In the beginning, he'd always grown frustrated when Regina missed a lesson, but he'd learned since then. Now, when he found that Regina missed a lesson he wasn't angry, though he might pretend to be when he saw her again, instead he was excited. Regina rarely missed a lesson for anything related to her role as Queen, or for her "family" which meant that when she failed to show up, she was struggling. He used to feel as though his time was wasted, now he felt as though it was the pay off. Though she still hadn't said the magic words that he longed to hear, the words that would tell him that she was ready to move on and cast a curse, he could sense the feeling growing in her. He was getting into the Queen's head, getting into those dark places everyone kept hidden from the world and throwing them into the light where Regina grappled with them. And it was beautiful.

Besides, these days a missed lesson wasn't quite the tragedy it had been when she was a younger girl, just learning the craft. Then he'd needed to keep her in the magic, keep her close to it, practicing it all the time. Now, there was no question that she used magic in her daily life. Her husband knew it, her step-daughter knew it, half the Kingdom knew it. It allowed the rumors of what she could do to spread like wildfire. She was eager to learn, her fingers itching to use what she knew and allow the power growing inside of her to expand. Not getting her lessons…it was a bit like watching Jefferson go too long without using that hat of his or seeing his bedmate. Want became need. Need became desire. Desire became desperation. Desperation became addiction. And when it came to the temptation of magic, that was a subject he knew well.

So, he'd come up with a system to make it worse and teach her a lesson as well. When Regina missed a lesson to explore and contemplate the choices she was making, he returned the favor. She'd wasted his time, so he wasted hers, promising more lessons then "forgetting" to show up for them. When she tracked him down in his home and questioned him, a simple "busy" was all it took to show her how it felt as well as to raise her heart rate and make her just a tad bit more desperate for what she didn't have. She soon had put two and two together, and so now their lessons lived in a sort of…suspension. He sent word to her when they were to practice, made the lessons fewer and farther apart, and in return, he watched as the poor Queen began to fall apart herself.

The last couple of years had been the hardest. Ever since the King had gotten Snow White a horse for her birthday and the pair had become quite renowned across the land, jealousy continued to rage within his pupil. Regina seethed. He gloated. Privately, of course, but he was proud of his creation. And yet…he knew that he couldn't hold her back forever. She was making strides, coming ever closer to where she needed to be with her hate toward the Princess, but he was no closer to getting his hands on the curse today as he was seven years ago when all this had begun! This was a delicate operation. Every day Snow White grew older, into the woman he knew that James would one day fall for and marry, and who knew how soon after that they'd conceive and she'd give birth to the child that he needed to break the curse. He had to be cautious. If she grew too unstable and killed Snow White too early then it would throw everything into disarray. He needed her to have patience. To let her anger simmer for a while, and not boil over. An extremely difficult thing to do when the Princess kept winning riding tournaments and her father continued to dote upon her.

He was here today because of a vision that he'd seen in his head, one that he needed to understand. But when he arrived, Regina was another vision entirely. He tracked her to the stables, and she was in quite the state; one highly immature and unbecoming of her position. Ripping ribbons her step-daughter won off the wall one by one as she growled under her breath…it was a good thing Cora was so far away; otherwise this would have been tragic for her to witness. For him, it was just embarrassing.

"Oh!" he shuddered, making her turn to find him. "I love a touch of irony! The day you met Snow White, she nearly died on a horse. And yet today, she's the best rider in all the land."

"It's her precious horse that's won those medals, not her!" Regina spat back. He nearly rolled her eyes. Sure it was. And if she truly believed that, then she wouldn't be in here tearing them down one right after another.

"Still, good fortune does tend to, uh, fall in her lap, does it not?"

"And you promised to teach me magic so I can end her charmed life!" she roared.

"Well, I'm teaching you, dearie," he insisted, taking his seat again. And he stood by that truth. He was teaching her how to destroy her step-daughter just not quite in the way she wanted. Not that it mattered, if the book he'd seen her holding, the one she was hiding behind her back, meant anything. The vision he'd had before arriving here flashed before his eyes, and he fought back a smile. Perhaps there was a connection after all. "Though you sound a bit impatient. Sneaking out here to read...what is it?"

Using his magic, he grabbed the book in his own hands and looked it over, seeing a familiar emblem he hadn't seen in years. And for good reason. He'd helped give the Dragon the cure to keep her human and then left all thoughts of Maleficent behind. But this afternoon, he'd had a vision, or a series of visions that brought her back to his attention.

Maleficent sulking around the castle he'd told her to go to. Regina talking with her. Princess Aurora, Stefan's daughter, drifting into a deep sleep with Maleficent beside her. A dragon alive once more, and Regina, finally mastering what she hadn't before-the creation of a fireball.

It was for that last vision he'd seen that he wanted to understand the vision, to do what he had to in order to make it come true. But he hadn't understood how Regina connected to the rest of it…not until he saw this book in her hands. But still, why would Regina have it?

"Maleficent's spell book?!"

The girl stood before him, looking more guilty than ever and shrugged. "I…found it in my mother's things," she explained, wobbling on her tip-toes as if she were a child guilty of going through her mother's things when she was, in fact, an adult queen going through items that had been abandoned. Suddenly Regina smiled and leaned closer a look of excitement on her face. "She can turn into-"

"A fire-breathing dragon," he provided for her. "Yes, yes, yes. A bit showy if you ask me." Not that she was doing it much anymore.

"I'm just tired of watching Snow grow up!" she screamed as he set the book aside. "I am tired of her getting everything, and I...I want to finally have my revenge!"

He had to laugh at that…they'd had this conversation before, the night that she'd attempted to destroy Snow White's reputation. And if that was what she considered revenge, then her ideas were as stale as this conversation.

"You don't even know what revenge looks like, dearie."

"You're right. All I know are what your lessons look like…and they're taking me nowhere."

Childish insults. Was that how this was going to be? What she was reduced to? Maybe she needed to be taught a different lesson. Maybe she needed a different teacher. Maybe she needed to see how far her own heroes could fall. "Before you start throwing stones, you might want to look in the mirror! And I'm not speaking metaphorically," he commented, pointing to the small mirror that hung on the wall of the stable.

Regina let out a great heaving sigh that told him what he'd come up with was worth a try. So as she turned to look, he waved his hand out over the mirror, and they both watched as it became the image of a forest he was familiar with but doubted Regina had ever seen since her husband wasn't one to take her on trips to distant lands.

"What is this place?" she questioned.

He hadn't seen it in a good long while himself, and it didn't look any better than the last time he had. "It's a wasteland," he answered. "But years ago, it was a lush forest till Maleficent burned it down. Her dragon flame burned so hot that there's one tree still on fire half a lifetime later."

Regina smiled and turned to face him. "Do you know how she did it?"

"With a powerful magic that she cultivated with that most precious commodity...time. If you ignore the gift of time and rush into things, you...will never be ready," he insisted, placing a finger under her chin and inspecting her gaze. She wasn't ready now. She could try to cast the curse, but it would fail, there wasn't nearly enough hate in her heart yet. Or rejection or failure, or power. And besides all that…the Swan hadn't been born yet, nor had Prince Charming and Snow White fallen madly in love in order to conceive her. This was not the time. If nothing else, perhaps Maleficent was a far better teacher for that lesson than he was. His vision suggested that she should go to her, and his vision changed nothing of the future that he saw. It wasn't as though they were on the clock…what harm could a bit of space do?

"Or maybe this is all just excuses, and you're just not a skilled enough teacher to show me!"

"You think she's gonna help you?"

"I think I'm tired of waiting!"

"And that is exactly your problem!" he roared back at her. They'd see how this turned out soon enough. "Good luck with Maleficent." With a snap of his fingers, Regina vanished from his sight, out to the wasteland, to a place where a slumbering dragon still dwelt in a haunted castle-The Forbidden Forest.


This is the last major episode that we have to cover in the Regina Section, then there is one closing chapter, but in no time at all we'll be on to something new! It's not that the Regina Section is bad, it's just that when you lay it all out like this you really see how much back and forth she had over those years. And it's not that I think that's out of character or bad, it just starts to feel a bit overused eventually. I can't wait for the next section to really mix it up!

Thank you Alarda, Jennifer Baratta, and Grace5231973 for the reviews you left on the previous chapter! This is not really a Jefferson Chapter though the careful observer will note that we once again advanced his story in this chapter, sort of explaining his absence. Last we heard he was just sort of courting Priscilla, in this chapter Rumple makes it clear they are in a relationship of sorts. Where are they going from there? Well, you know what they say, first comes love then comes... Peace and Happy Reading!