So this had started out as a small idea as a birthday gift for my friend but then spiraled out of control. I wanna thank @captainswanbigbang that gave me this opportunity to finally complete this piece.
Lots of gratitude and love for Nicola ( @alocin209 ) for beta reading, providing insights and being patient throughout the craziness of my schedule. Thank you so much for this. It was such a joy interacting with you.
And a huge shout out to Sophie ( @shady-swan-jones ) for selecting this story to bestow her creativity. I have been a huge admirer of her art and working with her was such a beautiful experience. Thank You So Much.
Summary:
Killian Jones was one story away from establishing himself as a successful writer – that is what his publisher said and he completely believed it. He knew he should be pouring his heart out but his muse had other ideas, it seemed.
Emma Swan used to love her job but the monotony of the routine had finally caught up with her and she no longer enjoyed the job she once loved.
Can the two lost souls find what they were looking for when they meet each other at a restaurant and end up striking a deal that could change how they were?
The fierceness with which Killian was hitting the keys of his laptop instantly transported him to his college days when a paper was due. Or the time when he was writing his first novel and his muse had generously bestowed him with its presence. In both instances he had been in the same place, the corner booth of Granny’s bistro, where he could surreptitiously watch everyone. He loved the place, having spent years harboring the dream to make it big in the literary world. He’d thought he made it back then, he’d reached out and grabbed his dream. Now, he wasn’t so sure he’d made it at all.
He hit the Backspace button again, annihilating his last hours hard work. It just didn’t fit. He groaned in frustration, running his fingers through his hair. It had been almost a year since he had last published but Robin, his publisher/manager, insisted that he start working again. According to him, Killian needed just one more bestseller to carve his niche in the cutthroat world of writing. While Killian couldn’t help but agree, it didn’t mean that he was happy about it. He loved writing – fleshing out characters, charting down their minute traits that made them them, and then finally breathing life in the roles he had envisioned. He just hated the times when the slippery muse would desert him and it was happening more nowadays. He sighed, rubbing his face in frustration when a cappuccino with a smiley face was put in front of him.
“Thanks Granny,” Killian smiled. He was agitated, frustrated beyond measures but somehow the old woman always made him smile.
“It seemed like you needed it,” she spoke, a twinkle in her eye as she sat next to him.
There is not much to do but burn. The core of you swirls and twists in knots of heat and light, your whole being filled with and surrounded by the fire of your existence. Burning, burning, always burning but only ever lighting up a tiny corner of an endless sky.
Such is the life of Killian Jones– though he isn’t called that anymore. He has been here for hundreds of years now, blinked quietly into existence one night and become a part of a thousand different skies, given names and stories under each one.
He had been a man once. But it has been too long since he has been skin and bones, muscle and sinew. His thoughts and memories have spread across the breadth of his sparking, spitting, smouldering existence. He can only remember things in flashes of forgotten feeling, every sensation dulled over the eons that he has spent in this breathless emptiness.
He spends his neverending nights wandering through strange skies, watching over lives and loves and stories he can never live, cursed to spend eternity alone.
But everything changes one night when he leans a little too close to watch a woman look up at him, her back against a brick wall, her feet gripping at the wood beneath her. He sees her mumble a wish, a desperate ask for something but he can’t make out what it is, his eyes too caught in the rush of electricity that seems to come out from around her, stretching up and out to him. Higher and higher, her words caught in the crackling heat, coming up and around him, surrounding him until it is all he can hear.
Ksana asked me to choose the moments that make CS my OTP. Instead of just moments I went with unforgettable sentences that just make them the best OTP ever.
And yes, one of them was just in the last episode! How lucky are we to still get these heart shivering moments even after 3 seasons that we saw them together.
Send me a word and I’ll make you a CS gifset inspired by it.
The final illustration for the final chapter. You can find my other illustrations here : The Tavern – After dawn
This final illustration for The Long Way Home is gorgeous. @giraffes-ride-swordfishes has captured Emma and Killian’s happy ending perfectly, and the sky behind them is breathtaking!
It All Starts With a Dance 