Chapter 13 – Love Isn't Weakness, It's Strength
Heart pounding in her chest, Regina walked with measured steps through a forest thick with underbrush and dimly lit by what faint light could penetrate through the thick canopy of leaves overhead. In the near distance, she could make out the lines of a ramshackle hut, and as she drew near she saw that it was little more than thatched sticks held together by weathered stone masonry. Smoke filtered out from the woeful looking chimney, signs of activity from within in the form of wisps rising high which then disappeared within the blanket of evergreen clouds above.
Her throat clammed up in dreadful anticipation as she approached. Just beyond the threadbare blankets hanging across a dilapidated door-frame prevented her entry, they would be waiting. A deep, preparatory breath later, she pushed through them and towards her destiny.
She entered with no fanfare befitting her reputation. The days in which she were universally feared had long since passed – not that it would help. The trio of crones who occupied this decrepit hut not fit to be called a home had little consideration for mere mortals, even those whose magical prowess was very nearly without peer. Their communion with the capricious, often self-serving eternal being to whom many magicians owed their talents had stripped them not only of such mundane cares as the persistence of their mortal shell, but of their conscience as well. They would pay little heed to either the reputation of a sorceress who once terrorized an entire nation or her desperation to save the only beings that made her life worth living.
"We've been waiting, Elaine of Garlot," one of them said as she stepped into the dank interior. The hag's voice was scratchy with age and disuse.
It was of note to Regina that being called by a different name did not phase her in the slightest. Quite on the contrary, it seemed natural for her to answer to it, as if it was her real name instead of the one her mother had so prophetically bestowed upon her.
"Then you know why I am here," she said in an accent more English than her typically bland American. Strangely it seemed every bit as right as being called by another name, so she paid no heed to her unusual dialect as she stepped over to the cauldron around which the three ancient witches were gathered. Hands linked together in solidarity, they painted a grotesque picture of decrepit reverence to a Goddess whose worship was banished to the fringes of society – and for good reason. Only one of them was arranged in her direction, and the flames reflecting in their stringy silver hair lent a devilish tint to a haggard, sunken face.
"You wish to consult the Triple Goddess," the witch who was facing her said, her voice not at all dissimilar to her fellow diviner's. The witch gave her an eerie smile, revealing perfectly pearly teeth that gleamed in the firelight, a stark contrast to a rotten face. Such was the paradoxical consequence of their long communion with a power beyond the veils of physical existence. "You will be pleased to know she is amenable to your request. Step into the circle and we will call upon her."
The two witches in profile to her released hands in expectation of her joining them around the cauldron. Regina stepped up, her ribs under a relentless assault by a thundering heart. It was not her first time to commune with the Triple Goddess but it would almost certainly be her last. She was there by choice, though, and driven by reckless disregard for her own safety, so not a word was spoken as she took her place and held out her hands. Wrinkled flesh, paper thin so as to be easily torn, met hers and she gently squeezed the appendages belonging to two of the three Voices of the Goddess. The silence turned cold in spite of the heat, only to be broken seconds later by a low, keening chant that rose in volume with each subsequent repetition. As the sisters droned their invocation, the cauldron began to roil and bubble until the violence of the spell had whatever concoction was brewing inside spilling to the bare dirt floor. Smoke from the fire then wafted into the room as if of its own mind, and it danced around the cauldron lip, teasing every which way before swirling upward where it hovered and began to take the shape of three women, unique and yet intrinsically connected – the Mother, eternally pregnant; the Maiden, forever pure and virtuous; and the Crone, the source of all darkness and despair. The Triple Goddess.
"My child, I have come to hear your request." Each of the three spoke in perfect unison after fully constituted, smoke-lips moving to emit a layered voice that, while airy as if having no real substance behind it, sounded like crackling flames. "What would you ask of me, I whose power you wield and whose will you have so faithfully served?"
She knew the question was but a formality. The Goddess already knew her thoughts and desires. She met mote eyes of dust and ash that seemed to peer into the depths her soul.
"I wish to make an exchange," she said with far more bravado than she was feeling. Her legs were threatening to falter right along with her heart. "To spare the life of my lover and the child we created out of our love, I will surrender my own to satisfy the price of magic. Grant me this, O benevolent Mother, I beseech you. For my years of service, this is all I will ever ask of you."
"I am loathe to lose yet another High Priestess of the line of Gorlois and Vivienne," said the Goddess. The sadness with which she spoke reflected in her nebulous form, which darkened almost to charcoal. "Who will replace you when you are gone, my child? Who will lift the mantle of High Priestess if I grant this request?"
Regina hung her head, feeling the sting of rejection well up. A faint urge to lie was present but long years of duty had taught her to master any such foolish impulses. The truth is what the Goddess required and it was what she would give.
"I do not know, my Eternal Mother. I have no acolytes and I am the last of my line save my unborn child."
The Goddess hummed amiably, sounding pleased all of the sudden. "Then I shall wait for her to come of age."
Startled eyes lifted up to meet a vaporous smile set in now-white cloudy face. Panic welled up in her chest. "I do not regret my service to you, Mother, but I do not want my daughter to share my fate. Please! Isn't there anyone else who can take my place?"
"None that I care to bestow my gifts upon," said the Goddess, no censure in her tone, which Regina found surprising. Few possessed the gall to question the will of the Goddess and of those even fewer lived to tell the tale. "But do not fret. To her I will offer a new arrangement. In exchange for her service at my discretion, she will be free to live as she pleases. Uther Pendragon is dead, as is his son. Emrys has exiled himself beyond even my sight. Though limited, magic has its place in Albion once again and thus the need for war to end our long persecution has for a time ceased. It would please me, therefore, that my next High Priestess should live out her life peacefully in recompense for the sacrifice of her forebearers. And so she shall."
Hope rose in Regina's chest. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Does that mean you will assent to my request? You will make the exchange? My life for theirs?"
The Goddess nodded once, and when she did thin wisps of smoke trailed behind the movement of her head. "Though it pains me, I shall honor you with this gift," she said, then reached out her smoky hand. "Take my hand and receive the mark of our bargain as a seal of guarantee."
"Oh, thank you, Eternal Mother!" Regina's effusive gratitude spilled out in her words and from her eyes as she met the unflinching gaze of her matron benefactor. As commanded, she then took the proffered hand with trembling digits. Pain lanced through her hand upon contact with the tenuous appendage of the Goddess, but she held it tight, gaze never leaving those uncanny ashen eyes that seared at her consciousness until it was bared, denuded, clear for inspection by a mind more vast than any human could comprehend and a power too mighty to be contained within a fragile vessel of flesh and blood. Judgment was in them now but they did not speak of condemnation. Only love was present there, and it shone in plumes of bronze and gold that engulfed every inch of her body with warmth and acceptance.
"You are hereby released from service, Elaine of Garlot," the Goddess then said, note of finality evident. "On the day your babe takes her first breath, you shall take your last. Time to mortal minds is incomprehensible and as ephemeral as the dust from which this form I now occupy is constituted. Spend well, therefore, what remains to you. For your faithful service, I honor you my blessing. Go now, my child, and never return." And with that the magic maintaining the Goddess' form was abruptly cut, and the nebulous dust motes petered out into thin strings of smoke that dissipated in seconds, swept away by a warm, gentle breeze.
Awestruck and overcome by emotion, Regina glanced down to the pentagram burnt into the skin of her inner wrist – the seal of her impending demise. But death no longer held relevance to her, not when she knew Eleni and their miracle child would live. To secure their safety, she was more than happy to perish a thousand times over. And as she trudged her way back home through the forest, heart full of joy in the face of her own looming destruction, she sang a song of thanks to the Eternal Mother who made it all possible.
Though Regina woke sluggishly, she noticed she was smiling upon glancing at herself in the mirror mounted upon the armoire opposite the bed. In the reflection, she dimly noted that the clock read five am, though she had to strain her eyes and her brain to translate the reversed image. The dream still lingered, a fragment of memory that had gnarled roots she couldn't quite trace before they were buried within the fathomless loam of her subconscious mind. She felt at the same time giddy and intensely uneasy, and if it were the first time she'd experienced this phenomenon she might have been genuinely afraid for her sanity. But it wasn't.
Strange dreams had been plaguing her sleep ever since Ruby's nightmare the night she'd asked to go back to the Enchanted Forest. In the intervening weeks between that night and Ruby's departure, Regina had been unable to get her wife to open up to what she'd seen that so disturbed her. Every time she mentioned the nightmare, Ruby clammed up and refused to talk about it, which was unusual. At the insistence of Dr. Hopper, Ruby had started talking through her nightmares with Regina after they happened. The idea, he said, was to process them immediately so they would not gain purchase and become a catalyst for repercussive insomnia. To both their pleasant surprise, the tactic helped Ruby settle back more easily into a sleep in which she actually rested rather than tossed and turned until dawn. The cricket, Regina had discovered all over again, really was good at his job and afterward started giving him earnest referrals.
But there was something about that one nightmare that robbed Ruby of the ability to open up about it. The silence was worrisome but Regina hadn't let it plague her too much as she'd had much bigger things to fret over at the time, such as her wife journeying to another world – and a dangerous one at that – without her. A dream, however disturbing, was small potatoes compared to the idea of so extreme a separation.
That first night Ruby was gone, Regina had a dream rather like the one she'd just awoke from. Likewise, there was a tangible quality to it that felt more like a memory than a dream, as if the images were a little more ingrained into her gray matter than an ordinary dream. Her two attempts to decipher the conundrum of them with magic failed spectacularly, having induced blistering migraines that left her barely able to function. A part of her had wanted to press on and damn the consequences to figure out what was causing the dreams, but the more sensible part reminder her that she was a mother with the all-important responsibility to take care of two little girls who sometimes more resembled hellions than the angels Granny proclaimed them to be.
Resolve to do right by her children aside, her natural curiosity remained ever present. The dreams were a jigsaw puzzle laying unsolved on the table of her mind, and she was itching to sit down to make sense of the jumble of disordered and misshapen fragments. Maybe when Ruby got back she would do just that. Hopefully she wouldn't turn her brain into mush in the process.
For the moment, though, she pushed away thoughts of the dream in lieu of getting about her day. She had much to do before it was time to wake the girls. School started at half past seven and before cooking breakfast for three, she would need to shower, dress, then re-read the drafts of a series of memos she planned to send out to the Town Council. Life as a working mother was hectic but rewarding. She smiled at the thought of the girls squealing in delight over being fed proper Regina Mills worthy french toast topped with garden-fresh strawberries in a homemade glaze to go with sides of bacon, eggs, and lightly seasoned hash browns. They deserved a treat after the strain of the past two weeks missing their Mama dreadfully and having to deal with a critically stressed Mommy who occasionally lost her cool with their over-the-top antics.
Getting ready for her morning was a ritual she had down to scientific precision, which meant Regina was dressed, hair dried and styled, and make-up artfully applied within an hour. Reviewing her memos came next, and she spent the next hour and a half amending them to perfection in addition to reading through a portion of her seemingly endless supply of emails. She even got around to responding to half of those before it was time for her to wake the kids.
As if they knew their mother didn't need the extra hassle that morning, they rose in delightful moods and went about their morning ablutions without protest. In fact, they were so well-behaved and efficient on time that Regina allowed them a half hour to read a book of their choosing while she made breakfast.
She closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath upon entering her Sanctum Sanctorum. The kitchen was Regina's refuge, the place where she felt most comfortable and in her own skin, able to let her hair down so-to-speak and lose herself in the joy of preparing food for her family or in crafting new recipes to compete with Granny for their culinary favor. Now in her element, she got down to business, sliding into one of her most favorite pastimes so that the passage of time ceased to matter. It wasn't long before she yelled up at the girls that breakfast was almost ready. The frantic shuffling of socked feet soon followed, which drew a smile from Regina. The race, she knew, was on.
Every morning Amelia and Sophia rushed down to their morning meal, bellies growling as they pushed and shoved with hands, elbows, and shoulders in order to be the first at the breakfast table. Their appetites at times seemed insatiable, which wasn't at all a shocking development considering they were both werewolves, just ones who had yet to come into their full powers. That Ruby could out-eat any man in town spoke to that expensive reality. Regina spent a relative fortune on groceries every month.
"Holy crap, Sophie! French toast and strawberries!" Amelia screeched as predicted upon rounding the corner.
Regina turned to watch Sophia raise her little nose and sniff greedily at what her mother was busy preparing. Regina didn't appreciate the oblique oath but let it slide this once knowing that Ruby, if she were here, would have been unable to object due to her laughter. Regina couldn't help but feel a little sentimental; her wife was an unapologetic enabler and she missed it terribly.
At Sophia's exclamation, Amelia shouldered past her sibling. "I get to go first!" Raven hair plaited into a braid that ran down her back and looking very much like Regina's little clone, Amelia had no time to notice her sister's infuriated glare as she rushed to collect her plate from atop the counter near the stove. Huge chocolate eyes stared up at Regina, innocent if not mischievous grin on display. "Morning, Mommy," she said, then batted her eyelashes in a manner far too manipulative for a child of nearly six. "Thank you for making us french toast! May I have mine now?"
"No fair, Amie!" Sophia whined as she stepped up next to her sister, petulant frown tugging at her bottom lip. "You know french toast is my favorite!"
Amelia scoffed, rolling her eyes dramatically. "It is not. It's mine. You love Mama's pancakes more."
"Do not!"
"Do so!"
"Do not!"
"Stop being a brat, Sophie! Gosh!"
Regina ducked her head so that her hair concealed her smile. Her shoulders shook with the effort to contain laughter.
Indignant, Sophia perched her hands on hips cocked out to the side. "I'm not a brat, Wartface! Why do you have to be so mean? It's not fair! You got to be first yesterday morning! It's my turn!"
Normally Sophia was the spitting image of her older mother as far as personality goes, which could be confusing to some as she physically favored Ruby. That meant the child could be moody and bossy and often too clever for her own good. Sophia was usually the ringleader and Amelia the follower, except when it came to food. The promise of food made Amelia into a ravenous alpha wolf while Sophia handled her heightened appetite with a dignity Regina hadn't needed to teach but was all the same proud of. And yet the way Sophia wiggled her butt and shoulders as she chastised her sister reminded Regina so much of Ruby when fired up about something that she instantly sobered.
"Alright, that's enough." She interjected using her no-nonsense Mayor Mommy voice just as Amelia was about to sass back. "Both of you to the table, and not another word." When both girls whine, she flared her nostrils and widened her eyes for effect. "Now! Or neither of you will be eating French toast this morning!"
Suitably chastised, both girls ducked their heads, murmured, "Yes, ma'am," as they'd been taught, and then shuffled over to the chair. Regina returned to finishing up the French toast as the sound of scraping chairs on the tile floor sounded out. She hefted a sigh as she flipped the piece of sizzling toast. Those girls tried her patience daily and with a boldness that Henry never would have dreamed of at their age. It was official now. She was growing soft with her advancing years.
Sometimes it was hard for Regina to believe she was nearly fifty. Most days she felt the same as she had when the first Curse was broken, a woman in her prime, fit of body, sound of mind, and with no visible signs of youth's inevitable departure to be found. While her peers of similar age were sporting gray hairs and the beginnings of crow's feet around their eyes, Regina remained untouched by the inescapable ravages of time, something Maleficent was envious of.
"How do you do that?" the shapeshifting dragon had once asked, pointing to Regina's face with a highly-manicured index finger that circled the area around her eyes in accusation.
"Do what, dear?" Regina had asked, feigning ignorance while allowing the hints of a smirk to tug at the corners of her lips. She'd known what Mal was getting at but enjoyed rubbing it in that her skin was still nearly as smooth as it was when they'd met what seemed to be eons ago.
Mal's eyes narrowed in hatred that was more playful than serious. "Stay so..." she gesticulated wildly up and down the length of Regina's body, "disgustingly young. The rest of us are wearing our age, gracefully I might add, but the signs are there just the same. Whereas you seem no older to me than the day I was resurrected from the dead."
"I have no idea, to be truthful." Regina shrugged, showing her friend she wasn't being deceitful or provocative by holding Mal's piercing blue eyes. "Ruby says it's my 'Mediterranean genes.' My guess is it's just good luck, or maybe my magic is somehow keeping me youthful. I really can't say for sure and don't much care at the moment. Looking gift horses in the mouth and such..."
"I imagine not with that frisky younger wife of yours," Mal said, eyes dancing.
Regina blushed even though being teased for Ruby's libido was not an uncommon occurrence in the company of her morally questionable friends. Most of them were just jealous they didn't get laid on a regular basis like she did. Mal was the exception to that, having recently reunited with Lily's father. Per their daughter who told Emma who let it slip to Ruby who then gossiped like a schoolgirl to Regina, they were behaving more like newlyweds than responsible adults.
"Oh, stop it," she said, grinning at her friend's jest. "Like you can complain in that department."
"Very true. I am, of late, being satisfied at my every whim." Mal waggled her eyebrows before settling into a more serious expression. "That doesn't change my point, though. The sorceress in me is curious. You should be graying at the very least." She leaned forward then and said lowly, "Say, you're not dyeing it are you?"
Regina scoffed as if the idea was absurd. Which it was. She was vain but would never stoop so low as to destroy her hair with those atrocious chemicals.
"As if I would do such a thing," she said then sat back smugly. "I am all natural, my friend. Ruby can attest to that if you care to question my honesty."
Although Mal hadn't questioned Ruby, the topic being raised stuck in Regina's mind. She'd done some investigating the past few months, but couldn't find anything concrete to explain her lack of aging. Magic could keep a person young, but such power came at great cost and required the casting of a series of spells so complex and dangerous that one incorrect phrasing could cause the instantaneous and explosive death of the caster. Death was not appealing to Regina but neither was killing herself to circumvent it. Which left her to think that maybe Ruby was right and that she had merely hit the genetic jackpot.
Whatever the case, concerns about being free of gray hair and wrinkles at age fifty had no place at the breakfast table. Regina dismissed them out of hand then returned to the business of finishing up the meal.
Thankfully the girls settled down once food was in front of them. Regina tried not to let her pending trip to Warren sully the joy she derived from eating breakfast with her family. They may have been short two members with Henry away at Harvard and Ruby in another world, but the love they shared was still there, woven into the fabric of Regina's very essence and present bodily in two children whose existence was solely owed to the True Love that existed between her and her wife. That love dwelt within the half of heart beating inside her chest, was inextricably entwined with her immortal soul, was a passenger upon every thought of her mind, and was written up her body in post-pregnancy stretch marks she didn't have the heart to erase and love bites she cherished of a morning and in the elegant calligraphic tattoo bearing the names of her wife and children she'd had inked upon her ribs on the left side nearest her heart. So while Ruby and Henry were absent in body, they were most certainly present in spirit, and Regina felt them keenly that morning, felt their positive energy in the air and could see their happy smiles in her mind's eye.
After breakfast, Regina made sure the girls had their packs collected and their lunch pails in hand before ushering everyone out the door. They arrived at school precisely thirty minutes ahead of the morning bell, just as they did every morning. But unlike the usual routine, Regina stepped out of the car with her children and knelt before them after they donned their backpacks. Tenderly she adjusted their hair, Amelia's braided black and Sophia's bouncing brunette curls, then pressed kisses to their foreheads.
"Remember to behave," she said before sending them off. "Listen to your teacher, learn everything they are trying to teach you, and most importantly, have a wonderful, beautiful day. And never forget that I love you both so much."
The almost desperate look in her eyes must have told the girls how important this was, so rather than reject her affection, they both surged forward to her hug her neck as tightly as their little arms could squeeze. Tears pricked at her eyes that she refused to let fall. She didn't want to embarrass her children in front of their friends, after all.
"I love you, too, Mommy," said Amelia, who gave her mother a smacking kiss on the cheek.
"Me, too, Mommy!" added Sophia with an equally wet kiss upon the other cheek. "More than the moon and stars!"
Then they were off running down the paved path toward the entrance of Storybrooke Elementary. Regina followed their progress, lump in her throat, until they were inside.
"You were so wrong, mother," she whispered, feeling bolstered by her children's wholehearted affection. "Love is not weakness. It's strength."
She knew that because she carried the strength those hugs and kisses gave her all the way to Warren.