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Language:
English
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Published:
2013-01-30
Updated:
2013-02-04
Words:
1,362
Chapters:
4/?
Kudos:
2
Hits:
278

tales of nothing (and everything)

Summary:

Stories of Storybrooke, Fairytale Land, of life that is, life that was, odds, ends, and evens.

Chapter 1: One Ending

Notes:

Snippets of ideas that may or may not be expanded upon in stand-alone stories. But here they are as they are. Tags are also for future parts.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Go ahead and try. It won't work. No matter what you do, Snow White will have her happy ending. She and Prince Charming will be together. The curse will end. Good will win!
Henry Mills, “The Stranger” (S1.20)

 

 

In the end, Emma succeeds.

She waves her magic sword and the skies darken, the distant sound of thunder crashes and the bite of lightning chars the ground before her. The surety of the moment builds like a runaway train and Regina loses all color in her face. Her hands come up and twist in the jerky twitch of the already-dead and she attempts to stop a train with only her hands. But this is the end, Regina must feel it, she must know, because she stops.

She stops.

And Regina’s eyes turn away and they look at Henry who is so, so silent behind Emma and now Emma wants to STOP, but the magic refuses to let her go, its tendrils have Regina now and they’re greedy, capricious things and magic always has a price.

The sword goes ‘round and ‘round and the moment sputters and slows down, and it’s between mother and son (and it’s not her, oh god, what is she doing, what has she done) and there’s madness and hate and jesus fucking christ grief in Regina’s eyes and oh no lovelovelove and regret and then she’s gone and poof, magic, real honest-to-goddamn magic.

Emma wins.

And her feet are rooted, are stuck, are like cement. She can’t turn around.

She can’t turn to look at Henry’s face, to see the look on her little boy’s face as his mom disappears from Storybrooke and his words of childish justice come true. It's a fairytale ending; good triumphs.

And the Evil Queen is dead.

Notes:

This is vaguely AU, where at the end of S1, Emma somehow sends the Evil Queen back to Fairytale Land, presumably without power and to be killed.

Partially derived from S2.01, where Henry seems genuinely frightened that his mom might die from the mob of angry FTL people who now remember what she had done. It also made me realize that Henry's pretty much a bitchy little kid, and yeah, that's how bitchy little kids act; they have no idea the potential consequences of the things they do until something actually happens and then they realize that the idea of 'good winning' in this particular story? It would mean Regina's fairly gruesome death.

Yeah. Consequences.