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wistfulcynic · 6 years ago

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Their Way By Moonlight: The Plan (Chapter 9)

In which there is a sweet and smutty dream and Killian and Regina take action.

a/n: Sorry to drop this late on a Friday but my dad is visiting starting tomorrow and we’re going on a little mini-holiday to Cornwall, so it’s today or in like a week and a half. Plot! is finally starting to happen now, I reckon we must be halfway-ish through this story.

As always thanks to everyone who is reading, commenting, kudosing, reblogging, I appreciate the heck out of you.

Summary: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time the Saviour is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from her son and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Hook are soulmates, working together within their shared dreams to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from the clutches of evil yet again. (Alternate 3B, set in the What Dreams May Come universe)

Rating: A hard M

Tagging: @teamhook @kmomof4 @resident-of-storybrooke @thejollyroger-writer @jennjenn615 @tiganasummertree @bonbonpirate @lfh1962@laschatzi @katie-dub @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @winterbaby89

Anyone wishing to be added to or dropped from this tag list, please do say so.

Read it on AO3

The Plan:

Killian calls Emma to the dream that night and when she appears he all but grabs her, pulling her to him and holding her tightly. “Are you all right, love?” he asks worriedly, stroking her hair. “Cursed you, I mean. Is she all right?”

Emma nods against his neck, but she burrows into him for comfort all the same. “She —I— will be fine,” she says. “It’s scary at first, learning you have magic. I wish I didn’t have to do it twice.”

“Aye, me too.” He breathes in the scent of her hair, always so soothing to him, though he is still agitated, even in the dream. “Gods, Emma, it was so hard to watch that this afternoon. I wanted so badly to hold you, it almost killed me to let you leave the shop.”

“I wanted you to hold me too,” she replies. “Even cursed me can’t resist you.”

He laughs, though his arms tighten around her. “Do you think you, uh, she is starting to remember?”

“She’s so close. I’ve managed to plant a strong enough suggestion in my head that every time she has a thought influenced by the curse I challenge it. It’s terribly confusing for her but I think she’s starting to break through.”

“It’s so odd to be talking about your cursed self like she’s a different person.”

“Yeah. Though she kind of is.”

“Do you really feel that way?”

“Yeah, a little? I mean she’s clearly still me but it’s like the curse has magnified all my old insecurities and made her, I don’t know, timid. Which is something I have never been.”

“No, indeed.” Killian shakes his head at the image. He has noticed that cursed Emma seems less confident than the real one but the idea of his fierce and fearsome wife being timid is so foreign he struggles to grasp it. “What do you mean by it magnifying your old insecurities?”

“Oh, you know,” she tries to make her voice light and careless but he hears the hurt that still exists beneath it, “How I used to think I was unlovable.”

“Aye.” She’s spoken of this before, of how her experiences in foster homes and then with Bae— Neal’s abandonment she feared she would never know love. It twists his heart to think of her falling back into that place again, after how hard they’ve both worked to build the trust and love at the core of their marriage. “My darling, I wish—”

Emma pulls back from their embrace, just enough to look up at him. “Don’t go all mushy on me, pirate,” she says. “It just the curse. I know you love me, and Henry does, and my parents. Cursed me knows that too, she just can’t remember it.”

He nods, and leans his forehead against hers, stroking his thumb across her cheekbone, making her sigh as she runs her hands up his back, curling them around his shoulders and pulling him close for a kiss. He leans into it, into her, as close as he can get, wrapping his arm around her waist as tightly as he can. He wishes he never had to let her go.

He will hold her like this again —really hold her, not just in their dreams— and soon. He vows it to both of them.

“Let’s go someplace,” she murmurs against his lips.

“Hmmm?” Killian is lost in her, and it takes him a moment to grasp what she is saying.

“I love it here but I— I can’t explain it but I just feel restless and I want to go someplace else.”

“Where?” The dream allows them to go anywhere they can hold in their minds, though real places work best.

“I don’t know,” she laughs. “Just someplace. Someplace peaceful.”

He hasn’t known many peaceful places in his life, but there is one, one long gone corner of a crumbling realm that had once been a haven for him. He concentrates on it, reforming the dream around them, rebuilding it with stray pieces of his ancient memories.

They are standing in a wide valley with softly undulating grassy hills on every side and a lake in the centre that shimmers in a shade of blue Killian has seen only here, despite the breadth of his travels. Dawn is just breaking over the hilltops in streaks of pastel peach and lilac and a delicate mist is rising from the surface of the lake, over the ripples formed by leaping fish and the birds that seek them. Emma looks around, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. “This is beautiful,” she whispers. “Where is it?”

He smirks. “Neverland.”

“What? But— how? Why the hell did we go to that awful jungle when this place existed?”

“Because by the time you arrived this and many other places were long gone, and that awful jungle was all that was left.”

She frowns. “I know you said Neverland changed a lot while you were there, but… well I guess I didn’t realise how much.”

“Aye, almost beyond recognition. When I first landed there Neverland was vast, a sprawling archipelago with a great diversity of islands and inhabitants. Fairies, pixies, people who called themselves Red Indians, Oisín and his Fae, gnomes and imps, centaurs and unicorns. The seas were sailed by other ships than my own, and teemed with merpeople, kelpies, and kraken while the skies were filled with manticore, griffins, hippogriffs—”

“Hippogriffs are real?”

“Oh, aye. Unpleasant creatures on the whole, although if you can win their trust they are unfailingly loyal.”

“Huh.”

“Pan’s island lay at the very centre of all of this, and as the magic drained from the land the outlying islands began to disappear until only that one remained, eventually fading to that darkened and grim version that you experienced.”

“No wonder he wanted to restart magic there.”

“Indeed.”

“So which island are we on?”

“This is Brasil—”

“Brazil?”

He looks at her, surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

She gives a small shrug. “Um, actually probably not. I’m guessing we’re not talking about the country in South America.”

“No, indeed.” Killian calls up a mental image of the maps of her realm he has studied intensively, and smiles to himself. “Brasil was part of Oisín’s realm, an island shrouded in mist, visible for only one day every seven years. I used to make a point of paying a visit on that day, both to help mark the passage of time in a timeless land and also because as you remark it is beautiful. Peaceful as no other place I’ve known.”

“What creatures lived there?”

“Not a one, aside from the birds and fish you see here. Brasil was all but inaccessible, many ships tried to approach it but none succeeded.”

“So how did you get there?”

“Well, the Jolly Roger, as you know love, is no ordinary ship. She can navigate shoals where other ships would run aground, and she found us a place to land.” His voice is wistful and she squeezes him in sympathy; she will never be over how much he has sacrificed for her.

“That must have been wonderful,” she says softly.

“Yes it was. When Neverland’s magic began to fade, Brasil was one of the last islands to remain, protected as it was by its mist, and once it was lost for good, that was when I knew I had to leave as well.”

“So it doesn’t exist anymore?”

“No, at least not in the place where I knew it to be. But magic, as you know, is tricky, and who’s to say that it has gone forever and not simply moved to a more congenial location? Stranger things have happened.”

“I hope so, I’d hate to think of this being gone forever.”

He leads her to the side of the lake, drawing her down to lie with him on the soft beach there. The dream ensures that no sand clings to their skin as they caress, leisurely tracing the well-known contours of each other’s bodies, each finding all the spots that make the other moan, desire simmering hot between them but not boiling over. Emma lets her fingertips trail up and down Killian’s back, her other hand buried in his hair as she presses kisses along his jaw. “I love your jaw,” she murmurs between them.

“Do you?” His own hand skims down her thigh.

“Yeah, it’s like ridiculously cut.” She hums as he tickles behind her knee.

“Is that good?”

“It’s really hot,” she gasps.

“And is that good?” He breathes the words against her skin as he scrapes his teeth down her throat.

“C’mon, Killian, you’ve been —ah, mmmmm— in this realm long enough to know that hot is good.”

“Aye, love,” he growls as she licks the tender spot behind his right ear, “But I like to hear you say it.”

“It’s good.” She purrs the words into his ear. “Hot is good and your jawline is hot.”

“Well, darling,” he says, pulling back to look at her as his hand strokes over her hip and the dip of her waist to her breast, tracing the perimeter of her nipple, feather-light. “May I say then that I find your chin exceptionally hot.”

“My chin? Really?”

“Oh, yes. It has this little dimple that used to torment me.”

“Torment you?”

“With the desire to kiss it.” He does so, making her giggle.

“That’s a weird thing to be attracted to.”

“Weirder than my jaw?”

“All right, you’ve got me there.”

His fingers continue to toy with her breast. “Would it make you feel better to know that the chin dimple was merely one of many features of yours that tormented me?”

“I don’t really like to think about you being tormented at all, to be honest,” she says with a small frown. “Especially not because of me.”

Warmth spreads through his chest and he kisses her, slightly harder than he intends. “It was nothing you did, love, just that I wanted so badly to touch you but I doubted I’d ever be granted the privilege.”

“I know,” she whispers, stroking his face, “I understand that, and honestly yeah there was a time when if you tried anything I’d’ve kicked you so hard your nuts would’ve come out your ears—”

“Eloquent as ever, my love.”

“—but now I just hate to think about you feeling that way, especially when we’re back in a situation where you want to touch me but can’t.”

His hand leaves her breast to tangle in her hair as he kisses her again, wishing there were more he could do to ease her concerns. “I won’t pretend that things aren’t difficult at the moment, Swan, but it’s not difficult in the way that it was before. Now I know that the situation is merely temporary.”

“And you didn’t know that back then?” she says with a small smile. “Not even after I kissed you?”

“Indeed not. ‘A one-time thing,’ I believe you called it?”

“You had to have known I didn’t mean that. Even I knew it, though I’d’ve died before admitting it.”

“I hoped you didn’t, of course,” he replies, his hand on her breast again, just a brief caress before it slides lower. “But even then I knew what a stubborn lass you can be, and that whatever you might feel for me you wouldn’t accept it easily.”

“You always could read me,” she gasps as his fingers find her slick heat, his thumb pressing against her clit as the head of his cock teases her entrance.

“Open book, love.”

She lifts her hips and he slides into her and they both sigh at the sensation. They rock in unison, bodies pressed tightly together and kissing softly, their pace unhurried, letting their pleasure build in layers like falling snow until they come with soft cries and panting breaths.

This time the dream allows them to cuddle; though they can sense that their time is nearly over there is none of the usual pressing urgency. Killian kisses Emma’s cheeks and her forehead and her chin and she cards her fingers through his hair.

The dream begins to tug at them and he leans their foreheads together, abruptly recalling that he still has more to communicate. “I forgot to tell you before that the note you delivered did the trick,” he says. “I met with Regina last night and she’s coming back tonight. She told me that the curse caster is Zelena.”

“Zelena the mayor?”

“Do you know any other Zelenas? I thought it might be wise of you to warn your cursed self not to trust her. We don’t know exactly what she’s after with this curse, but I suspect that keeping you under control is a major part of it. Don’t do anything that looks suspicious, but at the same time be suspicious of everything she says and does.”

“Okay, I think I can manage that.”

He kisses her one last time, soft and sweet and yearning then the dream was gone, and his phone was beeping on his bedside table, reminding him that Regina would soon be making her no doubt needlessly dramatic appearance and he needed to be prepared.

---

Regina rose from her bed the moment she felt Zelena’s watchful eye leave her. It was a few minutes earlier than usual, and she smiled to herself at the prospect of appearing earlier than Hook expected, perhaps catching him off guard, unbalancing him. She was just raising her hand to call her magic when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the small mirror on the wall and froze in horror.

She knew of course that her appearance had changed over the past year, that worry and sleeplessness had ravaged her face, abetted by her own lack of interest in anything beyond basic hygiene. Her hair was lank, her skin sallow and dry with webs of fine lines spreading from her eyes and deeper ones slashing across her forehead. Consumed by anxiety for Henry she hadn’t cared or even noticed, but now…

She couldn’t allow Hook to see her like this. Not again. Not when the flash of pity in his eyes the night before was still fresh in her memory. Not when he actually looked better than he ever had, at least in her estimation. Out from under the layers of leather and eyeliner he seemed almost normal, like he actually belonged in this realm. And just how the hell he had managed that was something she would dearly love to know. She’d always suspected he was cleverer than he let on, and it annoyed her that he always seemed to land on his feet no matter what was thrown at him, or where he himself was thrown.

She would not be pitied by the pirate, she thought grimly. She would not cede him the upper hand. Not without playing every card she had. With a flick of her wrist she brought a swirling cloud of purple smoke up from the ground to engulf her. It quickly dissipated to reveal her looking very much her old self, her hair styled to perfection and her makeup flawless on her smooth skin, standing in the middle of Hook’s apartment… where he was waiting for her, lounging on a kitchen stool in that careless way of his that had always set her teeth on edge, examining his fingernails.

He looked up and smirked at her, that damned eyebrow quirking, and her fingers itched to summon a fireball. So much for catching him off guard.

“I do hope you’ve come prepared to live up to your moniker, my Evil Queen,” he drawled. “Because I have a plan.”

Regina forced her magic back down. You can’t incinerate him, he’s your ally, she reminded herself firmly. As distasteful as the idea was she needed him, for the moment at least, to help her keep Henry safe and break this damned curse. Once that was done she could turn him back over to Emma and wash her hands of the pair of them. “Oh, really?” she snarked, relieving her irritation with sarcasm. “And what exactly does this plan entail?”

He indicated for her to sit on the stool next to his, with a sweeping, flourishing gesture… of his left arm. Regina blinked and her jaw dropped, for once startled out of her composure. The long sleeve of his grey henley was pushed back, revealing his bare forearm, unadorned by his hook or even the brace that held it. His arm simply ended at the wrist in a gnarled mass of scar tissue, still rough and red even after centuries. But why would he… Confused, she dragged her gaze from his wrist to his face. What she saw in his expression floored her, flooded her with a mess of emotions as unfamiliar as they were uncomfortable: comprehension, guilt, empathy.

He hadn’t simply forgotten to cover his wrist, of that she had no doubt. Everything he had done in all the years she’d known him had been deliberate and calculated achieve some end. He wanted her to see him like this, and she had a dreadful suspicion that she understood why.

He was levelling the playing field, giving up his advantage from the night before by letting her see him at his most vulnerable, as he had seen her at hers. He was letting her know that he wouldn’t use her suffering against her. He was asking her to trust him, and showing her she could.

It wasn’t just the lack of hook, either. Without the eyeliner and pirate leather he appeared softer, younger —an odd adjective to apply to him— and though his henley was completely unbuttoned because some things at least never changed, he looked a far cry from the dangerous man she knew him to be. His pirate identity, his armour, was gone.

He looked like he belonged in this world, she thought again, this time without rancour but instead with something approaching sympathy. Without the curse download she’d given to the Storybrooke residents, he’d have had to adapt on his own, a steep learning curve even for a man who didn’t also have to adjust to life with one hand and without the hook he’d used in its place for centuries. How had he done it?

“I had Emma to help me,” he said quietly. “And Henry.”

“What?”

“You were wondering how I learned to function in this realm.”

“How the hell did you guess that?” she snapped, lashing out automatically against his irritating perception and this very unwelcome sense of kinship she suddenly felt.

His eyebrow quirked again, but there was no provocation behind it. “I’m rather good at reading people,” he replied evenly. “And you and I, my Queen, whether we like it or not, are different sides of the same doubloon. We understand each other, always have. Things will go more smoothly if you can accept that and stop imagining incinerating me with one of your fireballs.”

Her breath hissed through her teeth at this further obnoxiously accurate observation, though it occurred to her, a stray thought flitting across her mind, that he really didn’t appear to be trying to provoke her. His expression wasn’t mocking or sneering just tired, with lines of strain around his mouth and dark smudges beneath his eyes. This last year likely hadn’t been easy for him either, she realised in another uncomfortable flash of affinity. Emma gone, left to fend for himself and for Henry in a land that would still have been strange to him. She had suffered it because she’d had no choice. But why had he?

“Do you remember on the boat in Neverland—”

“On my ship, yes.”

“On your ship,” she conceded, thinking with an inner smirk that perhaps the pirate wasn’t wholly gone, “Do you remember what we discussed? About villains not getting happy endings?”

“Aye.”

“You said if we didn’t get what we had fought so hard for we would have wasted our lives. Do you still think that’s true?”

He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he replied, and there was a stark, naked sort of honesty in his voice. “These past few years have led me to question many things I thought were absolute, and I no longer believe that anything can be as black and white as heroes and villains. Those labels are simply too reductive to paste on anything as complex as a human being. Any human being.” He met her eyes with a steady gaze, leaving her in no doubt that he was speaking of both of them. “And as for happy endings,” he continued, “whatever the bloody hell that might actually mean, frankly I’m not certain I want one. All I want is my wife back, for my son to have his mothers and grandparents in his life, and for all of us to have some bloody peace. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen, not as a villain or a hero but just as a man who wants his family whole and safe again.”

Regina stared at him, and as she did she realised that she saw him, fully and truly for the first time. This wasn’t Captain Hook she was dealing with, not anymore. This was Killian Jones, the real man underneath the pirate’s many layers of distraction and subterfuge. This must be what Emma saw in him, what she had fallen in love with and apparently married. Regina had always just assumed she had a leather fetish.

He really had changed, it seemed, and so had she. Neither of them were truly villains anymore, though they were certainly not heroes, and perhaps he was right that such a stark and unforgiving dichotomy wasn’t a useful way to frame the world. Perhaps they were both just people who had made bad choices in the past and were now trying to make better ones, similar people on similar paths to redemption who were now fighting for the same goal. What he claimed he wanted she did too: Henry’s happiness and a bit of peace. To accomplish that they needed to trust each other.

She took a deep breath and let her glamour spell melt away, removing her armour as he had his. She couldn’t help smirking slightly when it was gone, still needing to disguise how exposed she felt without it, still half-waiting for a cutting remark from him, for him to laugh and reveal it had all been a ruse to get her to show her weakness.

Instead his eyes warmed and he smiled, and she felt her smirk soften until she was smiling in return, sealing their deal in a shared openness that stood in stark contrast to the toxic distrust and acrimony that had defined their associations in the past.

“So,” she said, “Hook. What—”

“Perhaps you’d call me Killian,” he interrupted. “Hook is a name only my enemies use these days.”

Trust, she reminded herself. “All right. Killian.Tell me about this plan of yours.”

He gestured again at the stool beside him. “Have a seat Your Ma— Regina,” he amended when she gave him a Look. “And tell me what you make of this.”

As she moved to sit next to him he withdrew a clear plastic bag from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and glanced at the contents, drawing in her breath sharply when she realised what they were. “Where did you get this?” she hissed.

“Emma brought it to me. Apparently her cursed husband has been using it on her, to manipulate her memory, or control her somehow.”

Regina held the bag up, frowning as the powder inside it sparkled menacingly, catching the light as broken glass does, or a freshly honed blade. “Yes, that would make sense,” she said. “I’ve read about powders like this but I’ve never seen any. They are usually some sort of enchanted dust or sand. I believe that this must be soil from the sleeping poppy fields in Oz.”

Killian rubbed his forehead, an odd expression on his face. “So you’re saying it’s sparkly dirt,” he said.

“Well, yes, basically.”

“Wonderful. What is it doing to Emma?”

“Different powders have different powers, but as this is the soil that produces the poppies that represent forgetfulness and mind control, I would expect it to have a concentrated version of those same traits. It would allow the person who wields it to control the memories of whomever they administer it to. You say Emma’s… husband has been using this?”

A muscle danced in Killian’s jaw. “Her husband under the curse, aye,” he replied gruffly, looking away but not before she caught the flash of pain and anger in his eyes.

She could relate very strongly to both of those things. Damn it.

“But…” Her thoughts kept circling back to the one thing she couldn’t understand. “If Emma is not only cursed but also under the influence of this powder, then how did she know to bring some of it to you? Or to take it from her hus— her cursed husband in the first place? How do you know about any of this?”

Killian appeared to be choosing his words very carefully. “The answer to those questions is complicated and involves details that are personal and private between myself and my wife,” he said. “Ones that I am not comfortable discussing without her full consent. What I can tell you is that there is a part of her consciousness that remains uncursed and that part is able both to influence her cursed self and to communicate with me.”

“That’s not much to go on, Ho— Killian.”

“Yet it’s all you’re going to get, Regina. At least for now. Once Emma is free of any mind control she can decide how much she’s comfortable sharing with you.”

His tone was unequivocal, and she knew she’d get no more out of him on the subject. “Well, all right, then let’s discuss practicalities. If you’re able to communicate with this uncursed part of Emma’s consciousness, and it can influence her cursed self, does that mean you can influence her thoughts or actions?”

“Within reason, aye, though it’s not a simple matter. Even cursed and mind-controlled Emma doesn’t take orders easily.” There was a tinge of pride in his voice.

“No, I don’t imagine she does. Still, that connection could be useful.”

“Perhaps. But I was thinking more along the lines of making use of this powder.”

“What, on Emma?”

“Of course not on Emma,” Killian snarled. “She’s had more than enough of people trying to control her.”

Regina had never imagined sympathising with the Saviour, but then she’d sympathised with the pirate earlier so why the hell not? “Well, who then?” she asked.

Killian quirked an eyebrow and his lips curled, and for the first time that night he looked like the Captain Hook of old. “You said that this Zelena is always watching you?” he said.

“Yes, pretty much always.”

“Mmmm. And how do you imagine she would react if you… deviated from your normal routine?”

Regina began to have an inkling of where he was going with this, and her lips curled as well. “She would probably want to know why.”

“Would she follow you? Confront you?”

“She might.”

“Excellent. Here’s my plan…”

---

Regina’s alarm shrilled at 5 am sharp as it did every morning. She rose immediately from her feigned sleep, as she did every morning, showering quickly and dressing in the hated maid’s uniform —such a cliché— then heading downstairs to prepare breakfast for Mary Margaret. Egg white scramble with veggies, gluten-free toast, green tea. Every morning was the same.

Mary Margaret appeared at half past six, impeccably dressed in one of her cliché outfits, seated herself at the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper without a glance at Regina. Ten minutes later David stumbled in, poured himself a cup of black coffee, drank it in two swallows, and left. Not a word to either woman.

Just like every morning.

As Mary Margaret ate Regina packed her a kale salad for lunch then cleaned the kitchen. At precisely 7.15 Mary Margaret left for the mayor’s office. Regina cleared away her dishes and loaded the dishwasher, then went upstairs to make the beds and clean the bathrooms, and it wasn’t until everything was pristine and sparkling that she finally collected her shopping bags and headed for the market.

Her face was impassive, the perfect mask of downtrodden submission she had perfected over the past year, though if she was honest with herself as the year progressed it had become less a mask and more simply what her face did now. This morning however it was unquestionably a mask, concealing the effects of her thrumming heartbeat and eager anticipation.

As she walked Regina attempted to calm her nerves by looking around her with eyes for the first time intent on observation, taking in details about Storybrooke that had failed to register with her before, when she had seen the world dimly through the haze of her misery and fear. Henry and Hook —Killian— believed something was not quite right about the town, and observing it now Regina could see what they meant. This was not the Storybrooke of her curse, though she’d admit it was close. The layout of the streets was identical, most of the buildings and shop fronts were the same, but the feel of the place was wrong. The trees and plants were wrong, the sounds of the birds were wrong. The colours of the houses and of the shops’ signs were wrong, both darker and more faded than they should have been. The whole effect was like… seeing the town through a poorly judged photo filter, she thought, with the birdsong played on a synthesiser in the wrong key.

An idea began to unfurl in her mind, just a tiny seed sprouting, pushing through the dirt and opening its delicate leaves to the nourishing light of the sun. Zelena came from Oz, she thought. Her magic dirt came from there. It stood to reason that the curse had also been cast from that land. Perhaps…

Then she saw him, and the seedling idea along with everything else flew from her mind.

He was coming out of Granny’s with his coffee cup, as he always did. 8.45 every morning, as regular as clockwork, dressed for work in a grey pinstripe suit and white shirt with a pale blue tie. He looked good in it —she doubted he’d look bad in anything— but it was wrong on him. The pristine elegance was wrong, the neatly combed hair so wrong. There was a time when she could never have imagined missing the twigs and leaves that had seemed always to be falling off of him or the way he’d smelled of pine, but after a year of pinstripes she sometimes felt she’d give nearly anything to see him leaf laden and windblown again, bow slung over his shoulder, his eyes filled with a kindness no one else had ever shown her. She held her breath as he came down the path, watching him through lowered lashes, compelled by force of habit not to look directly at him. Then she remembered the plan.

Standing up straight and squaring her shoulders she subtly but noticeably glamoured herself, smoothing away the bags under her eyes and brightening her cheeks and lips with a faint blush, arranging her hair in the style she knew he liked. She thought about Henry, and about him, and imagined the satisfaction of taking her life back from Zelena, then strode forward with her old confident step and walked straight into him. He gasped as hot coffee sloshed over the rim of his cup, burning his hand and splashing a series of brown stains across his starched shirtfront.

So this probably wasn’t precisely what Killian meant by “Do something to get Zelena’s attention,” but Regina figured such vague instructions were open to interpretation and she’d missed his eyes. Even narrowed in annoyance as they were now, she’d missed them.

“Oh,” she said, grateful her voice came out strong and sure, “I’m so sorry.”

Those eyes looked at her for the first time since before the curse and widened just enough to be flattering.

“I wasn’t looking where I was going,” said Regina, forcing herself to breathe normally.

“Oh, it’s, um it’s fine,” he said, but he winced as he shook the droplets from his hand.

“No, it isn’t,” she said firmly, taking his hand and holding his gaze as she healed his burn, keeping him distracted with a small, coy smile so he wouldn’t notice as her magic soothed away the pain. “You must let me buy you another coffee,” she purred.

He blinked, clearly unsettled. “That’s quite all right, um…”

“Regina. Mills.”

“Right, Miss Mills—”

“Please, just Regina.”

“Regina.” He smiled at that, such a familiar smile that her hand tightened involuntarily on his. “It’s all right, you don’t have to—”

“I insist.” She let her hand slide his arm to the crook of his elbow, tightening her grip just slightly as she turned him back towards the diner. “You shouldn’t have to go without caffeine just because I’m clumsy.”

“Well, all right,” he agreed, and allowed her to lead him back to Granny’s door. She paused just before entering.

“And what can I call you?” she asked, with another smile that threw him off balance again.

“Ah.” He swallowed and blinked rapidly, trying to collect his wits. “My name’s John Wood.”

Of course it is, thought Regina in disgust, that woman has no imagination.

“Well, John,” she said. “How do you take your coffee?”

---

As Killian stepped off the road and into the woods that surrounded Storybrooke he had to forcibly suppress a shiver. If these woodlands had appeared menacing as he and Henry had driven through them less than a week ago, they were far more so outside the relative safety of the truck. Moss hung from gnarled and twisting branches that caught his clothing on their twigs, clinging like skeletal fingers as he passed. Cold mist swirled up from the ground and shrouded his legs to the knees, creeping into every gap in his clothing, making the hair on his legs stand up as goosebumps chased across his skin. Killian was prepared to swear that the force Henry had described trying to hold him back from approaching his old house was here as well. The further he advanced into the forest the more the trees seemed to close around him, threatening to swallow him up even as they made it clear his intrusion was unwelcome. More than once he caught a glimpse of a face in a tree trunk, just from the corner of his eye, but he strongly suspected that if he looked directly at it the face would not be there. The whole effect was utterly, creepily terrifying but Killian simply refused to allow himself to be cowed by plants, however menacing their aspect. He set his jaw and continued walking, not looking behind him, giving no sign that he noticed anything amiss. He was just a man on a lovely morning stroll through some picturesque scenery and he dared anyone to prove otherwise.

He followed no particular path —there wasn’t really one to follow— but allowed his instincts to guide him. As a man who had passed nearly all of his 200-odd years on the sea he was not adept at travelling over land even in the best of circumstances, which these were decidedly not, and the simple act of putting one foot securely in front of the other without catching it in brambles or undergrowth or stepping into an unexpected rabbit hole or some such required so much of his concentration that little remained for navigation.

As he stumbled on and the woods deepened, doubts began to creep into his mind. What the hell am I even trying to accomplish with this? he grumbled to himself as yet another thorny vine snagged the arm of his sweater. He’d come here on a whim, unable to shake the feeling that the forest held a crucial clue, that it simply couldn’t be so blatantly ominous for no reason. Centuries of survival had taught him to trust those unshakeable feelings, and Killian did trust this one, but there was quite a lot of forest and only one of him and he was beginning to think he may be wasting the opportunity provided by Regina’s diversion. If he could find nothing today they may not have another chance to distract Zelena. I don’t even know for certain what I’m looking for, he thought, as he stumbled over a large tree root and into a clearing.

…he stands in the yard of a farmhouse, icy wind swirling snow around him, chilling him to his bones. He looks for Emma, but she is not there…

The farmhouse stood just at the edge of the clearing, a plain wooden structure painted white, exactly as it had appeared in their dream. The dream that had shown them the flying monkeys, and Walsh, the one that had driven Killian to cross realms to warn Emma of the danger it portended.

This was what he had been looking for, what his time-honed instincts had known was here. He headed across the clearing, feeling oddly exposed after the claustrophobic trek through the woods, observing as much of his surroundings as he could without obviously surveilling them. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a wooden door on the ground as he passed, secured with a sturdy-looking padlock, apparently some species of storage unit —this seemed to confirm what Regina had said about being held in a sort of cellar— but Killian continued walking. Venturing alone into a small space with only one door struck him as an excellent way to get killed or at the very least imprisoned, and neither of those options appealed to him in the slightest. And besides, his instincts told him the house was more important.

He strode up to the wraparound porch, not troubling to make any attempt at stealth, and peered in the window. Killian was admittedly no great expert on land dwellings of any realm, but to his eye the inside of the house seemed in keeping with the outside; unadorned and practical, well suited to the simple life of hardworking farmers.

In the middle of these bloody menacing woods it seemed very out of place.

As did the large crystal ball that sat in the very centre of its kitchen table.

“Definitely the right place then,” Killian muttered to himself as he moved over to the door.

It was unlocked.

---

Regina left Granny’s with a genuine smile on her face and a cup of coffee that “John” had insisted on buying for her, though he had given in to her insistence on paying for the cup to replace his spilled one. When they reached the gate he thanked her again for his coffee, she thanked him again for hers, she apologised once more for ruining his shirt, and he waved it away yet again, insisting that he had many more just like it and one stained one would make no difference. They grinned stupidly at each other until John recalled that he was about to be late to work and hastily excused himself, hurrying off towards the bank. Regina watched him go with a bittersweet ache in her chest, then turned and nearly walked into her sister.

She had, of course, been expecting this. “Morning, Sis,” she said with a wide smile.

“Regina,” hissed Zelena, baring her teeth as her eyes sparked with a fury that was second cousin to madness. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just having some coffee,” said Regina, casually sipping said beverage. “Why do you ask?”

“Having some coffee?” Zelena’s eyes bugged as she repeated the words. “When your precious son is in danger? Have you forgotten our deal, sister?”

“Is he in danger though?” Regina retorted. “Or did you exaggerate the threat to him in order to keep me under your thumb?”

Zelena looked ready to burst with impotent fury and something clicked in Regina’s head. “You didn’t know!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t know that Henry has been safe all this time!”

“No,” Zelena spat, “I didn’t know that the pirate was in New York. My agent there failed me. He became too focused on the Saviour and failed to notice her lover.”

Regina’s mind raced. Zelena was clearly unaware of Hook and Emma’s marriage, and almost certainly had no idea that they could still communicate. That was good to know. “And what did you think happened to Henry, when Emma came to Storybrooke without him?” she demanded, icy fury in her voice. “That he was what, just left alone to fend for himself in New York? How could you?”

“How could I? Have you met me? There is nothing I wouldn’t do to punish you, Regina, to make you suffer. I would have left your brat to starve and far, far more, and I would have enjoyed it. And now, I am going to enjoy finishing you.”

Regina called on her magic, let it flow through her, amplifying her glamour spell and giving Zelena a good look at the full glory of the Evil Queen. She leaned in, matching her sister sneer for sneer. “Oh yeah?” she taunted. “You’ll have to find me first.”

Purple smoke engulfed her, right there in the middle of Main Street, in front of morning commuters and dog walkers and a Granny’s that was still packed with morning customers. Let Mayor Zelena explain that.

Re-materialising in the forest near where her vault had been, she closed her hand tightly around something in her pocket, sipped her coffee, and waited.

Zelena appeared in a cloud of green several minutes later, hair wild and eyes sparking with fury. “How dare you…” she began, but Regina didn’t wait to hear the rest. She pulled her hand from her pocket and flung its contents at her sister’s eyes. The glittering particles she’d been holding flew towards Zelena’s eyes, where they exploded harmlessly into a green cloud much like the one that had brought her here.

What!” cried Regina, and Zelena cackled in glee.

“Did you really think I could be defeated by the magic of my own land, sister? I may not have been born in Oz, but I have mastered it. And did you really think I wasn’t aware of you using the magic here? I control this town and everything in it, including its store of magic. I brought it here and it is tied to me, and any time you dip into the reserves, I can sense it. I sensed you transporting two nights ago, and again last night. To steal my poppy soil, presumably. What else have you taken?”

Regina thought frantically. Zelena knew she had transported, but not where. She might not know about Regina’s alliance with Killian, and despite her boast she clearly hadn’t sensed Emma using magic the day before. Regina had to be careful not to give too much away.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she taunted, buying time.

Zelena laughed again, manic and still edged with fury. “Oh, I’ll find out eventually. I have spies everywhere, traps and alarms in every nook and cranny of this place. No one can do anything in Storybrooke without my knowledge, including,” her eyes lit with delight, “A certain pirate captain who is even now breaking into my farmhouse.”

Damn it, thought Regina.

“So if you’ll excuse me sister, I have a pest to exterminate. So lovely to catch up, we really must do this again soon. Ta ta.” Green smoke swirled and she was gone.

---

Killian pushed open the farmhouse door and stepped inside, his every sense on full alert. The starkly furnished room was silent in an oddly dusty and neglected way considering that Zelena had clearly been there recently, evidenced not only by the crystal ball but also the jars of herbs and potions scattered across the countertops and the squat black cauldron on the stove.

“Subtle,” snorted Killian, and turned his attention back to the table. As he approached it the clear crystal ball became opaque then resolved into the image of Emma’s face.

He started back in surprise. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, then leaned in for a closer look. Emma was sitting in what he recognised after some struggle as her office at the Sheriff’s station. Her brow was furrowed and she was tapping furiously on the keyboard of her computer, but every few seconds her eyes darted to the car keys sitting next to a coffee cup on the desk. Killian had no time to wonder how or why the ball would show him that or what it could mean or if it was even real, because there were footsteps on the porch approaching the open door.

He looked up and immediately snarled, clenching both fist and jaw.

Walsh stood in the doorway, a supercilious smirk on his face.

“Hello, Hook,�� he said.

#cs ff #canon divergence #3b canon divergence #alternative 3b #captain swan #smut #cs smut #dream sex #cursed storybrooke #cursed captain swan #their way by moonlight #profdanglaisstuff

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gcldenchilds · 5 years ago

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isn’t that NARCISSA BLACK? yeah that is HER, sitting there at the SLYTHERIN table with those other FIFTH years and i think i heard sybill saying they look like VIRGINIA GARDNER… whoever that is! when she looks into her crystal ball she sees a perfect pink smile and glances through long lashes, silent coughs into lace handkerchiefs, sun softened peaches and golden honey, untouched notebooks with a pristine quill, answering any criticism with a girlish giggle, & a string of pearls sitting heavy around your neck. anyway i’ve heard they’re pretty SUPERFICIAL, PETTY, and LOYAL. apparently they’re a PUREBLOOD but i’m sure that’s not related. —— [ mhairi : gmt : 19 : she/her ]

NAME: narcissa carina hekate black NICKNAMES: cissy, Used to insist on cissa but has stopped, called carina by her father cygnus AGE / D.O.B.: fifteen / may 14th 1961 SPECIES: pureblood witch GENDER / PRONOUNS: cisfemale / she/her SEXUALITY: asexual, biromantic

FACE CLAIM: virgina gardner RACE/ETHNICITY: white / english HEIGHT: 4ft. 11in. WEIGHT: 89lbs. BUILD: short and sickly, underweight HAIR: loose white blonde curls coming to her colarbones EYE COLOR: blue SKIN COLOR: pale and sickly DOMINANT HAND: right SCENT: peaches and honey ACCENT: received pronunciation, very proper but with a slight voice NERVOUS HABITS: toying with hankercheifs

PARENTS: cygnus black & druella rosier SIBLINGS: bellatrix black, andromeda black PETS: cassandra, pet rat

BORN: st mungos, london. RAISED: black manor CURRENT RESIDENCE: hogwarts NATIONALITY: english SPOKEN LANGUAGES: english, french, latin OCCUPATION: student DRINK | SMOKE | DRUGS: ocassionaly, no, no

MORAL ALIGNMENT: lawful evil MBTI: esfj ARCHETYPE: the innocent TEMPERAMENT: phlegmatic WESTERN ZODIAC: cancer sun, taurus moon, capricorn rising CHINESE ZODIAC: ox HOGWARTS HOUSE: slytherin TAROT CARD: the fool TV TROPES: TRAITS: superficial, petty, loyal, charming, sweet

PATRONUS: cissy has never attempted to cast a patronus but if she did it would take the form of a wildcat. those with a wild cat patronus are intelligent and quick thinking. quick thinking they often outsmart those around them. often quiet and reserved, those with the wildcat patronus do have a sharp side and a fiery heart. this feisty streak makes them formidable compared to most opponents.tough and clever, they are resilient enough to withstand events others could not and intelligent enough to excel in anything they choose to do. BOGGART: while close to her family narcissa’s biggest point at this point in her life is not them dead but instead them turning their back on her. casting riddikulus would cause the image of each of her family members to spin around at a rapidly increasing speed. WAND: elm, kelpie hair, 8“ 1/4′, wishy. narcissa’s wand is an heirloom wand, it wasn’t intentional instead nNarcissa had been messing around with some of her ancestors wands when one chose her. coincidentally it was her great great great aunt elladora’s wand, who she is named after.

the unfounded belief that only pure-bloods can produce magic from elm wands was undoubtedly started by some elm wand owner seeking to prove his own blood credentials, for i have known perfect matches of elm wands who are muggle-borns. the truth is that elm wands prefer owners with presence, magical dexterity and a certain native dignity. of all wand woods, elm, in my experience, produces the fewest accidents, the least foolish errors, and the most elegant charms and spells; these are sophisticated wands, capable of highly advanced magic in the right hands (which, again, makes it highly desirable to those who espouse the pure-blood philosophy).

kelpie hairs are incredibly tempermental cores, explaining their rarity. they were once common in celtic wandmaking, however, the import of demiguise hairs has resulted in them falling out of favor. they have similar qualities to demiguise hair, and are powerful transfiguration cores when they don’t backfire spectacularly.

REPORT CARD: cissy is in her fifth year and will be sitting nine OWLs with the following predicted grades.

Astronomy, E.

Ancient Runes, E.

Charms, A.

Defence against the dark arts, E.

Divination, E.

History of magic, O.

Herbology, A.

Transfiguration, O.

Potions, O.

BIO

Born on a new moon in may 1961, Narcissa Black’s name was never meant to be Narcissa. Brought into the world too early at 27 weeks, the name Carina (a constellation part of the larger Argo Navis) long picked out for an unfortunate outcome of a third daughter, did not suite the tiny child.

Oh so pale, delicate, and fragile, the new born babe was not thought long for this world, maybe not even day, definitely not a week, hardly worthy of a name from the stars. No, the girl would never be a star, wouldn’t live long enough, destined to be beautiful but short lived she would be little more than a flower.

And thus she was named Narcissa, just Narcissa not worth the middle names.

But the healers pulled off a miracle, and she survied not only the day but a week, and then two, and then three, and after a lengthy St. Mungo’s stay baby Narcissa was home.

More of a fighter, more of a warrior than her appearance let on suddenly her name seemed an oversight. But Narcissa had stuck and so she got the name she would’ve had as a middle name. Carina Hekate Elladora Black became Narcissa Carina Hekate Elladora Black. Hekate for the Greek goddess of magic and witchcraft, Elladora for her great, great, great, aunt Elladora (the one who started the tradition of beheading house elves)

Finally home from St. Mungo’s she was a baby full of noise and life, always giggling, or cooing, or babbling, you would think that it would be an unwelcome behaviour in the black house hold but at three months old Naricissa already had her parents wrapped around her tiny fingers.

Her unlikely survival had proved her a fighter in the eyes of her father, his fighter, he’d taken to calling her Carina. Always full of praise that his other daughters would rarely receive Narcissa could do no wrong. But to Druella she was always Narcissa, a flower, her flower. Her beautiful child, picture perfect, always so calm, always so pliant, any mothers dream.

But her early entrance into the world had taken a toll on her health and as a child CIssy was often sick, and as a consequence always coddled.

By the time she was old enough to be aware of her situation Narcissa was already in love with it, she could charm any adult with a sweet smile and perfected pleasantries, she could make friends at the drop of a hat with giggles and a few sweet comments.

Going off to hogwarts was a scary thing for Narcissa she wouldn’t have the constant affection from her mother and father and she would be around more people than she had been in her entire life.

One of those should never have been a concern as the tiny blonde haired girl fit in perfectly into Slytherin house beloved by all. With those in other houses? Well they didn’t really matter.

The other however would prove to be a more major concern with the young girl, frequently finding herself consigned to the hospital wing, even having to be sent away to St. Mungo’s in her third year. Even now she’s frequently poorly.

Her illness was never a hindrance to her studies however as despite weeks at a time away from classes she’s always maintained exceptional grades. Her health does seem to be improving of late and she’s even taking up a spot on the quidditch team; surprisingly as keeper instead of seeker.

HCS

She knows what her parents expect of her, as the daughter of a great pureblood family her role is to marry into another great house but part of her can’t help but want more, want love. Maybe there’s someway she can do both?

Hopeless romantic, reads all sorts of trashy wizard romance novels… maybe she even gets someone to get her muggle ones?

Doesn’t really believe the whole blood purity thing whole heatedly. Of course purebloods are better but why should they kill all the others? Whats the point of being on top if there’s no one to be better than?

Desperately wants to show others she’s not weak because of her poor health and keep her spot on the quidditch team, maybe she’s getting someone to make her health draughts that are above her level under the table?

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