The woods filled with the clacking strikes of their wooden swords as David struck only to be parried away by his daughter. With each counter his expression of pride increased, so much so that Emma had delayed telling him how ridiculous she felt. Activities like this were embarrassing on some basic level of social normalcy but such a thing had vanished with her arrival to Storybrooke and the slight pull of an awkward contextual perspective couldn't compete with the way David grinned and praised her on her footwork.

She often reminded herself that her parents lost these moments with her as much as she had lost her moments with them and while growing up together in her world meant her dad had never intimidated her first boyfriend, for David it meant this.

"Don't step too far when you strike, the strongest attacks comes from the strongest stance."

Emma was panting; four exchanges in and they were both sweating in tank tops, equally reluctant to end the practice for reasons neither bothered to articulate.

"Right."

Her exhaustion betrayed her as the word came out breathy.

"We can take a break?"

They were practicing a bit out of town in a space David liked for one of the fallen trees which he claimed allowed for practice in fighting an enemy on higher ground. It was Emma who had asked for the lesson after returning from her parents world having had to crash-course herself in sword fighting. Seated on the tree beside her father she managed to regain her breath.

"So, we gonna be trading up to steel any time soon? You do know I've killed a dragon right?"

David chuckled, "I had considered it, but Gold refuses to give me back my armor."

"He has it?"

"I hope so, there's nowhere else I'm going to find any in this world. You have your breath back?"

Emma grabbed up her wooden sword, comparably light to the one she was accustomed to and began stretching out her shoulders. David hopped up onto the massive fallen log and tapped the space beside him.

"You want me up there?"

"Come on."

Emma hopped up a bit gracelessly, footing unsteady in her boots.

"Ready?"

"As I'm gonna be."

David struck high first, not difficult to block and by its nature, and his, purposefully chivalrous. The next was a slash across her stomach, better dodged than parried. Emma kept up but not so much that she deluded herself at a chance of victory, David was teaching her, not fighting her, and that was obvious in his pace. It didn't mean she wasn't going to try however. She had learned something of his rhythm and knew that following a counter to throw her off balance he liked to push forward. As he blocked her jab and made to charge she ducked and rammed her shoulder into his chest, for a moment it seemed she would better him but in the flurry of attack his instincts seized control and she found her own momentum being used to flip her. The intention had not been to throw her off the log but she was in mid-air, headed for the forest floor. Comprehension of just how much she might be hurt zapped through her unconscious and the panic woke a sudden lurch. A burst of magic erupted beneath her, keeping her from harm and throwing David from his place on the log.

She lay in the twigs and dirt for a second stunned before remembering to shout, "David! David, are you okay?"

From the other side of the tree was a low groan of confirmation.

Leaves stuck to her hair as she stood up, "I am so sorry."

He was sprawled out as if whatever had hit him had overwhelmed even his most articulate muscle control, groaning he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Has that been happening a lot?"

"Define 'a lot'?"

Emma hoisted him to his feet.

"I know you're not looking to indulge magic but maybe learning about it is the safer option than ignoring it."

She looked like he'd just told her to do her homework.

"I know, but that means dealing with Gold, not exactly an attractive reason to stop procrastinating."

David rotated his shoulder, probably trying to make sure nothing was broken; there was a fine array of small pebbles stuck to his back.

"As long as you keep your eye on him he might be able to give you a hint on all this magic stuff, at least he will if it serves his purposes."

"I'm a little tired of serving his purposes."

"We all are, but it could mean the difference between figuring it out and renovating the loft the next time you drop a plate."

David grabbed the carved pommel of her play sword, gathering it against its partner in his hand and grabbing her jacket off a nearby branch with the other.

"Come on, let's go get a drink at Granny's."

"There's one perk of the whole grown daughter, stuck in time parents thing."

"I'm afraid I can't help you there, dearie."

Emma had taken David's suggestion and already felt silly; a pilgrimage to control her own magical potential was not her idea of a sane adult activity. Then again neither was climbing beanstalks or fighting pirates yet here she was.

"Oh come on you want something? Family heirloom? Social security number? Secret recipe?"

Gold wore his expression of bemused annoyance most frequently applied when people thought they were being clever, eyes closed and mouth cocked as if about to speak.

"Funny, but no as nice as it would be to know how Ms. Blanchard makes those chocolate chip cookies there's nothing I can do for you and even if I could I am currently absorbed in my own affairs."

Emma looked concerned.

"Affairs? Affairs I should be aware of in a sheriff capacity?"

"Nothing so trying, affairs of a personal nature. As I explained I didn't know you could use magic."

"But aren't you supposed to be the 'magic' guy?"

"As flattering and correct as that would normally be the nature of your…abilities is the product of true love which as you might be aware I am a bit unfamiliar with, my knowledge comes from a place of dark magic. To be honest I'm not even entirely sure we should be standing this near to one another."

That was unfortunate, not that she had been looking forward to magic lessons or whatever with Gold but the thought that this new aspect of herself might go unexplained and uncontrolled was daunting.

"So what am I supposed to do? Just hope I don't level Main Street the next time I get cut off?"

Gold mocked a shrug looking more devious than he wanted to pretend.

"There are other people in town who have experience with magic."

It took her a second.

"Wait? Do you mean Regina?"

"Despite your rather outspoken distaste for her, Regina's knowledge of magic comes from well, some might say the heart."

The thought of discussing an aspect of magic within herself with Regina was an even more unsavory idea than doing so with Mr. Gold, which had already taken nearly a day of convincing.

"Isn't there just a way to…I don't know, seal it?"

Mr. Gold was surprised; it was rare that someone would come to him seeking to stifle power.

"There are measures, sealing spells, but with the nature of your particular condition I wouldn't recommend it."

"Why not?"

Mr. Gold considered his wording and took a step around his counter.

"True Love is the most powerful magic there is, any attempt to contain it would be temporary at best."

"So give me temporary."

Gold shook his head like he was trying to explain trigonometry to a kindergartener, "Stopping up powerful magic, even temporarily can have disastrous results. I do live in this town Ms. Swan; I'm even quite fond of Main Street."

"So you're saying you won't help me."

"How about this? I'll try and whip something up and you go talk to Regina. If she can't help I'm sure we can work something out. If you're lucky she might just tell you no."

"No."

"Maybe Gold's onto something."

"Really? How could you think that was a good idea?"

They had gone for coffee following Mary-Margaret's day at work and run into Archie on his evening walk. The pair of them had surprisingly different point of views on Emma's predicament. While Archie thought bringing Regina into a circle of trust might benefit the both of them Mary-Margaret was regarding it more as leaving her daughter with an unsavory babysitter.

"What are we arguing about?"

Ruby refilled Emma's mug with black coffee and set a fresh bowl of creamers on the edge of the table.

"We're not arguing."

"Gold suggested I ask Regina to help me out with my magic problem."

"Well you're not going to are you?"

"Of course she's not, I'm sure we can figure something out."

Mary-Margaret's optimism was appreciated but Emma knew it wouldn't yield anything. Who else were they supposed to ask for magical assistance? It wasn't like Henry's book had instructions in the back.

"I don't have much of a choice? I mean, Gold's right, what if I hurt someone? So this time I knocked the wind out of David-"

"You knocked the wind out of David?"

She forgot the sword-fighting lessons weren't common knowledge.

"Wow, go Emma, he's not exactly a twig."

Ruby was smirking, choosing to neglect the few other occupied tables for the sake of conversation.

"Even besides that," Archie adjusted his glasses, "Regina's been working harder than ever to prove herself, maybe we should give her something more than just the odd opportunity."

"Have you talked to Henry about this?"

"No, he's with David."

"You might want to bring that up."

That was the plan but the idea wasn't exactly exciting, none of this excited her, instead it made her vaguely nauseous.

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled."

"He may be, I'm sure seeing you and Regina constantly at odds with one another can't be the easiest thing for him."

Archie said this, of course, knowing exactly the effect that their rivalry tended to have on him as they'd spoken about it before. As far as he could tell, barring the two of them actually killing one another, a little time spent not trying to throttle one another could only do everyone a little bit of good.

"Okay, how about this? I talk to Henry about it and if it's something he wants I give it a try. Or at least, ask and pray she says no. That is the last we are talking on the subject."

"But-"

"The Savior decrees it."

Mary-Margaret both hands around her mug, silenced her dissent by taking a sip of her coffee.

The next morning, she knocked on Regina's door.

For several minutes there was no answer and Emma hardly needed more than that to get back into her car and forget the whole thing but with her back turned she heard the lock click and heard the door open.

"Sheriff Swan? Is everything okay?"

Normally Emma appearing unannounced hinted at something being wrong with Henry and turning she saw the look of legitimate concern.

"Uh, yeah, fine, just…visiting."

She winced internally, Regina thought someone was playing a joke on her and it only stood to make her angry.

"Excuse me?"

There were a few ways she could present this but none of them had earned the approval of her pride. Who would it hurt for her to make up some lame excuse to leave and tell everybody Regina had said no? There was little chance that anyone would care to corroborate, the only one who might would be Mr. Gold, which was one part of the problem. The other part was the conversation she'd had the night prior with Henry.

"Okay, I have a magic problem."

"What?"

"When I faced Cora I did something and then the other day I sort of hurt David, Gold said it was a true love thing and he couldn't help. He thought maybe you'd…"

She trailed off, her dignity was hurting.

Regina's expression hadn't changed; her arms were now crossed over her chest.

"Tell me, do I have a sign on my house that says 'Magic Counselor'?"

Regina cut her off before she could answer and Emma felt the anger that she so easily coaxed to amplification.

"I didn't think so, so unless this in some way affects my son I think you should probably turn around."

She wanted to, badly, but there was that second part of the problem.

"Look, I'm not exactly giddy about this either but I don't want to endanger anyone and more than that all of our fighting…I just want to give Henry a break from it. So, if you don't want to teach me spells or whatever, that's fine, but if we could just pretend to be getting along? Be seen together a few times? Just the fact that I'm asking you should prove how much I want to let him have some time when we're not being terrible to one another."

Regina's steely expression remained, her hostility nearly filling the whole doorway and for a few seconds they were in a state of stand-off familiar to them. Emma did her best to look resolved.

Finally, Regina's resolution eased. Her arms uncrossed and expression a bit less angry she stepped out of the way and held the door open looking reluctant.

"Come in."