Hello my dears. This will be the first story I've posted in quite some time. I'm almost positive that I'm going to continue, but that ultimately depends on how hectic my life becomes. Hope this soothes your Outlaw Queen heart.
Please note that in this fic, Marian was never frozen.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Rating: T for language
Summary: The Snow Queen has a plan, and she needs Regina out of the way to execute it. When she goes tumbling through a portal, her soul mate is not far behind. What new challenges will they face in this painfully familiar realm, and how far will they go to get back?
Head First
The slightly cool autumn air turns frigid as the temperature drops and a breeze, he has half a mind to call it a miniature tornado, rips through his surroundings, snow flurries speckled in their midst. The crazed snow monsters, which he somewhat recalls Regina shouting something along the lines of them being "giant snowmen on steroids gone apeshit-crazy", are seemingly appearing out of thin air, significantly faster than the small group they have assembled is able to disembody them. They're losing, he realizes with a furrowed brow beaded with sweat despite the frosty conditions, but the thought only causes him to fight more vigorously. He is vaguely aware of Emma and the pirate encircling a few of the monsters in a ring of flames, of the blade of the Prince's sword slicing through their middles, transforming them into a harmless pile of snow, and of his wife shooting arrow after flaming arrow, courtesy of Her Majesty herself, toward the creatures, a deadly hole materializing where the tip of the arrow landed and engulfing their bodies in a blanket of flames. But what the thief is more concerned with is his Queen. She has just successfully incinerated one of the noticeably larger foes among the growing bunch. She is clearly their biggest asset. Her arms fall to her sides, and her fingers are vigorously rubbing against her thumbs, as if attempting to restore circulation in them. He notices with a grimace how worn she looks, dark circles under her eyes and a visible shake to her ordinarily steady hands. She closes her eyes for a brief moment, sucking in chilly air deeply into her lungs and exhaling with a visible cloud of breath in the wind. That's when he sees it,
It's racing toward her, faster than should've even been possible. How a creature of such an enormous mass could reach such a speed was beyond his frame of knowledge, but there it is. He calls out to her, a warning lost in the frantic gusts of wind, and he knows it is futile. She senses something is off, not quite right, and she turns.
It happens too quickly for him to even begin to stop it, and yet slow enough for him to see the dark realization wash over her. Her eyes widen with alarm but the shock is just as quickly replaced with dread. She raises her hands so that they are almost level with her head, slightly raised above to accommodate the daunting height of the monster. For a brief moment he thinks that maybe she'll try to use her magic, but the moment is short lived. She's out of time and severely lacking energy. He recognizes her need to keep fighting, even till the bitter end, which is why it doesn't surprise him in the slightest when she braces herself for the attack. Bending her knees ever so slightly, she shifts so that her left foot is slightly above being parallel with her right. And then she's hit.
The force of the blow sends her flying through the air, not unlike an arrow flying from his bow and toward its target, and for a moment she is suspended in the air. He runs toward her, knowing that it's useless, she'll hit the ground a good five seconds before he is able to reach her, but he can't stop himself from trying. However, to his temporary relief but then prominent dismay, she doesn't hit the ground(his relief stemming from the fact that the hole in the ground had just spared her multiple breaks and fractures.) The Queen simply flies right past ground level and into a newly formed dark, swirling abyss; a portal. Shivers run up and down his spine, crawling like ants as a terrible fear practically rips him open from the inside out. He takes one look over his shoulder and when he sees the smug, satisfied smirk on the Snow Queen's lips, he instantaneously unfolds the makings of a mastermind. This was nothing but a meticulously crafted step toward the Queen's goal, whatever that might be. To her, Regina was expendable. She meant for the brunette to fall into that portal and spiral to whatever realm it transported her to. She cares not of whether she hurt Regina, and this angered Robin Hood like nothing ever before. He has half a mind to storm over to the cold bitch and kill her with his bare hands.
But he looked at the portal, the one created by an action as simple as the spinning of the hat of a mad hatter. The portal that ripped away the woman he loved and damned her to God knows what realm. He spares one last look back, this one directed to his wife, who is holding her ground against the snowy beasts, and for a fraction of a second, a pang of guilt shoots through him. Was he ready to make this decision? Could he live with the consequences of choosing this woman, this painfully stubborn woman whom he wanted nothing more than to call his, over his wife?
What one might assume to be one of the most difficult decisions of their life, he found to be astoundingly simple. The answer comes to his mind like a breath of fresh air. Like it was the first breath he's taken after being under water for a very long time, deprived of the one thing he's craved, no, the one thing he's physically needed. That's her. It has always been her, even before he knew the real her, before she revealed the most precious parts of herself to him. She is his air. He needs her as though she is his life support. Without her, he's nothing. How could he have fooled himself for so long, trying to be faithful to his wife? What he had with Marion wasn't truly a relationship, and they both knew it. He cannot never give her what she deserved as long as he is still in love with Regina.
The thought of Regina plummeting to a random, strange realm with no one by her side, possibly injured, brings a sick feeling to his stomach. He has to make sure she's okay, as if it is natural instinct to protect her(he supposes it has something to do with the little fact that he and the feisty brunette are soul mates, bound together by fate.) And if that means sending himself to possibly an even stranger world than the one he is in now, then so be it.
He prays that the thought of Regina is enough to bring him to the same world she has just been sucked into. He closes his eyes and, with images of his love dancing behind them, he jumps.
This was very short but I had to set the story up before we can delve into the good stuff!
Drop a review on your way out?