Embers Dancing
Magic doesn't work the same way in the Underworld.
Oh, she can feel it, the same way she always can, the pulse of it still dancing in her fingertips.
It's still there, still hers.
She just can't call upon it the way she usually can. None of them could.
Not here. Not in this realm, bent so entirely to its master's will.
And Hades' will is dangerous, for the cunning of it.
Why take away their magic entirely, when instead he can allow them to keep it, to feel how entirely it still belongs to them, but brutally limit its effects.
Embers dancing in the palm, where a fireball should be.
She can cast all the locator spells she wants, in this realm, they aren't going anywhere.
It's such a clever taunt, fit for a God. It's working too, driving Regina and Rumplestilskin to fury, and to far more important distraction.
She is not so easily distracted.
She came here for one reason, and for one reason only: to tear this Hell to shreds with her bare hands if need required in order to get Killian back.
Hades cannot understand that.
He may know something about obsession, maybe even about passion, but he knows nothing about the love - true love - that she shares with Killian.
And so, he cannot understand how entirely he has erred in allowing her to keep any kind of a hold on her magic.
She is the Saviour still; a child of true love, caught up in the grips of a true love match herself - birthed of and wielding both the most powerful magic ever known. So too is she a surviving, reformed - but still once - Dark One, having retained all the knowledge and control of power that gave her.
There has never been a being like her.
There has never been anyone more powerful than her.
She doesn't need any of the countless spells Hades may have thought to handicap.
Pure power alone is enough for what she has in mind.
In mind.
Killian knows the feel of her magic. Killian knows her touch.
Killian knows the hope she gives him.
Finding him and getting him home, that's the ultimate goal, but for now, for right this moment, giving him that hope back is enough.
It's been all she could think about since the disastrous attempt at the communication through the grave, since they first gained idea of their magic's limits here, since they saw how absolutely Killian was suffering.
He was suffering. He was being tortured, brutalized.
God or not, she would destroy Hades for this.
But first, she needed to help Killian. And the best way she can think to do that right now is to make sure he knows that she's here.
Until they can save him completely, she needs him to know that she's come for him.
Hades thinks he's taken away all ability to get to Killian.
Hades is wrong.
Because Killian knows the feel of her magic, and her touch, and the hope that comes with both, that comes with her.
And so she closes her eyes, focuses the thrum of power in her on her love for Killian, on the way that love had so long ago started to feel pure and vibrant and pulsing, pulsing the way the way the rest of her magic did, because it was magic too.
A magic that links.
She doesn't need to know exactly where he is. She doesn't need her locator spells to work.
She is True Love, and he is hers. She is magic, and magic is theirs.
They are connected.
And being able to feel that connection is enough.
Because through it, she can feel him too.
And through it, she sends her magic to him.
She's gentle about it, that first ghosting of her magic's touch, like a hand to his cheek. She does not want him to be afraid, not ever, and especially not now when there's so much else to fear.
She feels it when he does, when he startles just slightly enough to show his recognition of a change in his circumstances, before he settles.
He knows her magic. He knows her touch.
She gasps aloud when she feels him nuzzle into the comfort offered.
He knows it's her. Immediately, without question, and he takes all she can give him eagerly, desperately.
She is wildly moved, and can feel the tears she cries marking paths down her face, but she does not relinquish her hold on her magic for anything.
She lets it wrap around him fully now, like an embrace.
And feels it when he grabs hold of it, tight, clenching in a way that tells her he won't let go.
He knows it's real.
He knows she's with him.
He knows she's come.
And that's enough, for now.
For they both know she'll find him. They both know she'll save him. They both know she'll bring him home.
It may only be through magic that she can do this for him now, but magic can do a lot. Through magic she can touch, through magic she can reassure, through magic she can promise.
Through magic she can love, and have them both know that she couldn't have done this if their love itself wasn't the magic she's wielding, and that only the truest of loves is magic.
And true love - the kind that brings magic - is hope.
She's given Killian his hope back. The biggest, greatest thing that Hades' realm had been designed to take away is Killian's once more.
It's theirs once more.
And with it, they can do this.
She is not surprised when she feels Killian laugh now, overcome by the sudden influx of so much positive feeling overtaking the pain and bleakness.
"The bloody flame-coiffed bastard ought to have known better than leave Emma Swan with her magic," he whispers to the wind, to the magic, to her with far greater cheer than she would have thought even him capable of, given the circumstances.
She can't help but gasp at the way her magic flares up with the amount of sheer adoration she feels for him now, and knows he feels it too in the way he almost seems to melt into the warmth the depth of her feeling offers.
"Swan," he sighs.
"He did," she tells him, hoping he'll somehow hear it, hoping her voice will come through with her touch. "He just failed to take True Love into account."
Killian freezes so entirely that she worries for a moment, until his grip on the magic somehow, impossibly, tightens. "Aye," he breathes. "That'll be his downfall then?"
Finding herself laughing through the tears at the hopefulness in his voice, she has to agree - with an amendment. "Taking my true love was," she tells him, amazed by the lack of fear in it. "He's done, Killian. Just as soon as I've got you back."
"A multitude of things to look forward to, then."
"You've got my word, Captain," she says, teasing and promising both. "I'm here. I'm coming for you. I love you so much."
"And I you," he swears. "To the end of all the worlds."
"To the end of every world," she repeats, before finally letting the connection drop with no small regret, but so too with a focused intent.
She needs to get going now. Touching him through magic is not enough. She needs him, needs all of him, everything with him.
She's coming for him.
And he knows it.
Not for long, but for now, that will do.
Author's Note: This story came from a general 'feeling' that's been floating around in the back of my head since Sunday. Thank God, the feeling finally decided to turn itself into actual words today.
I'm hopeful that it'll serve as a breakthrough in the writer's block that has been driving me insane for getting disturbingly close to eighteen months now. To any of my dear Snowing friends who may have decided to give this CS piece a chance, hopefully, this'll mean good things for me and the never forgotten Freedom Love.
Thanks, as always, for reading.