A Curse Upon Thee 2-34

“Looks dead.”

Two days.

Two days of walking through rotting pine, stagnant ponds of black and air so thick it felt like trying to breathe through wet wool had put a new level of appreciation for this world into Finn McHale. 

Unfortunately, that level was below ground.

The ‘Black Forest’ — another section of the oversized continent-spreading wall of green that was the Infinite Forest — seemed like the worst part of it all. Somehow on the opposite side of the ‘Dark Forest’, because of course that made sense, it was almost more swamp than forest and after forty-eight hours of trudging though it…

Well, Finn definitely missed the part of the forest that had ogres in it. 

Safe to say, there was a different ache in Finn’s legs than he expected, the sharp burn of his own wounds less important than the other kind. The kind that came with the slow grind that was putting one armored red boot in front of the other for hours on a diet of berries and whatever Mulan managed to catch each night.

Jujutsu Tech covered a lot of scenarios, most of those he couldn’t remember. Those he could remember, pretty shit altogether; cursed spirits in abandoned schools, Grade Twos in the sewer systems, etc. Not once did Utahime-sensei mention what to do when you’re stuck in a fairy tale swamp with a burned body and a team of women who talked like the cast of Shakespeare in the Park.

“Like, you sure this is the place?” And also one bail-bondswoman from Boston. “Cause it looks dead as hell.”

Finn slumped up against a tree, shoulder barely even protesting the feel of rough bark as he sucked in a shallow breath. “Looks dead, doesn’t mean it is.”

“Real comforting there.” Emma clicked her tongue. “Thanks for that.”

“You’re a big girl.” Finn grunted low as he took in the hideout in front of them, a smear of gray stone half-swallowed up by the hillside ahead. The rotting tooth of stone stared back at him as it stood atop dark ivy and darker earth, a stone archway gaping open as if waiting for them. If the moss crawling up one wall wasn’t obvious enough, it was clear the place was old as hell, and quiet in that specific way that meant empty or very good at pretending. “Comfort yourself.”

He was going to need some comfort if this went as bad as last time, as bad as he was expecting. And honestly, the residuals weren’t doing a damn thing to change his mind on that one bit.

That dead iron and flower scent wafted over his head, heavy and thick in the air and in his nostrils; a dense ribbon of darkness wrapping tightest around the stone structure.

“It seems empty.” Mulan whispered from his back, the warrior creeping up beside him. Her eyes stayed on the treeline, unlike the rest of them, watching for other threats. 

“Seems.” Mary Margaret pushed a bush down, the short-haired queen staring with a narrowed gaze as if she could command Cora to appear. “Nothing’s ever as it seems with Cora.”

“So…” Emma pulled the compass out of her jacket, knuckles tight and white around it. “How we doing this?”

“I volunteer myself as scout.” That light voice popped up next to him without a sound, something that still bugged Finn every single time; a complete absence of footfall from a girl who could probably riverdance on a barely-frozen lake without breaking the ice.

Emma glanced up. “How?”

Mal tilted her head, green eyes catching the weak sunlight filtering through the canopy. "Not to brag, but a girl certainly has her ways. A snap of my fingers and I can slip in anywhere. Like, easily."

“No.” Emma’s arm came up fast, closing tight around the fae-girl’s thin wrist before she could take another step. “How do you think we’re going to let you do that? Like you won’t just sneak in, grab whatever's in there, and vanish on us?"

“So charming.” Mal’s mouth curled up, something not a smile crossing her face as she snatched her hand free. “As if you’re not gripping the compass tight enough to bruise the brass.” A scoff left her, the girl crossing her arms. “Also, ungrateful much? Here I am, offering to risk my life for you…”

“For us?” Finn raised an eyebrow, a scoff leaving him to match her. “Or for you?”

“Right. You want to go to Storybrooke too.” Emma’s frown tightened. “You take the ashes, you hold the cards.”

“You people…” A sigh left the purple-haired girl, Mal’s foot almost coming down in a stomp before she caught herself. “Like I even know what these ashes look like? I mean-”

“Well, they’re ashes.” Finn pulled a face as he whispered back. “I don’t really think you need to know more than that.”

Before the argument could continue, a voice pulled their attention; two heads turning almost in unison. “Emma. Finn.”

Mary Margaret stared back at them, the woman wearing a tight expression. “I know you don’t trust her, but do we have a safer option? Especially with Finn still injured the way he is?”

The redhead closed his eyes, biting down on an argument he didn’t even have. I just need like three… four more days and I’ll be good.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have that time and Mary Margaret didn’t need to read his thoughts to know that. “After all, if Cora is in there…”

“That’s me invisible for you.” Mal waved one hand, purple-painted index tracing three quick meaningless circles in the air. “Whatever wards are there weren’t meant to stop a fae. If the coast is clear, I make a noise and you all come in right after me.”

One sparkling green eye shut with a playful wink. “So simple, so easy.”

Finn raised an eyebrow high, arms crossed in a perfect mimicry of Emma. “What noise.”

Mal looked down at him, the girl blinking for a few seconds of silence. “A… a bird noise.”

“A bird.” He stared back. Alright… “We’re in a forest, princess purple. Birds are standard. You chirp, how are we gonna know it’s you?”

"A specific bird, Sir Sorcerer."

"And which one is that?"

Mal rolled her eyes, a sweep of green across her face before they landed back on him. "A chicken, then. Happy?"

“...why not a duck?”

One sparkling eye twitched at him. “Because… I don’t fancy quacking. Chicken it is."

Finn opened his mouth, only for the air in front of him to simply fold and Mal just — wasn’t there.

No shimmer, no puff of smoke, nothing all that dramatic; just girl one second and empty air the next. His chest itched a little as he tried to track her; the smell of burnt sugar close by enough of a residual to tell him something happened without telling him what, which was, frankly… not that useful.

“Show off.”

Finn shook his head, attention sliding to the side to take in the blonde leading this whole brigade. Eyes tight as her jaw, those knuckles clenched whiter around the compass; Finn not needing any of his senses enhanced to read the look on her face.

Yeah, I don’t trust it either. 

He didn’t trust any of it.

Hell, he hadn’t trusted Mal an inch more in the last two days of the girl actually being conscious around them. …if she can lie for that long. Cursed energy cycled at the thought of her as he looked back towards the door, a thin trickle of red flaring along his fists. His reserves had long topped up before the first day of walking even finished, but that still didn’t mean much when his burns were still slow to heal.

…relatively speaking, at least.

He was pretty sure if he was a normal person, he’d be groaning and hospitalized for a good while longer.

Shaking his head at the thought of that horribleness, Finn gave Emma another glance. “You good, bosslady?”

“...I’m fine.”

“You’re kind of gripping that thing like it’s about to run from a bond or something.”

“I said I’m fine, Finn.”

"Alright, alright." Hands up, the redhead backed off half a step and let the quiet sit. 

Mary Margaret drifted closer to Emma's other side, mother and daughter leaning up against each other as they exchanged quiet words. Mulan stood a little apart, hand loose near her hilt as Aurora hung back with her, arms folded tight.

Thirty seconds passed. It felt like three hundred.

“Bawk!”

The sound echoed out of the stone throat of the hideout — sharp and undeniable, the perfect sound of a chicken.

“Bawk-bawk!”

Finn let out a long breath through his nose, one he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “That’s… pretty sure that’s our girl.”

Emma shook her head. "I hate fairies."

"Sounded pretty convincing." Mary Margaret threaded a small laugh through the words. “To me, at least.”

"Yeah, well, looks like eight months of scrying came with perfect barnyard sounds too.” Finn clicked his tongue, willing to give Mal that much as he finally stood up tall from behind the treeline. “Girl's got range."

“Move.”

They broke cover at Mulan’s order, Finn taking point as he crossed the muddy clearing. Mud gave way to old stone and older dust as he led the way in through the archway, the air inside cold and mineral. Soon enough, the room opened up wider than the doorway made it look, thick shadows pooled in the corners where the outside light couldn’t hope to touch.

His eyes trailed up as he looked over the interior; the oversized circular chamber looking back with heavy stone pillars supporting a domed ceiling.

They crossed the threshold. 

All of them, together, stepping into the center of the room —

“Fuc-!”

— and the floor came up to meet Finn's face before his brain even registered the wave that hit him. Air punched clean out his lungs as magic rolled out from somewhere unseen, a fist made of pressure taking him by the legs as he heard gasps and shouts all around him. Emma’s was the loudest, the sound of brass hitting stone and skittering as he fought down a groan.

Before any other sound could escape him, something thick erupted from the mortar with the sound of a bell ringing underwater. Actual bars of dark iron — wrought metal shot through with sickly pulses of red — tore out from the floor in a perfect square. Each spike tore through the flagstones, rising a full ten feet in the air before twisting together at the top as metal fused in front of his eyes.

A cage. 

“Well.”

The word dropped from the shadows and Finn’s stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"Cora!" Mary Margaret forced herself up onto one knee inside the bars, voice as sharp and as loud as the still-ringing metal in front of them. 

Because there she was. 

The old witch stepped out from where the shadow had pooled the thickest, dark gown dragging silently over dust as she stepped into the weak light of the archway. “Well.”

Her hand rose, fingers turning in an elegant flourish and the compass — resting three feet from a straining Emma’s outstretched fingers — twitched. Barely a heartbeat llater, the brass scraped across the stone and found itself directly in Cora’s open palm as her wrinkled fingers closed tight around metal. “Well.”

A sickening smile crossed that wrinkled face as the witch took all of them in. “Just look at you all. Don’t you feel embarrassed? Don’t you feel silly?” She shook her head. “All this work just to end up giving me what I needed? Imagine if you had simply just listened to me?”

“Listened?” Emma pulled up Mary Margaret beside her, both rising to their feet with Aurora and Mulan as Finn grunted from the ground, biting back a scream from weeping burns. “You killed Lancelot? You attacked us!”

“Attacked you?” The old witch waved a hand in front of her face. “Let’s not be childish now. The boy attacked me first. I was simply defending myself.”

“Fuck y-you…” Blood spat free onto stone as Finn forced himself into a pushup, arms under his chest. A second later, he shoved himself right to his feet, Cursed Energy flaring strong as he stared at the old woman wafting off enough power to easily match the Curse he’d fought. “You old hag!” His words came out rougher than he wanted, lungs still wheezing from the fall, but he couldn’t really make himself care. “You kill people!”

“You’re quite the rude young man. Although, I suppose those with power are rarely necessarily kind.” Cora’s mouth curved up slow, the witch turning over the compass in her hand. “Besides, I didn’t simply kill them. All their deaths were for a greater purpose.”

“What.” Finn wiped his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand, head shoved as far as it could go into the black iron bars. “Purpose.”

“Mine, fool boy.” She clicked her tongue, that smile still on her face as she stared back at him. “I hear you went to some sort of wizard school. Must not have been a very good one if you were a student.”

Finn bit back a growl, Cursed Energy still flickering as he gripped at the bars — as much as he tugged at them, even with his far greater strength, they refused to budge. “You… what’d you do to Mal?”

“Awww.” The space to Cora’s right flickered in the gloom, burnt sugar and lavender spiking through Finn’s senses as a figure suddenly stood there clad in purple. Once again immaculate in leather — not bound or bruised and definitely not bleeding — Mal Igna had a ghost of a smirk right at home on her face as she wiggled her fingers his way. “I knew you liked me.”

Before anyone could say anything else, someone walked in behind the fairy girl — boots loud on stone with a familiar swagger to his steps through the doorway, a polished silver hook glinting in the low light. “Missed me, loves?”

“You…” Emma pushed up right next to Finn as he stared open-mouthed, her hands tight around the bars the same way she’d knuckled the compass as she looked between both Hook and Mal like she wasn’t sure who to hate the most. “You lied.”

“Didn’t, actually.” A purple head tilted to the side. “Said I needed to get to Storybrooke. True. Said I didn’t feel like fighting Cora. True. Not sure if I said I didn't trust Cora"

Mal gave a shrug, rolling those green eyes with a sigh. “But that’s also true. No one should ever trust her. Being honest — and I know how that sounds from me — she’s quite literally a heartless old witch.”

Cora didn’t even blink at the insult, that patient smile still plastered on her face.

“Don’t go blaming Hooky, either.” Mal waved a hand lazily at the pirate. “Poor guy didn't know a thing about me. Cora figured he'd botch it all on his own, so...."

“Oi!” The pirate raised a brow as he properly dropped into the space right beside Cora like he’d always belonged there. “I’m right here, you know.”

“I know!” A small chirp of a laugh burst free as Mal did a twirl. "That’s why I was backup."

Finn grit his teeth. “Backup.”

“You really should be flattered, Finny.” Purple lips pouted his way. “Only reason I got pulled into this is because you’re kinda scary. Dozens of ogres in one week? What’s wrong with you?”

A growl slipped free from between those gritted teeth.

“See, look at that?” Mal scoffed. “Who growls?”

“How?” Emma’s hands gripped the cage even tighter. “How?”

Green eyes met green as Mal’s attention turned her way. “How what?”

“How did you lie to me?"

“Oh, Emma. I told you already.” Another put-upon over-dramatic sigh filled the old stone hall as Mal hung her head. “I’m a fae. What makes you think I’ve ever needed to lie?”