They had a system. It wasn't an ideal system, but it worked. Communication with the mirrors after Regina had removed her mother's spell was the first thing that she had mastered. When the girl had a spare moment, whether it was five minutes or five hours, she looked into her mirror and summoned him. He'd had her set up a very specific mirror to do the work, one that allowed her access to one mirror and one mirror only in his castle. After all, he couldn't allow the girl to have unlimited access, to look in on his workshop, to see what he was doing at any moment. He kept her mirror downstairs, in his Great Room, where it was easier for Jefferson to bug him, but she was likely not to see much, if anything was happening. And if he wanted her to be kept out of business, he simply threw a covering over the thing. That was why he also had her say his name three times. Just in case he wasn't by the mirror to hear her call, the summoning would do the work for them.

As a student, Regina was vastly different from her mother. Unlike Cora who had learned quickly, Regina was a slow learner, who needed just the right amounts of pressure, reassurance, and pushing to get her to do what he wanted. She did well with potions and herbs, but when it came to using her own magic actively, well, she tended to fall well short of her goals. Aside from learning spells for mirrors, she'd learned to suspend objects in mid-air and to transport objects from one spot to another. It was progress, he supposed, but it was minimal. She'd accomplished little in the last few months. Some of that, he admitted was due to how busy she was, and as much as it irritated him, he acknowledged there was nothing he could do about it. Another part of her resistance, he could tell, was that she was still holding back due to Daniel. That was a problem he'd solve all in good time. However, a lot of Regina's lack of progress was due to her lack of concentration. But he found that he didn't so much mind that particular difference, as every so often it seemed to point her in the direction that he wanted her to go.

Today was a rare opportunity where they'd been able to schedule a lesson, and by the time she'd wandered down the hall, back to her quarters, he'd already had it set up. She could move objects from one spot to another but only so long as she could see them. Today was the day they practiced summoning an unseen object. But as he greeted her, back fresh from an afternoon of riding through town, he was surprised to see the look on her face was anything but excited. She was whining. It was about Snow White, naturally. As the royal family had gone out among their people, they'd naturally drawn a crowd. Snow had been greeted with cheers, Regina had barely gotten applause.

"One of the children was so desperate to see her he actually fell down in the mud! But no, of course, that didn't stop Snow White! Oh no! She raced down off her steed to offer a handkerchief of her own for the child to clean himself!"

"You know…" he stated, pressing his fingers together. He hated to show irritation with such a conversation, especially when getting Regina to hate Snow White was part of his future plans and the irritation he knew she felt was what she needed to draw upon for his lesson. But if she could possibly direct that irritation into her magic instead of running her mouth and wasting the precious little time they had, then it might just work out for the both of them. "If you focused on your magic half as much as you focused on your horses, you'd have the entire Kingdom in the palm of your hand by now."

Regina snorted in protest and rolled her eyes. "How would magic have helped me today?"

"You could have prevented the child from falling. You could have transported him away; transported the mud away; used a spell to clean him; produced a sweet to make his day brighter…you need to broaden your horizons! Expand your imagination! Let your mind incorporate your magic into your daily life and see how it can change things. You need to see that all these little lessons can lead to great things if you let them. Here…let's start today's lesson simply…" he stated, grabbing her by the wrist and guiding her to her vanity.

He'd been busy while she'd been away, preparing for just this lesson. There on the table was a small crystal that he'd brought from his workshop. It was the same item they'd used when he'd taught her to move objects and suspend them in the air.

"Today, we'll work on calling the crystal to you…without being able to see it," he added quickly. She looked skeptical as he produced a hallow pyramid and set it over the crystal. "This is the first step to learning how to transport yourself to places you can't see and call objects from other rooms, in desk drawers, even from behind a locked door. So now…call it."

"Call it?" she questioned.

"To you, yes," he nodded eagerly. "See it in your mind's eye, tell yourself you want it, picture it in the palm of your hand, feel the rough hard edges against your skin, and…ha!" The rock appeared in his hand with a puff of black smoke. "Magic!" he proclaimed before he made it disappear again so that it was back under the prism. "Now, you try."

He watched as Regina looked at the prism, focused on it so hard he thought she might bore a hole into it or accidentally set it on fire, then took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, closed her eyes, raised and lowered her hand…

Nothing.

Almost nothing. He had, in fact, felt magic stir in the air around her, but it wasn't enough to summon that rock to her.

"Try again. Truly let yourself want it."

He watched again as she wiggled about, as if loosening her shoulders and the way she stood had anything to do with it. Then she repeated the process. She focused on the prism, took a breath, closed her eyes, raised and lowered her hand…

Nothing again.

There was a loud crack as Regina let her hand slap against her thigh in frustration.

"Just try again."

"How do I know it's really there?!" she argued. "How do I know you didn't move it with magic, and you aren't teaching me some other lesson?"

He stood in the exact same place he'd been standing. As infantile as her magic was, there was no need for those kind of lessons at present. But he shrugged anyway. "See for yourself…" he dismissed, glancing at the prism.

Silently she moved forward a step and lifted the pyramid from the desk. There was the stone, right where he'd placed it. Regina let out a noise of frustration as she slammed the pyramid back over the crystal.

"Maybe I'm not as good as you think I am! Maybe I can't do this like my mother!"

"Oh, like your mother certainly not!"

"Because I'm not good enough!"

"Because I have seen your powers!" he urged, taking a step slower and reaching up to place his hands on her shoulders. She was growing angry, frustrated. It was good. There beneath her skin, when he touched her, he could feel the magic simmering inside of her; she just needed to accept what she was and learn to channel and use it. "I have seen your powers, and I sense them even now beneath your skin. No, Regina, you are not like your mother because you are stronger and in a place of power she only ever dreamed of. You only need to learn this truth and believe it. Now…" he let go of her shoulders and took a few steps back. "Try again."

She nodded in determination, licked her lips, and stared at the pyramid again. This time she didn't close her eyes. She didn't straighten her shoulders, just raised and lowered her arm as one hand stayed balled in a fist by her side.

She was unsuccessful.

"Again," he urged. "Again," he stated patiently twice more after more failures before she turned back to him and landed in the chair by her vanity.

"I don't understand!"

"What now?"

"What's my motivation?"

"Your motivation?" he questioned, growing frustrated himself. He could abide by her standing there and trying unsuccessfully. He could not, however, stand here and witness temperamental whining, he had better things to do with his time than that.

"It's a rock!" she exclaimed. "You told me to tell myself that I want it, but why do I want it? I don't want a rock! Maybe if we tried with a horse!"

"And how willing will you be to practice with a horse if I told you that you might kill it in the process?" he questioned. "You start small, on harmless objects until it's perfected, and until then, your motivation to do it is simply because you can. You want to prove to me that you can do this. That should be enough."

"What's the point of all this anyway?! It's just a rock!"

"It's a doorway!" he stressed, purposefully opening his mouth so he wouldn't clench his jaw. "Master this ability, and the entire skill will fall open to you. If you can move a rock, then you can move a horse, and if you can move a horse, then you can move yourself. Just imagine the possibilities! Any time you want to be somewhere, you can go! You can leave these grounds at the drop of a hat and be anywhere you want to be. Enjoy a book by a river, ride on the beach, take your lovely chaise out to the highest mountain, and lay out in the sun if you wish, but it all starts here! With this one little rock! Without this skill, you will never go anywhere or take anything with you if you don't learn how to do this properly!"

"Have you ever considered that maybe you and your feelings are wrong, that I'm not as powerful as you seem to think I am? Because from where I stand even Snow White seems to have more magical power than I do!"

This again! This never-ending argument, it was almost as bad as being married. He could have sworn they'd just discussed this, and yet she'd circled around again. His instinct was to give up, to roll his eyes, and find someone else that wouldn't be as much trouble and was easily manipulatable, but the Seer had her claws in him deep. It was Regina. She was the key or at least part of it. It had to be her. And with her last sentence, he was beginning to realize that only half of this was about her.

"What are you blabbering on about? What power does the Princess have?"

"She can talk to birds!" Regina exclaimed, rising out of her seat and pacing anxiously across the room with a hand on her hip.

"Children talk to animals all the time. Adults call it an 'active imagination'."

"No, she can really talk to them!" she insisted, spinning around and advancing on him. "They fly in and out of the palace all the time! They sit on her shoulder, and the pair of them jabber on about the creature's day! I doubt she learned that in school! It's magic."

Magic.

Yes, it was.

He shook his head as he realized what exactly it was that was going on. The ability to talk with small animals, usually birds-it was magical but a very minor magical ability, so much so it was almost laughable in the community.

And yet…he was trying to purposefully instill as much anger and jealousy toward the girl in Regina as he possibly could, to motivate her and create what he knew she could become. If he didn't explain what was happening with Snow White, she'd never understand how absurd this conversation was and take away all that precious jealousy that he needed to harvest later. But if he explained exactly what it was then it might just might take away her confidence completely so that she would never grow enough to move the fucking rock out from underneath gauze! A delicate situation called for a delicate explanation, one that allowed him to have it both ways.

"No…it's not a skill she learned in school, just one she was born with."

Regina opened her mouth but shut it quickly as she shook her head.

"A thousand years ago, when royals were just as magical as they were noble, they used magic to give themselves the art of bird-speak, to communicate during war and have the upper hand. That ability has survived in some of the strongest and oldest of bloodlines. It is considered a very minor magical ability, but an ability all the same. One that Snow White has, and you don't. But…"

He summoned the rock into his hand once more as he took gentle steps closer to the emotional queen.

"The ability of transportation, to move objects out of one space and into another is a far superior ability. Master this, and when it comes to strength, it won't be a question as to which of you is the most powerful. You can't change her lineage, or the natural gifts that were handed to her at birth. You can't acquire those abilities on your own…but with magic, you can at least turn the tide in your favor."

He blew on the rock just to be dramatic and allowed it to disappear out of his hand and back under the covering he'd brought with him.

"Magic is about knowing what you want and letting yourself have it, dearie. Practice a while," he suggested. "Figure out what it is exactly that you want…"

Just because he could, he allowed himself to disappear in front of her, showing her what might be if she mastered what he told her too. If he'd done his job right, she would gather from their conversation her motivation.

So I had the other two chapters labeled as part of this episode but there is no doubt now that this is officially a 3x16 chapter. We saw this scene play itself out for all of about 10 seconds but we never heard anything from it and as you can see I took the opportunity to expand it. Where did we see this? Good question, as I said, it was quick and you might have missed it, but this was the scene that the "Wizard" shows Zelena when she goes to him for help. We never heard words from it, but I was rather happy about that because I was able to make it work for my own purposes.

Thank you MissAmande, Alarda, and Jennifer Baratta for your reviews on the last chapter! I hope you won't mind that I threw a little bit of a curveball at you in attempting to explain why Snow and some other people in the series can talk to birds and chipmunks 'n such. Still, I know it's not quite what you want out of the 3x16 chapters, so I'm happy to let you know that you should stay tuned. What, or rather, who, you want is coming at you for the first time in the next chapter. Hold on tight because we're about to enter a world of crazy! Peace and Happy Reading!