from the edge of the deep green sea
writer’s month prompts
prompt fourteen: metamorphosis
(season 3A divergence in which pan’s curse takes hold of storybrooke--and emma, loosely inspired by a soulmate prompt where your soulmate is the only person you remember from your past life / you dream about them but cannot remember the details)
for miette.
(and for @profdanglaisstuff , who kicked miette)
i listened to so much 90s angst rock during this and inflicted it upon my forever and always mythical beauties, @katie-dub and @thisonesatellite, who each read multiple drafts of this monster; katie even named the Operation. thanks also to @phiralovesloki, @justanotherwannabeclassic, @optomisticgirl, @distant-rose and @shireness-says for helping me through some tricky issues of plot. you guys are my wonderwall.
thanks to @cssns for letting me sneak this in there at the last minute
The sky resembles a backlit canopy, holes punched in it where the stars shine through. In the brightness of the starlight it is possible to see shapes moving that align with neither the stars nor the planets. Henry was fond of telling stories about this realm’s fascination with alien beings and their flying contraptions. He called them “identified flying objects”. Thrilling tales, to be sure, but the truth is rather more gruesome: they are shadows.
Perhaps they do look brighter against the light of the full moon, but the light of the moon will shortly fade behind a shadow of its own and the shadows in the sky would still be there.
Killian Jones stands knee-deep in the water and counts down the minutes.
The water was fucking freezing and it sent a shock straight through her as Emma was swept over the side of the Jolly Roger. It was different, going in by accident; she was unprepared for how cold it was and how it pulled all of the air out of her body, how it weighted down her clothes and her boots and how her hair felt like it was strangling her.
She kicked, desperately, kicked her boots off--her trousers, her jacket--and felt the momentary relief until there was pain. Fire that started in her toes and crawled up her legs as she kicked, kicked--she felt as though her legs were pulling her down, dead weight that seemed to elongate as she sank, and her head was spinning. She was dizzy, she was shivering, she was out of breath and the piercing pain was in her lungs, too.
It was everywhere--flashes of it starting on the back of her neck, behind her ears--once, twice, three times on each side.
She couldn’t breathe and she was on fire and she couldn’t feel her legs, her eyes were burning from the salt in the water and there was nothing she could do, nothing except take a deep breath as she flung herself, instinctively, deeper.
The first gulp of harbor water was like a breath of life, pleasantly cool as it extinguished the fire within her. A wave of vertigo crashed through her--an intense explosion of light--and when Emma opened her eyes, she saw clearly.
He woke up as he always did--sweating, panting--and forgot immediately, unable to hold on to more than the barest whisps of a memory and the taste of seawater in his mouth.
But not a day went by that he did not think of her.
“We’ll find her, Hook,” Snow White assures him. It is as familiar to him now as his inability to remember his dreams, and as frustrating; she has been saying that to him for nearly a year. In her defense, most days she does not remember how long it has been--doesn’t remember his proper name or where her husband is or even that Emma is gone. Most days, she doesn’t remember much of anything.
In the first days immediately after the Curse, though--immediately after they’d lost Emma, after she’d gone overboard during Pan’s casting--it was Snow White who had found the first and nearly the only sign of Emma. She’d rung David on the talking phone and Killian had followed them--Neal, Henry, Regina and David--out to the shoreline to see the one relic of Emma they’d managed to obtain: Washed up on the beach, scattered amongst the remains of the seagulls’ breakfast, was a necklace.
“I gave that to her,” Bae--Neal--had said, fingering the stylized swan in cheap metal that had corroded slightly from its time in the harbor. “I thought she’d stopped wearing it.”
“She did.” Pan materialized in front of them. “But it’s such a nice touch, don’t you think?” He affected surprise, his hands pressed against his cheeks and his mouth open in exaggerated shock.
Killian turned his head toward Neal only to find the other man staring back at him, already understanding what the others did not.
This was one of Pan’s games.
This was Pan, already exerting his power over what used to be Storybrooke.
David drew his sword and Regina readied a fireball and Snow grasped for her bow and Killian sighed and snapped, “What have you done with Emma?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Pan fluttered his eyelashes but his voice was honed to cut and his eyes sparkled with dark mischief. Killian sucked in a breath and exhaled, a ragged thing that made him feel like he was deflating. Of-bloody-course the demon had been watching them--of course he had.
“She’s fine, if that’s what you’re asking. ‘The Savior’. She never disappoints. She’s got fire,” he said, and smirked. “I like fire. She’s--special.”
“We’ll find her,” David said. His sword went back into its scabbard and his arm went around Henry as he nodded meaningfully at Neal. “That’s what this family does.”
“We’ll find her,” Killian repeated.
Neal put a placating hand on David’s shoulder and glanced over at Killian again, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. If Pan had taken Emma, they wouldn’t find her until he was ready for them to find her. Because just like Neverland, Storybrooke was now his gameboard.
And Emma was his shiny new piece.
“In your dreams, Captain,” Pan said, and vanished.
That was the first day Henry had begun counting, marking the days until they saw his mother again.
read the full story on AO3
full list of writer’s month prompts
(scheduling note: i have switched the posting order of prompts 13 and 14)
@kmomof4 @mariakov81 @scientificapricot @karl0ta @snowbellewells @stahlop @lfh1226-linda @carpedzem @captain-emmajones @spartanguard @withaheartfulloflove @idristardis
