I'm back with a chapter! A shorter one this time, but this way I'm able to update more often. Once again, it turned out quite angsty I'm afraid. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for your feedback!
Regina walked a step ahead of him and made it a point to avoid his eyes. She never said a word about the previous night, and clearly had no wish for him to bring it up either. So Robin kept quiet, but his mind raced. He just couldn't erase the image of her tears and misery from memory, and kept picturing the scene and making up scenarios in which he was able to offer some comfort to her, unlike he had been then. One minute he berated himself for having been too pushy, then he wished he had been more insistent in his efforts. It felt terrible to have been so helpless. Even now, she was refusing comfort.
They were in the Witch's territory now, nearing the Dark Palace, and Robin had had to concede that it was best for her to stay a little ahead, for she could sense magic before he had a chance to notice anything was amiss. Regina pushed branches out of her way unceremoniously, careless about dirt or twigs her clothes picked up in the process, looking ahead, pressing forward with tenacity. As they entered a thicket of bushes, he moved closer and kept a hand on the hilt of his sword.
Regina stepped out into a clearing ahead and halted, freezing to the spot. A small moan escaped her. Robin pulled his sword and bounded forward, slipping past her - but there was nothing and no one to fight.
A black shape lay sprawled on the flower-spattered grass, its long neck covered with shiny black mane, its legs gracefully arranged, and its dark eyes wide and bearing a strange sheen. A cone-shaped horn stuck out from its forehead and pointed straight at them. Robin stared in awe - he had heard about the creatures, but he had never seen an actual unicorn before.
"Is it dead?" she asked in a strangely tense voice, but still she hadn't moved.
"I think it must be," Robin said quietly. "Or else badly wounded." It was a sorry sight, and his heart filled with sadness. He moved to the poor animal and knelt to check for wounds. Something - or someone - must have made the kill, but there was no visible damage. "Maybe the wolves," he mused, brushing the silky mane aside to check the neck. He knew straight away it didn't fit - there would only be a carcass, and he couldn't even see one chunk of meat missing. "Or the Cyclopes."
"No," Regina said hoarsely. "Look."
Robin turned to her, curious what she could have spotted from so far away that he hadn't seen from up close. She had moved from the edge of the clearing in the meantime and was standing over a wooden box with a red jewel on the lid. It threw off a faint red glow, and Regina seemed unable to tear her eyes away from it.
"What is it?" he asked, watching her closely. Her breathing was hard and fast, and her eyes had a strange, faraway look in them.
She held out a hand to the box at her feet, and it glowed ever more with a pulsating red light.
"It's a heart," she breathed. "The box looks like the ones from my vault. But there had been no hearts left, I took them with me to Storybrooke." She wasn't talking to him anymore really, but merely giving voice to her thoughts. Frowning, she ran a hand across her forehead. "Unless they were returned when the New Curse was cast…"
"So this box holds one of…" Robin trailed off, the words strange in his mouth and the idea disturbing in his mind. "one of your - hearts?"
"No." The finality she said it with left no room for doubt, even though he had no idea how she could be so sure. "The unicorn's."
"So it's meant to look like you did this? It's like the villages again." She nodded, pale and so full of anguish it scared him. "She's framing you in hopes of creating chaos," he reasoned, stepping towards her. "Two small armies accomplish less than a single united one. It's just a tactic, that's all."
Regina shook her head.
"No. This is personal. It's about me. Who I was... Who I became." Her voice had faded to a whisper. "She knows things about me that..." she trailed off, and wrung her hands together, staring down at them. "But...how?"
"Regina, if there's nothing we can do for him, I think we'd better go on." He needed to get her out of there, because even though he didn't understand the profound effect this was having on her, the sight was clearly putting her under enormous stress.
"Maybe there is something," she said slowly, raising her eyes form the box at her feet to the sprawled animal.
She picked up the box and removed the lid. Robin couldn't resist peering in - the thought repulsed him but it was incredibly captivating at the same time. He had never seen anything like this before: a beating heart, red and very much alive outside its owner's body. Regina removed it from the box and approached the unicorn. Robin couldn't but stare in fascination as she crouched at the beast's side. Her free hand went to the horse's muzzle, and she stroked the lifeless shape lightly, possibly without realising she was doing so. Robin wondered what would come next, his mind coming up with one wild idea after another, but only one that kept resurfacing.
She didn't hesitate a moment as she grasped the heart and plunged it into the horse's chest.
Nothing happened. Perhaps there was something else to be done still, or perhaps whatever she had in mind had failed, perhaps it was too late.
Then the unicorn blinked and lifted its head off the dirt. Regina stepped aside. The animal began to struggle to get up, unfaltering even when its legs gave in once or twice, and eventually, it stood before them in full height, proud and unhurt, as if no harm in the world had befallen it. Robin watched, awe-struck, as the unicorn turned towards Regina and shook its mane slightly, eyeing her with eerie intentness. Regina reached out to it, and the horse bent its head, welcoming the touch.
The moment Regina's fingers came into contact with the unicorn's skin, Robin knew it was wrong, very wrong. The horse snorted and its eyes rolled back into its head for a split second before its steady gaze returned to Regina - only it was now a wild glare.
"Look out!" Robin cried just as she jumped back.
The horse gave a heart-breaking, tear-jerking neigh. Its muscles twitched unnaturally, and it whined in pain and terror. Robin didn't understand: nothing was threatening the animal, and it had seemed perfectly healthy just a moment ago. Of course, another moment before that, it had appeared to be dead…
The seizure was getting worse by the second, and the poor beast was screaming and kicking its legs in agony. Regina stood before it, rooted to the spot, and Robin feared for her safety - the hooves were at times dangerously close, and the beast seemed not in control of its own actions.
"Can you do something?" Robin yelled over the cacophony, but Regina didn't seem to hear. She stared at the raging unicorn with a look of utter horror and endless pain. The unicorn reared and kicked the air, and Regina stumbled backwards as it threatened to crush her.
And then she raised her hand and Robin expected a blast of magic - but nothing happened. The beast continued to convulse in a helpless tangle of legs and mane, with a fiendish glare. There was no helping it. Regina held out a hand in its direction. End it, Robin prayed, and he reached for his bow, certain that Regina would be faster. She, too, had to see this was the only way. But, whatever the reason, she couldn't do it. Her arm lingered in the air, and the beast reared again, but this time, blinded by pain, it shot forward to attack.
Robin released an arrow, and another one immediately after it. He watched their flight as though it were set into slow motion. One tore through the air and buried deep into the unicorn's neck. The other found its way straight through the tortured beast's heart.
The unicorn tumbled to the ground and lay dead.
Robin felt relief overcome him, although it was tainted by pity for the innocent animal's suffering.
Regina still hadn't moved, only her arm had now fallen limp to her side. She seemed unable to tear her eyes away from the lifeless shape.
"It's over," Robin said softly.
Regina whimpered.
Robin moved over to her with haste, stunned by the horror of it all, but mostly by her intense reaction. He was resolved to be there for her this time. However, he had barely put an arm around her when she slipped away from him and bolted for the bushes.
Once there, she bent over and was violently sick.
"I don't want to talk about it," she muttered without looking at him. Her stomach still turned at the thought of the unicorn's misery and her own. She couldn't bear to look at him, to be subjected to that intense blue gaze. How could she make him understand the meaning of this? Regina wasn't even sure she wanted to - a lot of it she didn't understand either.
Robin handed her a drink of water fresh from the stream. He sighed, but nodded all the same.
"Fine, we won't talk about it," he said, and she felt a mixed sense of relief and - something else she couldn't place. "But I'll make you a concoction and you'll drink it, even if it stinks foul."
Why was he being so kind to her, and so understanding? He knew nothing, of course, nothing about what this scene was referring to, nothing about her lessons with Rumple and how she had taken her first heart from a unicorn that had born an uncanny resemblance to this one. He knew nothing about Daniel and how he had turned into a monster when revived, or what she'd had to do then, which she suspected was why she hadn't been capable of killing the unicorn now. Thanks to Robin, she didn't have to.
"I don't need anything for an upset stomach," she objected.
Shame still attacked her in waves, ruining her attempt at sounding indignant. She had retched in front of him, for heaven's sake. Embarrassing didn't even come close to describing it.
"It's not for an upset stomach," Robin said quietly. "But I'm glad to see your usual stubbornness returning to you." He grinned, and she could almost hug him then - he wasn't pressuring her into talks, didn't linger on the awkward subject of throwing up, but steered the situation someplace she could begin to feel remotely comfortable again.
"Robin, there's no time for this," she heard herself say. He had bothered with her enough, she still felt uneasy about accepting these kindnesses from him. "We need to go. The Witch knows we're coming."
He concurred for the moment, and she breathed more easily once they had left the clearing behind, though she was still an emotional whirlpool. While she was doing her best to regain control, he announced a mandatory break, and shortly handed her a cup of the infusion he had threatened her with - except not quite like that, because instead of foul and bitter, it smelled flowery and tasted sweet. It was linden tea, and besides indigestion it was taken for its calming, soothing effect.
Perhaps Robin understood too much after all.
Regina tossed and turned that night, floating in and out of dreams that - and that only made matters so much worse - were really memories: memories of Daniel in Storybrooke Stables, of his plea to be freed from his suffering, of the simple yet oh so painfully difficult piece of magic that had sent him to eternal rest. Swimming against the current of her feverish mind, she finally got to the surface of this nightmare, only to be plunged into the memory of herself in the Enchanted Forest with a soft, warm, beating heart in her hand, a poor unsuspecting unicorn completely at her mercy, and the horror of her tutor's blood-curdling request. Her brain told her it was just a dream, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't snap out of it.
A hand gripped her heart, cold and skeletal. The world of hellish memories dissolved, and only darkness remained - and a chilly wind getting under her skin and into her very bones. Her throat tightened, and she gasped for air, but none would come. The cold stone floor of Storybrooke Sheriff Station loomed before her, and even as she raised her head dread filled her, because she knew what she'd see: a mass of ripped, rotting clothing flowing in the air, and a pair of red, gleaming eyes...And a second later, she'd feel the life - no, the soul - being sucked out of her...
A bright tongue leapt out of the fire, and Regina jerked awake. Her hand shot to her forehead and brushed a strand of sticky wet hair out of her face. She was covered in sweat, cold and shaking. It had only been a dream. The stables were gone, the unicorn was gone.
The red eyes were still there, peering from the thick foliage.
She blinked, and they disappeared. But the icy feeling at her heart lingered.