Here To Stay [OUAT || Swan Princess Trio Book #4]

35 - Sympathy for the De Vil

In the woods, the trio was looking for the Author with no luck when David and Faye ran up behind them, "The Author, where is he?" Faye asked.

"We lost him," Elaine said.

"Girls... I know him," David said.

"What?" Emma said.

"I met him a long time ago before you both were born. He, um..." David sighed, "Manipulated your mother and me. It's because of him we were put on the path to causing Maleficent to lose her child," David said.

"No. No, what's true is no matter how you were manipulated, you still did what you did and you lied to us about it! You've been lying to us about everything! About you, about us..." ElIns said angrily.

"That's not the case. It's one incident from our past," David said.

"Don't downplay it," Elaine said as she backed up from him.

"Well, I've changed. I've tried to become the father you two deserve," David said.

"We are only the Saviours because you altered the entire state of our beings at the expense of someone else's soul," Emma said.

"You're right. What your mother and I did and it was wrong. But we... We didn't fully understand what we were doing. We acted out of fear. We're human," David said.

"Yeah, well. Right now, we don't care. None of that matters now. We have to find that author before Gold does," Elaine said and she walked ahead with Emma and Katy beside her, as Will and Killian approached them.

With the Author, Isaac, he was deep in the woods as he cuts a branch of wood to make himself a pen. Mr Gold appeared behind him, "Well, I'm not much of a writer, but I do know something about magic quills," Mr Gold said.

"Such as?" Isaac asked.

"Well, for starters, they must be sculpted from the wood of enchanted trees, which, unfortunately for you, is not an attribute any of the timber in Storybrooke possesses," Mr Gold said.

Isaac looked at the piece of wood he was carving into a pen and he broke it in half, "Damn it!" He turned to see the Swan trio and the others coming towards him, Isaac turned back to Mr Gold, "I need to go," He said.

"Yes, you do. Or, um... You could come with me," Mr Gold said.

"Why would I do that? You're quite possibly the biggest... Pain in the ass I have ever had the displeasure of writing about," Isaac said.

"Yes, there is that. But there's also... This," Mr Gold said as he held up a quill.