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There are times that Maleficent loves this new land.
Sure, flying in the Enchanted Forest was easier; for one thing, she didn’t have to worry about flying too high and ‘pinging satellites’, as Emma calls it. She’s still not entirely sure what those are except that Emma told her that it was a bad idea if she doesn’t want to be killed in a variety of new and exciting ways. After seeing what the people in this land are willing to do with anything that is outside of their definitions of normal, Mal has sufficient reason to believe the sheriff.
But there are all these modern conveniences that they didn’t have in the old world. Electricity. Heating that permeates a whole house instead of just fireplaces. Water that you don’t have to go and find, just twist a little handle on a tap. And entertainment. So much entertainment that a person could never see it all. Fictional worlds created by the imaginations of these humans, so large that a person can get lost in them for days or weeks at a time.
For a dragon, with an almost infinite lifespan, the gift of so much entertainment is a blessing. In the old world, things barely shifted decade to decade. Names and faces may have changed, but the basic parts that make up life for humans remained the same; they’re born, they live, experience love, pain, and sorrow. And then they die. Without fail, they die. Replaced by younger versions of themselves, calling it an accomplishment if they manage to build a new mill, keep livestock alive, avoid wars. It is a never ending cycle, and while for the humans inside of it the cycle may seem terribly important, looking at it from above as a dragon always will... it is so very predictable.
In the Enchanted Forest, books became her refuge. Regina used to joke that all the myths were true, that all dragons did hoard things, and that Mal’s version of hoarding was all the books in her castle. Every time Regina would appear in the castle (without warning, without asking permission, a thing Mal growled about but actually loved as fiercely as the little queen herself) she would peruse the new tomes the dragon had acquired since her last visit. In truth, it was clear the little queen loved the books as much as Mal herself did. Once, Regina even brought her one as a gift (Mal only later learned it had belonged to Rumplestiltskin, and that Regina had stolen it out from under his nose without him learning the truth) a volume full of illustrations in gold and silver and bronze. Regina’s cries of pleasure echoed off the walls that night, taken on the rug near the fire because Mal simply couldn’t wait to show the queen exactly how much she loved the gift.
She could never read all the books in this world though. Nor see all these ‘movies’ that Lily watches with her on weekends. And it is remarkably comforting.
She’s reading now, stretched out upon the grass near a stream, the sun warm on her body and the book suspended magically above her in the air. Her tastes vary greatly from week to week and sometimes from day to day. This week it is an author named Stephen King, some of whose books are filled with violence and gore, some which are more thrilling because of the psychological ramifications, but all of which have kept her fascinated. The current tale is one that spans seven books, a long sprawling narrative about a man and his companions searching for a way to stop the very universe from collapsing around them.
The sound of hoofs on the soft grass reaches her first as vibrations through the ground. She doesn’t move or look around, too engrossed in the world on the pages in front of her. Besides, with the exception of a few magic users, there isn’t a person in Storybrooke that can harm her. When the sound shifts, headed toward the stream and the place where she lies, Mal growls softly and plucks the book from the air, pulling a long strand of grass and using it as an improvised bookmark.
The horse approaches to within ten yards at a run, and Mal’s eyes widen in shock at the figure atop it. She hasn’t seen Regina ride a single time since arriving here. She knows that the former queen still feels guilty about what she did to her beloved Rocinante. Mal hasn’t found a way to tell her yet, about the fact that while she may have been trapped under the library during the curse, she was very much aware of Regina’s presence each time the mayor visited.
And she did. Not as much during the first years, but as time passed and the fire of Regina’s anger burned down nearly to ashes, when revenge became routine and she finally began to understand what Mal meant about how boring vengeance could get, sometimes the former queen would come and sit, surrounded by books that nobody ever read, and just talk. About how different things were here. About how sometimes she wished she hadn’t put Mal down in that cavern. She never apologised for breaking apart their affair in the Enchanted Forest, but Mal could hear it in the silences, the hitches in her voice when she talked of days spent flying and swimming and making love in green grass, far from anyone else who might harm them.
Eventually, as with all things human, Regina began to change. Musings about past sins and anger became hesitant joy about a baby in her arms, fevers defeated and nightmares soothed. There was a brief period of fear filled rants about Snow White and saviours, but it disappeared like snow in a hard rain, and Mal dismissed it as nothing but natural human nerves. Eventually, Regina’s visits stopped almost completely, until one day Mal sensed her standing there above, and shortly thereafter she was in a fight for her life with a blonde haired woman with an odd weapon that made loud noises but had very little potential to damage her.
She shakes herself from her memories as the coal black stallion is pulled to a halt, Regina vaulting from its back before it has had time to sense something not quite right about the woman in front of it and begins pawing the ground in nervousness. Regina shows no concerns for its nerves, simply loops the reins over low tree limb near the water and then stalks over to where Mal is standing. The dragon doesn’t even have time to ask what she’s doing there before the smaller woman pulls her into a heated kiss.
It’s good, so good, and for a moment Mal loses herself in scent and warmth and soft lips, slightly chapped from the wind from riding horses at high speed, but in the back of her mind something is warning her that all is not right. She almost doesn’t care.
When she registers that Regina is pulling at her clothes, fingers oddly clumsy against the small buttons that they use here in this realm, that’s when Mal begins to listen to the warning. Regina here has had 30+ years to get used to the clothes of this realm, and Mal can say for certain after that night in Regina’s vault with the Queens of Darkness that Regina is very capable of removing another’s clothing. Other things begin to reach her awareness as well; while Regina is kissing her with hunger, there is a lack of emotion in it that is troubling. Mal extends her psyche, feeling for the woman that she knows Regina has become since finding her son, making amends with those she once warred upon. There’s nothing. It’s like looking into a murky pond.
She pulls back, ignoring the parts of her that protest the move. “Who are you?”
“Why, whatever do you mean my dear?” Now that she’s close but not embracing her, Mal can see how cold the brown eyes are. Definitely not the Regina Mills that fucked her that night in her vault, on impossibly soft sheets and a mattress like a cloud.
“You aren’t Regina Mills.”
Brown eyes crinkle at the edges in a mockery of mirth. “What’s wrong, lover? Gone soft on humans now? You used to think them so boring.” With the charade revealed, the doppelganger steps away, conjuring a throne with a flick of a hand and sitting with far too rigid a spine.
This is the Regina she used to know. The one... “You’re the Evil Queen. How?”
Regina inspects her fingernails idly. “A spell, of sorts. The fool thought she could rid herself of me. All she did was set me free of the cage she had placed me in. Really Maleficent, you should understand what that feels like. I was trapped in the back of her mind just as you were in that cave under the library. Did she ever apologize for that?” The queen doesn’t wait for an answer; she’s a part of Regina, was there, suffered through all the whining and angst over past deeds, raged at the pathetic person the woman she’d been became as love softened her heart. “You should hate her as much as I do.”
Mal’s mind is racing, wondering if Regina knows, wondering if she’s even back in Storybrooke yet after chasing Rumplestilskin, wondering what kind of damage this woman in front of her might already have wrought.
Lily. Her heart goes cold and a frisson of panic races under her skin. She has to resist the urge to take to the skies immediately, find her daughter and hide her and keep her safe from any harm that might befall her.
“What do you want?” She won’t refer to the incarnation in front of her as Regina. For some reason, she feels even colder and more malevolent than Regina had even in the last days of the Enchanted Forest.
“Tell them I’m here. Tell her. And tell her she’ll pay for locking me away inside her head.” With that, the queen stands, vanishes the throne with another wave of her hand, and walks back to her horse. Only now does Mal see the sigil carved into the sides of the saddle and recognise it for Regina’s kingdom back in the old world.
A kick of her heels, and the horse vaults away. Maleficent has vanished before the queen is out of sight, her book lying forgotten on the ground.
They have their own apocalypse to deal with now.