“I wasn’t — accusing you… “ Regina trailed off meekly, fearful that Maleficent might have misinterpreted her question. She was the one who had acted foolishly, there was no cause for her to have laid her hand anywhere near the water. “I simply… learned my lesson the hard way I suppose.” She gave a half laugh, one completely devoid of any real humor and that mellowed into a sigh as she glanced at her hand. “Again.”
Her gaze lifted, surprised and with widened eyes when the offer was extended. She seemed almost as if she thought she’d imagined the words for a moment; gawking at Maleficent as if she were witnessing some fantasy come to life rather than her own reality. Slowly a smile formed as she nodded, stumbling over her words until they merged into a single sound. “Of course. I’ll just — “ she managed to get out, as she pulled to her feet and vanished just outside the door, reemerging moments later with the silver book held in her good hand, the other held protectively against her chest. As she approached back where she had just been sitting, she gave a bashful sort of smile at the obvious wear she’d left on its pages, and how visible it was even without opening the book.
“I suppose I ought to… officially give this back to you now,” she said lightly, sitting back where she had been upon the floor, and setting the book just at the edge of the pool’s steaming water. “After all, I doubt my mother came by it through honest means, and I stole it from her as well…” she laughed a little, almost sounding nervous as she resumed holding her injured hand with the good one, unable to feign the lack of pain now, but the smile she wore was decidedly more genuine. For so long she had obsessed over the pages of this book, and what the woman who penned them must be like. And now she knew the woman, and even better yet, she was going to get to witness her using the very magic Regina aspired to.
Even when she’d broken in to her castle those weeks ago, even when she’d come back day after day, week after week, with the book glued to her side, all those times and Maleficent had still made no attempt to even flip through its pages. It was a time long gone by to her, that she had found it to be something of worth. Worthy to hold her words, her magic, right in its pages. She’d forgotten about it all but entirely until that day the girl came in, clutching it to her chest, all of Maleficent’s knowledge and memory in worn out binding, like it was something she’d been protecting.
Knowing her now as she did, Maleficent believed she actually had been. When it had fallen into the hands of the girl’s mother she put up little fight. It didn’t matter to her any longer, and she doubted it would do much for that woman either. When it came into Regina’s possession however, it suddenly held power anew. It led her here, and here they were.
“If I wanted it back I would have taken it by now,” she told her pointedly, an eyebrow raising as if that should have been obvious to her already. But then she was near-smiling again, and sitting up just enough in the bath to see Regina where she sat. Her gaze landed on the book, the image on the cover depicting herself, but she couldn’t have felt more distant from who that woman was. They were no longer one in the same, hadn’t been for some time. Magic or not she didn’t share in that woman’s unyeilding strength and character. She’d fallen too far to ever be her again, but truthfully, she didn’t really care to be. That woman had lost much and never cared for anyone, the woman she was now, while still cruel and cold held a different sort of power. The power to rise from the ashes in which she once was, and burn one more time.
“I will need your help. These spells are all but foreign to me now.” It wasn’t like her to admit faults of any kind, and though she knew no further harm would come to the girl even if she did fail, the added security of another sorceress, no matter how inexperienced she may have thought herself, was a help. Swallowing thickly she instructed the book to open, its pages flying as if a breeze had come in, all from the simple wave of a hand. They stopped suddenly, on a two part spell, the pages all stilling, and Maleficent squinted to read them upside down, and somewhere in the back of her mind the spell read back to her as though it had never left all. Her hand reached out for Regina’s, palm flat.
“This won’t hurt you. I promise.”