Daughter of Darkness || Once Upon a Time

Chapter Twenty-Three | The Seer's Prediction

Mulan entered the restaurant and walked straight to David and whispered something is his ear. Without replying, David stood up and followed Mulan out of The Seven Seas, making sure the door shut behind them. Henry glanced over at Neal, who seemed to have no idea what was going on either.

"It's nothing good," was the only information the Seer was able to provide.

Finally, Ruby went out to see what was happening, but when she, Mulan, and David returned, they all refused to answer any questions Neal or Henry had despite Neal's argument that he was older than all three of them and he deserved to know.

Henry tried to get some more information out of the Seer, but her ability to see the future had faded since her death because Rumplestiltskin had taken most of it. All she could see was that it was, "Not something Henry wanted to know."

So Henry and Neal were left in the dark about whatever secret Mulan, Ruby, and David knew.

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|Tartarus|
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As the woman stepped closer, Regina could see that she wore a scarf-like piece of cloth that covered her hair and sunglasses that covered her eyes, even though Tartarus was the darkest place in the Underworld. The woman spoke again when she was closer. "Cruella told me I would find you here. You should be honored, really. She's alerted all of Tartarus that you two are here."

"Who are you?" Regina asked, trying to think of what villains they hadn't met yet. There was Pan and Felix, but they would have been with the people who had cheated death.

"Who do you think I am?"

"No idea. Why do you think I'm asking?"

The woman didn't answer. The only sound that could be heard was the river...and hissing?

Suddenly, Regina remembered something Mary Margaret had told her. She and David had been looking for a way to stop Regina from casting the Dark Curse when they had come upon a woman with hair made of snakes and eyes that could turn you to stone.

"You recognize me?"

"No."

"Well then perhaps I shall show you." In one swift move, the cloth that had been covering the woman's head was gone and Regina could see that, indeed, she had snakes instead of her hair.

Regina only had time to shout, "Close your eyes!" before the woman's sunglasses were disposed of. She could still feel Robin breathing against her, so that meant his eyes were closed.

"I am Medusa!" The woman shouted. Regina looked at the ground as she stood up. The sword was several feet away, but she was sure Medusa could easily intercept her. Robin stood up as well and began walking in the opposite direction of the sword. Regina looked at Medusa's feet and could see that she was following Robin. As long as Robin didn't look her in the eyes, he would be fine.

Regina dashed over to the sword and picked it up. She held it out in the direction of where she assumed Medusa was, but she kept her vision locked on the ground.

"How do you expect to defeat me if you cannot look at me?" Medusa laughed.

Regina had a plan, but it was by no means a very good one. And she wasn't sure if being turned to stone counted as death or not, so that meant she needed a Plan B.

Regina walked towards Medusa, keeping the sword out in front of her. She felt like she was losing her balance and her vision was growing blurry around the edges again, but she kept moving. She could feel the Medusa was looking at her now

Regina heard Robin shout, "Regina, DUCK!" Instead of ducking, Regina instinctively looked up to see Robin. Luckily, Medusa had turned to Robin when he had spoken. Unluckily, Robin hadn't looked away quick enough. And Regina had looked up just in time to see him being turned to to stone. She almost called out to him, but realized that Medusa would look back at her if she made a noise. So instead, Regina swung her sword out in front of her, slicing Medusa's head clean off her shoulders. Medusa wailed and crumbled to the ground.

Regina carefully stepped around Medusa and rushed over to Robin. He wasn't regenerating back into a human, so apparently being stone didn't count as death. But Medusa would be regenerating soon, and Regina needed to leave before that happened.

Then again, the whole point of coming down here had been for Robin, and now she was standing across from him as a stone statue. Regina leaned over and brushed her warm lips against his cold, stone ones. "I'm sorry," she muttered. Just as she was about to turn and pick up the sword, the stone began to fade from Robin's body until he was human again.

"Regina?"

"Robin!" Regina wrapped her arms around him, pulling him as close as she could.

"What...?"

"She turned you to stone."

"So how am I human now?"

Regina had her speculations, but she simply said, "I don't know."

Robin pulled away just enough so that he could see Regina's face. "We need to keep moving, do you feel good enough?"

"Yeah," Regina lied. Robin didn't believe her for a second, but they didn't have time to argue. So he simply picked up the sword and let Regina lean on him as they continued downstream.