Sophrosyne, Chapter 2- Harsh Confrontations
++ Emma ++
Coming awake, I find myself looking into a bleary pair of eyes that match my own. "Hey."
Mary Margaret nearly knees me in the face as she suddenly scrambles to her feet, frantically looking for something.
"Hey, you okay? What... what happened? What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for more powder!"
"Well, I’m pretty sure we're all out of that. What happened?"
I'm getting a little freaked out as she pretty much comes completely undone, sobbing with stress as she clings to the stone Mulan used as a mortar, babbling about it had been David, not Henry in there and he's trapped now.
It's making my head spin, but I'm seized with the need to fix this as best I can, to calm the frenzied panic in this friend who is now so much more.
My grabbing Mary Margaret's hands focuses her and her voice trails off. "We have to get back. If we don't..."
"We will. We will."
"Now you're so sure?"
I'm now sure of myself, and it's a welcome sensation after all these insane changes I’ve been through. I broadcast that sincerity to her.
"Yes. You told me to have faith and now I’m telling you; we will make it back. Okay?" She nods jerkily, but the panic is fading from her eyes. "Did you get the information?"
"It's Rumpelstiltskin. He said the key to stopping her in his jail cell."
"Okay. Then let's go get it."
Nodding jerkily, she gets up and we start gathering our few things. It takes a moment for something to register, a loss of the familiar, hard to place for a long moment. So much is unfamiliar now, that the missing weight pressed to my ribs on the right side is almost overlooked. Frantic, I jerk at the rags wound around me as a shirt and cast my gaze around the forest floor.
"No..."
"What?" Mary Margaret is freaked out all over again. I can sympathize.
"The compass is gone. And so is Mulan."
++ Mary Margaret ++
When we catch up to Mulan, a miracle really considering Emma's condition, I really do want to hurt her. To put one of my arrows through her heart or eye, still smarting and panicked from what I’ve learned, what I’ve been through. When the stoic woman goads me, I think I just might have to do it, press that arrowhead home where I have it pressed to her throat like a dagger.
Aurora’s voice shocks the hell out of all three of us.
"Stop!"
"Okay, don't take the the wrong way, but how the hell did you get here?"
I'm with Emma on this one. Imperiously, Aurora sweeps down the trail, ordering me to let Mulan go. Too startled to argue, I leap back and stare.
"Were you followed?" Mulan asks and Aurora, clearly a little shaken herself, shakes her head.
"I don't think so."
When she tells us it was Hook that freed her, I’m not the only one that just about laughs in her face. But I suppose that his wanting to prove something to Emma has some merit. He... now she, certainly was flirtatious enough, and she's the naive sort to believe in love curing all.
Like I was once.
Squirreling away speculation about Hook and his... her motivations, we're off again on our hunt, crashing through the forest like those zombies are still after us.
(11-3-12)
Oh, how I want to explore the familiar lines of the castle, the corridors and rooms that I remember so well. But there's no time and we hustle for the dungeon, pausing only long enough to light torches and lanterns in the forbidding space. Even here has strong nostalgia and I find myself hanging back, Emma unconsciously doing the same.
"Rumpelstiltskin’s cell. I haven’t been here since before Regina's curse. This is where he told us you were going to be the savior."
Stumbling, bracing himself on the rough hewn wall, Emma eyes me. "He knew?"
"It was prophesied."
I can't help but feel as though I’m missing an important clue that has nothing to do with the missing vial of squid ink. When a clearly disturbed Aurora hands over the tattered bit of parchment, I feel the creeping dread that slackens my child's face.
Emma. The name is written again and again and again, filling the entire scroll.
All I can remember is my bargain. His information for my unborn child's name, which he then immortalized with his usual sly madness.
The chill I feel is more soul than body.
++ Emma ++
As though I needed more proof that my role in this madness was preordained, the insanity of the neatly inked letters of my name, over and over again, is very convincing. What kind of madman is Rumpelstiltskin really? Snippets of Henry's book come back to me, fragments of tales, threads of story and connections I haven't quite pieced together yet.
I should help the others as they continue to frantically search, but I’m still caught up in the clues just out of my reach.
Then Mulan finds the empty inkpot and my despair is as sharp as Mary Margaret's voice. Will anything finally go our way? Shaken again, I rub at my too-short hair, cringing at the rasp of beard that reminds me of just how much my reality has been altered. For a moment I’m overwhelmed again, just wanting to crawl off in a corner and jibber like a loony for a few minutes. Maybe it will make me feel better.
Doubt it.
The numbness has sunk in so far that I barely react to Aurora's suddenly throwing a stone and the cell door crashing down to trap us. I've been through too many shocks with too little time to acclimate and my resiliency is thin.
"Excellently done, dear."
That dreaded voice stills Mulan and Mary Margaret's alarm and cuts through my haze. Sure as shit, it's Cora, striding down the stone tunnel like some goddamn queen. Even as I do my damnedest to struggle to clumsy, hurting feet, my body is yanked forward like a puppet and slams brutally into the bars. The chain around my torso tightens and then slithers away, my damn body too slow and too uncoordinated to grab back what is mine.
"No!"
But it's too late, the coveted compass is in her grasp and her smile arctic and triumphant.
"No, don't waste your energy, dear. Rumpelstiltskin himself couldn't escape from this cell. Thank you, Aurora. We couldn't have done it without you."
The girl backs away defensively, her face a riot of defiance and terror.
"Why?" is all I can whisper, far too close to broken.
"Don't blame her. She was only doing what she was told."
I have never seen a magically removed heart, the aurora borealis of reds rippling through the glass-like object, but I know exactly what it is.
"You took her heart?" I squeak, still pressed to the bars and wishing I could reach the monster's throat.
A second figure steps from the shadows and I can only stare. "Actually, I did. It was a gift."
Hook does indeed make a very pretty woman and has a glare that could nearly set a person on fire. I know, because it's leveled at me right now. As much as he... she would like to hide it, she's at least as fascinated by me. In that brief instant, I see that she had been blaming me for the change wrought on her. My own transformation is a real shock, leaving her shaken.
Aurora's guttural cry of pain breaks the staring contest, Cora's hand flexing harshly around the trapped heart. Her smile is truly chilling. "Forgive us. We'd love to stay, but Storybrooke awaits."
"Hook! Wait! Please don't do this. My son is in Storybrooke. He needs me."
It's hopeless and I know it, as the conflict in her eyes hardens and I rattle the bars with my useless new strength.
"Perhaps you should have considered that, before you abandoned me on that beanstalk."
"You would have done the same."
My grousing, sullen statement almost makes her look pitying.
"Actually, no." Pressing the advantage, she steps forward, bringing up a small, dark object. "Do you know what this is, Emma?"
It's the dried, desiccated bean the giant wore around his neck and I say as much.
"Indeed. A pirate always keeps a souvenir of his conquests, but this... Well, this is much more than a mere trinket. This is a symbol. Something that was once magical, full of hope, possibility. Now look at it. Dried up, dead, useless. Much like you. It will also remind me that I will find a solution to this unfortunate transformation, while you will die here like a trapped rat. The time for making deals is done, just as I'm done with you."
++ Mary Margaret ++
Emma is actually growling, the low, grunting of an angry, trapped animal as he strains at the bars, reaching futilely at our tormenters. With a last hateful glare, the pretty, dark-haired woman that is Captain Hook strides out after Cora to destroy all that I hold dear.
It makes me almost nostalgic Regina's straightforward resentful hatred.
As much as I want to help Emma right now, she... he would probably try to rip my head off. And poor Aurora is shaken, right down to her soul.
I can't even imagine what she must be feeling. Or can someone who's had their heart torn out even feel anymore?
"This is all my fault," she sobs softly while Mulan stands by helplessly, completely at a loss of what to do.
"Some savior I am," Emma growls. "Not doing much saving, am I?"
The rattling clang of one big fist against the bars sounds painful and makes me wince in sympathy. Gingerly, almost warily, I approach but stay just out of arm's reach.
"Emma, we're going to win this fight, you know. Good always defeats evil."
That harsh, ugly sound almost breaks my heart. "You sound like Henry."
"I guess optimism runs in the family."
"It must have skipped a generation."
"You should know better than anybody. You broke the curse."
Whipping around with sudden violence, Emma nearly screams in my face, his eyes wild. "What the hell have I done since? I got us stranded, burned down the wardrobe, let Cora get the ashes, then the compass, got myself trapped in this fucking body and made an enemy of the one man... woman, who might have helped us."
I'm frozen by the pain and vitriol spewing my way, just as much as the thick rivulet of blood oozing down his face from a rough gouge in his forehead. Deflating suddenly, Emma crumples as though too weak to hold himself up for one more moment. When he speaks again, his voice is defeated, almost lifeless.
"The only reason I ever broke the curse was because it was exactly what Gold wanted me to do."
"What are you talking about?"
My voice is a whisper and the defeated eyes are too heavy a burden for my soul to bear.
"He told you I was the savior. It was his plan. Once I fulfilled that role, maybe that's all I was ever meant to do. Everything I've ever done, he had it all mapped out before I was even born. He probably even manipulated Regina into casting the damn curse. I'm not powerful, I'm no savior. I'm a name on a piece of paper, a pawn. And that's exactly why we're in here and Cora's on her way to Storybrooke."
++ Emma ++
(11-4-12)
Voices blearily cut through the thick blanket of darkness that has silenced my torment for awhile. Selfishly, I want to go back, to avoid the insanity my life has become for just a little bit longer.
"The scroll is not going to magically open the door for us."
Mulan's heavy sarcasm actually makes me grin faintly and blink my eyes open. Mary Margaret is getting excited about something, a smile warming her face.
"Yes it is."
Our collective confusion and skepticism makes her rush to explain. "When I was a little girl, I used to sneak into Cora's chamber and watch her practice magic. She had a spell book."
Noticing that I’m awake, she moves to crouch beside me and brush a gentle hand over my aching forehead.
"Emma, the spells were in the book."
"Yeah," my voice sounds like I’ve gargled with gravel. "Isn't that was a spell book is? A book that has spells in it?"
Offering a hand to help me sit up, Mary Margaret shakes her head, too excited to respond to my sarcasm. Then she stands and faces the bars and gives me a mischievous grin that has me really curious, despite myself.
"Watch."
Raising the tattered scroll bearing the endless refrain of my name, she blows over the surface and to my utter astonishment-- one of these days I'll get used to this shit-- the words lift off the paper in a thin cloud of ink.
"Whoa! Squid ink."
Scrambling to my feet, I grab Mary Margaret in an awkward hug, careful to not touch the slow moving cloud.
"Gold wrote the scroll in squid ink!"
When the floating ink touches the bars, they simply vanish, leaving a large, round hole. Finally, maybe I can feel hope again.
"Told you," Mary Margaret says with a deep conviction that might be arrogant on someone else. "Good always wins."
As we rush to get the hell out of Dodge, Aurora wisely points out that she has to stay behind. I've grown to like her and leaving her here, tied up for everyone's safety, is not an easy decision. But there's no other choice and Mulan knows it. So she ties the younger woman up, vowing to return with her heart. It's really actually very sweet and I’m glad neither will be alone once we go home.
Guess that optimism runs in the family after all.
++ Mary Margaret ++
Driven by desperation, we crash through the forest and emerge onto the dry lake bed. No! Cora and Hook are side by side at the mouth of a whirlpool that churns away hungrily, their hands on the compass.
Only moments to act, only time for a single, perfectly aimed arrow.
When I get back to Storybrooke, I really have to remember to thank Red once again for teaching me so well all those years ago. Cora and Hook are startled when the compass goes flying into the sand.
"You're not going anywhere!" I shout, shaking with anger and worry. "This portal's taking us home." Shoving Emma, I bark, "The compass, get it!"
And the battle is joined. Fireballs fly from Cora's hands, miraculously deflected by Mulan's sword, while Emma lumbers at Hook with murder in his eyes. That confrontation would almost be funny were it not so deadly, neither of them in real control of their changed bodies. A clumsy slash from Hook draws a line of blood and my arrow misses as they dance apart. A second shot misses Cora as she vanishes in a pillar of purple smoke.
I'm sure mine isn't the only panic as something whirls away from the smoke, the leather satchel with its long carrying strap fluttering.
Aurora's heart!
Astonishingly, it's Hook that twists athletically and manages to reach out with that single, wicked claw. The strap bounces off her wrist as Hook unbalances over the whirlpool, her face panicked. Then Emma comes to the rescue, grabbing the oversized jerkin and yanking the woman back to dry land.
"Oh no you don't!"
With a sardonic grin, Hook half tosses and half rolls the bag at Mulan. I'm quite certain her look of surprise is echoed on my own face.
"I may be a pirate, but I bristle at the thought of a woman losing her heart." That wicked grin is actually more appealing on the strong, pretty face. "Unless it's over me."
Rushing over, I yell at Mulan. "Go!"
"But you need the compass!"
"And Aurora needs her heart."
Later, when I have time to process, I will be warmed by Mulan's hesitation. For now, I'm shocked when she offers me her precious sword. "Take it. It deflects her magic."
And just like that, with this miraculous gift, she is gone.
++ Emma ++
Growling with annoyance and animalistic stress, I yank out Jack's sword, needing to keep this enemy from slicing me again. The shallow cut on my upper arm burns like a bitch, but I barely notice. We circle around, sparring clumsily, probably as big a danger to ourselves as one another.
"I had no idea you had such a soft side," I jeer and she shrugs nonchalantly.
"I don't. I just like a fair fight."
Around and around we go, in a deadly dance I’m just no damn good at.
"Good form," she jeers, ducking and using her smaller weight to ram me, sending me sprawling. "But not good enough."
The bigger they are, the harder they fall seems to hold true here and I wheeze from the impact. In the corner of my eye, because I don't dare take my attention off Hook, I see Cora, dark cloak fluttering, and I worry for both myself and Mary Margaret.
This can't possibly be how our story ends.
Hook has managed to pin my sword, her smaller weight atop me, the pale blue eyes glittering in triumph. "In different circumstances, pretty boy, this could be fun, but you can't beat me. You should quit while you're still alive."
Then I feel a familiar geometric shape pressed into my ribs and hope blasts through me again.
"Why would I do that when I’m winning?"
Clumsily fishing out the compass from beneath me makes the blue eyes flicker and I lash out as hard as I can. The impact is stunning, the weight of the compass clenched in my fist helping rock Hook's head back on her shoulders. Ignoring the wail of pain from my hand, I scramble to my feet, raging with adrenaline and ready to take on Regina's crazed mother.
"Now let's go home!"
My lunge comes to nothing as Cora vanishes again, but I actually kind of expected it and roughly shove Mary Margaret towards the whirlpool.
Cora's too quick, reappearing to throw us back with a gesture. Angry, deeply angry all the way down into the most primitive, animal, lizard-like parts of my brain, I am ready to protect my family, even if it endangers me. I try to get up as Mary Margaret surges to her feet, but Cora slams me again, and I can feel that I’m running out of energy and time.
How can we hope to win?
++ Mary Margaret ++
Terrified for both myself and Emma, panic claws at me, and Cora looms close like a snake ready to strike. I'm out of ideas, out of maneuvering room, out of time.
"Why do you want to go to Storybrooke?"
It's a desperate question, more of a stall tactic than real curiosity. The unearthly, chilling calm in Cora's eyes scares me like little else has in a very, very long time. Even Regina's eyes were never this cold...
"Because my daughter needs me."
She really believes that. This insane woman has no idea of the destruction her madness has wrought, what it did to Regina, who turned all of that twisted pain on me and so many others. For the first time I think I really have a clear peephole to the insanity that led us here.
"And now, I’m going to give her the one thing she's always wanted."
No, no, no!
"Your heart."
I freeze in animal, instinctual fear, knowing what's coming and at a complete loss of what to do to save myself. Poor Charming, lost forever to a sleeping curse because I couldn't save myself and return to him. Poor Emma, separated forever from Henry.
I failed.
"Goodbye, Snow."
With a bellow of pure rage, Emma is suddenly up, knocking me aside. Horrified, I look up from the ground to witness the sickening sight of Cora's hand, buried in my daughter's chest past the wrist, aglow with magic.
"Oh, you foolish child," Cora laughs like a blade against bone. "Don't you know? Love is weakness."
But the rules have shifted again, as Cora's yank only makes Emma's big, transformed body shake, his face slack in shock for a moment. Then, his face changes with the realization of something big... and powerful.
"No," he rumbles with a deep conviction and Cora looks shocked and almost frightened. "It's strength."
With a blast of pure white energy, Cora is tossed away like a rag doll, vanishing once more into purple smoke. Scrambling to my feet, I touch the spot her hand had been, sensing Emma's warmth through the rags, and I swear I can almost feel that sweet, strong heart.
"What was that?" He squeaks in shock and I cup his cheek in my hand, willing my adoration and pride into calming him.
"That is a great subject for discussion. When we get home!"
We're driven now, victory so close we can taste it, and rush for the whirlpool, still churning patiently away.
"Ready?"
There is still conflict in the eyes we share and there will be no easy answers. But they are certainly not here and he brings up the compass so that we can trap it between our hands.
"Yeah, let's go."
And we jump.
Coming awake, I find myself looking into a bleary pair of eyes that match my own. "Hey."
Mary Margaret nearly knees me in the face as she suddenly scrambles to her feet, frantically looking for something.
"Hey, you okay? What... what happened? What are you doing?"
"I'm looking for more powder!"
"Well, I’m pretty sure we're all out of that. What happened?"
I'm getting a little freaked out as she pretty much comes completely undone, sobbing with stress as she clings to the stone Mulan used as a mortar, babbling about it had been David, not Henry in there and he's trapped now.
It's making my head spin, but I'm seized with the need to fix this as best I can, to calm the frenzied panic in this friend who is now so much more.
My grabbing Mary Margaret's hands focuses her and her voice trails off. "We have to get back. If we don't..."
"We will. We will."
"Now you're so sure?"
I'm now sure of myself, and it's a welcome sensation after all these insane changes I’ve been through. I broadcast that sincerity to her.
"Yes. You told me to have faith and now I’m telling you; we will make it back. Okay?" She nods jerkily, but the panic is fading from her eyes. "Did you get the information?"
"It's Rumpelstiltskin. He said the key to stopping her in his jail cell."
"Okay. Then let's go get it."
Nodding jerkily, she gets up and we start gathering our few things. It takes a moment for something to register, a loss of the familiar, hard to place for a long moment. So much is unfamiliar now, that the missing weight pressed to my ribs on the right side is almost overlooked. Frantic, I jerk at the rags wound around me as a shirt and cast my gaze around the forest floor.
"No..."
"What?" Mary Margaret is freaked out all over again. I can sympathize.
"The compass is gone. And so is Mulan."
++ Mary Margaret ++
When we catch up to Mulan, a miracle really considering Emma's condition, I really do want to hurt her. To put one of my arrows through her heart or eye, still smarting and panicked from what I’ve learned, what I’ve been through. When the stoic woman goads me, I think I just might have to do it, press that arrowhead home where I have it pressed to her throat like a dagger.
Aurora’s voice shocks the hell out of all three of us.
"Stop!"
"Okay, don't take the the wrong way, but how the hell did you get here?"
I'm with Emma on this one. Imperiously, Aurora sweeps down the trail, ordering me to let Mulan go. Too startled to argue, I leap back and stare.
"Were you followed?" Mulan asks and Aurora, clearly a little shaken herself, shakes her head.
"I don't think so."
When she tells us it was Hook that freed her, I’m not the only one that just about laughs in her face. But I suppose that his wanting to prove something to Emma has some merit. He... now she, certainly was flirtatious enough, and she's the naive sort to believe in love curing all.
Like I was once.
Squirreling away speculation about Hook and his... her motivations, we're off again on our hunt, crashing through the forest like those zombies are still after us.
(11-3-12)
Oh, how I want to explore the familiar lines of the castle, the corridors and rooms that I remember so well. But there's no time and we hustle for the dungeon, pausing only long enough to light torches and lanterns in the forbidding space. Even here has strong nostalgia and I find myself hanging back, Emma unconsciously doing the same.
"Rumpelstiltskin’s cell. I haven’t been here since before Regina's curse. This is where he told us you were going to be the savior."
Stumbling, bracing himself on the rough hewn wall, Emma eyes me. "He knew?"
"It was prophesied."
I can't help but feel as though I’m missing an important clue that has nothing to do with the missing vial of squid ink. When a clearly disturbed Aurora hands over the tattered bit of parchment, I feel the creeping dread that slackens my child's face.
Emma. The name is written again and again and again, filling the entire scroll.
All I can remember is my bargain. His information for my unborn child's name, which he then immortalized with his usual sly madness.
The chill I feel is more soul than body.
++ Emma ++
As though I needed more proof that my role in this madness was preordained, the insanity of the neatly inked letters of my name, over and over again, is very convincing. What kind of madman is Rumpelstiltskin really? Snippets of Henry's book come back to me, fragments of tales, threads of story and connections I haven't quite pieced together yet.
I should help the others as they continue to frantically search, but I’m still caught up in the clues just out of my reach.
Then Mulan finds the empty inkpot and my despair is as sharp as Mary Margaret's voice. Will anything finally go our way? Shaken again, I rub at my too-short hair, cringing at the rasp of beard that reminds me of just how much my reality has been altered. For a moment I’m overwhelmed again, just wanting to crawl off in a corner and jibber like a loony for a few minutes. Maybe it will make me feel better.
Doubt it.
The numbness has sunk in so far that I barely react to Aurora's suddenly throwing a stone and the cell door crashing down to trap us. I've been through too many shocks with too little time to acclimate and my resiliency is thin.
"Excellently done, dear."
That dreaded voice stills Mulan and Mary Margaret's alarm and cuts through my haze. Sure as shit, it's Cora, striding down the stone tunnel like some goddamn queen. Even as I do my damnedest to struggle to clumsy, hurting feet, my body is yanked forward like a puppet and slams brutally into the bars. The chain around my torso tightens and then slithers away, my damn body too slow and too uncoordinated to grab back what is mine.
"No!"
But it's too late, the coveted compass is in her grasp and her smile arctic and triumphant.
"No, don't waste your energy, dear. Rumpelstiltskin himself couldn't escape from this cell. Thank you, Aurora. We couldn't have done it without you."
The girl backs away defensively, her face a riot of defiance and terror.
"Why?" is all I can whisper, far too close to broken.
"Don't blame her. She was only doing what she was told."
I have never seen a magically removed heart, the aurora borealis of reds rippling through the glass-like object, but I know exactly what it is.
"You took her heart?" I squeak, still pressed to the bars and wishing I could reach the monster's throat.
A second figure steps from the shadows and I can only stare. "Actually, I did. It was a gift."
Hook does indeed make a very pretty woman and has a glare that could nearly set a person on fire. I know, because it's leveled at me right now. As much as he... she would like to hide it, she's at least as fascinated by me. In that brief instant, I see that she had been blaming me for the change wrought on her. My own transformation is a real shock, leaving her shaken.
Aurora's guttural cry of pain breaks the staring contest, Cora's hand flexing harshly around the trapped heart. Her smile is truly chilling. "Forgive us. We'd love to stay, but Storybrooke awaits."
"Hook! Wait! Please don't do this. My son is in Storybrooke. He needs me."
It's hopeless and I know it, as the conflict in her eyes hardens and I rattle the bars with my useless new strength.
"Perhaps you should have considered that, before you abandoned me on that beanstalk."
"You would have done the same."
My grousing, sullen statement almost makes her look pitying.
"Actually, no." Pressing the advantage, she steps forward, bringing up a small, dark object. "Do you know what this is, Emma?"
It's the dried, desiccated bean the giant wore around his neck and I say as much.
"Indeed. A pirate always keeps a souvenir of his conquests, but this... Well, this is much more than a mere trinket. This is a symbol. Something that was once magical, full of hope, possibility. Now look at it. Dried up, dead, useless. Much like you. It will also remind me that I will find a solution to this unfortunate transformation, while you will die here like a trapped rat. The time for making deals is done, just as I'm done with you."
++ Mary Margaret ++
Emma is actually growling, the low, grunting of an angry, trapped animal as he strains at the bars, reaching futilely at our tormenters. With a last hateful glare, the pretty, dark-haired woman that is Captain Hook strides out after Cora to destroy all that I hold dear.
It makes me almost nostalgic Regina's straightforward resentful hatred.
As much as I want to help Emma right now, she... he would probably try to rip my head off. And poor Aurora is shaken, right down to her soul.
I can't even imagine what she must be feeling. Or can someone who's had their heart torn out even feel anymore?
"This is all my fault," she sobs softly while Mulan stands by helplessly, completely at a loss of what to do.
"Some savior I am," Emma growls. "Not doing much saving, am I?"
The rattling clang of one big fist against the bars sounds painful and makes me wince in sympathy. Gingerly, almost warily, I approach but stay just out of arm's reach.
"Emma, we're going to win this fight, you know. Good always defeats evil."
That harsh, ugly sound almost breaks my heart. "You sound like Henry."
"I guess optimism runs in the family."
"It must have skipped a generation."
"You should know better than anybody. You broke the curse."
Whipping around with sudden violence, Emma nearly screams in my face, his eyes wild. "What the hell have I done since? I got us stranded, burned down the wardrobe, let Cora get the ashes, then the compass, got myself trapped in this fucking body and made an enemy of the one man... woman, who might have helped us."
I'm frozen by the pain and vitriol spewing my way, just as much as the thick rivulet of blood oozing down his face from a rough gouge in his forehead. Deflating suddenly, Emma crumples as though too weak to hold himself up for one more moment. When he speaks again, his voice is defeated, almost lifeless.
"The only reason I ever broke the curse was because it was exactly what Gold wanted me to do."
"What are you talking about?"
My voice is a whisper and the defeated eyes are too heavy a burden for my soul to bear.
"He told you I was the savior. It was his plan. Once I fulfilled that role, maybe that's all I was ever meant to do. Everything I've ever done, he had it all mapped out before I was even born. He probably even manipulated Regina into casting the damn curse. I'm not powerful, I'm no savior. I'm a name on a piece of paper, a pawn. And that's exactly why we're in here and Cora's on her way to Storybrooke."
++ Emma ++
(11-4-12)
Voices blearily cut through the thick blanket of darkness that has silenced my torment for awhile. Selfishly, I want to go back, to avoid the insanity my life has become for just a little bit longer.
"The scroll is not going to magically open the door for us."
Mulan's heavy sarcasm actually makes me grin faintly and blink my eyes open. Mary Margaret is getting excited about something, a smile warming her face.
"Yes it is."
Our collective confusion and skepticism makes her rush to explain. "When I was a little girl, I used to sneak into Cora's chamber and watch her practice magic. She had a spell book."
Noticing that I’m awake, she moves to crouch beside me and brush a gentle hand over my aching forehead.
"Emma, the spells were in the book."
"Yeah," my voice sounds like I’ve gargled with gravel. "Isn't that was a spell book is? A book that has spells in it?"
Offering a hand to help me sit up, Mary Margaret shakes her head, too excited to respond to my sarcasm. Then she stands and faces the bars and gives me a mischievous grin that has me really curious, despite myself.
"Watch."
Raising the tattered scroll bearing the endless refrain of my name, she blows over the surface and to my utter astonishment-- one of these days I'll get used to this shit-- the words lift off the paper in a thin cloud of ink.
"Whoa! Squid ink."
Scrambling to my feet, I grab Mary Margaret in an awkward hug, careful to not touch the slow moving cloud.
"Gold wrote the scroll in squid ink!"
When the floating ink touches the bars, they simply vanish, leaving a large, round hole. Finally, maybe I can feel hope again.
"Told you," Mary Margaret says with a deep conviction that might be arrogant on someone else. "Good always wins."
As we rush to get the hell out of Dodge, Aurora wisely points out that she has to stay behind. I've grown to like her and leaving her here, tied up for everyone's safety, is not an easy decision. But there's no other choice and Mulan knows it. So she ties the younger woman up, vowing to return with her heart. It's really actually very sweet and I’m glad neither will be alone once we go home.
Guess that optimism runs in the family after all.
++ Mary Margaret ++
Driven by desperation, we crash through the forest and emerge onto the dry lake bed. No! Cora and Hook are side by side at the mouth of a whirlpool that churns away hungrily, their hands on the compass.
Only moments to act, only time for a single, perfectly aimed arrow.
When I get back to Storybrooke, I really have to remember to thank Red once again for teaching me so well all those years ago. Cora and Hook are startled when the compass goes flying into the sand.
"You're not going anywhere!" I shout, shaking with anger and worry. "This portal's taking us home." Shoving Emma, I bark, "The compass, get it!"
And the battle is joined. Fireballs fly from Cora's hands, miraculously deflected by Mulan's sword, while Emma lumbers at Hook with murder in his eyes. That confrontation would almost be funny were it not so deadly, neither of them in real control of their changed bodies. A clumsy slash from Hook draws a line of blood and my arrow misses as they dance apart. A second shot misses Cora as she vanishes in a pillar of purple smoke.
I'm sure mine isn't the only panic as something whirls away from the smoke, the leather satchel with its long carrying strap fluttering.
Aurora's heart!
Astonishingly, it's Hook that twists athletically and manages to reach out with that single, wicked claw. The strap bounces off her wrist as Hook unbalances over the whirlpool, her face panicked. Then Emma comes to the rescue, grabbing the oversized jerkin and yanking the woman back to dry land.
"Oh no you don't!"
With a sardonic grin, Hook half tosses and half rolls the bag at Mulan. I'm quite certain her look of surprise is echoed on my own face.
"I may be a pirate, but I bristle at the thought of a woman losing her heart." That wicked grin is actually more appealing on the strong, pretty face. "Unless it's over me."
Rushing over, I yell at Mulan. "Go!"
"But you need the compass!"
"And Aurora needs her heart."
Later, when I have time to process, I will be warmed by Mulan's hesitation. For now, I'm shocked when she offers me her precious sword. "Take it. It deflects her magic."
And just like that, with this miraculous gift, she is gone.
++ Emma ++
Growling with annoyance and animalistic stress, I yank out Jack's sword, needing to keep this enemy from slicing me again. The shallow cut on my upper arm burns like a bitch, but I barely notice. We circle around, sparring clumsily, probably as big a danger to ourselves as one another.
"I had no idea you had such a soft side," I jeer and she shrugs nonchalantly.
"I don't. I just like a fair fight."
Around and around we go, in a deadly dance I’m just no damn good at.
"Good form," she jeers, ducking and using her smaller weight to ram me, sending me sprawling. "But not good enough."
The bigger they are, the harder they fall seems to hold true here and I wheeze from the impact. In the corner of my eye, because I don't dare take my attention off Hook, I see Cora, dark cloak fluttering, and I worry for both myself and Mary Margaret.
This can't possibly be how our story ends.
Hook has managed to pin my sword, her smaller weight atop me, the pale blue eyes glittering in triumph. "In different circumstances, pretty boy, this could be fun, but you can't beat me. You should quit while you're still alive."
Then I feel a familiar geometric shape pressed into my ribs and hope blasts through me again.
"Why would I do that when I’m winning?"
Clumsily fishing out the compass from beneath me makes the blue eyes flicker and I lash out as hard as I can. The impact is stunning, the weight of the compass clenched in my fist helping rock Hook's head back on her shoulders. Ignoring the wail of pain from my hand, I scramble to my feet, raging with adrenaline and ready to take on Regina's crazed mother.
"Now let's go home!"
My lunge comes to nothing as Cora vanishes again, but I actually kind of expected it and roughly shove Mary Margaret towards the whirlpool.
Cora's too quick, reappearing to throw us back with a gesture. Angry, deeply angry all the way down into the most primitive, animal, lizard-like parts of my brain, I am ready to protect my family, even if it endangers me. I try to get up as Mary Margaret surges to her feet, but Cora slams me again, and I can feel that I’m running out of energy and time.
How can we hope to win?
++ Mary Margaret ++
Terrified for both myself and Emma, panic claws at me, and Cora looms close like a snake ready to strike. I'm out of ideas, out of maneuvering room, out of time.
"Why do you want to go to Storybrooke?"
It's a desperate question, more of a stall tactic than real curiosity. The unearthly, chilling calm in Cora's eyes scares me like little else has in a very, very long time. Even Regina's eyes were never this cold...
"Because my daughter needs me."
She really believes that. This insane woman has no idea of the destruction her madness has wrought, what it did to Regina, who turned all of that twisted pain on me and so many others. For the first time I think I really have a clear peephole to the insanity that led us here.
"And now, I’m going to give her the one thing she's always wanted."
No, no, no!
"Your heart."
I freeze in animal, instinctual fear, knowing what's coming and at a complete loss of what to do to save myself. Poor Charming, lost forever to a sleeping curse because I couldn't save myself and return to him. Poor Emma, separated forever from Henry.
I failed.
"Goodbye, Snow."
With a bellow of pure rage, Emma is suddenly up, knocking me aside. Horrified, I look up from the ground to witness the sickening sight of Cora's hand, buried in my daughter's chest past the wrist, aglow with magic.
"Oh, you foolish child," Cora laughs like a blade against bone. "Don't you know? Love is weakness."
But the rules have shifted again, as Cora's yank only makes Emma's big, transformed body shake, his face slack in shock for a moment. Then, his face changes with the realization of something big... and powerful.
"No," he rumbles with a deep conviction and Cora looks shocked and almost frightened. "It's strength."
With a blast of pure white energy, Cora is tossed away like a rag doll, vanishing once more into purple smoke. Scrambling to my feet, I touch the spot her hand had been, sensing Emma's warmth through the rags, and I swear I can almost feel that sweet, strong heart.
"What was that?" He squeaks in shock and I cup his cheek in my hand, willing my adoration and pride into calming him.
"That is a great subject for discussion. When we get home!"
We're driven now, victory so close we can taste it, and rush for the whirlpool, still churning patiently away.
"Ready?"
There is still conflict in the eyes we share and there will be no easy answers. But they are certainly not here and he brings up the compass so that we can trap it between our hands.
"Yeah, let's go."
And we jump.