A.N. Sorry about the long wait!
I've finally planned the last portion of this fic so hopefully will be able to finish soon :)
Chapter twenty
The strange family ate in silence.
The demi-goddess was too afraid to speak since she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't reveal how desperately she wanted the princess to withdraw from the tournament.
Hades was similarly reluctant to speak since she wanted to do what she swore she would never do and forbid her wife from taking part in something she wanted to do. Though Regina didn't open her mouth, especially since she was still oblivious as to what her brother had said to her daughter.
The princess, on the other hand, was just trying to focus on keeping her porridge down.
Even with a couple days of more training, her mind was mostly still in New York, back on that Ferris wheel where she was allowed to kiss her wife without anything else weighing on her mind.
Even if she took one thing off her plate by not competing, there would still be other things she would have to deal with.
The fact that her parents hated their daughter-in-law, the fact that she could be called upon to be the ruler of the White Kingdom when she would quite literally rather do anything else. And finally, the fact that she was married to someone who would outlive her.
Regina seemed happy now, but would her death be similar to Persephone's abandonment?
Emma blinked when she realised that she had placed an empty spoon into her mouth and realised just how much her mind had wandered.
She placed the utensil down and looked over to Regina with a weak smile, which the goddess returned.
Dawn hopefully watched the interaction, maybe they would finally say something, she had already achieved her first task of the day when Emma had drank the water she had specifically 'prepared' for her.
The silence continued, though for a couple more seconds and the Demi-goddess finally decided that she couldn't take the silence anymore.
"How are you feeling, princess?" Dawn asked, though her voice lacked its usual edge.
Emma's eyebrows pinched together and she tried to pinpoint what the correct emotion was.
Was there a word for something between giddy and anxious?
"Nervous, but I'll be fine," she replied.
Dawn nodded, even if she was hoping for a longer answer. She spared a glance at her mother who was remaining conspicuously silent with a tightened jaw, which she was sure no food had passed.
Dawn couldn't help but think that Hades would not be quite as successful at holding her tongue if she knew that the god of war was likely preparing for a trip to Elysium right now.
"If you've finished your breakfast, Emma, I could help you prepare?" Dawn asked.
Emma frowned as she considered whether her step daughter had ever called her by her name before.
However, she decided not to comment on it and just nodded.
"That would be nice, thank you, Dawn," the princess replied and stood from the table, as she passed Regina, she placed a chaste kiss to her lips and lingered for a moment so that they could share another strained smile.
Regina continued to smile until her wife and daughter had left the room.
The affection had noticeably ramped up between them since returning from New York. It wasn't as if the couple held hands and made out at every opportunity, but neither of them were really afraid to show how they felt about each other, even if they had yet to say it aloud.
The goddess just hoped that she wouldn't lose her chance to say it verbally because of a pointless tournament.
Then again, she should have known the risks of falling in love with a Charming.
S
The chanting was intoxicating.
It brought Emma right back to her first week in the Underworld.
It was when the princess had little interest in getting to know her new wife.
It was truly shocking how much she had learned in three short months. Certainly more than she had learned in her twenty-one years in the White Palace.
She certainly would not have been able to easily take down three competitors who had been deemed heroic enough for Elysium when she first laid her eyes on the tournament.
While training with a goddess and her Demi-goddess daughter, it became too easy to underestimate how naturally talented she was in swordplay.
Emma smiled as the fourth spirit fell to the ground and disappeared (she had been assured that he would re-appear in the stands momentarily) and she took the reprieve to glance up to the three seats she had been trying to look at as often as possible.
Each time she looked, she found that Regina was chewing at her bottom lip increasingly and also looking over to Zelena and Neal at regular intervals.
Neal's expression was unreadable, but Zelena didn't bother trying to hide her smugness as she clapped slowly.
"Truly incredible," a disembodied voice announced, "the new competitor really does stand a chance of taking the championship!"
Applause erupted following the announcement, but Emma still somehow managed to hear the scrapping metal which signified the arrival of a new opponent.
She wasn't exactly sure what she should expect in the final round, but she eagerly turned towards the opening gate to find out.
Her smile fell, though, at the sight of a lightly armoured blond man sauntering over to her.
The princess had never seen him in her life, but she had been in the presence of enough divine beings to know that he was almost certainly a god, which was only compounded by the fact that he appeared to be solid flesh instead of the corneal she had grown used to facing so far.
Emma looked over to Regina who had her eyebrows drawn tightly together while her daughter had a hand gripped on her elbow and whispered something in her ear.
The princess had to assume that it was the only thing stopping Hades from standing up and protesting verbally.
Emma licked her dry lips before she began walking over to the man who was limply dragging his sword along at his side while making it to the centre of the arena.
Emma felt her hand involuntarily around the hilt of the sword.
She understood that many gods saw her as some mortal princess, but she figured that winning the last few rounds should command at least a small amount of respect.
"Ladies and gentleman," the commentator called with surprise clear in his voice, "we are truly honoured by the presence of the one and only god of war, Ares!"
The crowd erupted into applause and any notion that she deserved a small amount of respect from this man left Emma's mind and she just hoped that she wasn't paling visibly.
Even with her inhuman levels of optimism, defeating the god of war felt like a stretch with only two months of training.
The man tilted his head whilst he inspected the princess while not even attempting to raise his blade.
"I wonder which of your parents would die from shock first if they were to see you competing in this flagrant display of narcism?" He asked.
Emma swallowed hard and said, "what do you know of my parents?"
"Monarchs are rather lucrative sources of war and destruction, the smallest of slights and thousands charge into battle in the names of Queen Snow White and King David," he sneered, but seemed to regain his composure as he said, "oh but where are my manners, your highness! Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is James. It's only proper to introduce oneself before you run your companion through, don't you agree?"
Emma knew that he was mocking her, but she couldn't think of a strong enough retort.
It was only natural that Ares would be far more natural at putting his opponent off than she was.
Emma allowed herself a moment to catch Regina's eye with a rather unconvincing smile, before she turned back to Ares and raised her blade with more conviction than she currently felt.
"And there's that unwarranted courage I've heard so much about," the god said with a laugh and rather languished lifted his sword, though he was holding it with one hand instead of Emma's two.
Emma swung Durendal at first, but Ares east dodged and spun around to slice at her. She managed to move aside but a sharp pain shot up her left arm as Ares' sword sliced her arm.
Emma hissed and released Durendal with her left hand so that she was only holding it with one.
James jogged on the spot for a couple seconds as he regained his footing but he was still smiling.
"I suppose you are a cut above most mortals, they would be dead by now," he said.
Emma clenched her left fist against the pain her arm and her lip formed a thin line.
It took all of her will not to make any retort and she just waited in a defensive stance.
Finally, Ares lunged forward and she managed to parry the strike and made a quick step so that she was behind him during his slight moment of hesitation.
Without much thought, Emma sliced at his shoulder and the god fell to his knee with a sharper hiss than the one that Emma had let out a moment ago.
The princess's mouth hung open for a moment at the sight, she could practically feel Durendal vibrating in her hand, almost as if it were celebrating the pain it had caused.
James clenched his jaw and brought his hand up to rest on his bleeding shoulder and let out a rather childish huff at the sight of golden blood on his fingers.
Emma couldn't help but laugh at the look of utter disbelief on his face, it. Was good to know that she wasn't nearly as pathetic and weak as he thought she was.
Her laugh was cut short, however, when Ares was on his feet in a flash and Durendal flew out of her hand before she even had a chance to see his disarming technique.
She had no time to react before James rammed the tip of his sword through Emma's stomach.
She let a breath out as he pushed it further so that it thrust out the other side.
She was only still standing because James was using his free arm to hold her up so that he could whisper into her ear, "just like every other mortal."
With that, he wrenched the sword out of her gut and he pushed her down to the ground.
Emma's eyes wanted to close but she had to keep them open for a few moments longer, there was someone she wanted to see before she died.
While the princess fought against this, the spirits filed out of the stands after the commentator announced that Ares was the winner.
None of them seemed to notice that Emma wasn't disappearing and reappearing.
Emma finally closed her eyes as blood began running down the side of her mouth, however, she managed to crack her eyes open when she felt a hand on her cheek and she managed to smile at the goddess kneeling down beside her.
"R-Regina," she coughed.
Hades shook her head and whispered, "don't speak."
Regina was desperately trying to think of something she could do.
She was a goddess, dammit, there must be something that she could do!
However, she knew that if she allowed Emma's soul to remain in her body, she would need to substitute another to retain balance.
Emma White would never accept her life being saved at the expense of another mortal.
"I love…" Emma began, but her mouth was incapable of forming the final word as she at last lost consciousness and her head lolled to the side.
Regina shook her head as if this would make it go away.
She wanted to scream, but the impulsiveness was cut short by the sound of slow clapping behind her.
Neal trailed behind Zelena as she walked over to stand next to Ares while Dawn silently narrowed her eyes at her aunt.
"Truly impressive," Zelena called, "Neal bet that she would not last a minute, I said thirty seconds. I suppose your little wife proved us both wrong."
Fireballs ignited in Regina's hands and she slowly rose to her feet with tears on her face.
Screams rang through the warfare but she couldn't really process any of them.
Her mind was too focused on moving through the battlefield, cutting down enemies whose faces she forgot the moment that life left their bodies.
Lightening continued to strike the ground around her and a warrior swung at the princess, which she was able to turn away from with ease.
Their swords clashed, ringing over the crackling fires and claps of thunder.
Emma pushed him out of the lock and sidestepped his attack. They traded a few blows before the warrior missed and Emma struck him in the chest.
He fell to his knees and a slow clapping reached Emma's ears and her mind managed to process the sound.
"You really are a cut above the rest," Ares's voice boomed and Emma spun around to face him. The thunder stopped. Crackling fires died to plumes of smoke and they were all that was left on the battlefield when James raised his sword and said, "but never when it matters."
Emma was about to enter a defensive stance but her hand shot up to her stomach when a familiar pain bloomed through it.
Her leather tunic darkened from the wet wound.
In a blink, Ares was on her, forcing Emma to straighten up in time to block his attack.
He leaned closer to her with a smug grin and said, "you will never see your wife again."
Emma pushed him off, the flaring anger was enough to block the pain in her abdomen.
Emma let loose a garage of blows and her anger mounted with every missed strike.
Her anger was not enough to prevent the man from his victory as her sword flew from her hands and out of each.
Ares did not hesitate to finish her.
He knocked her feet from under her and proceeded to shadow over her prone body.
The god's elbow drew back and the sword was aimed at her heart.
Emma threw out her hand as if it would actually do something and closed her eyes.
There was no way out of this. Neither her parents nor her wife would be able to help her right now.
A bright light burst from her palm and sent Ares flying backwards.
Confusion flooded her system and she saw him landing in the dirt.
To the princess's disappointment, he recovered quickly enough to get to his feet, hand never loosening around the hilt of his sword.
Emma also pushed herself up so that she could search for Durendal, which was nowhere in the immediate area.
Instead, she looked down at her right and then her left hand.
They were still glowing white.
Emma turned her hands towards Ares as he thrust his sword towards her.
A shockwave of light discharged from her hands.
The magic hit him as if a wall of ice was freezing him in place, before he exploded into shards of light.
Time seemed to speed up and Ares's sword clattered down to the ground through the god's remains.
The moment she was sure that he was gone, the pain returned ten-fold to her stomach.
Her hand shot down to the wound and it came away drenched with blood.
"There is no need to worry, child, you are not destined to die," a male voice announced from behind her.
The princess straightened up with her hand still cradling her stomach and she turned around to face him.
She had never seen him before in her life but she was almost certain of who he was.
She had met enough gods to understand power, but there was just something different about being in the presence of a titan.
It was warm and cold, daunting and comforting.
The fear of the power he clearly possessed fought with the feeling of knowing that she was mostly safe before him.
It was only solidified when he smiled so easily at her.
"You're Regina's father…" Emma said as more of a statement than a question.
"You can call me Henry," he replied.
Emma nodded, not at all surprised that titans also had names.
There was a more pertinent question to ask anyway: "you said I'm not dead?"
"You have a greater destiny than to be another victim of Ares's blade," Henry practically scoffed at the thought, "you will awake soon but I wanted to take this opportunity to speak with my daughter-in-law."
Emma wanted to probe for more information about her 'destiny' but she figured he would be unlikely to tell her anything she was also momentarily flushing at the thought he was indeed her father-in-law. He was the first in-law who seemed to be not utterly disinterested in her existence.
She bowed her head slightly and asked, "what is it that you would like to speak with me about?"
"The natural balance of the universe," Henry replied with his hands clasped behind his back, "the cosmos longs for Regina to take her place on Olympus."
"But Zelena had been Zeus for thousands of years…" Emma retorted even though she really wanted to ask what made her so capable of inciting cosmic change.
"And for thousands of years mortals have been suffering unnecessarily. Zelena does not recognise the value of human life in the same way that Regina does. She is not fit for the throne."
Emma frowned. She could certainly believe that he was telling the truth, but there was one major problem with what he was proposing.
"Regina no longer has any desire to become Zeus," Emma pointed out.
"That is certainly true, but now she has had a mortal wife to remind her of the duty she has to humanity," the titan explained.
"What would make you feel so certain that I would be capable of making this happen?" Emma asked.
"Because, Hera, it is why you were born."
With that, he stepped forward and placed his hand over the wound, Emma closed her eyes as his power healed it, but didn't notice her blood turn from red to gold as the scene began to fade away.
"Truly impressive," Zelena called, "Neal bet that she wouldn't last a minute, I bet thirty seconds. I suppose she proved us both wrong."
Regina shot to her feet and fireballs ignited in both of her hands.
Dawn's eyes shifted over to Graham who looked perhaps the most terrified that she had never seen him, but her attention returned to Emma's prone body on the ground. She really wished that she could announce that time was of the essence.
Meanwhile, Zelena laughed at her sister and didn't even bother to enter into a defensive stance.
"Come now, sister, she was destined to die anyway, you should be thanking me for speeding up the princess and saving further heartbreak," Zeus said.
Regina thrust both of her hands forward to throw each fireball at her sister, but the other goddess lazily waved her hand to disperse the flames before they even came close to her and she did it while bearing that infuriating smirk that had not left her face since Ares took the field.
It did fall away a split second later, however, when a bolt of lightning grazed her cheek before she could react.
She blinked as she stumbled back and then brought her fingers up to feel the area stinging with electricity, she could already feel that the rough skin was going to become a scar.
She should be angry but she was afraid.
A part of her knew that Regina had the power of Zeus within her otherwise their father wouldn't have chosen her for the role, but it was difficult to reconcile her miserable sister with one who would have the ability to mark another immortal.
She licked her lips and looked over her shoulder to see Neal looking with widened eyes; Ares, on the other hand, looked only mildly interested.
Zelena schooled her features and her hand fell away from her face as she looked back over to Regina whose nostrils were flared as she waved for her sister to retort.
Zeus, though, didn't want to start a fight that she wasn't sure that she could win.
However, she was sure that once the princess's death sank in, then Regina would go back to being the pathetic mess she became following her banishment to the Underworld.
"I will leave you to mourn," Zelena sneered, "let us not take so long to get back together."
With that, Zeus flicked her wrist to engulf herself, Poseidon on Ares in a cloud of smoke.
Regina stepped forward as if she was planning to go after them, but she was stopped by Dawn grabbing her forearm rather forcefully.
"We really do not have time for that now, mother," the demi-goddess said.
Regina forced herself to look at her bloodstained wife's body and all of the anger that she felt vanished to be replaced with emptiness that she couldn't quite explain.
Perhaps it was the realisation that she had spent so much of her time with Emma worrying about losing her that she hadn't allowed herself to truly enjoy the time that she did have.
Hades found that she was completely unable to form words and just nodded while black smoke came around the four of them to return them to the palace.
They reappeared a moment later and the princess's chamber, with said princess laid out on the bed that she hadn't slept on in a while.
Regina let out a deep breath as she stepped closer to the woman and tried to resist touching her, she wasn't sure that she could handle feeling how cold her skin was bound to be.
Instead, she tried to figure out what she should practically be doing next.
Surely, Emma's parents would like her body back for burial rites? They would also need to announce the untimely end of Princess Emma White to the kingdom who only recently found out that she existed? It probably wouldn't be great for the politics of the kingdom.
However, before she could attempt to push her emotions down so that she could figure out exactly how she could explain this to Snow White and Prince Charming, she felt Dawn's hand brush her own and she realised that her daughter had been trying to speak to her.
"What did you say?" She asked, her voice more noticeably shaken than she would have liked.
"You need to kiss Emma," Dawn repeated, and when Regina opened her mouth to protest, Dawn held up her hand to stop her so that she could explain, "Neal warned me that Ares would be competing so I convinced the Blue Fairy to give me a potion in exchange for being forgiven for her deception. I put it into Emma's drink at breakfast. The moment her heart stopped, her body would be preserved for exactly one hour. True Love's Kiss is the only thing that will return life to her body. I've already healed her wounds, you just need to…"
"True Love's Kiss," Regina repeated.
She could almost believe that the universe would be cruel enough to make her True Love a mortal, but Emma hardly deserved to have Hades as hers. At the same time, she could hardly deny the love she had developed for the princess in the couple short months was already greater than what she ever felt for Ruby.
"Please, mother, you have to at least try," Dawn said with a twinge of begging.
Regina shook her head, she knew she was stalling, but she didn't know what she would do if it didn't work.
"You knew that Ares would be competing and didn't think to tell me?!"
Dawn just rolled her eyes.
She wasn't surprised that her mother was trying to deflect, but they really didn't have time for this right now.
"It occurred to me that this would be the best way to protect Emma. If Zeus was to believe her dead, she would no longer need to plan ways to kill her. Your reaction was key to this being successful."
Regina set her jaw.
As much as the thought that she had been left out of this decision angered her, it was true that Zelena knew her well enough to pick on whether or not her reactions were believable. All Regina wanted was to shout, mostly because she just wanted Emma dead.
She wanted the chance to hear her utter 'I love you', but she couldn't help but think that what Dawn was offering her was a very slim chance.
However, shouting would be a waste of that slim chance so instead, she took a step towards the bed, before she could change her mind and leaned down to connect her lips to her wife's which were unsettling cold.
She straightened up and looked at the princess only half expectantly.
For a second, nothing happened and Regina's heart sank, of course the sweet, innocent Emma could not possibly be destined to be with the ruler of the Underworld.
She was about to turn to her daughter who was still staring at her step mother, but the action was cut short by the sound of someone taking a deep, gasping breath.
Emma's eyes shot open and she pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her chest heaved and she looked around the room.
The moment her eyes fell onto Regina, she felt calm run through her system and she fell back down to the bed with a loud sigh.
"You saved me," the princess mumbled and her eyes began to close, though this time she was falling asleep with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
When Dawn had warned her of the plan, she knew that there was no way that Regina wouldn't be her True Love.