A/N: For Swan Queen Weak - Day 5 - Evil Emma. A joint project with reginamillfs, who did the cover art, on tumblr. Somewhat inspired by: post/72772767609/swanqueen-au-week-evil-emma-whats-done-to

Recommended music to listen to while reading: Oh Death - Jen Titus

"But what is this, that I cant see

with ice cold hands taking hold of me?

Oh death…."

They call her the Ice Queen.

Not for her command of the shards slipping into a thief's heart, it's last beat cut off by it's sudden intrusion, not for the snow storms controlled by a flick of her slender fingers, but for the ice imbedded in her heart. Some say, it's stopped truly beating long ago. That she's a ghost.

I've always thought the stories were silly. To scare the younger children away from a good night's sleep. I told them myself before I was brought home to my father by an ear, him told to keep me under control. But it was he who told them to me.

One thing is for certain. When she came for my father, it was the dead of winter. There's a rumor she only breathes winter air, and carries it with the rest of the year. I don't know if that's true, but if winter were a person, it would be Queen Emma.

As she is ice, the Evil Queen is flame. Her anger and thirst for vengeance is legendary throughout the kingdom. They rule together over this land, the two most ruthless, powerful leaders this world has ever seen. But only ruthless to those who oppose them.

I live in the White Kingdom, one the outskirts. We hear of the horrors done in the mainland, but they are only stories. Here, we have peace.

Had.

The queens love, and that's how they are underestimated. They love power, surely, vengeance, oh most definitely. And each other. Truly, passionately, wholly. We had a man come to the inn, absolutely shaken by his audience with them. How their hands curled together, the kiss the Ice Queen laid on the Evil Queen's forehead before she took her leave, the audience parting like water for a sharp stone.

Love thaws.

Some say their love is their greatest weakness. The smart ones know, that love is their greatest strength. Because together? Unstoppable. And if one is ever harmed, ever killed, the other's anger will only grow. Ice melting into storms, lighting crashing from mountains, fire hurled into a hapless village.

No, killing one will start war. Well, end a war. With the other side lying broken and dead and with red spilling endlessly on cobblestones.

The day she came for my father, a war was already brewing, and there was I, two braids, two eyes bright blue with all my memories of being a Hatter's daughter. The only worries I had were supper for that night. Skinned rabbit? A stolen, escaped hog? Without either, we had the dust collected in our shabby cabin. The snow outside covering the once lush forest.

It was dead outside. Even the sky seemed to stop breathing. The wind licked my cheeks and they burned.

When she came, she didn't see me. I had just come home from an unsuccessfully hunting and gathering venture, my father still inside, working out our last bit of funds. I placed my small dagger on the table, and he held my hand. I was still a child, but one who understood just how close we were to nothing. He didn't like me hunting, but I didn't like us starving.

I smiled at him. He smiled back. Father, father, father. The memories are like a painting, one I can only see and not touch.

And then, I stared out the window and saw her face. Stark against the snow, eyebrows drawn in, determined, lips set in a line, and yet so oddly serene. I examined her dress, the silver jewels sewn on, the swirled patterns, the way her entire right shoulder was exposed, her left leg. I wondered if she was even cold.

She looked right at me, her eyes piercing through mine, and I gasped. She smiled. It would have been friendly, if not for her eyes.

(Mother, mother, mother.)

She walked forward, glided.

That's when my father took notice. His eyes widened and widened and he grasped my shoulder, pushing me away from the window.

He told me to go. Put on my shoes.

Hide outside, where she can never find you.

A fear overtook me when I heard three sharp knocks on the door, and I run through the backdoor, away, away, away. My breaths come in quick, and though I get away, I couldn't shake the feeling that even surrounded by nothing but leafless trees, stones, just the outline of our neighbor's cabin in the distance, I was still not safe.

I was right.

Oh, death, oh Death

My name is Death and the end is here...

"A gift." She says smoothly, the edges of her lips lifting, raising the bright red apple in-between them. "From my wife."

The Hatter only remembers flashes of this girl. The blond waif who would not leave the Queen's side. Eyes flashing sharply whenever the Hatter got too close. He thinks he remembers seeing her smile at the Queen, cup her face.

Who would know that she would be a Queen herself, and carry her wife's reckoning right to the Hatter's rotten wooden door.

She saw the daughter of course. The girl in the window, and she knows this bastard will protect his whelp at all costs. She knows what he's feeling, of course. She knows the burning desire to save the one's you love. It has served her well, knowing this. Knowing the fire that her powers hide within her. To them, she had no emotions. To find out the lie in this, one would have to take her very heart.

She should get the girl. Kill her right before his eyes, see the reflection of her wife's face when Daniel didn't come back in his eyes as he stares at the frozen body of his little girl.

No.

She came here for him.

The apple remains between them.

He smiles tightly "With all due respect, Your Majesty, I'm afraid I'll have to decline. You tell the Queen I'll be causing no trouble."

She snorts, and it takes him aback. She gets closer, and snatches the apple behind her. "Of course not. After-all, you're never at fault…" the Hatter remembers the Queen, all brashness and swagger, and this Queen simply leans in, eyes drawing ever so closer to him "Jefferson."

At his name, there's a cracking. The ice clinging to the beams that hold his home together elongate and sharpen. He draws a quick breath, and she holds the apple up again.

With a flash, all changes. She reaches up, hoists him by his scarf and he can't the keep the fear in his eyes.

Never once letting go of his gaze, she takes a small bite of the apple. It slides between her lips and she chews and swallows. They wait, and she doesn't fall, doesn't choke.

He lets out a breath, a small one, but sure.

"Take this gift, Hatter." She waits for a tremble and lets him go. "My wife wants nothing from you except your allegiance. Take the apple, eat it, and send the core by raven." She smiles, and it unnerves him.

"Then, your daughter will be safe."

He opens his mouth, closes it, and she turns around and walks to the door. He turns the apple around in his hands, the bright red almost glowing, almost blinding him in it's splendor. His stomach growls in revulsion, in hunger. He snarls.

"You will not harm Gra-"

"Eat the apple, Hatter." She says, and then she's gone.

When I returned, my bones aching and my heart pounding in my chest like a drum, I expected the worse.

My father was shaken, but fine, offered me soup made from the last bits of meat we had for dinner that night, and I have should have known, should have known-

In the morning: a stiff blue corpse that used to be him, an apple core lying in his hand, and a note written in our last ink-

Run.

I held him, and our door creaked opened.

"Hello, child."

Her hand outstretched, and oh how I hated her. To my surprise, there was a small morsel of remorse in her eyes. But not for my father, oh no, I could tell by the way she sneered at his blue, still face.

For me. Her lips tightened.

"It had to be done."

I stood from him, and I tried to will the words out of me mouth. Murderer. He was my father, no matter who he was before, but they were stopped. I wondered if she had cast a spell on me, but I knew in my deepest of heart that it was only my fear preventing me.

She held out a hand, and I tried to find kindness on her face, warmth I could cling to in the wake of the weight on my heart, my stomach.

"You'd best come with me-

"-Grace." I didn't recognize my voice.

"My men will be here soon to set a fire."

No, I had not known cold before that moment.

As the doors to the throne room flung open, the crowd hushed in a great silence for a moment before a few subjects bravely began to murmur to each other.

The crowds parted as Queen Emma glided through the center, one hand poised on the back of a frightened young girl, a peasant girl wearing a brown filthy frock and cloak, with braids the color of wheat.

Queen Regina stood from her thrown, a snarl on her face as she glared at Queen Emma.

The girl – and the crowd – waited with baited breath.

"You're late." Queen Regina says, her voice like venom, and it rings through the thrown room.

Queen Emma lifts a brow and squeezes the girl's shoulder.

Queen Regina's nostrils flare and her fists clench and she sits back down with poise and her heavy skirts rustle in the newly hushed silence. Her throne is made of the finest rosewood, onyx built into the crevices, the legs and the top crested with amethyst jewels, and next to it sat Queen Emma's throne. Made out of sharp tall shards of blue ice crossing over each other, immortalized by crystallization.

She ascends the royal steps to the thrones, her heels clicking against the stone ground the only sound.

The two Queens glare at each other, and for a moment the young girl believes just from the strength of their glare that they will kill each other, although she knows better.

Queen Emma momentarily lets go of the girl and leans down to kiss Queen Regina sweetly on the mouth, her hand coming up to rest on her cheek. Queen Regina sighs into her mouth, and when they break apart, her eyes are soft, vibrant, and Queen Emma's reflect the same.

"Worry not, Your Majesty. I just had unfinished business."

She strokes her cheek.

Love breathes life into the room, as it has a habit of doing.

Queen Emma turns back to her subjects, her hand coming back to rest on the girl's shoulder.

When she speaks, it cuts through the room.

"Loyal knights, lords, and ladies of the court. Many years ago, a child was taken from us, from this palace." Her fingers dig into the girl's neck. She looks at her, catches the girl's frightened eyes, the hard set of her lips. She smiles at her. "Now I am very pleased to announce that this child has been returned." She takes her hand off the girl's back, and holds her hand, lifting it.

"Meet your new Princess. Princess Grace."

Soft murmurs become frantic murmurs, and Grace looks panicked, and Queen Regina rises from her throne once more.

"Leave us." She barks.

"Oh, death, oh Death, oh Death

Won't you spare me over til another year?"

They would call me the Daughter of Winter. Later the Wicked Princess.

I would learn that monikers are given to us to take our power, take our names. And so we took them, wore them like armor, and then spoke our names in the loudest whisper. So it would be a sharpened sword, glinting in the sun before it's brought down on their heads.

But I forgot. A particular moniker. The Hatter's Daughter.

My memories were drawn from my head that night and kept bottled and sealed. New ones were given. I never had a father. I lived in that inn, was cared for by the innkeepers who found me. When the Queens found me, her trueborn daughter, I was taken back to the palace.

I didn't remember him again for many, many years.

I remember them. My mothers. I learned the anger that drove them, the reasons for Regina's hatred towards Snow White. How Emma was found at the palace of King Xavier before he was thrown over, grew up along side Regina. How they would sit in fields of green and talk about the lives they wished for with all their might. How Regina's first love died, how they know each other better than anyone.

The night Emma killed King Leopold and declared herself Queen.

I loved them. I can't deny that. I wanted for nothing, and the love they shared, that love that made them strong, was shared with me, and I was strong too.

I fell in darkness, but I fell with them.

Emma strokes back Grace's hair, looking at the sleeping girl curiously.

"She could have my eyes. It's not too far-fetched."

Across the room Regina paces back and forth in front of their long mirror.

"Well they won't argue, no matter what. But she's not our daughter, Emma."

Emma stands and stalls Regina's pacing with light hands on her velvet-clad waist. She stills and breathes, raising her hands to Emma's arms, squeezing them tightly. Her lips soften and her eyes smile, and Emma leans in to hold their foreheads together. Regina lifts her hands to cup her cheeks and hold her close.

"We will have our own child some day, Regina. This I swear. Our magic is powerful enough." She looks over at Grace.

"She needs parents. And you know I could never leave a child to suffer a winter all alone."

Regina strokes her cheeks. "I know." She kisses her softly. "A daughter. I wanted one once. A daughter we share. One we could teach."

She smiles, that small one they share, and quirks a corner of her lips up. Her eyes settle in a dangerous gaze on Emma's face. "Our family could only make our rule stronger, my love."

Emma pulls her in closer, wraps her in her arms. "Our kingdom shall have its heirs, and will never, ever fall."

Regina hums. "I'll know that for sure when I have Snow White's heart in my hands."

Emma holds her tighter. "We will have everything. Everything they took. Everything we always should have had."

Next to the Queens, the young Princess dreams.

She dreams her last of a Hatter before his memory fades as the potion takes hold. She dreams of warmth settling into her heart, she dreams of spikes of ice shooting out from the ground, spearing mens' heads apart.

She dreams of the Queens on a balcony, hands clasped together over the railing.

She dreams of winter coming alive before her eyes. The grey seeming to groan, the snow seeming to breathe.

And then a kingdom, shouting for mercy into the wind, burning, burning, burning.

Born anew.

"Oh, Death

Well I am Death, none can excel,

I'll open the door to heaven or hell."