WARNING/SPOILER: There may or may not be the following in the final two chapters: very large tortoises, major character death, super expensive carpets, unwashed spinach, child death, and/or a really nice dress with an unpatchable hole. No promises, but I thought you should be warned of the possibilities. END OF WARNING/SPOILER. CARRY ON.
"Elsa," Mulan whispered, her ear turning pleasantly cold against the woman's lips.
She heard the queen smile. "You know who I am?"
"I searched for you in Rumplestiltskin's vault, but you were gone. I've been looking for you." She turned to face the queen and lost her breath. She was more beautiful than Maleficent had described.
Elsa smirked. "And why was it you were looking for me?"
"I—" Mulan stared at the woman's taunting lips. "I forget."
Elsa laughed, her smile completely ravishing. "Come closer. Maybe you'll remember."
The queen was cold, inside and out—a trait Mulan thought should have been disturbing but was instead quite refreshing against her fingers. She had also believed that having sex in the middle of the road in a town that tried to burn women like them at the stake should have been too dangerous to even contemplate.
Elsa had giggled at the suggestion that they move somewhere more private. "Who could stop us? Who could I possibly fear here?"
It wasn't bravado. Mulan could feel the power emanating off of the woman, and it shone brighter when she touched her. In fact, Mulan herself felt more powerful with every touch, kiss, and lick from the queen between her legs.
When they'd both felt satisfied enough to stop, Elsa proposed they announce her presence to the town in style.
"Storybrooke isn't worthy of your presence," Mulan murmured. "The townspeople are all horrible. I think the world beyond this line is much better."
"Then let's leave them a parting gift, shall we?" Elsa suggested. She swept a strand of hair out of Mulan's face with her cold hand. "You look like you might need the closure."
The first thing they did was find a good tree.
From the tree, Mulan watched with great pleasure as Elsa rained down shards of ice into the hearts of random townspeople and watched them slowly transform into sculptures of ice.
"Do you want me to spare your friends? Or maybe lodge a big one into the hearts of their lovers?"
Mulan wasn't sure, so Elsa entertained herself by casting a substantial chunk of ice into the heart of a woman Mulan recognized: Belle. Elsa laughed with glee as the newlywed woman became instantly disinterested in Rumplestiltskin.
"Watch," Elsa said with a giggle as the imp frantically surveyed his surroundings. "He knows it's me. But he never learned how to break the spell himself."
Mulan watched in horror as her former friend began transforming into an ice sculpture. She watched Rumplestiltskin cast a number of spells, each one failing to stop the transformation. Finally, he leaned toward Belle, lips puckered.
"Well, what do you know?" Elsa mused. Then she let out a cackle as Rumplestiltskin's kiss had no effect on his lover. "He must be lying to her about something. Shame, I thought he had it."
Belle let out a final declaration of love before her face froze over, her living body gone.
"Nothing anyone can do about it now!" Elsa trilled. "Who's next?"
"I don't know about this," Mulan mumbled, unable to take her eyes off the friend she failed to save. The friend she didn't even try to save. It was one thing to leave the townspeople to their ignorant, miserable way of life, but this was too much.
"Why don't we start with the one who broke your heart?" Elsa suggested.
"Isn't there another way?" Mulan asked, her voice coming out much higher than she'd intended. "Besides married, dead, or evil? Haven't you found another way?"
Elsa looked at her and frowned before breaking into a wide grin. "I'm not looking for another way. I've found the path I want."
"Can't someone like us be a hero, if they really want?"
"Who cares?" Elsa answered, casting jagged pieces of ice into half of the dwarves on the main road, just to see if any of them would risk kissing each other. She clicked her tongue in disdain as the dwarves stood by their dying comrades, saying heartfelt goodbyes instead of trying to save their lives. "Why would you want to be a hero for these people?"
Mulan sighed. "I guess I don't. But I'm not sure I want to kill them, either."
"Come on," Elsa said, her face bright with the prospect of adventure. "Tell me three things about your princess and I'll see if I can guess which one is her prince. No, wait, I'll ask you twenty questions." Elsa watched something over Mulan's shoulder and raised her eyebrow. "Is he the type to go digging for treasure in the forest late at night?"
Mulan shifted on the tree branch and peered down at the forest floor. There was Philip, walking towards the town with a shovel in his hands.
A deep sense of foreboding took hold in Mulan's heart. She didn't answer Elsa, but the queen exclaimed triumphantly when Mulan's silence told her she'd guessed correctly. They waited for him to pass under their tree, then snuck down and started following the tracks he'd left behind him. It took five minutes to find the mound of disturbed dirt under the bough of a gigantic tree deep in the forest.
Elsa stood by as Mulan dropped to her knees and started desperately digging. Her nails scratched along the top of a box not unlike the ones she'd spotted in Regina's closet. Shoes. This type of box was meant for shoes in this world.
She drew it out of the ground and opened the lid.
"What is 'evil,' Mulan?" Elsa asked. "Is it us, truly?"
Mulan let out a sob as she took in the baby's eyes and nose—identical to her own—set above a pair of lips she knew well as Aurora's. Her hair was black like Mulan's, with a tiny curl at the front.
She was dead, of course. She'd been in the box too long, and both women knew no magic could reverse her fate. Still, Mulan tried. She kissed the little girl's forehead and waited many minutes to see if it might have any effect. Finally, she laid the baby back in the box, and put the box back into the ground.
She stood up and clenched her fists. The ground started to tremble, dirt churning around the grave until the box was buried, a large rock marking the tomb.
Her legs felt weak, but Elsa caught her before she fell and held her in her arms.
"What do you want to do?" she asked, her voice gentle. "What do you need right now?"
"Aurora," Mulan choked out. "Her first, and then the rest. We'll kill them all."