A/N: As promised, part 2 :) Hope you enjoy, and comments would be lovely!
Blinking slowly, Emma frowns as she is met by nothing but grey. Oppressive. Infinite. For a moment, she suffers a terrible wave of fear that she's lost not just the battle, but the war, and that the Evil Queen has truly broken her. That she has somehow ceased to exist, and that this is some version of hell mortals have yet to consider.
Give me flames. Give me pitchforks any day! Give me something! I can't do this. Can't live like this forever. Can't-
But her fretting is interrupted by a shrill caw, and her eyes widen as the endless nothingness is broken up by three black shapes as a family of birds flies overhead. Closing one eye with a low groan, she pushes herself up onto her elbows and takes in her surroundings; coming to the understanding that the grey void threatening thunder is just the sky and that she lies in a small clearing that she remembers well.
"Oh fuck..."
She mutters, and a low rumble heavy with the threat of rain accompanies this sentiment fittingly. The last time she'd been here, it had been a confusing, overwhelming experience, but this time she knows the score. Wrinkling her nose at the lingering scent of sulphur and soot, she struggles to her feet and shucks the ugly brown robe that swamps her from her shoulders. She's naked underneath, but she pays this little concern as this isn't like the last time she'd been consumed by the darkness only to emerge in this curious section of the woods, and she doubts Rumple will be making an appearance any time soon to mentor her in the ways of the dagger.
That was all in your head, anyway.
Right. And regardless, she's done all that already.
She knows.
Another rumble of thunder, and heavy droplets begin to fall; hitting her bare flesh with force and washing away some of the dust and dirt from the shallow grazes patterning her limbs as a result of the Queen's rough ministrations.
The Queen...
Green eyes narrow as the blonde seethes angrily, her mind still spinning with memories she'd tucked carefully away that have been shaken up and let out of their cages by the Evil Queen's hand.
"She can't get away with it. Not that move... I'll kill her."
The blonde hisses, and it's a strange thing, as she finds she actually believes her threat for truth. It is something she has previously said about several people- most frequently Neal once she'd gotten out of prison to find herself alone and without answers- but she has always considered it something one says in the heat of the moment, rather than an honest claim of intent.
She had never imagined she actually would kill Neal.
Never imagined she'd kill her foster brothers and sisters for their various transgressions.
Had never intended to follow through with her grumbled threat in the company of her mother that she planned to murder Miss Ginger for yet another sly remark when passing her in the street.
Nor had she meant it- not if she's entirely truthful with herself- when she'd promised to slay the Queen.
"This time, I mean it."
She mutters as she stalks from the clearing and into the thick veil of shadow cast by the trees.
Oddly enough, she thinks that one of the few people she hasn't threatened to kill- in jest, or out of pure frustration- is the Mayor, despite the woman all but begging for it when they first met. She isn't about to romanticise this fact with any deeper reasoning- the words simply never left her lips- but as she walks through wet dirt laden with sharp twigs and roots that bite at her feet, she rolls her eyes; bemused, but not quite ready to see the funny side in her subconscious favouring of Regina. Not when it threatens to prove several things the Evil Queen has accused her of.
"Ah!"
She hisses, wincing as her heel comes down on a dead snag of thorns, and she lifts her foot reflexively; watching as several drops of blood blemish the earth. The sting of the wound serves to help clear her head, and she savours that barb of pain for a moment before making a small movement with her wrist and clothing herself once more in tight leather and black boots laced to the knee.
Venturing further into the woods, she has no real way of knowing where she's going, but that's okay. She'll figure it out when she's ready. For now, she's content to endure the thunder and the rain as she nips at her bottom lip thoughtfully, biting down hard enough to draw blood where soft flesh has been previously abused; not noticing as it tracks down her chin only to be washed away in sections as the rest dries. Finally, she comes to a halt, her attention captivated by what she spies between the trees, and a slow smile finds her lips.
"Poppies."
She murmurs, ducking out from under low branches to enter the clearing where a small colony of flowers bloom deep scarlet. They sport dark, purple veins- almost black- down the centre of their petals, unlike those in the world she's left behind, but she recognises them instantly, having learned more than she'd bargained for about this particular species while in Neverland.
She recognises the species and knows what it can do.
Bending down, she picks five blooms dappled with raindrops; careful to keep from allowing the pollen to touch her flesh. Opening one hand, she conjures a large piece of brown paper which she wraps around her small harvest; marvelling at how much more easily magic comes to her when her adrenalin is pumping and her blood courses potently with anger and aggression.
No wonder Rumple and Regina held all the cards...
She muses as she considers the bundle in her hand, and she recalls the pleasant thrum and heightened ability of her magic from when she'd first accepted the darkness on Regina's behalf, but this is more than that, this is like a drug, and she imagines it must be something to do with the fact that when she'd previously become the Dark One- a Dark One- she'd done so reluctantly. Now, since giving in to the urge in her basement back in Storybrooke, she accepts the mantle as it seems only fitting in the face of her current opponent.
"She's not going to get away with it."
She repeats savagely beneath her breath, and she closes her fist around paper-wrapped stalks, before closing her eyes and concentrating on where she means to find herself when she opens them once again.
"Saviour?!"
The Queen barks for what feels like the hundredth time, becoming ever more irritated as she is met with silence. The peculiar residue powdering the floor where the blonde disappeared has since eaten a series of dark groves into the stone, and while it's entirely out of character, the brunette is forced to admit to herself that she feels ill at ease. She has checked the room in which she'd first awoken in the palace, as well as the atrium and the topiary garden outside; still bearing the ruin of her previous attempts to flush the bitch out of hiding.
"Emma!"
She tries, feeling altogether too friendly for her liking shouting the younger woman's name out so that it echoes through the halls of the castle, but she receives no response, and she can feel it within herself that the blonde is no longer close by.
"Where have you gotten to, Saviour?"
She mutters, entering her room where the chair she'd tortured the younger woman upon stands sentinel over ominous burns. She looks away from this curious scene and heads towards the bed. Collecting her clothes, she dresses slowly as she tries to formulate a plan. Taking a seat on plush covers, she runs a finger over her bottom lip as she ponders, meanwhile wondering if the blonde's imbecilic parents back in Storybrooke have noticed that she's missing.
Wondering if Snow has begun to fret.
"Oh, you poor thing..."
Emma muses as she steps between a scattering of bones surrounding the easily identifiable mound of a ribcage. The size alone distinguishes the beast, but the skull leaves her in no doubt that the remains- along with several others- belong to one of the horses that must have perished without anyone to care for them after the Queen's curse hit. Glancing up over the stable doors, she spies the castle looming in the distance behind the courtyard; an eery silhouette against a gunmetal sky.
"This is going to be a game of hide-and-seek you don't want to win, Your Majesty..."
She warns quietly, smiling in a way that would unsettle the darker woman greatly were she present to bear witness.
Turning her back on turrets and grandeur, the blonde spies what she'd been hoping to find hung up on a row of pegs on the far wall and she feels a flutter of excitement spring into existence low in her stomach. Stalking over, she runs her fingers experimentally over the selection gathering dust against the stone wall. Her knowledge is fairly basic, but she recognises a variety of riding crops, along with two bullwhips (which she has always simply thought of as 'sex whips'), one of which she takes down from its peg and handles curiously. What really catches her attention though, is the lunge whip lying on the floor beneath its cousins; the rod made from carved wood, unlike the fibreglass she has seen back home, with a long lash, and dangerous leather constituting a wicked tongue. The latter is cracked in places with age and disuse, but it keeps its integrity when she raises it in her hand and aims an experimental crack at the wall to elicit a sharp, pleasing noise.
"Excellent."
She murmurs matter-of-factly, before coming to a stop- hands on hips and whip in hand- in front of the large wooden back doors that loom over her at seven-foot high and several inches thick. Heavy nails adorn the wood, along with a pattern of knots and irregularities. Her mind races as she drinks in their rough relief, before turning back to the pegs and the workbench that runs alongside them. The bench hosts yet more riding equipment, some of which she recognises, some of which she wouldn't have the first clue what to do with.
Not that it matters.
No, what matters is what she means to do with it, and she comes to a stop in front of a collection of bridles in various hues of black and brown. Touching the thick strip of the nose piece, she secures her plan, and she smirks to herself as she begins using her magic to slice and link the leather to the wood as she wills, thinking how wrong her high school art teacher had been when accusing her of lacking creative flair.
"Bite me now, Miss Jecovich... "
She hisses as she tests the pull and give of her contraption, although she imagines Miss J might be less than impressed- appalled, actually- if faced with her depraved creation.
This thought lends her another smile, and she steps back to admire her work before turning once more toward the castle.
You played your little trick with those magical restraints, but what about something I've come across in the real world, Your Highness? You forget, you're not the only one with tricks up their sleeve and a past riddled with experimentation.
No, but she knows the Queen well- had known Regina well- and she knows that the side of the darker woman that currently walks the halls of the castle is a slave to her own arrogance. She has a habit of believing herself to have the upper hand, whether that presumption is based on fact or fantasy, and the blonde is eager to prove to her now that fantasy can be shattered.
Well... In a manner of speaking... I'm not so sure that rings true for myself right now...
She touches the sharp point of her tongue to her upper lip and represses a shiver; knowing that she could go about this in an ultimately more violent and final way, but still reeling from the darker woman's deceitful actions and wanting to pay her back in kind. She supposes this feeds into the game they've been playing all along, but understands also that there's a difference. She no longer suffers any boundaries. What she'd done with the diary had been low, but the Queen had been right when she'd scolded her whilst knelt on the hard stone floor; she could have gone further. She could have cut deeper.
"Careful what you wish for..."
Emma warns the silent stable gravely, unwrapping the poppies from their makeshift packaging and pulling a metal spoon from the workbench. At first glance, she finds it to be a curious item to have to hand, but a couple of barely legible markings in the bowl lead her to believe it had once been used to measure out doses of medicine. Whatever its original purpose, she uses it now as a vessel into which to carefully tap out noxious pollen.
Placing the spoon on uneven cobbles beside the lower mandible of a long-dead horse, she steps back to survey the scene in its entirety and considers it ready to be put to use. All she needs now is to lure the brunette into her trap, and she knows just how to do it.
Stepping out into the courtyard, she finds what she had spied upon first showing up here; a stack of armoured chest plates seemingly dropped and abandoned in the throes of the Curse. She approaches them carefully, at an angle, throwing the fraying remains of a flag over the first that she comes across and hoisting it up into her arms. Taking it back with her into the safety of the stable, she unveils it with the dull side facing her and the shiny surface resting against the wall. Casting a quick glance over at the castle, she cloaks the chest plate with a sweep of her hand- effectively rendering the mirrored surface blind- before deeming it safe to turn around. Satisfied, she allows herself one final check of her surroundings, before lowering herself down onto the ground and forcing her limbs to go limp; her right arm outstretched with the palm submissively cast to the heavens beyond the thatched roof, a couple of inches away from the loaded spoon.
Making a small motion with her left hand, she removes her cloaking charm from the chest plate; allowing the shiny surface to act as a mirror, and simply waits for the Queen to resort to old habits in her predictable quest to find her prey. She imagines it won't take too long, just as she imagines that the darker woman's curiosity upon spying her seemingly sprawled out, lifeless, on the floor will supersede her instinct to behave as cautiously as would be advisable when facing the Dark One.