Chapter Eleven - The Neutrality in Chaos
The traveler could not place the feeling of malcontent that she felt as she brushed down her horse and watched the witch move about the stable with the practiced ease of one who had spent many hours in the space, uninterrupted with conversation and curious eyes. She knew better than to let herself become complacent in the presence of one so powerful, and yet she wanted to rest. Her bones felt weary as she leaned against the back of her horse's borrowed stall.
"Fairies have never been my enemy," the witch's tone seemed to indicate that she was offering the information freely, rather than the terse exchange of information that had characterized their interaction up until this point. The traveler glanced over to where the dark-haired woman was standing, cloaked in the shadow of the stable. It was an interesting shift from the witch, and the traveler knew that she had to tread carefully so as to not upset this change in their conversation. Information offered freely was almost always better, long years of experience told the traveler this. "I have had dealings with them, but they have always been at the periphery of my life. Never at the center."
The traveler inclined her head judiciously. The old stories told a different story. They told the story of a desperate curse and the promise of favor that never quite came. "And the old tales?"
The witch raised an eyebrow, her face shifting into the sunlight that streamed dusty particles across the stable's dirt and straw covered-floor. "Tell me, princess, do you usually believe everything you're told?"
Answers were never so simple, and the traveler knew that. She hated the double speak of court life for that very reason. She never expected to find what she was looking for, after all. No, that had been nothing more than a wistful dream.
The traveler folded her arms across her chest. It felt empty without the heavy armor that protected her chest, the loose shirt she wore underneath it made her feel almost naked before this quicksilver woman's moods. The memory of lips against her own, the image of doing it before drifting like wood smoke on a winter morn in her mind's eye. She was trying to look defiant, petulant, a princess scorned even, but she knew that she just looked childish.
"I believe what I feel to be true," she retorted, chin stuck out and brow narrowed.
The witch laughed then, and the traveler could not help the smile that slowly crept across her face as she realized the inanity of her statement.
Throwing up her hands, the witch crossed more fully into the light, eyes crinkling at the corners. She looked so young in this light, so impossibly young compared to how old the traveler knew her to be. It was the strangest sensation, to know and yet not know who this woman truly was. "I had dealings with the fairies once," the witch confided, her hand resting over her heart where the traveler could see a tangled and raised scar, stark white against the witch's tan skin. "Despite the repercussions," she trailed off, her eyes fixing the traveler with a hollow, searching look. "It turned out alright for me."
Uncomfortable under such an intense, the traveler shifted - her mind racing. There was meaning there, meaning that was hidden behind double-speak and implication. Her brow furrowed, fingers toying with a strand of hair, her arm half wrapped around herself as she tried to force her brain to comprehend what was being said.
Repercussions. That was the word that the witch had left loaded with meaning and implication. The traveler bit her lip, pensive as she met the witch's gaze evenly. "I'm glad that you were unharmed in the end," she said quietly, the words falling into place as her mind drifted slightly - still stuck on what those repercussions could be. "That wound could not have been easy to heal."
"All magic comes with a price, Princess," The witch's lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. "You of all people should know that." With a final searching look, she swept from the stable in a flurry of cloak and skirts and boots that scarcely made a sound on the ground as she stepped out into the rainy daylight.
Weak wintry sunlight streamed through the parted curtains and across Emma's face, pulling her from the dreams back into wakefulness. She shifted, grumbling under her breath as she tried to get away from the light. Her head ached, and as her eyes cracked open to stare around the now-familiar room her mind raced and she sat up quickly.
Cool air hit her legs and the events of the previous evening came rushing back to her in a flurry of emotion and memory. Regina had offered something and Emma had not thought twice about taking it at the time. Now though, sitting somewhat naked in Regina's bedroom, Emma found herself caught up in the nagging sense that she'd done something terribly wrong.
Maybe it was that Emma knew that Regina was one of the sorts of people who never did anything without meaning. What did it mean? Emma ran a tired hand through her hair and chewed on the inside of her cheek, thinking hard. Why would Regina let that happen? Regina was the picture of control - yet now as they entered this odd, collaborative sort of relationship, she seemed more and more out of the careful control she kept over her life.
At the edges of her vision, Emma could see the flickers of something that glittered in the sunlight streaming in through Regina's frost-covered windows. As she turned her head, it vanished, only to appear again, further out of her vision.
"That would be the magic, dear," Regina's voice cut through Emma frantic head turning and desperately curious thoughts. She was standing in the doorway, a coffee cup in hand and a robe hanging open over the shirt she had worn the previous evening and underwear. Emma swallowed, looking at her; remembering what had happened between them.
"The what?" Emma asked, bending off the side of the bed to reach for her underwear, tangled as they were with her jeans and socks on the flood there. Regina had said last night that the curse was weakening, and again Emma wondered why she'd cast it in the first place. to do what she had done, to hurt herself so badly - it must have taken almost inhuman desperation and Emma could not fathom how she would have found the strength to cast it.
Regina bent and picked up Emma's discarded shirt, crossing the room in sure steps and sitting down next to Emma. She handed over the shirt wordlessly and Emma was pleased to note the slight pink tint to Regina's cheeks as she (very pointed) did not look down at Emma's chest as Emma hurriedly pulled her shirt on over her head.
"Magic," Regina explained quietly. she looked down at her coffee cup for a long time before she brought it to her lips. Emma found herself distracted, watching as Regina's fingers moved easily over the gray porcelain as she drank the steaming liquid. It was strange to think of her like this, like the stony-faced mayor or cruel queen that Henry believed her to be. In the early morning sunlight she was open and friendly, and Emma wasn't quite sure how to handle it.
Swallowing, Regina continued, "The curse is weakening. I sense it, Gold senses it - I'm sure that the hangers-on sense it as well." Her eyes slid over to rest on Emma and her lips quirked upwards into a wry smile. "They probably sensed it as soon as you arrived, though." Regina seemed to shudder for a moment at the thought of the fairies and Emma desperately wanted to know what it meant to have a fairy for an enemy.
Emma looked away, unable to meet Regina's gaze. She turned to stare at out the window instead, watching as the sun caught the little frost patters at the corners of the windowpanes. She didn't want to be the person who shattered the uneasy peace of this place; she wasn't anyone's hero.
"Do you really think I'll break the curse?" Emma asked quietly, fingers knotting in the fabric of the sheets around her. She didn't want to know the answer, but Regina was being frank with her this morning, and Emma wasn't above asking for clarity.
Regina's laugh was gentle, but the hand that closed over Emma's bruised wrist was anything but. Emma's head snapped back to regard Regina's stormy eyes. "I don't doubt that you will," Regina said quietly. "And it will cost you dearly." She stood and crossed to the door and it felt as though there was a void next to Emma in the space where she had once been. "You need to be dressed and gone before Henry realizes that you're here."
Nodding, Emma reached for her pants and socks from where they still lay on the floor. She didn't know if this was going to happen again, or even if she wanted it to. She was mulling over what Regina had said, thinking again about how she'd been a fool to bring Henry back herself. Had she let it go, she would have still had all the questions in the world, but at least the answers wouldn't be spoken in riddles. Emma stood wearily and headed for the door, she figured that Regina would not want her to linger and she didn't care for the idea very much either.
That afternoon Henry turned up at the station once again after school. Emma had stopped by Mr. Gold's shop on the way to work and had picked up the copies of his inventory that he believed to be missing, as well as wheedled a few details out of him regarding why their being missing might be so important. She didn't know how much was a good idea to tell him, and she kept the arrangement between herself and Regina private.
What was missing was a fairly simple series of old drawings, sketches and schematics of the lands around the town from before it was chartered. Emma wasn't entirely sure why it was so important that these particular papers needed to go missing, when they were probably a matter of public record in the archives. She'd said as much to Gold and he'd looked at her oddly for a long time before shrugging and adding that these were his own personal copies and he'd annotated them accordingly.
"To show the lay lines," He'd explained, leaning heavily on his cane, his face a perfect mask of neutrality. When Emma had looked at him with a more confused expression than before he'd shaken his head and had offered to make a deal with her for the information, but Emma had refused. What he'd wanted from her was an answer she didn't think she could give, and she knew that someone else might be more willing to share such knowledge.
Emma had gone to the town archives afterwards, making small photocopies of the original maps and chartered land to incorporate into the town. She sat, staring at them with knitted eyebrows as Henry came in and peered over her shoulder at them. "Why are you looking at maps?" he asked, setting his book bag down and shedding his coat and scarf. He scrambled around to get a better look at the pages and made a quiet noise of comprehension when Emma raised her hand slightly and let him take in the notes she'd written on the margin and the carefully inked places where she had found those damn rings that have started to dot the forest.
The first was to the north of town, where she'd killed the Minotaur. Emma wasn't sure, but she was willing to bet that that one was closed down now. She'd fallen across the fairy ring and had taken a great deal of the mushrooms that marked it with her as she'd fallen. Emma was just trying not to think about the bad luck that came with destroying such a precious thing.
Emma tapped her pen on the map and turned to regard Henry with what she hoped was a friendly and inviting smile. She didn't really know what she wanted to tell him, and he was flirting with the truth more and more with every passing moment. Swallowing she shrugged. "Mr. Gold lost some plans recently, he came and told me about them, and I thought I'd go to the archives and have a look at the originals to try and figure out why anyone would want to steal moldy old maps from him." She wrinkled her nose when she finished speaking and Henry's eyes widened slightly as he leaned forward to look at them once more.
"Is this from before the curse?" He asked quietly after a moment, trailing his fingers almost reverently over the southern line of the town, where Maine Route 175 was marked in clear architect's script. The town was chartered, as Emma had discovered when she'd spoken to the archivist, in the twenties as a coastal resort town and had gone bankrupt during the Depression. It had revived somewhat during the fifties and sixties, but a little over a decade later, things had simply stopped. Stopped because the people of this town were taken over by a curse, but Emma didn't think that the poor archivist needed to know that.
"Uh huh," Emma nodded, she didn't wasn't lying to Henry, which was a strange feeling. She knew that it was one of those things where she certainly wasn't telling him everything, just enough to reassure him. She bit her lip and added, "I think that's why Mr. Gold was so worried about them, because they'd be copies of very old documents and probably very old themselves."
"Henry," Emma said quietly, "Do you remember the story in the book where Rumpelstiltskin and the fairies first met?"
He tilted his head to one side, thinking for a moment before he nodded. "I do… but why do you want to know?"
Wiggling her eyebrows conspiratorially, Emma grinned at him, "I think I figured out who the some of the fairies are, talking to Mr. Gold."
Interest blossomed across his face and he set his hands on the table, his flannel shirt sleeves riding up to reveal the thin twisted bracelet that Regina had showed him the night before. Emma's breath caught and she reached out to touch it without thinking, feeling it almost resonate against her fingers as the magic curled there. She could see it, even now. Flickering bright and friendly purple around his wrist.
"Who?" Henry demanded, dragging his shirtsleeve down once more. Emma could see the slight flush on his cheeks and she knew that it had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with being nearly eleven. She remembered little boys from her own not-so-happy childhood, she knew how they could get with objects of affection from anyone important in their lives.
"I think they're the nuns," Emma replied. She sighed and didn't addthe thought that came to mind next. That Gold was Rumpelstiltskin and that there was far more going on in this god-forsaken town then Henry had picked up on. The attacks of these creatures had to mean something – and the fairy rings were only an indication of that. "The ones that run your school. I think their mother superior might be the Blue Fairy, but I can't be sure."
His eyes widened at the pronouncement, but Henry said nothing for a moment. He appeared lost in thought, his eyes unfocused and staring off into the middle distance. Emma watched him as he worried at his shirt sleeve, all childish nervous energy and worry etched clearly onto his face. "Emma," he said gravely. "Rumpelstiltskin and the fairies don't get along very well."
Emma nodded, because Regina had told him that much. "And they were never really the Evil Queen's enemy, were they?" She was thinking out loud now, recalling what Regina had said to her the night before.
Henry hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I think that that happened a long time before the book took place – like in Harry Potter, there's all that backstory about Snape and Harry's mom – stuff like that," he explained, seeming to choose his words carefully as he spoke. "Ms. Blanchard was teaching us about it in language arts last week, she called it backstory."
Sometimes, Emma found herself forgetting that Henry was only ten years old. Nearly eleven, yes, but just ten and some parts of life were still so alien to him. Emma didn't even think that he might not know what the concept of backstory was, she'd just assumed that everyone knew it, like who the president was or that whole deal with George Washington and the cherry tree and lying. Emma hated that she wasn't able to do these things for him, to provide him with the information and knowledge that he might need. The bracelet on Henry's wrist was another reminder of that.
Emma closed her eyes and thought about the look on Regina's face when she'd been so openly honest about wanting to create a magical object to protect Henry. It was strange to see her like that, so absolutely devoted to Henry in a way that Emma could never stomach being. She was afraid of growing close to him even now, because the very idea of living through breaking a curse that had taken so much from Regina to cast seemed like a very foreign concept.
"She told you right," Emma grinned, and nudged him in the shoulder. It was a gamble now, but she had to risk it. "Your mom – and the evil queen - has one of those too, you know."
Henry opened his mouth to protest, but closed it after a moment. He reached forward and picked up Emma's slightly gnawed on pen, moving to a point south of town, down near the waterfront where his castle had once been. "I saw a fairy ring rightttt about," he trailed the pen down and tapped it gently, "Here."
Saying nothing about Henry's change to tact, Emma takes the pen and draws in a little circle, an idea already forming in her mind. What if the reason that Gold was suddenly so desperate to get those missing plans back is because they would show where such portals would hold the most power. Emma supposed that if there was a way other than true love to break a curse, it would be to find its weak points and break it through them, sort of like how one would go about breaking into a safe. Not that Emma knew anything about that, though. Not at all.
"What's your homework situation look like, kid?" Emma asked, after notating the map a little bit more thoroughly with what Henry had seen.
Grudgingly, Henry pulled his math book from his backpack and set about doing his assigned problem sets while Emma leaned back in her chair and thought about why Mr. Gold would keep such a convenient document around. He wasn't supposed to remember anything, if Regina's words were to be believed about the curse in and of itself. But, Emma reasoned, he'd also been the one to write it, so there was a good chance that there were other clauses built into it. Clauses that made Emma wonder what Gold could possibly want with a world like this one.
Staring out into the weak afternoon sunlight, Emma wondered why Regina had cast the curse at all. Had she done it for him, or had she been so enraged with her life circumstances that she'd cast it purely for herself? Why hadn't she just left her life behind? What was really stopping her?
The questions swirled around in Emma's mind as the afternoon dragged on into early evening. Emma didn't say anything when Regina turned up at the station to collect Henry and even managed to shove a smile on her face at the harassed look Regina gave her as Henry chattered amiably about the latest developments in Harry Potter and his comics at her. But just as soon as Regina was there, she was gone again, leaving Emma alone in the cold police station, staring down at a cup of cold coffee and a map that didn't hold many answers.
Her lips turned downwards into a scowl and she reached for her jacket, running after Regina and Henry into the cold. They were still getting into the car, Regina holding Henry's heavy backpack and moving towards the back seat as he climbed into the front.
"Hey," Emma half-shouted across the street. She jogged up to Regina, half-zipping her coat and trying not to ignore the curious looks she was getting from the other passers-by on the street. She hadn't ever really cared all that much for ceremony and putting on airs. Everyone knew that her relationship with Regina was a constantly changing one – and it was currently on the upswing.
Regina set Henry's bag into the back seat and closed the door with a quiet thunk as Emma shoved her hands into too small jean pockets. "What can I do for you, Sheriff?" she asked quietly.
Knowing that Henry could possibly be listening in, Emma bit the inside of her cheek and inclined her head back towards the station. "I have that form for you to sign," she lied quietly, her eyes silently pleading with Regina to go along with the ruse. Henry would be fine in the car for two minutes. "And I gotta put it in the mail today if I'm going to get it to Augusta on time."
The slight furrowing of Regina's eyebrows was soon replaced by realization and she nodded once, curtly. "Henry," she said quickly. "Ms. Swan has forgotten that I need to sign a document for her that must be mailed tonight, do you mind waiting for a moment?"
When he shook his head and climbed over the backseat to pull his Harry Potter book out of his backpack. Emma smiled, secretly glad that he wasn't reading and obsessing over the book. "Come on," Emma said quietly. Glancing both ways, she jogged back across the street and into the relative warmth of the station.
"Look-" Emma began, but Regina cut her off with a raised hand. The words died in Emma's throat and she scowled, hating how Regina was always able to do that.
"What have you figured out that has you all ready to run off into the woods unprotected again?" Regina demanded, folding her arms across her chest and raising an eyebrow that dared Emma to disagree with her assessment of the situation.
"Henry figured it out, actually," Emma gestured to the map on her desk and the two points that were marked with where she knew there were fairy rings. "I stopped by Gold's on my way in this morning, and he volunteered some more information about his missing documents. Seems that he'd kept a chart with the lay lines, whatever those were – he wouldn't tell me without making a deal for it – that run through the town on it."
"And now his hangers-on have it," Regina's expression as positively murderous. "Lay lines are the natural energy patterns and inherent magic that fills all lands – even this one," she explained when Emma dropped her hand to the map.
"Then the fairy rings are appearing at their weak points," Emma said tiredly. "I'd be willing to bet a good bit on it," she added, rubbing unconsciously at the bruise that still encircled her wrist. It had dulled to a low ache overnight and while it looked nasty, it didn't hurt that much at all.
"Find the others," Regina said quietly, opening the folder that really did have that document that needed to be signed and signing it with only a slightly disgusted look on her face at the bite marks that dotted the cap of Emma's pen. "Tell me about them tonight."
Emma stepped forward then, into Regina's personal space, "Will there be a tonight?"
"You overstep your bounds, Ms. Swan," Regina replied coolly.
Shrugging, Emma made to step back, but Regina's hand shot out and wrapped around her non-injured wrist. The touch sent a shiver of something that Emma could not quite place through her body, and the gentle flickers of white magic that she'd finally started to get used to seeing intensified and pooled around Regina as Regina pulled her in closer.
The lips on her own were quick, not the sort of kisses that Emma remembered from the night before, but there was just the barest hint of something more there that made Emma want to keep kissing Regina like this, even though she knew she couldn't.
A gentle white light filled the room and Emma reached forward and into it instinctively, fingers closing around smooth leather and cool metal. She never understood why it was never hot, residing inside a woman who lived and breathed. The sword felt good in her hands, right. She stared down at it and then raised hesitant eyes back up to Regina. Regina nodded once, and then swept from the office in a swirl of coat and scarf and the tell-tale click of her boots on the scuffed linoleum flooring.
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The fairy ring the shore was thankfully not active like the one that had spawned the Minotaur was. Emma stood before it in the growing twilight, sword in one hand, flashlight in the other. She knew how to close such portals. She'd done it in her dreams many times over it seemed and she wished she could remember where the skill had come from. Groaning in frustration, Emma clicked off the flashlight and shoved the cold metal into the back pocket of her jeans, ignoring the press of it against her ass and scowling down at the fairy ring.
She'd completed three circuits around the downtown area on foot and had located two more rings in very public places. Leroy had happened upon her, the car blanket that she'd wrapped the sword in drawing nothing but raised eyebrows from him as he regarded her and then remarked on the location of a third ring. On the photocopy of the map that Emma had jammed into her jacket's tiny pocket, there was a pattern that was starting to emerge, a six pointed star, with rings on the inside shaped like a hexagram and the outside triangles hosting points outwards. Emma was sure that it held some significance to magic uses, but she couldn't think of any of her teenage perusal of Buffy that might have prepped her for this very odd situation.
The sword was warm in her hands now, with the growing darkness Emma had left the blanket in her car and had stolen through the shadows Storybrooke, watching through windows as the clock struck eight. "Come on, Winkie," She muttered to herself, leveling the sword at the ring before her and sliding back into a ready stance.
Doing this came naturally, but it still felt decidedly unnatural as she raked the sword through the soft earth around the circle of toadstools, drawing a pentagram backwards as she did so. She had no idea what the significance of that was, but as she marked each line, the sword in her hands began to glow with the same soft white light that appeared when the sword was drawn from the ice queen's chest. When the sword glowed with the magical strength of whatever it was that Emma was doing here – spell breaking she figured, but she wasn't entirely sure – it was easier. The portals were terrifying when they were open, a window into another world, and Emma wasn't entirely sure that it was the sort of place that she'd ever want to be. The land of her dreams was one thing; but this place seemed dark, full of fire and death. Mordor or even hell itself.
Grunting, Emma drew the glowing sword downwards in a sharp arc, embedding it into the still-soft soil within the ring. There were no magic words, there was nothing but the defiant action of stabbing what could only be considered to be a poisoned blade into the center of the circle and marveling as the mushrooms, interloping markers that they were, shriveled to black and faded away into nothing.
The act itself didn't take much effort, but after closing the three of them that she'd found, as well as the minotaur's – which was more challenging as it was actually open, Emma was beyond drained. She slowly made her way back to her car and shoved the sword into the back seat, hoping that whatever magic that made it disappear would vanish it before the morning came and she took Henry to school. She didn't want to explain to him that yes, he was right about everything, but Jesus, the world that wasn't black and white. No that would come later. She wanted to talk to Regina about it anyway; the kid was flirting with the truth as it was.
The smell of roasted rosemary and something savory filled Mary Margaret's apartment as Emma stepped inside and wearily exchanged her muddy boots for the house shoes that Mary Margaret insisted that she wear. The floor got cold; it wasn't smart to walk around barefoot on it. Emma had rolled her eyes at the time, but she was right, the house shoes made all the difference when she was wandering around.
"Hey," she said brightly, glancing from Mary Margaret to David as they sat at the kitchen island, talking in low voices while Mary Margaret poked a meat thermometer into the roast that had been pulled from the oven and set onto the top of the stove. "Whatcha cookin'?"
"Pot roast," Mary Margaret said after an odd, almost searching look at Emma. If Emma was being completely honest, Mary Margaret looked as though she'd seen a ghost for a second, before she shook herself out of whatever it was and went back to jabbing the roast with the thermometer she had in hand. "And chard," she added hopefully.
Emma wrinkled her nose, scowling at the idea of having to eat even more of that awful leafy stuff. She missed southern cooking – at least collards tasted good, but these were like the ugly step cousin twice removed of anything even remotely good tasting. "I'll give 'em another try." Emma heaved a long-suffering sigh and slid onto the seat next to David and rested her elbows on the island in a gesture mirroring his own.
Something, Emma couldn't quite put her finger on what, was very odd with this situation. She wasn't sure if it was Mary Margaret's expression when she'd first walked in, or if it was the fact that she'd waltzed into date night between a married man and Emma's poor best friend who had fallen hard and fast for him. Something just didn't feel quite right.
"How've you been," She asked, turning to David and trying to not judging him too harshly. From all that Henry had surmised from the book, the reason that David had been hurt and unconscious for so long was he had been wounded in the other world, trying to get Emma herself to safety. It seemed ridiculous, but Henry was pretty convinced that the curse didn't quite as much power over him as it did some of the other people in town. "Animal Shelter still standing?"
David shrugged and picked up his water glass, taking a quick, almost panicked sip before he seemed to come to himself and leaned forward, curious. "Leroy said you were wandering around town with a rifle earlier, is there a bear about?"
Shit.
Emma tried to keep her features as neutral as she could arrange and slowly shook her head. "We got a few calls in about a potentially rabid dog. I didn't want to take any chances – no biggie." She waved her hand dismissively. "I would have called you in if it was a bear. I'd need to borrow your tranq gun."
"Or better yet, let me use it," David said with a good natured roll of his eyes. "As I have some experience with that sort of thing."
"I'm sure," Emma said with an easy grin.
She knew what it was that was off then, and it was the realization of it itself that shocked her into what she could only call forcible denial. This, this more so than anything else, this felt like a family. It felt like a real, good-natured family, rather than three friends eating together and very pointedly not talking about the elephant in the form of Kathryn in the room.
The very idea of it threw Emma. She'd known, she'd put it together and Regina had bitterly confirmed it. She'd put it all together and it still felt weird. They should be so easy, they shouldn't fit.
Family wasn't supposed to be this easy.
Later that night, Emma had stepped out into the frozen night, her phone cradled to her ear as she waited for Regina to pick up. After three rings, the reply came, and Emma felt herself crumpling. Regina hated Snow White and Prince Charming and was certainly not the warm and fuzzy type with anyone other than Henry on a good day.
Regina was someone to her though. It wasn't a relationship of equals, but rather something that Emma understood intrinsically. A give and take, an exchange of power and information as needed. She'd find the rest of the fairy rings tomorrow morning, but for now, she needed this far more.
"They're remembering," Emma said with an over-dramatic sigh, her breath curling around her face in the harsh winter air. "And I don't know what to do."
Regina didn't reply for a long time, her quiet breathing the only indication that she was even still present on the line. Finally, just as Emma was about to say something more, Regina's voice came calm and cool. "I have no doubt that they are. With each ring that crops up, the curse grows weaker, and with each one you destroy, it stabilizes. As you do this there will be flashes – repercussions."
Emma bit her lip and shifted from foot to foot. "Are you saying that it would be better to not destroy them then?"
"No, they have to be destroyed or all manner of beings might turn up here. As good a knight as you are, Ms. Swan, I do not believe that you could take on whole armies of magical beasts you know next to nothing about," Regina paused and then asked, "How many did you find?"
"Four. I was able to figure out the pattern though. I want you to look at the map more closely, we might be able to predict where they'll crop up and see if we can't catch them in the act of making them." Emma nodded resolutely, as it seemed like a good plan.
"And were you able to destroy them?" Regina inquired quietly.
And this was where Emma was unsure. Nothing made sense when it came to how she knew how to draw out the magic from the fairy rings and dispel it. If it were anyone else, Emma would have lied and said she guessed it, but Regina knew about her dreams enough to recognize that they were probably something far more profound than just simple creations of Emma's sleeping mind.
"I did it in my dream a few nights ago," Emma replied, stomping her feet as the cold breezeway of Mary Margaret's apartment was suddenly a whole hell of a lot colder than Emma was anticipating. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in Mary Margaret's over-sized anorak. "I figured it'd be worth a try."
"Quite," Regina replied.
Emma desperately wanted to bring up the other thing that they'd done, but she knew that doing that would be stupid right now. Regina would talk when she was ready to talk and not a moment sooner. She stared off into the middle distance, her eyes unfocused and her concentration half-on the sense memory of Regina's fingers against her stomach. She'd been so plaint, so willing to let Emma take and to give. It was a strange look on a woman usually so forceful, but Emma found that she rather liked it. It softened Regina somewhat, and made her seem almost human.
"Which is reality then?" she asked quietly, thinking of the dreams that had plagued her since arriving here and how they were a perfect life, just not her own. She almost hated that life, the traveler and the horse in the woods and the little boy and his witch-mother. It all seemed so surreal, but so close to being true to her life now that Emma wasn't how to read into it. It felt like it could all be a terrible, bad dream – and yet it wasn't. There was something that felt so true about those dreams that Emma couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that they carried far more weight than Regina was letting on. "Am I awake now, or am I dreaming?"
Regina hummed quietly into the phone and said nothing, the comfortable silence stretching out forever between them as the stars glowed brightly overhead.
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So tell me, why does our traveler know so much and yet so little?
Well they say it's a price that must be paid.
But what could possibly have come so high?
True love, silly – that's how this works.
an: Sorry for the delay here. During the time off I've written and published two short novels, written like a bazillion words of Harry Potter fic and really have slacked the fuck off. I'm going to start to move this story over to Ao3 once it's finished, there should only be three more parts and an epilogue.
Emma calls herself Winkie, after Wee Willy Winkie, who runs through the town in Mother Goose books at eight o'clock.
Next: The Curse and the Hangers-On