The bustle of movement broke out before the big man hit the ground. As impossible as it should have been, even that motion seemed to speed up. Weapons were unsheathed, helms were drawn shut, and leather creaked in protest as it accommodated movement.

Emma's mind was a dissonance of thoughts at the best of times, aimless for the most part. Neither use nor ornament, especially not when her most prominent instincts were calling her to arms. Her useless thoughts this time were mainly questions, such as: who had fired the arrow? And with such uncanny precision. More absurdly, how had the man-mountain met the ground so quickly? He had to have been dead before he hit the earth, but surely a man of his size and stature should have fallen like a felled oak; slowly, with a groan and a creak, and a far-off warning call of 'timber!'

Emma was aware of what was happening on some level. Often at the most inopportune moments, her inner voice would recklessly run rampant with disruptive thoughts and notions that her mouth simply couldn't keep up with, which was probably just as well. Now, however, was not one of those moments.

As Emma hopped over the fallen brute, she was relieved that the sack of stone had landed on his side and not on his back. This way, she could pull the battleaxe from it's place with a two-handed grip and send it sailing towards the vulnerable bare back of a war-hammer-wielding brute as he was about to strike at Red.

With a fleshy thunk, the axe found it's new home, embedded snugly between the man's shoulder blades and making him suddenly less interested in his prey.

Red, however, was the prey of no man. In a whirl of fabric and hair, she had spun at the sound of his approach and pinned him with the steely edge in her now bright hazel-gold eyes. On the off-chance that the axe in the back hadn't done the trick, Red saw to it herself that it would. With a simple yet effective jump-kick (with the aid of a sturdy low-hanging branch overhead), she avoided flailing arms and landed a double-booted blow to a meaty chest. The strike sent her already unbalanced assailant reeling backwards, landing heavily on his friend's axe in such a way that would surely cleave his spine straight down the middle, much like a fresh log for firewood.

Emma had no time to watch Red's battle unfold – her own was thundering towards her in the form of two more shrieking hulks. One brandished a thick and rusting great sword in a double grip above his head, the other swinging a wicked two-ball and chain contraption, made all the more unpleasant by the numerous spikes poking out from the iron spheres.

The spiked ball and chain (a 'flail', she thought she recognized it as) moved faster than its wielder, hurtling towards Emma's head at an alarming rate that seemed to slow down as she watched. She could hear the whoosh it created as it cut through the air towards her, but all Emma could seem to do was watch. She was so sure that as she watched, the merciless weapon slowed, began to even arc up and away from her, but she had no time left to find out.

She was shoved aside, landing ass first in the dirt with an oof. Her tongue tasted of iron as she looked up.

The stranger was a man about a head taller than she, with an ivy green cloak and various weaponry dotted about his boiled leather-clad person. He had short waved hair and a closely shorn dark beard which was – absurdly – framing a wide grin.

Dumbfounded, it was all Emma could do to sit and watch as the man sank to one knee while hefting his own sword above his head, just in time for the chain of the Flail to wrap around his blade twice in a clash of metal. With a sharp intake of breath, the stranger brought his blade down in the direction of the now unarmed man, hurling the flail at an unguarded neck and wasting no time in rolling aside. No sooner had he rolled out from the path of the tumbling (… Flailer?) did he rise in time to meet the wide blade of the great sword.
Emma expected to hear another loud clash of steel, and apparently so did the man with the broader blade. The stranger, however, had other ideas. At the last possible second, when the momentum of the gigantic swinging sword couldn't be halted by man nor blade, (especially not the vastly thinner blade of the stranger's rapier) the stranger angled his body away to let the metal sink with a thwick into the dirt rather than his head, soberingly close to Emma's left foot.

She jerked away and scrambled to her feet.

Only when the large man had been pulled forward into a bend by the sheer force of his own swing, did the green-cloaked stranger deliver his killing strike. The rapier punctured the thick throat of the brute like a hot knife through butter, while the earth collected his blood in a slowly filling puddle.

It seemed as though an age had passed while the two men were cut down, but when Emma looked up from their still bodies only to see more of their friends still very much alive, she registered that barely any time had passed at all. If anything, it felt to have slowed down in an odd trick of the mind as Emma absorbed what was happening.

The recognizable twang of a bowstring snapped her to attention.

Wielding only the ornate dagger Emma had gifted her with, she saw Red standing alone against three men, surrounded on four sides. The trunk of the tree to her rear, with the men at her left, right and centre. One had just been dropped by an arrow from the stranger. When the other two turned with a start to face the source, Red was on the first one in a flash, opening his throat with her dagger while the stranger sent another arrow into the throat of the second before he could move.

The green-cloaked man drew another arrow from the quiver at his back, tilting the bow at an angle as he swept forward in a manner which Emma presumed was to check for any remaining threats. Something, Emma thought, that I should be doing.

She only then began to register the uncomfortable rib-rattling pound of the heart in her chest.

"Tell me," he called to her after a few silent moments, lowering his weapon. "Do you make a habit of standing by while your friends fight your battles for you, or was this a first?"

His question was asked in a tone completely contrary to what his words insinuated, with no hint of a snide remark until he was quick to add, "Oh, I apologize; sitting. Nuance."

She shot him a glare that was both aggrieved and affronted. "I was only on my ass because you put me there, stranger."

She bit back the rest of the retort on her tongue and strode past him to where Red was standing, still and silent, and worryingly so. The crucial cloak sat as a pile of red fabric off to Emma's right. She plucked it from the ground as she reached it.

"They all stink," Emma heard her say, in that disturbingly calm monotonous way she often did after near-shifts such as these.

"Hey..." Emma leaned down into Red's line of sight, gently pulling the cloak up and around narrow shoulders. The instant change in demeanour would never cease to amaze Emma, not the fifth time she witnessed it, nor the hundredth. As soon as Red's hood was secured around her neck, the harsh feral gleam in her eyes receded to their usual hazel warmth. Her shoulders relaxed under Emma's palms, the colour returned to her cheeks, and she finally seemed to register the white-knuckle grip she had on her dagger.

She deftly turned the redwood-handle in her fingers, before leaning down to slide it into the sheath Granny had sewn into her boot (per Emma's request, as a surprise), straightened herself out, took a deep breath and said simply, "That was madness. And their blood smells funny."

Emma could only agree. With the madness part, at least. "I could have sworn I heard more-"

"I seem to have scared them off."

Both women turned to the smug sound of the stranger's voice. He beamed at them still, complacent and leaning a shoulder against a blood splattered trunk, arms crossed coolly over his chest. He looked as though he'd just won first prize in a knight's tourney with naught but a pair of Granny's knitting needles.

Emma was painfully aware that this man had in effect saved her life (regardless of whether or not she had actually needed to be saved) and the knowledge was especially irksome as she regarded his broad smirk. She wanted to punch it right from his face. She would deem it her own brand of 'thanks'.

"It would appear so," Red spoke up, sounding closer to her refreshingly droll self as she approached the man. Emma followed closely behind, doing well to ignore the dead (and some still dying) bodies around them. "Who are you?" Red asked tersely, being quick to politely affirm, "So that we might thank you properly."

The man still seemed so amused, as though he were in on some secret plot the two of them weren't privy to. It was proving to irk Emma to no end. Frankly, she was surprised she'd held her tongue for so long. Perhaps it was because something about his energy was peculiarly familiar, even similar to hers, and it bothered her. Or maybe perhaps it was because she wanted to kick him.

"My name is Auggie," he began, pushing away from the tree to inspect the second death in the group of brutes, which was technically Red's to claim, despite the initial axe-throw from Emma. "I live in this forest," he claimed, then reached down to grab at the hem of his dark green cloak and gesture it at them, as though it held it's own explanation. It meant nothing to Emma. "Well, technically I have an address in the next village," he continued, "but that's mainly for appearances and when the snows fall."

They watched as Auggie crouched down to peer closely at something on the dead man's chest, only to abruptly change his mind and make his way over to the leader of the group who had been the first kill, and (judging by the identical arrows) was Auggie's to claim.

"Well, Auggie, thank you for your assistance," Red said, gracious and sounding so alike the high lords and ladies of Snow's court that Emma almost asked her for proof of her lineage right then and there.

The thought of Snow brought forth the tumbling thoughts of Henry and of her father, along with painful stabs of guilt Emma had no desire to feel. So instead, she forced her attention onto other things.

"Yeah, thanks," she managed curtly, a thought suddenly springing to mind. "I'm curious; how did you find us in the first place?"

Auggie was wrenching the distinctive horned helm from his kill, with a quiet but nasty sucking sound as the sticky blood let the helm loose. As Auggie brought it over to Emma and Red, turning it about in his hands, Emma noticed that it had what appeared to be very finely carved scales over it's plated surface, bar the horns which were smooth and tarnished.

"Well," he began, deftly flipping the helm over in his hands then catching it with dual slaps of palm against metal. "Imagine my surprise when I happened upon a lone chestnut stallion, no rider, blocking the width of the road and not so much as turning his head until I dismount and go over to him."

Emma couldn't help but smile; Abe. She looked to Red and her expression was practically identical as she looked back and shrugged.

"What?" she lifted her shoulders again, "He knows his way back better than we do. He looked hungry, so I smacked him ahead of us before I came for you. It was just as well," she gestured to the aftermath of their battle, her nose wrinkling, "he would have been minced meat if he'd waited around with us."

"Where's Abe now?" Emma asked, though she knew she needn't worry about him. For a horse, he was strangely independent yet loyal at the same time.

Auggie frowned. "The horse? I assume he's still by the road. Anyway, as I was saying, I stood right by the st- Abe, and there just off the road – quite expertly hidden from view, I might add – was a wagon drawn by four." Emma folded her arms and gave him a pointed look, which to her annoyance only made him smile all the more.

She wished he would get to the point of his little tale already so she and Red could be rid of him. "So I followed the tracks, heard the commotion, and fired before one of the party could strike down the damsel."

Correction: she wished she had never asked.

Rather abruptly, Emma reached for Red's elbow and gave a squeeze. This Auggie obviously enjoyed the sound of his own voice, but Emma had grown tired of it soon after he'd spoken his first word.

"Yes, well, thanks again" she proffered with a quick faux smile, glad that Red seemed to have received the hint and was already walking. Of course, Auggie followed alongside them, the helm still in his hands.

"Aren't you curious about all of this?" He asked, using the helm to point back at the scene they'd left behind, then gesturing at the object itself.

Emma's mood was growing less and less conversational, especially with this man. She wanted her horse, her spot on the rug by the fire at Granny's, and the hot stew that would be awaiting them. Red could usually sense when Emma didn't want to talk, but when she didn't speak up, Emma couldn't restrain her sigh.

"Not really, no. They weren't the first," and they won't be the last.

When Red shot a brief glance over her shoulder, Emma realized why the girl might have been reluctant to speak up. She was probably curious about 'all of this' herself. Why Emma had seldom stayed more than two consecutive nights at Granny's cabin, opting to camp out in the forest instead. Why every time she returned, she seemed to have fresh cuts scrapes. Why Emma had revealed her name and little else; not why she was on the run, nor the rapidly manifesting abilities, nor her purpose.

In her own defence, Emma herself knew not the answer to most of those queries, and divulging her parentage and subsequent title (and all that went with it) was the exact thing that Emma still wanted to avoid. It was why she'd ventured so far from her mother's castle and the whispers of the kingdom in the first place. Apparently, whispers could travel just as far, if not farther than she.

"Reckless," Auggie pointed out simply, shoving the helm at her, pointed horns first until she took it. She was careful not to touch any of the big man's blood.

They had reached the road where stood Abe, looking up from where he'd been grazing on a tuft of grass by the roadside. Red was about to make her way over to him, when Auggie's next words halted her.

"Do you have any idea what that symbolizes?" He asked, pointing to the helm Emma now looked down at, turning it about in her hands with more attention this time.

"I thought it looked like a bull's head. Or a dragon's," Red offered, eyeing the horns warily.

"Exactly, The Dragon." Auggie looked between the two of them expectantly, as though he were waiting for them to react appropriately to the news. The name meant nothing to Emma, and Red had already turned away with a flick of her hair and a click of her tongue to call over Abe. Auggie jutted out his chin in obvious impatience and sighed, snatching back the helm from Emma and gesturing for her to follow him. For some strange reason, she did so without hesitation.

"What's The Dragon?" She asked, after having followed Auggie along the side of the road. Em' was fairly certain that he hadn't been referring to an actual dragon. She'd never seen one and was averse to believing in their existence until that changed. Emma decided to assume that it was the name of the gang they'd just cut down until she was told (or until she was shown) otherwise.

"Who," Auggie corrected her.

The Dragon was one person?

She watched with folded arms as he pulled back the brush to reveal what appeared to be the wagon he'd mentioned earlier, as well as four cart horses who were quite obviously miffed at having been hidden and tied to the side of the road like playthings to be used at a whim. Auggie was already in the driver's seat as Emma made her way slowly over to the horses, trying her best to fill them with the now still and calm of the forest. As she reached the two grey mares in the lead, she placed a hand on the thick chains binding them to a nearby trunk and smiled to herself as they fell uselessly to the ground.

She didn't look up to see if Auggie had been watching her. "There's quite a score in the back," he said, gathering up the reins and patting the space beside him. The helm was on his lap, he patted that next. "I'll explain on the way to the village."

There came a gasp from the rear of the wagon. When Emma peered around a mare to look, she saw Red's head poking out from behind the wagon. "'Quite a score' is an understatement," she said, eyes still wide, before disappearing again. Emma saw the wagon dip as Red climbed inside. "There's coin, jewels, silks. Ooh! Odd, there's a gown! Scarlet. It would look good on me, I would suit it. Or should I say it would suit me?"

Emma could hear the grin in Red's muffled voice from where she stood, and she couldn't help but smile. She couldn't help but smile while imagining Red in a scarlet gown.

"You can't keep it," Auggie spoke up wryly, and Emma noted that he too wore a smile.

Odd, it was, how quickly they could all go from kill squads, spilled blood and talk of dragons, to merriment and conversation.

"It's all for the village folk," he pressed.

"Well I am village folk!" Red argued, and Emma could hear the presence of her pout. She was no stranger to it.

To Auggie's credit, he laughed and kept a ready hold on the reins; it seemed that he too could tell that the horses were happier and mollified and eager to move. "You look well fed and better off than most. It's nearly winter and the crops have yielded little this year, the need of the other villagers is greater."

"C'mon Red," Emma urged, even though she knew Red was joking, she still had to agree with Auggie. She had passed through the village in question time enough, and she wouldn't have been surprised if the goods in the wagon were more than the town's wealth ten times over. She'd drank the sole inn dry in one night, and it hadn't taken much doing. "I'll buy you your own scarlet dress. Now will you take Abe before he starts chomping a tunnel into the earth?"

The wagon jostled again as Red jumped out, a grin plastered across her face as she took to Abe, patting his neck affectionately once she'd settled in the saddle. "Do you promise you'll get me a scarlet dress?" she pressed, sidling up to the wagon where Emma was hefting herself up into the passenger's seat.

Emma's smile came easily as she looked down at Red and Abe, reaching to ruffle the coarse hair between his soft ears. "I promise... one day I'll get you a damned red dress."

"Scarlet. Yay!" Red grinned up at Emma, before pulling up her hood and nudging Abe into a trot.

Auggie waited until there was space enough for the wagon to pull out, before flicking the reins and following Red's lead. After a minute or so on the road, he shifted the helm from his own lap and onto Emma's. Thankfully the blood had dried and no longer dripped.

"The Dragon is one woman," he began, eyes ahead. "Maleficent. I've heard many tales, and you can never be sure which is true, or indeed if any are at all. Apparently she calls herself 'The Mistress of All Evil' and lives in a castle where all her pets turn into wicked creatures, of which she sometimes sets loose to reap havoc on small towns and villages."

Emma's only reply was to regard Auggie with a mixture of mirth, disbelief and not much else. When he looked from the road to read her expression, he smiled himself, directing it back at the road.

"I know it sounds fanciful," she gave a snort at that, "but I think you'll find yourself believing in a lot more than dragons and shifting pets before long."

Emma looked to the colour of Red's cloak some ways ahead of them on the road; the brightest colour in a path of dull ash. She remembered the first time she'd bore witness to a 'shift' of Red's.

It was a month after Emma had first found Red and Granny. After four head-spinning weeks spent denying the extent of the changes in herself, she had found herself more willing to believe in the capabilities of others. Red had wanted to show her countless times in those four weeks, but certain... situations had arisen. Emma had sensed that there had been a large part of Red that didn't want to share her other side at all, and after witnessing it, she had understood why.

Red had led a seven day trek on foot into the deepest parts of the forest, far from any path worn by man. It had been the most contented Emma had ever felt, surrounded by nature and trees that seemed to grow wider and taller the deeper the two of them delved. They had stopped under the most magnificent redwood; Red said she had picked it because of it's height and the clearing of space around it. It meant that Emma could sit at a safe height in the tree, while still having a clear view of the ground below her, and in turn, of Red.

Emma remembered the scenes she'd witnessed that evening. She remembered the scenes she'd witnessed the following morning. The crack of bone and magic, the single scream that had twisted the heart in her chest, and the sobs that had broken it.

Emma looked away from the red hood and over to Auggie who was looking right back at her with concern rife in his features.

"I think you're right," was all she said.

The growing crowd of the morning market parted swiftly to the sounds of the wagon's rickety wheels bumping and clashing over the uneven cobblestones. Emma's backside felt as though it were still bumping against the hard seat even as she got to her feet, preparing to address the crowd who were already turning to face the wagon with expressions ranging from curiosity and irritation, to wariness.

Emma cleared her throat, damning her hair for its distinctively blonde unruliness while pushing it from her face. "Um..." she looked down to Red who only urged her on with a smile, holding the horses. "There's gold and wares in the wagon, have at them."

There was a still silence until Red threw open the doors of the wagon and gasps rippled through the crowd. By that time, Emma was by Red's side and had linked their arms together to make sure that Red wouldn't claw the scarlet dress from the hands of the already excited local girls.

"Smells funny."

While Auggie stayed to help evenly disperse the goods around the villagers, Emma and Red had taken to the inn to buy a crate of sweet wine from the owner. They had headed back to Granny's where they had all had their fill of stew and more than their fill of wine. Granny sat in the corner, slumped and snoring in her chair with her crossbow across her lap and half-finished knit-work at her feet. The younger women lay bunched together on the rug by the hearth, propped up against Emma's makeshift cot.

She sniffed at herself with a frown. "What do you mean?"

Following a high-pitched hiccup, Red giggled, shifted closer and said, "Not you. Auggie."

Wine made Emma subdued and emotional. It made Red relaxed, but at the same time chatty, and certainly not subdued. She was also surprisingly articulate.

Emma made a muffled umph noise, which apparently Red took to mean 'please explain'.

"Well. Back in the woods, the stink of those man-beasts was so overwhelming that when I wasn't talking, I was holding my breath. How you didn't smell it is beyond me."

"Red," the syllable stretched out of Emma's mouth. Her head was starting to ache from the wine.

"As I was saying; back in the woods I couldn't smell anything but odd man-beast blood, but when we were at the roadside, I could smell something else. The forest has it's scents," she explained with a slight slur, "good earthy smells. You have your smell, which is kind of like that, earthy but sweeter and tangy at the same time. He just smells like aged wood. And moss."

Emma couldn't help it, she barked out a laugh. "Wood, Red? Really?"

Red looked lost as she twisted and leaned down to search Emma's eyes. "What? Em'?"

Emma muffled her snickers in her friend's shoulder among the waves of brown. "Nothing."

"He's oaky and piney and odd," Red said, pushing half-heartedly at Emma's shoulder.

"He looked at me like he knew me. Often. It was disturbing."

Red shifted even further so that she lay on her side in the furs atop the rug, peering up through her lashes at Emma who was finishing off a bottle.

"Among all the happenings of the day, that was the thing to disturb you?" Her laugh was louder this time, and they both slid down further into the furs after hearing Granny stir in her chair.

Emma smiled as she placed the empty bottle down with the others, her lids heavy, "Mm, one of them."

With an exaggerated yawn, Emma wrapped herself tightly around her friend, neither caring that her face settled in Red's fair bosom. "I'm too tired to worry about the Mistress of All Evil tonight," Emma said, hearing Red's childlike hum of confusion clearly in the quiet of the room.

A clatter of movement from Granny's corner was to follow, as was a loud yawn and the clicks of old joints being stretched.

"I do hope you aren't talking about me, girlie."