A/N: Sadly this is the last we'll hear from Red until her ordeal is over, however that may occur. Please forgive me!
Standard Disclaimer: These lovely characters ain't mine, I just play with them gently. Please don't sue me. The mistakes are mine, though.
Chapter 23 – Seeds of a Three
Red has never had a problem making friends. Regina is right about that. Well, Regina is right about a lot of things, just that one thing in particular is currently relevant considering how easily she's fallen into an amiable rapport with Aurora. Since the auburn-crowned princess mercifully broke up the maddening monotony of her existence, they have been chatting up a storm about everything under the sun. It's only been a few hours, but already she feels like she's made a friend for life.
They've just been discussing their mutual loathing of the insular nature of nobility when Aurora suddenly clears her throat and says, "So, earlier you mentioned that your True Love is a woman..."
Red's brows shoot northward at the abrupt change of course. For a moment, she fears this is the moment she'll lose what progress they have made. It wouldn't be the first time it has happened, either. More than a few interesting folks she's met have spurned her friendship upon learning she is wed to a woman. Like death and taxes, bigotry is a staple wherever one ventures in this old world.
"She is," Red answers, tone a little clipped. "Does that bother you?"
Aurora shakes her head vehemently. "Not at all. It's just that for one exhilarating moment, I was curious as to whether your beloved might be a slight woman of exotic origins named Mulan. Before you mentioned it being Queen Regina, that is."
The casual name drop visibly stuns Red. The last thing she'd expected to discover about Aurora was that she is an acquaintance of Mulan's.
"How do you know Mulan?" she asks, not careful to hide her intrigue. Mulan has always been so secretive about her past that Red can't pass up the opportunity to glean some juicy morsels of information on her frustratingly stoic friend.
Aurora's expression brightens considerably. "Oh! Well, she and my husband were traveling companions while I was under Maleficent's curse. She helped him find a cure for an ailment that prevented him from waking me. After I was rescued, Mulan and I also became very close."
It suddenly dawns on Red who this woman is. Her eyes narrow dangerously. "You're her! Aren't you?"
Aurora leans back in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"
"You and your husband are the assholes that broke her heart!" Though Red's accusation is uncharacteristically vulgar, it is, in her opinion, warranted.
Not too long after they became friends, Red was able to guilt Mulan into loosening up about her past. She'd felt like a jerk using such an underhanded tactic as crying for manipulative effect, but the woman's refusal to let anyone into her heart, even under the auspices of purely platonic friendship, was so infuriating that Red had been at a loss of how else to prove herself trustworthy. So she'd decided to make herself vulnerable first by reliving Peter's death. She'd just got the waterworks good and started when Mulan halted her.
"If we're going to do this...emotional bonding," the tiny warrior had said as Red wiped her tears dry, "I'm going to need alcohol. A lot of alcohol. And someplace private."
"Done and done!" Red had said, and then clapped her friend on the back. She's whistled a tune of victory all the way down Regina's private wine cellar.
That night, with both of them sloshed silly, Mulan told her in the vaguest terms about how she'd gone on a grand adventure with a young man seeking to save his True Love. Of course, she'd spared names and locations for the sake of their privacy, but enough detail came out for Red to presently be able to put two and two together.
Aurora does not only look slightly offended by Red's harshness but openly wears her hurt. "What? When did we break her heart? I swear to you that Philip and I parted from her on good terms."
Red scoffs at the non-explanation. While she believes Aurora is telling the truth, it is from a slanted perspective. People are often willingly blind to how others around them are hurting – especially when they are in a bubble of happiness. In her general estimation, people only deign to be considerate to the needs of others, even loved ones, when it is convenient. Most likely, Aurora and Philip were too wrapped up in one another and their epic romance to notice that their closest friend was suffering.
"She only let you believe that so you could both remain ignorant of how she was hurting," she says, trying not to sound as critical as she'd been before. "I'm not saying this to be mean, either. Just being honest. You both hurt her worse than you'll ever know."
Damn it all if Aurora doesn't tear up at the thought she'd done actual harm to Mulan. Red almost feels bad for slapping her so hard with stark, cold reality. Almost.
"I don't understand," Aurora says, visibly crestfallen. Her shoulders draw in and her lips tremble almost imperceptibly. "What did we do? I thought were good to her. That we were all the best of friends..."
Red sighs when Aurora trails off, sniffling daintily. Why is it always her that gets put in the middle of other people's shit? It happened with Regina and Snow. Then again with Victor and Regina. Then again with Regina and Cora. And now she's stuck in the middle of a love triangle that, while of the equilateral variety instead of isosceles, is no less complicated and messy.
"That's the problem," she says, wearily scrubbing a hand over her face. "You were maybe a little too good of a friend."
Brows scrunched up, Aurora replies, "I don't follow. What are you suggesting? I'd appreciate a forthright answer as well."
"I can't." Red shakes her head and bites her lip against the desire to interfere. "I promised Mulan I wouldn't say anything to anyone."
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you've already partially broken that promise by telling me that I've done her wrong somehow yet at the same time was too good to her. Which makes no sense. You're deliberately stimulating my curiosity. I think you want to tell me because you believe it's the right thing to do. So please just follow that instinct. Please! I need to know what we did so we can make it right."
Oh, what the hell! Red thinks, sort of hating Aurora for how accurately she'd read the situation. It's uncanny how much that felt like she was under Regina's eerily accurate magnifying glass.
"Some things can't be fixed," she says, resigned now to fessing up. She'll be breaking the confidence of one of her closest friends, someone who has never betrayed her in such a way. But at the same time Aurora was correct that she believes it's the right thing to do. As mulish as Mulan is, the woman will never fight for her own happiness, which leaves her friends to do so on her behalf. Red steels herself before dropping the proverbial hammer. "Things like unrequited love."
Brows furrowing, Aurora's head cocks to the side like a confused puppy. "Her affection was not unrequited. Philip and I both love her."
Of course she would choose that moment to stop being perceptive and make me spell it out, Red thinks, then clarifies audibly, "Not like she loves the two of you. It's a...different kind of love."
"What do you mean by that – oh. Oh!" Aurora gasps, eyes going wide and a bit wild as she covers her mouth with her hand. A moment later, after recovering enough to formulate words, she removes her hand to speak. "Do you mean to say that Mulan was in love with us? Both of us?"
Red nods in confirmation, biting her lip at the panoply of emotions that play in turn all over Aurora's features from shock to disbelief to fear to what looks like it just might be a spark of hope. Is it possible that Mulan's feelings weren't as one-sided as she'd believed?
Her own hope swelling, she replies, "Was. Is. Always will be, I think. She hasn't gone into great detail, but from what I gathered, she fell for Philip first and only realized her feelings had extended to you not long before she left."
Aurora actually looks devastated now, as if the floor has dropped out from beneath her feet and she's been left dangling by a frightfully thin thread. Red can tell her acute reaction isn't because she's disgusted by this revelation. It's evident by the way she trembles and how her eyes are tearing up again that she's realizing how hard it must have been for Mulan to be in love with them both while unable to say anything because of her unflinching sense of duty. Meanwhile, she had to watch them parade their love in front of her, believing she'd never be included. To an ultra rational individual such as Mulan, them being together as she wished was an impossibility when polyamory is more taboo than homosexuality by an order of magnitude.
Thus, Mulan essentially condemned herself to a torturous existence, unable for the longest time to tolerate being apart from those she loved but powerless to stop the pain of being unable to love them as she truly desired. Poor thing. It must have been horrible.
"B-but...why didn't she say anything?" Aurora asks, trying valiantly not to dissolve into a fit of tears as she appears to come to the very same realization.
Not for the first time, Red wishes desperately that she could hug the woman. Hell, right now she'd settle for being able to offer platitudes that would make Aurora feel better about what's happened to someone she clearly still feels deeply for. But she can't. What's more, she refuses to. She cannot in good conscience allow a friend to remain ignorant to an ugly reality of human nature to which she's been exposed far too often since her relationship with Regina became public knowledge.
"People who aren't normal all hide their true selves out of fear," she says. "I kept my relationship with Regina a secret from Snow for a long time for that very reason. I wasn't just afraid she'd shun me because of what Regina did to her. I thought she'd judge me because I'm not just attracted to men like she always thought. Regina has told me she kept her own affairs with women a closely guarded secret because she was ashamed and afraid of how her mother would respond if she ever found out. Her mother whom she had banished to another world, by the way. That's how powerful the urge is to keep those parts of us other people will hate hidden. She was taught that being attracted to someone of the same sex is a perversion of the natural order of things, and that got so ingrained in her that even with her mother completely out of the picture she was compelled to hide that part of herself from public consumption. We both fessed up to the people that we care about most on the same day, and hell if it wasn't one of the scariest days of our lives. Thankfully, Regina's dad was amazing about it and Snow was too. Well, about the liking girls part. Not so much about that girl being Regina."
Aurora listens to the speech intently and without condemnation. Red is thankful for that, and beyond relieved by her new friend's admittedly unexpected response.
"I understand and am sympathetic with that reasoning," Aurora says, probably a lot more calmly than Red would have been in her position. "My father actively persecutes those who do not adhere to the criteria dictated by ancient tradition. Rest assured, I do not share his outdated opinions, nor does Philip. We've both sworn to outlaw such bigotry when, and if, we come to power. To us, love is love no matter who shares it. I would have thought Mulan would have known that. It saddens me she trusted us so little."
"Well, that's easy for you to say," Red retorts, eyes flashing with offense. "You have your happy ending with your dashing prince. No one sneers down their nose at you or calls you nasty names as you pass by when you hold hands with him in public. You don't get what it's like. Our kingdom is pretty forward thinking on this issue, but even there, Regina and I have encountered a lot of resistance. Still do every now and then."
Aurora has the grace to accept the chastisement with an apologetic wince that precedes an actual apology so earnest that Red can't help but accept it instantly. "You're right. You're right. I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound entitled or condescending. I just...well, I have to confess that I'm more upset at myself than Mulan. Philip tried to convince me that our advances would be reciprocated, but I didn't believe him. You were right about the part fear plays in matters of the heart that are...peculiar."
Red forgets all about the apology and how nice it was for her little lecture to be validated when she latches on to one incredibly important phrase. A phrase that confirms her suspicions about Philip and Aurora's feelings where Mulan is concerned.
"Wait a second. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"If you think I'm saying that Mulan wasn't alone feeling as she did, then yes, you are," Aurora says. "Right before she fled, Philip and I were discussing inviting her into our marriage. We would have had to keep the arrangement quiet until we took the throne, of course, but we wanted her to be a part of our lives in every way possible, including raising our baby as a family. We only didn't because of my cowardice."
Stunned, all the air rushes out of Red's lungs. "Wow. That...just wow. And not the part about you being scared. You really feel the same for her as she does for you? Philip, too?"
Aurora nods firmly. "We do. I wouldn't lie about such a sensitive matter."
"No, no. Of course not. I just wish you would have told her sooner. The rejection really messed her up." Aurora's wince has Red backtracking quickly, "Sorry, perceived rejection. I don't think she's so much as looked at someone with romantic interest since I've known her, and believe me, it's not for lack of trying on my part. I've attempted to play Cupid more times than I can count on two hands only for her to aggressively spurn any advances."
Hearing of Mulan's plight has Aurora rising to her feet and leaning as far toward Red as she can without contacting the flames barring them from physical contact. Worrying her hands together, she cries out, "My poor Mulan! I must see her at once. We've been searching for her these past years to no avail, hoping for a chance to tell her how we feel. I beg you, please tell me where she is!"
It is request Red cannot deny. Of everyone in the Kingdom, Mulan most deserves a slice of happiness. Now standing as well, Red gladly answers, "She's back home in Misthaven. Aside from being a close personal friend of both Regina and I, she serves as the Commanding General of the army. When I get back home, I'll let her know I saw you. And, if you want, I can advocate on your behalf for that second chance."
Aurora is brimming with so much hope that she appears fit to burst. "Would you truly be so kind?"
Red cannot contain her delighted grin. She feels so overjoyed and so incredibly privileged to have been the one to make this potential happy ending happen. And if she has any say in the matter, it will come to fruition.
"It would be my honor, Princess Aurora," she says, then allows a thread of gravity into her tone. "But you have to promise not to hurt her. I love that woman, and I'm sick and tired of watching her pine after what she thinks she can't have. She's been through enough. So, with all due respect, if you break her heart a second time you will have to deal with me in all my fearsome furry majesty. And that's not to mention Regina, who will be right there in line to dish out some pain of her own."
Aurora, taking the threat in stride, raises her hand in a manner indicative of one swearing an oath. "I swear on my mother's memory, I would sooner carve out my own heart than hurt her again. I know Philip feels the same."
"In that case," Red says, relaxing into a friendly stance, "I'd be happy to pass along any message you have for her."
Averting her eyes, Aurora takes a moment to gather her thoughts. She paces back and forth, much like Red had done during the interminable hours before her royal friend so auspiciously arrived. Once she's made up her mind what to say, she returns her gaze to Red. Blue eyes determined, she says, "Give her a kiss from both Philip and I, then tell her this: Forgive us for our ignorance. We failed her horribly, I know, especially me, but I never imagined she could return our feelings. Now that my misconceptions have been corrected, I would be eternally grateful if she would give us another chance.
"Please ask her to come home, Red. Or if she's unwilling and wishes to remain in your kingdom, tell her that Philip and I will gladly come to her. We want to be a family, wherever we have to go to make that happen. Now that I know where she is, I won't be able to bear the separation any longer. Please, Red, please tell her that we lo..." But before Aurora can finish the last sentence, she blinks out of sight. Simply vanishes without trace as if she'd never been there at all.
"Aurora?" Red calls out, panic clawing at her chest. When no answer is given, she cradles her hands against her breast and sits dumbly, staring forlornly at where Aurora used to be. Somewhere in the back of her mind she is still processing her new friend's heartfelt pleas for Mulan, but foremost in her thoughts is that she is once again alone. The warmth of Aurora's presence, her soft smile, easygoing charm and subtle sense of humor, her almost painful earnestness is gone, having been taken away by the cruelty of this curse.
Dimly, Red realizes the cause of the phenomena, that Aurora has simply woke up in the real world. Which is a good thing, and she's glad the tenderhearted princess is no longer stuck with her in this barren wasteland of flames and despair. But in her absence, the biting cold of loneliness seeps back in through the thin barrier of Red's morning dress. Her skin pebbles in protest. Tears prick at her eyelids that she refuses to let fall.
Aurora had hinted early in their conversation that this place is merely one of many such prisons, leaving Red to infer the poor woman was condemned to a different one each time she slept. There must be so many, Red thinks, for Aurora to have not landed in this one for however long I've been here. The implication of that is inescapable: she'll be left to her own devices at least as long as that before she sees Aurora again. Or maybe she won't ever see Aurora again. Maybe there are millions of such prisons scattered all over the ethereal plane they inhabit. Maybe she'll be visited by someone else before then – Snow, perhaps, as her best friend is certain to share Aurora's nocturnal torments due to the sleeping curse they'd both been subjected to.
The thought of seeing Snow again isn't even enough to bolster her flagging spirits. She wants Aurora back. Aurora, who had made her forget for while that she's been sentenced to what might turn out to be an infinite confinement should her worst fears prove true that Regina is dead.
Red whimpers miserably, hating her weakness but powerless to hold back the tide of sorrow that is carrying her away out to sea. She'd just gotten her optimism back just to have it snatched away as quickly as it had returned. The fathomless void of an ocean formed from every negative thought and feeling a person can exhibit has swallowed it up. And who knows whether it will ever be relinquished?
More hollow and yet emotionally overwrought than she can ever remember being, Red surrenders to the seductive drag of depression. Her chest grows heavy as if a millstone has been laid upon it, and her lungs burn like they are on fire. Fat tears cascade down her cheeks in an unstoppable torrent that stains her dress and wets the bare skin of her arms and legs. She feels the wolf curl in on herself, trembling under an assault from which there is no defense or escape. Her human is breaking down. If Regina doesn't rescue her soon, there will be no fixing the damage. What will come out of the sleeping curse won't be a person but an empty shell of no meaningful value.
On the brink of total collapse, Red uses the last vestiges of her willpower to pray to the gods that Regina will find a way to wake her soon or failing that, they would grant her the mercy of of a swift death. She prays this not for her own sake but for Regina's. She would sooner die than subject her wife to a lifetime caring for a psychologically and emotionally incapacitated spouse.
Feeling tiny and useless and nothing but a burden to everyone who has ever loved her, Red curls up into a ball on the filthy floor and tries her hardest to forget she even exists.