DISCLAIMER:: do not own. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.
A/N:: a whole lot of fluffy goodness, broken up by snow white getting a verbal beat down from regina, which is probably my favourite part of this whole chapter. enjoy my lovelies.
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-Chapter 50: May These Memories Break Our Fall-
Emma snapped awake. Sitting up, she looked around. The room beyond the confines of her bed was distorted by the gauzy bed curtains. Regina was no longer in her place beside the blonde on the bed. Emma reached out her hand and felt the empty space next to her. It was still warm, telling her that it had been vacated just recently.
She crawled to the edge of the bed, pushing the curtains aside. The room beyond was one she recognised. Not this chamber specifically, but this place, these walls, with the silver tendrils of magic weaving through its stones. They were in the Palace of the Moon, in the heart of the city. Bridalveil. For the first time in almost a moon turn, she felt as if they were safe.
Her feet hit the floor and she paused, testing their stability. They were strong, sure. The second she figured out they were, she was up and heading straight for the only door into the room.
She emerged into an open parlour, decorated in whites and creams. And standing in the centre of it all, looking pensive, was Regina, in her grey jerkin and maroon leggings. The brunette hadn't noticed her yet, too engrossed in her thoughts. She took a long moment to memorise this moment in her head, capture this mental picture; she may not have many of these moments left to her.
Finally, when her fingers twitched with the need to hold the brunette and her heart stuttered in her chest, she knew she'd wasted enough time. "Regina."
The brunette glanced up, still distracted, in part, by her musings.
Emma was able to see the realisation as it bloomed across her face. Her skin, pinched with focus, smoothed out and the blonde watched as the worry from the past day left her; she looked instantly younger.
Neither of them moved or said anything, the silence a line that both of them were wary to cross.
It was Regina who broke first. "Oh, thank goodness."
Those three words combined with the look on Regina's face were enough to remind Emma's legs how to work. She raced across the room, leaping into the brunette's arms, her legs wrapping around her waist, her arms encircling her neck. She held tightly, a small childlike belief that to let go was to lose her coming to the forefront of her mind.
Regina didn't mind. She had one arm slung low around the blonde's back to stabalise her while the other hand came to the back of Emma's head, holding her close. Her eyes slipped shut trying to will away the tears that burned behind her closed eyelids. Emma was back. She was safe. She was here.
Eventually gravity pulled Emma's legs back to the ground but the blonde kept her arms wrapped tightly around Regina's neck, unwilling to let go. The brunette's hand was still tangled behind her head so she knew the other woman felt the sentiment just as strongly.
It was Emma who moved first, pulling back just enough to look into the older woman's face. "I thought I might never see you again. I couldn't go to sleep. I tried…. Regina, I tried so hard, but I couldn't get back to you." Her words grew more hysterical as each one fell from her lips until she felt the hand in her hair guiding her head back down to the brunette's shoulder. Emma didn't resist, burying her head against it without protest.
"Hush darling. I'm with you. You're fine now." The hand untangled itself to stroke soothingly through her golden hair while the other was around her waist to keep her close.
Emma took a deep shaky breath, letting Regina's words and gestures comfort her frayed emotions. "We lost time." Tears streamed from her eyes, making wet trails down her cheeks. "I lost a day and all she gained was a night watching the mayor sleep." It had meant more to the two halves of Emma, that night without sleep, but the younger Queen was feeling slightly bitter and allowed her mind to lie to her and pretend as if it were less.
Regina offered no words of comfort. What could she possibly say that would make this all right? They had two days left to them, just today and the next. Had all her time as the Evil Queen warranted this? Was this to be Fate's retribution for all she had done?
"I want to get married." Emma pulled back just enough to look at her.
Regina smiled. "I know darling, we will." It was an empty promise, but she would make it until the moment she drew her last breath. Her hand moved from the blonde's hair to cup her cheek, her thumb stroking across the creamy flesh.
"No, I want to marry you. Today."
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Emma stared around the familiar chamber. She had spent a great deal of time in this chamber when she was ten. Back then, it had always made her feel like a grown up, important and respected. She could remember wishing she'd grow up faster so she could always feel that way. Now all she wished was that she could go back and tell her ten year old self to wish for something else, that once the initial wonder fades, all you're left with is long days at court, political decisions, and a life that is never again your own but belongs entirely to your people.
Rowanaldi was watching her carefully from the other side of the chamber behind the great hall. "They detected nothing amiss with you physically. The best summation is that crossing the northern border, with its protection spell, somehow confused the curse's sense of time. Because it enacted your sleep early, it skewed the timeline."
"So it won't happen again?"
The elf queen frowned. "According to our research, it should not, but we can't be sure."
Emma sighed. "I suppose it's a moot point now. Our time is almost at its conclusion anyway."
"Is that what all these preparations are for? You know how serious that which you call marriage in the lowlands is taken here. A Soul Binding isn't undone by sending a letter via bird to the nobles of the realm. This is forever, young one, whether forever is to conclude on the morrow or last for the next hundred years."
Emma fingered the corner of the scroll nearest her seat to avoid looking at the woman. "I know that you are wary of love Rowanaldi. Regina told me that you told her the tale of Princess Lunamora. You always seem to conveniently leave out the part about you being the royal guard who sacrificed eternity for one who didn't do the same. You were betrayed, and your cost was being imprisoned in your own body, unable to age. But love, true love, does still exist, and what Regina and I have… it's love at its truest and purest. Forever with her, as her soul mate… it's not long enough."
The elf queen smiled, acquiescing with an incline of her head. "As you will. You always were so sure. Even as a child, you always knew what you needed to do, what decisions to make. It was how I knew you'd make a grand queen one day."
Emma laughed so hard, tears formed in the corner of her eyes. "I know nothing! I am so unsure that I am not even aware of what sure feels like anymore."
Rowanaldi gave her a wise and knowing look. "Oh young one, you are sure, you do know; you just don't want to face what it all means."
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At Bridalveil's topmost level, seventeen levels above the city was a beautiful open air garden left open to the sun and sky. The face of the mountain behind the garden was opened to a wide tunnel that disappeared into the mountain, lit on either side by flameless torches. At its end it opened into a small valley between two mountains, a powerful but calm waterfall at its other side, a hundred yards away. It was there they would be married, at the base of the waterfall. It had been Emma's safe haven in her year with the elves, a place that, to her, symbolised tranquility.
For now, Emma was playing, unhurriedly, with their daughter while the elf maiden Presiann fixed Savya's hair for the ceremony. The little girl's gown made from cloth of silver was hanging nearby. Emma's own hair had already been done, knotted up with miniature lily blossoms. Her dress was hung up next to Savya's. Regina had begrudgingly agreed, after a heated argument, to get ready in their own chambers.
Finally Presiann tied the last braid up with a smile. "All done."
Emma smiled at the elf woman. "Many thanks." Emma stood and moved over to the dresses. She fingered the soft ivory silk of her gown. It was designed to fall with a loose closeness around her body, just hinting at her curves without hugging them, a halter strap holding it up on her body and allowing the back to fall to just above the level of being improper. It was simple, nothing like the gown she'd worn to her first wedding. It was elegant, sexy, but understated.
She reached for Savya's gown. "Come now sweetheart, let's get dressed."
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"You always were beautiful."
Regina didn't turn from the floor length mirror on the parlour wall. "And yet you sound so disappointed dear."
Snow closed the parlour doors and stepped deeper into the room. "What do you expect of me? The most beautiful things in life are often the most dangerous. You wish to despoil my only child."
Regina laughed. "Really Snow, you can't honestly entertain the notion that Emma and I have not lain together before this." She smiled to herself as she heard the grinding of the other woman's teeth.
"Regardless…"
"You just hate that she is mine now, not yours." Regina couldn't stop a small but triumphant grin as she adjusted the fit of her dress around her waist.
"She is not your possession Regina! She is not a spoil of war, not something to own; she is to be your lady wife. Does marriage still mean so little to you as it did the first time?" Snow shook her head in disgusted disbelief.
Anger flared in chocolate eyes, still on the mirror. "Do not dare speak to me of your father! I had no choice! You never gave me one." She shook her head in disdain, stepping to the side just a little so she could see the woman reflected from her position standing in the middle of the chamber. "It's always been about what you want, hasn't it Snow? I suppose even that could be blamed on your father and his incessant need to give you all you desired, his need to spoil you rotten. You wanted a mother, so you condemned a young woman to a loveless marriage of misery. You wanted a way to destroy me, so you condemned your only child to a dual existence and the pressure of a destiny that was never meant to be hers. You wanted to play saviour, so you condemned the two people who needed you most to a life of hardship. Your desires, dear stepdaughter, bring condemnation. And for what? A life of exile to this place where you can watch the ones you claim to love live their lives without you? Your selfishness forced your daughter into a loveless marriage arguably as bad as the one I was forced to endure. Your father ignored me; I was a decoration, nothing more. But at least he was kind. Your daughter, this precious child, this wonderful woman who you never let yourself get to know, the brunt of every consequence of your so-called sacrifices… you used her Snow. She was the device you used to solve all your problems. Do not talk to me of ownership where your daughter is concerned! You have done nothing but lord over her since she was in your womb. I love her! She does not belong to me out of ownership; she belongs to me because she wants to, because she loves me. I don't have to force her hand; she has willingly given it to me. You see Snow, for the first time, I don't have to take a heart, it has been entrusted to me of her own free will."
Snow collapsed to the couch under the weight of all Regina's words. Was the brunette right? Had she only used her family as a means to her own ends? "I don't deserve her…" It was a barely whispered admission of guilt for the crimes Regina just accused her of.
Regina stepped back into the full frame of the mirror, blocking the other woman from her view once more. "Finally, something we agree on." She checked her reflection over one last time. The strapless gown, made entirely from fine elvish lace, hugged her upper body tightly until it flared out to a full A-line skirt at her hips. It was beautifully crafted, though simple in design. Though she had always been one for the more extravagant in her time as the Evil Queen, there was something about the simplicity of this dress that she welcomed. Arazera had chosen well, especially so last minute. She had chosen to leave her hair down as she had often in her younger years before her first marriage, before she had become a Queen.
"But neither do you." Snow's back straightened with purpose, her voice strong once again.
"Perhaps." Regina looked sadly at her reflection before turning to face an emboldened Snow. "In the face of all I have done, I do not. But she wills it, and I love her enough to do as she wills. She has suffered so much in her life; if I can do something to please her, I will do it. And if it happens to save my own heart in the process, then all the better."
Snow shook her head. "This is her life too. Think on this Regina. Once you do this, it is permanent. You cannot take it back."
Regina took a deep breath. "And I never wish to." She came over and sat on the opposite side of the couch from Snow. "I've never spoken of this before, not even to Emma… especially not to Emma." She took another deep breath. "When I was a child, before I'd met even you… I used to have dreams of this woman. Not every night. But just when I believed I'd never see her again, I'd close my eyes to sleep that night and there she'd be. Then, when I gave myself over to dark magic, I lost her. I looked for her in my dreams and out of them, but she was gone, my punishment for the life I had chosen. After years without her, I started to forget what she looked like, until there came a day when all I could remember were her eyes. I thought I'd never see them again. And then, when I looked down upon Emma for the first time in her bassinet… I saw those eyes again." She smiled to herself at the memory. "Emma was that woman from my dreams, the one I'd lost to my dark side. Now, I've found her again. I will never not want Emma in my life and I will never leave unless she wills it so."
"She is a child." The loss of this fight was already in Snow's eyes. Emma was Regina's; they both knew it. From her birth, Emma had been destined to be Regina's, even before her birth it would seem.
"Emma is a woman grown. In our absence, she became so much more than either of us ever dreamed. She grew up without our prejudices. Our grudge never passed onto her. And we're both the better for it. Had we been there throughout her life, it would have just led to an inevitable choosing. We would have pulled her in both directions until she was old enough and then, we would have forced her to make yet another decision that should never be hers." Not for the first time, Regina wondered what their lives would have been had the sleeping curse never happened, had she been able to spirit away into the night with newborn baby Emma tucked away safely in her arms. Surely she would have protected her just as readily as she would now; she would have loved her just as truly. But it would have been as a mother. She would have missed the love of her life by twenty eight years. For all she could hate Snow for, there was also just as much she owed to her. Some of the worst moments of her life, inflicted by Snow, had also begot some of the most precious, again at Snow's interference. "Now… now she can have us both."
"Can she?" Snow didn't look convinced.
Regina stood. "It's no secret that I will never have love for you Snow. Our problems have passed, but though I can move past them easily enough now, I still have trouble moving beyond the suffering you have cost the woman I love. She deserved more, so much more, than the life she lived. But, if she can forgive you and wishes you to be a part of her life, I will not take that from her."
Arazera, as if somehow able to sense the conversation had reached its conclusion, chose this moment to appear. "It is time mi'lady." The raven haired elf inclined her head.
Regina joined her by the door. She looked back over her shoulder to where Snow was still sitting, looking lost. "I know you don't support this union Snow, but for your daughter's sake, I hope you come. She wants you there, and I do too, for her." She exited the chamber with Arazera.
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Emma had glided through her first wedding ceremony with a determined and slightly grim sense of duty. She had known it was something that must be done, for the good of the kingdom and her people. There had been no nervous anticipation, no starry eyed wonder. It was her duty. But this, the moment before her, was destiny. She felt the rightness of what she was doing all the way down to her bones.
The elves didn't perform the more traditional ceremonies that the citizens of the Enchanted Forest were fond of. Much like back in the magicless world, the people of the lowlands performed weddings that were geared more towards the pomp and circumstance. The elves, who valued marriage above all else save bearing a child, preferred to focus on something much more simple and intimate. A Soul Binding ceremony was permanent, tying one individual to another for eternity. The blonde figured this particular blessing was to ensure that only those truly in love would marry.
A thin screen, created and held up by magic was to her left, blocking her view of the brunette on the other side. Its presence was customary, a physical manifestation for the metaphor of the separate paths they walk that they wish to converge into one. She could sense Regina on the other side though she couldn't see her and she wondered if Regina could sense her just as clearly. Behind them walked all the ceremony's attendees, including Arazera, Jajara, Daniela, Savya, and the Huntsman, along with a staggering amount of elves wishing to pay tribute and witness an event they believed would prove historical one day. Snow was sadly absent, but Emma was so used to not having her mother around that she barely even felt the absence.
The waterfall, cascading down in a soft thunder, was before them. Near its base stood Rowanaldi in a long robe. It was light grey and shimmered in the sunlight of mid-afternoon. The procession came to a halt before her. With a wave of her hand, the screen between the two brides dissipated.
Emma saw the brunette beside her for the first time since that morning as they turned to face one another and for a long moment, her heart stopped in her chest. This was it. Somehow she felt as if her entire life had been in anticipation of this very moment. At least this half of her life.
"Join hands."
At Rowanaldi's command both Emma and Regina grasped each others hands. At another wave of the elf's hand, a ribbon of shimmering magic wrapped itself loosely around the women's clasped hands, draping across wrists and forearms as well.
Emma could feel the tingle all the way down through her body. It seemed to hum through her veins, an electric current through her blood. She wondered briefly if this was what it felt like to possess magic all the time. Was this what Regina felt? If so, she had a new appreciation for the temptation, the draw of it; she could see becoming addicted to this.
The ceremony was not long. It was merely an exchange of vows as the magic wound around their hands, slowly tying them together with an intricate knot. By the time the last words passed through the blonde's lips, their hands were so tightly bound together that Emma couldn't even move a finger had she wanted to.
"And may you always find your happy ending in each other." Rowanaldi smiled at them both.
The magic released itself but Emma kept a firm grasp on Regina's hands as she leaned in and brought her lips to the brunette's. The kiss was a soft promise, of tonight, of a lifetime.
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"These were my chambers while I lived here." Emma ran her fingers across the enchanted stones of the playroom chamber wall as Regina came quietly out of Savya's bed chamber after tucking the girl in. Emma had already said her goodnights earlier.
"You liked it here, didn't you?" Regina walked over to her, her hand sliding down Emma's bare back to the small of it.
"I was enchanted. It was the first I'd ever truly seen of magic. Snow never allowed it in the palace."
"She was right to keep it from you."
Emma turned at Regina's words, her shock evident on her face. It turned to a pained expression before flashing to acceptance and she nodded. "Of course."
"Hey, no, look at me." Regina lifted the blonde's chin with a finger, looking into her eyes. "One should never be exposed to magic without the proper teacher. I didn't have anyone to show me the way, and look at how easily I was seduced into the darkness. I would never wish the same fate for you." She leaned in and kissed Emma softly. "But if we're still here come the day after tomorrow, and you still wish to learn, I will teach you."
Emma smiled. "Really?"
Regina gave a quick nod. "I promise."
Emma laced her fingers through the brunette's and led her from the playroom into the corridor and down to their own chambers. She opened the door from the corridor to the parlour with a shy smile.
Regina stopped her from entering. When Emma looked back at her with a questioning expression, she kissed away her worry. "It is customary, is it not, for the bride to be carried across the threshold?" She didn't wait for an answer, but scooped Emma up with surprising grace and strength.
The blonde gave a small laugh of delight, wrapping her arms around Regina's neck. She began nibbling on the brunette's earlobe as the other woman kicked the door closed with her foot. Her kisses moved across the brunette's cheek until she captured Regina's lips as the pair pushed into the bed chamber.
Regina set the blonde down softly. With careful hands, she slid the blonde's gown off before working her way out of her own. It would have been easier to remove them with magic (Arazera insisted her powers would still work as long as they remained without dark intent) but there was something very soothing about stripping away the trappings of their union slowly like this.
Finally they stood, naked as their name day, before each other. Emma gave Regina a warm smile as her hands slid across the warm skin of the older woman's hips, drawing her closer. Their breasts made contact first, pressing deliciously against each other to cushion the crash of their bodies colliding. The blonde's eyes slipped closed as their mouths came together. She felt Regina's hands at her hair, unpinning the braids as they kissed, letting them unfurl one by one as she removed each pin. Emma felt the miniature lilies fall around her feet like a shower of confetti, quite fitting for the occasion. Finally fingers moved through her hair unimpeded, nails scratching along her scalp, soothing the ache of having her hair roots stretched to their limit all day. It felt good and she moaned her appreciation into the brunette's mouth, earning her a smirk against her lips.
Regina could kiss Emma forever, her mouth was so addictive. If she were still the Evil Queen, she would have named it toxic. She would never have allowed this, never allowed herself to feel this way about anyone, least of all the daughter of the woman who'd been her sworn enemy for so long. Her hands slipped from Emma's hair, over her shoulders and down, skating over the skin of her back, until they reached her hips. She gripped them tightly and lifted the blonde until her feet just left the ground, spinning her around a couple times.
Emma laughed lightly as she broke the kiss mid-way through the first spin. Her legs wrapped around Regina's waist to relieve some of the physical burden from the brunette's arms. They were still spinning as Emma brought her lips back to the brunette's.
Regina dropped them onto the bed, laying Emma back against the pillows with her on top, still held close at the waist by the blonde's legs wrapped around her. She rested her arms on either side of the blonde's head and put her weight on them to pull up from the kiss and look down into desirous green eyes. "I love you. No matter what tomorrow brings, salvation or oblivion, know that."
Emma reached up and gently traced the brunette's full lips with the tip of a finger. "We are bound together now, our souls are one. Even if I prove unsuccessful…" She paused, for a moment afraid her composure may break, but she managed to hold herself together. "I will always be with you."
Regina's mouth sought hers once more and there were no more words, no more talk, just bodies melting into one another as the moon rose in the sky.