightest.
"He caught me trying to climb up into the carriage, probably because there was a woman in there who started trying to talk to me and gave away my position." Killian's smile is genuine, and it's then that Emma truly understands the affection that this man feels for his older brother. It makes absolute sense, to feel so fond of someone who had to become his parent at a young age.
Nothing is said for a while, but this silence doesn't ring loud in Emma's ears. It's easy to just sit with him and watch the world around them, letting it slowly darken until the sun begins to descend completely into the horizon. "I should probably get home," Emma says, leaning close enough so that their shoulders touch. "And you should probably find your brother and turn in for the night."
Killian nods slowly and stands, offering his hand to her once he's up. She takes it without question, and as they walk back in the direction of the docks, she holds on tight instead of letting go.
And when they part, he hesitates as he glances toward the inn where his brother said he would be. Emma swallows, her heartbeat a roar in her ears so loud that she can hardly hear herself think. She sees the turmoil in his eyes, the indecision on what he should do as they say their goodbyes. He takes a step closer, and then simply lifts her knuckles to his lips for a few burning seconds before letting her fingers slip through his own.
She can't help the disappointment that floods through her (she's foolish - she knows she is, so desperately wishing that a man she hardly knows will kiss her), but as he walks away, her hand feels much too cold without the warmth of his own against hers.
"I'll see you soon?" Her voice speaks of its own will, the question lingering in the air. He stops, turning back to her with a smile on his face.
"Aye, Princess. I will see you soon."
She doesn't tell her parents of her newfound interest in Killian Jones, the Navy Lieutenant from a neighboring ally - she doesn't tell anyone. It's her own little secret that when her parents catch her attention adrift, it's him she thinks of. It remains a mystery where her mind goes right before sleep claims her for the night. There's a newfound passion for him and all that he represents in her life at the current moment, an adventure that she so desperately wishes to experience, a passion she was not aware she could possess.
She doesn't love him - love at first sight is commonly accepted in some places, but she knows this isn't the case. However, every time she thinks of him her heart races so fast in her chest that it's difficult to breathe, so she thinks maybe she could love him.
And maybe he could love her, too.
And maybe it wouldn't be True Love if they did.
Or maybe it would.
And maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't matter either way.