1st Story - Ten Forward

[goldencobra]

One minute, Henry had been sitting on a bus to Boston, the next, he was standing in a room with lots of other people having experienced a large flash of light. Looking around, he realised he had no idea where this place was. It wasn't in the book, it hadn't been described by his father and he certainly wasn't back in Storybrooke.

Glad that he still had his bag, he clutched it tightly and moved to stand in a corner out of the way. Closing his eyes for a moment, to stop himself from panicking, he took some deep breaths before opening them again and taking a proper look at his surroundings.

First thing he noticed was the bar. It spanned the length between the two sets of doors and behind it was a smiling woman. On the other side of the room were...well they looked like windows but all he could see out of them were white dots on a black background. And between them, only chairs and tables, people and drinks. And no one he immediately recognised either.

Moving towards the strange windows, he touched one, unsure if he wanted to believe what he thought he saw. They looked like...stars.

Comments

[abyssum_invocat]

"Uh-huh," she says, blinking at Henry, until she looks down at the storybook. "Do I have to read it now?"

Fast as she may be she doubts she can absorb all the material that quickly.

[goldencobra]

"Suppose not." He shrugged. He wouldn't let it out of his sight just yet but she could read it later he supposed.

Pulling it back, he turned to the back few pages. "Try these for the saviour stuff instead. Read about Dad later."

[abyssum_invocat]

"Okay," she says, putting aside the music box components to take the book.

She reads quietly, and quickly, but her brow furrows a little more as she absorbs the information. "So... Snow White and Prince Charming have a kid. And she's...your mom. And the one who can break this curse," she says, albeit a little incredulously.

[goldencobra]

"Yeah, I know. It sounds crazy. And that's how I felt last year when Dad gave me the book. But he's invested so much in making me believe that I want to. And I love him, he's my dad. Even if he's not really."

As in, because of the adoption and all that. Which was a shock at the time as well.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Adoption doesn't mean they're less your parents, though. Or not from what I read," she says.

"We don't have anything like this where I'm from. Stories are just stories for us," she sighs.

[goldencobra]

"I know that. I just meant, he's nothing to do with my mom." Henry looked a bit sheepish.

"I thought they were just stories too. Sometimes, I wish they were."

[abyssum_invocat]

"...Oh," she intones, and she looks faintly nonplussed. But she'll follow along, because she is very subtly picking up his thoughts too. Or the ones she doesn't really have to go digging for, at any rate. It helps when she's dealing with people she's not used to.

"I think here they are. So you could pretend," Sinthia suggests. "I pretend I'm someone different sometimes. That I'm not so weird," she murmurs, the sound barely loud enough to travel to Henry.

[goldencobra]

Henry shrugged. "I'll see what my Dad says. Since he appears to go by his cursed name." It made sense that Sinthia got along with Gold if they both pretending. Henry wasn't the best at pretending but he accepted that at home. Here was a different matter though, wasn't it?

[abyssum_invocat]

"If my name was as long as his, I'd go by something different too," she says lightly.

[goldencobra]

"I'm not sure the length is the problem. But I think I'd get funny looks if I told people I was the son of Rumplestiltskin or the grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming."

He shrugged again. It didn't seem so bad telling Sinthia. She could keep a secret and he would keep hers.

[abyssum_invocat]

"That's why I don't like to tell people my father's name, either. If anyone recognizes it then they think I'm just like him," she says.

"I think it would be nice to be their child. Are they all like they seem in their stories?"

[goldencobra]

"I don't know. I've never actually met them yet. Not really." He hadn't found Charming yet but Snow was his teacher. But really, she was Ms Blanchard not Snow so it didn't feel like he'd really met her.