Chapter Fourteen - The Realization
"Who is the Blue Fairy, really?" Emma asked, staring down at her hands. She had half a mind to go to Gold because Regina'd said that he was her enemy. Gold spoke in riddles, which was better than the stony silence that Regina was maintaining as she paced the length of the Mother Superior's office. At least Gold would probably be willing to answer, even if it came at a price.
"She's the fairy who tricked the trickster," Regina explained. She had picked herself up and from where Emma'd tackled her to the floor and was straightening her coat. As she met Emma's gaze evenly she seemed to shift and change and the little flickers of golden light at the corners of Emma's mind threatened to overwhelm her. She squeezed them shut and dug her palms into her eyes, trying to will the glittery mess away.
It wouldn't go away, spots and flecks of magic danced across her vision, even with her eyes closed. "This place isn't even real," Emma muttered to herself, blinking furiously.
Cool fingers trailed a hot line across her jaw and Emma stepped half-way forward, the invasion of Regina into her personal space was not unwelcome. They were standing in a nun's office, an evil nun's office. Emma bit her lip and tried not to lean into Regina's touch. It somehow seemed wrong to do it in a place such as this.
"It's real enough, dear," Regina said, her fingers resting on the lapels of Emma's jacket. She seemed to be fighting with herself, eyes dark and full of stormy intent, trying to wrestle out a response. "I'm real enough."
And it was true. Regina was her queen, the one that she'd sworn to serve and protect. Emma's knees felt weak as the weight of that obligation hit her like a stiff uppercut to the jaw. Regina's fingers were there, a hand over her heart when Emma knew full well that it would take nothing more than a simple gesture to pluck it from where it rested.
The thought thrilled her, it terrified her, and she knew that she could never have it. She wanted to fight against the power that Regina held over her, but even now, as Regina stared at her with those dark and expressionless eyes, Emma could not. She did not want to.
It was that compulsion that made her knees give out, Regina's hand gone from her chest and Emma on her knees before her queen. Her chin was still raised in defiance of the compulsion. They could never be equals in a time like this. She was the tool for the queen to use as she saw fit. Emma hated it, because there was something about the way that Regina looked at her, when she was like this, that made Emma want them to be equals.
"You do well like that," Regina said. She looked down at Emma, her hand outstretched before her and a ring that Emma'd never noticed on her finger. It was small, understated, but it carried the weight of the kingdom behind it. Emma reached out, unthinking, and took the queen's hand, her lips brushed against the ring.
Her gaze rose up to meet Regina's own, wide-eyed and anxious. She'd never done this willingly. She'd fought the compulsion to do it with every fiber of her being. And yet, now that she was here, on her knees before her queen, Emma was content. This was where she wanted to be. "This is... unexpected, sheriff."
Emma did not release Regina's hand, the weight of the responsibility that she owed weighing down heavily on her soul as she lowered her eyes. "I will fight for you," she said. Her voice was clear and true, no matter how uncertain she felt. "I will destroy this evil for you, majesty." She hated herself for saying it, for acknowledging Regina as the once-evil queen who had taken so much from her, only to give her so little in return.
"Rise then," Regina said. Her tone had taken on a timbre that Emma did not recognize. It was dark and seductive, flirting with the deadly skill that the queen in the stories possessed. This was the witch who had cast the trickster's spell, this was the one who had given Emma favor. "Rise and take your sword."
Her knees ached as she stood and Emma stepped forward into the queen's space, her hands at her sides and her feet square apart. "I know no magic."
Regina leaned forward, her breath hot on Emma's cheek as she rested her hand once more over the thin barrier of Emma's sweater and jacket. Her fingers closed and flexed over the material, and Emma's heart hammered staccato in her chest. "I think you'll find that you know enough to break this curse," Her voice was but a whisper, a promise in this abandoned space. "It's easier than you'd think."
And Emma kissed her. Hard and desperate and full of everything that she could not say. If the riddle was the undoing of the Blue Fairy then this was her undoing. Regina's lips warm and welcoming against her own, the soft white light exploding around them as the sword blossomed from Regina's chest. The hilt slammed against Emma, but she did not waver, her lips pressed reverently against Regina's own.
Tongue and teeth and the careful worrying of lips filled Emma's mind as the kiss blossomed between them. It was a kiss of a queen and her knight, a master and a servant, there was no power in this moment among equals.
The office was bathed in the light that shone from the once-evil queen's stone heart, the entire room full of the same gentle glow that Emma found so comforting. It was only then, when she was at her most content, that she reached up, her fingers closing around the hilt of the sword, and wrenched it from Regina's chest. It felt like the last time, her lips red and swollen, her pupils dilated as Regina demurely stepped back, her fingers still lingering in mind air, over where Emma's heart would be.
"She's going to break the curse," Emma said. The sword felt heavy in her hands, full of a promise she didn't dare realize. "What's going to happen if she breaks the curse?"
Regina leveled her dark gaze at Emma, her expression twisted into a grimace of defeat. "I will die, Ms. Swan." Emma's world went white, the ringing in her ears echoing loudly across the office, the snow outside the window swallowing her vision whole. Regina couldn't die, it simply wasn't possible. The queen was supposed to live to ruin another day. That's how the stories always went. But no, Regina was staring at her, defeated, lips just-kissed and hair a messy tangle from Emma's wanting hands. "I will die and this place and all who live here will go back to where they once were."
"H-Henry?" It was all that Emma could do to get his name out. She didn't want to think of what would happen if the world came apart at the seams and reset itself around him. He wasn't of that world. No, he had been the byproduct of a terrible moment, a series of bad choices and something that Emma hadn't been able to turn down. He didn't deserve to be unmade as the town he'd grown up in ceased to exist.
Bowing her head, Regina's lips drew up into a thin line and Emma knew, she just knew, that there was no certain answer. "The fairies quarrel is with Gold, I've hope that they'll leave the rest of us alone yet - but when the curse breaks, Henry must be with you. You alone can protect him." She sighed and reached forward, her fingers closing once more over Emma's chest. "You'll know what to do, when the time comes."
"What about you?" Emma demanded. She did not want to see Regina die, not truly. "What will you do?"
Her jaw set into a resolute line, Regina straightened. "I am going to end this. The fairies took something precious from me, one of my own, and they threatened another. I am a witch, yes, but I am not heartless. I will avenge his death and hopefully that will be enough to placate the magic that has infected this place."
The question came to Emma almost effortlessly and she knew that there was no answer to it before it was even out of her mouth. Still, she had to ask it, she had to let Regina's fingers curl into her chest and around her heart, loyalty coming with as hard a price as ever. "Will it really?"
"I don't know."
Emma didn't know either. She watched as the fingertips that pressed against her jacket started to glow, her breath catching in her throat as Regina pushed her fingers in, closing, desperate around her heart.
"My own heart is made of stone, that is the price of this curse," Regina said, her fingers trailing down the line of Emma's heart - her soul. Emma could feel the darkness leak into her, a powerful magical force unlike anything she'd ever dreamed of. Was this Regina's true strength? She wanted it, she wanted to feel more, and the sword fell slack within her fingers. "Yours is pure and fueled by love. You will find a way to save him." She jerked her hand back, fingers catching on the lapel of Emma's jacket, her expression unreadable.
The silence stretched out between them, an impenetrable barrier that Emma could never hope to cross. She knew better than to try. Regina was taking a step back, getting her bearings. They were standing in the middle of enemy territory and there were no dreams anymore. No, there was only the reality of the situation. They were backed up against a wall and nothing could change that.
A paper on the desk fluttered to the ground, and Emma bent. Her fingers where white-knuckled against the sword in her hand as she picked up the paper and flipped it over. It was like the map that Regina had drawn on, marking out the places where the fairy rings had been drawn, one after another, like a painful timepiece counting down the seconds to their doom.
Tick tock, a mocking voice rang out in Emma's mind, and she wondered if there was some sort of telepathy that came with being so closely bonded to a magic user.
"The last one is where the first one was," Emma said, her eyes hard and calculating as she surveyed the map in her hands. The paper was old and brittle, obviously this was the original that had been taken from Gold. She fidgeted, the paper shaking in her hands. "Why would they go back to the beginning?"
"There is a certain symmetry to it," Regina replied. She seemed to have composed herself, straightening her jacket and regarding Emma with a look that Emma couldn't place. Emma bit her lip, looking out over the office before her and wondering if this truly was the end of it all. "I want you to go get Henry, he needs to be looked after."
"What about you?" Emma asked again.
Regina stepped forward, a fond smile on her face. "I am going to have a few words with that woman," she said shortly. Deep purple smoke blossomed out from her feet and as she vanished into the hazy cloud it created, Emma could hear her amused chuckle.
Still, it didn't feel right, leaving Regina alone. She was sworn to protect Regina, and that was not at all what she was doing. Shouldering the sword, Emma turned and headed back towards the cruiser. She wasn't sure she was going to need it where they were all going, but she wanted to drive back to town before she ventured off into the woods once more.
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Henry was with Mary Margaret and David Nolan when Emma finally found him. She swung the cruiser haphazardly into a parking space and leveled a steely gaze at him. "Why weren't you at home?" she demanded, grateful that the protective bracelet that Regina had made for him was still around his wrist. It was something, but it wasn't everything. He was a fool.
He stuck his lip out at her in an obvious pout, but his eyes widened when he saw the sword in her hand. Emma held it loosely, not daring to raise it before her son or the woman who had birthed her in a strange world so far from this one. "I …" he began, but David cut him off.
"Where did you get that?" He asked. Emma wondered how much of the curse was truly broken at this point, for her father seemed to recognize his sword – the one that had been thrown through the Evil Queen's chest all those years ago.
And she hated it. She hated that didn't have the relationship with this man that should allow her to tell him what was happening in a way that made any sense other than: 'my obligation to your arch nemesis has compelled me to have this sword and protect her from all this shit that's about to go down.' She'd never had a father, just men in her life that had wanted to use her for something else. It was stupid and childish, but Emma almost wished that she didn't know who he was, because then she'd be able to reconcile with the fact that Mary Margaret, arguably her best friend in this stupid town, was actually her mother.
"Regina," Emma's voice was quiet, but the threat was there all the same. She was on edge and uncomfortable with the whole situation, itching to find Regina and make sure that whatever evil the Blue Fairy could create in this half-cursed world wasn't going to hurt her queen. "The sword in the stone heart of a queen," she mumbled the last bit, knowing that they'd know the riddle if Regina knew it.
Mary Margaret's hand flew to her mouth and her eyes grew wide with shock. Her eyes flew from Emma to the sword and then to David. "You… you threw that," she began, but Emma just shook her head. She didn't want to have this conversation right now – or ever if she could avoid it. She'd never gotten a straight answer out of Regina as to how the sword had ended up in her heart, just that it was there and couldn't only be extracted through a promise of favor and some ancient magic that Emma had no hope of ever understand.
"I did," David replied, and his face is ashen. "Straight through her heart, should have killed her too."
Henry glanced between them, "Well it obviously didn't work." It was the simplicity of his statement that broke the direness of the situation down and summed it up in equal parts. Emma felt her lips quirk upwards into a smile and she stepped forward to touch the little boy's shoulder. "Are you here to protect me?" he asked and his eyes were wide and innocent when he did so.
There wasn't really a clear answer to that, at least not one that Emma could give Henry. Her heart broke with the idea of what Regina had said in the Blue Fairy's office, her lips drawn into a thin line of displeasure and discomfort. She didn't want to tell Henry what Regina had said, because he wouldn't understand. No one here would.
She looked between the two people who were supposed to be her parents, her heart pounding in her chest. These people who had shoved her away as though she was nothing, wishing on a hope and a prayer that she'd break the curse that was on this town. Emma wanted to hate them, she wanted to hate them so badly but she knew that she couldn't. These were her parents, in some twisted and bizarre sense of the word, they were the ones who had given her life. They'd given her power too, the power to remake worlds and to pull everything back from the beginning, a terrible quest that she'd never asked for and had never wanted.
"The curse is broken then?" Emma asked, and her voice shook when she spoke. She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself, her fingers still wrapped loosely around the sword in her hands – David's sword.
Henry shook his head. "I don't think so," he said, glancing up at Mary Margaret and David. Emma didn't need him to look to them right now. It was enough that she wasn't able to stomach what was happening, she didn't need Henry, the one person who had always believed, to be looking to the purported heroes of the story for guidance.
"We would have gone back," Mary Margaret replied. Her voice sounded distant, like it was coming through water. Emma shook her head, trying to shake the ringing that was building in her ears. She didn't know what was happening, only that she had to protect these people from whatever it was that the Blue Fairy was attempting. Regina would handle the rest.
"Where's mom?" Henry asked. Emma sucked in a breath in through her teeth and tried to quell the wave of nausea that hit her like a punch to the gut. Something had just come through. Something big. A lump grew in the back of Emma's throat, making her breath come in short, shallow gasps.
The queen was in trouble.
"I don't know," she said to Henry. They were standing in the center of town, and Emma could see the place where the first fairy ring had opened on the town green from here. The space was glowing under the snow and it grew larger as Emma watched. "But we gotta get out of here, come on kid." She reached out with her free hand and took Henry's in her own. Mary Margaret's fingers caught the edge of her jacket as she turned to leave, and Emma found herself face to face with eyes that were not entirely unlike her own. Somehow, that fact only made it worse, because Emma didn't know what was going to happen in the next five minutes, or even five hours or days. The future was a haze on the horizon now, and Emma couldn't shake the feeling that they didn't have the time that she had always wanted desperately as a child. To know her mother, her father, to truly know them and to be able to ask them why they had sent her away; there simply wasn't time any more.
"What should we do?" Mary Margaret's voice was not unkind, but rather serious and businesslike. Emma had never heard her speak that way before and wondered if this was what Snow White sounded like, regal and queenly.
She wasn't sure she liked it.
Biting at her lip, Emma pondered what she could tell them to do. She had no idea what was truly happening, and she knew that if the curse did break that it would be the least of her worries. "Find weapons," she said, pointing with the sword. "Tell Gold that he was right. I don't know if he's got the magic to help us, but Regina says that they were always his enemy. He might know how to stop it."
David swallowed and Emma could see his jaw work a few times before he finally spoke. "And what will you do, Emma?"
Her fingers tightened around Henry's hand. "I am going to go and make good on the promise I made," she looked down at Henry, who glanced up at her, brown eyes wide and fearful. "I told her that I would protect Henry no matter the cost, and I intend to do just that."
"Then why run towards the danger?" David demanded. "Come with us to see Gold, there might be a chance at safety if his magic can protect us."
Emma shook her head ruefully. She couldn't do that, not if she wanted to keep the favor that she'd so clearly earned. David didn't understand how that sort of thing worked, not truly. Regina had told her once that he was a shepherd's son, not truly the prince from the story, who had perished in an accident long ago. "I have her favor," Emma explained, and tried to ignore the surge of sadness in her chest as Mary Margaret's eyes widened and her hands again flew to cover her mouth, a strangled cry of no just barely audible over the roaring sound in Emma's ears. "And I don't intend to lose it."
"Emma you can't," David insisted. His arm was around Mary Margaret now, and Emma wondered if there would ever be a time when they did not find each other, their memories cursed backwards and forward and into hating one another. Was that the power of love, of true love? To always find what you're looking for.
The dreams certainly seemed to indicate that there was a price that came with magic such as that.
"She'll corrupt your soul and take your heart once and for all!" He continued, but Emma was resolute. She looked down at Henry, who met her gaze evenly and nodded.
"Find Gold," she said firmly. "I'll find you both when this is done. Get in the car, Henry."
He's parted with her when Mary Margaret stepped forward and pulled Emma into a hug so tight she can barely breathe. She had tears in her eyes and stubbornness in them that Emma recognized far too well. "We will find you," she said fiercely. "I swear to you, we will find you and we will pull you from her clutches if it is the last thing we do."
"I don't want you to," Emma retorted, her jaw clenched. "I don't want to be saved from something I chose to do willingly. She is the mother of my child; I cannot abandon him to the same fate I suffered."
"Oh Emma…" Mary Margaret trailed off, looking at Emma with sad, wide eyes as Emma swiped angrily at the tears that were threatening to blossom at the corners of her own. Crying now was unacceptable, and she hated that she was stuck here, unable to have the reunion she'd so desperately wanted with these people for fear of everything going south once more. She took a deep shuddering breath, and then another. The scent of magic was strong everywhere now, and Emma's nerves were riding high.
She forced herself to smile at the woman who was once her mother. "I'll be fine," she lied. "And I'll find you." Her fingers brushed against the single tear that had streaked a glistening path down Mary Margaret's cheek, and Emma stepped away. "Don't worry," she added, before turning and heading for the cruiser.
Emma didn't look back, she didn't dare.
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The Blue Fairy stood before the largest Fairy Ring that Emma had seen yet, a gentle glow of shimmering white magic around her as she drew what Emma could only assume to be the symbols that would open it once and for all. She drew them on the air, dancing and arching into what could have been seen as an achingly perfect dance, ahd it not filled Emma with such a dangerous sense of foreboding. "No matter what they tell you," she whispered to Henry in an undertone. "Do not get out of this car for anyone but your mom or me, okay?"
Henry's skin had taken on a ghostly pallor as he watched the Blue Fairy weave her spell. "What is she doing?" he asked, staring up over the cage at the back of the cruiser. Emma'd already made sure to turn off the child lock and unlock the doors. She passed him her keys and he'd tucked them into his coat pocket.
"Spelling out our doom," Emma tried, a smile cracking at her lips.
He looked at her then, and his eyes were wide and fearful. "I didn't know it was going to end like this, with someone other than you breaking the curse."
"I don't think anyone did, kid," Emma replied. She knew how this story was probably supposed to go. She was supposed to come into town, probably helped along by Henry, and it was supposed to be easy. She broke the curse and they'd all live happily ever after. There was so much black and white in that version that it was almost pointless to think of anything else. "It was supposed to be easy, a straight shot, you know?"
"Yeah, none of these curveballs," Henry agreed. He slumped back in the seat, his fingers playing with his scarf. Emma watched him for what felt like forever, itching to leave him in this relative safety and go out to join the fray. She thought she knew where Regina was, or at least she guessed. The tugging at her heart could only be one thing, after all. "I want you to save her," Henry said quietly, not looking at Emma, "I know that she's the Evil Queen, but she's my mom and you're supposed to save everyone. You should save her too."
Emma reached back to touch his arm, fingers resting gently on his shoulder. "I will kid," she promised, "I will." She reached for her sword and switched the safety off of her gun. "You stay here, lock the doors and don't let anyone in unless it's me or your mom."
He nodded his agreement and Emma pushed herself from the car in one steady movement, her heart hammering in her chest. She wasn't sure that she could do this, that she could fight this sort of a fight and be successful. She wasn't a fighter like this, not in the least bit. No, she was just a girl who'd struggled for life and acceptance since the day she was born. She didn't deserve this. No one in this town deserved this.
The air outside the car was different; it hurt as Emma breathed it in. The world smelled of sage and sulfur and Emma's nose burned as she stepped forward through the trees. This last ring was built around the old shell of a tree, gnarled with age and hollowed out by time and the sea. She blinked, staring at the tree. There was something so completely and utterly familiar about it, but she was sure that she'd never seen it before.
Frowning, Emma crouched low and crept forward through the trees. She couldn't see Regina, but she could sense her, an enticing force that drew her in and held her steady. Her boots crunched in the snow underneath her feet, but Emma didn't think that anyone could hear her over the roar of magic that was coming from the fairy ring. Still though, she tried to move as quietly as possible, moving ever closer to what she was sure to spell out her doom.
Emma came to rest behind a tree, her back pressed tightly against it as she risked a glance around to peer into the clearing. Her eyes narrowed in the shadows of the skeletal trees, leaves long gone now, and her breath caught in her throat.
Regina was standing before the hollow of the tree, fire at her fingertips. It arched and crested, a malevolent shade of purple before the warm light of the Blue Fairy's magic. Her lips were pulled upwards into a sneer, but Emma, even from this far away, could see the fear in her eyes. Her magic wasn't working nearly quite as well as she'd hoped, apparently.
"I'd have you step away from the portal," The Blue Fairy's voice was easily heard over the white-flecked wail of the magic she'd summoned. It was horrifying, looking at the sheer scale of it. Emma had no idea how something could grow so large so quickly. The curse was failing and failing quickly, the barriers between their worlds were breaking. "You don't want to fall in."
"You overestimate your ability," Regina retorted. Her voice was clear and unafraid. Emma felt her lips quirk up slightly, knowing how good Regina's poker face truly was. She was scared out of her mind right now, but she was faking it with amazing ease. "This is preordained to be your doom."
The Blue Fairy's magic flared and Regina winced, but she kept her hand steady on her own flame. "Did the Dark One tell you that prophecy?" she demanded.
"It is well known across this world and our own," Regina pursed her lips, wincing again. Emma saw her eyes flick over towards where Emma was hiding, her head nodding once, ever so slightly. This was their moment, this was the moment that they had to own and make sure that they handled this. "The first book of fairytales I every bought Henry here told the story of the fairy who learned her future. I'd thought it common knowledge."
The magic arched high above their heads and the Blue Fairy pushed forward, stepping up and into Regina's personal space. Her eyes were hooded, and as her fingers closed around Regina's throat, Emma could see the fear that flared to life once more there. She was terrified, as scared as Emma if not more so.
Swallowing whatever flight impulse she still had, Emma let out a yell and rushed into the clearing, her sword flashing against the magic wall that stood in her way. She twisted herself upwards and yanked the sword through the magic, whispering words that she should not know to dispel the wall before her. It crumbled, slowly and steadily and Emma surged forward, sword ready, but her hand already reaching forward to pull the Blue Fairy away from Regina.
"Emma!" she half-shouted, jumping as she felt Emma's hand close around her shoulder and shove her away from Regina. Emma sidestepped neatly in between Regina and the Blue Fairy, her sword held up and at the ready. Emma stared into the woman's hard eyes, half-hidden behind her sweat-soaked curls. Her breath was coming in shallow pants, just as Regina's was behind her.
Magic took more than it gave back, apparently.
The Blue Fairy studied the pair of them and Emma stood her ground. She felt as though she could conquer the world right now, full of a need to protect Regina and to stand firm here. She would not back down for any reason, Regina needed her protection now, the whole town did. She could play their savior, she knew she could.
"This is where you came into the world, child," The Blue Fairy raised her hand in a sweeping arch and the soft white glow of her magic filled the clearing and Emma saw. The world stretched out infinite, for miles and miles. And there, trapped in the middle was a tangled figure eight, was the knot of her life. Emma took half a step forward and Regina's hand grabbed her and held her back.
"Don't follow the light," she hissed violently and Emma felt Regina press against her back. "She's trying to draw you in, to trick you into getting stuck in a non-reality."
"How do you know?" Emma asked, feeling the power radiate off of Regina and seep into her body, warming her in the cold Maine air. She shuddered, her breath coming in a fog before her and Regina hummed quietly in her ear.
"Because she is telling the truth, dear." Regina let out a hissed breath and she pushed her hand forward. "You came through this portal and you were left on the side of the road. That was your hope and your prayer. I'll give Snow credit for trying, but if I'm not mistaken, Emma's presence here was your idea, was it not?" She turned her attention to the Blue Fairy.
It hurt Emma's eyes to look at her, the magic sparking around her was so bright now. The forest floor beneath them was shaking, vines creeping up from the ground and devouring everything in their path. Emma didn't dare look over to where Henry was, she only reacted. Her sword cut into the vine that erupted from the ground at her feet and she sliced it clean off, Regina's spelled fire following in her wake, cutting down the vines before they could surround them and cut off their escape route. "It was her idea?" Emma asked, tilting her sword forward and into a ready stance once more.
"Of course. I had to push them towards the Dark One to make sure that they'd follow the plan, I didn't know it was his curse to begin with," The Blue Fairy scowled and Emma reached forward, catching the woman by the thick fabric of her coat. Her fingers raked against the coarse wool there, her sword leveling at the woman's throat.
"Make it stop," Emma demanded.
Sad eyes met Emma's and the woman laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound that rose with the roar of the magic and rattled in Emma's head, setting the hair on the back of her neck on end. Emma pressed her sword to the woman's neck. "It can never stop now, I will not be unmade! I refuse to accept this fate." She reached out, gloved fingers touching Emma's face. "You were supposed to break the curse, but I couldn't wait any longer."
"You killed Graham," Emma said stupidly.
"The sheriff's death was unfortunate. I merely wanted to deprive the Queen of her protector, but I see that I made an error in judgment there, as she already had you." The Blue Fairy's eyes glittered as blood trickled out of place on her neck where Emma was pressing the sword into her neck. "My mistake."
The vines roared behind them, and Emma glanced over her shoulder to see that the hollow in the tree was gone, dissolved into a world full of stars and a future written among them. Regina was falling backwards, tripping into the hole and Emma spun, shoving the Blue Fairy towards the darkness of that portal. The woman dug her heels into the ground and fought against Emma as she shoved her forwards towards Regina, who caught her.
They were unsteady on their feet, and The Blue Fairy seemed to realize that they weren't ready for what she did next. Slipping easily from Emma's grasp, she threw out her arm and kicked herself forward and into the void. Emma watched with horror as her hand closed around the back of Regina's jacket to keep herself steady. Regina backed up into the hole, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the sides of the tree. Her wrists locked and she was barely hanging on.
Emma's hand flew to her mouth and she took a step forward, reaching to pull Regina from the portal. Her eyes met Regina's wide and scared ones and Emma knew that she had to act and act fast. She braced herself and stepped forward, sword loose and almost falling to the ground from her forgotten grip.
Regina's eyes snapped up then, and they were full of determination. They hardened and Emma paused, her grip tightening on the sword in her hands.
"Ms. Swan," Regina choked out. She was struggling to hold onto the edge of the portal, her body pressing the Blue Fairy backwards and into oblivion. "If you would."
"But you'll die," Emma found herself spluttering out the words, the sword limp at her side. "You'll die!"
"I was always going to die," Regina hissed. "Do it now, please." And there was such pain in her eyes, such desperation and such confidence. It was like she didn't think that anything would happen to her. That Emma's sword would lodge in her heart once more, another memento and reminder of all that she'd lived through. It didn't make any sense, but her eyes met Emma's firmly and she opened her mouth, breath rising into a shriek. "Do it!"
With one last, agonized, yell, Emma pulled away from the vortex, her sword slamming home and true, crushing the queen's stone heart and with it the last vestiges of the curse. A terrible shriek rose into the air and Emma fell backwards, sword still clutch in her hand, as the world grew dark and was no more.
"What's your name?" the little boy asked. He was standing a few feet away from the traveler, watching as she cut wood for the evening's fire. The day had been dry, and she'd been handed a golden axe after breakfast and instructed to cut the firewood in the old way. The traveler handled an axe expertly, splitting the wood without the need of a wedge. Such things came with practice.
The traveler sighed, for she had known that this would come eventually. The little boy was the curious sort, and she had no reason to lie to him. Her lips quirked upwards into a small smile, the old story of the honest woodcutter coming to mind as she stared down at the axe in her hands. "My name is Emma," she said quietly. Raising the axe to strike once more, she added, "After my grandmother."
He smiled up at her, eyes scrunching and then crinkling at the corners. "I'm named after my grandfather too," He explained. "My name is Henry."
Realization crashed down around Emma and when she woke this time, it was not back into Storybrooke, but back into herself, staring up and into Regina's expectant gaze. The answers were all there - as they'd always been.
"What did I do?" she asked, her voice thick and her tongue feeling like sandpaper in her mouth. "What happened?"
"You broke the curse, dear, and you paid the price the magic demanded." Regina looked away then, her eyes full of sadness as her fingers running over the scar that even the modest cut of her dress could not hide.
The pieces slowly slid into place and Emma's hand clenched into a fist. "What have I done..."
db
Tell me how this came to end?
Well there's a little more to the story yet, my son.
And so the world was unmade. The magic of the queen's black heart pulled all that she had made back into herself, and the void in her own black heart fell into the hands of another. Favor had been given, and a promise had been made.
The princess was powerless to resist it, and when the world collapsed around the sword that she had impaled the interloping fairy and the once-evil queen upon, she realized the two price of magic that she created.
Snow White and Prince Charming, watching with horror from afar, saw their daughter torn apart before they'd ever had a chance to find her again. The word was remade by her hand and the magic in her heart. The kingdom blossomed from within her, a world she scarcely knew, and in that moment, her grip loosened and the son she'd come to love fell away into the void once more.
But I didn't fall, not really, momma!
That is how the story must end. The witch in the woods kept you safe from all who might look for you, and now you are truly loved once more.
What was the price then, of the magic?
The princess lost her memory, tumbling back to a time when she was young once more, time resetting upon itself. She would grow again, surrounded by those who loved her. It would be some time before the void in her heart reared itself, desperate and full of longing once more.
A dream of the future?
Or a dream of the past.
No one knows.
FIN
an: epilogue will be posted tomorrow.
Someone made a comment last chapter that it was Emma's heart in the box that the Blue Fairy had found. Nope. That was Graham's, she killed him. Sorry that that wasn't clear.