Savage 》Once Upon A Time

Queen of Hearts

We finally made it to the Crocodile's cell. I never thought I'd be here again. Not true, I did see myself coming here again, only to mock him for his demise. Then mock him about Bae...miss that little Lost Boy though.

"Rumpelstiltskin's cell," Snow started. "I haven't been here since before Regina's curse. This is where he told us you were going to be the Savior."

Emma's eyes went wide. "He knew?"

I nodded as I held my torch up. "Aye, love." I started walking inside the cell. "It was prophesized."

Mulan and Aurora kept looking around the cell. I began looking too, but couldn't find anything but dust and gravel.

Aurora kept circling around the cell. "The squid ink - it's not here," she said.

Snow looked confused. "Gold said we would find it." I started to check every crack on the wall. Maybe he hid it.

"Well, was there anyone else in here with him? Could they have taken the ink?" Mulan asked.

I shook my head. "No. No one allowed to visit that bloody demon. He was too dangerous to allow any human contact."

Emma looked around. "How'd he keep from going crazy?" She asked.

"He didn't," I heard Aurora. Emma, Snow, and I looked towards her to see her reading an unrolled scroll.

"What is it?" Snow asked.

Emma added, "Is that a message?"

Aurora nodded. "Yes." She handed Emma the scroll. "And I think it's for you."

"Why would you think..." Emma looked down "...that?" I looked over her shoulder to see the word 'Emma' written all over the scroll. Gee, obsessive much, Rumplestiltskin?

Emma was just as confused as I was and sat down. I know this shouldn't be a shock to me, but I only had one thing in mind. How was the Crocodile able to write if there wasn't anything down here? Where did he get the ink from?

I kept looking through the cracked up walls, Snow decided to climb the boulder and look behind it as Mulan looked around every corner.

"Where is it?" I mumbled. We need to stop Cora, get Papa, then leave.

Emma's eyebrows furrowed as she scanned the paper. "What does this even mean?"

"He was obsessed with you, Emma. You were the key to breaking the curse," Snow said in a 'duh' tone.

I sighed as I looked towards the group. "No luck. It's not in this cell." Of course, it wouldn't be.

That's when Snow started to panic. She jumped over me and practically ran around the cell. "Well, it has to be. He told David."

Emma didn't look up from the parchment paper. "You were in a Netherworld. Maybe something got lost in translation."

"No," Mulan said. She pulled something from the cracked up wall. "She heard right."

"You found it?" Snow almost yelled as she ran over.

Mulan held the bottle up. "In a manner of speaking -" I stood next to her to find the bottle empty "- there was ink in the cell."

I cursed under my breath. "Bloody hell." Wait a minute, if the squid ink bottle is empty and the scroll has Emma's name. Rumplestiltskin couldn't have done it unless...

I couldn't even finish my thought because Aurora turned around and threw a rock against the lever.

"Aurora, what are you doing?!" Emma yelled.