She had followed on the scent of apples baked in silver moonlight sprinkled with droplets of blood. Her feet, bare, touched the broken stones of the land of mære and brought out water from deep beneath the grieving soil. She turned the tears into blossoms red and white, and brushed green delight on the cold gray stones that were her prison once. The breeze came to her, bringing her tales of lost souls and of riveting despair, but she told it to worry not. She brought them all an end. An end to all sorrow. An end to all delight. A darkness without escape. At last, peace, for the forever in despair.
The only point of reassurance Regina had in the sea of madness closing all around them was the feel of her back touching Robin's, sending resolve reverberating through her body. Her fingers twitched, hands clenching as she tightened her hold on the raging purple flame of her magic. Had it worked? She wondered to herself. Would she come? There was no time for second guessing herself now. There were more important things to worry about; like surviving the next five minutes.
Floundering blindly with her sweat soaked left hand, her palm caught the sharp icy head of the arrow Robin had in his right hand. The coppery taste of blood blossomed on her tongue; the same blood she could feel starting to coat the metal under her palm. "It's appalling. Simply appalling…the lack of manners you two have." She griped, ignoring the sharp taste in her mouth, trying to maintain her slippery hold on the arrow head. "I blame your mother."
"I would not fault you in that." Robin muttered in her ear, taking the arrow from her hand to load his bow with it. Without breaking stride or seeming to aim at anyone in particular, he let loose. It wasn't even a split second after his shot, but the one arrow had suddenly become a thousand arrows; one for each William clone coming at them. Regina stifled down the satisfied smirk trying to break out on her lips. It hasn't worked yet.
The arrows hit their many targets. Her vision filled with the sight of William staggering and falling to the ground making. Black dots dance in front of her eyes from the elation pounding through her veins; she didn't really care that it was just one William in a sea of many. It took a few seconds before it registered on her that the falling Williams were few and far in between. For most of them, the arrows had managed to have as much effect as an annoying finger poke.
Oh well. You can't have everything.
"Thank you brother." Robin said, the sly grin on his lips drawing a mirrored one on her own.
"Stretch yourself thin so our arrows can actually pierce your heart." she said, putting all the insincerity she could muster into her words. "How very considerate of you."
The many Williams coalesced into one with an annoyed look on his face. "Well then. Enough posturing." he said acidly. "Time I added you to our friends on the wall." as he talked darkness gathered into the black holes his eyes had become, two bottomless pits devouring all light.
"Oh no, you don't." Regina said, pulling all her magic to her in a thunderous tornado of purple and black, pouring all the fear, fury and hope she had in her into the raging monstrosity in front. Silver flashed in the corner of her eye. She turned to follow the path of the arrow Robin had let loose, going right into the eye of her purple hurricane, and disappearing inside.
The magic had a life of its own now. The bones in her outstretched hands ached with the effort to keep it all together, keep it from snapping until just the right moment. Her eyes caught on the tear in the air behind her tornado, behind the raised dais and the loathsome figure on the throne. On that tear, in the panoramic view of the battle William had provided, the end of the rebels was writ large. Their army smashed to pieces, nothing but fallen swords and smashed bodies of mount and rider remained. She thought of Adelina, lost somewhere in the melee. Soon her head would be adorned in gold and mounted on one of the spaces on the walls around her. Hers and Robin's too probably if they didn't manage to defeat him.
Savage fury had stilled the tremor in her fingers. She sent the hurricane of magic towards William, thinking of her Henry and his Roland. Thinking of the only hope they had of getting out of this hellhole in one piece. Please come.
"Die you fucking bastard!"
If only that were possible. She knew better. Oh please let it be so that her magic had worked. Please come. Just come. The plea ran through her mind, her chest aching with the force of her need.
The gust of wind created from the whirlpool was almost like a physical force, whipping her hair around, obscuring her vision. "Perfect. This again." she huffed under her breath, reaching out to Robin for balance. One day she was going to finally get around to gust-proving her hair. Or maybe she should hair-proof her eyes?
The tornado was a whirlpool of darkness around William, but with each spin it seemed to lose more and more of its density, revealing the man trapped in its center in flashes. Regina blinked in confusion. The flashes were making her see double she decided. Because it didn't look like there was only William at the center of the spinning mass of magic. There was another figure there, standing a few paces behind him. Tall and willowy, long hair fastened in a thick braid that swayed in the harsh wind, it was a woman's figure she saw.
The storm was picking up speed, whirling faster and faster, but she could tell its center was no longer William, it was the woman. The cloudy tendrils of magic were picking up speed, getting darker with each spin, getting thicker, merging into each other and eating up the empty spaces that revealed the woman in their midst. No longer was it her silver tinged purple tornado; it was a dark color now, darker than shadow, darker than ink. It was the color of the abyss, a towering cone like monstrosity that had long since left William behind as it whirled tighter and tighter around its prized prey.
The spinning magic imploded in on itself, and that was the last straw for their feeble attempts to stand their ground, sending them flying over the great hall instead, depositing them unceremoniously in a tumble of limbs and scattered arrows.
Regina groaned, trying to detangle herself from Robin without skewering him with the sharp ends of her limbs. At least, William hadn't escaped the wind blast she noted with some satisfaction, watching him pick himself off the floor. There was something wrong the look on his face though. He was looking back to the blast site with something she had a hard time putting her finger on. Not fear as she might have hoped, not smirking satisfaction that he had beaten them in their game. It was something akin to awed joy mixed with wonder and disbelief.
Regina turned her eyes to where William was looking, dread coursing in her veins.
As she had expected, there was indeed a woman standing there. Not the one she was hoping to see granted, but still, she knew that face. Knew that auburn hair. Knew the woman they belong to. Regina had seen her gazing with love and adoration shining from her green eyes up at William as he swirled her around. But that was in a long ago time, in a wide green meadow, as they stood on the right side of the invisible shield that engulfed Heliamara.
"My Anna." William said. The words were like a prayer coming off deep within his chest on the hills of all breath leaving his lungs.
"But…" Regina spluttered in disbelief. She looked to Robin trying to make sense of where the hell her spell had gone awry.
His eyes were transfixed on the woman with the long auburn braid. "We killed the last bit of Anna that was left. The bit that made her good. He doesn't need to make a prison for what isn't there anymore." His voice was matter of fact, but bitterness swam underneath; hidden currents of rage that were waiting to snap his resolve in two.
It was hard to believe that was not Anna. The same Anna that Regina had seen in the visions of the past, the ones that Jack had given her. With her cat eyes and that devilish glint they had when she and Robin were conspiring together against William for his own good, it was that same Anna sauntering down the steps of the raised dais, only much more beautiful, much more radiant than Regina remembered her.
Anna, or fake Anna or whatever, whoever, she was, had her green eyes fixed on William, her ruby red lips turned up in a sultry smirk as she reached him. Her hands snaked around his neck, and she drew him his lips to hers. The kiss went on and on, the two seemingly intent on devouring each other whole, their hands trying to roam everywhere at once, not a hairbreadth left between their bodies to separate them.
"Oh get a room." Regina said, not able to stomach the scene any longer.
That mercifully broke the two apart. Anna turned her emerald eyes to them, gasping for air. It was almost hard to look at her, almost as if, like the sun, she was too bright to look at with naked eyes. "This is our room dear," she said with a breathy laugh. "We'd better kick you out, hadn't we?"
