We Were Once

Prologue

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         Well...let's get one thing straight before we get started here.When you mess with magic, magic messes with you. But, before I jump into that, I guess we had better get introductions over with. My name is Regina. Maybe you've heard of me, perhaps from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves from my more infamous name, The Evil Queen. Yes, I have a given birth name I wasn't just born an evil queen. My past is quite difficult for me to talk about, seeing as my mother was an evil sorceress who punished me with magic as a child whereas my father stood by idly not knowing what to do about the predicament. He feared my mother, afraid about what she would do to him if he stood up for me. But I loved him dearly. My family tree is a bit complicated. I could go into detail as of now, but we must skip over it I have more pressing things to talk about. We'll get to it later. I promise. Anyway, having a grudge against Snow White and her Prince Charming and all her little do good cronies, I unleashed a spell over The Enchanted Forest transporting all of us to a world with no magic. But, while the curse was being cast, Snow White was giving birth to her first born child, a girl. All I heard of her was that she was going to break the curse and save everyone, she would be my undoing. In 28 years the girl would be the savior, saving all from peril and destruction. Snow White and Prince Charming decided to send their precious child away in a magical wardrobe so that I wouldn't be able to lay a finger on the child, in hopes that she would one day find her parents again. The attempt was successful, and she was sent to the realm with no magic, with a promise to redeem the ones she left behind. When I had finished casting the spell, no one remembered who they were, only I and a few others knew of the curse and what it had done to the residents of The Enchanted Forest. I changed all of their names but their personalities remained intact because even I could not find the power to change them. We all landed in a small town the curse created called Storybrooke. No one knew of it, it wasn't on any maps. So we were well hidden from the view of the common world. As you can imagine, a woman gets lonely after some time, so I adopted a boy born to a young woman who was in prison at the time. And who might that young woman be, you ask? Why, it's our precious savior, come to rejoin the story at last after 18 years. She gave the boy up for adoption, and he became my son, Henry. That was all he knew for ten years, until Mary Margaret (Snow White) gave him the book of fairytales, Once Upon A Time. But this book of fairytales wasn't just some ordinary story book. No, these tales are quite true. Yes, it had all of the childhood stories that you could possibly think of! Except in this version, they are much more realistic than what you have heard before. Snow White and Prince Charming lived happily ever after, that my dear reader, is not true at all. Your world does not keep record of the bad that happened afterward. Not all stories end in happiness.

         Henry believed in these fairytales. He believed they were true. And he was right in doing so, because they are. But I couldn't let him know the truth, so I tried in every way possible to make him believe otherwise. No matter what method I used, he never was tricked by anything I said. He always believed in that book. He read the book over and over again and he characterized everyone is town including me. Mary Margaret, Snow White, David Nolan, Prince Charming, all of the dwarves, Ruby, Red Riding Hood, Granny of course was still Granny, me, The Evil Queen, even Rumplestiltskin, Mr. Gold, everyone was part of the book. Well, he also believed that Emma, Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter, was the savior. He knew that I wasn't his real mother from the book, so he stole my credit card and used a website that would find his real birth mother, and he did. Emma Swan, she lived in Boston, and without my knowing, he ventured there and convinced her to come back with him to Storybrooke. Therefore, leading the savior towards her task to bring back the people's memory of themselves before the curse. But of course, I was not willing to let that happen not after all the effort I put into taking away their happiness just like they did mine. So I made her feel unwelcome in our tiny town, and made it as hard as I could for her to get through to Henry. I forbade him to see her, even though he still snuck out to see her. She thought that she could just come in here and take my rightfully adopted son away from me. She had the chance to keep him long ago, but she gave him up. I tried in every way to prevent the inevitable, but in the end, she won. She broke the curse leaving everything I worked for, behind. Well, maybe not everything. Mr. Gold was one of the few who knew of the curse. And being evil as me, decided to release magic into our town causing my magic to return to me.

         After the curse was broken, everyone remembered me, and what I had done to them. They tried to kill me, but Emma, her parents, and her son, Mary Margaret and David and Henry, stopped them saying that my death would end in no good. Instead of letting me live in the open, they locked me up in jail. While I was there, Mr. Gold decided to get back at me for all the things I'd done to him and released a wraith on me, otherwise known as Destiny. It sucked out your soul, and wouldn't stop until the deed was done. It tried to kill me, but Emma, Mary Margaret, and David fought it until it fled only to return a few nights later. That night we opened a portal trying to get the wraith to go back to what remained of The Enchanted Forest. But instead of just taking the wraith, it took Emma and Mary Margaret, leaving Henry without his mother and grandmother and David without his wife and daughter.

          I bet by now you're really confused with all that I'm talking about. It's hard to catch onto I know. Maybe I should stop and explain to you my family tree now. Alright. Let's begin with me. I was forced to marry the king, Snow White's father, due to my mother wanting power. The queen had died a few years before, and I had saved Snow White's life when riding a horse, so the king asked me to marry him. I did, and I became Snow's step-mother. But before the marriage happened, she killed the one I loved, Daniel. She had seen me kissing him, the stable boy, and I had told her to keep it a secret from my mother, a secret which she did not keep. My mother ripped his heart out and crushed it until it turned to ash. For that, I never forgave Snow White. After that, Rumplestiltskin appeared to me. He suggesting I use magic, taught me lessons, and I became a sorceress. After years of training, I killed Snow's father to gain ultimate power of the kingdom. I accused her of thievery, treachery, and treason, for reasons unknown to her, and she fled the castle. I cast fear into the hearts of everyone in the kingdom. I ripped people's hearts out, just as my mother did. I had become what I feared most. My mother. Snow White lived in the forest, The Enchanted Forest, hiding from me, and that's where she met her Prince, the shepherd boy. He was a pretend prince, only used by another king to slay a dragon and replace his twin brother, the one who was killed by an ogre. Snow White and Prince Charming fell in love, got married, and had a child, Emma. Emma had a son, Henry.

         Now that you know a little about me, shall we get started?