imperfect boys. perfect ploys. (this is a song about tragedy) [1/6]
“My ‘story’ is that I left a fucked-up situation and it kind of fucked me up,” he’d said. But it was the way he’d said it, like it hadn’t broken him. Like it was just a fact. But Emma’s life was a story, too. A fucked-up situation that had kind of fucked her up. She wasn’t that kid anymore. Confidence could be learned. And maybe—maybe—she wasn’t broken, either.
Not if she picked up the pieces. Not if she told herself a new story. About who she was. About what she wanted. Roots, family, friends, a sense of the familiar—these did not have to be fairy tales.
"You owe it to yourself," Mary Margaret said. "Happy endings always start with hope."
S3 post-neverland canon divergence.
20k of no-curse renaissance.
to @wistfulcynic and @thisonesatellite who sat with me while we daydreamed on a hilltop in cornwall on the summer-iest summer day england has ever seen. it took me eight months but i got there in the end.
one.
'when you leave, you just miss it'
Almost a week since they’d seen real daylight—maybe more, maybe less. No one was sure. Time, like light, did not work properly in Neverland. That’s what Hook had said, and Neal had agreed, an uneasy peace between them; Regina grumbled and Gold snickered but it had been a week or a lifetime and the sun was shining and she had slept last night, for the first time in a week.
She heard the wind rustling around her through the open portholes. Tasted the salt on the air, sweet and slightly cool. Emma sat up and the chill danced around her skin as the sheet fell. She felt good; rested, refreshed. Free.