Authors: HardcoreEvilRegal & magicmumu

Fandom: Once Upon A Time mixed with dashes of Pirates of the Caribbean ideas.

Pairing: Swan Queen

Rating: Ranging from G to M.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, nor do I own anything from the show. I just have crazy ideas. So shoot me if I wanna write them down!

Side Note: This has been a long time coming. I greatly apologize for the time it has taken to post this chapter. But I'm back now and hoping to crank out some more stories for you guys!

Emma's rum comment had been passed over with everyone rolling their eyes. Mulan burst into action, conversing with Belle on which course to take and directing the crew into setting the ship up for more sailing. With everyone working together, the SS Storybrooke charted its course into unknown waters towards Wonderland. The only thing they could hope for was a strong wind, some magic and perhaps a miracle. When Mulan had been sure the ship was running smoothly, she and Belle had gone back to the Captain's quarters where Emma, Regina and Maleficent sat in uncomfortable silence.

The room was thick with tension as Mulan and Belle approached the trio silently. The first thing Mulan saw was Emma glaring coldly at Maleficent, who only smirked back at her. It was clear Emma was uncomfortable about having the blonde witch on the ship with them, but what was even more obvious was the distaste she had for Maleficent being anywhere near Regina. The way she held on to the Siren Queen's waist just screamed protective and jealous. Regina tried so very hard to ignore the way the two were staring each other down, but it was hard to do so when every now and then they'd both turn to look at her.

Regina kept herself seated in Emma's lap, finding herself more comfortable there than she was willing to admit. Emma had asked if she wanted the chair for herself, but Regina had claimed it was warmer this way. So, Emma sat through numb legs to keep her Queen warm. The silence between the five of them was beginning to become unbearable, and Maleficent, of course, was intent on torturing the pair of lovers.

"So! Who wants to hear a story?" Maleficent exclaimed, wiggling her eyebrows at Regina.

Immediately Regina was weary, knowing very well that Maleficent only told stories that brought dark things out into the light. It unsettled her, knowing that Maleficent knew every bit of her story.

"What kind of story?" Belle piped in, keeping herself propped against a beam and arms folded in front of her chest.

Maleficent raised an eyebrow, a mischievous grin slowly creeping onto her lips. "A dark story, but an interesting and powerful story nonetheless. A story…" Maleficent paused, giving her words a more dramatic effect, "about the lovely Siren Queen."

"Now is not the time, Maleficent." Regina warned, hands curling into fists and eyes turning into slits as she gave her best piercing glare.

The blonde witch was hardly put off by it, waving her hand in the air as she gave a short laugh. "Oh, there's always time for a story, Regina. And I'm sure everyone here is just itching to know yours."

Immediately, all eyes began to switch from person to person, assessing the looks on each other's faces in order to tell who was truly interested. It seemed that all but Regina were interested. Even Emma looked intrigued, but she warred with the fact that Regina was uncomfortable with the subject.

"Perhaps another time," Emma interrupted, shifting awkwardly in her seat. "Clearly the subject is troublesome for Regina, and I'd thank you to keep away from making her uncomfortable."

"Oh, come now, Captain Swan!" Maleficent's tone was ladled with mockery at the title. "I know very well that you'd like to know your true love's past. It has to arouse your interest more than you're letting on?" Maleficent raised a curious eyebrow, completely ignoring the shocked look on Regina's face. She had not been expecting anyone to use the words 'true love' to describe anything between Emma and her.

Emma opened and closed her mouth, unable to find that she could refute the accusation. She was, in fact, very interested in knowing more of Regina's past. Emma's green eyes slowly drifted to Regina's face, and the captain tilted her head a bit when their eyes met. Regina quickly deserted the shocked look on her face and smiled lightly down at Emma.

"Regina? If you would rather her not…" Emma cut off her sentence, unsure of how to end it. Regina did not move, did not speak. The memories of her past flooded her mind as she stared down at Emma, and found herself unable to answer.

Silence covered the room once again until Maleficent let out a long and frustrated sigh. She stood from her seated position on the edge of the desk and moved to a part of the room that let her see everyone at once.

"I'll take the silence as an agreement," Maleficent chimed, a know it all smirk on her lips. She cleared her throat and straightened her back, making a show of herself before taking in a deep breath.

"This is a tale of tragedy. Of heartbreak and deceit. It is a tale of a woman who's life was covered with darkness since the day she was born. And while she fought back to keep her kindness and innocence within her, life handed her far too many unpleasant circumstances for her to be able to keep the darkness at bay."

Maleficent took a tiny moment of silence there, feeling triumph as she saw all eyes on her. All eyes except for Regina's. The Siren Queen stared off into another corner of the cabin, acting as if she wasn't listening. Maleficent knew very well that Regina was hearing every word. The woman's past would never escape her for as long as she lived, no matter whether she had truly found love in Emma or not. However, Maleficent continued the story.

"Regina's childhood was not a happy one. Having a mother who cared only of appearances and power could only hurt a child. It did exactly that. Regina was loved by her father, but he was too cowardly to try to stop her mother from abusing her child with magic. Not only was she abused with Cora's power, but also with her words. Her entire life, nothing Regina did was ever good enough for Cora. The older Regina became, the more her mother pressured her to learn magic. Little did she know of the gruesome gimp Regina's mother was learning her own magic from. But we'll get to that a bit later." Maleficent paused there to glance at Regina, not finding the look on the brunette's face surprising.

The angered look on Regina's face quickly grew to one of heartbreak. Though she knew her own story very well, Maleficent made it sound almost more dreadful than Regina's memories of the events. The older woman felt Emma place her hand on the small of her back, trying her best to keep Regina comforted. Such a small, intimate gesture Emma was giving. It was a shame it offered barely any comfort. Regina knew the story would just become dark.

"It was as a very young teenager that Regina finally, truly broke down and gave into her mother's wishes of learning magic. Naturally, the only reason Cora wanted little, innocent Regina to learn magic was because it meant more power. And power was and is like oxygen to Cora."

"Anyone who knows her, knows it always will be," Regina mumbled, trying her hardest to keep her concentration on the way Emma was massaging hr lower back. Still, the story squeezed at her chest worse than when her mother had taken her heart.

While Emma wrapped her arms tighter around Regina's waist, Maleficent only rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"I was there too, Regina. Don't forget I'm part of this story as well." The blonde witch snapped, shooting daggers at the couple sitting in the Captain's chair.

"Oh, believe me, Mally, dear. I know very well your part of this story." Each of Regina's words held a massive amount of venom. Not only did they hold venom, they held memories as well. Most of them more painful than not.

It was deadly silent in the room for longer than anyone was comfortable with. The energy of the two witches glaring at each other charged the room and mixed frighteningly with everyone's tension. Thankfully, Maleficent eventually turned from Regina and continued the story.

"Cora began to teach magic to both Regina and me when we were around the age of fourteen. I was the only friend Regina had, and vice versa. Being from the households we were from, our parents did not want us cavorting with those 'beneath' us. So, in essence, all we had were each other. We learned magic together, but nothing too advanced. I know now that Cora was only teaching us the minor things in fear of the two of us turning against her." Maleficent smirked. "Which we did."

Regina looked ready to speak herself, but she sat back, almost as if to burrow herself into Emma behind her. The blonde 'captain' only accepted her there and looked at the storyteller over Regina's shoulder. Belle also looked like she was enraptured by the story, and Maleficent went on. "When we were seventeen, Cora employed a new stable boy named Daniel for the horses she had gotten. Of course," she said looking at Emma now with a downright evil grin, "they fell madly in love."

Emma sighed, her face falling, but she remained silent. She knew that this was going to be Maleficent's way, and she was learning quickly to either get some sort of foot over her or just ignore it. Mulan, however, didn't like the way that the witch kept teasing Emma, and though reluctant as it started out, her strange co-captain was her friend. "Please move on with the story," Mulan said with a stern tone.

"I was the first to know. Regina and I grew up together, after all. She was such a romantic. Me? Not so much. She always had dreams that though she knew her mother wanted her to marry someone powerful even while allowing Regina to have some sort of power over her husband, Regina believed that she would learn to fall for whoever Cora chose. But then she met the stable boy and all of that went away." Maleficent's mouth twisted as she thought about the next part of the story. Belle leaned forward as she listened.

"Wha- ... What happened to him?" Emma asked, for surely something had to have happened, otherwise Regina would still be living her happily ever after without Emma there in that state.

"He died," Maleficent said simply, her tone telling Emma that she should have known this fact. "He was killed," she said a second later, her voice softer, and filled with genuine regret. "You see, Cora had a long queue of suitors for Regina, especially after her coming out party when we turned 18. Cora hadn't caught on yet that Regina was wrecking every single marriage proposal by asking questions on their honor, their merit, their horses, or anything she could think of. Finally, tired of the games, Cora found her a husband Regina couldn't refuse: the king. King Leopold was probably a nice man once upon a time, but years of being the sole ruler of our lands, and without the touch of a woman to soothe him other than his young daughter, he was no longer as kind. He wanted Regina, and what he wanted, he got. When Cora found out about Daniel, she knew that he was the reason why Regina had acted so horribly towards the king. She was so furious that she... she killed him."

Emma's hands trembled over Regina's body as she listened to this. "So she married the king," Belle breathed.

"No, she didn't. Regina was helpless. Cora's magic had taken over her sense of self, her ability to distinguish right and wrong as easily as she used to. She overpowered Regina, and as a added incentive, me. She stopped teaching Regina magic after this, especially when she had used some of it to try and stop Cora. I wasn't there when Daniel died, but I would have helped if I could. Regina ran away that very night, and she had this... ridiculous idea to learn magic to stop her mother's madness. That... man, The Dark One found her. He made a deal with her, one she refused at first. She was afraid of him, but she came to me. I convinced her to seek her revenge if he was the only way to do it. She went to him, and he taught us both as a condition. He only smiled his..." Maleficent's eyes went elsewhere, and her thoughts on the man weren't hard to decipher.

"I think that is enough stories for today," Regina said firmly, but the witch continued her story.

"No, no. You can't pick and choose what has happened to us, Dearie."

"Yeah, but there is nothing they need to know."

"You choose to censor me at THIS point of the story? I overestimated you. I thought Daniel's death would have been where you put an end to it. It wasn't your fault, if that is what you are so worried about."

"I'm not," Regina said in a clipped voice.

"Then perhaps you would prefer to tell the story, dear," Maleficent guessed. "I can't not."

Regina considered this before she said, "He lied to me. The whole time I was just a pawn in some strange chess game that I still cannot comprehend. What you didn't know, Mally, was that I had befriended Leopold's daughter. She was a sweet child, and I think I disappointed her when I ran away from everything, but it was all just a reminder of Daniel and what I had lost, so I went to him. To Rumpelstiltskin. I didn't- I didn't know who he was, or why he was so intent on teaching me the dark magic, but I learned everything I could in hopes of getting back at my mother. He knew why I was there, he always did. He used it to fuel me, having me pretend the hearts I took belonged to my mother, or that the village I destroyed was the one we grew up in..." Regina swallowed thickly. "But one day he had a different tactic. He said to me... He said that my mother had struck another deal. I don't know the details, but her part of the deal was to give up her firstborn child. Me. Somehow, she didn't deliver on that. She kept me all those years, and that had made him sore. I think he said this to get me to want to get back at her more, but there was something in his voice and on his face... I didn't want to be like that, like him. He was mad with this obsession. Whatever he was after connected him with my mother, and then me. I wanted nothing to do with it, so I left."

Regina looked back to Emma. Her hand went to her cheek, but, remembering that they were not alone, did not touch her. "You asked me earlier why Maleficent weren't as close as friends, it was because of him." Regina's eyes flickered, but they didn't connect with the woman in question. She kept Emma's gaze before she looked back to the others as she went back to telling the story. "When I left, Maleficent wanted to stay. I think she wanted the same as I did, to not be overpowered ever again, which I understood, but it caused for us to no longer be friends. I left our home, and took a voyage out to sea with a crew on the White Rabbit, and Absolem was kind to me."

"Ah, now this is something I don't know," Maleficent took a step to the side, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and her left hand went to her hip.

"Well," Regina said, but trailed off. A second later, she started up again. "Unfortunately, they fell into the territory of the sirens, but Absolem himself was confused. The Sirens were calling him from farther away than they did normally, and he had voyaged on those waters with every trading route. We didn't crash, as I used my magic to stop the ship's movement, but then she called to me. The mother of the Sirens, Tersichore, summoned me to her. She could see... everything about me. All of the pain, all of the anger, and I think that was why she took me in. It wasn't as if I had anywhere else to go. Plus, she let me complete my training into the dark magic. She let my anger fuel me, but not consume me any further, and... She was like a mother to me. She had been in this world for thousands of years without an heir or successor. There was no one to take care of the Sirens, who she cared for deeply, the Sirens who became my sisters. When my training was complete, she gave me the secrets of the Sirens, and the magic unique only to them. And then... She went into the sea, and disappeared." Regina's mouth twisted as the sight of this entered her mind. She wasn't sure where the previous Siren Queen had gone, or even if she was still somehow alive, but because she had been a better mother to her than Cora had, she had silently vowed to be the Queen she had been.

"One day, Maleficent found me. The Queen had a protection spell over us, which was why Rumpelstiltskin never found me, but Mally had her own training after the imp was through with her, and she found me there. I didn't know how to treat her once she was there. We fought, but just as before, she was my equal, even with her other magic and my magic of the Sirens. Knowing we couldn't over power each other, we ceased our fighting, and we became friends again." Regina did glance at Maleficent this time, but only got a small tilt of the head in return. "Years later, I captured Emma's ship and only kept her crew because Emma asked me to." Regina's eyes stayed on the ground after that, and her story seemed to be done.

"Why did you capture my ship?" Emma asked. "We were a ship of women, and we weren't near the territories when you pulled us in." Her voice was soft and the touch between them didn't shift, which told Regina that Emma wasn't angry with her for this.

"There was no other reason than the fact that I needed a new playmate and you looked fun, even from a distance."

Maleficent snickered, and Emma colored.

Regina felt that she should probably be somewhat sorry for the reason she had of capturing Emma's ship, but she felt no such emotion. There was a small regret though, the one regret telling her that she had dragged Emma into something more than just a little fun. Somehow they had fallen in love with each other, but Regina was sure it was the spell she had cast gone wrong. The brunette looked down at Emma with a mildly apologetic look, but it didn't last very long. Regina still had her pride to think of, even as she felt Emma hug her tighter to her body and lean her head into her chest. Maleficent cleared her throat, making Regina's eyes cut up to her instantly.

"What?" Regina snapped, eyes turning murderous. She was already getting tired of Maleficent's snide attitude.

"Well, it's just… you two are awfully cozy with one another. I don't see how anyone can stand to be around either one of you. I mean, look at you Regina." Maleficent paused, waving her hand towards Emma and Regina. "You're hanging onto her like she's a lifeboat. She's doing the same to you. It's not like one of you is about to drift off somewhere. You can let go of her. These little displays of affection are very unlike you, Regina. It's disgusting." Maleficent curled her lip up, blue eyes rather accusatory.

Maleficent's words made Regina jump up from Emma's lap, but not because Maleficent was chastising her for it. Regina missed the disappointed look on Emma's face when she abandoned her lap. Quickly, and with fluid motion, Regina marched her way over to Maleficent.

"Watch your tongue, Maleficent. I will not have you speaking to me or Emma that way. And especially not on her own ship." Her eye twitched and her tone was filled with venom and disgust.

"It's not her ship. It's mi-" Mulan began, but was quickly cut off.

"Shut up!" Regina and Maleficent both shouted at Mulan, making a permanent scowl etch itself onto the Captain's face.

Emma's green eyes went wide and Belle took a step back. They all knew that a fight between these two wouldn't be pretty all. If the two witches weren't careful, there was no telling what could happen to the ship or the people on it.

"Well, well. Look who's getting all protective over their love. I'm rather disappointed you've turned into this person, Regina. I was sure you were beyond that." Maleficent looked Regina up and down, a look of disgust in her eyes. "Clearly, I was wrong. I do believe your mother was right. Love is certainly a weakness."

Those words hit Regina like a ton of bricks. Her mother's voice had echoed those words in her mind for as long as she could remember, but hearing it from someone else seemed to cut like a knife. Regina's anger finally fully burst and a growl ripped from her throat. The dark haired woman dove towards Maleficent, intent on causing injury. Emma jumped up and tried to hold the older woman back, but she wasn't quick enough. Belle didn't dare try to interfere and just disappeared deeper into the cabin. Mulan was unable to keep her eyes off of the two women as they both slammed into the floor of the cabin.

Maleficent hadn't seen it coming, which rendered her unable to get out of Regina's way in time. The brunette's body clashed into hers and they both went tumbling to the floor. Maleficent shoved at Regina, but she was relentless and steeled her body, making it rather hard for Maleficent to shove her off. Regina gathered her magic, lifting herself up and off of Maleficent as she kept the older blonde invisibly strapped to the floor. Little balls of purple light and smoke swirled in Regina's hand as she glared down at Maleficent. The witch's blue eyes went wide, realizing that Regina was intent on hurting her. Apparently Maleficent had hit a soft spot within Regina and it had certainly rubbed her more than the wrong way. That had been Maleficent's intent, but she hadn't expected this reaction.

Just as Regina lifted her hands, bouncy blonde curls invaded her eye sight and concerned green eyes followed shortly after.

"Regina. Regina, stop. This isn't necessary. You don't have to hurt her. It's alright." Emma's voice was soft as she slowly and cautiously approached Regina.

It took Regina a moment, but her eyes finally settled on Emma's face and then her eyes. They locked gazes, but Regina did not move an inch. Emma continued to slowly approach the angered Siren Queen, hands held out in a questioning gesture. Regina swallowed and was only able to nod at Emma, the little balls of magic in her hands slowly disappearing. The pair was very nearly unaware of Maleficent as the witch lifted herself from the floor, a passive look on her face as she wiped at her dress. Maleficent spared a glance at them and was only able to roll her eyes.

All eyes, aside from Maleficent's, were on Regina and Emma as the blonde finally made contact with the Siren Queen. Slowly, she placed a hand on Regina's cheek and the brunette involuntarily leaned into the touch. As soon as Emma's lips touched hers, Regina's arms wrapped around the young woman's neck and she pressed her body as close to Emma's as possible. For a moment, their surroundings just disappeared. It was as if there was no one else in the room. As if there were no hurt feelings, no ship, no water. To the pair that was holding each other, it was just the two of them and their feelings. Emma placed a small and delicate kiss to Regina's lips once more, feeling little tingles shoot across her body as their lips met. Neither the blonde Captain or the brunette Siren Queen could feel the eyes that were on them. Emma opened her lips to speak, but was promptly interrupted by the sound of water crashing into the boat.

The ship rocked threateningly and tore the two lovers apart. They landed hard on the floor in opposite directions of each other, Emma bashing her head against the wood floor. Regina called out for the blond, but no response was given. The Siren Queen quickly picked herself up from the floor and assessed the situation in the room. Mulan had been thrown to behind her desk, Belle was nowhere to be found and Maleficent was clutching a post not too far away from Regina. They all seemed to be in shock, but the brunette's previous anger seemed to flare back to life. Without thinking, the Siren Queen turned on her heels and stomped towards the door to find out just exactly what was happening. She'd be damned if anyone or anything was getting in her way of completing this voyage.