Saving The Saviour || OUAT || CS - complete

Chapter 32

Third persons POV

Snow White returned to the castle two nights later. She rode her horse all over the kingdom, searching every corner of every village. Hoping- no, wishing - for some sort of news on her daughter. But there was nothing.

Two whole nights of searching and she got nothing. No information, no sightings, not even a rumour. Nothing other than what she already knew- it was a pirate.

Needless to say, when she came riding up the stone path to the castle, she was exhausted. She had used up everything she had. Yet she remained determined, she was going to rest and get back out there on her search.

"Your majesty" the guard said as he opened the front gate of the castle and allowed her passage. She didn't respond, just rode past as if she didn't hear.

Snow White had barely put her horse in the stables before she was grabbed from behind and brought into a tight hug.

"How could you disappear for two nights" her husband breathed into her neck. Nothing about this moment was sexual. In that second he was a man who feared for his wife's safety. He was not a king longing for his queen, he was a husband worrying of his wife's fate. 

"I couldn't find anything." A single tear fell as her voice cracked. She quickly wiped it away and cleared her throat. "I'm going to go out again in three days. To give myself time to, you know, recuperate." She sighed as she took the saddle off her horse and removed the reigns.

"You can't be serious, Snow. You're exhausted." The king let go of Snow and took a step back. Snow White turned around to look at her husband.

"Of course I'm serious. You can't expect me to leave our child out there by herself." She snapped.

"Of course not. But you're forgetting about our other child. The one who doesn't understand why his mother suddenly doesn't interact with him at all or why he hasn't seen her in days." Charming turned around and stormed out the stables, leaving Snow alone to think.

David hadn't gotten very far before he was approached by one of his men.

"Sir, you might want to come with me. We've got some news." You could hear the shake in his voice. Charming simply nodded his head and followed the guard.

"Tell me the short story, I'll hear the long one when we get there." His voice was curt and stern, still aggravated over the situation with his wife.

"Short story, okay. Well, a citizen from the local trading village came up to the front gates this morning and he claimed he had some information. It was brief and unconfirmed but I thought you'd want to know about any lead we get."

"Correct." He nodded his head and pushed open the doors to the main corridor or the castle.

"So I sent a summon for Regina, Robin, Zelena and Henry. Granny and Ruby were already in the great hall and everyone's now waiting in the Tabled Room." He finished his sentence just as they got to the doors of the tabled room. David pushed the double doors open to walk into a room of shouting people.

"Just hear him out!"

"I've had enough of these phoney leads!"

"He might have genuine information!"

"I can't get my hopes up any more!"

"Enough!" The king yelled, slamming his hand into the table. Immediate silence. "Now, if you'll all shut the hell up long enough, I'd like to know what happened!" Everyone looked between themselves, nobody wanting to be the first to speak.

"If I could, your majesty, I'd like to tell you my information?" The voice was timid amongst the many loud voices in the room.

"That would be good. What's your name?" Normally the king wouldn't be so haste with his people but he'd just about reached the end of his patience. He knew he should be more respectful of his subjects but he also knew that they would understand his temperament.

"Thomas, your Highness." He stood up and bowed, but standing up quickly and looking me in the eye.

"Well, Thomas, could you please share the information you have." Thomas nodded at the king, took a deep breath and started talking.

"Me and my wife live in a small cottage by the port a few villages over, I've been making my way here for three weeks to tell you this. The other night I got into a fight with my wife. It was over something stupid, something similar to every fight we've had. I stormed out as I normally do, to cool off and so I didn't say anything I'll regret. I went to the local tavern for some time to myself, knock back a few drinks and calm down." His story was longer than the king expected. He soon grew tired of the drawn out version - as did everyone else in the room.

"If you could speed up your story, that'd be great." Henry rolled his eyes and laced his voice with sarcasm.

"Henry!" Regina scolded. He paid no attention just continued to glare at Thomas. "Sorry, as you were saying." Regina said in her most professional voice, trying to hide all the hope she was feeling.

She couldn't go through any more lies about her best friend.

"Well, just as I was drowning in rum there were two pirate captains. They seemed to be fighting. And then something strange happened. She referred to herself - yeah, herself. The pirate captain was a woman. Well, she called herself Captain Swan."

You could hear a pin drop.

Nobody knew what to say. Nobody could even begin to string together a sentence, not one that would express their feelings to be precise.

"See, I told you it's a waste of time. He doesn't have any information." Henry walked out of the room, leaving everyone else in stunned silence.

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