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snowbellewells · 11 months ago

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Self Promo Sunday: "For Once, Don't Let Go"

This week's re-run is a Modern AU one shot I wrote for the @cssns event in 2020. I had not ever written much of anything supernatural involving ghosts before, and we were all dealing with the effects of loneliness and being more alone/lonely than normal during that time. Those were the themes I was exploring here. I'd love to hear what you think - if you're revisiting it, or if you're reading it for the first time. Enjoy!

*My artist for the story was @hollyethecurious and she created a stunning picset that I am still in love with!! *

Summary: In some ways, Emma Swan has always been a ghost - alone and floating through life without much to tie her to anyone or any place. However, when she wakes up in an unfamiliar old house and realizes she is stuck haunting the last place she went while alive, it takes a while to reconcile the fact that she is an actual ghost and that there must be something keeping her in the world after all. Then she learns she isn’t the only lost soul in the house. And that changes everything.

Also available on AO3, if that's your preference...

by: @snowbellewells

In some ways, she has always been a ghost. Never fitting in, never belonging anywhere. Abandoned, and so closing her heart on the need to be accepted before she could be denied. It was for that reason, on the first morning of her afterlife, as she blinked awake in a chilled grey dawn that seemed just like any other, Emma Swan did not at first realize she was no longer part of the living world.

There was a strange quiet surrounding her, as she sat up from the bed, which strangely felt much softer, plusher than hers usually did at the end of an exhausting day or the morning after when her bones still ached and her mind never felt quite rested. It was those two things combined - the unaccustomed silence and depth and comfort of the sleep she’d emerged from - that put Emma off balance. It was never that still in the heart of the city, no matter how early in the morning. There was a constant humming undercurrent, a long-accepted background noise accompanying her life in Boston: sirens, horns, the grating and beeping of constant construction, the hubbub of voices, sounds unending. If she were deeply honest with herself (which she didn’t often allow) it was part of what she loved most about the large city on the eastern seaboard; there was so much noise that she could ignore her own thoughts. She didn’t like to dwell on or analyze her motivations for choosing a job where she tracked and found deadbeats who skipped out on those they should have stayed to support. She didn’t acknowledge - not even to herself - that each skip she hauled into the nearest precinct and collected her reward for gave her a sense of satisfaction that almost dulled her unanswered questions about the runners she hadn’t ever found - the parents who left her just after she was born.

So, she was already on edge as she found her feet and moved through the room she was increasingly aware did not look at all like the one in the loft apartment she currently rented, nor were any of her things scattered around as she usually left them. Moving from the room into the hall beyond, and then down a staircase into an entry hall that she knew her small apartment didn’t possess, Emma’s mind struggled to fully wake and understand where she was and how she came to be there.

It wasn’t until she reached the front door - tall, solid wood, but nondescript and standard, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary - that two more revelations struck her almost at once. Reaching out her hand to turn the doorknob, step outside and see if the outside of the house or its surroundings jogged her memory, Emma was shocked to find that her hand wouldn’t grip the metal knob at all, instead passing straight through both doorknob and door itself, sending her sprawling forward with a yelp of startled disbelief. No matter how impossible it seemed, the rest of her followed her outstretched hand, passing through the wooden door as if it simply didn’t exist.

Blinking and stunned from where she had landed on the top step up to the porch outside the strange house she’d woken up in, it was more than a bit hard for Emma to put together what had just happened. She knew her mouth was hanging open, “catching flies” as one of her more affectionate foster moms along the way had playfully called it, but somehow her surprise only increased when she took in the place’s exterior. She did know where she was, despite being at a loss for why she would have woken up there. This was the place where she had tracked her most recent skip last night.

Furrowing her brow in concentration - and admittedly trying not to consider how she had just slipped past a solid barrier and what that might mean - Emma attempted to pull up more from her memory than that. This newest skip had proven pretty slippery; both Ruby and her seductive honey trap skills which Emma didn’t even try to match, and Mulan with her fighting ability and clever moves worthy of her Disney namesake, had failed in previous attempts to bring the guy in and moved on to more productive marks before Emma took on the case. However, she was just stubborn and competitive enough to have wanted to bring in the skip who had become a thorn in the agency’s side; plus, as he kept evading them and the court date grew closer, the price for bringing him in kept climbing. Emma had been thinking just how she might enjoy the whole week off she could afford to take once she caught this scumbag as she’d sidled up next to him at the seedy bar’s pool table and batted her eyes. She’d still been thinking it even as the jerk brushed her off and left soon after, and so she’d followed him - quite stealthily, she believed - to this place later that night. Fine, if he wanted to play hard to get, she wouldn’t play gently either. She welcomed a challenge, and this avoided the awkwardness she had to extricate herself from once honey traps were sprung anyway.

Emma was realizing now, however, that maybe she had been a little too obvious, a little too preoccupied to see that her skip might have been onto her. Had he been suspicious of her from the start, and that was why he didn’t take the bait? Or, had he known what she was truly after the whole time?

The evening dark had been falling in that strange hour where one could still see outside but surroundings were obscured, shadows lengthened and a person sometimes had to squint to find her goal. She had almost hung back, after watching her mark slip in through the unmarked door of the abandoned house at the end of a rather quiet and rundown street in an outskirt suburb. But she’d spent too long tracking the loser - and she wasn’t about to admit any hesitance or unease. Clearly the guy now had either breaking and entering or squatting in his extensive repertoire, and he needed bringing in before he expanded to something more dangerous.

That was what she was telling herself after waiting an interminable twenty minutes and then climbing the rickety steps as she’d watched her perp do. She wasn’t trespassing anymore than he was, the house wasn’t in his name, and if anyone asked… here she tried the door to find it unlocked and opening as she quietly tried it - yep, she could say it was open.

Emma had just taken a steadying breath and inched the door open enough to enter, when she caught movement in her periphery. She tried to duck, wondering wildly if the culprit had been lurking behind the door, when something long and solid swung towards her head too fast for her to avoid. It felt as though the air cracked, then crumbled around her, and everything went black…

That was all she could bring up, no matter how doggedly she tried to remember what came next. After that shattering impact was simply… nothing. And with that sickening fact, Emma knew. She was dead. Some lowlife bail jumper killed her to keep himself from getting caught. Whatever she was hit with, it was done viciously enough to mean her end.

Feeling a tremble begin throughout her legs and arms, up into all her extremities, Emma tried to fight back the swell of emotion - anger, injustice, hurt, loss that clamored to the surface. If there were any justice at all, she ought to at least be free of feeling all the painful emotion she had spent her entire adult life roughly tamping down. But really, she shouldn’t even be surprised. This wasn’t the first time she’d paid the price for someone else’s wrongs - though apparently it would be the last. The blank unfairness of it was what truly got under her skin. Was she always doomed to end up this way? Sprawled out with a cracked skull in the entryway of some old, empty house, punished just for trying to make a living and her own way in the world while exacting a little much-needed justice? No one would even miss her or know she was gone until she didn’t show up to work Monday morning, ready to gloat and collect congratulatory muffins for bringing in the mark her colleagues lost.

As she passed back through the door (and no, that weird sensation of sliding without feeling past a solid barrier did not become any less upsetting or disconcerting) Emma saw the rough wooden board on the floor where her killer must have tossed it afterward and the dried blood - her own, she recognized with a shiver - that she had missed before. She didn’t want to stay there, but she felt pulled back to the upper floor where she had awakened. As if she was not meant to leave yet. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she just had nowhere else to go…

Head bowed in resignation, she mounted the stairs, but instead of going back into what had seemed a nondescript bedroom on her first glance, she moved on to the end of the hall. She seemed to have all the time in the world to rattle around this place, reflect on her loneliness and why she was still there. It couldn’t hurt to put off that depressing train of thought and find out what else was there.

Bypassing the room she’d exited earlier that morning, Emma moved toward the end of the second floor hall. Clearly the place had been empty awhile, dust tickled her nose more the more she moved throughout the house, but the color of the rich, deep wood floors, the tall ceilings and eye-catching nautical knick-knacks and framed pictures on the walls showed her the place was once well-loved and lived in with care and pride. By the time she reached the furthest door on the left, almost tucked into a corner of the house, Emma was curious in sprite of her strange situation and uncertainty.

Upon stepping in the room, Emma felt her mouth drop open once again, immediately captured by the sight of four walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, interrupted only by the large, cushioned windowseat under a huge picture window in the wall facing the door. There were books piled on the floor near the windowseat as well, as if to be in easy reach of whomever had sat there to read. Heavy, larger leatherbound tomes that appeared to be atlases or maps also rested on the impressive cherry wood desk in the room’s center. While all of this was stunning, with an air of warm invitation that had Emma blindly inching forward, none of the furnishings were what truly stunned her one more time in a past hour full of riveting surprises. Standing behind the desk, with back turned to the door and studying the wall of books with concentration was a tall, quite formally dressed, man.

At Emma’s rather stunned noise, the figure turned to look over his shoulder, looking at her with dark arched brow. The gasp that had just escaped her was sucked rather inelegantly back up her throat. The man - well, fellow ghost apparently, as she could hazily see the spines of books lined up through his broad-shouldered form - was the most handsome specimen she had ever seen. His stunning bright blue eyes threatened to again steal the breath the she supposed she shouldn’t possess to begin with.

Wow, that changed things.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

Surprised in the large library that had stood silent and empty for so many long, uncounted days, Killian Jones couldn’t help scrutinizing the fair haired lass standing on his carpet. The strange haze around her let him know she was a spirit, much as he had been forced to accept he was himself. Still, some nearly forgotten and rusty echo of his former flirtatious nature rose to the surface and her surprised gaze clearly studied him up and down.

“Well, hello there, beautiful,” he murmured, a crooked smile crossing his face as he drank in her blonde hair, sparkling green eyes, and generous curves in equal measure. “You aren’t some marvelous hallucination are you?”

Those sharp eyes rolled in exasperation, the stunned look finally leaving them as she shook her head and shrugged off the compliment. “Hardly,” she snorted, taking a few steps closer to him. “Apparently, I’m a ghost.”

Her words startled a huff of laughter from him with their droll humor. Reaching up to scratch behind his ear, he managed, “Not quite what you’d pictured, I wager?”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she allowed, seeming to understand her welcome and meandering over to sit facing him on the cluttered windowseat’s edge.

Killian allowed a wry grin of his own and nod of agreement. There wasn’t much else to say, but he did understand where she was coming from. It had been rightfully upsetting, earth-shattering, and confusing when he realized he was no longer living and breathing but still wandering the rooms of his house. He was sure there had been a lot of ranting, questioning, and items thrown against the walls before he had accepted his new reality. By that measure, this lovely woman before him was handling her sudden entrance to the afterlife quite well in comparison.

She looked up to capture his eyes with her own and he found he couldn’t look away again. Her face was open, searching, almost as though she were trying to take his measure and decide if he were trustworthy. When she seemed to make a decision and smile warmly at him, Killian found himself swaying closer to her almost unconsciously, rounding the desk to stand before her as though pulled by a magnet. Dipping his head in a sort of playful bow, he offered, “Forgive me, where are my manners? I’m Killian Jones. And you are?”

She reached out her hand to shake, unaccountably grateful that she was able to feel his larger fingers clasp hers without passing through, that she somehow still felt warmth and a zing of awareness at the contact, even if none of it made any sense. “Emma…” she replied, her voice going lighter and more thready than she’d like, “Emma Swan.”

“Hmm…” he murmured lowly, a rumbling hum that she felt along her arm as he brought her hand up to place a kiss on the back of it. “And just who are you, Swan?” he mused.

Swallowing hard, she dove in with the plain truth. “Just a stubborn bail bondswoman who went after the wrong skip this time,” she sighed.

His eyes registered the sadness, the disappointment and melancholy, the resignation to this fate slowly settling over her. He wanted to say it would get better with time, but time was now a funny, nonexistent sort of thing that was impossible to measure and not much help. Instead, he took in her features with understanding and tried to offer what comfort or cheer was possible against the self-doubt, blame, and ‘what-ifs’ beginning to hover. Not only that, they zeroed in on the broken skin, dried red and the purpled bruising at her temple, clearly the killing blow that had been dealt her. His hand reached up of its own volition to touch the soft hair above the wound, a tender brush of fingertips that Emma closed her eyes and leaned into with a relieved sigh. Almost as if he knew how very rare such concern had been in her life - maybe because it had been the same for him. Whatever the reason, they lingered there, two ghosts in the golden morning light through the picture window, drinking in the first real contact either had felt in far too long.

Something linked within them in that very moment - and everything changed again.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

It would have been funny; in fact, Emma would have laughed in the face of anyone who suggested - even a week before - that she would be killed on an assignment, end up a ghost, and then meet another ghost who would soon know her better than anyone had in life. And yet, within days she and Killian had shared more than she had ever allowed with co-workers, her handful of casual friends, even foster siblings when she’d still been a kid. Granted, she didn’t have much to lose, but it was more than that. She came to learn that Killian was more like her than she could have thought possible; orphaned as a child except for an adored older brother, that brother then killed in service of the British Navy just as Killian had been preparing to finish secondary school and join his elder sibling in service. Apparently the death had been some sort of accident during a routine exercise, and Killian had been awarded a healthy settlement as his brother’s only living relative, but naturally he hadn’t wanted the payout, just his only family back. Since that wasn’t the choice before him, he had taken the money, gotten out of England, and vowed to do something with it that would honor Liam and help someone else - even if it could do nothing for his own shattered heart.

That was how he’d come to befriend a frightened young mother and her infant son not long after he reached Boston. He’d been renting a motel room on a weekly basis until he figured out what he planned to do in the long run. He took a lot of long, aimless walks in the sharp, chill wind off the Atlantic, and one late afternoon he had stumbled into the public library, hoping to warm up, maybe distract himself a bit, and instead had found Belle sniffling as she attempted to read to a fussy Gideon where they were huddled in the children’s section. It hadn’t taken long for them to become friends; easily one of the best friendships he’d ever had. And in short order, Killian had known this was how he could use Liam’s money for good. He’d found a house, invited, then wheedled and cajoled, her to move them into one of the unoccupied wings and stay with him there. It was much too big for him alone he’d argued, and he needed the company, noise and bustle of even the smallest bit of family in his life. Belle had been hesitant, feeling it was too much, too good to be true, but trying to find a living and make a good, safe home for herself and her boy, while also staying unnoticed and under the radar of her wealthy and well-connected ex-husband was becoming more and more impossible. She’d assured Killian that the man had never been physically abusive, but emotionally and mentally he had left his mark. He had been a master of manipulation, had known the law and its loopholes, could afford the best attorneys money could buy and Kilian had not needed psychic abilities to see the woman was terrified he would come to haul her back - or at the very least take her little lad away from her.

That last admission had been uttered some weeks on in their acquaintance - or at least Emma thought it had been weeks, time was hard to measure when one was no longer on a clock and the days flowed from one to another in a similar stream - one night as they sat by a crackling fire in the hearth of the long unused den. Emma had shared a fair amount of her own scars by then. She had been curled up on the opposite end of the sofa, thinking that this would be the perfect occasion for a hot cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon, what had been her favorite way to unwind in the evening, and marveling at the good heart this man before her possessed, be it beating still or no. Not just anyone would have done so much, given so much of himself, to help a person he barely knew. Nor kindly helped a complete stranger like her adjust to her new reality beyond the pale either.

Suddenly it seemed like there was nothing else to do but to scoot across the sofa to the other end where Killian Jones sat still as a statue. The pain in his eyes, and blame she could see that he carried, broadcast over every line and shifting shadow of his face. Emma couldn’t help but bring her hand up to touch his cheek, to trace along his tightly clenched jaw as his eyes slowly dropped to follow the path of her fingertips, watching her intently as they continued to brush softly over his skin. Emma had wondered numerous times why she couldn’t physically make contact or grasp other objects but she could touch him. Why could they feel each other so strongly? Was it because they were both ghosts? On some other plane together? Or was it something else, something a less jaded person might call Fate or magic?

Whatever the reason, she was grateful for it as she held her breath, catching her lower lip between her teeth awaiting Killian’s reaction. She found every nerve alive and anxious as she watched him, caring more than she ever had about what someone else thought. Was that the key? For so many years in group homes, with foster families, even for a time homeless on the city streets, Emma had shut the world out. She had been born and grown up without the unconditional love and care all people should know, and the natural childish illusions about people’s selfishness or the world’s indifference had been stripped away far too early. Life had turned its back on her, and she had done the same in return. She had closed herself off from emotion and learned all too well that putting her trust in others made it easy to get hurt.

But now, in this old house, with this wonderful, vulnerable spirit before her - all the feelings she had shut off for so long were breaking free. She couldn’t hold them back, and she didn’t want to. She couldn’t really be harmed, wasn’t hustling to get by, and maybe that allowed the fear to recede enough to peak over the top of her walls. Maybe it was just that - despite only knowing him for a short time - she had never met anyone like Killian Jones when she was living. If only she had, she wouldn’t have been lost for so long.

He was blinking away a tear when her focus turned back to his face in that moment. Smiling back with a tiny, empathetic quirk to her lips, Emma brushed the escaped droplet from his skin, whispering, “He found them, didn’t he? Her ex? Even though you tried to keep them hidden…”

Killian’s head of thick, dark hair bowed, his eyes falling to their laps instead of holding hers. Running her fingers through the coarse strands, Emma ached to comfort him, to somehow lessen the weight he had lost hope of lightening. Whatever had occurred, it couldn’t have been his fault. He had only tried to give them shelter.

His voice was muffled when his forehead had come to rest on her shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around him, cradling him closer in an embrace more binding and intimate than any she had ever experienced. “I don’t know for certain, Swan,” he sighed, his words rough and coming forth in choppy fragments. “It has always seemed so… Both being expats, Belle and I came to enjoy tea… in the afternoons… I had come home early that day...had a new toy for her Gideon...and I - I couldn’t wait to show it to him. ...When I walked through the front door… I knew immediately….something was wrong… too quiet.. I walked into the kitchen… and the table was all set for tea. But the plate of biscuits was… strewn across the table… broken crumbs everywhere… and her - her favorite teacup was shattered on the floor…”

Emma tried to take in the devastation he must have felt, the panic and helplessness, all while making soothing noises, almost sorry she’d asked him as the story was wrung from his lips bit by bit. She kept holding him, hoping that her hand stroking over his back and her fingers brushing the hair at the nape of his neck could give some solace. She had never longed to fix someone else’s hurt more than her own. It was frightening in the desire’s intensity, but all she could do was hang on.

“I failed them both…” Killian husked, his voice even more soft and ragged than before. “Of course… I reported them missing… but the case came to nothing… no leads turned up. He got to them… just as she feared... “

She wished she could tell him otherwise. Her own unshed tears stung in her throat - both for the poor woman and little boy she felt as if she knew through Killian’s stories, and for his pain. Her chest ached with the anguish he had harbored for so long, feeling it as if it were her own. If she could take his pain onto herself and give him peace at last, she would do it without hesitation.

As if in response to her thought and the desire to lend her strength, Emma saw a starling light, nearly blinding her as it appeared over Killian’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away, but she squinted trying to understand what had materialized from thin air right in front of her. It looked like...yes, it was a door. There, where an archway normally lead from the den to the kitchen, was a simple grey door, but for the brilliant white light emanating from around its edges. It couldn’t be ignored for all its radiance, and it almost seemed to beckon her near, drawing her in.

Her eyes widening, Emma forced herself to turn away, breathing in Killian’s scent from against his neck, hoping that the masculine, spicy aroma he somehow still carried, even in his ethereal state, would reel her in as it had before. She knew what must be making itself known before her, and she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge what it meant.

Up until that very second, she would have sworn she wanted that door to appear, to pass through it and leave the cold bitterness of Earth behind. She wanted that door opening up for her to move on, but she just as surely wouldn’t leave Killian as she had been left so many times. She couldn’t abandon him.

For the first time Emma could remember, she didn’t want to change the way things were.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

She shouldn’t have thought the open door would escape Killian’s attention. The man was ridiculously intuitive and seemed to read her like the pages of a favorite book. She had not said a word, had turned back to him, focused on the muscle in his jaw working as he brought his emotions back under control, and managed to ignore the blatant signal beckoning to her until the glow dimmed and the door faded back out of existence. The archway between kitchen and den was just a curve of plaster and paint once more.

But as days passed, Emma coudn’t help worrying occasionally in unguarded moments if a person only got one door. Had she missed her only chance to move on? It wasn’t that she never wanted her peace and rest, or to know what was waiting on the other side. Yet, she couldn’t truly regret her decision either if the alternative had been leaving Killian alone, even if the consequences did trouble her mind.

So she wasn’t sure how Killian had figured it out the morning she came down the stairs to find him already in the kitchen gazing out the window over the sink and bathed in the rising sunshine. Maybe the man was genuinely able to read her mind. He was always able to tell when she entered a room, she conceded as he turned to face her, even before she stepped from the last stair. She felt him the moment he drew near her as well: an awareness, a prickling along her skin, the buzzing sensation of need and desire she had always resisted in life electrified by his presence. Maybe there was no hiding when someone was that close.

With the window and the sunrise at his back, Killian seemed almost outlined by a halo of gold. He came to stand at the counter facing her, and Emma moved to meet him, smiling easily. “Morning,” she offered in greeting, still fighting years’ worth of habitual impulses to start brewing coffee and digging throught he cupboards for cereal - sustenance that she no longer needed.

“Swan,” he’d spoken gently, calmly, but in a way that drew her up and demanded her focus. Reaching out his own larger hand to cover hers where it rested on the countertop, he went right to the heart of the matter. “Emma… what were you thinking?”

She shrugged, trying not to meet his eyes fully as she pretended she didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. “What do you mean?” she asked blankly.

He sighed, that apologetic depth of sorrow in his eyes making her swallow hard when he spoke again. “You saw the light at the end of the tunnel, didn’t you? Your door appeared… The evening we spoke of Belle and Gideon’s disappearance…” He paused, spearing her with the intense blue of his gaze and not allowing her to look away. He cupped her chin between his thumbe and forefinger, stroking along her cheek as he did so, the expression on his face begging her to help him understand. “Why didn’t you step through, Love… and go on to your reward?”

The worry and fear on his unfairly beautiful face showed that he already new exactly why she hadn’t, but he deserved the truth. Emma couldn’t give him anything less. Placing her hands over his, squeezing tightly with feeling, she leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “Killian, don’t ask question you already know the answers to,” she breathed shakily, trying to keep the tremble from her voice long enough to speak. “You must know, surely… it was you.”

His head back as he heaved a deep, rattling breath - breaking away from her as he did so. “I hoped I was wrong,” he admitted. “I don’t want to the reason. You shouldn’t be held back from your paradise because of me.”

For a moment his eyes wouldn’t meet hers as he struggled to regain control of himself. Then, he reached out to wipe the pad of his thumb over her cheek and brush the solitary tear she’d shed away. Not letting him have an out, Emma caught his eye once more. ��Paradise, huh?” she tried to tease weakly, desperate to make him smile. He was breaking her heart. “You think an awful lot of me, Buddy. We both know I was no saint.”

A huff of air escaped him that might have been a disgruntled laugh in spite of himself, but he pulled her into him, almost clinging to her for several long minutes before finally breathing in her ear, “Nonsense, Emma. You were meant to be an angel. Don’t give up your peace on account of me.”

She hugged him back, but made no such promise. They would have to disagree on that, and he knew it too. They were both too stubborn to change their minds, so days went on and they went back to almost-normal without speaking of it again. Emma simply had to hope he understood. She didn’t want to argue with Killian, or to ignore his wishes. And she did want to go through her door as well, but when the time was right. She realized now that would have to be when they could both go throught it together.

~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~*~~~*~~~~

It had been March when she’d met her fate in the quiet old house, and she and Killian had drifted through the spring and summer and early autumn, growing ever closer to each other. They had sat on the porch for long hours talking without getting too hot or worrying about bug bites or sunburn; spent evenings curled together under one quilt in the large windowseat of the library watching lightning flash across the sky and thunder roll on August nights. As September came, they snuggled under the comforter on the bed, her head resting on his chest, her ear over his heart as though she could still heart its beat. If she had thought before that she couldn’t leave him, there was no way she could even imagine it again.

There was a chill in the air the September afternoon a thick, cream-colored envelope landed on the front porch, addressed with Killian’s name and a Ms. Belle French scrawled in top left corner. Emma heard the soft sound of the thick paper landing on the proch slats, and didn stop to question how it had gotten there, why the ghost resident of an supposed abandoned house was receiving mail again, but had hurried to where Killian reading in the library, letter in hand.

A more lovely autumn day had never been than when a slant of later afternoon sun lit Killian’s face as he scanned the letter’s contents, a smile dawning over his countenance as if he coudn’t believe the words before him on the page. “They’re alright,” he murmured, half to himself and half to her. “They got away… thought I should know.” His eyes continued to skim over the handwritten lines quickly, but his beckoned her close, and stunned smile on his face and light in his eyes that did Emma’s heart good. She could see the guilt and the hurt he had carried lifting from his shoulders with each passing second as she came to perch on the corner of the desk at his elbow. “They didn’t want me to have to harbor a secret… just missed the people who trashed the house that day, and didn’t want to continue putting me in danger…”

He shook his head in disbelief and then stood to sweep her up in his arms, spinning her around as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe, finally, he didn’t.

It was only as Killian set her back on her feet again, as he picked up her hand to kiss the back of it tenderly, and she hummed in contentment, swaying closer to him that a warm inviting light touched the side of both their faces. Turning as one, Emma recognized the sight that had graced her vision once before, but Kiliian’s eyes widened before turning to hers. “Is that…?” he breathed, hope and uncertainty and awe blending in the question as it trailed off on his lips.

She nodded, no words coming to her that she could speak past the lump in her throat.

“Well, then, Swan,” he smiled with the beauty and joy of a man whose heart was free at last. “What do you say we embark on a new adventure?”

“I’d follow you anywhere,” she said with a certainty she felt to the bottom of her soul. Clutching his fingers in her own tightly, she walked with him toward the door wreathed in light that had appeared in middle of the bookshelf. As long as she didn’t have to let go of Killian’s hand.

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi

@jrob64 @apiratewhopines @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @xsajx

@teamhook @revanmetra87 @bluewildcatfanatic @jonesfandomfanatic @motherkatereloyshipper

@spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly

@booksteaandtoomuchtv @anmylica @xarandomdreamx @undercaffinatednightmare @everything-person

@bdevereaux @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @drowned-dreamer

@kday426 @myfearless-love @eastwesthomeisbest @resident-of-storybrooke @goforlaunchcee

#self promo sunday #cssns20 ff #for once don't let go #cs modern au one shot #cs as ghosts #cs angst

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jrob64 · 9 months ago

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Here we go with the roundup for the 2020 CSSNS event! With so many great stories and artworks, there's bound to be something for everyone! In the past four years since this event, many stories have been updated and completed, so be sure to check them out.

This event has been blessed with talented writers and artists who deserve all the love you can send them!

The roundup for 2021 will post on Wednesday.

We’re here!!! *SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY* It’s time for the CSSNS20 Roundup!!!!

It has been quite a ride y’all…

I just want to take a moment here at the beginning of the post to thank everyone who has ever been a part of this event from 2018 to now. Y’all are the ones who made this event what it is and I cannot be more grateful to have had the privilege of manning the helm for the past three years. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!! There’s been too many participants over the years to name everyone, but I have to give a shoutout to my personal support team and the mods from all three years. Each one of them has contributed in innumerable ways and this event never would have happened without each of them and their contribution. @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @katie-dub, @thisonesatellite and @profdanglaisstuff. Thank you so much ladies!!! I never could have done this without you all!!!

Now that the event is over, I want to let everyone know that I will be inviting other supernatural fic to the collection over on ao3. When I first started reading fan fiction, I stumbled across the Black Swan and Red Hooks Collection, a collection for smutty fics, that continues to grow today. I want to do the same thing with the Supernatural Summer Collection. As more supernatural fics are written, I will invite them to the collection.

We are now at the close, and it’s time to round up all the wonderful fics and art that we’ve been blessed with in this year’s event. At the end of the post, I’ll highlight all the fic from previous years that have also updated this summer. Active MC’s will continue updating until they are finished. And without further ado, HERE WE GOOOOOOO!!!!

Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

Keep reading

#cssns20 roundup #cssns #captain swan supernatural summer

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eastwesthomeisbest · 4 years ago

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I’ll be Waiting For You by the Blood Moon 8/11

Chapter 7

And here are the artworks to join the seventh chapter of the amazing story written by @cocohook38 for @cssns (@kmomof4 )

/Prologue/ /Chapter 1/ /Chapter 2/ /Chapter 3/

/Chapter 4/ /Chapter 5/ /Chapter 6/ /Chapter 7/

Also in AO3

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wistfulcynic · 5 years ago

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The Eternal and Unseen (4 of 4)

‘Tis the end! Finally! I am sorry this took so long, but I could not get my mind to focus on this chapter, for weeks and weeks and weeks. Thank you all for both your patience and your willingness to stick with me all the way to the end of this decidedly weird story.

to @optomisticgirl and @spartanguard for the prompts that got it all started and @carpedzem for the art that still makes me sigh each time I look at it. And @thisonesatellite, @ohmightydevviepuu, and @katie-dub, without whom I would surely never get anything written ❤️❤️❤️

SUMMARY: Misthaven University is an ancient place, and as all ancient places do it guards some secrets. Secrets such as Emma Swan and Killian Jones, a fae princess and her royal guardian, whose true identities are well concealed behind the guise of average college students—if not quite well enough to foil the plot their enemies have hatched against them. Now their friends will have to come together, putting their own differences aside to battle an enemy that threatens them all—fae and vampire and werewolf together… plus one very baffled human named David.

For @cssns

AO3 | tumblr part one | tumblr part two | tumblr part three

PART FOUR:

The forest was dark, a deep, impenetrable blackness unlike anything Regina had ever known, a bold and mocking defiance of the golden glow of the moon hanging low above the treetops. The moonlight gilded the forest shadows as it would solid objects, caressing their curves and edges, its bright contrast only deepening the darkness within. Every instinct Regina possessed howled at her to flee and yet she walked steadily and at a measured pace, giving no outward sign of her unease as she made her way through the trees—even as their branches hissed and snapped at her as she passed and vines slithered up from the ground to wrap around her ankles and and tug at her clothing with their thorns.

Regina ignored all of this, her head held high and chin tilted in a show of haughty insouciance she desperately wished to feel. This was her moment of triumph and she really ought to be enjoying it more. She should revel in it, but instead she felt nothing but a churning apprehension deep in her gut.

At length she arrived at her destination—the clearing that still held their tools and copies of the fae histories, along with the cage of branches, roots, and vines that contained her mother and sister. Regina took a moment to look carefully around the clearing then lifted her hand and murmured an incantation. The cage rent itself as though sliced by a sword, sending Cora and Zelena tumbling to the ground, stunned and momentarily immobilised, their limbs limp and useless from being bound for hours.

They lay groaning faintly on the damp and upturned soil until Zelena dragged herself to her hands and knees and lashed out with a burst of magic. “Traitor,” she hissed, flinging a bolt of sizzling green at her sister.

Regina deflected it with a casual flick of her wrist. Zelena’s eyes bugged as she watched her magic fizzle to nothing in the deep darkness and then her fury exploded. With a howl she scrambled to her feet, teeth bared, and gathered her magic again.

“How dare you,” she hissed, raising her hands, green light crackling between her fingertips.

“Zelena.” Cora’s voice was calm, measured, and glacially cold. “This is not the time.”

“Mother,” Zelena whined, “she betrayed us!”

“Did she?” replied Cora, fixing Regina with a piercing stare. “I think not.”

Regina smiled and waved her hand again, and from out of the stygian shadows a figure stumbled, both bound and propelled by cords of Regina’s magic.

“Ah,” said Cora with satisfaction. “The fae princess, in our hands again.”

“Not only that.” Regina withdrew a small object from her pocket and held it up for all to see. “She has the dark magic.”

“No!” cried Emma, her eyes flashing fury as she struggled against her magical bindings. Zelena looked at her sharply as Cora’s mouth fell open in awe.

“Is this it?” she breathed, taking the object from Regina and stroking it with trembling fingers. “Is this truly it?”

“It is,” Regina confirmed. “They call it the tywyll stone.”

Cora held out the stone to Zelena. “Daughter?”

Zelena took it and gave it a skeptical look. “Are you sure this is it, Regina? The most powerful dark object in the world? It looks like a cheap hippie trinket.”

“Why, Sis,” replied Regina silkily. “Can’t you sense its power?”

Zelena’s expression turned sullen. “It does appear to contain a great deal of power, Mother,” she said. “More magic than I’ve ever felt in one object before. Far more.”

Regina grinned smugly.

“It just doesn’t look like much,” Zelena snapped.

“A perfect disguise, then,” purred Cora. “Excellent.” Her smile was ice and razors. “It seems you’ve done well, Regina, despite your constant whining.”

Regina preened beneath her mother’s approving gaze as Emma struggled harder against her restraints. “It was easy,” she gloated. “They were so eager to believe me.”

“For all my life my mother has been obsessed with my magic.”

Regina sat hunched in an armchair near the fire in the common room, a steaming cup of tea clutched in her hand. Behind her was a mirror, a tall one set with rippled glass and framed by slender, twisting vines twined together to form a series of knots. It was Harriet who had brought it into the common room, carried in vines of her own. David tried not to stare as she adjusted the mirror so all in the room could see it then curled herself around Emma’s chair as they sat and listened to the dark-haired woman’s story. He wondered how Harriet had managed, being cooped up in Emma’s dorm room for so long, and felt a wave of guilt for being the cause of her confinement. One of her fronds hovered near his knee and he offered it a tentative stroke. It curled welcomingly around his fingers. David smiled, making a mental note to find a way to make it up to her.

With the smile still on his face he returned his attention to Regina. As she spoke the glass in the mirror had turned cloudy, and when she now paused to gather her words the clouds resolved into the image of a woman, cold and terribly beautiful, and with a smile that sent a shiver down his spine. Was this Regina’s mother?

“She discovered my powers early,” Regina continued after a bracing gulp of tea. “As soon as they manifested. It’s like she was—waiting for them to appear.”

“How early is early?” Emma asked.

“I was… four? I think?”

Emma nodded. “That seems about right.”

“It was later in my sister,” said Regina. “I don’t think hers showed until after mine did, though she’s almost three years older.” Her lip curled. “One of the many things she holds against me.”

Snow bristled. “It’s hardly your fault!”

“Zelena doesn’t see it that way,” sighed Regina. “She’s always seen us as being in competition with each other. In everything, not just magic.”

“Is Zelena Mountain Tribe by any chance?” asked Emma.

“I don’t actually know,” Regina replied. “I don’t think even Mother does. She doesn’t like to talk about Zelena’s father.”

The image in the mirror grew cloudy again and then shifted, resolving into the same woman as before though far younger, deep in conversation with a tall and slender red-haired man. They all watched as she took his hand and pressed it low against her belly, and they all saw comprehension dawn in his eyes. For an awful moment the mirror focused on his face, frozen in utter horror, and then the image faded.

“Mountain tribe,” confirmed Emma grimly. “Unyielding and slow to forgive. Vengeful.”

“That sounds like Zelena.” Regina turned her attention from the mirror with a grimace. “Her father left before she was born and she’s never forgiven me for it.”

“But—that’s not your fault either!” Snow sputtered in indignation and appeared to have far more to say on the subject, but Emma silenced her with a look.

“Her father left,” she said softly, “but yours stayed.”

“Yes.” Regina’s voice was nearly a whisper. “Though I’ve never understood why. My mother never loved him and I know he didn’t love her. I have no idea what kept him with her for so long, but she must have had some sort of hold over him. He gave in to nearly every demand she made, without even a protest.”

“Nearly every demand?” echoed Emma.

Regina nodded. “All except one. He wouldn’t let her become part of his tribe. Not when she begged, not even when she threatened. That was the one thing she most wanted, her ultimate goal, but no matter what she did to try to force his hand he always refused. He cut off all contact with his kin rather than allow her any foothold among them, and he never budged on that, no matter how many tricks Mother tried to get him to change his mind. It was a constant battle between them and I was always so afraid…” Regina swallowed hard. “Every morning I expected to wake up and find him gone, but he was always there, ready to take another day of her abuse. I wish I knew why he stayed.”

The clouds in the mirror swirled into the image of a man, short and round and with the same tree branch marking his daughter bore, just visible beneath the cuff of his shirt. He stood in the doorway of a darkened room, leaning against the jamb and gazing into it with an adoring expression. The image shifted to reveal the object of his gaze—a young girl asleep in a bed, her dark hair messy on the pillow.

“He stayed for you,” said Emma. “He adored you. He couldn’t bring you to the tribe because that would give your mother the right to follow and claim a place among them as your kin. He couldn’t let that happen but also he couldn’t bear to leave you. He stayed with her for you.”

“Oh!” Regina gasped as she stared into the mirror, blinking hard against the tears in her eyes. She stared until the image faded, then she gave a sniff, wiped her cheeks with the cuff of her jacket and continued. “My father was the only source of comfort in my life,” she said hoarsely. “But then one morning my worst nightmare came true. I woke up and he was dead… Mother said he had been sick for a long time and had hidden it from me, but I knew, I knew she had killed him. That was the day she told us her plans for taking control of the Black Fairy’s magic.”

At these words a heavy silence fell on the room. Each face was grim, David saw, and each was shaken. Even Killian. Even Emma.

“Us?” asked Snow, in a small voice. “Who else?”

“Just me and Zelena. I lost my father, met my half-sister, and learned of my mother’s plan to take over the world, all in the same day.” She gave a slightly hysterical laugh.

“Met your half sister?” Snow demanded. “Didn’t you know her already?”

Regina shook her head. “Apparently when she met my father, Mother left Zelena with some distant relatives and pretended that she had no children. She never told me I had a sister, though it seems she visited Zelena regularly and told her all about me. So on the day my father died, before I’d even had a chance to mourn, Zelena appeared, hating me before we’d even met, knowing all about Mother’s plan and fully on board with it. Both of them just expecting me to fall into line and go along with it. And since that day I haven’t known which way to turn.”

Regina looked up at Emma, desperation in every line of her body. “What they want to do is madness,” she whispered. “I’ve tried so hard to tell them but they won’t listen to anything I say. They think they’re the only ones to read the fae histories and work out the clues about the Black Fairy’s magic. Like no one else in four thousand years has ever picked up on them.” She gave a haughty sniff. “But my father showed me the truth.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. “He showed you your visions?”

Regina gulped hard then nodded. “I’ve never told anyone that before. He swore me to secrecy. He said the consequences of Mother finding out would be unthinkable.”

“What did you see?” asked Snow.

“The history of our tribe in the war against the Black Fairy. The writing of the Covenants. Enough to understand Mother would never succeed in her goal of finding the Black Fairy’s magic and using it for herself, though nothing about where that magic was actually kept.”

“Almost no one sees that,” Snow told her reassuringly. “None of us had any idea it was with Emma until Killian showed us the tywyll stone.”

Regina gasped and gaped at Emma, wide-eyed. “So it really is you,” she breathed.

“Yes,” said Emma slowly. “Didn’t you know?”

“No.” Regina’s mouth thinned. “Mother has no idea what she’s looking for or who has it. But everyone knows that Andersen Hall is where the fae students live”—David gave a start and felt his cheeks go pink—“and so she took a chance that one of you would either have it or know where to find it.” Her mouth curled in a small smile. “I have to admit it was gratifying to see you defeat her so easily, though I doubt she’ll learn any lessons from that.”

Emma’s face wore a thoughtful expression. “But why now?” she asked. “And why this move? Given that your mother is so badly prepared and so ignorant, why is she taking such a risk on drastic action now, when she could bide her time and learn more before acting?”

Regina gave her a sharp look. “Oh I think you know the reason. Princess.”

Emma smiled. “The moon.”

Regina nodded. “The moon.”

“I told them you had no magic and they laughed at you,” Regina informed her mother. “They thought it was hilarious, the foolish human attempting what no fae has been able to do in thousands of years.”

Cora’s jaw tightened and her eyes flashed fury. “They will rue the day they underestimated me,” she hissed.

“Of course they will,” Regina agreed. “If anyone was ever going to rue anything, that would be it.” Zelena gave her a sharp look, but she met her sister’s suspicious eyes with cool composure.

“Did she tell you anything more about what is required? Any fae secrets or hidden dangers?” Cora demanded.

“No.” Regina shook her head decisively. “Everything we need to know is in the histories. The ritual as we planned it will release the magic from the stone. She’s basically confirmed it.”

Cora’s lip curled triumphantly. “And what have you to say to that, Princess?” she spat. “About a lowly human so easily discovering your secrets?”

“Curse you,” snarled Emma, struggling frantically against her bonds. “Curse all of you. But especially you, Regina. I trusted you. I was going to help you! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”

Regina’s eyes made an exasperated sort of half-roll and she huffed a sigh before fixing the smug expression back on her face. Zelena’s eyes narrowed. Cora cackled.

“It’s a hard lesson you’ve learned,” she gloated. “The first of many hard lessons the fae will learn when I have control of the dark magic! Oh yes, then you’ll see! Then you will know what it’s like to be powerless! Then you will give me what I deserve!”

Emma’s expression shifted from fury to fear. “Stop this!” she pleaded. “I’m begging you! Don’t release that magic! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Your Highness,” spat Cora. “You heard Regina. We’ve studied the histories. We know your secrets. And now we will break open this stone and the dark magic will be released!”

She turned to her elder daughter. “Zelena, you know what to do.”

“Mother, are you sure?” Zelena asked. “I think they might be—”

“Do it!” Cora snapped.

“Please!” cried Emma again, raising her voice to be heard over the rustlings and whisperings emanating from the forest around them, growing steadily louder as Zelena reluctantly began the ritual to remove the magic from the stone.

“Do you hear that?” Cora crowed. “That is the sound of this forest greeting its new master!”

Zelena cupped the stone in her palms and held it up above her head to catch a slender shaft of moonlight that had fought its way through the dense dark of the forest. She began murmuring low under her breath as the glow of the moonlight met the shimmer of the stone to shine more brightly than either could alone. She continued to murmur as Emma struggled and Cora quivered with eager triumph. A buzzing noise filled the clearing, low at first but slowly rising, filling their ears with the sound of a hundred bees and then a thousand, their bodies vibrating in concert with the sound until the air was rent with an earsplitting crack—and then silence.

Zelena cried out and dropped the stone, stumbling backwards and landing hard against a tree trunk, her eyes wild and fixed on the spot where it had fallen. Where now an oily rope of magic began to rise up, coiling through the air, as black as the forest shadows but distinct from them in a most unnatural way, a way that would turn the most stalwart stomach.

“At last!” Cora shrieked. “At last! After all these years it is free! It is mine!”

“Free it may be but yours it is definitely not,” said a voice in her ear, and Cora turned to see Emma, unbound by magic and smiling a smile that froze her blood.

“Wh—what?” she gasped.

Emma gave her head a small, pitying shake. “I warned you not to release that magic.”

“As I was saying before,” said Emma, “it’s the timing. She has to act now because she might not get another chance. Because of that.” She pointed at the window to the left of the fireplace. A tall window in the arched Gothic style as all Andersen windows were, within which the heavy golden moon was perfectly framed.

“The full moon!” exclaimed Ruby.

“Exactly.” Emma nodded. “But it’s not just any moon. Belle!” she called out, and the ghost resolved in front of the fireplace. “Why don’t you explain this part.”

Belle’s faint image solidified, though the flames of the fire behind her were still perceptible through her form. “Right,” she said, looking a bit nervous at the number and intensity of the eyes staring at her. “So as you all know, tonight is Calan Gaeaf.” Every head but David’s nodded.

“Um—” David cleared his throat. “Sorry, but—I don’t?”

“Oh, right, sorry.” Belle gave him an apologetic smile. “Calan Gaeaf is the traditional first day of winter in fae culture. It’s the one day of the year when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest, when spirits roam abroad, and of course when magic is at its most potent and most accessible.”

“So, Halloween,” said David.

Ruby gasped and Graham growled. Victor stood straight and reached for his scalpel, and August’s eyes flashed red. Emma hissed and Killian’s jaw went hard as iron. Belle looked horrified, Snow sorrowful. Even Regina fixed him with an icy glare.

“You were raised among humans, mate,” said Killian tightly, “and taught their ways, and so we’ll let that slide. This one time.” He swept the room with a glare and the others slowly relaxed. “But that is one word that must never be spoken in the presence of fae. It’s incredibly insulting.”

“I—” David began, but he had no idea what to say.

Emma gave him a small smile, though temper still flashed in her eyes. “It’s an appropriation of our culture,” she explained. “Misrepresentation of it. Vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies—these are human inventions intended to erase the fae from their culture. They ignore what we are, our nature and our history, and turn us into cutesy children’s stories or simplistic monsters ultimately defeated by human ‘heroes’.”

“Though they’re more than happy to use our magic when it suits them,” Victor added, for once without a hint of mockery in his voice. “Human medicine and science, even their technology either makes use of fae magic or is based on it. But we’re never given any credit for our contributions.”

“And more and more we’re marginalised in the human world,” added Snow. “We either have to hide what we are so we can live peacefully among you, or live far away from human settlements. Something that’s become next to impossible the more your cities grow.”

“It’s why we choose to live here,” said Graham. “Here at Andersen we can at least be ourselves, and have each other for company. We have to out ourselves of course—”

“Though some of us never bothered to do much hiding,” retorted Ruby with a glare at August, who simply shrugged and muttered something about riding the wave of the zeitgeist.

“We have to out ourselves,” continued Graham loudly, “and some of the other students are scared of us—”

“Or just flat out don’t believe in us,” said Snow.

“Or basically pretend we don’t exist,” said Ruby.

“—but it’s worth it, to have this place for ourselves,” concluded Graham.

“Although we do occasionally have to, um, encourage certain RAs to switch to other dorms,” said Emma.

“Walsh?” whispered David, and a mutter went up around the room.

“That asshole,” sneered August. “He was the worst of them all.”

“You’re one of us,” said Emma, “even if you didn’t know you were until this morning. We were so exited when Killian recognised you.”

“Though we didn’t think it would take quite so long for you to pick up on all the hints we’ve been dropping,” said Ruby.

“Yeah, we haven’t exactly been subtle, David,” Snow teased.

“Look you guys, when my grandmother put a spell on someone, she put a spell on them,” said Emma. “It’s not his fault.”

“It might be a little bit his fault,” said Killian with a smirk.

Snow reached out and patted David’s hand. “It’s not his fault he didn’t know about the H-word, though,” she said.

“That’s true,” Killian conceded, and they all nodded.

“I’m sorry I said it, though.” David’s chest was tight as he looked around the room and made eye contact with each of them, one by one. “I won’t again.”

The lingering tension in the room drained away and they all visibly relaxed. Emma gave Belle a nod and indicated for her to continue.

“So Calan Gaeaf is always a particularly powerful magical time,” Belle said. “And this year even more so. This year Calan Gaeaf coincides with a blue moon—that’s when there’s a second full moon within one calendar month,” she explained before David could ask. “A full moon on that day is rare enough, but a blue moon is far rarer. And a blue moon that is also the Hunter’s moon, falling on the one day of the year when dark powers are easiest to access? Well, that’s—”

“The perfect time for an attempt to release the Black Fairy’s magic,” said Emma. “Really the only time that a human woman and her amateur daughters would have any hope of managing it. Er, no offence,” she said to Regina, who had bristled at the word ‘amateur.’

“None taken,” said Regina stiffly. “It is true we haven’t had the benefit of the education you’ve had.”

Emma flushed. “No, I guess you haven’t,” she acknowledged. “Sorry.”

“But—do they have any hope of managing it?” asked Snow. “I mean, really?”

“They shouldn’t,” Emma replied. “They don’t have the knowledge or the authority. They don’t even know that they need authority. But a blue Hunter’s Moon on Calan Gaeaf makes the situation very different. The mother may have no magic but Regina and, er—”

“Zelena.”

“—Regina and Zelena are powerful, despite their lack of training. It’s actually just their kind of raw, untapped power that Calan Gaeaf makes stronger. If they try to force the magic from the stone, just brute power applied like a sledgehammer… well, it might work. It has a good chance of working, in fact.”

The room fell silent again, silence that David felt weigh on his shoulders and press the air from his chest. “So what are we going to do?” he burst out.

Emma smiled, a smile that spread slowly across her face and sharpened the green of her eyes. A smile that if you saw it approaching you on along a darkened path would send you hurrying back the way you came, trying desperately not to look like you were hurrying. A smile that took no prisoners.

“We’re going to let it work,” she said.

“I warned you,” said Emma now, eyes glowing that same sharp green beneath the golden moonlight.

“But what—h-how?” stuttered Cora. “Regina? You—you let her go?”

“I never had her,” said Regina coolly. Cora turned to stare at her daughter and found Regina ready with magical bonds, real ones this time, which she wrapped securely around Cora to hold her in place.

“How—how dare you!” Cora hissed, struggling vainly against the restraints.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” said Regina. “I truly am. Sorry that you spent your life being envious of others and pursuing something you could never have. But this plan of yours? It was never going to work, and at least now you won’t destroy yourself and us too.”

“But it did, it did work!” Cora cried. “I found the dark magic! I released it!”

“You did,” Regina conceded. “But you could never have controlled it. Look at it!”

The rope of dark magic was still rising from the broken stone, splitting apart and branching out, filling the clearing, hissing and spitting as it swirled around them, dodging Zelena’s increasingly furious and haphazard attempts to corral it.

“You unleashed powerful dark magic with no consideration for the consequences, and were it not for your daughter’s good sense you would have been its first victim,” said Emma coldly. “Instead, we’re going to save you from it. Oh no”—she held up her hand as Cora moved to speak—“no need to thank us.”

Cora gave a furious huff—though there was dawning horror on her face as she watched the magic swirl around them—and Emma turned to Regina with a nod. “It’s time,” she said.

Regina squared her shoulders. “I’m ready.”

Emma began muttering under her breath as she raised her hands high and then flung them downwards, as though to embed a a dagger in the ground. Puffs of silver smoke burst up from the earth, a circle of them around the clearing. The puffs appeared to startle the darkness; its oily tendrils recoiled when they appeared and when the last wisps of smoke whirled away into the night Killian was there, lip curled in a snarl and sword drawn… Snow with her bow at the ready… David behind her, sword in hand and trying to look like he knew what to do with it… Ruby in wolf form snapping her jaws… Graham in the shape of a panther, sleek and deadly and near-invisible in the shadows… August flickering in and out of vision, fangs extended and eyes glowing… Victor with several steaming beakers at his feet and a mad gleam in his eyes.

Cora’s own eyes were wild with fear but she made one last attempt at bravado. “What, all this for me,” she scoffed, with a wheezing attempt at a laugh.

“Oh, Mother.” Regina’s voice was thick with pity. “Do you still think this is about you?”

Without warning the darkness lunged, snapping its thick and curling tendrils at the assembled fae like lashes of a bullwhip. They leapt into defence, slashing with swords and teeth and claws at the dark magic—all but Zelena, exhausted from her earlier struggles, who was caught up around the waist and roughly shaken. She shrieked with fury and with agony, tearing at the darkness that held her. Killian leapt forward, his sword describing a glittering arc in the moonlight as it sliced through the tendril to free her. Zelena fell to the ground in a heap, screaming as the dark magic still coiled around her sputtered and fizzled against her skin. Victor appeared at her side, faster than it would have seemed possible for him to move, armed with a smoking beaker. This smoke he wafted over Zelena’s writhing form and the darkness dissipated, slinking away from Zelena and leaving her panting and exhausted on the forest floor.

Killian fisted a hand in the front of her coat and hauled her up, slamming her back against a tree. “You have a decision to make,” he snarled in her face, so close their noses were nearly touching. “Fight with us, or let the darkness swallow you whole.”

“I’ll take my chances with the darkness,” Zelena spat. She clenched her fists and burst of magic exploded from her chest, knocking Victor off his feet and dropping him flat his back in the dirt. Killian, as all Guardians would be, was unaffected.

“What!” Zelena roared in fury and reared back for another attack. Killian raised an eyebrow.

“I’d save my strength if I were you, love,” he said, stepping back to clear the way for the dark magic. “You’re going to need it.”

The darkness howled as it wrapped once again around Zelena, tightly enough to muffle her screams, and Killian turned his attention back to the clearing. The dark tendrils were everywhere, whipping and writhing in their ancient fury, attacking through whatever opening they could, barely held at bay by the valiant efforts of his friends. At the centre of it all stood Emma, feet planted firmly and arms open, surrounded by an almost blinding glow of light. As he watched, a slender strand of darkness, deftly evading Ruby’s snapping jaws, made a lunge for her and Killian—though fully aware of Emma’s ability to defend her own self—dove in and cleft the tendril in two with his sword. He landed hard on his shoulder, carried the momentum of the fall into a forward roll and sprang back to his feet, whipping the sword up behind him, poised and ready once again to defend Emma to and with his dying breath, whether she bloody well liked it or not.

Emma stood still and silent as chaos swirled around her. She forced herself not to heed it, to trust her friends and Killian to do what they had to do to hold the dark magic at bay until she was ready with her own. She closed her eyes and focused her mind, concentrated on the magic within and around her. Not on the darkness of the forest but on what surrounded it—the magic of the trees and the earth and the moon above.

The darkness continued to attack on every front, spreading around her and reaching out, trying to touch her, to claim her. Killian stalked in a circle around her, his sword a blur as he sliced at the magic, while Victor flung the contents of his beakers, Snow shot her enchanted arrows, and Graham and Ruby ripped with teeth and claws.

Emma saw none of it, heard none of it. She felt only the magic, rising up and coursing through her, pulled from the moon and all the plants and creatures of the forest. It filled her with its light and its power, and then she raised her hands to the sky and began to sing.

David paused from where he was hacking away at the tendrils of magic—there hadn’t been time for Killian to do more than teach him a few basic sword-fighting moves before Emma called them to the forest, but he was doing the best he could with what he had—and turned to stare at her, his jaw dropping in awe. Her song he was astonished to discover he recognised; it was the one he had heard in his vision, sung by Emmas ancestor, Arianrhod, four thousand years before—the same language set to the same melody. And yet David, though he did not understand the words, could sense subtle alterations in pitch and phrasing that he began to realise had transformed the ancient tune into something very new indeed.

Arianrhod had called the darkness to her and forced it to heed her will, imprisoned it in the tywyll stone for all eternity, or so she had intended. The darkness was angry now, restless from its long confinement and out for bloody vengeance—David could see that plainly in the way it fought and clawed to get to Emma—yet the song that Emma sang made no attempt to stifle or recapture it. Instead she appeared to be… letting it go?

The dark tendrils froze as if in wonder, staring at Emma—if indeed magic could be said to stare—and then slowly, slowly, the thick black ropes began to soften and unfurl, uncoiling themselves into ever more slender strands… the merest wisps of magic by the end, wisps that whispered away on an unseen wind and vanished into the night.

The final note of Emma’s song rang sweetly through the trees and through the shadows beneath them that no longer held any hint of menace. It lingered in the air and when at last it faded Emma opened her eyes and smiled.

“It’s done,” she breathed, echoing again the words of her ancestor. “It’s done.” She drew a deep breath and released it in a sigh of profound relief—and then her knees went out from under her and she collapsed to the ground. Killian dropped his sword and leapt forward to catch her, cradling her gently in his arms as he lowered her to the forest floor.

“Swan,” he said softly, then again more harshly as she tried to speak but couldn’t, as her eyelids fluttered shut again. “Swan!” Killian choked. “Emma… Emma, no, no!” He clutched her to his chest as her body went limp, shaking her gently and calling her name until Snow and David managed to pry him away.

Victor came forward and knelt beside Emma, the look on his face uncharacteristically solemn. He felt her forehead and her cheeks, then pressed his fingers to her wrist to take her pulse.

“She’ll be okay,” he said, rising to his feet again. “Jones, listen to me. She’ll be okay.”

Killian swallowed hard and nodded. “She’ll be okay,” he repeated faintly. “But—will she? You’re certain?”

“She’s exhausted,” said Victor. “Drained of almost all her strength. She can survive that but she needs rest and restorative potions. We have to get her back to the hall, as soon as possible. There’s no time to lose.”

“How—” Killian’s voice broke “—how can we get her back in time, it’s at least an hour’s walk and that’s without having to carry her—”

“I can take her.”

They all turned to Regina, who flushed under their scrutiny. “I can take her,” she repeated. “I can transport her by magic, the way she did with you.”

“Are you sure?” Snow asked. “Have you ever done that before?”

“No, but I saw what Emma did and I’m a fast learner.” Regina’s eyes were terrified but her jaw set with determination. “I can do it.”

“You’ll have to take me too,” said Victor. “I know what potions to give her, and where she keeps her supplies.”

“O-okay.” Regina gulped. “Okay. I can do that.”

Killian shook off Snow and David and sank to his knees next to Emma’s prone form. Gently and with trembling fingers he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, my love,” he murmured. “Until then you fight, do you hear me, Swan? Fight, and don’t give up.” His voice broke again and he brushed his fingertips over her cheek.

“I love you,” he whispered, almost too softly to be heard, then pressed a kiss to her forehead and stood swiftly, striding over to where he had dropped his sword. “We’ll take care of everything here,” he said, picking it up and sheathing it at his hip with brusque, determined movements, “and meet you back at the hall.”

Regina nodded. She inhaled deeply then raised her hand, muttered some words under her breath, and flung her hands towards the ground. Three puffs of dark red smoke rose up, and when they dissipated she, Victor, and Emma were gone.

It wasn’t until three hours later that the rest of them finally arrived back at Andersen. The dark magic was gone from the clearing—or not gone, not really, not as such, Snow had attempted to explain. It was more that it had been returned… to the plants and the soil and the air itself, from which the Black Fairy had stolen it all those centuries ago.

“It’s back where it belongs,” Snow said. “It won’t harm us anymore.”

But there was still Cora to contend with, who despite still being bound in her daughter’s magic did not, as they say, come quietly.

Nor did Zelena, once they found her—not torn apart by the darkness as Killian had feared but huddled in a hollow log, eyes burning with madness and snapping at anyone who attempted to approach her. Her magic crackled wildly from her fingertips and sparks of it skittered across her skin and between that and the shrieking none of them were able to get near her.

In the end they managed to lasso her with a vine, identified by Snow as one that would be strong enough to hold both Zelena and her magic. “I don’t have magic of my own like Emma does, but I do have a certain touch with birds and plants,” Snow explained, as a flock of forest birds assisted them in wrapping the vine around and around Zelena, securing it with strong knots until she was thoroughly immobilised.

From there, they just had to drag her and Cora back to the dorm.

Once the two women were locked in the dungeon (“The what now?” David almost hollered, to which Killian replied with a smirk “Did you really think there wouldn’t be dungeons, mate?”) the group made their way back to the common room, to fall gracelessly onto the sofas and chairs and think wistful thoughts about hot things to drink.

David could see the tension in Killian’s body, the set of his shoulders and jaw drawing tighter the closer they got to Emma’s room, the strain of the anxiety and fear he’d been holding at bay since she had collapsed in his arms. He strode straight past the common room to her door and swallowed hard before giving a tentative knock.

Victor opened it and draped himself against its jamb. “You took your time,” he snarked, but Killian was in no mood for verbal sparring.

“How is she?” he demanded. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Just as I said she’d be.”

“Can—” Killian cleared his throat. “Can I see her?”

“Well,” Victor smirked, “That depends on—”

His words were cut off by a blur of green—Harriet’s vine, wrapping around his neck and giving it a squeeze, a thorny leaf hovering with intent just above his head.

“Yes, yes, go,” Victor rasped, “go see her!” Harriet released him and he clutched at his neck, gasping for air as Killian elbowed him out of the way and hurried into the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Victor retreated into the common room, still rubbing his neck. “She’s fine,” he repeated, meeting the glares of his assembled dorm-mates with a shrug. He cleared his throat. “Regina transported us perfectly and I was able to get her the potions in more than enough time. She’s weak and needs rest but she’ll be fine.” He settled himself into an armchair and gave Snow an expectant look. “You know what would really hit the spot right about now?” he remarked, apropos of nothing. “A nice cup of your whisky apple tea.”

Snow rolled her eyes but she made the tea—for all of them, and David had to admit that it really did hit the spot. It was sharp and sweet and soothing, and it warmed him to the tips of his fingers and toes.

Snow settled down next to him with her own steaming cup, and he regarded her hesitantly as she sipped. “Um,” he said, after a rather long silence, “this may be a dumb question, but—no, scratch that, it’s definitely a dumb question but I’m going to ask it anyway.”

Snow looked amused. “What is it?”

“Couldn’t Killian—back in the forest, you know��couldn’t he have just, er, kissed Emma? To make her better? Or is that a human idea?”

“True Love’s Kiss?” replied Snow. “No, that’s a real thing. But it’s really just for magical afflictions and Emma wasn’t cursed or anything, she was just exhausted. Using that much magic takes a lot out of a person.”

“It killed her ancestor,” said David quietly.

“Yes.” Snow smiled at him, soft and full of empathy. “But fae healing has advanced a lot since then, and Emma knows her limits. I know it was scary back there, her fainting like that, but she’s smart enough to know how much magic she can handle before it’s too much.”

“So she’s really going to be okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure she will.” Snow smirked. “Victor’s bedside manner may leave a lot to be desired, but he’s actually a pretty skilled healer. And Emma’s potions are second to none.”

David shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s been less than twenty-four hours since—well, since all this,” he said, waving his hand to encompass the room at large. “I’m still not certain it isn’t all just a very weird dream.”

Snow laughed. “Sounds like someone could use another cup of tea,” she teased. “But in all seriousness I imagine it will be a tough adjustment for you. It can’t be easy finding out that everything you thought was true isn’t quite, and what you are is very different to what you thought you were.”

“Er, yeah,” chuckled David. “That.”

“You know,” said Snow, dropping her eyes to her lap, where her fingers twisted nervously around her teacup. “If you ever need someone to talk to about it, you can always come to me. Anything you need, I—I’m here. Just ask.”

David swallowed hard and nodded. “We could start with that tea,” he said gruffly.

Snow smiled. “Tea it is.”

David Nolan was no longer surprised by people’s reactions when they learned he was the Resident Assistant for H.C. Andersen Hall at Misthaven University. If anything, he thought, they should be far, far more afraid than they were. If they knew the things he did, if they had any inkling of the secrets the hall contained… well, they would do a lot more than just twitch nervously at the mention of its name.

A lot more.

“Just a Halloween prank gone a bit too far,” he stated firmly when the Chancellor summoned him to his office, to inquire hesitantly and in a quavering voice if David had any idea what had caused the peculiar conflagration of smoke and light that other students had reported as coming from the forest in the early hours of November the first. “Shenanigans. You more than anyone, sir, must know how crazy students can get on Halloween.”

“Er—yes.” The Chancellor fiddled with his pen, his eyes darting between David’s face and the wall just over his left shoulder. David gave him a bland smile. “Hallow-halloween. Yes. Shenanigans. Indeed. That would appear to be a perfectly plausible, um, explanation. Er, thank you for coming in, Mr Nolan.”

“No problem,” said David jovially. “If there’s anything else I can do for you just let me know.”

The Chancellor nodded and David stood to go. His had was on the doorknob when the Chancellor spoke again.

“Er—Mr Nolan?”

David turned. “Yes?”

“About the, um, the forest. You haven’t happened to notice anything, erm, different about it? Since, ah, since Halloween?”

David shook his head, his expression guileless. “No, sir, I can’t say that I have. Why? Have you?”

“Ah, no, um, just, er, a report or, ah, two,” stuttered the Chancellor. “But they must have been, um, mistaken… thank you again for, ah, coming in…”

“Of course.” With another bland smile and a nod David left the office.

In actual fact, he reflected as he strolled home through the bright and frosty November morning, the forest had changed, and quite a lot. Gone was the sense of eerie menace that had always lurked among its grey-green trees, the creeping tension that hovered between the shoulder blades of anyone who ventured too far into its depths. The trees stood taller now, and straighter, their leaves rustling in playful breezes and dappled with the bright yellows, reds, and oranges of autumn. The birds who nested in their branches sang happier songs and Emma predicted that come springtime there would even be flowers venturing to poke their colourful heads above the soil.

“Balance,” she’d replied with a shrug when he asked her how it could be that releasing dark magic back into the world actually made that world lighter. “Everything needs a balance of light and dark. The Black Fairy took away the dark magic and the light couldn’t balance without it, so it retreated, hid away to protect itself, and left the forest a sort of empty, dead place in its absence. So by restoring the dark we also brought back the light.”

“To balance it,” David murmured, nodding. He gave Emma an appraising look. “Did you know that’s what would happen?”

“I was almost certain,” she replied with a grin. “My ancestors thought the darkness needed to be contained so it could be guarded—so no one could ever use it for their own ends again. I was raised to believe that was the only way to protect the world and I did believe it, until—well, until I admitted to myself that I was in love with Killian. That forced me to take a hard look the things I’d been taught, and for the first time to wonder why? Why couldn’t Guardians and their charges be together? Where was the harm in it? And once I started questioning the so-called wisdom of the ancestors, I found I couldn’t stop.” Her mouth twisted in a wry expression. “Turns out challenging authority is addictive, and so is that word ‘why.’ Why did we shroud the tywyll stone in such secrecy? Why did we even have to have the tywyll stone at all? Then when Cora came along with her plan to release the magic, I thought well, why not? Calan Gaeaf and the blue moon made it possible for her to release it but she would never be able to control it—no one could. The Black Fairy was more powerful than any fae before or since, and it’s unlikely anyone will ever again be able to replicate her magic. So, I thought, why not just let the darkness go? Put it back where it came from, where it’s needed. And if ever another person comes along and tries to harness it the way she did, well, this time we’ll know how to handle them.”

David shook his head. “But you were only almost certain that would work?” he teased.

Emma laughed. “Nothing’s ever completely certain when it comes to magic,” she replied. “I was as sure as I could be.”

They were silent for a moment before David spoke again. “There’s one more thing I’d like to ask, if that’s okay,” he said.

Emma’s eyes twinkled. “Only one?”

“Well—yeah, okay I have a lot of questions, but only one for now.”

“Hit me.”

David chose his words with care. “Killian—he told me, after I woke up from my second round of visions, that H.C. Andersen wasn’t the original name of this building. That it was renamed in order to, er, erase the fae from the university’s history.”

“That’s correct,” said Emma. “Is that your question?”

“No. I was just wondering… what was the original name?”

Emma smirked. “Prifysgol y Tragwyddol a'r Anweledig,” she replied.

“Er—what?”

She laughed. “University of the Eternal and Unseen,” she translated. “It was built to be a place where fae magic and human science could come together. To enhance each other, and to build great things in harmonious collaboration. Or that was the idea, at least.”

“I’m sorry that’s not how it turned out,” said David.

“Eh.” Emma shrugged. “Eternity is a long time, and trends come and go. Even social ones like fae-human relations and attitudes to magic. Who’s to say that some day this building might not be known by that name again, and serve out the purpose for which it was intended?”

David recalled another thing Killian had told him, and the penny dropped. “That’s what you and Killian are planning, isn’t it?” he said. “To bring fae culture out of the past and into the twenty-first century. To forge something new. New ways to interact with humans, maybe?”

“Well look at you, all clever with your deductions,” she teased. “You’re right, that is our plan. Time will tell if anything actually comes of it.”

“Well, whatever comes I’m on your side,” declared David. “You know that, right? I mean, I may not have had the chance to be your official Guardian but I’ve always felt a sort of—well, like a call almost. To keep you safe. And I want to help.”

Emma smiled, a soft smile glowing with affection and pride. “Even my grandmother’s magic wasn’t strong enough to wipe the Guardian out of you completely,” she said. “You’re a good man, David Nolan. I’m glad you’ve found yourself again. And that you’ve found your way here to us, for now and for the future.”

Later that evening they all came together around the fire in the common room, sharing spiced apple cider and hot tea and some crispy golden cookies that Emma called cacennau enaid. David sat on a sofa with Snow tucked against his side and observed the scene around him.

Around a small table Victor and Graham sat, along with Regina—who would officially enrol at the university for the spring semester and in the meantime had elected to remain at Andersen, a circumstance into which the Chancellor had declined to probe too fully—all three deep in conversation about Victor’s latest experiments with electricity and anatomy. Ruby was near the fire chatting to a remarkably visible Belle and tossing the occasional barbed comment in the direction of August, who lounged in an armchair parrying her verbal blows with a cool nonchalance that David was certain must be at least 80% feigned. He knew by now that Ruby and August—in keeping with the werewolves and vampires of their human-tale counterparts—would never be friends. Nor would either one admit how much they both enjoyed their rivalry.

Emma and Killian sat on the other sofa, curled together with his arm around her waist and her head tucked into his shoulder, their hands entwined and resting on Killian’s knee. His fingers tangled in the ends of her hair as he whispered in her ear, words too soft for any other to hear but ones that made her blush and snuggle deeper into his embrace.

David smiled as he surveyed the room then gathered his courage and took Snow’s hand, twining their fingers as Emma and Killian’s were. She looked up at him in surprise, then a happy smile curved her lips and she relaxed against him, resting her cheek on his arm.

David sighed in supreme contentment. Andersen Hall, he thought. Definitely the best gig on campus.

—

A note about language: All of the non-English words in this story, including the names of Emma’s ancestors and the other fae ancients, are Welsh, a language I do not speak. If there are any Welsh speakers out there in the fandom, ymddiheuriadau dyfnaf, I did my best ❤️.

#cssns #cssns20 #cs fic #cs ff #cs ff au #magical au #captain swan #college au #fae lore #magic in the forest #a big scare but a happy ending #the eternal and unseen #profdanglaisstuff

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teamhook · 4 years ago

Photo

AO3

FFN

Okay, so this is it guys! I’m so excited. I want to thank the @cssns and my lovely patient amazing beta @ultraluckycatnd and I could never ever forget my artist @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 because she is awesome!

Belle and Will arrives in Storybrooke the next day. They are promptly met by Rioga Mary Margaret and her husband David.

Mary Margaret smiles fondly. "We insist you stay with us. There's no better place for you and your companion."

"Oh, no, I couldn't impose. The visit is so sudden," Belle counters; she has no idea if they are privy to any details about their visit.

David's blue eyes study the pair. He knows the visit has to do with Killian. Part of him wants to know the details, but he knows there is a reason they weren't informed of all the details.

Belle and Will share a look that was all too common between couples that shared the bond of True Love.

Will leans into Belle's space. "Lass, I don't think this is a good idea."

David scoffs. "Mr. Scarlet, it doesn't take wolf ears to hear your disagreement with accepting my wife's invitation. Look, let's show our cards. We know you are here at the request of Killian Jones. That is the reason we are willing to look the other way. You two will come and go as you please, no questions asked."

Mary Margaret and Belle look on as the men talk.

Belle says softly, "I'm truly sorry, we're only here to help. Sadly, I cannot share more than that."

Mary Margaret gently pats Belle's hand. "I understand, we both do. We have learned to trust Killian and Emma's gut. If they feel it's better for us to not know the full details of your visit, we accept that decision."

Belle smiles. "Thank you."

"However, I do insist on offering our hospitality; it would be safer." Mary Margaret raises a brow.

Belle sighs. "Alright. we accept."

Will turns to look at Belle, shakes his head, and is met with narrow eyes. He mutters, "bloody hell."

Hidden away, the Norn observed the Savior and the wolf, the familiarity remaining between the pair. She had watched them inspect the location she had told him about. She had wanted to find him there alone, but he had shown up with her. This was more difficult than expected. She needed the Savior out of the way; perhaps a deal was in order. The Norn smirked wickedly. It seems a trade was in order to satisfy her needs.

Emma and Killian aren't surprised at Emma's parents' hospitality towards Belle and Will. Killian is conflicted because the plan was to keep the Royals out of the equation, but he had to admit it was the most secure place in town.

Will and Killian talk in hushed tones, their voices barely a whisper that they have no trouble understanding because of their wolf hearing. They had decided to go on a tour of the woods to find exits and to figure out the best way to enter the Norn's lair.

Will wants to just bust in and go for the vial, but Killian tells him they have to be smart. Will is not happy when Belle sides with Killian after they discuss the options.

Emma is silent; her gut tells her that Killian is right. They need to be smart, but she wants it over with too. She is a little reckless herself.

Will scoffs. "I know how to bloody plan a heist. I've done it before, and if I may add, I'm good at it. You came to me mate. If you didn't think I could pull it off, you should have chosen a different thief."

Killian runs his hand through his hair. "Scarlet, I'm not saying you can't do it or aren't good enough, but that hag is not like anyone else you have crossed. If you get caught, she could easily turn you into some sort of weed." Killian looks at his friend. "She will turn you into a Thistle or something, and we will not be able to confront her without admitting to knowing the reason you were there."

At night, Will dresses quietly. He opens the door to his room. He looks out, the hall is dark but quiet. He smiles and exits.

Once he reaches the woods, he sheds his clothes and transforms. His wolf takes over as he runs to the Norn's home.

He sniffs around and takes a careful step in front of him. He enters the home without any problems. He shifts back to his human self. He is going to need thumbs. He carefully walks around naked. No noise or creak is heard. He smiles as he opens the cabinet. He whispers to himself 'there you are'. He is about to get the vial but before he does that, he notices a small vial with a hair not far from it glowing dimly. He thinks, interesting. Both vials have a similar glow to them that might go unnoticed by someone with regular sight. He finally goes to grab the vial. His wolf guides him to the correct vial, butas he is about to grab it, he is interrupted by a tsk.

"Tsk, tsk. Aren't you a bad pup? Don't you know stealing is not an honorable profession? I'm afraid I'm going to have to teach you a lesson." She throws a vial at him.

Will freezes in place, his quick reflexes failing him.

The woman approaches him. "What am I going to do with you? Hmm." She goes to the cabinet with a smirk in place.

She looks at Will up and down. "You know, I'm in my right to do whatever I choose to do to you, thief. The possibilities are endless." She walks around him. "Should I take something precious away from you? Or perhaps turn you into something? Decisions, decisions. Will you tell me why you decided to rob me? Or are you willing to take your punishment alone?"

Will glares at her.

Emma wakes up in a cold sweat. She gets out of bed, her shirt drenched. She grabs her phone from the nightstand and automatically dials Killian's number.

He answers on the first ring. "Emma, is everything alright?"

She sighs. "I just wanted to hear your voice. I have a bad feeling."

Killian stays quiet.

"Love, I made a promise to you. We will find a way."

"I know, I just can't shake this feeling that something is going to go wrong and I will lose you all over again."

"Love, you will never lose me. I love you. I know things are different right now, but we will find our way. I feel it."

Emma sniffles. "I know. I just can't shake this feeling. We are not going to let her win."

"Aye, I know."

"So, do you really think this plan will work? I like Will, but he is a little reckless."

Killian laughs. "He is reckless, and that's the reason I thought he would be a good choice for the job."

"Alright, if you think this will work, I trust you. I know you have all this experience in plotting and stuff but sometimes you just have to take a risk," Emma says.

"There's my reckless girl. Love, we need to have hope."

Emma snorts. "Now you sound like my parents." She smiles to herself. "So today, Will is going to break in. How will we get her to leave?"

"We could tell her we need to discuss the fact that the trees near the toll bridge are dying. She will jump at the chance to do something about it."

"Hmm, who would have thought the Norn was a nature nut?" Emma snorts.

"Aye, that's part of her. That's the reason she lives in that old tree trunk. Think of her as Mother Nature."

Belle wakes up and quickly dresses. She goes to knock on Will's door, but is met with silence.

She knocks again. "William, are you decent?" She waits for a reply and nothing. She slowly turns the doorknob and enters the room. She looks around; the bed is made and it is eerily quiet. Will is not the type to be so neat. She mutters, 'damn it' and bolts from the room.

Belle finds Emma's room after asking one of the staff. knocks hurriedly.

Emma opens the door and is surprised to open the door to what appears to be a distraught Belle.

Belle enters the room. "Emma, Will is not in his room and I don't think he slept on his bed." Belle is walking circles around Emma.

Emma closes her eyes. "Do you think he went out to clear his head, maybe have a drink?"

Belle turns to Emma. "He doesn't like to drink while on the job. He enjoys his rum like Killian, but not when he is working."

"Do you think he went out and tried to pull the job by himself? With no backup or with the Norn in her home. Is he that reckless?"

Belle smiles. "He is that reckless and I think he felt we had no faith in him. He would do something like that to prove himself."

Will laughs at his predicament. The hag had sneaked upon him, he didn't smell her. She was a tricky one and he had learned that the hard way. He was tied up with some sort of vine, but at least she had dressed him. It was humiliating enough being caught with his pants down. He looked around. She hadn't decided on his punishment yet. He would not snitch, though. He rhythmically moves to test the restraints. He could try a transformation but the hag was crazy; he has no idea if the vines have an enchantment or something else. He takes a whiff and there is no scent. He sighs; maybe he should have listened to Jones.

"Tell me pup, are you ready to talk?" the Norn asks.

Will huffs. "Lass, I'm a thief and I just wanted to be able to claim I stole from the Norn. That's all, bragging rights." He spits and glares at her.

She stares him down.

Will smirks.

"Alright pup, have it your way. But you will have to wait. I have pressing matters to attend to." She smiles sweetly and goes to her cabinet.

Will tries to see what she is doing.

"Ah-ah, no peeking pup." A magical barrier blocks his view. She grabs the vials that she had been using for her glamour potion. This will be her last attempt. The hair was almost gone. She mixes the ingredients and twirls the vial as it turns to a glowing shade of gold. She drinks it. Her hair turns strawberry blonde and her eyes became blue. As she took in her appearance, she shrieks in anger. It didn't work! She didn't look bad, but it was not the image she wanted, and it was the last of the Savior's hair. This was her last attempt, so it had to work. She had been thinking of ways to lure the Savior back to her lair and offer her a deal.

Emma and Belle had come to the same conclusion: Will had gone on the heist alone. Emma had suggested for Belle to go get Killian and they would meet in the woods.

Emma sits in her car waiting for Belle and Killian to arrive but she was starting to feel restless. What if by the time they got there it was too late for Will? She thought to herself 'idiot', but she couldn't blame him. She was annoyed at all the huffing and puffing about strategy and all that shit. No, she is done with that Hag. She gets out of her dad's truck with a chainsaw in hand and starts making the trek back to the Norn's house.

Emma finds the old tree easily and with a smile on her face, she turns on the chainsaw. She's about to take a swing at the tree with the chainsaw when she is thrown back by an energy ball.

Emma stumbles back and drops the chainsaw. She stands up, shaking off the unexpected attack ready to face the old Hag, but is instead met with a young woman with strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Hello, Savior. Surprise!" she says as she readies for another attack. "Are you here for the pup?"

Emma shakes her head. "I'm here to take back something you stole."

"Isn't that something. I have a pup waiting for his punishment because he wanted to steal from me, and now you're here to take back something that was offered to me in exchange for saving your life, might I add."

The Norn eyes Emma. "Savior, I shouldn't make an offer, more of a deal really, but I'm willing." She lowers her arms to show there's no threat.

Emma stares at her with a raised brow. "A deal? I don't think so. After the way you tricked Killian? Who did you trick for their youth, because last time I was here, you didn't look like this."

The Norn laughed. "Oh, thank you for noticing, Savior. I look good, don't I? But we're not here to talk about how good I look. I said we could make a deal in exchange for your wolf's love passion. You drink this," she says with a smile on her face as she taunts Emma with the vial.

Emma looks at the purple-ish liquid. "What about Will?"

"Oh, is that the pup's name, Will?"

Emma's eyes blink as she points at the vial in the Norn's hand. "What is that?"

"A simple potion. You willingly drink it and all your problems go away. Your wolf gets his love passion back. The thief, Will, goes free, and no one knows your mother's part in this mess. Do you accept?"

"What will happen to me?"

"Nothing nefarious, you simply sleep."

Emma eyes the vial. "How do I know you will keep your word? You tricked Killian after all, and if I'm sleeping, how will I know you kept your end of the deal?"

The Norn smiles. "Ah, you would have to take my word."

Emma laughs. "How about you let Will go and he can take Killian's love passion with him. Once I know they're safe, I drink your purple thingy."

The Norn paces for a second. "How about I let the pup go with the vial but as soon as they're out of sight, you drink the 'purple thingy' as you so delicately put it. Remember that wolves are fast. Deal or no deal?"

Emma's mind drifts to Killian. He did this for her, so why not make the same kind of sacrifice for him? He was worth it. She smiles and extends her hand. "Deal. I want to see Will and the vial free from you before I put this to my lips."

The smile that graces the Norn's face should give her second thoughts, but she braves on.

"My, my Savior. You have no idea how happy you have made me. Alright, come with me." The Norn waves her hand and the tree trunk transforms into the entrance to her home. They walk in and soon, Emma's eyes land on Will sitting in a chair with vines holding him still.

"Now, pup, Will is it? Alright, your savior here has made a deal in exchange for you, and this." She opens a cabinet door and holds up the vial. "Is this what you came to steal? It doesn't matter now, does it?"

Will's eyes land on Emma while he is shaking his head. Emma simply smiles and mouths the words 'I have to, I love him'.

The Norn waves her hand and the vines drop to the floor. "Alright pup, here. Take this with you and go."

Will hesitated for a second after grabbing the vial and transformed as he ran, holding the vial carefully in his muzzle as he makes his way through the woods.

The Norn turns to Emma once Will is out of sight. "My part is done, now it's up to you. Drink it."

Killian and Belle arrive at the point they were to meet Emma. Killian takes one look around. "Bloody hell." He starts running as he sheds his clothes. Belle is running after him as fast as she can.

Killian has a good start and now has picked up both Will and Emma's scent. He picks up speed, his heart feeling an urgency to get to her.

As soon as Will is out of view, Emma takes the vial and drinks it.

Emma drops to the floor unceremoniously and the Norn kneels next to her. "Ah Savior, your wolf will get his passion back, but it will not be for you. He will fall at my feet, or should I say, Eloise Gardener's." She smiles at her work. When she is about to wave her hand for the tree to provide an eternal coffin for the blonde Savior, she is pushed away from her by a wolf she would recognize anywhere. The blue eyes hold her in place and with a snarl, he transforms back. He drops to his knees next to the Savior. As his tears fill his eyes, he carefully pulls her in his arms and lowers his lips to the crown of her head as he takes her in. "What have you done, you bloody reckless woman? You will be the death of me," he whispers to her. "I love you, I will always love you." He kisses her lips in a chaste kiss that emanated a rainbow light that spreads out, causing an explosion as the tree trunk breaks apart by the force of the light magic. The Norn, blinded by the light, stands in place as her magic escapes her and transforms her into a snag.

Will had run into Belle as they felt the wave of magic hit them. He transforms instantly. He gets up and looks for the vial, only to find it broken. He mutters, "Bloody hell, what was that?"

Belle had fallen backward by the impact but rose up without a problem. "Ouch. I don't know, but I don't think it was anything bad. I mean, I don't feel it was dark." She sighs. "Will, why did you not wait for us? Did Emma find you?"

"Aye, and she made a deal with the Hag. And you all think of me as reckless. I told her not to, but she is a stubborn one. Belle, how am I going to tell Jones I lost his love passion after his love made a deal to save it?"

"What do you mean?"

He shows her the broken vial. "The impact of that magic broke it."

Belle sighs. "Oh no."

Will finally realizes he is naked in front of Belle after he notices she isn't maintaining eye contact. Bloody hell. He looks around for something to cover himself with.

Belle smiles timidly as she points at Killian's discarded clothes. "I think you can wear Killian's. He shifted as soon as he noticed Emma missing. Do you think he got there in time?"

"I don't know. Come on, let's find out. I'm sorry for making this worse." He looks down as they walk back to the Norn's place.

Emma opens her eyes slowly. Killian is holding her so close to him. She breathes him in. "Hey, what's wrong? Who died?" She smiles as she pushes him away to see his face.

His eyes widen and he gives her a big smile. "Bloody hell, woman. Are you trying to kill me? Why don't you ever listen?"

She snorts. "I never do and you love me for it. So what happened here?"

Killian looks around and it seems like a bomb had exploded. He scratches behind his ear. "Darling, I don't know. I thought you were dead and I kissed you and then-"

"True Love's Kiss!" A voice says, startling them.

Emma and Killian look at the source, only to find Belle and Will.

Belle smiles. "This is a rare magic, so it makes sense. Emma, you are the Savior, and you and Killian share True Love."

Emma smiles. "But he doesn't have his love passion, so how?" Her eyes land on Will. "Do you still have the vial?"

Will turns away. "It broke when the impact of that blast hit me. I fell and the vial fell out of my muzzle as I transformed back. I'm sorry."

Killian looks down and he turns to Emma. "Love, I think that it's back. I-" He blushes., "I'm having thoughts and urges that I have been lacking as of late."

Emma looks at him with disbelief. "Are you sure?"

He laughs. "Aye, I'm sure. I want to show you just how much I love you."

Emma laughs and tackles him, kissing him all over the face.

Belle and Will clear their throats as they leave them alone.

"So you really like me, huh?" Emma teases Killian.

"Aye, I do." He smiles lovingly.

The smile fades from Emma's face as she looks around. "What happened to the Norn?"

Killian looks around as well and spots an eerily human-like tree that has a stench he is familiar with. The smell is diluted, but he would recognize it anywhere. "Love, I believe that is her."

Emma gets close to the tree and smiles. "Alright, how about some firewood?" She goes looking for her chainsaw which she finds on the floor. She lifts it up and when it starts after a couple of tries, she gives Killian a wink and chops down the tree with a wide smile on her face.

A few weeks after the disappearance of the Norn, Will and Belle leave to return to Sherwood Forest.

Killian and Emma return to their normal life and in a quiet moment, Killian gets on one knee and asks the love of his long life to be his wife, who simply replies, I thought you'd never ask. With those words, their happy ending begins.

tagging:

@rumdrum91 @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @hookedonapirate @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @seriouslyhooked @profdanglaisstuff @let-it-raines @revanmeetra87 @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @kymbersmith-90 @branlovestowrite @thejollyroger-writer @shireness-says @ilovemesomekillianjones @thisonesatellite @thesschesthair @winterbythesea @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @thislassishooked @shardminds @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @laschatzi @wellhellotragic @xemmaloveskillianx @courtorderedcake @pirateherokillian @optomisticgirl @darkcolinodonorgasm @sherlockianwhovian @andiirivera @djlbg @nikkiemms @jennjenn615 @scientificapricot @officerrogers @imlaxdris71 @therealstartraveller776 @kday426 @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @donteattheappleshook @spacekrulesbians @lassluna @carpedzem @captainodonoghue @killian-will-do @jarienn972 @tehgreeneyes @demisexualemmaswan @queen-serena88 @swanslieutenant @tiganasummertree @whimsicallyenchantedrose @bethacaciakay @ohmakemeahercules @jrob64 @klynn-stormz @mariakov81 @sals86 @elizabeethan @brooke-to-broch @hookedonhiddles @onceratheart18

#Captain Swan #cssns20 #cs ff #CS Crew #cs mafia

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jarienn972 · 4 years ago

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La Sirena - Chapter Nine

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer

We're nearly to the completion of this little @cssns tale but we’re not quite there yet. This chapter started to get really long so I decided to break it up and create a bonus epilogue chapter that will wrap everything up! Writing my first complete AU has been quite the challenge, as well as quite a learning experience. Thank you, @kmomof4 for all of your encouragement and beta assistance along the way! And thank you, @courtorderedcake for the beautiful artwork that has graced every chapter.

So here we are at huge turning point. Poseidon sided with Emma and intervened to stop Regina's evil "test" but is there a future for our heroes or did rescue come too late for Killian this time? Catch up from the beginning at AO3 or FF.net or on Tumblr: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight

*********

The immediate threats may have gone away, but Emma knew the ordeal was still far from over. Regina's menacing presence no longer lingered over the bay as a pleasant breeze ushered away the remaining dark clouds and the dulcet melodies of the songbirds returned to the trees, yet she couldn't relax. She scarcely noticed the school of colorful fish darting to and fro around her as she swam for the shore. Her attention was singularly focused.

Gentle waves lapped at Killian's motionless form as he lay prone in the damp sand. Morphing back to human legs, Emma clambered awkwardly out of the shallows, crawling her way up to the shore to reach the injured human. Her eyes were welling up with tears as she feared her efforts may have been for naught.

Please, let him be alive, was the only thought on her mind as she reached for his arm, tenderly caressing bare skin exposed beneath the torn black silk. Angry red welts covered his upper arm where the kraken's suckers had latched onto their victim, and while Emma was apprehensive about moving him, she also feared that if he were still breathing, he'd suffocate if she didn't turn him over.

She placed her right hand behind his head and gently cradled it against her palm as she used her left hand to lift his torso slightly and roll his limp body toward her, allowing his back to rest upon her knees. His eyes were closed and barely fluttered when she brushed away the sand that marred his face, noting quickly that the sand was covering up the bloody evidence of his reopened head wound.

"Stay with me," she pleaded. "Stay with me, Killian…"

A weak moan and a dribble of sea water escaped his throat, reviving her hopes as she lowered her head over Killian's and pressed her lips against his bloodstained cheek. Her golden tresses draped across his face as if to shield him from the world as she momentarily forgot that they were being watched by the god of the seas.

"Can you save him?" she implored the deity who'd remained offshore. "Please don't allow all of this to be in vain! Please don't allow Regina's hatred to win!"

"Emma, my realm is the sea, you know this," Poseidon reluctantly reminded her. "Nothing I do can save the life of a human if it is their time. Only my brothers, Hades, ruler of the underworld, and Zeus, supreme ruler of Olympus, could intervene, but I am fairly certain that neither is likely to be interested in the fate of a single human."

A despondent Emma wasn't about to take his deference as an answer.

"But it is not fair! If not for Regina's interference, Killian would have been fine. He would have survived and…"

"And?" Poseidon interrupted her. "He would have survived to be trapped here on this cove with you. How long before he longed for his own world again? Would he have felt imprisoned here with only an immortal siren for companionship? I'm not trying to be unkind, but truthfully, what is best for this young man?"

"Certainly not death," Emma rebutted angrily, her emerald eyes staring intently at Killian's unconscious visage as she challenged the deity. She didn't understand why this one human's fate was so important to her, why he held such a tight hold on her after so short a time… "Why would he be allowed to escape the sirens only to die from Regina's awful conduct?"

The god sighed and shook his head as he lowered his trident to his flank. "Ah, Emma… You remind me so much of my Ursula…" He tread a little further into the shallows before pushing himself up atop a large boulder, curling his glistening platinum tail around the rock and scratching at his beard as he formed his next words inside his head. "Like you, she possessed a compassion towards the human race that I failed to understand for many centuries. It wasn't until that fateful day that the first human sailed beyond the isle of the sirens that I ever had reason to converse with one. I confronted that man, trying to determine what ruse he'd employed to get past my protections and what I discovered was a young man who was simply trying to return home to his ailing mother.

"That man had fought through attacking enemy ships and fierce sea creatures until he was the sole survivor on his vessel. He'd tried in vain to return to his homeland, but he wasn't yet a skilled sailor and had navigated himself in circles before crossing into our realm. He knew who I was the moment I appeared before him, and I could sense his fear and reverence. He was a humble man with a good heart, and it was that humble, pure intentioned heart that my daughter sensed and eventually fell in love with. She urged me to aid the man's return to his land but after being gone so long, there was little left for him to return to. He banded with a few survivors and formed a new village on an island near our realm, eventually marrying my daughter.

"The reason I'm telling you all of this, Emma, is that you clearly felt that same compassion because, like Ursula, you sensed this man's good heart. I never believed it would be possible for a siren to sense such emotion, but from the day you separated yourself from the council, I have known that you were different. A creature birthed to enchant and entice humans to their death wasn't intended to possess compassion - let alone the emotion you're feeling right now."

"And what might that be?" she asked with a sniffle while shifting her position ever so slightly so that she could see Poseidon's face.

"You've fallen in love, Emma, and that is a most powerful emotion."

"Love?"

"It's what is driving you to want to protect him. It may perhaps be part of the instinct that compelled you to rescue him in the first place. But I say that with the warning that I can not promise whether the emotion is reciprocated. Only he can answer that question."

"Is that the reason for these tears? Are sirens even able to cry?"

"You may be the first."

"Is love the reason I feel like a piece of myself may die with him?" she questioned as her fingers unconsciously laced through the matted, scraggly dark hair at the nape of Killian's neck. "If Regina's treachery has taken him from me, I swear, I will find her and…"

Poseidon cut her off before her anger overshadowed her present dilemma. "I promise you, Regina will be dealt with, swiftly and surely. Once I determine my brother's role in this debacle, Regina will likely be stripped of her powers and if I see fit, banished to the Forbidden Isles."

"Banishment to the Forbidden Isles seems harsh, even for what Regina did…" Emma sighed, hugging Killian even closer to her breast until she recalled the damage the kraken had presumably inflicted upon the man she loved and loosened her embrace. "If I am to be truthful, all I really want is whatever is in Killian's best interest."

"If only all sirens were blessed with your wisdom," Poseidon smiled. "Perhaps it is time to grant all of your kind the full range of emotions?"

"Or perhaps it is simply time for us to mend our ways? All humans are not evil, and some of them out there are still your descendants - maybe even Killian here."

"It has been so many generations since I've kept track of my descendants," the deity lamented. "I'm afraid that there is so little trace of my lineage left that it would be nearly impossible to determine. Being a descendant of an Olympian god doesn't necessarily grant that good heart that makes a man immune to the siren song either. Many of my grandchildren's grandchildren succumbed to greed, avarice and other sins of humanity, but as you've said, there are many good ones out there. Perhaps you are right that it is time for the gods to amend our perception of humanity, but I fear the likelihood of that happening is negligible."

"I was afraid of that," Emma responded as her gaze cast downward.

"However," Poseidon continued, "while I cannot directly heal this human, I do have an idea that could expedite his return to his own ship, where he belongs."

"May I go with him?" Emma asked impulsively, her query catching the god off-guard as she raised expectant eyes to meet the god's gaze.

"Emma, are you certain?" the flabbergasted Poseidon inquired.

"I am quite certain. If there is a way to return Killian to his ship and to his family, I wish to go with him."

"To do so, you would have to give up your immortality and all of your magic," he explained.

"Lord Poseidon, I have spent centuries alone. I never desired any companionship until I spoke to Killian. If there is a way to save him and for me to accompany him, I will gladly surrender my immortality."

"I can arrange that, but I do remind you that I cannot guarantee that your emotions will be returned by him. There is no way to make someone love you…"

"It is a chance I will happily take, Your Majesty. My instincts are telling me that he shares my feelings and I can no longer imagine spending an eternity here without him. If he is to return to the land where he belongs, then I know I belong there at his side."

Poseidon nodded as he raised the trident, pointing it skyward. "Then so it shall be," he stated as clouds gathered once again above the bay, swirling into a mighty vortex before the god vanished in a blinding flash of lightning.

*********

A warm, tropical breeze tickled his cheek as Killian shifted his aching body. He could feel the sun on his back as he felt around, grasping and then releasing a fistful of sand. His memory was sketchy as he struggled to lift his head and force his eyes open, not yet certain if he was alive or dead. Maybe somewhere in between?

His head was throbbing too much to hold up so he slid his forearm beneath it and just let it rest there. The simple act of drawing breath was agonizing. Did the dead still experience pain in the afterlife or was this his purgatory? Left broken and abandoned on a deserted beach with the sea just beyond his reach?

Bits and pieces of memories (or maybe, hallucinations) came and went when his eyes would fall closed. Pirates and sinking ships. Palm trees and some subterranean lagoon. A mermaid with long, golden hair and a tail that shimmered like pearls in the sunlight. A huge sea beast with tentacles that were as long as the Jewel from bow to stern. He even pictured a gigantic trident reaching out of the waves.

How hard had he struck his head? he wondered as the fingers on his left hand gingerly touched the open laceration at his scalp, noting the crimson stains on his skin as his hand fell away. Sucking in a deep breath that he immediately regretted, he almost wanted to laugh at his unbelievable situation. What a fine mess you've gotten yourself into, Killian Jones, he thought.

His gaze drifted back to the bay, staring out at the horizon as his vision began to blur and he found himself fighting to remain conscious. He squinted in an attempt to make out a faint blob off in the distance and assumed he was imagining the peal of a ship's bell and approaching voices when he succumbed to the pain-free peace of the darkness.

*********

The familiar bob and sway of the sea was a welcome sensation as Killian began to come around. Breathing was still a chore but even before his eyelids began to part, he knew something was different. The recognizable scents of musty books and linens filled his nostrils along with some sort of strong alcohol - although definitely not the drinking kind. The creaks and squeaks of wood battered by wind and waves was a familiar reverberation in his ear.

He threw his eyelids open and lurched upright, only to be halted and eased back onto the bunk by a large, calloused hand adorned with a single, hefty, carved silver ring.

A ring that even in his discombobulated state, he noticed and identified instantly.

"Liam?" he choked out, his throat dry and burning as though he'd swallowed much of the sand back on that beach.

"Aye, little brother," Liam smiled broadly as Killian's eyes finally focused on his elder brother's bearded and clearly anguished face. Liam's typically perfectly pressed uniform was rumpled, wrinkled and as deeply creased as his face, but Killian didn't yet know that it was the product of days searching for, and then worrying over his younger brother. "Now, will you please lie back down? Doc says you still need a lot of rest to recuperate."

"Liam, I can't believe it is really you. It has been an eternity, it seems… I thought I'd never see you again…," Killian excitedly babbled as clarity slowly returned. The comforting sight of his own first officer's cabin, paltry as it might be, helped him relax as he settled back into the pile of feather-stuffed pillows propped against the stateroom wall. Scratchy as it was, Killian didn't even protest as Liam draped the Royal Navy-issued charcoal grey, woolen blanket over top of his heavily bruised chest. "It is really you, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is really me, brother," Liam replied as he fretted with the bedding, trying to make the narrow bunk as comfortable as possible for his only sibling who had seemingly just returned from the dead. "I was warned you might be a little out of sorts for a couple of days from your injuries, but yes, I am really here and yes, I am beyond happy that we located you alive. It took us days to locate you on that tiny island. You were bloody lucky that the other survivor was one of the prisoners and not one of those pirates."

"Prisoner?" Killian repeated with his face scrunched in confusion and obvious discomfort.

"You really need your rest, Killian, and I need to go make my rounds. We can talk more later…"

"Brother, I don't understand… There was no survivor from that ship, save for myself." Killian became increasingly agitated and shook his head at the wrongness of it all. That motion, of course, only made his achy skull hurt more and loosened some of the bandages Doc had wrapped around his cranium to cover the jagged wound and the uneven stitches he'd used to hold it closed. "I was the only one who survived… I failed all of our men…" Killian squeezed his eyes closed as his wavering voice cracked with melancholy. "I'm so sorry, Liam, but I'm hardly fit to be your First Mate…"

"Brother, please just rest. You're spouting such nonsense. I'll send Doc right in to examine you. Your head injury must have been far worse than he thought to have affected your memory so severely."

"My memory is fine," Killian stated bluntly. "Far better than my performance as an officer…"

"For allowing yourself to be captured so your wounded crew could escape? That's hardly a failure, brother. I recommended you for a commendation for your bravery and I truly feared I would never have the opportunity to pin that medal on your uniform myself."

Liam's words made no sense. No one awards a commendation to a man who failed his mission and lost his entire landing team. He knew he must be dead and this purgatory was a cruel end to his fantastical journey.

"I'm sorry, I've been such a failure, Liam. You do not need to cover for my sins. I am only alive today through the mercy of the gods who sent down an angel to rescue me…"

"Bloody hell, Killian…," an exasperated Liam sighed. "Whatever are you rambling on about? I sincerely hope that either Doc or the lass can talk some sense into you…" Liam snatched up his plumed uniform hat from the writing table as he rose from his chair at his brother's bedside, doing his best to straighten his overcoat to look proper and authoritative, as a Captain should be.

"Lass?" Killian asked in bewilderment. What lass? He could only picture one lovely lass with flowing, blonde hair and emerald green eyes, but she could hardly have followed him here…

"The other former prisoner of those cowardly pirates that we rescued from the island with you, you git," Liam muttered, flopping his hat back atop his head as he shoved aside the heavy canvas curtain that provided Killian's quarters a semblance of privacy from the rest of the crew berths lining the narrow corridor that dissected this deck. It was far more crowded and noisy than his own quarters which were a deck above, spanning the width of the stern, not that he had occupied them for the past few days.

Liam's footsteps resounded heavily on the oak planks beneath his feet as he lumbered down the passageway and rapped on the wall outside of another curtained compartment. The ship's doctor, who's face looked nearly as haggard as the Captain's, drew the curtain open and immediately straightened his posture at the sight of his superior officer.

"At ease," Liam grumbled, letting the doctor know with a casual wave of his hand that military decorum wasn't necessary.

"Sorry, Cap'n. Taking a break from your vigil over the young Lieutenant Jones?"

"More like taking a break from Killian in general."

"Has he awakened?"

"A short time ago - yes. He isn't making a bloody lick of sense, babbling on about being a horrible officer who failed his crew and was saved by some mythical angel. How severe was the injury to his head?"

"How wonderful to hear that he's come around, but his head injury appeared largely superficial. I'll happily give him another once over now that he's awake. Maybe those pirates poisoned him or something that is affecting his mental state?"

"I hope it is something easily remedied or I fear his career may be in danger. I'm going to go fetch the lass we rescued along with him. Perhaps hearing her tale will help sort his head out…"

"Sounds like a very good idea, sir," the doctor responded as his troubled captain departed without another word, trudging tiredly towards the ladder to the upper deck.

*********

The visit by the ship's doctor only left Killian more irritable and baffled by their blatant dismissal of his miscarriage of his duties. They must all be daft, Killian thought. Or they think I am? Maybe he was merely imagining all of this?

Had any of this been real?

As the doctor had replaced bandages and prodded him in every tormenting and unpleasant place imaginable, Killian saw the very real evidence of his injuries. He was peppered with cuts, scrapes and contusions in various stages of healing. Some of the more painful ones were deep purplish while others had begun yellowing. There were red welts on his arms and across his torso that Doc couldn't identify, suggesting they might be burns or some manner of rash, but Killian's mind recalled a vastly different source. He'd been quickly shushed at the mere mention of encountering a kraken.

Doc offered him medicine to ease his discomfort which Killian knew meant the potion they'd sourced in the Far Eastern realm. He didn't know much about the substance, but he declined, preferring to keep what remained of his wits about him. The exasperated doctor muttered something unintelligible under his breath and shook his head at the young lieutenant's stubbornness, but Killian did overhear him mention that Liam had gone to fetch the supposed other prisoner from the pirate ship before departing Killian's quarters.

Killian knew with absolute certainty that no one else had escaped that ship with him, whatever had led to its sinking. Whomever this mysterious woman was that Liam had mentioned, she must be the key to unraveling this insanity. He was anxious to meet her, although he was also embarrassed to have a lady see him in such a disheveled state.

He also couldn't get the image of an ethereal presence to depart his head - one with flowing, pale blonde hair, porcelain skin that nearly glowed in her state of undress, and a supple, shimmery tail fin that playfully flicked water towards him.

No, he scolded himself. She didn't exist. Just a dreamy figment of his overactive imagination…

The sound of hushed voices in the corridor beyond the curtain snapped his attention back and Killian strained to hear what they were saying.

"Seems to be healing well, but his head's a bit out of sort…" Killian heard Doc telling someone that he soon realized was Liam when he heard his brother respond.

"It's unorthodox…," he heard Liam say, but he could only make out portions of the rest. "Doesn't remember… Miss Swan, we're hoping… We realize this is a highly unusual request, but given your time together…"

Miss Swan? Killian knew no one by such name, but why would Liam bring a stranger to visit him in his convalescence? Perhaps he should just pretend to be asleep and they'll go away, not that the ruse had ever worked to fool Liam. He closed his eyelids anyway as he heard the rattle and squeak of the curtain being drawn, determined to ignore his unwanted guests anyway.

"Should I return when he isn't asleep?" a feminine voice asked shyly.

"I swear, he was awake a moment ago, Capt'n," Doc said with an echo of concern in his voice, although Killian wasn't certain if it was directed toward him or if Doc feared the Captain's ire.

"I apologize, Miss Swan," Liam muttered with an audible sigh. "I thought it would do him good to see you - that it would aid his recollection, but he's a stubborn arse…"

"No apology necessary, Captain," the woman replied. Her voice was tantalizingly familiar to Killian, but he couldn't place why. He almost wanted to secret an eye open to catch a glimpse but he didn't dare. "Would it be alright if I sat with him for a spell?"

Oh, bloody hell, no! Killian screamed internally. Liam would never permit such a thing. Having a woman onboard was scandalous enough…

"I'm hesitant to allow that since this deck is less secure than my quarters, milady," Liam answered, only Killian could hear the but coming. "But since this is an unusual situation, I'll allow it. I'm sure I can find enough chores to keep my crew occupied for a bit and keep them away from this deck."

"Thank you, Captain," she responded and Killian could hear her smile in her voice. He was disappointed in his brother and was nearly betrayed by the frown he fought from forming on his own lips.

"I shall check back in a short time, lest my brother or any other sailor here attempt to take advantage of you."

"I am sure your brother will be a perfect gentleman, as he was while we were awaiting rescue. He could scarcely glance at me without blushing…"

Wait… What did she just say? Killian's brain was swirling with new questions as Liam bid the mystery woman farewell for the moment. He wanted so much to look upon her face, but he must wait until he heard Liam's heavy footsteps trailing away.

Could this really be…?

#cssns #captain swan supernatural summer #cssns20 #cs ff #cs au ff #siren emma #sorry to break it there #but there was a reason for that

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kmomof4 · 1 year ago

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Do you know what today is?

It's the day I posted my first fic for the event I created that was on its 3rd year at the time. I'd only been writing for about eight months when I got the bright idea to expand a little vampire smut OS I'd written for @thisonesatellite bday into a full blown fic, and y'all, when I say bright idea, I mean if I had known what I was getting myself into, I probably never would have done it...

To this day it was the hardest fic I've ever written because of the sheer amount of research necessary to make it historically accurate plus the fact that it was the first time I'd written something that was completely out of my own head.

But this fic is now four years old and I'd like to highlight it as we gear up for the final year of the @cssns. To those of you who've read it before, thank you so VERY VERY much!!!! And for those of you who are new to fandom, or new to supernatural genre fics, I hope you give it a try and let me know what you think!

I can't promote this fic without also mentioning several ladies specifically who helped bring it to fruition, because it truly wouldn't be here without them- @wistfulcynic for her beta services and her WEALTH of knowledge and patience with me, @hollyethecurious for being my sounding board and #1 cheerleader when I wanted to give up, which was quite often, and then finally @spartanguard who is responsible for all the artwork for the fic. I do not have the vocabulary to express the depth of my love and appreciation for everything she did to bring this fic to life. Thank you, ladies, from the bottom of my heart!!!

Summary:

The Dark’s minion’s downfall is foretold When True Love’s Kiss doth unfold Between soulmates unbound by time The blue eyed prince and his golden haired Swan Their True Love will break the hold And Dark magic will be no more.

Rating: M (Violence and smut)

Words: 41K

Tags: Vampires, Soulmates, Reincarnation, Prophecy, Black Death, French Revolution, Magic, True Loves Kiss

On ao3

On Tumblr Prologue Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7 Ch8

Art links on Tumblr Prologue Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7 Ch8

Thank you for reading, sharing, and celebrating with me!!!

#anniversary reblog #of darkness vampires and soulmates #krystal writes #art by spartanguard #odvs #cssns20

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cssns · 2 years ago

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I AM ABSOLUTELY BESIDE MYSELF TO REBLOG THE FINAL TWO CHAPTERS OF A FATE WOVEN IN THREAD AND INK!!!!

Originally posted as a part of CSSNS20, @shireness-says has at last blessed us with the concluding chapters of this incredible and magnificent fic!!!!

Please make sure and give her all the love!!!! As well as to @eirabach for her breathtaking artwork!!!

A Fate Woven in Thread and Ink (4/5)

Summary: Two people are trained from childhood for a magical competition they don’t fully understand, whose stakes are higher than they imagine, all to be played out in a magical traveling circus. Falling in love complicates things. A CS AU of the book “The Night Circus”.

Rated M. ~13.4k. Also on Ao3. On Tumblr: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

A/N: It's back, at long last! Thanks to my wonderful beta, @snidgetsafan, and to @ohmightydevviepuu for all her help with the tarot stuff. And, of course, a HUGE thanks to my artist, @eirabach. She made me a gif for this chapter! A gif! How freaking cool is that! Lastly, thanks to the ladies of the IAS for their support as I poured blood, sweat, and tears into this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

Stay tuned later tonight for me to post a short epilogue, and this one is done.

Tagging those previously interested: @welllpthisishappening, @thisonesatellite, @let-it-raines, @kmomof4, @scientificapricot, @thejollyroger-writer, @teamhook, @optomisticgirl, @winterbaby89, @searchingwardrobes, @katie-dub, @snowbellewells, @spartanguard, @phiralovesloki, @wistfulcynic, @iverna, @stahlop, @cssns

Enjoy!

----------------

Nick sees things - things other people don’t see. He always has. Sometimes they’re things that have already happened, and sometimes they’re things that haven’t happened yet, but they’re there. He knows them, the way he knows what he had for breakfast and what his sister’s face looks like. True, unchangeable things, no matter what anyone else does or doesn’t see.

(People don’t always believe him, of course, but that’s alright; Nick doesn’t need to be believed. Whether or not people believe what he sees does not have any bearing on the truth of the matter.)

A long time ago, Nick had seen Henry at the Circus. He’d told Ava that much; by the time Henry had shown up that second time, the year they’d turned sixteen, they’d known to expect him, and known that his fate was tied inextricably to the Circus and to themselves. It’s one of the reasons Ava had asked Henry to stay - that absolute certainty that he belonged in the Circus, grounded in the things Nick had seen.

It hadn’t been the right time. Nick didn’t say it, but he knew all the same. The future only ever comes in flashes - a crude ring, towering flames, a sense of cold and stillness, and Henry, somehow in the middle of all of it, still young but grown, a few short years in the future perhaps. It’s unmistakable. It’s fate, of a kind that is yet to occur.

If there is one thing Nick knows, it is that not all futures yet to come should be spoken aloud. Henry Mills’ entwinement with the Circus, whatever it yet may be, is one of them.

Still - as Henry and his sister mourn the early train from miles apart, Nick smiles to himself.

This story, whatever it may become, is far from over.

———

Knowing the nature of this competition doesn’t make things any easier, Emma discovers. In fact, it only makes things harder.

Maybe, at a certain level, she always knew it had to end like this. Maybe she just didn’t want to face it - Regina’s pointed silence on the subject, the increasing weight of this endeavor as the years had rolled on, the way Regina and Gold both had tried so hard to establish a divide between her and Killian. Now, however, is the era of facing this hard truth.

Mulan is right; falling in love with Killian made this an even greater tragedy than it already would have been. Winning was always a distant concept, but now it is simply unthinkable - knowing that her winning would mean his death.

It does not help knowing that he would say the same thing.

The Circus weighs heavier on her each day. It’s been nearly twenty years since they welcomed their first visitors, and even longer since this whole endeavor started. On the surface, Emma may still look like a young woman, but she feels each of those years in her mind and her body and her soul as the days tick by. Knowledge of how this must end only makes her more aware of the burden.

Some days, she wonders if it would be easier to just… give in. Accept the inevitability of the extent of the magic she carries. It would spare Killian, for certain, physically if not emotionally. What stays her hand each time is all the other lives tied to their competition now. Dozens of lives and livelihoods rest on her shoulders now, a thing she doubts anyone considered at the beginning of this all. What would happen to everyone whose lives have been put on hold if she lets go? What other unimaginable fallouts might come to pass?

No answer is immediately evident. No matter how much Emma searches her books, she fears the outcome will be the same: that there’s no way to minimize this damage, no matter how much she tries.

———

Henry is 18, and the world has lost much of its shine and glorious possibility.

He’d been an imaginative boy, and an imaginative young man, but those kinds of thoughts seem impossibly far away now. More than anything, Henry wants to learn, to go to telegraph school or maybe even college, but that just feels like a foolish dream most days, when he trudges down to the shipyards for another day at work, barely making enough pay for a little bit of lunch and the rent for his boarding house’s landlady at the end of the week. It is grueling work, constructing cargo ships and ocean liners, and Henry won’t pretend he enjoys it, but they’d been hiring when the sisters had made it clear he’d need to find his own way in the world and he couldn’t afford to be picky. Besides, he’s good at this; Henry may not be as strong as so many of the men he works with, but he’s quick and wiry and precise, able to wiggle into tight spaces when needed. This is not the life Henry ever imagined for himself, but that’s living, he supposes - settling, making do, focusing more on the business of surviving than any lofty goals.

Still, in a box under his bed at the boarding house filled with the little treasures he’s collected over the years, lives a single white glove, still soft and pristine after all these years. On nights that Henry indulges himself in dreams, he pulls the glove out and remembers the circus, all the lights and the smells and the people, the kind vendors who’d slipped him popcorn and Emma the magician and especially Ava, who’d kissed his cheek under the autumn sunlight and made him feel like he could be somebody.

We’ll see each other again - I promise, she’d said, and Henry had believed her. Even now, six years of heartache and disappointment and waiting later, there’s still a part of him that believes. It’s why he’s stayed here, within easy distance of the old fields where the Circus had unfolded, when he could find a better job with the railways. He can’t leave, not when they might still come back. After all - Ava had promised.

Henry will wait, and remember. But each day, it grows a little harder to dream.

———

There is a bonfire at the center of the Circus.

Bonfire, perhaps, is too mundane a word for the structure before you. The flame itself dances in unnatural ways, higher and then lower, swirling in patterns you’ve never seen fire take, tendrils periodically flashing with brilliant bursts of color before settling to a brilliant orange again. Surrounding the marvel is a cast iron cauldron, delicately constructed and appearing brilliantly strong for the contrast. Everything else spirals out from there - every path, every tent, every performance. Every bit of the Circus, with that fire throbbing at its center like a beating heart.

You’d come years ago, too, when the Circus was still young, and the bonfire had flared at its center then too. Something is different now, however, you can’t help but feel. There’s something more… intense, about the flames, something more demanding and frantic and pressing. Where the fire had once lapped gently, like waves against a wrought iron shore, it burns furiously and desperately now, higher and higher. It speaks of something imminent, that might yet still be terrible or glorious.

You step away, trailing back outwards along a silver-paved path. The bonfire seems now to mix wonder with fear, in a way you didn’t notice before.

But then again - what else will a fire do, if not burn?

———

Belle -

You told me, once, several years ago, to be careful - that change was coming, was in the air and in the cards. You also told me, in an entirely different conversation, that love was entirely too risky and wonderful to let pass by.

Who would have thought that both those warnings would come together at the same time, and in the same person? I think, perhaps, you may have been bright enough to see the writing on the wall. I, for one, was not.

Love is beautiful, Belle. She is beautiful, and brilliant, and so bloody good that it takes my breath away sometimes. Is this how you feel, with your Will? This overwhelming love that makes me willing to do anything, give up anything to make sure she’s happy? It is powerful, and terrifying, the way I wake up each morning willing to throw it all away if only she asks - maybe even before. Perhaps there’s an irony in the fact we’re meant to be competitors, diametrically opposed in every way - or, perhaps, the forces that set this all in motion never stopped to think that the very ways in which we were opposed made us more compatible than any other two people in the world.

In truth, I’m writing to you today, Belle, because I think I know what needs to be done, and I don’t want you to worry. This is my choice - and I will always, always choose her. Things are changing, and I’m not entirely sure where that will leave me at the end of this. But as you once said - I’m choosing to believe that change is for the better.

With all my love,

-Killian

———

Belle Scarlet, nee French, likes to start her day with a cup of tea and the paper and her correspondence. This morning brings a letter from Killian, and with it, more questions than answers. Her old friend’s words are simultaneously joyous and desperate in tone, leaving her puzzled more than anything else.

Belle doesn’t read her cards very often, anymore. There’s no real need to. The years of telling visitors a never-ending string of futures had been some of the most joyous of her life, but she’s enjoying this quieter existence. Killian’s words, however… it’s enough to send Belle for her personal set in her desk drawer, to see if the universe will be any more forthcoming.

The cards… the cards are a mess. Belle struggles to find any sense in what possibilities they present. She’d read for Killian, or she’d intended to, but what she sees in front of her speaks more to the Circus instead, like the two have become too intertwined to separate. Swords and their conflict flash throughout, the Lovers, the Devil and the Chariot and Judgement. The message is unclear, but there’s an undeniable urgency that speaks to her. At the center of it all is the Hanged Man. Belle knows this card, and its many meanings; knows how often it should be interpreted as events churning forward without one’s control. But it sits there, ominous in its depiction anyways, spurring Belle to action. She’s almost out the door, coat in hand, when she remembers something. Doubling back to the same drawer that keeps her cards, she retrieves the small, velvet pouch Mulan had pressed into her hand the day Belle left the Circus.

If Belle isn’t mistaken, she’ll finally have cause to use it.

It’s been years since she visited Killian in his apartment, but Belle still remembers the way, his address imprinted on her mind as the place this all began. It had always been an unassuming little set of rooms, never the kind of place you’d expect to find a powerful magician. Maybe that makes sense, in a way - the possibility of finding magic in the quietest, least likely places.

When Killian opens the door, he looks exhausted, more than Belle has ever seen. She can’t be certain what has happened the past two years, her friend’s letters always rather vague on specifics, but she can see how it presses down on his shoulders. Behind him, the apartment is in disarray in a manner she’s not used to seeing, books abandoned still open on every spare surface. On his desk in the middle of it all sits a paper model of one of the Circus tents; if Belle isn’t mistaken, it’s one that belongs to Miss Swan, the illusionist.

Oh, Killian.

“Tell me what’s happened,” she says gently.

He gestures her in, though sitting space is at a premium, books and scraps of paper taking over every space. As Belle gently rearranges things to perch on the arm of an armchair, Killian himself collapses into the seat behind his desk.

“It’s the competition,” he tells her. “I finally know how it ends.”

“And?”

He tilts his head in her direction, smiling sadly. “It’s a test of endurance,” he finally says after a heavy pause, “not of skill. The last one standing wins.”

Killian’s words set off a chill down to Belle’s bones as their truth sinks in. It is unsurprising, somehow, after years of mystery and deflection, but that doesn’t make it any less horrifying. “And you love your competitor,” is all she can say in the end.

“Aye. I do.” Killian’s hand fumbles for a glass of dark liquor on the sideboard, taking a long drink. “To lose, after all this time, seems unthinkable. But to win… that would be even worse.”

“A situation in which no one wins, really. Except, perhaps, your benefactors.”

“Exactly that.” He takes another drink before Belle rises to gently pry the crystal out of his hand. There’s a fire in his eyes as he looks up at her, a sort of determination, but the tragedy still lurks just behind his gaze. “I know what I need to do, Belle. I do. But there’s the Circus to consider, and even then… I don’t know that she’ll ever forgive me.”

“Does she love you, as you love her?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

“Then she’ll forgive you,” Belle says simply. “She’ll understand. But something is at hand, Killian, something with the Circus. Something immediate, that will not be ignored.”

“Something that will have to happen without me.” Killian’s gaze is distant as he looks out his window overlooking a very English street.

Belle pulls him into a hug as her mind churns. She’d had a suspicion when she came here that her intervention was necessary - it’s why she’d grabbed Mulan’s gift, after all - but it’s another thing to face the moment with certainty. Whatever is about to happen, she knows it will be the last she sees of her friend.

(Surreptitiously, she slips the Hanged Man into his pocket. When she’d first seen the card, she’d thought it heralded doom, and perhaps it still does. The Hanged Man, though, represents so much more: sacrifice for a cause, and surrender to greater forces, and letting one phase end for the sake of a new beginning. A merciful death with eyes wide open.

Some fates are unavoidable. And some endings are necessary to usher in something more.)

“Not necessarily,” she tells him, stepping back out of their tight embrace.

“Not necessarily? Belle, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but if I don’t even know what’s going on, there’s nothing I can do from here. Whatever’s about to happen - I can’t stop it. It’s not possible.”

“Oh, Killian,” she sighs fondly. You know, it’s funny - there’s no reason to make this moment more dramatic than it already inherently is, but after all of Killian’s own dramatics over the years… it feels fitting. Belle carefully draws the little bag out of her purse. Inside is a fine powder that Mulan had promised could transport someone back to the Circus if the time was right and the circumstances necessary. Unlike so much of the Circus, the powder is a shining gold, fine and soft when Belle tips the pouch’s contents into her hand. “You’ve forgotten one important thing,”

His face draws into a suspicious expression as he watches her hands move, seemingly cluing into the fact that she has plans of her own. “What’s that?”

Maybe the question is responding to her words; maybe it’s responding to her motions. Either way, her answer is the same. “There’s magic in this world, Killian. And that makes so many impossible things real.”

And with a sudden gust of breath, she sends the powder Mulan had gifted her to envelop Killian, surrounding him in a golden cloud. When the powder finally dissipates, Killian is gone, his glass on the desk the only sign he’d even been there.

There’s a feeling in Belle’s heart that maybe, this is the last time she sees Killian, but whatever that feeling is, it isn’t quite dread. Acceptance, maybe, and inevitability.

Belle lets herself back out into the street and slips into the early-morning crowd. Whatever happens - she’s played her part. Things are the way they’re supposed to be.

———

When the dust settles, Killian finds himself outdoors. A brief glance reveals him to be right in the center of the Circus, mere steps from the bonfire. Despite the rainy weather, the flames still dance and flicker, the center force of this whole enterprise churning ever forward. Somehow, he’s been transported thousands of miles, clear across the ocean from London to Maine. Others, he knows, would be shocked by such a sudden change; Killian has become far too weary for that.

That same glance also reveals Mulan waiting as if she knew he was coming, her fingers tapping on the pommel of her sword the only indication of a less-than-perfect patience. It is even less surprising, somehow, than his abrupt transportation.

“Ah good,” she says. “The former Miss French still shows impeccable timing.”

“So this is your doing?”

“That would, perhaps, be an overstatement,” she admits, handing him an umbrella. “I simply provided her with a tool. I thought it might be of use.”

“And yet you knew to wait.”

“I do not have Belle’s gifts; I will not pretend to such things. But the magic is… fraying, shall we say. Spiraling out of control. I can recognize a crisis point when it is upon us.”

Killian waits for her to continue, but the next words never come. After far too long a silence, he waves a prompting hand. “And?”

“You were clever at the start of all this,” Mulan tells him. “Tying your portion of the Circus to the book, and to the bonfire - that was wise. The separation acts as a pressure release valve, taking much of the burden off yourself. Miss Swan…” She pauses. “Well. Miss Swan, despite all her talents, has not done the same.”

“I know. I’ve seen it.”

“Yes, but do you know the extent? If Emma were to drop dead right now - the entire Circus would collapse in on itself. It’s a stroke of luck that this breaking point has not come while we were in transit, or the resulting crash would likely prove fatal to many of those here.”

“So you are asking me to - to end it.”

“Not exactly.” Mulan smiles cryptically. “Have you had much cause to speak with Nicholas Zimmer?” Killian shakes his head. “Young Mr. Zimmer is blessed with a rare gift - to see those things that happened long ago, with the kind of clarity most cannot see the present. One of his favorite tales is that of Merlin. Are you familiar?”

It rings a faint bell, like something he’d read in a book once. “The sorcerer, aye? And the tree.”

“Precisely. Now, most stories say he transformed himself into a tree, but it was something more similar to binding his spirit. Somewhere out there is an ancient oak, with the soul of a powerful magician trapped inside. That is what I ask of you. The Circus is born of both yours and Emma’s talents - and no matter who takes themselves off the board, it will cause a catastrophic collapse. But if you bind yourself to the Circus…”

“You believe it will keep the operation going. A loophole, if you will.”

“Exactly. Enough time to more effectively separate Miss Swan from her own magical bonds, and leave this place fully self-sufficient. But only if you’re willing.”

If he’s willing. What kind of question is that? If it will save Emma, and protect what they’ve created… it’s no question at all. “Do it.”

Mulan smiles. “I thought you might say that.” She lifts her hands briefly, as if about to commence immediately, before dropping them again. When you know what to look for, the similarities between Mulan’s and Emma’s magic is unmistakable - the intricate motions like weaving a tapestry out of thin air. “Is there anyone you need to speak to, first?” she asks, her tone uncharacteristically gentle.

Killian thinks of Emma, and of his brother. Liam will understand, he thinks; something like this has been coming for most of their lives. Emma…

Perhaps it is best that Emma not know. He already knows she’d never agree.

“No. There are not many people in my life, and I think they’ll understand. Do as you must.”

With a solemn nod, Mulan lifts her hands again, weaving intricate patterns. Behind Killian, the bonfire flares, growing taller and hotter and stronger. There’s a glow in the space between them, now, something that might be magic or might be the fire or might, even, be both. He can feel something pulling at his back, like strings knotted over and over to tie him to the bonfire.

Killian almost closes his eyes, lets himself surrender to the binds, when he hears a sudden shout. Through the growing blaze, Killian can just see Emma, running at full speed, beautiful in a blue dress and determined in a way he’s never seen. Mulan diligently works through the disturbance, hands moving as fast as they can, but Emma’s faster, and the spell hasn’t quite set, and -

He opens his arms on instinct, accepting Emma’s weight as she latches on to him, and lets them both fall.

———

(Emma hadn’t really thought it through before she threw herself at Killian - she’d just seen Mulan’s hands moving over the Circus book and so many strings looping around Killian and the tome and the fire and she’d just - reacted.

There’s a bare moment of burning as his arms close around her, like that first moment when a strange man had given her a stranger ring, before it fades to the kind of comforting warmth she’s only ever found with Killian. Then they’re falling, falling, falling -

And then, blessed nothingness.)

(If this is the end - well, Emma will always wonder if they were able to save the Circus that so many call home. She hopes so. But if this is the end, she’s glad to have faced it with him.)

———

The fire folds in on itself, absorbing both competitors as it extinguishes, and suddenly Mulan is the only one left at the metal grate. This turn of events is not what she expected, precisely, but it does not surprise her either.

Love makes one do foolish things. Mulan only wishes she had accepted that sooner.

The Circus is still around her, all the lives within it paused with the cessation of the lifeblood fire. It pulls at Mulan, too, but she’s never much heeded such things if she does not want to. That’s the wonder of magic.

For now, there’s nothing else to do but wait. She’d talked to Nicholas Zimmer beforehand, and Mulan knows there is still more that must be done. Young Mr. Zimmer hadn’t seen Miss Swan’s sacrifice, but he’d seen the fire extinguished and an iron ring and all of them, there at the edges.

He’d told her about another piece, too - someone who hasn’t arrived yet. And if she isn’t mistaken, that will be the crucial linchpin.

Mulan strolls leisurely towards the gate, prepared to wait as long as is necessary to see the end of this competition through.

———

When the brightness of the fire dims - or perhaps that blinding light had been the work of the spell; he had been a bit distracted by other things rather than sorting out the difference - Killian finds himself in the Labyrinth. Alone.

It is not what he expected.

The last thing he remembers is his arms around Emma, falling into nothing, but he wakes up to a familiar snowscape, all alone. Killian knows this maze like the back of his hand, however; has seen its chambers sprawled in paper across his desk, has watched each addition with joy and affection and wonder. There is nothing in this maze that can stop him from finding Emma - at least nothing that’s been conjured yet.

Killian trails through all the familiar rooms they’ve built together these last several years: the playing cards and the paper animals and the room he knows is Emma’s favorite, with plush cushions scattered on every surface and something floral drifting through the air.

The Circus has always been his - has been theirs - but this space more than any else.

He finally finds Emma in the paper seascape. That’s fitting in its own way, he supposes - to find her again in this room, where his love is written on every surface. There’s been an unnatural lightness even since he came back to himself in the snowy hall, something that means the ink never stains his shoes and he seems to pass straight through all the detritus of their surroundings, but Emma is warm and there when he cups her cheek. There’s something like heartbreak on her face, and something like exhaustion, but something like relief, too.

“Killian,” she breathes. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Shouldn’t I?” It seems to him that he’s exactly where he ought to be.

“No, you shouldn’t! You should be in London, and safe. I had a plan - ”

“Ah, but I had a plan too,” he interrupts. “In fact, you interrupted my particular plan.”

“To - to sacrifice yourself? Allow me to win? What sort of plan was that?”

Can she be so obtuse? Or is she simply selfless to the point of self-destruction? “One that would let you live.”

“And what use is that? You’ve got your brother, Belle -”

“But I wouldn’t have you.” It’s baffling, the way she discounts her own worth to him. “Don’t you understand, Emma? I told you I love you, and I meant it. What would my existence be if I survived at the cost of your own life? So yes, I was going to sacrifice myself, so that you could have the life that you deserve. I was trying to save you.”

“Maybe I didn’t want that,” she says. Emma meets his gaze steadily as she lifts her hands to gently grasp his lapels, like she’s imploring him to heed her words both in look and action. “I would have been alive, yes. But I wouldn’t want that, if it meant losing you. I love you, Killian,” she tells him - certain, sure and strong. “I know I never said it, but I do. I have for a long time. If you were willing to do this because you love me - is it so hard to imagine I’d do the same?”

He’d known, on some level, that she loves him - or hoped as much, at least. But hearing the words still sends what left of his soul soaring and his hands pulling her into an embrace, head dipping to share a kiss. They’ve had first kisses, and last kisses, and everything in between; happy kisses and sad kisses and so, so many scared kisses for all these years they’ve had to hide their love. This kiss now feels like something beautiful and new: a kiss tinged with the taste of freedom, that finally feels like their own. Maybe it’s absurd, under the circumstances, but Killian feels a lightness to his soul that makes him lift her on a whim until her face tilts down to meet his instead, spinning their entwined bodies in a slow circle. It’s silly - but it’s joyful, too, in a way they aren’t usually granted.

They’ve earned a little lightness after all this dark, he thinks.

Killian brushes an escaped curl back behind Emma’s ear once they finally separate and he sets her back on her own two feet. “I love you, Emma Swan,” he says. “I don’t regret the choices I’ve made, not if it means we have this. Happy endings aren’t always what we think, love - but if I get to spend it with you, that’s plenty happy for me.”

Killian brings his mouth back to her own, savoring the way her smile tastes.

For the first time, it feels like they have all the time in the world.

———

“It still weighs on me,” Emma confesses, once they’ve finally drunk their fill of kisses. “The Circus, I mean. It pulls on me heavier than ever, and I have to spend so much concentration just to keep everything supported, and - ” She sighs heavily. “I’m so tired, Killian. When will we get to rest?”

“Soon, I think.” He presses a kiss to her forehead, pulls her closer into his arms. Mulan has a plan, if he’s not mistaken; there’s no other reason she would have been waiting for him tonight, already ready for his unexpected arrival. “Just hold on a little longer, love.”

They’ve been pawns in someone else’s game for so long; what’s a few hours more?

———

The Circus arrives at night.

There is no warning, no whispers of what is coming, but Henry still keeps his eyes and ears open for news about the fields just outside of town, and he knows what those particular tents mean.

It has grown harder to imagine and to dream as the years have trudged on - eight of them, now, since Henry last saw the Circus when he was ten - but the news ignites a new fire in Henry that burns with the force of magic and memory. Once upon a time, when he was just a little, little boy, a not-quite princess in a black and white dress had promised him that the Circus would always be there for him; four years later, a different blonde had promised the same. But Henry has waited now, an entire two thirds of his life, and he’s done delaying those promises. This time, when the Circus leaves, Henry intends to go with it, one way or another.

The Circus arrives on a Thursday; these things never seem to happen on a day he has off work. The boys at the shipyard are already talking about the turn of events, discussing when to take sweethearts or siblings or families, and Henry - well, Henry shares the sentiment, in some ways. He can’t wait to visit, either. But Henry doesn’t have anyone to bring, the way they do; everyone he’d ever want to take is part of the Circus, leaving him the lone man out.

It’s been raining all day, getting heavier and heavier as the day goes on. The Circus will close for inclement weather tonight, surely, but Henry takes the short trip out of town anyways. There’s something that draws him in to the site - this need to know, for certain, that this isn’t just another dream. That the Circus is here, and waiting, just for him.

(He takes a brief detour home, first, on the kind of instinct he’ll never be able to explain later. His little room doesn’t hold much, and he’s attached to very little of it, but the white glove still lives in a discarded cigar box underneath his bed. Henry doesn’t know what will happen next - if Ava’s offer still stands to run away with the Circus, if she and Nick will even recognize him after all the ways he’s changed - but he knows he wants this with him.

It’s only later that he realizes just how lucky he was to have slipped the glove into his pocket.)

There’s a stillness about the place when he arrives, however, that belies even the expected closure sign. Henry’s been here before during inclement weather, but it never felt like this. The Circus has an energy about it that’s somehow… missing now. Like something’s wrong.

(Henry hopes he’s wrong about that, but in his heart, he knows he’s not.)

He’d assumed he’d have to break into the grounds again, though he hadn’t been sure how. When Henry arrives, however, there’s a woman already waiting at the front gates, huddled underneath an umbrella to block out the worst of the rain. There’s a sword at her side and she wears intricate Chinese armor in the same blacks and whites and silvers of the Circus, though Henry does not yet recognize her on sight. Beyond her, the Circus is silent and still, like she’s standing guard over everything within those gates.

“Henry Mills, I presume?” Her voice holds a gravitas that belies its soft volume. Henry nods cautiously in return. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“You have?” It takes a moment before the first part of that sentence hits home. “Wait - how do you know my name?”

“The Zimmer twins speak highly of you,” the woman tells him before turning on her heel and starting down one of the paths at a brisk pace. “Now come along, keep up. We don’t have much time.”

“Not much time for what?”

She slows briefly, just long enough to cast a wry look in his direction. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“Well, you keep answering them.”

“Touché, Mr. Mills.” There’s something about the woman’s mouth that almost looks like a smile before it’s gone again. It’s hard to say when she resumes her determined speed, talking as they go. “What do you know about the Circus?”

“I know the Circus is magic,” he says. No one ever told him as such so bluntly, but Henry had put it together over time. Certain things just can’t be explained, certain things in the same category as Nick’s second sight - and besides, he’d been young enough to believe it, back when he first realized. “I know things happen here that shouldn’t be possible, but are. It’s wonderful.”

“It is. It’s also complicated,” she tells him. “The Circus exists because of a competition, and because of its two players. They’ve built something beautiful. But do you know what happens in competitions?” Before Henry can answer, there’s an odd noise. Just over the woman’s shoulder, one of the smaller tents starts to cave in on itself. She nods like that’s enough of an answer - and when she speaks, Henry realizes that maybe, it is. “They end,” she tells him. “This way will be quicker; as I said, we haven’t much time.”

“So this… competition,” he prods. “It’s over? That’s why the Circus is falling apart?”

“Yes… And no,” his guide replies cryptically. It’s frustrating, asking so many questions and receiving so few answers.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Oh, young Henry. There’s nothing enjoyable about this.” They walk on in silence for a moment, veering off down another path, before she speaks again. “One of our contestants, Mr. Jones, was prepared to take himself off the board, and I was prepared to help him do so in a way that would provide something like a permanent spine for the Circus. Miss Swan, however, interfered, resulting in some… unexpected circumstances.” With that, she draws back the flap to the tall acrobats’ tent.

The group inside looks like an inclement weather party interrupted. Tables are still laden with food, candles flowing warmly. Every living thing within the tent, however, is frozen in unnatural stillness. Some people are clearly mid-conversation, or mid action, bites of food stilled halfway to mouths and hands stilled mid-gesture. A group of musicians appear to have been mid-song, instruments still raised in a playing position.

(Even as they stand there, watching the stillness, one of the chairs suspended from the roof of the tent for the acrobats to perform with drops, barely missing a clustered group as it shatters on the ground. The Circus may have been suspended too - but for how long?)

“In many ways, the Circus was built on the love Emma held for each and every person within its bounds; maybe not at first, but over time, it’s become inseparable from the very fabric, like the supports holding it all up,” she explains. “When Emma and Mr. Jones folded themselves into the Circus… I don’t know if it’s something one of them has done purposefully, or if the Circus or the magic has acted of its own accord, but this place protects its own. But that can’t last forever. That’s where you come in. What we’re about to ask you - it will make sure the Circus survives, but it cannot be done without your help.”

It is a lot to spring on a person, especially one that this woman doesn’t know, but Henry already knows his answer. “What do you need me to do?”

(What else would he say, when what’s at stake is a place like this and all the people it protects?)

“No hesitation? Just jumping in feet first without all the details? That’s an awful bold decision, Mr. Mills.”

“Would you do the same, for the Circus?”

It gives the woman pause for a minute before she dips her head and a kind of concession. “Touché.”

(“I thought you said this was a shortcut,” Henry mentions when they finally slip back out of the acrobats’ tent, veering sharply in a new direction.

“It was a shortcut in explanation. If you assumed it would be a shortcut in distance - well, that was your assumption, not my words.”)

They finally halt in front of a tall tent with light faintly glowing beneath the fold of the fabric opening, just illuminating where the words Wishing Tree glimmer in the scant moonlight on a subtle sign. Under other circumstances, Henry might have marveled at the elegant branches stretching around the tent, illuminated in softly glowing candlelight; tonight, he’s more distracted by the two nearly-translucent figures standing at its base, a man and a woman. The woman he recognizes as the magician - Emma, the person who’d first made this place feel like home. The man is unknown to him, but certainly not to Emma; he leans into her space as if drawn to her by magnets. Maybe it’s just practical - this not-Emma seems barely able to stand upright, and the man’s arm around her waist seems more like a lifeline than a simple comfort - but Henry thinks it’s more than that. The man looks at Emma with worry, yes, but with awe too. Like he can’t believe he’s here with her, even in such a way.

Henry may be young, but he can still recognize love when he sees it.

“I take it that you remember Miss Swan?” his guide asks. “And beside her is Mr. Jones.”

“Mulan, why have you brought him here?” Emma asks.

“You needed a solution, and I’ve found you one.”

“This is your solution?” Emma asks. Somehow, the emphasis sounds concerned rather than derogatory. “Are you sure?”

“He is willing.”

“He’s a child.”

“I’m eighteen,” Henry mumbles. “And I’m right here.”

“He tried to run away and join the Circus two years ago. Did you know that?” his guide asks Emma, still ignoring Henry. Mulan. He’ll have to remember that, if they ever allow him to speak. “He loves the Circus. It is enough.”

“Is that true, Henry? Do you love the Circus?” the man - Mr. Jones - asks. “What we’re about to ask you - it will require a deep love, not a passing whimsy. So forgive me for asking, but be honest with me - do you love the Circus? Enough to make significant sacrifices?”

“More than anything.” Maybe it sounds fanciful - maybe it sounds naive - but it’s the truth: maybe even the greatest truth that Henry knows. “I’m an orphan - a foundling. I don’t know if you remember that,” he says with a nod to Emma. “There are so many things I haven’t had in my life - opportunity and family and home. But the Circus…” He pauses before pressing a closed fist to his heart. “When I’m here, I feel something in here. Like contentment, maybe. I love this place because it’s wonderful, but I love it mostly because it feels like a home.”

“What we’re asking you is to bind yourself to the Circus, Henry,” Emma tells him. “You wouldn’t be able to leave, not for long periods of time. We can bind you in a way so that the Circus does not press on you the way it presses on us, but it will still be yours, in a permanent sort of way. This will not be something you can undo, not without breaking quite a bit of complicated magic and undertaking quite a bit of effort.”

“But it will save the Circus? And save both of you?” Henry doesn’t know much about love, he thinks - not yet, at least - but he knows already it’s worth preserving.

Emma nods. “We believe so.”

“Then what do you need me to do?”

———

The bonfire is the living heart of the Circus, Mr. Jones had explained to Henry before sending him back out into the night. If we have any hope of saving it, and transferring the Circus into your hands, you’ll have to restart the flame.

It had sounded so easy, phrased like that: a matter of some matches and some luck of the weather. But this is magic, and Henry is slowly realizing that with magic nothing is quite that straightforward. Emma and Mr. Jones have come up with a list of items he’ll need, like ingredients: bits and bobs he wouldn’t have thought meant anything (a certain vial from a tent full of glassware, an abandoned hat at the edge of a burned-out fire, a black velvet jacket draped across the back of a chair in a secluded train car), but are apparently crucial to making this work.

Mulan drifts back into his vision as he collects the hat, a sudden and startling presence somehow more other-worldly than her ghostly compatriots. There’s a card laying in the dirt beside the upturned hat - a tarot card, like he’d seen so many years ago in a tent of this very circus. This card features a surprisingly placid man suspended by his feet and the inscription The Hanged Man.

Mulan huffs a subtle laugh over Henry’s shoulder as he picks up the card. “It is fitting, is it not?” she asks. “We are all suspended here, waiting for whatever may yet still come to pass. It’s the brink of something more.”

“You know tarot?”

“I know many things, Mr. Mills,” she says. “This just happens to be one of them.”

Henry takes the card with him as they leave. Somehow, it feels like a piece to this story yet to unfold, even if it is not one he was directed to collect.

(On a whim, he slips Ava’s glove out of his pocket as well and adds it to the pile - his one tie to the Circus all these years. Maybe it’s foolish, but it feels right too.)

The leaves of the Wishing Tree have started to fall once Henry and Mulan return to the tent, Emma visibly exhausted in the middle of it all. Mr. Jones’ face is creased with concern, his hands fluttering to soothe and support, but there’s only so much that can be done when the Circus is trying to collapse in on itself.

“You’ve found everything?” Mr. Jones asks. His tone is sharp, though Henry can’t much blame him; under the circumstances, responding that way seems almost reasonable. Henry nods, lifting his haul instead of tendering a proper response. Mr. Jones nods briskly in turn. “Good lad. Now, we’ll need to move to the fire cauldron - ”

“Henry,” Emma interrupts, her voice tired but firm. ��Are you certain? I know we are asking so much of you, and I know you already said yes, but I want you to know it’s alright to say no. This isn’t something you should be pressured into, and no one will be upset if you decide you can’t.”

Henry doesn’t really understand all of where this is coming from - not really. He’s only interacted with Emma less than a handful of times since he was a boy, and only briefly at that. But even in that short time, it’s been easy to see how the Circus presses on her, especially now. It is kind of her to try to ensure the same thing won’t happen to him, not without communicating the risk.

Still. There are things worth taking risks for, and making sacrifices for. In some ways, Henry thinks he made his choice long ago.

“It’s okay.” Henry reaches out a hand towards Emma without thinking, like some kind of reassurance he isn’t quite sure how to give, only for his hand to pass right through her own. “I meant what I said before. The Circus feels like it could be a home for me, and I want to protect that. But also…” He pauses. “This feels like something I’m supposed to do. Like maybe, this is the reason I’ve always felt so drawn to the Circus. Maybe this is what everything has been leading to for as long as I’ve been alive. Does that make sense?”

“It does.” Emma’s hand isn’t quite solid when it comes to rest against his cheek, but there’s something there - the ghost of a touch, and all the comfort it still brings. “I’m proud of you.”

“Not to interrupt a touching scene,” Mulan interrupts, “but time is of the essence. If Henry intends to take the mantle of the Circus, we need to act now. Before it’s too late.”

———

It feels deceptively easy, in the end. Henry carefully wraps all the bits and bobs he’d collected up with a length of yarn Mulan seems to pull out of nowhere, tying them into a misshapen parcel that he places into the cauldron. At Mr. Jones’ direction, he extracts a nondescript volume from beneath the cauldron itself. Dozens of signatures line each page, the smallest dot of blood punctuating the end of each name. Meticulously, Henry adds his own name to the book. The twists and loops of his name look so insignificant on the page, but he knows it’s a momentous thing he’s just done. As Henry presses his own thumb to the paper, blood beading from the digit where he’d sliced the skin with a pocket knife, there’s a kind of energy that chases through his whole body. Magic - beautiful and mysterious and binding.

Eventually, there’s nothing left to do but get it over with. Henry holds a candle from the Wishing Tree in one hand, just waiting for his cue to light it and re-ignite the fire. There’s magic in a wish, Emma had told him before sending him for the ingredients. I think we can use all the magic we can get.

“There’s one more thing,” Mr. Jones - Killian tells Henry. He’s more stable than the flickering illusion of Emma, but he’s still ghostly, tents foggily visible through his middle. “To make this as stable as possible, we’ll need to bind you to the Circus.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing? I thought that’s why I signed the ledger.”

“In a way, yes,” Killian agrees. “But what we’re asking you to do - that’s a different kind of bond than the book. The rest of the individuals who signed don’t carry the Circus the way you’ll have to. Emma and I - when we were young, we were bound to this venue before it even existed. We think doing something similar now will make it more likely this transfer will be successful.”

“And it won’t…” Henry pauses. “I know that whatever bond you had with the Circus was slowly killing Emma.”

“The man and woman who sealed our bonds - they didn’t much care what happened to a pair of pawns,” Emma explains. “We aren’t in danger of making that same mistake.”

“Then do it.”

“Good lad,” Killian smiles. With a touch of his hand, a curl on the cauldron lengthens until it’s twisted into an iron ring, breaking off neatly into his palm. As he waits, Henry fiddles with the candle he still holds, digging his fingernails into the wax. The enormity of it all is starting to set in, ushering in nerves along with it.

“That has always been my favorite tent, you know,” Killian tells Henry, nodding towards the candle. If he’s not mistaken, the older man is trying to deflect his anxieties about what’s about to happen; even knowing that, Henry gladly seizes on the distraction offered. As he talks, his fingers sketch complicated figures in the air, making the iron ring in his palm alternately glow silver and gold and every shade in between. Henry knows Emma’s magic now, can recognize it like an old friend, but this is something different. It’s marvelous in its own way, a way that isn’t even in comparison but just… is.

“Is it one of yours?” Henry asks, trying to be polite even with his heart lodged in his throat. He’s entering into this willingly - wants it with every fiber of his being, wants it because it feels right in a way he can’t understand, let alone explain - but that doesn’t do anything to make him less nervous.

Killian smiles absentmindedly, most of his attention still devoted to his strange symbols. “Emma’s, actually,” he comments. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It always feels like an old magic to me. Something more than either of the two of us.”

“Did you ever make a wish?”

Whatever emotion dances across Killian’s face is… complicated. Something wistful and joyful and sad and yearning, all at once. “I did.” His hands finally still in the air. The little loop of metal ceases its glow, the light fading away, but there’s still a sense of something surrounding it - an aura, perhaps, or pure, radiating power, something reminiscent of what he’d felt when he’d pressed his blood to the page. One tiny object with the power to change countless lives. Henry’s eyes can’t look away from the ring, even as Killian continues talking. “Do you know what I wished for?”

Henry shakes his head. Killian’s hand is not-quite-there as it lifts his own, ready to perform the binding. This time, the smile on his face is unmistakable as he leans to speak quietly into Henry’s ear. “I wished for her.”

And then it burns, the ring shrinking to fit Henry’s finger as it sears into his skin. There’s a part of Henry that wants to pull the damned thing off, but he knows this is necessary, knows it wouldn’t work anyways. Emma’s still smiling through her exhaustion like she’s proud of him, and Killian watches him, sure and steady, and Mulan is lighting the candle still in Henry’s hand -

It is terrifying, and painful, but Henry realizes with an abrupt burst of clarity that maybe the best things are.

The candle flickers in his hand, its flame growing stronger even as the burning pain on his finger starts to recede. Maybe he’s ready, or maybe he’s not, but the moment is here and what other choice do they have and unfurling his grasp is suddenly the most momentous thing he’ll ever do and -

———

- and Emma’s heart feels lodged in her throat as she watches Killian and Henry, even as it takes all her concentration just to hold her being together in the visible plane. Henry’s so grown now, and so brave; he’s in obvious pain as the bond sets in, a hurt Emma knows all too well, but he grits his teeth and bears it. And then Mulan’s pressing the lit candle into his hand, and it’s all come to a head so fast, and he’s dropping the candle into the cauldron, and -

———

- and the entire world is fire. The bonfire blazes higher than it ever has as the new bonds catch and hold, and something shifts within Killian, some pressure he’d never even noticed finally easing. The flames spiral upwards and outwards in countless shades of red and orange and yellow and blue and silver, twirling across the black and white grounds of the Circus. It’s reminiscent of opening night, in that way - but this time, there’s no one around to see it.

That’s fitting, Killian decides. Just right for the new beginning that will be ushered in tonight. A new wish, and a new flame, for all of the things still to come.

In a golden blaze, Killian lets himself be swept away.

———

(She’d never been certain it would work, really. She’d hoped, of course; done everything she could to make it happen. But there’s a vast difference between hoping and certitude, and Emma had been nowhere near the latter. Everything that’s happened here tonight has been out of desperation more than anything, her last throwaway attempt to maybe leave something more than rubble behind for all the people who’ve come to call the Circus home.

She certainly didn’t expect Killian, or Henry. She didn’t expect that maybe, just possibly, there was an imperfect solution that still feels like her own little bit of fate.

When the bright burst of light put off by the campfire as the new bond takes effect settles, the rest of the world seems to only exist in fuzzy edges - less crisp and clean, like she’s no longer quite part of it all anymore. The entire soft world is the Circus, now, all black and white with just the flames within their iron cauldron for color - except -

There, standing on the other side of the flames, is Killian.

Nothing feels quite real as they drift together, circling the metal edge. Killian’s hand is soft when it falls against her cheek, cupping gently. Only yesterday, this was unthinkable - the thing she’d have to give up for anything to possibly turn out the way it should.

“We did it, love,” he murmurs. His smile is one Emma doesn’t think she’s ever seen - something sad and joyful all at once. Peaceful, in a way they’ve never been allowed to be.

“What happens now?” Emma asks, stepping closer into his embrace.

“That’s the best thing of all.” His other hand slides up to cup her face with the first. “Anything we want.”

It isn’t - Emma knows it isn’t - but in this moment, standing amongst the dying sparks, his lips almost feel like a first kiss.

A new beginning. Who knew such a thing could still happen for them?)

———

An ocean away, a man older than names themselves sits up straighter in his plush armchair. Not many things disturb him in his discreet townhouse in a quiet corner of London, and that’s the way he likes it. He’s been satisfied, after all these years, to fade out of human notice, even as he still endures. Leave the hassles and worries of everyday life to those younger than him, who have seen far less. After so long, there is not much that can surprise the man known to some as Mr. Gold.

Now, though - there is something in the atmosphere. Some indefinable shift - like the world had briefly held its breath before once again exhaling. A shift in the magic that he’s played a distant hand in for some three decades.

It is not the feeling of the competition having been won - he’s well acquainted with that particular shift in the universe, thank you - but it’s… something. Something unprecedented and new. Something that seems to have broken the very construct of this little game. A standstill, or a limbo, or a detente.

The man smiles. Oh, Regina is going to be so very put out about this whole thing.

A glass of brandy sits on the side table where it hadn’t been just moments before, just waiting for the man to raise it in toast. “Well done, Mr. Jones,” he murmurs, the smile still playing about his mouth. “Well done, indeed.”

A teacher should always hope for their students to break new ground, after all - and it seems that Killian Jones has done just that.

———

A man comes to the circus, searching for something like so many before him.

(The difference is that this man knows that he’s searching, and exactly what he’s searching for.)

Liam Jones has grown used to the unusual demands of his brother’s particular commitment - the odd hours, the days or even weeks without contact, the unusual, last minute travel. But it’s been six weeks without so much as a letter or telegram, and Liam is worried. For everything else demanding Killian’s attention, he’s always been careful to stay in touch with his brother.

Mr. Booth offers no insight, nor does Killian’s friend Belle - now a respectable married lady instead of the occultist and fortune teller she had been. His little brother’s mysterious teacher is nowhere to be found, not that Liam expected any different. By a stroke of luck, the Circus is in town, and Liam resolves to visit himself as a last resort.

He’s had the opportunity to visit the circus many times over the years as a guest of his brother, but the well-trod grounds suddenly feel… different. Liam has never possessed any semblance of the powers his brother boasted, but it doesn’t take a magical insight to feel a new energy in the air when it’s this strong. The circus has always felt otherworldly, nearly unknowable, but there’s a curious sense of the familiar that’s never been here before.

“Excuse me,” comes a polite, young voice at his side. Turning quickly, Liam sees a young woman, dressed in the black and white garb all the circus members wear. “Are you Mr. Jones’ brother?”

“Yes!” Liam latches on to the inquiry like a lifeline, like his one chance to find his brother. “Do you know where he is?”

“He’s okay,” the girl promises. “He’s not here anymore. He’s in the circus now.”

And that doesn’t make sense, because they’re at the circus, but she says he’s not there - and what can in the circ

us mean, if he’s not here? Killian isn’t the type to run off and become an illusionist or an acrobat, for all of his powers. “What do you mean? Where is he?”

But the girl runs off, leaving Liam grasping at the night.

“He’s here, but he’s not,” a different voice chimes in - older, softer - causing Laim to whirl about again. A woman - petite, blonde, lovely, dressed all in blue - smiles gently at him. “Do you know about the competition your brother was involved in?”

“Who are you?” Liam demands instead of answering. It’s not courteous by any means, especially to a lady like herself, but he’s a little too desperate for the niceties.

“My name is Elsa Frost,” she introduces herself with a nod. “I’m one of the people who helped design this venue.”

“So you know my brother then? Where is he?”

“Ava wasn’t lying,” Miss Frost explains, patient in a way that doesn’t feel patronizing. “He’s a part of the circus. Your brother… I don’t know how much you know, but he was a player in someone else’s competition.”

“Yes, his teacher’s. Killian never knew the specifics, just that it would play out here, and one day, there’d be a winner.” Abruptly, Liam’s blood freezes in his veins. “Don’t tell me he’s…”

Miss Frost continues without answering, as if she didn’t even hear him. “There’s only one way for these competitions to end, at least the way I understand it. But that was never enough of an answer for your brother - especially after he met Emma. He fell in love, did you know that?”

Liam shakes his head in the negative. Truthfully, the more Miss Frost talks, the more he sees how much Killian kept hidden from him - likely to protect Liam in the same way Liam had protected him as a child.

“It’s true. I think it was the best and worst thing that ever happened to him. Emma is - was the illusionist, here at the circus,” Miss Frost confides. “She was also his competitor. And it was suddenly unthinkable that he would lose - but even more unthinkable that he would win.”

None of this assuages the sinking, horrible feeling in Liam’s stomach. “He didn’t —”

“He’s not dead,” she assures him, lifting that boulder off his chest. “But he’s not quite alive either. He and Emma… they were the very heart of this place. It all rested on their shoulders - all those lives, as well as their own. They were what kept it going. And they found a loophole.”

Comprehension dawns slowly. “He’s in the circus. You mean he’s - they’re —” Liam waves his hands about, as if to illustrate. Everywhere. Nowhere. The heartbeat that keeps it all moving. The reason all this ever existed and still exists now.

“He’s in the circus. They both are,” Miss Frost confirms.

“And you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know an awful lot about all this,” Liam points out. “How is that?”

“I’ve always seen a bit more than people realize,” she explains. “It’s how I became involved in designing the circus in the first place. It’s a blessing and a curse, being privy to the secret that magic exists. It was never within my power to interfere —” she almost sounds apologetic saying it, as if it was on her shoulders to stop what happened here — “but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see.”

Gazing around him, Liam can’t help but see all the lives tied so closely to the circus - dozens, scores, maybe a hundred. They’ve made lives here, in the past twelve years - and thanks to Killian, those lives can continue.

“We were all just collateral damage,” he murmurs.

“Perhaps,” Miss Frost agrees. “But even knowing I was just a pawn in someone else’s game… I can’t bring myself to regret it, or trade one moment for the beauty that came out of it. And I think your brother would have felt the same. This entire circus is his love letter to his competition,” she waves, “and I can’t imagine he’d trade one piece if it meant he never met her.”

Around Liam, the circus sparkles with vibrant life as if to illustrate. Or maybe to agree; if Killian and the circus are one, now, that doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

“A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets,” Liam murmurs. And he knows - his little brother certainly did fight.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Liam replies, smiling down at his companion. “Just something I used to tell my brother.” He can feel his brother all around him, that energy he couldn’t name at first, and allows it to make him a little bold himself. “Would you like to show me the circus, Miss Frost, at least as you know it?”

A serene smile stretches across her features like a gift just for him. “It would be my pleasure, Mr. Jones.”

(Somewhere on the wind, just at the edges of his hearing, a voice tickles Liam’s ear as they begin to walk.

Farewell, Brother.)

———

It’s been five years since Belle last saw Killian Jones, and she hasn’t been back to the Circus since.

She makes her excuses, of course - the timing was never quite right when the Circus came to town, and she’s got a young son, and it’s good to have this distance, isn’t it? Healthy, to fully separate herself from the life she used to lead as she builds herself a new one.

(They’re just excuses, though, she knows. The truth of the matter is that it’s hard to imagine the Circus without her friend, even if she has long accepted what has happened.)

It takes five years, but this time, when the Circus sets up its tents at the outskirts of London, Belle bundles up her toddler and coaxes her husband out the door and sets out to face her past. On her way out the door, she slips her old tarot deck, now incomplete, into a pocket. Perhaps it’s silly, but it feels right to bring them back to the place where this all started.

In so many ways, the Circus is still the same. That peculiar atmosphere of magic and sheer possibility still persists, and the tents are much as she remembers them. It is easier than she thought it would be, to retread these paths; the memory of the man who made this place so much of what it is still lingers, but in a way that helps her remember, rather than in a way that causes her pain. Life goes on, even in the face of loss, even in a place like this.

As Will steps away to procure popcorn and cider for them all, Belle catches a glimpse of a face she half-remembers - that of a young man with a mop of dark hair, dressed in a neat black suit with a silvery waistcoat. When the memory drifts to the front of her mind, it makes Belle smile. She’d always wondered what sort of journey that boy had ahead of him.

“Henry, was it?” she asks, approaching him with her son at her skirts. “I don’t know if you remember me, but - ”

“The fortune teller, right?” Henry interrupts, delight dancing in his eyes. “Yes, of course I remember. Belle.”

“The only one to ever ask my name - well, at least until my husband,” she teases. “You are well, then? And… involved with the Circus, perhaps?” She still hasn’t forgotten that mysterious reading from some ten years before; something about young Henry had always stuck in her mind, even in the midst of hundreds and thousands of others seeking clarity.

“You could say that,” he laughs. Patting at his pockets for a moment, he pulls out a sleek business card and hands it to Belle. “I’m acting as the manager now.”

It suits him, Belle realizes; there’s a peace about this young man, now, that she hadn’t seen back when he was a boy. Henry knows his place in the world, and knows he’s right where he needs to be. She smiles warmly at him. “I’m sure you’re doing a wonderful job.”

Henry looks down bashfully, shrugging in casual acceptance. “Thank you. I’m doing my best. After Miss Swan and Mr. Jones… left…” There’s a whole world of things he’s not saying with that word, things Belle only knows because of Mulan and because she played her own role. “Someone needed to take responsibility for the Circus. Mulan has been a big help. Ava and Nick, too. This place - it’s just too remarkable to let die.”

“It sounds like you still love the Circus more than anything.”

Henry’s eyes practically glow when he smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

And with a sudden bolt of clarity, Belle knows why she’d tucked her old cards into her pocket on her way to the Circus.

“I’ve got something for you,” she tells him, hurriedly retrieving the deck. Belle draws a card at random, but smiles when she catches a glimpse of which she’d selected. It’s terribly fitting, though Henry may not realize it at first. “Here. For you,” she says, handing Henry the Ace of Wands.

Henry turns the card carefully in his fingers. “After receiving the Fool last time, I can’t truly tell whether this is an improvement or a downgrade for me.”

“Neither. Tarot isn’t like that,” she explains. “Back then - what, a decade ago? - you were just a young man, beginning your journey, still with so much to learn. The Fool was fitting for that. Many who don’t understand the tarot place undue importance on the major arcana - on the ‘face cards,’ but each card in a deck means something. Each and every one. The Ace of Wands is the spark that makes things possible, the match that sets knowledge and understanding alight. Just because it isn’t flashy doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It’s a card that makes things happen, regardless of whether that is where your eye is drawn. It is revitalization and birthing light from the dark.” She pauses. “Do you understand?”

Henry nods, tucking the card carefully into his breast pocket. “A fitting card for a new beginning.”

“Precisely.” On impulse, Belle stretches a hand to lightly pat Henry’s cheek. He’s grown so tall since she last saw him, no longer that gangly boy. “Take care of yourself, Henry, and take care of the Circus. I can’t wait to see what you both become.”

It feels like closure of a kind she didn’t know she needed as Belle sets back off down the path with her son, weaving through the crowd to reunite with Will.

“Mama, can we go ride the carousel?” her son asks at her side, hand still so small within her own grasp.

Belle smiles. “I think that’s a wonderful idea, Killian.”

(Legacy, she’s realized, comes in many forms. Memory can be a living thing, if only you wish it to be.)

———

The Circus has changed over the years: new tents appear, old faces fade away, the grounds expand and spiral into new patterns. It never feels different, exactly, no matter how much may change. The Circus is like its own living organism; its layout may grow, and its features may change, but its soul remains the same.

You remember the first time you’d seen the Wishing Tree. It’d been beautiful then, too - that special kind of otherworldly that only exists at the Circus. In the time since then, this tent has grown outwards to accommodate the living tree, but its branches still swoop low to envelop the space like a hug as you walk in. The branches are clustered with dozens and hundreds of candles, now. The whole thing casts a warm glow in the space that’s never quite still, yet another living, breathing thing.

(There’s a hole at the top of the tent now, too - something new that wasn’t there before. It isn’t particularly big, but it’s enough to see the star-speckled sky beyond. Enough, too, to allow wishes to take flight, off into the wondrous unknown universe.)

It’s awe-inducing, witnessing all the candles left alight, each one representing the dearest wish of the individual who left it. It’s a beautiful reminder of all the things you can’t know about others: all those innermost hopes and dreams that may never be spoken, but exist all the same. You notice, suddenly, that there’s one candle at the center of the tree where the core branches stretch out that’s unlit. If you squint, you can just see that it’s been extinguished, somehow - the one column of wax on the tree without a flame to match. It is curious; dozens and hundreds of candles, placed on every surface, and only one has been put out.

Maybe it’s an accident; maybe it’s a draft. Or maybe, just possibly, it’s a wish that’s been granted, left here for all to see that hope.

You leave again after placing your own candle, heart lighter for it, as your own wish drifts into the night.

———

Regina doesn’t quite win this particular contest, but she doesn’t particularly lose it either. The uncertainty of the matter follows her like an especially annoying gnat - something she wants nothing to do with, but is attached to her regardless. She doesn’t have much use for her 35% stake, though doubtless others would feel differently. Economics is another little pest in a life such as hers.

If anything, she supposes that Emma has won, and Gold’s wretched boy, and maybe even the Circus itself. It was only supposed to be the venue, and should have collapsed once the competition was over. But Emma, that stupid girl, did something the night she wove herself and that boy into the circus, something that has kept it puttering along for ten years, just the way it always has.

(She may have trapped herself in limbo when she made that sacrifice, but her little loophole managed to trap Regina and Gold as well. With their competition not technically completed, there’s an uncertainty about whether they’re able to start another - or whether they even want to. No matter the boredom, Regina could use a break from this mentorship nonsense. Maybe in another century she’ll be bored enough to agree to that.)

This particular afternoon, like so many, Regina takes her tea in the tea room of an expensive London hotel. She has another show tonight, another chance to take the money of so many unbelieving fools, but afternoons are hers, to watch and be watched. There’s a certain fascination to observing the blind crowds, eternally unaware of an entire world of magic existing right under their noses. They know something draws their eyes to the center single table where Regina takes her tea and scones - their subconscious pulling their attention where their conscious mind won’t take the leap - but they’ll never know why. Most assume it’s her striking looks, or impeccable and sumptuous clothing, but they’ll never guess it’s the echo of magic, of power calling to the minds and imaginations. It’s like a secret she holds over the entire world, and Regina has always reveled in that.

Today, however, is different. Today, a young man and woman approach her table arm in arm with a boldness most are too afraid to attempt. They make a picturesque couple, if an odd one; the man, tall and lanky with dark hair, could easily blend into a crowd with his generic suit and amiable smile, but his companion certainly could not say the same, perhaps best described as eccentric. Her dress and hat are close enough to the current fashion, but all in a riot of colors and patterns that blend more than truly match. She looks a bit familiar; belatedly, Regina realizes that she’s the girl-child from the circus. Anna or Ada or… something. It never much mattered; the twins were a particular pet project of Emma’s, though Regina had many times told her to focus her attention instead on the competition at hand. Not that it had done any good - on any level.

“Madam Circe?” the girl - woman, now - asks politely. “You may not remember me, but my name is Ava Zimmer. This is Henry Mills. We’re here about the circus.”

“No relation, I’m sure,” Regina drawls, nodding in acquiescence towards a pair of chairs that may or may not have sat at the table before that very moment. No one will remember it, anyways.

“You would know better than I,” young Mills smiles. With a sweep of Ava’s hand at his side, Regina’s teacup replicates itself into three, enough porcelain for everyone to enjoy the brew Regina herself has kept refilled and at perfect temperature.

(It suddenly makes a bit more sense why Emma had taken such an interest in the girl and her brother. If nothing else, Regina had taught her protegee to recognize power and potential.)

“Well. Aren’t you full of surprises,” is all she says as the duo seats themselves. “You’re here about the Circus, you said? I’m not sure I have any real right to speak on such a thing.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Mr. Mills responds. “Perhaps more than you think.”

“I take it you are aware of the circumstances of Emma Swan’s and Killian Jones’… disappearance?” Miss Zimmer asks. As if that’s the polite way to phrase such a thing.

“As my acolyte - yes, I am. I should certainly hope so.”

“Then you are aware that Emma - when she left, she left her portion of the Circus to the Circus. It’s self-supporting, these days, instead of tied to any single person. Well, mostly.”

“I advise you get to the point, Miss Zimmer. I was not led to believe this was a social call.”

“You have a claim on the Circus,” Mr. Mills interjects. “Did you know that?”

“I wouldn’t use those terms, but I suppose I was instrumental in its creation. If such a thing constitutes a claim.”

“Per the magic that fuels it - it does,” Miss Zimmer tells her. She pulls out a heavy tome; it makes a weighty sound as it lands on the surface of the delicate table, but no one else notices. If she attunes her senses, Regina can sense something like a shield around their table that deflects attention.

Ava Zimmer must be very talented, indeed.

“Mr. Jones created this when the Circus was formed,” she explains, tabbing through the pages. “Each and every person is bound to this book. It seems to be part of what has stopped us from aging. This is the lifeblood of the Circus,” she proclaims solemnly, her hand splayed across the pages.

“It’s a clever bit of spellwork, yes,” Regina agrees. “I, however, have my own methods.”

Mr. Mills bows his head briefly in her direction; Regina can’t tell whether the gesture is meant in genuine deference or something more sarcastic. “We wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. That does not change the fact, however, that your signature is still included on these pages.”

“And you would like to change that.”

“If you don’t mind.” Miss Zimmer slides a delicate blade across the table in Regina’s direction. “Your interest in our endeavor, I think, is over. We’d just like to make that official.”

Regina carefully picks up the knife. It’s a beautiful instrument, the strains of gold and silver perfectly conducive to magic, though currently dormant. It would be so easy to channel her own powers, slice the delicate threads of enchantment that binds her signature to the book and herself to the endeavor, but -

“Suppose I do you this favor. What do I get in return?”

Mills furrows his brow. “Is your release from the Circus not enough?”

“Release from something that hasn’t been a burden? I wouldn’t call that much of a return.”

“What do you want, then?”

There’s so many things she could say, and so few these children could provide. They are so young, and have seen so little, still so idealistically convinced of the goodness of the endeavor.

Still. There is one thing.

“You were there that night, yes? When my acolyte… did this foolish thing?”

Mills nods, solemnly.

“Then I want you to tell me.”

“That’s all?” Miss Zimmer is clearly incredulous of the proposal; good. That’ll serve her well, in the long run.

“That’s all. Tell me the story, and I’ll gladly remove myself from your little fairground for good.”

The young man smiles, leaning back in his chair. “Alright,” he tells her. “But let me start from the beginning.

“Once, in an orphanage outside of Boston, a young boy fell in love with a magical circus…”

———

The circus is a marvel.

It’s been in operation for years, now - nearly three decades, if memory and the kindly concessions vendor are to be believed - but the aura of wonder, of magic remains. The circus is another world all its own, separated from the rest of the planet even as it exists in the center of it.

There are changes, of course; it’s impossible to expect that everything and everyone would stay static all this time. That would take a true feat of magic. Older visitors in particular remember when there was a tent with a magician, a beautiful young woman capable of the most extraordinary things. There’s a statue, now, outside where the tent used to be, of two lovers embracing, hands stroking faces in a display that almost feels too intimate to be captured in marble for everyone to see.

There’s a legend now, too, a rumor of a story to match that statue - of two lovers, pitted against one another in life, whose souls are now free to roam the circus grounds together. There’s whispers, too, that that’s what happened to the missing magician - that the statue is for her memory, and that of her young man. In a way, it would be fitting for her to live on as part of the circus itself. They say that the lovers’ reflections can sometimes be seen in the hall of mirrors, or the brush of a long skirt felt on the carousel, or a warm and masculine voice heard in the ice garden…

It’s hard to imagine anything so tragic happening at the circus; then again, it’s the one place on earth you can imagine something quite so magical and romantic occurring. At the end of the night, there’s no real answer. You’re not certain you need one.

(As you wind your way back towards the gates as the sun starts to rise, you don’t notice two pairs of not-quite eyes watching you, don’t see non-corporeal lips press a kiss to the back of a similarly ghostly hand. Perhaps that’s for the best; some moments aren’t intended for other living eyes.)

(The Circus will continue to live, with two magicians as its heartbeat.)

#cssns20 #a fate woven in thread and ink #shireness says #art by eirabach

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snowbellewells · 10 months ago

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Self Promo Sunday: "A Cottage by the Sea"

This 7 chapter MC was written for the @cssns20 event, and I have always been pretty proud of how it turned out. This one pulls a bit from Pirates of the Caribbean and a bit from 1989's The Little Mermaid, and then throws in the happy ending vision that came into my head that I just needed to find a story to help them reach. I've been travelling back through all my @cssns entries recently, and I hope you'll enjoy this one if you didn't see it then - or if you decide you might want to revisit it!

**Beautiful cover art is by @searchingwardrobes! I'm still in love with it and grateful to have it to put with my story.

Summary: Princess Emma has always been drawn to the shores of Misthaven, where the sea meets the shore near her parents’ castle. When an unknown boy washes up on the sand, with eyes as fathomless and blue as the waters that brought him to her, he soon becomes Emma’s best friend, her partner in crime, and her other half. But the tides give and the tides take away, and as her blue-eyed boy sails in her father’s navy and risks all in defense of those who made him family, unexpected danger and challenge will try to tear them apart, and might well show him just where he came from that day he first appeared to her from the sea…”

**Also available on AO3, if that's your preference**

By: @snowbellewells

Prologue

The land around her parents’ castle had always called to Princess Emma. The open spaces and craggy cliffs she could see in the distance as they plummeted into the churning sea, were windswept and wild much like herself. Though she had always been cared for and beloved, the sole heir to the kingdom of Queen Snow White, Emma also felt the desire to run free, as if she were destined for more than curtsies, crown fittings, and learning to smile demurely. Naturally, she adored her happily devoted, perfectly paired father and mother - just more so when they were teaching her to ride or aim a bow than when they were reminding her once again that she must exude patience and diplomacy at even the most interminable state dinners. She valued her kingdom and its people, understood the honor of her role in it, but that knowledge and affection failed to negate the fact that she often wished just as strongly to rip the fancy curled updos and jeweled tiaras from her head and run streaking like a loosed cannon along the wet sand at the ocean shore she could see from her chamber window, hair streaming behind her and cool, salty air on her face. All the proper princess etiquette and worries left behind.

The easiest - and her most favored - cure for that feeling of wanderlust and burning energy within was for either her mother or her father, or both whenever possible, to take her walking along the water’s edge in the evening. Emma would almost swear the Queen and King enjoyed the calming getaways almost as much as she did, both as a moment to be free of so many fussing, crowding, obsequious attendants and hangers-on, as well as to feel the open air of the world outside their palace cleansing them. She knew - though from nothing more than history and bedtime stories - that her parents had once lived and thrived out of doors, falling in love on the run as rebels before her mother regained the kingdom she had been born to lead. Both her mother, once a legendary bandit, and her father, who had started life as a humble shepherd, seemed to appreciate the chance to escape the castle walls of stone and venture out on their own with their adored and wild-hearted little girl. It concerned neither of them that Emma was bold and adventurous, bucking the traditional prim and dainty image of feminine royalty; in fact, they might have treasured those traits in her even more for how they harkened to what each loved most in the other.

One such evening, however, Queen Snow had been kept well into the twilight hour in a council meeting over trade routes and revenue, along with Emma’s father, and even Red, her godmother. Waiting impatiently, Emma fretted that she wouldn’t get outdoors and down to the shore at all, as she sat in the wide, cozy window seat of her tower room, looking out over the waves crashing up on the sands. She took in the lights of ships in their harbor, the mist and waves, and she longed to be closer - to be part of it all. In fact, she was mischievously contemplating whether or not she could scale down the outer walls in her nightdress and robe, and get to her usual walking course alone without being detected, when the door to her room opened behind her.

Snow White entered in a pleasantly flushed bluster of activity. Charming followed her with an indulgent smile, happily sweeping his daughter up into his arms as she ran to him in an excited blonde blur. She might be nearly 10-years-old, but he could still swing her up in his arms and twirl her through the air and all around the room as easily as he did when she was but a babe. Giggling happily, Emma threw her arms around her Papa’s neck and revelled in the exuberant joy of his affection.

When he put her down again, she immediately hopped around him excitedly tugging on his hand. “Can we go out for our walk now, please? Down by the shore… can we? Can we, pleeease?”

The King shook his head with a rueful chuckle, having known this would be her request the moment they set foot in their daughter’s room. She was made for the out-of-doors, an enchanting sprite of waves and sky, and he found it nigh as impossible as ever to disappoint her if her wish was within his power. “You’ll have to ask your mother this time, Sweetheart. I have more meetings, stores to check for the winter, applicants for aid to hear, a few more hours of work this evening yet.”

Snow smiled at him over Emma’s tousled blond head, nodded her agreement to a short jaunt while there was still light, Emma squealed with glee and danced an excited little jig before scampering toward the door, pulling at her mother’s hand impatiently, determined to hurry her along, Queen or no.

“You and Granny had better have cocoa and biscuits waiting for us when we return, Charming,” the dark-haired monarch grumbled, appearing stern, but the playful spark in her eyes told her husband she wasn’t really that upset. He was assuring they had what was needed for charitable giving to those less fortunate throughout the kingdom once harvests were over for the season; it would take but a moment to let the head palace cook know his wife’s wishes before continuing with his tasks.

“Anything for you, Dear,” he playfully mock-bowed before happily accepting a sweet kiss on the cheek and following his wife and daughter from the room. He was off in one direction; Marco and Jiminy both waiting down the hall to help him judge numbers, ask questions, and take notes, while Emma and Snow went in the other, headed down the stairs to the first floor side entrance and quickest path to the shore Emma was so anxious to reach. Charming supposed that many might think it strange he was not more troubled by letting his beloved and his only child wander outside the grounds alone, but his Queen could more than take care of herself. And if he knew Snow’s trusted bodyguard at all, the Huntsman they had long ago freed from Snow’s stepmother’s control, he would not be far if they had need of him when David could not accompany them - whether he was in view or not.

~~***~~

They were hand in hand, Emma’s shoes in her mother’s grip, as she skipped with exuberant satisfaction at her side, toes squidging with the exquisite feel of the wet grains of sand as she did. It was all Emma had wanted all day, from the moment she’d gotten dressed and shared breakfast with her parents and godmother, informal as they had no visitors in the warm, cozy castle kitchens. Throughout her interminable etiquette lessons with the Blue Fairy, and studying with her tutors, she had wanted nothing more than to be carefree by the water like this, and she was beside herself with excitement to be there at last.

Ruffling her daughter’s hair, Snow let the worries and concerns of meetings, treaties, budgets, and protocols slide from her shoulders while the evening breeze caressed her face. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes for a moment and laughed into the wind right along with her precious child. Perhaps she had needed the escape just as much.

Then, with a sharp jerk, Emma’s smaller hand tugged from hers with a cry of surprise. “Mama, look there!” she called, her fingers slipping from her mother’s grasp as she began to pelt across the sand in alarm. “A boy! A boy just came out of the water! He’s hurt!”

Immediately, Snow White’s focus was sharp, snapping back into full awareness, scanning ahead of them to where she saw a dark, bedraggled shape, not much larger than Emma, lying on the lighter colored beach. Emma had run forward in such concern that she had already almost reached the small shape, and her mother quickly gathered up her skirts and jogged forward to catch her, not sure yet what to expect. “Emma! Wait! Be careful!” she warned, though she already knew the caution would fall on deaf ears. Emma was fearless for her own safety, and had a soft spot for any person or thing injured or in need; she wouldn’t be stopping if she thought she could help.

Nearing the indeed soaked, disheveled, and unconscious child, Emma had already fallen to her knees, trying to shake and urge the unknown person back to awareness. The queen’s concern for her daughter’s safety instantly melted into compassion for the waif who didn’t move, didn’t speak, and barely seemed to breathe. For a child of his seeming height, he was frighteningly thin, his clothing threadbare and torn, hair too long, nearly hiding his closed eyes as soaked to his skin as it was. The Queen’s maternal heart ached for him, wondering how he came to be in such a state, alone and washed up from the sea. Taking Emma’s hand to stop her jostling him, Queen Snow could only hope they weren’t too late to save this mere boy’s life. It was only just beginning.

She looked up, wondering how they could get him back to the castle and trying to gauge how far they had traveled from the gates. Just as she was vaguely considering whether or not she could call one of the birds she was able to use as messengers - a gift that had served her often throughout life - when a tall shadow materialized from the woods bordering the shore, before she even needed to call out. Her long time bodyguard, Graham, Snow realized with easy relief; she should have known he would not be far, and regardless of the necessity - or lack thereof - in this moment she was glad he was there. This child needed help, and they needed to get him to a physician as soon as possible.

The Huntsman scooped the still-motionless boy up easily and began to carry him back the way they had come. Snow and Emma hovered on either side in anxious worry. As soon as they got him home to safety, they would bring him around. They had to. They had to have found him for a reason.

~~***~~

Once the unknown boy had been carried back to the castle, his slight form hardly causing the Huntsman to strain himself, bundled down before the warm hearthfire of the kitchens, boneless still, but changed from his wet rags into a old castoff tunic of the King’s (long enough to be a nightshirt on the lanky youth) and covered in numerous blankets, it took little time for the youth to come back to himself.

Emma hovered anxiously next to the little stranger she had found, feeling oddly protective of “her boy” as she was already thinking of him in her head. She only paused in her agitated fidgeting to briefly take a cup of cocoa for herself and return the supportive hand squeeze offered her by their friend Red, Granny’s actual granddaughter and Emma’s frequent babysitter and playmate as well as her godmother.

Of course, Doc, the castle’s rather unofficial physician, had been sent for upon their return, but as the child before them began to stir of his own accord, Emma let herself hope that it would prove a mere precaution and their charge would be just fine. Heavy-lidded eyes blinked open slowly, as if still weary and reluctant to revive. When finally the thick, dark lashes parted to reveal rather stunning, unbelievably sea-blue eyes, Emma gasped at the shock that ran through her. Even as the boy’s widened in equal surprise and alarm, his eyes fixed on her gaze for several endless moments before darting around his surroundings, clearly unsure where he was or what had happened.

“Shh…. sh… hush now…” Emma felt her own tense muscles loosen as her mother’s voice calmly bathed the scene in gentle comfort. The Queen, soft and careful, and looking for all the world in that moment just like any other mother hoping to reassure her frightened child, stooped down to eye level with the boy they had propped up in a heaping nest of pillows and quilts by the fire. She reached out to softly brush his dark hair off his forehead, but froze when the boy flinched back like a startled animal. Instead, she only added in the same low, sweet croon. “You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you… It’s alright now.”

The youngster’s eyes continued to cast about him for several tense moments, but then he seemed to finally register the calm surrounding him and accept that he would be alright. The tentatively crooked smile he offered back to the Queen sparked a bit of hope in all who were gathered around him. And when a steaming cup of cocoa was pressed into his hands by Granny with a brusque but concerned admonishment to “drink up, it’ll warm your insides” before the cook bustled off again, he seemed to come back to himself even more at the scent which wafted up into his face of chocolate and their family’s customary hint of cinnamon.

Emma could practically see interest light up those expressive eyes, but the child hesitated rather than bringing the cup to his lips for a taste. Darting from Queen to Princess uncertainly, he seemed to be gauging whether or not it was truly acceptable for him to take a drink.

“Go ahead,” Emma urged, smiling in what she hoped was reassurance. She wasn’t known for her patience, and she couldn’t know that this youth had never experienced hot cocoa, nor many pleasant treats at all, in his young life. Hoping to encourage him, she lifted her own mug to drink and then smacked her lips at the delightful taste, making Ruby laugh and her mother shake her head at her dreadful table manners. The boy’s face, however, lit with a bit of humor and happiness that it had not yet held. “It’s good, I promise,” Emma added with a grin. “You’ll like it.”

Almost as if he could resist no longer, the boy tipped his cup and took a sip of the warm, rich beverage at last. Then, it seemed he discovered the powers of liquid chocolate that everyone else in the room well knew. His eyes widened in delight, and he tipped his head back to get every last drop as he quickly guzzled down the rest, making Emma giggle, and him startle guiltily as if he’d done something wrong.

“Don’t worry,” Emma assured, reaching out innocently to lay her hand on his, “You can have some more, right Mama?”

Queen Snow White’s eyes were a bit misty with unshed tears, having already met Granny’s gaze over Emma’s head and Ruby’s as well, the three women piecing together things Emma in her sheltered, loving world could not yet know about what this youngster must have gone through. His reactions and his guardedness spoke volumes, even in silence. Nodding simply, not sure at first that she could speak around the painful lump in her throat, Snow finally managed to agree, “Yes, for tonight at least, our new friend may have all the hot cocoa his heart desires.”

~~***~~

The boy’s name, it turned out, was Killian Jones. He did recall that much once he regained his bearings, as well as the fact that he had possessed a father, mother, and older brother in a happy little house before his mother had seemingly vanished from his young life, and they had sent sail on the boat he had been on before washing ashore. No matter how many questions they asked or how he tried to call more forth, he remembered little else of what happened to his mother or father. He knew he had been told she fell ill and died, but all he could bring forth in his mind’s eye was that one morning he had awakened and she had vanished from his life as if she never existed at all - just a pleasant dream. His elder brother Liam had been on the boat with him, and Killian had shed tears that broke all their hearts when he recalled the day his brother had been swept overboard and lost to him forever. But as to what had become of his father, and how he had been sentenced to the life of hard labor he had clearly endured afterward, there was nothing but a blank and questions.

As days and weeks, then months, and finally years went by, he remained with them at Misthaven castle. Though far from a young prince, Killian was raised as a member of the royal household, growing up side-by-side with Princess Emma. They appeared to be quite close in age, and joined by the fact that she had found him and seemed to take Killian on as her own, he and Emma were quite inseparable - the best of friends and as “thick as thieves” as Granny always lamented when they were underfoot or stealing berries meant for tarts and pies on the royal dinner table.

As they reached adolescence, the King and Queen began to wonder where Kilian would be happiest as he came of age. The young man they had come to adore almost as a son had several skills: he was invaluable in the stables, exuding a calming force over the horses and evincing a knack for their training and care; he was quite good as an extra hand in the kitchen when Granny was understaffed or had more visiting mouths than usual to feed (for all her tough talk the aging widow had a soft spot for the boy and would no doubt have mentored him as a cook). Killian was bright; genuine knowledge and curiosity made him a voracious reader and student, honestly gaining more from the princess’ many esteemed tutors than Emma ever had and enjoying the study much more. He would have been easy to train as a page or diplomat, but none of those options seemed quite right.

It was not until his fifteenth birthday that the way Killian hoped to take became clear. It might have seemed improbable to most, knowing that the sea had once nearly swallowed him whole and claimed his life, but to Emma who knew him better than anyone else, it made sense. Those restless, wandering waves held an appeal, a mystery and adventure, and perhaps even still some bit of himself that her friend needed to claim. He stated his intention to join her father’s Navy with a proud certainty. And Emma’s heart swelled with equal gratification, but also fear. The sea had given him to her, but it wanted to take him back again…

It had taken them all such a long time to show Killian that he was welcome there, truly a part of their loving extended family. At first, Killian had shrunk back - shoulders hunched, head bowed, breath coming quickly in frightened pants - any time he might accidentally drop and break a dish or he reached for a second roll at the table, making it clear was that he had been punished and berated, to the point that he cowered like a whipped dog whenever he feared he might have put even a toe out of line. Princess Emma knew that her parents suspected beatings and physical abuse; it was clear in the concerned way their eyes met in silent communication whenever Killian reacted with the intense fear and apology he often showed in his bearing; she sadly had to agree that they were quite probably correct. She shuddered to think of how he might still be suffering under some cruel captain’s mistreatment, miserable, stranded and helpless to change his situation if it had not been for the shipwreck which brought him to Misthaven instead. There had been no question for any of them that he must stay, when they had learned of his indenture and how he had been orphaned and abandoned. She couldn’t have been more glad that all in the castle were in agreement; Emma had already decided that “her boy” needed to stay there with them, where he was safe and she could be sure he was happy and free. Neither of them were small children anymore, but Emma’s care and affection for him had never changed.

For so long before Killian’s arrival, she had been the only child in a palace of grown-ups: rulers, dignitaries, staff - a whole caravan of people who doted and adored, but very few who could be peers, to play with, talk to, and simply understand her. As the days had flowed into one another, turning into months and years until most people could hardly remember when she and Killian were not linked, they were practically siblings in every way that mattered. The princess knew that she didn’t intend to live - not could she imagine - her life without him ever again.

And then, seemingly in the mere blink of an eye, they were fifteen and moving from playing tag amongst the grape arbors and lilac bushes in her mother’s gardens and slipping out of the interminable poise and etiquette lessons which Emma detested yet was never allowed to miss, to the stage where Killian was serving as her partner while she learned the waltz and other ballroom dances she would need to master for formal balls and ceremonies. Not only that, but as they edged into adolescence, Emma’s heart thumped against her chest differently than it used to as Killian led her gracefully through the steps. Even as her heart seemed ready to ricochet from her body, the warmth of Killian’s skin where they touched and the utter safety she felt in his hold half intoxicated her. As awareness spun her head round, uncertain what to do with it or how to proceed with these strange new feelings suddenly flooding her, all Emma could be certain of was the pang of loss she felt at knowing that Killian’s desire was to soon join her father’s naval fleet. At fifteen, he was at last of age to sail as a cabin boy and begin to work his way up in a ship’s ranks. Though she knew that had long been her friend’s desired course, Emma’s heart still ached to see him go.

However, her parents could not deny him the chance to seek such a worthy ambition. Indeed, they were proud of Killian, happy to help him secure a place on one of their finest vessels and make certain he knew their confidence in him and their faith that he would succeed. All too soon, after years with him at her side, it was the day Emma’s confidant and companion was set to sail on his first voyage. Though she knew in her head that the kingdom was in a time of peace and that it was a mere routine mission, her heart could not ignore the fact that sea travel always came with risk. Not only that, but she would miss Killian terribly.

Still, goodbyes had been said, all was made ready, and she was left on the dock, waving goodbye as the best friend she had ever known met her eyes and waved back. His pretty blue eyes, that had long since begun to speak to her as ardently as his actual words, expressed a potent blend of pained anxiety at leaving his adopted family and the life he had known and excitement for the adventure ahead on the waves that stirred his blood. She stood there long after the rest of the crowd seeing him off had dispersed and gone back to the castle, watching as the naval ship bearing “her boy” (as she sometimes still in the deepest and most secret depths of her heart thought of him) became a small dot on the horizon before fading from view entirely.

And only then had the journey truly begun...

Part One

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi

@jrob64 @apiratewhopines @grimmswan @ultraluckycatnd @caught-in-the-filter

@stahlop @ineffablecolors @let-it-raines @tiganasummertree @optomisticgirl

@spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @mayquita

@thislassishooked @drowned-dreamer @kday426 @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89

@darkcolinodonorgasm @hollyethecurious @resident-of-storybrooke @teamhook @revanmeetra87

@the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @gingerpolyglot @gingerchangeling

@xsajx @bluewildcatfanatic @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv @xarandomdreamx

@jonesfandomfanatic @motherkatereloyshipper @myfearless-love @belovedcreation @goforlaunchcee

#self promo sunday #cssns fi rerun #cs ff #lieutenant duckling au ff #Enchanted Forest Au ff #with a supernatural twist #a cottage by the sea

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cssns · 9 months ago

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The FINAL YEAR of the Captain Swan Supernatural Summer is behind us, so it's time for the CSSNS24 Event Roundup!!!

Does anyone else need a min? I know I do...

Before we get to the roundup itself, I have to give the LOUDEST OF SHOUT OUTS and GROUP HUG to the team of mods - @winterbaby89 @jrob64 @stahlop and @ultraluckycatnd - who helped me EVERY STEP OF THE WAY!!! This event absolutely wouldn't have happened without them and I'm sooooo grateful that they stepped up to the plate to make this final event a success!!! Thank you all soooo much, ladies!!!!

Also as part of this final roundup, I want to share all the links to all the other event roundups that have been reblogged the last few weeks. This has been an PHENOMENAL ride over all these years and I'm so grateful for all the love and support y'all have given it!! And now, all of the fics and art from all of the years will be in one place!!

CSSNS18

CSSNS19

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CSSNS21

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Thank you all again for EVERYTHING all these years!!! Its been an honor and privilege to man the helm for most of these years, but it certainly wouldn't have lasted as long as it has without the contributions of all the participants and the enthusiasm of the audience!!!! So thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!

And now, on to the roundup!!!! Under the cut, unless Tumblr ate it.

I opened us up this year on July 2 with the first of two contributions I prepared for this final event. The Arena was a short and - kinda, maybe, not so much overall, but def by the end - sweet werewolf oneshot with breathtaking artwork by @motherkatereloyshipper !!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 5, @exhaustedpirate posted a not-so-short and extra sexy werewolf fic, In Your Moonlit Eyes, with wonderful artwork by @thejollyroger-writer.

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 7, @whatevenisthisbloganymore posted the first chapter of a fae fic, Where Idle Feet Wander. Princess Emma of the EF finds herself in the Fae lands and needs help to return home. The first ch was fantastic and I can't wait to see where the journey takes us!

On ao3

On July 9, @jrob64 posted the first chapter of her ghost hunter Killian fic, Ghosted, with artwork provided by yours truly, manips of Neal and Liam courtesy of @motherkatereloyshipper! Now complete with five chapters, Joni took us on QUITE a spooky ride!! Don't read before going to bed at night!!!

Ch1 on Tumblr

On ao3

On July 13, @grimmswan updated both of her fics from last year, Dracula in Storybrooke and Love Bites (But So Do I). Both of these fics are SO MUCH FUN and we are getting very close to their conclusions!!

Dracula in Storybrooke on Tumblr on ao3

Love Bites on Tumblr on ao3

On July 14 @anmylica posted an update to last years fic, Fly With the Black Swan, her alternate telling of the Dark Swan arc. Now three chs in, this is an absolutely beautiful tale so far and I can't wait for more of it!!! Artwork by @zaharadessert

On ao3

On July 15, @theartofdreaming1 posted original artwork for the event featuring mermaid Emma!!! Absolutely beautiful work brought me to tears!!

On July 17, @mie779 posted an alternative take on episode 3x17 The Jolly Roger featuring merman Killian!! Don't Kiss and Tail, a fantastic and utterly delightful what if fic!!! Lovely banner by @iamstartraveller776.

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 17, @goforlaunchcee updated last year's fic, Smoke and Mirrors, with absolutely perfect artwork by @piinfeathers!! A ghost/witch story, it's an absolute HOOT and I'm always so happy when she updates!! Now up to ch7.

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 19, @snowbellewells posted the first of her two offerings for this year's event, On Wings of Storm, with magnificent artwork by @motherkatereloyshipper !!! A beautiful one shot that left me in tears of joy!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 25, @laianely posted the first chapter of her crime mystery No Rest for the Immortals with artwork by @captainswan-kellie (x) and herself (x). A murder mystery featuring vampire Killian, I am BESIDE myself every time she updates. Now on ch7.

On Tumblr

On ao3

On July 27, @xarandomdreamx posted the first chapter of her fic, The Kiss of Life with beautiful artwork provided by @motherkatereloyshipper!! Ohhh, she killed me sharing snippets on discord and the whole chapter did not disappoint!!!! Cannot wait for more of this!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 4, I posted my second fic for the event, Return to Me, again with stunning artwork by @motherkatereloyshipper !! Since the whole purpose of this event was to bump up the number of werewolf and vampire CS fics, and I'd already posted a werewolf fic this year, I came up with a fic that I thought the original Dracula was kinda about. Turns out that I was very wrong. But anyway, it was a lot of fun to write.

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 6, @belovedcreation posted the first chapter of an epic werewolf fic, Can I Be Your Werewolf? featuring lovely artwork from @mie779!! 33 chapters that she just finished posting TODAY, it was an awesome ride from start to finish!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 8, @everything-person shared with us a smorgasbord of ideas that she came up with, but real life intervened and she wasn't able to write full fics for them. HOWEVER, she did make art for them all and shared a snippet of where she wanted to go with each one. Each one was absolutely fantastic and I hope there will come a day when she is able to write the fics and share them with us!!

On Tumblr

On Aug 10, @jonesfandomfanatic posted the first two chs of her fic, Into the Parallel. Now on ch6 of 7, this is an incredible time travel/realm jumper fic that I am absolutely in love with!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 16, @exhaustedpirate posted her second fic of the event, Haunted By the Ghost of You, again with beautiful artwork by @thejollyroger-writer. The first chapter was lovely and heartbreaking in equal measure and I cannot wait to see the happy ending she has promised me will happen. Someday...

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 21, @snowbellewells submitted her second fic of the event, For All Life and For All Time, this fic actually inspired by Dracula. The first of three chs is currently up and I cannot wait to see more of it!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 22, @hollyethecurious posted the first chapter of Once Upon a Grimm, her incredible fic using the lore and some storylines of the TV series Grimm featuring Once characters. @eastwesthomeisbest provided the gorgeous artwork!! We are now two chs in and I can already tell, we are in for a really fun ride!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 24, @wyntereyez posted a second fic to her series Bats In the Belfry. This year's fic, Wool of Bat and Tongue of Dog is a MC and a fantastic follow-up to A Little Batty from last year!!! Artwork by @jrob64 .

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 25, @cocohook38 posted her artwork for last years fic by @iamstartraveller776 To Cleave Destiny. We only have the first ch of the fic posted, but it's amazing already and Jules artwork just gives me chills!!!

Artwork post on Tumblr

Fic on ao3

On Aug 26, @eastwesthomeisbest posted a series of manips of Emma Dressed in Blood. Literally took my breath away!!! Gorgeously creepy!!!

On Tumblr

On Aug 29, @zaharadessert posted the Prologue of her fic, Forget Me Not, with a lovely moodboard made by @exhaustedpirate . This first chapter sets up quite a mystery and I can't wait to see where she goes with this!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

On Aug 30, @deckerstarblanche posted the final chapter of last year's fic, An Offer She Can't Refuse, with artwork by @undercaffinatednightmare. A super sexy Omegaverse fic, I was soooo thrilled she came back to give CS the happy ending they deserve!!!

On Tumblr

On ao3

Our last fic of the event, Scattered Earth (Mortua Terra), posted just yesterday. Real life intruded and kept @dykelilypage from finishing her fic until last week, but I told her that if she could get it in before I posted the roundup, I'd still include it, and boy did she deliver!!! The fic was absolutely incredible!!! Supernatural investigative reporters Emma Swan and Killian Jones team up to solve a mystery. Utterly perfect artwork done by @eastwesthomeisbest

On Tumblr

On ao3

Well, that's it, y'all!! Our FINAL CSSNS has come to an end!!

Everyone take a moment, take a deep breath, and join me in expressing your appreciation to all the participants this year and over the last six for giving us such PHENOMENAL, INCREDIBLE, FANTASTIC supernatural stories!!! There are still many fics from past years that the authors are still active in fandom and plan on continuing whenever they get a chance. And to that end, this blog is not going anywhere. Whenever an update to a fic posts, I'll be right here to read, flail, and reblog.

Until then, y'all!!!

#cssns24 roundup #event roundup #the FINAL year #cssns #captain swan supernatural summer

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eastwesthomeisbest · 4 years ago

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I’ll be Waiting For You by the Blood Moon 11/11

Chapter 10

And here's the last artwork for the last chapter of the amazing story written by @cocohook38 for @cssns (@kmomof4 )

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/Prologue/ /Chapter 1/ /Chapter 2/ /Chapter 3/

/Chapter 4/ /Chapter 5/ /Chapter 6/ /Chapter 7/

/Chapter 8/ /Chapter 9/ / Chapter 10/

Also in AO3

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I want to thank you @cocohook38 from the bottom of my heart for the chance to work on this great story. For me all of this was an exceptional journey, an incredible experience, pure pleasure and great honor! (and a big thank you to @kmomof4 for introducing us to each other.)

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wistfulcynic · 5 years ago

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The Eternal and Unseen (1 of 3)

For @cssns

a/n: Thanks to @spartanguard and @optomisticgirl for the prompts that planted the seeds of this idea and to my TERRACE-mates @thisonesatellite, @ohmightydevviepuu, and @katie-dub, without whom I might never have found the right way to encourage them to grow, and of course INCOHERENT GIBBERING NOISES OF DELIGHT to @carpedzem for the absolutely stunning art about which I cannot possibly say enough good things. Please zoom all the way in and appreciate the perfection of all the little details she included. The tiny wee fronds on the plant! The shape of the light! Emma’s feather earrings! Her red cloak! Her hat! (the hat you guys, the hat!!). Everything about it is so, so gorgeous and Nat is so talented and creative and such a joy to work with ❤️❤️❤️.

On AO3 Rating: M Words: 3.9k (first chapter)

CHAPTER ONE:

David Nolan was always surprised by people’s reactions when they learned he was the Resident Assistant for H.C. Andersen Hall at Misthaven University. Sure, it was the oldest dorm on the campus, built of dark stone in a high Gothic style, with tall towers and pointed arches, way back when Misthaven and her people still believed in magic. And sure, the heavy wooden doors had a way of creaking on their iron hinges and the windows rattled in their frames when the wind was high... sometimes even when it didn’t blow at all. But this was merely rust and weather and David was a practical man, not one to be troubled by such things as can be plausibly explained away.

And yes, Andersen did have that reputation, though David was certain it could be no more than simple silly student gossip. As an upperclassmen dorm its occupancy was by request only, and over the years it had come to be known as the place where some of the more… unique students tended to convene. But that was surely no reason for people to give that startled twitch or to take a wary step back from him when he told them about his job. Or for the other candidates to look so relieved when they learned it was he and not they who’d be taking over from the last RA, a guy called Walsh who had, in the words of one, “Still not recovered from the trau—er, the experience. But hey, good luck, man.”

A thousand years ago when it was known by another name, Andersen alone had been the university, a haven for scholars of every kith and creed and a place where learning took precedence over any rivalry, however ancient. The building had both schooled and housed them, fed them in its great dining hall with food cooked in the basement kitchen, tutored them in the tower classrooms with books procured from the vast library. When lessons were completed the scholars found repose in the common room, a comfortable space with an enormous fireplace, large, overstuffed chairs, and carved wooden tables where lively debates were had each night until the fire died and they withdrew to their rooms to sleep. (Rooms which, David observed to his delight, were twice the size of those in the other dorms and always single occupancy—no roommate squabbles for him to contend with.) As the university grew and newer dorms were built, as the ancient covenants were forgotten and magic faded from the land, fewer and fewer students chose to reside in the newly christened Andersen Hall. At present there were only eight, plus David, who despite the strange reactions he encountered was thrilled to be the RA there. Eight residents, and all upperclassmen, he thought to himself. Andersen had to be the easiest gig on campus. How odd that no one else had seemed to want it.

The hall itself stood just at the edge of the modern campus, tucked against the so-called enchanted forest that marked the border of Misthaven on three sides. It was an ancient forest, whether enchanted or not—a forest of twisted trees and clinging moss and the shrouding mist that gave their country its name. Very little sunlight survived to reach its floor and thus such things as grew there fed on decay, most digging their roots deep into the soil to wrench what nutrients they could from it and barely peeking the tips of their grey-green leaves above the ground. Other valiant species reached out for whatever light could penetrate the dense canopy, stretching upward into vines that curled around the trunks and branches of the gnarled trees to unfurl their broad leaves hopefully as close as they could to the sky. And so it was of course these very leaves and vines and branches that crept up Andersen’s stone walls and scraped against its windows, and cast deep and shifting shadows that fell both outside the hall and in.

So yeah, David reflected, Andersen Hall was old. And dark. And with each successive year it sank a bit more deeply into the forest’s embrace—a perfectly benign embrace, most of the time, although perhaps not ideal when you found yourself alone in your dorm with the music in your headphones never quite as loud as the branches across your windows, or the distant howls of wolves, or the much less distant scrabblings of other creatures to which it was not always wise to put a name. So, yeah, there was that.

And the students who chose to live in Andersen were characters, that was for sure. Even David had to admit that he’d never met anyone quite like them before. But, he reminded himself, at the end of the day they were just students. Just kids like all the others, despite the sometimes unnerving focus of their attention and the surprising depth to their eyes. Just college kids discovering themselves, exploring their quirks and hobbies and interests.

Take Emma, for example. Emma Swan, as graceful as her name implied and even more beautiful, with her warm smile and wry humour and the spark of mischief in her green eyes. One of the nicest girls David had ever met, tough and smart but with a kind and generous heart and a tender vulnerability that made him wish it were still fashionable to slay dragons. He’d gladly slay one for her—or anything else that might threaten her. His urge to protect Emma at all costs—though from what dangers it was never quite clear—surprised him with its persistent and overwhelming strength.

Also surprising was Emma’s choice of dorm-room decor; the space in her room not occupied by the bed, desk, television, and mini-fridge that were standard even in Andersen rooms, she had filled entirely with plants. Plants the like of which David was certain he had never before seen, long and twisted vines that clung and crept across the stone walls, broad leaves and pointed ones and flowers in unexpected colours. He’d examined them with a frown the day she moved in, mildly unnerved by how comfortably they already seemed to inhabit the space but convinced by Emma’s soothing reassurances and the evidence of his own eyes that none of them were anything college kids might wish to dry and smoke. And while keeping what was essentially a greenhouse in a dorm room may be a bit unorthodox it wasn’t strictly against the rules—David had even made a special visit to the Chancellor to ensure Emma wouldn’t run into any difficulty later on, if another student made a complaint, for example. The Chancellor’s eyes had widened to an alarming size, but he’d confirmed that yes, students were allowed plants in their rooms, and there wasn’t technically a limit on their number, then hustled David from his office with the rather thin excuse of a dentist appointment he suddenly remembered he had.

And as for Emma’s habit of chatting to her plants as though they understood her words, or chuckling to herself as she did so, or singing as she watered them—a low and haunting tune in a language David felt he really ought to recognise—all while wearing a pointed hat made of green straw with flowers round the brim which she called her ‘special gardening hat’… well, she wasn’t bothering anyone and David really didn’t think it was his place to judge.

And actually, Emma’s plants weren’t even the most unusual things that could be found in the rooms of his residents. Victor Whale, a slender, pale young man who gave the impression of feeding off his own nervous energy, had what looked to David’s admittedly untrained eye like an entire laboratory set up in his room—tall shelves lined with specimen jars and long tables loaded with Bunsen burners under simmering beakers of… substances in which David felt it might be wisest not to invest too much careful thought. He had not spoken to the Chancellor about those burners and didn’t intend to, both because he didn’t wish to draw attention to them and because Victor with his wild hair and wilder eyes, the sardonic smirk he nearly always wore and the barbed comments he loved to make, did not rouse quite the same protective instincts in David as Emma did.

That, and he wasn’t entirely certain the Chancellor would agree to meet with him again.

Of all his residents, the one David felt he could relate to most was Graham. They shared a similar taste for plaid shirts and brown leather jackets, and a similar appreciation for the simple joys that could be had in the great outdoors. Graham had an deep, instinctual understanding of nature that David envied; several times he’d caught the younger man in conversation with the dogs he met on the walks he liked to take or the squirrels who paused to chatter at him from the branches of trees, even the deer and other creatures that crept out from the forest to scratch at his window, serious conversation that did not appear one-sided. Graham spoke to animals as Emma did to plants—in the manner of folk to their brethren—but the connection went deeper even than that. Every few weeks he went out to spend all night in the woods, generally, David couldn’t help noticing, around the time of the full moon—and when David inquired why Graham simply replied “The animals need me.”

If animals of the furry variety had need of Graham, the feathered kind flocked, quite literally, to Snow. There never seemed to be a time when she wasn't accompanied by some feathered friend or other, and her dorm window was always open so they could come and go as they pleased. She kept bowls of seeds on her shelves and handfuls of them in her pockets and had been delighted when Emma gave her a tree so the birds would have somewhere in her room to nest—a tree that within a week had overgrown its pot and sunk roots into the stone floor of Snow’s room in a way David again found himself opting not to examine. He himself passed many a pleasant afternoon with Snow in that room, listening to her talk about—and to—her birds. It amazed him now how little attention he’d paid to birds before. They were astounding, beautiful creatures, and the sound of Snow’s voice, melodic and soothing as she stroked their feathered heads, was… well, it was… it was something he sometimes felt he could listen to forever.

Snow’s best friend in the dorm was Ruby and though David liked Ruby perfectly well he had to admit he was a bit baffled by how close the two were. They didn’t seem to have a whole lot in common. All but the bravest of Snow’s birds fled when Ruby approached, and the ones that stayed eyed her warily and stuck close to Snow as she flashed them a grin and licked her chops. Er, her lips. She licked her lips and it made the birds nervous, and… and at any rate, Ruby was bold and charming but just a bit wild. She liked to party and to stay out late, often not returning to her room until the early hours of the morning. Andersen had no curfew so David said nothing, though he couldn’t help noticing that in sharp contrast to Ruby’s habits Snow was usually in bed by 10 o’clock. Not that he paid her or her sleeping habits any particular attention, certainly not, just that he happened to notice she always left her room at around 9.45 to go wash her face, always wearing such cute pajamas and trailed by a flock of bluebirds—and it wasn’t like he made a point of being out in the common room when he knew she’d be walking by, he just… well, he happened to be there sometimes. That was all.

Yet despite these differences Snow and Ruby were the best of friends, and while Emma was more solitary and a bit distant until you got to know her, she also got along well with them. Ruby got along with just about everybody, including Belle, who David sometimes forgot was even among his residents. Belle had an unnerving way of appearing very suddenly where she was least expected and of disappearing without warning from places she’d been moments before. She was a quiet, studious young woman who moved as though her feet didn’t quite touch the floor and was so pale he sometimes fancied he could see through her. She was hardly ever in her room or even the common room, preferring to spend her time in the library.

“You might say she haunts the place,” August had remarked with a wry note in his voice that David imagined was significant, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. Feeling at something of a loss, he had simply nodded. “She certainly does spend a lot of time there,” he’d agreed, then frowned when August laughed.

August was a bit of an odd one, the only person in the dorm whom Ruby actively disliked, so much that she actually snarled at him whenever their paths crossed. He took only evening classes and was never anywhere to be found during the day. At least once a week he returned from his classes accompanied by a young woman—always beautiful and rarely the same one twice—and David observed that while August preferred to sleep the day away those women would stumble from his room quite early the next morning and looking awful—pale and drawn and thoroughly exhausted. Before leaving they all would go to Emma’s door, knock three times slowly then three times fast, and when it opened they all smiled the same sheepish smile and stuttered the same apologies as they slipped into her room. When they emerged from it they were as new women—pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, glowing with health and quite pleased with themselves, wreathed in satisfied smiles.

David felt uncomfortably as though he ought to do something about this, though he had no idea what. The women always seemed so thrilled when they arrived—clinging to August’s arm and chattering brightly as he smiled at them with a peculiar sort of fond disinterest—and so contented when they left, after they’d seen Emma, at least, and as no formal complaints were ever lodged David was left with nothing more to go on than a feeling of vague discomfort.

He’d attempted to broach the subject once with Emma but she had simply shrugged and said “Groupies. What can you do?” and so he’d let it go.

So those were his residents. Four women—Emma, Snow, Ruby, and Belle, and four men—Graham, Victor, August… and Killian.

Ah, yes. Killian.

David liked Killian, he truly did. It was a point of pride with him to find something to like about every one of his residents, though he had to admit that finding that thing for Killian posed something of a challenge. It wasn’t just that Killian preferred his leather black or opted for dark button-downs or obscure band t-shirts instead of plaid. It wasn’t even that he was mouthy and arrogant, smarter than most everyone he met and not afraid to let them know it. No, the challenge for David when it came to liking Killian was Emma. Or more specifically, the way Killian looked at Emma. And the way she very much looked back.

“I suppose that’s one way to ‘guard’ her,” Victor remarked one evening as they sat around the fire in the common room, Emma laughing with Graham in one corner while Killian glowered darkly at the pair of them from the other. “Very dramatic, you know. Very Charlotte Brontë. Or is it Emily, I always get them mixed up.”

“Piss off,” Killian snarled, returning his attention to his textbooks just in time to miss the glance Emma shot him from the corner of her eye.

“‘Course I suppose she doesn’t make it easy for you—” Victor began, then smirked when Killian slammed his book shut and got up. “I’m going to bed,” he declared and stalked from the room, Emma’s eyes following his every move as he went.

“Enemies to lovers slow burn, 100k,” Belle whispered to Ruby on another occasion, a rare instance when she left the library to join them for breakfast. Ruby nodded sagely and both of them sat back, observing Emma and Killian’s heated argument about the best way to make a cup of tea with all apparent enjoyment. David wasn’t entirely certain what that meant, or that he liked the way his residents seemed to find the pair’s squabbles so entertaining. He knew only that if Emma and Killian really thought anyone believed they hated each other the way they both so loudly and frequently proclaimed, they were seriously deluding themselves. Their little snarky comments and defiant challenges were some of the most obvious flirtation David had ever seen, especially when combined with those damned looks. Looks that all but screamed how much they would prefer to resolve their differences with physical action than with words, and that they had already imagined how those physical dispute resolutions might go—frequently and in great detail.

David did not approve of those looks.

Nor did he approve, as the summer heat faded into the cooler air of autumn and the green leaves of the forest’s trees took on brighter hues, of the way Emma and Killian’s snappish words began to lose the battle with that oh-so-evident longing to touch. Slowly at first and tentatively, small brushes of arms and fingers that before long began to linger… In principle he supposed there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, or with the budding feelings they continued to deny. He would be one hundred percent in support of it, in fact, were it not so damned blatant—those sparks of tension that turned the air electric, the raw hunger in Killian’s eyes as he watched her, the answering ache in hers when she watched him—David had come to think of Emma as he would a little sister and he did not appreciate being slapped in the face, so to speak, by the evidence of her active sexual interest in a man whom David was not at all convinced was good enough for her. It annoyed him so much that he almost—almost—found himself agreeing with Victor, who had taken to rolling his eyes and muttering “I wish they’d just fuck already” a bit too loudly whenever Emma and Killian got into one of their ‘disputes.’

He would have been able to officially disapprove the night he caught them doing tequila slammers in her dorm room—alcohol was discouraged in the dorms, even for students of legal drinking age—except that had turned out to be nothing but a very bizarre dream… although… had it been a dream? It must have been, though it had seemed so real at the time… but he remembered only catching sight of them through her slightly open door and reaching up to knock… the next thing he knew he was groaning as he woke in his own room, his head aching and feeling full of cotton wool, Emma sitting by his bedside with her ‘world famous hangover cure’ in one of Victor’s beakers explaining that he was the one who’d overindulged... “So unlike you, David, I’m really very shocked,” she’d said with that glint in her eye… and when David confronted Killian about the incident he’d merely scoffed and said “Tequila, mate? You were definitely dreaming. You know I only drink rum, and that in the company of ladies more… amenable than Swan.”

Of course, on the late October afternoon when David accompanied Graham on his walk and they stumbled upon Emma and Killian beneath a tree in the forest, wrapped around each other and kissing so deeply that he wondered how they could also be breathing—well, that was most definitely not a dream. It was also not in the dorm and therefore not technically within his jurisdiction, so he simply caught Graham by the arm and turned back the way they came.

The energy had shifted between Emma and Killian, he realised with a curious sort of bittersweet thrum in his chest. An unmistakable shift yet hard to define, as though they were hovering just on the cusp of something both nebulous and truly extraordinary. And despite them being right out in public—seriously, right off the footpath—the way they’d held each other was so intensely intimate that interrupting them, even to ask them to move to a more appropriate location, would have felt like the worst kind of intrusion. Plus of course there was no telling what uncomfortable circumstances David might find himself waking up in if he dared to cock-block Emma Swan.

Now where in hell had that thought come from?

A few hours later Emma and Killian returned to the dorm, flushed and mussed and with leaves in their hair, buzzing with that newly shifted energy—and holding hands, though they let go both reluctantly and immediately upon realising they were being eagerly observed.

“Well well well,” smirked Victor, elbowing David in the ribs. “Looks like August owes me twenty. I should probably thank you, Jones.”

“Bugger off, mate,” muttered Killian, entirely without his usual snarl, and then with a defiant glare and a flush high on his cheekbones, he sauntered after Emma into her room and shut the door firmly behind him.

“Well, I think I’ll go put on some very loud music,” Victor remarked, and retreated into his own room, leaving David alone in the common room feeling vaguely unsettled.

The next morning Killian and Emma arrived at breakfast together, radiating happiness and unable to stop touching, and, David would swear to it, with actual stars in their eyes. They left for their morning classes with their arms around each other, returning in the afternoon in the same manner, and when Victor and August tried to mock him about it Killian just laughed.

“We’ve worked out our differences, mates,” he said, with a waggle of his eyebrows. “I’m certain you know what I mean.”

“It’s sweet, really,” August observed one evening a week or so later, in that dry, supercilious tone of his that grated on David’s nerves. “Though possibly not the wisest move, sleeping with the woman under his protection. I’ve seen the vows they have to take, you know, and they are intense. It could literally be the death of him.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Ruby snapped, baring her teeth as Snow placed a soothing hand on her arm. “Not that you would know anything about that.”

“You’re right of course,” August agreed, his eyes flashing red in the firelight. “What would I know about love and loss, I’m only three hundr—”

“Well, I think it’s great they’ve finally gotten together,” said Snow loudly, glaring first at August then Ruby then August again. “I hope they’ll be happy.”

David hoped so too, genuinely. Even he could see how good the two of them were for each other. She smoothed his rough edges and he drew her out from her shell, and the dangerous sparks of their attraction settled down into the far gentler flame of new love. It was sweet, and he did approve, and yet—still he felt unsettled, a vague sensation of unease twisting deep in his gut. He’d call it a premonition, if he believed in such things. But he was a sensible man, a man of science and the twenty-first century, and so he firmly ignored it.

Two days later Emma Swan disappeared.

___

#cssns20 #cs fic #cs ff #cs ff au #magic au #witch!emma #captain swan #college au #sort of #there's a university #and magic #and a sword #that's magic #and a creepy forest #because of course there is #there has to be #where else would the magical battles take place #the eternal and unseen #profdanglaisstuff

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teamhook · 5 years ago

Photo

I want to thank the @cssns , my lovely beta @ultraluckycatnd and my very talented artist @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713

AO3

FFN

Emma had been stalking Killian’s place. She never thought she would have to stake out his home. She sighs as she tries to do a web search on her phone for the Norn. That old hag lied to them. Sure, Ruby didn’t pick up his scent, but there was something about that lady that was shifty as hell. Which leads her to another mystery—the woman looking for Killian. There was something off about her, too.

A knock on the window of her dad’s truck startles her. “Hey, Emma, I got a call about a suspicious vehicle. What are you doing here?”

“Really? You’re saying someone called in about my dad’s truck?” She rolls her eyes. “Everyone knows my dad’s truck.”

He smiled. “They do, but I think they’re worried about you. You haven’t moved from here in days. Emma, he will be home soon, and then you will get all the answers you need.”

Emma looks down, her eyes drifting to the passenger seat. The poptart wrappers and empty food containers everywhere make her wince. Since that day at the station, with the off feeling she felt in her gut when meeting that woman Autumn, she had gone to Killian’s place. In her mind, she was keeping Killian safe somehow.

Graham laughed. “Go home, you smell! I don’t need to be a wolf to notice that.”

Emma scoffs. “Whatever! I don’t smell that bad.”

Graham’s brows knit as he looks at his phone. “That was the station. The motion sensors we set up to alert us if someone needs us went on and we need to go back.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “I can go check. You haven’t had lunch. You were on patrol and Killian is on vacation.”

“You are my favorite honorary deputy. I can get you something too.” Graham smiles.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Get me my usual. Tell Ruby I said hi.” Emma smirks and turns on the truck to head to the station.

As Emma arrives at the station, her heart speeds up. She was sure it was Leroy or one of the dwarves complaining about some nonsense, but the car parked in the deputy’s spot is unmistakable. The beloved grey and black 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle is back. This could only mean one thing. Killian Jones is back. Her steps get quicker as she races to the door. She opens the door and her heart stops as her gaze lands on the man she loves. His hair is a bit longer. The scruff is thicker and those eyes are storm-dark blue. She runs the rest of the way and throws her arms around his neck. Her lips land on his and for a brief minute she forgets how angry she is and all the questions she has. He stands still with his hands on her hips. Normally his hands instinctively land on the back of her head. Emma slowly steps away and smiles. “I missed you.” She raises her index finger. “You have some explaining to do buddy, but it’s really nice to see you.” She steps away as she looks for some change to manifest.

He feels frustrated, Belle had mentioned he needed to be honest about the situation and that Emma needed to know about what was affecting their relationship.

“Emma, we need to talk,” Killian says as he guides her to the break room for some privacy.

“Yeah, that’s for sure. Look, Killian, I know you went to see the Norn. I want to say, you didn’t have to do that. At least not for me,” Emma says as she stops moving.

Killian lets out a laugh. “I’m sorry, did you just say I shouldn’t have gone to the Norn to save you?” He pauses. “You are the woman I love. I cannot picture a life without you and you think it was a mistake?” He enters the break room and she follows slowly.

“I just don’t want you to hate me. I know that you felt guilty about Liam and—” Emma rushes.

“Aye, I felt guilty but that doesn’t mean you are not worth it.” Somehow he was now standing right in front of her.

“I just hate you had to make a deal with that wretched hag. She just made my skin crawl.” Emma shudders.

“Emma, what did you do? Did you go see her?” Killian tries to stay calm.

“Well, I wanted to know what had happened to you. I was so worried. Killian, where have you been?” Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “You just left. No note, not even a text.”

His instinct took over and he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m sorry, darling, but now I’m back and we will find a way.”

She sniffles. “Find a way?”

“Ah yes. Emma, I think you need to sit down. We really need to talk,” Killian says.

“I find it when a man says that, I’m rarely in for a pleasant conversation,” she grimaces as she sits down.

He paced the room a few times before he met her gaze. “I’m sorry love, I don’t know where to start.”

Emma’s forehead puckered as his words registered. Since when did Killian not know what to say. “Killian, you’re scaring me-” she laughs nervously. “You always know what to say.”

The smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose I should try from the start.” He pauses. “I was afraid I would lose you to this battle. I didn’t think twice and I went to go see the Norn. I made my offer and what I wanted.” He sighs. “I should have known better, she is known for her trickery. I just wanted you to be safe and I didn’t care about the price.”

“Your wolf, Killian I’m—”

Killian interrupted her as he sat in front of her.

“Emma, it was my choice to do this. Unfortunately, she decided to alter our agreement. She took something else.”

Emma feels her stomach drop and her eyes widen. “What did she take?” her voice barely audible.

His hand subconsciously covers hers. “Something far more precious, my love passion.”

Her heart is beating so fast. “Love passion, how can someone take that?”

“Ah, that would be with ancient dark magic, I’m afraid,” Killian says.

“Wait... what does that mean? I don’t understand,” Emma asks, baffled.

Killian bites back his anger at the situation and himself. He did this. “Emma, by taking my love passion, the Norn took my love for you. Although I care deeply for you, I’m afraid my heart isn’t yours. I should clarify, I can no longer feel passion for any woman.” Killian winces at the look on Emma’s face.

Her face went blank. “I don’t understand, we’re True Love. Why would you let her?” she screamed as she stood up. The room shook as her body started to glow brightly.

Killian stands, dumbfounded. As she gets brighter, he has to cover his eyes to approach her. “Emma, love, I didn’t let her take it! She tricked me and I promise you I will find a way to fix this. All you have to do is trust me. Please, calm down.”

Her body starts to dim as his words register. He was always her anchor. Her breathing evens out. “Haven’t you learned anything? We make a hell of a team. We do this together. No more doing stupid stuff on our own.” She laughs. They’re both guilty of that. To be honest, she was the one that was reckless and he normally would like to strategize; that must be because of his military background.

He smiles. “I went to ask for help. Belle will be arriving soon.”

“That’s where you went. You couldn’t call me to let me know you needed time away but you called Belle?” Emma scoffs.

“Emma, she’s the closest thing I have to family left.” He is astonished by her reaction.

“Is she? Because I thought I was your family. My parents love you like a son!” she fumes.

“Don’t you understand? I couldn’t face you after I ruined everything,” he says defeatedly.

At the sight of his defeated demeanor, Emma feels the anger dissolve. “Killian, we will fix this, together. We will take care of that sneaky hag.”

He simply smiles and feels like a fool for ever thinking she wouldn’t understand.

Emma returns his smile. “What’s the plan, Captain? How do we take this bitch down?”

“For now we wait; Belle and Scarlett will arrive soon. Then the fun begins.”

“Can’t we just go to my parents and have them make her give it back or something?” Emma asks.

“The Norn is one of the oldest Faes alive. No Stygia or Rioga would dare to reprimand her. It is said that she was once good and because of the threat of the Darkness she wanted to gain enough power to survive. She started making deals with Dark Fae and she became corrupt. Now she makes deals and sometimes alters them for her enjoyment. Our only choice is to play her game,” Killian states.

The Norn didn’t like waiting around. She’s annoyed that her quarry has proven to be elusive. It didn’t matter, though; in the end, he will be hers. The glamour potion was ready for her next attempt. She is so distracted by the plans she is making for the wolf she covets that she misses the glow between the hair and the wolf’s love passion, indicating they are currently together. The wolf’s heart essence recognized its one true mate.

Emma and Killian had gone to her parents to inform them of Belle’s arrival.

Mary Margaret and David want some sort of explanation, but one look from Emma told them to stand down. They listen as Killian tells them of Belle’s upcoming grand entrance. They agree in an instant to host the Rioga.

In a moment of privacy, Mary Margaret asks Emma if things between her and the wolf are alright.

“Mom, we are okay, I know you and Dad want to know what happened and I just want you two to give us space to solve our issues alone. We are grownups and need to take care of our own problems,” Emma says.

“Alright, Emma. I, that is we, are worried. You were so worried about him and now it seems that’s in the past.”

“Mom, what he did for me, no one would ever even consider to do before. I can’t hate him. I understand why he left. I wish he didn’t, but he’s back and that’s all that matters,” Emma assures her mother.

“Can you tell me why Rioga Belle is visiting?”

“She is coming because Killian needs her.” Emma shrugs.

Mary Margaret nods. “Alright, I know you two have your reasons.”

In a different room, David stares at Killian as he says, “I know you two are working things out, but I have to warn you that if you ever leave town again without a word to my daughter, I will hunt you down and kill you.” David warns. “Killian, she was so worried and we didn’t know how to help her. You have always been the one to tame her anxieties but this time, you were the one causing her pain. Whatever the problem is, True Love is worth fighting for.”

The following day, the Norn twirls the vials with her fingers. She was running out of the Savior’s hair. She had to use more because the last attempt failed. She eyes the potion gleefully; it looks perfect. She uncorks it and drinks it. Her body becomes enveloped by ash gray smoke and is transformed; her hair is platinum-blonde and the eyes are green. It’s closer to her goal, but not exact, but it would do for now. She just needed a kiss to bind him to her. She dresses in a modest green dress and heads to town.

She rarely goes to town, so she looks around. Humans are so vile. They destroy all nature around them. The beautiful trees are gone so they can have luxuries. She scoffs in disgust.

The station is just in sight. She smiles wickedly, it’s time to catch a wolf.

The station is busy with calls. Graham is out on patrol, while Emma is responding to a call at the docks. Killian was alone in the station answering the phones today. He’s running his hand through his hair because he is frustrated and annoyed. They really need to hire someone to answer the phones and deal with these idiots.

The Norn enters and the bell rings to announce her presence. She stands in front of the desk, tapping her fingers on the wooden desk.

Killian sat at his desk twirling a pen with his fingers. He looked down at his notepad. They had to come up with a way to defeat the Norn. Yes, they would still get back his love passion, but he had a feeling that witch would not let it end there. The bell at the front desk caught his attention. Well, he was alone so he better go check out what the problem was. He really hoped it wasn't Leroy.

He approaches the front desk only to find a woman with her back to him. It's an odd feeling. He feels as if he knows her but then his stomach flips and not in a good way. There's something about her. He makes his presence known hesitantly.

"Excuse me, lass. How may I help you?" Killian says with a hesitant smile on his face.

The woman with platinum blonde hair and green eyes turns to him with a smile of her own. "Hello, I was hoping it was you."

Killian shakes his head in confusion because he knows he has never laid eyes on this woman and yet there's a nagging feeling. His wolf reacts as if he is under attack. "How may I help you today?" Killian says through gritted teeth.

"Oh, hello. My name is Hazel Forest. I'm here to make a report. I live on the outskirts of town and there have been some unlawful activities."

Killian quirks a brow as he writes down the information. "I can have Sheriff Graham go take a look. He is in that area."

"Oh no, I'd prefer it if it was you that checked it out. It's not a human problem."

She was saying it was a supernatural problem. He normally would offer his help right away, but there was something putting his wolf on high alert and he had long learned to trust his instincts. There was something wrong and it wasn't what the woman claimed.

"Alright. I will have Emma meet me out there. If there's a problem as you described, it will be better if she assists." He pulls his phone out of his pocket. "You said this was on the outskirts of town. Is this by the toll bridge?"

Her smile fades. "I think you can handle it on your own. I've never heard of a powerful wolf like yourself needing the help of some human."

Killian shakes his head in disbelief. Everyone loved Emma. She was the Savior and daughter of their Rioga, not to mention their bloody princess, but this woman seemed to think she was a simple human.

"Lass, the Savior is not some simple human. She has powerful white magic and I've yet to see her fail. She is the best option for any magical problem," Killian says with a smirk.

The woman tilts her head and scoffs as she walks out of the station.

Killian runs out after her but she is gone. She disappeared into thin air. There's a familiar scent in the air that makes him gag.

The scent lingers in the air for a while. He looks around the empty street because he feels as if he is being watched.

Emma arrives sometime later. He tells her about the encounter. She asks about the woman's description and once he provides it, she scrunches her face.

"How is it possible that there's this sudden influx of unknown women wanting your attention on their case? I know you are great at your job, but it feels off," Emma says.

"Are you saying these women are only out to gain my attention?" he says with a small smile. He has always loved her jealous streak.

"You know what I mean. Yes, I know you're hot and I'm used to women checking you out, but this feels like it’s much more than that."

"Alright, love. How about we go on patrol to see if there was something to it. We don't need a new villain making a play right now. We have yet to take the Norn down and get my passion back."

Emma smiles; she loved going on patrol with him. She knows things are different right now but in her heart she still has hope. The more time they spend together the better. She remembers how it was when they fell in love. It was a somewhat similar situation but with the roles reversed.

They spend the day out on the outskirts by the toll bridge. She glances at him when he is looking around; she knows he is smelling around to see if anything catches his wolf's attention.

Killian glances in Emma's direction when she is too busy looking around for clues. He is still in awe of her. She is bloody amazing.

"Hey, did you find anything?"

"Sorry, no I didn't love. Everything looks fine. I have no idea what the woman was talking about."

"I still think it's fishy. She wanted you to come out here with no back up. I feel something is off in my gut."

"I've learned to trust your instincts. My wolf senses something as well and normally I can pinpoint the problem, but this time it eludes me."

"So, Belle arrives tomorrow. We should be thinking of a plan."

"And we will."

"I guess we should get back to the station. We can continue this talk at your place." She gives him a flirty smile.

Killian scratches his ear. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Emma tries to hide her disappointment with her reply. "Oh, are you afraid you will find me even more irresistible? Come on lighten up, we are friends above all."

"Aye, that we are." He smiled fondly. "After you."

Tag List:

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#cssns20 #Captain Swan #cs ff

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jarienn972 · 4 years ago

Text

La Sirena - Chapter Eight

Captain Swan Supernatural Summer

We’re nearing the completion of this @cssns tale, and despite the challenges this story has posed, I’m a little bit sad that it is nearly finished.

This chapter has a lot of action as we pick up right where we left off with Regina’s nefarious plan to “test” Killian’s worthiness. Our poor lieutenant has no idea what the devious siren has in mind and it isn’t going to be pleasant.

Thank you, @kmomof4 for all of your beta assistance, especially with your suggestions for this chapter! And thanks again to @courtorderedcake for her beautiful artwork!

Catch up from the beginning on AO3 or FF.net Tumblr chapters: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

“Retribution”

No amount of naval training could have prepared him for this, Killian thought as he inexplicably found himself standing barefoot on the shore. One moment he'd been crouching inside the cavern awaiting Emma's return and the next, he was facing down the tempestuous ocean, thoroughly exposed. His knuckles had gone white clutching desperately to the cutlass, but as he stared out at the sea, he knew in his heart that the weapon was no match for this unnatural battle.

Above the whitecaps in the distance, he could just make out the crest of Emma's head and that of another person with darker hair coiffed beneath some sort of massive, glistening crown. Was this the mysterious sister that Emma had spoken of? He couldn't make out anything they were saying over the roar of waves crashing against the rock. But it was the dichotomy of their expressions that sent a shiver down his spine. He didn't even dare hypothesize the meaning behind the look of abject horror that spread across Emma's delicate features.

Shivers washed over him and his gut filled with apprehension when his gaze was drawn to movement on the horizon. Could this be signalling the arrival of the siren council that had Emma so concerned? The surface of the water seemed to rise, bubbling and foaming in the most unearthly manner. It was like nothing he had ever seen in all his years at sea and in a mere moment, he was about to wish it could be unseen.

As a mariner, he'd often heard tales of encounters with the legendary kraken and he'd shrugged them off as nothing but fantasy. Perhaps he'd been too quick to judge legend from truth, he found himself thinking as he marveled at the sheer size of the tentacle that emerged from the depths. It was simply beyond belief. From his experience with squid and octopi snared in fishing nets, Killian suspected that this creature would have to be supernaturally large, and that thought was confirmed as it reared its humongous head above the bay.

Even if he hadn't been practically paralyzed with shock and trepidation, he never would have had a chance to outrun the beast's speed or reach as another of its incredibly strong tentacles snatched him off of the beach. The slimy appendage constricted around his upper body, lifting him into the air and pinning his arms to his sides as it threatened to crush him.

First pirates, then sirens, and now he was eye to eye with a bloody kraken… All of them apparently competing to see who would kill him first…

Grimacing in pain, he struggled against its grasp and cried out to Emma for help. He may have been at the mercy of these mythical beings, but his own survival instincts remained fully intact. He wiggled his right arm free enough to draw the cutlass from its sheath. He didn't exactly have full range to properly wield his weapon, but he managed to secure an angle that allowed him to thrust the blade into one of the circular suckers on the underside of the tentacle encircling him. The monster howled and retaliated by lashing Killian into the waves, stunning the sailor as it increased the pressure on his body and dislodging the sword. The blade dropped into the ocean below while a barely conscious Killian could both feel and hear his ribs cracking under the assault.

Emma could only watch in a panic as the kraken scooped Killian off the shore with its tentacles wound tightly around him. She tried in vain to repel the monstrosity with her magic, but her barrage of light energy blasts had little to no effect on the creature.

"Your magic isn't strong enough to deter a kraken," an amused Regina insisted.

"Call it off, Regina!" Emma shouted angrily as the monster's tentacle squeezed ever tighter around Killian's very mortal body. She could hardly bear to see the agony expressed by his features. "This isn't the way! The beast is going to kill him!"

"He was on borrowed time already, sister," Regina reminded her sternly. "But if this pitiful human is as worthy as you claim he is, he certainly should be capable of defeating a kraken - shouldn't he?" She chuckled giddily as Emma's gaze focused on her weak little human, completely aghast by the impending carnage.

"I do not know what you and lord Triton conspired upon, but this is a repulsive abuse of power!" Emma admonished her sister while whipping around in the water to confront the rest of the council when they surfaced to take in the spectacle. "Why can none of you understand that he survived because he did not hear the song? Are you all complicit in this? Serving him up as hapless prey to a kraken is hardly the task our kind was given! Do you think this is what the great Poseidon intended? We were created to sing and only to sing! Any further judgement belongs to the gods, not to the sirens!"

There were a few nods and murmurs from the council but despite Emma's fervent pleas, none of the members seemed to be willing to challenge Regina.

"Cowards…," Emma hissed as she returned her attention to her sister. "I don't know what power you wield over the council, Regina, but I believe that even they know this is wrong. If you want to challenge him, do it with your voice, not with Triton's oversized toy…"

"But this way is so much more fun," Regina smirked and that was what finally pushed Emma over the edge. With a flip of her muscular tail, Emma lunged at Regina, shoving her tentacled sibling beneath the surface and yanking the coral and shell studded crown from atop Regina's head. "Why you insolent little bitch!" Regina cried out as Emma flung the headdress aside. "You've always been a poor excuse for a siren and now you're proving that by all of this fervor to save your human pet!"

Regina flicked two of her tentacles toward Emma who defensively batted them away with her arms and tail fin. The skirmish sent many members of the council scrambling to get out of the way.

"Why are you doing this?" Emma demanded with a brisk swish of her tail that lifted her out of Regina's reach for the moment. "This has never been our way… Please - call off that kraken!"

"You have been away too long. You've gone soft," Regina scolded. "You're practically fawning over a human. How deranged can you possibly be? Have you forgotten what it is to be a siren or are those powers wasted on you?"

"The only deranged one here is you! I know I did the right thing no matter what you believe. Maybe I did go soft but if his life was spared from the siren call, he deserves to live…" Emma couldn't stop her voice from cracking as she continued to plead for Killian's survival. How had this man managed to affect her so greatly in such a short amount of time? Why did she care so much? Compassion wasn't an emotion that sirens were supposed to have…

"No human is worthy to pass through this realm. That was the edict of Poseidon himself," Regina sneered, raising her right arm above the water's surface as she prepared to unleash her magic on the helpless human who'd gone limp in the kraken's grip.

"PERHAPS I SHOULD BE THE JUDGE OF THAT," a booming voice sounded above the bay, silencing all, including the roaring sea beast.

A glistening trident with tines that blazed as brilliantly as lightning bolts broke through the waves. Emma immediately bowed her head even before the god's visage appeared and her action was followed by the siren council members who'd remained. Even Regina demurely lowered her head at the sight of Poseidon's face, but no amount of posturing would spare her from his ire. With a scant raise of his trident, the seas instantly grew calm and the kraken, still clinging to its human prey, was now frozen in time.

"Enough distractions," Poseidon said as his attention fell to the combative sirens. "The creatures living in this bay alerted me to all of this… whatever this is. What in the name of Olympus is going on here?"

"Mighty Poseidon," Regina began as she slowly lifted her chin to gaze upon the god of the sea. Her eyes darted back to the sea at the sight of his deep-set scowl. "We were just trying to complete some unfinished business, but there has been some disagreement over doing what needs to be done."

Poseidon shook his head in disdain as he glowered at the brunette siren. "This is a disagreement?" he queried as he nonchalantly pushed his glimmering three pointed crown back into position atop his pure white hair, echoing Regina's earlier behavior. "I think this is a ruckus and I would like to know how a council of sirens got themselves into such a bizarre situation. I don't recall krakens being a part of the siren song."

Regina's cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger. How dare Emma and her human put her in this position? "My apologies. Had Erimetha not abandoned our code and rescued a human, we wouldn't be here. The kraken was merely a suggestion from your brother, Triton, as a means to expedite the process."

"Was it now?" Poseidon quipped sarcastically before his scrutiny passed to Emma who, to this point, had remained reverent, silently treading water as she awaited the inevitable wrath of the god. "I'll need to have a stern conversation with my brother about his suggestion, but Erimetha - pardon me, I forgot that you prefer to be called Emma - is what Regina says true? Did you rescue a human from a doomed ship?"

Emma managed a weak smile over the fact that Poseidon had remembered her preferred name and even corrected himself. Maybe, just maybe, she wasn't being viewed as the villain here.

"Regina's words are partially true. The man had already survived the siren song. He never heard them sing. All I did was prevent him from rolling off of his makeshift raft," Emma replied as she dared raise her head to face Poseidon.

"What possessed you to do such a thing?" Poseidon asked with a raised brow, intently listening for her response.

Emma had to pause for a moment, trying to best form her words, but the best she could come up with was: "My instincts told me I should."

"I see…" The god of the seas scratched idly at his beard as he contemplated Emma's answer - one that Regina clearly didn't believe to be good enough.

"She admits she helped the human," Regina rehashed her opinion, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly as she awaited the god's agreement.

Giving no audience to Regina, Poseidon continued his interrogation of Emma as only the outcast siren's first-hand account was going to answer the questions he wanted answered.

"You claim the human did not perish during the siren encounter because he didn't hear their song. What led you to that conclusion, Emma?"

"As he was recovering from his injuries sustained at the hand of the pirates who had abducted him and during his escape from the sinking ship, we conversed a few times. He believed the ship's crew had abandoned their vessel after striking the rocks and left him behind. It wasn't until after Regina came to my cove the first time in search of a survivor that he learned the truth about the siren attack, but he didn't recall hearing any music before the ship began to go down. It was my belief that he might possibly have been deaf to the song so I tested the theory by singing to him and he never heard me. He never fell victim to the trance. Does that not make him worthy to live?"

Poseidon pursed his lips and rubbed his whiskered chin as he pondered his next query but grew irritated by Regina's refusal to be silent when she interrupted his thoughts.

"This doesn't prove anything," Regina interjected, only to be immediately shushed by the god.

"Regina - my questions are for Emma at this time. It would be in your best interest to remain quiet until I address you," he warned sternly. "When I have a question for you, I shall ask. Do you understand?"

An embarrassed Regina nodded and gave a sheepish "Yes, your majesty." before floating further back from him.

"Emma, what do you know of the history of the sirens?" Poseidon inquired.

She was caught off-guard by the unusual question, but she did her best to surmise the history she knew. "Centuries ago, the gods lived in peace with humans, but a time came when the humans no longer showed reverence to the gods. As the human realm grew in size and they began to traverse the globe, you and Triton established this part of the mighty oceans as your sacred realm. We sirens were created to guard entrance into the realm as our song was supposed to determine whether a human was worthy to pass.

"Over many generations, only one human proved to be worthy - although the precise means of how his worth was determined remain unclear. Anyway, this human gained your favor and in time, was granted permission to marry your daughter, Ursula. Their civilization then flourished for many years, until the same insolence led to the destruction of that advanced civilization.

"Humans were once again regarded as evil, and while there are many tales of your descendants being spared, no one but you, your majesty, knows the veracity of that. All I know for certain is that even long before I isolated myself away from the sirens, no human ever traversed this realm successfully. All of them perished - until Killian came along. I do not know what criteria you intended us to use to judge men such as him, but he isn't evil. If he was able to make it off of that ship alive, does that not mean he was worthy of passage?"

Poseidon raised a brow at the thoroughness of her reply. He'd known for quite some time that Emma was unique amongst her kind, but he'd not expected to find such an underlying passion for life within a being who'd been created to kill.

"You are very much correct, Emma," he said at last, leaving a disgruntled Regina aghast.

"But Lord Poseidon, she defied the siren code by interfering!" Regina insisted and she was met with a harsh rebuttal.

"Regina, my instruction was for you to remain silent until you were addressed, but you seem to have difficulty following such a simple directive," he admonished the unruly siren. "You and the council are dismissed!" Lifting his trident, he aimed it at the frozen kraken, divesting it of its human prey. In a flash, an unconscious Killian Jones was removed from the creature's grasp to reappear safely upon the sandy shore. He waved off the layer of imposing clouds that shrouded the skies, allowing the sunlight to bathe the cove once again. The kraken reared to life as Poseidon's spell wore off, but the god quickly neutered its wrath. "And since you summoned it, you can return that blasted beast to my brother on your way home to your end of the island! Once I have completed cleaning up the mess you have made here, you will stand before me to answer for this abuse of your powers! Even with the most convincing apology, you may find yourself relieved of those powers."

Regina's lips parted to complain but wisely, not a single whimper escaped as she turned away from the intensity of his glare. Glancing around the bay, she could see that not a single council member had stayed behind to see her humiliation, so perhaps she could count that as a single victory. It was still her belief that she'd done no wrong, but for now, it was far better to lick her wounds and depart than further provoke the wrath of a god who had just publicly castigated her in front of her rival.

Visibly shaken, Regina gave one last little flutter of her wrist to vanquish the kraken, scowling eyes locked on Emma the entire time. Despite her fallen crown being forgotten and abandoned to the sea floor, she held her chin up audaciously before slipping beneath the waves with the knowledge that this may have been her last act as a siren.

#cssns #captain swan supernatural summer #cssns20 #cs ff #cs au ff #la sirena #siren emma #one more chapter to go #are emma and killian going to get their happy ending?

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