STUCK IN MY HEAD ── killian jones

v ➤ in my head

The Enchanted Forest

The very night that Baelfire was born things became different in the Stiltskin household, and it wasn't because of the new baby. Cali saw something snap in her mother the night her papa returned home broken and bloody. Different is the simple way she defined her "new" mother. Milah hung around the taverns more, drinking and flirting her time away. As though being a coward's wife meant she had to be a drunken mother as well.

             
Wasting her nights away hadn't become Milah's only bad hobby either, pushing anger and frustration deep into the pit of her hollowing chest made something else snap. Swirls of miserable emotions poured into the well, threatening to overflow within Milah, and eventually it did. The fist rushing to hit her replayed vividly in Cali's head everytime she closed her eyes the first time it happened. And then Mama hit her again. And again. And again. Until every night as she slept all Cali lived was the never ending abuse.

Bruises and scratches began to spread with violent colors and wide patterns across her body. Whenever voices rose or hands formed fists Cali had begun to flinch. She saw her mother fawning over her baby brother, never letting her son come to harm. Milah often left Cali wondering again and again what she had done to her mother to make her despise her so...

             

Seven days before Cali's sixteenth birthday, the unimaginable happens. Well, quite a few things happen concerning the Stiltskin family. Cali holds their axe, Mama letting her use it once again. She splits another piece of wood and out of the corner of her eye Cali can see Papa playing with Bae. Baelfire runs after dragonflies with a net in hand and Rumplestiltskin hobbling just behind him. His foot never healed right after he injured himself to leave the ogre wars.
             

'And as usual, Mama and I are working while Papa's supposed to be helping,' Cali thinks as she grips the axe handle and swings down into the center of a new piece of wood. Winter is coming swiftly to the small town, frost arriving on frigid winds and breaths trail through the air like the smoke puffing soundly from chimneys. Milah picks up the split pieces and stacks them on their growing pile when Rumple hobbles over.

             
"Milah! Calypso! You don't have to be doing this yourselves, I said I would do it."

"You said that," Mama growls, "and somehow it still didn't get done."

"Well, um, I was playing with the boy," Papa motions towards where Baelfire is playing. He meets Cali's eyes for a mere second before looking away, "princess, why don't you go play with your brother."

"Yes, Papa," Cali sighs, she leaves her parents to their bickering and when she's far enough away she rolls her eyes. 'Our family may be in shambles, but there is no reason that Bae should have to suffer for that. Sure Mama and Papa fight often, and when Mama isn't fighting Papa she's hitting me, but Bae doesn't need to know that.' As Cali gets closer to Baelfire she sees what he's doing, her brow furrows seeing him reaching for something on the ground. 'Even if Papa chooses to be oblivious to Mama's pain, to my pain-.' Bae screams curling away from the thing he was reaching for, Cali sees the snake slithering away from his shaking body and runs towards him.

"Mama! Papa!" Cali yells, holding Bae and soothing his tears. She tries to pull him farther away from the snake that rears towards them just as Milah makes it to them and kills it with the axe.

In shock, Cali hadn't seen Papa come up behind her, but she notices as he takes Baelfire from her arms. Bae has his hand clutched to his chest, it's coloring a stricken purple and crusty green with the bite swelling alarmingly fast.