[PAST] It Begins {Regina!}

[master]

The Master's TARDIS was much less noisy than the Doctor's. Of course, he didn't leave the brakes on so he didn't get that loud whirring noise the Doctor seemed to love so much. His TARDIS was also capable of more advanced disguises than a 1920's Police Box, such as a large tree that was exactly the same as all the other trees in the Enchanted Forest. The Master had chuckled a bit when he heard the name of the dimension. It was apparently a dimension made up of all the little fairy tales humans told their kids to scare them away from doing bad things. Who would pass that offer up? ...Usually the Master, but he had a sort of idea in the works and if there were one thing he knew about children's stories it was that they always had someone to be afraid of. A big bad wolf or a wicked stepmother.

Those were the types the Master was looking for. Adjusting his dark suit as he walked through the forest, the Master soon realized that he had nowhere to really go. Maybe he shouldn't have materialized right in the middle of the damn forest. Now he had to walk until he found a castle or something. How boring was that? But, he didn't walk for too long until he spotted some large castle standing right across a long bridge. Why, it looked just like something out of a children's story... and apparently, it was. The Master crossed the bridge and stood right outside the castle for a moment. Waiting wasn't his strong suit though, so he immediately pulled out his Laser Screwdriver and pointed it at the entrance. The laser cut a hole in the door that allowed the Master to stroll right on in. Now, how to find the ruler...

{Feel free to make this any time in OUAT you want!}

[Regina Mills]

It seemed there was some sort of commotion down in the main hall. The Queen had to resist rolling her eyes as several guards came bursting into her room - what could possibly be so important that they needed to interrupt her planning? Her revenge plot was at a very delicate stage, after all - she'd recently regained the poisoned apple that loathsome Blind Witch had stolen from her, and now it was only a matter of orchestrating its use. The apple had to be eaten willingly, and while she could always disguise herself as someone else and offer it to Snow, that option was far too...dissatisfying for Regina. After how far she'd come, she wanted her stepdaughter to know what she'd done to earn such a punishment - she wanted her to know that it was Regina who was responsible for her downfall. But first, that meant finding a way to lure Snow out...and the easiest way to do that, the Queen knew from experience, was to threaten something she loved.

The most obvious answer was that fool, Prince 'Charming'. But how to capture him...?

Well, perhaps she'd know, if her guards could leave her undisturbed to think for two moments. Angrily, she rounded on them as the door burst open. "I believe I stated very specifically that I was not to be disturbed. You'd better have a very good reason for disobeying me." she stated sharply as the two guards came skidding to a halt under the heat of her glare. One of the two was brave enough to step forward and answer.

"Please forgive us, your majesty - but there is an intruder in the castle! We don't know how he got in - "

"What?" Regina broke in, uninterested in hearing the guard's excuses. "Who is he?"

"...He looked to be a foreigner to me, your majesty. He was dressed very strangely."

She didn't wait to hear any more - she'd go and take care of this herself. The guards hurried to accompany her, several more racing ahead as she stormed down the long, winding staircase that led towards the main hall. The small pack of guards charged forward and halted several yards away from the intruder, swords drawn and pointed outward at the man. The Queen was a bit less hurried in her approach, sauntering forward and narrowing her eyes as she took in the intruder's image. He was indeed dressed rather strangely...perhaps some style from a faraway land. It mattered little at the moment, but what did matter was just how this man had managed to breach the castle defenses so quickly and active masters enter seamlessly.

"Be grateful that I am curious enough to spare your life for the moment," Regina spoke after a moment, her usual haughty tone accentuated by a slight smirk. "Just who are you - and how did you manage to break into my castle?"

[master]

As the Master expected, and wanted, the castle's guards took note of him and seem to walk off, likely to inform their ruler, whoever that may be. The Master shrugged slightly before stepping over to a large, probably decorative chair and sitting down in it. Just for protection, the Master reached into his coat and pulled out his golden Laser Screwdriver. He did have to be more on his guard than when he was dealing with the Doctor - these people weren't at all afraid to get into a fight. It was a good thing he still had his laser, then. That and his position as Prime Minister of Great Britain were among the few things the Doctor hadn't managed to ruin for him.

Suddenly, a group of guard burst into the room and charged over to him, swords pointed. They surrounded the chair he was sitting in, but the Master didn't seem at all worried. In fact, he was smiling as if it were all some big joke. "...Was it something I said?" He asked jokingly as he stood up from the chair and watched as a regally-dressed woman approached the surrounding guards and spoke. "I'm the Master," He said as he looked around at the guards. "And I don't think I'll be telling you anything else when your guards are pointing their swords at me." Suddenly, the Master pressed a button his laser and fired a beam that he directed at the guards' swords. The swords disintegrated, leaving them defenseless.

"That's better, isn't it?" He said, taking a seat back in his chair. "Now I can tell you why I'm here. But first, your name would be appreciated." Hopefully he would be able to get something out of her name. He had spent a few days studying the children's stories of Earth just to prepare him for this little visit. She was definitely an evil queen, but there were far too many evil queens in childrens' stories to count.

[Regina Mills]

Obviously this man, whoever he was, wasn't taking this very seriously. Regina narrowed her eyes just a tad at his light tone, in no mood for games of any sort. But in the next moment she was distracted, because the man - 'The Master', as he called himself (and she bristled a little, both in indignation and slight confusion, at the title) - soon revealed a strange little device he'd been holding...one which he then promptly used to disintegrate her guards' swords. There was an immediate uproar in response. Some of the men's initial reaction was to be bewildered, and others angry - but before any of them could do something stupid, Regina held up a hand to silence them and keep them in place. Her gaze was still fixed on the Master, although now her expression held a certain amount of guarded curiosity in addition to irritation. What sort of magic did he practice? She'd never seen anything of the sort before...but it only made her all the more determined to find out more about this stranger.

"By all means, make yourself at home." she commented sarcastically as he casually returned to his seat. The guards, still lingering uneasily, did draw back a bit as Regina took another few steps forward, frowning slightly as she got a better look at the intruder. His request for her name provoked the same mingling of irritation and confusion that his earlier words had. "I'm not in the business of taking orders from men who sneak into my home. How is it that you do not know who I am?" she demanded, arching an eyebrow. Everyone knew their Queen - and even the people beyond this kingdom had found reason to fear her. And yet The Master, who seemed to have come to the castle very intentionally, claimed not to know her name...? Either this was some silly trick or ploy to stall for time, or he truly did not know. Regina wasn't sure which possibility made her more indignant.

"Are you from so distant a land that you do not even know the ruler in power here?" she asked next, her tone slightly less sharp and slightly more questioning. His clothes were distinctly foreign, and the power he'd just used - magic, or whatever it was - was not a force native to the Enchanted Forest as far as Regina was aware. But if he was so foreign, then how had he known to find her here? And more importantly, what did he want from her? His laid back, joking nature with clear sinister undertones reminded her a bit of Rumpelstiltskin, and it wasn't a comparison that particularly pleased the Queen. Still, he'd come this far...she might as well here him out on the off chance that he did have something interesting to offer.

[master]

Weren't rulers supposed to be more accommodating than this? Well, actually, the Master has plenty of experience with rulers and most of them were just as temperamental as this one. Though, most of them didn't confront him directly. It wasn't as though they weren't justified in their anger. The Master had absolutely no regard for any other ruler, whether it be a 2012-era American President or the Queen of an Enchanted Forest. Just as the Master had seen before in leaders (particularly ones who had some form of ultimate power instead of a fraction of the Government power), this Queen seemed to believe she was above him in some way. The Master thought people believing themselves above him was a joke. He was the only ruler this world needed and he wasn't about to allow any rulers telling him otherwise.

"Isn't it obvious?" The Master asked, his voice displaying a bit of mock exasperation for the question. "I traveled here so I don't know who you are. You can't expect me to know the names of every ruler of every dimension, can you?" He never really was all that subtle with the whole being a Time Lord thing when he didn't have to be. Of course, he was a master of disguise when he needed to be but he wasn't exactly hoping to fool the Queen. At least not in that way. He definitely had a plan for getting her to join him, but it didn't involve hiding his identity from her. No, this would be much more a case of manipulating emotions and that sort of thing, which the Master was good at. He'd been doing it for the past nine-hundred years of his life and he would likely be doing it until he managed to beat the Doctor.

"Oh, I'm from a land more distant than you could probably understand..." The Master chuckled before standing up from his chair and adjusting his tie. "But that was probably obvious from my clothes, wasn't it?" Everyone in this world was dressed like the Master expected of a fairy-tale world. His suit-and-tie attire was obviously not normal attire here. But since when did Time Lords dress normally?