Author's Note: This was a very intense chapter for me. I wrote half of it, then had to take a step back and let it settle before returning to write the rest. I'm not sure how/if you guys will like it, but it's probably one of the most important parts of this story. This story is very large and full of several different characters with their own journeys, but at the end of the day this story is really about one thing. It's about the battle for Regina Mill's soul.

Please read, enjoy and please review (good, bad, outraged or in-between: criticism is always welcome.)

Chapter XVI

Monsters and Daughters

Oz was a beautiful land, full of vibrant colors and cheerful people. Too bad it was all based on an elaborate lie, perpetuated by a con-man. She had sought out the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz in hopes that he would have the knowledge that she needed. Surely this renowned leader and magician would know of The Swan. He was no more great or powerful than any other man, though. He was a fraud and she had come to yet another dead-end. The Wizard, as the people of Oz called him, was clever but not magical. He was, in his own words, a humbug. Whatever that was.

He had risen to power by accident and had held onto it by trickery even his home, the grandiose Emerald City, was an elaborate ruse. The green tinted glasses that people wore to protect their eyes were cheap parlor tricks that turned white to green. She had rremoved hers and refused to put them back on. Her eyes, the same color as the city claimed to be ,gave her natural protection, she had told them. A lie, of course, but a small, almost inconsequential one in a city full of falsehoods.

She stood on a high balcony, eyes locked on the gleaming spires and towers of the city stretched out before her. Emerald or not, it was a true marvel to behold.

"It is beautiful."

The so-called Wizard stepped out onto the balcony with her.

"Sometimes, I forgot how beautiful it really is. When you live here, the glitter and glow fades into the background."

She turned from the cityscape and faced the aging wizard, "Your scheme, this fantasy of the Wizard cannot last forever. All deceptions are eventually discovered, this is known."

He nodded "And you've used your Gypsy magic to look into the future and seen my end?"

She looked over the city again, "There will be a revolution, Humbug, a great upheaval and your reign will come to an abrupt end."

He stepped closer and laid his hands on the balcony's ornamental banister, "The Witches?"

She inclined her head, "A child. A girl with a brave and true heart will be Oz's savior and your downfall."

"Ozma?"

The name of the land's seeming immortal, and suspiciously absent, queen.

"No."

She knew better than to reveal any more information to the Humbug.

"You think I'll try to stop her." He sighed and rubbed his hands across his balding head. "I'm tired. Tired of being a ruler and a recluse. Tired of being a wizard. I welcome this child."

She did not doubt that weary but imagined that his enthusiasm would last. Power was an intoxicant that few could resist and fewer still could leave behind. "Indeed."

With that, he left her. He went back to his hidden chambers to tinker with the illusions and mechanical contraptions that had transformed him from man to wizard. She looked back to the city and lost herself in the grandeur spread before her. She had only beheld a sight like this once before and that had been a very long time ago.

The pain that cut through her chest was not the familiar ache of bitter memories. It was sharp, sudden and it stole her breath away. She fell to her knees in agony but could not scream because her chest was too tight to produce a sound. She slid from her knees to sit on the cold marble floor of the balcony, glad that she was alone.

"Henry."

The pain, the soul wrenching, heart shuddering pain told her what she needed to know. The time had finally come.

"You will give your very life…" Her own words, spoken to the man she loved with all her heart, came back to mock her. He was gone. Henry, her sweet and beautiful prince, was gone. He no longer traveled in the realm of the living, his journey had come to an end.

She clutched her hand to her chest and could feel her own heart racing, and she imagined that the organ was crumbling to pieces in her chest. She had to know, she had to see. She scrambled for her book. She threw open it's ancient leather bindings and did not care that tears blotted its pages.

The Romani know all that was, is and will be, or so people said. The truth of the matter was that her people valued the stories of a person's life. Every story, every life. Every journey had meaning and an effect on others. The Book of Romani recorded the stories of people's lives and worlds. Any place a member of a Romani clan visited, any person the spoke with, their stories were added to the endless collection housed in the Book of Romani. To be the keeper of the book of Romani was the highest honor given to any one person. She had not deserved the honor, but it had been bestowed on her anyway.

She had used the honor to aid her on her quest. It was at best, an abuse of power and at worse, it was the darkest sacrilege and sin that she could commit. She would do it again and again if it would help her Nightingale.

"Show me Regina." Her voice shook as she watched the words and accompanying illustrations swan into focus on the page. It only took a moment for fresh horror to bloom in Esmeralda's chest.

Her Nightingale wore a dress that was as dark as her heart had become. She held the limp body of her father in her arms. A scream tore out of her tight throat as she read the truth. Regina's desperate need for revenge and happiness had become a sickness. A festering madness driven by bitter loss and constant sadness. She had finally broken, her Little One had fallen under the weight of her own grief.

The illustration was enough to make Esmeralda's heart break anew. Regina reached into her own father's chest and took his heart as her sacrifice for the malevolent curse that the Dark one had given her.

She was so lost and the darkness was eating her alive. A single tear was on her cheek. She loved her daddy so dearly, but even love had been eclipsed by her darkness. She felt, the book said, that she had no other choice. Her Nightingale killed her own father because she was utterly convinced that this Dark Curse was her only chance at happiness.

"Oh, My Love, I hope your death was not in vain."

She had known, always, that theirs was a doomed love but that did not lessen her pain. She wept a river of bitter, heartbroken tares. She wept for Henry, she wept for herself, she wept for the beautiful girl that they had raised and loved as if she had been born of their love and not of Henry's duty to his wife. She wept for the sweet baby that she had sang to sleep every night for almost ten years. She wept for the woman that she had grown into. The sad queen that she not been able to save.

"I'm sorry, My Love, I am so sorry. I failed you. I failed our daughter. I failed."

Her sobs overtook her and she drowned in her own tears. Esmeralda lost herself in her sorrow, regret and loss high above a glamorous city built on and of lies.

Twenty-eight years and the pain was still as fresh in her heart as it had ever been. Henry had been her True Love. He was the only man she had ever given her body to and the only man to love her despite her many flaws. Henry had given her a child to love and a quest to complete. He had given her hope, and laughter and a true home in his arms. Even when they had been apart, his letters had been her guiding light in a world full of cruelty and disappointment. Their infrequent rendezvous had been like lush oasis in the vast desert of her travels. To be together had never been their destiny, but they had fought fate to the bitter end. She had been born to love Henry and he had been born to love her, he had died loving her and she would die still hopelessly in love with him. This was known.

She stepped forward and laid her hands on the cold stone of his tomb. It was real now. Henry's death was tangible and touchable and cold beneath her fingers. He had never been cold, her lover had always been warm and full of light and love for her.

"Hello Henry."

She had never stopped talking to him. Words were wind that travelled through all realms, even the realm of the dead. Though he was not with her in body, he had never left her or Regina in spirit. She had hoped against hope that one day they would be tighter again, the three of them a happy family. He had spoken so many times of running away in the night, riding fast and hard on his two best steeds with Regina wrapped up in a blanket and snuggled against her, asleep during their escape. That had been impossible, though, and they had both known it. Her control started to break.

"I miss you, My Love."

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears flooded her eyes and she bent down and laid a soft kiss on the cold stone tomb.

"May your journey be ever bright" The traditional words of mourning. "And may you wait for me at the crossroads." The traditional words of a widow.

"I'm sorry."

Esmeralda turned to see look at her Little One and saw devastation in the woman's eyes. She had wrapped her arms around herself and was trembling. Tears were falling down her face.

"I'm so sorry. I did this, Nan. I took him for you."

She straightened up because the dead did not need her comfort, and her Nightingale did.

"Shh it's okay."

She reached out to pull her close but was shoved away with enough force to make her stumble backwards.

"Don't touch me!"

Regina held her arms out, and looked at her with wide, wild eyes. "How can you touch me? How can you bare the sight of me? I killed him, Esmeralda. I killed Daddy. I took his heart and killed him. You loved him and I murdered him. I destroyed my own father. The only person who gave a damn if I lived or died and I reached into his chest and took his heart out. Just like her. Just like Daniel."

Her words were fast and furious and Esmeralda knew that this was the first time she had ever spoken them. Her Little Nightingale had held this dark poison in her heart for years and it had been as corrosive as the fairy magic that had almost taken her life.

"I know. I have always known. Your father knew. We knew that his life would be the price that must be paid for your chance at happiness. Henry accepted that. He, we, loved you from the moment you were born. I, too, would have died for you."

Regina stumbled backwards, her face lost it color and her mouth fell open.

"You knew?" Horror spread across her pale face.

"I was your Soothsayer, My Nightingale, and I knew from that moment. The moment your father placed you in my arms I loved you and I loved him and knew that my destiny was with you."

"You knew what I would become? You knew that I would become The Evil Queen and you loved me? She shook her head back and forth in violent denial. "You should have smothered me in my sleep. I am a monster."

Regina Mills had seen tears, she had seen sorrow, and she had seen suffering. She had been the cause of all of these things and more. She had ordered an entire village slaughtered because they would not speak against Snow White. She had banished children to wander in the woods, she had taken countless hearts and crushed them in her hands. She was the Evil Queen. She had been a girl once, innocent and naive. She had loved, truly and deeply, like Esmeralda loved Daddy. She had loved Daniel with a full and pure heart and her mother and Snow had killed him. The loss had devastated her, redefined her life, broken her heart and darkened her soul forever.

She saw the same loss, the same sadness, the same love play across Esmeralda's face. Regina felt a bitter cold settle over her heart. It crept into her bones and replaced marrow with ice. The darkness, mostly dormant for twenty-eight years, surged forward and throbbed in her temples. She had killed Esmeralda's True Love. She had ripped his heart out and held it in her hands. She had thrown it into a fire to give rise to The Dark Curse. She had killed her beloved father for a fool's notion of love and happiness. Whether it had been for happiness or power, her father and Daniel had both died the same way. Their hearts had been ripped out by cruel, evil women. She was no better than Cora. She had become the thing that she had hated more than anything. When she had been a child she had wanted to grow up to be like her Nan. Only things had twisted around and she had ended up becoming a carbon copy of Cora.

When Esmeralda bent down and kissed her father's tomb and spoke the Old words she felt something deep inside of her break. The cast-iron chest in her soul where she had shoved her sadness, grief and overwhelming guilt rusted, crumbled and the feelings that she had denied for over three decades rushed through her. She was suddenly lost in a riptide of darkness and she was simply too tired, too numb and too weighted down by her own evil to even attempt to swim.

"I'm sorry." Spirits, she was so very sorry. "I did this, Nan." The other woman would never answer to that name again. She was about to lose the last person in the world who cared if she lived or died. "I took him from you." The same way Snow and Cora had taken Daniel from her.

Esmeralda straightened up and Regina prepared herself. She knew that the woman's green eyes would be sharp and angry and her words would be cruel and angry. She deserved no better.

"Shh." The other woman reached out for her, offering comfort. "It's okay."

Regina shoved the other woman away, she didn't understand. She could not comprehend. Why wasn't Nan mad at her? She had done terrible, horrible, unforgivable things.

"Don't touch me!" Because she was darkness and she hurt everyone she cared about. She was like a cancer, she corrupted everything she touched. She held her arms out to keep the other woman away.

"How can you touch me?" How could she want to comfort her True Love's killer?

"How can you bare the sight of me?" She'd had to shove her mother through a mirror after she'd killed Daniel. What did Esmeralda want to do to her?

"I killed him, Esmeralda. I killed Daddy. I took his heart and killed him." She could still feel his heart in her grasp. She could feel his warm embrace turn into cold, dead weight in her arms. She still had nightmares about killing him. She woke up in the dead of the night screaming for her father to forgive her, but forgiveness would never ever come.

"You loved him" Her voice broke on that and remembered screaming something very similar at her mother as the dust of Daniel's heart floated out of her clenched her fist. "and I murdered him." Damn her soul forever, she had done it. If none of other crimes and deeds had happened she would still be forever damned for that.

"I destroyed my own father." Tears were flowing now, an endless sea of ink-black sorrow that lived in her heart had finally over flowed.

"The only person who gave a damn if I lived or died and I reached into his chest and took his heart out. Just like her. Just like Daniel." She had hunted Snow for years, damning her existence, wishing her nothing but sorrow and pain but she was no better than the little princess who had betrayed her so many years before.

Esmeralda's words each hit her with the excruciating pain of a bullwhip. They scored her flesh and ripped into her soul. Pain boiled in her blood and bubbled under her skin. Her entire world started to crumble and slide into the sea of blood that she had spilled.

She couldn't do this anymore.

The thought hit her like yet another wave. She had lost Daniel, Daddy and now Henry. She was going to lose Esmeralda somehow soon, and she would be alone again. She had spent so many years alone and she just could not survive it again. She would go truly insane this time, if she wasn't there already. Insanity or death, the choices were finite and bitter and she had known.

Esmeralda had known that she would become this way. She had looked into her future and had seen The Evil Queen in the eyes of an infant. That statement rocked her to her very core. She had never even had a chance. Her destiny had never been to be a young stable boy's wife or a happy mother, she had always been destined to be the villain. She had been born to be The Evil Queen.

"You should have smothered me in my sleep."

Then Daniel would have lived. Then Daddy would have lived. There would have been happy endings and happy people and no Evil Queen. There would have been no damaged little girl ripping out hearts to make people stay and love her. She could hear the tell-tale beating of the hearts she had stolen beating quietly in the vault beneath their feet. So very like her mother's vault of hearts. Was her mother proud of that fact? Did Cora think it was fitting for the daughter of the Queen of Hearts to be so adept at her mother's monstrous art?

"I am a monster."

The truth was a bitter poison on her lips. She felt cold marble on her back and realized that she had backed herself into a corner. Her heart hammered in her chest and her head roared. She bit her lip and wished she could make it stop. Everything hurt too much, she couldn't stand the pain anymore. She just couldn't. Even Evil Queens had their limits and she had gone far past hers.

She wasn't sure when her eyes had slid closed, but they snapped back open when two hands fell on her shoulders. Esmeralda's green eyes bore into her dark ones and she flinched away from the stare.

"No."

One of the hands left her shoulders and grabbed her chin to hold her face still.

"You are the daughter of Henry. You are the mother of Little Henry. You are not a monster."

Regina could feel more tears over flow her eyes. "You don't know. You were gone. You didn't see."

Esmeralda shook her hard enough for her head to hit the marble behind her.

"I saw." Esmeralda would not break eye-contact with her. "The Book of Romani holds your story just as it does every other story of the realms. You darkened your heart. You committed atrocities. You pillaged, burnt, killed, and were a blood drenched warrior queen and sorceress that even the ogre hordes feared. Tales of The Evil Queen spread wide and far. I heard of your deeds as far away as the deserts of Agrabah and the ever frozen wastes of the Far North." The Romani woman's eyes were hot green, like a flame when it touched copper. You gave into darkness, My Nightingale, but that does not mean that you are forever damned to it."

She had known? Esmeralda had known what she did, but she had returned anyway? Why? She didn't understand. Was Esmeralda here for revenge?

"Perhaps I should be. I killed Daddy, and for what? This curse was supposed to be my happy ending, but it was a nightmare. A never ending purgatory until Henry, and now I've lost him too. Now this Hell is full of people who want me dead and my son hates me. This is what Daddy died for, another slow and painful torture for me to endure."

Esmeralda's grip on her arms was tight enough to bruise. "Do not say that." Her voice was angry now, her accent made heavier by her passion. "Your father sacrificed his life for this town. Storybrooke is Henry's legacy, his love for you, his last gift to you. Do you not think he would love it here? The forest, the sea, the simplicity. Do you not feel his heart beat in the wind that blows through the leaves of your tree? Your used his heart to create this place and his spirit is strong here. Henry only wanted your happiness. This could be your happiness."

Regina blinked, shocked. She had never thought about it that way. All these years and she had never considered that Storybrooke was her father's legacy. He would have, she realized, loved the little town. He would have eaten at Granny's daily and courted a heart-attack from his addiction to greasy hamburgers. He would have spoiled his grandson and taught him to ride the same way he had taught her. He would have puttered around the stables, filling his days with small chores and laughter.

He could have had a life with Esmeralda here, simple and sweet.

More tears streamed down her face.

"I miss him so much. I killed him, but I miss him every day."

Warm, scared, arms pulled her into a hug. "I know, Little One. He loved you no matter what, and his love for you continues on even now just as your love for him does. That is why you're not a monster, Regina. Monsters can not love. Monsters do not feel guilt or remorse. Monsters do not adopt little boys and name them for their fathers. You stayed in Storybrooke for twenty-eight years and it is still here. Your most bitter enemy is still alive. A monster would have killed her in the dead of some night and been done with it. A monster would not have put herself in mortal danger to bring home two women that she doesn't even like."

Regina chuckled darkly, "God. Snow." She lifted a hand to wipe her tears away. "I want to kill her. I almost did so many times. What kind of person looks at a little girl and wants to strangle them to death, Nan? How can you forgive me when I can't feel anything but contempt for her?"

Esmeralda smirked, "I did not know her as a child, but as an adult she is quite-"She quirked a dark brow, "aggravating. Between her and her husband, one can understand why you went to war with them. Self-righteous fools."

Regina felt herself smiling because the image of her beloved nursemaid wrinkling her nose at the mention of the Charmings was just too over-the-top.

"But you must try to forgive her. This grudge, this blood feud, it will only continue to darken you. Your thirst for revenge only hurts you. It is a blight on your soul. If you truly want to return to the balanced path, you must try."

How? She had been trying so hard, but every time she made progress she felt like she fell all the further. If she forgave Snow that would mean that she had been truly wrong. That she was the one to blame for everything. She would be admitting to everything, every drop of blood, every crime. She would have no reason anymore, no explanation. Just the evil blood lust that had consumed her. She did not know if she could shoulder that weight. There were so many wrongs in her past and without Snow as a scapegoat, she would have to look in the mirror and know that she was guilty of each and every one of them. Henry would never take her back.

"I've been trying to redeem myself for Henry."

Esmeralda let out a sigh and touched her chin and lifted her face again, gently this time. "You cannot do this for Little Henry or for me. You must do this for you and only you. You must want to right your wrongs and make the change to yourself. You misused your magical gifts. You used them to harm, now you must retrain yourself to heal. Heal others and yourself."

She made it sound so easy.

"I swore off magic, for Henry."

Green eyes flashed, "Little Henry is your son, not your leader. He is a child and knows little about your past and your struggles. He cannot understand how hard restoring the balance of light and dark will be. You cannot let him dictate your every action. You need to redeem yourself and that is a journey of soul searching and using your Spirits-given-gifts to help your people. It is your obligation as one of the magically gifted. This is known."

"But-"If she used magic he would hate her again.

"Everything cannot be about Little Henry, Regina. You have a life too, one that you must repair before you can truly be a mother to him."

More tears flowed down her cheeks. "He doesn't want me to be his mother."

Esmeralda smiled at this, "He has your spirit, Little One. You forget how rebellious you were. Some days I think your father and I spent more time arguing with you than anything else. You have always had a temper, and by birth or not, Little Henry has inherited it. He is angry and confused, but you are his mother. He will return to you. The question is: will you be ready when he does?"

She had never wanted to lose him, but she understood what Esmeralda meant. She had not been a very good mother to Henry.

"It was so easy when he was young. I just remembered what you and Daddy did with me. I read books and he was such a good little boy. When he got a little older, though, I didn't know what to do. He's so strong-minded and angry and smart. I caught myself using the same spells on him as mother used on me. I caught him with tree limbs and held him in the air. That's when I knew. I knew I was becoming her and not you. He left me that day and has not been back since."

Her heart ached for her little boy. It felt like a piece of her died every morning she woke up and went to see that his room was still empty. There were no shoes on the stairs or sticky glasses left in the sink. There was no echo of his superhero movies from the den or comics left on the back of the toilet in his bathroom. There was no life in her mansion without her son.

Esmeralda stepped away from her and the warmth of her cloak-clad form left her. "Come, My Little One, it is time to go home. Your father's spirit is not here. He walks beside us, shrouded in the mists of the realm of the dead, watching and loving us the same way he always has. This is known."

The idea of her Daddy's spirit still being with her, watching and loving, was an oddly comforting thought. She had forgotten, or ignored, so many of Esmeralda's teachings over the years. Daddy had believed in the OId Ways, despite her grandfather and mother's displeasure and protests.

"Okay."

She squared her shoulders and wiped away her tears. Her heart still ached and her soul still burned with pain, but there was something else now, something new and different fluttering in her chest. She hadn't felt it in such a long time, that she was afraid to give it a name.

It felt like hope.

"Good. We will go and I will give you your first lesson underneath your tree. The same way I did when you were a child." Esmeralda grinned at her, earlier seriousness seemingly forgotten, "And you will tell me why the tree your father and I gave you is missing a limb."

Pain, sadness, horror, desperation, love, for a moment it fell away and Regina chuckled. "That is part of a very long story, Nan."

Esmeralda linked her sleeve and scar covered arm through hers, "I am Romani, Little One, we love nothing more than a good story."

*End Part I*

Part II will have: A last minute science project, a school dance, more flashbacks, more Maleficent (she insists on being in this story), magic, newspaper articles, an engagement, danger, more Cora (and Cora'd scenes) destiny-defying feats, someone(s) will sign a deal with Mr. Gold, and some surprises. Also never fear, SwanQueen is coming.