𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐝.
in a post war-torn, dystopian neverland, the choices of one young boy will change the course of the magical realms forever - all the while a desperate young woman and her family search for her son,
a warrior in exile trie...
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THIS IS WHAT suffering Loss must feel like she thought.
It was a heavy feeling, one that took over the heart and mind, shutting down the body to protect it against anything else that might bring pain in its most vulnerable state. It was hard to come back from loss, to find the will to return to the land of light after remaining in the land of darkness for so long. Once the eye got used to seeing in the dark and the body adapted to moving within the shadows, it was almost painful to face the blinding rays of the sun and feeling the stinging pain on the skin.
Loss was an all consuming feeling, and it didn't let go easily, no. It clung on like the claws of a feral animal, vicious and unforgiving as it tore the heart apart into pieces that would not, could not, be mended by the thread of time and the needle of love. Loss demanded to be felt by every inch of the soul, to be felt in every cell, every fiber of the very body that tried to protect itself from further falling into the bottomless pit that was loss itself. It would have been a very foolish thing to do, to deny that even the most shielded, most closed-off heart was not capable of falling under the clutches of loss.
Emma felt the universe bring down upon her shoulders the weight of a burden that was the matter of the heart. It was a weight so heavy that one would not be able to carry it if they were not a mother, and would instead crush beneath the ache that formed in their chest and the suffocating lump that lodged into their throat. If they did not have an eternal bond with a child to was tied to them by blood, by unconditional love.
She sat on the couch in the elaborately yet tastefully decorated living room of Regina Mill's manor, feeling just as uncomfortable as she would have been if she were at a museum displaying ancient sculptures from the Italian Renaissance. The well-polished glossy floors and the antique furniture intimidated her, the crystal wine goblets and fine silver dinnerware winking almost mockingly at her from where they were displayed behind the glass doors of the mahogany closet. But looking out of place in her dark red leather jacket and worn-down, mud-splattered boots was the least of concerns at the moment since she had been that way from the moment she had been born. Out of place, that is - never truly fitting in anywhere despite trying her best to become one with her surroundings, to meld in with the elements of the environment. It was almost as if her sole purpose for existing, her sole reason to be created and brought into this world was to never belong in it.
Emma cleared her throat softly, rocking back and forth in place once, careful to not scuff her heels on the polished floors. A mug filled with once piping hot but now lukewarm coffee was cradled between her palms, the phantom warmth of the ceramic heating up the pink-tinted skin of her slowly defrosting fingertips. She had forgotten how cold it was in Maine during winter, yet forgot to take her coat and wool hot and mittens when she got a very distressed call from Regina that morning. At five in the morning that is, when the sky hadn't even lit up yet, when the world was still asleep besides her and the woman whom of which did not particularly like Emma and much less needed her in a time of crises. And yet here she was, at the place where she would have least likely found herself at. Emma couldn't understand why Regina would call her out of everyone else, especially when she had been crying like that, however she had a few ideas lingering in her post-caffeine induced hazy mind. One of them being the uncharacteristically harsh fact that Emma was the biological mother of Regina's foster son.
