Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination.
I
Regina was trying very hard to keep herself together while she was sitting on the floor spinning the Mad Hatter's hat. Nothing was happening. The situation was desperate. She could hear the wraith moving toward them destroying the town on his way. In a moment it would be there ready to destroy her soul.
She didn't know whether she should break down and cry over all she had lost and was going to lose or start laughing hysterically. After all it was a bit ironic that the 'heartless, soulless bitch' was afraid to actually lose her soul. There was of course also the option to stomp her feet and hit her head against the floor screaming like a two-year-old. Henry used to do just that when he was that age.
She did know though that if Charming didn't stop waving around that broomstick like an imbecile she would rip it out of his hands and hit him over the head with it. No wonder that the hat was not working. Who could possibly concentrate like that?
She was just about try if she could to it all at once when she felt a warm sensation spreading through her body. It made her feel calm and focused and hopeful. It had been a long time since she experienced hope without that gnawing feeling in her stomach that it was going to be ripped away from her again.
She glanced down and saw Emma's hand resting on her thigh and the hat creating a spiralling abyss. It was not a moment so soon. The wraith broke into the room and somehow Charming actually managed to push it into the vortex with that silly stick of his. Regina started to relax when the wraith caught Emma and pulled her down with her. Also Emma was no longer holding on to her Regina somehow got dragged down as well.
After a short but extremely dizzying fall both hit the ground with such an impact that Regina thought she must have broken every bone in her body. She scrambled to her feet and looked around for the wraith. Luckily it was nowhere to be seen but she spotted Emma lying on the floor a few meters from where she was standing.
For a moment she was worried that something might have happened to the other woman but when she heard Emma moaning and saw her pushing herself up she resisted the urge to run towards the blonde. Instead she stretched to get the kinks out of her body, straightened her clothes and ran her hand through her hair in an effort to bring it back to some resemblance of order.
By now Emma was walking towards her. Apart from a few drops of blood running down from a small cut on her left arm she was fine. "So, what happened and where the hell are we?" "What happened is fairly obvious Miss Swan. The wraith pulled us down with him to the Enchanted Forest. This should also answer your question about our current location," Regina replied.
Emma rolled her eyes. "It is amazing how you can still find the time to be annoyed at me when we just dropped out of the sky onto a place that shouldn't even exist anymore." To tell the truth Regina couldn't quite explain herself why the place had not been destroyed but she was certainly not admitting that. "And 'Enchanted Forest' is not really a precise location either" Emma continued.
Regina looked around. They were standing in front of a heap of broken stones that must have been some sort of altar at some time. The small square was surrounded by forest. She really couldn't tell where exactly they were. However, before she had to confess her ignorance a group of riders broke through the tree line.
"Who do we have here?" one of riders said in a voice that send a shudder down her spine. Him leering at their bodies didn't help much either. "It doesn't matter" one of the others said "they are clearly not Asian. He wanted an Asian one." "Yeah, but they have magic He'll want them even more."
Regina tried to conjure up a fire ball or freeze the riders or just transport herself away but her magic failed her again. Unfortunately she had never been good at fighting without magic and Emma who should know a thing or two about this didn't do anything. Did she always have to be so completely useless?
The leader threw a net over Emma and pulled her from her feet. A second later Regina was caught too. He climbed of his horse laughing and strolled towards them. "Now look at what I got. Two magic little fish. Hot, magic little fish. He will shower me with gold." Then he bent down and tied their hands and feet together and rolled them out of the nets. He beckoned to someone. Regina tried to stand up but before she succeeded she was lifted up by the tallest man she had ever seen. How she didn't notice him sooner was beyond her. She was laid over the back of a horse and shortly after Emma was hanging beside her.