Please, don't spoil everything this time.

Chapter 26 : That could have been that way.

Some days passed, and Neal rapidly integrated their little group of friends, and this, even if they were the first friends he got since a long, long time, and that he had some difficulties at first to adapt.

The first thing he noticed, was that princess Emma was not especially a leader. None of them was, in fact, they were just... friends who just wanted to have time together.

The second thing that he noticed, is that they all had good skills in fighting, which was not that surprising.

Some had magic, like princess Alexandra, princess Lily, and princess Emma, being either the daughters of a witch or of two people united by True Love, while the two other didn't have magic, like Roland, Pinocchio, and of course, Neal himself.

They all knew how to use a sword, which was something easily understandable : Lily was after all the daughter of a literal dragon, and her sister-in-law was the best warrior of her kingdom, if she was not the best in all the realm itself.

Emma had parents who knew what it was, to be forced to fight for your life, so of course they wanted her to learn to defend herself and fight, and Roland was the son of an outlaw/former outlaw (Neal was not sure of his actual status, as he knew this one was now married to the former Evil Queen, so he didn't know if he was still an outlaw or not), so it was kind of the same thing for him.

And Alexandra and Pinocchio, being their friends, naturally followed them in their training sessions.

By the way, by facing them, Neal rapidly realized that, in fact, he didn't know how to fight well with a word. Oh, yes, indeed, for a fight without a sword, hand-to-hand, he was good, maybe even better than them, as he learned it the hard way, in the streets of London and in Neverland against the Lost Boys and the Lost Ones.

He knew how to fight someone in a non really regulatory way, for sure, he lived with pirates after all, he was not always the kind of person who respected rules.

But, when it was the time to use a sword, well... he was not as good as they were.

Emma and Lily particularly were, wanting to be as great as the members of their respective families used to be, and still were.

(Indeed, Neal really admired Snow White for being as strong as she was before, despite the time which passed, and despite the fact that she didn't train as often as she did before, as she didn't need to do this anymore, as they were in a complete peace now.)

And the two girls were really strong, and Neal, as the other, had been defeated by them... any time he fought them, in fact.

At this moment, he realized that he indeed had a lot of things to learn properly.

§§§§

But there was one thing that Baelfire was really good at : sailing.

Indeed, it was one of the things that Neal was the only one of them to know goodly, which was a logical thing, as he had been taught this by one of the best.

On the other hand, the other' parents weren't really experts in the art of sailing, so they didn't teach their children about this.

So, the day Neal told them that he knew how to direct a ship almost perfectly on his own, everyone's eyes began to shine with excitement, well, especially Emma's.

"You really know how to sail on a ship ? Alone ? As Neal nodded his head, his friend began to smile."

It was something Neal had learned rapidly about her.