alchemistc:

measure of infinity

an: an au i may or may not continue that i couldn’t get out of my head after comic con stuff started coming out. title completely and irreverently stolen from the late great terry pratchett.

On the list of things Emma particularly enjoyed doing, running was nowhere near the top. In fact, if given the choice, Emma would prefer to do just about anything but run.

Still. It was either run or let the bastards on her tail catch her, and on the list of things she liked less than running, being caught by the sanctimonious pricks chasing after her was somewhere near the top. 

When she’d met Baelfire, some years ago now, the idea that she’d been meant for something special had drawn her in. She’d been thrilled to learn that all those strange things that had kept her on the streets, kept her from earning the loving family she so desired, that those things made her different. Remarkable, even, she’d been told. Realm jumpers were few and far between, and even then, more often than not they used tools to help them get to where they wanted to go. Emma, Bae had said, was something altogether different, her abilities almost an unconscious thing, but he’d told her to be careful of them, to learn to control them, because there was danger in what she did. The ease with which she could stitch herself into a new reality was something he’d yearned for his whole life – but he’d been terrified of it, too. 

Magic, he had told her, always comes at a price.

Once upon a time, she’d thought he was just being paranoid.

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