Chapter Twenty-Five—"Looking in the Mirror"
"I'm going to kill him," Regina groused for the umpteenth time, and Robin rolled his eyes fondly. Over the last year or so, he'd come to know the Evil Queen well, and had thoroughly fallen for her—but there were times that her vicious side could get a bit old.
"You know, love, if you tried saying that a little less fondly, I might believe you mean it," he needled her.
Regina paused in their trek through the tunnels under her old castle to glare at him. "Shut up, Robin."
"You know you love me." He shot her a cheeky grin, and was rewarded by the slight flush of red he saw highlight Regina's cheekbones. Sometimes Robin wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was, and other times he was certain that Regina had no clue. He'd talked to Belle more than once about the perils of loving someone whose own darkness sometimes overshadowed the goodness you knew was inside, but his old friend was right. The fight was well worth it.
"Of course I do."
The great thing about Regina, of course, was that when she wanted something, she was unbelievably single-minded in pursuing her goal. Robin had found that out early on, but being the direct sort himself, the intensity of her affections didn't bother him in the slightest. Once she admitted she was interested in him, anyway. So, when Regina stopped to kiss him, Robin kissed her back with equal fervor. After all, they were hardly trying for subtle. If the Witch didn't know they were here already, taking a little extra time in the tunnels might just alert her.
"So, what is between the two of you, anyway?" he asked curiously as they continued onwards, bow at the ready and no Witch in sight. "You and Rumplestiltskin?"
"He taught me magic," Regina replied after a moment.
"So, he's an old friend."
She hesitated, and Robin could see decades of suppressed emotions washing over her face. "It's more complicated than that."
"I've got time," he assured her, bumping his shoulder against hers gently.
"We fought for years, sometimes a friendly competition, and sometimes not. We did horrible things to one another. I tried to get Belle to unknowingly strip his powers off him. He manipulated me into casting the curse, and then double crossed me and helped break it. I locked Belle up. Thing is…he was my only friend for the longest time. The only one who understood me, and never actually lied to me."
"So, he's an old friend," Robin repeated, trying not to smile too much.
His lover glared. "Yes, he's an old friend."
"Do you trust him?" That was probably the only important question to ask. Robin was pretty sure what his own feelings on the matter were—being friends with Belle and the man's son sort of balanced out the fact that the former Dark One had once tried to skin him alive—but he was interested in Regina's perspective. She'd known Rumplestiltskin a lot longer, and was worlds more powerful than Robin could ever dream of being. Regina understood magic, which Robin had always avoided after that unfortunate lesson in the Dark Castle, and if anyone amongst their odd group of allies understood Rumplestiltskin, she was the one.
"Of course not." But the answer was obviously automatic, and after a moment, Regina shrugged. "I mean, he'll do what he says he will. Make a deal with him, and he'll—"
They stopped cold, freezing side by side. Guided by instinct, Robin's bow came up, and suddenly there was a green-skinned woman standing in front of them, just yards before they could have entered the crypt.
"Ah, hello," Robin piped up cheerfully, and watched the Wicked Witch of the West turn to glare at him. He'd missed Regina's last confrontation with her half-sister, but he wasn't about to miss this one.
He took a moment to study her before everything went to hell, noticing that if it weren't for the green skin, the Witch would have been a far more attractive woman. She was dressed expensively—probably in Regina's clothes, he realized, based on what Regina told him about their last encounter—and held her chin in the haughty manner adopted by those with something to prove. Oddly enough, Robin's first impression of her was that she lacked self-confidence, which was an odd thing to think about the woman who had been terrorizing their world for the better part of two years, even before Regina and the others got back from Storybrooke. But there was something in the way she stood that screamed Look at me! I matter!, and Robin found that very strange. After everything she'd ever done, what did the Witch think she had to prove?
"Bringing your boyfriend home to meet the family?" Zelena purred, glancing at Regina. "I'm touched."
The Evil Queen all but snarled aloud from Robin's right. "I don't have anything that friendly in mind, I assure you."
"Oooh. Are you feeling possessive over your wuddle castle again?" A green-skinned woman looked odd wearing a pouty face.
"Of course I am. But I'm not here to try to oust you, Zelena. I'm here to offer you a deal even if I don't think you deserve it," Regina retorted, matching her smirk for smirk. "One that ends with you alive, which believe me, is better than I'm inclined to offer you under other circumstances."
"You again," Grumpy snarled.
He'd gone for a walk outside the army camp, needing to get away from the healers' tent and all the memories of Astrid held inside it. Oh, he'd been doing his duty and helping with the wounded—there weren't as many as there might have been after this last battle, but a few of them had needed care through the night, so he'd stayed up with them. It wasn't like he was sleeping much, anyway. Not when visions of Astrid kept dancing in front of him every time he closed his eyes. No thank you. Grumpy would stay awake rather than face that. Maybe someday he'd be able to deal with the loss…but not yet.
Now that he hadn't slept in a day and a half, the ever-painful throb of loss was starting to numb. He was so tired that he could hardly think, and if he kept believing that Astrid was waiting around a corner for him, Grumpy wasn't quite loopy enough to think that true. Perhaps in another day or so the hallucinations would start to talk, and then he'd really be in trouble—but he didn't care. Couldn't care. In fact, the only thing in the world that could make him care was suddenly standing right in front of him: the slender, dark-haired and eyed fae who had slain his True Love.
When he'd drawn his sword, Grumpy didn't know. Only that he faced off with Norco and a chance to avenge Astrid was standing right in front of him.
"Me again," the fae sang cheerfully, but obviously didn't expect the lunge.
Grumpy didn't feel the need to have a conversation. He certainly wasn't going to give this fae bastard a chance to steal his sword away again and mock him. He just wanted to kill Norco, no words required. So, he charged in, sword in hand and ready to do murder with Astrid's face still dancing in his mind.
Their bodies hit hard, and the collision took them both to the ground. Grumpy had meant to run the creature through, but his sword appeared to have gone missing, so instead he pinned the fae down and used his fists. Norco seemed shocked, unable to get his hands up in time to defend himself. It was like no one had ever dared strike him physically, and Grumpy took advantage of the startled yelp to pummel the all-too-handsome angular face in. One punch landed, and then another, and soon enough the fifth and sixth followed. The sound of flesh breaking beneath his knuckles was music to Grumpy's ears; it was the sound of revenge for Astrid, something to fill his broken heart.
But the seventh only met thin air, and suddenly Grumpy overbalanced. He'd been straddling Norco's body, but now the fae was gone, and he landed face down in the mud before he could catch himself.
Still no sword. Leaping to his feet, Grumpy swung to face the fae. Norco was bleeding from a split lip, busted nose, and a spectacular cut over one eye, but he was on his feet and laughing.
"I'll kill you," Grumpy snarled.
Norco only laughed harder. "Was she your lover, then? Unusual for a fairy, but I suppose even the fairies have whor—"
Grumpy launched himself forward a second time, but this time Norco disappeared a moment before their bodies made contact, and the dwarf flailed for balance, his arms windmilling while he tried to catch himself. He landed on his knees before he could lurch around to face the fae, who was behind him again. The bastard.
Bad enough that losing Astrid had ripped a hole in his heart that would never heal. Listening to Norco insult her was enough to make him see red.
"Oh, did I hit a nerve?" Norco mocked him. "I hate to tell you, dwarf, but fae are harder to kill than—oh, no you don't."
Grumpy had thrown himself at the fae again—or tried to. Instead, he found himself frozen in mid-air, snarling incoherently and trying desperately to reach the face that was mere inches from his fingers. He couldn't even move those fingers, either; he was stuck, suspended, helpless. Of course the bastard would use magic. Intellectually, Grumpy knew that taking on a fae was suicide, but he could hardly care. Astrid was gone, dead, and nothing could bring her back. Nothing could ever heal him, and he was starting to think that it was a good thing Norco was bound to kill him. At least that would make the pain stop.
And maybe then he'd see Astrid again.
"I was going to kill you," Norco told him with a laugh. "But now I think I won't. Watching someone suffer after the loss of their True Love is just…too…sweet." A stunning smile lit up the fae's bleeding face. "I think I'll keep you. I need a new pet."
The last thing Grumpy heard before magic sucked them both away was Mulan screaming his name in the distance.
The two sorceresses faced off, standing inches away from one another and looking entirely too much like sisters. Robin had no intention of getting in the middle of this—although he did hold a squid ink-coated arrow nocked in his bow, just in case. Maybe he'd spent too much time around Baelfire, but when Regina had asked him to come along on this insane expedition to parley with the Witch, Robin had known he'd need some sort of advantage. He had every confidence that Regina could handle herself, but Zelena was known for cheating, and if she somehow overcame Regina, Robin planned on being ready.
Somehow, he didn't think this journey would work like their last trip into the castle, when Zelena had pretended to leave, only to call down a legion of flying monkeys on their heads. Their little army had retreated then, much to Regina's fury—Robin remembered having to practically drag her out of the castle that had been hers. That had been the beginning of what could only be called a complicated relationship between himself and the Evil Queen, but vicious arguments and clever baiting had turned into something more somewhere along the way. Regina was good woman, and although he'd never thought to love anyone after losing Marian, Robin often felt like she was his second half. And she was so good with Roland, too.
No, there was no way he was going to let some green-skinned harpy hurt Regina. Not while he had any fight in him, and Robin was something of an expert on how to fight for what he believed in.
"I don't want anything from you," Zelena snarled back. "Or is this you crawling to your older sister for safety? Are you afraid you're going to lose the war?"
Her face twisted up in a pout on the last line, and Robin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Regina, however, did not. "I wouldn't crawl to you if you were the last person alive in the world," she retorted.
"Oh, did I hit a nerve?"
Magic was going to start flying any minute now; Robin readied his bow. I knew this was going to be a horrible idea!
"Oh, shove it," Regina somehow spat without trying to kill her half-sister. Robin was impressed, knowing her as he did. "Believe it or not, I'm here to help you out of the mess you've gotten yourself in."
"The mess I've gotten myself in? Oh, Regina, you don't understand, do you?" Zelena replied, smiling hugely—but there was a nervous tick behind the grin that even Robin could detect. "I am allied with the most powerful magic there has ever been. I am—"
"A tool," Regina cut her off.
Zelena's face screwed up in a snarl. "Winning."
"Hardly. I guess you didn't get the memo, did you?" Robin's lover mocked her sister right back. "Your friend the Black Fairy showed up at my godson's christening, and Rumplestiltskin chased her away."
It was a bit of an exaggeration, but who was the Wicked Witch of the West to know the difference? Worry started stealing across her face.
"Just let me shoot her, love," Robin put in, just to see what might happen and to keep her off balance. Of course, Zelena would be expecting him to do such a thing, particularly once he's spoke up. He could only hope she'd be showy enough to catch the arrow. That is why he'd taken Baelfire's advice, and hadn't coated the tip. Even we non-magic folks can get the upper hand from time to time!
"Maybe later." Regina was back on balance, now, and those words came out in a dangerous purr. Robin knew that he probably shouldn't find her dark side quite so damn sexy, but Regina reached parts of him that he hadn't known existed before her. Not that Robin had exactly been the epitome of goodness himself—he'd chosen to be an outlaw, after all—but Regina's 'evil' was surprisingly appealing. Probably because I know there's a good woman inside her, despite the mask she wears.
Zelena, however, seemed uninterested in being better. "Don't want to let your pet have all the fun?"
This time, Robin did roll his eyes. Really? Had the woman never been in a healthy relationship before?
"Don't you get tired of throwing schoolyard insults at people?" Regina demanded. "Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you. I know how you feel. I've been where you are. And let me tell you the plain, unvarnished truth: vengeance will win you nothing. Whatever you think is my fault, fine. Take it out on me. But taking out your pain on the rest of the world only makes you hurt more in the end."
"You know nothing about me," Zelena snarled in response.
"Fine. Then tell me. Tell me all about how our mother abandoned you to a horrible fate. Trust me, being raised by her wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I wish she'd abandoned me," Regina replied, and Robin could hear years of pain echoing in her voice. "But she didn't, and eventually I learned. She killed the man I loved, and I blamed someone else for that. You know what that cost me?"
Zelena shrugged as if she did not care, and yet she still asked sulkily: "What?"
"Everything. I thought revenge would fill the hole in my heart. It didn't. I cursed our entire world to get revenge, and all it did was make it hurt more." Regina drew herself up, and Robin had never been so proud of her as he was in that moment, as she faced her fears and her own horrid past. "I used to be you. Quit while you're ahead."
"And do what?"
"Take the deal I'm offering you. Take safety and a chance to be, hell, be whatever you want to be, so long as it's not working with the Black Fairy," Regina said with a shrug. "You don't have to be our enemy. Not when she's going to try to use all of humanity as her new toybox."
Zelena's chin came up again, but Robin saw a flicker of something in her eyes. "What makes you think I don't want to be your enemy?"
"Green skin or no, you're still human," Robin put in, lowering his bow slightly. The gesture was symbolic; the difference in how fast he could shoot the Witch with the arrow pointed at her heart and with it pointed a few degrees lower was mere milliseconds, but it was the thought that counted. "You might be a player now, but how long will it be before the fae decide that you make a better puppet than puppeteer?"
She glared at him, and Robin shrugged.
"Think about it," he advised her in as friendly a fashion as he could manage. After all, she was Regina's sister, and it didn't do to burn bridges too early, even if she was a villain. "They don't need you nearly as much as you need them, and that's never a good position to be in."
"And you're trying to say that you lot need me?" Zelena snorted.
Regina spoke up again: "Need? No. But we're not overly picky—at the moment. Don't wait until you've done something so terrible that no one will ever accept you."
"Know that from experience, do you?"
"Yes. And it's taken me a damn long time to get where I am." Again, Robin was impressed by how far Regina had come, even in the last year. She really was changing, and he felt a smile tugging on his face just looking at her. "Think about it," she told her older sister again. "We'll be back. Or you can always come visit the Dark Castle."
There was definitely a hint of the old Evil Queen in that last smile, and it seemed to annoy Zelena to no end—but at least she'd listened. Robin supposed that was all they could ask, though turning his back on the Witch to leave was damn hard. Regina probably had all kinds of magical defenses ready to go, but he still wasn't confident that Zelena wouldn't curse them while their backs were turned. Despite his worries, however, the outlaw and the queen made it out of the passages without being attacked.
"Do you think she actually listened?" he asked Regina when they were in the forest again.
She shrugged. "Why would I know?"
"She is your sister, love."
That earned him a scowl. "By blood only. I hardly know her. All we've ever done is fight."
"Well, maybe this will give you the chance to do more," Robin replied, squeezing her arm and waiting for Regina to deny that she wanted that. Much to his surprise, Regina only gave him a tight smile, and they walked onwards in silence.
Rumplestiltskin had dropped them at the base of the mountain, but magical wards kept him from taking them any further. He stayed long enough to determine that the wards could be forcibly removed, but that doing so would result in the Janus Stone being swept away to some unidentified location, which left Emma, Belle, Ruby, and Hook to continue up the winding mountain path alone. The magical wards didn't keep people from walking in—that was what the dozen or so booby traps were for—so Belle's love departed to investigate more rumors of odd weather occurrences that had to be caused by fae magic. Personally, Emma was more concerned with the tales of suddenly rotting food supplies that plagued several distant towns, but Rumplestiltskin was predictably more interested in acts of greater magic. Still, he'd promised to send someone to check that out, which she supposed was the best they could expect out of the former Dark One.
Four days later, Hook led them around a hidden pit full of stakes while Ruby kept Belle from stepping into something nasty while her nose was in a book. None of them had been sure exactly what to expect up here on Fionn Mountain, but it hadn't been this. So far, Belle's quick reading—and clever memory—had saved them no less than five times, and Emma was really glad she'd decided to bring the bookworm along. Belle was surprisingly decent in a fight, too, as they'd all found out in their scrap with a group of shaggy hill tribesmen the previous day, but her real value laid in the encyclopedia she seemed to carry around in her head. That, and the half dozen books she'd brought along.
"There should be a cave up ahead," Belle said as Ruby steered her around a fallen tree, never even looking up from the page she was reading. "It's not the one we want, but we can shelter there for the night."
"How do you know it's not the right one?" Hook asked dubiously.
Belle glanced up long enough to give him an exasperated look. "Because anyone who hides anything on Fionn Mountain is obviously going to put it in the King's Cave."
"The what?" Emma found herself echoing.
"The King's Cave. It's the highest cave on the mountain"—Belle pointed upwards—"along the southern path. That's the one we're on. Haven't you ever heard of the legend of the King in the Mountain?"
"Wasn't born here, sorry."
"I have," Ruby spoke up. "Isn't that the one with a sleeping king who was foretold to come down and save his people?"
"Yes." Belle beamed. "Of course, that already happened centuries ago, but the cave is still there. It's a very magical place, one that can only be entered by the well-meaning. Human magic isn't actually supposed to work inside, though it might now. Centuries have passed, after all."
That made Emma frown. "Then why put the Janus Stone inside it?"
The map Rumplestiltskin had given David indicated that the stone was here, but even when you zoomed it in as far as the map would go, it was hard to tell exactly where on a mountain a small stone was located. Emma had the map rolled up in her pack, of course, but so far it had proven far less helpful than Belle's books had. Still, after four days of mountain climbing, Emma was really starting to wish that the Wicked Witch hadn't felt the need to move the damn stone. Everything would have been so much easier if they'd only had to assault her castle to get it back.
"Because the Janus Stone isn't human magic, of course," Belle replied easily.
"And because it gives you an entire mountain to booby trap," Hook added, scowling. "That makes what, now? Fourteen?"
"Fifteen," Ruby replied. "You're forgetting that half-lion, half-pig thing I ate."
"Right. I'd rather not think about that one, thanks. Or you eating it."
The werewolf only grinned. Emma hadn't known that Ruby could turn into a wolf during the entire 'cycle' of the full moon, or that she had the ability to do so pretty much at will, but the wolf had been very useful when odd creatures attacked them and Ruby dropped her bright red cloak. Emma had considered her little stone-hunting party rather mismatched when they'd set out, but now she was starting to think that there was a method to her madness after all. They were even getting along well.
"Okay," she cut into the banter. "Let's find that cave and quit for the night. It's getting dark, and the last thing we want is to find another booby trap by falling into it."
Yeah, she'd done that yesterday while leading the way up the mountain, leaving Hook to pull her out after almost following her into a sinkhole. Emma hadn't enjoyed that experience one bit, and she was all for getting inside a cave before something else crazy could happen today. Not that she trusted the night to stay quiet. These things never did.
Tink flew in on time to see the Gliss and Glimmer Fairies both collapse. She'd heard her friends' magical cry for help while on her way to join Emma's party on Fionn Mountain, and had hoped the detour would be quick. What she found was two dead fairies and one live fae—and barely got her wand up in time to block what would have been a killing blow of magic.
Tink didn't need magic to know that her two oldest friends were dead. She'd hardly seen them since returning from Neverland, barely had time to reunite with anyone since her wings had been restored, but now she'd never have the chance. Grief welled up within her, turning quickly to rage, and when the fae attacked her again, Tink was ready with an attack of her own. Turning the chestnut-haired woman's spell inside out, she shot it back at her opponent and was pleased to watch it hit. Hard. Serves you right, she thought viciously, landing lightly a dozen feet away from the fae woman. She wondered if this fae had anything to do with Astrid's death. Astrid had been such a sweet girl, and deserved so much better.
"I'm sorry," she said sarcastically. "Were you counting on an easy target?"
The fae woman snarled. "I'll kill you anyway, green fairy."
"My name is Tinker Bell," she shot back with a scowl. "Green's just my color."
"Oh, how sweet. You're the independent one, the one that likes humans." Burgundy robes swirled around her, and she shot another curse Tink's way.
But Tink was ready, and the magic bounced aside harmlessly. She'd learned a few decidedly non-fairy tricks in Neverland, and Tink wasn't about to let some fae get the upper hand. Or distract her with petty insults.
"I'm the one who is loyal to my friends, yeah," she retorted. "Probably a funny concept to someone like you."
"Vara," was the answering hiss.
"Excuse me?" Hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Tink couldn't think of a spell using that word, not even in oddest of magic languages.
The fae smiled ethereally. "You should know the name of the one who kills you."
A/N: Sorry for the delay before posting this chapter – I started having continuity issues when I worked on the next few chapters, and had to go back to this one to straighten things out before posting. As a note—the next few chapters happen more or less simultaneously.
Stay tuned for Chapter 26: "Two for One", in which Tink finds more trouble, Emma's group runs obstacles they didn't expect, and Rumplestiltskin meets one of the Black Fairy's favorites.