DISCLAIMER:: do not own ouat or any of its characters. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.
A/N:: this has been done for a while, and I do apologise for not posting it sooner, but I've been an emotional wreck for the past couple weeks and I gotta do me before I worry about posting my work. the next update should not take nearly as long. I hope you're all still with me and this story. the adventure is not over yet.
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-Chapter 59: I Never Meant To Start A War-
This time the portal was unforgiving as it flung her back into the elven palace, almost as if it were mirroring Fate's frustration at the queen for her discovery of a loophole in their decision. She stumbled to the cold marble floor, landing hard on her hands and knees as if climbing out from an ocean, coughing and hacking to expel the water from her lungs. But there was no water only the deep inhalations of someone trying to recover their breath.
She stood on shaky legs, pulling herself up from the white marble, brushing the skirts of her gown down her legs. She turned slowly to stare at the dormant mirror. Energy swirled around the large surface, traveling over it, morphing every inch that it touched, folding it in on itself over and over until, floating before her was a small hand mirror, a small perfect square of ornately framed glass just the size of her palm that glinted, almost begging her to take it.
She grabbed it, settling its weight in her hands. It was only as she looked into it that she realised what it must be. You will be able to communicate through the looking glass Fate had said. So this was her means of reaching the other world, of reaching her other half. But all that stared back out from the surface of the glass was her own reflection. She didn't have time to puzzle the secrets of the mirror out at the moment. She tucked it into the bust of her dress, tucking it down between the boning of her corset and her skin. She'd find out how it worked after she'd dealt with the more pressing issues.
Emma. Now that the mirror was no longer distracting her, she regarded the anteroom. She turned toward the curtain and pushed her way into the chamber where the Queen was at rest once more in her crystal coffin. With a wave of her hand and a whispered word, she dispelled the alarm system Arazera had set up around the blonde royal to protect her from intruders.
Emma lie there, just as she'd left her, peacefully at rest.
She approached the glass cautiously. She wasn't sure what she'd find when she took the lid off the enchanted crystal that held her wife in stasis. Would she remember her life? Would she remember the last two fortnights and all they had endured together? Would she remember that she was a mother? Would she even wake? The former queen wasn't sure whether she was more terrified that her eyes would never open again or that they would.
The glass was too heavy to lift unassisted. She placed a hand over the lid and it crackled with energy, letting her slide the glass aside as easily as if she were brushing an errant strand of hair from her face. It slid off the base, falling to the marble floor on the other side, the boom echoing through the chamber, nearly deafening in volume. A crack slowly crawled outward from point of impact, working its way through the crystal, a jagged trail ripping its way up the previously pristine surface. But she had little time to worry about the destruction of the coffin.
Instead her focus was solely on the blonde resting, peaceful below her gaze. She crouched beside the coffin on its dais, nearly falling to her knees next to the unconscious Queen. "Emma, my love." She stroked the back of a finger down the fair skin of the younger Queen's face. "Please." It wasn't in her nature to beg, but the whispered plea, barely a breath from between her lips was all she had, the only magic she could conjure that would possibly cause green eyes to open.
It was only one word, but its power was great. For, after a long moment of hesitation, that's exactly what they did. Pale eyelids fluttered delicately on the fragile face, slowing steadily with each blink as they adjusted to the light and the blonde's surroundings. Stiff muscles rippled underneath skin as she unfurled from the position the elves had placed her in.
Regina felt the solitary tear trailing down the skin of her cheek. She let it come. "My Queen." The title was a sigh.
Emma's eyes found her, noticing her as if for the first time. The green irises stared at her intensely, boring into her very soul and giving nothing away.
Regina felt her breath catch in her chest, the function of her lungs ceasing as she lay in wait of her fate, of the answers to her earlier questions.
Recognition broke across Emma's face. Delicate fingers rose to the older woman's cheek, the pads dragging down gently over the tan skin. "You are a welcome sight, one I believed to be gone from me forever."
Regina felt the breath escape from her lungs in one powerful swooping exhalation. Emma was awake, she was here, and perhaps greatest of all, she knew who the older woman was. "We are bound, you and I. We will never truly be gone from each other, not while the other still belongs to the living realm." Her finger stroked through silky blonde curls before tangling in the golden locks and pulling the younger woman's head up, capturing eager lips with her own.
Her mouth was extracting, demanding, though it forced nothing, merely guided Emma, pulling her deeply into the contact they both desired.
Emma's fingers gripped the edge of her crystal resting place as she leaned into the mouth moving against hers. She held the contact for as long as she could before withdrawing slowly. She rested her forehead against the older woman's, her eyes falling closed. "One night apart and I'm already famished for you."
Regina pressed her lips firmly against the blonde queen's before pulling back. She stood, wrapping one arm around the younger woman's back beneath her arms and one under her knees, lifting her from the coffin to set her upon the marble floor. Her arms slid around the younger queen's trim waist, pulling her protectively into her body. She buried her face in blonde hair, breathing in deeply the scent of her.
Emma buried her face into the older woman's shoulder, her hands clutching at the fabric of the queen's bodice. She nuzzled the brunette's neck. "I love you."
She was here. Even if they were only delaying the inevitable; they had bargained time. And time with Emma, however fleeting that time may be, was all she wished for. "As I love you."
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Savya was content in her spot sitting on Regina's lap, playing with her plush horse. Regina had an arm looped loosely around her waist, holding her protectively back against her torso. Emma had seized her other arm, holding it in her lap, tracing a delicate line from the wrist to the inside of her elbow and back.
The dragging of her fingertip over her flesh, even through the fabric of her sleeve was maddening. Her head rolled to the side to regard her wife. She hummed low in her throat as she stared at the blonde with hooded eyes. Despite the fluttering of her heart and the sudden warmth trailing over her skin, she tried to infuse warning into her gaze.
Emma tilted her head, smiling coyly at her. She knew the effect her touch was having on the older queen. But she hadn't been expecting to ever come back after the previous night. She hadn't been expecting to ever have another moment with her. She leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of Savya's black waves before resting her head on Regina's shoulder. She pressed a gentle kiss to the woman's throat. "I heard you ask Pressiann to gather Arazera and Rowanaldi in the war room before returning. Are you going to tell me what this is about?"
Regina looked meaningfully down at the toddler in her lap, currently 'galloping' a horse across the skirts of her gown as if it were the rolling lands of a meadow, rather than folds of satin. "Now is not the time to discuss such things."
A frown furrowed Emma's brow. "It's not over yet, is it?"
Regina leaned her cheek against the blonde queen's head. "No, my love, I'm afraid it's only just begun."
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The Queen of the Elves was in heated discussion with Arazera when Regina and Emma entered. Both women fell into silence the second they were joined by the two royals, unwilling to share any of what topic had them so worked up only moments before.
Rowanaldi glanced first at Emma and then shifted her piercing gaze to the older woman at her side. "Lady Regina, what is it you'd have of us?"
"You are soon to receive word from the perimeter that an army is advancing on the North. We must send more bodies to hold the borders."
Arazera smiled, a fake thing tinged with condescension. "I assure you, our boundaries will hold."
"Against your own people?"
The smile fell from Arazera's face.
"Among this enemy, there are elven spell casters."
The twitch in Rowanaldi's upper lip was the only indication of any emotion that showed on her face. "I've heard no reports of distress from the perimeter."
Regina pursed her lips. "They will come shortly." She strode forward to the maps on the table, flipping through them until she found the one she needed. "There are two major hosts, centered here and here." She tapped her finger in two equidistant spots on the map. "One of the hosts is led by the former King of the Enchanted Forest. The other, a woman of unknown origin, though she appears to be human."
"Hadrian?" Emma stepped forward, leaning over the map beside Regina. "But... we left him in the Hexes. How could he cross the land at such a rapid pace? It is impossible." She shook her head.
"He couldn't... not without magic." Regina turned her attention back to the two elves across the table. "I believe someone with great power is behind this." She tapped the Hexes on the map. "Queen Emma was attacked right here, by an Apasma. The location is not surprising; dark things lurk in the Hexes. But it targeted her, lured her out. The way it attacked her was far from common for their race. It was sent for her; I have little doubt of that. Hadrian..." She spit his name out through clenched teeth like a curse. "He does not have that kind of power. Even if he had managed to learn magic without the Queen's knowledge, there is no way he could have rallied the Apasmas to the cause of chasing his fleeing wife. This is much bigger than I think any of us thought. Hadrian is a piece in a much larger puzzle."
"If this unknown foe is gathering the darker races, then I fear our problems are much greater than protecting the border. This will mean war. The Elves have not taken part in external wars for..."
Regina shook her head. "You put yourself in this war the moment you granted safe haven to the royal family, first the Princess and then Snow White after she was presumed dead. This war has been going on for years now; it has merely been dormant, laying in wait."
Arazera frowned. "In wait of what?"
Regina shrugged. "I would be quick to assume that it was Snow White's re-emergence that triggered it, but Emma was attacked in the Hexes before Snow White came south. She was still protected here in Bridalveil at the time of the attack. No, I believe whoever was behind this believed the rouse, believed she had perished in the Battle at Fallen Tree." She turned away from the table and the three women. She had thought about this at great length ever since the attempt on Emma's life, running through possibilities. Her conclusion was a grim one. But it made the most sense.
She took a deep breath and turned back to the three women, all staring at her intently. "I believe that this was never about Snow White." Her brown eyes shifted to her wife. "I believe it's about Emma."
"Me?" Confusion coloured Emma's face. "I was just a child then. I was no threat to anyone."
Regina nodded. "But you weren't just any child. You were the child from the prophecy. And you were also the only person with the ability to wake me." She stepped back to the edge of the table. "Think on it. The battles didn't escalate until the Princess left the kingdom. She was stowed here, beyond the reach of whoever wanted her. They knew that as long as Snow White was alive and fighting, she would protect the Princess, as well as ensure that I was never awakened. They had to lure Emma back into the Enchanted Forest. She couldn't play her role if she was safely hidden here. So a truce was offered in a war that was already being won. They were winning. Why make an agreement with an enemy who has nothing to offer you? Snow White thought it was her death they wanted. I believe it was what her death resulted in that they were after."
Emma shook her head. "If it was all to bring me out to where I was vulnerable, why continue to wait before striking?"
Regina bit her lip and gave her wife an apologetic look. "My love, whoever is behind this didn't wait. They put Hadrian in the palace. They used you to make him King. One of this person's generals became the highest authority in the land. That was the move. You were of no worth dead. You were the child of prophecy, and your prophecy must reach its conclusion. Hadrian was meant to keep you in line, make sure everything went according to plan." She ran a hand down the younger queen's arm. "Not all moves in a war are made with sword in hand."
Emma gripped the table to keep from collapsing. It all made sense. She knew Hadrian didn't love her. She had expected that he had been so opposed to her leaving because he had been afraid of losing his title, but with the voicing of Regina's theory, she could easily see that he had been afraid of losing her before the prophecy could come to fruition. He had been less than a moon's turn from completing his part of the mission, a mission that he had been working for over a decade. Her entire marriage had been a lie, for both of them.
Regina saw the strain of the muscles in the blonde's arms. She was bearing most of her weight on them. She grabbed the arm nearest her and pulled the blonde into her.
Emma fought against the hold at first but finally leaned into the embrace, burying herself against the older woman.
"What could this enemy possibly hope to gain from ensuring the prophecy completed?"
Regina stroked Emma's hair as she looked at the two elves. "Emma was groomed to believe that she would choose this world. By having Hadrian keep her on that path, the enemy ensures that she makes that choice, thereby essentially destroying the other halves of everyone who had been in the Enchanted Forest at the time of her birth."
"What does that accomplish?"
Regina pursed her lips. "That is the question, an definite answer to which, I do not know. Without the missing half of our souls though... once they are truly lost, all those who remain incomplete can never achieve their former power. My magic is not as strong without my other half; that will be true for everyone who was divided. Perhaps that is the goal."
Emma pulled back suddenly, her devastation written plainly on her face. "And I played right into it. I made the choice they expected." As the realisation dawned over her, she shrunk more in on herself, shaking her head at the enormity of it. "I've doomed us all."
Regina reached for her, her first instinct to pull the blonde to her and reassure her, but the Queen slipped through her fingers as she turned and fled the room, all three of the other occupants watching her go.
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Regina's fingers traced the crack in the lid of the coffin, running along the length of its rough edges.
"You requested my presence." Arazera had come as silently as she always did.
Regina didn't respond, not at first. She stood from where she was crouched by the damaged glass.
"She wasn't supposed to wake up." Arazera walked up to the base of the coffin, still on it's podium, touching the outline with her fingertips.
Regina shook her head. "Perhaps not." She sighed and looked up at the elf with eyes that sparkled with unshed tears. "I asked you here because I need your help."
Arazera raised an eyebrow. "My help?" It was obvious she was surprised by the request.
"Things haven't exactly run smooth between us, that's true enough, but I have no doubts about your loyalty to Emma and to stopping this war."
Arazera regarded her with suspicion. "How do you require my assistance?"
"I need your help reuniting the souls. If I'm restored to full power... I believe it is the only way to stop this war before it destroys everything."
"But, the other world, it was lost when the Queen made her choice. There is nothing left to restore."
Regina took a deep breath, and then she told Arazera everything.
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Somehow she had known it would be here that she'd find Emma. In the valley, in the shadow of the waterfall, where they'd been wed... it was a safe haven in her own mind as well. So she was unsurprised when she walked over the crest of the knoll and found the blonde royal sprawled out on her back in the grass, the skirts of her gown fanned out around her, contemplating the sky above them. Here in this secret place that held nothing but pleasant memories for the both of them, Emma looked much more like the scared little girl who'd been robbed of her childhood far too early than the responsible fair ruler that she was expected to be.
Regina picked her way down the small slope. She fell down into the grass beside her wife, laying on her back beside the younger woman, and looking up to nature's ceiling above their heads. Clouds drifted past, stained in rich violets, bright oranges, and burning reds with the sunset. A few stars twinkled, heralding the fast approaching dark of night.
"It's hard to think that I will never be called back. For the first time in my life, I have no cause to fear the night. For once, it is my decision how best to spend the dark hours, and yet, I haven't the faintest idea what to do with myself." Emma laughed dryly. It was irony at its best. Truly, her head was too alive with questions to be concerned about what she would do with her night, the most pressing of which was whether or not she had chosen correctly. She knew better than to inquire whether she had made the right decision. Who would ask a person they'd saved if saving them had been the right decision? No matter what she had chosen there were losses and gains to be had and she wouldn't insult the older brunette by asking if her life had been worth what she'd given up.
Regina said nothing. Emma didn't need her reassurances. They'd only sound forced and hollow in this moment.
It was a long stretch of time before Emma spoke again, and when she did, her tone was marinated in sorrow. "I'm starting to forget her." Her voice was thick with yet unshed tears. "I know that I have lived everyday of my life twice, but it's as if my life there happened to someone else, someone who only described the events in that world to me. It doesn't feel as if I lived them anymore; I feel detached. I didn't know what today would bring, no matter which world was my choice, but I didn't expect this." Emma took in a shaky breath. She finally turned her head to the side, looking at Regina as silent tears poured from her eyes. "I never expected to forget her."
Regina wanted to pull the blonde into her arms and assure her that she wouldn't forget her for long, that this was merely a side effect of her own deal with Fate, but she held her tongue on the matter. Fate had made it clear that Emma could not aid her in this quest. She must do this without Emma's knowledge on the matter. The blonde must continue to believe she had chosen this world over the other. For now, the only comfort she could offer her was to seek her hand, tangled in their skirts and clasp it in her own; all she had to give was her presence. She prayed that was enough.
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A/N2:: if that last part didn't get you in the feels just a little, then you are a robot...