DISCLAIMER:: do not own. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.
A/N:: sorry for the delay on this but i've already got the next few updates written so postings should be steady for a while. enjoy.
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-Chapter 6: Two Years Of Peace, Two Years Of Fear-
The children watched their father quietly as he entered their bedroom for the first night in the week since he'd last updated his story. They both were enraptured with the tale of the Princesses of Winter and Autumn. They had agreed not to bother their father about the tale anymore, not wanting him to refuse to tell it.
He eyed them suspiciously as he sat down. "What's got you two all quiet then?"
They both stared up at him with their most innocent looking faces.
He rolled his eyes and parked himself in the stool, with a fake dramatic sigh. "Where were we?"
His children grinned up at him, looking triumphant. "Queen Cora had threatened to steal their happiness."
Their father nodded. "Two years passed in the Kingdom of Winter in relative peace. The newlyweds couldn't have been more in love, but a dark cloud hung over their union. Cora's threat did not sit idly on either of the Princess' minds. The Princess of Autumn feared, not for her own life, but for the life of the Princess of Winter. Queen Cora had promised to see her dead, and she feared the Queen would make good on her promise. The Princess of Winter worried that the Queen of Autumn would do something to take the Autumn Princess away from her. They both spent long hours discussing what Queen Cora's threat could possibly mean. As the Princess of Winter celebrated her eighteenth year and the two year anniversary of their union approached, they would soon find out."
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Cora stood, staring around the circle. The people arranged around her were the people of children's nightmares, the most unsavoury of the four kingdom's population. Some had been easy to convince, a mere word of invitation and they'd agreed without hesitation. Others had been more reluctant to make the journey. But a few words in her favour from Rumpelstiltskin had swayed them and all who'd been summoned had shown.
"Friends." She glanced around at every face in the circle. "I've called you here to ask for your assistance. There has risen in the North a great threat to us all. The Princess of Winter, the daughter of True Love…" Scoffs were heard from most every being around her at the mention of the pure love of the Winter Royals. Not one among them hadn't had the tale shoved down their throat repeatedly. "She has corrupted my own daughter. The Princess of Autumn, my sweet child, is too impressionable for her own good. The little harlot of Winter whispered sweet nothings in her ear and now she believes herself to be in love with the whore."
The harpy to her right, looked at her, her birdlike features sharp and accusatory. "What do we have to fear from trivial matters of young love? Let them have their romance, it affects us not."
Cora narrowed her eyes at the creature. "You dare to name me liar?"
The harpy made the mistake of not backing down. She gave a sharp nod and one second later was engulfed in flames. Gasps rose up around the gathering.
Cora scanned the faces of the others. "Any one else object?"
Several heads shook, while many others remained too afraid to answer, fearful of the repercussions of giving the wrong response.
Cora smiled maliciously. "Very well. As I was saying before that unfortunate interruption, this new union is a threat to the survival of dark magic. The Princess of Winter takes liberties that were never meant to be hers and we will suffer the wrath of the Fates for what she has done."
"What would you have us do?"
Cora turned her deadly grin on the ogre who had posed the question to her. He stared back with fear in his eyes but determination in the set of his jaw. "I have a temporary fix until I can devise a more permanent solution. A curse as it were, one so dark that none will be spared."
"What will this curse do?"
Cora frowned. "It will buy us time to solve our dilemma, that is all you needs know." She knew they would be reluctant to offer their support if she informed them that they would remember nothing of this world in the transition into the next. They need not know what they were signing on for, just as long as she could convince them to assist her.
"And what do we get from helping you enact this curse?" The same ogre as before, more confident than when last he spoke.
She turned her gaze on his once more, looking bored. "You leave this gathering with your life."
Several gasps went up around them.
"You do not have the power to take us all on before one of us could take you down."
She raised a hand that crackled violently with black energy. "Care to test that theory?"
No one raised a word of protest or agreement. She knew several of them would object if they truly believed they could win a confrontation with her. But she could best anyone of them in one on one combat. Her powers had long been proven to this lot. None were stupid enough to attempt harming her. Not without backup.
She nodded. "As I suspected."
"What is it we must do?"
"Nothing truly. I just need a piece of each of you, a hair from your head will suffice." She passed around the container, into which each creature in turn deposited a hair. Once it made it back to her, she thanked them and promptly tossed it all into the fire at the centre of the ring. The fire flashed a sickly green briefly before returning to normal. "Now for the final ingredient. The fresh heart of the thing I love most."
"Who's that?"
She stared at the heart in her hands, holding it up for the whole gathering to see. "That, friends, is a secret best taken to the grave." She tossed the heart into the fire. There was no going back now.
Thunder rumbled as clouds gathered across the sky. A strong wind swept around them as black smoke poured forth from the fire. It was beginning! Her eyes glowed with delight. Time to pay a visit to the newlyweds. She couldn't wait to watch their faces as she took away the most precious thing either of them possessed: each other.
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Regina's handmaid ran the brush through her hair once more. She stared at her reflection in the large looking glass of her vanity. Two years. It had been two years since her mother had tried to interrupt her wedding with a threat that promised dire consequences for her and her wife. Two years since the day she'd married the love of her very existence. But to love is to fear that you will one day lose that love and despite Emma's constant reassurances that no matter what time, what world, she would always find her way back to Regina should they ever find themselves separated, Regina had still been afraid every single day since their union.
"May I take over Siscillya?" Emma appeared in the reflection beside the handmaid.
Regina smiled to herself. It no longer horrified her how Emma had a kinship with most of the palace staff. She joked easily with the guards, traded gossip with the handmaids, even poked fun about the nobles with the royal page. There was hardly a face she couldn't put a name to and even fewer who didn't know her. They called her Your Grace in front of others, but when no one else was around, they were as candid with her as they were with each other. That would have never been allowed in the Kingdom of Autumn. Her nursemaid growing up had been the only servant she'd ever even been allowed to get remotely close to and Cora had banished her the moment she felt Regina no longer had need of her.
But, over the first two years of her marriage, she had learned that all the rules that were strictly observed in the Kingdom of Autumn were barely paid attention to in the Winter Kingdom. There was an easiness to the way they viewed life here, a candor she had grown quite fond of once she'd began to understand it .
And Emma had other royal friends as well, that she corresponded with regularly via bird, chief among them being the oldest Princess of Spring, the first of Queen Ariel's three daughters, a maid of nineteen by the name of Harmony. Emma had made plans for them to travel to the coast to the Kingdom of Spring with Addword, as he was now devoting all his time to courting Harmony, who had enchanted him from the moment when first they met. For her part, the Princess of Spring had shown little to no interest in the Prince of Winter, but he was determined to continue trying.
Regina herself had never been allowed to adequately associate with the other royal children, Emma and Addword being the only exceptions. Cora had always claimed they would shift her focus from her primary goal of marrying Addword, or rather, her mother's primary goal for her. Regina's only goals for herself consisted of being everything Emma could ever need and, secretly, as she'd never dare tell Emma, not yet at least, to be a mother herself. She desperately wanted a child. It was expected of married royals to have begotten a child within the first three years of marriage; it was considered a good sign for the kingdom. But with the zest that Emma embraced life, Regina knew her wife was not yet ready to devote her energy to a child. So Regina would wait; she could do that, delay her dream, for Emma's sake. Instead she spent time, whenever the opportunity arose, fawning over the newborns of the Winter nobles when they were brought to the palace to be blessed by the King and Queen.
"You look utterly lost in your thoughts my love." Emma drew the brush gently through Regina's hair, watching her curiously in the reflection of the mirror.
Regina smiled softly. "I'm just distracted thinking of tomorrow. Tonight is our last night here and I have grown so accustomed to life in the palace."
"On the morrow we will have known two years together, don't you think it's quite time I gave you a castle of your own?" Emma stopped brushing her hair and rested her chin gently on Regina's head as she contemplated their reflection.
"I will love having you all to myself, devoid of distractions, but I shall miss the… fullness of this place. It's nice having your parents and brother nearby whenever we have need of them."
Emma chuckled, kissing her wife's head. "We have quite a difference of opinion on that particular point. If I must hear my mother speak of grandchildren one more time, I am afraid I may strangle her."
Regina tried to hide her brief flare of disappointment, behind a mask of casual curiosity. "You don't want children?"
Emma shrugged, not picking up on Regina's dismay in the least. "I have never really considered such things. I am still young yet. There is plenty of time. But, thinking on it, I suppose I would like to have one. In the future."
"You would?" The surprise was evident in her voice.
Emma rolled her eyes and moved away towards the bed. Siscillya had already departed of her own volition, having been around the couple enough to know when they wished for their privacy. "I am not immune to the longings all women face." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think I'd like it, having a little girl or boy… I think I'd do well as a mother, and you, you would be the best mother imaginable." Emma smiled and shook the thoughts off. "But that is a while off yet."
Regina stood from the vanity, turning to face Emma. "Of course." Emma did want children, that was half the obstacle and it felt so good that she wouldn't have to fight her wife to get what she wanted. Someday, they would have a child. It wasn't a hope, but a promise now.
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Screams woke Regina from sleep. She sat up in the darkened bed chamber, holding the blankets tight around herself to protect her modesty. After their discussion of children and their impending move, she had surprised Emma with her anniversary gift early, a charm bracelet made of white gold, the charms made of Winter diamond hand carved into the shape of swans, for Emma's childhood nickname. She and Emma had then welcomed their anniversary wrapped in each other and hadn't bothered to retain night clothes after they were finished. After all, that would have required them to leave the comfort of each other's arms and they had both refused to do so.
She looked to the window. The sky was pure black; dawn was not far off. Turning to the spot on the bed beside her, panic set in as she realised she was alone; Emma was not with her.
The screams resounded again, somewhere outside the door. It abruptly was cut off moments before another cry was heard, someone else's this time.
Regina got up from the bed and went for the closest outfit she could find. It was Emma's, a riding tunic and trousers, but she'd have to make due. She pulled them on and raced to the door leading to their parlour and the anteroom to their chambers. Just as she reached it, it opened and Emma slipped through. There was blood staining the long sleeves of the tunic she wore as well as some smeared on her cheek. Her eyes were wild and frantic. Regina's heart began to pound. "My love, what is it?"
Emma's eyes flashed to Regina as she spoke, as if for the first time really focusing on her. She shook her head. "They're all dying."
Regina could read the fear in the blonde's eyes easily enough. Her mother was finally fulfilling the terms of the threat made two years ago today. She was coming for them. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on Emma's shoulders. "Tell me what you saw."
Emma opened and closed her mouth as her brain tried to formulate words for what she had seen, the carnage being caused in the corridors. "They're raiding the rooms, killing servants and guards, all who oppose them. I tried to reach Addy's chambers but they were already ransacked. What if he's dead, Regina?" Tears came then, filling the blonde's eyes as she thought of her family, somewhere in the palace, afraid for their lives or quite possibly already divested of them. She looked at Regina, at the one person she still knew she had for sure. All she could do now was protect her. "We have to get out."
Regina nodded.
They snuck back out into their parlour, Emma in the lead. The corridors had quieted down, no more screams could be heard. Regina didn't know whether to be grateful for the silence because it meant the killing had stopped for the moment, or even more afraid because now they had no way of knowing where the invading soldiers were.
Emma stuck her head out in the corridor and scanned it. The coast was clear and she waved Regina out, making sure to stay in front of her to block her from any impending threat.
They made it to the royal chambers without being accosted. Like Addword's chambers, they were ransacked, showing obvious signs of destruction, but no bodies or gore, a battle had not been fought here. That meant either the King and Queen had escaped or been taken.
"If they ran, they would go to the temple; it is the safest place here."
Regina nodded and they once again snuck back into the corridor. They went to the servant's stairwell, figuring it'd be safer than the main staircase, less likely to be crawling with soldiers. They found it strewn with cold bodies, no one left alive. The brunette nearly cried out when she reconised the bloodless face of her personal handmaid.
Emma turned her away and pulled her past; there would be time to comfort her for the loss once they were safe.
The top floor of the palace seemed to be untouched as of yet, the circular temple's door were still closed, the perimeter corridor orderly and without the destruction they'd seen through the rest of the palace. The screams downstairs had resumed sometime during their ascent, but both women had learned to block them out, instead focusing on finding the Winter royals.
Emma tried the nearest entrance to the temple, the south entrance. The doors did not budge. She banged against them, but to no avail. Grabbing Regina's hand, she raced left to the western entrance, but was met with the same opposition. In frantic desperation, she pulled them towards the northern entrance. It was locked in the same fashion.
Regina squeezed Emma's hand before she could run for the fourth and final entrance. She hadn't used magic since her mother had been banished, above all else she must not become her mother. But it might be the only thing that saved them now. She put her hand up, palm pointing towards the door. They could hear the lock mechanism on the other side of the door grinding open and several startled gasps. The people hiding in the temple probably thought this was the invaders finally come to them.
Finally the doors pried apart, forced open by the brunette's magic. In the centre of the round chamber stood maybe a dozen or so survivors of the carnage downstairs, mostly nobles with a few servants. The Queen of Winter and her husband stood bravely before all assembled, ready to die first for their people, a last line of defense. Addword was nowhere to be seen.
When the King and Queen saw the girls standing before them, they gave a sigh of relief and rushed forward. Emma and Regina stepped in the temple and the brunette released the flow of magic, collapsing against Emma, dizzy at the expense of energy. All three of the Winter royals helped support her as they went back to the centre of the chamber.
"Where's Addy?" Emma looked at her parents.
Snow shook her head sadly. "I sent him for you and Regina."
Emma felt her stomach drop, violent nausea rolling through her throat. Her brother… was he dead? She hadn't seen him among the slaughtered, but they hadn't gone to the main staircase. Was his body strewn across them, the last line of defense against the innocents now crowded in the temple. Had his sacrifice been what had bought Regina and her the extra time they needed to escape their chambers?
The gears on the western door began to grind dangerously and Emma knew now that her time to worry about her brother's fate was over. Now she must think about the people in this room. She grabbed the hilt of the sword on her belt, grateful that she had thought to grab the swordbelt when she'd hastily dressed after the first few screams had woken her. It would do little; it hadn't done much for the well trained guards that were littering the lower floors. She used the swipe of an arm to push Regina behind her, drawing the sword. Her father and mother did the same. They all formed a barricade, the last line of defense for the Princess of Autumn, all ready to die for her.
The doors flew open, the lock breaking under the force of the magic. Cora stepped in, guards pooling in behind her. They were dressed in black armour, their faces blocked by masked helmets that were twisted into various animal-like snarling faces.
The Queen of Autumn swept in, her black hair in its usual up do, her lips painted blood red in contrast to her pale skin. She looked the part of vampire with her black cloak whipping behind her as she walked and her pitch black gown. So now she showed her true allegiance, not to the Kingdom of Autumn but to Centre City, the place from which the cancer of dark magic grew.
She stopped ten feet in front of the royals. "Really, your manners have grown lax here in the North in my banishment. Not one of you was here to greet my carriage when it arrived."
"You are not welcome here, witch." Snow took a step forward.
Cora gave a disdainful pout in the direction of the younger Queen. "Now isn't this precious? The noble royal family of Winter ready to die for the Princess who doesn't even belong with them." She grinned dangerously. Cora raised a hand and a thread of black smoke shot from her hand and wrapped itself around Emma's waist, tugging her forward so quickly her sword slipped from her grip.
Regina reached out and grasped Emma's wrist, but the only thing she could a get a grip on was the swan charm bracelet she had placed around the blonde's wrist less than eight hours before. The clasp popped open and the bracelet slipped off in her hand and Emma was wrenched forward into Cora's deadly grasp.
The older Queen wrapped her arms around Emma's waist, securing the blonde Princess close even as she struggled and fought. "You are a willful one, aren't you? More trouble than you're worth. I should do the four kingdoms a favour and rid them of your existence."
Princess Emma stopped struggling, staring into the black depths of Queen Cora's eyes, and then, in a last act of defiance, reared her head back and spit directly into the Queen's face.
Cora's eyes grew wide at her audacity. "You little whore." Black energy crackled across her free hand as it neared Emma.
The blonde closed her eyes and waited for the end.
But a shower of crimson sparks collided with the hand near her face. Both Emma and Cora looked up in surprise.
Regina stood between the people in the temple and her mother and lover. Her hands were crackling with their own energy, maroon static that traced across her fingers. "Let her go mother."
Cora's eyes sparkled. "So you have power after all, and here your tutors always assured me your skill was rudimentary at best."
Stones began to fly out from the temple wall, swirling away as the room seemed to be pulled apart. Black smoke pooled in under the doors. All this seemed to go unnoticed by the Autumn Queen and her daughter, their eyes never leaving one another. Regina clutched the charm bracelet firmly in her left hand, her right raised towards her mother, a warning that she was ready to act again.
"Raise a hand against me and she dies."
The roof of the temple ripped away with a violent wrench, a loud thundering the drowned out all other sound.
Cora looked adoringly at the black smoke that billowed in through the hole as if gazing at a lover.
"What have you done?" Snow looked up in horror.
Cora's response was drowned out as the black smoke descended over them all, swallowing up all in the room.
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"What did the Evil Queen do daddy?" His meek child looked torn between hiding under the covers and jumping across the bed to attack him until he offered up more of the story.
"She sent them all to a very bad world, a place completely without magic."
His children gasped simultaneously. What an atrocity a world without magic would be.