A/N: Things are about to get interesting ;) I hope, anyway!
Taking in a few deep, calming breaths, Regina finally lowers her hands into her lap and considers the small pile of curious tools she's placed in front of the mirror. Looking up to be met with her reflection, she studies herself pensively; drinking in expensive wool and the soft merlot of her lipstick. She wonders what her hateful counterpart has seen fit to wear and suffers a disagreeing pull to the side of her mouth. She's sure that she will endure no end of teasing once she succeeds in bringing Emma home; doubting that the blonde will find herself particularly impressed with the airs and opulence she had once seen as key to maintaining her throne.
You best hope she teases you. You best hope this experience hasn't done some serious damage to what the two of you have somehow managed to salvage from a rocky past.
She sighs, supposing that it's unlikely recent events will incur absolutely no damage, what with kidnap seeming the plausible outcome of the Queen's games at the very least.
Let's not forget the damage to Miss Swan's basement door. Violent damage... That, and the cuff. The darkness locked inside fractured metal that should never have been able to be removed.
"I'll deal with that when the time comes."
Regina muses with a frown, resigning to admit- to herself at least- that she's a little nervous about what she might find when she crosses the realms; certainly in terms of her friendship with the Saviour, but also in terms of any ideas the Queen might have put in Emma's head.
She was flirting with me, I no longer have any doubt, and knowing what I know now- knowing the Queen has been up to her tricks- I wonder if Emma was trying to tell me something by way of her peculiar mannerisms. After all, save to say our curious encounter occurred when danger was already lurking behind the scenes... Why didn't she say something, though? Why didn't she make it clear something was amiss?
The brunette frets with a furrowed brow, supposing that Emma's entirely out-of-character sultry act and her choice of wardrobe might well have been the younger woman's attempt to signal that things were not well with her, only...
"Only there's been a number of times in the past when I've wondered if she wasn't being suggestive or coy, and while I was preoccupied with the dress- god, that dress- I wasn't as thrown off as I might have been if her behaviour had come totally out of the blue."
Unease accompanies this realisation and Regina opts to let the matter lie for now; supposing she should really insist that they discuss their relationship at a less precarious time, but knowing that she won't.
Enough. Now's not the time for any of this.
No, and if there's one silver lining to this most fucked up of situations, it's the fact that getting to the Enchanted Forest and retrieving the Saviour trumps all other issues; allowing them to be momentarily swept beneath the rug and left cautiously- thankfully- alone.
Pushing herself up from the bed, she stalks over to the ornate bureau half-hidden beside her dresser. The ancient piece of furniture is mostly for show- laden with a number of decorative quills and headed slips of parchment paper she rarely has any reason to use- but inside the bottom drawer, she finds what she's looking for.
Her mother's spellbooks.
Three in all, as the rest reside down in her vault. The three she keeps in her room aren't of the dark breed her mother had favoured during the latter part of her life, having been gifted to her when she first began her foray into magic. Inside the cover of each, the name Cora has been neatly inscribed in flowing cursive, and Regina supposes she's kept them to hand as a keepsake of the woman she'd always wished her mother would be.
"Now's not the time for any of that, either."
She murmurs softly; flicking through yellowed pages until she finds the enchantment Maleficent had proposed.
The Gift Of Sevens.
The page is littered with warnings and exceptions to the rules, but this does little to phase her as it's a common sight in books containing such power. For the most part, the guidelines marry closely with the witch's explanation of the spell, and Regina uses the old book merely for reference to help calm her nerves.
"Seven hours. This will all be over in seven hours."
If things go to plan, then yes. If not... Well, she doesn't want to think about what might happen to her if she doesn't succeed in her task, especially as the one person whose help she might rely on in dire circumstances has already been pulled into the chaos ahead of her.
"It will be fine."
She assures herself primly, laying the book down on the carpet and kneeling in front of her reflection.
Let's start with the easy part...
A good idea, and she reaches out to drag the chair from her vanity table over towards her and places the lantern on its seat with the glass door facing the mirror. Slotting the candle into the base, she ignites the wick with a small motion of her hand.
"Picture the place you wish to enter."
She reads off the pages of the spellbook, and she closes her eyes as she thinks of her bedroom in the palace she had once called home. It isn't particularly hard to do so as she often finds herself returning to the Enchanted Forest in her dreams, although over the last couple of years, those dreams have become more like nightmares.
Perhaps this strange quest can help me find some peace...
Possible, but she doubts it. She suffers deep trepidation about facing her former self and doesn't foresee there being anything peaceful about what she's about to do.
She'll probably not be too pleased to see you either, given your last exchange was her attempted murder...
An irritable expulsion of air through her nose at this as she purses her lips, and when she opens her eyes to look in the mirror, her reflection stares back at her from her palace bedroom.
"What was I thinking with those drapes?"
She mutters with a disgusted pull to her lips, and she imagines she will soon find several more disastrous design choices that come back to haunt her, but for now, she can see very little; the mirror soon to act as her doorway to the Enchanted Forest mounted in the corner of the room, reflecting only silk wallpaper, hideous drapes, and a swatch of ink-black sky.
"It's enough, though. It's enough for the spell to work."
Yes, but then this isn't the part she's worried about.
Sighing, Regina picks up the knife; removing the napkin she'd placed over the blade.
Are you willing to bleed for the Saviour?
She's still irritated by Maleficent's purposefully vague question, mostly as she might have had to admit to herself things that she would rather not.
What? That you'd bleed for Miss Swan and do so a considerable amount? Out of character, perhaps, but let's not pretend each of you hasn't endured pain and suffering to help the other before. It's not unfathomable to think that you would offer your blood when you have offered everything else.
Not everything...
No, not everything, but that particular thought has the propensity to take her mind to some confusing places, and so she forbids it from blossoming further and focuses instead on the knife.
"Just do it."
She mutters, not one to do all too well with pain, nor with marking herself and tainting perfection. True, she is able to eradicate most of the physical damage she suffers, but it's the principle of the matter which now causes her to thin her lips distastefully.
She pulls back her sleeve and considers the smooth skin of her forearm. The illustration in the book depicts a man slicing deep into the palm of his hand, and she recalls witnessing several others opting for this approach when casting their hexes and charms. The book doesn't specify the location for drawing blood, however, and experience has taught her that this is not something that matters unless specifically stated. As such, she forgoes the immense pain sure to accompany cutting into an area so plentiful in nerve endings with a sniff of disdain at her depicted guide, and instead places the blade against the less sensitive flesh of her forearm; pushing down with an audible click as she swallows.
"Ah..."
She winces, pulling the knife away with a purposeful dip and swish so that it cuts cleanly into her skin, leaving a neat, curiously vibrant scarlet line. Slowly, blood begins to well up and collect, eventually rolling down her arm, and she quickly snatches up the napkin to keep it from dripping onto the floor.
Why is there always the danger of things getting messy when Miss Swan is involved?
She rolls her eyes before dabbing her finger against the slow trickle of blood with a pinched expression of disgust. Drawing a crimson smear around the base of her mirror, she gets up and completes her gory tracing of its perimeter. With that done, she steps back, deciding that she will task Emma with scrupulously cleaning the glass upon their return as punishment for the trouble she's caused with her absence.
"Please, like you'd trust her to do a good job..."
She sighs, having observed the Sheriff's attempts at cleaning on a number of occasions, although it hadn't been very clear at first that that was what she was doing, nor had the results been especially successful.
That will be where Henry gets it from.
She smirks, knowing that there had been a time when such thoughts would have left her feeling angry and wounded, but she has since come to accept their strange family dynamic and she's comfortable with calling Emma Henry's mother when doing so to explain bad habits that absolutely haven't come from her.
Checking that her crimson seal shows no gaps, she turns back to the lantern while squeezing the wound to her arm to coax up fresh blood; deciding that the first thing she plans to do in the Enchanted Forest is to find somewhere to wash herself off; detesting the iron-rich scent that taints her flesh.
Emma can wait that long, I'm sure...
She muses, although she knows her priorities would change in an instant if she were to enter on the blonde requiring aid.
That's if she's there at all...
A reasonable concern, as there's nothing to say where the Queen and the Saviour might have gotten to on the other side, but she trusts that she will be able to track them down once she walks the same realm as her counterpart.
Really? It seems as though you'd been doing so for quite some time already, yet you were none the wiser.
"That's different. I wasn't expecting anything."
She hisses irritably, suffering another twinge of embarrassment that she should find herself in such a mess, and hoping that she might be able to convince Emma to keep things between themselves, Lily and Gold, rather than needing to alert the Charmings and the pirate to the fact that her darkness has once more threatened to cause trouble. She imagines the blonde will be amenable to this particular request, partly as she has come to find that Emma will generally do what she can to please her- possibly due to the lack of insults and accusations of late- but mostly as she doesn't think the younger woman will want it to be common knowledge that she'd played the part of damsel in distress.
A smile at this, before the expression becomes tainted when she remembers what she'd felt when handling the cuff, and she collects fresh blood carefully with the blade of the knife before allowing it to drip into the lantern and onto the candle's flame with a troubled expression.
"Six... Seven..."
She counts beneath her breath, and as soon as the final drop touches fire, she feels a curious tug that seems to be located between her shoulder blades, and when she looks around at the mirror, its surface appears to ripple; suddenly more like water than glass.
"Well... I suppose this is the time..."
She swallows, steeling herself for whatever's to come and stepping through the glass.
"Saviour?!"
The Queen yells out, her hands outstretched as she navigates ungodly darkness. She curses herself for allowing the blonde to stalk from the kitchens unharmed- without payback!- and now suffers a fresh breed of anxiety as for the last few minutes, she has been plunged into a pure, almost tangible blackness. She tries to create her own means of light, but every time she succeeds, the purple glow emanating from her fingertips is swiftly snuffed out, and she has the uneasy feeling that she's not alone in the grand entranceway of the palace; sure that Emma watches her. Sure that the blonde is able to see just fine, although it troubles her to admit- even if only to herself- that she has no clue how the younger woman is pulling off this wicked feat, nor what it says about what's to come.