Chapter Text
The newborn baby stared up at the terrifying woman with unusual golden brown eyes. The woman, covered in sweat and still in pain from the birth of said child, stared down at the baby in awe, her darker eyes beginning to well up with tears.
"Sometime wrong dearie?" The man, if you could call him that, beside her bed asked in a mildly alarmed voice. In the many years that he'd known this woman, he had never known her to shed tears lightly, if at all.
"No." she responded, not taking her eyes off the child in her arms, and ignoring the stream of tears that were now dripping down her pale cheeks.
"Then why the water works?" he questioned, curious as to how this child could make the Evil Queen cry.
Finally, the Queen looked up from the bundle in her arms, to glance softly over at the monster she had created this perfect being with. "She's perfect." She whispered, glancing into the eyes that mirrored her child's, and wondering if he had the capacity to understand the beauty of what they had created.
Rumplestiltskin most certainly did not understand Regina's theatrics, until she asked him to hold the child for a time so she might be able to get some sleep. As he took the child from the exhausted woman, holding her carefully in his arms, he finally understood what she had meant.
The baby truly was perfect, he realized as she yawned gently, with her mother's nose, dark tufts of hair, and high cheekbones, and his eyes, and chin. For a moment the baby reminded him so much of Bae, that his heart ached. But the feeling was gone as soon as it appeared, as the tiny creature in his arms reached out to grasped one of his fingers with her tiny hand.
"Hi there." He whispered to her as he rocked her gently in his arms, twin pairs of eyes staring into each other. "I'm your Papa."
4 years later
"Valkyrie! Darling! Your Father is here to pick you up!" Regina called out to her daughter as she marched down the hall of her castle towards her daughter's bedroom, peeking in when there was no response.. "Where are you?" the Queen muttered to herself, as she searched her daughter's deep blue and purple bedroom. At one point, Valkyrie had asked for it to be pink, but Regina and Rumpelstiltskin's absolute refusal of her owning anything pink resulted in the current color scheme, which, in Regina's opinion, wasn't all that terrible. For now at least.
Just as Regina was about to leave the room, she heard a soft sniffle come from under the canopy bed. She crouched down and glanced underneath, only to be greeted with the tear stained face of her daughter.
"Darling? What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Regina questioned frantically, reaching under the bed for the small child.
The small hand of the girl reached up and rubbed her eyes. "Don't wanna go."
Regina's eyes widened in surprise when her words sunk in, her hands freezing in mid air. "Whatever do you mean darling?"
"When I go with Papa, I don't see you, and when I go with you I don't see Papa. I don't wanna not see you or Papa, Mama." She said, sobbing through her words, and making it massively difficult for the Queen to understand the issue at hand.
Eventually, a wave of understanding flowed over the Queen, before she used a levitation spell to bring the sobbing girl into her arms. As she let her daughter continue to cry on her shoulder, Regina carefully pulled a necklace off her neck and quietly cast a few spells on it. When the girl in her arms had finally calmed down, she pulled her away slightly so she could look her daughter in the eye.
"Valkyrie, no matter where you are me and Papa love you very much. We will always be there for you. So that you might always remember that, I want you give you this necklace." Regina said placing a silver locket, with an apple tree engraved on the front, around her young daughter's neck. "And I want you to never take it off. No matter what." She waited for her daughter to nod before continuing on. "See this button? When you push it the locket opens." Pushing said button, Regina revealed a small portrait of the pair on one side. "If you need me, just hold the necklace in your hand, and call my name three times. It will bring you to me. Alright?"
"Alright mama." Valkyrie said, nodding to herself and clutching the locket tightly. " I think I'm ready to go." Regina smiled as she picked up her child and began walking towards the main hall where she had left The Dark One waiting.
2 years later
The past six years had been some of the most enjoyable that R umpelstiltskin had had since Bae was young child. Valkyrie was the bright light that he was unaware that he had been missing in his life. She had truly grown to be her parents' daughter. As smart as she was mischievous, she was constantly pulling pranks on Regina's guards, and causing chaos. And with magic no less! She was powerful for someone so young, so much so, that it concerned both Rumpelstiltskin and Regina, the pair of them fearful that she would one day accidentally hurt herself.
That was why today, on her birthday, he had given her a necklace with a Dragon's Breath Opal, on which he had cast many protective spells, as well as one that would allow her to teleport to him or at least close to him when holding it in her hand and calling out his name, (which was conveniently carved into the back of it) .
When Valkyrie had opened that present, she had been ecstatic. Then again, she was always extra happy on her birthday, if only because it was one of the few times when Regina and Rumple would stay together in the same castle for a few days.
The pair of magic users were sitting together in Regina's favorite sitting room, civilly discussing the goings on of the Enchanted Forest, most notably the pregnancy of one Snow White, though she was currently unaware of her delicate state. A sudden scream shattered the peaceful calm that had remained between the two inhabitations of the room, and, wasting no time, they rose as one, and sprinted towards the sound. Arriving in their daughter's room moments apart, they could only watch in horror as the Blue Fairy disappeared with their child in a cloud of blue smoke.
Days later they would confront said fairy, only to discover that she sent their child to a land without magic, without her memories, so that she "could never tainted their world with her dark magic like they had." Of course being a coward, she immediately disappeared when Regina charged at her, hands full of fire.
The loss of their child sparked an unholy agreement between the two. They would find a way to get to this Land without Magic, and they would find their child. Even if it meant dragging the rest of the Enchanted Forest along with them.