SwanQueen Oneshots

Dangerous Magical Artifacts

"Don't touch anything unless I tell you to. There are dangerous magical artefacts in here." It didn't matter how many magic lessons they had, every one of them started with Regina pre-emptively telling Emma off.

"I know, okay? I'm not a child." Emma pouted as she said this. "You say that every time I come here and we've been doing this for, I don't know, a year?"

Regina crossed her arms and pinned Emma with a stern look. "If I thought you'd learned your lesson the first, second, third, or even the fifteenth time, I wouldn't feel the need to warn you. But you haven't."

Emma started to protest, but Regina interrupted her. "Need I remind you that last month, you unleashed a swarm of locusts into the vault and they ate our clothes?"

Emma looked at her boots as she scuffed them against the ground. If she was being entirely truthful, although she hadn't meant for the locusts to happen, she couldn't quite bring herself to regret it. In fact, it was a memory that she was pretty sure she'd cherish until her dying day. She didn't dare to look up in case Regina caught sight of the hint of a smile she couldn't quite suppress.

"Or what about that time you picked up a tree sprite's talisman and turned Robin into an oak tree?"

She definitely didn't regret that one. They'd spent a week trying to change him back, until he'd spelled out 'I'm happy... leave me' be in acorns. She finally managed to get her expression under control and she looked up at Regina. "It's not like I meant to do any of those things."

Regina sighed, her voice heavy with exasperation as she said, "And yet somehow, you manage to do them anyway. Come on. Let's not waste any more time; I've got a meeting this evening."

Emma trailed after Regina. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she stumbled, too busy admiring the curve of Regina's legs in high heels to pay attention to her own footing. She bumped into a shelf as she steadied herself and an object fell to the floor.

"Emma!" The sound of metal hitting concrete alerted Regina to her mishap; Regina turned and glared at her.

Emma bent down to retrieve the object; it was a silver cuff. Emma ran her thumb over the engraving and was just about to take a closer look when Regina snatched the cuff from her hand and put it back on the shelf.

"Sorry." Emma shrugged and tried to paste her most puppy-like expression onto her face. Regina was not in the least bit appeased.

Regina grabbed her arm and led her to the other end of the vault, keeping her as far away from any more shelves, all the while muttering about getting Marco to build her some cabinets with doors.

Neither of them noticed the brief glow of magic emanating from the cuff on the shelf.

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Emma scratched at her wrist irritably. "Kid, are you getting bitten?"

Henry shook his head. "It's November, Ma. There aren't any insects out at the moment."

When the itching continued to intensify, Emma rolled up her sleeve and inspected her wrist. There was a reddish welt that seemed to wrap most of the way around her wrist. She continued to scratch at it distractedly as she picked up the game controller in front of her.

"Okay, kid. This time I'm definitely gonna hand you a beating."

Henry scoffed and rolled his eyes at her. "Sure thing, Ma. That's what you say every time." He pulled up the top scores list. "What's this? I'm seeing a lot of Henrys on this list and... only one Emma. And you cheated that time, anyway. You got Mom to beat me while you were signed in."