So I decided to post this for the 50daysofsq Day 22 - Magic AND Day 23 - Jealousy.
Surrounded by dense shrubbery overlooking an outcropping of rocks and covered by a magical dome, Regina watches Emma concentrate on her outstretched palm, smells the magic in the air in the form of lingering apple cinnamon and feels the evidence of it culminating against the blonde's skin.
Inwardly, she had jumped at the chance to impart upon Miss Swan even a modicum of her magical knowledge – outwardly, she feigned a great reluctance before she even agreed to do it far away from their little camp.
The magic that Emma manages to summon, however, remains latent. They'd been there for a better part of an hour and still had no progress in directing its power.
"Honestly, Miss Swan, some time today would be nice." Regina berates and Emma glares, breathing rugged with a sharp set to her jaw that has Regina almost smirking at her outward hostility.
Emma's light magic rises then like a sharp wisp in the air and seems to tug against Regina's, which totally unexpected. It makes the brunette grit her teeth when her body jolts with heat in response and she silently berates herself but outwardly berates Emma for her incompetence, which if she's being honest, isn't really warranted.
The blonde takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and runs frustrated palms through golden curls. A light sheen of perspiration clings to her dark grey tank top and drips down lightly muscled forearms against the backdrop of the setting sun.
Emma glances at her then, green eyes gleaming with a faint trace of an almost white glow and Regina is a bit unnerved by how entirely attractive she looks.
The thought startles Regina a bit as Emma breaks their staring in favor of trying again to summon a fireball. The white magic tugs at hers and Regina actually sees Emma wince when her magic pushes back. It's a bit difficult for even her to ignore or understand the pull of their combined magic, but then again Regina always did enjoy a challenge.
"Concentrate, Miss Swan!" Regina manages to grit out, fingers tightening into fists as she tries to ignore the white magical tendrils running up her arms. Emma glares in response. "Remember, magic is emotion." She lectures as she walks closer, concentrating on Emma's outstretched palm. "You have to will yourself to make the fireball. Concentrate on your desires and use your emotions to fuel your intentions."
"All I feel is hopelessness." Emma mutters bitterly, crushing the tiny wisp of smoke she managed to produce against her palm. "We're still no closer to finding Henry today than we were yesterday."
"Which is why we're training you so you can at least protect the two idiots and your pirate shaped shadow if we encounter Pan's minions." Regina repeats for what she felt was the hundredth time. Softening the tone of her voice a little, Regina offers a little reassurance. "We'll find Henry soon."
Emma just gave a resigned sigh and a brief nod in response.
A small light flickers against Emma's palm and Regina watches it steadily, withholding her blatant intrigue, willing Emma to will her magic into the flame they've been trying to get her to produce for the past hour.
She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until her palm brushes against Emma's forearm and the blonde startles, breaking concentrating to look up at her. They lock eyes for a moment and a second later a large flame roars against Emma's palm, brilliant and scorching and startling them both.
"Shit!" Emma grumbles, her surprise due no doubt by the brief brush with Regina's own magic. The light in her palm immediately goes out just as jerkily and as suddenly as it came.
"I said to concentrate!" Regina rounds on the blonde, taking a step back as her own magic roils inside her in an unsteady swirl. It jars her so much that she conjures a fireball of her own. "How is this hard for you?!"
"You distracted me!" Emma deflects, eyes narrowing in contempt at Regina's tone and blatant ease with magic.
"Just like your father distracted you by setting up camp, or your mother distracted you by cooking lunch or that pirate distracted you by breathing!"
"Those were legit excuses and Hook was practically hovering over me!"
"Because you let him!" Regina almost shakes with her frustration at Emma.
"What does that have to do with this anyway?!"
"Excuse me while I bow to the incompetent Savior who performs the bare magical minimum. You are an absolute waste of magical space."
"And you're a horrible teacher!"
"I'm horrible? You can't seem to comprehend a modicum of magical instruction."
"Comprehend this, Your Majesty!" Emma practically growls and Regina is lifted and tossed unceremoniously a few steps away onto her back.
Regina's too startled that Emma's magic had thrown her across the clearing to react but her magic does. It springs forth in retaliation, a purple haze that forms a whip that latches onto Emma's ankle and tosses her a few feet into the air. The blonde has little time to react before she's being tugged down and Regina curses herself when Emma's landing right on top of her.
Their foreheads awkwardly bump together and twin groans leave their mouths simultaneously.
"Get the hell off of me!" Regina's the first to growl, massaging her forehead and glaring at Emma. Her face heats a bit when she realizes that Emma's palms are practically groping her chest. Green eyes that are too close to her face seem to bore into hers when they make the same realization. A bit unnerved, Regina shoves at the blonde's hands. "Unlike the handless wonder, I don't enjoy unwanted groping."
Emma's cheeks flare with heat and a flicker of a flame at Emma's palm has Regina almost yelping as they both spring to their feet.
"Shit, Regina I-"
"Honestly Miss Swan, am I to be assaulted whenever you lose control of your magic?!" Regina just about manages to get herself under control to grit out.
Emma growls. "I nearly had it that time!"
"Nearly had it? Are you calling that insipid flicker of light you produced 'nearly having it'? Or when you tossed me like a ragdoll?"
"You tossed me too!"
"Only I actually didn't mean to, it was my magic protecting me." Regina pointed out and Emma felt too humiliated to even defend herself for that. But the flame, she had actually meant to produce that.
"Okay, I'm sorry. But the fire I produced was a freaking flamethrower the first time. I managed to get it to a small ball of light, I'd say that's progress!" Emma retorts, taking a step that brings her almost nose to nose with Regina.
"At the expense of nearly roasting my skin off of my body. Clearly incompetence is your chosen brand of stupidity for the evening." Regina scowls.
"Look, I'm trying okay." Emma interjects and the anger Regina feels almost flares when Emma's anger surges and her unpredictable magic brushes against her skin and rushes through her veins.
It feels intimate somehow.
Totally unlike anything Regina's ever experienced within all of her years in the craft.
It just about manages to freak her out.
"If you can't even grasp these basic instructions Henry wouldn't have survived one second back in the Enchanted Forest with you!"
"Tread carefully Regina, I'm warning you."
"Or you'll what? Cry me a tale of woe about the abandoned little Savior?"
Emma grits her teeth at the baiting remark but doesn't answer, sharply turns on her heel and busies herself rather with distancing herself from the insufferable woman. On the other side of the clearing, she dips into a comfortable crouch to summon her magic to her fingertips.
Regina lets out a heavy breath, grounding her teeth at the magical heat she feels in her body when she tries to assert some control over herself as she sinks a bit unsteadily to the forest floor. Her thoughts are tumultuous, just like her own magic, and it's a bit hard to concentrate with the stupid, attractive looking Savior in skinny jeans that fit way too good.
She automatically shifts her gaze to the setting sun, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the confusing incessant way that Emma's magic tugs at the seams of hers. She thinks about Henry, about where Pan is probably holding her son captive and she almost trembles with the force of her agony.
She feels just as useless as Emma had privately admitted to her when they first entered this clearing. It was why she had resolved to actually put herself through the necessity of teaching Miss Swan some magic so that they could actually stand a fighting chance on this quest for their son.
The crunching of leaves to her right shakes her out of her thoughts and has her eyes automatically springing open to give her a glimpse of black leather behind some trees.
The pirate shadow was on the move, no doubt like a blood hound scouring the forest to find Emma.
Regina's anger pulses.
Emma immediately looks up at her from the other side of the clearing and she fights her sudden need to meet that green gaze. Instead, she keeps her face impassive and watches the pirate walk further away until her skin no longer tingles with the burn of Emma's stare.
She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, entirely grateful for her invisible magical dome that acts like a shield to the outside world and would allow anyone to look right through them.
In other words, he couldn't see, smell or hear them. He seemed to linger for a bit in the distance before turning in another direction.
Regina rolled her eyes.
"Your shadow's looking for you." She's immediately aware of the disdain and derision dripping from her voice but Emma doesn't even respond. Regina's not put off by the blonde's stony silence, in fact, it spurs her on and she stands, dusting off herself before she focuses on the blonde once more. "A tryst in the woods with your flea ridden companion not on the agenda? I daresay you should mention that to him before he shoves his tongue down your throat again."
This makes Emma's back rigid and Regina smirks, riling up the blonde always a favorite pastime. It was her unfortunate luck to have stumbled upon that unfortunate lip-lock when she did but she's just that petty to want revenge for being scarred by it. She feels a bit better when Emma rises from her crouch and clenches fists at her sides. Cause this, this is familiar to her. This is territory that Regina knows how to manoeuvre.
"Unless you're in favor of that sort of thing of course." Regina continues with a grimace, daintily flicking a non-existent piece of lint from her blue blazer when Emma turns to her with a murderous look. "That does seem entirely right up your alley."
"Jealous of Hook, Regina?" Emma retorts dryly. The blasé question seems to hit her squarely in the chest and Regina forces out a chuckle in response, side stepping a small rock with ease as she moves to lean against a tree.
"Hardly, that would imply that I care about who you bed."
Regina doesn't see the blur of movement until it's too late. Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes go a bit wide when Emma Swan suddenly has her back slammed against the tree, arm against her throat.
She feels Emma's magic making her own tingle with heat beneath her skin and she bristles.
"Don't you ever shut the hell up?" The blonde growls in that low timber of a voice that Regina has come to associate when the woman is being serious. Except this time it does nothing but intensify the heat under her skin.
Regina notes that Emma's teeth are bared against the curl of her lips, pupils blown wide, dark and threatening as just the slightest bit of green lingers at the edges.
Regina's heart jumps at the adrenaline (or maybe that was their magic again) that spikes through her and she revels in the confrontation that she'll admit that she's been goading the blonde into for a while now. Emma almost shakes with the anger that rolls off her body and Regina, for her part, should be commended for not breaking composure.
She stiffens under the blonde's weight and glares back with full intensity, a sneer of her own curling against full lips as the heat beneath their skin steadily rises.
"Make me." She breathes against lips that are so close, too close in fact that she feels Emma's shaky exhale against her mouth. A slight shudder ripples through them both as white magic curls around their booted feet, tugging at Regina's which rises like a tide in response, a purple mist which pushes, dark and alluring against Emma's.
The tension between them seems to build to an unbearable crescendo as they stare at each other, suddenly too conscious of their close proximity. Regina doesn't dare back down, never has in her life, but she waits for Miss Swan to, knows that they've never taken it this far before.
What she doesn't expect is for Emma to lean in even closer. She can practically feel the blonde's body heat through her clothes, the stiff peaks of Emma's nipples straining against her tank top either from the sheer cold or arousal.
There's a feverish rush of seductive heat prickling through their skins as they clench their teeth determined not to make a sound.
It clouds Regina's own mind with unrestrained arousal as her gaze turns a hazy sort of purple. There's an audible hitch to Emma's breathing and her eyes glow a faint white in response.
The presence of their magic welling up around them has them both breathing hard in the tiny space between their lips and Regina's semi-conscious of slipping arms around Emma's neck and pulling her down.
Yes it ended there...jk. This has a second chapter I'm gonna be working on and will be posting tomorrow!
First time writing for swan queen...should I have admitted that?
Let me know if you liked it? :)
