"Saviour..."
The Queen frowns, stalking towards her chamber door and standing hesitantly with her hand resting against the heavy wood. She supposes she's being presumptive in assuming that it's the idiot blonde wandering time-forgotten halls, but somehow she knows that it must be. What she doesn't know, is how.
How could this be?
It couldn't and shouldn't be possible. One minute they had been in the Saviour's dank and doomed basement, and the next...
Is this because I kissed her?
It can't be. She's kissed the blonde several times now- each time delighting in the younger woman's discomfort- and nothing has come of it save for a delicious ache between her legs.
"This is impossible."
She breathes, contrary to what her surroundings tell her, and she pushes open the door and steps out into the hallway in search of the blonde before she can get herself into mischief.
It is an eery feeling, walking through the deserted grandeur of her old home. She had thought about her Winter Palace often while stuck in the mundane constraints of Storybrooke, and stalking the halls brings back a whirlwind of memories. Out here, the thick dust shrouds the paintings and the opulent statues that stand as sentinels between the light that filters in through the windows. The glass has been fractured in places by storms that will have gone unseen by any but the creatures that have found shelter in the walls and the gardens of the place. It litters the floor- glittering ominously in the grey light of a pale sun- in sharp slivers that jut upwards like beckoning fingers. Through the middle of this destruction, a single track of footprints disturbs the dust and debris; leading away from her room and off into the shadows.
Following this curious trail, the Queen pushes open the heavy doors at the end of the hall to enter the ballroom. Here, glass has been strewn around by the wind also, and the heavy velvet of the curtains her mother had insisted be re-dyed to match her mood on several occasions carry long swatches of mildew. What had once acted as a skylight has left the room ravaged by the elements, and recent rains have left the floor wet beneath her feet and have washed away the dust that might have hinted at the blonde's movements from here.
"Where are you, you little wretch?"
She hisses beneath her breath, looking around the place irritably as there is something unsavoury in the idea that she doesn't currently play the huntress in their warped little game.
"It will do you no good hiding."
She mutters, and this much she knows is true. She is thrown by the fact that they have somehow ended up in this strange and unforeseen situation, but in a way, it has simply served to lend her even more of an upper hand. Here, she not only overshadows the blonde with her power and her vengeance, but she is also blessed with an acute knowledge of their surroundings; something which Emma lacks. If the younger woman wishes to play a sly game of cat and mouse, the Queen can think of no better place for it than in the grandeur of her reign; what remains of her best years.
Looking at each of the three doors that line the far wall in turn, she takes her time to analyse the scene from the blonde's perspective; devouring another's weaknesses and wills something which she is well versed in. The door on the left leads to the servant's quarters and the kitchens. The one on the right leads into a parlour or 'entertaining room'. When she had been younger and betrothed to Leopold, that room had been used for his better and more important guests; a smaller yet resplendent secret in which jesters jested and mimes mimed at the whims of their King. Following his death and her descent into darker fancies, the room had been used more often for her own private pleasures; a sanctuary of bare flesh and kneeling subordinates each desperate to please their cruel Queen.
The door in the middle leads to the Palace's imposing entrance hall, and it is towards this door she eventually stalks. She knows her prey well, and she knows that the blonde is nothing if not slippery and elusive. She has every certainty that Emma will have opted for freedom over slinking the halls of a forgotten time, despite knowing nothing but what little she has read of the world beyond the gates. True, she had come through into this realm along with the pirate for what had sounded like a brief stint of stupidity and chaos, but that had been some alternate reality where the Palace and its surroundings had been in their prime. Now, all those of importance are long gone, and the land here has been left at the mercy of the wild. There are creatures out there that the Queen imagines will have made their way closer without the threat of her guard to keep them at bay, and she doubts the Saviour would last too long against any of them.
She'll have risked it, though. She'll have ignored what should be good sense and made a run for it, as she is so adept at doing.
Yes, she is sure of it, but when she thinks back on the footsteps tracked through the dust in the hallway, she muses that they hadn't seemed to portray the wide gait of one running or even jogging; rather the steady, even pattern of one walking without a care.
"...Or sneaking."
She tells herself, and she finds she is beginning to feel just a little uneasy as the Saviour remains unaccounted for.
Stalking through into the grand entrance hall, she casts her eyes up towards sweeping staircases that had once echoed with the chatter and fear of her servantry and guard. The skeleton of a small bird- possibly a starling- lies beneath the chandelier, and she supposes that it must have entered through one of the broken windows and not been smart enough to find its way out. Looking down at fragile bones, she muses that the Saviour might soon share a similar fate, and as she makes her way to the doors which lead out into the grounds, she crunches the creature's tiny ribcage beneath her heel.
"Saviour?"
She calls out, seeing no sense in trying to keep her whereabouts a secret as Emma poses her no threat. Her voice is carried by the wind as she descends the Palace steps; dark eyes falling on misshapen greenery which has begun to rot and die off in places. At one time, those hulking bushes had been clipped into the shapes of animals; elephants, tigers and wolves. Now, after thirty years left to their own devices, they are an eyesore; bloated and wrong.
Ominous.
Casting her gaze to the colossal gates that barricade the gardens from the rest of the land, she sees that they remain shut, and she doubts if Emma will have been able to slip through them without any aid to push them open. There is the slim possibility that the blonde will have tried to scale the walls- she wouldn't put such an attempt past her- but the thick ivy that had once grown up the pitted stone has succumbed to either the weather or whatever has killed off her mother's rose garden, and there's nothing left substantial enough to hold the weight of an adult; even a slight one.
"Miss Swan?"
She shouts, beginning to feel the first tendrils of anger rather than just agitation; coming to the conclusion that the younger woman remains trapped in the walls of the grounds with her, and not in the mood to play hide and seek when there are so many other games they could be playing.
So many ways the Sheriff has already asked for punishment.
Coming to a stop as she stands at the top of the steps leading to the lower gardens, she looks around with a hunter's sight. Her gaze comes to rest on a large hedge that had once been sculpted into a depiction of several kneeling handmaidens, as it proposes the greatest option for one wishing to hide. Running her tongue pensively over her bottom lip, she raises her hand and strikes with a smirk.
Foliage and branches explode outwards, along with a shower of feathers as some poor creature must have been roosting amongst the leaves. No sign of the Saviour once the destruction has settled and the dust has cleared, and she grits her teeth angrily as she seethes.
"Was that really necessary?"
A voice interrupts her rage, and she freezes; recognising that dry tone instantly.
"Emma..."
She greets, turning towards the sound of the younger woman's voice with her teeth bared in a terrible grin.
A grin that dies on her lips as she searches out the source; nothing behind her but the castle doors.
"Regina."
Comes that same, bored growl, and she whirls around with her hands ready to teach the little bitch a lesson.
The blonde stands amongst the destruction of the hedge; untouched, and no longer... Well, no longer precisely blonde.
Honey gold now tumbles a curious white-silver, and the Saviour's outfit is as black as her expression.
"... How?"
"How, I don't know. But this doesn't really seem like the time to be asking questions."
Emma confides lightly, and when dark brows furrow in response, the younger woman allows a slow smile to creep across lips the colour of clotted blood; at the same time beautiful and terrible.
"What do you mean?"
The Queen demands; pulling herself up to her full height and glowering down on the Saviour who stands below her.
"What would you propose I do?"
She sneers, not about to let a curious change of appearance trick the blonde into thinking that she has any place directing their curious back and forth.
"What would you have me do?"
She repeats; her expression wrought with suggestion and malice.
"Run."
Emma smiles simply, the word soft like silk as it leaves her lips while raising her hand; allowing the Queen a moment to comprehend that the game has changed- no silver sparkle at her wrist as the sun struggles through the clouds behind her- before putting her newfound freedom to use.