All of the information felt overwhelming. She nodded along, trying to force the pieces to make sense in her mind, which truly they didn’t, but she didn’t want to say so out loud. She knew that this was how the spell was meant to be carried out; she’d read it so many times, but somehow now that it was her who needed its healing, she felt that it was simply too… unsimplified.
Her eyes stayed wide as she stared at Maleficent, listening to all her words, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel or know how to summon. Yet, she did believe that she wouldn’t be hurt. At least no more than she already was at any rate. Attempting a small smile to indicate to Maleficent that she believed her, Regina’s gaze fell to their hands, where they sat one atop the other, imagining the magic as it should happen. If she were capable this would be…amazing, but she still doubted herself.
“I’m not,” Regina replied in a whisper to the reassurances that she need not fear, amazed how easily the lie fell from her lips. Widening her own smile to be more convincing, she shifted where she sat, leaning towards Maleficent a touch more. Her heart was pounding in her ears, making thought difficult the closer the time drew for her to perform the magic. She felt a wave of nausea sloshing in her stomach, but bit back the the bile. She could do this. She had to. Otherwise she would be forced to return home not only explaining why she’d spent an entire night away from the palace, but also had blistering burns all along her hand.
When her gaze met and held Maleficent’s, she felt a different sort of uncertainty take her. A creeping tingle that began from the base of her spine, and slowly crawled its way up. There was something in her eyes. Something hypnotic, Regina thought. Her cheeks tinged pink from the sensation, even as her brow furrowed in pained concentration, her teeth gritting as she tried to force the magic to work.
“It’s not working,” she breathed out in a sighed whine, though she did not break the eye contact, nor did she cease her trying just yet.
The spell came back to her the further they slipped into it. Its origin. Why it was needed in the first place. And the reality of all it entailed. She worried that it would frighten her and the bond their magic was creating would sever before any healing would be done. But she couldn’t just tell her that. It was almost like a trance she slipped into. Her expression turning soft, and her voice softer.
“Can you close your eyes for me,” she posed it more like instruction than inquiry. The words sounding like they could lull her to sleep if she wouldn’t follow through on her own. “Picture the spell in your mind,” she went on, as she allowed her palm to hold nearly all her power at once. “The fire coming close….and receding. It can’t hurt you. You won’t let it.”
Magic can be a powerful thing if you let it. Far beyond what power you can wield. Magic can mend empty holes when it’s the right kind, seal up wounds the eyes can’t see, that only the heart can feel. That book held so much of her magic, things she’d more than long forgotten or cared for, and yet in one spell she began to feel connected to it again. Connected to a past she’d stopped longing for, when she stopped believing she could ever meet it again.
“The wound heals as you repel the heat,” she sounded almost soothing with every line. Her hand still gently cradling the wounded one, raging heat spitting out of her palm. “It stops hurting. It stops burning.” A large flame burst forth from Maleficent’s hand, engulfing the one that laid atop hers. It burned bright and hot, yet caused no damage, no pain. She couldn’t see if the spell were working, not even in Regina’s face, but this was how the spell worked. It would work. It had to.