Rowena

Rowena had spent the last seven days just relaxing in her brand new house. Sipping martinins, binge watching tv shows she never had the time to watch before and swimming naked in the pool between other things.

She had found the forest to be quite a relaxing place to practice and try new spells of her invention, no one bothered her there; hell no one even knew she was there. It was perfect. The only thing missing where some subjects to try her spells on.

At the current time she was reading a book, Silence of the Lambs, while swimming naked and sipping a martini. A pleasant and relaxing evening indeed. Dr Lecter certainly had a way of getting away with whatever he wanted and manipulating people, she loved just the way he played Clarice, always had her right where he wanted, and not only her, the man was a prisoner but controlled everything around him. Bloody brilliant.

Rowena put the book down, went for a fast dive and finished her drink before actually getting out of the pool. She loved the feeling of floating away, weightless and as if she had no cares in the world.

"But of course, one always needs to come back to reality and such." She talked to herself while walking slowly out of the pool, feeling the air cold against her wet skin. Rowena brought a towel to herself with magic and grabbed her sunglasses from the table.

Since she had arrived that place and started practicing her magic she had found it was stronger, different. She had been studying the citizens and found that despite the book not mentioning it, there were several magic users there and they even had their own pet wolf.

Within a day she managed to also use her magic under the town's condition and found out she no longer needed to utter words for some basic spells or transportation.

She had also taken a special interest on a black haired witch, she seemed very powerful, a force to be reckoned with and she was always fighting with a blonde sheriff. Truly Rowena did not understand why the witch hadn't already smitted the blonde, she was so bloody annoying always trying to play victim. Apparently they shared a son, constantly fought for him as well, but they were not a couple. In all her wicked honesty Rowena did not understand why, if the woman was so powerful and wanted the kid, she didn't just kill blondie, pretend someone else did it and keep him for herself.

But boy that kid. How had they not sent him to a boarding school yet? Call it her lack of motherly instincts but bollocks, the kid was annoying. Had he done to her a wee bit of what he did to his mothers and he would have long ago been thrown to die in the gutter. This kid, he wouldn't even be worthy of two pigs, and he couldn't juggle.

To top it all, blondie's family seemed to have some sort of hero complex. Ugh. She shuddered, she would rather never had to interact with any on them. If she wanted hero complexed people, she had the bloody Winchesters to deal with.

Rowena shook those feelings of and decided it was time to go do her spellwork to the forest. She had been going there almost every day and night, doing all sort of things to get inspired, just like in the old days.

She opened her backdoor, left some warding up in case someone tried to get in and walked towards her favorite part of the forest.

Emma

The blonde sheriff had gone investigating the suppossed new addition to the town. In Grumpy's words, and he was not a reliable source,: a redheaded witch had appeared, requested a house, uttered some spells and was now living on the empty house near the forest.

Simple as that.

Hook would have accompanied her but he was already busy investigating the disappearance of some people around town, and drinking rum, and the magical part was kinda her side of the job.

No one had said anything as the witch had not bothered them and she had not been seen since. Emma had thought it was probably just Grumpy's imagination but when she went to talk with Gold and Regina they both confirmed that there had been a shift in the town's energy and barrier. They were still investigating it but as none of them thought of talking to the dwarf; they had not connected the dots.

"This town is always shifting in magic and such. Most likely a new source has awakened on someone; we just need to find who." Were the words Gold told Emma, before basically telling her to get lost. "However it would be a good idea to check if the place is indeed, still empty." Regina added before Emma left.

Now she was the one who had to go see if there was in fact, a witch living in the previously empty house near the forest.

Emma checked her gun and handcuffs one last time and got out of her bug. She walked towards the porch and knocked on the door twice. No one answered. She stood there for a few seconds before searching for a key under the roof. She found none.

"Oh come on! This place has always been empty and it probably still is. Grumpy just needs to keep it down with his fucking drinks."

She then tried climbing a window but found none of them could be opened. "Weird." She muttered under her breath. Out of ideas Emma grabbed a rock and threw it at the window expecting it to break. Instead the rock returned and hit her at the face. "Ouch!" She yelled while grabbing her suddenly reddening cheek. "Something's definitely off here, maybe drunken Grumpy was right."

Emma took her gun out of its holster and took a deep breath before entering the forest. Whoever lived there was evidently not at home, and since they had not been in around in town there was only one place where they could be. The forest.

She couldn't have walked more than a few minutes when she saw it. A man, on the floor, surrounded by blood; his blood. She didn't need to take his pulse to know he was already gone. His face frozen in a mask of pure terror, his throat ripped apart and what looked like bites all over his arms. She recognized him as one of the missing people.

It was gore all over and Emma felt her stomach turning against her, the burrito she had had for lunch trying to find its way to her throat. She swallowed bile and approached the corpse while covering her nose. No human had done that, there was no way. Maybe Ruby? But full moon hadn't been on lately and this corpse still looked fresh.

Whoever this witch was, Emma made a fist, she owed her a hell of a big explanation. That is if she didn't put a bullet through her skull first.

Emma pulled out her phone to call Regina and Hook about what she had found, when none of them answered she texted them to get there asap. Rather than waiting for backup, the sheriff decided to keep looking for this new threat herself and walked some more into the forest.

She hadn't gone far from the crime scene when the forest started to change, she could feel the energy of magic tricking down her armpits, making her feel a lil bit drowsy. Emma heard a voice, first as a whisper and then as a loud scream, saying words in a language she did not understand. The owner of said voice was a petite redhead, who kept chanting around a small bonfire with blue fire, it did not go unnoticed by Emma that said woman was very much naked, her red hair covered her boobs and trickled down her back in a mess of curls, sweat covered her body after being near the fire and working on her magic for long hours. However Emma did not that and what she did know did not stop her from raising her gun and barging into where she was.

"Hey! Lady stop right where you are!" Emma Swan yelled at the unknown redhead while pointing a gun at her head.

The woman in question turned around and looked up at Emma through her lashes with fake innocence. "Me?" She asked while raising her hands with pretend fear. "Yeah you! I have never seen you around and you appear just when these murders have started, I just found the body and also I saw you." the blonde stated firmly walking closer to the short redhead.

"Then I guess there's no point in pretending, aye? Though I have no idea about what corpse you go babbling about" The redhead smirked abandoning all pretenses of innocence. "Put that thing down before you hurt yourself, will you?" She said through a thick Scottish accent.

"What are you?" Emma asked ignoring her request.

"Just a witch dear." Said her playing again with the innocent tone.

"Give me a name"

Rowena tilted her head slightly to the side. "You said you saw me. Well I say I heard you."

"What?" Emma asked with confusion. She felt power radiating from the other woman and she distrusted her completely. "Don't change the subject. Did you kill him?"

"You are just such a cry baby, aren't you?" The witch said thoughtfully, ignoring the question. "I mean, while you were fighting with that other woman, the black haired one. Fight like married couples don't yah? I met some guys who used to fight like that, such a codependency problem they had…"

"Hey! Lady this is not what this is about." Emma interrupted her. "I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take you in."

"And also have the manners of a Neanderthal, so very rude of you." She said taking offense and carrying a hand to her chest. "Someone ought to teach you some manners, cry baby."

Emma took of some cuffs and tried to put them on the witch, she simply raised a hand and Emma was frozen to the ground. "I just love what this place does to magic, don't you? It is in its very essence." She smiled and circled Emma who was now petrified and starting to get scared.

"Hmmm, what to do with you? Cry baby." She stood there thinking for about five seconds when a brilliant idea came to her mind. "Oh I know just the thing, dear. This time they'll have to raise you right."

Emma stared at her with wide open eyes, she tried to move her mouth to fight back, yell, call for someone, anything, but she couldn't.

The witch raised her hand with a funny smile. "age, quod ut mens tua" She yelled at Emma, who found herself surrounded by a white light. "You said you wanted a name dear, well listen now. It's Rowena Macleod, former grand coven witch, now mega coven leader and mother of the king of hell. And if you wonder why I tell you this, well dear" She let out a shrill laugh. "You won't be able to tell a soul."

When the light was gone, where Emma Swan had stood a one year old baby laid down in clothes far too big for her. "And the best part." Rowena bent down to her level. "You get to keep your mind." She whispered to her ear with a smile on her voice. "Have fun growing up."

With those words the witch walked away until she arrived to her house. She poured herself some scotch and sighed, so much for laying low and relaxing. She knew those seven days of paradise could not last for long.

She knew she shouldn't have turned the sheriff into a baby, but she was so bloody annoying! The way she was pointing her useless gun at her! A normal bullet might not have killed her but those still hurt. She couldn't help it, blondie was asking for it. Besides it was most likely a service to the community, she was a bampot as a sheriff.

Now there was no way she could go unnoticed around town now. Not with these new deaths blondie had talked about and now the sheriff being an infant.

And then an idea came to her mind. She could say someone else did it. These people, there were all already enemies but she was new. They didn't know her, her motivations, her history. Rowena smirked; she would play them like a fiddle. Say one of the people they hold in great distrust did it. Turn them all against each other. She would have to make a big story but it wouldn't be the first time she lied and manipulated her way into what she wanted, it was merely a survival technique. And this time she wasn't hurting anyone, she thought of the baby on the woods, technically.

Step one, was getting Emma to her parents.