Emma's about to rush to Regina's aid as the darkness surrounds her but a restraining hook against her arm has her pausing, turning towards him and considering the ramifications.
He's begging her not to go, not to put herself in danger, to think about their happy ending.
It leaves her torn, fidgeting on the spot at this thought of destroying someone else's happy ending. She blinks at the self-disconnection of the thought, eyeing him wearily as he tries to persuade her to reconsider taking on the darkness.
And she remembers, remembers i'm the Evil Queen and villains don't get happy endings and her eyes find Regina's and that soft understanding resigned look is in those brown eyes she's come to adore.
And it's just so unfair.
She wrenches her arm away from him, her mind made up in a second as she takes a few steps forward, supernatural wind licking against her body and chilling her spine and her nerves down to the core and she glances up at Regina, helpless and scared.
So very scared.
"Emma no!" Regina shouts and it's laced with so much pain and anger and agony and Emma just aches. She finds herself being restrained by him again, his voice carrying over the strong winds as he tells her that he wouldn't allow her do it.
She trembles, wet sobs threatening to burst from her lungs as she wrenches out of the pirate's hold again, regarding Regina with steely eyes.
"You've worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed!" She declares boldly.
"You're too self-righteous for your own good Savior." Regina says and it's laced with annoyance and so much affection.
Emma smiles, it's watery and soft and she takes the last few steps forward at a run towards the swirling vortex of darkness, ignoring the valiant protests of those that have merely become background noises to her now.
"And you're worth more than you let yourself believe!" Emma shouts, and with that she's reaching up and feeling the darkness hook its oily tendrils onto her hand.
It paralyzes her immediately and Emma cries out as it moves in a snake-like manner, coiling and slithering down her body.
The coldness it brings with it is death-like and it just about manages to steal the breath from her lungs and knock the Savior right off of her feet when the breathless cadence of pure concentrated evil rocks through her frame.
She drops to her knees, heaving as the darkness digs into her.
In the next moment there's a small pulse of white light that surrounds the edges of her vision. It's white magic and it knocks her back a few feet and into a street pole with a resounding crash.
She slumps to the ground, an agonizing groan escaping her lips as she stubbornly glances back up towards Regina.
"R'gina." She wheezes out. Her vision's blurry as bodies surround her and she can hear Regina's soul mate calling her name over and over and over again.
It's something that grates on her nerves.
She raises a palm to her forehead, feels something warm and sticky against her palm as her family and Hook drop to her side. She shrugs them off with a gruff "I'm fine." and a stubborn shake of the head that just about makes her head swim. But she gets up, fists clenched as she determinedly walks back over to the woman being consumed by darkness on unsteady legs.
Regina watches all of this with hooded eyes as the darkness rushes beneath her skin, merging with her magic, her very being, in a seductive hum that's getting harder and harder to resist.
Her body has gone limp, suspended a few feet in the tornado of ancient evil from hell and shudders as it climbs up her body and into her soul. Her vision is blurry around the edges but not enough to not notice the Savior, the stubborn woman coming back to her.
Even her so called soul mate was just standing uselessly to the side, clutching his arms tighter to his visibly shaking body. But Emma wasn't him.
No.
She was a special brand of stupid Regina mused.
An idiot of idiots.
Her idiot.
"Emma." The name rushes out of her lungs as she forces the last of her magic, the white magic she could feel being snuffed out like a flickering light as the darkness further blackened her heart. She regarded the blonde through dark irises that she was sure had turned pitch black by now, pain etched across her features as Emma declared that she would help her fight this no matter the cost.
Emma launches herself at the darkness again and the pressure on Regina's lungs abates a bit as Emma's scream, sharp and guttural pierces through the nightly Maine air.
The sound chills Regina down to the core even faster than the darkness.
She growls, angry and oddly touched and her protective instincts flare, warring with the darkness inside of her.
Oh it'd be way too easy to corrupt the Savior, her traitorous mind thinks but she shuts that thought down immediately because she can't allow that to happen.
And the part of her heart that's fond of this woman wouldn't let her.
Her mind made up, her wrist twitches in the last shred of white magic that had remained tethered to her body.
It slams into Emma, and the darkness breaks away from the suffocating woman as she's thrown against the pavement.
The incessant whirring of dark magic picks up, stabbing Regina's lungs like pins and needles and she cries out, throat raw with screams that rage and rip out of her in a supernatural sound.
The last she sees is Henry rushing to the Savior's side, cradling her limp form and she breathes again when Emma's chest moves and her eyes flutter open.
It's enough for Regina as safe safe safe chants in her mind and she loses herself to the darkness and welcomes the sweet taste of oblivion.
So this is a little idea I had for the last day of swan queen week but hadn't gotten to develop it past this initial chapter. Lemme know your thoughts?