Chapter Text
Enchanted: bewitching, charmed, magical…Emma huffs out a bitter laugh as she stands atop a rocky ledge, surveying the dense forest beneath her. They call this place the Enchanted Forest. It conjures up the image of an idyllic, peaceful forest, full of golden light and beautiful flowers, full of silence and the occasional scurryings of a little furry creature. No one would honestly call this damned island an enchanting vacation destination. It's a sardonic nickname for Hell on Earth. Emma would know, she's been here for…well, she can't be entirely certain. Years, certainly. It's harder to keep track of time, because carrying anything like a calendar would be incredibly inconvenient. Holding onto one would be difficult to say the least.
There was a time when she tried, to keep track of the days as they passed and to try and figure out how long it had been before she'd started. When the days had numbered about five hundred, she'd given up. There had been hope, at first; one day. Ten days. Sixty-two. Soon. There had to be a way for them to find her. Eighty-seven. One hundred and twenty-five. There must be a way off, if only she could figure it out. One hundred ninety. Two hundred thirty. Four hundred. Five. That's when Emma realized there isn't time for hope, for dreams, for anything except…survival. This is certainly no haven for any but, apparently, the very worst of fugitives and murderers, mercenaries and mad scientists.
Stories, so many stories. One for each of the taut white scars that cuts across her body, one for each of the bruises that have blossomed and faded, for the blood spilled and the blood of others she has taken as payment. For every stifled sob that echoes in the darkness of the cave that has become her home. She is alone now. There had been allies; the young Hunter, with beautiful eyes and an odd gentleness behind his confidence. Shot in the head. A much older man, a soldier, time worn but honorable; mind addled by drugs that turned him into a cruel monster. A finger trails across a yellow-green mark on her bare upper arm, summoning the memory of the expert strike of a staff, bringing her to her knees. Peter. The wild look in his eyes and the vicious grin, it had been a complete stranger that had attacked her.
Emma crouches and readjusts the strap on her quiver of arrows, sighing. It had been a gift from Hunter, and at least that memory softens her expression. A spot of brightness that did nothing to drown out the worst the island had to offer, but they had had moments together that drew her mind away from the island, that let her forget for just a moment where she was. He had been instrumental in her survival, teaching her about the island; how to hunt and forage, to build a fire, to use a bow and arrow. Peter had taught her the value of hand to hand combat, of using any weapon that comes to your hand even if it seems useless, but Hunter had given her so much more. Kindness and love. Oh, they hadn't been in love in the sense that she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life, but it was a sort of love nonetheless, based mostly upon the need to keep away the drowning feeling of despair. Difficult to put a label to, they had been a source of escape for one another. She had needed that, desperately; caresses and kisses that reminded her she was human, an outlet for her energy. Any of those days could have been her last, and that had been one of the main incentives.
Peter had loved him. Really, truly loved Hunter. For Emma and Hunter it had been passion and a desire to cling to life, but there was no real emotion behind it more than friendship. None of the deeply seated devotion or romance that characterized Peter's feelings for Hunter, but Emma hadn't wanted to give it up. Hunter knew, he had to have known, but there was no return. There was no energy or time left to give over to guilt, so she had felt none. Hunter's days ran out. Doctor Frankenstein had seen to that. Shaking herself physically and mentally, she berates herself for allowing her attention to focus inward. There are too many dangers ever present in the Enchanted Forest, and if her plan is going to work then she will have to make sure that there is no one around to ruin them. The sun has just begun it's descent in the sky, and she had been sitting on the rocky ledge for most of the hours in the day, the bones from her lunch discarded beside her, by now a mere memory. Lately she has been spending a lot of her time high above the tree tops. It feels safer, even if that feeling is misleading. At least from up here, she's harder to spot, and the rocks make it harder to track her. Peter knows all her usual spots, so she'd had to find new ones. New hunting ground. New sleeping quarters. New lookouts. All other possibilities of escaping from the island had been exhausted, all the carefully laid plans: failed. This is only the one left, a long shot, improbable. All the hope she currently has is that a ship will pass by close enough that she can signal them. Dotted across the coast are piles of kindling, piled up in readiness to make a large enough fire to be seen from the water.
Hope is not something she thought she had anymore. In her mind, she sees it more as a way to pass the time, a habit, to sit and keep watch for any sign of salvation. She tells herself that it isn't because she expects to one day see someone, because in all likelihood it will never happen, or something will go wrong. The tiny sliver of hope that keeps her going to her rocky perches flares up as a shadow cuts it's way through the calm waters, several miles out. For a moment, Emma can't breathe; all she can do was stare, wondering if she is imagining things. It only lasts for a few seconds before she kicks into action. Hopping down and sliding down the side of the mountain, she picks her way through the trees toward the beach, running so hard that she can hardly breathe. Falling to her knees at an outcropping that overlooks the sandy ground, she draws out an arrow and a stolen lighter. The tip of the arrow lit, she takes aim and lets loose. The arrow soars in an arc, falling into the pile of sun-dried sticks and grasses surrounding a mostly dead tree. It takes but a few moments for the flames to catch on the gasoline and grow and rise until it is a towering beacon, and a bark of laughter steals out of her. Emma knows, realistically, that she isn't saved yet, but in the bonfire she can see the end of her exile at last. Turning her gaze toward the black spot, she smiles for the first time in ages as it turns and draws closer.
Jerking herself to her knees, she stumbles her way to the path and resumes her descent to the beach, sand flailing beneath her feet as she dashes to meet the fisherman's boat, splashing into the water and waving an arm, an odd tightness of mixed emotions in her chest.
Home; the word sings through Emma's heart in a vibrant cacophony. She is finally going home.