Welcome to Storybrooke
"Mama?" Lyssa spoke as she slowly approached her mother, who was standing in her mausoleum, Cora's body lying on a stone slab in the middle of the room, having been magicked there at some point, clearly meant to be its intended final resting place.
She didn't care much for Cora, and right now she was terribly worried for Killian since it appeared Emma had left the man in New York, and she would need her mother's help to recover him...but she wasn't sure what her mother was feeling at the moment, Regina had certainly gone through with the action that ended her mother's life, done it intentionally. But she also knew that Regina had only done it because she thought she would be getting rid of two great evils at the same time, not trading one life for the other. Now the Dark One was still alive, and Regina's mother was dead.
Cora had brought it on herself, regardless of whether Rumpelstiltskin was still alive. When her mother made a promise, when her mother made a vow, she held to it to the bitter end. Not only had she promised her that she would always be safe from Cora, that she would never allow anything to hurt her again, she had also sworn to Cora that, if she did hurt Lyssa one more time, it would be her last. Still, for as cruel as Cora was, she was still Regina's mother, and for that Lyssa wasn't fully sure what Regina was feeling.
So she had moved on the side of caution, and was approaching her mother with a small cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon in case she was feeling poorly.
Regina, who had been looking at her mother's body, emotions conflicting within her, looked over at Lyssa, smiling gently when the girl offered her the cup with a hesitant smile, "Thank you, sweetheart," she reached out and took the cup, taking a sip from it.
"Are you alright?" she stepped closer to her mother's other side, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder in comfort.
Regina let out a long sigh, unsure of the answer. She was feeling many things right now. She felt anger and resentment, that her efforts to finally rid the world of the Dark One had been hindered by Snow White. She was furious that the princess tried to trick her the way she had, that she fully intended for Regina to murder her mother to save Gold. She was frightened, because clearly the Dark One would know what her intention had been and he might seek retaliation against her. She felt hollow, that her mother was dead and yet she didn't feel the typical sorrow she assumed a child should feel. She felt terrible for how relieved she felt that Cora was finally gone, that she had finally proven herself strong enough to stop the person had caused pain in her life. She felt nauseated, as she typically did whenever she crushed a heart in her hand no matter whose it was. She even felt intense relief, that Lyssa was alright, that she hadn't been too late to save the girl from Cora, that her daughter hadn't been taken from her like Daniel had.
And she felt dread, because she knew, she just knew, the heroes would find some way to spin this to make Henry hate her even more. What sort of monster could kill her own mother the way she had? How, regardless of whether Cora was a villain, was it just that she was killed by someone, by Regina? What kind of person would have been willing to let Gold die the way she had been? She doubted they would even tell him Snow White's role in all of this, Rumpelstiltskin's manipulation of everything. No, she was almost certain that the heroes made all of this her being evil.
She was going to lose her son all over again.
She was a jumble of emotion, she wasn't sure what exactly she was feeling most prevalent, though it was slowly creeping on her that thought of losing Henry to the lies the heroes would undoubtedly tell him.
"We were so close," was all Regina could murmur, "So close to removing the threat of the Dark One, to bringing a balance to Magic, taking out the threat of two magical villains...to finally getting revenge against two of the three people who hurt us most."
Lyssa quickly moved her arm around Regina's shoulders, hugging her tightly to the side, understanding better than anyone what Regina meant. Many people would probably assume that there had to be a balance in Magic, that the Dark One was the evil end of the spectrum and the fairies were the good end. But that wasn't true, there was no single good magic user who rivaled the Dark One in magic to stand against him. By removing Rumpelstiltskin, it would have at least brought some kind of balance back, for the fairies had their own evil within their ranks. They had a chance of getting rid of the Dark One without his power passing on to someone else, to just erase it, and the heroes had interfered.
The heroes had actually striven to keep a great darkness alive? And yet they were still hailed as heroes? While her mother had taken out another great threat, and she would only be seen as a villain for murder. Snow White would probably have been hailed a hero for 'tricking the Evil Queen' into murdering her mother if her plans had actually gone the way she thought. Everyone would have ignored how the princess had tricked someone into murdering their mother, simply because she was a hero and the other two were both villains.
It wasn't fair.
Rumpelstiltskin had had so much influence in her mother's life, manipulating her from the moment she banished Cora till the Dark Curse was cast. He threatened her, he threatened the people she cared about, he found ways to trick her into learning dark magic. Regina's life had never been her own, pinned under Cora's thumb and then under Rumpelstiltskin's. The only time she could be herself, be Regina, was when she was with Daniel or with Lyssa, and those times were too far and few between for Lyssa to be happy with.
Her mother had come so close to finally getting revenge on Rumpelstiltskin for all he done to her, and it has been snatched away.
Lyssa had just opened her mouth to tell her mother that they would surely get another chance, that Killian was just as set to get revenge of the Dark One as as Regina was, that, if they could go find him, between the three of them they would find a way to do it...when a ripple of magic shivered through her, a signal that someone had gone through the wards Regina set around the mausoleum. So she fell silent.
For not a moment later Mr. Gold, Rumpelstiltskin himself, came down the steps into the mausoleum to join them, "Black always was your color."
Regina's jaw clenched at the sight of him, "I'm here to bury my mother," she told him, for even though she had been the cause of Cora's death, she needed to make sure the woman stayed dead and could not come back nor her body be used against others, she would have to see to the funeral arrangements herself to ensure it, "So if you've come to gloat.."
"I came to pay my respects. We had our differences, but Cora will always have a place in my heart."
"You tricked Snow White into trading Cora's life for yours," Lyssa frowned at him.
"Sadly, desperate times call for desperate measures."
Lyssa looked away from him, absolutely disgusted. She could never imagine trading Regina or Killian's life of her own, she loved them too much, she would want them to survive before herself.
"Like getting Mary Margaret to trick me into killing my own mother?" Regina rolled her eyes. Even though she had been the one to crush Cora's heart and did so knowingly, Snow White had clearly intended for just that to happen, for Cora to die at Regina's hands, "You may be able to hide behind your dagger, but she can't. She's going to die for what she did."
"Oh, come on. We both know killing her will cost you the thing you want most: Henry. Why don't you just give up this obsession with vengeance? You know it can never make you happy."
"Yes, it will."
"You had a whole curse worth of vengeance, and what did it get you? A gaping hole in your heart."
"That was your curse."
"Which you cast."
"Because you threatened my life, my heart and soul," Lyssa defended her mother.
"And yet she still hasn't learned her lesson," Gold stated, looking to Regina, "Have you?"
"What lesson?" Regina scoffed.
"The same one your mother learned a long time ago. You can't have everything. She wanted power, ripped out her own heart to get it. You want vengeance? Henry's the price you'll pay. Time to cut your losses."
"Never," Regina swore, "I will have my son, and I will have my vengeance. I will find a way to have everything."
Gold merely tsked her before turning to walk out of the room once more.
Regina let out a long breath and moved to sit down on a chair near the wall, rubbing her forehead with one of her hands. Lyssa moved to kneel before her, reaching out to take the cup of hot chocolate from her mother and set it to the side, holding her mother's hand in both of hers.
"Killing Snow White won't give you the vengeance you want," Lyssa reminded her mother gently, recalling words Regina herself had spoken so long ago.
It had never been the plan to kill Snow White. One could not suffer if they were dead. Regina had wanted her to suffer the same misery she herself had suffered while living as the girl's stepmother, to experience the loss she had of Daniel everyday. In order for that to happen, someone had to keep living.
Regina just gave her a small smile, "I never said I was going to kill her," she nearly laughed at the confused look on Lyssa's face, "I said she was going to die. There are other ways to die than to be killed. And perhaps there are more creative ways to obtain vengeance..."
Lyssa frowned at her mother, a little lost, but clearly Regina had some sort of idea in mind, "Mama?"
Regina smirked, "Exactly."
Lyssa was more confused than ever.
~8~
Lyssa watch Regina closely as she began tearing through the dresses that Cora had brought with her from the Enchanted Forest. She was clearly looking for something that she hadn't found in any of Cora's books, chests, or other bags, the only thing left to check would be the dresses. Cora was notorious for keeping the things that were powerful very close to her at all times. If she possessed whatever it was Regina was looking for, she would have certainly brought it with her from the Enchanted Forest and kept it very close to her person.
"Yes!" Regina cheered when she managed to find a hidden seam on one of her mother's dresses and ripped it open, pulling out a small scroll and opening it to check what was inside, "I found it."
"What is it?" Lyssa asked as she stepped closer, looking over her mother's arm to read what the scroll had written on it.
"The Curse of the Empty-Hearted."
"What does it do?"
"Essentially, it has the power to make someone love you."
"But that's one of the cardinal rules of magic," Lyssa frowned, thinking of the lessons Regina had given her, "You cannot alter time, you cannot make someone love you, and you cannot bring back the...the dead," she had said the last one hesitantly, knowing how much that had been a part of her mother's descent into dark magic, the desire to bring Daniel back.
Regina looked up at the hesitance, her mouth open with an explanation of how the curse worked, only to realize something at the sad look on Lyssa's. She swallowed hard as she realized there was something she had never told her daughter, something she hadn't even realized she'd never said, "That last one..." she began slowly, "Not quite as impossible as we first thought..."
Lyssa looked over at her mother, her eyes widening, her hands coming up to her mouth that the implication, "Danny's back?" her voice went a little high, a little soft, both in excitement and disbelief, filled with emotion.
Regina fought to keep her expression strong, but she could never hold herself back in front of her daughter, her face scrunched in pain, tears beginning to fill her eyes, and she had to shake her head, she had to tell her daughter she had lost her father for a second time.
"But...you just said..."
Regina quickly stepped forward and pulled Lyssa into a tight hug, unable to stand seeing her daughter's expression crumble the way it was, "Dr. Frankenstein managed to bring him back, here in Storybrooke, with a heart that wasn't his. And he wasn't HIM without HIS heart. He was in pain, Lys, he was suffering and barely human anymore. He attacked Henry, he tried to attack me, he was in such agony the entire time."
Lyssa heard her mother's voice break down in her ear, she could tell what had happened even before Regina said it out loud, the way she described the intense pain that Daniel had been in when he came back. It was no way to live, it was not something they would ever wish for Daniel no matter how much they missed him, "Was it quick?"
Regina only barely held back a sob at her words, knowing her daughter, her clever daughter, had worked it out, knew exactly what had been done, why Daniel wasn't there with them right now, "Very," Regina told her, "As painless and quick as I could make it."
"I'm so sorry, Mama," Lyssa murmured, knowing it must have killed her mother to have to be the one to send Daniel away this time. To get him back and be forced to lose him, to have that hope and then have it be taken away? She had never regretted not being there with her mother in Storybrooke more than she did right now.
She should have been there with her, she should have been there to hug her mother, she should have been there to comfort her, and she should have been there to say goodbye to Daniel.
"I should have told you sooner," Regina sniffled as she pulled back to look at her daughter, cupping her face with both hands, her thumbs trying to wipe away the girl's tears, "I should have told you the moment you were back..."
"Why didn't you?" Lyssa asked, her voice small.
Regina could only shake her head, "I didn't want to relive it, I didn't want to hurt you," she began to say, not excuses but genuine reasons, she had always been honest with her daughter, "I swore I would never let anything hurt you. But it hurt me so much I didn't know what to do. There was never a good time, and I thought, maybe if I didn't say it, I could pretend it didn't happen," she took a deep breath, trying to gather herself once more, "But that was wrong of me. I should have told you."
Lyssa tried to offer her a smile, weak as it was. She couldn't fault her mother for not wanting to say. There had been so many times when she was growing up that she had wanted to say something to her mother, talked to her about Daniel or something else happening, but didn't. Because she didn't want to hurt her, she didn't want to bring up bad memories. While this wasn't exactly the same thing, she knew how important Daniel was her mother, and she knew her mother knew exactly how important Daniel was to her as well. Regina hadn't kept this from her for any malicious reason, to be cruel or hurt her, it was to protect both of them from the hurt. She wished her mother had told her earlier, if only so she could have hugged her tighter then instead of now.
"I understand," Lyssa told her, "I'm sorry you lost him."
"I'm sorry we lost him," Regina added, but she was infinitely glad Lyssa hadn't had to witness that second loss.
Lyssa nodded, "I guess the last rule still was impossible," before she frowned, thinking about the other rules, "But that means the others are impossible too, there's no way to make someone love you."
"The spell only makes someone think they love you," Regina corrected, wiping at her tears.
"And you want to use it," she slowly understood, "On who?"
Regina let out an almost bitter laugh, "You're not going to automatically assume it's for Henry?"
"I'm not a hero," Lyssa reminded her, "I would rather learn all of your plan before I make any judgments."
Regina reached out and lightly tapped Lyssa under the chin with the knuckle of one of her fingers, something Daniel would do whenever she said something that was wise beyond her years as a child. It was something she had taken to doing whenever Lyssa made a very good decision or said something equally wise.
"No, it's not for Henry. It's for Snow."
"Snow White?" Lyssa shook her head, completely confused, "Are you going to make her love someone else?"
She could understand how that might be a source of vengeance. From what her mother had told her of when the curse was still in effect, Snow White's prince was married to another woman, yet he and Snow White were together outside of the marriage. Now that the memories were back, she was sure it would be quite vengeful to have Snow White fall in love with another and betray her prince...but that didn't explain how it wouldn't affect Henry. Something like that was bound to be suspicious and the heroes would work out her hand in it quickly enough, Henry would be upset. And, as it had always been in the Enchanted Forest, the children under the care of Queen Regina were always the deciding factor in the things she did. And why she did them.
"Not quite," Regina began to smirk, "You've proven to me, Little Fox," she reached out to touch Lyssa's hair, "That the love a child has for their parent can be the most powerful, unconditional love that exists, a form of true love in and of itself."
"A child's love for their parent," Lyssa began, working it out. It was something of a game they used to play in the Enchanted Forest, Regina always felt that the only way to make sure the true intent of her plan was understood was if Lyssa herself could come to the same conclusion, "I already love you, and it's not for Henry, it's for Snow White...you want to make Snow White love you?"
"Exactly," Regina smiled, "My greatest enemy, feeling the unconditional love a daughter has for her mother for the Evil Queen."
"Mama, that was how everything started in the Enchanted Forest," Lyssa warned her, "Snow White wanted a mother and..."
"She wanted a mother, she didn't want me," Regina explained, "And even when she had me, it was just the idea of a mother that she wanted. But if she actually loved me as a child would their mother, she wouldn't stand against me. She would be on my side."
"And she would be able to stop the other heroes always attacking you," Lyssa realized, because Snow White was the leader of the heroes and they would do whatever she said.
"She would be able to encourage Henry to love me again, of his own free will. She would defend me against her people. And the best yet is, knowing her, she'll be beside herself with guilt over what she tried to do with mother's heart, everyone else will just assume it's a result of that guilt that she's changed her view on me. The spell won't affect the love she has for others too much, so no one would know her change of heart was because of this spell."
"How is it vengeance though?" she could understand now what Regina had said about there being more ways to die than through killing someone.
"Because she'll be forced to love her worst enemy," Regina told her, "All my faults, everything she thinks I did in the past, she'll love me regardless of them. I can't think of any worse fate than to be forced to love the person you hate the most."
Lyssa looked down at the spell, frowning when she saw something quite similar to what her mother had just said, "It says you need the heart of the person you hate the most," she remarked, tapping the paper.
"Makes it all the more easy. Instead of needing two people, the one to cast the spell on and the one who holds that heart, it would be the same person. Snow White was always such a goody two-shoes I can imagine she'll be so guilt-ridden she'll seek me out herself, either to apologize or to beg me to kill her for what she was going to do. The moment I rip her heart out, I'll be able to cast a spell. And when I return her heart, the spell will take effect."
"So you don't need to crush the heart in order to enact the spell?"
Regina shook her head, "And no one will know. The heroes would never expect vengeance from Evil Queen to come in the form of love."
"...that is brilliant."
"I thought you'd like that little twist," Regina teased her daughter, knowing how she felt about death and destruction, "Now, grab me the chimera blood and viper's eye, and we can get everything prepared..."
~8~
Lyssa and Regina appeared in a swirl of magical smoke in the middle of the woods, right near a wishing well Henry was crouched next to, trying to light a match, a stick of dynamite resting at his feet.
Regina had been working on a way to get Rumpelstiltskin out of Snow White's apartment, to distract him long enough for her to get in and get a hold of Snow White's heart. She had gone there earlier that day but Gold had been there. They had been going over ideas of what could possibly distract the Dark One away from Snow White's side, when Regina had gotten a phone call. The man who had crashed outside of Storybrooke, Greg Mendell, had called Regina to inform her that he had come across Henry running through the woods, quite upset. Regina had instantly used her magic mirrors to track down where he was and teleport the two of them right to him.
"Henry?" Regina nearly rushed towards him, but he quickly stood, grabbing the stick of dynamite and holding it up, thankfully still unlit, "What are you doing?"
"I'm getting rid of magic!" he shouted, "It's ruining everything. And you can't stop me."
"Henry you can't get rid of magic just by blowing up a wishing well," Lyssa tried to tell him, she honestly had no idea what logic had brought him to that conclusion.
"All that's going to do is get you killed," Regina agreed.
Henry scoffed, "You just say that because you need magic. So you can cast that curse on me."
Lyssa closed her eyes for just a moment, shaking her head, of course, of course the heroes would assume the spell was meant for Henry.
But while her eyes had been closed, Henry began to light the stick of dynamite, so Regina quickly used her magic to make it vanish. Henry turned to glare at her for the action, "I can't lose you Henry," Regina told him in defense of making the stick disappear, no mother in their right mind would ever allow their child to play with dynamite, "You mean too much to me," she added, no matter how angry he would be with her for using the magic on him just now, he did mean far too much to her to risk him hurting himself by refraining from using magic to keep him safe.
"Then don't cast the curse," Henry shouted, "Don't kill Mary Margaret."
Regina's jaw clenched as she realized the trap she had walked into, she had to pick her words very carefully. If she said she wasn't going to cast the curse, it would be a lie, she very much intended to cast it on Snow White. But if she said she wasn't going to kill the woman, Henry will never believe her, he already didn't believe them about the wishing well. So she said something very simple, something understandable, something she had been saying for years now, "Henry, she has to pay."
It wasn't even just about Cora anymore, Snow White had had to pay for everything she had done for years and years not just the present moment.
"The curse. It won't make me love you for real. It'll be fake."
"But it would be something," Lyssa spoke up, knowing how much her mother hated lying to her children. But right now they needed Henry to believe that the curse was meant for HIM. So long as he thought it would be cast on him, no one else would suspect it was for Snow White.
Regina gave Lyssa a grateful nod for her defense, for not putting it on her to outright lie to her son, "I know it's hard for you to understand right now," Regina began slowly, approaching Henry by the well, Lyssa close behind, "But you'll see. We can be happy. We can have everything."
And it was true, if she could just make it long enough to put that curse on Snow White, he would be safe, he would be happy. He would still have his grandmother, his beloved heroes, they would just be a little more open and accepting of her with Snow White's influence. She would have them off her back, she would have someone on the inside, she would have someone to try and talk Henry into giving her a chance.
"Not like this," Henry shook his head.
"Hey Regina!" Emma's voice suddenly shouted behind her as Emma, David, and that man they brought back from New York swarmed them, "Get away from my son!"
"He's not yours!" Regina snapped, "He's mine. And after I cast this," she held up the scroll with the spell on it, "You'll never see him again."
She realized her mistake the second those words left her mouth. She should not have brought up the spell. If Henry knew, she knew there was a good chance the other heroes knew of the spell too, it would explain Gold acting as guard dog to Snow White. But she could have waited, seen what they knew for sure. And she'd just shown her hand.
Emma just had a way of getting under her skin and making her furious.
It was never going to happen now, now with the heroes aware of the spell. It would have been true, she could imagine it, with Snow White on her side, the town would be hers. If Snow White spoke out against her daughter, if Snow White wanted Henry to return to his adoptive mother, the girl would find a way to make it so. With Snow White whispering in Henry's ear, to give her a chance...
"That's never going to happen," David threatened.
"If you want to kill Mary Margaret you're going to have to go through us!" Emma stated.
Lyssa shook her head subtly at that, and of course the heroes would assume that needing the heart of the person Regina hated most meant crushing it. She looked over when the heroes pulled their weapons, to see Regina quickly take a step closer to her, a little before her, to protect her, summoning up a fireball to her hand.
"Stop!" Henry ran in between the two sides.
"Henry, get out of the way!" the second man shouted.
"Not until someone helps me destroy magic!"
"There's no way to get rid of it, Henry," Lyssa tried to explain again, "You can't blow it up! And if you try to get rid of it from a person it can kill them!"
Suddenly Henry stilled, looking over his shoulder at her, "You're lying. You're lying so that she can keep her magic."
Lyssa shook her head, "When you're born with magic, it's a part of you. If you try to get rid of it or stop using it, all it does is build up inside of you. It can hurt you, it can kill her Henry," she nodded back at Regina, "Do you want her to stop using magic? Do you hate her that much you want her to die?"
"I don't want anyone to die!" Henry shouted, but Lyssa didn't miss the way Regina flinched when Henry didn't say he didn't hate his mother, "I just want magic to stop ruining everything."
"Magic isn't the problem, kid," Emma told him, "It's her."
"It's not just her," Henry at least defended Regina in that sense, "It's everyone. Look what magic did to Mary Margaret," he turned to look at Regina, "Look what it did to you! It makes good people do terrible things."
Lyssa reached out to put a hand on Regina's shoulder in more support, she shook her head gently when Regina looked back at her, silently reminding her Henry didn't know the whole story. None of the heroes did.
"Please," Henry continued when Emma muttered something under her breath, "It's going to destroy my family. Help me get rid of it."
"We can't get rid of magic Henry, from this town or from a person," Lyssa repeated.
"But..." Regina began, waiting till Henry looked at her, "There is something I can do."
They watched as Regina conjured a fireball into her hand, and dropped the scroll with the curse on it into the flames, turning it to ash. It was pointless to use it now anyway. More people than Henry clearly knew about it. Such a change in Snow White would be too suspicious now.
"Thank you," Henry spoke after moment, when it sunk in that Regina could not use the curse anymore.
Lyssa stepped closer to Regina, reaching out to take her mother's hand when they watched as Henry turned his back on her to leave with Emma and the others. She knew how much it was paining her mother to watch it happen, to watch Henry continually pick the heroes over her, over the mother who had raised him all his life and loved him with everything she had.
"You will always have me, Mama," Lyssa reminded the woman, squeezing her hand tighter. She knew it wasn't a competition, she knew her mother didn't love Henry more than her, nor her more than Henry, but she wanted her to at least know she would never be alone, not in her struggles, not again.
"Let's just go home," Regina murmur waving her hand and having them disappear in a swirl of magic smoke.
~8~
Lyssa made her way to the front door of the Manor, hearing a knock on it, her mother resting in the next room on a couch. She froze when she opened the door, seeing Snow White standing on the other side.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
"Regina?!" Snow White began to yell, trying to move past Lyssa into the house, but the woman wouldn't let her, "Regina I know you're here!"
"What?" Regina demanded as she strode to the room, putting a hand on Lyssa's back to let her know she was there, "What do you want?' she mimicked her daughter's words.
"Kill me," Snow White said.
Lyssa had to give it to her mother, she certainly knew Snow White's traits, she had guessed that the woman would feel so guilty she would demand such a thing.
"What?"
"Regina, we have been fighting for so long. It's cost us so much. It has to end before anyone else dies. So please, just do it."
"Before anyone else dies?" Lyssa shook her head at the woman, "So all the lives before Cora meant nothing to you? All the lives before the one you had a hand it don't matter, because you had nothing to do with them?"
It was clear to them that Snow White felt guilty of something when it came to Cora's death, despite the fact that it had been Regina's choice to end her mother. The woman had clearly intended for Regina to kill Cora, and she had clearly intended for Rumpelstiltskin to live as a result, she had set it up so that Regina would unknowingly murder her mother, which was...quite a dark thing to do. Lyssa could imagine that would be more than enough for one person to feel guilt, when the outcome was exactly as they had hoped for.
"That's not why..."
"Henry would never forgive me," Regina cut in, not wanting to hear any of Snow White's excuses, "But do you know what my problem is? I never learn from my mistakes," she reached out and ripped Snow White's heart from her, about to start squeezing it, for clearly Henry would never give her the benefit of the doubt so why bother...
"Mama, wait," Lyssa reached out to put a hand on her mother's wrist to stop her, "Look."
Regina looked down at the heart in her hand and began to smile, before holding up the heart up to show Snow what she had seen, "Do you see that?" she pointed to a rather large black spot in the middle of the heart.
"What did you do to it?!" Snow White demanded.
"Why do you assume it was something mother did? It's in your heart, only your actions can affect it," Lyssa instantly defended her mother.
"You darkened it yourself," Regina smirked.
But Snow White shook her head frantically, "No. No. No."
Lyssa frowned at how Snow White was reacting to it and looked back at the heart, thoughtful, "It shouldn't be blackened from that," she remarked, looking at her mother, "She didn't kill Cora herself, how could she have blackened her own heart from this?"
Regina started laughing, grinning as Lyssa's words made sense, "It wouldn't be this big either," she realized, "What horrific thing has Snow White done?" she asked the woman who look truly frightened, "Not something anyone else knows about, I would assume. The people wouldn't love you as much as they do if your heart was blackened. Because a blackened heart? It only grows darker and darker. So what did the pure Snow White do in the Forest that caused such a spot?"
"It was because of Cora," Snow insisted, "So crush it, do it. Crush it. Get it over with."
"Are you that ashamed of a black spot in your heart that you would rather die than live with it inside you?" Lyssa asked the woman, pitting her.
Regina hummed as she considered that, "At first, I thought having you love someone you hated would be vengeance enough for what you did to my mother's heart, for how you sided with the Dark One..." she smirked, "I'm realizing now that having you hate someone you once loved, yourself, is far more sweet. I don't need to destroy you. You're doing it to yourself. And along the way, you'll bring down that perfect little family you fought so hard to reunite. And then Henry will be mine."
"Please kill me," Snow White continued to beg, "Please just kill me."
"No," Regina said simply, shoving Snow White's heart back into her chest, "Thanks to you, I CAN have everything. Now get off my porch!" and, with that, she slammed the door in Snow's face, taking a breath before she turned to Lyssa, "Now...we need to find your pirate, don't we?"
Lyssa nodded, following her mother into the kitchen, ignoring the sobs of Snow White through the door. The woman had brought this sorrow on herself. Her mother, for all her faults, accepted what people saw her do as the Evil Queen, accepted he consequences of it. It was the time before that, it was the things that drove her to become what she was that she held animosity for and felt the blame should not be put on her for. Snow White had done something, long before this event with Cora, that had blackened her heart, she would need to accept the consequences of it. Asking for death, so she wouldn't have to face what she'd done was another example of the difference between Regina and Snow, Regina faced it down, Regina was resilient.
In that sense, she had known instantly, she had known from the moment Snow White begged for death, that Regina would not give it to her. And not because of Regina's plans for vengeance, for that was not the entire reason Regina would not and had never actually killed Snow White.
She got her disgust for death from her mother, after all.
A/N: Hmm, how can Lyssa hate death and destruction, and have gotten that from Regina? :/ I want to sort of paste that emoji of the thinking face with the finger and thumb by the chin here lol :)
One thing I wanted to explore in this particular episode was interpretation and assumption, how we can interpret a scene or phrase differently, how we make assumptions that others either correct or allow us to think that. Right from the start, Regina says Snow will 'die' so Gold assumes it means 'killing her' which Regina didn't deny, but also didn't agree with. As Regina said, there are other ways to die than to kill someone. The heroes assume Regina will use the spell on Henry. They assume that Regina will crush Snow's heart when all Gold says is that she 'needs the heart.' Gold seems to say a lot here and let the heroes interpret it how they will.
So I thought, what if Regina WASN'T going to use it on Henry? I understand from the episode it reads very much like that's the plan, use it on Henry, but WHAT IF there was another way to interpret it all? Not much of the original dialogue was altered, so I wanted to sort of play with other interpretations of what was said.
If Regina was going to use the Empty Hearted on SNOW instead of Henry, it would essentially cause a part of Snow to die. And it would be a genius way of enacting vengeance. Instead of Henry loving her, one of her 'other children' would love her, SNOW. If Snow loved her, and not in the sense of when she was a girl and wanted 'a mother' but actually loved REGINA as her mother, Snow wouldn't be able to fight against her, she wouldn't allow others to fight her, she would fight FOR her, she'd be on Regina's side and encourage Henry to forgive Regina, etc. That way Regina gets everything she wanted. She gets someone Henry trusts to push him to her, she gets the heroes to stop fighting her, and she gets an endless pleasure in knowing that, despite all the harm and torment she could do to Mary Margaret, she'd love her regardless. She'd have the devotion of the 'greatest hero' who would turn her back on everything because she 'loves her mother.'
Better yet, if no one else knew about the spell, they would just assume Snow's sudden change of heart was guilt over what happened with Cora.
There was nothing that said those who were under that spell couldn't love OTHER people too. Snow wouldn't be unable to love others, she would just love Regina too. As a mother, since Regina was going to use it on Henry. There was nothing that said that the heart of the person you hated the most had to be crushed.
And that's the assumption too. They ASSUME Regina is going to use the spell on Henry. They ASSUME needing Snow's heart means she'll die based on implications given by Gold. A lot of what Gold said to the heroes could be interpreted certain ways and lead to certain assumptions. They ASSUME that when Regina says 'I can't lose you Henry, you mean too much to me' that she's talking about the curse and not that it could possibly be the fact that she used magic on him to vanish the dynamite.
WHAT IF there was another way to look at this episode? That's what I wanted to explore since the curse was never used in the end, it left the possibility open...
Though now I'm sort of tempted to do a one-shot or an AU where Regina burns a fake scroll and still goes through with the curse on Snow's heart when she comes to beg for death. Or if anyone else wants to write something like that, go for it ;)
Also, one final thing :) My next Captain America/Olivia story will be up tomorrow ;) It will be a revision of the Avengers, and titled 'United We Stand' :)
Some notes on reviews...
I'm very excited to explore Swanfire :) Lyssa and Neal will grow closer through some challenges and sort of find a kindred spirit in each other for the things they've endured and will endure. That friendship, also I think, will make the heroes even more confused about Lyssa :)
I'm glad you're enjoying the story :) So far I post on a rotation of stories. I post a chapter of A story every Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and I rotate between this story, a Doctor Who story, Lord of the Rings, Big Bang Theory, and a second Doctor Who story. I can't quite post more frequently than I am because I have to get through the other stories first and I don't want to promise too many updates than I can manage (I'm also about to post a 10 chapter Avengers story on top of it all). But I can say I am considering, maybe in a few more chapters, changing that so that I can finish up this story sooner as it will be the one with less chapters left in it :) But I'm not sure yet, we'll have to wait and see ;)