my persuasion can build a nation
endless power with our love we can devour
you'll do anything for me
With her platinum blonde locks cascading down her back and a large smile gracing the seven-year-olds pale face, young Cordelia through the field outside of her mother's home in glee as she chased a small black bird that easily outran the girl. She giggled in glee, her small legs trying to keep up with the bird until she stopped in her place with a huff and panted as she watched the bird fly off through the trees.
"And just like that, you give up?" A voice questioned from behind the girl.
Cordelia's head spun around and she made eye contact with her mother, Maleficent's eyes; grey on blue and her smile immediately dropped. "Birds can fly, mother, whereas I cannot," the girl simply responded.
Maleficent scoffed and adjusted her dress. "Yes. If only I could."
Cordelia tilted her small head, her eyes glistening. "What do you mean?"
Maleficent looked her daughter up and down, a look of distaste on her face as she took in the sight of her daughter. She wanted a fierce and strong child, one that could rule the Enchanted Forest and would have everyone tremble at the mere mention of her name, not one that was pure and soft and kind and loved to play with birds—not the child she birthed. "Come here, child." Cordelia slowly walked up to her mother in fear, and the woman quickly gripped onto her child's bicep, making her squirm. "We're going to go speak with a man, Cordelia. One that I've told you about many times before."
"Who's that?"
Maleficent smirked and her blue eyes showed no signs of love, no signs of affection for her child before her. "The Dark One; Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin."
As soon as the name was spoken, a man with scaly skin, amber-coloured eyes and brown curly hair appeared beside them, a giggle immediately passing his lips. "Now, who calls upon me at this time?" He asked, a wide smile on his face that showed off his yellow teeth. It wasn't a pleasant smile, but one that made little Cordelia's eyes widen in horror and fear.
Maleficent straightened herself up, her grip on her daughter's arm not loosening in the slightest. "My name is Maleficent," the blonde-haired woman spoke in a strong and powerful voice. "And I have a deal for you, Rumplestiltskin."
Rumplestiltskin's smile did not falter as he let a single finger point down towards Cordelia, although his gaze did not leave Maleficent's. "And who is that with you?"
Maleficent faulted, a frown gracing her features until she remembered who she was speaking to. "This is Cordelia, my...daughter."
Rumplestiltskin finally looked down at the small child, whose eyes lit up as she stared up at her mother. Her mother rarely called her her daughter or even acknowledged the relation the two shared. She smiled, and Rumplestiltskin smiled as well. "My my, have I been waiting for you."
Maleficent frowned, taken aback by his words. "Pardon?" Rumplestilskin didn't listen to her and instead walked up to Cordelia. He stared down at the child who turned her gaze upwards and stared at him with her wide doe eyes—full of innocence. He grinned at her, and Cordelia just frowned at the look he was giving her as if she was someone special and important. "I'm sorry, but I called your name so that I could make a deal with you. Not so that you could take an interest in this child."
But Rumplestiltskin simply waved the woman off. His interest was in someone else now and who they were destined to become. "Whatever you want, dearie. As long as you give me your child."
Cordelia's eyes widened in an instant, panic all over her face. "What?"
"Done," Maleficent responded in an instant, and Rumplestilskin giggled in glee and clapped his hands together. "I want to be powerful. I want to be one of the most powerful people in this entire realm."
"Easy." Rumplestilskin pulled out a fairly long contract and a quill, in which Maleficent didn't hesitate to take from his hand.
"Mother, you can't do this," Cordelia said, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears as Maleficent let go of her arm and began to sign the contract. "Mother, no."
Maleficent let out a dry chuckle as she quickly scribbled her signature down on the parchment. "Like this was a hard decision anyway," she said. She pulled away from the contract and Rumplestiltskin took it back and made it disappear into thin air. He then clicked his fingers and bright green smoke surrounded Maleficent, causing the women's eyes to briefly turn gold as a wave of power surged through her body. Cordelia watched on in horror as her mother took in all of the power Rumplestilskin had given her before the smoke disappeared and Maleficent was left with a staff in her hand. She turned to face Cordelia, an evil grin on her face. "It's not like I ever loved you in the first place."
Maleficent turned around and began to walk away from Cordelia, whose arm was gripped onto by the man who had given her mother a great deal of power. "Mommy..." Cordelia said softly, tears slowly falling down her cheeks as she watched Maleficent stalk off into the woods and away from her daughter.
"Don't worry about her, dearie," Rumplestiltskin spoke, placing a hand on Cordelia's back. "I may have given her that power, but you are certainly stronger than she'll ever be."
Cordelia didn't believe a word he said as she looked down and closed her eyes, her platinum blonde locks dropping down in front of her face. And then the Dark One transported them back to his castle, where Cordelia was destined to live in for the remainder of her days.
Luna Edwards did not mention her scarily realistic dream of being Maleficent's daughter to anyone, especially not to her own daughter, Daisy, as she knew her daughter would instantly think the entire dream would've been apart of Luna's apparent old life. The following day, the clocktower's clock that had never once worked began to start working again, and Luna had heard that Emma decided to stay for a week to look out for Henry and make sure that her son was alright, especially under Regina's protection. That didn't sit well with the Mayor, and now the two mother's of Henry Mills were at each other's throats, trying their best to get on top of the other.
While they were at each other's throats, Emma decided to go along with Henry and Daisy's fantasy that all of the stories in the book Once Upon A Time were real so that she could get closer to her son. They started an operation to rid the town of the curse it was under, naming it Operation Cobra with just the three of them evolved—Luna Edwards and Mary Margaret were the only two outside of the people in the operation who knew of the group as Luna was Daisy's mother and Emma was currently staying in Mary Margaret's flat.
Luna was slightly worried for her daughter. Yes, she always encouraged Daisy to have an active imagination and to believe in fairy tales and stories from the moment she was born, however, she just didn't want her daughter to get into trouble and run around town telling everyone that they were all under a curse and were secretly fairy tale creatures. So, she met up with Emma and Mary Margaret at the latter's flat to form a plan to get the two children to stop believing about the curse without actually telling them. The plan was to follow through with Operation Cobra's plan of getting Mary Margaret, who the children believed was Snow White, to read the Once Upon A Time book to a male hospital coma patient, who was apparently Prince Charming, to see if he would wake up from his coma and remember Mary Margaret. Then when the plan would fail, the children would stop thinking the town was under a curse and just believe that the story was just that, a story.
Daisy and Luna sat in a booth the following day with Emma and Henry, sipping on their chosen drinks while they waited for Mary Margaret to show up. Emma watched Henry and Daisy interact with a smile on her face, one in which Luna caught onto instantly.
"Haven't seen that yet," Luna commented lightly after taking a sip of her coffee.
Emma's gaze turned to Luna, and her smile was replaced with a frown. "Seen what?"
"You smile." Emma chuckled lightly under her breath and Luna smiled. "It's nice."
"Well, thank you." Luna nodded and smiled back before Emma nodded her head towards their children. "How long have they been friends for?"
"Just this year," Luna responded. "When Henry moved into Daisy's class, the two hit it off instantly as friends. It made me relieved and happy because Daisy didn't really have any friends before Henry. Well, ones that were nice and shared the same bright imagination as her." Luna watched Emma's gaze shift towards her son with a small smile on her face. "He's a good kid. He was brought up well."
"Just not by a nice person as I hoped he'd be."
The bell above Granny's door chimed, and Luna's gaze quickly shifted to it and she watched as Mary Margaret stepped into the diner. "She's here," Luna instantly said. Emma and Henry looked back and made eye contact with the teacher and called her over as Luna and Daisy shifted over in their seat so that she could sit beside them.
At Henry's and Daisy's bright smiles, Emma said, "Hey, don't get your hopes up. We're just getting started, okay?"
Mary Margaret sat down beside Luna and gave her a smile, one that the brunette returned. Emma gave Mary Margaret a look as if to tell her to break it down easy to them, but she didn't expect her to say, "He woke up."
Luna frowned instantly. "What?" Emma asked.
Henry grinned at Daisy. "I knew it."
"You were right," she grinned back.
"How is that possible? He's been in a coma for as long as I can remember," Luna said.
"I mean, he didn't 'wake up' wake up, but he grabbed my hand."
"He's remembering," Henry said.
"What did the doctor say?" Emma asked.
"That I imagined it," Mary Margaret. "But I'm not crazy, I know it happened."
"We have to go back," Daisy quickly said.
"And you have to read to him again," Henry said.
There was a pause before Mary Margaret nodded. "Let's go."
The children leapt out of the booth with Mary Margaret and Emma and Luna followed after them in disbelief. "Wait. Wait...what?" Emma questioned the woman, grabbing onto her arm to stop her from running after them. Luna stood beside her with her eyes downcast and her arms crossed over her chest while she was in deep thought, trying to figure things out. A part of her wants to read the book her daughter and Henry are obsessed with just to see what the big deal is all about, another part wants her daughter to let go of the fairy tales she believes is true and the fact that everyone in Storybrooke is under a curse, and the last part, a part deep within her is telling her that everything was real—that she was, in fact, the Dragon Queen and was under a curse that made her forget everything from her past life.
Mary Margaret turned around to face the two women. "If I got through to him, if we made a connection..."
"You don't believe—"
"That's he's Prince Charming? Of course not," she chuckled. "Somehow, someway, I touched him."
"I gotta get to work," Luna suddenly told them and looked up to catch their gazes. "Look after Daisy for me. And call me and tell me how it goes." Then she walked past them and out the door.
—
Luna didn't go to work that day. Instead, she went back to her apartment to clean the place up and to get her mind off of the silly thought she had of her being a fairy tale character. She scrubbed away at the following day's dishes and hummed to the soft music she had playing in the background. It didn't take long before there was a knock on the door and Luna's thoughts went straight back to the book and fairy-tales. She opened it up to find Regina on the other side with Daisy and Henry at her side. Luna looked down at the children and then back up at Regina, having known what they were doing and seeing that they obviously got caught by the apparent Evil Queen.
"Hey, Regina. What's up?" Luna asked with a frown.
Regina instantly frowned. "What's up with you? Why aren't you your usual chirpy self?" Luna opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Regina. "Never mind. So guess where our children weren't at? The arcade. But they were at the hospital with Emma Swan and Mary Margaret, taking an interest in one of its patients. Did you know about this?"
"No," Luna replied slowly and then looked down at Daisy. "I genuinely thought..." she let out a long sigh and shook her head. "Thank you, Regina, for bringing her to me."
"No problems," she replied as Daisy walked through the door. "I know it's not your fault anyway." Luna nodded and watched as Daisy walked further into the apartment. "I do hope we don't see each other on these terms, again, Luna. And I hope you have a good afternoon."
Luna turned back to Regina and smiled. "Thank you, and you too." Regina and Henry turned around and walked away and Luna shut her door behind them. "I thought you weren't meant to get caught while doing business for operation cobra."
"He walked out," Daisy said. Luna turned around with a frown, but it dropped instantly when she noticed the book her daughter was taking out of her bag. "Prince Charming woke up and walked out of the hospital."
Luna pointed at the book. "What's that?"
"It's the book!" The girl grinned and placed it on the kitchen bench. "Henry and I thought that you should read it to try and get your memories back. We've both read it a couple of times and are still unclear as to who I am in the story, but maybe if you read your story you might remember who you are and you might remember who I am!"
Luna pursed her lips as she walked over towards her daughter and the book and looked down at the book. "Perhaps. Maybe. I am usually quite busy, as you know."
"Yeah, I know. That's why Henry said we can have it for as long as you want," Daisy chirped. "Emma's read it, Mary Margaret has read parts of it, and now it's your turn!"
Luna looked down at the book before looking at Daisy and smiling, ruffling her hair in the process. "Thank you, my little flower. Of course, I'll read it."
"Yay!" Daisy gripped her mother into a hug, and Luna returned it with a soft smile. "Thank you so so much for believing!"
Luna rubbed her daughter's back with an uneasy smile, knowing she was just going to break her daughter's heart in the end by leading her on.