Thanks again for all the kind words! I meant to put this up last week but I kept re-writing parts of it and being indecisive. My apologies once again.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine, especially the Tolkien bits.

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Lily dreamt of a dragon in a far away forest.

It looked like a dragon at first anyway. But the longer Lily looked at it the more the dragon turned into a man; a scaly man with all the presence of a dragon and a voice that chirped and taunted, sending her skin to crawling.

"The darkness bows to no one, dearie. So let it play," It cackled, the sound like insects crawling under Lily's skin.

Lily felt a steady pulse of warmth try to grow inside her, felt it radiate outward from her chest to her hands where it tickled pleasantly. But the warmth was soon replaced with an uncontrollable frozen burning along her skin, and everywhere the icy flames danced along her body they left a scorched trail in their wake that was painful beyond compare. Lily couldn't control it, couldn't stop the magical flames that were all at once too hot and too cold from consuming her limbs and was forced to shoot them into the air to try and dispel them. The act left her panting, weakened, and disoriented.

"That's not the way you do it," The dragon-man teased.

"Well then tell me how to do it or shut up!" Lily cried out in frustration. But it wasn't Lily speaking, was it? It didn't sound like Lily, but she could feel her mouth forming the words as they fell off her tongue so she must have been talking. And it wasn't her frustration either, but she could feel the frustration and anger towards the dragon-man even though a part of her knew those weren't her feelings.

So whose were they?

All around her was an unfamiliar forest surrounding an even less familiar clearing, filled with a heavy fog and a heavier chill in the air. It was almost like the cold that surrounded Lily, but the feelings imbibed in it were more ancient and powerful, almost oppressive.

"Another barrier, if you please dearie. Wouldn't want any prying eyes now," The man said, his reptilian eyes locking with hers intently, seeing through her and beyond. A wave of confusion, not her own, passed through her quickly followed by a wave of fear that Lily knew was of her own making.

All too soon Lily felt a tremor of something cold and sharp race through her limbs and she was pushed aside, kicked out of whatever forest the dream was taking place in until she landed in a dark void marked by infrequent chirps and a rhythmic and accented tenor whose words she could only just make out.

"He did not wake… but went still on an' on, till…. away. He was altogether alone. Soon he thought…"

"Chirp, chirp."

"…and grew, till there was no doubt about it. It was a red light steadily getting redder… Wisps of vapor floated up an' past 'im and he began to sweat…"

"Chirp, chirp."

Were those actually chirps? Or was that beeping? She wasn't sure, but whatever it was, it made her headache ten times worse by bouncing around like a pinball inside her brain, every hit against her skull erasing some part of the earlier dream.

"It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Goin' on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that 'appened afterward were as nothin' compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, 'fore he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait."

The lilting accent became clearer as Lily's headache grew worse and sensation slowly came to her. There was the hard bed underneath her and the flimsy blanket over her, which did nothing to keep the cool air from chilling her. The distant chirping quickened briefly before settling again and Lily felt weight return to her limbs, the feeling pulling her more fully to awareness.

She thought she heard a rustling somewhere to her side. "Oi, quit your squirming lad, or we'll never get back to Smaug."

"Smaug! Smaug!" A child's excited voice filled the air. Lily wasn't sure, but she thought she might have recognized the pair of voices.

"Hush up already. Where was I? Ah. At any rate after a short halt go on he did; and you can picture him coming to the end of the tunnel, an opening of much the same size and shape as the door above. Through it peeps the hobbit's little head. Before him lies the great bottommost cellar or dungeon-hall of the ancient dwarves right at the mountain's root. It is almost dark so that its vastness can only be dimly guessed, but rising from the near side of the rocky floor there is a great glow. The glow of Smaug!"

"Smaug!"

"I know lad, we're back to the dragon. It only took us another three re-readings. Get's better every time, don't it?"

"No Scawlett, Smaug!"

"What're you… Oh, oh! Lass! You're up!"

Lily groaned achingly and felt a tug on the covers of the cot that served as a bed. "Wha… Where…?"

"Easy does it lass. Oi, nurse! Grab the Franken-doc, Lily's up and at it!"

Her eyes fluttered uselessly, opening quickly only to shut again when the harsh daylight from the nearby window blinded her. She tilted her head in the opposite direction to escape the rays, and dared to open her eyes one more time, only to be met with the sight of Will Scarlett and a very excited and wide-eyed Roland Locksley next to her cot.

The flicker in her heart warmed at the sight of them and Lily only half-heartedly tried to temper it. To say Lily was surprised to see the pair of them would have been an understatement. Sure, she wasn't expecting to wake up in a hospital, but she definitely wasn't expecting to wake up to people in the room with her. Not people who didn't want her dead, anyway. Will and Roland couldn't actually be there just to see her, could they?

"Y'know, when Roland an' I mentioned coming for a visit I thought we made it clear you were s'pposed to come to camp, not make us trudge all the way into town. D'you have any idea the pains his papa and I went to just to get the little hobbit to wear shoes for once?" Will's tone was annoyed but the upward quirk of his mouth said he was only teasing.

"Um…"

Before Lily could respond Will was already barreling forward, shrugging his shoulders in nonchalance. "Then again, there's free food here, an' I'm always a fan o' that, so it's really no loss."

"The wiggly," Roland added, nodding his head sagely where it peeked out at eye level with the bed.

Will shot him a look. "That's right, the wiggly jell-o cups. People are just given' 'em to ya left and right. You'll have a stomach ache soon enough. I mean, you've 'ad how many now? Five?"

"Four." Roland scowled. The kid looked so put out as he said it that Lily couldn't help the growing flicker of warmth that inched through her at his childish antics, although she did manage to stop the smile that threatened to break out on her face.

But Will didn't stop his smile. He let his grin have free reign over his face. "Ah, right. The pirate git took one, didn't he? Now I'm not excusin' him, but I don't think he and Henry knew you were aiming for a fifth when you still had a fourth in your hands, lad."

Pirate… Jones had been by? Henry too? Why would they have come by? Their last encounters had been unfriendly at best, and nearly hostile at worst.

"My wiggly…" Roland interrupted.

Will rolled his eyes. "Well maybe if you ask that puppet man real nice he'll give you another one? He's already getting his papa to make you one o' them rocking horses, yeah?"

It took her a moment to register that the sudden intake of breath that echoed through the room was from her. Puppet man. That had to be August. Will's nonchalance almost made her miss the nickname but there was no doubt in her mind that it was August. A chill went through Lily as she remembered her lying ex was in town too and the circumstances of her finding him again. Another chill left her frozen stiff as she realized the implications of what Will was saying. August had been in the hospital. He'd been around to see her at what was probably her most vulnerable. She let out a shaky breath at the thought.

"Y'alright lass?"

"Fine," Lily insisted, turning her head toward the sunny window. Unfortunately, the change in view was a mistake, because sitting in a vase on the small table next to her cot, was a small arrangement of four calla lilies, two purple and two white, with a card labeled 'For Lily' placed neatly among the surrounding greenery. She swore her heart stopped at the sight, but the continuous, if not increased, background chirping of the heart monitors told her that the opposite was actually true.

He really had come by. The flowers could only have been from him, four lilies for Lily, half purple and half white. Just like back then…

What the flying fuck was she supposed to do with flowers from a man she didn't think she wanted to ever see again?

"Oi, Franken-doc, there y'are!" Lily was pulled from her darkening musings by Will calling out the arrival of a man with sandy blonde hair and a white lab coat. The man took one step into the room and sighed in exasperation at the sight of Will Scarlett.

"For the last time, my name's Victor Whale here. Not Franken-doc or Frankenstein." Another chill went through Lily then. Dr. Frankenstein was a practicing doctor in Storybrooke? He was real too? How the hell weren't there more zombies running around? Lily was doomed, she was sure of it. "Now let's have a look at Miss Page. How are you feeling right now?"

"Um…" Lily shifted uncomfortably. "Tired, I guess?"

"Tired how? Are you sleepy, a little drained? Is your head cloudy at all?"

"I dunno, yes? No? Maybe?"

The doctor took a small flashlight and asked her to look at it briefly. He shined the light at each of her eyes, watching her reaction carefully. He pulled back, replacing the flashlight in his coat pocket and picked up the chart at the end of the cot. He flipped between two or three pieces of paper for several moments, studying them too hard to actually be studying them. "Pupil dilation is still normal, and our earlier tests all showed normal brain activity, so it's safe to say there's still no head injury. I will suggest taking it easy though. There'll probably be a headache for at least another day or two and it's not like you and Maleficent got away clean here."

The mention of her mother's name sent a jolt of guilt through Lily. "Wait, but Mal…"

"She's fine," Dr. Frankenstein reassured her with a dismissive wave of his hand. "She has a very minor concussion but she'll be fine. We kept her overnight the first night just to be safe but she was discharged the day before yesterday. She was here visiting this morning but got called away for something. She'll probably be back soon."

"The day before… How long have I been here?"

The doctor was in business mode, or at least trying to be. He kept his eyes and hands busily glued to the chart at the end of Lily's cot, pretending to be very interested in what was written there. "This is your third day. You would have probably woken up yesterday but some of your symptoms were… We kept you sedated to allow you to recover better."

Lily narrowed her eyes at the doctor. She didn't trust doctors in the first place, they were arrogant assholes who thought they were better than everyone because they went to school a little longer, but the man's gothic literary background definitely wasn't doing him any favors in Lily's mind, and neither were his cryptic words or the way he talked about Lily without talking to her. "What about my symptoms?" She demanded.

The doctor shifted on his feet, the gesture less nervous and more annoyed. "I swear things were easier under the curse. I never had to think about magic getting in the way of medicine," He said under his breath.

"Magic? She's really here because of magic?" Will interrupted, trying to simultaneously listen in on the conversation and keep Roland from crawling under and around the cot in boredom.

Dr. Frankenstein sighed heavily and looked up at them, as if the very act of having to explain everything was an annoyance and they were all idiots for not understanding it right away. Lily's eyes narrowed at the man and she felt her teeth and lips pressing together tightly. She really hated doctors. "She's here because she essentially went into magical debt and it knocked her out cold. Whatever she's been doing the past week has pushed her energy reserves past their limits and put a huge strain on her body."

"But I haven't done anything," Lily said, adamant. "It's not like I go and run a marathon every morning."

"You turned into a dragon the other day, lass," Will reminded her. "I'm no expert, but I'm told that requires an awful lot of magic."

Lily shot him a narrowed and half-hearted glare. "Fine, but that doesn't explain my being out of commission for two days earlier this week."

"Wait, say that again. What do you mean out of commission?" Frankenstein interrupted.

The weight of his overly inquisitive stare, now so much more involved than his previous detachment, was over bearing and uncomfortable. Lily rubbed her fingers between the sheets as she cursed herself for her admission of weakness.

"I mean…" She shifted awkwardly. "The day I went out with Mal was the first time I'd left my room in two days."

The doctor narrowed his eyes in thought. "Because you didn't want to leave or…"

"Because I was passed out for two days, alright?" Lily spat out. She folded her arms across her chest as best as she could with the IV in place, defensive and curled inward.

Will looked at her with what she thought was supposed to be sympathy but felt more like pity, while the doctor didn't seem to acknowledge her frustration and discomfort at all. Neither was particularly helpful, nor was the sight of Roland poking at August's vase of lilies on the table next to her.

"What happened earlier that day, maybe something emotionally or mentally straining? Have you been eating enough lately? Sleeping poorly? Something had to happen to make you expend all that magic," The doctor said.

'I had another nightmare, transformed in my sleep, found out that my lying ex is actually a fairytale character in town, and that he's supposedly incapable of lying,' She wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. Lily didn't want them knowing she was weaker than they already thought she was, and admitting that running into her ex had essentially knocked her off her feet for several days was just that sort of admission.

The doctor seemed to finally catch on to her hesitation and rubbed his fingers on the bridge of his nose. "Look, you don't wanna tell me, that's fine. Magic really isn't my field anyway. I can say what happened physically and I've already told you the essentials about your magical debt, but you're gonna have to talk to some higher magical authorities about this so we can get to the root of the problem."

"Like who?" Lily demanded.

The doctor shrugged. "Regina should be by soon with Robin, Zelena's check up is probably almost done."

"No." Lily's response was firm and her hands curled tightly into fists. "Not her."

Will actually snorted in amusement and the doctor shot him a dirty look before turning back to Lily in annoyance. "Well what do you want from me? I don't exactly have Maleficent on speed dial. I have Regina's number from our records and she's already in the building anyway."

"I'm not getting near her again," Lily insisted.

Will tried to reason with the doctor for Lily. "Can you really blame her doc, or anyone for that matter? Her majesty has bad blood with most o' the town. It's just that Lily's cause is a bit more recent. Oi! Roland, don't poke the flowers!" He dashed around the doctor and the bed, pulling Roland back from the table before he could knock the flowers and vase over in his curiosity.

Roland seemed oblivious to the dangers of falling plants in hard vases and simply looked up at Will in question. "Whose A.W.B?"

Jesus fucking Christ, August was still signing things with all his initials? Who the hell did that?

"Yes, do tell us Miss Page, who is A.W.B, and why has he sent you such lovely flowers?" A cool and calculating woman's voice joined the room, sending shivers down Lily's spine and sending her shoulders up to her ears. The temperature in the room dropped with her words, but Lily was sure that she was the only one who felt it.

"Papa! 'Gina!" Roland scrambled to the door where Robin Hood and the Evil Queen had just walked in. He slammed into them, grabbing hold of one leg in each arm and hugging them tightly. "Is baby ok?" He asked, voice full of childish concern and worry.

Robin chuckled lightly at his son's apparent distress, brushing his head in comfort. "The baby's fine Roland. Nothing amiss. Just a regular check up."

The scene left Lily's stomach rolling in discomfort and her feelings a complete mess. It wasn't jealousy or confusion that she felt then; the adoring look on the father's face was expected, if not a little sickeningly sweet, but the queen's face left her dumbfounded. Lily couldn't picture the Evil Queen as anything but, well, evil. So the warmth and awe in her gaze as she looked at Roland still clutching her leg turned Lily's mental image on its head.

Roland stared up at the pair with wide, pleading eyes. "Can we get ice cweam later?"

"Oi! No! Roland, you've 'ad four jell-o cups today. You're not gettin' ice cream too," Will said, trying to maintain a semblance of authority.

The queen leveled him with a stare and a raised brow, her voice steely and deceptively calm. "You let him have four jell-o cups?"

"I didn't let 'im- It were them nurses! And the puppet! You know how they get 'round the hobbit's big eyes? Can't say no to 'em," Will tried to defend himself, but under the continued scrutiny he paled slightly, shrinking back. "I'll just, uh, I better get going…" He started to slink from the room and made it to the door, Robin Hood and the queen's eyes on him the entire time, before he turned around quickly and called back to Lily. "Lass, the offer still stands. Drop by anytime. And maybe bring some o' that hot chocolate from Granny's. The lad's almost as crazy 'bout it as he is 'bout Smaug."

"Not the chocolate, Will…" Robin sighed tiredly, lifting his son up into his arms. But Will Scarlett was already out the door, leaving only an annoyed queen, a tired father, and an over excited child in his wake.

Roland seemed entirely on board with the idea of hot chocolate, and started bouncing and squirming in his father's hold. "Chocolate!" He cried excitedly. "Hot chocolate please! Pwetty please!"

Robin and Regina shared a look and soon the outlaw was moving to collect his son's things from the chair. "I'd best take him. Maybe run him around the park. There'll be no calming him any time soon otherwise. We'll see you for dinner later, yeah?"

"I wouldn't miss it," The queen answered, a bright smile lighting up her face as she reached up to rub his shoulder briefly in affection.

Robin returned her smile and turned to leave the room, arms full with a wriggling kid. "Four jell-o cups?" Robin questioned his son in disbelief.

Roland nodded excitedly before whispering slyly, "I got more in my coat too!"

"How did you manage that anyhow? I'm not certain whether to be cross with my son or impressed with the littlest Merry Man," He said, genuinely awed as they walked out of the room.

With only Lily, the queen, and Dr. Frankenstein left in the room the atmosphere thickened considerably, and this time Lily knew she wasn't the only one to notice the change in the air.

"So, Miss Page," The queen started. "I'm well aware you would rather be anywhere I wasn't, but we'll have to put our differences aside if we're going to figure this out."

"Figure what out? Dr. Frankenstein here says I went into magical debt and I'm gonna have a headache for a few days. I'll just drink some water and eat something and try to sleep. What is there to figure out?"

"For crying out… It's Dr. Whale! Not Franken- And your cuts still need treatment and healing," He insisted.

"Not now Victor," Regina said with a roll of her eyes. "If it were so simple as a headache then you're absolutely right Miss Page, I'd leave you be. But the truth is turning out to be a bit more complicated than that."

Well that was never a good sign. "The hell are you talking about? What's complicated?"

"I visited with Miss Lucas yesterday, and the circumstances of her transformation are, quite frankly, unsettling."

The doctor's head snapped to the queen. "You never said 'unsettling' before Regina. You said odd and out of character," He accused, eyes suddenly more passionate and caring than Lily had thought him capable of.

Lily narrowed her eyes. "Lucas… You mean Ruby? So she really is a…"

"Yes, Ruby the lone she-wolf. Thankfully we don't have an entire pack in our woods," The queen answered before turning to face the doctor. "And after some consideration I've amended my earlier statement about her condition. Lily was actively trying to transform, but the full moon isn't for another two days and Ruby somehow lost control and transformed during the daytime with no memory or cause to do so. Just try and tell me that's not unsettling to you."

"So you're saying anyone who can transform lost control at the same time as me and Ruby?" Lily thought out loud.

The doctor shifted his feet again and tried to defend his friend. "But if it was just about people's magic going haywire and losing control than wouldn't Maleficent have transformed too?"

The queen shook her head at them both. "Not a chance. It's a matter of control and experience. Mal had decades to train and learn to control her dragon's instincts, not to mention she started that training at a young age. A little extra darkness in the air isn't going to be enough to set her off, even when that darkness spikes for no apparent reason…"

Lily dropped her eyes to where her hands were fisted in the blankets, remembering the anger and horror in Maleficent's eyes as she recalled the circumstances of her own early training, circumstances that, she claimed, she would never wish on her worst enemies. If things were that dark when Maleficent was learning to control her dragon and magic, then of course she'd be able to control it when times were better.

Lily shivered a little at the realization that she had just admitted the Evil Queen was right.

"Ruby's not a novice with her wolf. She's got control now, even if she didn't learn till later," The doctor defended.

"Be realistic Victor, Miss Lucas' control over her wolf will always be tenuous and shaky. You're right, she has grown in leaps and bounds since accepting its presence, but she didn't even know it existed until adulthood. By that time she was so accustomed to repressing it both mentally and with that damned red cloak of hers that her control will likely never be as good as if she learned at an earlier age. Combine that with the frankly blatant shift in magic in Storybrooke toward darkness since Emma was taken and it's almost a miracle this didn't happen sooner."

The doctor looked hurt for his friend at the queen's words, but he seemed to realize something as he glanced between Lily and the queen. "Regina, are you saying…?"

"She's saying Ruby will never control her wolf just like I'll never control myself in dragon form. Maleficent said basically the same thing," Lily stated quietly, resigned to her continued failure. "I'm a danger to myself and everyone else."

But the queen shook her head again. "I never said that much. I'm saying that the magic in this town has shifted and two days ago it spiked. Anyone properly trained in magic would have felt it, but you and Miss Lucas were simply the most unwittingly susceptible to it. Now, you may never be able to play a game of chess while in dragon form but you'll certainly be able to focus yourself enough not to stomp on anyone. Current circumstances aside Ruby has learned to do so, and you can too. The incident from the other day was not entirely your fault."

"But I'm still to blame. It's my fault Maleficent got hurt and if Ruby hadn't been there I probably would've gone stomping off to destroy something."

The queen threw her hands up in exasperation as she shared a look with the doctor, who only shrugged helplessly. Her face scrunched in annoyance at his unwillingness to comment. "I'm not here to assign blame, Miss Page. I told you before that I'm here to figure out what happened and how we can stop it from happening again. Given what we know I have a few theories but I'm not sure you'll be too fond of them…"

"What the flying fuck does that mean?" Lily's senses were suddenly on high alert, awareness dancing on her skin as anger blinded her momentarily. If the Evil Queen was admitting Lily wouldn't like something then Lily wanted nothing to do with it.

"Language, Lily," Maleficent's hardened voice cut through the rising tension, pulling the attention of everyone in the room to her as if she'd tied all their heads on strings and tugged. The sight of her mother in the doorway, sunglasses uncharacteristically perched on her nose, suddenly had Lily feeling more at ease and entirely guilty at once, and the only thought that really crossed her mind in that moment was, 'fuck.'

"Mal, nice of you to join us," The queen deadpanned. "I called you almost an hour ago, where have you been?"

"Taking care of a personal matter. Not that it's any concern of yours Regina," Maleficent answered smoothly. Her shielded eyes locked on her daughter as she spoke and it made Lily just a little uncomfortable. She got the impression that the personal matter had everything to do with her and she didn't like the idea.

"Wait, you have a phone?" Lily realized, the question going unanswered.

"Regina, if this is going to be just about magic do you even need me here still? I have other patients," The doctor tried to interject.

"Other patients? You mean the wolf," The queen said definitively. Whatever snarky comeback Dr. Frankenstein had in mind, he bit it back against thinned lips and took a visibly steadying breathe through his nose. "Go ahead, see to Miss Lucas. We can take things from here," The queen dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

The doctor seemed glad for the chance to leave the room, but scowled at the queen's flippant attitude. He turned back to Lily, business mode back in place. "Lily, you are going to be staying here one more night for observation and we'll discharge you in the morning if everything still looks good. If this really is the second time this week you've been bed-ridden for more than 48 hours then I'm not taking chances. A nurse will be by later with some dinner for you." He turned and quickly left the room, watched closely by the queen's curious and narrowed stare.

"The second time this week, Miss Page? How curious," The queen asked, her question more like an accusation as her eyes remained glued to the door Dr. Frankenstein had walked through.

Maleficent's head whipped around to Lily, motherly concern etched on her features, and Lily suddenly felt trapped between a rock and a hard place, more willing to face the Evil Queen's harshness than her mother's worry.

"So what? Maybe I had a stomach bug or something from that shitty diner food," She tried to say.

"Granny's may not be fine dining but it's usually perfectly edible," The queen replied. "And besides, I'm rather curious about what could have left you hung up for that long that wasn't a botched solo attempt at dragon transformation. I'm assuming, of course, that wasn't the case because at least someone else in this town would have seen you?"

"No, it wasn't," Lily admitted; remembering the sound of August's voice in the woods, still a rich timbre that did nothing to settle her heart, even after more than ten years.

A faint rattling caught her attention and she turned her head to see the vase of flowers trembling on the table. The queen reached a hand out and grabbed the vase, stopping the shaking instantly. "My apologies, I must have bumped the table," She said, sickly smile not meeting her eyes. "Perhaps the day wasn't physically exhausting, but would you say that particular day was emotionally or mentally trying for you at all?"

Lily didn't answer, only narrowed her eyes curiously at the woman. It was bad enough the doctor and Will and Roland had started to hear about the aftermath of her 'trying' day, but now the queen wanted to know too. Lily's silence seemed to be all the answer the queen needed though because she pursed her lips in an infuriating look of consideration and understanding that pissed Lily off.

"Regina, would you care to explain?" Maleficent demanded, just as impatient as her daughter.

The queen snorted in superiority. "She doesn't even realize what she's doing, Mal. It's just like with Emma, a complete waste of untapped potential and she has no control over it. She's let it build to the point where the slightest thing could probably set her off."

Maleficent scowled. "I'm teaching her to control it-"

"And you're doing a splendid job, really, just splendid," The queen replied, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. "But the point is that she has no control over her magic or her emotions and she's been throwing off magic unconsciously in heaps and waves since Emma's disappearance, probably even before than too. It's no wonder she's so exhausted."

"You're making it sound as if she's fighting the world on a daily basis," Maleficent pointed out in disbelief.

"Maybe she is, and maybe the world is fighting back."

Lily couldn't help but agree with that assessment, even if her mother didn't quite believe it. If she thought about it she really was fighting an uphill battle all of the time, against the world, the darkness, even herself. She was constantly fighting and being pulled in different directions. She fought to fit in, but she also fought to be left alone. She fought the darkness that lived inside her, but she couldn't fight it when it was the one thing that probably knew her best.

"Well whatever she's fighting is fighting back just as much, but it's certainly not the world doing it," Maleficent continued.

"Oh, so you do see it? And here I thought you were just going to take Lily and hide in your castle again, play mommy and me and shut out the world," The queen retorted, ignoring Maleficent's answering scowl.

"Just because your little blood tracking spell didn't work to find Emma Swan doesn't mean you can come in and play magical overlord with my daughter to make yourself feel better. She's not one of your helpless subjects."

"Will you two shut up for one second? And stop talking about me like I'm not here! I'm not some useless bystander," Lily interrupted. "Look, Mal, her evil majesty isn't totally wrong, I'm always fighting, and I'm always losing too. I'm pure darkness and I've been fighting that darkness all my life. It's like fighting myself and not myself at the same time. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Maleficent's hand reached for hers, fingers running over the clenched knuckles until she loosened her death grip on the sheets. "Lily…"

Lily shook her head. "It's only gotten worse since I got to Storybrooke and even worse since Emma disappeared."

She couldn't see her mother's eyes behind the sunglasses, but could see the scrunched forehead that told her the woman was narrowing her eyes in thought. "Since Emma disappeared…"

"Mal?"

Maleficent's hand continued to rub along Lily's knuckles in a calming gesture that Lily knew was more for Maleficent than her. "Perhaps you're right, Regina. She is fighting. She's been fighting herself and something powerful if not equally as strong as her all her life, because that's how long her heart has been made to be purely dark."

The queen's confusion lasted only a moment and then her jaw was dropping in understanding. "Of course," She breathed. "A connection…"

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Maleficent urged. "Equal and opposite parts of each other, connected but opposed. They've always been connected and fighting."

Lily's attention turned between the two, her frustration growing at their ignorance of her. "What did I just say about talking over my head? And what are you even talking about?"

"I think we've established you're unschooled in magic Miss Page. Why not let the grown ups talk?" The queen remarked.

"Maybe I know more than you think," Lily shot back, the queen's eyes narrowing at her.

"You and Emma and have always been connected, ever since Snow and Charming hurt you and took you from me," Maleficent started, interrupting the staring contest.

"We're just starting to understand the depth of that connection," The queen added. "Isaac was able to use your blood in place of Emma's for his twisted story, and according to my son and my own knowledge you and Emma have lived within a matter of miles of each other your entire lives. And when one of you moved, the other unknowingly followed."

Lily started to clench her fists again but was soothed by Maleficent's continued presence. "And that's not even including the most important part of that connection," Her mother said. "Half of you is inside Emma, just as half of Emma is inside you. Pure light and pure dark, equal and opposite parts of each other."

The gears were starting to turn in Lily's head, thoughts and ideas lining up in a coherent sequence as she put together what the two women were trying to say. "You wanna use me to find Emma."

"Blood finds blood, but for some reason neither Henry's blood nor that of Emma's parents was able to find her with my tracking spell," The queen admitted. "You and your connection to the Savior might be our last chance, Miss Page."

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Roland can't have lived with the Merry Men for his 5(+28?) years of life and not learned a thing or two about being sneaky and a good thief, hence the over indulgence and accumulation of jell-o cups. That, and he's a kid who probably likes sweets.

Read and review as always! Your words are fuel for the muses!