WHO: Dark Emma & Dark Killian WHEN: Now WHERE: By the lake in Marrowood WHAT: The Dark Ones summon the ferryman of death to try and take out Grimoire's power. It doesn't work. Last resorts are needed. RATING/WARNINGS: Bleak outlooks on everything, suicide. STATUS: Complete
Supposedly, insanity was meant to be the act of performing the same action in the search of a different outcome. It was supposed to be looking for a change in a constant, something that never happened, but was constantly repeated anyway. Irrationality, utter foolishness, the belief that this time, it would be different.
In that sense, the Dark One curse carried with it the insanity from all those previous, the whispers of those foolish creatures searching for the change in a constant, the new outcome in the same series of events. Grimoire could’ve been that change, could’ve been the new outcome. The power was flowing so destructively, part way through the act of finally achieving the opening that was so desperately sought.
The noise of them all had gotten louder, and Emma wondered if that was in part their own insanity, or a carried flaw from releasing them all from hell. A screaming, aching mass in her mind, as they shouted for their own recognition. Nimue had been with her near constantly, Rumplestiltskin a more easily ignored fabrication. But since she cut down Stark, Emma had felt the ebbing doubt in her actions.
It hadn’t derailed her yet, not from the point of achieving their mission. With all the pieces in play, the distractions and the sifting forwards, she hadn’t paused for too long in carrying on with their initial intentions. The portal was opened, Isaac’s blood used with the blade she’d stolen from Stark, it was now just a matter of containing the power.
Which was becoming more and more volatile, even Emma was understanding that. Ripping through a place so dark by unleashing untold darkness was seemingly an impossible task. The echoing questions, what are we doing, rolling along her mind, trying to find that rational thinking, the logic behind what had driven them here in the first place.
Why did this plan seem so flawless and logical before? Where did these doubts stem from? Why was she second guessing herself now? She’d been aware of the absence of light ever since the darkness crept in, she’d known then and there just what was missing, but the gaping hole it left wasn’t really felt until now, with shrouds appearing and the magic sparking so uncontrollably and--
“What now?”
Now it seemed like they should be gloating, they should be preparing for home, for success, but instead there was just this heavy weight of anxiousness and foreboding that hadn’t truly been there since she’d felt the curse take her, the dark magic offering solace in her certainty of power. But now, with all this power just at their fingertips, there was a pause. Because… “What now?”
It all came together so nicely, Killian thought. The shadowy apparitions told him so, urged him, nudged him further and further - they were the ones who reached out to him and he had gladly allowed himself to be wrapped up in such a chilly, soothing embrace; he’d felt more at home with the darkness than he ever felt as a man pretending to be a hero, or at least, that was what he told himself.
He looked worse for the wear. Inky pupils that floated in a dark, churning sea, what looked to be the rungs of Hell beneath his red-rimmed eyes, a pop of color against what were two endless voids. Eyes that were once expressive were now dead, lifeless just as much as those zombies he’d risen - but the madness lingered, it itched at his skin and all over his scalp and down to his bones. Tainted the marrow, made him want to lash out and do nothing but hurt and hurt and hurt, until he couldn’t do it anymore.
What now?
“Let them do what we brought them to do,” he said, casting a glance toward the lake portal - it had opened for them, unleashed the dark presences that were ready to aid them. Stepping closer to Emma, he reached for her hand. “Let’s go. You and me, like we wanted - we’ll let this place implode in on itself. Everyone will be sent back, including us.” Or they’d die, but better to have this version of themselves perish than remain trapped in a cage, no? They would re-emerge somewhere else. Recycled healthy as new.
The ferryman was there, an unmoving figure in his boat which would would take them away from here. For good.
Everything that they were, it was meant to lead to this moment. To the destruction of this world, the return home, however it happened. Be it the end of this world or just the death they were constantly put through here. Maybe the action itself, attempting so utterly to destroy would affect that. Recycling might not happen, they might just be ejected.
Home.
They had the means now, didn’t they. To take all the power, to have everything in themselves and have all the control. Power and control, those were the most important things, Dark Ones coveted the power, seeping into them and becoming all they were. Rumple had, all his power, everything was second to that.
It wasn’t like they had an option now, was it? Emma’s choices led them here, now, to this. The shadow in front of her what she’d turned him into and the carnage around them the result of their logical thinking. Implode this world, destroy it until nothing survived, return home. What now. Could they? Destroy it all.
Excalibur felt right in her hand, it had since the moment she took it, whole again, both their names etched into the metal, glinting at her. It was an extension of them after all. It was their tool, and this was their purpose and… Why was she questioning this? “Home,” it was the goal, the broken bars of their cage and the release to their own world. “Finally.” It was a long time coming, and Emma’s skip of thought just highlighted that to her, in her mind, at least.
“Not long now.” And then the next phase would begin. She could end all of this and restore things like she’d planned. The ferryman got closer and the voices got louder, the presence more of a weight and Emma stretched out to let her fingertips touch Killian’s hand.
“We’ve been here for ages,” Killian growled under his breath, that little fact - sand slipping through the hourglass and wasting away, as he wasted away, reminding him of Neverland, did nothing to sate his fury. “Over a year. Nearly close to two for you. It’s about bloody time we left.”
He curled his fingers around Emma’s, and his grip got a bit together as they were slowly surrounded by the pure unadulterated darkness that they had brought to this world. It was a hive of angry buzzing bees, a cyclone that was only just starting - but every storm started small, and then it picked up speed, collecting bits and pieces and spitting them back out, ripping through everything and leaving destruction in its wake.
Killian hoped for that. He needed that.
“Just hang onto me. That’s all.” They would go first - they had earned this, had made it happen.
Two years nearly, two years of utter hell, day in and day out. Battling for sanity just as much as survival. This entire place was so utterly deplorable that it deserved the sheer destruction heading it’s way.
Gripping back just as tight, her knuckles turning white, Emma took steadying breaths, letting the magic build and build, the peak would come, like the curses she’d seen before, it would sweep through here and obliterate everything. Rip everything away from here and back to where they belonged.
The magic was already coming alive, tingling and vibrating through her veins. Even as the darkness around them, the clouds forming a blanket to shadow everything in Grimoire, the winds picking up with the crackle of energy everywhere around them. It was rather oppressive too, heavy and dragging. Hopefully the drag of them from this horrid place to their own home.
Killian had to consider, for a moment, what exactly they were returning to. He was a man driven by revenge, always had been, felt like he always would be because every time he took two steps forward something came along and blew him back, or he did it to himself in a master move of personal sabotage - in this case, the desire was amplified by a thousand as madness sunk into him and tainted his vision; it had turned him against the woman he professed to love, wanting to make her ache the way he did, to make her pay for turning him into some kind of half-living shell of a person. Dark One life support - it wasn’t much better than being a vegetable, perhaps. Jury was still out.
At the moment, he wasn’t exactly angry with Emma. Things were different here, they had a common goal, they were united. That wasn’t the problem. The probably was that he was just so tired of everything.
“This is the right way,” he spoke up, talking more to himself than Emma directly. “There was no other choice.” It’s not as if he doubted himself, doubted their plan. More like the unknown of what would happen was beginning to feel as suffocating as the darkness closing in on them.
The trepidation seemed to grow the longer the curse played out -which Emma was curious about. She knew they got everything right, it should’ve been a simple case of the inevitable happening. Unless Grimoire itself could interfere with things, but nothing was happening fast enough. Mild destruction of the immediate area of Marrowood they were in, surrounded by debris from the dinosaur attack that pushed them towards Grimoire in the first place. Unless the magic started in Grimoire and ended here, things should’ve been progressing much quicker.
“This is taking too long.” The Dark Ones weren’t destroying this place, the souls weren’t moving onwards, nothing was happening like it should be. It was the right way, this was the logical option, this was the progressive effect of the cards they’d been dealt.
Why wasn’t it working.
“We have to speed it up somehow.” Not that she thought there was a way, was there. You couldn’t just get the ferryman to ferry quicker. “It’s not working.”
Of course it wasn’t, and Killian knew why - or at least, he was relatively certain of it. It was because Garrett had been right - the power to release everyone in Grimoire from this prison was not something that mortals could wield. He couldn’t, Emma couldn’t, perhaps even a combination of the magics from those hooded, cloaked figures couldn’t either - and they would try, gods, they’d try. But it wasn’t going to do anything except turn this world into more of a wasteland than it currently was.
“No,” he spoke, sounding anguished and defeated as clouds of ink swirled around them, a tornado of darkness. “We can’t. It’s not - it won’t work at all. It’ll just destroy us, it won’t save us.”
As if all of this hadn’t destroyed the two of them already. And it was a harsh realization to face.
Intentions clearly weren’t enough to get by on, and Emma was struck with the fact that this was the second time her good intentions had derailed so utterly and fantastically in a bitter snort. They’d just help this place further its destruction of themselves, of each other.
The damage they inflicted, on themselves, on the rest of the people here, effectively on each other. What Emma inflicted on him. It was a hard pill to swallow. And now what? Now they had unleashed the unspeakable and they were left with so little in the way of answers. None of the others would stand a chance, they’d failed to stop them before they’d opened the gates to hell, and now where the power was, soaking into Grimoire and Marrowood, added more to their prison.
Emma’s hand tightened on Excalibur, their options narrowing greatly, just what was left, the Hail Mary pass. Last resorts were never the best options, that was why they were the last resorts. “We have to stop this.” Resignation heavy in her, the unfortunate understanding of just what this all was.
Futile.
Killian wished that it hadn’t ended up like this, but he could wish and hope all he wanted - that never did anyone any good, not at all. He’d run out of stars to wish on anyway; they’d all died out. “Or what? What if we don’t stop it?” he asked, but he already knew the answer. They’d unleash more literal hell onto the place, and all that darkness was something that no one could handle - that no one was equipped to handle.
He wanted to leave as much as everyone else, but like this? No. Not like this.
“All the darkness is tethered to this blade, to us,” he spoke, voice sounding choked and absolutely wrecked. “If we...use it, with us, that darkness will be ended.” Obliterated, hopefully. But the curse would have nowhere else to do - Dark One suicide was one surefire way to suck out all that evil, and slam it into a coffin, a vault, deep in the depths where it belonged.
Wanting so desperately for something in this place was dangerous, but Emma had truly thought, through the ego-trip and the power boost that maybe this one would’ve been it. The power they had, the power they could call on, it should’ve been enough, instead of just feeding this place with yet more darkness and power itself, that they’d be able to finally beat it.
The alternative was letting the darkness fester into here, feed it more and then what? More suffering from them all, certain death after certain death, no respite at all. It wasn’t an option.
It could end with them, the curse and the evil they’d brought here, it could end with them. Failure wasn’t something Emma liked to give in to, but the fact was that she’d overestimated their power and underestimated this hellhole, taking for granted that they’d be just that good, when they so clearly had no idea just what they were getting into. “Only option,” because everything up until now had just pushed them past the brink. “We’ll have to be quick.” And maybe it would be a brief respite from just what they’d need to deal with. If they came back.
As of now, Killian didn’t really want to come back - he was ready to go, ready to find some sort of ending, because any ending seemed worlds better than repeating the cycle that the forces of Grimoire had in store for them.
He thought of his father’s last words, that it was never too late to look into your own heart and made the decision about what kind of man you wanted to be. In a way, those words were forgiveness - though Killian wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself for killing his father, even if the bastard more than deserved it. But there was one thing he did know: He refused to be the kind of man that would take the choice of ending it away from anyone else. That wasn’t his decision to make for them - only for him. And the strength in him that he’d been honing for centuries allowed him to to past the shackles and chains that darkness tethered to him - he could see that Emma was right, this was the only option.
“Come closer,” he said, reaching for her and wrapping an arm around her, facing her, so they were chest to chest. “The blade will have to skewer us. Make it disappear, then reappear.” Make it reappear in them, since it was difficult to stab yourself in the back with a sword. And it had to be at the same time. Quick, simultaneous death. No reason to draw this out.
They were going to die, and yet the unknown didn’t quite scare him the way it might for others. Whatever it was, he’d face it head on. “I still love you, you know.”
He meant it. Not in the way that he wanted to tear her clothes off, it wasn’t lust. But more like in the way that she’d become so integral to his life, in any realm, that to not have her would be as if a part of him was missing.
Best intentions, they really did seem to trip up people at the worst of places. Emma knew exactly what they’d both meant, knew that everything she’d done since taking that blade from Regina and letting darkness into her heart had been with the best of intentions, and look where that had gotten her. And now here they were, no closer to escape and with a world of darkness and pain surrounding them and the chance of maybe making it out, or maybe not coming back to this. Or possibly just starting the cycle all over again.
Emma let Excalibur disappear, bringing her arms up to hug Killian to her all the same, her mind whirling through everything going on. There was a bit of relief in his words, her being so sure for so long now that he’d hate her, that they’d broken something now. It might not be the same, but there was still hope that he’d forgive her one day. Nodding her head, Emma tried to steal her nerves, figuring that death really shouldn’t be as scary as it was right then, but it still left her apprehensive.
Too many what-if’s.
“I’m sorry,” it felt important, hindsight being what it was, but Emma’s own stubbornness and selfishness marring the way, “I don’t think I’d change anything but I’m sorry.” There was one shot and Emma knew exactly where to land it, drawing herself up to stand tall, hands gripping to Killian’s shoulders she made a point of meeting his icy blue eyes, still sharp despite the draining toll the magic had taken on him.
With a single nod, Emma brought Excalibur back with a thought, this time running through her back and out into Killian’s heart through her.
He understood why she had done what she did, even if it was a choice Killian so sorely wished that Emma wouldn’t have made. They both just wanted their happy ending, and she had seen too many chances for love ripped from her, of course she’d hold on with both bloodied hands when it seemed like that option was going to be ripped away again. As far as questionable decisions went, he felt as if he’d made his lion’s share too - but choosing to help clean up his own mess here was at least one step forward rather than back.
“I know. I forgive you.” Last words.
The feeling of a blade tearing through him was both cold and hot, hot and cold. It didn’t kill him right away as he hoped; there were always those last few seconds of life, enough time to see it play back in a reel. Then those neck wounds from Camelot - what should have killed him before - appeared on him and started to drip blood. Killian staggered and fell, body still tethered to the sword, tethered to Emma - only his soul was free, hers too. They both were.
The tornado of darkness began to cyclone, to spiral out of control. Until those cloaked figures were pulled back into the void, waters of the lake churning - a flash of light lit up the sky, extending outward, then when that flicker burnt out everything was gone.
And for once, if you looked up toward the heavens, you could actually see the stars.