1 Week Later
"When did my mother say she was coming?" Regina asks Emma in apprehension, her eyes wide with dread. Today was going to be the first day of their magic lessons with Cora. Last week, after discussing why magic lessons were important with Emma, Regina had come to the conclusion that she must cooperate with both her mother, and Emma with these lessons, despite the fact that she'd rather not go through with them at all. It's not that she doesn't agree that learning magic would be beneficial to both she and Emma if they were ever in need of it during a battle, it's just that she'd rather not learn it from her mother. Everyone knows that Cora is a very skilled witch, it's practically the first thing you learn about the older Mills woman, after the fact that she's a queen, of course. But everyone also knows that Cora practices dark magic, and dark magic only.
Regina has no qualms about learning dark magic, if she's being honest. But what worries her about using it, however, is that the darkness would start consuming her heart, her soul, and her entire being. And if she's being completely honest, the thought of the darkness tainting Emma, is a hundred times more terrifying. Her mother is evil, yes, but she's not pure evil. Though her mother has never been affectionate or especially close with her, Regina knows that the woman loves her. It may not be the kind of conventional love that normal parents have for their children, but it's still love, nonetheless.
"Soon. She should be here just after sunrise. Are you nervous?" Emma asks Regina with soft eyes. Regina bites her bottom lip and shrugs nonchalantly. Emma smiles at the girl and takes the brunette's hand into her own, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Regina looks down at their clasped hands, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. It always seems as if Emma can read Regina's mind, nowadays. The blonde always seems to know how she's feeling, without the brunette ever having to verbalize it. Before, when Emma could tell that Regina was upset, distressed, or angry, she would send the brunette a reassuring smile, or get rid of the tension by cracking a joke, or picking a playful fight. But since the night of the ball, Emma has switched tactics. When the blonde sees Regina in a state of distress, she simply takes the girl's hand into her own and offers a gentle squeeze and if not that, she would place her arm over the girl's shoulder and pull her close, placing a kiss on top of the brunette's head. Each time she does one of these acts, Regina instantly relaxes. But that's not the only physical contact the girls engage in with one another, they also tend to chastely kiss each other from time to time, but never on the lips. It's like they're scared that allowing their lips to touch one another's would bring upon the end of the world, which is a ridiculous thought on both girl's parts, seeing as how they've already kissed twice. Teenage girl logic is seriously flawed.
"Oh…sunrise should be happening any minute now…" Regina mumbles out. Emma watches as Regina hops up from her spot on the living room couch, and begins pacing the floor. The blonde watches her brunette companion in amusement, the look of nervousness on the girl's face being nothing short of endearing. As Regina's pacing continues, a series of unrecognizable mumbled words could be heard escaping the girl's lips. Emma watches on in amusement, having never seen the other girl this nervous before, especially not when it comes to her mother. After a few minutes, having seen enough, Emma catches Regina's wrist in a gentle grasp, pulling the brunette down onto her lap.
"Calm down, okay? It'll all be fine." Emma says softly, placing a kiss on the side of Regina's jaw. Regina's body sags against Emma's, wrapping her arms over the blonde's shoulders. The two sit there in silence for what seems like hours, but in reality, is only a few minutes. Before either girl realizes what's happening, the sun has come up and a knock is placed on the front door. Regina quickly gets up from Emma's lap and peeks through the curtains covering the living room window.
"She's here…" Regina whispers out harshly, her brown eyes widened in panic. Emma chuckles at the brunette's expression and gets up from her seat on the couch, walking towards the front door and opening it before Regina can protest. Once the door swings open, Emma comes face to face with the older Mills woman, her eyes drifting down and taking notice of the two bulky satchels being carried on the woman's back and the stack of books being carried in the woman's hands.
"Hi, Mrs. Mills, please come in." Emma says politely, sidestepping the doorway, allowing Cora to enter the cottage. Once the older woman is inside, she removes the satchels off of her shoulder and places it, along with the books, on the kitchen table. As Cora turns around to face Emma, she notices, for the first time, a timid looking Regina. It's been years, since she's seen Regina look anything other than confident or defiant. She figures that the girl's uncharacteristic timidity is due to the pending magic lessons about to come. Inwardly smirking to herself, Cora smiles at her daughter, doing her best not to laugh out loud at the grimace making its way across her daughter's face.
"Hello, darling. How have you been?" Cora asks pleasantly, amused to see the usual scowl being placed upon her daughter's face at her acknowledgement.
"Like you care." Regina says with a slight bite, though it's lacking the usual venom. Cora outwardly smirks this time, causing Regina's eyes to narrow at her. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Regina asks with a huff, causing Cora to chuckle and shake her head in amusement.
"No reason, my dear." Cora says with her smirk still in place. She, then, decides to turn her attention to the blonde girl standing idly by the front door, watching the interaction between mother and daughter with fascination. "Emma, dear. Where is the best place for us to start our lessons? What we're doing today may make a bit of a mess."
"We can practice here on the living room table. If worse comes to worse, we could always use some spare towels to clean up whatever type of mess we make." Emma says with a shrug. Cora smirks at the girl, ignoring the glare her daughter is sending her way.
"Excellent! Let's get started, shall we?"
"I told you to float the teacup, not explode it!" Cora says harshly to Emma, as the blonde looks down sheepishly. They've been at it for the last three hours, and Cora can honestly say that she's never been more disappointed in her daughter, and daughter-in-law's, inability to perform magic. Both girls obviously don't realize that magic already flows through their veins. Emma, being the product of true love, is literally made of white magic, while Regina has dark magic coursing through her veins, though Cora has a feeling that the girl could probably use light magic as well. After all, her daughter is far kinder and good-natured than she is, or ever has been.
Cora had the girls studying a generic magic book for the first hour of their lessons, hoping that both girls would pick up some tips on how to perform simple magic tasks such as, levitating small objects, transporting small objects, and other generic tasks. The older Mills woman is starting to see that she had clearly overestimated the two young women. The first and only lesson that Cora has given the girls thus far, is levitating a small teacup. Both Emma and Regina have failed to do the task correctly. Instead of simply levitating the teacup, Regina had sent it flying across the room; on her second try, she accidentally shattered it into pieces, and on her third try, the teacup just remained on the table, not moving an inch. Emma, on the other hand, tried three times, and each levitation attempt ended up with the same result: exploding the teacup.
Cora never thought it was possible for the young married couple to be so inadequate with magic, but clearly she was wrong.
"I don't understand what I'm doing wrong! I've been focusing all of my energy on levitating the teacup, just like the book said, but all it does is explode! It's not my fault." Emma says childishly, causing both Cora and Regina to roll their eyes at the blonde.
"Perhaps you're focusing too much of your energy on the teacup, and not enough energy on making the teacup float?" Regina reasons with her blonde companion. Emma pouts at that and crosses her arms over her chest, fixing Regina with a petulant glare.
"Care to explain why your teacup hasn't floated yet, or do you not have an explanation for your own failure?" Emma mutters under breath, but Regina and Cora catch it, the former narrowing her eyes dangerously at the blonde.
"I'll have you know that despite my efforts to make the teacup float, I have been able to, at least, make it mobile! Hell, I even hurled that tiny porcelain cup across the room, so your argument is invalid." Regina said dismissively, causing Emma's pout to deepen. A smile makes its way onto Cora's face at the interaction. She'll never admit this to anyone, not even Henry, but she loves the fact she played a part in getting her daughter married to Emma. Sure, the two younger girls have been bickering since the start of their lessons, but the love and affection they have for one another is clear, and Cora can't help but feel as if she's done at least two things right in her life; the first thing was giving birth to Regina, and the second, was marrying her daughter off to her true love (even if her daughter has no clue that Emma is her true love, though, Cora is aware that Emma knows. The blonde told her as much the morning before they left the Mills Castle, right before she asked for magic lessons).
"Whatever." Emma says in defeat, causing a triumphant smirk to grace Regina's lips.
"As cute as your newlywed bickering is, we need to keep working on this. I refuse to move on from this lesson, until you both manage to levitate the teacup." Cora says sternly, making Emma and Regina groan in displeasure.
A few minutes later, Cora watches as Regina fails to make the teacup move, and watches as Emma explodes her fourth teacup. She wonders how many teacups the girls have left in the cottage… After watching the lack of progress being made with the lesson, Cora decides to take a different approach. Getting up from her seat on the couch, Cora walks over to the living room table, picking up Regina's teacup. Regina looks up at her mother questioningly, but doesn't actually verbalize her question. She's sure that whatever she asks won't get answered anyway. Without saying a word, Cora brings up the teacup, leveling it with her eye, and without warning, she drops it. Before the teacup gets the chance to fall to its doom, it suddenly stops, floating about 2 inches away from the ground. Cora watches in awe as her daughter focuses all of her attention on the teacup, keeping it in midair effortlessly. She watches as Regina slowly lowers the teacup onto the ground, with her magic.
"Whoa." Emma and Regina say in unison. Cora smirks at the two girls and bends down, picking the teacup off of the floor.
"Emma, catch." Cora says, throwing the teacup towards the girl. Without warning, the teacup stops midair, stopping a few inches away from Emma's face. Cora watches the blonde concentrates all of her energy onto lowering the teacup into the palm of her, outstretched, hand. "Very good, girls." Cora says in an impressed tone. "Let's try this a few more times until you've got it down and then we can move on to our next lesson."
After four more levitation tries, both girls successfully floated their teacups without problem. Since it seems that the floating teacup lesson was a success, Cora moved on to calling for objects. Both girls read what calling for objects entailed and after reading the passage on what to do, they started attempting it. Of course, it took a while for them to be successful with their lesson. Cora had to hijack Regina's favorite novel, in order to get her daughter to call for her object, watching as the book disappeared from her grasp and reappeared in Regina's hands. Smirking to herself, she held Emma's favorite sword hostage and watched as the sword disappeared from her grasp and reappeared in Emma's. It's safe to say that the two girl's magic skills kick in when they're being threatened, or in this case, when their stuff is being threatened.
After the calling for objects lesson, Cora decided to assign some reading to both girls, deciding to call it a day with the lessons. The sun is already beginning to set, and after dealing with the two teenage girls all day, Cora is ready to go back to Alexander and Archibald's cottage, and take a, long, much-needed rest. After assigning a few passages for the girls to read, Cora bid them farewell and left the cottage, jumping onto the horse tied out front for her, and then galloping away.
Regina and Emma watch through the living room window, as Mrs. Mills takes off on the horse Alex left out front for her. They watch the older woman until she's out of sight. They move away from the window and throw themselves onto the couch, both exhausted from all of the reading and magic use.
"I am so tired…" Emma mumbles out, her head resting on Regina's shoulder. Regina places her head atop Emma's and hums in agreement, her eyes closed as a yawn escapes her mouth. "Your mother wasn't as brash or unwelcoming as I thought she'd be. She was surprisingly patient and helpful." Emma says in awe. Regina snorts at that.
"Patient and helpful? The woman held our things hostage and attempted to break our teacups." Regina says with an incredulous laugh. Emma chuckles at that and lifts her head off of Regina's shoulder, causing the brunette to look at her and lock eyes with her.
"She was obviously testing a theory. The theory being that our instincts tend to kick in when we're being threatened or attacked. And that theory was proven correct, obviously." Emma says in amusement. Regina thinks it over for a few seconds and realizes that Emma is right; she and Emma were able to get their magical abilities to cooperate, only when her mother decided to attack their things. It makes sense. Maybe her mother really does know what she's doing.
"You're right." Regina says in agreement, causing Emma to smirk in triumph. Regina rolls her eyes playfully at the girl and gets up from her spot on the couch.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm tired. Those lessons really took a lot out of me and judging by your drooping eyes, it's safe to say that it took a lot out of you too. Let's get ready for bed." Regina suggests, holding out a hand for Emma to take. Emma lazily reaches her hand out and grasps Regina's, allowing the brunette to pull her up to her feet. The two girls walk into their bedroom and quickly change out of their clothes, slipping on their white nightgowns. They both make their way to their respective sides of the bed, lying down, Regina's back, to Emma's front. Emma snuggles into Regina's back, throwing an arm over the brunette's torso.
It's safe to say that Regina and Emma's closeness has begun intensifying since that night at the ball, a week ago. Emma doesn't know if it's because of their amazing communication skills, or because their true love bond is making itself more known, but either way, she's not complaining.
"I wonder what our lesson for tomorrow will be." Emma wonders out loud. Regina smiles to herself at the excitement in the other girl's tone, having a weird flashback of a moment similar to this one, only, she and Emma were a bit younger. The smile wipes itself off of her face, as a look of confusion takes over. She doesn't recall her and Emma ever having a moment like this when they were younger, considering that she and Emma never got along before now. She quickly shakes off the weird flashback and focuses on her conversation with Emma.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be energy draining." Regina says playfully, listening as Emma mockingly groans in disappointment. She giggles at the girl's displeased groan and pushes her back further into Emma, reveling in the tightening of Emma's arm around her torso. Emma places a kiss at the back of Regina's neck, causing Regina's stomach to flutter.
"Night, Regina." Emma says tiredly. Before Regina gets the chance to return the sentiment, another flashback flashes through her mind, showing her of a younger version of her and Emma, lying together in bed, except, it was Regina's old bed at the Mills castle.
Younger Emma had her arm wrapped around a younger Regina's waist, the blonde's head resting against the brunette's back. "Goodnight, Regina." Younger Emma says to Regina sweetly. Younger Regina smiles to herself and snuggles further into the girl's embrace, reveling in the feel of the blonde's arm tightening around her waist, pulling her closer.
"Goodnight, Emma." Younger Regina says quietly to the girl, before drifting off to sleep.
Regina's confusion only intensifies at that flashback. She can't ever recall that moment happening, yet, something feels oddly familiar about it. Shaking herself out of her confusion, Regina pushes aside that weird, flashback; the flashback that she doesn't think ever really occurred, but feels so familiar. "Goodnight, Emma." She says quietly, closing her eyes, and hoping for sleep to come. She'll figure out what those flashbacks meant, another time. Right now, all she wants to do, is sleep.