Ricoshey watched his Mistress disappear with her Soulmate and turned his head to her sister Ruby.

"She'll be fine. She'll be fine. She'll be fine." She seemed to be chanting to herself.

Ric snorted a puff of steam, as if to say," Of course."

"I mean, I know he can't harm her, what with Rumpelstiltskin being her Soulmate and all. and I try not to judge because hello Werewolf," She waves her hand around self-deprecatingly, "But he's The Dark One, the Literal embodiment of all evil, and I can't help but worry about her." Ruby rakes her hand through her hair in obvious distress.

Seeing his Mistress's sister in distress made Ric uncomfortable.

He wanted to ease her worry but was unsure as to how.

Ruby stopped her muttering and pacing as she saw the Brunette and Blonde from earlier, along with Baefire, A woman with short hair along with a man carrying a sword. There was a man with a bow and arrows in a quiver, and a man clad in leather with a hook for a hand.

"First we gotta deal with a bloody Crocodile and Now we have to deal with a dragon?" the man with the Hook for a hand sneered.

"Killian, be nice." The blonde (Emma, he remembers now.) said.

A hook replacing a hand and the man's name is Killian….

As quick as he could blink, suddenly Ric was in his human form, throwing Hook down and punching him.

As he was punching the pirate, he said "You creatin, you harmed my mistress, now you'll pay."

Emma and Regina tried to pull him off of the pirate, but his dragon strength gave him a magical advantage.

His Mistress,

bleeding,

bruised

and struggling to breathe.

CRACK! Her ribs.

CRACK! One of her eyes.

Crack! Her arms, her legs, her head.

She almost died, he almost lost the one good thing in his life because of this piece of sh-

Ricoshey.

His name almost didn't register, so consumed with avenging his mistress.

Ricoshey.

stop, my love.

Until he felt a hand much smaller than his, take his right hand and bring it up to her throat.

Only he and his mistress knew how much trust she had in him to do that.

Ever so slowly, he closed his eyes and felt his mistress's pulse.

Steady.

Sure

Alive.

"He is not to blame for the beatings I received at Braun's hands. He is not to blame for me almost dying. Let him up." Lyra said in a calm, measured voice, but only he could detect a slight undercurrent of fear.

Ric brushed his thumb across the vein in his mistress's neck.

Once.

Twice.

He got up off of the pirate.

"Noody hell." The Pirate said through a broken nose. "'at the 'ell was phat por?"

Ric saw he gave him a broken nose, a black eye and a split lip.

He deserved more.

Lyra ran a hand soothingly down his arm. He bent to smell her hair, a comfort he hasn't needed since he was a wee hatchling.

"I actually met you and Robin long before I came to this land. Both times while I was a slave to a man called Braun." Lyra began, still running a hand down Ric's arm. "He was a man in the village where My mate, our son and I lived. He always had an interest in me, probably because I was the only person who didn't try for his attention. Why would I? I had no need for his affection, I had My sun and My Moon, I didn't need nor want anything else. But I didn't realize at the time that it's exactly that that made me special in his eyes."

Lyra paused, as if gathering strength for what she said next. "Because of the state of the Second Ogre war in our village, they lowered the conscription age for the war. Now instead of sending grown men to fight and die, they were sending CHILDREN" her nose wrinkled in disgust, even after all these years.

"We knew Bae was going to be drafted soon, knew there wasn't very much we could do to stop it. Unless you had coin to bribe your way out. A lot of times not even then. I heard a rumor that Braun granted favors, and I was just desperate enough to go to him. Of course, he was delighted to have me bowing and scraping at his feet. So, he told me: I will consider saving your son, if and only if, you agree to belong to me and only me." Of course, I said yes. Any hope at all of having my son be free was better than none. So, I signed himself over. I put a golden collar on , at the time I thought it was to flaunt his obvious wealth in a land were none had any sort of coin. It wasn't until later that I discovered that I collars held some sort of magic, that they prevented anyone who wore them from having any sort of free will. Very rarely was I able to fight commands, sometimes ignore them completely. Anyway, you" She flicked her eyes up at the pirate

" You docked your ship in our town one night. When Braun saw the money you'd been carrying, he knew you'd pay well for a pretty girl. So, he told me to fuck you. When I refused, he wanted to know why. Because of the collar, I had to tell him your and Rumpelstiltskin's history. By the time I was done, he made up his made that I was going to sleep with you. What better way to break me then to have the man who stole Rumpelstiltskin's wife away fuck his placeholder wife."

I refused. At the time, I didn't know that you and Bae lived." She glanced at her mate. "I wasn't going to disrespect your memory by sleeping with him, no matter the consequences. I wouldn't have had such a bad beating, but I'd save Roland from being capture into our cult a few days before. Even with my lashes given, Braun still wasn't happy with me."

Lyra shrugged.

"So, he beat me and came pretty damn close to killing me. If it wasn't for Ricoshey, I be dead."

Lyra waved her hand and the pirates face returned to its original state.

"Apologies for the face." Ricoshey said rather stiffly to Hook.

Hook nodded his head, seeming to accept his apology.