Chapter Text
Emma sees her soulmate for the first time when she’s thirteen years old.
She doesn’t realize it’s her soulmate then, obviously. She’s thirteen and not looking for a soulmate. One of her biggest concerns is having enough to eat and the merchants’ kids making fun of her when she’s just trying to help out and take care of their horses. She helps out a couple of times a week, which gives her a break from the everyday hustle of the orphanage, but the rich kids end up picking on her because of her saggy clothes and old glasses and the fact that she doesn’t have parents to go back to after she’s finished working.
It happens when she’s having one of her usual nightmares featuring the merchants’ kids. Cruella rips off her glasses and steps on them so that Emma will be unable to wear them altogether before asking her why she hasn’t found a home.
“Her parents didn’t want her, so why would anyone else?” Ursula mutters behind her, and it really hurts. It’s her biggest insecurity, and she can see no one else from the orphanage there; just people laughing at her until she’s crying and trying to run away. She soon realizes she can’t even manage to do that because her road is blocked and she’s slumping on the ground, her eyes covered with her hands that get wet from her tears.
“Go away. Leave!” says a voice she doesn’t recognize, and when she’s finally brushed her tears away, the bullies are nowhere to be seen and she’s faced with a girl about her age wearing a blue riding suit that looks more expensive than anything Emma – or any of the other kids in the orphanage – has ever owned. The girl looks awkward as she shifts her weight from one leg to another and her dark brow scrunches in worry.
“Are you okay?” the girl finally asks before taking off her gloves and offering Emma her hand.
Emma takes it with some hesitation; she doesn’t trust people easily, not when they seem to push her down more often than not. The only random act of kindness from a stranger that she can remember was the Blue Fairy answering her calls when she was eight years old and giving her a magic bean that could take her to another realm when things got too hard. She just hasn’t quite reached that point yet; she has always fought and held her head high and punched back if necessary. She still has that bean that can take her to another world.
“I’m fine,” she lies and stands up with the girl’s help. “Who are you?”
The girl hesitates before answering, “Regina,” and clamping her mouth shut.
“I’m Emma,” she says, and now that she’s actually facing the girl, she can see that she’s really pretty. Emma wishes she was this pretty too. She stumbles upon her words as she utters a “thank you” and finally lets go of the girl’s hand.
Sadly, that is when one of the babies sleeping in the same room as her starts crying and Emma is wide awake, unable to go back to sleep and continue the conversation with her new friend.
Emma is fifteen the second time they meet. She’s exploring a castle she’s found while trekking in the woods of her dream land. She’s quietly walking down a brightly-lit corridor when she hears a petrifying scream from one of the rooms nearby. She takes a sword from one of the sets of armor on the wall and runs towards the source of the sound, not even considering running away.
The sight in front of her upon entering the room makes her blood run cold. Regina – the same girl she’d seen in her dream a couple of years ago – is restrained by branches up in the air while a red-haired woman whose back is turned to Emma is waving her hands and lecturing her.
Emma doesn’t hesitate, but throws the sword towards the woman’s turned back. It hits her and the woman disappears just like the branches that had been holding Regina up just moments ago. That’s when Emma realizes she must be dreaming again, because if this were real, the woman’s body would be bleeding right in front of them.
Nevertheless, Emma still runs towards Regina, wanting to make sure the other girl is okay, even if this is only a dream. When Emma approaches her, she can see her coughing and holding her throat.
She looks at Regina for a while before crouching down and offering her a hand. Regina looks at her incredulously but takes her hand anyway when she’s stopped coughing and lets Emma pull her up.
“We need to stop meeting like this,” Emma says, and Regina smiles, smiles, despite what has just happened. Her smile might quite possibly be the most beautiful thing Emma has ever seen, and her brain short circuits for a moment.
“Wait,” Regina says, her face suddenly full of concern. “Mother!”
Mother?
It takes Emma a moment to realize that the person she just killed in this dream world is Regina’s mother. She runs after Regina, who’s now where the woman had been standing a moment ago.
“It’s okay,” Emma says carefully as she walks towards the girl. “This is only a dream. I swear.”
Regina turns back to her, her gaze dubious. She studies Emma’s face for a while before nodding. “You must be right. There’s no chance you could’ve done that to Mother without her being able to stop it. You can’t do anything without her knowing.”
“Really?”
“Dreams are where I escape, but sadly the ones she makes an appearance in often turn into nightmares.”
“I’m sorry,” Emma says. She is. Having a parent like Regina’s mother can’t be much better than having no parents at all.
“It’s not your fault,” Regina says, shaking her head. “I thought I’d never see you again. It’s been a while…”
“Me neither.”
“You probably aren’t real, though, but I’m grateful for your help. Thank you,” Regina says and offers Emma her hand. Emma doesn’t take it, slightly offended by the implication that she’s not real.
“I’m not real? I’m very real. How do I know you’re real?”
“Don’t be preposterous,” Regina retorts as she pulls her hand back. “People can meet other real people in their dreams only if there’s magic involved or if they’re soulmates. Everyone knows that.”
Emma knows about the latter part. Everyone knows that you can meet your soulmate in your dreams. People in the Enchanted Forest hold soulmates and the love you could share with them in very high regard; people who are able to meet their soulmates both in their dreams and face-to-face, and even marry them, have always been considered the luckiest ones of all.
“I don’t know how to use magic,” Emma responds truthfully. If she did, she wouldn’t have had such a miserable childhood.
“I don’t either” Regina admits. “Mother does, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Emma is about to respond, but suddenly she’s awake and being told she needs to take care of one of the little ones because Granny, the new head of the orphanage, has fallen ill.
After that, she sees Regina more frequently. It’s not a thing that happens every night, not by a long shot, but every time Emma is having a nightmare, it gets better when Regina appears. They become friends of sorts, and they have a connection that’s hard to ignore; Emma feels like no one has ever actually understood her like Regina does. Even though the other girl’s life seems to get harder as the years pass, she still tells Emma how lucky she is to have someone who sees her just as Regina instead of the lady her mother is pampering her up to be.
It takes her a while to really realize and admit that they both must be real. She starts thinking their meetings over and pays attention to the little things that make her interactions with Regina different from the ones with other people she sees in her dreams. Where most of her dreams usually stay in her subconscious after she wakes up and don’t feel real once she’s awake, her encounters with Regina feel as real as her interactions with anyone when she’s not sleeping.
Then, a few days before Emma’s eighteenth birthday, they meet when neither of them is having a nightmare. It’s a sunny day and Emma’s walking near the same castle again until she sees someone riding a horse and she stops dead in her tracks. She recognizes the rider as Regina as soon as her eyes first land on her; it’s impossible not to recognize the girl in the light blue riding clothes that are similar to the ones the girl was wearing when they first met.
Regina seems to spot her soon enough. She pulls the reins before guiding her horse towards Emma, her expression breaking into a smile that’s so beautiful that for a moment Emma thinks the girl can’t possibly be real and that she’s just a product of her subconscious.
“Emma!” Regina says once there’s practically no distance between them anymore. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Yeah, I thought we only meet in the face of impending doom,” Emma quips back as she turns her head around to make sure that there isn’t in fact any elements of a dream turned into a nightmare approaching.
The meadow seems quiet, however, and Regina’s smiling as she dismounts the horse she’s been riding. She does it with such grace that Emma is fairly certain that Regina rides in real life, too, no matter that this is actually a dream. Emma is not bad with horses since she’s taken care of the ones near the orphanage for quite a few years now, but she’s still enthralled by the way Regina was riding the horse just moments ago.
“It would appear that we’re good for now,” Regina says, a smile still on her lips. “Do you need to be elsewhere?”
“No.” Absolutely not. It’s been far too long since Emma has last seen Regina. The way everyone keeps talking about soulmates now that they’re older, especially a few girls Emma interacts with on a regular basis, has made Emma all the more certain that Regina could be hers.
Everyone expects her soulmate to be a man, though. The last time she participated in a conversation about soulmates, Tiana had asked her if Emma had found him yet. Emma had responded that she didn’t think so, but at the back of her mind she knew her soulmate wouldn’t be a man, like Tiana’s. The girl had met a boy, Naveen, he was called, in a dream where the boy had been a frog until they had kissed.
“Would you like to enjoy the sun for a bit before one of us wakes up again?” Regina asks, breaking Emma’s trip down to the memory lane.
“Yeah, of course.”
They end up lying down next to each other on the grass of the dream world. It doesn’t look that much different from that of the Enchanted Forest; the trees on the edge of the forest look the same and the sun on Emma’s skin feels warm and familiar. All of that still feels fake compared to the presence of Regina – her voice, her smile, and her eyes are undoubtedly the most realistic thing in the dream.
“My Mother threatened to use magic on me again today,” Regina says after a moment of silence.
“She did?” Emma asks. She’s not particularly surprised, considering that Regina seems to have nightmares about her mother physically assaulting her with magic on a regular basis, but she’s still terrified to have the confirmation that Regina has to deal with that in real life.
“Yes,” the girl says, her eyes not meeting Emma’s. “She came to the stables and told me once again that I rode like a man and should watch out or no man will want to marry me. Then proceeded to tell me that I should start watching out for the sun, too, since men want a bride with light skin.”
Emma shudders. She wants to punch Regina’s mother in the face. Multiple times. How dare she tell Regina she should marry? How dare she imply that Regina is anything else than perfect the way she is? How dare she-
“When I said I don’t care about any of that, she told me that she’d keep me on the path that she’s chosen for me and reminded me how she definitely has the means to do so.” Regina sighs. “I panicked and said I promise to be good, but I just don’t want to marry anyone she has planned. I just want to be free.”
“I’m so sorry."
Regina stays quiet for a while before whispering a small "thank you."
"Would she care about you finding your soulmate?” Emma says, knowing that it’s a long shot when Regina’s mother is what she is.
“No.” Regina shakes her head. “She once told me that she found hers but didn’t care about that. She’s been teaching me that love like that is weakness.That it keeps you from achieving great things and being focused on your goals.”
“You know she’s wrong, right?” Emma asks. Even though she’s felt neither particularly wanted nor loved in her life, she does not want to believe that love would actually be weakness. It should be seen as strength.
“Yes,” Regina says as she gets up on her elbow and turns to look at Emma. “I know she is. I’ve heard that true love shared by soulmates is the most powerful magic of all. She just doesn’t understand.”
Emma is mesmerized by Regina’s beauty as the other girl looks down at her, her face encircled by sunbeams. She’s smiling and there are strands of loose hair coming out of her braid, and before Emma knows, Regina has moved so close to her that she can feel the other girl’s breath against her lips.
“I’m really glad I met you, Emma,” Regina says.
“Yeah, me too,” Emma responds, and it may not be the most eloquent reply she’s come up with, but she’s shocked that she manages to answer anything at all when Regina is so close to her.
Their first kiss is chaste and short. Regina pecks Emma’s lips before Emma has time to respond and then she pulls away and meets Emma’s eyes.
“Was that okay?” Regina asks quietly, her dark eyes searching Emma’s face.
“Yeah,” Emma says, her voice hoarse. She can’t believe she’s dreaming. Regina’s lips felt so real against hers, and she wants nothing more than to kiss her again properly.
“Can I… can I kiss you again?” Regina asks her.
“Yeah,” Emma repeats, because she seems to have lost her ability to reply anything else.
Regina moves closer to her again and brings their lips together. This time, the kiss lasts longer, Regina’s mouth lingering on hers and their lips moving slowly against each other. Emma feels a bit awkward as she wonders if she’s kissing Regina right, but the girl doesn’t show any sign of discomfort, so she’s probably doing okay.
When one of Regina’s hands tangles in her hair and the girl slightly pulls Emma’s bottom lip between hers, Emma freezes and almost forgets to breathe. Regina seems to notice her reaction as she pulls back and looks at her with worry in her eyes.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” she responds.
“Are you sure? You haven’t replied anything else other than yeah for a while now.”
“I’m fine,” she says. “I just… I just really wanna kiss you again, and I don’t wanna wake up.”
Regina’s worried expression turns into smile as she moves closer. “Just don’t wake up, then.”
Their next kiss is more deep, more powerful, and soon Emma’s hands are on Regina’s neck and Regina’s stroking Emma’s cheek as their lips move together and content hums leave their mouths. She never wants to stop kissing Regina. If she wasn’t sure about finding her soulmate before, she is sure now. Regina feels so real and so right and Emma has to be with her outside this dream world. She can’t live her life knowing that she has a soulmate who she could see every day instead of occasionally in a dream world. That she could finally have a home with someone.
“I wanna be with you,” Emma breathes into the kiss.
She regrets her words a second later when Regina stops kissing her. No, no, no. She went too far. No one ever stayed in her life. Not really. Maybe Regina was just too good to be true. Maybe she’d eventually be better off with the life her mother had mapped out for her: a financially stable lady married off to a nobleman instead of an orphan girl no one ever wanted.
“I heard a small castle close to King Leopold’s was looking for a new stablehand,” Regina says, and Emma doesn’t have time to ask anything else, because that’s when she wakes up.