Written for the following prompt on the OUaT kink meme:

"Emma somehow ends up in Fairytale land, only far in the past. There she meets Rumpelstiltskin - before he ever got his powers and became the Dark One.

He's miserable and depressed ever since his wife left him, so Emma comforts him."

Note: This is inspired by the prompt, obviously, but I am also taking a bit of license with it, so bear with me. A Golden Swan romance… of sorts. (There will be roughly 8 parts to this).

0: Into the Woods…

"and we feel it like the shiver

of a passing train

that other life

deep underground..."

-Vienna Teng, In Another Life

I:

She barely had time to duck as the tree branches came smashing back into her face. Weaving through the trees, she swore under her breath as her shoes struggled in the muck and debris swirling around her ankles. She decided not to waste anymore breath calling after him, digging her shoulders in as her calves began to burn from her uphill sprint.

The man she chased was fast, and seemed to know the woods better than she. He had robbed the town's only gas station, taking a few hundred dollars and a small army of lottery tickets. His worst mistake had been planning his robbery for the exact time she usually walked to Granny's nearby diner for dinner, so she had been able to engage almost immediately in hot pursuit.

Emma stopped briefly when she came up short against a leaning tree, running awkwardly into the stout trunk with a vibration that made her shoulder ache. She paused to catch her breath, listening hard, trying to determine the direction of her quarry.

The light was fading fast, and as she had no idea who the man was, she doubted she could head him off wherever he was going. The forest was wet and getting colder by the second, thunder rumbling ominously overhead, threatening yet another storm in a seemingly endless progression lately.

Finally, she heard a man's voice shout from somewhere to her left, and took off again through the trees, ignoring the way they whipped at her jacket and hair. Looking around, she realized they were far from the town center now, near the old mineshaft where Henry had once wandered away and been trapped.

Emma staggered to a stop when she spotted him, standing several feet in front of her, trying desperately to free his leg from a rotten log he'd managed to step into. He froze when he saw her, raising his hands helplessly.

With a sigh, she started to walk towards him, trying not to show how tired and winded she felt. Just then, lightening flashed just above their heads, making them both flinch and duck down to the ground. Thunder rumbled overhead like a freight train as the air around them exploded with electricity.

The ground around her felt like liquid suddenly, slipping around her shoes, then her legs, up to her knees and beyond. She jerked around; pulled by something she couldn't see. Her eyes met the other man's for a brief, panicked moment, and then she was falling, sliding, and tumbling, down, down into the earth.

Clawing at the roots and soil at her sides did nothing to slow her descent. She saw something glittering, like shattered glass, just below her, right before she slammed into solid ground at last.

II:

Pain exploded like light behind her eyelids and Emma groaned, curling away from whatever had woken her. Slowly, her body came back to her in fits and starts, aching and tingling and chilled to the bone. She could feel all of her arms and legs, which she told herself was a great thing, though her body seemed to disagree with that in part.

Her muddy hair was in her mouth, and she spit it out as best she could, realizing she was lying facedown on a blanket of leaves and twigs, half-sunken in the mud. It was only when she shifted her arms, testing her weight against them, that she realized she was naked.

As her eyes flew open, more data came trickling in - not entirely naked, she realized. She could feel some kind of material draping her back, something coarse and loose-woven, like a burlap sack or a horse blanket.

She realized there were hands on her shoulders, clenching briefly in a shake, before curling away, and then back again. A soft voice was pleading near her left ear, "Oh, please... Please don't be dead... Oh... Come on, please wake up..."

She groaned, louder this time, and the hands flew away permanently. She heard the person scuffling back against the leaves, falling abruptly beside her with a sound of surprise.

Turning her head, she saw a middle-aged man sitting where he had fallen, dressed in rough tan clothes, his shaggy brown hair hanging in his face. He raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture. All she could see were his shining brown eyes behind his tangled hair. "Are you all right?" He called, voice as timid as his posture.

She raised herself up on her knees, feeling at the cloth covering her, realizing it was a cloak. She pulled it around herself like a towel or a bed sheet, blushing when she confirmed that yes, apart from this, she was completely naked.

Still feeling rattled and disoriented, she got to her feet, tucking the rough material more closely around herself. He remained where he was, watching her warily.

When she offered him her hand, he took it, fingers still twitchy against her palm. As she pulled him up, he grasped the long walking stick beside him, using it to carry most of his weight as he got back on his feet. "Thank you," He murmured, wiping at his hair with his left hand, tucking it behind his ear.

Only then did she get a good look at his face. Lunging forward, she grabbed him by the loose collar of his stained tunic, pulling him off his feet and against her, snarling furiously "Gold?"

"I haven't got any!" He cried desperately, raising his left hand to cover his face, cowering away from her.

Startled by the violence of his reaction, she released him. He fell back away from her, landing on his back in the mud, where he scuttled back again. He stared up at her, thin chest heaving, eyes wide and wet. "Please don't hurt me! I didn't... I didn't do anything..."

She looked around, realizing this forest was different than the one in Storybrooke. The trees were taller, darker. A wide dirt path wound past them, disappearing into the woods on one side. On the other, the forest sloped away, revealing a valley ringed by hills, where a small huddle of wooden buildings clumped haphazardly. Beyond them, the sky on the far horizon glowed a terrible, brilliant crimson.

Emma looked from that sky to the man before her, so familiar and completely unknown. "Where the hell am I?" She demanded.

"This is... the Duke of the Frontlands' fiefdom..." He replied faintly, flinching back when she took a step forward.

The words meant nothing to her, but at the same time, a sinking sense of realization broke over her. It was impossible, but she knew exactly where she must be. "...Shit."