No One Mourns The Wicked

Chapter 20

Robin got home from the archery ring and Regina was already home from the office and had started supper.

"How'd it go?" Regina asked.

"It's getting there," he replied. He was trying to set up another archery ring in Storybrooke. The last one got shut down after some pixies messed with it and moved in and Robin had been trying to set another one up for the past few years but the town seemed more and more inclined to be normal as years went by without any crazy magical interference. "The grounds are still a mess."

"As the mayor, I'd like to thank you for cleaning up our town," she joked, kissing him on the cheek.

He looked over at the clock. Morrighan would be getting back soon. Things were always awkward between them. It did not matter how much they vowed to start over; this just was not working. She was still mad at them and she had every right to be and they were just beginning to realize the real world was a real thing and they had no idea what they were doing. Which did not help them in the slightest?

The sound of keys turning in the door let them know she was here.

"Hi," she said as she walked through the door.

"Hi," they both replied.

To their surprise, she came and joined them in the kitchen instead of running off to her room to work on some projects.

"So, um," she said and they both turned to face her. She was nervously bending back her fingers and cracking her knuckles. "I'm sorry for freaking out a bunch of stuff. It is not fair on you guys and I understand that you are trying to do what you think is best. I know myself and I know them when I'm bored I fixate on things and blow them out of proportion and get very temperamental very quickly and I should have been more proactive in keeping myself busy, but I wasn't and that's my fault." She paused. "However, I feel like the type of relationship you want is not one we are ever going to have. I already have parents and," she said drawing the word out nervously, "I don't really want another set." She was not looking at them. "I don't mind us having more of a friend type of relationship; I don't see why we can't get along. But you are not going to be my parents. I am seventeen. The whole point of being a teenager is to learn how to live independently and not be micromanaged all the time. I can function as an independent adult because I am not a child. I moved across the ocean, I have lived on my own, I have kept a job and paid rent and taxes and bought groceries by myself every other week. For over a year. I do not need another set of parents. I love mine already and I am sorry if this is mean but neither of you have ever been there for me in any capacity. If you do not like the way I was raised, that is fine, everyone has their opinions. But it is not up to you to change that or to fix me."

Her confidence was growing as the started looking them both in the eyes as she spoke. "And I am my own person who is capable of making my own decisions as well. I am not a four-year-old with a temper problem and I do not want to be treated as such. I get that this town is more conservative and traditional, but I see nothing wrong in learning to do math by cooking and doing your parents' taxes and counting all the merchandise after a show. Or learning physics by doing aerial. And being in a circus did not in any way hinder my education, and by which I would like to point out that I do have a scholarship to university. The only university I have ever wanted to go to. It is partial, but who cares. And I would like to mention that the circus requires any student who is travelling and performing to keep up, with what I believe once converted is the equivalent of a four-point two GPA, but I could be wrong 'cause I don't understand your American school system stuff and that we have to be above the ninetieth percentile in all of Germany. This means when our standardized test gets compared to the rest of the province, we must be better than ninety percent of students. So, what I am trying to say is that I am a functional, smart person and my life doesn't need some rich relatives I've never met before to swoop in and save me from something." Then she stopped and waited for them to react.

Regina looked at her, then to Robin, then back to Morrighan again. She had just indirectly implied she did not want Robin to be her father. Neither of them knew what to say.

"I don't want to be walking on eggshells around either of you," she said when it seemed clear they had nothing to say. "That's not a healthy environment for any of us.'

"Okay," was all Robin could think to say. "How do you want to move forwards?" he asked.

"Like friends," she said. "Let's try and get to know each other. I know less about you than you do about me. Do you guys even have hobbies?"

Regina and Robin looked at each other.

"Regina rides horses sometimes," Robin replied.

"Robin's into archery."

"See," she exclaimed, "I never knew that."

Regina and Robin exchanged glances again. She was right. Now, where did they go?

"We should do twenty questions," Morrighan said. She gave them no time to reply. "I'll start my favourite food?"

'Um," Regina stuttered, "Lasagna. Maybe we should sit down?"

Morrighan shrugged and they all when to the couch. She turned to Robin expectantly who caved and just said cake.

"Now ask me a question," she explained. "And you only get twenty."

Robin thought for a moment. There was a lot he wanted to know. But twenty would give him a starting point for later. He just needed a starting point now. They should have done this earlier.

"When's that TV special you were talking about?" Regina asked for him. "We actually do want to see it."

She pulled out her phone. "The 23rd."

"That's tomorrow."

"Oh."

"Your turn," Regina said.

The girl thought for a moment. "What was your childhood pet?"

"I had a dog," Robin said. "His name was Gerald, after some knight, and he was a large brown lab who was a terrible guard dog unless you wanted him to sit on someone and suffocate them to death." He turned to Regina who talked a bit about her childhood horse.

"Did you have any pets?" Regina asked.

"No, can't bring them across borders in some countries," she replied. "You have eighteen left."

Drat. This game was hard. Polite conversation counted. She smirked; she knew it.

"I'll give you a freebie, I've had interview training. Surprisingly helps a lot."

"What's interview training?" Robin asked, then almost facepalmed.

"Hello, how are you today? Good, you? Yes, now do like dogs, Yes I do and do y- WRONG!" she said. "That's exactly how it goes. No polite conversation, you just talk about yourself. Bad interviews interject. That is why late-night television is so annoying. It puts you in a weird mentality though and it takes a while to remember to ask people about them instead of talking about yourselves all the time. I think that's why new celebrities sometimes seem stuck up and self-absorbed because they spend so much time being told to talk about nothing but themselves. Okay, my turn, what was something stupid you did as a child?"

They ended up talking for hours, forgetting about supper until their stomachs were so loud it was hard to ignore. Regina ordered in quick, efficient, and no dishes. They made plans to go trail riding on the weekend. They mad plans to watch that special tomorrow night. They also now had a list of things they knew about Morrighan that was not sleuthed from the internet, one of which being she did not care if they sleuthed her social media because she put that stuff out there knowing people would watch it and build their opinions on her around it. She said that Zelena watched them all and strangers she had never met watched them all, so she did not care if they did. Regina made a point of showing just awful at technology she was by trying and failing, to create a YouTube account and Instagram account to follow her niece.

"Why don't you just use twitter and Facebook," she complained. The town used twitter and Facebook.

"No one cares about Facebook and twitter is a dumpster fire I'm staying away from," she replied. "And that was your last question."