Dagger Day

Chapter 11

Falling stars of the Bronze Age

oooooooooooooooooo -Notes- oooooooooooooooooo

Thank you guys for your kind reviews! I know my last post must have seem like a begging for reviews ... I am barely ashamed of it because I am so glad you wrote!

Thank you so much^^

I am sorry this chapter took soooo long to come out, after my operation -witch went super good- there was summer and summertime is sacred because it's family time and my family is kinda broken right now.

I took the liberty of making this chapter a little more talkative … and girly -I can't think of a better word- because.

Previously:

"I trust you, Snow, to find everyone a place to settle without destroying all my belongings?" coyly let out the former queen already climbing up the stairs. "We do have three guests rooms and you should take Henry's room …" she offered.

"First door on the left," the boy happily supplied his grand-parents, following his mothers.

oooooooooooooooooo -Chapter 11- oooooooooooooooooo

Falling stars of the Bronze Age

Emma was stood near the door, casually laying against the wall. It was the very first time she was the witness of Regina and Henry's bedtime ritual.

Aboard the boat, after Neverland, she had resisted the urge to take a peak on them because she had anticipated the pang of regret she now felt at the sight of their closure.

Or maybe it wasn't regret.

How could she regret leaving him now that she could feel their domestic little habits surrounding them? Sheltering them. The room was filled with small whispers of secret memories, ancient memories. The kind made out of everyday life, creating an atmosphere they had no conscious of.

It was natural because they had done it so many times. It was like breathing or putting a second empty bowl on the breakfast table in the morning. Like not asking if one wants the sauce on the mashed potatoes or on the meat. You just know.

How could Emma wish to take that away from either of them?

She did, however. She knew somewhere there was still a part of her regretting this whole casual thing wasn't hers any more, like it had been for a whole year of an imaginary life.

Still, most of her knew she had given that up herself. No one else was to blame. She had made up her own choice and knowing that made the pain of their closure less hurting.

But hidden behind all her guilt there was also this other kind of pain in her heart at the memory of Regina's lips against hers, the frightful feeling that anything was possible.

Lost in her own mind she missed Regina calling her name, a first time, and was surprised to find the woman shyly smiling at her and patting her arm to wake her from her trance.

With a nod, Regina lead her outside and away from their sleeping boy's ever wandering ears.

"I'm worried …" whispered Regina. "What if it happens again? The loop," she voiced very low. "We only have a day left if it does, and then … anything could happen."

"I don't think it will happen again," said Emma, confident. "I mean, why would it? The bad guy's here, he doesn't need to hide any more, right?"

"I think it will strike again … the loop that is," feared Regina thinking about what the Morning star had told her.

She summarized for Emma what had happen before the Beast manifestation, when Morgenster had admitted she was the one that cast the spell. Snow eventually walked on them and joined the conversation.

"I still believe it won't happen again," reiterated Emma, however less confident.

Snow pouted, obviously unconvinced by her daughter's erratic thinking, "Baby, if Regina thinks the … this person …"

"Star," corrected Regina mechanically.

"Right, sorry … this star. If she said that …"

"The star admitted she was responsible for the loop-curse, right?! So maybe she broke it and … or, the monster broke it?!" hesitated Emma.

"No," cut Regina "I think Morgenstern cast the spell because of the Hundred Eyed King, for some reason and I don't think we broke it," regretted Regina, her head hanging low. "She said something about him being able to break it before us …"

"You think this Morgenster made the curse to protect us?!" exclaimed Snow.

Regina nodded. A light but tenacious nausea was starting to boil up in her chest, coming up her throat.

"Even if it happens again, Regina, last time I remembered right away. And I think Henry will too. Maybe everyone. Maybe it'll be a good thing! It'll slow the beast down too, then, if the star said so … And this time we'll be ready, we know who he is and he can't hide any more. We know that he wants to … Well … Rule the world? And it has something to do with you …" whispered happily Emma very fast whisper, convinced that she was getting good at guessing magical evil schemes. "We just don't know the specifics." She admitted, as if it was nothing. "It's been worse!"

Regina smiled sadly. Still hang before her eyes was the image of Emma eaten away by the strands of darkness. She had seen it just after waking up from the trance the monster had induced when she met him, before he lost his mask of beauty and turned into his true self of the Hundred Eyed King.

What if it wasn't a dream, a hallucination? What if this, the house, was the hallucination? What if the loop was a way to keep her in the dark when her body was laying somewhere? What if it was already too late to save her? She worried, thinking about Morgenstern's enjoining her to remember.

She nodded sadly and dismissed the conversation with a polite yet final tone.

"I need a shower and a change of clothes. Why don't you take first watch, Emma?"

Snow knew her too much to buy her appearance of confidence. She knew Regina had some worries she didn't share. Over time she had learned that her old friend always kept everything inside, hidden under the thin ice of her demeanour, until it was too much to bear.

"You should talk to her …" she whispered to her daughter once certain Regina couldn't hear.

Emma frowned and followed her mother's eyes on the hanging door. She smiled and nodded. Snow gently squeezed her arm and smiled at her husband in the distance as he was leading the way for Granny and a few of the dwarfs.

"I'll try," said Emma before she stealthily re-entered Regina's bedroom.

When Regina got out of the bathroom, she found Emma reading a book in one of the stuffed armchairs of the room, a thin blanket wrapping her legs. Either she didn't hear Regina or pretended not to, Emma did not look up from the pages.

"Is it any good?" casually asked Regina very low while she curled herself down in the other armchair.

She grabbed a magazine from the tidy stack piled up on the table between them, as Emma pouted and shrugged, still not looking at her.

"I don't really understand the story, so far. You read it?"

"It is in my bedroom, from four years ago, Emma … what do you think?" retorted Regina with a smile.

"Dunno. You could be faking or you could have decided not to finish it … a lot happened after tomorrow."

"Touché. But I did, read it. It's pretty good actually."

"Oh? How does it ends then?"

Regina looked at her, obviously shocked. "I'm not divulging the end! Emma!" she rebuked. "I hate spoilers."

Emma smiled, genuinely melting in adoration at the other woman's angry pout.

"It was a joke Regina, I … I thought you would just admit you don't remember it … or something."

It was Regina's turn to frown. "Why wouldn't I?" she asked, seeming genuinely confused.

Emma faught very hard against an appeal to laugh, she smiled and shook her head.

"I could really just kiss you right now," she painfully confessed out loud in an involuntary whisper. "Sorry," she mumbled skittishly right away, peaking at the bed where the quiet form of their son laid.

Regina remained silent a long patch of seconds, still and even more confused. "I really don't understand you sometimes …" she eventually mumbled.

Emma rolled her eyes and searched the pages for the sentence she had left hanging. She could feel Regina's glare on her. She wondered what the woman was thinking exactly.

"Maybe you should get in bed and sleep, Regina. It's way past two …" Offered Emma who had found her way back into her book. "If we're both awake and standing guard it kind of defeats the purpose of a watch, right?"

"Happy birthday Emma," simply answered Regina, eyes in her magazine.

Emma's head whipped around to look at the other woman but Regina hid her thoughts behind the motion of fidgeting her magazine. The National Geographic, suddenly noticed Emma. This woman would never miss to amaze her.

"You know it's really May and therefore not even close to my birthday right?"

Regina smiled but her eyes remained glued to the pictures in fake interest. "Well, it'll compensate for all the birthdays I never wished you …" her round voice rolled.

Emma smiled, "I never wished you a happy birthday either. Not even once."

"That's because you don't know my birth date, Emma."

"True. And that's because I never asked."

Regina smiled playfully at her.

This was so good, thought Emma, their light conversation. It was so warm … She blinked to hunt down the feeling and kill it.

"That's when you're supposed to tell me …" half joked Emma, tying to put her overwhelming feelings back in their box.

"I'd rather not. I don't like birthdays, and I particularly hate mine."

"Still. I could ask my mom. But I'm asking you …" warned Emma.

Regina threw a scornful look at her. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try me. I'll go right now."

Regina closed her eyes weighting the pros and cons. She finally let out a heavy breath. "December. The 22nd," she whispered. "First day of winter …" she added more lightly but with an underlining sarcasm.

"And one day after my mother," neutrally remarked Emma after a short pause.

Regina had her cold mask back on and didn't answer. She could fool a lot of people, but Emma. Still, said Emma choose not to further the discussion in that direction.

"What happens if the day loops again?" she changed the subject.

"I don't know …" Regina answered, in a convincing almost bored tone. "Bad things I suppose. I fear the beast appeared because he grew stronger and nearly able to break the spell himself. Thus able to take control over the Darkness …" she professed. "I believe control over the Darkness to be his true goal."

Emma frowned. "Mm … Maybe. But I still think the curse brought us here before the darkness was freed and before your curse was broken because it prevents the bad guy to do whatever he wants to … because there's no magic. I think we need to keep your curse stronger until we figure out a way to fight him."

Regina smiled sadly. "I'm afraid we are way past that, Emma … I believe I was supposed to figure that out the first time, but somehow I didn't and now there's no time left to do that. You remember too fast, we can't use my curse. Magic is already there."

Emma frowned and suddenly her face lit up. "Oh my god you're right!" she exulted, still whispering. "But Regina, it's good! It means we were wrong! We thought you didn't forget anything, not like us, but you did! The star told you this! She probably came down just to tell you this! It means you know something! It's just like the second curse … When your sister erased everyone's memory! You have a blank too! You don't know how we came here! You don't know! Maybe there's more that you don't know! Maybe you already know a way to fight him!"

Regina plunged her eyes in Emma's with an unreadable look. She frowned, still fixing Emma but not really looking at her. And suddenly, her face lit up, but what she said didn't come close to what Emma had expected.

"You're right. I know something … I know where he wasn't. In the past …He had help … From this side," she whispered matter of factly, suddenly standing up. "I need to search my magic books!"

oooooooooooooooooo - oooooooooooooooooo

More or less 3.000 years before Christ, Bronze Age, South Eastern Europe, Our World,

From the small promontory where she stands, the woman gazes across the field covered in dead bodies and crawling dismantled humans. Humans crying and screaming pain.

She smiles.

Her long dark hair trapped in a complicated braid fall on the small of her back. A thin lace of polished bronze encloses her waist and keep her black tunic in place. Large bronze bracelets decorated with complicated symbols shine their sunny colour on her bare arms and ankles. She is rather small but everything in her inspires fear and respect.

Though she appears to be young, maybe 15 or 20 years old, her demeanour is one of an old woman. Of an old soul.

In front of her, approximately two hundred men breathe heavily, looking up at her. Waiting.

Almost a hundred of them are not dressed like the others in a disparate set. They look stronger and more fit. They only wear light leather pants and boots.

Their likeness is accentuated by the wear of similar bronze masks.

The bronze masks was her idea. To strike fear. This way, when they arrive, after the first wave of regular warriors, as one singular face, or a faceless and shinning armed arm … the enemy has to know they can't win any more.

And this particular metal is still very new to the others. They don't know how to work it very well, not like her.

She looks at them, her army. She invented the word in her mind. Their hundred strong torsos covered in blood and sweat move up and down making their muscles tense and release.

She is waiting for the right moment because she knows that timing is everything from now on.

When she speaks, her voice is high and sour. It resonates inside their heads. Inside every head within a hundred miles perimeter. Even the regular warriors of her army look terrified but not the masked ones, not them, her sons. Their souls belong to her.

"My sons! Today we showed king Mordach our strength! Tomorrow, we will take over his entire kingdom! Tomorrow, we will take the world!"

The bronze warriors lift their swords and start chanting her name. It resonates over and over, loud and strong. Like thunder.

"Achren!"

"Achren!"

"Achren!"

And soon the others join them. And it is two hundred men that are shouting her name.

"Achren!"

Like a love cry. Like a warning. Like a battle cry.

"Achren!"

And, in the name, hate and blood ring. Power. Fear. And, in the wind, the name rings. Like a cry, like a million tears of pain, as the village burns. A column of dark smoke rises from the ruins that are left of what the dead took so many years to build.

The ruins of peace and happiness.

"Achren!"

Achren. Achren the Bronze queen is born. And she knows her future is bright and powerful. She knows the world is bigger than she can imagine. She can feel it inside of her, she doesn't call it "magic" yet. She can feel that the world of the king Mordach, her uncle, is minuscule. She knows that worlds, unknown, lie beyond the end of the world of her clan. She can feel their power.

And the name resonates in the wind for a thousand dead ears.

"Achren!"

In the forest near by, six eyes, blue as the warmest fire, turn away from the scene. They have seen what Achren means and what this world is about. Six eyes, tiny as children eyes. Six terrified eyes.

Their six small feet stumble on the cold and wet soil and they look up to see the sky from where they fell only a few days ago. Two of them are holding hands. The third is leading the way. They run. They run as far as their tiny legs allow them to.

They look like little girls but their skin looks like coal or dirt.

"Orgoch!" complains the fastest of the two holding hands. "Hurry-up!"

"I'm tired …" whispers Orgoch, a cry in her little voice.

The one running first stops suddenly and turns to face the others.

"Orddu!" complains the grumpy sister when she collides into the leading one.

"We're all tired and scared …" whispers Orddu. "We're sleeping here," she firmly says pointing her tiny black finger towards a hole, almost invisible, between the roots of a giant tree.

"But …"

"No, Orwen." She cuts her grumpy sister. "Orgoch is exhausted and hurt and you can't think straight and I need to think. And I am tired too," admits Orddu.

Orwen frowns but obediently follows her sisters into the dark place where they shut their eyes and snuggle up like a pack of frightened sheep in a storm.

As the blue fire on top of their heads slowly fades, the hole falls into darkness again.

But after a handful of minutes two dark blue lights lit up again. Orddu, the eldest, looks down to her little sisters as if her stare could surround them in a warm and protective blanket.

Maybe because she feels the loving glare, the little Orgoch opens two tired eyes and places her hand in Orddu's. She closes her eyes again and before she totally drifts into slumber, she whispers:

"It's her, right? It's the one that made me fell from the sky, Orddu? The queen. It's the one that claimed me?"

"Yes, little one. Now sleep," nicely answers her older sister, gently caressing the back of her little sister's hand with her thumb. "Sleep, my little one … Sleep …"

oooooooooooooooooo - oooooooooooooooooo

The magical shield outside the house was emitting a sort of soft buzzing sound, otherwise the study room was very quiet. After an hour of searching through Regina's books they were still not any closer to discover anything about how the Hundred Eyed King had come to this world, into the past. And Emma still didn't understand anything, anyway. Even after Regina had explained to her there was no other way for him to have escape the prison he was in, before, than someone helping him from this side. And "this side" meanning Storybrooke, from the future.

Or something like that.

A blue covered book hanging open on her lap, Emma was wasting time watching Regina's frown wider and wider behind the wooden desk as she was reading from what Emma would candidly describe as a grimoire.

Finally bored Emma smiled and stretched like a cat, shut the blue book and tossed it over the pile on the small table. She tried to guess what the other woman was reading about that caused her such worry.

"I can feel you are staring, Emma," suddenly whispered Regina.

The sound of her round voice caused the burst of an unannounced wave of joy in Emma's stomach.

"I'm worried about you …" simply justified Emma.

Regina raised such angry eyes at her it startled Emma, before she realised her anger had probably nothing to do with what they were doing in that moment but rather with the fact that she was worried about Regina and it displeased her, somehow.

Emma assumed immediately it was related to Leopold and how Regina mistook her worry for pity. But before she could even think of something to say, Regina had gone back to her shell of silence. Hiding her eyes.

"Regina …" insisted Emma.

"You have no right to be worried, Emma," growled Regina very low. "You've been lucky there was the loop to worry about, so far. But I'm still angry at you."

"At me?! About what?!"

"Really?! I said "No"! I told you to stay away! I … Why do you always have to do that?! You could have been killed!" she almost shouted.

Emma understood she was talking about the darkness, about her carelessly raising the dagger to save Regina. She smiled. Both sad and amazed.

"What?" she calmly asked. "You really think I would let you die? With everything you know now?"

Regina didn't answer, her eyes were two tiny notches in her marble expression. Emma closed her eyes and smiled sadly. She was tired now. She talked very sweetly.

"You know how I feel about you, Regina. Even if you didn't then, you know now. You're the mother of my son, you …" Emma let out a tired breath and wiped her palm over her face.

When she opened her eyes, Regina's glare drilled a hole in her skull. Emma opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. The air was electric. Both women were suddenly very aware of the feeling of their lips melting. They knew how it felt good and right. And both were terrified by the possibility, by the absence of obstacle between them in that moment. It was now or never, they both thought. Life is too short.

Now or never.

Their bodies were calling one another. Without thinking about it they had come closer to each other and now they were aware of the limited distance between them two bodies.

Now or never.

They just had to move a few inches forward. They needed not think of the consequences, not right now.

But a soft scraping sound gashed the thin air between them. Both turned their heads towards the window where their eyes were met with the white wolf's red glare.

"Now what?!" spat Regina with such despair and anger in her voice Emma thought it could cut through glass.

And everything got fast and loud, Ruby burst the door open, shouting, while Snow and everyone was still tumbling down the stairs like an army of angry elephants.

"There's a wolf!" was all of Ruby's statement.

Emma felt dizzy due to frustration, still, she managed a relatively polite joke. "Yeah. There," she pointed the window, taking advantage of the motion to take a step away from Regina.

"Graham's wolf, to be perfectly exact," asserted Regina in a bored tone barely masking her flush.

"Oh," simply said Ruby, looking from Regina to Emma.

oooooooooooo -to be continued- oooooooooooo

I will try to update before September ends, but I can't promise because I am lazy ;-)

Please give me your ever needed opinions!