"...You're sure about this?"
Regina asks for what feels like the hundredth time; standing carefully out of the line of sight of the mirror mounted above the hearth with her arms crossed uneasily over her chest.
"Please stop asking me that, you're making me nervous."
Emma grumbles as she dips her finger into the ceramic bowl on the table and draws a scarlet line from her jaw to her sternum.
"I don't see how you wouldn't be nervous!"
The brunette challenges, and the younger woman sighs as she looks up from her gory task and meets the Mayor's tense frown somberly.
"I am, but you second-guessing things every five minutes isn't helping."
"I just don't want this to be a bad idea, Miss Swan."
Regina replies quietly, wrinkling her nose as Emma slathers her hands up to the wrist in blood.
"You think I do?!"
The blonde counters, splaying crimson palms helplessly. She is once again clad in the black leather favoured during her time in the Enchanted Forest, the pale silver of her hair streaked scarlet.
"It'll be okay, Regina."
"You don't know that!"
"Well, it's not like we have an option for it not to be."
Emma reasons as she adds several slick blemishes to her corset. Frowning as she casts her attention down to the task at hand, she requests wearily
"Please sit down. I can't focus properly with you standing there watching me like that."
"Oh, because painting yourself red is an exercise in precision?"
The brunette snipes waspishly, but she does as she's been asked and reclaims her seat; leaning as far back as she can without drawing attention to the fact as the smell of iron hangs cloyingly in the air between them.
The blood is her doing; her contribution to their plan, and when Emma had asked her how she'd managed to summon it, she'd simply remained silent.
She doesn't see what good it will do either of them if she tells the blonde she's covering herself in doe's blood. After all; matter is finite. Even magic must come from somewhere. Still, it has been quite some time since she last took the life of an innocent, and thinking of the poor beast lying exsanguinated somewhere out in the forest causes her chest to tighten.
Well, what other choice was there? It's not as though we could use the real thing!
No, not the real thing. Not her own blood in place of their cunning masquerade.
"You're sure she won't be able to tell this is fake?"
Emma asks as though reading her mind, and the brunette considers the clotted smear colouring the younger woman's cheek and shakes her head.
"It's not fake."
"Well, no, but it's not yours."
"Mercifully."
Regina croaks, imagining she would no longer be conscious if it were, which is, of course, just how they intend for it to look.
"Um, yeah!"
Emma agrees, offering the darker woman a smile that in no way serves to lift the latter's spirits; the overall effect grossly macabre.
"... I think it's convincing enough, dear. At least at first glance, which is all we really need for it to be. I don't like the idea of having to play this particular trick any longer than necessary."
"You don't like pretending I finally got one over on you?"
The younger woman grins, before looking back down at her bloodied hands and adopting a rather more morose expression.
"Well, I'd like to think you wouldn't be quite so messy about it, dear."
Regina pulls a face, but there is little humour in her tone, and she meets cool green uneasily and admits
"...I don't like thinking either of us would ever hurt each other in such a way."
"That would never happen. You know that."
"Not now... But what about before? When that woman still took up residence in my head? I once wished for just such an end to your existence."
The Mayor admits tersely in spite of the younger woman's previous declaration that she'd never truly feared such intentions.
"Please, you would never risk getting my blood all over your things like this."
Emma scoffs, but the brunette continues sternly as though uninterrupted.
"Not to mention, when we were down in the dungeon... When you had that knife... You were so angry, Emma, and for a second I thought, well... Maybe things were about to end in a similar way as we're portraying them now."
"... They didn't, though. That's the important thing, Regina, they didn't... We just can't let the Queen in on that."
The blonde speaks up after a moment's silence, and she slides the bowl with its terrible offering across the table and closes her eyes.
"I can't see what I'm doing well enough. I need you to splash some of it on me so it doesn't look so placed."
"Are you sure that's really necessary?"
Regina mutters, looking down at the slowly congealing blood while doing her best not to gag. Sighing, the blonde cracks one eye open and reminds her irritably
"We want this to work, remember? Better safe than sorry, don't you think?"
"True."
The brunette agrees, dipping her fingers into the bowl with a shudder and coating them in that hideous warmth before flicking them a few inches from the younger woman's nose to pepper pale skin with ruby droplets.
"Done?"
Emma asks, not wanting to risk getting blood in her eyes, and Regina nods slowly as she drinks in the ominous vision the younger woman proposes, before speaking up hoarsely
"Done."
"How do I look?"
The blonde asks, pushing herself up from her stool and allowing the darker woman to drink in scarlet midnight.
"Horrible."
The Mayor replies honestly, and the younger woman scowls at her- feigning offence- before teasing
"See, if you still welcomed the darkness, you'd find me ravishing right now."
"No."
Regina disagrees bluntly, before revisiting the doubt she'd suffered when the blonde had first broached their current plan.
"I'm just not sure it should be this way around..."
"Why, because it's so unbelievable that I'd best you? You know, I-"
"-My ego isn't the issue here! I know perfectly well what it is you're capable of, Miss Swan. I refuse to believe you would ever stoop to such a level, but I know what others back home fail to see; I know you have the necessary darkness in you to hurt. To harm. I don't think that you would, but I know that you could."
"So, then-"
"-I don't like the idea of you playing bait. Not after what's already happened."
"I'm not playing bait, I'm playing bitch."
Emma argues, but the brunette shakes her head as she reasons
"The fact that you're covered in blood lends you a certain aesthetic, certainly, but the truth of the matter remains that this plan revolves around you luring the Queen out in order to face her. Promisingly bloodied or not, you're still bait, dear."
"Only for a moment. Only for so long as it takes for the bitch's curiosity to get the better of her. Regina, if she finds me like this with you nowhere to be seen and all signs pointing towards me still very much holding you accountable for the shit she drudged up in my head, she's going to want to come out and play. She's going to want to gloat. She's going to want to ask questions and twist the knife. She'll want to show her hand because up until this point, it's pretty much all been her game, and now I'm suddenly having fun without her."
"She'd have questions for me if I were to take your place in this also, Emma, and she'd be much less likely to accompany them with trickery."
"You don't know that."
"Not indubitably, no, but it's a fair assumption!"
"So is the assumption that she might find the idea of you causing me this sort of damage kind of suspect."
Emma reasons, gesturing at her blood-spattered face.
"Hardly, I-"
"-Regina, the parts of you that would ever even consider doing anything like this to me have gone rogue; you cut your ties with them. Which the Queen knows, because she is that version of you; that part of you that might once have decided enough was enough and come for me with something a little more deadly than haughty disdain and a fucking apple turnover... She's messed with me ruthlessly enough over the last few days for my vengeance to be believable. Hell, down in that dungeon, there were moments when I could have believed it might come to this."
The blonde admits awkwardly, and Regina nods as she agrees warily
"You had me worried for a spell there, dear, I can't deny."
"Which she saw."
Emma insists, and the brunette takes in a deep breath as she looks the younger woman up and down and concedes.
"Fine. We do it your way."
"Our way. Blood-wearer aside, you agreed this was a good idea."
"No, I said I didn't have any other ideas."
Regina corrects, and the blonde shrugs helplessly in a way that suggests this is more or less the same thing.
"So long as we get home, right?"
Emma smiles uneasily, and the darker woman nods.
"Right... You're sure you can get her to come to you without hurting you in the process?"
"No, but that's where you come in. I can get her to your room- to the mirror- and I'm pretty confident I'll have her full attention. I'll make it look like an accident; like I'm trying to cover the mirror but I've grown cocky... She'll sink her teeth right into that, you know she will."
"Mm. Any opportunity to call you out, dear. Idiocy on account of your very genetics."
Regina agrees, earning herself an unlikely smile from the blonde.
"Aw, see, you do get it. Maybe there's just a tiny bit of evil left in you after all."
"I don't need to be evil to make fun of you."
The Mayor muses silkily, matching the younger woman's smirk with one of her own, before pushing herself up so that they stand face to face and addressing the blonde seriously.
"Once she's in position, I'll push her through. She should suffer enough shock for us to contain her once we're on the other side. Just make sure you get her in front of the glass, and be careful, okay?"
"I'll do my best."
Emma nods, looking down at the gore painting her hands with a grimace.
"...What are you going to tell her you did?"
Regina asks quietly, following the direction of the blonde's gaze.
"I don't know... I guess I'll see what comes to me in the moment."
"Is that wise?"
"Is any of this?!"
The younger woman laughs a little harshly, before confiding honestly
"If I try and think of a story, I'm worried I'll mess up. I also don't want... I don't want to think about how I'd get your blood all over me like this. I don't want to discuss that with you."
"Then I was right. You really aren't cut out to call yourself dark and evil."
"I-"
"-When I had the throne, I often enjoyed telling people what I planned to do to them more than the torture or punishment itself. True, I was evil, but I believe it's also part of being Queen. Loving the sound of your own voice."
The brunette smiles cynically, and the younger woman smirks as she rolls her eyes.
"Well, I don't think either of us has ever given my right to the throne any serious consideration."
"On the contrary, it was the basis of a great many of my fanciful plots to kill you before meeting you and realising there were so many other reasons to find you tiresome! I had to have something to fill my time when I first came to Storybrooke. Everyone needs a hobby, dear."
Regina shrugs, dark eyes glittering with mirth as the blonde chuckles appreciatively at this confession.
"I'll think of something on the spot."
Emma insists finally once she can keep a straight face, and the brunette splays her palms to indicate that this is the Sheriff's prerogative.
"Well, then... I suppose there's not much left to discuss... I still can't quite believe you've talked me into this, but..."
"Regina, it will be fine. I'll have to stall her for maybe a minute or two, and then-"
"-That's not what I meant."
"Oh?"
"I can't believe I'm entertaining this plan of inviting that woman into my town. Into my house."
"Into your body."
"... We'll see."
Regina replies quietly, but when she catches the uncertainty that creeps into the blonde's eyes, she assures her firmly
"I need to hear what she has to say. We both do... I need you to hear what I have to say. Hell, I need to know what to say... I so wanted what I did to work, Emma. I so wanted to be done with her, with this; with worrying about those around me getting hurt."
"I-"
"-But, I believe part of your disinclination to plan out your story as to my bloody 'demise' stems not from horror at the idea, but discomfort... You thought about driving in the knife the Queen handed you, I know that just as well as you do. Just as well as she does. You thought about it, and maybe, if you hadn't opted for an explanation but rather a release of your frustration, that blood you're wearing really might have been mine... That's a lot to consider. It's a lot to accept. I know this because I've been in that same position. I've been in many a position where I made the wrong choice and let darkness win... I know how it feels. Both the good and the bad. At least, I did. I understood it... You have always done your best to understand me, Miss Swan. You haven't always got it right- not by a long shot!- but you've tried, which sets you apart from so many people I've known... Since allowing each other in, we've always been good at reading each other. Understanding each other. Empathetically as well as sympathetically, which not many can say... I'm torn over what I feel the 'right move' is, dear. Even more so now, as the fact that the Queen still lives yet again begs the question I had presumed answered of whether her death might impact my own vitality. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know whether I want to let her live, to take her back, to kill her, to cage her. I don't know... But I do understand why you want me to take her back. I do. Because I was the only person you had in your life that could truly understand the conflict you feel looking down at the blood coating your hands and knowing you have such darkness inside you. That could understand what that feels like... I was the only person that-, how did you put it?... I was the only person that could match you. That could handle you."
"... I don't want you to do anything you don't want to."
"I know, and I won't. We're well-matched, dear, but don't go presuming credit where it isn't due. As you said, the choice in all of this is mine. I'm not going to make a decision based solely on what best suits you."
"I never said-"
"-I will, however, take it into consideration."
"... Yeah?"
"Of course. What part of giving things a chance don't you understand?"
"Well, I-"
"-If I merely wished to further explore what you might taste like, we needn't have had such a lengthy and difficult conversation."
Regina finishes bluntly, raising a brow as dark colour flushes the younger woman's cheeks in response to this last statement.
"I guess not."
Emma agrees a little hoarsely.
"I have a decision to make, Miss Swan, but I'm not the only one."
The brunette muses pointedly, and the younger woman swallows as she offers up a small nod to acknowledge that she understands what the Mayor means.
"Well... I suppose we better get down to it and see where this insanity leads us. I'm ready when you are, dear."
"... Let's do it."