Hi all, thanks for the messages! Here is the next chapter. Thanks to Laura again :)


The leader approached the cage, tightening his grip around his spear as he raised his hand to his neck. While others poised ready to surround Regina, he gripped at his crystal and the swirls flew up and circle the bindings of the cage and round Emma's wrists. They rattled momentarily before the side swung down and Emma emerged, the same black threaded cuffs as Regina's wrapped around her hands. As she left, the cage wall reattached behind her.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Swan." Regina prayed under her breath as Emma gave her a reassuring look and the trolls led Emma on, leaving Regina behind. They took her over the clearing and she did her best to take in the surroundings. As she walked she spotted that the gold sprinkling they had originally been following was still present and appeared to circle around a rather large rock with two smaller rocks beside it. She had a feeling knew what it could contain. Not wanting to waste the opportunity she addressed the troll to her immediate left. The one that Kristoff had known.

"So you've been here for a few weeks." She whispered as he looked up without replying before nodding briskly. She let them go a few more steps as she saw another large rock they appeared to be heading towards.

"When did the magic disappear from your land?" She asked softly as the soldier eyed her over. "Kristoff didn't give us the details." She added. Hoping that it would both be in line with her story and remind the troll they were friends. It appeared to work.

"Not many use magic." He replied. "The elders deliberated for many days in council with the queen who decided that an army should trace and protect the cup. It had been hidden here many years before and we knew that they would want it. We had been charged with this task many years before. It was time." Emma thought over what he had said, not feeling fully comfortable with it. "A second party was to come to help us return to Arendelle and decide how to restore the magic."

"Who would want it?" She asked, still bothered by his earlier wording. "Does that mean the cup has the magic?" She fished, trying to piece together what they had. Before the troll could answer the leader halted the party with a "Silence!"

As all the soldiers froze, Emma looked at the rock face before them. With another pull on his chain, the blue smoke this time danced around the surface and the rocks began to roll straight into it, each disappearing as they did. Before Emma had time to take this in, one of them grabbed her and launched her forward as they too materialised inside. She was suddenly inside a completely sealed cave, lit only by the glowing beads of the trolls.

"What the hell?" Emma exclaimed, unable to hide her fascination with what just happened. "We just walked into a solid rock..."

"Arendelle magic is drawn from the elements. From nature." The leader commented bluntly. "Our magic allows us to be absorbed into the rocks. We are rock trolls." Emma was about to question it before various glints caught her eye, spotting a stockpile of spears and blades reflecting the blue light.

"And you use them as store-rooms..." She mumbled in amazement. "You're packing some serious punch." She was now even more confident as to why that larger rock she passed may be of interest.

"This is why we have brought you here. Try anything and we will obliterate you." He threatened. "How do you make the trinket work?" The leader asked, getting back to business, as she folded the mirror over in her hands.

"I'll need your power as well as mine. A lot of it, if it's to work." She said. "And I can't guarantee..."

"You already guaranteed." The troll cut her off as she began to regret her choice of wording from before.

"Alright then." She breathed deeply, hoping that either a miracle or blind faith in her instinct wouldn't let her down.

"But first, how do these beads of yours have magic?" She asked, partly stalling and partly trying to get as much Intel as she could. The soldiers looked among themselves hesitantly. "If you want this to work I need to know what kind of magic I'm dealing with."

"Our beads contain the power of the skies. It is held tight within the crystals." He explained. "When magic was stolen from Arendelle we had to journey here so our necklaces would reawaken and could be used to protect the cup."

"So the cup is in here?" She asked hopefully as the spears shuffled again. "The cup is safe." The troll replied with a suspicious glare. Looking for any hints from the trolls, her strongest theory for the location still stood, and that wasn't this cave.

"How did you know the cup was here? Where is here?" She asked as the troll lost his patience.

"You should know that if you can from the queen. Can you communicate with Arendelle or not?" He barked as Emma relented, seeing the other trolls twitch their spears again.

"Maybe if you channel your magic through the binding on my wrists it will help mix your magic with mine." She explained. "Channel as much into it as you can and I will try and activate the mirror."

The leader nodded as he signalled to two of his soldiers."And make sure it is not blocking my magic." She added for safeguarding as the troll reluctantly agreed.

The three trolls each raised their wrist as Emma raised hers, holding the edge of the mirror against the binding and resting the back of it against the amulet around her neck. She closed her eyes and began to concentrate as hard as she could. As the blue light filtered through the threading she could feel it tingle and buzz, passing through the mirror and against the metal pressing against her chest. The jewellery started vibrating faster and faster but no picture appeared in the mirror.

"It's not working" the troll exclaimed, cynically as Emma winked open an eye and looked down. The chain was dancing furiously now as would the mirror be was it connecting.

"A little more." She said, as the leader beckoned two more trolls to join in, 5 of them now projecting a stream of light to where Emma was poised. As the vibrations reached maximum she peeked out of her closed eyes again and saw that the amulet colour had flicked from the sombre glow of Regina's purple to a soft blue like the colour of the light that danced along the fibres. Focussing harder on the mirror a glazed light flickered across it but there was a crack and a wheeze. With a final bang the glass popped, sending a web of splits along its face and causing the trolls to jump back, spears bared again.

"You lied! You have no window to Arendelle! It's a powerless trinket!" The leader barked as two trolls forced Emma to her feet.

"I didn't lie..." She exclaimed. "It just didn't work. Honestly, we can help you. I swear."

"Take her back to the cage!" The leader commanded. "She just wanted to stall us to find the cup and steal it! She tricked us!" He continued to bark as two of the soldiers grabbed her arms and proceeded to drag her back.

"I didn't lie it just didn't - " They cut her off with more exclamations of "She just wanted to find the cup. Protect the cup!"

Realising it was futile, Emma stopped trying to fight them. She discretely tried to slip the mirror to her sleeve again.

"You lied! You lied! You are not here to help us!" The trolls continued to babble in various variations as they dragged her back to the clearing. She once again caught the look of the rock with the golden trail as they dragged her over. She could see Regina come back into view with a nervous stare.

"You will both be sent to Arendelle. You will face the court for trying to deceive us."

"I underestimated my power - I'm sorry." Emma pleaded to deaf ears.

"A true friend of Arendelle would have not lied." The leader spat with final vitriol as he blew angrily on the cord and Emma was thrown back in. The wall reattached trapping them once again inside.

"In light of your failure you shall be kept prisoners here until you can be sent to Arendelle for trial where your deception will be put before the court." The leader snapped as Emma tried to regain balance from being tossed in.

"Over-reaction, much?" She mumbled to herself before spotting Regina's damning side glare.

"I take it it went straight to voicemail?" She commented coldly as Emma locked onto her eyes, unamused.

"It is nightfall and we shall retire. Trolls!" The leader commanded before tapping his spear three times as the entire army zipped away into their stumps and rolled away to the edge of the clearing.

"Emma." Regina stated coldly as soon as it was quiet. "I don't know what you were trying to achieve with that little brainwave, but if I end up spending summer ice skating around an Arendelle prison cell I am not going to be very pleasant company." She lectured, dropping down into a seated position on the floor.

"For someone who threw themselves off a bridge to bring me here, I cant say my Uber rating is all that high for your company so far." Emma bit back. "Anyways, you don't need to worry about being in Arendelle -"

"- Because their portal has clearly dried up and it's more likely we'll be trapped here by the moss headed bureaucrats instead?" Regina retorted as Emma struggled to try and release the chain from her neck.

"No. Because getting that mirror to work was never my plan in the first place." She replied, catching Regina's attention away from her sulking.

"Oh Emma..." Regina smiled seeing the colour of the rock Emma had dangled in front of her.

"They said only their magic could penetrate this cage." She explained as she flexed her wrists and examined the cage again. "I may not have your experience, Regina, but power locking crystals and high concentrations of magic - I'm a quicker study than you think."

"How did you know that would work?" The queen asked, leaping back up into a standing position.

"I didn't." Emma replied, trying to manoeuvre the crystal into a prime place.

"But those crystals weren't even designed to absorb magic. I used a potion..." Regina continued to scrutinise, her curiosity overtaking her relief.

"Well then it's time we tested if it did work or not." Emma raised her eyebrows as Regina nodded and lifted her hands. Following what the rock trolls had done so many times, she focussed on the aim and soon enough the blue wisp of smoke filtered around the bonds and freeing them. Handing it to Regina, she returned the favour and the both flexed their sore wrists from the bondage.

"I have to say, that was very nicely done." Regina admitted, letting her intrigue lie for a little while. "Now we have the upper hand and element of surprise I intend to knock them all out and get that leader's heart so we can find out what really is going on. They may be stones but they must still have them to be alive..." She plotted.

"Regina!" Emma scolded. "They're subjects of our friend."

"Oh please!" Regina scoffed back. "First you get zipped up in a tree cage and now you're not letting me rip hearts out to help us? I thought I came on this trip with you, not your mother! We need answers. You did well, Emma, but we can't rely entirely on slapdash luck and instinct."

"Slapdash luck and instinct just saved your ass!" Emma protested.

"And that was very impressive but let me do something to help. Cross the line you wont."

"No. Hearts." Emma insisted. "My walk on the dark side made me realise even more what a slippery slope that is. I'm not doing it. Now let's get out of here."

Emma got the amulet into position, holding it at the cage edge and giving it another squeeze. As with the cuffs, the magic encased the edge and the door sprung away. Thinking quickly, Regina materialised a couple of decoy shapes, sat against the bottom of the cage and Emma restored the wall before they carefully edged behind the tree.

"Which way out of here then, tracker?" Regina whispered as they gently tried to tiptoe to the edge.

"We can't get out of here just yet..." Emma informed her looking back to the rock."

"Excuse me?" Regina replied in shock, unsure of why they would delay their escape. "You don't want us to hurt the trolls but you want to hang around?"

Just then they were disrupted by a screeching noise as Emma's wrist began to furiously buzz.

"What the hell is that?" She shrieked as she realised the whirr was coming from the mirror. "Why is it doing that?"

"Did you crack the glass?! The magic escapes like steam if there is a breach when it calls." Regina chastised as they looked over to the rocks a few yards away who were beginning to stir.

"I..." Emma stuttered. "It could have smashed a little..." She explained guiltily as Regina grabbed her wrist and began to run just as the rocks began to roll.

"Oh why now, mom." Emma muttered as they ran faster. The predictable cries from the trolls hollered behind in crashing disharmony with the mirror's squeal.

"Enough of this!" Regina yelled as she turned, sending a blast that ricocheted through the army, sending them flying backwards and silencing the mirror. "I've stunted their magic but that won't hold them for long!" She gasped as they moved. "I'm getting us out of here..." She called, grabbing Emma's arm as the trolls began to pursue on foot, spears beginning to toss towards them.

"Wait! We have to get the cup!" Emma yelled as Regina shrieked an "Are you kidding me?" and Emma changed direction towards the rock she had seen before.

"Are you crazy? How do you know where it is?"

"Slapdash luck and instinct...hopefully..." She breathed out pulling Regina's arm and saving her from another clattering spear, jerking her towards the rock as the two smaller rocks by it expanded out.

"Sorry guys." Emma waved her hand tossing them away as they approached and sent them flying down the hill. This time a shot of magic burst at them from behind.

"They have their powers back, Swan!" Regina blasted another attempt to stifle their pursuers but failed. "This better work..."

"Well, if it doesn't we're about to be splattered across a rock face." She exclaimed, grabbing the amulet on her neck. Regina barely had time to gasp a final "What?" before the two of them dived into the blue shimmer that had appeared around the stone.

They hit the deck inside as a spear edged through behind them and wedged in, snapping off on the outside as they deduced they had begun to roll. This one was a lot smaller than the previous but clearly still bigger than it appeared from the outside. The two sorceresses tossed and rolled within, bounding down the hill. It was full of trinkets and papers and Emma tried to hold sight onto anything long enough to identify if what she needed was here.

"Did you just jump start a rock?" Regina exclaimed trying to hold on somehow as Emma ignored her. She continued her search as best she could, all the time spinning and trying to avoid the spear head wedged in the wall. There were the sounds of magical bullets pinging off the edge of it, but so far none had penetrated. A faint dim of angry shouts was on their tail, the troll army rolling behind. Each was alternating into their trolls form to send a single blast and rolling back up without losing pace in their pursuit.

"Emma we need to get out of this thing before it goes off a cliff!" Regina yelled as the two were bouncing off the walls, the speed of their journey only increasing.

Hard as it was to keep focus with anything long enough to see detail, Emma felt a sharp ding on her arm and desperately grabbed the source of it. As it tried to jump from her wrist, her head flying over her legs, she gripped the handle tight and tried to use her other hand to make a copy, hoping a decoy may prevent the trolls chasing them further when they made their escape. As she threw the fake down she grabbed Regina's leg and tried to hold on..

"We're jumping out again!" She yelled. "You get ready to materialise us somewhere else."

"Where?" Regina spat, trying to hold onto her companion.

"Anywhere!" Emma ordered through a yell. "One..." she grabbed the amulet as best she could without dropping the cup in the constant turning. "Two.." She gripped Regina tighter and focussed hard. "Three!"

The rock portal opened as they were tossed from the stone as an avalanche of the smaller rocks rolled down, morphing into the creatures. Just as another burst of magic flew at them, Regina's smoke whisked them up into the air.


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"Well if he knows so much why doesn't he just give us a freakin' map?" Regina blasted, making no attempt to hide her frustration, before squinting beyond Emma's shoulder as something caught her eye.

Without saying another word she began to gravitate behind towards a pile of papers that had been scattered by the riddler's appearance. She bent over and picked a particular one up as Emma walked over to join her.

"What is it? What have you seen?" She asked with a prickle of optimism. Regina turned back to her and held out one of the papers, flapping it out briskly to cause a puff of golden sparkles that came spilling off it. "A freakin' map."