Chapter Text
She found herself alone in the forest again. Unsure of how this came to be or why she kept coming here. Her lungs felt heavy, like every breath was a drag. Her arms and legs felt like lead, and the whispering voices in her head were so numerous it was beginning to sound like static. Her eyes and throat felt sore, as if she had been screaming and crying for days.
She thought back to her mother, her father, Regina, Henry and Hook, all of them trying to support her to help her find a solution to this “Dark One” mess. The thought of them did lend her a brief moment of warmth and calm, but too quickly it was drowned out by the sound of her heartbeat racing, fear growling down her spine and paranoia reeling its head into her thoughts.
You will doom them all. Follow the darkness. They love you and you will destroy them. The Darkness is where you will be safe. They took the trouble to find you and try to save you, you ungrateful orphan, you'll lose it all again. Listen to the voices, they hold the key. Your family is wasting their time, there is no saving the savior. You will never be good enough. Emma shook her head to clear her mind, to stop her own insecurities beginning to lend voice to the whispers that plagued her as the Dark One.
Without a thought, her body began to move on its own, deeper into the forest. The forest seemed to spin around her, there was no way she could tell which direction she moved in, her feet dragging underneath her, carrying her weight to an unknown location. When the world stopped spinning and her body stopped moving she waited for a second so that her surroundings could come into view. She stood in front of a dead tree, the wood rotting and falling apart.
The petrified wood called to her, as small clumps of the decomposing wood fell she could feel the tree emitting a low buzz. She touched the black wood and could feel pieces of it turning to ash on her finger tips. As more wood fell away she could make out a hollow within its core.
The voice of Rumplestiltskin sounded in her ear "That's the path I chose dearie and I highly recommend it” Emma jumped back startled by the familiar voice ringing clearly in her head. Not a jumble of whispers but the unmistakable voice of Rumple, taunting and teasing. Her hand flinched away from the putrid tree, and though she knew the voice could only be in her mind she still looked around terrified.
"You know Where I am” It teased.
Emma tried to ground herself in what she could see, smell, and touch; she looked to the left and then to the right, putting her hand on the cool rock beside her and smelling the fragrance of the flowers in a nearby field as the wind brushed past. Still the buzzing coming from the tree called her.
Emma startles from her trance.
Coming back to Story Brooke after the six week ordeal that was Camelot and choosing to save Hook has her faltering every now and then. Choosing the power of the Dark One now after all that time fighting against it makes her world spin like a top. One minute she could hear her own voice and thoughts, then as if a switch is flipped she hears the call of the dagger, the voices of the Dark Ones, and then she is flooded with patchy memories of this incongruous Dark journey.
Emma can sense her family waking up from their recent travels and forgetting spells, the awakening of Regina's magic and that familiar pull she feels from it is her call to action.
She moves to the dinner to find her perplexed family and the silly dwarfs who played Sheriff in her absence. In her mind, the distant voice of Emma calls out, flattered by the dwarfs' cosplay; contrasting it, the voices of the darkness, hammering on about disrespect and cheap copies. Seeing her perplexed family, teasing them with their failure, and noticing the drained look on Hook, she knows what she has to do. She turns the dwarf to stone, and storms out in all the flourish and broody aura she can muster, she has to distract them and send them on their wild goose chase while she sorts out her plan.
Step one, accept the apprenticeship of the dark Ones
Step two, complete Merlin's plan to merge the pieces into one sword
Step three, abolish the darkness
Step four, start happily ever after with Hook, keep her family happy, & try to live on with her life
Simple enough.
Magic is coming easier to her now and so she moves through her teleportations with ease; into her new house, into her new basement, to study the sword that could help her cut loose the threads of fate, and change everything.
As usual the silence of the world around her brings forth the deafening sounds of the Dark. Confronted by the most familiar Dark One in her mind, she can hear his giggles echoing throughout the cave walls.
“Truly embraced the darkness?” He appears in her mind's eye, standing before her, leaning against the stone. “Ohh say it’s true” he giggles as he flounces around “don’t tease me again dearie”
Emma takes an irritated breath and replies “Evidently, It appears to be true. I need more control, I need more power. Train me”
“Ah yes, all it ever takes is a little bit of heartbreak. Hee-Hee, and after all that you can be the one to lead your boyfriend into the depths. You could even rule as King and Queen of a dark realm of your own making.” he smiles slyly
His vision disappears, replaced by another Dark One “More than some of us could ever wish to get” she hears the now familiar voice of Nimue.
Emma's lips twitch in a simile of a smile. “When we hunted Merida you showed me how to teleport, and my powers, I almost killed her without thinking. How do I hone my skills?”
Nimue and Rumplestiltskin both appear and sit on the rock housing Excalibur, they exchange knowing glances. Nimue answers “It is simple. You feel it, you seek it, you think it and it becomes. Magic is simple for those of us who feel it the most. Then we can explore the other realms and dimensions, conquer this world then the next, and any more to come. The power is yours, the power is ours.”