Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.


CHAPTER SEVEN

DARKNESS AND LIGHT

Whatever Emma had been expecting when she saw Lily again, it wasn't the listless woman laying in a hospital style bed hooked up to IVs and with some strange skin affliction that reminded of that stuff on Game of Thrones.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Henry.

"As near as Rumple and Dr. Whale could tell, it's a sort of combination of magic and auto-immune disorder," answered Maleficent. "Lily showed me pictures of herself when she was younger and she obviously lost her skin pigmentation. They think that was the early stages and the disease accelerated when she first took dragon form. We'd hoped leaving Storybrooke with it's more active magic would slow the progression. We even searched through The Dragon's stock of potions brewed mixing the magic of both worlds. It helped for a few months, but the disease eventually overcame it."

"What exactly is 'your kind'?" Emma asked, never entirely clear on that.

"I was a fairy originally, as you know," answered Maleficent. "Ruel Ghorm exiled me for seeking to learn non-fairy magic and fraternizing with humans and other sentient species to learn their magic. Self-transfiguration was the magic that came most easily to me. Fairies can change their size, of course, reveal and hide their wings. We're shapeshifters by the nature of our magic, but restricted in how we express that since the Fey left our realm and returned to the lands of the gods. To tap into such Fey magic, to make the bonds our progenitors did is considered blasphemous. And so for using blood magic to bond with a dragon, thus acquiring dragon form, I was exiled. Unlike others, Tinkerbell for instance, I was too powerful for stripping my wings to take away my magic. My watered-down fairy magic, perhaps, but dragons are as ancient as the Blue Fairy, and in time I learned to control that transformation and learn others, but it was my first love, if you will, and my preferred form"

"And that's why you laid an egg as a dragon with a human baby in it?" Henry assumed.

Maleficent shook her head. "Lily was a dragonling. It was the spell that old geezer cast that forced her to take human form before she was ready, before she had hatched. And that may be where this all began. Her body is rejecting the human form but can't sustain the dragon one."

"Because she has too much darkness choking her light," said Emma.

"Perhaps."

"Why didn't you tell anyone? My parents?" Emma asked, confused. "Surely they would have agreed to do anything they could to help."

Maleficent scoffed. "Would they? Regina helped us acquire Cruella's estate after her death saw it given to Rumplestiltskin because she knew you and your parents would object to anything that would risk reducing your savior powers, even with unsavory side-effects, given how Storybrooke was under perpetual threats. I think she probably agreed, but she also felt guilty for having trapped me for all those years in dragon form."

"You never seemed to hold it against her," Emma considered. "Or me for trying to kill you, taking away your dragon form. Or trying to shoot Lily in the head, even if that was my sister. I expected you'd burn Storybrooke to the ground, not go out for coffee."

Maleficent smiled at that. "Oh, on principle it was a horrid thing what Regina did, but in practice... I kept my sanity far better that way than I think any one else in your little town of dual-identity do-gooders. I was able to... meditate in ways I hadn't tried since I was incubating my daughter, and went deeper still to an understanding I suspect few shapeshafters have of their transformation. I will never truly understanding being a dragon, of course, but I came to understand patience and acceptance of fate, however unfair it may be, that all things pass, even ancient things, to give way to newer things that one day themselves might grow ancient and replaced."

"That sounds very... Zen," said Emma.

"I suppose I also read a bit too much of The Dragon's philosophical rantings while looking for a cure," Maleficent conceded. "It's rather a pity I only briefly crossed paths with him in The Enchanted Forest. I probably could have learned a great deal from that old shapeshifter. He has quite the treaties on the consequences of taking on another's magic, for better or worse. In my youthful arrogance none of it occurred to me, the possibility that my thirst for knowledge and magic, to feel one with an ancient life form so different from my sisters, might cost my daughter her life."

"You can't just purge the dragon magic from her?" asked Henry.

"I would have to return it to the dragon I took it from, which is sadly impossible because your grandfather killed him his first day playing prince."

"Oh," winced Henry and Emma grimaced too.

Maleficent sighed and lamented, "Humans see dragons as a threat because they seek to conquer everything, but it's humans who have destroyed their nesting grounds, who have marginalized them, who have hunted them for the sport of taking their heads and hearts as trophies.

"Ruel Ghorm may have objected to the spell I undertook, but the dragon willingly shared his heart-string - which essentially makes him Lily's father in as much as fairies can have a male progenitor as I split that to create her."

"Wait... so... you just... decided to get pregnant, turned into a dragon, and made yourself a baby?" Emma uttered.

"It wasn't a 'decision'," Maleficent corrected. "Magic and the breeding cycle of dragons compelled it. It was not something I expected to happen, but it changed me, those months in dragon form, protecting my child. I changed from the embittered woman rejected by her birth family, vilified by her adoptive one, and gained hope of changing things for her, for us. It felt like magic had given me a gift, finally had shown that I wasn't eternally damned for having left the Sisterhood, for trying to make my own way. Perhaps that was just the hormones given the ultimate end, as there was a price in the end," she concluded, tucking a lock of Lily's limp hair behind her scaly, pointy ear.

"Or maybe things just got screwed up," Emma stated, emphatic. "How can it be wrong if that dragon wanted to share his heart with you? I mean, okay, I don't get the inter-species love thing given my bad experience with a flying monkey, but if some thousand year old magical lizard decides a fallen fairy is his soulmate, then neither of you should get punished for it. I'm sorry my father got duped into that mess by King George and King Midas. I'm sure if he knew that was a good dragon who was a friend of humans - or if the dragon knew he wasn't really a genocide maniac prince, it could have ended differently and Lily could have known her father and maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe Henry would have his dad here too," she concluded.

"Your family has indeed cost many people their happy endings while trying to claim their own."

Nodding, Emma conceded, "I know. But I want to try and fix that, if I can. Even if that means I'm not some mystical magical 'Savior' with a capital 'S' anymore. Being a real hero is knowing when to give up your power, right? This is the right thing to do."

"Well then," the sorceress took a breath, "let's give this a try."

"How exactly does this work?" asked Emma, pulling The Apprentice's wand from her jacket pocket.

Shrugging, Maleficent took the wand and said, "Like this, I suppose."


"It's clearly not working. Can we go already?" Zelena whined at the dining room table. "Or at least serve some food!"

Regina sighed at her bitchy sister. "I'll heat up leftovers."

"So..." Snow awkwardly asked the former Wicked Witch, "how is Robin?"

"The ear infection medication seems to be working. It's a relief to pass her off on Granny for a night, though, to be perfectly honest," shrugged Zelena.

"Oh, I know. Neal had one last year. He cried for two days straight. I thought I was going to go insane!"

Hook nudged his beloved and leered, "Makes you want a little bundle of joy of your own, eh?"

The response he got was a cold glare.

"Are you insane? We'd probably end up with two bundles, one of joy, one of evil and that's assuming this," she held up the gypsy charm, "prevented the evil one from murdering the good one inside of me. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with sowing your seed when you've got a bunch of illegitimate great grandkids running around? You think I'll dump you if your hair falls out? Or you think you'll lose all interest in me if I get another wrinkle? Like you wouldn't if I got fat with stretchmarks!"

"I've got nothing against wrinkles or stretchmarks, luv," Hook insisted. "I mean, I never lost interest in Milah and she was older than both of us and had born a child. She was practically ancient, rea-owe!"

David shook his head as his daughter went to join Regina in the kitchen and stated, "Mate, telling your fiancée that you think she's aged well because you have a thing for cougar MILFs is not getting you progeny any time soon."

"I was just trying to reassure her," groaned Hook. "I know she's self-conscious that she's not aged as... gracefully as your wife. She inherited your skin type, poor lass. Really, I suspect it's using too much makeup more recently that's doing it. I might have made some... unfortunate remarks with respect to one of those green mask things once and now she's always plastering make-up on every morning as though she doesn't believe me that I think she's perfectly shaggable with nothing more than eyeliner."

"Your eyeliner fetish is disturbing," scoffed Zelena.

"Eyeliner makes everyone look better," Hook argued, "and blondes have lighter lashes which define the eyes, and no one should demphasize Swan's eyes or her magnificent brows!"

"Can I just say," David spoke up, "that sometimes you sound so gay."

"You really do," Zelena agreed. "Sure you're not bise-"

Suddenly the lights flickered and went out and a wind blew through the dining room and doors slammed.

"I know that wind," shivered Snow just before a silvery mist appeared above them and coalesced into human-ish form in the corner of the room.

Just as Cora was oddly a young woman when her 'ghost' appeared, instead of grown man there stood a young boy of perhaps five or six. If not for the silver leaf pin on his cloak, the very same in the few depiction's of Rumplestiltskin's son in Henry's book, they might not have recognized the child.

"Baelfire?" Hook sputtered. "Is that really you?"

Instead of answering, the spirit lost its form and shot forward, right into Zelena's chest. The witch seized and leached and then lashed out and wrapped her hands around Hook's throat, choking the pirate and growling, "I'm going to kill you again!" until David and Snow could pry "her" off.

"Bloody hell, mate!"

"We're not mates," Not-Zelena said in a weird voice.

Hook countered, "Still mad that I lied about me and Emma shagging in Neverland? That was just to wind you up."

David and Snow glared at Hook who huffed. "What? I was engaged in a contest for your daughter's heart! And that was before I promised to play fair."

"You didn't play fair after that!" Not-Zelena/Neal growled.

"All right, fine," Hook wheezed, "but I didn't send you off to your death after saying I didn't want the peasant loser son of the Dark One to mess up my daughter's fake happiness even though I still expected you to risk your life on all manner of booby traps to help win back the castle of the woman who ruined Emma's life and fraudulently adopted and then gaslit her son from her evil sister and then after said sister murdered you, name my second born after you out of guilt for being a selfish prick while using the opportunity to stand in my own spotlight of do-gooder-dom as everyone cheered me being so thoughtful as to honor your sacrifice that you might not have had to make at all if not for me wanting to throw away my first family and start over fresh without any badly dressed losers mucking it all up by reminding Emma she had parents."

Hook threw a smirking leering glare - which someone was a thing he could do - at Snow and Charming who deflated at that while Zelena's sharp eyes pinned them with an angry and hurt look.

"Yeah, that was pretty shitty of you guys," her possessor agreed.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Snow squeaked out.

"It's insulting," Nealena told them, "and you should both be ashamed. Just like this bitch," he gestured to himself, "should be rotting in prison, not allowed to name her kid after the guy she raped to get pregnant, who got killed because she took her custody battle to The Underworld for an immortal dipshit she took a bike ride with once. You guys have completely fucked up ideas of how romantic love works, which you shoved down Emma's throat and you're doing the same to Henry - which is just one of the many reasons you all suck at parenting!"

"Yeah, Dr. Whale said something about that," shrugged Hook, "but I wasn't really listening. I was too busy worrying about the health of my true love that no matter what you think with your crazy Land Without Magic indoctrinated ways, is completely legit. Just happened to be it was with your true love's identical twin sister who'd been sharing her body for about thirty years."

"Why do you think I was trying to strangle you?" Nealena growled. "Every time I try to do something for Emma's good, we both get completely fucked! But you keep getting fucking free passes!"

"So... you are in The Underworld?" Snow asked.

Blue eyes glared at her again and rolled. "Yeah, obviously. I didn't want Emma to come looking. I didn't want her looking down here for anyone so I told her I was in a good place, but she just wouldn't let go of her infatuation with saving Hook.

"Just the thought of you," his glare turned to Hook, "suffering after trying to murder her entire family and calling her a useless orphan cramping your style and impersonating her son to taunt her was too much for her sister to bare."

"What can I say? Swan sees the good beneath my darkly handsome exterior," shrugged Hook.

"She's mentally unbalanced," sighed David, "and has a sex and alcohol addiction."

"Your point?"

"Neal," Snow prompted, "what happened after you warned Emma.?"

"I got her a message just before you guys arrived. Which was also just before Hades found me and locked me up," sighed Nealena, "where I remained until Hades was killed and Zeus released all of the prisoners he'd kept locked away so as not to interfere with you guys."

Hook snorted. "Thought you were good at lock-picking. Even I got out with one hand, mate!"

"He only put people in that useless dungeon that he wanted to escape, you idiot," groaned Nealena.

"He relocated Megara - not that bright of a girl - to get the lot of you chased by his three headed mutt and 'save' people so you," he said to Hook, "would have to carve names so that he could then erase everyone's names so no one would be suspicious that his rigged 'true love' test was just meant to distract Emma so she couldn't use her savior powers to stop him from fixing that damn crystal and escaping to Storybrooke."

"Huh... that does actually make more sense," Hook conceded. "So... why haven't you moved on? Is it because Hades tossed your mum in the River of Lost Souls? I do feel a bit bad about not even getting to see her."

Nealena rolled his/her eyes. again "No you don't. You replaced your obsession with my mother with your obsession for Emma - or her sister - like the sociopath you are. And, really, you were obsessed with my father in between the both of them. You're a sicko psycho, man. And of all the regrets I have in my life - and death - the biggest one is that instead of moving on, I told Zeus to save your syphilitic ass!"

"Wait," Hook sputtered, "you're the reason I got brought back?"

Neal/Zelena scoffed. "You actually thought it was that you were remotely worthy because you decided at the last second not to murder Emma's entire family after murdering the most powerful wizard in history and getting her to cover it up for you? Like that would make up for all of your murdering and raping and just being a massive douchebag since the moment you developed a drinking problem and got free of your bully of a big brother keeping your inner asshole in check?"

"Erm..."

"Emma loved you," Nealena stated with a sigh. "Or I thought it was her who wanted to split her heart with you. All I've ever wanted was for Emma to find happiness. I screwed that up for her by trusting August. And when I saw the way she looked at you, after Pan recast the Curse, I knew I'd lost my chance. Didn't mean I wouldn't try to see my son again, but Emma seemed to have moved on. So even if I could be sent back, she'd already chosen you."

"But that wasn't Emma," sighed Snow. "That was her sister who has the unhealthy mutual fixation with Hook."

"True love!" Hook interjected.

"Whatever," David groaned. "The point is, Emma still loves you. She misses you."

"You think I don't know that now?" Neal/Zelena sighed and said, "Our love's been a series of tragedies. I just want Emma and Henry to be happy. Tell them that I love them."

"Wait," David interjected, "you haven't moved on. If your mother was your unfinished business-"

But it was too late, the lights were flickering, Zelena seized, and then after one jerking middle finger in Hook's direction, the silvery substance flew out of the Wicked Witch and dissipated like smoke.

Zelena looked at her raised hand and asked, "Is this directed at you or me?"

"Does it matter," muttered Hook, slouching in his chair. "I bloody literally owe Baelfire my life. How am I supposed to pay that back? Damn it!"

"You could start by staying away from Emma and Henry," Snow told him.

Just then the door to the kitchen burst open, the quasi-evil Swan sister demanding, "We heard shouting. Did it work?"


"Did it work?" Emma groaned, sitting up after she was pretty sure she'd passed out when it felt like someone was ripping her heart out and not the magical way while simultaneously crushing the air out of her lungs.

Neither Maleficent nor Henry answered, but they didn't need to. Already the scales were fading from Lily's skin which was, at first, pale, but then darkened. After a moment her eyelids fluttered open and she rasped out, "Mom?"

"Oh, my little girl!" Maleficent cried, enveloping her in a hug.

Lily returned it, confused, then spotted the blonde standing off to the side looking woozy. "Emma?"

"Ah, hey," Emma responded uncertainly. "I had no idea you were sick. No one told me."

"Didn't want to be a bother," Lily told her. "Storybrooke, The Enchanted Forest, whatever, needed you to be The Savior."

"I don't know about 'need'," Emma argued. "It's what they believed they needed because of what that spell made me at your expense, what Rumplestiltskin did with the result, what they wanted so they wouldn't have to try so hard to help themselves. Because of that, people died who didn't have to, people they could have helped if it hadn't all been on me. I'm sorry your life got messed up. I'm sorry my family didn't care. Hopefully, now, we can finally be who we were supposed to be."

"Hold on," blinked Lily, "you mean-"

"We reversed the spell that turned Emma into a savior," Maleficent nodded. "You don't have to struggle against an overwhelming darkness anymore, Lily."

"And maybe I'll stop getting burned by too much light," said Emma.


Next up: Underbrooke has seen some changes.