Chapter Thirteen - The Confrontation
The traveler said nothing when the witch stood in her nightgown and shawl that evening, staring at her from the entrance to her bedroom. She sat on the hearth and stared into the yellow-gold of the fire burning there. Her mind was racing, grasping for the thoughts that were just out of reach.
"The answers aren't quite ready," The witch said quietly, her fingers playing with the tasseled fringe on her shawl. There was a weariness in her voice that the traveler had never heard there before. This was just the witch that had caused so many problems, no one more or less. She should not be the one to possess the answers to the traveler's questions.
And yet, it almost seemed right that she would. The traveler turned to regard her with curious eyes and the witch shrugged, "You should come inside."
A lump formed in the traveler's throat and she pushed herself up and off of the hearth rug on her knuckles, her loose shirt falling open at her chest. Her fingers flew up, fumbling to hold her shirt closed and maintain her dignity.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before, dear," the witch replied with a devilish sort of smirk that made the traveler's knees feel weak as she stepped forward on unsteady bare feet to follow the witch into the darkness of her bedroom.
In the inky blackness of that place, the traveler's other senses were heightened, as was the doubt that was nagging at the back of her mind. "Why can't I remember?" she asked, eyes half-closed and her head aching as she tried to grasp at the smoke-like thoughts that she couldn't quite hang on to.
"This is the price," the witch said simply, and leaned in to kiss her - lips and teeth and tongue in the darkness of a stone heart.
Emma sat bolt upright, grasping for what wasn't there. Her eyes blinked in the bright sunlight and she shivered despite the warmth that seemed to envelop her. She was outside. Why was she asleep outside, in the middle of November?
The sword was clutched in her hand and her entire body ached. Emma stared down at it for the briefest of moments before she half kicked, half scooted back across the fairy ring she was lying in the middle of. The smell of magic was everywhere, burning her nose as she tried to keep her breathing slow and calm. She could see the creature across the clearing staring straight at her. It was regarding her like she looked simply delicious and Emma wasn't sure that would be able to fight a creature such as it so easily.
The Minotaur had been a fluke, the direwolf had been born out of desperation, but this? This was something straight out of the myths and Emma did not feel at all like Bellerophon.
Three sets of eyes turned as one to regard Emma as she rose to a crouch. Her knees were bent and her toes dug into the ground, getting her bearings. She was looking at a Chimera. Heads of a lion and a goat, tail of an adder, the myth came roaring back to Emma's mind and she grit her teeth.
She'd have to cut the tail off first. Storybrooke wasn't Boston and she doubted that there was an antidote to magical creature snake bites floating around anywhere north of Boston. She didn't want to have to force Regina to arrange an airlift to get her out of here and to safety.
The beast roared and charged, and Emma stood firm. The cold forest air filled her lungs as she watched it bound over the fairy ring as thought it was not a portal to another world. She thrust her sword at the beast's belly as she pulled herself to the side, falling back to the ground and rolling out of the way of the chimera's tail as it lashed out as the beast skid to a stop and prepared for a second attack.
The smell of sulfur was everywhere and Emma swallowed as she scrambled to her feet. She was breathing through her nose, desperately trying not to inhale the smell of the magic. She could feel it though, hanging like a thick and wet blanket over the clearing, keeping the air in and filling it with energy.
This wasn't what she'd signed up for when she'd agreed to take over for Graham.
Emma planted her right foot firmly in ground and dragged the sword across her body. She knew nothing about sword fighting, just what she'd come to understand from the dreams and her odd affinity to transition mentally from one to the other. She had no idea how she'd ended up flat on her back in the middle of a fairy ring, the last thing she remembered was leaving Regina and Henry to their conversation.
Maybe she'd passed out?
Yeah, Emma thought darkly, it had to be that.
The chimera charged, the goat's head on its back letting out a terrible bleating wail that made the hair on the back of Emma's neck stand on end. It sounded like a call to arms, a call for allies, and that was the absolute last thing that Emma needed right now. She twisted, blade held between one hand because she somehow knew better than to use two.
She was a duelist - this creature her enemy.
And Emma dueled.
It wasn't easy, this wasn't like the Minotaur. The chimera was a child of two demons so hideous that Emma could barely fathom their coupling, let alone the fact that they'd somehow managed to reproduce. Emma knew the old tales; she'd loved them when she was young enough to still believe. Now though, facing down a creature that shouldn't live outside of legend, Emma didn't quite know what was the best option in how to proceed.
She couldn't even remember how she'd gotten here. Emma pivoted, swiping her blade against at the beast's shoulder. The blade of her sword sank into sharp flesh and all three of the beast's heads cried out as one as it stumbled to the ground.
Its blood was thick and greenish yellow. It smelled as strong of magic as the clearing itself did. Emma bent; her hands ready for the kill. She could worry about how large of a lump she had on the back of her head later, for now there were larger issues to worry about.
Roaring, the chimera charged and Emma let herself fall backwards, her back landing with a soft thud as she thrust her blade upwards into the soft belly of the beast. It sank in like a knife into soft butter and Emma clung to the sword with both hands as the chimera's forward momentum drew the blade through its stomach.
Guts and foul-smelling blood pour down onto Emma and she spluttered helplessly for a moment before she rolled to one side and spat out the mouthful of fur and blood and guts she'd gotten. She half reached, the smell was far too strong now and she looked like she'd gone six rounds with Tyson.
Shakily, Emma dug the tip of the sword into the ground and used it to haul herself up and onto her feet. She half-stumbled towards the beast's still twitching tail and let the blade fall once more, effectively removing the head of the adder before it could bite her in the ass.
As the beast heaved its dying rattle, Emma spat once more, desperate to get the taste from her mouth. It was as foreign-feeling as the smell of magic, acidic and unpleasant.
The motions of closing the fairy ring portal was almost second nature to Emma now, and she moved her sword slowly across the portal, dimly aware that she still had no idea how she'd gotten there. The last thing she recalled was Henry stumbling into a situation where he'd discovered the truth about his mother and her decision to leave them to discuss things for a few moments. Now she was in the woods behind the town's municipal building, just about a block up from City Hall.
Grunting slightly with the effort to move her store arms, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her (thankfully) non-disgusting phone. She dialed Regina's office number from memory and listened to the pulsing dial tone for a long time before scowling and hanging up.
Emma backed up until she was leaning against a tree as she punched in the numbers for Regina's cell.
After half a ring, Regina's voice came through, short and almost worried-sounding on the other end. "Where are you?" Regina demanded, her tone leaving no room for hedging around the topic.
"Chimera," Emma choked out, scarcely able to breathed the sulfurous air of the clearing. She had no idea how much time had passed since shed left Regina and Henry. The ghost of the sun behind the thick gray clouds that had rolled in off the harbor this morning suggested that it was still close to the middle of the day. Emma frowned, wondering where the lost time had gone. "There's a new ring, but I closed it."
"Are you injured?" The tone in Regina's voice was not unkind, but there was a steely edge to it that suggested to Emma that maybe she should have said something to them before she'd walked out of Regina's office.
Sighing, Emma raised a hand to inspect it. She honestly felt a lot better than she had after the Minotaur. The injuries from that fight had yet to fade, while the worst of this one, Emma thinks, is probably just going to be a bruised back. "Just covered in guts," she gave the smallest of laughs after she said it and she can almost hear Regina rolling her eyes on the end of the line. "Want to come get me?"
"Not in my car," Regina replied curtly and Emma stared down at the yellow-green blood that splattered all up and down her legs and jacket. She couldn't really blame Regina, as it was a nice car and she was really gross right now. "You were gone for a long time, Ms. Swan."
Emma sighed and winced as she gingerly inspected the back of her head. Sure enough, there was a massive lump rising out of the back of her skull and Emma wondered if there was the potential that she'd given herself another concussion. She'd heard of that happening, especially when it came to aggravating an already existing injury. "I got hit on the head," Emma explained. "I think-"
She never was able to finish that sentence, for the world blurred before her eyes and she pitched forward to land in a heap of limbs and sword and muddy ground. The last thing that Emma was aware of as her consciousness faded to blackness once more was that it had started to snow, and the flakes looked beautiful as the settled on the ground before her half-closed eyes.
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When Emma woke up it was dark outside and her head ached like nothing she'd ever experienced before. Wincing, Emma tried to roll her head over to the side, but the lump on the back of her head sent pain shooting down her spine, coiling at the base of it and radiating white-hot across her entire body. Emma's breath caught and she tried to lay as still as she could possibly arrange, desperate to not feel that pain again.
Warm light shone in from the open doorway, casting light on Regina's beside photographs and knickknacks and the well-thumbed dollar store detective novel that Emma had caught herself flipping through a few days ago. It was abysmal, but Regina seemed to enjoy reading it (and snorting derisively at the murders) so Emma didn't bother to question it. It was still strange, waking up in this room. This was the second time that she'd woken up after an injury here, rather than in the hospital.
"Why is that?" Emma wondered out loud. Her voice sounded hoarse from shouting, even though nothing was said and she did not dream.
"It's so she can watch you get better," Henry's voice came from the corner of the room outside of Emma's field of vision. She didn't dare move her head to look at him, but allowed herself to chuckle at it. There was the sound of pages shifting and Emma could tell that Henry was flipping through his book from where he was (probably) perched in the rocker that dominated that part of the room.
She felt bad for Henry, because he had been so desperate for Emma to believe him, and then she'd known the truth and lied to him. She sighed and clenched her fist against the pain, slowly and methodically rolling over to face him and to say she was sorry to him. He didn't deserve that, no one did. Emma had spent her whole life being lied to and it had made her so distrustful of people that she sometimes found herself longing that she could let go of the anxiety long enough to enjoy a friendship freely offered.
Henry was sitting with the book in his lap. His had was wet and plastered down to his forehead and he was only wearing a robe and Tron pj bottoms. He looked far younger than ten in that moment and Emma was struck by the idea that she maybe could have kept him, somehow, some way.
It was a pipe dream, she knew it. And yet she couldn't help herself. Sometimes the idea of it just struck and she hated herself for letting him go like that.
"Hey," she said quietly, watching as his eyes leveled on her own. He looked a lot like Regina with his hair wet (and less like his bastard of a father, which Emma considered a win) and the odd, closed-off expression on his face reminded Emma so strongly of Regina that she had to search her aching mind for the painful memories of Henry's birth and her subsequent abandonment of him to the prison's adoption agency representative. "You okay, kid?"
Henry bit his lip and looked away. The bracelet his mother had made for him was still on his wrist, leather stained black with bathwater. "You knew." And it wasn't a question.
Emma closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. "I did," she agreed.
"Then why did you lie to me! She's the Evil Queen, Emma, I was right!" He paused, his lip shaking just a little bit as he looked down at his book. He caught his lip in his lips after a moment and stared hard at Emma. "I didn't want to be right," he confessed.
"I know you didn't." Emma had known that from the beginning. The kid had been in love with the idea of a fairy tale happy ending, but he'd seen how easily it could tear his mother apart. He loved her with all his heart, and Emma knew that well. She was starting to understand how it could possibly happen, how someone could love an Evil Queen.
How she could.
"She made you fight that monster, Emma," Henry said quietly. His fingers were pale even in the room's dim light. "She made you fight it and the ones that came before it – even when you didn't want to. You're not supposed to be her knight, you're supposed to be the savior. She's not the kind of queen who gives out her favor!"
Gritting her teeth, Emma forced herself to sit up, her head aching as she did it. Henry stared at her, shaking his head and continuing to chew on his lip. Emma could see the redness on it now, if she squinted. He'd drawn blood he'd bitten it so hard, and Emma's heart ached to reach for him. She wasn't sure that she'd be able to walk her head hurt so much, but she was desperate to try. She had to try, she had to go to him.
"Henry," Emma said, fingers tangling in the sheets around her knees. "I saved your mother's life when she offered me that sword. She protected me with her blood – you know what the book says about blood of the queen freely given. I want to do this."
"She gave you her blood?" Henry's eyes went wide as he said the word 'blood' and Emma just sighed. Henry's book had been rather specific about the nature of royal blood. It was a powerful magical element, and to give it freely to a known enemy was said to do far more than simply bestow favor. Favor was just words, frivolous ones at that. To give blood was to set the royal on equal footing as the one they were giving it to. Emma supposed that she was a princess still, but she'd never realized that the act of bestowing the blood would bring them to the level of equals. "Willingly?"
"It was either that or be eaten, kid," Emma replied with a small shrug that sent white-hot flashes of pain down the back of her head. She supposed that she should probably lie down; her entire body seemed to be staging a massive rebellion as she struggled to remain sitting upright. She felt herself tip backwards slowly and the room spun around her. She felt her consciousness slip, but Emma bit the inside of her cheek hard, desperate to stay awake and conscious. "shr-Really," she slurred.
Emma stared up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet rustlings and thumps of Henry getting off of the rocker and adjusting his robe. "I'm going to get mom," he said quietly, but Emma could hear the worry in his voice.
"Okay kid," she replied and let her eyes flutter closed. The room would probably stop spinning if she did that, she was almost sure of it.
Her mind wandered, thinking back to the dream she'd had in the clearing. She'd been so close to grasping the truth, she knew it. She knew that if she'd just pushed even a little bit harder that she would have found the answers that she so desperately wanted. She didn't know why she hadn't pushed harder – it probably had something to do with the colossal lump on the back of her head and the savage mythical creature that had attempted to kill her, but it still made Emma mad, thinking about how close she'd come.
And now she was dreaming of nothing at all.
The witch in her dream was Regina, and yet she wasn't Regina. This wasn't here, and this wasn't there. Emma's head ached and she felt sleep pulling at her once again, desperate to get Emma back within its grasp. Emma knew that she couldn't fall asleep, not when she was concussed. She knew better, but it was so hard to do.
White lights flickered at the corners of her vision and Emma found herself trying to relax into the cool touch of the magic on her sweaty skin. Regina's bed was soft and warm, and the tentative hand that rested on her forehead and then the back of her head seemed to calm the pain to nothing but a dull ache. Emma reached out, half-asleep and exhausted. Her fingers connected with soft silky fabric and warm body beneath it. She hummed contentedly and drew the warmth towards her.
It was the warmth that she craved, the warmth and friendliness of her dreams seemed to echo in this embrace, and Emma never wanted to let it go. She finally let herself fall into a fitful sleep as the sound of quiet breathing beside her steadied her into peace.
When Emma woke again, she was curled protectively around a warm and sleep-pliant Regina and her head felt like a million bucks. Sleepily, she nuzzled more closely into Regina's neck, enjoying the smell of her perfume and her sleepy objections to Emma's affections.
"Are you feeling better?" Regina asked quietly. She was blinking owlishly in the early morning light. Emma peered out towards the half-closed blinds and saw that the snow had stopped sometime during the night, blanketing the town with a white cloak that buried all the secrets under a pristine venire of picturesque coastal town.
"Yeah," Emma replied, almost gingerly reaching up and touching the back of her head. The lump was still there, but it had lessoned considerably. "Did you… um…" she wasn't really sure what to call what Regina had done to her to make her head not hurt like a total bitch right now. She'd been concussed enough in her life to know that she should be in a world of hurt right now. Biting her lip, Emma rubbed at the back of her head and tried not to make it too obvious that she was attempting to curl more closely into Regina's warmth.
Regina made a quiet affirmative sound at the back of her throat. "You lost time, didn't you?" she asked. She reached up and pulled Emma's hand away from her head, sleepily wrapping it back around her body and not letting go once she'd settled, her back pressed tightly against Emma's stomach.
Sighing, Emma glanced up towards the ceiling. "Like I was blackout drunk," she confessed. She hadn't wanted to mention it, not really. Regina was the sort of person who would see such an injury as a weakness. "I don't know how I managed to kill that thing and close the ring off."
"Or summon the sword," Regina added quietly.
The sword. Emma's eyes flew open and she pulled away from where she was pressing a sleepy kiss to Regina's shoulder blade. She hadn't even thought about that. How had she summoned the sword? "How did I do that?" she asked.
"Magic, I suppose," Regina gave a small shrug. Her voice had taken on a hard timbre and Emma wanted her to go back to being sleepy and warm and friendly. It was hard to talk to Regina when she was thinking too hard about things. "It's coming back stronger than ever now."
"Because of the portals?" Emma asked.
"Maybe," Regina sighed and scooted herself just a little closer to Emma. "I…" she began, before she faltered and her whole body seemed to shake. Emma wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She knew from what Henry had told her that the magic of this world was unstable to begin with, and that Regina was at her most powerful when there was magic around to manipulate. She'd used magic to kill, and Emma wasn't sure that she could ever forgive that, it seemed like the easiest way out possible. "I told Henry why I cast the curse."
Emma swallowed, not really wanting to have this particular conversation. She knew that it had to be had, and that she had to try and understand.
She didn't want to understand. She wanted to take the role that she was cast into and play it to perfection. She wanted to let Regina be the villain of Henry's story, no matter how easy it was to see that intent wasn't everything. It was meaningless, really, in this situation.
"It was Gold's curse," Emma said quietly. "You told me that back when this whole thing started. You said that he'd written the spell and you'd been the one who had needed to cast it. Did you ever wonder why it had to be you?"
Regina stiffened beside her. "At the time, I was too desperate for a way to punish those that wronged me." When Emma tutted quietly, Regina's tone turned harsh. "And I will not apologize for what I did. I can't regret the circumstances that gave me Henry, no matter how round-about the reasoning is." She sighed and pulled away from Emma, turning to face her, her eyes bright and intense even in the snow-bright room. "Afterwards, I wondered, especially with all the hangers-on that I would not have willingly brought along."
"Gold's doing?"
"I think so," Regina inclined her head to one side almost pensively.. "He's awfully tight-lipped about the whole thing, but he's said some things to me over the years that suggest that he wanted to be here in order to find something that he lost a long time ago. He never said what."
"That makes sense," Emma said. She sat up and rubbed at the back of her head. "Can I borrow some clothes?"
"There's a robe on the back of the door," Regina replied. "Go wake up Henry, Emma; I want to cast another protection spell before I send you off."
Smiling, Emma took the robe down and pulled it on over her borrowed pajama bottoms and t-shirt. She padded quietly out of the room and down the hall to where Henry's room was. He was already awake and sleepily reading the latest Amazing Spider Man, his hair sticking straight up.
He followed her wordlessly down into the foyer and together they watched as Regina stood on the second flood landing, looking bizarrely adorable in her silk pajamas and robe as she closed her eyes and held out her hand. The smell of sage and sulfur filled the room and Emma could see Henry wrinkle his nose and blink wide-eyed at his mother. "She's really doing magic," he whispered quietly, like he still wasn't quite ready to believe it.
"Yeah kid," Emma replied quietly. "And she won't lie to you, never again." The white flecks at the corners of Emma's vision exploded into a deep purple as the air around them seemed to shimmer. The past was the past, and this was an act of self-sacrifice and promise. Regina was a protector, a mother, this was her penance.
The protection spell fell into place and Emma exhaled, the smell of sage giving way to lavender and she smiled up at Regina.
Flushed and full of the exhilaration that Emma knew came following spell casting, Regina smiled back.
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Sitting at the kitchen island while she waited for her coffee to brew, Emma fidgeted in her own clothes. She'd borrowed a t-shirt and sweatpants from Regina and had received raised eyebrows from Mary Margaret as she walked into the apartment for her trouble. The flush that had blossomed across her face had not been worth the strange, disapproving looks that Mary Margaret was shooting her over the paper.
"You've been trying to close off these fairy rings," Mary Margaret said after a few more minutes of the coffee pot gurgling and slurping as the brew finished. It wasn't really a question and Emma wasn't sure if an answer was actually expected of her. She hummed her agreement, but started as she fully processed Mary Margaret's words.
Blinking blearily at her roommate, Emma frowned. "What do you mean, 'close them'?" she asked. She wasn't the best liar, not by a long shot, but she could fake it if she had to.
Mary Margaret looked at her very oddly for a long time, her head tilted slightly to one side and her expression unreadable. Emma wondered if maybe her superpower was genetic somehow, but pushed the thought out of her mind quickly when she reasoned that she'd been lying to Mary Margaret for weeks now and this was the first time she as earning such a look.
Shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny, Emma bit her lip and glanced down at her nails. The bruises from the Minotaur's attack were mostly faded now, greenish-yellow marks that marred her skin in a bizarre sort of tattoo. They'd fade in time, all injuries did.
"You're using some magic that she's given you and closing the portals to the forest," Mary Margaret said shortly. She folded the paper to a middle page and slid it across the island towards Emma before rising. She crossed to the cupboard in three quick steps as Emma weakly reached out and pulled the paper towards her.
Sydney Glass had written an article that took up the entirety of an inside page, above the fold. Emma's eyebrows shot up as she scanned the article. It was fairly innocuous in and of itself, there wasn't really much in the way of accusation - just a comment by Moe French (who was apparently the only person in town who had any background in Botany) that it was far too late in the year for mushrooms to be popping out of the ground with this sort of a regularity.
Swallowing, Emma lowered the paper to stare at Mary Margaret as she poured coffee into the mug she'd retrieved. "I might be," she said at length, each word feeling sticky in her throat.
Mary Margaret's lips purse into a thin line and as she shoved the coffee cup into Emma's hands there was almost malice behind it. "Why?"
Running a tired hand through her hair and trying not to touch the still-tender lump at the back of her head, Emma regarded her roommate. She knew full-well that the answer could come in one of many forms. There were truths within truths hidden here and she wasn't sure what was the best one to say. She wasn't a soothsayer by any means. No, all she could do was call it like she saw it.
"There are creatures..." Emma began, choosing her words carefully. "The fairy rings tear holes in this reality, at least that's what I've been able to gather. The larger the tear, the more tenuous this place's hold on itself becomes."
"Because the curse is breaking," Emma nodded and Mary Margaret's expression fell. She gripped the edge of the countertop tightly, her knuckles white on against the worn wooden surface. Emma could see her panic rising and wished she knew how to fix it. "Oh Emma," she said quietly.
Emma swallowed hotly, trying to force down her own fear and panic. Years of conditioning and bad life experiences told her to run and run now. She couldn't be here as the realization fully dawned on Mary Margaret. She didn't want Mary Margaret to remember, if she did, Emma would lose one of only friends she'd ever made purely for the sake of friendship.
She didn't want a mother right now, she wanted her best friend.
Chewing on her fingernail, Emma stared down at her coffee. The steam of it curled around her eyes like the hazy memories from her dream. The answers were there, she just couldn't remember them. "I suppose you're going to yell at me for helping her now," she said quietly.
"I don't think that she would be helping you to stop those rings appearing if she wanted the curse to be broken," Mary Margaret folded her arms across her chest and frowned. "She's doing this out of a sense of self-preservation, Emma."
"Be that as it may," Emma replied curtly. "I have to break the curse and she's accepted that. If whatever's happening will break the curse, so be it. We've made our peace with it."
She winced as she took a swig of her coffee, desperate for a distraction before she poured out her fears and worries. She wasn't even sure that this was the real world any more, or if she even wanted it to be. The dreams twisted and distorted her reality, and no one seemed to know what they meant.
Mary Margaret straightened and Emma could see the shadow of the schoolmarm fall away as she did so. It was the strangest transformation that Emma had ever seen happen, as she didn't even change in appearance at all - there was just something more... Emma wasn't sure, regal maybe, about her roommate. It was breath-catching. "I hope you're right," Snow White said imperiously.
Me too, Emma thought. Me too.
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Patrolling the streets seemed almost a waste of Emma's time on the best of days, but today was exceptionally boring. She sat at the intersection of Elm and Main, waiting for some idiot driving their dad's car to venture past her going even two miles over the speed limit. The afternoon dragged on and Emma was left with nothing but her thoughts and quickly-cooling coffee to keep herself entertained.
She'd been contemplating going around the corner and picking herself up a newspaper so she could do the crossword, but even thinking about the conversation she'd had with Mary Margaret that morning was making her sick to her stomach with worry.
Sighing, Emma slid a little bit further down in her seat and blinked. Regina's car drove by, right when Emma knew she was scheduled to sit through a budget meeting.
Cursing quietly under her breath at Regina's foolishness, Emma flipped her visor up and adjusted the seat in one motion. She started the car and put it in gear and oh so carefully pulled out after Regina.
It soon became obvious where Regina was headed and the small surge of ire within Emma came as something a surprise to her. Regina was heading down towards the nunnery, alone and without backup. No matter what their relationship was at this point in time, Emma had promised to protect her, and the idea of Regina going alone shook her deeply.
Regina was the one who had extracted the promise from Emma to protect her and the town. For her to go off alone in direct opposition to what she made Emma made Emma wonder if there was something more going on here still. Regina had been honest with both her and Henry, but there were still these gaps – where it felt like there was more to the story.
She crept down the road slowly, making sure to stay far enough back that Regina would not see the cruiser following her. It was a gamble, but Emma wasn't going to let Regina walk into a potentially unstable position without at least some sort of back up.
Emma waited an agonizing three minutes once Regina was let into the building before she stole up to the door and very carefully turned the handle. The place was abandoned this early in the day. Many of the nuns were still teaching and Emma was able to steal across the foyer and towards the back of the building where the door to the room that housed the Mother Superior's office stood ajar.
Why the door was open was completely beyond Emma. Regina wasn't that careless - Emma shook her head, knowing that she'd been caught despite her best efforts.
"-a library of hearts, but only one remained," The Mother Superior's voice was low and dangerous. The pious sort of calm that had colored her voice when Emma had spoken to her previously was completely gone; replaced with the sort of voice that echoed around in Emma's head and lingered. "I took it, thinking it was yours."
"Well it obviously wasn't," Regina's retort sounded almost pained and Emma winced. She'd been convinced that Gold had been behind that, and Gold hadn't denied it. But why? Emma bit her lip and glanced around the room. There was really nowhere to hide sound someone come in, and Emma decided that she'd just pass it off as waiting to see the Mother Superior if anyone asked. She scooted as close to the door as she dared and waited to see what would be said next.
"Then who did it belong to?" the Mother Superior asked quietly, and there was a touch of something that almost sounded like remorse. Emma fought back the urge to roll her eyes. Graham was dead and she clearly didn't care all that much. Emma's fist clenched in her lap.
"The good sheriff," Regina replied breezily.
There was an almost horror-stricken sound then, and Emma blinked before leaning even closer to make sure she heard everything. "You took her heart? Have you no shame? You already made her into your patsy. Tell me, your majesty, do you have all your knights the way you've had Emma Swan?"
Regina's low chuckle sent shivers up the back of Emma's neck and down her spine. She sounded downright evil in that moment. "I have many beautiful things, Blue," she explained. "You took one from me, I found I need another."
"So you don't know..." The Mother Superior began to speak, but Regina quickly cut her off.
"I am well aware of who Emma Swan is," Regina's tone left no room for argument and Emma swallowed. She knew that there was a great deal more going on here that Regina had not bothered to make her privy too. This vision Regina shook her though, deep down at the pit of her stomach a nagging feeling of anxiety welled up and she found herself wondering if the warm and sleepily pliant Regina from this morning was the true woman, or if this cold and clipped version of her was. "And I have since come to terms with it." There was a pause and Emma wondered if the Mother Superior was on the receiving end of one of Regina's extra-scary glares. "Now, why are you trying to break the curse when the one who is destined to do it is here in the town?"
"You took from me, from all of us, Regina. You pulled us away from where we belong and placed us here, among these simple people. How can you live in a world with no magic?"
Regina let out a quiet laugh before speaking. "I never wanted you to come along."
"Then why are we - all of us - here?" The Mother Superior's voice grew even harder and Emma struggled to correlate it with the soft-spoken woman who had been so helpful to her when she'd gone to speak to her about Henry. "We were never enemies."
"No, you were more his," Regina's tone was neutral, but Emma could almost hear her thinking from where she was standing.
"Ah," The Mother Superior's realization seemed to mirror Regina's.
There was a long pause following that, and Emma shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. She wasn't sure what was actually happening here, or if she was even needed - but she stood as firm as she could, knowing that it was the uncertainty of her every thought that kept her rooted to the spot, listening in like some sort of common criminal.
"Why claim her as your own then, if you know what she must do to break the curse," The question came in a far more mild, and dare Emma say it, nun-like tone, and Emma was almost convinced that Regina wasn't going to answer it.
"That is none of your concern, fairy," Regina replied curtly. "This is my town, and I will do as I please."
"You will not," The retort was followed by the scraping sound of a chair against a hard-wood floor. Emma leaned in a little closer, wondering if maybe her time to intervene had finally come. She stepped forward, ready to push the door open and make it look like she was just in to check on the 'bear in the woods' problem, when Regina continued to speak. "Tell me, Blue. Does it drive you mad, not having power in a place like this?" Regina, Emma could see her now, standing before the Mother Superior's desk, her arms outstretched and an almost manic smile on her race. "Doesn't it just kill you that you are in a land where you are revered, treated as the good spirits that you are not, and you have no power?"
"I have more power here than you do, your majesty."
The words sounded like a threat and Emma had heard enough. Schooling her face into the most authoritative expression that she could possibly manage, she stepped towards the half-open door. Her fingers connected with the faded stained wood and she gave herself just the slightest moment to take a deep breath. This was it. This was the confrontation that they'd both been waiting for.
Emma pushed the door open slowly, knowing that she was blowing her cover, but not wanting to leave Regina vulnerable, should there actually be cause for concern. She spread her fingers wide across the door and listened to it squeak quietly it swung open to bang quietly against the door stopper.
"Sheriff," Regina nodded curtly before turning to face the Mother Superior. She was still standing behind her large desk, but she honestly looked to Emma like she was debating the merits of cutting and running for the time being. "'Blood of a noble, freely given, a sword in a heart of stone, a promise that cannot be broken and the love of a queen.' You spoke those word eons ago, did you not?"
"No..." The words sounded shaky from her lips and Emma looked up sharply, staring at the woman behind the desk with interest. She sounded fearful, not full of haughty indignation as she had previously. Emma thought it was ridiculous that she hadn't really even seemed that sorry about what she'd accidentally done to Graham either. It was a huge mess and Emma was desperate to hate it.
The Mother Superior reached into her pocket and Emma lunged, shouting 'GUN!' and tackling Regina to the floor. The shot never came, and Emma held her position over Regina as the Mother Superior disappeared in a shower of sparks and glittery powder. The smell of burning sage filled the room, and Emma half-choked as the overwhelming urge to run filled her.
Shaking, slightly, Emma sat up and offered Regina her hand. "What was that?" she asked, blinking away the stinging sensation at the corners of her eyes. The smell of sulfur lingered now, and Emma reached out, brushing Regina's bangs from her eyes with hesitant fingers.
The love of a queen. What did that mean?
"Her undoing," Regina said grimly.
db
What's got her so scared?
Ah, that's a good story.
When the world was still very young, the fair folk danced freely across all the realms. There were no barriers in that time, and the very universe seemed desperate to encourage the flow of all sorts of creatures and ideas back and forth across the realms.
Fairies are old beings, everyone knows that. They live for thousands of years, some say forever.
Over time, as the worlds shifted and the barriers became more solid, no one save the fairies was able to move from realm to realm. The most adept of all was a creature by the name of Reul Ghorm. She moved from world to world so easily it was like there were no barriers at all.
One day, a little boy cried out for help in a wood. He was desperate. His father had made a terrible mistake and was being consumed by a magic dagger that brought out all that was evil within him. Scared for his father, the little boy pleaded with Reul Ghorm, begging her to use her ability to cross between realms to take himself and his father to a world where there was no magic.
Reul Ghorm agreed to help the boy, and gave him a magic bean. The bean was one of three known ways to open a portal to another realm. Her magic was one, a curse was another – and the third were beans grown by giants. "Know this," she said quietly to the little boy, almost struck by his desperation to help his father escape something as good as magic. "And you must tell all when you arrive, child, that one day I will no longer be able to answer such cries for help."
"Why not?" The boy asked, clutching his escape tightly to his chest.
"Because there is a prophecy that I received in the world where that bean will take you. Someday, the blood of a noble, freely given, a sword in a heart of stone, a promise that cannot be broken and the love of a queen will be my downfall," Reul Ghorm said sadly. "I don't know when that day will come, child, and until it does, I will fight against it. It is not unlike your father's fate, when one thinks about it."
The boy did not understand, but he kept his promise. He wrote the story into a book he wrote about a family that he'd come to live with when his father broke his promise. He told the story of many fairies in that novel, but Reul Ghorm's was the most important of all.
I do believe in fairies, I do, I do.
That's just Disney, made up and sanitized. Haven't you learned that it's almost never how it is in the movies?
Well I-
Exactly.
an: Thank you so much for the kind and thoughtful reviews. I really love to read others' take on what I'm writing and your thoughts on the the content of these chapters. Just one more chapter and the epilogue now! It's the home stretch.
Next: The Realization