A/N: Thank you so much for the follows, reviews, and favorites. Thank you to my faithful reviewers- Your comments are worth more than you know. To the Pmer, thank you for your prompts regarding when the next chapter will be published. I smile every time I read your Pms.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
-Bad Moon Rising (Mourning Ritual)
Regina stood and had her hand buried in the wizard's chest grasping his heart before he had time to even acknowledge her movement. The look of dark fury in her eyes was accentuated by the flashes of purple that broke through her irises like summer lightning.
"Where is she?" Regina bit off each word, her voice low and dangerous. Oz visibly gulped before his face relaxed into a smug smile.
"You forget, dear, you've changed your ways. What would your family think if you ripped my heart from my chest and crushed it?" His eyebrow raised as his gaze flicked over to where Snow White watched. Whatever he saw in the good queen's face caused a momentary flicker of doubt to cross his features.
"Do you think loving Henry changes everything about me?" Regina pulled the wizard forward by his heart causing him to gasp in pain. The smug satisfaction slid slowly off his face. "Do you think watching you destroy the only one of us standing here who was purely good and compassionate affords you any of the mercy that love has taught me?" His eyes flickered over the three people who moved to stand around Regina in a semi circle.
"Snow White! You are the epitome of good! You have never stood by and let the evil queen..." Snow stepped forward cutting off his words. The look on her face was dark and merciless.
"You should listen to your previous advice to us and realize you don't anything about who we truly are and what we are capable of. Do you think I survived by letting monsters run free?" His eyes flicked back and forth between the two queens, his breath beginning to come in short pants.
"Do you know that wolves have a familial bond that runs deeper than almost any animal group?" Ruby asked conversationally as she shed her red cloak. Her anger immediately deepened her voice to a low growl and her eyes flashed gold as they caught the light. "Do you know what wolves do when someone fucks with their family?" Ruby's clothes fell away as she shifted into a large wolf that stalked forward, growling menacingly, lips pulled back in a feral snarl.
"Perhaps, dearie, you forgot, or maybe you just didn't know, exactly what 'the dark one' truly is. You seem to think us all heroes." Gold's eyes darkened as an insane giggle burst from his lips. "You just took the only true hero from among us and left the villains."
The air behind Oz shimmered with swirls of white and pale pink fog. When it lifted two women stood looking worriedly at the group. One was dressed completely in white, her snowy hair piled atop her head in a bun. She was breathtakingly beautiful as she surveyed them with eyes so blue they almost appeared colorless. Beside her stood a woman dressed in flowing pink and green robes, a crown of crystal spheres rested upon copper colored hair. She wielded a sceptre that appeared to be a pulsing green chrysalis.
"What is the meaning of this?" the queen demanded, throwing her hand up and sending pulses of pale pink towards Regina. Gold waved his hand and caught her magic, canceling it in a vortex of shadows.
"You don't want to play that game, dearie. Trust me, we will win."
"Queen Ozma," the wizard gasped as Regina ripped his heart free from his chest. Her brow furrowed as she looked down at the heart in her hand. A shimmering aura of green surrounded it and seemed to flow in and around it.
"All of Oz is magic," the woman in white said quietly. Regina's eyes shot up to meet hers, the questions and confusion swimming in their brown depths. Sensing her change of mood, the wolf snarled and edged closer, snapping at the wizard's heels and causing him to fall backwards. The woman in white knelt and held out her hand to the wolf who approached cautiously. With a whine, the wolf licked her hand before sliding to wrap its body around Regina's legs protectively. "My name is Glinda. Why are you in our realm using magic against us?"
Her voice was genuine, the sound of her words soothing and gentle. Snow raised her bow warily and trained it fully on the white witch. "You don't get to ask questions. You attacked us in our realm. You used our magic to force us to watch... things... we can never... You took Emma, and I will put an arrow through each of you if you do not tell me where my daughter is."
Regina stepped closer to the petite brunette and smirked as her hand closed over the heart in her hand. She was rewarded by the wizard turning a deathly pale and gasping for breath. His hands clutched his chest as he slid to the floor.
"We did not take Emma. You have seen the colors of our magic, you know this to be true," Glinda said softly. Snow didn't flinch and Regina sneered at the white witch.
"Emma's magic is sometimes blue, sometimes gold, and sometimes it's white. It has never been gre-" her words broke off abruptly and she heaved a relieved sigh. "Elphaba." Snow looked at Regina questioningly, lowering her bow and relaxing her grip on the drawstring.
"You see, we have no quarrels with you." Glinda lifted her hands in a gesture of appeasement and Regina laughed darkly.
"Elphaba rescued Emma from the twisted cruelty your wizard subjected us to. I've done a lot of horrible things to people but I have never stooped so low," Regina squeezed the heart in her hand harder, and smiled as she was rewarded with the man in question gasping as his body began to twitch on the floor. "I should kill you where you lay."
"You are in love with her," Glinda said wonderingly and Regina's head jerked up in surprise, her hand relaxing the death grip it held on the wizard's heart.
"What?" Regina asked in a flat voice, but she was unable to control the slight tremor that rippled across the surface of the word and flooded it with meaning.
"You are such a strange witch," Glinda said quietly as she walked closer, her eyes never leaving Regina's. "You are filled with light and dark, yet we are told the two cannot exist in the same place. But here you are." Her voice was filled with wonder as she reached out to touch Regina's hand. Regina couldn't seem to move under the white witch's steady gaze. "There are so many emotions in you; it's no wonder Emma chose you to be her heart."
"What I don't understand is why you are so very interested in us, dearie. You all seem to know so much about us, but we know so very little about you." Gold's words appeared to shake Regina from her trance. She stepped back and looked away from the people who surrounded her, visibly trying to pull her scattered thoughts in order.
"We are trying to help you," Ozma said, her voice carrying through the antechamber and bouncing off the crystals which answered with faint ringing chimes. "I am Oz and Oz is me. It lives within me as much as I rule and watch over it. You were prophesied to help me defeat a great evil which is slowly destroying Oz."
"Is that why you attacked us?" Gold snarled. "What ever happened to the good old days when people knew how to simply ask for help?"
"We didn't attack you," Ozma said, her face open and honest even in it's frustrated impatience.
"Then who did?" Regina asked. She carefully avoided looking at the white witch.
"That's what you are here to find out," Ozma said, twitching her robes behind her. She turned to the wizard who was lying quietly on the floor. She knelt and placed her finger under his chin. "What did you do?" she asked, her voice cold.
"I wanted to h-help," he stammered, a sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I thought I could speed up the process by showing them what they were to discover..." his voice trailed off as Ozma leaned closer.
"You pathetic fool. You have lived in at court, your days filled with parties, balls, and frivolous politics. Do you have any idea the lives these people have led? No, you don't, and you did not help."
"I'm sorry, my Queen. I wanted to please you-"
"No, you wanted to twist this to suit you." Ozma stood and stepped closer to Regina. "Your Majesty, if it pleases you, return his heart. Do not take another life upon your own heart." Her words were low but clear and Regina felt her emotions roil within her.
"He deserves worse," she spat, her eyes falling to the wizard and hardening. Purple flared within their depths.
"As do many standing in this room," her words cut through the tension. Snow met Regina's eyes and nodded imperceptibly. The wolf whined quietly behind Regina and with a sigh she stepped towards the wizard.
Regina's eyes filled with tears and her hand shook as she reached inside the wizard's chest once more. "You hurt her," she accused, her voice uneven.
"You hurt her," he said quietly, his eyes moving to take in Snow as well as Regina. "I held up a mirror for you to truly see one another. I...I didn't know the pain buried within each of you," he whispered. Regina released his heart and stepped back, brushing the strands of dark hair from her cheek and placing them behind her ears. She slowly gathered her thoughts as she took off her coat and placed it over the naked girl trembling on the floor. Ruby's tear stained cheeks couldn't begin to quench the pain in her eyes and she wept openly.
"Emma? Emma, child?" a soft voice reached in and prodded Emma gently from sleep. She slapped at the hand pushing her arm and muttered as she rolled over. "Emma, I'm afraid that there is no time to sleep. You must wake."
"Regina?" Emma asked sleepily, her eyes opening. She blinked a few times in confusion, wondering at what she saw above her. She was staring up at a ceiling where a perfectly round hole revealed a cornflower blue sky. She watched as a wispy cloud floated lazily across the surface of the blue.
"No, dear one, not Regina." Emma turned and sat up quickly as her gaze fell upon Elphaba. The memories of the afternoon flooded into her mind and she gasped and doubled over. "Did you ever wonder what Regina's song was before it changed for you?" The words were unexpected and wiped away enough of the darkness in Emma's mind for her curiousity to rise to the surface.
Elphaba walked to stand by large crystal ball that seemed to take up the entire half of the room. Emma looked back down at her lap and remained silent. She wished she could go back to sleep and looked up to tell the witch her desire only to find Elphaba looking at her wonderingly.
"Have you forgotten that you are more than a moment, Emma Swan? Have you forgotten that in your life you have already conquered the monsters of your childhood?" Emma clenched her hands angrily, her eyes burning with rage as she glared at the witch.
"I have forgotten nothing," she bit off each word as she stood. "And now everyone knows," she said, her voice trembling with shame. She stopped mid-step and turned to look for the door.
"They know you, Emma, apparently more than you know yourself. You choose to see only the harsh things that tried to mold you, but Emma, you were never broken."
"Don't start with that shit. I am so sick of people talking about how they are a survivor, how I am a survivor."
"Emma, you aren't a survivor. You are a legend." The fierceness in Elphaba's voice surprised her and she stopped in front of the door. "Claim the truth and stop letting other people's darkness, hatred, violence define you. I would have never wished on you what that damnable wizard did, but let me show you a different perspective."
"Oh, you're asking permission now? That's new." Elphaba waited patiently, her hand resting against the ball which seemed to pulse in response to the warmth of her hand. "I can't," Emma whispered, turning to lean her head against the door. "I can't see it all again. They were all so sad and destroying one another. I can't watch my own life again. I felt like I was going to explode."
"Well, you very well nearly did." Emma looked up in surprise and Elphaba turned to her and nodded. "Oh, yes, your magic was this close to detonating. You think in your world a nuclear blast is destructive? Wait until you've seen magic combust."
"Did I hurt someone?" Emma asked in a panic and Elphaba shook her head slowly.
"It was comfortable when I absorbed and pushed your magic back into you," Elphaba said and Emma could hear the weariness in her voice. Elphaba's eyes gazed guilelessly into Emma's. "Please, let me show you my magic. Let me heal your heart and your soul." She reached pleadingly for Emma before dropping her hand back to her side.
Emma squeezed her eyes closed and nodded once, instantly regretting the trust that instinctively rose within her.
"Emma, open your eyes and see." Elphaba's voice was quiet but commanding. Emma opened her sea green eyes and her gaze fell into the crystal.
They four talked quietly with Glinda regarding how to make contact with Elphaba, and through her, Emma. Regina's voice was quickly growing snappy, although it was clear she was making an effort to rein in her temper. She sighed and turned, her gaze falling on Ozma who was watching her with an unreadable expression.
"We had a plan," Regina said, turning back to the conversation. "Once we find Emma we can continue executing it."
"I say our plan is derailed," Gold said, almost rolling his eyes.
"Any plan made with Emma is broken, then stomped on, then ran over with a car- a few times." Snow chuckled quietly breaking the tension. Regina felt herself smile in return. She still carefully avoided looking directly at Glinda, but couldn't stand to allow her gaze to linger any longer than necessary on Snow White. She turned and sat down, content to watch and listen for the moment. She sighed as Ozma's gaze followed her, questions burning in her eyes.
"What?" Regina said bluntly as she turned and faced the other woman.
"Are you?" At Regina's confused look, Ozma continued. "In love with your greatest enemy's daughter?" Regina closed her eyes and barely bit back a groan.
"Not that it's any of your concern or business, but I don't consider Snow White my greatest enemy. At least not any longer." Regina failed to notice Snow's head turn towards her in surprise. "As for my feelings, I haven't even had a moment to consider them myself much less talk about them with a complete stranger- a stranger I'm not convinced didn't send an army of munchkins and flying monkeys to kill us." Ozma gasped jumped as though startled.
"Did you say flying monkeys?" she demanded, leaning forward and grabbing Regina's arm tightly. Regina nodded and tried to pull her arm away. "Oh no, this is not good. We have all been played for fools."
"What do you mean?" Regina asked as the others turned towards them, her tone drawing their attention. She ignored Regina's question and turned to the white witch.
"Glinda, are you still in possession of the yellow cap?"
"No, dear Ozma. I have the cap to the tin man as he is now the king of the Winkies. He vowed to free the winged monkeys and never allow the cap to be owned by anyone every again."
"Then either someone has dispersed him and taken the cap or he has turned traitor," Regina said, her blood beginning to boil now that she had a focus for her rage. "We need to fi-" A swirl of green and gold interrupted her and as the fog cleared, Emma appeared kneeling on the floor, one arm across her knee and her other hand fisted to the floor. She looked up, her sea foam eyes meeting Regina's calmly.
"Emma," Regina breathed, lurching off the chair and bringing her palm to the blonde's cheek in a gentle touch. Emma closed her eyes and nuzzled her palm before turning and placing a soft kiss onto it. "Are you alright?" Regina could barely get the words past the breath hitching in her throat. Emma nodded as Snow fell to the floor beside them, her arms flinging around her daughter. Regina found herself once again in wonder at how freely Snow expressed her emotions.
Gold nodded his head to Emma, and Regina didn't miss the look of relief in his eyes. Ruby smiled as she walked to Emma, redressed in her clothing. Snow introduced Glinda and Ozma to Emma who regarded them coolly. She stepped closer to Regina, who stretched her fingers so they barely touched Emma's. The touch seemed to calm the two women, but Regina wouldn't feel as though Emma were truly back until she could touch her, kiss her, wrap her arms around her and hold her close. As though sensing her thoughts, Emma entwined their hands and squeezed softly as Ozma and Glinda told them the story of the tin man.