The Most Resilient Heart.

Is This Magical?

Regina breathes in the forest air trying as hard as she can to keep her breaths slow and steady. The forest made her feel so calm, the only thing it didn't do to her was help her forget. Every few seconds the image of Robin hugging a woman other than herself in pure love would flash in her mind and her breaths would begin to quicken again. And through every memory of happy endings and darkness and her mother, her father and Daniel... through every memory she could hear that bell. That door ring with warning. That door that she heard before and after her whole world fell apart. 

And so she runs. And runs and runs pushing past the trees until all she sees is a line of green and brown and for a moment they are all she thinks about, but then, suddenly the face appears again. The beautifully calm face that used to throw her those amazing smiles that forced her heart to her throat and her eyes to glow and she stumbles. Gaining her balance again she places a hand on the nearest tree trying to slow her breaths.

She watches her fingers trace over the bark and it's crooked lines and a small smile grows onto her face. For a moment she just sees the good times and her eyes close as she relives the first time she saw Henry, the baby she would hold in her hands, the boy that believed so much in her despite her awful past and then she sees the first kiss, the look on his face of the pure need he had to pull her towards him again. She sees her first smile as she watches herself listening to his beautiful words of "bold and audacious, perhaps..." and she sees him walk towards her with that slow but purposeful pace. She feels his warm body so close to touching her's and she watches his lips with every syllable: "Is this magical?" She places her finger on the lid of the whiskey and suddenly they begin to tingle. They begin to tingle with a magic that she could feel throughout her whole body. A magic that made her feel extraordinary.

Her eyes open and she watches the light magic flow from her fingers and from the bark of the tree grows a small red flower and suddenly the red triggers something in her brain. There before her is the scene of Marion and her whole family again, pulling each other in, forgetting the years of separation. She pulls her hand away from the tree in frustration and the glow disappears. 

"What do you think you're doing, Regina?" She scolds herself and pulls away from the tree. "There is no good in you." She whispers staring sadly at her hands.

"THERE IS NO GOOD IN YOU!" She shouts exasperated as her temper gets a hold of her again and she pushes her hands out in front of her releasing a purple wave of magic.

As a tree comes crashing down, she watches it. It hits the ground with a small shake of the earth and she falls lightly against the tree again placing her head against it. Her eyes close as she lets go of her tears that had been welling up in her eyes and she feels that terrible sadness in her throat. She tries to gulp it down quickly. 

"There's no good in you..." She whispers and her tears fall down her face landing on the red petals of the glowing flower beside her. 

She hears a stick crack behind her and she swings around, hands behind her back as she leans against the tree.

And then that face appears again but it doesn't throw her a smile, it just stares into her eyes with recognition.

...Pianoman...

CC;)