"Ogres! Dragons! Vampires!" a beady-eyed man raced from human to human on the bright blue brick road with the fear of Chernabog on his tail. "I'm surrounded by beasts!" He fainted in midst of a group of hawkers.
Emma peered closely at him. It was her job to save him. She was the Savior.
Crouching beside him, her dark blue cloak draped around the ground. She peeled up his eyelids but saw only white below. His breathing and pulse were eerily normal.
Gnawing her bottom lip, she privately mused to herself saving people would be so much easier if only she'd grown up with her rich parents and had obtained a medical degree…or an interest in science and math. A thirst to know more about the human anatomy than her below-average education taught her (she'd dropped out of high school in Portland before meeting Neal).
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a plum dress scurrying her way. When she glanced at the woman, she saw she was very short, about the height of a six-year-old, and she was twice as wide as she was tall. Bare feet with a cloth belt at the waist of her plum dress. The belt had gold coins hanging from it. Her wrist carried a similar bracelet, and her pierced ears held dangling earrings that ended in gold coins. Around her ankle was the final piece of matching jewelry. Upon her hair were wisps of ash-blonde hair tied on the top of her head.
Her eyes were kind but stoned when she thrust a barrel into Emma's hands. "Take this," she suggested in a tinny voice. She had no teeth, Emma realized when she spoke. Emma accepted the offering. The little woman gestured at the lifeless man. "Throw it in his face."
Emma didn't need to be told twice. Without checking the contents of the barrel, she flung the liquid in the man's face.
He came up sputtering, flinching, and cursing. The little woman winced. "Wrong bucket," then she raced off before the man could lay eyes upon her.
The scent identified the liquid. "Cleaning solution?" Emma Swan blurted in dismay and ridicule. "What kind of drunk keeps a barrel full of cleaning solution?"
Spitting, the guy she tried to save muttered in a low, nauseated tone, "I don't know, but it tastes as bad as my face feels. Gosh, I hope I don't lose sight in my eyes." Squinting, he tried to look out of them.
Offering her arm, Emma helped the man sit up. "I-I'm really sorry," she stammered. "I didn't know…" She wanted to say she'd trusted the woman too easily, but the fact was she'd been desperate to revive the man. Her snap decision had nothing to do with being naïve and everything to do with wanting to offer solace in an uncaring world.
Patting her knuckle, the man assured her, "It's alright, you did your…" He choked before he got the last word out. Staring at her with bugging eyes as he regained consciousness, he gasped, "You're a vampire, aren't you?" Before Emma could respond, he leapt out of his seat and dashed off, screaming something about an Ogre Slayer.
Emma was frankly sick of hearing about this Ogre Slayer. Fleetingly, her face squeezed like a pug's when she thought, wtf is an Ogre Slayer? The thought drained from her mind as swiftly as it had been planted there. Nothing but water, the thought merely provided a splash before draining from the container that wasn't solid.
Emma couldn't believe anyone could run that fast. She was still blinking stupidly, staring into the crowd he'd vanished into, when an excruciating hunger settled over her.
She realized she'd forgotten to eat for…two days? Or was it ten? She'd been so obsessed with fixing the current reality she'd completely neglected her stomach.
Apple-glazed veal sure sounded good.
She'd come to this town's version of Rodeo Drive. Not necessarily an expensive, classy round of stores. This was an open market like the scene in Aladdin where Jasmine walked disguised among commoners. However, food wasn't being sold. Jewels, bottled potions, books, dancing figurines, many styles of hats, stained glass, face painting, oddly shapped wine glasses, goggles, henna tattoos, real tattoos, oddly shaped balloons, and many other objects and services could be seen from where she currently stood, but no food.
The face painting, ear piercing, henna tattoos, and permanent tattoos could all be seen by a client sitting in a chair at a booth while another person hovered over them with the required tools.
There wasn't any food to steal, to slide under her sleeve then shoot to the other sleeve. Emma found this unrealistic. That all food would be confined to a sit-down restaurant or grocery store in a building was clearly something only Isaac could whip up. This "Rodeo Drive" should—at the very least—have some live seafood for a cat to steal.
As there were no stray animals in sight, Emma felt Isaac must be antianimal. Did he skip The Horse Whisperer and The Call of the Wild when going through the list of classics? Emma personally preferred them to Pride and Prejudice, Madame Bovary, and Rebecca.
Ugh, Rebecca. What a horrible book. Emma had gotten halfway through before returning it to her teacher who had raved and wept over what an amazing book it was and how Emma would undoubtedly love it.
Emma had pretended she'd read it all to make her overly sappy teacher feel good. "Did you like it when…?" Emma had nodded half-dumbly and half-self-consciously. "And when…?"
Emma's nods had appeased the woman, thankfully. She hadn't wanted to know how such an emotional person would handle anger. Emma had been certain she'd like the book more than to see that teacher angry.
Most of Emma's teachers had ignored her, but this English teacher had taken a liking to her because of Emma's "suffering".
Emma strolled away from the marketplace. Heading in the direction she'd seen a restaurant. Her stomach growled maliciously.
She passed a woman holding a pastry in one hand and bouquet of flowers in the other. She stepped lightly on the orange-pink walk and traipsed to the front door. A waiter in a white tux gallantly opened the door for her, smiling affably and bowing briefly. She curtsied, hoping Isaac put enough money in her pockets that she could afford her meal.
If he didn't, she'd become a bandit in this fictional world. Like—
The walls were covered with windows. The windows were concealed by blinds. The blinds all had wanted posters featuring Regina.
Emma's jaw dropped. She halted, but she hurried to regain her wits. Stumbling after the waiter, she tried to keep her footing. Ending up hitched by the foot to a nursing mother's ankle, Emma was so worried about keeping the baby from getting hurt that she flung herself in the other direction, colliding her jaw with the tray another waiter was carrying.
It took several waiters to straighten her legs out. Emma had never been so clumsy before. That was Astrid's territory—which was why she was such a good match for stout Leroy—they contrasted each other. Emma attributed her own clumsiness to starving herself, the narrow passageway to get to the tables (which were pretty close together), and too many people walking all at once. Emma knew she was too young to abruptly lose her balance as a sign of age.
She overheard some diners chatting about the Ogre Slayer. "He is such a softie for children!" She whipped her neck in the direction, shaking her head. Wondering if perhaps "Ogre Slayer" was a nickname of Robin Hood's. Maybe not, she decided briefly. He's famous for something else. Wait, maybe it's Hook's nickname? Hope stirred within her, but she deflated when she realized…perhaps this Ogre Slayer dude was some fictional guy in this world.
She lifted the collar of her shirt to cover her mouth. "A story within a story," she muttered into her shirt, feeling her breath warm her neck before dropping the garment. She found that kinda lame, but whatever floated Isaac's boat and made his harp sing.
Except, honestly, this whole scenario of turning flesh and blood into fictional characters was not cool with her. Isaac had some explaining to do, and she was in bad need of pulling his hair out by the roots.
Seated at a circular table for two with a red and white checkered tablecloth, lit candle, and basket full of condiments, Emma Swan scanned her menu until she found exactly what she wanted—apple-glazed veal.
It was a craving that tore at her subconscious. Reading the small summary accompanying the name of the meal made her mouth salivate.
A waiter returned with her drink and took her order then slipped away with a hearty bow. Drumming her fingers on the table, Emma let her gaze swivel around the room. She noticed a sparkling wine glass that gave her the creepy impression it had invisible eyes blinking on it, a blind man with a headless Dalmatian harnessed to his waist, and a cricket with a tux that was such a bright shade of red that it made her eyes water.
The pianist had no hands. He played with stares, yet beautiful music reached Emma's ears.
Scanning the semifamiliar faces, her heart hoped for Hook. He was nowhere to be found. She wondered what Isaac had done to him but wasn't sure she wanted to know.
There was Lily, sashaying across Emma's line of vision in deep purple, six-inch heels, and a waitress outfit. Emma couldn't believe Lily was here—this wasn't the last place she saw Lily working. Yet, Robin had said Lily was the Queen's pet.
A pair of moose strutted into the restaurant with Rapunzel (long, thick black braids doubled all over her head) at their heels, holding a frying pan menacingly. Emma heard one of the moose proclaim, "I'd like a nice, round apple." She envisioned the moose's muzzle dunked in Emma's apple-glazed veal. Then a round red apple on the other moose's head as someone fired arrows at the apple and missed incessantly.
The waiter returned with Emma's veal in record time, as if all it needed was to be heated up.
Smirking and shaking her head ruefully, Emma dropped her red napkin to her lap. Then she cut up her meat with a fork and knife, finally bringing a bite to her lips with joy.
Her body froze. Solid as a metal, she could lift no fingers.
The rest of the veal pieces reached up and formed a cage to surround Emma's motionless body draped in a blue cloak. If her eyelids didn't happen to be apart when she brought the veal to her lips, she would have no idea what was happening. As it was, she discovered while she was paralyzed, she couldn't move her eyelids but didn't need to blink. Her eyes could rove the room, and her heart was a jack rabbit.
Lily was striding toward Emma's cage, her mouth poised to bite and eyes rolling back in her head.
Emma lost the sheen of being immobile when Lily transformed. Squeezing her eyes shut, Emma missed the dragon arms and legs bursting from Lily's human ones. She missed the tail being absent one instant and thrashing angrily the next.
Several tables and about sixty chairs were destroyed to shards of splintered wood in the making of Lily's dragon stomach. The burning candles were inhaled through her scales instead of burning her.
Even though Emma was no longer paralyzed, she was caged in a veal trap with a chair in the cage and under her butt. There wasn't much space between the top of her head and the top of the cage.
Lily's ferocious dragon mouth came closer and seized the cage. Rising on her hind legs, Lily let the cage sway to and fro.
Maleficent's daughter lifted her wings, and with the magic previously sprinkled on her forehead by Snow White, went through the roof without breaking the ceiling open.
Into the sky, she soared. Away from Snow White's kingdom. To an ocean several miles south. A mermaid lagoon came into sight, and still Lily flew on.
