A Curse Upon Thee 2-6

“The hell was that?”

Finn blinked down at her as Emma screamed the words back up at him, his boss’s voice sharp, frantic, and edged deep with way more confusion than anything close to actual panic. 

Which — honestly — was fair enough. 

My fault, boss lady. Considering he literally just Batman-ed his way out of the trees and cooked a giant monster’s thick skull with flambe feet, it was a reasonable question.

Finn shook his right leg one more time, one armor-plated boot out in the air. C’mon, get off. With a final stomp, the last stubborn embers of his Kindle Kyaku finally guttered out into nothing against the damp grass. 

“The fire thing?” He looked up, grinning into Emma’s pale face as she finally took his hand. With a careful tug, he pulled her off her butt and all the way up to her feet “Yeah, yeah, pretty cool, right? I can do that now.”

“You can—” Her mouth moved without words for a second or two, green eyes still wide as Finn kept an arm on her elbow to steady her up. “Since when?!”

“Like a week ago, maybe?” The shrug he offered her was all the answer he had. “I could not tell you how if I tried.” He glanced down at his own scarred hands, the burns from the last overuse of his CT yet to fade from his fingers. “Pretty much just pulled Cursed Technique straight out of my buttcheeks. And before you ask…”

He held one hand up to Emma’s face, shaking his head. “I mean that literally. Like, I was buck-naked in a freezing river when I figured the whole thing out.”

“Cursed Tech…” Emma frowned back at him, asking a different question than he expected. “No, the other thing?”

Finn blinked at her, thick red eyebrows pulled together as he matched her confusion. “Other thing?”

“Emma?!”

Another voice had Finn snap his head to the side, Emma turning too. 

“Emma, are y-!”  A very familiar head of short dark hair stumbled its way out from the thick bushes, the woman that came with it gripping a curved wooden bow with an arrow on the string ready to go. “Finn?”

That bow came down and the schoolteacher wielding it scurried over with a look like she’d seen a dead person.

“Oh, hey, MM!” Full recognition finally clicked into place a solid half-second late, a spike of excitement pushing him forward with another burning question before he could filter it. “Both of you are here too? Wait, is Ruby…” 

Emma’s lips pulled back tight, her face giving him all the answer he needed.

Ah. Well… Finn bit down hard on the rest of the sentence, jaw locking as ten fingers clutched tight at nothing against  his sides. …fuck.

The lopsided smile snapped right back onto his face like it never left, Finn ignoring the twitching of his lip as he shifted his focus to Emma’s question from before. “You said other thing?”

“Yeah!” Emma’s answer came quick, the word forced out with a breath.

“You mean the new clothes?” Fingers flicked at the heavy black fur lining the collar of his red cropped jacket, before he dropped his hands again. “I mean, yeah, not gonna lie, took me a bit to get used to ‘em. They’re a lot, I get it. The whole no-shirt look is kin-“

“No!” Emma cut him off, free hand pointing right past his shoulder into the empty dark. “Those giant glowing letters that showed up when you kicked that thing!”

Wha-? Finn glanced back into the night sky filled with nothing but smoke as he put together what Emma was talking about. Other people can see that? He’d been so sure that was just a him-only thing the past week. Least I’m less crazy than I thought. 

“Yeah…” He turned back and gave the blonde woman a shrug. “I wouldn’t worry about it too hard. It just happens sometimes when I do cool shit. I honestly don’t get it either.”

Emma blinked at him. “…what?”

“Trust me, Boss.” He almost fought a sigh, but the breath came free anyway as Finn dragged a hand through a head of red hair that was already half-tangles and knots. “All the Narnia-ass bullshit I’ve had to deal with the past week, I don’t feel like thinking about things too hard.”

Emma’s sigh matched his in weight and volume. “…fair.”

“Yeah. So, uh… what’s the word? How you guys been?” Finn clicked his tongue as he folded his arms over his chest. “Enjoying Narnia? Personally, not really for me. Haven’t met Aslan, though.”

“This isn’t Narnia.” Mary Margaret shook her head, sounding exactly like the kiddy teacher she was. “For one, Narnia’s not real.”

“Okay, so…” Finn blinked at the correction, already-forced smile falling off his face. “I’ve been punching out ogres in the forest of Far Far Away for the last seven days straight, so I haven’t really had the free chance to swing my way by a welcome center.” He narrowed his blue eyes, teeth gritted. “Mind telling me where the fuck I am, then?”

“Finn!” 

He shut his eyes for a second as Emma barked at him. Tone it down, bro. You’ll be back, soon.

“Sorry.” Finn immediately bit back his rising annoyance, burying the flash of temper deep down as he pushed out a bright-white smile at a blinking Mary Margaret. “Sorry, MM. My bad. Where the fudge am I?”

The schoolteacher adjusted her bow with one hand, the other pulling her pink sweater tighter over her chest. “The Enchanted Forest.”

“…wow, that’s incredibly helpful. Thanks.” 

“Finn.”

“I mean, wow!” He threw his hands up, smile even brighter and much faker. “Nice forest! So Enchanted. Very… tree-y.”

“So.” A brand new voice cut sharply through the clearing. Blue eyes narrowed again, Finn’s hand going to Slaughter Demon as someone else stepped out of the treeline. “We finally find the Red Death.”

The fuck are you?

A Chinese woman — maybe? Some kind of Asian at least, it was hard to tell in the flickering firelight — stood there in armor, one hand resting on the hilt of her own weapon; a longsword curved and deadly-looking.

Her appearance went by the wayside as Finn locked onto what she said, ignoring the way she was scanning him from his heavy boots to his messy hair. “Red Death?” He blinked, pointing a thumb at his own chest. “They actually call me that?”

The armored woman’s narrowed eyes didn’t shift a bit, mouth a flat line as she answered him back. “They do.”

A violent grin split Finn’s face, one hundred percent real this time. “Sick.”

“Finn.” 

Exhaustion and frustration both managed to pack themselves tight into a single word, Finn blinking back at Emma as she moved closer to him. Her gun went back into her holster as she stood in between him and the woman in a full suit of ancient Chinese armor. “This… This is Mulan.” 

One hand gestured to the warrior, then pointed toward the brown-haired woman standing right behind her with tear-streaked cheeks. “And Princess Aurora. They’ve been… helping us.”

“Helping is incredibly generous.” Aurora’s mutter came out as bitter as Finn had ever heard anyone, her voice thick with something that told him he was missing context. 

“Nice to meet you both.” One red eyebrow went high, but he didn’t bother pressing on the obvious tension, jabbing a thumb over at his boss. “Finn McHale. I’m Emma’s Deputy back in Storybrooke.” Finn scratched at his nose as he opened his mouth to speak again, only to freeze up and turn back to Mary Margaret, something itching at his brain. The hell?

He looked over at Emma. “Wait, how does Mary Margaret know about this place? Isn’t she just a teacher or something?”

“…not just a teacher.” Finn blinked as Emma’s shoulders tensed, voice flat and almost mechanical as she answered him. “She’s also my mother… aka Snow White. Queen Snow White.”

The insane words hung in the smoky clearing, no one saying a word until Finn finally had something to contribute.

“Huh.” Queen was weird enough, but… “Mother?”

Emma snorted, green eyes rolling up towards the canopy. “Right?”

Blue eyes blinked over to MM. “…Your Majesty?”

Snow… Mary… Snow Margaret bent her knees slightly, arms out at her side in a curtsy that managed to be picture perfect even without a dress. “Sir McHale.”

That make me a knight now? Finn blinked that thought away as he voiced another, more important, thought at Emma? “…that make you a princess?”

He might as well have slapped Emma, the look she aimed at him as hot as one of his own fire kicks. “Don’t even.”

Fair. Thoughts cycled through his head, both serious and joking, as his eyes flicked back and forth between the two women. The mother and daughter that were barely two years apart, if that. 

Which was… yeah. 

But on top of that, he could definitely see the resemblance the longer he actually bothered to look at them side-by-side. Which brought up another major question. “So, Henry was totally right? That’s…”

“You’re telling me. My son stole his grandmother’s credit card to unite all of us.” Emma shook her head with another sigh. “And my Dad is… get this, David.”

Finn blinked back at her. “Captain Coma’s your pops?”

“Yeah, David Nolan.” Emma nodded. “Aka Prince Charming.”

His eyelids flickered again, brain stuttering close to overload.”…Emma, that’s so fucking weird. Please stop telling me things.” 

“Yes. Stop. Because I have questions of my own.” Mulan stepped smoothly forward, sword firmly sheathed even as her hand never left the pommel. “What exactly are you? I have never known a wizard to be so strong or fast. That fire was not normal.”

Finn’s jaw worked for a second, too many thoughts to put to words. Instead, he went with what came naturally. “I don’t know you, lady. You don’t get to ask me anything if you’re not gonna be nice about it.”

“I don’t get to?” Mulan took a step forward. “You appear literally from nowhere, effortlessly kill a mature Battle Ogre with your foot, and claim I am not owed answers.”

Finn nodded her way. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Mulan clearly didn’t expect that as she just blinked back at him, the campfire crackling loud as both stared at each other. 

“Anyway…” Finn turned back to Emma, one red eyebrow raised high. “What’d I miss? How’d you two even get here anyway? Last I saw, you were trying to save Henry.”

“We did save him and then… the two of us…” Emma’s shoulders dropped, more exhaustion bleeding into her posture. “We got pulled through a portal. Accidentally brought a wraith with us. It…” 

She glanced over toward Aurora, mouth tight. “It took her prince’s soul.”

“Ah.” Finn nodded slowly, context sliding into understanding. “Yeah, okay. That’d definitively do it.”

Before Finn could say anything else, something appeared out of thin air, dropping fast in front of his face. Instinct had his hand snap out, fingers closing around the object before it could hit the dirt. 

All four women jumped backward, Mulan’s curved sword halfway out of its scabbard before Finn quickly raised his hands. 

“Whoa, whoa, relax, it’s fine.”

“Fine?!” Emma’s voice pitched up, the panic cracking her control. “Things don’t just—Finn, what the hell is that—”

“They do for me.” He looked curiously down at the object in one hand, a scroll that looked and felt incredibly old to the touch. “How do you think I got these clothes?”

Mulan’s dark eyes narrowed dangerously. “Things like that do not simply happen.”

Finn grinned without looking up, already unrolling the scroll as he echoed his words for the armored woman. “They do for me.”

The thick parchment was blank as he stared at it, which made sense. It was just a scroll, right, so why would it have anything on it. Or maybe… He was starting to get used to this magic shit and he knew enough about Cursed Tools to know a lot of them had activation needs. Seeing as how running his CE into the scroll wasn’t doing anything, Finn decided to go with the third option he had. 

Slaughter Demon came free from the sheath hanging at his hip. 

“What are you doing?” Emma stepped forward, one hand

Finn held up one hand, the one holding the dagger, with a finger up in the universal sign for ‘give me a second’. “Magic stuff.”

“Finn—”

“Emma, give me a break. I have like thirty percent of an idea of what I’m doing.” Without another word, the blade of his weapon met his thumb, the edge so sharp that he barely even registered the cut. 

Mulan stepped forward, hand tight on her hilt. “Don’t—”

Dark red blood welled up immediately and Finn immediately pressed his bleeding thumb up against the center of the blank parchment. 

Emma’s eyes went wide as Mulan froze completely mid-step; both woman saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. 

“Oh.” 

Thin red lines spread from the single drop as everyone watched, the blood branching and splitting like roots as it traced across the no-longer-blank parchment. What had to be a family tree grew aggressively upward and outward, generations stacking on top of generations until the web filled the entire unrolled scroll. 

What the… Finn’s breath caught in his throat. 

He stared at the sprawling branches, dozens of interconnected names all tied together by blood and marriage through lines of blood.

His blood.

But almost all of the sprawl told him nothing. Each name was blurred, like someone had dragged water across just that bit of the scroll over a hundred times; almost all the names impossible to make out. 

His blue eyes tracked the red lines as he fought a frown, going all the way down to the bottom until he finally found what had to be his own. 

Phineas Connor McHale.

Wait, my middle name’s Connor?

That specific name sat squarely at the absolute bottom, directly beneath two other names he couldn’t make out if his life depended on it.

One single branch over, connected securely through what had to be the blurry names of two grandparents, another name stood out crystal clear. 

Chad O’Donaghue.

Finn blinked.  “…huh.”

The name triggered something deep inside his skull; not a clear memory exactly — those were still Swiss cheese — but a feeling that was still undeniable. It felt exactly like hearing a song you knew for a fact you’d heard a thousand times before but couldn’t place the lyrics to save your life. 

“Chad…” The single name felt both unfamiliar and deeply familiar all at the exact same time.

Emma moved physically closer, her shoulder brushing his as her green eyes quickly scanned the bottom of the scroll. “You know that name?”

“I…” Finn frowned deeply, bloody thumb tracing the line connecting them on the paper. Cousins. 

First cousins, from what he was looking at. “Maybe? I honestly don’t know.”

The words on the scroll began to fade away, red ink sinking into the page as it told him all he could. Within seconds, absolutely nothing remained. Well, that was helpful. Finn rolled it up carefully, tucking the now-empty parchment into an inner pocket of his red jacket. 

“So.” That same tight voice cut through his thoughts before Finn could spiral. “The Red Death has a family. Are they all wizards like you?”

“Who knows?” Finn met Mulan’s dark eyes, grin firm as it slotted back onto his face. “But this specific one kills ogres dead. You should be happy about that. Try a smile.”

“No more arguing. We need to keep moving.” Emma just shook her blonde head before Mulan could verbally snap back, bone-deep exhaustion written clearly in every single line of her tense body. “The ruined castle is still two days away from here.”

“Castle?” Finn blinked. “What castle?”

“Long story.” Emma started gathering her scattered gear from the dirt. “I’ll catch you up on the walk.”

Finn glanced briefly over at the smoking head of the ogre corpse, and sighed. “Yeah, okay. Walking sounds real good.”

As they started moving, Finn didn’t bother to voice the name that was still echoing like a bell in the empty space of his head. 

Chad O’Donaghue.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Blood Calls to Blood – 100 GP
Find evidence that you actually have family.

ROLL: Call to Home (100) [Dark Souls] {Divination}:

Although many roads lay ahead of you, the one that leads back home is always the one clearest in your mind. There are many wanderers in this land, and true civilization is all but destroyed; yet, even in this cursed land, you can find a place to rest your weary bones. Essentially, you have a great sense for ‘home’, whatever that might mean to you. Both in finding a new home, knowing how to get back to your home if possible, and when to abandon your home, should that be necessary. This means that you’ll be able to, objectively, assess the quality of your home and the dangers inherent to it. One cannot call home a place they’ve only heard of, but never been. As comfortable as a bed of rot might be, one must lie in it in order to say so for certain, after all.

Grimoire Points: 1000