Robin no longer needs to scrunch his eyes shut and concentrate to bring his Figment to life, the ghostly hare, the smoky white hare, he needs only call it forth, just a simple thought, and the thing appears before him, staring and staring with large pearly eyes.
Robin crouches, balancing on the balls of his feet as he reaches out to pet the thing softly, little wisps of smoke curling about his fingers, "Hello," he greets, still wary of this thing he can make, this magic that is the easiest for him to control. He is magic, Robin is magic. Robin shakes his head, his hand still gentle with the beast that is only real for as long as Robin wills it so, magic he thinks, and it brings forth the word danger, of prices that cannot be paid. The hare turns its head before loping over to where Regina sits on the ground a bit away, sits while Tinkerbelle chatters behind her and braids Regina's hair for her, Regina can't do it herself, not with her hands still bundled (bundled to keep her own nails from her eyes, this is what magic has done to her, Robin thinks, this is what Emil has done to her-
Emil, the old man who'd died before Robin's very eyes, his last word 'forgive' and then silence from him forevermore, gone behind the deathgate. Forgive? Emil looked with his cloudy eyes pointed over Robin's shoulder and begged, 'forgive', he said, and if Robin knew what he asked forgiveness for he would have snarled in the old man's face. Regina calls it a gift, like Liam and his shadows, or June with her flowers, but the children's gifts don't have them clawing at their eyes in a fever, Robin will remember that night for the rest of his life, the night Emil died and Regina got his gift, but gifts don't leave people moaning and screaming as seizures have them in danger of swallowing their tongue.)
The hare lands without weight into Regina's lap, and she smiles softly down at it, lowering her head while ignoring Tinkerbelle telling her to stay still, Regina is whispering to the ghostly thing, she's whispering her message to Roland.
The Figment can travel large distances, can relay a casters messages, Granny had said the morning of their departure, the day Robin left Roland safe and sniffling, the little boy watching and watching from John's arms as his father, and the woman he'd started to call Mama walked away from him, walked from him straight into danger, Granny had pulled Robin aside, the old woman had glared up at him from behind her glasses, "You send that damned thing every day, you hear me? Send it to your boy every day or I'm marching off after you, you son of a bitch." The old woman was snappish, rude, and so filled with anger as she drew Robin down for a burly hug that Robin could do nothing but nod.
"And you keep my idiot girls safe, you keep both those idiot girls safe," Granny whispered into his ear, speaking of Regina, speaking of Ruby, her granddaughter, 'idiot girl' had never sounded so much an endearment before she hissed it out, she patted him on the back, and then pushed him off, he pretended not to see the tears she swiped off her cheeks.
The hare nuzzles up on the underside of Regina's chin before bouncing off, Robin stands as it makes its way back to him, "You tell my boy I love him more than the world," Robin says to it when it sits before him, "That I'm coming back to him soon, his Mama and I both," Mama, the boy calls Regina, and it warms Robin as much as it stabs an icy talon of torment into his heart, the boy has already lost one mother, Robin cannot help thinking, as if the position is somehow cursed, but the boy will not lose another. The boy will not lose another mother.
Robin nods, and the hare stands a moment longer, staring and staring, Robin is uncomfortable under the pearly eyed stare, but then the thing is racing off, white and glowing in the early light of dawn as it weaves through the trees, farther and farther away, faster than any real animal could ever hope to achieve, it's too far in the dense underbrush, too far away, to see only seconds later.
"We're moving so slowly," Tinkerbelle says, seemingly not to shame, but just in worry, she's biting her lip, gnawing at it, "and we've already wasted so much time."
Robin could say something, could console her, but he's angry at the sprite, angry in a way that eats inside you, he cannot help but blame the fairy for this trip, for the danger that Regina is in, there is no safety here, trekking through the forest, not like in the camp, but it's Regina's son that has them here, not Tinkerbelle.
The boy, all this for the boy, the son Regina thought she'd lost forever.
The anger eats inside him, but that night Regina lays in his arms, he's moving his hand over her belly, could swear the child is kicking but she laughs, a breath of laughter, and tells him it's too early for that.
Robin asks after her boy, asks all about him, and she answers every question, crying at points, like when she describes the boy's first steps, and his first word, 'Mama,' he had said and giggled, she's crying and laughing after she tells Robin of how Henry had won the science fair in second grade, only to have Robin question what exactly a science fair was. She's quiet too, when she speaks of how the boy found out he was not born of her womb, how he had... no longer wanted her, Regina whispers, her jaw trembling.
"I'm sure he loved you, Regina, children don't know how cruel words can be," Robin pushes her hair behind her ear, embraces her, rubs her back and shifts so she is more comfortably sprawled half atop him. "And he will love you again, we will reach him, you've seen it."
With her gift, she has seen it, she has seen other things too, futures that aren't so happy, but she shares those with him seldom, he can see the pain in her eyes though, after a night of tormented futures play beneath her sleeping eyes.
She nods, but she is done talking.
Before she falls asleep, she's heavy in his arms, eyes closed, breath even in and out of her nose, Robin kisses the side of her head and tells her how proud he will be to meet her boy and call him his son.
She kisses him sleepily, her eyes barely open, bundled hand around his neck, pulling him in, "Thank you," she whispers to him, breathes it against his lips, "thank you for all this, you could have stayed with Rolan-"
"No," he tells her, holds her tighter, and maybe one day she will understand him, some piece of her will shift and she will believe him, "I couldn't have, Regina, not when our family can be whole, our boys," he tells her, "and our girl," he rubs her belly, the baby is kicking, "we're going to have it all."
Regina shakes her head, overwhelmed with her brows crinkling softly, "I love you so much," Regina says.
"As I love you," Robin grins and pecks her lips again before settling her head down against his shoulder, before the pair fall asleep.
Ruby's nose tips up, sniffling and sniffling, she's a wolf, Robin reminds himself, he has seen for himself her as the wolf, dark and giant, with eyes that are aware. But it's almost comical at the moment, the way she sniffs the air like a dog on the trail.
"Wait," she says, weight to the word, she holds up a hand, a thin hand, delicate and pale, so at odds with the wolf she is underneath, the wild thing with claws and teeth. Ruby begins to walk sideways from their trail, going into the underbrush, the red cloak about her shoulders never snagging, flowing and billowing, magic crackles on the thing. Magic, Robin thinks. Regina is the first to follow the other woman, her own cloak, it snags on almost everything.
The group follows after, looking at each other questioningly, Tinkerbelle huffs a sigh, "Guys," she calls, but then the stench hits her. The stench of a corpse comes to them as the breeze shifts, and what Ruby had smelled with her wolf senses is suddenly apparent to everyone else.
They walk less then quarter of a mile.
Until they find the body of a man, his face twisted, his last expression, seen even through all the rot that has massacred his face, it's of utmost agony, his insides had been clawed out, left strewn about him. Monkeys did this, the wounds give them away, the witch did this, no animal has come to eat the corpse, it has not been touched at all save the wounds that killed him, and magic crackles here as well.
"Don't touch it," Regina warns, tired and weary, blinking slowly as she turns away.
"We have to bury him," George says, bouncing on his feet, looking at the body of the stranger and back to Regina, to her back as she walks away.
"No," Robin corrects, he pats Farouk on the shoulder when the man goes to follow after Regina as she steps farther away, "we don't."
"It's not right," George goes on, but he doesn't sound so sure, "it's not right to leave him out like this." Aniol wraps an arm around George's shoulder, pulling him softly away.
"There's magic here," Tinkerbelle says, and Robin is so, so glad that she is the one that said it and not him, the blonde fairy, in all her green, she shivers almost violently, "dark magic, Regina is right, we shouldn't touch him. I'm sorry."
The corpse has them all wary, awake long into the night; they'd traveled well into dark, getting as much distance between them and the corpse. Robin holds Regina so close in the night, after she has finally fallen asleep, but the bags under her eyes will look no better come sunrise, they are a permanent fixture on her lovely face now, she wears her tiredness in the slope of her shoulders, in the clumsiness of her steps, Robin holds her so tight in the night that she wakes multiple times and mumbles a soft 'it's alright' that does nothing to reassure him.
(Robin is so, so afraid, and if he were to think on it he'd realize that this fear had taken root the day Roland came crying to him with snot covering his face, the day the boy saw Regina fall to the infection she'd let fester on her arm, it all seems so long ago, only seems that way, the fear cut him deep as he skidded to a stop in the castle corridor, staring with wide eyes at a puddle of black silk, black hair, and jumbled limbs, and the fear has only grown, festering as well as the infection in her arm had.)
He wakes from a nightmare near sunrise, a nightmare of a lake of blood under Regina, she's pregnant and dead in a lake of blood, a booming laugh in Robin's ears as he tries to stay afloat in Regina's blood, it's Tom's laugh, Tuck's brother, who had tried to take Regina, take her life, so long ago, it only seems so long ago, he had killed Regina, but the booming laughter turns into a cackle, the cackle of the witch and her voice rings in his ears, 'oh no dear, will a kiss wake her from this?' she cackles and cackles and Regina, swollen with pregnancy, she sinks down into the blood. Robin wakes up, he'd let out a shout, he thinks as he sits up panting, Regina's there to calm him immediately, "What is it?" she asks, hands running over him, as if to check him for injury.
Robin grabs her, pulls her into his lap and holds her, soothes himself with the feeling of her warm skin, of the breath that sweeps across his neck and jaw, she whispers calming things to him that he does not hear.
A trio of horses are down in the valley, a chocolate mare, a huge white gelding, and the mean, muscled, and scared form of a stallion, the stallion stomps and stomps at the ground, huge dark eyes glaring and glaring, looking up at the crest of the hill, looking straight at Regina, but that is silly, Robin thinks, it's silly but it's true.
"I cannot believe it," Robin breathes into the wind with a shake of his head, "our horses," the mean dark stallion, the beast that had thrown Regina ages and ages ago, thrown her and run, the sweet mare and the gelding that they'd left behind escaping the trap the witch had laid, Robin and Regina and David, so long ago it seems forever, they'd escaped in a puff of smoke, landed in the iron stained water of the weeping, leaving the horses behind. But all three mounts are down in the valley, together, right there, all three together, it is madness.
A hint of a smile plays on his lips, he shakes his head again and wraps his arm around Regina's waist, pulling her in closer to his side as he looks down into the grey valley, the muddy valley that runs and rolls into knolls for miles and miles. Their path, the path the fairy, the wolf, and half of Robin's men, and Regina, her bundled hands covered in mud from two nasty falls that had her among the roots, the path the group will take has them curving along the edge of the knolls for two days, two more days and they will arrive to Snow White's camp, no more roots to trip over, but they will be visible from the air, no cover without the trees. Tinkerbelle says she can hide them though, hide their presence from any monkey flying above, Robin must take solace in that fact, must trust that what the sprite says is true.
Regina is leaning against Robin's side, breathing heavier then she should, someone has tied her hair back, Tinkerbelle, she is getting better and better at the braids, Regina smiles more freely at the fairy now, always thanks her for the aid. A soft smile grows on Regina's face now, amused, just a tip of her lips up before she wiggles free from his arms, Regina turns to Arthur.
"Is this a trick?" Robin asks, but he sees no magic here, now that he knows what it looks like, what it feels like, and he can sense nothing here. "They would not have remained together."
Regina shakes her head, "Bring the rope," she says, canting her head to indicate the thick rope around Arthur's shoulder. Regina heads down into the valley after slipping her pack off and to Farouk, handing it off with a word of thanks before she's headed down the gentle slope, she's wet with the drizzle of rain immediately once she's out of the shelter of the tree canopy, her hair curling tightly from where it's fallen loose of Tink's braid.
"Be careful, Regina," Robin sends after her, he knows without being told (he knows from somewhere inside him, some half of him that has been her always, he did not know it, but it is her, inside him, a part of him), Robin knows she means to bring the horses back into the fold.
Regina sends him a smile over her shoulder, it's such a simple thing, that warm smile, that reassurance, but it eases the knot in Robin's guts, the hot fission of terror at the sight of her walking away from him, not even twenty feet away and already his heart is pounding, it eases at her smile (but it's not gone, his terror is never gone).
Arthur follows after her, clumsy down the muddy slope, clumsy where she is graceful, her arms up to balance her as each step has her faster, until she's pelting and running and sliding, her hair in the braid trailing behind her, 'be careful,' Robin wants to repeat, but won't, because she is not a child to be warned and scolded, and she looks free and filled with life as she reaches the bottom and skids in the mud, a huff of breath that may have been some form of strangled laughter comes from her, barely heard where Robin has remained on the crest above the shallow valley, remained with his back among the trees. They'll make camp up here, one more night in the camouflage of the trees before they trek out come sunrise.
"Regina!" Ruby calls, she makes to follow the two already down the slope, but Robin holds out a hand to stop her.
"Let them be," he says, not an order, that sort of smile still on his face as Arthur doesn't catch himself nearly as well as Regina at the bottom of the hill, he falls to one knee in the mud, laughing, the boy is laughing. It rings around the valley, Regina's tinkling laughter following moments later, light and lovely, more girlish then Robin would have ever thought, it still surprises him, how delighted she can sound in unguarded moments.
Arthur and Regina return up the slope hours later, night has fallen, covered in mud, stumbling for how tired they are, but Arthur leads the mare and the gelding, he's smiling, his teeth shockingly white against the mud drying on his face, Regina leads the stallion, the mean stallion, the beast that had thrown her, she leads him and ties him to a thick trunk, patting his neck softly, whispering into the beasts ear.
Pride swells in Robin, looking at her covered in mud from tip to toe, he goes and to her and snatches her right up into his arms, clasps her around the waist, ignoring her cries that she's covered in mud, that he's getting it on him, he gazes up at her as her toes barely touch the ground, as she wraps her arms around his neck with a sigh.
"You fool," Regina calls him before she kisses him, a shallow thing, before she squirms and wiggles until he has to drop her softly back down.
"I love you, my boy," Robin tells the hare, tells the hare so that the hare might pass on the message, "I'm taking good care of Regina, I promise, nothing will happen to her nor to me. Be good for John, be good and kind and brave, my boy." Robin pets the hare softly, the wisps of smoke curling and curling about his gentle fingers, "Your sister has begun to kick," he says, smiling and turning to look at Regina, look at her as she sits with George and Aniol, "she'll be a fighter just like you."
The hare dashes off after it's sure Robin is done speaking, Regina already having said her own message, it lopes and lopes, blurring with its speed as it rushes up and over soft slopes, its ghostly paws never quite touching the mud.
"Regina," Robin says, Tinkerbelle says they are half a day away from Snow's camp, the camp that is actually an abandoned manor, some Lord or other who had survived the castle's destruction had led them there, more survivors then seems plausible, especially all living together still. Robin and Regina's camp, their camp of casters, was tiny in comparison, Tinkerbelle says, and unease grows in Robin's gut, surely the witch is not as blind as that, not to see such a sprawling refuge, especially as the place has no shadow master to hide them.
"This is a trap," Regina tells him, she doesn't sound concerned, tired, she sounds tired, Robin tried to have her ride, they have three mounts thanks to her own efforts but she'd refused, she does not stop walking, her bundled hands swaying with her strides, he doesn't know why she will not ride, and she will not tell him. Got stubborn and obstinate after he'd insisted.
Robin reaches forward and snares her wrist gently, turns her slowly, the group walks forward ahead of them. "We can turn away," Robin tells her, but knows it will not dissuade her. Her visions tell her this is the way to Henry; there is no dissuading her from this path.
bundled hands, those stained rags, they come up between them, she wants to caress his face, Robin knows, and still she forgets that she can't, she sighs, lands her forehead on his instead, standing on tiptoes in her boots to do so. Silence, she's breathing softly, her eyes squeeze shut as Robin wraps his arms around her, "I can't turn away, Robin, Henry-"
"I know," Robin sighs, "I know," snags a hand in her hair, fisting it, not pulling, but holding, grounding her to him as the group walks on, only Farouk turns to glance at them before turning back to his path. "I'm so afraid," Robin finally caves and says, he's tried to keep his fear from her, but he failed, and he knows that as soon as she a sound of sympathy and hugs around his neck tighter, kissing his neck with wet kisses. "Every day, every moment, I don't know what to do with all this fear, it has me in a chokehold, Regina."
"I," but she stutters, what is there to say? He does not want her to apologize, because she is the light of his life, his life and his love, he is so afraid because he loves her so much. He couldn't live without her.
"I will be beside you always," Robin tells her, and he means inside Snow's camp, among the people that tried to burn July, who broke June's fingers, who nearly killed both Robin and Regina, there is danger inside and out where they are going, but Robin means forever too, beyond today, beyond next year, soul mates, he thinks, and knows that means forever.
They meet the first sentry, and that is when Robin can see that it is fully realizing in Regina's head, the truth that she will have to face Snow.
Regina has not spoken of it to him. But she will now, as he asks, "Are you ready?" tucks hair behind her ear as they walk, she nods.
"If she tries hugs me I will hack off her arms," Regina says, there's a waver to her voice.
"I shant even stop you," Robin smiles, rubs his hand down her back.
authors note, okay guys we are getting into the action here.
Disclaimer: never mine
