Chapter Text
Regina stared out the window. The trees outside were just changing from green to gold as the air started to cool. She watched a few stray leaves break away from the tree and spiral down until landing on the well kept grass of the school grounds.
The bell rang as students rushed to their seats last minute.
“Alright class! As I’m sure you’ve been preparing for, today we’re going to be talking about dream sharing,” Ms. French, the sex ed teacher, told her class.
The room was abuzz immediately. It took almost a minute to calm them so she could continue.
“In the next year or so you will start dream sharing with your future soulmate,” she told them.
Regina had always wondered why they bothered to have sex ed at all if everyone knew who their soulmate was by sixteen. Then again…
She looked over and saw August Booth mooning over her best friend Kathryn Nolan.
There’s no way they’re soulmates.
Some people had sex with different people. She knew this. She also knew she wouldn’t be one of them. Her mother had made it quite clear that her first time would be after her wedding.
“You won’t know right away,” Ms. French continued. “They may seem like regular dreams at first. But as you get older you may be able to recognize and learn to control them.”
Ms. French then spent the next hour outlining ways to control dreams and what sort of things people did to send their soulmates messages.
“Now, don’t get discouraged if you don’t meet them right away. It usually takes years to learn how to control your dreams enough to communicate with the other person. According to our state’s statistics, in Maine, the median age people find their soulmate is 23, so you have quite a while before you might find your mate.”
Regina rolled her eyes as disgruntled whispers and mournful sighs went around the room. She knew firsthand that people didn’t always find their soulmate at sixteen.
The bell rang and everyone packed up their things to shuffle to their next class.
“Weird lesson, huh?” Kathryn said as she and Regina walked toward their lockers.
Regina spun the lock and pulled open her locker door.
“Well I think August is hoping you two dream share soon,” Regina told her, neatly tucking her sex ed books away and pulling out her Elemental Charms book.
“Ugh, I hope not,” Kathryn replied, leaning against the lockers with her back.
She crossed her arms and grimaced at the thought.
“Who do you want it to be?” Regina asked, laughing at the face Kathryn made.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe David Charming?” Kathryn told her, looking out into the distance at nothing.
“Kathryn, you can’t be serious,” Regina scoffed. “He only has eyes for Mary Margaret. And that’s one match that I wouldn’t be surprised about.”
“Well who are you hoping for then?” Kathryn needled.
“No one in particular,” Regina said nonchalantly, closing her locker and starting to walk away.
“That’s a lie,” Kathryn accused, hurrying to catch up. “You hope it’s Daniel Colter.”
“So what if I do?” Regina asked, a little annoyed.
“Nothing’s wrong with that, Regina,” Kathryn answered, slightly taken aback. “Why are you snapping at me like this?” By then, they’d reached Regina’s Elemental Charms class.
Regina stopped just short of the door. “Because why get my hopes up?” She then disappeared into her next class, leaving Kathryn behind.
***
Regina avoided Kathryn for as long as she could, but at the end of the day, Kathryn caught up to her sitting in the student lounge.
“I didn’t know bringing up Daniel was such a sore subject,” Kathryn said, gingerly sitting on the armrest of Regina’s chair.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” Regina sighed, running a hand through her hair before slamming shutting the book she was reading. “I’m just afraid to hope, you know? Everything I hope for turns to ashes, Kat.”
Kathryn gave her a sad smile and squeezed her hand. “Hey, even if he’s not Daniel… he’ll be your soulmate, okay?”
Regina returned the smile and leaned into her friend. “You’re right. I’m being stupid.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Daniel’s cute, so I see the appeal,” Kathryn replied.
Regina rolled her eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Alright, Miss Fancy Pants!” Kathryn joked.
Regina laughed and stood up, packing her bag. “Your house?” Regina asked, swinging her backpack over her shoulders.
“And escape your mother for a few more hours? Always.”
***
When Regina arrived home promptly at six o’clock, she washed up and sat neatly at the dinner table.
Dinner was always an act in the Mills house. Everyone was asked about their day, but almost no one truly cared. The only person who did, was Regina’s father, Henry.
“How was your day, mija?” Henry asked his daughter.
“We learned about dream sharing today,” Regina told him right away.
“How thrilling,” Cora exclaimed, leaning forward a tad.
Regina saw the glint in her mother’s eye and knew it wasn’t excitement for her, but for the prospects she had in lifting Cora up through a powerful marriage.
“It’s maddening,” Zelena commented, breaking Henry and Cora’s attention away from Regina. “You wake up knowing it was a shared dream, but have no way to just dive back in and explain who you are.”
“That’s why you must learn to control it, Dear,” Cora said sharply, pursing her lips, leaning back in her chair, back straight.
Regina, angled her head down toward her plate. Zelena and their mother had been having a silent-- and other times, not-so-silent-- stand-off about Zelena’s inability to locate her soulmate for the past three and a half years. Cora refused to let Zelena go off to college, claiming it would be too much of a temptation to defile her purity.
“Ms. French told us that the median age of finding your soulmate is 23,” Regina chimed in.
“If it takes that long for you girls to find suitable husbands, so be it,” Cora stood firm. “But you won’t be leaving this house until you do.”
Regina swallowed and gave a small nod. “May I be excused?”
“Yes, Dear,” Cora replied before brightening a bit. “Don’t forget, we have Elias Gold’s party to prepare for next month.”
“Yes, Mother.”
As Regina pushed away from the table, her father cleared his throat.
“Regina? Could I see you in the library in an hour? I have a book I think you’d like.”
“Yes, Father,” she replied with a smile.”
She knew her mother was giving her a disapproving look. Cora would never understand the pure joy of a new adventure to discover within the pages of a book and she disliked the fact that Henry encouraged it so much in Regina.
Despite her mother’s displease, an hour later Regina found herself in their expansive library, knowing exactly where to find her father.
When she was little, Henry built her a private cubby with plenty of cushions and just the right amount of light. Regina couldn’t count the amount of hours she’d spent there, devouring everything she could in their library.
“What did you find?” Regina asked, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes.
Henry laughed and conjured up a book. It was smaller than she anticipated, as she’d graduated to chapter books early on.
“It’s called Gossamer ,” he told her. “I know it’s a bit young, but since you learned about dream sharing today, I thought you might enjoy it.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, using her affectionate name for him.
“Why don’t you sit, mija?”
Regina did as he asked, sensing something more in his tone. He hadn’t brought her here just for a book.
“I don’t want you to feel pressure to find your soulmate right away, Regina,” he started. “I know your mother is pretty insistent on it, but things change after you find your other half.”
“Isn’t that part of growing up?” Regina asked.
Henry tapped her shoulder, signaling to her that she should turn. She knew that meant it was a harder topic for him to talk about and he needed a distraction. In this case, braiding her hair.
Regina didn’t mind. Him braiding her hair transported her back to childhood. It felt safe and comfortable to her.
“When you find your soulmate, everything feels like it has clicked in place. But it’s not always the easier relationship to keep. You have to put in hard work to keep… to keep it under control.”
Regina was so startled she almost pulled away. “Ms. French told us that relationships take work, but what do you mean by ‘under control’?”
Henry gave the completed braid a little tug. “All finished.”
Regina turned and gave him a confused look.
“Just enjoy your life, mija,” he told her. “Don’t stress about what may or may not happen. Anyone would be lucky to love you.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple before leaving her with only the book he gave her and the silence of the library.
***
A few weeks later, Regina had her usual reoccurring dream she had at least twice a month-- the only dream she ever had.
She was in an open field, the breeze blowing just right. Her hair braided in a way specific to her father’s work. She was wearing her favorite outfit and carrying her favorite book.
As she walked to the middle of the meadow where she knew a hammock would be waiting for her. However, when she arrived, there was a swan sitting in it. Annoyed, she threw her book at it.
Instantly she woke up in a cold sweat. Odd… that was normally a good dream.
Her mind drifted back to Ms. French’s lesson over shared dreams. It couldn’t be…
She leapt out of bed and retrieved her class notebook, where she had neatly written down all the ways she could control her dreams.
She glanced up at the clock. She only had a few more hours to sleep. That wasn’t nearly enough time.
She resigned herself to getting as much sleep as she could before school and trying again tomorrow night.
***
The next week she focused her mind before bed. Regina prided herself at being a quick learner and this was to be no exception-- especially with Mother breathing down Zelena’s neck. She didn’t want to be next.
However, she was having very little success and it was noticeably interfering with her sleep schedule.
“What’s going on with you?” Kathryn asked one day while they were walking home.
Regina had practically fallen asleep in class that morning when she was normally the most alert student, answering all questions and asking a few of her own.
“I’m just tired,” Regina growled.
“I’ll say, but why?” Kathryn prodded.
“I…” Regina sighed.
“They’ve started, haven’t they?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘they’ have started. It’s only one dream,” Regina admitted casually.
“What?” Kathryn came to a dead stop.
“What what?” Regina asked, halting a few steps in front of her.
“Are you sure it’s only one?”
“It’s been months. Besides, I only ever have one dream. So yeah, I’m sure,” Regina told her.
“Regina… soulmates that only share one dream… that’s rare,” Kathryn told her.
“Ms. French never said anything about that in class.”
“That’s because it hasn’t happened in, like, fifty years.”
“Well that seems ridiculous,” Regina replied, walking forward again.
“No, it’s bigger than soulmates,” Kathryn insisted, catching up to her and holding her by the arm. “Soulmates that share one specific dream have a powerful amount of magic between them.”
“Mother will be pleased, then,” Regina said, frowning slightly at that thought. As much as she wanted her mother to approve of her soulmate, Regina didn’t want to live under her control forever.
“You can’t tell anyone else,” Kathryn told her quickly.
“Why not?”
“If the magical community finds out they’ll keep you separate forever.”
“That can’t be right,” Regina replied, frowning even deeper.
“It is,” Kathryn said. “I could probably find a few articles at the library.”
“Fine. I want proof,” Regina told her.
“Okay, but I warned you,” Kathryn said.
The pair changed direction from their house toward the library.
Regina was certain they would find nothing, but the stiffness of her friend as they walked made her uneasy about their upcoming research.
***
It turned out that Kathryn was right. She had to do a bit of digging, but she picked up article after article about soulmates that single dream shared and brought them back to the table that she and Regina were occupying in the library.
Regina skimmed dozens of articles about the first identified couple that single dream shared and how they nearly destroyed an entire community. From that point on, any teenagers that spoken about single dream sharing was prevented from finding their other half.
The more she read, the more horrified and sick to her stomach she felt. If Kathryn hadn’t warned her of the implications, she could’ve been one of these people, forcibly ripped from her soulmate forever.
“There are plenty of rumors as to why there haven’t been single dream sharers in so long,” Kathryn told her, biting into an apple she’d brought with her. “One rumor is that word doesn’t get out that a couple has been identified. Another one is that couples who realize early, go into hiding. The most interesting rumor is that single dream sharers have a proclivity for coming from single dream families and that all or most of the gene has died off.”
“I don’t come from a single dream share family,” Regina said certainly. She loved her parents-- each in their own way-- but they weren’t the happiest of couples.
“Maybe your soulmate does,” Kathryn suggested.
“Or maybe it’s like you said-- rumors,” Regina said absentmindedly, still flipping through the article in front of her. Something about an ancient tattoo.
Kathryn shrugged. “Either way, you can’t tell anyone.”
Regina looked over the article she currently held at the sea of material she had just read through. Keeping it a secret was obvious. She didn’t want to end up lonely, torn from her other half.
“I have to find him, then,” Regina said with determination.
“Wait, look at this,” Kathryn said, mid bite of her apple.
Regina sidled over to her friend and looked at where her friend was pointing.
“What is that?”
“It’s… well it’s sort of an old and slightly forbidden way of controlling your dreams,” Kathryn admitted.
“What do you mean by ‘slightly’?” Regina asked. “And why didn’t Ms. French tell us about any of this?”
Regina was confused and hurt that Ms. French hadn’t mentioned oddities in dream sharing. Wasn’t it her job to warn them of possible trials?
“The government doesn’t take into account people like us, Regina,” Kathryn said. “They don’t expect sixteen-year-olds to go searching through old archives about single dream sharers or other ways to control dreams. They set the curriculum and Ms. French teaches it.”
“Why is this one illegal, then?” Regina asked.
“Because it has a high risk of being dangerous,” Kathryn explained. “Doing this might make you lose control of your body.”
“What happens? You can’t get up? You die?” Regina pressed.
Kathryn shrugged. “No one knows. Not for sure , anyway.”
“Explain,” Regina demanded, sitting down.
Kathryn pulled out an article that looked like it was ancient. “There was… a study done once. Completely unethical, never fully released or proven. One man claimed that using this method-- especially with single dream sharers-- caused the soulmates to switch bodies.”
“Why would that make it illegal?” Regina asked.
“We haven’t taken illicit magic yet, but body swapping is one of the most illegal forms of magic,” Kathryn told her. “You could be tried for kidnapping, treason, or worse. There are just too many possibilities and the government outlawed it because of that.”
Regina took in a shaky breath. “What percentage of non-single dream sharers can achieve this?”
“The numbers say less than 1%,” Kathryn told her.
“And… single dream sharers?”
“50% if one soulmate does it and… 100% if both soulmates use this technique on the same night.”
Regina pushed back from the table, imagining the prospects. Using this technique made controlling the dream easier, meaning she would have a better shot at connecting with her soulmate-- a better chance at escaping Mother-- but using it also meant that she and her soulmate might switch bodies. And if anyone else found out, they could face serious consequences.
“I want to try,” Regina whispered. “If my soulmate comes to school as me tomorrow I’m counting on you to help him.”
“Regina, it’s dangerous!” Kathryn exclaimed.
“Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious.”
“I…” Kathryn hesitated. Regina could tell she wanted to know if it was possible. “Okay, fine, I’ll take care of him.”
Regina stood up and hugged her best friend. “Thank you.”
“You better hope no one finds out.”
***
That night Regina settled down into bed like usual. But she knew this wasn’t like every other night. She’d set out an appropriate outfit with a note on it in case her soulmate woke up in her body.
As she laid there, she stayed very still, deepening her breathing like she was already asleep, attempting to trick her body into putting her into sleep paralysis.
She felt it in her toes first and the sensation inched up her body, while at the same time it fogged up her head.
Stick with it, Regina. Perseverance!
She didn’t know how long she could sit still like that, the feeling very uncomfortable, when…
She was in an open field, the breeze blowing just right. Her hair braided in a way specific to her father’s work. She was wearing her favorite outfit and carrying her favorite book.
As she walked to the middle of the meadow where she knew a hammock would be waiting for her. However, when she arrived, there was a swan sitting in it.
“Don’t scare it away,” she whispered to herself.
As she cautiously walked toward the swan, it noticed her, quickly getting out of the hammock as if apologizing for being in her space.
Strange. Animals don’t normally act like that. Unless…
Regina dug into the recesses of her conscious mind, retrieving an animal to human transformation spell.
She approached the swan as it curiously regarded her, letting her approach it. When she was mere inches away she recited the spell.
In an vortex of purple smoke, the swan transformed into a beautiful blonde, but before they had a chance to speak, their hands touched and Regina felt a shock go through her body before everything went dark.