DISCLAIMER:: do not own. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.
A/N:: love love love this chapter. just sayin'. and love love love those of you who review and follow this story. your continued support and encouragement really makes me smile. thank you. enjoy and review.
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-Chapter 20: It's All Painted In Her Grief-
Emma awoke to a doused fire, the gloom of predawn casting their campsite in dark shadow. She could make out where her father's bedroll normally rested on the opposite side of the fire pit but it was gone, as were his belongings. Emma felt panic seize her heart.
"Regina?" Her voice was a frightened whisper as she rolled over to inform the brunette of her father's absence, but there was no one beside her. Regina's bed roll was gone as well.
She sat up abruptly, looking around. Her saddlebags were gone from beside her, only her bed roll and blanket remained. She launched herself up from the ground and ran the few feet into the woods where they'd tied up Freedom, Starfire, and Mary Brave, but all three horses were gone.
She ran back to the camp and started immediately rolling up her bed roll. She could already feel the consuming belief that the worst had happened. Hadrian stumbled upon them while she slept. There was no blood in the clearing so James and Regina must have led them away somehow. How many had there been? Regina would have taken out several with her magic, James several more with his prowess with a blade. Did the battle rage around her as she was in the other Regina's house having water fights?
Guilt seeped into her stomach. Just last night she had promised this Regina that she would always choose her, that she was the one she loved more. It was true. Every time she looked at her, she knew they were meant to be together forever. Why did forever have to be so short? Damn this curse! Damn how it hindered her ability to protect the ones she loved! And, more than anything else, damn it for taking everything from her! Her nights, her childhood, her mother, Pinocchio… and now her father and Regina? It was unfair.
She tucked her bedroll under her arm. She'd go to the Forbidden Forest. She'd complete the mission they set forth on. She would make her way to the Forbidden Fortress, nestled in a valley on the top of the Third Hex. She would go to Maleficent and she would beg the witch to help her… she'd see Hadrian burn a thousand times for taking away her happiness. He would pay!
She started through the trees, heading towards Peppergrey. The trees would eventually thin out, becoming more scarce the closer she got. The final half mile she'd be completely exposed. She'd have to wait for a passing caravan and sneak into the city in the company of some traders. Hadrian would expect her to go running back to the palace, or maybe to the dwarves, or to Snow's best friend Red. He wouldn't expect her to continue on into the Forbidden Forest alone. To do so, being who she was, and lacking magic, it would be suicide. He would have lightened the guards around the gate up considerably. All she'd have to do would be to sneak in, find someone who knew the Forbidden Forest well enough, hire them as a guide, and set off into the darkness.
She understood it now. Any reservations she may have had regarding how the death of a loved one had changed Regina into the woman known by all as the Evil Queen, were banished now. She felt it licking at the edge of her consciousness… the hate, the rage, the thirst for revenge. It was tempting, intoxicating almost in its draw. It called to her, reminding her of the gaping hole that was slowly expanding in her heart, blaming that hole solely on her husband. He wouldn't be her husband for long now. If he thought his claim to the crown was insecure before, he had no idea what was coming. It was obvious for her to choose Storybrooke now. Everyone she held dear… that was the only place they still lived. Even if they never got the chance to remember who they were, who she was, she'd still have them. But she still had just over two weeks until her birthday, and she had every intention of using them to make Hadrian rue the day he decided to marry into this kingdom.
She smacked into something, hard, knocking the wind and the edge of her anger out of her. She fell back, looking in front of her, ready to spring up and attack whoever had dared to get in her way. But there was no one there. The space before her was just empty air between the trees. She frowned, getting up and dusting her trousers off. She moved forward and was, once again, met with resistance. She pressed against the air with her hand. It was solid. It were as if she was pressing against a wall rather than empty space. She banged her fist roughly against it, but it did not give way. What was this? She slid her hand along it and found that, as she walked several paces in either direction, it continued. It was some kind of sorcery. Something was…trapping her here.
No! This couldn't be happening! She had to get to the Forbidden Forest. No matter what it took. She braced her shoulder against the magic wall and shoved with all her strength. It did not budge. She put her hand against it and kept walking. It had to break sometime right?
Eventually she did find where the wall ended or, more accurately, where it met with another wall, forming a corner. She did the same on this wall, walking until she reached it's end. She did it with two more walls until she came back to where she'd begun. A one mile square prison. She beat against the invisible confines, throwing her weight against it, her efforts becoming more erratic as the panic seized and started to thoroughly consume her heart. Was she stuck here forever? She threw her weight against it one last time and the wall, as if no longer amused by her efforts to beat it into submission, zapped her with a jolt of energy. It pulsed through her body and Emma sank down to the floor of the woods and into darkness.
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Emma awoke to movement. She opened her eyes, but she was surrounded by darkness. How was that possible? She couldn't be up this late at night. And then she felt it. The fabric over her eyes, binding her wrists and legs, her mouth. She was captured. She wasn't sure by whom, but someone was taking her somewhere, either to store her until they could extort money from her husband or, more likely, Hadrian had already issued a reward and this person was planning to collect. She had made herself an easy target. How could she have been so stupid?
She took a deep breath, or at least as deep as the cloth in her mouth would afford her and she willed herself to stay calm. She couldn't lose her cool, not like she had when faced with the invisible wall. That would get her nowhere.
She tested each part of her body. Her legs and ankles were bound somehow. She had no movement in them whatsoever. Her hands were bound together in front of her and also to her torso somehow. She had a little movement, but not enough. Her head however, had full range of motion. She was tied to something in movement and hard, too hard to be a horse. She leaned her head down against her shoulder and with a few minutes and a unique sliding motion, she was able to push up the cloth around her eyes.
With her blindfold gone, she was able to see ground, only about a foot from her face, sliding past. She glanced to her left and right and saw wheels. She was attached to a wagon or cart of some kind. Attached to the bottom. But that didn't make sense!
And then the wagon slowed.
"Who goes there?" She heard boots scuffing across the ground.
"Oh be quiet you!" A second voice and the boot accompaniment joined the first. "I knows this one. That there be Madam Zolta. She's a gypsy woman from their encampment over by Nixies River."
"I've never heard of this Madam Zolta." The first man spoke again.
Emma saw his boots as he walked around the wagon and into her line of sight. His boots were the deep tan of a private officer of the army. So they were at one of the gates to Peppergrey. But she wasn't being taken to Hadrian. If she was, this Madam Zolta would have just told the guard that she had the Queen in custody. The second pair of boots, common brown hide, poor quality, most likely a belonging to a guard of the city watch, came into her view, stopping beside the first pair.
"You wouldn't have. She don't goes as far as yous place at the castle. She's been trading along the border towns for years. Although, coming to thinks on it, I haven't seen you in some time Madam Zolta."
A rich and exotic voice, most definitely female and obviously belonging to this Madam Zolta, rang out. "I was away."
There was silence for a long moment before the army guard spoke. "Very well, you may pass."
The cart started to move once more.
"Wait!"
Emma cursed the guard silently. Had he caught sight of her? Was it better that he did? What horrible things did this Madam Zolta have planned for her? Maybe Hadrian was a better fate.
"Yes?" Madam Zolta sounded more than slightly annoyed.
"Have you seen a woman on the road? Blonde, beautiful, may have been traveling with two companions?"
There was a long silence and Emma willed the woman not to change her mind and give her away. She could overpower a woman and escape. She couldn't escape from Hadrian and the bulk of the Royal Army.
"I know who it is you search for, but seen her, I have not." The cart began to move again as Madam Zolta obviously dismissed the guards as being worthy of her time any longer.
It was only after Emma heard the slamming of the city gates behind them that she realized the guard had mentioned companions traveling with the Queen. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest as she realized what that implied. Maybe, just maybe, her father and Regina had survived the altercation after all.
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She had expected the woman to head for the town square, but instead she edged the perimeter, moving through the residential district of town with an old familiarity, never stopping to ask for directions or for anything more than the occasional greeting. Emma was able to discern that Madam Zolta hadn't been coming to Peppergrey for a while, though even the younger folks seemed to recognize her by reputation. She always brought her cart and sold her wares in the city's open air market. She lived in an encampment off the Nixies River, which ran in both the Enchanted and Forbidden Forests, so Emma was unsure as to which land she was officially from.
Finally, they pulled onto a side street and under an archway. A door slammed behind them and the cart stopped completely. A minute later her binds released her and she fell straight to the ground with an 'oomph'. She moved her limbs to get the blood flowing again and realized that the whole time she'd been held to the bottom to the wagon with magical bonds. Only the ties around her wrists, ankles, mouth, and eyes had been tangible. The cart was moved from over her and Emma found herself face to face with her captor for the first time.
Emma had met a gypsy once before, as a young Princess. She had been an exotic creature, with her tan skin and her dark hair. Emma had loved her as the six year old she was and begged Queen Snow White to let her keep the woman, as if she were some pet or something. She was sure Snow had probably enquired if she could hire the woman on, but she was sure the woman refused. Gypsies were not fond of captivity.
This Madam Zolta was not near as fair as Esmeralda had been. Her skin was wrinkled and mottled with age. Her white and grey hair poked out in wispy tendrils from the purple scarf she wore around her head. No wonder they hadn't seen her in quite some time. It probably took the old woman six hours to get dressed every day, let alone travel miles and miles to sell her stuff at market.
She glanced around. They were in an enclosed courtyard with a broken down fountain at its center. It reminded her vaguely of the outer bailey of the stronghold where she had found Regina. She felt a pang of homesickness in her chest from the memory.
The woman reached out with arthritic hands and began to undo the knots on her bindings with a surprising deftness. Once her wrists were untied, Emma immediately began to rub them to help the stinging soreness of the blood rushing back to the flesh. She reached up and removed the gag around her mouth herself.
"How much is the reward for my capture and return?"
The woman didn't pause in her untying of the ankle holds. "10000 snow coins and a title."
Emma paled. With a reward that high, she wouldn't be safe anywhere, even if she managed to escape this woman's custody. "You could have given me to that guard. It is not in their nature to pass on giving credit where credit is due. You would have seen your reward and been hailed as the woman who rescued the Queen from certain death at the hands of her deranged father and her female lover, a sorceress who surely bewitched her to gain her favour."
"Did she?" The gypsy looked at her intensely. "Bewitch you?"
Emma shrugged. "Would you believe me if I told you no?"
The gypsy woman tilted her head. "Then where is your lover now when you need her most?"
Emma's mouth fell into a hard line at the accusation in the woman's tone. "She's dead if you must know. Killed at the hands of the men you will turn me over to."
"It is hardly my intention to turn you over to that man or any of the miscreants who follow him so blindly, my Queen."
Emma stood, stretching out her legs and taking a few wobbly steps on them. "Why bring me here then? Unless…" Regina had mentioned she used to have loyalists in Peppergrey. Emma put her index and middle finger over her lips and then brought it down to the spot over her heart.
Madam Zolta's eyes flashed brighter with pleasure for a second before she repeated the gesture. "Come inside." She gestured towards the door at the other side of the courtyard.
Emma followed her as she hobbled over to the door and knocked in a series of short taps.
The door opened revealing a man who was a stranger to her. He looked old enough to be Madam Zolta's age, though his stooped posture and bony hands suggested time had not been as kind to his energy level. He ushered them inside, looked around the courtyard suspiciously, and then closed the door, locking it.
"Are the protection spells still up?" Madam Zolta was looking pointedly at the old man.
The man nodded.
"Very well." Madam Zolta waved her hand and the old man slowly transformed before Emma's incredulous eyes. Several moments later, James stood where the old man had just been.
Emma took a step towards him. "Is it really you?"
He enfolded her in a strong hug. She cried against his shoulder until a thought struck her. She pulled back, whirling around to face Madam Zolta. But the old gypsy woman was no longer there. Standing in the same dress and cloak, with the purple scarf wrapped around her head, was Regina.
"Can you give us some privacy?" She looked over her shoulder at her father.
He glanced between the two women for a moment of uncertainty before he nodded and disappeared upstairs.
Emma locked eyes with the brunette as she crossed the room to her. She stopped in front of her and without preamble, slapped her across her face so hard it caused James to pause on his ascent and look questioningly down at the pair.
Regina held one hand to her cheek and waved him on with the other.
Emma's face was a mask of hurt and rage. "Don't you dare do that to me again! Do you hear me? Don't you ever EVER leave me alone like that!" Tears stung her eyes as she tangled a hand in dark locks and pulled the older woman's mouth to hers, kissing her roughly. She pulled away, her hand like a claw in the dark woman's hair, keeping her close. "Don't you ever do that to me." Her anger had dissipated to almost non-existence, leaving only the hurt in its place. "Don't you ever do it again." She was openly crying now.
Regina said nothing, just pulled her close, wrapping her arms around her waist, and backing her over to a small hallway in the corner of the main room. She led her down it and to a door, which she pushed open to reveal a bed chamber.
"You left me. You can't just do that." Emma buried her face against Regina's shoulder.
The brunette ran a hand through blonde locks as she leaned forward and kissed her shoulder softly. She half led, half carried the blonde to the bed. As she sat down, she pulled Emma into her lap and wrapped her arms tightly around the younger woman's waist, kissing her neck, her tongue leaving a wet trail to soothe the burning path left by her lips.
"You aren't going to distract me." Her tone was no nonsense but she didn't pull away from the hungry mouth. "I'm angry with you." Emma was mumbling from her place still buried in Regina's shoulder. It was half hearted and they both knew it.
Regina shrugged her shoulder to urge her up and then brought their lips together once more.
That wasn't the end of Emma's anger and hurt but she let them manifest in a physical sense then, pulling their clothes off and taking Regina roughly over and over again until she herself ran out of steam and collapsed on the older woman's naked body.
Regina stroked the fingers of her right hand up and down the blonde's bare back. "It hurt you know… leaving you like that. But you weren't awake yet and they were closing in on our campsite. We needed to distract them, to lead them away. It was all to protect you." She placed a kiss to Emma's shoulder. "I never thought you would assume the worst."
Emma nuzzled the sweaty skin of the brunette's neck. "I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to take everything from him, piece by piece, until he was left with nothing, just like me. I wanted to see him destroyed. And more than anything I wanted to be the one responsible for his destruction. If not for the wall in the woods, I would have done it. I suppose that was your magical intervention, meant to keep my from stumbling upon the search parties." She sighed and traced her fingers across Regina's left breast. "I've never felt so much hate before."
Regina's hand stopped stroking her back. "And?"
"It was scary…. I can't imagine how you survived living in that frame of mind for so long."
Regina's body tensed.
"But…" Emma raised her head to look at the brunette. "There was a part of it that felt like home. Addictive. Easy. I wanted it. I needed it. It was the only thing that made the pain… bearable."
Regina ran her fingers through sex-mussed blonde hair. "I'm sorry that I forced you to that place."
Emma leaned in and kissed away the brunette's frown. "I never knew a heart could hurt so much."
"I never want you to hurt, ever, especially because of me."
"And I never want to wake up without you again." Emma stole another kiss.
"In a few days we'll be where he can no longer reach us and then, you won't have to."