Lithium (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter Thirty: The Evil Queen's Daughter

Neverland, before the first curse....

Captain Hook: "I know you must be judging me for all of this, but trust me, my mother is a monster. If I don't stop her, she'll find a way to have what she's always wanted: my heart."

"Why does she want it so badly?" I asked, lifting myself from the floor and staring at her eyes.

She hid her look with the curls that fell from her head and with sadness wrinkling her once marble face, she explained.

"It wasn't always like that. My mom found out she was pregnant by Rumpelstiltskin and she'd have to sacrifice my heart to cast the dark curse. She couldn't do it, she couldn't kill me, so I was born and she raised me. I loved her, and she loved me, we were happy and for a few years I was the light of her eyes...until I wasn't anymore."

"What happened?"

"When I was eight years old, I started asking questions about why she never let me out of the palace, why everyone feared her and called her the Evil Queen and the biggest of all: who my father was. She never told me, so I decided to look for answers of my own. I was a child, but I was very clever around magic, and alone, I managed to make a locator spell that took me to my father."

"Who was he?"

"Prince Hamlet."

"I've heard dark tales about him, he's not better than your mother."

"Well, he was nice to me and he suffered when he was separated from me. Together we made out for lost time, and I felt safer than ever, in his arms. He loved me so much and I him. I thought I'd miss my mother, but I didn't, and after Hamlet told me she wanted to kill me to enact the curse, I even started to hate her. But Regina never forgot me and after a few years, she found me in Hamlet's castle. She tried to bring me back to the Enchanted Forest, but I didn't want to go with her. In a despaired way to make me go with her, Regina poisoned my heart so every time I went near my dad, it brought him closer to death."

"What happened next? Did you go with the queen?"

"No. How could I? I hated her for even thinking about killing me to enact the curse, after she poisoned my father I even hated her more. She tried to ask for forgiveness, but I just...I couldn't. So ever since then I've been travelling throughout the realms, running from her and looking for a way to cure the poison she placed in my heart. It's not been easy, I even fell in Pan's claws."

"Why does he want you?"

"Because my magic is powerful, plus, he thinks he can use it to locate the boy with the heart of the truest believer. Someone he's been looking for for a long time."

"Yes, I'm familiar with that wish of his. But that doesn't explain why he wants you dead, now."

"He wants my heart because even though I'm not the truest believer, he thinks I have an amount of belief closer to said boy. I'm like a plan B. That's why I need to escape from him."

"I understand. I'll take you with me, don't worry. We wouldn't want Pan to kill a girl as beautiful as you, now, would we?" I asked, in a flirtish way, but the girl laughed at me.

"Are you always like this around women?" She asked, crossing her arms.

"Just wait until you see me around blondes."

"Jeez..." She rolled her eyes at me. "Look, we have to go. My mother knows I'll never get back to her, so she finally came to her dark senses and realized I'm more useful dead. She's finally determinant to crush my heart in order to enact the dark curse. I can't let that happen!"

"We won't. Now come, our portal awaits."

She looked at me, feeling safe in the immense blue ocean I took for eyes.

"So...I can really trust you?" She asked, biting her lip.

"I know a thing or two about being hurt by your parents. You may trust me, lass." I promised her, placing my hand on her cheek, as she blushed.

We were far from being alike yet the world hurt us in such a similar way and I knew how helping her would jeopardize my plan of revenge, but still, I thought I found something better than silly revenge.... A fiery reason whose eye color matched mine and whose heart held Hercules' bravery and the sweetness of Aphrodite's tender lips.