All reason, thoughts and explanations left Emma's mind at the sight of the goddess standing in the center of her room. The last soft rays of sunlight seemingly avoiding her painted her off as a dark silhouette against the pastel colored bedroom. Emma stood frozen in place, she hadn't expected the goddess to actually answer her prayer and least of all a house-call. She tried to formulate a coherent thought, to remember what she had told her mother and herself just seconds earlier.
After pacing around the room, carefully avoiding touching anything, the Queen turned back to face Emma. She had been intrigued by the boldness of the young princess, but the quiet girl facing her was quite the disappointment.
"You are the first to pray to me in centuries, and you ask me to restore life to someone. You do know who you're dealing with, do you?" She turned around and faced Emma again, a frown painted on her face. "You know what I'm called. What makes you think I can save your father?"
Emma realized that the goddess was waiting for an answer and quickly regained her posture. She thought of the lessons her mother thought her, straightened her back lifted her chin up in the air and tried to look just a fraction as imposing and grand as the queen.
Her voice failed her, nervously shaking as she answered.
"The old scriptures say that all that was given by the gods was a gift and that it is also theirs to take back. It is written that you gave the world diseases and death, so it follows you can also take them back." She uttered with as much confidence and wisdom she could muster. She had never been particularly interested in the ancient texts, but her mother taught her about the gods a lot and some of it actually stuck.
The Queen chuckled and took a step towards her. Canting her head slightly to get a better look at the young princess. "You are an intelligent girl." She murmured. For a second the Queen raised her hand to stroke the girls cheek in a sign of strange affection, but she pulled back before even coming near the rosy cheeks. In her eyes Emma a flash of something that was completely human and was taken aback by it for a second, but then the queen seemed to regain control of herself and followed her warm praise by a cold, firm statement. The emotion and wonder that had been before nowhere to be found in her voice.
"But you shouldn't believe everything you read."
"So… It's not true?" Emma whispered. "You can't take your gifts back?"
The Queen raised a perfectly crooked eyebrow at the princesses question, getting more intrigued by the girl every second. "You see death and destruction as a gift?"
"Well… No. But I mean, that's how it's said in the texts and …" Emma quickly amended, half expecting the fury she had anticipated from 'The Evil Queen' to rain down upon her any second. Instead she saw another flash of humanity in the woman's eyes: something that looked very much like a shade of sadness, maybe disappointment.
"Oh. I see." The Queen answered, turning around and walking towards Emma's bed. Above her bed was the old glass unicorn mobile. The Queen stretched out her hand towards it, but the blue figures shied away from her touch. She flinched almost unperceivably at the movement and watched the books standing next to Emma's bed. Undoubtedly there would be books about her. She wondered what they told about her, how they called her, how they despised her.
"I mean. I didn't meant to offend you. I know you must have your reasons and they're probably good ones and I'm not asking for you to like … I don't know. Abolish death or something because that wouldn't be practical and so. I know people hate death but I think there is a reason for it generally." Emma rambled on, shuffling nervously and staring insistently at a plucky star on her carpet. "But I Just …" Suddenly a wave of cold washed over her and when she looked up the Queen was standing closer to her than ever before. Her mouth was opened slightly in amazement and humanity shone brightly in her eyes.
"Thank you." She breathed. She knew it wasn't much, but after being despised by everyone in humanity for years and gone completely ignored afterwards for centuries, seeing someone believe in her, telling her that she wasn't all evil, struck a chord in her blackened heart. Emma was taken aback by the sudden admission, but was determined to finish her plead.
"I just really want to be with my father on my birthday." She whispered, glancing up again at the goddess. "And preferably after that too." She added with a slightly cocky smile. She had heard the stories of wishes that went wrong and decided that she would do this right. "Can you give me that?"
"I… I might be able to." The goddess finally answered, tearing her gaze away from the beautiful girl in front of her. "I could do it before, but… I don't know if I can still do it." She finally admitted, staring into the green, hopeful eyes.
"Why wouldn't you be able to?" Emma asked, finding herself longing for the stories told to her in the voice of the goddess. She had read stories about every god in the universe and had all found them equally boring, but about this woman she knew nothing. Nothing other than that she was death and death was evil. Turned out death was a woman with humanity in her eyes.
"I guess people just stopped believing in me." The Queen answered softly, forcing herself to smile at Emma and walking towards the door. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. "Let's see what we can do."
It was like the Queen instinctively knew where to go, finding her ways though the hallways with a grace that Emma would never be able to master, not even around her own castle. Whereas Emma couldn't keep her eyes off the Queen while they strode through the hallways to her father's room, the servants and knights around the castle didn't even acknowledge her.
"They can't see me." Regina stated after they had passed the fifth guard that cheerily greeted Emma. "They don't believe." She added coldly, glaring at one of the guards with a look that was more like 'The Evil Queen' than Emma had seen her before. She briefly wondered if perhaps the stories about the goddess were true after all and she was just being lured into a trap.
"We're here." Emma murmured, gesturing towards the door that was slightly opened. Emma slowly pushed open the door, but the room was empty apart from her father. The flowers next to his bed had gone, leading Emma to believe that her mother was out in the gardens gathering new ones.
"He's here." Emma stated, gesturing towards her father as if there were any other comatose fathers lying in the room. The goddess, however, didn't react to her obvious statement and slowly entered the room.
She hadn't taken two steps in before she froze, her eyes locking upon the face of the sleeping man. Her mouth fell open, before she clenched her fists and jaw in succession. Her previously soft, gentle posture went rigid and suddenly she seemed every bit the Evil Queen she was hailed to be.
"I'm sorry, I can't help you." She snapped at Emma, turning around on her heels and avoiding the blonde's eyes.
"What? You said that you-"
"Emma get away from her!" Her mother's voice startled both goddess and mortal. Snow was standing in the doorway, her hands firmly clenched around a bouquet of roses, daffodils and a dozen other flowers. The look in the normally gentle eyes was one Emma had never seen before; burning with fire and rage. "And you get away from him!" She shrieked, running past the woman and putting herself between her husband and the goddess, her eyes never leaving the black figure.
The goddess scoffed, her eyes narrowing. "It will be my pleasure." She said before disappearing in a dark smoke, leaving Emma and her mother alone with the misery she had left behind.