Regina couldn't believe she was as nervous as she was, but when her mother came to her chamber that night to ask if they could spend some time together the next day she had been eager as this would be the first time she would get to speak to her mother about the magic. But the only feasible time was the time she was supposed to be spending with Emma.

She had hesitated in saying yes because it was one of the only times she would be alone with Emma during the festival. Even though their original reasoning for timing it that way was moot, Regina still wanted to spend time with her. As it was, the day had been exhausting and Emma hadn't returned to their rooms yet as she was either off playing cards or dice with the guards again or perhaps visiting with her parents.

With Emma not there to ask if it was okay to cancel their time together Regina had to decide so she told her mother when they could meet. Cora had questioned as to what she would say to Emma – her mother believing that Regina had not told Emma the specifics. Regina had told her that she would come up with something acceptable to tell Emma as to why she was spending that time with her mother and not her.

Cora had left and Regina changed clothes to go to bed – deciding she was too tired to wait up for Emma, especially if her wife decided on another late night. Yet as she lay in bed she found she couldn't sleep. She kept wondering what it was that her mother would be telling her on the morrow. Would she show Regina any kind of magic? Would her mother tell her about her own experiences? So many questions entered her mind.

This knowledge was something she had wanted for so long but she still had lingering doubts as to her mother's sudden turnaround. If it were as simple as teaching her to control the magic without showing her how to use it, why was her mother so dead set against it all these years?

She was still awake when Emma came in, although she didn't say anything as Emma went into the other room to change. When Emma slid into bed, Regina moved onto her side to face her.

"My mother wants to get together tomorrow for my first lesson," Regina said.

"That's great," Emma replied.

"Yes it is, but the only time available to do it is the time I was supposed to be spending with you. I told her it was okay; I hope you don't mind."

Regina noticed the slight pause before Emma said it was okay. It made Regina feel bad but while she wanted to spend time with Emma, she had been waiting for this opportunity for years.

"Are you sure it's okay?" Regina asked.

"It's fine," Emma said. "We knew the festival was going to be busy and we wouldn't have a lot of time together."

Regina kissed her. "You are too good of a person, did you know that?"

"I don't know about that, but if it earns me another kiss, I will try and be good."

Regina resisted the urge to roll her eyes, mostly because she found Emma to be cute when she was being flirty. She gave Emma another kiss, this time a deeper one that was eagerly returned. Regina felt a tightening in her midsection and a tingling between her legs as they continued to kiss.

Their breaths had increased and Regina's mind told her she should stop this before it went any further. A big part of her didn't want to stop though. She wanted to take things further with Emma and knew if she didn't stop now, she might not be able to stop later so she pulled back.

She didn't need to see Emma to know she was disappointed. She heard a resigned exhale of breath before Emma rolled onto her back. Neither woman said anything at first.

"Do you um … do you know what we're supposed to do?" Regina asked finally.

Emma turned her head toward her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've never and you've never …" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence and she hoped that she had given enough of it away for Emma to understand.

"I don't know specifics. I mean I've heard the guards talk and well," Emma said hesitantly. "I think we just do what feels good."

"But how do we know?" Regina asked, feeling more and more like an idiot, but the truth was she didn't have much of an idea of how things were supposed to go. While she wasn't about to say it to Emma, she had explored her own body, but she didn't know what it would be like to touch Emma like that and if Emma would like it.

"I don't know," Emma admitted. "As I said, I think we do what feels good. For instance, kissing you feels good." Emma moved in and kissed her once more. "Does that feel good?" she asked.

"Yes," Regina said. They continued to kiss and Emma again placed a hand on her thigh and slowly moved it upwards as they kissed. Her hand slipped under Regina's nightgown and came to rest on her side. Regina felt Emma's thumb move lightly against her skin – so lightly it almost tickled.

More kissing took place and Emma's hand traveled north some more until her finger grazed the bottom of Regina's nipple just enough to make it hard.

Emma backed off and smiled. "See, we just do what feels good," she said.

"I know I said we should wait, and I still think we should – a little bit I mean, but I do want this," Regina said. "I want you."

Emma gave her another kiss. "I want you too," she said. "And it's ok if we wait – a little."

There were a few more kisses before they settled into sleep. Despite being tired though Regina found she still wasn't able to get to sleep. Long after Emma fell asleep she was still awake and she ended up slipping out of the bed and going out to their common room. Although it was springtime it was still a little chilly at night. The fire in the hearth had long ago gone out and Regina was feeling a little cold.

She thought about lying there in bed with Emma, feeling her touch, and she knew it wouldn't be much longer before they consummated their marriage. When Emma touched her she felt like her skin warmed up immediately and she wanted to feel it even more and make Emma feel the way she did.

As she thought about it, she suddenly felt the magic take hold of her again. She lifted her hand as fire formed in it. She was mesmerized by the tiny flames that licked the edges of the orb that she had created. She thought about what her mother said – about her magic was linked to her emotions. Yes, she had been thinking about Emma but she wondered why it triggered and why it again made fire.

She walked over to the fireplace. The remnants of charred logs were in there and she reached for a fresh piece of wood and placed it in there. Kneeling in front of it she brought her hand into it and tilted it. She watched as the fireball glided off of her hand and landed on the log immediately lighting it. Reaching for more wood, she fed the fire until the hearth was again blazing.

The warmth she felt now was different than what she had experienced while in bed with Emma. While she had no idea how she had created the fire, she smiled as she realized she had been able to control it – make it do what she wanted.

…

With the castle full of people there were few places that Cora could find to meet with Regina privately so they ended up in Regina's common room. No one besides Emma would enter the room without announcing themselves first which would give them the privacy they needed.

She could see Regina's eagerness on display immediately and Cora again worried about taking her daughter down this path. It's not as if she didn't think Regina should learn to control her magic, it was just that she didn't believe Regina would stop at it despite her promise.

"What did you tell Emma?" Cora asked.

"Only that I wanted some alone time with you to see if we could get past this rift between us."

"Did she ask what the rift was about?"

"She thinks it has to do with the time leading up to our marriage," Regina said.

"I wish this didn't necessitate you lying to your wife, but I must again stress that this goes no further than the two of us."

"Does that mean you are lying to father?"

"Yes," she said.

"So it was the both of you."

"How do you mean?"

"Since the day I learned you could do magic, I wondered if it was your decision not to teach me or if it was both of yours. I assumed it was only you."

Cora caught the faint bit of disdain in Regina's words. She crossed her arms. "Does that knowledge make you happier? Will you begin to treat your father with resentment as you have me? Are we here so that you can condemn me for past decisions or are we here so that you might learn that you don't know everything."

Regina laughed, "Of course I don't know everything and that is your fault."

Cora turned to leave.

"Wait," Regina said. Cora didn't turn, not yet. She wanted to know just how badly Regina wanted this so that she might know if Regina would do as she feared and find a way to learn magic with what little Cora was willing to show her. "I'm sorry mother."

Cora's shoulders sank a little and she closed her eyes, saying a silent prayer that her Regina was not the person the seer had foretold about. Regina hadn't willingly said sorry to her in such a long time that Cora knew that Regina was only backing down because of a greater desire to learn magic. After composing herself she turned back to her daughter.

"I've never done this before, taught someone about magic. I was still young when I gave it up so I am going to ask that you be patient," Cora said. "We are both in uncharted waters with this."

"I understand," Regina said quickly.

"Good. Now when was the last time your magic manifested itself?"

There was a slight pause before Regina answered that it had been the night before. The answer surprised Cora mostly because her room was only a floor below this one yet Cora hadn't sensed anything. There was a time when it would have been nearly impossible for someone to do magic that close to her without her feeling some trace of it, yet she hadn't felt anything. She had let her magic go fallow for so long that she was no longer the wielder she once was.

"What happened?"

"I um … I made a fireball appear in my hand."

"What were you thinking about when you did it?"

Regina looked toward the fireplace. "It was cold in here last night."

"It was a bit chilly last night, but that hardly answers the question," Cora said. "That in and of itself was probably not what triggered it. Now what were you thinking about and what were you feeling at the time? I can't help you if you aren't going to be straightforward with me."

Regina kept her eyes averted and Cora wondered what it could be that would make her daughter hesitant to speak of when she was finally getting what she wanted. There was something else, a slight coloring to Regina's cheeks all of a sudden – almost like she was blushing. "Emma," Cora said after the silence persisted. "Were you thinking of Emma?"

Regina nodded.

"Ok," Cora said. "We don't need to get into any further details." She could see the relief wash over Regina at that which was more of an answer than if Regina had told her what she was feeling about Emma at the time. "Alright, did you feel the magic before the fireball happened?"

"Maybe a second or two before."

"Besides it being cold did you have any other reason to be thinking about fire?"

"No, but this isn't the first time I have formed fire like that. Is there a reason why the magic keeps manifesting as fire?"

Cora took a seat on the couch and bade Regina to join her. "There are different types of magic including inborn magic which is what you and I have. Even if we never use it, the magic will always be there."

"Is there no way to remove it?"

The question caught Cora off guard and she thought back to that day in Midas' castle. "No," she answered. "It is with us until the day we die. But as I was saying with inborn magic our connection is often with one of the four elements – earth, air, water, and in your case fire. That's not to say we work exclusively with one element, it only means our connection with one might be stronger so it's easier for us to work with than the others, it comes more natural."

"Which element are you?"

Cora smiled. "Can't you guess?"

Regina thought about it and Cora was about to tell her when it seemed like Regina hadn't figured it out.

"Earth," Regina said.

"I do take great pride in my gardens," she said. "That doesn't mean I have used magic in the gardens to make them as they are – at least not a lot of magic."

"Who taught you how to do magic?"

"It's not important," Cora said. "Besides I am not teaching you how to do magic, only how to control it so how I learned isn't applicable here."

She could tell the answer did not sit well with Regina, but if she had to remind her every five minutes of their agreement she would. She could see Regina wanted to say or ask something else but she remained quiet. With the number of questions Regina was asking so far Cora did not expect they would get very far in the short amount of time they had. She hadn't been lying when she told Regina she had never taught magic before and she felt she was ill-equipped to do it now because she wasn't sure she could teach Regina how to control the magic.

She sighed. "I told you before that when I first did magic my parents didn't know what to think about it. Neither of my parents could do magic nor did they know anything about it. At first, they treated it like it was something that they could ignore, and maybe it would go away and for the most part, I didn't have any issues with it. That was until my mother died. When that happened I was still a child and in the whirlwind of emotions, I was feeling over the loss of my mom the magic kept happening. I was scared and I wanted my mother back, I wanted her to tell me all was going to be ok, but she wasn't there and my father was dealing with his grief. Unbeknownst to me, he and my mother had been asking questions of others about magic for about a year or so before her death and it was because they did that I found a teacher. The first lesson I was taught was that magic uses our emotions like our bodies use food – it's sustenance to the magic. If you can't control your emotions you can't control your magic."

"But what does that mean exactly?" Regina interrupted. "I feel emotions all the time, why does the magic not come bursting out all those times, and why when it does do I feel weak afterward?"

"If the magic went off every time we felt something, it would destroy us," Cora said. "It would burn us out completely. Yes, before you ask yet another question, it is possible although rare that a magic wielder can die because they use too much magic. It's a symbiotic relationship in a lot of ways. Think of a flower. I give it just enough water and it blooms and graces us with its beauty. I give it more than it can handle and it dies. Magic is like that sort of. We use it responsibly and it remains with us but if we use too much, it will kill us."

"Is that why you gave it up?"

"Regina, if you keep asking questions after every sentence we aren't going to get very far with this."

"I know, but I have so many questions. I've spent years thinking about this, thinking about why the magic comes at what seems like random times. When we spoke the other morning and you hinted that you had experienced something evil with magic and that is why you stopped practicing it. All my life you have said magic is dangerous, and I know that it can be, it was a lesson that will forever be etched in my memories, and I don't want something like that to ever happen again, but don't you see that for me this has been a lifetime of unanswered questions."

Cora stood up. "There are some questions you aren't going to get the answers to," she said. "You want to know why I turned my back on magic; it was because I saw it destroy someone I was close to. She … she was like a sister to me, but in the end that didn't matter, all that mattered to her was magic and the power she could wield with it. I swore I wouldn't lose you to the magic like that. I understand that you hate me for denying you this, but I would rather live with your hate than see you be destroyed by magic. Now, if you think you can keep from asking a question for the next 10 minutes or so, it's time for a little exercise."

…

Cora returned to her rooms, begging off further escapades at the festival after her lesson with Regina. They had spent the better part of an hour on what Cora thought might be a simple exercise – getting Regina's magic to manifest. The odd thing was, it never happened. She had tried different techniques such as having Regina close her eyes, clear her mind and think about something that made her happy. She tried pushing her on the entire spectrum of emotions, even her anger at not knowing magic yet there was nothing. She could tell Regina was upset and frustrated, and she tried to comfort her by again reminding her that she had never taught magic before so the fault was most likely with her inadequacies as a teacher. She promised Regina this wasn't the only lesson and she just needed to regroup and think of some other way to approach it.

Instead of going with Regina to meet up with the others for some storytelling competition, she retired to her room and laid down.

Her daughter was a magic wielder of the fire variety. She could almost laugh at the irony of it. After all, she had been taught by such a person so she was quite familiar with how fire worked.

"Oh Maleficent, you would have known what to do the moment you met Regina," Cora said out loud. "You would have made her into the most powerful woman in the world."