A/N Albeit The cogs can be considered a prequel there is no need for it to have been read before this one to understand this one. For the ones that read that though there has been a minor change on that story but nothing big enough to alter it.
The story was created as a big thank you to my millstone of 1000 followers on Tumblr. I hope that the story doesn't disappoint. It's already finished so I expect to post every day if my internet connection is benevolent. I hope to also be able to finish The Miller's daughter and a few other stories I have already finished over the course of the next few weeks.
Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Happy reading!
If you want to ask me something about the story or anything else, I'm Shadowdianne on both Tumblr and twitter.
-1-
The sound of the train as it left behind a particular curve was what made the occupant of the coach to blink as the pages of her morning paper were forgotten on her lap, her left hand raising to her eyes as she narrowed them, the fume-stained glass of her compartment letting her see the beginning of the valley that signaled the end of her trip.
Metal against metal the screeching noise as the train started its deceleration was what made the other occupant of the car to open her eyes, the movement almost making her fall off her seat where she had been resting on ever since the train had left Terradale that very same morning.
The first occupant of the coach merely smirked at the antics of her companion. Her dark red lips curved for a second before she schooled her features, trying to keep a stern look as a head of blonde curls raised and blinked owlishly, green eyes glowing tired on the barely lighted car the two of them were in.
"I hate trains" Emma complained, straightening her back which emitted a few creaks as she adjusted her position. Her heavy boots resounding soundly against the wooden floor once she rose herself, still half- asleep and a with a hand already on the tiny mechanical watch she always had with her. "At least we are on schedule"
"As if that would have ever mattered to you, dear" Regina replied, the ghost of a smile dusting her lips as she opened the paper again, her brown eyes resuming the lecture the train had interrupted a few moments ago. "I can quite remember needing to wait for you back when Midas asked for us"
"That man is an asshole" Emma replied as an only answer, pocketing the watch once again and walking back towards her seat in front of Regina. The pieces of copper on her boots clanging against the floor. She saw the look the brunette shot at her feet but remained impassible; the two of them knew she kept the boots –as well as the long leather coat she was wearing in that very same moment despite the stifling air of the train- out of stubbornness. It was a memory of her time as a Captain of one of the biggest explorer airships that had probably ever existed in the princedom. An airship Emma had been proud to call home for far longer she had known Regina.
However, after fleeing away with Regina the day before the brunette's wedding with Regina's mother chosen fiancé Leopold White the blonde had seen her license as an explorer promptly removed. Being forced to disband her crew she had started again on one of the many and different departments the ministries she had been worked before as an explorer offered her.
With Regina at her side of course. And not regretting it one bit.
"Don't even think about falling asleep again" Regina said from the other side of the once again opened newspaper. Groaning, Emma rubbed her gloved hands against her eyes and sighed, crossing her arms over her chest as she pouted like a spoiled child.
"We should have gotten one of the airships" She mumbled, looking briefly at the window of the cart; trains, as fast as they were, weren't faster than an airship. And they definetely consumed more than the refined motors of the floating vehicles.
"We were told to be discreet, dear" Regina replied, finally closing the paper and setting it aside, her hair –longer than when Emma had first met back on the brunette mother's house- moving softly behind her as she turned to look the window with the blonde. She gathered looks wherever they both went with her hair loose, sometimes a trinket adorning it. She, however, didn't care. Another memory of the free woman she was.
Spinster, her mother would have called her. Lucky her, her mother wasn't there.
"I doubt that landing an airship in the middle of nowhere can be called discreet" She kept talking, looking down at her robes. The dress she was wearing, one of the simplest ones she had in lace and velvet, looked slightly ruffled from all the hours they had passed on the carriage. Sighing and ironing the wrinkles that could be seen on her skirt she adjusted her short gloves. She could understand Emma's pout about the trip, she had certainly been a second away of protesting back at the Ministry when they have been told on what they would travel.
"I'm able to keep it discreet"
Regina didn't bother to answer that with nothing but another glare, this one finished by a raised eyebrow. Something which Emma replied by growling once again before digging both of her hands on the pockets of her coat, the vest she wore underneath peeking as she rearranged her clothes too, the trousers she wore –certainly another memory of her time as a captain- glinting when the badge she had tied at her waist caught the light of the carriage.
"Whatever" The blonde murmured before pointing at the forgotten paper as Regina stood, this time the one approaching the window, the outskirts of their stop already there. "Anything new?"
The brunette didn't look away from the severely looking castigated structures she was able to see at the other side of the tracks. The normal clouds made by the production of coal and iron didn't stain the sky as much as other bigger cities but the dirty feeling of an old mining village was left on the sad remains of what she suspected was once been a prosper city on the times when coal had been considered the biggest invention used by mankind.
How things had turned out to be.
"Warfare on some places, strikes on some cities" She informed while shrugging, the corset she wore feeling tighter on her ribcage as she exhaled. "Another factory has been closed on Terradale"
"I still don't understand why the Ministry is not sending us there. Mulan is already…"
"Mulan asked to be sent there" Regina replied, gently interrupting but making Emma to nod and sigh before her. The two of them knew the reason of her friend's transfer. "Besides, the ministry needs us, Storybrooke has been having quite a high level of energy for months now, the higher a month ago when the cable about it arrived"
Forgetting about the war the princedoms where suffering Emma turned her full attention to Regina, the woman nodding once again to herself before returning to her seat, pulling her small yet heavy bag from its place atop their heads.
"What kind of energy are we talking about?" The blonde asked while checking out of the window, the train was still slowing its motor.
"Several sightings, that's what the inform said"
The two women had been working for the ministry for almost three years now. They knew by now that a mission with such a brief description was bound to be difficult.
Founded almost fifty ago the Ministry of Untold Stories had been in theory created to hold the inventions of the brightest minds of the century in a safe place. However, as it expanded it was soon found out that the ministry needed to be more than just a place where the government secrets were put and so the first agents were recruited in order to found all the objects that were…. volatile. 25 years ago the first "magical" objects had started to seep their way into the ministry and whenever the agents were sent to retrieve some of those "magical" objects they called those "sightings"
Magic wasn't an unheard phenomenon of course, but certainly the kind of magic the Ministry worked with wasn't precisely one that many people would like to know about.
"So we have basically nothing" Emma groaned as the train protested one final time before stopping, the movement making her body to sway forward where Regina caught her by her arms.
"Your favorite kind" She winked and put the bag on Emma's hands before opening the door of the carriage, her silhouette walking down the aisle in where a few other people were already walking through.
Emma rolled her eyes and followed her after grabbing the newspaper and smirking to herself. The brunette was right after all. Those cases where her favorite ones.
Storybrooke was exactly what Regina had seen through her cart's window. A place that could have been much more than what it was. Forgotten when the big companies that now where fighting for the dust that had transformed the way they had understood energy, moved out of the mines where coal was recollected, the place showed almost not of the commodities another equally small cities but closer to the main ones showed.
The houses were modest yet strong-looking and here and there carriages were seen. Most of the people that walked up and down the main street of the village wore working clothes, the sight of less brass than what she had accustomed herself living in Terradale was certainly interesting.
However, here and there the memory of the prosper city Storybrooke had once been could be seen on forgotten posters of fair and exhibitions that, if memory served her right, hadn't been working for more than ten years now.
It was obvious, she reasoned as she eyed up the cable the Ministry had received the day they had been delivered the mission, the details of where they were expected written down in a corner of the note, the fairy dust as it was called in the streets had been discovered twelve years ago and not famously talked about until five years ago. The revolution had hit such little places like this one first, the mining companies forgetting about them as it was discovered that the refined rocks could produce a hundred times more energy than normal steam and coal.
It was obvious, she thought again while turning to look at Emma, the blonde's leather jacket and heavy boots alongside with the bits of cooper she always wore, unmistakable to her. Obvious yet unfair. She sometimes wondered how her hometown was doing. It had been ages since she had dared to even go near the place. And she suspected that she wasn't going to visit it soon.
Emma smiled at her, her arms both carrying her own bag as well as Regina's. The duffle-bag heavy not with some of the books Regina was also carrying but guns and some of the latest inventions of the ministry lab rats. Some of them interesting enough for Regina to want to try them even if she by far didn't like using gunfire. Albeit in missions like the ones both Emma and herself were into gunfire was certainly the least of their problems. The blonde woke her up from her thoughts by coming closer in two big strides and whistling softly. She had been in many different places as her time as an explorer but it had been a while since she had been in an almost abandoned mining town.
"Where are we going to stay?" She asked, blonde curls cascading down her back. She had tried to have her hair straighter for a while but fortunately that fluke seemed to have been forgotten.
"Didn't you read the intel that Mérida gave us?" Regina replied back, a worrisome arched brown already escalating on her face. Smiling sheepishly Emma shrugged.
"You know I don't have patience for those. Especially if August had been the one who had written them. Too flowery"
Regina considered to smack some sense into the woman's thick skull but she knew from experience that Emma always preferred actions to words. It was futile to ask her to read the intel. She would never do it. That was one of her fortes and they both knew it.
"The cable said to walk down the main street, apparently there is a dinner here that also works as a bed and breakfast"
"Seems like this place was frozen in time way before the revolution stroke" Emma noted and even if Regina didn't answer her, worried to find the place the cable had instructed them to go, couldn't think the same. The citizens of the city looked at them as they walked, not even bothering to hide their curiosity. It must have been ages since some actually new to the town stepped inside. Which could be beneficial for them or not.
"Probably the place was founded in the golden years of mining" She provided as an answer while stopping in front of an old battered signal in which the words "Granny's dinner" could be read. "There it is, apparently a person was expected to be here… but they didn't say how they looked like"
"I think that's because the bosses knew you would already recognize me" A familiar voice said at her right and when both Emma and Regina turned a striking brunette was already coming closer, a giant smile on her face and the sound of steam and clicking sounds of the thousands of cogs that run down her left side of her body. A red skirt, far shorter than what it would have been considered "proper" and an even tighter-fitted corset than Regina's completed her ensemble.
"Ruby!" Emma exclaimed, smiling fondly at the woman who had been her second. After the disband of the crew Ruby had decided to go back to her roots. "My grandmother is quite an old lady and even if she doesn't want to admit it years also pass for her too" Regina hadn't been with her long enough to form any kind of relationship but she also smiled when the buoyant brunette smiled her as brightly as Emma. "I didn't know you lived here" The blonde continued after Ruby hugged her.
"Or that you worked for the ministry" Regina added as she was too hugged tightly. Her arms resting awkwardly while she tried to remain aloof.
"Yeah, they contacted me a few months before they talked with you" The taller brunette said while picking one of their bags. Walking towards the closed door of the dinner in where patrons were shamelessly looking through with curiosity. "I told them that I wasn't interested on exploring anymore. Not after having promised my Granny that I was going to stay with her for a few years. They were insistent… but so I am so I thought that I was going to not hear about them after that- But they kept me in the loop and when I saw… well. I thought that they were probably the ones I needed to call"
"I thought you didn't like the government" Emma pointed out as they finally stepped inside. Regina opting to act as if the stares and murmurs didn't face her, promptly following Ruby to the room that stood at the opposite side of the place. Emma, however, preferred to stare at the noisy ones down. Who soon enough looked away from them under her stare.
"And I don't" Ruby replied good-naturedly while starting to climb up a set of stairs. "But I thought that you could be the ones sent here and it has been ages since I last knew about either of you"
"We have been busy" Regina informed noncommittally.
"Yeah" Emma added behind her "We didn't really have many free time"
"Uh-uh" Ruby said while arriving at the end of the stairs and stopping in front of an already half-closed door "This will be your room; I think the bed will be sufficient but let me tell you if you need anything else. Freshen up and rest. I will talk with you after finishing my shit or Granny is going to kill me"
Leaving the bag on the floor she winked and left both women gaping at her, the sound of her steps soon enough being covered by the voices of the dinner below them.
"I forgot how she can be" Emma said as an apology, earning something between a chuckle and a sigh from Regina.
"She wasn't entirely wrong on pointing the bed out" Regina replied with a smirk before picking the bag on the floor and stepping inside the room in which, yes, a decent-sized bed waited for them alongside with some drawers and a table. Leaving the bag at one side of the bed she took off the carriage coat she had been wearing and left her carefully inside the wooden wardrobe that stood at the further corner of the room. "Apparently not even the ministry thought on renting two rooms"
"I have the suspicion that that is Ruby's fault rather than the ministry's" Emma commented as she too followed Regina. Her figure standing out in the plain-colored walls and carpet of the place when the brunette turned to look at her.
"We can always ask for two separate bedrooms then if you aren't comfortable" She replied, stepping closer to the blonde, a smirk growing on her face when she took sight on the blush that dusted Emma's cheeks. It was amazing how sure of herself the woman had seemed to be those years ago on her mother's house and how much she blushed now. She had always been a dork after all, a dork that a much surer of herself Regina liked to play with. "Or we can always share this one"
"I think I will opt for that other option" The blonde answered while tilting her head, teeth biting the bottom lip hands already grabbing the leather and brass that covered Regina's corset. "Sharing is always good"
"Oh?" Regina asked, feigning innocence "Tell me how dear"
Emma stepped closer, bags long forgotten, lips already coming closer to Regina's, green eyes darkened.
"But" The brunette added raising her left hand to Emma's mouth, effectively stopping the kiss "After we have done our job"
With that she winked and left the place, a groan following her as she did. "Regina!"
"It started a few months ago"
It was the beginning of the last slow hour of evening before the shadows started to grow and the last patrons had already left the dinner. The sound of the steam-powered coffee-machine was the only thing that kept buzzing in the place and Emma had been morosely nursing a glass of whiskey that Regina suspected was warm by now. She had been shooting glances at her ever since they had come down the room and she had enjoyed the looks, smirking coquettishly every time she caught those green eyes looking at her.
They had met Ruby's grandmother an hour ago. A short yet amazingly strong woman with a mechanical leg – "Happened in the factory so long ago I don't even remember anymore"- that announced her steps with a series of hissing sounds that looked very much like the clicking noises she did with her tongue every time she was annoyed. Which for what both Regina and Emma could say was quite a lot. The woman had been there with them for half an hour before marching back to the kitchen. She hadn't asked about why they were here. Which Regina considered a quite nice touch since almost everyone they had come across the place had eyed them as if they were some strange new species.
Now, with the dinner almost empty and no one near them Ruby had seated with them in the booth they had been occupying and had started her tale. Regina was used to those kind of tales, the ones told in whispers and fears and the word "magic" being said between clenched teeth. However, Ruby explained the fact while drinking placidly, apparently not having any problems with it. She had been Emma's second after all, she thought while taking a sip of her own cider.
"I don't know exactly when but I was doing night shifts at that time as a deputy. I tend to help them whenever they need personal and I remember that for close than two weeks we were called almost daily with tales about shadows that shouldn't have been there, objects that moved themselves… those kind of things. People at first thought it was only prankers doing what they love to do but as the pranks turned to be more serious so were the calls"
"And what happened that you decided to contact the ministry" Asked Emma while Regina pulled out a piece of paper and started dotting down what they already knew. Paperwork was insufferable but it was better than nothing to have something started.
Ruby shrugged. "Mary Margaret called us" She said while pointing to a short woman with a pixie haircut that had been there ever since both Emma and Regina had entered, a book on her hands and a seeming never-ending cup of coffee in front of her "She is a teacher on the local school, never had any problems… she is married to the sheriff in fact and was him who told me what had happened"
"Which was…?" Regina urged.
"A shadow" The brunette replied "A shadow of a toddler"
"A toddler?" Emma repeated, frowning. While being scary she didn't understand the impact that apparently that call had had on Ruby herself for her to call them.
"Mary Margaret lost her child at birth" Ruby informed them "a year ago. It was going to be a girl"
"And you think…" Emma started as Regina stopped writing, putting down the fountain pen as she did so.
"There are thousands of explanations about the vision" She started patiently. Not wanting to be too harsh on Emma's friend but also clipped enough to get a warning look from Emma. Of course, the blonde had always been better at this.
"Yes, that was what I thought" Ruby replied while nodding, her voice a whisper now "But then other people started to call, saying how they were seeing their loved ones and I started to get suspicious. I mean, Emma, I was there with you when we encountered that place up in the northern side in where that village believed about a prophecy that talked about a blonde woman that could have been you! And so when I too started to have visions about…" She stopped, wetted her lips and kept talking. Regina had the impression that Emma knew what the other brunette had implied so she kept silence "I decided to call the ministry. I don't know how but there must certainly be something here. Something magical"
Emma eyed her at that, they normally needed to explain themselves way before to the people in the towns they were sent to. And she always hated it. Sighing, she put her hands up the brass table and waited for Ruby to look at her, the lights of the place. –dimly lighted now that the sun was hiding- catching the cogs that decorated her dress and moved with her. A quite interesting work, Regina found herself thinking, she had never been with Ruby close enough before to admire it.
"Do you know what magic really stands for?" She asked carefully, waiting for a shake that followed soon after.
"Magic doesn't exactly happen per se" She continued under the watchful eye of Emma and her hand, now resting on her knees. She always hated the speech, always would and will.
"Magic is what scientist called to the energy that they found that could feed objects giving them properties that normally they wouldn't have. Have you read about the fairy dust?" She kept going when Ruby frowned, seeming about to interrupt her.
"Of course" The other brunette nodded earnestly "Who hasn't? Fairy dust is one of the biggest source of energy that had been found this century. The steam it produces and the byproduct it creates is bigger than anything else"
"Exactly" Regina nodded "Is pure energy, one that we need to refine. Magic, or energy as now scientists prefer to call it, is energy. Energy embedded in a certain object"
"So is quite strange for a whole town to be under the effect of a single object" Emma finished off squeezing Regina's knee one more time before taking its turn. "Strange though, no impossible"
"Is more obvious for all of you to be under some kind of poisoning of some sorts" Regina added pointedly. "Collective hallucinations isn't unheard off though so we will start looking"
"Perhaps talk with both Mary Margaret and…"
"David" Ruby provided while nodding, finishing her drink and putting the glass on the table with a loud thud. Mary Maragaret kept reading at her back.
"With David then. See if he has seen something else or knows something"
Regina was about to ask Ruby if she remembered something they could use when the door of the dinner opened up so strongly that the back of the door banged against the wall before bouncing back in place. A woman stepped inside, tall and slim, with two inquisitive eyes that found the booth they were even before Regina was able to take a full look on the grey ensemble she wore. The satin could look a little way too worn out on the edges but the cut was impeccable and fitted to the last curve of the dirty blonde woman who had her hair in an updo, leaving her eyes bare as they never left Regina's, not even bothering to cast a glance at Emma who, at Regina's side, straightened as tall as she was, her best look of explorer already on its face.
Wearing what looked to be a swallowtail coat opened up enough to show the beginning of a cleavage the certain beautiful woman carried herself with the one who knows who has power and Regina sensed it coming out in waves out of her. A very similar manner her own mother had carried herself. A manner she knew she also had in her.
"I'm Maleficient" The dirty blonde woman said while extending a hand and shaking Emma's already offered one, eyes meeting for a second before they returned to Regina. "Mayor of this town. I've been told that we have received newcomers. Considering this is certainly a rare occurrence I thought that it would be for the best to present myself"
The words, albeit warm, had an edge at the end that had Regina glance at Emma briefly, noticing the minute nod Emma gave to her, sensing her eyes. That woman certainly emanated something that wasn't only power and both Emma and herself knew when something was aloof.
"I'm Emma Swan" Emma said as quick as possible. "And she is…"
"Regina Mills" Regina added before Emma could say anything, smiling at Maleficent for a second too long before letting her hand fall off the other woman's digits. "We are on vacation; you have a really nice town here"
"Thank you, dear" Maleficent replied with a clipped smile to Ruby who remained silent, an expressionless look on her eyes. "Then, by no means, I won't interrupt you. Just know that if during your stay you find something you want to talk with me the city hall is always open"
"We will take it into account. Thank you" Regina replied promptly, eliciting a nod from the other woman.
"And welcome to Storybrooke" Maleficient added, already turned to the door of the place. "I hope you have an enjoyable stay"
"Of course" Emma replied under her breath.
"We will" Regina said outload. "You can bet on it"