
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4554834.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/F, F/M
  Fandom:
      Once_Upon_a_Time_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills/Emma_Swan, Daniel/Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills,
      Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills/Maleficent_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Evil_Queen_|
      Regina_Mills_&_Snow_White_|_Mary_Margaret_Blanchard, Evil_Queen_|_Regina
      Mills_&_Regina's_Father_|_Henry_Mills_Sr., Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills_&
      Henry_Mills, Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills_&_Rumplestiltskin_|_Mr._Gold, Evil
      Queen_|_Regina_Mills/Huntsman_|_Sheriff_Graham, Evil_Queen_|_Regina
      Mills/Other(s)
  Character:
      Evil_Queen_|_Regina_Mills, Emma_Swan, Snow_White_|_Mary_Margaret
      Blanchard, Henry_Mills_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Regina's_Father_|_Henry_Mills
      Sr., Queen_of_Hearts_|_Cora, Daniel_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Rumplestiltskin_|
      Mr._Gold, Maleficent_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Leopold_(Once_Upon_a_Time),
      Prince_"Charming"_James_|_David_Nolan, OCs, Bunch_of_OCs, Huntsman_|
      Sheriff_Graham, Robin_Hood_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Cruella_de_Vil_(Once_Upon
      a_Time), Ursula_the_Sea_Witch_(Once_Upon_a_Time), Regina's_Family, Mulan_
      (Once_Upon_a_Time)
  Additional Tags:
      swanqueen_endgame, Eating_Disorders, Canonical_Character_Death, Child
      Abuse, marital_sexual_abuse, Miscarriage, Non-Canon_Relationship, Non-
      Canonical_Character_Death, Violence
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-08-12 Updated: 2018-01-25 Chapters: 10/? Words: 353076
****** Feed Me (Give Me Your Heart) ******
by monchy
Summary
     "She’s six years old the first time mother chooses to punish her by
     sending her to sleep without dinner."
     A re-telling of Regina's story, from age six to the Evil Queen and
     beyond.
     (Please, do read the TW in the notes).
Notes
     TW1: This fic deals with food, a lot. It's basically a character.
     Also, while eating disorders aren't spoken of as such, they are
     implied, so careful if that makes you uncomfortable.
     TW2: Parental emotional and physical abuse (basically, Cora).
     TW3: Marital rape (basically, Leopold).
     TW4: Miscarriage.
     AN1: This story is swanqueen endgame, but it depicts Regina's life
     from very early on, and it does so slowly. So, first of all, it takes
     a while for Emma to show up.
     Also, Regina's other relationships are fairly explicit, meaning
     Regina/Daniel and Dragon Queen (so yes, there's explicit het sex
     within this, as well as lesbian sex not with Emma). I just want to
     make that very clear, as I understand it might not be everyone's cup
     of tea.
     (There's also some canon Outlaw Queen, and while it won't be
     explicit, it will dwell on how Regina feels about sex with the
     jerkwad).
     AN2: The story follows canon sort of up to 4x20, just adding lots and
     lots to it ('cause you know, swanqueen). But the main events remain.
     AN3: Discussions of period, and sex with period which, you know,
     might squick you.
     AN4: There's some Spanish in there. There will be translations in the
     notes at the end.
     AN5: Basically, this is me trying my hand at OUaT fanfiction by
     writing the most long-winded story ever. I had to look into How to
     Identify Horses' Parts for Dummies, guys. Appreciate the effort.
***** Part I *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
She’s six years old the first time mother chooses to punish her by sending her
to sleep without dinner. Regina knows better than to stay outside too late by
now, but she enjoys being in the stables so much that time run away from her,
and by the time she stepped her way home the moon was already out and night had
fallen upon her.
She drags mud on her way in, and mother looks at her in that way that makes
Regina stiff her posture, back straight and arms at her sides, ready for what’s
to come. Going to bed without food seems like a light punishment for her
transgression, having been expecting mother’s rage to come in the form of angry
magic, or perhaps the strong grip of her hand on Regina’s wrist in that way
that leaves her feeling sore for days, the skin red above her little hand.
“You’ll learn one way or another, I suppose,” mother says. It’s ominous, but
Regina is no more than a child, and all she registers is that her small lapse
of judgment hasn’t caused her any pain.
That night, with her stomach grumbling angrily, she bites the inside of her
cheek, and falls asleep thinking of breakfast.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
They always have their meals together, mother insisting that being able to do
so is a privilege she never had as a child herself. She always speaks of her
father in derisive tones, her mouth twisting in an ugly sneer when she calls
herself the miller’s daughter.
Regina enjoys their family meals, though, likes hearing her father speak of the
traditional dishes of his home, delights herself trying the spiciest flavors
that speak to her about her heritage. Mother doesn’t seem to enjoy food much,
but then again, Regina isn’t sure she enjoys anything other than magic and
always having the upper hand. It makes it hard to please her, but sometimes,
when Regina lifts her chin in just the right way, and manages to fix herself in
the appropriate posture, the way a little lady should, mother’s lips turn into
a small satisfied smile, and Regina feels herself elated with pride.
Still, mother never smiles during meals, and while father keeps talking
animatedly about the foreign aromas of a home he clearly misses, Regina begins
to suspect that mother is only watching her intently, studying her every move.
When Regina starts attacking her meals with a little less gusto, a little
feigned disinterest, mother starts smiling at her more often.
 
===============================================================================
 
“Oh,” Regina whispers as she sees the inevitable happen. Promptly, her calmness
is broken and she finds herself anxious, muttering a panicked, “Oh, no.”
She’s ten years old, but she already knows that the broken jar of jam resting
at her feet will be cause for trouble. Jacinta, the old kitchen maid that
always makes her father’s favorite dishes, smiles candidly at her, and quickly
tries to reassure her with a kind hand on her shoulder, shushing her as if
she’s a small scared animal.
“Tranquila, pequeña, no es nada,” she tells her softly, and Regina allows
herself the luxury of finding comfort in her words and in the lilting tones of
her father’s native language. The ease lasts but a second, though, and soon
enough she’s crouching down to pick up the mess, her eyes already wet with
unshed tears.
“Pequeña…” Jacinta tries again, but Regina shushes her, unkind and sharp. (1)
“You don’t understand,” Regina mutters. “She knows, she always–"
And as if summoned, mother appears in the kitchens. Regina wonders if she can
explain somehow, but her mother’s face is already set in a tight grimace of
silent fury, as if Regina is nothing but a small bag full of disappointment, a
burden for her to bear. Words die on her lips as she looks at herself through
her mother’s gaze, sees herself crouching on the kitchen floor over broken
glass and expensive jam, some of the gooey concoction staining her pretty blue
gown.
“Well, I can see that at least you know what you’ve done,” mother says, curt
and slow. Regina catches Jacinta on the corner of her eye, taking a step
backwards and looking down, her hands shaking more than Regina’s own. She’s
alone, then, alone, alone, alone.
Mother sighs, weary, and soon enough her grip on Regina’s wrist is tight enough
to make her want to cry out. She knows better than that by now, though, so she
quells her instincts and remains silent as mother drags her through the empty
hallways of their home in the direction of her room. Her mutters of you’ll
learn how to be a proper lady yet, Regina and I thought you knew better, child,
treating yourself to sweets like some uneducated peasant girlalmost fall on
deaf ears. Regina listens though, her little mind registering transgressions
and punishments, learning what is expected of her so that she can try harder,
be better, be the lady her mother wants her to be.
They bypass her room on their way, and Regina’s chest fills with fear, her
breathing coming out shallow and hard when her mother’s steps take her to the
cellar instead. She throws her in unceremoniously, the door closing behind her
with a sickening thud.
Swallowing hard, Regina finally manages to find her voice just so she can beg
against the closed door. “Please, mother, please,” she cries. “I’ll be better,
I’ll try harder, I’ll be all you want, I’ll…”
Her cries die against the wooden door, going unanswered, and she’s left alone
in the dark.
The cellar is small and humid, and old friend of Regina’s by now. It smells
acrid and moldy, and small rats populate the small space, attracted to the
stench and the cold. Regina knows it’s ten steps wide and seven steps long,
because she’s already counted in the foodless nights mother has condemned her
to spend in the tiny space. This time she doesn’t count, instead finding the
corner of the room she’s already made hers and sitting with her knees close to
her chest, making sure the skirt of her dress covers the side of her legs and
her feet, hopefully stopping any rodent or bug from crawling over her. She
breathes in and out slowly, trying to stop the harshness with which the air
comes from her nose. Mother would want her to be strong, mother would want her
to come out of the cellar with a clean dress and a proud stance, her nose high
up in the air, and Regina plans on doing just that.
It’s three days before mother lets her out this time.
Regina feels faint and disoriented, the darkness of the cellar not letting her
guess how much time has passed. Too long, she thinks, even as she makes an
effort to walk with her head held high. She does her best at hiding her
shaking, and follows her mother’s instructions wordlessly, letting herself be
bathed and clothed even when she feels like collapsing on the spot. She needs
to be good, needs to be proud and strong, and with that single mantra in her
head she joins mother and father for dinner, remaining still even as her mouth
waters when the soft aroma of stew wafts up her nose. It’s a bland dish, one of
mother’s choices, but it smells like the most luxurious of delicacies to
Regina’s hungry senses.
“You may start now, Regina,” mother intones, her voice almost tender.
Regina nods, manages a small, “Thank you, mother.”
Regina wants to dive into her plate of food ravenously, but she knows better
than to behave like a savage. She picks up her cutlery and eats slowly, small
morsels of food filling an empty, complaining stomach. The first bites melt
slowly in her mouth, and she closes her eyes briefly as she eats. Her withering
stomach can’t take much though, and she soon finds herself sick of the taste
and of the heavy way the soft meat falls into her belly. Halfway through her
meal, she pushes the plate back. Next to her on the table, father looks down,
and mother smiles.
 
===============================================================================
 
The day Regina turns twelve, mother dresses her in a deep plum gown with puffy
sleeves and a tight bow that falls down the back of a full skirt. It’s new and
shiny, and even before the maids are done with her hair, she finds herself
twirling contentedly. She feels happy and prettier than ever, wearing dark
colors the way the older girls do, hugged by fine fabrics and having her hair
done up for the special occasion. She stops her antics when the maids tskat
her, so when mother walks in to see her she’s quiet and still, and her hair is
pleated in a beautiful thick braid that wraps around her head.
“You look almost beautiful, Regina,” mother says. There’s unadulterated delight
in her gaze, though, and Regina can’t help but beam at her for a too long
second before she schools her features back into a neutral, soft smile.
Mother nods, approving, and Regina breathes better, thinking that she may yet
grow to be beautiful one day. Mother would definitely prefer her if she didn’t
look so much like her father, if she was like those pale, blonde princesses
that she’s seen in her short visits to other royal families, and Regina feels a
little guilty for enjoying her black hair and her darker skin, for daring to
think that she’s not completely ugly. There’s the way her hair gets frizzy and
curly with humidity, of course, and that small scar above her lip that mother
can’t bear to look upon, but she’s starting to enjoy the shape of her eyes and
lips, the way they shine when she looks at herself in the mirror, and how
bright they seem in contrast to the dark fabric of her new birthday dress.
They have a small party with some of Regina’s cousins and aunts and uncles.
Regina doesn’t know them very well, but they seem kind and open, and she plays
hostess with a gracious smile, her shoulders thrown back and her voice steady.
She doesn’t feel awkward or clumsy, and when a big cake appears from the
kitchen, she warmly refuses a piece, and instead makes sure everyone is
enjoying themselves.
Grandfather Xavier gives her a beautiful, shiny tiara that has her mother
nodding approvingly, and it’s only the tip of a pile of beautiful, grand gifts.
Regina can’t help but love father’s the best, though, a tree shaped pendant
that she wears almost immediately.
“Thank you, daddy,” she whispers, feeling her façade escape her as her father
hugs her tightly. For a short moment, she feels like nothing but a little girl,
warm and protected and cared for, her father’s smile bigger than she’s ever
seen it. The warmth of his big arms stays with her the rest of the night.
 
===============================================================================
 
Her period comes two days later, a scary drop of sticky blood staining her
white undergarments and appearing right after a particularly long ride above
her favorite horse. It makes her instantly anxious, and she faces her mother
with sweaty hands that can’t stop moving. Even as mother smiles, Regina digs
her right thumb into her left palm, the almost painful pressure of her gesture
keeping her steady and in the moment.
Mother speaks to her then, of what it means to be a woman, of the future that
awaits her as wife of a great man, of the duties she will have to fulfill. It
makes Regina feel sick enough that when mother tells her that she’s to stay in
her room while she’s bleeding, and is only to be fed once a day, she’s almost
grateful.
The bleeding makes her feel disgusting and dirty, and the random bouts of pain
that accost her lower belly have her curled up on bed most of the day, happy
that she doesn’t have to deal with much of anything while her body chooses to
torture her so. She’s hungry, though, and when she’s left alone in her room
with a meager plate of bland, tasteless food, she devours it voraciously, in an
unseemly manner that would make her mother balk. She feels nothing like a lady,
though, more like an animal possessed by primal need, and she can’t help
herself from giving into her own needs. It’s shameful, all of it, and Regina
thinks mother must be right to keep her away from the world when she’s like
this.
On the third night, though, when the trickle of blood is almost gone and Regina
is starting to breathe better, her door creaks open to reveal the small figure
of her father. Regina sits up in bed almost immediately, watching her father
with curious eyes as he slithers his way into the room clad in sleepers and his
thick night robe.
“Daddy?” she asks, voice full of wonder even as she does her best at covering
herself with her bed linens.
Father approaches silently, though, and soon enough he finds a clear spot on
the bed and sits down by her, a candid smile on his face. The room is dark but
for the moonlight that filters through her window, so she can barely make out
her father’s expression. She knows it must be soft and warm, though, the way it
always is, and Regina’s chest fills with an unbridled surge of love for her
kindly father.
“Cielo , I bring you a treat,” he says, his voice whisper soft and intimate. As
he speaks, he opens his palm and, hidden inside a folded white napkin, shows
her a small, dark square of chocolate. “It’s dark, my favorite.” (2)
“Daddy, I can’t,” Regina answers immediately, her first instinct now to resist
anything sweet. The straightening of her posture is second nature by now, and
she doesn’t know why the gesture makes her father look so sad.
“My mother used to always give me some when I was feeling a bit down,” he
explains, looking at her with wide eyes. “Your mother said you weren’t feeling
quite well.”
Regina shrugs, biting the inside of her cheek as she looks at the treat still
on her father’s hand. “It’s… We’re not supposed to talk about it,” she says.
“Then we won’t talk about it, my little princess.”
Regina can’t help but smile, lightness soaring inside her for the first time in
days. She reaches out warily, almost afraid that mother is hiding behind one of
her bedposts and is ready to scold her for giving into temptation, but smiles
openly when taking the piece of chocolate and bringing it to her lips. It has a
bittersweet taste to it, and it melts slowly on her tongue, the texture of it
thick and goopy. When the small piece is gone, she licks the last remnant of it
from her fingers, and sighs, suddenly feeling tired.
“Thank you, daddy,” she whispers into the small space between them, tiny and
intimate and full of feeling. She loves her father more than anyone in the
world, and she hopes he knows because she doesn’t know quite how to express the
depth of the feeling. It’s strange and light, free in a way that her love for
mother can’t quite achieve.
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he answers, reaching up and pressing a hand to the
side of her face, the rough skin of his thumb drawing a small circle on the
apple of her cheek. “You’re beautiful, Regina, remember that, si, cielo?” He
whispers. “Everything about you is beautiful.”
Father presses a kiss to her forehead before leaving, and when he closes the
door, Regina realizes that she’s crying.
 
===============================================================================
 
As the years go by, Regina grows up into what mother deems a presentable young
lady.Regina learns which battles to fight and when to count her losses, and
finds ways around mother’s discipline in a manner that seems to please her
tremendously. Mother’s affection for her has always been restrained, but Regina
feels as if she may just be getting things right more and more.
Mother manages to rid her kitchens of the old cook, and brings an old man that
cooks as she says, quickly eliminating the flavors of her father’s heritage
from their table. Regina misses the spiciness and the tastefulness, but learns
to keep her mouth shut and accept what her mother feels are appropriate meals.
It’s better than going foodless, she reasons, and better than spending long
nights trapped in the small space of the cellar.
Father grows quieter by the day, and it seems to Regina as if he’s shrinking
into himself, making himself smaller, as if he’s ashamed of occupying space in
this state that now so very clearly belongs to her mother. Father has never
been a big man, not in size or personality, but Regina remembers a quiet
enthusiasm about him that she only sees glimpses of in the dark recesses of her
room, when he slithers in quietly to offer her a forbidden, tasteful morsel of
something sweet.
It’s become tradition, almost, for father to bring her a small something when
Regina has been withering away in her room for days, blood between her legs and
cramps taking hold of her body. Sometimes he brings fruit, or jam and bread,
fresh milk or gooey biscuits that he convinces one of the kitchen’s maids to
bake for him; and always, always a small square piece of dark chocolate. They
talk briefly during those nights, relishing in their little intimate moments in
a way that makes Regina suspect that perhaps she’s not as close to being a
presentable young lady as she should.
Mother, on the other hand, grows bigger and bigger, becomes more open and free
with her magic, and positively terrifies the servants. There’s something
intoxicating in her power, something fearsome that seems to crackle under her
skin when she’s getting a spell ready, and Regina hates the way it makes the
hairs on her arms stand on end and how it never fails to leave her breathless.
She can almost taste it at the back of her tongue, bitter and metallic.
Mother, however, turns permissive with some of Regina’s habits and tastes. When
Regina refuses music lessons after years of uselessly fighting against the keys
of her piano forte, mother agrees that perhaps she’s not particularly inclined
to the finer arts.
“You certainly haven’t been graced with delicate fingers, my dear,” she points
out. “You have your father’s hands.”
On the other hand, among tutors and masters of every discipline mother
considers important, she allows Regina time on the stables with old Master
Clive and her favorite steed Rocinante , as well as long, free hours to ride
about the fields of the state. Old Master Clive is grouchy and nearly impolite,
but Regina’s obvious love for their horses conquers him, and he teaches her to
take care of the animals, to build a relationship with them, and to ride
properly. He insists that she doesn’t allow herself complete freedom when she’s
riding, but Regina feels like she’s flying when she’s atop Rocinante, the wind
on her face and big, grand spaces around her.
At age fifteen, Regina realizes that perhaps, she may just be happy. Sometimes,
she feels something dark looming above her, above this house that surrounds her
and her family, thinks that some of the things that go on between these walls
aren’t completely right. She shakes the thoughts away, though, thinks of the
small, upward twist of her mother’s mouth when Regina does something
particularly pleasing, of her father’s soft voice in the dead of the night, of
Rocinante’sstrong body between her thighs, and forgets the hunger and the shame
that pervades her existence. She guesses that, after all, happiness must come
at a certain price.
 
===============================================================================
 
 
It’s a humid day outside when she comes into the stables to find a strange boy
tending to the horses. She feels cold inside her riding coat, and she knows
that her hair is probably looking curlier by the second, never mind the tight
braid at the back of her head, but it’s been raining for nearly a week now and
she’s been feeling stifled and trapped inside the manor. She’s been stepping on
wet grass all the way here, the air still smelling water-soaked, and she hopes
desperately that it’s only the ending of the heavy rains, and not the threat of
more water falling from the sky.
She runs into the stables, careful not to get mud into her riding pants, and is
greeted not by the familiar sight of old Master Clive grumbling away, but by a
boy not much older than herself. He doesn’t seem to notice her, and only turns
to look at her when she clears her throat determinately, doing her best at
straightening up and making herself look taller.
“Who are you, boy?” she questions.
He looks at her from under long lashes, throwing longish hair back with a quick
shake of his head, and smiles. Something strange twitches behind Regina’s
breastbone, something new and foreign that has her taking a step back, not
particularly sure why.
“Boy?” he questions after a bit. “And what are you, milady? An old crow to call
me that?”
Regina huffs, the sudden surge of unfamiliar feelings being immediately
quenched by shock. “I will refer to you as I please, boy,” she answers, her
hands turning into fists at her side and her mouth twisting angrily. “And you
may want to watch your tongue; mother would have you lashed for less.”
In the face of her outrageous fury, the boy has the gall to laugh. His smile
grows bigger and his eyes widen, clearly amused by her, and Regina isn’t quite
sure if she wants to throttle him or shrink into herself. She ends up curling
protective arms around herself, unsure why her station and her tone don’t seem
to grant her the respect she so desperately craves.
Whatever the boy sees in her, though, it makes his laughter stop. He regards
her with curiosity, and reaches out with a hand that remains poised in the air
between them.
“Do excuse me, milady, I meant no disrespect,” he says, his tone now earnest.
Regina looks up, finds his eyes, and realizes that her heart is beating wildly
inside her ribcage. If it’s the product of rage or of something else completely
she never gets to analyze, since before she can think about what she wants to
say to this boy before her, Master Clive is thumping his way inside the
stables, his trusty old cane announcing his presence before Regina can even see
him.
“Now boy, are you bothering the little lady?” he asks even as he’s raising his
cane menacingly the boy’s way, merely shaking it in the air as some sort of
warning.
The boy ducks with a smile on his face and makes his way back to the neglected
horse he’d been tending to before Regina called his attention. “We were merely
getting to know each other, grandpa.”
“I do not believe one word out of your mouth,” old Master Clive intones, his
cane now back on the ground and his wide mouth turned into what Regina suspects
is actually an amused grimace. “Apologize to the little lady and help her get
Rocinanteready. It’s been raining for days and they’re both anxious for a
ride.”
Regina smiles at the old man candidly, and says, “Thank you, Master Clive, but
an apology won’t be necessary.” She refuses to look at the boy as she says
this, instead focusing on his so called grandpaand his kind grey eyes.
As a child, she’d been afraid of the master of the stables, already very old
before her infantile eyes, and seemingly always in a bad mood. Mother had
taught her to think less of ugly people, and there was certainly nothing comely
about the old master, with his too big mouth, his wide nose and his round, red
cheeks. Her love for the stables had made her surpass her fear, though, and the
grumpy master had taken a shine to her when she’d timidly began to ask him
about their very fine collection of horses. Regina had stopped thinking him
ugly then, and had realized that there was nothing but a warm soul behind his
harsh speech and rough hands.
“This is my grandson, Daniel,” the old Master tells her after a single nod of
his head. “I’m afraid my eyes and my hands aren’t what they used to be, milady,
and the boy’s mother thinks it will do him good to keep busy and learn an
office.”
Without being prompted, the boy makes a little show of bowing her way, and
politely asks, “How do you do, milady?”
Regina suspects there’s a sigh of mockery in his tone, but she still curtseys
and answers in kind. “How do you do?”
“Now, milady,” old Master Clive intervenes, “do not let the little rascal get
away with anything; if he does something unbecoming of a young man you come to
me and I’ll teach him good manners.” Again, his cane comes up in the air
menacingly.
Daniel smiles, though, obviously not very afraid of his old grandfather, and
more than a little amused at his antics. Regina can’t help herself from
replicating a bitter version of the gesture, unconsciously envious of the clear
affection between grandfather and grandson. She shakes the feeling away,
though, and walks towards where Daniel is preparing Rocinantefor a ride. She
touches the horse’s muzzle softly in a silent salute, letting her hand glide
down the soft mane, and breathes in, her eyes closing for a brief second. When
she opens her eyes again, she catches Daniel’s insolent gaze with her own, and
wonders why her lungs feel as if they’re ready to explode.
               
===============================================================================
 
Daniel becomes a permanent fixture then, even to the point where Master Clive
leaves him alone to take care of the stables himself. Master Clive tells Regina
that he’s older than she thinks, and Regina merely smiles politely and tells
him that he’s never looked better. The idea that she may just loose the old
master is surprisingly painful, like a hard, unmoving stone that settles high
on Regina’s throat and doesn’t let her swallow. The truth is, the old master is
one of the few people within the state that she speaks to freely, and she
realizes that she would miss the grumpy bluntness of the old man.
She’d had a friend once, one of the kitchen's maid’s daughters that had been
close in age to her. They would play outside, running about the trees and
tumbling carelessly to the ground, the importance of clean clothes and a
graceful demeanor completely foreign to their tiny, seven year old selves.
Mother had found out eventually, of course, and in her innocence, Regina had
smiled as she had told tales of her short adventures with the little girl.
“Playing around with peasants, Regina?” mother had said, and it had felt like a
slap to her tiny face. “I expect better from you.”
The mistake had gotten her her first foodless night inside the cellar, and the
little girl and her mother had been sent packing away from the state that very
same night. Next morning, mother had explained to a crying Regina that she was
going to be queen, and that she could not allow herself the vulnerability of
being friends with the servants. It hadn’t mattered much, anyway, since no
other child had ever approached her again after the incident, no one else had
ever treated her again as anything else than the young lady she was supposed to
be.
Master Clive is something else entirely, though, a man too old to deny a kind
hand to a little girl, and slightly more free from his place within the
stables, far away enough from the manor to be granted too much of mother’s
attention.
Daniel, just like his grandfather, is something else entirely. He’s insolent
but not unkind, and Regina can’t help but feel as if he’s amused by her more
than anything. There’s something close to mockery in his words whenever they
speak, but it doesn’t feel cruel or hurtful, merely surprisingly familiar. As
if they’re friends, perhaps. As if there’s more to Regina than a stuck up
little lady who only ever speaks truthfully to her father during stolen
moments.
The horses like Daniel, and that already sets Regina at ease. She trusts the
animals more than she trusts most people, and the ease with which they accept
Daniel’s presence calms her down, even when her hands feel sweaty when he’s
around, and when she can’t seem to stop blushing when he smiles. He’s handsome,
Regina supposes, with his droopy eyes full of warmth, his sharp cheeks and his
thin lips, his swept up hair so different from what she’s seen in the few
chances she’s had to meet nobles her age.
He rides with her sometimes, whenever he’s not instructing her on her posture
when she jumps with Rocinanteso as not to hurt herself. She tells him that she
knows what she’s doing, and he just smirks in a way that makes Regina both
uneasy and excited. When he helps her down from the horse she tells him that
she can do it herself, and he just bows and calls her miladyas if she’s the
funniest thing he’s ever encountered.
He surprises her one day when she’s resting by the old apple tree, Rocinanteby
her side and the manor at her back. The sun is starting to set up in the sky,
and Regina is so enthralled with the sight that the appearance of his tall,
thin figure has her yelping in surprise.
He laughs, open but quiet as he approaches her. “It’s just me, milady.”
Regina offers him a tight smile, and then makes sure to go back to staring at
the sky, rather than at him. “And what are you doing here?” she questions.
“Just taking a walk before dinner, milady.”
“Well, do keep walking.”
He doesn’t, of course, opposing her perhaps more enjoyable than bending to her
every wish. It’s odd that she prefers this than the coldness of everyone else
around her, even if it makes her want to stomp her feet like a little child not
getting her way.
“If you allow me the impertinence, milady–”
“I don’t!”
He laughs yet again, small and huffy, looking down at his feet and then back up
at Regina. His eyes are shinier in the waning light, and Regina has to look
away because she can’t control the rapid beating of her heart, and it makes her
entirely too scared. He doesn’t say anything else, though, and instead walks
closer to the tree and begins examining it. Regina realizes he’s looking for a
ripe apple to tear down. As he continues looking up and away from Regina, she
stares down at her hands, and twisting her lips with indecision, finally gives
in.
“What were you going to say?” she wonders finally.
He looks at her then, even as his arms are reaching up towards the tree.
“Excuse me, milady?”
“I will allow you the impertinence,” she replies, huffy and put out just for
show. “What were you going to say?”
He takes a moment before he speaks, and Regina looks away from him, even as she
can spy him from the corner of her eye grabbing an apple and walking back to
stand next to her.
“You’re very good with the horses, milady,” is what he says finally. “But I
can’t help but feel that you’re not letting go completely when you ride;
perhaps you’re too afraid of dirtying your pretty outfit?”
Regina turns sharply, facing him with hands fisted at her sides and expression
twisted into an ugly sneer. She’s ready to scoff something unkind at him,
making sure he knows that he if were to ever say something so utterly impolite
in front of her mother he would be out of this state the next second, in the
best case scenario. He’s careless in his remarks, and perhaps Regina shouldn’t
have allowed him as much freedom as she has in his behavior with her. She
intends to tell him so, to put him in his rightful place as nothing more than
the stable boy, but when they look at each other his eyes and his whole
demeanor is filled with such courteous affection that Regina finds herself
drawing a sharp breath, unable to speak. He’s holding an apple to her, and the
simple gesture makes her deflate in less than a second. Rather than scolding,
she huffs instead.
“You’re insolent, boy, ” she tells him finally, the inflexion on the word
boymaking him chuckle.
He doesn’t say anything else, instead motioning forward with the apple yet
again, prompting Regina to take it. She merely looks at it, the shiny red skin
that seems to glow.
“I shouldn’t,” she says.
“It’s just an apple, milady.”
She thinks of a meager breakfast and a tasteless meal, and of the small dinner
that is surely expecting her back at the manor, of the dessert she won’t have
so mother smiles at her in that way that makes her feel almost warm. Without
another thought, she reaches out and takes the fruit, gracelessly biting into
it with a desperation she’s not sure she understands. The crunchy sound of her
bite is peculiarly satisfying. The apple is sweet and juicy, and as she enjoys
the first bite, she can’t help but touch her hand to her stomach. Daniel
smiles, as if he knows exactly what she’s feeling, and Regina doesn’t know why
she suddenly feels like crying.
Daniel nods at her, small and polite, and murmurs, “You should get back soon,
milady, it's almost dark.”
He does walk away then, taking a few steps backwards so he can look at Regina
for a while longer, the freshly bitten apple still in her hand, and her
expression mildly dumbfounded. She doesn’t want him to leave, but he finally
does.
Regina finishes the apple before she rides back home.
 
===============================================================================
 
It's a week later when Regina comes into the stables to find Daniel with red-
rimmed, teary eyes. She should know better by now than to care about a
servant's tears.
"Only weak people cry in front of others, Regina," mother would always say.
"Your sadness is not a spectacle for others to mock. Keep your emotions to
yourself, my dear, and no one will ever have the upper hand."
Regina should know better, and yet she can't help but ask. Daniel shakes his
head, tries to avoid looking upset and feigns a pride that he clearly doesn't
know how to own, struggling to look as if the tears falling down his cheeks are
nothing but Regina's overactive imagination. He concedes at last, one of
Regina's glares that usually amuse him so making him crumble and whisper a
tired:
"It's grandfather; he's dying."
Regina gasps, shocked to her core by the news, and without giving her impulses
much of a second though, she demands, "Take me to him."
Daniel doesn't deny her request, but he does take her to the small cottage that
is the old master's house with something akin to embarrassment. Regina does
feel displaced, her simple riding outfit suddenly looking expensive and
luxurious in the face of the small little house. Master Clive's family
surrounds him, and when three tired faces stare at her, Regina hugs herself,
trying but failing to make herself smaller to these people she's so clearly
disturbing. She has no right to be here, not with her pristine blue coat and
her proud stance, interrupting the simple life of these people she has never
even imagined existed.
She apologizes clumsily, does her best with an awkward smile as she tries to
hide her frame behind Daniel's.
"Milady," suddenly a voice pipes up, urgent and nearly alarmed. "Let me get you
some tea."
Regina looks at the suddenly hurried woman, a middle-aged, wide-shouldered maid
with a strict face that she recognizes from having seen her in the manor. She
wonders if that's Daniel's mother, and then is guiltily struck by the thought
that if this woman works at the manor and knows her mother, the last thing she
wants or needs is to have her meddlesome unthoughtful daughter inviting herself
into her house.
"Oh, no, please," Regina refuses quickly, throwing her hands forward and trying
to be as honest as possible with her words. "That's very kind of you, but I
don't mean to intrude."
They remain in a standstill then, unsure where to go to in such a foreign
social situation. Regina shouldn't be here, and she doesn't have her mother's
ability to walk into every situation as if she owned the place. She thinks of
apologizing profusely and running away, but before she can do such a thing,
Daniel breaks all trace of protocol and reaching back so that no one notices,
slides his hand into hers. She's still wearing her riding gloves, but it feels
to her as if a world of warmth is seeping through them and into her skin,
making her breath fall short and her heart beat so fast that it feels as if it
wants to break away from her chest. She looks at him, wide eyed, and the silly
boy has the gall to wink.
"Milady just wanted to see grandfather," he says.
There's an almost collective nod, and then Regina is being led to a single,
large room at the back of the small house, where old Master Clive rests on a
fragile looking bed, covered in tattered blankets and surrounded by pillows
that help prop him up. Regina's stomach recoils, upset at the smell of sickness
and old age, of the death that will take over this house soon.
"Is that the little lady?" the old master asks, squinting his eyes as if he can
barely see two inches before him. "Come closer, please."
Regina does, choosing to throw the discomfort of the situation she's gotten
herself into to the back of her mind and swiftly ignoring her trembling hands.
Master Clive looks scarily small among the fluffed out pillows, and Regina
feels a pang on her chest, a foreign tightness settling around her throat at
the weakened image of someone who had always seemed to her as larger than life.
Not really knowing what to do, she kneels by the bed, and removing her gloves,
searches for the master's big, knobby hand and envelops it between her own. The
touch is rough and unfamiliar, but when Regina feels salt on her lips, she
realizes that she's crying, and that she doesn't know what to say or feel.
"Now that's enough of that, little lady," Master Clive tells her, motioning as
if he wants to wipe her tears away, even when he's clearly too weak to reach
out. "I'm so old now, I have my family with me here and they're making me a
warm meal to enjoy before I leave this world; it's a better end than I deserve,
so don't you be sad over this old man."
Regina manages a trembling smile, a sort of grimace that doesn't hold up for
more than two seconds. The old master has been consistently kind to her, and
the idea of losing him is so devastating that it leaves her speechless.
"Come on now," he says, letting his head roll on his pillow so he can look at
her with his familiar grey eyes. "You be happy and strong now, little lady;
promise that to an old man and I'll go peacefully."
The sob she swallows tangles inside her throat, painful and raw, but it doesn't
stop her from nodding almost maniacally. It brings what looks like a peaceful
smile to the old man's face, and finding herself unable to speak, Regina moves
up and forward until she can place a wet kiss to his wrinkly cheek. He squeezes
her hands as she does so, so Regina lingers for a moment too long, allows
herself the forbidden comfort of saying goodbye to a man below her station that
she shouldn't care for the way she does.
She moves back eventually, and takes that as her cue to leave. She disengages
herself from the old man and stands up on legs that she finds suddenly weak.
She only finds enough will in herself to nod at the rest of the old master's
family, the trio looking at her as if they don't quite know what to think and
Daniel giving her the hint of a sad smile. With that, she steps away from the
cottage, only her trembling legs stopping her from running away.
Once she's outside, though, she takes a big breath, the fresh air seeping into
her lungs and allowing her to inhale properly. There are steps behind her, and
she turns to find Daniel behind her, a sad smile still stretching his handsome
face and his eyes watery with unshed tears.
"Milady! Allow me to accompany you back."
Regina shakes her head, thinking that the last thing she needs to add to her
confusing emotions is a walk with this boy that makes her insides churn with
unknown desires. "I'll be fine, Daniel," she answers, futilely trying to stand
up to her full height and regain her composure. "Go be with your family," she
concedes. And then, before walking away, she repeats, "I'll be fine."
 
===============================================================================
               
Regina gets home not long later, her boots muddy and her riding pants dark at
the knees from leaning on a dusty floor. She walks inside with her head low and
her shoulders hunched, and the moment she catches sight of her mother, she
knows that I'll be fineis an assessments that won't be coming true. Mother's
waiting for her by the door to her room, the dark blue gown she' wearing, her
stiff, controlled posture, her hands clasped at her front and her steady,
flinty expression betraying the anger in her eyes, forever to be etched in
Regina's head as the image she'll conjure up whenever mother comes to mind.
Mother doesn't speak and neither does Regina, not when their gazes lock, and
not when mother enchants her so that she walks unwillingly behind her,
following silent yet purposeful steps.
Regina doesn't talk, and she doesn't fight the magical bindings around her,
even when she hates losing control like this, yielding it to her mother's
unnatural powers. She's tried before, and she knows that when she fights the
spell only tightens around her, pressing invisible binds to her sides until she
can barely breathe. Last time she'd fought she'd broken a rib, and at least
mother won't be able to say that she doesn't occasionally learn her lesson.
Their walk ends at the cellar, where mother chooses to grab her wrist and
physically throw her in, as if she needs the aggression to go further than her
aseptic magic. Regina stumbles inside, and once the spell releases her, she
falls down, arms protecting her face and knees buckling and crashing painfully
against the floor. The door closes behind her, and she's surrounded by
darkness.
This time, Regina doesn't cry, she doesn't yell after her mother or asks for
mercy. She doesn't ask for help, knowing by now that she won't get any, not
from the inhabitants in this house, and not from creatures of legend she
stopped reading about years ago when she realized they'd never come for her.
She's alone, but she knows what she's done and the punishment that awaits her
inside these walls. No food, no light, but no fear anymore; only anger, and the
knowledge that mother will be happy when she comes out and she hasn't heard her
scream.
    
===============================================================================
 
               
It's a little over two days this time, during which old Master Clive dies, as
mother gleefully announces to her the moment she comes out of the darkness,
feeling faint and unhinged. Regina merely nods, knowing that the thought won't
register until later, when she's alone in her room and not feeling as if the
world's spinning around her.
"Now, dear," mother tells her as they walk towards her rooms. "Bathe and get
changed; you're going for a ride."
"Mother?"
"You love horses and the stables so much, I figured it would be the first thing
you'd want to do."
Mother reaches out for her as she speaks, tucks a dirty lock of hair behind her
ear and lets her knuckles run down softly over Regina's cheek. Despite
everything, Regina shivers from the affection, and has to bite her lip to
remind herself of her composure and not cry.
"Mother?" she whispers, feeling her voice raspy and unused, painful as it comes
out of her throat. "I just want to be better for you. I want to be everything
you want, everything you need."
Mother smiles then, and Regina chooses to believe that she does so honestly
when her thumb stays resting on the apple of Regina's cheek, a small caress of
roughened hands that resemble old Master Clive's in a way that mother would be
loathe to admit.
"You will endure, dear, and you will be your best. You are my daughter, after
all."
Regina nods importantly, feeling suddenly elated in the trust mother seems to
be putting in her character. I will endure, she tells herself. The thought
lasts her all through her bath and while she's getting dressed; it even fills
her spirit as she coldly gives her condolences to a clearly grieving Daniel
while he gets Rocinante ready. As she gets on the horse and comes out to the
fields, pain filling her stomach and crawling all the way up to her throat,
head throbbing to the point of wooziness and lightheadedness, she uses the
thought as shield and armor, and plunges through. When she passes out above
Rocinanteon her way back to the stables, she has a last second to wonder why
mother's ideals aren't enough to carry her through.
She comes to heavily and unsteadily, her senses thick as she tries to open her
eyes, not sure of where she is or why her limbs are so heavy. She tries to lift
her hand to her forehead, but the effort feels like entirely too much and she
ends up dropping it halfway there, so it falls somewhere between her chest and
stomach, where her fingers curl around the fabric she finds there. The air
around her feels hot and humid, and she finds that she's unconsciously pulling,
as if her clothes will come off if only she wills them hard enough.
She finally blinks her eyes awake, but has to give them an extra push just to
focus on the place around her. When they finally do, the first thing she sees
is Daniel hovering above her with worry etched in his features. She realizes
he's cradling her prone body in his arms, and has the feeling that the warm
stables are not to blame for her heatedness, but rather the arms that Daniel
has around her, and the leg that's supporting her back.
"There you are, milady," he tells her, and the smile she spies on his lips is
the only good thing Regina has seen in days. "You scared me there for a
second."
"What happened?"
"You passed out on your horse, milady."
Regina blinks a few times rapidly, as if the mere gesture were enough to bring
her back to her full senses. She feels dense, though, and entirely too heavy,
so her instinct to jump away from Daniel's arms and into a standing position
only takes her halfway into a terrible attempt at being alert. She nearly falls
down again, and ends up back in Daniel's arms.
"Easy, milady," he whispers.
Regina whimpers, not sure if she's allowed to be in this position, or if she
really wants to. She knows she's inside the stables and that Daniel is the only
one around to see her like this, but news travel fast in the state, and she
doesn't know if the weakness that has its grip on her is acceptable at all.
Daniel, perhaps sensing her distress, or perhaps reacting to how tense her body
feels, moves her about until she's sitting on a small, low stool, her back
resting against a wall so she won't topple over.
"Thank you," she mumbles.
Daniel doesn't say anything, instead disappearing for a moment that Regina
utilizes to close her eyes and try to focus and regain some strength. It's not
use, and it only makes her realize that she's disgustingly sweaty and
impossibly disheveled. Daniel reappears soon, though, and when he offers her a
tankard full of what looks like fresh milk, she forgets about her predicament
for a moment and takes the offering without a second thought. She drinks a
mouthful far too fast, the cold liquid falling down her throat but also out the
corners of her mouth so it runs down her chin.
"Pace yourself, milady," Daniel murmurs, kneeling by her side and looking at
her with eyes that still show worry. Eventually, once Regina is taking a small,
entirely too lady-like sip of the milk, he asks, "Should I take you back to the
manor, milady? You don't look well; surely your mother will want to call a
doctor."
"No! Please, don't tell my mother. I'm fine, I'm just... I'm fine." She tries
to sound convincing, but everything is a little harder when her head is not
completely steady. Her stomach, too, is upset, and the milk is both a blessing
and a curse, clearly needed but a bit too much after almost three days of no
food at all.
Daniel doesn't question her plea though, and merely nods in a way that Regina
wishes isn't anyway close to understanding. He sits on the ground by her, and
with the stool she's in being so low, it feels as if they're impossibly close,
the distance far too intimate. She thinks she would blush in other
circumstances, but her strength is gone and right now she's more than happy to
lean into Daniel's.
She finishes the tankard eventually, and once that's over, Daniel offers
something else even as he doesn't look at her. There's a peeled orange in his
hand, and Regina's first instinct is to reject it; not only should she wait to
sit at her own table with mother and father before she eats, but an orange is a
delicacy in this land, and surely not something that a stable boy comes by
every day. She's hungry, though, so very hungry, and it feels as if denying
Daniel would be like rejecting a thoughtful courtesy, so she takes it and
mumbles a barely inaudible thank youbefore taking a slice into her mouth. She
bites into it, knowing better than to eat too much too fast on an empty
stomach, and finds herself uttering an unbidden moan when the sweet juice
touches her tongue. Daniel looks at her then, one eyebrow raised, and she can't
help but look away, ashamed.
With a small cough and after eating the rest of the slice, Regina manages to
look back at Daniel and says, "I truly am sorry about your grandfather's
passing. Despite what his appearance may have said, he was a kind man."
"Thank you, milady; I know he cared for you."
Regina just nods as acknowledgement, and just like that they fall into an easy
silence, only broken by the horses around them. They're restless today, perhaps
sensing Regina's own disquietude, even if she's starting to feel better. The
sweet orange feels like the most exquisite thing she's ever tasted, and the air
around her doesn't feel as heavy and humid as it did merely a while ago.
Halfway through the orange, Daniel breaks the silence, saying, "You know, when
you're my wife, you're going to have to eat a lot more than that."
A piece of orange is left dangling in her hand, halfway to her mouth, as she
looks at Daniel's serious face. "Excuse me?" she intones, incredulous.
"Yes, we're going to have to put some more meat in your bones, milady,
especially if we want to have a few plump little children running around the
house."
Regina scoffs, unsurprised by her natural response but completely stupefied by
Daniel's brash smile. It disarms her, and considering that she's almost at her
wits' end, she guesses she can't be blamed for stumbling over what to say next,
which ends up being a particularly haughty, "I will marry a prince. Or a king!"
Daniel bursts into a small laugh, one that's so unbidden that when he's left
with nothing but a smile on his face Regina can't help herself but be drawn to
it.
"Of course you will, milady."
"Of course I will," she tells him, defiant.
She clicks her tongue inside her mouth, the gesture so unladylike that it makes
her instantly scowl, and when she turns her eyes back towards Daniel, he's
still smiling at her. She says nothing else, and instead takes what little
remains of the orange, merely two small slices and offers them back to him. He
doesn't take them back, of course, so Regina reaches for his hand and opens it
until she can place the fruit back, and then close Daniel's fingers around it,
so it's effectively returned. That done, she stands up, pointedly ignoring the
helping hand he offers and instead leaning sideways against the wall when a
wave of nausea hits her.
"Thank you very much for your kindness," she says, trying for distant when
that's the last thing she's feeling right now.
Daniel mock bows at her, and when he looks up and finds her frowning, he offers
her such a bold grin that Regina doesn't know what to do. She wants to reach
out, put her arms around him and never let go, and the suddenness of the
feeling leaves her mouth feeling dry, and the rest of her completely
inadequate. One wouldn't need the strictest of upbringings to understand that a
princess should not be wanting to find solace in the embrace of a stable boy,
but Regina can hardly contain her feelings.
She leaves the stables without another glance and with a nearly impolite
goodbye thrown over her shoulder, her back to Daniel, and does her best at
reaching home without letting the queasiness of her stomach overcome her. Later
that night, when she's wearing a beautiful gown and eating slowly from a
tasteless dish, she fancies she can still taste the tanginess of an orange at
the back of her mouth, and the warmth it was offered with at the center of her
chest.
   
===============================================================================
 
               
Mother organizes the biggest ball Regina has ever attended for her sixteenth
birthday. It's a coming of age affair, and before Regina gets to enjoy the
splendor, mother gives her a short, pointed talk about what kind of behavior is
expected from her. Regina suspects that mother is looking for an adequate
husband for her, and the thought makes Regina queasy.
Regina enjoys the ball, though. It's hard not to, with the manor decorated
splendidly and filled with more people than Regina has ever seen before in her
life. It seems to her that everyone around her is a paragon of beauty, and has
to remind herself of how pleased she'd been when she'd looked at herself in the
mirror before entering the ballroom. She's wearing white, as is tradition, and
the gown mother has had made for her frees the skin of her shoulders and that
of her upper arms, down to where her silken gloves begin. Her hair is up high
on her head, the elaborate bun adorned by a sparkly, thick tiara that makes
Regina feel as exactly what she is: a princess.
Regina had spent more time than necessary in front of her bedroom's full length
mirror, letting her hands roam the fabric of her big skirt, tighten at her
waist, travel up to her collarbones. Granted the luxury of being alone, she'd
cupped her covered breasts, propped up by her corset so that they looked more
present than ever before. Up until that moment, her breasts had been nothing
but a source of pain during her periods, something that only added to the
heaviness and bloating of the whole ordeal. In that dress, though, they'd made
her feel more like a woman than ever before, and her thoughts, unbridled, had
made her question whether Daniel would think her pretty if he were to see her
in it.
At the ball, Regina doesn't eat, only speaks when first spoken to, and dances
with everyone who asks. Dozens of princes and dukes and other nobles move about
with her, admire her elegant dancing form and speak to her about shallow
matters. She smiles and curtseys appropriately, and wonders why the feel of
their hands on her waist and back pales when she thinks about waking up in
Daniel's embrace in the dirty ground of the stables. Mother seems pleased with
her behavior, though, and Regina can't deny that the music and dancing gets to
her head, so not all her smiles are fake, and most of her joy is real.
Father only asks for a dance when most of the guests have gone, and the ones
that are invited to stay at the manor are retiring for the night. Regina has
her biggest, most honest smile for him, and while they twirl about the dance
floor, form and steps forgotten, she laughs and laughs.
   
===============================================================================
 
 
The day after all the guests have left the manor, Regina is allowed to finally
go outside for a well deserved ride. Mother insists that she wants to see her
jump some obstacles to inspect her progress, and Regina explains the strange
request to herself as her mother's desire to see her in her new riding outfit,
mother's own birthday present. Regina had been more than surprised by the
peculiar gift from mother, but once she'd seen herself in the baby blue coat
and light pants, she'd realized that perhaps she had outgrown her previous
outfit, and that mother wouldn't want her to go around looking less than what
she is.
Both mother and father watch her ride that afternoon, and Regina is pleased
when she's particularly good at jumping obstacles. Rocinantehasn't seen her in
the past two weeks, and he grows anxious when he's not allowed out with Regina,
almost as if their connection let him feel Regina's own desire for freedom in
the fields above him. By the time she's done and Daniel is helping her down
from the horse, Regina is smiling, and so is father. Mother, less prone to
gestures of joy, is merely looking at Rocinanteas if she can't quite comprehend
why her daughter is so enamored with the animal.
"And who is this?"
Regina startles, and realizes that mother isn't looking at Rocinantebut at
Daniel, his hand still lingering on Regina's form after she's touched the
ground. Regina takes a step back as if burnt, and finds herself inevitably
pushing her thumb to her opposing palm, trying to calm the sudden nervousness
of her mother's question. Of course mother doesn't know about Daniel, not when
Master Clive had been taking care of the stables up until now, and when she
leaves most of these unimportant dealings to father.
"Oh," Regina answers, her thumb painful in its pressure as she forces her tone
to be dismissive and arrogant. "He's no one, just the new stable boy."
Mother stares and Regina looks away as if there's nothing important hanging on
the balance of this conversation. She's desperate to make mother not notice
Daniel, to make her think of him as nothing and no one, to take her gaze
somewhere else. Time ticks away and Regina does her best at controlling her
breathing when finally, mother looks away, throwing one dismissive hand up in
the air.
"Oh well, I guess he'll do."
With a weak smile thrown her mother's way, Regina begins to breathe properly
again.
Daniel, though, doesn't seem to appreciate the silent service Regina has done
him by making him unimportant in her mother's eyes, since after that day, his
playfulness and amusement are completely gone, his character replaced by that
of a perfectly well-behaved stable boy. He helps Regina when he should, bows
and curtsies appropriately, gives short answers always followed by her title
and accepts her coldness with grace. It's unnerving and insufferable, and it
makes Regina wonder what has gotten into him. She should be happy by the
change, and yet, she finds herself missing the natural friendliness of his
smile, and the casual nature of his touches.
"Father, what does love feel like?" she asks one night in the intimacy of her
bedchambers.
She's had a singularly strong bleeding this month, longer than usual, and her
cramps have been so consistently uncomfortable that not even her father's
offering of chocolate is doing anything to make her feel better. Her breasts
are very sensitive, her lower back has been persistently in pain and she's been
harboring a headache for days, too. Despite all that, she's been hungrier than
ever, and tonight she feels like screaming rather than like talking. Her
father's presence always acts like a calming balm, though, and so she chooses
to focus herself on a conversation and try and forget the last few days of
shameful concealment and primitive hunger.
"What do you mean, cielo?"
"I mean falling in love, what does that feel like?"
Father doesn't answer right away, as if he's mulling over what he wants to say.
Mother has certainly spoken to her about a wife's duties, and Regina's had the
displeasure of catching servants in unseemly acts a few times before, but no
one has ever talked to her about real love. She can't help but wish that
there's more to it than obligation or the uncomfortable grunts she'd heard from
Gerda the scullery maid when some boy had been between her legs.
When father remains silent, Regina pushes. "You dolove mother," she whispers,
trying not to think of her father becoming smaller by the day, of his graying
hair and his absentminded looks, of his childhood servants thrown away from the
state, or of his favorite dishes banned from their table.
"Cielo,arranged marriages are always a complicated affair, but love, love does
come from the most unexpected places." Father's tone turns wistful, almost
young as he speaks, and when he looks into Regina's eyes, his lips are sporting
a playful smirk. "Did you meet someone at your birthday party that you-"
"Oh, no, no!" Regina whispers immediately, childishly embarrassed in a way that
she's only ever around her father. "Nothing like that."
Father sighs, his smile softer this time along with the rest of his features.
He doesn't look young anymore, but he does look loving. He reaches out for
Regina and places his fingers softly on her chin, the small caress affectionate
and delicate. When he speaks again, it's in his own native tongue, which he
almost never uses anymore because they both know mother doesn't approve of the
link they share through it. She refused to learn it when she married father,
and having Regina do so is perhaps the one and only time father put his foot
down in their marriage. Regina has always enjoyed the lilting tone, and hearing
her father speak it, she almost shivers with affection.
"Cielo, enamorarse es el mejor sentimiento del mundo... Te deja sin aliento,
incómodo, con el corazón latiendo tan fuerte que parece que se te va a escapar,
con el estómago del revés, y aun así... aun así cielo, cuando ves a esa
persona, sabes que nunca quieres dejar de sentirte así. El amor verdadero hace
que cualquier cosa sea posible. Es magia, cielo, la magia más pura que
existe."  (3)
And just like that, Regina knows.
 
===============================================================================
 
Next day, Regina asks Daniel to accompany her in her ride through the fields,
and doesn't stop until they reach her favorite apple tree. It's a damp day, and
when Regina dismounts, foregoing Daniel's help, her boots make a squelch like
sound on the wet grass. The air smells sweet, of ripe apples and the almost
there scent of rain, and Regina gives herself some time to appreciate the
scenery and the nature around her. It's not cold but it will be soon, once the
sun starts to set, and Regina's thankful for the warmth of her coat.
A few silent moments pass, and Regina looks at Daniel, standing by the tree
with his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at her, but
rather at the fields before him. He's terrible at being dismissive, though, and
Regina can tell just by the stiffness of his shoulders that he wishes they were
talking. With that thought in mind, Regina removes her riding gloves, pats her
clothes down as if removing invisible dirt from them, and takes one long,
purposeful step towards Daniel.
"Is there something wrong, Daniel?" she questions.
Daniel looks up, his hands tightening into fists and his stance almost
immediately turning defensive. "No, milady," he answers, his tone polite. "I
hope nothing in my behavior has given you that impression, milady."
Regina would scoff, if only mother hadn't instilled in her the idea that it's
thoroughly unladylike. Instead, she crosses her own arms over her chest, and
speaks loud and clear. "Yes, it has, as a matter of fact. I do not appreciate
your tone."
"Milady, I was under the impression that I was being perfectly polite. Do
excuse me if it hasn't come across as such; I will do my best to correct it in
the future, milady."
"It hasbeen polite," Regina proclaims, her tone far from elegant as she feels
irritation crawling up her spine. "Precisely!"
"Would you rather I was rude then, milady?" Daniel asks, and even if seemingly
angry, there's a glimpse of the Daniel she's known in his voice, of herDaniel.
"I rather you were like you used to," she tells him, completely honest,
bordering on a confession. "I thought maybe we were friends."
Regina feels flustered, somewhere between irritated and broken open, but
Daniel's looking at her as if he doesn't understand her for the first time
since they met, and he's standing what feels like worlds away. She wishes he
would stand on her personal space and say something impertinent that would
prompt her into an answer that would make him smile.
"Friends, milady?" Daniel counters. At that, he takes a step closer towards
her, and they're not far but they're not close either, the five or six steps
between them creating what feels like impossible breach between them. Then,
before Regina can find quite how to answer him, he finishes his statement with,
"Surely not friends. After all, I'm no one, justthe new stable boy."
"Oh, is that why you - but that's hardly fair of you! I was talking to my
mother and she's, well, she's... you know what, boy? I owe you no explanations,
I will refer to you as I please." As she says this, Regina wishes to turn her
back on him, but she refuses to give him the pleasure of seeing her stand down.
She lifts her chin up instead, and not for the first time, she hates the
feeling that accompanies the gesture.
Daniel recoils from her, as if wounded, and says, "Then perhaps it will be
better if I'm nothing but polite when addressing you, milady."
"Perhaps." Her chin is still up, high and might, but her tone is small when she
speaks. She didn't want this to go like this, but she doesn't know how to say
what she needs, what she wants when she knows the feeling to be so completely
inadequate to her station and her persona. She's afraid of making a confession
if she speaks too much, and she wishes Daniel would just know what lays in her
heart.
The wind picks up a little around them, and Regina realizes they’ve been silent
for a while now, and that every second that's passed she's made herself
smaller. She finds herself with her own arms around her, her legs tightly
locked together and her eyes settled on the ground below her, her shoulders
hunched to bring her neck closer to her shoulders. She must look impossibly
tiny, and fairly unattractive. The air is colder now, and Regina feels her
hands beginning to redden, so she hides them under her arms and considers
leaving the field and going back to the manor. There's nothing much to gain
from this little trip anymore, anyway. She lifts her head up to express her
desires, and it is only then that she notices that Daniel has been moving all
along, and that he's walking towards her with a couple of apples in his hands.
He steps close to her, far too close, and suddenly the scent of apples is
mixing with something else entirely, the musk of leather and horses, and
something she can't quite her finger on. Regina has to stretch herself to look
into Daniel's eyes when he's this close, and as she does so, he places an apple
in her hand, their ungloved fingers touching softly as he does.
Daniel smiles then, something small and nearly shy that only curls one side of
his mouth. "I thought perhaps one of those princes or counts at your birthday
had caught your fancy, and you didn't wish to speak with someone like me
anymore, milady."
Regina twists her lips angrily to the side, exasperated, and rolls her eyes.
"Nobody caught my fancy."
"But I thought you were going to marry a prince, or a king."
"Perhaps I won't."
Daniel's smile curves up completely then, and it lights up his eyes, making
soft laughter lines appear at their corners. "Milady, I wish I could give you
everything that you deserve, but I can never be a prince, or a king."
"I don't want you to be, Daniel."
His hands, when they rest on her waist, feel wide and strong, and far better
than any other hands had when she'd been dancing away at her birthday. Her
breath stutters, but when Daniel presses his lips to hers, she's smiling, and
the touch makes her tingle all over. He makes as if to break away after the
briefest of touches, but she follows his movement, standing on her tiptoes and
tumbling into his arms so he's forced to embrace her fully so she won't fall.
She doesn't lose contact with his lips, but rather deepens it, presses a hungry
mouth to his and wraps her arms around his neck, locking them further into the
embrace and dropping her apple to the ground.
"Milady... Regina," he whispers between their lips when they do break apart.
They're still holding each other, and Daniel has his hand on Regina's cheek,
his warm fingers soft on her skin but enough to make goose bumps crawl all the
way down to her toes.
"Don't go please, not just yet."
He doesn't, but rather kisses her again, and Regina falls into it, desperately,
her lips at the center of an onslaught of sensations cursing through her body,
and her heart beating away wildly inside her chest. She feels fantastically
aware of her body, grounded, warm and excited, the foreign lick of heat
languidly lapping at her belly making her shiver.
She's free, finally, free in this open field under the setting sun, surrounded
by the warmth of a boy she's sure she loves, away from the small, tight spaces
her life has been thus far. With Daniel's arms around her, and his lips above
hers, there are no cellars, no tasteless meals, no secret talks with her
father, no inadequacy and no shame.
This then,she thinks, this is what happiness feels like.
           
===============================================================================
 
 
The next year Regina lives as if in a dream, full of secret meetings and stolen
kisses that slowly but steadily give way to bolder touches. Her body, which up
until now has been nothing but a source of pain and scrutiny, suddenly becomes
tangible in a way she never could have dreamed it to be. She looks at herself
in the mirror more pointedly, and more and more asks to be left alone when
she’s bathing, finding an embarrassing yet simple pleasure in exploring herself
with her own hands, in pressing her fingers over naked skin, right where Daniel
has touched her through her clothes before. She pictures his hands on her
stomach, at the back of her neck, sliding down her collarbones, cupping her
full breasts, settling low inside her thighs, and blushes impossibly as her
mind refuses to let go of the images.
Mother, too, looks at her under a different gaze, and Regina wonders what it is
exactly that she’s seeing, if perhaps she can spy the change in her spirit, and
how it has translated into her body. For a few days after Daniel had first
kissed her, Regina had been careless enough to eat ravenously, as if a new kind
of hunger had awakened within her, and mother had looked on disapprovingly
until Regina had remembered herself, and had gone back to her usual behavior.
Regina finds it’s easier to behave properly for her mother’s eyes now, though.
With the forbidden freedom of secret love to support her, she tightens herself
to her mother’s rules with a certain fluidity that she’s lacked all of these
years. She puts an extra effort to be elegant and graceful, to speak at
appropriate times, to lower her head when mother talks to her but bring it up
higher when she’s the one addressing someone, and she excels in her lessons
with practiced ease. The image of a perfect little lady is almost easy to
maintain when there’s the promise of a completely different kind of freedom
outside the manor, so for a year, there are no punishments, no nights spent in
the darkness of the cellar, no forbidden meals.
Of course, there’s a razor sharp edge to Regina’s happiness. She’s constantly
worried that mother will eventually find out about her escapades, and about
what her reaction to her daughter’s truth will be. Occasionally, she likes to
picture her mother being angry but eventually understanding, realizing that her
daughter’s happiness dangles in the arms of love and not power, but the images
last only seconds, soon to be replaced by the truth of her mother’s stern
expression, of the twist of her lips whenever she is reminded of the poverty
she overcame by marrying into nobility. It seems impossible to her that she
will accept Regina becoming something less than what she is, and so she
worries.
Nonetheless, there’s Daniel, and the newfound reality of their affair making
Regina feel full of life. Once the awkwardness of their first encounters is
through, they find an easy balance about their talks, and under darkening
fields and at the safe haven of the stables they talk, and touch, and enjoy
each other. Daniel speaks freely of his simple life, and about his desires of
following in his grandfather’s footsteps, or perhaps owning a farm and his own
horse. He wants family, a big one, too, and repeats the words his old
grandfather had said to Regina on his deathbed, about family and a good meal
being the true only good thing one can desire to have at the brink of death.
Regina doesn’t speak so freely about her life at home, but she does find it
easy to regal Daniel with tales about her loving father, of the stories he
would read to her before bed when she was little, of the way they danced at her
last birthday, of how his voice is still the most soothing sound she’s ever
known. When Daniel asks about her wishes, though, she realizes that it’s hard
for her to answer truthfully, and stutters with her own words.
“I guess I was going to be a queen,” is what she says. She’d been looking at
Daniel up until then, at the way a ray of sun was illuminating just one side of
his face, the shadow of the tree above them covering the rest of his features.
When she speaks now, she looks away and at the fields in front of her,
squeezing the hand of Daniel’s she's holding, just to remind herself of where
she is. “That’s what mother always says; you will endure, dear, I will make a
queen out of you yet.”
Daniel doesn’t speak for a while then, probably tapping into her pensive mood.
Instead, he busies himself by taking her hand to his mouth and pressing small
kisses all around it, to her knuckles and the point of her fingers, and then to
the center of her palm. The simple touch heats Regina up, warms her until
something tight settles low on her belly. She sighs, her eyes falling shut and
then barely opening at half mast, and when she realizes that she’s been sitting
rigidly since Daniel asked his question, she relaxes her shoulders until she’s
resting comfortably against the trunk of the tree they’re resting at. She feels
Daniel’s lips turn into a smile above the skin of her palm, which he kisses
again softly, nuzzling his nose. Her sighs feel like breathless pants then, and
they only keep going when Daniel uses both his hands to travel up her arm and
pull the fabric of her coat away far enough for him to press a kiss to the
inside of her wrist. That grants him a surprised gasp, immediately after which
Regina bites the side of her lip both to hide a smile and stop anymore sounds.
“What do you want, milady?” Daniel asks then, whisper soft, his words leaving
his mouth and pressing against the skin of Regina’s wrist as if they were
tangible fingers.
Regina looks back at him, a small turn of her neck down and to the left, and
the sight of his eyes looking up at her from where he’s still leaning over her
skin is almost too much to bear. She leans forward, frees her lip from her
teeth and leaves her mouth parted, silently asking to be kissed.
Daniel doesn’t relent, though, and asks again, “What do youwant, Regina?”
She doesn’t answer, though, and instead launches forward towards him and locks
his lips in a kiss, effectively shutting him up. He lets her get away with it,
and when they stumble onto the ground from the strength of Regina’s impulse,
they laugh and kiss at the same time, falling easily into each other with an
ever growing familiarity. They kiss over and over again, and the laughter only
dies when Regina grabs onto one of Daniel’s big, warm hands and presses it to
her breast, so it’s cupping it through her clothes.
Daniel is the one to gasp this time, his eyes growing wide and his tone hiding
a warning when he murmurs, “Regina…”
He’s blushing, and it never ceases to amuse Regina how despite his usual
boldness of word, he’s far shier than she is when it comes to her body. She
wants to be touched so badly, though, and he’s so soft with her, and feels so
good against her that she can’t help but push herself into his hands.
“I want you to touch me, Daniel, that is what I want.”
Daniel groans, and whispers, “Notwhat I was asking, milady.” But then he
doesn’t give Regina a chance to answer, and instead kisses her again, and
again, and again, caressing her softly above clothes that Regina wishes they
weren't wearing.
That encounter they finish with all their clothes on, even if Regina has to
retie her thick braid so that it looks somewhat presentable. Before they part,
and with cheeks still tinted red from both the cold and the daringness of their
increasing physical familiarity, they share an apple, Daniel always adamant
that she doesn't eat enough. Regina does wonder if he knows, if perhaps he can
somehow guess at the control she's been exerting over herself for so many years
now. She prefers not to think about it, and rather enjoy the offerings of fruit
as part of their secret.
It's later that night, though, when Regina's alone in her bed, that she gives a
real thought to the question that she's been avoiding. She doesn't know what
she wants, or who she wants to be, because it has never been much of a question
before. She's been trained and molded all her life to be a lady, graceful,
elegant, educated, shy in the right situations and bold in other ones. She's
always known that her future lay by the arm of a wealthy noble, at the head of
household, and later on, by the side of children she's never been sure she
wanted. No one's ever asked, and neither has Regina, because there's never been
much of a choice, or even a true way of forming a complaint in her head. There
is now, though, a giant, colored sign with the name Daniel on it. It both feels
very close to her heart and entirely too far away from reality.
All the same, the thought doesn't leave her now that it has began to grow. It's
merely the morsel of an idea, but as the days pass and her seventeenth birthday
approaches, she daydreams until the fantasy becomes almost palpable. It's not
only Daniel that she wants, but a whole new path that she can almost see laying
before her. She thinks of reading bedtime stories to children that don't know
how to quit smiling, of the fire of a stove under her unprepared, inexperienced
fingers, that she will burn a thousand times before she learns to cook
properly. She'll cook good meals, full of flavor and spices and fruits. She
thinks of wide fields and fresh air, of open spaces that will never constrict
her, of breathing freely every second of every day. She thinks of her father,
somehow still by her side, smiling his prudent, kind smile while balancing his
grandchildren on an old knee, or while dancing around a happy house with her,
twirling her about even when they're both too old for such nonsense. Most of
all, she thinks of a love that never ends, of creating every new day next to
Daniel, of being secretly dragged to hidden corners because they don't know how
to stop touching each other, of indulging in their feelings and in their hunger
with no control.
 
===============================================================================
 
The entire day of her seventeenth birthday, mother doesn't let her eat anything
heavy, keeping her in a diet of water and two loaves of soft bread that have
Regina's insides twisting uncomfortably. When the time comes to get herself in
her new, extremely corseted gown, she just wants the whole night to be over
already, not even the prospect of a beautiful ballroom filled with music making
her excited this time.
The ball has taken a little over a fortnight to prepare, and mother,
considering her old enough to take responsibility over some of the house
servants and a few of the most inconsequential tasks, has had her running
around for days, leaving her no time for herself whatsoever. Regina had bitten
her lip nearly raw, thinking of Daniel waiting for her to light a candle up at
the window of the north wing attic, which was the device they had managed to
design for whenever Regina could see him outside of riding practice. Not just
that, but the amount of time she has spent inside the manor with mother
breathing down her neck, has her feeling caged, much more so when she hasn't
had a chance to ride atop Rocinanteat all for the past ten days.
And yet, Regina can't say that she doesn't make a pretty sight in her ball gown
this year. There's no doubt that she's a full grown woman now, and despite
mother's apprehension growing up, she hasn't turned up completely bad. She may
not be a pale-faced, blonde beauty, but she can't help but think that perhaps
she holds her own kind of appeal, after all.
Mother catches her in front of her full length mirror right before the ball,
and rather than chastising her for her vanity, she comes up to her and stands
by her side, so her figure is also reflecting back to them. Regina has never
seen much of her mother in herself, her appearance always leaning more to her
father's side of the family, but now, standing side by side, with their
shoulders thrown back and both their expressions serious but appreciative,
Regina thinks she can see the long lost similarities between them. It's
something about their eyes, she muses.
"You look very beautiful tonight, Regina," mother tells her, with her eyes
finding hers through the mirror.
Regina smiles, unbidden, a tad unhinged with the delighted surprise of the
comment. Mother's been full of compliments this past fortnight, both for her
demeanor and hard work, and having her approve of looks she'd always found
lacking, a little shameful, fills Regina's chest with something solid that
feels very much like pride.
She turns towards her mother, and softly, looking down but not lowering her
chin, she says, "Thank you, mother."
Mother spreads her arms then, and even if her expression doesn't betray any
change in her demeanor, Regina has had years to train herself into
understanding her mother's physical cues. Doubtlessly, she steps forward and
into her mother's offered embrace, holding onto the rarely given affection with
open glee. She curls herself against her mother's chest like a starved little
girl, and closes her eyes to better memorize the feel of the embrace. Mother
smells of expensive perfume and the fabric of her dress, and the skin of her
neck, where Regina's hiding her face, feels soft and powdered against her
cheek. It's not a long hug by any chance, but it's more than Regina's known in
the past few years, so when she walks into the ballroom, she does so with a
smile.
Once again, getting swept up in the grandeur is easy and nearly joyful, and
even if Regina's mind is somewhere else, in open fields and the warmth of the
arms of a stable boy, she sees the proceedings with an honest smile plastered
on her face. She dances until her feet hurt, her gown swishing this way and
that, and when one foreign prince tells her that she must simply try the
bonbons he's brought from his land and offers one up, Regina considers that
refusing would be impolite and actually let's herself enjoy the small taste of
chocolate.
By the time the guests are starting to grow tired and the night is coming to an
end, Regina is ready to call the whole ordeal a success. She feels particularly
proud that the tasks her mother made her responsible of, even if small, have
come out without a hitch. That is why, when mother walks straight towards her
with what can only be described as fury tainting every single muscle on her
body, Regina can't help but straighten up in pure, unbridled fear. She gasps
before mother reaches her, bringing her hands to her chest in apprehension, and
suddenly it seems as if there's nothing around her, no twinkling lights, no
music, no deliciously smelling food, no beautiful couples gliding on the dance
floor; nothing but the focus of her mother's gaze.
Despite her harsh approach, mother stands before her with something akin to a
sweet smile, so no one outside of her own daughter would ever guess as to the
true nature of her actual emotional state. Regina, already an expert at reading
her mother's telltales, knows better than to trust her mother's fake smiles.
Mother's tone, when she finally speaks, is syrupy, loaded with the kind of
danger that Regina knows precedes the worst of punishments. The fact that she
doesn't know what it is that she has done to grant this fury only makes
everything worse, leaving her unprepared and defenseless.
"Regina, dear, would you care to tell me what exactly it is that you spoke of
with the very respectable King George?"
Regina flinches at the near physical quality on her mother's tone of voice, and
opens her eyes wide before throwing her gaze around the ballroom, looking for
the so called King. For the life of her she can't remember who the man is, or
why he is so important as to anger mother so. She follows mother's gaze to a
tall, serious looking man clad in a deep red coat, and reminds herself of the
dance they'd shared at some point during the night. He's old enough to be her
father, and Regina carefully remembers him asking her for a dance with
something akin to boredom, probably out of compromise to their hosts than out
of true desire of sharing the floor with her. Regina hadn't liked being in his
arms, and she'd found him mostly unpleasant until he'd showed genuine affection
when talking about his son, the rambunctious prince James waiting for him back
home, or so he'd said.
"Mother, I-" Regina begins, stumbling over her words and bringing her gaze back
to her mother's. "His son, perhaps some shallow pleasantries, barely anything,
mother, why-"
"If you must know, my dear foolish daughter, he was to issue a proposal
tonight," mother tells her. "That won't be happening anymore; you must have
done something."
"A proposal? Mother, what-"
"You're starting to be too old to marry Regina, and I told you that you would
be queen. Old King George is in need of a second wife."
"King George?" Regina questions, not managing to hide her surprise. The man is
old, ugly and the last person Regina would ever want for a husband. The thought
of his hands on her is enough to make her gag, no matter how many crowns the
man holds above his head.
Regina shakes her head, as if that can get the idea away from it, and the manic
feeling behind her gesture provokes mother to take a step forward and hiss, "Do
not make a scene, Regina. Perhaps the man is not a complete fool and he's right
in saying that you're nothing but a little girl."
Another step and mother is right in her space and reaching forward, pressing
her hands above Regina's waist in a gesture that probably manages to look
tender from the outside, but that Regina knows is nothing but part of a
thorough scrutiny.
"Small hips, he said," mother states, her eyes following her own hands on
Regina's body. "He may be right in saying you will end up dying during
childbirth, even if I like to believe that my daughter would be stronger than
that."
When mother looks back at her, Regina's blinking rapidly, doing her best at
stopping the tears that her tight throat are announcing. She knows better than
to make such an spectacle out of herself in public, but the shame that her
mother's words are bringing forward is hard to fight. Mother is appraising her
with such contempt that Regina can barely stand to stay still inside their
faux-embrace, much more so when one of mother's hands leaves her waist to
travel upwards to her face and lay it at her cheek, letting her thumb travel
until it's pressing right on top of Regina's small scar, above her lip. That
scar has always been a physical representation of the flaws mother saw in her,
and Regina knows very clearly the statement mother is trying to make.
"I guess it was stupid of me to think that your charm would be enough to grant
you the husband you require," mother muses, almost absentmindedly. Then,
mysteriously, she adds, "You better be thankful that you have your loving
mother looking out for your best interests."
"Mother?"
"Now go to your bedchambers; you have done enough for today."
"But mother, the guests, the ball-"
"Don't argue with your mother, Regina."
Acquiescing, quietly, Regina bows her head and murmurs, "Yes, mother."
She frees herself of her mother's touch while trying to hide a sigh of relief,
and still looking down, walks away from the ballroom as fast as it's polite to
do so.
Back in her room, Regina paces. She walks rhythmically from one end to the room
all the way to the other, sidestepping her bed so she can end by her vanity,
and then back towards the door, her dress swishing away as her steps become
increasingly faster. Her hands are hovering before her, stomach-high, and she's
wringing them, probably wrinkling the silk of her long gloves. The movement is
as unconscious as the occasional roll of her shoulders, or the quick breathing
that has her chest heaving unsteadily over the cleavage of her corset, signs of
anxiety and nervousness. Tears are threatening her, but they seem to be trapped
inside her watery eyes, refusing to come down her face.
She feels ashamed, and she's not particularly sure why. She's done nothing
wrong, not this time, especially if whatever it is that's so wrong with her has
saved her from a proposal from an old king with gnarly hands and small,
untrustworthy eyes. And yet. And yet.
Mother had been so uncharacteristically loving for the past few days, even more
so at the beginning of the night that Regina hadn't even thought to be wary of
such demonstrations. But mother's getting her ready for marriage, and now her
relentless fantasies of a future with Daniel seem more far away than ever. What
do you want, Regina?He'd asked. And all Regina wants right now is to see him,
and to stop feeling worthless, ugly, a disappointment that will never amount to
anything much at all.
Feeling flustered and disturbed, she makes up her mind carelessly, and throwing
a cape over herself, steps outside her bedchambers. The manor is full of
guests, so she takes advantage of the general confusion and makes her way to
the attic to light a candle that hopefully Daniel will see, never mind the late
hour. Then, feeling particularly daring, she stops by the kitchens and steals a
pear and a handful of those expensive nuts mother had brought especially for
grandfather Xavier, and then eats them in big mouthfuls as she makes her way
outside and towards the stables. She runs, trying to hide herself in the
shadows and hoping that no one will catch sight of her.
Soon enough, she enters the darkened stables, where she's greeted by eerie
silence. She's fiercely disappointed, but at the same time, she's already
breathing better just by being here. It's a little cold, so she brings her cape
closer to herself and lets her steps guide her towards a sleeping Rocinante,and
knowing that it won't bother him, she puts her gloved hand between his eyes,
and allows herself to hug his neck and rest against his fur. Then, and only
then, the tears that have been sticking to her eyes all this time come down her
cheeks, wet and silent.
Daniel finds her in that exact same spot when he appears, Regina's not
particularly sure how much later. She feels entirely too tired, but Daniel's
voice whispering a quiet and wondrous Regina?along with the candle he's
carrying are all the signs of comfort she needs to move away from Rocinanteand
run towards Daniel with a spring on her step. She tumbles into his arms, nearly
knocking the candle away from his hands in her haste.
"Regina, what happened?" Daniel whispers against her ear, his arms now firmly
locked around her waist, bringing her in against his chest tight and sure.
"Nothing, everything, I'm not sure," Regina answers against the skin of his
neck.
Daniel doesn't push, and instead allows them both to fall to the floor so
they're sitting down while still locked in their embrace. Regina watches how
the fabric of her skirt bulges impossibly around her, making her spare a second
in the thought that her gown is going to get magnifically dirty. Rebelliously,
the idea makes her smile.
Sitting down and with her face hidden somewhere against Daniel's collarbones,
Regina breathes in and out slowly, and calms down enough that her tears banish
and her hands stop shaking. She's still nervous, and this time she notices her
fingers playing with the top of Daniel's thin shirt, the loose threads that tie
it together on his neck undone, as if he'd carelessly thrown anything he could
on before running to her. Like this, his skin is right under her fingers, and
Regina blushes thinking that she wishes she'd taken her gloves off, so that she
could touch him. With that thought in mind, Regina moves her head away far
enough so that she can look up and into Daniel's eyes, half-lidded in concern.
She holds his gaze, and realizes that her fantasies and hopes are almost
tangible when he's this close, even if her mother's words tonight have made her
feel like her future with Daniel is as far from reality as ever. It feels as if
every dream she has constructed will be ripped off from her - by her mother's
magic, her anger, or worse yet, her dreams of a better future for Regina - but
that if she holds on to the palpable truth that is Daniel and his arms around
her, then maybe there's a chance for them after all.
Daniel opens up his mouth, as if ready to say something now that Regina's been
looking at him so steadily, but Regina stops him with a kiss, molding her mouth
to his in a way that's already familiar to them both. She's bordering on
desperate though, so she clings to his neck, brings one hand to his cheek so
he'll stay close and kiss her long and sweet.
They break away only after bringing each other into the kiss a few times over,
but when they finally do, Regina whispers softly in the small distance between
their parted lips, "You."
"What, milady?" Daniel asks, and he's whispering too, as if the quiet around
them is too precious to break.
"You asked me what it was that I wanted, and it's you," she tells him, her eyes
darting nervously up towards his. They look beautiful in the low light of the
single candle, and fairly surprised at Regina's words.
"Milady, I-"
Regina chuckles, cutting his speech short and shaking her head as if she can't
quite believe what she's saying. "I want a great deal many things, to tell you
the truth; soft, light dresses that let me breathe properly, and shorter hair,
I think, something easy that won't take hours to put up. A family, and I want
to learn to saw and cook and - Isn't it silly? I barely know how to do
anything, Daniel, I'll make the worst wife."
He smiles, brings her mouth to his in a short kiss that makes her yelp and her
words quiet down. "I could have easily told you that, milady."
She huffs but he's laughing, laughing freely without a care in the world and
Regina's never heard anything quite so precious.
"What else? What else do you want, Regina?"
"I want - I want to eat," she confesses. "I want to eat when I'm hungry." Her
voice trembles with her statement, and she hates how she can feel her words
hovering in the air before her, like a shadow of a persecution she's never
fully understood. They're not the center of her little outburst, though, and so
she ploughs through them and continues, saying, "Right now, Daniel, right now
all I want is you."
Her hands, still firmly set upon Daniel's neck, don't shake, but instead lower
down to his shoulders where she holds on tight, digging her fingers in.
Daniel's intake of breath clues her into the fact that he understands the full
meaning behind her words, and she smiles, blushing profusely, but kissing him
without a single doubt in her mind. He follows her lead, presses his fingers
tighter on her waist, and only breaks away when she's tangling her hands on the
front of his shirt to bring him closer still.
"Regina, milady, we don't have to - we - we have all the time in the world," he
tells her, words soft and eyes even softer.
"Do we really? And even if that is true, Daniel, I don't - I just. I love you."
"And I love you as well, and I will love you for as long as I'm breathing."
Regina sighs into him, and the sound travels all the way through her, relaxing
her shoulders and making her hands hold on to him a little less tightly, with a
little less desperation. When she speaks next, there's steel in her voice.
"Then we may as well be married already, boy, and I fail to see why you would
refuse to touch your wife."
He laughs into her mouth as he leans over to kiss her, and his breath mingles
easily with hers. "You are one stubborn, insufferable woman, little lady," he
tells her, even as he's bringing both her gloved hands up to his mouth and
kissing her knuckles. "And the truth is I wouldn't even know where to begin."
She doesn't let the statement deter her, and instead she merely plucks her
hands away from his and removes her gloves, careless of where they end up when
she tosses them away. She does away with her cape as well, letting it fall down
her uncovered shoulders and all the way down to the ground. That done, she
turns around so her back is to Daniel, and almost breathlessly, she informs
him, "It unties at the back, you will have to do it."
For a short moment, Daniel doesn't move, and Regina worries that she has
stepped over his boundaries, that he will think less of her for asking
something like this out of wedlock, or maybe even that he won't want her after
all. Then Daniel does touch her, and any form of doubt gets erased from her
heart and her mind as the pads of his fingers skid carefully over her
shoulders, the smallest of caresses. He moves his fingers all the way down to
her bare arms, and then puts his lips to the back of Regina's neck and she
gasps. She feels hot all over just from the feeling of velvety lips on her
skin, and as she closes her eyes, she holds onto the feeling and lets it wash
over her skin, forgetting anything that isn't his lips or his hands.
"You look very beautiful tonight, milady," he whispers, and his words, too, are
a caress on her skin.
She smiles, realizing that it's the first time she's heard those words coming
from Daniel's mouth, and that they mean more than all of the vapid compliments
she's received during the night. She sighs her thank you, and then very easily
relaxes against his chest as his hands travel down her arms to intertwine their
fingers together.
"If you ever want me to stop, mi-"
"But I won't," she states, turning her head around enough so that she can catch
his eyes. "Trust me that I will not want you to stop."
That prompts a smile to appear on Daniel's handsome face, and after he kisses
her hard and deep, he lets his fingers wander down her back and to the
fastenings of her corset. He seems as clueless as Regina feels, and the untying
of her gown is s source of quiet, shy laughter for them. Regina likes that,
though, that they're laughing together and that this doesn't feel like an
obligation, or duty, or like some awkward fumble in pursuit of some kind of
quick pleasure. She loves this man with all she has in her heart, and his hands
on her body and untying her dress or trying his best at undoing her complicated
hairdo make her pulse quicken, and make her feel hot and bothered in a way that
has her breathing rapidly.
Awkward fumbles end up with Regina standing naked before Daniel, skin glowing
under the single light of one small candle. She blushes terribly but then so
does he as he looks at her, as if he can't quite believe that she's standing
before him with nothing but her loose hair half covering her breasts. She
shivers from the cold, and he brings her closer to him, timid as he places his
hands on her skin but bolder when she just presses up and close into him, when
she can't help but let a quiet whimper ripple from her mouth when his fingers
trace up the nubs of her spine. He kisses her as he touches her, his hands so
very careful as he explores her now without the constraints of clothes, and
Regina allows herself to indulge in the new feelings, biting at Daniel's lower
lip when his hand squeezes softly at one of her breasts, his thumb
absentmindedly finding her nipple.
Regina's shier about divesting Daniel of his clothes than she is about being
naked herself, and while she's daring enough to remove his shirt, she lets him
take care of his own breeches and even stops herself from looking down too
soon. Daniel's own embarrassment spurs her on rather than deters her, though,
so when he comes close again she finds the small of his back with her hands and
allows them to travel down to the toned muscles of his buttocks, biting her own
lower lip when he laughs into her neck and distracts himself with kissing his
way up to the back of her ear. Daniel feels strong under her hands, and his
skin, while rough in places, is silky smooth in others, and always impossibly
warm. She ends up with her hands around his upper arms and kissing his lips yet
again with more abandonment by the second.
They find some hay to lay down on somewhat comfortably after a while, and while
on her back, Regina watches all of Daniel as he lays down half on top of her
and half on the ground. She feels on fire, ready for whatever it's going to
happen between them, her skin tingling with anticipation, a little unsure of
whether this is actually supposed to feel this good. She's heard all sort of
stories from the maids, after all, and while secretly scared of the pain, she
can't say that she feels anything that isn't pleasure at this point.
Daniel settles above her, and the heavy and hot pressure of him on her hip is
strange but not unwelcome. Her body seems to react to it so very nicely, the
space between her thighs feeling unusually wet and warm.
"You will tell me if I hurt you," he speaks very seriously, his eyes on hers
and his hands ever so slowly tracing a pattern from her hip to her breast and
back again.
She nods, frowning, and mocking his own seriousness replies with, "Yes, sir, I
will tell you."
He laughs even as he kisses her, murmuring something about spoiled little
ladies. Regina arches up to meet his mouth, and as she does so she very
naturally parts her legs so that he can settle between them. He pushes inside
her ever so carefully, kissing her all the while, and overwhelmed by the new
sensation, Regina forgets that this is supposed to hurt at all. The feeling of
him inside her is foreign but not unpleasant, and she finds herself laughing
into his mouth just by thinking about what they're doing. Then he moves against
her, and her laughter dies to give its place to a pant.
"Are you-"
"Yes," she whispers. "Do keep doing that, Daniel, please."
So he keeps moving, and Regina feels herself unravel as Daniel's movements turn
less careful, his hand now firmly holding onto her thigh as her legs wrap up
around his waist. Regina groans into his mouth, and finds that it feels better
when she meets his thrusts with movements of her own hips, and that the higher
her legs settle, the more intense the feeling is. She feels so very warm, all
of her body on fire and tuned into Daniel's movements, her body so wet where
she's connected to Daniel.
He's moaning above her, his body now curved away from hers and his muscles
tense. He has his eyes closed tightly, but when Regina touches his face with a
sweaty palm, he opens them up slowly and looks right into hers, the darkness of
his pupils surprising and alluring at the same time. Something seems to break
within him then, and with a shuddered groan he stills against her and shakes,
his muscles contracting before he falls upon her, panting into her neck.
Almost immediately, he makes as if to move away, mouthing a tired and ragged,
"I'm so sorry, milady, I didn't mean to-"
"No, wait," she says, holding onto the small of his back to keep him in place.
"Stay right there, please," she pleads. And then, looking into his eyes, "You
feel nice."
He bites his lower lip, looking at her as if he can't quite believe her, and
with an amused smile he mutters, "Whatever you wish, Regina, my love."
Regina shivers at the words falling from his lips, and her body only steadies
when he's touching her again, his lips at her collarbones and his broad hands
at her hips and stomach, his fingers nearly ticklish as they climb up her body.
Eventually, though, he's moving again within her, his passion reawakened
between Regina's thighs. She sighs into it, her wet center pulsing for
something she can't quite understand. Her body's throbbing fantastically, but
she can't help but feel as if its reaching for something more, trying to take
her somewhere as she rocks further into Daniel's movement.
Her legs wrap back around his waist, tight and sure, and when a particularly
slow thrust has her moaning in pleasure, she digs her nails into the swell of
Daniel's backside, trying to make him stay right where he is.
"Stay, stay right there, please," she whimpers into his mouth.
He stays still as she asks, buried deep within her even as his muscles are
clearly straining to try and move. It's Regina who moves then, circling her
hips against his own so the feeling within her keeps growing and growing right
where Daniel's seethed inside her. Her whole body is trembling with
anticipation, as she shamelessly writhes to find something that she can't put a
name to, but that her whole being's craving in the most primitive of ways. She
gives into the feeling, and suddenly the unwavering pleasure mounts inside her,
crawling its way from between her legs until she's quivering with it, her body
taut and her mouth parted in a silent moan.
Daniel holds her up with a hand under the small of her back, and as she begins
to come down from her rush of feeling, he moves again, freely and without
restraint, riding out Regina's climb to pleasure with her as he finds his own
peak again.
It's a long time before they both find their breaths again, now laying side by
side and staring up at the dark ceiling. Their lone candle has extinguished
some time ago, and the stables around them feel intimate and warm, when just
hours before they had felt eerie to Regina's saddened senses.
Regina is the first one to fully recover, though, and before she has time to
consider another path of action, she sits up and lets her hands search for
Daniel's skin yet again. He rises to meet her, and as they kiss messily, he
runs roughened hands through her unruly locks, pressing wordless promises
against her lips. He does his best at asking about her well-being, at being
worried, but she's too giddy and too starved for his touch, so they only end up
laughing as they tumble into each other again. Daniel wishes for a better bed
for her even as he's learning that his mouth can do wonders on her skin, and
she only reassures him again and again that all she needs is this, the small
comfort of dried grass at her back and the rich scent of his skin all around
her.
They have to part eventually, before the sun rises on a new day so Regina can
hide herself in her bedchambers as if she'd spent the whole night there. They
do so sadly, clinging to each other, and once Regina is running back to the
manor, the laces of her gown hardly tied at her back and her hair a loose mess
above her shoulders, all she can think about is her father's words about love,
for love must be indeed magic, since she feels stronger than any of her
mother's spells.
 
===============================================================================
 
Next day, Regina wakes up tired after barely an hour of sleep. She looks a
little haggard, rough around the edges, and if that helps her mother think that
her sleeplessness is caused by regret over her lack of success with King George
last night, then all the better. The truth is that Regina feels sore between
her legs, even if there was no blood last night, but the slight discomfort is
almost pleasing to her, a soft reminder of the lover waiting for her outside
her stifling home. She has to fight herself not to smile all throughout the
day.
Time passes easily, quietly, Regina's new found hope more corporeal than ever
when her life is now filled with secret meetings full of passion. She doesn't
get nearly enough time with Daniel, but what little moments they do get make
them bolder with each other, the shyness of their first time together gone away
and replaced by the desperation to explore each other in different ways. Regina
indulges in their pleasure, becomes a free spirit when she's naked and next to
Daniel, realizes that the body that has felt like a prison all her life is
actually a boundless source of delight. She's in love, so very in love, and in
her mind, she's already Daniel's wife.
Despite her best efforts, it must somehow be noticeable, since the next night
father sneaks into her room with an offering of dried grapes and chocolate, he
tells her:
"You seem very happy, cielo."
Regina says nothing, not daring to speak her secret even in the quiet darkness
of her room, not even to her father. Instead, she smiles, pliant, and eats what
father offers hungrily, unrestrained. She ishappy, and she's done with being
starved.
"Daddy," she asks eventually, food now gone and hands hovering nervously over
her bedspread. "You love me, don't you? You will always love me?"
Her question surprises him, she can tell, but she can hardly explain that she
knows her love for Daniel may just loose her mother's affections, and that
while that's a sacrifice she's willing to make, she couldn't bear to have her
loving father turn his back on her. She thinks that, perhaps, father will be
happy too if he doesn't have to be in this suffocating manor anymore.
Despite his surprise, father's answer doesn't take a moment to come, and when
father speaks, he does so with a clear, unwavering voice. "Por supuesto, mi
cielo, yo siempre te querré. Siempre." (4)
He leans forward to place a kiss to her forehead and a hand to her cheek, and
with his smooth voice guiding her dreams, she falls asleep with a smile on her
face.
 
===============================================================================
 
For all of Regina's worries, mother doesn't seem to take notice of any change
within her. Whether it is because she's paying less attention to her or because
Regina has actually gotten good at deflecting she can't be sure, but she's
thankful for the reprieve. Mother seems almost content these days, and while
she's not in any way more affectionate towards her, she doesn't take her
clumsiness or transgressions as seriously as she has all these past years.
Regina does constantly fear her mother's plans about making her a queen.
Mother's definitely persuasive, her magic much more so, and Regina has no
doubts that she will have her plans fulfilled, and that eventually there will
be a marriage proposal Regina won't be able to accept. Daniel seems confident
that they will have no trouble escaping such fate, and even seems a bit
appalled that she won't even try to tell her mother about them.
"You don't know her, Daniel," she insists, even as he plies her with kisses
that she's learned to crave, and with hands that are already entirely too
familiar with her body.
"Perhaps not, but she isyour mother Regina, surely she wants you to be happy."
"Yes, my dear, but it is her idea of happiness that terrifies me."
Regina is so happy, though, too happy to see the telltales of her mother's
demeanor changing towards her. Her easygoingness makes Regina grow slack, think
herself free of yesteryear punishments, think that perhaps mother is too tired
of holding onto the idea of a perfect daughter she clearly doesn't have. In her
mindlessness, Regina even refuses to be surprised when she starts feeling the
brunt of her mother's magic on her again, and it isn't until the onslaught of
accusations is too much to take that Regina realizes that she may have to pedal
back and work to retain her gracefulness and quiet demeanor yet again.
After a period of near exemption, though, it seems to Regina that it's far too
hard to go back to where she once was. Where before she would lower her eyes
and shimmer down, she finds herself talking back to her mother, shouting at her
about freedom, dreams and hopes she should never disclose. Mother would be
happier thinking that Regina's wishes match her own, but Regina's voice has
been lowered for so many years that she finds herself shouting at the worst of
times.
It feels as if mother enjoys provoking her, though. More and more she's
followed by her stern voice filled with stoic criticism, with truths that weigh
heavily on Regina's back. You ride like a man; a lady is meant to be graceful
and elegant; all the other girls your age are married; I had such high hopes
for you, Regina.
Even if Regina doesn't mean them to, her mother's words ail her heart, making
it feel heavy inside her chest. She's her mother, after all, and she's spent a
lifetime trying to be worthy of her love. Mother grows harsher and harsher,
though, and so Regina finds herself being more careless than ever and running
to Daniel even when it feels too dangerous. She's so very in edge, so sure that
mother is going to destroy her dreams that she clings to him with desperation,
finding in the imaginary picture of a future built with Daniel all the
abandonment she can.
It's after one of her late night visits to Daniel that mother finds her running
inside the manor, her clothes somewhat dirty but her hair and face put together
well enough that she won't suspect about what exactly she's been doing. Regina
gasps at the sight of the looming threat that her mother poses, but when
leather binds appear around her arms and hold her in place, she doesn't have
the strength to fight them, and merely looks down and lets herself be led by
forces she can't understand.
"No struggling, there's a good girl," mother tells her. "I do wish we didn't
have to resort to this kind of measures again, Regina."
Regina says nothing, letting her pleading then let's notdie on her tongue at
the sight of the open door of the cellar before her. It's been two years since
she stepped foot inside that place, but when mother throws her in and closes
the door behind her, she realizes that she hasn't forgotten, and that it is
only more confined now that she knows what it feels like to not think of it.
Her breath quivers, shakes and without a second thought, she finds herself
screaming, her lungs releasing her fear through the rippling of her voice. She
yells for hours, and when she finally falls down, exhausted, tears running down
her face, she realizes that the whole floor is covered in sticky, moldy wine
and shards of glass, as if all the old, forgotten bottles inside the place had
shattered around her.
Mother leaves her to wither inside the cellar for three days, and when she
drags her out, Regina doesn't have the strength to stay upright. She passes out
before the open door of the cellar, and the last thing she sees before her eyes
close, is her mother's disappointed expression.
Regina wakes up blearily not sure how much time later, and through her
fogginess, she can't help but be both surprised and apprehensive when she finds
mother sitting by her bedside. Mother's smile is stony and deceptive, but
Regina is far too tired for games, and she finds herself wishing for her
mother's approval, if she can't have her love.
"Careful, my darling, you had quite an eventful few days."
Regina wants to huff, or maybe snort, do something unladylike to impress onto
her mother just what she thinks about her statement. She's exhausted, though,
her stomach is vying for her attention by cramping painfully, and her hands
feel itchy and uncomfortable. She makes as if to scratch the palm of her right
hand, and mother stops her with a swipe of purple magic that almost makes
Regina dry heave.
"Your hands are hurt, Regina."
Regina looks down, confused, and finds her hands wrapped up in loose bandages.
She remembers the broken glass, and wonders if she'd just laid her palms on it
carelessly in her frustration. She smiles sheepishly, and like the good girl
she knows how to be, she rests her itchy hands back on the linens, palms up, so
mother can look at how good she's being at not scratching at her wounds. Mother
nods, the curve of a smile teasing the corner of her mouth.
"Now dear, do eat something."
For the next five days, mother takes care of her, sitting by her bedside and
making sure she rests properly, even when Regina claims that she's already
feeling better. Mother doesn't relent, though, so Regina acquiesces quietly and
allows herself to be petted, groomed and fed while her insides are filled
equally with warmth and wariness. She wants to believe in her mother's
affections, but finds that she can't. And despite everything, mother reads to
her and Regina enjoys the cadence of her voice, mother touches her forehead and
cheek lovingly and Regina turns her face into the touches, mother insists that
she eats properly and Regina takes small sips of tasteless soups with something
akin to love filling her heart.
Mother finally deems her ready to leave her bed once her hands are healed and
the family doctor has taken away the last of her bandages. Mother has been
cleaning them thoroughly the past few days, her touch steady, sure and swift at
ignoring Regina's quiet hisses of pain. There's not even a scar left, and
Regina wishes that she could erase the invisible scars inside her chest as
easily at the ones on her hands.
As a gift, perhaps as a small concession for the last few days spent in the
cellar and in bed respectively, or maybe as part of one of her schemes to make
Regina slip up, mother tells her that she should get up and go outside for a
long ride.
"Surely you want to get as much time with Rocinanteas you can, dear."
Regina takes the chance and holds onto it with agonizing desperation, and when
she finds herself in Daniel's arms, with the wide, open space around her,
Rocinanteby her side and the scent of apples coming from the tree above them
surrounding her, she finally lets herself breathe. Daniel is concerned and
rightly so, but Regina quiets him with kisses, and brings his hands to her hips
so that his touch will cleanse her of the past few days, will make her forget
her wrongdoings and her punishments, and will make her think of nothing but
hopes and dreams, and a future where she's happy and free.
Daniel doesn't push in his concerns, and even if Regina knows that he will
interrogate her later, for now he merely reaches for the front of her riding
jacket with already expert fingers ready to free her body from its confines. He
hasn't managed to undo one single button before they hear a scream cutting
through the silence of the fields, and soon enough, a wild horse with a little
girl struggling above it is running before their eyes. Riding on pure instinct,
Regina jumps atop Rocinante,and soon enough rescues a little girl that has the
brightest smile she's ever seen.
"I'm Snow," she tells her. "Snow White."
And as Regina smiles back at her, she can hardly guess that it will be this
little girl that will crush all her hopes, and turn her into the starved, angry
queen of her mother's dreams.
 
 
 
           
Chapter End Notes
     (1) Jacinta says: "Calm down, little one, it's nothing."
     And then: "Little one..."
     (2) Henry Sr. calls Regina "cielo", which literally means "sky" or
     "heaven". It's a very common term of endermeant in Spanish (and also
     what my dad usually calls me, so... :))
     (3) "Cielo, falling in love is the best feeling in the world... It
     leaves you breathless, uncomfortable, with your heart beating so
     strong that it feels as if it will run away from you, with your
     stomach upside down, and yet... and yet cielo, when you see that
     person, you know that you never want to stop feeling like that. True
     love makes anything possible. It's magic, cielo, the purest magic in
     existence."
     (4) "Of course, mi cielo, I will always love you. Always."
***** Part II *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Graphic marital rape. Please, I can't stress this enough!
     TW2: Implied eating disorder.
     TW3: Cora's special brand of emotional abuse.
     TW4: Miscarriage.
     -
     AN: Translations in the notes at the end :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Every new day that begins, Regina wakes up believing that she has a handle on
things. The sun shines differently in the new room she’s inhabiting these days,
the one on the east wing of the king’s palace that mother has been setting up
for her so it befits her new status as future queen. There are big windows that
give way to a large, beautiful balcony, and the sun shines through and
illuminates the whole chamber in ways that would have astounded Regina months
before. As it is, there’s little that makes Regina feel much of anything these
days, much less something even close to wonder.
Regina is getting good at fooling herself, she thinks. A smile plastered on her
face, wide and fake, fake, fake, and the grief is almost easy to ignore.
Almost. She tells herself that she’s handling herself beautifully, that the
proud gesture that won’t leave her mother’s eyes as she busies herself with
preparing a wedding Regina never said yes to is more than enough to carry her
through. You will endure, dear,she tells herself, even if her mother’s words
don’t feel like an armor she can wield against the world anymore.
The dreams that plague her nights leave her restless and overly tired, her
limbs weakened along with her will. She dreams in red these days, the sight of
mother’s hand around Daniel’s bright beating heart inescapable and all-
consuming, the shadow of a father and a child that wanted her for themselves
hunting her while she tries to run away through dreamscapes that she can’t
control. She wakes up in the middle of the night, fingers tense and cheeks
tear-stained, breathing heavily as she realizes that she has to face her new
reality once again.
Daniel’s gone. Daniel’s gone, his laughter, his kind eyes, his warm hands and
that way he would scrunch his nose adorably when Regina said something that he
thought funny. His voice is gone, his questions and taunts and fantasies, his
dreams of a future that will never come to pass. He’s dead, gone, finished, his
life over in the quiet of the night so no one will ask questions. Who is there
to care for a simple stable boy, anyway? Certainly no one that matters.
Regina’s grief encompasses her whole body, running down her legs, up her arms,
clogging her chest and burning her throat. She’s numb and cold, empty in ways
she didn’t know she could possibly be, ignoring the way the world is reshaping
itself around her. There are new rooms for her but also new clothes, dresses in
light colors that mother deems appropriate for her new station, new faces that
Regina has no interest in becoming acquainted with, a new family waiting for
her to fill her assigned role, a new universe where she has a place that makes
absolutely no sense to her. But Daniel is gone, and all she has is grief, so
her world is already upside down.
Mother, though, fleets around her almost like a new woman herself. Regina
watches her with hooded eyes, half a smile on mother’s lips and hands with
fingers that have forgotten how to stay still, and wonders if perhaps the sight
before her is her mother being actually happy.It should be worth it, then, her
mother’s happiness coming at the price of something as worthless as the heart
of a poor stable boy and Regina’s thoughtless, inconsequential dreams. Perhaps,
after all, it had been foolish of her to engage in such fantasies, to indulge
in desires that she knew were forbidden; after all, mother had told her what
she was to become when she was very young, and Regina’s only option has only
ever been to comply with her mother’s wishes. Her fanciful dreams had been
nothing but that, and she is to blame for dragging Daniel into them and forcing
mother’s hand into drastic actions. Mother has only ever wanted the best for
her, and only Regina is at fault for daring to question her.
 
===============================================================================
 
“Do eat something, dear,” mother presses during a quiet afternoon spent in
Regina’s bedchambers.
Her table is filled up to the brim, all sorts of tasty treats before her,
entirely too much, much more than she could possibly eat. Months ago the table
before her may have been a dream, but now it makes her feel queasy. She’s
constantly tired, and food doesn’t tempt her at all. As it is, she only ever
eats in her mother’s presence, and if she was her old self she may have just
laughed at the irony. She feels like a shell, though, detached and vacant,
being steadily filled by equal parts despair and anger, and her stomach is
adamant in rejecting anything other than weak soups and tasteless vegetables.
The day after Daniel’s death, Regina had gone on a full on eating rampage. She
had walked into the kitchens and done away with everything she’d found,
particularly anything sweet and gooey that she could get her hands into, as if
she could fill herself with enough food to kick her misery away, to make the
memories of crying over the body of her lover leave her forever. She’d made
herself sick, and it had been father who had found her hidden under one of the
tables of the kitchens, emptying her stomach in a discarded pot with tears
falling down blotchy red cheeks, her breathing short and ragged and her fingers
digging hard nails into her forearms. She’d gotten her dress dirty, and her
hair had been plastered angrily to her face, damp with sweat, but father had
held her anyway. He’d crawled under the table with her, never mind the old
knees he was always complaining about, and had brought her close to his chest
with arms that had never felt stronger, hands at the back of her head among
sweaty curls. Hidden in his neck, Regina had pressed her mouth to his shoulder
and she’d screamed, something angry and primitive tearing her chest open as
she’d muffled the sound against father’s clothes.
She’d seemingly lost her appetite after that day, but this afternoon she
carefully chooses a piece of fruit, something small and plum that she’s never
tried before. Mother doesn’t even bother looking at her as she bites into the
sweet, soft flesh and in a flash of disappointed fury, Regina feels a tendril
of pure, unbridled hatred crawling up her spine. Her hand shakes, the mushy
fruit dripping dark juice over her fingers when she squeezes a bit too hard as
she regards her mother, distracted around her for the first time ever in her
life. Look at me,Regina wants to scream, look at the perfect little lady that
you’ve created for yourself, look at what you’ve made of me so you can be
happy.Regina looks away, sharply, and drops the fruit on the plate before her
with a grimace full of distaste. Her hand is sticky from the squeezed juice,
her wrist stained by a single dark and wet trickle. Regina has half a mind to
lick it away just to make mother snap. She wonders what she would do now, in
this palace with no known dark cellars, where she’s more careful with her
magic, where Regina is to be made queen.
“My dear, whatare you doing? I told you to eat something,” mother berates, and
Regina instinctively hides her dirty hand. The gesture is soon accompanied by a
bitter smile, for not even in her anger does Regina truly dare to face her
mother’s wrath. She must have learnt something, after all.
Turning her lips up with a conscious effort, Regina offers mother what she
hopes is a believable smile, and with an even tone answers, “Yes, mother.”
Once mother’s not looking, Regina cleans up her hand hastily with a napkin that
she discards immediately after, and feigns interest in the food before her.
It’s obscene, she thinks, all this opulence that will go to waste. She thinks
of Daniel offering her a single orange in the quietness of the stables, of
sweet juice against her tongue, and realizes that she may never taste something
quite as delicious. With a shake of her head, she picks up some dried grapes
and bites into them slowly, wondering if that will be enough to please her
mother and her newfound sense of purpose in life.
Regina’s managed to stomach some of the dried fruit quietly when there’s a
knock at the door, promptly followed by a running, small figure traipsing its
way into the room. Mother’s lips turn into a sharp grimace of disapproval once
Snow White is standing before them, her cheeks tinted a healthy rosy color, her
breathing ragged as if she’s run all the way over here and the green bow on her
head slightly skewered. Regina knows mother can’t discipline this child the way
she would like to, but she doesn’t miss mother’s hand tightening on the arm of
her chair, clearly wishing she could. Snow doesn’t speak immediately, and that
gives time to the guards at the door to finally react to her hasty appearance
and announce a tardy but loud Her Royal Highness, Princess Snow White!
Regina almost chuckles.
“Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt,” Snow finally says, her tone implying that she’s
truly not, “but I’ve been asked to look for you. Father wishes to see you.”
Regina blinks at her, her movement slow and precise, and her eyes study Snow’s
bright smile for a second before she wonders, “The king wishes to see me?”
“Oh, both of you.”
Regina doesn’t look at mother, but it isn’t hard for her to imagine the proud
twinkle in her eye. Regina feels slow and stupefied, her lack of sleep and a
proper meal taking toll on her limbs and making her realize how heavy her body
appears. She hasn’t seen King Leopold at all since she’s been living at the
palace, her only recollection of the man that of a hasty proposal that mother
had accepted in her behalf. Truth be told, Regina has heard plenty from her
mother about the wedding, but nothing about her future husband, and it is only
now that Regina is reminded that he’s an actual person, and perhaps the main
reason why her life has taken such a turn.
“Well, girl, stand up already and let’s take a look at you,” mother says,
effectively bringing Regina out of her thoughts. Regina takes a moment to gaze
up at mother, already standing up and looking effortlessly regal and
commanding.
Regina stands up and straightens up before mother, knowing that she will want
to take a good look at her before presenting themselves before the king. She
bears the scrutiny as best as she possibly can, knowing full well what mother’s
eyes are looking for as they roam her figure. Regina’s standing up straight,
shoulders back and chin up, her breasts encased in a tight corset that push
them up even as a piece of transparent tulle creates the illusion of a demure
cleavage, and her natural curls are straightened up in a tight braid around her
head. Regina knows she’s looking her best, even if she has been avoiding her
own reflection as of late, more prone to notice gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes
than the sliver of beauty she’d dared to spy on herself over the past couple of
years. The bruises caused by mother’s spells while stopping Regina’s attempts
of running away are smartly covered by the thick fabrics of her dress, too, and
she guesses that that’s enough to create the fantasy of a perfect future queen.
Mother doesn’t voice her approval, but she reaches forward instead, her thumb
soft on Regina’s cheek. Regina manages a smile, but before she can decide
whether she loves or hates the sigh of tenderness that she can spy in mother’s
eyes, a small, insistent hand is tugging on her own.
“Let’s go, Regina!” Snow exclaims next to them, her unbridled enthusiasm making
something pungent settle on Regina’s chest. Mother stares at the child with
disdain, and it’s the first time that the expression in her face makes Regina
smile.
Snow pulls from her hand with strength born of eagerness, and Regina follows as
best as she can’t without falling into a run. The pace Snow sets has Regina
moving fast for the first time in weeks, though, and it's almost as if her body
is waking up from a very long stupor, her muscles rolling in ways that Regina
hasn’t allowed them to as of late. All the movement she’s done has been atop
Rocinantewhile mindlessly trying to run away from the palace, and as such, her
free time to actually ride has been sharply cut under mother’s orders. By the
time they reach the closed doors of the king’s study, Regina’s smile is almost
genuine.
Snow looks up at her before they enter, and for a single moment, Regina feels
as if she could love this child with everything she has. She’s a charming
chatterbox who has been given too much freedom, and she rules her title over
everyone around her with the thoughtlessness of her privilege, but there’s
something so inherently goodabout the child that Regina feels completely
unhinged whenever her thoughts turn sharp and angry, making her realize how
easy it would be to snap Snow’s thin neck. Not just easy but satisfying, the
chant that fills Regina’s head of you promised me, you promised mesuch an easy
way to rule her anger over Snow’s little, mindless head.
They enter the room after being announced, and King Leopold greets his daughter
with a hug and both Regina and her mother with a simple bow of his head. They
both answer in kind, and soon the four of them are sitting down around a small
table, tea and pastries before them and silence heavy in the room. Regina
dreads the idea that the responsibility of starting a conversation should fall
on her, so she instead concentrates her attention on remaining still, head held
high and hands resting softly on her own lap. She has to stop herself from
wrinkling the fabric between her fingers, but ends up smoothing it out almost
maniacally instead while her eyes dart around the room, nervous. She hasn’t
been truly allowed to explore the palace, but the king’s study feels just like
any other chamber, filled with too much light and adorned with simple fabrics
and sturdy furniture. Regina doesn’t particularly like it, perhaps because it’s
entirely too different to the manor where she grew up.
Suddenly, Regina’s no longer preoccupied with the room, as King Leopold’s
slightly wavery voice fills the silence. He announces, and proudly as well,
that he wishes to bestow a gift upon her, a wedding present if she will, and
that she should ask for whatever her heart desires. Regina’s stunned at his
words, not sure that there are any desires left in her heart, all too aware
that any shred of hope she may have inside her the king won’t be able to
fulfill. She hesitates, lowers her face in a way that she knows mother will
frown upon, and only reacts when the king leans forward and grasps both her
hands in one of his. She holds in a gasp, her throat tight as her eyes look at
their twined fingers on her lap, her hands now made steady by the king’s strong
grip. Someone else may have found safety in the sure touch, but all Regina sees
is a cage that she’s stepped into unknowingly.
Mother utters a soft Regina, dear…next to her, one that sounds loving but that
Regina knows is a warning, but Regina’s too overwhelmed by everything around
her. She looks up and finds the king’s eyes with her own, holds them for the
first time ever. His gaze is not unkind, but his expression is a little dull,
somewhat aloof. The smile he’s bestowing upon her makes Regina want to squirm,
the sudden realization of the physical reality of this man sitting sourly
within her. She’s to marry this man. She will be his wife, the woman at his
side, on his arm, in his bed, and Regina suddenly wants to scream. She doesn’t
know him, couldn’t possibly care for him even if she’d been given enough time
to mourn Daniel, but she’s expected to walk down an aisle and promise her whole
life to this old, lifeless lump of a man that she’s seen twice in her life. The
thought makes her sick to her stomach, and maybe she hasn’t been eating very
much at all because her body has already understood her new truth while her
mind has been much too busy wondering about the metaphorical idea of a wedding,
rather than the palpable existence of her future husband.
Next to her, mother bristles, her hand shooting forward and wrapping harshly
around one of her wrists. Her grip is tight but familiar to Regina, and paired
with King Leopold’s hands holding hers, Regina can’t help but think of the
alliance built between her two captors.
“I would like…” Regina begins, letting the words linger before her and hoping
that they may appease her mother for another minute. Regina wants a great deal
many things, but as she closes her eyes to get a grip on her own emotions, all
she can think about is the freedom of young love under the shadow of an apple
tree. With that in mind, she opens up watery eyes and says in her firmest tone,
“There is an old apple tree by father’s state, one where I would ride to
whenever I could, and perhaps His Majesty would be so kind as to transplant it
to the palace gardens.”
“An apple tree, my dear?” Mother questions next to her, her tone so very
clearly dismissive that Regina has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop an
indignant whimper.
She guesses mother would have liked her to ask for a palace, jewels, a personal
guard, something exquisite and rich and befitting of a queen. If she is to be a
queen though, Regina might as well be one on her own terms. She raises her gaze
to her mother’s pointedly, licks her suddenly dry lips as she feels her
shoulders roll back from the hunched position she’s unwittingly been reducing
herself into during the conversation, and silently challenges mother to say
something in the presence of the king. When she doesn’t, Regina smiles, lips
satisfied with something that holds a shred of power, and then bestows a big-
eyed gaze upon the king.
“Father used to take me there when I was little,” she explains, feigned naiveté
tainting her voice. “I would very much like to care for it myself, if His
Majesty would allow me the eccentricity.”
Silence prolongs among all of them for longer than Regina thinks she can
withstand, but before she can start to wonder if her request has been a
miscalculation, King Leopold laughs weakly. Regina can’t tell if he’s amused or
incredulous, but she truly doesn’t have it in her to care at all as long as she
gets her wish. The tree may provide a shadow of comfort, and if not, then it
will serve as a reminder of everything that Regina has lost.
“That is a lovely request, wouldn’t you agree, my darling Snow?” King Leopold
says finally.
“Oh yes, father, so very lovely.”
Regina wants to roll her eyes at them both, or perhaps to shout about how she’d
laid naked under that tree, rolling in the grass and lost in the throes of
passion, allowing herself to discover her lover’s body along with her own.
Instead, she fakes her best pleased smile, swiftly ignoring mother’s angry
eyes. Taking her expression at face value, King Leopold disengages her hands
just so he can move forward and cup her cheek with long fingers. Regina
shudders at the contact, moving her eyes down and to the side in a way that she
hopes comes off as shy and guarded, rather than disgusted.
King Leopold smiles, the extension of his lips making his face look utterly
dumb. Regina wonders whether this man was ever handsome at all, or if he’s
withered with age, and pointedly avoids thinking about his graying temples or
the visible wrinkles on the skin of his neck.
“We are going to be so happy, my queen,” he says, and Regina has to dig her
thumb sharply in the palm of her hand to stop herself from crying.
 
===============================================================================
 
There is a little over a month left before Regina is to marry the king, and
after her rude awakening during their short encounter as a family, she realizes
that she has been completely buried by her own preoccupations, and that she has
been letting the universe take a new form around her without any true concern
for what her future is truly going to look like. She’s been devoured by her
anguish and her futile escape attempts, and now she finds herself floundering
for answers. She’s wildly expressed her desire of freedom to both her parents,
but in her lack of results, perhaps it’s about time that she begins to prepare
herself for what it’s to come.
For weeks now she’s been convinced that she was handling herself decently, even
while plagued by nightmares and while taking little to no care of herself, but
the truth is that she’s been a complete mess of emotions. She makes up her mind
to change her demeanor, to try and find balance within her new surroundings,
try and figure out what she’s to become if she’s to survive this. It’s almost
funny how survival had been easier before, when she’d had mother’s hand to
guide her. Despite her harshness, mother had always made her expectations very
clear, and Regina had learnt to navigate her world to the point of knowing how
and when to sidestep the rules. Everything now is a completely different game,
and Regina needs to gather her wits about her and find her own ways under the
renewed fundamentals around her.
She buries Daniel’s memory deep within her, pushes it to a hidden corner of her
heart where she can preserve it, where no one can get to it. That bit of her
will never stop hurting, will always make her chest pound rancorously, but for
now, it can take a backseat while she figures herself out. She promises to
herself that there will come a time to bring her pain back to the surface, and
to make the responsible people answer for it.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel,” she whispers into the shadows of the night, trapped in
unfamiliar bedchambers and holding onto the ring he’d given to her with a wide
smile stretched across his lips. It feels like the goodbye she never got to
utter, and for now, it will have to be enough to help her bear her hardships.
New resolutions in mind, she begins taking better care of herself by eating
properly again, even when her stomach complains in her efforts. She’s been so
careless about her habits that she’s almost forgotten what a good meal tastes
like, though, and she feels as if she can’t enjoy food anymore. She has half a
mind to go down to the kitchens and ask the cooks for something more flavorful,
perhaps for some of those long forgotten dishes from father’s home, but then it
seems foolish to ask for something foreign when her table is filled daily by
more food that she can bear to look upon.
Sleep eludes her, though, her mind still plagued by shapeless nightmares that
wake her up in the middle of the night and make her afraid of closing her eyes.
Still, she does, closes them tightly and counts out loud, trying to free her
head from unwanted thoughts, hoping to crash into sleep if only out of
weariness.
Despite the apparent desperation that follows her around, she discovers that
her new station does grant her a bit of freedom, so long as she plays her cards
right. Mother has an iron fist around her, as she’s always had, and Regina can
tell that the servants of the palace are already aware of her quick temper and
her cold, sharp tongue, which has made them not only wary of her, but also of
Regina. Mother can’t exert her control over the princess, though, and Regina
realizes that as long as she requests Snow’s company, she can get away with
just about anything. And it’s so very easy, with how much the child seems to
adore her.
A few days after requesting her gift to the king, she finds Snow in her
chambers and convinces her to go back to horse riding, promising that she will
be with her every step of the way. Snow fawns at the idea, and so she allows
Regina the freedom of riding every day atop Rocinante, of feeling, if only for
just short moments of mindlessness, that things may just be right after all.
They also take long walks together around the palace gardens, where Snow is
more than happy to provide most of the conversation while Regina merely hums
her agreement appropriately.
Despite the respite that Snow’s presence can be, it’s also a source of madness
for Regina. She feels unhinged around the child, at times almost giddy while
going through random bouts of unrestrained and bitter anger. Snow is charming
but inconsiderate, so very easily assuming that everyone around her aims to
please her that the idea that someone may just not be there for her sole
enjoyment seems foreign to her little self. She makes demands at will, not just
from maids but from the continuous stream of guests that inhabit the palace at
all times, and now more than ever from Regina. Snow had claimed to want a
mother, but it’s so very clear to Regina that all she wants is a glorified
babysitter that Regina has a harder time everyday plastering a smile on her
face for her.
All you had to do was keep your mouth shut, you little brat,Regina thinks, but
now I see I asked the impossible of a capricious child used to devotion.
Regina wavers in her feelings, though, unable to hate the girl when it’s her
presence that rescues her from mother’s smothering attention, and when she’s
the only person in the palace who deems Regina important enough to talk to her.
She hasn’t seen the king at all since the last time, and while part of her is
glad that she doesn’t have to face him, the rest of her trembles with
frustration. The man is going to wed and bed her, and he clearly has no
interest in speaking to her at all. She’d thought that perhaps, she may yet
come to care for the man, given time, but she’s sure now that he will never be
anything to her other than a jailor.
Regardless of Regina’s ostensible rebellion, mother looks oddly pleased with
her. Regina figures that the simple yet effective manipulation Regina is
engaging in with Snow satisfies mother’s desires, even if said manipulation
serves the purpose of escaping her grasp. Unintentionally, Regina finds pride
in her mother’s approval, and it is only at night, when she’s alone and crying,
that she realizes that she’s becoming everything mother ever wanted her to be.
         
===============================================================================
 
A fortnight before the wedding, the apple tree arrives at the palace, as Snow
quite happily proclaims by rampaging her way into Regina’s bedchambers and
jumping on the bed that a groggy Regina is still occupying. The girl has no
respect for anything, not sleep and certainly not privacy, but Regina has a
hard time not admiring her enthusiasm; she wants to giggle, even, the way she
never did when she was Snow’s age herself.
The arrival becomes quite the occurrence in the palace, and by the time Regina
reaches the gardens with Snow in tow, it’s already being planted in a
previously chosen spot, and the place has been filled by curious onlookers,
both nobles and not. Regina must admit that it’s quite the spectacle, with the
tree being so old and big, and being maneuvered by ropes, pulleys and what
seems like dozens of palace guards and an overly stressed Royal Gardener. When
the whole ordeal is over, a path is opened for Regina to stand before the tree,
and she looks up at it with amazement in her gaze. She holds her hands before
her, and notices the signs of tears ready to fall. It’s foolish, honestly, to
feel this much over a tree, but this piece from home and from her past suddenly
has her feeling more grounded than she has in the last few months, as if
they’re both rooted together to the soil beneath her feet.
Regina smiles, and her smile in honest and unconscious. Unaware of the
whisperings going on around her, she looks about herself, realizing that she’s
blindly searching for her father among the crowd. When her gaze finds his, he
walks her way in tiny steps and quickly holds onto the hand that she offers him
with both of his, cradling it as if something precious, and letting a soft
thumb caress the skin of her knuckles. Shamelessly, she leans forward and
presses a swift kiss to father’s cheek.
Unconsciously, not giving a second thought to her surroundings, Regina
proclaims an overly emotional, “Es como un pedacito de casa, papi.” (1)
Father’s surprised chuckle is the most wonderful sound Regina has heard in
ages, and it makes her feel surprisingly, outstandingly happy.It lasts but a
second, enough for her to realize that mother’s gaze is nothing but extreme
disapproval, and that her body is taut in that way that makes her look as if
her skin isn’t enough to contain her fury. The familiar feeling of mother’s
magic tingles at the back of Regina’s mouth, somehow tasting like blood. Regina
stares at her, scared by what she might do, but then mother knows better than
to reveal herself as the powerful witch she is in front of what must be the
whole court by now. It doesn’t make Regina feel any better, though, knowing
that she’s done something to grant that kind of reaction.
It feels to Regina as if the standstill lasts for far too long, her heart
beating erratically inside her chest even while her hand still rests between
father’s. The silence, only broken by murmurs from the crowd, is stale and
awkward, the atmosphere around them feeling suddenly full of danger. Regina
wonders what she’s done wrong this time, and why nothing is ever good enough
for mother.
It’s Snow’s voice what cuts the lull in the air, asking, “Does that mean you
like it, Regina?”
Regina looks at her questioningly, and when Snow tilts her head to the side in
a sign of childish confusion, Regina recognizes her misstep immediately; she’s
just spoken in father’s native language in front of the whole court, exposing
herself as something foreign, something different, something not to be
understood, perhaps even something ungrateful. She realizes that everyone
around her is probably expecting nothing but elegant gratefulness towards the
king and his daughter, and that what Regina’s done is find her father and make
sure her words aren’t understood, alienating herself from the crowd in her
mindless bliss.
“I–” she stops, mouth hanging slightly open and hopelessly trying to gather
herself. She straightens up in a way that’s second nature by now, and gazing
away from mother’s acrimony, she looks for Snow’s eyes. Her feelings for the
girl may very well be filled with contradiction, but Regina is fairly confident
that she may just be her only ally inside this strange palace and unfamiliar
new life.
Schooling her features into a small and polite smile that she’s close to
perfecting, Regina lets go of father’s hands and turns her back to the apple
tree so she can focus her whole attention on the princess before her. She
reaches forward and allows her fingers to cradle Snow’s cheek softly before
settling carefully under her chin, a gesture that makes the girl smile in a way
that Regina’s never seen before, something small but genuine, devoid of her
usual exuberance but somehow more fragile than Regina had expected.
“Of course I like it, dear,” Regina says, loud and clear so that everyone can
hear, but keeping her eyes and body turned only towards Snow.
Snow reacts immediately, grabbing Regina’s free hand and guiding her until
they’re both standing right under the tree, where it smells earthy, of apples
and grass. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful?” Snow wonders, her tone and posture
effortlessly royal, as if Snow naturally understands when to be a boisterous
child and when to behave like a little lady.
“Yes, yes it is.”
Following her statement, Regina looks up and around her, trying her best at
looking young and foolish, perhaps even a little bit in love once her eyes find
the king, standing not too far away from them both and right next to mother.
Regina laughs, false delight easily fabricated as she lets her steps take her
to her future husband, as she presses nervous, trembling hands into his, daring
herself to believe her own act enough so that everyone around her thinks her a
nonsensical little girl rather than an ungrateful and gratuitous buffoon of a
child.
“Thank you so very much, Your Majesty,” she intones, lowering her voice and her
chin, looking up at him with nearly pleading eyes. She tries to say something
more, but words choke on her throat and she hopes that the man before her is
simple enough to think her overwhelmed by emotion.
Whatever she’s done, it seems to do the trick, prompting an absurdly
unattractive smile to grace the king’s features, which somehow manages to ease
the air and placate everyone around them, including mother. She’s looking at
Regina with that hard won pride that she had strived for so very much while
growing up, and she hates that this little stunt has so easily granted it to
her. She knows mother is aware of her putting on a show, and just the thought
makes her feel slightly sick.
Time, which had felt as if it had stopped after Regina’s natural outburst of
emotion towards father, starts to move then, with the people from the court
surrounding them coming closer to the tree or starting to leave the place,
commenting their opinions freely and loudly. Regina breathes out harshly,
making sure her smile stays plastered on her face for as long as the king and
mother are watching her, and she hates herself for the position she’s managed
to put herself in. She notices, sharp shards of anger crawling up her chest and
all the way up to her throat, that her back is to father, and that she doesn’t
even dare look up at the ripe, red apples of the tree.
Regina had felt elation for one short moment, but now that is the farthest
emotion taking root in her heart, and she only gets angrier and angrier at
being constantly uncertain of her own feelings. She’s been trying to play a
game to please everyone but herself, and she knows that all she’s managed to do
is betray her own hopes and dreams, betray her own heritage in exchange of a
vacant smile that she can’t bring herself to care about. Father is behind her,
she can’t look up at her tree, Daniel is dead and gone, and Regina is a lost
little girl that doesn’t truly know if surviving this is worth it.
 
===============================================================================
 
Later that evening, Regina gets her monthly bleeding, and she can’t help but
scowl at the irony of it all. Blood between her legs days before she’s to marry
a man she can never see herself loving, right after she’s betrayed everything
she is by falling face first into mother’s game. At least, the timing of
Regina’s body upsets mother, who’d wanted to make a last minute check of the
wedding dress and can’t very well do it now.
“Not when you’re so disgustingly bloated, my dear,” she tells Regina, scolding
her as if she’s purposefully lacking the power to control her own cycle.
Following mother’s usual orders, Regina hides herself in her bedchambers, even
managing to ignore Snow’s frequent visits under the guise that she’s just not
feeling quite well. She fancies that Snow would probably get her way and
meander into her room anyway if only the wedding wasn’t so close – she’d heard
a pair of giggly maids talking about how the little queen must be jittery about
the wedding night,and Regina had snapped at them for their indiscretion,
managing to make her first true interaction with the servants at the palace
something entirely too disagreeable for all parties involved.
Regina tries to enjoy her solitude, but despite what she may have said to the
maids, she isjittery about the wedding night. Not for the usual reasons, but
because Regina’s known intimate physical love from a boy that made her heart
beat wildly, and she dreads the idea of supporting the king’s naked weight
above her, of being touched by his dry hands and most of all, of being expected
to do it more than once and whenever it pleases the king. Perhaps his acclaimed
kindness is the truth of his heart and he won’t touch her when she doesn’t want
to be touched, but Regina has little hope for a man who would actively choose
to take a girl young enough to be his daughter as his second wife, while
ostensibly proving that he doesn’t have any actual interest in talking to her,
or listening to her desires over her mother’s.
On her second night alone, though, there’s a creaking door and a rustling of
fabrics that’s soon followed by father’s small figure making its way into the
room. He’s carrying a big tray between shaky arms, and Regina nearly jumps from
the bed in her haste to help him. Father actually giggles as they just manage
to bring the tray down to the floor, choosing immediately after to pull some
pillows down with them and rest there in some sort of makeshift picnic. Once
they’re settled, father removes the entirely too ornamental silver plate cover
and Regina’s senses get assaulted by the rich scent of heavily spiced food. Her
stomach grumbles noisily, and Regina presses both her hands to it over her
night robe, palms spread wide. It’s almost as if she has forgotten what craving
food feels like, and the watering of her dry mouth is surprising.
Father smiles in the darkness of the room, busying himself with lighting up a
candle even as he explains that he’s managed to befriend one of the kitchen
maids, and that he has actually convinced her into having the cook prepare some
special meals.
“Oh, daddy, only you would,” Regina mutters quietly, unrestrained fondness
creeping up her tired limbs.
Regina has wondered about father's whereabouts during their time in the palace,
since she hasn’t seen much of him at all. She’d hoped mother hadn’t been the
one to take him away from her, while at the same time suspecting completely
different reasons for her father’s disappearance, taking into consideration the
guilt he couldn’t even begin to hide whenever he looked at Regina ever since
holding her screaming body back home. Regina’s not surprised, though, that
father has managed to ignore nobles and court life while conquering the service
with his inherent charm.
Not saying anything, Regina reaches forward and dives her hand into the plate,
ignoring cutlery in favor of dirtying up her fingers with untamed energy, the
unexpected growl of her stomach satisfying her starved senses. She finds thick
slices of meat, rice, potatoes and rich-smelling gravy, the texture of
everything together against the skin of her fingers unlike anything she’s ever
felt before, gummy and viscous and nearly disgusting. She still brings a
mouthful up to her parted lips, careless enough to drop sauce into her
nightgown, and can’t help but whimper softly when the heated dish touches her
tongue, a splash of flavor reminding her that there was a time not long ago
when food was synonym with satisfaction. She eats ravenously, licking excess
gravy from her fingers and digging in fast and reckless, utter abandon in her
gestures until she realizes that she’s back where she began, indulging
mindlessly to quiet the tears that she can’t stop from falling down her cheeks.
“Oh, cielo…”
But that’s all father says, clearly lost for words, and all Regina finds in
herself to reply with is, “I’m sorry, daddy, I’m so sorry.” She repeats the
words over and over, her tone growing quieter and her tears thicker as she
covers her mouth with the back of her dirty hand.
She doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for, or even to whom. It might be for
the sickening display in front of the court, for the manipulative game she’s
playing with Snow which she doesn’t fully understand herself, for the choices
that are being forced upon her, for Daniel, always for Daniel, gone and buried
away in Regina’s red nightmares.
Father holds her, shushes her anguish away while whispering nonsense against
her ear. But he doesn’t rescue her, not from mother, or her magic, or this life
Regina hasn’t asked for and has no use for. It follows, then, that Regina is
alone, and maybe it’s time for her to save herself, and quit waiting for a
knight in shining armor that will never come.
===============================================================================
 
Regina tries to run away one more time, a last ditch attempt to get as far away
from the palace as possible. She goes to the stables in the middle of the
night, saddling Rocinantewith quick, practiced ease, keeping her mind on her
escape and refusing to look around herself and get emotional. These are not the
stables back home, after all, and Daniel isn’t going to appear from around the
corner somewhere, cheeky smile and a mock bow to offer her, so Regina needs to
disambiguate herself of the notion and focus. It occurs to her, once she’s atop
Rocinanteand riding away, that she has no plans beyond running fast and very
far away, perhaps as far as a different kingdom so King Leopold’s hand can’t
reach her. She knows it’s damn foolish to just ride away and hope, but she
figures she’ll come up with a plan once she’s away from mother’s clutches, if
such a thing is possible. Maybe daddy’s family will take her in, or maybe
she’ll just have to learn how to do something useful and earn herself a living.
Later, when the sun’s already out and she’s made it as far as the edge of the
forest and mother has caught up to her, Regina’s glad that she didn’t let
herself make too many plans. She doesn’t fight it, knowing by now her efforts
to be futile, but she does realize that mother uses her spells with a softer
hand, perhaps afraid to bruise her badly when she needs to be perfect for her
wedding night; mother wouldn’t want the king to see the shape of curled
branches etched on Regina’s purpled skin.
Regina speaks of freedom and mother replies with talks of power. Sometimes,
when mother speaks with her mouth set into a thin line and her eyes fixed
obstinately on Regina’s, it’s almost as if she’s branding her words on Regina’s
skin, making them crawl under and around her body, burning them with hot coals
into her heart. Love is weakness, and power is freedom.Regina doesn’t want to
believe her, but when she’s being dragged back into the palace unwillingly,
eyes dry because she doesn’t have any tears left in her, it’s hard not to take
mother’s truths at face value.
Taking a page from mother’s book, then, Regina makes father tell her of
mother’s past, of her dark ways and her fiddling with magic, and later that
night, she finds herself stealing a book and summoning a demon from her
mother’s past, the name Rumpelstiltskin crossing Regina’s lips for the first
time.
===============================================================================
 
The wedding comes sooner than Regina expected, rattling her to the core.
There’s still a slimy kind of haze around the whole ordeal, as if she can’t
quite believe that this is her life, and it shakes her, because she’s never
thought herself as one for denial. Everything is wrong, though, the fact that
she’s getting married to some old king and that she’s expected to smile while
she does it, because she’s been granted a great honor and no one will ever
understand that this is not the life she pictured for herself.
She stands before a full length mirror as she waits to be called for her grand
entrance, trying to find herself in her reflection. She presses her hands to
the tight waist of her wedding dress, examining her body in a way that she
hasn’t in some time, scrutinizing the shape of her torso clad in the hard
fabric of the gown, trying to breathe deeply even when the whalebones of the
corset are digging uncomfortably into the skin of her stomach. She thinks she
looks beautiful, grown up and fully formed, the shape of her dark eyes and lips
pleasantly alluring and her neck long and elegant even if weighted under the
heaviness of an entirely too thick necklace. For the first time ever, she hates
that she finds herself attractive, and wishes that she could be twelve again,
wondering if anyone would ever see her and think of beauty.
“Oh, Regina, you truly look beautiful.”
Regina shifts uncomfortably, looking at Snow now standing by the open door to
her bedchambers. She’s at her most regal in a light pink dress with the
puffiest sleeves Regina’s ever seen and flowers carefully woven into her long
hair. Regina can’t even mumble a thank you, but as if sensing her nervousness,
Snow reaches out, expecting Regina to take her hand and be led away. It’s
fitting, she supposes, that Snow should be the one to guide her to the
ceremony, her small hand having led every event in her life since she appeared
in it. Regina wants to shake her, grab her tiny arms and shake her until she
realizes the position she’s put her in, until she’s scared and dizzy and
feeling a fraction of Regina’s misery. Instead, Regina schools her features and
takes the tiny hand.
Father is the one to give her away, and Regina is thankful that she can hold
his arm and steady herself with something as she walks to meet her groom. The
ceremony is short and meaningless, and when King Leopold leans down to kiss
her, Regina turns her face imperceptibly to the side so his lips land at the
corner of hers. The court cheers around them, and Regina wants to turn towards
all of the unfamiliar faces around them and yell at them, for surely there’s
nothing here to cheer about.
The ball reminds Regina slightly of her birthday parties, and so she falls
easily into the routines that mother instilled in her, refusing food with a
dismissive gesture that’s second nature to her. She’s eaten nothing but a dry
loaf of bread today, and she hopes that the cold sweat gathering on her
forehead isn’t noticeable, and that it isn’t frizzing up her hair. Regardless
of whether she looks pleasing enough or not, King Leopold smiles brightly at
her when they open the dance. Regina should answer in kind, but she married him
with sadness etched into her eyes and she can’t bring herself to turn the
corners of her lips up, consciously afraid that all she will manage will be a
sour sort of grimace.
It doesn’t take too long to understand that no one is paying her much
attention, the irony not escaping her, and mother’s voice filling her senses,
the words I’m afraid they don’t love youpounding the sides of her head. She has
half a mind to eat something, just to ease the haziness of her head, but she
finds that she prefers to be as detached as possible from this, and so she just
fetches a cupful of wine and gulps it down as fast as she can without dropping
the liquid. She hasn’t drunk much before, mother only allowing the odd cup
during birthday feasts, and her fast drinking has her swaying on the spot.
“Daddy,” she says, looking back behind her where she knows father has been
standing all night, watching her with worried eyes, blending with the walls and
the curtains as if he’s no one of importance, rather than the father of the
bride. Then again, when she’s being paid no attention whatsoever, she has no
hope that father will be of any consequence in the court.
“Yes, cielo?”
“I’m stepping outside for a bit,” she says, and before father can answer, she
makes a hasty retreat, angling her steps towards the balcony that she knows the
big banners with King Leopold’s coat of arms are hiding.
Her steps are slow and she feels heavy, as if her dress is trying to drag her
down. It’s certainly a bit of a monstrosity, the skirts wide around her hips
and the train entirely too long, making it uncomfortably difficult to maneuver.
The bulky necklace and earrings she’s wearing wear her down as well, and the
thick tiara tying her hair together on the top of her head has had her wanting
to tear it out for hours now. As she finally steps outside and takes a deep
breath of the cool night air, she thinks of her dreams of light dresses and
open fields, and tries to stop thinking of the sparkly and luxurious jewels
that she’s been gifted with as if they were the heftiest of shackles.
Once outside, Regina paces. She holds onto the skirts of the dress, making no
small effort to pull them up enough so walking is easier, and hears her own
steps with satisfaction as they pound on the floor, taking her from one end of
the balcony to the other and back again. Unconsciously, her free hand reaches
up to her neck, squeezing the skin there and threatening to break the clasp of
her necklace.
“So exquisite, my dear,” mother had said when she’d first seen it, and Regina
had pressed her thumb into her palm so hard that it’d bruised, just so she
could stop herself from voicing how she would never have chosen to wear
something like it.
It takes her a long while to stop her frantic pacing, but when she finally
does, she finds herself clutching at the railings with a tight grip, gloved
hands feeling the cold of the metal seep into them. It grounds her somewhat,
even when her breathing is coming short and her throat feels stiff and
strained, as if she’s making an effort not to cry.
“Well, dearie, you sure make for a tragic bride.”
Regina whips around in a too fast-paced motion when Rumpelstiltskin’s voice
reaches her, and she finds the little imp leaning close to her, smile almost
predatory and entirely too amused for her liking. Regina huffs, turns away from
him so she doesn’t have to look at his scaly skin, his ugly teeth or his
strange hair, so she can run away from his knowing gaze. He makes her shiver
involuntarily, so she presses her hands to her forearms, closing in on herself.
He giggles, a laugh that might sound ridiculous to unpracticed ears but that
sounds cruel to Regina, who knows better than to underestimate a threat.
She has very consciously been avoiding the thought of mother and the mirror
that she pushed her into, of the power that had cursed through her veins like
molten lava when she’d broken her spell and counteracted it with one of her
own. For days, Regina had wondered about small signs from her past, mutely
speaking to her about a potential she hadn’t known was hers. She had remembered
a broken glass when she was six and afraid of the dark, water dropped from a
vase that had disappeared mysteriously before mother could find out when she
was twelve, a painting dropping of its own accord to the floor when a guest at
the house had made an impertinent comment about the disgracefulness of a woman
riding horses like a man at age fifteen, bottles breaking around her when
trapped in the cellar after an evening spent in Daniel’s arms.
Lost in her thoughts, Regina jumps when Rumpelstiltskin’s hands come to rest on
her naked shoulders, one of his long nails touching the skin of her neck,
piercing and uncomfortable. She bites her lip, scolds herself for showing fear
in front of this creature, who so very clearly thrives in his own alarm
inducing power. Regina knows better than to show apprehension, though, knows
that if she intends him to be her master in magic she needs to find a more
equal ground, needs to make him understand that she won’t be a simple puppet to
him. He clearly wants something from her, Regina’s not stupid enough to think
otherwise, and so that gives her some leverage.
Squaring her shoulders and throwing a disdainful look to one of his hands on
her skin, she rolls them back purposefully and shrugs him away. She takes a
couple of steps forward and turns to face him, hands firmly clasped on the
heavy fabric of her skirt. “What do you want?” she questions imperiously,
trying to instill authority in her tone. “No one can see you here.”
Rumpelstiltskin smiles, his grin toothy and impudent as he bows before her with
mock reverence. “A present for the new queen, of course.” With a flourish, he
produces a small object that he dangles before Regina. It’s round and cheap
looking, netting binding it together and colorful feathers hanging from it.
“What is it?”
“A dream catcher, dearie; it’s said to ward off nightmares.”
Regina huffs, crosses her arms over her chest and smirks softly when
Rumpelstiltskin simply stays in the same position, one purple clad leg thrust
forward as he bows, and his arm outstretched.
“I don’t want it,” she states.
Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes become hooded, and as he straightens up, Regina clutches
back at her forearms, warding herself from any possible anger she may have
caused. The dream catcher disappears with a second surge of magic, and Regina
sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth, as if trying to chase a vanishing
aftertaste. Mother’s magic had been like bitter metal at the back of her
throat, but Rumpelstiltskin’s is sickly sweet, like the kind of syrup Regina
had loved as a child but that would give way to stomach ache after just a
spoonful. Rumpelstiltskin’s looking at her appraisingly, so she lifts her chin
up and stares back; he knows himself menacing, but Regina has an entire
lifetime of surviving mother’s scrutiny, and she realizes that she will never
know more fear than the simple threat of mother finding her doing something
untoward.
After a too long beat of time, Rumpelstiltskin gives a small jump backwards and
with his always moving hands points at her and asks, “Why not?” He sounds
offended, and Regina has a feeling that he doesn’t offer gifts on many
occasions.
Tilting her head to the side, doing her own bit of examination with eyes at
half mast, she tells him, “I don’t trust you.”
He giggles almost immediately, the sound piercing and uncomfortable but one
that Regina knows she will have to get used to. “Oh, dearie, I’m going to enjoy
you,” he says, grin spreading wide on his features and making him seem uglier
than ever. “Now, enjoy your night; I’m sure the king will.”
Regina balks at the words thrown at her, but before she can reply,
Rumpelstiltskin has thrown a dismissive see you soon, dearieinto the air and
has disappeared, the shadow of his laughter lingering around her. Regina is
left with her mouth parted and her eyes wide, the sudden reminder of who she’s
just become sitting ill in her stomach. She harrumphs, feeling young and
trapped among circumstances and forces that she can’t understand, and finds
herself fleetingly missing mother’s harsh but guiding hand. She stares at her
own, wonders if Rumpelstiltskin’s right in thinking that she can become more
powerful, that she can somehow have the kind of skill that will allow her to
take revenge on those who have wronged her. She also wonders if it’s too late
to run away now. Shaking her head, she does her best at removing her doubts
from her mind. Mother’s gone now and all she has to rely on is her own
strength.
Fixing herself tall and proud yet again, she turns so she can look back at the
abandoned ballroom, and catches brief glimpses of colorful gowns, the sound of
music and soft laughter reaching her ears. Indeed, she hasn’t been missed, not
at her own wedding, not by her future family. She scowls as she starts walking,
thinking that she will show everyone around her exactly who she is, and just
what she’s made of, and walks back into the ballroom with a stance full of
determination, just like a queen.
 
===============================================================================
 
As impossible as it seems, time moves on, and the palace around her settles
into an easily predictable routine. The place is big and busy, overwhelming for
Regina, who had spent so many years in a state that almost never held any
guests, where the palace holds a permanent set of court members that barely
dwindles in number. People come and go, often staying for periods no longer
than a fortnight, and so Regina finds herself wandering through hallways and
gardens clogged by the presence of people that she doesn’t know and who don’t
seem to have any particular interest in knowing her.
What a sad little queen,she hears a proud countess whisper to her ever present
companion one day, and she scowls and bows to end her somehow, some
undetermined time in the future. It hurts to be whispered about but not sought
out, but she starts to understand her situation the more words she spies, the
quiet murmur of how sad but exotically beautiful she is reaching her ears on a
quiet afternoon.
“She’s beautiful, though,” a man Regina hasn’t seen before says to his wife.
She scrunches her nose, dismissive. “Yes, she does have that type of exotic
beauty, doesn’t she?”
Regina is reminded of stepping into old Master Clive’s little cottage and
feeling inadequate, of being made aware of her true status in life simply by
how rich her clothes had seemed to her in that moment. Just like then, she
realizes that her status here is deemed as lowly and inappropriate, that she’s
nothing but the daughter of the sixth son of a king from a foreign land and
that mother’s origins are nothing if not questionable. She’s a sad, little
exotic queen, a poor excuse of a substitute for King Leopold’s first wife.
Knowing where she stands helps her, though, allows her to grasp the reins of
her life and make what she wants of the court around her. She starts listening
more closely, realizes that people talk around her without paying her much
mind, and soon begins to file away the facts of a court that’s corrupt and full
of secrets. She learns of secret affairs and ploys, of old grudges and broken
alliances, of unplanned attacks and states running out of money. It’s strangely
exhilarant, and Regina finds that learning, which as a child had seemed like
such a waste of time, is now something to look forward to. She pours herself
into books, then, befriending the palace librarian if only by curtseying to him
every day when she steps into the place, and realizes that mother’s insistence
in her lessons has proven useful, and that she understands geography, history
and politics in ways that she knows would surprise everyone around her.
Taking a page from most books about life in court, she starts inviting the most
influential members of the different kingdoms to her chambers for tea and
pastries, allowing herself to be paraded as some sort of new toy and listening
intently to what they have to say. She remains mostly quiet in these meetings,
playing coy and young, making sure that it’s her guests who fill the silence.
She despises them all, and soon starts listening to the tales about her change
from the epithet sadto the much more satisfying proud.
It’s a burden but one that she’s willing to endure, particularly when King
Leopold doesn’t seem too keen on engaging her in any kind of conversation. They
never eat together, both Snow and the King often taking their suppers with
noblemen while Regina takes her own by herself in her chambers, and that
strikes her as severely odd, her mother’s words about the privilege of sharing
a table with one’s family so very close to her heart. Eating these days is a
hardship for her, and she believes that she would be able to control her worst
instincts if she were forced into eating with others. As it is, Regina finds
herself with no appetite on regular occasion, but prone to random bouts of
shoveling food into her mouth until she makes herself sick. Mother would balk
at such disgrace, but what Regina bemoans is how little she enjoys food anymore
one way or the other, missing the days in which the rich smell of her favorite
foods could get her to smile.
More than anything, though, it's Snow and the king that prove to be her
toughest jailors. King Leopold, the bumbling fool, has proven to be predictable
at least, which Regina is thankful for, if only because she can prepare herself
correctly for the two nights a week he visits her bedchambers whenever he’s not
travelling to another land or neighboring kingdom. Part of Regina wants to
demand to be taken on such trips as the rightful queen, but the idea of putting
up with the man’s advances more than necessary stops her short from such a
request.
On that first night, right after the wedding, she’d been undressed by her ever-
changing lady’s maids and dressed on a flimsy white nightdress, her hair left
loose and combed until all tangles were gone. Regina remembers her brown
nipples being clearly visible through the thin fabric, the curly dark hair at
the apex of her thighs almost obscene, and she remembers how the king had
barely laid eyes upon her, nor her body or her nervous hands that couldn’t stop
from shaking.
“I do not wish to lay with you,” she’d said, bravado from two cups of wine and
a confrontation with Rumpelstiltskin making her state her wishes in the rare
hope that it may change the night’s events.
Leopold hadn’t cared for her wishes, and whatever sliver of sympathy she may
have held for the man had vanished right there and then. She hadn’t fought him
physically, though, knowing the act to be foolish and wanting the night to be
over as soon as possible. That particular wish had been granted, for Leopold
had merely laid upon her, raising her shift over her hips, and had laid claim
to her with no delicacy, his face turned away from hers and his eyes closed
tight, as if he couldn’t bare the sight of her under him. He’d felt heavy above
her, his body big and unpleasant, the skin of his face clammy with sweat, and
his breath had smelled of the sweet rum that had flowed freely at the wedding
ball. She’d been dry between her legs, unpleasantly so, but had been thankful
for the pain of his intrusion if only because it had grounded her into physical
repulsion, and had served the purpose of verifying a virtue that she’d lost
long ago. She hadn’t cried, but once he’d finished, a quiet groan and a shaky
smile being all the signs of his completion, he’d gotten up and had walked away
from her and she’d curled in on herself, pain of all kinds more unbearable than
she’d thought possible. He’d tried to kiss her forehead as he said his
goodnights, but she’d recoiled from the touch, and had only started breathing
regularly when he’d thankfully left her room to sleep in his own chambers.
After the fact, Regina had gathered her strength and had asked for a bath,
which had been granted between grumbles and protests of capricious little girl.
Whoever was in charge of her whenever the king visited knew better by now, as
Regina asked for the same every single time, taking pleasure in cleansing her
body from the smell of rum and of his body, trying to will the pain away in the
soft caress of warm water.
Now, every night the king visits her, she repeats her request. I do not wish to
lay with you,she whispers, voice soft but pronunciation clear, delighted for a
second when her words make the king flinch. She thrives in provoking him,
watching his magnanimous and kind persona fade before her, staring at him with
hard, judgmental eyes. If he wants her, he will bear this; Regina will make
this as unpleasant for them both as possible.
She does wonder at his actions though, questions why it is that he can’t at
least try.Regina may have not been ready to love him, or even to be fond of
him, but she’s young and her body responsive, and if only he would ever try
touching her, kissing her, pleasing her, there may be some comfort derived from
this unnatural marriage. He doesn’t wish for her body or her mind, though, and
so she’s stumped as to his desire to marry again. Perhaps he hopes for another
child, or maybe he’d just wanted a mother for Snow; she seems like a fool’s
choice for both purposes, both too young and too harsh for this weak old king
that still holds a candle for his deceased queen. Regina despises everything
about him.
“I didn’t realize you would be this difficult, my queen,” he tells her one
night.
She’s sitting on the bed, shift and robe covering her body after he’s used it
while he busies himself finding his discarded shoes. Now more than ever Regina
finds him old and disgusting, and wants to berate him for everything that he
is, but most particularly for the smell of rum that always permeates these
encounters, as if he can’t stand being in her presence without drinking.
“And when did His Majesty judge my character so wisely? Was it when my mother
accepted your proposal in my name, or perhaps in the whole half hour we spent
together before standing together at the altar?”
He winces at the cruelty in her tone, his hand fisting by his side as if he
wishes to use it on her. Regina sometimes longs for him to do it, thinks that
she would respect him more if he were capable of hating her properly and
completely, if he had the guts to damage that which irritates him so. She
thinks it may just be what she needs too, pain and soreness to settle her angry
heart.
On a different evening, he holds her forearms and shakes her. It’s not terribly
hard, but Regina’s naked and cold, and she’s finding herself skinnier by the
day, so he looks tall and imposing as he does so, fully clothed and so
impossibly aged that it disgusts Regina. She’d thrown a tantrum that day when
the king had sent the Royal Doctor to her, demanding a monthly routinely
examination of her health and spouting something about preparing her for the
physical endurance of childbirth. She’d refused the humiliating process,
claiming that she would call her own doctor when she deemed it necessary.
“You will do as you’re told, child,” the king intones, his voice at his most
no-nonsense, the way she’s heard it when he reprimands one of his servants.
“Have it your way, Your Majesty,” she answers back, her tone biting and rough,
her eyes steady and unforgiving when they bore into his. “You shall uphold your
end of this bargain, though. If you are to expect a child from me and bed me
like a woman, you will never again refer to me as child.”
The thought of a child unsettles her to the point of disrupting her sleep, and
even makes her meals sit distastefully in her stomach whenever the idea
assaults her. It’s a very clear possibility, and Regina wonders if she could
somehow love a child that she would share with this man, or even if she would
be allowed to raise a kid as she wished to, or if the infant would become
family to Snow and the king and be estranged from its mother. She rejects all
reflections when they become intolerable, though, and begins relishing the days
of the month that see her cramped and bleeding.
Regina doesn’t think the king even wantsa child, particularly not from her. It
seems what’s expected, but he hardly seems interested in extending the perfect
little family he has with his daughter. Snow, whom he adores and who adores him
in return, seems to be everything he needs, and the only person truly worth of
his attention, and whose requests are answered in a positive manner. Regina
knows that if she wants something from the king, she needs to go through the
girl, and she hates the dynamic and the family that she’s been forced into that
it’s everything but.
In name and paper, she’s a queen, a surrogate mother and a wife; in reality,
she lords over nothing but empty rooms and hallways, and she feels like an
enhanced babysitter and a well paid whore. Deep down, in her heart, she knows
herself to be a hurt, angry little girl who’s lost her lover and her mother,
and who is slowly losing control of herself.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina turns nineteen, and if not for father’s congratulations and gift, the
date would have gone unnoticed. She forgets herself, time seeming to stand
still at the palace by virtue of its ever-changing nature. The constant flow of
different faces, and the fact that her lady’s maids change at least once a
fortnight make for a confusing recounting of time, and so Regina receives
father’s present with genuine surprise. It’s a silver brush, simple but shiny,
her name engraved at the handle with small letters that Regina traces almost
reverently as she smiles wistfully. It just says Regina,no titles before her
name, and she wonders if that’s truly who she is these days.
“Thank you, daddy,” she whispers, tears in her eyes as she hugs him tight and
strong against her, his frame feeling entirely too small in her arms.
Father continues to get smaller as time goes by, easily fading into the
background until he’s made a sort of valet of himself. Not for the first time,
Regina talks to him about the possibility of going back to the state to live
his years peacefully now that mother’s gone – a fact that he’s never asked
about. He refuses the offer, though, just like every time, claiming that he
likes life at the palace, and that he wishes to remain close to her. His words
never fail to warm Regina’s slowly icing heart, but she worries about how
easily he makes himself scarce, as if he doesn’t feel like enough for the
people in the palace. He roams the hallways quietly and slowly, and Regina
knows he won’t talk to the nobles but that he’s struck a sort of friendship
with Fritz, the fussy Royal Gardener that’s been teaching Regina how to care
for the apple tree. He’s from some far away foreign land, and for all of his
apparent nerves, he has a calming voice, deep, strong and unwavering, and she
knows he enjoys talking to her father.
Regina does wish father would speak to more people, knows that he would make
easy friends with his quiet demeanor and his undemanding character, but perhaps
mother managed to destroy his spirit completely after all. He doesn’t seem
interested in being more than he is, though, and Regina doesn’t know how to be
proud enough for both of them.
No one at the palace offers birthday wishes or gifts, and Regina unwittingly
longs for mother’s over elaborated balls. There are no balls to be had in her
honor, though, and she guesses it would be too much to ask of her family to
remember a date such as this. Things don’t have birthdays after all, and she
can hardly see herself as a person before their eyes anymore.
Surprisingly enough, Rumpelstiltskin remembers. His wishes come in the form of
a sharp, amused barb at her ego which he accompanies with one of his shiver
inducing giggles, and of course there are no presents to be had. Regina thanks
him with something akin to contempt, but can’t help but feel something
indescribable when it’s both him and father that remember. A true father and a
magical one for her, and perhaps she is losing her mind after all.
Dealing with Rumpelstiltskin is becoming increasingly difficult, and Regina
grows frustrated and anxious when his lessons don’t seem to be taking her
anywhere. He accuses her of impatience, wording her incompetence in poems and
riddles that grate endlessly on her nerves. He abuses her every chance he gets,
mocks her in a way that would have weaker spirits crying in a second, but that
only manage to make Regina more stubborn before him.
“I suppose you are your mother’s daughter, after all, dearie,” he tells her.
“Same mule headed behavior, but none of Cora’s finesse.”
Regina wonders at Rumpelstiltskin’s past with mother constantly, but he dodges
her questions easily, directing her to magical efforts and keeping his mouth
shut. She suspects they were lovers once, and Regina hates the thought that the
golden little imp may have been a better suited match for mother’s imperious
character than father, weak and malleable in her hands. She even wonders, at
her craziest, if Rumpelstiltskin is her real father, but the idea is both
ludicrous and disgusting, and even if it were true, Regina wouldn’t take anyone
other than father as her only real family.
Rumpelstiltskin never gives anything away about himself, but Regina’s not
stupid and she knows enough not to trust him. She does her best at researching
him, but the palace’s library is not particularly well stocked in magical
related books. She does find an old tome that speaks briefly of the curse of
the Dark One, and Regina realizes who it is she’s dealing with soon enough,
even if the knowledge doesn’t give her any actual leverage over her overbearing
master.
She grows tired of him and fights him intermittently, refusing his demands even
when he only seems to find her insistence on resistance somewhat amusing. He
punishes her with inconsistency and games, disappearing for days at a time and
then demanding her presence at strange hours, taunting her whenever she finds
herself doubting that his brand of dark magic is the path she wants to follow.
Regina does have her doubts, if only because she can only channel her magic
properly when she lets go and allows her heart to be filled with anger. She
resists the pull, and so her control wavers and escapes her, in turn making her
increasingly frustrated. She doubts that magic will bring her any sort of
revenge or power, even if now that she’s been made aware of it, it’s a
comforting presence around her. She feels it somewhere at the back of her head,
crawling down her spine, a permanent hum craving release, and it both
exhilarates her and scares her.
Her misgivings about her chosen path never falter more than when she meets
Tink, a blonde haired fairy with a smile too big for her face and so much
enthusiasm that it overwhelms Regina. The circumstances of their first meeting
haunt her, her own fall to the ground making her question herself and her own
mind, which is still undecided on whether the plunge she took from her balcony
had been voluntary or a mere accident. She chooses to believe the latter, and
for the span of a few days, relishes on the idea of having found a friend. It’s
such a foreign concept for her – a friend.
Then there’s pixie dust, a supposed soul mate somewhere in a tavern and
expectations. Of course Tink would want something from her, something that she
can’t possibly allow herself. She’d told her that she wanted Snow’s head on a
plate, and even if her thoughts on that change from one second to the other,
she can’t be expected to let go of her loss so easily in the arms of an unknown
man. The man with the lion tattoo may have been pointed to her by light magic,
but Regina has a broken heart with walls around it, a dam of feelings for her
lost love that she’s afraid will spill over and end her if she lets it. She
doesn’t wanta man, doesn’t need a savior or an escape route. All she needs is
herself, and whatever it is that she can build with her pain.
She returns to Rumpelstiltskin and all he has for her is a giddy and smug
smile, which Regina ignores as she demands a faster pace to her lessons. The
man may be a horrendous monster full of mystery, but his offer is power in her
own hands, and after all, he did remember her birthday.
 
===============================================================================
 
If her birthday goes unnoticed, Regina expects Snow’s to be a grand affair, so
she can only be surprised when she’s informed of the king’s absence on the day
of the event. Soon enough, she also finds out that such event is not to be
celebrated at all, and that no matter how much she asks, the information as to
whyis not to be disclosed. As a matter of fact, her question is regarded with
disdain, which only manages to make Regina more and more curious about the
whole business. With how much the king reveres his daughter, she had assumed
that a big celebratory ball would be held tonight.
Finally, she chooses to ask Baroness Irene, a plump old woman who thrives on
gossip and inappropriateness. She doesn’t stop much by the palace, but when she
does, she’s full of stories and scandal, and even if half of them are usually
lies, Regina forces herself to share tea and pastries with her rigorously, so
she can figure just how many of her tales hold some truth. The woman did take a
shine to her when they met, if only because it makes her happy to love and
enjoy that which everyone else finds distasteful. The day they’d met, she’d
grabbed Regina’s chin in a tight grip and with a too wide smile had proclaimed
her an extraordinary beauty, my little darlingand had decided that they would
be the best of friends. Aside from their shared tea time, Regina does her best
at avoiding her overwhelming presence, but today, she seeks her out in her
search for answers.
“Oh, my silly little darling,” she answers with what she must think is a wicked
smile, but that comes off as a foolish grin. “Don’t you know? Beloved Queen Eva
died on this very same day, so no one celebrates the child’s birthday, in
deference to her mother.”
Regina files the information away, and wonders what to do with it. The shadow
of the former queen has followed her around since she first came to live at the
palace, the reverent whispers of her natural kindness, her light beauty and her
candidness making Regina feel lacking by default. Mother had described her as a
conniving little harpy, but everyone else in court is so enamored with her that
Regina is positively sure she never even stood a chance.
There are several portraits of her around the palace, both with and without her
family, and she certainly looks the part, regal but amiable, her smile filled
with light and ease. There had been a portrait made of Regina as well not too
long ago, and she’d come out looking sullen and angry, like a prudish and
brooding child, and the comparison had been inevitable, much more so when Snow
looked more and more like her mother, and when Regina had forgotten how to
smile.
More than anything, Queen Eva seems to be an ever-present figure in her
bedchambers, tied forever into the heart of a king that still loves her dearly,
and can’t find any warmth with his new wife. He’d talked about her one night,
his speech long and winding and full of adoration as he looked through the
balcony opening outside, at the stars in the sky, as if picturing her face
there. Regina, laying naked and used on her bed and staring at the hunched back
of her elderly husband, had found herself throwing a goblet full of wine
against the wall, delighting herself in the loud crashing sound and the red
liquid staining the floor.
Once the king had turned to look at her, alarmed expression in his doltish
face, she’d sneered and hissed, “Too bad you can’t fuck a memory.”
Regina’s sure he’d wanted to hit her after that, thinks that the way he’d held
one of his wrists with his opposing hand had been nothing but a weak attempt at
stopping his most primitive instincts. Regina, for her part, had made a
monumental effort not to taunt him anymore, even if the way he flinched around
her was a source of cruel amusement for her.
Today, the king proves his miser behavior once more by choosing his dead wife
over her living daughter, and so after a quiet walk around the gardens, Regina
decides to find Snow so she can give her her birthday wishes, no matter the
apparent inappropriateness of the gesture. It doesn’t take her long to find the
princess, since the girl is sitting by Regina’s apple tree, clad in the saddest
little black gown and crying disconsolately while sitting on the ground, face
buried in her arms. Regina doesn’t truly understand how someone can tie grief
so easily to one particular day, not when she has to make an effort every
second of every day to stop the thoughts of Daniel from consuming every part of
her being, when she feels guilty every time she dares to laugh while her
beloved shares his sleep with the dead. She knows suffering, though, and if
only just to spite the king, she goes towards Snow and sits by her, schooling
her features into the appropriate sadness for the occasion.
“Oh, my dear Snow,” she whispers, and she hates the falseness she spies in her
tone, hates that her soothing words come from a place filled with so much
bitterness.
Still, Snow looks up, and when Regina touches her hair with soft fingers, she
gives her a weak smile. Then, quick and sudden, Snow leans forward and into
Regina’s body, hiding herself against her chest, searching for comfort that
Regina hasn’t truly offered. Regina’s not surprised, not with Snow’s natural
tendency of always taking more than is volunteered, but she can’t help but feel
a truthful twinge of pitiful tenderness for the child. She’s growing taller by
the day, will be as tall as Regina in barely no time, but she feels
infinitesimally small in Regina’s arms, and so Regina gives the embrace that
she has been asked for, cradling Snow between her arms and with a tight grip.
The rich smell of apples and fresh grass surrounds them, and when Regina closes
her eyes, she finds herself feeling completely and utterly weary. She hasn’t
had any breakfast this morning, and her body is suddenly thankful for the
support that Snow provides from her place between her arms. Regina gives into
the feeling, finds that it’s far too easy to relax her stiff posture and allow
herself to rest her cheek against Snow’s soft hair, receiving and giving
comfort back in equal amounts. She finds that she’s so very tired,and that for
all of her sins, the girl between her arms might just be the only real respite
she has from this life she’s living.
Purposefully ignoring the tightness on her throat that threatens tears, Regina
moves back so she can look at Snow’s face. Tear tracks mar the beautiful rosy
cheeks, and Regina dabs at them with soft and clumsy fingers, settling her hand
tenderly under Snow’s chin when the girl sniffs in a futile attempt at stopping
the water works.
Regina clears her throat and smiles, confused at how genuine the shape of her
lips is. “Have you had any breakfast today?” When Snow shakes her head, Regina
tsksdisapprovingly, scowling at her own unladylike reaction, but continuing
with her light scolding a moment later. “That won’t do at all, dear. We’ll have
an early lunch together in my chambers, and then perhaps we may spend the
afternoon together. Would you like that, Snow?”
“Yes, please, so very much, Regina,” Snow answers, no smile adorning her lips
but none of her usual affectations either. Snow feels more real in her grief
than ever to Regina, and so she decides that if just for a day, she can afford
to let herself feel something other than acrid rage for her step-daughter.
“Well then, dear, go get yourself into some lighter clothes while I speak to
the cook.”
“Lighter clothes? But I–”
“Oh, Snow, your mother doesn’t need you to be clad in heavy black fabrics to
know that you miss her,” Regina tells her, squeezing her hand when the mention
of the former queen has Snow’s lips turning down into a frown. “Besides, the
whole court doesn’t need to be witness to your grief, dear. It’s impolite for a
lady to show so much emotion in public.”
Snow starts at Regina’s words, but then again, Regina does as well. It’s her
mother speaking through her mouth and not herself, lessons learned and marked
by fire under Regina’s skin marring her honest intentions so very easily.
Regina shakes herself from it, though, doesn’t allow the nostalgia for a mother
than she both misses and doesn’t want to ever see again taint this day that she
has just offered Snow, and simply sends the girl away so she can go down to the
kitchens and ask for a special meal to be prepared.
Walking into the kitchens, Regina is surprised by an unexpected wave of hunger
making her stomach growl uncharacteristically. More than hungry, though, she’s
feeling capricious, and she welcomes the sensation with a smile as she speaks
to one of the kitchen’s maids that she knows to have a soft spot for father and
knowledge of his favorite dishes so she can order a peculiar kind of meal to be
brought up to her bedchambers.
By the time Snow shows up in her chambers, clad in a light muslin dress that
makes her look her age and not like some severe old widow, Regina’s table is
filled up to the brim, the rich smell of food wafting up to her nose
pleasantly. Snow has a hard time smiling, and there’s still anguish etched in
the corner of her eyes and making her usually buoyant movements sluggish and
tired, but when Regina asks her to try spicy snacks that she’s never had
before, she seems to liven up. Regina laughs at her when some of her picks are
too hot for Snow’s unaccustomed palate, and as she offers her a goblet filled
with water, she realizes that she’s been unconsciously eating as well, the
small bites of food falling satisfactorily in her stomach, and her own tongue
richly filled with taste. There’s joy in sharing a meal, much more so when Snow
questions its origins and for the first time since they met, allows Regina to
fill the conversation with her own mindless blabber about father’s home and its
unusual culinary tastes.
“Now try this,” Regina says, offering Snow a tray laden with small blocks of
dark chocolate.
Snow does but soon scrunches her nose at the taste, leaving the piece she’s
taken back in the tray. “It’s too bitter,” she states, even going as far as
sticking her tongue out in distaste.
Regina huffs, a laugh hidden somewhere in the sound, and even as she offers a
second tray of sweeter chocolate, she declares, “You would think so, dear.”
“You like it, though?”
Regina nods as she takes a piece for herself, and before she nibbles on it,
carefully ascertains, “It’s my favorite.” And, as an afterthought, “Daddy
always brings me a piece when I’m not feeling well.”
Softly, wistfully, Snow says, “I would always pester the kitchen maids for
treats in between meals, and mother tried to get mad at me but always ended up
giving in anyway. I once ate so much jam I made myself sick, and she couldn’t
even lecture me on it I was feeling so awful.”
Regina tries to smile at the sharing of memories, but it’s hard not to think of
what her punishment would have been had she been the protagonist of Snow’s
story. Would Snow balk if Regina told her how mother starved her out in a dark
cellar for three days when she broke a jar of gooey jam that she didn’t even
get to taste? Would she be surprised by the true nature of her mother, who had
so easily fooled her into revealing Regina’s most dear secret?
Regina shakes her head, as if the physical gesture may help keep her own
memories away, and with what she hopes is a sufficiently joyful tone, asks,
“Would you like to take a walk in the gardens, dear?”
Snow nods her assent, and so they spend the rest of the day walking with slow
steps through the palace gardens. It’s cold outside and they’ve failed to cover
themselves properly, but as if in silent agreement, they choose to keep going,
huddling close together as their legs move and Snow’s hand rests comfortably in
Regina’s. The weather of this part of the kingdom is colder than it had been
back in father’s state, a little less humid but not less dark, and truth be
told Regina has enjoyed it thus far. It seems to her that it would have been
unnatural of her to live in such misery when the sun is shining high in the
sky, and so the grey clouds have become welcome friends. Today, Snow seems to
agree with her, her demeanor matching the cold weather, her usual chatter
buried under her grief.
They walk for long hours, and when they get tired, Regina picks up a few light
pink roses that she later braids into Snow’s hair, never mind the dirty look
that Fritz sends their way when he catches them sitting down together, Regina’s
hands combing through Snow’s long locks. They finish their time outside by
Regina’s tree, and doing her best at keeping her own nostalgia buried in her
chest, Regina tears down two ripe apples and offers one to a softly smiling
Snow.
By the time they go back inside the palace, night has fallen upon them and the
cold is nearly unbearable, so they find themselves running indoors with their
hands still clasped together and laughing stupidly, mindless of members of the
court who look at them, some with disapproval in their eyes, but most of them
with a certain sigh of fondness in their gazes, and perhaps Regina should have
understood before that her way into the court’s heart is through Princess Snow
White.
Today, though, and just today, Regina doesn’t care about the court, her status,
her horrible husband or even her evil magical teacher. Today she feels young
and caring, and so when she reaches her bedchambers with Snow still in tow, she
chucks mother’s lessons through the window and instead takes a page from
father’s book. Snow’s looking at her sheepishly, staring at Regina’s table,
already set for dinner, and knowing that she should probably retire for the
night to her own bedchambers.
Regina, biting her lip softly and with something of a mischievous tilt to her
smile, motions towards Snow and then towards her bed, saying, “Here, help me
with this.”
Soon enough, Regina’s guiding Snow through the steps of building a sort of tent
made of nothing but bed linens supported by sturdy chairs. They bring cushions
down to the floor, as well as candles that create an eerie glow in the
otherwise darkened room, and Regina sets the sweetest treats from her table
down for their improvised picnic. Then, she tells Snow that their clothes won’t
do for the occasion, and so she changes into one of her thick nightgowns and
puts Snow in one as well, the length of the skirt and sleeves on her shorter
frame making them both giggle as they finally settle down.
Regina breathes out slowly, and then regales Snow with the story of how father
would make tents like this for her, and how they would eat treats together
while father told her ancient folk tales in his smooth, tranquil voice. She
doesn’t tell her how mother had stopped their game when Regina had turned six
years old, perhaps not only because it wasn’t an appropriate amusement for a
little lady but because in their mindlessness they’d managed to burn more than
one set of fine linens.
Later, she gives Snow the birthday present she’d had prepared for the day, a
small light pendant shaped as two lovebirds. At the time, she’d wanted
something pretty and appropriate, but sufficiently impersonal that it would
hardly be of consequence, but now, she wishes she’d given more thought to both
the gift and the occasion.
“Thank you, Regina,” Snow says, ever the polite little girl. The words are
whispered low and intimate, though, their tone more genuine than Regina’s ever
heard from Snow, and she knows that she’s thanking her for more than the
worthless pendant.
Regina doesn’t answer, but allows herself to reach out and press the back of
her fingers gently to Snow’s face, glide them slowly down to her chin. Snow
looks sad, so very sad, and the fact that she’s still trying to put on a brave
face for Regina manages to warm her heart. Ever the little lady, Snow doesn’t
seem to want to break down when she’s trying to be grateful.
Wistfully, Regina tells her, “It’s alright if you’re hurting, my dear.”
As if being given permission breaks something inside her, Snow’s tears come
unbidden then. Regina is the one to bring her closer this time, and Snow
follows, pliant until she’s resting with her arms around Regina’s neck, her
breathing soft but betrayed by hitches when she hides her face against Regina’s
neck. Regina tightens comforting arms around her and finds her own set of tears
prickling at the corners of her eyes. She’s not particularly sure why she feels
like allowing her own tears to fall, but then, she has so many reasons to cry.
Snow ends up falling asleep on the floor, big cushions under her making a
makeshift bed that looks sufficiently comfortable. Her breathing is slow and
steady, chest rising gently under the fabric of Regina’s gown. She looks very
young, and Regina marvels at the idea that she actually isyoung. Sometimes it
feels as if they’ve been holding onto a blood feud for years, something ancient
and dark that they never asked for but that burdens their shoulders anyway,
condemning them to an unknown fate. Regina’s nineteen years old, and most days
she feels as if she’s lived enough for a dozen lifetimes. Tonight, though,
after giggles and shared heartache, she feels so very much like a little girl
trapped in circumstances beyond her control.
When tiredness is ready to claim her, Regina puts out the candles and grabs two
thick blankets from her bed that she throws over Snow and herself once she lays
down by the princess, choosing to spend the night on uncomfortable cushions
rather than on her own bed. Thoughtlessly, she searches for Snow’s hand under
the covers and threads their fingers together, thankful for the reprieve that
the day has offered her. Before she falls asleep, she grimaces at the thought
that, in a different lifetime, they could have been the most beloved of
sisters.
 
===============================================================================
 
Next morning begins with a knock at her door and the figure of King Leopold
walking into her bedchambers, uninvited. He makes for a strange image standing
still by her door, silly hair a little wilder than usual and eyes set into a
confused frown, and it takes Regina a while to grasp that the sight is jarring
because he’s never walked into her chambers while there’s light outside. The
sudden starkness in her posture is second nature, and the scowl that mars her
features disrupts her. She wants him to go away, doesn’t ever want to see him
invading her days when he’s already an intruder in her nights.
Snow welcomes him with unbridled joy, though, laughing when she trips on her
long nightgown on her way to hug the king. Regina feels sharply betrayed by the
sight, but pulls herself together quickly as Snow begins to squeal her way
through a butchered story of the day they’d shared together. It makes something
heavy sit by Regina’s breastbone, their intimate moments being so easily
disclosed. She feels sick.
“That all sounds lovely, darling,” Leopold says, and his smile makes Snow
answer in kind so very swiftly that Regina can do nothing but deepen her scowl.
Gone is the hurt, betrayed little girl from yesterday, and Regina would feel
the cold shreds of hatred consume her if only she wasn’t busy keeping herself
together for the king. Leopold refuses to look at her, of course, and Regina
wishes he would just so she could silently judge his cowardice at leaving his
treasured child to fend for her own while he did his own lonely mourning. Even
mother’s particular brand of cruelty wasn’t as cold as Leopold’s selfishness;
misguided in her efforts or not, Regina can’t deny that she was always at the
forefront of mother’s thoughts.
“Come now, Snow,” Leopold intones. “I have a present for you.”
They make as if to leave, and while Regina is busy curtseying, her head bent
low, she doesn’t spy Snow moving towards her until she’s already in her space,
arms around her in a tight embrace. Regina bristles, startled by the suddenness
of the touch, but rests her hand on top of Snow’s head anyway, her fingers
catching on the petals that she braided there yesterday and that have already
started to perish. Regina wants Snow to move away with a nearly hysterical
need, unhinged by the juxtaposition of her own feelings, but when she catches
Leopold’s flinch at Snow’s gesture, she clings tighter.
Impetuously, Regina smirks at the king, secretly loving how his eyes shift away
from her and his daughter, anxious. Now more than ever Regina wants Snow to
love her. So far, Snow has treated her as a bit of a toy, adoring her in given
days but completely forgetting about her in others. There will be no more of
that, for Regina will not only take great joy in stealing as much of Snow’s
affection from her father as she can, but Snow will hurt more once Regina
reveals herself as the vengeful force that she knows she will become if she has
deep feelings for her.
With an easy smile, Regina looks down and into Snow’s eyes, tucking one loose
strand of hair gently behind her ear so their gazes meet more firmly. “Now
don’t fret dear, we will do this every year if it pleases you.”
“Oh yes, Regina! That will be… so very delightful.” The lovely wistfulness of
Snow’s tone reaches Regina’s heart, but how can that possibly matter now, when
it was Snow who broke it in the first place?
 
===============================================================================
 
New purpose found, Regina pours her energies into reshaping her relationship
with Snow once again. It’s not particularly hard, considering what a
blabbermouth the princess is and how starved she seems to be for affection from
someone other than the continuous string of older members of the court that
occupy the palace.
First of all, she reinstates their horse riding lessons, which Regina had
abandoned when the dull ache of roaming the stables had gotten unbearable for
her. The Master of the Stables isn’t quite happy ceding his pupil to her, but
Regina is starting to realize that she is, after all, the queen, and expected
to make demands. Snow is delighted of course, especially because she’s become
quite an adept little rider, the incident which brought her into Regina’s life
already a far away memory for her.
Snow’s other lessons are a completely different matter, one which Regina takes
into her own hands and is adamantly serious about. She finds Snow’s education
lacking, her father finding it easier to give into his daughter’s every whim
and her teachers having fallen behind under the lack of supervision. Regina
sends two of them packing away, keeping only the Music Master to continue
Snow’s musical endeavors, never mind that the girl is as bad at playing the
piano forte as Regina had been herself back in the day. She has a lovely voice,
and she enjoys singing, though, so Regina allows her the pleasure in exchange
for making the rest of her schooling far more strict. Regina takes on the task
of teaching Snow herself, easily coming up with a lesson plan that mother would
have approved of.
“Oh Regina,” Snow says at least twice a day during their lessons. “Mightn’t we
go outside? It’s such a lovely day.”
It makes Regina crack her fingers noisily and roll her eyes, but she does try
to be gentle when focusing Snow’s attention back on boring history lessons or
geographical facts that the girl seems to have no interest on.
“A queen needs to understand all of this to rule wisely,” she berates, words
falling from between her lips like the practiced lesson that they are. “You
want to be a good queen, don’t you, dear?”
Snow always nods vigorously at that, and Regina lifts the corner of her lips in
a grudging smile. Snow may want to be a good queen, but not as much as Regina
wants her to be. Regina wants the princess to understand what it is exactly
that she’s lost once Regina takes it away from her, she wants Snow to want so
desperately that the blow of her loss hurts deeply. Regina is going to make her
the best aspiring queen she could hope to be, and then she’s not going to let
her be one.
Regina accompanies Snow’s teaching plan with archery and sword fighting once
the princess voices her interest in the physical subjects, quickly followed by
the statement that her father has never allowed such disciplines to be taught
to her. With something of an evil glint to her eye, Regina hires exclusive
masters of the activities for Snow, which she pays for herself.
Having her own financial independence had been a bit daunting at first, even if
mother had prepared her sufficiently to understand how to keep her own accounts
clean and away from the king’s long fingers. State money is for him to decide
upon, but her own allowance as the queen is for her to do as she pleases. She
hasn’t had much use for it thus far, only splurging in expensive bath essences
and the like, and the one midnight blue dress that she’d had the tailor make
for her in a whim and that she hasn’t dared use on any occasion, deeming the
dark color inappropriate to her usual activities. Now, she’s full of plans and
ideas, and she welcomes the freedom she has in this one aspect of her life,
particularly as it allows her to dote on Snow as she wishes.
As part of her new scheme, she invites Snow to have lunch or dinner with her at
least twice a week, insistent that it’s just the two of them at her table,
where they can talk and share without the intrusive presence of other nobles.
Father joins them occasionally, and even when Snow finds him pleasant and
enjoys his company, father acts embarrassed, as if he’s forgotten his station
in life and feels inferior to the princess when he’s a prince himself, even if
far away from ever becoming king. It hurts Regina, how easily father diminishes
himself in front of these people who don’t need any more encouragement in their
thoughts of ownership of their souls.
Eating with Snow is strangely nice, like some twisted remembrance of a shared
family table back home. It helps Regina eat more and with gusto, especially
since Snow seems to enjoy the foreign tastes of father’s land, even when she
finds them too spicy. Regina realizes that her own cheeks and torso have begun
to fill a bit more since she offered Snow a place at her table, notices how
skinny she’d been getting and how she’d been skipping meals as of late. She
hates owing Snow anything at all. She can’t deny that there’s more color in her
cheeks these days, though, or that she doesn’t dread looking at her naked body
in the mirror anymore, even if the bruises shaped like Leopold’s fingers on her
hips make her feel ashamed and disgusted.
For every concession she makes in Snow’s name, though, she punishes either her
or her father. Leopold is easier, if only because he dreads confronting Regina.
It’s funny in a way, this man who has the power to abuse her and who makes use
of that privilege often enough – twice a week, actually, the same since the
beginning of their marriage – but who fears staring into her face, or opposing
her in any way. Regina loathes his weakness, and takes pleasure in provoking
him at every turn.
On one of their nights together, when he’s inside her and looking away as he
always does, eyes firmly closed and body rutting painfully against hers, she
impulsively grasps his puffy face with a firm hand and forces him to face her.
He gasps, fear written in his eyes.
“Look at me, Your Majesty,” she tells him, nails digging harsh and deep into
his flabby flesh, their red tips almost a sign of mock blood. “Look at what
you’re doing to me.”
He jumps away as if burnt, tearing his way out of her painfully, but the look
in his eyes is worth it, especially when he doesn’t touch her for a month after
that. Confronting him with his own sins is easy and satisfying, even more when
she sees him fighting with himself so as not to get truly violent with her.
Her punishment of Snow is lesser and subtler, tiny waves of discomfort that
Regina takes petty pleasure in exacting. Johanna, Snow's closest friend among
the staff of the palace and a round faced kindly woman who despises Regina on
principle, keeps trying to tell Snow that someone must be misplacing her things
all over the palace, that someone must be destroying the work that Regina sets
for her and that always seems to get lost before it is due to be received, and
that someone surely must have filled her bed with those flowers she’s so
allergic to on purpose. Johanna never fails to look Regina’s way when she makes
her accusations, but Snow would never conceive the idea that Regina may take
frivolous delight in causing her such small distress.
When King Leopold gifts Snow with a fluffy, dreadful little thing that he
swears is a bunny rabbit, Regina scowls at the animal but allows Snow to enjoy
it for as long as a fortnight. She names it Baron Fuffels,a title that has
Regina rolling her eyes and that doesn’t stop her from killing the filthy
little thing with something akin to glee. Snow cries for a week straight, and
when Regina gives her a free day from her lessons and instead takes a walk with
her through the gardens, clasping her hand tightly the whole time, she’s
rewarded with an adoring smile.
One quiet afternoon, Snow drags her to her bedchambers to show her a collection
of five dolls that she claims are her most treasured possession. She talks
about each of them, tells Regina how Queen Eva would always bring one for her
whenever she would take long trips with King Leopold to faraway lands, leaving
her behind and with the promise of a safe return. Snow has tears in her eyes
when she ends her story, confesses that she’d been so afraid of losing her
mother while she was away on some other land that when she’d ended up falling
into the hands of death in her own bed she’d hardly believed it, had thought it
to be some elaborate joke. Regina’s heart clenches for her, but almost
immediately falls deeply into an angry state of the most disagreeable jealousy.
This little girl, with her perfect mother and her perfect dolls standing next
to her, a woman disgraced, both a lacking daughter and a lacking mother, with
nothing to show of her own mother’s love other than tough, sharp lessons etched
into her skin.
Regina steals one of the dolls not long after, the one Snow had claimed to be
her favorite. It’s a tiny thing, embroidered in too bright threads and sewn in
cheap fabrics, and she knows all its value is sentimental. Regina practices her
fireballs with it until it’s burned to a crisp. For weeks, Snow drives both
servants and nobles mad in the futile search of the beloved doll, inconsolable
at having lost it. Johanna eyes Regina warily, but she can hardly prove
anything, much less so when Regina has destroyed all evidence of her crime.
Regina doesn’t remain inactive, though, and instead purchases fabric, thread
and stuffing, and trains her nimble fingers into the fine art of doll making.
She’s never sewn anything in her life, mother having more interest in her
learning history and strategy over unnecessary skills that were fit for the
laziest of maids, but she takes great pains to make a new doll all by herself.
She sits outside by her apple tree, clumsily pricking her own fingers and
discarding failing attempts with sighs of frustration before starting the task
all over again.
“You know you could create one with magic, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin insists on
more than one occasion, giggling at her heavy-handedness and mocking her
foolishness.
“I have to do it myself, imp, and the reasons are of no matter to you.”
Mother used to tell her that pantomimes, cheats and lies required as much
compromise as possible; after all, the best cheater is the one who cheats the
least, and so if Regina wants to make her tale of love for her step-daughter
real, she needs to get as close to it as possible. So she saws clumsily,
prickling her fingers and bleeding over her own gowns, frowning when the act
seems to please the members of the court who catch sight of her work immensely.
Nothing like a humble child willing to shed blood in exchange for the honors
bestowed upon her to charm these stupid people, she guesses.
Regina ends up creating a funny looking doll with a crooked arm and one eye
bigger than the other. Snow, who had thrown a doll her father had bought her
away in the middle of a tantrum, receives her gift with trembling hands.
“You made this for me?” Snow asks, an incredulous tilt to her head.
Bashful and shrugging her shoulders, Regina smiles at her and looks up through
lowered lashes. “I know it can’t substitute the one you lost and that it’s…
well,” she laughs, self-deprecation easily slithered into her tone, “it’s a
little funny looking, but–”
Snow doesn’t let her finish, flinging herself at Regina with ugly tears in her
eyes, mumbling her gratitude against Regina’s collarbones. Regina’s used to
Snow’s random bouts of affection, so embracing her back and resting a tender
hand at the back of her head comes naturally already, just as much as flinching
seems to be Leopold’s automatic response to watching this sort of fondness
between Regina and his daughter.
Between tricks and lessons, time moves along at a quicker pace, Regina’s
objectives slowly falling into place. Some nobles begin warming up to her, the
slow trickle of trust in her person beginning with the most vapid of women and
quickly moving through the rumor mill until it reaches their husband’s and
father’s ears. Regina hates that it’s Snow’s approval what is gathering her
positive attention, but she takes it in stride and takes advantage of her
newfound position as she realizes that while whispers about her are still
shaped in the form of proudand exotic, everyone approves of how devoted she is
to her step-daughter.
“It’s so good to see you smile, Your Majesty,” Baroness Irene keeps telling
her. “The child has been so good for you; I can hardly wait to see you radiant
with pregnancy.”
The Baroness is as innocuous as they come, and how she thinks of herself as the
epitome of transgression never fails to grate on Regina’s nerves, but she’s
always been on her side, if only to be contrary. These days in which Regina is
a little more at home among court members, the bumbling woman takes pride in
being the first to see her best qualities. While Regina may despise her, she is
a fantastic source of gossip, her plain and usual rude speeches giving her a
privileged window into the collective thoughts of the court. And right now, she
realizes that she’s been married to King Leopold for a little over two years,
that she’s awfully close to her twenty first birthday, and that the kingdom is
anxiously waiting for her to be a mother.
As time moves on and the expectation comes out in the open, even King Leopold
begins expressing his desires for a child on regular occasion. He seems to
think that a baby may mellow Regina’s character, and she suspects that he would
free himself of his nightly visits to her bedchambers, which make him clearly
anxious and uncomfortable, if she were to be with child. Regina thinks it may
just be a relieving exchange for her as well, but then it would only mean
selling her body to a child that she doesn’t want to bear rather than to a
husband that she can’t stand. Whatever the case, she can’t force herself to get
pregnant, no matter how much the Royal Doctor insists on her imbibing fertility
tonics.
Regina grows tense and fidgety, turning snappish and finding it harder to keep
up her façade when there isn’t a soul around her that she feels truly
comfortable with. Even father isn’t enough consolation for her these days, not
when he seems to think that if she were to be kinder to the king perhaps she
might be happier. His words often feel like betrayal, and suddenly father’s
weak spirit aggravates her. She finds herself snapping at Snow on regular
occasions, too.
“Oh, doshut up, dear, you’re giving me the most terrible headache,” she tells
her one afternoon, as they’re resting by the apple tree, Regina trying to read
while Snow prattles on about something inconsequential.
Snow gives her such a hurt little look that Regina apologizes almost
immediately, even while feeling all the more angry at her. The princess is so
sure of her position that a mere harsh remark makes her look like a kicked
little pup, and Regina can’t help but fix her with a haughty look, reproving of
Snow’s feeble character.
Regina learns to burn her distress through her magic lessons, but not even
Rumpelstiltskin is free of her remarks and taunts. She calls him a faulty
teacher, accuses him of purposefully delaying her training so he can keep her
on a leash. Rumpelstiltskin laughs at her, eternally amused by her antics, and
punishes her by disappearing for over a fortnight. It’s that which makes Regina
search through mother’s belongings, try and find out more about the mysterious
Dark One. She tries to detach herself from the process, makes haste in her
search and ignores mother’s clothes, jewelry and perfumes, doing her best at
avoiding anything that may bring back what few good memories she has of resting
her tired self in mother’s embrace. What she does find is books, and so she
reads up on the power held by the Dark One’s dagger, of whatever little history
there is on the people who’ve been cursed in the past with the burden of
darkness. There isn’t much on Rumpelstiltskin himself, but she does find out
about other famous magic practitioners, witches and warlocks that have been
secretly plaguing the world for centuries.
In her research, Regina finds Maleficent, and when Rumpelstiltskin finally
comes back to her, she speaks of her admiration for the legendary sorceress
openly, for which the imp sends her in an impossible journey to meet her. It’s
so like him, answering her arrogance and taunt with arrogance of his own,
punishing her with impossible tasks. Meeting Maleficent rattles her, not just
because it makes her feel more secure in her magical abilities, makes her
realize that perhaps Rumpelstiltskin’s right when he speaks of her lack of
patience. There’s something personal and intimate that lingers within her, the
memory of Maleficent leaning over her, tall, imposing but impossibly beautiful,
her hand curled softly and so very close to Regina’s face, tantalizing. Regina
finds herself swallowing lumps of emotion whenever she thinks of her, the hairs
on her arms rising, something unfamiliar making her chest ache, yearning for
something that she doesn’t quite understand.
She’s not the only one unnerved by her visit to Maleficent’s fortress, though,
since her disappearance from the palace has her being received with great
scandal, as if she’d run away perhaps forever. There are no signs of distress
for her, though, no signs that what has plagued anyone is actual worry. As it
is, nobles seem more concerned with the possibility of a good piece of gossip,
as Regina hears nothing but speculations as she’s led to her bedchambers by two
of the king’s guards. Everyone suspects a secret lover, and Regina wants to
laugh in their faces, except that Maleficent’s scent still remains with her
like an almost tangible memory.
King Leopold receives her in her bedchambers, hands behind his back and belly
more prominent than ever, hair pressed down by his crown. He only ever wears
the crown around her when he wants to seem imposing, as if he’s conscious that
not even in his anger he manages to be commanding. He’s had a placid life after
all, and he has no fighting spirit to oppose what he’s referred to before as
Regina’s hysteria. This evening, as he sets half lidded eyes upon Regina, he
rains actual fury on her, his cumbersome frame shaking with his frustration.
With the waning light shining behind him and casting a long shadow on the
floor, Regina can almost imagine imperiousness that the king doesn’t actually
posses.
Regina laughs when he lectures her on her duties as the queen and rages about
the rumors that mill about the castle.
“Is that it, Regina?” he questions, making a weak attempt at crowding her by
stepping into her personal space, using his height advantage to try and cower
her own stance. Regina’s known true grandiose presences, though, and she
doesn’t even wince at his weak attempts at gaining the upper hand.
“Is it another man?” he asks again and again, his voice overwrought with
emotion. “Is there a secret lover, my queen?” And he shakes her, hands big on
her forearms, and Regina wonders if what he truly wants is to squeeze and
squeeze until there’s no breath left inside her.
She laughs, laughs at him and at how pathetic he truly is. “How could you
possibly blame me if there was, Your Majesty?”
He grunts, his anger heightened by her words and the easy dismissal of her
tone, and when he shakes her harder she tries to free herself from his grip,
rocking violently. For all of his weakness of spirit the king is stronger than
her, and when he continues to hold her, she fights until she can free one arm
long enough to slap him across the face, her hand firm in her touch. The harsh
sound makes him stop, and bringing his own hand to the now reddening spot on
his face, he deflates immediately, his rage as quick to go as it was to appear.
His eyes soften as he looks at her, and Regina wonders is she looks as feral as
she feels, if he thinks her a savage. Whatever he sees in her makes him lift a
flaky hand to her cheek, touch the pads of his fingers to her flushed skin,
probably not realizing that Regina prefers his fury to his tenderness.
“I apologize, my queen, but I was ever so worried. I was afraid someone may
have hurt you or taken you for themselves; you are so very beautiful, after
all.”
Regina’s eyes flash at the admission, her skin bristling as the king’s hand
moves to rest at her neck. “You think me beautiful, Your Majesty?”
He smiles, clearly thinking that he’s conquered her, that her vanity is somehow
stronger than her ire. “But of course, my queen, surely you know that.”
She smiles, sickly sweet, and in slow and practiced moves takes the king’s free
hand and moves it from her forearm to her breast, pressing it there and forcing
him to cup her through her clothes. She feels nothing but disgust at what fails
to be a caress, but the suspicious surprise she sees in his eyes makes her push
even harder.
“Won’t you touch me then, if my beauty is such as you speak? Won’t you make me
shiver with anticipation, make me quiver at the very thought of your touch,
Your Majesty?” She tilts her head, curious, enchanting, her teeth finding her
lower lip as she grips the king’s second hand and brings it down until it’s
resting between her legs, only the thin fabric of her dress protecting her from
complete contact with his skin. “Why is it that if you find my beauty so
enthralling, such a danger to my own integrity, you insist on mounting me as if
I were an old mare? Oh, my king, but if only you tried you could make me so
very wet.”
Regina’s lips pop at her last word, and King Leopold jumps, as if coming out of
a hypnotizing spell. His eyes, wide as saucers, do nothing to hide revulsion,
and he’s quick to move his hands away from Regina’s body and to take a couple
of clumsy steps to put distance between them.
“You have the devil in you,” he intones. “I should have known better, being
Cora’s child.”
Regina frowns, King Leopold’s words completely unexpected. “What do you mean by
that? What do you know of my mother?”
The king is already leaving her chambers, though, his back turned to her and
his steps quick and firm, as if he can’t get away from her fast enough. He does
stop by the frame of the door, and with the clearest intonation she’s ever
heard from him, he instructs the guard, “The queen isn’t feeling quite alright;
send a bath and supper for her, but make sure she doesn’t leave her chambers
until I deem it appropriate.”
Eyes wide and bewildered, Regina yells out, “You’re locking me up?”
The king’s gone though, coward even in his orders, not willing to be forceful
with her but always ready to use his influence to hold her down. Now more than
ever does Regina feel like a possession, something that the king doesn’t truly
want but that won’t part with in the secure knowledge that she belongs to him.
She stifles a shout, and stomps her feet forcefully against the floor, walking
from one end of the room to another in a weak attempt at focusing her contempt
in something other than destruction. She fails, and a pretty vase that Snow had
filled with fresh flowers for her this morning pays the price, smashing
satisfactorily against the wall and crumbling to pieces on the floor. Regina’s
ready to continue her shattering impulses, but she stops herself when she hears
a familiar giggle fill up the room, quickly followed by Rumpelstiltskin
appearing before her.
“That was quite a performance, dearie. I enjoyed it.”
Rolling her eyes, Regina crosses her arms over her chest. The last person she
needs to be dealing with right now is her so called teacher. “Rumpel, go away.”
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t listen, of course, but rather makes a show of sitting
gingerly at the edge of the bed and crossing his legs as some kind of
distinguished nobleman, quickly following this movement with his most childish,
“No, I don’t think I will.”
“Fine, have it your way, imp.” Regina huffs, and happy to ignore the second
presence in her bedchambers, she continues with her pacing, trying to shake all
her feelings away. It all seems futile, but then, as she stares at
Rumpelstiltskin still resting comfortably on her bed, she blinks at him and
says, “You could teach me that trick.”
“And what trick would you be referring to, dearie?”
“Moving from one place to another; clearly His Bumbling Majesty has no qualms
about keeping his precious exotic pet locked up.” Halting her speech and
squaring her shoulders to make herself taller, Regina requests, “I would like
to be able to escape my prison whenever I deem it necessary.”
“You’re not ready, dearie. It would take you months to master the art.”
“I don’t care. Teach me!”
At her demand, Rumpelstiltskin merely hums, as if deep in thought. It’s all an
act, of course, a part of the obvious joy he takes in his own theatricality,
one that Regina barely manages to put up with on most occasions, particularly
since Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t need to give her request any thought; he probably
knew what she was going to ask before coming here.
Finally, as if taking great pains on her behalf, Rumpelstiltskin waves a
dismissive hand up in the air and stands up with a funny little jump. “I
suppose I could consider making you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Why yes, dearie. If you want to change my lesson plan, you can afford to make
a deal for your wishes.” Pushing his hands behind his back and smiling
knowingly at her, he intones his most favorite saying, “Magic does, after all,
always come with a price.”
Considering, Regina questions, “And what would you have in exchange?”
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t answer immediately, rather taking his sweet time
circling her and letting silence linger between them. It exasperates Regina,
but she lets him play his little game as he wishes, watching warily as he comes
up behind her and doing her best at repressing a shiver when he lays rough,
scaly hands on her shoulders. Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t need height or drama to
be imposing, his mere presence evoking fear even through his ridiculous antics.
Finally, he moves his hand towards her neck, and one of his fingers grasps the
golden chain she’s wearing around it. He pulls, carefully bringing the chain up
until Daniel’s ring, up until then carefully nestled between Regina’s breasts,
comes out from her cleavage and dangles before her. She clutches at the chain
immediately, pulling it back towards her with a sharp tug.
“You can’t have that,” she states.
“Well, that’s a shame, wouldn’t you agree, dearie?”
She pulls once more, until the chain falls away from Rumpelstiltskin’s grasp on
it. “You can’t have it,” she repeats.
Behind her, Rumpelstiltskin takes a step back as he sighs. “No deal, then.”
Regina nods, the chain still firmly clasped inside her fisted hand as she turns
around to face the imp, frown firmly settled in her features. Her first
intention is to scold him in some way or other, but instead she finds her
shoulders sagging, dropping low and hunched. She’s so very tired, exhausted
really, and she just doesn’t have it in her to fight her teacher right now.
King Leopold’s lockdown may be humiliating, but perhaps she could do with some
resting time for herself. Nothing sounds more appealing than a bath and a few
hours of sleep.
“Go away, Rumpel.”
“Sure, dearie, enjoy your cell.”
Regina huffs, saying, “I’ve had worse.”
Rumpelstiltskin’s already gone, though, a cloud of purple smoke the only sign
that he was really here. Sighing tiredly, Regina drops all her weight on the
bed, the comfortable mattress a blessing against her sore limbs. She’s still
holding onto her chain, and without looking at it, she just pushes the ring
back under her clothes, so it rests against her naked skin, warm and solid. She
looks around her, at the spacious bedchamber drowned in the pinkish dawning
light of the late evening and figures that her last statement is nothing but
the truth. As far as jail cells go, she has had far worse than this. The
memories of a dark, dank cellar and full days spent inside, withering and being
starved out are never truly far away from her mind, and so she can’t truly say
that her actual plight is all that horrible. She snorts, loud and unladylike,
and smiles to herself.
“Is that what you were doing, mother?” she speaks out loud, as if mother was
somewhere in the room with her. “Were you being my worst nightmare so that no
one would come even close, making me strong just by making me endure your
punishments? It sounds like your twisted brand of love.”
And it must have been, for after all, what threat can anyone pose to Regina,
when she’s been taught to control every bit of herself? They can hold her, try
to starve her, try to break her as much as they want. After surviving Cora,
though, all forms of abuse will feel like a feeble attempt at hurting her.
Regina laughs, perhaps hysterically so, and looks up at the ceiling tiredly,
feeling numb.
“Oh mother, look at what you’ve made of me,” she whispers. “The queen of the
empty rooms.”
===============================================================================
 
The night of her twenty second birthday, Regina wakes up while the darkness
still lingers outside, and vomits her light dinner. She doesn’t give it much
importance, shrugging it off without care even when she’s not prone to being
sick when she isn’t directly causing herself to be. Anything seems better than
putting up with the Royal Doctor, whom she knows informs the king of her every
visit, and so she chooses to let it pass, nearly forgetting about it.
Forgotten is her birthday as well, but then again that’s not new. She could
have stopped aging when she married Leopold for all the attention that her
growing up gathers, and in any case she’s not particularly keen on reminding
everyone around her of her real age. She would rather make them guess and
whisper, knowing herself safe from speculation of being too old since she’s
younger than most of the court, and a child when standing next to the king.
Snow’s birthday is coming up soon, though, and Regina knows that she has to
come up with just the perfect gift for her. The princess will be fourteen this
year, and she’s growing up beautiful and kind if vastly self-righteous. She’s
not vapid, though, one of Regina’s worst fears, and she appreciates Regina’s
thoughtful presents as well as her well-planned lessons far more than whatever
impersonal luxury she may receive from anyone else. Spending Snow’s birthday
together has also turned into a very particular tradition for the both of them,
just as Regina promised that first year, but she knows that the festivity
doesn’t require any particular preparation other than the clean linens of
Regina’s bed and a table filled with sweet and foreign treats. She may just ask
the cook to make something tasty and sugary with the ripest apples from her
tree this year.
The days in the palace trickle slow and sure, suspended in time by almost
constant damp and cold weather. Regina has learned to appreciate it,
particularly enjoying the cold wind against her face when she rides atop
Rocinante, one of the few things that she still takes a genuine pleasure in
partaking. Tea parties with noblewomen and idle chats in the courtyards are
nothing but a burden, but she has managed to build herself a good enough
reputation to make people forget her origins and their initial reluctance to
her persona. She’s not particularly sure anyone likes her, but she has created
a quiet air of mystery and sadness that noblemen enjoy whispering about, and
has managed to counteract it with open devotion for her step-daughter.
Father, smaller by the day, has settled himself completely in his role as
valet, having seemingly forgotten his own title and upbringing. Regina finds it
sad, but then father always smiles when he’s speaking to Fritz or Johanna, and
always seems impossibly uncomfortable when faced with anyone from his equal
status. Mother would have been appalled at his behavior, but Regina lets him be
as best as she can, happy that he still finds her in the darkness of her room
every once in a while, offering treats just the same as when she was twelve and
they were back at the manor. She can’t help but feel ashamed on his behalf,
though, much more so when she discovers that he’s having some sort of affair
with one of the kitchen maids, something so inadequate and that would rub on
Regina’s own reputation so horribly if it were to be discovered. She doesn’t
have it in herself to be cruel to him, though, and since he seems to be of so
little consequence at court, she simply does her best at accepting his quiet
brand of love and nothing else.
It’s Rumpelstiltskin who acts as the father figure that she needs these days,
even if Regina loathes the idea. Their lessons are as frustrating as ever, but
ever since he sent her to Maleficent, he’s developed the habit of sending her
to meet other magical creatures and magic users, expanding her world through
his impossibly long list of acquaintances. There’s a scary blind witch who
enjoys eating the flesh of children, a strange doctor and a portal jumper that
are Regina’s last hope of ever seeing Daniel again, a gnome with an eerie
laugh, and so on.
Rumpelstiltskin’s lesson become harder and more demanding as well, and after he
applauds Regina for taking her first heart and crushing it to dust, she refuses
to see him for a little over a week. Initially, having the power of life and
death had been exhilarating, and Regina had grabbed at it impulsively and
thoughtlessly, as she’s prone to do these days. Her own sin had caught up with
her soon after, and she’d found herself almost inexplicably sad, looking at her
hands and falling into random bouts of desperate sobbing for days on end.
Rumpelstiltskin had expressed disappointment, and had actually slowed down her
lessons for a time, calling her out as weak and purposeless. When the word weak
had come from his lips, Regina had aimed an impetuous fireball at him, missing
him by miles but prompting her to hone into that destructive instinct with
glee.
“I do like your anger so very much, dearie,” he’d said.
Regina knows she’s turning twisted, not quite her mother but not quite herself
anymore either. She doesn’t remember her last genuine thought, and sometimes
she has a hard time grasping her own feelings, as if she can only prod at them
through the haziness of her own pantomime. The more controlled her outside
persona becomes, the crazier she feels inside, as if her own wits were escaping
her, like dust falling through her fingers, or water slipping away.
Sometimes, she even fools herself into thinking that she could be this for the
rest of her life; the quiet, sad little queen, too different to gentle Queen
Eva to be fully loved, but adequate and sufficiently enchanting in her tragedy;
the loving step-mother, even if her love is untrue and bitter, mixed with
shards of hatred and forever contaminated by blood spilled on the past; the
irritable wife why nothing but a dried up desert between her thighs, condemned
to be eventually forgotten and left alone; the eternal student, full of
potential but incapable of greatness; lacking, forever lacking but always close
enough.
But then Regina’s life always takes the hardest of turns, reminding her that,
after all, she’s not handling things as well as she thinks. This time, it’s the
Royal Doctor that brings her out of her stupor, reminding her of their monthly
revision for next week, and making the past few weeks click into place sharply.
Suddenly, the night of her twenty second birthday isn’t as dismissible as she’d
wanted it to be. And it hasn’t been the only sign, but Regina’s gotten so used
at ignoring her body that she’s been quickly forgetting all the telltales of
the reality that the doctor has brought forward with a single remark. Regina
hasn’t bled this month, and the nausea she’s been feeling as of late can’t be
explained by mere exhaustion. The heavy pain of her breasts, more present than
ever early in the mornings makes sense to her now, just as her urge to empty
her stomach when King Leopold had last visited her and the sugary sweet smell
of rum on his breath had wafted up to her nostrils. It had all been so easy to
dismiss, that she doesn’t want to admit to herself that she must be pregnant.
When the realization hits her, she hides herself in her chambers, hand muffling
a hysterical scream and breath quick, harsh, eyes open wide with incredulity.
She brings one hand to her lower belly, curls it like a claw over the thick
fabric of her dress, digs her nails in painfully, intent on punishing her body
for its latest betrayal. Suddenly, her carefully woven web of lies and
subtleties seems absurd, her restlessness over a revenge that hasn't taken real
shape yet nothing but a way into fooling herself into the thought that she had
something akin to a purpose in life.
She doesn't want this child, this thing forced upon her by the rough hands of a
man she despises, this little insect growing inside her and that belongs to a
family that she refuses to call hers. Hands trembling, shaking with fraught
nerves and disgust, she scrambles with her own clothes, lifts her skirts and
gathers the fabric around her waist until she can press nimble fingers to the
skin of her belly. It feels smooth, much too smooth, and she frantically
searches for a mirror so that she can look at it, find something different and
morbid within it, something deformed. She sees nothing but clean, olive skin,
no physical signs of the destruction that will come to be inside her.
Days pass, slow like molasses, Regina's head constantly hazy and dizzy, and she
finds herself distracted and unfocused, stumped on what to do. Once the doctor
sees her and guesses at her state, the shackles around her wrists will only
tighten, condemning her to be mother to a child that is half Leopold's, when
the mere thought of being the temporary home of something of his makes her sick
to her stomach. Whatever is growing inside her is an unwanted intruder, and
Regina pictures it clawing at her entrails, consuming her, sucking up her
energies and taking valuable life away from her.
She considers getting rid of it, knows that there are tonics and potions that
will kill it, even if they might kill her as well. The thought haunts her,
makes her drag her own nails painfully over her abdomen, white pressure lines
giving way to faint bloody traces. And yet... and yet she can't bear the
thought of losing this thing inside her, this innocent parasite that is half
hers. Years ago, right after losing Daniel, her period had been late and for a
few days, Regina had fancied herself pregnant. She'd thought about how to go
about it, had dreamed of having Daniel's child and raising it as the king's,
fooling everyone around her, and had thought that enough to make her happy,
even with Daniel gone. She'd cried bitter tears when she'd woken up to blood on
her sheets.
Now here she is, with child, as part of a cosmic joke that no one ever thought
to tell her. It had always been a possibility, but when she'd failed to get
pregnant for so long she'd thought herself infertile, or the king too old to
conceive. Here it is, though, this life rooted inside her without permission,
thoughtless and despised just on principle.
The answer comes to Regina a day before her date with the doctor is due, when
she's pulling her hair in a feeble attempt at focusing her blurry thoughts. She
knows that if she has this child she will grow to hate it, will loathe how it
came into existence and will abhor every single sign of affection that its
father will be shown. She'll poison the child, will both show it no love and
teach it to hate. But if she leaves the palace, then perhaps they'll have a
chance. She could forget about revenge, about power and magic and being a
queen, run away and have this child just for herself, love it mindlessly,
unconditionally and have it be hers and only hers, make it be both her second
chance and a source for the love she's been lacking all these past years.
Her mind made up, Regina prepares to make her escape that very night, packing
light riding leathers, a pouch of gold coins and some easy travelling food,
soft breads, cheese and a few pieces of fruit. She dresses herself in faded
browns and dons a heavy cape with a hood big enough to cover her face with.
Once night falls, and before she can lose her nerve, she slips unnoticed to the
stables and prepares Rocinante.She caresses his muzzle with hands that she
refuses to admit are trembling, waking him up from his slumber. Rocinantemay
just be the only real companion she has left, and so she mounts him with
practiced ease, and then rides away as fast as Rocinantecan run.
 
===============================================================================
 
For days, Regina does nothing but ride forward, putting as much distance
between herself and the palace as she can. She has no clear direction, but
lately she's been thinking that she may try her luck with her long forgotten
family. The truth is she doesn't even know if Grandfather Xavier lives still,
or if he would be kind enough to hide a pregnant queen rather than return her
to her rightful husband, but she doesn't have many options available, at least
not until the baby is born. Once she has the child, she can move to some far
away village, claim to be a widow and learn any trade available, make a simple
life for her and her child. Her hands aren't particularly well trained in
anything, but she's resilient and now has something to lose, so she knows she
can survive. If everything else fails, she can pull what little knowledge
Rumpelstiltskin has instilled in her about potions to brew tonics for the
townsfolk. Perhaps she can even dare communication with father once the child
is old enough that the court will have forgotten about her.
That will come with time, though. As of now, she's a pregnant woman traipsing
alone through the forest with few possessions and no way of defending herself.
She knows she's in a fragile situation and that she needs to find a secure
enough roof for her and the thing inside her.
She still has a hard time thinking of it as a tiny person, but she doesn't feel
like clawing him out of herself anymore, even if the little monster won't let
her eat at all. She finds herself being sick after almost every meal, knows
that riding all day until she can barely keep her eyes open isn't really
helping her weakened state, but she can't afford to stop now. She sleeps little
and uncomfortably, finding solace in the depths of the woods during daylight if
possible, fearing being found by men more than beasts. Her fire creating
abilities are still shaky, but she figures she can conjure something fast and
big enough to keep wolves and other predators away. She would rather not out
herself as a barely efficient witch to any human, though.
On the dawn of the twelfth day of her escape, she feels confident enough to try
her luck at a local tavern. She wants to know if there have been news of the
disappearance of the queen, and her body could truly use warm food and a real
bed to rest on. She's not used to the lack of luxury that this trip is forcing
her into, and she feels sore in places of her body that she didn't even know
existed before. A bath, too, may just bring her muscles back to life; she
smells, too, and the heightened sense of smell that this pregnancy has gifted
her with is making it unbearable.
The tavern she ends up choosing is far away enough from the main square of the
town that she almost feels safe going in. It's late and the tavern is dark,
barely lighted by haphazardly set candles here and there, but Regina covers
herself with her hood anyway once she's left Rocinantepasting outside. She
keeps her eyes down and her posture hunched, making herself as small and
unobtrusive as possible as she finds a table in the back corner of the main
room. There's noise and clutter all around her, unfamiliar sounds to her ears
used to the lilting voices of noblemen, and she hates how the harshest curse
words that reach her ears make her flinch visibly. At least no one seems to be
talking about a disappeared queen, and so she does her best to calm down, and
orders herself some mead and stew, asking about a room for the night as well.
She eats slowly, carefully, breaking the soft meat before her with her hands.
She's the hungriest that she ever remembers being, but she forces herself to
slow down in the hopes that the meal settles down in her stomach better than
the cold cuts she's been feeding herself with these past few days. She pats her
lower belly, as if asking her little thing to let her keep one proper meal
down.
She's nearly finished when a man approaches her table, sitting beside her, legs
astride the bench and gaze fixed upon her. He's holding a mug before him and
his smile is broad and knowing, a tease on thick lips. Regina doesn't inspect
him properly, merely looking down and hoping that her clear disinterest will
drive him away. It doesn't, and when a long silent moment has passed, the man
interrupts the quietness with a loud, boisterous laugh. Regina doesn't know
whether he's drunk or not, but the smell of alcohol on his breath is enough to
make her feel sick, the disgust only intensifying when he leans closer to her.
She keeps her gaze steady on her own hands and breathes softly. He doesn't seem
to take a hint, though, and reaches up with rough fingers with the clear
intention of removing her hood.
"Now let's see that pretty face," he mumbles, his words jumbled and rushed, but
Regina bats his hand away with a sharp slap that takes the man by surprise. He
makes a noise that probably means he's insulted, but he's slow enough that
Regina manages to stand up and move away, quickly fighting her way through the
throng of people and reaching the door.
Outside, she doesn't take even a moment to enjoy the fresh air, but rather goes
to find Rocinanteand ride away, forgetting about thoughts of baths and beds and
exchanging them for the secure blanket of a night in the forest. The man hasn't
been deterred from his purposes, though, since Regina finds him standing next
to her before she can mount Rocinante, blocking her way out with a frame that's
bigger than she has anticipated.
"That was rude, wench," he tells her, his broad shoulders drawn forward in a
way that reads threat.
Regina says nothing, evaluating her options with quick moving eyes. She doesn't
see a possible exit, and she doesn't know what this man can possibly want with
her, but surely nothing good. It may be her filled up purse or it may just be
her body, but she's not willing to give any away, so she just waits to see what
he does, hoping that he will somehow find it in him to leave her alone. He
doesn't, but rather steps closer to her, his shaggy blonde hair and rugged
beard giving him a falsely pleasant look, his eyes bright with a shine of
having drunk too much. Before Regina can utter a protest, he reaches forward
for her and grasps her wrist, pulling her forward and away from Rocinantewith
one single sharp tug. He's far too strong for her to fight, but she struggles
anyway, doing her best at pulling away. That only gets him to guffaw
repulsively.
"Let me go, you oaf!" Regina demands with her most imperious tone, even if she
feels like nothing but a scared child in the eyes of this monster of a man.
"Is that a way to treat a friend? You'll make me think you don't like me."
"Let go, I said!"
"Now that's enough of that."
Regina watches him reach forward and for her other wrist as if in slow motion.
She has no doubts of his intentions, but she won't let this oafish, dumb man
stop her escape, or treat her untowardly, not after everything she's survived
thus far. Unaware of where her own thoughts are taking her, she focuses with
sharp attention and shoves her hand forward until it meets the hard planes of a
well-defined chest, and then keeps pushing forward, feeling flesh part around
her wrist until her hand is tightly wrapped around the warm and pounding heart
of her attacker. She hears him gasp and pulls, smirks up at him when he sees
his own palpitating bright heart nestled in her tiny palm. The heart barely
shines, dark swirls covering most of the red brightness of it, and Regina
stares fascinated at it before she squeezes it. The man sags against her,
dropping her trapped wrist and falling to his knees before her as she clutches
it harder and harder.
"Look at you on your knees before me, peasant," she tells him, her smug smile
wider the more the man struggles to breathe properly. His eyes are shiny with
unshed tears now, and if he's hoping to get any kind of mercy with that, Regina
doesn't care. She crushes the heart with satisfaction, opening her palm once
it's gone so she can let the lingering dust slip through her fingers and fall
on the dead body at her feet.
As she rides away from the tavern and the town, she realizes that she won't be
regretting that death.
 
===============================================================================
 
As time passes and Regina puts the palace behind her, she begins to feel more
and more comfortable about her escapade. It's been almost four weeks now, and
even if she's been trudging her way through unknown forests and sleeping on the
hard and sometimes wet ground, she can't help but be relieved. She's
strengthened by her own success, even if she's sore all over, both her hands
and feet having suffered painful sores that had made her wish she'd taken some
salves with her. She'd managed to concoct a calming liquid with some of the
plants she'd found in the forest, but her wounds would just reopen over and
over again. They're starting to grow hard and calloused, though, so she hopes
pain won't be as terrible anymore.
The child seems to have settled better, though, and her stomach is thankful for
whatever she provides. She's hungry all the time, actually, and finds herself
craving the strangest of things.
"You're making me awfully peckish, cielo,"she speaks out loud, her voice
lingering in the air around her and her hand pressing softly against her lower
belly.
She's resting for a while, lying down on the ground and using her cape and
satchel as a makeshift pillow. She's familiar with this position by now, and
also with the strange habit she's developed of speaking to the child as if it
was already here. She's not even showing yet, but when she rests her hand on
the occupied spot of her insides, she fancies that she can feel it under her
skin, listening to her voice. She's more comfortable with the idea of being a
mother now, feeling closer to the child the more distance she puts between
herself and the palace. The life growing inside her feels hers now, as if it
couldn't possibly belong in any way to the king.
She closes her eyes, breathing in the open air, and tries to relax her muscles
as much as the solid ground beneath her allows her to. It's a little bit cold
today, and Regina likes it better this way, since she gets awfully sweaty
during her long rides, and the light breeze feels cleansing on her skin. She'd
dreamed of open spaces often enough while resting in Daniel's arms, and she
finds herself remembering all of those long lost dreams.
"We should move soon, cielo," she says. "I'll fall asleep otherwise."
"And we wouldn't want that now, would we, dearie?"
Regina opens her eyes and stands up in the same motion, her movement so fast
that she stumbles under a sudden dizzy spell that forces her to steady herself
by leaning against the trunk of the tree she'd been resting under. No dizziness
would ever stop her from recognizing that voice, so she doesn't need to look to
know the face that will be greeting her. She still does, and her eyes meet
Rumpelstiltskin 's amused gaze with hatred etched in them.
"Rumpel," she hisses.
"Careful there, Your Majesty, you might upset your stomach jumping about like
that," he tells her, all flamboyance and drama, hands twirling up in the air as
he leans next to her on the tree. "And in your state, too; bun in the oven,
right?"
Regina shakes herself from the impression of being found out by someone she'd
honestly forgotten about in her desire for freedom, never mind that it's his
lessons what have kept her out of trouble in her journey. She has no time for
Rumpelstiltskin's games, and no desire to play them anymore, so she moves away
from him and closer to Rocinante,picking her cape and satchel from the ground
and making herself ready to mount and ride away.
"Go away, Rumpel, I won't be explaining myself to you."
"Oh, dearie," he tells her, his ever-present giggle erupting from between his
parted lips and crawling up her spine as if it were palpable fingers. "It's not
me you should be worried about."
"What do you-"
But Regina doesn't get to finish her sentence, instead following
Rumpelstiltskin's pointed finger with her eyes until she catches sight of five
mounted soldiers, King Leopold's coat of arms proudly printed in their armor.
Regina doesn't have a second to think when she realizes that she's been spotted
even through the cover of the trees, the loud shout of there she is!coming from
their leader prompting her into impulsive action. She jumps atop
Rocinante,forever grateful that she kept riding all of these years and never
forgot her lessons, and kicks his haunches so he runs as fast as he can.
Desperation follows her along with the king's knights, too many to outrun
easily. She has a small advantage over them, though, and she's more agile in
her riding leathers than they are in their clunky armor, so she tries to forget
about her persecutors and merely keeps riding, fast and focused, eyes sharply
set before her. She can't let them catch her, not her and her baby, not her and
her future, not her and her dreams. She's lost so much already, and this time
victory had seemed so very close, just a breath away, that she can't bear the
thought of losing again. So she runs, runs and runs, thinking that she will
make it after all.
There's a smile crossing her lips, wind fast and cold against her face, when
she's brusquely stopped, pain exploding in her left shoulder, as if shards of
glass were tearing through her skin. It's not glass, though, but an arrow
that's wedged itself into her flesh. It's obvious then that the king just wants
her returned but not necessarily unharmed, so even as she feels blood trickling
down her arm, sticking to the leather of her garments and pain pooling down her
arm until she can barely hold onto the reins, she keeps going, her heart set on
her escape, necessary now more than ever.
A second arrow comes close but doesn't touch her, but it's enough to fright
Rocinante into stopping his movements, the sudden stop throwing Regina forward
with a yelp, and then quickly backwards when yet another arrow has
Rocinantelifting his front legs up in the air. Regina holds on as best as she
can, but her arm is numb from the pain and her thighs can't hold her through
the sudden movement, which ends up propelling her towards the ground. Her back
collides against the dirt with a resounding thud, quickly followed by her head.
Her foot gets trapped in the stirrup, and her body gets dragged up and forward
before Rocinantefinally stays still. Before she passes out, all Regina can
think about is the blast of intolerable pain coming from her lower abdomen.
===============================================================================
 
The world comes back into focus slowly, her senses coming back as if she’s
climbing from under murky water, a light at the end and nothing but heavy
liquid pulling her down. It takes her a minute to adjust to the light coming
from outside, which feels too bright against her retinas even if it’s mostly
grey and already giving way to the darkness of night. She feels groggy,
unsteady, and sound reaches her as if everything was far away, except for her
breathing, loud and pant-like against her ears. Her head is pounding, and she
feels sick.
Her first attempt at moving proves fruitless, and her breathing only gets the
more ragged when her limbs refuse to collaborate. She whimpers, the sound
erupting from deep inside her chest and coming out filled with frustration. She
keeps trying, and eventually her heavy arms move at her will and she’s pushing
herself up and into a sitting position. There is a soft mattress under her, but
she feels sore all over, and the moment she makes the biggest effort to
straighten her back and sit, sharp pain stabs at her belly. She gasps, hands
curling on fine, soft linens, and before her mind can register anything else
father’s face comes into focus beside her.
“Slow, cielo,” he says, low and soothing.
Regina blinks at him, her voice catching on the word daddy,leaving her mouth
hanging open, lips parted and stupefied. Father’s looking at her with careful
eyes, and his hands are hovering around her, as if he doesn’t know if he should
touch her but he’s afraid she might collapse. She watches their movement with
weighty lids that demand to be closed, but she fights the fogginess clouding
her senses and chooses to focus her gaze on father’s still frame and his kind
eyes. He looks as if he’s in pain.
“I’m so sorry, my little princess, so sorry.”
She whimpers, knowing what father is apologizing for even before her situation
fully registers with her. She’s in the palace, lying on a soft bed, and daddy’s
sorry. Daddy’s sorry and her lower belly is in pain, acute and dull now, but
persistent anyway. Regina whimpers again, bringing a trembling hand up to her
own mouth, curling it into a fist until she can bite into her own knuckles,
distract herself with a different kind of hurt. She can’t stop her second hand
from reaching down, though, finding its way under her thick gown and touching
the skin of her belly, which she has become so familiar with. She doesn’t find
smooth planes, her fingers bumping instead against the deformed grooves of an
ugly open wound, probably tightly sewn by the expert hand of the Royal Doctor.
She pushes in, feels her flesh complain at the abuse but keeps going until
there’s blood on her fingers, and then seeping into her gown, the expanding red
stain a mockery of her dying insides.
“Cielo, no hagas eso, esp–” (2)
But pain claims her consciousness yet again, blackness a sweet reprieve for her
sorrow.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina comes to and goes back into unconsciousness for a period of time that
she can hardly guess at. Everything is hazy and she hurts in every possible
way. She feels hot at times and then entirely too cold, and finds that her
cumbersome limbs are clumsy and can’t move the covers accordingly. She sweats
all over, the fabric of her gown sticking to her skin and her hair curling
around her face, its length uncomfortable and unmanageable. She hears sounds,
thinks that it’s her whimpers, fancies that she can hear herself shout.
She regains full consciousness on a sunny afternoon, eight days after she first
woke up, and the Royal Doctor is immediately ushered into the room so that he
can check on her, not allowing her time to think. She feels numb enough that
she appreciates the usual cold demeanor of the man, who informs her that she’s
had a fever, but that her scar is mostly healed and she’s recuperating. He
refers to her lost baby clinically, as something disposable and easily
replaceable once she’s up and running again. She tries to glare, maybe yell at
the man, but she’s so very exhausted. There’s a vast expanse of nothingness
inside her, her chest and belly and heart empty of anything honest and
palpable, and upsetting the doctor won’t do her any good.
Once the doctor leaves her, he’s quickly replaced by the figure of her husband.
King Leopold sends the maids away, so that there’s nothing but empty air
between them, and Regina doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say to this man,
so she says nothing. As it turns out, the king seems gobsmacked himself, and so
he paces before her, his steps heavy and seeming to pound against Regina’s
skull. Regina doesn’t look at his face, afraid that his idiotic little eyes
will prompt her into doing something stupid like crushing his useless heart, so
her eyes focus on his limbs, the curve of saggy arms under his thin white
shirt. He has one hand tightly wrapped into the other one, fingers twisting
impossibly, rubbing patterns up and down his wrist. His fingers curl at times,
unbidden, forming a fist full of bony knuckles.
Regina moves, removing the covers from her body and turning so that she can
lower her legs into the floor. Her feet land onto the flat cold surface and she
appreciates the chill that seeps into her skin. She feels woozy from lying down
for so long, but at least doesn’t think that she will collapse back down. When
she removes her gaze from her own naked feet and looks up, King Leopold is
right before her, eyes hard and reproving, accusing her of the worst of crimes.
It was his knight’s arrows that threw her from the horse, but this man will
never learn to place guilt over his own shoulders, not when it’s easier to
consider her wicked and unnatural. She wants to laugh in his face, for she has
never detested him more than at this moment. He says nothing, but his hands
still tremble with barely contained rage, and so Regina does what she does
best, and goads him, provokes him into madness.
“Just do what you want to do, Leopold,” she tells him, enunciating his name
loud and clear, using it for the first time just so it packs a bigger punch to
his ego. “You have wanted to use that shaking hand on me from the first night
we spent together, dear, so stop pretending that you’re better than this and
just do it.”
Raging, nose flaring, he seethes, “That was my child you killed.”
“It was mychild,” she hisses back.
Finally, after all this time, her words prod the king into action, the back of
his hand connecting with her cheek, knuckles first. The clean cut sapphire of
one of his gaudy rings catches on her skin, carving a long, thin incision on
the apple of her cheek, ending close to the corner of her mouth. The stinging
pain acts as a focal point for Regina’s rage, and when a drop of her own blood
reaches her lips, she licks at it. It tastes metallic and tangy, just like the
aftertaste mother’s magic used to leave at the back of her tongue, and it makes
her mouth shape itself into an easy smirk. Leopold’s looking at her, horrified,
if by his own actions or her demeanor she can’t tell. It hardly matters,
though, not when she’s feeling a sort of breeze crawling up her spine,
uncoiling something unknown at the back of her head. It’s her own magic,
usually diffuse and hard to reach, and now suddenly spilling all over her body,
loosening up her limbs and touching the tips of her fingers, the feeling of it
playful and controlled. She reaches into it, and moving her palms up, pushes
forward until the king is tumbling backwards, his heavy body crashing against
the nearest wall.
King Leopold’s expression turns from horrified to stupefied in a second, but
Regina doesn’t relent, instead standing up on legs that feel like water, strong
and steady, trickling their way to where the king is prone on the floor. The
smell of her own magic wafts up into her nose, the scent of cinnamon and apples
clouding her senses, and a thin sheen of purple smoke covers her hands.
“You will never touch me again,” she says, eyes dark and steady on Leopold’s,
her voice deeper than she’s ever heard it, coming from low inside her chest,
the space that she’d thought empty and that’s now filled up to the brim with
power. “You will feel disgust at the mere idea of laying a hand on me in any
way; you won’t know why, but your stomach will roll if you even look at me for
too long, and you will feel nothing but revulsion at your instincts to touch
this body that doesn’t belong to you.” She breathes in, sharp but slow, and
finally hisses, “Now go away, and forget that this ever happened.”
With nothing but satisfaction inside her, Regina watches the king scramble to
his feet and run away from her bedchambers, eyes full of confusion, as if
hypnotized. Once he’s gone, Regina laughs, something close to a cackle, as she
fists her hands at her sides, feeling the exploding power inside her subdue and
come down until it's nothing but a comfortable hum at the back of her head.
She’s coming down from her high slowly, opening and closing her eyes, when all
of her strength plummets to the floor. Standing right before her, at least ten
steps away, is father, eyes wary and posture hunched, small. Regina doesn’t
even have to wonder if he’s seen everything, judging that he clearly has by the
fear etched in his features, the kind of fear that Regina has only ever spied
in him when facing mother. And of course she wouldn’t notice him, not with how
good father’s gotten at hiding himself in the shadows. She’s momentarily
stunned, and she impulsively parts worried lips and reaches out a hand that’s
left lingering in the air when father takes a hasty step back.
“Daddy, I…”
“Cielo, no importa, no pasa nada, yo…”And father’s tone is rushed, his words
thoughtless in that way they get when he doesn’t really know what to say. (3)
Regina stares, and as the moment stretches between them, she realizes that
she’s angry. Her fisted hands are quivering by her sides, and all of her
strength is leaving her, making her body want to give up and crumple to the
floor. She’s tired, tired of everything, and father’s looking at her as if
she’s a monster.
“Get out, daddy,” she snaps.
“Regina, cielo…”
“Just get out! Por favor, papi, vete… sal de aquí.” (4)
He does, of course he does; never one to put up a fight, her father. How angry
she is, how she hates that she sees the king in father’s figure, a weak man
that has never done anything for her. Father loves her, so very deeply, but as
many times as he’s sneaked into her rooms to offer her a treat or a soft and
familiar caress, he’s nothing but comfort in the darkness. Father’s never stood
up for her, has never truly protected her from the hurt that has plagued her
all her life, and for all that she resents him, she can’t bear the idea of him
when the world is destroying itself around her yet again.
She lets out a sob once she’s left alone again, her throat clogging with
emotion over the innocence lost, and feels her body give up on her, the
soreness that her magic had made her forget momentarily now coming back in
spasms filled with pain. Her legs feel wobbly, and they shake under her and
begin to take her down. Sure that she will collapse on the floor, she lets out
a surprised gasp when a pair of arms catch her weight, supporting her easily.
There, right beside her and hoisting her up is none other than Rumpelstiltskin,
his grip stronger than his lithe body would suggest once he has her in his
arms, bridal style. Any other day Regina would have fought the intimate touch,
but she’s drained of all of her energies, so she allows herself the weakness of
curling her hands on the leathery fabric covering Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulders,
her fingers catching on a few locks of his absurd hair.
He leaves her on the bed, his movements as careful as she’s ever known them to
be, and when she looks up at him he’s standing with something of a pensive
look, genuine in its confusion.
“I will say, dearie,” he tells her, voice low and surprisingly devoid of his
usual dramatics, “that was quite… unexpected.” At this he giggles, recuperating
a little of his usual demeanor with a smile that’s half mocking and half fond.
“How refreshing.”
Regina just stares at him, letting the moment stretch between them. It may just
be the first time that the little imp has given her something close to a
compliment. With a smile and gathering her last bit of strength, she
straightens her posture on the bed, raises her chin up. “We will continue with
lessons tomorrow,” she intones, amused demand hidden in her words.
Smiling, and pointing a golden tipped finger at her, Rumpelstiltskin confirms,
“Tomorrow.” Then, he leaves in a cloud of purple smoke.
Once alone, Regina sags, giving into her body’s request for rest. She feels
sweaty and a little dirty, so she removes her sleeping gown with tired arms and
lays down naked under the covers, feeling the soft linens slide over her skin
in a way that she finds calming. She rests her hand on her belly, a healing
scar now forever etched on her skin, a reminder of yet another loss. Everything
feels wrong, lopsided and destroyed, so she will do what she’s learned to do by
now: construct again, reshape the world around her to fit her new state of
mind. She’s just symbolically chosen her magical fake father over her real one,
so she knows things are going to take a whole new turn.
As she closes her eyes, thoughts of change swirling inside her, her stomach
grumbles. She’s suddenly hungry, just not particularly sure for what. With a
smile, she conjures an apple right from her tree and into her hand, touches the
shiny red skin covered by a thin sheen of dew. She bites into it, the crunchy
sound of her teeth tearing into its hard flesh filling her with elation.
Chapter End Notes
     (1) It's like a little piece of home, daddy.
     (2) Cielo, don't do that, wai-
     (3) Cielo, it doesn't matter, it's fine, I...
     (4) Please, daddy, go away... get out of here.
     -------
     Ok, so this thing has taken over my life, but thank you all so much
     for the wonderful response to the first part. :)
     Also, I'm sorry about the bunny. Except not really because bunnies
     are horrible creatures.
***** Part III *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW2: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW3: Mentions of past miscarriage.
     TW4: A short instance os sexual assault.
     TW5: Also, the farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil
     Queen tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence.
     -
     AN1: Graphic Dragon Queen follows.
     AN2: Translations in the notes at the end :)
     AN3: Also, ok, so I've been desperately trying to work out a timeline
     that is canonically correct for this, and I've tried very hard to get
     most of my facts straight but Once is inconsistent as hell (like
     guys, I constructed charts and Excel sheets, and I still can't wrap
     my head around certain things). Any case, the timeline and age range
     I'm working with for this fic is as follows, in case you're
     interested:
     1. I figured Regina marries Leopold at 18, when Snow is already 11
     (she's 10 in The Stable Boy but I assume some time must pass between
     the proposal and the wedding), making them have an age difference of
     7 years.
     2. Regina remains married to Leopold for 10 years, making her 28 by
     the time of his death, and Snow 21.
     3. From that point on to Snow marrying Charming I set a frame of 6
     years. The show gives the impression that this isn't such a long
     time, but the Snow that runs from the palace in The Heart Is A Lonely
     Hunter is coded as quite young (seriously, check out the rosy cheeks
     make-up on Ginnifer), and there's a lot to cover during those years.
     Snow must live with Red for a while, meet/fall in love with Charming
     and everything that follows, eat the apple, get TLK, fight a civil
     war against George and Regina, win said war and then get married.
     Also, I assume this period needs to last several years for Regina to
     become the legendary Evil Queen.
     4. Anyway, a year later more or less, the curse is cast, making the
     Snow and Regina trapped in time 28 and 35 respectively, mostly
     because it's weird for me if cursed Snow is younger that Emma. (Also,
     I code Charming as a couple of years older than Snow).
     So that's it, that's the day's rambling. Clearly, I am thinking about
     this more than the creators. This is a problem.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Regina is locked up in her bedchambers for three months by orders of the king,
concern for her health being the excuse uttered by the doctor on his daily
visits. Regina sneers as he says these words to her, letting him know just how
little they’re fooling her with their so called worry, how easily she can tell
that the king wishes to punish her by reducing her world to four walls and a
balcony that she’s advised not to step into for too long a time. She would
throw a tantrum, if only to upset the king’s fragile character, but she’s
secretly glad that she has some time to herself, to regroup and put herself
back together away from the pressure of the court. She can only guess at the
gossip that’s milling about the palace; she will have to take care of that once
she’s left to roam free again, but for now, she can forget about those kinds of
matters.
King Leopold only allows visits from the Royal Doctor and from lady’s maids he
handpicks and changes intermittently, as if he’s afraid she may struck some
kind of complicity or friendship with one of the servants, that she may somehow
find some comfort in the consistency of a known face. Father is allowed near
her as well, but after he saw her perform magic he’s shier around her, afraid
and small in that way that reminds Regina of their days back at the manor,
where mother’s hand had ruled their lives. Regina hates it, and even hates him
a little for it, for his lack of faith in her. It’s an uncomfortable sort of
feeling, jarring in a way that upsets her. She’s gotten used to despising the
people that surround her, has made herself comfortable around vapid
personalities that she secretly abhors, but having negative feelings towards
her father is a completely different matter. She doesn’t have the strength to
reassure him, not right now, and she wishes he was strong enough for both of
them for the time being.
Regina’s imprisonment, however humiliating and infuriating, is not particularly
harsh for her. One would think that a royal figure being held hostage within
her own rooms would be a terrible fate, but then not many royals have grown up
under Cora’s unwavering and punishing hand. Regina’s bedchambers are large and
filled with light, and the king isn’t villainous enough to try and starve her
out, so there are three meals a day for her, plentiful if boring. Compared to
dark cellars and foodless days, this whole ordeal is almost pleasant. Despite
all that, perhaps the king isn’t as foolish as she had thought, since he has
forbidden any spicy food to be brought up to her, once again using her health
as an explanation. All her table offers is barely cooked vegetables and
tasteless porridges, which the Royal Doctor claims are restorative and
energetic. Still, Regina eats what they give her, not even attempting to
conjure up something else. She’s once again feeling as if eating is a chore,
rather than an unbidden pleasure, and misses the new hunger that her little
thing had brought to her.
She does her best at not thinking about what happened, but with the constant
visits of the doctor it is hard not to do so. Even if he were to stay away,
she’s constantly reminded of the havoc that’s been wrecked upon her body. For
days after she finally regains full consciousness and manages to walk around a
bit, she bleeds a pungent, dark and dense sort of blood that feels to her as if
it’s so much more than that, her body cramping up and stabbing her with pain
worse than during her usual periods. It’s fitting, almost, her body punishing
her for failing to take care of her baby, but she wishes for a reprieve that
only comes after days of stained linens and painful awakenings. Even without
the pain, her scars remain, a thick white line low on her belly, almost smooth
by now, an empty desert of pain beneath it, and a messy and tortured pink
skinned blot up on her shoulder where the knight’s arrow had pierced her, angry
and careless. She pointedly doesn’t look at herself in the mirror, trying to
escape the physical signs of her loss as best as she can.
She doesn’t cry, not for a long time, stuffing her grief up inside her and
filling the ever-expanding void inside her chest with anger that she can tap
into, anger that she can reach easily and use as a shield against the world
around her. If the all encompassing feeling of it leaves her breathless she
only smiles, somehow preferring the burn of fury to the numbness of painful
loss.
Rumpelstiltskin is more than happy to oblige her and use the anger that she’s
offering in his training of her abilities. He becomes her most secret confessor
during this time, ugly giggles and dramatics now easily ignored as Regina
focuses her energies on her magic, on the uncoiling of that comforting hum at
the back of her head that now unravels more easily than ever at her every
command. The little imp has never been happier by her progress, but he’s still
hard on her, cruel in his remarks and tough in his teachings. Regina finds
herself appreciating his unchanged demeanor. She would hate for him to treat
her as something fragile, or to feel as if she owes him something for being
soft on her. Never more than now has she needed his oppressive tendencies to
take over her life.
It’s a little over a month into her confinement when she receives a secret and
forbidden visit to her bedchambers. When the door creaks open in the middle of
the night, the grey moonlight filtering into the room and giving it a pale hue,
Regina immediately thinks it will be father. She’s glad for a second, thinking
that if father is feeling confident enough to treat her to one of their
midnight visits, then perhaps they can go back to the way they were, but her
giddiness dies soon enough when it’s Snow that walks into her chambers, feet
light and swooshing dress the only sounds accompanying her as she makes her way
to Regina’s bed.
“Oh Regina, you’re awake,” she says, whisper soft.
Regina has to stop herself from snorting; what was the child expecting? That
she would sleep over the creaking sounds of her door? Still, she says nothing,
and merely blinks at her unwanted visitor sleepily. The truth is she hasn’t
thought of Snow at all during this whole ordeal, and her appearance makes her
feel both exposed and vulnerable. She finds herself bringing her covers closer
to her, all the way under her armpits as she sits up on the bed and plasters
her back to the headboard, getting as far away as she can from the princess.
Snow doesn’t seem to sense her discomfort, and reaches out with a pale hand
that she rests over the bedspread, Regina’s leg right under it. Regina looks at
it, long and beautiful fingers offering consolation, but doesn’t take it.
“Father said you were sick, and that I wasn’t to disturb you,” Snow explains.
“I just so wanted to see you, Regina.” Snow’s lips twist into something
disagreeable, so used to getting her way that having a direct order
contradicting her wishes makes her feel utmost discontent.
Regina thinks King Leopold may have thought that he was punishing her by
keeping Snow away, but he’s actually been doing her a favor. The princess, now
looking at her expectantly, is making her feel all sorts of discomfited. She
wonders at what it is that Snow could possibly want from her now, if she hopes
to be used as a shoulder to lean on, or is she’s merely curious, but Regina has
never before wanted her to go away as much as she does at this instant. She
feels her hand curl in on itself, fingers taut, as if wanting to control every
terrible instinct that Snow is evoking in her right now. There’s a vast expanse
of nothing inside her belly, a child that was never to be, and her forced step-
daughter is the last person she wants to face with this emptiness within her.
Why should the princess get to live, after all, when everything that is
Regina’s by choice dies?
“How are you feeling, Regina?” Snow asks again, prodding at her still frame
with words that are getting higher by the second, as if now that she’s inside
her room there’s no need to keep her voice down.
Regina, swallowing a lump of emotion that has lodged itself into her throat,
hard as stones, croaks an unsure, “Snow, dear, I am extremely tired.”
Snow looks at her with stubborn determination set in the frown between her
eyes, clearly bothered by Regina’s lack of enthusiasm at her appearance. The
princess wants her transgression to be celebrated, but Regina doesn’t have her
game face on, and she’s too tired to give Snow what she needs. She hasn’t faced
the court or anyone of importance in a long while, and she’s certainly not
ready to deal with Snow’s demanding demeanor, not when all she has is anger to
run away from her heartache. Just when Regina thinks that Snow is going to give
up, she does the exact opposite, jumping up and fully into Regina’s bed, a
small happy smile adorning her pretty features. She’s grown taller than Regina
thought possible, and suddenly she looks like a looming presence on her bed,
intruding even when her disposition is so sickeningly sweet.
“You get some rest, Regina, I’ll be right here,” Snow commands, moving about
until she’s lying down next to Regina, long limbed frame commandeering one side
of the bed easily.
Regina bites at her lip, physically stopping herself from snapping at the
princess beside her, no longer a child but clearly not ridden of her most
infantile instincts. She wants to kick her out, make her go away and leave her
alone with her own thoughts and feelings, but instead she just lays down
herself, curling into her own frame and with her back to Snow, which seems to
give the princess the excuse to thread her fingers through Regina’s hair. Her
touch is soft, but Regina cringes at it. It’s unwanted and unasked for, and of
course Regina’s life is enough of a cosmic joke that just when she’s managed to
kick the father from her bed, the daughter would come to claim the empty,
unoffered space. Regina wants to scream, and she finds herself with her hand
fisted and her knuckles firmly planted between her teeth, enduring her harshest
bite. If she doesn’t focus on her self-inflicted pain, she may just snap and do
something insane like turn murderous hands on the princess behind her.
“I have missed you so, Regina,” Snow says behind her, her tone wistful and soft
again, a whisper against the back of Regina’s neck. She moves closer, resting
her palm on Regina’s back, under her shoulder blade, right where she can feel
her breathing expanding and contracting her torso, and Regina notices their
breathing merging into a single rhythm, coming together as if they’re one
single person. Snow must find it soothing, as she continues her quiet
confession with, “I miss our walks and our lessons, the tutors father has set
for me are soboring… and you weren’t there for my birthday.”
Still, Regina says nothing, instead closing her eyes as tight as she possibly
can, as if she could conjure up sleep just by wishing really hard. She knows
better by now, though, knows that wishing accomplishes nothing and that only
her own hard work gets her anything at all, but there’s nothing she can do to
get Snow White out of her bedchambers that won’t leave the princess feeling
rejected. Snow doesn’t talk anymore though, perhaps thinking Regina asleep, and
for that Regina is thankful. She has no idea what she would do if Snow would
keep talking about her own sadness over Regina’s absence; Regina has truly made
herself into her favorite toy, and if Snow’s presence wasn’t so discordant for
her now, she may just congratulate herself on a game well played. As it is, she
just needs a little peace, but that night, with Snow breathing softly behind
her, it evades her.
Snow insists in her endeavors, popping up whenever she has a chance, which
happens to be almost every day at the oddest of hours. Sometimes is at lunch
time, when Regina hates that Snow watches her eat while remaining still, other
times it’s while Regina is in the middle of a magical lesson, when it forces
Rumpelstiltskin to disappear in a quick puff of smoke, but most times it is in
the middle of the night, when Regina forces herself to feign sleep just so her
hands won’t be tempted to slip around Snow’s thin neck and squeeze.
In a desperate attempt to recover her solitude, Regina asks her ever shifting
lady’s maids to stop the princess’ advances, claiming that she doesn’t wish for
her to get in trouble for ignoring the king’s orders. No one in this palace is
on her side, though, and no one dares stop Snow from invading her room whenever
she pleases. King Leopold is clearly too much of a fool to know that his
daughter is being untrue in her promises to him, and so it is Regina that is
made to deal with the consequences of Snow’s capriciousness.
One late afternoon finds them sitting together on Regina’s bed, Snow’s hands
softly combing and braiding Regina’s hair. From the outside, Regina guesses
they make quite the sweet picture, Snow’s skillful hands soft as she combs
through Regina’s strands, and Regina with her head bent low, as if relishing
the sisterly caress. Snow has taken to comforting her through these sorts of
touches, and unwillingly, Regina finds them soothing. There’s something
unequivocally familiar in them, and Regina hasn’t been touched lovingly in so
long that she can’t help herself from relaxing into Snow’s delicate strokes.
It’s confusing for her, seeing as she unconsciously tenses whenever Snow gets
close, her hands twisting angrily at the girl’s obliviousness and
intrusiveness. Her back is always ramrod straight when Snow’s in the room, but
something in the touch of her hands to her hair makes Regina unravel, find
comfort where her every instinct tells her that there’s nothing but further
torment.
“I do so wish that you’ll recover soon,” Snow is telling her. “Then we can go
back to our lessons and to riding together; don’t you miss it?” Snow wonders,
continuing her speech immediately without leaving a single breath for Regina to
possibly utter an answer. “Father has promised me a new steed this year; Winter
Roseis getting old, but I will miss her, isn’t she the most wonderful horse? Of
course, as I grow older I shall need – Regina, are you even listening?”
Snapping out of her own mind at hearing her name, Regina waves a dismissive
hand that she makes sure Snow can see. She has years of experience now
listening to Snow’s prattle, and is an expert at catching most of her speech
without paying any real attention. “Yes, yes, dear, of course; horses, your
father, do tell me more.”
Behind her, Snow snorts, giggling then a little as she moves about until she’s
besides Regina and looking at her face. Her movement makes the bed bounce, and
Regina can’t help but scowl at the disturbance.
“You’re so distracted,” Snow accuses, laying carelessly on the bed, her hair
and dress falling around her in a disorderly fashion. If Regina hadn’t seen her
be the most proper lady when in the presence of members of the court, she would
think her completely unfit for her role as princess and heir to the throne.
“Excuse me, dear,” she replies, voice cold and eyes settled low on her own
hands. She knows she’s being mostly short with Snow these days, but letting her
talk has usually worked quite well, and Regina finds that the least she
interacts with her, the easier it is for her to ignore her worst instincts.
Waving a dismissive hand before her, as if Regina’s distractedness is of no
importance, Snow wonders, “When will you be leaving your chambers, Regina? It’s
been months, and you seem better.”
Regina feels like very unkindly referring Snow to her father, Regina’s jailor,
and the owner of the answer to that question, but despite everything, Regina
still knows how to keep her composure. Her masks and walls are working their
way back around her, so she very easily finds herself smiling a little sadly
and sighing as she answers, “As soon as the doctor deems it appropriate.” Then,
as if resigned, “I do hope it’s sooner rather than later; I’m feeling quite
alright, and I do miss our riding lessons.”
She smiles wistfully, and spies the ease with which Snow’s features take on a
determined and stubborn expression. She may just ask her father for Regina’s
freedom, and as much as Regina hates owing her anything, she’s not above using
her influence over the princess in certain matters. Truth be told, Regina had
welcomed her solitude and confinement to a certain extent, but her bedchambers
are starting to feel stifling, even when spacious and full of light. She’s
entirely too bored, even when she has Rumpelstiltskin giving her lessons and
leaving books behind for her to keep up her magical studies, and she’s starting
to feel like a bit of a caged animal. Just yesterday, she’d thrown a tray full
of bland food against the wall in a fit of rage, and then had berated herself
for her loss of temper. It’s definitely time for her to return to her queenly
life, and Snow is her best chance for a quick recovery.
Silence lingers between them for a while, Snow more than happy to play with the
soft covers of Regina’s bed as she rearranges herself to lie down on her
stomach, her face propped on the palms of her hands. She makes the perfect
picture of an innocent princess, cheeks rosy even though her skin is fair, lips
full and pink, and long, black hair framing beautiful and round features. It
seems to Regina that she’s ripe for the taking, the perfect fantasy for a king
or a prince that desires virtue and beauty, that wishes to turn it into womanly
wiles. Regina wonders, for a second, whether she ever formed a picture quite as
perfect as Snow, or if all she ever evoked was harsh and strange allure
surrounded by permanent sadness.
Shrugging her thoughts away, but feeling suddenly defeated, she breaks the
silence to request, “Won’t you allow me some time alone now, my dear Snow? I
may fall asleep on you otherwise, and any case, you know you shouldn’t be here
when your father has instructed otherwise.”
Snow doesn’t leave immediately, but rather assures Regina that father is being
overprotective of her and that she doesn’t mind lingering until sleep claims
Regina. It is nearly impossible to get the child to do as she’s told, after
all, so Regina resigns to her fate with a quiet little sigh and does her best
at pretending to fall asleep, letting her breathing be steady and strong, and
her limbs relaxed but still. Snow must see over her trick, or perhaps must
think her trying to gain sleep when none will come, but she sits up on the bed
and reaches out for Regina’s hand, threading their fingers together and
squeezing softly, as if reassuring Regina of her presence. Regina has half a
mind to ignite fire in her palm and burn Snow’s thin fingers to a crisp.
“Regina…” Snow says finally, her tone lingering and somewhat curious.
Her speech reveals nothing more, though, so Regina just gives up and opens her
eyes owlishly, blinking up at Snow and wondering, “Yes, dear, what is it?”
Snow bites her lip, unsure, and that immediately perks Regina’s interest. She’s
never known the child to filter any of her speech, or to feel self-conscious
about asking something. Whatever it is that is on her mind, it must be at least
amusing.
“There have been some… rumors going through the palace.”
Regina rolls her eyes, suppressing a snort; she can just guess at which kind of
rumors have been spread about her and her mysterious absence. “Do tell, Snow,
and don’t be coy; I won’t be surprised by anything this court has to say about
me or my behavior.”
“Well, it’s…” Snow shrugs, her fingers moving uncomfortably against Regina’s
own hand, and gods, but even just how distressed she is makes Regina feel
delighted. “They’re saying that you… that you have a secret lover! And that
father is only keeping you here as punishment.”
Regina laughs, and it’s easy and carefree. It seems to her that the court is
anxious to assign her secret lovers, when all she has is a secret dark arts
teacher and an inescapable emptiness inside her that no man could hope to fill.
Her laugh eases Snow’s suddenly serious demeanor, and Regina watches as her
shoulders sag forward in her relief and the blush that had tainted her cheeks
at her admission begins to fade. There’s something sweet about Snow’s innocence
that never fails to strike Regina as pungent and fake, for how could this girl
be claimed virtuous when she has so much of Regina’s blood on her hands? Today
though, in the face of the court’s absurd rumors, she finds it almost
entertaining.
“Oh Snow, you’ll learn soon that courts thrive on gossip, particularly that
which pertains kings and queens. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about
such things, dear. These rumors will quiet down soon enough,” she reassures,
even going as far as reaching out for a soft caress to Snow’s cheek, a gesture
of affection that she’s perfected over the years and that she knows Snow
craves. “Surely you don’t think me false in my love for your father,” she
states, letting her lilting tone ask a question that expects nothing but an
affirmative answer.
“Of course not, Regina! I would never believe that yo–”
“Then that’s all that matters to me, dear,” she says, a soft smile claiming her
lips. “Now do run along, it’s getting late.”
Snow does listen this time, perhaps because the light is starting to wane
outside, and she knows that the maids will be up shortly with Regina’s supper,
and that she must take her own as well. She says her goodbyes with a dry but
soft kiss to Regina’s cheek and then leaves the room in harried steps, her
teenage limbs making her charmingly awkward.
Finally, Regina is left alone, resting against plushy pillows and wondering
about her next steps. She will clearly have to do some damage control as soon
as she’s out of this room. She can’t allow everyone around her to think her a
heartless harlot with no respect for her king, but she won’t be seen as some
kind of weak creature succumbing to sickness so easily either. She will have to
weave her own story into the rumor mill, make sure that it’s her own invention
what takes over the collective mind of this court that still so clearly belongs
to King Leopold. That will be the first order of business, and then, she will
have to start claiming her rightful place as queen, and making sure that
everyone knows that perhaps the king isn’t the best choice when it comes to
laying down their loyalties.
 
===============================================================================
 
The first day out of her confinement, Regina walks around the palace with her
head held high and her eyes searching, doing her best at evaluating the new
situation she finds herself in. She’s chosen one of her softest dresses, light
blue over a soft creamy blouse, sufficiently covered up that most of her figure
is hidden under the fabric. She wears her hair down as well, hoping to project
a young, careful and shy image, as if she’s truly nothing but a convalescing
sweet queen glad to come back to court life. As unobtrusive as she’s made her
image to be, she knows herself followed by curious looks, particularly since no
one seems entirely too preoccupied with being subtle about them. She chooses to
smile softly when she catches someone’s gaze, but remains quiet for most of the
day, allowing everyone to speak around her so that she can gather what thoughts
are the ones conquering the court. She hears whispers of secret lovers and
unwanted children, and a particularly creative suggestion of being kidnapped by
a jealous king from another land. All rumors but one seem harmless enough, and
Regina already knows how to dismiss them, but she’s worried when she hears
someone insinuating witchcraft and dark powers. She has to quench those ideas
away as soon as possible.
In order to set the rumors at ease, she bets on the ever predictable Baroness
Irene and her unquiet tongue. She summons the woman for a late supper after a
few days of silently roaming the palace, and makes sure that they’re provided
with sweet tea and those minty chocolate pastries that the woman loves so much.
She sets them on the comfortable couches by the window of one of the communal
chambers of the palace, the one where she usually holds her meetings with
members of the court, and makes sure that there’s no one else around for the
occasion. She even asks the baroness to come alone, rather than bring along
whatever new protégé she’s dragging around these days, hoping to create an air
of intimacy with the woman.
They exchange pleasantries, but soon enough Regina broaches the subject of the
gossip surrounding her figure, and the baroness is more than happy to oblige
her and share every last juicy bit. Regina’s pleasantly surprised to know that,
while the court is happy to talk about her, no one seems entirely ready to
fully believe words that speak badly of her. No one seems to know her enough to
judge her character in such matters, but everyone is more than happy to think
her young, quiet and entirely too loving towards her step-daughter to be
anything but virtuous.
“Perhaps, my beautiful darling, you could assuage all of our minds by sharing
the truth,” the baroness says with finality, one thick fingered hand busy
making crumbs out of a perfectly fine pastry. Regina feigns doubt, teeth
digging sideways into her lower lip and eyes shifty, and that prompts the
baroness to reach out and hold her wrist, forgotten pastry now probably getting
lost somewhere in the big cushions of the couch. “Surely you know I would never
think ill of you, Your Majesty.”
Regina would smile at how easy playing this game with the baroness is, but she
doesn’t want to break her façade. Instead, she looks about herself as if
nervously ascertaining that they’re alone, and reaches for the woman’s plump
hands, as if in need of reassurance. She finds them powdery but surprisingly
pleasant, her touch just the right kind of gentle.
“I feel that I mustn’t, baroness,” she whispers, false fear and inexperienced
childishness written all over her features.
“Oh you beautiful child,” the baroness chides, as if scolding her for being
distrustful. She squeezes Regina’s hands, and steadily says, “You can trust
me.”
“You aremy greatest confidante, baroness, surely you know that,” Regina tells
her, easily finding the woman’s ego and pressing her words into it. The woman
is leaning towards her now, eager to obtain Regina’s secret confession, and
Regina, blinking false tears away from her eyes, is more than happy to oblige
with her fabricated story. “The truth is there was a gentleman–”
“Oh?”
“Someone of no importance; I barely looked at him twice! But His Majesty is so
protective of my virtue and was so afraid that someone may have stolen my
affections away that he chose to keep me away from court all this time.”
“Oh my dear child.”
Regina closes her eyes briefly, giving way to her fake grief with gusto,
relishing the play she’s putting on for this inconsequential woman, satisfied
by how easily she can pull the strings. Surely no one will doubt a tale of
woeful love for a king that has barely been seen next to his young wife, not
when Regina has shown sadness and pride as her personal shields. Inspired by
her own tale, she drops to the floor, knees first, and then swiftly hides her
face in the baroness’ lap, pressing her face to the soft fabrics of her ghastly
dress. She needs this woman to spread the rumors that she’s being fed, and she
wants her story to be one of a trapped and anguished young queen. She wants the
court to pity her fate and to look at King Leopold under a different light, to
make him the villain in this story and her the virtuous martyr.
“How could he ever think that I would ever betray him?” Regina continues, big
eyes now facing the baroness from her place on the floor. “I do love him so,
baroness, but he barely bestows his looks upon me; I believed he thought me
beautiful but I must not be desirable enough for such a noble man.”
“Don’t be silly, my darling, you are as beautiful as the waning light of the
evening,” the baroness assures her, carding her hands through her hair in a
motherly gesture and making sure that Regina is resting comfortably on her lap.
“Now rest, child, and let the baroness coddle you.”
Her tale of misfortune spoken, Regina’s not surprised when the whispers about
her subside during the next few days. Baroness Irene works fast, and surely
she’s taken great delight in spreading the story of the queen crumbling before
her and crying about her gloomy fate. She can only imagine just what kind of
exaggerations the baroness will have added in her gossiping, but she knows that
she will come out as nothing but favorable with the way she insisted that the
baroness was her truest and only friend and confidante in this fearful court.
Soon enough, Regina gets invited for tea and lunches by some of their visiting
royals, and is even offered a lesson in embroidery by one of the eldest
countess’ roaming the palace that fortnight. She has founded the whispers, and
now there are shades of suspicion thrown Leopold’s way, both men and women
wondering how the king can be so cruel to his young and gorgeous bride, who has
such a sweet disposition and loves him so dearly.
As Regina’s life begins going back to the shape she’d gotten used to; riding
and walking through the gardens, lessons with Snow and hours spent by her apple
tree, tea and pastries while staying quiet so the nobles fill her ears with
gossip, she knows she’s done well, and that it’s about time she started taking
a more active role in this court that has decided to take her side, if only
just this once.
 
===============================================================================
 
A few weeks later, once Regina feels as if she’s regained her footing within
the court, she decides that it is time to make some changes. This palace where
she lives, ran and ruled by King Leopold, has been nothing but a prison, and so
far, Regina has played her cards to her utmost benefit, but now she’s starting
to realize that perhaps she hasn’t had as much vision as she thought. She’s
carved herself a place in Snow’s heart and in the court’s collective mind, has
bled for the reputation that she upholds, and has even allowed her father’s
pride to slip through her fingers just to make her path easier to shoulder.
Despite all that, and even when Regina has been steadily working on having King
Leopold’s kind and affable character questioned, she’s very conscious that
nothing and no one but Rocinante,father and an apple tree belongs to her. She’s
entering her fifth year of marriage, and it’s about time she has something more
than a few memories stolen from her childhood to show of her time as queen.
As a first measure, Regina hires a personal guard. She handpicks six sturdy men
from the closest town, their origins questionable and their intentions unclear,
and fits them into heavy, black garb. She arms them and gives them the name
Black Guard, making sure that they look as different as possible from King
Leopold’s army. Leopold can’t force her to give up the idea, but he scolds her
for her choice, claiming that she should have taken a few good men from his own
guard if she wished for protection. Regina needs men that are her own, though,
who have no loyalties to the king and who won’t inform him of her every move.
“But I know these men personally, Your Majesty,” she argues. “For example,
Claude here,” and she points at the man behind her, “has a three year old son
and a lovely wife back home. He’s been a farmer and has defended his lands many
a time from ogres and thieves. I couldn’t possibly hope to get to know yourmen,
Leopold.”
Leopold flinches when she uses his name, and it makes Regina smirk. She has
barely seen him since she placed her curse upon him, seeing as he’s indeed lost
all interest in bedding her, and this newfound dynamic they have amuses her.
He’s nervous around her, always shifting from foot to foot and avoiding her
gaze, afraid and anxious, as if he can’t wait to leave the room. When Regina
looks at him, so old, so foolish, she feels nothing but contempt, and thinks
that there will never be punishment harsh enough for the many a time she has
supported his weight above her and he has forced himself on her.
Regina gets her way, and so she begins to be seen constantly followed by a man
in black. She organizes a fair and tight schedule for them, makes sure that
they’re properly bathed and fed, hires a Sword Master to keep them properly
trained and fit, and as she told Leopold, she gets to know them. She makes sure
to know their names and their stories, assures them that their families' needs
will always be provided for, and even dismisses whatever minor crimes they may
have committed in the past. They’re hermen, her Black Guard, and with them at
her sides, Regina begins to feel the exhilarant pull of being a true monarch.
Her wardrobe is also scrutinized and changed, Regina getting rid of dresses
that make her look like a little girl. She’d been worried for a long time about
looking too old in the eyes of the court, about having the expectations of
motherhood become greater as people realized that she wasn’t actually a child
anymore, so she had cleverly hidden herself behind common and light fabrics, as
well as shapes that didn’t hug her body or show too much skin. It’s about time
she stops being a child, though, so she has the tailor work with new fabrics
and shapes, making sure that she has darker colors to choose from, tight
corsets to frame her torso, snug pants that allow for movement and figure
hugging dresses that draw attention to her curves. She stops wearing her hair
down as well, putting it up in simple yet high hairdos, so her neck is
beautifully exposed, elongating her figure, making her seem taller, in
possession of whatever room she walks in.
With this new disposition, she begins choosing her outfits carefully, allowing
for lighter and sweeter looking dresses during the day, or while she walks
around the gardens with Snow, and outfitting herself in a tighter and darker
fashion for the evenings, when she roams the palace with her chin held high and
her eyes at half mast, silent yet confident. It makes people believe that she’s
hiding something, that there’s unfathomable mysteries behind her posturing, and
that she’s merely trying to survive a husband that won’t look at her. In a way,
they’re right, just not in the fashion they think. Regina is not surviving
being unloved, but merely covering herself with enough layers that they won’t
suspect that her actual weapons are dark magic and a past full of blood.
For her twenty third birthday, Regina chooses to make a great entrance, and so
she dresses herself in a midnight blue dress made of some kind of stretchy
velvet that hugs her body nicely, heightening her shape in ways that she finds
oddly pleasing. She’d had it made a long time ago, on a whim, and had never
found the right occasion to wear it, but tonight, after a few expert touches
from the seamstress and paired with high heeled boots that are cleverly hidden
under the fabric of her skirt, her eyes and lips painted dark and her hair up
in a twisted and big bun, it seems perfect to her. She’s staring at herself in
the mirror when the maids enter her bedchambers with her dinner, father
following closely behind.
“I won’t be having dinner tonight, thank you,” she intones. The maids, huffing
and puffing at her lack of forewarning, step away from the room carrying their
trays with them.
Father remains tough, and as quiet as he’s been around her lately, tonight he
actually manages somewhat of a stern expression as he tells her, “Cielo,you
should eat something.”
“I will eat with the court and my family tonight,” she intones, voicing her
plan and trying not to physically cringe when referring to Snow and Leopold as
her family.It seems like too much of a crime against herself when her father is
standing before her.
Regina has never taken her suppers with the court, has never been truly
invited. Then again, she has never been forbidden attendance either, and she
can hardly be blamed for wanting a little attention on her birthday. She hopes
to cause a bit of a stir, today of all days, when the palace is filled up to
the brim and when she knows Leopold has chosen to have a big dinner in one of
the biggest halls with just about everyone in the palace, rather than choosing
a quiet meal with just a few of his subjects, as usual. The chance to bring a
little more gossip to the table is certainly amusing, and knowing that she can
lean on Snow’s presence while making the king quiver with discomfort makes her
feel cruelly satisfied.
She barely spares a thought to all this, not when daddy is standing before her
and looking as unsure as she remembers ever seeing him around her. She thinks
of birthday balls back at the manor, of dancing around with him, no rhyme or
reason to their movement, of sweet, honest laughter. Something painful clenches
inside her chest, this distance that they have been keeping from each other
suddenly heavy and burdening.
Not truly knowing what to say, Regina flattens her hands on her own hips, and
makes as if to straighten invisible wrinkles from her dress. Then, hoping to
make father lift his gaze up from the floor, she asks, “How do I look, daddy?”
It’s immediate, father’s eyes travelling up to her face as his lips take on a
sweet smile. His usually smooth voice trembles when he says, “You always look
beautiful, my little princess.”
It strikes a chord deep within Regina, and she feels her chest unravel and fill
up with unbridled emotion. In three long steps she’s reached father and she has
her arms around him, tight and secure, and her face hidden somewhere in the
fabric of his jacket. He hugs her back, his embrace making her feel safe and
small, even when it seems to her that father’s frame has grown narrower. She
holds on, steadying herself against father’s body so as not to let a wave of
emotion consume her, make her vulnerabilities conquer her and make her question
her path.
It’s a while before either of them moves, but it’s father who breaks the
standstill, mouthing in a near whisper, “Happy birthday, cielo.”
Regina laughs, short and sharp, but mumbles a thank you, daddywhile still
hidden within his embrace. She feels a little silly all of a sudden, surrounded
in fabrics and paints and high heeled shoes as if that can somehow fix her, or
maybe hide her away until she becomes exactly what she’s pretending to be. It
lasts but a second though, because as much as she’s telling herself that this
stunt is nothing but that, she feels strangely comfortable in her dress, as if
she’s no longer the product of mother’s dreams, but her very own person, making
her very own choices. With father’s arms around her, though, something inside
her breaks, something clogged and nasty that has taken residence within her
chest and that keeps tugging at her heartstrings, and making her want to cry.
She refuses to give in, not tonight when she has a mission and a purpose, so
she steps back from father just a little bit and leaves her hands resting on
his shoulders, so that she can stay connected to him, but giving herself a
little space as well.
“You should come with me,” Regina intones, thinking of walking hand in hand
with her father into the hall and interrupting Leopold’s peaceful meal.
Father shakes his head, though, lowering his eyes yet again. “No, cielo,it’s
better that I don’t.”
And there it is again, that stab of bitterness claiming the empty spaces inside
Regina, father’s refusal to take his rightful place making her furious. Why
should father feel inferior to those insipid noblemen that plague their lives?
They should kneel before him, praise him for his kindness and modesty. Father’s
not proud, though, and Regina can’t force him to be.
“After dinner then, daddy, just you and me?” she requests. “We could have some
chocolate,” she offers, wistful.
“Dark, of course,” he replies, something close to sass in his smile this time.
“The darkest.”
Regina walks about the palace with ease, one of her guards close behind her and
her head held high. When she enters the dining hall, there is a pause filled by
what sounds like a collective intake of breath. Regina can do nothing but
smirk, pleased at the effect her entrance has caused, the ripples of putting on
a little show crawling up her spine with a jolt of pleasure. It takes a moment,
but soon the standstill is broken and there’s a flurry of movement around her,
servants fixing a place for her next to Snow and the murmurs of the court
filling up the silence. Regina catches the eyes of Baroness Irene as she makes
her way to her seat, and lowers her head candidly in a silent salute when the
woman offers her a proud smile.
King Leopold expresses his surprise with kind smiles and grandiose hand
movements, and even goes as far as pushing her chair out for her before she
sits down. Regina must admit that, while stupendously doltish, the king does
know how to play his part properly for his court. He has been raised to be a
king, after all, and it seems as if it’s easier for him to hide his own
discomfort before the eyes of the many than when it’s just him and Regina in a
silent room. Still, when Regina expresses false thankfulness by resting her
fingers on his wrist, he can’t help but move swiftly away, as if burnt.
As always, it is Snow’s enthusiasm what allows the evening to continue with a
shade a comfort falling back into the room. She receives Regina with genuine
affection, telling her that she should most definitely join their meals more
often, and that perhaps it should just be the three of them on occasion, as a
family. Snow’s wish puts a sour expression on Leopold’s face, and Regina may
just consider the request if only to torment him. As the night progresses,
Regina finds herself eating a few morsels of some bland meat that seems to her
overcooked and dry, and barely even looking at anything else. Her demeanor
raises more than one eyebrow, but Regina can’t help but feel disgusted at the
amount of food being consumed around her, at the amount of waste being produced
by all of these overfed noblemen. It seems to her that they’re just eating
what’s being put before them because they can, but not because they’re
particularly enjoying it.
By the end of the evening, when it seems as if everyone is ready to depart the
hall, the surprise about Regina’s appearance seems to have died down, and she
finds herself absentmindedly munching on some grapes and looking about herself
with curious eyes. She doesn’t know if people are pleased to see her or if
she’s making them uncomfortable by changing their routines, and she honestly
doesn’t know which option she prefers. Mother would of course choose fear over
love, and Regina hasn’t fared terribly when following her advice, so perhaps
discomfort is her best bet.
“Regina, I love your dress,” Snow tells her, drawing her attention to her and
eliciting something close to a smile to surge on her otherwise bored
expression. “You look lovely; doesn’t she look lovely, father?”
Leopold doesn’t look her way, busy as he is asking for a fourth refill of his
glass of rum, but effortlessly and without allowing a tremble to enter his
voice, he states, “The queen always looks lovely.”
Regina covers her mouth with the back of her hand to hide away an unstoppable
snort and a deep-throated laugh. What a public animal Leopold is, fooling
everyone with easy platitudes; no wonder she’s been thought cold and proud for
so many years with this man spouting nonsense in everyone’s ears. Destroying
his public persona might just be more gratifying than Regina had anticipated.
Waving a dismissive hand in the air and putting on her best smile, she says,
“Thank you, Your Majesty, I was so hoping it would please you.”
Leopold does look at her then, eyes wide and full of misunderstanding. He truly
can’t wrap his head around her, it seems, and Regina would have kept playing if
not for Snow interrupting them by leaning her head on Regina’s shoulder and
whispering, “It’s so good to have you here, truly. What made you come join us
today?”
There’s genuine curiosity in Snow’s voice, and Regina, who hadn’t truly meant
to disclose the information, finds herself answering with a truth hidden in
kindness, even when for her it’s nothing but vicious. “Well, dear, it is my
birthday today, and I wished to spend it with my family.”
“Your birthday!?” Snow exclaims, her voice high-pitched enough to draw
attention from the people around them, and create a commotion. “Oh Regina, why
didn’t you say so?”
Regina rolls her eyes at the stupidity of this girl. Snow doesn’t notice, busy
as she is grasping Regina’s hands with her own, an emotion that Regina can’t
quite identify crossing her eyes. Perhaps Snow has just realized that there
have been no celebrations for Regina for years, no congratulations or gifts, no
recognition of her as an actual person. It would be just like the little
princess to be completely authentic in her obliviousness.
“Father, did you know?”
The king hesitates for a too long second, but seeing as he’s suddenly
surrounded by curious looks, he reacts with what seems like years of public
courtesy instilled in him, and with a bit of a sheepish smile, says, “But of
course, my dear Snow, how could I ever forget?”
“Of course,” Snow replies, a kindly smile adorning her face as she looks up
adoringly at her father.
King Leopold continues his charade, his tone magnanimous as he speaks now. “I
was hoping to do this in private, alas… I would like to claim profound
knowledge of the queen’s desires, but I’m afraid in this I’m just like every
other man, completely useless.” And he looks around himself, asking with
wondrous elegance, “Am I right fellows in thinking that the female mind is full
of mysteries?”
There’s laughter, and oh but how easily he makes everything into a circus where
he can be the ring leader. Regina would find it in herself to respect him for
his easy maneuvering of the situation if only she didn’t despise everything
that he is, everything that he represents, and everything that he has ever done
to her.
Once again turning his eyes towards them and away from the overly curious
crowd, he continues with, “Perhaps the queen will be kind enough to put me out
of my misery and tell me what it is that she desires for a gift.”
Regina isn’t prepared for this turn of events, not having planned on revealing
the importance of the date, and certainly not wanting anything that may come
from the king’s hands and false generosity. Still, she knows an opportunity
when it presents itself, and considers her options. The first time the king
offered her a present, she asked for an apple tree because there was nothing
that the man could give her that even approached her true desires. She’d wanted
a shred of hope then, and now all her heart wants is freedom and revenge, the
weight of this man’s heart on her hand, and the happiness of his daughter
ruined; not much there that she can possibly ask for. Perhaps, though, there
are shades of liberty that she can hope to obtain, so searching her brain for
the right answer, she comes up with it quickly enough.
“A carriage,” she says, her tone firm and loud enough that she knows their
audience will hear her. They’re putting on a show after all, and she wouldn’t
want to disappoint by being too coy.
“Excuse me, my queen?”
“I would very much like a carriage for a gift,” she repeats. “Surely His
Majesty knows the best of craftsmen, and will not be fooled into buying
anything but the best of qualities; and perhaps four steeds will do nicely?”
She fills her tone with wonder, as if she doesn’t truly know what she’s talking
about, as if she’s not prompting the king into having the best possible
carriage made for her so as to appease the court and its judgment. “Oh,” she
finishes, “and I do find myself liking the color black as of late.”
The king laughs, big and boisterous, as if he’d been planning his response even
before Regina spoke. He opens up his arms, and like that he looks like a kindly
old man, someone ready to please, happy to make others happy.
“Your wish is my command, my dear queen,” he intones easily, and his statement
is followed by applause, a big celebration of this event that no one knew
about, that no one cared about until it was raised to attention.
Regina curls her hand into a fist and smiles through it all, accepting
congratulations with a happy demeanor, as some ditzy girl that couldn’t be more
ecstatic at having reclaimed the attention of her husband.
Later that night, after nibbling on a piece of dark chocolate for too long
minutes and resting her head on father’s shoulder in an attempt at trying to
find some sort of comfort, she finds herself emptying her stomach of whatever
little dinner she’d managed to ingest. She feels sick, rotten to the core,
trapped in a game that she never chose to play, but more ready than ever to
rewrite all the rules, and get rid of all the players.
 
===============================================================================
 
King Leopold delivers on his promise, and a month later, Regina is presented
with a beautiful carriage pulled by four strong, black stallions in a big
ceremony in front of the court. It seems as if Leopold has decided to only deal
with her in public, accepting his fate but rejecting the idea of ever standing
in a room alone with her. It’s a deal Regina can admit, although it won’t stop
her from looking for harsher ways of punishing her undeserving husband. She
can’t deny, though, that the king hasn’t spared any expense, and that the craft
and delicacy of the offered gift pleases her to no end. It’s a carriage fit for
a queen, black as she’d asked, and rare enough in its elegance that no one will
doubt who is nestled inside it.
For her first trip, Regina takes it to the closest village to the palace, happy
to notice that the king isn’t particularly enthused about having her leave the
Royal State. It makes Regina realize that she has barely stepped out of the
palace in the last few years, content with the fantastic gardens and the fields
surrounding it, and too focused on her own anguish to give any thought to the
outside, other than when Rumpelstiltskin chose to send her on a frustrating
trek.
She enjoys the feeling of having her own ride, and delights herself with the
thought of her own image, a beautiful carriage surrounded by the imposing men
of her Black Guard. Her first visit isn’t just for fun, though, as she intends
to find herself a lady’s maid, tired as she is of Leopold changing the women
that tend to her, and wanting someone that belongs to her and her alone. She
discovers with great joy that many a girl is anxious to fill the role, the
position of waiting on the queen certainly appealing for both its reputation
and the money it will bring to whoever fills it. Regina doesn’t want a girl,
though, doesn’t need a friend or a gossip, but a quiet and mindful soul that
won’t reveal her secrets. After all, she’s had more than one scare concerning
her meetings with Rumpelstiltskin, and she wants someone who would stay quiet
if she were to find out the queen’s deepest secrets.
In the end, she finds a woman that pleases her, old by the usual standards but
strong looking and quiet. She’s the aunt of one of the girls who so wish to
serve her, and as far as Regina can tell, she’s been working as a farm hand all
her life, having had no suitors and no opportunity to raise children of her
own. There’s something awfully severe about her features, her lips thin and
seemingly always pressed in a tight and smile-less line. Her eyes, hard and
sharp-looking, remind Regina of mother’s disapproving gaze, and the fact that
she seems like the perfect choice for her because of that particular feature is
something that Regina chooses not to question herself about.
“I expect nothing but the utmost discretion when it comes to my lifestyle,” he
informs her. “You are to be my lady’s maid, and your loyalties will be to me
and only me, not the princess or the king. If I find out you’ve been blabbering
about me around the palace, you will lose your tongue.”
The woman seems unimpressed when she drones her next question. “And will you
cut it yourself, Your Majesty?”
Smirking, Regina’s answer is a swift, “Of course, dear.”
The tightly amused smile that the woman bestows upon her tells Regina that
she’s made the right choice. She has dresses made for her, dark purples and
blacks, simple and comfortable, and soon enough her presence is noted around
the palace, quiet whispers speaking of the queen’s bizarre choices. She’s
pleased with the quietness of the woman, with her efficiency and with how she’s
pledged her loyalties to Regina. Regina feels herself leaning into her with
something close to ease, and so burdens her with all the tasks that she
considers necessary, and doesn’t doubt in making the oddest of requests.
“Sometimes, I forget to eat,” she tells the woman one afternoon, as they’re
walking together through the gardens. “You won’t allow me such behavior
anymore; three meals a day, even if meager. You will force me if you must.”
The woman’s only response is a firm nod, and Regina wonders if she’s ever
raised children despite not having any of her own. She respects Regina but
isn’t above ordering her around, and clearly doesn’t find her particularly
threatening, and Regina doesn’t know why she finds comfort in her severe
attitude, in her lack of any real affection. Thinking of Johanna, Snow’s most
beloved member of the staff, Regina wonders why it is that she prefers the
quietness and coldness of this woman over the warm affection of someone like
the round-faced maid.
Whatever the case, Regina finds herself safer and more secure than she has all
these past years, surrounded by father, by her Black Guard and her quiet woman,
moving about the kingdom in her carriage pulled by black steeds. Finally, she
has allies, people of her own whose loyalties she’s willing to keep with
whatever means necessary. The men are easy, food and ale being enough to
congratulate them on a job well-done, but her quiet woman, Regina realizes with
a surprise, only looks somewhat pleased when Regina kindly offers her a rose
from the garden.
 
===============================================================================
 
For Snow’s sixteenth birthday, Regina insists on a proper ball being held. King
Leopold opposes her as he never has before, but Regina argues that the princess
requires a proper coming of age commemoration, and that it can simply be held a
week after the date, so as to respect late Queen Eva’s memory. Once the king is
convinced out of his bullheadedness and agrees to the festivity, though, he
goes overboard with the celebration, and chooses to hold a one week affair of
balls, dinners, hunts and a variety of different entertainments for just about
every single royal in the kingdom. Regina, undeterred, takes the reins and
busies herself with the organization of the princess’ celebration, despite the
clear dislike the Head of Household has for her. Once Regina’s done with this
festivity, though, no one will be able to deny how adept she is at this sort of
tasks; after all, without mother’s overbearing presence judging her every move,
she almost enjoys the work that’s to be done.
Regina supervises every single event, as well as organizing the palace so it’s
ready to receive a larger amount of people than usual. Snow follows her every
step, and Regina is even glad to allow her to take charge over certain aspects
of the organization, if only because as long as she’s busy, she’s not prattling
away to Regina’s inattentive ears. Truth be told, the palace’s staff is
efficient and works like a well oiled machine, and once the Head of Household’s
domineering presence is avoided, Regina finds that no one finds her entirely
unpleasant to work with, even when they don’t seem to understand why she has
the need to be constantly surrounded by her austere lady’s maid and one of her
guards.
The first night of the festivities, when a grand opening ball is to be held,
Regina finds herself in Snow’s bedchambers, waiting for her to be dressed.
Regina has supervised the clothing as well, and has even made a present out of
the white gown Snow is to wear tonight, if only to avoid the girl being
weighted down by one of the seamstress’ overly ornamental concoctions. That
woman was responsible for her own wedding dress, and Regina has never hated a
garment quite as much as that monstrosity she was forced to carry around all
night long.
“So, how does it look?” Snow questions the moment she appears before Regina,
her hands nervous as they straighten the fabric of her skirt while
simultaneously going up to the back of her neck where most of her hair has been
piled up in a low bun.
Regina tsksat her until she stays still, and pushes her to look at herself in
the full length mirror. Snow is clearly brimming with excitement, her skin
almost vibrating uncontrollably, as if she can hardly contain all of her
emotions inside her small frame. Regina stands next to her, and besides Snow’s
fresh and pale beauty, it seems to her that her own good looks are entirely too
stern. Standing together in front of the mirror, they look to her as a tragic
parody of her own mother and herself when she’d been Snow’s age, and the
parallel leaves her feeling old and tired. The scar above her lip, which she
has gotten so adept at ignoring, has never looked more prominent to her than in
this moment.
Moving her eyes away from their figures, Regina says, “You look wonderfully
beautiful tonight, Snow.”
She’s not lying, Snow most definitely a vision in white, everything that a
young princess is supposed to be at her age, her demeanor and excitement
matching the natural blush of her cheeks, and the elegance of features that are
just the right kind of round. There’s something very candid in Snow’s beauty,
almost physically warm, and Regina can’t help but feel irresistibly charmed by
her. Still, it is not her who is meant to admire the princess’ attributes, and
so she ushers her so they move along and towards the ballroom already, where
all of their guests are waiting for Snow’s big entrance.
They walk together hand in hand, Snow pulling from Regina’s arm in that way
that’s already familiar, where Regina has to control their pace so Snow doesn’t
break into a run. They finally stop by the doors, side by side, but before Snow
allows the guards to announce them, she turns on the spot and throws sudden and
strong arms around Regina’s frame, bringing her closer for an embrace that
makes Regina stiff her posture unwittingly. Whether Snow feels Regina’s
discomfort or not Regina doesn’t know, but she eventually brings her own arms
up and around Snow, pressing her hands flat to her back in the hopes that
answering the gesture will make the princess step away soon.
Snow clearly has a different idea when Regina’s response only prompts her to
cling even tighter to her, and to murmur softly against her ear, “I love you,
Regina.”
The feeling is spoken intimately, just for Regina to hear. Regina tries to
answer with a simple I love you, too,but the words die on her throat, tying her
tongue into an uncomfortable knot and making her flat palms curl until her
hands resemble claws clinging to the back of Snow’s dress. Were her hands
ungloved, Regina would be digging hard nails on the naked skin of Snow’s
shoulder blades. She has told so many lies, built so many a fake relationship,
but she can’t bring herself to carry this out. It’s always harder with Snow,
with this girl that she may just have loved if her mistakes hadn’t ripped away
everything that Regina had held dear in her life. She can’t love her now,
though, can’t quench the bitter resentment that makes her want to take away
everything that Snow loves just so she can understand the fate that she has
bestowed upon Regina. And if she’s to destroy everything that Snow cherishes,
then she will have to destroy herself, or at least the beloved sister figure
that she has forced herself to be to earn Snow’s affections.
Snow must believe her clogged with emotion, for she releases her from the
embrace even when Regina hasn’t given an answer to her words. With the princess
a step away from her, Regina begins to breathe properly once again, and is
quick to regain her composure so she can face Snow’s birthday ball.
The ball is certainly splendorous, just like Regina remembers her own birthdays
being back in the day. Snow glows as the clear center of attention, and Regina
knows her pretty feet will hurt by the end of the night from having danced with
just about every eligible bachelor in the room. Regina herself falls easily
into the routines mother instilled in her so early in her life, and she refuses
food and becomes the picture of the perfect hostess that she’s meant to be,
enviously watching as Snow laughs boisterously and enjoys the sweets that are
being passed around freely.
Regina skirts the edges of the ballroom, seething even when she knows quite
clearly that she isn’t meant to be center of attention. She doesn’t want to be,
but she hates that while she knows she’s being watched and scrutinized by most
of the guests, none of them seem particularly inclined to engage her beyond the
basic formalities. She feels uncomfortable in her skin tonight, Snow’s
declaration having rattled her, and she can hardly wait for this to be over.
There’s still a whole week of festivities she has to get through, and she can’t
just be fed up so early in the game.
 
===============================================================================
 
Next morning, Snow comes to her as soon as the sun is up, before Regina can
even begin to understand why she’s to be pulled so early from some hard earned
sleep, just so she can tell her all about the wondrous time she had last night.
She blabbers on and on, and Regina has almost stopped listening completely when
Snow reveals the secret that she’d clearly been intending to disclose, and
tells Regina about one Prince Richard, so lovely, attentive and gallant that
he’d only danced with her, and had claimed every single one of her free
moments. As Snow talks about the sweetness of his smile, and the feel of his
hands at her back, cheeks flushed with the beginnings of young love, Regina
does her best at searching her mind for whoever this prince may be, but she
comes up empty. It hardly matters to her, though, not when all of Regina’s
senses are suddenly craving destruction and mayhem. Snow is undeserving of the
happiness that colors her cheeks, and Regina won’t allow it.
She soon finds out who the infamous Prince Richard is, Baroness Irene once
again proving to be her best source of information. He’s the fourth son of a
barely known kingdom south of the border, and whether his affections for Snow
are true or not, he certainly won’t mind the crown that comes attached to her
hand and virtue, when his position in his own family is so lowly. Except that
crown is Regina’s by right, and she won’t have some dumb faced young prince
stealing it from her. Getting rid of him had been her most primitive instinct,
but now she realizes it may also be a necessity. Once King Leopold is out of
the picture, Regina will have a much stronger claim to the throne if Snow is
single and unattached, instead of married to some young promising lad. Keeping
Snow unwed and on her side for as long as the king is alive is more important
than Regina would have thought.
When she can’t find the prince among the throng of people spending the week as
their guests, Regina turns to her mirror and searches for him with what has
turned out to be her favorite magic trick so far. Rumpelstiltskin had even been
quietly impressed when she’d began to conjure up images in her looking glass
without him having taught her the specifics behind that kind of magic.
“Do you hate looking at yourself so much that you need to look at someone else,
dearie?” he’d taunted her, forever cruel in his remarks.
Regina had bristled, but once she’d calmed down, she’d found a new kind of
sickly satisfaction in using her new acquired power to spy on her oppressive
teacher. Rumpelstiltskin must have found out, for Regina had soon discovered
his own mirrors covered by thick pieces of fabric, and his castle magically
shielded against her spells. Knowing that a small part of Rumpelstiltskin was
at least wary of her had certainly been more than exhilarating.
Her search for the prince’s whereabouts proves fruitful, and she catches him as
he rides next to King Leopold on one of the organized hunts. The prince,
attractive in a bland sort of way, all blonde hair and chiseled jaw, is
certainly aiming high. Regina allows herself to spy on him for a bit longer,
and eventually catches him canoodling with Snow on the waning lights of the
evening, ironically enough right below her apple tree. When Regina sees them
kiss, Snow blushing and stepping away as if even the small touch is much too
inappropriate for her, Regina feels her own chest constrict painfully, memories
buried within her heart threatening to drown her with emotion. Daniel had
kissed her a few weeks after she’d turned sixteen under that very same tree,
and Regina hadn’t shied away from the touch, instead she’d clung and clung to
his frame, as if a part of her had already known that they were doomed to a
tragic end. Daniel rests among the dead now, and Regina can’t allow Snow to
enjoy the sweetness of young love.
In the end, getting rid of Prince Richard is easier than anticipated. A few
well placed looks on Regina’s part, a small, precise touch to the visible skin
of her collarbones, her tongue gliding casually over her lower lip, and with a
simple nod of her head the prince is following her outside and to the gardens
while Snow dances around with someone else during the second ball of the
celebrations. Regina spares a last glance to Snow’s light pink gown and to the
glide of it against the dance floor, before she steps outside with a sneer
painted on her lips.
The prince follows, traps her against the wall and his body as Regina plays
coy. From up close, she guesses she can see the appeal; the prince is older
than Snow but younger than her, and his features are strong but not harsh,
painting an easy picture of gallantness. Regina finds him utterly boring in
every single aspect, and as he speaks to her words of adoration, clearly more
fond of the sound of his own voice than of Regina’s attributes, she flattens
her palms over his chest and causes him to smile cockily. He’s still smiling
when she pushes forward and up,  her hand wrapping around the comforting weight
of his heart and pulling. Now she’s taken his heart away from Snow is all ways
possible, and as she looks at the brightness of it, she considers her choices.
Killing him would be easy, and she hardly thinks the world would be a worse
place for his absence, but she thinks better of it at the last minute. Rather
than punishing him, she chooses to punish Snow instead, and so she instructs
her new puppet.
“I want you to break Snow White’s heart,” she tells him. “Be cruel about it.”
After that, Regina doesn’t need to spy on the prince to learn the story, for
Snow searches for her to tell it herself, and to use Regina’s shoulder as a
crying pillow. Snow comes to her late at night, entering her bedchambers with
the same lack of sense of privacy that she has exhibited all her life, and
wastes no time in climbing into bed with her and finding her under the covers.
When she first hugs Regina, it seems to her as she’s the one being cradled
other than the other way around, but Snow is quick to move her face to the
crook of Regina’s neck, where her humid and cold tears sip into the thin fabric
of Regina’s nightgown. Regina makes the right movements automatically, one of
her hands moving to Snow’s hair in a sweet caress, and her lips shushing her in
mindless whispers. It scares her, sometimes, how easily she slips into the lie.
“What it is, dear? What happened?”
Snow can barely speak, her throat choking as she tries to explain the pain of
rejection, the humiliation of being taken advantage of. The way Snow talks
about Prince Richard’s cruel words suggests that she can’t understand why
anyone would posses such malice, why someone may choose to be so terrible.
Snow’s flower filled world view is being skewed, distorted, and Regina is
taking pleasure in being the one to cause the disruption. She may just be doing
Snow a favor, anyway, making her understand that utter kindness is not the way
of the real world, the way she has been brought up to think. What would Snow
think if Regina were to tell her how much brutality her own father is capable
of? But Regina doesn’t wish to destroy this girl with a single stroke, knowing
fairly well how slow and small chinks can be far more damaging. If there’s any
advantage to having felt so much pain inflicted into her own flesh, then it’s
definitely understanding how to cause it herself.
Snow’s tears subside eventually, and Regina feels her sag and relax against her
arms, her tense frame finally giving up. She’ll be asleep in no time, invading
Regina’s space without questioning whether she’s welcomed or not. Regina allows
it, for there’s little else she can do, but before she can relax herself, Snow
jumps from her place between Regina’s arms, propping her weight on her elbow
and hovering above Regina, fixing her with a most determined gaze.
“I’ll never fall in love,” she states, fire in her tone like Regina hasn’t
quite heard before. “It’s not worth it.”
A smile spreads across Regina’s face, her hand coming up to rest somewhere
between Snow’s neck and collarbone as it does. “One silly prince won’t be the
end of you, dear,” Regina tells her, licking her lips before she continues
with, “But you are going to be queen, and you don’t need any distractions, so
perhaps it’s for the better.”
Snow nods at her statement, so focused on her pain and as oblivious as ever to
Regina’s own feelings that she doesn’t notice the way Regina tenses at her own
words. Mother’s lessons always burn harsh and true inside her chest, but this
time the shadow of her memory seems to loom more than ever, Regina’s tongue so
easily shaping words entirely too similar to the ones mother had given her when
Daniel had been laying on the ground, dead. Her expression turns sour, twisted,
and her hand trembles where it’s resting on Snow’s skin. The princess has
already sagged back against her, though, her sudden glimpse of hardness gone to
give way to eyes like those of a sad puppy. Regina wants to kick. She has half
a mind to reach for the prince’s heart still in her possession and crush it,
take undeserving life away in payment for her lover lost.
Regina does nothing, though, focusing herself on the shape of Snow cuddling up
to her and on the way her breathing is slowing down, giving way to sleep. She’s
too tall to share Regina’s bed by now, and she makes Regina feel intruded upon,
disrespected even in her most intimate space. Crushing the prince’s heart would
be truly easy, but what Regina truly wants to destroy is the girl in her arms,
trustworthy and oblivious in her love. It’s much too soon, though, far too
early to strike, and far too easy a punishment for Snow’s sins. Regina wants
her tears, she wants her pain and her misery, she wants to take away little by
little until there’s nothing left of sweet, perfect Princess Snow White.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina considers with utmost seriousness and gravity whether to put Prince
Richard’s heart back or not now that he’s fulfilled his purpose, but she ends
up thinking better of it, and by the time the palace has gone back to its usual
routine and its most uncommon guests have left the premises, the heart remains
in Regina’s possession. She uses one of mother’s boxes to stash it, and tries
very hard to ignore the beating of collected hearts that permeates her secret
vault. Regina has kept away from this place for the most part, only visiting it
when she’d wanted to search through mother’s books, or when Rumpelstiltskin had
goaded her into it. It’s unsettling, to give the secret space the same use
mother did, but she refuses to think of herself as somehow being anything like
mother. Mother collected hearts for no apparent reason other than coercion,
after all, but Regina has a much bigger and particular purpose for the use of
the vault.
Holding Prince Richard’s heart in her hand, Regina had realized that even if
she’s been puppeteer-ing the court around herself to the best of her abilities,
she hasn’t been nearly ambitious enough in her endeavors. Snow’s little failed
romance with the prince has brought a much bigger political panorama to the
forefront of her mind, and now she clearly sees that she needs to exert control
beyond presenting herself as someone worthy of approval. She needs to take the
reins of Leopold’s kingdom, and she needs to be aware of surrounding lands, so
that by the time she chooses to get rid of her husband, there will be no doubt
about who is in control. In order to do that, she requires a constant flux of
information, she needs a web of spies on every kingdom that adjoins with
Leopold’s, and she knows her mirror tricks will only take her so far. A few
meat puppets carefully placed and with the unwavering loyalty of owning their
hearts, well, that’s a much better prospect.
There will be time for that though, but for now, Regina needs to focus her
efforts within Leopold’s lands. The truth is she’s not particularly aware of
the important matters on the kingdom, seeing as she has barely left the palace
all these years and all her knowledge comes from travelling noblemen who care
more for court gossip than for commercial trades or border patrols. So, what
Regina needs, is to weave her way into King Leopold’s council meetings, a right
that should be unquestionably hers as queen of the land, but that Leopold has
adamantly denied her many a time before.
When she asks this time it’s no different, of course. Regina may just think
that there’s a logical or political maneuver behind Leopold’s refusal, or that
perhaps he suspects her of wanting power, but she’s fairly confident that the
king has simply gotten used to denying her requests out of spite. Ever since
she cursed him, he hasn’t tried to touch her and his presence has vanished
completely from her bedchambers, which should have smoothed out their
relationship, if only because Regina doesn’t have a lot of chances to make him
squirm, but that isn’t the case. He’s grown more possessive of her, not wanting
her but hating when anyone even dares look her way, and he seems to be
extremely fond of hiding her away for days inside her bedchambers under the
pretense of taking care of her integrity and virtue. Regina would be angrier at
him if only such behavior didn’t help her hurt little queen story, which the
court is more and more convinced of as time passes. A few well placed tears,
declarations of love for a husband that won’t look at her and pretense desire
for children that she’ll never have now that he doesn’t touch her, have put her
in a perfectly victimized position, and have made King Leopold a villain where
it concerns his young wife.
King Leopold’s villainy is not a complete lie, in any case, at least not when
it comes to Regina. It seems to her as if she tests all his boundaries, as if
while he’s capable of being affable and kind when faced with just about any
stranger, he can’t even force himself to pretend that she doesn’t make him
utterly nervous and angry. He plays his cards well when they’re forced together
in public, but he can hardly bring himself to look into her eyes when they’re
alone. Regina’s perverse delight in his suffering is perhaps one of the biggest
satisfactions of life at court, and the only reason why she’s able to gather
the patience not to end the man’s life as soon as possible.
Faced with the decision of letting her into the council, he remains stoic in
his negative answer, though. Regina argues that she doesn’t even want to
intervene, but merely watch the proceedings, but he stays adamant and
frustratingly obstinate, showing a strength of spirit that Regina has never
seen before, not when she only dealt with him in the darkness of her chambers.
Regina punishes him as she knows best – by forcing her presence on him as much
as she can. Particularly, she has taken to showing up at his suppers with Snow
and other noblemen regularly, wearing inappropriately ornate outfits, making
late entrances and drawing attention to herself. She barely eats in these
occasions, and she knows it unsettles people around her, and cements her image
of the sad, tortured girl in their minds, as well as that of Leopold’s foolish
and cruel ways.
Nonetheless, when her efforts prove fruitless, Regina rages and screams, and
then finally decides to go about getting her way in a different manner. Turning
eyes full of woe towards Baroness Irene, she manages to fall in the circle of
trust of her brother, Baron Edgar. The baron, much like his sister, is
boisterous and entirely too fond of inappropriateness, but somehow he seems to
Regina as kinder is his impulses. He’s older than the baroness, and just as
plump as she is, but his big shouldered frame, protruding belly and fat cheeks
somehow sit well with him, and Regina can’t imagine him being thinner or
smaller. He treats her much too casually, but rather than trying to make a
confidante out of her like his sister, his demeanor towards her is almost
fatherly, which serves Regina’s purposes just fine. The baron is, after all,
one of the oldest members of King Leopold’s council, and while not a close
friend of the king, he certainly has influence and a loud and big voice, and
he’s more than happy to take Regina under his wing and press for her inclusion
in the council meetings insistently.
A fortnight after her first chat with the baron, Leopold grants her wish, and
Regina smiles wolfishly and congratulates herself on her choice of false
friends. She has spent countless hours listening to Baron Edgar recount stories
of old battles and rain praise on his valiant sons, big eyes and attentive ears
for every single one of his words, so she’s certain she deserves her prize.
The council meets once every fortnight, whenever there isn’t urgent business to
attend. Considering how Leopold has made a point of staying as far away from
conflict as possible, there usually aren’t any particularly crucial matters to
attend to. Regina has never before entered the Council Room, but she
appreciates the darker atmosphere and smallness of it as soon as she walks in.
There’s nothing but a big sturdy table surrounded by uncomfortable looking
chairs in it, Leopold’s seat raised slightly above the others but clearly not
made to be sat upon for a long time either. Most light comes from candles
rather than the outside, and while the chamber may be considered stuffy, Regina
can appreciate a design created for focus and work. This is clearly not a place
to relax, nor a place to stay long hours trapped in, which implies that kingdom
business is to be dealt with swiftly and efficiently.
Regina doesn’t get a seat at the table, but rather takes a chair set for her
behind Leopold’s and a little to the side, lest someone believe that she’s
somehow important to the matters of the kingdom in any way. Regina would be
furious by King Leopold’s humiliating tactics if only the place given to her
didn’t afford her the opportunity to do exactly what she intends to do, which
is watch and learn. The men of the council, for there is not one single woman
in it, don’t seem particularly inclined to acknowledge her presence either,
except for Baron Edgar, who winks her way as he nods his salute, earning
himself a brilliant smile from Regina.
For weeks, Regina merely watches. There are ten members to the council, most of
them either about Leopold’s age or verging on their deathbeds – honestly, the
Treasury Master can barely see the numbers he so furiously writes at all times
– with the exception of the Master of Ships, who is young, stupid and looks
more like a pirate than like a naval officer. He has just about every quality
Regina despises in a man, but then again, the ancient line of advisors to the
king barely deserve more than contempt and derision on her part. The Law
Advisor, in particular, rubs her in all the wrong ways, with his penchant for
subtle jives against Leopold’s demeanor which the king is too doltish to
understand, and the way his eyes roam the curve of Regina’s neck with
disgusting lust etched in their corners.
Regina doesn’t speak during their meetings, but  she listens, and when she
considers herself ready, she begins seeking out the members of the council when
they’re by themselves, so as to acquaint herself with them personally. She’s
had weeks to read them and their behaviors, and so she knows which disposition
to present when she meets with each one of them. She wants them to trust her,
after all, and so in exchange she becomes exactly what they want her to be,
whether that’s a faux granddaughter, as is the baron’s desire, or a dumb, wide-
eyed girl impressed by smarts like the Military Advisor seems to prefer, or the
quiet and impudent seductress that the Master of Ships requires. She rebuilds
herself for each of them, and with pointed questions and the right attitude she
begins learning, as they all allow her to inspect maps of the realm, royal
accounts and general trade strategy with the neighboring kingdoms. She learns
of their opinions on King Leopold, of battles that were never waged due to the
king’s peaceful disposition, of laws that haven’t been changed for centuries,
and of a king that seems content to leave things as they are, not questioning
himself in the possibility of improvements.
The more Regina learns, and the further she goes in her relationship with the
members of the council, the easier it is for her to insert her opinions into
their heads. It requires subtlety and care, most men being prickly at being
told what to do by a woman younger than themselves. Regina knows how to play
her cards right, though, and so she knows to pose her ideas to the Law Advisor
as questions that make her seem a little dim-witted, learns to distract him
with the right amount of cleavage and lingering touches to her own collarbones.
The Treasury Master is easier, having fallen half in love with her the moment
she gifted him with a pair of the best handcrafted glasses she could get her
hands on. The Master of Ships enjoys caging her and playing into her false
seduction, but also seems to enjoy her when she takes on a domineering demeanor
and expresses her ideas clearly. With similar tactics for each and every
member, soon enough they’re articulating her own ideas at the council's
official meetings, and so, while remaining absolutely quiet and unobtrusive,
she gets herself a public voice.
Her ploys and discoveries fill her up with satisfaction, making her realize
that she enjoys the challenge of conquering people’s minds, and that the taste
of power and control sits well within her. Not only that, but with her mind
busy with such projects, she doesn’t have enough time to dwell in her most
painful memories, in the empty spaces within herself. Idleness will kill her,
she realizes, and so long as she spends her days with every hour filled to the
brim with tasks, she will survive. Not only that, but she will come out as the
true controlling force behind the kingdom’s business, seeing as her mind is
more than prepared to rule over the land that is bound to become only hers.
Sometimes, though, fear conquers her, her forever chameleonic nature making her
forget who she truly is. The political game is enjoyable, too, and so very easy
to get lost into that Regina sometimes worries that her real ambitions are
getting lost behind a hazy curtain of royal power. She is not to forget what
she needs power for, after all, and she can’t allow herself the joy of
completely forgetting the reasons that have caused her pain and emptiness. The
goal of revenge is what keeps her blood flowing, and she mustn’t lose sight of
the heads she wants to put on a platter.
It’s easy to remind herself of just who she is when she’s in Rumpelstiltskin’s
hands. With him, she doesn’t play any roles, and so she sees herself consumed
by seething rage, impatient, losing her temper when she fails to learn what the
imp intends to teach her. Rumpelstiltskin is more than happy to crack most of
her façade, and despite claiming how much he hates them, to push her into her
worst tantrums. He’s tricky and takes delight in her misery, but she can hardly
disentangle their common web now, not when Regina accepted his guiding hand so
surely after she lost her baby. If there’s revenge to be had, then
Rumpelstiltskin is surely her best bet, never mind the distress he causes her,
and his regular rudeness towards her.
They don’t meet as often these days, anyway, Rumpelstiltskin claiming that her
magic is improving by leaps and bounds, and that what she needs is practice and
patience. Regina doesn’t know if she should believe him or not, especially as
he insists on speaking in riddles and predictions that she can’t wrap her head
around. He obviously wants something from her, has wanted it since the very
beggining, but she can’t imagine what his big picture planning could be. It’s
undeniable, though, that she’s right where he needs her to be, a fact that
doesn’t afford her any relief. On the contrary, it has her wondering just how
big a hand he’s had in the way her life has unfolded. She’s seen him work
tricks and deals in ways that always get him what he wants, so she wouldn’t be
surprised if all of their time together has been previously planned by his
overworked little brain. Lately, she has been wondering just how much
responsibility he had in King Leopold’s knights finding her when she escaped
the palace, pregnant and unsure, but she’s afraid of getting a proper answer to
her suspicions. She needs Rumpelstiltskin on her side, at least for now, and
doesn’t think she can afford to put his power and his cunning against her.
Perhaps, there will be time to consider waging war against the Dark One, but
for now, he must be nothing but an annoying and abusive teacher.
No matter what, under Rumpelstiltskin’s guiding hands, Regina thrives. Her
magic, which had at first been nothing but an accident, and later on a source
of constant frustration, has turned into a welcome companion, a force to wield
and control, a secret shield against the world that surrounds her. For now, it
must be kept a secret, lest someone decide that she must be burnt for
witchcraft, but once she’s powerful enough to claim her rightful throne, then
she will be able to reveal the extent of her powers to the world, and no one
will be able to hurt her anymore.
Regina’s plans keep moving forward when King Leopold receives a rare invite to
spend a fortnight at King George’s Royal Castle, as there is urgent and
important business they must discuss. Regina knows Leopold would rather stay
within his own walls, old and tired as he is, and preferring a life of peaceful
slumber, but she pushes the council into pressing the king to accept the
invitation. King George’s kingdom is the most important of their neighboring
lands, and Regina won’t allow Leopold to pass the opportunity of listening to
whatever George has to say. Besides, whatever bothers Leopold pleases her in
exchange, so the more he opposes the trip, the more Regina pushes for it.
Regina gets her wish, the council finally overruling Leopold’s desire for a
tranquil life, and so they get ready to journey to King George’s lands. The
journey will last two days, and Regina is to travel alongside the king and Snow
in his carriage, rather than her own. She concedes the matter only putting up a
token protest, and so readies herself for long and boring hours riding with her
so-called family. She dresses herself in comfortable riding clothes, though,
allowing Snow to do the same, and silently challenges Leopold to comment on how
inappropriate their outfits are for a journey within a carriage. He doesn’t,
though, perhaps resigned to Regina’s particular ways of disrupting his comfort,
and even smiles when Snow states how comfortable it is to wear pants rather
than dresses that make them both double their size.
Regina is forced to leave her Black Guard behind, but she travels with her
lady’s maid and father, who chooses to travel as her valet, rather than as her
family. Regina is done being offended by father’s wishes, and so she decides to
thank the fact that he’s with her at all.
The journey is long and tiring, a night spent out in the woods, even if under
elaborate tents, doing nothing to calm Regina’s temper. Snow has been steadily
informing her of whatever piece of gossip she’s learnt from noblemen from King
George’s kingdom, and Regina would have been interested if only her prattle had
been about anything else other than future marriages and pregnancies. Regina is
far more interested in the possibility of tightening their trading relations
with George and letting him know how failing to do so may just leave him
bankrupt, considering their geographical situation and merchant routes. She
hopes against all hope that George may be the kind of man to listen to a woman.
Once they are settled in George’s castle, Snow thrives. Half with pride and
half with envy, Regina watches the princess conquer the new court around her,
soft smiles and easy laughter making her immediately popular amongst crowds of
girls and boys alike. Surprised, Regina realizes that she’s done a good job
with Snow; she’s polite but candid, can hold conversations on just about any
topic given to her, and the fact that she’s both a renown rider and quite the
adept archer makes her interesting enough without making her completely
foreign. Along with her natural ease, she finds herself surrounded by a crowd
of sycophants that she will be more than happy to blabber about once she
remembers Regina’s existence.
Her own relationship with Snow has become colder as of late, Regina’s own
growing dislike for the girl being only half to blame for the fact. Now that
Snow’s older, she’s more than happy to spend her time with girls from the court
that match her in age and station, and once again Regina has been relegated to
her place as discarded toy, favored only when a shoulder to cry on or an ear to
listen is needed. Regina has been almost grateful for the change, seeing as
she’s more than ready to destroy Snow’s happiness, and it’s better for her when
the temptation of wringing the girl’s neck isn’t brought forward all that
often. Still, when Snow had missed one of their usual lunches and had claimed
to had simply forgotten, Regina had cancelled them altogether, feeling slighted
and pettily maligned. All the effort she’s put into the girl seems to her as
wasted if the princess is so easily going to discard her.
In this occasion, though, Regina is more than happy to leave Snow to her own
dealings, as the good stepmother she’s supposed to be. Rather than spending her
time with the princess, she instead forces herself to fawn appropriately in the
company of the married women of the court, who are particularly preoccupied
with Princess Isabella’s new daughter, a plump little thing that Regina can
barely bear to look upon. The child is deserving of the adoration bestowed upon
her, but Regina feels her insides tighten at the sight, pained when the
universe taunts her with the image of what she will never have. It seems to her
that even her stomach physically recoils, and that her almost fading scar
itches when it has never bothered her before.
It is with delight, then, that Regina dedicates herself to the task of finding
an opportunity to ambush King George and draw his attention, a feat that she
accomplishes on their third day at the Royal Castle. She finds a group of men
by the entrance to the gardens, Leopold and George among them, clearly in the
midst of a heated discussion, and approaches them gingerly, hovering close
while pretending to be interested in the newly bloomed roses before her. She
touches her fingers to one of the yellow buds, petals soft on her skin, and as
she’s leaning forward, chest and neck on display, manages to catch the
attention of part of the group. The men quiet almost immediately, prompting
Leopold to turn her way. His first instinct is to grimace, and even if he hides
the expression soon enough, Regina catches it and smiles in his direction.
“Gentlemen, please,” Leopold begins then. “We should leave this business talk
for our meetings; we wouldn’t want to bore the ladies with our gibberish.”
Regina widens her smile as she stands up straight again, turning towards the
whole group with purpose, putting herself up for display. She’s learned to use
her body to garner attention by now, and she’s not above using it as a weapon,
not when most men would be more than happy to simply use it.“On the other hand,
my dear husband,” she says, approaching the group now and touching her hands to
Leopold’s arm as if it was a familiar gesture for them, something complicit and
fond. “I’m rather interested in whatever dealings you may have with King
George; His Majesty is, after all, our most valued ally.”
George looks at her then, appraising. It is a bold move on her part to
interrupt men’s dealings like this, inappropriate by every standard, but Regina
is willing to bet on King George’s smarts dismissing whatever prejudice he may
have about her womanly condition. He proves her chances to have been well taken
when, after raising a curious eyebrow, he offers her his arm, more stern than
gallant, but certainly secure.
“Perhaps the queen will be so kind as to share her views with our council.”
Regina, all smirks and pride, takes George’s offered arm, answering his silent
question and dismissing Leopold all at the same time, and simply says, “It will
be my pleasure, Your Majesty.”
Leopold seethes at her interrupting his dealings, but is soon relegated to the
background as she easily commands the discussion held with George. Leopold
seems surprised, too, at her accurate knowledge of the kingdom, and Regina can
do nothing but roll her eyes at the man’s stupidity. She has been pulling the
strings of his own council for months now, and the man truly believes that
she’s nothing but a passive presence in his own meetings. Serves him right, for
thinking of her as little else but a whore with a crown on her head.
King George, on the other hand, proves to be a man worthy of respect. He’s
authoritative and his character verges constantly on unpleasantness, but he’s
strong-spirited, and he speaks clearly and with bluntness. He also seems to be
content as long as he’s speaking with intellectual equals, never mind age or
sex, and so as soon as Regina proves further knowledge of their trading
dealings than Leopold, he refers to her unquestionably. Regina finds herself
thinking that she may have just been happier had George asked for her hand all
those years ago, on her seventeenth birthday. She wouldn’t have loved him, and
she certainly wouldn’t have been more pleased with bedding him than Leopold,
but they may have just understood each other with ease. She has a feeling that
George would have wanted her to be a true queen, and not the babysitter and
concubine that Leopold had condemned her to be.
 
===============================================================================
 
King George organizes a ball in their honor during their first week there, and
he spares no expense to celebrate them as propriety dictates. The whole court
seems more than pleased by the event, even if the absence of Prince James,
George’s son, is spoken off in whispers and murmurs. Regina has caught sight of
the prince just the once, when he’d rudely interrupted one of her meetings with
George, and she’d thought him vapid and cocky, all leather pants and painted
face like some wannabe scoundrel. In the whole five minutes they’d shared a
room, he’d looked Regina up and down with half a smirk edged on his face, which
he’d only completed once Regina had rolled her eyes at the boy’s antics.
Honestly, he couldn’t be older than eighteen, but he was bound to be a
disappointment if he continued down such a path. She’d thought, then, that
perhaps Prince James would have benefited from her own views on proper
education more than Snow. George worships him, though, even when his own proper
character suggests otherwise, and his glare is more than enough to quiet any
and all rumors regarding his son.
The ball is beautiful, and Regina finds herself admiring the elegant dresses,
the twinkling lights and the warm atmosphere despite herself. Snow very easily
makes herself the center of attention, and Regina seethes, hating how simple it
is for her to gather recognition, where Regina has had to fight every step of
the way to be seen as something other than the foreign and sad little queen.
Why should Regina have to work so hard for something that Snow is openly gifted
with? Perhaps just her station is enough to freely grant her all that Regina
must earn.
There are no partners for Regina to dance with tonight, father being relegated
to his role as valet and Leopold unwilling to even play his part as loyal
husband. Regina hates herself for wishing for a dance, for wanting to glide
with light feet over the dance floor and forget, if only for a few moments,
everything that isn’t the music and the movement of her own body. Alas, she
finds herself instead amongst a group of men, all claiming to want her opinion
when she knows at least half of them merely prefer the sight of her over that
of their wives. She would be pleased if only one of them offered a dance,
honestly. They don’t, but at least King George provides entertainment when he
poses the most curious question.
“Pardon me, Your Majesty,” he begins, eyes boring into Regina’s in that way
that she has learnt he uses to gauge his opponents, as if every conversation
was a battle to be won. “Have we met before this visit?”
Next to him, Duke Wentworth, he of the droopy eyes and sagging neck, exclaims,
“You claim to have forgotten such a beauty as our lovely Queen Regina, George?
You should be ashamed of yourself, old friend.”
Regina gauges the two men, good old friends with an easy rapport between them,
and studies the situation. She’s surrounded by at least five other pairs of
eyes, and perhaps she should bite her tongue, but then again, she's earned
herself the epithet of boldamongst these men, and she doesn’t think she should
disappoint them. She knows most of them think of such a term for her with
amusement, as if she’s funny and inconsequential, but it’s certainly better
than being thought of as mild and boring. With that in mind, she chooses to
answer with nothing but the truth.
“You will excuse His Majesty for having forgotten me, Duke, for seventeen year
old me was considered a little girl with narrow hips by his sharp mind.” She
laughs, short but deep, amused at her own words, and then feigns the slightest
of playful pouts as she says, “Mother was certainly disappointed when I was
deemed undeserving of a marriage proposal.”
“By gods, George! Surely your biggest mistake to date!” The duke laughs after
his words, hands splayed on his belly. It’s a good laugh, big and careless, and
Regina would like it if only she was capable of one herself.
King George takes no mind of his friend’s comment, though, and instead focuses
a determined eye on Regina, clearly trying to make the connection. It takes a
moment, but soon enough he’s lifting both eyebrows in recognition. “Princess
Cora’s daughter, of course; quite the woman, Your Majesty’s mother.”
“Yes, indeed she was,” Regina answers politely, not sure whether the king means
his words to be a compliment or not. Knowing mother, they probably are nothing
of the sort.
The duke interrupts their stare down easily, bellowing, “Now George, you must
pay your price for your mistake; you won’t deny the queen a gift to make up for
such a horrendous slight.”
King George is not a particularly kind man, and Regina is fairly sure she
hasn’t seen him smile at all since they’ve been guests at his castle, but after
his friend’s comment, he offers her something close to a smirk. Then, quite
politely, he says, “Whatever the queen wishes, as long as I can provide.”
Regina gives the men around her a smile, smug and flirty, trying to create
anticipation at whatever it is she may wish. With a single touch to George’s
arm, though, what she says is, “Let’s just say that you will owe me a favor,
Your Majesty.”
The men laugh around her, but George merely fixes her with a hard stare. Regina
inclines her head sideways, questioning the sudden stern demeanor of the man,
who was up until now as relaxed as she’s ever seen him. Thinking back to her
own words, she realizes that it may have as well been Rumpelstiltskin speaking
them, and so she finds herself biting her lower lip, amused predator quietly
mocking the king. She wouldn’t have pegged a man so strict for one to deal with
the Dark One, but then Rumpelstiltskin always finds the strangest of allies.
When Regina breaks her staring match with King George, she finds herself
entirely too tired to continue with the conversation. She has been
entertainment enough for the men tonight, so she says breezily, “Now if you’ll
excuse me gentlemen, I would like to get some air.” She fans herself with her
hand, playing into her own lie, and quickly leaves the group behind her, big
fake smile plastered on her lips when they make a show of loud complaints about
losing her presence.
Once outside, Regina breaks all signs of posturing and allows her shoulders to
sag forward as she reaches up with both hands to rub at the back of her neck.
She’s stupendously tired, and she’s surprised she’s lasted this long without
breaking anything, considering how she hasn’t had a moment to herself at all
for the past week. It’s certainly easier to keep up her masks when she’s back
at the palace and she can hide away in her bedchambers every once in a while.
With a sigh and rolling her shoulders back a few times, she walks a bit into
the Royal Castle’s gardens and finds a bench to seat on. Her dress fluffs
around her as she does so, and as lovely as it is, she wishes she could be in a
comfortable shift rather than in the corseted prison oppressing her torso and
chest. Even with her tiredness, though, she can’t deny that the gardens are
rather lovely, the smell of recently cut grass and sweet spring flowers wafting
up to her and calming her senses.
Surrounded by fresh aromas, Regina closes her eyes, allowing weariness to claim
her if only for just a second. She may just have been able to keep up playing
around with her hosts if not for her lack of sleep as of late; Princess
Isabella’s chubby and beautiful daughter has been plaguing her nightmares as of
late, reds and blacks taking hold of her dreamscapes and taunting her with her
own loses. Just this afternoon, she had been made to hold the child, and
looking at the gurgling baby in her arms had twisted something painful inside
her chest. She’d felt tears crawling up through her chest and to her throat,
sticking there in a painful throb, and she’d almost run away from the women’s
parlor and to the outside just to be able to breathe. Now, she laughs bitterly
into the quiet of the night. How ironic that she can wrap experienced and wise
men around her finger, but that a recently born baby may just be her undoing.
Regina keeps her eyes closed, hoping to clear her mind and simply rest for a
bit, all the while massaging the back of her neck. She finds herself sighing
softly at the touch of her own gloved fingers on her skin, and realizes that
it’s been ages since anyone touched her without a purpose or calculation behind
the move. Even Snow has grown wary of her in that respect, perhaps finally
catching on to how Regina unwittingly stiffens whenever the princess reaches
out for her.
“Why are you so tired?”
Regina nearly jumps she’s so startled by the squeaky voice cutting through the
otherwise quiet place. She opens her eyes as she moves her head back, the
movement so quick that it takes her a moment to focus her gaze on the figure
before her. With a curious tilt to his head and big brown eyes, a child no
older than ten is inspecting her from up close. An older man standing so into
her own personal space would have been awarded an impolite and sharp barb, but
the child merely makes her blink, surprised.
“Why are you so tired, milady?” he repeats, more polite this time and bringing
himself into a straightened up stance, as if suddenly remembering lessons on
propriety.
Regina can’t help but laugh as she looks at him, but she’s quick to cover the
sound with the back of her hand when he frowns, perhaps thinking himself
mocked. He’s quite the charming child, even with a frown marring his
expression, and Regina has no doubt that he will grow into a handsome young
man, sweet face touched by round cheeks and dark skin soft looking even under
the poor lights of the garden. He coughs, and the sound makes Regina smile at
how he’s obviously trying to make her talk.
“Actually, it’s Your Majesty,” she tells him.
“Oh,” he says, frown smoothing out and giving way to full open eyes filled with
realization. He’s fantastically expressive, and Regina is already half in love.
“But you may call me Regina, if you so wish.”
“Mother says it’s polite to address people by their titles, Your Majesty,” he
answers, something of a monotone crawling into his otherwise piping voice, as
if he’s reciting a lesson. Regina would know, with how often she unconsciously
repeats mother’s teachings herself.
“It will be our little secret,” she assures. “And who might you be, dear?”
He makes a show of lifting up his chin, a mockery of pride quickly refuted by a
soft smile showing up in his face and forming two beautiful dimples. “I am
Prince Bernard, Your Majesty.” Then, just as quickly, he deflates and with a
sheepish shrug says, “Everyone calls me Bernie; you should call me Bernie.”
“Well, Bernie, why don’t you sit with me for a while?” Regina offers, patting
the bench next to her, where her dress isn’t invading the cold stone.
The prince answers her question with a quick motion, and promptly sits right
beside her, shoulders hunched forward and one leg bent at the knee and propped
up on the bench. It manages to break away all the effort that his rich clothes
and combed back hair are trying to accomplish, and Regina feels elated at the
sight. She hadn’t thought she’d be enjoying any kind of company tonight, but
Bernie is definitely a nice surprise; after all, there’s no need for masks and
subterfuge with a child.
“What have you got there?” Regina questions, eyeing a squared small box that
the prince has placed upon his lap with curiosity.
Opening up the box, Prince Bernard shows her its contents, and even if Regina
doesn’t recognize the sweets nestled inside, she can already tell that they
will be sugary and savory. The scent of honey overflows her senses, and
suddenly Regina remembers that she’s barely had anything to eat today. She
remembers a meager breakfast and some fruit for lunch taken only after her
quiet woman and father had ganged up on her and stayed close together and
watching her until she’d finished with the poor meal.
“Father brought them from Agrabah, they’re delicious!” Bernie exclaims. “Would
you like to try one?”
Regina’s first instinct is to politely decline the offer, but Bernie’s ample
smile makes her stop. She bites her lower lip, unsure, as if she’s breaking
some kind of rule by wanting to try the offered candy. Eventually, though, she
gives in and murmurs, “Maybe just one.”
Regina removes her glove so as not to stain the delicate fabric with the
obviously gooey treat, and then picks one up and brings it to her mouth. The
flavor is surprising, completely foreign to her palate and indeed entirely too
sweet. She’s never been a big fan of anything so syrupy, but the taste of honey
and something nutty explodes magnificently inside her mouth and against her
tongue, the papery texture of it producing a satisfying crunch as she finishes
the delicacy in two single bites. Shamefully, her stomach grumbles. It doesn’t
seem to dishearten Bernie, who is enjoying a sweet himself while still offering
the box to Regina, as if he doesn’t believe that she could only ever have one.
“Did you like it?” he asks, a goopy drop of honey lingering on the side of his
mouth. Regina cleans it with her thumb, and is quick to bring it up and to her
mouth to lick as she nods to the prince’s question. Goodness, if mother could
see her she would be so very displeased. Thoughts of mother are quickly
dismissed, though, when Bernie suddenly states, features serious and as
business-like as he can manage, “I think I shall marry you one day.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” he says, nodding forcefully. “You’re the only person I’ve met who likes
these sweets, and I’ll only marry someone I can share my meals with.”
Regina laughs, unbidden, enchanted to the core by the prince. She hasn’t felt
this giddy in entirely too long, and the child’s enthusiasm opens up something
long buried inside her chest, unraveling her. If only Bernie knew how much
those simple words and desires touch her heart.
Still, when she answers him, what she says is, “Don’t you think I’m a little
too old for you, dear?”
Bernie just frowns, confused, and leaning forward as if to study her from up
close, he asks, “How old are you? ‘Cause father says these sweets are just for
children.”
Regina barks out a laugh, and just to celebrate the kid’s impudence, she snags
a second piece of candy for herself. “It is not polite to ask that of a lady,
much less a queen,” she replies.
“Oh.”
She nibbles slowly at her food, and after she’s taken a full bite that’s left
her mouth tinged with sweet and flavorful honey, she shrugs and carefully
answers, “I recently turned twenty four.”
“Well, so when I turn sixteen, you will be only–”
“Don’t you dare, young man,” Regina exclaims, cutting his speech quickly and
pointing at him with her extended finger while putting on her best mock stern
face. “Don’t you dare finish that thought.”
Bernie harrumphs, but when he looks at her, it’s with a dimpled smile adorning
his face. “I don’t care either way. Once I turn sixteen I will get on one knee,
and I will ask you to marry me, and you will be so bewitched by my charms you
won’t be able to deny me.”
“Won’t I now?”
“Of course not; I’m quite the charmer, grandmother says so.”
“That you are, dear.”
Her comment grants her the biggest smile she has seen on Bernie’s face yet, a
gesture so genuine and childish that it manages to warm her heart. Without
truly thinking about it, she finds herself bringing a hand to her chest, fabric
and flesh suddenly made tangible under her fingers. Her heart’s beating under
her palm, slow and steady, and maybe there’s still something there that knows
how to feel. She closes her eyes as she contemplates the feeling, breathing the
cool night air in slowly, the scent of flowers once again filling her up, along
with the smell of honey and sugar. For a single second, she feels at peace with
the world, and she relaxes in a way that massages to her own neck and rolling
shoulders would have never accomplished. When she finally opens up her eyes
again – and it feels like ages, but it mustn’t have been longer than three
beats of her heart – Bernie is standing before her, one hand extended towards
her, palm up, an obvious offering.
“Queen Regina,” he says, so steady, so full of infantile intent and a desire to
be an adult. Regina wishes he would never grow up, never turn into a man that
would need her to be something other than what she truly is.
“Yes, Prince Bernard?” she returns, voice clogged up by sudden emotion, and
smile tiny but true.
“Queen Regina, would you do me the honor of granting me a dance?”
Regina lifts both eyebrows, amused and incredulous, but she can’t help herself
when she nods and reaches forward, placing her palm against Bernie’s
volunteered hand. “It will be my pleasure.”
And so Regina dances, after all, with a boy that barely reaches her chest and
who clearly hasn’t had as many dancing lessons as needed to glide around the
dance floor of an elegant ball. He steps on her feet and the bottom of her
skirt, and when he insists on turning her their arms tangle impossibly, Regina
trying her best at saving their height difference by crouching down but only
managing to make them look positively ridiculous. Still, she laughs, and Bernie
laughs with her, and whether the court around them thinks them adorable or
completely graceless Regina doesn’t care; so many games, so many lies, and she
may just deserve this one little reprieve. The candid warmth of Bernie’s laugh,
she suspects, will stay with her for a very long time.
 
===============================================================================
 
Prince Bernard proves to be the best possible reprieve for Regina’s feelings
during the days they spend at George’s Royal Castle; after all, while escaping
to her chambers to be alone would have been considered quite rude on her part,
spending her time with the child has charmed most women around her, who had
thought her cold before when looking at Princess Isabella’s baby had made her
so absolutely frightened and tense. Men like to tease, too, taunt her about
letting herself be conquered by the little rascal while they don’t get enough
of her attention. Regina is more than pleased by the turn of events, but she
finds that despite the successful ploy, she doesn’t particularly think of it as
such, since she likes the little prince so much.
Prince Bernard is talkative and brass, and while he tries his best to act and
look like a little nobleman his age should, he slips into childish behaviors
more often than not, running when he shouldn’t, spitting inappropriate
questions and pouting his way out of just about any mischief. He’s sweet and
extremely expressive, his face incapable of hiding anything, so of course
Regina can’t help but let herself get enchanted by that. He speaks often of his
past, and so Regina learns that he hails from Agrabah, and that he’s actually
the bastard child of the disgraced sister of the man he calls father, who took
him under his wing when no one else was willing. While they have given him the
title of prince, he certainly won’t be inheriting any lands or honors, and he
may just depend on his family’s charity all his life, which is why he’s being
thoroughly trained to become a knight of the crown. Despite his unbidden
giddiness, Regina spies in him a kindred spirit, an orphan, unwanted and
burdensome, alone even amongst throngs of people, judged by his position and
the color of his skin, and so she’s more than willing to make him forget his
situation, if only for a little while. Bernard seems happy when he speaks to
her anyway, and also when he insists on bringing her foreign sweets that make
Regina curious enough to anticipate them. With nothing but blabber, syrupy
peaches and almond smelling treats, Prince Bernard soothes her heart in ways
she thought where impossible.
When Regina finally leaves the castle along with the rest of Leopold’s
entourage, she does it having received a kiss to her cheek, a box of sweets and
a promise of monthly letters from Bernard. Regina has no hopes for the last to
come to be, and she’s saddened by the child that Bernie will stop being once he
grows into a man that Regina won’t be able to trust.
Bernard’s presents are not her only presents, though, and she carries away with
her the heart of King George’s valet, as well as that of one of the youngest
and least consequential members of his council, convinced that there will be no
business King George will attend to without her knowledge. King George, though,
proves to be the kind of man Regina expected him to be by leaving a parting
gift for her as well in the form of a beautifully exquisite pen, made of
colorful crystals, and accompanied by the simple message of To an everlasting
friendship.Now, Regina knows George has clearly understood who truly has the
reins of King Leopold’s kingdom, and who it is that he’s to keep on his good
side.
Regina’s enthusiasm at such a fruitful journey doesn’t last long, since the
moment they stop to spend the night in the woods, Leopold pounces, invading her
personal tent with so much fury written in his eyes that he almost forgets how
fretful he gets when he’s around Regina. His fury is quick and loud, and even
when Regina knows he will deflate in no time, that doesn’t stop him from
yelling at her as he rides out the first wave of his bravado.
“What sort of behavior do you think a queen must exhibit when journeying with
her king?” is what he says, his hand fisted and his body taut, tense all the
way from his toes and up to his shoulders, which he’s angling forward as if he
intends to add a physical attack to his angry words. “I will not stand for
such- such flirtingand inappropriate–”
Regina scoffs, stopping his speech with that simple gesture. She could explain
to the king how, failing to sign the trading agreement they had with George,
they would have eventually found themselves with the brute force of King
George’s army breaking havoc in their borders, and gods know they can’t afford
an open war with such a rich and military oriented kingdom as George’s. If
Leopold fails to see that for himself, though, then Regina just doesn’t have it
in her to explain the circumstances to him, particularly if he’s going to open
his speech by suggesting that she’s some sort of ill-intentioned harlot. He’s
probably not even that mad at her for taking charge of political discussions,
but rather for imbibing her tactics with coquettish insinuations and a clear
display of her body. He makes her so sick sometimes that she feels like giving
up on her long term plans completely and simply crushing that old and wrinkled
heart of his.
“My queen,” he begins again, his tone smoother and more contained this time,
betraying, along with the use of his preferred endearment for her, how he’s
already starting to be dispirited. “All of those men may think that you’re
willing to be unfaithful to me, and I so love you that–”
“Oh please, Leopold, we are not in public; stop pretending that this ruse of
ours is an actual marriage.”
“But my q–”
“I am nothing of yours! Much less your queen.”
Leopold has no answer for her other than to tighten his clenched fists. Regina
can tell that he wants to reach out for her, but whether her spell is keeping
him still or he simply refuses to touch her she doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter
much, not when they’re suddenly interrupted by Snow entering the tent, big
smile turning confused when she looks at their stiff stances.
“Is something the matter?” she questions, soft and maybe even a little wary.
Leopold sags immediately, looking away from Regina and very obviously wanting
to reassure his daughter as fast as possible. Knowing him, he’ll spout some
nonsense to prove what a loving couple they are and how Snow shouldn’t worry
about them, and Regina’s blood boils at the thought. She’s tired of the lies,
and feeling incensed and constantly betrayed, she doesn’t allow Leopold the
relief of keeping his daughter unaware of his true self.
“The matter is that your father is being an unreasonable fool,” she states, not
holding back a smirk when Snow gasps and brings a hand up to her chest, the
perfect picture of an offended princess so accurately drawn that Regina is
automatically delighted. “Not that it is something new, of course.”
“Regina!” Snow exclaims, more bewildered than accusing, her eyes big as
saucers.
Regina merely rolls her eyes when both Leopold and Snow look at her as if she’s
sprouted a second head. Never before has she seen any resemblance between them,
Snow’s beauty always reminding her of the still hanging portraits of Queen Eva,
but with that dumb expression on her face, she’s very obviously her father’s
daughter. Regina groans at the thought, and with a dismissive hand, chooses to
close the conversation before she has to bite her tongue not to say more words
that they will inevitably find offensive.
“I am going for a stroll,” she announces, immediately trudging her way outside
with determined steps.
Behind her, Snow exclaims, “Regina, it’s dark outside!”
She doesn’t grant an answer, but rather just keeps walking, immersing herself
into the woods surrounding their camp without paying much attention to
directions. She just walks, her steps steady and hard, her knees coming up high
before moving down, like a little girl throwing the worst of tantrums. The way
Leopold scolds her, she may as well be. She grunts as she thinks of his
disruptive presence and his growing possessiveness, of that doltish face of his
that manages to make her feel like property. She’d come out of their little
trip to George’s palace content with her own success, and of course Leopold
would manage to break the spell all too soon and remind her of her true
reality. He will probably throw her into her bedchambers for a few days the
minute they get back, she has no doubt.
Eventually, Regina stops her lumbering walk and changes it for a more temperate
sort of stroll that takes her all the way to the edge of a lake, dark water
still in the breezeless night. She stops before it, and allows herself to smell
the earthy scent of pines and grass around her, along with the humid hue of the
air. She sinks to her knees, touching the ground with a quiet oofand leaning
forward, her hands falling against the dirt and curling there, the soil beneath
the grass cool as it stains her fingers. She’s infinitely tired, and for a
second, she wishes she could stay right where she is for all eternity, kneeling
on the cold ground, rooted to the earth in a way that makes her feel more
tangible than she remembers feeling in a very long time. Her body sinks
forward, her shoulders dropping tiredly and her head angling down, as if all it
wants is for her is to lie down and rest. She hasn’t had a peaceful sleep in a
very long time.
It’s a while before she shakes herself out of her stupor, but rather than go
back to the camp, she looks before her at the quiet lake, waters so unmoving
that it’s almost eerie. The moon isn’t quite full tonight, so the pale light it
casts is poor, giving the water a near supernatural feeling to it, as if it’s
simply waiting to claim a willing victim. It might not be such a terrible
death, to drown in cold, clean water. Regina chuckles at the thought, but
before she knows what she’s doing, she finds herself unfastening her clothes
and dropping them to the ground, where they fall heavily and with a thud. She’s
grateful that she chose to wear nothing but riding pants and a soft blouse over
her corset, since it all comes out rather fast and easy, not allowing her time
to think this through. She stands, naked feet grounded on the wet grass,
nipples hard and skin bristled when the coldness of the night air touches her.
It wakes her up somehow, a chill running up her spine making her aware enough
to remember that the camp is not that far away, and that Leopold will have
probably sent his guards looking for her. With a wave of her hand, she casts a
cloaking spell around the lake, and then steps her way into the water.
She gasps when her feet first touch the water, colder than she had expected it
to be. She’s not particularly fond of the chilliness, and is usually very
prickly about her bath water being as heated up as possible, but tonight she
dismisses such thoughts and wades into the lake. The wet soil beneath the sole
of her feet feels funny, almost ticklish, so she takes a quick and sharp intake
of breath and throws herself entirely inside, until she’s swimming rather than
standing. She mutters a soft string of coldcoldcoldcoldunder her breath, but
lets the water conquer her until she’s completely submerged under it, eyes
closed against the silky feeling around her. She comes out gulping a big breath
of air, her loose and wet hair heavy and trying to drag her down again. She
concedes, and repeats the motion a few times until her skin doesn’t feel as if
it’s being prickled by frosty needles. Unbidden, she laughs.
The touch of the water, once the initial shock of the cold is gone, is smooth
and comforting against her skin. She’s in what she hopes is the last day of her
monthly bleeding, and feeling her limbs heavy, her breasts painfully full and
her insides cramping up while having to put up with a whole day journey trapped
within a carriage with her husband and step-daughter had most certainly not
helped her mood, and may be part of the reason why she’d snapped and run away
not long ago. Blood between her legs never fails to make her feel just a little
bit ashamed, mother’s words from her childhood coupled with how primitive she
feels burdened with a body she can’t control driving her to want to disappear
until everything is back to normal. The water helps, though, the cramping
almost gone and the silky soft touch of the substance around her making her
feel lighter.
Regina doesn’t know how much time passes, but with the cloaking spell hiding
her away, she’s left alone, the quietness of the dark woods her only companion.
Her only companion, that is, until she feels a flash of warm magic crawling up
her spine and announcing a second presence in her temporary sanctuary before
she can even see anyone. She turns around with a gasp, finding the shore with
her eyes even as she puts her hands to her shoulders, crossing her arms over
her naked chest as if that could somehow make her invisible. She breathes out,
slow but ragged, her breath turning into white fog before her, giving the
figure staring at her something of a ghostly appearance. And Maleficent may not
be a ghost, but she is definitely scarier than one could ever hope to be.
“Maleficent,” she says, her voice coming out a little broken, as if her teeth
were chattering.
Maleficent is not even looking at her, but rather inspecting her nails as she
lounges by the shore, long legs splayed out before her and weight rested on her
bent elbow. If Regina didn’t know better, she’d say that she’s laying down on a
plush chair, rather than the cold ground. She looks nearly bored, much the same
way she had when Regina had walked into her fortress years ago and had been
prompted into lighting a fire with her then feeble magic. Silence stretches
between them, Regina breathing slowly as she waits for Maleficent to say
whatever it is she has come to say, but the woman before her remains quietly
brooding and aloof, as if they meet in this type of situation regularly. Regina
waits, though, strangely stunned by the apparition, her brain sluggish and slow
and failing to react in any way, be it outrage or delight.
Maleficent finally turns her gaze towards her, slow and deliberate as she moves
her hand down to the ground and her eyes shift to find Regina’s, a predator in
the darkness of the forest. A sharp smile crosses her lips, and while the lack
of light doesn’t allow Regina as much viewing detail as she would like, she
imagines it tinted in deep red, shiny on Maleficent’s features. Maleficent’s
eyes do shine, though, magic gathered behind them as they turn a catlike
yellow. More than her gaze, Regina feels the magic, the taste of burnt wood
permeating the roof of her mouth, and surprising warmth travelling down the
skin of her arms.
“Are you going to come out of there?” Maleficent finally asks, curling a hand
towards Regina and then motioning towards the earthy ground where she’s
resting. Her tone is full and rich, made of promises, and her lifted eyebrow,
while filled with amused mockery, feels more like a challenge than like an
insult.
Regina, not one to back down when provoked, is prompted into moving immediately
after Maleficent rips her gaze from hers. She swims slowly until her feet are
touching wet dirt, and then she walks, water cascading down her skin as it is
left uncovered. She could very easily conjure her clothes back over her body,
but then that would be backing down from the unspoken dare Maleficent has given
her. The night air touches her as she climbs away from the water, and her skin,
used to the temperature of the lake, bristles, the hair on her arms standing on
end and her flesh growing hard and taut, her brown nipples prominent on her
breasts. Maleficent gives her a sly smile as she bares herself completely
before her, and lets her eyes roam over Regina with purpose and without
subtlety, even staring at the trickle of watery blood that Regina knows is
dripping down the inside of her thigh. She says nothing, and Regina can only
stand the impasse for so long before she loses her bravado. She feels both
vulnerable and exposed, and while not necessarily put upon by Maleficent’s
hungry look, she turns around swiftly and picks up her clothes so she can cover
herself up with her back towards her admirer. She tells herself that it’s the
cold what’s making her hasten her movements.
Regina pulls her riding pants on easily enough, but her corset proves to be a
little more of a handful for her suddenly shaking hands. Her fingers are
wrinkled from her time in the water, a little numb as well, and they slip as
she tries to fasten the front buttons on the garment. The lacing proves nearly
impossible, and Regina only ends up wrapping the fabric in her tight fists as
she closes her eyes and forces herself to breathe out slowly, swelling her
cheeks and hollowing them out as she used to do when she was a little girl and
she had to face mother. The gesture clears her head the smallest bit, enough
for her to go back to her task with steadier hands, but also to send her into a
wild goose chase for answers to questions she doesn’t dare ask. She has no idea
why Maleficent might be here, and her sudden appearance has unsettled her. It
reminds her a little bit too much of Rumpelstiltskin’s dramatic entrances and
penchant for disconcerting people, and the moment that thought enters her mind,
she finds herself turning on the spot, undone laces falling from her hands,
which immediately find their way to her hips, her stance abruptly defiant.
“Did Rumpel send you?” she questions, tone harsh and scowl marring her
features.
Maleficent, still lying on the ground and looking as impossibly unimpressed as
Regina has ever seen anyone appear, merely wrinkles her nose, disgust obvious
in her expression. “And why would the imp send me? He has no power over me.”
Regina shrugs, not particularly sure that she believes Maleficent’s statement.
There’s few magical creatures that have no dealings with the Dark One, and
Regina hasn’t met one he has no power over to some extent. Even she falls under
that category, as much as she wishes it weren’t true.
“It feels like his kind of ploy,” she explains, one hand drawing mindless
patterns in the air as her eyes roll of their own accord. “Send someone else to
do his dirty work, surprise me at my most vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable?”
Regina shrugs, one single shoulder coming up as if dismissing the confession,
and the gesture prompts Maleficent to smile wickedly, as well as to finally
move from her prone position. She stands up so quickly that Regina suspects the
use of magic, but then moves towards her slow and deliberate, with that walk of
hers that looks as if she’s dancing rather than walking. They’re not far, and
it takes Maleficent no time at all to be standing before Regina, close enough
that she has to tilt her head up so she can look into Maleficent’s eyes, study
her smug smile. Her scent reaches Regina’s nostrils, sandalwood and sweet wine,
and Regina wouldn’t be surprised if Maleficent was drunk, or high on that
special potion of hers.
“No one sent me,” Maleficent tells her then, keeping her eyes fixed on Regina’s
but reaching up with careful hands for the discarded laces of her corset. She
tightens them up, and Regina gasps when the pull is too sharp and her breasts
get squished under the garment, the top of them round and obscene above the
whalebone shaping her cleavage. She stares down, watches as Maleficent’s hands,
tantalizingly clad in mesh fingerless gloves, finish closing it up.
“You should know better than to cavort with the Dark One, anyway,” is the next
thing out of Maleficent’s mouth. Her tone is deep but playful, and it takes
Regina a moment to make out the meaning of her words. She feels hazy, and she
doesn’t understand why.
Eventually, though, she huffs, feeling too much like a little girl out of her
depth, and merely says, “Right.” Then, after a bit, “And I don’t cavort,dear.”
Maleficent laughs, the sound vibrant and nearly tangible, more cheerful than
she remembers hearing from her on their brief encounter what feels like decades
ago. She’s perhaps laughing at her, but Regina finds that she doesn’t mind all
that much, especially when Maleficent motions for the soft shirt clutched in
Regina’s hands and simply takes it from her. Regina is so stunned by the
unexpected meeting that she only manages to comply with Maleficent’s wishes and
pull her arms up so she can slide the shirt down and over Regina’s frame. The
material is soft and it immediately sticks to the still wet skin of Regina’s
arms and shoulders, failing to do a great job at covering her up. Regina
doesn’t truly mind, even less when Maleficent reaches around her to pull her
heavy hair out from the back of the shirt and lets it rest over Regina’s
shoulders. It’s probably frizzing up terribly around her forehead already, and
she wonders why Maleficent is looking at her as if she could eat her up when
she’s probably at her least attractive.
“What are you doing here, then?” Regina finally questions, and her voice comes
out unwittingly hoarse. Her heart is beating awfully wildly inside her chest,
and Regina needs Maleficent to clue her in into whatever it is that’s going on
inside her head.
Maleficent, of course, doesn’t collaborate, instead keeping busy by seemingly
inspecting Regina’s face. Rather than keeping her eyes fixed on Regina’s, she’s
roaming her features, her gaze moving swiftly from Regina’s cheeks to her lips
and jaw, travelling down her collarbones and cleavage to then come up again.
Just when Regina is about to snap and demand and answer, though, Maleficent
reaches up, and curling her hand close to Regina’s cheek, rests the pad of her
thumb on the corner of her lips, shutting up whatever complain Regina may have
been formulating, and instead making her gasp. Maleficent’s smile is knowing
and cunning, and only turns more predator-like and primitive as the rest of her
fingers come to settle at Regina’s cheek, and then proceed to travel downwards.
Her hand, ever so soft in her caress, moves down the skin of Regina’s neck,
almost ticklish, and then traces the open collar of her shirt, coming to
finally rest of the rounded curve of Regina’s breasts, now heaving unsteadily
over her constricting corset.
“I was feeling so bored,” Maleficent tells her, now finally looking back into
her eyes, “and I thought to myself, why not visit an old friend?”
Regina is mesmerized by Maleficent’s gaze, wondering how this woman could have
ever possibly been in denial about the fact that she’s part animal. She’s
looking at Regina as if she were prey, and Regina wishes she had it in her not
to be a willing one. Even through her cloudy senses, though, Regina reacts to
Maleficent’s statement the only way she knows how, with derision and doubt.
“Friends?” she sneers. “We met once for a few hours, Mal, most of which you
spent berating me.”
“We had our fun though, didn’t we? Terrorizing soldiers, burning them up,
putting girls to sleep…”
Regina snorts, unladylike and entirely too nervous. Maleficent’s fingers
resting on her cleavage are burning her up, and distracting her too much for
her to be coherent. “It’s been years,” she protests, weakly.
Maleficent, using her free hand to trace disdainful circles in the air, says,
“Time runs little different for dragons; forgive me?” She offers Regina a pout
so reminiscent of the ones she herself uses to get her way when speaking to
noblemen that it flares her up and makes her shake herself away from
Maleficent’s touch and take a step back, suddenly maddened. She’s tired of
playing games, and she won’t do it for Maleficent.
“There is nothing to forgive, dear,” she says, sneer on her face but arms
coming around herself once again, as if she was still naked. “Now, is there
anything else you want, or were you simply planning on disrupting my peace?”
Maleficent is so fast in her movements then than Regina is left breathless, and
before she can wrap her head around the how of it all, Maleficent is on her
again, even closer than before. She reaches up and forward for Regina, her
fingers grasping her chin in a tight grip and forcing her to look up. She looks
fierce and powerful, the anger flaring from her more dragon than human, and
Regina reacts mindlessly and reaches out for Maleficent, holding onto her
forearms as if to push her away, but only managing to dig her fingers hard on
the rough fabric of her dress. They breathe against each other, Regina’s heart
beating wildly all the while, her breathing ragged and stunned, tension filling
up the quiet night air around them. For a moment, Regina doesn’t know whether
Maleficent means to attack her or to do something completely opposite, but when
the woman before her shifts her savage expression for something that resembles
an amused smile, she finds herself lost for words. Maleficent’s smile is
predatory, nonetheless, and as she leans closer, Regina wonders if she’s about
to be kissed. Then, when nothing of the sort happens, she wonders whether she
would have wanted it or not.
With Regina’s face still gripped tightly in her hand, Maleficent laughs and
forces Regina’s head into a dizzying shake before she lets go completely.
Almost immediately, as if she’s discovered that if she moves fast enough she
will keep Regina entirely too confused to react, she breaches the small
distance that separates them and leans her forehead softly against Regina’s.
The touch is surprisingly intimate, leaving them impossibly close and seemingly
hidden away from the world around them, even more so when Maleficent’s loose
hair covers Regina’s view of the outside, falling curtain like around her face.
Regina breathes in slowly, the scent of wine once again reaching her nostrils
and thoughtlessly, parts her lips in a silent request.
In the small space left between them, Maleficent whispers, “Be a good girl and
pay me a visit sometime.”
And just like that, Maleficent is gone, smoke and crows invading Regina’s
silence as she disappears the same way she showed up, all too suddenly. Regina
is left alone in the lake shore, unsure of what just happened but with her body
altered, her skin tingling where Maleficent had touched her and her lips still
open and waiting for something that hasn’t come to pass. She feels flushed, and
when she brings her hands up to warm cheeks, she realizes that she must be
blushing terribly. It takes her a moment to react and to recuperate herself
from the encounter, but when she finally does so, is just so she can groan into
the quietness and stomp her foot harshly on the ground. What an insufferable
woman,she thinks, even while she puts her own hands to her chest, where her
heart and skin seem to be conspiring against her and forcing her to remember
the odd caress of barely there fingers.
Eventually, though, Regina huffs and with sharp movements rearranges her
clothes before she puts down the cloaking spell around the lake and begins
making her way back towards the camp. Leopold’s knights find her before she
reaches her destination, and just this once, she doesn’t even put up a token
protest, and simply allows them to guide her back into her tent, where she
chooses to ignore Leopold’s whining about her inappropriate behavior. Seeing
himself so easily dismissed, the king is quick to leave her, and so Regina is
left alone to finally sleep. Her cramped belly and tired back thank her for
finally letting herself rest, and as she drifts off to sleep, her senses seem
more than content to be filled with the memory of sweet smelling wine and bold
yet careful caresses.
 
===============================================================================
 
Time always seems to stand still in the palace, and so before Regina realizes
it, she’s busy preparing the now mandatory celebrations for Snow’s seventeenth
birthday. Regina takes the task as the duty that it is, but soon realizes that
there’s nothing of last year’s joy in the preparation. Snow’s sixteenth
birthday had been an opportunity to keep her hands and mind busy, but now that
she’s more interested in handling the political business of the kingdom, it
seems stupid to her that she has to pay attention to innocuous entertainment
for the court. She does what she must, though, if she chooses to lean more
heavily on Snow’s willing help.
Her job within the council isn’t quite done yet, and so she still needs to
steal time to keep up her work behind the scenes. Most members of the council
know that whatever benefits came from their new dealings with King George have
her signature behind them, but that doesn’t mean that they’re particularly keen
to concede that she is actually the ruler that the kingdom needs. However, it
does seem as if Leopold is giving up the fight, seemingly content to give into
the council’s advice, and therefore Regina’s, without too much of a fuss. He’s
old, tired and weak spirited, and he’s not about to change now, not as long as
the kingdom keeps seemingly running itself and he can partake in his favorite
activities for longer periods of time. The king is a man of simple tastes, and
Regina’s learned that what he truly enjoys is riding his carriage to the coast
lines near the palace, and taking long walks down the beach. Regina can do
nothing but appreciate the free reign Leopold’s lacking attitude affords her,
as well as the fact that he spends more and more time far away from her.
Busy with her political ambitions and duties, and convincing herself that her
quest for power is her one and only priority, Regina can almost ignore the
memory of Maleficent’s request and of the breathless excitement her closeness
had fired up within her. It’s so easy to forget the outside world, after all,
when all she has around her is court life and a persistent step-daughter to
teach and put up with, that she manages to force herself into forgetfulness.
And she knows that, perhaps, she’s stalling, postponing the inevitable, but for
now, it seems to do the trick. Or so she tells herself.
When she finds herself accosted by a necessity for honesty, though, she admits
to herself that Maleficent’s visit has rattled her to the core. She inevitably
blushes when she thinks about her, tall and beautiful, tantalizing as she moved
her hands over Regina’s skin with a familiarity that shouldn’t have been there.
She wonders just how many women Maleficent has touched like that, and whether
she’s reading entirely too much into a situation that was meant to unsettle
her, or if Maleficent truly had intended for her caresses to be a seduction of
sorts. Regina has certainly not considered the idea of a woman in her bed
before, even if she’s heard enough rumors from the court, both nobles and
servants, to know that such a thing is not particularly unusual. The truth is,
though, that Regina hasn’t had any particular sensual thoughts for men, either.
She’d both loved and wanted Daniel with everything in her, heart, body and
soul, but she can’t say she has felt even a smidgeon of superficial attraction
for any other person since then. She has, of course, thought of taking lovers
before, if only to spite Leopold and his absurd jealousy, but the thought of
hands upon her body after the wreckage the king had left behind had only ever
managed to make disgust bloom in her chest.
There’s no denying Maleficent’s allure, though, or the pull she has on Regina’s
senses. Not truly understanding why, Regina finds herself inspecting her own
body in a way she hasn’t done for years, looking at herself in her full length
mirror while standing naked before it, devoid of fabrics and paints, clean of
masks and tricks. She has avoided such scrutiny for a long time now, her
mirrors becoming windows into other people’s lives rather than reflections of
her own. She knows there’s fear laced in her lack of exploration, in her
persistent ignorance of her naked skin. Now, though, she can’t help but look
and touch, closely and profoundly, recovering the awareness of a body that had
once known how to feel pleasure. The truth is that her body hasn’t felt hers
for a very long time, perhaps for as long as she has memory; it had been
mother’s to control, Leopold’s to use, and then it had belonged to everyone
Regina had wished to trick into seeing her in a certain light. Her flesh and
bones have been shield, armor and weapon against the world around her, and only
truly hers when she’d freely shared her youth and enthusiasm with Daniel.
Looking at herself these days, reveals that she’s too skinny. She’s always
liked herself with a bit more weight on her bones, and even Daniel had always
said that he wanted her plump and happy, big in ways that spoke of nothing but
peace and contentment. But then Daniel had always been filled up to the brim
with maybes and could have been's, hopes that hurt to think about. She looks
haggard now, instead, her whole demeanor tired when she doesn’t force herself
to stand tall, and her skin entirely too pale for her tastes. Her beauty might
be enough to fool men and women alike, but her reflection speaks to her of her
own negligence, of how she’s not going outside enough for her skin to feel
breeze and sun burning it up into a nicer olive color, of how little food she
forces herself to swallow. The scar on her shoulder she healed the moment
Rumpelstiltskin began teaching her healing magic, but she’d refused to get rid
of the almost invisible pale line marring the skin of her belly, and the
reminder of her losses seems to her as entirely too prominent against her
unhealthy looking skin.
Once confronted with her reality though, Regina can’t help but keep looking,
and the longer she does, the more she begins to eat. She knows she can’t fill
herself up just by overindulging, but she still finds herself mindlessly asking
for flavorful and spicy meals that may perhaps just awaken her hungry senses.
She’d once told Daniel that all she wanted was to eat when she was hungry, and
she wishes she could force herself to do just that.
Both father and her lady’s maid watch her efforts with curiosity and wariness,
obviously surprised by her sudden insistence on full tables when they have
spent the past year forcing her to at least keep a habit of three meals a day,
even if said meals were nothing but a piece of fruit. It has been perhaps their
one and only thing in common, and one front where they have always stood united
despite father’s obvious dislike for her choice of the quiet woman. He’s been
wary of her since Regina brought her under her employ, perhaps seeing in her
the same resemblance to mother Regina had spied the moment she’d set eyes on
her, but in this one aspect he’d began to depend on the woman’s stronger
character, and on how she clearly could stand even the worst of Regina’s
tantrums without being rattled in the least.
Regina tries, and she tries resiliently and insistently, putting into her
eating habits the same effort and intents she puts in her ploys and duties. Her
body is not someone she can fool into believing a fabricated lie, though, and
her stomach has been neglected for so long now that her sudden and insistent
endeavors only end up with her making herself sick, too strong food sitting
heavily inside her belly. She feels sick, broken beyond repair, but she ploughs
through anyway, because at this point that is the only thing she knows how to
do.
“Cielo, tienes que parar, tienes que ir más despacio,” father tells her one
night, his voice soft as ever, his hand rubbing small but steady circles on her
back while he cradles her head on his shoulder. (1)
“Daddy, I don’t know how to stop anymore, I don’t want to stop anymore,” is her
muted reply.
Everything comes to a head during the first night of Snow’s birthday
festivities. It’s not even a ball this time, that particular kind of
celebration having been reserved for the last night of the week, but Regina
finds herself surrounded by people that she has to charm with fake smiles,
smirks and the right kind of posturing, and she doesn’t know if she can put up
with it at all tonight. Tonight she feels like she could burn this palace to
the ground with everyone inside it, and she can't stand the idea of playing
nice. She can feel herself loosing it, sanity slipping through her fingers and
threatening her precarious balance, and so she escapes the quaint dinner with a
small and harried excuse, and finds herself in a balcony that she’s used as
reprieve from court members on more than one occasion.
The air is cool and crisp tonight, but not even breathing it in calms Regina’s
senses. She had been doing so well as of late, had been keeping herself so very
in check that now she can do nothing but be furious at her own weakness. She
blames it on Maleficent, on whatever it is that she managed to awaken inside
her all those weeks ago and that has her feeling all over the place. Mother had
raised her to be in control, had posed herself as a perfect role model for it,
for even in her fury mother had been coiled tight, cold and stern and
terrifying in her absolute restraint. Regina’s control comes from effort and
constant starvation, though, and when she loses it simply spills everywhere,
like a broken dam, unstoppable and beyond repair. Tonight, she feels as if all
the work she’s been putting into building walls may prove to be fruitless.
Cold doesn’t calm her, but maybe pain will, so she pushes her thumb into her
opposite palm, pressing hard on the juncture between thumb and forefinger, the
familiar ache pulling her into the here and now. If she doesn’t do something,
she’ll either collapse or let her anger reign her, so with firm determination
in mind she closes her eyes and pictures Maleficent’s castle in her mind’s eye,
searching for the memories of it that are not as buried as Regina wished they
were. Maleficent has been the one to cause her unrest, so she must be the one
to put a solution to it. With a sharp intake of breath, she focuses on the
image in her head, and before she can consciously realize it, she feels the
pull of magic and vanishes from the spot, leaving nothing but a cloud of purple
smoke behind.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina appears inside Maleficent’s fortress with a sigh, the sense of vertigo
that comes with magical transportation making her sway on the spot for a brief
second.
“So you have been practicing; that was almost impressive.” Maleficent’s voice
cuts the silence, and it feels to Regina as if it’s booming and overpowering,
even if not intended as such. Regina twists her mouth into what she hopes is a
sneer, but before she can say anything, Maleficent commands, “Sit. Drink.”
Regina looks at her then, lounging on a big eared and cushiony chair, goblet in
hand and eyes at half mast, more interested in the fire before her than in
Regina. At least this time there’s a fire, she muses, not that it manages to
make the room all that comfortable anyway. It’s just like Regina remembers it,
dark and dank, stuffy even when the big windows around the chamber probably
haven’t been properly closed in years, making it drafty. It’s pure abandoned
decadence, and Regina sniffs the air haughtily before she does as she’s told
and finds herself swishing her way to a leather and comfortable looking couch.
She sits gingerly, back straight and hands resting on her lap, impossibly
fidgety. She’s all over the place, mind racy and excited but limbs tired and
tense, and she’s both hungry and feels as if the taste of food may make her
sick.
“Heavens, girl, I said sit.”
Regina frowns, looking at Maleficent’s wide sprawl with a judgmental eyebrow.
Then, she passes judgment on herself, ladylike posture and clad in a sweet
looking gown pattered with light yellow roses. She’d hated the fabric, but Snow
had insisted on her getting a dress made from it and she’d complied just to
quiet the girl’s insistence, even when she knows the color washes her out and
makes her look sickly and young. She feels itchy inside it, and she wants to
rip it away and cover herself in soft blue velvet, or dark red silk. Still,
she’s not about to concede Maleficent’s point, so she merely motions towards
her with a curling hand as she speaks.
“I am sitting, dear; you are slouching.” Then, with a wrinkle of her nose, “How
pedestrian.”
Maleficent laughs, amused and bitter at the same time, and then says, “Drink,
then.”
“I don’t truly like the taste of alcohol.” Which is not entirely true, but
Regina’s been feeling unhinged for weeks, and tonight she wishes to be
contrary.
Maleficent stares at her for a second, something that may just be irritation
clouding her gaze. Maybe she’s about to force Regina out of her fortress, and
perhaps that will be enough for Regina to put their encounters behind her and
go back to her plans of controlling the kingdom without being constantly
assaulted by the sight of a body that she finds inadequate for herself, but
useful as a weapon against others. Maleficent does nothing of the sort though,
and instead moves in that way that makes Regina feel dizzy, going from utterly
languid to brisk and purposeful so fast that she finds herself gasping when
Maleficent is suddenly before her, invading her senses and her space. She
smells of a foreign spice tonight, but Regina is barely given time to register
the thought, not when Maleficent’s next move is to bring a hand to the back of
Regina’s head, forcing her fingers into her tightly coiled hair, and
pull.Regina grunts, surprised yet angry, but her complaints get literally
drowned when Maleficent presses a goblet against her lips and cants it, forcing
the liquid into Regina’s mouth. It’s too much too fast, the taste of wine tangy
and strong against her lips, chocking her up even as it spills down the corners
of her mouth and all the way to her jaw. She gags, coughs as the liquid clogs
up her throat, and then Maleficent finally releases her, laughing at her
spitting out deep red wine onto the lap of her dress.
Regina turns sharply to look at her, fury in her features as she finally
manages to stop coughing. Her throat feels raw after the rough treatment, but
Maleficent looks unfazed despite her previous forcefulness, aloof as she drops
all her weight next to Regina, lethargic once again. She looks sullen but
breathtaking, and the lackadaisical texture of her movements makes Regina
deflate, anger forgotten as it gives way to pure exhaustation.
“I still don’t like the taste,” she says, and her voice is hoarse and hurts as
it comes out.
That makes Maleficent laugh, the sound jagged and impossibly alluring. She
looks at Regina with something of a twinkle on her eye, a shadow of playful
youth crossing her features as she conjures up a bottle into her hands and
proceeds to pour a plentiful amount on a new ornate goblet. She passes it to
Regina, and waits until she’s taken it, fingers brushing absent-mindedly,
before she says anything.
“Sweet wine from the Southern Isles; you’ll like it.” With a shrug, she
continues, “I burnt a wagon full of soldiers for it, so you better enjoy it,
girl.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m a queen, not a girl.”
There’s no reply, but then again, Regina doesn’t expect one. She stares at the
full cup before her, and takes a sip so small that Maleficent rolls her eyes.
Regina half expects her to push the goblet into her mouth again, so she takes a
longer gulp if only just to stop her. She tells herself, adamantly, that it’s
not to please her. The taste this time is sweet and cool, pleasant. Regina’s
not much of a drinker, alcohol being Leopold’s choice of poison for putting up
with their nights together, but she does enjoy the occasional drink. Maleficent
clearly enjoys it more than just occasionally, and Regina is beginning to
suspect that drunkenness is a sort of permanent state for her.
The silence is heavy between them, and Regina only breaks it when Maleficent
reaches for her and presses her open-palmed hand to her cheek. Her skin is cold
and dry, a balm against Regina’s heated up face, and she realizes that she’s
impossibly attracted to this woman. She doesn’t understand it, because there
has only been Daniel before, and their passion was brought on slowly as they
got to know each other, as they pushed and pulled until they reached an
understanding under an apple tree and surrounded by soft breeze. She doesn’t
know Maleficent, knows nothing about her other than what she’s red on books and
what little she was shown all those years ago, and it scares her that she feels
such a pull towards the intoxicating woman. She knows now that she came here to
get into bed with her, if that is indeed what Maleficent is offering, and she’s
trembling just at the idea of it all. Her body has been nothing but a burial
ground for years, and she doesn’t know if she can bear someone’s touch. It may
just scorch her to death, or it may leave her insane and wanting.
“Come here,” Maleficent tells her, her thumb now a bold caress on her face,
drawing a circle on the apple of her cheek and travelling to the corner of her
mouth.
Regina, who has been fighting and rebelling against commands for what feels
like a lifetime, doesn’t question Maleficent’s order, but merely leans forward
and closer to her, moth to a flame. Her breathing is ragged and short, and the
back of her neck feels clammy with sweat.
Maleficent looks at her with derision in her eyes, but it feels more
exasperated than cruel when she mouths, “I said, come here.”
She pulls from Regina then, hands at her hips and arms manhandling her weight
with entirely too much ease until Regina is perched on her lap, legs half
trapped among the layers of her skirt even as her knees rest on the couch on
either side of Maleficent. She’s preternaturally strong, but when her hands
rest on Regina’s sides they’re careful and soft, a barely there touch that
Regina wishes she could feel on her skin, rather than above whalebone and
taffeta. Regina exhales harshly once she’s allowed to be still again, and she
sags forward, resting both her palms on Maleficent’s shoulders – the fabric
there is old and rough, clearly an exquisite but worn down remnant of better
times, and Regina wants it gone.
She feels her chest heaving, fast and surprised, and even as she feels herself
swaying – towards or away from Maleficent she’s not sure – she still finds it
in herself to pose a protest. “I am starting to discern that simply asking is
not one of your talents, dear.”
Maleficent gives her a wicked smile, amusement written in her features. She
says nothing, though, but instead moves her hands to where Regina is resting
her own on her shoulders, and trails them slowly up her naked arms, all the way
to her collarbones and then back down. Her touch tingles. It’s merely the tip
of her fingers travelling up and down slowly, but it makes Regina shiver, fear
and anticipation uncoiling somewhere behind her breastbone; she hasn’t been
touched properly in so very long.
“Have you ever had a lover?” Maleficent asks her, head tilting to the side
curiously and hair spilling carelessly over her left shoulder and Regina’s
hand. “Other than the king?”
Regina growls, her face fighting itself in between a frown and a disgusted
grimace. Her fingers tense on Maleficent’s shoulders, digging in hard, and her
tone is nothing but unforgiving when she states, “Don’t ever call that man my
lover.”
Maleficent says nothing, as if she’s giving her time to come back from her stab
of sudden fury, but she keeps a steady movement up and down her arms. It’s both
soothing and disconcerting, too soft to awaken Regina’s senses beyond a
tingling sensation, but strong enough that it’s hard to focus on anything else.
Regina’s wearing Daniel’s ring today, the long chain around her neck and the
small round shape of it hidden in her cleavage, right between her breasts.
Regina reaches for it before she speaks, grasping both sides of the chain in a
fisted hand; if she were to pull a little tighter, she could choke herself with
it.
“There was someone,” she says, whisper soft and swallowing hard once the words
are out there, a confession that she’s never made before and that she’s always
kept close to her heart as her biggest secret. Let them all believe that she’s
never known true passion, while her mind and body keep her memories guarded for
themselves.
Maleficent hums appreciatively, and when her hands move, Regina thinks she’s
going for the necklace. Regina pulls from it unconsciously, not wanting it to
be touched or examined, but her effort proves worthless when Maleficent goes
for her cleavage instead. Her sudden movements should not surprise Regina by
now, but she can’t help but gasp when Maleficent hooks her fingers into the top
of her sleeveless corset, nails carelessly scratching and the top of her
breasts, and pulls from the fabric that is encasing Regina. The tearing sound
is disconcerting in the mostly silent room, but Regina barely hears it when she
feels as if all her blood is rushing to her ears as the fabric comes undone
around her, buttons, lace and whalebone giving easily into the pull of
Maleficent’s strength. The rip goes all the way from the top of the dress to
its midsection and Regina’s breasts spill forward as they’re freed from their
prison so carelessly. Her dress is ruined now, but when Regina looks down at
the tear in the fabric all she sees is her own skin on display, brown nipples
growing hard just by being exposed to the humid air of the room. Daniel’s ring,
dangling in between them, looks out of place.
Maleficent just looks at her then, eyes almost creating a tangible touch as she
stares at the newly exposed skin. Will she think her skinny, too pale, too
scarred? Her gaze speaks of nothing but hunger, and it makes Regina lick her
lips in anticipation, leave her mouth parted in a silent invitation. Before
Maleficent moves, though, Regina takes off Daniel’s ring, sliding the chain
over her neck and immediately conjuring it back into her bedchambers at the
palace and into the secret box she hides in the false bottom of her bedside
table. There’s no place for Daniel here tonight.
The skin of Regina’s torso is marred by angry red streaks, where the whalebone
of the corset had been digging into her flesh for hours, and Maleficent goes
for those first, tracing the straight lines from her belly up to the underside
of her breasts. The skin is tender yet, having only just been relieved from the
pressure and Regina draws her breath in sharply. Maleficent is still touching
her with just the pad of her fingers though, and Regina has a feeling that she
could be all slow languidness coupled with sudden movements all night long if
she lets her. She has half a mind to do just that, let the clearly more
experienced woman try to coax some feeling out of her skin, but her breathing
is getting ragged and fast, and she needs more, and she needs it now.
Never one for patience, Regina presses her sweaty palms to Maleficent’s cheeks,
cupping her face until they’re looking at each other, eye to eye. Her eyes are
impossibly blue, and her lips, closed in a soft mockery of a smile, a light red
that glistens in the candlelight. Regina hasn’t been kissed in far too long,
Leopold not having even tried to get close to her lips after the one single
press of his own to the corner of her mouth during their wedding ceremony, and
more than any other thing Regina wants to remember what that connection feels
like. She sways forward unceremoniously, moving her hands into Maleficent’s
thick hair and holding her in place as she presses their lips together, the
most chaste of locks lasting but a second before Maleficent is parting her
mouth under Regina’s and giving into the wet slip and slide of their lips and
tongues. The taste of her is unfamiliar and heady, rough in every way it needs
to be to shake Regina’s dormant spirit.
Maleficent trails her hands inside the torn fabric barely hanging from her
torso, and digging blunt nails at Regina’s shoulder blades, she drags her hands
down, no doubt leaving behind a trail of red, angry lines. Regina mewls into
her mouth, fantastically aware of her body, of every point of contact between
her and Maleficent. Her hands are sort of exquisite, soft, big and dry, her
skin what feels like perpetually cold, and she soothes the ache of her
scratching massaging comforting palms up Regina’s back, pulling her closer as
she does so. Regina feels her chest meet Maleficent’s, the roundness of a
second pair of breasts foreign but pleasant. There are too many clothes,
though, Maleficent’s dress which seems like an unconquerable obstacle between
them and the torn shreds of Regina’s corset now digging uncomfortably into her
skin. Despite that, Regina doesn’t know if she’s willing to part from
Maleficent’s mouth long enough to shed their clothes. Her lips feel raw and
tender from the manic way they’re kissing each other, and she never wants it to
stop.
It’s Maleficent’s hand on her breast what makes her break away, a gasp leaving
her open mouth and a loud popping sound coming from the parting of their lips.
Maleficent’s grip on her is nearly bruising, nails digging into the contours of
her breast for a harsh moment before she’s kneading at Regina’s flesh with a
softer stroke, thumb catching her nipple with purpose.
Regina barely has time to enjoy the touch, though, since the next thing she
knows Maleficent is putting a strong arm around her waist and lifting them both
as she surges forward and then down, the both of them landing on the cold floor
in a flurry of fabric and awkward limbs. Regina yelps when her head and back
meet the hard stone floor beneath her, and she looks at Maleficent, now
hovering above her with a grin, and scowls.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she questions, a growl following her words.
Maleficent, impudent smile on her features and hand already busy trying to get
rid of the shreds of Regina’s dress, merely replies, “There are worst ways to
go, I’m sure.”
Regina growls again, but soon enough is not because of Maleficent’s words, but
because her mouth is on her, wading her way over Regina’s naked skin.
Maleficent bites at her collarbone and then soothes the ache, and soon she’s
making a trek downwards in that same fashion, hurting and appeasing her skin
with plump lips and a smart, wet tongue. Regina sighs and grunts in equal
measure, the trail of skin that Maleficent touches burning up as if feverish,
waking up with every rough touch. She closes her eyes, gives into it and arches
into Maleficent’s touch when her tongue reaches a nipple, her caresses
purposeful and wild, insistent.
Regina’s breathing hard, the sound of her intakes of air so harsh against her
own ears. She feels out of control, though, her body having been neglected for
so long and Maleficent’s touch so inebriating on her skin. She’d been afraid
that being caressed again would only bring back memories, of Daniel’s touch now
long gone, or worse, of the looming figure of an unwanted king above her, but
Maleficent is too intoxicating for Regina to possibly think about anyone else
when her nails are writing a new path down her sides, and when her teeth and
tongue are bringing sensation back to every inch of her skin. Regina wants
more, though, she wants to feel all of Maleficent, to lay her eyes upon a form
so foreign and so alluring to her, and so she shakes herself from the
pleasurable stupor that Maleficent’s tongue on her nipples has put her into and
searches for Maleficent blindly with both her hands. She buries them in her
hair, thick and rich between her fingers, and then trails them down and around
her searching for buttons, lace, anything that will make that silly dress of
hers go away. She finds nothing, her limbs heavy and her mind dizzy with the
kisses Maleficent is now pressing on her stomach, and she ends up pulling from
fabric with a grunt. It proves fruitless, her strength not equaling
Maleficent’s in the least and making it impossible for her to tear the fabric
away.
Maleficent laughs against her, the sound sending ripples of warmth up the skin
of Regina’s torso, and when that doesn’t deter Regina’s efforts, she finds
Regina’s hands with her own and pulls until she has them pinned against the
floor, easily immobilizing her there. Regina pouts when she’s left without the
possibility of movement, and as Maleficent stays poised above her, she thinks
she should perhaps be scared or anxious at being so clearly overpowered. She
isn't, though, not when Maleficent is looking at her with such lust etched in
blackened eyes, with such playful mirth written in her smile.
“Calm down,” Maleficent tells her, “we’re not waging war.”
Regina huffs, promptly saying, “You could have fooled me, dear.” She has no
doubt, after all, that she will be sporting bruises in no time that will bear
the shape of Maleficent’s teeth and hands.
As Maleficent moves over her again, her lips now finding the valley between her
breasts and surprising Regina with how sensitive her skin is in such an
unexplored place, it occurs to Regina that she has methods easier than brute
force to get her wishes and rid Maleficent of her clothing. She must be truly
gone when she hasn’t thought once about magic before, even when the hum of her
own and the shimmering touch of Maleficent’s is so very obviously permeating
the air around them. Nevertheless, once she actually remembers her own power
and with a flick of still trapped hands, a cloud of plum smoke covers
Maleficent and once it’s gone, so is every piece of clothing on her body.
Maleficent lifts her head to look straight into her eyes, questioning eyebrow
meeting Regina’s smug smile.
“I see you learnt more than a few tricks.”
Maleficent’s answer to Regina’s amused laugh is to grasp onto her hair and pull
sharply, managing to effectively stop the throaty sound and turn it into an
appreciative growl. She wouldn’t have taken herself for one to enjoy such
roughness, but her body certainly appreciates the impulsiveness and harshness
of Maleficent, perhaps because she so easily couples it with sudden softness.
Now, as she forces Regina to arch her head backwards, she finds her mouth with
her own and kisses her, openmouthed and deep. Regina feels as if she’s being
devoured, claimed by a lusty and capricious predator, and all she can do is
answer in kind, kissing back with abandon as her hands finally find their way
to the naked skin of Maleficent’s spine.
Their kiss is long and breathy, sloppy as they come apart and together over and
over again, their breaths ragged and hot. It’s so distracting to Regina’s
senses that she barely registers Maleficent pulling and tearing at the remnants
of her dress until it’s finally discarded and thrown away. Regina looks at the
torn fabric now ripped from her naked body, the ugly expensive thing ruined
beyond repair, and she laughs with giddiness she’s so glad of being rid of it.
Next thing she knows, Maleficent is trailing a smart hand down her body, past
her bellybutton and over the unruly, dark hair at the apex of her thighs and
right between her legs. Her fingers are soft and teasing, the pads of them a
barely there touch on Regina’s folds, but enough to make Regina’s body shiver
with sensation, her mouth part in a silent moan. Goodness, but she’s wet, so
very wet when she’d thought she would be nothing but dry and cold pain. She
parts her thighs without prompting, legs spreading easily when Maleficent’s
fingers tread carefully on the outside of her sex, her touch soft but sure, her
teasing a silent promise. Regina feels her own fingers tighten where they’re
resting on Maleficent’s back, tense and then release as each stroke of
Maleficent’s hand on her becomes more and more pleasurable. Maleficent is
touching her with the pad of her fingers, but also with her knuckles and the
heel of her hand, almost distracted and uneven when Regina suspects her touches
are anything but.
When Maleficent teases a finger inside her, Regina cries out, a pleading moan
escaping her. “Oh, please, I–” she mouths, incoherent. She doesn’t know what
she’s asking for, what it is that she wants. All she knows is that she wants
and that’s enough to make her body shiver with anticipation.
Maleficent hums, the sound rich and pleasant, obviously delighted. She murmurs
something that sounds like so responsivebut Regina barely registers it when her
mouth finds her throat and her finger begins pulling in and out of her in a
slow, hazy rhythm. Maleficent’s kisses aren’t rough anymore, but merely teasing
pecks all over the skin she can reach, Regina’s collarbones, neck, the shell of
her ear, her jaw, her cheek, her parted lips and her eyes when they’re closed.
It’s sweet, reverent, and it lights up all of Regina’s skin, already fraught
with sensation from the pull of the now two fingers Maleficent has inside her,
twirling, twisting and pushing in ways that have Regina rolling her hips
mindlessly to try and match the rhythm.
Peaking pleasure comes and goes in waves, pulling all of Regina’s focus away as
she burns up, the center of her fire firmly settled right between her legs,
where Maleficent’s hand is now doing something that feels too marvelous to
explain with words. She’s clammy with sweat, tired and searching for the
inevitable end while at the same time wishing this feeling could last forever,
trembling anticipation crawling over every inch of her skin. She has her feet
firmly planted on the floor now, though, granting her hips leverage to follow
Maleficent’s talented fingers, and her hands are firmly buried in Maleficent’s
thick locks in a wild attempt at keeping her right where she is, with her mouth
dancing in between her breasts, at times licking at the round flesh
absentmindedly and at times biting carefully at pert nipples.
It seems impossible to her, almost, that she still has so much pleasure trapped
inside her, but the curling of her toes and the heated trails of shivering
bliss cursing all through her body are proof enough that she’s still alive, and
that her body is willing and ready to be pampered and thoroughly loved. She’s
moaning mindlessly at the onslaught of sensation, sure that nobody should go so
long without being touched properly, and she’s so gone that she doesn’t even
notice the climbing of her voice that matches the heightening of her pleasure.
When her climax hits her she’s silent though, body taut for a second before
she’s trembling with her release, and her voice trapped somewhere in her
throat. When it finally comes back to her, all she manages is a breathy oh.
Next to her, Maleficent is humming, her face now travelling back to Regina’s
slowly, nuzzling here and there in her trek upwards.
“So pretty,” she murmurs right before she catches Regina’s lips in a demanding
kiss, stealing whatever breath she has left away from her.
Their lips part ways, and then Regina feels Maleficent’s cold tongue on her
cheek, tracing a slow pattern on her overheated skin. Regina reaches up for her
own cheeks in an effort to try and tamp down her flush, but she finds wet skin
instead. It takes her a moment to realize that what she's touching and
Maleficent is licking at are her own tears. She wants to be embarrassed, finds
that she should, but Maleficent just keeps touching her with so much purpose
that she can’t bring herself out of her hazy stupor. Her body is still so very
sensitive, and Maleficent’s fingers are still inside her, a sigh of a movement
to them, as if they can’t bear to stay motionless while claiming Regina’s
insides.
Regina reaches up with a shaky hand and finds Maleficent’s cheek, bringing her
face up so that they’re looking into each other’s eyes. Maleficent’s are so
very blue, and right now look so very wide, clouded in equal parts with mirth
and delight, and even if Regina is still coming down from her high, she
realizes that it’s not nearly enough. She wants so much to touchnow, to explore
Maleficent’s beautiful skin, and to keep being touched in return. She’s hungry
for this in a way she had forgotten how to be, and even with limbs that are
begging for a respite she reaches up for Maleficent’s mouth and kisses her
roughly.
Maleficent laughs into her mouth when Regina pushes her until she’s the one on
her back, even as her fingers remain between Regina’s thighs, tantalizing and
so very tempting. Regina has no doubt Maleficent is letting her maneuver her,
though, having already had a taste of the true strength of the woman, but she
doesn’t care, not when she’s still riding the height of her pleasure and when
there’s so much she wants to do.
She breaks away from their kiss to look at Maleficent, now below her, naked
breasts spilling wide and round on her chest, impossibly long legs coyly
pressed together and large plains of skin. There’s a thick scar on her torso,
claiming a wide patch of skin from the underside of her left breast to her
bellybutton, and then following an uneven path almost all the way to her right
hip. Regina touches it gingerly, fingers careful on the too pale skin. It’s
old, thick and angry, and it’s the first thing she wants to kiss. She does just
that, and takes Maleficent’s gasp at the action as all the encouragement she
needs to keep touching. Maleficent, though, obviously not one to give up her
dominance, twists the fingers that are still nestled inside Regina, dragging a
surprised grunt out of her, and making her glare up at Maleficent from her
newfound place between her breasts – she has a feeling it’s going to be a
favorite.
With a teasing smile, Maleficent asks, “Do you even know what you’re doing,
girl?”
Regina scoffs, but, spurned rather than undeterred by Maleficent’s taunt, she
moves up until she can wedge a firm thigh between Maleficent’s, pulling her leg
up until she can feel liquid heat against her skin. Maleficent’s growl is
enough to let her know that she’s struck gold, and so it is with a smirk that
she counters with, “Don’t worry, dear, I’m a quick study.”
 
===============================================================================
 
The next year flies by, Regina’s mind and fingers so busy that it barely even
registers with her. The business pertaining the kingdom, along with the
occasional travels to neighboring lands fill up her time to the brim, securing
her place as queen more and more with every step she takes, with every heart
that crowds her mother’s vault. It’s hers now by right, the cavernous sound of
beating hearts now speaking of her progress and ambition, rather than of
mother’s cruelty.
It’s easier for her to keep her control these days, having the safe haven of
Maleficent’s fortress to run to when she feels as if she may just kill all the
inconsequential people she has to deal with on a day to day basis. In a way,
Maleficent is for her now what Daniel had once been, a place for freedom and
loss of control that helps her maintain an easy fluidity in a world ruled by
someone else’s guidelines. There’s nothing of Daniel in Maleficent, of course,
and she can hardly see their relationship as the hope inducing marvel that
loving Daniel had been, but their affair does make Regina feel as if she has a
place that allows her the license of doing what she wants, and being who she
truly is.
Regina had needed that, needs it now more than ever, and the effect is so very
clear to her that she can’t help but be thankful for the dragon witch, even at
her most petulant and insulting. Her body thrives under Maleficent’s attention,
and she finds herself gaining weight yet again, and watching as her skin takes
on a healthier color, her cheeks recuperating a nice glow. She’s been eating
better, the process painful and slow, packed with Regina’s tantrums and
overwhelming urges to stuff herself full of anything that may cure her of her
moments of misery. Lately, she finds herself almost enjoying the taste of food
again. She has even reinstated her weekly lunches with Snow, even when she once
again finds herself hating the fact that a shared table always makes her feel
more at ease with herself. Snow has learnt to love father’s favorite dishes,
too, and Regina struggles with herself when the girl seems so happy to sit and
eat with her, half wishing that the spices of father’s land would fall ill on
Snow’s stomach.
Maleficent’s touch is a permanent mark on Regina now, and she realizes very
early on in their affair that the sight of Maleficent’s hands, teeth and mouth
etched on her skin makes her feel good, rooted inside her body in a way that
she had forgotten how the be. She had been losing herself in the fantasies of
others for so long, that it’s with delight that she takes ownership of her own
skin. Marred by Leopold’s unwanted hands, she had shirked with shame, but
touched by wanted caresses she remembers who she is, what she wants, and how
much she needs to take revenge on those who have made hurting her into a sport.
That first night with Maleficent, she’d come back to the palace as if she’d
just fought a battle that had used her skin for a field. She’d looked at
herself in the mirror and had found the shape of Maleficent’s teeth etched on
the juncture of her neck and shoulder, a constellation of purpled marks
travelling all the way from her hip to her inner thighs, the red marks of
scratching nails painting her sides and back. She’d blushed at the sight,
feeling conquered but not owned, and with enough energy in her to take over the
world. It had certainly helped her when she’d been forced to spin a new story
through Baroness Irene’s attentive ears, explaining why she’d disappeared
during Snow White’s birthday bash. On the other hand, she’d felt ready to
explode and reveal her true self, hungry enough to rampage through the court
and sit herself on her well-earned throne, Leopold’s and Snow’s heads at her
feet.
“Why don’t you just… do that?” Maleficent asks of her one day, one finger
dipping absentmindedly into her goblet and then coming up to her mouth tainted
in red wine so she can taste it directly from her skin.
That particular afternoon Regina is feeling impatient and incensed, and she
suspects that Maleficent’s drawl of a question has only been posed because she
hasn’t let herself be touched yet. Instead, she’s pacing before the bed that
they barely ever manage to reach in their fiery fumbles, the train of her dress
trailing behind her and almost making her trip in her haste.
“This takes subtlety and patience, dear,” Regina replies. “I don’t expect you
to understand.”
And she truly doesn’t, not when Maleficent is obviously more than comfortable
with burning people and whatever may be holding them inside to a crisp to get
whatever is it that she desires. Why Rumpelstiltskin ever chose her as a role
model for patience Regina will never understand.
Maleficent, leaning forward and with her eyes at half mast, barks a mocking,
“Explain it to me, Your Majesty.”
Regina huffs, but she deflates somewhere in the middle of her fifteenth or
sixteenth angry stalking of the room and ends up dropping all her weight next
to Maleficent on her entirely too comfortable couch. For good measure, she
steals her goblet and drinks a large swallow of her wine before she chooses to
speak.
“The council and the neighboring kingdoms must support my claim once Leopold
dies, otherwise they will push for Snow’s right to the throne and leave me in
the sidelines, never mind that I am the one ruling the land, and not that oaf
of a man,” she rambles, mouthing to Maleficent the speech she has been giving
herself for years now whenever it feels as if killing mindlessly is all she
needs to be free. “And I can’t kill the man myself… goodness knows they’ll try
to burn me for witchcraft if they even connect his demise to me; it must be
someone else.”
Maleficent laughs that throaty laugh of hers that Regina would be loath to
admit that she loves, and then she leans forward and into Regina’s space, her
fingers already playing with the skin revealed by her corset even as she says,
“What do you need a kingdom for? Give it up, take the palace, and forget about
ruling.”
Regina scoffs, making a show of pushing Maleficent’s hands away. “And then
what?” she wonders in the small space between them. “Become some old witch
trapped by myself in some scary fortress?” she mocks easily as she presses a
harsh kiss to Maleficent’s scowling mouth. “I am a queen, dear, don’t ever
forget.”
There’s a smile on Maleficent’s face, and just like every other gesture she
dedicates to Regina, there’s something amused within it, as if Regina is a
little girl who says the most stupid things. Regina would protest the gesture,
and Maleficent’s following words of, “Shut up, Your Majesty, you are boring me
to death with your politics and rules,” but then Maleficent is crawling between
her legs, already practiced mouth making Regina forget what it is that they
were talking about to begin with.
It’s always the same with them, a push and pull that ends with Regina feeling
dizzy with how easily it changes from one emotion to the next. Maleficent
certainly doesn’t care much for Regina’s talk, particularly when it pertains
kingdom business, or Regina’s small but successful ploys to get her way. She
doesn’t care about her secret correspondence with King George and King Midas,
can’t even fake a smile for the diary Regina has been keeping for Leopold’s
benefit, so his not so secret reading of it will steer him in the direction
that she needs, even yawns when she speaks about how she’s convinced the
Military Advisor to outfit one of the army’s battalions in Regina’s choice of
black garb and have them trained as her own particular militia, along with a
group of willing men from the nearby villages.
Still, Regina talks, more than she has for the past seven years of her
marriage, and even perhaps before. She speaks of father, of his soothing voice
and his stories, of his lack of pride that never fails to hurt her so. She
spins stories of mother, of whatever little morsel of affection she can
remember from her, of powerful feats that actually make Maleficent crow with
delight even if they're part of Regina's worst nightmares. She doesn't talk
about Daniel, but she does speak of his death, and of the revenge she will
finally get once she has her hands on Snow. And she talks of Snow, too, of her
future demise and her plans to ruin her - which seems to almost amuse
Maleficent - but also of the way their lives are so impossibly interwoven that
sometimes Regina gets overwhelmed by bitter emotions that make her question
everything about herself. She spews hate about Leopold, about the feeling of
his hands on her hips, holding her down, and of the smell of rum on his breath.
Rumpelstiltskin, too, sometimes makes an appearance in her rambles, the
interested eye that Maleficent gives her when she lets her mouth run with
stories about the imp never failing to stop her words.
Maleficent never speaks back, though, mysterious or disinterested Regina
doesn't know. She's too hard to get to know, and Regina confesses to herself
that perhaps she's not even trying, not when Maleficent offers her a quiet ear
and pleasure beyond her wildest dreams.
Truth be told, Regina isn’t particularly sure that Maleficent even likes her.
She seems amused and bored in equal amounts by her, and seems perfectly content
drinking quietly as she rants about whatever is on her mind, rages and seethes
if she must, and even throws the odd fireball at the old walls within the
fortress. They’re built to withstand the worst of fires, after all, and Regina
is more than happy to give into her most basic instincts when she’s around
Maleficent. The witch does love goading her, which seems to be her biggest
entertainment, aside from laying her claim on Regina’s willing body. It may be
a tactic to shut her up, or simply a way to pass the time for her, but there’s
no doubt in Regina’s mind that Maleficent wants her, all the time, and in any
way that Regina will allow herself to be taken.
Maleficent’s appetite is surprising but delightful, and Regina thrives in it
with a feeling that approaches playfulness, even when she makes her feel nearly
ashamed with the ways they find of tangling their bodies together. She’d never
been shy with Daniel, him being the one to blush and be surprised by Regina
wanting so much and with such unbidden desire, but their youth and
inexperience, along with how little time they’d had, had certainly never
allowed them to explore each other thoroughly. Regina suspects that
Maleficent's hungry inclinations surpass anything that they may have come up
with, though. Just Maleficent’s favorite position for her, hands and knees on
the mattress and bottom high in the air so that she can taste her deep and
slow, was enough to almost send Regina yelping with surprise from the bed the
first time she’d manhandled her into it. And she’d laughed at Regina too, but
then her tongue had more than made up for the teasing.
A part of her thinks that she should feel shame, but then she thinks there’s no
disgrace in whatever kind of affection it is she shares with Maleficent, nor
with the extensive love she had for Daniel. She figures that’s there’s only
true indignity in Leopold forcing himself on her, on men buying into her tricks
just because they like to stare at her body.
Maleficent’s craving for her body doesn’t surprise Regina in the least, not
once she figures out that with her, it’s all indulgence, all the time. She’s
not particularly fond of the taste of food, but she’s certainly a heavy
drinker, and still somewhat addicted to that drug like composition made of her
own sleeping curse. Regina refuses to try the latter, too afraid of her control
slipping her completely with such a substance, but she allows herself to be
taught to drink. Maleficent seems happy sharing tasteful wines and heavy
liquors with her, teasing her when a night hazy with whiskey and kisses ends up
with Regina feeling so sick that she swears she must be dying.
“What a lightweight, my dear,” Maleficent mocks her, even as she’s curling a
soft hand on her back.
It’s rare for Maleficent to be soft with her, but it does happen. The odd
caress to her face that feels heavy with emotion, a tender kiss pressed to her
neck, soft and lingering, full with silent meaning, a profound gaze speaking of
unpronounceable affection. Regina soaks up the feeling of those fleeting
moments, afraid to feel more than she should for this woman that so very
obviously can’t love her fully, the way Regina may just need to escape her own
spiral of darkness.
Regina tries showing her own fondness back as best as she knows how without
betraying that her feelings may be deeper than she can afford them to be.
There’s no place for love in the vast emptiness of her insides, not with anger
and revenge filling up every crevice, but the spark of care for this woman that
has woken her body up from its slumber is something she doesn’t know how to
stop. Regina’s tenderness comes in the form of treats, for as much as
Maleficent isn’t fond of eating, she has a sweet tooth and a weakness for
anything special and foreign. As long as anything seems unhealthy and
extraordinary enough, Maleficent will have it, a yellow shine to her
animalistic eyes and a childlike smile etched on her lips. Regina thinks of
Maleficent’s capriciousness as a game, and is secretly thrilled with the search
of the tastiest morsels she can get her hands on.
In Agrabah, she finds dates, syrupy fruits and overly sweet treats, most of
them courtesy of Prince Bernard, who had surprisingly kept up his promise of
correspondence with Regina.
His letters and constant gifts of candy had made Leopold upset enough that he’d
berated Regina for her obvious affair with a foreign prince, and Regina hadn’t
even hidden her rolling eyes as she’d quietly stated, “He’s eleven years old,
Your Majesty, I hardly think seducing is in his skill set quite yet.”  
Father, too, proves to be an endless source of foreign gifts for her, and more
than happy to regale her with tales of his long forgotten land, the way he’d
done when Regina was little. Of course Regina brings big pieces of dark
chocolate to Maleficent, but at father’s prompting, she also ends up with her
hands full of turron, the taste of nougats ending up a favorite of
Maleficent’s; almonds covered in thick layers of pressed sugar, which they both
find entirely too sweet, but enjoy passing from mouth to mouth in a way that
somehow manages to be more erotic than disgusting; and marzipan, which Regina
likes so much that she makes Maleficent beg for a taste.
On one occasion, she presents Maleficent with a shiny red apple, freshly picked
from her own tree, and dangles it in front of her face as she lays on her front
on Maleficent’s unmade bed, naked, still sweaty from their previous lovemaking
and with her loose her falling pleasantly down her back. She quite enjoys the
picture she must present, and ends up scowling when her little show grants her
only a huff from Maleficent.
“It’s just an apple,” Maleficent whines, as if Regina’s previous offering of a
treat had been nothing but a lie.
Regina rolls her eyes, even as she keeps the fruit in her hand, presenting it
as the richest of treasures. “It’s a special apple from my tree, show some
appreciation; few people have gotten a taste.”
Maleficent, who is for some reason lounging on the floor with a loose coverlet
hanging on her otherwise naked body, gives a bit of a wicked smile as she
counters, “A taste of your forbidden fruit, Regina?”
Regina has to suppress a groan at the comment, but forgives the cheesiness of
it when Maleficent finally leans forward and takes a bite of the apple that’s
still resting on Regina’s hand. She feigns interest as she munches, and even
hums a little for show once she’s done. Then, and looking at Regina with
serious eyes, she murmurs, “Guess what? It tastes just like an apple.”
An offended huff escapes Regina, but Maleficent’s smile is delighted and
wicked, and by the time she’s jumping back on the bed and discarding the bitten
fruit somewhere in the room Regina is laughing, carefree.
Regina realizes that she smiles more around Maleficent than she has in years,
and that her joy is tangible and real, lacking the bitterness that she finds
when she deals with Snow, and the contempt that accompanies her interactions
with just about everyone else. It’s daunting, the idea that she may just be
happy outside the palace, with Snow White still roaming the world with a smile
on her face, with Leopold unpunished, and she feels herself betraying her own
sets of rules the more and more she lets Maleficent into her life. She even
misses one of her council meetings because she’s too busy emptying a cup of
wine on Maleficent’s skin and licking it away, and she hates how her
miscalculation doesn’t even particularly bother her all that much, not when she
can still feel Maleficent’s phantom touch imprinted on her body.
She tries to put distance between them, making her visits to Maleficent’s
fortress fewer and farther in between, even when the loss of their passionate
rendezvous makes her harsh and snappish. It’s better like this, though, she
muses, as she busies herself with Snow and the council, with Rumpelstiltskin
and his magic, as she loses her freedom in exchange for her ever-growing power.
She manages a little over two months away from her lover when her strategy
proves futile, for Maleficent searches for her rather than wait for her visit,
and ambushes her in her darkened bedchambers. She appears preceded by a noisy
flock of crows, the loud and all encompassing sound waking Regina from her
slumber, and barely giving her time to register what is happening before
Maleficent is kneeling at the far end of her bed, casting a long shadow over
her.
“Hello, Regina,” she says, and the darkness of the night coupled with her
sudden appearance make her seem threatening to Regina, her mind still trying to
wake up enough to make sense of Maleficent’s presence here, in her bedchambers
at the palace.
She comes to easily enough, though, sleep the furthest thing from her mind when
she regards her nightly visitor. As soon as her brain catches up with the
situation, she hisses, “Mal, what are you doing here?” Her tone is angry,
sharp, disapproving of the liberties Maleficent is taking with her sudden
visit.
They don’t have a spoken agreement about their affair, but Regina had thought
that it was pretty clear that she is the one who gets to decide the times and
places for it to unfold. She would have thought, too, that Maleficent would be
smart enough to understand that the king’s palace was out of limits; after all,
Regina is the one who actually has something to lose if their meetings are
discovered.
Maleficent doesn’t seem to care for formalities or secrets tonight, not as she
easily dismisses Regina’s question and simply stares at her, hunching her
shoulders forward and lowering a shiny gaze in a way that makes her look like a
panther in the darkness of the room. Regina says nothing, Maleficent’s looming
presence suddenly fearsome, primitive and predatory as she lowers her hands to
the mattress and seemingly stalks Regina’s smaller figure. Sometimes Regina
forgets what this woman truly is, but tonight she looks taller that Regina
remembers her being, the embodiment of a witch capable of haunting people’s
nightmares. Regina never wants to feel afraid of this woman, and desperately
looks for a way to compose herself and demand an explanation, go back to the
easy jabbing banter that they have with each other. In this moment, Regina
can’t believe that she has called this woman pathetic, that she has goaded her
into pouncing on her, that she has been a more than willing bed warmer for her.
Maleficent’s movements are slow but precise, and then they’re anything but.
There’s obvious magic in the air when the bedspread gets ripped from Regina’s
body, the taste of burnt meat invading the roof of Regina’s mouth as a gasp
parts her lips. She has no time for fear or surprise, though, not when
Maleficent’s hands are then pulling at the fabric of her nightgown, pushing up
with such fast fingers that Regina can’t even begin to word a protest at the
rough treatment.
“Mal–” she tries, choking on her own breath when she feels Maleficent’s weight
pin her to the mattress with ease, the obvious strength of her limbs
overpowering Regina’s weaker and still shocked body.
Maleficent growls once she’s pushed Regina’s nightgown past her hips, revealing
her naked legs and stomach to her hungry gaze. Regina’s already wet, her body
so attuned to Maleficent’s touches already that she can’t help it, especially
because for all of her roughness, her hands are a careful caress when they rest
at her waist, her thumbs pressing down on her hipbones. Regina doesn’t want
this, though, never mind her traitorous body; not like this, with Maleficent so
angry and with fear clouding her mind.
“Mal, wait–”
“What?” Maleficent spits, her voice a terrifying hiss. “Am I not good enough
for the royal bed? Or did I get too boring for the queen?” Her tone is sharp
and unforgiving, so angry that it makes Regina shiver, that it has her magic
jumping with insistence at the back of her skull, ready to be shield and
weapon.
Regina shakes her head manically, Maleficent’s angry questions going over her
head. All she wants is for Maleficent to move away, to stop being a threat and
become the lover she has come to appreciate with the utmost of fondness. Most
of all, she wants to cover up again, her nakedness a sudden vulnerability when
it has always been a delight to share with Maleficent.
“Not like this, Mal, please, just–”
And she doesn’t know what she’s asking but Maleficent must see whatever it is
that she needs to see in Regina’s eyes. She withdraws immediately, freeing
Regina from the weight of her body and gingerly bringing her nightgown back
down over her legs, careful that her hands don’t touch her skin as she does so.
She moves away from the bed, too, standing up by it and turning around so as to
give Regina a shadow of privacy.
Regina breathes out slowly the moment Maleficent is away from her, feels her
shaky limbs react to their new found freedom, and without a conscious thought
finds herself tucking her knees close to her chest, holding them close with her
arms. She sniffles in the quiet, and the sound prompts Maleficent to take a few
steps away from the bed, the rustle of her dress as she walks enough to cover
up Regina’s pathetic attempt at stopping tears from falling down her face. She
succeeds despite the tightness of her throat doing the utmost effort to betray
her, breathing shakily through her mouth and taking notice of the cleaner
atmosphere of the room, which had so easily been invaded by oppressive magic
the moment Maleficent had appeared.
Once calmed down, Regina is left with no other option than being angry, and so
uncurling herself from her protective position, she finds herself looping her
hands on the discarded cover of her bed instead, holding onto the fabric so as
not to let go of the magic that is suddenly threatening to spill from her.
“What was that, Maleficent?” she asks as soon as she finds her voice again, her
whispering tone hoarse and accusing, fury lacing every word.
Maleficent doesn’t answer immediately, and the silence stifles Regina, making
her aware of her own wild heartbeat. A familiar ire uncoils somewhere behind
her breastbone, a strong urge to mindlessly destroy whatever is within her
reach, making Maleficent the only one surprised when a mirror breaks into small
pieces beside her, the explosion of magic ending once they all fall with a
noisy clutter to the floor. The noise may just be enough to wake up her lady
maid’s and prompt her to search for its origins, so she waves a hand with the
intent of locking up the room. Instead, all she manages to do is make a vase
tumble to the floor and break, water and fresh flowers spreading everywhere.
Regina grunts with frustration, her lack of control entirely too obvious when
she closes her clumsy fist and finds a thin mist of purple magic flowing around
it.
“You will destroy the room at this rate,” Maleficent scolds, and Regina throws
her a dark look that gets lost when she realizes that Maleficent’s back is
still to her.
The air is heavy around them yet again, almost palpable in its thickness.
Regina does her best at calming down, but if Rumpelstiltskin is to be believed,
then that isn’t a particular talent of hers. She looks at her own hands, the
imprint of magic present on them, and she’s so focused on dialing her emotions
down and tampering them inside her that she misses Maleficent coming close to
her entirely. It’s the dip of the mattress what alerts her to her presence, and
she looks up to find Maleficent occupying the least space she possibly can,
sitting at the edge of her bed and giving Regina wide breathing space.
Nevertheless, she’s offering her hands to Regina, palms up and steady, long
fingers unmoving but clear in their request. Just because she’s asking rather
than taking, Regina feels confident enough to place her own hands over hers,
palms against Maleficent’s.
Maleficent’s hands are one of Regina’s favorite features of her, strong and
capable, and so very smart when sliding over Regina’s skin, so adept at waking
up every bit of bottled up lust that Regina possesses. They’re always cold,
Maleficent’s skin taking some reptile like qualities from her dragon form, and
while usually soothing, tonight they feel like even more of a calming balm once
Regina is grasping them. Magic flows between them, draining Regina of her
uncontrolled urges and pushing a heady like sense of serenity inside her. Her
body sags at the feeling, her shoulders and head dropping forward, abruptly
desperate for a place to rest. That place would be Maleficent’s chest on any
other night, but Regina doesn’t think she can bring herself to get that close
just yet.
Silence surrounds them as they stay mostly still, the only movement that of
Maleficent’s thumbs on Regina’s hands, the pressure of them over her knuckles
and fingers a caress pleasant enough to have Regina breathing steadily, and
never wanting to let go.
“I’m so very sorry, my darling,” Maleficent speaks once the quietness has
stretched too long. They’ve never been the quiet type, after all, always
spewing words at each other or trading moans rather than letting the lull of
silence press unwanted truths onto them.
Regina looks up, searching for Maleficent’s eyes. It’s jarring that she’s
keeping herself away, their only point of contact they’re intertwines hands.
Maleficent is always in her space, always touching their foreheads together,
bringing a hand up to Regina’s cheek, mindlessly caressing whatever pieces of
skin Regina’s clothes are choosing to put on display. Regina never fails to lap
it up, her skin starved for the careful affection.
“Never do something like that again,” Regina counters. She wants to respect the
current softness Maleficent has offered with her gestures and her words, but
she finds that her words are sharp, angry in ways that she’s not sure she
understands. “You do not belong here, and I don’t want you to ever be in this
room again.”
The way Maleficent looks at her radiates such hurt that Regina can’t help but
bite her own lower lip. It’s too late to stop the words, though, and Regina is
too honest to pretend that she doesn’t mean them. She can’t afford Maleficent
to crawl into every nook and cranny of her life, much less if she can cause
such unparalleled fear within her. Maleficent’s eyes are hard to resist,
though, such sadness ingrained in the deep blue of them, resignation imprinted
in their corners and the small wrinkles of the skin around them. Regina wants
to kiss it all away, have Maleficent’s lips take away with them whatever traces
of shaky alarm remain with her, but she resists the pull, keeping their hands
as their only connection.
“Be a good girl and pay me a visit sometime,” Maleficent whispers then, the
same invitation she spoke to Regina when she came to find her that day by the
lake, when Regina had been breaking apart and the mere suggestion of them
meeting had thrown her for a loop. That request had been a teasing order, a
hint of something new to come; this time, there’s something like desperation
lacing Maleficent’s tone, an apology and a plea all at the same time.
Regina’s heart clenches inside her chest, beating too hard, as if trying to
remind her that it still exists, that it’s there, alive and kicking for
something that Regina refuses to give it. Because she may just love Maleficent.
She may just love the feeling of her arms around her, her rich laugh, her
taunts that always hit Regina playfully, the way she’ll feign boredom but let
her talk anyway; she may just love her in whatever twisted, broken way her
chipped heart knows how to love. Regina can’t,though, because love is weakness,
and there are people that must taste her rage still, and Maleficent’s heart is
jagged like hers, her anger at the world already gone, having left behind
nothing but despair, and it won’t be enough to fill Regina’s voids, to soothe
the ails engraved into her skin with fire.
She squeezes Maleficent’s hands nonetheless, nods curtly as if making a promise
for a future that she can’t guess at, and even allows the tears pooling into
her eyes to fall down her cheeks. She wishes still for Maleficent’s soothing
touch on her face, even when she won’t give into it.
“Maybe sometime,” she offers, her voice bubbling strong even through her own
sadness.
Maleficent draws a weak smile, a futile attempt at bringing some of her usual
confidence to her demeanor. “Bring me something sweet,” she says, the last of
her words getting lost in the shimmering sound of crows announcing her parting.
And so, Regina is left alone.
Chapter End Notes
     (1) Cielo, you have to stop, you have to go slower.
***** Part IV *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW4: graphic depictions of super disgusting medieval disease (think
     bubonic plague).
     TW3: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW4: Mentions of past miscarriage.
     TW5: Also, the farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil
     Queen tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence... Perhaps a
     tad more bloody. Also, death of ocs, because I'm clearly developing a
     George R.R. Martin complex.
     -
     AN1: Translations in the notes at the end :)
     Also, thanks ever so much to the lovely response this has gotten!
     *kisses for everyone*
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                                        
In the face of her falling out with Maleficent, Regina grows sullen and ill-
tempered. Her patience, which usually runs thin and needs to be kept under
constant control, is nowhere to be seen in the weeks that follow her nightly
encounter with her lost lover, nobles and servants bearing the brunt of her
anxiousness in equal measure. She berates herself for her own behavior, finding
that the reprieve Maleficent had offered has ended up being more of a curse
than a blessing; she’d been doing just fine before her, but a year filled with
drinks, sweet food and the pliant skin of a skilful lover has skewed her view
of the world, and has her missing a relief that she perhaps shouldn’t have
allowed herself in the first place.
Regina wavers in her purposes, thinking that Maleficent had left her only after
extracting the promise of a maybefrom her, and that perhaps a visit to her
fortress every once in a while wouldn’t be the worst idea, as long as she sets
clear rules about their encounters. She tells herself all of this during her
loneliest days, when she finds herself ready to snap and give into the magic
uncoiling at the back of her neck and wanting her to taketaketake,but in the
end, she always denies herself the indulgence of her own wishes. Maleficent is
an addiction, and she doesn’t think she can go back so soon and not stay. With
a little more time, perhaps, she will allow herself to revel in the maybesof
them, so long as Maleficent still wants her, but for now, life at court is what
must fill her time and efforts.
It’s a little over two months after she’s last seen Maleficent when Baroness
Irene comes back to the palace, a long absence of almost fourth months due to
so-called political travels making her be welcomed back with sighs of pleasure
and murmurs of tales to be told. Regina is quick to snag her attention, of
course, readying herself for long hours of idle prattle that may hold some
interesting truths. The baroness doesn’t allow her a private visit, though, but
rather brings along with her two lady’s maids and her newest protégé, so as to
flaunt her close friendship with the queen as she so likes to do. They meet for
brunch rather than tea, and Regina makes sure that it is an ornamental affair,
obscene in that particular way that the baroness believes is what constitutes
luxury, and which always sits wrong with Regina, as it speaks of waste rather
than riches.
Regina finds that dealing with the baroness is harder than usual, and that the
woman isn’t particularly impressed by her newly found inclination for brooding.
Regina shouldn’t be surprised, knowing that the court likes her sweet and
undemanding, shy in her expressions and smiling at the favors received. They
want her to be a dim-witted child and a mysterious tragedy, rather than a
ruling queen, and it’s almost as if they find her ugly when her mouth is set
into a sneer.
“Now, my darling queen, what is it with you?” The baroness asks her that
morning, tapping Regina’s hand with her own sticky fingers as if needing the
contact to call for her attention. “I did not waste my first free morning with
you so that you could be so dour.”
“Baroness!” The exclamation comes from the baroness’ charge, and it only makes
the boisterous woman laugh uproariously and shush the girl with mirth in her
eyes.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart; the queen and I are close friends.”
Regina nods her agreement, sparing a glance towards the girl whose name she
failed to catch. It’s only proof of her own distraction that she didn’t file
the information away in case it resulted useful, but she’s not particularly
worried about another one of the girls the baroness has chosen as her pupil.
Baroness Irene has a soft spot for young women such as these, never firstborns
and always of barely known noble families, girls with little prospect if not
for her becoming their benefactor. She always finds them the appropriate
teachers and men to marry, but only after having paraded them around court for
at least a fortnight, so that she can impress upon them her wisdom and
knowledge of the world. Regina can admit that it isn’t a terrible endeavor for
the old baroness, and that more than one lady owes her a debt for life, but she
can’t help but hate how the ultimate goal in the baroness’ games is always to
rub her own ego, and praise her own altruism.
Despite Regina’s feelings for the baroness, she knows she herself owes her a
debt, if only for believing her games for so long now that she truly thinks of
herself as Regina’s true and only confidante. Regina thinks she should have
gotten more than used to the woman’s antics, but she finds that as the years
pass and her interests lie more and more in politics than in gossip, it is
harder for her to put up her front for this woman. Still, if she’s slipping
this badly with her, she can’t even begin to imagine how terribly she’s been
neglecting her public image. No matter how much she hates it, she still needs
the approval of this court, and she can’t allow herself a breakdown over a
secret affair with a witch.
Blinking owlishly at the baroness, Regina straightens her posture, only now
realizing how close to slouching she’d gotten during the time she’d been
listening to the woman’s blabbering, and smiles a little sheepishly in the
mockery of an apology.
“The baroness is right, dear, we are the closest of friends,” she tells the
girl, nodding appropriately. The girl nods back, an easy and small smile
adorning her face – she seems sweet, but then they usually are.
“I do appreciate the honesty, baroness,” Regina continues, looking this time at
the baroness with her eyes drawn down, towards her own hands. When she finally
looks up, she does so slowly and with her chin pointed down, in that way that
Regina knows makes her appear young and girlish. “Will you believe me if I tell
you that four months of your absence has left me bereft of trustworthy company?
I do find myself so very lonely when you are away, and perhaps I haven’t been
as agreeable company as I should be.”
That prompts a sudden and heartfelt, “Oh, my dear child,” to fall from the
baroness’ lips, an affected hand travelling to her chest in a gesture of
stirred emotion, and just like that, Regina knows that she’s done well.
Regina’s encounter with the baroness is left as nothing but a glitch in their
otherwise wonderful relationship, and soon enough, Regina finds herself
slipping into her old behaviors, rebuilding old barriers that hadn’t truly been
broken so much as dented. It’s easy by now, years of manipulation falling into
place in a way that make her realize that it’s not even something she has to
work on so much as a way of life, easy control that she knows how to fasten
around herself. And yet, she knows herself to be entirely too anxious.
Apprehension and distress take hold of her, a kind of madness that she doesn’t
quite understand. She finds herself going through the motions, but notices
herself growing careless and impulsive, wanting to let her tongue run with
insulting truths. Perhaps she’s going mad, after all, or maybe loosing the
freedom of her affair with Maleficent has unhinged her completely. As much
mindlessness as her time with Maleficent had brought her, the chance to be
herself in the secure space of her fortress had allowed her a tighter control
outside of it. Still, she refuses to go back, and instead ploughs on with her
everyday life as best as she knows how.
The planning of a journey to Queen Catherine’s kingdom occupies her mind, not
the mere practical aspects of it, but rather the understanding of the stakes of
their visit. Queen Catherine’s kingdom collides with Leopold’s at its northeast
border, and Regina had easily dismissed it because of its small territory and
the late king’s refusal to pact or trade with neighboring kingdoms. Still,
there’s a lot to say for a kingdom so self-sufficient, particularly when the
death of the king has left a queen in its throne who has expressed a personal
interest in Regina, rather than Leopold. Regina can’t be sure of the origin of
Queen Catherine’s information regarding her persona, but she’s certainly more
than interested in sharing words with a newly appointed female ruler, and is
even hopeful that a friendship may be struck, if only out of a shared sense of
solidarity.
The preparation of the journey busies her, but her nerves don’t abate. On the
other hand, she finds herself hating all the hoops she must jump whenever she
wants to accomplish anything in this court. She should be used to it by now,
with the way she must convince the council of her ideas through subterfuge and
games, and to how she must couple that with keeping up a good face in front of
the ever-present visiting noblemen. She should be used to it by now, and yet
she finds herself rebelling against the constant judgment. She’s spent years
doing this, and she’s exhausted of the scrutiny and the carefulness she must
manage herself with, of the hidden corners of her soul and the fake smiles she
must bestow upon everyone around her. She finds herself wanting to explode,
wanting to forget all the ground work she’s laid for years now and simply show
herself as the true powerful woman that she is, make them all realize that she
has been ruling and toying with their lives for longer than they could ever
suspect.
Nights are the hardest, the cloak of darkness and a lack of sleep that
persecutes her as of late giving way to her madness. Laying on her bed, covered
by thick and luxurious bed linens and left alone with her thoughts, she
fantasizes about a future that she can’t wait to grasp with both open hands,
one where King Leopold is dead and gone, where Snow White suffers the burden of
her sins on her pale and lovely flesh, where this court and council is gone
forever. She figures that she won’t have to keep pretending once she’s sitting
on the throne, her own army at her beck and call, the power of magic in her
hands and every important ally already hers. There will be no court members in
her palace, no breaching of her intimacy, no eyes to criticize and gauge her
decisions. Baroness Irene will be the first one to go, disgraced and surprised
at the betrayal of the one she thought her friend, her grating voice one that
Regina won’t be forced to listen to ever again. Leopold’s council will be next,
conceited men who still think they know better than her, even when they’ve been
yielding to her desires for so long now; she’ll need no council, she figures,
not when it’s her own hand what has been ruling this kingdom. And if there’s
one, perhaps it will be different, filled with gnomes, ogres, witches, imps,
neglected creatures of the night that have been forced into concealing
themselves to fool this world that doesn’t want them.
At night, she laughs at her own thoughts, and it’s then she realizes that she
must have gone crazy, at last.
   
===============================================================================
 
 
The days before their journey to Queen Catherine’s kingdom find her sharing a
slow walk through the palace gardens with Snow, their steps slow and lingering,
almost tired. Regina won’t admit that she’s exhausted even when she knows that
to be nothing but the truth, her nights having been filled with long hours of
unrest as of late. She’s fidgety, as if waiting for something, even if what
that might be escapes her completely. Surprisingly enough, Snow seems devoid of
her usual energy as well, and her demeanor matches Regina’s and has her walking
quietly, where she would usually be talking Regina’s ear off. It’s almost nice,
if it weren’t for the fact that Regina doesn’t know what nice feels like
anymore.
They don’t share these kinds of walks anymore, at least not as much as they’d
used to when Snow was younger and she craved Regina’s company on just about
every hour of the day. Snow’s eighteen now, at the prime of her youth, and the
crowd of sycophants that she calls friends is usually trailing behind her, wide
eyed and expectant, so very grateful at being afforded the princess’ time and
favor. Regina shouldn’t feel scorned by them, not when she has her own pack of
followers among the members of the court, and when Snow has insisted on more
than one occasion on bringing her along when she’s spending time with her
favorite companions. Regina had tried, once, and the idle prattle had given her
too much of a headache to even think about putting herself through such an
ordeal again, and any case, her presence hadn’t been particularly welcomed by
the young and boisterous mob that formed Snow’s inner circle. Snow’s none the
wiser about this, of course, eternally hopeful in the idea that every single
person is nice and willing to get along.
However, today they find themselves walking together, and at Snow’s request,
too. The petition had been rare enough to peak Regina’s interest, since Snow
customarily chooses to intrude in Regina’s time and space without consideration
and without feeling the need of previous approval, a constant unwanted invader
to Regina’s senses. It may be that Regina’s dealings with the council have been
keeping her much too busy to pose a surprise visit, but the formality of Snow’s
inquiry along with the lack of undertone of demand in her words had certainly
been unexpected. Snow had asked for her time while shyly looking at the floor
two days prior to this lazy stroll taking place, and her uncharacteristic
disposition had left Regina speechless for a too long moment before she’d been
able to acquiesce to the request. Today, as they walk quietly, Regina finds
herself equally taken aback by Snow’s silence, and even while she walks at a
slow pace, she can feel all the alarms starting to ring loudly inside her head.
She may just be fretting over nothing at all, but she would rather be prepared
for whatever might be perturbing Snow’s thoughts for her to behave in such a
strange manner.
Snow says nothing, though, and rather than prod her into speaking her mind,
Regina lets the calm linger, and remains quiet as their steps keep up their
steady but dallying cadence. There’s an air of secrecy around them, something
sort of intimate and conspiring that they haven’t shared for a while now. Most
of their interactions are reduced to lessons these days, which have mostly
turned into soft chats over common readings as years have gone by and Snow has
proven to be a distracted but adept pupil. They still share a meal here and
there on occasion, but their schedules and duties keep taking up their time in
ways they never did when Snow was younger. Whatever the case, no one expects
the eighteen year old princess to cling to her step-mother the way she did when
she was a child, and being perceived as too codependent of each other would
have only upset the precarious balance of their public relationship; where
Regina was expected to shower adoration over an infant Snow, now she’s expected
to let her thrive on her own and watch from the sidelines. This happens to
serve more than one purpose, not only encouraging Snow’s independence, but also
giving Regina the reprieve she needs from her stifling relationship with her.
Nevertheless, this afternoon is playing tricks with her mind, making her feel
at peace the longer they walk, the alarms inside her being muffled under the
crispy cold of the atmosphere, the scent of an oncoming storm and the alien
mood surrounding them. The weather is starting to be too cold to bear, winter
already knocking at their doors, but the chilliness that precedes it is one
that Regina enjoys, particularly when she covers herself properly in warm furs
and soft leather gloves. Snow isn’t quite as cautious as she is in her clothing
choices, and today she has foregone the use of gloves, so when Regina turns her
eyes towards her she finds her hiding her hands under her armpits, obviously
seeking warmth. She’s complained on more than one occasion about the lack of
pockets on women’s dresses, and while Regina heartily agrees on that particular
point, she can’t help but twist her lips into a grimace in the face of Snow’s
lack of foreshadowing.
“You should have brought your gloves with you, dear,” Regina says, her tone
lightly scolding. A few years back, she may have offered her own, but today she
contents herself with expressing her thoughts.
Snow says nothing, merely shrugging and offering Regina a quaint and guarded
smile, made beautiful only by the red on her cheeks. Snow’s smiles are always
better when they’re big and natural, but whatever is clouding Snow’s mind has
her looking uncomfortable, and the look doesn’t suit her features. She hugs
herself tighter, keeping her hands right where they are, her arms crossed over
her chest making her appear awkward.
“We haven’t taken a walk together in a while, have we?” Snow wonders a while
later, after they’ve left the silence lull them back into a sense of peaceful
slumber.
Regina hums her answer, and keeps walking only to realize that Snow has stopped
once they’ve been separated a few steps. Regina turns and looks back, curious
at the sudden halt, and catches Snow looking at her own feet, her posture rigid
even when she’s seemingly trying to hunch in on herself. Everything about her
screams distress, whatever it is that she wants to say physically shaking her
natural charm. It’s almost funny, how Regina has been calculating every
conversation for years now, but how when Snow feels the need to leave her
naturalness aside it clamps her so; Regina may have taught Snow quite a bit,
but the mastering of herself and those around her is not something that she has
passed on. Even when Snow slips on her role of perfect little princess she does
so with ease, as second nature rather than as the drawing of masks and personas
that Regina forces herself to inhabit.
Regina, sensing that Snow won’t say what she wants to say if not prompted,
resigns herself to the situation, and with a sigh, asks, “What’s on your mind,
Snow?”
What she truly wants to do is bark an order of spit it out, girl,but she’s not
so far gone as to say such things to Snow, whose fragile ego may never recover
from such treatment. That of course doesn’t stop a sudden spark of exasperation
from settling a frown between Regina’s eyes, particularly when her question
doesn’t grant her an immediate answer. Rather than snap at Snow, though, Regina
looks about herself and to the gardens around them. They’ve wandered quite
deeply today, and the spot Snow has chosen for her sudden pause is surrounded
by the thickest of trees, so their view of the sky is clouded by the sight of
browning leaves. It’s almost dark around them despite the early hour, and the
sound of wind through the rustling leaves along with the lack of light creates
a makeshift atmosphere of eeriness. Being this deep inside the gardens, Regina
wonders if anyone would hear them scream.
“Regina, I…” Snow begins eventually. Her bravado doesn’t last her long, though,
and so her words linger in the air between them until they’re completely lost,
the rustling wind becoming the only sound around them once again.
Snow is still looking down, even after her first attempt at speaking, and
Regina wants her to face her properly and bring her eyes forward and up.
Lessons on ladylike postures and the right height to set her chin at pass
through her mind unwittingly, and she doesn’t try to quiet her thoughts down,
but rather lets them roam free, and ends up extending a hand towards Snow and
resting her fingers on her chin. Her touch is soft but firm when she pulls
Snow’s chin up, the princess’ eyes now almost forced to look into Regina’s. To
her credit, Snow holds her gaze steadily before taking a small step back,
effectively escaping Regina’s grip and leaving her hand hanging in the air,
purposeless. It seems as if a world of distance is keeping them apart, and
Regina feels abruptly unsettled.
“Regina, how are you?” is what Snow finally asks. Her tone is firm and
unwavering, as if Regina’s touch has given her the strength she needed to focus
this conversation.
The question throws Regina for a loop, too open and rare for her to find a
proper answer. She can’t begin to guess at what Snow may actually be asking
with her inquiry, but she knows for certain this isn’t worry about her general
well-being; Regina can’t remember an instance in which anyone in this palace
has asked for her state of mind, rather than fill the conversation with their
conjectures before allowing Regina to actually speak.
Regina looks about herself to give herself some time, and soon enough spots a
bench hidden among dark green bushes and an unruly mass of wild flowers that
she knows the Royal Gardener will cut down as soon as he catches sight of them.
The bench is dark metal, rather than the usual stone, and Regina poses her next
question as she sits on it, paying attention to the fabric of her skirt as she
does so and avoiding Snow’s gaze, hiding her unforeseen agitation in familiar
movements.
“I am just fine, dear, whatever do you mean?”
“You are not fine, you can’tbe fine,” Snow counters immediately, her tone
suggesting forceful denial of Regina’s apparent lie.
The severity of the statement surprises Regina, but then again, Snow seems
taken aback by it herself, like she can’t quite believe the seriousness hidden
inside her voice. She ploughs on, though, stubbornness clear in the unfamiliar
scowl that mars her features. It’s a bizarre gesture on her face, one that
doesn’t feel right.
“Regina, lately you have been–” Snow stops, licks her lips as if giving herself
time. Whatever it is she wants to say must be disagreeable if she’s so openly
upset about it. “Insensitive,” she settles on finally, her tone indicating that
she has finally found the least harsh word possible to express her feelings.
“Insensitive?” Regina questions, blinking owlishly at the jarring image Snow is
presenting her with. Then, with sudden impatience, she says, “You are going to
have to express yourself more clearly than that if you wish me to understand
you, Snow. Honestly, I feel as I have wasted years of education on you.”
“That, there!” Snow exclaims, pointing a finger at her but immediately bringing
her hand back and closer to her body. “That harshness, Regina.”
For a moment, Regina is left speechless, long enough that words aren’t needed
when Snow is the one to keep talking. She paces as she does so, merely three
steps back and forth in a dizzying and fast loop, but that is apparently better
than looking Regina’s way when throwing accusations at her.
“You have been harsh with me, and father, and–and–and you had a maid lashed
just three nights ago over a broken vase!”
Regina laughs, deep and jagged but short, an obvious mock to Snow’s uncalled
for distress. “That wasn’t harshness, Snow, that was mere punishment; over
three broken vases, a destroyed painting and a mysterious continuous
disappearance of silverware, dear, if I may add,” she says, a scoff following
her statement. “Do research your facts when you choose to accuse me of imagined
crimes.”
“Regina…” her name lingers in the air between them, Snow’s lips still shaping
the last letter as she comes to sit by her, still very obviously bothered by
this discussion. She’s searching for some kind of answer, some kind of
reassurance, and for some reason, Regina is not willing to give it to her
today.
Snow repeats her name once again, this time as she blindly searches for
Regina’s hands with her own. Regina obliges her, and soon she’s rubbing her
gloved hands over Snow’s obvious freezing ones. The skin is red and taut, and
Regina knows it must be tender after lacking warmth for so long. In an
unconscious gesture, she finds herself bringing Snow’s hands up to her mouth
and blowing warm breath on them as she rubs them together, trying to infuse her
fingers with a little heat. She looks up as she does this, and she finds Snow
smiling at her now, small but sweet in a way that is more familiar with the
Snow she knows.
“There you are,” Snow says, soft and wistful.
The statement has Regina clenching her hands around Snow’s, a gesture that is
thankfully easily mistaken as another way of passing on warmth to the cold skin
between her fingers. Truthfully, it betrays nothing but tension, abrupt disgust
burning up Regina’s throat, and leaving a bitter taste on the roof of her
mouth. Here I am, indeed,Regina thinks; the fragile servant queen ready to
fulfill this princess’ capricious desires, this kind soul that must be under
some kind of spell for daring to be something other than candidly gentle.
“Tell me, Snow,” she says suddenly, straightening back up and lowering their
joined hands, allowing them to rest on the fluffy fabric of her skirt. “What
would you have me do if not punish a maid for her misdeeds?”
As she asks this, Regina realizes she’s posed the question in the teacher-like
tone she favors unintentionally during her usual lessons with Snow. She doesn’t
like it, finds it entirely too reminiscent of mother and the way she would try
to trick her into failure back when she was a child. Snow doesn’t seem to find
it displeasing, though, but it does make her twist her head to the side in that
way that tells Regina that she’s seriously pondering the question. Their
lessons have lately taken the shape of moral and strategic discussions, so
perhaps it’s only natural that this feels like just one more hour of teachings
spent together.
Snow doesn’t take long, and when she answers, there’s stubbornness laced in her
tone. “Have mercy.”
“Mercy has its place I suppose, as well as punishment,” Regina replies. “A
lesson learnt early on will undoubtedly avoid further misconducts, and
encourage discipline.”
“Regina,” Snow says her name followed by a quick gasp, as if she can’t quite
believe what she’s hearing. Her eyes are wide and red-rimmed, the cold making
Snow’s features look unusually uncomely, and the gaze that she’s bestowing upon
Regina suggesting a sigh of madness in her. Whatever Snow is seeing in Regina
this afternoon is skewing her view of her, disrupting whatever image she has of
her inside her head, and her obvious agony over this fact is both disconcerting
and frustrating. Should Regina give Snow a simple platitude and disambiguate
her words so Snow hears what she needs to hear? Isn’t Snow old enough to see
the world for what it truly is?
Abruptly letting go of Regina’s hands, Snow sits up straight and defiantly, she
declares, “I think you’re wrong.”
Regina bristles at the same time she has to stifle a hysterical and sudden
laugh. Snow is looking at her full of petulance and provocation, the sudden
crossing of her arms over her own chest giving her the appearance of a five
year old throwing a tantrum. Nonetheless, there’s determined obstinacy written
sharply in every contour of her face, enough that a wave of delighted pride
explodes inside Regina’s chest. The strength written in every fiber of Snow’s
being is Regina’s doing, whatever fragile demeanor Leopold’s bumbling ways may
have instilled in Snow erased under Regina’s careful hand. Snow’s
confrontational stance is natural and real, the most tangible showcase of
Regina’s own tenacity mirrored back at her from this girl that she was saddled
with when she was a child herself, and it forces an honest and boastful smile
to bloom on her face. It disarms Snow, her shoulders losing part of their
tension in the face of Regina’s seemingly odd answer to her outburst.
Softly, and reaching forward to place her hand over Snow’s still crossed arms,
she says, “You are entitled to your own opinion.”
They are both startled by Regina’s words, as if they’re foreign, perhaps even
untoward. They speak of independence and clear-headedness in a way that the
world doesn’t encourage in women, and it feels like a shared piece of forbidden
wisdom.
Eventually, though, the bizarre conversation and range of feelings that have
been assaulting them both leaves, just as sudden as it had come to them. Snow
sighs her way out of it, her body unfurling from its fighting stance and her
limbs falling free and loose before she curls herself against Regina, leaning
her cheek on her shoulder and putting both arms around one of Regina’s in a
loose hold. Regina watches her close her eyes for a too long beat in which she
resigns herself to be, once again, beloved sister and silent support. Closing
her own eyes, she rests her own head against Snow’s, her soft hair fuzzy and
humid under her already cold cheek.
“Oh Regina, I do worry when you’re unkind,” Snow says, preciousness filling up
her tone in a familiar way.
A few seconds ago, the comment may have fired something angry inside Regina,
but the moment’s passed and she’s back to being tired, almost sleepy, so
instead she lets it go and settles on the usual contradicting pattern of
emotions that Snow’s closeness always brings her way.
“We should go back inside, dear,” she states, dismissing Snow’s latest comment
and prompting them to move.
The movement brings them back to life, their earlier quiet stroll substituted
with quicker steps meant to take them back to the warmth of the palace as soon
as possible. Snow seems recovered from her previous sullen behavior, and so she
regales Regina with the story of the fantastically gorgeous embroidery of a
mockingbird one of her so-called friends had gifted her with not two days ago.
Her sunny disposition grates on Regina, who had found the princess more
interesting by bounds and leaps when burdened with unanswered questions and
defiant words. She seems almost shallow to her now, and that particular sour
feeling that she has come to associate with Snow settles firmly back into her
chest. Nevertheless, it fails to burn at its brightest, the sudden stab of
pride from minutes ago still somewhat present within Regina.
Hatred is a funny thing, Regina has learnt. The emotion should be
uncomplicated, and it can definitely be, the pungent disgust she feels whenever
she thinks of Leopold proof enough of how simple feelings can be. It’s always
difficult with Snow, though, her hatred for her full of the nuances that her
hatred for her father lacks. She despises her, and yet.And yet sometimes her
hatred for her burns brighter than hatred itself, twisting and turning Regina’s
insides with every vitriolic desire she has ever harbored for the princess.
Other times, though, it is tinged with the deepest of knowledge of Snow’s
character, stabbed at with notions of pride and bitter love, filled with rage
far beyond the princess’ sins, intertwined with every little chipped part of
Regina’s heart. Today is one of those days, the days that convince her that she
could kill Snow and hate herself for it, even while knowing that letting her
live would only destroy her insides bit by bit. So, when Snow grabs her hand as
they walk back towards the palace, her voice filling Regina’s silences with
unwanted stories, Regina squeezes it with nimble fingers, hoping that the touch
will stop her from whatever wild instinct might conquer her soul.
 
===============================================================================
 
A soft layer of snow covers the ground when they journey into Queen Catherine’s
kingdom, the weather getting colder the more their travels take them up north.
It hasn’t snowed enough yet for the whiteness to create a beautiful landscape,
so when Regina steps down from the king’s carriage her booted feet meet muddy
dirt speckled by melting white. The Royal Palace before them is a beautiful
sight, regardless, more a grandiose manor than anything else, but radiating
warmth with its earthy tones and the way thick green-leaved trees surround it.
Regina likes it immediately, much more so when once inside, she’s surrounded in
lush dark furniture and soft-looking thick carpets covering the floors and the
walls, as if wanting to preserve what little warmth the territory may offer.
Most rooms favor wood over stone, and when Snow mutters her excitement next to
her, she can’t help but agree.
Queen Catherine hasn’t prepared a great audience for them to mingle with, and
so it’s just a couple dozens of guests at most that roam the palace’s halls.
Regina finds that it’s easier to get lost within big crowds, but she can admit
that she enjoys the quieter atmosphere the queen is offering them. It gives
this visit an air of familiarity and open hospitality, which makes for
something almost romantic to float the air, particularly when paired with the
strong winds of the winter moving the trees eerily on the outside. It has
Regina wanting to spend all her time inside without feeling as if she’s being
stifled.
In the spirit of warm intimacy, the queen favors quiet entertainments over the
usual commemorating balls most royals opt for, and so she engages their
interest with music bands that accompany peaceful evenings, friendly card
games, and the offering of her harpsichord to whoever may wish to play it. Snow
perks up at the chance to flex her musical fingers, and Regina barely manages
to thwart her enthusiasm by suggesting that she sings for them instead, and
allows some other guest to try their hand at the instrument – Regina’s had
enough of the girl’s choppy attempts at playing to last her a lifetime.
Snow sings for them on their third night at the palace, and as she begins,
Queen Catherine catches Regina’s eye and gives her something of a mischievous
smile, as if she knows exactly what Regina intended when she politely stopped
Snow from even approaching the seat of the harpsichord. She hasn’t had the
chance of speaking privately with the queen, all political talk having been
postponed for a later date, so as to allow their guests rest and peace after
their long journeys. Regina suspects that this trip is more a social call than
a political one, but so far, she can’t say that she minds. What she does mind,
of course, is the riveted fashion with which the queen’s son is looking at
Snow’s figure, her posture poised and proud and she sings softly but with
purpose. Queen Catherine has a step-son and a son, the first one being the heir
to the throne by virtue of being the oldest, despite the king’s first wife
having died during childbirth. Both princes look pleasant enough, their
demeanor calm and collected, both of them seemingly more interested in fine
arts and humanities than swords and jousts. It’s an odd but welcomed change,
but that doesn’t mean that Regina wants their paws anywhere near Snow.
Regina must admit, though, that Queen Catherine herself is far more interesting
than any of her children. Dark-haired and golden-skinned, she is quite a
beautiful woman, her features sharp but somehow cheeky, the corner of her lips
seemingly hiding a secret. Rumors and whispered words had made Regina expect an
older woman, but she should know better by now than to trust the failed
criteria of men who choose their wives among the youngest crowds possible – the
queen mustn’t be older than forty, and her skin, still taut and attractive,
glows with radiating energy. Most importantly, the warm yet curious rhythm to
this visit has peaked Regina’s interest beyond belief, as well as the way the
queen keeps intently catching Regina’s gaze with her own, as if they’re sharing
a common joke.
The queen finally grants her an audience the following evening, but rather than
summon her to a meeting hall, she receives her in her own personal library, a
spacious room full of light and fully furnished in cream-colored wood. Queen
Catherine has them sit by the large glass panes that let the light filter
inside the chamber, the crystal going from floor to roof in a way that Regina
has never seen before. The effect is beautiful, and with the waning light of
the evening touching her skin, as well as the beautiful sight of snowed gardens
before them, Regina feels utterly at peace. The queen offers her a cup of tea,
spiced with a foreign root that she calls ginger, and warm toffee cakes that
taste deliciously gooey. If Regina didn’t know better, she would say that she
was being seduced.
They share polite amenities for a short time, but the queen isn’t one for
beating around the bush, and soon enough she’s fixing Regina with a sharp gaze
and licking her lips with clear purpose.
“I will confide that the reason for this visit is far from political,” the
queen tells her. “I have neither desire nor necessity for trading agreements or
whatever it is I lured you here with.”
Regina contemplates playing dumb, but she has a feeling that this woman won’t
appreciate the act and will be displeased by lack of wits, so she nods and
offers her true suspicions, answering with, “I had gathered as much.”
Queen Catherine waits for Regina to take a long sip of her tea before she gives
in and fills the silence stretching between them. “Won’t you inquire after my
reasons, then, Your Majesty?”
“I have a feeling you will confess them regardless of my prodding.”
“Smart girl,” the queen answers, something like smug condescension entering her
tone. Regina doesn’t appreciate it, hates that the woman has referred to her as
she would to some particularly smart dog, but she lets it pass and instead
opens her eyes wide, waiting for the queen to explain herself. “The truth is I
wanted to take a look at the competition myself.”
With a curious raised eyebrow, Regina prods, “Oh?”
Queen Catherine laughs, the sound of it small but clear and elongating her neck
as it comes out. It’s clear to Regina that the queen knows what her better
attributes are, and that she knows how to display them, much like herself.
Perhaps she’s not wrong in thinking that the queen may prove to be a kindred
spirit of sorts. For now, though, she’s far more interested in finding the
meaning behind her earlier words.
The queen seemingly relaxes after her short-lived laugh, her shoulders pressing
back on her seat along with the back of her head after reaching for a
previously discarded piece of cake. “I was looking to find a second husband for
myself,” is what the queen says once she’s done chewing. She’s not looking at
Regina now, but rather at the lovely view her library has to offer, and it
feels as if she’s setting herself for telling a long story. She continues
saying, “I fancied that perhaps my good old friend King George may be a
suitable replacement for my late king, but it seems that he has his eyes set on
a different prospect.”
Regina doesn’t miss the pointed look that Catherine gives her then; she’s sure
she’s not supposed to. Her words make her smile, the suggestion that they hide
about King George’s ambitions thoroughly interesting if not completely
unexpected. Regina can’t possibly be surprised by the man’s greed, and she
can’t say that she hadn’t spied what the man must consider as courting in their
latest shared letters. Nevertheless, Regina dismisses the queen’s words easily.
“As you very well know, I am already married,” she says.
Catherine huffs out a laugh, clearly entertained by both the situation and the
conversation. She’s most certainly not looking for a confrontation, so she
mustn’t be all that put out by the king’s rejection. She seems mostly amused,
delight making her features look young and rather lovely.
“Don’t you worry, Your Majesty, George is a romantic at heart; he shall wait
for you.”
That prompts Regina’s laughter, a short and cheerful bark that she can’t stop.
She smiles the queen’s way, and as she speaks, she receives a mirror image in
return. “If you claim King George is an old friend, dear, then surely you know
that he’s moved by greed rather than love.” She leans forward then, as if
sharing a secret, and whispers, “I’m afraid his desire for Leopold’s land is
far greater than his craving for any woman in this world.”
“Ah, no wonder he likes you,” Catherine states. “He said you were bold.”
Regina snorts at that, feeling free enough in the presence of this woman before
her to drop some of her ladylike affectations. She snags her cup of lukewarm
tea as she drops her shoulders back against the cushions of her chair, and
wraps her hands around the warm porcelain as she tries to stop herself from
tsk-ing. “Men will call you anything before they concede your intelligence.”
“True, but then George isn’t mistaken in his appreciation of your character, I
believe.”
Regina suppresses her instinctual answer this time, an unimpressed hiss
fighting its way out of her. She doubts George actually appreciates her in any
way beyond what their alliance may offer his kingdom; not oncehave the man’s
eyes lowered towards her cleavage, or strayed to look at her face for longer
than necessary. The man likes her sharp tongue and her willingness to speak
politics, but Regina has no doubt that the moment she stops being a beneficial
ally, she will become an enemy in his eyes, which is perhaps the reason for him
to look for the ultimate pact that a marriage would provide.
When the queen speaks again, Regina is almost distracted, and so it takes her a
moment to discern her words completely.
“I will say though, you are quite the beautiful woman.” And her tone, lilting
and delicate, takes on a hoarser quality as her words hang in the air between
them.
Regina appraises the woman before her, smiles when she realizes that her speech
is not the usual complimentary babbler that women are presumed to share among
themselves, but something filled with intention. However, what she answers with
is, “Married still, nonetheless.”
“Let’s drop the titles and be honest for a minute, Regina,” the queen says,
shaping her name with purpose and care, and fixing her eyes on her so as not
lose her attention. “How old is that husband of yours?”
“I don’t know; just, old.” Her statement is followed by a sneer. Honestly,
she’s enjoying herself, and she would rather not have Leopold at the forefront
of her mind.
“So, how long does he have to live; eight, ten years? George can wait that
much.”
There won’t be long years for Leopold to enjoy, not if Regina has any say on
the subject, but no matter how much honesty Catherine wants from her, that she
won’t confess. Instead, she declares, “I don’t intend to remarry.”
“You may want to reconsider that when you find yourself alone and pressured by
a world ruled by men.”
“I will not remarry,” Regina states yet again, anger now pushing at her words,
her fingers suddenly tight against the cup that she’s still holding. The fine
porcelain is already warm from her fingers, and if she presses just a tad
harder, she may end up breaking the thing.
The queen regards her with an air of disdain then, saying, “Perhaps you’re too
young to completely understand the ways of the world, after all.”
“Or perhaps I shall rewrite such ways.”
Contempt leaves the queen’s features then to be replaced by sheer delight. She
laughs yet again, that sound that’s free and delicate, and that Regina can’t
help but like. “My, my, you arebold.”
The statement is spoken as a joke, perhaps even as a way of calming her sudden
and vicious anger, but it fails to accomplish its goal. Regina is being nothing
but serious with her words, but this woman who is intent on a second marriage
barely six months after losing her first husband surely won’t be able to
understand her true intentions. Queen Catherine, who has shown the world
strength and charisma, isn’t actually willing to bend the rules, but will
rather maneuver herself through them. Regina doesn’t doubt that she does that
with ease, experienced as she seems in the designs of royal life, but that
isn’t the way Regina wishes to live her life anymore. The queen is
condescending her, thinking her too young, when the truth is that she’s the one
deserving of disdain.
“Now don’t look so serious, Regina,” the queen tells her, even as she busies
herself with standing up and straightening the fabrics that have wrinkled in
her almost slouch. Regina can admit that she cuts quite the royal figure, and
can’t help but smile when the queen offers softly, “I must leave you now, but
enjoy your evening here. It is the most beautiful place in the palace, and no
one will disturb you.”
Regina gives her thank you with a tight smile and a nod of her head, looking up
at the queen before her appraisingly. Queen Catherine isn’t perhaps all that
Regina expected, but she won’t deny that she’s certainly a change of pace from
the women she usually meets, and that she’s offered her a place for honesty,
even if Regina can’t grasp it with fully open hands. Whatever the case, there
is no political advantage to win here, not from this small kingdom that means
nothing and that wishes to survive self sufficiently, so she may as well enjoy
her stay in the warm palace and make sure that she remains in the queen’s good
graces, just in case their mutual acquaintance proves to be beneficial in the
future.
The queen leaves her swiftly, the swish of her dress the only sound
accompanying her otherwise silent steps. She stops by the door before she
completely abandons the chamber, though, and she waits until Regina is looking
at her before allowing a smile to curve her attractive mouth. She gazes at
Regina appraisingly, as if searching for something, and whatever it may be, it
seems that she finds it.
“Perhaps you will consider joining me for a nightcap tonight after dinner in my
bedchambers,” the queen offers, feigned coyness invading her tone.
Regina raises both eyebrows, impressed by the queen’s openly obvious
invitation. She isbeing seduced after all, and she can’t say that the feeling,
or the way Queen Catherine’s eyes are suddenly filled with open admiration, are
unpleasant. Quirking her lips into an amused smirk, she says, “I shall be
delighted.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina visits Queen Catherine that night, once most guests have retired to
their own chambers after a plentiful dinner and a delightful evening filled
with soft string music. She’s warm when she walks into the queen’s bedchambers,
but she enjoys the fire lighting up the room anyway, and she accepts the cupful
of warm brandy Catherine offers her. It burns as it goes down her throat, but
she barely has time to savor it, not when the queen proves once again to be a
woman that goes straight to the point.
Queen Catherine turns out to be a clinical sort of lover, adequate but
dispassionate, and Regina can’t help but find herself a little disappointed
with the whole ordeal. The twinkle of the queen’s eyes and the cheekiness of
her smile had promised fun ecstasy, but the step by step approach she has to
lovemaking feels like the demeanor of a woman on a mission, rather than of
someone looking for leisure and pleasure. She guesses the queen is, after all,
just like everything else in this palace, warm, cozy and quiet, but ultimately
sober. There’s satisfaction in the sight of a queen kneeling between her legs,
though, and even if the woman offers her a disapproving look when Regina grabs
her hair and pushes her face towards where she needs it most, Regina reaches
her peak of pleasure with a sigh of contentment. The reciprocating climax she
offers the queen is equally unemotional and Regina, who has been doing her best
at keeping Maleficent away from her thoughts, fails miserably at her task.
Maleficent is a tough act to follow, after all, her exuberance, her freedom and
her ravenous search for pleasure perhaps qualities that Regina will never find
in a lover again.
Regina finishes her drink once she realizes that she’s not particularly
interested in a repeat performance of the mockery of passion she’s just shared
with the queen, sitting herself by the vanity with her dress haphazardly thrown
over her front while still open in the back. She stares at her reflection,
noting that not even her hair looks remarkably out of place, and that her lips,
which so very easily bruise under ardent kissing, are already starting to lose
their newfound puffiness. She’s strangely frustrated by the whole situation;
somehow she’d hoped that chosen lovers would always bring her something
precious to hold on to, rather than a simple sense of sufficient release. She’s
always been all or nothing in her sexual encounters, and she’s inclined to
believe that she will never be able to survive with this kind of boring middle
ground.
“You seem brooding,” Queen Catherine tells her from her spot on the bed.
Regina catches her eyes through the mirror, observes that she has already
covered herself with her soft bedspread. In the low light of the room and after
discovering her body, Regina finds her older, and not quite as enchanting as
she had before. Nonetheless, she gives her a soft smile, and dismisses her
worries with a simple platitude even as she starts fixing the back of dress
enough so that she can make her way back to her own bedchambers, and get some
proper sleep. A bath, perhaps, she muses.
As Regina is getting ready to leave, though, Queen Catherine begins talking,
her speech suddenly taking a surprising turn towards the dynamics of her own
family. Paying a modicum of attention, Regina listens as the queen tells her
about a council that wishes her gone, and that has been pressing for her step-
son to fill his rightful place as king. Perhaps that’s the main reason the
queen has been looking for a husband, after all, but Regina can’t have respect
for a woman who can’t hold the reins of her own advisors. Still, Catherine’s
tale of woe continues with her wish to see her step-son gone and her own son
crowned, so as to keep her own blood in the royal line, and herself as a true
royal advisor.
“That fool I have for a step-son will keep us away from power as soon as he’s
crowned, I’m sure,” the queen says, and for the first time since they’ve met,
Regina sees true fury behind her placid eyes. It’s more invigorating than any
other expression she’s seen in Catherine before, and it feels as if she’s
finally showing her true colors.
As for her speech, Regina isn’t sure Catherine is particularly correct. So far
as Regina’s seen, the princes treat each other as true brothers, share their
interests and easily consult each other in every other matter. Perhaps it’s the
queen who is the odd one out, and the one wishing for a breach to appear in the
otherwise brotherly affection her children share. Whatever the case, Regina’s
not interested in this kingdom’s internal affairs, and she’s getting ready to
express as much when Queen Catherine says what she has perhaps been meaning to
say all along.
“And advantageous marriage for my son will put the council in his good graces,
surely,” she says, and goodness but she’s actually trying to play coy as she
says this. “It just occurred to me to–”
Regina cuts her speech sharply, her tone brokering no argument when she
enunciates her next words, “Your son will not have Snow White for a wife, so
you may as well stop your pleading now.” Then, and with a hiss permeating her
voice, “You might have saved us this waste of time had you spoken up sooner,
Your Majesty.”
Regina is still looking at her through the mirror, and the image makes for
something jarring, even otherworldly. She sees Queen Catherine’s expression
change, her fury deepening her scowl, a sneer marring her features. Regina is
fully unimpressed, though, her own anger far more robust than anything the
other woman has to offer. She seethes, thinking that she has fallen prey to a
game that she may have played herself on a different situation; she’s been
bedded and fooled into a seemingly vulnerable position, and all because this
woman needs Snow White’s precious hand to make a case for her son’s power. She
feels foolish, and she wants to get out of this chamber as fast as possible, so
she begins gathering her loose skirts and making quick work of the fastenings
of her dress, now truly wishing for that bath.
However, as she busies herself with putting herself together, Queen Catherine
doesn’t relent, but rather moves from her prone position and, after wrapping
herself in a thick robe, stands proudly in between Regina and the door. The
sight of her, while perhaps not as impressive as that of an unwanted husband or
a capricious magical teacher, proves to be enough to make Regina feel caged,
trapped in the small space between the bed and the vanity, and it makes fury
flare up inside her, her magic beginning to unfurl from the back of her neck
and making its way to her hands. She holds it in, tells herself that she won’t
waste energy on this woman, and instead simply chooses to stand tall and
haughty, her eyes piercing as they don’t shy away from Queen Catherine’s
derisive stare.
“I wasn’t pleading with you, Regina,” Catherine says, and despite her demeanor,
her tone is precariously smooth, as if trying to calm a furious beast. “I have
spoken with your husband, and he seems amenable to my proposal.”
That, more than anything, feels like a betrayal. The queen has surely and
effectively played with all of her defenses to the point of going behind her
back and offering leverage and power to good old King Leopold, denying Regina
in ways that are beyond her own understanding. Regina breathes out, and her
breathing is hard, ragged, savagely irate. She will not stand for this.
“What was this then, if I may ask?” she wonders, biting the words as she points
between the queen and herself. There was no point to this seduction if the
queen was already handling her dealings with the king after all, and she can’t
help but feel that this was nothing but further humiliation, a way to knock her
down a peg, put her in her place as a young and power-hungry girl with no real
advantages.
“This was just… pleasure. I do enjoy your company.” A smile, hidden in the
words, and Regina wants nothing more than to punch it out of them. Instead, she
huffs out a laugh.
“Pleasure? You know nothing of pleasure.”
Following her statement, Regina tries to make her escape. She can be in this
chamber no longer, needs to leave before the magic conquering her limbs manages
to cloud her senses enough for her to do something hasty that she will regret.
She tells herself that there are ways to solve this, and that all she needs is
to take a calming bath and think things through, talk Leopold out of whatever
agreement Catherine may have roped him into and leave this inconsequential
kingdom behind them forever. It will be easy and swift, nothing compared to the
feats she has accomplished in other courts, with the work she has put on her
kingdom’s own internal affairs, and certainly nothing that she will have to
worry herself after tonight. With carefully woven words, too, she’s sure she
can make King George take his favor away from Queen Catherine, and thus punish
her for her insulting humiliation.
Regina takes sure steps towards the door, effectively sidestepping Catherine’s
figure. Her ears feel full of noise, and the rustling sound of her own dress is
foreign and faraway, almost dreamlike in its hazy quality. The door seems a
long way away even when it’s not, and it’s almost as if the path lengthens the
moment Catherine stops her movement with a hand curled on Regina’s arm. The
touch burns, and Regina shakes it off violently.
“Don’ttouch me,” she growls.
Catherine puts both her hands down, keeping them away from Regina’s figure, and
when she speaks, she does it softly and with a hint of intimacy in her voice.
“I meant no offense, Regina; it wasn’t my intention to fool you into anything.”
Her posture then changes, loses tension and defiance, turns into something
almost relaxed. “I merely chose to do what I must; I know you want to break the
rules of the world. You’re young, after all, who can blame you? But we are
meant to be shadows behind our husbands and sons, otherwise we are… well,
honestly we are weak.”
Catherine’s wording is the nail that seals the coffin, managing to focus
Regina’s senses into one single intent. It fires her up, and before she can
even register her own movements, she finds herself reaching forward, her hand
buried deep within Catherine’s chest and her heart tightly pressed by her
strong fingers. Catherine sags forward against Regina, out of breath and unable
to speak, looking at Regina’s arm disappearing inside her with wide,
incredulous eyes. Regina holds her up but doesn’t remove her heart, rather
squeezing it as it remains inside her, and the sound of pain that accompanies
her torture is almost a balm against her unhinged spirit.
Leaning closer to Catherine’s heavy figure, she presses dry lips to her ear and
mouths, “I am not weak.”
Her hand crushes the fragile heart resting in her palm viciously, slow enough
that a trail of deep, red blood pours from the corners of the queen’s mouth and
trails its way down her chin and jaw. When a drop of sticky blood stains the
bottom of Regina’s dress, she grunts with disgust, and pushing Catherine’s body
away, she’s left with only dust in her closed fist as the queen drops to the
floor, heavy and ungraceful in her death as Regina suspects she was never in
life. She cuts quite the pathetic figure, her body bent at an awkward angle on
the chamber’s floor, with her robe half opened to reveal her nudity.
“Now look what you made me do,” Regina murmurs, looking at the woman with a
sneer in her face.
She stares at her for another minute, her own body calming down from the
madness of her own magic, now swirling down her arms in tingling waves. She
licks her lips, aware of her own breathing coming out in ragged pants, and
tries to shake herself out of her stupor. Once she doesn’t feel as if burning
down the palace around her might be the answer to all of her problems, she’s
respectful enough to cover the late queen’s nakedness, closing up her robe with
nimble and firm hands. Kneeling by her, and with her hands now away from her
body, Regina looks at her face one last time, fixates on the unnecessarily
spilled blood, and can’t help the scowl that mars her features. She’d hoped to
find a friend in this disgraced queen, and all she has left now is anger and
disdain. The sight of her is both disheartening and foul, and right after
Regina transports herself out of the queen’s bedchambers and into her own, she
closes her eyes tightly as she presses both hands to her own stomach, and doing
her best to vanish the image from her head, she wills herself not to be sick.
 
===============================================================================
 
The months that follow their visit to the late Queen Catherine’s kingdom pass
slowly, a heavy and extremely cold winter keeping them cooped up inside the
palace and busying themselves with the most mindless of tasks. Regina finds
that she doesn’t mind the already familiar and boring work that the coldest
season brings with it, the recounting of stock around the kingdom so as to
assure that resources will last them through the winter automatic and asinine
enough that she barely has to pay attention. She knows they did good work
during crop season, and that the kingdom won’t go hungry, so she finds herself
going through the motions without enthusiasm or particular interest. She’s
mildly thankful for the fact that most of her tasks these days involve the
Treasury Master, who is perhaps her favorite member of the council, too old to
be unpleasant, tired enough to leave important decisions to her, but a master
in his trade so that Regina can lean on his knowledge.
Most of her efforts these days are directed towards her own slowly growing
militia, efforts that prove to be a constant source of frustration. It seems
that people around the kingdom aren’t particularly keen on accepting authority
figures clad in black garb rather than in the white crests of King Leopold’s
army, and even if Regina has given her own men positions all over the lands,
they’re seeing themselves constantly undermined by the presence of Leopold’s
own knights. She pushes still for the rightful place of her army, and makes
sure to keep a steady growth in the number of men at her service, but the
Military Advisor proves to be a thorn in her side. While he’s given into her
wishes on occasion, he’s obviously discomfited by the idea of a woman dealing
with any aspect of military decisions, and he still favors Leopold’s indecisive
hand over her own purposeful one.
Nevertheless, these matters keep her busy and moving, which she desperately
needs. Their visit to Catherine’s kingdom and the consequences of her short-
lived affair with the late queen have left her feeling bereft, even when she’s
not particularly sure of what. The first few days after the queen had been
found dead had been confusing and hectic, and plagued by her wishes to abandon
the kingdom as soon as possible and never return. Of course, Snow had pressed
for them to stay long enough to pay their respects to the suddenly deceased
queen, and they had remained trapped in that too small palace for as long as a
fortnight, the last night of their visit being that of the coronation of the
new king of the land. Regina had done her part dutifully, expressing
exaggerated surprise over the queen’s demise, claiming that they had been in
their way towards an intimate friendship, crying against Snow’s supportive
shoulder and even allowing Leopold to hold her for longer than he’d ever had
before.
The business of the supposed marriage arrangement between Snow and the queen’s
son had been swiftly solved once the council had declared Catherine’s step-son
as the rightful heir, a decision that had been applauded by his brother without
a sigh of envy or distrust in his demeanor, thus proving the queen’s fear
foolish and Regina’s appraisement of their brotherly relationship true.
Whatever the case, Regina shouldn’t have worried, since Leopold had very
quickly declared that he hadn’t actually agreed to have his daughter married,
not when he’d considered her entirely too young for such matters, a statement
that had made Regina scowl in his presence for as long as the visit had lasted.
He’d looked confused by her disposition, and when Regina had sharply reminded
him of the fact that Snow was as old as she’d been when he’d taken her for a
wife, he’d blanched and stumbled out of the room, shame burning up his
otherwise pale cheeks.
Regina has been feeling discomfited since they came back, though, vexed in ways
that she doesn’t fully understand. There is something brimming under her skin,
wild and not entirely uncomfortable, manageable and dull but ever-present. It’s
something like an itch, a ring of shivering excitement burning her up, begging
her to allow herself freedom. Freedom for what, she’s not sure either. Perhaps
it’s simply freedom of everything and everyone around her, of this prison that
she has shaped to her tastes and made her own, but that remains a prison still,
this palace where she is owned by everyone and everything, where she must play
pretend so her wishes are granted.
Thinking that her anxiousness may come from stifled sexual desire now that her
most basic instincts have been rekindled, she chooses to take on a lover on
occasion. She chooses them carefully and deliberately, more over their status
and her knowledge of their discretion than over any sort of attraction, thus
making her efforts fruitless and a new source of frustration. Her first choice
is a man, her latest her experience with the queen making her shy away from
women for a while, and Duke Jasper being valiant, handsome and brash enough not
to bore Regina with talks she doesn't wish to have. He's older than her too,
but merely by a decade, and he's a generous bedfellow, thankful for her favor
but ultimately boring once Regina has had him three nights in a row. She feeds
him a forgetting potion watered down in a cupful of wine on their third night
together, and easily bids him goodbye. Her next two choices bring her back
towards women, and she finds that she enjoys softer curves better than sharp
angles, even if her encounters leave her equally frustrated and saying goodbye
to lovers who forget her by virtue of her magic. She finds no peace of mind in
sharing her bed with people she has no real interest in beyond the sudden spike
of too short-lived pleasure, and finds that the risk of being found out is
simply not worth the effort. She unwittingly thinks of Daniel, whose arms had
made facing mother's wrath a small feat, and of Maleficent, whose embrace had
been tempting enough to almost make her leave her kingdom behind. There is
nothing for her in mindless rumps, it seems, and so her senses aren't abated by
sensuous encounters.
A sign that she’s surely coming undone is the fact that she chooses to stop
hiding her magic from both father and her lady’s maid, as she finds herself
relaying on it for common tasks. After all, why bother her severe woman with
silly things such as lighting fires in her room or heating up water for her
baths when she can accomplish such inconsequential chores with a flick of her
wrist? Father blanches at her blatant disregard for common courtesy when she
stops veiling her powers for his benefit, but she makes a point of normalizing
them in his eyes, making sure that she uses her power in neutral ways that
couldn’t possibly bring back memories of mother’s cruel hands. He doesn’t like
it, Regina can tell, but she can no longer separate herself from her magic, no
more than she could possibly separate herself from one of her limbs.
Magic, which had been a source of irritation for years, and which had made her
question her own path for long, silent hours, has become a part of her own
nature in ways that Regina would have never guessed at when she’d first found
Rumpelstiltskin. She’s been at times afraid of it, cautious on other occasions,
and most times simply angry when it refused to answer to her wishes, but then,
magic had been a foreign sort of energy that she could call forth when she
willed it hard and intentionally enough, a force to battle and bend to her
desires. And she had, but that hadn’t stopped it from being alien to her
essence. For a long time now, however, magic has been as much a part of her as
her own arms and legs, no longer an external source of power but a sixth sense
sitting comfortably at the back of her neck, coming forward without need for
calculation when Regina wills it so.
“The true roots of magic, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin had said when she’d asked
about her feelings on the matter, right before launching into a long-winded
speech full of gibberish and ugly giggles that Regina had stopped listening to
halfway through.
As interested as Regina has always been on the true nature of magic, she can’t
say that Rumpelstiltskin has proven to be a particularly good teacher of
theoretical subjects. While he’s taught her the practical side of her gift, his
words about the truth of magic have always been deliberately confusing, and
have usually contradicted themselves to the point where Regina has simply
chosen to use books as her reference rather than her tutor.
Whatever the case, Rumpelstiltskin hasn’t been much of a teacher anymore for
over two years now, rather turning himself into a dealer of dark arts and a
last resource for Regina. He no longer gives his lessons freely, but rather
turns them into business transactions, asking for what Regina had once thought
were inconsequential pieces of her everyday life. He’d soon realized that
Regina wouldn’t part with Daniel’s ring, and had allowed his interest in the
small circle of metal that usually rested between Regina’s breasts wane,
instead asking for what Regina had thought were random payments from her. From
locks of hair to pieces of clothing and even going through odd requests such as
an apple from her tree, Regina had thought Rumpelstiltskin 's petitions odd and
out of the blue, as if he was making things up as he went. The deeper her own
magical knowledge went, though, the more she’d realized how easily personal
objects could be used against her, and she’d realized how much power she may
have unwittingly given Rumpelstiltskin over her own person by offering up such
parts of herself. This, of course, had made her reduce her time with the imp,
and these days find them being partners in crime, rather than teacher and
student.
She finds, though, that her feelings for her former teacher are far clearer
than they were in the past, her heart beating with rage whenever he is around.
Watching him deal, tease and taunt for years has opened up her eyes to the
truths of Rumpelstiltskin, and even when she’s never trusted him fully, she now
knows that there isn’t a smidgeon of compassion in him, and that whatever sigh
of pride, humanity or kindness he may have showed her in the past has been
nothing but a step in an otherwise unknown and long-term plan. She is no longer
a wide-eyed girl with utter need for his guidance, though, and not only does
she have no wish to follow his lead or trust him in any way, but she finds
herself desperately wanting to best him at his own game, proving to him that
the student has surpassed the master. She has no doubt, too, that she will
accomplish such a feat, for there isn't a game that Regina hasn't learnt how to
win thus far.
 
===============================================================================
 
The first days of spring make Regina wish she could be out and about, taking
lazy strolls around the gardens or maybe even visiting the neighboring villages
and smelling the renewed flowery scent of the fresh air. Instead, she finds
herself cooped up inside the palace, following on the latest business and
planning a visit to King George’s kingdom, as well as preparing the by now
customary celebration of Snow’s birthday. Snow will be nineteen this year,
Regina’s own twenty six already heavy around her shoulders, and prompting the
court to comment discouragingly on the lack of children produced by her
marriage to Leopold. She has managed to place most of the guilt on Leopold’s
coldness towards her, and while most noblemen seem happy to buy the tales she’s
been selling for years now, the odd rumor of Regina’s barren and inadequate
body resurfaces every once in a while, unfailingly prompting Regina into bouts
of severe depression that find her scratching at her belly, at a scar that
should have been long forgotten but that is never as far from her mind as she
wants it to be.
Snow’s birthday celebrations are always a trigger for this kind of commentary,
the princess’ own age perhaps a reason for the court to wish for a new royal
child in their midst. Truthfully, most noblemen probably expect Snow to be
married soon, and are perhaps more than ready to give up on Regina’s never
happening offspring in exchange for Snow’s future children. In this particular
subject, though, her family seems to be in accordance with her, Leopold
thinking of Snow as his little girl still, and wishing her unmarried, and Snow
having lost all interest in flirting and notions of love after her ill-fated
encounter with Prince Richard, whose heart still rests among Regina’s
possessions.
Thinking of Snow growing older, though, and in a furious attempt at keeping
some of her infantile thoughts yet, Regina is having a small replica of the
palace built for her as a gift, the mockery of a doll’s house that may call to
Snow’s childish instincts. Regina is even constructing the small dolls to go
with it herself, her fingers still clumsy with thread and needle between them,
but her demeanor stubborn enough to keep at her task. It’s a lovely afternoon
outside that finds her stabbing an ugly looking Leopold doll while sitting
under her apple tree, the smell of freshly cut grass and apples in the air not
enough to stop her wishes of making a token out of this doll that may somehow
hurt the man when she stabs the cotton between her fingers. She’s so focused on
her task that she almost misses one of her black guards coming over to her with
a stack of missives directed at her, both official and not. She bites a thank
you at him, though, and soon finds herself distracted by letters and abandoning
her mindless sawing work with something like relief.
Regina has a steady correspondence with most neighboring rulers by now, as well
as with most influential noblemen from Leopold’s own kingdom. Of course, her
official dispatches have never been enough to quell her thirst for information,
and she also has a web of spies with missing hearts that send word to her
regularly about the comings and goings of the different lands that surround
them. This particular correspondence she manages through her own black knights,
knowing fairly well that Leopold keeps a watchful eye over her official
letters, never mind that his drive comes from jealousy and possessiveness
rather than actual worry at her political manipulations. She should be glad of
this fact, but it will never cease to incense her ire that the man seems to
think of her as such an inconsequential, dim-witted little girl that he must
only worry of her possible unfaithfulness, despite her current ruling of his
own kingdom.
The stack of letters today brings one from Prince Bernard, and she picks that
one first, if only because she knows it will bring a smile to her face. His
words are always short and to the point, unveiling a distracted and restless
character, and they always bring with them a gift in the form of sweet and
foreign treats. This time, he’s sent a box of ghribat,a chocolate covered kind
of sweet that Regina had once told him was her favorite. He’s been asking after
the names and recipes of his gifts at her request, and the letter brings with
it specific instructions for the reproduction of the delicious treats. Regina
makes sure to keep it somewhere safe so that she can transcribe a copy and pass
it to the cooks, smiling warmly as she takes a single candy from the gifted box
and then closes it, so as to stop herself from finishing it all up in one
single sitting. Prince Bernard never fails to make something cozy wrap around
her middle, perhaps a long lost hope for the kindness in this world. There’s a
part of her that keeps expecting Bernie to disappoint her, specially as the
years go by and he grows up into a man with expectations and desires, but the
little prince she remembers from that one visit so long ago seemingly stays as
charming as ever, prompting her to favor him as she does few people in her
life. Just now, as she enjoys her sweet with gusto, she finds herself thinking
of what gift she might send back for him, if perhaps some of those hazelnuts
covered in layers of milky chocolate that they have been keeping in the
kitchens as of late might do the trick.
Regina continues with her reading then, easily favoring the activity over her
tiring work on stupid birthday dolls. A rather harried and short letter signed
by King George surprises her, the few sentences speaking of a sudden outbreak
of an unheard of disease certainly not demanding the unexpected urgency that
the missive suggests. Spreading diseases aren’t particularly rare, not when
cleanliness is always an issue within certain small populations, but they
aren’t usually anything to worry about, and are very easily quelled by the
knowledge of local physicians and old family wives, most of which have seen
many a sickness in their time. Why George would think it necessary to warn
Regina of an outbreak as far away from her own kingdom as this she doesn’t
know, but she can’t help but keep a minimum of awareness about it. Coming from
someone else she may have dismissed it, but George is entirely too practical to
make a fuss over a few dead peasants.
Soon enough, though, it’s made apparent to her why George considered these news
important. The news from all surrounding kingdoms touch on the very same
subject, making her realize that this may go beyond a simple bout of strong
fever in a small and controlled area. She realizes that there have been
outbreaks in all but two of the kingdoms surrounding theirs, and as soon as
Regina is done with her letters, she finds herself angrily stalking her way
into the Royal Doctor’s quarters, searching for answers. The man has been
outspokenly against her for as long as they’ve known each other, and she
wouldn’t put it past both him and Leopold to hide this kind of information from
her and the council.
The doctor refuses answering her at first, his pompous little face set in the
haughtiest of sneers, thinking himself above her by simple virtue of his
professional practice. He has been the one member of the council who hasn’t
fallen prey to her charms, and Regina has always hated that the man has seen
her at her most vulnerable. After all, aside from father and Leopold, he is the
only person in court to know about her lost baby, and the monthly revisions
Leopold had forced on her at the beginning of their marriage have certainly
made the man privy to Regina’s most private self. Every time he looks upon her,
appraising and insulting with his nose high up in the air, Regina can’t help
but be reminded of the fact that he’s seen her naked and hurting, memories that
only manage to make her defensive when they’re forced to share a room. The man
has been even more deliberately against her ever since she stopped their
routine visits, and has turned progressively unpleasant at her rejection of
imaginary treatments that he randomly comes up with. The doctor is adamantly
convinced that she suffers from some unknown type of hysteria, a mental illness
that he wants to drive away from her, but Regina has steadfastly denied his
intentions of eliminating noxious humors from her by a continuous schedule of
blood-letting, causing him to be even more convinced of her supposedly
unbalanced nature.
It takes a masterful combination of wheedling and self-righteous anger to get
the doctor to answer her questions, a game of push and pull that leaves Regina
frustratingly exhausted. Finally, though, he confesses to similar outbreaks
occurring within their kingdom, and even as he denies their importance with
dismissive words, Regina spies fear in the sweat blotching his forehead and the
jerkiness of his otherwise sluggish movements.
Soon enough, the doctor’s suggested fear proves to be correctly founded,
preoccupation and anguish coming to them from all around the kingdom. Disease
keeps spreading, most physicians finding themselves stumped and loosing ten
people for every single one they manage to save. Letters come speaking of the
black death that has fallen upon the lands, superstitious words claiming the
work of dark magic. While Regina knows this to be untrue, she wishes it would
be real, for she may just have a solution were the problem magical. As it is,
they find themselves swamped by an unstoppable and unsolvable pandemic,
helpless in the face of such an unknown ailment.
It is Baron Edgar who calls an emergency meeting of the council, ready to put
their heads together so as to at least stop the spread and protect as many
people as they can. Regina is already thinking far ahead, considering not only
the amount of people that they may lose, but how much the reservoirs of the
kingdom might suffer, particularly if the working people are more preoccupied
with crying their loses than with working the soil for the upcoming cold
seasons. Disregarding her concerns, though, Regina does her best at informing
herself completely of what little they have learned of this epidemic, so as to
provide the helping hand she must be for the council. Gathering missives from
other kingdoms and what little the doctor has reported after he confessed to
knowing of the beginning of the spread, she discerns that this sickness isn’t
extremely different from many other fevers known around the realm, its symptoms
ranging from high temperatures to muscle cramps, chills and general ill
feelings. The most peculiar sign the infected show is strange black swellings
and gangrened extremities, the thought of which gives her nightmares from the
moment she begins picturing what they may be up against. Most deaths happen
within a week after the first symptoms appear, and physicians seem puzzled as
to why some people escape a deathly fate while other perish swiftly.
Armed with as much knowledge as she can, Regina makes her way to the Council
Room only to be received by a headless meeting, King Leopold nowhere to be
seen. The rest of the council members look as surprised as she herself is, but
she is the only one who harbors enough anger within her to go in search of the
lost king. A few well posed questions lead her to the throne room, where
Leopold, old and defeated, sits with an air of complete abandon, both his crown
and an empty glass of what Regina guesses is rum resting by his side on a small
table, his hand holding the glass and disregarding the headdress. Regina looks
at the ornamental gold piece and is mildly thankful that the man has chosen to
take it off himself - otherwise, Regina may have found herself crazy enough to
rip it from his undeserving head.
Leopold lifts his head when he finally spies her inside the room, and it seems
as if he doesn’t even have the strength to express the usual sigh of revulsion
that his eyes haven’t been able to hide for years now. Instead, he merely
shrugs his shoulders, and looking down at the floor rather than at her accusing
eyes, he says, “My kingdom is dying.”
Regina scoffs, unforgiving in her judgment, and questions, “And what will you
do about it, oh magnanimous King Leopold?”
He flinches visibly, more obviously than usual due perhaps to the drinks he’s
been having, or perhaps simply because he’s entirely given up cloaking his
discomfort. He doesn’t even pretend to be fighting, and with a second shrug,
intones, “There is nothing for me to do.”
Regina feels her fingers crack with tension, not sure what it is she wishes to
do to this man before her, this man that has claimed the deserted island
between her legs so many times, this man who has been given a crown and a
expanse of land when he deserves nothing, this privileged heavy lump who knows
nothing of hard work, who has lost nothing but a wife that he never knew how to
forget, and who is willing to give up at the first sign of difficulty. She
wants to throttle him, kill him, slap his face and feel the comforting weight
of his heart in her hand. She wonders, given the dire situation the kingdom
finds itself in, whether anyone would bother to miss him at all were he to die
today, or whether the tragedy around them would simply swallow whatever remorse
there might be over the king’s death. She savors the latter idea with
satisfaction, and that’s enough to calm her senses and make her expression
settle easily into disdain.
“For once in your life, Leopold, you are right,” she says, enunciating his name
with affectation, her tone dripping scorn and ridicule. Then, she declares,
“There is nothing for youto do.”
Regina leaves the room with swift steps and a newfound determination, leaving
Leopold to his wallowing and not sparing another second of thought on the
weakened man. She finds her way back to the Council Room, and is received with
surprised silence upon her kingless return. She dismisses the alarm that has
taken over the room quickly, and with secure movements, pulls Leopold’s empty
seat away from the table, and stands in its place, tall and proud in her
position as rightful queen. When she finds ten odd looks thrown her way, she
unwittingly stands up straighter and holds her chin up higher, making her
attitude make up for the lack of physical height these men before her surely
count as a disadvantage.
Finding herself sufficiently settled in her role, she says, “The king finds
himself indisposed at this very moment; we shall begin without him.”
The men grant her a reprieve that lasts a surprised second, enough for them to
fully register the meaning of her words. Then, the protests come loud and
clear. Regina scoffs, a part of her having held onto the hopes that they would
be smart enough to quench their judgmental worries and simply allow her to
claim the position that is rightfully hers. She would wring all of their necks
if she could, these men that have so willingly heard and followed her words
when she’s spoken to them outside of this chamber and that now act as if she’s
completely unprepared to lead them. Still, she allows them a moment of
confusion to pose their preoccupations loudly and without any order, and then
promptly quiets them down by bringing both hands to the table harshly, the
sound of her palms smacking the wood echoing inside the small chamber.
“Enough,” she states, cold calmness easily entering her tone. “Gentlemen, we
have a crisis in our hands, and in the absence of the king, you must answer to
me; if you wish to spend your time puffing out your chests in some foolish
mockery of proud peacocks I will most certainly not stand by to witness it.”
Most men remain quiet in the face of her cold ire, even going back to sitting
down after standing up in the middle of their furious and thoughtless protests.
The Treasury Master is the first to concede, and is quickly followed by Baron
Edgar and two others. The Military Advisor grumbles under his breath but fails
to defy her, and the Master of Ships has the gall to wink at her as he sits on
his official chair with the air of a patronizing overlord. Regina keeps an eye
for the Royal Doctor, patiently waiting for him to pose further protest, but he
surprises her by lowering his head in the face of her harsh stare. His hands,
which have been holding papers detailing the situation within the kingdom, have
been shaking impossibly for a long while now, and perhaps the man is worried
enough to acquiesce to whatever authority that may tell him what they can
possibly do to fight against their undefeated enemy. Soon enough, only Regina
and the Law Advisor remain standing, the latter fixing her with a gaze worthy
of a fighting bull, unrelenting and aggressive. Regina doesn’t cower before
him, though, and merely lifts a defiant eyebrow when he refuses to back down
from his apparent rebellion.
“Surely the situation isn’t so dire that we are forced to listen to a little
girl who thinks too highly of herself,” he says finally, breaking away from her
gaze so he can address the rest of the men of the council.
Regina smirks when the man finds himself alone in his protest, the rest of the
members of the council smart enough to keep whatever derisive thoughts they may
hold about Regina’s authority to themselves. This only incenses the Law Advisor
further, it seems, and when his eyes search for Regina’s again his expression
has nothing but amused mockery to show her. Perhaps Regina should blame herself
for this reaction; after all, she’s always played the dumb girl for this man,
helping him along in his efforts to take a peek at the hidden treasures of her
cleavage. However, a man of his station should have known better than to buy so
far into her game that he thinks her unsuited enough for the job of ruler so as
to oppose her so openly and with such lack of respect.
Regina, finding whatever smidgeon of fun she can in the man’s defiance, turns
his way, head high and body on display, the dress she has chosen today doing
wonders to highlight the curves of her breasts and hips. It’s a posture that
the Law Advisor will undoubtedly associate to her posing some obvious and silly
question, the way she has been doing for years now when dealing with him,
playing the eternal dim-witted child so as to make him feel superior enough to
blindly confide in her without being fully aware of it.
She blinks owlishly, lowering her lashes slowly and prettily, and looking at
the man with big, open eyes, asks, “What do you propose we do then, my lord?”
A smug smile quickly adorns the man's thick lips, and thinking himself the sure
winner of this battle, he says, “We must appoint a leader amongst ourselves
until the king is well enough to join our deliberations.”
Regina snorts at the proposition, as obvious as it is insulting, and paying no
mind to whatever reaction the Law Advisor’s words may have caused on the rest
of the men, she leans forward, both her hands on the table and her eyes settled
once again on the man’s contemptuous stare.
“And you truly believe that any of you old fools might make a better leader
than your queen?”
That prompts a heartfelt laugh in the man, full and loud where he’s usually
soft-spoken and mellow. “Your Majesty, it is far from my intentions to question
your title, but surely you more than anyone know than, rather than politics,
your talents lay in… other areas.”
The insinuation of his words is so brazenly disrespectful that Regina doesn’t
have to imagine a collective gasp conquering the room. Many of the men in the
room have been quick to disregard her opinions or simply forget her words, but
none of them would dare word such a blatant offense to the royal figure that
she represents, whether she has an actual intelligence to go with her title or
not. The Law Advisor must clearly think less of her than she had initially
guessed at, though, if the satisfied expression marring his features is
anything to go by. Regina says nothing to his insinuation, though, merely
holding his arrogant gaze with her own hard and unwavering one, breathing
slowly and letting silence stretch among them. The air feels heavier the longer
they maintain their eyes locked together, Regina smelling the scent of her own
magic easily, doing nothing more than pressing an invisible and unexplained
strain in everyone present in the room. The Law Advisor doesn’t falter, though,
or at least he doesn’t at first. In the face of her quiet scrutiny, though, he
begins to waver, his shoulders growing tense and his hands becoming suddenly
fidgety. Regina lets him stew, her own disposition resolute as he falls apart
completely, his eyes suddenly shifting from side to side and refusing to meet
hers again. She waits until he’s taken a step back and away from the table, his
hands coming up to chest high and showing her his open palms, as if trying to
calm down a pouncing beast rather than a girl that he has belittled as little
more than a whore not a few minutes before. Once she’s thoroughly satisfied
with his discomfort, she calls to the ever present shadow that is her black
guard, not bothering to look behind her as she gives her orders.
“Rivers, please escort my lord to the dungeons.”
The Law Advisor spites meaningless protests, but his big and old frame poses no
threat to her own guard, and quickly enough the man’s words are drowned by
distance as he is dragged away forcibly.
Regina has time for one last remark, though, and so before both men are
completely out of the room, she commands, “Rivers, do gag our esteemed Advisor
if he fails to quiet down; we can’t have an important figure of the court
humiliating himself by spewing such vitriol about his rightful queen.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” comes the quick and steady reply.
The moment both men leave the room, Regina turns back to the rest of the men of
the council, and finds herself standing up straight without much of an effort
as soon as she spies the fearful and astonished expressions being thrown her
way. She breathes in slowly, thriving in her control and in the inherent power
of thoroughly surprising these so-called powerful men. Have they truly been so
blind to the true nature of her character that the wielding of her authority
surprises them so? They must have been, and presented by such unparalleled
consternation, she feels like laughing. She refrains from such a gesture, but
she can’t help the smirk that touches the corner of her lips, or the unbidden
surge of pride burning up inside her belly, filling her up where she has so far
been so utterly empty.
With a wave of her hand, as if to dismiss the little scene the Law Advisor has
so unwittingly been a participant of, she wonders, “Shall we begin, gentlemen?”
 
===============================================================================
 
Loathe as Regina is to admit that one of Leopold’s statements must be true, as
the weeks pass around her and she grapples to figure out their situation, she
must confess that perhaps he hadn’t been entirely wrong when he’d said that his
kingdom was dying. Never before has Regina seen so much loss work its way so
fast through the lands, and to such a wasteful and negligible thing as decease.
War may perhaps be pointless, but at least there is always a winning side at
the end of a deathly scuffle; no one wins here, though, no kings or queens will
come victorious out of this battle.
Regina does her best, though, keeping up a steady trickle of information of the
devastation that the sickness is causing, and applying what little knowledge
she has to try and stop it however she can. Most physicians seem to concur that
cleanliness and proper nutrition are major necessities when it comes to curing
patients, and while Regina can’t do a lot to assure the healing of those
already infected, she can direct her efforts to stopping the spread. Keeping
that in mind, she sets ten main points around the kingdom were whoever is
affected must be moved to, so as to keep the infection away from all
populations, and in order to keep physician’s efforts focused on little
locations. People resist her orders, but armed with a newly coined personal
seal, Regina passes a Royal Decree and gives her Black Knights the right to
drag the population to where they need to be. Stories of her cruelty at
separating families reach her ears soon enough, but she can’t be worried about
such trifle matters when she’s the only one actively trying to save this
kingdom.
When the first noblemen start falling ill, panic spreads like wildfire.
Somehow, noblemen across the lands had assumed that they were safe by mere
virtue of their money and privilege, as if somehow disease had any way of
knowing that riches equal a superior station in life. Regina wants to be
scornful and disdainful, but the outbreak among the ruling class worries her,
for if the condition is ailing well-fed and well-protected houses, then surely
the situation is even direr than she had initially guessed at. The council,
though, proves to be more preoccupied with shallow matters, exhorting her to
send gifts to the mourning royal families, as if that will somehow solve any of
their actual problems. Regina refuses them, ordering caution and severity in
the use of their resources, understanding easily that they may be facing a
longer crisis than they can perhaps anticipate. She’s constantly worried about
such matters, truth be told, and she consequentially subjects the Treasury
Master to a persistent persecution that has the man on edge and showing signs
of permanent exhaustion. Regina can’t allow herself to go easy on anyone,
though, not even their eldest council member.
As soon as the first deaths happen among noblemen, Regina sends letters all
around the lands, urging her court to remain strong and steady, and to help
their surrounding populations as best as they can, sparing whatever resources
they might posses in favor of helping local physicians, who seem to be
constantly in need of supplies that Regina finds herself hard-pressed to
provide. She has been forced to cut most merchant routes with her neighboring
kingdoms, as well as to forbid the trading of linen and woolen goods in an
effort to stop the spreading of the virus, and she finds herself lacking ideas
as to how to provide that which is so desperately needed.
Despite her pleas, most noblemen are too scared to remain in their houses, and
many flee to the palace, which so far has proved to be an unyielding fortress
in keeping the disease away. The bravest of men stay behind while sending their
women and children to be cared for by the king, but many leave most possessions
behind and choose to come to the safe haven that Regina is forced to provide.
Regina feels no regrets, then, when she orders her men to take whatever houses
are free of their masters and use them for food and shelter, as well as to put
the servants that are left behind to work on forgotten crop fields or to nurse
the sick under the orders of physicians.
Finding the palace swamped by people, though, Regina sets the task of keeping
them fed and sheltered in the hands of a willing Snow. She has been ready to
provide help where her own father has been drunkenly hiding himself in his
chambers for weeks now, and while Regina has been adamant about keeping her
away from the Council Room, lest her own authority be undermined under the
presence of Leopold’s heir, she is more than happy to provide her with a
necessary activity that Regina can’t possibly handle herself.
“When was the last time you ate, Regina?” Snow questions one afternoon, her
hand soft as it circles Regina’s wrist but adamantly steady in her grip, as if
she spies Regina wanting to flee her presence.
Snow isn’t wrong if that is indeed her appraisal of Regina’s demeanor. Regina
has been running around from place to place for weeks now, filled with nervous
energy, her mind constantly abuzz, and the sudden stop paired with the softness
of Snow’s voice is somewhat jarring. Truth be told, Snow has probably stopped
her because Regina has just very publicly snapped at Baroness Irene, her idle
prattle completely unbearable to her when there is a kingdom dying beyond their
walls, a fact that the woman fails to grasp as she insists on tea parties and
gossip, as if pregnancies and affairs are somehow important. Regina will
probably come to regret such behavior, but as of now, she can’t bring herself
to care.
“I’m fine, Snow,” she replies, absentminded but careful enough to accompany her
answer with something close to a smile. She’s too tired for the gesture to be
exaggeratedly high-spirited, but then no one expects her to be happy given
their actual situation.
Snow lets her go, but before she does, she looks at her with something that
Regina keeps spying in her eyes, something that wasn’t there before, and that
settled in Snow’s lingering gazes back when they’d had that conversation where
the princess had accused her or being insensitive. Oh Regina, I do worry when
you’re unkind,Snow had said, and Regina had dismissed her comment perhaps too
hastily. There is something that feels like mistrust in Snow’s eyes, where
there has only ever been reverence and curiosity before, and Regina wonders if
Snow has finally found it in herself to question Regina’s feelings. Snow has
always taken Regina’s actions at face value, and her ever eternal faith in the
kindness of the world has probably never made her question whatever lack of
truth may have lain inside Regina’s chest, but perhaps the princess is finally
opening up her eyes to the reality that has always been before her. Has Snow
grown self-aware, finally, or has Regina simply been slipping, her masks
entirely too heavy to keep up? Perhaps, though, simply dealing with nobles who
insist on being fed delicacies and being treated as guests rather than as
refugees as the world collapses around them has made Snow begin to finally
question the existence she has been carrying all along. Whatever answer
Regina’s speculations may hold, she most certainly doesn’t like that Snow may
be able to see through her barriers, even if a small part of her is somehow
relieved that she might.
Dwelling in her feelings for Snow, though, is not something that Regina can
afford right now, so she simply goes through her business, quickly forgetting
whatever small interactions time affords them in the new and hectic world order
they have been forced into. Later that same night, though, when father insists
on her sitting down for a proper meal with a more stubborn set to his eyes than
usual, Regina suspects that Snow has been sharing her concerns with him, a move
that Regina might find herself proud of if only it didn’t play against her own
desires. She refuses to eat, claiming lack of time while doing her best at
ignoring father’s worried look, which somehow hurts more than whatever feelings
of hunger she may be truly harboring.
As time moves around them, quick and frantic, Regina realizes that any
difficult decision that must be taken invariably falls on her, inevitably
gaining her a reputation that paints her as cold-hearted and inhuman, when in
reality she is the only one ready to face facts for what they are. Her decree
ordering the burning of the bodies of those killed by the plague raises more
than one eyebrow, and a loud chant of protests from the council. No one seems
to mind the fact that half buried bodies have been responsible for most of the
latest outbreaks, and instead they all protest that families must be allowed to
mourn their deceased loved ones as they so wish.
"There will be no one left to mourn when everyone is dead,” she argues back,
her tone cold and tired, her body shagging with exhaustion even as she forces
herself to stand tall. She has a feeling that these men will grasp at whatever
sign of weakness they may spy on her to effectively undo the coup she has
staged on a defeated King Leopold, and she can’t afford to give into her own
tiredness before them.
“The bodies will burn,” is her final statement on the matter.
Regina is grateful that, protests aside, the men from the council have finally
understood that she is not the same kind of leader that Leopold was. After all,
the king has spent years allowing himself to be easily overruled by his own
advisors, where Regina listens to them carefully and wages his opinions, but
reserves for herself the ultimate right of making decisions. While this had
sparked something close to a rebellion on their early days together, most of
them acquiesce easily to her power the more time passes, whether because she
has proven that she’s a worthy leader, or whether because they fear joining the
Law Advisor in his long-term imprisonment in the dungeons Regina doesn’t know,
and doesn’t particularly care.
Surprisingly enough, the Military Advisor has turned into her most outspoken
supporter, where before he’d been so against her meddling in his affairs. As it
is, though, when Leopold’s army had started a loud campaign of complaints at
being side-lined in the new feral organization of the land, Regina had
negotiated an agreement for them to become useful again so long as they
conceded to leave Leopold’s crest behind and to outfit themselves with her own
black garb. Most men hadn’t doubted for a minute, and that particular move had
somehow earned her the respect of the Military Advisor, which had in exchange
made Regina listen far more closely to his advice on the matters of logistics
and the use of military strength. The man is, after all, the most knowledgeable
person on the kingdom’s geography and strategic locations that she knows, so it
isn't a hardship to trust his judgment now that he speaks to her openly and
eagerly.
The longer the epidemic consumes them, the harshest Regina grows. Confronted
with death, people have unsurprisingly turned to superstition and old tales,
and the stories of witchcraft and dark curses that the plague brought with it
have only worsened, conquering the weaker spirits of peasants. Suddenly, the
population believes that walking around with flowers around their nose is a
method to avoid illness, since it wards off the stench and the evil that
afflicts the land. Preachers and false prophets surge seemingly out of nowhere,
claiming they’re being punished by unknown gods for their sins, and most of
them are quick to blame their rulers for their cruelty and misdemeanors being
the origin of the consuming death. Regina orders instant execution of such
characters, intent on stopping them from spreading fear and filthy lies into
the ears of ignorant peasants.
Decrees such as the latter keep feeding her reputation of heavy-handed cruelty,
and she realizes that the black garb of his knights has become something to be
feared amongst the population. No one speaks of the many lives saved by her
steady methods, of the hours she has spent pouring over physician's reports so
as to stop the spread of the illness killing them with a hand harshest than
Regina’s, or even of the fact that no one has gone hungry yet due to her
mediating in the fair distribution of resources. Instead, she gets tainted as
possessed by a demon when noblemen refuse to share their well-stocked pantries
with their neighboring villages and Regina has their houses ransacked and burnt
as punishment, gets looked upon with suspicious eyes when she refuses the
entrance back into the villages to people visiting their loved ones in infected
areas. Most rumors and commentaries go over Regina’s head, though, too busy
making the decisions that no one wants to make and putting the work that no one
wants to shuffle through.
In her mindlessness and constant craving of activity, Regina forgets to eat.
It’s not something particularly strange, not when food has been such a source
of distress during her life, and when her body has been trained before in
staying reliably firm even through bouts of foodless days. A trained body and a
busy mind don’t stop her from overindulging in her forgetfulness, though, and
she finds herself running away from a council meeting when she realizes that
she’s a breath away from passing out. She runs to her bedchambers, her hands
shaky and her mind impossibly dizzy, sweat sticking her hair to her forehead
and making her skin feel clammy and trapped inside her heavy dress. She hasn’t
felt so distraught since her childhood days back at the manor, when it was
mother’s hands controlling her habits, and not her own mindless head.
Father finds her hours later, laying down against soft and plush pillows after
she’s treated herself to a bath, rather than to a meal. While a part of her
craves food desperately, another part is convinced that her stomach won’t be
able to accept anything, and that whatever little morsel she eats will
inevitably make her sick. She’s not surprised, then, when father comes to her
with a tray filled with warm smelling soup and some loaves of bread, a
luxurious meal by the standards they have been keeping lately around the
palace. Regina has been, after all, adamant in leading by example, and has
banished obscenely large meals from the palace’s tables, making sure that their
guests are well fed but not overly so, as they have been so terribly accustomed
to. Snow had agreed with her on the matter, but she’d looked at her reprovingly
when Regina had joked that many of their court members could afford to lose
most of their weight anyway. The girl was developing the most annoying chiding
tone to her voice, like that of an old mother already too tired to express her
disapproval beyond a censuring oh, Regina.
“Come and eat with me, cielo,” father requests, his voice low and soft as he
sets a table for them.
Regina has half a mind to deny him, just out of a recently developed sense of
childish rebellion against father’s quiet care. She feels like pushing him,
finding out how much he can take, how far his patience goes. There’s an
unrecognizable and sadistic instinct in her that wonders if father would ever
stop her, berate her in any way if she went far enough in her tantrums. She’s
stupendously tired though, and she’s thankful that father has chosen to share
the meal with her rather than simply make her eat, probably knowing how much
she hates being watched as she eats, as if she were an animal on display rather
than a person. Heavily and with slow steps, she acquiesces to father’s request
and sits by him, the warm scent of soup wafting up to her nostrils and making
her stomach rumble. She smiles with something like shame, but father’s
corresponding grin is nothing if not loving, a reminder of a past where all
they had were secret meetings in Regina’s darkened rooms, where Regina could
manage a sigh of simple happiness with nothing more than a piece of chocolate
offered by father’s steady palm.
Gingerly, Regina takes a spoonful of soup, thankful that father has brought
something soft and easy that her stomach probably won’t reject. A stronger
aroma than she expected reaches her on her first taste of the heated up brew,
the rich aftertaste that it leaves behind surprisingly pleasant. She looks at
her empty spoon with bewilderment, and then at her father with the closest
thing she has felt to amusement in what feels like months.
“Daddy, what did you do?” she asks.
“Red pepper flakes; gives it a little quick, wouldn't you agree?”
“Daddy!” Regina exclaims, berating and delighted in equal amounts.
Food has been an issue for a while, after all, and Regina has been severe in
her prohibition of luxuries, considering how problematic trading has become
since most routes have been closed for fear of spreading the virus further.
Here father is, though, using rare spices on her food that are hard to come by
on regular occasion, never mind in the situation they find themselves in.
“Don’t worry, cielo,” father replies, smooth and small even as he pats Regina’s
still hand with soft fingers. “You deserve a little treat.”
Regina laughs, wholeheartedly agreeing with father and feeling herself give
into the freedom of indulging in something warm and savory. She certainly
deserves more than a little treat; she deserves a kingdom, revenge, ripped
hearts and the tears of those who have wronged her, she deserves a mended heart
and a radiant future, she deserves vibrant, incandescent and unbidden
happiness. For now, though, she can accept something as simple and as reliable
in its strength as a quiet and spicy meal with her father. Father, who has been
pulling away from her in a way that has put a strain on their relationship, his
constant and pervasive necessity to build himself down a hurtful and
diminishing thorn in Regina’s opposing need of building herself up, but who
remains, after all, her ever-loving father.
They eat heartily and silently, relishing the rare moment spent together. They
barely do this anymore, not on normal circumstances and certainly not as of
late, with Regina’s mind too busy to even remember that she must feed herself,
and Regina has missed it. She’s not particularly sure about the reasons behind
their slow separation, whether perhaps Regina holds more resentment over
daddy’s inherent weakness than she can wrap her head around, or whether father
has simply slipped so far into his role as valet that he has forgotten that he
is her only true family. No matter the reasons, when they finish their meal and
father reaches out for her hand and holds it with both his own, Regina can do
nothing but sigh, weariness seeping into her body as if triggered by such a
plain yet soothing touch. Mother’s physical affection had always been sparse
and hard earned, but father had always been giving in that respect, and Regina
suddenly realizes how lacking their relationship has been lately in the
simplest of gestures that have always been so natural between them. Tiredly,
with a bleak and daunting suddenness, Regina realizes that she has spent so
long being a mysterious, strong and untouchable queen that she has forgotten
how to be a daughter to this man who despite everything, loves her so
unconditionally.
“Daddy, I’m so tired,” she says, exhaustion pulling from her and making her
gravitate towards father’s frame until she’s nestled between his arms, her head
tucked under his chin and resting on his narrow shoulder somewhat
uncomfortably.
Father pulls her in, his scent and embrace familiar and dragging lost memories
from her childhood forward with unbidden force. For a moment, Regina wishes
that she could give up schemes and responsibilities and be that little girl
that wanted nothing more than to spend a few hours riding atop Rocinanteand
feeling the wind on her face. She’s not, though, can never be that girl again,
not when the hands of dead lovers and unborn children keep dragging her down
the only path that can possibly bring her any peace of mind, that can put her
wounded heart at rest.
“Tienes que descansar, cielo, ” father murmurs, the lilting tone of his voice
tangible enough that her eyelids close of their own volition, her body resting
heavily against his. They’re sitting down, their embrace awkward at best, but
Regina thinks that she could fall asleep just like this, mollified by father’s
voice. (1)
“My little princess,” father coos, his voice now far away and dreamy, but not
less of a calming balm on her senses. “Eres fuerte y hermosa y extraordinaria,
pero también eres buena, cielo.Remember that sometimes, remember that you are
good.” (2)
Regina doesn’t know why father would possibly say that to her now, not when the
whole kingdom is calling her wicked and cruel, when she’s proving that a ruling
hand sometimes needs to be a harsh hand. He repeats his statement, though, and
sleepily, Regina searches for reassurance that she suddenly, desperately needs,
and wonders, “Am I, daddy? Am I really?”
And as he says yes, yes of course you are, you are good, eres buena,his tone
almost a song, or a praying mantra of some sort, Regina allows herself to rest,
and falls asleep awkwardly held in between his loving arms.
 
===============================================================================
 
Weeks turn into months, and as another winter finds its way through their
windows, the kingdom sees new life. It’s ironic that coldness and dead trees
bring hope with them, but then Regina has always preferred a cool breeze to a
stifling sun, and so she welcomes the respite they’re being offered with open
arms. The plague has cost them much, but the news of people falling ill are few
and far between now, not just within the limits of their own kingdom, but also
in surrounding lands, the disease that has caused such grief beginning to leave
their lives the same way it came to them, quickly and without explanation.
Physicians are still stumped, but Regina already has plans to document what
little evidence they may have gathered, not fully trusting that this virus has
left them completely quite yet. Where their preoccupation over the spread of
the plague wanes, though, the worries about the lack of resources begin to
surface with growing strength. Regina has been hard and stoic about their
economics during the crisis, though, and while lavish tables and extravagant
displays won’t be seen for a long time, she’s confident that her kingdom won’t
go hungry, either.
Regina herself has been feeling better, the newfound optimism of the court
around her allowing for breathing space where there had been none for the
better part of a year, and gifting her with enough time to think about her own
needs. Thus, she grants herself permission to enjoy several meals a week with
father and sometimes Snow, taking advantage of the fact that most of the
noblemen they’re still guarding in the palace aren’t particularly keen on
whatever spices remain in their kitchens, so that they don’t feel guilty by
consuming them themselves. Father has also taken on the task of reminding her
to sleep properly and for more than one hour at a time, and has chosen to
relieve her lady’s maid of the task of combing Regina’s hair, turning such a
simple and practical gesture into an intimate and quiet moment for them both,
and managing to quench Regina’s unconfessed need for careful affection.
It is par for the course then that the moment Regina chooses to relax, tragedy
strikes yet again. The palace has stood as a safe haven for months, but now
that outbreaks are rare and far between, the disease filters through their
walls, inevitably bringing new panic with it and wreaking havoc in the fragile
balance that Regina had managed to instill within their impenetrable refuge.
Two chambermaids are found vomiting blood by some duke or other, and by the
time the news reach Regina’s ears it’s already too late, confusion, dismay and
frenzied fear consuming her peaceful sanctuary before she can even begin to
think about stopping it. Regina has half a mind to have the girls lashed for
hiding their sickness, much more when they confess to having visited one of the
infected areas not long ago despite the Royal Decree forbidding such actions,
but the girls are dead before Regina can get to them.
A cook follows soon after, though, and it’s only the first of a list of ten
that the fever touches before Regina can contain it, one of her own black
knights falling prey to it, as well as Baroness Irene’s latest protégé, a sweet
looking fifteen year old thing that dies barely two days after showing the
first symptoms. Regina is quick to place the infected in one of the lower
levels of the palace, reserving several chambers for them and harshly stopping
the protests that demand that she separates noblemen from servants. Regina
scoffs at such superficial matters at this stage, claims that everyone is equal
when facing the dark eyes of death, and simply dismisses panicked and outraged
blabber that she honestly doesn’t have the energy to withstand. She sends for
the Royal Doctor, who has been managing the main outpost on the palace’s
neighboring village by Regina’s orders and despite his own objections, and puts
him to work on making sure that the spread is contained to the few rooms that
Regina has given to the sick. If the infected die then Regina doesn’t
particularly care, but she can’t have more people falling ill under her watch.
For her part, Regina remains as far away as she can from their temporary sick
bay, ignoring the signs of death around her as best as she can. For all that
she has investigated the disease to the best of her abilities, it awakens
nothing but disgust within her, and she doesn’t think she can face decaying
bodies and the smell of rotting flesh. She was never a sickly child, after all,
her wounds and pains always consequence of direct actions – mother’s strict
rules and vicious punishments, Leopold’s vile hands, her own carelessness – so
the thought of fevers and chills is scary to her otherwise fearless character.
Snow, on the other hand, kind in ways that Regina will never fully understand
and inherently good-intentioned in her stupidity, chooses to ignore the little
common sense she possesses and offers herself as nurse and aid to the doctor.
She is at least smart enough to hide her actions from a Regina that she knows
will disapprove, which of course doesn’t stop her from finding out; honestly,
it baffles her that Snow thinks that there’s something going on inside this
palace that Regina doesn’t know about.
“I have at least twenty different ways of explaining to you the idiocy of your
irresponsible actions, dear, I do hope you are ready to listen to each and
every one of them,” Regina tells her as soon as she manages to corner her in
her bedchambers. She’s feeling so utterly unhinged by Snow’s little merciful
act that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, and for once, she’s glad
that they’re surrounded by enough servants and guards that she has to keep her
own temper under control.
Snow protests, of course she does, her cheeks tainted in rebellious red and her
shoulders set in a tense and awkward line. Regina would be worried if only the
girl didn’t look like the perfect picture of a spoiled toddler throwing a
tantrum.
“I was doing the right thing; I amdoing the right thing.”
“Do you even know who you are, my dear Snow? Because if you did you would
understand that the right thing for you to do is not putting yourself in danger
because you feel like playing nurse!”
Snow bristles visibly at that, angrier than Regina has perhaps seen her before,
and enough that it throws her a little. Stomping feet and outbursts have never
been part of Snow’s personality, her distress always quiet, as if fury was
somehow an emotion far beyond her.
“I am just like everyone else,” Snow says then, seething, defying, her lips
pursed in an ugly expression that sits wrongly on her face, which seems to be
pleading with her to return to a beaming smile.
Regina can do nothing but laugh at Snow’s statement, though, and quickly follow
it with a sneer that’s more natural for her than any smile, and declare, “No,
Princess Snow White, you are not.”
Snow’s lack of self-awareness shouldn’t surprise Regina by now, but it
certainly never fails to fire up her ire in ways that feel like a dam breaking
inside her. Snow, who rules her privilege and immunity with such ease, who
thinks that the world is made to please her, who intrudes and pushes with the
rightful authority of someone who doesn’t understand denial, who gets so easily
upset whenever Regina dares say no, has the gall to think of herself as just
like everyone else. Regina wants to throttle her, expose herself as the exotic,
sad, worthless queen she has been for so long, undermined and dismissed until
she has proven her own value with nothing but work and determination, wants
Snow to look at the world around her and understand.She does nothing of the
sort, though, instead turning into the stern mother Snow needs her to be in the
face of her most childish behavior, and simply sends her to her room with
berating words.
Regina’s precautions and reprimands come too late, however, for Snow collapses
before them two days later, her suddenly fragile looking body falling swiftly
and unstoppably to the garden’s grounds while surrounded by the watchful and
panicked eyes of enough members of the court that the news will take mere
seconds to reach every last crevice of the palace. Regina stands frozen as the
princess crumples, her head colliding against the ground with a loud and
reverberating crack,bouncing once, twice, before her body rests completely
still, only the shallow movement of her chest proving that there’s still life
brewing inside her. Time stands still for longer than Regina cares to remember,
breaths being held in surprised gasps as Snow rests on the ground, still, so
very still that Regina feels immediately sickened by the image. She is the
first one to react, breaking the standstill by motioning behind her and at her
black guard.
“Claude, the princess!” she hisses, nervousness betraying her tone as Claude
picks Snow up from the ground, the flurry of cream fabric that is her dress
discordant against the guard’s black garb.
In no more than a day, Snow becomes a trembling, feverish mess. Regina sends
for the Royal Doctor as soon as Snow is left resting on her bed, which Regina
herself strips of a heavy comforter and overly stuffed cushions before fitting
the girl against plush pillows and under fine linens, nervous energy cursing
through her as Snow’s heavy breathing rings loud and clear against her ears. It
looks to her as if the princess is choking, unable to breathe properly in the
confines of her dress, so before the doctor can reach her chambers, Regina uses
a discarded table knife to cut through the laces of Snow’s corset, causing the
girl to take a loud and gulping breath that arches her body of the bed, the
awkward set of her limbs alien, jarring enough that Regina jumps away from her
in a sudden bout of panic, scared that she’s broken more than she’s fixed. Snow
calms down, though, and if her breathing doesn’t get any better, Regina hopes
that at least she doesn’t feel as trapped.
The Royal Doctor reaches the bedchambers in a mild panic, and Regina is so
discomfited that she doesn’t even have it in her to threaten execution for
putting the princess in the perilous situation that has caused her to get ill.
She’s not sure why, but as the doctor inspects Snow’s state, Regina finds her
own breathing coming short, her own corset entirely too tight around her torso.
She can’t breathe and she can’t think, and she only manages to turn around with
disgust clouding her every sense when the doctor’s examination reveals grayish
swellings by Snow’s armpits, painful looking and unnatural on her pale skin.
Everything about this is wrong, Snow’s usually buoyant figure prone and fragile
on the white sheets, the doctor flitting about her with fear so clearly written
in his eyes that Regina wants to grab his lapels and demand he do something,
fix this so that Regina can go back to her plans and schemes, all of which
require a living and healthy Snow at their center.
There is nothing much the doctor can do, at least nothing beyond assuring a
healthy diet and clean air, both of which Snow has been privy to for as long as
the epidemic had plagued the kingdom. There is nothing for Regina to do,
either, and while the passiveness of her own eternally busy fingers drives her
mad, she chooses to stay by Snow’s bedside, if only to force her to eat even
when she becomes delirious, barely understanding what is going on around her.
The disease is advancing quickly, merely four days enough for Snow to look more
like a corpse than a living body, her skin pale and gaunt, too close to the
bone as it thins on her frame, the rosiness of her cheeks that Regina has hated
and envied for so long completely gone.
Regina isn’t alone in her grieving, though, the princess’ illness the trigger
Leopold needs to come out of his self-imposed confinement. For months now he’s
been drinking himself into a stupor for all Regina knows, his appearances in
court small and far between, if always clouded with courteous smiles and
hopeful words for the noblemen of the palace. He sits quietly now, though, the
fifth day of Snow’s fever making him mutter angrily under his breath, his
probably clammy hand holding his daughter’s fingers in a tight and unforgiving
grip, as if he can somehow expel his daughter’s ailment out of her body by
willing it away hard enough. He’s failed to look Regina’s way for as long as
they have remained together in this room, but then that is certainly nothing
new. Regina doesn’t wish to be looked upon anyway, not when her grief is
breaking her apart, making her vulnerable and agitated as well as agonizingly
confused. Snow’s life escaping her in pain and misery is all Regina has ever
wanted, and yet there is something not right about this, about Snow shivering
and heavy, about the blackened fingers Regina is holding between her own, about
her skin covered in cold sweat.
Regina is kneeling by the bed when Snow coughs heavily, blood pouring from
between her lips and only enlarging the dry stain on her nightgown. Leopold
looks at Regina as if this is somehow her fault, as if her insistence on
keeping at least one window open so as to let cool breeze filter into the room
is what’s causing Snow pain. And despite his look, he does nothing, and so
Regina is the one that is left to reach for a piece of white linen and clean
clumsily around Snow’s mouth. Regina certainly doesn’t make the best nurse, and
Johanna’s reproving look joins Leopold’s from where she’s standing behind the
king, as if Regina is somehow expected to step up and become someone she’s not
in the face of this sickness and these feelings that she doesn’t understand.
She’s distracted by Snow grumbling something impossible to understand. She’s
been speaking gibberish for the past two days now, delirium taking hold of her,
but Regina discerns that she doesn’t wish to lie down anymore, although Regina
is beginning to think that drowning in her own blood might be a more merciful
ending than being consumed so slowly but surely. Nonetheless, Regina sits on
the bed, lifting Snow’s frame as best as she can and letting her rest against
her own chest. She’s heavy, entirely too heavy when her body looks so thin, and
Regina’s hands tremble when they rest on her waist so as to support her better.
Regina finds herself murmuring nonsense in Snow’s ear, her tone soft and fluid
as it inadvertently plays with father’s native language, somehow more natural
to her when she’s trying to soothe. That earns her another hard look from
Leopold, and Regina wants to snarl at him and throw him away from the room, rip
his hand apart from Snow’s. She knows the man adores his daughter beyond words,
but his love is shallow and deformed, it’s something that makes Snow into
nothing but the image of a little girl that looks too much like her late mother
and is meant to remain ever virtuous and innocent. Leopold doesn’t know his
daughter, doesn’t understand her. Unlike Regina, he hasn’t earned her love.
Regina has, though, Regina who has circled, coddled, taught, listened to,
berated, cared in as twisted a way possible; Regina who has been mother and
sister, friend and shoulder to cry on with as much determination as she’s been
furious enemy and false friend. Regina knowsSnow, knows her enough to deserve
her life and her death, to make this sickness feel unnatural, a thief to what
is Regina’s by right.
Two more days pass before the doctor dares enunciate what they all know to be
true, his face the most stoic and serene that Regina has ever seen as he
mouths, slowly and deliberately, “The princess is dying.”
It’s both a sentence and a relief, for Regina doesn’t think she can take Snow’s
whimpering and suffering for much longer. It’s pathetic and undignified,
unfitting to the life that Snow has led, to the stubborn glint that Regina had
dared to spy in the set of her eyes as of late and to the pride that has
occasionally blossomed in her chest at the sight of this ill-looking corpse
that the princess has become in such a short time.
Regina feels like crying, her throat tight and her eyes watery, her hands
shaky, and the feeling is so inadequate that all she wants to do is run away
from this room and never look back. Father, who has been a silent and
supportive presence in this stifling room for days now, leans a comforting hand
between her shoulder blades and Regina, who has been kneeling by Snow’s bed as
a praying penitent for as long as the princess has been sick, turns away and
finds her father’s lap, soaking up whatever sort of comfort she can get for the
confusing turmoil burning inside her chest. She doesn’t let herself weep,
however, keeping the tears controlled, refusing to accept the despair that
wants to consume her.
Silence reigns inside the room, only Johanna’s soft and whimper-like crying
breaking the standstill and making Regina want to strangle the sound out of the
woman. The stench of death is present amongst them too, making the air feel
cumbersome and nearly tangible. They all remain still, audience to a sudden and
absurd tragedy, to the death of this girl that will die a martyr, a kind soul
stolen from the world far too soon. Regina can’t abide by that, can’t remain
passively still when every single one of her hopes for true revenge will die
with Snow. She can’t watch this, and she won’t.She lifts up her head from where
she’s been hiding in father’s comforting embrace, feeling abruptly edgy,
perhaps a little hysterical, shaky energy brimming under her skin as she
realizes the kind of help that she’s going to have to invoke if she wishes to
keep the princess alive, which she does with so much desperation that she puts
her hand to her chest and rubs, as if she needs to physically calm down her
wildly beating heart.
Hasty, her movements jerky and unfocused, as if she’s not sure where to go,
Regina stands up and away from the bed, going as far away as the room allows
from the group of people staring at the ailing princess. There’s something
close to a collective flinch when she moves, her limbs quick and nearly bouncy
while everyone else seems to be trapped under a slow motion spell, their
gestures stagnant, grief like molasses clouding their actions. When Regina
leaves the room as abruptly as possible, the sound of the door opening and
closing behind her jarring in the otherwise silent chamber, only her black
guard makes as if to follow her, ever-present shadow that Regina sends back
into the room. Instead, she walks alone towards her own bedchambers, her steps
hurried and her head bent low as she tries to avoid looking at the people she
crosses around the hallways, servants with curious eyes that clearly want
whatever update there is about the princess’ state. Regina doesn’t provide, and
by the time she’s reached her room, she’s breathing hard and fast, as if she’d
just run a long distance.
She paces her room once the door is closed behind her and she’s finally left
alone with nothing but the nervous energy brimming under her skin. Her hasty
and circling steps do nothing to calm her down, and neither does the mindless
wringing of her own fingers before her. She feels hazy and she needs to stop
and calm down before she makes any decision that she may later come to regret,
but the only thing that does the trick is the resting of both her open palms
over her own belly, a gesture that speaks to her more than she wants it to and
that makes her stop her rushed back and forth walk. She looks down at her own
hands on her body, splayed over all her empty spaces, where what is already an
old scar itches suddenly, the ghost of her unborn child mocking her when she’s
about to lose her unwanted daughter. She barks out a manic laugh, feels her
senses leaving her even when she knows exactly what it is she has to do.
Moving her hands away from her stomach and clutching the fabric of her skirt so
as to lift it up as she circles the room, looking up as if she’s searching for
a god when in reality what she needs is a demon, she calls, “Rumpelstiltskin.”
Her soft prompting grants no answer, and the next call is a severe and loud
demand. “Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelsti–”
“Not so loud, dearie.”
Regina twirls quickly towards the sound of the high-pitched voice, and the
sight of the imp sitting at the edge of her bed throws her, discordant when she
hasn’t seen him in so long. Truthfully, she’d dabbled in magic when the first
outbreaks of the plague had become alarming, but when she’d found no solution
that her own knowledge could provide, she had completely dismissed the idea,
focusing her efforts in more practical matters. Consequently, Rumpelstiltskin
has been far away from her thoughts and her life for what feels like an
entirely too long time, and his presence after such separation is jarring and
overpowering. The air smells of dark magic, and his golden scaly skin, mocking
smile and shudder-inducing voice are enough to make her cross her arms over her
chest and hug herself protectively, feeling abruptly invaded by her former
teacher. She’s forgotten what dealing with Rumpelstiltskin is like, and now
that she’s called him, she wants him gone.
“You look terrible,” Rumpelstiltskin points out suddenly, one long nailed
finger motioning in her direction in a wordless accusation.
Regina stops short at the statement, pursing her lips childishly and suddenly
forgetting the deeply rooted fear that Rumpelstiltskin evokes in her in favor
of being appallingly offended. The nerve of the imp, honestly, pointing out
Regina’s lackluster appearance and making her want to throttle him. It’s true
that Regina hasn’t changed clothes in the past three days at least, that her
hair feels uncomfortably plastered to her sweaty forehead and that she probably
smells, if only because she has been cooped up in a room with nothing but
sickly scents to offer, but then she has hardly been in a position to care for
such trifling matters. Faced with Rumpelstiltskin’s apparent amusement, though,
her turmoil is pushed to the back of her head by an overwhelming wish to take a
long, warm bath.
“Anyway, dearie, you bellowed?”
Her attention snaps back to Rumpelstiltskin, and standing tall and proud
despite her haggard looks, she sneers and says, “I do not bellow, dear, I’m a
queen.”
Rumpelstiltskin giggles at her, and Regina can’t help the smirk that taints her
lips at the sound that fills her with as much disgust as it does nostalgia. She
hasn’t missedthis demon man, not in the least, but she can’t deny that they’ve
always had a certain kind of annoyingly gratifying rapport about them. After a
year of old council members and a dying kingdom, Regina finds it almost
refreshing. The feeling lasts but a second, though, as soon as Regina thinks of
her reasons for calling for her former master, and at the same time her mouth
quirks down and into a frown, she begins unwittingly pacing again.
“Snow White is dying,” she intones, cold and aloof, trying to distance herself
from the reality of the princess consuming herself slowly on her own bed.
Rumpelstiltskin looks up when she says this, only his eyes moving up before
they dance from side to side, the amber color of his orbs maddening in their
movement. He imitates the dance with his hand, hypnotic like a clock, side to
side, and then stops as abruptly as he started. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
he questions then, his voice rising uncomfortably to pose his inquiry.
“Not like this.”
He shakes his head, quickly and madly, looking at her as if she’s the one that
is completely unhinged. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed,Regina questions herself, her hand unconsciously fisting around
the chain holding Daniel’s ring and yanking, a painful and physical reminder of
the deep loss that Snow White brought into her life with her ever careless and
privileged good intentions. Snow White had staked a claim on Regina’s life they
day she had spoken her secret to mother, and that’s the answer to
Rumpelstiltskin’s why not.
“Because she’s mine!” Regina declares rigidly, stopping her movement right in
front of Rumpelstiltskin and staring into his all-knowing eyes with something
that must surely be madness. “She won’t die a wilting martyr in some bed,”
Regina declares, lifting her hand in front of herself and forming a claw with
her fingers, phantom weight of a heart teasing at her. “She will die strong and
healthy, watching as I crush her heart with my own bare hand.”
Regina only stops looking maniacally at her own hand when Rumpelstiltskin
springs into action, standing up with a lively little jump and laughing
heartily. “You do amuse me, dearie, I must say.” Then, circling her in that way
of his that makes Regina dizzy, he fiddles with his hands in the air and asks,
“And what can I possibly do for you, then?”
“There must be something that can cure her.”
A giggle and a puff of purple magic is enough for a small vial to appear
between Rumpelstiltskin’s fingers, a blue elixir shining with what can only be
magic held within it. Rumpelstiltskin presents it proudly, and before he can
launch on an explanation of its origins and powers, Regina reaches forward for
it. She’s left with both hands hanging in the air when Ruemplestiksin pulls
back, though, easily hiding the small bottle in his closed fist.
“You know better than that,” he says.
Composing herself all too quickly and recuperating her straight stance, she
hisses, “Of course; what do you want?”
That’s enough to cue one of Rumpelstiltskin’s little shows of anticipation,
steps bouncy and finger tapping at his own chin as if thinking deeply about
what it is that he could possibly ask from Regina. Regina bites her own tongue
to stop herself from snapping and instilling some form of urgency in the imp,
but she knows better than that by now. It’s honestly easier to let him get it
out of him than to stop him, or he may just end up dragging the moment even
more.
“Well…” he says finally, stopping in his tracks and looking pointedly at her.
“A child for a child, I suppose; that would be fair, don’t you think?”
Unwittingly, Regina places both hands on her own belly, splaying them there and
looking down with wide eyes betraying surprising. Before Regina can analyze the
meaning behind Rumpelstiltskin’s words, though, he interrupts her thought with
mirth filling his voice, “No, not that; there’s nothing to be had in there,” he
states, wiggling his fingers before Regina’s belly with something like
distaste.
Regina scowls, hugging herself protectively and taking a step back, willing
herself not to be affected by Rumpelstiltskin’s taunts. He’s always been
needlessly cruel, and even if she’s itching to draw her nails slowly over the
smooth skin of her stomach, a lackluster reminder of what was never to be, she
reminds herself that he takes delight on pushing his fingers wherever he finds
a weakness. Regina will not give him the pleasure of seeing her affected by his
words.
“What do you want, Rumpel?” she asks, exasperation evident in her tone.
“The next gift a child gives you.”
Regina frowns, not understanding the request even if Rumpelstiltskin probably
knows exactly what it is that he’s talking about. It seems entirely too
inconsequential, but he always asks for everything with a clear purpose, and
she can’t guess at what it is that he’s hinting. A gift from a child? Why would
a child give her anything?
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“You don’t need to, dearie; do we have a deal, or not?”
Regina hates making deals with such an unknown factor to them; for all she
knows her future spells something important, and offering an unknown object
that isn’t in her possession yet to Rumpelstiltskin seems like a fool’s errand.
But then there’s Snow White, dying in her white sheets, smelling of death and
stubbornly clinging to life, as if she herself knows that she owes Regina the
right to end her, as if she knows that she belongs to Regina in impossibly
twisted ways.
Finally, Regina hisses, “Yes.”
With a giggle, Rumpelstiltskin throws the small vial at her, forcing her into a
sudden and breathless movement to catch it, her tired limbs reacting quickly
enough so as to grasp the small object but complaining through the whole
process, speaking of impossibly long days of restlessness and confusing fear.
“Pour all of it in a glass of water and give it to the princess,”
Rumpelstiltskin instructs. “She will be up and about in no time, just like you
want.”
Rumpelstiltskin offers her one last wicked smile before he leaves her, a puff
of purple smoke the only sign that he was ever in the room. Regina suspects
that she might not be the only one wanting Snow White alive, for even if the
reasons behind Rumpelstiltskin’s games are always clouded by riddles and
fanfare, some things he can’t hide from Regina. It escapes her why the little
imp might want the princess to live, but it’s certainly enough for Regina to
question momentarily whether she should go through with this or not. It’s
daunting, to think that she will be saving the life of the girl she so wants
dead, at the behest of the master that has tortured her so. She laughs; she
must be going crazy after all, for the doubts last no longer than a second, and
soon enough, mind determined and steps heavy, she runs towards Snow’s
bedchambers so that she can bring her back to life.
 
===============================================================================
 
The story of Snow White’s miraculous recovery runs like wildfire the moment the
princess begins breathing regularly again, creating not only awe and
expectation, but breathing new life into a hopeless kingdom the same way
Rumpelstiltskin’s tonic breathed life back into Snow. Regina still remembers
the smell, the potent magic of the brew reaching her senses in the form of
invigorating scents, peppermint and lime hiding something pungently dark. It
saved the princess, though, and it was better than the scent of death that had
clung to her before Regina had forced the watered down tonic down her throat.
Her recovery isn’t immediate, though, the magical brew that she bought from
Rumpelstiltskin enough to rip her away from the long fingered grasp of death,
but not enough to bring her to her usual boisterous and healthy behavior as
fast as everyone would wish. These days, Snow’s hands are shaky and her
breathing comes short whenever she tires herself too much. Her stomach, too, is
out of sorts, rejecting food in ways that Regina is uncomfortably familiar
with, and making her be almost constantly dizzy. Snow is a strong girl, though,
and she pushes through her symptoms with a smile on her face, reassuring
everyone around her that she’s feeling perfectly fine. Her good mood is a
little sickening to Regina, who has been feeling discomfited ever since she
chose to push death away from Snow at a price that she still doesn’t
understand.
No matter what, even if Regina finds herself reclaiming her place in the
council and dealing with a kingdom that is recovering as slowly as its
princess, she makes sure to keep a close eye on Snow’s convalescent state. She
pairs meetings on logistics and discussions about reopening merchant routes
with slow walks through the gardens where Snow can cling to her arm and pretend
that she’s not as tired as Regina knows her to be. In addition, she makes sure
to take all her meals with the princess, sharing a table at Snow’s bedchambers
and making sure that her diet is sufficient and varied, and that she begins
taking stronger foods the more she recovers. She does it if only for her own
sake, for she utilizes Snow’s increase in health as therapy for herself, eating
the same things as the princess, and realizing that her exhaustion matches the
girl’s, even if she hasn’t been sick herself. Truth be told, the sickness of
the whole kingdom has burdened her shoulders heavily for too long a time, and
Regina has been drinking too much and eating too little.
Despite all the hard work this year of crisis has brought them, though, the
knowledge that she has quietly and effectively taken over the role of true
ruler of the kingdom is something that keeps a near permanent smile etched on
her lips. Mother would be proud, she thinks, of her using the misery of the
lands for her own benefit, but then Regina is sure she deserves a prize for all
the hard work she’s put on saving people that have chosen to call her cruel and
unforgiving.
Regina had been made startlingly aware of her own advantages the same day she
had effectively saved Snow’s life. She had administered the tonic in a goblet
full of water, claiming that the princess looked parched and that they were to
make her last moments as pleasant as possible, and while she had smelled the
magic instantly in the air, the lack of immediate recovery had reminded her
that the people in the princess’ bedchambers couldn’t possibly understand that
she was going to be just fine. Unbidden, she had smiled at the thought. King
Leopold had caught her expression and had flinched at it, perhaps thinking her
happy at the sight of his daughter’s sure demise. In his madness, he had broken
the lull that had fallen upon the mourning room and had raised his voice
accusingly while stalking a kneeling Regina, crowding her space.
“You,” he’d said. “You are behind this, you–you–you demon! I should have known
better than to let myself be fooled by a beautiful face.”
Regina had been taken aback by the outburst, Leopold never having once before
slipped into his berating habits in front of other people, always careful and
restrained, ready with a smile and a syrupy my queen to fool his court. With
his child dying, though, Regina had been the perfect target for his anger, the
presence of others in the room clearly unimportant.
Shimmering with rage at the false accusation, Regina had stood up to face the
king, prompting him to step forward and into Regina’s space, looming before her
with his bumbling yet bigger frame. Regina had been more than ready to simply
snap angrily at her foolish husband, but she’d stopped when the king coming
closer to her had made her black guard step by her side, the hilt of his sword
tightly gripped in his fist. The obvious threat of the guard’s movements had
made the king gasp and stand back, surrender easily before actions that were
both intimidation and menace, reason enough to have her guard executed for
daring to direct such behavior at the king. Leopold had done nothing, though,
merely breaking his stance and drawing back into himself.
Regina had understood Leopold’s retreat for what it had been, then, defeat and
abandon in the face of his tragedy, nothing to hold between his hands now that
his daughter was dying and he’d given up on his kingdom. Regina had understood
that it was her who now held the true title of queen, the black garments of her
army now the real sign of authority within the kingdom.
The weeks that follow Snow’s recovery are busy, and time trickles much too fast
for Regina’s liking, so she relishes afternoons that find her resting next to
Snow in the gardens, even if she couples her rest with the reading of official
correspondence. Now that both her and other neighboring kingdoms have begun
opening up most roads again, everyone seems to crave information about the
status of their surroundings lands, Regina herself included. Trade is of utmost
importance now more than ever, after all, for many animals and crop fields have
been lost due to the spreading of disease. Regina is happy to find out that she
has been far more organized than any other kingdom around her, with perhaps the
exception of King George’s; which isn’t such a surprise, the man being overly
cautious and firm of hand.
“You should get some rest, Regina; stop reading for a minute, please,” Snow
requests on one of those afternoons.
They’re sitting by Regina’s apple tree, the scent of fresh fruit and flowers
pleasant around them, and a warm breeze touching their skin softly. It’s a nice
day outside, sunny but not overly so, and truth be told, Regina is feeling a
little sleepy, much more so when Snow is leaning her cheek against her
shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around one of Regina’s and her eyes closed.
Regina had thought her asleep, but she’s probably only tired after they’ve been
walking for the better part of an hour before Regina had allowed them to sit
down. Snow has grown very tactile around her since she came back from the dead,
reminding Regina of the earlier years of their relationship, when Snow was
nothing if not gangly and overly excited limbs. There’s nothing but calm in her
movements now, though, and the touches she bestows upon Regina are clearly
searches for a comfortable position for her tired frame – she usually leans on
her shoulder or bosom, and when she lacks the stubbornness to remain upright,
she simply allows herself to lay down and press her head to Regina’s lap.
Regina allows the clinginess almost graciously, and finds herself unwittingly
carding her fingers through Snow’s hair on most of these occasions, finding
secret comfort in the caress.
This afternoon, she merely hums at Snow’s request, but she drops the letter
between her hands and allows herself to unwind for a while, considering for a
moment whether she wishes to take a bite from one of the apples she tore down
from the tree or not. In the end, she does, the crunchy sound of it between her
teeth never failing to be satisfactory.
“Do eat something, dear,” she prods Snow, dangling a similarly ripe looking
fruit before her until Snow takes it. Regina watches her play with it for a
minute and bite it only after she has issued a no non-sense glare.
Regina has been feeling stupendously hungry as of late, as if now that there is
actual time to think and breathe, her body has chosen to remind her of its
existence. Regina has certainly been careless of most outward aspects of her
life while working away for the past year, but now, she’s coming back to
herself; just the other day she’d even indulged in a new dress, if only to
celebrate the fact that they had recovered the trade of fine fabrics after so
long of going without it. Furthermore, she’s finding a freshly bout of hunger
for something other than food within herself, her body burning up and aching
for a sensual kind of attention in ways that are not completely unfamiliar for
Regina, but certainly surprising. And she would take care of her needs, too, if
only she found herself even remotely attracted to anyone in court. As it is,
she prefers the touch of her own hands on her heated skin, hidden under her bed
linens and in the darkness of her room, thoughts flying away to lovers that she
doesn’t have. Cravings such as these invading her senses, it’s hard not to
think of Maleficent.
She admits that her thoughts are clouded with a slight sigh of worry, King
Stefan’s kingdom too far away from her own for her to know how affected it has
been by the plague. Surely a witch that turns into a dragon won’t have
succumbed to something as absurd as sickness, but the doubt gnaws at Regina’s
mind, a small yet constant string of questions always present at the back of
her head. There is a wild part of her that can’t stop thinking about paying a
visit to her long lost friend, but it has been a little over two years since
they last saw each other, and Regina’s not sure that Maleficent won’t charbroil
her on sight. She would probably bed her first, though, and Regina finds
herself thinking that it wouldn’t be a terrible way to leave this world. Regina
doesn’t indulge herself with a visit, however, but she finds herself unable to
stop her own thoughts; it’s difficult, after all, to think about anyone other
than Maleficent when she’s gliding her hands over her own body, considering
that Maleficent was the one who introduced her to such a practice, her smile
full and wicked around a peach as she’d told her touch yourself for me,
dear.It’s one of Regina’s favorite memories of them together, her
confrontational nature always managing to quench her embarrassment at
Maleficent’s requests, and invariably teaching her something new about her own
cravings and desires.
Sexual pleasure is not the last of her appetites, though, something she doesn’t
completely understand itching beneath her skin. It’s similar to what she’d been
feeling before the kingdom got swamped by their latest crisis, something like
anticipation brimming in her every pore. She suspects it has something to do
with the uselessness of Leopold now that they kingdom is so undisputedly hers,
and with the pathetic figure that he cuts these days, an old man indulging his
old age with slow walks by the beach and a complete lack of knowledge of the
truths that surround them. Not even his daughter, convalescing and slow in her
movements, seems to be enough for his preoccupations to go beyond what material
is more comfortable for his walking shoes, and which rings to wear each day. He
of course makes sure that Snow lacks nothing, but his demeanor involves words
of adoration for her and little else, Regina being, once again, the one left to
care for the princess in the way that she needs, forcing her to walk and eat
even on the days when she’s feeling too weak. Regina finds the man distasteful
and pathetic, and perhaps what her skin is burning with is the unbearable
necessity of ridding the world of this unworthy king.
Regina knows the kingdom is ready, ripe for the taking if she so chooses to do
so, but even if she’s sure that that is what she wants and deserves, she still
treads carefully. The death of the king will change the rules once again, and
she has gotten so good at playing the court’s game that she has to wonder if
making up her own won’t drive her completely mad. She will burn this court to
the ground and their princess will fall with it, and the thought is both
exhilarating and scary; she has been working so hard and for so long that it
feels to her as if her own power must be an elaborate joke still, something
that she has allowed herself to believe in so as to feel at peace with her
chosen path. She wavers between bouts of doubt and sheer determination, her
hands shaking when she thinks of leaving behind subterfuge and power plays and
exchanging them for unwavering and absolute control.
Snow makes her attention snap back to the present when she moves from her place
against Regina’s shoulder, straightening up, combing her fingers through her
own hair and pulling it back behind her shoulders, as if she can hardly carry
it around it’s so uncomfortably heavy. Regina finds that she has crumpled a few
sheets of paper in her fisted palm as her thoughts wandered among hunger of
every kind; she’s lucky she didn’t end up inadvertently burning them up.
Shaking her head so as to focus on the present, she drops the ruined letters
and aims her attention at Snow instead, going for her dark locks with familiar
ease and busying her hands with braiding her hair with slow movements. She
doesn’t know if Snow is smiling, but she catches a small sigh, and wills
herself to forget about her own doubts if only for a second. It wouldn’t do for
Snow to think her unstable, after all.
Once she’s done, Regina goes back to her correspondence, arching an eyebrow
when Snow begins reading along with her by hovering close to her shoulder, no
sign of subtlety in her motions. Regina doesn’t care much, not when the letters
she has left to read are from her own local outposts, and only bring news of
the general unhappiness that seems to clog the people of the kingdom. It’s
understandable, considering the lives lost and the misery that has followed,
but Regina has to twist her lips at the accounts of how her latest regulations
seem to bring nothing but complaints. Obviously uninformed peasants can’t
possibly understand that restraint is of utmost importance if they want to
leave this rough patch behind them once and for all, or that the burning of
certain parts of the land is necessary to ensure complete disinfection.
Decreeing regular examinations from physicians is something that people seem to
be rebelling against as well, when all Regina intends is for the population to
be free of disease. Rumors that she’s just looking to separate people from
their families for gods know what reason also abound, and Regina can do nothing
but roll her eyes about the stupidity of such comments. She expected some idle
talk of witchcraft and sorcery, peasants being known for easily falling into
superstition, but the way people are speaking about her make it seem as if
she’s eating virgin maidens alive for breakfast.
“I told father that I wanted to journey through the lands,” Snow says suddenly,
looking away from the papers between Regina’s hands and staring at her instead.
“Wouldn’t people feel better if they were to see us? Oh Regina, if they knew
how much we cared, how we have suffered just like them.”
Regina twists until she can lock eyes with Snow, a curious tilt to her head as
she ponders Snow’s words. Their suffering hasn’t been like that of the lower
classes, but Snow’s idea isn’t completely stupid. There’s actually some merit
to it, and while Snow is only thinking of kindness and support, Regina is
thinking of manipulation and knowledge. Why trust information coming from other
people’s impressions, after all, when Regina can document herself by going out
there? And wouldn’t the people think her kind and gentle if she were to leave
her palace and Council Room to step into their simple villages?
“What did your father have to say on the matter?” Regina questions. It’s not
that it matters much, but for Snow’s sake, Regina must maintain her façade of
loving wife.
Snow pouts at her question, and Regina clacks her tongue so as to correct the
gesture. Pouting and wide eyes are weapons that work well in certain moments,
but Regina won’t have the princess developing a habit of pursing her lips
stupidly when there’s nothing to be gained. The expression is both childish and
dim-witted, and Regina has hated herself every single time she’s used it,
donning that particular mask of dumb girl always hard on her.
Snow straightens herself quickly at Regina’s obvious disapproval, and says, “He
says I’m too weak still.”
Regina wants to cackle at the thought; Leopold probably doesn’t know how his
daughter is truly feeling, but now he has sickly to add to his idea of little
princess Snow White, and Regina knows that if it were up to him, his daughter
would never leave this palace, or his side. Instead of laughing, Regina offers
Snow a smile, and touching her knuckles softly to her cheek, a practiced
caress, she says, “You’re stronger than your father thinks, dear.” Then, with
an air of determination, she completes, “I shall speak to him; we will be
leaving in a week. Now quiet, dear, and let me finish my readings.”
Snow concedes her wish, clearly pleased to have gotten her way, and probably
convinced of Regina’s kind ways as well. She even offers Regina a big and
honest smile, which makes Regina fight her own instincts so as not to offer a
scowl in return. The more adoration Snow bestows upon her, the more Regina
grows to hate her, after all, and she would rather deal with a weakened and
sleepy Snow than with one so visibly delighted. They’re having a good afternoon
today, though, and Regina doesn’t wish to spoil her mood with dark thoughts
about her charge.
Regina goes back to her letters, smiling her own genuine smile when she reaches
for what’s clearly a letter from Prince Bernard, and which she has consciously
left for last. She hasn’t had any news from the prince for over a year now, and
she’s both excited and delighted at having received a letter as well as a small
box from him. If the box holds any kind of sweet, as it is wont to do to, she
should be consistent with her teachings and scold him for wasting food on her,
but then Regina isn’t the child’s mother, and she wishes to feel nothing but
joyous glee when thinking of little Bernie. She reaches for the box first, and
can do nothing but raise both eyebrows in surprise when she finds a funny
looking wooden toy inside it, rather than any type of candy as she’d been
expecting. She inspects the small object that easily fits within her palm,
looking at the pointed tip and colorfully painted wood with childlike
curiosity, and easily ignoring Snow’s exclamation of how strange!even when made
right against Regina’s ear. Regina has never seen anything quite like, but a
short examination has her pressing the tip to the ground right before her, and
spinning the small object by the wooden stem directly opposite the tip. The toy
twirls clumsily, the colors etched into the wood dancing along with it and
creating a wild rainbow for a short and gleeful moment before it inevitably
stops and falls back into the ground. Regina laughs, surprised, and so does
Snow, obviously delighted enough to reach forward and give the toy another
spin. Regina twists her lips at Snow’s appropriation, wishing that she’d waited
to be alone to open the strange gift.
It is with a smile that Regina turns to the letter then, wanting to hear
whatever news Bernie might have for her, and wishing to know what this toy
might be called. What her eyes fall upon, however, isn’t Bernie’s uneven and
hurried scrawl but a much firmer and elegant calligraphy, the words that fail
to register for a moment much too formal. Regina gasps as she reads, finding
the paper shaking as her hand begins to do so, her breath coming short and
wheezy from her clogged up throat. A drop of water falls upon the letter, the
ink running and making Regina realize that the wetness doesn’t come from a drop
whatsoever, but from the first of many tears falling from her own eyes.
“Regina?” Snow questions next to her, her voice sounding entirely too far away
to be real, Regina’s world suddenly reduced to words spelled before her.
Again and again Regina reads them, and the meaning doesn’t change. Prince
Bernard fell ill, they say, thankfully didn’t suffer, died after only a few
hours of showing symptoms, he spoke of you with such fondness, he would have
wanted you to have his favorite toy, thank you for your kindness.
Regina’s limbs feel suddenly heavy, and when she tries to react, she finds that
she can barely stand up, her legs as shaky as the rest of her frame, burdened
by news so abruptly unexpected and discomfiting that she hurts physically. She
holds herself against a bench, the cold of the stone under her palm seeping
into her skin and helping her gain some of her senses back, making her realize
that Snow is standing up next to her, worry painted in every inch of her
expression and voice a little desperate as she calls to an unresponsive Regina.
She doesn’t feel capable of dealing with Snow now, not when she’s so clearly
alive and welcoming health back into her skin and Prince Bernard lays dead and
gone, the one sweet and kind should that Regina has had for herself lost to the
nothingness, much like everything else she has ever dared to love. She’s dizzy
and sick, her stomach suddenly recoiling and making her want to drop all her
weight back on the ground, where she can better mourn that which has been
stolen from her.
Regina stumbles, but before she can indeed fall, a strong arm around her stops
her from collapsing. She expects Snow but finds her lady’s maid instead, for
which she is suddenly and unwaveringly thankful, the severe eyes of her woman
forever clad in black now sobering her up somehow.
“Accompany the princess back to her bedchambers,” she commands, her voice
croaky and so far from an order that she can only be grateful that the woman
won’t deny her. “I–I must go.”
Snow yells after her, her name a question in her overly curious lips, but
Regina is already far away, running towards the hiding space of her own
bedchambers with her hands filled with the dooming letter and the strange toy
that is the last gift she will ever receive from the now lost prince. She
reaches her bedchambers by virtue of having walked the same path for years now,
blinded as she is by her own unquiet grief. She feels on the verge of a
breakdown, and she’s at least conscious enough not to want to make a scene
somewhere public, or at least no more of the one she’s already making by
running hurriedly in the search of an empty space.
Her rooms are invaded by two chambermaids when she enters, and they both get
shouted out unkindly, Regina’s own voice feeling entirely too strange, as if
coming from somewhere other than her own body. Once the door is closed behind
her she leans into it, her forehead meeting the cold wood as her eyes close,
all deliberate thought gone from her as a pained and loud sob tears from within
her, clawing its way from her belly and up her chest, leaving a scorching trail
on its way up and out. She’s gotten so used to quiet grief that the sound
shocks her to the core, makes her bring her hands to her stomach and push them
there, claws digging into the hard fabric of her dress as if they could reach
her marred skin, the empty places inside her that now throb with another piece
of love lost. It should be so inconsequential to her, the death of a child she
met once so long ago, but Prince Bernard had been kind in a way so genuine that
he had made Regina see hope where there was none, and she can’t bear the
thought that such foul people remain when such a wonderful soul has been
condemned and taken away. Must she lose everything she loves, then? Must only
that which breads hatred within her remain?
Growling so as to expel her pain away, Regina throws the wooden toy away from
her, her fingers releasing it from their tight grip only to turn unstable and
shaky once they’re free from holding it. Regina expects a hard crashing sound
when the toy touches the floor or the wall, anticipates it with something close
to manic delight even, and can only gasp when even such a small wish isn’t
granted to her. Rather than meet a hard surface, the flying toy is abruptly
stopped by Rumpelstiltskin’s hand, his sudden appearance coupled with Regina’s
distress throwing her back with such jarring force that she finds herself
leaning back against the door for support. Disgust and fascination fill her up
in equal measure when Rumpelstiltskin presses the toy against the surface of a
desk and makes it twirl much like Regina had not minutes ago. The toy spins and
spins this time, though, magical aid obvious in the way the movement never
falters, never stops, the colorful blur only worsening the haze that is
covering Regina’s mind. Rumpelstiltskin giggles, twirls and claps, the whole
spectacle grotesquely childish and enough to make Regina reach forward, her
hand claw-like as she steps closer to the ever-spinning toy, only to be stopped
by Rumpelstiltskin’s upturned palm.
“No, no, dearie,” he says, “we had a deal, remember?”
Regina blinks owlishly at him, not knowing what he’s talking about and hating
herself for being in such a vulnerable state before him.
“The next gift a child gives you,” Rumpelstiltskin tells her, and that’s enough
to joggle her memory. Of course, a deal made in Snow White’s name.
Regina hisses, more animal than human as she turns away from the imp, pacing
for a moment before she stops herself, her back to Rumpelstiltskin and her
hands fisted tightly at her sides. She tells herself she doesn’t care, not when
the toy is such a stupid little token and can’t possibly bring back the child
it belonged to, not when Regina will forever think of overly sweet treats
offered in kindness when Prince Bernard comes to her mind, and not of the
twirling colors of his last offering. Still, it seems like such a silly thing
to ask from her that Regina has to wonder if Rumpelstiltskin is simply being
cruel by ripping this small toy away from her clutches. A child for a child,
he’d said when they’d made their deal, and perhaps the toy is nothing but  a
memento on a life bargained for.
Turning around sharply, Regina faces Rumpelstiltskin and declares, “You knew he
would fall sick, you knew he would die,” she accuses, her tone unforgiving even
in the face of Rumpelstiltskin’s amused smile. “I could have saved him.”
Rumpelstiltskin smiles, the kind that curves his lips in the strangest of ways,
the kind that is knowingly vicious and that makes him look inhuman and all-
powerful. “You wouldn’t have.”
“That tonic, I would have chosen–”
“The same thing, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin intones, moving so fast as he speaks
that Regina is left gaping stupidly when he reappears entirely too close to
her, his face right before hers, his snake-like eyes calling to hers and
holding her gaze with a madness that she has never spied in him before.
He reaches up and forward for her, grasping her cheeks between scaly fingers
and squeezing painfully, his touch foul and aggravating, painful and steady,
reminding Regina of who it is that she’s dealing with. Rumpelstiltskin wavers
between silly and mystical with so much ease that sometimes Regina forgets the
threat, ignores the deeply rooted fear she feels for this man who has been
teacher and father, and who now more than ever is building himself up to be her
toughest adversary. There is nothing playful in his demeanor now, nothing but
an open threat written in the eyes that are burning Regina with purpose. Regina
tries to shake herself from his grip nonetheless, grasping at his wrist with
her own hand and pulling, growling when she realizes she can’t move away.
“Haven’t you figured out what you are already, Regina?” he asks then, his smile
curling up yet again with heartless cruelty, his tone deliberate and full, her
name coming out from his lips perfectly spelled and foul-sounding. “You are
bad,dearie, and you will do well to stop telling yourself otherwise.”
Bad,he says, and it’s such a weak word but it rattles her, sticks to her
insides and festers. Daddy had called her good, and surely she must be.
“I’m not–I’m not bad,” she counters, vulnerable child speaking with her own
voice, the voice that has conquered men and women alike, the voice that has
earned itself a ruling position, the voice that only falters when faced with
this not quite man before her.
He laughs, low and dangerous rather than one of his usual giggles. “Well, don’t
say it like it’s the wrong thing to be.”
At that, Regina shakes herself free, knowing full well that Rumpelstiltskin is
letting her do so but not caring so long as she can put some distance between
them. “Go away, Rumpel,” she tells him as soon as she recovers her voice enough
for it to feel commanding. “You have your deal and your trinket, imp. Now
leave.”
Finally listening to her, or perhaps already tired of this particular visit,
Rumpelstiltskin does as he’s told and leaves, making the air feel fresher just
by not being in the room. Regina is left seething, grief substituted by anger
in a way that is commonplace for her now, familiar to the point that she
welcomes it, for surely anger is better than pain. As if to prove her point,
she aims a fireball at a vase filled with fresh flowers – they’re purple
anemones, which she has made sure chambermaids know she hates, and when they
fall burnt to a crisp to the floor, broken crystal around them, she finds
herself smiling. There’s purpose to her ire, where her grief only leaves her
blank and numb, heavy and wishing for life to be over already.
Life isn’t over, though, the air fleeting calmly inside the room and her
heaving chest proof enough that there’s still time for her here; time that she
must use to accomplish her wishes, now more than ever. She has paid another
steep price so that Snow can have her head on her shoulders, Bernie’s kind and
brave soul now joining that of Daniel’s on the ground, and Regina can do
nothing but serve their sacrifice with revenge, for what good would it to them
is she were to wither and die in her insurmountable despair?
She has a trip to plan, and a kingdom to rule, and once she’s completed her
journey through these perilous times filled with heartache, she will build
visible tombs for those who dared to love her, and who were touched by her ever
damaging hand. Bernie’s death should not be on her, not when she had no hand in
creating the illness that took him away. Still, in a world where she has fought
bravely and saved so many, including the girl who has brought nothing but
dreadful misery to her life, she hasn’t been able to use her wits to allow
blooming life to grace the heart of her little friend. He was going to grow up
kind and charming, honest in ways that the world is incapable of breeding
anymore, and he was going to turn sixteen and ask Regina to marry him, and they
were going to laugh at his occurrence and dance to silent music, and then
Regina was going to send him on his way, on the path of happiness that such a
wonderful spirit surely deserved.
There are no dances to be had, no hopes to be cherished, though, and all Regina
has is a trip to plan and anger to fill her up, lest madness take hold of her
heart, and kill her before she can kill those who have wronged her instead.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina, Snow and their entourage leave the palace on a warm spring morning, the
smell of fresh flowers following them as they begin their journey through the
lands. Leopold, stubborn and tired, remains in the palace, a fact for which
Regina is unwittingly thankful; she doesn’t want to owe anything to the man,
after all, but she can hardly complain when he seems to be going to extra
efforts just to remain away from her path. Her own lady’s maid travels with
them, as well as Johanna, who had refused to stay behind and instead chooses to
travel with a disapproving frown settled between her eyes, as if she firmly
believes that Regina is forcing the hardships of travelling on a still weak
Snow. Father closes their small travelling group, along with Regina’s Black
Guard which joins them in the name of protection. After all, while Regina
hasn’t made their pathways public, the knowledge that royal visits will be
bestowed upon main villages has spread already, and the last thing she needs is
for them to be ambushed by thieves or murderers.
Their plans include a month of journeying, and while they travel with tents and
provisions enough for spending nights in the woods, Regina hopes for offered
beds in villages and inns. Her body still recoils from darkness in the woods,
the memory of a child lost gnawing at her, as well as that of Maleficent coming
to her at the shore of a cold watered lake. The least she thinks of her times
in the woods, the better for her own sanity, which will certainly be tested
when she’s to travel alongside Snow in such closed quarters with little time
for reprieve. Thankfully enough, father accepts travelling with them in
Regina’s carriage, and he chooses to help them pass the time by reading old
stories of his own long forgotten kingdom. Regina’s heard them a million times
already, but she never fails to enjoy them, particularly when they’re told in
father’s smooth and unwavering voice and when she needs whatever little sigh of
peace she can hold onto, especially when Bernard’s death is still such a fresh
wound. Snow seems to fairly enjoy them as well, father’s voice a soothing balm
for her tired limbs; the princess never fails to fall asleep with a smile
painting her features whenever father’s gently polished tone in permeating her
senses.
The night they arrive at the first village, there is a feast in their honor.
It’s meager and humble, but still Regina sees it for the waste that it is. The
food and drinks that they’re offering them with grandiose joy is food and drink
that these people can’t possibly afford to consume in such a short period of
time, and so Regina looks upon them with derision and haughtiness. What good
are efforts, after all, if peasants are to do as they wish with what little
resources they have? She barely eats, feeling sickened at the smells of blandly
cooked meals and porridges, but she does drink. The villages have no wine to
spare, but the production of mead has been plentiful even through the harshest
periods, and Regina gets easily drunk with the foul concoction while she tries
not to think too much about the sweet wine that Maleficent always favored.
The longer they journey, the clearer Regina sees the situation she has put
herself in. Peasants adore Snow White, they see her as their true princess and
they speak easy words of worship about the daughter of the still not forgotten
Queen Eva. Regina wishes she could laugh, this visit nothing but a repeat of
her nights spent with Leopold above her and thinking of another and apparently
better woman. Once again, she’s lacking by comparison, and not even the firm
arm that she keeps around Snow’s waist so as to support the still weak princess
garners her any compassion. She learns that while they see Snow as naturally
kind, they see her as cold and distant, as someone to be feared and stepped
around. Even Snow’s sickness proves to be a point in her favor, for she becomes
one with the people of the kingdom when they see her pale and still mending,
equal to them in her suffering where Regina is foreign and haughty. Regina
wants to scream at them all, wants to claim her right as the true healer of
this land, wants to tell the world that she has suffered the sickness of them
all in her own flesh, and that she has endured and saved as many as she has
been able to. She wants nothing but to disclose how she traded for the life of
this princess they so love in exchange for the last memory she was granted of a
gentle little boy, how it is her that is worthy of their love.
Her heart filled with anger and her insides twisting with pained desires, the
journey proves harder for Regina than for Snow, despite her body being
stronger. She tolerates it all with her best and most wicked smile etched on
her face, though, for Regina has known all kinds of prisons and this one is
only one more to add to her collection – and after all, mother made sure than
nothing proved harder to withstand than the dark cellar inside her own home.
Despite it all, Regina is surprised by the happiness that permeates their
visits, considering how the letters received spoke of such hopelessness. Is it
Snow what is bringing such delight with her, or is perhaps happiness something
so elusive that it only shows in random and capricious moments? Regina can’t
tell, but she can easily spy unbidden smiles in men that have been without work
for too long a time and now have fields to saw and animals to take to the
pastures, clear joy in the faces of new mothers, even something like perceived
contentment in the hounds of scrawny dogs. The air brings with it the scent of
flowers and grass, rather than that of death, and babies roll around in the
mud, their smiles filled with life and hope, speaking of new times only
confirmed by the sight of Snow’s easy smile. Regina can’t share such happiness,
though, seeing nothing but her own losses reflected back at her, and feeling
nothing but furious envy at the favors that Snow receives when she finds
herself deserving of nothing but fear.
Peasants seem thoroughly convinced that she’s a witch, ready to snap at them
and eat their hearts so as to bring dark curses upon their families. She looks
at herself in the mirror, wondering what it is they see in her face that makes
her so inadequate in their eyes. She figures it might be the pools of emptiness
hidden in her gaze, the sharpness of her cheekbones, the startlingly noticeable
scar upon her lip, or maybe things as simple as the striking red adorning her
mouth, or the black color of her clothes. They are certainly strange among the
faded browns and dirty whites that cloud the villages, and while Regina has
brought softer clothes with her, she refuses to give these people reprieve of
whatever fear she may evoke in them. She might have before, but she’s exhausted
of playing parts and changing herself for others, of being what people need her
to be in detriment of her own desires and necessities. If they wish for her to
be a witch clad in black, then so be it, for she will not be the candid queen
supporting Snow’s claim to the throne that they would be more comfortable with.
Snow turns twenty years old while they’re on the road, and Regina fails to have
a gift ready for her, time having become something of an easy thing to forget
about while they’ve been consumed by other and more urgent matters. Regina
promises a feast once they’re back at the palace, and with a soft smile, Snow
tells her that all she wishes for is a night spent with her in her bedchambers,
nothing but shared sweets on the floor and a bed sheet covering their heads,
the way it had been when Snow had been younger, before the time of balls and
big celebrations. She even claims that a feast would be inadvisable,
considering Regina’s own wish for restraint, and Regina hates her for being so
wistful and careful, so warm in her honest desires that she manages to make
Regina feel awkward for wanting to run away from the kind of intimate evening
Snow’s asking from her.
On the fifth village they visit, when their journey is almost over and Regina
is silently praying for days and nights to run faster so she can hide away from
the judgment that is being bestowed upon her, a woman with an ailing child begs
for help that Regina can’t possibly provide. Tears in her eyes and pleading in
every word falling from her mouth, the woman holds a babe no older than three
months Regina’s way, his anguish cries stabbing Regina’s chest physically,
making her throat feel tight. The child is afflicted by the common vomits that
sometimes claim such young children, and even through the blotchiness of his
face and the wetness of his tears, Regina spies a sweet face, a roundness on
his cheeks that seems to want to deny any sort of fever.
“They say you have mystic power, milady,” the woman wails at Regina,
desperation obvious in every word. “Please, help my child, please… please…”
The word falls like a litany from her mouth, cumbersome on Regina’s shoulders,
a prayer that she doesn’t know how to answer. She has no power that can heal
this child, not even if her healing magic were stronger than it is. She can
cure nothing but scraps and cuts, and this woman’s cries make her feel
inadequate even in something that  she owns with so much confidence as her
magic.
She finds her own hands splayed over her own belly when she answers, a stuttery
and unsure, “There is nothing I can do for this child,” falling from her parted
lips.
That night, she hides herself inside her own carriage, dismissing the
comforting embrace Snow wishes to offer her at seeing her so affected by the
mother’s plight. Snow can’t comfort her properly, though, not when she doesn’t
know that there is true magic cursing through Regina’s veins, magic that fails
to be what these people need it to be; and not when she doesn’t know that
Regina failed to save her own child, and so she can’t possibly save another’s.
Looking at her own hands, powerful and powerless in equal measure, Regina sees
what people must truly see when they look at her, a haughty and sad queen that
they fail to understand, so harsh in her decrees that surely something dark
must loom above her, her dark clothes making her something akin to a priestess
of death.
The rest of their journey plagues Regina with nightmares unlike she’s had since
Daniel’s death, red and black conquering her dreams easily and keeping rest and
peace away from her. She becomes closed off and sterner, fails to even try and
put on a neutral face for those around her, not when she’s consumed by rage
against this world that keeps taking everything away from her, blaming her for
everything that ails it, and forcing her to be something that she can’t
possibly ever become. In her restlessness, she longs for Daniel, for his sweet
voice and the way he loved her then bright and hopeful heart, for the girl that
she once was and who died in the stables back at the manor that same night
Daniel’s heart was crushed. She longs for Bernie, for his hands full of honey,
his dimpled smile and his beautiful dark skin, for how he’d lighted the last
sprig of hope left in her heart. She longs for Maleficent, for her scent and
her indulgent madness, for the way she had loved the broken pieces of Regina’s
heart and the way she had helped glue them back together with stubborn
determination. And unwittingly, she longs for mother too, for a guiding hand
and a purpose, for the hard earned slivers of her love and pride.
Finding none of the love she craves, Regina beds one of the members of her
guard, pulling him far into the dark woods and having him push her up against a
tree, where he can hold her smaller body up and have her in quick and hard
thrusts. He’s young and impressionable, one of the newest recruits to her
ranks, and he’s thankful even as he’s fucking her, perhaps thinking that sexual
encounters with her servants is something of a common occurrence for her and
that he's been finally favored. He’s sweet too, and a little worried when she
asks for him to go harder, deeper, when she wishes for his fingers to etch
purple marks into her skin. She fails to climax, and after feeding the lover
that only now she realizes is too much of child a memory potion to forget their
encounter, she empties her stomach under the same tree where she’s been taken.
She laughs when she’s done, bitterness in the peals of her laughter, and pain
clogging her chest. She needs to stop whatever it is that she’s doing to
herself, that much she knows, even as she’s letting herself be claimed by
lunacy. She needs to stop, and yet, the words that she once told father
resonate within her, making her heart beat wildly with certain darkness, and a
wish to unleash her own pain on a world that has been nothing but unkind to
her.
Daddy, I don’t know how to stop anymore, I don’t want to stop anymore, she’d
once said. Then, it had been a pained plea for someone else to stop her; now,
it is nothing but a promise not to allow herself to do so.
 
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     (1) You must rest, cielo.
     (2) You're strong and beautiful and extraordinary, but you're good,
     too, cielo.
     ...
     Er, also if anyone is for some reason interested in investigating
     super disgusting medieval diseases and having nightmares forever,
     this particular one was based on the bubonic plague (and you know, if
     anyone is super twisted I highly recommend Albert Camus' The Plague
     which my dad totally thought was an appropiate read for my easily
     traumatized fourteen year old self and for which I haven't forgiven
     him yet).
***** Part V *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW2: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW3: Mentions of past miscarriage.
     TW4: Also, the farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil
     Queen tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence.
     -
     AN1: canon character death.
     AN1: Translations in the notes at the end :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                                        
The days before the summer see Regina coming back from their tour around the
kingdom with enough swirling thoughts to make her forget herself completely.
She postpones her meeting with the council even when all its members are
anxious to know how the kingdom outside the protected walls of their palace is
truly faring, and swiftly ignores any raised eyebrows her odd attitude
provokes. Just as well, she adjourns each and every expected afternoon of
shared tea with the ladies of the court, even discouraging Baroness Irene from
pushing for a meeting with her. If this confuses the court or creates any
rumors she doesn’t find it in herself to care, feeling despairingly insane
after being exposed to the true thoughts of a kingdom that she’d hoped would
have something akin to gratefulness for her. She hasn’t dared ask for something
as elusive and capricious as love, after all, and the fear and displeasure that
consistently received her in every visited village still nags at her, throwing
her into a spiral of doubt and irate self-righteousness. How dare they, after
all? How dare they make a heinous and malevolent witch out of her when she has
been nothing but selflessly hard-working and practical? But of course their
ignorance would prompt them to choose Leopold’s vapid and empty kindness over
her own meaningful gumption.
In the face of such absurdity and forced to deal with unparalleled hysteria,
Regina locks herself up inside her own bedchambers and stews in her own
feelings for days, pacing the room intermittently at times and simply sitting
down and staring at nothing for other long restless moments, succumbing to her
own savage ire then and breaking whatever is at reach. Sleep eludes her with as
much consistency as it had during the last leg of their journey, still plaguing
her with shapeless nightmares that she fails to understand. There’s something
entirely too similar to fear in her dreams, and she feels dismayed that she
doesn’t know how to stop them, and can merely fight them by refusing to close
her eyes. Sleep does claim her, however, but only out of sheer exhaustion. Her
own stubbornness sees her asleep on a chair or the floor, slumped against the
wall or resting awkwardly over the surface of her desk rather than her bed,
which remains unmade and with torn bed sheets she ripped herself in a fit of
rage and now refuses to change. Her unrest only leads to more agitation, and
she truly feels like she must be losing her mind, never mind that her
carelessness seems to be only aiding the process.
Her stomach feels ill and shaken, stiff when her mind turns to the thought of
food. On the first day of her self-imposed imprisonment, she’d indulged in the
full table that had been presented to her in her bedchambers, numbingly craving
something to fill the void that the travelling had left within her. The bout of
hunger had lasted but a night, though, and now she feels queasy at the mere
thought of food touching her tongue, texture and flavors a reminder of a body
that feels inadequate and that she wishes to forget. Consequentially, she only
dares eat when her monthly bleeding hits her hard enough to cramp her up
painfully and have her body demanding nourishment, but even then, she prohibits
herself from enjoying her meal, choosing to feed herself with an unsavory
porridge that makes her sick almost immediately after pushing the first
spoonful past her lips.
Hungry, restless and pained, she feels at her wits’ end, and so she allows her
steps to guide her towards her balcony, lets her fingers curl around the
railing, weak under her powerful hands and an absurd barrier between herself
and a fall that would surely kill her. Not for the first time, the thought
assaults her easily and stupidly, the ragged breathing that had once seemed to
her like proof that she must keep living now only one more burden to bear in
what seems to her like a too heavy life. Her limbs are tired and her mind is
numb. Her soul, if it still rests somewhere within her, has withered and hidden
away where she can’t reach it, and her heart, broken so many a time and sewed
back up carelessly with nothing but determined anger feels about ready to give
up on her.
It seems like such an easy feat, then. Jump, let go, never be hungry again,
forget and forgive and simply not be.Lack of existence feels like the easiest
of steps in that moment, brave even within its own cowardice, freeing even if
mind-numbingly final. One step and no more madness; one step and no more pain,
and how can Regina deny herself such sweet mercy?
Eyes half closed as she stares into the night sky, nothing but the soft breeze
stops her thoughts. Cool spring wind blows against her face, wisps of her loose
and impossibly tangled hair flying before her, getting into her eyes and her
dry mouth, tickling under her nose and around her cheeks. One long and gasping
breath of frigid air and Regina steps back from the railing, her eyes focusing
back until she’s looking at her now fisted hands rather than at the dark
emptiness before her. She laughs, uncoiled, a little deranged. The sound feels
harsh to her ears, loud in the quietness of the night around her despite the
whisper of the rustling wind, but it feels good, too, steadier than anything
else has for the past few days of mindless breakdown. She’s alive, impossibly
alive, burning up inside but capable of feeling cold sweep around her skin, and
surely she deserves each and every single one of these simple feelings; at
least, she deserves them more than she deserves the martyr-like death of a sad
little queen not strong enough to survive those around her.
Scowling and puckering her lips, she hugs herself, protecting her own limbs
from the cold but staying outside for a while longer, feeling the fabric of her
loose nightgown caress her legs as it sways with the breeze, breathing in
slowly even as the naked skin of her hands and face turns taut with the cold,
her nipples hardening under the thin fabric of her nightwear, the hairs in her
arms standing up on end and her nose running uncomfortably watery the longer
she stands there, still and perhaps permanently damaged, but alive nonetheless.
It’s still long before Regina makes her way back inside, but when she does, her
senses are calm and steady, her mind empty of the buzzing that had clouded it
before and suddenly beginning to focus on her own ragged state. As soon as
she’s inside the room, she realizes that her chambers are just about as cold
and dark as the balcony outside, only the walls hiding her away from the chilly
breeze. With a groan and a quick swipe of her hand, she lights up her fireplace
and walks to stand before it, willing the heat to build inside her as well as
inside the room. The orange and warm light hits her, and abruptly, she feels
itchy and dirty, the realization that she has been driving herself mad for over
a week and refusing to change her clothes only now completely hitting her. She
frowns, disgusted at herself. Her nightgown is sticking to her, the fabric
heavy and sweat-stained and goodness but she smells disgusting, rotten and
decaying, as if death was indeed clinging to her. Her hair, cumbersome and
seemingly trying to pull her down, feels oily when she touches it, tangled and
knotted when she tries to comb through it. She can’t help but think of how
terribly disappointed mother would be if she were to catch sight of her, and
just this once, Regina can’t help but agree with her ever-present ghostly
shadow, for surely there is nothing about her that doesn’t speak of pathetic
defeat.
Huffing at herself and finding a new resolution lighting up her spirit, if only
because she knows that cleanliness will make her feel immediately better, she
orders a bath and a meal to be brought up to her, never mind the late hour.
Most chambermaids are used to her late night rituals, anyway, and her severe
woman has never before been surprised by any of Regina’s odd requests. Once the
bath is set for her, she removes her nightgown swiftly and throws it into the
fire, disgusted by its smell and by what it represents, and then slides into
the entirely too hot water, relishing the almost painful feeling of it against
her skin. Her flesh turns red at the touch of the silky liquid, but once it
gets used to the boiling sensation she finds herself breathing more steadily,
the visible steam coming from the water helping her along. She dunks herself
completely inside the water, awkwardly curling all her body inside the small
tub just so she can wet her hair and get all her skin humid and hot. When she
comes out, breathing in a big gasp through her mouth, her lady’s maid is fixing
the bath with flowery scents and salts, the smell of lavender and jasmine
filling her senses up farther and helping her finally relax. She leans back
against the tub, her limbs delightfully lazy once she rolls her shoulders
pleasantly.
She rests inside the water for a long time, letting it cool down just so she
can reheat it again, the cinnamon like smells of her magic joining the
atmosphere inside the chambers pleasantly. Regina, eyes open as she stares at
the ceiling while her woman washes her hair thoroughly, feels immensely
pleased, the simple act of cleansing herself enough to bring back her common
sense. Where she has been feeling unhinged for the last few days, she feels
utterly calm now, almost coldly so. Her breathing steady and her limbs rested,
something like an eerie quietness conquers her, focused where she’s been all
over the place as of late.
Licking her lips, moist and humid from the vapors of the steaming water
already, she wonders out loud, “Would you blame me if I killed them all? Would
anyone?”
She receives no answer, but then, she expects none. She doesn’t have one
herself, doesn’t even know what she’s asking; who are those that she wishes to
kill, after all, and who would be left to blame her if she were to rain death
upon everyone in her path? Would she care if they were to blame her, anyway,
would she feel guilt over those who have been nothing but ungrateful towards
her? Hardly, she thinks, for surely she deserves revenge and justice, and
everyone else guilt over the pain they have caused her.
No matter what, Regina knows she won’t be getting any answers, certainly not
from her lady’s maid, but not from anyone else. She allows herself a fleeting
moment of deep grief for the lost guiding hand of mother, but then she doesn’t
need her here to know what her advice would be. Conjuring her image is easy,
dark blue dress and stern eyes, veiled softness in expressions that only Regina
had ever known how to uncover. Mother had spoken her desires well before Regina
could understand them, or have the power to accomplish them. Leopold is a weak
man,mother had told her once, and how stupid had Regina been to doubt her
words. Regina had spied the weakness in Leopold during their first night
together, when he’d refused to look into the eyes of his very obviously
despairing and scared child bride, but it was only later when she had
understood what that weakness should cost the man. His life, in exchange for
Regina’s last exhale of sanity, and what a low price to pay for the long and
privileged life that he’s led.
Later that night, once Regina has finally left her bath and is carefully
picking her way through soft white rice and steamed up vegetables, wishing that
she’d taken better care of herself and could stomach something stronger, she
allows tiredness to settle on her frame. She will need rest now, she knows, for
if she wishes to stay alive and not succumb to her madness, then she must stop
the game that has been claiming her soul for the past decade. There will be no
more playing, and just like in any good game of chess, for the game to stop,
the king must die.
 
===============================================================================
 
A year passes, the summer running short and frost covering the palace yet again
in the coldest winter they’ve had in years. It’s a year of calm and
restfulness, one in which the kingdom thrives under lack of critical urgencies,
and in which routinely activities guide them all in a way that feels as if
they’re all small parts of a well-oiled machine. The palace, which had been
filled up to the brim when fear of sickness had still clouded the mind of most
noblemen, finds itself now free of such pressures, and so it easily regains its
constant yet changing flux of visitors, once again worried by gossip and very
little else. Baroness Irene, who had been wary of Regina after the slights she
had been victim of during the past year, comes back to the fold easily, a few
shared afternoons of sweet pastries and fake laughter enough to convince her
that she remains Regina’s best friend, needed now more than ever after the
stress suffered by Snow’s brush with death.
The council and its meetings settle easily into a routine as well, the men now
used to Regina’s leadership, or perhaps simply having given up on Leopold
completely. Whether the reasons for the acquiescence of her authority are one
or the other Regina doesn’t care, simply content in the knowledge that protests
and opposition are nothing but tokens of proud men who occasionally need to
rebel under the leading hand of a young queen. There is a sedate pace to their
work now, though, for which Regina is thankful, for it grants her space and
peace enough to think before she acts, and to keep her emotions in control with
masterful ease. She still keeps a pointed and calculated eye trained on each of
the council members, never completely trustful of loyalties that have been
hard-earned and that sometimes reek of falseness, but she soon realizes that
fear of her persona has extended to the court, and that the men may not just
respect her, but are actually wary of her as well. This serves her just right,
and even makes a flare of powerful pride settle well within her whenever she
stands tall by her side of the council table.
A month after her return from her travels, she appoints a new Law Advisor,
giving the particular spot to the Treasury Master’s niece, a fifty year old
duchess with an ugly and severe face crowned by graying hair that Regina has
turned to on more than one occasion in the past. Duchess Adela is her uncle’s
caretaker and is well-versed in many a subject, her education having run under
the hand of a stern and widowed father that had wished for a son, and so had
simply educated his one and only daughter as he would have a boy. The duchess
isn’t particularly pleasant, not in her looks or her disposition, but she’s
blunt and intelligent, and while she has sometimes referred to Regina as a
foolish little girl, she has proven to be respectful enough when needed. Aiding
Regina’s choice, of course, is also the fact that she’s a woman, and if only
for that scandalous factor, Regina favors her over any other candidate
presented to her by the rest of the council.
“We will be talking about dresses and shoes at our meetings at this rate,” the
Master of Ships had grumbled at the announcement of her appointment, but a
single pointed look from Regina had been enough to shut him up, and any other
following commentary on the matter. Regina had relished the power so easily
granted, when only a couple of years before she would have spent entirely too
long a time jumping hoops just to be listened to.
On every other aspect of her life, Regina fights her most basic instincts,
which speak equally of indulgence and carelessness, and instead forces herself
into a carefully crafted schedule. Aided by father and her lady’s maid, she
takes on every aspect of her life as if it were a mere practical task, and so
she sets herself mandatory periods of sleep and nourishment, so as to keep
herself well-rested and well-fed. She goes back to her old habit of taking two
meals a week with Snow, an old custom that the princess is more than happy to
comply with. Snow has grown quieter over the last few months, or perhaps simply
more pensive, Regina gathers. Whether her thoughts rest within politics or
completely different matters Regina can’t tell, but she finds this Snow both
easier to deal with and easier to despise at the same time. Regina’s feelings
for Snow have simmered into something constant but dull that thrums under her
skin, a sort of anticipation of what’s to come, perhaps because the princess’
punishment has taken a back seat for now, when all of Regina’s senses are
waiting for the right moment to strike against Leopold, or perhaps simply
because despite her usual candidness and naiveté, Snow has grown as wary of her
as her council, and is shier around Regina than she’s ever been before. Gone is
the girl that would blabber to her about anything and everything, substituted
by a woman who prefers to discuss her readings and interests in a quieter
manner.
Where Snow has grown more careful around Regina, though, Leopold has become
almost comfortable in her presence, perhaps as he’s never truly been before.
Freed of the obligations of a kingdom that he’s ceded to Regina without putting
up a fight, he indulges in long walks and prolonged mindless chats with the
most colorful strangers he finds during his time out of the palace, foreigners
arriving to their coasts that Leopold invariably drags to his palace and
introduces to his family with foolish glee. He seems genuine in his affection,
almost, when he grandiosely speaks of my daughter, Snow White, and my wife, the
queen.Regina keeps an eye on said strangers if only because Leopold makes no
distinction between pirates or foes, and she won’t be having her silverware
snatched away because of the king’s whims.
Truth be told, Regina suspects that Leopold has gone a little unhinged, stress
or perhaps simple age making him loopy. When Regina expresses her concerns to
the Royal Doctor, the man refuses to concur with her assessment, but Regina
spies enough sweat on his forehead to confirm that he probably believes the
king to have succumbed to a small bout of lunacy. If that isn’t the case,
Regina doesn’t care, especially because the king is at his most placid in this
new state of his life. While he remains possessive and vigilant of Regina’s
carefully planted information – one well-crafted fake diary and enough
correspondence to assuage the king’s mind – he finds comfort in spending time
with both her and Snow under her apple tree, and in the few occasions in which
he catches Regina’s gaze, he smiles unassumingly rather than flinch. As much
pleasure as Regina has derived from making this man squirm under her gaze,
she’s willing to give him the gift of the comfort of his own folly; it’s more
of a gift than he’s ever bestowed upon her, and he should be glad that she’s
amenable enough to grant him peace before ending his life.
Her own kindness surprises her when it comes to this matter. After all, there
are so many open wounds still that have been caused by Leopold and that have
driven her mad through the years that the calmness with which she regards him
these days can be nothing but unexpected. She wants to think that it comes from
the sheer expectancy and joy of the death that she can almost taste, but she
suspects that it has a lot more to do with how pathetic Leopold seems to her.
She has found him lamentable for as long as she’s known him, but she had never
been able to let go of the most deeply rooted sense of fear of him, the memory
of his looming figure above her still persistently hurtful, the feeling of
being naked and used while trapped between his clumsy hands one that she will
never be able to cleanse herself of off completely. Now, though, spying his
ludicrous behavior she can’t believe that she ever felt anything but contempt
for this man, never mind that if he cared to exploit his own title and
authority he would be able to undo her hard work of years with a single swipe
of his hand. He obviously has no interest in ruling the kingdom, no spirit to
do so either, and so Regina’s already thin sheet of fear for him has evaporated
completely and left nothing but disdain behind, granting the king reprieve from
Regina’s vicious wish to disturb his peace.
If Leopold is to have reprieve, though, then so is Regina herself. She firmly
believes that she has a good grasp of her own behaviors by now, even the worst
patterns that she seemingly doesn’t know how to escape from. Therefore, she
knows that if she doesn’t allow herself a sigh of freedom, she will succumb
again to violence and despair, invading the calmness that has settled over the
palace and making her harsh before those that she still needs in her corner.
She’s known reprieve before in the arms of past lovers, in short letters
scrawled by the childish hand of a lost prince, and sometimes, under father’s
loving care. Rather than allow herself to run away as she’s done before,
though, she adds breathing moments into her patterned lifestyle, and uses her
own monthly cycle as an excuse to hide herself away from the court, giving
herself freedom while trapped by the incessantly painful plight of her womanly
condition.
For a year and once a month, she takes time to simply be,a concept so foreign
that the first time she locks herself away behind her own doors she finds
herself giving into a bout of severely buried nostalgia, crying as she did the
first time mother had explained her wifely duties back when she’d been twelve
and still unmarred by the truth of the future predicted mother’s words.
Nostalgia turns into a theme for her during those resting times, for she
reserves at least one of her nights for father and dark chocolate, for his
shoulder under her cheek and for her hands resting comfortably within his. She
feels as if a part of her is reaching back for the girl that she once was,
stupidly clinging to an innocence that has been lost for years now; there is no
part of her that remains uncorrupted, not her body, her soul or her heart, and
clinging to such notions expresses a weakness that she can’t afford, and that
disrupts her otherwise confident disposition.
Rides atop Rocinantebecome one of her favorite activities during those nights
as well, never mind that galloping above him when her breasts feel too full and
heavy and her back stabs painfully at her seems like a fool’s errand,
particularly when riding her horse is something she does at least once a week
on regular circumstances. There’s freedom in trotting outside of the palace’s
state and into the woods at night, the cool breeze on her face and the strength
of Rocinanteunder her tantalizing enough that she feels tempted to run away and
never come back. If she doesn’t, it’s because whenever she finds herself alone
with her horse the thought of Daniel persecutes her, his never forgotten ghost
demanding the revenge that she’s so nearly touching with the tip of her
fingers, and that has been her true and final purpose for a decade now.
She finds comfort in long baths, too, and when the warm water and her body
contorted inside a small tub feels too stifling, she transports herself to the
cold waters of a lake, bathes naked under the moonlight, enjoying the way the
silky and freezing liquid lays claim to her tired limbs and touches her skin
like a balm. Later, she lays herself down by the shore, the hard soil under her
back rooting her to the ground and making her aware of every inch of her own
body, the reminder of her own physicality one that she desperately craves when
she’s given up on finding lovers that are both pleasing enough and worth the
risk of an affair. It would be a shame, after all, to be discovered as the
adulterous wife that she’s been in the past now that she’s so securely claimed
her place as the ruling monarch, and to be undermined and condemned for daring
to find pleasure where Leopold’s bed has given her none. She learns to touch
herself with reverence, her own hands more careful than they’ve ever been,
tracing the planes of a body that has been both accomplice and traitor, but
that is as much hers as it has ever been. Her breasts are full and firm, her
hips bigger than they had been when she was a child, her shoulders thin but
strong, her neck long and her collarbones sharp, her skin smooth in most
places, only ever marred by the scar that remains low on her belly. She forces
herself to touch it with care as well, rather than scratch at it maliciously as
she does when the memories of what it never was condemn her as a bringer of
death. It’s a flaw, a sign of past weakness, but it belongs to her just as
well. It may be one of the only visible scars, but she’s far more blemished,
and if there is one thing she knows, is that every single one of her past
wounds, hidden under new and healed skin, is a simple reminder that she will
endure, for there is nothing else that she knows how to do.
She thrives in the quietness that she wraps herself in, her masks and carefully
woven personas easier to maintain when she has moments to feel like her own
person, whoever that may be – someone angry and hurt, desperate for retaliation
and yet hungry for roots and control the she doesn’t need to carefully
manufacture. Where she has driven herself mad with rage before, now she becomes
her own ire, takes it in much as she took her magic, as another limb to call
forward whenever it is needed. Her fury burns hot then, but rather than create
a hazy cloud of purposeless steps, much as it has done for most of her life, it
focuses her, gives her razor sharp instincts and settles close to her heart,
holding it together and hiding it away, putting it behind unbreakable walls,
where no one can reach it again.
 
===============================================================================
 
Snow turns twenty-one years old and there are no festivities to be had. Leopold
is not interested in such matters anymore, and while Regina intends for them to
have a small ball at least, Snow pleads with her to have no celebration beyond
a small family dinner. Regina concedes her wishes, entirely too preoccupied by
other matters at hand to spend her time preparing celebrations that will grant
her no peace, and that will surely awaken the rumor mill at the court once
again, reminding the world of the lack of royal children running amok in the
palace. Despite all that, a small part of her ends up regretting the decision,
a strange sort of nostalgia making her long for the balls of her past; despite
mother’s calculated intentions, after all, Regina had always enjoyed the
dancing and the lights, and the past years have been so bleak that perhaps
music and colors is precisely what they need. Carefully, she even dreams of the
simple joy of dancing between father’s arms, no rhyme or reason to their
movement, and laughter free of gloom. Alas, there’s no ball, and the small
mockery of a family dinner she plays with both Leopold and Snow only manages to
upset her. They barely speak as they share their meal, Snow sullen and Leopold
distracted, and Regina drinks too much of a strong wine that she doesn’t even
particularly enjoy, thus ending her night with a peculiarly heavy headache that
doesn’t let her sleep properly.
The small dinner proves to be an omen of uncomfortability, for despite the lack
of celebrations, the court feels no qualms about speaking of how it is
certainly time for Snow to be married if the royal line is to be kept
unblemished. The chit-chat angers Regina, making her feel easily dismissed once
again by a court that she had thought conquered already. There is a very
obvious expectancy for Snow to be married and for the crown to fall upon both
her head and whoever her future husband might be once Leopold dies, and the
fact that Regina is simply expected to step aside and give up her rights makes
her feel both inadequate and resentful. The words barrenand insufficient follow
her around, even the odd exoticmaking an appearance in the mouths of noblemen.
Regina ignores them all as best as she can, turning cold eyes to this forever
scrutinizing court and ploughing on through her days as if she were completely
oblivious.
If there is something that soothes her, though, it’s Snow’s own aggrieve about
the gossip reaching her own ears. She’s so very obviously distressed by the
talks of marriage that Regina can barely hide a smirk at the permanent
thoughtful discomfort etched into a newly earned frown, which Snow hides for no
one, much less Regina. It’s certainly refreshing to be able to secretly mock
her for her anguish, a balm against the resentment so firmly settled on her
breastbone at being always thought of as a second choice to the beautiful
princess. There will come a time to break havoc upon Snow’s reputation, but for
now, Regina can pettily relish the thought of her anxiety.
Snow’s age, though, had earlier that year been reason enough for Regina to
reduce their lessons to a single afternoon a week, the princess entirely too
old to be receiving homework and tasks. Truth be told, Regina had simply held
onto whatever feeble excuse she had concocted in order to spend little to no
time trapped with Snow in her bedchambers, no meal to buffer their
interactions. One afternoon a week remains, though, as a quiet time for reading
or slow walks through the gardens, both of them favoring the physical activity
and whatever scents the season may offer. Regina wonders if one day, she may
come to miss these quiet times with this young woman that is so twistedly tied
to her own life, if some part of her will long for the little sister that Snow
may have been in a different life, for a love pure and untainted where theirs
had been poisoned from the beginning. It’s a daunting thought, but Regina
rejects it steadily, positive that she will hate keeping Snow alive much more
than she will miss her once she’s gone.
One late evening, as they traipse slowly through the gardens, Snow asking if
Regina would like to rest by the apple tree for a while, they get rudely
interrupted. Baroness Irene, ever informal, cuts their walk short, and claiming
that they must escape the chilly eventide, forces both her and Snow into one of
the communal chambers of the palace where warm sweet tea awaits them. Regina
can’t help but be curious, the baroness’ interest in Snow having never gone
beyond gossip before, and the woman certainly more interested in Regina’s own
opinions of the girl than the girl herself. Snow seems equally dumbfounded at
being invited along with them, but Regina refuses to share any sort of
accomplice look with her, never mind her own puzzlement. Pleasantries and
boisterous laughter give way to what Baroness Irene truly wishes to speak
about, rumors that Regina has so easily dismissed that she’s surprised when the
baroness voicing them immediately has Snow settling herself into the most rigid
posture possible.
“Now tell me, my dear beautiful princess,” the baroness says, a wink thrown
towards Snow and a coy look shared with Regina, “is there any truth to these
rumors about a soon to be made engagement for yourself? And by gods, who is the
young man? Most bets fall upon King George’s son, and I think they may be
right.” The baroness sing-songs this last part, fingers waggling playfully
before Snow’s face, the princess’ expression showing as much polite distress as
simple dread.
Regina wants to laugh, if only because Snow looks so out of her depth that she
must take a moment to answer. She takes pity on her instead, and playfully
scolds the baroness. “Now, dear, leave the princess alone; surely you know
better than to believe such gossip by now, baroness.”
The baroness doesn’t relent, though, rather spending the rest of their shared
time fully explaining every single rumor running around the court, clearly
delighted and obliviously disregarding of Snow’s silence. Regina doesn’t deny
herself her own fun over the matter, and actually listens to what the baroness
has to say, which reveals nothing more than what Regina was already aware of –
the court is thirsty for a royal marriage, Snow’s age and her preoccupying
brush with death having threatened to leave the kingdom heirless. Marriage
hangs upon the princess’ head like a bad omen, and Snow is so very clearly
discomfited at the idea that she can barely hide her own nervousness in front
of someone as vapid as the baroness is.
Every time there’s a question directed at her, Snow takes a moment to answer,
clearly intending to gather herself but failing miserably, so that she looks
sullen and entirely too afflicted, her dejection written not only on her face,
but also in her tense shoulders and the way her hands keep wrinkling the fabric
at the lap of her dress, light green taffeta tortured between thin fingered
hands. The image is uncomfortably familiar to Regina, and if she’s ever spied a
mirror image of herself in Snow, then it certainly has never been quite like
this. She’s seen pride and stubbornness in her, a sigh of a fighting spirit
that she’s admired despite her wishes to hate everything about the girl, but
she’s never seen this kind of discomfited anguish, this sudden realization of
duties and real life. Snow looks like Regina had felt the first time she had
been faced with the physical reality of Leopold, when the king had intended to
be kind to a wife that he would come to abhor and had offered a gift, and when
all Regina had been able to think about had been how his hand holding hers felt
like the heaviest of shackles.
Snow leaves that meeting clinging to Regina’s arm for support, pale as a sheet,
her skin clammy with cold sweat. It’s enough to draw a smile from Regina, for
as much as she knows that Snow will not be marrying, not on her watch, she
doesn’t feel particularly inclined to disambiguate the notion from the
princess’ head. Let the girl think that there’s a marriage in her near future,
let her feel a smidgeon of Regina’s own misery, let her be the guiding hand of
Snow’s anguish in the same way Snow’s had been her own. And how petty it is to
enjoy such a silly lie, but then, Regina has never been above frivolous
entertainment, and Snow is certainly her most favored clown and provider.
Looking at her on the days that follow, such misery staining her otherwise
beautiful eyes, Regina wonders if an unwanted marriage wouldn’t be the worst of
punishments for this child that has so refused to look at reality in its truest
forms. An eye for an eye, Regina figures, and maybe she should forget about
ripped hearts and murder plots and instead offer Snow’s virtue and innocence to
an old king who will despise her spirit and claim her body, who will make a
desert out of the valley between her legs, who will fill her body with the
parasite of children who will live under the dark omen of coming from the most
loveless of marital beds. The simple thought of such an action on her part
shakes Regina, makes something hot and pungent burn against her breastbone, an
old but never quite healed wound drumming noise against her head and making her
reject the idea with utter finality. Infinite sins, and yet Regina won’t
condemn Snow to the shackles that she has worn herself.
On some of their afternoons together, Regina even finds Snow’s dark eyes firmly
fixed upon hers, red-rimmed and scared even when the threat of a marriage is
vague and little more than a rumor. Nevertheless, she’s begging Regina to
understand, unwittingly calling to her own female condition without realizing
what she’s doing. Regina doesn’t know what scares Snow so, if it’s the simple
daunting thought of such a life-changing action as marriage, or the tangible
reality of belonging to an unwanted and unknown man in every possible way.
Regina knows Snow remains virtuous, her own mirror tricks and spies enough
proof of the truth that Snow has spoken of herself during shared confessions –
that she has been uninterested in every aspect of love for years know, her one
single brush with the pain of heartbreak enough to drive her mind away from
such things. Snow has known no lovers, and while Regina thinks a heart that has
known no love would be kinder were the princess to be married, she can’t help
but feel that her own marriage would have been a thousand times more painful
had she not loved Daniel beforehand.
In the face of Snow’s turmoil, Regina finds herself unwittingly thinking of
Daniel. She’s done such a good job of hiding the memories of him away that the
small thoughts that come to her these days, unbidden and even upsetting for
their suddenness, leave her feeling a little breathless, a little too
vulnerable. It’s strange, she thinks, how many times she has repeated the
circumstances of his death inside her mind’s eyes, how she’s spoken of mother’s
hand disappearing inside his chest before the mocking ears of Rumpelstiltskin,
or the disinterested gaze of Maleficent, but how little she’s actually allowed
herself to dwell on thoughts of his life, of the man he was and that she loved
so, that she loves still if she dares be honest with herself. There’s infinite
sadness when she wonders if any part of Daniel would be able to love the woman
that she is now, no vestiges of the girl full of hope that he kissed under an
apple tree, nothing but angry vengeance to fill a heart that he had once
satiated with pure unbidden love.
It is a sunny morning that finds Regina resting by her apple tree, her own
yearning sentimentality pushing her to postpone a council meeting so she can
look wistfully up at this tree that has become a symbol of everything that she
once held dear, of a home that was darkened by a thunderous omen but that had
given her love in all shapes and forms – the kind embrace of a father that
still held some of his spirit, and the sweet reverence of a young lover that
still makes her heart beat wildly. She feels a little stupid for her longing,
and yet she clings to it, if only because sometimes she needs to prove to
herself that there’s still a part of her capable of feeling such deep and
unbridled emotion. She gives herself the gift of this quiet morning, driving
thoughts of visiting neighboring kingdoms away from her mind if only for a few
hours. King George has certainly been pestering her for a while now about a new
trading agreement, and she knows his kingdom will the first visit in line, but
if only for a short time, she forgets about demanding letters and questioning
advisors, and breathes in the scent of fresh grass and ripe apples.
Despite the sun, and even when it’s one of the warmest days of the winter, the
weather remains chilly, enough so that when Snow shows up to intrude on
Regina’s quiet time without a proper cape over her dress, Regina scolds her
unthinkingly, the motherly behavior etched into her very soul by sheer
repetition. Snow isn’t in a particularly listening mood this morning, though,
but rather shows an agitated disposition that has her pacing before Regina in a
way that has already become familiar to her, and that speaks of Snow’s
distress. It’s always a short cycle of steps, three at the most one way and
then back, and accompanied by the flurry of her dress. Regina finds the whole
cadence dizzying. Snow is… well, she’s fumingfor lack of a better word, and
Regina would laugh at her tantrum if only she didn’t wish her gone with
something close to desperation. Regina’s used to Snow’s ever intruding presence
by now, though, and so she simply crosses her arms over her own chest and waits
for whatever it is that the princess wishes to whine about.
The princess has been a bit of a nightmare in the past few days, the court
seeing her at her most rebellious and bothersome, her face set on a permanently
grim frown and her outbursts loud enough that the quietest of noblemen are
starting to speak of the lack of a firm hand in the young lady’s education.
Regina wants to laugh, wondering if this bunch of condescending people would
have been happier had Snow been educated in the same manner Regina had, where
the disposition she’s exhibiting as of late would have been quenched inside a
dank and dark cellar, with foodless days and restraining spells. Regina
certainly finds herself wishing that she had made use of such tactics in the
face of Snow’s open sullenness.
“I will not be married, I shall run away, I swear, I will do–I will–” Snow’s
saying, more childish in her lack of coherency than Regina remembers her being
in years. It’s some frustrated minutes of floundering before she finally stops
before Regina, a tightly clenched fist by her side and her lips set in a thin
and serious line. “Regina, I do not wish to be married.”
“Snow, dear, do try not to throw a tantrum over this.”
“Oh, Regina, surely you must understand,” Snow says then, her demeanor turning
from furious and into pleading so fast that it nearly gives Regina whiplash.
Snow reaches forward with both palms outstretched, taking one step towards
Regina and begging to hold her hands with every single pore in her body.
Regina doesn’t comply with Snow’s silent wishes, but merely questions the
princess’ statement with, “Must I?”
Biting her lower lip, eyes nervously searching for something within Regina’s,
Snow wonders, “Do you remember that boy from the stables? You once spoke to me
of true love and–”
“Do notspeak of him. Do not–” Regina cuts her own words short, choking on them
as sudden bile rises up on her throat, her face obviously contorted into
something unrecognizable that has Snow taking a step back instinctually.
Snow’s eyes look big and rounded, surprised by the strong harshness present in
Regina’s command. Regina laughs, bitter and unhinged at the gall of Snow’s
words, at the ignorant bliss present in her tone; such ignorance was Regina’s
gift to her, a white lie so the princess wouldn’t understand the true
consequences of a secret told, and never more than now has Regina regretted
keeping the truth hidden, buried inside her under layers of unbridled pain. The
mere mention of Daniel in Snow’s speech, though, the dismissiveness of her tone
at naming that boy from the stablesas if he were nothing, little else than a
stain in Regina’s otherwise clean past, has Regina choking in her own hatred,
blindly searching for the chain holding a ring promising a future that never
came to pass because this stupid, careless child before her thought she knew
better, and claimed ownership of Regina’s life and Daniel’s death with the
privilege of those raised in a world built to please them. Regina wants to
reach out and choke her, squeeze the breath out of her lungs until she speaks
no more.
Regina’s sudden discomfort only manages to pause Snow for a second, the
princess too focused on her own particular brand of displeasure to imagine that
there’s more to Regina’s outburst than simple annoyance. She’s never been too
good at reading others, after all, and Regina has made such an art of hiding
her own aching wounds that surely she can’t guess at the true reasons that made
Regina interrupt her words.
Riding the wave of her own bravado and angry entitlement, Snow recovers the
step she’d taken back seconds ago, pushing forward and into Regina’s personal
space and stating with unwavering determination, “Maybe, maybe you truly are
cold enough that you can just marry the highest bidder, maybe I should have
believed the rumors that said you never loved father, but I will notbe as
mindlessly cruel and untrue to myself as that.”
The slap rings louder than it feels against Regina’s open palm, and right after
her hand has left Snow’s cheek, she vaguely thinks about how glad she is that
she didn’t wear gloves today. She feels hazy, unfocused, as if time has
suddenly stopped around them, the collective gasp of the few people crowding
the gardens this morning enough that an air of suspension settles around them.
Regina’s hand dangles in the air between them, her palm still outstretched,
fingers tensed up and ready to strike again, but left lingering and alone. Snow
remains just as still, eyes wide and scared, hands touching a reddened cheek as
if needing proof of what just transpired.
Regina feels lost, her arm heavy when it finally comes down by her side, almost
alien to the rest of her body. Never before has she hurt Snow physically, and
never before has Snow deserved it quite as much as just now. The princess is
looking at her with betrayal etched into her features, nonetheless, such
brokenhearted deceit conquering her gaze that Regina feels accused of
unforgivable crimes, of breaking something invaluable. And maybe that’s what
she’s done, finally broken the fragile tendrils of the lie that she has been
spinning for Snow for years now, of the compassionate and beloved mother,
sister and friend that she has played with masterful ease as pain and hatred
festered deeper and deeper inside her gut.
“Regina, I…” Snow finally mutters, but her words linger, doubtful, not knowing
where to go, and her hand remains on the bruised skin of her cheek.
Regina blinks, as if waking up from a blurry dream, and realizes that she’s
crying, unwanted tears marring her own cheeks and clogging up her throat
painfully, making it tighttighttight,as raw as the rest of her body feels. She
welcomes the painful awareness, though, feels that if she lets go of the sudden
hurt stabbed into her by Snow’s words her limbs will completely give up on her,
weariness conquering her whole being and plummeting her to the ground. She’s
tired, so very tired, and the memory of Daniel tugs at her, unbidden, asking
for mercy and vengeance with equal fervor, for she knows Daniel would hate the
executioner hand that she has become, but that she would hate herself for
leaving his death go unpunished.    
Her hand comes up again, rests between them once more, her knuckles turned
towards Snow this time so that she can softly caress the inflamed cheek in a
way that is so very familiar to them now that Regina doesn’t even question the
impulse. It never reaches its destination, though, if it’s because Regina
doesn’t reach far enough or because Snow steps further away she doesn’t know,
can barely bring herself to care. Snow’s eyes still scream fear, anguish
written in tears that remain within her orbs, refusing to fall down but
speaking of unmistakable treachery. Snow is looking at her anew, perhaps truly
seeing her for the first time, and maybe Regina has broken more than she
initially thought. But then. Thenshe thinks of Daniel’s light eyes being
conquered by eternal darkness, of her own back turned towards her father and
years of biting her inherited language away from her tongue, of the fingers of
an unwanted husband etched into the corners of her skin, of the empty spaces
hollowing her out until she had nothing but rage to fill them with, and wonders
if there has ever been anything between them that isn’t inescapably ruptured,
if stolen moments of tenderness that Regina has hated herself for could ever
make up for the pain that Snow intruding into her life has caused.
“Regina, I’m so sorry,” Snow says suddenly, her voice failing to be steady.
It’s too little, too late, though, and when Snow reaches out for Regina’s hand
she’s no longer offering it. On the contrary, she’s keeping it closed, fisted
and protected, far away so that Snow can’t get to it, can’t claim that which
Regina hasn’t volunteered, the way she has been doing for as long as they have
known each other.
Regina breathes in slowly, uses the intake of fresh and cold air to calm her
senses, focus them again on the present situation and drive painful memories
away from her. There is no point in dwelling in the past, no point in bringing
it to the forefront when doing so could destroy her and all her work, kill her
spirit to keep going. You will endure, dear,mother had said, and she had made
sure that she knew how to be strong no matter the circumstances – and if mother
had failed to break her, then this bratty princess before her certainly won’t
manage it either. Opening her fisted palm and trying to release the tension
that has her body rigid and awkward, Regina shakes her hand and then brings it
up to her face, swiftly cleaning tears away from it, erasing the material
evidence of her moment of weakness. She swallows too, forcing the lump on her
throat to recede, go down, die and wither under her own command so that when
she speaks her voice is firm and unwavering.
“It is quite alright, dear,” she intones, her eyes perfectly fixed in the
turmoil still present in Snow’s own gaze. “I do apologize for–” She motions in
the general direction of Snow’s cheek, incapable of finishing her statement and
covering her misstep with a small cough, if only just to buy herself some time.
Quickly enough, though, she recovers and says, “Have Johanna put some ice on
your cheek, and do stop fretting.”
“Regina, I really am sorry, I shouldn’t have said any of that! Regina…” And she
repeats her name, enunciates it as if she can reach her just by speaking the
syllables slowly enough.
Rumpelstiltskin would be proud of Snow’s unwitting use of the power of a name,
but Regina is too far gone for any plead to reach her; even as Snow calls her,
Regina is rebuilding walls and putting up barriers, making herself be cold and
distant so as to push the sharp incursion of Snow’s insult and the consequent
hurt stay far away from where it can cause further ache.
“It truly is fine,” Regina repeats, and she’s aloof in her tone, frigid as she
stares down at Snow, her back unconsciously straight and her chin held high,
her demeanor tall and untouchable, as inhuman as Regina can manage when there
is still such riotous emotions cursing her insides.
Snow is left dumbfounded by her tone, looking at her with fear that defies
itself, turning into something that goes far beyond, frightened in a primal and
instinctual manner. Regina wonders at what Snow can possibly be seeing in her,
if perhaps she has finally spied the priestess of death that the population has
been more than happy to make her stand for, or maybe something different,
something worse and akin to a personal nightmare. Whatever that may be, it’s
skewed and dark, and it fills Regina up with a sense of dangerous power, with
courage beyond recognition to become exactly what she needs to be so that this
strength never leaves. She no longer has a place for fragility, and perhaps
it’s the absence of vulnerability in her what Snow is spying.
The imperious prerogative follows her as she steps away from Snow, swiftly
ignoring a last feeble attempt at an apology and making her way towards her
bedchambers in measured steps. Her rooms are empty when she arrives, and she
gladly locks the door behind her, squinting at the light entering the room and
making a cloud of dust clearly visible before her eyes. She scoffs, wishing for
colder and darker weather where she had enjoyed the sun early in the morning,
and with a flick of her hand, she closes the heavy curtains and brings
blackness into the atmosphere, breathing slowly once she can barely see. It
hardly matters, not when she has counted the steps that make up this room a
thousand times, trapped inside it by someone else’s will, bigger and nicer than
the cellar back at father’s manor but equally stifling it its ripping of
Regina’s freedom.
She tsk-s at herself so as to drive the thought of entrapment away; these are
her bedchambers, and soon there will be no one left to tell her that she must
remain in them when she doesn’t wish it so. Breathing in, she conjures up a cup
of sweet currant wine, which she has been favoring as of late in her meals and
which she keeps unintentionally thinking Maleficent would thoroughly enjoy. She
drinks slowly, calm and collected in ways that remind her of mother, of control
beaten into her with a confusing mixture of harshness and pride. Then, with an
angry sneer and a sudden move, she throws the overly adorned cup against the
wall, hears it crash there and fall to the floor with a satisfactory clankas
the remainder of the dark drink spills there and reaches the corner of her
bedspread, staining the white linen. Her eyes follow a path up the bed, where a
lovely gown is resting for her to wear this evening for dinner. It’s big, puffy
and dyed a shade of very pale blue, nearly white, and it speaks of an innocence
that is so false to Regina’s persona that she finds herself staring away and
towards the closed doors of her wardrobe. She smirks, slowly, and thinks that
tonight, she will wear black.
 
===============================================================================
 
It is a fortnight after the incident that Leopold comes back to the palace with
one of his little stray pets trailing behind him, this one dressed in
unfamiliar clothing and with skin so dark that there are raised eyebrows and
murmurs the moment he steps foot inside the palace, so that by the time both
the king and the stranger reach Regina, she has already gathered enough gossip
to make her believe the man to be anything from a circus freak to a wealthy
merchant.
Leopold does his grandiose introduction of both her and Snow, arms big as he
boasts about his family in a way that makes them seem as the most joyous of
companions. As it is, Snow has been wary of her ever since that morning by the
tree, shy despite Regina making light of the event, and Leopold is no more part
of Regina’s family than he’s been for the past decade. That doesn’t seem to
matter to the king, though, who is at his loopiest when he’s weaving his tale,
wistfully introducing Regina as the queen,as if he truly wished that they were
the family that his tone suggests they are. Regina, already used to the
theatrics of these moments, allows them as she has been doing for the past
year, ready to play the small part Leopold has given her in the representation
and simply nod accordingly to the new stranger, and equally prepared to send
one of her black guards to keep an eye on the king’s latest acquaintance. This
time, though, when she lowers her head in silent salute and lifts her gaze
coyly, dark and soulful eyes catch her gaze with intention, whoever this
stranger may truly be looking at her as if the sun sets right inside her eyes,
such obvious and unbidden admiration written on his face that Regina can’t help
but smile. And if Regina is certain of one thing in life, then that is that she
must seize whatever opportunity is afforded to her and use it to her advantage,
and that gaze in this stranger’s eyes, that gaze spells nothing but
opportunity.
He is a former genie, released by Leopold’s eternally generous hand, such act
having etched the kind of gratefulness in the man’s mind that it may prove to
be an obstacle. Regina has always liked a good challenge, though, and if she
were to place bets on her beauty against Leopold’s wavering kindness, she
wouldn’t doubt on trusting her own allure. For a little over a month, she
entertains their guest to the best of her abilities, big eyes and earnest
looks, lips set in a puckering pout that suggests secrets not willing to be
disclosed. She speaks very little, thinking that her mystery will be perceived
as fear of a belligerent husband, and as a habit of forced silence. She does
listen, though, mildly interested in this man if only because of his foreign
origin and strange powers. She has studied genie magic before, remembers
Rumpelstiltskin’s dismissive frown at a power so lacking in precision and so
full of trickery, but she still listens to the long list of desires this
particular genie has given to his many masters, and even learns that he has a
wish left for himself.
He is from Agrabah, a place full of mystery and shrouded in mythical stories.
The Enchanted Forest people have never been too keen on gathering knowledge of
such unfamiliar and faraway places, but Regina is genuinely thirsty for tales
of the strange land, which she had once received from the squiggly and
distracted penmanship of her little friend Prince Bernard. She asks for such
stories now, and the genie is actually happy to comply, surprised at being
listened to with such honest yearning.
“I had a friend from Agrabah once,” she finds herself confessing during a quiet
night. “He used to send me sweets.” It’s wistful, a little too much of a little
lost girl finding the crevices of her voice, and when he asks for further
details, Regina merely smiles bitterly.
Sometimes, when he speaks, Regina feels a tug of pungent disgust at herself for
using him so. If there was ever anyone in this court who would have understood
her in any possible way, then it may have just been this man that she’s so
easily trapping within her web, that she’s setting up to do her bidding without
finding any sigh of regret within herself. A man condemned to servitude, looked
at with wary eyes in this court that so fears that which is foreign, and he
could perhaps become a kindred soul. It is a shame that those same qualities
are precisely what make him such a perfect candidate for her cunning plan, for
the court surely will not even stop to think about convoluted plots once the
king dies at the hands of an outsider of such strange origins. Talks about the
king’s late penchant for bringing unsavory characters to the palace have been
reaching Regina’s ears for the past year as it is, so it will be poetic when
his demise comes at the hands of one of his trusted favorites.
Regina wishes, wistfully, that she could find a shred of contrition for
condemning the genie to be persecuted for the death of a king, but Regina
doesn’t know how to be compassionate anymore, much less where it pertains a man
that thinks to gift her a mirror when she begins spinning her tale of the
woeful and abandoned life her heartless husband has castigated her with.
“A mirror,” she scoffs later that night in her own bedchambers, father’s hands
busy combing her hair and her lady’s maid arranging a nightgown over the bed.
“Honestly, tell a man that you are miserable and have them reassure you of your
beauty. How predictable.”
“Pero es cierto que eres hermosa, cielo,” father says to her, distracted enough
in his mindless task that he probably doesn’t even know what it is that she’s
speaking of. (1)
He’d certainly been disapproving when he’d learned of her wishes to make a
lover out of the genie, and Regina doesn’t know what he’d say were she to
confess that the man is actually her planned key in her plot to finally get rid
of the king. She guesses that father wouldn’t oppose her, but she would rather
avoid his disappointment for as long as she can.
She twists her mouth into a sneer tonight, failing to catch father’s eyes in
the mirror when she tries, but speaking nonetheless. “I already know that I am
beautiful, daddy, I do not need a stranger and a cheap mirror to tell me that.”
“May Itell you, my little princess?”
Father smiles, small but spirited in ways that he hardly ever is these days
anymore. He must know Regina can’t resist him, though, not when she so
desperately needs the love that inevitably crawls upon his tone when they’re
having one of their good moments, and so his smile only widens when Regina’s
sneer turns into a grin.
“You may tell me as much as you like, daddy.”
Despite the genie’s obvious admiration for Regina, she builds her story
carefully, making sure that there are no loose ends when it comes to her
planning. She meets with him openly and with the court around them, but also
under the cloak of the night, instilling such encounters with an air of
secrecy, as if there is obviously something forbidden about their talks. She
plays shy and discomfited for him, so that he thinks her saddened by Leopold’s
treatment but anguished at the thought of betraying his trust. The genie eats
it all up, and such a disposition helps Regina keep a prudent distance when it
comes to his physical advances, so that he’s sure that they are involved in an
affair when they haven’t gone beyond a kiss on the hand. He seems anxious for
more, respectful of her but a little maddened by her played up demureness,
which she so easily dresses up with soft looking gowns in light colors and
transparent tulles that seemingly hide away her skin while giving enough
glimpses to be tantalizing.
Regina grants him a kiss during a cloudy night when she feels him nervous and
impatient, speaking of the possibilities of them running away together and
leaving the palace behind. Pacing and twirling nervously herself, her hands
fidgety and her expression contorted in doubt, the perfect picture of the wife
about to be disloyal, Regina speaks woefully of a condemned future, of being
forever persecuted by an angry and jealous king.
“I could not possibly ask that of you, my love,” Regina whispers, reaching for
his hands as if she needs them to steady her own.
Adoration reflects back at her, and Regina wishes she could drop the act and
smirk instead. She wonders whether he would like her as she truly is, vicious
and calculating, so desperate to be rid of her jailor that she will stop at
nothing, or whether he would be alarmed at such thoughts coming from her. She’s
certainly tired of using this particular act, of playing the part of someone
she has never been, not even at her youngest and most naïve, and it’s easy to
despise him for enjoying her demeanor when she’s making herself seem so fragile
and lost. She thinks, unwittingly, that Daniel would have laughed at her for
this representation, would have mocked her in that kindly way of his that never
failed to make Regina huff with indignation even as her heart beat wildly with
loving amusement for the boy that loved her when she was smiling and defiant.
Thinking of Daniel, and as anxious as the genie before her but for completely
different reasons, she stops his shallow words and reassurances with a quick
kiss, knowing that it will be enough to appease him for a little longer. It’s
chaste and dry, but Regina lets it linger for a moment, eyes closed and a heavy
intake of breath, as if surprised by her own boldness. Lips pressed together
and hands clasped between them, they must look like the perfect picture of
tragic lovers, and Regina hates herself for being half of such a parody. Still,
it’s not an unpleasant kiss, the genie’s lips plush and tasting of the herbs of
that tea he so favors, and his skin the smoothest Regina has ever touched. She
doesn’t want it, though, can’t possibly feel a spark of heat for the eyes that
look at her with wonder and awe when he knows nothing of her, can’t even muster
a sigh of respect when he’d claimed to love her the moment he’d set eyes upon
her. King George had once called her beauty the most treacherous of allies, and
in this particular moment, she thinks he may have been right.
After the kiss, she feigns surprised sorrow, stepping away from him and hugging
her arms around her stomach when he tries to come closer, bring her into his
embrace. Regina shakes her head and looks down, shame in her posture and
disposition, sinking into her part with gusto since she has condemned herself
to play it, and when he reaches out for her with a steady hand, she turns
quickly and runs, fleeing the scene as if she can’t possibly bear their
forbidden love.
She broadens the reach of her tale with old but effective weapons that have
served their purpose on more than one occasion. With great care and actual
delight, she fills pages upon pages of a diary that was false from the very
beginning and only for Leopold’s benefit, writing of the hope of feeling love
again, of the soft hands of a man so mysterious and loving that her heart beats
with renewed desire at the mere thought of him and of passionate wishes of
running away and never looking back, of giving herself to this new lover that
adores her so. She knows for certain that Leopold absconds with her diary at
least once a month, and that he has a copy of the key to her desk drawer where
she keeps the precious yet fake memento, so that her written words will reach
his attentive eyes in no time. Her knowledge of her husband’s worst habits is
profound by now, and so far the man has failed to be anything other than
predictable, so he will surely punish her by locking her up as soon as he’s
sure of her fabricated feelings.
Deciding to set the court abuzz with quiet rumors as well, she turns to her
ever faithful Baroness Irene, once again spinning the tale of the abandoned
wife before confiding her secret affair with hushed tones and reproving words
for herself.
“I must truly be a wretched woman, after all, to betray my king like this,” she
says, hugging herself in a way that she has been doing more and more as of late
as she finds it makes her look apologetic and as if she’s trying to make
herself impossibly smaller, as if she’s trying to protect herself from her own
thoughts.
The baroness is quick to offer a supporting embrace, in which Regina falls with
a sigh and closed eyes, ever so grateful for her loyal support. Truth be told,
for all of the woman’s irritating qualities, she has a very motherly touch
about her, and if Regina forgets for a moment what she’s doing and why, she can
even enjoy the care provided by her arms and her generous bosom.
Whispering, obviously not daring to speak words of treason too loudly even when
they’re alone in the baroness’ favored bedchambers and firmly guarded by one of
Regina’s black guards, she says, “My dear child, I fear no one would blame you
for wanting–”
“Don’t, baroness!” Regina exclaims, alarmed as she opens her eyes even as she
remains within the comfort of the woman’s arms. “Do not speak such things, do
not…” She bites her lips, unsure, and then with eyes full of fear and
uncertainty she murmurs, “Sometimes he talks of freeing me of the king in such
a passionate way that I fear he may… So do not speak words of treason,
baroness, not in the name of my disloyalty and weakness of spirit.”
As much as she hates the part she’s playing, there is a secret thrill to the
game, and to how easy it is for her to laugh at this court that has tortured
her so. She feels almost giddy, and consequentially though unwittingly she
sinks into the worst feeling of loneliness, seeing as there is no one she can
share her true self with. Loneliness isn’t new, though, and Regina is so used
to it by now that sometimes she fails to identify the gloominess that overtakes
her when something as common as fooling the baroness provokes laughter that she
can’t freely share with anyone. She even goes as far as missing Snow, since the
girl, for all of her generosity and faith in the world, has never been
particularly fond of Regina’s so-called best friend and confidante. Usually,
isolation and solitude don’t affect her beyond bouts of abrupt heartache that
she easily translates into anger to fuel her through her days, but this latest
plot of hers feels so momentous and game changing that she finds herself
wishing for a friend that she’s never truly had. Or maybe she had, once, but
she can hardly risk a trip to Maleficent’s fortress when she’s in the middle of
such a ploy, lest she finds herself inclined to forget her goals.
While not exactly what she would could a friend, Rumpelstiltskin is at least
someone that she doesn’t need to hide herself from, and seeing as he becomes
the provider of the last piece of the puzzle, she has no qualms about
disclosing her intentions in a smug show to match the imp’s usual theatrics.
There isn’t much sense in hiding something that he has probably already guessed
at, after all, since what Regina needs from him is a set of Agrabahn vipers
that will be the perfect deadly weapon. In exchange, he asks for a vial of her
tears, a strange request if Regina has heard any, and a price that she pays
thoughtlessly, entirely too focused on the death that she can already taste to
think of what kind of power such a gift may provide Rumpelstiltskin with.
“The tears of the future widow; fitting, wouldn’t you agree, dearie?” he tells
her, and Regina can do nothing but roll her eyes at his need for poetics and
symbols.
In order to tell her story as she must, Regina even sacrifices a fortnight of
council meetings, if only to convince the genie of her lack of importance at
King Leopold’s court, and if the council members speak unkindly of her womanly
condition and her willingness to give up power in the face of forbidden love,
then she takes the stain on her reputation as best as she can. It’s a risky
move, but a calculated one, which pays off finally when Leopold falls into his
designed slot, and predictively, forces her to stay locked up in her
bedchambers after having read her diary, words of disappointment clouding his
speech, always ready to doubt her virtue and think her wicked. For once in her
life, Regina says nothing when he berates her, but rather lets him get his
thoughts out as he looms over her for what will be the last time, bumbling old
body that Regina has feared and despised with such trembling agony that she
wishes she could laugh in his face and claim his murder for herself. He spares
her one last look, standing by the door of her room with cloudy eyes filled
with incomprehension, with the same eerie lack of peace that she has always
awakened in him; and if she has made him suffer even a smidgeon of what she has
undergone in his unwanted embrace and under his unmerited control, then she can
let him go without reproach this one time.
Later, when the night is already giving way to one of the first few days of a
sunny and mild spring that promises sweet scents and new life, King Leopold
lies dead on his bed; the genie, whose wish had been to forever lay his eyes
upon Regina, rests trapped behind a mirror; and Regina, queen and regent of a
land earned with blood, flesh and tears, breathes in slowly, finally and for
the first time in her life, free.
 
===============================================================================
 
The days that follow Leopold’s death are confusing all around, and they see the
court swamped up in as much surprise as it does grief. Regina doubts the truth
behind everyone’s tears, but she knows that the abrupt demise of the sovereign
has been enough to rattle a court that may have been ready to accept the death
of an old man by the exhaustion of age, but not by the murdering hand of the
stranger that now dwells in Regina’s servitude. It seems to Regina that
everyone wishes to bestow apologies and comfort upon her, but she avoids
interaction both by busying herself with the practical matters that appear as
consequence of a royal death, and by spending her leisure time in the company
of Snow, begging noblemen and servants alike to understand that their mourning
must be done in private. Regina knows, after all, that she must appeal to the
court’s softness of heart, since the story filling everyone’s ears is that of
the murder of the king due to a foreigner obsessed with the queen’s love.
Regina sends a commission of her Black Knights on a tour around the kingdom so
as to spread the sad news, and decrees a period of mourning for the late king,
sparing wineskins and mead as a means of quieting the laments of the
population. She makes sure the kingdom is flooded with flowers, too, making of
this spring a colorful time so as to make everyone celebrate the life of the
king lost, rather than cry his death. She even writes a speech on the king’s
virtues herself, exalting the old man’s kindness and love for his family and
kingdom, and makes sure that the most talented bards of the land proclaim it
through the forests, paths and villages, so as to make sure that they think the
king passionately missed by the widow he has left behind.
The council agrees on a mourning vigil a week after the official date of the
king’s death, so as to give time to the kingdom’s noblemen to flood the palace
and share their pain with the king’s family, and Regina busies herself with the
necessary preparations to receive such an amount of people, her face stonily
set in a tight smile, as if work is her own personal way of getting through the
anguish of having lost her husband, as if perhaps she feels responsible for
posing such a temptation to an outsider so as to be cause enough to prompt him
to violence. Truth be told, if Regina buries herself in practical matters is so
her true feelings stay hidden somewhere behind her breastbone, low in her gut,
lest she allows herself freedom enough to give in to them and ends up laughing
maniacally when she’s supposed to be crying her heart out. Noblemen arrive soon
enough from all over the kingdom, as well as letters from their neighboring
allies, kings and queens alike presenting their respects and condolences, and
invariably finishing their words with a flourishing may the queen live long
years.Regina hides her thrill at the words well, but she brims with nervous
energy, her breathing and wildly beating heart making her want to break into an
unstoppable smile wherever she goes. May the queen live long years,indeed.
Peasants from neighboring villages flock the palace as well, thirsty to pay
their respects to the man they think their true ruler, and Regina makes sure
that such thirst is quenched with tankards of beer and ale. She orders the
kitchens to prepare rich smelling and warm breads as well, and even offers
shelter in the shape of tents and covers for those who wish to remain for
longer than an evening.
The third day after the king’s death finds Regina staring at the people
gathered around the palace from the safety of her own balcony. It’s a warm
spring day, and the midday sun is high up in a sky so blue that it suggests
anything but the wailing air that surrounds the people within the palace.
Outside, peasants drunk on their kitchen’s best ale look happy enough, their
mourning easily taking the shape of a festivity even when the small flowery
memorial resting by the palace’s doors keeps growing bigger and bigger with the
presents of the villagers. Regina sneers at the sight, and after reassuring
herself that her knights are doing a good job of keeping the crowds controlled,
lest her generosity end up in an unwanted intrusion or a drunken tragedy, she
sighs and makes her way back inside.
At her table, Snow plays absentmindedly with a section of a half-peeled orange,
the color of the fruit making for a clashing contrast once she sets the uneaten
piece against the lap of her black dress. The princess’ gown is big and heavy,
and it seems to Regina that Snow is drowning in the dark fabric, her own
usually lively color stolen away by the dreary garment. Regina herself is
wearing black, but something light and comfortable, pants coupled with her
corset and a soft blouse so that she can move swiftly and tirelessly when
necessary, and she briefly wonders if she should bury herself in clothes
similar to Snow’s, so as to make herself look like a mourning widow being
dragged down by heartache.
Regina sits next to Snow wearily, dropping her weight on a chair indelicately.
Her table is filled up to the brim with all sorts of treats, and Regina stares
at it for a moment, and then at Snow’s empty plate. A year ago, a table like
this would have been impossible, sickness and meagerness being the only truth
surrounding the kingdom, but they’ve fairly recovered from that upheaval by
now, and the queen’s table has nothing but fragrant fruits and rich smelling
treats to offer, which the princess has steadily refused for the past couple of
days. Regina has half a mind to force some food into her, but the familiar
sight that is Snow makes her queasy and renders her unable to demand she feed
herself. She would have never guessed the princess prone to Regina’s own kind
of punishing regime when dueling with the grief of loss, and she fleetingly
wonders if Snow will inevitably end up maniacally consuming anything on her
grasp until she makes herself sick, much like Regina has done in the past.
If the princess is feeling weak and lifeless, though, Regina is the utter
opposite, her hunger proof enough of her newfound freedom. She craves hearty
meals, and when she reaches for some dried grapes and munches on them, her
stomach growls, asking for something heavier. Regina doesn’t deny herself in
this, not when eating is perhaps the one celebration she can allow herself in
the eyes of others, and so she lifts the lid that covers the dish she ordered
from the kitchens this morning, one of father’s favorites that Regina had often
tasted in the early years of her life, before she had been made aware of
mother’s ideas of the way a lady should behave herself at a table. The smell is
rich and strong, and Regina spies Snow wrinkling her nose when it wafts up to
her, the scent of the pork broth and plantain mixing with garlic in the air
clearly upsetting the girl. Regina doesn’t mind her, and instead serves them
both full plates of the warm concoction, smiling herself despite Snow’s obvious
distaste.
Digging into her own plate with gusto, Regina stays quiet for as long as five
bites, which do wonders for her unsettled stomach. Then, rolling her eyes with
obvious exasperation and forgetting that she’d promised herself to simply let
Snow be, she says, “Do eat something, dear.”
Her effort goes to waste, though, Snow remaining stubbornly still and quiet,
her eyes set downwards as if even looking up is entirely too painful. Regina
does lets her be then, eating daintily instead while the food on Snow’s plate
inevitably begins to cool down, the broth becoming solid and sticky in a way
that is almost disgusting. Regina figures she can send it all back to the
kitchens later, have it fed to the servants or to their visitors so it won’t go
to waste. Regina wrinkles her own nose at the thought, but ignores it easily by
pouring herself a glass of sharp-tasting cider, the small pitcher of the tangy
liquid pressed from her own apples and made especially for her table feeling
heavy between her hands as she pours. She ignores Snow’s empty glass, reserving
the drink just for herself.
As Regina finishes eating, she stares at Snow through half-lidded eyes, spying
what she knows firsthand are the marks of lack of sleep and too much crying.
Her shagging shoulders and her pulled-down smile make for a sad image,
something tired and lacking fighting spirit having settled over the princess’
frame, her grief so quiet that it discomforts Regina. Her own agony is loud and
destructive, and she wishes Snow had in it her to smash something or cry angry
sobs rather than remain so unbearably stoic in the face of her father’s death.
As it is, Snow has only broken in silent cries when thinking herself alone,
much like she had when she was younger and she didn’t have Regina to get her
through the ever hated birthdays filled up with the pain of her lost mother.
Snow has hidden her pain from the court this time as well, and Regina wonders
if her mindlessly spoken lessons of covering feelings away have actually done
more damage than she could have ever foreseen. Had those been words of her own,
she wouldn’t mind, but the feelings that settle within her when she knows that
such lessons come from mother are nothing but sickly uncomfortable. For all of
the hatred Snow has managed to awaken in her, spreading the harsh words that
mother had so surely etched under her skin has never been a conscious or
willing effort on her part.
Snow’s anguish has been lived behind closed doors, however, particularly behind
the doors of Regina’s bedchambers, where she had taken residence once she had
managed to tear herself away from her father’s dead figure. Invasive as ever,
and clearly dismissing the shyness she had been showing towards Regina after
she’d been so abruptly slapped under the shadow of the apple tree, she had
settled in Regina’s abode as easily as ever, claiming the place Regina has
never volunteered at her table and in her bed. Regina, choosing to use Snow’s
grief as her own shield against court members wanting to shallowly and
importantly comfort her, had allowed the princess to conquer spaces with the
usual ease she always had, somehow preferring the sad princess over anyone else
in the palace. If she is to be cooped up and not allowed a celebratory
disposition, the least she deserves is to be witness to Snow White’s distress.
Thus, Regina knows that the princess has barely eaten for days now, and she’s
certainly aware of her disturbing sleeping patterns. Snow’s sleep has been
fitful, preventing Regina’s own even when she herself is brimming with such
nervous energy that sleep eludes her as well. Nevertheless, when she’d been
woken up just last night well before the small hours of the morning by
incessant and whiny crying, she had pretended to be fast asleep, her back
ramrod straight and turned away from Snow hugging her knees tightly to her and
with her face hidden in her own arms. Regina had remained entirely too awake,
however, steadfastly aware of the girl in her bed, fighting the urge to turn
around and draw her into her arms for a warm and steady embrace. She had
pictured her, though, dark and heavy gown exchanged for a light nightgown,
fragile little figure wrecked by abrupt and sorrowful suffering, and she had
bitten her lower lip raw to stop herself from providing comfort. It’s such a
natural response for her now that it had been difficult to remain still, her
body seemingly drinking Snow’s own tension, her hands white-knuckled as they’d
held onto the edge of the soft bedspread. She has given relieving support to
Snow’s pain for too long years now, has born the pain of her lost mother, of
her heart broken for the first time, of an ill-timed sickness that had nearly
claimed the princess’ life, but in this she cannot possibly bring herself to
cater to Snow’s needs; not when she grieves over King Leopold, kind to all but
to his wife, forever etched in Regina’s nightmares as lord of her pain and
powerlessness. In this pain, Snow must dwell alone.
 Regina finishes her food in record time, and she even considers helping
herself to a second serving before she realizes that her stomach is full, and
that she will end up going overboard if she allows herself to indulge. She
puckers her lips right after licking all flavors away from them, and then
allows herself to rest tiredly against the back of her chair, legs sprawled
forward carelessly as she finishes her cider in two long and hearty swallows.
Mother would be appalled, and perhaps the noblemen that have known her as
nothing but stupendously lady-like in her manners would too, but Snow doesn’t
even register her demeanor. The princess is busy looking outside instead, the
high sun of the afternoon shining on her pale cheeks in a way that doesn’t
match her dour expression. She’s obviously distracted, but whatever is on her
mind has her pressing her uneaten orange between her fingers, the juice
dripping watery and clear over the ruffle-like fabric covering her wrist. The
scent of the fruit is strong and tangy, and Regina both loves it and hates it
for the memories it brings to the forefront of her mind.
Moving swiftly and suddenly, limbs heavy after her meal, Regina reaches forward
until she can pluck the fruit away from Snow’s nimble fingers, her nails
scratching unintentionally at the girl’s palm. She mumbles, “Honestly, dear,”
and her tone is sharp and unforgiving, berating as if she were scolding a child
over an unnecessary tantrum.
Snow gazes up at her, her eyes unreadable but her expression tight, the bags
under her eyes making her look old and haggard. Regina ignores her in favor of
a fleeting sense of deeply rooted nostalgia brought forward when the orange,
now resting on her own palm, leaves its sticky juice against her skin. She
drops the fruit on her plate, but the scent is strong and unstoppable, and
Regina’s traitorous mind plays cruel games with her by unwittingly reminding
her of Daniel, kind hand offering her the treat of a luxurious fruit after
she’d passed out and woken up hazy and surprised between his solid arms. She
closes her eyes, a tear teasing at the corner as her heart beats strong and
hard for a love lost but not forgotten, for the beautiful soul of a boy that
Regina had loved without restraint.
“Oh, Regina, I’m sorry,” Snow murmurs next to her, reaching out and touching
both her hands to Regina’s and grasping at her, holding on. They’re both sticky
now, and the feeling disgusts her. If the feeling shows in her expression when
she opens her eyes up again, it must only help tell a tale that Snow has
written for her in her own mind, for what she says next is, “Sometimes I forget
that you too have lost father.”
Regina scoffs, dismissive, doing every effort to stop the tear pulling at the
corner of her eye. She has lied steadily and without repentance, has been
ruthless in making herself be whatever she has needed to be to gain advantage,
but the thought that her grief over Daniel may be exchanged for grief over
Leopold makes her sick to her stomach. Suddenly, she regrets eating so
heartily, warm food that she had been grateful for now making her feel queasy
and leaving a foul taste in her mouth. With an abrupt and vigorous tug, she
rids herself from Snow’s touch and stands up, turning her back to the girl and
fisting both hands in front of her, fury climbing low from her gut and all the
way up to her throat, digging itself a place there with claw-like invisible
fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Snow repeats behind her, weaker this time. The girl has been
apologizing almost constantly these past few days, especially over what she’d
said to prompt Regina to slap her so harshly a few weeks back, and Regina wants
to hit her again just to make her stop. It seems to her that Snow is
apologizing for all the wrong things, and that she will soon regain the self-
righteousness with which she rules herself and the world around her in no time,
thus forgetting whatever regret she may have ever had over her treatment of
Regina.
Regina feels tired now, though, weary and irritated that her days so far have
been filled with celebrating the memory of a man she’d so despised and who had
slighted her so. She has wanted to laugh with childish glee from the moment she
had stood over his dead body, shrunken and pale-looking after the vipers’
poison had done its job, the sight of his corpse as disgusting to her as that
of his living body had been. She’d backhanded his flabby flesh when she had
been left alone with him, a reverse mockery of the one time he had laid a
beating hand on her, right after she’d lost her baby and her last shred of
hope. She’d smiled at the deadly coldness of his skin. She hasn’t been allowed
celebration or proper rest since then, though, not with Snow’s fretting sleep
invading her bed and her own anxiety palpable under her skin, and she finds
herself suddenly drained of energy to keep up the farce. It’s the last leg of
her efforts, though, just a little more to go after ten years of a life in a
golden prison, and she can’t give up now, even if that means sharing her
tiredness with her ever-maddening charge.
Regina rolls her shoulders back, trying to expand her muscles and bring
something like energy back into her body before she begins moving towards the
heavy drapes opening up the room to the clear sun that suddenly feels like an
intruder in the room. She disengages the weighty fabric holding the drapes from
her balcony together, and with swift movements, closes them so they block the
light filtering inside. Snow must sense what it is she wishes to do, for she
suddenly stands up and busies herself with the second set of drapes, making
quick work of shrouding the room in darkness. Unstoppable shiny rays don’t
allow for complete blackness, but the drapes do a good enough job that the
bedchambers suddenly feel intimately lit in dark greys, their figures clad in
black suddenly appearing like the shadows of mourning ghosts.
Regina clears her throat, as if she physically needs to remind herself that
she’s human and tangible and not a waning spirit, and says, “Some rest will do
us good.” The comment is inconsequential, an explanation they don’t need, but
it prompts them into movement yet again.
Regina helps Snow out of her dress with hands used to the complicated lacing of
corsets, and the princess breathes out with what must be relief the moment her
torso is freed of the tightness of her garment. The dress drops to the floor
but stays standing on its own, the puffy skirt enough to hold the fabric up as
if it were filled by an invisible body. It makes for an eerie image, and Regina
kicks at it herself until there’s unlimited pounds of lifeless cloth on her
floor. Snow returns the favor, and soon enough, they’re both clad in thin
spring night clothes, cream-like in color and nearly transparent. Regina has
always found the sight of her own brownish nipples obscene in this type of
garment, and she’s quick to let her hair flow free and low, so as to cover
herself up before she climbs on the bed, Snow hurriedly following her under the
covers.
Regina sits up against the headboard rather than lean down, and Snow claims a
spot on her lap once she finds her settled. The princess drops her head heavily
on Regina, and then circles her arms loosely around her waist, the embrace
prompting Regina to weave her fingers through Snow’s own loose hair
inadvertently. The familiarity in their movement teases shadows of a past long
gone at the edge of Regina’s mind, a time when Snow had been a child and Regina
barely a young girl herself, when there had been true affection hidden in her
touches. Today, every time her hand moves close to Snow’s neck, so thin, so
elegant, so very easy to snap in two, Regina wonders if there was ever any
truth to the tenderness she has bestowed upon this child. Her hands tremble
over her skin and hair now, unreleased energy and hunger for destruction in
every small quiver. Still, Regina fights her own nature and urges herself to
let go of her tension and try and find some rest; she still has to get through
long hours of mourning with noblemen she feels nothing but contempt for, after
all, and she will certainly need to be rested if she’s to control herself.
“Regina, tell me a story,” Snow says all of a sudden, her words demanding
rather than requesting. “One of those your father always tells… Please.”
The smallness of the last pleasesaves Regina from bristling and completely
turning away from Snow’s urgent order, the tone of the princess so suddenly
broken and defeated that Regina chooses to let her get away with her petition
this once. Snow has a future where her whims will no longer be answered
unquestioningly, after all, and Regina is so tired herself that she’s willing
to allow this rest for them both now. Acquiescing to Snow’s desire, she begins
telling one of daddy’s old folk tales, unwittingly choosing the first one that
comes to mind, and swiftly ignoring why it is precisely this one the first to
occur to her.
Leaning completely back against the headboard, and scooching down just a little
on the bed until she’s comfortable enough, her hand in constant movement in a
soft caress against Snow’s skull, she begins speaking, tone low and wistful,
her words tracing knowledge of the past, of a heritage that she has been
cheated out of, but shreds of which she has greedily collected for herself.
“Once upon a time there was a young woman; they say she was beautiful, but
aren’t they always? It seems that tragedy never strikes the ugly, dear; you
should be more careful than plainer girls, I suppose–”
“You even more so, Regina.”
Regina bites her lower lip, unwittingly tightens her fingers around thick locks
of dark hair, fights the urge to pull.“Hush now, no interruptions or you will
have no story.” Snow remains quiet at that, and Regina, already settled in the
mood to finish her tale, keeps speaking in whispered tones. “The woman fell in
love with a brave soldier, and from that love a daughter was born. Whether the
child was beautiful or not, no one ever says, but the soldier abandoned them
both nonetheless. The woman, left alone and forgotten, an unwanted child
suckling at her bosom and crying day and night, was driven mad by the child’s
wailing, and so she killed the babe with her own two hands.”
Snow gasps when Regina speaks those words, clearly awake when Regina is trying
to get her to fall asleep, clinging tighter to her the longer Regina’s story
talks of nothing but pain. Regina shushes her, cooing at her until her arms are
loose again around Regina’s waist, her limbs softer and her shoulders as lax as
they are probably going to get. Snow’s resting her face on Regina’s lap still,
her cheek now firmly pressed low against Regina’s belly, where an old void
rests filled with anger and vengeance, with fury that will only know rest once
Regina has laid waste enough to bring peace to a mind clouded by resilient
agony, and Regina wonders at her own choices, at telling a story of lost
children and murdering mothers when her unwanted step-daughter is resting on
the place that couldn’t breathe life into Regina’s lost baby. Leopold had
accused her of killing his child, and if that hadn’t been true then, it will
surely be when the time comes to rid herself of the princess between her arms.
Something tight pulls at Regina’s chest at the thought, dark longing and
uncomfortable regret as potently vibrant as the sudden itch blossoming where
her fading scar still rests, and where Regina can’t reach it if she doesn’t
wish to bother Snow.
Regina shakes thoughts away from her head, and instead focuses back on her
story, on the mindlessness derived from telling a tale heard so many times. She
closes her eyes, drawing further into herself and doing her best at ignoring
her company, even when plainly cumbersome over her frame.
“Now, it was only after the child was gone that the woman realized what her
traitorous hands had done, and so she cried and screamed her misery away. So
loud and so inconsolable was she in her grief that everyone in her village came
to find her, and when they understood what had happened, they immediately
condemned the frightened woman, cursing her to forever be a wailing spirit. And
so it is said that she wanders eternally, crying and calling for her lost
daughter, stealing away lonely and forgotten children, forever damned to search
for a child that she will not find.” (2)
Her voice seemingly lingers in the otherwise silent room, the last of her words
falling around them with the intensity of a casted spell. The tale is an old
one that father told often at Regina’s request when she was a child, never
questioning her favoring such a woeful tale of pain; perhaps Regina had
foreseen her twisted future, or perhaps she had simply been enchanted by the
thought of sins persecuting one even after being claimed by death. Whatever
reasons she may have had in the past, the story rings eerily true today, and it
leaves a sour aftertaste in her mouth, betraying the otherwise calming motion
she’s still bestowing upon a seemingly asleep Snow.
Hiding away from her present, Regina thinks of her past, and realizes how odd
it is for her to spin this particular tale in the common tongue, when father
had always told it in his native language. Mother had hated him for it, stern
disapproval in her eyes when she’d watched him share old stories with his
daughter. Regina remembers telling mother this particular one once, her seven
year old self naïve enough to think that mother was merely curious, especially
when she’d listened with such apparent delight to her daughter’s words. Regina
had been condemned to a night in the cellar after translating the story for
mother, and while she had never truly understood the reason behind mother’s
outburst, now she remembers clear signs of distress in mother’s demeanor – a
displeased tightness to her lips, her hand resting open palmed against her
lower abdomen, her eyes haunted with something that Regina can recognize only
now. She wonders about mother’s past, about lost children and eternal grieving,
and thinks that mother may have kept more secrets than any of them could have
ever guessed at.
Her eyes still closed but sleep far away and out of her reach, Regina ponders
if mother is still somewhere, alive and kicking, eyes hard and hands splayed
over her own body, feeling misery over a daughter that cast her away. The
thought pains Regina even when she wishes it didn’t, remorse that mother
doesn’t deserve forever settled inside the deep recesses of her heart. And she
wonders, fleetingly, if she has done right by her, if mother would find it in
her to be proud of the daughter that has filled a vault with beating hearts,
that has plotted the murder of her husband, that even while her step-daughter
rests in her arms finds herself wishing for her prompt and painful death.
Regina’s thoughts are interrupted by Snow’s words, so sudden that they almost
make her gasp in surprise. She had thought her asleep, and while her voice
reaches Regina in the shape of a tired slur, the girl still has energy enough
for one last whiny comment.
“What a sad story,” she says.
Sighing, hands nimble in their movement and eyes firmly closed, Regina replies,
“It is time for sad stories, Snow. I will tell another, if you promise to
sleep,” she says, and the aching tenderness in her voice leaves her bewildered,
startled at her own vulnerability. There is no place for it in her mind, her
heart or her future, and she will do away with it as soon as her own body and
Snow’s requests allow her proper rest.
 
===============================================================================
 
Two days before the wake is to be held, Regina gets her monthly bleeding. It’s
one of the bad ones, with cramps that assault her with every step she takes,
pain sharp low on her back, breasts agonizingly heavy and her body so bloated
that she refuses to even stare at herself in the mirror. She bleeds dark and
thick blood, sticky and so disgusting that she would be sick at the thought if
only she wasn’t impossibly hungry as well, savagely craving strong food to
settle her heightened senses. Snow bleeds with her, and that gives her enough
of an excuse to send the girl to her own bedchambers for a while to soak up in
warm water, much like she plans to do herself. Alone in her chambers for the
first time in days, Regina recalls how she had bled a few days before marrying
Leopold, and figures that it is only natural that she should bleed a few days
after his death as well, her body weeping for the time spent tied down to such
a man.
The trickle is gone the day of the wake, for which Regina is thankful. If she’s
to deal with the court today, after all, she would rather her body not betray
her with random bouts of pain. She helps dress Snow is her preferred choice of
heavy black gown, and even fusses about her and shoos Johanna away so she can
comb her hair herself and plait it back in a comfortable and demure low braid
that brings back some of the youth the dark fabrics are stealing away from the
princess’ face. Nonetheless, Snow looks haggard and clumsy, almost slatternly,
and it exasperates Regina when each of her movements seems to last an eternity.
Regina herself is wearing black as well, but her own choice is hardly
appropriate for the mourning of death, the fabric around her soft velvet, the
cut of her dress low enough that her breasts are almost impossible to ignore,
and sparkling crystals adorning the end of her wide sleeves and the tip of her
high collar as well as her cleavage. Her own hair is combed tight and high,
coiled in a big bun that leaves her neck displayed tantalizingly, and she knows
that such an outfit will be spoken about once the court considers it correct to
talk of anything other than the king’s death. Regina should mind, and should
perhaps change her attire, but she finds herself carelessly detached from
whatever rumors may surround her persona; she has played many a role before,
but today she deserves to feel like herself, and all she wants is a dress
that’s beautiful and comfortable, and that makes her look like a queen.
“Now come on, dear, we must go.”
They’re both standing by the mirror, images so discordant that they shouldn’t
be attending the same event, Snow looking like the bride of death herself, and
Regina outfitted for a celebratory occasion. If Regina has felt old before when
standing next to Snow, this morning she feels ages younger, Snow’s long lashes
hiding patches of darkness like bruises, and the edges of her eyelids red, as
if she has been weeping for days now. Which Regina knows she has, of course,
her sleep restless and interrupted even with Regina’s soothing hand on her
hair.
As they walk down the hallways and towards the throne room, where Leopold rests
and the court awaits them, Snow clings to her for support, their arms linked
together as if in mutual assistance. Regina has walked this path many a time
and usually with an eager Snow guiding her step, small hand tugging from Regina
and taking her towards a destiny forced upon her, but today they walk side by
the side, the princess wobbly and her steps slow, as if delaying the
inevitable. Regina has to stop herself from breaking into a run and yanking
Snow behind her – the king has been dead for days, after all, and the dawdling
is only managing to irritate her.
Once they reach the room, they remain by the doors so they can receive the
members of the court with the proper pomp and circumstance, and Regina schools
her face in the appropriately grim expression that the occasion requires,
something almost broken in her smile, as if she’s barely holding in the pain.
If everything about her is rooted in falseness, Snow’s anguish is as real as
Regina has ever seen it, her shoulders sagging and her head hanging low, pale
hands suddenly looking frail as she holds onto a white handkerchief that is
already wet with tears. She looks faint, and so Regina commands one of her
guards to keep a close eye on her, lest the princess collapse and cause an
scandal.
Regina knows the state has been teeming with hundreds of villagers, all of them
holding their own silent memorial outside, quiet perhaps out of respect, or
perhaps because Regina has prohibited the distribution of ale and beer for the
day, and they’re simply anxiously waiting for the night to come, but it seems
that every nobleman in the country has arrived at the palace as well, making
for the biggest crowd Regina has ever seen before. Consequently, Regina gets
swamped in the people arriving to the wake and the words that they have to
offer her, most of them simple condolences, but others hiding the thrill of
approval and the promise of the future as queen that she so deserves.
“It will be an honor to be in your service, Your Majesty,” the Military Advisor
tells her a second after feigning true sadness at the king’s passing. Regina
offers him a small smile, but pats his arm in a sign of secret camaraderie and
assures him that they will speak shortly of matters of state.
The hours drag slowly by, Regina’s responses growing more aloof and impersonal
by the second, so that the moment she’s finally free to kneel before King
Leopold’s casket, she finds herself sighing with relief. Snow kneels by her,
cold and trembling hand resting between Regina’s, and cheek easily falling
against her shoulder. Regina allows the touch, and as the court silences around
them and surrounds them in ghostly quiet, Regina fancies that she can hear her
own breathing as it slows down and becomes deep, unwittingly matching Snow’s as
if they were somehow falling together into the most profound of dreams. It
seems to her that from the moment Snow walked into her life, briskly and with
purpose, breaking that which she couldn’t understand, they have drawn every
breath in a kind of mingled delirium of love and hate, as if they have been
part of each other’s bodies, Regina sagging down under suffering while Snow
thrived in contentment. It is only fair, then, that their roles be
interchanged, and that the breaths they take today bring nothing but agony to
Snow, and serenity to Regina.
The air fills up to the brim with eerie calm, the lack of noise somewhat
refreshing in what is usually such a busy palace, but the lull cast with the
morbidity of death. It lasts long hours, the signs of restlessness obvious in
the sound of rustling fabrics, of covered up coughs, of sighs of boredom that
keep growing more impatient as the light begins to wane outside, announcing the
ending of the day. The court had quickly agreed on postponing supper for the
day, but the tiring wake brims with anxiety the more the sun sets, people eager
to break their fast and move their limbs. Regina is numb herself, has been for
hours now, her body motionless but her mind wandering to greener fields,
dreaming of celebrating the way she should be allowed to – she envisions a long
ride atop Rocinante’sstill strong body, a hearty meal with father, the sensual
touch of a wanted lover, laughter, and freedom.
Regina’s daydream, as well as the peaceful silence, is broken in one single and
sudden moment, noise invading the mourning room as an unknown intruder trudges
inside it, steps heavy on the marble floors and voice raised high and mighty on
a savage wail. Regina stands and turns entirely too fast, her head feeling
dizzy for a stabbing second, and her eyes widening when she catches sight of a
burly man running through the path opened at the center of the room, the same
path she had walked with Snow hours before to pay her respects to the deceased
king. If their pace had been slow and respectful, this man’s is anything but,
his boot-clad feet cumbersome yet quick, the heavy thump of them loud in a room
now laden with surprised gasps.
The man is big, shoulders wide and arms strong, and Regina barely has time to
register anything else before he’s throwing himself at them unstoppably, his
intent clear and his aim sharp. Regina squeals, still foggy from a full day of
immobility and feeling ambushed, her gut reaction making her push Snow out of
the way before the man can reach them. The princess is far from the man’s mind,
though, for it is Regina that he launches himself at, a shouted cry of
witch!leaving his rabid lips before Regina catches sight of a glint of shiny
steel. The dagger is sharp and precise, the man’s arm obviously well-trained,
and the first swift movement catches Regina’s neck, a smooth if shallow cut
that stings acutely and makes her grunt with the effort of pushing herself
back. She falls back, her heels catching on the edge of her skirt and
traitorously throwing her to the floor in a tumble of limbs and fabric, her
right side and elbow crashing painfully against the hard surface. She hears the
collective gasp that surrounds her when the man launches himself at her for a
second attack, but she barely registers it, her own head unexpectedly free of
noise, surprised yet calm when her thoughts remain steady and her instincts
take over so that her hand reaches out, magic bursting forth from her
outstretched palm and hitting the man square on the chest, effectively throwing
him backwards onto the floor, the back of his head crashing disruptingly loud
and the man groaning at the pain.
The man is taken enough by surprise and hurt enough that it gives Regina time
to recover and stand up, pain that will shape bruises into her flesh easily
ignored, and warmth from the blood flowing from her neck strangely soothing.
Her breathing is loud and ragged, viciously angry so that when her attacker
stands up himself, she easily lifts her hand before her yet again, ready to
defend herself with everything she has.
“A witch!” The man screams then, pointing at her with a hand that’s still
holding his knife, the liquid red of Regina’s blood shiny on the metal. “A
witch, I tell you!”
Regina growls at the accusation, as true as anything can be but misused in its
terrifying meaning. Even as she wishes to defend herself of the judgmental look
this simpleton is fixing her with, she can’t help herself from calling magic
forth back into her hand, a purple haze surrounding her tight fist as she gets
ready to stop any further attacks. The obvious threat of her stance doesn’t
deter the man, and his frame opens up and becomes impossibly bigger when he
throws himself back at her, a prowling tiger if Regina has ever seen one
implied in every move. He doesn’t get very far, however, Regina being spared of
further exposing her magic when the sharp blade of a sword abruptly appears
between his ribs, a gurgling sound of pain replacing the wild shouts the man
had proffered so far. The blade leaves his body as quickly as it had entered
it, and the now dead body falls dejectedly to the floor, massive weight
collapsing with a morbid thud that once again leaves the court silenced. Behind
the man’s prone corpse, one of Regina’s Black Knights nods at her, as if
acknowledging the end of the threat.
Regina’s breathing is labored and harsh, the way it gets when she stretches her
riding hours for too long into the cold night, making her throat complain over
the rough treatment. Her heart, beating wildly, feels as if it wants to escape
her altogether, break away from her chest and fall somewhere where rest may
just be possible. Her hands are shaking as well even as her fighting stance
remains, her limbs locked down and failing to move, tension ricocheting up and
down her arms and all the way to the back of her neck, refusing to let her rest
even now when the man is positively dead.
And then, a whistling noise cuts the air. It seems to Regina that she’s the
only one who hears it, something fast and light coming towards her with the
fury reserved for beasts, small yet deadly, and she moves, unaware of her own
actions until her hand wraps swiftly around the wooden shaft of an arrow, the
poisoned tip of the head a breath’s away from the skin of her neck. She blinks
slowly, astounded at her own agility, magic obvious in the air around her, the
taste of cinnamon heavy at the back of her tongue. There is a commotion
somewhere in the room, boisterous and distracting enough that Regina lowers the
arrow still firmly clasped in her strong grip and finally manages to disengage
her body from its alert state, her limbs falling heavily about her when the
shock begins to fade.
Regina looks about her until she discovers the origin of the tumultuous
upheaval, and catches sight of two of her knights reducing a man carrying bow
and arrow, obviously responsible for the offensive weapon in her hand. A knock
to the head has the man lolling foolishly and falling in between her men’s
arms, who drag him before her even as he mumbles incoherently and puts up a
weak effort to free himself. They drop him so he kneels before her and right
next to his dead companion, whom he looks upon with pain twisting his features.
He’s a handsome man, Regina surmises, surprised, but the sneer that he throws
at her once he finally glances her way distorts his lovely if rugged features
until he looks uncomely. There’s blood coming from the back of his neck and
slowly pooling on the rough fabric covering his collarbones, and a shadow of a
bruise has already began to form around his left eye. He looks as battered as
Regina feels, and his expression suggests as much fury as Regina is sure will
consume her as soon as the impact dissapears.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demands, her voice booming and disquieting,
breaking the standstill that has taken over the room and its guests. She
remains stoic, her tone colder and more controlled than she expected it to be,
but she spies flinches and grimaces surfacing in the awakening senses of court
members around her.
The second attacker doesn’t leave any breathing space for the obviously altered
noblemen, and is quick to accuse her much in the same way his companion had
done moments before. “A witch, you’re a witch! You all saw, you saw her! She’s
a witch and she’ll kill us all the way she killed the good king! She should
burn!” he screams, boisterous and disruptive, his voice hoarse as his speech
continues in much the same manner. “Burn the witch!”
Regina watches the man fidget against the hold the two knights are keeping him
in, his nose flaring from the effort and the ire cursing through his veins.
He’s still spitting his venom, and Regina spies the commotion and doubt he’s
creating as he speaks, louder with each word. He’s hardly speaking lies,
though, but Regina knows that she could easily convince the noblemen of the
falseness of the man’s sermon. She has spun lies before, has convinced this
court so they see in her whatever it is that she needs them to see, and she
knows that a few chosen words about the confusion and alarm present during the
attack would convince them that they haven’t seen her throw a man across a room
with an invisible and powerful touch. She could, and yet she won’t.
She casts a look around herself, sees Snow huddled in a corner behind her, a
pale and surprised expression in a face that looks younger than it has in days,
loss and confusion written in every line of her features. Then, she considers
the people closest to her, discovers bewilderment and fear. Baroness Irene, who
had been adamant hours before that she was to remain close to Regina and had
claimed a seat at the front, now looks as pale as Regina has ever seen her, her
puffy cheeks devoid of color and her lively eyes crowned with agitation. Regina
smirks at the sight, thinks of how she has been scrutinized and judged by these
people for years, of how she has been unwittingly caged by their looks and
their words, punished by their harsh appraisal. She has been pliant daughter,
mysterious seductress, mistreated queen, young and fearful girl, loving
granddaughter for them all, and tonight, as she discovers unlimited fear in
their gaze, she relishes the feeling of showing them her true self.
Taking a step forward, she extends her hand, palm up so the arrow that had
meant to kill her rests still, and shows it to her audience with triumph
touching her eyes. Gleeful, then, she makes it disappear in a cloud of purple
smoke, leaving her hand free to curl into a fist when a collective sigh of awe
follows her little trick. Throwing her shoulders back, she breathes in slowly,
closing her eyes for a too long beat and feeling something pleasant crawl up
her arms, the touch of liberated magic caressing her as a lover would. When she
opens them again, she fixes them on her attacker, quiet now that he has seen
her powers firsthand, his mouth hanging open even as his nose still flares with
contained fury.
“Call me what you will, peasant,” she says, tall and proud as she stands close
to him, forcing him to stretch his neck up if he wants to look at her. “You
will however remember who I am – your queen,” she quips as if she were speaking
to a particularly slow toddler. She pouts, the playful puckering of her lips
grotesque as she harshly states, “And I will notbe trifled with.”
This makes the man react, his bravado leaving him in a strangled cry of,
“Please, my queen, merc–”
Regina doesn’t let him finish, however, instead directing her speech to her
Black Knights this time. “Take him to the dungeons; he will be executed in the
morning.”
That said, Regina doesn’t wait and see what reaction her statement provokes,
and simply stalks her way out of the room, stepping over the dead body of her
first attacker with brisk determination. The click-clack of her inappropriately
high heels feels deafening to her ears, satisfying even once she’s out of the
hall and is walking the path back to her bedchambers, completely unaware of
both her surroundings and herself. Her trudging walk affords her respite, the
restlessness that has been consuming her for days somehow receding as her
energies filter to her legs and her resolute strut. On her way, the few
servants parading around the palace make haste to step away from her, surprised
and mildly frightened when they see her coming. She knows she has gathered a
reputation for being ill-tempered and impulsive with the household, so perhaps
it’s for the better than they choose to make themselves scarce.
Regina has almost reached her destination when she finds herself stopped,
Snow’s voice pleading with her with a resounding call of, “Regina!”
Regina doesn’t want to stop and yet she does, as if her body is designed to
comply with Snow’s whims and desires after so long a time spent together. She
turns around sharply, her movements hasty and jerk-like, betraying the tension
settled firmly over her shoulders.
“What?” she barks, mindless of what Snow may think of her in this particular
instant. She has always been good at keeping herself together, or at least at
hiding herself away when she couldn’t stop herself from losing control, but
tonight she feels as if she could commit all kinds of atrocious acts if she
isn’t allowed rest and reprieve. She has been attacked and diminished, after
all, and asking for a little time alone doesn’t seem like an unreasonable
request.
“Regina, that man, we should–”
“Spare him?” Regina interrupts, easily and correctly guessing at the princess’
thoughts. “Have mercy on him after he interrupted his king’s wake to kill his
queen? No, Snow, there will be no benevolence for traitors.”
Snow says nothing, her eyes huge and surprised, if at Regina’s abruptness or
simply at her words Regina doesn’t know. The princess is obviously still
agitated from the attack, perhaps even as much as Regina herself, and while a
healthy rosy color has returned to her cheeks, she looks completely
dumbfounded, thrown aback by the suddenness of it all and by Regina’s demeanor.
“Surely, we–”
This time, it is Snow who stops whatever words she may have wanted to say, her
tongue tangling inside her mouth when Regina takes a step forward and into the
princess’ personal space, so that they’re easily staring at each other.
Regina’s heels give her a height advantage, but she soon realizes that Snow’s
eyes aren’t trained on her face but on her hands, now firmly clenched around
the soft fabric of her skirt, as if she’s physically stopping herself from
lashing out. Snow looks discomfited like this, fearful and wary. She reaches
out a hand towards Regina’s, but her intention dies midway and her fingers
instead are left hovering in the air between them. Never before have Snow’s
hands looked incapable or frail, but now, trembling softly and failing to reach
their destination, Regina spies unbearable weakness in them. When Snow finally
looks up and into her eyes, there are unshed tears pooled in the red edges of
her gaze, fragile, vulnerable and betraying apprehension.
Regina smirks at the sight, disengaging one of her hands from the fabric of her
dress and reaching up to press her knuckles to Snow’s cheek, a familiar caress
that they have shared with ease and tenderness before. This time, Snow
flinches, and Regina can do nothing but grin wider at the obvious fear her
magic has instilled in her. Good,she thinks, let her be afraid.
And despite everything, locked together with unwavering gazes, close and in
each other’s space and with Regina’s hand resting softly against the skin of
Snow’s cheek, intimacy remains between them. They are so impossibly tangled
together, fate, simple coincidence and mother’s schemes having bound them to
forever stand together in this game that Snow only now seems to realize that
they’re playing. Unwittingly, Regina is challenging Snow to finally see,to see
her for what she truly is, not the soft spoken caretaker she has made herself
to be, but the woman she has become, broken and put back together so many times
that she is nothing but a deformed picture of the girl Snow helped kill, held
together by anger and magic. Drawing a sharp breath, Snow steps back,
abandoning Regina’s touch, and almost immediately shielding her eyes from
Regina’s pointed glare.
Huffing, miffed and satisfied at the same time, Regina straightens her spine
and does her best at shaking tension away from her fingers by returning her
hands to her sides and letting them fall down, open and relaxed. Then, she
says, “Now, dear, please go back and take care of the court; I need some time
to myself.”
“Wait, you sh–”
“Goodness, Snow, for once in your life, do as you are told and leave me be.”
Regina trudges away then, once more ignoring her audience so that she can
escape somewhere private. She reaches her bedchambers with strain pressing on
her limbs, which somehow manage to be stupendously exhausted and inordinately
energetic at the same time, as if her body doesn’t know if it wants to collapse
in a boneless heap or run long miles. As a result, Regina can do nothing more
than pace, stalk her chambers from side to side as a caged beast, too anxious
to be trapped inside four walls. The alternative is agonizing and doesn’t bear
thinking about, of course, the idea of going back to a court that will expect
her to explain herself entirely too disagreeable. She tries breathing in
slowly, but the effort is futile, the room she has locked herself in making her
feel stifled. The drapes are closed, and even when Regina knows it is dark
outside, she motions so that the heavy fabric parts under the command of her
magic, and the doors to her balcony open as well, letting a soft breeze waft
inside, bringing the smell of vibrant chilliness with it. Noise filters inside,
too, the ruckus of now drunk villagers reaching her chambers from afar, the
attack on their queen apparently causing no disruptions to the celebration
happening at the palace’s doors.
The breeze helps cool her down, and a second flick of her wrist lighting up
every candle in the room settles her as well. Her pacing stops, and while she
still finds herself brimming with nervous energy, she walks to her bed and sits
at the edge, dropping her weight heavily on the comfortable mattress and
leaning her hands on the cool fabric of the bedspread. As she does so, she
catches sight of herself in her biggest mirror, and spies eyes like those of a
wild animal in a snare, patiently awaiting the charge of a hunter’s hand. Her
hair is a mess of unruly curls fighting the tight hold of her bun, and her
lipstick has somehow managed to run, painting her cheek in fading shades of
crimson. Nothing is more savage than the nearly forgotten wound at her neck,
though, a small and shallow gash that has nonetheless poured blood down her
collarbone and over the top of her left breast, staining the crystals at the
edge of her corset’s cleavage. Regina touches her hand to her chest gingerly,
and while the blood is already starting to dry, the tips of her fingers come
out painted in liquid red, somehow making her more acutely aware of the cut
than the pain of it. It barely stings, anyway.
Closing her tainted hand in a fist, Regina turns her eyes away from the savage-
like picture that she makes, her own lack of control suddenly weighing heavily
on her shoulders; even she would agree that she deserves to be thrown into a
dark cellar after such an exhibition. The exhilaration of it still thrums
wildly under her skin, but the consequences of it Regina can’t guess at. For
all she knows, she will have a wild horde at her door in no time, demanding her
head. Regardless of such an uncomfortable thought, Regina doesn’t find it in
herself to care in this moment, not when she has finally tasted a morsel of
freedom after so many years of hiding herself away. She’s so very tired, after
all, her body, heart, spirit and very soul demanding rest for what feels like
decades of hardship.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, trying to clear her head as much as
possible, she drops her weight back until she’s resting on the mattress, her
legs dangling off the bed but her head and shoulders comfortably nestled
against the plush bed. She could just fall asleep like this, and she has a
feeling that she would sleep for days, her whole body so exhausted that she may
just escape her worst nightmares. She’s not comfortable, though, not in this
bed that has been witness to King Leopold’s torment, not in this room that has
been as much a prison cell as a hiding place. Unwittingly, she longs for a
friend.
Her thoughts fly to father, fragile and small but kind father, whose touch
never fails to be a balm for her tired senses. However, as affectionate as
father is, and as unconditionally as her loves her, he doesn’t understand her,
not her and certainly not her need for vengeance. Even as he’d helped her in
her plot against the king, he doesn’t comprehend why she ever wanted him dead
in the first place. Father certainly can’t wrap his head around Regina’s
hateful gaze when she’d found him comforting a crying Snow not two days ago,
doesn’t know why Regina had so desperately needed to rob the girl of the
gentleness of his arms, relief that Regina demands belong just to herself.
Father, who gives love so willingly but who looks at her with the same shade of
fear he used to reserve only for mother, can’t possibly grant her comfort now.
And Regina wants comfort. She wants comfort and approval, she wants to laugh
because the king is dead and the kingdom is hers, she wants to rage at a
population that dares defy her, at a court that judges her every breath and
wishes her to be mild and accommodating, she wants to breathe and to scream and
to be free, she wants–
Well, she knows what she wants, the thought suddenly so obvious that she snorts
into the silent room. After all, if there was ever a place of freedom, and if
she has ever known the comfort of a friend, it has been under the soft touch of
cold and experienced hands and under the brooding look of impossibly blue eyes.
Regina laughs at the thought, and then, before she can overthink and stop
herself, she pictures a familiar room in her mind’s eye and allows the pull of
magic to transport her to where she needs to be. She hopes, fleetingly, that
Maleficent won’t set her ablaze on the spot.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina appears inside Maleficent’s fortress, and before she opens up her eyes,
she hears thunder roar outside, the sound so loud that it reverberates inside
her chest. She’s startled by it, the wild weather unexpected when she has seen
nothing but sunny spring days for weeks now. Once she finally dares look around
her, she realizes that the room hasn’t changed and that the memory she
preserves is almost perfectly accurate, the decadent darkness and drafty
quality of the place somehow managing to be enchanting, even when it should be
unwelcome.
Regina turns towards the chimney where a lively fire sparkles brightly, calling
to her, tantalizing warmth tempting even when she’s not feeling particularly
cold. She inspects the old and comfortable couches around it, expecting to find
Maleficent resting in one of them, wide sprawl careless and apathetic, long-
fingered hands busy holding a goblet filled with some kind of strong liqueur, a
temptation of a completely different nature. She’s not disappointed, the first
sight she catches of her long lost friend making her breath catch with
startling and unabashed emotion. It’s been too long, and when Maleficent turns
her eyes towards her, head tilted curiously to the side and eyes searching,
Regina finds her lips pulled into a small yet honest smile, something like
relief crawling up from her stomach and into her chest, unfurling and settling
there comfortably.
Maleficent, motioning at her with a hand that reads dismissiveness, says, “Be a
darling and close that window, won’t you? It’s awfully drafty in here.” Then,
she stops looking at Regina all-together and drives her eyes back towards the
crackling fire.
Huffing, Regina crosses her arms over her chest as she stares at the other
woman for a too long beat. When her glare proves to be ineffective, she groans,
frustrated and aggravated but compliant nonetheless, and stomping her feet in a
clear show of annoyed disapproval, she walks across the room and towards the
single open window. So much for emotional reunions, she guesses, but then she
doesn’t know why she ever expected anything different from the ever callous
dragon witch. The big window has obviously been thrown open by the wind, and
when Regina reaches it, a gust of coldness touches the skin of her face and
chest pleasantly, even if the pattering rain filters inside along with it and
touches her flesh as well in chilly droplets. The water has pooled at the foot
of the window, so Regina steps on a puddle that wets the bottom of her dress
just so she can push the big window closed, the hinges whining as if they were
old crones. The moment she’s done, the chamber is left to rest in silence, the
noise of water and wind wading its way inside one that Regina hadn’t even
registered. Belatedly, she realizes that she’s feeling a little faint.
Pressing a hand to her stomach and closing her eyes, Regina finds herself
leaning against the crystal of the window, her palm open wide against the cold
material and her frame suddenly begging her for respite. A wave of dizziness
touches her, wisps of haziness pulling at the tendrils of her mind as her belly
assaults her with abrupt queasiness. Her hand curls claw-like on her stomach,
as if trying to hold onto the too tight fabric of her corset, and her shoulders
sag forward, her frame making her feel small all of a sudden. She turns on the
spot, pushing her back and shoulders against the window to hold herself
upright, and opens her eyes to see spots dancing before her, black and orange
and yellow, as if the crackling fire were teasing her vision away from reality.
Maleficent stands before her, tall and imposing yet slightly blurry, the flurry
of her dress as she moves closer barely registering to Regina’s senses. She
feels breathless, and her tongue feels heavy inside her mouth, almost dry when
she tries to wet her lips with a purposeful lick.
Maleficent calls for her, and her voice feels far away but entirely too loud at
the same time, raspy and wondrous and, Regina wants to believe, worried. Regina
tries to smile, not particularly sure that it is the appropriate gesture or
even the one she wants on her face, but she tries nonetheless. Then, she
blinks, trying to clear her head and her vision, glad when Maleficent draws
even closer and becomes all she can see, deeply blue eyes calling to her like a
beacon, impossibly clear even through Regina’s fuzzy mind. Maleficent touches
her then, hands firm at her waist, fingers tight and strong that Regina can
feel even through her hard corset, tugging her upright and forcing her to be
precipitously aware of her exhausted body, of the sting of a wound at her neck,
of bumps that will surely become bruises all along the right side of her torso
and her thigh, of a grumbling stomach neglected for the whole day now.
Suddenly, fogginess lifts away from her gaze, and she’s staring into unreadable
eyes and lips that are shaping her name yet again, sound rushing forwards until
she can clearly distinguish the rain pattering against the window behind her,
the fire crepitating pleasantly on the other side of the room, and Maleficent’s
breathing, steady, slow and rhythmical, close to her face.
“Did you come here just to collapse? How rude, even for you,” Maleficent says
suddenly, her voice low and firm, thrumming pleasantly against Regina’s
ribcage.
Regina says nothing, wetting her lips yet again, unsure of what she wants to
say. She feels that there is something pulling at her tongue, at the edges of
her mind, something important that she hasn’t quite spoken out loud yet and
that she came here to confess. Her mind cheats the thought away, though, and
can only focus on Maleficent when she passes a strong arm around her waist,
bringing her closer as well as supporting her weight easily, reminding Regina
of her preternatural strength and how much she’s always loved it. Regina lifts
her arms them, cumbersome and excruciatingly slow in their movement until she
can curl her hands on Maleficent’s shoulders, where she meets both thin fabric
and cold skin. She holds on with unwitting firmness, unconsciously needing the
support that her fingers digging into smooth skin provides. Then, she looks at
Maleficent as if she were seeing her for the first time, as if she had somehow
forgotten about her sullen beauty and her predator-like eyes, about shapes that
she has traced with nimble fingers and perhaps even loved with feverish desire.
She wants to tell her that she’s missed her, that there is no one else in the
world she wishes to be with during this fiery instant, and yet the words die
somewhere in her throat, as if she knows them inappropriate, as if she foresees
them unwelcome. Confessions on desperate feelings that Regina has barely even
allowed herself in the darkest recesses of her mind seem wrong between them,
even after years of separation and a world of longing pressing harsh and
unforgiving against Regina’s breastbone. Instead, Regina breathes in slowly,
wills away the last remnants of her dizziness and the sickly feeling at the pit
of her stomach, and parts her lips on a silent plea for her mind to spell out
the thoughts that somehow seem to want to escape her.
The words her lips shape once she finally speaks surprise her to her very core,
the statement far away from her conscious mind and at the same time so very
obviously what she must confess that it unsettles her. “I killed the king,” is
what she says, her tone managing to be wistful, full of wonder, as if she’s
somehow amazed by the truth behind her declaration.
Maleficent turns inquiring eyes on her, stares straight into her gaze as if
asking a wordless and yet undefined question.
Regina repeats, “I killed the king; I–I killed Leopold.” And his name tastes
foreign on her tongue, a fearsome enemy turned into a soulless and unimportant
nightmare of old, as if now that he’s gone his given name should never be
spoken again.
With a curios tilt to her head, Maleficent’s eyes leave her own to focus on her
neck instead, where the blood has stopped oozing but remains dried up, a dark
red color now against Regina’s skin. Maleficent touches cool fingertips to
Regina’s collarbone, and asks, “And he defended himself with a rusty, old
knife?”
“No, that is not–They attacked me! Ungrateful peasants longing for some naïve
little queen and–They called me a witch. They said I was a witch and that I
should burn and I–I did kill the king, not with my own two hands but–”
Regina stops at that, squeezes her hands around Maleficent’s shoulders as if
she needs the reminder of her physicality, of the woman she’s confessing her
sins to. She laughs, abrupt and disruptive, a short barked peal of laughter
that sounds mad to her ears and that unintentionally and impetuously turns into
a sob, something broken that makes her throat feel raw and constricted,
terrifyingly vulnerable. She pushes back, tries to move away as the sob becomes
only the first of many, tears pooling in her eyes and falling unwittingly,
wetting tense cheeks and curling on the edges of her nose, travelling down
until she can taste the salt against her lips. Maleficent doesn’t allow her the
separation, but rather brings her closer to her body, pressing her forward with
the arm she has around her waist until they’re flush against each other and
Regina can press her face against her shoulder.
“There, there, my darling,” she shushes, what may come off as a motherly tone
in someone else falling short coming from Maleficent, who always struggles when
faced with honest bouts of emotions other than anger.
Regina drinks from the offered comfort, however rigid and inadequate, and
allows her arms to climb up until she’s trapped well within Maleficent’s
embrace, her cheek resting against the crook of her neck. She smells tangy and
fresh, like smooth liqueur, and Regina holds onto her scent as if it can
somehow bring her back from the suddenness of her outburst, from tears that she
can’t quite understand. Except . Except she doesunderstands, her grief suddenly
clear as daylight, long buried pain coming up from the deep recesses of her
mind, making itself acutely and pesteringly present inside her.
There have been no tears for Leopold, not from her, and how could she possibly
have any? But she has been uncharacteristically calm, eerily accepting of Snow
crowding her room and asking for comfort, draining her of her energies and
claiming them for herself in her own dwelling. And yet Regina has been brimming
with brisk energy as well, anxious nervousness beating under her skin and
asking her for something, some form of action that Regina hasn’t allowed
herself. Here it is now, sobbing of uncomely tears cried not for her husband,
but for the girl she had once been, scared, small and young, pushed under an
old and looming body and refusing to cry, letting the wounds of violation
fester under hidden scabs, never quite scarring enough despite Regina’s best
efforts. She has spent years surviving to the best of her abilities; being
difficult and unaccommodating, making the king aware of his sins, causing
discomfort wherever she could, protecting her aching soul with contempt and
disdain, forcing herself to ignore the open bruises of an unwanted, possessive
hand. And yet the damage remains, forever etched into her underserving skin,
invisible lacerations that only now she can allow herself to grieve for. For
the king is dead, and with his rotting corpse lies Regina’s imprisonment.
Regina cries even when she doesn’t want to, allows herself the momentary
weakness in the awkwardness of Maleficent’s arms, so proficient when it comes
to passionate love and so very obviously discomfited in the role of comforting
confessor Regina has forced her into. It remains the most soothing remedy for
Regina’s ails, the crisp scent of Maleficent’s skin and the feel of her body
against hers, arms strong and breasts pushing against her own, hair ticklish
where it’s touching Regina’s neck, hot puffs of breath warm against the shell
of her ear, steady and permanent, holding her up when she feels as if her body
wants to completely give up on her, alleviating that which can’t be cured.
Time ticks by meaninglessly, the timeless quality of Maleficent’s fortress and
persona making Regina feel paralyzed in a slow-paced present where there is
nothing quite as important as the feel of Maleficent’s skin under her cheek. By
the time she moves back and finds the other woman’s eyes, she feels stuck in a
hazy and balm-like sensation of rest, her no longer falling tears having
drained her vitality away and making her wish for a bed to lie on, preferably
with Maleficent by her side, were she to indulge her in such a way.
Maleficent lifts up a hand to touch her, her fingers whisper-like as she traces
the contour of her cheek and the length of her lips, as if exploring forgotten
features. Her gaze remains focused, sharp and solid so it’s almost tangible,
and Regina can’t help but sway forward and press their lips together, hoping
that she won’t be rebuked. Maleficent owes her nothing, after all, particularly
after the way they parted, and it is presumptuous of her to ask for this, and
yet she does. They’re almost too still then, just lips against lips, no tongue
and hands resting motionless. Maleficent’s upper lip is curled against hers,
soft and supple and humid, and the tip of her nose brushes her cheek,
Maleficent’s slow, rhythmic breaths hitting her warmed up skin. It’s just
Maleficent’s mouth, but Regina feels the kiss all the way down to her toes.
Maleficent breaks away entirely too quickly, her lips drawing back with a soft
sound and leaving Regina with an almost tangible feeling of absence.
Maleficent smirks at her, and the gesture welcomes her usual demeanor back,
stealing away whatever awkwardness Regina may have provoked by unwittingly
asking for tender comfort from her. “I leave you alone for a few years and you
come back to me a blushing virgin?” she says, scoff present in her tone.
Regina laughs, this time with something that she could almost call joy, the
sound dying and becoming an unintentional whimper when Maleficent shapes her
lips around hers once again, devouring her mouth with relentless purpose,
tongue finding its way easily into Regina’s mouth, parted lips giving way to
breathy moans in between the small spaces left by passion. It’s familiar and
foreign at the same time, the taste of a lover that Regina hasn’t known for too
long but whose body once was as intimately well-known as her own, and she soaks
in the feeling, trying to dispel the carefulness they’re treating each other
with and the corrupt feeling she’d been assaulted with once she’d known herself
in a safe place.
Maleficent breaks away from her as abruptly as she’d assaulted her senses, and
then draws back from their embrace and walks towards her table, sitting by it
somewhat heavily. It seems to Regina that her movements are
uncharacteristically clumsy, but the thought is fleeting and quickly exchanged
for the lure of Maleficent offering her a seat with what would look like
remoteness to a stranger, but which Regina knows is as much of an invitation as
she’s going to receive. Regina sits in front of Maleficent, giving up entirely
on the dainty look of the lady she has never quite been and allowing herself to
give into her weariness by dropping her weight gracelessly against the back of
the comfortable chair. Maleficent seems content to stare at her then, and
Regina stares back defiantly, breathing more easily now and greedily soaking up
the long forgotten presence of the woman before her, who has been friend and
lover both, and never quite either of them. There is a sullen expression
marring features that remain the most breathtakingly beautiful Regina has ever
seen, and Regina wishes for a moment that Maleficent would give into her own
need for dramatics and explode into sudden tears, or perhaps anger and threats.
Regina knows better, though, understands now that they will move forward
without mentioning the past, Maleficent languidly ignoring whatever pain Regina
may have caused in the past with a rejection that she has sometimes wished she
hadn’t issued.
It seems that after their small emotional reunion, Maleficent isn’t willing to
give anything further, however, and so she conjures up her forgotten goblet and
takes a sip, making a show of being disinterested, vicious in her lack of
acknowledgement of Regina now. Regina puckers her lips at the sudden
stubbornness and with playful arrogance takes her chances by reaching forward
and plucking Maleficent’s goblet away from her lax fingers. Maleficent raises
an eyebrow, slightly entertained yet mildly irked, much like she usually is
when it comes to Regina, but smiles anyway when Regina takes a small sip of
whatever drink the cup may hold. It’s a light lemon liqueur and it tastes fresh
and tangy, pleasantly awakening Regina’s dormant buds. She licks her lips with
delight, and when Maleficent reaches back for the goblet, Regina lifts it away,
provoking the woman to lean closer to her until her woodsy scent is invading
Regina’s senses and her breath mingles with Regina’s own, their mouths resting
at a distance that begs to be closed. In this, Maleficent doesn’t provide,
letting herself fall back into her seat instead. She looks tired, Regina
realizes, the quality of her movement not her usual languid slowness but rather
something almost ungainly.
Regina frowns at that, but knowing better than to point out any possible sign
of weakness in Maleficent, she murmurs, whisper soft, “Mal…”
And then Maleficent moves, all signs of fragility gone in a second as she finds
Regina’s space again, crowds into it with the kind of magical agile swiftness
that never fails to leave Regina feeling dizzy. The jarring quality of the
motion catches her by surprise, and she yelps when she realizes Maleficent’s
hand is buried inside her hair, the tight coil of her bun failing to keep her
curls properly settled on her head when Maleficent pulls. Regina’s neck
stretches at Maleficent’s insistent and purposeful tug, and it is only when a
pained ahleaves her parted lips that Regina remembers the cut and the dried up
blood still staining her cleavage. Maleficent pulls once more as if to make a
point, and Regina shoots her hand out and wraps it tightly around her wrist,
glare shaping her eyes into a half lidded stare.
With slow purposefulness, as if she wishes for Regina to predict her movements
when just seconds before she’d been more than happy with unforeseen abruptness,
Maleficent reaches up with soft treading fingers and touches at the contours of
what must be an ugly gash by now. She prods carefully at the abused skin, and
when Regina hisses at the contact, she lifts a questioning eyebrow.
“I told you, some peasants tried to kill me,” Regina spits, scowl marring her
features. She’d almost managed to forget about the assault in the face of
Maleficent’s presence and her own breakdown, but the fury is still brimming
true and hot inside her chest.
She searches for Maleficent’s eyes when there’s no answer to her words, and she
finds them suddenly soft, deflated from viciousness and steadily alluring.
Regina wants to hide away from them with as much fierceness as she wants to
drown in them, to find in them the comfort that she has come searching for.
Maleficent’s gaze is careful but not pitying, and Regina sinks into the quietly
offered warmth, feeling more settled than she has in days, as if she’s finally
come home. The thought is horrifyingly captivating, and Regina remembers
exactly why she has spent the past few years shying away from the temptation of
Maleficent.
Unaware of whatever conflicting thoughts may be going through Regina’s mind,
Maleficent produces a white cloth that she carelessly dips into her goblet, so
it comes out damp with tangy smelling liqueur. Regina spies her intentions but
doesn’t stop her, instead allowing herself to be cleaned up with liqueur that
stings sharply when it touches the edges of her wound, and that leaves a strong
lemony scent of her skin. Maleficent is careful with her touches, tender in
that way that Regina has always craved from her, but stupendously arousing
nonetheless. Regina realizes she’s breathing jaggedly only once Maleficent is
done with her neck and is trailing the wet cloth down her collarbones and to
her chest, cleaning up the caked blood with ease. Regina bites her lip, liquid
heat unfurling in her belly and breathlessness gripping her chest.
Regina studies Maleficent as she takes entirely too long cleaning around her
wound, sees her clad in a light blue nightgown so old that the fabric is worn
thin and enticingly translucent. Half closing her eyes, Regina can guess at
Maleficent’s body under it, her breasts round and heaving, her nipples dark, a
patch of curls between legs so long that Regina suddenly can’t wait to have
them wrapped around her, consuming her with instinctual and basic need.
Maleficent looks bone-weary, though, the slow like molasses rhythm of her touch
somehow missing the determined control Regina had gotten so used to in the
past. She wonders at that, thinking that Maleficent’s gaze is
uncharacteristically unsteady and almost murky, as if she’s conscious enough
but dizzy nonetheless. Regina thinks that if she were to look at Maleficent’s
fingers, she would find the telling pricks of her drugged up needle. She’s
about to ask about whatever may have Maleficent in such a state, but she
realizes that she can hardly think straight when Maleficent gets rid of the
liqueur-soaked cloth and lets the tips of her fingers rest on the swell of her
breast, too soft to ignite her further but tempting enough that Regina can only
think more.She has bedded a fair amount of people in her years away from
Maleficent, but she has forgotten what it feels like to want someone with the
intensity that has heat pounding between her legs when they’re barely touching
at all. She feels suddenly too hot, and knows that if she were to touch her
hands to her cheeks, she would find herself flushed.
Maleficent smiles at her, moving her body towards her, shoulders and chest
shifting forward in a way that’s both menacing and welcoming, the dangerous
predator with a careful fondness for her prey. She ghosts her lips over her
cleavage, pressing a line of wet and small kisses to the swell of breasts where
they’re free of clothing, and Regina breathes slowly as she closes her eyes,
carding her fingers in Maleficent’s thick hair and keeping her in place. It
seems to her that her panting breaths are nothing but an effort to keep her
chest where Maleficent’s kisses can reach it, and she suddenly wishes herself
naked.
Maleficent stops yet again, though, moving back so that she can rest her weight
against her chair, and snagging her goblet back with a stubborn smirk.
“Eat something, you look ready to faint, and I don’t feel like carrying you to
bed unless you’re awake and moaning.”
Regina rolls her eyes, trying to make light of Maleficent’s words even when she
knows herself tired beyond belief. Now that she’s sitting, her muscles and
bones have started reminding her of her sustained injuries, bruising that she
has nearly managed to forget. Her flesh feels tender even when she suspects
nothing but a few bumps from having fallen to the floor, her right side almost
on fire and her ribs complaining, her hip and thigh pulsating steadily. She
wonders at the yellows and purples that she will surely find on her skin once
she removes her clothing and groans at the thought of a bath and a comfortable
bed, looking sharply in Maleficent’s direction, hoping that if she makes the
request for them it will be granted and shared. For now, she stares at
Maleficent’s full table, and frowns when she finds warmed wine with bread and
honey soaked in it, a robust meal usually reserved for painful recovery. She
looks at Maleficent through hooded eyes, and finding her gaze fixed upon the
fire, she chooses not to word her questions, and instead heats up the by now
cold concoction with a quick flick of her hand and eats a few bites that
thankfully fall wonderfully on her empty stomach.
“Have you gotten any rest at all lately?” Maleficent wonders suddenly, her tone
aloof and her eyes far away from Regina, as if she needs to hide herself away
lest she shows Regina any actual worry.
Regina twists her lips into an rueful smile as she answers, “With Snow hiding
herself away in my bedchambers? Hardly. I can’t wait to wrap my hands around
her thin neck and squeeze.”
Maleficent barks out a laugh at that, now looking at her with sharp focus, as
if appraising her in a different light. Regina hates her for it; she came here
to keep the scrutiny and judgment of the court away, not to be subjected to
further exploration from someone she wishes would look upon her with nothing
but burning desire.
“Are you still on about that?” Maleficent wonders. “There is nothing for you in
that path.”
“Revenge, Mal,” Regina answers, suddenly bristling. She has had this discussion
with the woman on more than one occasion, Maleficent claiming that her need for
revenge against Snow is petty and unnecessary, and Regina despises her for
being the sole witness to her breakdown and still trying to convince her that
she should stop now that she is so close to fulfilling her wishes.
Maleficent snorts, though, holding her goblet thoughtfully between her hands
and asking, “And then, what?”
Regina shrugs, non-committal. She is too tired to be angry, and she wishes
Maleficent would give her a reprieve, even when she knows better than to ask
for the impossible. “Then freedom, and power, and life, dear. I will not live
peacefully until Snow White has paid.”
There’s a sigh followed by a hiss then, something more animal than human taking
over when Maleficent stands up from her chair, even if her movement remains
uncharacteristically haggard. Regina studies her with careful eyes, wonders at
the strain that rests at the corner of her mouth as she walks towards her bed,
the dance-like walk that Regina has always loved now clunky and staggering. She
knows Maleficent is prone to brooding and drunkenness, but something about her
stumbling frame feels wrong, and Regina fights the urge to go to her so that
they can lie down together and rest.
“My darling, I do love your resilience, but people like us can’t possibly win.
The game is rigged, and not in our favor.”
“People like us?” Regina questions, turning sharply on her seat so that she can
look at Maleficent, watch her sit down at the edge of her bed and take a sip of
her ever-present goblet. The movement tugs at her side painfully, but she
ignores the bruise so that she can settle the weight of her stare on the other
woman.
Maleficent twirls her hand in the air, cavalier as she says, “The bad people.”
The comment throws her aback, a memory pushing at her and making her
unintentionally whisper, “Rumpel said I was bad.” Then, just as suddenly, “Why?
Why must they be virtuous and good and us bad?”
Maleficent looks at her as if her question is obvious and adamantly stupid, but
Regina glares back with sudden stubbornness. She stands up, steadier now on her
feet after eating and resting a while, cured of the mood that had so easily
conquered her when thinking of the wounds inflicted by Leopold. It seems to her
that everyone finds her the obvious villain in the story, her thoughts taking
her back to a tour across the kingdom that had crowned Snow as the virtuous and
kind ruler and her as the deathly and fearsome witch, twirling inside her head
as they scream how unjust the judgment is. After all, how could anyone condemn
her as villainous when all her nightmares are shaped in the bruises that
Leopold etched into her skin, when Daniel rests forever dead because of the
capriciousness of one girl, when she has hidden herself behind so many masks
that she has almost forgotten her own heart just to be approved of in a court
laced with the harshest of hypocrisies?
When Maleficent speaks again, her voice makes Regina flinch, even when it's low
and full of candor, ruefully understanding of Regina’s question. “We are the
witches, Regina, talking of destruction and pain.”
“And what about my pain?” Regina counters, the fire in her voice dying as the
questions lingers in the air between them, anger giving way to hopeless
melancholia, her own sorrow pulling at her until all she has left to wonder is,
“Is my pain less important than theirs?”
“Yes, my darling, yes it is.”
From anyone else, the statement would have been a source of anger, but the
quiet understanding on Maleficent’s tone deflates Regina, makes something
sickening and vile pool low in her belly, festering wounds that remain coldly
open making her sag unwittingly, forcing her to admit a single truth that she
has refused to accept for as long as she has lived – that’s she’s unimportant,
less, that her pain is easy to dismiss and insufficient to justify her anger,
that all she can aspire to is the favor of those she despises, and that she
owes to them to be the mild, willing servant that they desire. She revels
against the thought even as her fury shrinks and flattens at her feet, a decade
long fatigue making her wish she could give up. And were she someone else she
might, she may just take the silent offer of Maleficent’s eyes and bury herself
in the crook of her neck, hide away forever and wither in this forbidden
fortress, this haven for her wretched soul. She is too far gone to step back
now, though, the emptiness inside her too hollow and big for her to do anything
but move forward, hero or villain she doesn’t know, but righteous in her
purpose. You will endure,and if mother had ever taught her something then that
is that there is nothing that can possibly stop her if only she straightens up
her spine accordingly, lifts her chin with pride and doesn’t allow herself to
be distracted.
“Come on, let’s not fight,” Maleficent requests, the silence that has stretched
between them tense and discomfiting, strange when they have always been
comfortable in their quietness.
Regina shakes her head, not particularly sure whether she’s agreeing with
Maleficent’s request or whether she’s denying her. Still, obstinate, she says,
“It is not their game to win, not anymore.”
A pause lingers between them, a beat that lasts a moment too long, and then
Maleficent is laughing, something open yet raspy, full and rich in a way that
both perplexes Regina and fills her up with sudden warmth. It extinguishes
soon, and then Maleficent gives her a look full of mirth and carefully veiled
fondness, sensuous by virtue of its fervor.
“Do as it pleases you then, darling; kill your princess or let her live,” she
intones, shrugging slightly and turning her body towards her as she lifts up a
hand and leaves it in the air, quietly expecting to be filled with an equal.
“But let’s not fight you and I; it’s been too long.”
Regina understands the hidden message of Maleficent’s words, reads between the
lines and hears the naked admission that they will never speak to each other
but behind concealed uncertainties – I missed you, and despite mother’s lessons
and her own unwillingness to stand down, if Maleficent can allow herself such a
confession then Regina can pay back in kind, and bask in the relief of her if
only for a short time.
“Yes,” she replies, a soft smile tugging her lips upwards, genuine affection in
the gesture. “It has been far too long, dear.”
Regina walks towards where Maleficent is sitting on the bed and stands before
her, relishing, if only for a second, that she is the one looking down upon the
taller and always imposing woman. Maleficent gives her a smile, small, knowing
and wickedly enticing, and Regina sways towards her, hazy as her weight falls
forward and into Maleficent, her lips dry when they find the witch’s. Regina
suspects that Maleficent is more than a little drunk, and she can still taste
the remnants of the lemon liqueur at the back of her own mouth even when she
barely took a sip, as well as the hearty flavor of the spiced wine of the broth
she ate. She’s thankful that Maleficent made her eat even if just a bit,
feeling that she would collapse had she not, her own lethargy paired with the
shape of Maleficent’s lips under her own enough to permeate her head with a
pleasurably dizzy spell. Regina finds Maleficent’s shoulders yet again, looking
for support when Maleficent rests the tips of her fingers tantalizingly at the
top of her breast, where blood had stained her skin moments before.
Regina sits down then, next to Maleficent rather than on her lap, the fabric of
her skirt uncomfortably tight and not allowing her enough freedom of movement.
She berates herself for her choice of garment, even more so when she grabs
Maleficent’s hand and guides her to cup her breast through her clothes, her
thumb resting on the exposed flesh over her cleavage, and the feeling is too
unsatisfying over the hard material of her corset. Maleficent squeezes
knowingly until Regina whimpers, though, something like a squeaky complaint at
the amount of barriers still present between them. Regina despises the clingy
weakness present in her sounds, but she has been bereft of touch so comforting
and desired for too long, so rather than shy away from her neediness she moves
closer, bringing one hand to the back of Maleficent’s neck so she can keep her
firmly in their kiss. Maleficent smiles against her lips, but lets her get away
with her pushiness and presses her tongue into her mouth, deep, warm and
searching, coaxing Regina’s own to follow playfully.
Maleficent’s hand travels from her breast down to her bottom, purposefully
looking for the base of Regina’s spine, a desperately miraculous spot that
Daniel had found during one of their giggly, awkward and reckless evenings in
the stables, and that never fails to make Regina mewl with unwavering pleasure.
Maleficent had even made her climax just by biting at the spot on one occasion,
and Regina is suddenly thankful at being in the willing and experienced hands
of a known lover. Regina moves forward as Maleficent’s hands move down,
instinctually drawing closer and searching for long forgotten warmth. As she
leans down, her lips intent on drawing a careful line of kisses on the edge of
Maleficent’s cleavage, she rests her hand on Maleficent’s stomach, her barely
there touch enough to elicit an obviously pained hiss from the other woman.
Regina moves her hand back as if burnt, hazy heat momentarily clouding her so
she takes a moment before she can bring herself to break away from Maleficent’s
lips, particularly when Maleficent herself is not willing to let her go,
obviously wanting her to ignore whatever it is that may be hurting her.
“What it is?” Regina murmurs when she manages to keep her mouth away from
Maleficent’s, even if barely a breath separates them.
Maleficent twists her mouth disagreeably, but gives in with a tired sigh, as if
she knows that there’s no point in fighting Regina’s stubborn inquisitiveness.
“Nothing serious, my dear; Stefan and I like to get into a scuffle every once
in a while, for old time’s sakes.” Her tone is detached and remote, but Regina
reads the weariness behind it, and is reminded of the clumsiness she had spied
earlier in Maleficent’s movements.
Trying to distract her, Maleficent moves towards her with purpose, but Regina
rejects the advance easily, instead ghosting her hand over Maleficent’s
stomach, the fabric of her gown so rough that it makes her wrinkle her nose.
However cautious as her touch is, Maleficent flinches, the nails of the hand
she’s resting on Regina’s hip digging in harshly, as if punishing her in return
for the discomfort inflicted. Regina stops herself from tsk-ing disapprovingly,
and instead fixes Maleficent with a tenaciously determined gaze as she reaches
down and for the edge of her gown, so she can push her hand under the fabric.
Maleficent’s eyes suggest that she wants to protest, but under Regina’s
painstakingly slow approach she deflates and falls limply against her, huffy
even as she lets Regina travel up with her hand. Regina presses soft fingers to
the back of Maleficent’s calf, biting her lower lip when the skin under her
hand is nothing if not pliant, asking to be touched. Her hand glides up, taking
the fabric of the gown with it as she finds Maleficent’s thigh, her fingers
resting tantalizingly close to the curls between her legs before they keep
journeying up and up until finding the jagged edges of a barely scarred wound.
Regina traces the clumsily sewn skin, fingertips achingly attentive in the face
Maleficent’s obvious discomfort, and she discovers a wide and curvaceous cut
that crisscrosses with Maleficent’s old, thick scar. Her fingers prod precisely
and rigorously until they have learnt the curve of the wound perfectly, and her
lips find the skin of Maleficent’s neck to soothe while she explores. The skin
under her lips is satiny and smells sweet, her kisses barely there caresses
that Regina deepens only when Maleficent buries her hand in her tangled hair
and presses her closer, keeps her right where she is.
She wonders at Maleficent’s statement, her old feud with King Stefan something
that Regina knows so little about. It has always been the case with them,
Regina the one to speak her mind, to unveil her truths while Maleficent
remained silent while lending a half bored, half amused yet attentive ear. It’s
odd, Regina thinks, how well she knows this woman but how little she knows
about her, about her story and the truth behind her brooding and willing
imprisonment behind the walls of this fortress. And if her own story is
anything to go by, then Regina knows better than to trust the rumors that
surround Maleficent’s legend.
Rather than ask further about the fresh cut, knowing that she will get nothing
but shrugged shoulders and an unwillingness to answer, Regina chooses to
provide comfort as best as she knows how to, considering the relief being
offered back. After all, Regina notices that her own shoulders are relaxed when
her whole frame has been tense for days, and she feels impossibly warm all
over, her skin tingling even at the smallest of Maleficent’s touches.
Regina leaves her exploration of the wound and rests her hand on Maleficent’s
hip instead, relishing the feel of skin rather than fabric, and moves her mouth
up to claim Maleficent’s yet again in a kiss that turns abruptly desperate, as
if the time they have spent apart and without tasting each other is suddenly
unthinkable and jarringly unnatural. She sinks into the kiss, whimpers when she
bites a plump lower lip before pushing in tongue first, parting a willing mouth
that promises insurmountable warmth.
There is no stopping after that, not when Regina’s head feels woozy after the
simplest of kisses, and when it’s so very easy to keep moving her hand up until
Maleficent’s gown is completely gone and the long expanses of her skin are
before her, marred by wounds but intoxicatingly beautiful. She touches her
softly, carefully, and Maleficent grunts at the frustrating fragility of
Regina’s hands, demanding harder caresses that Regina refuses her just to wind
her up.
“My darling, if you weren’t as tempting as you are frustrating–”
But Regina doesn’t let her finish her words, kissing her instead with the
buried longing of their years of separation, with the unmitigated hunger that
has brimmed under her skin ever since Maleficent branded her with her touch and
made every other seem lacking by simple contrast. They kiss long and hard,
Regina prolonging the moment even when she feels on fire, her whole skin
tingling and wet arousal pooling low on her belly, creamy between her legs. In
the end, she only ever stops when Maleficent threatens to rip her dress apart,
complaining that the collar is bound to end up poking her eye out, as if she’d
ever needed an excuse to carelessly dispose of Regina’s clothes. Back when
they’ve had a steady affair, Regina had spent more money than ever in new
outfits, Maleficent’s proclivity for doing away with fine fabrics one that
she’d secretly enjoyed. Rather than let her destroy this one, though, Regina
leaves her side and fights her own dress until she’s completely disrobed and
standing by the bed, the already greenish bruising on the side of her torso,
her back and leg looking worse than it actually feels.
They tumble to the bed delicately, though, mindful of their bruising even when
their hands turn feverish and rushed in their touch. They should be sleeping
their wounds away rather than tangling into each other like this, but they have
never been entirely too inclined to common sense when it came to each other, so
instead Regina lets Maleficent rest her weight above her, pressing their bodies
together chest to chest and hips to hips, so that they can kiss and touch with
ease. It’s not their more coordinated effort, and the grunts and whimpers that
fill the room sometimes come from a painful jab at aching flesh rather than
from a pleasurable touch, but it hardly matters – not when Maleficent’s fingers
find her wet and pulsing and push inside mercilessly, when the instinctual
rocking motion of her body has their nipples meeting each other in insistent
brushes, when they’re so desperate for kisses that they keep bringing their
lips together even when they’re breathless. Regina holds onto Maleficent’s hip
to keep her steady for a second, and then cups between her legs with her free
hand for a minute, teasing at her clit with the heel of her hand as she slips
inside her, three curled fingers just the way she likes. Like this, inside each
other, they form a complete circle, pleasure, heat and soft moaning conquering
the room around them and making it feel impossibly intimate, all the more when
Maleficent’s forehead rests against her own and the curtain-like fall of her
hair around them hides everything but her diluted blue eyes from her sight.
Regina bites her lower lip, notices a secret smile curving it up, giddy with
the shared heat of their bodies, and when Maleficent kisses that smile away,
Regina hears the silent hellocovered in desperate caresses, the mute
confessions that they make with flesh and moans.
Regina rolls her hips more insistently when she notices pleasure chasing at
her, travelling down her spine and curling heavily at its base, trailing soft
and steady spikes all the way around her hips and to her belly. Her mouth parts
on a moan, and her hand moves from Maleficent’s hip and to the roundness of her
buttocks, her nails digging into the cool skin there as if to force her to stay
right where she is, with her fingers deep inside Regina and now simply
scratching rhythmically to the cadence of her hips. Regina closes her eyes
tightly and speeds up her own pace between Maleficent’s legs, the thankful
grunt that follows causing a smile that is only stopped from fully blossoming
when cresting bliss hits her, warm, slow and enduring, her thighs trembling
with the effort even as she rides it out until the last embers die down,
leaving her boneless enough that she’s grateful when Maleficent’s peak follows
closely behind, and has the witch dropping all her weight on top of Regina.
Maleficent’s body, taller than hers and cumbersome in its lackadaisical rest,
feels ridiculously delightful covering her own, even when they’re both clammy
with sweat and breathing unsteadily, hot puffs of air from Maleficent’s pants
caressing her neck. Regina holds her right where she is for a moment, and then
finds herself laughing unsteadily, a surge of lightheaded giddiness making her
feel alive. Maleficent, who is laughing right along with her, manages to move
back enough so that they can lock eyes, and the mirth that Regina is faced with
only heightens the dizzy madness of her recovery from pleasure.
Maleficent, her face an exquisite mix of flushed cheeks, wicked half smile and
with the crimson of Regina’s lips staining her mouth, gives her one hard, solid
kiss, as if trying to prove a point, and then simply says, “Hello to you too,
my darling.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina wakes up from her slumber when her stomach grumbles appreciatively and
noisily, as if neglected. When she first opens her eyes, she finds herself
disoriented for a second, the first lights of the sun coming up on what is
bound to be a grey day confusing her until she notices the cold lump pressed
languidly on top of her stomach, and her own fingers tangled in soft yet
knotted hair. She blinks owlishly and bites back a smile, waking up next to
Maleficent a rare enough occurrence that she can’t help herself. Even when
their meetings had been regular and desperately needy, Maleficent had never
been too keen on sharing her bed for activities other than hearty lovemaking,
and Regina had always reproached her when she’d refused her the comfort of a
dreamless embrace. After all, despite the number of people she has bedded,
Regina hasn’t done a whole lot of post-coital bed-sharing, not in the least
because she never actually shared a bed with Daniel.
Maleficent had been drunk last night, though, and the cut marring her torso is
uglier than Regina had suspected, and probably more painful than Maleficent
will ever confess. Whatever scuffle with Stefan she’d had, as she’d put it, had
probably been more of a vastly extended battle, but Regina has no hopes that
Maleficent will find it in herself to share the story. She hadn’t been one to
share a few years back and that particularly irritating disposition hasn’t
changed; proof enough had been last night, when Maleficent had prodded Regina
into speaking of her own affairs as she laid lazy kisses around her bellybutton
and teasingly close to the apex of her thighs, distracting her skillfully
enough that Regina had easily complied. Perhaps, and if she’s honest with
herself, she’d simply wanted to rant and rage carelessly, Maleficent giving her
the priceless freedom of not having to mind her words.
Thus, Regina had spoken of a queen she had bedded and killed in a fragile
moment of ire, of a plague that had consumed her and forced her to throw every
other concern aside, and which had given her the ultimate chance to rule her
kingdom. She’d spoken of Snow getting sick, of her pact with Rumpelstiltskin
and the death of Prince Bernard, a little soul so deserving of life that Regina
still avoided thoughts of him as best as she could, so as not to add grief to
her own heartbroken despair. She’d talked of an ungrateful kingdom, too, her
words whispered yet furious, ramblingly intense until they had ultimately died
when she’d noticed Maleficent’s breathing steady with sleep, her palm
outstretched over the fading scar on Regina’s belly, strangely protective.
As the morning lights up the room, Regina considers leaving Maleficent and
going back to the palace, knowing fairly well that yesterday’s wake will be on
everyone’s tongue, and that she should perhaps make an appearance. She’s not
particularly sure of how she’s going to deal with the discovery of her magic,
though, and truth be told, she feels extremely relaxed and disconsolate at the
idea of leaving so soon. She’s hungry as well, so she chooses to start her day
with an early breakfast that she may just convince Maleficent to share with
her. That idea in mind, she disentangles herself carefully from the other woman
and rather than put back her own dress, covers herself with one of Maleficent’s
robes. It’s ridiculously long on her and the fabric, cheap to begin with, has
been roughened up by too much use, but it’s big and warm and smells like some
kind of foreign herb, making Regina feel comforted by it.
Regina walks through the corridors of Maleficent’s fortress with ease and prior
knowledge, her presence unsurprising to the few guards Maleficent keeps around.
It had always seemed silly to Regina, considering that the dragon witch is far
more threatening than any of these trained humans can ever hope to be, but then
Regina supposes there is something comfortable about not having to do all the
work. She reaches the kitchens soon enough, and is comforted when she finds a
familiar face behind the heavy wooden doors, Maleficent’s ever faithful cook
Leonor welcoming her with something of an awry smile.
“Long time no see, m’lady,” Leonor mumbles, something like reproach in her
harsh tone. “Good to know there’s someone here to take care of her illustrious
hard-headedness; coming back home with her guts hanging out and not wanting to
eat like she should. Don’t let her get away with it, m’lady.”
Regina leaves the kitchens with a tray laden with breakfast, an extracted
promise to force-feed Maleficent if necessary, and a smile. Regina has always
liked Leonor, her rough way with words and her coarse m’ladysdenoting a less
than privileged background, but her gruff mother-like behavior endearing her to
Regina in delightful ways. There is something in the woman that reminds Regina
of old Master Clive, and the memory of the unpolished yet kind master of the
stables never fails to bring warmth to her, the nostalgia of a time that had
been simpler, when she still hadn’t known that her feelings for Daniel were
anything like love, and when Master Clive had been the one generous hand she
had known. He had bid her be happy and strong on his deathbed, and the thought
that she may be failing on both accounts sometimes gnaws at her.
Maleficent is reticent to eat her breakfast, but she eventually concedes, if
only to, as she so succinctly puts it get your pretty mouth to be quiet.They
share soft bread and jam, as well as some juicy dates which Regina enjoys
especially, having not had any for as long as she’s been away from Maleficent.
The morning finds the witch morose, though, her hand unconsciously wandering to
her own stomach and resting there for a second before moving away, as if
wanting to keep the memory of her wound away. Regina relates easily to the
feeling, but prods Maleficent for an explanation, ending up thoroughly
surprised when Maleficent grants one, if short and to the point, her voice
emotionless and her words biting.
“I got bored,” she says. “Paid a visit to the queen, saw her weep for her
sleeping daughter. The king wasn’t happy.” She shrugs, uncomfortable to the
point where the sneer touching her lips makes her look ugly, or at least as
ugly as someone possessing Maleficent’s beauty can ever possibly be.
Regina twists her mouth at the lack of answers provided in the small
confession, wonders why it is so important to her that Maleficent speaks of her
wounds. Perhaps it’s because she’d been so inadvertently secure in her speech
last night, when she’d given herself the role of the villain in a game that she
had referred to as rigged. Maleficent has been discouragingly weary for as long
as Regina has known her, completely abandoned in the face of a world that she
had stopped fighting long ago, having given up the idea of being more than what
she already is, and there must be something in her past that has made her
capitulate to the unfairness of it all, that keeps making her wish Regina would
bow out of her own fight as well.
“She looked old, you know?” Maleficent says all of a sudden, her gaze lost
somewhere in the ceiling and a forgotten piece of bread between her fingers.
Strawberry jam coats her skin, and Regina hates that the thought of the gooey
treat will forever remind her of too many a night spent in a dark cellar. The
memory is easier to ignore this time when Maleficent clarifies, “Briar Rose,
she looked old, desperate, so tired.”
A rueful smirk mars Maleficent’s expression, something dark and primal that
makes her look like the dragon that she is. Regina smiles at her, for as much
as Maleficent insists on moping agony, there is obvious delight at the thought
of the suffering of her old enemy.
“What did she ever do to you?” Regina wonders, leaning forward and into
Maleficent’s space, hoping to bring her attention back to her. It does the
trick, Maleficent’s eyes finding hers and then moving unsubtly to the open gap
of her gown, most of her body visible through it.
“She didn’t love me enough,” Maleficent confesses, a sigh of vulnerability in
her that lasts but a second before she turns the conversation towards Regina,
easily hiding herself once again. “Your princess loves you, though.”
“She loves the person she believes me to be,” Regina answers thoughtlessly, the
words falling easily from her lips with no doubt present in her tone.
“But you love her.”
Regina laughs at the implication, shakes her head even when Maleficent is
looking at her with as much seriousness as she can muster. The thought is
preposterous and painful, and Regina is sure Maleficent means to hurt her with
it, her disposition growing vicious when confronted with her own set of issues.
“Don’t you dare, Mal,” Regina answers, simple and quiet, avoiding the hidden
and crooked truths of Maleficent’s words.
Maleficent ignores her easily, though, a one shoulder shrug speaking of
insolent disapproval and her eyes boring into Regina as if wanting to look into
her soul. It’s not her usual predatory gaze, but rather bottomless pits of blue
wanting to brand Regina with understanding, whispering unwanted veracity in the
corners of her mind. Regina stands up swiftly, turns her back to Maleficent’s
knowing stare and hugs her arms around herself, closing the too big robe around
her body as if to keep the cold away. She came here looking for someone who
could look at her and care for her even when staring at her true broken and
jagged reality, someone who could look upon her with fondness when she is being
nothing but furious determination, and she hates that the fact that Maleficent
can do exactly that also means that she can see past it all and into the
deepest recesses of her heart.
“Enough of that now, come on. Come here, little girl.”
Regina looks back with a grin on her lips and a twitching eyebrow, finding
herself unable to remain serious when Maleficent smiles at her with mirth
settled on the curve of her lips. She walks to her and stands before her, a
protest dying on her lips when long-fingered hands touch at her arms until
she’s uncrossing them, and then push her robe open yet again, exposing her to
hungry eyes. Maleficent’s hands tread carefully over her skin, fingertips
pushing at the tender flesh at the edges of her by now purple bruises, running
them ticklishly light over her sensitive skin when Regina hisses at the touch.
“And what now, Your Majesty? What is the next big plan?” Maleficent asks,
swiftly stopping any answer Regina may have provided by leaning forward to
press the softest of kisses on her breast bone, her hands leaving bruised skin
to travel to the underside of her breasts.
Regina stops her with a laugh, bringing her hands to Maleficent’s cheeks and
pulling her face up until they’re looking into each other’s eyes. Maleficent’s
eyes seem to twinkle, amused blue staring back at her, and Regina feels light,
lighter than she has felt in years.
“Now, dear, Snow White dies, and I live happily ever after.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina’s return to the palace is strangely quiet, the truth of her magical
powers somehow failing to make as much of an impact as she had foreseen. The
people of the kingdom had already been convinced of her witchy condition, after
all, and the members of the court are either happily ignoring what they saw and
choosing to discuss the disgraceful attack she was victim of, or simply
abandoning the premises and going back to their homes. Regina finds herself
more glad for the latter group than for the former, whose insistence on
bewildered disregard forces her into a game of soft smiles and shared denseness
that she would rather avoid altogether. She does, mostly, fairly convinced that
the palace will be free of noblemen in very little time. After all, even those
who insist on blind unintelligence are obviously discomfited by her, if not
scared. This suits Regina perfectly, since her plans include a palace free of a
forever changing court surrounding her and watching her every move – from now
on, she will receive only those she must see on business, and have her palace
only inhabited by servants and guards.
Surprisingly enough, most of the council stands strong behind her, both the
Military Advisor and the Treasury Master becoming her most vocal supporters,
the first one even unexpectedly interested in her magical prowess. It’s both
invigorating and satisfying in an emotional way that Regina wouldn’t have
guessed at, this council that she has so worked to own being truly hers without
prodding or pushing, shaping itself around her new figure as true queen and
leaving the memory of the king behind with such uncompromised ease. Regina is
glad, too, for as much as she wishes she could rule by herself, she’s not so
arrogant as to believe herself in no need for advice and experienced knowledge
on certain subjects.
Despite the rueful thankfulness she feels for her council, there are certain
matters than only she herself is privy to, namely, her plans to remove Snow
from her life once and for all. The princess has been quietly supportive of
her, hiding whatever fear Regina may have instilled in her with her uncanny
ability to ignore that which upsets her and skews her view of the world, but
Regina knows that there is no possible way in which they can possibly go back
now, not when Regina has wished Snow dead for a decade, and when Snow has been
given a glimpse of Regina’s ill-intentioned soul. They are irreparably broken,
Snow’s faith in her gone and buried under Regina’s harshness, and if Regina had
a hard time dealing with Snow’s demeanor before, the forced smiles that she
bestows upon her these days, as well as the obvious distance she keeps between
them at all times only manage to grate on her nerves even more.
She’s irritable, she knows, whatever lightness visiting Maleficent may have
inspired in her already gone, each day that Snow remains within the palace next
to her only managing to drive her madder. She has waited too long for this, and
so a month after the king’s death, Regina finds a huntsman who cares more for
animals than he does humans, and bids him kill Snow White, foregoing games and
plots in exchange for quiet and quick efficiency. If she has to pretend grief
over the princess’ death later then she will do as she must, but for her death
she chooses tried and true cruelty, the hands of an unknown man carving out her
heart, much like Leopold had cut her own on their wedding night, much like
mother had crushed Daniel's in spite of Regina’s pleas and tears.
For days now, Regina has been sending one of her guards with Snow whenever the
princess has chosen to take a walk through the state, arguing that the king’s
death as well as the attack she herself suffered are reasons enough to keep her
well-guarded. There is no difficulty, then, in putting the huntsman in her
preferred black garb and make sure he’s the one trailing Snow this afternoon.
Regina figures that it is only her luck that has made Snow prone to long and
slow strolls ever since her father’s death.
Unknown wishes that Regina chooses not to examine too closely, lest she finds
herself loosing herself in unwanted sentimentality, have her setting up a meal
for both herself and the princess on the late morning of the day Snow is bound
to die. She makes sure the table is filled with Snow’s favorite dishes; soft
fish steamed in banana leaves, which Regina has always found too bland; okra
stew with cheese and ham, hearty, strong and fulfilling, a dish that father
always insisted on having during the coldest nights of winter; potato omelet
cooked with big pieces of onion, which Regina remembers Snow had looked at with
trepidation the first time she’d tried it, only to smile widely after the first
taste; apple tart made with fruit from Regina’s tree, which she had hand-picked
herself; and warm, honeyed wine to help pass the strong meal. It’s a dream
table, set for two, and Regina wonders why she has chosen food as her last
goodbye to Snow, wonders if mother’s old words – families must eat together,
dear– still ring true to her heart.
They eat in silence, and the food, though spectacularly delicious, falls ill on
Regina’s stomach. She’s sitting ramrod straight, and her corset feels
unwaveringly tight around her torso, the whip-like ponytail her hair is combed
into too heavy on her head, and the morsels of food she’s taking too dainty.
She wants to dig into the meal with manic ease, big pieces and dirty hands,
something savage crawling in her chest as she looks at Snow, her own hands
delicate and slow, pale and beautiful and lady-like in their movement,
gracefully natural where Regina’s own hands feel crotchety, jerky and stiff.
She’s tense, every pore of her skin anxious, and she wonders at herself, at her
own wishes to torture herself with this last meal.
Snow only ever stops eating once the last piece of tart is polished, her mouth
clean of the glossy pastry and her tongue chasing the last bit of flavor away
from her lips. Regina thinks that perhaps it would have been kinder of her to
poison the girl, so that she could die with the sweet flavor of apples on her
tongue.
“Regina, I–I just…” Snow says after a moment of quietness, one which Regina has
used to stare at her with a heavy gaze, and which has Snow squirming
skittishly. She doesn’t manage to say anything, though, the words dying in her
throat as she looks at Regina with wide eyes, silently begging her to
understand whatever it is she wishes to say. Regina guesses that she wants to
apologize, much like she has been trying to do for the past few weeks, to
excuse herself for daring to look at Regina with fear clouding her gaze. Snow
isn’t made for falsehood though, and she can hardly fake an apology that she
feels untrue in her heart. Regina wants to laugh at her, mock her for turning
Regina into the best of liars when she has to keep her tongue at bay from
spilling anything but the truth.
Regina licks her lips with delight, the last of her wine now gone and her
stomach much too heavy, but her spirit soaring at the thought of years of
struggle coming to an end. She says, “Dear, why don’t you go on and walk about
the state for a while now? I have a council meeting to attend soon.”
Snow concedes easily, nodding at her and hiding her eyes away as she stands,
ruffling fabrics accompanying her every move. She has been wearing nothing but
the purest of whites lately, a stark contrast to the ghoulish blackness she had
preferred before, and she looks almost too perfect, the story-like
representation of everything a princess must be, young, regal yet sweet, with
enough spirit to be of interest yet mild enough to understand her place, and
the whole picture of her disgusts Regina. Regina, who even as a child had been
too dark, had needed harsh lessons beaten into her skin to make her into a
proper lady, and even then had remained an imperfect reflection in the mirror.
Snow stops by the door before she leaves, something ethereal in the image of
her as she stands unmoving at the threshold of Regina’s chambers – skin as
white as snow, lips as red as blood, hair as black as ebony, and truly the
fairest of them all.
“Regina, would you walk with me today?” she wonders, voice soft and eyes
unwaveringly clear as they stare into Regina’s.
Regina frowns, bristles as she answers, “Did you not hear me? The council
meet–”
“Walk with me anyway,” Snow interrupts, harsh, desperation crawling into her
tone like Regina has never heard before.
All of Regina’s instincts clamor for her to accept, to bend to Snow’s will as
she has done for so many years now, to play into her role like the good little
queen she is, but then, what would her huntsman think if he were to see them
walking together, and what would her heart feel like as it shriveled and died
in the face of such cowardice?
“No, my dear Snow, not today.”
Snow crosses the distance separating them then, quick steps that bring her back
into the room and closer to Regina than she has been in weeks. She snags
Regina’s hand between both of her own, the touch forceful and her fingers
squeezing tight, as if suspecting that Regina may want to escape it. She leans
close just as precipitously, the flurry of her movement only pausing once she’s
pressed her cheek against Regina’s, the touch not quite a kiss, and yet
unbearably intimate. Snow smells sweet, of apple juice and the honey from the
wine they’d both drunk, and Regina’s free hand shakes at the invasion, her
thumb wanting to press hard and painfully against her other palm just to calm
her abruptly awoken senses. She can’t, though, not when Snow is still holding
her one hand captive, trapped under a persistently abiding grip, and Regina
thinks of restraining hands holding her wrists like the most cumbersome of
shackles, mother’s, Leopold's and even Rumpelstiltskin’s, and she finds herself
breathless.
“Regina, I do love you,” Snow mutters quietly against her ear, the skin of her
cheek so soft that if Regina closes her eyes very tight, she may just be able
to pretend that she isn’t there.
Regina swallows hard, thinks of words spoken in the shelter of Maleficent’s
embrace, of a love much too poisoned from its very beginning to have an ending
other than her death or that of the princess. And Regina is selfish, proud and
much too tired to pretend that she would ever lay her own life for her false
daughter, her unaware enemy, her pervasive nightmare. Mother taught her better,
after all, and if Regina wishes to do away with her masks and personas, if she
wishes to be angry, strong and decisive in front of this world that has
rejected her so, then Snow White must die – and if the world refuses to love
her regardless, then it will burn and join its chosen princess.
Softly, slowly, as if dealing with a small and frightened animal, Regina
presses her free hand to Snow’s, the pads of her fingers gentle as she
disengages herself from her. She moves with precision, hands to Snow’s
shoulders now so that she draws back, the warmth of her body leaving Regina’s.
Her eyes are red-rimmed, tragic in their depth and ruining her angel-like
features, unshed tears blotching her cheeks with crimson too deep. Snow looks
ugly in her misfortune, and perhaps that is the reason for the world to grant
her such effortless unhappiness.
“I know, dear,” Regina answers, her voice steady and her fingers digging hard
on the fabric of Snow’s dress, fearing that they will tremble otherwise. “But
it is time for your walk now, and I must leave you.”
Snow says nothing, but still looks at Regina for a moment longer. She can’t
possibly know that Regina is sending her to her death, and yet the weary
sadness written in her features makes Regina wonder. WouldSnow die willingly
then, would she walk to her death with tears in her eyes and a last love
confession? Has Regina failed her so utterly that she has grown up to be so
weak? Or has Snow inherent goodness finally condemned her to her demise? It’s
hardly important anymore, not when Snow snags a last quick kiss to Regina’s
cheek, a touch so light that it makes a tender part of Regina’s insides hurt
with unbidden emotion, and then walks away from the room without throwing
another look back, a hidden and murderous huntsman behind her.
Regina breathes in slowly once she’s gone, and she exhales shakily. Despite her
best efforts, her hands are shaking, small tremors crawling up her arms as if
she were cold, begging her to hug her own frame and shrink, to make herself
smaller until she is but a ball of exploding emotion. She doesn’t give into the
wish, though, chases it away from her head with determination, and stills her
hands by forming tight fists, digging long nails into her palms until she’s
sure there will be crescent moons shaped into the sensitive skin. She stands up
then, her movements fast and instinctual as she straightens her spine, feeling
the knots uncoiling the muscles at her back, welcoming strong tension into her
body. She lifts her chin, caresses a hand down her elongated neck and heaving
chest, feeling if not like the lady that she never quite managed to be, then as
the powerful and savage beast that she has become. She smirks at the thought,
knowing that the expression suits her well, full lips painted a deep plum, and
then she trudges away from the room, steps heavy and purposely strident, the
clack of too high heels announcing her presence, and the black train of her
dress trailing behind her.
 
Chapter End Notes
     (1) But it is true that you are beautiful, cielo.
     (2) I didn't make this up, this is actually a popular folk tale
     called "La Llorona" (The Crying Woman), which has a version in almost
     every Spanish-speaking country. The most ancient version comes from
     Mexico, but this particular reincarnation is the one told in
     Venezuela.
***** Part VI *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW2: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW3: Mentions of past miscarriage. Also, this part deals with the
     canon events of "Mother" (4x20), where Regina takes a potion to make
     herself barren.
     TW4: The farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil Queen
     tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence and abuse; a little
     more violent than canon, actually.
     -
     AN: um... Robin Hood? Does that need a warning? Any case, I have a
     few commentaries regardidng a couple of characters (Robin and
     Graham), that I'll add at the end notes, in case anyone is interested
     in my ramblings.
     Thank you everyone who has stayed here, btw, and thank you for the
     interest you've shown in the past few weeks. I'm sorry this update
     took so long, but as I told some of you, my parents visited for about
     a month, so I've been consumed by work and family, because I only get
     to see mom and dad a couple of times a year. Hopefully next updates
     will be more regular and frequent!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Regina turns twenty-nine and not for the first time, she forgets if not for
father’s congratulations and gift, a small heart-shaped locket that is probably
cheaper than any of the jewelry she possesses, but that manages to be lovelier
nonetheless. Regina yanks it from father’s hands carelessly, though, spitefully
upset at being reminded of the passing of time, and only stops herself from
snapping when father flinches at the jerkiness of her movements.
She has spent her afternoon outside, observing the training of her latest
recruits by the side of the Military Advisor, who had spent hours droning on
about ogre attacks in some forgotten part of the kingdom, and had kept going
even when a storm had broken the sky above them, cold and heavy water covering
them from head to toe in mere seconds. The troops had kept up with their
training, and Regina had stood by them with the air of someone simply not
bothered by something as unimportant as the weather. As it is, she’s drenched,
cold, and she has been tracking mud through the palace in a way that has her
wincing irritably, hating that the bottom of her coat is ruined beyond repair
and that she keeps expecting mother’s figure to appear from behind every corner
she crosses, ready to reprimand her for her carelessness.
Regina deflates easily, however, the irritation clouding her mind leaving her
in slow strokes when father whispers quietly, “Happy birthday, cielo.” His tone
is soft and careful, as if he expects her to snarl at him.
And, Regina admits, the thought isn’t completely inaccurate, not when the past
few months have seen Regina at her most mercurial, placid in tense-inducing
situations while angry in seemingly quiet moments. Locket in hand and father’s
eyes before her, though, Regina’s strain diminishes as she allows herself to
inspect the thoughtful present, a memento of time moving forward even when
Regina sometimes believes herself to be stuck in a repetitive moment. It’s
golden brass, the chain long yet light, and her name is engraved surrounded by
floral patterns, cursive letters thin and elegant, reminiscent of father’s own
beautiful calligraphy. Regina smiles, thinking of the many gifts father has
given her through the years – books and small jewelry, a pocket mirror and a
beautifully delicate music box – all of them managing to have her name
somewhere on them, as if father is trying to steadfastly remind her of who she
is. Two fathers, one real and one magical, and both obsessed with the power of
names; Regina would laugh at the irony if only there was any pleasure in
pitting father against Rumpelstiltskin, and in finding the former lacking.
“Thank you, daddy,” she says, her own voice soft for what feels like the first
time in months, her plight under the rain almost forgotten when father pulls
her into his warm embrace, never mind her soaked clothes or her wet and curling
hair uncomfortably plastered to her forehead and the back of her neck.
After a short, warm bath and exchanging her riding clothes for a more informal
set of nightwear and a thick robe, Regina allows herself to sit down for a calm
moment to enjoy dinner with father. With her hair uncoiled and loose resting
down her back, the soft smelling scent of lavender now clinging to it, and her
skin warmed by the too hot water, she feels almost light, enough that the lemon
tart father has ordered from the kitchens and pushed onto her plate makes her
smile, the gesture small yet genuine.
Outside, the rain is pouring down mercilessly, the pattering of it against the
windows heavy and rhythmical, and almost managing to lull Regina into an early
sleep. She enjoys the stormy weather, the crackling fire inside her bedchambers
all the more inviting when the sky is punishing the earth outside, something
cozy and intimate settling around her and father as they linger by the table,
sharing a cupful of wine and staring outside, as if too fascinated by the
raindrops touching the glass of the windows intermittently.
If not for the constant sound of water falling, the palace would be completely
silent, devoid now of the ever-present court that had inundated the hallways
and chambers during Leopold’s reign. Regina supposes there is an eeriness to
it, something ghostly taking over what had always been an open-door haven for
whoever wished to visit, a privilege that many had abused over the years.
Regina had hated being surrounded by people almost from the start, though, and
as soon as she had become the sole ruler of the land, she had made a point of
emptying the palace of court members she had no use for, and who insisted on
scrutinizing her every action, much more so now that she refuses to quench her
own instincts and play to their tastes. She has spent years changing herself to
make others comfortable, and if only within the protected walls of her home,
she will never do such a thing again. Her own demeanor had been enough to drive
most noblemen away, her sudden outbursts and her wielding of magic no longer
something to be ignored, and something about her eyes set on a permanent glare
speaking of a hidden savagery that they had all wanted to escape. Baroness
Irene had remained the longest, of course, puffing her chest out and claiming
knowledge of Regina’s truths to the very end, trying to ingratiate herself to
Regina to the point of exhaustion.
“Well, my darling,” the baroness had exclaimed one afternoon, fingers holding
tight to a cup of tea and eyes nervous, but tone never betraying any tension as
she continued, “You have lost your husband and the princess has… never mind,
Your Majesty, the baroness is here and will always be here for you.”
And in another time, with a bumbling husband and a tiresome step-daughter
hanging by her arm and pulling her down to the ground, Regina would have clung
to the baroness’ words; she might have even appreciated the sentiment. In that
particular afternoon, though, free of charges and with her mind more
preoccupied with the organization of stronger border patrols than with catering
to Baroness Irene’s ego, something in Regina had snapped, and she had spoken
words that she had kept tightly wrapped around her throat for years, her voice
sharp as knives. She had called the baroness irritating, vapid, pointless and
stupid,and had gleefully watched her eyes grow bigger and bigger with every new
epithet, her cheeks draining of color and her mouth parting in astonished
horror. Regina had pettily enjoyed every second of what must have surely felt
like humiliating torture for the woman, relishing her final liberation from
this inconsequential baroness that she had been forced to fawn over for years
in order to please a court that had considered her opinion and favor of more
importance than Regina’s own. The baroness had abandoned the premises that very
same night, a last plea getting lost in the air as Regina’s expression was
taken over by an easy smirk. Once elation had left Regina, a sense of peaceful
delight had remained, the baroness somehow managing to represent everything
that she had hated about life at court – loyalty provided only on the promise
of mild mannerisms and wide-eyed demureness, friendship offered only in
exchange for the privilege of whispering firsthand gossip to every willing ear.
The baroness had taken her brother with her in her escape, too, good old Baron
Edgar who had once granted Regina entry into the council and who had made a
granddaughter out of her. Regina had never minded him much, his golly attitude
almost charming, but she hadn’t cared for him enough to regret his parting, or
even to fill his vacated council seat.
The parting of the court but for the families and members of the council has
drowned the palace in quietness, foreign if not unpleasant. The constant buzz
of moving people, of meals being prepared, of carriages arriving and leaving
and of voices filling rooms is gone, giving way to a vast silence that Regina
can’t help but relish, her senses feeling suddenly liberated from the
cumbersome and steady trickle of distracting noise around her. The uncanny lull
of the palace should be preoccupying, but Regina feels as if she can breathe
openly now in every room and hallway, as if she can finally stop containing
herself. Tonight, celebrating a lonely birthday with father, perhaps the only
true family she has ever had, she allows the quietude to calm her senses and
silence her thoughts. It isn’t long before the noiselessness is broken with
abrupt precision, though, the crying howl of a wolf managing to drown the sound
of the rain and invade the placid stillness of the room.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I should have killed that wolf when I had the chance,”
Regina mutters, eyes that she had inadvertently closed snapping open abruptly
and fingers tensing on the arms of her chair, holding tight onto the wood.
“Ciel–”
“Daddy, that thing injured one of my men last week and it keeps disrupting my
peace!”
As if cued by her words, there is another howl, loud enough that Regina would
swear the animal is inside her bedchambers and not somewhere roaming the
palace’s state. It must be impossibly close to the walls if its cries are so
clear, but so far none of her men have managed to get ahold of the beast,
making Regina regret showing mercy to the vexatious animal. It had seemed
frivolous to her at the time, killing the faithful companion of the treacherous
huntsman, but the past few months of random attacks and bothersome wolf cries
have been enough to make Regina inclined to wish for the prompt death of the
animal. She had expected it to leave after a while, but it seems that as long
as the huntsman resides in her dungeons, and his heart within her vault, the
wolf will remain close to its master, crying their separation away and
disturbing Regina’s peace.
“What an unbearable noise,” she complains, her fingers pinching the bridge of
her nose and anticipating a migraine.
Father says nothing, probably and correctly suspecting her gentleness gone for
the night. If the last months have been any indication of the wolf’s usual
behavior, it will be crying all night long, disrupting Regina’s hard-earned
silence, and constantly reminding her of the truth that every single one of its
howls seems to be hiding and that she wishes to find respite from – that
somewhere out there in Leopold’s vast kingdom, hopefully caught under the
implacable storm, dwells Princess Snow White, alive and running.
 
===============================================================================
 
It takes half a year for the proposals to begin. It seems that the world around
her has deemed that Regina has spent more than enough time as a mourning widow,
and so, on the exact day that marks the six month anniversary of Leopold’s
death, King Charles, ruler of a quaint and small maritime kingdom south of
their border, arrives pompously at the palace, a court of dozens behind him
carrying presents and entertainment meant to cheer the saddened queen. Regina
receives him with half a smile and quiet amusement, and allows him to woo and
court, to spend his kingdom’s money in an overly exaggerated display meant to
convince her of what an honor it would be for her to become his wife.
Regina had met King Charles once before, during a visit Leopold had insisted
upon a few years back and that she remembers having very little purpose. It had
been during a winter fortnight, too, and Regina recalls standing by the docks
that Charles was overly proud of, feeling biting wind hitting her skin while
the salty scent of the sea invaded her nostrils. While pointless, the visit
hadn’t been entirely unpleasant, and Regina easily brings back to her mind the
image of King Charles back then, black and thick hair that time has already
turned grey, and a loud and merry laugh. She also remembers the way his late
wife, a young and plump thing with beautiful dark eyes named Joan, had flinched
whenever the man had stepped close to her, laying a possessive hand at the
small of her back. Regina had been twenty-six at the time, already freed of her
own wifely duties, and when she’d found the young queen crying in the hidden
corner of a balcony while the rest of the court enjoyed a splendorous ball,
she’d taken her between her arms in a desperate attempt at soothing her broken
spirit. Joan had clung to her for the rest of their visit, and when Regina had
spied her eyeing the ocean with wide and maddened eyes, she had invited her to
her chambers, had given her strong liquor and had held her in a tight embrace,
calling her cariño, sweetheartwhen her tears wouldn’t abate. She had also
crawled between her legs and made her scream in pleasure, had done her best at
kissing her pain away. She had received news of Joan’s death a month after they
had left the palace, words of woe spoken at her body being found drowned in the
wildness of the sea – and Regina hadn’t cried, but she’d cradled the letter to
her heart with trembling hands.
King Charles proposes ten days after his arrival, and he’s arrogant enough to
do it in public too, arranging for a band to play soft music as he speaks, and
having laid a beautiful array of stringing lights all around her gardens. Had
Regina been someone else, she might have appreciated the effort. The king’s
words are flowery but empty, superfluous and so very obviously meant to
compliment what the king thinks is a vain female heart that Regina has half a
mind to stop him halfway through. She lets him finish, though, and when she
very quickly denies him, she sees his familiar gaiety disappear as fury paints
deep lines into his features. He’s wounded and aggravated, his anger quick to
incense and making him impulsive, and before Regina can react he seizes her
wrist in a strong grip and draws her closer and towards his own kneeling
figure, bringing her frame down so that she’s staring right into his snarling
face. And were Regina a wilting flower of a woman, she might have been scared,
but her fury rivals and conquers this man’s easily, making her reach out with
her free hand and drape swift and strong magic around his throat, so he chokes
on whatever statement he was about to make. Unable to speak and obviously
surprised by her abrupt and sudden maneuver, he claws at his neck, eyes wide
and firmly settled on her, enraged rather than pleading even when she has his
life carefully wrapped around her fingers.
Guards react quickly around them, both his and hers, and for a moment, it seems
as if a confrontation is inevitable. Regina knows better, though, knows that
this king will not risk his life when a snap of Regina’s fingers might end it,
and so he deflates in mere seconds, making sure to have his knights stand down
with a signal from his fingers, and throwing a calming look Regina’s way.
Regina wavers, considers closing her hand and crushing the throat held within
her power, ending the life of the waste of space that this man before her is.
After all, she will not marry him, but some unsuspecting soul will do so in her
stead, and shouldn’t she prevent a poor girl from that destiny? The thought
tingles, tempting and unwittingly satisfactory, making her feel short of
breath. She closes her eyes trying to find her focus, doing her best at
thinking of the consequences of killing a ruling king before dozens of
noblemen, and only stops herself when cool breeze hits her suddenly heated up
face, reminding her of where she stands. She breaks her hold on his throat
carelessly, smirking when he gasps and drops further down into his kneeling
position, his hands remaining around his own abused neck as he coughs.   
“You will leave this palace immediately,” she intones, leaving no place for
arguments as she stalks away from the scene.
King Charles is the first, but he most certainly isn’t the last. It seems that
Leopold’s land is far more tempting than she is frightening, and that just
about every nobleman available for marriage would be more than happy to try to
tame her so called ill-tempered character. Duke Archibald even uses those exact
words for a proposal, quickly followed by how her inappropriate outfits and
penchant for small magic tricks is nothing but an obvious and needy call for
the strong guiding hand of a man. Regina doesn’t bother with heavy magic in his
case, but rather empties a cupful of wine over his ugly bald head when he
demands an answer to his proposition.
A month after King Charles’ visit, she has received a total of eight marriage
proposals, along with a nearly constant migraine that seems to only be
heightened by rains that refuse to abate, and by the general dismay of her
council, the members of which keep insisting on the advantages of a good
marriage for her. Regina bristles at the thought, angry that no matter how much
success she has harbored in the past with her hardworking hands and her busy
mind, she will forever be regarded as a failure for remaining a motherless
widow.
King George becomes her ninth suitor, and Regina laughs when the man, true to
his usual unpleasant honesty, foregoes spectacles and fanfare and even refuses
to come see her himself, sending his son and a letter instead. The bizarre
maneuver amuses her enough that she receives Prince James with a smile, and
even invites him into one of her favored sitting rooms and offers warm tea and
apple fritters, which he munches on immediately and with what seems like honest
delight.
“Mother used to love these,” he tells her. “You’ll make for the most wonderful
step-mom.”
Regina rolls her eyes at him, particularly when he follows his statement with a
leering grin as he directs his gaze towards her chest, her cleavage on display
as she sits ramrod straight herself. When she offers no answer, though, he is
quick to fill the silence with mindless chatter meant to be exactly that, his
tone speaking of idle gossip and managing to be both derisive and quietly
amusing, mocking his own courtly obligations with such obvious delight that
Regina can’t help but be a little bit enchanted. She despises his cocky air and
egotistical tone of principle, but the boy is certainly engaging and ornamental
enough that she doesn’t mind him much. However, she cuts his speech before it
can become long-winded, pointedly interrupting a story that has his eyes
smiling with mischievous mirth.
“That’s enough for now, dear,” she says. “You have something for me.”
Prince James doesn’t seem bothered by her dismissal, but rather grins widely at
her as he stares into her eyes with defiance in his own. He’s sprawled against
the couch by now, arms spread wide on the back of it and one leg resting above
the other with the air of a mighty god. Abruptly, the sight of him aggravates
her, this young man that has obviously been taught to look at the world with
arrogance, to lounge and occupy space he hasn’t fought for, and whatever little
amusement she may have derived from him dissipates in an instant. He offers her
a letter then, and she snags it with avid fingers and ignores him in favor of
whatever words his stoic father may have for her.
You are a smart woman, Your Majesty; I trust you to understand the advantages
of the joining of our kingdoms. With our lands, armies and treasuries united
under the sanctity of marriage no other kingdom will dare defy us – we will be
unstoppable. Therefore, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife, and
marrying our kingdoms as destiny demands?
The moment she reads the missive, Regina wants to applaud at the clever way in
which King George weaves his words. He certainly knows how to appeal to her far
better than any other nobleman that has shared his intentions, complimenting
her intellectual prowess, using her formal title and presenting their marriage
as a business proposal rather than as a tale of love and longing, making sure
to mention the power that their joining would bring forth. Had Regina intended
to marry again, George would have certainly been her first choice, and perhaps
her most logical and perfect match, but the last thing she needs is another man
holding her prisoner. That thought in mind, she crumbles the letter in her hand
and throws it to the fire, quietly ignoring Prince James’ lifted eyebrow as she
finds ink and pen herself. In small letters and with fast and careless strokes,
she writes a very simple answer that conveys what is probably the frustration
of weeks persecuted by inept royals.
Oh George, dear, not you, too,is what she writes.
She folds and seals the letter, presenting it to the prince with an
outstretched arm and a proud stance, and as he leans forward to grasp the paper
in her hand, she tells him, “Oh, and please do tell your father that next time
he wants something from me, I expect him to come before me and kneel.”
Thenceforth, she refuses further visits. After all, while the parade of suitors
and their extravagant displays have made for a fun distraction, the last thing
Regina needs is for the outside world to encourage a council that wishes to see
her married, as well as a kingdom that wishes it were a different woman at the
head of their country. Although perhaps, it is precisely that one fact that she
needs distraction from in the first place, if her Military Advisor is to be
believed.
Duke Nicholas, who once was Military Advisor to Leopold and a firm believer
that womanly hands shouldn’t have a place in the world of knights and swords,
has by now become Regina’s most trusted ally within the council. It had taken
years, breaking the strong prejudices of a man that Regina had at first thought
too old to change his mind, but that very same reason is what makes Regina so
positive in his loyalty towards her as of today. It must surely be the only
reason why Regina allows him liberty enough to imply that she is driving
everyone around her rather insane, and why she carefully regards his
insinuations rather than smite him on the spot. Perhaps, she is simply self-
aware enough to understand that the obsession that has been keeping her
steadily awake for the last few months is one that her council and army don’t
share, inasmuch as they don’t understand her sudden and vengeful streak towards
the runaway princess.
The first few weeks after Snow White had abandoned the palace, time had seemed
to trickle by too slowly, and Regina had found herself mind-numbingly unaware
of everything around her, consumed by her thoughts of the first failure of her
newfound rule. Persecuted by frustrating despair and pervasive nightmares
filled with the blood she hadn’t managed to spill, she had given into madness
and mindlessness, prowling the hallways of her home like an omen of death. She
had put her most fervent efforts into controlling herself, trying to settle her
own feelings and beat her insanity into submission, to fuel her anger into a
mission with a purpose rather than let it wander inside her head as an absurd
and fruitless compulsion. Months later, she has arranged constant patrols with
the sole purpose of locating Snow White, but her temper remains altered, spiked
by bouts of irritation at the lack of results in finding the princess.
“Well, my dear,” Regina complains one afternoon to the duke. “She is one
fragile little girl and I have an army, shouldn’t I be irritated when everyone
is far too useless to even catch a glimpse of her pretty hair?”
The duke doesn’t further push the issue, but rather lets her stew in her
thoughts, which seem to only harden when the rains fail to recede and she sees
herself trapped within the walls of the palace, the constant howling of a
prowling wolf mocking her from the outside. And it must be mocking her, for
surely that is what the rest of the kingdom seems to be doing as well –
laughing at her expanse, at her madness and her obsession, making Snow White
their phantom queen and refusing to accept Regina as their present one. News of
Snow’s whereabouts reach her every day from all over the kingdom, claims of
sightings that can’t possibly be true coming forth tirelessly and continuously,
even as her knights fail to bring the princess before her. The kingdom is
helping Snow White, feeding her rumors as a means of distraction, building
illusory observations that must surely intend to drive her insane. Regina can’t
possibly inspect every corner of her kingdom, even her powers failing to be
efficient enough when she can’t uncover any possible truth in the hearsay
reaching her ever-attentive ears. Snow White is taunting her, and the kingdom
taunts her along with the princess. She has half a mind to ride to every false
spot mentioned in the gossip brought to her and burn it to the ground, never
mind that such an action may just leave the land barren and destroyed. It may
just be what she needs, her and her palace, no kingdom to hate her and praise
Snow White, no lands to covet and to make noblemen yearn for her hand.
Regina knows herself to be angry, despairingly so, the source of her discomfort
hidden under layers of confusing thoughts. Snow’s survival haunts her, as much
as that idiotic letter that she’d placed in the huntsman’s hands does – a
letter speaking of sacrifice and dripping forgiveness, contempt for Regina and
her plight evident in every word. Snow had even had the gall to address her as
step-mother in the missive, a title that she had never spoken to her and that
Regina had never truly worn, always more a sister than a mother, however a
hateful and twisted one. The thought never fails to make vile rise to her
throat, that one last insult that had only been the beginning of Snow’s escape
filling her up with the foulest sense of bitterness.
The angrier she grows, the more anxious her thoughts. She paces the halls of
the palace, feeling unsettled and caged, drinking more and eating less than she
should, restless and unsure of what steps to take next. And more than anything,
she grows frustrated, with herself and her feelings, with how elusive happiness
and freedom feel when she’d been so sure that they were falling right into her
hands. For Snow White might be alive, but she must surely be suffering in her
exile while Regina thrives, a queen to a castle that is her own, liberated of a
court which scrutiny had made her irresponsibly deranged, freed of a foolish
husband and of the duties of feigned personas. And yet, she remains trapped, if
this time by her own emotions, but trapped nonetheless.
Perhaps Maleficent had been right when she’d told her that she would never be
happy, that such a feeling would forever remain slippery and incomprehensible
when she kept looking in all the wrong places. That had been two months ago,
and Regina had left her fortress with an angry huff and has refused to visit
her since, even when a few nights hidden in Maleficent’s lustful embrace may
just be enough to calm her senses, if only for a fleeting moment. Truth be
told, their relationship as of late has been pervaded with far more drinking
than lovemaking, comfort having left Maleficent’s demeanor in exchange for
barbed and pointed taunts hidden under quiet teasing and soothed with rough
kisses. Regina suspects that there is more pain between them than they will
ever admit to themselves, that their twisted love will never regain the
strength it once had, and that their affections will forever be buried under
the silence of doomed might-have-beens. Then again, maybe Regina is simply
incapable of love anymore, and is condemned to drown inside her own hysteria
until she manages to wrap her hands around Snow’s thin and fragile neck.
 
===============================================================================
 
On the morning of Snow’s twenty-second birthday, Regina executes a man in her
name. It seems oddly appropriate, a ritual sacrifice in the name of the
princess that the man had so adamantly protected, refusing to speak of her
whereabouts even when tortured. The sight brings no pleasure to Regina’s eyes.
She’s harassing her population, her hand being forced into violence when it
would be so simple for them to grant her wishes and avoid such wasteful
unpleasantness. As long as the kingdom insists on taking Snow’s side, though,
every single little helper the princess has gathered will be her ally and
Regina’s enemy, and will be made to endure her wrath.
She sits on the spot Leopold had once occupied, feeling aloof and nearly
distracted, doing her best efforts to ignore the whimper-like pleads coming
from the man about to be executed, as well as the confounding blend of anguish
and excitement coming from the small crowd of peasants that has gathered to
watch the spectacle. She finds herself thinking of the first execution she’d
witnessed, nineteen years old and standing behind the king, apprehension
gripping her chest. Leopold had never been a man too fond of death and
dungeons, but even the kindest of rulers were obligated to such unpleasant
matters on occasion, particularly in the case of well-known thieves and
murderers. Leopold’s rage and penchant for execution had always been at its
highest when facing men known to kidnap and abuse women, a fact that Regina
finds hilariously ironic these days, but that had made her sick to her stomach
when she’d been young and trapped within Leopold’s grasp and wishes, a man who
thought that a wedding ceremony and a crown on her head somehow separated him
from the same men he despised so.
Leopold had favored hanging for the worst of criminals, but Regina had always
thought the method entirely too disagreeable. She remembers men choking on
their own breath, clawing at their neck, desperate for a quick death that
wouldn’t come, and the memory collides with her own entrapment, with the
breathlessness of knowing herself as futilely hopeless as those condemned. She
is far from those times now, though, and so she rejects Leopold’s old methods
entirely and chooses arrows instead, a prospect that seems to be making her
newly appointed executioner entirely too gleeful for her tastes. Then again,
Ralf has always been too much of a brute, and she would rather he exploited his
bloodlust within her royal commands than outside of them. She gives the signal
and the arrows fly, proving the method to be as disgustingly unpalatable as any
other, the sight of fresh blood oozing out of a boneless body settling sour
nausea in her stomach.
She stands quickly, an air of forlornness about her as her steps fail to follow
her initial hastiness and meander slowly under what suddenly feels like a
perfectly absurd and heavy dress. She’d wanted to appear regal and assured,
unaffected by the proceedings, but her choice of a weighty gown instead of more
comfortable riding clothes makes her feel slightly silly at this moment, like a
little girl playing at ruling to the best of her abilities, clad in a costume
that fits her awkwardly at best. Her whole skin itches, the rotten scent
surrounding the scene about her making her inordinately uncomfortable, but no
matter how desperately she wills her feet to walk her away from the spot as
swiftly as possible, they refuse to cooperate. She traipses with lazy
clumsiness instead, halting her movements altogether when a voice rises from
within the crowd, rough yet strong.
“Witch!” It yells, ringing loud and clear for a few long and silent seconds
before it becomes a chorus, what had felt like a small gathering before now
managing to sound like a roaring beast when chanting what they must consider
the worst of insults.
Regina watches the actions that follow as if hypnotized, the quick movements of
her guards already practiced as they draw their blades out, threatening figures
clad in black fashioning themselves as powerful giants when heckling a few
underfed and raggedy-looking peasants. The crowd, seemingly incensed by the
confidence of unity, continues their chorusing despite the heavy swords being
brought before them, their enthusiasm only dwindling to a stop when two of her
guards find the initiator of the protest and bring him to his knees none too
gently, a resoundingly hard kick to the back of his legs propelling him forward
and towards the rough ground. The man grunts once he’s down, growling and
baring his teeth like a rabid beast as the guards force him to stay down, broad
and weighty hands holding his shoulders and arms in what Regina can only guess
is a painful grip.
“Apologize to your queen!” One of her guards bellows, the steel of his sword
glinting against the pale sun as the most tangible of threats.
The man growls yet again, prompting her guard to raise his blade in warning,
ready to strike. The thought of watching the man’s blood tainting the sand is
tempting but for a second before it manages to make Regina’s stomach churn
instead, and so she is quick to precisely command, “Stop.”
Her voice is low yet demanding, and her order is followed with keenly rapid
movements from everyone around her, her guards lowering their weapons as the
crowd of peasants raises their eyes towards her. Silence reigns then for a
tense second, and Regina breathes out slow and even, meeting gazes steadily
fixated on her and brimming with equal parts fear and expectation, perhaps
waiting for the retaliation that has apparently come to be expected from her
irritable temper. And Regina, who has been feeling exhaustedly uncomfortable,
rises to the presented challenge with a smirk, throwing her shoulders back as
if they were free of burdens, and pacing with short and ceremoniously precise
steps before the kneeling figure, dragging after her the dress that minutes
before had felt too heavy and that suddenly seems to her like the proper armor
to face her enemies. She chuckles, the sound short and calculated, and watches
with delight as the peals of her laughter do nothing to draw away the fear from
her audience’s eyes.
“Now gentlemen, let’s not be too harsh or hasty in our judgment,” she intones,
preening under the given attention, enjoying the prowling that comes easily to
her now, the way men and women alike look like nothing but easily caged prey.
“The man speaks nothing but the truth, after all,” she continues. “I ama
witch.”
Regina moves forward then, and she realizes that while scrutiny such as this
has been nothing but cumbersome in the past, in this moment it feels
delightful, a show of the powerful grip she holds over everyone around her,
guards and peasants alike. She stops once she’s before the kneeling man and
lowers herself towards him with purpose, laying the pads of her fingers
delicately over a roughened and yet surprisingly attractive tanned cheek. The
man flinches under her touch, if because of the coldness of her hand or the
simple act itself she doesn’t know, but Regina’s smirk widens as she moves her
fingers down his skin, her touch lingering and bizarrely sensual as she trails
down a thick neck and sharp collarbones, over the ridges of an old scar that
hides its end away under a coarse shirt, across a chest heaving with much too
rapid breathing. By the time Regina’s hand is resting squarely against the
man’s breastbone, he’s trembling before her. Regina bites at her lower lip, a
rush of excitement running up her spine and following the path of her magic as
it rushes towards her hand. She pushes in, both her hand and her intent firm,
and the man gasps as she pulls backwards, a bright red heart resting heavily
against her palm. She stretches slowly, her prize held with nimble fingers and
her eyes focused on it even as her whole being remains aware of the people
around her, of their held breaths and the tangible strain of the air enveloping
them all, as if they were a single being standing before Regina.
The shine and weight resting in her palm captivates her, lures her beyond any
logical or comprehensible thought. She squeezes, though, finding herself
incapable of a different action, and listens to the man before her groan in
pain, the sound quickly turning into a disturbingly pathetic sob as his body
sags forward, this time falling to the ground of its own volition. There is a
plea for the man’s life that falls on deaf ears, no more important to Regina
than the sound of the rustling wind or of birds and bugs chirping around them.
She stops herself before the heart is crushed, however, contemplating the
nearly desperate desire growing within her to do away with it, to waste life
unknown to her on a whim; she would certainly be doing little else than confirm
the rumors already being spread about her, tainting the tongues of a kingdom
that refuses to love her and that seems adamant on labeling her an unfeeling
nightmare incapable of the smallest of mercies. The air around them already
smells of blood, though, the crumpled body of the tribute paid for Snow’s
betrayal still present among them, and so Regina chooses to cease her vengeful
thoughts, curling her lips into a distasteful scowl even as she moves back down
and plunges the heart back inside the man’s chest, looking then at her own
fingers as if they’ve been holding something repulsive.
Regina raises her eyes to the crowd and finds uncanny surprise staring back at
her, incredulity so obvious that it rises her temper, angers her beyond belief
as she sees her mercy being regarded as an act so bewildering that nobody dares
break the silence. Her hands curl beside her, and she finds her fingers
unwittingly fisting around the heavy winter fabric of her skirt, knowing that
she will do something far worse than crush one undeserving heart if she so much
as lets go.
“Your Majesty?” One of her guards prods after a long moment of silence.
Regina turns her eyes towards him, sees the glinting of his blade and the
unspoken question in his eyes – were she to order such a thing, her guards
would have no qualms about slaughtering the people before her, and the
unwavering loyalty of the thought shakes her awake from her stupor, and from
her own and sudden bloodlust. She shakes her head at her guard, smiling
confidently and willing the tension away from her limbs until she feels secure
enough to drop the tight grip on her clothes. Then, she makes a hasty decision,
a single thread of hope burning within her as she chooses to ply her subjects
with mercy, even if it appears to amaze them so.
“I am a witch,” she says, repeating her earlier statement with tremulous
candor, with a smile that she used to bestow upon noblemen when she wanted to
be regarded as no more than a sweet child with nothing to hide. Then, she fills
her voice with steel, with quiet demand and barely contained fire, and states,
“However, I am your queen, and you are my people; mine to punish and yet mine
to take care of as well.” She pauses, breathes in, and commands, “Claude, the
day has seen enough unfortunate events as it is; have bread and ale
distributed, and allow the family to bury their dead.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Whatever mighty feat Regina had hoped to accomplish with her outward show of
mercy does absolutely nothing, the kingdom continuing to overflow with news of
its tyrannical new ruler and the seemingly unfair persecution of Princess Snow
White, heroically turned bandit as her only means of survival. Tongues ran
faster than Regina’s efforts can ever hope to do, and it seems that no matter
her actions, the people of her kingdom have already turned Snow into a
legendary figure, and her into the deathliest of menaces. Her witchcraft makes
her too unusual, too different, and much like her foreign origins had back when
she had first arrived at the palace, something to be feared and disliked with
fundamental foundation, and with very little questioning.
Consumed by anger and her inexplicable plight, Regina wavers between peaceful
gestures and temper tantrums, her hand as quick to condemn as it is to mollify,
her temperament ever-changing and unstable, and her heart hardening after every
rejection received. She fails to understand the steadfastly pervasive character
of the disapproval of her persona, the inescapable truth of the exclusion that
has imbued every single aspect of her life since her first memory. Unwittingly,
she thinks of mother, of hard words and harder punishments, of the sharp pain
of such simple statements as you look almost beautiful tonight.It seems to her
that she is condemned to be an eternal almost,never quite what she must be
unless she betrays her own character and puts on a mask to become anyone but
who she truly is.
Loneliness apprehends her, curling around her throat and settling tight behind
her breastbone like something living, an oppressive creature that she doesn’t
know how to even begin to get rid of. The palace around her feels oppressive,
the silence that she had craved with such desperation just months before
becoming an ardent and heavy condemnation of her character. It feels to her as
if Snow’s spirit still inhabits these walls, teasing her from crevices and
corners, shouting at her that despite her best efforts, these rooms and
hallways don’t belong to her. After all, it is almost natural for Regina to be
reminded of the princess’ presence, of the walks they had shared through the
garden, the afternoons spent under her apple tree, the meals shared within her
bedchambers, the long and freeing rides around the green and wide Royal State.
Forlornly, she realizes that she must be going mad, for surely her feeling
speak of persecution and unhinged senses; she doesn’t dare think, not for a
second, that she may just missSnow White.
Nonetheless, a sunny spring day that finds Regina hiding away from the light,
pacing dark hallways rather than taking a more pleasant stroll through the
gardens that so remind her of Snow’s annoyingly mindless prattling, she makes
her way with heavy and determined steps towards Snow’s old bedchambers. She
feels untethered, nervous for no reason at all in that way that has consumed
her as of late, and she scowls once she’s standing before the big white doors
of the rooms, the brass doorknob a silent taunt. She has adamantly refused to
visit the princess’ chambers since she left the palace, and she wonders at her
own cowardice, at being so dedicated to her persecution and death, and yet so
afraid of the ghost she has left behind. Today, though, with a huff and a roll
of her eyes, she bluffs her way through a wave of impulsive bravado and walks
inside the dreaded room, frowning in disapproval when bright light assaults her
eyes with piercing precision. She had expected the abode to be bathed in
darkness, but it is brightly lit instead, the balcony doors open wide and the
heavy white drapes billowing softly at the touch of the cool spring breeze from
outside, and for a moment, Regina fools herself into thinking that the chambers
haven’t been abandoned at all, and that these walls are simply waiting
patiently for their occupant to come back from a too long trip. She wonders,
briefly, if Snow White, wherever she is, has any walls at all.
Regina walks towards the bed with slow steps, the rustling of her dress against
the floor accompanying her movement and only stopping once she sits down, the
mattress under her sinking under her weight and making her want to lie down and
simply sleep for a very long while. Sleep has certainly been eluding her as of
late, her dreams easily turning into nightmares tinged in blood red and making
her wake up restless, clawing at her own neck and chest as if fighting off some
invisible creature. She doesn’t give into tiredness, though, instead simply
pressing her hand to the bedspread under her and stretching her fingers out,
her skin an odd contrast against the lilac fabric. She had had this bedspread
made herself as a gift for Snow after she’d recovered from her sickness, and
after ordering every single piece of linen in the palace burnt and replaced.
Snow had begged her to allow her to keep her old white quilted coverlet, which
she had explained was a family heirloom from her mother’s side, but Regina had
been adamant in ridding the palace of disease at the time, and had ignored
every plea, only to make it up to her later with the beautifully woven fabric
she now sits on.
The bedspread is far from the only sign of her constructed relationship with
Snow that lingers inside the room, her wardrobe filled with dresses of Regina’s
choosing, her vanity holding perfumes given as small gifts, and that tiny and
crooked little doll Regina had knitted and stuffed herself so many years ago
resting on the bedside table, as a memento of false affection. It all feels
like a provocation, relentless torment of a past that Regina hasn’t managed to
rid herself of.
And perhaps – perhaps that is the problem. The king, the court and the princess
are gone, and yet Regina dwells in the memories of them, rootless between the
walls of this palace that while lawfully hers, still remains imprinted with the
spirit of her unwanted family. She finds her own image in Snow’s full length
mirror, a figure clad in black sitting among white and pink fabrics, inadequate
and uncomfortable even in a space that belongs to her by right, and she wonders
if the disquiet of the kingdom stems from the same origin, if her mere
appearance clashes so much with what they have been taught to expect from their
monarchs that they can’t help but repudiate her. Should she make herself to be
what they want her to be, then? Should she, after all, give up her endeavors
and true wishes, don lighter dresses the way she had when she was younger,
smile with a sweetness that she doesn’t possess, make herself smaller, candid
with feelings that aren’t her own? The simple thought of it makes her bristle,
and she rejects it with abrupt fury; she has been violated enough in her life,
her heart, body and soul laid down as sacrifice for a life that she hadn’t ever
asked for, and she won’t give herself up yet again, not now that she wields
power to command at her will.
“What is it about me that repulses the people so?” Regina questions one mildly
hot morning as she leans against the railings that overlook the ever-expanding
training range of her troops. “Is the answer as simple as fear of my magic? Or
perhaps that I’m a woman?”
She wrinkles her nose as she asks this, the thought discomfortingly
frustrating. She had discarded such an idea early on her reign, considering
that people’s claims are not for a man but for the princess, but lately she
can’t help but think that her female condition is a hindrance to her endeavors.
She can’t help but think that no man would ever see such opposition weighted
against him, and she knows for certain that a king wouldn’t be pervasively
advised to find a suitable consort. The members of her council have only just
stopped badgering her about the necessity of a secure marriage, after all, and
only because she’d threatened to have their tongues cut off if they so much as
thought of mentioning the possibility ever again.
This morning, it’s two members of said council that are recipient to her
inquiry, anxious even if hidden under a sheen of cold composure, which she has
struggled to construct as of late in an effort to calm her own senses. She
finds that it leaves her numb rather than nervous, and that neither response
manages to do anything to quench her bouts of aimless gloom, or the
purposelessness of her impulsive anger. However, today she hides behind
composed control, hoping to discern whether there is any action she may take
that may provide her with something akin to acceptance from her people, or
whether she should give up completely. She can’t help but think that mother
would have preferred banishment to a compromise of her sternness, but then, for
all of mother’s achievements in life, she’d never found herself in Regina’s
ruling position.
Her Military Advisor, resting by her against the railing and twirling his
funny-looking moustache between nervous fingers in that way Regina has already
gotten used to but that used to annoy her to no end, doesn’t pay her much
attention, distracted as he is by the sight before them. They’re witnessing the
training of her troops, an activity that Regina has found herself uncommonly
fond of as of late, and which her men seem to equally appreciate. For all that
the kingdom seems adamant in hating her, her army’s loyalty is solid and
unwavering, her men secure in the knowledge that their queen favors them and
finds effortless pleasure in taking care of them. Regina keeps her army well
fed and clothed, as well as sheltered and decently entertained, wenches and ale
never missing for those who wish to enjoy such mundane luxuries. She is also
consistent in her care for her knight’s families, and pays them fairly, enough
that having to put up with her bouts of angry irritation as well as with the
dangers of their office seems like a small price to pay. Her men like her,they
enjoy posing and preening before her whenever she decides to grace their
trainings, and Regina finds their childlike devotion infinitely satisfactory.
She has even come to enjoy the sound of wooden swords clashing together, and
she’s certainly shallow enough that the sight of sweaty muscled arms awakens
her most primitive needs.
It is Duchess Adela who answers her question instead, hands behind her back as
she herself studies the men before them, if with enjoyment or disgust Regina
can’t tell; the woman is so astonishingly inexpressive that Regina gave up on
trying to read her features long ago.
“It’s not that you’re a woman, Your Majesty,” the duchess says. “It’s the kind
of woman you are.”
Regina lifts her eyebrows at that, looking straight into the woman’s eyes with
honest curiosity in her gaze. “Oh? Do enlighten me, duchess.”
The duchess falters, a small twitch on her eyebrow revealing how uncomfortable
she truly is at being scrutinized so by Regina. Regina has always appreciated
the woman’s blunt honesty, though, even when it comes with a side of prudish
judgment in most occasions.
“Go ahead then,” she prompts. “You are one of my trusted advisors, so advise
me.”
At that, the duchess raises a single eyebrow, and Regina scowls at the implied
reference of such a gesture, for surely she must be thinking of Regina’s
tantrum just a fortnight ago, which had only ended once she’d thrown the Master
of Ships into the dungeons. The man had lewdly suggested that a good tumble on
an experienced bed was the proper cure for Regina’s irascibility, promptly
offering himself up for the task, and as far as Regina’s concerned, she’d been
lucky he hadn’t lost the hand that he’d purposefully rested on her hip. He’d
apologized after a week of imprisonment, and Regina had been gracious enough to
let him go and to simply stripe him of his position, so the duchess’ discomfort
seems uncalled for. Perhaps, she is simply worried about the dwindling nature
of the council, considering that the Royal Doctor had left her as soon as it
had been appropriate after Leopold’s death, and that they had buried the
Treasury Master on a dreary and wintry afternoon not three months prior. Regina
had felt that particular loss acutely, even if the ninety-two year old man had
lived far longer than expected; he’d always been considerate in his treatment
of Regina, and impossibly thankful for the care she’d freely bestowed upon him.
“Duchess,” Regina says, careful in her request even when walking on eggshells
never fails to make her angry. “Be honest with me; I’m fairly certain your
concise bluntness might be exactly what I need.”
Pursing her lips, the duchess finally speaks, saying, “You’re inappropriate,
Your Majesty.”
Regina scoffs, unbridled annoyance sipping into her response. “Don’t insult me,
dear. Propriety is but a construct of men to keep women enslaved to their wills
– a construct that you yourself have been victim of, so spare me the lecture.
It is neither my cleavage nor my manners what makes me disagreeable.”
“Perhaps not, Your Majesty, but–” Duchess Adela stops her own speech just so
she can pointedly stare at Regina for a moment. When that fails to grant her
any reaction, she sighs, as if dealing with a tiresome child.
“Duchess?”
The duchess is saved from further prodding by a messenger arriving with a thick
stack of missives for Regina, which she receives with a small yet tired sigh,
and with a hint of thankfulness as well. At the moment, she can’t fathom what
sort of desperate thought made her question Duchess Adela on matters regarding
her demeanor, for however modern she is in her views of the intellect of women,
she also has a collection of very strict rules built into her thoughts on what
a woman is meant to be, a collection which Regina seemingly defies with every
single one of her actions and decisions. Duchess Adela had certainly been
adamant on calling Regina’s decision of keeping the court away from the palace
a most atrocious and dangerous mistake,and Regina’s most recent choice to turn
the lower levels of the palace into luxury barracks for her troops, sacrificing
guestrooms in exchange, definitely hadn’t sat well with her. She had even shown
utmost disapproval when Regina had simply ignored her complaints and busied
herself instead with plans to rebuild the stables, and had refused to attend
any meeting regarding Regina’s purchase of a new herd of powerful steeds.
They’re your soldiers, not your children,she’d said, and Regina had responded
with a genuine peal of laughter.
Turning her attention to her letters, Regina dismisses most of them for a later
reading, while carefully inspecting one sent from one of the local outposts of
the kingdom, signed by one of her men, and which claims truthful sightings of
Snow White. The fact that the tale has the princess cavorting with a well-known
pack of werewolves only makes Regina despair, thinking of the impossibility of
it all, and of how she will order further investigation on the matter in any
case. She hardly knows who to trust these days, but she needs to put her faith
somewhere, so it might as well be her soldiers rather than peasants wanting to
protect the princess and distract her attentions.
One of the missives she recognizes immediately as one from King George’s, and
she burns it instantly, not even managing a speck of anger when she does, and
rather enjoying the tiny jump the duchess can’t help at the sight of her magic.
Her plight in refusing marriage had certainly not been aided by George, and the
fact that he had taken to sending her a weekly proposal in the form of letters
so mawkishly banal that he can’t possibly be their author – flower
arrangements, too, but that had stopped a couple of months back, probably
because George had learnt that they had been meeting Regina’s fireballs before
ever making it anywhere near her bedchambers. Regina wants to find a shred of
amused irony in his insistence, thinking back to the seventeen year old girl
she had once been and that he had refused to marry, but all his perseverance
conjures in her is contemptuous bitterness.
Fleetingly, a stray thought of the late Queen Catherine assaults her, making
her grimace involuntarily. She has done her best not to bring that unpleasant
ordeal back to the forefront of her mind, but she can’t help but think that
George may have done the three of them a service had he conceded to the queen’s
wish to marry him all those years ago. After all, he would have obtained a
willing wife – a rarity if Regina has known any among the nobility – and Queen
Catherine might still be alive. Regina bites her lower lip, shaking unwanted
thoughts away as she looks at the pile of ashes George’s letter has left on her
palm, and after letting them drift towards the ground, she reaches up and for
the chain around her neck holding Daniel’s ring, only to find that she’s not
wearing it today. Accordingly, she forces herself to remember that she hasn’t
been wearing the ring at all for what amounts to nearly a year, since Leopold
was put to the ground and Snow was cast out from the palace.
There is very little of herself and of her feelings that Regina understands as
of late, the hazy fog settled about her heart and seemingly griping tightly to
her thoughts and senses not allowing her to discern the true reasons behind her
impetuous and offhand behavior. Now, though, she realizes how very little
thought she has spared for Daniel in a very long time, or even to the scar
stretching across her belly, the emptiness of which had caused such sorrow,
however dulled by time. And yet, her persecution of Snow hasn’t been far away
from her thoughts at any moment, even while the reasons for it are ostensibly
hiding away under relentlessly opaque compulsions. She fears obsession, and
wonders if what truly repulses her kingdom is not her abrupt harshness, or
whatever sign of improper behavior they see in her, but the emptiness that must
surely be conquering the depths or her eyes, where even her losses have been
replaced by sheer bloodlust blooming from unattained vengeance. Suddenly and
with unforeseen fervor, Regina wishes for a long afternoon spent under her
apple tree and in the company of father, wishes for his smooth voice speaking
tales of the past, tethering her to whatever roots remain within her heart.
“Are there any news regarding the Summer Festival?”
The Military Advisor’s voice cuts through Regina’s cloudiness with the
precision of a sharp knife, and effectively brings her back to the present, the
sound of yells and wooden swords invading senses previously blurred by
inexistent yet rushing noise. Regina blinks owlishly, staring at the now
straightened up man, his attention away from training soldiers and fixed upon
her instead. His gaze, which had seemed nothing but harsh and stony to a
younger Regina, is trained on her with something akin to worry, which Regina
dispels with a tight smile and a waving hand.
“None at all,” she answers. “Do you still think I should attend?”
“Most definitely, Your Majesty,” he says, disregarding the huff the duchess
produces next to them, her last ditch attempt at wining a discussion that
they’ve been repeating tirelessly for a little over a month now.
Duchess Adela shared the opinion Leopold had adamantly held on the festivities
that marked the end of the summer, and that had kept both her and Snow trapped
within the palace every single year. Heaven’s knows there must be hardly
anything too disgraceful about a night spent at the closest village filled with
harmless entertainment, music, food and wine, but Leopold had always claimed it
to be an unsuitable celebration for ladies such as them. It had always bothered
Regina, not so much because of whatever allure the festival itself held, but
simply because she was made to stay behind, and Baroness Irene never failed to
attend and come back filled with outlandishly outrageous stories. During the
last few years, Regina had even rebelled by organizing a small celebration
herself at the palace, a bonfire for the ladies, children and servants trapped
within their walls where they could share wine, chocolate and stories. Snow had
always loved it, and she had reverently sat by Regina as they stayed up all
night looking up at the cloudless and starry sky, enjoying the last drafts of
heat before the dull browns of fall fell upon them.
This year, Regina had of course taken care of the organizing of the
festivities, and had splurged in expensive drinks and all sorts of foods, both
local and foreign, as well as promising a handsome price for the winners of the
customary archery contest. Attending hadn’t actually been much of a priority
for her, particularly when she thinks of the possibility of an awkward reunion
with Baroness Irene, but the Military Advisor had spoken of the kind of spirit
of unity such celebrations settled upon the population, and how seeing her in a
somewhat relaxed atmosphere might just do her some good. It had certainly been
more help than the duchess had procured with her stern advise, and Regina was
inclined to follow it.
“Will it be secure, though?” The duchess questions then, lifting a pointed
eyebrow at both of them.
Regina twists her lips until she’s sneering with barely contained fury. Surely
the duchess is thinking of the last two attempts made on Regina’s life, the
second of which had been close enough to be certainly preoccupying; Regina’s
left thigh still sported a yellowish bruise as a result.
“We shall double the guards,” she answers, right before turning her eyes back
towards her soldiers, now engaged in some elaborate sort of choreography
involving spears and plenty of disproportionate grunting. “Surely the men are
ready to protect their queen?”
The Military Advisor looks at her with something of a twinkle in his eye, right
before his eyes fall upon the soldiers yet again. There had always been very
little gossip regarding the man, but Regina would bet an arm and a half that
his lack of wife, which the court had so enjoyed chattering about, had a lot
more to do with his enjoyment of the attributes of the male body, than with
whatever tale of a tragic past noblemen had made up for him.
Regina smiles at the thought, and mischievously murmurs, “They make for quite a
lovely sight, wouldn’t you agree?” There is no answer, and Regina is quick to
fill the silence with the acquiescence that the Military Advisor expects,
stating, “I shall attend the Festival, if only to witness what my late husband
kept me from all these years.”
After all, even if purposeless and confounded, Regina can at least stomp her
little feet on the memory of her bumbling jailor, and claim the freedom that
belongs to her.
 
===============================================================================
 
The last days of summer crawl with awkward slowness, the humid heat
uncomfortable and making Regina wish for soft breeze that refuses to come. It’s
rare for the kingdom to be this hot, summers usually offering barely a few
hours of too much sun at midday but very little else, pleasant gusts of light
wind accompanying the rest of the long daylights, and the nights conquered by a
sigh of mild cold. The unnatural heat makes the days outside disagreeable
enough that Regina wishes she could search for the coldness of the hidden
chambers of the palace, ruing the decision of renovating the décor during the
warmer seasons. As it is, the palace is brimming with workers hammering away at
the walls, lifting dust up in the air and creating aggravating amounts of
migraine-inducing noise, making it impossible for her to even hold a calm
council meeting without wanting to take a hammer herself and push it into the
pompously self-appointed Master of Renovation’s skull.
Despite the maddening annoyance of the palace’s transformation, Regina bites
her tongue and says nothing even when she finds herself frustrated with how
long the work is taking, considering that the frenzy behind the rebuilding is
nothing but hers. The day after she had foolishly allowed herself to walk into
Snow White’s bedchambers, and after brooding all night over unwanted memories,
she had made up her mind to rid the palace of the princess’ spirit, and had
taken to it in the most literal way possible, ordering immediately for the best
craftsmen of the kingdom to design her new interiors, to surround her in rooms
to better suit her mood and persona. The work had started almost immediately,
and the palace has begun to shape itself anew with darker colors and richer
marbles, with larger common rooms to make breathing within them easier, and
Regina slowly realizes that, despite the discomfort, the changes not only make
her smile, but accommodate the exterior of the palace far better. The palace
had looked so bafflingly frightening to her younger self, hard and somber
spikes cropping up outlandishly in the middle of the green forests, that it
seems natural to her that the insides should match, cool and dark materials
conquering spots previously filled with light fabrics and sturdy furniture.
Regina knows the palace had been built by Leopold’s father as a gift for his
first wife, the legendarily beautiful Queen Alina, who had been brutally
murdered at the short age of nineteen, a band of bloodthirsty bandits attacking
her carriage on a trip to a neighboring kingdom. There is a portrait of her in
Leopold’s old offices, small and purposefully kept dusty, hanging right next to
a horrendous and enormous one of Queen Georgiana, second wife to the king and
Leopold’s mother – looking at it, Regina had always been grateful that the
beaky-looking old crow that mother had deemed a shrewish penny-pincher with the
temperament of a gorgon had been long dead by the time she had become Leopold’s
wife. Those portraits no longer exist, though, having been the first victims of
Regina’s determination, and having fallen prey to the unrelenting power of
bright orange flames. Duchess Adela had put up a token protest about Regina’s
seemingly narrow-minded tenacity to do away with the history of her family, but
she had deflated as soon as Regina had glared at her, fury written in every
crevice of her face. There had never been any family of hers hanging in the
shape of beautiful canvases on these walls, after all, her own heritage hidden
away and considered lowly, and so it had been with hypnotic satisfaction that
she’d watched the flames consume Leopold’s past. Every single portrait had been
burnt, then, Leopold’s, Eva’s and Snow’s as well as her own, for she’d hated
the sullen and lost look of her younger self, insecure, scared and so
impossibly sad that her heart had ached for the girl she had once been. In
their stead, Regina plans to adorn her new walls with ornate mirrors, giving
thus a pathway for her trapped genie to follow.
Being almost forced to spend her days outside, Regina does her best at ignoring
the heat, and finds herself strolling peacefully about her gardens, or riding
atop Rocinantewith surprising glee. She even calls for a meeting of the council
outside, treating its members to a late breakfast of fresh fruits and light
breads under the shadow of her apple tree, where the discussion about the
upcoming Summer Festival feels almost like a conversation among friends. It
certainly does wonders for the new Treasury Master, a too young looking lad
that had been the former Master’s most accomplished protégé and who can’t help
but stutter whenever he’s in Regina’s presence, his beautiful dark eyes always
firmly fixed on his own feet. After such a reunion, he dares look up at Regina
and smile, his stammering Yo-Your Ma-Majestymanaging to be charming enough to
make her smile in return, and feel a long-forgotten bloom of content.
It’s a few strange days, spreading a little over a fortnight before the
festival is to be held, and Regina waddles through them if not completely at
peace, then certainly with a bizarre sense of wonder, and a surprisingly
pleasing lack of angry tantrums. She finds herself struck by the oddest of
desires, and she gives into them artlessly, owing to the fact that they don’t
stem from anger, and are rather simple and undemanding. Therefore, she finds
herself taking on the task of brushing Rocinante’shair, something which she has
shied away for as long as Daniel has been gone, even the thought of it a too
painful reminder of long hours spent at the stable between words and kisses.
Sweet yearning settled high on her chest, the memories of Daniel that Regina
has spent so much time steadfastly burying far back into her heart flourish
back inside her, prevalent but not invasive, tingling under her breastbone with
quiet sorrow rather than burning with abrasive anger. She finds that the more
her memories of Daniel settle about her heart with protective gentleness, the
further back into her head her need for Snow White’s death recedes, as if every
new stone reshaping the palace about her is indeed pushing the princess’ spirit
away.
News of the princess’ whereabouts keep coming, however, relentlessly maddening
in their inaccuracy and foolishness, but where Regina found herself wanting to
persecute her through every corner of the kingdom before, now her mind brims
with mere curiosity. She catches sight of her, once, her mirror giving her an
image of her trudging through the forest and accompanied by a beautiful girl in
a red cape, a tight smile on features sharper than Regina remembers, and she
allows herself but a moment of wonder and pulsing anger before she erases the
sight. She finds herself thinking, wistful hope teasing at the corners of her
mind, that perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible were Snow to manage an escape,
and to simply allow herself to be forgotten while Regina flourishes instead.
Would the kingdom oblige her with such a thing; would they fold to Regina’s
wishes were Snow’s memory to vanish with time? Regina both cherishes and hates
the hope grabbing ahold of her chest, tearing ruthlessly at her angry thoughts.
She has lived for so long in anger, has wanted to rain destruction about her
with such cold focus that suddenly holding onto something as feeble and hope
seems ill-advised. And yet.
Perhaps it’s the summer, or perhaps she’s becoming unhinged as much as Leopold
did during his last days, the placidness of lunacy taking ahold of her mind in
the same manner that it did her husband’s. It surely must be, for Regina finds
herself craving innocence lost, and tethering herself with joys of the past.
Thus, she begins spending her lunches with father, exhorting him into telling
old stories in his native language, as if she can somehow make up for the
rejection of her heritage she had been forced into early into her marriage and
introduction to court.
“Tell me about your home, daddy,” she requests more and more, the softness of
her spirit nostalgically craving father’s kingdom, which she has never seen,
but that belongs to her if only in the shape of ancient spirits.
These lunches are almost perpetually invaded by the howling of a wolf that
Regina almost dares consider a house pet, the vexatious thing persistent enough
in its efforts to disrupt her that Regina has even began to consider freeing
the huntsman from his prison and returning his traitorous heart to his chest as
a sign of true and honest mercy. It may grant her some peace, but the thought
curls something dark around her chest, mercy on one who chose Snow over her
something she feels incapable of, whatever hope she harbors dying at the very
idea. She may be losing her mind, after all, but she isn’t unwise enough that
she doesn’t know that all her hopes may be yet answered with anger, that her
next visit to the people of her kingdom may leave her angry and destroyed
still. Perhaps there will be a time to free the huntsman, but for now, the
three of them, wolf, huntsman and queen, will live together under constant
torture of each other, the wolf lacking a companion, the huntsman his heart,
and the queen her peace.
“I never understood your need for them to like you, my darling,” Maleficent
tells her during a quiet night, Regina’s body lackadaisical enough after
surrendering under the onslaught of the witch’s hands and mouth that she
doesn’t even mind the mocking tone hidden within Maleficent’s words.
Rumpelstiltskin had said as much once, too, taunting her for desperately
seeking acceptance from a court and a kingdom whose relentless dismissal and
repudiation had done nothing but hurt her, had made her waver in her most
natural and true instincts that told her to kill that which bothered her so.
And perhaps it had been such words coming from the imp what somehow stopped
her, for surely advice coming from his pungent desires could bring nothing but
pain. Perhaps, though, it came from the reality of being bruised by such
rejection, for as long as there were wounds pulsing beneath her skin, Regina
had proof that her heart was capable of beating with something other than fury
– and how foolish of her, that feeling pain is somehow better than feeling
nothing at all. Mother would certainly be appalled at such an idea, but then
again, knowing Regina’s heart had never been one of mother’s virtues.
Such words she shares with Maleficent, even as Maleficent busies herself with
pouring wine at the small of her back, intent of licking it away so clear that
Regina doesn’t even need to look at her to imagine the predatory glint in her
blue eyes with near perfection. Maleficent’s tongue does indeed descend upon
her, and Regina whimpers imperceptibly, her senses almost completely gone after
what had been a cheerfully enthusiastic reunion. She’d come seeking comfort
between Maleficent’s arms after a too lengthy separation, and the witch had
allowed herself to be plied with an offer of marzipan, sweet currant wine and
Regina appearing on her bed without a stitch of clothing on her. What had
followed had been frustratingly teasing yet fiercely passionate hours where
Regina’s thoughts had pleasantly abandoned her, the luscious touch of
Maleficent’s nails on the inside of her thighs prying her legs apart impossibly
thrilling and deliciously mind-numbing, her sex responding to Maleficent’s
tongue with the familiarity of a lover well-known and never surpassed.
Now, with a fire warming up the room and Maleficent hovering above her still,
hands cold against the skin of Regina’s back, she can do little more than sigh
and fight the sleepiness that insists on pulling her eyelids close. She would
let them, too, considering she hasn’t been this relaxed in what feels like
decades, if not for her determination to soak up as much of Maleficent’s smooth
touch as possible. Her relationship with Maleficent has been nothing if not
precarious for the past few months, old wounds and unspoken truths pushing them
apart with single-minded tenacity, their refusal to acknowledge their mutual
losses creating barriers of hasty violence between them. They’re both jagged
and difficult, too much alike sometimes, and Regina’s proposal of Maleficent
coming to live at the palace with her a few months back had been received with
hurtful disdain, and had kept them apart, each of them firmly settled in their
stubbornness. Had Regina not pushed Maleficent away all those years ago, had
she not sacrificed whatever crooked form of love they’d shared in the name of
vengeance and power, such request may have been received with joy. It’s been
too long, though, and what remains between them is but remnants of what they
once shared, romance doomed and reshaped into what Regina hopes is honest
friendship, even if as twisted as their love had once been, with their
proclivity for mutual hurtful teasing and for sharing a bed with passionate
zeal.
Regina hums when Maleficent draws closer to her, resting her weight by her so
she can press a small, dry kiss against her shoulder blade. Maleficent’s hair
falls to her skin, tickles at the dip of her spine, and Regina smiles drowsily
at the softness of her touches.
“You’re too thin,” Maleficent murmurs against her neck, pushing her hair away
so she can nuzzle her nose there, press another kiss.
Regina says nothing, ignoring the statement with stubborn conviction, pressing
his eyes tightly closed and pursing her lips for a moment. Maleficent is right,
that much Regina can admit, but she refuses to give much thought to the matter.
She’s doing better, anyway, having lunch with father and eating properly, even
if mustering the desire to do so escapes her from time to time. She has stopped
her worst habits, at least, which had pushed her into a spiral of decadence as
of late, her days seeing her brooding, drinking and feeding herself with little
else than chocolates, filling herself up with sugary gooiness that inevitably
ended up making her sick. She thinks she may have been punishing herself for
something, even if she’s not particularly sure which sins she is trying to make
up for anymore.
Maleficent doesn’t pursue the issue, allowing her silence and kissing her
instead, her lips now humid as they find the small of her back, sticky with
wine and sensitive to the touch. She bites at the skin there, nibbling and
pulling at Regina’s flesh until she groans, wetness creeping between her legs.
“So you areawake,” Maleficent whispers, amusement laced in every syllable and a
clear smile on the lips she’s still pressing against Regina’s skin.
Her hand rests now on the globe of her ass, kneading softly at the flesh there,
and Regina would allow her to continue her path downwards and between her legs
if only she wasn’t a little sore still. She moves instead, grumbling as she
disengages her heavy limbs so she can roll on her back and prop herself against
the pillows, which may have once been fluffy but now barely hold her up. She
looks at Maleficent from her new angle, tilting her head to the side as if
appraising her and catching her lower lip between her teeth. She’s wonderfully
tired, but Maleficent is naked before her, and her breasts, flopping carelessly
as she moves are almost too much of a temptation. She leans forward, intent
clear in her gaze, and Maleficent must surely be feeling playful, since she
denies her the pleasure and simply leaves the bed, graceful limbs slow like
molasses, and predatory glint to her smile. Regina groans, tumbling back
against the pillows even as she watches Maleficent’s retreating back as she
goes to fetch them both drinks. Regina already feels woozy as it is, the two
bottles of wine they had shared not too long ago still swimming inside her
head, but she’s so warm and content that she may just accept whatever drink
Maleficent offers. They’d shared fruit as well, so the drinks won’t be falling
on an empty stomach at least.
Regina turns onto her side, eyeing a coverlet that had been victim to their
frenzy and lays rumpled on the floor with mild interest. It’s not particularly
cold, though, and Regina hasn’t felt this lazy in ages, so she turns her
attention away from the raggedy fabric to look at Maleficent instead,
shamelessly eyeing her figure, the shape of her wide back as it thins into her
waist, the round cheeks of her bottom, the miles and miles of impossibly long
legs, all that skin on display just for her. She watches her move, the
precision of a deathly beast never leaving even the smallest of her movements,
and the ever-present slowness of her somehow elegant. Regina sighs, feeling
herself enchanted by her lover as if it were their first night together, and
smiles when she sees her press her hand to the top of a baby unicorn’s head,
Maleficent’s proudly acclaimed new pet.
I needed something to take care of,Maleficent had explained, and Regina had
snorted when she’d looked at her pointedly, as if Regina herself is nothing but
a long lost pet. Regina can’t deny that the animal is beautiful, hair black and
shiny, dark eyes bright and body strong, but the whole idea of Maleficent
wanting the company of any kind of beast had left her confounded. Truth be
told, there is something a little off about her, if perhaps not in any way bad.
On the contrary, Maleficent appears almost chipper, an attribute so bewildering
when attached to the ever-brooding witch that it makes her think that they may
have all gone mad, after all.
“So, you were ranting?”
Regina hums as an answer to Maleficent’s prodding, once again entirely too
tempted by the prospect of sleep, the image of Maleficent naked and petting a
unicorn so delightfully dream-like that surely she must already be asleep.
Turning around and walking back towards the bed, two cups in her hands and a
loyal pet walking behind her, Maleficent distractedly drones, “You were in the
middle of some rant or other before you were otherwise distracted.”
Regina laughs at that, and when Maleficent arches an eyebrow, she can’t help
the naughty tilt to the smile she offers in return; after all, by distraction
Maleficent means nothing but her fingers prodding insistently between Regina’s
legs for probably the third time tonight. Regina may have just been revealing
secrets of state, for all that she knows.
“It was all terribly boring, I must say.”
“And unimportant, I’m sure, dear,” Regina counters, far too spent to question
whether she’d been blabbering on about the Summer Festival, the persecution of
an irritating wolf, or Snow roaming her kingdom and still alive. Naked and in
Maleficent’s bed, weariness conquering her limbs after hours of mutual
pleasure, it all seems like a different life, one belonging to someone she
barely recognizes anymore.
Maleficent says nothing, perching herself on the edge of the bed and offering
her a cup of heaven’s knows what instead. Once Regina frees her of the drink,
Maleficent’s hand finds her belly, and scratches softly at the skin there in an
oddly soothing caress, distracting beyond belief. Regina has been neglecting
her body for far too long, she realizes, far too busy driving herself mad
instead and grasping at the tails of dreams of peace of mind with clumsy and
desperate fingers. She’s thankful, then, that whatever spell the ending of the
summer has cast upon her, it has thrown her into the search of comfort, of
father’s soothing voice and Maleficent’s careful embrace. Distractedly, she
takes a sip from the drink Maleficent had pressed into her hand, and it’s only
after the dry and unknown taste sticks to the roof of her mouth that she moves
from her prone position, wrinkling her nose with disgust.
“Whatever is this foul-tasting thing,Mal?”
Maleficent barks out a laugh at that, and answers, “Cruella calls it gin; a
gift from her land.”
Wrinkling her nose yet again, if only to further prove her point, Regina
states, “It tastes like medicine.”
“It’s a bit of an acquired taste, I suppose,” Maleficent counters, shrugging
one shoulder even as she takes a small sip herself. Then, with an odd look to
her eyes, she murmurs, “Kind of like Cruella herself.”
“Who is this… Cruella?”Regina questions, distaste sipping into her tone
unwittingly. “Are you making new friends? Should I be jealous?”
“Oh yes, most definitely, little girl.”
Maleficent laughs yet again after her words, and then leans with feline grace
towards Regina, so dizzyingly fast that she can do nothing but accept the kiss
bestowed upon her lips. It’s more a bite than a kiss, brief and harsh,
Maleficent’s teeth dragging her lower lip with them until they pull an
unwitting whimper from Regina. The gesture reeks aggression, and even as
Maleficent smiles at her, Regina licks slowly at her bottom lip, warning now
etched into the plump flesh.
Regina lets the moment go, and soon Maleficent is back to scratching her belly,
her hands the only ones Regina has ever allowed anywhere close to her old scar.
They allow silence to fall between them, and Regina fights sleepiness by
pressing soft fingers among the hairs of one very insistent little unicorn. The
thing seems to have taken a shine to her, and Regina can do nothing but oblige,
particularly when Maleficent’s hypnotic touch is threatening with putting her
to sleep. They’re curious little things, unicorns, magical creatures that
Rumpelstiltskin had taken great joy in speaking about, even as he was exhorting
Regina to rip the heart of one of the beautiful creatures. He’d often talked of
their powers of prediction, of how some people had been driven mad after
seeking them, while others had found peace in the secure knowledge of their
future. He’d also taken great delight in mocking both sorts, for he knew better
than anyone that fate wasn’t a straight and narrow line, and that no future was
truly written in stone. Regina, who had always hated the idea that her
decisions held no power over her destiny, had found comfort in the idea. Now,
though, looking into the strangely human eyes of this beast before her, she
feels thoroughly tempted to test her fate; it may just do her some good, help
her settle the wavering feelings that keep screaming at her to kill everything
in sight one moment, only to plunge her into despair the next, forcefully
pulling her into a loopy sense of calm on the following instant. Then again, it
may just unhinge her completely.
“Are you tempted, darling?” Maleficent questions after a moment, her voice
pulling her back from her reverie, and making her realize that her gaze has
been unwaveringly attached to the animal’s for a while now. “I think he wants
you to.”
Regina’s first instinct is to scoff, mock the thought of luring attraction, but
curiosity holds her back. Instead, she looks into Maleficent’s mirthful eyes,
and wonders, “Have you?”
“Maybe.”
“And?” Regina prods, instantly curious, eyes widening in child-like wonder.
Maleficent laughs, stealing a kiss from her bewildered lips before she mutters,
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Nonetheless, Regina studies her for a too long moment, wanting to catch a
glimpse of whatever Maleficent’s eyes may be hiding. Her gaze is frustratingly
remote, and rather than find out hidden secrets, Regina ends up batting
distracting hands away from her chest before she slides her eyes back towards
the unicorn. It’s much too tempting, and it’s only that which stops Regina’s
hand from touching the creature’s horn and seeing whatever its magic may show
her. She licks her lips, her mouth feeling suddenly dry, and she questions the
pull of the beast before her, the sudden and nearly unstoppable need to allow
it to tell its tale of an uncharted future. What can it possibly show her that
Regina may want to see, after all? Snow’s head on a plate; a kingdom that has
forgotten its princess and accepts its queen instead; a land barren, destroyed
by Regina’s powerful and unwavering hand; or happiness, perhaps, whatever that
they mean for Regina? Regina foresees something completely different for some
reason she can’t even begin to understand, her own future as unpredictable as
the mood that will grip her tomorrow.
She looks into the animal’s eyes, black pools of unforeseen knowledge that have
been following her around for some time now, beacons of temptation. Something
tells her that she shouldn’t give in, and yet, after floundering between
confounding emotions for so long, the allure is too fascinating for Regina to
decline. She gives in, the pad of suddenly shy fingers resting against the
surface of the creature’s horn even as her eyes remain fixed on the unicorn’s,
as if unwittingly begging for a prophecy of a healing future. The horn feels
like marble under her hand, hard and cold, but Regina barely has a moment to
register the feeling before she’s being pulled under the magical spell of the
creature, a breathless moment of regret pulling at the strings of her throat as
a drowning-like sensation grips her whole body, submerging her into the deep
end of a conscious fantasy.
She opens her eyes, breathes in. Her vision is somewhat blurry, uncertain, and
the sound of her breathing far too loud, as if she’s been running for a long
time and only now has she decided to stop. Somewhere on the back of her head
she knows she’s dreaming, trapped within mystical magic, but the idea of it all
feels abstract to her, like a thought that wants to escape her greedy fingers.
She swallows, and just like her breaths the sound is too loud, alien despite
its familiarity, jarring to her senses. She looks about herself, nervous and
unsure, and when the world around her is nothing but interchanging blurs,
lights too bright against her eyes and vanishing glimpses of places she
distantly recognizes, she looks down at herself instead, studying trembling
hands that abruptly feel as foreign as the rest of her body.
Regina?
Her own name crashes against her skull like a physical blow, and Regina reaches
up and towards her head, burying claw like hands into loose locks of hair, as
if she could hold onto the letters that make her who she is by sheer
determination. Maleficent is the one calling, and she wants to follow her
voice, knows for certain that it would awaken her from the uncomfortable
dreamscape around her. She closes her eyes tightly, willing herself to find
guidance in the echo of Maleficent’s voice, but the world is precipitously
inundated by cacophonous sounds, a chorus of voices and noises that are both
familiar and strange, and that pound against Regina’s skull like bludgeoning
rocks.
Oh Regina, I do worry when you’re unkind,reaches her, and the Snow that says it
isn’t really here, is but a conjured image that doesn’t match the one Regina
holds in her head. Short-haired and mild-looking, something unbearably insipid
about her eyes, the Snow that suddenly appears to her looks down, apologetic, a
strange murmur of oh, sorry, Madam Ma –
But Regina doesn’t let her finish, turning away from the discomfiting ghost of
this not-Snowbefore her. The noises liven up then, a discordancy of sound
attacking her from every direction, feeling entirely too close and much too far
away at the same time, dizzying in its cadence. Some bits are clearer than
others; the unwavering voice of a man shouting I will always find you badgering
her with its intensity, filling her up with a wave of unbridled anger; mother’s
voice, steadier than all the rest, whispering lessons learned in her ears,
whispering murmurs until the back of her head tingles with the certainty of
her, with her ever oppressive spirit. Regina falls to her knees, and she’s
thankful for the solid ground she finds beneath them, for the pain that shoots
up her legs once her movement pauses. She focuses on it, grabs at it with her
desperately assaulted senses, and it is only then that the world materializes
before her, a path forming before her eyes, narrow but solid. She reaches
forward, touches the ground with her outstretched palm, breathes in.
And then, suddenly, a wailing cry pierces her senses. She gasps, the sound all-
consuming, unreasonably high and coming from every corner around her. She wants
to stop it, needs to stop it with such violent urgency that she forces her
limbs into action, standing up jerkily and running forward through the path
before her, somehow sure that she’ll find the source of the cry at its end.
Discordant racket follows her, her ragged breathing not enough to quiet down
distant and meaningless voices, the shrill sound of Rumpelstiltskin’s laughter
surrounding her like a physical and viscous web. Louder than all, though, the
earsplitting crying that Regina keeps running towards, the certainty that she
must somehow stop it hardening her steps, quickening her tired legs that seem
so very positive of the path they must take.
If it takes her hours or mere seconds Regina can’t guess at, but eventually she
reaches a clearing, free of ghostly noise but conquered by the desperate
bawling of a baby, bundled tightly within a soft blanket but left to fend for
itself on the ground. Behind the crying baby, a woman mutters incessantly,
words too mumbled for Regina to understand, and her voice easily muffled by the
incessant weeping. Regina wants to yell her, order her to sooth her child into
silence, but the words catch in her throat, choke somewhere on her neck,
leaving her breathless and voiceless. She stomps her foot on the ground then,
but the baby can do nothing but cry, and the woman is far too trapped within
what must surely be maddening desperation, for she’s hugging her knees to her
chest, rocking forwards and backwards in a dizzying cadence as she mutters,
unstoppable and uncaring. Her face, hidden between her knees, is covered by
longs locks of messy blond hair, and Regina wants nothing more than to pull
them away, look into this woman’s eyes and ask her to make the noise stop.
Instead, she kneels before them both, only then catching the woman’s words, a
string of Ican’tbeamotherIcan’tbeamotherIcan’tbeamotherthat Regina can’t bear
to listen to.
She looks down then, at the baby crying before her, chubby arms reaching up for
someone to comfort him, face red and splotchy from the effort. It’s a boy, and
it’s also the most beautiful little child she has ever seen. She reaches down,
but her trembling hands pause halfway, hovering on the air, powerful but
suddenly so useless. She gasps, feeling her own belly itch painfully, her head
conjuring up images of little Prince Bernard and his smile forever lost, of a
ten year old Snow, innocent and sinless when Regina had saved her from sure
death above her horse. So many children lost, and how can Regina hope to hold
such a delicate thing without destroying it? How can hands that know nothing
but harshness possibly soothe such innocence? And yet the baby cries and the
woman mutters, driving Regina increasingly insane, conquering her every sense
until she gives into the compulsion and takes the baby into her arms. She holds
him with as much care as she possesses, hands soft and protective under his
head as she brings him to rest against her chest.
Silence reigns around them thereupon, the woman before her stopping her words
and her dizzying motion, and the baby’s cries subsiding until his face opens
up, bright eyes staring up at Regina in wonder, tiny smile teasing against
round cheeks.
Only then does Regina recover her voice, and unwittingly, with no thought to
the matter, she whispers, “Hello; hello, Henry.”
Abruptly, the steady warmth expanding through Regina’s chest stops, only to be
replaced by a pull of receding magic. She fights it, immediately understanding
what it is, but no matter how hard she holds onto the fantasy, onto the figure
of the woman before her and the child between her arms, it all fades away in a
single short moment, leaving her breathless as she finds herself back in her
reality, Maleficent’s fortress around her, and her arms bereft of a welcome
weight. She wails against it, an unwitting cry of no, no, wait, not yetclawing
its way from her throat, agony palpable in desperate words.
Somewhere, Maleficent calls for her, and it takes her too long to understand
that she’s as close as she can be to her, holding a blanket over her and
embracing her uncooperative limbs with strong arms. Regina’s crying, though,
dampness obvious against her cheeks and breathing jagged, conquered by hiccups
and the bubbling of ugly sobs. She’s trembling, but Maleficent’s voice and
cuddle, usually so soothing, feel like a prison all of a sudden, and she frees
herself from them with angry yet purposeless limbs, scrambling away from her
friend like a skittish and scared little animal. She stumbles from the bed, the
unicorn moving away from her lost gaze as she falls to the floor, her nakedness
a sudden vulnerability. She hugs herself, feeling cold and lost, the sight of
the drafty and dark bedchambers around her unexpectedly vulgar and repugnant to
her overloaded senses. She’s still a little drunk, and the wine swirls inside
her head uncomfortably, making her all the woozier. She feels sick.
“Regina, my darling, little girl…” Maleficent mutters from somewhere next to
her, her voice careful even when for Regina is jarring, far too loud and
unwelcome after the vision she just had.
It had felt real, for a second, the weight of a baby in her arms, and now she
presses her hands to her own flesh, a scar so painful marring the skin low on
her belly, ripping at her insides with the teasing of what’s not to be. How
could magic be so cruel as to offer such haunting visions, as to taunt her with
desires so deeply buried within her own heart?
She bristles, righteous anger marring the short-lived fantasy and fueling
enough for her to stand up and conjure clothes over her own body, her corset
tightening up against her with such strength that she forces herself to push
down a grunt. Constricted by thick fabrics, she breathes better, and it’s so
disconcertingly wrong to feel better when she’s being trapped that she can do
nothing but laugh. Even with her overloaded senses, she knows it sounds
unbalanced.
“Are you losing your mind, Regina?” Maleficent questions then.
Regina finally looks her way, barely registering her even as she tries to focus
on her figure, long, naked and alluring, so very tempting only minutes before.
She feels as if she’s climbing her way through muddy water, though, her
faculties dulled and still lost within a fantasy that had, for a bright moment,
awaken something too similar to love inside her chest.
“I think I might be,” she answers, her tone too soft.
Maleficent reaches out for her, but Regina can’t bear the thought of being
touched now, of connecting with reality when the fantasy remains, and when it’s
far too alluring to let go. She tsks,hating herself for the weakness,
regretting her decision to give into the madness of prophecies. She has been so
adamant in her desires to build her own destiny, after all, to create her own
game and escape that which never belonged to her, and it feels like an insult
to her own efforts to take the easy way of a glimpse at the future. It’s silly,
even, considering how she knows that fate isn’t written stone, that whatever
the unicorn just showed her is probably nothing but wishes whispered in the
wind. A lost woman and a lost child, and Regina the savior of them both – what
a silly notion, when she has destroyed far more than she has ever created, when
children and family has been escaping through her fingers for as long as she’s
lived. The vision must be nothing but a fantasy, she decides, the wistfulness
of whatever childish spirit still remains in her teasing at the corners of her
mind. She’s a queen, though, not an infant, a queen with a runaway princess, a
kingdom to conquer, a council to rule, an army to command, and as of tomorrow,
a Summer Festival to attend. She holds onto those facts, tangible realities of
the person she is, of the truths she has fought for, and pushes the spectral
vision of long blond locks and a chubby smile far away from her mind.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she says, finally, hiding her eyes away from Maleficent and
from her condemning pet, lest they see traces of Regina’s longing hidden in
their depths. “I must go back, address the council before the festival and all
that boring business. See you soon? Do behave while I’m gone.”
 
===============================================================================
 
The day of the Summer Festival dawns with clear skies and the sun high up and
shining brightly, an omen of good fortune that sees Regina groaning her way out
of a restless and turbulent sleep, plagued with unwanted dreams of blonde
faceless women and beautiful looking babies. She shakes the thoughts away
easily enough, though, the prospect of the day enough to make her forget
whatever strange dreamscapes she had been pulled into just the night before.
Truth be told, she has been looking forward to the festival, and she won’t
allow anything to ruin the closest thing to wondrous anticipation she has felt
in years.
Mother had never allowed her attendance to what she’d referred to as the
unrefined entertainment of the masses,and Regina, twelve years old and still
dreaming of folk tales, princes and romance, had wistfully thought of the
jousting tournaments and archery contests, of the bonfires that extended long
into the night and where nobles and peasants alike danced carelessly to the
music of travelling bands. Later on, Daniel had been her insight into the
forbidden festivities, his clear voice filled with stories and laughter, and
with a promise to bring her along one day, a promise that he’d never been
allowed to fulfill. They had tried, once, when Regina had been sixteen and
their affair had been but the sigh of fledging love, when a smile from Regina
was capable of making Daniel blush to the root of his hair, and when they had
barely begun to understand the feelings that they shared. Their plans had been
thwarted by mother’s hand and her order of time spent in the dark cellar of the
house, and even if Regina can’t fully recall the sin she had committed that had
delivered her such a sentence, she certainly remembers the defeated despair of
her punishment. It seems oddly ironic and yet poetically understandable, then,
that the one favor she had never been able to extract from her cowering husband
was the right to visit the festival, as if her most terrible jailors had
somehow been in cahoots when it came to doling out discipline.
The past has no place on her thoughts today, though, and so Regina dresses
herself in rich yet comfortable riding clothes that will undoubtedly bring a
brush of disapproval to Duchess Adela’s eyes, and readies herself to finally be
a part of something so simple, and yet so displeasingly forbidden. Leopold had
usually only attended the late afternoon festivities, but Regina had been
adamant about spending the whole day at the main village, as well as about
bringing with her gifts of food, ale and wine, knowing well that such things
are usually far more effective at plying the human spirit than any other
promise she may give away. Therefore, she leaves the palace almost at first
light, once she has managed to push her tiredness away, her entourage following
with grumbling protests. Among her guard and her council, though, travels
father as well, and his smile matches Regina’s brilliantly; after all, whatever
prohibition Regina had endured under mother’s controlling hands, father had
endured as well, and perhaps he’s harbored secret desires of seeing the
festival for himself, too. Regina wishes he would tell her things like these,
for she would dote upon him without a second thought if only he ever did. She
knows too well that father will never utter any words that may make him a
nuisance, though, and so Regina will have to guess at whatever hidden desires
he holds.   
Soon enough, Regina’s booted feet are settling upon dusty gravel, her carriage
along with her escorts enough to gather the attention of villagers already
reunited in the main square of town, enough of them that the ensuing silence is
deafening. Regina breathes in slowly, telling herself that the reaction is to
be expected, and that as long as it isn’t an outward display of hatred and
dismissal, then she won’t be disturbed by it. She holds onto father’s arm for
support, though, linking herself to him and steadying herself against his frame
for a second before she proceeds to order her men around, so the carriages of
food and wine that have been following her make their way to the communal
tables. The flurry of movement from her guards breaks the spell, and soon
enough the crowd is moving again, whispering about themselves and looking at
Regina only in quick glimpses, as if afraid that she may kill them with a
simple gaze. It’s not ideal, Regina muses, but then she doesn’t expect to be
received with open arms and joy, not after bearing the brunt of the cruelty of
the crowds after the tour of the land she’d taken with Snow after the spreading
disease had stopped its deathly curse, not after the rumors that abound about
her cold cruelty, or about the fear her witchcraft has instilled among her
people. The lack of condemnation is the best that she can hope for, and
perhaps, after a day of looking upon her among gleeful festivities, a different
light will be shed upon her image.
“You should have heeded my advice of lighter clothes, Your Majesty,” Duchess
Adela says next to her. “Black is hardly appropriate for the season or the
early hour.”
Regina smiles placidly at her, her own foresight about the woman’s opinions on
her dark garments effectively halting any anger they may have provoked.
“Perhaps I will redefine what is deemed appropriate then, duchess.” Then,
before the woman can complain any further, she presses her free hand to
father’s arm so that they begin walking and says, “Now, let us enjoy the day in
peace.”
The festival isn’t grandiose by any means, certainly nothing like balls held
within the walls of the palace, and even lacking the splendor she had splurged
on when she had rebelliously organized her own alternative celebrations back in
her days as Leopold’s wife, but there’s something quietly jovial about the
whole ordeal, lightheartedness obviously claiming a part of everyone’s heart.
Charming is the best description Regina finds as she looks at garlands adorning
every tree and at food of every kind filling innumerable tables, and as she
listens to the soft lute music that follows her every step. She watches
everything with concealed fascination in her eyes, something of the little girl
that had never gotten to see such sights coming alive within her, and making
her feel giddy.
Soon enough, her presence doesn’t feel so jarring, as confounding as it had at
first, and while she doesn’t blend in with people dressed in soft pinks and
blues, in faded browns and deep greens, the sight of her among the crowd fails
to elicit surprised gasps, or even anything other than curious yet short looks.
A few nobles arrive as the day moves forward, and most of them seem happy with
acknowledging her with polite nods and very little else, for which Regina is
secretly grateful, having no intention of faking her way through any
conversation. She spots Baroness Irene a little before noon, and while her
first instinct is to avoid her at every cost, when she realizes that the
woman’s intentions coincide with her own, she takes the exact opposite
resolution, and lingers close enough to her to make her positively
uncomfortable, taking petty delight in the baroness’ flushed cheeks whenever
she spots Regina anew. Regina finds herself covering up her mouth with her own
hand in order to hide a peal of laughter, and she’s so distracted by her own
amusement that she completely misses a man approaching her, so that when he
speaks loud and clear next to her, she almost jumps in surprise.
“That’s not very nice, is it?”
Regina turns towards the voice with sudden jerkiness, but only fixes her gaze
on its owner once she’s set her eyes upon Claude, who remains two steps behind
her and already has his hand around the hilt of his sword. After smiling in
careful assurance at her bodyguard, she brings her attention towards the rude
intruder that dares speak to her with such freedom, and is confronted with a
handsome face, wavy brown hair, sharp cheeks and plump smile, all of them
belonging to a man dressed in rich yet odd clothing, something about the fabric
of his vest too bright, and the gold chain adorning his neck managing to be
boorish even when clearly expensive.
“And who would you be to speak to me with such freedom?” she wonders,
neglecting to address the man even by a generic title, since he hasn’t given
her such consideration.
The man only laughs, impolite yet delightfully amused, his smile spreading
bizarrely over his own lips. Regina bristles, but she finds her easily flared
temper subdued by curiosity, and by the alien quality of the laughing man
before her. Something about him discomfits her, his demeanor failing to match
his looks, and the richness of his attire, while speaking of nobility, oddly
recalling the thought of a boy trying on his father’s garments, and failing to
fill them properly.
“Who are you?” she questions yet again, daring the man to remain silent.
He doesn’t, but the following statement from his lips manages to be equally as
infuriating, a giddy and tangibly mocking, “Guess,” falling from his smiling
lips.
Regina would have his head, honestly, knowing that barely more than a nod will
have Claude’s sword at the man’s throat and his disrespectful smirk gone
forever, but it’s not even midday, and the festival doesn’t call for such
wasteful tragedies. Regina narrows her eyes then, thinking the man perhaps a
long forgotten noble, but the closer she looks, the more bizarre he seems to
her, as if she’s failing to see the whole picture and is simply staring at a
palpable falsehood instead, an invented reality of sorts. She licks her lips,
her mouth suddenly dry, and it’s then that she tastes the extraordinary
tainting the air, gooey-like magic sticking to the back of her throat, sliding
down her spine until she recognizes the glamour for what it is. A blink, and
the man fades before her, her eyes finally looking past the magical mask and to
the truth behind it, well-known features staring back at her instead,
Rumpelstiltskin’s golden scales and absurd curly hair a quick enough
revelation. As soon as she spies the truth, the imp giggles, obviously
delighted by his own trickery.
“Very good, dearie,” he praises, the small jump that follows his statement
natural to his usual movements but surely funny-looking and strange when he’s
wearing the skin of his enchantment.
Regina rolls her eyes, amused despite herself, and hisses, “Whatare you doing
here? Go away.”
“I’m enjoying the festival, can’t begrudge an old friend that.”
Regina snorts, if at the idea that the imp may not have an ulterior motive or
at referring to her as old friendshe’s not particularly sure. Nonetheless,
Rumpelstiltskin smiles at her, and the gesture lacks his usual taunting
demeanor, tinged with something rather indescribable instead. It might be the
mask he’s wearing, the magic confounding Regina’s senses and making her see
both the truth and the lie, and neither one of them at the same time, but she
dares guess that there’s something like nostalgia painting Rumpelstiltskin’s
gaze. To admit such a thing would be to accept that there’s something human
still somewhere under the darkness of the creature, and while Regina wishes she
could deny such an idea, she has known the imp long and intimately enough to
have spied such a thing before, hidden away and pushed back. Whatever remains
of the man Rumpelstiltskin once was he surely must hate, for whatever small
piece Regina has been privy to in the past has spoken of weakness and
cowardice, of powerlessness so damaging that the damnation of the Dark One’s
curse must have felt like the better choice.
Rumpelstiltskin breaks her out of her reverie with a twirling motion of his
hand, the preamble of what Regina suspects is going to be a longwinded tale.
Sure enough, he begins speaking in a chipper tone and rhetorically wonders,
“Did you ever study the origins of the Summer Festival, dearie?”
He keeps talking then, the physical effort he’s exhorting over himself so as
not to give into his usual posturing entertaining enough that Regina allows him
to ramble importantly, even as she tunes him out easily enough, years of
practice making the task entirely too easy. The double sound of his voice is
discomfiting, anyhow, rumbling uncomfortably against her ears, and there is
nothing about the tradition behind the festival that Regina doesn’t already
know. It had once been the subject of many a story falling from father’s lips,
the mysterious summer night when evil spirits roam free, and witches meet their
masters, the common folk only to be protected by the power of the flames.
Rumpelstiltskin’s tale is far more monotonous and elaborate, and when he speaks
of masters and witches he laughs, high-pitched and uncomfortable, and bops
Regina’s nose, prompting her to step back and slap his hand away. The nerve of
the man, honestly.
Wrinkling her nose in disgust and huffing, Regina crosses her arms over her
chest, making a show of her own irritation even as she lets him continue his
speech. She purses her lips and studies him, not particularly sure that she
should believe his intentions innocent when visiting the festival. Then again,
he has been behaving in such a strange manner as of late that she can’t even
begin to guess at the truth of it all. Admittedly, he has been fairly absent
from her life for the past year, the visit he had paid her after she’d thrown
the traitorous huntsman into the dungeons with the sole purpose of mocking her
the last he had bestowed upon her until a month back, when he had showed up in
her bedchambers in the middle of the night and had earned himself an
enthusiastically aimed vase thrown at his head. She’d nearly hit him, too.
“Impulse control, dear–” he’d whined, his statement interrupted by a fireball
that time.
Surprisingly enough, his visit had come with a request, and Regina had savored
the almighty Dark One asking her for a favor instead of the other way around
with the smugness he had ruled over her since they’d first met. It had been
satisfying enough to keep her smiling for a few days; she had so little
amusement these days, after all. His petition for her to deny her help to Sir
Maurice and his apparently urgent problem with rogue bands of ogres had come as
a surprise, particularly when Regina had spent some time investigating the man
to find nothing of notice – he was but a nobleman hidden away in some faraway
part of the kingdom, and Regina had smiled at the thought that not even the
death of King Leopold had made him abandon his abode and visit the palace.
Whatever business the man may have had with the Dark One Regina hadn’t
questioned much longer, and had simply exchanged the favor for further lessons
in her transfiguration spells – her last attempt at turning a goat into a frog
had ended up with the animal vaguely green and moist, but most definitely goat-
shaped, which had been… unfortunate.
Today, the memory is but a fleeting thought, drowned by Rumpelstiltskin’s
tirade, which Regina chooses to stop once she realizes the funny looks they’re
getting from peasants and noblemen alike.
“Dear, is there a point to this?” she questions, smirking when Rumpelstiltskin
looks honestly offended at being so swiftly interrupted. “Are you here to wreak
havoc, break a deal perhaps? If so, do make it quick.”
“No, dearie, no deals today. The festival is–that is to say I always come–used
to come with Ba–no more questions!”
The outburst is both surprising and chilling, Rumpelstiltskin’s tone taking on
a darker quality the longer he fumbles with his words, half-spoken confessions
Regina can’t even begin to guess at, but that speak of a certain attachment to
the date. She holds her fist to her chest, her heart beating wildly under her
skin, threat thrumming under Rumpelstiltskin’s skin and tasting of heavy magic
around her, even when he’s not even looking at her. He’s looking at a group of
children instead, boys and girls who have stopped their cheerful game to stare
at them both with wide and curious eyes, as if their infancy allows them to see
that which is invisible to others. Briefly, Regina wonders if perhaps
Rumpelstiltskin’s isn’t the Pied Piper of the old legends, or if his dealings
with children and names go far beyond anything Regina may have ever imagined.
Whatever the answer may be, Regina doesn’t get one at all, and when trumpets
announce the beginnings of the tournaments, effectively breaking the strange
atmosphere that has settled around her and her former master, the imp returns
to his commonplace cheery attitude.
He coughs, as if trying to rid himself of the traces of whatever wild
disposition has conquered him today, and does a little turn on his heels,
finishing it by curtseying before her, and bidding her goodbye with, “Enjoy
your festival, Your Majesty.”
Regina begins to speak in order to issue the proper reply expected of the
queen, but he interrupts it, saying his goodbyes yet again, but in a fashion
much more in accordance with his usual self, and with the true meaning of their
relationship. He steps closer, his grin hiding warning and menace, and when he
catches her chin with oppressive fingers, she thinks, not for the first time,
that she has sold her soul to the devil, and that he isn’t done feeding himself
with it.
“Now be careful, dearie,” he speaks into her face, his hiss recalling a
serpent. “It is a night for the wicked, after all.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina shakes the oddness of Rumpelstiltskin’s visit away as soon as the
tournaments begin, even when she spots him among the crowd, the gaudy bright
blue of his vest impossible to ignore. His purpose doesn’t appear to be
treacherous, however, and the lightness that has been conquering her throughout
the day wins over any other emotion easily enough, allowing her to enjoy the
festivities as she so wishes. The tournaments begin with sword fighting, and
Claude steps away from his spot as her main bodyguard in order to participate,
only after fearsomely reassuring her that his replacement is equally efficient,
and under threat of losing his head were something to happen to their queen.
She smiles at his enthusiasm, and ties a deep purple ribbon about his wrist for
good fortune, which makes him puff out his chest in proud accomplishment,
making Regina smile brilliantly. The childishness her men exhibit whenever she
favors them never fails to please her, such devotion from large and brutish
fighters a giddy relief to her otherwise irritable emotions.
The sword tournament is followed by jousting, an endeavor that Regina can’t
fully wrap her head around, or enjoy with as much delight as the swordfights.
There is something inherently stupid about men galloping towards each other
with big wooden sticks, and the absurdity of it all attacks her with such
suddenness that she has to hide her laughter as best as possible, so as not to
offend the participants, lest they think their masculinity mocked.
The time remaining before the archery tournament, set to happen right before
sunset as is tradition, Regina spends perusing the food stands by father’s
side. She ends up pecking her way through most of the sweets she has brought as
a gift herself, most of them common, but a few others a tribute to her lost
friend Bernie, who had so dutifully and adoringly sent her both sweets and
recipes during the years of their friendship. It’s with wistfulness that Regina
thinks of the batch of recipes that she had had bound into a beautiful leather
book, creating for herself a memento of the little prince that she had
otherwise been denied.
The archery tournament begins with a trumpet call, and Regina sits in the
stands with so much childlike wonder that she’s a little embarrassed of her own
disposition. She can’t help but be flooded by old stories of knights winning
contests for their ladies, though, of pure-hearted peasants defying the
noblemen of the kingdom with bow and arrow, claiming their place among royals
on the merit of their skills. It’s silly how it makes her heart beat faster,
whatever smidgeon of a little girl that remains within her waking up at the
prospect of witnessing arrows flying with precision, and later on the
coronation of the beauty of the festival by the hands of the winner, as is
tradition. Any other day such a thought may displease her, particularly once
she spies the wilting flower of a girl dressed in fluffy cream fabrics that
obviously expects to be the one chosen by whoever wins the contest, the thought
of such expectation wasted on the whims of a man making her uncomfortable.
Today, though, she allows herself to be swept by the romance of it all, her
spirit overcome by the excitement of the tales of old. Perhaps Rumpelstiltskin
had been right in calling the night magical, if Regina can’t help but think
that it can’t in any way turn wicked.
Three of her men appoint themselves as contestants, and the three of them fall
under the skillful hand of a man that keeps himself away from Regina’s and the
crowd’s curious eyes, his features covered by a frustratingly opaque hood, only
his hands visible as he shoots arrows with such celerity and finesse that the
crowd gasps with frenzied agitation. The exhibition is wonderful enough that
she parts with the coins of the prize without regret, finding herself so
distracted by the sight of beautifully handcrafted arrows firmly stuck to the
center of their targets that she completely misses the commotion that follows
until she finds herself staring at the winner himself, gazing up at her in the
stands and offering the crowning garland of the beauty of the festival up at
her.
“If Her Majesty will allow me,” he intones, voice strong and commanding,
striking Regina with incomprehensible force and quickening her pulse as if a
spell had been cast upon her with nothing but the power of spoken words.
Narrowing her eyes at the still hooded figure, Regina ponders the situation.
Tradition calls for a young maiden or a newlywed bride to take the crown, and
both Regina’s age and station make the gesture impolite, which immediately
makes her feel unease, the memory of attempts against her life far too fresh
for her to trust the honesty of a man that refuses to show his face to the
crowds. She should reject the flower crown and command the man towards the
stands filled with young and delicate little things, and yet she finds that she
doesn’t want to. Simple desire is what makes her stand from her place and climb
her way down to the winning archer, mystifying longing making her move with
ease, as if enchanted. And perhaps she is, for she can’t explain the sudden
need to look into this man’s eyes, to allow herself to be complimented by his
gift. Then again, perhaps she’s simply had one too many cups of wine.
If the crowd had gasped at the man’s skills with bow and arrow, Regina feels
like doing so the moment she stands before him, his bright blue eyes impossibly
shiny as they lock with hers with nearly impolite ferocity. Regina chokes the
sound down, forces herself to steady abruptly trembling hands. It’s not that
the man is handsome, which he is, sharp cheekbones and laughter lines appealing
enough though not strikingly so. She has seen more beauty than this man’s
features possess, and yet she feels trapped within his gaze, drawn to him in a
way that makes her sway on the spot, sudden desire to press her lips against
his perplexing. She doesn’t know this man, and yet there is something familiar
in his eyes, warm and inviting, a promise of strong and protective arms and
contentment beyond her wildest imagination. Indeed she doesn’t know him, and
yet she feels like she should.
When he steps closer to rest the crown on her head, Regina licks her lips, her
mouth suddenly dry and her whole body drumming with unwanted nerves. She
catches his scent, pinewood and dust, the smell of the forest, common and
nearly vulgar, unattractive by every measure and yet somehow alluring at the
same time. He presses the flowers to her head, the lightest crown she has ever
worn resting easily over the loose and uncomplicated hairdo she had agreed on
this morning for the sake of softness and comfort. When he steps back, taking
away the scent of sweat and skin, Regina wants to follow. She must be losing
her mind, that she should be so enraptured by such an ordinary man. As the man
moves back, the crowd applauds the gesture, but both him and Regina remain
trapped within their gazes, standing far too close to be appropriate and yet
farther than Regina would wish them to be. Would it be strange for her to
invite him to her bed tonight? Would he be appalled by such behavior? And why
should Regina care what this man thinks of her, she who is a queen and a grown
woman, and him being nothing but a man with a talent?
“The flowers pale in comparison to your beauty, Your Majesty,” he says then,
and it must be a testament to Regina’s bewitchment that not even such bland and
banal words manage to break the spell of the man before her. What they do,
though, is make her laugh with enough joy to break the stillness that had
captured her previously.
With an easy smile painted on her lips and lifting her eyebrow, she says,
“Dear, you will have to do better than that if you expect to pursue a queen.”
“Oh?” He counters, his smile widening by the second, as if delighted by the
answer. “You must pardon a humble man for his lack of eloquence, Your Majesty;
I can only hope to make up for it with my skillful bow.” He searches for her
gaze after that yet again, and once he’s holding it, he offers an impudent grin
and completes his statement with, “And with my handsome face, of course.”
“Humble you say?” Regina wonders, infinitely amused by him, pleasantly
surprised by the gentle cockiness of his voice.
“Humility is what makes men into angels, Your Majesty, or so my poor old mother
used to say; pardon me once again when I say that no angel would ever dare
pursue a woman such as yourself.”
Regina’s eyes widen at the words, and she has to fight a sputter as she
intones, “You would dare speak to me like that?”
He laughs at that, and it seems that his smile can only widen, painting
cheerful and easy lines on his face, a world of happiness etched in between
them. Regina finds herself envious of that freedom, craving it for herself as
much as she apparently craves this man before her, infuriating as he may be.
She has half a mind to drag him to her carriage and have him then and there,
thoughtlessly loosing herself in the incomprehensible enchantment of him, but
she’s somehow more intrigued by his words and his smiling eyes than by the
charms his clothing may be hiding. His laughter hasn’t died yet when he reaches
for her once again, grasping her hand with one of his own and pressing a
lingering kiss to the skin of her knuckles, his lips dry yet soft.
“Yes, Your Majesty, I would dare.”
Her hand still held by his, and her own eyes dancing with unbidden
enthrallment, she questions, “Who areyou?” Her voice is soft, much too soft,
but she finds that she doesn’t miss the imperiousness her tone has boasted as
of late, the commanding harshness that she has so gotten used to.
“I’m afraid if I were to tell you, you would be forced to send your men after
me, Your Majesty.”
“What do–”
He interrupts her with a second kiss to her knuckles, though, quick and small,
the hairs of his cropped beard soft against her skin, making her wish for more.
It distracts her momentarily, and so she remains motionless even as he begins
to step back and away from her.
“I pray to the gods we may meet again, Your Majesty,” he whispers for a
goodbye, running away then, hood over his head and coins in his pocket, leaving
nothing but his arrows behind.
As he fades from sight, Regina has the ridiculous desire to follow, break into
a run until she finds him again, to what purpose she can’t possibly understand.
Nevertheless, with him gone the thrall is broken, and she’s left standing alone
by the wooden stands, a silly little flower crown atop her head, and the girl
who should have received it in her stead somewhere in the vicinity, crying her
woes at not being thought the most beautiful. She allows herself but a moment
to stare into the distance, yearning for something that she fears might never
come to pass now that the hooded figure is gone, nothing but the memory of a
shy kiss pressed to her hand and the softly slowing down beat of her heart left
to her for a memory of a moment’s enchantment. She feels, momentarily, as if
she has lost something precious, and the inadequacy of not understanding what
leaves her unsettled.
With a hasty movement, she grabs at the flower crown atop her head and removes
it, making a minute decision and walking to the crying girl in her sweet cream
garment and the small group of friends surrounding her and consoling her from
her sadness. Their murmurs stop as she approaches and the girl, no more than
sixteen and blotchy from her tears, sniffs her distress away, doing her best at
curtseying before her. The gesture is clumsy if unusually charming, and the
surprised smile she offers Regina after she leaves the crown atop her blond
curls helps Regina understand why she must be considered the most beautiful of
the village.
“I hope you know no greater sadness than the scorn of a foolish man’s whims,
little one,” she tells her, her tone laced with such aching honesty that it
baffles her as much as it does the group of girls.
She reaches out, a caress hidden in her curling hand, a sweet gesture that she
has had no one to bestow upon since Snow left the palace. Regina places her
knuckles against the girl’s cheek, sweet surrender breaking somewhere behind
her breastbone when the girl closes her eyes and leans into the touch, as if
Regina is nothing but the gentlest of sisters, and not a monster to be afraid
of. The touch is brief, as sudden in its absence as it was in its display, and
Regina cradles her hand against her chest, as if she’s been given something
precious. Regina leaves the girls before gratitude can be uttered, smiling when
childish giggles erupt among them as they contemplate the flowers now upon
their friend’s head.
 
===============================================================================
 
Night falls upon the festival and finds Regina in a pensive mood, sitting by
the bonfire with father by her side, both of them sipping slowly at fresh
tomato soup, cold to commemorate the heat that lingers still in the air. The
sunset had been beautiful, painting the sky in bright pink and orange, the last
rays of sun giving way to the mystic aura of the last summer night, as if truly
hoping for devils to roam free through the thick forests. Darkness has fallen
upon them now, but the fires are the biggest Regina has ever seen, and the
orange flames, if perhaps they won’t guard them from evil spirits, certainly
make for beautiful night lights. Around them, women and men dance with the
giddiness of a day of tournaments, high-spirits and far too much drink, the
soft lutes of the day having stopped their sound in favor of the noise of
potent drums. There is something ceremonial about the ritual, about the
liberation of careless dancing, and perhaps this was what Leopold and mother
never wanted her to see, the abandon of people that had no shackles to wear
around the wrists. It is true that Regina feels tempted to join the madness,
and that it is but a sigh of propriety what keeps her sedentary instead.
Nonetheless, the air smells of magic, as if the unfamiliar unity of commoners
and noblemen under the same starry sky is enough to conjure that which a single
sorceress couldn’t possibly hope to achieve. Regina breathes it in, faithfully
believing in the power coursing through the air, in whatever incantation has
brought the strange happenings of the day, her encounter with Rumpelstiltskin
filled with an odd and unspoken truth, the bewitching man capable of making her
heart feel alive, a sisterly caress given to a sad little girl. The feeling is
foreign to her, easy contentment lacking brutal passion, no ecstasy to speak of
within her chest but no pain either, no destroying anger. Such tranquility is
unknown to her, such comfortable warmth and lack of anticipation, of urgency to
fill her hands and her head with activity so as to forget her festering wounds
and jagged scars, the void of her insides and the chipped parts of her heart.
She breathes in slowly, and holds onto to the feeling.
Tonight, she doesn’t feel like the hated queen of the land, the dark omen above
this kingdom, the inadequate little girl filling shoes far too big for her.
Perhaps it’s simply that she has spent her day among her people in peace, if
not received with open arms then at least not jilted and denied, sharing their
joy and celebrating their happiness. Sitting among them now, she wonders if
this can possibly be a silent truce, an unwritten reconciliation, a promise of
forgiveness over sins committed in the past. She wonders if she can allow
herself to hope for such reprieve, and if she can allow the memory of Snow
White to fade in exchange for such acceptance, for such tender approval. She
wonders if, somehow, such heartfelt serenity can be enough to quell her
quivering hands, to quench her need for blood in exchange for blood already
spilled. Father had told her once that she was good,and tonight she prays to
gods she has never believed in that she is, because she needs this momentary
hope, this quiet repletion, this sense that the future has more than barren
lands and frightened gazes to offer her, that the magical premonition of
holding a child against her breastbone is somehow more than a wistful fantasy,
that there’s a way to fill the tangible absence that has lingered for years
inside every crevice of her body.
So focused is Regina in her own thoughts and the sight of the dancing flames
before her that she completely misses the one villager that manages to surpass
the presence of her guards and approach her in steps so fast that she finds
herself having to cover her mouth after an involuntary yelp. Tension builds for
a moment, Claude reacting quickly and violently by standing close to her and
ready to attack, and a few surprised villagers joining her yelp with a chorus
of gasps. Regina is just as swift in her response, however, stopping Claude’s
armed intentions when her eyes find that there’s no attack at all, and that her
sudden visitor is but a little girl, no more than seven years old, who happens
to be doing nothing but staring up at Regina with wide chestnut-colored eyes.
“I’m sorry!” The little girl exclaims, the apology sincere yet failing to sound
polite. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I wasn’t looking. I wanted to give you
these flowers, and I never stop to think, or so says mama. Says I will never
amount to nothing, she says, not with my foolish head.” And then, as an
afterthought, “Your Majesty.”
Regina laughs, unbidden, the genuine and rapid rant making sudden warmth
explode inside her chest. The girl smiles as if she has no care in the world,
offering up a disorderly assortment of wildflowers that Regina takes from her
with careful ease, spying then a set of impossibly bright eyes and a
wonderfully brazen grin missing two front teeth.
“Thank you very much, dear,” she answers, holding the flowers closer to her
chest, as if the most precious of treasures. “They are lovely.”
“You really think so? ‘Cause mama says they’re not fit for a queen, but they
grow down south by Big John’s farm, and nothing grew for so long after the land
had to be burnt when everyone was so sick, and I think they’re beautiful, Your
Majesty! Not perfect, but papa always says perfect is boring, he says.”
“It sounds like your papa is a very wise man,” Regina murmurs.
The little girl nods importantly then, as if indeed her papa is the wisest man
in the land, even as her eyes remain firmly settled upon Regina, perhaps a
little awestruck. Regina finds herself staring right back, the girl before her
sweet looking if not entirely pretty, skin as dark as Regina’s own and hair a
wild mess of uncombed brown curls, cut short like a boy’s. Regina spies a few
grass leaves stuck in between her curls, and she can’t help herself from
reaching out and plucking them out carefully. The girl giggles, loud and
rambunctiously impolite, and Regina smiles, wistful.
“What is your name, dear?” she questions.
“Emeline, Your Majesty.”
“Lovely,” Regina mutters, her voice distant and her tone contemplative, the
girl before her pulling at memories never forgotten, at wounds that have the
tenacity of reopening themselves time and time again despite Regina’s best
efforts.
Thoughtfully, Regina realizes that her own child, had it been allowed life,
would have been Emeline’s age by now, and she wonders whether she would have
made a good mother after all. Briefly, she longs to scoop the little girl
before her into her arms and claim her for herself, as the daughter and heir
that Snow White no longer is, yearning for a child a thought that Maleficent’s
unicorn may have brought to the forefront of her mind, but that may been a
silent desire for a long time now.
“Would you like to see, Your Majesty?” Emeline questions after a moment, her
hands swinging before her as if she wishes to offer them to Regina, but doesn’t
particularly know how to. “The field by Big John’s farm, I mean, with the
lovely flowers! I’ll take you and then mama won’t say that they ain’t fit for a
queen no more, she won’t.”
Regina tilts her head to the side, curious and carefully distrusting. She hates
it, though, hates that even the request of a child brings suspicions to her
chest, and berates herself for the darkness of such thoughts in the face of
such innocence. Making up her mind briskly, she answers, “I would love to,
dear.”
Regina offers a hand and Emeline takes it with energy and without a second
thought, her little fingers, already rough from life in the village, a
comforting weight against Regina’s own. They walk together following Emeline’s
spry steps, and Regina finds herself laughing when Claude sends a guard after
them, and he has to run to catch up to them. He remains far behind them, so
that Regina can almost forget the need for security that both her and her
council have agreed on, and focus instead on Emeline’s rambling speech. The
girl is certainly a little chatterbox, enough that she can’t help but be
reminded of Snow and her babbler, of the way she would tell Regina of every
single thought that crossed her head, at least when she’d been a child still.
Her speeches had grown more guarded with age, but she’d never quite lost her
penchant for long tirades that Regina had mostly hummed her way through with
thinly veiled disinterest. She finds, despite herself, that Emeline isn’t quite
as charming as Snow had once been, the shape of her words tiring and her
enthusiasm slightly irritating.
They walk together for a long time, the soft breeze already announcing the end
of the summer nice against Regina’s skin, and the darkened and dusty paths
they’re walking through surprisingly pleasant. Regina tunes the girl out
eventually, enjoying instead the hand that she’s still holding, and the way
Emeline keeps swinging them together with nervous energy. It’s sweet, she
thinks, that this girl would have no fear of her despite the stories she has
surely heard, and Regina realizes that her eyes are surprisingly misty, one
hand curling around that of the girl while her other one rests against her
belly, trembling over the fabric of her suddenly too tight corset. Looking at
Emeline with soft eyes, Regina sees a world of memories, of children loved and
lost, of a past so painful that anger had seemed like the only possible answer
to assure survival, and she wonders if she would dare to spy a world of
promises just as well, of a future where the gazes bestowed upon her shine with
regard and respect, with earned affection that so far has been denied. In the
face of such promise, Regina believes she could find it in herself to let go of
her anger, of the one protective shield that has been as much a blessing as it
has been a curse, preserving her from the outside as much as it twisted her
insides.
“It’s here!” Emeline announces eventually, ripping her hand away from Regina’s
so she can trudge merrily into a small field where shabby little flowers grow
disorderly.
The place is not particularly big or particularly beautiful, but children must
definitely like stomping on it often enough, if the state of the poor flowers
is any indication. It’s such a poor-looking little place that Regina wonders if
this child has truly never seen more beauty than this; surely the shores barely
a mile away from the village are a fairer sight, or even the thick forests that
surround most of the settlement. If the place fails to be grand or beautiful,
though, it at least succeeds in being tranquil, far away enough from the main
square that it is shrouded in darkness, and that the music from the drums is
but a light pattering of sound. Idly, Regina thinks that so far out here, no
one would hear them scream. The traitorous thought alarms her for a moment, her
heart thudding with sudden certainty inside her chest, and her throat
constricting with abrupt signs of panic. She looks at Emeline, her figure
twirling merrily among the flowers, and wills herself to breathe slowly and
calm her senses, put her treacherous thoughts away.
Not a moment later, a muffled shout from her guard alerts her once again, his
short-lived Your Maj– failing to register completely when she finds her
breathing air lacking, a tight rope being stretched around her neck, her body
being propelled backwards and held against a strong and tall figure. She does
try to scream then, but her attempt is futile, the rope choking both air and
voice away from her. Instinct taking over, she fights against her attacker, her
hands grasping maniacally at the rope around her neck, her legs kicking forward
and backwards, her body fighting the hold the man behind her has on her. It’s
useless and yet she fights, tears springing to her eyes when her breathing
begins to fail, when her chest begins to heave rapidly, panic taking over when
no air comes to her, when the pressure begins to build around her chest and her
head. She struggles in vain, the man too strong and the rope too tight, her own
strength leaving her as she suffocates against him, mouth opening in useless
and breathless gasps. Her vision turns blurry, lights dancing before her eyes,
and in a moment of stark clarity, she realizes that she’s going to die. She’s
going to die on some dark and lackluster field at the hands of some undeserving
man after being guided by the soft hand of a child. Love is weakness,mother had
said, and so it is the concession to brief gentleness what will kill her. As
her vision gets fuzzier, her legs moving less and less as fighting becomes
impossible for her mistreated body, she thinks no, this is not how I go, this
is not how it ends.Stubborn, undeterred by her own weakening frame, she kicks
again, digs her elbows back into the flesh they can find, her hands pulling
away at the rope at her throat, her spirit taking over the battle her body
refuses to put up.
And then it ends. Air returns to her lungs as abruptly as it had left her, and
the gulps she takes are so big and desperate that she barely takes notice of
the man holding her no longer doing so, but rather falling to the ground behind
her, his body heavy and lifeless, landing awkwardly, blood flowing from a deep
gash at his side. Regina falls to the ground herself, knees cracking as she
hits the grass and hands landing heavily over her own thighs, her body sagging
forward as her breathlessness remains, as her jagged pants begin to slow down
little by little, the pressure in her chest receding and her vision focusing
again on the world around her even as black spots still dance before her eyes.
“Your Majesty, are you alright?”
Regina nods, frantic, the figure of her guard and the sight of his bloodied
sword infinitely more beautiful to her than any seas or fields, than any
forests or festivals. She looks up, breathing through her mouth still with
trembling doubt, as if her body is expecting to be denied air all over again,
and nods once again, squinting her eyes until she recognizes the face before
her.
“Rudy,” she whispers, smiling with honest relief when the guard nods in
acknowledgment. She’s always liked Rudy, and she may just upgrade him to her
favorite person in the world after tonight.
It settles her enough that she can look about herself, at the field where two
corpses lie in the stillness of death, their blood coating the flowers Emeline
had claimed to like so much. One meant for her and one meant for her guard,
surely, and both of them fruitless in their efforts. Sneering, Regina regains
her footing and stands up, ignoring the helping hand Rudy offers her in favor
of touching her own neck instead, the skin there broken and tender, the burn of
the rope painful still. Rudy’s face has been victim of the attack as well, a
deep cut slicing the skin of his cheek, fresh blood still flowing down and
coating his neck. Regina spares a moment more to despair over her wounds and
those of her guard, before a spark of uncontrolled fury takes over her and she
finds herself kicking at the dead body of the man that seconds ago had had her
life between his hands. Her boot meets hard metal instead of the expected soft
flesh, the clanking sound enough to make her frown and take a better look at
the corpse. She discovers armor and coat of mail, an ornate headdress half off
the man’s head.
“This is no peasant,” she mutters.
“No, Your Majesty, see that crest? They’re–”
“Mercenaries,” she concludes, her tone dark as she issues another kick at the
corpse, feeling vindicated despite the uselessness of the gesture.
Regina groans, pacing mindlessly for a moment as she tries to settle her
thoughts. Her neck is pounding from the abuse, and her chest hasn’t stopped
heaving rapidly, her breaths still short and panicked, making it hard to think
beyond the oppressive ghost of her attacker holding her in a murderous embrace.
Trembling hands reach up again to her neck, to the bruises that are surely
already tainting her skin purple, and as she drags the soft pad of her fingers
carefully over them, she looks once again at the dead men on the field.
Mercenaries, and if Regina knows anything about such foul creatures is that
their motives aren’t justice or treason, but merely money.And if there’s money,
then someone must be paying.
“Where is the girl?” She asks suddenly, turning towards Rudy. “The little girl
that brought me here.”
“She ran away, Your Majesty.”
Regina growls at the answer, her movements jerky yet precise when she
disappears in a cloud of purple smoke, her apparition in the main square of the
village creating a small commotion that she easily ignores. The festival hasn’t
stopped in her behalf, but is rather growing in wildness, drinking and dancing
giving way to laughter and boisterousness, chaos that confounds Regina as she
searches about herself, frantic as her steps take her this way and that, no
rhyme or reason to her movements as her eyes scan the crowd for the disloyal
child that had led her astray. Furious and clunky limbs drag her down, her
movements heavy and sluggish, but she doesn’t allow herself to stop until she
catches sight of the girl, hands clasped behind her back as she stares
dumbfounded at the bonfire, no care or thought for the woman that she had
walked to her death. Regina stalks towards her, and Emeline has but a moment to
be surprised before Regina grabs her arm, her hand claw-like against the rough
fabric of her dress, even her weakened strength enough to pull a whimper from
the child.
“Who put you up to this? Who?” She demands. Regina’s tone is imperious and
unforgiving, and paired with the sudden scream Emeline proffers, high-pitched
as only an infant’s can be, silence is brought upon the crowd, the lull
expanding until even the drums quiet and only the sound of the crepitating fire
and of Regina’s heavy breathing fills the air.
“Answer me, child,” Regina insists, shaking the girl’s thin frame violently.
“You’re hurting me,” Emeline whines, her tone bubbling up from between sudden
tears, ugly crying that makes her whole body tremble, her chin wobble and her
cheeks redden.
She wraps her little hand about Regina’s wrist, futilely trying to free herself
from her grasp, and Regina wants to feel something for this child, wants to
grasp at the warmth she had instilled in her with nothing but a smile and a few
wildflowers, but Regina feels nothing beyond pain, nothing but ache in her
limbs and her heart, in a soul so bruised that the last shred of hope this girl
has just taken from her feels like the final wound, a sharp stab of a knife
twisted so many times that it threatens to kill her.
Her lips settled into an uncomely grimace, Regina’s trembling voice intones,
“You hurt me as well.” And she’s shaking the girl again, her grip on her arm
tightening as she does so, her free hand moving up and pulling at the fabric of
her vest to better expose her bruised neck, insanity brimming under her skin.
“You hurt me, too; can’t you see you hurt me, too? Can’t you?”
Emeline’s hysterical crying does nothing to calm her down, rather making her
pain recede and give way to anger which settles like a good old friend around
her heart, crawling up her spine and all the way up to her throat, its cold
grip on her senses forcing her to breathe slower, steadier, to calm her
mindless harassing of the little girl before her. She must look like a wild
animal, she muses, control escaping the tight grip of her fingers and making
her feral, unsettled. She pushes it all back, allowing cold rage to storm
inside her instead, to help her gain control over herself and the situation.
Fury is, after all, the only emotion that gives her purpose, and she should
have known better than to let herself believe otherwise.
She loosens her grip on Emeline’s arm so that she’s simply keeping her in place
and crouches down to her level, the watery eyes of the girl following her every
move with frightened anticipation. She’s whimpering still, sniffling now even
as her tears refuse to abate, and Regina dabs at her cheeks ineffectively, her
hand soft but quivering even as she fights herself to keep it firm. She keeps
the motion up for a while, though, her fingers growing steadier and the girl’s
tears calming down, even as her breathing stutters and her whole frame shakes
from the effort.
“Tell me, dear,” Regina begins again, her tone deceptively soft. “Tell me who
asked you to take me to that field; I know you didn’t know what you were doing,
and I will let you go as soon as you tell me. You just have to tell me,
sweetheart.”
Emeline sniffs, scared eyes fighting further tears, but still she speaks, voice
shaky as she explains, “Papa said that man and his sister would pay him if I–if
I–papa said–”
“Which man, dear? Point him to me.”
The girl does as she’s told, her shaky little finger finding its target and
offering Regina the sight of Baron Edgar’s face, his round cheeks blanching
with surprise and his shoulders squaring themselves with tension as he sees
himself exposed. Next to him, Baroness Irene’s features are a faithful copy of
her brother’s, both chubby faces more similar in this moment than Regina has
ever known them to be before. Before they can react and perhaps try and flee
the scene, Regina’s knights are upon them, the baron’s quiet and spluttering
protest of this is preposterous, how dare youbringing a smile to Regina’s lips.
She lets go of the girl and scrambles to her feet, her movements purposeful and
determined now as she strides towards where the baron and his sister have been
brought to their knees, their old age and weak frames never as striking to
Regina as in this moment, when they’re so easily falling under her command.
They’re both muffling half formed protests, but Regina stops them swiftly when
she lifts the baroness’ chin with fingers so tight that she hopes to leave
bruises. She looks into the well-known eyes of the woman that had claimed for
herself the role of Regina’s best friend and confidante for years, and the fear
written in them excites her, brings joy to her heaving chest even as it burns
with barely contained anger.
“Tell me something, baroness,” she spits at her face. “Why? After all these
years, why would you do such a foolish thing as arranging my murder?”
“Please, Your Majesty, don’t think me so foul, so treacherous; you remain my
closest friend, my darling and beautiful girl, my–”
“Oh, shut your trap, you old hag; I’ve spent too many years listening to your
redundant blabbering. Tell me the truth or let that pitiful plea be your last
words.”
That hardens the baroness, bringing to her eyes the shine that Regina has seen
her reserve for the juiciest of gossip, for the most secret of news. The
baroness might be a vapid fool, but Regina knows her to be a strong woman with
an iron will and stubbornness to match her own, and the thought that the woman
is willing to give her the satisfaction of one last confrontation paints a
smirk on Regina’s lips. She’s certainly a worthier enemy than her brother, poor
Baron Edgar who had once confessed that he thought of her as the sweetest of
granddaughters, and who now has his eyes firmly settled on the ground, as if he
has already accepted his fate.
“You insult me!” Baroness Irene bellows, her tone loud and unwavering even as
she struggles against the hold her knights have on her. “I took you under my
wing when no one wanted you, I made you who you are, and thisis how you repay
me! With insults and grievances, pushing me to the ground like some–some
commoner!”
Regina laughs, the sound more like a cackle, as amused as she is offended by
the words being thrown at her; the gallof this woman at claiming a hand in
Regina’s climb to power.
“Oh baroness,” she murmurs, leaning back down until her face is inches apart
from the woman, their eyes firmly on each other’s. “You truly believe such
words, don’t you, dear? You usedme to inflate your ego, and I used you as the
most irritating of stepping stones. And now you dare defy me? Plot my death
with mercenaries after I tolerated your gabbing for years, after making you
feel important and needed? How very treacherous and disappointing.”
“No! We were friends, the best of friends! And you betrayed me, you betrayed us
all! You–You, my dear, the strain of your position has driven you to insanity,
but we can mend this, can’t we, child?”
At that, Regina raises a curious eyebrow, and standing up to her full height
yet again, she wonders, “Mend this?”
“Yes, my darling, you come live with the baroness, rest your troubled mind
until you feel better, let the kingdom be ruled by its rightful queen and put
all this in the past. Wouldn’t that be dreamy, darling child? Tea and pastries
and nothing to worry about?”
“The rightfulqueen!? You would darespeak to me of Snow White is such terms.”
A chorus of agreements begins around her, pulling her attention from the
baroness and her brother as a cacophony of incongruous hoots of Snow White’s
name grows by the second. It’s an incandescent moment of rebellion, of nobles
and commoners united under one single flag, one which proudly praises Snow’s
name and derides her own, one which is more than ready to see her own head
stuck on a pike. Regina turns furious eyes towards Baroness Irene, a boastful
smile conquering previously pale cheeks even as the yelling dies completely,
only ghostly whispers remaining around her. Her hands tremble at the sight, red
hot anger burning up inside her chest when she thinks of the stories told for
this woman’s benefit, of the hours spent with false smiles plastered to her
face, of the tears shed to be thought of as nothing but a weak and pathetic
victim of everyone else’s whims. What a powerful lie it must have been if the
baroness truly thinks her insane and Snow the necessary replacement, and what a
stinging betrayal this feels like. After all, commoners bred on fear of
witchcraft may reject her, but if this noblewoman dares do the same, the surely
there is no hope for Regina at all.
Her eyes find Baroness Irene’s one more time, and when the woman smiles at her,
something bumbling and tender, as if Regina is but a small animal gone insane
and in need of a caring hand, as if there is more truth to the mild creature
she played during her years surrounded by the court than to the woman she truly
is, Regina fumes. Her fist shakes, magic pulsing through it and demanding
retribution, her fury asking her for blood, for a show of strength so
undeniable that no one dares lay a hand on her again, or suggest that she is
anything less than the lawful queen of these lands. The thought of the weight
of the baroness’ heart in her hand is tempting but somehow weirdly
unsatisfying, her instincts calling not for the coldness of magic but for
something else altogether. Briskly, Regina moves past her kneeling prisoners
until she has her hand wrapped around the hilt of one of her knight’s swords.
She pulls it out, the steel unfamiliar to the touch but the weight of it
remarkably fulfilling. She holds it up and without a second thought, pushes it
against the skin of the baroness’ neck, burying the weapon into her flesh
rather than simply cutting at it, thrusting it forward until it’s buried to the
hilt. It’s harder that Regina would have ever imagined, and so the movement is
slow, torturous for the baroness, who chokes on her own blood, gurgling as she
takes her last breaths. Blood pools at their feet, staining the bottom of
Regina’s jacket and boots, splashing her when she drops the sword to the
ground, the clanking sound grotesque against the reigning silence. 
Hands stained with blood and eyes blazing with ire, she turns to the crowd, and
pointing at the baroness’ body, heavy and sagging in death, she states, “She
made her choice and paid the price for her treason. The rest of you willchoose
better.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Irritation gnaws at her more insistently than anything else, pounding away at
what’s already a heavy migraine and making her chest burn with increasing
rawness. As she travels back towards the castle, very little seems to matter
beyond the steady beat of her headache and the tension that has her biting her
lower lip steadily, restless energy that she doesn’t have purpose for. She
finds herself curling her hands against the heavy fabric of her jacket, wishing
to tear at it, to rid herself of its weight and the bloodstains it carries,
sign of unexpected betrayal and crushed hopes. How foolish she’d been, and how
absurd she feels now.
Next to her, her lady’s maid is doing a relentless yet futile effort at rubbing
calming salve on her bruises. Regina wishes for the physical pain to take over
every other feeling, however, to mollify her like nothing else will. After all,
she knows that the moment she steps her way into the palace her prisoners will
follow; Baron Edgar and the little girl’s parents that will spend whatever
little time of night there is left in her dungeons and will be executed in the
morning, the little girl herself made into a kitchen’s maid now that she’s to
be an orphan – and honestly, that they would call Regina a heartless tyrant,
when she forgives that which had been made into a tool of her damnation. The
culprits’ death, along with the baroness’ blood staining her clothing should be
enough to bring sedative calm to her senses, and yet it fails to do so, the
bigger picture of the treachery she’s been subjected to only aggravating the
throbbing in her head, and the burning outrage in her chest.
Father is looking at her with concern etched in his eyes, and even when he’s
been holding her hand since they settled inside the carriage, providing soft
comfort where her lady’s maid is fussing around her wounds, Regina spies the
fear hiding at the corner of his wavering gaze. His hand is stained with blood
now, sticky from touching Regina’s, and she knows the thought must make him
sick – that his daughter could be a coldblooded killer, that she should feel no
regret or guilt over the lives taken, that she should call her acts rightful
justice. She holds onto his hand anyway, tight and unyielding where his touch
had meant softness, whether to be able to feel some of his gentle warmth or
whether to punish him for daring to judge her, Regina doesn’t know. She holds
on though, if only because the more her irritation grows, the more mother
invades her thoughts, half-learned lessons and harsh punishments swirling
inside her mind with every heartbeat, with every breath. She would have been
disappointed at her unwise ideas and auspicious dreams, and even after the
bloodshed would have condemned her to days hidden away in the darkness of a
dank cellar. Regina thinks she may have just deserved such a punishment, and
the thought makes her sick.
“Stop the carriage,” she orders, her voice weak and trembling so that she feels
compelled to repeat herself in a firmer tone. “Stop the carriage!”
She stumbles out before the horses can fully stop their movement, and her jump
propels her forward and onto the dusty ground, her knees meeting the hard soil
first and her hands following, the pain of the scrapes that have surely been
carved into her skin insignificant when her stomach feels as if it wants to
roll away from her body, and pushes vile up her throat until she’s coughing up
vomit onto the edge of the trail. The effort brings tears to her eyes, and
Regina rubs at them ineffectively, her blood covered hands grotesque when
trying to drive away her disgust. Father and her lady’s maid are by her side in
an instant, two heavy hands at her back and soothing words that she can’t
understand, her head pounding and dizzy and the pain at her neck suddenly
overwhelming, bruises on her skin and rawness at the inside of her throat.
She’s sweaty, she realizes, her forehead and the back of her neck drenched, and
her whole frame seems to tremble all of a sudden, weakness punching at every
part of her body. How pathetic, she thinks, when the smell of sickness wafts up
her nose and her body spasm again, trying to retch when there must be nothing
left in her stomach.
Unbidden, the thought of her attacker comes to mind, too strong hands robbing
her of breath and a firm body holding her still, and in her light-headed mind
they muddle with thoughts of Leopold’s hands holding her hips down, of Snow’s
unwanted embraces and hands guiding her towards undesirable paths. That she
ever thought to forgive them, to let them go in exchange for the flighty
respect of unknown crowds – she laughs at the thought, but the sound is weak
and maddened. She hugs herself, trembling hands around a trembling frame, cold
sweat permeating her skin.
“I’m so cold,” she murmurs. “So cold.”
Her lady’s maid murmurs something to her, or maybe to father, his kneeling
figure by her side a testament of his love when his knees have brought nothing
but pain for years now. They’re speaking of baths and sleep, of rest and food,
but all Regina can think about is mother, her disapproving gaze and how she
would reprimand her for such a pitiful display. Regina can’t help but agree
with mother’s overbearing ghost, though, and so she finds herself standing up
on shaky legs and fighting her whirling senses, delirium taking over when she
could swear that mother’s figure is a tangible reality and not a figment of her
imagination.
“I will endure, mother, I will endure,” she whispers, over and over again, lips
shaping her words until they become a single string of mindlessness, even as
father looks upon her with sadness so heavy that it threatens to push her back
to her knees. She repeats them as she feels hands guiding her back into the
carriage and to rest against father’s bony shoulder, repeats them until her
eyes close, and sleep claims her.
 
===============================================================================
 
The first weeks of fall bring with them strong winds and changing colors, the
dark reds and browns of the season putting an end to the heat of summer and to
whatever spell had been cast on the palace on those last few weeks, one so
thoughtless and absurd that Regina thinks she will never again enjoy the
brightness of sunrays illuminating a blue sky. It seems fitting, that she
should dwell in the dreary coldness of fall and winter, when death lingers in
the air. The shortened days find her despondent, secluded within the walls of
the palace as she eagerly awaits news of Snow White’s capture only to receive
frustrating failures instead. She busies herself with kingdom business,
dragging tired eyes over accounts and inventories, working not towards the
benefit of the kingdom, but towards the preservation of her own sanity. It
barely helps, but it seems entirely more productive than wasting away in her
bedchambers in the embrace of warm wine.
Despite recent events, the kingdom thrives, rich in crops and marbles,
proficient in its ways as it has been since Regina took its reins. Nonetheless,
Snow fails to remain its single villain, the band of Robin Hood and his Merry
Men giving her more than one headache, and her persecution of them entirely
more persistent than the petty thievery they have been engaging on demands.
It’s a matter of principle, mostly, considering how their morally ambiguous
ideas of justice seem to be giving vapid hope to a kingdom that thinks itself
oppressed. Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor,a ludicrous ideal that
translates into chaos and very little else, and that never fails to make Regina
want to snort in the most unladylike way possible. Regardless of the buffoonery
of her latest foes, Regina can’t help but think of what little she knows of the
leader of the ragtag band, a man known for his hood and his precise bow and
arrow, the thought of it tingling at the corner of her mind, bringing forward
blue-grey eyes that had enchanted her for a too long moment in the brief
respite before the Summer Festival had gone sour. She rejects the thought
adamantly; how pathetically stupid, if she’d been so enchanted by a thief.
As many a headache as bandits and thieves give her, nothing manages to be quite
as disturbing and groan-inducing as what she’s already began to think of as her
wolf. The unpleasant animal might have once belonged to the huntsman, but if
it’s to torture her so, then she may as well lay claim to it and its howls. It
dumfounds her, that the animal should prove impossible to catch and that its
howl should reverberate so inside the walls of the palace, like another ghost
to add to those of her mother and step-daughter. There had been a time when
she’d been fascinated by wolves, by the tales of mystery and magic surrounding
their figures, and Regina remembers herself, still wide-eyed and naïve despite
her losses and tribulations, listening to Rumpelstiltskin tell of their
mythological origins, of how they were thought to be the ancestors of all
humans roaming the earth, of how witches once used them as mounts. They had
seemed magical to her then, and now she thinks that at least this one must be,
perhaps possessed by the spirit of her ill-fated dreams, and made to persecute
her until she drives herself mad, or manages to kill Snow once and for all.
All her efforts towards killing the thing have certainly proven fruitless, even
when her knights have brought enough wolves’ heads to her that she could fill
an entire chamber with the grisly trophies. She sends them to the huntsman
instead, has them thrown into his cell so he can watch his beloved animals rot
before his eyes, hopeful that it causes pain even when the severed parts don’t
belong to his faithful companion. Truth be told, Regina gathers morbid pleasure
from torturing the huntsman, as she once had from making Leopold flinch. Such
pleasure she had discovered the day after the Summer Festival, when in a fit of
sudden rage at having her peace disturbed by the wolf’s cries, she had ordered
the huntsman bathed and groomed before having him sent to have dinner with her.
She had been bathing at the time, still covered in grime and blood from the
unfortunate events of the festival, her mouth still feeling rotten from being
sick on the road, and she had traipsed her way out of the warm water, naked and
angry, with red still marring her skin, a savage beast if she had ever been
one, just so she could bark two orders, one to a flushing and desperately
fidgety guard, and one to her lady’s maid.
“Bring me that wolf’s head or so help me I will have yours instead!” And her
guard had ran off with such haste that hadn’t she been so insanely unstable,
she would have laughed.
“And fetch me the huntsman, let us see how he feels about sharing his dinner
with the queen.” Wrinkling her nose, thoughtful, she’d added, “Have him bathed
and groomed properly, I won’t have him smelling of dungeon at my table.”
That night the huntsman had refused to both eat and talk, and Regina, who had
harbored secret desire of asking for his true reasons behind his leniency
towards Snow, had instead remained silent as well, content to sit with him and
eat slowly as he gazed upon her. She’d issued orders that he’d disregarded, and
eventually she had simply enjoyed her own meal in the knowledge that he was
uncomfortable in her presence, and torturing himself with his refusal of a warm
meal. He’d certainly looked worse for the wear after a year in her dungeons
despite her lady’s maid’s best efforts at dressing him in fresh clothes and
trimming his hair and beard, the sharp handsomeness of his face all but gone
and replaced by gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes. Following evenings spent together
had proved fruitless in Regina’s efforts to make him eat, and while she had
considered simply issuing her order to his trapped heart, she’d realized that
there was no real thrill to the action; she wants him to willingly bend to her
will.
“Perhaps I should just starve you to death, if you won’t eat with me,” she’d
stated one night, irritation clear in every syllable of every word, and in the
tight grip she’d had on her fork. Where Regina had expected bright fear, the
huntsman had given her a shiny and hopeful gaze, which had only made her huff.
If what he wanted was reprieve from this life, then that would be the last
thing she gave him.
Ever since that first night, she has instilled two nights a week to dine with
him, his despondency towards her almost a challenge. That she would choose such
a frequency twists something inside her gut, as if it should be meaningful and
she doesn’t understand why, but despite the confounding bitterness it awakens
in her, she ignores it easily enough. And so, she pushes and prods at him, even
if she’s not particularly sure of what she’s trying to accomplish. Maleficent
had told her that she could do with a pet, and she supposes the huntsman will
just have to do.
The huntsman breaks his silence on a night just like any other, one that finds
Regina with frazzled nerves and twitching hands. Just that afternoon, a party
of her knights had come back with news of catching sight of the lost princess
at a werewolves’ lair of all places. Along with the news they had brought
injured arms and legs, arrows firmly etched in bloodied wounds, and the body of
her ever-faithful Rudy, brought to death by savage bites. Had it not been for
that she might have rained rage upon her failing knights, but the sight of
Rudy’s body had stricken her with grief instead, the kind giant who had saved
her from the mercenaries not so long ago. He had been one of her first
recruits, one of the group of six that had become her Black Guard so many years
back, and she had taken him under her wing even when he’d been a well-known
thief. He’d only stolen to feed his younger brother, a smiling ten year old
that had lost a hand in some dreadful accident, and who no one had wanted
around for long, even when Rudy had promised to work in exchange for food and
shelter. Regina had given him a black uniform and his brother a place in her
stables, where he had proven to be more capable than others with all their
limbs intact.
This afternoon, the older brother lies dead while the younger grieves him, and
Regina’s nerves are all over the place, more frustrated than she’s angry, her
frame heavy with all the lives lost in Snow’s name. By the time she sits at her
table and next to the huntsman, she’s looking at her hands rather than at her
amusement for the night, fingers that refuse to stop quivering unsettling her.
She considers her hands, small yet mightier than armies, and wonders at Snow
and the power she holds over her regardless, that even running away scared and
resourceless people would fight a war in her name, would lay down their lives
for her, willingly and without request, and most of all without hope for
victory. She grimaces at the thought, but rather than dwell on it, she’s
abruptly thrown away from her contemplation by the howling of the vexatious
wolf. She jumps, and then berates herself for being surprised when the animal
never fails to make its presence known whenever the huntsman visits her table.
“That wolf!” she exclaims, failing to find more creative expletives with a mind
still sluggish from the afternoon’s events.
“He is a faithful companion,” the huntsman says then, breaking his silence with
a voice uncomfortably raspy from lack of use and a bit of a mocking smile
painted on his whitish lips.
Turning half-lidded eyes towards him, Regina replies, “And I’m sure it will
make for a lovely rug.”
That steals his smile away, an ugly grimace contorting his face instead. He
says nothing else, though, refusing to jump at the provocation, and Regina
scowls even as her eyes roam his features. He’s too dispassionate to be
completely amusing, and Regina wonders if he’s always been like this or if it’s
consequence of his lack of heart. He hadn’t seemed particularly expressive or
lively when they had met before, but then again, Regina had thought him a
heartless murderer, and he’d worn the title with ease. He’d killed a man in the
name of his wolf, and yet he’d refused to kill Snow White; the thought remains
equal parts disappointing and infuriating, and it manages to deepen Regina’s
scowl. She looks away from him, though, choosing instead to look at the table
between them. The scent of food doesn’t entice her today, and she finds herself
reaching for her goblet instead, hoping that the tangy taste of apple cider
will awaken her senses enough for her to stomach a little something at least.
“Why do you do this?” The huntsman asks her suddenly, drawing her attention
back to him when his question is followed by some terrible-sounding coughs,
like she’s only ever heard on too old or sick people. She wonders, briefly, if
he’s fallen ill after so long living in cold dungeons and being barely fed on
bread and water, and then chooses not to care. She isoffering him reprieve that
he refuses to take, after all.
The bout of coughing recedes, and when his frame has stopped shaking and he’s
staring back at her, she answers his question with a shrug, her own shoulders
sagging under unwanted weight, the events of the afternoon so heavy on her mind
that she feels them physically dragging her down. She owes him no explanation
for her actions, after all, and truth be told, her reasons for these little
meetings of hers she would rather not contemplate too deeply. It’s true that
she eats better when accompanied, and such reality she has accepted as a curse
for a long time now, but she doesn’t want to think of her refusal to sit with
father instead, choosing not to occupy her thoughts with the way father has
been looking at her as of late. As if she has truly lost her mind, as if her
vengeance is but the last resort of a desperate soul.
Distractedly, she peruses the table before her, wondering if there might be
something worth the effort. Some fruit, perhaps. The huntsman’s thoughts seem
to follow her own, and after weeks of strong-willed resistance, something
breaks in him, and Regina watches him reaching forward for fine cutlery,
interest shining in his starved eyes as he studies what must be a feast before
her eyes. The corner of Regina’s lips crooks upwards unwittingly, a childish
sense of glee invading her at the small victory over his spirit. After a
careful moment, he ignores soft venison meat and scented fish in favor of bland
steamed vegetables and serves himself a few well-selected pieces of cabbage,
beetroot and endives, effectively making Regina wrinkle her nose when he
carefully bites into one, something like bliss crossing his features. The only
reasons such flavorless and dry things cross her table is the insistence of her
lady’s maid, who holds the opinion that vegetables cooked along with meat and
fish are somehow worse for her. Regina never eats them, and her lady’s maid,
always a fierce defender that her foul mood comes from her terrible eating
habits, never fails to silently berate her for it.
In the face of the huntsman’s bliss, and feeling like celebrating after he’s
finally ceded to her wishes, Regina fights her own despondency away and helps
herself to a small serving of lemon-scented trout, finally and for the first
time finding herself sharing a meal with the man before her. They eat in
silence, barely looking upon one another, as if they are both prisoners and
jailors at the same time, unsure of why the two of them should ever find
themselves breaking bread. The huntsman eats little and slow, obviously unused
to big meals after a year of living in the dungeons, and Regina stops herself
from overindulging, foregoing sweets as dessert and picking at some grapes
instead. She offers one to the huntsman when she finds him looking at her, and
smiles with satisfaction when he takes it from her, a good little pet beginning
to please his master. He munches at it questioningly, and when Regina realizes
that he must have never tasted such a thing, she wonders about him fleetingly,
about the person he was before they crossed paths, about the man that so
conquered a beast’s heart. She pushes the thoughts away fast, though, knowing
that thinking about him as more than her prisoner may just tempt her to give
back his heart and let him go.
“Why won’t you just kill me?” He wonders after he’s done with the fruit, his
frame resting heavily against the chair, probably a thousand times more
comfortable than the floor of his cell.
Regina shrugs, dropping the rest of the uneaten fruit back on her plate and
allowing her lips to form a tiny pout when she answers, “Because it’s not fun
if you want it.”
He looks at her helplessly then, his eyes round and anguished, made all the
more sad by the gauntness of his cheeks. “Won’t you stop killing the wolves, at
least?” Then, as if an afterthought, he adds, “Your Majesty.”
He looks the same way he did that first night, when Regina had him taken to her
bedchambers after she’d claimed his heart, unsure of what her thoughts had been
at the time. He’d seemed so pathetic to her then, eyes so destitute that he had
managed to fill her with disgust, not at him but at herself, at whatever
monster he had seen standing before him. She’d sent him to the dungeons in an
instant, and tonight, she feels tempted to do the same. His defenselessness is
more prominent with how weak his frame looks, and Regina has the sudden urge to
force feed him, to have him swallow everything on her table until he recovers
the delicate allure he’d once possessed. She fights her impulses, and rather
laughs when he speaks again.
“I will beg,” is his adamant statement.
There’s near desperation in him, and Regina is surprised that a man lacking his
heart should feel so much. Perhaps it is but a remnant of what he once felt,
but his hopelessness is nearly tangible.
“How boring; peasants begging as if they were free of sin,” Regina counters,
ignoring her own instincts in favor of refusing him instead. He deserves
nothing from her, after all.
“What would you have me do, then?”
Curling her hands around the arms of her chair, suddenly bristled by the
request, she nearly shouts when she demands, “I would have you lead the charge
against Snow White! Do what you were brought here to do in the first place!”
He deflates, as if she’s asked the impossible of him, but such an answer only
angers her further. It burns fast and white, and when her hand reaches forward
towards him, curled into a purposeful claw that she sets upon his chest, he
brings his own hand to her wrist, steadying her movement with a surprisingly
strong grip. It’s not a shackle, not as heavy as others she has worn, but it
makes her skin crawl unpleasantly.
“What would you take that you haven’t already taken?” He asks, his tone ever so
soft, as if speaking to a dumb child.
Regina laughs, at her impulse and his reaction, at the disgust so clearly
etched into every line of his face, at the sudden fury hidden in his eyes, more
true to his heartless chest than the vulnerability he had exuded just moments
before. Regina likes it, far more than she has liked any look given to her in
weeks, and she wonders at herself, at how she would rather be despised for the
person she is than loved for the person that she is not. Let him think her a
monster if he will, let the world agree with him; better a monster than a
defenseless weakling, for no one dares defy the former.
Regina pulls until she can free herself from his grip, his refusal to let go
only making her smile, the scratch of his nails when she finally drags her
wrist away strangely satisfactory. He leaves nothing but red marks behind, and
Regina is proficient enough in bruises that she knows they will have faded away
by tomorrow morning. Tonight she will treasure them, though, will find morbid
pleasure in having teased the huntsman away from his boundless gloom.
“You’re insane,” he mutters.
“And rather bored with you as well,” she counters, allowing her weight to fall
sloppily on the back her chair, tiredness claiming her with sudden momentum.
The day has been far too long, and her restless sleeping of the past few weeks
is finally taking its toll. “Get out,” she murmurs, her order failing at
sounding imperious.
“Isn’t Her Majesty worried I will run away?”
Regina would laugh, the huntsman’s sudden rebellion nothing if not amusing, but
she can feel a headache pushing at the back of her skull, and tonight feels
like victory enough to have it ended before she manages to tire of him
entirely. They will have time to talk either way, now that he has finally
deemed her deserving of his words. Twice a week, she thinks, and the thought
again sits bitterly at the pit of her stomach.
“I have your heart, dear; even if you were to survive my army, I would just…
call you back to me.”
She’s not looking at him when he leaves, the heavy thump of her chamber’s doors
closing behind him enough to enliven her migraine. She presses her fingers to
the bridge of her nose and pinches mercilessly, hoping for reprieve from the
pain and unworried by the wandering huntsman, knowing that there are guards at
her door ready to fetch him and send him back to the dungeons. The thought of
him lingers, though, of this man that was the beginning of a rebellion against
her and crowned with Snow’s name, and whose presence she’s seemingly torturing
herself with, as if she wants them to punish each other for the wounds
inflicted. He’d betrayed her trust and she’d taken her heart, after all, and
now all they have left is a meeting of ever-growing bitterness twice a week.
Twice a week, Regina thinks as she trudges her way heavily towards her bed,
foregoing nightclothes in favor of sliding her heated skin under fresh linens.
She feels feverish, wonders if she may be sick after all, swirling and
pervasive thoughts scratching at a pounding head. Twice a week, and she feels
dizzy. Twice a week, and she realizes, a bitter laugh crossing parted lips, how
that was the regularity of Leopold’s visits to her bed. And as her laughter
gives way to traitorous tears, stealing sleep away from her tired frame, she
thinks, I must truly be a monster, after all.
 
===============================================================================
 
Daniel died on an uncommonly warm fall night, and Regina remembers because even
as she covered herself with a thin cape for their journey away from the manor,
the fabric had felt heavy around her shoulders, unnecessary for such a night.
She’d thought it an omen of good fortune, that they should have such
wonderfully rare warmth when they were leaving everything they knew behind. She
almost never thinks about it, the excitement of packing a small bundle of
clothes, hands nervous yet busy, heart beating wildly and cheeks flushed a rosy
color. It had all been buried under the tragedy, after all, the image of Daniel
crumbling into her arms, breath and life gone from his body, far more powerful
than that of her youthful enthusiasm. More powerful for all the wrong reasons,
but powerful nonetheless.
Today, eleven years after light went away from Daniel’s eyes, the weather is
warm as well. A little windy, perhaps, foreboding one would say. It doesn’t
matter much, though, not when it’s a day made gloom by grief and loss. Many
years ago, she hadn’t understood attaching heartache to one day in particular,
not when back then all she’d had was anguish and despair carving itself into
every fiber of her being, overpowering every other emotion, clinging to her
every step. After so much time, though, when kingdoms and lost princesses claim
her every thought, she thinks she understands the need to stop the world for
one single day, for memories and woeful heartbreak, for that which is forever
lost. So she visits the small stone set up in Daniel’s memory, and on her way,
she thinks of that night, impossibly tangled in her memories with pain so sharp
that even tears feel like a too small tribute to what was destroyed.
She thinks she had felt regret at leaving the manor behind, seventeen and too
afraid of an unknown world where only Daniel’s hand firmly held within hers
would protect her. Mostly, she had regretted forcing Daniel to leave his family
behind when he didn’t completely comprehend Regina’s fear at denying her
mother’s wishes. Sweet Daniel, who still grieved the father he had lost at a
too young age, who had grown up under the gruffly kind hand of his grandfather,
who had a mother that wanted to give him the world, and who had only gotten
glimpses of the darkness within Regina’s household, of mother’s wishes and the
terror hidden behind them. He hadn’t understood and Regina had done very little
to explain, incapable of sketching for him who her mother truly was with simple
words.
“You love her dearly, though, milady, I can tell,” he’d said once, arm warm
around her as they sat on the grass of Firefly Hill, thousands of lights above
them illuminating matching smiles.
Regina had never known how to tell him how scared she truly was that for all
the things mother wanted and expected from her, love wasn’t one of them.
Talent, effort, poise, ambition, and in not one of her speeches had mother ever
spoken of love. Regina had always suspected that mother would forever choose a
powerful daughter that hated her over a weak one who loved her, and she had
never known how to reveal such thoughts to Daniel, who had nothing but kind
eyes to set upon the world. That night, though, Regina had spared little
thought to mother, and had squashed whatever traitorous twinge of remorse she’d
felt at leaving father behind, positively sure that both her and Daniel would
find themselves in the loving embrace of their families soon enough. They would
get married as soon as possible, she’d thought, and once Daniel’s ring was on
her finger, nothing else would matter, and no one would be able to tear them
apart, no matter how diminishing of her position Regina’s choice was, or how
cheap the ring. They would go on to love each other, to be happy, and perhaps,
with time, mother would regard Regina’s choice and accept how far her
daughter’s wishes had fallen from her own.
Today, in the soft blue light of the morning, a warm fall day like that one had
been, Daniel’s ring rests between Regina’s breasts, a promise never to be
fulfilled. And it is today, of course, that mother chooses to come back, a
ghost from a past that Regina can’t run away from, no matter how many armies
she settles upon her palace’s doors.
 
===============================================================================
 
“What is this, dear?” Mother questions the first night they spend together, a
twitch to her eyebrow when she looks down at the concoction filling up her
plate.
It’s meat and rice, a simple recipe if not for the dressing Regina has been
ordering specially made for her table for years now, strong vinegar mixed with
spicy peppers and garlic, the smell of it so rich that it’s almost solid.
Regina likes it, the bitter tanginess of it always managing to erase any other
flavor from her mouth, but tonight, as mother stares at her, she fumbles with
her words, mumbling a very unconvincing, “Oh, I’m not truly sure of wha–”
“Honestly dear, you should know better,” mother interrupts, wrinkling her nose
as if in need of a physical gesture to express the magnitude of her disgust.
“Always keep an eye on your kitchen staff.”
Regina wants to huff, protest that she can hardly watch over every little thing
in the palace when she has a kingdom to rule, but she bites her tongue, teeth
harsh against her own flesh, and swallows down both reactions, doing her best
at covering them with a slight nod that she hopes doesn’t come off as tense as
it feels to her. Mother hates excuses, after all, and Regina wants to believe
that she doesn’t need to explain herself. She straightens her back, trying to
remind herself of who she is, whatshe is, but the gesture reminds her instead
of the hard discipline of youth, making her feel juvenile instead. She pushes
the food ineffectively around her plate, and fights the urge to pout.
Mother says very little, and Regina remains quiet as well, preferring the
stifling silence to the possibility of provoking the woman before her. They
hadn’t parted in the best of terms, one would say, and Regina doesn’t know what
mother may truly want, even if her demeanor doesn’t seem particularly vengeful.
Regina wants to believe that there’s no ulterior motive to her presence here,
but she knows better than to allow herself to be fooled into a sense of false
security. They eat in silence, the family dinner mother had insisted upon at
her arrival at the palace an inadequate imitation of what they had once been,
unfamiliar after so many years of separation. Regina can’t help but glance
interminently at father, his frame smaller than ever as he tries to hide
himself away, awkwardness in his every movement as he takes slow sips of water
and very little else, hands that never have looked so old to Regina shaking. He
catches her eye, and Regina smiles, wishing that she could spare him the
cumbersome burden of mother’s presence. Family, and Regina truly doesn’t know
if there has ever been a more inadequate group of people to refer to as such –
she’s jittery enough that even dinner with Leopold and Snow seems like a better
memory than this.
Regina has settled them in one of the big halls, where Leopold used to host his
big feasts with the court, the vague hope that mother may appreciate the
sumptuousness promptly smothered by the haughty look thrown at the too long
dinner table, adorned with a bright red tablecloth that is dusty from lack of
use. Regina glares at it, secretly hoping that it sets itself on fire and
liberates them from the awkwardness of the reunion mother has forced upon them.
Regina regrets choosing such a sprawling room, the coldness of it only
augmenting the coldness settled among them, the white and black marbles that
she’d so enthusiastically refurnished the palace with making her feel as if
they’re dwelling inside a giant tomb, three spirits of dead people clinging to
old traditions that they no longer have any connection to. She wishes for a sip
of wine, but mother had never condoned drinking at the dinner table, or very
much at all, so there is nothing but water available. Perhaps she’d hated the
loss of control, and while Regina may be inclined to agree on any given day,
tonight she finds that overindulging in abundant liquor may be the right answer
to her plight. Inescapably, Maleficent comes to mind, and when Regina imagines
what mother’s thoughts might be on their nights of alcohol and sex she can’t
help but snort, feeling like a teenager with a dirty secret.
The noise sets mother’s eyes upon her, her short, muttered dear?enough to make
Regina’s chest brim with unbidden fear unlike she has felt since she was a
child. She covers her misstep with a few well-placed coughs, pretending that
the food that she’s not actually eating has troubled her throat, and even as
she plays up her part with studied precision, she finds herself anxiously
pressing her thumb to her opposing palm, forcing the pain to bring her back to
the present. She feels breathless regardless, and as mother’s eyes sweep over
her features, she reminds herself that this is her palace and not mother’s
manor, and that there are no dark cellars where anyone would dare trap her.
“Are you done, dear?”
Regina blinks, surprised at the question, and hates that it takes her a moment
to gather her wits. She feels sluggish and slightly disoriented, but she’s not
surprised when she looks down at her plate and finds it full. She pushes it
back, and softly, she answers, “Yes, mother.”
“Then let’s take a walk; show me your gardens.”
And so they walk, silent but together, arms locked and steps leisurely. After
that night, mother doesn’t leave, and her presence is more stifling than
hundreds of court members had once been, judgmental even when she’s infinite
rooms away, pervasive in the new atmosphere that seemingly takes over the
palace. Rumors are flying by the second day of mother’s stay, her stern
character and serious eyes gathering more commentary among the servants than
even Regina’s ill-tempered outbursts had at one point. It seems to Regina that
she has taken over the household by that point, maids being handled and
dismissed without Regina’s knowledge, the kitchens being tightly reorganized
under mother’s watchful gaze. Her council bears the brunt of mother’s scrutiny
as well, Duchess Adela being the only one capable of holding a conversation
with her without withering under her gaze. At some point during mother’s
campaign of terror, Regina catches the Treasury Master, that poor young fellow
that could barely even look at Regina’s eyes a few weeks ago, quite literally
running away from her. Regina would have laughed at the ridiculous sight, had
it not been for her own wish of following his path.
“Perhaps Your Majesty should consider putting your mother’s wisdom to good use
on some other fields,” her Military Advisor murmurs at her one afternoon, his
tone low and careful, as if afraid that mother will appear behind every corner.
“Away from the council, perhaps?”
Regina groans for an answer, knowing fairly well that mother’s disapproval at
Regina’s acquired taste for her militia had cost the man a rather subtle
reprimand on his character as both a man and a military leader. Regina doesn’t
have time for his complaints, though, not when she finds herself anticipating
mother’s moods and actions, and hiding away that which she wishes to keep
secret, the first being George’s impossibly frustrating letters and marriage
proposals, which she burns swiftly without even delighting herself with reading
and mocking them, the way she has been doing as of late. Truth be told, she’s
certain that George is insisting on his quest out of sheer stubbornness, but
the idea that mother may catch sight of such proposals and somehow push her
into another marriage has her running around like a headless chicken, her
mother’s persuasive ways more frightening than a mercenary stealing her breath
away.
Regina stops her dinners with the huntsman as well, feeling them diminishing
all of a sudden, her little game with a prisoner and a commoner shameful when
she puts it under a different perspective. That she misses his dispassionate
looks and his raspy voice she only takes as proof of how rattled she is by
mother’s presence; that she sends him a rich meal twice a week even as he
remains in the dungeons she explains to herself as an act of ill-advised
rebellion.
Any which way, Regina’s dinners are now a grand affair of discomfort and bland
meals, taken with mother in one of the big halls. Mother’s insistence on such
occasions feels to Regina like capricious torment, moments to be further
scrutinized without clear purpose. Father manages to escape them, though,
mother’s interest in him non-existent, and allowing him the freedom lurking
around the shadows of the palace, making himself scarce until Regina almost
forgets about his presence, if not for how she feels weaker in his absence. She
resents him, too, childlike betrayal filling her chest at being abandoned and
in mother’s clutches, particularly when she still feels so shaken from the
events of the Summer Festival.
Regina wants to defy mother, she thinks, but she fears that the side of her
that pushes her into action is her most childish one, ready to take arms and
yell and pout and stomp her feet, prepared to throw a tantrum at the invasion
she is being put through, at mother’s hands reshaping the world that Regina has
worked to own for so many years now. She doesn’t, though, and the palace that
she has so adamantly imprinted herself in begins to feel stifling, the same
inescapable darkness that had hung above her childhood home present now in
every nook and cranny, in every face that she crosses paths with.
And if it’s her childhood that she must return to, then Regina fights it as
best as she knows how, escaping to the large fields of the Royal State atop
Rocinante,riding away in the hopes that the air flushing her skin and her limbs
growing tired from the effort will somehow calm her swirling thoughts and her
mingled emotions, will give her an answer to a question that she doesn’t dare
ask. She escapes to Maleficent one night as well, and if she’s not Daniel and
youthful love then at least she offers reprieve, sweet wine and nonsensical
words in front of her fire making her realize how trapped she feels within her
own roof now that mother has taken over it with such quiet and swift
efficiency. She feels mother’s gaze heavy on her next morning, and Regina
bristles under it, knowing herself unfairly criticized; she is a queen, not a
child, and she shouldn’t allow mother such power over her. She’s angry, she
realizes, angry at the nightmares that still take the shape of mother’s figure,
at lessons carved on undeserving skin, at a fate chosen for her with no
consideration for her true wishes, at mother stealing her breath away when her
chest had finally began to expand again. And yet.
And yet mother insists on taking long walks with her through the gardens, a
soft tilt to her head and a considering look about her, as if she’s learning
Regina anew, deciding who this woman her daughter has turned into is,
appraising her worth under a new light. They barely speak as they roam the
beautifully browned pathways of the palace’s gardens, and Regina unwittingly
finds herself yearning for Snow and her mindless blabbering, for how easily she
filled Regina’s silences with too much excitement and enthusiasm. The feeling
hits her with such abrupt strength that Regina has to make an effort to remind
herself of how she had hated Snow invading her space without asking for
permission, how she had developed an uncanny talent for giving the right
answers while barely listening to what was being said. Nevertheless, Snow’s
chattering allowed her mind to wander aimlessly, while mother’s silences don’t
allow any reprieve. It’s with unwitting pain, too, that Regina realizes that
their silence is but the result of years of orders and lessons and very little
else; how terribly sad, that she doesn’t know what she could possibly speak
about with her mother.
Regina watches her closely during their time together, and she finds that her
memories of her are oddly wooden, as if mother were but a fictional construct
of a book read long ago. She realizes that she has picked her remembrances of
mother at will, pushing away the darkest of thoughts and choosing instead
lessons to use and the comfort of her phantom approval, wondering very little
about the destiny Regina had condemned her to as payment for the pain caused.
She knows very little of the woman walking by her side, but she doesn’t dare
ask, half afraid that mother is seeking revenge for Regina’s misconduct, half
hopeful that maybe she simply wishes to recover what they had once lost. In the
name of the latter, Regina may just get used to her overbearing presence, may
even learn to rely on her guiding hand once again.
Weeks later, once mother is gone and has left nothing but pain in her wake,
Regina will look at such a thought as the beginning of the end, as the moment
in which mother had settled her hand around Regina’s heart like a claw,
squeezing with such delicate expertise that Regina had been helpless to stop
her, and to stop herself from falling into childhood behaviors like a well-
trained animal. Mother fools her, and she fools her with ease, making every
gesture one of secret affection in Regina’s eyes, making her attentions into
gifts devoid of an ulterior motive, using Regina’s weaknesses and doubts with
cold disregard.
“Rumpel taught you well,” mother tells her one late afternoon as Regina
absentmindedly makes a few leaves swirl around on the ground, the magic
thoughtless and arbitrary, a simple outlet for what is but a sixth sense for
her. It’s a compliment and it comes with a smile, one that Regina can’t help
but answer in kind.
Next day, as they sit together on a stone bench that Regina knows offers the
most beautiful view of the garden, mother tells her, “You are very lonely,
aren’t you, my dear?”
Regina opens her eyes at the question, the crookedly delicate sound of mother’s
voice feeling as dangerous as the trap of a spider, and all Regina manages to
answer is a doubtful, “Mother?”
Mother pushes Regina’s preoccupations away when she reaches for her, finding
her hands with her own and tangling them together in a loose hold, allowing
them to rest on Regina’s lap. Mother’s hands are still calloused, Regina
realizes, all her years as royalty insufficient to erase her past, her lowly
origins. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, but the thought escapes Regina at
the sweetness of the gesture, the first sign mother has given of wanting
something other than managing Regina’s life for her. It doesn’t last long, but
then mother’s hands don’t leave her completely, instead travelling up until her
knuckles are resting softly on Regina’s cheek, gentle affection that makes her
chest pound, that makes her throat impossibly tight. She leans into it, closes
her eyes to better enjoy the caress and realizes that no matter the years, no
matter the doubts, no matter how much pain they cause each other, Regina will
never deny mother the tenderness of her devotion. She sighs, softly,
mindlessly, and for a brief moment, feeling like a little girl isn’t such a
terrible thing.
“You never had a child,” mother says yet a different afternoon, and her
statement is a reprimand, her tone suggesting that Regina has purposefully
neglected her duties as a woman.
Regina turns away from mother’s eyes, the sternness that she spies written in
her brown pools the harshest of admonitions. She stands up, her movements
brusque and short, containing grief that laps slowly at her insides, that makes
her belly itch uncomfortably until she presses her hand there, the touch
failing to be comforting when the hard material of her corset is constricting
her so. With her back to mother’s figure, she breathes in slowly. Her hand,
unwittingly scratching at her own abdomen, looks almost alien to her, powerful
and incapable at the same time, and the sight only becomes bearable when mother
coaxes her out of her thoughts, standing before her with a saddened smile, as
if she understands the plights life has put Regina through, lost children
opening holes in her already battered heart. She looks like the most beautiful
woman in the world to Regina then, timeless and grandiose, and for a moment
Regina feels hypnotized enough that she wants to beg for an embrace, for a
compassionate caress to soothe all her aches.
One more afternoon and what mother says is, “Every kingdom needs an heir, dear;
you did well in keeping Eva’s spawn away from your crown, but you mustensure
your future.”
This afternoon, with the dusky light of the waning day above them and the
rustling of the wind against the leaves, mother looks almost eerie, her posture
stiff and her face darkened as she stands under the shadow of a tall tree.
Nonetheless, her hand finds Regina’s, and if her fingers resemble claws, and
her grip shackles like the ones that plague Regina’s nightmares, then Regina
blames the constricting feeling on too many years spent under the rule of the
others.
Mother must spy her doubts, for she says, “Don’t look so preoccupied Regina, I
want nothing but your happiness. Now come, I have a surprise.”
And Regina follows, surprise and elation brimming under her skin.
 
===============================================================================
 
Mother’s surprise includes a dress and a man, the former fleetingly lovely, and
the latter inadequate after the first perusal. Mother dresses her in light
blue, in something sweet and demure, a gown like those from her childhood, and
Regina loves it and hates it with equal passion, the figure it evokes that of
someone she can’t be anymore, and doesn’t wish to be either. She complies with
mother’s wishes, however, even ignores her quiet jab about the unfortunate scar
on her lip, and allows herself to be thrown into the arms of the man mother
calls her soulmate. Briefly, Regina thinks of a smiling fairy, of afternoons
spent at a dingy tavern speaking of impossible dreams, of how she had so wanted
to be Tink’s friend, and had ended up being her charity case instead, and
finally, of a man with a lion tattoo.
If hope brims inside her at the thought of her fated soulmate, then it is only
for the briefest of moments, the man mother brings for her so impossibly wrong
that even allowing him to speak more than one sentence is an effort. Regina
lets him babbler for a minute, though, and then scares his wits away until he
confesses mother’s desire for a grandchild; and to think that Regina had fooled
herself into thinking that mother cared for her for a moment, to think that she
had thought her capable of soothing her heartache when all she’d wanted was for
her to give her a royal child to control. Regina has the man hanged above a
fiery pit, and she is notthrowing a tantrum.
“Honestly, if she wanted to breed me like a common mare she could have let me
choose the man at least!” She yells as she steps into her bedchambers, stewing
still after actually having allowed that man’s filthy paws on her, even if just
for a moment.
She spares a thought for a man with blue eyes and a hood offering her a flower
crown, and she is distracted enough that she even gives into the guilty
pleasure of thinking of the handsome face of her scowling huntsman, but both
ideas discomfit her, only adding to her fiery rage. A vase pays the price, the
shattering of it against the wall satisfying beyond measure, her anger making
her feel more lively that she has in the past few weeks. She realizes that
mother has done what she does so well, putting her under her thumb with
derision followed by affection, and Regina, who is obviously as much of an
idiot as she once was, had believed in her good intentions with the desperation
of an orphaned child.
She groans, unintelligibly, pacing her bedchambers from side to side, hands
splayed over her own belly and pressing hard against the flesh there. A child,
a child for mother to sink her claws into, to destroy and control to her will,
an innocent child born with the sole purpose of suffering under mother’s
unwavering harshness, and Regina feels sick. The thought consumes her, and when
she finally manages to stop her dizzying walk, it’s so she can look down at her
own hands, small palms and thin fingers, the skin smooth and free of manual
work, strong, so strong that they can’t hope to ever hold something as delicate
as a child. She huffs, annoyed, frustrated, ignoring the tears threatening at
the corner of her eyes with steadfast determination – if mother’s hands are
inadequate to raise a child, then surely her own aren’t any better, not when
they’re covered in blood, not when Regina has dreamed of setting them upon
Snow’s neck with such glee, not when every child they have known has been
condemned to a terrible fate.
At such thoughts, sorrow conquers her, her mind filled with striking clarity
even as her tears betray her and fall down her cheeks, leaving cold, salty
trails behind. As she begins gathering ingredients for a potion, her fingers
already experienced in the art of death, she tells herself that she never
wanted children, anyway, not truly. She might have, once, perhaps, with Daniel,
when they’d had a bright future ahead of them, when happiness had been but a
blur of ideas filled with the stupidity of youth; she had never wanted them
with Leopold, and if she had learnt to love her little thing before she had
lost it, then it had been nothing but necessity; and whatever Maleficent’s
unicorn had shown her surely had been nothing but nonsenses, glimpses of blond
hair and the feel of a chubby hand searching for her nothing but the desires of
a confused mind.
Nonetheless, Regina doesn’t drink the potion, at least not immediately. It’s
funny, she thinks, how easy and quick it is to brew something meant to forever
destroy her insides, to leave her as barren as the court had once accused her
of being. And why shouldn’t it be, when death comes to her with such ease, when
remorse no longer has a place in her heart? She has clung to lost hopes for so
long, has wavered and doubted herself, has entertained thoughts of giving up
her revenge and she has allowed her weakness to conquer her, to distract her
from her path. Mother had known, had so easily discovered her soft spots, had
so masterfully used them against her that she had reduced her to little more
than a whimpering child in only a little longer than a fortnight. What mother
could have done to her had a child ever been born doesn’t bear thinking, nor
does it what a bloodthirsty kingdom might punish her with were she to become a
mother.
In another lifetime, Regina might have been a mother, she may have spent her
days singing happy tunes, cooking hearty meals for plump children full of
smiles, sewing patches in worn out playing clothes, mindless of uncomely
callouses, but in this one, that woman is but a shadow under an apple tree,
dying embers of a girl that once was. Regina can’t afford to be what she was,
or what she might have been, but rather has to let go of burdens and grief, and
let herself be what she is – and it’s so hard to pinpoint who that might be,
for is she’s not her mother’s daughter, or Leopold’s wife, or Snow’s step-
mother, or Baroness Irene’s confidante, then what does she have left to be,
what is there left to fill her chest and make her heart beat with unwavering
strength? Surely nothing but the monster, roughly carved by unfortunate events
and given breath by necessity. And if mother has taught her something at all,
if her lessons have burnt some truth under her skin, then that is that monsters
should never have children, so Regina pours the potion in a goblet, scents it
with some sweet spices so it won’t taste like the foulest of medicines, and
pretends that her hands aren’t shaking.
Chapter End Notes
     1- Robin: I'm trying to go here with what I think A&E were trying to
     do with the character at first, before he came down with a case of
     Total Lack of Personality (TM). I've always thought they were going
     for someone a little cocky but fun, and that they basically wrote
     themselves into a corner with the whole Because-Pixie-Dust
     relationship, so that they made him and Regina go from zero to twu
     wub without any actual development. It's a shame, because I honestly
     think Robin could have been a fun character (or at least you know,
     better than a doormat), and the thing is, while this is not in any
     way an OQ fic, I do think Robin is important for Regina's story, and
     I need him to have an actual personality. My take on their
     relationship is a could have been great in the right place and time,
     but we were doomed to never find the right place and time kind of
     thing, which is what I'm going for. Any case, Robin won't be showing
     up again until the canon events of S3.
     2- As for the huntsman *sigh*. Ok so, canon heavily implies that
     Regina begins raping the huntsman from their first meeting onward,
     but I hate this plot, simply because it isn't properly treated as a
     rape plot (because A&E don't know what that is even when they're
     writing it, apparently), and I hate that the treatment it gets is
     "lol he's her sex slave" (actual DVD commentary from the creators).
     Considering that, I've changed the dynamics of the relationship in
     the EF a bit (I like mine better, lol), while their Storybrooke
     dynamic will remain the same.
     My reasoning is that while both situation are objectively rape (I
     don't know the fandom opinion on this, but while I love Regina, the
     sexual abuse of Graham is undeniable to me), from Regina's POV
     they're not. Basically, the situation canon implies in the EF would
     require physical abuse, while the situation in SB is "taking
     advantage of the fact that the curse compels Graham to like her".
     While I would argue that the second situation is actually far more
     perverse, it makes sense that Regina as a character would be able to
     rationalize it.
     Did that make sense at all? I just don't want it to look like I'm
     trivializing the subject to make Regina more charitable, but I just
     don't see her physically forcing herself on someone, magic and all;
     plus, I just don't feel like it matches the feel of the character in
     the fic.
***** Part VII *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW2: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW3: Mentions of past miscarriage. Mentions the canon events of
     "Mother" (4x20), where Regina takes a potion to make herself barren.
     TW4: The farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil Queen
     tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence and abuse; a little
     more violent than canon, actually.
     TW5: Non-canon character death.
     --
     AN: Sorry this has taken so long, but work's been a bitch lately.
     Hugs to everyone!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
The night is cold yet clear, the skies coated a deep midnight blue and
brightened by what must be thousands of stars, their light only dulled by the
sight of the fire before Regina’s eyes, the golden hue of the flames licking
away at the wooden structures of small houses, at feeble roofs made of straw,
at clothes forgotten in the frenzy of escape. The sight, destructive in its
nature, is enchanting to Regina’s attentive gaze. The village, nothing but a
group of six houses surrounding a large cornfield, burns with beauty far more
impressive than it ever held before, and Regina can’t help but find her lips
settling into an amused smirk, the vision of blazing orange warming up her
chest where the cold night breeze insists on freezing her instead. She has
always liked fire, after all, her anger burning her despondency away, her
desires igniting warmth in the otherwise empty spaces under her skin, wildfire
becoming nothing but a sign of her strength and of her passing through
underserving lands.
The spectacle before her is hypnotizing enough that she ignores her troops
retreating, giving up on the chase of the former inhabitants of the small
village only after her direct command, and the lot of them obviously not
finding respite equal to hers in the fascination of the fire. Her Military
Advisor stays, however, quiet and steady by her side, knowing well by now that
she enjoys the sights and doesn’t wish to be interrupted, that even with
peasants running away with their lives intact the destruction taking place
before them is victory enough to quench her desires. The wind blows, crisp and
uncomfortable, tangling Regina’s long tresses even further than they already
are, but not managing to quell the healthy glow of her cheeks, heated up by the
proximity of the fire. It will be hours before the houses burn down to the
ground, and while Regina won’t stay to watch the flames extinguish, she plans
to linger for a long while yet, the quivering flickers of tangible brightness
providing calm far beyond what resting her weary body might.
Time passes mindlessly, slowly, and Regina breathes in with every second that
goes by, the smell of burnt wood giving way to that of smoke and the flames
dwindling until they don’t seem enough to conquer the chilliness of the long
winter night anymore. Regina feels like pouting, almost, and she only holds
back the gesture because her Military Advisor finally breaks his stance and
presses a globed hand to her forearm, bringing her attention away from the
blazing annihilation.
“Should we go back to the camp now, Your Majesty?” He wonders, always happy to
suggest rather than order, knowing by now that she always answers with more
levelheadedness when she doesn’t feel herself led unwillingly down any path.
Regina softens her smirk, sparing a second to be grateful for the earned
friendship of this man that has become so indispensable to both her cause and
her sanity. After all, even while undeclared and fought under the pretenses of
unorganized rebellion, Regina is in the middle of a ruthless war, and Duke
Nicholas, while a respectful advisor who openly admires Regina’s strategic
smarts, is also confident enough in their rapport to speak up and tell her when
she’s acting insanely. Regina doesn’t always listen, but she’s certainly always
more willing to stop and pay attention when the Military Advisor is whispering
his thoughts, than when anyone else is bellowing them instead.
“Not quite yet, but you should make your way back; it is getting rather late,
and we have a long march tomorrow.”
The duke nods, acquiescing to her silent command with no protest, and with
enough perception to take her ever faithful Claude with him, leaving her alone
despite her guard’s warnings. She rather enjoys spending her time within her
troops’ camp, finding herself delighted and mindlessly entertained by the
boisterous nature of her men resting after a long battle or a fearsome attack,
but tonight she would rather remain by herself, finding her own peace in the
smoke rising towards the dark sky. She can hear music in the distance, though,
some of her soldiers having demonstrated hidden talents when presented with a
lute or a rackett, the impossibly brutish Ralf even surprising everyone with a
skillful dexterity of the viol, and the faraway sound is enough to calm her
senses and to relax her tense shoulders, tired after nearly a month away from
the palace and burdened by the cumbersome coat of mail her council had insisted
on when she’d demanded to be at the head of every battle.
King Charles’ incursion into Regina’s lands, while certainly not the first
attempt of such sort, has proven to be the most irritating one thus far, his
forces too weak to be truly problematic, but resistant enough to cause unwanted
losses and to require far too much of Regina’s attentions. Regina knows for
certain that the man remains affronted over her careless dismissal of his
marriage proposal, and that his recent wedding to one of the richest countesses
of George’s kingdom is the reason behind his feeble bid at wreaking havoc
within Regina’s borders, never mind the futility of such an endeavor. The whole
ordeal has infuriated her enough that she has left a battalion behind her after
their victory, thoughts of conquering Charles’ kingdom for herself already half
formed in her overworked mind. Her Military Advisor doesn’t think such an
incursion necessary or advantageous, the small patch of lands too small to be
of any notice, its maritime connections incomparable to Regina’s own.
Nonetheless, the kingdom is pretty and its ruler has managed to affront Regina
quite personally, making her want to stomp her foot in the man’s face with
petty determination. They can always do with a bigger fleet, after all, and
Regina hardly thinks the new queen will be opposed to becoming her warden once
Charles’ head rests on a pike.   
It is perhaps a too harsh punishment, Regina muses, considering that the
responsible hand behind Charles’ attack, as well as others that have occurred
during the past year, is George’s, his kingdom growing weaker since Regina cut
all commercial relationships with him, a deal with Rumpelstiltskin prodding her
into action, but only pushing her in a direction that had already been in her
thoughts at the time. She has always respected King George, has even
appreciated his blunt and honest demeanor, his lack of hypocritical flourishes
and the regard he has shown her, but his constant onslaught of marriage
proposals, along with how quick he’d been to slander her name after her firm
rejection, had been more than enough to turn her thoughts of his persona into a
bitterly sour course. Regina’s breaking off of their commercial contract had
been enough to send him in an impossible quest to conquer her lands, using
military force when he’d intended to have her hand in marriage before, and had
certainly found himself surprised by Regina’s own military power; after all,
back in the days of Leopold, George’s army had been the mightiest of the realm.
It lays within George’s own stupidity, then, to think her as foolish as her
husband had once been, and to somehow assume her careless enough not to have
spent the last few years building herself an army robust enough to do away with
his in a few well-fought battles.
Regina is sure that there will be a time to recover her relationship with
George, but as of today, she finds herself fighting away attempts from other
kingdoms, their rulers apparently dumb enough to choose George’s guiding hand
over her own. There has been nothing but victories for her thus far, though, a
thought that would be far more pleasant if such triumphs didn’t imply months on
the road and a thin layer of dust permanently settled over her skin. She could
very easily magically bring herself back to the palace during the nights, but
such a thing feels rather impractical and like a fantastical waste of energies,
particularly when her men are validated in their efforts whenever they catch
sight of her jubilant smirk. It’s true, too, that Regina finds tremendous
satisfaction in the battlefield, in her limbs growing tired from too fast
riding and the bellow of excited commands, strategic discussions far more
thrilling than gossip had ever been to her, and her magic crackling with ease
and proving the most fearsome of weapons. Mother would have been appalled, she
thinks, would have chosen to lead her armies from her clean and pristine throne
and far away from dusty fields, would have made herself high and mighty where
Regina chooses to ride as one of her own men. Regina finds, though, that after
mother’s last thunderous wreckage over her life, she’s not particularly
inclined to follow her teachings, far more confident in her own mind, proven
right by boundless conquests.
An unwitting sigh conquers her frame at her mangled thoughts, and she gives up
entirely on them, forgetting mother and rebellious kings in favor of walking a
little further into the woods, where she knows a light stream crosses the
otherwise dry lands – surely the reason for the villagers to settle themselves
in this particular spot. They have been riding through narrow and steep patches
of mountain for days now, and Regina longs for the cool touch of clean water.
It takes no more than a few minutes to find the small river, the rushing sound
of the current more pleasant to her than the distant melodies of the camp, and
even than the crepitating sound of the flames she’d found so captivating only
moments ago. She sighs yet again, suddenly impossibly tired, and does a quick
job of getting rid of the heaviest pieces of her armor as well as her boots,
the blistering skin of her feet stinging pleasantly when she dips them in the
cold water. As she sits by the rough edges, a lone patch of dirty grass
providing the ghost of comfort under her, she realizes that she’s still holding
a piece of paper between nimble fingers, Snow White’s face imprinted above the
words Murder, Treason and Treacherymocking her in the shape of runny ink. The
edges of the paper are singed, and its color has darkened into a yellowish
beige, making the picture of Snow grotesque and inadequate, her pretty face
distorted and ugly in ways that the girl has never been. Regina curls her
fingers around the poster, briefly considering consuming it with the same fire
that Snow’s supporters had been victim to, but instead finds herself dunking it
in the cold water, feeling the material turn to mush until it’s completely gone
and the image of Snow along with it.
This last stop of their journey had been a last moment decision, the news that
Snow had been seen prowling through these parts of the kingdom and Regina’s
proximity to them in their way back to the palace excuse enough for her to
visit the village herself, and to make the punishment for her disappointed
expectations to be executed in the shape of cleansing fire. She knows better
than to hope that accounts of Snow’s whereabouts hold any truth by now, but at
least she finds odd satisfaction in delivering retribution for the lies told –
she won’t be trifled with, and if she’s to endure hearsay and mockery, then
surely its perpetrators should be prepared to endure her wrath in exchange.
It’s been a little over a year now since Regina last caught sight of Snow,
since those fateful days they had spent together in the woods, Regina under
disguise and Snow so fooled by such trickery that she had confessed truths she
may have never spoken to Regina otherwise. Regina had thought her daft and
unwise, opening herself up in such ways to a complete stranger, had thought
that surely she hadn’t learnt that kind of easy trust from her, not when Regina
had always kept her innermost thoughts close to her heart and hidden behind
lies told so convincingly and walls built so high that no one would dare try
and climb. Trust had never brewed anything but pain for Regina, after all, and
she had shied away from Snow’s compulsory exposure with as much ferocity as
she’d craved it, her words of family lost and wistful desires to recover ties
now long gone denting away at Regina’s cold demeanor with steadfast vigor. Now,
thinking about it, she twists her lips into a sneer, disgusted at how easily
she had brightened at the prospect of recovering the lost shreds of her
relationship with Snow, at how despite having promised herself not to hold hope
beyond herself and her own abilities, for a brief and impossibly luminous
moment she had believed in the prospect of changing her fate, in the idea that
there was something salvageable amongst the waves of hatred she had bestowed
upon Snow White.
She blames mother, now; blames her for having crippled her once more, for
leaving her open and vulnerable so that when Snow had spoken of the girl that
had saved her from sure death atop a maddened horse with love so genuine
written in her features, Regina had thought the frail tendrils of their twisted
tenderness restored. She had thought, momentarily, that perhaps Snow would look
at her, truths exposed and dark edges uncovered, would stare at the scarred
shape of her heart, at the emptiness of her soul conquered by pulsing anger,
and would somehow love her still. She had thought that perhaps Snow could look
past the deceit and the masks, past the feigned sweetness and the instilled
demureness and see her as she was, damaged but not broken, waiting for a hand
to hold towards a better path. She had dreamed of telling her everything, of
speaking of Daniel’s true destiny, of mother’s twistedness and impositions, of
decades of duplicity that had so distorted her, of pain so acute that Regina’s
only hope for survival had been furious assault against everything and
everyone, including herself. Instead, she had felt the weight of Snow’s
disappointment settling over her shoulders, eyes that had been so bright one
moment dulling the next in the face of Regina’s sins. Snow had looked at a
village of slaughtered bodies and had declared Regina lacking beyond reason,
heartless and unforgivable; and Regina, numb and indifferent before the tragedy
that had seen her as judge and executioner but its victims as nothing but
guilty in her eyes, had known Snow forever lost to her, and death the only
possible outcome for the wretchedness of the inadequate love they had bestowed
upon each other. After all, Snow had loved nothing but her lies, and Regina
hadn’t known tenderness for her that had been untouched by hatred.
Regina wishes to banish her thoughts of Snow away, longs to expel her from her
mind in a night such as this, when fire has been set with the sole purpose of
chasing her ghost away. The cool night air around her and the sharp chill of
the water surrounding her feet should be enough to distract her, but she knows
that she’s condemned to being haunted by her memories of the princess. There’s
a shadow of detachment to her thoughts now, however, a precise and calculated
rationality where before there had been nothing but all-consuming mania. She
supposes spending those days with her hadn’t been completely fruitless,
ultimately affording her the privilege of gazing upon her former step-daughter
without the legend the populace had built around her. Sitting side by side,
they had been nothing but two women at odds, much like they had once been two
girls pushed together by forces beyond their comprehension – Regina holds onto
that thought feverishly sometimes, when the shadows of their given titles
threaten to bury her within the depths of insanity. A hero and an Evil Queen,
and Regina artlessly seizes the knowledge that they’re but Snow White and
Regina, quarreling sisters turning the kingdom into their battleground.
“Isn’t it a lovely sight?” Snow had said during their time together, daylight
barely breaking above them and nothing but thick forests hiding Snow’s
makeshift tent. “I couldn’t possibly wish to be anywhere else.”
Regina had laughed, and Snow had looked at her with a wrinkle in her nose and a
frown settled between her eyes, the little girl that hated to be contradicted
and that Regina had known so well painted over her features. It had been
strange, a juxtaposition to the Snow Regina had discovered anew, her face
sharpened and her fingers calloused, her senses acute and her demeanor
suspicious of every noise around them, her hands as deft at making healing
poultices as they had been at shooting fast and precise arrows.
The thought of that time merely manages to paint a bitter smirk on Regina’s
lips these days, the irony of the money she had spent on Snow’s archery lessons
and the time consumed teaching her about herbs and plants not lost on her; that
she had given her enemy the weapons now used for survival seemed but nothing
like an impossibly cruel joke of the destiny that had hanged above their heads
since the moment their paths had crossed.
Regina hugs herself as the memories come to the forefront of her mind, vivid
despite their encounter being over a year old, painstakingly poignant every
time she hears the title she’s earned along with a brimming rebellion and
constant opposition from a kingdom that has made Snow its champion. The Evil
Queen,they call her, and Regina, who has worn so many faces, donned so many
costumes over the years, has taken on the offered moniker and has made it
honorific, wearing it like protective armor, like a warm cape over her
shoulders, like implicit expectations of a collective mind that needs a villain
to push against their heightened hero. And why not, why not take what has been
offered and use it to her advantage? After all, evil has no weakness, evil
wears its strangeness as shield, evil is greater than she can ever hope to be
by herself, curling its shadow in tendrils so interminable that her legend
precedes her, makes her stronger with nothing but whispers and stories told.
More to the point, evil makes no apologies, and so Regina has left her wavering
doubts behind, has forgotten hands that were as quick to punish as they were to
mollify, has crushed whatever ludicrous ideas of acceptance and respect she may
have once harbored; if she is to be deemed a demon, then it is only par for the
course that she leaves no place for mercy, no place for vacillating greyness in
a world that has painted her black.
She leaves her thoughts behind to turn her attention towards more mundane
tasks, namely, her blistering feet, now cooled down but unmistakably swollen.
Forlornly, she stares at her discarded boots, ruing her decision of taking them
off so far away from her sleeping tent and glaring as if the leather
contraptions have personally offended her. Truth be told, her attire is as
comfortable as it can be, but after weeks of walking and riding her skin is as
damaged as that of a knight, even her hands growing callouses despite magic
being her weapon. Suddenly, she yearns for velvet and lace, for fine dresses
and heavy jewelry, and most of all, for a decent warm bath and scented oils to
properly wash her hair, instead of the cleansing magic she has been using to
keep herself mildly presentable. She supposes she could jump inside the cold
stream, but the palace is merely a day’s ride away, and she would rather fix
herself in the comfort of luxury. She closes her eyes, thinking of a plush bed
and a warm dinner, of father’s arm under her own as they take a walk under her
apple tree, its scent present even in the chilliest days of winter.
Rather than loose herself in the fantasy, she conjures up her travelling
equipment, hoping that there’s enough balm left to heal her damaged skin. Her
feet carefully oiled and bandaged, Regina is in the middle of tying up her
boots carefully when she feels a burst of magic, the sickly sweet smell of it
revealing its owner before the purple smoke has given way to the twirling
figure of Rumpelstiltskin. A giggle fills the air, overpowering distant music
and the rustling of water, and Regina rolls her eyes.
“I am notin the mood for you tonight, Rumpel,” she hisses immediately. Not that
she ever isin the mood for the imp’s flourishing theatrics, but the least he
can do for her is appear when she’s well-rested and alert, rather than dragging
around the weariness of a month of battles.
He laughs, motioning in her general direction with a pointed finger. “It’s
funny how you think you get a say in my agenda.” At finding himself at the end
of a dark glare, he smiles impudently. “No, really, you do amuse me, dearie.”
Rolling her eyes one more time, and positive that there’s no better answer to
give to the imp when at his most annoying, she tiredly questions, “What do you
want?”
“Merely to humbly deliver a message; meeting my end of a deal, of course.”
Regina frowns, Rumpelstiltskin’s words always managing to be half a riddle
filled with hidden truths, but she has little time to question the meaning of
his statement before he’s throwing something at her rather carelessly. She
stops whatever the object may be with a slight wave of her fingers, leaving it
floating before her, and scowls even as she reaches out for what she realizes
is a small wooden box, no larger than her palm. She finds that she dislikes
performing magic whenever Rumpelstiltskin is around these days, somehow feeling
it heavier and stickier when in his presence, as if her own power were aligning
with his own, harmonizing with the darkness within the imp and distorting her
own abilities until they’re but a twisted version of her own reality. He never
fails to smirk at her, obvious knowledge of her dilemma comical to his ever
cruel sense of amusement.
Lowering her gaze to the box between her hands, she opens it only to find a
pendant and a short note, the well-known calligraphy of mother’s hand spelling
her name at the top of the paper enough to make her growl.
“She gave this to you?” She receives a raised eyebrow for an answer, and
stopping herself from scoffing, she demands instead, “In exchange for what?”
“Well, dearie, there are many favors to be gained from the Queen of Hearts,” he
intones, his right hand flying up in a twirl more exaggerated than his usual,
granting the title with as much burgeoning pomp as Rumpelstiltskin is capable
of.
“The Queen of Hea–ah, of course she would be queen,” Regina mutters, a bitter
laugh hidden in vile-tasting words.
Regina had certainly done her bit of studying after she had pushed mother
through the looking glass all those years ago, if in fear of her return or
regret at her own actions she had never questioned for entirely too long, wary
of the answer. Everything she’d read of the realm so often referred to as
Wonderland had been nothing but nonsense, and perhaps she had been foolish when
she’d dismissed the ever growing rumors she’d received from magical
acquaintances about the harsh rule of the Queen of Hearts, choosing to ignore
whatever news came her way of the land that she had exiled mother to. That
mother would claw her way to a crown doesn’t surprise Regina, but that she
would dare send her anything after Regina had so adamantly demanded to be rid
of her presence only manages to make her pulse quicken with foul and sudden
fury.
 Behind her, Rumpelstiltskin is busy making some crack about mother’s
craftiness, but Regina ignores him in favor of pulling the pendant out of the
box and bringing it up to eye level for examination. A heart-shaped stone hangs
from a heavy golden chain, expensive and ostentatious, the bright red color of
the gem shining even under the dim light of the starry night, mocking her with
its blood-like gleam. Never quite one for subtlety, mother’s gift is nothing
but a deep offense to Regina’s own heart, wounded by the one mother had crushed
between purposeful fingers, by the ones that will never beat now that Regina
has stolen children away from her own future. It’s a beautiful piece of
jewelry, nonetheless, fit for a queen of course, and Regina figures it may work
quite well with the deep red dress she’d commissioned right before leaving for
Charles’ kingdom. She rests it in her hand, feels the weight of it gingerly,
and realizes that the mere thought of wearing such a thing around her neck is
enough to make her choke, mother’s over-reaching hands wrapping around her
throat even from as far away as a completely different realm. She twists her
lips disagreeably then, and with a jerky movement of her arm throws the pendant
into the river, the loud splash of it as it sinks and floats away with the
power of the stream immensely satisfying. The box quickly follows the same
destiny, whatever mother’s note may have said something Regina has no interest
in finding out, lest it convince her to give mother one more chance to chip
away at her heart.
“Didn’t like the gift, then? I didtell her red and gold are a little gauche,
but you know your mother can be terribly stubborn.”
Regina bites her lower lip to stop the bark of laughter that feels so natural
after Rumpelstiltskin’s statement, the insolent and natural rapport they have
developed when it comes to mother something that Regina doesn’t find agreeable
in the least. That they have both been privy to mother’s best and worst
tendencies is obvious, that Regina would somehow wish to find an unspoken
camaraderie with the imp regarding the subject not so much – it feels a little
bit too much like choosing daddy over mommy, and every single layer of the
thought is absolutely and despairingly wrong.
Regina has always known that there’s a connection between mother and
Rumpelstiltskin, some old story that they have both refused to share but that
very obviously makes them past lovers, and perhaps something with far more
depth than mindless physical knowledge. Mother had spoken of Rumpelstiltskin
with fondness of all things, and while a part of Regina wishes to know nothing
of their attachment, a bigger, more frantic part has always dripped with the
drollest of curiosities over the subject. Rumpelstiltskin had called mother
magnificentonce, and Regina can’t help but wonder just which kind of actions
would lead the slippery and overly confident Dark One to bestow such a
compliment upon anyone; the best she has ever gotten from her former teacher is
unexpected,and she’s not particularly sure whether it was meant as honest
flattery or as a bitter statement of fact at the time.
Rumpelstiltskin had always dodged her questions regarding mother with masterful
ease, but a year ago, when Regina had called for him in the mindlessness of her
fever, he’d spoken of her in words more revealing than Regina had ever heard
before. Then again, the fortnight after mother had left her had seen her so
terribly sick that perhaps Regina had imagined the whole ordeal, her delirium
bringing false images of soothing demons, of invented whispered confessions.
The potion she’d taken had brought her near the brink of death, the painful
stab of discomfort low on her belly she’d felt when she’d first drank it
building fast and vigorous and cramping her up with ruthless agony, breaking
apart her insides like the cruelest of monster-like claws may have done. She’d
bled for days, her blood dark and pungent, much like it had been when she’d
lost her child all those years ago, her body crying in the same manner for the
children she would never have, and her shivering aches soon giving way to high
temperatures and a loose mind, one persecuted by pervasive and confusing
nightmares that blurred themselves with reality and the darkness of a piece of
her heart broken by her own hand.
The memories of those days were fuzzy at best and tormented at their worst, but
Regina remembers with despairingly bright clarity the sight of father’s eyes,
saddened beyond repair while holding her unsteady gaze, and the feel of his
smooth hands, careful in their touches as they did what little they could to
soothe, even if just cleaning the sweat away from her feverish and clammy skin.
And despite father being there, her beacon of light and the only person she
should have wanted to cling to, her febrile lips had parted in a croaky cry of
Rumpelstiltskin’s name. She’d begged then, her spirit crushed and her wits
gone, the touch of reality but a sigh tingling at the corner of her mind. She’d
asked him to reverse it, to turn back time and force the potion away from her
hand, to undo the destruction that she’d brought upon herself with her own
hands, but with the fearsome whisper of mother’s ghost as her guide.
“I told you there was nothing to be had in there,dearie,” he’d said, motioning
vaguely towards her abdomen, his wiggling fingers creating waves of golden
light before her hazy eyes. “No use crying over spilled milk.”
She’d lunged at him then, unwitting but fierce, a snarling beast jumping
towards her most grievous of predators, the master and owner of her soul that
now refused her the most necessary of favors. Strengths weakened and wobbliness
conquering her every move, she’d done little else than scratch at empty air,
falling to the floor before the imp in a heap of heavy limbs and ugly sobs, a
queen beaten to the ground by her own hand and denied cruelly by her fiendish
devil. And in her pathetic fragility, he’d been as unexpected as he’d accused
her of being on numerous occasions, a scaly finger finding its way to her
fevered brow, his clumsy attempt at comfort bizarre enough that Regina had
jumped away as if burnt, shying away from his kindness with the same
stubbornness she’d used to meet his harshness in the past.
He’d curled his hand against his chest, confounded by the rejection, and with a
twist of his mouth he’d declared, “Ah, the joys of picking up after Cora’s
messes; she did always say you were a harebrained, stupid girl.”
He’d been nasty, cold and downright insulting since then, his momentary
gentleness gone in the blink of an eye so that Regina still suspects it but a
construct of her own nebulous senses. He’d popped up uninvited for the next few
days, though, and in his visits, he’d recounted hidden memories of mother with
zealous vagueness, as if he wished to confess truths that he couldn’t truly
bear to uncover, as if somehow Regina’s blurred mind was the closest to a
silent preacher that he could hope to obtain.
Regina isn’t stupid enough to think that the imp’s interest in her well-being
had been anything other than assurance over the life of an investment of too
many years to give up on, but those days remain as an otherworldly parenthesis
in her memory, like an episode of someone else’s life, or a break in the usual
relationship she’s developed with her former master. Whatever the case may be,
the simple thought of those unfortunate events brings an unpleasant flush to
her cheeks now, and she finds herself despising the warmth that she had so
craved only moments ago, when her sight had been delighted by the fiery embers
of a burning village. Feeling foolish for giving so into her unpleasant
memories, she suppresses a huff and reaches forward, plunging her hands into
the cold water of the stream and bringing them up to her own cheeks, doing her
best at cooling down her overheated skin.
“What did you ever do to her, anyway?” She crisply asks, interrupting whatever
speech Rumpelstiltskin had been in the middle of in favor of distracting
herself from her thoughts. When no answer is forthcoming, she insists,
annoyance sipping into each of her words when she says, “I mean mother; what
did you ever do to her?”
After all, it had always seemed unlikely that mother would allow the proverbial
human host of all-powerful darkness to escape from her grasp.
Silence reigning still, Regina looks up from her prone position to catch
Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes with her most frustrated glare; she has gotten fairly
used to her commands and inquiries being answered with, if not complete truth,
then at least agile momentum, and she doesn’t enjoy being kept waiting for
long. It’s easy enough to forget sometimes that Rumpelstiltskin isn’t one of
her subjects, and that he won’t cower at the first sight of her glowering eyes;
at best, he usually laughs at her single-minded determination to be served with
swift efficiency. There isn’t mockery tonight, tough, no brisk jab coming from
the imp’s viciously sharp tongue, and so Regina’s glare turns into a
questioning gaze that reveals the most unusual of truths. She knows fairly well
that possessing complete understanding of Rumpelstiltskin’s actions and
demeanor is but an unobtainable dream, but she’s certain that what she’s spying
in the swirling darkness of his eyes is brutal and unwavering hurt,the sting of
the emotion brief, yet deep enough for Regina to glimpse human-like frailty in
the otherwise heartless creature before her.
“Oh,” she intones, eyes widening in realization and lips stretching into the
most delighted of grins. “What did sheever do to you?”
She laughs even as she’s asking her question, the amused elation of knowing
mother the one woman to overpower the Dark One enough for the sound to be the
brightest and most honest it has been in months. No wonder he thinks her
magnificent, then, if he has truly suffered by her hand. He doesn’t deign her
question with an honest answer, and while Regina wasn’t expecting one, she
certainly wasn’t expecting him to simply flee the scene either. It is what he
does, though, no dark threat or funny little quip to confront her glee, and
nothing but a sheen of purple smoke left behind as proof of his presence.
“Well, it’s no fun if you don’t play,” she murmurs at the empty air before her,
jutting her lip forward in a silly little pout, her queenly poise forgotten in
favor of playing the disgruntled little girl.
Laughter shakes her one more time, though, unstoppable and free, her frame
moving with it and replenishing her energies enough that when she stands up and
rests her weight on her swollen and blistering feet she barely feels the pain.
As if coming out from a drowsy spell, sound and scent comes back to her, her
ears being inundated once again with the twinkling rustle of the flooding
stream and the faraway thump of enthusiastic music, and her nose once more
catching the scent of burning wood and smoke. Any other day she may find
nothing but bitter distaste in Rumpelstiltskin’s visit and the memory of
mother, but tonight, with one more victory against Snow White and her allies
under her unyielding hand, and with the knowledge that the powerful Dark One
has weak spots to be exploited, she smirks, the prospect of a night with her
troops and a celebration in her name suddenly impossibly captivating.
Her smirk doesn’t soften into a smile as she walks back towards the camp, but
rather widens into a victorious grin, the dying embers of the fire a tangible
demonstration of her sovereignty, the resilient spirit of her vengeance
climbing high into the nightly air, smoke rising and rising, unstoppable and
implacable, and along with it, the legend of the Evil Queen.
 
===============================================================================
 
The palace receives her with peaceful silence but cold rooms, the frosty
character of the harsh winter days slipping through the cracks and defying the
most vivid of fires. It must be one of the coldest winters the kingdom has ever
seen, its days far too short and dark, and the strong winds billowing as if
filled with moaning spirits, much like old stories claim them to be. Regina
chases the freeze away with candles in every room and hearty, warm meals for
everyone, but even then, she doesn’t rue the intimate mood of the season,
particularly when the first few days back allow her the respite of personal
time. Much as she’d enjoyed the mind-numbing excitement of battlefields and the
shared camaraderie of camps, she now realizes she’s been craving the solace of
private chambers, much more so once she remembers the simple pleasure of fresh
linens, a comfortable bed, and a warm bath.
The first couple of days she does very little, postponing council meetings and
the business of the kingdom in favor of taking stock of herself, and of finally
paying attention to bruises and wounds that she has swiftly ignored during her
time on the road. The fights haven’t been particularly grueling for her, her
knights taking the brunt of the front lines and the most physical combats, but
too long hours of horse riding and sleeping on thin cots over the hard ground
and for too few hours have certainly been enough to breed aches all over her
body. She studies them carefully, resting soft fingers on the purplish marks
inside her thighs, rubbing softening balms and healing potions on blistered
feet and roughened hands, hissing uncomfortably when clumsily healing with her
magic an unfortunate bruise right below her ribs, the flesh abused and tender.
She bandages, balms and heals accordingly, the warm water of long baths and the
scented oils massaged over her skin demanding that she rests tired limbs and a
weary mind. She sleeps then, long and dreamless, lazily cat-like as she lingers
under the sheets, the grey skies outside failing to tempt her away from her
bed. She realizes, with languid accuracy, that there’s something almost
satisfying in the tiredness and the pain gained in the midst of war, honor in
the blood spilled in the fight, her bruises trophies hard-earned. The marks and
wounds left behind by Leopold’s hands had been humiliating and diminishing, but
the yellows and purples given to her by the chase of her own victories make her
feel like a fierce warrior, impervious to grief.
She eats a lot, too, and she eats well, accepting father’s offer of creamy
vegetable soups and spicy carne mechadawith gusto, even being careless enough
to let her head swim away after drinking too much strawberry wine. Regina
remains in bed, dressed in her nightgown and covered by the softest of
comforters, father sitting by her side as if she were convalescent and him
nothing but the humblest of caretakers. Were father anyone else, she would have
thought the whole ordeal undignified, but with his soft gaze upon her, she can
do nothing but feel like the little girl that she will forever remain in his
eyes, twelve years old and scared of mother discovering their nightly visits
and their secret closeness. As it is, she feels nothing but warm, her love for
father seemingly growing whenever they have spent a long time apart. He doesn’t
like hearing of her battles, that much she knows, and while bitter resentment
usually brews within her when he dares judge her actions, after a long absence
she finds that his gaze holds only love, and so she allows him to speak
instead, finding relief in his deep and smooth tone even if his stories of the
comings and goings of the palace don’t matter much to her.
Her good mood follows her for a few days, and once she finds it in herself to
leave her new-acquired lethargy behind, she summons the huntsman for dinner,
and dresses herself accordingly, wrapping herself up in deep red velvet and
black lace, her softest corset tightening her stomach and bringing her breasts
up, giving them presence even when covered by soft fabric. Sitting by her
vanity and busy with painting her eyes with kohl, she finds herself laughing,
the absurd thought that she’s dressing up for her prisoner throwing her for a
loop. She knows better than to think that she does this for anyone but herself,
but she can admit that she’s vain enough to appreciate having an audience.
Truth be told, as wonderful as lazing about in nothing but a light nightdress
and thick robe has been, she craves the luxuriousness of expensive gowns and
formfitting fabrics just as well.            
She’s still busy with her paints and perfumes when her guards make their way
into her chambers, a grumbling huntsman in tow. Her expression remains a little
lost in thought even as her hands move deftly over the dark red paint she has
chosen to apply to her lips, and she only focuses her attention on her guest
once she hears him drop his weight heavily against the back of his chair, arms
crossed over his chest and expression displeased.
“Well, dear, don’t tell me you aren’t happy to see your queen,” she intones,
mock-offense laced in her words as she stands up and walks the short distance
towards the table. He says nothing, refusing even to look at her, and she adds
the smallest pout to her put-upon fallacy, wondering, “Did you not miss me even
a little bit?”
Most days, the huntsman offers her the diversion of sarcasm, but tonight he
gives nothing, remaining stony-faced and apathetic even after Regina’s amused
gaze turns into a glare. She wonders if he knows how much his bloodless
despondency annoys her, and if he chooses such mien on purpose for that simple
reason; she knows for certain she would be prone to such tactics were she in
his position, but it seems to her that subtle prickling of the corresponding
sort requires far more malice than the huntsman is capable of. She sits down
with a huff, ignoring her guest in favor of her table, filled up to the brim
with warm and rich-smelling dishes. She knows he will have nothing but steamed
vegetables, and the thought bothers her beyond reason. Perhaps she should send
him back to his dungeons tonight, but she always ends up choosing to keep him,
for as much as he frustrates her sometimes, his own torturous thwarting is a
good enough prize that it diminishes her annoyance.
Dinner with the huntsman has become a tradition of almost ritualistic nature by
now, torture for them both that Regina doesn’t wish to free herself from. She
did give up her insistence of two nights a week in favor of having his presence
at the service of her whims instead, desperate to drive Leopold away from her
thoughts and actions, refusing to use her memories of him as example and
excuse. She’s not particularly sure what it is that she wants from the huntsman
anymore, other than perhaps causing transparent and straightforward affliction
to her first outspoken betrayer, to the first person to wave Snow White’s flag
rather than her own. It is true that she uses him as conduit for the sins of
the kingdom, treating him with more harshness in the days when the defiance and
rebellion building outside of the palace walls seems to gain advantage over her
own conquering hands, or in those instances when Snow’s capture and death seem
imminent and end up in failure instead.  She knows herself well enough to
understand that her fascination with him runs deeper, however, and that it is
far more personal. She fails to grasp at the exact reasons for such interest,
but the fact that prodding at him until he flinches makes her smile with joy is
good enough argument for her to keep up their meetings.
Tonight they barely speak, though, and Regina finds her appetite lost but for a
sudden fancy for dessert. Lifting the silver plate coverlet, she discovers rice
and milk pudding, and she smiles unabashedly as the sweet scent of vanilla
wafts up to her nose. Daddy must surely be behind such a choice, and the memory
of the first time she’d tried it pulls at the corners of her mind, five years
old and barely taller than father’s waist, being offered a spoonful of arroz
con leche.A few biscuits accompany the dish, and Regina dunks one in with
gusto, bringing it up to her mouth covered in the dense treat and biting at it
unceremoniously, her thumb rescuing the crumbs that stick to the corner of her
mouth. She considers them for a second, and after shrugging carelessly, she
licks her finger clean, leaving a trace of red lipstick on the skin. Mother
would have been most certainly appalled at her behavior, and Regina knows for
certain she wouldn’t have dared partake in it where she at her table. The
huntsman doesn’t fare much better, though, staring at her with surprise, as if
her lack of manners and enjoyment of sweets are completely foreign, and a sure
sign of madness.
She smiles, the ghost of laughter teasing at the corners of her mouth as she
picks up a small bowl and fills it up with the treat, offering it then to the
huntsman. “Try it,” she commands, eyeing the piece of beetroot still on his
fork with mild distaste.
He doesn’t fight her command, but rather takes the offered dessert. Then again,
he usually does, and not for the first time, Regina wonders about his
upbringing, about the kind of meals he may have been allowed to taste in his
life before becoming her prisoner. She chases the questions away quick enough,
though, denying him the privilege of identity previous to their entanglement,
choosing to ignore that he's anything but a traitor who stole revenge away from
her hands. It’s the very reason she has given herself for not asking his name,
and for simply referring to him as the huntsman, forever the perpetrator of the
ultimate betrayal in her head, undeserving of individual character and sense of
self. She had been barely better than an object herself once, after all, and
knows the despairing misery of such loss of selfhood – for Leopold had never
once used her given name, my queen, childdripping from his bumbling lips and
transforming her until Reginahad been lost between his unwanted hands.
“It’s good,” the huntsman says, and Regina leaves her daydream and is welcomed
by the sight of his tongue licking at the spoon in ways that bring to light a
lack of noble manners. His eyes are downcast, and so he misses Regina wrinkling
her nose in his general direction, clearly floating in a daydream of his own
when he says, “My mother used to–”
“Dear, please, I don’t care.”
He bristles at her interruption, eyes moving up towards hers with fury etched
in them. Good,she thinks, savoring his anger with almost as much delight as she
relishes her own. He’s not a person, she reminds herself, he has no name and no
past, he’s nothing but a heart beating away inside her vault, and so he won’t
be allowed reminiscence of a life lived before her.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” he intones, levelheaded even when he’s
furious, nothing but a tightening of his grip on his spoon to show for such an
emotion.
Not for the first time, Regina wonders at whatever it is that plagues his chest
now that it’s heartless. She thinks his insistence on recalling his past out
loud, something that Regina has never allowed but that he seems adamant on
accomplishing, may actually be a plea for mercy, permission to hold onto a time
where emotions were possible to him, rather than an echo inside his cavernous
chest. He must have been a sensitive man, she ponders – the kind to cry after a
good lay as well as at the sight of the sunrise, as Maleficent had so
succinctly put it not long ago, lips twisted into a sneer and Regina laughing
with glee. She’d thought him unfeeling once and it had been a thorough mistake,
for if reverberations of feelings lost are enough to keep him grieving and
furious as he is now, then surely his heart must have beaten with true and
unbidden sensuality before.
“Your simple job is to entertain me,” she tells him after a moment, dislodging
her eyes from his, dismissing his fury by going back to her own dessert with
careless abandon. “I must say you’re failing spectacularly.”
“Should I learn to juggle, Your Majesty?” he questions, lacing her title with
such contempt that it almost makes her proud. She does love it when he leaves
his brooding behind.
“It would help pass the time down in the dungeons, surely?”
“Dress me up in bright colors and I'll be a jester, then.”
She laughs at that, thoroughly amused and raising an eyebrow when she looks
back at him. “Oh, dear, we both know how well you do with costumes, don’t we?”
His lips tighten at her words, and she knows for certain that he’s fighting a
smile, the memory of the one time Regina had tried to dress him up as something
other than what he is too delightfully amusing to resist. Armed with determined
desires to make him presentable for her, she’d had fine clothes made for him
not too long ago, close-fitting summer breeches of the lightest fabric, a tight
waistcoat of rich scarlet color over a fine shirt with puffed-up sleeves, her
splurge even going as far as commanding a matching cap adorned with feathers
and gold chains in the latest fashion. She’d ordered him shaved as well, and
the picture he’d made in such a fashion remains the funniest thing Regina has
seen in her life. Never has she met someone so unsuited for fine clothing, and
the huntsman’s displeased demeanor at being peacocked so had only managed to
amuse her even more. He’d looked so miserable, the poor little thing, baby-
faced beyond belief without his usual scruffy beard, like a boy just starched
and ironed and too afraid to move or laugh for fear he’d crack, that Regina had
taken pity on him and had never again forced him into such an attire. And he
dares call her cruel.
These days she dresses him in nothing but breeches and shirt, comfortable if
still made from the finest of fabrics and by the most skillful of hands, his
beard the only concession to a hint of wildness, even if kept clean. He makes
for an attractive picture now that he’s taken care of, bathing and fine food
luxuries that no other prisoner is given, and if Regina enjoys the sight of
him, then it is only more so because he hates being treated like a glorified
doll for her pleasure. Tonight he looks particularly appealing, perhaps because
Regina hasn’t seen him in so long and whatever romantic bone lingers still
within her insists on his figure being that of a fanciful yet tragic hero,
rather than nothing but a simple man made into a puppet by her own hands. Had
he begged and cried, he certainly would have lost his appeal, but that he
remains troublesome rather than pathetic only makes him more alluring to her.
They share no more words, and instead silence settles between them as they both
eat slowly, nothing but the sound of the fire crepitating in the chimney and
the clinking of their spoons against fine porcelain filling the room. It’s
oddly comfortable in ways their relationship shouldn’t be, so when Regina spots
biscuit crumbs lingering at the corner of his lips, she launches forward and
towards them, her fingers seeking his flinching fear, or perhaps even his
grimacing repulsion. She graces his mouth with her thumb, her fingers resting
on his cheek almost absent-mindedly, and rather than wince at the unwitting
caress, he merely searches for her eyes, his own wide and clear with surprise.
Her touch is soft, she realizes, much too soft to be bestowed upon him, and her
body is leaning forward and into his, as if expecting a passionate answer to
her affectionate touch. She’s the one to flinch then, her own lack of control
making her move away as if burnt, her back finding stability when it touches
her chair and her hand curling against her chest, traitorous and whispering the
tale of unwanted attraction. He’s so warm, though, his skin always hot to the
touch, as if a furnace burns inside his stomach, that his warmth remains with
her.
He says nothing, but his eyes remain upon her, searching for answers that she’s
not willing to give. She knows he finds her beautiful, has seen him looking
before, but she hates the places where his eyes linger, so different from those
she’s used to that it discomfits her. She’s familiar enough with lingering
gazes, and she knows how to play up her own assets in whichever way is needed,
preening and flirting second nature to her after years of using her own body to
tease, fool and deceive, so that the huntsman’s eyes resting where they
shouldn’t angers her, fills her with desire to rip them away from his face.
He’s looking at her wrists, her collarbones, the slope of her neck, the scar
above her lip, and Regina hates him for discovering her beauty in the places
where she’s fragile, despises him for finding charm in her vulnerability when
he recoils from her strength.
Brusquely, she stands up, the sight of him suddenly so maddening that she
wonders at her own instincts, at her insistence on playing games such as these
when it’d be smarter to keep her prisoners where they belong, be that the
dungeons or nicely dug graves. She knows she’s been playing cat to the
huntsman’s mouse, teasing him with soft paws just to make him react, but to
allow him to become a predator to her emotions seems foolishly obtuse of her.
She doesn’t carefor him, and she should most definitely not care whether he’s
looking at her scars or her bosom, shouldn’t be pleased either way. She feels
him move behind her, and when she turns back towards his figure, he’s standing
up, closer to her than he’s ever willingly stood, one firm hand poised in the
air as if waiting for permission to touch, and lips parted with unspoken words.
Regina takes a step back – goodness, but is the fool going to ask for her well-
being, or something equally ridiculous? It would be just like him, too, to feel
compassion for his jailor.
She huffs, irritated, her posture tense and her hands curled into fists by her
sides. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hisses.
He has no answer for her, and so they remain in a standstill until the silence
is broken, their ever-faithful third companion calling for attention with a
deafening howl. It’s surprising enough that Regina deflates, the sudden tension
making her feel childishly silly, reacting to a single touch as a blushing
virgin would. She laughs, forcing the sound so it will loosen up her shoulders
and allow her to breathe with more ease, the abrupt tightness in her chest
uncomfortably solid.
“How unbearably dull you both are,” she says, twisting her mouth into a snarl.
“Enough for tonight, I think,” and this she murmurs to herself, for the flick
of her wrist and the following spell have already banished the huntsman away
and back into his dungeon, where he rightfully belongs.
The wind carries the sound of the wolf still, and Regina shivers, her
bedchambers feeling suddenly chilly now that the ever-warm huntsman is gone.
She wraps her arms about herself, the sudden vulnerability brought on by her
prisoner’s searching gaze making her inordinately uncomfortable, as if her
scars and wounds have been exposed for all to see, brought to the surface raw
and festering still. Unwittingly, she licks at the scar above her lip, an old
habit that mother had been quick to correct, harsh words and harsher hands
making a lady out of Regina even at a young age, and despite being responsible
for the mark in the first place. She had been all of six years old and in her
first outing away from father’s state when it’d happened, her tiny and clumsy
feet making her tumble and fall before Grandfather Xavier’s court, her bleeding
lip enough to cause a commotion about her. Her grandmother, along with other
ladies of the court, had cooed at her, dismissing her bumbling attempts at
apologizing for her demeanor, and mother, rather than admonish her, had simply
denied her attendance, leaving a permanent brand on her skin when proper care
would have left nothing but healed flesh. The scar has persecuted her ever
since, mother’s eyes and hands easily reminding her of past weaknesses with
nothing but a look, or a grace of her hands.
“It gives character to your beauty, milady,” Daniel had said once, hands
cupping her cheeks and smile big enough to warm the both of them, to chase
Regina’s fears and insecurities away.
She’d laughed, foolishly careless and believing his words and reassurances far
more than she’d ever believed her own. “You speak nothing but nonsense, boy,”
she’d teased back.
They’d repeated the same conversation often enough, and Daniel had most
certainly kissed her scar sufficiently that she’d believed it a beauty trait
rather than a painful reminder of what a heavy-handed failure she could be.
Tonight she feels torn, hating the huntsman and the wolf, berating herself for
licking at the mark as if she could somehow erase it by sheer determination,
and yet wanting to believe the precious memories of the one who had loved her
most. Her mangled thoughts are disrupting enough that sleep holds no interest
for her, knowing that tonight it will bring nothing but nightmares, will awaken
nothing but ghosts of the past, so she indulges herself with heat and wine,
throwing a thick robe over her fine dress and sitting by the fire with a cupful
of the rich-tasting brew. She hates herself for brooding, and for allowing her
huntsman to trouble her so, and most of all, she hates the wolf for refusing to
quiet down. Without a hint of amusement, and deep into the long hours of the
night, still sitting down but having consumed all her wine already, she
realizes that she already misses the senselessness of the battlefield, and that
it is going to be one long winter trapped within these walls.
 
===============================================================================
 
Winter drags its days slowly, the long hours of darkness pervasive in their
stillness, and the cold winds invading cloudy days that refuse to let the sun
shine for even a moment. Regina likes the atmosphere well enough, having
learned to enjoy the intimate comfort of the chilly season over the humid
summer days, but she detests the dullness of it just as well. Winter never
fails to be an excuse for everyone to hide away from the cold and regroup,
after all, and so rumors of the brewing rebellion quiet down until they’re
nothing but whispers, unavoidable yet easy to dismiss. Regina can hardly blame
her kingdom for stepping down and away from the fighting pits, knowledgeable
enough to understand that food and clothing take preference over silly battles
when the winds are strong and the days dark.
Regina hides as well, though, her own hours consumed by the business of the
kingdom in ways that she’s already used to, and that she even fairly enjoys.
There’s something awfully tedious about inventories and commercial trading
routes for furs and fabrics, but Regina has always liked sitting down and
giving order to that which doesn’t have any, using a cold approach to business
unlike any other king has done before her. There’s quiet satisfaction in
knowing her kingdom well-managed, and she’s certainly glad that, Evil Queen or
not, she can’t be accused of keeping her people hungry or unclothed; she hopes,
maliciously, that her populace drowns in their own guilt when they realize they
couldn’t have asked for a fairer or more resourceful leader. She’s almost
tempted to give her crown to Snow White as a test, just to watch her crumble
under the weight of the duties of the role – the girl’s warm-hearted approach
to life wouldn’t last her a minute, she’s sure, in the face of neighboring
kings prone to believing themselves superior by virtue of being men, and her
uncanny ability to ignore that which displeases her would have the kingdom
burning in chaos in no time.
Nonetheless, despite the muted gratification of running her kingdom
efficiently, reports and polite council reunions fail to excite after weeks
spent in the battlefields, and it feels to Regina as if the kingdom is teasing
her yet again, this time quieting down the rumor mill, and offering her no
hearsay at all. As it is, there’s very little she can do other than wish for
Snow White to come out of hiding, and face her in open battle, a thought that
consumes her during the long hours of darkness. Days pass, though, and the
kingdom stills even further when the cold heightens until snow falls from the
sky, covering the ground in shades of bright white. Regina wakes up in the
middle of the night when the first storm falls, unexpected snowflakes making
for a beautiful view once she steps outside to her balcony, an unwitting smile
painting childish enthusiasm in her features. It’s unusual for her kingdom to
see snow, only the mountains of the northern lands being crowned by such
weather on particularly furious winters, and the sight delights her enough that
she forgets about the further entrapment such foul weather will bring.
The first time she'd seen snow, Regina had very recently turned twenty. Snow
White, nearing thirteen and barely the project of the gangly teenager she would
soon become, had made use of her careless proclivity for invading Regina’s
privacy and had made her way into her bedchambers late at night, nothing but a
thin robe over her nightgown and an enthusiastic grin adorning her face. She’d
forced Regina into her balcony despite her protests, adamant that they watch
the falling snow together, and despite her grumbling, Regina had found the
vision enchanting, old folk tales failing to prepare her for the beauty of it
all. When Snow had insisted on them making their way outside, her smile filled
with impudent mischief, Regina had advised caution, but had followed the child
nonetheless, her fingers trapped within Snow’s in a way that she would grow to
hate soon enough. Once they had made their way to the gardens, Regina had
despaired at their carelessness, cold seeping into their bones through the
flimsy fabric of their nightwear, their slipper-covered feet growing wet almost
instantly when they’d stepped into the snow. She’d had no time to argue her way
back inside the palace, though, for the moment Snow’s temporary penchant for
misconduct had led her to throw a well-aimed snowball right at Regina’s chest,
chaos had ensued. With melting water freezing her skin, Regina had been quick
to answer the provocation, and sunrise had found them not much later, laughing
about the gardens, chasing each other and tumbling over patches of uneven snow,
wet from the root of their hair to the point of their feet, but mostly without
a care in the world.
Johanna had been the one to find them, and even as she’d berated them both with
a face made red from outraged disbelief, Regina had made no effort to stifle
her giggles. She’d been a queen and a child, and that had been reason enough to
do as she very well pleased, after all. Both her and the princess had caught
matching fevers from their night out, and the moment they’d gotten sick,
Leopold had been the one to do the scolding, reprimanding Regina for being a
terrible influence on his always well-behaved daughter. Even with a nasty cold
that had Regina’s voice weak and her nose clogged, she’d laughed at his words,
and had been vicious with her own.
“Perhaps you should instruct your precious child to stop visiting my chambers
in the middle of the night, Your Majesty; or perhaps you should better instruct
your guards not to give into her woeful eyes with such ease.”
He’d had no answer for her, and so rather than fight her with words, he’d
artlessly ordered her caged within Snow White’s chambers, where they were both
to recover from their illness together and without complaint. Regina had
complained, nevertheless, and when her protests had been unanswered, she’d
turned her indignation towards her troublesome charge, and had punished her
with what she’d already discovered was nothing but torture for the girl – hours
spent with her back straight and her head held high, her voice giving shape to
the words of The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness.
“Never question the veracity of any statement made in general conversation. If
you are certain a statement is false, and it is injurious to another person,
who may be absent, you may quietly and courteously inform the speaker that he
is mistaken, but if the falsehood is of no consequence, let it pass. If a
statement appears monstrous, but you –Oh, Regina, must I continue?”(A)
“Yes, dear, and no interruptions. Do go on.”
Snow had followed her instructions with an impolite scowl that had lasted but a
second and had been carefully masked by a neutral expression as soon as Regina
had given her a pointed look. Regina wonders if Snow still remembers the words
of the dreadful little book, and can’t help but cackle at the memory. Regina
can certainly recall them even now, the handbook being the first book mother
had given her once she’d been old enough to read; at age seven she’d already
known it by heart, and had been able to recite full passages without missing a
word. Snow had learnt it just as well, and even if she’d dismissed its lessons
far sooner than Regina had, she’s positive she would recount it easily if
prompted.
Memories of her step-daughter pursue her in the following days, snow falling in
heavy blizzards and burying the kingdom under its cold and brutal hand. The
impossible coziness of warmed chambers and thick coats goes hand in hand with
the pervasive boredom of the season, bringing unwanted nostalgia along with it,
and Regina finds herself chasing away ghosts of images from the past while
wishing for reprieve in her present. The snow doesn’t aid her in her purpose,
however, making her enemies hide further away from her while news of houses
buried under the snow and bodies found dead on the cold outside begin flooding
her instead. She’s prepared for the upheaval, and so furs are freely
distributed among the poorest, dangerous roads are closed and prudence is
advised.
The palace survives with fluidity and ease, and her army proves efficient
enough that, even with paths closed and storms blazing outside, postage doesn’t
falter, keeping Regina busy enough, even if with matters so abhorrent that she
finds herself plagued by ever-growing irritation. While the weather has been
keeping most people away from trouble, not all of her subjects are blessed by
the privilege of half a brain, for surely the recent ogre attacks she keeps
being informed of are nothing if not the product of careless clumsiness. After
all, Regina had taken care of the ogre problem not long ago, after a battle
that had ended with one of the brutish things earning himself a scar across his
eye by way of fireball when he’d dared pick Regina up from the ground in one of
its disgusting paws. The thing had bawled at being so singed, and Regina had
discovered that the oafish brutes were nothing if not children with no brains
and too much brute force, easily appeased with food and peaceful slumber. The
very reason they had lost both Ogre Wars had been their lack of strategy and
organization of any kind, and after a close encounter with the things, Regina
is actually surprised that they had been smart enough to fashion weapons and
stand their ground for as long as they had. Regina had solved their conflict by
offering them a patch of inhabited lands and enough game for them to hunt and
feed, and they have been hiding away in their secluded spot ever since. Regina
had even give the place the name of Ogre Valley, and had warnings spread all
around it, so she is of the opinion that if anyone is getting themselves killed
by ogres, then it is their own damn fault for going where they shouldn’t.
“I hardly think that answer is going to appease the masses, Your Majesty,” her
Military Advisor tells her, even as a small smile graces his thin upper lip.
Regina stares at him, frowning and displeased, and crosses her arms over her
chest as she answers, “The masses can jump from a cliff for all I care; the
masses,” and this she drawls, derision tainting the word, “want Snow White as
their queen, and then expect me to protect them from their own stupidity.”
“Your Majes–”
“Ugh, save your advice, duke; I know what you are about to say and you may do
as you wish. I don’t understand why I should send my men to die in a blizzard
because my subjects can’t seem to grasp the meaning of Ogre Valley, Keep
Away;alas, I will do as I must.”
Laconic terseness takes over the palace as days turn into weeks, but eventually
the storms lessen so that all that remains is a thick layer of white covering
dusty paths. It’s much too cold to be outside, impossibly inhospitable, but
Regina insists on at least walking the gardens, if only to stop feeling like a
caged animal, ready to pounce on unsuspecting prey. She takes father with her,
hanging from his arm and scolding him for wearing his thinnest coat and for
refusing her offer of having a thicker one made, huffing away her frustration
and ignoring his weak knees by making him walk briskly, rather than stroll
lazily about.
“Cielo, ¿estás intentando ganar una carrera?” (1)
The quiet sass in father’s tone makes her stop short, her pursuit forgotten and
her jaw immediately unlocking from its tense grimace, her shoulders lowering of
their own accord rather than remain thrust forward, as if wanting to ram
against imaginary enemies. She smiles, impossibly charmed by father’s
shimmering gumption, which she sometimes thinks forever lost, and rests a
gloved hand against the one he has about her arm. She wishes, for a minute,
than it was their skin touching rather than layers of cloth.
Beautiful visions of her garden during the winter and the balm of father’s
soothing doesn’t last long, however, and Regina is once again plagued by
restlessness. She finds herself waking at odd hours of the night, craving
something, even if she’s not particularly sure what that may be. She refuses to
think Snow White has begun to steal her sleep away from her too, even when she
knows that the eerie hours of the too early mornings are the time for doubts
and the haunting of ghosts. Sometimes, lying awake in a bed that feels too big
when the darkness is claiming the skies, Regina thinks that wanting too much
may be her bigger sin, and that it may just be why she won’t ever seize what
she so desires. She’s always quick to rejects such fancies, however, throwing
herself in the opposite side of the spectrum, delirious when she thinks that
she if she ever stops wanting so much then there will be no reason to live at
all. She laughs at herself for both thoughts, and closes her eyes as tightly as
she can, commanding sleep to come to her and allow her respite from the waking
world. She thinks boredom may just be driving her mad.
Just when it feels as if tedium is pressing on her soul, silver lining of any
kind such a faraway thought that even a visit from Rumpelstiltskin is beginning
to feel like a momentary relief from the apathy, she decides to bring the
huntsman back to her table, willing to forget the uncomfortable strangeness of
their last encounter in favor of making him into the oddest of heroes, charged
with rescuing her from the dangers of an idle mind. She finds him disgustingly
ill, the cold having wreaked havoc in his weak frame after weeks of dwelling in
the dungeons, where there are no fires or comfortable covers to chase away the
wintriness of the season. The gauntness of his face and the cough that rattles
his chest makes her feel briefly guilty, turning his visit into one more
unpleasant moment for her. She ends up setting him in a wing of unused rooms,
nothing but a thin cot furnishing his new abode, but a fire burning weakly in a
small and dirty fireplace. She sets one of her guards permanently at his door,
even when the huntsman has proven frustrating enough that he hasn’t attempted
escape once. Regina hardly thinks it’s part of his plans – the honorable idiot
probably thinks his penance a fair price to pay in exchange for someone else’s
life.
Her decision sends gossip running around the palace, enough for Regina to find
herself mildly entertained by the fancies of her servants. Whispers and
innuendos are not uncommon when it comes to the huntsman; after all, he’s
certainly handsome enough to gather attention, and Regina’s unusual deviation
of treatment of a prisoner has been enough for him to be made into a remarkable
figure around the palace. She knows they think him her lover, and has found
droll amusement in the whimsy of gossip that claims them two souls tangled in
deals with the devil, him an unwilling servant and her, a devious mistress.
It’s certainly a change from the usual talk of the commoners, who are far
fonder of whispering about her bathing in the blood of unborn children to keep
her beauty and other nonsense of such sort.
It is so that Regina finds herself blue and disgruntled, looking forward to the
coming spring and the fair weather as the one possible rescue from the
doldrums. She had been flourishing among the flames of battles not too long
ago, and it feels to her as if she’s wilting like the weakest of flowers the
longer the snow surrounds her, a thought so depressing that she simply grows
more irritated by the day, hoping for news that won’t come, wishing for battles
to fight and a heart to crush. She wonders, idly, if perhaps the lack of news
from either the rebellion or the princess is due to the fact that Snow has
perished during the harshness of the winter, and her body lays dead and
forgotten, buried under snow as pure and white as the people claim her to be.
Regina relishes the thought but for a moment, bristling at it then when it
becomes insufferably anticlimactic. The least Snow owes her is a proper
encounter and contest of will, after all. Snow had walked into her life and
splintered all of her dreams, and now Regina demands retribution, preferably in
the shape of her heel digging into the princess’ spine until it cracks.
 
===============================================================================
 
Tides change during the first clear night of the season, one where the cold is
prevalent enough that it has a clear scent, but that sees the orange skies at
sundown free of storms, allowing the snow to begin melting away, and to give
way to a softer and less unusual winter. Forenoon sees Regina meeting with
Duchess Adela, the heavy snows having kept her away from the palace for longer
than a month now. Regina receives her in one of her smallest sitting rooms,
ensuring that their quiet meeting is made pleasant, the couches under them
cushy by virtue of being worn down, the fire lively and enough to chase away
the wind trying to find its way through the cracks, and warm tea served with
spongy currant cake. The duchess doesn’t approve of the lax atmosphere when
they’re meant to be working, but Regina insists that the woman eats something
before she collapses out of exhaustion, having insisted on them meeting right
after her arrival rather than wait a day or two to recover from her travels. As
they speak, Regina spies the duchess’ hands folding and unfolding a
handkerchief repeatedly, as if in a compulsion, her hands betraying
anxiousness. Regina wonders if the woman is simply desperate for something to
do, idleness as bothersome to her overworked frame as it is to Regina’s.
These past few months Regina has been working alongside the duchess with clear
purpose, their endeavors far more stimulating than any others have been since
she claimed her crown, and most surprisingly, their dealings delightfully
pleasing. They have never seen eye to eye on many matters, after all, the
difference in their upbringing, and Regina’s so called dramatic tendencies more
often than not causing a rift between her and the more conservative woman, but
in certain subjects they have always been of the same mind. Thus, when the
duchess had approached her with ideas regarding the mandatory instruction of
the kingdom, noblemen and commoners alike, Regina had listened avidly. The
duchess had confessed that her plans had always been regarded before as women
fancies,but Regina, who understood the privilege she’d had at being properly
motivated towards education, had sat down with the woman immediately, light in
her eyes when thinking about the project. It’s not easy, though, not when
resources are limited and ignorance has proven a blessing to noblemen for a
very long time now, so any change in that matter fails to gather supporters.
That wouldn’t matter much to Regina, who is used by now to doing as she pleases
with no one having her back, but the resistance of peasants has proven to be a
hindrance just as well. It seems that any initiative that comes from her is
regarded as evil, unmindful of its true intentions, and that rumors of a decree
for mandatory instruction have garnered nothing but a negative response, since
surely it means that the Evil Queen must be in need of raising minions, and
wishes to do so with twisted teachings.  
"One would think people wish to remain ignorant,” the duchess says that
evening, their plans forgotten now and her previously nervous hands wrapped
around a mug of what must be cold tea by now. She sounds defeated and looks
older than she truly is, her thinning grey hair suddenly taking on a ashen
appearance, and the usual tightness of her lips giving way to a weary and
rueful smile. Regina supposes that a lifetime of being at odds with the world
would do that to you, and she briefly wonders is she’s staring at her own
future.
“No one likes change, I suppose,” Regina counters, her own tone taking on the
same fatigued quality as the duchess'.
It must be true, for surely no one in their right mind would reject the chance
to learn to read and write, never mind which leader is proposing such a thing.
Her kingdom thinks her evil, though, even when she’s trying to give them
opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise – she dreams of a world where
people might choose endeavors different to their parents' trade, where girls
won’t have to marry the first man knocking on their doors for lack of knowing
how to earn a living, where no noblewomen will be questioned in their power
when standing without a man. She sees no evil in her imagined future, but then
her eyes have always seen the world with a different shade of colors.
Her evening with the duchess proves fruitless, and the woman’s obvious
exhaustion has Regina sending her to her rooms for supper and rest. She takes
her own advice herself, and so the sunset sees her sitting by her vanity, half
a dish of spicy soup forgotten by her table, and father’s patient hands
breaking knots away from her hair. The sky is beautiful tonight, and Regina is
thinking of stepping into her balcony to watch the pinkish glow the sun has
left behind when her evening is interrupted, Claude entering her chambers with
disrespectful hastiness and speaking fast words of a rider having arrived at
the palace’s doors, the horse nearly driven to death by exhaustion and its
owner an anonymous mystery.
The stranger is merely a girl, no older than sixteen and weighted down by
exhaustion, and Regina, so used as she is to threats and the sudden appearance
of blades at her throat, receives her with fire burning inside her curled palm,
lest she allows herself to be fooled by an innocent face once again. The girl,
whoever she may be, doesn’t look frightened though, but rather fascinated, dark
brown eyes staring intently into the fire, small mouth puckered into an
astonished little grin. The small and flickering flames glow golden against her
dark skin, and for a brief moment, Regina thinks her a creature of the old
legends, hidden behind the mists of time and now brought before her with
purpose unknown. She closes her fist and allows the fire to extinguish, and as
if a spell has been broken by her simple jerky movement, the girl opens up
before her, shedding her mysterious mantel away and leaving behind a tiny child
of sparkly eyes and impudent smile, unruly dark hair and nails dirty with dust
not enough to hide a noble upbringing, her graceful movements enough to uncover
her origins as she steps closer to Regina.
“Cousin! I am ever so glad to find you!” The girl exclaims, her words failing
to register when she steps close enough to wrap tired yet strong limbs about
Regina, the hug so sudden and brief that Regina finds herself suppressing a
squawk of surprise. It is apparent that everyone must be suffering under the
same spell, for even her most prepared knights fail to make the smallest of
moves at the girl’s hastiness.
“Oh, apologies, Your Majesty,” she says then, the lack of genuine feeling
behind her apology so very obvious that Regina fails to hide the upward curl of
her smile. “I am so very tired you see, and I just can’t – oh, but you must be
Tío Enrique!”
That said, the girl takes off towards father, his always shy figure coming out
from the shadows to clasp the hands that the girl offers him. Father looks as
bewildered as Regina feels, and yet enchanted nonetheless, his eyes shining as
they settle upon the child. Regina bristles, a white hot poker of unbidden
jealousy branding her in that one single moment, father’s eyes taking on the
soft expression that Regina hasn’t received herself for some time now.
“Child, who are you?” She hisses, stepping closer to the pair and refusing to
see the truth – that they look so very much alike, that if this girl would
swear to be Regina’s sister, she may be inclined to believe her.
The girl looks at her with eyes open wide, beautiful enough that Regina can
almost ignore the pale hue to her otherwise natural golden skin, the sharpness
of cheeks that Regina guesses must have been fuller not too long ago, the bead
of sweat marring the smooth forehead crowned by curls made frizzy with humidity
and lack of care. Only then does Regina notice the coarse cape covering the
girl, her body surely tiny and too thin under it, flesh that can’t possibly be
warm if she’s been riding outside in the damp and dismal winter days. And
despite the deplorable state the girl finds herself in, when she speaks next,
she does it with a ringing yet delicate voice, pride filling out her words.
“I am Adriana Cristina of the honorable House of King Xavier,” she states, only
to immediately loose whatever shadow of regal demeanor Regina may have spied in
her by breaking into a sonorous and bright giggle.
“Adriana Cristina?” Father questions.
“What a mouthful, is it not? And so very silly, unlike me at all. Everyone
calls me Ace, you see, Ace of Hearts, over this.” At this, she points to the
high slope of her right cheek, right under the corner of her eye, where what’s
seemingly nothing but a small and red birthmark is indeed shaped like the
tiniest of hearts.
How lovely, Regina thinks, that she should find an Ace, when she already has a
Queen. She snorts, pushing mother away from her thoughts and parting her lips
so as to inquire about this girl’s presence and purpose. Whether Regina chooses
to believe her or not, she’s certainly not obliged to provide whatever it is
that the girl must surely want from her. However, she’s interrupted before she
can even utter a word, and she finds herself crossing her arms in discontent,
making for the picture of a spoiled child, rather than of a queen.
“Prince John is my father, your closest brother, tío, is he not?” And this she
speaks to father, whose hands still remain about hers, surely soft and soothing
in their touch. Father answers with nothing but a smile and a nod, and Regina
has but the briefest of moments to feel bereft before the girl is once again
looking her way. “I’ve been told I was at your sixteenth birthday, cousin, but
then I was only one year old.”
Regina makes no effort to recall the truth of the statement, whatever memory
she has of the birthday balls of her past painfully nostalgic to her. She had
been hopeful and foolish and already so very in love with her impossible dream
then, enjoying twinkling lights and music while thinking of a boy with
beautiful eyes and a love of horses, and that girl that is no more can’t be
allowed life, lest she chokes Regina with regret and insanity over paths lost.
It’s easy, too, to ignore the past and stay within the present instead, with
this girl standing before her and calling her cousinwith such ease, as if
latent tenderness must palpitate between them by virtue of familial ties
unknown to Regina’s heart.
“What is your purpose, child?” Regina questions. There’s already a headache
pulsing at the back of her head, and she has a feeling that no matter the
girl’s answer, it will only make it worse.
The girl wrinkles her noise, the gesture disagreeable in her small face, and
says, “I do hate being called a child.”
The pride in her voice and demeanor is to be admired, but it angers Regina
instead. That this remnant of a family that she hasn’t known for years would
dare appear before her and make demands so impudently upsets her, the prodding
feeling that she gave up on them just as well one she wishes to ignore. If she
ever turned her back on father’s heritage then it was only necessity and
survival, after all, and it’s too late to blame herself for sins so old. She
finds the child offensive, nonetheless, disruptive in a life that is finally
settling on solid ground, demanding when it is obvious that she has nothing to
give. The arrogance of her, so very much like Regina’s own, pushes Regina
forward and into the girl’s face. Regina grabs at her chin, fingers tight on
the sweaty and cold skin and forces the girl’s face upwards, something like
triumph settling on Regina’s chest at being taller than her, even without heels
to help prop her up.
“And I do hate being told what to do, child.”
Regina expects fear but she gets none, the girl looking at her with something
that could be read as bewilderment, but that feels like something else
altogether. Perhaps her legend isn’t so widespread that the girl knows of the
titles given to her, but surely the sight of her magic should have been enough
to make her at least wary of her. Then again, perhaps the girl has a death
wish. Regina can’t tell, and she finds herself distracted by expressive eyes
that are so very much like her own that it’s discomfiting; she has been a
foreigner for so long in this land, after all, trying to hide her differences
away at first, and now wearing them like armor, that finding them mirrored back
at her is rather unnatural, a whispered bond that she doesn’t have a place for.
And yet the girl remains fearless, choosing to press her hand to the one Regina
has on her chin with precise intention, surely that of calming a beast. She’s
trembling, though, betraying tiredness so heavy through the fog created by
proud stubbornness that Regina finds herself stepping back, releasing her and
keeping them at a distance. How easy it would be to admire the dignity of the
weary child, and how Regina doesn’t want such a feeling to cloud her judgment.
“What is your purpose?” she repeats, leaving epithets and names behind for now,
unsure whether this girl before her must take shape inside her mind as a child,
a princess, or an impish Ace of Hearts, and fairly uncomfortable with the
prospect of any of them.
The girl doesn’t answer with words this time, simply removing herself
altogether from father’s hold and hovering delicate hands over her belly for an
instant before she pushes her cape away, the small bump that she reveals
unexpected and yet failing to surprise. Regina takes one more step back and
away from the girl, her own hands kept firmly fisted by her side so as to stop
the instinct of bringing them to her own abdomen. Rejection brims inside her,
nervous energy crawling under her skin at the unwanted sight, and she has the
brusque thought of throwing the girl away and back into the cold, where she
will surely die a quick and inglorious death. Even before the thought is over,
Regina knows that she can’t bring herself to do anything of the sort, tight
invisible hands wrapping themselves around her throat incomprehensibly, and
pushing her towards mercy instead. She will regret this, she knows, and yet the
certainty of the thought doesn’t stop her.
               
===============================================================================
 
 
Thus, Adriana Cristina of the House of King Xavier becomes Little Ace of the
Evil Queen’s Dark Palace, a title that she gives herself with an ironic little
tilt to her head and full laughter brimming with brazen mischief. Regina, for
her part, not only ignores the girl but also her wishes, resolutely referring
to her by her given name, and relishing the way the girl’s nose wrinkles in
distaste whenever the name crosses Regina’s lips. On the other hand, Regina
makes a fair effort in not referring to her at all, dismissing her presence as
if she was but a burden, one which she can’t rid herself of, but which she can
easily disregard.
Nonetheless, Regina does her duty regarding the girl, caring for her with a
cold demeanor but a capable hand, making sure she wants for nothing. She has
her lady’s maid settle her in one of the nicest bedchambers, not too far away
from her own and not too close either, thinking of long-forgotten hosting rules
that dictate distant relatives to remain at a particular distance when being
housed. She gives her one of the chambermaids for a maid as well, a young sweet
girl not much older than her, so that they will hopefully enjoy an easy rapport
if nothing else. She spares no expense on her either, splurging on a whole new
wardrobe once the girl is found out to have traveled with nothing but what
she’d been wearing upon arrival, clothes so torn and dirty that Regina has them
burnt the moment they’re off the girl’s back. She outfits her in fine and
comfortable clothing, minding her pregnant belly when speaking to her personal
tailor, and making sure she has the finest of gowns for every possible
occasion, never mind that most of those will never come to pass. She insists on
light colors, thinking of a breezy spring and of her youth, but when the girl
requests midnight blues and dark reds Regina concedes easily, far more
preoccupied with dressing her than with listening to her whining.
And whine she does, for as beautiful a voice as she has, and as graceful a
manner she possesses, it takes no more than a day for Regina to discern that
the girl is the most annoying little brat she has ever come across. The teacher
she hires to keep up her studies most adamantly agrees with Regina’s
assessment, and more often than not Regina finds him trailing after the girl as
she leads him outside in a fancy of fantasy, or the impending need of taking a
walk outside, never mind Regina’s instructions that she should be made to read
on important subjects.
“But what are important subjects?” The girl muses one cool afternoon, facing
off against her teacher with a bright smile and eyes settled up and towards the
sky, where the sun seems to be trying to fight the lasts trails of winter among
the clouds. “Isn’t the sun above important, or the careful sound of a lyre?
Isn’t a ripe apple more important at times than a foolish man-made political
law? No, we mustn't learn the rules of men and ignore those of nature, sir.”
It doesn’t take long for Regina either to understand that the girl’s worlds are
half cheap philosophy and half joke, spun masterfully by a too smart tongue
that amuses itself by teasing her teacher. It’s a subtle way of rebelling
against the rules Regina’s setting, and Regina hates that she finds her
irrevocably and absolutely hilarious, even if entirely absurd as well. In that
her teacher doesn’t agree, and Regina is positive that in between the pressure
of the girl’s unruly behavior and the fear he has shown while in the presence
of Regina herself, the man is just about ready to have a conniption.
The girl is doubtlessly fanciful, something of the fairy-like quality Regina
had spied on her on the day of her arrival following her every move, shadowing
her every word. She’s whimsical, a capricious little creature that makes Regina
think of the old stories father used to tell her about the Isles of Avalon and
the dark priestesses of the moon, hidden under the mysteries of old religion
and ancient rituals unfit for the eyes of mankind. The girl’s mystery and her
audaciousness are most certainly attractive, but Regina refuses to allow
herself the allure, rejecting the girl’s advances and leaving her in everyone
else’s hands instead.
Father, for his part, seems more than happy to play companion to her, offering
his arm with ease and accompanying her in longs walks through the garden, where
he laughs at the girl’s insistence on going barefooted, and where they speak in
rapid and intense tones, words changing from tongue to tongue as if they can’t
decide which language it is that befits them best. Regina hates her for it, for
the ease with which father’s smile blooms in the face of the girl’s whimsy,
with how they find themselves sharing stories of a family that Regina has no
memory of, of a kingdom that was stolen from her, of traditions lost on lies
set upon lies. She resents them both, for while they claim to want her they
prefer each other, father’s cheeks growing warm even in the chilliest
afternoons when the girl calls him Tío Enrique,and her eyes shining with gentle
care when he calls her Pequeño As.(2)
“She’s a sweet girl, my little princess,” father insists, “and she wants you to
like her.”
Regina rejects his words, hardening her eyes when they catch his in the mirror,
the moments he spends combing her hair the only time they share as of late,
Regina far too busy ignoring their guest by sinking herself into the kingdom’s
business with overzealous energy. It’s not particularly hard, after all, when
winter is finally ready to die a desperately awaited death, making the kingdom
revive itself with the first hopes for spring. Winter has been grueling and
unforgiving, after all, the arks of the kingdom have suffered more than
anticipated, and plans are to be made. Regina finds herself thankful for her
council seeking her attention and keeping her cooped up inside the palace,
making it easy for her to forget about anything that isn’t official business or
matters regarding Snow White and her enlivened rebellion, her kingdom seemingly
hankering for a fight with as much ardor as she herself feels.
The girl isn’t subtle or pliant, however, and she’s relentless in her desires
to find a fast friend in Regina. Thus, Regina finds herself refusing
invitations for long walks and shared meals, ignoring the girl when she insists
on interrupting Regina’s time with mindless prattle that she pays no attention
to.
“Oh, but you are irritating, cousin, ignoring me with such ease!” She yells one
afternoon, the end of what has been an childish tantrum finding its closing act
when she smashes a vase to the floor, her temper not unlike Regina’s in that
particular moment.
Regina pays her no mind, though, choosing to fix the vase with a twirl of her
wrist and a puff of magic, and eliciting a huff and heavy steps finally leaving
her alone and peaceful. The girl wants a reaction, Regina knows, for she has
proven to share Regina’s proclivities in more than one occasion, and Regina has
always favored a negative response over indifference, finding the former all
too impossible to bear. Regina refuses to give her what she wants, thinking
that the girl should be content to receive her favor and care, and would do
well not to ask of Regina that which she can’t give. Undoubtedly, Regina can’t
be expected to spare an ounce of love for this child of the fae who has bounded
into her palace like a phantom of kingdoms lost and a ghost of memories past,
forcing recollections upon Regina’s mind that she wishes banished forever.
The girl reminds her of herself, and for that, Regina despises the very ground
she walks on. It’s a preposterous thought, that this girl is anything like her
at all, when a sixteen year old Regina would have found herself living her days
inside a dark cellar where she to exhibit the girl’s most annoying habits, when
even the thought of being as loud and extravagant as she is would have been
excuse enough for well-deserved punishment. Regardless, the girl walking about
her palace with her sweet pregnant belly, wearing eyes so like Regina’s own,
pulling her chin up with so much pride in her stance, seems to her like the
twinkling remembrance of a girl she had once been, running away from her own
marriage with a child nestled in her insides and fear running through her
veins. That girl had died, though, thrown down from her horse by a vengeful
arrow, dragged through the mud until her insides had been ripped apart, and
this copycat version that spouts nonsense and claims her attention with single-
minded persistence brings a foul taste to her mouth, wraps bitterness around
her beating heart with biting insistence.
The girl’s unwitting sins further still by the unsuspecting picture she paints
in Regina’s unquestionably ludicrous mind, for she is nothing like Snow White,
and yet Regina can’t help but spy strokes of the princess in the trailing wake
the girl leaves behind. Regina tells herself it’s the shadow of pride in her,
the brat-like stubbornness and the lack of respect for orders received, she
convinces herself that it’s nothing but a trick of the mind. After all, Snow at
sixteen had been a picture perfect little lady, taking on her role with natural
ease and limber gentleness, when the girl’s manners suggest that she’s been
raised in a barn most days, delicate gracefulness notwithstanding. Nonetheless,
the chilly afternoon that she catches sight of the girl turning a corner and
something as artless as the ends of her dark and shiny hair throw her heart
into wild palpitations, Snow White’s spirit seemingly persecuting her through
figments of her wild imagination, she realizes that she will never allow
herself something as idiotic as loving the girl.
More to the point is the fact that the girl is irrevocably ill, if Regina’s
physician is to be believed. He says she’s consumptive, a fact made clear by
the coughing fits that wreck her body constantly, occasionally accompanied by
the sight of blood, an uncomfortable truth the girl fails to avoid even with
her pervasive liveliness. While her sickness has failed to kill her yet, surely
the time spent riding through the cold winter to get to Regina paired with a
risky pregnancy mean that the girl is living on borrowed time, holding onto
life with tight fingers and stubborn pride, but very little else. The physician
assures her that if she lives through the next few months, then childbirth will
most certainly kill her, her body too weak for the effort of carrying another
life. Regina convinces herself of this a fortnight into the girl’s stay, when
not even her steadfast mule-headedness is enough to pull her tired frame away
from her bed. Perhaps it’s better this way, Regina muses, for if death takes
the girl away from her, then Regina won’t lose her by harsher means, her own
hand too quick to bestow cruelty even amongst those closest to her, and her
endeavors in fighting Snow White causing judgment to cross even the most loving
of eyes. Thus, Regina refuses to love her, for love is weakness, and Regina has
been much too weak in the past.
 
===============================================================================
 
The first mild sunrays of spring bring with them news of the fall of King
Charles’ kingdom, the retelling of the battle fought on the last days of
melting snow that Regina receives from her army official rather drab and to the
point, but satisfying nonetheless, and enough for her to make plans for a
hurried journey to her new conquered lands. She hasn’t left her palace during
the whole winter but for short and frustrating visits to some of the villages
closer to the Royal State, and even then, her subjects had been far too
preoccupied by food and shelter to pay much attention to her antics, so she
takes on this trip with a smirk painted on her lips and renewed vitality. She
leaves the palace without much fanfare, leaving behind her new houseguest and
father as caretaker, swiftly ignoring the girl’s protests about being left
behind when she so desires adventures. What Regina desires, however, is a
journey lacking worries and headaches, both of which the girl has proven
particularly proficient at providing, so her whining is forgotten, and Regina
takes off at sunbreak of a slightly chilly morning.
Regina arrives at the small maritime kingdom and immediately makes a point of
making at entrance at the Royal Palace, donning her newest gown, a
spectacularly impractical purple creation of her Royal Taylor that she can’t
possible wear for too long a time if she wishes to breathe at all, but which is
built with the sole purpose of making an impact, high collar and lace trimmings
paired with a wide skirt and a plunging neckline enough that no one would dare
miss her, even if they were trying to do so. She doesn’t stay long, but the
week that follows she enjoys with the delight of a queen that has been cooped
up alone in her dreary palace for too long, and she finds herself laughing
without a care in the world, indulging in fine food and far too much wine,
being loud and inappropriate and further earning herself her given title by
virtue of being everything but what a woman of her age and station should be.
Everyone around her is nervous, servants and royals both running around with
too fast steps to comply with every demand, most of which are arbitrary and
capricious, and are simply born of the desire of acting like a fickle brat with
enough power to have everyone at her beck and call. There’s nothing quite as
hilarious as ordering a rich and bumbling old count to find her a blooming
orchid in pale pink colors, and watching him stutter through apologies about
the impossibility of such a task with a pout in her lips and a displeased
demeanor, after all. That the man begs for his life not two seconds later is
but another delightful moment that brings a clear peal of her laughter into the
otherwise silent air. She takes pleasure in her visit like a child would at the
height of his birthday, but eventually even balls, music and terrorizing
noblemen begins to get boring, and so she chooses to make her way back home,
and to set herself towards the task of finding her runaway princess. Surely
Snow White will come out of hiding soon enough, won’t she? Oh, but she must, or
Regina may just have to burn her path towards every possible hideout in the
realm.
Regina leaves behind King Charles’ newly widowed queen as warden of the land,
even if the girl has been nothing but a trembling mass of limbs during the time
of her visit. She’s a mousy-looking little girl, no older than seventeen, and
there’s nothing attractive about her but long and shiny light brown curls
framing an otherwise plain face. Regina figures her dowry must have been far
more alluring than her features, but Regina is glad to spy a sigh of gumption
in her right before she leaves the kingdom, when the former queen dares look
into her eyes for the first time since she stepped her way into the palace, and
even holds her hand like one would a sister’s.
“I don’t know if I can–I never–Well, I haven’t been taught politics, I was
never expected to…” She trails off, but when she next glances up at Regina,
there’s some undetermined fierceness about her lackluster eyes. “Anything will
be better than being married to that man, Your Majesty, and you have my loyalty
and my eternal gratefulness.”
 Regina can’t help the spike of gentle pride for the little girl, so she
presses a firm kiss to her cheek, leaving traces of red lipstick behind, and
assures her that she should trust the four knights of her Black Army that she’s
allotted to her above anyone else, and that she should count her a friend for
as long as her loyalty remains.
As her final act before she abandons her new beautiful lands, she takes King
Charles’ head, and rather than put it in a pike as gruesome example for those
who may intend to oppose her as she had first intended, she puts it in a box
and sends it as a gift to her good old friend King George, a note joining her
present with the words I thought you knew better than this, dearwritten with
the blackest of inks, and with the exquisite pen he’d gifted her all those
years ago as a sign of friendship and understanding.
The journey back home finds her feeling despondent and moody, the prospect of
council meetings and dull reports overwhelmingly boring now that the sun has
come out and the kingdom has seemingly gone back to life. She considers her
options while being throttled around inside her carriage, the roads that lead
down to Charles’ former kingdom most definitely in need of repair, and one of
the first things she will have to take care of as soon as she reaches the
palace; honestly, the pathways are so narrow and steep that she has to wonder
how many carriages have ended up destroyed in their journey south. Roads aren’t
of particular interest to her, however, and she figures than rather than face
obligations so soon she may just make her way to Midas’ castle, where she knows
a birthday ball for his daughter is behind held; she does love showing up
uninvited these days, after all, if only just for the gasping and whispering
her entrances usually grant her, but even the promise of walking through that
horridly hilarious golden palace fails to entice her. She finds that she’s
craving blood rather than sparkly drinks and music, and she’s almost decided on
a few pit stops to remind her villages of her relentless search for the
precious princess when fate smiles down upon her by bringing her exactly what
she needs.
A rider intercepts them in the middle of the road, a message from one of her
officials claiming positive sightings of the princess enough to send Regina
into a frenzied chase. She knows better than to trust witness accounts by now,
even when coming from her own army, but she has a good feeling about this day,
and she’s willing to hold onto whatever small excuse she is provided with.
Foregoing her carriage and her magic, she jumps atop one of her horses instead,
regretting leaving Rocinanteat the palace when the black steed takes a moment
to recognize her and doesn’t follow her orders immediately. She hasn’t lost her
good touch with horses, however, and soon enough she’s galloping away with
precision and skill, the strong animal between her legs forcing her to flex her
muscles in ways she hasn’t in weeks, and making her giddy with the feeling. She
gains easy advantage over her guards, and by the time she makes it to the small
settlement where she’s meant to find Snow, she has left them several paces
behind, and so it is just her facing a haggard group of peasants.
“Good morning, my subjects,” she greets, delight shaping her words as she steps
down from the horse.
She’s a little breathless from the hour-long and fast-paced ride she’s just
subjected herself to, but the giddiness remains so that she’s happy to stalk
her way to the villagers with meticulously slow steps, taking her time to
recover her breath. Her stalling makes them nervous, and she watches as the
small group huddles closer together, presenting a united front against their
queen. They don’t make for a particularly menacing enemy, with their faces pale
after the long winter and their eyes following her every movement as if she
were a prowling beast.  
“My knights inform me that the bandit Snow White has been hiding in this part
of the woods; now, you wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to hide her from your
queen, would you?”
Deafening silence follows, the rustling of the leaves as the soft spring breeze
blows the only sound until a squeaky voice pronounces, “Snow White’s not a
bandit; she’s our hero.”
The voice belongs to a child, a red-headed girl with a button nose and lovely
freckles that insists on her statement with a clear well, it’s true!even as her
mother tries to shush her, gripping her shoulder when the girl tries to shake
herself away from the group. The girl is short and thin, but she doesn’t look
underfed or sickly, and Regina wonders if the little thing truly believes that
Snow White the hero is the one making such a thing possible.
“Is that so, my dear?” Regina questions, addressing the girl.
The girl looks at her with mild defiance, that belonging to a child with no
knowledge and no sense of self-preservation, and Regina finds her brazenness
delightful. She smirks when the girl repeats her earlier words, and then moves
jerkily towards her, snatching her arm and pulling her close. The girl
struggles against Regina’s unforgiving grip on her upper arm, but it’s her
mother who speaks this time, a tremble in her voice when she begs, “Please,
Your Majesty, the child doesn’t understand, she’s–she’s just a little girl.”
“Don’t sound so worried; after all, the hero Snow White wouldn’t let me snap
the girl’s neck, now would she?”
The sneer shaping her lips translates into her tone, derision dripping from her
voice as her grip tightens on the girl’s arm, her other hand reaching down to
wrap around her neck, the pressure enough to cause discomfort but nothing else.
The mother cries and the girl struggles, Regina finding herself wishing for the
prompt apparition of the princess, wishing to be stopped from stealing the
breath away from the child’s lungs; she’s so very young and her boldness has
been such a treat to her senses that Regina may just find herself regretting
her death, allowing it to weigh heavily on her conscience. Regina never bluffs
in her threats, however, and the disrespectful little girl is bound to grow up
into a rebellious annoyance whose hand wouldn’t hesitate were she the one to
have it about Regina’s neck, so she will kill her unless someone gives her a
pretext not to.
“Regina!”
Snow’s voice rings clear and precise, as does the arrow that follows her call.
Regina has but a moment to be surprised, the arrow bypassing her with nothing
but a clumsy grace of her shoulder before it reaches its target on the tree
trunk behind her, the thunkof it as the arrowhead digs into the wood loud
against the mild gasp of the girl still within Regina’s hold. Regina sneers
once again at the sight of the princess, standing far away but enough that her
figure holding another arrow at the ready is distinguishable behind a set of
thick trees, and spares a moment to regard the torn fabric of her coat where
the arrow missed her shoulder with disdain.
“What is it, dear? Heroes don’t aim for the heart?”
“Regina, let her go!”
Regina rolls her eyes, the utter predictability of Snow’s response proving dull
and uninspiring. Nonetheless, Regina does drop her grip on the girl, and she
squirms away and back towards her mother as soon as Regina’s attention turns
towards Snow, standing too far away from her for a spell to be fast enough to
get to her. Regina looks at the horse then, and in the brief moment where she
takes a step towards the animal, Snow reads her intentions with ease and
immediately draws her bow away and turns around, taking off in an expeditious
run towards where the forest is thickest. Regina reacts with equal swiftness,
jumping atop the horse with long-forgotten agility and kicking the animal into
a hurried persecution. The galloping horse affords her no accuracy, the first
fireball she throws landing embarrassingly distant from its goal and making her
concentrate on the race instead, Snow’s black hair easy to follow among the
greens and browns of the woods. The ground below them is still muddy from the
melting snows, however, making the narrowing paths of the forest difficult for
the horse to thread, where Snow’s limber feet take her further and further
away, the distance between them growing larger until Regina sees but a fast-
moving blur of a figure. Relentless in her pursuit, she casts an easy tracking
spell, so as not to lose the princess’ trail, grinning when the blue magic
expands before her and over the gravelly paths.
Deep into the forest, Regina dismounts and leaves the horse behind, following
the trail with brisk and determined steps, her riding clothes allowing her easy
movement and long strides. She walks for what she believes to be a long time,
her breath getting winded at her single-minded resolve not to slow down, but
her eyes shining with promise. Winter has been so long and has seen her so
caged that she can’t help but find vindication in the stretch of muscles, even
when she knows once the rush is gone she will be exhausted by the atypical
physical effort. The weather is mild and pleasant, however, and if it weren’t
for the way her fists are trembling with barely repressed and furious magic,
she may just believe herself to be taking a pleasant walk. The illusion
vanishes as soon as she comes to a small clearing that marks the end of the
magical pathway, and Regina stops her movement and stretches her neck upwards,
as if the simple gesture could help her listen with more skill. There’s no
sound other than rustling leaves and the odd chirping of tiny birds, and yet
Regina knows that she isn’t alone, something like magic tainting the air.
“Come out already, little mouse,” she says to the clearing at large, allowing
then a lull to settle before she speaks up again. When she does, it’s with
casual aloofness, her tone distracted even when she’s everything but. “I
suppose I will finish what I started with that little girl, then. Tell me Snow
White, how many of them do I have to kill before they stop calling you a hero?”
Regina hears her before she sees her, her feet soft as whispers as they tiptoe
over the gravel on the ground, her figure appearing as a ghostly shadow from
behind a tree, arms stretched over another pointed arrow, her knuckles resting
against lips settled into a thin, tight line.
“Regina, you need to stop this.”
“Oh, do I?”
“I will stop you otherwise!”
Regina laughs at the passion hidden in Snow’s voice, at the frustration coming
off of her in waves from her tense frame and the frown between her eyes. She’s
standing far away enough from her that Regina isn’t sure a spell will be fast
enough to reach her, and yet she can still spy the telltale signs of anxiety
and fear. Regina laughs, and her laughter is short and to the point, a bark to
uncover just how ridiculous she thinks Snow’s statement to be.
“And when will that be? Before or after you are done running for your life?”
Regina wonders, taunting Snow into a reaction with words and acts, her finger
traveling up to her chin and tapping it as if in deep thought before she widens
her smirk, searching for Snow’s runaway gaze before she speaks again. “Let’s
face it, dear, you can’t even shoot those little toys of yours at me without
feeling guilty, can you?”
Snow’s bowstring looses tension and an arrow flies immediately after Regina’s
words and straight at her. She stops it with a whisper of magic and hands
already used to attacks such as these, the metal arrowhead barely a breath away
from her right shoulder, and Regina smiles. Good,she thinks, Snow’s anger far
more satisfying than her fear, the stubborn tilt to her head as she raises yet
another arrow one that Regina is familiar with, even when she hasn’t seen it in
a very long time. It’s funny, how obsessed she’s been with finding the
princess, how her thoughts have turned her into the invincible champion of
legend the kingdom speaks about, and how in this instant, even with at least
fifteen steps of gravelly dust and a bow between them, she’s nothing but the
little girl she once saved from a horse, the same one that took her hand and
led her towards misery and grievous pain, and who spent over a decade trailing
behind her like a lost puppy and taking from her what Regina was never willing
to give.
Perhaps Snow’s thoughts are swimming in the same direction, seeing Regina as
the woman she grew up with, distorted by an ugly sneer and a need for vengeance
that she never dared look upon while they dwelled together as the most twisted
of families. Oh, Regina, I do worry when you’re unkind,she’d said, and surely
Snow had discovered hidden truths in Regina that she’d disliked and later
decided to ignore, always easy to think of her as a willing and loving step-
mother.
Snow’s shoulders sag forward even as her fingers tighten about her bow, her
tone betraying weariness when she asks, “What do you want, Regina?”
“Your head on a plate, of course, or maybe your heart in my palm; I can never
quite decide.”
“Oh, Regina,” Snow cries, her frame opening up even wider as the words leave
her body in an exhale, the shadow of a long held sigh revealing tiredness
beyond compare. “We were a family, we were happy, and now you j–”
“Heavens Snow, I know you’re an idiot, but please pretend for five minutes that
you’re not!” Regina snaps, gaining for herself the tension that Snow is losing,
her shoulders straightening up and her fists tightening by her sides, bristling
anger cursing abruptly under her skin, when just moments ago she’d been
playfully enjoying herself.
Her anger shoots precipitously up her spine, settling itself with vigor
somewhere up in her chest, a solid presence that she can’t ignore and that
pushes her into action. She moves forward, intentions undetermined but palm
already up, magic that she still hasn’t decided on pooling around her nimble
hand, pulsing with ease. Snow’s bow stretches yet again under her unwavering
hands, but it’s not that which stops Regina dead in her tracks, but rather the
growling sound that inundates the space between them, its owner stepping closer
to Regina with bared and menacing teeth. The wolf is immense and fierce, and it
fills the air around Regina with something heavy and tight, a supernatural
presence that isn’t quite as intoxicating as magic, but rather primal instead.
A werewolf, then, and Regina, who’s never seen one of the creatures up close,
finds herself momentarily fascinated, the beast's allure much like that of
Maleficent, the primitive energy of something half human and half animal enough
to steal her breath away.
“The rumors were true…” she murmurs, thinking out loud as if spellbound by the
eyes of the beast, their golden hue giving them hypnotizing depth.
Regina forces herself to blink exaggeratedly, to break herself away from the
illusion and return her attention to Snow White and her recovered threatening
stance, her limbs tight and steady, her weapon ready to fire and her anger
pushing away whatever sigh of grief she may have shown Regina just moments
before. The distance that separates them is far too long for Regina’s magic,
her spells bound to failure with arrows and a werewolf between them, and yet
Regina dismisses her rationality and conjures a fireball in her curled hand,
giving shape to the magic that has been steadily pulsing within her since she
began her persecution of the princess. She has wanted a confrontation for
months now, and that is exactly what she will get. She lets the fire fly away,
her aim practiced and sure, and is quick to conjure a second fireball to
follow, stepping forward so that the threat becomes real, her chances better to
singe Snow White, maybe even to watch her burn to her death. Two arrows fly in
quick succession directed at her, one missing her by a stretch and the second
landing by her feet, close enough that Regina finds her heart beating hard and
steady inside her chest, palpitating loud against her own ears. A third
fireball appears without much of a thought, and this time it hits its mark,
Snow’s whimper when it touches her hand and makes her drop her bow the sweetest
of sounds to Regina’s burdened soul.
She smirks, already tasting a victory that has been a long time coming, another
step taking her closer to the princess. Her rashness and determination prove to
be her undoing, however, for her careless steps forward leave her open and
vulnerable, so that when the werewolf jumps towards her she falls to the ground
inevitably, a grunt leaving her breathless when her back touches the hard soil,
the beast resting above her chest impossibly heavy. Regina’s knee-jerk reaction
is to move up again, but she’s prevented by paws pressed over her breastbone
and collarbone, the strength behind them making it hard to breathe. She gasps,
her hands pawing at the animal’s legs, nails digging into muscles so powerful
that her own limbs feel quaveringly weak and useless, the manic-like movement
of them unhelpful when facing such a beast. And yet, the creature barely
remains steady above her, its growling teeth a threat that Regina is certain
won’t become danger, its golden eyes deep pools that issue but a protective
anger. She wants to laugh, because of course Snow White’s allies refuse to
murder, think themselves above such cruelty; she can’t, however, not when the
creature’s weight is enough that breathing comes to her in panting and jagged
little intakes of air, not enough to fill her chest so that she ends up clawing
at her throat, as if she could somehow open up her own flesh and let fresh air
inside. Black spots begin dancing before her, but then a ringing bellow of Red,
let’s go!has the werewolf removing its eyes from Regina’s face, soon to be
followed by the hot puffs of its breath and the heavy weight of its paws.
Regina takes a big gulp of air the moment she’s set free, hands splayed over
her own chest as she sits up, the effort almost sending her back to the ground.
She swallows, wanting to look about herself and search for the princess and her
beastly ally, but her head feels fuzzy and unfocused, her heart pounding with
the sudden fear of having the creature perched above her, restraining her from
movement and stealing her breath away. Her hand around her throat, she feels
suddenly sick and she dry heaves, her free hand falling to the gravel before
her and her body refusing to stand up. She fights the sickness, swiftly
ignoring the hammering in her head and the breathlessness that remains, and
finds herself suddenly screaming into the now empty clearing, her loud cry
furiously unhinged.
“I will burn every patch of land that stands between us, Snow White! Run, run
and hide all you want but I will kill you if it is the last thing I do!” She
screams, hoping that her voice travels through the woods and reaches the
runaway princess, wherever she may be now. Then, with one last angry growl, she
disappears in a cloud of purple smoke.
 
===============================================================================
 
Appearing inside her bedchambers in a sudden bolt of bursting magic does
nothing to calm her, rather making her abdomen tight with dizziness so that she
stumbles her way towards her chair, her weight dropping heavily on it once she
manages to reach it. She sits by her vanity, immediately regretting the choice
when her mirror reveals her snarling demeanor. A flush covers her skin all the
way from her cheeks and down to her chest, the paint of her lips has smudged
its way to her cheek and chin, making her mouth look like an open and bloody
wound, her hair is a proper mess, curls escaping her tight bun in unruly
strands that fall around her forehead and ears, leaves stuck in disheveled
locks. If not for her eyes, one would be hard-pressed to question whether she’d
been fighting on the ground or enjoying a rough tumble instead. Her eyes,
however, feral and trapped, betray an incarnate beast with unsatisfied
bloodlust.
“Princess Snow White,” she mutters to herself, teeth grinding and mouth locked
tight while her hands travel up in jerky movements to pull at the dust and
leaves weaved into her hair. “With her friends and her kingdom and her – a
hero! They dare call that silly, capricious little girl their hero, and–”
She growls, insanity brimming under her skin as she thinks of her enemy, eyes
turned down in sadness when looking at Regina, lips shaping the most annoying
oh, Regina.How patronizing she’d been, daring to embody pity and disgust, as if
Regina was in the wrong for fighting for the revenge she rightfully deserves. A
family,she’d said – we were happy.Only Snow White would dare speak to her in
such a manner, would dare twist years of deceit and torturous lies, of an
unwanted bed and pain buried deep within her gut, into a picture of familial
happiness.
Regina snorts inelegantly, willing her eyes to recover their softer shade, but
finds that she can’t, not when Snow still runs, powerful even when Regina is
the one that stands as queen, an army at her behest and magic overflowing her
being. The single thought gnaws at her, the stupidity of the power of legend
and hearsay, the romance behind a running princess with a bow fighting an evil
army and its deathly leader stabbing at her chest as if it were a twisting
knife. She stands up with abruptness, grunting as her hand reaches out for
whatever it can find and throws it to the floor of her chambers, her senses
relishing the crashing sound, her muscles complaining at the harshness of her
movement after being so poorly treated for the past few hours. What meets the
floor is a perfume bottle, glass shattering everywhere and the heavy scent
wafting up to Regina’s nose unpleasantly when so heavily concentrated, but even
that isn’t enough to stop her frustrated irritation – a second bottle crashes
right next to the first, and then a third follows. The only thing that stops
her from throwing a fourth, and possibly finishing with every single knickknack
resting on her vanity, is the creaking sound of her door opening.
Regina glares at the intruder before she knows who it is, but when she finally
settles her eyes on the figure, she draws in a surprised and small breath, her
mind confounding her. For a second, she sees herself, but she sees Snow just as
well, and it is only an effort in calming her own pounding head that allows her
to reveal the truth – that it is but her annoying little cousin standing before
her. Truth be told, Regina has quickly forgotten about the girl during her trip
outside of the palace’s walls, and the sight of her now, hands resting above
her small belly bump and naked toes poking from the edge of her dress, only
manages to exasperate her further.
“There was a commotion,” the girl says. “The maids were afraid to come and see
what was happening.”
“And I thought them foolish,” Regina hums, plucking one more brown and brittle
leave from her hair and crumpling it between her hands. Her hair feels awfully
tight, and she knows for certain she will feel much better once it’s falling
down her back and not heavily coiled above her head, so she reaches up with the
intention of undoing the utter mayhem her curls have become. Throwing but a
single glance at the girl before looking back into the mirror, she instructs,
“Get out.”
“So you can break more things? What an awful waste,” the girl answers, the
feigned coyness of her smile matching the impertinence of her words.
Regina would engage her in the match the girl is clearly hankering for, and she
might even enjoy it, but her knees feel as if they’re about to buckle under her
weight, and all she needs right now is anything that may calm her senses. A
bath, possibly; and sleep, too, never mind that it’s the middle of the day
still and that the sun won’t hide for a few hours yet.
“Get out, girl,” Regina repeats.
“Let me help you with your hair and–”
“I said, get out!” Regina repeats, this time turning towards her bodily and
pointing a tense hand towards the door. She won’t stand this nonsense inside
her own palace, long lost cousin or not.
The girl doesn’t seem to grasp the urgency of Regina’s command, or the need she
has to be left alone, to do anything in her power to erase the sight of Snow’s
disappointed eyes, to free herself of the weight of defeat.
“It’s not fair, I want to help!” The girl intones, stomping a foot against the
floor and crossing her arms over her chest, the perfect picture of a spoiled
brat. “You are not being fair to me, cousin!”
“Fair, child?” Regina snaps. “I haven’t questioned your silly story of
parentage! I have fed you and clothed you and given you shelter. You lack for
nothing, but you – you, snotty, spoiled child won’t even do – ”
“But I lack you!”
“What?”
“You,cousin! You’re my family, and we were going to be the best of friends, and
I was going to soothe you and love you, and you were going to care for me and–”
“You are notentitled to my love!” Regina exclaims, her voice so demanding that
it cuts the girl’s rumbling speech. She feels breathless all of a sudden, the
implications of the girl’s words burning heavily inside her chest, opening up
past wounds that she’s afraid will fester if only Regina lets them. “Just like
her,” she mutters. “Taking without asking, assuming and stomping around when
the world doesn’t answer accordingly.”
“Just like who?”
And this, Regina snarls. “Princess Snow White.”
The declaration doesn’t pause the girl, but rather makes her suddenly lively,
her steps determined as she approaches Regina and her eyes set in a tenaciously
stubborn frown, as if readying herself to fight Regina’s will. Regina doesn’t
relent when the girl steps towards her, but she feels magic uncoiling at the
back of her head, travelling down her tired arms with ease, reviving her with
unexpected darkness; this girl isn’t a threat, and why her first instinct is to
reach out and crush her heart Regina doesn’t understand. She’s pregnant,
heavens, and at least Regina has enough reason remaining to respect that much.
The girl, on the other hand, seems to have no reason but a true flare for the
dramatic, for the moment she finds herself before Regina, close enough that her
breath tickles at Regina’s cheek, she spreads her arms and throws her neck
back, as if offering herself as some mystifying sacrifice.
"Go ahead then,” she whispers. “If I’m just like her take my heart and crush
it, do it, claim your title and finish my unworthy life! What use is it to me,
an outcast and a victim to my own folly, unloved by my family and destined to
be scorned by every eye settled upon me! Punish me and let’s be done, for I’d
rather die as myself than live as a cheap copy of the princess that haunts your
dreams, cousin!”
And in the face of such declaration, spoken with the precise clarity of an
actor in a tragic play, Regina can’t help but laugh. It’s not immediate, not
when her head feels mangled as it is, the joy of the past few days that Snow
has stolen with a single and too fast encounter pushing tangible anger to every
empty crevice of her insides, her body weary and her thoughts troubled, so that
this girl irrupting in the privacy of her bedchambers like an irritable bug has
only thrown her towards the edge of furious frenzy. She stares befuddled
instead, the girl’s pompous declarations jarring in their fake quality, and yet
infinitely amusing the moment Regina deflates and her shoulders sag forward, as
if defeated by the girl’s cheek.
“A tad dramatic, dear.”
The girl laughs with her, her smile bright when she stares at Regina, and her
eyes shining with mischief. Once again, Regina is reminded of an impish fairy,
a child not of this world.
“What is life without a bit of drama? I figured you’d enjoy it, cousin. One
can’t dress like you do without appreciating drama, truly.”
Regina lifts a single eyebrow, taking stock of her ruined clothes as she hides
a smile away from the girl, choosing instead to give into the pang of her
complaining knees and sitting back down in her chair. Her skin remains flushed
and she looks as disheveled as moments before, but her eyes look more hers than
they had before, as if a bloodthirsty beast has banished to the darkest corners
of her soul, ready to pounce once Regina needs it again. Her magic, too, is
subdued, nothing but a comforting hum at the back of her neck, rather than the
uncontrollable force it has become as of late. As she takes a moment to inspect
herself in the mirror, the girl moves behind her, reaching for her coiled hair
and starting to undo it before Regina has a chance to utter a protest. She
sighs, allowing the delicate touch as she wrinkles her nose at the state of her
clothes, torn in places and despairingly dirty, and then decides to ignore her
uncomely appearance altogether and simply conjures herself a cupful of wine to
drown her tiredness in.
The girl finishes her job quickly enough, but when she makes to reach for a
hairbrush, Regina shakes her head no and motions towards a second chair
instead, so that she will know herself welcome this time. The girl nods, but
rather than sit down immediately, she lowers her face to Regina’s level so her
chin is nearly resting on her shoulder, and looks at them both in the mirror.
The similarities are truly uncanny, and Regina doesn’t know why she finds them
so uncomfortable; she has looked for such a thing in the past before, after
all, standing in mirrors next to mother and even Snow, and she should be glad
to find the features of the family she never met in this girl’s face.
“It’s funny, don’t you think?” The girl wonders, pulling faces at the mirror,
prodding her own cheek and pushing her nose up unbecomingly. “We have the same
eyes and the same hair, and yet you’re far more beautiful; it must be your
mother’s influence,” she says, nodding as if she’s just decided that her own
statement is correct. “Was she truly beautiful? Aunt Louisa says she was as
beautiful as she was wicked, but then Aunt Louisa thinks wearing anything but
blue before noon is wicked.”
That said, she laughs, giddy and small, and then finally moves away to pluck
herself down on the chair next to Regina’s. She fixes her skirts about her,
hiding her naked feet under her clothes and straightening every wrinkle, her
demeanor that of a demure and mindful lady.
“She says I’mwicked,” she continues, the stream of words unstoppable even as
she busies herself with her clothes and with pushing her loose hair behind her
shoulders. “Mama agrees, and so does my sister Margarita.” She scoffs, the
annoyed little pout that mars her features cutesy and infantile. Regina thinks
she should cure herself of such habit, but then the girl keeps talking, and
Regina finds that it’s difficult to think at all.
“Perfect Margarita who can do no wrong; oh, but she spends her evenings in
between the sheets with her lady’s maid, and drinks herself stupid whenever
mama isn’t around, but I’mwicked. Then again, mama doescare; papa only has eyes
for big brother Felipe. Oh, but papa is so different from Tío Enrique; one
can’t help but feel loved with Tío Enrique’s eyes upon you, and he does love
you so very much.”
Regina bites her lip when the girl stops to take a breath, her smile only
prevented by her last words. She has never doubted daddy’s love, not for a
minute, but for as much as he loves her, Regina isn’t particularly sure that he
likes her very much anymore, and she can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at
the bubbling youth of this cousin of hers, and about how easily she has
conquered father’s heart. How could she possibly begrudge him, though, when
he’s found nothing but a mercurial tempest in her for years now? She thinks,
wistfully, that it’s been months since they last shared a piece of dark
chocolate.
“Then there’s of course–”
“Goodness, Adriana Cristina, do you ever shut up?”
The girl smiles at her, obviously disgruntled by Regina’s choice of title but
seemingly ignoring it for the time being. The eyes she offers Regina then are
full of sadness, however, sorrow unlike Regina thought this sparkling creature
before her could possess. “I suppose when you know your time to be short, you
can’t help but want to say everything at once.”
There is no possible answer Regina can give to such words, so she gives none,
choosing instead to pose wavering eyes on the girl's frame. Regina has known
consumptive people before, a not uncommon disease even amongst noblemen, but
the girl's countenance doesn't betray any such symptoms at first glance. She
does look a sigh too weary for someone so outwardly cheerful, bags under her
eyes suggesting restless hours of sleep, her delicacy perhaps more a sign of
sickness than that of personal nature. The girl is so very tiny, even smaller
than Regina herself, her ankles and wrists thin and brittle-looking, her
cheekbones sharp and her shoulders slight, and it surprises Regina how she
doesn't implicitly hint at weakness. Perhaps it's that her spirit shines where
her body can't, or perhaps it's that Regina harbors wishes of health for the
strange invader she has welcomed home. She berates herself for such thoughts -
it won't do her any good to grow fond of someone so very obviously condemned to
an early death.
Regina takes a fast and sudden sip of her drink, foregoing daintiness once the
liquid touches her surprisingly parched tongue and draining the whole cup in
one long gulp. Her back complains at her movements, so she pushes herself back
onto the chair to rest her own tired frame, carefully avoiding calamitous
thoughts of the girl before her and her own cracking bones both. Inescapably,
she can't help but look at the small bump rounding the girl's belly, her hands
resting above it and her thin and long fingers twitching restlessly, a sign
perhaps that even this bit of silence is entirely too much for the vivacious
child. The physician had said that the girl is three months along, and the bump
is at once too small for such a babe and too large for the girl's puny frame,
making its presence awkward and confounding, as if not quite belonging to the
same reality Regina and the girl do. Nevertheless, the girl never shies away
from it, keeping her hands mostly hovering above it, and choosing gowns that
open their fabrics around it, so it will be quite visible. Regina had never
truly showed when she'd been pregnant herself, but she can't help but feel that
she would have taken quite the opposite stance, choosing to hide away her
vulnerable state to a world that she had felt fighting against her. It doesn't
matter much now that her womb has been sealed, which is most definitely for the
best. The kingdom has proven itself to be an enemy at large, after all, and it
wouldn't do for the Evil Queen to have the vulnerability of a child by her
side.
"They were going to make me marry," the girl says suddenly, pulling Regina's
attention back to her and away from filling her cup once more. "That's why I
ran."
Regina looks at her, and pointing a finger at where her hands still rest above
her belly, she questions, "The father?"
"Oh, no, some duke," she answers, distaste obvious in the way she curls her
mouth. "Some duke who's kind and generous and stupid and boring, and who would
have been the unhappiest man alive had he married me. I would have taken
pleasure in making him squirm, I think."
Regina smirks, can't help but remember her own narrow-minded efforts to make
Leopold as uncomfortable as humanly possible, a small price to pay for the sins
he had committed against her flesh and spirit.
"The father is one of twenty, who knows? It doesn't matter much, does it? This
baby will be nothing but mine."
The statement softens Regina's lips into a wistful smile, and before she can
help herself, her own hand is splayed above her own belly, a painful reminder
of things lost. This is the very reason why she'd been so adamant about keeping
the girl at arm's length, this power she has to bring the past to the forefront
of Regina's mind while Regina is busy burning away lands and villages just to
chase the ghosts away. This early afternoon, however, even when the girl's
reflection is showing her shades of herself at every corner, she can't bring
herself to turn away the company. Perhaps her encounter with Snow has left
careless insanity behind, or perhaps the living hand of loneliness is playing
tricks with her heart.
"You won't force me to marry, will you, cousin? Because I will run away, even
if all I will find is death."
The girl looks at her with fiery eyes, even when her stance and tone are both
soft, truth hidden behind every syllable, and Regina moves without much of a
thought, hand stretched forward and fingers curled lovingly until her hand is
settled on the girl's cheek, her body leaning forward to give an unwitting
caress. Her hands feel shaky, but such a feeling must be nothing but an
illusion, for her fingers are nimble in their touch, soothing and caring in
ways that Regina sometimes believes herself incapable of, with how used her
limbs have gotten to violence and harshness. Nonetheless, her hand is gentle,
her thumb tender when it brushes the reddish birthmark next to girl's eye, that
tiny heart that gives her what must surely be her fairy name - Ace of Hearts,
and as much as Regina has insisted on referring to her as nothing but the
girlinside her head, then and there she decides to steal father's pet name, and
have her be Little Ace.
"Marry whoever you wish, darling girl, if at all," Regina tells her, forbidding
her voice from trembling, from being overcome with emotion over granting a gift
that she never received.
Little Ace only smiles candidly, her hands surging upwards to take Regina's own
and squeeze, unbidden sentiment in both gestures that Regina finds herself
wanting to shy away from. It must show, for soon enough the girl is biting her
lower lip self-consciously, and offering, "Should I leave you alone, cousin?
You must be tired, surely. I could have supper sent up to you, maybe; Tío
Enrique does worry when you miss your meals."
That the girl asks for her wishes seems like more of a concession than Regina
has ever gotten, and so that's enough that she doesn't wish to see herself
parted from Little Ace, when some moments before she had wanted her as far away
as possible. She finds that she would rather amuse herself with her mindless
chatter than risk dwelling on the sight of Snow's disappointed eyes settled
upon her, on her wavering voice even now confused about the reasons behind
Regina's rightful persecution.
She twists her lips, as if she's granting the highest privilege with her next
words, and says, "Help me out of these ragged clothes; we shall share lunch
afterwards."
 
===============================================================================
 
After her encounter with Snow White, Regina doubles her efforts when it comes
to finding the princess, finding fresh purpose when she spies the bruises her
werewolf friend has left behind on the skin of her collarbones. It seems to her
that Snow has turned into the equal enemy she so desired, after all, even if
her running away proves that she remains frightened enough to allow her kingdom
to become her shield and Regina's scapegoat. Regina figures the princess will
only gain in confidence the longer she's free, however, and so she tightens her
patrols and keeps her eyes and hands in every place that may offer the girl
some form of escape, whether it be by land or sea.
As it is, Snow isn't her only problem, thieves and pirates proving to be
annoying enough that she must spare resources to keep them in order, whether it
be by decimation or lighter punishment. She's found that the cutting of fingers
is usually sanction enough to discourage minor burglary, but that organized
gang that call themselves the Merry Men continue to be a thorn on her side. At
this point, it doesn't matter much to her if their leader is that enchanting
man she'd been so enamored with for a moment at the last Summer Festival, and
she's issued an order for his head to be cut on sight, as well as those of his
men. To think that those filthy pickpockets actually make themselves up to be
fighters of justice, when all they manage to do is force Regina's hand into
further and harsher violence.
Pirates become a sudden preoccupation for a few weeks as well, her newest
Master of Ships falling prey to the bloodthirsty Black Beard and being returned
to her in several pieces, to her own disgust and that of her council, only
Little Ace managing to find morbid fun in the thought of paying them back with
equal retaliation. Regina fails to understand the girl's enthusiasm at the
sight of severed limbs, but she listens for a minute and takes a page from her
book, thus finding herself her own pirate captain to name as the new Master of
Ships. Duchess Adela calls her decision ill-advised, and this time even the
Military Advisor joins her opinion, but once Regina meets Mark Red, Pirate
Queen of the High Seas, there's very little anyone can do to convince her to
give up her idea.
The so-called Pirate Queen only accepts the official naming and royal decree
after Regina agrees to climb aboard her ship for a day, where she shows her the
orange colors of the waves as the sun gives birth to the day, conquering
Regina's curiosity with tales of far-off lands in her lilting and broken
accent. Later, when Regina accepts an invitation to her cabin and between her
legs, she tells Regina of her true name, Nubia, given by a mother that died
when giving her life and only to be spoken by trusted allies and friends.
Regina allows herself to be called by her own name just as well, foregoing
titles in the face of this beautifully exquisite woman that now has command
over the biggest fleet of the realm, and nothing but a tremendously vague set
of rules to do with Regina's enemies as she so wishes.
Regina remains in the ship for as long as a week, and Nubia seizes her senses
further with stories of a long forgotten home that smells of cumin, coriander
and cinnamon, where the ground is covered in nothing but sand and where the sun
shines on clear skies every day of the year, making water the most precious
gift. Her skin makes easy conquest of Regina just as well, the sight and taste
of flesh darker than her own, smooth even if marred by the scars of a thousand
battles, making for long and sensual nights being rocked to sleep by the sounds
of the sea and the easy breathing of this woman with dark eyes and a darker
legend.
"I should steal you away for myself, my queen; we should conquer the seas
together," Nubia tells her on her last day aboard the pirate ship, hands soft
on Regina's breasts and mouth hard against her thighs.
Regina laughs, softness brimming in the sound, and replies, "The seas for two
queens, dear? No, I shall rule the land, and you will be my hand in the waters
where I can't reach."
Regina leaves the ship with a sly smile etched between her lips and tales which
she refuses to share with Little Ace for as long as a three days, teasing the
girl into tantrums and childish begging a new pastime that they both secretly
enjoy. The girl has a taste for stories and fancy heroics, even if such
blusters come from pirates and Evil Queens, and Regina is happy to oblige if
only because she pays the favor in kind, her tongue loose and fast when it
reveals anecdotes of the home she left behind with the hopes of bargaining
herself a place at the Dark Palace with nothing but gumption and an overgrown
belly. Father, for all of his own love for fables and myths, has never been
entirely too forthcoming about his family, perhaps because mother had forced
him to leave it behind but for the odd ball and the oddest visit, the only
purpose that of preparing Regina for a future as queen. Little Ace, on the
other hand, paints her family with broad strokes, a skillful artist with words,
her voice a delight as she speaks of the family Regina has been cheated out of.
Truth be told, Little Ace's stories are as filled with joy and candidness as
they are with blood, a family so large and so used to feuding for the crown
that old Grandfather Xavier still clings to even at the doors of death, that
brotherly bonds hold no meaning anymore. Regina can almost imagine the wreaking
chaos of grandfather's kingdom, if only because if mother hadn't tried to make
her play for his crown, then surely the price must have been much too steep to
pay. Rationality tells Regina that the kingdom father had left behind wouldn't
have offered her a better opportunity at freedom and dreams than her life had,
but fantasy always holds brighter lights than reality, and so Regina prods
Little Ace until she feels as if she's lived among the people the girl so
easily speaks about. It seems to her that Grandfather Xavier may have liked her
after all, reverent as the stories make him of mother's hunger for power; that
Aunt Louisa would have despised her on principle and without question; and that
cousin Margarita would have helped in her quest to escape her manor's walls to
meet with Daniel at the stables.
"Aunt Ilse would have adored you," Little Ace tells her one afternoon as they
walk down the beach arm in arm, Rivers behind them scowling at the sand
entering his boots and at having to carry both Little Ace's shoes and Regina's
own.
"Oh?" Regina prods.
"She did say that you were temperamental, but then she always has one word for
every person, and that word they remain for the rest of their lives no matter
what they do. She called me whimsical, and Margarita dull, and my sister never
forgave her for that, you know? But I do love Aunt Ilse, and she helped me
escape father's manor when I felt as if I would never be able to leave."
"Temperamental?" Regina replies. "The woman never knew me."
"There were news enough of the Rise of the Evil Queen," and this she says as a
proclamation, her giggles denying what feels as the title of an epic tale of
woe and her impish little face smiling with mischief. "News of denying
countless marriage proposals, temperamental; wearing black at a wedding,
temperamental; riding about among your men, oh Regina, temperamental; spending
your days doing heavens knows what with a pirate lady-"
"Temperamental?"
"Temperamental!"
Regina laughs with the girl, constantly and impossibly amused by her antics now
that she has allowed her a little space within her life, if perhaps not as much
as Little Ace wishes for herself. Walking down the beach together has become
their small ritual however, particularly after the physician’s insistence that
short and tranquil strolls are good for the girl's health, and the salty breeze
of the sea the best of natural medicines. That he'd implied that Regina's
delirious agitation would find a balm of sorts just as well in the practice had
been answered by a glare, the memory of Leopold's Royal Doctor and his
persistence on Regina’s hysteria not too far away from her mind, despite the
years passed. Regina has taken the advice, however, and as much as she'd rued
the beach for many years, knowing it to be Leopold's favorite landscape and her
own tastes far more inclined towards the fresh grass of the Royal State and the
scent of her apple tree, she finds that she very much enjoys the colors and the
aromas it offers, the feel of her naked feet as they walk by the humid sand of
the shore unexpectedly pleasant.
The palace has brightened by virtue of Little Ace’s presence, father finding
comfort in walking the girl about the garden or spending long hours together in
the library, and most servants sincerely delighted by her easy disposition and
her quirkier habits now that they know they won’t be punished even if Regina
catches them paused in their tasks just because the girl has chosen to declaim
her favorite read atop a table for everyone to hear, or even if they rush to
comply with her wishes while they always seem wary of approaching Regina in too
fast steps. Regina concedes as much of her affection as she can bear as well,
sitting down by her apple tree with Little Ace during long afternoons while she
reads her correspondence, and taking most of her meals with her and father,
happy that they share a common love for the flavors of their home. Sitting
together, they feel like Regina guesses a family must, and above all, they look
like one. Dark eyes and dark skin that would have afforded them the epithet of
exotic beauties tie them together by blood, and Regina finds that it’s
unexpectedly easy to banish mother’s ghost from her table with Little Ace’s
non-stop blabbering joining father’s quiet demeanor and her own mercurial
temperament.
Nonetheless, the girl wants more than Regina can give, and so Regina finds
herself shooing her away from her bedchambers late at night, refusing to let
her lie down and sleep next to her, as well as demanding peace and loneliness
in the days that find her sullen and obsessed in ways that Little Ace can’t
possibly soothe, and artlessly refusing her attention when her mind is focused
in the business of the kingdom. Thus, they find themselves at peace with as
much regularity as they do at war, for Little Ace is not one to acquiesce
quietly to Regina’s requests, and Regina can’t abide by her rebelliousness.
Whatever the case, they come back to each other with as much ease as they come
apart, a shared meal or Little Ace’s delicate fingers playing the harpsichord
enough for Regina to forget tantrums and childish bellows that mother would
have surely punished with swift severity.
If Regina refuses to become the surrogate sister Little Ace is hankering for,
however, then that is primarily due to the days that find the girl weak and
indisposed, unable to leave her bed despite lively protests that her health is
no hindrance. Little Ace grows sicker by the day, though, her frame shrinking
and her bulging belly both stealing away her beauty and making her look
emaciated, almost underfed. There are days when Regina can’t bear the sight,
and she adamantly stays away from the girl when she’s bedridden, knowing that
she’s well taken care of in between the good hands of the doctor and father. It
seems that the girl is bound to die, if the physician is to be believed, and
Regina ignores the thought with steadfast determination, running away from
chambers pervaded by the scent of decay and refusing the thought that she will
cry the death of the child. She’s fond of her and very little else, after all,
her presence more a forced nuisance than a welcome friendship.
It’s not particularly hard for Regina to direct her mind and efforts towards
other endeavors, too, not when Snow White still runs and when the kingdom still
protects her. Regina spends long days away from the palace in searches that
bear no success and very little in the way of information. It’s becoming more
apparent to her, however, that the brewing rebellion has found its way to magic
and that more and more they are choosing to fight fire with fire. And of course
the fairies would choose to plead themselves her enemy when they refused to
answer her prayers as a child; capricious creatures the lot of them, arbitrary
in their acts of kindness and their condemnations, making use of their dust
with self-righteous grandeur. She shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve chosen
Snow White, after all. Regina is not particularly worried by the weak efforts
made by unorganized peasants and small creatures, but she’s not dimwitted
enough to underestimate an opponent, never mind how outwardly weak. Many have
made that mistake when regarding her, after all, and that has been their
downfall.
Regina escapes the palace not just for battles and persecution, but for balls
and simple meetings, adamant in keeping control over her noblemen as well as
her peasants. The thought of Baroness Irene and her ultimate betrayal remains
with her still, the memory of digging a sword into flesh that she’d cried on
and whispered secrets to, however fake, persecuting her to the point where
she’d refused to further attend the Summer Festival, shutting down romantic
childhood notions and giving the celebration to her people as nothing but a
reminder of the wrong choice the baroness had made.
Nobles are good in their groveling and posturing, trained as they are by a
lifetime of courtly lies, and while most of them still hold a grudge over her
making them leave the palace, she knows there’s hardly much opposition where
they’re concerned. She can’t trust them, of course, but it’s obvious to her
that most of them will choose their own heads over that of Snow White any day.
Old Countess Ninny, who had been old when Regina met her and remains as such to
this day, and whose true name is only remembered by long dead relatives, is
even determinately on her side, offended to this day by the time thirteen year
old Snow, all gangly limbs and clumsiness, had emptied a cup of tea right on
the countess’ favorite embroidered dress. The countess maintains that the child
had done it on purpose, that her apology had been forced between giggles, and
that such rudeness shan’t ever be rewarded with a crown. Regina, laughing at
the old story, wisely chooses to omit the fact that she’d been the one to trip
Snow all those years ago, making her tumble right into the countess’ lap.
Journeys and battles do little to appease Regina and her restless mind, or to
help her avoid the days where quiet hysteria and awful despair take over, her
thoughts circling themselves until she’s convinced that nothing is ever going
to change. There are long days where she feels trapped and inconsolable, where
father and Little Ace fail to reach the walls of her heart, when the thought of
Maleficent doesn’t appease her, when she feels as if she’s condemned to live in
a limbo of persecution, the princess forever close and yet never close enough,
escaping her grasp and growing stronger with every misstep. She grows anxious
then, caged inside her palace and unprotected outside of it, afraid both of
catching Snow White and of never managing to do so, anticipation of what the
world will look like in any scenario gripping her chest tightly and coiling
unknown tension in the pit of her stomach. She refuses food in the worst days,
every morsel feeling like lead and only wine calming her senses by making
everything softer around the edges.
Her moods change from moment to moment, and sometimes she feels as if she’s at
the bottom of a well, screaming for no one to hear. Days become an endless
procession of long black nights and grey mornings then, failure sweeping over
her with the strength of waves. She grows scared and she hates herself for it,
fear not at death, but at life itself. She fights despair then with her best
weapons, making the huntsman a scapegoat for the sins of an opposing kingdom
and the princess he chose above her, prodding at his heartless spirit, taunting
him until his hatred is palpable, teasing his anger out of him so it fills his
empty spaces. It is a strange day, then, when she comes to find him sitting at
her table with a smile curling his thin lips, tiny yet genuine, possibly the
most feeling he’s been allowed for years now, if the way he’s resting his palm
above his hollowed out chest is any indication. Next to him, Little Ace is
reading a poem with the air of a famous bard and the emotion of the protagonist
of the tale herself.
“I see you found my pet, dear,” Regina says the moment the poem is finished,
making her way towards the table and sitting daintily, the three of them making
for a bizarre picture.
“Were you hiding him? And what is his tale?” Little Ace wonders, closing her
book in favor of throwing a pair of shiny eyes the huntsman’s way. “Oh, is it
morbid and forbidden? Will you tell it with passion and despair, sparing no
drama for a captive audience?”
The huntsman looks as bewildered by her pixie cousin as Regina had upon her
arrival at the palace, and his wide-eyed look of surprise is almost enough to
make Regina smile. In the face of such entertainment, prodding the huntsman
into anger seems both dull and futile.
“Yes, huntsman, won’t you tell my darling cousin your tale of woe?” She teases,
reaching forward and for a rich smelling veal stew while the girl is otherwise
entertained. She hasn’t been eating enough, and Regina makes sure there’s a
large portion served before she can complain; if the huntsman manages to be
amusing enough, Little Ace will eat without noticing what she’s doing.
What the huntsman says is, however, “I refused to kill Snow White, and the
queen took my heart.”
The short declaration steals a laugh out of them, the huntsman’s lack of
enthusiasm at humoring them just as amusing as if he’d chosen to retell his
story with pomp and glamour. Regina is the one to tell the story herself then,
smirking with quiet delight when the huntsman’s eyes grow harsher, his glare
more unsubtle by the minute as Regina’s words slander him as the worst of
traitors and the biggest of fools, turning his heroic acts into misplaced
loyalty and making out of his punishment nothing but the price owned for
choices wrongly made.
“Now dear, don’t look so disgruntled,” Regina says once she’s done with her
tale. “I speak nothing but the truth.”
“Oh let him speak, cousin, let him!” Little Ace begs on his behalf, clearly
amused and entertained, her empty plate proof enough of that. “Tell me, darling
huntsman, why did you save the princess?” She asks.
“Because she’s innocent,” the huntsman answers, such strength behind his simple
statement that one would be forced to take it as sure fact. Regina can’t
believe that she has avoided asking this very same question for so long now;
she wouldn’t have tortured herself with the possible answer has she known it
would be so childishly pedestrian.
Little Ace must surely think the same, for her own answer to such statement is
a clear laugh. “Innocent, you say? How could you possibly know? Did she bat
pretty dark eyelashes over rosy cheeks and look at you with woeful eyes?” She
scoffs then, crossing her arms over her chest petulantly. “So like a man.”
Despite such declaration, Little Ace grows fond of the huntsman or, at the very
least, of teasing him good-naturedly, and sometimes with pointed cruelty. She's
full of pride, her little cousin, and her tongue isn't shy when forming sharp
barbs, the decision she's made on supporting Regina's quest without question
but rather with the conviction that her vengeance is nothing if not righteous
one that warms Regina's heart beyond comprehension. Regina hardly needs
reassurance, not when the Evil Queen has the extreme luxury of not caring about
what other people think; it's the gift the people had given her when they
bestowed such a title upon her, and it seems like too little compared to what
has been taken from her in exchange. Little Ace's open trust touches her in
places she believed empty, however, tingles at corners of her heart that she
thought long gone, and the feeling exhilarates her as much as it scares her -
she has lost so many children already, after all, the ghosts of her unborn
little thing, of beautiful Prince Bernard, and even of the Snow White that
she'd rescued from a runaway horse forever haunting her.
Nonetheless, the huntsman Little Ace wants, and the huntsman she gets. Regina
muses that the girl must be a little enchanted, the handsome broodiness of him
that irritates Regina so attractive to a younger audience. It hardly worries
her, not when Little Ace's attentions are nothing if not fickle, and when she
flirts with every person she crosses paths with, be it blushing maids or cocky
soldiers. She's even taken hold of Regina's forever shy Treasury Master, whose
beady eyes follow her every move as if she were but a goddess. During her first
weeks at the palace, when Little Ace had confessed to a lifetime hidden away
inside her bedchambers due to her illness, Regina had wondered about the
chances of a girl so trapped ending up with a bump in her belly product of an
unknown father, but watching the girl work her magic, she's hardly surprised
now. After all, the huntsman seems equally charmed by the girl, and Regina
would separate them viciously if he didn’t make for such a good babysitter, his
warm voice a soothing balm for Little Ace's worst tantrums, and for the moments
when the girl steps down from her world of fantasy and is burdened by the
reality of the encroaching hands of death.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina turns thirty one, and it occurs to her that she's growing old. Already
an old woman by the standards of royalty, made undesirable by her widowhood,
her lack of an heir and her infamous uncontrollable temperament, the date
brands her with a sigh of despair. Thirty one, and happiness seems like the
dream of a silly fifteen year old that had hoped for love and freedom and had
gotten death and imprisonment instead, a fanciful collection of folk tales
woven by old and unwise mouths. Snow White will be twenty-four soon, and the
thought gnaws at her, uncomfortable.
"Pequeño As ha preparado una comida especial para ti," father tells her early
in the morning, right after offering her a beautiful bracelet for a gift,
simple yet expensive, father's taste always unexpected but splendidly lovely.
(3)
"Oh no, daddy," she complaints. "No celebrations, no rituals of time passing."
Regina's thoughts this morning run more along the lines of paying an overdue
visit to Maleficent and drinking herself stupid, after all, and she fears she
will end up snapping angrily at whoever wishes to celebrate in a different
manner. She has woken up with the thought of Daniel haunting her today, forever
eighteen years old and nothing but a boy to the woman that Regina has turned
into. It's unfair, and she wishes to forget within the warm embrace of familiar
arms, beautiful blue eyes and currant wine strong enough that her thoughts will
swirl pleasantly instead.
Father doesn't let her get away with her whining, however, reaching out with
firm hands and cupping her face so they're looking straight into each other's
eyes, gazes so similar that Regina can't help but smile. With her sitting down
and him standing up Regina forgets for a moment about how tiny he's become, how
age and the burden of a wife and a daughter unsuited for his brand of quiet
love have diminished him, his frame growing smaller with every day that passes,
his presence disappearing into the shadows, dwelling at Regina's back rather
than at her side. Suddenly, she feels twelve all over again, and she moves so
her hands are resting above father's on her cheeks, sharing warmth.
"Cielo, come have lunch with your family," he says. "Forget - forget... for a
day, just for a day."
And Regina understands his silent pleading; forget Snow White, forget Daniel
and revenge and blood spilled, forget your kingdom and your despair and come
have lunch with your family. Her family, her very own family; not Cora's or
Leopold's, not whatever construct she's been forced into by someone’s
privileged hands. Abruptly, Regina surges up and into father's arms, searching
for an embrace willingly given and loving enough that she may just remember
that she's not completely alone, that no matter how old and despairingly grumpy
she grows, she will never be anything but a little girl in the eyes of her
father. And if being a little girl before mother had been nothing but bitter
weakness, being one before father is but sweet nonsense that she can allow
herself even if just for a day. He whispers softly in her ear once she's firmly
encased within his arms – cielo, Regina, my little princess, in a voice that
soothes all ills, and an unbidden sob crawls up her throat and away, escaping
her grasp, embarrassing if not for father's shooing noises mollifying her
sudden sadness.
Regina concedes to father's request, and so she foregoes heavy gowns and
embroidered corsets in favor of donning comfortable clothes, thin since the
weather is light. She wears her hair down, too, allowing curls that will frizz
up as the day goes by, overelaborate hairdos entirely too exhausting to even
think about today. Little Ace has a picnic ready for her, a rich tablecloth
spread on the ground by her apple tree and light concoctions of every kind for
them to share, mostly fruits and warm broths that are pleasant to the palate.
She has even made most of them herself, her penchant for walking into the
kitchens and donning an apron one that had thrown Regina's cooks for a loop and
that had made Regina laugh for days when Mary, the Head Cook, had come
grumbling to her about capricious ladies stealing her pots and pans and her
kitchen not being a playground. Mary has gotten used to Little Ace by now as
much as the rest of the palace and as much as Regina herself, and has even
learnt a few new recipes from the girl’s hands.
They barely move throughout the day, a short walk about the gardens that Regina
commands after a hearty lunch being the only exception to the lackadaisical
nature of the day. The day is warm enough and the garden is resplendent under
the light spring weather, most plants having escaped death at the hands of the
blitzing winter by virtue of their Royal Gardener’s talents, the same good old
Fritz that had taught Regina to care for her apple tree and that remained
father's closest friend within the palace’s walls. Little Ace tires easily
these days, however, her vivacious spirit failing to conquer her wilting body,
and so their walk is short-lived, even as the girl clings to father’s arm for a
lifeline. Thus, the late afternoon sees them back under the apple tree, Little
Ace reading from a book with grandeur and pomp, as she so loves to, giving her
characters life with nothing but her delightfully engaging voice.
“These torments are for, she said, a test:
My husband makes me suffer in this way
To rouse my virtue, which too long a rest,
I know, would cause to perish and decay.
If such is not his plan, at least I’m sure
That what the Lord my God intends for me,
By such prolonged affliction, is to see
How far my constancy and faith endure.
How many wretched women heed
Only their own desires; they go
By paths of danger, paths that lead
To empty pleasures, then to woe! – Ugh, I already hate her; why must patience
and compliance be valued so as womanly virtues? Meek, Aunt Ilse would have
called her, and hardly with kindness. Was Snow White meek, cousin?” (B)
Regina laughs, contentment to the sound. “No, noisy child, she was not. A
little docility might have done her arrogance some good, actually.”
Little Ace raises a curious eyebrow at what she must see as a concession on
Regina’s part, but keeps reading nonetheless, her voice growing softer as the
girl grows obviously more tired. She has been desperately curious about Snow
White for as long as Regina as allowed her to prod her on the subject, and she
always finds herself surprised when Regina’s words shape something unexpected
in the lost princess’ character. Regina thinks a little jealousy might be at
play, the long years Regina spent coddling her step-daughter perhaps inducing
petty envy, even if Regina harbored deathly secrets for as long as those years
lasted. Nonetheless, Regina refuses to speak ill truths of the princess Little
Ace insists on talking about in the past tense, her own way of banishing her
away from the palace. After all, Snow’s sins are enough that she’d be a fool to
downplay her as less than she is – a foolish and meek child wouldn’t have been
much of an adversary, and if she’s to be defied so by someone that grew next to
her and by her hand, she must confess to virtues where they exist. Snow’s
virtues hardly make her undeserving of Regina’s blood seeking hands, as they do
nothing to change a past packed with violations and crimes.
More so, as the girl keeps reading of Griselda and the torture she graciously
endures at the hands of a maddened husband, Regina remembers how as a child
Snow had loved the tale, and how as the years passed and the prospect of
marriage and obligations assaulted her she’d developed a nearly sickening
contempt for the heroine of the story. She supposes gentle and forgiving
Griselda can’t possibly hold any interest for Little Ace either, this girl that
rebelled against her parents’ wishes to keep her restrained to a bed by having
every single guard and physician join her in it. While Regina’s immediate
instinct is to dismiss the tale just as well, a part of her can’t help but
admire the waiting game of the protagonist, the quiet and tolerant willingness
to endure.
Little Ace’s voice dies eventually, almost at the same time the sun begins to
wane, giving way to a sky full of orange paleness. Regina wishes for another
tale, liking how her mind has been at rest since she first sat down next to
father and the girl, both of them gifting her with quiet enthusiasm during a
day that her former family had so very easily ignored in the past. And isn’t
that ironic – that silent, good little Queen Regina hadn’t been given the
privilege of aging, and that the Evil Queen does? The duplicity strikes her as
odd, for surely the kingdom would agree that she deserves nothing. Then again,
the kingdom has never truly wanted her, meek, evil or otherwise. Regina shakes
the thought away by passing the book of folk tales to father, whose smooth
voice conquers both her and the girl with ease. It most certainly makes for a
more soothing solution than Little Ace’s usual one, her predilection for making
the huntsman read to her just to berate him for his passionless speech later
positively hilarious, but ultimately frustrating.
Evening continues to fade, and while Regina finds herself distracted by the
lingering pleasantness of the day, she misses Little Ace moving closer to her
with each moment that passes, so that when the girl rests her head on her
shoulder she stiffens in return, surprised by the gesture. The girl must
notice, but she doesn’t relent, keeping her eyes on her own hands splayed on
her belly even as Regina turns to her just as well, gaze unwittingly dismayed.
Tender motherly gestures had once been an instinctual part of her arsenal,
easily bestowed upon Snow White with half-truths and hidden agendas, but that
time is long gone, and Regina has shied away from Little Ace’s touch with
determination, only the odd caress to soft cheeks escaping her unintentionally.
The girl has been respectful of her boundaries, the shadows of Snow far away
from this girl that has awareness by leaps and bounds, where the princess had
assumed herself loved by birth right. Regina knows she’s been hankering for
more, for the ease of sisterly touch and comfort where Regina has given none.
Tonight, however, she gives into the pull, wondering if perhaps she wants it
too. She has never known tenderness to be paired with unconditional affection,
mother’s touch always hiding a sharp edge and Snow’s always mingled with
bitterness. She passes her arm over Little Ace’s thin shoulders so the girl
leans closer, resting against her with her face against her collarbone and her
hands on Regina’s lap, her whole body turned her way as if Regina is protection
against the outside world. She sighs even while Regina remains stiff,
uncomfortable at how fragile Little Ace feels between her arms, brittle and
sick and tired. Regina feels as if she may kill her if she only squeezes too
hard, and she feels inadequate in the sheer trust being lavished upon her.
Suddenly, Maleficent and that drink feel like the right idea all over again.
Regina stands up from her position on the ground abruptly, startling the girl
away from her and making father’s speech stop. He looks up at her with fear
lazed in his gaze, and Regina hates that he has come to expect anger from her,
even if she doesn’t quite know whether it’s him he hates for it, or herself.
Her arms reach up and she finds herself hugging her own frame, an old
protective and downsizing instinct kicking at the worst of times as two pairs
of eyes wait for her next move. She smiles, something small and blithe, barely
concealed bitterness before she makes up her mind and reaches for the girl,
hands splayed before her.
“Come, let me take you somewhere.”
Little Ace doesn’t have a second of doubt before she’s standing up before her
and waddling her way toward Regina’s outstretched arms, a blinding smile
curving her own lips. She has always whined at Regina leaving her behind in her
outings after all, and while she won’t be taking her to a splendorous ball, she
has a feeling that her romantic heart might appreciate the decadent charm of
Maleficent’s fortress better. The thought of her friend and distraction in
mind, Regina spares a moment to press a kiss to father’s cheek, a whispered
thank you, daddyfalling from her lips as if by accident just for him to hear,
and then takes hold of Little Ace’s hands in her own, and disappears.
 
===============================================================================
 
They arrive at an empty chamber, and even before Regina can utter a word and
warn caution after the dizziness of magical transportation, Little Ace has
taken off from her side and is staring about her with wide eyes and curious
fingers. Regina has to abate her get natural inclination of following the girl
around, preferably with a blanket that she can cover her with to fight the
ever-present draftiness of Maleficent’s fortress. She does nothing of the sort,
but she keeps steady eyes on her wobbling figure, the girl ignoring any
discomfort in favor of inspecting trinkets haphazardly thrown around the room,
dusty old tomes piled carelessly over every surface and shiny yet pointless
bagatelles strewn around carelessly. It’s a dragon thing,Maleficent has always
said regarding her collecting habit, but Regina has always thought it’s a too
short attention span and no real interest in anything beyond flavorful drinks.
She feels Maleficent before she even hears her, her presence as she walks
towards her pervading every corner of the room, the scent of magic clinging to
her and the sound of her dress following soon after. Regina doesn’t turn her
way, but she smiles softly when a hand slips about her waist and rests low
enough on her abdomen that the touch is a sigh away from indecent, Maleficent’s
frame warming her back as the witch leans down and places a lingering kiss
against Regina’s cheek.
“What is that you brought me, little girl?” Maleficent questions, hot puffs of
her breath humid against Regina’s cheek. “Lunch?”
“Thatis my cousin, and you willbehave.”
Maleficent laughs, and the sound curls pleasantly about Regina, chasing
thoughts of broken tenderness away from her mind. It’s been far too long since
she came here, she muses.
“If you have any appreciation for that tiny thing you’ll stop her wandering
before she pricks herself with something she shouldn’t.”
Regina rolls her eyes good-naturedly, turning around in Maleficent’s arms even
as she calls for Little Ace to come sit down already, her shout of Adriana
Cristina not appreciated by the grumbling girl. She comes closer however, her
eyes all the more round when they settle upon Maleficent.
“You’re Maleficent, are you not? Oh, tales do fail to do you justice, I
believe. Is it true you can turn into a dragon; you must let me see! Stories do
speak of terrible and powerful dark magic, and Aunt Ilse always did say that
one should take care with shape sifters, never one thing or the other, and
always untrustworthy she said, but alas, I didread abou–”
“Does it shut up?”
Regina laughs, delighted as Maleficent, primitive and wonderfully feral, looks
about as puzzled by her little cousin as one possibly could. “Not particularly,
no,” she answers. Then, to the girl, “Sit down and behave yourself, dear.”
Little Ace concedes, perhaps because she’s more tired than she’s willing to
admit even to herself, but even as she’s dropping heavily on one plush
armchair, dust flying around her the moment her weight is settled, she smiles
cheekily and proclaims importantly, “I hardly think you would like me one bit
if I behaved myself, cousin.”
Maleficent breathes a chuckle against Regina’s cheek, and winking at the girl
with impudence and mirth, she murmurs, “I suppose we can keep her.”
They sit and let Little Ace talk then, the story of how her moniker came about
one that she always enjoys telling, and Maleficent always content to let others
do the talking as she drink and laughs. Regina drinks herself, finding the
comfort she’d come looking for as she begins feeling like a sleepy cat in need
of a tender touch, being conquered by the kind of drunkenness that takes her
past the point of elegant moping she has gotten so fond of, and which only
Maleficent has been privy to before, and is almost always responsible for.
Regina curls into Maleficent’s side and closes her eyes tightly, accepting the
caress of nimble fingers carding through her loose hair while at the same time
hiding herself away from Maleficent’s knowing look. The topic of her cousin is
one she doesn’t wish to discuss, never mind that she brought her right into the
wolf’s mouth, and she won’t give Maleficent the satisfaction of doing so, even
if the witch’s eyes have already rested on Little Ace’s bulging belly with
precise accuracy.
Regina had only told Maleficent of the vision her unicorn had offered her after
a lot of prodding and even more wine, her own mind betraying forlorn thoughts
with impossible melancholy, the tangible feeling of a baby against her breast
one that left her bereft and assaulted by phantom desires. And of course she’d
thought of the vision the moment Little Ace had appeared at her palace’s door,
hopeless and ruined, begging for salvation with tired eyes and a claim of
shared blood. Regina has even allowed herself stray thoughts of a future with a
toddler running about their feet, one that would inevitably look like her, one
that could perhaps grow to be the heir Regina will never give birth to. Hope
has been such a tricky thing, and loss such a twisted tale for her, that she
has mostly ignored such ideas as fanciful dreams, including those that insist
on binding together her magical fantasy and her little cousin. It would make
sense for them to be one and the same, but Regina’s dreaming visions never fail
to ring true when she thinks of long, blond hair, curls hiding a face and a
scared voice that Regina sometimes longs for unwittingly.
The appearance of Cruella and Ursula is enough to make Regina forget about most
preoccupations, and almost enough to drive her pleasant tipsiness away in one
single stroke, both witches reminding her of why exactly she has been keeping
despondently away from Maleficent for some time now, her friendship with the so
called Queens of Darkness tightening her chest with something that she refuses
to call jealousy. How absurd, that she could be so of drunken binges and
ridiculous behavior. Still, when she mutters a childish do they live here now,
dear?with a raised eyebrow and just for Maleficent’s benefit, all she gets in
return is a finger under her chin and lips pursed in disapproval.
“Now don’t pout and don’t be jealous, little girl. It doesn’t become you, and
it’s terribly tiresome.”
Regina only huffs, and she figures that the sound is a good enough answer for
Cruella just as well, her drawled look, darling, if it isn’t the Evil Queenas
she openly laughs already grating. And honestly, it’s not that Cruella and
Ursula don’t offer a bit of unexpected fun, but there is so much posturing to
their personas that exasperation is a given whenever she spends time around
them both. Maleficent seems to enjoy their company with terrible ease, however,
the tongue-in-cheek tone she uses when referring to their self-appointed group
title more often than not bringing a smile to her usual brooding demeanor in
unsuspecting ways, the mischief of youth shining in her deep blue eyes. Regina
finds them all stupendously juvenile, and not only because she feels a little
bit left out of the whole ordeal.
Regina dislodges herself from Maleficent’s grip, childishly morose as she
busies herself with Little Ace, whose complaints don’t deter her from conjuring
a blanket and pressing it carefully to her frame, covering her lap and her
belly. The bags under the girl’s eyes speak of exhaustion, the little wine
she’s had making her sleepy, too, and Regina considers retiring herself
altogether before the girl insists on staying, obviously delighted at being
allowed outside of the palace and in the presence of such colorful characters.
Cruella raises her eyebrow at her tending of Little Ace, but Regina chooses not
to take the bait, knowing by now that when it comes to the strange woman it’s
easier not to bite.
They sit together instead, and then proceed to drink too much and speak of
absolutely nothing at all, Cruella’s eccentricity and the tales of her foreign
land failing to be engaging in the face of her banality, even Little Ace giving
up on her after being victim to her drawling voice and the way it inevitably
drips with disdain pointedly directed at obvious weak spots. She’s feeling
particularly acidic tonight, her favored drink of gin taking her wits away so
that even Ursula scolds her lightly; they make for such a terribly bizarre
pair, and Regina can’t wrap her head around the sea witch, with her put on
bravado and eyes that speak of something precious and forever lost, and her
obvious affection for Cruella of all people. Regina has no wish to engage
either of them enough to understand, though, not when every conversation is
like pulling teeth, a competition of sorts to prove which of them is worse than
the other, as if depravity is something to boast about and wear like an
honorable badge. It’s most certainly a change from Regina’s everyday world,
where every single one of her steps is questioned and deemed reproachable, but
both Cruella and Ursula manage to make everything into children’s play, boorish
and pointless with their tasteless jabbing; they seem to think her pursuit of
Snow White puerile and frivolous, a pastime of sorts for a queen with too much
time on her hands, and Regina refuses to be made feel pointless and callow by
them and their ridiculous fancies.
Humiliatingly and carelessly enough, sleep overtakes her, and she wakes up to a
cloudless if dark sky and the discordant sight of Ursula and Cruella wrapped
around each other in the opposite couch, a tangle of furs and tentacles that
Regina doesn’t bother thinking about too much. Her mouth feels pasty and foul,
and she wrinkles her nose as she considers leaving with no goodbyes before a
pounding headache inevitably settles on her brow. A warm bath and rest other
than drunken sleep on an uncomfortable settee might be what she needs after the
odd day she’s had, but when her eyes find Little Ace’s armchair empty of the
girl she groans, her visions of comfort fading away. She relights the dying
fire before she goes in search of her, rubbing comforting palms over her own
arms in search of heat, and then wanders for only a brief moment, finding
Little Ace fast asleep and comfortably tucked in Maleficent’s bed, the witch
standing guard at her side and looking uncomfortable.
When Regina reaches them and leans against the bed’s frame, Maleficent says,
“She’s sweet.”
“I would say annoying at best.”
Maleficent snorts, elegance prevalent even in such a gesture, and tears her
eyes away from the girl so she can look at Regina, crooked smile and shiny eyes
almost as tangible as a touch. “Denial has always suited you well, I guess.”
Then, as if scolding her, “You already love her.”
Regina dismisses the statement with a wave of her hand, crossing then her arms
over her chest and walking a few steps closer to Maleficent, her eyes on her
own hands when she insists, “I’m merely doing right by her; one doesn’t turn
family away, dear.”
It’s a spot on recital of an old rule, mother’s voice taking over her own with
swift efficiency and forcing her to unwittingly straighten her own posture.
It’s funny, how Regina thinks mother may have broken her own laws had she been
faced with Little Ace’s soiled reputation and unbecoming demeanor.
Maleficent hums, considering, and her next words are softer, shadows of pity in
the sadness of them. “She’s dying.”
“I know,” Regina snaps.
“She’s dying and you already love her. You’ll blame your princess for daring to
live once this girl is gone and buried, and you’ll burn everything in your path
and feel righteous in your quest,” Maleficent intones before chuckling gently.
Her tone is almost forlorn, and Regina guesses she must be as drunk as Regina
feels hangover.
“And I suppose binge drinking or whatever it is you get up with those two is
far more edifying,” Regina counters, scowling as she vaguely gestures towards
where the other two remain thankfully asleep.
Maleficent steps closer after that, fast and dizzying in her movement one
minute and entirely too slow the next, her hand velvety when it lands on
Regina’s cheek briefly, only the pads of her fingers lingering for a moment too
long, tickling and leaving an imprinted tingling behind.
“I told you not to be jealous; it’s untoward.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mal.”
“And who will if I won’t? Rue the day I begin trembling before you, my darling.
There will be no friends left for the fearsome Evil Queen if we’re at odds.”
Maleficent makes as if to turn away, but Regina reaches out, finding her wrist
and holding on, keeping her in place. She knows better than to think that
Maleficent remains still if not out of her own desire, but she fools herself
enough that she draws a smirk on her lips, leaning closer even when it forces
her neck to bend further back just so she can keep her eyes on Maleficent’s.
Her blue gaze betrays amusement, and Regina hates the childish levity that
lingers there these days, product of her friendship with the other two witches.
Regina prefers her callous and brooding, and despises herself for her own
selfishness towards this woman that means more than she will ever dare admit to
herself.
“What of the day when you have no time for old friends anymore?” She wonders,
trying for non-chalance and missing the mark by a mere sigh, betraying
vulnerability that she wishes she could bury deep within her gut.
The laughter tinkles this time, soft and seducing as Maleficent leans close
enough so that Regina has to drop her eyelids not to double her vision. It does
the trick of forcing her to breathe deeper, the scent of burnt wood and wine
prevalent in the air and on Maleficent’s skin, so that a delightful shiver
crawls up her spine when Maleficent whispers, “Don’t you worry about that, my
darling, you will always be my favorite.”
A kiss lingers on the corner of her mouth, delicate but not shy, and then
Maleficent leaves her completely, stepping back and away, Regina’s grip on her
wrist slackening with ease. Years ago they wouldn’t have stopped at a kiss, and
the sight of both Maleficent and Little Ace doesn’t sit well with her, evoking
thoughts of a life that might have been hers, but that she chose to let slip
through her fingers.
“We must get back,” she says, abruptness in her tone and in her imperious
movement as she walks with the purpose of waking the girl up enough for the
short trip back to the palace.
She stops short, however, when Maleficent offers flippantly, “Let me take you.”
Regina raises an eyebrow and looks at her friend, whose fingers wiggle vaguely
upwards, her eyes twinkling with sudden and primal energy, far more
intoxicating than any werewolf Regina may ran into.
“You’re drunk,” Regina accuses, even when Maleficent’s offer is tempting, both
for its nature and its rarity. She can count in the fingers of one hand the
amount of times she’s seen her turn into a dragon, and it was only once, all
those years ago, that she’d been offered flying privileges.
“Dragons don’t get drunk, ungrateful little girl.”
An incredulous chuckle, and then, “Are you sure? I’d rather not die by mountain
crash; it would be rather anticlimactic, don’t you think?”
“Stop dawdling now, Your Majesty, and wake the tiny thing. The offer has an
expiration date.”
Regina pouts, a brief concession to amusement of old, when she’d truly been a
little girl and Maleficent the most impressive woman she had ever laid eyes on,
capable of making her flush red all over with nothing but a withering gaze of
her blue eyes. She’ll forever hold the same fascination, but the years have
jagged them both, and it discomfits Regina that Maleficent is no longer the
frightening figure of years back, looming above her on a darkened chamber, as
threatening as she’d been alluring. Regina had sacrificed their tempestuous
ardor to an altar of revenge, but she knows that had she chosen differently
back then, they would have burnt each other out eventually, both their hearts
torn to pieces too small to even have a complete one between the two of them.
They have their remnants, however, traces strong and caring enough that
Maleficent is willing to offer the impossible to a girl that is bound to die
just because it may offer Regina respite from the thought.  
Little Ace’s elation is palpable by the sheer wordlessness she sinks into the
moment Maleficent turns before them, dark smoke giving shape to the most
beautiful creature Regina has ever laid her eyes upon, gargantuan eyes turned
forest green and deep purple scales, both smooth and hard to the touch, power
so indescribable that the sight steals Regina’s breath away, and makes her
heart palpitate as if it had come back to life after a too long sleep.
And so, they fly, rain and wind on their faces as they soar through the skies,
not weightless but rather grounded, muscles, strength and beauty below them,
and limitless starry darkness before them, so that when their feet step back on
the ground, the soil of the palace’s gardens feels quaveringly shaky and
unstable, immaterial and nearly unfriendly. They come together as Maleficent
ascends back into the air, gusts of wind nearly pulling them to the ground as
her wings lift her up with agile grace, tethering each other with limbs that
tremble still. They look up, and they’re laughing as they do so, breath heavy
and chests heaving with unwitting effort as they marvel at the sight one last
time, Maleficent perching herself on the hard spikes of the palace before
taking flight, fire burning the sky.
“How wonderful, how impossible and extraordinary, how…” Little Ace whispers
softly to herself.
Regina’s ears rush with sound still, and she has to make an effort to even hear
as much, so she pulls the girl even closer, mind free of awry thoughts. Little
Ace feels cold between her arms, and when Regina looks down at her, her lips
look dry and her eyes feverish, her forehead clammy with sweat rather than
rainwater, and the shine of her gaze more delirious than it is enthralled.
Regina pushes damp hair away from her eyes, and even as the girl repeats a
fervent how wonderful, cousin, how wonderfulwith her face turned towards the
sky, Regina takes them to her bedchambers, magic doing away with what would
have been a heavy wobble of a walk.
The girl rests on Regina’s bed, exhaustion taking over and skin much too hot to
the touch leaving behind traces of broken agitation. Regina, feeling restless
and much too energized herself, spends what little remains of the night at her
balcony, looking up as the cloudless night turns into a quiet and mild morning,
the sky shining pale blue and promising warmth. Wherever Snow White may be
dwelling today, Regina wonders if she looked up at the sky last night, and saw
a mighty dragon soaring through the heavens, and felt revenge soaring along
with it.
 
===============================================================================
 
Little Ace falls ills, and the moment Regina sees her coughing up blood while
still wrapped in her own bed linens, she wrinkles her nose and averts her eyes,
wanting to escape the sight with desperate urgency. She has her guards carry
her back into her own chambers, and promptly sends the physician to her, along
with her lady’s maid and father, impulsive in her own compulsion of ignoring
the situation altogether. The physician comes to her with words of coughs and
weight loss, of impossible blood loss, of a frame too feeble and a baby that
seems adamant in wanting to kill its mother, but Regina orders him away and
threatens his head if the girl fails to receive to best care possible. The
physician, a short and white-bearded man with papery hands and a terrible habit
of pulling at the skin of his fingers until nothing but red wounds remains
around his nails, displays bravery enough to assure her that the babe will be
lost and that the girl herself won’t last the month, and dares prompt her to
say her goodbyes now that there’s still time. In lieu of his gentle honesty,
Regina lets him keep his head and merely orders him to bring other capable men
of his profession to seek any possible option, while ignoring his suggestions
of visits and goodbyes.
The girl asks for her but Regina refuses her calls, turning snappish to whoever
insists on her doing otherwise. Nonetheless, the thought haunts her, the
knowledge that somewhere behind closed doors death is looming close, ready to
tear away that which belongs to Regina, and her blood thrums when her fingers
lay idle by her sides, purposeless once more in the face of sickness. She puts
herself to work then, calculated precision in her movements as she crams her
time with tasks and duties, finding herself thankful for the interminable
dullness of Duchess Adela’s reports on education degrees that will never come
to fruition, for ogres that defy their latest pacts and run amok wreaking
havoc, for thieves to execute and an army that trains before her attentive eyes
with as much passion as it always has. If she finds herself empty of burdens
then she takes Rocinante out to the Royal State, no saddle or reins, freedom
incarnate under her so that they both drain themselves of energy and conquer
dreamless sleep, so that if she falls she has bruises enough to ground her to
her own flesh.
A fortnight passes, and on the eve of the last night, the huntsman’s wolf
begins crying with vexatious resonance, its sorrowful howls an echo of
misfortune. Regina curses the beast but sends the huntsman to the girl, orders
him to become balm and comfort and decisively disregards the pity that clouds
the gaze he settles upon her. When the gesture fails to calm the wolf or her
own swirling thoughts, she chooses to abandon the palace, King George’s
invitation to his son’s engagement ball suddenly becoming her saving grace,
even if she’d cackled when she’d first received it.
Regina takes the longest roads possible to George’s castle, and even then, she
arrives days before the main event is to be held. She enjoys her unexpected
entrance however, her smile mocking when she finally meets George after such a
long time of conflict and petty fights, delighted by how he’s the one to have
come crawling back to her with his tale between his legs after all.
"George, dear, it’s been far too long,” she whispers, her voice poisonous like
snakes and the grimace she receives in return for her efforts amusing if
nothing else. At least George is smart enough to understand and accept his
defeat, and if only for that, she may be willing to rekindle their business
talks.
The days run fast within George’s Royal Castle, the scent of salt and the sound
of the waves crashing against the rocky canyon calming by nature, and its
gardens lovely even if the memory of Prince Bernard and their meeting all those
years ago still permeates her surroundings. She makes sure to mention how much
she favors the place enough to make George worry that she may just capriciously
decide to take it for herself, finding delicious pettiness in keeping him on
edge. She molds most of her behavior under that same pattern, toying with the
men that surround George in much the same way she’d done many years before.
They’d been pleased to call her boldthen and had taken pleasure in her
overstated flirting, and this time around they’re equally receptive to her
games, if their responses are fear and a constant state of alertness instead.
Regina enjoys herself immensely, laughing too loud and not holding back, taking
control of every chamber she steps into with nothing but low-cut cleavages and
the curl of a smirk, pleased that this court around her buys the surface and
the polish, fears her suitably and doesn’t even imagine that there may be
cracks hiding under the posturing.
Nonetheless, she remains irritable, her arbitrary irascibility making servants
scram away from her quickly and efficiently, well-aware of how easy it is for
her hand to punish with nothing but a gesture. The thought makes her scowl,
particularly considering that King Midas, father of the bride to be, is about
as clumsy as a newborn puppy, and much more of a menace with his cursed hands
than she is with her own flighty temperament. Everyone seems to like him rather
than fear him, however, and Regina thinks them stupidly ludicrous over such a
choice – she’ll take a malicious devil over an ungainly buffoon any day. If
anyone seems to agree with her reasoning, however, then that’s Prince James,
whose run into the king after a particularly staggering maneuver almost ends up
in tragedy. Tragedy for the royal family, in any case – Regina figures the
prince turning into a lovely golden statue might be the best thing he can do
for his kingdom. Be that as it may, Regina can’t help a grin when she finds the
bedraggled prince absconded in an empty balcony and breathing heavily, hand on
his chest as if he’s escaped a terrible monster rather than a bumbling king.
Then again, Regina knows how often both can be one and the same.
“Getting along with the in-law, I see,” she declares as she steps her way
towards the railing and next to the prince, whose whispery tirade of damn, so
close that last onestops with immediacy.
James looks up and directly into her eyes, which may just be a brand new
occasion for him and his usually wandering gaze, and Regina would find it in
her to be surprised if only his next move isn’t even more baffling, his
bumbling Your–Your Majesty being hurriedly followed by what must surely be the
worst bow Regina has ever been presented with. He bends far too low, and his
shoulders tense under the strain, his fingers splayed far too wide and his eyes
thrown to the floor, rather politely lowered to suggest the proper submission
of the gesture. It’s so painful to watch that Regina has to laugh, the sound
more clear water and less sandpaper that as of late.
“What is this, dear? Is George having you re-trained now that you’re to be a
husband?”
“Your Majesty?” He squeaks, raising himself up again and standing far too
straight this time, his shoulders thrown backwards with such adamant tension
that she fears he may topple over and fall down. If that isn’t suspicious
enough, then the eyes that face her, large and devoid of the prince’s signature
kohl, fraught with candid emotion, give him completely away. However, before
Regina has time to wonder at just what it is that’s being revealed before her,
the prince points awkwardly behind him, and says, “You must excuse me, there
is… uh, business, yes, business that I must attend.”
He doesn’t try for a second bow, and artlessly scuttles away with as much grace
as he possesses, which isn’t much at all. He throws one last loud and impolite
Your Majestyher way before he’s completely gone, leaving Regina with the shadow
of a smile teasing at the corner of her mouth. Well, if that hadn’t piqued her
interest.
Regina doesn’t see the prince again until the engagement ball, a luxurious
affair thrown with the sumptuousness that she’s come to expect from George,
made all the more apparent by Midas’ golden touch. The bride to be, a vision in
ocean green and dirty blonde curls, looks about as thrilled to be there as
Regina supposes she may have been on the day of her own wedding, and seems to
be indulging herself with wine in much the same manner she had as well. Regina
spares a brief despairing thought for the princess before she dismisses her
altogether in favor of her prince, looking rather dashing himself in a deeper
shade of green. He doesn’t look particularly enthused by the whole dazzling
grandeur either, but at least he’s doing his best at pretending to be
interested in whatever Duke Wentworth, weathered down by age and with a
penchant for sharing old war stories and getting lost in the middle of them, is
trying to tell him. If Regina had thought him changed days before, then his
outward politeness only furthers her intuition regarding the prince she’s only
known to be little better than a scoundrel with far too much charm for his own
good before. And this man before her, well, he may look like Prince James, but
he most definitely isn’t.
Regina prowls closer to him for a moment, content to play her own game of
polite appreciation with Duke Wentworth, who insists on calling her loveliest
queenwith something close to lightheartedness, while she feels outwardly for
signs of magic. There’s nothing there, however, and no matter how much she
narrows her eyes she doesn’t manage to spy a glamour of any kind. He’s his own
man, then, and suddenly the knowledge she’s held all these years of George’s
dealings with Rumpelstiltskin click into place with the delight of a puzzle
solved. She laughs, seemingly at nothing at all, and with the joy of a
mischievous child, has the fake prince dance with her. Not one to deny the Evil
Queen, he complies without a single protest, even when he looks as if he would
rather stand on the opposite side of the room instead, and while he’s eyeing
the high collar of her dress as if it may just jump at him and poke his eyes
out.
They settle in the middle of a dance floor that unintentionally makes space for
them, and Regina realizes that she hasn’t danced at one of these things for
years, little Prince Bernard being her last partner, and despite his age and
lack of experience, perhaps no more clumsy than the man she has chosen this
time around. The prince’s hands are far too soft as they settle at her back and
against her own hand respectively, and yet his frame manages to be stiff enough
that his spine risks cracking.
“Dear, you are going to have to do much better than that if you expect to fool
anyone,” she tells him, searching his eyes with a twinkle in her own.
He says nothing in return, but when his lips settle into a thin line and his
gentle face betrays a sigh of fury, Regina decides she likes him even better.
She does so hate docility, after all.
“Now,” she instructs, ignoring his thinly veiled displeasure. “Loosen up your
shoulders, dear, you want straight but not tense; and that chin of yours, it’s
meant to be high, not pointing towards the heavens, what are you even trying to
accomplish?”
He follows her instructions wordlessly, his posture relaxing and giving way to
a naturally regal frame. He may not have the upbringing, but he’s solid under
her grip on his shoulder, and the correction immediately turns him into more of
a loosened up prince and less of a peasant with pretensions of royalty. He cuts
a debonair figure, and when Regina compliments him with a patronizing good
boyhe tightens his grip on her reflexively, bringing her closer and fixing
their stance into a more proper dancing frame. Regina spies his intentions
then, and before he can move forward and push her into the dance, she steps
forward instead, leading him where she should allow herself to be led. His gaze
is indignant, and she answers it with a raised eyebrow.
“Not quite a prince, but I suppose you’ll do,” she says, the piece of music
allowing them a paired dance, rather than one that has them sharing with more
people, thus granting her speaking space. “What are you truly? A shepherd?”
His answering scowl is enough of a giveaway, but he remains stubborn when he
replies, “I am Prince James, Your Majesty; perhaps the change you spy is but a
sign of maturity.”
“Delightful, but your hands betray callouses other than those of a sword,” she
replies, opening her eyes fully as she stares right into his. “Further, if it’s
Prince James you want to call yourself, you should perhaps consider staring
down women’s cleavages, rather than their eyes.”
He clamps his mouth shut after that, ignoring further jibes with admirable
stubbornness, and refusing her any kindness when she requests two more dances
just for the pleasure of making him uncomfortable. If the court seems surprised
by her favoring the prince or suspects ill-intentions on her part then they do
as they’re supposed to do and keep their mouth shut, particularly when George’s
demeanor gives the impression of enjoying Regina’s toying with outward
delectation he wouldn’t have granted had this new prince been his actual son.
If Regina wonders what has happened with the true prince, then the thought is
fleeting, the amusement of this angry yet gentle substitute enough to grant her
the distraction she’d come searching for.
Finally, she leaves George’s palace with a rested mind, the scent of the sea
remaining with her even as her carriage takes her away, leaving behind a
promise to further discuss commercial trading and a secret to be used were
George to ever prove problematic again.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina chooses the longest road on her way back to the palace, much as she’d
done when she’d traveled away, and it seems to her that the sight of her home
comes entirely too soon nevertheless. The palace looms, dark and pointed,
casting its shadow over the surrounding forest, and Regina wonders how anyone
ever thought that such a place should ever belong to anyone but the Evil Queen.
The walls had waited for their rightful owner, but Regina feels a touch of
breathlessness the closer the carriage takes her to her home. Indescribable
tightness gnaws at her, clutching her throat with invisible hands, and the
inside of the carriage, luxurious and beautiful, carved in the most exquisite
woods and leathers, feels stifling. She touches her own neck, brings a gloved
hand up to the skin and tries to scratch the feeling away, the ghosts of a
thousand bruises dancing under her hands.
When she arrives at the palace, it’s to the news that the girl has lost the
baby, and that feverish delirium is bound to take her to its side before long.
Regina isn’t surprised, and yet she clutches instinctively at her own stomach
and chest, face contrite until she’s laughing, hysteria tangling with the
sound. A womb and a heart, broken and useless both, lacking aplomb and
solutions, worthless before the tragedy, and why Regina should ever think to
clutch at them escapes her. How absurd, how inadequate, how terribly maddening,
how foolishly naïve, and perhaps she’s succumbing to lunacy after all.
Father exhorts her to go see the girl, and Regina denies him, throwing herself
into magic instead. She has gone through books and spells before, but she dives
into them this time, her library brewing with smoke of every color and
sickening smells as her hands, deft and quick, swirl and peel, cut and mix, her
mind busying itself with measures so she doesn’t have to think beyond them. The
girl asks for her, and Regina sends her potions instead. It’s useless, and she
knows this, healing magic always failing when death looms close, imposing and
demanding what it is owed, and yet Regina tries, unwilling to surrender in this
with as much stubborn determination as she possesses. Skill and time allow her
to brew the same exact potion she once bought from Rumpelstiltskin in a
maddened effort to save Snow White from the black death, but the physician
informs her that the bright blue liquid does nothing but make the girl sick, so
that even the scent of light soup has her groaning in disgust. Such news makes
Regina stop days of troubling yet floundering pursuit, the pit of her stomach
clenching painfully at thoughts of her pixie Little Ace, who’d once mocked the
huntsman because–
“… he’s the kind of person that eats without joy and only because he must; can
you imagine? How sad life must be when you can’t even delight yourself with
pepper and nutmeg and mustard, and oh, anise and saffron and…”
Regina crumbles, her knees failing her and making her tumble to the floor, her
spirit following behind. A sob claws at her throat but she denies it,
preferring the tight pain of it than the sound of pitying cries. Regina had
first called her the girland as such she should have stayed, the liberties
Regina had afforded her prohibited and her wandering lovingness kept at bay.
After all, Regina had known the girl was doomed to this from the moment she had
set foot inside the palace, and it is only her own naiveté that is to blame for
the careless attachment she has developed. Mother had told her that she was the
one hindering her own happiness, and she must have been right, for surely
Regina has learnt her lesson by now, knows that love is weakness, bound to turn
her into a trembling mass kneeling on the floor and clutching uselessly at the
linens of her bed, grieving that which was condemned, forgetting victories and
short-lived joys in favor of gloom.
Regina should have denied the girl, and yet, eyes as dark as her own had
conquered her with ease, had teased impossible thoughts of a future that Regina
knows for a fact isn’t to be her own. And if she’d dreamed of a baby born with
olive skin and dark curls to pamper and run after, of a cousin made sister who
didn’t have judgment in her eyes, of father relearning his old smiles while
running after a small child with old knees but boundless joy, of a family to
coddle her when the kingdom refused her kindness, then it’s Regina’s own sin
for allowing herself fantasies once again, when she knows the real world to be
a place of harshness and disgrace. And yet, how she lets her sobs escape at
last, for missing the past is most terrible, but missing that which has never
been is nothing if not a tragedy for the insane.
 
===============================================================================
 
On the eve of the Summer Festival, this year organized by her council without
supervision and with very little care, Rumpelstiltskin pays her a visit in her
bedchambers, the thrum of his magic crawling up her spine with a steady and
nearly tangible beat. He finds her combing unruly hair with trembling hands,
her latest foray into the villages frustratingly unproductive if mind-numbingly
distracting. Snow White is nowhere to be found and yet everywhere in the
kingdom at once, if not the princess herself then her legend, whispers brewing
war with the brightness of the summer days in ways they failed to do when
winter had buried everyone under heavy snows. Regina is but doing as she’s
promised, burning her way towards Snow with steady hands and a sneer painted on
her face. She knows the kingdom thinks her mad, and yet her hands move with
nothing if not calculated destruction, shying away from blood and choosing
clean torture instead, or simple death over torturous hours of irritating
silence. Which is not to say she hasn’t cut one tongue or two over insulting
comments, but then she has always been irascible.
The brimming rebellion and her portentous escapee make for the perfect
distraction from the girl still dying within the rooms of the palace, clinging
to life with stubborn strength and very little else. Father tells her that
there are lucid days, days when the blood clogging her lungs is barely
noticeable, but Regina ignores the silent plea hidden in his weary voice,
having already chosen to forget her own misstep and let the girl go with
graceful acceptance. Mother had denied her roots since the day she’d been born,
after all, and Regina had turned her back on them to be allowed entrance into a
different world, and it had been silly of her to ask for a second chance
through the girl’s words. The girl had painted her world for Regina in wide
strokes, and Regina is erasing them with insistent conviction.
When Rumpelstiltskin appears, however, Regina knows his visit regards the girl
with certainty born of far too many years of their wrecked friendship.
Rumpelstiltskin has a knack for finding her at her lowest, and tonight she
takes a moment to hate him with a fiery passion for it, for the secrets of her
life he has been privy to. Rumpelstiltskin always knows,and it’s his insight
which makes him worlds more dangerous than any other creature Regina may ever
encounter.
“I heard you were having yourself a bit of a pout, dearie,” he tells her,
standing behind her so that his image reflects on her mirror, irritatingly
dooming the calm combing her hair had brought her to run straight into sheer
annoyance. He seems unfazed by her glare, busy as he is with his own speech,
which he continues with, “I figured to myself: she will do that lovely
bellowing of hers in no time, search for her old master and a good deal. Alas,
no call; I’m a little hurt.” And he pouts, the idiot imp, the childish gesture
only managing to paint transparent menace on his golden features.
“No, Rumpel, no calls, no more deals; you always take more than you give.”
“Well yes, dearie, I am the Dark One.” He adds a flourish, of course, hands
going up and twirling with hypnotizing precision, foot thrown forward as if
readying himself for a dance. She has the fleeting thought that the girl would
have adored his dramatics.
She huffs as she stands up, minding her dress as the heavy fabric rustles
around her, the cincher around her waist readjusting and constricting
accordingly as she turns around to face the imp, always a smarter choice than
keeping one’s back to his traitorous self, even with the cheats of mirrors.
They haven’t seen much of each other for a while now, an ugly business with a
blind witch driven to madness by dark magic the last they had stood within the
same room, and the memory still making her uncomfortable even after long months
have passed. Rumpelstiltskin has spoken often of the twisted ways of magic, of
how easily it conquers weaker spirits until it possesses them rather than the
other way around, and Regina wonders if her violent temperament isn’t aided by
a brand of too dark magic escaping her grasp. Magic had given her the gift of
control, and lack of it is not a prize that she’s willing to pay.
“Why are you here, Rumpel?”
“Why do I do anything? I’m here to make a deal, of course.” He giggles after
his words, and the sound is involuntarily unnatural, as if he can’t stop
himself but would choose to do so. It makes her skin crawl.
“Unless it involves Snow White’s throat and my hands around it, I’m not
interested, dear,” she replies, rolling her eyes in a futile effort to
emphasize the frivolousness of his visit. She knows better than to think that
he won’t say what he wants to say, but that has never stopped her before. “Even
then, I admit there is a certain thrill to the chase; I would hate to deprive
myself of it.”
“Ah yes, mayhem, destruction, all very lovely. Cruelty and murder do suit you
so well,” he tells her, vicious little smile curling one side of his mouth.
“However I’m more concerned with the other little princess in your life. How is
it that you call her again? Little Ac–”
“Don’t,” Regina snaps, moving forward and into his space, and almost
immediately regretting it. She doesn’t want him looking too closely, doesn’t
want to risk him finding something in her gaze to make her cave to his will.
He giggles again, jarring and far too loud, his hand once again in the air to
accompany the rhythm of his words. “Ace of Hearts, Queen of Hearts… Ironically
adequate. Now, dearie, where was I? Ah, yes, the poor girl.”
“She’s already dead, there’s nothing to do,” Regina tells him, a well-learned
mantra that helps her close her eyes at night and search for sleep where her
mind would rather give her reddish nightmares.
“No, I suppose not; not in this world, at least.”
He lets the words linger between them, his smile turned into a smirk when
Regina’s eyes snap up unintentionally to meet his gaze. They’re temptation and
mystery wrapped up in glamorous theatrics, and Regina knows by now to remain
silent and wait, to allow the lull in the conversation to settle for long
enough that Rumpelstiltskin’s needs for tense anticipation will be satisfied.
His proposal will come next, and he is ever so good at that part of the game;
Regina’s interest is already piqued despite her best efforts to remain
unaffected.
He moves before he speaks, twirling on feet as light as a dancer’s and with
such brisk fluidity that he’s standing behind Regina before she has even
registered the first whirl of his hand. His fingers hover close to her then, at
her shoulders, as if he wants to rest his palm there but knows that Regina will
deny him the contact. Regina refuses to look back and give him the luxury of
spying her apprehension, the way his presence and that of his magic raises the
hairs at the back of her neck.
“Think of a new world, Regina, think of a place where your pretty cousin will
live a long and healthy life,” he says, and his words are whispers, secret
temptations written as seduction, twisted in a snake-like hiss. He moves so his
words now flow from a different side, confusion as important to his ploy as the
simple lure of his speech. “Think of a world where Snow White suffers within
your grasp.” A giggle, and suddenly his hand settles, not at her shoulder but
at her waist, his fingers tightening his hold when she intends to turn around.
“Rumpel–”
“A world made for you, Your Majesty; made byyou.”
Regina does turn at that, the movement sharp and jerky so his grip loosens and
his hand falls back down at his side. They’re standing far too close, and even
if her heels make her taller than him by at least an inch, he looms above her,
imposing with his thin frame and his scaly skin, a monster showing his claws
and digging them in where they most hurt. For her, by her,and she has no idea
what he means but the promise tastes sweet on her lips. Isn’t that what she has
always wanted after all, to rule over a world that is her own, where the laws
are hers to make, where she doesn’t have to hide under masks or titles, where
everyone bows and acquiesces and doesn’t rebel, where Snow White lies dead at
her feet? Such thing can’t be possible however, and if it is, then surely the
price is more than Regina can afford.
Her throat feels parched, and yet her voice is steady when she speaks next,
trying to find her ground with a sneer when she says, “Have you been drinking?”
He does so hate being mocked when he’s in the process of a particularly
inspired exposition, after all.
She expects his familiar anger, the one that pushes him up and close to her,
that shapes his fingers into gnarly claws and crooks his eyes with
imperiousness. He snaps his fingers instead, the curious tilt to his head
betraying smugness when a box appears on Regina’s table, purple smoke briefly
clouding the air around it. Regina gasps, the magic that condenses in the air
once the box is settled unexpected and strong, burdening her shoulders with its
sheer dominance. Rumpelstiltskin’s magic has always been dangerously
intoxicating, but the feeling that grips her stomach and crawls up to her chest
is indescribably stronger, an invisible creature of long nails scratching its
way up her body, painful yet shy of pleasurable. She doesn’t feel herself move,
and yet she suddenly finds herself standing by her table, her hand hovering
over the unopened box and whatever it is that lingers within it, the magic a
seductive temptress, calling to her own until it rushes over her shoulders and
down her arms, exploding in small clouds of purple around her fingers. She’s
breathless, her heart punching against her ribcage as if wanting to be freed,
and she feels hollowed out, carelessly and rapidly being emptied and then taken
over.
“The Dark Curse, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin says, standing next to her but
sounding far away, as if they’re both swimming underwater and the current is
rushing against her ears, deafening her to sounds other than the palpitation of
her heart, or the scratch of her nails as her hand settles over the lid of the
box.
It’s calling to her, this Dark Curse that Rumpelstiltskin has brought before
her, stealing her breath away and drying her mouth with as much ease as it is
robbing her of her will. Whatever lies within its text is nothing but the
darkest of magic, or perhaps darkness itself, dense and syrupy, tasting like
bile. It wants her, and it frightens Regina how much she wants it back. A
second gasp and Rumpelstiltskin must read her intentions of running as far away
from this curse as possible, for he grabs at her, one hand curled around her
cheeks with preternatural strength enough to make her pause. His fingers ground
her, and yet they’re not enough, the lure of the magic loosening her limbs with
sensual precision, making her slouch closer to the imp, forcing her eyes to
close at half mast, wanton. Their magic touches then, pervasive and palpable
between them, shining purple, black and gold in smoke that Regina inhales until
she can taste it, apples and candy and blood at the back of her throat.
Rumpelstiltskin smiles and she thinks he’s going to kiss her – for a moment,
she wants him to.
Desire punches her gut, gripping her with tenacity powerful enough to wake her
from the sudden frenzied ardor caused by the magic floating about her. She
fights Rumpelstiltskin’s grip, pushing at him ineffectually for a moment before
she manages to free herself, and stumbles backwards, still drunk with the
feeling as she wobbles away from the room and towards her balcony. She only
stops when the railing is pressing against her stomach, pausing her impetus and
forcing her to take big gulps of air, her senses clearing slowly as soft summer
breeze hits the clammy skin of her heaving chest and the back of her neck. She
grabs at her own hair with desperate fingers, pushing it upwards and holding it
up against her skull so the illusion of coolness touches her skin, and at the
same time closes her eyes and aims her face upward, looking for sunrays to
break through the spell. She can still hear it, calling to her from the inside
of the room, echoes of a hissing voice trying to pull her under.
“You want me to cast that,” she whispers, her voice breathless and nearly gone,
rough as if she’s been running for hours.
Rumpelstiltskin, already next to her and leaning against the railing with a
casualty that denies being affected by the power of the curse, shrugs one
shoulder, feigned non-chalance when he says, “It will get you want you want,
dearie.”
Regina has no doubts about that. That kind of power… but then, how can she
possibly pay the price that such darkness will require of her? She may be the
Evil Queen, but she’s not yet that desperate. She shakes her head vehemently,
denying Rumpelstiltskin’s silent petition and then dropping her hair back down
again, more settled now that she’s put some distance between herself and
temptation. It falls in loose curls around her, hiding her face from her former
master, and she uses the reprieve to breathe long and deep through her nose,
thankful for something as uncomplicated as air through her lungs.
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t allow her more than a feeble few seconds, however,
pushing her hair away from her face and behind her ear and then resting both
his hands against her cheeks, scaly knuckles pressing a caress there that could
so easily become a strike. It feels like mother’s special brand of calculated
affection, and yet Regina, still reeling from the call of darkness, leans into
the cold and sandpapery touch, a sigh parting her lips unwittingly.
“That curse is in your destiny, Regina,” he murmurs, low and intimate in the
small space between them, his words suggestion and command both.
Regina gives into the alluring nature of them for moment, her will yielding
under the inevitably of a word such as destiny, but as soon as her shoulders
sag, as if giving up under the burden of a decision already made for her, she
bristles. She pushes away from the imp once more, determination in the steps
she takes to separate herself from him, disgust at the nature of a touch that
she’d bended into not seconds before.
“Destiny?” She sneers. “No, Rumpel; this is just more of your games and your
tricks. It’s you pulling the strings and manipulating the world to your desires
and your will, it’s – it’s mirrors to another land and fake princes and a
thousand deals proving fruitful in the end. You wantme to cast that curse,
imp.”
“It’s yours to cast; do it, don’t do it. It’s your choice.”
“I won’t,” she snaps, adamant in her fury, further incensed by his dismissive
indifference, by how easy it is for him to pretend that there’s nothing at
stake when it so obviously is.
A curse so dark that it needs a powerful magic practitioner mad enough to give
into its pull, desperate and dangerous and frazzled that any price will feel
small and unimportant against the victory that it might offer. A Dark Curse for
an Evil Queen; and this is what Rumpelstiltskin has always wanted from her, is
it not? This curse is his long game, the fate he designed for her when he first
offered power and freedom, the path he set before her and that she walked down
so willingly, blind to his intentions, reckless in her search for control
within a life that she never chose for herself. And she wonders how much he has
maneuvered and handled, how many casualties have been nothing but the product
of his influence. Then, she thinks of a little girl dying not three chambers
away from her own, a girl put on her path and at the brink of death, a girl
part of a family that she had lost even before she’d been allowed to be a part
of it, a girl that by all means should have found her death in her journey
towards her palace, weakened by her own sickness and doomed to get lost in the
confines of the Infinite Forest. A girl for Regina to save, and on the other
side of the coin, a princess for Regina to kill, and enough frenzied
impulsiveness in her to think that enough to drown herself in the darkness.
“The girl, you sent her to me,” she states.
He smiles, wickedly amused. “I may have unselfishly pointed her in the right
direction once or twice.” He jumps, stepping away from the railing and once
again closer to Regina, demeanor playful when he points a finger at her, a show
of a scolding parent. “One doesn’t turn family away, after all.”
She scoffs, pushing his finger away from her face and sneers as she says, “Very
nice, dear, did mother teach you that one before she abandoned you? Or was it
after?”
“Don’t be upset over nothing, de–”
“What else, imp?” She interrupts, twirling away from him and throwing her own
hands up, twining them inside her tresses lest she feels tempted to start a
magical fight that she can’t possibly win. “Leopold’s guards finding me in the
forest, surely; what about the Summer Festival, and every other attempt against
my life? Are you behind those? And oh, dear Snow White rushing towards death
atop her horse right before my eyes? Just how much of my life has been a game
to bring me here?”
He giggles before her accusations, as if she’s the funniest thing he has ever
seen, as if a lifetime of tricks is nothing to him, dark and eternal where the
rest of them are nothing but vessels for his desires. She snarls and that only
turns his giggle into a full peal of laughter, the sound treacherous and
breaking goose bumps on her skin. When he approaches, she doesn’t fight him,
her limbs loose when he pulls her into a dancing frame, one hand firm against
her back and the other clutching at her fingers painfully, surely bruising them
by pressing her knuckles together. He moves forward into a fast-paced waltz,
and Regina follows for a moment, dumfounded enough that they’ve danced twice
across the balcony before she disengages herself, using a fancy twirl to drive
herself away from his figure.
“Haven’t we been dancing together for too long for you to be mad now?” He
questions her, his eyes shining with mirth. “You’ve always known who I am and
what I’ve done, and yet you have stayed like a good little pet.”
“You dare–”
“I do,” he snaps. “Haven’t you gained as much as you’ve lost, Regina? Cast that
curse and all you desire will be yours.”
“At what cost?”
“One that you will pay, eventually,” he answers, a smirk now between his lips,
so self-assured and patronizing that Regina can do nothing but turn, clutch at
the railing once again to hold herself upright.
“I will not, dear,” she replies, thankful that her tone is steady and brokers
no argument, that her hands are nimble even if turning white with the pressure
she’s affecting on the railing. “No more games, Rumpelstiltskin. I will not
cast your curse, but I will end you for everything you have put me through.”
“Death threats? Trembling in my boots, dearie.”
Regina laughs at his mockery, turning around with a smirk on her lips and
shoulders thrown backwards, the stance of a queen on the prowl. Yes, they have
been dancing together for too many years now, and it is about time that they go
to war instead. “I didn’t say a thing about death, dear,” she replies,
approaching him this time after spending their time together stepping away
instead. “Mother taught me better than that.” Then, with a bitter laugh, “So
did you for that matter.”
“Did we now?”
Regina’s lips paint themselves into a smug grin as she leans closer to him,
face and chest forward so that she can breathe into his face, focus her gaze on
his eyes. Seductress and executioner both, she declares, “I am going to destroy
you.”
He matches her smirk with one of his own, and Regina realizes she wouldn’t have
it any other way. It will only be all the more satisfying once she strips him
of his power and makes him crawl on his knees and beg for her mercy.
“And the girl?” He questions, a funny little shake of his head and his hands
waving about. “Little Ace of Hearts,” he singsongs, every syllable the note of
a sad song.
Regina turns her eyes away from him then, moves her hands so they’re tangled
and resting closer to her own heart. Little Ace of Hearts, brought to her by
his mangling hands, little fae of a family long lost, with eyes like Regina’s
and charm so stubborn that it’s broken Regina’s walls. And yet. And yet she’s
not a good enough gain for whatever price she would have to pay.
“She’s already dead,” she states.
Rumpelstiltskin laughs behind her, and when he approaches and presses both
hands to her arms, loosely holding her as he whispers, Regina bristles once
again, wanting to shy away from his touch while not wanting to give him another
glimpse at the effect he has on her.
His face comes closer to hers, hot puffs of breath touching the skin of her ear
when he whispers, “Chilling, dearie. Mommy would be proud.”
Regina turns around with immediacy, hand thrown forward violently only to be
met by purple smoke, Rumpelstiltskin disappearing as abruptly as he’d appeared,
his laughter lingering behind him and echoing around Regina for a few moments.
It’s not the only thing that he’s left her with, however, for the curse
remains, hidden within its box and humming curling promises to Regina’s
attentive ears, waiting for her to bend to its will and give it life. She bites
her lip, pressing the small of her back against the railing and closing her
eyes, fighting the influence. It rips into her however, tendrils that feels
like claws and dig into her ribcage, promising a time of reckoning, a moment
for a decision to be made. The moment is not this night, however, not this
night where her cousin dies and Snow White lives, and where Regina’s madness is
not yet so thoughtless. She twirls her hand in the air and casts the box and
the curse inside it away, conjures it inside her vault, to be surrounded by
precious beating hearts, where it can palpitate between them, and wait.
 
===============================================================================
 
The girl dies quietly and unceremoniously, heaving her last breath in the
middle of the night and spreading relief through a palace that has seen her
clinging to life purposelessly for far too long. Father tells her that she died
with a last request to see her, and the bitterness in his tone shakes Regina to
the core, makes her feel inadequate inside her own skin. She tells herself,
adamantly, that her coldness and defeat wouldn’t have brought the girl any
comfort, and repeats the thought until she believes it to be true.
They bury her under a light spattering of rain, which Regina supposes is fair,
if not for the sun of summer, which comes out as soon as the clouds disappear
with even more obnoxious brilliance than before the drizzle. The service is
short and to the point, and Regina stands with her head hanging low and clad in
a heavy yet simple black gown, a hat with thin and translucent fabric that
covers half her face hiding away eyes that refuse to cry. She figures that she
has already shed whatever tears the girl deserved, and dwelling on the subject
of an inevitable destiny makes her feel ill. She feels itchy, as a matter of
fact, the fabric of her gown too thick for the light weather, and her hands
nervous as they straighten her skirt or pick at her fingerless gloves. She
can’t wait to escape and do something other than stand forlornly in mourning of
the nuisance that was the girl, perhaps burn something or kill someone, yell
for no reason at all or ride until her muscles can’t hold her up anymore. She
hates the feeling, and blames her anxiousness on the unpleasant way her eyes
insist on prickling, and on the boring tone of the speech being uttered in the
girl’s name. She would have hated the passionless voice trying to honor her,
and Regina wants to laugh hysterically at the thought.
The service finally over, Regina runs back towards her bedchambers, all thought
of ladylike elegance forgotten as she does her best to avoid father and the
uncharacteristic rage she knows he’s harboring against her. It only makes her
own anger ignite, the thought of him daring to be furious at her in the late
name of the girl – there was never any anger for her, after all, not when
mother’s fingers were shaping bruises on her skin, when long days and nights
were spent within the oppressive humidity of a dark cellar, when she was being
walked to a minor death in the arms of her future husband, and Regina fears
herself capable of hurting daddy in the throes of her own thin-skinned
fickleness.
By the time her guards close the doors behind her she’s already pulling at the
strings tying her corset together, wanting to tug herself free from the damp
fabric weighting her down. She’s distracted enough that she’s startled by the
hunched figure of the huntsman, uncharacteristically sitting at the edge of her
bed rather than at her table. She stares at him dumbly, finding it impossible
to remember at which point she’d ordered him brought to her chambers, and with
which particular purpose. The table is set for two, however, so she must have
wanted him here at some point or other. She looks between him and the table,
indecisive, hating the steaming dishes presented before her even when she
hasn’t eaten properly in days, her stomach queasy at the mere thought. The air
smells sickly sweet around the table, and she realizes that the offered dessert
is one of the girl’s favorite sweets, a warm concoction of corn, apples and
membrillo that she’d once prepared herself before writing down a recipe for the
Head Cook. Regina hadn’t been a big fan, finding it entirely too pasty and
sugary, and she remembers the huntsman valiantly nibbling at it with a forced
smile on his face, because of course he’s the kind of person to eat something
he finds disgusting just to please a friend. Regina groans at the unwanted
memory, making up her mind immediately.
“Get out,” she orders, easily ignoring her guest while she walks towards her
mirror, her hands tugging at her headdress.
She removes the hat with deft fingers, and the reflection looking back at her
is that of a perfectly made up face, dark kohl around her eyes and red paint on
plump lips. It’s artlessly flawless, and for some reason it strikes her as
fake, a mask that she doesn’t wish to wear. She looks away, and in doing so,
finds the huntsman’s figure once more, elbows against his knees, head lowered
and face hidden away, no sign of movement in his demeanor.
“Have you gone deaf?” Annoyance laces her tone, today of all days one in which
she wishes all her orders easily complied with; she honestly has no strength to
put up with the aloof despondency of her prisoner.
His lithe shoulders move under his thin shirt like a puzzle, and then he’s
looking up and straight at her, something wildly desperate hidden in the depths
of his eyes. It’s absurd to think of his emotions when he’s nothing but a
collection of memories and echoes inside a hollowed out chest, and yet his eyes
hold hers with furious despair, begging silently for something that Regina
doesn’t understand. It makes her breath hitch, and she wonders how it is that
the faceless imitation of a man that she has turned him into can look at her
with such blunt candidness, pushing at her masks until she’s the one revealing
her true face. His eyes are uncomfortably invasive, filled with impossible
sentiment, and it forces her to avert her gaze abruptly. He’s no one, he’s
nothing, barely more than a toy for her to play with when she’s bored, and he
has no right to stare at her like that.
However, as if cued by her refusal to stay locked within his gaze, he moves
fast as lighting, propelling his body forward until he crashes against her, her
surprised gasp swallowed when he pushes her against the table, her ass landing
half on top of it and her hands shooting backwards, dishes falling to the floor
and crashing loudly. Scents mix unpleasantly when the food spreads on the
marble floors, sweet and sour wafting up her nose and only adding to the
confusing abruptness of the moment. Dazed momentarily, the cool sharpness of a
blade against her throat makes her gasp. The huntsman is holding an innocuous
table knife against her throat, surely edged enough to hurt but not to kill,
but his weight as he holds her against the table is threateningly distracting,
his body entirely too warm above hers and the rapid rise and fall of his chest
confounding.
“What are you doing?” She demands, beastly snarl uncomely on her lips.
His eyes remain wild and agitated, and when Regina moves a hand jerkily away
from the table and towards his face he traps it with a strong grip, leaving
them in a physical struggle that she can’t possibly win, the blade digging
painfully enough against the skin of her neck that she has trouble swallowing.
She laughs, nonetheless, sandpaper-like bitterness tangled in the sound, wry
amusement at the huntsman finally putting up the fight that she has been
taunting out of him for years now. Their skirmish continues but for a moment,
Regina soon tiring herself of the futility of the attack and pressing a burst
of painful magic against the hand holding the knife, content to let it go only
when she hears the bones of his wrist crack. He hisses and the knife escapes
his fingers, cluttering away when the floor stops its fall. It’s not enough to
deter him, however, his hand going back for her neck and resting around it,
loose enough that it’s only shy of painful, a menace that he doesn’t seem
willing to go through with. His face is as close to hers as it’s ever been, his
breathing uncomfortably hot against her cheeks and lips, and never before has
he seemed so human, violence shining in his eyes.
“What?” Regina demands once again, acutely aware of his body between her legs,
of the sweat on his fingers where they’re still holding her wrist, of the
sudden temptation of lips thinned into an ugly grimace.
He swallows, and she watches with rapt attention as his throat bobs, the skin
stretched with tension. He licks his lips and his expression softens, his eyes
turning into a puppy-like turndown that steals the danger away from his face.
His voice is but a whisper, raspy when he says, “I can’t even mourn her. She
was – she was… special,and I feel nothing.”
“Aww, are you angry because you can’t cry?”
He growls, and suddenly all those stupid tales the maids like to tell about him
and his being raised by wolves don’t seem all that inaccurate. He pulls from
her wrist as if to shake her, and the uselessness of the aggression makes her
laugh, something broken and cruel.
“You’re a monster,” he intones.
She shrugs at the jibe, always preferring for him to see the monster than the
cracks hiding beneath it, and then frees her wrist from his grip with an
insistent yank. That she manages it without much effort is but proof of his
unwillingness to hurt her despite what his countenance might suggest, and so it
is with a smirk that she reaches for his chest, the pads of her fingers
stroking softly at the place where his heart doesn’t beat. Warmth seeps from
his skin to hers even with his shirt between them, but the feeling of it is
short-lived, the huntsman snatching her hand away with renewed strength before
he launches forward, a snarling beast for a too brief moment before he presses
unforeseen lips to her own, dry and harsh, his teeth skimming the skin of her
mouth without daring to bite.
She breaks away from it, demanding, “If you want to do this, then do it like
you mean it or don’t do it at all.”
He growls his answer before he latches onto her lips, and then he gives her
everything she wants and more, teeth, lips and tongue brutal against her own,
her skin singing under the abuse. He kisses like a wild beast, imprecise but
riveted, and Regina returns the favor with equal fervor, sinking into the
moment and allowing his flesh to steal her thoughts away. She perches herself
more comfortably on the table, her back straighter so her chest is pressed
tight against his, their unmatched breaths forcing them even closer. Her chest
heaves without rhythm, his skin so very warm even through layers of clothing
that she feels as if her breasts want to escape the confines of her corset,
spill forward until they’re pressed against his skin. There’s no time, though,
not when she finds herself fumbling with the laces of his breeches , the
movement inordinately clumsy as he returns the favor by digging his arms under
her layered and heavy skirts, desperately searching for skin.
His teeth find her neck at the same time his nails find her thighs, and the
combined feeling rips a moan out of her throat, her head thrown back and her
eyes opening unexpectedly wide when pleasure spikes up her spine, the surprise
of his ferocity as exciting as his touches alone. She parts her legs wider for
him, cradling him in and panting when she finally gets a good grip on his cock,
hard and slick on her hand. She laughs, mocking his arousal even as she finds
herself matching it whimper by whimper, the harsh loudness of their combined
breathing surprisingly enticing.
She’s still too dry when he finds his way inside her, but Regina welcomes the
rawness of the intrusion and how it turns her into a creature of physical
feeling alone, thoughts and emotions flying out the window as she turns into
nothing but a woman with no desire to come up for air. She finds his mouth
again and pulls him against her, her fingers claw-like at the back of his neck
and crawling up between soft strands of curly hair, her legs tightening about
his waist and the heel of her boot finding the globe of his ass, encouraging
him into his discordant and hard thrusts. He tightens his own grip with equal
fervor, his nails digging deep on the flesh he finds, marking her hips and her
ass, raking down her thighs and eliciting sighs of pleasure to be swallowed
immediately by his eager tongue.
Another plate falls and crashes on the floor, but the noise barely registers,
the feel of him smooth now that she’s wet around him and that the scent of sex
and their mingled sweat invades her nostrils, pushing every other sensation to
the back of her head. It’s a bumbling effort on their part nonetheless, the
unexpected thrill of it adding to their fire and building it towards bliss in a
jerky struggle towards satisfaction. It happens, however, with startling force
and delicious suddenness, arching her spine involuntarily and stealing a
gasping moan away from her parted lips. He follows with near immediacy, and she
can’t help but laugh after their mutual moment of euphoria.
She drops back against the table, resting her weight on her elbows and panting
harshly, her eyes unfocused even as she tries to come back from the high. He
remains inside her as he recovers, his hands now splayed on her thighs rather
than digging moon-shaped dents into her flesh. She hopes he’s left bruises
behind, even as his looming weight is beginning to feel stifling, the enticing
warmth of his skin more uncomfortable by the second. He doesn’t move, however,
so she’s the one to push at him until he’s stumbling backwards, the feeling of
him sliding out making her flinch. He fumbles with his clothes as soon as he
steps back and away, a fleeting grimace of disgust crossing his features now
that the heat is gone. She rolls her eyes at his predicatively, and so remains
just where she is hoping to make him uncomfortable, her legs parted and her
skirts rustled around her waist.
“I suppose you are good for something, after all,” she drawls, the curl of her
lips amused mockery.
He turns her way with his lips parted, as if unwilling to say what’s on his
mind. He’s too kind to admit to his distaste, she muses, and far too gentle to
enjoy their encounter for exactly what it was, nothing but a discordant moment
of hatred turned into lust. He’d wanted to feel something and she’d hoped to
stop feeling everything, but he’s the kind of man that will fuck the Evil Queen
and tell himself that he’s making love to the woman behind the moniker. The
thought makes her huffy, and she stands up on shaky legs, covering herself up
primly even as he keeps staring at her, dumbfounded and with his palm pressed
against his chest, rubbing at the skin there as if he can coax lost feelings by
sheer determination. His expression, wild and attractive moments before, now
feels silly to her, so she turns away and towards her vanity, already thinking
of a clean face and a warm bath.
“It’s so like a man, you know,” she declares when she feels his eyes still
settled upon her, as if waiting for a proclamation of feelings that she doesn’t
have.
“What is?”
“To search for your heart inside a wet cunt.”
The crassness doesn’t deter him, and his eyes remain on her unwaveringly, so
that Regina turns to find his gaze once again. He’s searching for something in
her, and Regina hates that he won’t find it, and that he will dare to declare
her lacking.
Finally, he asks, “Did you ever even love her?”
And Regina, inside her chambers that smell of spilled food, before the prisoner
that she’s just allowed between her thighs, with hair tousled and lipstick
smeared, disjointed chaos where she has pretended to be precise destruction,
looks down and away, and whispers, “No, I suppose I did not.”
Chapter End Notes
     (A) From "The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness" by
     Florence Hartley
     (B) From "The Story of Griselda" by Charles Perrault
     --
     (1) Cielo, are you trying to win a race?
     (2) Little Ace
     (3) Little Ace has prepared a special meal for you
***** Part VIII *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Implied eating disorder.
     TW2: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW3: Mentions of past miscarriage. Mentions the canon events of
     "Mother" (4x20), where Regina takes a potion to make herself barren.
     TW4: The farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil Queen
     tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence and abuse; a little
     more violent than canon, actually.
     TW5: While I've defined the Hunstman/Regina relationship as
     consensual up to this point, it does deal with obvious power
     imbalance and emotional abuse.
     ---
     Translations at the end, as always.
     AN1: The events happening here are canon compliant to the best of my
     abilities, but I've stretched the timing a little bit, mostly because
     while OUaT likes its romances to fall under a "Hey, I just met you
     and this is crazy, I will always find you, True Love maybe?" type of
     thing, I like to pretend that Snow and Charming spent more than an
     afternoon together before defying kings and queens for their love.
     AN2: While I've watched season 5 (because I'm a masochist, obviously)
     I won't be adding whatever convoluted plotting has become canon
     during it in this.
     AN3: Also, I've gone back to Tumblr after veeery long time away, and
     I'm not all that active yet, but I'm amor-y-chocolate if you guys
     want to find me.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                                        
The first winds of autumn bring with them heavy rains and cloudy skies, the
scents of fresh fallen leaves, acorns and pumpkin pie, as well as the sight of
ripe and shiny apples ready to be harvested. Accordingly, the first early
afternoon that affords them grey yet rainless skies, Regina finds herself
perched on a stool and picking apples, a task that she had taken upon herself
the moment the tree had been transplanted to the palace, and which Leopold’s
court had eventually decided was quirkily charming, if only for how much Snow
had enjoyed lending a helping hand. There is no help this time around, but the
people that remain at her palace gather about her nonetheless, her council and
her guards already used both to the sight and to Regina’s extravagant
inclination of caring for the tree. Autumn months are apple months; everyone in
the palace knows. Just as well, everyone knows that the apple tree has the
talent of gifting Regina with a sigh of patience and tranquility that has been
glaringly missing from her temperament as of late, and so they seem to receive
the respite of the season with thankful contentment.
The sun begins to wane and Regina finds herself sitting on the ground and
forcing her companions for the day to do the same. Father is more than happy to
comply, the pain of his ever-weakening knees easy to forget when Regina’s
wishes are of such innocence and so easy to fulfill – she does wonder, as he
holds her hand between his own and over his lap, if he can spy something of the
younger girl she’d been back at the manor in these moments. Her council members
aren’t quite as content with the arrangement, but they know better than to
question her, particularly when she finds herself in a serene mood. Truth be
told, the past handful of weeks haven’t seen her demeanor anywhere near sedate
or amicable, her countenance despondent yet vicious instead, and anyone a
possible victim to her indiscriminate malice. Proof enough of such behavior is
poor Rivers, whose clumsy attempt at flattery while staring down Regina’s
cleavage had afforded him the newly appointed position of Mirror Bearer, and
has seen him carrying an impossibly ornate and weighty mirror around for weeks
now, shadowing Regina with the zeal of a man fearing for his life. Even now, he
hasn’t been given the privilege of sitting down, and continues to struggle
under the burden of the object, despite Regina having no wishes of speaking to
the genie trapped within it.
The newest gardener had fallen victim to her wrath just as well, good old Fritz
having died not too long after Regina’s little cousin, following the trail of
death the girl had seemingly set them upon, and his substitute finding an early
death barely a month later. The man had proven his incompetence by filling the
gardens with juniper flowers, which had sent not just Regina, but also Duchess
Adela and the Treasury Master, into an allergic fit so heavy that their council
meetings had been an exercise in futility for weeks, runny noses and cottoned
heads as undignified as they had been exhausting. Her Royal Doctor had
accompanied the gardener in his fate when he’d insisted that Regina’s malice
was merely a sign of her being moonstruck, a kind way of calling her raving mad
if Regina had ever heard one. That he’d followed his statement with wild
theories of evil spirits and lectures on the punishment of sins and tests of
faith and character had been enough to afford him a twisted neck, the heavy
thump of his lifeless body as it hit the floor a sound that Regina is already
far more than used to; life comes so cheap these days, after all.
It must be such displays of snappish irritation that have her Military Advisor
trying to change her mind on the subject of her open doors policy on the
palace, a discussion that he’s been trying to draw her into for days now and
that Regina has adamantly closed with little more than a couple of harsh words
and a frustrated groan.
Regina, for all the acts of evilness she’s become infamous for, has always had
an open door policy towards commoners who need a night under a roof and food in
their bellies, and has offered such courtesy to those who dare make their way
towards her palace, a spark of benevolence that had cost her attempts against
her life as well as petty thefts in the past, but that Regina had insisted on
holding nonetheless. She’s never wanted her kingdom to starve under her rule,
has never wanted to give people reason to deem her senselessly ruthless, has
always hoped to make them understand that if they’re ever victims to her wrath
then it is their loyalty towards Snow White what inflames her, and not
capricious despotism. Her efforts have garnered her no peace from hatred or
abuse, however, and Regina has no desire to give while getting nothing in
return anymore. Thus, her palace has been closed to uninvited guests, and the
overreaching horror of her rule furthered by tongues quick to speak ill of her.
Duke Nicholas is of the opinion that she’s being childishly stubborn on the
matter, a thought that Regina has simply chosen to dismiss.
“Now do be a dear and speak of matters that are, in fact, your business; what
news come from the southeast borders?”
Her Military Advisor doesn’t push the subject, but rather chooses to drone on
and on about the tumultuous rebellion raging inside her borders, which neither
grows nor diminishes, and which while controlled, keeps bringing her a steady
stream of dead knights frustrating enough for Regina’s anger to boil over with
now familiar ease. It fails to gather much of her attention this particular
afternoon, however, her interests far more enraptured by the shiny skin of the
picked apples. As she pushes the words being spoken to her to the back of her
mind, she busies herself with selecting the most delicious looking apple, ready
to enjoy the juicy treat with elation. She’s lost desire and taste for food
lately, and as she wraps nimble fingers about a piece of fruit, she feels
suddenly weightless. She would welcome the feeling, considering she has been
waddling her way through her days with heavy steps and tired limbs, her frame
cumbersome by virtue of lack of sleep and meager meals, and yet the acute
airiness isn’t pleasant in the least.  It’s not a sensation of light allowance,
but rather that of groundlessness and transparency, that of being consumed away
by bitter apathy. Momentarily, she pictures herself as one of those old witches
of folk tales, a too thin frame sagging under a hump, frail bones for legs and
brittle, long-fingered hands moving like spiders. A shiver runs down her back,
uncomfortable, and so it is with gusto that she bites into her apple.
Regina’s teeth sink into the fruit, and the next second she’s throwing it to
the ground, her hiss of disgust only stopped by a loud coughing fit. She gags,
and her reaction causes a stir about her, the council members looking at her
with sudden and wide-eyed curiosity, her guards reacting as if imminent threat
had broken about them, hands reaching for the hilt of their words, and father
tightening his hold on her hand with surprising strength. A scowl mars Regina’s
features even as she’s spitting the bite out of her mouth, and she glares at
the offending piece of fruit, browning flesh hiding behind the shape of her
teeth.
“It’s rotten,” she spits.
And indeed it is, the sight alone enough for bile to rise up Regina’s throat,
threatening to make her sick. She dry-heaves, disgust settling tight against
her breastbone and her tongue still tasting the revoltingly spongy flesh that
she had expected juicy and crisp. Jerkiness present in her movements, she
snatches a second apple and opens it in half with a snap of magic, only to
discover a brown heart and flesh infested by a slowly moving worm.  A sickened
cry follows her dropping of the apple to the ground, her queasiness only
growing when subsequent pieces of fruit reveal the same conditions, the whole
batch seemingly spoiled. Staring at the damage, Regina wonders if she’s not
looking straight into an omen of morbid calamity. Perhaps, she muses, there’s
nothing left in this palace of hers that doesn’t reek of death.
Her movements are cumbersome and clumsy as she stands up, but she gathers her
skirts up with swift efficiency once she’s straightened herself up just to
allow her steps to move faster as she runs towards her chambers. Noise follows
her; the Military Advisor and Duchess Adela calling after her, Rivers clumsily
running after her as well as the rest of her guards, but she ignores them all
and closes her door right against their faces, desperately wishing for
intimacy. Once inside her chambers and alone, she realizes that she’s breathing
heavily, jagged pants leaving parted lips and widening her nostrils, the taste
of something putrid plastered to the roof of her mouth. Warm disgust crawls
from her stomach all the way up to her throat, and she barely has time to reach
her washbasin before she’s vomiting, yellow bile staining her lips as tears
begin pushing at the corners of her eyes.
Regina loses track of time as she breathes heavily, arms braced over the
washbasin and eyes closed, her chest heaving wildly even as she tries to regain
her balance. Her head is swimming, though, her thoughts clouded and her stomach
queasy even when she knows there’s nothing else that could possibly come out.
Eventually, she drops to the floor, arms about herself, fingers tight against
her own forearms, trying to bring back feeling to her limbs, anything that will
make her feel rooted to the spot rather than floating away. It’s been a
difficult task as of late, her thoughts full of ghosts trapped in cobwebs and
refusing to leave, a little cousin lying dead underground and a princess hiding
away at corners she can’t reach.
It’s there that father finds her, his presence shaped in warm hands that push a
cupful of water towards her lips and that cradle her face, run slowly down
locks of hair. She’s far too old to crave such comfort, and yet she does. She
gives into it, hiding her face against the fabric of father’s soft-collared
shirt, allowing a careful embrace of weakened limbs and the soothing of soft,
mindless words spoken against her cheek, over her temple, surrounding her
senses in warmth she’s positively sure she hardly deserves. After all, if
anyone has been subject to her thin-skinned wrath, it has most certainly been
father. And oh, how Regina has belittled him for being such a willing victim,
for accepting lackluster apologies over malice bestowed with pernicious scorn.
It hasn’t been a fortnight since she had sent him on a trek back to the palace
by himself, after all, forcing him through dark and dangerous roads in an
hours-long journey; less than a week since she’d rejected an offer of chocolate
with harsh words and a reminder that she’s no longer a little girl in need of
her father; and just yesterday a kind word spoken towards Snow reason enough to
have him banished from her presence by toughened soldiers. How she wishes
sometimes he would dare hate her, for then perhaps she would believe the words
that deem her evil.
This day she clings to him, though, clings to the one thing she knows and
understands, to the warmth of love undeserved yet freely given. Secluded away
in a familiar hug, tightness settles upon her breast, signal of the certainty
that her apples are but a sign of a world gone mad, and her, the responsible
force behind it. For surely it must be her that’s rotten to the core, her that
denied a dying girl her last wishes, her that toys and tortures her prisoners
with ease and delight, her that persecutes a princess elevated to hero by every
soul that should love her by right instead.  
And yet. And yet she refuses to believe such thoughts, to make herself a
villain in a story that has seen her used and diminished, that has made a
victim out of her and has condemned her for daring to fight back and take
control of a life that had never before felt like her own. The kingdom would
have her be a slave once more, a dutiful daughter to a mother that knew no
other passion than viciousness, a warm and easy wife to a man that chose her
with the same indifference he would have chosen a ring among a collection of
fine jewelry, a doting mother to a child that stole everything and yet
understands nothing; and above all, father would pray for her to be at peace
with such ordains. Moreover, her one saving grace, her impish teacher of the
dark arts, who had offered power and freedom to hands that had been desperately
helpless for so long, would have her be nothing but a servant to his own
wishes.
“It’s that dammed curse!” She exclaims all of a sudden, fury regained between
loving arms when father must have meant to inspire comfort.
There’s little comfort to be had, however, with the whispering temptation of
the Dark Curse ghosting promises over her senses, making otherwise firm hands
tremble with desires she can’t understand. She stands up with sudden urgency,
and as soon as she’s on her feet she realizes that she has neither purpose nor
destiny, so she ends up pacing mindlessly around her room, energy uncoiling
from within and forcing her to find a way to let it go. Anger is an easy
outlet, making her pace fast and her steps heavy, the swoosh of her long skirts
as they travel behind her and the clack of her heels insufficiently satisfying
when she wishes she had an enemy to unload her frustration upon. There’s
nothing but father, however, still kneeling on the floor and hugging the air,
as if missing the desperate figure Regina had allowed herself to be for a too
long moment. She does so despise herself when she allows herself to fall so
deeply into her own self-pity, when she fails to vanquish thoughts of haunting
ghosts and allows them to claw away at her senses, and she so begrudges father
for being both enabler and comfort to her depression.
“Cielo,what could possib–”
“Hush, daddy; you can’t possibly understand,” she snaps, dismissive now of the
man that had made breathing possible only moments before.
Father simmers down, saying no more but remaining next to her. He struggles to
sit up and make his way to a chair, and Regina doesn’t even look his way as his
old limbs creak and whine as he moves. She offers no help, but instead focuses
her pacing with calculated precision, counting her steps until her mind loses
its haziness and she feels as if she’s capable of rational thought. Once
settled, she turns towards her favorite mirror and snaps her fingers until her
genie is reflected in the surface.
“Yes, my queen?” He drawls, annoyance so prevalent that Regina would choose to
punish him were his actual imprisonment not penalty enough.
“Show me the Dark Castle.”
The mirror before her ripples, magic pulling softly at the back of her head in
a well-known caress. The image that greets her, however, is the same that she
has been witness to for the past few months now – thick cloth covering the
surface on the other side and nothing but shadows moving behind it, hidden away
from Regina’s prying eyes. Regina groans, aggravated by the lack of results,
distraught that Rumpelstiltskin can best her with something as innocuous as a
piece of fabric placed with strategic precision.
Regina’s quest against Rumpelstiltskin, ignited by his latest offering of the
Dark Curse and fueled by years of unjust misuse, has proven to be a source of
frustration perhaps as deeply aggravating as that against Snow’s. However, if
Regina has proven relentless in her search for the princess, then she is even
more so when it comes to her former master, madness twisting her every thought
by virtue of the power of the curse, still in her possession and carefully
stripping her of her sanity with the enticing caress of dark magic. Regina had
hidden the curse away in between the beating hearts of her vault, and after
realizing that its pull remained as alluring as it had the moment
Rumpelstiltskin had given it to her, she’d cast every protection spell she’d
ever learned upon it, both to protect it from the outside and to ward herself
against it. Nonetheless, its powers prevail over any magic Regina has within
her grasp, and its calling remains pounding and overreaching. It’s not a
coincidence, after all, that Regina has received the visit of three different
magic practitioners in the span of a few months, all of them with varying
degrees of aggression and cunning, and yet with the same purpose in mind; that
the blind witch with the half-baked magic and taste for children’s flesh had
been the one to get closer to it is only proof of how careless the dark magic
itself is making Regina. The Dark Curse wants to be cast, and it seems as if
its insistent call will torture her for as long as she keeps it secreted away
and useless.
 Puny warlocks and witches are hardly of any concern to Regina, however. For
all of his sins, Rumpelstiltskin has created himself an efficient monster, and
she doubts there’s anyone in this realm capable of besting her abilities, if
not the imp himself. It is the curse itself what worries her, for if others
feel the call from faraway lands, then Regina must live with it, a pervasive
hum at the back of her neck, distracting her with ease, crying for her with
silent laments and reaching for her with invisible claws. It had driven her
insane for days at first, and now she barely controls it.
The nights are the hardest, when the palace is silent and everyone is resting,
and when all spirits come out to hound her, plaguing her every thought and
making her blood thrum with unanswered thirst. Not even after his death had
thoughts of Daniel haunted her so, his face distorted in her dreams, his hands
reaching for her and her reaching back, and their fingers always lingering in
the vast space in between, so close and yet so far apart, doomed lovers of a
tale that required their tragedy. Little Ace comes too, accusing at times and
understanding at others, painful inadequacy climbing Regina’s spine with dense
fingerless hands, twisting until the pain no longer feels like a dreamscape,
pressing constricting heat against her head and contorting every image with a
string of lost souls – Prince Bernard and Baroness Irene, soldiers dressed in
black that had dared to look upon her with gratitude, souls lost in Regina’s
war against the world at large. And yet the ghosts remain nothing but that,
Regina’s quixotic limbos never more demented than when inhabited by the living
– Snow White always a breath away, gathering allies and tearing hopes away from
Regina’s hands; the huntsman, his face distorted with distaste at whatever
shape of humiliation Regina chooses to bestow upon him; faceless men and women
holding fear but also pity, deeming her less, bursting with disapproval. And
then, when Regina feels as if the madness might kill her, as if her own sins
may drown her breath away and leave her lifeless while laying on her own bed, a
burst of light at the end of the tunnel, a vision of a wailing baby and blond
curls before a woman’s face pulsating behind her mind’s eye, teasing her with
impossible futures and yearning so acute that delirium promises to be more
painful still, for surely waking up from such hopes to a bleak world must be
enough to disarm her.
The Dark Curse is dark magic in as pure a form as Regina has ever felt, balming
in its promises while grueling in its unanswered requests, and it tempts Regina
with tendrils that are palliative and punitive both, a careful game of
pervasive allure invading her every sense. She has found herself standing
before the box hiding it without knowing how she’d gotten there on more than
one lonely night, and she has barely managed to fight the attraction. It tugs
at her very being, her heart and her body, the magic of it sensuous and
hollowing, merging with her own until she feels out of control. It is that, if
nothing else, that has kept her from falling into temptation, for as much as
her mind sometimes teases at her, insistent that perhaps uncovering the text
and understanding the magic will do her no harm, the unrestrained uncoiling of
her magic whenever she even comes close to the thought has stopped her with
swift and calculated coldness. She has seen people driven mad by magic, and she
has no wish to give herself to a wild darkness that will control her, and not
the other way around.
Nevertheless, every time Regina has thought about getting rid of the maddening
curse altogether, her rejection of the idea has been almost as abruptly
determined as her shielding against it. Destroying it is surely impossible, its
brand of magic hard to even contain, and giving it to someone else a completely
foolish thought, even if one Regina has entertained. There is no one she would
bestow such power upon, however, and more to the point, the idea that someone
else might hold the curse one that she rebels against with instinctual fury.
The curse is hers,its magic intimately personal when it trails its deceptive
fingers over her unprepared skin, its whispered promises private. She has no
doubt that the Dark Curse was made for her to cast, and so there are no hands
that she knows to trust for safekeeping; after all, who would be powerful
enough to resist it without losing their senses, and selfless enough to keep it
untouched? Such magic bearing such baiting provocation, and Regina knows that
if anyone but her would dare cast it, only nightmares would follow.
Rumpelstiltskin must have known, of course, if not that it would drive her to
ill-tempered despondency then surely that it would prove tantalizing in its
nature. No one understands Regina’s magic better than her teacher, and the imp
wants that curse cast for reasons beyond Regina’s comprehension. Whatever the
case may be, his foredoomed gift is but one more crime in a list so long that
Regina has no wish to even keep score. Thus her insistence on having eyes
inside his walls, on discovering secrets that may allow her to fight him with
his very own weapons. After all, one can’t hope to defeat the imp if not with
knowledge and treacherous tricks.
So far, all Regina has managed is to have a couple of his deals go sour, but
Rumpelstiltskin is not short on secondary plans, and such trifle actions have
barely brought any satisfaction other than amusing distraction over her
frustrating persecution of Snow. Regina wants to hit him where it hurts most,
but what could possibly damage such a creature? Regina’s thoughts have even
dared wander towards mother, but turning to her feels entirely too much like
running to mommy over a complicated situation, and Regina has known better for
a very long time now. She remembers with acute fidelity how, eight years old
and incapable of issuing orders, she’d gone to mother when her chambermaid had
refused to mend a small tear on a dearly loved dressed, claiming it too old and
ready to be shredded into rags. Regina had cried to mother, and what she had
been offered had been a lesson that neither her nor the maid had forgotten; the
old maid had gotten lashed and promptly sent away to harder manual labor at the
cornfields north of the state, and Regina had gone foodless for a day, which
she had spent shredding her own dress to pieces that she had then been forced
to burn.
“Remember you are a lady of this house, Regina,” mother had told her next day,
open palmed hand against her cheek as much a caress as it had been a warning.
“You must never count on anyone but yourself to have your wishes complied with,
my dear.”
The memory is powerful enough to make Regina shudder, the ghost of a child more
scared of asking for help than of facing any other task still present in every
fiber of her being. It remains difficult to decide whether mother had taught
her to be strong, or whether she had simply bestowed upon her the talent of
viciousness. Nonetheless, she’s positive that pitting mother against
Rumpelstiltskin might be a case of the remedy being worse than the malady, and
so Regina had banished the thought as quickly as she’d had it in the first
place.
Her own attempts have fallen shy of useless, however, and it had only been but
a little over a month ago when she had chosen to pay a visit to the imp at his
castle, determined to cast a spell on mirrors that he’d protected from her for
as long as she’d showed a particular talent with that aspect of her magic.
“Ah, dearie, whatever happened to I’m going to destroy you?” He’d questioned
her upon her arrival, the poor imitation of her tone and demeanor enough to
cause an involuntary chuckle.
“I don’t see why that might stop us from partaking in cordial business in the
meantime. Peasants are so dull that I find myself almost missing your
intolerable face, dear,” she’d replied, a one shoulder shrug enough to let him
know that she was always up for playing a game with a worthy adversary. “After
all, what is a small threat between old friends?”
He’d smiled at her, wolfish grin understanding her challenge with familiar
ease. “You do so amuse me.”
Even now, Regina understands that trying to cheat the god of cheaters might be
a foolish errand, but then Rumpelstiltskin himself had referred to her in more
than one occasion as brutishly childish in her relentlessness. She might not
succeeded, but she’ll try with everything she has. As it is, her spell is
powerful enough that it has given her mirrors a pathway into those at the Dark
Castle, and yet the outcome of her endeavor has proven disappointing by the
fact that a simple piece of fabric covering them is enough to keep her as blind
as she’d been before of the comings and goings of the imp. Regina guesses that
it’s surely the only reason why he allowed her the casting of the spell in the
first place, knowing her frustration to be greater when what bars her wishes
isn’t magic, but rather the most mundane of objects.
“That stupid, gloating, ever-knowing imp,” she groans, giving herself over to
tired limbs and dropping her weight on the nearest chair, which so happens to
be far away enough from father’s that he can’t possibly reach her without
moving. Father doesmove, but when he sits by her and grasps her hand he finds
it cold and lifeless, her fingers uncooperative as he threads them together.
She’s so very tired, and not even father’s touch is enough to take away the
lingering taste of spongy apple flesh from her tongue. She hasn’t eaten
properly in days, and now she can’t even imagine ever feeling hungry again. She
wonders, briefly, if perhaps Rumpelstiltskin isn’t to blame for this harvest of
rotten apples; he does so have a talent for knowing how to hurt her, even with
something as outwardly shallow as the fruit from her favorite tree. It’s her
roots that are being tampered with, however, and in days that have her feeling
both entirely too cumbersome and yet untethered, the brownish hearts marring
what should have been beautifully crisp flesh seem like both a personal insult
and a harbinger of destruction.
Regina sighs after a long and silent moment, pondering whether she wants to be
left alone and rest, or whether going back to her council and their pending
matters might be a better choice for her mind, which always seems closer to
restfulness when running away from idleness. She’s not particularly sure that
she can get anything done today, however, and the mild irritation still
coursing through her veins may just end up with further impulsiveness that she
doesn’t think she can afford. She’s almost deciding on claiming a headache and
diving for her bed and hopefully a mostly nightmare-free bit of rest, perhaps
even allowing her lady’s maid to force some soup in her if only to chase away
the foul taste at the roof of her mouth, when a sliver of light coming from the
mirror before her stops whatever movement or decision she was about to make.
Never before has she seen more than shadows, or heard more than mumbled sounds.
It takes a moment, but before long the fabric covering the other side is
falling away from the mirror, gifting Regina’s gaze with the sight of the main
hall at the Dark Castle, and a woman standing right before her eyes, the old
cloth now between her hands, and a delightfully mousy wrinkle to her nose as
she inspects it.
“Well, thatis new,” Regina muses aloud, instinctively leaning forward on her
seat as she inspects the figure before her, now busy discarding the cloth and
dusting the surface of the mirror instead.
Has Rumpelstiltskin acquired himself a new maid? Or has he been hiding that
pretty thing from her all this time? Regina can’t help but smirk at the sight,
for the woman is most definitely a thing to admire. Small, lithe, moving about
with efficient strokes as she cleans, and even in such lowly position,
incapable of hiding a careful grace about her, feet light as her blue skirts
bounce around her, wrists delicate, as if she were playing a familiar
instrument rather than cleaning. Not that she seems to have much expertise, or
to put entirely too much effort in the matter, actually, her countenance
resembling a curious fairy rather than a dutiful servant. Not that she can
possibly be the latter, for every single beat of her demeanor betrays a noble
upbringing, the natural ease of her motions precise and limber.
Regina watches, and she watches for a long time, until the woman eventually
gives up on notions of cleaning up altogether and picks up a boundless tome
instead, sitting herself by one of the big and ornate windows and humming
distractedly as she passes thin and fragile pages with something akin to
reverence. She makes for the oddest picture within the dark and cluttered room,
a nymph lost in purgatory while making her way to paradise, uselessly trying to
brighten up a place consumed by the darkness of its owner. There’s something in
her of Little Ace’s wistfulness, Regina notices, of the child of the fae
looking upon the world with enchanted eyes, and it makes Regina burn with
immediate hatred. Who is this woman that dares take such liberties within the
Dark One’s abode, and how dare she read and hum as if trapped within a fairy
tale when dwelling with such a creature?
A scowl mars Regina’s features, but she refuses to let go of this chance she
has been given, and instead watches for as long as she’s allowed to, watches as
Rumpelstiltskin comes into the room, as his teasing provocations fail to be the
barbed wires they are when facing Regina and become chockfull of playfulness
instead, as he imparts lessons to an attentive ear and drinks tea prepared by
noble hands and served in a chipped cup as if it were but the most exquisite
delicacy. Goodness, but the imp is preeningbefore this lady turned maid,
shining under her attention with a countenance so human that Regina thinks she
must be having a dream. Moreover, his lackluster and juvenile attempts at charm
seem to be doing the trick, the woman’s eyes large and captivated by the vision
of this boyish and bashful version of the Dark One prancing for her pleasure.
It’s confounding and yet surprisingly eye-opening, for in mere moments,
Rumpelstiltskin has unveiled his most pleasing and exploitable weakness – that
he is, after all, no better than a man with a beating heart, capable of
succumbing to the power of supple lips whispering words of admiration. It makes
Regina laugh, cackle even, delight in every clear peal at the sight of a dark
creature of powerful talents wishing himself a charming prince for the eyes of
a wilting and beautiful woman.
Next to her, father fidgets, surprise evident in his eyes at Regina’s sudden
change in demeanor, at her gait filled first with curiosity and then with
mirth. Feeling uncontainable satisfaction, she turns to him with a full smile,
cheeks surely flushed crimson. And to think she’d believed her destiny as
rotten as her apples for a moment.
“Won’t you look at that, daddy?” she questions, rhetorical and unnecessary.
“Who knew revenge would have such a beautiful face?”
 
===============================================================================
 
In what bards and carnies would entitle the Great Apple Trick of the Evil
Queen, Regina has rotten apples distributed among villages and pathways, a
symbol of virulent abandon that her council reproaches her for with far more
gravity that the situation requires. They had wanted her to feed the spoiled
fruit to her horses, but it had hardly seemed fair to her to feed her beautiful
and faithful beasts with such perished nourishment, while mocking her kingdom
had offered an opportunity for petty amusement. She does have so little to
laugh about these days.
The apple debacle is quickly forgotten, however, even if Regina knows the
failed harvest will persecute her until the next one comes about, hopefully
healthy and juicy. Nonetheless, there’s far more important business to attend
to, and while Regina dismisses her council’s worries about mean-spirited
gestures that do nothing for her popularity, she does listen when news of the
uprising of noble houses up north begin reaching her steadily. She worries and
frowns her way through weeks of war councils, unsure of how to proceed, and
careful not to allow her instincts to take over, particularly when dark magic
pulsing so close to her keeps blinding her to rational thought. The truth is,
she’d be more than happy to cut heads and burn houses with little to no thought
on the matter, but she refuses to be foolish in affairs as delicate and
influential as her standing among noblemen. Her policies of keeping the court
away from the palace have certainly garnered her no kindness, and coupled with
her proclivity to find entertainment in the terrorizing of the higher classes,
she knows most noble houses consider her insulting and conceited. However, she
has always counted on their fear of losing their position being of more
importance than calls for rebellion coming from commoners nobles have never
shown regard or care for in the past. She should have known better, and taken
the sign of Baroness Irene raising battle against her during the Summer
Festival years ago as the beginning of an inevitable downfall.
As it is, she has her hands suddenly overflowed with nobles up in arms from
within the kingdom, supporting Snow White’s claim to the throne. She’s not
surprised by the uprising coming from the north of the kingdom, where
conventions have always been more on the conservative side, and where the past
drab and hard winter had been responsible for entirely too much death despite
Regina’s best efforts. Those lands are also ignorant to Regina’s military
endeavors, whereas the south and southeast borders have been victim to
challenges and provocations from neighboring kingdoms, and have learnt to see
Regina’s Black Army as protection rather than abuse. Whatever the case may be,
insurrection among the ranks of noblemen brings disquiet to both her and her
council. After all, she knows she lost the commoners long before she even took
her seat as queen, and while love unobtained and popular protests are indeed
problematic, it is the nobility which has true power in their hands, money,
armies and regional seats influence enough to overthrow the royal sovereignty
if properly organized.
Regina can’t guess at Snow’s prowess in establishing herself as the secret head
of a rebellion, and she’s positive that the princess continues to run and hide
while the kingdom raises a flag in her name, her apparitions always incidental
and born of a limitless desire to be the hero the people claim her to be,
rather than parts of a complex plan to fight Regina’s armies. However, the
princess does seem to have developed an uncanny talent when it comes to
gathering allies, the throes of magical and not so magical beings following her
path only proof of an enchanting and unexplainable ability to inspire boundless
loyalty in her companions. The huntsman had been the first to fall prey to her
wiles; fairies, peasants and werewolves following right after; and now even
creatures as capricious and ill-intentioned as mermaids seemingly falling under
her spell. Then again, Regina shouldn’t be surprised that Snow had somehow
managed to cross paths with perhaps the only gentle siren dwelling within
Poseidon’s waters, and that the redheaded sea critter had ended up stabbing
Regina with a rusty fork in perhaps the most humiliating yet poorly attempted
escape Regina had ever been victim of. It’s been nearly a fortnight since that
particular encounter now, and Regina’s still seething at the steely look Snow
had given her, even while weakened by a tail and the unexpectedness of it all.
Regina has promised herself not to give into her most dramatic flares again,
but rather choose simple death over tricks and disguises, particularly those
that grant her the wrath of the old gods. She swears Rumpelstiltskin is still
laughing at her over managing to anger an ancient sea goddess thought long
gone.
Indeed it seems that the more allies Snow gains, the more grudges Regina
acquires, and so by the time the rebels in the north have been subdued, Regina
has decided to follow her council’s advice and travel there with the purpose of
issuing a pardon to the three counts leading the insurrection, even acquiescing
to her Military Advisor’s request not to deliver any kind of punishment. Regina
had set her mind on at least a fine of some sorts, and instead she’s readied
herself to deliver a speech on forgiveness and a hopeful future where the
kingdom’s desires are addressed without the need for violence. It’s all
terribly polite and diplomatic, and Regina leaves her palace with disgruntled
airs, determined to put up grumbling protests for as long as the journey lasts.
Duchess Adela travels with her, and she smiles approvingly as Regina weaves
kind words and overly compliments her hosts, claiming to be honored by such
reception and adamantly hoping for a future of peace and understanding. The
visit lasts no more than a week, and yet Regina hates every second of it,
shadows of the woman she had once been and thought already expelled taking over
her bearings with entirely too much ease. She’s constantly reminded of a past
long gone, when she’d been but an overpriced doll hanging from Leopold’s arm,
forcing smiles and quiet sadness to survive a court that willed her into
submission, and the feeling leaves a sour taste in her mouth. She even finds
herself refusing food and drink at the quaint gatherings organized in her
favor, wearing the softest dresses she owns, and speaking in a quiet voice that
makes no demands, but that rather is entirely too fond of the world please.The
whole ordeal makes her feel ill, and she’s inordinately relieved when she’s
finally following her party to her carriage and away from the northern houses,
carefully shredding away layers that she’d thought she’d never have to wear
again.
“Never ask something like this from me again,” Regina commands hours later,
eyes settled upon the dusty paths as they travel further north and all the way
through the night, any request of rest adamantly denied. It seems that no
distance will be far enough between her and their last abode before she will be
able to swallow without tasting bile.
Duchess Adela, having travelled silently next to her all this time while
distractedly perusing a tome on war history, doesn’t even bother looking up as
she answers, “You did well, Your Majesty.”
Regina scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest and aiming a swift kick at the
woman’s shins, making sure her heel does enough damage even through the
duchess’ heavy woolen skirts. “Do not speak to me as if I were a dog, duchess,
unless you want to find me inclined towards biting,” she replies, dismissing
the duchess’ disapproving gaze and subtle touch to her surely bruised leg.
“One must do what is necessary for–”
“Not me, dear, and not for those ungrateful hypocrites that will lift up in
arms again as soon as they’re done laughing about forcing the Evil Queen into
daftness and follies,” she snaps, driving her eyes back towards the road so as
to avoid the duchess’ now questioning gaze. “It was all an act, was it not? I
didn’t buy into it, and neither did them.”
The duchess chuckles at that, and the sound is such a rare occurrence from the
austere woman that Regina can’t help but look her way once more. Even her
lady’s maid, busy as she’d been embroidering away as means of ignoring them
both, raises a curious eyebrow.
“I do despise the sham, Your Majesty,” Adela explains, her tone revealing that
perhaps her abrupt laughter had been more a gesture of resignation than one of
amusement. “Perhaps the last leg of our journey will prove less trying.”
Regina clicks her tongue at that, stopping any other outward signs of annoyance
and allowing the duchess to go back to her reading. If leaving the palace to
play nice with a bunch of insipid minor lords had been irksome, then yielding
to her Military Advisor’s desires for a visit to the lands of the late Queen
Catherine will surely put the nail on a coffin that promises to burst open with
careless rage. Queen Catherine’s son, who had been crowned king on Regina’s
single and fateful visit to his kingdom, has spent a few years now requesting a
visit from her, intentions unclear and muddled by words of warm friendship
between adjoining nations, and Regina has been as quietly stubborn in her
denials as King Edmund has been in his invitations. No one has ever managed to
extract an explanation for such reticence out of her, and while such
determination has been mostly ignored as one more of her arbitrary decisions,
the latest uprising has had the Military Advisor campaigning for her acceptance
of a diplomatic visit, claiming the prevention of further mutiny from the
higher lands. After all, while Edmund’s lands hold his mother’s tradition of
self-sufficiency and quietness, keeping the kingdom usually far away from their
neighbor’s affairs, it seems all too risky to leave them be while the houses
closest to the border rebel. An alliance with a different kingdom could prove
deadly, after all, for it may just inspire others to join such war-like
endeavors.
Regina isn’t particularly worried, not when her own military prowess has proven
strong enough to bring King George and his allies to submission, and when
Edmund’s own forces are but a sigh of what George amasses, and his interests so
very obviously inclined towards peaceful indifference. However, their journey
north had seemed like the perfect excuse to accept a fortnight under Edmund’s
roof, never mind Regina’s personal desire to forget what had transpired there
all those years ago. She has always made a particularly strong effort to
consign to oblivion a woman that she had bedded and then killed without much of
a thought, bitter betrayal burning in her chest intensely enough to push her
into wasting life when she had hoped for companionship and understanding. Her
thoughts of Catherine still taste of regret, and she can’t help but travel back
to her kingdom and into her son’s welcoming arms with sour hostility claiming
her every thought.
Nonetheless, Regina drops booted feet on mudded pathways not a day later, and
faces the small castle that had so enchanted her the first time she’d laid eyes
upon it. It’s no less charming this time around, the warm colors and tapestries
covering thick walls pressing intimate relief against the cold autumn winds of
the north. The days of the season are brown, orange and deep red, and in these
higher lands, they smell of burning wood and toffee cakes, and they taste of
crops of healthy apples and sweet roasted chestnuts. It’s irresistibly
delightful, and Regina fails to fight the bewitchment even as she’s led to
Catherine’s old bedchambers, where they’d once shared their bodies with
unsatisfactory quietness and where the queen had met an early death at Regina’s
hands.
King Edmund captivates her senses with quiet evenings entertained by fiddlers
and bards, and with the rare allowance of solitary strolls through the nearby
forest, her guards far enough behind her that Regina can pretend they’re not
following her every step. It occurs to her that this small castle is much more
of a home than her palace can ever hope to be, renovations and redecorating
frenzies not quite managing to chase away the ghosts that continue to pile upon
Regina’s shoulders, and so it is that she finds herself breathing with ease,
when she’d thought the memory of late Queen Catherine would follow her around
for as long as she remained between the walls that had once belonged to her.
It’s not hard for Regina to realize, too, that putting distance between herself
and the taunting magic of the Dark Curse has lifted a fog from between her
eyes, her senses having become far more clouded by the sinuously tantalizing
presence of powerful dark magic than she had realized.
Truth be told, she had been rather apprehensive about leaving the curse behind,
both at the prospect of some magically ambitious person going after it, and at
simply letting go of its influence. Her magic had attuned itself so to that of
the curse than she finds herself surprised at the way it seems to be pleasantly
settling itself at the back of her head yet again, a comfortable purr of
controlled power instead of the unrestrained force thundering at the tip of her
fingers it has been as of late.
Mists lifted and senses sharpened, Regina is quick to realize that the king and
his step-brother, who owns the title of First Advisor of the Court, most
definitely want something from her. Regina can’t possibly fathom what it may
be, but even through the tranquility that takes over her, she easily spies the
slyness of the brothers, and the double approach they seem to be juggling
between them. First Advisor Roger is particularly fond of overly adorned
compliments of poetic fancies, it seems, and his folly may have irritated
Regina were she feeling a little less forgiving due to the intimate character
of the small castle. As it is, when the man frolics about her she simply allows
it with an amused curl to her lips, as if he were but an overly excited child.
The king proves worthier of her attention, however, quiet demeanor and a shine
to dark eyes to match his late mother’s, a tuft of curly brown hair atop a face
far too beautiful to be called ruggedly handsome. Regina doesn’t dislike him,
and she finds herself wondering if his game is nothing more than a strangely
quiet way of courting her. It would seem like a uniquely strange match, were it
not for the small daughter Edmund’s recently deceased wife had left behind, and
had rumors of Regina’s lack of an heir not run wild through the realm for
years. The commoners are fond of the idea that she offers her secretly birthed
children as sacrifice to a personal demon, and Regina can’t help but think that
there are shades of truth in the otherwise ridiculous hearsay.
Whatever the case may be, Adela accuses Regina of seeing hostile shadows where
there are none, never mind that every single time she’s left her guard down for
a single moment she’s ended up victim to attacks and slander. Regina allows
herself no naiveté in this instance, and soon finds herself tired of the
brothers' performance, which always finds its end at a request for company on
an otherwise lonely walk by the forest. Patience has never been one of her
virtues, after all, and subtlety the first layer she’d shed the moment Leopold
had been resting on his death bed, and she finds that she no longer enjoys
those games that she doesn’t stage herself. Honestly, the whole thing is only
managing to trample with her restfulness, and so before any ill-intentioned
surprises can come her way, she is the one to invite the king to join her for a
peaceful afternoon stroll with the simple intention of inquiring about his
purposes. After all, as far she can tell, perhaps she’s perceiving violence
when the man simply wishes to bed her, or something equally inconsequential,
and the duchess may just be right about calling her on her paranoia.
As they walk, the evening sun begins to wane, painting the forest in beautiful
orange hues, which seem to render King Edmund incapable of holding his tongue.
He speaks fondly of the history of his kingdom, his inclinations towards art
and the loveliness of a wife that made him into a far too young widower. Regina
couldn’t care less about it all, but she allows him his gentle retellings, at
least until he crinkles his nose into an amused expression, and gives an
incredulous tone to his otherwise rich voice.
“And to think mother wished me married to Princess Snow White!”
Regina’s fist tightens imperceptibly at the mention, as well as at the memory
of Queen Catherine choosing to deal with Leopold behind her back for a marriage
arrangement that had failed to come to fruition. The queen had died for her
carelessness and the betrayal that she had sliced Regina’s heart with, and she
finds herself wondering if the past won’t come to haunt her after all.
Rather than express any thought on the matter, Regina simply wonders, “Oh?”
Edmund laughs, the sound deep and throaty, attractive in a way that may have
prodded Regina into lust were her sexual cravings not as twisted as her regular
appetite these days. As it is, lovemaking has no place in her life as of late,
whatever twisted sexual relationship she has developed with the huntsman little
else than an exercise in mutual humiliation. There is something rather alluring
about this king, nonetheless, eight years her junior and ripe for corruption,
as intimately enticing as the kingdom he inhabits. Then again, his mother had
once proven equally disarming, and yet she’d failed to please Regina’s
passions.
“Mother spoke to you about it, surely.”
And oh, how simple it is to spy unasked questions in such a statement. Is this
the king’s game? An enquiry about an old planned alliance that never came to
pass? It seems like too much of a trifle to require subterfuge, but then Regina
has grown so unaccustomed to courts and their dealings, and has so very little
interest in such affairs, that perhaps such questions necessitate a long
preamble of pleasantries.
However, without clear knowledge of what the king wishes to ask, Regina chooses
to play her cards close to her chest, and distractedly answers, “My
acquaintance with your mother was hardly of any consequence, dear.” Then, with
knowing cheek, she adds, “You know how it is with women, don’t you? It’s all
dresses, babies and gossip with us.”
“My mother was hardly an airheaded woman,” the king counters, severity tingling
at the corners of his words and betraying a sigh of previously well-hidden
tension. He seems to realize the snappishness of his reply immediately,
however, and is quick to palliate any possible offense by saying, “Neither are
you for that matter, Your Majesty.”
Regina stops in her tracks as he says this, narrowing her eyes in mild-
annoyance at finding herself unable to divine the king’s true intentions.
Superficially, it would be easy to incline her thoughts towards quaint
seduction, and yet she has a hunch that the king means her ill in some way.
Nonetheless, the spot she has casually chosen to stop their walk is most
adequate to romance, a small clearing among thick trees, the crunch of fallen
leaves beneath their feet and the scent of pinewood around them, only the pale
fading light filtering through the trees to illuminate them. Coincidentally, it
makes for a perfect spot to stage someone’s death, the blowing wind enough to
hide any screams.
“As I said,” Regina insists, her gaze wandering and her tone aloof, “I barely
knew the late queen, airhead or not.”
King Edmund steps closer then, his thin frame failing to be imposing but his
posture leaning forward to suggest a prowling animal. “There is no need for
lies, Regina,” he says, and Regina’s eyes snap at that, get tinted with fury at
the casual use of her name.
“Careful, boy; I don’t advise abusing my forgiving mood.”
“Or what, Your Majesty?” He questions, disdain dripping from his voice as he
drops any pretense of casual admiration and instead rams straight into
defiance, squaring his shoulders and growing taller with the single gesture.
He’s not wearing armor and yet he’s carrying his sword, which Regina only
notices when he steps closer to her, crowding her space and snatching her hand
in a tight grip as soon as she’s within his range. His grasp is brutishly
restraining, but Regina’s worn shackles far more bruising than this king’s poor
attempt at being menacing, and she remains calm even as she sees the fury
escalating within a gaze that has been nothing but gentle before today, taking
over a frame that has been both attractive to look at and unobtrusive enough to
fool Regina into a sense of serene relief. She instinctively pulls away from
him, but he merely tightens his fingers about her wrist, his resolve growing
stronger as he drags her body closer to his so he’s breathing right on her
face, forcing a disgusted grimace into her lips.
“What will you do, then? Tear my heart out and crush it as you did my
mother’s?”
She leans back as he speaks, and he must confuse her repulsion with fear, for
he laughs before her, triumph in the sound. Except Regina laughs with him,
vicious mockery travelling with the sound until she’s quieted her opponent.
“Actually, dear, I think that is exactly what I will do.”
Regina plunges her free hand inside the king’s chest, grasping at his beating
heart just as a handful of soldiers reveal themselves, coming at her from
behind the trees with cries of treason. Regina’s not stupid, however, and her
paranoia has certainly proven useful, for the raised swords of Kind Edmund’s
knights clang against those of her own Black Guards, ordered to silently trail
her from afar as means of precaution. With the sound of fighting weapons about
her and the grunting king falling to his knees before her, Regina smirks,
finding herself gleefully delighted by the violence of it all, by the easily
exerted power of her hands. Belatedly, she realizes that there’s far more
satisfaction in this victory than in a million days spent within tranquil and
intimate walls.
King Edmund continues to fall down, so Regina removes his heart from his chest
so that she may stand straight before him, the war spoil that is his beating
life carefully held between her nimble fingers. She squeezes softly, and the
king groans as he finally releases his grip on Regina, moving both his hands to
his own chest, as if he could hold the pain in and stop it with his own two
hands. His fingers have left bruises on Regina’s skin, and the sight of her
flesh, purpled once again by the undeserving hands of a bumbling king, makes
her squeeze harder.
“You won’t win,” the king exclaims from his prone position, valiant as he lifts
his gaze up towards her, something like the legendary yet stupid bravery of the
knights of fairytales in his breathless words. “Princess Snow White will claim
her throne, and you will–”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Regina complains, squeezing the life out of the king
with sure fingers just so she doesn’t have to listen to his predictable speech
– she has honestly lost the count of how many people have died with Snow’s name
between their lips, claiming her as the hero that will surely defeat the Evil
Queen.
Regina rolls her eyes as the wind steals the ashes of the king’s heart from her
palm, and she sighs, feeling defeated now that the exhilaration of the
confrontation is gone. It seems that Snow will trail her wherever she goes, and
that her past will catch up to her no matter what, and Regina has the abrupt
need to return home and hide herself in her chambers for a few days, nothing
but a warm bath and a warmer bed to shield her against the judgment of the
world. However, she has just killed a king, and she has to deal with his sorry
little kingdom before she can allow herself to rest. Duchess Adela will be ever
so miffed when she hears about this, and Regina is already getting a headache
from the lecture she will surely have to endure. After all, heart crushing
isn’t particularly diplomatic, and she had promised to behave during this trip.
Mild frustration fills her chest when she looks upon the deceased king, his
body crumpled against the bed of leaves much like his mother’s had once been.
What a waste of life, Regina muses. Then, she lifts her eyes to her
surroundings, where the men of her guard are standing as the proud winners of a
fairly short skirmish, swords tainted by red blood as they stand before her,
prepared to receive instructions. Regina shrugs, considering her options, and
eventually smirks and gives her men exactly what they’re hankering for.
“Well, boys, it seems like we have a kingdom to conquer.” Then, with a playful
pout, “You will tell Duchess Adela the king forced my hand, won’t you, dears?”
And among laughter and a cry of Yes, Your Majesty, Regina makes her way back to
the castle.
 
===============================================================================
 
Her return to the palace is less than victorious, the news of her latest crimes
having already reached the ears of a council that had thought that sending
Adela with her as chaperone would be enough to keep her impulses under control.
Regina has very little time for their reproach, however, and she resolutely
walks past the receiving committee they have formed around her, and steadfastly
refuses to meet with them for days. Somehow, she has a hunch that they will be
making some logical points as soon she authorizes them to speak, and Regina
would rather wallow in her self-righteous anger for a little bit longer.
She hardly thinks she did so terribly, truth be told, particularly when
garnering sympathies is such a foreign concept for her at this point. She’s the
Evil Queen and she will remain as such even if she holds a gentle hand or
offers a kind smile, so she might as well free herself from gestures she
doesn’t wish to make, and from pleasantries that only manage to upset her.
Perhaps stopping by the northern houses on her way back and claiming the heads
of those she had pardoned not a fortnight before had been a bit of a
melodramatically overblown decision, but then they had dared defy her on Snow
White’s name, and why she had allowed herself to be convinced towards
forgiveness in the first place baffles her. There is no place for diplomacy in
her rule, and everyone should know better by now; honestly, it’s not as anyone
is out there proclaiming her leniency, so rebels might as well assume that
there will be a price to pay for insurgence.
Her passing through Queen Catherine’s old kingdom hasn’t been quite as
catastrophic as her council seems to think either. True, the king now lays dead
right next to his mother, but his step-brother had been quick to give up the
kingdom to her with little to no fight, and had accepted to step down from the
line of succession in exchange for his life. Regina had then entrusted the
title of Warden to King Edmund’s little daughter, had given her the rule over
the now headless houses north of the kingdom, and had left Duchess Adela behind
as tutor and custodian of the child and her title, under orders of forming a
council of local noblemen to guide the territory until the girl is of age. The
duchess had been inordinately pleased, having developed a soft spot for the
girl, and had rapidly forgiven Regina’s sins for the chance to play mother and
educator to the dimpled little thing. It had been a bloodless coup, and Regina
knows that the adjoining of the lands to her own kingdom won’t hurt them in the
least, and that she has a loyal and trusted advisor in Duchess Adela, who will
bring up the child to be smart and resourceful.
Nonetheless, the general feeling around the palace is that she has somehow
managed to fail everyone’s expectations, whatever those might have been. She
has the feeling that her council spends entirely too much time speaking behind
her back, and while she hasn’t cared much for such unavoidable judgment in the
past, as of late it has taken a sudden and dangerous tint. She has half a mind
to send them all packing, just so they can’t be the ones to leave her. She
grows apprehensive at the thought, and finally concedes to a quiet meeting with
her Military Advisor, hoping that a one on one conversation with her most
trusted advisor will be smoother than facing a room full of disappointed faces.
It proves nothing of the sort, however, since Duke Nicholas appears to be the
most disenchanted of them all, immediately immersing himself in a diatribe as
Regina hasn’t received since the days when she was Leopold’s wife, rather than
his widow. The Military Advisor complains of lackluster political delicacy,
berates her for her impulsive foolishness, and overall admonishes her as one
would an inexperienced and irresponsible child, all the while pacing before her
with fingers pinched against his nose, as if her whole existence is reason
enough to cause a headache. Regina listens, and she listens dutifully and
quietly, choosing to sip a warm cup of tea while the man bents his frustrations
away.
“Are you quite done, dear?” she questions once the duke stops both his words
and his pacing, remaining instead standing before her with arms hanging limply
by his sides, his strict mouth set in a tight line that doesn’t manage to be
quite as imposing as usual with his small moustache upset by his mindlessly
ruffling fingers.
The Military Advisor chooses not to answer, not her words or the challenge in
her raised eyebrow. Instead, he sits down before her, his weight falling
heavily on the plush settee even as his straight posture doesn’t waver. Regina
appraises him for a moment, appreciating how despite his obvious tiredness and
his by now old age, his energetic and rather youthful appeal endures -
belatedly, and for a little over a second, she has the thought that, in a
different lifetime where they had both had more tolerance for lies, they may
have made quite the marriage. However, their time is long past, and Regina has
neither the time nor the patience for his judgment when all she holds dear is
his advice.
“Was there something useful in that long-winded speech of yours?” she wonders,
distractedly, the noise of her cup being left on its plate uncomfortably loud
inside the room. “I trust you have more than shallow reproach to offer me.”
The shake of the Advisor’s head is barely noticeable, as is his annoyed huff,
but his voice is clear and his words clipped when he leaves behind levelheaded
admonishing and instead says, “Perhaps Leopold wasn’t completely wrong when he
called you a difficult child.”
Regina bristles, unbridled anger crawling up her spine and burning hot white
against her throat. The Military Advisor must understand it even before she
does, for she finds him standing by the time she stands on her own feet, her
hand reaching forward and grasping the air, a tight fist wrapping over nothing
but intention clear as to its destination. Regina snarls, furious that a man
that has showed her such utter respect in the past would dare insult her with
words of a man that had nothing but neglectful disdain for her, when not
exhibiting blind misunderstanding and fear.
“I apologize, Your Majesty. That was uncalled for.”
There’s dignity in his tone and posture, and not even a flinch of fear at the
sight of Regina’s outstretched hand, at the obvious yet unwitting purpose of
her clenched fist. Her hand is nothing but firm, and yet she feels as if she
were trembling, the hidden desire of reaching for the man’s heart shaking her
to her core. He’s a trusted advisor, one of the few people in the world she
respects, and he has played his part of wise uncle with efficiency and without
reproach, with understanding beyond what Regina’s ever known and with high
regard for her abilities. If she stretches her thoughts she might even call
this man a friend, and she doesn’t wish to hurt him. It would be so easy,
though, her hand and her cruelty already so used to destroying that which
displeases her.
She breathes in and out slowly, hoping to calm herself down enough that pulling
back from her impulses won’t feel like backing down from an issued challenge.
The sound of it reverberates against her head, and by the time her hand is back
against her chest and being held there as if afraid, she realizes that there
are tears threatening the corners of her eyes, sudden fear at her own actions
assaulting her with unwavering resolve. One of her breaths turns into a gasp,
and she takes a step back before turning around completely, her back to the
Advisor while she closes her eyes tightly and presses her thumb against her
opposing palm, the well-known painful pressure focusing wandering senses. She
feels out of control, and she wonders if such abandon isn’t a heftier pair of
shackles than complete frailty once was.
“Your Majesty, may I speak freely?”
“No, you may not,” she snaps, her tone sharper than she meant it to be, but
ultimately brokering no argument, as is her wish.
Permission for candid words may just grant the duke a death sentence just as
well, and Regina would rather not risk his life. She feels constricted all of a
sudden, and when her hands travel down to her stomach they fail to settle
there, her nails scratching at the hard fabric of her corset instead. The
whalebones of the ornamental construction are suddenly impossibly tight around
her frame, and she wonders if the haziness around her head is due to it, or
simply to her chaotic responses to everything around her. Has she truly been
this out of control before? Because if so, then perhaps the duke and the rest
of the council are right to question a monarch that can’t be trusted to wear a
layer of artful diplomacy without hankering for punishment in exchange.
Goodness, but it must be that curse driving her insane, or maybe the shadow of
Snow White meddling with her feelings and making them unrecognizable.
The Military Advisor sighs behind her, and the sound is followed by steps and
rustling, which has Regina turning back around to hopefully bid him goodbye.
The man allows her no reprieve, however, instead offering her a pile of open
missives.
“News from the kingdom, Your Majesty,” he intones.
“Well?”
Briskly, he spreads open one of the missives, pushing it against her until she
takes it, rather than let it fall to the floor between them. He doesn’t stop
there, however, repeating the motion until Regina’s hand is holding onto
several papers, written pages that reveal nothing to Regina’s inattentive gaze,
the Advisor’s frustration coming to her with far more clarity than whatever it
is he wishes to tell her.
“News from the past few days have reached every corner of the kingdom, Your
Majesty,” he explains finally, enunciating every word as if Regina may
misinterpret him if he doesn’t. “The answer is the same every time; mistrust,
fear and worry, words that betray disloyalty. Your kingdom is losing faith in
your government.”
Regina snorts, glancing briefly at the papers in her hands just to read the
signatures, pomposity present even in the calligraphy of some of the noblemen
sending such apparently worrisome inquires. “My dear duke, did it ever have any
at all? Or shall I remind you that my life was threatened on the very same day
my husband was being laid to rest?”
“Superstitious commoners are one thing, Your Majesty, but this surpasses
ignorance and rumors. No one will care for dead peasants or noblemen made to
bow too low, but death among the noble ranks, titles being lorded over their
heads with no guaranties… This may become a rebellion that not even our army
can defeat.”
A letter remains still within the Military Advisor’s grasp, and Regina tears it
away from him and rests it among its sisters, all of them promptly falling to
their death when Regina tosses them into the lighted fireplace. The Advisor
squeaks his disapproval unwittingly, covering the undignified sound quickly
enough with a disproportionate cough, and Regina spies him quenching the
awkwardness with a sip of what must be by now the coldest of teas. Regina
smirks at the performance, and finds that the small act of violence, as silly
as it has been, helps with her clouding senses so that she no longer feels as
if her temperament will get the best of her. Unread letters with predictable
messages aren’t a too high price to pay for a little peace of mind.
“I should have foreseen that broken egos would do more damage than most
crimes,” she states, eyes planted firmly on the fire before her, the quiet hiss
of the orange flames as they consume the paper satisfying in a way that is
already familiar. There is such tranquility in the consuming force of wildfire.
Once the papers are but blackened embers turning to ashes, she turns back
towards the Advisor, her hands against her stomach, not even the sight of the
flames enough to take away the tightness about her torso. She feels bloated,
and she decides that the moment this meeting is over she won’t take even the
briefest of moments before dressing herself in a loose nightgown, never mind
the early hour.
“What do you propose we do, duke?” she questions, desperate to get to the point
of this conversation.
The man twists his lips in a familiar gesture of pensive doubt, and that is
enough to let Regina know that she won’t be liking his answer. She spreads her
fingers over her abdomen, steadying herself, and is glad when the duke doesn’t
shy away from the topic, and chooses bluntness over subtlety.
“The princess,” he says.
“What about her?”
“Bringing Princess Snow White back into the fold, if you will, would surely
calm whatever looming insurrection we may have in our hands.”
Regina snorts, thankful that there’s more amusement than anger in the sound.
“And what do you suggest? Should I give her my crown, after all?”
“To that absurd child? Mercy, no.”
The answer is so adamant and immediate, and such a rare spontaneous reaction
from the Military Advisor that Regina can’t help but laugh, genuine delight
coloring the sound. It’s a well-known fact that Duke Nicholas can’t abide by
children, more often than not choosing to leave the room when in presence of
someone younger than sixteen, and it doesn’t surprise Regina that Snow remains
like an eternal child in the man’s memories. Back in the day, he’d dealt with
the princess’ enthusiasm by awkwardly patting her head as if she were but a
particularly well-trained dog. His attitude towards Regina hadn’t been much
better, his propensity towards distrusting the fairer sex only subdued by long
and hardworking years, Regina’s brain, and her personal taste for military
affairs. They’re used to each by now, and Regina can only guess that dealing
with Snow’s hopeful fancies would perhaps be a thousand times harder for him
than handling Regina’s mercurial outbursts.
“What, then?” Regina questions after a moment, genuinely curious about what the
Military Advisor is about to propound.
“Pardon the girl,” he says, almost immediately recovering his pacing rhythm
from the first berating moments of this conversation, as if his words are
easier to weave when looking at the shiny marble floors, rather than into
Regina’s souring gaze. “Give her a nominal place in the council and marry her
to some adequately high-ranking nobleman. Give her the Summer Palace as a
wedding gift to keep her out of your way, and surely by the time she’s began
popping babies she will forget about any political proclivities she may have.”
Then, as an afterthought, "It would do you good to consider her children as
possible heirs, Your Majesty; we all had hopes for your little cousin, alas, it
wasn’t meant to be.”
Regina flinches, the mention of Little Ace and her death as well as her unborn
baby raising a foul taste to the back of her throat. She’s been so good at not
thinking about her, or about the silly hopes she’d unwittingly put on their
future together and that of her child, so good at believing that the girl had
meant nothing, that she hadn’t lost the connection to her past that she’d been,
that she didn’t miss her annoying habits and her impossible to ignore presence,
and she doesn’t wish for anyone to see a crack in such a façade, lest she stops
believing it herself. She does her best at forgetting such thoughts, and
instead concentrates on the Military Advisor’s plans for the princess,
spectacularly rational as they are, and yet impossible to match with Regina’s
true desires.
Regina had had the chance to offer Snow as sacrifice to an arranged marriage,
and not only had she decided on a different route, but she had despaired at the
idea of making a painful altar out of her unwilling body. She’s not surprised
that Duke Nicholas, an unmarried nobleman after all despite whatever virtues he
exudes, would think an arranged marriage a more merciful destiny than death.
Regina knows better, and not only does she deserve an open confrontation with
her proclaimed enemy, but she’s positive that Snow would be the first to agree
with her on the matter. A fight to the death with the kingdom as battleground
is the inevitable result of their twisted sisterhood, and a slow burning death
in the embrace of some adequately high-ranking noblemanis not an answer that
Regina can abide by. Furthermore, her chipped and little heart crooked by
darkness won’t allow her to pardon Snow; she suspects, too, that the princess
wouldn’t take it if it were to be offered anyway. There is no resolution for
them that doesn’t end in death, and no diplomatic middle grounds will do for
them.
“I can’t do that, duke,” she says, firm determination in her tone even as her
hands begin to fidget involuntarily, searching once again for the pain of a
thumb pressed against a palm with arduous strength.
There are no harsh words forthcoming when the Military Advisor stops his
nervous pacing to stare at her, but Regina would have preferred them to what
follows. Violence is easier to deal with, easier to punish, and the sudden
fondness the Advisor bestows upon her when he places a big and steady hand on
her shoulder is confounding and makes her feel irreverently tiny. His face
betrays no such tenderness, him being as bad at offering up gentleness as she
is at receiving it, and for a moment they both rest in silent tension, unsure
of the uncharted territory they have waddled into. Regina doesn’t shrug the
touch off, however, thankful that her dress covers her shoulder so that their
skin isn’t touching, and yet more disconcerted than upset by the all too casual
touch. Not many men have touched her without hiding menace or sexual desire in
their caress, and she finds that she doesn’t know quite what to do with such
affection from this man, whatever care they may have felt for each other always
wrapped in business-like respect.
“Child,” he says, and the term, which she would have hated from anyone else,
and which the duke would have spoken with nothing but derision were she a
different person, is a gentle caress from a rough timber, the dear name for a
loved daughter, and it sets Regina’s heartbeat to a steady but hard rhythm, to
a long-forgotten pulse of vulnerable exposure.
It’s a moment before he speaks again, and when he does, he repeats the
endearment, as if knowing it if not completely well-received, then at least not
unwanted either.
“Child, you are everything I have ever hoped for from the owner of this
kingdom’s crown, but this princess of yours, this obsession - it won’t let you
think properly, it’s driving you insane.”
The gentle honesty of his words manages to ward off Regina’s always boiling
anger, her confusion at the sudden intimacy still pounding inside her chest so
her immediate reaction is defeated rejection. There is much that no one in this
kingdom can understand, not even Snow herself, and she knows why they think her
mad, why they believe the princess pure and innocent while she remains a
villainous abuser. She has neither the strength nor the desire to expose her
scars for the world to see. There aren’t enough words for her anyhow, not to
explain mother’s harsh lessons burning like never dying embers under her skin,
to speak of dark cellars and darker expectations, to bring to light years of
losses and abuse at the oppressive hands of a court, a husband and a step-
daughter that needed her to be something that she never truly was, to express
her backed turned towards her loving father and to acknowledge unveiled magic
gnarled amongst the remains of her heart, holding it together so it doesn’t
shatter with a single push. Most of all, there are no words to encompass
Daniel, the pain of his loss teasing at her with healing warmth at times, only
to acutely stab her heart like the sharpest of glass shards in the next moment.
And all of it Snow White’s fault, her capriciousness and her privilege taking
ownership of Regina’s life with careless disregard and childlike cruelty.
Regina plucks the Advisor’s hand away from her shoulder with careful fingers,
squeezing them with as much quiet affection as she can muster for the man. It’s
odd, how they’ve never truly touched before, and as she’s slowly letting go of
his hand, she knows they will not do it again.
Choosing to repay his candid honesty with her own, however, she looks into his
eyes and says, “You are a most trusted advisor, duke, but there are things not
even you can understand. Please, don’t ever mention this again.”
His eyes flash with annoyance at her words, and yet he doesn’t question her
further, simply straightening up once again and leaning away from Regina’s
frame, putting a respectful distance between them. It’s a familiar way of
drawing up walls, one that Regina knows well, and she detects the moment their
brief lapse of judgment is over, and shivers with relief after the sudden
weakness of their shared gentleness. She knows the Advisor fears she will be
consumed by her compulsions, and that the kingdom will be consumed right along,
but no amount of honest concern will drive her away from her purpose.
Coughing uncomfortably, the Military Advisor turns his back on her and once
again ruffles amongst his papers in search for something, effectively
recovering their usual communication. Regina fidgets for a too long moment
still, feeling uncommonly swollen and confined, so that when she’s offered an
as of yet to be opened letter she takes it with abrupt gratefulness, relieved
by the distraction.
“A personal urgent letter from King George, Your Majesty,” the Military Advisor
explains, settling himself straight and tall and probably waiting for
instructions were the letter to bring important news.
Regina tears the seal open, thankful for George’s lack of flourishes in his
letters as she reads the short and to-the-point message.
“It seems that Prince James has run away days before his wedding,” Regina
confesses, sparing a smile for the spectacularly clumsy shepherd that had been
playing prince. It baffles her why King George would think such matter urgent,
or even of her interest, but then George has always had a way of knowing what
information will prove useful.
“Perhaps he expects you to spare a few men in the prince’s search?” The
Military Advisor suggests.
“No instructions as to the matter, and you know George has no qualms about
ordering about even those he shouldn’t,” she says, a whine hidden somewhere in
her tone. Goodness, she has no energy left for this today. Making up her mind,
she foregoes a sigh and simply commands, “Do write to him and solve the
mystery.” Then,” Tell him that if desires are not forthcoming and were the
prince to fall into my hands, I may find myself inclined to cut a finger or
two.”
“Your Majesty…”
“What? I won’t killhim, dear, if that worries you, even if George’s prince is
no prince at all; but it does well to keep good, old George on his toes
nonetheless. You know he falls into notions of grandeur otherwise.”
The Military Advisor chuckles at her statement, and she smirks, the
uncomfortable inconvenience of their shared honesty gone now under a thin sheen
of mild understanding and a desire to remain the queen and her advisor, as they
very well should. Then, she excuses herself after scheduling a council meeting
for the next week, and traipses her way back to her bedchambers, thoughts of
removing her dress and taking a warm and long bath the only thing clouding her
mind.
 
===============================================================================
 
Autumn days move fast and agile, avoiding the usual sluggishness of the season
with chaotic uproar at every possible front. The Military Advisor hadn’t been
wrong when speaking of a noble class suddenly taking an interest on a possible
change in the royal seat, and so Regina finds herself busy with strengthening
patrols and giving further authority to her army officials. She campaigns to
reinforce her army’s numbers just as well, and is content to ascertain that a
position in her ranks remains a tempting enough option for many a young a man,
the money and privilege of walking the world behind a black uniform a better
option than any manual work.
Nonetheless, Regina soon realizes that she’s sending far too many of her men
out there to the world just to die, for the quiet rebellion of the commoners
has become an effort supported by secret yet powerful hands. Where her men had
been facing untrained weapon wielders just months ago, when not pitches and
forks, they find themselves facing properly armed groups of men these days,
suited for the fight and more than ready to engage in it. Whoever is founding
such endeavors continues to be a mystery, but at least Regina can discern that
it must be someone with too much money and too little sense, for the saving
grace her army counts on is the rather rampageous nature of the industry.
Unclear in its purpose and seemingly content with quick yet useless
achievements, the revolution is causing mayhem and furor, but fails to be more
successful than a tavern brawl, considering that its fighters are more often
than not mercenaries with loyalties that waver towards the highest bidder, and
that there isn’t any order or harmony when it comes to places attacked or
victories obtained. Mostly, Regina has chaos in her hands, and soldiers dying
over nothing at all.
Therefore, her own efforts turn towards uncovering those who must be the paying
hands of the insurrection, torture and recompense her two opposing methods,
which have proven fruitful through the years. As it is, the problem lays in the
fact that for every head she cuts another one rises, so that each day that
passes convinces her with more intensity that her solution lays with Snow
White, and with her head being the one offered up as sacrifice. After all, with
no one else having a claim to the throne, there is no other hero the people may
raise a flag for.
Regina sees herself trapped within the palace, having chosen herself not to
ride away with her army when there isn’t an opposing military force to battle,
but only minor crowds of paid for insurgents. She doesn’t want the kingdom to
think that she’s worried by such trivial matters, nor to give the impression
that her government may somehow be in any trouble. It’s a very rational
decision, particularly when the constant military expenses have her doubling
the hours spent with the Treasury Master studying the kingdom’s accounts, but
she can’t help but feel that her senses would be much more fulfilled were she
to spend her days riding about with Rocinanteand joining her men in battle, the
scent of blood over the fields conquering her days and the warmth of music and
laughter shared filling up her nights.
There are no battles for her to be had outside of the council room these days,
however, and so despite the discomfort of a kingdom adamant in crusading
against her, life becomes a dull affair. Even if the days pass with expeditious
energy, the hectic nature of the world around them fooling her council into a
false sense of hastiness, Regina feels listless, devoid of vigor and
unsuccessful in her attempts to care for much of what is going on around her.
Her spirit seems to have abandoned her, her eyes only shining with curious
delight when news of Snow reach her ears, which is most certainly not as often
as they should. For all she knows the princess hasn’t dwelled within her lands
for weeks, and her relentless pursuit is nothing but a maddening delusion.
Matching her drowsiness, or perhaps foretelling her doom, her apple tree
continues to wane, the birthing of rotten apples having begun a withering
process that sees no pause. Her newest Royal Gardener had suggested a trim,
hoping that cutting away those branches that were damaged would allow it to
regain its health, but the process has done nothing but make it look thinner
and lacking, as if starved for something that Regina can’t guess at. Every day
she spares a few minutes to gaze at it, forlornly thinking of the day it had
been transplanted to the palace, bringing with it roots that Regina still needs
to survive.
Perhaps it’s not the tree that’s matching her, though, but rather the other way
around, for her frame feels to her as brittle as glass, impossibly light and
ready to be blown away by a gust of wind. It’s an odd contradiction, since
she’s been inordinately swollen for days now. It’s not as if she’s been eating
particularly well as of late, the bitterness of putrid fruit persecuting her
even weeks later, and it might be that tasteless soups, the rare bite of fish
and entirely too much wine aren’t the most advisable diet to follow if she
wishes to fight her own stagnant tastes. There’s little time to think of food,
however, and so both her and her tree wither with near stubborn determination.
Winter sets in early, and the icy winds bring Nubia the Pirate Queen to
Regina’s shores. There are no apples to be had this year round, and so Regina
finds herself at a loss when the pirate makes her way to the palace with gifts
of scented oils, fine fabrics and exotic spices, having nothing that she feels
of equal value in return. Nonetheless, Nubia is more than happy to take nothing
but shelter for her crew and the warmth of Regina’s bed for herself. Regina
receives her with a burst of passion that dwindles far too quickly, and soon
the Pirate Queen is facing a Regina that has lost the taste for stories of
faraway lands, and who seems much too peeved by spoiled fruit and a dying tree.
“Tides are changing, my queen of sands,” Nubia tells her then, dark skin
failing to provoke as it once did, and tongue busy spinning commonplace
superstitions of a life of piracy, which Regina can’t muster interest in.
“Are they now, my dear?” Regina questions, a mockery of laughter curling the
corner of her lips, her humoring of the pirate juxtaposed with unavoidable
disdain.
“Laugh all you want; the air smells of blood ‘n treason in these lands.
Something dark be coming our way. TheJolly Roger’scome back from Neverland, and
the Sea Witch has returned to doom good sailors to Davy Jones’ treasure chest –
‘tis dangerous waters that we sail in.”
Regina laughs despite the warnings in Nubia’s voice, her mood fickle enough
that she’s by parts delighted and desperately fatigued by her tales. The
legends of Davy Jones and Captain Hook have never held any particular interest
for her, the romantic notions usually attached to lives of piracy always
boundlessly ridiculous to her ears; after all, if she’d brought Nubia to her
life it’d been due to her bloodlust, a trait shared by all those who choose to
set sail under a pirate flag. There’d been a friend of Snow White once, a
ridiculously whiny princess that had spun tales of pirates and thieves with
twinkling eyes and fancies of wild romance, and at age eighteen, after being
forced into an engagement with a count that doubled her age and matched her
beauty with his ugliness, and her foolishness with his own, she’d run away in
search of the pirates of her stories. She’d found them, and after a little over
two months of sailing, she’d been returned to her fiancé dressed in rags, with
a mark of ownership scorched onto her left breast, and eyes so dulled out of
life that she’d welcomed the death sentence Leopold had bestowed upon her. Snow
had cried, and she’d done so for long hours and against Regina’s shoulder, and
for the month that she had refused to speak to her father, Regina had done her
best at disambiguating Snow from maudlin attachment towards figures of legend
that were no better than butchers.
As for the Sea Witch, Regina is positive that myth and fables surround her with
as much mysticism and darkness as they do Regina herself, but she can hardly
consider the woman much of a threat when she’s seen her drunk as a skunk and
tripping over her own tentacles.
Thus, Regina says goodbye to the Pirate Queen without heeding any of her
ominous advice and after no more than two cloudy and long days, her and her
crew finding themselves restless with the firmness of soil under their feet,
and hankering for the wild winds of the sea. Regina breathes better once she’s
gone, the enchantment she’d found in her once lost now that fanciful knowledge
of foreign and wonderful people seems like a waste of time rather than a bit of
enjoyable amusement. The scents of cumin and thyme linger long after she’s
gone, however, and they make Regina feel sick to her stomach, the bloating of
both her body and her senses that refuses to leave her only pushing further
discomfort into a frame that has forgotten how to find pleasure.  
A few days after Nubia has left her, her back begins to ache with pain similar
to exhausted twinges, and her head insists on throbbing disproportionately,
making her suspect a bout of fever. Perhaps no curses or afflictions are to
blame for her weariness after all, and she’s merely falling victim to a regular
spell of high temperature. As it is, the sudden bleeding that manages to stain
thankfully dark pants while half dozing her way through a council meeting tells
her otherwise, the common signs of a period not having occurred to her after
she’d lost them the moment she’d taken the infertility potion. The thin trickle
of watered down blood that she discovers running down her leg while taking a
bath after the tirelessly long meeting renders her speechless, however, and
when after a bath and a night of spoiled sheets the blood doesn’t flow any
longer, she chooses to ignore the mishap altogether, every fiber of her being
burning with uncomfortable shame.
She traipses the palace like a wounded animal for the next few weeks however,
and when the bleeding comes back she has her lady’s maid find her a mid-wife in
the closest village, ruing the idea of putting herself in the hands of a doctor
yet again. The woman that’s brought to her chambers is thought to be a witch by
the town’s people, and she certainly matches all the hackneyed phrases ever
spoken of sorcerers, her nose disproportionally large, one eye blind and the
other seemingly lost in the sight of the skies, her voice roughened by old age
yet sharp when everything she speaks feels but like a parody of truth. She has
smooth hands, though, and when she places them on the insides of Regina’s
thighs she does so with motherly care and a lifetime of experience. Her speech
twirls with superstitions as much as it does realities, and Regina suspects
that half of it all is an act that the woman puts on for the favor of the
villagers, surely prone to believe in the magic of old religion as wielded by a
woman both kind and frightening. There isn’t any magic in her, but there is
knowledge of herbs and potions, and she makes a concoction of maca and ghee
topped with red raspberry leaf that is both vile-tasting and almost immediately
relieving, leaving the bloodstream intact but doing away with the pain in
gentle strokes.
“Ah, the queen do be a witch, but count on an old hag to know better,” the
woman replies when Regina questions her about the drought, one thin and crooked
finger tapping her nose with impolite disregard.
Regina inquires then about her state, confessing for the first time as to the
damage she’d done to her own body, and as to the reasons her period might have
had to return. The woman tells her that her body remains barren, the effects of
the potion irreversible, and for that Regina is impossibly relieved; after all,
while she’d cried to change what she’d done once, her regret had been as
impulsive as her drinking of the potion had been in the first place, and after
some time she’d come to be at peace with her decision. If Little Ace had proven
something, then that is that Regina is unfit for love. Moreover, even if Regina
could find it in herself to bestow nothing but tender affection upon a child,
the idea of something growing inside her, clawing away at her belly and
stealing her vitality away is usually enough to make her shudder. The memories
of her unborn baby remain, the scars of the loss never quite closed and prone
to fester at the most desperate of times, and the feeling of being eaten away
from the inside lingers just as well.
Whatever the case, the woman insists that an infertile woman isn’t necessarily
one who doesn’t bleed, and asserts that the return of her period is but a sign
of her body trying to heal itself from the damage done. Regina feels by parts
betrayed and mocked, truth be told, and yet can’t help but wonder if the decay
that has invaded the palace and her life ever since the death of her little
cousin won’t be coming to an end, blood between her legs the first sign of
recovery. In any case, she offers the woman a place within the palace, an offer
rejected on arguments of having a too old mind to be changing me liddle life
now, Your Majesty, but immediately paired with a bow to loyal service whenever
it is required from her. She even has the cheek to lecture her on proper
nourishment before she leaves, her keen eye easily guessing at Regina’s late
choice of liquid diet, and berating her for being a rather unhelpful spirit in
the fight of a body that so desperately wants to heal.
Surprisingly enough, the woman’s words shift Regina’s mood away from morose
insanity, and even through the discomfort of a swollen body, she takes on the
rising days with newfound vitality. She chooses to recover good habits from the
past just as well, and finds herself at the shore of her once upon a time
favorite lake, remembering the touch of cool and velvety water against her
skin, and finding relief in the caress as she once used to. Later, lying down
against the humid grass, naked despite the cold, she unwittingly thinks of
Maleficent, of her tantalizing figure coming to her at the edge of a different
lake, tempting her with a curling finger barely a whisper away from her skin,
with eyes that gazed upon her the way fingers touched. She sighs at the
thought, and wonders how she got to where she is now, Maleficent’s touch lost
to her in the fog of nostalgic disillusionment, and her body so difficult when
in someone else’s touch. Her desire for Nubia had been short-lived at best,
after all, and her encounters with the huntsman had become a conundrum of lust,
hate and disgust that inevitably left bitterness behind, even if momentarily
all-consuming. She has been lacking harmony with her body as much as she has
with her mind, and she promises herself to find solution to both plights, lest
fickleness becomes her ultimate downfall.
Resolute and optimistic, she begins sitting down with father for dinner at
least, hoping to regain a bit of appetite in the comfort of shared family
meals. Father’s always happy to comply with such requests, and he knows just
which kind of food to tempt Regina with just as well. While Regina had opted
for warm and heavy dishes to fight the coldness of winter, father brings fresh
tomatoes to her table, as well as soft cheese, cold potato salad and green
banana fritters, all sweet and clean against her palate, and it seems to Regina
as if both the company and the food take her muddled thoughts away. It is by
father’s guiding hand, too, that she discovers a shred of hopeful revival, a
coy smile like Regina hasn’t seen in years coloring his features with youthful
shadows when he drags her to her apple tree late one evening, just as the sun
is setting in grey and dark blue hues.
“Daddy, what is it?” she questions, her voice tinkling as if she’s about to
laugh, and her breath coming short the moment father pauses right before the
tree, motioning for her to look up.
Her poor tree presents her with the same saddened picture of the past few
months, waning leaves and a dry-looking trunk, the picture of resignation and
defeat. Yet, when Regina follows father’s hand, her eyes widen as they land on
their target, one single red apple hanging from between the withering foliage.
She smiles as if she were but a child, and soon finds herself conjuring up a
stool and climbing over the wooden fence protecting the tree to tear the fruit
down, the skin of it smooth and humid with dew when she touches it. She has
half a mind to bite into it right then, and yet she stops herself before she
does, suddenly wishing to keep it as symbol of resilient strength. It’s so very
silly, but after a season of blight, death and schism, she wants to preserve it
for a special occasion, whatever that may turn out to be. Perhaps it’ll make a
nice gift for Maleficent, whom she has refused to visit since her little
cousin’s demise; maybe it should be father who gets it, for if Regina has ever
known true warmth, then she owes it to him; but then, perhaps, it should
fulfill a completely different purpose. For now, she sets a preservation spell
upon it, and then climbs down from her stool, and with a smile adorning her
lips, locks her arm with father’s, and pulls him into a slow nightly stroll
through the gardens.
 
===============================================================================
 
Newfound purpose in mind and energies replenished after a few days of centering
herself, Regina decides to take care of that which has been aggravating her so
as of late. After all, wrapping her hands around Snow’s neck might not be a
possibility as of today, but there’s much she can do to gain peace of mind and
win her concentration back. She has allowed herself to wallow in self-pity for
far too long, has let her council guide her in circumstances where she must
have her own stance, and it has all led to chaos and wavering tides, her
outbursts uncontrolled and born out of desperate dejection. It seems to her
foolish now, to play up her part of lording queen outside of her palace’s walls
only to succumb to despair once within them, and so she actively chooses to
give up on dispiritedness and to do away with the causes of her pain.
The Dark Curse becomes her most immediate concern, fighting its pull and the
tendrils of madness it has been threading with her thoughts something akin to a
noble pursuit. Ridding the world of its influence and the danger of it falling
in the wrong hands feels nigh heroic, so it is with unbidden pleasure that
Regina takes on the studious task of saving herself from it. Wading her way
through books and ancient spells, she finds contentment in the simple act of
research and study, magic always a fascinating subject, particularly when not
plagued by Rumpelstiltskin's irksome presence and overbearing nature. Not for
nothing had most of her favorite tricks come from personal study, rather than
from the imp’s calculated teachings, always held back so as to keep her in a
tight leash. Serves him right that his student became an equal, she muses, and
perhaps even a far superior deceiver, the woman currently residing in her very
own grasp proof enough of her own cunning inspiration.
It occurs to Regina that she’s barely enjoyed that particular triumph of hers,
even if her little performance before Rumpelstiltskin speaking of the woman’s
demise had been a savory treat at the time. To be fair, she had actually
intended for the little lady to break the Dark One’s curse and be done once and
for all with the treacherous imp, but she supposes it had been wishful thinking
to believe that Rumpelstiltskin would choose to give his power away for
something as puny as love.And love for a bland and dutiful bore with nothing
but a pair of doleful eyes to offer to the world at large. Her name is
Belle,for goodness’ sake, and the whole idea of her and her innocent love for
such a creature as the Dark One is risible at best. However, Rumpelstiltskin
had felt fondness at the least, and after a lifetime of witches and tricks,
perhaps he’d seen light where he’d never had any, and had wanted to be the hero
of Belle’s tale when he’s only capable of being the villain of everyone else’s.
Perhaps he’d simply wanted a pet to groom and mold, and that Regina supposes
she can understand far better.
Whatever the case may be, Belle dwells now within Regina’s palace, believed
dead to the outside world and waiting for the time when Regina needs ammunition
against Rumpelstiltskin. After all, even if his interest in the woman wanes
with time, his pride would hardly allow Regina to claim her as weapon and
prize. For the time being, Regina suspects Rumpelstiltskin is attached enough
to the idea of her so as to be throwing quite the little tantrum. He hasn’t
shown his face around Regina’s palace since she lied to him about Belle’s
death, and the magical world has also felt his absence, if Regina’s sources are
to be believed. The whole ordeal is superbly pleasing, and Regina figures she
should take a little more time out of her days to enjoy the little pleasures of
her victories.
And other pleasures she shall enjoy as well, something in her recovering
energies awakening her appetites for things other than food. Thus, terrorizing
her subjects regains its amused flavor, reminding Regina how much frivolous
malice against those that slander her with such ease makes her smile with
delight. It’s her own fault for deeming her kingdom as thoughtful individuals,
when thinking of them all as unruly dolls to maneuver at her will is far more
enticing. If she’s to feed and shelter them, after all, then she should be
allowed a little fun in exchange, and considering all they have to offer is
disrespect and disregard, they can very well deal with becoming entertainment
for her wounded heart.
In other regards, it’s the huntsman that provides. They aren’t particularly
well-suited for each other, their encounters usually the result of Regina
prodding him insistently into action, his lust always a product of violence
born of an unfeeling heart. Regina finds perverse satisfaction in the
corruption of his otherwise sensitive self. It’s true they have no intimacy,
sex between them always a harsh tumble that fails to reach the bed every single
time. She finds him too warm, his frame too bony, and his anger most of the
time a little lacking, but he always leaves pleasant bruises behind, the
disgust painted on his face something of a triumph when Regina is in a good
mood. Whether he likes it or not, they have fallen into a dance of sorts, where
he resists until Regina’s insinuations touch the right nerve, making him jump
at her and dive for her sex, lacking the nerve to lunge at her neck instead. A
different man may have killed her by now, but as it is, the huntsman’s
instincts seem determined to find in her sentiments that she doesn’t possess.
Then again, perhaps Regina is surrounding the whole ordeal with far too much
romantic ideals, and the huntsman is simply an incarcerated man with very
little to live for, and grasping at the chance to feel heat around his cock.
His innermost feelings make no difference to her, however, so long as he
provides entertainment whenever her whims are so inclined.
“You’re a monster,” he tells her every time, as if shaping his mouth around the
words allows him to forget the craving desire, the way he seems to further
imprison himself by giving into her.
It never fails to remind Regina of a mantra of her own, of years spent inside
an unwanted embrace repeating the words I do not wish to lay with you as token
protest. She’d thrived in Leopold’s discomfort then, in bringing his sins to
light since she had no right to deny him. He’d flinched every time, and the
simplicity of such awareness had helped Regina survive.
Regina isn’t afraid of her own transgression, has no shame to offer the
huntsman when he’s the one to bend under her will and give her what she wants,
so he counters his statement with her own just as well, staring right into his
eyes every time and murmuring, “What does that make you, my dear?”
Whether it is her fresh perspective or simple luck Regina doesn’t know, but
it’s not long before she finds temporary solution to the conundrum of the Dark
Curse. Books and ancient scrolls reveal it to be a far more timeworn curse than
she had suspected, its origins untraceable and its path often lost, at least
until it was put under the watchful guard of a fearsome and immortal demon, its
power rooted in the darkest of hearts. How Rumpelstiltskin had managed to steal
it from that thing remains a mystery, but it’s hardly important to her, her
discoveries relevant when she understands that it is primitive magic what will
prove protection and vigilance both for the curse and its dreadful sway. With
that in mind, Regina seeks creatures rather than sorcerers, finding beasts and
beings thought only to live in books. She finds creatures in the waters of
rivers, hidden in the forests and running with the wind, and through pacts and
promises brings their protective magic with her to set upon the Dark Curse.
Many even offer help in exchange for nothing; an odd man covered in white hair
that calls himself a warden of the forests and who insists that the witch of
the apple tree must do what she must; a mystifyingly beautiful kelpie whose
voice rings inside Regina’s mind even as its mouth doesn’t move, and who offers
to ride eternally by her side if only she pays the price of her soul, and who
only bows to her when such offer is refused; a woman of long hair and long
nails hiding horrid features under a glamour of enchanting beauty who scratches
at Regina’s belly with a smirk painted blood red and only gives her help as a
symbol of pity, vehemently laughing at Regina as she speaks that a woman who
isn’t a mother isn’t a woman,and who disappears into the waters of a lake
before Regina’s fury manages to kill her. It’s a world full of wonders, and for
all of its temptations Regina fears it, for she has no wish of becoming a
whispering memory of stories told by old tongues and forgotten in yellowed
papers, which may just be her destiny if she allows the primordial taste of
such magic to mingle with her own, and if she allows Rumpelstiltskin entirely
too much freedom, for if she learns something of monsters and angels alike,
then that is that they have all crossed paths with the Dark One, and that their
lives have only fared worse after such encounters.
The primeval magic does the trick, however, the darkness of the curse palliated
as it feeds itself of magic unlike Regina could ever conjure herself. Most
creatures showed impenetrable contempt for her and the magic of humans, nothing
but a risible ruse in their eyes, born of books and forced through the filter
of intellect, unnatural and perverse. Regina had thrown disdain right back at
them, even while carefully understanding of their primordial power, of the
intoxicating nature of their devilry – there was no craft to their powers, and
yet they flowed with imprecise allure, blinding purpose and conquering souls.
Had Regina been someone else, she may have succumbed, but not for nothing had
she spent hours upon hours under Maleficent’s hands, and had been well-versed
in the tantalizing force of primitive magic. It occurs to her, then, that
perhaps she should have thought of the witch before, and of the possibility of
leaving the curse with her for safekeeping. After all, it wouldn’t affect her
with the pounding force it did Regina, and Regina has no doubt her friend
wouldn’t feel particularly inclined to take advantage of its powers and turn
the world upside down. She has been so terribly despondent towards Maleficent
as of late, the memory of her unfailingly bringing Little Ace to mind, and
perhaps it’s about time she paid her friend a visit.
However, for the time being, the Dark Curse no longer feels as if it might
strip Regina of her sanity, the hollow feeling of it absorbing her life failing
to be a pervasive nightmare, and barely becoming a lingering feeling of
yearning somewhere at the back of her mind. The curse feels like a punished
child might, whimpering away behind doors until its mother chooses to liberate
it, and Regina wonders if the way it keeps reminding her of dark cellars and
unfair chastisements is but another trick to reach her heart.
 
===============================================================================
 
Spring arrives and with it Regina’s tree grows back into its health, further
convincing Regina that it is tied to her, and to whatever magic clouds her
domains. It’s not that strange; after all, witches are known to have familiars,
and if others have hellish dogs or truculent crows, she doesn’t see why her
tree can’t have become just that. While her tree flourishes, so does her army,
the news of rebels subdued and skirmishes won coming to her left and right, the
Military Advisor commending her prowess and pointing out how her good mood
usually translates to victory. There is work to be done yet, however, and so it
is that the faint sun of the season sees the palace shrouded in silence, most
of Regina’s troops busy elsewhere. It’s not completely unwelcome, particularly
when Regina’s breakfast table affords her calm and the company of father, as
well as her favorite spiced bread and salty boiled eggs.
What spring doesn’t afford her, however, is the gift of Snow White’s heart. By
now, most her council candidly agrees that the princess has become a rather
problematic figure, her stance in the eyes of the kingdom threatening all that
belongs to them, if not their lives as well. After all, were the princess to
tear Regina’s crown away from her, the council’s heads would be the next
logical trophy to claim. Regina would dare presume that if the situation were
to arise, Snow would readily offer a pardon to those under Regina’s service,
but she’s in no hurry to disambiguate her council of the notion that they might
be in danger; she wouldn’t want them to give into lethargy, rather preferring
their instincts sharp. Dangerous or not, Snow White is a thorn on Regina’s
side, the one failure of her rule and the persecuting ghost of tragedies long
past but never forgotten. That she’s capable of conquering kingdoms and
squashing rebels but remains unable to even grasp the princess’ hair disturbs
her peace beyond reason. What is it about the stupid girl that fate seems so
adamant in helping her, anyway?
“Look at this,” she complains, a batch of opened letters in her hands and a
pouting scowl shaping her features. “Snow White sightings at the border of
George’s kingdom; north of the Ogre Valley; traipsing with pirates in the high
seas; dead at the edge of the Infinite Forest; hiding in the main village right
under my nose! Which is it? Which of these ungrateful subjects has an ounce of
truth in their words?”
“Cielo,try to eat something,” father counters, oblivious to her moods or simply
choosing to ignore them, as he has so little power to control them anyway. “It
is a lovely morning, podemos dar un paseo.” (1)
Regina sinks herself into her chair, her shoulders hunching as she crosses her
arms over her chest after dropping the missives into her table and reaching for
an uneaten piece of bread instead. It isa fine morning, and the already
familiar game of a kingdom that sends fake information her way out of fear at
best, and mockery at worst, shouldn’t be reason enough to ruin the soft breeze
and pale sun. It would make father happy, too, if she were to forget Snow White
for even a short while. She knows it saddens him, both her obsession and that
only Snow’s death would palliate it. Regina would despise him for it, and she
most certainly is capable of abhorrent behavior when father’s desires so
clearly hope for reconciliation with her former step-daughter, but it’s easy to
decipher why he might feel as he does. He did see the girl grow up, after all,
amused her with soft-spoken stories and cherished her smiles, and Regina knows
he has no room in his heart for hatred, despite what little joy life has thrown
his way. She wonders, briefly, whether she would have been happier herself had
she grown to be more like her father, rather than taking longer steps each day
to fill mother’s shadow.
With that thought in mind and unable to hide a grimace, she acquiesces with an
easy, “Yes, let’s do that. One more bite, first.”
Both statements prompt father into a big smile, but Regina is already busy both
with a piece of bread and grabbing at the one single unopened letter, an urgent
missive from King George that arrived two days ago via a rider that passed out
right at Regina’s feet, and which she has failed to open for the artless wish
of being contrary. George’s latest proclivity for informing her of Prince
James’ whereabouts continues to mystify her, whether he hopes her to find a
solution to his ordeal or whether he simply wants someone to complain about the
poor replacement he got himself in exchange for his actual son an utter
mystery, and one which fails to garner Regina’s interests. Perhaps old age has
started to affect the severe king, much as it had Leopold on that one last year
of his life. Leopold’s lunacy had certainly afforded her a kind of peace, and
she wonders if there would be any advantage to be had were George indeed losing
his marbles. She has always had a strong liking for his Royal Castle, and
wouldn’t be opposed to conquering his lands were the opportunity to arise. She
smirks at the thought; alas, it is but wishful thinking, or perhaps an idea for
many years ahead. For now, she takes the paper and is only stopped from tearing
the seal open by the sudden creaking of her doors parting wide, three of her
men running their way into the room and breathlessly standing before her.
It takes a moment for any of the men to speak, and even to look up, the three
of them obviously recovering their breaths. Nonetheless, Rivers, first among
the group and very recently released from his duty of mirror carrying, works
through his heaving gasps enough to mutter a rather expressive, “There was–and
then–with the woman–and he stole a sword, too!–And fled!”
Regina lifts an eyebrow once Rivers braves looking at her, and says, “Bravo,
dear, but while we wait for you to grade up to full sentences, would someone
care to explain what has happened?”
The one to speak this time is by far the youngest of the group of three, a
rather new recruit with a handsome face and eagerness written in every single
part of his far too straightened up frame. “The huntsman has escaped, Your
Majesty. There was another prisoner with him, a woman.”
“That idiotand his useless heroics!” Regina exclaims immediately, rising from
her seat and her hunched posture in one single impulsive movement. Of coursethe
huntsman would try and lead Rumpelstiltskin's  beauty to freedom, and of course
he would choose to do it just when Regina was enjoying a mildly pleasant
morning.
“A search party has been arranged, Your Majesty,” Rivers informs her, his
breath regained and his tone unwavering. “Four men on horses.”
“Send a second party. He knows the forests and he’s quicker on his feet,”
Regina orders immediately, a headache already pulsing somewhere behind her left
brow. “And now tell me just who was guarding the doors that a scrawny
weaponless man and a shoeless little lady got past them so easily.”
Rivers and the third silent guard are quick to take a step back, bridging an
obvious separation between themselves and the youngest of the group, who stands
up valiantly looking forward and at Regina, his chin lowered at just the right
angle and no sign of discomfort in his stance despite the obvious tension
settled upon his shoulders. He’s far too young, Regina notices, the armor
settling about him a little large, as if he were but a kid trying to play
grown-up, and she is vaguely reminded of a story about a sick mother and a
sister too young to labor.
“It was Peter at the lady’s door, Your Majesty; he was killed by a stolen
sword.”
“Your sword, I take it?” Regina questions, even as her eyes look for the
weapon, obviously missing.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he readily confesses. “The huntsman ambushed me during a
change of guard, and left me out cold on the floor.”
Regina sighs, something bitter tainting the back of her mouth as she looks at
the young man before her. She does so hate when they’re such children, when
they face her with such bravery and honor even when they know she has no qualms
about exacting her punishments. Perhaps her mind would find better rest if she
didn’t insist on knowing those prowling the palace and forming her personal
guard, but she does have the most terrible tendency of thinking them well-
trained dogs that she must pet in exchange for loyalty. Unfortunately, she must
reprimand even when she doesn’t wish to do so, and so it is with a swift
movement of her hand and a burst of magic that the young guard’s neck cracks,
his lifeless body tumbling to the floor ungraciously. Wasteful,she thinks,
wrinkling her nose with distaste.
She doesn’t stare at him for long, however, and addresses the other two
instead. “Send the body to his family, along with two years’ worth of wages.
Tell his sister there is a place for her at the palace if she so wishes, and
take care of Peter as well.” Then, feigning disinterest, “As for the prisoners,
do make sure they’re returned to me alive.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Rivers intones, hastily ordering the other to help him
carry the body, and scrambling away from her and her bedchambers with as much
hastiness as their burden allows them.
Once they’re gone, Regina drops her weight back onto her chair, traces of
ladylike stances learned long ago gone from her frame as she sprawls
carelessly, stooping down so her corset won’t constrict her too much.
“So much for a placid morning,” she whines.
Father has no sympathy to offer her, his usually tight-lipped attitude towards
her dealings with her prisoners enough to infer his disapproval on the matter.
However, he offers a candid, “Let’s take that walk anyway, my little princess.”
The old moniker rings tender inside Regina’s chest, and she agrees to a short
stroll around the garden in the hopes of freeing her mind of greyish thoughts.
The mild weather and father’s company make George’s missive completely slip her
mind, but the matter of the huntsman’s escape doesn’t leave her thoughts, the
lovely shades of flowers blooming in the spring falling short at conquering her
senses.
After years of apparent resignation to his fate, the huntsman has been playing
the part of desperate prisoner quite well as of late, this attempt at leaving
her the third one already in the past year. The first one had been right after
Little Ace’s death and his first fall between Regina’s legs, and Regina had
allowed him the honor of a proper hunt out of simple curiosity to discover how
well he fared in his endeavor. He’d avoided her men, six of them total, for a
little over a fortnight, and that had been during drizzly weather that had
muddied the roads and made them harder to wade through. There had been no
immediate trigger for his second pursuit of freedom, but he’d left two dead men
behind, enraging Regina enough that she’d foregone chases and had ordered him
back by whispering her words to his heart. She’d seen unbridled fury palpitate
within it as she'd held it in her hand, and by the time the huntsman had walked
back to the palace by his own two feet, he’d been incesed enough even in his
unfeeling state that he’d had Regina pinned to a wall as soon as he’d laid eyes
upon her. She’d laughed delightedly all the way through that particular
encounter, mocking his rage over its uselessness, and the impulse present in
his lust.
Regina always finds something utterly perverse in making demands of a magical
heart, though, something about that particular brand of magic curling
unpleasant constriction about her own chest. Controlling another living being
with such ease does seem to break all rules of nature, ripping hearts out a
discipline born out of the darkest of human witchcraft, and using their
influence against their owner the worst of sins. Mother had always enjoyed the
practice, but most of the hearts Regina has taken through time she’s crushed
with near immediacy, and those she’s kept she’s used with clear-cut political
purposes, making the huntsman her first and only victim of wretched demands.
She wishes to avoid it altogether this time around, hoping that her men manage
to succeed where they failed before, and betting all her cards on the huntsman
being slowed down by taking Belle along with him in his escape.
It takes her men four days to return her prisoners to her, a rather successful
adventure if not for the fact that their state is rather lamentable, clothes
torn and faces caked with dirt and blood. She orders the huntsman bathed and
sent to her chambers, and Belle she escorts back to her cell herself, a spike
of sudden curiosity driving her actions. Regina has her settled in one of the
upper chambers of the castle, a wing haphazardly used for privileged prisoners
and currently holding only her and the huntsman. Therefore, Belle’s cell isn’t
one at all, her abode an spacious chamber with a lovely and big hearth to fight
the cold of winter, wide windows high up near the ceiling and the most
comfortable cot any prisoner could ever hope to call their own. Belle’s
chambers are even filled up to the brim with bounded tomes, fantastical stories
and old folk tales hidden amongst their pages. It hadn’t been too long ago that
Regina had forbidden storytelling between the palace’s walls, an arbitrary
measure if she’s ever executed one, the thought of the forged fancies of
literature angering her and filling her with despair in equal measure, the
memory of a little cousin that had so enjoyed them one that still persecutes
Regina, despite her stubborn determination to forget. Father had lamented the
mandate of ridding the palace of such books, however, and so Belle had been
recipient of that which Regina wished to obliterate. Many prisoners would wish
for such luxuries, but Regina knows that the unbridled hope of being well-
treated can be twice as maddening as a more torturous yet faster demise in the
coldness of dungeons.
Regina lets Belle sit down on the cot, her shoulders slumped and her eyes
closing the moment she’s settled, exhaustion obvious in her thin frame, and a
cloud of hopelessness hanging over her head. Regina conjures a fireball and
throws it to the fireplace, bringing both light and heat into the room, mildly
fascinated that the flashy show of magic fails to elicit any sort of reaction
in the woman before her. Has she seen the imp’s magic so often so as to be
completely uninterested in it, or is she simply that drained? Whatever the
case, it makes Regina lift a curious eyebrow before she makes her way towards
the cot, eyeing the brownish linens with distaste before she sits down
gingerly, every bit the lady as she straightens her skirts about her. She
touches the fabric under her with mild interest, and wonders if there are
people out there in the world forced to sleep surrounded by such rough wool.
“Are you going to kill me?” Belle asks her suddenly, opening eyes so blue that
Regina is caught off guard for a brief moment. She truly is so very beautiful.
“Don’t be foolish, dear, you would be dead already.”
Belle says nothing in return, but her eyes remain fixed upon Regina’s, her gaze
insolent in its insistence. Regina studies her face, most of her skin hidden
away behind caked mud, and blood pouring from a cut on her eyebrow staining the
side of her face, fresh red mixing with dark brown. Regina conjures up a bowl
of water and a white cloth, her fingers delicate when she reaches for Belle’s
chin so as to keep her still. Her hand travels to the hard shape of her jaw,
resting there as she makes Belle tilt her face to the side before pressing the
damp cloth against the open wound on her eyebrow. Belle flinches at the first
touch, but Regina cleans blood and dirt with patience and care, the skin she
reveals flushed red. Belle feels too warm, perhaps even feverish, and Regina
can’t help but smirk when she unwittingly leans into Regina’s touch, seeking
the cool feeling of her smooth fingers. She wonders, briefly, if
Rumpelstiltskin would hate her more if she were to seduce his precious noble
lady. It wouldn’t be difficult, Regina muses, not with this woman that speaks
in fairytales and dreams of heroes hiding under the faces of monsters. Regina
would have to be kind, though, patient in her endeavor, and she’s not
particularly inclined towards kindness or patience these days.
Belle’s unwavering gaze provokes her, however, its steadiness intrusive, and
Regina thinks she can guess at Rumpelstiltskin’s reasons for loving this woman,
even if doing so with a wretched heart. Her eyes lack fear as well as judgment,
and isn’t that what every dark creature secretly craves? Regina figures it must
be naiveté on Belle’s part, and yet she can’t help but feel the lightness of
her as a near tangible aura. No wonder Rumpelstiltskin would prefer her over
his usual brand of woman, despicable and treacherous in nature, much like
himself. No wonder he would fumble and blush under the beaconing blue gaze of
this tame little girl full of hopeful words. And yet, hadn’t Regina been just
as hopeful and mild when they’d first met? Hadn’t she been a little girl
desperate to escape an imposed fate? Hadn’t she been good? The thought
blisters, unkind.
Regina lets go of Belle with none of the delicacy of her previous touches,
rather tightening her fingers about her flesh for a too long moment before she
pushes her face away, forcing her eyes aside. By the time Belle’s gaze returns
to her, Regina is standing up and away, arms crossed loosely over her stomach
and hands holding her elbows, as if seeking denied comfort. She refuses to be
jealous of this bland thing of a woman, though, refuses to be the demon in
Rumpelstiltskin’s life while Belle becomes the angel, opposing her in every
way. Her anger slips past Belle and goes straight to the thought of the imp,
though, the tricking creature who forces them to be nothing but two sides of
his game, who makes them regard each other as little else but an extension of
himself.
All of a sudden, Regina regrets having stepped into this chamber at all, having
touched soft skin and stared into blue eyes. She scoffs, despondent when she
flicks her wrist and conjures up a tub of warm water and a fresh set of
clothing for the muddied girl, one last act of undeserved kindness that she’s
quick to punctuate with her next words.
“Next time you try to escape, I will take away your books.” Then, with a hand
twirling the air dismissively and a satisfied curl to her smile, “I will also
cut your tongue. To begin with.”
Belle blinks owlishly at her, disappointedly unaffected by the threat as she
reaches up and towards her own chin, touching the spot where Regina’s own hand
had rested not seconds before. She appears stunned, but her voice rings clear
when she dismisses Regina’s words and instead questions, “What am I doing here?
If it’s not my death you wish for…” she trails off, her countenance more
intrigued than threatened, something of the graceful and curious woman she’d
spied through her mirror present even under layers of dirt and tiredness.
Regina bites at the right side of her lower lip, unwittingly betraying doubt in
the gesture. There are hardly any reasons to hide the truth, and even as she
owns nothing to this woman, she can’t help but confess, “You are here to pay
for Rumpelstiltskin’s sins.” Then, with a sudden and bitter bark of laughter
that shakes her shoulders uncomfortably, she muses, “Sometimes, I think that is
what we are all doing.”
Regina leaves the cell feeling discomfited, and putting all her efforts in
forgetting the past few minutes entirely, deciding then and there that Belle
will from now on be nothing but the vestiges of revenge trapped behind a door,
forgotten by all and buried away by fabricated death. The resolution settles
and yet bitterness lingers, so that when Regina enter her bedchambers to find
her second prisoner standing by her bed with a scowl painted between his brows
she has to bite back a groan. She has half a mind to send him back to his cell
just as well and be done with him, but she doesn’t. Instead, she circles his
straight and unmoving frame, wrinkling her nose at the state of his fine
clothing and the marks of blood making his shirt stick to the skin of his
torso.
“Strip,” she orders, standing before him like the perfect picture of an
audience looking forward to a prepaid show.
Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t fight the orders, removing his clothes with
jerky movements that have him standing naked before her in little to no time,
his garments now no better than torn rags crumpled at their feet. He stares at
her when he’s done, defiance that Regina has learned to delight herself with in
his light blue eyes. He smells of sweat, mud and forest, and yet he’s still
attractive, his chest rising and falling in rapid beats with his breathing
ragged out of sheer indignation, his hands lazily resting by his sides, as if
refusing to cover his sex is the ultimate act of provocation. His chest is
marked by time spent deep within the forest, small and shallow cuts marring his
skin, the thickest breaking the skin right above his right nipple. It looks
fresh still, and Regina can’t help herself from reaching forward and cupping
her hand around it, a clean breath of magic closing the wound with ease. Her
eyes settle upon the newly healed skin, but when she motions towards a second
cut, the huntsman stops her movement by wrapping his hand tightly about her
wrist.
Regina lifts her gaze to his, and he answers her silent question by spitting,
“Don’t use your magic on me.”
Regina scoffs, yanking her arm back until he’s let go of her, and then making a
show of rubbing the reddish skin with an annoyed pout. Dismissively, she says,
“Suit yourself, dear.”
She moves around him and towards her bed, sitting down at the edge with hefty
gracelessness and looking about herself as if trying to decide what to do next.
There’s a pile of letters to be read right at her bedside table, George’s
unopened yet urgent missive resting at the top of it, and perhaps she should
get to that once and for all. She reaches out for them, while spying the
huntsman out of the corner of her eye, moving to face her, his nudity still
somewhat tempting despite his sullenness.
Sighing, she looks up at him, considering, and tells him, “As entertaining as
this new hankering for freedom of yours has been, you have to promise to be
good now, won’t you, darling pet? That’s three men you have killed already, and
twice you have forced my hand to finish others. And that poor girl, giving her
false hope.”
He snorts at her words, almost yelling when he says, “Forced your hand? Is that
what you tell yourself to sleep better at night?”
She blinks up at him, already tired of the judgmental look present in his eyes.
It’s one of those days, then, when the entertainment he provides fails to
compensate for his arbitrary snubs. It’s these kinds of days that Regina
despises him to the point of considering killing him once and for all, and
putting them both out of their misery, for he dares clothe himself with
contempt and superiority when in truth he’s the worst of hypocrites. Whether he
beds her out of rage or desire, the truth of the matter remains, and if he’s to
throw judgment for what they are to each other, then he should do so at himself
just as well. She doesn’t have the energy for this today, not after the
discomfort of her visit to Belle, but her discouragement inspires her towards
punishment, and so it is with a smirk and a sly look thrown towards the
huntsman’s discarded clothes that she chooses to dismiss him.
“Get out, now. Rivers is just outside and dying to escort you back to your
cell.”
The huntsman eyes her with consideration, perhaps fearing retaliation if he
turns her back on her. He’d probably expected to be met with anger, and
Regina’s flippant mood may have just failed to fulfill his fantasy of a
confrontation. He knows by now she’s not one to strike at someone’s back when
she would much rather gloat to their face, so he moves to recover his clothes
with limbs that betray fatigue.
He’s just about to step into his torn breeches when Regina declares, “I don’t
quite recall giving an order to dress yourself.”
There’s sharpness in the gaze he settles upon her, eyes closed at half mast
that only further the joy present in Regina’s smirk. Nonetheless, he says
nothing, accepting his punishment with as much grace as a man in the nude may
possess, and throwing his ragged clothing back to the floor and at her feet, a
sacrifice to an unyielding and cruel god. Then, he simply turns around and
steps away from her chambers, her sudden laughter following him while River’s
barely concealed snort receives him just outside her door. It will do him well,
to remember where he stands. Her men will be equally pleased, the favor that
she has seemingly bestowed upon the huntsman a thorn for men that have sworn
their loyalty but have no place within her bed.
Regina’s laughter dies quickly, her demeanor by parts amused but still
disgruntled by the events of the past few days. She chooses to chase her ghosts
away, to put an end to unwanted feelings ignited by prisoners she shouldn’t
bother herself with, and so she goes back to her unopened letters. Reaching
forward, she takes George’s dismissed letter once more, certain that the
Military Advisor will be on her case anyway if she continues to pay attention
to other seemingly unimportant matters.
“Bring me some good news, dear George,” she murmurs to her empty room as she
tears the seal open, hoping for a battle to soothe her bloodlust, or perhaps
for an invite to a ball where she can cause discomfort with nothing but her
presence.
George’s words elicit a groan from her the moment she begins reading, another
unimportant tale regarding his son’s whereabouts imprinted on the page. She’s
just about ready to give up on reading the whole thing when the detail of Snow
White’s name catches her eye, George’s swirling handwriting suddenly opening up
a whole world of possibilities, a tale of passionate yet forbidden love taking
shape in a speech severe and lacking embellishments. Because if Prince James
has run away from his wedding, then he’s done so in pursuit of his true love,
the princess turned bandit Snow White, and if he’s done so then it is only
because his love is welcomed and returned in kind, Snow’s venture into George’s
palace proof enough of impassioned feelings. Both on the run, Midas angered
over his daughter being snubbed, George equally furious and bereft of mercy for
his false son, and yet Regina’s heart pounding hard against her chest, the
wheels inside her head turning with determination, lessons learnt long ago
burning under her skin, for Snow White has boasted strengths for as long as
Regina’s known her, but now she has fallen in love, and if there is one lesson
branded on Regina’s flesh with fire hot irons then that is that love is
weakness, and by that weakness, Snow White shall fall.
 
===============================================================================
 
The first thing Regina notices upon her arrival at Maleficent’s fortress, is
that she’s redecorated. Gone are the plushy, old couches that used to face the
fire, the faded browns of them and the fabric thinned by age that had barely
kept together substituted by a set of tall and dark chairs that look about as
comfortable as they probably are, which is not at all. They look imposing, like
something Regina might have chosen herself for one of the grand halls at the
palace, the ones she only ever uses when her guests require a heavy dose of
superiority, and in Maleficent’s abode, drafty yet oddly comforting for her,
they unsettle her.
The second thing isn’t so much confounding as it is annoying, Maleficent’s
naked body wedged between two equally disrobed women on her bed not a sight she
would have ever chosen to be witness to. They had tried once, inviting a third
party to their bed. As it turns out, Regina isn’t particularly good at sharing,
a fact that the maiden that had joined them briefly had discovered once she’d
found herself transported to the barren lands surrounding Maleficent’s fortress
by a wave of uncontrolled magic. Regina has every intention of flicking her
wrist and sending these two away just as well, but a burst of sudden fire
burning her fingers stops her from even trying.
“Ow!” she complains, shaking said fingers and fixing a disapproving gaze upon
Maleficent, now propped on her elbows and staring at her through eyes full of
mirth.
“Be nice,” Maleficent reprimands, laughter painting her tone even as she shakes
her two companions awake and proceeds to shoo them away.
The two of them, girls more than women, scurry off in a flurry of naked limbs
and untied clothing, made all the more urgent by Regina’s glare settled upon
them. Maleficent pays the whole ordeal no mind, instead pushing herself up and
away from the bed and pulling a heavy robe over her shoulders before wrapping
herself up completely in the thick fabric. It had been a gift from Regina, once
upon a time, and Maleficent hadn’t thanked her for it, but had worn it often.
“And just what brings you here this lovely afternoon?” Maleficent questions,
her hands steady as she pours two goblets of whatever drink she’s finding
herself fancying these days. She slides herself closer to Regina, steps slow
and eyes heavy-lidded as they rest over her, and offers her a cup.
Regina takes the offering, and not quite sure why, she deflects the question.
“They get younger the older you get, dear. Don’t you find little girls to be
disappointing?”
Maleficent chuckles, and when she reaches for Regina’s chin and fails to grasp
it at her first try, Regina realizes that she must be a little drunk still. Not
a particularly odd state for Maleficent, her unsteadiness is but momentary, and
soon she’s curling cool fingers against Regina’s jaw, the touch shaping its way
into a caress against her cheek. Her free cheek receives a sloppy and warm
kiss, too, and Regina closes her eyes at the onslaught of bayberry wine scented
breath and smooth skin.
“You were a little girl once, too.”
There’s no bitterness to the statement, and yet it feels like a slap to her
face. If Maleficent wants her to feel replaceable then she’s hit just the right
sore spot. Regina isn’t particularly inclined towards hostility, though, not
today of all days; she has a feeling that every insult ever conceived couldn’t
take the prospect of happiness away from her. Thus, she ignores whatever
gloominess has taken over Maleficent today and just follows her to her newly
acquired chairs, doing her best at accommodating herself into one of them, an
uncomfortable task at best. The seats are too short and the wood at her back
digs uncomfortably into her shoulders. She squirms, and finds that the only way
of keeping herself mildly comfortable and of not being to choked to death by
her own corset is forcing her back straight and keeping her legs crossed, her
weight leaning on the one arm that she presses to that of the chair’s.
Maleficent looks about as uncomfortable as she does, her position being forced
into ladylike like grace discomfiting when she’s always been such a fan of
slouching and sprawling.
“Whatever happened to your old settees?” Regina questions, laughter in her
words.
Maleficent groans, her hand claw like when she reaches up to pinch the bridge
of her nose. “Cru and her dogs – don’task.”
“Now see what keeping unsavory company does to you.”
Maleficent tsksat her as reprimand, and fails to look at her when she murmurs,
“You broke more than a pair of old chairs, so do refrain from lecturing me on
the company I keep, my darling.”
Regina licks her lips, avoiding a near gasp. Maleficent’s accusation surprises
her, confessions that they’ve never made before tangled with her words,
speaking of the rejection Regina had issued so long ago, one dark night inside
her bedchambers. She wonders at whatever may have Maleficent’s mood so sour,
and realizes how little she wants to deal with it, however selfish the feeling
makes her. If a confrontation is forthcoming then Maleficent stops it just as
quick as she’d apparently started it, however, leaning sideways and into
Regina’s space so she can clink their goblets together into an unasked for
toast. They both drink, and Regina begs the wine to steal away the brief
sharpness of the moment.
Goblet empty and senses focused on the purpose of her visit, Regina takes
Maleficent’s truce and, fingers tapping away at the wooden arm of the chair,
she says, “I have a business proposal.”
Maleficent laughs, turning keen eyes on her, her interest obviously piqued even
as she answers on the negative, saying, “We don’t do business. You have the
rest of the magical world for that.”
“But I want to make a deal, and only you have what I want.”
Maleficent huffs, a snap of fingers filling up both goblets yet again, even
when hers rests unmoving and clutched in a tight grip. Her tone is far more
direct when she next speaks, as if she’s just woken up from a hazy dream. “I
know the Dark One has been out of commission for a while, but I didn’t think
you would be the one to take up the mantel.”
Regina huffs, increasingly annoyed by the visit and her friend’s moodiness.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps.
“Fine, I’ll humor you. What could the almighty Evil Queen desire from this
humble servant?”
Regina ignores the pointed sarcasm with a roll of her eyes, avoiding expanding
this conversation forever by simply asking for what she wants. “Your sleeping
curse,” she counters, and when Maleficent raises a questioning eyebrow, she
elaborates with, “It seems that my princess has found a prince, and if she
wishes to keep him alive, then she’ll have to take a bite of this.”
Regina twirls her hand in the air and a red apple appears between her fingers,
the preservation spell set upon it keeping it fresh-looking and tempting,
promising crisp skin and flesh. The one piece fruit that had survived an autumn
of rot, and as soon as Regina had learnt of Snow’s fall into the abyss of love
she’d known it’d be the proverbial instrument of her demise. A symbol of
Regina’s strength to finally defeat her most ancient enemy.
“Provided the right poison, of course,” Regina says, a smirk marring her lips
when Maleficent can’t help but smile, the deviousness of revenge obviously
something that speaks to her innermost spirits, even if she enjoys playing up
her disinterested disapproval on the matter of Regina and Snow White.
“An apple? Really?”
“Every story needs a memorable detail, wouldn’t you agree?”
Maleficent snorts, her eyes shining with mischief. “Every story needs an
ending, my darling, and yours with your princess has been a long time coming.
Apple, spinning wheel; pick your poison, but end it once and for all.”
“You disapprove.”
“I have never encouraged your obsession.”
It’s not quite an answer and most certainly not acceptance, but then Regina has
never needed Maleficent’s authorization or support in matters regarding Snow
White. She knows for a fact Maleficent would have had her quitting her
endeavors years ago in exchange for peaceful oblivion. Maleficent doesn’t
persecute the issue anymore, though, instead looking at her pointedly until she
has regained her full attention – an easy task, Maleficent’s allure always
commanding regard where Regina is involved, never mind the years that pass
through them.
“And what exactly am I getting in exchange?” she questions, a smile curving her
lips as if ready to make fun of whatever answer Regina may provide.
Regina doesn’t give a verbal answer, instead snapping her fingers. A small
cloud of purple smoke reveals a box, as enigmatic in its contents as the magic
within it allows it to be, which is none at all. Immediately, the wide, drafty
chamber around them, always cold no matter the burning fires, feels entirely
too warm, the presence of dark magic hefty on both their frames. Every single
protection spell she has ever known wrapped around it, and yet the magic of the
Dark Curse palpitates inside the box resting between her hands, a siren call to
Regina’s senses that forces her to close her eyes and breathe in slowly, long,
harsh breaths to remind herself of her own body, to ground herself in the here
and now.
“He gave it to you,” Maleficent says next to her, and in that moment, her voice
comes as if she’s standing at the other side of the room and there’s a world of
obstacles in between them. “You’ve always been his favorite, I suppose.”
There’s surprise and awe in Maleficent’s voice, and something that might just
be affronted jealousy, but Regina barely registers it. She hasn’t held the
curse this close since Rumpelstiltskin gave it to her, and now she remembers
the exact reasons why she has chosen to stay away all this time. It wants her,
desperately, deliciously; it wants to eat her whole and Regina is inclined to
let it do just that. But then, suddenly, there are hands, familiar and firm as
they slide against her own, long fingers wrapped around those that she has
tensed about the box, holding onto it in a brutal claw-like grip. Regina
breathes out, and a whimper that might just be her own follows, the feel of
Maleficent’s cold hands against her own making a brave effort at bringing her
back to her senses. Even so, when Maleficent tries to disengage her from the
box, Regina pulls back with harsh limbs, unwilling to let it go. No,she wants
to scream, it belongs to me, it wants me, it’s my destiny,and the thought
swirls inside her head as magic swirls about her hands, tingling with
aggression and delight, ready to protect her possession by any means necessary.
The fighting stance doesn’t deter Maleficent, but rather spurs her on, bringing
her lips down until they’re pressed against Regina’s forehead, the touch too
determined to be just a kiss. The chill of Maleficent’s lips is refreshing,
however, and it becomes a contrast when the witch’s magic comes out to play,
burning when the touch of her skin is cold. Regina breathes in the feel of
primitive magic, and it scorches her insides, from the tip of her taut fingers
and around her rigid spine, travelling down her chest and settling low on her
belly, blazing there like molten lava. Regina moans, unbidden, and in the next
instant the pressure lifts, both the dark magic of the curse and Maleficent’s
own evaporating and fading away, leaving nothing behind but the taste of burnt
wood at the back of her throat and an uncomfortably tight feeling spreading
from her abdomen to the apex of her thighs.
“What did you do?” Regina whispers, her voice raspy and struggling to come out
in between breathless pants, and yet awed at whatever sort of protective magic
Maleficent has just performed.
Maleficent laughs near her face, both the sound and her breathing tinkling with
ease, resting against Regina’s senses like the most soothing of balms. “I still
know a little more than you do about a few things.”
Regina opens up her eyes, and the movement is unhurried, sluggish, her lids
heavy and fighting her all the way. The look she finally manages to bestow upon
Maleficent is glazed over, almost drunk, and Regina realizes that her skin is
sweaty and her mouth dry. She licks her lips, dizzy but not nauseous, and
unwittingly reaches out for her discarded goblet, the warm wine enough to
freshen up a tight throat. She feels as if she’s been running for miles on end,
and about as turned on as if she’d spent the last few hours being teased on
someone’s bed just as well. It’s a little overwhelming but she doesn’t fight
it, instead reaches out and rests a hand on Maleficent’s shoulder, steadying
herself with the feel of rich yet tattered fabric under her fingers. Maleficent
is kneeling between her legs by now, the movement that had settled her there
completely lost to Regina’s woozy senses, but when the witch begins
disentangling her fingers from her grip on the box, she doesn’t oppose her.
“It has been driving you insane, hasn’t it, my darling?” Maleficent questions.
Regina nods absent-mindedly, thankful that her senses seem to be finally
settling and that Maleficent is so close to her, tangible, warm and soothing
right between her legs, her forearms resting over Regina's thighs as she pries
her fingers one by one away from the box. Finally liberated of the burden,
Regina’s breath hitches when Maleficent lifts the lid of the box and makes the
sphere containing the curse disappear with a flicker of her hand. She has the
briefest moment of doubt, of wanting to take back that which she has freely
given, but with the magical influence gone, she notices she has no particular
need other than perhaps that which palpitates between her legs. Fleetingly, the
understanding that she is completely freed from the Dark Curse’s pull for the
first time in months hits her, and the breath that catches on her throat
threatens to turn itself into a sob. Regina doesn’t let it, swallowing against
the constricting pain gripping her throat and lowering her head so she can
reach back and press nimble fingers to the back of her neck, where the hum of
the curse had settled the moment it had come into her possession, and has only
now just left. She finds her hair plastered to her skin by sweat, and has the
sudden desire of taking a long, leisurely nap, her yearning for rest only
defeated by the throbbing between her legs. That Maleficent is mindlessly
dragging blunt fingernails up and down the inside of her thighs is honestly not
helping matters much.
With a voice raspy still, and breathing that refuses to calm down completely,
Regina wonders, “What did you just do to me, witch?” There’s no accusation in
her voice, but rather amusement, or at least whatever little of it she can
muster in between confusion and desire.
“Honestly, my darling, if magic like that doesn’t get you going, you’d have to
be dead,” Maleficent counters, smart fingers inching their way higher and right
where Regina needs them. “Would you like a little help?”
“It isthe least you can do, considering.”
The heel of Maleficent’s hand comes to rest between her legs, the press of it
against the inseam of her leather pants digging the fabric into her flesh
deliciously, and stealing a garbled complaint out of her, words lost inside
incomprehensible sound at the sudden hitch of pleasure. Maleficent is all
smirks and pride when Regina settles half-lidded eyes upon her, and the look
suits her far better than gloom detachment, makes her all the more beautiful.
Maleficent’s hands make quick work of one her boots then, throwing Regina’s leg
over her shoulder so she can make her way towards Regina’s waist and claw away
at the cords holding her pants together. Regina hears ripping, but can’t find
it in herself to care when the promise of Maleficent’s touch has her limbs
quivering with need. Careless tugs free the one leg and leave the leather
fabric hanging halfway down the other, and Regina gasps the moment the air
touches her nakedness, every inch of her skin matching the heat of her sex.
She’s dripping wet, moisture touching her inner thighs and glistening on dark
curls, a sight that Maleficent finds herself so ostensibly enamored with that
she seems in no hurry at all to actually do something about it. Regina whines,
needy.
“Patience, now,” Maleficent scolds, her lips still curved into a smile and
breath ghosting Regina’s skin.
“Mal, I swear, I will set you on fire if you don’t–”
Her speech is cut abruptly by a yelp when Maleficent hooks both hands under her
knees and pulls, dragging her down until she’s at the edge of the seat and
uncomfortably slouched against it, the rigid wood at her back unforgiving. The
whalebone of her corset digs at her in the most uncomfortable places, but
whatever soreness may come from this is made worthy by Maleficent throwing her
leg over her shoulder once again, and in the same motion plunging two fingers
deep inside Regina, her folds wet enough that they offer no resistance. Regina
grunts at the intrusion, wanting to follow it with her own hips but stopped
from doing so by the awkward position and by Maleficent holding on to her with
her unparalleled strength. It hardly matters, though, not when she’s quivering
already at the heat climbing up her skin like the most delicious shot of
bourbon, her cunt the center of an onrush of pleasure.
Maleficent’s free hand wanders, and the touch is nearly inconsequential against
the mounting satisfaction of her fingers curled inside her, too soft to be of
notice until Maleficent finds the shadows of finger-shaped old bruises and
presses right onto them, making Regina’s skin pound under her hand. Regina
gasps and squirms, an instinctual yet futile attempt at getting away making her
try to find  purchase. She finds the arm of the seat and Maleficent’s hair, and
both her hands curl with the same tension, her fingers pulling at loose strands
with barely a sigh of strength. Maleficent eases up on the pressure against the
bruises and instead drags her fingers inside her with more intent, so Regina’s
chest heaves with a pleased mewl this time. Maleficent knows how to play her so
very well, and Regina suddenly wishes she hadn’t found bruises left behind by
the huntsman’s hands, a lover so beneath her and so unlike Maleficent that the
whole thing takes on a perverse and shameful tint, however fleetingly.
Maleficent shushes her thoughts away, though, her mouth following the path of
her fingers and finding Regina’s clit with wet and warm lips. The first touch
is soft, but after a grunt and Regina wrapping her legs about Maleficent’s
head, holding herself on her shoulders and hovering dangerously away from the
seat, Maleficent gives up on slow gentleness and works her tongue against
Regina with equal precision to her fingers, smiling against her only after
she’s managed to reduce Regina to little more than a string of breathy moans
and a puddle of sensation. It hasn’t been like this for ages, all trembling
limbs and overly sensitized her skin, her senses overwhelmed with whirls of
heat and pleasure building steadily up. And up and up they go, Regina’s orgasm
so strong that she nearly knocks herself out when the back of her head crashes
against the back of the chair.
There’s laughter helping her come down from her high, throaty and warm, as well
as curling fingers leaving her insides little by little, refusing to completely
disappear from between still tightening walls. Regina smiles, still blissed out
by sensations, and only moves back a little so her ass isn’t hanging completely
in the air.
“These are some terrible chairs,” she complains, breathless but smiling.
She reaches down impulsively, and when she finds Maleficent’s face, she cups
her cheeks and kisses her, her tongue searching for the lingering taste there,
and fingers already planning on wandering down and inside Maleficent’s robe.
Entrance is denied however, the wet sound of their breaking kiss the end of
Maleficent’s presence invading her space, for the witch stands up and walks
away towards a table, her hands already busy with something other than Regina’s
skin by the time Regina has been made aware of the separation. Regina frowns
but says nothing, refusing to beg for that which hasn’t been offered, and
instead aiming her efforts at putting her clothing back on, even if the rip on
the left leg of her pants have made them useless. Of that, she doesn’t
complain, having given up on Maleficent respecting her garments many years ago.
Maleficent comes back to her eventually, and standing next to her, she dangles
a vial right before Regina’s eyes. Regina smiles, reaching up for it with
loosened limbs, and blinks owlishly when Maleficent takes it away at the last
moment and she finds her fingers wrapped around empty air. She says nothing,
not when Maleficent keeps the vial in sight and moves to sit next to her,
everything about her long and languid as she gracefully stills. Such beauty,
and yet, for a single instant, it seems to Regina that her friend is older than
she’s ever been. She has a feeling that she’s about to be lectured, and she
wonders if the pleasure offered, a rare occurrence between them these days,
hasn’t been a clever way of leaving her lethargic and slow.
“You know he gave you that curse for a reason,” Maleficent says, reaching out
for Regina’s hand and resting her own on top of it, as if placating her even
before she can snap.
Regina shrugs, disinterested in the Dark Curse now that she knows it to be
safeguarded by hands that won’t be tempted by it. Moreover, with Maleficent’s
sleeping curse beautifully mixed with her apple, Snow White will cease to be a
problem, and there will be no use for a curse so dark that it must have been
made only for the most desperate.
“He wants me to cast it, of course,” she intones. “He should know better by
now; I have never been good at following orders.”
“It wants you, Regina, and magic like that…” Maleficent’s voice lingers, and so
do her eyes, sharp blue orbs that settle upon Regina’s features, as if looking
at her for the first time. Maleficent moves forward, her fingers forming a soft
curl as they near Regina’s face, and Regina leans closer too, moth to a flame.
She’s flushed still, and when Maleficent’s fingers land on the hot skin of her
cheek she can’t help but smile, the touch cool and gentle, the thumb that
Maleficent presses to the corner of her eye pleasantly rough.
“What, Mal, what is it?”
“I would have given you my curse if you had simply asked for it, you know that,
right?”
Regina shrugs a single shoulder, unsure. Her relationship with Maleficent has
been a collection of meetings swimming in between affection and sourness for
the past few years, and she finds it hard to trust anyone when her own feelings
seem to betray her with such ease these days.
“The only reason I’m taking the Dark Curse from you is because you’re insane
enough to cast it.”
Regina bristles at Maleficent’s words, and the tension it brings must be
noticeable, for Maleficent tightens her fingers about her wrist when moments
before they’d been resting on her hand.
“You know it’s the only reason you’re giving it to me, Regina, so stop telling
yourself whatever lies you’re justifying this with.”
Regina licks her lips, and finds that her heart is pulsing hard against her
ribcage, her eyes wide as they stay locked within Maleficent’s gaze. “It’s mine
to cast,” she croaks, the words climbing their way from deep within her gut,
terse and with a mind of their own, painful as they take shape between her
lips.
“I know it is,” Maleficent agrees, a hint of a pained smile lifting the corner
of her lips. “Just as I know that you will come back for it one day, and that I
will do anything in my power to keep you away from it.”
The bluntness of the confession hits her with the sharpness of a blade twisting
itself inside her chest, such adamant certainty in the prediction that Regina
finds herself unable to laugh it away, even if that’s just what she intends to
do. Maleficent doesn’t know that, can’tknow that, and yet her unwavering eyes
seem to defy Regina to try and deny a truth written in stone. Unable to grasp
denial, Regina does the next best thing.
“If the time comes, my dear old friend, then I will do what I must.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you will.”
Emotion tingles at the back of Regina’s head, pressing hefty fingers against
her eyebrows and threatening the corners of her eyes with unwanted tears. By
the time Maleficent kisses her, lips firm yet soft, a tear has carved itself a
path down her cheek.
 
===============================================================================
 
The blind witch steals her poisoned apple, and while Regina refuses to throw a
tantrum over the matter, she does promise retaliation of the worst kind. How
the insane and crippled lunatic managed to get ahold of anything of hers at all
remains a mystery, but Regina suspects Rumpelstiltskin’s slippery hands, his
moping apparently over as news of deals made and payments exacted begin
flooding the magical world all over again. Whatever the case, the witch has an
impenetrable gingerbread house and a taste for children’s flesh, and so Regina
sees herself handling ungrateful children that fail to recover her precious
apple by virtue of being tempted by buttercream and chocolate. If Regina saves
them once they fail then it is only because she refuses to feed the witch, and
if the Infinite Forest keeps seeing its population growing then it’s because
some retaliation must be paid by her most useless of minions – honestly, how
hard can the instruction don’t touch the foodbe to follow?
Frustration follows her wherever she goes, it seems, the prince she needs to
fulfill her plan missing still, even with three armies following his steps,
both George and Midas having joined her efforts in recovering Snow White’s
lover. Regina has no patience for it all, not for witches or princes or kings,
and most certainly not for children, her senses running faster than the world
around her now that Snow White’s demise feels like a certainty, rather than a
possibility. Nearly fourteen years they have danced about this inevitable
ending, and Regina is much too tired of waiting, every fiber of her being
craving the sight of Snow willingly tumbling to the ground to save her foolish
prince. Alas, she has no apple and no prince, and so she’s left spending her
days pacing about her rooms, incapable of finding concentration or care for
anything other than Snow’s prompt journey towards eternal slumber.
Spring has passed its baton to summer, and so the days are long and warm, light
lingering for hours that stretch on end, teasing Regina into restless hours of
sleep and growing irritation. If she has any room for thoughts other than those
about Snow, then it’s Maleficent that comes to the forefront of her mind,
reflections on her accompanied by impossible and weary melancholy. They had
said their goodbyes only after falling silently into bed, as if there were no
words that could encompass the sense of rupture that had settled over their
shoulders with vulture-like severity. Maleficent had been so certain that their
future held nothing but confrontation between them that Regina finds herself
wondering if she’d seen such a thing prophesized by the touch of her unicorn.
They had always been an odd mixture of friends and lovers, after all, and it
seems to Regina that to assume a future that counts them as enemies is absurd.
Whatever the case may be, as she’d slid warm hands over Maleficent’s skin,
she’d felt as if they were finally giving answer to their what if’s and might
have been’s, and that the answer had been no. Regina endeavors to banish the
thoughts, however, deciding that she will visit her friend once her revenge on
Snow has finally been exacted, and will erase ideas of gloomy times to come.
One day rolls into the next, and every morning Regina awakens with the belief
that she’s living but the beginning of the end. The members of her council find
themselves dealing with a queen of flighty thoughts and easily distracted
spirit, whose hand only becomes harshest by the day, her focus, when it comes
back to her, ruthless in the face of a rebellion that refuses to be quelled.
Her Military Advisor questions her well-being, and so does father, both close
enough to her to spy the change of her demeanor, her absent-mindedness coupled
with a near urgency present in her every word and every move. It is her lady’s
maid who bears the brunt of her fickleness, though, her hands full with a queen
that forgets to eat and fails to care, that fights bleeding cramps with copious
amounts of wine, and who mumbles her way through capricious demands that she
later forgets having issued.
Regina can’t confess the truth, though, can’t wrap her tongue around words of
woes of the past and wounds that still palpitate under her skin, for the closer
her vengeance, the deeper her pain. If she’d thought her injuries closed then
she’s been wrong all these years, the thoughts of Snow’s eyes closing forever
dragging along the bruises of the past, lacerations cured sloppily, sewn
together by threads of grief turned anger, of obsession turned lunacy. The
revelations crowd at the tip of her tongue, however, waiting for her confessor.
And if anyone is due to hear the truth, then that is Princess Snow White, whose
greedy little hands had taken hold of Regina’s life the moment they had met,
and hadn’t let go yet.
Regina wears Daniel’s ring about her neck these days, the weight of it as it
rests between her breasts a reminder of the past as much as it is a promise for
the future. Once, it had been a promise of happiness, of boundless love and a
simple life, and now it must be nothing but a pact forged with fire and blood,
a pledge of taking one life in exchange for the one that was stolen so long
ago. Hardly a steep price to pay, for Daniel’s death had only paved the path
for wasteful destruction, for the ripping away of everything and everyone
Regina has dared to love.
By the time Regina has recovered her apple and trapped her prince, the winds of
autumn have begun drifting their way into the solitary palace, and Regina has
paid the fare for her prizes ten times over, with her sanity and her grief. Her
sanity she has given to open wounds of the past; her grief, however, had been
the reward of two children now lost, a sweet and foolish little boy, and a girl
with steel in her eyes and the stance of a queen. What an heir Gretel would
have made, and how easily Regina’s thoughts had flowed, her heart beating for a
child to mold, a child to teach, a child to turn into her very own queen, free
to love whoever she pleased, warmed by the love of a brother who would be
companion but never rival, respected by virtue of following the Evil Queen’s
line. Rejected, the traitorous hand of loneliness had gripped Regina's chest,
and so the children had been made to pay just as well, their destiny to forever
wander.
Nonetheless, the price has been paid, and so Regina has what she needs - an
apple, resilient, lonely and poisoned, and a princess’ heart, weakened by love.
 
===============================================================================
 
The day after, Regina sleeps. If the world around her is turning on its axis,
relearning itself after changes unpredicted, or moving forward with relentless
perseverance Regina doesn’t care, for Princess Snow White sleeps, and so, the
Evil Queen rests.
Regina had thought she’d be nervous, or perhaps even doubtful, facing Snow
White in an open field after so many years of persecution making her question
every purpose, every moment that had brought them both there. She’d prepared
for such an event, her dress tight and constricting, her make-up warrior-like,
shields, walls and weapons raised with indomitable firmness, her heart and
whatever sigh of affection for Snow White that may still linger within it
hidden and crushed under the weight of hatred strong enough to build castle-
like defenses about her. And yet, she should have feared nothing, for the sight
of Snow, pleading and defenseless when faced with the possibility of saving her
prince, had brought nothing but satisfaction as hot as iron to Regina’s heaving
chest, piecing together broken parts of a heart so splintered that Regina had
thought it torn forever.
Together they had stood in that field, where their story had started decades
ago, the tale of a blood feud coming to an end as Regina opened a crack in her
defenses wide enough for Snow to spy wounds of the past, festering still right
under Regina’s skin, the scars invisible and the pain made worse by virtue of
their silenced grief. Snow had seen, and for the first time ever, Regina had
failed to spy the sentiment behind her eyes, her gaze clouded by years of
separation, by a fight made of pain sharper than bloodied knuckles, by a world
of lies and betrayal hidden away in years of feigned love born out of pure
survival instinct. And yet, Regina dares say there’d been no pity, but only
sadness, waves of it permeating Snow’s frame as she looked upon Regina, made up
to be the Evil Queen with every stroke of make-up, every curved smirk, every
harsh word, every pointed bead etched into her dress, but somehow still the
woman she had grown up with, hidden away in ridges and crevices, emptied out by
loss, clinging to the corners of Regina’s mind and looking on, hoping for peace
of mind.
And so they’d faced each other, two sides of a coin that the world had tossed
over a decade ago, the hero Snow White and the Evil Queen, two women with a
kingdom set ablaze between them, and at the same time sisters forced together
by chance, and pried apart by the fingers of inevitability. Regina had offered
an apple, a smile like a bruise painting her lips, and Snow had taken a bite,
love etched tightly into her heart bringing death where all the hatred in the
world had failed to hurt her, and the princess had tumbled to the same ground
where she had first decided that Regina was to be hers, the bitten fruit
rolling away from her limp fingers, her chest paused in the breathlessness of
eternal sleep. Regina had taken a big breath in her stead, and as the air left
her body, constricted by whalebones pinching her skin, hidden away by pinks and
purples carved around her eyes and into her lips, she had felt the weight of
the world lifting away from her shoulders, so the step she had taken over the
fallen body had been but buoyant floating, and the laughter that had parted her
lips but a tittering waterfall of sound.
Upon her arrival at the palace, however, fatigue had conquered her with the
indomitability of a war fought for centuries on end, strength leaving her body
and fuzziness clouding her head until she was left feeling but a mild tingle at
the tips of her fingers accompanied by the boundless desire to lay down and
never wake up. She’d laughed at the thought even as she allowed her lady’s maid
to pull at lace and string, to press a warm cloth to her face, stripping away
her armor with fingers already familiar with the motions. She’d laughed because
it was Snow that slept the sleep of the dammed, and yet it was Regina who was
being pulled under the shroud of placid slumber, the fingers of fate soothing
aches where they had only bruised in the past. And so it is that Regina sleeps,
and when she opens her eyes, she does it to a world where Snow White dwells no
longer, and where the Evil Queen reigns sovereign, and so at last, the world
moves under the rules set by its rightful queen.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina’s day begins with arms stretched contentedly, lips curved into a cat-
like smile, and stomach grumbling away. The scent of breakfast calls to her
immediately, and Regina gives into her hunger with gusto. She sits at a table
already set with far too much food, and after a short inspection of it, she
pushes the tasteless yet hearty porridge she has been favoring as of late away
in favor of pecking her way through still warm bread, figs and fresh milk, her
eyes distracted with the sight of the greyish sky outside while she eats
slowly, the meal settling a malnourished stomach since she’s finally allowing
herself time to sit down and eat, rather than rushing through every moment. Her
balcony doors are open, autumn breeze that is already too cold filtering into
the room, making the heavy drapes sway on their spot, and Regina burrows into
her seat, wrapping her robe tighter about herself. The day smells of rain, and
it makes her lazy, the thought of which makes her smile. She has felt nothing
but restless for months, anticipation burning bright under her skin, and it
seems to her that she deserves the tranquility unraveling inside her chest, the
soft detachment pressing cotton-like against her mind. She settles her eyes
upon the view outside, and thinks that she’s looking at a world without Snow
White in it. How daunting, she muses, right before she laughs.
The weightlessness of the day lasts her all through morning, most of which she
spends outside by her balcony, dressed in nothing but a thick nightgown and her
robe, her feet bare against the cold marble of the floor despite the chilly air
of the season and the threat of rain from the skies. She has stood hundreds of
times right on this very same spot, always seeking peace of some kind, even
when such a feat had only seemed possible if she were to give up entirely and
jump to the vast void before her, never before being consumed by the sense of
giddiness present in her today. Fleetingly, she realizes that despite plans and
plots, that despite clawing her way through ranks and politics so as to be able
to make use of the crown that had once been nailed to her head without her
wish, that despite filling her anger with purpose and aim, she has secretly
feared all this time that her vengeance was but an impossibility. How could she
think otherwise, when her power and her cunning seemed but tendrils of weak
endeavors in the face of a kingdom that had crowned another as their champion,
when her efforts and dreamless nights were slandered as machinations of an evil
spirit while Snow White’s running was clamored as bravery against a cruel
tyrant? It makes it all the sweeter then, that years upon years of grief have
finally afforded her the winning hand.
Father finds her late in the afternoon, when the sun is starting its descent
into the darkness of the night and when Regina’s numbness has already given way
to steady and practical thoughts. She intends to send news of Snow’s defeat
across the kingdom, much as she once did when the king had died. There will be
bards and proclaimers, led through paths and villages by the shadow of her
Black Army, and their voices will rise for the victory of the Evil Queen and
the swift defeat of the kingdom’s hopes, and so there will be no sliver of
faith left for rumors and fake beliefs, no time for mouths to run wild with
ideas of the princess coming back to life. A cursed princess will be a far more
efficient tale to spread than a dead princess, too, for somehow people are far
more afraid of magic than of death, and so they will despair for a while, and
then they will forget with the same fickleness they had displayed when they’d
decided which roles both her and Snow were to play.
Regina expects a brew of uprising once the first waves of confusion and
consternation die, however, knowing that the martyr-like defeat of Snow will
call for the fighting spirit of those stupid enough to be loyal to a dead
cause. Regina will be prepared for such an upheaval in advance, though, and
with the first efforts quenched with plodding fury, she has no doubt that the
kingdom will shimmer down and admit to the triumph already filling Regina’s
hands. Then, with their princess gone and Regina’s mind at rest, they will be
quick to realize that if they ever afforded her the title of evil, then it was
because they refused her only desire, and that now that her spirit is at rest,
she’s nothing if not a queen to be respected, and not feared.
“We were worried, cielo,” father tells her, voice low and steps silent,
standing a few feet from her but reaching out, offering his hand palm up for
her to take if she so wishes. “You are not feeling sick, are you?”
“No at all, daddy,” Regina answers, taking the offered hand with both of her
own and nearing father’s hunching figure.
He smells of powder and sugar, as if he’s been spending more time around the
kitchens than any nobleman should, and he’s looking up at her with something
like wonder, as if he doesn’t know quite what to expect. He’s heard of Snow’s
fate by now, of course, and Regina isn’t particularly sure she wants to know
how he feels about the choice Regina forced upon her, or about the prince still
dwelling in her dungeons. She chooses not to question the matter, knowing well
that father has a gentle spirit and a desire for tranquility that will never
understand Regina’s quest or her path of self-righteous anger, but knowing just
as well that father’s love for her always wins over whatever he may be feeling
for her otherwise. Holding his hand between hers, she leans down to press a
kiss to his cheek, his skin papery with age but as smooth as she remembers it
being as a child, when father was still strong enough to lift her up from the
ground and carry her upon his shoulders. She has a sudden desire for the simple
joys of what her childhood had been, for the world she’d known before Snow had
walked into her life, before she’d understood the meaning behind mother’s
commands, and even before she’s speaking the words, she already knows what she
wishes to do.
“Let’s have a ball,” she states, childlike wonder in her smile when father
lifts warm brown eyes to lock with her own. “A celebration,” she continues,
biting her lip as she imagines twinkling lights and elegant dresses, music and
sparkling wine. “We’ll open up the doors of the palace, invite all the noblemen
and have food and drink and music – will you dance with me, daddy? It has been…
years,” she says, her speech cut by the deep seethed ghost of a sigh, words
touched with nostalgia that she doesn’t usually allow herself, lest it consume
her.
Father smiles at her, something small yet cheerful, carefree in that way only
he manages to be when dealing with Regina. Laughter hidden in the wrinkles
around his eyes and caressing his voice, he says, “I don’t know, cielo,my knees
aren’t what they used to be anymore.”
Regina tsks,playful to match his demeanor and quick to press another kiss to
his other cheek. “A slow dance, then,” she replies, twining then their arms
together and pulling so they’re walking inside her bedchambers and towards the
closed doors. “Come; there’s much to prepare.”
The council receives her decision to have a ball with open enthusiasm, claiming
how happy they are that she’s finally listening to what they have been saying
all these years about congratulating herself with the court, and making Regina
almost regret the decision right then and there. She clarifies that the
occasion is a punctual celebration, and that no one should be made to believe
that Regina is in any way inclined to have noblemen prowling her hallways on a
permanent basis. Nonetheless, the council seems contented with the idea, and so
Regina leaves them with the task of issuing invitations for as soon as the next
week, not wanting to lose the sudden and frenzied excitement behind the idea.
She has them approach her neighboring kingdoms just as well, naming George and
Midas, as well as whichever entourage they wish to travel with as honored
guests, their involvement in her victory over Snow not to be forgotten. In a
last minute decision, and as sign of mirthful disobedience, she issues personal
invitations to the Queens of Darkness, her penchant for scandalizing the court
upturned by the liberation of senses previously trapped by thoughts of her
revenge.
If her council is happy, then her household not so much, putting a ball
together for a boundless number of fancy guests in little over a week proving
extraneous work. Her Head Cook grumbles the most, and never shy to express her
opinions to her queen, complains at every request, of which there are many.
Regina gives her the bound book of recipes she’d collected from her sweet and
never forgotten Prince Bernard, and exhorts her to make at least a batch of
every single one of them; she has her trudge through the cobwebs of her
memories for spicy treats and sweets that Little Ace had brought to their
table, and which Regina had forbidden after the girl’s demise; she sics father
on her with orders of asking for dishes that had once graced their table back
home at the manor, and which mother had steadily abolished and substituted with
bland stews and porridges; she has her prepare platefuls of dukkah,and to make
use of spices left behind not long ago by Nubia; and with glee, she gives her
baskets upon baskets of new autumn apples, the very best coming from her fully
healed tree, with orders for them to be turned into fritters and pies, tarts
and sauces, cakes and polentas, doughnuts and turnovers, and of course, cider.
She orders vast amounts of chocolate to be brought to the palace, too, as well
as expensive treats such as turronand dates, thinking of Maleficent’s taste for
anything special and foreign, her capriciousness in her eating habits as well
as other appetites something that Regina had always enjoyed.
When her Military Advisor questions her sudden taste for exuberance, Regina
dismisses his worries with twirling hands and careless words. She has been
known in the past for her frugality in certain matters, never one for wasting
resources, much more so after living through the disease that had almost killed
them all, but for this ball she spares no expense, hoping to make of it the
celebration that she was never afforded as Leopold’s queen. Not even her
wedding had been a proper feast in her name, everyone quick to ignore her even
as she waddled her way through the room in the heftiest dress she’s ever worn,
her frame pushed down by jewelry so heavy that it had only been surpassed in
weight by that of her old husband’s above her later that same night. Later,
too, balls and feasts had been held in Snow’s name, and Regina remembers the
princess shining as an uncrowned and tasty jewel in the middle of the dance
floor, feet light and head held high, her paleness painted with rosy excitement
and her smile beautiful under twinkling candlelight. Regina had done her part
then, skulking around the edges, planning and plotting and lying to carve
herself a spot within the crevices of a court that she’d despised, wishing for
someone to offer a kindness as simple as a dance. There is no more hiding to be
had, though, not with Leopold rotting away under her feet and with Snow White
trapped in eternal sleep, forever beautiful, forever bereft of life, and so
Regina will have the most splendorous ball that there is to be had.
Not one to celebrate alone, she has food and beverage run rampant through the
kingdom, knowing by now that she will sooner conquer her people back by filling
their bellies with warm bread and muddling their thoughts with good ale than
with rousing speeches and shows of strength. Tides are bound to change, and
while the difference is already making her chest expand with the ease of
liberation hard-won, she intends to make the kingdom understand that there has
been a shift in the world around them – and what better way to make sure people
know better times are ahead than with music, wine and food?
 
===============================================================================
 
The ball is everything Regina wants it to be and more, grander than any other
the palace has seen in the past, made even more special by the noblemen having
been denied entrance for such long years. Everybody comes, if driven by fear or
curiosity Regina hardly cares, not when everyone being welcomed into the
ballroom is but a glorified doll which had no other purpose than playing house
as their host wishes them to, an Evil Queen with the enthusiasm of a child and
the mood of a young girl attending her first ball. The court provides the
background for her personal entertainment, ohhing and awing accordingly without
being prompted, gasping as if on cue when Regina makes her late entrance,
applauding as if they knew the gesture to be expected. And Regina – well,
Regina laughs. Robed in a brand new gown that had the Royal Taylor sleepless
for days, Regina saunters her way inside the room, the blood red and metallic
gold shine to the fabric surrounding her proving a bold and commanding choice,
making her the center of attention in every way Leopold had denied her in the
past. And if Leopold’s memory is to be thrown out the window tonight, then so
is mother’s, her rules on politeness and frugality forgotten the moment a tray
of dark chocolate makes its way before Regina’s eyes.
Regina eats. She eats and she drinks and she dances, laughing in a throaty
cascade that refuses to be shy and composed, that ignores ideas of what a lady
should be, that rejects hiding and slithering around the corners like a mean-
spirited snake when it so clearly belongs to a pouncing beast instead. Her
court, banished for so long and only admitted back for this poignant night, is
as curious about her as it seems adamant in avoiding her, and perhaps her
infamous mercurial temper, but Regina doesn’t let them rest, happy to drag
whoever looks positively terrified with her into the dance floor, men and women
alike. The trembling and nervous laughter does tire her eventually, though, and
Regina has half a moment of regret over her decision of keeping Snow’s prince
trapped in the dungeons. She’d toyed with the idea of forcing him into pretty
clothes and bringing him as companion, turning his scowling hatred and stubborn
defiance into entertainment for the night, much a she’d done at the prince’s
own engagement party. After all, despite heroic speeches and a spirit self-
righteous enough to match Snow’s, the prince had given her the courtesy of not
turning into a mass of trembling limbs before her. However, she’d decided to
spare herself the inevitable escape attempt that would proceed were she to
allow him a moment unchained, and so tonight she distracts her attentions with
his surrogate father instead.
Regina had danced with George once upon a time, when she’d been seventeen and
him nothing more than an old king fit for mother’s purposes and so far away
from anything important to Regina that his rejection had been but a merciful
gift. Unwittingly, George had bought her precious time with Daniel. Tonight,
he’s the only man that doesn’t see himself dragged to the dance floor, but that
rather asks for a dance himself, his words short and the hand he offers her
presented as a favor rather than a symbol of honor. He refuses to bow just as
well, and yet Regina laughs with genuine delight and takes the offering. He’s
hardly a friend, the ever stoic George, but he respected her when no one else
did, and despite a partnership full of upheavals, she does prefer the instances
that see them fighting on the same side.
There is no fighting to be had tonight, and Regina is surprised by the king’s
proficiency as a dance partner. He’s very by the book in his every move, his
back straightened at just the right angle, the separation he keeps from her
nothing if not the appropriate one, the tension in his arm enough to both hold
her and drive her movement around the floor, allowing for her dress to swish in
the most pleasant way. It should be far too stilted, and yet his hand feels
surprisingly pleasant at the small of her back, and his eyes are fearsomely
steady against her own, his feet moving them about with the clear intention of
showing her off. She would have never guessed that such a man could be an
extraordinary dancer, and it pleases her enough that she manages to ignore his
pleas of having his son returned to him with the same crackling delight that
she uses to deny his weak attempt at what must be his thirtieth marriage
proposal by now.
“George, dear, no; for the umpteenth time, no,” she answers, stopping their
movements in the middle of the floor even while she remains encased within his
arms, their dancing frame loosened but not gone.
“And don’t you dare have a pout and raise your armies over this. I do like you
on my side, but you know fairly well I have no qualms about squashing you like
a bug,” she states, fury curling at her throat, only contained by the
contentment that has been clouding her feelings so far. With a wicked little
smile, she adds, “I do so like your castle; don’t tempt me to claim it for my
own.”
Surprisingly enough, George matches her smile with one of his own. The gesture
doesn’t sit well within his features, the comfort of a tight set of lips and
eyes hardened by sobriety replaced by a curl of lips better suited for a mad
man. Regina reacts jerkily, trying to move her hand from where it rests in
George’s hold and finding it trapped instead, the squeeze of George’s fingers
about her own abruptly unforgiving.
“You are a most magnificent woman, Regina.”
The most inelegant snort parts Regina’s lips, the sound strangling itself when
George takes a step towards her while at the same time bringing her closer with
the hand still resting at the small of her back. If she’d enjoyed the touch
briefly, it troubles her now, the feeling of her chest pressing against
George’s unpleasantly itchy. She yanks her hand away from his with
determination, but while she endeavors to get completely separated from him, he
leans closer so his warm breath touches the skin of her cheek, dampness that
might have been attractive from just about anyone else impossibly
uncomfortable.
“The truth of the matter is, my queen, that I love you.”
That stops Regina’s frantic movements, her senses startled both by the words
and the utter coldness lacing the tone of voice uttering what should otherwise
be the most poetic of confessions. She laughs, small and nervous when she
intends to make the sound into a mocking cackle. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear
George.”
George, however, has thrown himself into whatever little fantasy world he has
concocted with the same steadfast determination he applies to commanding his
armies, for he’s not deterred, not by Regina’s words or her obvious discomfort
at being held between what she now realizes are very strong arms. George’s
breath is warm and clean, but Regina’s mind stabs her with the sudden memory of
Leopold’s rum-soaked scent, the aroma of nights spent in despair, of a child
lost and innocence gone. It makes her dizzy, and she wants to gag, but George
is merely talking to her, words that jumble together and reach her as the most
unsteady cacophony, a string of absurdity woven into words of praise. So
ruthless,he says, so heartless, so strong; never thought I would love again,
but you…His words hold no meaning, and yet, when George's lips shape the title
my queenafter every sentence of devotion, devoid of passion but tied up with
possession, Regina shudders. She tries to rid herself of George’s embrace once
more, but her limbs feel weak and useless, incapable of such a feat. Anger
travels up her spine then, violent in its intent and awakening a spark of magic
as it burns its way through her body.
She snaps and with her, so does George’s wrist. Whatever mindless idiocy he was
busy spewing her way stops with a low hiss of pain, George’s hand at her back
suddenly going limp so that Regina is free to take a couple of steps back,
freeing herself from George’s embrace and breathing in big gulps of air. No one
notices their sudden tense stances, and George is mindful enough to not cause a
scene, merely holding his broken wrist against the palm of his other hand, his
eyes searching Regina’s rather than inspecting the bruising already starting to
blacken the skin around the break.
"Stubborn, too; I forget,” George hisses, tightly coiled anger seeping out of
every pore.
“You forget yourself completely, old man,” Regina snaps back, leaning back
again into George’s space now that she’s regained her composure, whatever
discomfort the man had caused seconds ago completely gone and substituted by
sheer disgust. “All these years and you still believe I need a man by my side.”
“Perhaps it is me that needs a woman, Your Majesty,” George replies with
conviction. It settles better in his frame than whatever poetical fancies he’d
been attempting before, and it paints his voice with the truth of confession.
“I was fond of my first wife, Regina,” he tells her, abandoning formalities for
the first time since they’ve known each other by using her given name. Regina
doesn’t like it, but she allows him to continue, curious about what he has to
say.
George takes a moment to bring his hurt wrist closer to his chest, holds it
there with as much dignity as he possesses, and then continues, “She was mild,
modest and beautiful, and the ladies of the court loved her. I was sad to see
her go, but I refused to take a second queen to follow her path of quaint
servitude. The moment I met you I realized why that was.”
“The moment you met me, dear George, you rejected my mother’s attempts at
having you propose, so please do tell your tale with precision, since you plan
on boring me to death. Is there a point to this at all?”
George smiles, something almost fond in the gesture that feels so utterly odd
in his features, and tells her, “You were a girl then, and had I known the
woman you would become I would have kneeled before you right then and there. I
would, right now, if it pleases you, my queen.”
The title burns against Regina’s chest, and she snaps at George once again
before he can continue with his nonsense. “Enough. I was no more Leopold’s
queen than I am yours.”
“You speak the truth. Leopold was an undeserving fool, but next to me you would
have your rightful place. We would be equals in everything, in command and in
po–”
George’s speech is cut by a clear peal of laughter this time, real amusement
coloring the sound. The gall of this man, offering Regina equality when she has
spent years fighting her way through conventions and traditions that insisted
on pushing her down a notch, on making her place one in which she’s never
belonged. It irritates her, that so late in the game he would dare declare love
and give her parity as a gift, knowing that no other man would propose such an
unheard-of marriage deal, that it would surely be Regina’s best offer were she
looking for a husband. The foolishness of the world that she must live in makes
her smirk, however, and she takes the one step that has been allowing breathing
space in between her and George, pressing herself closer and making an effort
to stand taller in heels that are already towering impossibly, just so she can
whisper her next words right against the shell of George’s ear.
“George, we are notequals,” she states, denying whatever delusion he has made
himself believe by circling his hurt wrist with tightening fingers, squeezing
against bones that feel unnaturally dislocated under her palm. He hisses and
she smiles even wider, her teeth those of a wild beast. “I am miles above you,
and you will do well to remember that allowing you to be my ally is the highest
privilege that you can hope to achieve.”
She squeezes one last time, secretly hoping for a grunt of pain. George denies
her, his spirit strong and stubborn despite Regina’s inquisition, and so she
gives up on continuing whatever this past moments have been. People are
starting to stare, too, and she would rather not play jester for the court.
Instead, she gestures distractedly to her side, and the motion brings one of
her Black Guards immediately to her side.
“Claude, please be a dear and escort King George to our doctor; there has been
a regrettable accident, and I wouldn’t want my closest ally to be in any pain.”
George glares at her and Regina keeps her smile pasted on her face, content
when the king doesn’t put up a further fight and simply follows Claude’s steps,
his head held high up in the air, as if having dismissed whatever offense
Regina has committed against him. His ego has suffered a blow, however, and it
also makes up for the discomfort he’s settled upon Regina’s shoulders with his
little stunt. There is such petty satisfaction in denying those who always get
what they want, after all.
 
===============================================================================
 
Her run in with George leaves her unsettled, as if he’s cast a shadow of doom
over what should have otherwise been a bountiful celebration to liberate her
mind and her senses. He’s made it a little harder to stop thinking, however, to
forget a world that even now expects that which Regina isn’t willing to give.
Nonetheless, the room spins with clear music and warms up with food, drink and
laughter, the late hour and the outlandish display of the kingdom’s splendor
seemingly enough to forget about Evil Queens and princesses laying asleep. The
masses, commoners and nobles alike, are so fickle in their favor that it’s
nearly risible, and Regina decides that it is absurd for her to be distraught
by what this kingdom of hers thinks of her at all. Now more than ever, she
knows that Snow White will be forgotten faster than her reputation had risen –
the kingdom hankers for legends and fantastical battles, and a martyr put to
sleep by an apple in a lonely field lacks the necessary heroic climax to keep
their senses dazzled for longer than a few moments of mourning. Regina thinks
it’s better this way, though, for even if the kingdom had roared and burnt as
it fought their battles, the war had always belonged only to her and Snow, and
so its resolution is bound to only soothe Regina’s broken heart.
With her spirits lifted and her mind cottoned by liberal amounts of wine,
Regina convinces herself that the celebration might just turn to be uneventful
but for its unique appeal, George and his ill-advised stab of madness almost
forgotten. Regina makes an effort to remain calm and giddy, and to enjoy her
guests as much as she possibly can given her usual derision towards the court.
There are friendly faces amongst the crowd tonight, and so Regina looks for
them and finds herself sharing a drink and a quiet chat with Duchess Adela, who
has traveled from the north along with her tiny charge. The picture they make
amuses Regina, the duchess clad in her usual rich yet stern attire, shades of
grey covering every inch of skin but her face and hands, while the little girl
stumbles about the room in the puffiest yellow gown Regina has ever laid her
eyes upon. The duchess seems happy enough with her role as tutor, at least
enough that she forgets to further berate Regina for that unfortunate trip up
north and the regrettable demise of King Edmund.
The night proves to follow the path of the unconventional, however, when a
high-pitched scream alerts Regina to some sort of ruckus on the far end of the
ballroom, the origin of which makes her roll her eyes with near immediacy.
Perhaps she should have clarified that her invitations didn’t include pets, but
then she’d hardly guessed that Cruella would show up with her mutts trailing
her. Regina can’t help but snort, though, when a group of ladies cowers away
from the unusual visitor at the same time they eye her with gazes full of
judgment. Then again, what can they possibly do at the sight of the strange
creature that Cruella is? The witch doesn’t seem bothered, and the moment she
spots Regina among the crowd, she begins walking her way. It always seems to
Regina that she’s about to fall under the heavy weight of the furs she’s so
fond of, her walk an ungainly dance of too thin limbs and feet that never quite
got used to wearing heels.
Regina smiles, amused, and Cruella steals her delight away in the next second,
when she bellows across the room, “Nice digs, Reggie.”
Most of the time Regina forgets that she can only stand Cruella as long as
she’s not existing anywhere near her. She would have taken Ursula any day,
alas, this ball of hers seems to be adamant in displeasing her at every turn.
Cruella makes her way towards her finally, snatching a goblet of wine from a
nearby tray and obviously satisfied by the eyes that are following her
movements, by now most of the noblemen’s around them, those that aren’t busy
inspecting the witch staring at her dogs instead, following her trail before
settling themselves on the floor, as if the most perfectly behaved little pets.
“I didn’t take you for much of wine enthusiast, dear,” Regina comments once
Cruella is within earshot.
“Oh, I’m not, darling,” she replies, looking at Regina as if she’s positively
lost her mind and then canting the goblet backwards, throwing the wine away in
one swift movement. The red liquid lands straight on an old baroness’ dress,
but Cruella is already busy extracting a bottle of gin from the confine of her
furs and pouring it on the empty goblet to pay much attention to the spluttered
protests of the lady. “Gin?”
Regina shakes her head, still undecided on whether Cruella is being amusing or
completely irritating, and settling somewhere in a middle that is already
familiar to Regina when it comes to the other woman. Choosing to lean closer to
amusement, though, Regina leans back against the closest wall with a casual
air, and wonders, “And where is your better half?”
Cruella waves a hand dismissively in the air, and takes a long sip of her drink
before shrugging one shoulder and explaining, “Sinking ships or something. Some
old grudge with a pirate; honestly, darling, I wasn’t paying attention. It’s
always insane plots with you lot. Can’t you just… run your enemies over with
your car or something?”
Regina lifts a questioning eyebrow, but Cruella stops whatever she may have
wanted to say with a snort. “Right, no cars.”
For all of her rudeness and her proclivity for causing irritation, Cruella
isone of the oddest creatures Regina has ever met, and she would be lying if
she said she wasn’t interested in some of the nonsense she spouts. Her speech
is always filled with the most unusual words, and she carries with her objects
from a world that can’t possibly be the one they’re living in. The court seems
equally curious about Regina’s latest guest, even if most noblemen have chosen
to hide their appraisal behind aloof gazes. Adela’s little charge is even busy
patting the head of one of Cruella’s dogs with all the excitement of her two-
year old little self.
Cruella, for her part, refills her already empty goblet with more gin, and then
extracts a silver and thin object from whatever secret pockets she has in her
strange garments. Regina looks on with child-like curiosity, and bites her
lower lip when the object turns out to be a box filled with the white cylinders
she’s seen Cruella smoke in the past.
Mocking smile twisting her lips, Cruella drawls, “No cigarettes, either, of
course. Want one, darling?”
“Is it like tobacco?”
Regina thinks father might have been a smoker in his youth, but mother had
banished such practices from her house. Leopold had indulged occasionally,
though, always when surrounded by big, old men prattling about nothing at all
and feeding their egos while the women looked on from the other side of the
room, busy embroidering and drinking sweetened tea. Regina had never had much
intimacy with the ladies of the court but for Baroness Irene, but in those
instances of smoke and laughter, they had all shared in an equal taste of
bitterness when staring at their husbands. Surprisingly enough, Snow had been
the one to steal some of her father’s tobacco once, fifteen and probably
prodded by her newly acquired sycophants. Regina had found out, scolded them
for the transgression and taken the tobacco away, only to smoke it herself
later. It had made her so sick that she’d refused dinner altogether.
Tonight, however, when Cruella nods her assents, she takes one of the strange
cylinders and follows the other woman’s lead by bringing it up to her parted
lips. Cruella lights them both up with a candle she snags from a nearby table,
and the moment the tip shines bright orange, the back of Regina’s throat itches
with the uncomfortable touch of smoke against it. She coughs, pulling the
cigarette away from her mouth, and Cruella laughs even as she pats her back in
a repetitive motion. The commotion is enough to alert her guard, but Regina
dismisses his worries with a raised palm.
“My, my, to have an army at your feet like that,” Cruella drawls, smoke pouring
out her nose with practiced ease while Regina considers whether she wants to
give the smoking thing another try or not. “It almost makes up for this place.”
“This place?”
“Honestly, darling, it’s like hell but with better fashion.”
Regina shrugs, not particularly sure what Cruella is getting to, and eventually
decides to forget about the cigarette still between her fingers. The thing had
tasted nasty anyway, so she drops it in a nearby cup and motions until one of
the servants brings her a cupful of wine so she can hopefully erase the taste
away.
“I should get me a king, I think,” Cruella tells her, appraising the room and
the people within it. “It’s gotten so boring lately, with Ursula gone sinking
ships and Mal all broody. She’s in a awful pout lately; trouble in paradise?”
Regina twists her lips into a snarl. She would rather not discuss Maleficent
with Cruella, but then she hasn’t seen her since their last strange encounter,
and she had half hoped that she would agree to come to the ball tonight. If
anyone can appreciate the magnitude of her triumphant revenge, after all,
that’s her, and Regina wouldn’t have minded gloating with her by her side.
“I did invite her tonight,” Regina whines.
“And she burnt the invite, said she doesn’t belong here and you don’t want to
see her in your palace. It was very serious and terrifying.”
Regina huffs, mumbling an instinctual, “That insufferable woman. After all
these years, honestly.”
“I thought her thing was notgetting invited places and throwing a fit.”
“That’s just a stupid legend.”
Then again, for all that Regina knows, it may just be the absolute truth. It
tastes like the most bitter of absurdities to Regina’s palate, but the truth is
that Maleficent has never explained her past to Regina, always far too talented
at ignoring her questions and distracting her with other far more pleasurable
matters. Regina doesn’t know what ties her to Briar Rose and King Stefan, or
how her thick scars came about, and while she can guess at swordfights and a
grudge of forgotten origins, she can’t truly say what Briar Rose might have
done to earn Maleficent’s hatred as well as the sadness that always conquered
her deep blue eyes whenever mentioned. Maleficent had once told her that Briar
Rose hadn’t loved her enough, and Regina wonders if she’s not guilty of the
same crime. Nonetheless, Maleficent holding onto the memory of Regina pushing
her away after all these years hurts in a way that Regina doesn’t know how to
control – it feels entirely too much like heartbreak, and she refuses to dwell
on it.
“Anyway, darling,” Cruella drawls, snapping Regina from her moment of
introspection when she leans against her, one fur-clad forearm resting on
Regina’s shoulder and making her wrinkle her nose. “As I was saying, I could do
with a king. Do you have one you can spare?”
Regina huffs, but just when she’s about to reply with unkindness harsh enough
to hopefully drive Cruella away, she has the most mischievous idea, and motions
for Claude to come to her side.
“Claude, has King George been attended to?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He’s resting by the balcony’s doors, in the company of Duke
Wentworth.”
Regina moves her gaze towards the indicated spot, and smiles like a cat who the
cream. “That over there is King George,” she tells Cruella. “Old, rich,
widower, lovesa ruthless woman. He’ll just adore you, dear.”
Cruella offers her a wolfish smile, and then doesn’t spare another second with
her, pressing a dry kiss and mouthing a tata, darling, mama has to work her
magicbefore she’s stumbling away and towards George, the strange pop of her hip
possibly some misguided attempt at seduction. Oh, George is in for a treat.
 
===============================================================================
 
The darkest hours of night fall upon them, and Regina finds herself once again
in the middle of the dance floor, happy to let her feet grow impossibly tired
as she sways her way through the ballroom with graceful and never-forgotten
steps. Despite evidence to the contrary, the night has been accommodating
enough, Cruella forgotten after her Military Advisor had presented her with a
gift in the form of spectacle. Knowing of her taste for delighting herself with
her troops' training, he has a selection of her men perform a spectacularly
intricate choreography of fighting movements for her, naked chests glistening
under the candlelight and muscles moving in perfect unison. She hadn’t been the
only one delighted with the show, men and women alike whispering of the prowess
of such a powerful and well-trained army.
However, it is a night for the unlikely, since the witching hour of midnight
brings an uninvited guest with it, the collective intake of breath of hundreds
of noblemen registering only a second before Regina finds herself settling her
eyes upon Rumpelstiltskin, leg shot forward and arms outstretched in a
flourishing bow right before her, and in the middle of the dance floor.
“I don’t quite remember issuing an invitation,” Regina tells him, crossing her
arms over her chest and glaring, the corners of her eyes filled with whispering
people and gasps of recognition.
“All the more reason to come, dearie.”
Regina chuckles in wry amusement, the sound leaving behind a smirk painted on
maroon colored lips. Rumpelstiltskin straightens up with feline grace, and when
he offers a hand that sparkles golden under the candlelight, Regina takes it,
mirth in her eyes from knowing herself followed by the eyes of the court.
Rumpelstiltskin eases them into a fluid dancing frame, his feet light even as
he pushes her out of the rhythm of the music, twirling her into a fast-paced
waltz, making a show out of their discordance. It must be his aim tonight;
after all, Regina figures he would have opted for a glamour had he intended
subtlety. Instead, he’s at the height of his impish glory, clad in deep green
and snake like clothes, his teeth as sharp as a crocodile’s, a predator to
match the lioness Regina has chosen to be for the night.
Regina’s taller than him tonight, her impossible heels making her tower above
him, so that when he leans into her his breath dampens her cheek. “We’re being
stared at, dearie,” he whispers to her, a child uttering the naughtiest secret
hidden in the giggle he proffers next.
Regina bites her lower lip briefly, wanting to yell but choosing to say nothing
instead. Let them stare,she thinks, let them stare as they never have before,
with awe and fear in their eyes.She’d hidden enough, after all, had she not?
She had played by this court’s rules for years, and she’d made use of its
judgment and quirks to climb a ladder that hadn’t been hers to climb, but now
times have changed and the inherited wisdom of the past has become folly. It is
a brave new world – hers, paid for in fire and blood – and now it is them that
must adapt or die.
“I suppose congratulations are in order,” Rumpelstiltskin tells her after a
particularly impressive spin that has her skirts flying about her, and that
returns her to his arms with a touch of breathlessness.
She laughs when he prods her to keep dancing, the skin of his hand rough and
his grip too tight to be comfortable, but the breeziness of his steps making up
for it. Perhaps, after all, allies and enemies alike do make for the best
partners in a dance, something about a graceful partnership laced with
murderous intent unraveling excitement within Regina’s chest. Perhaps it’s
simply that Regina is drunk, or that Rumpelstiltskin is a naturally good
dancer; perhaps, though, it’s the knowledge that no matter how many cards the
imp has under his sleeve, Regina has a better one imprisoned inside her palace.
Foregoing further pondering on the matter, Regina gives the imp a polite bow of
her head and, with a cheeky smirk, tells him, “Why thank you; and I here I
thought you’d be upset I forgot to cast your little curse.”
“Destiny doesn’t mind waiting, dearie,” he intones, his voice almost song-like
when he follows his words with a short laugh. He must sense Regina’s irritation
the moment she tenses her shoulder, for he yanks her forward and presses his
fingers with further firmness at the small of her back, ignoring whatever reply
Regina may have half formed by stating, “I have to say I did love the apple.
Nice touch, very… appropriate.”
“Such high praise, imp. Should I swoon?”
Ignoring her with ease and with an irritable familiarity, he twirls her once
more, as if he somehow prefers her dizzy and mildly out of breath as she finds
herself to be when her hand finds his yet again. She struggles to follow his
steps for an instant, and he uses her clumsiness as excuse to keep a steely
grasp on her back. Regina shudders, suddenly feeling trapped.
“Now, as for how you acquired your poison of choice, I–”
“Surely you won’t dare whine because I traded your curse, will you, dear?” She
shrugs, inasmuch as she can manage such a gesture while they’re still making
their way across a dance floor that has been emptied around them. Jutting her
lower lip forward just the tiniest bit, she says, “Had you wanted it back, you
should have asked.”
“Should I want it back, I would rip the dragon’s wings out and take it.”
She revolves inside his embrace, recoiling from his predatory smile, but only
manages to stop their movements in the middle of the floor, their arms resting
still about each other's. Regina fumbles for words, finding herself speechless
when Rumpelstiltskin leans closer, looming despite his lack of height, danger
etched into the corners of his lips. She leans back on instinct, but he keeps
her close with knifelike nails at her back, sharp and broken against her skin
even when there’s layers upon layers of lace, taffeta and whalebone in between
them, a warning pressed against warm flesh.
And then he’s gone, one step back and arms loosening about her, the threatening
part of tonight’s performance done with. A giggle closes the charade, and then
he’s smiling at her, devious mirth etched in his eyes, that feeling of always
being one step behind settling low on Regina’s belly.
“Food for thought, Your Majesty,” he tells her. “For tonight, however,
congratulations on a game well played.”
That said, he bows one more time, almost as if he’s expecting applause, even
when he disappears in a cloud of purple smoke before anyone can even think
about moving. A harsh breath leaves Regina’s lungs the moment he’s gone, and
she suddenly realizes that she’s alone in the middle of the floor, surrounded
by looks that are as curious as they are judgmental, and that the music has
stopped altogether, the silence deafening when it seems as if everyone is
holding their breath. What are they expecting – a curse, a threat, someone’s
death, simple anger? It doesn’t matter much to her, not when they’re supposed
to be her entertainment, and not the other way around; she’d been the curiosity
to stare at from afar for too long, after all.
She breaks the standstill with a growled order towards the musicians, and the
moment music flows through the ballroom, whispers play its accompaniment.
Regina runs from them with as much dignity as Rumpelstiltskin has left her
with, fanning herself as if conquered by a heat spell as she directs her steps
towards the balcony. She’s welcomed by cold breeze, the contrast against the
stuffiness of the room sharp against her face. She reaches up, feels her skin
flushed and entirely too warm. Inside the ballroom, the court is busy
recovering the feeling of normalcy, and Regina catches the sight of ruffled
dresses swishing against the floor as couples and groups go back to dancing, as
hands reach over tables for far more food than they could ever eat, their
mouths running with gossip but obviously already forgetting whatever it is they
have seen. How easy it is for them to dismiss and forget, and how Regina hates
them for it.
She reaches up for her neck, digging her fingers into the skin and glad that
she decided against heavy jewelry tonight, wearing instead the tree pendant
father gave her when she was barely a little girl. Turning around, she drags
her eyes away from the inside of the room and turns them up towards the dark
sky instead, hating that once again, she finds herself looking in from the
outside. With sudden sharpness, the whole ordeal seems gaudy to her, the
celebration of a personal victory turned into a vapid performance of vanity,
and it makes her despise everything and everyone – the court for their mere
existence, Maleficent for cursing her triumph with omens of future sins,
Rumpelstiltskin for knowing exactly how to push every button until contentment
turns foul, Snow, for everything she’s been and everything she still is, for
casting a shadow even while gone.
Regina realizes she’s pacing, her chest heaving with heavy breaths, as if
containing fury that wishes to escape her. She hardly knows what she should
lash against, though, who should shape her anger now that Snow is gone, and she
can’t help but laugh at the thought. Madness tingles at the corners of her
mind, and she runs away from it, walking back inside the room and slithering
around the edges until she’s left it behind, her steps taking her into her
bedchambers. Eyes follow her as they never did in the past, everything about
her unavoidable and impossible to ignore, but Regina pays them no mind, lest
someone becomes victim of misplaced ire.
Destiny doesn’t mind waiting,Rumpelstiltskin had said, and Regina wonders what
she’s supposed to do with such an statement. It had been as secure in its truth
as Maleficent’s own, and the certainty of them pushes against her chest,
uncomfortable. The thought grips at her with tangible fingers, branding her
with the same stubborn determination that mother’s words had wielded in the
past – mother wanted her to be queen and so she was, and now Rumpelstiltskin
wants her to cast a curse and she wonders if doing so is an inevitability that
Regina can’t battle her way out of. She refuses to believe so, refuses to yield
to such an idea, for surely now that Snow has been defeated her own time has
come, and there is nothing for her to be other than happy. There’s finally and
open path before her, a future for her to unfold as she pleases, and no
prophecies of fatality will convince her otherwise. And yet.And yet such
certainty to the statement, and such anger still locked inside Regina’s heart.
Locked behind sturdy doors, Regina tugs inefficiently at her dress, the
ludicrous contraption a sudden trap that won’t let her breathe. She peels every
layer away eventually, and follows the motion with her face, wiping it clean of
deep red and golden hues until there’s nothing but her own skin staring back at
her from the mirror, olive tones and imperfect features, the scar above her lip
a shade too white. Her hair follows the frenzy, locks coiled tightly into a
high hairdo coming down her shoulders and back in curled waves until she’s
standing completely bare, the Evil Queen gone and leaving behind whatever it is
that there’s left without her – a too thin woman, Regina muses, with fading
bruises upon her thighs and a nearly invisible scar cutting her lower belly.
Nonetheless, Regina finds herself attractive still, dusky nipples tight upon
perky breasts, thin waist giving way to wide hips and narrowing to strong
thighs, a patch of dark curls between her legs, the line of her collarbones
elegant and her neck long, her skin smooth despite the flaws, a little too
thinly settled over ribs that shouldn’t be that pronounced. Regina still, after
all, imperfect but tangible, far more real than whatever woman it was that was
presiding a ball over a triumph that none of its guests could possibly
understand.
She doesn’t wish to dwell further in such thoughts, but she finds herself
pressing her hands to the underside of her breasts nevertheless, and breathing
in and out slowly, feeling the rippling motion under her hands, grounding
herself with it. She trails her hands down to her waist, splays her palms over
her stomach and wonders if she can somehow still find her own self somewhere
within her skin and with all her armor lost. The thought stirs a feeling of
rightnessinside her, and immediately she decides not to go back to bed, where
ghosts linger still. Instead, she dresses herself this time in thick yet soft
fabrics, light browns and dark greens hiding away her skin behind the comfort
of riding garments. Foregoing makeup and tying her hair into a hasty braid that
falls heavily down her back, she spares one moment to slide the chain with
Daniel’s ring around her neck. Then, and with a flick of her magic, she
disappears from her chambers and appears at the stables instead.
The horses don’t seem to mind the magic much, so she’s only greeted by the odd
neigh and the strong scent permanently attached to the stables. The smell of
leather, hay and manure shouldn’t by any means bring such tranquility to her
senses, but it never fails to settle grounding calm above her shoulders. She
finds Rocinantewith his eyes open and she smiles at the sight, imagining that
he’s happy to see her, if only because the first thing she does is offer him a
few carrots to munch on. She takes a moment to press her forehead to the side
of his face and run her hands over his throat and down his chin in a soft
scratching motion, as if saying hello.Apples and revenge have consumed her time
with such compulsion that she hasn’t ridden at all during the past month, and
suddenly she doesn’t understand why she thought a ball would be a proper
celebration when the freedom of wind against her skin and strong muscles
between her legs should have been her first instinct. Feeling weightless just
at the thought, Regina takes a long while preparing Rocinante,delighting
herself in the artless job of brushing his hair and saddling him with careful
movements. Then, she mounts with the ease and familiarity of years spent above
a horse, and with a small nudge, sets Rocinanteinto a strut that quickly turns
into a full and powerful run, as aimless as it is liberating, the Evil Queen
removing her claws from her shoulders until she’s but a girl atop a horse,
riding away from her ghosts.
 
===============================================================================
 
There is no sun to be had in the greyish day that sees Regina riding away from
the palace, but were it so, it would be high up in the sky by the time she
makes her way to what must have surely been her unwitting destination.
Rocinantestops without being prompted, and Regina stays perched atop him as she
tries to gain her breathing back, the sight of the slab of grey stone marking
Daniel’s grave unsurprising. Not for the first time, Regina runs to the embrace
of her one true love, even if what had once been warm arms is now nothing but
stone symbolizing tragedy.
Finding her footing back on the green grass after such a long ride proves
difficult, and by the time she reaches the stone with Daniel’s engraved name,
she doesn’t know if she collapses out of sheer tiredness or because she simply
wishes to kneel. Whatever the case, she leans forward with unconscious impulse,
her forehead finding the cold stone softly, the grainy feeling of it against
her skin not nearly as uncomfortable as the truth hidden behind it. She presses
a finger to the engraved lines tracing her beloved’s name, and realizes that
she’s trembling. Not just her hands but all of her, her frame weakened by
quivering so strong that the sob that climbs from her gut and up her throat
chatters its way out, the sound of it broken and raw, like rocks on a path
already dusty. It tightens at her throat and clenches her chest, and soon the
hands she places over her beating heart and around her traitorously parted lips
aren’t enough to hold back the tears. She cries, sobs that wreck her and open
her up to grief that she’d buried once upon a time, eighteen years old and with
the world changing itself about her, and her so ready to play by whichever
rules had been set. And now, finally, a world ruled by her but Daniel dead
nonetheless, a cold body kept young by a preservation spell and a slab of grey
stone the only marks of an unremarkable life that had meant the world to
Regina.
Regina cries and she doesn’t know for how long, her chipped heart allowing her
the grief it had hidden away before Snow White merely a week ago, when they’d
stood together in this very same field, finally paying homage to the life they
had destroyed between their careless hands. Regina hadn’t known what Snow’s
eyes had concealed that day, but now she understands, knows that she had looked
upon her not with anger or pity, not even with contempt, but with shades of
hurt so deep that Regina hadn’t been able to unveil them. And how Regina hates
her, for hurting in her name even as Regina doomed her to a terrible destiny,
for daring to feel pain over Daniel’s death, caused by nothing but her careless
hands. Moreover, she hates her for failing to bring comfort to a soul emptied
out and battered, and put together only with thoughts of deadly revenge, with
anger so hot that it burnt away at wounds and scars, that it filled a void left
behind by acute loss. Acute loss that she feels still, for the truth of the
matter remains – that Snow White sleeps in the cradle of a curse so dark that
she will forever be forbidden rest, but that Daniel lies dead just as well, his
life gone, his laughter but an illusion of a far away memory.
Her breathing comes heavy and ragged after long hours of reckless sobbing, and
Regina presses her hands to her abdomen in hopes of making herself calm down.
It’s a difficult endeavor, cheeks warmed by tears and flushed red in her grief
refusing her gulping big breaths of air. She feels weightless in the worst kind
of way, and spots dance before eyes, black and confusing. When was the last
time slept properly – the night after Snow’s defeat, perhaps? Too long ago,
nonetheless, and she finds herself wetting suddenly parched lips and focusing
her senses on the action and the cooling sensation it brings. It’s
insufficient, hardly enough to ground her sudden dizzy spell, unlike the hand
that unexpectedly graces her shoulder, resting there with a tight enough grip
to pull Regina’s world back into focus. Confused still, Regina looks at the
wrinkled fingers resting at her shoulder and follows their path to arms and
shoulders, to neck and finally up to light brown eyes. She blinks owlishly, and
wonders if she’s still dreaming after all.
“Daddy?” she wonders, her voice an uncomfortable croak that scratches at her
throat.
It isfather before her, and not an illusion conjured up by a feverish mind.
Dumbfounded, Regina watches him as he kneels next to her, reaching out with
clean handkerchief that he presses to her damp cheeks, the basic fabric feeling
like the finest of silks against her too warm skin. Father’s brittle-looking
hands continue to dab at her tears, and Regina lets the familiar and welcome
sight blink her dizziness away little by little, her chest expanding until
she’s breathing rhythmically once again. Stupidly, she thinks that she never
danced with father at the ball, after all.
“Daddy?” she repeats, still half-wondering if she’s only dreaming.
“We were worried, cielo,” he tells her, a smile so sweet that Regina almost
believes the we at the beginning of such a statement. After all, who would be
worried other than father?
Regina parts her lips to question how he found her, even as her own carriage is
clearly visible at the edge of the field, the four black steeds and its own
sound something that Regina somehow managed to miss as she was buried within
her own grief. Father beats her to the punch, however, stopping her words when
he leans curling fingers above Regina’s open palm, where Daniel’s ring has been
resting probably since Regina was overtaken by sobs. Two pairs of eyes settle
upon the broken promise, and after an instant, Regina closes her fist around it
and pulls her hand back.
“Pensé que vendrías aquí,” father tells her, voice smooth like clear water, age
almost gone from the steady gaze he settles upon her. (2)
The language and the tone break her, punch her in the chest and open the dam
all over again until Regina’s anguish is spilling out of her every pore,
bubbling up and away from the surface and making her sway forward and right
into father’s arms. He catches her impetus with a mild oof,but holds her with
the strength Regina sometimes doubts he has, bringing her closer when Regina
digs claw-like fingers against his shoulders, hooking herself to his frame as
if she would drift away otherwise. He whispers against her ear, soothing
nonsense that only a child should need, a string of cielo, princesa, no pasa
nada, no pasa nadathat feels like cool hands on feverish skin.
“Oh daddy, I just wanted to be happy,” she says, her voice a weak bubble of
words among tears that refuse to dry. “I just wanted to be happy.”
Father makes no promises, doesn’t tell her that she will one day, that revenge
and quests filled with anger will grant her what she wishes, will give her rest
and peace and a place to belong. His words are as warm as his arms about her,
though, this love of theirs that has only known life in shadows and hidden
corners enough to hold her up one more day, more important than anything else
when the grief she has belongs to the little girl she once was, and not to the
woman that she has given life to. Father doesn’t rescue her, has never had the
will nor the strength to do so, but he soothes her, and for now, she takes what
she has and holds onto it, with plans to never let go.
 
===============================================================================
 
Regina dreams, and she dreams in red. She dreams in shades of blood and battle,
in shadows of loss and betrayal, in the color of apples turned poisonous and
hearts beating inside the hollow of her hand. She sees –
She sees everything and nothing all at once; Snow White, ten years old and eyes
full of fear, pink bow skewed around dark curls after nearly meeting death atop
the back of a horse; Snow White, twelve and diving for Regina’s arms, finding
comfort over a mother’s death in an embrace unwillingly given; Snow White,
sixteen and with her arms about Regina, an I love youclinging to parted lips;
Snow White, dying at the hands of blackened sickness; Snow White, staring into
Regina’s eyes with pain laced with betrayal, a village of slaughtered corpses
before them both; Snow White, a veil of misunderstanding lifting from her gaze
before choosing to take a bite of an apple grown just for her, tumbling to the
floor in a heap bereft of life. And in between every moment, Rumpelstiltskin, a
giggle that pushes itself into frazzled nerves, words speaking prophecies and
offering power, refusing to confess what the true price will be; and Bernie,
and Little Ace, faces lost to a world that picks and chooses who deserves its
kindness with capricious fingers; the huntsman and his eyes rounded with
disgust. Maleficent, too, shrouded in shadows and mysteries, offering a hand
that Regina takes and rejects with no consideration for the one reaching out.
The images pull and push at her, and Regina knows that she’s dreaming but can’t
make herself wake up, not when at every turn she finds Daniel just as well,
dead weight heavy between her arms but skin warm still, his heart carved out of
his chest and turned to dust, and Regina wanting to clinclingclingto him and
never let go, wishing she had ended her life right then and there and foregone
all the grief that followed. But hands pull at her and images waver before her,
red cloaked within the midnight blue of mother’s favorite dress and in love is
weakness, Reginaand why, why must it be, why can’t you love me, mother, why am
I so wrong– and Regina knows it’s a dream but she can’t wake up. She can’t wake
up so she runs instead, runs and doesn’t listen, not to Snow White’s pleads for
a sisterly love doomed from its very beginning, not to her prince and his
heroic speeches, not to Rumpelstiltskin and his whispers full of temptation,
not to Maleficent and her warnings wrapped in an affectionate little girl,not
to the ghosts of babies never born and children taken by death far too soon.
She runs until all she can hear is her own breathing, unsteady and harsh but
proof enough of life. She runs, and runs, and runs until a path draws itself
beneath her feet, and at its end, a fantasy once painted by unreliable magic
awaits her. A mother and a baby, blond curls and chubby cheeks – she reaches
out, wanting, wanting so much that her chest aches, yearning with the
desperation of dreams, even when she knows she won’t get there, won’t –
And she doesn’t, not when ghostly hands pull at her from every limb, every
piece of flesh, every memory and every trembling thought, not when every
particle of her being sags and falls, spirits and sins from the past dragging
her away. She screams, but sound doesn’t come, her voice stolen away and hands
pulling at her; Snow’s and Rumpelstiltskin’s and Maleficent’s and father’s and
many more, flashes of people pushed into the mud by her own unforgiving heels,
dead by her hand, used for her interests, deemed unimportant. And then –
mother. Mother and her unforgiving grip around her wrist, no longer
strengthened by years of grief and loss but small and fragile, bony like a
child’s and weak under mother’s force as she drags her away from whatever
promises the future may hold, drags her down a hallway and – and it takes a
moment for Regina to realize, but there, at the end of it, a cellar, dark and
small and musty, the prison that she never deserved but that belongs to her
nonetheless. A silent scream, and mother’s grip, and the inevitable ending of
this journey and –
Regina wakes up in a cold sweat, a gasping breath clogging up her lungs until
she’s coughing. It takes her a moment to understand that she’s not dreaming
still, but she soon realizes when bile raises up her throat, threatening vomit.
She escapes away from heavy linens with clumsy yet harried movements and runs
towards the washbasin, where she dry-heaves painfully. She doesn’t get sick,
but a bitter taste fixes itself at the back of her throat, and she gags for too
long moments before she’s capable of settling herself. Even then, her sweat-
soaked hair sticks to the back of her neck uncomfortably, and her hands shake
as she does her best at holding herself upright. She closes her eyes tightly,
and wills the nausea away, begs it to take whatever dreamlike images remain
within the darkness of her closed eyelids with it as well.
Restful sleep has eluded her since the day she visited Daniel’s grave, and
tonight she completely gives up on it, convinced that she will indeed be sick
were she to lay back down. The linens are sweat-soaked anyway, just as much as
her gown, and she would rather wait for the sun to announce a new day while
cleansing herself from her nightmares. She warms water up for a bath, sheds her
nightgown and dives into warm water and scented oils, hoping that washing her
skin and hair will give her reprieve enough to stop thinking of whatever
nightmares still remain. The sun will be out soon, anyway, and Regina intends
to meet with her council and turn her attentions towards whatever ails the
kingdom, hoping to regain a sense of herself as soon as she goes back to her
work as queen.
Her breakdown by Daniel’s grave had been inevitable, she guesses. After all, a
lifetime of revenge had never held the promise of having her lover back in her
arms again, but she supposes an idiotic and small part of her had hoped for an
exchange – Snow’s life for Daniel’s. Perhaps she had expected to simply loose
the will to live once her vengeance was complete, and truth be told, she had
been thoroughly tempted to use the chain holding Daniel’s ring to choke her own
life away. Regina has spent too long now pushing herself away from the
victimized persona many would have preferred to endure, however, and she’s not
about to stop herself from the joy of being ruler of a kingdom that has no
heroes to champion against her. She foresees a time of peace for them all, a
new balance now that Snow is gone, and she grasps at the idea with a tight an
unrelenting grip. She surmises that her happiness will begin with restfulness
and peace of mind, and that once such a thing is gained, she can start making
other plans. An heir, perhaps, even if not brought to life through her
entrails; a recovered friendship with Maleficent, surely; and Rumpelstiltskin
kept at bay now that he’s no longer needed.
That will come later, though, since other decisions are of more immediate
necessity. She’s not particularly sure of what destiny the fake Prince James
should have, although she is tempted to keep his heart and give him a black
uniform in exchange. Nothing would make the prince more miserable than fighting
in Regina’s name, she’s sure, and if he were to find a tragic death while in
battle, surely Regina couldn’t be accused of breaking the pact she had brokered
with Snow White. The thought makes her smile briefly, particularly since she
will be bereft of a manly doll if she finally decides follow the path her
instincts have been pulling her towards for the past few days. She has been
toying with the idea of freeing the huntsman, heart and all, considering that
Snow has been defeated now. It seems to her that his penance has been paid, and
she’s not particularly sure she wants to cling to the unhealthy reliance that
keeps bringing them together. She’s hoping for peace, after all, and the
huntsman’s eyes rounded with accusation won’t give her any.
Despite the nightmares, Regina welcomes the light of day with perspective and
tranquility. She’s stupendously tired, but she has plans for the day and
determination enough to forget about whatever images her nightmares choose to
torture her with. She has a heavy heart, she knows, and dancing without
carrying her demons will be a hard task to achieve. She must rely on her
patience, a demanding undertaking if she has ever set herself any, but she must
trust her own spirit just as well, knowing by now that there will be no help
forthcoming.
Thus, Regina prepares herself for her day, and so it is that fate chooses to
trip her the moment she steps her way out her chambers. Right outside her door,
she’s received by Rivers’ unconscious body, bound, gagged and stripped from his
uniform, and even before a party of soldiers reaches her to shout the sudden
news, she already knows exactly what is happening. Damn her and her good will,
damn her for being gullible enough to make herself weak, and damn her huntsman
and his bouts of misplaced heroics. Patience buried deep where no one can find
it and peace all but ripped away from her chest, Regina shouts orders at the
top of her lungs, stalking her hallways in a rage only to find soldiers dead
and wounded both, and a guilty huntsman smiling at an obvious triumph. What she
finds not, however, is Snow White’s prince, nor the horse he steals in his
escape, or the sword he rips away from one of her favored members of the Black
Guard, now dead by his hand.
Foregoing chases and searching parties, Regina instead turns to her mirror,
which shows her that the prince is not yet far away that he can escape the
reach of her magic. It is with a smile, then, that she lets the tingle of magic
run from the back of her head all the way down to her fingers, reaching out
until it touches her former prisoner, and sinks him right into the thickest
depths of the Infinite Forest. The effort leaves her panting and her hands
quivering with need, magic pulsing beneath her skin and expecting further
release now that it has been called forward with such impulsive strength.
Rather than reel it back, Regina frees it with a surge of white hot delight
travelling up from her gut, and throws the powerful blast right into the
huntsman’s frame, smirking when the back of his head cracks against the wall
and leaves a trail of blood behind as he crumbles to the floor, eyes barely
opened and limbs boneless, his body an unattractive heap clad in Rivers’ too
big uniform.
A weakened groan comes from him as Regina approaches him, the predator that he
has awakened in her prowling contentedly before her beaten prey. Foolish
huntsman full of foolish ideas, and if Regina didn’t know that he would rather
die than keep on living heartless and trapped, she would be more than pleased
to turn his heart into dust. She kneels by him instead, her fingers finding his
jaw and tightening about his clammy flesh, shaking his head just because she
knows it must be pounding painfully after the knock he just took.
“What foolish purpose are you hoping to accomplish, huntsman?” she questions,
teeth bared before him and hot puffs of air right against his skin, their faces
close enough that the huntsman’s eyes look unfocused. “Do you wish for me to
kill you?”
“Yes.” And his answer is adamant, a plea as much as it is a demand, anguish so
deeply rooted in the color of his eyes that Regina once again finds herself
wondering how anyone lacking a heart can have such feeling still. It has been
years now, and by all accounts he should be but a shell of a human.
She won’t answer his plea in kind, not when only moments before she’d been
considering his liberation and he’s just betrayed her once again, whatever void
that remains within his chest clamoring for him to become a helping hand in
Snow White’s cause, never mind the time spent inside Regina’s bedchambers,
sitting at her table, rutting between her legs.
“If you want to die, you will have to carve your heart out yourself,” she
snaps, red coated nails finding the skin of his cheeks and pressing, making
sure that there will be moon-shaped marks etched on his face.
He whimpers, the sound obviously involuntary, and when he tries to move forward
and push her back he fails, his body tired still. He reaches up instead, his
arms heavy once he grasps at Regina’s forearms with both his hands, fingers
digging themselves between the folds of fabric he finds there as if he needs
the help to keep them there. If his grip wants to be unforgiving he fails,
managing to be nothing other than overwhelmingly warm.
“Don’t be cruel,” he whispers then, hazy blue orbs settled upon Regina’s own
eyes, even when clearly unfocused by dizziness. “You’re not a monster, you–”
Regina snorts, stops his speech with a mumble of, “Now that’s a new one for
you.”
“I have seen you show mercy before,” he continues, the plea laced with his
words coming out in forceful gasps, if because he’s about to lose consciousness
or because he hates begging Regina doesn’t know. “You’re still in there
somewhere, I know,” he stops, swallows hard before he continues. “You had a
heart, once, can’t yo–”
“If I ever had a heart she took it from me and crushed it,” Regina intones,
cutting whatever hopeful and idiot speech he was about to pronounce, whatever
poetically romantic notions he may have been harboring about her while he was
busy calling her a monster.
He has no more words to throw at her, and Regina suspects that he’s nearing
delirium anyway. His fingers keep moving against the fabric of her dress,
futilely trying to climb to her shoulders while only managing to squeeze at her
upper arms, the worm-like sensation almost a massage of sorts for her, while it
suggests that he’s simply trying to bring feeling back to numb limbs. She
should let him slip into unconsciousness, throw him in a cell in the dungeons
and think of him no more. Yet, she can’t. Whatever hold he has on her she can’t
quite understand, but even through his latest betrayal she desperately wants to
keep him close, branded as hers, shamed by the mark of being the Evil Queen’s
pet. She brings her free hand up to his chest, presses her palm there, against
the harshness of coat of mail and the thick fabric of her uniforms, and fancies
that she can feel something beating under her skin, the tendrils of a heart
wanting to find its rightful place, wanting to escape the queen’s unforgiving
grip. She’d lost one heart today, however, and no more will leave her prison.
“You will lack a heart for as long as you live,” she tells him, voice
deceptively soft, eyes hard against his own. “You will be mine and no one
else’s, miserable for as long we both live; and if you dare find even just a
shade of mild joy in your sadly bereft existence, thenI will turn your heart to
dust.”
He laughs, and his laughter is broken and raw, resignation pouring out of him
when he leans forward once again, this time not to push her away but to nestle
himself against her. His cheek lands against her shoulder, and suddenly his
damp and rapid breaths hit the skin of her collarbones, travel up her neck. The
back of his head gets exposed to her, and she eyes brown and curly hair matted
by drying blood with mild disgust, the metallic scent unpleasant and bringing
bitter memories of mother’s intimidating magic back to the forefront of her
mind. She pushes them away, and traps the huntsman in a faux embrace when she
lets her hand follow a path from his chest and all the way to the back of his
neck, where a thin trail of blood stains the skin as well. It’s not a terrible
wound, but it looks ugly enough, and she’s surprised that he remains conscious
still. He is, however, at least enough that he moves his hand too, leaving the
compulsive clutching of her upper arm to fall down her collarbones and chest,
groping ineffectively at her breast before he finds the heaving flesh exposed
by her tight corset and rests his own palm against the bones that hide her own
heart. Unwittingly, one of his fingers hooks around the chain of Daniel’s ring,
and she hisses at the contact.
“What did she ever do to you?” he croaks against the hollow of her neck, his
beard scratching softly at her when he moves his mouth.
Regina chuckles humorlessly, her hand leaving the back of his neck so she can
press her knuckles softly against his cheek, the caress surprisingly soft.
There’s cold sweat layering his skin, and yet his forehead feels feverish, the
heat emanating from him nearly suffocating.
“Everything,” Regina tells him, her voice now ever lower, intimate in the space
they have created between them. She laughs again, and the sound is like
breaking glass. “Or maybe nothing at all. No one has asked me before. You
pointed your fingers and called me evil, raised your flags and called Snow
White your hero.”
“But she is, isn’t she? She will save us all.”
“Is that truly what you believe, huntsman? You think her prince will wake her,
and then what? That they will storm the castle together and rescue you in a
feat of wonderful heroics?” she wonders, scorn in every word, contempt at the
simple thought of whatever fantasy the huntsman is harboring, of whatever truth
he’s made himself believe. She toots, like a tutor would when scolding a silly
child on absurd notions, and her caress becomes unwittingly harsher, her
knuckles on his skin more punishing than calming. Then, she says, “My dear,
don’t you know? They have already forgotten about you.”
He looks up at that, or least tries to, the movement of his neck causing him to
grimace and fall back against her, as if he’s impossibly and permanently drawn
to stay within her arms. The hand he’s resting against her breastbone tenses up
for a moment, but soon looses any sign of strength, falling limply on the bulky
skirts at her lap at the same time he breathes out from his mouth, hot air
accompanied by a nearly silent groan. She smiles the tiniest bit and presses a
hand to the back of his head, right above the wounded skin, petting him as if
he were but the most loyal of companions.
“Dear, I will make you a deal,” she says, a thoughtful and amused hum following
her statement. “If the charming prince manages to make his way out of the
Infinite Forest and wakes my princess up, then I will put your heart back and
release you, so long as any of them or their allies show even a bit of interest
in saving you from your prison. A message, a command, goodness, a goddammed
birdwith a thought given to you and you will be free.”
“You are so sure it won’t happen.”
“Of course I am. Even heroes need stepping stones, and you make for such a
pretty one.”
She means to say more, to taunt him with a truth that she knows to be certain.
Has she not been in the huntsman’s shoes herself, after all? Has she not been
an unwilling prisoner of privilege and power for years upon years? She may not
have dwelled in dungeons and held in chains, but her prison has been far more
unforgiving, if only because it had never been viewed as such. Marrying King
Leopold had been an honor, after all, and Regina’s unhappiness nothing if not
her own doing, her own difficult temperament refusing such a precious gift. No
one had saved her, though, and no one will be saving the huntsman either.
Before she can tell him as much, though, he surges forward abruptly, whatever
energy he has left forcing her backwards with the impulse until she falls into
a sitting position on the floor, her knees giving up under the sudden
onslaught. She gasps through lips that had been parted and ready to speak, and
then she finds herself being kissed, the huntsman’s dry and too warm lips
pressing insistently against hers, somehow pleasant despite everything that
screams at her that it should not be so. He burns hot against her, fever rather
than passion, and he only breaks away when a wolf howls in the distance.
A quiet sigh against lips close enough to almost be touching still, and Regina
says, "I had such high hopes that the beast had finally found its death."
The wolf hasn't been heard of or seen for months now, after all, not since the
first time the huntsman had fallen prey to Regina's bed, as if finding pleasure
somewhere within her had convinced the vexatious creature that his master was
completely lost to a world of darkness. This afternoon it howls once more
though, the wind carrying the sound until it echoes inside the walls of
Regina's bedchambers, surrounding them as if an omen of death. And perhaps it
is, an uncanny harbinger of the war that will come if Snow White is indeed
fated to be awakened by True Love's Kiss, only one more sign of blood to be
spilled, much like the changing tides of the seas that Nubia had warned her
from, like Maleficent's voice taking on an occult melody warning of tragedies
to come, like the death-like whispers of the Dark Curse pounding against
Regina's ears, like an apple tree offering but one healthy fruit in a season of
rot.
Regina swallows, and she finds that it is difficult for her, her mouth suddenly
dry with the echoes of the beast's cries reverberating still, and with the
weight of the huntsman's weary body between her arms. Nonetheless, she murmurs,
"What a loyal companion you have."
The answer comes in rough strokes, in truths hidden away under shame and
distaste, under defeat and submission. "I am all he knows," the huntsman
begins, his hand once again travelling up Regina's form, from her lap and over
her stomach, past her ribcage and over the valley of breasts, until its resting
right over her heart. "I could beat him, and threaten him; I could be the
cruelest master, and in the end he would still vow to me, he would still..." He
lingers, his voice lost and treading the edges of feverish delirium.
Regina understands, understands like only a prisoner might, like only one
hankering for love from within the walls of a dark and dank cellar can, and so
her next words are but a murmur, a soft caress freely given upon the huntsman's
temple, "Am I all you know, huntsman?"
"There is nothing else, Your Majesty."
"Is that why you fight me so? You want me angry so I will let you rest?"
"Yes."
Regina turns to him then, the smile she presses upon his skin turning into a
kiss, his forehead febrile under her lips. He sighs, as if the caress of cool
lips is indeed the solace he needs, and the only kind of permission he was
waiting for before giving into the illness claiming his mind. He closes his
eyes and Regina fancies that she can feel his eyelashes against the skin of her
cheeks, flushed as much as his own by now. She brings him closer on instinct,
cradles his face against her chest intimately, and shushes him during the short
moment it takes him to let unconsciousness do its job. His body slumps against
hers once he's completely passed out, a last sigh escaping his parted lips, and
Regina remains with him for long moments after.
The prince is gone now, and if the fates continue to favor Snow then he will
undoubtedly find her - Snow White and her prince the shepherd, and of course
the indulged little princess would get Regina's fantasy wrapped up in the lie
of royalty, succeeding were Regina had once failed. Oh, but if only Daniel had
been a king, if only someone had changed Regina's own pauper into a prince. Old
tales don't speak of stories like Regina's, though, and so she must write her
fate by her own hand. A war will come, she's sure, but if the huntsman in her
arms has bent to her will, he who knows her with the intimacy of a lover and
despises her with the hatred of the worst of enemies, then surely a kingdom
will be no challenge at all, even with Snow White leading the charge.
Chapter End Notes
     (1) We can take a walk.
     (2) I thought you might come here.
***** Part IX *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW2: The farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil Queen
     tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence and abuse; a little
     more violent than canon, actually.
     TW3: While I've defined the Hunstman/Regina relationship as
     consensual up to this point, it does deal with obvious power
     imbalance and emotional abuse.
     ---
     Translations at the end, as always.
     AN1: The events happening here are canon compliant to the best of my
     abilities, but I'm not taking into account whatever canon has been
     put forward after the end season 4 (like, jfc, the Count of Monte
     Cristo? Are these guys for real?)
     AN2: It's been a long time, but I'm still here, and this story is
     still happening! As it turns out, I was promoted a few months back
     (which, yey!), but workload has been massive lately, and now I'm
     travelling a lot, so I just don't have much time. Hopefully, it won't
     take me as many months to post the next part, which will be the last
     part before the curse is cast, and we head to Storybrooke. :)
     AN3: Thanks, btw, to everyone who has shown interest in this story
     during the hiatus!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
A year passes, and it is a year of blood and grime, war sweeping through the
lands with the strength of a thousand armies and the conviction of two women
battling each other with the burden of an age old grievance. It is an angry
time, one that leaves no space to breathe or think, plagued by the noblest acts
of heroics and the most vicious of human cruelties both, each side suffering
losses and gaining victories equally, forever submerging the realm in a
standstill that keeps claiming blood to feed itself. It is war indeed, sparked
under the light magic of a True Love’s Kiss, and brought forward by the dark
magic of an Evil Queen spurned by an unwavering wish for revenge owed and
finally fought for in an open field. There are no secrets left to tell, after
all, and no hopes for truces to be had, and so Snow White and the Evil Queen
face each other without doing it at all, pushing armies and weapons between
them, drawing closer to each other with each day that passes but never quite
close enough to end the bloodshed. They consume the lands betwixt them, Regina
with fury and hatred bred and polished through years of starving grief, and
Snow with the sanctimonious longing of a reluctant hero thrown into warfare
through wishes not her own.
Regina learns quickly that war is far from the grand pursuit spoken of by
tongues and writings of the past, and that high-minded gallantry is but an
accident happening in the midst of desperation and exhaustion. Be it in the
battlefield or in the secluded chambers of a war council, tediousness is as
bound to conquer her as anxiety, both sensations pervaded by a near constant
sense of frustration. She had thought their battle would be short, brutal and
easily won, and the fact that it has become anything but keeps baffling her
every day that passes. After all, George and Midas had been quick to join her
forces, and their combined armies, gold and magic should have sufficed them to
destroy the threat to their crowns with quiet and swift efficiency. Instead,
they had found themselves with kingdoms divided by split claims to the throne,
nobility and peasantry alike choosing a side and picking up a fight with
conviction and without regret. Thus, for every corner of their kingdoms that
chooses to support them, another denies them with equal fervor, turning their
lands into chaotic ruin.
Regina finds true loyalty north of her kingdom, whatever uprising the past
years may have seen from the region now forgotten under Duchess Adela’s rule as
warden. The lands that had formerly belonged to King Charles bring unwavering
fealty just as well, the late king’s widow forever grateful of Regina freeing
her from the man, and the territory having flourished under their joint
efforts. Many a nobleman rallies behind Regina, whatever offenses she may have
committed against the elite with her scorn and capriciousness forgotten when
faced with the prospect of losing a ruler with a sound mind for business and a
cruel streak reserved only for those following Snow’s flag. Yet it isn’t
enough, not when most commoners and an equal share of noblemen join Snow White
with a cry of hope and accusations as old as Regina’s rule, fingers pointing at
her and calling her witch, memories of disease running rampant through the land
and Regina’s severe measures turning her into a priestess of death, viciousness
etched into her features and rumors spread making her into the epitome of all
evil, her deals with the darkness claimed to be but premonitions of the
ruination of the kingdom. It seems that many would rather die before they
remain under her governing hand, and to those who wish with such unwise minds,
Regina is more than happy to oblige.
For all that she’s the one carrying a terrible title above her shoulders,
however, the uprising proves that George’s tyranny must surely be of equal
force, for many within his kingdom take the chance to rally behind Snow and the
so labeled Prince Charming, dismissing rumors of his fake claim to the throne
in favor of the possibility of seeing George’s head on a pike. The man has the
gall to appear surprised when faced with such accusations of inhumanity, and
Regina takes secret pleasure in berating him for the act.
“Don’t pretend to be anything else but what you are, dear George. It is
thoroughly unbecoming; and in a man your age, too.”
George’s scowl is a permanent fixture on his face these days, and Regina’s
gentle teasing does nothing to appease him, the sight of her smirk usually
enough to deepen the wrinkles marring his brows. Regina can’t help herself,
however, not when diversions are so rare and when she’s forced into sharing the
man’s company for hours on end, both of them being constantly reminded of the
adamantly honest proposal the man had issued at Regina’s celebratory ball. It
seems that he truly believes himself in love with her, and Regina muses that it
would be just her luck to be able to inspire love in no one but King George, a
man so inadequate for the task that the idea seems ludicrous altogether.
Nonetheless, Regina plays her games, and she plays them with ease and delight,
her hands lingering a tad too long on George’s arm after they’ve landed in
companionable complicity, her smiles coy and knowing, half blushing bride and
half temptress, her chest on display and brushing as if by accident against the
man. It’s almost offensive how most of her usual tricks fail to make the man
tick, his demeanor cold and aloof when most men would drool at the sight Regina
offers, while raging hot in different instances. Regina soon discovers that the
man’s love, if she dares call it such, only comes to play when Regina
carelessly alludes to sexual encounters with any other person, jealousy the
most prevalent form of anger settling on the man’s shoulders. And oh, how silly
of her to have thought that man may have loved her, when it is so very obvious
that all he desires is to possess her. She supposes there must be a thrill in
the idea of owning the Evil Queen.
Her Military Advisor cautions her on playing her games heedlessly, the loss of
George as an ally one they can’t afford. Regina knows it, but then she also
knows George finds himself in the exact same position, bound to her for as long
as their kingdoms rally behind Snow White and her prince.
“Trust me, duke,” she intones in order to quiet down the Advisor’s worries.
“George hates his fake son much more than he could ever hate me.”
If such a statement is true, however, then it is not so when it comes to their
lands, for if Snow White was loved before, then the sudden support of her
valiant prince only makes her all the more enticing. A prince by her side means
a promise of marriage and children, of a dynasty built on the ashes of a queen
that killed her husband and has no heir. If Regina has ever thought about
accepting George’s marriage proposal, then it has been at her maddest,
imagining them both as step-mother and surrogate father joined together by
hatred towards their unruly children, the cruel and dark counterpart to heroes
built on hope and the light magic of their True Love’s Kiss. There is most
certainly an obvious poetic appeal to the matter, but thankfully enough, Regina
is not so far gone so as to give to impulses so demented.
Whatever the case may be, Regina finds that she can’t entirely blame the
kingdom for falling under the lure of Snow White and Prince Charming, no matter
how bitter the thought may be. That everyone would choose a woman with a man at
her side over a widow isn’t surprising, but then Regina believes that it is not
such pedestrian frenzy that has taken over the kingdom, but rather that their
crowned hero is pure and light enough to share such rarity as True Love.
Legends of old speak of it as the purest of magic, only possible within the
brightest of hearts, and so it is only further proof of Snow’s right to claim
the throne, the princess with true love in her heart surely destined to battle
the sovereign seat away from the witch with a blackened soul and only the
darkest of magic. Months before, Regina might have laughed at such claims, for
even while intellectually aware of the power of a True Love’s Kiss, even while
knowledgeable in the kind of magic capable of breaking all curses, she had
dismissed it as barely more than luck brewed between two people with no true
claim to powerful spell. But then – well, then she had feltit.
Across the boundless lands of the Infinite Forest, miles and miles away from
Regina’s palace and buried under the thick cover of green and snowed over
trees, Prince Charming had kissed Snow White, and Regina had feltit. Magic so
warm yet so unfamiliar that it had crawled unpleasantly up her arms and down
her spine, pressing fingers made of bright light into her chest and forcing it
to expand beyond its reach, to pulse from within with unbridled and
unadulterated power. The magic of the spell had clashed against her own with
the fury of the titans of old, as if daring her body to hold onto her natural
darkness, prickling at her insides until her skin had felt as if unable to
contain her. It had brought her to the ground, the crack of knees against cold
marble harsh and loud yet impossible to feel over the overwhelming touch of
Snow’s final victory. For what else could it be, if Snow would dare beat her in
the realm of magic, where Regina’s power is firm and capable, where it is her
control that proves stronger?
Father had found her long hours into the night, her figure surely a pathetic
sight as she continued to kneel, one hand pressed into her chest as if trying
to keep her heart from leaping away. Magic had been waging war within her, the
lightness of the spell that had broken the Sleeping Curse filling her up, as if
in opposing mockery of the magic of Rumpelstiltskin’s Dark Curse, which had for
so long tried to empty her out of any purity that might be left within her. The
light had been no better than the darkness, though, pressing at her with
unnatural ease, molding itself to her body and crawling into the marrow of her
bones as a slippery creature, as foreign to her as any magic bred outside her
own fingers. It had left her breathless, and for the first time Regina had
understood the passion that Snow was capable of rallying in her followers, the
all-consuming lightness that was but a fine line away from complete darkness.
She had been no better than a shaking leaf dangling through the punishing wind
for hours still, not even father’s soothing voice, usually so powerful,
managing to rip her away from the all-encompassing power pulsing still at the
corners of her eyes, tearing itself a place somewhere within the confines of
her heart. It was par for the course, then, that it had been Rumpelstiltskin
who had woken her numbed senses up, his sudden visit crowned with giggles and
mockery, an unspoken I told you sowritten in the tales he’d spun for her that
fateful night. Regina hadn’t even mustered an ounce of the effortless anger the
imp always brought forward, and had done little more than sneer at his words
and bid him goodbye with eyes closed and a sigh parting her lips. Any other
attempts at unlocking her limbs and her senses both had failed disastrously – a
broken mirror little comfort for her mangled nerves, and the smugness written
on the corner of the huntsman’s smile enough that Regina had slapped him when
she had figured that a romp in bed wouldn’t do the trick either.
These days she doesn’t think much about it, not when the world is bereft of
beauty and time stumbles its way forward in between battles and confusion,
hunger and fear, and yet, somehow, in between quiet hope and blunt
determination just as well. And yet. And yet the thought persecutes her,
tingles through the quietness of the night and its long and heavy hours,
unwanted and unpleasant, but steadfastly brilliant. True Love’s Kiss, the magic
that will never belong to her, and that may just bring her downfall about – for
fate has always favored the bold and the fearless, and what can possibly be
braver than defeating the Evil Queen with the power of love imbued in magic,
than claiming victory over a soul destroyed because her own love was nothing if
not weakness?
 
===============================================================================
 
As if the skies themselves were conquered by the heat of war, the summer
announces itself with a hot spell that makes coat of mail feel heavier than it
already is, and that makes marches through the lands all the slower by sheer
power of its torridness. The colors accompany the season just as well, and so
it is a sweltering late afternoon that sees Regina leaving the Council Room
with a pounding headache, the deep pinks and oranges giving way to the night up
above seeming as red as the freshest of bloods to Regina’s tired senses. She
touches her fingers to her brows and does her best effort at ignoring both the
heat and the view, her eyes pinched close together as she takes long strides in
the direction of her bedchambers. She needs neither eyes nor thoughts to cover
the length of the hallways, after all, and so it is that she finds herself
uttering a yelp of surprise when she collides with an unexpected obstacle. She
stumbles backwards a step, and before she can recover and set herself upright,
the obstacle has proffered a gasp of its own. Regina opens her eyes to see a
mildly chubby lady curtsying before her, eyes shooting up to her face nervously
before making their way back to the floor the instant they catch sight of
Regina’s own, surely set on an angry glare.
“Do excuse me–I–I’m extremely sorry, Your Majesty. It wasn’t my intention–I–I
am so deeply sorry. Please accept my apology.”
The pleading tone alone is enough to make Regina’s expression turn sour. She
studies the woman for a second longer than she would wish to spend on anyone
like her at all, and surmises that it must be one of her unwanted guests – a
duchess, maybe, or a baroness, or a simple lady perhaps. She’s unimportant in
any case, and should most definitely not be anywhere near Regina’s pathway.
She’s killed people for less, certainly, but every ounce of energy that she
spends on the woman seems like an ounce too much, so she barely barks an order
to get out of her way, which the woman smartly enough takes as her cue to
disappear as fast and quietly as her high heeled shoes allow her to. A grunt
marks the return of Regina’s movement, an equally fast-paced strut that she
chooses to take with her eyes open this time around, lest she finds herself
inclined to dispose of any other obstacles that may happen upon her way.
A little over a year of war, and all Regina has to show for it these days are
burned out lands and a palace once again conquered by the noble classes, women
and children of high upbringing, as well as men too old to fight, having found
their way towards the sanctuary forcibly offered by Regina’s own magnanimous
and caring hands. Regina may have found it in herself to ignore them; after
all, most of her time is spent either within the privacy of her Council Room,
away at George’s castle or in the battlefield, but this small sized portion of
the court claiming her space and silence has certainly proven to be as
maddening as it was back in her days as Leopold’s young queen. She would think
that the war would bring some sense to these people, but as it turns out, being
away from the fray and safely absconded behind the sturdy doors of the Dark
Palace has given most noblemen under her care the notion that there isn’t such
a thing as war at all, but rather little else than a few skirmishes of little
or no importance at all. Therefore, whenever frugality is not advised but
simply enforced, Regina must deal with whispers and complaints within her very
own walls, as well as absurd ideas on how birthdays and marked days should
still be celebrated, never mind the closure of most commercial routes outside
of the kingdom, the rise of theft, murder and general chaos, or the
preoccupying lack of resources the war goes hand in hand with. So long as most
these people are concerned, this war is but a vacation from day to day life,
and they expect Regina to behave as the accommodating hostess and gracious
queen that she has never truly been.
Worse than those who choose plain ignorance and naiveté, of course, are those
who find themselves deciding they should be major players in the war being
fought, rather than mere suppliers of trained and armed men and whatever stocks
and means remain within their personal reserves. Most of these are those men
either injured or old, all of them so convinced that their brilliant
intelligence should be an obvious advantage over their enemy that Regina does
find herself wanting them to drop dead whenever they deem it appropriate to
approach her. Fortunately, she has found out that outright laughing at them is
both humiliating for them and satisfying for her, and she has done enough of
that, that her Military Advisor has simply taken the task of dealing with such
men onto himself. He’d done so with a put upon sigh and a warning not to be
careless, of course, but then Regina already knows the duke well enough to know
he’ll never acquiesce to her tantrums without at least a hint of a scolding.
She knows him well enough to know that there’s secret affection hidden in his
chiding demeanor, after all, and that he fears she may irreparably hurt the
egos of those she needs to win this war.
It is that very same thought that has her closing the doors to her bedchambers
with an unnecessarily sharp bang, and promptly making her way towards a once
upon a time plush chair in order to drop her weight down in a barely
comfortable heap. She rearranges herself with mild annoyance, her fingers
unconsciously finding the place by the armrest where the upholstery has been
worn down by time, and where the thin threads of dark red are starting to lose
their battle against the filling of the chair. The rather garish thing is a
memory of a past long gone, and one of the few pieces of furniture that had
survived Regina’s redecoration frenzy back when she had decided to erase the
presence of her unwanted family from her dwellings. She has always been
bizarrely fond of it, perhaps because it had been the one comfortable chair in
the rooms Leopold had gifted her when she’d first arrived at the palace. It had
certainly been a bit of an oddity, clashing in color and design with the light
woods and clear blues that had conquered the rooms otherwise, and Regina had
taken a liking to it as soon as one of her ever-changing lady’s maids had
explained that it had belonged to one of Leopold’s old aunts, the despairingly
inappropriate Millicent, who’d had a big mouth, a legendary taste for men and
wine, and beauty only surpassed by her intelligence and her skill with bow and
arrow. Leopold had always been fearful of Snow turning out to be a little bit
too much like his dreaded aunt, the closest to a nightmare he could imagine a
woman to be, and even to this day Regina doesn’t regret encouraging the
princess to be exactly what Leopold had feared so.
Whatever the case may be, the chair had remained as memory of her late
husband’s discomfort, as honoring of the one woman in Leopold’s family she may
have dared to love had she known her, and as a reminder of her own opposition
towards mother. After all, mother had been quick to wrinkle her nose at the
sight of the thing right after declaring it one of those horrible family
heirlooms Leopold is too much of a coward to get rid of, and Regina had taken
great pleasure in having the power to keep it for herself. These days, though,
it seems that not even the spirit of the lively Millicent is enough to keep it
from decay, much like everything else touched by the specter of the war.
Combat and bloodshed come hand in hand with poverty and need, which Regina had
guessed at the moment war had been officially declared, if perhaps she had
missed the scale by which to measure loss and duress. She hadn’t foreseen
blight and decadence in quite the manner it has affected them, though, to the
point where there is no room without signs of dust and lack of care, without
peeled off paint or rundown furniture, without signs of time passed and defects
never fixed. Never before has Regina seen proud and mighty noblewomen dare walk
her hallways with a tear in their dresses, but these days it isn’t quite such
an unusual sight. The outside doesn’t even bear thinking about, the never-
ending verdant of the royal state’s forests and gardens but a sigh of what it
used to be. There is simply neither time nor capital to deal with every day
like activities, not when feeding every mouth within her kingdom has proven
difficult for months on end now – after all, one will hardly care about a torn
skirt when there’s not even a bite of bread to eat.
Such matters had been indeed what had taken most of the time of their latest
council meeting, attended by herself, the members of the council and King Midas
himself, an honored guest at her palace before he makes his way south, where
George is currently leading his battalion fronts. Most days Midas is but a
buffoon with enough sense to know his place, which is to provide gold and stay
quiet, a position that George had sternly trained him to maintain many years
ago, and which had made Regina almost glad to have the foolish king on her
side. As it is, strife makes even the meek decide for bravery, and Midas had
steadfastly tried to take charge of the meeting by way of befuddled whining.
“But we have the gold!” he’d complained adamantly, as if his curse was the
solution to every problem they’re currently facing, as if buildings made of
sparkling material could somehow make up for burnt up crop fields and dying
workers.
Regina had entirely given up on trying to explain the situation the moment her
head had started pounding uncomfortably, and so she’d saddled the Treasury
Master with the churlish king, in the hopes that a man in charge of a kingdom
may actually dare understand what ruling is about. Regina harbors little to no
hope. Rather, she suspects that Midas’ kingdom is ruled by his own council, and
perhaps, at one point, by the surprisingly sly Princess Abigail.
Fault falls on Regina’s shoulders in that particular regard, she guesses, for
had she foreseen that there was more than blonde beauty and shallow bitterness
to Princess Abigail, she may have just made an effort in bringing her to her
fold – goodness, she may have even considered making a friend out of her.
Regina had dismissed her as nothing more than another ditzy princess, however,
used to riches bought by her father’s magic and unaware of the world around
her, and thus of the brewing war. Instead, Princess Abigail had turned herself
into a spy for Snow’s benefit. Some sort of favor owed to Prince Charming,
along with simple affection for the man, had bid her to their cause despite her
father’s opposing interests. Abigail had played her part carefully and for a
very long time, becoming exactly what Regina had once been herself – nothing
better than a wallflower, inconspicuous and lacking to everyone’s eyes, yet
always at the ready with a careful ear and a sound mind. Her secret reports and
warnings had caused them insurmountable loss a few months back, up to the point
where Regina had thought the war lost. By the time she had realized who their
mole was, the princess had run away to join Snow and Charming’s growing army, a
chunk of Midas’ own following her and her secret husband, a no name soldier
with more gumption than his king when it came to inspiring troops. Honestly,
Regina could have killed Midas for his carelessness, but then perhaps she
should blame herself for falling for tricks that had been her own not so long
ago. Briefly, she thinks that she will congratulate Princess Abigail with
sincere admiration before she crushes her heart to dust.
Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that all the world’s gold won’t do
them any good when there’s nothing for them to bargain for. The winter had been
hard on them, and by the time spring reared its head, there were no crop fields
to saw and no hands to do it either, peasants having abandoned most villages
but those closer to noble settlements, and armies having reaped that which they
hadn’t burnt. No amount of planning had prepared them for such a long war, or
for the quick and monumental loss of both provisions and routes of
communication. Commercial routes with kingdoms outside of their own have been
mostly closed, and while Regina’s magic can make up for some of it, there’s
certainly not much she can do when it comes to feeding an idle court as well as
a battling army.
The sea has been mostly lost as well, both Regina’s and George’s fleets
decimated the moment Prince Eric had sworn loyalty to Snow’s cause, and so the
realm’s biggest and most powerful naval force had fallen upon them with
surprising strength. Half her ships had been lost on the first battle alone,
and the last news she’d had from Nubia claimed no more than a dwindling third
of her once magnificent fleet surviving increasingly hopeless battles. Regina
wonders now if she shouldn’t have been more careful about her dealings with
that little mermaid of the lost voice, but then she can’t fathom how Eric may
have caught wind of her dealings with his paramour.
However, it is exactly such missteps that had forced her to open up her palace
for the court seven months ago, when the letters asking for sanctuary from her
kingdom’s noblemen had begun to pile up as high as a mountain at her desk. She
simply could no longer afford capricious dismissal of her outspoken supporters,
nor could she deny them a roof where to hide themselves away from war. She
needs their armies and their provisions, their houses as military outposts, as
well as their voices clamoring her name as the righteous owner of the sovereign
seat. She needs them desperately in order to win this war, and for that she
hates them more than she has ever before. She has fought so hard for her palace
turned fortress, after all, for the right to pick and choose who inhabits her
walls, for the silence that has now been stolen away from her home, and losing
it all due to Snow White and her rebellious nightmare is but another sin to add
to the princess’ long list of owed retributions.
Regina snarls involuntarily, pinching the bridge of her nose when her headache
refuses to abate, and has the brief thought that she would take a hundred
howling wolves over the sound of the court cluttering her space any day. A
grunt follows as she tries to accommodate tired limbs against the worn down
seat, and as she’s fidgeting, the thought of good, old Baroness Irene comes to
her, unbidden. She barks out a laugh, something slightly deranged at the idea
that she may have just fared better these days were she to have the old goat as
buffer in between herself and the court. She can almost picture her in one of
her favored puffed up organza monstrosities, décolletage entirely too
inappropriate for her age, dragging some sweet young thing with her everywhere,
flitting about and gossiping as if the world wasn’t raging outside this
palace’s walls. Regina would have despised her for her levity, but would have
played her games so the baroness spoke of her on tender terms to the court. The
baroness would have made her a tragic figure, a woman overwhelmed by bloodshed
and desperate to put an end to it, impossibly hurt by the thought of her former
step-daughter raising her weapons against her. Yes, the baroness would have
certainly painted her in the appropriate colors for the court to understand,
and if anything, she would have gathered her some pity amongst the noblemen.
As it is, with no baroness of big bosom and bigger words for Regina to engage
with, the court both fears her and condescends her, as well as putting the
blame of the situation solely upon her shoulders. The nerveof them, puny and
foolish gods of meaningless titles that demand solace and yet offer nothing but
disdain in return – she may as well be that same eighteen year old sad, little
queen that they had dared called exotic as far as they’re concerned, and the
fact that Regina can’t make them kneel before her and plead for mercy so long
as the war lasts, only manages to make bile rise to her throat.
Before she can drive herself into a rage that will do nothing but make her head
pound with more intensity, the doors to her bedchambers open quietly, the soft
footsteps of her lady’s maid and the following ones of the huntsman distraction
enough that she gives up on feeling outraged altogether. She’s
disproportionately tired, and while her stomach may recoil at the simple
thought of the light meal her lady’s maid is already setting at the table, she
thinks some food will do her good. She’s to leave the palace at first light
tomorrow along with Midas, and perhaps if she washes her dinner down with
enough wine she will manage to get some sleep. It will be a long ride towards
the main outpost were she’s to meet with the thick of her troops as well as
George’s, after all, and it’s not as if the battling that will follow her
arrival will grant much time for food or sleep. Or baths,she thinks with a
wrinkle to her nose. She may indulge before leaving, since she’s not
particularly sure how long she will be gone, the weeks that follow crucial to
them if they want to push Snow’s forces back and away from the main lands of
the kingdom. They’re threading dangerously close to the palace as it is, so
their future truly does hang on the balance of the next few bloody encounters.
If they do manage to push them back, after all, they will be able to recover
one of the fortresses they lost not long ago, along with its provisions,
soldiers, and the surrounding crop fields and as of now abandoned forges, mills
and farms, as well as one of the kingdom’s main quarries.
Thoughts of battles and the like escape her as soon as her lady’s maid’s
pointed gaze settles upon her, a shade of disapproval in those small and
slanted eyes of hers that never quite lose their coldness, despite her
otherwise obvious care for Regina’s well-being. Regina doesn’t fight the silent
command, and drags herself silently over to the table, glad that she chose a
light overcoat and an even lighter dress to wear today, and that she discarded
her heels by the fireplace as soon as she entered her chambers. It is said
shoes that her lady’s maid busies herself with while Regina sighs her way
towards the huntsman, already seated at the table himself, his eyes lost
somewhere over Regina’s face and his hands resting on his lap, so still that
Regina would swear they were lifeless. So much for a nice companion to her
meal, but then, the huntsman has been nothing but an empty shell for months.
Regina sits down to a thin plate of leek pottage and dark barley bread, a
frugal meal that would never have graced a queen’s table were the circumstances
different. They’re eating the food of the poor, meat and white bread a luxury
that they simply can’t afford, but so long as she enforces meager portions of
indigent taste to her armies, she will share in the misery, and so will the
court. She does wish clean drinking water was but a dream of the past, however.
As it is, wine and ale are a safer choice these days, and at least they have
the effect of lifting up the spirits. Cued by her own thoughts, she tears a
small piece of bread from her plate and munches on it, willing it to go down
easily, and washing it down with half a goblet of wine when it insists on
sticking to her throat uncomfortably. She coughs the tightness away, and goblet
still in hand, she laughs. The sound feels deranged, and she muses that it
truly must be.
“It sets you free for a while,” Regina muses, licking her lips to steal the
remaining taste away. “Free from yourself, free from predestination.”
She hums at the thought, scowling when it gets her no reaction. Not from her
lady’s maid, busy now trying to arrange a poor set of blooming flowers as if
they were something more than a wildly mismatched rescue from her overgrown
gardens; and most certainly not from the huntsman. Still, it is her dinner to
enjoy, and so she speaks, regardless of the apparent disinterest of her
audience.
“Baroness Irene used to speak such words whenever her brother gifted her with a
bottle of that terrible pinkish sweet wine she favored. She never shared, the
old goat – oh, it’s hardly good for you, my silly little darling,” she mocks, a
snarl painted on her face before finishing her goblet in one swift and long
swallow. “Good fucking riddance.”
The huntsman flinches, and Regina wonders if it’s the swear word or the tone
that gets to him, or even the clank of the goblet as she drops it back against
the table. She finds that she doesn’t care very much at all, however, and
simply bites back a sigh and tries to make quick work of the meal before her.
She nudges at him with her foot under the table, pushing her heel against his
shin to prod him into action. When he finally complies with her silent order,
his movements are sluggish, the sight of his eyelids closing and opening back
again with hefty slowness entirely too suffocating for Regina to bear. She
turns herself away from the sight and retrieves her foot. A few months ago she
may have pushed it against the inside of his thigh, she may have allowed her
toes to travel up and between his legs and may have pushed there until he
looked upon her smirking lips with fire in his eyes. The fire of hatred,
perhaps, but certainly better than the dullness that pervades his gaze these
days, the unseeing glaze of eyes that look but don’t see.
The huntsman has finally turned into the shadow he should have been from the
moment Regina stole his heart, stripped of feeling and lost in a world of
emptiness, and Regina finds that she can’t stand the final break of the man
before her. She prods and pushes still, humiliates him with weapons used in the
past, with the viciousness that she’d learnt to punish him with, but there’s
nothing left of him in that limp body of his, it seems. He’d told her he knew
nothing but her any longer, had demeaned himself with the confession that he
belonged to her, and quickly after he’d denied her the pleasure of owning
something other than a pretty yet broken toy. Aside from a moment of triumphant
smugness after Snow had declared her intentions of bringing Regina’s rule down,
he’s been completely lost to an ether of nothingness since then, the eyes that
had surprised Regina with their range of expression in the past completely
devoid of life now, and the impossible surge of passion fighting for a place
inside his empty chest gone forever. It’s maddening, particularly when war
between her bed sheets might be enough to quell some of her bloodlust, when
honest hatred paired with honest desire may just bring her some otherwise
denied solace. Alas, she has no wish to lie with what might as well be a
corpse.
If she tortures herself with the presence of the huntsman at her table and
within her bedchambers these days, it is honestly due to simple routine, and
perhaps the latent hope that he will come back to her and be the entertaining
pet he’d been in the past. She harbors little to no illusions on the matter,
but then giving up on the idea will bring her no comfort, either.
She refuses herself the sigh that wants to climb up and away from her parted
lips, and instead forces herself back onto the task of finishing her dinner,
however lacking it may be. In between spoonfuls of weak and watery soup, she
says, “A bath, dear, if you will.”
Her lady’s maid offers no answer, but even without settling her eyes on her,
Regina knows she’s beginning preparations in her quiet and efficient fashion.
Regina has come to appreciate her quiet woman’s ways over the years, her steady
presence even managing to bring her a shade of comfort and relief, particularly
back in the days when she was still Leopold’s wife. There has always been sweet
reprieve in her strict silences and no-nonsense demeanor, and in the eyes that
have never shown fear even before the worst of Regina’s tantrums. However,
today she wishes for sound other than that of the stiflingly invasive noise of
the court, and there’s no comfort to be had in her lady’s maids reserve.
She finds that quietness leads to gloom, and to unwanted thoughts of regret.
Unwittingly, Baroness Irene comes back to her yet again, and with the thought
of her, that of her death inevitably follows. In an unintentional gesture,
Regina drops her spoon for a second and rubs her hands together, as if the
memory of the woman’s blood hasn’t been quite erased, even after all these
years. She can’t help herself from following the thread her traitorous mind
takes her into, the one that insists on replaying the events of a day long gone
and willfully forgotten.
There had been a man, that night of the Summer Festival – a man of bright blue
eyes and a cheeky speech, offering a flower crown, and perhaps even more.
Regina wonders at the missed chance, at the spell he had cast upon her for
barely a moment, and at her own sudden desire to follow him into the thick of
the forest, to run away and never look back. It had been fleeting and barely a
fanciful folly, but Regina can’t help but wonder if perhaps he had been her
opportunity to fight predestination, and if she had simply thrown it away with
careless disregard. She hardly thinks there would have been happiness to be
found in his pursuit, but Regina’s thoughts have been teasing her with such
foolishness for some time now, insisting on tracing back steps taken and
decisions made, unrelenting and making her question herself on just which move
may have taken her down a different path, which compromise may have led her
away from the road that she’s willingly walking these days.
What a waste of time,she tells herself, adamantly; how foolish to think that
there was ever a road that didn’t lead to her actual predicament, and how
stupidly naïve to give into the idea that she may have left revenge behind for
the sake of a man, even one that had enchanted her briefly. After all, she had
promised herself that she would burn whichever land or brave warrior stood
between herself and Snow White, and she’s doing nothing more than following her
own mind.
Her nerves are unsettled, and she realizes she’s wildly irritated by, well,
possibly by everything, or perhaps by nothing at all. She hates her reflective
moods, and despises how her memories threaten her with the idea of regret. She
bites her lower lip viciously, willing herself to focus on anything other than
despairing thoughts, and, as if on cue, the huntsman drops his spoon against an
unfinished plate of probably cold pottage, dropping his weight back onto his
chair in an uncoordinated slump. He’s given up entirely on putting up a front
tonight, it seems, and Regina is quick to punish his apathy with a second swift
kick to his leg.
“Three meals a day is more than most people are getting these days, huntsman,”
she berates, her words getting lost in an abyss of emptiness. Goodness, but she
has a palace full of unwanted people and yet she’s been speaking to vacant
rooms for months.
With a punch of anger somewhere low in her belly, she surges forward and grabs
at the huntsman’s face, her fingers about his chin in a way that is already
familiar. She shakes his head vehemently, and then settles hard eyes upon his.
He’s looking at her, and yet it seems as if he’s seeing nothing at all, his
orbs lost to places Regina can’t reach; perhaps, she muses, to places where he
can hide himself from her.
“Nothing, huh?” she murmurs, letting go of his face with a put upon sigh. “Well
then, make yourself useful at least.”
Lifting herself up from her seat, and prompting her lady’s maid into gathering
up the dishes left behind at her table, Regina makes her way towards the
painted terracotta bathtub that has already been set for her. She heats the
water with a wave of her hand, having forgone that sort of manual labor for
years now. The simple spell carries with it a wave of tiredness, as if even the
boundless bottom of her magical powers has been reached in the near frenzy of
conjuring while in the middle of battle. A bath will do her good, then, more
than war councils or meager dinners might, any case. She looks behind her,
noting that her lady’s maid has already made herself scarce, and that only the
huntsman remains, hands listless over his own lap and eyes settled upon them.
“Come, then,” she orders, holding the laces at the small of her back with
steady fingers, and hoping that the gesture is enough for her intentions to be
understood.
The huntsman complies, his steps slow to reach her and his hands soft to the
point where she fails to notice them at first when they tangle with her own,
relieving her of holding onto the thin shreds of fabric. He pulls at the lacing
and the buttons with impossible sluggishness, as if the world moves at a
completely different pace from the one he lives in. He’s clumsy about it, too,
his hands unused to the complicated bindings of Regina’s clothes, their long
forgotten encounters of once upon a time never quite involving the removal of
more clothing than strictly necessary. How sad, she thinks, how desperately
pathetic their affair feels now. To think that the populace whisper of
lascivious encounters with an incalculable number of men and women, with ogres
and witches and imps, with spirits of darkness and demons of beyond, and that
her bed hasn’t been touched by anyone other than this hollowed out prisoner of
hers for entirely too long. The thought is irritating beyond despair, and she
muses that she may just kill him out of sheer annoyance if he can’t even manage
to unlace her out of her dress.
 Don’t stop on my account, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice intones all of a
sudden, sound somehow invading her bedchambers even before the imp appears
before her, comfortably arranged on Millicent’s old chair, legs crossed before
him and boots settled on top of the small table by the unused fireplace, like a
languid cat that knows himself the owner of his surroundings.
“If it’s a show you’re expecting, I fear you may have come to the wrong place,”
Regina replies, a scowl marring her features as she turns towards the huntsman,
still fighting a losing battle against her dress and apparently completely
impassive even with the Dark One in the room. Regina slaps his hands away, and
he simply drops them by his sides, a scolded child that doesn’t quite
understand his crime. At the sight, Regina huffs.
“Broke your toy, did you?”
“Better broken than dead, wouldn’t you agree, dear?” Regina questions casually,
acid in her tone and in the smile she throws at Rumpelstiltskin over her
shoulder. His eyes narrow to thin slits at the remark, and the mild warning
hidden in his impossible orbs curls pleasant satisfaction low in her belly.
Rumpelstiltskin says nothing, but he breaks his threatening stance rapidly
enough, dismissing Regina’s words as he relaxes his shoulders back against the
chair, a cursory air to his demeanor, that of someone who believes himself a
wanted guest. And curse Regina for her weakness, but he might just be. After
all, he is the one person who doesn’t wear a constant semblance of weary
disapproval when gazing at her, or who isn’t drowning in pools of dull sadness.
What a terrible world she must be living in, if the irritating imp is truly the
best company she can hope for. Then again, she supposes he matches the décor,
lavish decay as much a part of him as his flourishes and cheats.
In the face of the imp, however, the sight of the huntsman is terribly off-
putting, and so she bats his hands away one last time and directs him to go
away, watching him sit by the table in his lumpish manner with the shadow of a
pout settled upon her lips. Then, she proceeds to forget about him as one would
an uninteresting child, and turns her body and gaze towards Rumpelstiltskin,
narrowing her eyes at his taking ownership of her favorite chair. Rather than
berate him for it, though, she conjures two goblets of the best wine that still
remains somewhere at the back of her cellar, and walks to him with measured
slowness, a sway to her hips and studied coquettishness to her eyes as she
lowers herself to lean against the armchair, chest and neck presented at the
perfect angle for Rumpelstiltskin to admire. His own lips plump out into a
smirk, always fond of this particular game, and he takes the offering for what
it is, plucking a goblet from Regina’s hand as he allows himself to hide his
face somewhere in the juncture of her neck and collarbones, not quite nuzzling,
but close enough that warmth climbs up Regina’s skin. Regina’s magic tingles,
fleetingly flirtatious in response to Rumpelstiltskin’s own. She allows the
feeling to tempt her for the brief space of a blink, and then tears herself
apart from him jerkily, twisting her pretty smile into a snarl.
“Now get out of my chair, imp.”
Rumpelstiltskin giggles, as if impossibly amused by her antics, and answers her
command by leaning back once again and patting his own thigh with his palm,
inviting.
Regina rolls her eyes in a conscious effort to make her disdain known, and
says, “Be serious, now. We’re at war; amusement seems entirely too
inappropriate, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Ah yes, of course, the war. And how is that going for you, Your Majesty?”
“I’m positive you already know that,” Regina snaps, turning away from him and
towards her vanity, throwing a yearning yet brief look to her filled bathtub.
It forces a scowl back between her eyes, and reminds her of the not quite gone
pounding of her head.
Sitting down in front of her mirror, and idly searching for cloth and the last
of her water lily juice to begin removing her light makeup, she murmurs, “Don’t
speak of a war that you refuse to help me win.” Forlornness touches her tone,
Rumpelstiltskin’s utter refusal to offer a hand in the matter one more dagger
casually dug into her back. After all, just because they tease and play like
the cruelest of children, aiming at tender spots with vicious precision, she
sees no reason for him to wish her in row for execution and Snow White with a
crown above her pretty curls. 
“Not refuse, if I recall,” he replies, a complacent touch to the smile she
spies through her mirror.
He’s right, of course, since every request for help she’d humiliated herself
enough to utter during the past year, had simply been answered with the
condition of a deal made. A deal asking for Daniel’s ring in exchange, however,
which seems to Regina like nothing but a more merciless way of punishment than
simple refusal might have been. He knows she won’t give it up, and even now,
the mere thought has her twisting her fingers around the old chain, pulling
until the ring is resting against her palm, a promise and a reminder both,
broken hearts and bloodshed wrapped around the metal once meant to make her a
wife, if not a queen. It feels cold against the palm of her hand, so she closes
her fist around it, willing it to warm up.
Silence settles between them, and Regina allows herself the momentary weakness
of thinking of Daniel, painting his face in wide strokes inside her mind’s eye,
making an effort to evoke the amused warmth of his beautiful eyes. It gets
harder every day that passes to summon into mind anything other than the memory
of his death, and she despairs at the thought that she should be doomed to
repeat that night over and over while everything else gets lost in the abyss of
a past long gone.
Regina pushes the thoughts away with stubbornness, opening up her eyes and
dropping the ring back under her clothes. She concentrates back on her face
instead, her hands moving in familiar motions as she carefully removes dark
reds and soft beiges from the lines of her face. She hears Rumpelstiltskin
moving behind her, even catches his figure somewhere at the corners of her
mirror, but she ignores him altogether, removing her masks without fear of what
he might see. The freshness of the water lilies helps her pulsing head, and
soon she’s freed herself from every trace of color, leaving behind nothing but
her clean features. She purses her lips at her own reflection. She’s still
beautiful, she muses, if her complexion far too pale to be healthy and her
cheeks sharper than she likes them, the shadows of wrinkles beginning to etch
themselves permanently at the corners of her eyes and mouth. It occurs to her
that the war must surely be aging her prematurely, and that she’s probably not
alone in such a predicament. The huntsman certainly has gained at least a
decade for every day passed on the last year, every sign of youth gone from his
poise and face. And then there’s the imp, surviving them all with the very same
absurd hair he wore when he first appeared before Regina, his eyes still
confounding and his step still spry. How perplexing a thought.
“Have you heard the tales, dearie?” Rumpelstiltskin says all of a sudden,
appearing behind her and making her flinch.
“Which tales?”
He smirks knowingly, the gesture slow to take shape on his lips as he sways
back and forth on his own heels, like a kid who has secretly stolen a piece of
candy. “Rumors say you started this war because you think Snow White is
prettier than you.”
A sudden laugh escapes her, a tinkling cackle that sounds too loud against her
own ears, and that curves her lips up into an attractive smile. For attractive
it is indeed, even with her skin more ash than gold, and with a scar marring
her otherwise unmarked features. Amused, yet somewhat put upon, she states, “Of
course a war between women would be made into a contest of vanity.”
“It has a nice ring to it, though, don’t you think?” he says, his own laughter
rounding the sound of his voice. Looking up briefly and then down at her eyes
through the mirror, he sing-songs, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the
fairest of them all?”
I am,she determines, the thought unwitting and precipitous in its nature, so
much so that she has to bite her lip not to utter it out loud. It’s a foolish
idea spurned by a foolish falsehood, beauty a faraway concern in the battle
against her step-daughter. Something rings unexpectedly unpleasant at the back
of her head, however, a bitter taste at the tip of her tongue at the layered
truths hiding behind the absurdity of such whispers, for sharp tongues may
speak of beauty, but perhaps they speak of something else entirely just as
well. After all, they look at Snow White and see what they wish – a fearsome
leader, hope wrapped up in candid honesty and kindness, a champion of love.
What dothey see when they look upon Regina’s face, though? What about her is so
deadly wrong that alluring features bring forth no such considerations? After
all, she doesn’t wear her darkness upon her skin; she’s no imp of golden scales
and stormy eyes, no dragon absconded under human flesh, no deformed troll or
monstrous ogre. But then she’s the Evil Queen, she supposes, ugly before a
world that deemed her worthless even before it called her evil.
Laughter lost and mood sunk into unforeseen tribulation, she stands up
abruptly, shying away from her own reflection and bringing her hands together,
nails digging into her own skin as if in need of scratching a sudden itch.
Rumpelstiltskin giggles close to her ear, as if she’s finally caught on the
joke and he’s happy that it’s on her.
“She’s not prettier,” she breathes through tightly pressed lips, anger quickly
substituting frustration as she continues to say, “She’s not smarter, nor
better, nor–nor worthier.”
“Ah,” Rumpelstiltskin exclaims, lighting up with excitement as he jumps before
her, cloying her space and easily trapping her against her vanity. “You’re not
still tickled by that True Love’s Kiss, are you, dearie?”
Regina thinks of a princess then, a princess that had loved a common boy, and
who had believed with every fiber of her being that their love would be enough
to conquer a world that held no kindness. Regina thinks then of a heart turned
to dust, and in the same instant, of the light magic of a kiss swallowing her
up and rupturing her insides, punching her gut with foreign and uncomfortable
magic. There had been two princesses, though, and therefore two endings to the
story, fate deeming one deserving of a shepherd turned prince, and the other
worthy of no such benevolence.
“A stroke of luck, at best,” she croaks, dismissing despairing thoughts by
turning her anger towards her present torturer. “Or perhaps something different
altogether, hmm? Do you have something to confess, Rumpel? After all, it seems
unlikely that the shepherd found his way out of the Infinite Forest all by
himself.”
“A deal is a deal.”
Breathing out forcefully, Regina pushes her hands against Rumpelstiltskin’s
chest, trying to move past him while averting her eyes, afraid of what the imp
may spy in her gaze, and in features that she’d so carelessly rid of make-up.
He gives her no reprieve, though, and fights her until he has her wrists
tightly wrapped within his hands and bent behind her back, teeth bared before
her in a predatory smile, their struggle the faux embrace of passionate lovers.
There is no love to be had between them, however, and passion is but a mockery
of what lovers share, magic and violence making up for devotion and ardor.    
He lets go of her after offering her a maddening grin, leaving behind the
shackle-like imprint of his fingers on the fragile skin of her wrists as a
reminder of how easily he can overpower her. The weight of his magic doesn’t
leave her quite yet, though, and it presses against her shoulders even as she
leans back against the vanity, making a show out of her indifference. If the
touch of his spell had been a breath of flirtatiousness a moment before, now it
is a tight rope coiling itself about her, tangible yet invisible fingers that
slither about her like a snake. Stopping herself from gagging is a nearly
impossible effort, magic that speaks of predestination never quite as
unconquerable as when Rumpelstiltskin is near. It never fails to make her want
to give up entirely, to forget about a war of impossible outcome and whatever
backlash may follow in favor of his designs and instructions. It makes her feel
silly, truly silly, to have ever harbored thoughts of escaping
Rumpelstiltskin’s ways by any choice made in the past, much more so when such a
choice might have been something as stupid as running away with a man with a
talent for archery and no other known merit. She supposes, if there was ever a
chance not to end up tangled up in Rumpelstiltskin’s web, Maleficent might have
been a better choice altogether. Perhaps, though, there’s never been a way out
for her other than death.
Regina turns around, hiding herself from Rumpelstiltskin’s knowing eyes so as
to escape despair and defeat. There is no such thing as destiny, she tells
herself, for surely she knows better than to give a sacred and ominous name to
what is nothing but Rumpelstiltskin pulling the strings and cheating her steps,
drawing a path before her and then tempting her into following it. In a huff,
she pushes her hair out of her face and behind her ears in a nervous gesture,
catching sight of the huntsman in her efforts to ignore the imp. Goodness, but
she’s surrounded by enemies even within her own walls.
“Now tell me, Rumpel,” she begins, hoping to get this over with and take that
bath after all, even if it seems like too much to wish for. “Is there a reason
for this visit at all, or is it that you don’t you have anyone else to harass
these days?”
His answer is a ridiculous little jump that makes her snort inelegantly, and
that finishes with a flourish and a spark of magic which leaves behind a small
box. He curtsies, leg shot forward and head bowed respectfully, another sham to
add to his mocking. Wary of any box Rumpelstiltskin may offer her, Regina eyes
it from a distance, pressing her lips together when she spies the design, a
small carved heart painted in pale pink immediately informing her of its
origins. Let never be said that mother is anything if not persistent.
“I truly do wonder at what it is that mother holds over your head that you
allow her to make you her messenger, imp,” Regina intones, nose shooting
upwards in a mildly disgusted gesture. “I don’t want it.”
Not that she has wanted any other thing that has come from mother for years, of
course. Whatever it is that she hopes to accomplish by badgering Regina with
random offerings Regina can’t guess at, but she’s certain that she must fight
temptation and not give into the silent reminders mother continues on sending
her way, always via Dark One. Reminders that she’s still out there, alive and
attentive, that she hasn’t forgotten the daughter that has forsaken her so,
that her touch is boundless and unavoidable, that she holds power still – power
to hurt and manipulate and promise and twist, power that Regina knows she can’t
fight if only she gives but an inch.
She’s fighting a war, and whatever mother may want with her must be deemed
unimportant. She must fight the pull, the brush of temptation from a mother
long gone who would probably be disappointed at the way she’s handling herself
as of late – all terrible habits and loss of control, unladylike in her
mannerisms towards the court and her armies, frustratingly mediocre in her
endeavors to kill and conquer. Regina twists her lips into a snarl and mutters
a silent curse when Rumpelstiltskin fails to listen to her wishes and steps
closer to her, pressing his chest against her back and curling an arm around
her, so the box remains on his hand but is now presented before her eyes.
“You might want to take a peek at this one,” he singsongs, a following giggle
lingering uncomfortably against her ear.
“I don’t want it,” she repeats.
“Are you quite sure about that, dearie?”
It must be a joke, she thinks, one of those provocations he’s so fond of,
surely nothing of importance. Yet, to this day, Regina doesn’t remember
Rumpelstiltskin insisting that she open mother’s presents, his own mysterious
relationship with her somehow stopping him from using her influence above
Regina beyond the occasional sharp barb. She’s always held the secret belief
that the imp must somehow and for some reason be wary of mother himself,
whatever undisclosed truths their past together hides keeping him as distanced
from her as possible, if not at all.
“What is it?” Regina questions, swallowing a sudden lump stuck somewhere on her
throat and looking back at him, eyes wide and abruptly vulnerable. “What it is,
Rumpel?” A croaky sound, a sign of mother’s true power – for even realms away,
she can make the almighty Evil Queen feel like a fearful nine year old who has
just broken a jar of strawberry jam.
Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t answer, just shrugs uncomfortably, and so Regina
doesn’t fight the impulse anymore. She takes the wooden box with hands that she
refuses to allow to shake, and opens it with her heart hammering painfully
inside her chest, fearing the unknown with the breathlessness of a scared
little girl. Inside it, she finds a pin. The sight prompts a wheezing laugh,
short-lived and nearly silent, desperate.
Regina moves away from Rumpelstiltskin as she takes it out, and the moment she
finds it resting against her palm her breath leaves her all over again. It is a
pin, indeed, the silver shaft twisted at its thinner end, and the filigree
adorning the head smoothed out both by use and age. It’s not particularly
expensive-looking, and yet Regina knows it comes from the hand of a king, for
father used to tell her about his tenth birthday all the time, when grandfather
Xavier had pinned the ornament on his lapel with a proud smile that he reserved
only for the most honorable of moments. Father liked to speak of how not ten
minutes after receiving the gift, he’d tripped with the particularly long train
of an old duchess’ dress, and of how he’d face-planted against a creamy honey
cake, the smile adorning his face as he weaved his tale always so amused that
Regina couldn’t help but laugh along with him. For as long as she’d known him,
father had worn the pin over the lapel of his overcoat, the one single
concession to his noble upbringing that he had never given up, even when
further presents of more ornamental and expensive adornings from Regina’s hands
had been forgotten and never used.
 "It feels so heavy,” Regina murmurs, breathily, stupidly dumbfounded.
Then, she closes her hand about the pin, feeling the twisted end pierce her
skin and draw blood, the sudden burst of pain the only thing she feels before
she collapses against her vanity, her arm holding her up out of sheer instinct.
Still the floor seems unstable to her, like viscous jelly that refuses to hold
her up, and the only thing that stops her from falling to her knees is a body
at her back, arms encircling her and keeping her upright. She thinks it must be
Rumpelstiltskin, but the lack of magic in the air tells her that he’s already
gone, a coward leaving behind anguish and destruction. No, her savior smells of
fur and sweat, his hands far too warm against Regina’s own arms. She fights the
hold, but soon gives up when she realizes her strength has left her, whatever
has remained only letting her clutch tighter and tighter at the pin against her
palm, making the piercing wound deeper by the second. The huntsman shushes her,
mutters a wildly distraught Your Majesty,and Regina laughs, her senses gone
with her strength, her mind miles away, lost to memories long past.
Finally, she opens up her hand, stares at the bloodied silver resting against
her palm, feels the gaping wound as the symbol that it is – that of a pierced
heart, which mother is ever so good at tearing apart.
“Mother,” she gasps, “Oh, mother, what did you do?”
 
===============================================================================
 
Three days after rescuing father, Regina’s still shaking. Her hands, mostly,
she notices, fail at staying still even as Regina forces blunt nails into her
own palms, hoping to balm her nerves with pain if nothing else will do the
trick. It’s useless, however, and so her hands shake irremediably, weakness
seeping into her every pore even as she stands within the walls of her own
palace, and far away from the overreaching hands of the Queen of Hearts.
Mother’s hands,she forces herself to think, careful not to give her more power
than she already has by conjuring her as the legend she has created for
herself.
Three days after rescuing father, Regina still can’t bring herself to care
about the war she’s losing, or about whatever it is that has been going on
during the fortnight that it has taken her to bring father back to where he
belongs – by her side and nowhere else in the world. Even now, she can still
feel the world sinking beneath her feet, the desperate airiness that had
conquered her from the moment the slave in her mirror had failed to locate
father. And Regina had known, of course she’d known the moment father’s pin had
rested against her palm that he was long gone and trapped by mother in the
faraway lands of a different realm, but she’d screamed at her mirror anyway.
She’d yelled at the huntsman just as well, had escaped the grip he’d had on her
even on unsteady legs, and had scorned him for daring to try and provide
comfort where there could possibly be none. She’d bellowed angry calls at
Rumpelstiltskin, too, hollers that had inevitably turned to faltering sobs when
she’d received no answer from the devilish imp, whatever deal he’d brokered
with mother obviously made to deny her assistance in the matter of her father.
She’d wailed then, alone, truly aloneand with no sympathetic ears, not in this
world blazing with war and with no time to spend on an old and foreign prince
turned valet by his own wishes and means.
Lost and defeated, Regina had denied herself the relief of giving up. Instead,
she had demanded that which she couldn’t afford, and had ignored her council
and her allies both, the duke’s advice, Midas’ pleas and George’s disdain
falling short at claiming her attention when all she could feel was the erratic
beating of her own heart, missing a piece that she had always taken for granted
– for daddy was hers, only hers and forever hers, by choice, and so long as he
remained in mother’s grasp, she would not rest. Years spent in silent grief had
allowed her to bury her own feelings deep inside her heart, however, at least
long enough to gather her wits and find her way towards father’s whereabouts.
It had taken her a few days of books, potions and frustration marked by broken
mirrors, burnt pages and forgotten meals before she had remembered the portal
jumper, the memory of him stale and still tasting bitter. She’d found him with
more ease than she’d expected, a little less cocky than she recalled, a lot
poorer, and with a bargaining chip and weakness so obvious in the little girl
that he’d called his daughter that Regina had even laughed her way through the
tricks and shadows that she’d played in order to ensure his help. Help he’d
provided in exchange of money, useless to him even when he’d built his little
cottage far away enough from her kingdom that he’d been lucky enough to remain
untouched by the blithe of war. After all, money couldn’t do much for him, not
when he’d been left behind in Wonderland as reward for his idiocy. Still,
Regina had left a stuffed bunny rabbit by his daughter’s bed, the trifle desire
which had cost the jumper his freedom, and his daughter nights lacking his warm
embrace.
Now, three days later, Regina shakes. Locked away inside her bedchambers after
refusing to attend a council meeting for the umpteenth time in the last three
days, she wraps her arms about herself, disgusted at her own instability. She
feels frazzled and misplaced, as if her senses linger still somewhere behind
her, perhaps lost in Wonderland’s maze, or maybe locked away inside mother’s
new vault. It hardly matters, not when all she must do is pull herself together
and face the world outside her doors, even when it is a world intent on
destroying itself. Surely some form of destiny must be at play, she muses, for
a fortnight of her absence and inattention has sunk them into despair, the
little news she’d allowed her Military Advisor to burden her with speaking of
greater loss than she’d thought possible.
Pacing about her chambers in jerky and fast-paced motions, she ponders whether
her endeavors during these war wouldn’t have been more fruitful had she gotten
rid of George and Midas altogether, and had simply taken command of their
armies without their input or alliance. Considering that they had managed to
get themselves incarcerated after losing at least half their conjoined armies
in a foolish attempt at a battle they couldn’t possibly have won, Regina finds
herself pondering at the military success George has boasted for as long as
Regina has known him, and at Midas’ ostensibly blind faith on the man. Regina
had warned him on more than one occasion about underestimating their enemy, and
she supposes she shouldn’t be that surprised that his downfall, once again, had
been his ego. Whatever the case, Regina has lost her allies and half her
forces, and she wishes she had it in her to care for such a desperate
situation. As it is, all she has is a trembling set of hands, which she
suspects will only cease to quiver once they’ve taken hold of Snow White’s
heart.
Regina’s thoughts fail her at trying to find some form of concentration, so
that when she hears the telltale sound of her chamber’s door opening, she finds
herself exhaling with relief. She figures night has fallen already, and
expecting to find her lady’s maid with food that she’ll refuse to eat, she
gears up for a familiar disagreement that will at least distract her for a
short while. It’s not without a hint of wonder that she finds her gaze locked
with father’s own instead.
“Daddy,” she whispers, breathless.
Father says nothing, foregoing accusations or reproach even when Regina has
refused to see him since she brought him back to the palace. Instead, he offers
her an easy smile. His eyes escape hers quickly, though, and Regina watches a
little dumbfounded as he enters her rooms, closing the door behind him with a
too loud thudand then walking towards the closed drapes, making quick work of
opening them, despite the heaviness of the fabrics. A sliver of light enters
the rooms immediately, and Regina slants her eyes with discomfort, realizing
only now that she has been living in darkened rooms for days. There’s not much
daylight left, however, and so it is just the orange tints of the setting sun
what color the walls, tantalizingly warm. Regina dares think it’s almost
pleasant.
Once he’s done, father remains by the big windows, unmoving but for the hands
he offers, thrown forward and with their palms up, waiting, requesting, and
never demanding. The sight of him is enough for Regina’s impulses to bring her
forward, her steps fast and her hands outstretched, as if she suddenly can’t
wait another second to be held. She touches her own hands to father’s, but
barely holds them for a second before she’s drawing her arms up and around his
shoulders, clinging to his frame with arms that haven’t yet forgotten how to
hug. They hold onto one another for a long stretch of time, Regina hiding her
face against father’s shoulder, the clean scent of worn down clothes so
familiar that she imagines her quivering gone. 
“Daddy, you were gone,” she says after a while, her voice raspy on the
whispered words. “You were gone and I–I–”
He shushes her with a whisper of his own, his voice shaping a string of soft
endearments against her ear and his hand coming to rest at the back of her
head, where it feels overwhelmingly gentle. It quiets Regina, and she’s
secretly thankful that he’s stopped her confession with the warmth of the care
that surely she doesn’t deserve. You were gone and I didn’t notice;for father
had been in mother’s clutches for a little over a week before she’d sent her
message through Rumpelstiltskin, and Regina had simply not realized that father
was missing.
Her hands turn into claws at father’s back, holding to the back of his
shoulders with blunt nails and crooked fingers, digging themselves into the
fabric of father’s coat with what must surely be a painful grip. The war had
consumed her so that she’d nearly lost the most important person in her life.
Perhaps, she thinks bitterly, the onlyimportant person in her life; and how can
she even look him in the eye now? How can she hope to stop herself from shaking
when Snow White and her feud have nearly cost her one more beloved someone?
“Snow White,” she snarls, her lips twisting into an ugly grimace as she finally
dislodges herself from father’s embrace, bringing her hands back to hug her own
waist as she takes a step back. “It’s all Snow White’s fault. Her, and her
idiot prince, and the thousands that follow. Her heart should be mine by now,”
she states, her eyes now leaving father as well as she takes one more step back
and resumes the pacing father’s presence had stopped. “I’ll turn it into dust,
daddy, I promise I will; but only after crushing her prince’s and her friends’,
so she dies hopeless and lonely, just the way she would have me be.”
“Cielo,you can’t blame your mother’s ploys on Snow W–”
“Don’t you dare defend her, daddy!” Regina snaps, turning angry eyes towards
her father. That he would defend her after everything they’ve been through,
after everything they aregoing through, burns through Regina like she imagines
hot coals against her skin might.
Father looks at her with those eyes of his, full of warmth and yet wary, the
edges of his gaze shaking with something that could be awe but Regina suspects
is mostly fear. It’s the way he used to look at mother, and back in the day
Regina had confused that gaze with enamored admiration, with love only
surpassed by reverent respect. The thought sobers her up, and she makes an
effort to stand up straight and yet look soothing – she never wants father to
look upon her as someone intimidating, even when she so relishes such a stare
when settled on everyone else’s eyes.
Hands settled low on her own belly, the now familiar gesture reminding her of
old scars and pain brewed for ages, she allows her voice to ring true and
vulnerable when she says, “I offered her a chance to stop this war. I did,
daddy, and she’s the one who chose to fight.”
Quietly then, scorn now lacing the exposed corners of her voice, “For the good
of her people.So of course she’s the hero, of course I’m the Evil Queen.”
Regina barks out a laugh, any sign of defenselessness leaving her demeanor as
she reaffirms herself in the truth of her words. She had, after all, been
honest when she had offered Snow and her prince a chance to keep their lives in
exchange for exile. She can’t say whether such an outcome would have satisfied
her need for revenge in the long run, but at the moment of uttering the
proposal, she had been more than ready to give up warfare and unsatisfied
desires for blood so long as she was allowed the respite of rest and peace of
mind. Still rattled by the magic of the True Love’s Kiss at the time, she had
just felt so utterly exhausted. Exhausted of the world and its injustice, of
the internal war she had been fighting against it for longer than a decade,
never mind that the world itself had only seemed to catch up with her on the
past few years.
Snow White had chosen to fight, however. With the ever-present self-
righteousness of her stance, she had called upon rebellion, her words reeking
with sanctimonious proclamations of rights that weren’t her own to claim. She
had built herself up to be the hero of the people, the queen that was wanted
against that which had been forced upon this kingdom, never mind that the crown
had once upon a time been thrust over Regina’s head through no desire of her
own. Regina guesses the fault may lie within herself, though, for she had made
an adamant effort in Snow White’s upbringing being that of a future queen, if
only just for the pleasure of taking away that which Snow may desire. She
should have allowed her father to keep on spoiling her instead, to keep on
looking at her as a loving child of no consequence so that she grew up to be
shallow and dependent, beautiful yet useless. There would have been no wars
declared from Snow White had she not learnt the value of her own strength and
independence from Regina herself, and so destiny must be making a joke out them
yet again, that Regina has made her enemy the most challenging that she could
ever hope to be.
Regina’s thoughts taste bitter, a mixture of hatred tinged with pride settling
low in her belly. She snorts, tries to shake away any feeling towards Snow
White that goes beyond pure hostility. The effort is futile, however, and the
ghost of Snow White’s presence settles upon her, just another demon demanding
its pound of flesh. Just like mother, she figures, mother who had taken what
Regina loved most in an effort to – to what?To remind her that she will always
be there, always a menace, always in control? Or perhaps to teach her a lesson
– a useful one, albeit cruel in its design? It had not failed in its intention,
then, for the message had carved itself quite clearly upon Regina’s skin. She’s
alone, there’s no one she can trust, and her weakness lies in that which she
loves, a father that even through the adoration bestowed will choose to think
Snow White the victim of Regina’s wrath, will look at her with eyes that betray
fear.
Mother’s lessons are always harsh and punishing and always exercised with an
unforgiving hand, but not for that are they less useful. Regina would be
foolish not to listen to them, much more so now, when a kingdom swallowed up by
war and strife needs her to be strong, and not the shaking mess she has allowed
herself to become in the name of her father.
Nonetheless, Regina turns a tender gaze towards father, now looking at her with
open eyes and a curve to his lips that doesn’t quite dare to be a smile. A weak
man himself that has become the reason behind Regina’s fragility, and yet one
that Regina isn’t willing to give up, never mind mother’s efforts towards such
a feat.
Walking back towards father, Regina finds his hands yet again, pleased when his
lips finish his smile. She’s soft in her gestures, slow like molasses as she
turns her face so she can press dry lips against father’s cheek, her kiss
lingering while she takes a moment to compose herself. When she moves back to
search for father’s eyes with her own, she’s no longer shaking.
“Father, I wish you to remain within your bedchambers for the remainder of the
war,” she says, then, making an effort so her tone remains sweet even while
resolute. “You shall have your own guard and–”
“That is hardly necessary… an old man like me doesn’t–”               
“I’ll hear no protests on the matter, father. I’m to ride to war, and I won’t
have you in danger while I’m gone. It’s about time your life is made a priority
of this kingdom, since it is already mine.”
Father looks down, and Regina wonders if it’s shame or something else
altogether. She wonders, too, if perhaps her efforts towards sweetness have
completely gotten lost in the meaning of her words, and in what may appear as a
harsh sentence settled upon undeserving shoulders. Regina squeezes father’s
hands between her own, willing him to look back up at her, to see nothing in
her eyes but his loving daughter, to forego the judgment that everyone else
keeps condemning her with. Does he not understand how much Regina needs him,
how much of her sanity is tangled with the beating of his heart?
“Can’t you see that I need you to be safe? That you mustbe safe?” she
questions, the harshness in her voice broken by a well of emotion settling high
on her throat, making it tight and painful.
Whatever it is that father hears in her voice, it makes him look up, and offer
a sincere, “Haz lo que tengas que hacer, princesa.” (1)
It sounds resigned, a little lost, and Regina has to bite back a short-tempered
snap. She breathes out, slowly, and tethers herself inside father’s eyes, in
the kind lines that crinkle their edges, in the round shape of cheeks upturned
by a shy smile.
“Padre, papi,” she says, the sound accompanied by a tight smile, and her tongue
fighting against the words of a language that she hasn’t used in many years.
She had tried cherishing it, but the court had beaten it out of her so it was
but a hidden treasure shared with father in darkened rooms, and whatever honest
desire Regina had for it Little Ace had taken away from her when she’d been
claimed by an early death. Now, it tastes like ash. For father, however, she
licks her lips and speaks with honesty, mellowing the gesture even more with a
curled hand placed softly against his cheek, the pads of her fingers resting
over papery skin with utmost reverence.
“No es un castigo, papi, no te estoy castigando.” (2)
Silence lingers for a moment between them, heavy. Regina wishes there was no
need for such reassurance, for soft words and truths ripped out from the bottom
of a still beating heart. Yet Regina knows father’s strength is not to be
admired, but that it is his kindness and love that she must hold dear, and that
it is mother’s memory what must guide her hands if she wishes for them to still
their shaking.
Content with her decision, Regina breaks the moment with a smile and a last
squeeze to father’s hands, placing one more kiss against his cheek, this time
quick and almost bumbly, her lips leaving a dark imprint behind. With a careful
wave of her hand and a burst of magic, she makes a box appear, the huntsman’s
heart hidden beneath its pretty wooden lid.
“Don’t worry, father, you shall have company,” she intones before opening the
box before her and being momentarily dumbfounded by the black swirls within an
otherwise bright red heart. It still beats, then, and if it is to be useless
when it comes to Regina’s amusement, then it will more than do when it comes to
father’s protection. After all, she’d once seen the huntsman murder a man in
cold blood to preserve the rights of a wolf, so he should be content with
playing protector to a much more valued life.
In quick and precise words, enunciating carefully so that magic doesn’t play
tricks or make decisions based on ambivalent requests, Regina orders the
huntsman’s heart to make its owner become father’s protection and companion,
and to lay his life were her father’s to be in peril. Regina spies father’s
intentions of protesting her orders with ease, the turn down of features that
think themselves unworthy already familiar to her, and so she stops them before
they can be cause of sudden fury.
“He’s useless to me, and perhaps you may coax speech out if him yet,” Regina
deadpans, thinking of the huntsman’s taste for the weak and special, for the
poetry lacking in a world of war. “Trust me that the idiot will bear your
company with far more grace than he bears mine. Plus,” she adds after a moment,
“it will make me happy.”
A second swirl of magic sends the huntsman’s heart back to its prison, and then
Regina is moving away from father and towards the thick doors of her ever-
expanding closet. The orange hues of the light filtering inside the room hit
her favored clothes so that the blacks and dark shades of purple, blue and red
appear to be shining, as if expecting to be chosen. Regina touches a barely
used gown, the rubbery feel of the fabric unfamiliar yet expensive, and the
transparent tulle meant to tease the skin between her breasts and down to her
navel sparkling before her eyes. It will make for a triumphant look, precisely
what she needs to walk back into her council with hands that don’t shake and
the determined stance that will ensure her the victory that belongs to her. She
smiles, and then lets the gesture curl into a smirk.
“Now daddy, I must get dressed, and you should be getting back to your rooms;
Claude will escort you.”
“Won’t you consider dinner with me beforehand, cielo?”
Regina doesn’t look at him when she answers, rather keeping her eyes fixed on
her chosen gown. “You will excuse me, father, but I do have a war to win.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Not unlike the time after Leopold’s death, the palace receives more desperate
visitors during the following weeks, the loss of both George and Midas sending
whatever little remained of hope and calm away, and pushing everyone into a
frenzy of seeking protection wherever it is to be found. And not unlike that
time as well, they come asking for far more than they can offer. Back in the
day, they had dared aspire to Regina’s hand, and at least they’d had the
decency of being ridiculously grandiose in their requests, so that they had
afforded her a brief sort of amusement. These days, however, requests are for
whatever Regina may wish to offer, and they come with words that reek of
desperation and the quality of pleading that inclines Regina towards mindless
cruelty.
For days, though, busy as she finds herself trying to rally her forces back and
arouse a fighting spirit within the ranks of her council and army officials,
she pays no attention to the arrival of nobles, preferring to spend long and
sleepless hours buried in between maps and plans, and listening to her Military
Advisor and Generals with clear intent, hoping to deduce some form of strategy
in between words that speak of counting their losses and retiring their troops
rather than of pushing back. The distraction works, and it works well, for it
is no distraction at all. After all, Regina has neither the time nor the
disposition to defeat herself within the chambers of her palace, and she makes
it very clear that she will sacrifice every last one of her subject’s lives to
this war before she claims defeat and chooses to retreat.
Days into the fray, however, Lord Eldon finds his way into the palace, no one
but his frazzled wife, his wide-eyed daughter, and a knight that dies upon his
arrival accompanying him. He has nothing to offer and a lot to ask for, and in
his case, Regina makes an exception and takes the time to give him a proper
welcome.
Regina remembers Lord Eldon as a man of few smiles and fewer sentiment, his
body stout yet his face lean and long, his speech short and to the point, and
never occupied with frivolous matters. Back in the days of Leopold’s court,
he’d gained himself a reputation for dreariness, and yet Regina hadn’t
completely abhorred him. She hadn’t visited his lands while still Leopold’s
wife, but she had done so years later as the infamous Evil Queen, and Lord
Eldon had received her with a quiet politeness that had made Regina decide that
there was something almost affable in his serious and fluid manners. Lord Eldon
himself had accompanied her in her inspections of his lands, a small patch of
the kingdom situated prettily in between thick green forests and yet close
enough to the sea that he’d seen fit to build himself a small port. Regina
hadn’t been able to ascertain whether Lord Eldon had been aware, at the time,
of the privileged little place he’d built for himself or not, his lack of
inclination towards war perhaps keeping him oblivious to what an strategically
vantage point he’d made his little home into. Regina hadn’t found herself
inclined to inform him of such impressions, of course, content instead to share
her knowing looks with no one but her Military Advisor.
Regina had thought very little of Lord Eldon and his home during the next
years, and her mind had only conjured him up again at the beginning of the war,
when she’d informed him of her intentions of making his lands into a crucial
point within her battle strategy. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, but certainly
infuriatingly enough, Lord Eldon had denied her, claiming a taste for peace and
an ideological rejection of war that stopped him from lending her his lands,
soldiers and reserves. He’d promised neutrality, not inclined either to fight
for Snow White’s rebellion, but in Regina’s eyes, the choice of not becoming
her ally wasn’t made less insulting by choosing not to become her enemy either.
Accordingly, when Lord Eldon commits the foolishness of showing his face within
her own walls, asking for refuge and mercy after losing his home to the
rebellion, Regina sees it fit to welcome him personally, and with a twist of
her wrist that reeks of magic and that immediately cracks the man’s neck. His
body falls to the floor with resounding heaviness, rolling onto its back and
spreading pudgy limbs about. Regina looks upon him with disgust, even as she
considers the idea that portly people make far better corpses all around, with
none of that ungainly quality of the thin-boned that never fails to make her a
little queasy. She smiles at the thought, enough of a distraction that the
sobbing wife of the recently deceased barely catches her attention, as neither
does the hard-eyed wide look of his daughter, whose eyes are firmly planted on
Regina herself, rather than on her deceased father.
It is later that same evening that Regina decides what her next actions shall
be. Floundering and doubts put aside, she chooses to wrap herself up in
mother’s lessons, and so trust her gut and her mind and nothing else. She will
ride into battle and she will do it soon, no more than a week from now, taking
advantage of the lull George and Midas’ defeat has seemingly sunk her enemies
into. They seem to be waiting for her next move, after all, and so she shall
oblige in the most crushing way possible. Not only will she ride into battle,
but she will no longer allow idle hands. How silly, that she has spent a year
asking and conceding, when life has taught her that all she must do is simply
take. And take she will. Refusal will be met by death, politics and politeness
be dammed, and her kingdom will be put to work, so that victory and loss are
truly shared by all.
In such a manner, Regina issues orders to have tasks given to everyone,
regardless of gender, age and station. If women wish to fight then they shall
have swords and armor, and if men find themselves useless in the battlefield
then they shall find a place where they are not so; the elders will feed and
bathe the children, or the other way around if necessary; the pointless and
superficial will be taught to be diligent and will find a place wherever a hand
is needed. It is war, after all, and if one can’t fight, then one must bandage,
clean, cook, sew, shine, travel, or any other task Regina might need fulfilled
– for if she has learnt something from her unwanted visitors, then that is that
even within the dullest of spirits lies at least a single talent.
Regina might not have been inclined to make such an affirmation not long ago,
but the arrival of old Countess Ninny may have just been her saving grace. Not
that the old goat is in any way agreeable, but unlike others among the noble
ranks, she had declared herself on Regina’s side as soon as the war had
erupted, and had stubbornly defended her own lands with ability and without
regret, so that when she’d been defeated and forced to run to Regina, she had
done so with anger and requests for further battles. Unlike many others, too,
she’d come to Regina with everything she’d had left; a smattering of soldiers,
food, fabrics, weapons, and two granddaughters for Regina to do with as she saw
fit. Surprisingly enough, it had been the latter who had convinced her to
commission everyone for responsibility, for if the countess’ bland relatives
could be of such use, then surely everyone else could join in the effort.
The countess’ granddaughters, two girls only a year apart, fifteen and sixteen
respectively, had shown up before Regina with no expression written in their
lifeless faces and very little to offer in the way of witty conversation. Both
of them entirely too tall, broad-shouldered and ungainly, they were saddled
with what Baroness Irene had once told Regina was the worst of curses for a
woman – that of being ordinary. The baroness had always said that if one
couldn’t be beautiful then one must dare be truly ugly, for anything surely
surpassed being uninspiring. That is, however, what old Countess Ninny’s
granddaughters are, a fact that isn’t helped by the rest of their story. They
are both daughters to the countess’ younger son, a rogue that had run away from
his family and given up privilege, and who had, upon his death, sent a pregnant
wife and a one year old daughter back into his mother’s care. Obliged by her
family ties, the countess had taken the no name wife under her roof, and had
shed no tears when she’d been taken by death during childbirth. The first
granddaughter had gone by the name of Lena, and bothered by the idea of
learning a second appellative for the newborn, the countess had christened her
with the same one. Thus, the girls had come to be known as One and Two, and so
it was that they had presented themselves to Regina, who had thought the dim
titles fitting to both listless girls.
It was a rather pleasant surprise then, when on the evening of Lord Eldon’s
untimely death, she’d found the girls busy sewing a cut his fall had caused on
his forehead, both of them unperturbed by the sight of death as they prepared
the body for the usual funerary rituals. They’d both confessed a taste for
thread and needle when questioned, and had claimed to be unbothered whether it
was fabric or flesh that was their board. Snorting in surprised amusement,
Regina had found an oddly pleasant sensation in being inspired into action by
the otherwise tedious girls.
“Your Majesty, as much as I admire the brilliance behind your latest stratagem,
do you truly think it wise?”
It is her Military Advisor that questions her late one afternoon, both of them
leaning against the railing of the biggest balcony within the palace as their
eyes survey her soldiers down below by the front entrance, all of them busy
loading up carriages before the sun disappears and gives way to one of the
starry nights they’ve been having as of late. They will be leaving the palace
tomorrow, Regina wanting to take advantage of the lull of activity their
enemies have fallen into after the defeat of both George and Midas. Busy as
they probably are deciding their prisoner’s fate, and perhaps thinking that
Regina will wait longer to form a new strategy attack, they will find that
their inaction will cost them dearly. Honestly, she would have thought that
Snow White would know her better than to expect any sort of dawdling from her.
It’s a fine evening, nonetheless, and thoughts of Snow escape her, even as
she’s getting ready to ride to war yet again. She’s feeling the nervous calm of
anticipation, the fretfulness mother had caused her not long ago having settled
into determination, and her magic humming along somewhere at the back of her
neck, more harmonious than it has felt for months, ever since the True Love’s
Kiss had perturbed it so. The Military Advisor must know she’s feeling rather
serene, for he wouldn’t have thought to approach her with questions otherwise.
“The brilliance behind my latest stratagem?And here I thought you and I were
past obnoxious compliments,”Regina mocks the Advisor’s words, her lips lifting
up into an amused smile. “Tell me duke, do you think me unwise?”
The duke laughs, if not unkindly, and when Regina finally looks at him, the
wrinkles around his eyes betray true enjoyment.
“Too smart if anything, Your Majesty,” he answers, quickly denying any
intention towards false flattery by saying, “Perhaps too smart for your
kingdom. There are whispers amongst your supporters, Your Majesty; many think
themselves too highly stationed for menial work, and fathers aren’t too pleased
with having their daughters wielding swords or–”
“And yet daughters are happy to do so, as much as sons are relieved by being
allowed to saw and heal,” Regina interrupts, swift to stop the protests that
she had assumed would arise. “Perhaps these sons and daughters will learn to
take nothing for granted.”
The duke harrumphs, straightening his posture in a gesture familiar to Regina.
It’s the one he takes on when he wishes to contradict her and doesn’t quite
know how, and it never fails to amuse her. Regina widens the smile the duke had
managed to settle earlier on her lips, and straightens up herself, the gesture
as military looking in her own frame as it is in the duke’s.
Then, mirth dancing in her eyes and in the spaces between her words, she says,
“Duchess Adela was rather favorable to my ideas, and you know what a hard time
we have agreeing on just about anything.”
“Yes, well, our good friend the duchess has been wanting to put people to work
since she came into this world, I’m sure.”
“Was the duchess ever born, duke? Was she ever a child? It seems silly to think
that she was ever something other than what she is.”
The duke covers a small peal of laughter with a polite cough, and then, with
the air of a disgruntled father that has seen far too many quarrels amongst his
children, says, “Please do refrain from saying such things before her; she’ll
be offended for days, Your Majesty.”
Regina smiles with utmost gentleness, content that she has distracted the
Advisor if only for a moment. She looks back down below them, waving a hand in
childish glee when Rivers spots her watching and calls an enthusiastic Your
Majesty!,that the rest of the soldiers mimic in a discordant chorus, all of
them stopping, if just for a second, to look up at her.
“Children, the lot of them,” she scolds quietly, even when the smile that has
conquered her this evening refuses to free her lips.
“Children with weapons and bloodlust, Your Majesty,” the Advisor is quick to
reply, his semblance taking on the same grim expression he’d worn when he’d
first approached her.
“My favorite kind, then,” she quips.
He means to question her further, and they both know it, but Regina doesn’t
have it in her to listen to advice that might change her mind, or delay their
departure. Her own blood is screaming for battle, encouraged not just by the
recent failure, but by the comfort of wearing mother’s words around her,
stronger than any shield ever built by the hands of men. She knows the Advisor
is worried by the reaction of her people, but if mother had reminded her of
something by taking father from her, then that is that asking nicely has never
quite been as effective a method as simply taking that which is owed. And by
the gods Regina is owed loyalty and faith, and she will take it by force should
it be denied. She has spent a year crawling on her knees asking for favors, and
yet she remains belittled and maligned, the Evil Queen now more than ever for
daring to request action and diligence. No more,she tells herself.
“Your Majesty, I fear–”
Regina is no longer in a mood to listen to advice, however, and having expected
further examination from the duke, she’s quick to interrupt with, “Have you
ever starved, duke?”
“Your Majesty?”
Regina straightens yet again, turns her back towards the outside so that she’s
facing the duke, eyes unwavering when they meet his light grey ones. His mouth
twitches with misunderstanding at the non-sequitur, so Regina questions again,
“Have you ever gone without food? For days, I mean?”
“I have fought many wars in the past, and not all of them were kind to a
soldier’s stomach; of course I have, Your Majesty.”
Regina nods pensively, and lowers her voice when she speaks. “You know what it
feels like, then; the weakness and the dizziness, the way time loses meaning
when all you understand is that your mouth is dry and your breaths shallow, how
your heart beats so fast that it seems to be wanting to free itself from your
chest.”
She stops, takes a moment to breathe deeply and let her hand rest against her
ribcage and travel down in a soothing caress until it’s settled on her stomach,
and then fills the momentary silence before the Advisor can utter any word in
answer.
“It’s a true test, is it not, duke?”
“One that a queen should never endure,” is his answer, which prompts Regina to
laugh, the sound short-lived and joyless, like sandpaper against her throat.
“On the contrary. A queen must endure, and so must her people. I wouldn’t want
a kingdom that lets itself lay down and look forward to death at the first sign
of adversity, and neither should you.” Her words are harsh and short, and yet
she finishes her statement with a sigh, her eyes drawing away from the duke’s
and turning towards her own hands, now both of them resting over her belly. “I
fear I have spoiled my kingdom.”
“And I suppose there is nothing that I may say that will temper your resolve.”
“You are quite right,” she states, turning back around to stare down and then
towards the horizon, the lands of the Royal State expanding before her under a
sunset that has painted the sky in cloudy reds. “My kingdom has starved, dear
duke, and now it is time that it learns to endure.”
 
===============================================================================
 
War has its own smell, and if nothing else, then that is what Regina will
forever remember of her days of battle. Muddied clothes and unbathed bodies
that spend too long a time out in the sun is the kind of natural odor that
can’t be forgotten once it has pervaded the air for long days, and yet it is
preferable to the stench of festering wounds and infected blood that comes
along with battles, and to the indefinably arid, stale and chalky fragrance of
something ancient and long dead. If there is comfort to be found in the
perfumes of combat, Regina finds it amongst her horses, in that spot behind
their ears that is overwhelmingly soft and feels almost like fur. All horses
smell good, and they bring with them the sweet memory of baled hay and freshly
cut grass, of the changeless whiff of leather that used to cling to Daniel’s
skin.
However so, Regina sets her base camp outside her newly recovered fortress, the
price obtained after two fortnights of careful planning, tiresome riding, and
the first battle to reclaim that which had been lost. Her army had managed to
push back Snow’s unsavory band of rebels, the victory obtained partly through
more experienced military prowess and partly through the element of surprise,
for Regina had been right in assuming they weren’t expecting her to push back
as soon as she had. Alas, she’d won what she knew was the first battle of many,
and she’d sent the head of the man who had captained the defense of Snow’s
lines wrapped in linen and within a pretty box back to the Royal Castle, where
she knew Snow, Charming and her closest peers to be housed. It had been as
clear a message as she could have managed, after all, for what her true meaning
was – that the war is far from over, and that Snow is a fool if she'd thought
Regina would stand back and surrender before they could finish this the same
way they had started it; face to face, and no other way.
Her base camp sees life in little to no time after that first victory, her men
already experienced in the art of warfare and their hands quick to work out the
settlement that will guard them from the elements. Regina has them settle it at
the foot of the fortress’ surrounding forest, where the wind carries the scent
of trees and the dampness of early autumn. It fails to mask the smell of war,
and yet it brings a certain comfort to tired limbs and weary minds.
And so it is that battle lives again, and that Regina regains her spirit amidst
fire and blood.
Surprisingly enough, it is not just her spirit that sees a change, for if
giving her people tasks that they hadn’t conceived could possibly belong to
them seemed like the plan of a madwoman at the time, as the arid days of battle
succeed each other, her idea proves to be everything but insane. And how could
it not, when idle hands suddenly find themselves filled up with purpose? Be it
cleaning swords or wielding them, cooking poultices or sewing clothes, tending
to the wounded or receiving wounds, everyone is busy, and so it is that
everyone becomes too preoccupied with the business of war to care far too much
for the shallow ideals of the past. For as time moves forward with as quick a
pace as Regina’s army pushes south towards the edge of the kingdom, Snow’s
followers crumbling beneath her newly steadied feet, her own camp becomes
oblivious to race or class, to gender or upbringing.
As it is, with enough dust and mud tainting everyone’s skin, with calluses
marring otherwise smooth skin, war does what nothing has ever done before, in
that they all become equal, a unit fighting with one single purpose. A purpose
that perhaps they forget, for Snow White’s name crosses no mouths and the
sovereign seat seems to matter to no one but Regina herself, but a purpose
nonetheless – that of moving forward, that of being that which one desires,
rather than that which one was born to be.
Thus, war brings with it a brave new world, one where boys of noble birth break
their bread with soldiers bred on poverty, where women whose future spells
nothing but marriage to the highest bidder lay next to whoever it is they wish
to do so, where noble hands sew up wounds open on common flesh, where old crows
called witches by the villagers teach young and smooth hands to brew potions
and understand herbs, where there is dust under every nail and holes on every
piece of clothing, and yet peace and purpose humming inside every chest. If
nothing else, there will be children born of this war, bastards bred out of
wedlock and brought to the world by those who grew up as unequal but have found
their common ground in the midst of sand and blood – and all of them will be
Regina’s children, brought to the world to claim her legacy.
Regina, however, remains distant. She walks among her soldiers, of course,
rides with them to battle and stands by the wounded, even allowing herself to
secretly mourn those that end up dead and buried, sacrifices to the goddess of
war that she’s painted herself as. She eats what they eat just as well, and
when food is scarce she takes none herself, and yet she dines alone, absconded
inside her own tent, which only ever sees the visits of her closest advisors
and servants.
Nonetheless, battle washes through her with as much power as it does everyone
else, and by the second month on the road, when the dark colors of autumn have
conquered their days, her skin has darkened, settling itself in the golden tan
that mother had spent years trying to avoid. Regina finds herself calloused,
too, her hands and wrists taking the toll of the gesture-based magic that she
favors in battle, the fire that she conjures without much of a thought these
days more often than not burning her hardened skin. There are bruises, too,
from arrows that fly too close, from the swords of those foolish enough to try
to take her on, from horses that trip her up and throw her down to the ground.
It’s not just her skin which suffers, for she knows that her hair insists on
curling unattractively by her ears and her forehead, plastering itself there
with sweat and dust, even when she tries her best to keep it tidy in the tight
braid that falls down her back. There isn’t much she can do, and wasting magic
on the pursuit of keeping it presentable seems to her like a fool’s errand,
considering their plight.
For all that, she can’t deny that her magic is more settled than it has been in
perhaps years, precise and careful in how it unfolds in between her hands,
crawling down her arms and past her fingers like a well-loved friend of old.
The low hum of it accompanies her in every moment and in every movement,
instinctive as a sixth sense would be. She wonders whether her magic has been
this kind of quietly intuitive since it was rattled so by Snow and the prince’s
True Love Kiss, or if perhaps it hadn’t been disturbed even longer ago before,
when Rumpelstiltskin had first brought the Dark Curse before her. Regina can’t
quite remember, and she doesn’t much care – not when she feels more in tune
with her own body than she has since that ball she threw after Snow bit the
poisoned apple and fell asleep for an eternity that proved too short.
Partly to thank for her good mood, perhaps, is her choice to forego gowns and
too-tight corsets altogether, favoring riding clothes and only the softest of
bodices to wear under laced-up shirts and thick jackets. Certainly her clothes
are equally rich in quality and feel as the jewel-up gowns and overly-adorned
coats of days spent within the palace, but they provide her with a sense of
freedom that she’d thought long lost. She would altogether avoid armor as well,
but the Military Advisor and her Generals never fail to insist on coat of mail
covering her torso, or on the heavy head-wear that she’s favored during battles
in the past.
She has allowed no mirrors to be carried with them, the only one she possesses
herself the overly ornate handheld one her genie had given her as a present all
those years ago, when he’d first walked into the palace by Leopold’s side and
had been enough of a fool to believe Regina’s tales of forbidden love. She has
it with her for the sole purpose of calling for him when needed, and had only
chosen it for the irony of it all, and the way it makes her now trapped servant
huff and puff with wry detachment. It amuses Regina so, after all. Thus, she
hasn’t allowed much worry over what might not be her best look. It matters not,
she finds, for she sees herself reflected in the eyes that follow her steps, in
gazes shaped in mild awe and fear, in recognition and a shade of reverence.
It’s not the look a woman like Snow White would crave from her followers,
inasmuch as it only builds up the distance that Regina won’t allow herself to
close. But then she’s the Evil Queen; dressed in simple clothing, matted with
mud and darkened by the seasonal winds, indeed, powerful and revered even
without the masks and veils of dresses and perfumes.
Amongst the eyes that gaze upon her, Regina finds that there’s a pair that she
can’t quite dismiss. It comes attached to a face of thick lips yet sharp
cheekbones, to thin, wispy hair colored in dark grey, and to an old, thick and
uncomely scar cutting its way from under the soft lobe of an ear all the way
down to the cleft of a slightly pointed chin. Some would say General Alston is
indeed quite the handsome man, and Regina may find herself inclined to agree if
not for the lecherously raw way in which his round and dark blue eyes stare
Regina down, at times as if she’s a fine piece of prey. She has no time to fend
off the blatant lust of the general, particularly when it comes coupled with
the condescension of a forty six year old man bred in battle, where he thinks
women have no place. Truth be told, Regina would do away with him entirely, if
only he hadn’t arrived just in time to back up her first battalion during an
assault that had nearly cost them a recently recuperated villa.
General Alston, born a farmer and having flourished through life by sheer
stubbornness, is King George’s right hand man, and First General of his army. A
brute of sorts, quick-tempered and with a penchant for ignoring Military
Advisors altogether, he is, despite it all, quite an asset when it comes to
battle. Regina has always thought it sheer dumb luck, but George had always
insisted that a man like that is to be kept close, lest he feels inclined to
attach himself to one’s enemy instead. George may have been foolish in one too
many things, but in this, Regina finds that she can’t contradict his ideas.
The general, for all the distaste that he evokes in Regina, had come to her
aide with a legion that nears a thousand men, all part of George’s now
disassembled army, all men of war, equipped, trained and ready to die an
honorable death in the name of their general, now that their king resides with
the rebels, awaiting trial and possible execution. General Alston coming to her
is a case of enemy of my enemy, and Regina would have been happy to deny him if
only he, along with his men, weren’t desperately needed in ranks that have seen
themselves diminished with the passing of the weeks. How she wishes she could
pluck Alston’s eyes out, however, eyes that paint her a little girl playing
with the toys of trained men, while daring to tear her clothes away with
lowered lids and darkened pupils.
He talks about her with his men, she knows. He speaks in coarse words of how
pretty she’ll look once she bends over for him, a picture of submissive
thankfulness, once this war is over. He laughs with the kind of abrasively loud
guffaw only men like him allow themselves, and then jokes with his own men
about the idea of letting King George, thankful himself after being rescued,
marry a woman sampled and soiled by his own hands.
“You mustn’t mind him, Your Majesty,” her Military Advisor insists, his warm
yet stern voice perhaps the only thing stopping her from burning General Alston
alive in front of the very men that he so likes to show off to.
Regina does mind him however, as much as she minds the chaos that accompanies
his arrival. For all that his help is needed, in so far as the business of war
implies, the general’s belligerent ways and the intrusive nature of most of his
men cause a nearly imperceptible yet immediate shift in the disposition of her
camp. The easiness of purpose that she’d found amongst her followers, nobles
and commoners alike, evaporates before the contentiousness of the new arrivals,
and conflict arises from within her ranks. Her closest men are most displeased
at seeing themselves sharing their space with an army that matches them in
prowess and status, and Regina soon finds herself getting used to the sight of
men rolling around the mud with their fists in between them.
Whatever the case may be, she can’t deny that General Alston’s men help her
cause when they find themselves pushing further south and closer to her
kingdom’s borders every day, and so all she can do is groan her way through the
discomfort that they bring both to her camp and herself. She tells herself that
there should be no comfort to be had while in the midst of war, and that she
had only fooled herself into thinking that feeling at peace within her own body
would translate into the world feeling at peace with itself. Her new world
order will have to wait, it seems, and if such doldrums are to be tolerated,
then she chooses to do so with her head held high and a smirk upon her lips. A
smirk, henceforth, that she puts between her own lips by enjoying the petty
pleasure of humiliating General Alston at every turn, her tongue, sharpened by
years of dealing with refined members of the court, far more subtle and trained
for the matter than Alston’s loud showcasing of crudeness could ever hope to
be. And if her tongue isn’t enough to dissuade the man from his patronizing
ways, then Regina taking his second in command as her lover most certainly does
the trick.
However, a plan designed to teach Alston a lesson and please her own senses,
proves to be the final change that makes her camp become a scene as unpleasant
as the court had once been. For all that her people live in a world of blood
and find their sleep among the cries of the wounded and those the dead leave
behind, for all that they make allowance to find comfort in between arms that
are inappropriate by class and status, Regina discovers that once more, she
must be held in a different condition, that she must play with a disparate set
of rules. No longer posing as the distant and unapproachable Evil Queen, the
sight of an unsuitable man at her side is the spark her war camp needs to
become a place for judgment to be passed. And while the court had been a world
of mild implications and pale delicacies, this new world of hers has no time
for such subtleties, and is quick to chastise.
Regina learns that is she must choose a lover, then surely Alston would have
been the right decision, since such a preference would have come across as the
queen securing the help of an army that isn’t hers by right. However, her pick
of a lower ranking officer seems to her people as a breach of discretion.
Regina is no fool, though, and knows that she wouldn’t have been so hardly
judged had her lover’s skin not been a shade darker than propriety dictates.
That his skin matches hers matters not, it seems, if not for the fact that it
reminds everyone around her of her rather suspicious origins, and of a family
tree that perhaps should have had no ground to covet the sovereign seat. The
word exoticfinds its way to her people’s lips one more time, a mockery of the
judgment passed on a young girl that had wanted nothing but freedom, and had
had no wish for a crown above her head.
It does seem rather foolishly inappropriate of you to tempt your followers in
such a manner, but then I gave up on lecturing you on such matters long ago. I
would ask you for discretion, but I know better, do I not? Do be careful, for
all our sakes.
Duchess Adela’s short letter gets a peal of laughter out of Regina, so much
that she nearly forgets to complete her reading of the missive, detailing the
dealings among the people that have been left behind at the Dark Palace. Her
Military Advisor, uncomfortably reading from above her shoulders, makes no
effort in hiding how displeased he is by the matter at hand, and by Regina’s
wry amusement. It seems he thinks her thoughtless and irresponsible, and if
there’s truth in such an idea, then Regina is all the more adamant to remain
casual before the scrutiny. It isn’t the first time her kingdom resolves to
condemn her, and it won’t be the last. She plans to teach them a lesson, if
only by repeating her offenses.
“Don’t be upset, duke; we’re at war, and people shouldn’t spend their time
worrying about whoever it is that is filling my bed,” she says, folding the
duchess’ missive carelessly, and being deliberately dismissive in her tone.
“One would think people don’t die every day around here with what an uproar my
exploits are making.”
“Your Majesty, you ask far too much of your people,” the duke chastises, hands
nervously fidgeting for a moment before they settle, fingers twined together
before him. “Perhaps discretion would be wise. I wouldn’t dare ask you cease
your relationswith the captain, but simply hiding them from the public eye
would do.”
Regina chuckles at the thought, not because the Advisor is wrong, but simply
because hiding is a sacrifice she gave up on the moment Leopold died and she
was dubbed the Evil Queen. What is the point of carrying such a title, after
all, if freedom doesn’t walk hand in hand with it?
“My dear duke, if you manage to give me one good argument against my openly
taking whichever lover I choose, then perhaps I might consider it,” Regina
intones, playful. She holds onto her lower lip for just a moment with her
teeth, and then releases the bite to be just a tad more serious as she says, “I
do value your opinion, truly, and you know I mean to honestly consider whatever
it is you have to say.”
The duke splutters for a moment, caught off guard at Regina’s request, and
stumbles over his words in a very unfamiliar way as he argues, “Why, Your
Majesty, decorum! Decorum and tradition–”
“Ah, yes,” Regina quickly interrupts, batting her eyelashes prettily the duke’s
way, entirely too amused by this favored advisor of hers, who can so easily
weave eloquent speeches on politics and strategy but wavers before the idea of
explaining good manners to a younger female. “I learnt all my lessons as a
young girl, so surely you must have something else to present.”
“You mock me, Your Majesty.”
Regina laughs, delighted, and denies such an idea. “Never you, my dear duke.
Decorum and tradition,however, oh well. Now how didthat lesson go? A lady must
provoke male praise and appreciation, while never forget to cheerfully reject
it. And yet, I don’t quite remember having the choice to reject that which was
unwanted.”
“Your Ma–”
“Enough; this matter won’t be discussed again,” Regina cuts the protest short,
suddenly all too aware of uttering a confession that she would have wished to
keep to herself. “Let’s discuss how we will manage to cross the last stretch of
mountains along the border, shall we?”
“That we shall, Your Majesty.”
 
===============================================================================
 
The last stretch of mountains along the border, as it is, proves itself to be
her army’s most challenging undertaking thus far. Regina had known that much,
for the range of mountains had always been one of the great natural defenses of
the kingdom, its main crest separating George’s crown lands from her own
beautifully, extending its rocky paths from the Bay of Discord all the way into
the ocean. The Bay had been thus named after a conflict which had caused what
had once been a single kingdom to break apart in two, under two differently
minded kings who’d shared nothing but their stubbornness and their father’s
blood,. Regina had always found the mountains a beautiful coronation to the
lands of her kingdom, and yet the lack of low passes put her in a difficult
position, making the roads that run in the lowlands at both the western and
eastern end, near sea level, a far too wide path for her army to take, risky in
that the enemy will see them coming days before they can reach the other side.
The Military Advisor recommends waiting, considering that they’re still
settling battles along the south, and that remaining at their current outpost
will close most of the commercial routes to George's kingdom, and will
eventually force Snow's hand, if she wishes to keep feeding her people. Just as
well, the Military Advisor indicates that taking back George’s kingdom should
come as a lower priority than maintaining Regina’s own, and rebuilding the
structures and lands that have been lost and burnt on the army’s pathway.
Regina agrees, in theory, and has endeavored to leave villagers behind with
resources enough to settle back into their old professions and rebuild that
which the war had destroyed. Her foresight has proven efficient, too, if the
words she receives from the palace and the north are to be believed, Duchess
Adela speaking of the earth being cleaned and plowed again, readying itself for
a season of healthy crops and the fruit that has been sorely missed for more
than a year now. I daresay we may taste tomatoes soon, Your Majesty,Duchess
Adela writes, suggesting quite clearly that, these days, a tasty meal takes
precedence over any other sort of luxury.
However, a military camp with nothing to do but wait feels to Regina like a bad
idea altogether, bound to explode sooner rather than later. No amount of music,
escorts or wine can make up for the idleness, and the novelty of duties unknown
before the war seems to be wearing thin, the aggression within the camp only
being fueled further by the still discomforting presence of General Alston and
his men. Fist fights become the usual nightly entertainment, and the rumor mill
runs rampant with all sort of discouraging ideas. All in all, her camp becomes
a dirtier and coarser version of what her court had once been, and so whatever
comfort war had afforded, it begins to abandon her, leaving behind agitated
nerves and the worst sort of anticipation. Her magic, too, so very settled when
consumed naturally by the gestures of battle, now seems to crackle under her
skin, unreleased and unpredictable, pushing her to snap at whatever or whoever
happens to be closer.
Nonetheless, Regina does her best to keep busy. Snow White most certainly
helps, the small raids that keep breaking along the south a small worry that
forces Regina’s mind to be settled upon something useful, and the constant
string of messengers sent her way and insisting on making a deal for George’s
freedom amusing enough if only because of their naïveté. Snow seems to be under
the impression that Regina actually cares for George’s well-being outside of
whichever profit their partnership has brought her in the past, and her letters
read like an honest effort to appeal to non-existent tenderness for the man.
However, they do suggest an increasing level of frustration, and Regina can
only count that Snow is as tired of their impasse as Regina is herself. For
now, all she has is the joy of mockingly caustic replies, which Snow should be
thankful she sends back with messengers that have kept their lives, as well as
all of their limbs.
Regina’s treatment of her enemy’s messengers, more merciful than she would have
been inclined to in other circumstances, is mostly for Alston’s favor, since
the man would be more than happy to keep tongues and fingers as macabre
trophies. There is such a thing as politeness among rivals of war, however, and
Regina won’t give into base impulses if only to show the general what a
bumbling brute he truly is. She does, however, roll her eyes through an
explanation of how George surely wouldn’t want her surrendering their position
in exchange for his life, and how he’s a man brave enough to take whatever sort
of torture the enemy might put him through, in an effort to calm Alston’s
protests on Regina’s lack of action regarding his king. That she harbors
intentions of getting rid of George herself once this war is over she doesn’t
disclose, of course, particularly because Alston is most certainly the first on
her mental list of necessary executions, if only out of sheer annoyance.
These are all considerations that Regina keeps her mind occupied with, thoughts
of what she will do and how once this war is finally over, once she has crowned
herself winner of it all, and once she joins her kingdom with George’s under a
single sovereign seat – her own, with no king to hold her hand or speak for
her. Most of all, she thinks of how wonderful the weight of Snow White’s heart
will feel in the hollow of her hand.
Thoughts entertain her well enough, as do the people that she has chosen to
surround herself with at this time, her little circle of trust that she forces
herself to keep around and close at all times, lest she drives herself mad with
her solitude. Dear Duke Nicholas if of course a given choice, as are the close-
knit members of her Black Guard, the four men that remain from the first six
that she brought under her employment and protection all those years ago, ever-
faithful even before there was an epithet preceding her title. One and Two have
become surprising favorites as well, both of them diligent and quiet unlike any
other girls their age, their hands always busy and their voices never uttering
a protest. They’ve taken to sitting on the floor by Regina, sewing fabrics,
cleaning weapons, transcribing letters from those with lesser education, and
occasionally reading to her, if Regina demands it so. She knows they used to
sit just like that at the feet of their grandmother, the old countess, and the
thought most certainly tends to sober Regina about the truths of her age. After
all, she more than doubles the ages of the girls. At Two’s age she’d met
Daniel, and by the time she’d reached One’s years she’d been skirting the edges
of a short-lived romance, already in love and harboring foolish fantasies of a
world where she’d had a choice. She wonders if the girl she’d been then would
have had the strength to survive a war at the feet of a cruel queen of
mercurial tastes, while hysterically contemplating that no heartless ruler
would have been less merciful than mother.
Close to her too, is the old woman who had once assured Regina that her cycle
coming back was a sign of her body healing, and who had brewed a tonic for her
pain with hands so firm that they disagreed with the woman’s true age. She’d
followed Regina’s request to accompany her on her campaign as the order it had
truly been, and had left her old hut to teach her trade to whoever wished to
listen. She has no magic and yet there’s something of a witch to her, an old
wisdom that Regina craves and chooses to learn from, and a no-nonsense
impudence brewed from age that has bought her a place amongst Regina’s
favorites.
Despite the duke’s justified reservations, Regina has also taken Lord Eldon’s
daughter under her wing. The girl, almost eighteen and nothing but a pair of
beautifully wide green eyes carved in too sharp features, had smuggled her way
into Regina’s camp, and later on, into Regina’s tent, murderous intent in her
mind. She’d seen her father die at Regina’s hands, and had gotten into her
useless head that she could kill the queen if only she was quiet enough. Regina
might have killed her for her troubles, but the girl had inspired an odd sense
of compassion in her instead, something about her too thin frame and trembling
hands striking a tender note in her heart. Tenderness is so rare for Regina
these days that she’d offered the girl to stay on as a lady maid’s of sorts
during their time at war, since her actual lady’s maid had been left behind at
the palace to look after father. Hildred, for that is the girl’s name, had
spouted that there would come a day when Regina would die by her hand, which
had only managed to amuse Regina to no end.
Regina likes her spirit, and she likes that the girl has decided to bide her
time and take advantage of whatever knowledge is at her grasp. As it turns out,
her beloved father had made a particular effort in ensuring Hildred remained as
dumb as humanly possible, as well as thoroughly isolated, so it’s hardly any
wonder that the girl has thrown herself headfirst into books and men with
feverish fervor, and that she seems to be enjoying her time as Regina’s protégé
for now. Regina daresay once strife is over and she gets a little more meat in
her bones, she will be something close to beautiful, too, and, perhaps, with
Regina’s guidance, somewhat of a choice to continue her legacy, if not what she
would call a first choice. But then, her first choice had unfortunately landed
in ungrateful little Gretel, all spunk and instinct, and nothing in her for
Regina to mold to her image. Hildred seems certainly safer in that regard, if
vivacious enough, gutsy to the point of walking herself into a suicide mission
to get rid of Regina, and with enough sparkle in her that perhaps Regina can
get her to shine the right way. As for that horrible name of hers, well, once
the war is over they can certainly choose something more suitable for a queen’s
companion.
Her little, precious family of war, as Regina has come to think of her group of
chosen ones, is rounded, of course, by her lover, Captain Nestor, second in
command to General Alston, and a pleasant surprise in the midst of warfare.
Regina had been so sure, after all, that after months of the huntsman’s
inertness and her last unfortunate encounter with Maleficent there would be no
intimacy to be found anywhere, perhaps ever again. Truth be told, she hadn’t
been in the mood to find it either, much preferring the wildness that the first
months of battles had brought to her spirit.
Quite inexplicably, Regina had found herself attracted to Captain Nestor after
one single look. Not even a long look at that, for at the time, General Alston
and his peacocking had demanded all of her attention, seeing as he’d come to
her at just the right time to procure her a strategic win. Nonetheless, Nestor
had been hard to miss among his fellow soldiers, all golden brown skin and
copper-colored eyes of alluring depth, demeanor impossibly calm and full lips
set into a tired smile. Regina had been singularly captivated, and if only
because of that, she’d felt compelled to take a longer look, and even to find
out who exactly was the person hiding behind such handsome features.
It is curious, that she should have been so instantly attracted to a man. After
all, Regina’s relationships with men have been always filled with an
unavoidable touch of reservation on her part, and with a basic inability to let
herself go, lest she appear weak by giving herself to pleasure. Women had been
a completely different matter since the beginning, Regina always falling into
abandon with ease when her hands got lost in feminine curves. When it came to
men, however, Regina had never been capable of detaching herself of memories
past. She had loved only one man; a boy, really, and even now, she knows she’s
chosen her men to be as physically different from Daniel as possible, the
remembrance of her girlhood and her loss far too painful for her to do
otherwise. Above all, her taste for men would forever be ruled by what had
followed, the touch of a man that had taken years of abstinence and hours upon
hours of Maleficent’s hands to erase. And even then, she knows that there’s a
piece of her that will forever remain dead under the memoir of Leopold. Not for
nothing has she never allowed a man to rest his weight above her. Just as well,
she’s always been instinctually unaware of the appeal of men, with the only
exception being that stranger under a hood that had once enchanted her briefly
at the Summer Festival all those years ago. However, that brief encounter might
as well have been a fantasy, which Captain Nestor most certainly is not.
On the contrary, Nestor is about as solid a man as she could have chosen for
herself, his body strong and the shape of his shoulders rocklike under her
hands, the tone of his voice low if firm, always accompanying a nearly
frustrating calmness of being.
“I despair of you, dear,” Regina finds herself saying often in his presence,
always an amused tilt to the sigh that she follows it with. “A soldier that has
no taste for fury, what a disgrace.”
He laughs, always laughs, the sound rich and clear, one that only a man without
cares in the world may possess. “My mighty general has fury for us both, mi
reina. Alguien tiene que tener la cabeza fría.” (3)
Regina inevitably curls her lips, hating and adoring both how his tongue shapes
the familiar words of a language that she has chosen to forsake. Nestor insists
on it, every day and every night that they share, for he’s stubborn and
seemingly unafraid of her temper, and loves to tease her into pleasure with a
tongue that curls between her legs as it pronounces the words mi
reinareverently. It’s more possession that she's allowed a man to have of her
body in too long a time, having forbidden even the huntsman to descend his
mouth upon her from the first and only time he’d tried. She wonders, often,
whether Nestor speaking the tongue of Regina’s ancestors as a balm to her
senses isn’t part of the spell that he has seemingly cast upon her.
Regina won’t deny that it had been a pleasant surprise when he’d first spoken
to her in a tongue that she had heard no one but her father and her cousin
speak before, even if she’d denied him the privilege of a reply herself,
resolutely sticking to the common language instead.
“Come, Captain,” she’d said instead, guiding him to her tent for the first
time. “Entertain me with your story, and I may allow you to keep that impudent
tongue of yours.”
That night, he'd talked for long hours, gracefully holding the cup of wine
Regina had offered while barely tasting it, and looking straight at her but for
the moments when his story took on the mournful tones of remembrance, when he
would turn his face towards the set of candles that lighted up the tent. Regina
had listened with almost no attention at all, letting the deep timbre of his
voice settle her down instead, giving into the quiet pleasure of listening to
the language mother had once forbidden with open calmness. She'd heard enough
of Nestor's story to be satisfied, however, or at least enough to satiate a
short-lasting curiosity for the man, beyond what his looks and sound could
offer her. A man of few flourishes with his words, he'd related quite the
simple story. Born the second son of a minor lord from George's kingdom, he'd
had very little choice in ending up with a military career, since the money and
titles of the family would go to his older brother, whom Nestor hadn't wished
to depend upon. His career had been enough to see him become Alston's second in
command, while rather inglorious all the same; functional enough, Regina had
guessed, at least to get him a good salary, the consideration of the king, and
an adequate marriage with the third-born daughter of a lord of equal status to
his father's.
Truth be told, Regina would have found the story sleep-inducing if not for the
shapes curling Nestor's tongue. It had been his mother, he'd said, who'd given
him the color of his skin and taught him the language of her family, and that
of Regina's ancestors. A mother who had left her own land far behind when she
had married, but who had refused to lose the thread that joined her to her
past. Regina could relate, for father might have cowered before mother in every
other little thing, but not in the matter of his mother tongue. Although, for
all the good it's done Regina, sometimes she thinks, bitterly, that he might as
well have saved himself the trouble.
Regina had almost breached the subject with Nestor, something about his eyes
and the mood that had settled between them that night inviting confession.
Tempted to such foolishness, she'd draped herself over him instead, thighs and
knees settling around his when she'd straddled his lap, and had promptly
quieted his words with warm lips parted upon his. He'd touched her slowly, with
big hands and expert fingers that never claimed but never asked for permission
either, attending to her every demand almost before she could utter them. She
had divested him completely, and had allowed him equal privilege, and intimacy
had settled between in ways Regina barely remembered anymore. Truth be told,
she'd hardly remembered the last time she'd taken the time to get herself naked
for a lover, and so she had spent the night in between sighs and soft murmurs,
and had come with her nails digging snuggly into the hard muscles of Nestor's
shoulders, and her hips rolling carelessly above his.
After that night, Regina would have been happy to terminate her intimate
relationship with the captain, the sweet memory of it better than the
dissatisfaction she knew would soon follow were she to keep him around too
long. People inevitably bore her, after all, and it’s easier to dismiss them
before they do so. However, the camp’s sudden and outspoken opposition towards
such an affair had made her keep Nestor around, if only to be contrary.
“It’s their savage blood, calling to each other,” she’d heard one man say,
General Alston and his uproarious laughter the recipient of the statement.
She’d sneered at the sheer nerve of him, and yet had left his heart uncrushed.
There seems to be little to no use in destroying every acid tongue, not if she
wants to have an army to rally against her enemy. For the time being, lesser
minds would have to be allowed their feebleness so long as their accompanying
hands could wield a sword. Later, once the war is over, she knows her own Black
Guards will relish her wish to have George’s men killed.
The curse of it all, however, is that the war remains unfinished, without even
a tentative idea of when it may find its end. The Military Advisor has begun
talking of retreating back to the palace for a few months to regroup and
rethink their strategy, and Regina hates him for it, even if she can see the
heavy signs of exhaustion etched into his features. The duke is getting old for
the business of war, and even if Regina knows he’ll find his death in the midst
of battle, she can’t help but think that perhaps he should have led this
incursion from the palace, where men his age and of no use to her remain. He’d
be far less irritating with hundreds of miles between them, incapable of
berating her for her impulsiveness and snappishness, as he’s taken to doing as
of late. It’s a shame, that she should find a man she respects turning into a
simpering fool.
Then again, the impasse they are stuck in is getting to everyone, far beyond
fist fights and discomfort. She fears dear Rivers might be going insane, since
he’s spent the past fortnight swearing up and down that they’re being watched
by winged monkeys, of all things.
Regina is no better, though, even if she knows how to look impassive in the
face of adversity. She feels nothing of the sort, however. Rather, nervous
energy tickles under her skin, stealing away her sleep and making the dark
hours of the night ones she fears, for they bring with them tumbling thoughts
of past pains and debts unpaid. She thinks that Snow White must surely be
enjoying such nights, asleep peacefully in the arms of her true love while
Regina dwells with her thoughts instead, restless. Snow White has always been
fortune’s favorite, after all, and even in times of war, where Regina walks
over the ground as a goddess of battle, Snow should be the one allowed peace in
her stead. She hates her the most at night, she muses, when the memories of her
jumble themselves and tease her with the pretty princess Snow had once been,
the one Regina had once thought she could love, could be her sister. 
Regina distracts herself to the best of her ability. She drinks too much, works
feverishly over maps and figures, rides atop her favored horse. She fucks
Nestor with nearly furious intent, basking in the smooth tones of his voice,
tracing his right arm with nimble fingers, where a snake inked in black adorns
his wonderful golden skin. He tells her that he loves her when she’s moving
above him, invariably, and she knows it to be as fleeting a feeling as Little
Ace’s taste for her lovers had once been. Her little cousin, lost to the whims
of destiny, who’d claimed to love passionately every person who’d graced her
bed if only briefly, and whose fickleness Regina had laughed away. Nestor’s
love is no more permanent than his romantic notion that Regina is but a tragic
figure that he must save from herself, a girl lost within the strength of her
own masks.  
Nonetheless, she never lets him stay by her side in the hours of sleep, that
kind of intimacy far beyond what she’s willing to offer. She dreads the
loneliness, however, and so she has little Hildred sleep on a cot at her feet,
ready to attend her were she to wish for something. Sleep eludes her but for
bursts of tiredness that drown her into light and unfulfilling slumber, and so
she usually abstracts herself with the missives she receives from the palace.
Not long ago, the roads had been far too dangerous to risk frequent
correspondence, so she could say that enjoying a thick stack of letters is a
luxury. What the world has come to, that she should be grateful for something
so inane. She can’t deny that she is, even when father has stopped writing
about his days altogether, and has simply taken to transcribing the stories he
used to tell her as a child, leaving them imprinted in his impeccable and
elegant writing for her to enjoy. He only writes in his mother tongue, as if he
might reclaim her baby girl by reminding her of joys from the past. It’s
foolish, really, and yet Regina can’t help but love him all the more for it.
Most other missives come from old Countess Ninny and Duchess Adela, both of
them precise and concrete in their recounting of events, yet mindlessly
annoying in their long complaints about each other. Nonetheless, they’re the
best hands she has when it comes to taking care of the palace in her absence,
so if she has to put up with them, the least they can do for her is put up with
each other.
At the end of the day, most everything feels pointless, herself included. Oh,
the big bad Evil Queen stuck behind a range of mountains, undecided and even,
dare she think it, mildly scared, if not completely aware of what, distracting
herself with notions of the glory of war and the possibility of a family built
by her own tastes, rather than by strokes of fate. There is nothing to the
people around her but a collection of quirks that work as momentary diversions,
easily replaceable and impossible to care for, and as time moves forward and
she remains still, she can’t help but revile from her own behavior, for
allowing herself to fall into the futility of it all.
Darkness comes to her then, surrounds her like a cloud of dust and refuses to
let go, the grip it has on her heart already an open gash in which to fester.
Nothing brings her peace from such a thing, not sex nor drinks, not the feel of
a horse’s soft hair under her hand, and most certainly not the pervasive and
vomit-inducing scent of the battle camp around her. The longer she stays,
shimmered down by the idea that if she moves she may just loose this war, the
more she falls prisoner to the blistering decay of the years past.
 
===============================================================================
 
It is a chilly morning that finds her amongst her horses, dismounting her
favored mare after welcoming the day galloping atop its back, for lack of a
better activity to calm her nerves upon waking up. Butterscotch,named after the
bold, nearly orange shade to her hair has been a faithful mount during this
time, and yet Regina can’t help but feel regretful at reluctantly leaving
Rocinantebehind. He’s not quite an old horse yet, but the demands of the pace
of war would have been a risk for his resistance. The huntsman had been tasked
with his care, but still Regina wishes for his old friend to be with her.
Whatever the case may be, Regina leaves one last caress on Butterscotch’smuzzle
before she makes the long walk back to her tent. The camp awakens around her,
and as her boots dig on the wet, muddy ground, she considers her next move. For
there mustbe a move, or she shall go insane. It had rained last night, and the
morning shines above them with the last rays of sunshine of the season, the
crispness of the air against her cheeks speaking of the cold weather returning
to them. She won’t wait until the winter conquers them. She can’t even stomach
the idea of such passivity, and she most certainly doesn’t want the memories
that the quiet gloom of the cold season will bring her.
Winter has always presented itself as a season for unwanted memories, something
about the cold winds and the shorter days bringing about a cozier mood and a
taste for nostalgic recollections. It must be a tradition that she’s dragged
with herself from the days of Leopold’s court, since the winter always built a
certain atmosphere about the palace that the rest of the seasons were usually
free from. Their visitors would stay for longer periods of time, if there were
few of them, and a false sense of family would conquer them all, making it seem
as if they were more to each other than figures trapped within the same
inescapable conventions. Baroness Irene had liked it best, and had always made
a point of staying at least a whole month with them, proud as a peacock when
Regina chose to acquiesce to her request for noisy yet small tea parties for
the women to flirt and joke moderately. Snow had liked it too, and Regina can’t
say that she had completely hated spending most of her time taking long and
nearly silent walks by her side, both of them seeking refuge with each other as
means to escape other members of the court without incurring in any disrespect.
It seems to Regina that the cold has a way of quieting her temper, and of
tinting her memories in rosy colors and kinder affections than she’s ever truly
felt. Thus, she has no use for winter, or for its nostalgic fancies, unless she
wishes to farther draw out the inevitable end of this conflict.
Regina enters her tent with her mind not quite made up yet, half distracted by
the thought of some warm bread to break her fast, and still it takes her no
longer than a second to spy a pair of trespassers right on the very bed she
calls hers. Then again, she supposes Hildred and General Alston weren’t quite
aiming at subtlety when they decided to tarnish her linens with their rutting.
Anger slips from her completely as she dives straight into disgust, the sight
of Alston’s naked ass pumping away certainly not one she would have ever wanted
to acquaint herself with.
She coughs, pointedly and briefly, and speaks before the couple caught in
flagrantehas time to react to her presence. “Hildred, remind me to give you a
lesson in taste once I’m done burning my linens.”
Hildred’s reaction is a silly little squeak quickly followed by an awkward
scramble from underneath the general, after which she stands at the feet of her
own cot dumbfounded, her rumpled skirts falling back down over her thighs,
while her floundering hands fail at righting her blouse, leaving a small breast
naked still. Alston, for his part, just laughs. Of course he does, that
uproarious sound that makes Regina wants to crush his windpipe, which in all
fairness, is exactly what she does. Her magic bursts forwards with less
precision and more force than she intends to, and so the crack of his bones is
loud and just a tad sickening, leaving his head in an unnaturally awkward
position once his body, weighted by death, falls back down atop her bed. Then,
Regina is the one to laugh. Not five steps away from her, Hildred swallows back
a scream, resulting on a pitiful half choked sob.
“Oh, don’t, please; you can certainly aspire to something better,” Regina
snaps, walking the few steps that separate her from her bed and the body on top
of it, and twists her lips into a grimace at the sight of flabby flesh and old
muscles damaged with ugly scars. “You have a stomach on you, don’t you, dear?”
Regina wonders, repulsed by the thought of ever having this man above her.
That said, she turns towards the unmoving girl, whose round eyes remain
attached to the unmoving body of her former lover. She sighs, taking a step
into Hildred’s personal space, and taking in her rumpled appearance with the
weariness of a disappointed mother. She reaches for her with steady hands, and
fixes her up, covering her breast and straightening her blouse and wrinkled
skirt, and arranging her hair so it falls in pretty curls over her shoulders
and covers the unfortunate red mark no doubt caused by the general’s lips high
on the side of her neck.
“I suppose I should be grateful for your indiscretion. I hadbeen looking for an
excuse to rid myself of this buffoon.” She stops herself at that, pondering her
words thoughtfully before she laughs humorlessly and says, “Duchess Adela
always insists that there’s something quite rude about thanking someone for
bringing death about, however.”
Something about her statement makes the girl react, and has her bringing a
sharp look right against Regina’s, as furious as the one she had offered on
that first night, when she’d intended to kill her. Hildred’s hands fly up,
meeting Regina’s and pushing them away from her frame right before she takes a
step back and away.
“I loved him!”
Regina snorts at that, because honestly,that they’re fighting a war and this
should be the kind of drama that she must deal with. “Don’t be an idiot, now.”
“And he loved me, you-you monster! We would have taken you down, both of us, we
woul–”
“So that was his plan? Using you?” Regina interrupts, far too amused to be
angry at the thought. “The man was more of a fool than I thought, then.”
“He wasn’t using me, he loved me!”
“Oh, do wake up, dear girl; there’s only so much patience I have for
stupidity.”
Regina spies the girl’s movements before she can even begin launching herself
at her, and stops her short with a wave of magic, keeping her still at the same
time she robs her of her voice, completely uninterested in whatever further
protests she may have. She suspects it would be nothing that she hasn’t heard a
million times before, anyway.
“This rebellious act was quite cute the first time, but it has already gotten
old,” Regina states, voice hard and smile settled into a tight line, her eyes
piercing Hildred’s gaze. “Now, promise to be a good girl?”
Regina frees the girl’s voice, and almost immediately gets a trembling Yesfor
an answer. Truth be told, she doesn’t know whether she’s disappointed or glad
at the quick submission, but for now, she will take it. Still, she might yet
get herself some entertainment.
“I want to hear you say it; say, I promise to be a good girl, Your Majesty.”
Hildred offers no sign of rebellion before shaping the words in a shaky tone.
“I promise to be a good girl, Your Majesty.”
“Good,” Regina says, a smirk touching her lips. “As punishment, you may stay
there for the time being. The spell will wear off in…” she taps her chin,
thoughtfully, “oh, well, a few hours I’m sure. Hardly more of a hardship that
laying with that,I should say.”
As for the general himself, his job is not quite done yet, so with a twirl of
her hands, Regina transports him outside and to the part of the camp inhabited
by his peers, as clear a message as Regina can send them that she’s done being
talked down by George’s men.
Leaving Hildred trapped within her spell and once again robbed of her voice,
Regina takes her time making her way towards George’s men. As she walks, she
finds that she misses the comfort of her palace’s floors, and the delicate feel
of her finer dresses against her skin, particularly after a long and luxurious
warm bath. After the wildness of war, Regina’s body craves extravagance, and
the sudden itch for her queenly lifestyle only makes her walk faster, even as
she realizes she misses the sound of her heels clacking against the hard floor.
By the time she makes her way to her destiny, there are already gasps and
screaming alike, Alston’s dead body at the center of a circus of outrage.
Regina laughs, unabashedly, and smiles in delight when the sound immediately
calls for silence and reverence, and has Alston’s men opening up a path for her
as they stare. Not quite her most dramatic entrance, but she supposes it will
have to do. Alston’s body, twisted, awkward and still naked, cock hard even
after dead and eyes and mouth half open in a grotesque parody of a frown,
laying among them on the cold mud, stares up at her as quiet accusation. Regina
thinks she hasn’t felt quite as serene as she does in this moment since the man
made her way into her camp.
Silence reigns for a moment, and Regina takes a moment to study faces that she
has never mustered any interest in until she lands on a pair of well-known
eyes. Under the morning sun and in contrast to his dead general, Nestor looks
nearly unreal, the golden hues of his skin never as live-looking as right now.
His mouth, however, is locked in an expression of surprise, and his gaze
betrays the fact that he no longer thinks her a figure of tragedy, but has
rather chosen to see the horror resting behind. Regina muses it will be better
on the long run, and dismisses whatever disappointment might strike her over
such a trifle matter.
Instead, she smiles, and slowly states, “Captain, it looks as if you have just
been promoted.”
It’s then that one of the nameless men finally dares rage against her, a
guttural roar leaving his mouth as he runs towards Regina, sword in hand.
Regina’s hardly an idiot, however, and so it is Claude’s sword what meets the
man’s right before he can reach her at all. A fight follows, the clanging of
swords music to her ears, and the quiet groans of other men making her smile
when Rivers, along with two other members of her Black Guard, surround her
protectively. Regina allows the fight to go on for a while, secretly cheering
Claude on when his blade graces the other’s man arm twice in quick succession.
She tires of it quickly, however, and when she sees a trickle of blood on
Claude’s cheek, she does away with his opponent herself, one swift twist of her
hand enough to finish him, and have him dropping heavily next to his general.
Then, she sighs, her serenity giving way to weariness all too suddenly.
The men about her are looking at her in silence, and she wants to think that in
awe just as well, and Regina wishes her life hadn’t become an infinite stream
of shows of strength. She seems doomed to disrespect, and if only she didn’t
see her hand forced towards violence in order to receive any deference from
those who should by right give it to her, then perhaps she would have never
been made to wear the title of Evil Queen. Alas, she despairs of this world and
has little faith left for anyone, so it will be violence she offers if it’s
what will get her every desire attended to.
“As I said,” she speaks after a moment, planting her eyes straight into
Nestor’s, “the troops are in your hands now, Captain. Have them ready in two
days’ time; we shall leave at first light.”
 
===============================================================================
 
It takes Duke Nicholas far shorter a time to come to her than Regina expected,
but then again, news do seem to travel incredibly fast at the camp. He enters
her tent with a grim semblance, shoulders set tight and arms crossed over his
chest, and to his credit, he doesn’t even flinch when he catches sight of her
torched beddings, or of the still trapped Hildred standing motionless and quiet
at the corner of the tent.
“Good morning, dear duke,” Regina says, welcoming grin curling her lips even as
her eyes remain focused on the task before her, namely, the shallow cut on
Claude’s cheek, still a deep red in color but no longer bleeding. She presses a
spot of magic to it, and once that’s done, she has him leave even before he can
utter a word of thankfulness. The duke has come to say his piece, after all,
and Regina would rather get it over with as swiftly as possible.
Ever the gentleman, the duke curtly responds, “Good morning, Your Majesty.”
Quickly, however, he follows his polite statement with a tone brimming with
frustration, and quips, “And it was quite the morning.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your Majesty, could you please b–”
“Ugh, duke, allow me to stop you right there,” Regina interrupts, looking at
the remnants of her linens somewhat forlornly. She’d made such a fuss about
travelling with her best beddings, only to have them sullied in such a manner.
Turning away from them half-heartedly, she gives her complete attention to the
duke, lest she feel tempted to finish her revenge altogether and kill little,
useless Hildred.
“You may spare us both your speech,” Regina commences, before the duke can beat
her to the punch. “I’m fairly certain I know what your complaints will be, and
yes, I am aware of the risks. Despite what you or Duchess Adela like to think,
I’m not completely thoughtless.”
“Your Majesty, surely you know you have our utmost respect,” the Advisor says
almost immediately. He seems affronted by the mere thought of not holding her
to unconditional consideration, and while Regina knows him genuine, he won’t be
able to deny that he fears her abruptness, and constantly cautions against it.
Nonetheless, Regina smiles at him candidly, resting a hand briefly against his
crossed arms, and finding herself surprised when the duke presses his own above
hers, and gives it a fleeting squeeze.
“I fear we may see a rebellion within our ranks, Your Majesty.”
Regina nods at the statement, not quite disagreeing with it, even when she
doesn’t accept it. “Captain Nestor has as much of a tight hold on the battalion
as Alston did, and the he isn’t an idiot. Our need for each other is mutual,
and if that lot want to see their king again, they will stay put.”
“Will they now, Your Majesty? Your…” he lingers, coughs uncomfortably, and then
settles on, “dalliance–Your dalliance with the Captain may suggest that he’s
laid his loyalties before you, and that Alston’s death wasn’t accidental.”
Regina barks out a laugh at that. Sweet, considerate duke, who won’t call
things by their name out of sheer politeness. “It wasn’t accidental, dear.”
“So you see how insurrection is unavoidable! This men are thirsty for blood,
and now they have a reason to claim it.”
“Maybe so, but then I plan on giving them a better enemy to face,” Regina
states, knowing for certain that the duke will advise against her new plan, and
not caring one bit. She’s done waiting, and she will sweat blood and tears if
she must to end this war, but she willend it. “We ride forward in two days, and
whatever excuse you’re preparing against it right now, I won’t listen to, duke.
Two days,” she repeats, lifting two fingers up and before the duke’s face as if
to make her point even clearer. “I want you to have the camp ready. You may
rely on Claude while I’m gone.”
“Gone, Your Majesty?”
“I have a visit to make.”
“Never mind your visits, Your Majesty. Surely you know this plan is insane!
We’re running a siege, and the enemy will need these paths if they don’t wish
to starve, you know this!”
“It could be years before that happens, and I don’t wish to waste one more day
in this war,” she responds.
“Go back to the palace, then, Your Majesty. Rest, command your battalions from
your throne.”
Regina sneers, disgusted even at the thought. She knows it would be the common
path, yet prevailing choices have never been her own. No, she won’t retreat,
and she won’t wait, not one more hour than she deems necessary. After all, this
war has been clouding their days for a year and a half at least, and yet,
Regina feels as if she’s been fighting it for far longer a time. Hasn’t she,
truly? Hasn’t she fought this war for as long as she’s lived, trapped by
everyone else’s rules and expectations, imprisoned under the privilege of
others and the power they have held over her? Wasn’t she fighting every time
she hugged Snow White and bit her own tongue to stop herself from choking the
life out of her, every night she spent in the embrace of a man she despised,
every time fate gifted her with nothing but loss, every time she quieted her
grief under a mask of false content? Moreover, wasn’t she fighting as she
crouched inside the humid walls of a cellar, a lost little girl, hungry, ever
so hungry?
Steel in her voice, Regina lifts her fingers back up again, and repeats, “Two
days, duke.”
 
===============================================================================
 
Maleficent’s fortress smells of burning wood and dust, of the lingering cool
scent of the night winds right before the sky darkens, and it’s the nicest
thing Regina has breathed in for what feels like decades. In fact, she takes a
deep breath the moment the purple smoke of her arrival dissipates, closing her
eyes and telling herself that she’s chasing the aromas of warmth, and not
trying to steal one more short moment before she faces the friend she hasn’t
seen in over a year. She hugs her middle, hands soft at the sides of her
stomach, and opens her eyes to a familiar view.
Maleficent sits by the fire, long body stretched comfortably and goblet in
hand, one of her nice smiles curling her lips as she motions towards Cruella,
busy mixing some sort of concoction while her dogs rest at her feet. She can’t
see Ursula, but she can hear her puttering around somewhere close. Considering
the company she has been keeping lately, she’s not even sorry that the two
knuckleheads are here as well, even when she only intends to speak to
Maleficent.
No one acknowledges her, but Regina knows Maleficent has noticed her here,
standing just a few feet away and probably looking a bit silly. She thinks she
should have taken the time for a bath and a change of clothes, feeling suddenly
all too underdressed in her riding pants and loose shirt, with her hair
probably caked in mud and curled impossibly in a too-tight braid. She probably
smells, too, but she’s just about lost all sensibility to the odors of battle
and crowded camps, and she’s not certain. All the same, she lifts her chin up
high and coughs to make her presence known. It gets no results whatsoever, and
Regina knows she’s being pettily punished with disregard. Maleficent has always
had a knack for making her feel unimportant, and while Regina, younger and
brash, had cursed her for the stunt, this time around it only manages to make
her smile. It’s been far too long, and Regina has a world outside of these
walls to be angry at, so there’s hardly any need to enrage herself over the
minor games played by a good, old friend.
Nonetheless, she coughs again, and when she receives no answer, she coughs one
more time. It does the trick, making Maleficent lift mirthful eyes up towards
her own.
“Yes, my darling, you’re here, I can see that,” Maleficent drawls. “Are you
expecting a parade?”
“I could have done with a bit of fanfare, to be honest; maybe some trumpets.”
Maleficent smiles at her, something warm and small, a little guarded. However,
whatever small moment of intimacy they may have shared is utterly ruined by
Cruella’s shrill laughter echoing around them. Regina flinches, shooting a
glare that Cruella ignores in favor of shaking a strange looking bottle in her
direction, the contents sloshing noisily inside.
“Join us, darling, we’re having martinis.”
Regina lifts both eyebrows in question, but before she can accept the offer to
try one of Cruella’s strange and often entirely too bitter brews, she hears the
telling shuffle of Ursula’s walk somewhere behind her, and turns her way.
Ursula offers a fake grin, and once she’s next to Regina, exaggerates the
gesture of sniffing her.
“Maybe take a bath first, queenie.”
“Oh no, don’t,” Cruella replies before Regina can get a word in edgewise. “She
smells just like my dogs.”
Regina scoffs, immediately crossing her arms over her chest and suppressing the
impulse to stick her tongue out at Maleficent when she keeps looking at her,
her smile now far too amused for Regina’s liking, and entirely too annoying
when coupled with Ursula’s and Cruella’s paired peals of laughter. She ends up
growling her agreement and turning around before any other comment can follow
her out of the room and in her search for Maleficent’s maid, Leonor.
Regina finds her with the ease of someone who has spent many long hours inside
the walls of this fortress, and Leonor is both happy to welcome her and to
scrunch her nose in her direction, getting a bath ready for her even before she
has to ask. The warm water Leonor prepares smells heavenly, and Regina doesn’t
shy away from moaning when she finally soaks herself in it, not even paying
attention to Leonor deciding to throw her clothes to the fire. The water turns
brown in almost no time at all, and Regina replaces it with a quick spell
before settling down completely, letting the water and the warmth work their
magic. Her limbs loosen up almost immediately, and Regina feels a tightness
that she wasn’t even aware she was carrying lift from her shoulders. She sighs,
softly.
Leonor makes it her mission to take care of her, and while Regina poses a token
complaint, it gets swiftly ignored. Leonor’s surprisingly smooth hands, armed
with linens, sponges and oils, rub at her until her skin is neither white nor
gold, but rather reddish, and almost impossibly soft.
“Caked mud all over your, m’lady,” Leonor complains. “You are worse than her
ladyship, and more stubborn, too.”
Regina lets her grouch about her as she pleases, impossibly relaxed under her
care. She truly does feel as if Leonor’s taking a year of mud out of her skin
and from under her nails. Magic has served her well in keeping herself somewhat
decent, but no spell will ever compare to hot water and a wonderfully
persistent maid.
Her hair gets an equal lovely treatment, being released from its perfunctory
braided prison and washed with rose water scented with nutmeg and clove, as
well as thoroughly combed despite Regina’s protests whenever one of Leonor’s
energetic passes pulls a knot too carelessly.
“You will rip my hair out, woman!” Regina whines through the process, holding
her head as if to stop the pain.
“Should cut it out altogether for all the care you’ve taken, m’lady,” is
Leonor’s quick answer.
Regina laughs, amused by the audacity of this woman that she has known for a
very long time now, and who’s never had much of a problem saying whatever it is
that goes through her mind. “Oh, I havemissed you, Leonor,” she murmurs.
“Kind words, m’lady.”
“Kind, you say?” Regina wonders out loud, breathing in the lavender scent
wafting up from the bath now, and relaxing her shoulders even further against
the tub. “I don’t believe anyone has ever accused me of that particular trait.”
Leonor ignores her altogether, the way she tends to do when people become
thoughtful around her. She’s never had much use for over thinking, dear hard-
working Leonor, and Regina supposes it's the best approach when one spends her
days in the employment of a dragon witch with a questionable taste in company.
There is no denying that she’s a gentle soul wrapped up in no-nonsense
discourse and practical ideas, or that Regina will forever hold a soft spot of
the woman’s heart. Proof enough is Leonor insisting on feeding her before she
can go and get yourself drunk with those ladies of terror,and leaving her to
get dressed and primped only after Regina has accepted the dish of bread soaked
in warmed wine and honey that is left before her. It’s not a hardship, the
robust meal settling her stomach as much as the water has settled her frame.
Regina takes her time dressing up, choosing to conjure up one of her favorite
gowns but not straight onto her body, just so she can feel the fabric slide
over her skin as she dresses herself. It’s one of the softer ones, dark blue
velvet over a soft corset that buttons comfortably at the back. Nothing too
frilly or fancy, and comfortable enough that it’s not too much of a step up
from the clothes she’s been wearing at the camp. It’s silky soft to the touch,
however, and tightens in all the right places about her body, the cleavage
nearly conservative when compared to her usual, but leaving her neck and
collarbones free of fabric and beautifully framed. She sits herself by one of
Maleficent’s mirrors, carefully putting on long earrings and leaving her neck
free of jewelry but for the chain holding Daniel’s ring. Then, she takes
advantage of all of Maleficent’s perfumes and balms, rebuilding herself piece
by piece with care and unexpected wonder. She thinks she looks beautiful, never
mind that her hands will take a while before they recover their smoothness,
that her right arm still sports the remnants of burnt skin right under her
elbow, or that her face is a little too dry, and a little too sun-kissed. She
takes a moment to delight herself with the bliss of shallow comfort.
By the time she makes her way back into the main chamber, she is so relaxed
that she’s nearing sleepiness. For that very same reason she foregoes shoes
altogether, her feet naked under her slightly dragging gown, while also letting
her hair fall loose down her back, thick curls lighter than she remembers and
free of the tightening of any over elaborate knot. She feels as if she’s
walking on clouds, her lungs expanding by the second. Funnily enough, she’d
felt equally liberated when her conquering journey had begun, but the war that
had given her freedom and unconcern once, had then removed it steadily, until
the camp had been as much of a prison as the palace had once been. It’s not
strange, then, that she should find refuge within the drafty yet warm chambers
of Maleficent’s fortress.
She finds Maleficent alone by the fire, and as she makes her way towards her,
she quietly comments, “A private audience, what an honor.”
“Don’t be cheeky,” Maleficent responds, frowning in mock upset even as she
allows Regina to plant a small kiss against her cheek. Regina lingers, not
being able to help herself when Maleficent’s scent reaches her, wine and
cinnamon and honey.
Regina sits down then, across Maleficent and in one of those uncomfortable tall
chairs that rule over the room, and thankfully accepts the goblet Maleficent
all but forces into her hands. She takes a small sip, and then a longer one
once she tastes the cherry wine Maleficent knows she favors. By the fire,
Maleficent looks the prettiest Regina remembers her being, blue eyes calm and
bright, light skin touched by ever moving orange hues, dark blond locks falling
down one side of her neck and revealing the other, the lines long and
beautiful, probably cool to the touch. Sitting beside her, her little
infatuation with Captain Nestor seems frivolous, and having prolonged the
affair for more than a single night all the more childish.
“The Evil Queen herself, my, oh my,” Maleficent tells her then, eyes shiny with
mirth. She’s in a good mood, then, and Regina does nothing but smile at the
statement.
Maleficent reaches for her then, her whole frame slow as her hand finds its way
to Regina’s cheek, the back of her fingers cool against her skin. She lingers
there minutely, as if thoughtful, and then hums under her breath as she traces
a path down Regina’s jaw and to the back of her neck, where her long fingers
tangle in Regina’s long, loose tresses. She combs her way down gently, and only
moves back once she’s done, all her movements equally lazy.
“Much better,” Maleficent judges. “The stink of muck is not quite your best
look.”
Regina scoffs, picking at an invisible piece of lint on her skirt as she
replies, “Not that the three of you seem very much concerned with the matters
of the world, but I amfighting a war, dear. There’s hardly any time left to
worry about fashion.”
“How very serious, my darling, the queen and her war,” Maleficent drawls,
mockery in her tone and in the short-lived and bitter laugh that follows the
statement.
Regina narrows her eyes, willing herself to remain calm. She has come here
knowing Maleficent would be non-chalant and uncaring when it came to her
plight, and if she hopes to receive a positive answer to the request she’s come
to pose, she might as well put up with her friend and do her best at pleading
her case.
“Your princess was here, did you know?” Maleficent wonders suddenly, smiling
slyly when that catches all of Regina’s attention. “Well, not here,of course,”
Maleficent clarifies, motioning around her. “She requested an audience with
dear, old Stefan to plead for help against the unlawful warfare of the Evil
Queen, and against the oppression of her people, or something of the sort. Very
earnest, and just as boring.”
“I haven’t seen Stefan’s crest anywhere in the battlefield,” Regina answers
immediately. She would have taken notice if Snow’s allies had come from such a
faraway kingdom, after all, particularly since she’s had no dealings with
Stefan, and the king should have had no reason to side with nor against her.
Maleficent laughs yet again, toasting an invisible partner before gulping down
the rest of her drink, her eyes smiling along with her lips when she says,
“Poor Stefan couldn’t bring himself to help, now could he? He’s still so very
distraught by his daughter’s curse, you see; and his wife so weak, too.”
Smiling softly in the face of her friend’s delight, Regina requests, “You will
have to tell me what it was that Briar Rose did to you one of these days.”
“It’s hardly of any importance anymore, is it? So many years lost, little girl,
and no matter what, she’s still the queen, and I’m still the witch.”
Regina hums, spying Maleficent’s intentions from a mile away. She says, “Must
you start patronizing me so soon, dear? I will see the end of this war, and I
will be a queen, a witch and everything else that happens to be in between.”
The statement is not quite as passionate as she wishes it to be, but rather
edges its way into desperation. The truth of the matter is, however, that she
has little time for philosophical arguments on the nature of her fight. She
doesn’t have time for Maleficent’s proclivity for disheartening ideas of the
place they occupy in the world, just as she no longer has anything in her left
to care for whichever titles the world deems her worthy of. Wherever she goes,
palaces, battlegrounds and every place in between, it’s obvious that she will
never be what she’s meant to be, so she might as well be what she wishes to be
and nothing else. Duchess Adela had been succinct once, plainly telling her
that her people would never love her simply because of the kind of woman that
she is.She supposes then, that she can’t hope to be loved in a world that
believes that there’s a right kind of woman, and that said woman is Princess
Snow White. She’d settled long ago for being feared, rather than loved, and
Maleficent’s discourse of gloomy destinies won’t discourage her this time
around.
Silence lingers a tad too long between them, comfortable yet charged, even if
Regina is not quite sure of the reason why. It might just be that the last time
they had seen each other they had parted ways in between heartbreak and
promises of an inevitable and ugly fate, but then it might just be the
inescapable air of sensuality that always surrounds them, even when they’re
disagreeing. Whatever the case, when Maleficent finally speaks, Regina nearly
jumps, surprised.
“She’s very beautiful,” is what she says, and when Regina blinks confusedly up
at her, wryness takes over her tone as she clarifies, “Your princess.”
Regina snorts, mildly offended. “Of course she is; fairest of them all, they
say.”
Her tone must not be as non-chalant as she tries to make it, for the next thing
she knows Maleficent is leaning forward, languidness gone yet movements fluid,
cat-like as she wraps her fingers in the hair at the nape of Regina’s neck. She
pulls, hard and indelicate, and when Regina hisses her complaint Maleficent
quiets it with a hard kiss, her lips unforgiving and yet wonderful against
Regina’s own. The touch doesn’t linger, and Regina follows it with half lidded
eyes and parted lips only to be rejected, Maleficent’s hand quick to leave her.
Maleficent leans back against her chair, back straight yet limbs relaxed, and
Regina is left feeling bereft.
“Spare me the pity party, and just tell me what you want.”
Regina licks her lips, chasing the last remnants of Maleficent’s taste as she
looks up at her. There’s fury in her eyes, the kind that turns them yellowish
and strange, the kind that speaks of the animal hidden under human skin. It
angers Regina, somewhere deep and almost forgotten where she’s unconsciously
reminded that even her friends are nothing of the sort, that there is no one in
the world to trust but herself. Love isweakness, and how disappointed mother
would be to know that Regina fails to grasp the lesson at every turn.
“And why would I want anything from you at all, Mal?” she questions, biting,
her lips a tense line that soon turns mocking, hurtful. “What could you
possibly have to offer me?”
“Quit your game and shake that sickening superiority away from your face,
Regina,” Maleficent answers, body curling forward with the same aggression
firing up her eyes, making her suddenly look taller. “You always want
something, you selfish little girl. Once upon a time all you sought was shelter
and sex, and now you barely have time for a drink before you’re spewing
nonsense about curses or wars, and I am so very tired of you.”
Regina matches Maleficent’s fire with her own, standing up when Maleficent
does, meeting her stance with one of equal confidence, as if physically
standing up to her will help her case. How dare Maleficent diminish them to a
business equation, to caprice and greed? How dare she be tired of her, how dare
she become part of the world that is so adamant on opposing Regina? Fury drives
her next step, the one that pushes her into Maleficent’s personal space, and
the one that makes her ignore the threat her friend poses. No matter
Maleficent’s taste for what had once been a term of endearment, she’s no longer
a little girl, and she has no fear to spare, not even when she feels magic
crackling between them, the heavy weight of Maleficent’s primeval spell
settling itself around and over them, making her shadow large and looming,
turning her into a dragon even as she remains in her human form.
“Just what do you want, Regina?” Maleficent asks yet again, her tone betraying
her violent demeanor, and lingering between them with exhausted softness.
“State your business and leave me be.”
Regina bites her lower lip, thoughtful. Maleficent is not wrong: she does want
something, and beating around the bush denying her accusations won’t do them
any good. She’s infuriated, nonetheless, left feeling off-kilter, as if not
even the place she occupies in Maleficent’s life is what it should be. She had
recoiled at the idea that they might be enemies one day, but if she insists
that she’s exhausted of Regina’s presence and desires, then she’s no better
than everyone else, and simply one more obstacle in her path towards victory.
With that in mind, Regina swallows, noticing how dry her mouth is, and what a
pasty taste the wine has left behind. Determined, she chooses to pose her
demand, and dares hope that it will be answered positively, and Maleficent be
brought back into a friendly light.
“There will be a battle, soon. A risky one that I am not guaranteed to win.
Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless of course I had something, or rather someone that the enemy won’t
expect, dear. Like a dragon.”
Maleficent laughs, and the sound is so loud inside the otherwise quiet chambers
that Regina has to forcibly suppress herself from cringing. The sound is
unnatural, guttural, and nothing like Maleficent’s usual weary chuckles, those
that are always half amused and half mocking, and always impossibly warm. There
is no warmth left between them, however, and Maleficent is quick to prove it by
reaching forward and holding Regina’s chin in a tight grip, long fingers
trapping her face and forcing her forward with strength far beyond a human’s.
“So many years and this is how it ends? You want me to be one of your minions?”
Regina scoffs, reaching up and lightly wrapping her hand about Maleficent’s
wrist, the gesture meant to soothe. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she replies, aloof.
Maleficent shakes her head briefly, letting go of her then and no doubt leaving
reddish imprints behind. She soothes them, a thumb touching Regina’s cheek with
such utter gentleness that Regina fears suffering whiplash. But then, she has
always been Maleficent’s weakness, and even at her most furious, she can never
quite seem to hold onto her anger towards her.
“You’re the one who should stop being so dramatic,” Maleficent says, soft and
warm, already letting her shoulders drop into a more placid frame.
Regina molds herself into Maleficent’s mood with equal easiness, dropping her
aggressiveness and reaching up to keep Maleficent’s hand at her cheek, and
angling herself into the touch. It’s no time before Maleficent is falling under
her spell, responding to her nuzzling with weary tenderness lacing her voice.
“Forget your war, forget your princess; stay.”
Regina closes her eyes before the request, affection sipping into her every
pore until she feels weak with it, as tired as Maleficent claims to be. She may
be playing games and trying to force Maleficent’s hand, but there has always
been more truth than strategy to her feelings for her, and the offer is by far
the most tempting Regina’s ever heard. It has always been there, she knows, the
never-spoken suggestion to leave it all behind and make herself a home in this
fortress that has been a more important haven for her than she will ever admit
to herself. Truthfully, Regina could fool herself into happiness here, where
decadence escapes the decay of war and provides solace instead. A life of wine,
fruit, sweet treats and indulgence, a life of laying naked in bed and of days
dragging themselves without rhyme nor reason, a life with someone. And
Maleficent is so beautiful that Regina can’t help it if what once bewitched
her, bewitches her still, even if against her will. However, for as much as she
cares for Maleficent, she doesn’t love her. At least, she doesn’t love her
enough that her enchantment won’t wear thin too early, that no amounts of wine
or smooth skin will make Regina forget of Snow White being queen and happy and
in love and alive.It would eat at her, she knows, and not even Maleficent would
be distraction enough.
Regina opens up her eyes to look straight into Maleficent’s clear ones, and
counter proposes in a murmur, “Come with me, come and win this war with me.”
“Win it foryou, you mean,” Maleficent replies almost instantly, stealing her
hand away from Regina’s touch in a too fast-paced motion, and taking a step
back. “No, my darling, I fear you are on your own. Go and get yourself killed;
I can’t say the world will be a worse place without you in it.”
The last barb stabs her without mercy, like a knife twisting in an open wound,
and Regina is left speechless, failing at being angry while at the same time
wishing she had it in her to be as equally hurtful. Then again, she suspects
she has already been, for many years, and without even meaning to. Good,she
thinks, vicious.
“I won’t be happy when this is all over, Mal, and I might feel inclined to make
you pay. I don’t like being told no.”
Maleficent laughs, already indifferent to her as she sits back down, her back
to Regina while she pours herself another glass of wine. “Look at that, now I’m
one of the people you threaten. How delightful.”
“Well, you didn’t think you were special, now did you?”
Maleficent’s eyes are liquid when she finally looks back up at her, and Regina
can’t tell if they’re hurt or angry, or maybe something else altogether.
Maleficent’s voice, though, is wistful and soft when she says, “Wouldn’t have
dared, little girl.”
For a brief moment, Regina regrets everything that just transpired, but then, a
sneer twists Maleficent’s face, not a smidgeon of feeling left in her when she
says, “Goodbye, Regina.”
Goodbye it is, then, Regina thinks, blinking herself away in a cloud of purple
smoke, and forcing herself to forget the interlude altogether. After all, there
is still a war to win, and no diversions to be entertained.
 
===============================================================================
 
Wind blows cold and bitter atop the mountain range, so thunderous that it’s
deafening, and leaving an icy bite against her skin. Her lips are dry, and
Regina licks at them, nervously reaching up to trace the length of her small
scar, instinctive. Before her, a brewing cauldron lifts grey smoke up into the
clouds, and she pushes her face into the vapors, feeling the welcoming heat and
smelling the mixed scents of herbs and magic.
The potion is only meant to enhance her own magic, to push her incantation
where she needs it to be. She means to conjure an invisibility cloak large
enough to hide an army of thousands as they make their way through the path
down by the beach and across the mountains, where they will fall upon the
enemy’s troops as ghostly warriors, unseen until the last minute, when it will
be too late. Dragon or no dragon, she knows the war will be played and won by
one side or the other on this day and with this battle, and so Regina will
willingly exhaust her own energies in such a conjuring without a sigh of
regret. After all, what the enemy fears is the Evil Queen, and so it is the
Evil Queen’s power what will defeat them. She’ll have to trust her men to do
the rest of the work, however, for she knows the magic needed for this will
leave her on the brink of death.
Leaning over the cauldron, hands holding onto its edge, Regina opens herself
up, giving into the pull of the magic with a sigh of contentment, allowing the
instinctive force to crawl its way down her arms and around her chest,
conquering her very being in its path until she no longer knows who she is
beyond the power contained within her. Magic flares and explodes, noisy and
vibrant in the first moments, creating a black cloud high up above her, and
flying only to where she wills it, where she needs it. The power surges and
makes her fall to her knees, and she lets it go, losing her sense of time and
her sense of self, pushing, pushing, pushing its way out of herself until
darkness conquers her, an exhale leaving her parted lips right before she
collapses, unconscious.
 
===============================================================================
 
Over a year has passed since the war started, a year of blood and grime, of war
sweeping through the lands with the strength of a thousand armies and the
conviction of two women battling each other with the burden of an age old
grievance. But when Regina wakes up, after three days of blurriness and
confusion, after being drained of every inch of energy and power, she does so
to a note – a note carried by a messenger clad in white and wearing her enemy’s
crest, a note from Snow White’s hand. And Regina should know, for she would
recognize such writing anywhere. Snow’s calligraphy is not quite as elegant as
princess’ should be, even after all this time, and she still curls her s’s in a
funny way. The note makes Regina smile, for it asks for an audience between the
two of them and no one esle, one that must surely intend to look for a truce,
for Snow’s army has been crushed beyond recognition under the attack of
Regina’s invisible army. Intentions and possible traps matter not, for the Evil
Queen will meet Snow White, and one way or another, this war will be over.
 
Chapter End Notes
     (1) Do what you have to do, princess.
     (2) It's not punishment, daddy, I'm not punishing you.
     (3) My mighty general has fury for us both, my queen. Someone has to
     keep a cool head.
***** Part X *****
Chapter Notes
     TW1: Mentions of past marital rape and past emotional abuse.
     TW2: The farther this goes the more it deals with Regina's Evil Queen
     tendencies, so canon compliant type of violence and abuse; a little
     more violent than canon, actually.
     TW3: While I've defined the Hunstman/Regina relationship as
     consensual up to this point, it does deal with obvious power
     imbalance and emotional abuse.
     TW4: Abuse, violence and torture.
     ---
     Translations at the end, as always.
     AN1: The events happening here are canon compliant to the best of my
     abilities, but I'm not taking into account whatever canon has been
     put forward after the end season 4.
     AN2: Thanks, btw, to everyone who has shown interest in this story
     during the hiatus!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
 
They take away her shoes. Unreasonably, despite the number of barbarous
conditions that she finds herself surrounded by, it’s the sight of her bare
feet that most displeases her. The feel of her bare soles on the uneven stone
of her cell is cold and uncomfortable, and it makes her sick. Regina wonders,
why of all things, Snow had ordered her jailors to take away her shoes, a
particular deprivation that she’d never herself subjected her own prisoners to.
It seems almost much too cruel, and the thought makes Regina laugh, tendrils of
madness clinging to the bitter sound that dares part her dry lips.
Her audience with Snow White had occurred barely two nights ago, at sundown.
Regina remembers feeling exhausted yet exultant, the possibilities endless as
she climbed her way towards the mountain ridge that they had agreed upon, a
secluded place far enough from both military encampments so that neither one of
them had reason to suspect betrayal. A foolish thought, of course, since
suspicion was all they could afford to have between them, other than outright
hatred. Nonetheless, Regina had honored the agreement, climbing the rocky paths
hidden amongst the thickest of trees above her armored horse and with a proud
smile touching her lips. Why, she’d dare say she’d been excited at the prospect
of laying her eyes upon Snow White once again, at the idea of seeing the marks
war had surely etched upon the skin Regina remembered as being smooth and
flawless.
The way things had unfolded, however, hadn’t allowed Regina much of an
inspection, nor had they afforded her the triumph she’d already built herself
up for. Instead, Snow had paid her good faith with further deception, and with
the blood curling fairy magic that had condemned Regina to her current
predicament – imprisoned in a cell; clad in worn down, cheap garments, like
some common thief; barefooted.
She’s been confined in one of the north tower cells, high up at the top of the
Royal Castle, and Regina supposes she should be thankful Snow hadn’t deemed the
dungeons a better choice for a prison. After all, the cell has a window that
opens to the world outside high above Regina’s head, and while it affords her
no view, it does allow the early winter sun to trespass the shadows with rays
that lack heat, but bring light as well as the delusion of freedom along with
them. Nonetheless, the cell smells musty, of damp and old stone, of rot and the
dark. It is eight paces long and ten paces wide, big enough for a dingy cot
covered in grimy woolen blankets to stand at one of its corners, while still
allowing Regina enough room to pace about were she to wish to do such a thing.
Which she does, for the first five days at least, a caged animal no less
restless than a trapped queen clad in itchy and heavy fabrics and being left
uninformed and cold, with no other entertainment other than to rage and scream
and throw cold and tasteless soups against the iron bars confining her.
On the eve of the sixth day, however, a mild rant demanding to be informed of
the state of her followers, her army, her council, or simply enough, the
decision pending over her head about her uncertain future, sees her stopping in
her tracks, a mild hiss parting her lips as she stumbles forward, only her hand
reaching out and grasping the edge of the cot stopping her from falling down
into the cold stone floor.
“Your Majesty, are you alright?” One of the prison guards asks immediately,
even before Regina can get her bearings and sit down on the cot.
The kind one,Regina thinks, whatever mild comfort she may have felt from the
polite request immediately torn away by the second guard and his vexatious
snort. He says something, too, something unpleasant and possibly disgusting
that Regina refuses to acknowledge altogether, focusing instead on her foot.
There’s a small cut on the fleshy part of her right sole, by her toe, and the
crimson blood pouring from it is nearly hypnotizing. Regina watches it flow,
slowly yet briefly, and touches the pad of her fingers softly around the
wounded flesh, oblivious to whatever it is that her guards seem to be
discussing. It’s pretty, she thinks, the red of her blood against the dirtied
up, blackened sole of her shoeless foot, and the thought is so incongruous and
insane that it makes her snap out of her trance, and drop her foot back on the
floor. The small cut stings, and she bites her lower lip, hoping to avoid any
exclamation of sudden pain.
Later that night, when the guard leaves a dinner tray behind, Regina finds a
small vial of clear liquid and a piece of unsown and slightly coarse grey
fabric sitting next to a bowl of foul smelling pottage and a cup of ale. She
ignores the dinner completely, her nose scrunching up in disgust even as her
stomach pangs in protest, and instead takes the vial and the fabric both. One
sniff reveals the clear liquid to be alcohol, and the fabric, while coarse and
cheap, is clean and long enough to be fashioned as a crude bandage. Regina
fights the smile, but finally allows herself the small gesture while she cleans
around the small cut on her foot, and even later as she wraps the fabric about
it with fingers unused to such motions. When she stands back again and takes
two small steps, the cut doesn’t sting so much anymore.
“Thank you, dear, that was considerate of you,” she states, looking before her
at the plain wall and not at the guard standing outside her cell, careful not
to get foolishly attached to someone who is, by all means and purposes, part of
her pathetic failure and her torment both.
There are a total of six guards burdened with her watch, rotating on three
different turns and always paired in twos, Regina can only guess so as not to
leave anyone alone with her and with whatever power of persuasion she may yet
possess. Of the six, three are stoic and unapproachable, walls of manly
disapproval that won’t acknowledge her existence, lest they get themselves
dirty by association, perhaps. Of the other three, one is perfectly polite if
distant, respectful if inhospitable. He’s the head of the guard, his orders as
crisp as the lightly greying hair at his temples and his eyes sharpened by age.
He’d made his thoughts about her very clear on the very first day, about her
unlawful war, her unlawful claim to the throne, her unlawful persecution of the
true sovereign, Queen Snow White, and her betrayal of all that was good and
humane, ultimately consummated when she’d played her cards to have King Leopold
murdered. Regina remembers this man, if her mind can’t quite grasp at his name.
She remembers him standing by Leopold’s side when they’d been married, a tall
and unmoving figure at his side during dinners and council meetings, a shadow
following him down hallways, trudging along on long walks down by the beach,
standing by the door of Regina’s chambers whenever Leopold paid her his nightly
visits. She had never looked him in the eye back in the day, too afraid to
crumble before her husband’s main guard, or perhaps too careful to do so, lest
he see her true intentions hidden behind coy looks and deferential manners.
Regina wonders if Snow remembers, too, and if that’s the reason for this man to
find himself as the head of her jailors, a disdainful figure of a past long
gone.
Whatever the case may be, this nameless guard of Leopold’s had been the first
to leave her side when Snow White had been declared an enemy to the crown, and
Regina guesses the first to join her rebellion as daughter of the king he’d
respected so. His courteous manners, born and bred from a life of servitude,
aren’t quite enough to mask his unsympathetic smugness at seeing Regina
diminished and made prisoner. He wants her dead, she knows, he wants her dead
and perhaps deeply hurt before she achieves deathly rest, and for that same
reason his gracious disregard makes her despise him all the more. Such well-
behaved disguises over such priggish beasts, and Regina wishes they allowed
themselves the savagery that she would gladly answer in kind instead.
However, there is no depravity hidden away in the man’s scorn, or at least none
of that basic manly instinct that Regina is so familiar with, and which her
fifth guard is brimming with – the unapologetic and revolting nature of pure
and simple debasement. He’s a pig, simply put, one with eyes that roam where
they shouldn’t and lips that smirk with twists of perversion, one that would
not turn her away were she to answer his looks with one of her own, and one who
might not listen were she to say no to such advances.
“Now, boy, dirty hair and all, I’d do that in an instant,” he’d said the first
day, playful elbow knocking his companion’s own, full lips widening a
purposeful smile. “She might even thank me, the things people say of this one,
you know what I mean?”
“As if anyone has ever not known what you mean, dear,” she’d snapped, fierce
even behind bars, sitting at the edge of her small cot as if it were a throne,
and challenging the man to look at her, to launch himself at her, to make a
mistake and get himself punished in her name.
“Oooh,” he’d exclaimed, and then whistled as he gave her another once over.
“Called me dear and everything.”
Fortunately, the head jailor had cut off any further comments, for otherwise
Regina might have felt inclined to do something useless in a fit of rage. The
orders from then on had been not to talk to her, and if possible, to refrain
from even looking her way for too long a time. She’d been dubbed a dangerous
woman, even without magic and in chains, after all. The orders and the warnings
had been meaningless, however, for the guard had kept up his antics from then
on and whenever he could get away with them. Regina hates him most of all, and
she’s sworn to herself that she’ll find a way to gauge his eyes out before she
leaves this world, a just payment for the crime of looking at her as if he has
the right to do so.
Despite everything, amongst her prison guards, lays a sixth one. The kind one,
as she’s come to think of the too young boy that looks as if he would rather be
anywhere else than standing guard by any poor woman’s cell. He’s small and
scrawny, his uniform sitting too big on his shoulders, and Regina muses it must
have belonged to an older brother, perhaps dead in battle, or sickly, or
wounded. Whatever the case, it dwarfs the boy, who looks all the more
vulnerable for it, his fair complexion and wide blue eyes already failing to
make a case for his strength, and the way he sometimes nervously eyes the sword
resting by his hip enough to let Regina know that he’s never held it, and that
he would rather never do so. It’s odd, Regina thinks, to find such innocence
even after years of war, even while being judged for her crimes and while
waiting for a death sentence, and for all of Regina’s anger towards the
disloyalty of fate, she can’t help but be thankful that such a candid soul
still exists. She wonders, often, and whenever he does something as small yet
kind as find her something to dress her cut with, how long it will be before
his innocence is stolen, broken or otherwise crippled by the world around him.
If Regina spends her time cataloguing her guards, then it is simply out of a
sense of self-preservation, and not out of any real curiosity, however. Without
distractions, she’ll consume herself until the point where she might be driven
to do something foolish, and so it is that she resists the waiting game Snow
has forced upon her by filling her mind with guard rotations and the quirks of
her jailors, and by counting the hours of the day by the position of the little
sun that enters the cell, following it as it goes round and round, creating
shadows during the day until it dies during the long hours of the night.
The nights become nearly unbearable, when her guards are almost reverently
silent and the cold breeze of the early winter forces her to make use of the
rigid and itchy blankets she’s been provided with as her only source of warmth.
She feels as if she could fade away completely then, as if the density of
darkness could swallow her up, make it as if she never existed at all. It’s a
fear of childhood, a fear of being forgotten inside a cellar and never rescued,
of turning into a wailing inspirit inside the confines of her own house. Her
mind ticks away persistently then, the little sleep she manages to catch
populated by ghosts and light enough that the whistle of the wind is enough to
knock the rest out of her. She’s impossibly tired, and yet she fears her
fidgety naps, which offer no respite, and hold no answers.
Regina knows absolutely nothing about what might be going on outside this cell,
and the lack of knowledge on the decisions being made gnaws at her, relentless.
It’s been more than a fortnight since they brought her into the cell, and that
was only after two days of travel from where she’d met Snow to George’s Royal
Castle, which makes for entirely too long a time to have received neither visit
nor judgment. Regina wonders constantly, then, about the fate of her council
and her army, about how many of her followers dropped their weapons in
surrender the moment her failure was declared to the world. She has no doubt
the minor lords pledged fealty to Snow White in the first instant, most of them
ambitious idiots with no sense of pride or principle beyond which royal figure
might have them in highest consideration while posing the least demands. She’s
positive that slimy Lord Randall and his buddy Lord Severin had been the first
two to kneel before their new mistress, and that they had only been the first
of many. She hates them, all of them, even if their betrayal is but part of a
fantasy that she has no means to ascertain.
More than anything, she speculates about her closest advisors, pondering what
Snow White’s little merciful hand might have done with them. After all, had
Regina been the victor of their final battle, the first order of business for
her would have been to leave Snow’s army generals and close friends headless,
thus making an example out of them while at the same time disposing of those
who might pose a direct threat despite the victory obtained. However, Regina
supposes she would do well to count on Snow’s heart to weaken her mind, and she
can’t help but conclude that perhaps most of her loyal subjects remain alive,
if perhaps imprisoned. Then again, the populace might be calling for the blood
of their enemy, and Snow may yet find it in herself to oblige, so long as the
clinical touch of an execution stands between her and the idea of murder.
Ultimately, even Leopold, who had been famously known for his distaste for the
art of war, hadn’t hesitated in using his power to order the hand of his Royal
Executioner at the time, and Snow had grown up with the knowledge of a
sovereign’s rights carved into her privileged little mind, so that she may not
shy away from impersonal and lawful death.
Nonetheless, had that been the case, Regina should have been dead by now,
condemned for whichever crimes have been granted to her figure, and not being
made to wait in silence, trapped inside these stone walls and behind iron bars.
Regina figures that no one would question Snow were she to condemn her with
little thought and less time, and yet Regina would swear upon the thought that
Snow is torturing herself with the idea of giving this war of theirs the grand
finale that it most certainly deserves. Regina would have had Snow’s heart by
now, even dreams of it now, when it seems more far away than ever, and yet Snow
must be twisting that little pretty head of hers, thinking that there might be
a way to salvage the person Regina had once been in her eyes. Regina might have
enjoyed thinking of the princess squirming over her and over her destiny, over
the responsibility of the decision that will put an end to the only family she
has left in this world. She can’t deny that, at times, it makes her laugh,
startling her jailers with the seemingly uncalled for gesture, making them
swear that she’s raving mad. And for all of that, she despises Snow even more
for not having the guts to finish her once and for all, for failing to take the
responsibility afforded to her now that she’s officially been made queen. In
this, she’s weak, weak in a way that Regina has never been, and whatever
satisfaction Regina may feel from the thought pales in comparison to the rage
at being denied judgment and verdict, and whatever respite may come with the
hands of death upon her. She has already been defeated; must she wait like a
disgraced criminal as well?
Regina would welcome death, she realizes. Or maybe the fairy magic cursing
through her veins is playing tricks on her, gnawing at her desperation, feeding
itself with it. Whatever spell the Blue Fairy had cast upon her that night a
fortnight ago, thus giving Snow her dishonorable victory, has effectively put a
stopper to her magic, making a defenseless prisoner out of her, and driving her
positively insane. She doesn’t understand the light magic of the fairies, but
her instincts understand enough to know that it is unnatural to her, like
unwanted hands and invisible claws, like weightless shackles that hold her
still nonetheless.
At a younger age, when she’d been but a child with a heavy crown above her head
and no idea of what to do with the grief and the anger clanking away inside her
chest, Rumpelstiltskin had often spelled her magic away as means of training.
As with every trick in Rumpelstiltskin’s book, it had come with a side of
torment, but Regina can’t say it hadn’t been useful. With her senses lost and
her hands powerless, she had learnt precision and weight when it came to her
magic, had understood that it had always been there, at the back of her head,
even before the imp came into her life and pointed his greedy fingers at it.
She’d found her magical core through Rumpelstiltskin’s thievery, and she
supposes there is much understanding of herself in the fact that she would
rather feel the touch of the Dark One’s spell than that of the Blue Fairy’s.
Losing her magic to Rumpelstiltskin’s teachings had been like being separated
completely from it, but the Blue Fairy’s conjuration is a beast of an entirely
different nature. The Blue Fairy hasn’t kidnapped her magic, but has put a cork
on it, so that Regina feels as a bottle about to burst with every second that
passes. Her magic is right there,where it has always been, but Regina’s
attempts at making use of it only leave her drained and in pain, the strangest
of places pulsing with unbearable heat. It hurts somewhere behind her eyeballs,
at the back of her knees, deep against her breastbone, at the tip of her toes.
It’s torture, plain and simple torture of the senses, and Regina thinks that
had they taken an eye or a leg she wouldn’t have suffered more.
Magicless, she’s invariably cold, and always forced to control her tremors,
lest her guards think her even more defenseless than she knows she is. She
wonders, fleetingly, if her lips are a shade of sickly purple, and her face
pale in that gaunt and unhealthy way she has seen it take on when she forgets
to take care of herself. It hardly matters, not when she’s sure she must be
losing her mind, when she finds herself thinking fondly of the Dark Curse and
its alluring power, of the deep red puffs of magic on Rumpelstiltskin’s hands,
which had always felt so warm. She wonders if she would feel them at all with
the touch of the fairy’s magic moving under her skin like deadly poison, and
the thought that she might not leaves her feeling vulnerable, open raw for her
enemies to take their pickings and do away with her.
And yet, Snow White makes her wait, prolonging her torture surely out of
misguided kindness, thinking that she’s doing her a favor by pondering the
chances of allowing Regina to keep on living, if stripped of power and rule, of
title and freedom. And oh, how she despises the child, so close to her yet
again and so far apart at the same time, and her heart still beating away. In
the name of that hatred, and only in the name of that hatred, can she survive
to see more days come to an end inside her impoverished cell – for she will
die, but she will do so only under the order of Snow’s wishes, so that her
death haunts her for the rest of time, so that she’s never truly free of the
monster they both created with careless hands and destruction, so that the Evil
Queen lives forever in her mind and in her heart, as the ruined picture of the
woman she once knew, the Regina she once loved. 
===============================================================================
 
On the days that follow, Regina gives up all illusion of comfort, and takes to
following the light as the sunrays invade her cell. Thus, sunshine finds her
curled at the head of her bed, where the first signs of the early morning touch
her face gently. The winter light isn’t particularly warming, but after the
long hours of oppressive darkness, it never fails to make her sigh with the
closest she can get to relief while crowded in her imprisonment. As the sun
moves, so does she, and so she notices that the first change of guard occurs at
midday, when the light is touching half the cot and the most hidden corner of
the cell, and when Regina is sitting on the ground, legs stretched before her,
back to the wall and eyes closed, feigning sleep if only so the guards speak
freely around her. She has the vague hope that they will bring news of the
going-ons of the outside world, but no useful rumor has crossed their lips yet.
The second change of guard occurs at sunset, just as the first one occurs at
sunshine, and by that time Regina is quietly and hopelessly clinging to the
last moments of the day, and never managing to care much for anything other
than the waning light, and the cold that follows.
Regina finds comfort in following her routine, steps and hours locking
themselves in her head in a comprehensive manner and allowing her to know what
to expect at each hour of the day. She knows which guard will be there at every
hour of the day, and so she can mold herself to them as needed, knowing only to
relax when one of the pair outside her cell happens to be the kind one. There’s
little more relief than she can feel, given her circumstances, and yet she
counts on what little she can scrap for the sake of her own well-being. She
fears the fairy’s spell may drive her completely insane, and so she clings to
whatever construct of a healthy mind she can make up for herself.
She wishes Snow would visit, whimpering about the crimes committed and her
betrayal of the family that they never were. At the same time, she merely
wishes for judgment to be passed and her execution to be given a date. Most of
all, she wishes for impossible freedom, for another chance at getting her
revenge, at reaching out with nimble hands for Snow White’s neck and squeezing
the life out of her, even if her own is the price she must pay. Her wishes find
no reprieve, however, no answer and no hope, and so the days pass, inexorably
slow. 
===============================================================================
 
On the day that marks the third fortnight of her imprisonment, Regina gets her
period. It’s nothing but a small trickle blood, a too thin and watery attempt
from her body to remain somewhat regular and healthy, and it makes Regina want
to tear her own belly apart. She’s wearing a thick, sack-like grey thingthat
they had forced on her upon her arrival at the castle, and too thin
underclothes that don’t fit quite right, but she may as well be naked for all
the embarrassment that grips her throat the moment she feels blood sliding down
the inside of leg, a pang of light pain low on her belly following. Her limbs
clam shut almost immediately, making it impossible for her to react as she
thinks of the severe face of the chambermaid they send for her once a day, of
those eyes of hers that Regina struggles with so as not to allow that woman to
make her feel shame for her situation.
For long moments, all she’s capable of is staying very still, sitting down at
the edge of the cot, a ray of sunshine hitting the back of her head, her knees
trembling lightly under the palms of her hand, her fingers curling about the
thick fabric there and squeezing painfully. A gurgling sound parts her lips,
unwittingly making its way up from behind her breastbone and ending its painful
climb in something too much like a childish whimper. It snaps her out of her
trance enough for her to whirl around and find the hidden corner of the cell,
where she sits on the ground, knees up against her chest and arms about her,
pressing against her belly and lessening the pain slightly. She closes her eyes
tightly, pressing them together as if that could somehow wake her up from a
very long nightmare. It’s fruitless, and suddenly all she can think about is
being twelve years old and hidden away inside her bedchambers, ashamed of her
body, of her hunger and her pain, fearing that she was but an animal being held
at bay. The memory is vividly painful, and her magic reacts unbidden to it, as
if wanting to rid her of such thoughts, and pushes against the spell tying it
up with such strength that Regina’s head begins to pound with the pressure
until she feels sure her eyes are going to escape their sockets.
Her chest palpitates painfully under suddenly short and nervous breaths, her
own natural magic curling with more precision than it has since she was brought
here, prodding incessantly against the weaker spots of the fairy’s conjuration
with little success and yet with hardened strength. Regina allows it to push
forward, wills it to drive shame and pain away, to free her from the prison
that is her body, so she can free herself from the prison that her enemies have
trapped her into.
A bout of grinding pain is all she gets for her efforts, a sudden cramp hitting
her and forcing a surprised gasp out of her. She hears a somewhat strangled are
you alright, Your Majesty?coming from the kind guard, but his meek little voice
sounds entirely too far away, her senses crippled by her boxed magic and by the
silly little pains of her female condition. It hits her that she’d thought her
breasts all too heavy these past few days, and that she’d fleetingly considered
it a consequence of the lack of corsetry she’s been forced into. Had she
thought otherwise, she might have had the hindsight of informing the harsh
chambermaid for cleansing pads beforehand, but she’d been so consumed by
everything else that she’d completely forgotten about such a possibility.
She’s paying the price now, in shame and torturous memories, and soon enough,
in the curious gaze of her most hated guard. He comes close to the iron bars,
leaning by them nonchalantly and looking upon her with unabashed delight, all
the while masterfully ignoring the careful warnings of the kind guard, who
probably thinks he can save Regina the trouble of dealing with his rude
companion. Kindness has never been a weapon that has done Regina any good,
however, and so she settles her open eyes on the hated guard’s, defying him
even at her weakest, with no other shield or armor than the fleeting
construction of her own dignity.
“Look, Ruddy boy, a bitch in heat!”
Regina scowls, wonders briefly if the smell of her period is somehow strong
enough to conquer that of closed quarters and lack of bathing, but soon
realizes that the trickle of watery blood has died somewhere below her right
ankle, and while nearly unnoticeable, it’s visible anyway. She hides her feet
under her clothes as best as she can, and closes her eyes, willing the feeling
of humiliation away. Not in front of this man,she thinks, not before this piece
of scum that has no right to settle eyes upon you, not after a lifetime of
wearing your pride for everyone to coward before.
“Wymar, you mustn’t–you mustn’t!” The kind one mutters, and Regina opens her
eyes to watch Wymarthe hated drag him closer to the iron bars and into an
awkwardly forced one-armed hug.
“Aw, c’mon Rud, you’ll never see such a pretty thing in your life, trust good
old Wymar. And the queen here likes you, too!” Then, with a knowing wink that
lands like a slap against Regina’s cheek, he says, “You should give the boy a
ride, Your Majesty, maybe show him what a good woman can do and stop him from
being such a little pussy already.”
“Wy–you–ugh,” the little guard mutters, ineffectively fighting his companion’s
hold.
Regina ignores his antics, however, letting her eyes drift once again to the
mocking beady gaze settled not on her own, but on what little skin of her neck
is visible. The simplicity of Wymar’s lust is an advantage, one that Regina
hates herself for using, and yet one that affords her an opportunity she won’t
pass up. She may be on the waiting list for an imminent execution, but even
behind these bars, humiliated and weak, she’s better than this man before her,
and she’s going to make sure he sees himself buried before she does.
Carefully, in clunky movements that she struggles to make fluid and slow, she
untangles herself from her curled up position, stretching her legs before her
and opening up her crossed arms, dragging her fingers down her own neck and to
her collarbones, languidly resting one hand against her ribs and under her
right breast, smiling a slow and studied smile when Wymar’s eyes stray exactly
to where she expected them to. Her change in demeanor causes an immediate
change in his, and he lets the boy get away from his hold so he can lean fully
against the iron bars, eyes big with understanding now. The boy says nothing,
staring at the scene as if not quite sure of what’s happening, and Regina
ignores him altogether, focusing instead on her charade, hating that there are
tears threatening the edges of her eyes, hating herself for seeing no other
trick that can play in her favor, and above all, hating the man before her for
forcing her to play this particular game.
Regina knows this game, and she knows it well enough that it takes her no time
to get to her feet, and to settle her heavy and frail limbs into a cat-like
stance, into the sexual confidence of a temptress with more lust than sense.
The seductress and sexual victim are roles so very easy to inhabit that Regina
nearly bulks at the thought of playing them all over again, and of playing them
for the amusement of such a simpleton. Debasement adds itself to her
humiliation, but she doesn’t waver, not when she’s still impossibly aware of
the blood between her legs, not when her body feels like nothing but a painful
traitor, and not even when she knows that whatever action she takes against
this man is futile when it comes to controlling or changing her destiny.
Immediate revenge consumes her instead, and drives her forward and towards
where Wymar in leaning against the iron bars, her fingers finding purchase
around them, and right below where his own hands are grasping at them.
Throwing a fleeting look at the kind guard, dismissive in nature, her eyes find
Wymar’s again as she leans forward, her face close enough to his that she can
feel his foul breath against her cheek.
“The little dear will have to forgive me, but you see, I doprefer a man when it
comes to certain…” she lingers, bites her lower lip, overplays the temptress
until she reads like the most willing of whores instead, and whispers, “… adult
matters.”
Wymar’s thick lips spread into an easy smile, and his mocking little eyes
twinkle, amused and clearly enamored with her performance. “And here little old
me thought you didn’t like me.”
Regina bites her lip yet again, only a canine holding onto the dry flesh as she
looks the man up and down, adding a touch of playful derision to the game, and
shrugging as she says, “I suppose you will have to do.”
“Oh, I like them feisty ones,” he intones, and Regina has to make a physical
effort to keep her stance and not cringe, much more so when the man reaches
down and cups himself with bold fingers above his breeches, shaking his manly
parts as if a preening peacock. “Can’t wait to get them tiny hands on this, can
ya? Knew that coy act was fake; all the kingdom knows you’re a whore thirsty
for necks and cocks.”
Regina sincerely hopes her smile isn’t as strained as it feels to her, and that
the sudden bout of dizziness that bounces against her skull doesn’t give her
away. Every fiber of her being is rebelling against the man before her, and her
blood is pounding with a sudden urge for violence that she can hardly wait to
exact. She wastes no more time in a game that she finds no pleasure in, and
instead lets her hand crawl downward and through the iron bars, swiftly
ignoring the other guard’s squeaky complaint as she slaps Wymar’s hands away
from his own body, and settles her own there. He’s already half hard, and
smiling triumphantly, as if breaking her resistance if by far the most
satisfying act this war has awarded him. Regina wastes no time, worrying him
with one hand enough to distract him, so that when her second hand finds
purchase on the hilt of the dagger sheathed at his waist his breathing is
already heavy and his eyes half-closed, so distracted by such a barely there
touch and so convinced of Regina’s desire to please that he doesn’t expect her
betrayal in the least.
As her smile turns into a smirk, she pulls the dagger up and out, the movement
sudden and brisk, and her physical weakness forgotten in the short struggle
that follows. Even with an awkward hold on the blade and the iron bars between
them, Regina makes the dagger touch the man’s skin, the sharp edge catching on
his collar and cutting a deep and thick wound low on his neck, and making him
stumble backwards, gurgling screams parting his lips and hands against his own
neck. Regina remains still, his blood now coating the blade and the hand that’s
holding it, thick, warm and satisfying. Blood for blood, she figures, and
perhaps mother hadn’t been wrong when she’d said that the blood between her
legs gave her more power than it did shame.
“You bitch, you fucking b–”
Wymar stutters similar expletives for long minutes, and Regina simply looks on,
smirk untouchable. After a while, she notices the little, kind guard
approaching her slowly, eyes on the dagger that she’s still holding tightly.
She has no use for it now, not unless she wishes to turn it towards herself and
use it for an early death, but she’ll be dammed before she gives Snow White the
satisfaction of an easy way out. With a chuckle, she lightens her grip and
carelessly throws the dagger to the ground, right before the kind guard’s feet,
and where Wymar, now sitting down and wheezing in pain, can’t reach it.
“Now, dear, do be a good boy and have that chambermaid of mine bring me some
clean linens and water soon; all of you have been quick to forget, but I am
still a queen, and I expect a respectful demeanor to be attended from here on
out.” A pause, and then, derision pouring from every syllable as she points at
Wymar, she states, “And take that thing out of my sight.” 
===============================================================================
Awakened by anger, and hungry for resolution, Regina begins to feel like a
caged animal once more. She wishes for a mirror, hoping to spy a spark
somewhere in what she feels to be a hollowed out gaze, a sudden remembrance of
just who she is and what she’s capable of, even behind a set of heavy iron
bars. After all, much of her life has been spent in a prison, and just because
her latest one happens to be quite literal, Regina refuses to be defeated by
it. Not allowing her anger to dull, she paces the small space she’s been
confined to, ignoring the coldness of the stones beneath her feet, as well as
the prickling pain of the small cut on her sole that hasn’t quite healed yet.
Quite the contrary, she relishes on the pain, on the biting feeling of anything
other than the paralyzing numbness that had begun to conquer her the moment
she’d been imprisoned.
Thus, her stupor conquered and her displeasure rising by the day, she fights
her impatience in the best way she knows how to – simply, by making everyone
around her wary of her mercurial temper. Meals thrown to the ground carelessly
and torn blankets are more than enough to unsettle her guards and chambermaid,
it seems, now that her little encounter with the disagreeable Wymar has made
everyone remember just how easy manipulation and violence come to her. No hands
remain steady in her presence, and no one dares come too close, lest they
become her victim. Regina drinks in the small slice of power with gusto,
grasping at whatever control she can find in this small world she’s been
reduced to live in.
Newfound disposition, Regina fights the spell keeping her trapped as well,
ignoring the pain to the best of her abilities and punching at the light fairy
magic with every bit of strength she has. The enchantment makes her feel
cottoned, her senses dulled and her mind distracted, and so she finds her focus
in the pain of her struggle against it. Her own magic is strong enough to scare
the fairies into powerful conjuring, and she has faith not only in that she can
momentarily break the spell, but in the fact that her enemies can’t afford to
cast such rich magic quickly and constantly. She figures, then, that a
temporary shift of the spell may allow her to transport herself away, perhaps
if not as far away as her own palace, then certainly far enough to escape her
prison, and find her way to safety.
Her thoughts, however, are shifted away from focus when an announcement is made
that she’s to be brought before the king and queen, the man in charge of making
such a ludicrous proclamation before her nearly dropping the official document
held between surely sweaty palms when Regina breathes out an effervescent peal
of laughter at being presented with the newly acquired titles of Snow White and
her prince. They’re no more than a traitor and a shepherd, and yet they’ve both
been quick to claim titles that lawfully belong to her still. After all, if
Snow wants her crown, she’s going to have to rip it away from her corpse.
Otherwise, she’ll remain a banned princess and nothing more.
Shackled with heavy irons and escorted by six guards, two of them with their
big hands clamped around her forearms, Regina is dragged carelessly around the
halls of George’s Royal Castle. She knows the place well-enough to know when
they’ve passed and left behind the throne room, and even while being forcefully
yanked forward by the too fast-paced walk of the men around her, Regina can’t
help but smirk. She wonders what it is that has stopped Snow from claiming the
chair of royalty her falsely acquired title suggests, and hopes that it’s the
anxiousness of inadequacy. Making allowance for rebellions and the self-
righteous fighting of a well-known evil must have been a natural disposition
for Snow, after all, but ruling a country after the blight of war is a whole
new can of worms that Regina is sure the pretty, pretty princess can’t even
begin to process. No amount of hope speeches and good intentions can make the
hard decisions of a seat of power go away, and Regina ponders just how long
Snow can survive by turning her mind away from that which displeases her. If
her choice of one of the smallest chambers inside the castle to receive her is
anything to go by, Regina bets that Snow may just rule her kingdom to ruination
by sheer avoidance.
She’s led to what once was a council chamber, which George had repurposed as a
small library of sorts, light wood furniture and deep green settees making for
a cozy atmosphere that he’d used as means of making those he wished to
manipulate into any of his ploys comfortable, so as to prod and nudge in the
wanted direction with more ease, making his prey pliant with the pretense of
soothing warmth. He’d taken Regina there once, not long after Snow had declared
war on them, and had made a last attempt at a marriage proposal, using the room
as aid and the oncoming conflict as excuse. Regina had laughed, all the while
looking at the open balcony windows and at the sea expanding before them.
“Now, dear George, we can’t possibly afford the wedding I would deserve with
such raging battle before us,” she’d answered, mirth curling her smile into a
smirk, and warning rounding her voice on her next words, “Let us never speak of
such ideas again.”
Figures Snow would choose this chamber among every other one in the castle,
with its small spaces and warm hearth, and with the winds of winter filling up
every crevice with the salty scent of the sea. If the choice of chambers is
meant to calm Regina, however, it achieves the exact opposite, the contrast of
her own lacking presentation with that of the richly furnished and beautiful
surroundings making her immediately on edge. She’d accuse Snow of deliberately
trying to humiliate her, but she knows better than to think her so manipulative
and in such shallow a way.
Her escort of six doesn’t leave her side when she’s brought inside, and the two
men holding her remain as well. Regina is mildly grateful, her shackled ankles
threatening to bend and make her fall, and her legs feeling suddenly fragile,
as if about to break. Fleetingly, she wonders what the raggedy and itchy piece
of fabric she’s wearing would reveal were she to take it off, and every single
answer she comes up with repulses her. She fights the feeling, however, makes
herself as tall and dignified as possible, tells herself that it is not corsets
and heels what make her queen, that she can command attention even when
diminished. Ruefully, she thinks of her shoeless feet, and pushes the shame
away by squaring her shoulders and pushing her chest forward, by bringing
tension to her own back in that well-practiced mannerism that mother had made
sure she mastered as early in her life as possible. Then, with steady eyes, she
looks at Snow White.
The sight of her step-daughter nearly causes her to laugh, the image of her one
so unexpected that Regina wonders if she’s not having a fever-induced dream,
after all. Perhaps madness has conquered her in spite of her best efforts, and
her delusional mind has come up with a picture of Snow White that she can
openly ridicule. Before her, wearing a puffy, pastel green monstrosity of
translucent yet bright organza, Snow White sits, her body perched at the edge
of a tall, wooden chair, tension filling her every muscle. Her hair has been
pinned up expertly into a heavy-looking bun, whatever illusion of naked skin
the freeing of her neck may have achieved robbed of truth by the thick necklace
dangling down and over the too-closed cleavage of the gown. Big earrings and a
tiara finish the ensemble, and Regina has a fleeting memory of being dolled up
for a wedding she had never agreed to, and of being forced to carry herself
with confidence under the cumbersome dress that had been chosen for her. She’d
nearly choked on the jewelry pressing against her windpipe back then, and Snow
White looks about as comfortable as Regina remembers feeling that night.
“Won’t you look at that,” Regina intones, whatever lack of confidence had
conquered her moments before being carried away by the cold breeze, and leaving
behind an easy smile. “You mustcongratulate whoever it was that managed to
scrub the forest out of you, dear Snow.”
Murmurs break about the room, the few people that Regina has swiftly ignored
quick to comment, even while Snow remains quiet. Not just quiet, Regina
notices, but impassive, looking forward and pointedly refusing to bring her
eyes to Regina’s own. She muses that the dress and the jewelry must be for
these people’s benefit, and then wonders if Snow truly thinks she can fool
anyone, when lies have always settled so sourly on her frame. After all, Regina
has no doubt that if she wishes for her own wardrobe instead of the rags forced
upon her, then Snow must be longing for the comfort of her bandit gear, and the
freedom of her loose hair. Regina relishes the thought, thinking that it is
Snow’s own damn fault that they’re meeting like this, rather than with a
fireball and a bow in between them, the way it should have been.
Silence settles inside the room after brief moments of whispering, so that only
the ticking of an old grandfather clock fills the air. Faraway, the waves of
the sea crash softly against the rocks, and Regina takes a moment to listen to
the sound, to soak herself up in the scent of the humid breeze crawling up the
walls of the palace, suddenly all too aware of just how long she’s been holed
up in between grey walls and iron bars, nothing but the smell of dust and her
own humanity for company. The peaceful moment doesn’t last long, however, the
quietness broken by the clanging noise of limbs clad in armor. Regina’s eyes
follow the sound, and they’re quick to find the proud figure of her most hated
guard, Wymar, now sporting a thick and dirty bandage about his neck, right
where Regina cut him not a week ago.
He stands proud, not far away from Regina, his voice coming out wounded and
scratchy when he tries his best to roar, “I demand retribution for–”
Regina cuts whatever inconsequential words may follow, however, a sneer
accompanying her laughter, and her tone intentionally exasperated when she
turns her attention back to Snow, and says, “Over that? After all these years
you intend to cast your punishment over this–this person?”She gestures vaguely
towards the guard, as much as her own escorts allow, and throws a thundering
look at Snow.
Snow remains unruffled, her eyes betraying nothing as they continue to deny
Regina their regard. Regina spies her hands playing with the overflowing fabric
of her skirt, however, tightening about it in a gesture familiar to Regina, and
reminiscent of Snow’s unspoken anguish, of wanting to protest and dispose of
responsibility and not knowing exactly how. Regina scoffs, unwittingly driving
herself forward and towards Snow, her hands and feet heavy beneath her
shackles, and the two men holding her halting her movement so that she’s barely
leaning forward, and seemingly swaying on her own feet, as if drunk. The
movement prompts a reaction, nonetheless, and she finds herself facing the
stoically accusing clear eyes of Prince Charming, two steps enough to place
himself in between her and Snow. Regina doesn’t fail to notice, however, how
he’s also brought himself somewhat in between herself and Wymar, now another
step closer to Regina after throwing another careless demand to what is
seemingly an indifferent audience.
Tension crackles among them, palpable, and Regina’s magic sings with it,
pulsating against her hand even when it fails to find release. It’s more
comforting than it is painful, and it ignites anger within Regina, along with
scorn and a sudden, nearly lunatic taste of absurdity and amusement. She
smirks, briefly, throwing the gesture back at Wymar, teasing him for his
uselessness with quiet precision, happy to provoke him with such ease, and then
forces her guards to allow her to stumble one unsteady step forward, urging the
prince to reach for the hilt of his sword in one swift and inadvertent move. So
much fear over a little, powerless woman stripped of her title, and Regina
wants to laugh.
Magic burns against her fingertips, insistent, adamant in finding a way out,
and Regina closes her fists as if to contain it, fighting a losing battle
against the spell binding her and refusing to back down. Prince Charming must
sense something, his own hand tightening about the hilt of his sword and his
chest pushing forward, as if readying himself for an attack. He looks straight
into Regina’s eyes, bestowing upon her the look that Snow has seen fit to deny
her, making Regina wonder just how much of his open hostility towards her might
be turned into violence. She wonders, briefly, if she may yet tempt him into
ending her right where she stands, even as her instincts suggest that Prince
Charming’s hand is not the one that will finish her.
“Tell your guard dog to stand down, Snow White,” she commands, her seething
tone angry, offended, and even disgusted before Snow’s show of disregard. If
anything, the both of them should be above this foolishness, their history
granting them the luxury of brutal and unbridled honesty.
“The king won’t have your nonsense, woman!” Wymar exclaims somewhere beside
her, his tone breaking in the middle, and his proudly conceived statement of
loyalty dwindling into a thin and inarticulate mumble.
Regina regales him with one more smirk thrown carelessly over her shoulder,
unwittingly needling his spirit in ways that Charming’s more solid character
won’t allow. Regina realizes she wants to cause a reaction, anyreaction, for if
Snow refuses her the most basic of owed rights with neglectful contempt, she
will turn everything around her into chaos until Snow is left with no other
choice but to look.
Rolling her eyes back towards the prince, she scoffs, “Those rich clothes don’t
make this man a king, you fools; no more than these rags make me less of a
queen. I shall be judged only as such,” she orders flippantly, her lips curling
upwards in satisfied pride when she spies both Snow and her prince flinching.
“More so,” she continues, gesturing vaguely at where Wymar stands, “I won’t be
denounced over peasant matters such as these. If anything, you should hang this
ill-bred idiot for even daring to set eyes upon me.”
Her words linger in the silence, arrogant and aggravating, a challenge posed to
the quorum that would see her humiliated over trifle matters and before the
distorted image of the enemy that Snow White has never been, this strange
figure posed above her and preened for a parade. Regina listens to Prince
Charming’s heavy breathing, a whoosh of air that covers up the soft and faraway
sound of the waves, but that refuses to give into brutality. He won’t touch
her, not without reason or obvious threat, so Regina turns sharp eyes towards a
surer bet, Wymar’s beady gaze meeting hers with such outraged and uncontainable
fury that Regina can do nothing but provoke further, a superior tilt to her
mouth enough to make him react.
Wymar launches himself forward in a too quick movement that only Regina sees
coming, for it was her who was hoping for it in the first place, covering the
distance separating him from her before anyone else has time to do anything
about it. An insult parts his mouth, something so very enraged that is nigh
unintelligible, and which loses all meaning when further abuse comes in the
shape of a bare-knuckled hand against the side of Regina’s face. The blow
echoes against the walls of the chamber and within Regina’s skull, so that
she’s left unaware of her surroundings but for the feeling of being let go, her
escort reacting to Wymar’s attack by freeing her arms all too suddenly. She
stumbles sideways and to the floor, her shackles clanking against the marble
but failing to hide the cracking of her bones when her head crashes against the
hard surface. It leaves her breathless and dizzy, her limbs too brittle to help
her steady herself or do anything else than lay there and try to catch her
breath while fighting the daze away. She hears sounds, distant yet suddenly
entirely too close, and as she groans her way out of her stupor, she realizes
that it is the familiar noise of clashing swords.
Regina opens eyes that she hadn’t realized she’d closed in the first place only
when a sudden wave of nausea threatens to make her sick, and the sight that
greets her is that of Wymar’s contorted face, his mouth parted with the
wheezing sounds of his dying breaths, blood pooling around a sword wound on his
side and dripping down to the floor, close to where Regina herself is laying.
She smiles, confounded, and rebels against the sudden urge to dip her fingers
inside his wound and feel the blood pumping away. She snaps her eyes away from
the sight, and searches instead for the culprit, her smile widening with
delight when she finds Prince Charming’s bloodied weapon, his chest raising up
and down with quick and jagged breaths and his hand still wrapped tightly about
the hilt of his sword. His eyes, clear despite signs of unwitting
impetuousness, are fastened to Wymar’s body, as if studying him as death
finishes claiming his worthless life. How noble this Prince Charming is, with
his eyes full of self-righteous anger and his willingness to walk Regina to her
execution, and yet with innate principles so deeply seethed that he would
defend her before a man that dares lay hands upon her. Regina laughs, fleeting
and soft, the sound catching on her still unrecovered breathing, thinking that
of course Snow White managed to find the one genuinely virtuous man left in the
realm and claim him for herself with pure and light magic.
The lingering sound of her laughter makes Charming snap back into reality, a
blink of his eyes making him move his gaze from the already dead Wymar and to
Regina’s prone figure. He stumbles forward a step, and Regina wonders if he’s
physically stopping himself from helping her stand. The thought widens Regina’s
smile, and she looks Charming up and down slowly, appraisingly, with intent.
“Don’t you look just striking killing in my name, Charming,” she murmurs,
humming softly, provocatively. “Such a shame you chose the wrong queen when
you’re hiding such violence under those pretty eyes of yours.”
Her remark goes unnoticed by the crowd gathered inside the room, most everyone
shying away from the gruesome sight of the dead guard, as well as being mildly
shielded from it by Regina’s escort of six, all of them surrounding both her
and the by now dead body with swords drawn out towards the small assembly. The
prince hears it well enough, his cringing shoulders and the way he looks at the
fresh blood coating his weapon proof enough. Even better, Snow does as well,
and she finally snaps, her tense frame taking on a completely different kind of
tautness, that of a wild-tempered creature, confined by her own chosen binds.
“Enough!” she bellows, something like desperation crawling up her throat as she
stands up, her shoulders shaking under the heavy embellishments of her dress
and her hands pulling at the fabric of her skirt, bunching it up and driving it
in different directions, as if ready to tear it apart.
Snow’s movements are fast and jerky, and she stumbles on her way away from the
tall chair, her steps unsure and accompanied by the sound of ripping fabric.
Snow pays no mind to her torn up gown, her eyes dancing about instead, nervous
and unfocused. She looks at the crowd first, then at the weapons out in the
open and ready to be used were she to give such an order, and finally at the
body resting on the floor, a small pool of blood at its side and limbs askew,
morbidly uncomfortable in the way they tumbled down. Her gaze rests there
minutely, her lips parted in silent disbelief. Then, her eyes snap to
Charming’s briefly before they finally dare find Regina’s, big, open,
vulnerable, and humid with unshed tears threatening at their corners.
“Enough,” Snow says again, her whisper silencing whatever words Regina had been
about to shape, whichever scorn her discourse was about to deliver.
“Enough–enough!” Snow repeats, the sob that escapes her then covered behind the
wrist she brings up to her mouth.
Regina says nothing, her voice gone at the sight of the frilly lace covering
the skin of Snow’s wrist, at the almost tangible grief written inside unshed
tears. She wishes for those tears to fall, feeling vicious in her anger, and
yet she says nothing. Snow remains quiet as well, her demeanor impossibly
exhausted as she looks into Regina’s eyes, as if she can’t even fathom the idea
of talking to her, as if she may just turn to ash if she even tries. She looks
defeated, and Regina hates her for thinking that she has the right to feel such
a thing when it is her that is laying down on the floor, next to worthless man,
in cheap clothing and on limbs so brittle that she fears they may break if she
tries to stand by herself.
“Dear Sno–”
“Enough, I said!” Snow snaps, something like fury clouding her gaze when she
inadvertently lowers her lids at half mast, when she tightens her fist about
the fabric of her skirt.
Regina smiles at the reaction, and yet her satisfaction is short-lived, for
Snow’s anger disappears with as much ease as it came about, and Snow turns
around before Regina can find it in herself to say something else. Snow
runsfrom her then, runs like the coward she has dressed herself as and towards
the open doors of the balcony until she’s reached the railing, where she
seemingly stops to breathe long and harsh, her hand pulling at her constricting
necklace. Charming follows with near immediacy, a hasty order of take her back,
take her backthrown to Regina’s escort before he makes his way towards Snow,
and away from their gruesome little spectacle.
Regina is brought to her feet then, strong hands and arms pulling her up as if
she were a ragdoll, and then dragging her away from the circus that had made
her ring master minutes before. Back to her cell, she muses, like any good fair
freak that has already provided the necessary entertainment. 
===============================================================================
 
The sound of the rain outside wakes her up, but Regina chooses not to open her
eyes just yet, holding onto the fantasy darkness provides for a while longer.
It smells almost nice, the distinct scent of the light storm filtering through
the small window, fresh and clean, and with her eyes closed tightly together,
Regina can pretend that she’s somewhere else, waking up to welcoming
surroundings. The feeling won’t last long, she knows, so she cherishes it
briefly and for as long as her body allows her to. It’s not long before she can
no longer fool herself, however, and so she opens up her eyes as a quiet groan
leaves her parted lips, her limbs protesting when she pushes up to sit down on
the cot and draws away the itchy blanket about her shoulders.
Regina isn’t sure of how long it’s been since she was brought back, after that
disgusting farce of a meeting she’d been dragged to, but she supposes she may
have slept the longest she has since the beginning of her imprisonment. After
all, by the time her escorts had reached her cell, she’d been little better
than dead weight in their unforgiving grip, her ankles refusing to cooperate
and her whole body aching after the fall she’d taken. She hadn’t passed out,
but she’d curled weakly on the cot and had been claimed by a dreamless and deep
sleep. Now, it’s hard to place the events timewise, and she looks up at the
small and high window in some silly attempt to gather an idea of just how long
she’s been asleep. There must be grey clouds outside, for all she sees is a
faint light that may belong to the late morning or the early afternoon both,
and that lacks warmth altogether. She sighs, disgruntled, and brings her hand
up and to the back of her neck, feeling the stiffness there, and the cold sweat
making her skin sticky. She presses soft fingers there, and glides them down to
where her neck meets her collarbone, but the effort is futile, since most her
body aches, her joints and limbs feeling as if they may never quite recover
themselves from this weakness.
Belatedly, and with a sense of cringing disgust, she lets her fingers travel to
the side of her face, where what must surely be a darkened bruise palpitates
painfully. Her skin feels hot to the touch all around her eye and on her cheek,
where Wymar’s strike had done its damage. She hisses, touching the broken skin
as if looking for the pain, loathing that he managed to put his hands on her
once more before being killed.
“It probably feels worse than it looks, Your Majesty, but please do stop
prodding at it. You will only make it worse.”
The distinctly rigid tone hits Regina like a bucket of ice-cold water, and even
as she blinks her eyes in an effort to focus them on the tall figure of Duchess
Adela, she doesn’t quite believe what she’s seeing. There is no denying that it
is her Law Advisor standing by the kind guard and the haughty-looking
chambermaid she’s been attended by during her stay in the prison, though. The
moment reality registers, Regina stands up abruptly, her steps surprisingly
solid as she walks the small distance towards the iron bars. She wraps both
hands about the cold metal, and tells herself that it is not because she needs
something to properly hold herself up.
“Duchess!” she exclaims, incapable of hiding her gladness at seeing a familiar
face, and one she trusts, at that. “What news have you? What has become of the
kingdom and the palace? How is George faring? What does that bratty step-child
of mine intend to do–”
“One question at a time, Your Majesty, if you please,” the Duchess interrupts,
unaffected by the severe gaze Regina regales her with at being so rudely
stopped. “Let us see to your face, first.”
Regina harrumphs, displeased, and yet allows the duchess her brief moment of
power, if only because she knows that they’re both capable of the same brand of
stubbornness. As a matter of fact, the duchess pays no attention to what Regina
knows is the sourly looking pout on her face, and instead turns to the
chambermaid next to her, and motions towards the small basin filled with water
that she’s carrying with her.
“I will tend to the prisoner,” the woman states, denying the duchess.
The duchess huffs with impatience, authority shaping her every syllable as she
says, “The queen will be tended to by a friendly hand for once, and you will do
well to address me properly. Have manners been forgotten in this brave new
world altogether?” And this she directs at Regina, a complicit and amused tilt
to her head.
Properly chastised, and with fear probably settled on her shoulders after
having Adela’s infamously imperturbable character aimed at her, the chambermaid
acquiesces, bowing her head and answering, “Yes, Your Grace, as you wish.”
Regina steps back from the iron bars then, the small distance back to the cot
suddenly feeling as long as many miles. She might be a bit dizzy, the surprise
of seeing the duchess now wearing away and leaving behind the pervading
exhaustion that her limbs are now adamantly reminding her of. Nonetheless, she
does her best at sitting primly at the head of the cot, thankful once again for
the freshness filtering through the window and driving the stuffy atmosphere
away, if only a little.
She waits, watching as the duchess fetches the basin and the washcloths the
chambermaid had been carrying with her, and the gracious movements of her hands
as she motions the guard to open up the cell. She looks every bit the picture
Regina has of her in her mind, one of her favored grey, long-sleeved and high-
collared gowns covering every piece of skin but her smooth hands and face, her
refined features bereft of make-up but for a slight blush about pale and sharp
cheeks, and nothing but a pair of small, white gold hoops adorning her ears.
After so long without seeing a familiar face, the sight of her brings such
relief that Regina is ashamed to notice the telltale sign of tears prickling at
the corners of her eyes.
Regina sniffs quietly, hopefully hiding the sound behind the rustle of Adela’s
dress as she moves about the now open cell. By the time the duchess is sitting
by her, prim and proper and as foreign as an exotic animal inside the dank
prison, the iron bars have been closed again, and to Regina’s surprise, both
the chambermaid and the guard have retired to the next room, giving them both a
whisper of privacy that Regina hasn’t had in way too long a time. She barely
questions how Adela managed such a feat, figuring that she must have all but
bullied Snow into a private audience, and is content to simply enjoy the
gesture. She breathes out, hard, and allows herself a brief moment to hunch her
shoulders and lower her lids.
Duchess Adela allows for the respite, saying nothing as she wets a clean
washcloth in even cleaner water and presses it to the side of Regina’s face.
Her touch is gentle and the water cool, and Regina doesn’t protest when her
thin fingers tilt her face up and to the side, so that she can more easily
clean under and around her right eye. Rather, she takes a moment to compose
herself, while giving herself permission to take comfort in the cleanliness of
the duchess and her touch. She smells nice, like cotton and powder and a hint
of lemon, and the scent is overpowering enough that she nearly forgets to ask
for anything other than this.
The spell is brief, however, and once Regina doesn’t feel as if she may pass
out from sheer fatigue anymore, she pries her eyes open and reaches up to
briefly press her fingers to Duchess Adela’s covered wrist, silently asking her
to stop. The duchess drops her hand and the washcloth down and on her lap, not
without a disapproving gaze passing over her eyes.
“Well?” Regina questions, motioning vaguely about her with one single hand, as
if that gesture could possibly encompass all she needs and wants to know.
The duchess understands her meaning well enough, Regina knows, and yet chooses
to deflect for the time being, saying, “Well, Your Majesty, you look like death
warmed up.” Then, with a soft touch of her knuckles to Regina’s temple and then
her cheeks, “And you feel feverish. Have you been eating at all?”
Regina doesn’t answer, choosing not to think of the hard bread and strong ale
that her guards keep bringing her, and which she hasn’t even contemplated
eating. She’s hardly been able to stomach little else than shallow sips of
bland soups for weeks, any case.
“I figured as much,” the duchess says, prompted by her silence, the brisk
chastisement of her tone fueling Regina’s anger as if she’d lit a match in the
middle of a too dry forest.
“Save your scolding for another time, Adela,” she snaps, slapping the hand that
still rests by her cheek away. “You’re my Law Advisor, not my mother, and you
will do well to remember that there is a limit to my patience.”
“One would dare think none at all doesn’t particularly rate as a limit, Your
Majesty.”
The duchess’ sharpness throws her back momentarily. It seems she has forgotten
just how cutting the woman can be, and how little she cares for Regina’s status
or imposing nature when it is just the two of them in a room, and when decorum
is made unnecessary. The nature of their relationship has always been both
deeply satisfying and desperately frustrating for that very same reason, and
Regina supposes that hoping for the former today had been silly of her.
Regina doesn’t have time enough to gather herself and answer before the duchess
beats her to the punch, however, murmuring a soft and huffy, “Oh, here.”
Regina knits her brows together, failing to understand, and so stays quiet as
the duchess reaches back and to a small bag that she’s been carrying with her
all this time, and after a brief search, pulls out a red apple of all things,
which she promptly offers Regina.
“It’s from your tree, Your Majesty,” she explains, shaking her hand before
Regina until she’s taken the fruit and brought it to her lap. “The crop this
year was beautiful, and we had the children pick them up. The cook used our
last reserves of sugar for pies and fritters; wasteful, if your ask me, but the
old countess insisted we needed a bit of a break, and people seemed happy
enough, if briefly,” the duchess tells her, something harsh rounding what is
otherwise a beautiful tale of nostalgia. “I can’t imagine that the war offered
such a respite to you, or your camp, Your Majesty.”
“No, no it did not.”
Yet, for all that the war was neither the comforting respite that Regina had
made it to be during the first few weeks of marching and battling, nor the
rupture of conventions and prejudices that it had hinted at, she would change
her actual predicament for years of war camps and bloodshed in a single
instant. It’s a futile thought, and Regina does away with it and instead
endeavors to have the duchess speak of the world outside her cell.
“Talk to me, Adela,” she demands after a brief pause, her voice far too raspy
and far too soft, but hopefully straightforward enough to stop the duchess from
evading her questions.
“Yes, Your Majesty, but I will do so as I clean that shallow cut on your cheek,
if you will.”
Regina reaches up, touching soft fingers about her cheek until they meet the
roughened skin of a shallow cut, and what she guesses must be a bit of caked
blood over it. Duchess Adela huffs at her, and slaps her hand away before she’s
pressing the wet washcloth yet again against her skin, this time directly over
the cut.
“The hand that did this must have been wearing a ring, to cause such damage,”
the duchess muses. “Hearsay is that it was the prince that stopped him, is it
true?”
“Yes, yes it was. So very chivalrous, wouldn’t you agree, duchess? He’ll be
more than happy to see me executed, but he won’t have me be hurt under the
hands of a man. The simpleton probably thinks himself just and fair over the
matter, too.”
“A polite shepherd, who would have guessed? He cuts a properly dashing figure,
too, but then he’s wearing James’ face, and the former prince’s idiocy never
affected his good looks, either,” the duchess says, now scraping with a little
force and a lot more care at the cut on Regina’s cheek, the clean water now
tainted in brownish red from the dried blood.
Adela’s brow furrows in concentration, her fingers cold against Regina’s chin
as she moves her face this way and that, inspecting her work.
“Is it well known?” Adela questions. “That the prince is not the same one he
once was, I mean?”
Regina shrugs briefly, and answers, “There are rumors, as you know, but they
haven’t been given much credit. George is the only one who has the whole truth,
and I hardly think he’ll risk the discredit of proclaiming it to the world. The
last thing he needs are hidden twins and dark deals to add to his predicament.”
Then, without a pause for breath, “What news have you of him?”
The duchess sits backs, making a show of primly arranging her skirt and
straightening her posture, licking her lips in that absentminded way of hers
that Regina has learned to associate with her trying to make a point during a
council meeting. Her hands leave Regina completely, and she discards the
washcloth, leaving it submerged in the now dirty water of the basin. Regina
waits her out, her own hands unwittingly nervous and only made steady by the
apple cradled within them.
The duchess sighs before she speaks, a sigh of what may be tiredness but also
defeat, and then finally says, “He’s been incarcerated in the dungeons, and is
awaiting trial, though the talk is that he will be exiled, if pardoned.”
Regina scoffs, mutters a quiet, “Of course he will be,” which Adela chooses to
ignore.
“He was secluded inside his own chambers for a while,” she continues, “but he
managed to stage some form of rebellion within the castle with the help of some
of his faithful guards. I’m not clear on the details.” Adela waves a hand in
the air, dismissive. “Whatever the case, it failed, and his army seems to have
lost the fighting spirit.”
“Has it, now? Has it truly?”
“The war has seemingly stolen all resolve away from everyone, and with both you
and George in such predicaments as you are, there are no leaders left to gather
a disassembled army,” the duchess explains, cold in her demeanor and precise in
her words. “Midas bent the knee quickly enough, and he’s already been pardoned
and brought into Snow White’s fold by means of Princess Abigail.”
Regina stands up as she listens to Adela’s words, and to the bleak picture they
are painting before her. It’s not as if she hadn’t imagined quite the situation
that she’s describing, but to have it confirmed brings none of the relief she’d
thought would come from the knowledge. How silly of her, to have harbored
secret hopes of a different resolution.
Nonetheless, sitting still as the duchess weaves unshakable truths for her is
maddening, and so she chooses to pace slowly before her, no more than three
steps this way and then back. Her foot still stings from the cut that isn’t
healing quite as quickly as it should, and her face feels painfully swollen
where Wymar struck her, never mind the duchess’ care. Her limbs are no better,
her arms falling heavily by her sides and overcome with the kind of debility
that feels impossible to shake away.
“And my people?” She wonders, turning sharply towards the duchess with her arms
now crossed over her chest. “I have no knowledge of executions having been
arranged, but then, well…” her voice lingers, her hands motioning vaguely at
her surroundings.
“No such thing, Your Majesty.”
“Why, dear Snow White,” Regina ridicules, scorn surely written in her features.
“She’ll put executioners out of business, yet.”
The duchess doesn’t laugh, but she does smile briefly, the gesture slippery.
“The princess has had the armies divided and scattered, and has sent most men
away to asses and recover villages and settlements. She’s using her loyal men
as guard dogs to those who aren’t. It’s…” the duchess lingers, and begrudgingly
admits, “not entirely a terrible strategy.” Then, “I suppose some of her
education must have kept, after all.”
“I should hope so; I did pay good gold for it,” Regina snaps, one hand flying
to the bridge of her nose, her fingers pinching there and fighting a headache
that is already pulsating behind her eyes. “I should have allowed Leopold to
make her a depthless twit.”
“Some of your men did escape,” Adela tells her then. “That Black Guard of
yours, the one you like – tall, bald, seems like he might have half a brain?”
Regina chuckles, even now capable of being amused at Adela’s outspoken disdain
for soldiers. She’d never quite understood Regina’s delight and fondness for
her army, having always considered its existence as a mere necessity. She’d
despaired, often and with artless bluntness, whenever Regina and Duke Nicholas
would spend hours upon hours amongst her army’s generals, occupied with maps
and battle strategy.
“Claude, dear,” Regina clarifies.
“Yes, that one,” the duchess confirms. “It seems he used the brief time of
confusion before you were brought to prison to gather whoever he could, and
rode back to the palace to regroup. He arrived maybe a month ago, bringing
about a hundred men with him, and some others – the countess’ girls, and a few
noble youngsters ready to oppose their parents’ pledge to Snow White.”
“There arepromising odds, after all, then,” Regina exclaims, foregoing the use
of the word hope, turning her back on it, refusing it the power to ignite
impossibilities within her. “There may be a way to–”
“Your Majesty, don’t, please don’t speak such words,” Adela pleads, the genuine
beseeching nature of her tone and her outstretched hands surprising Regina.
Never before has Adela shown such desperation in her disposition, and yet her
voice breaks with the timbre of begging appeals when she requests, “Come, come
sit by me, Your Majesty, please.”
Regina denies her, her whole body joining her thoughts as she shakes her head
and brings her arms up, crossing them over her chest again, defensive. “Do not
test me, Adela, not today.”
“What would you do should I choose to do so, Your Majesty? You look weak enough
that even my brittle and old bones may prove challenging against you, and the
fairies have stolen your magic away, have they not?”
“If you doubt for a second that I would find a way to end you with my bare
hands, Adela, perhaps you should keep going down that road you’re walking,”
Regina retorts, her body angling forward unwittingly with the strength of her
speech, every bit of her being choosing to neglect how truly frail she feels.
Adela laughs at that, weak, small and a little gurgled, and Regina realizes
that the duchess’ eyes are shiny with unshed tears. She’s surprised enough by
the unusual sight that she ignores Adela’s quietly scolding, “Such
confrontation, even at the end.”
Brusquely, Regina requests once again, and through gritted teeth, “Talk to me,
Duchess.”
“A date has been set for your execution, Your Majesty,” brief, factual and
aloof, the statement fails at feeling casual and heedless, nonetheless. “In
three days’ time, at dawn.”
The declaration punches her gut, and yet fails to collect even a smidgeon of
fear. It stuns her though, briefly, stopping her thoughts and her breath and
the beating of her heart for what feels like a lifetime. Confounded, Regina
looks down at her own hands. Given a fortnight, maybe a little more, she might
have been able to push the fairies’ enchantment away long enough to escape her
prison; given a month, she might have rallied however few people were still
with her back into a last fight, if only to claim more blood before her end;
given a year, she may have seen her kingdom back under her rule. But then,
three days’ time.
The duchess is saying something, Regina realizes, as she comes to her senses
suddenly. A kind of terror twists through her, not because she fears death but
because she doesn’t, because she will welcome it with a smile and with a cry of
victory, because her only regret will be that Snow will go on living as she
rots beneath the ground.
“ – proclamation was made official this morning, Your Majesty,” the duchess is
explaining. “She seemed quite broken up about the idea.”
She, Snow White, seemed quite broken up about the idea.The words circle inside
her head, pulsate against her ears, kindling fury in their way.
“Of course she would be,” Regina snaps, all her senses coming back to her at
once, and her bottled up magic pushing up her spine and roaring at the back of
her neck, desperate for release that won’t come.
Regina’s eyes fixate sharply on the grey stone walls surrounding her as she
wills the sudden ill-feeling away, and fails miserably. She turns on her own
heel, and begins pacing again, never mind the cold floor underneath her naked,
shoeless feet, nor the dizzying sensation settling itself about her brow.
With scorn in her tone and an ugly scowl marring her features, she can’t help
but rant out loud, “Dear Snow White, so very sad at the prospect of executing
her enemy. Broken up about it, is she now? The idiot girl will dare cry when
I’m gone, and everyone will think her so merciful, so good –such a beautiful
heart on her, that she will shed tears for the monster that wanted her dead.”
Regina chuckles, drily, the sound tired and weak. “She’ll dance on my grave
yet, and she’ll be praised for it.”
“And that those should be your thoughts when facing impending death, Your
Majesty.”
Regina’s eyes travel back to the duchess, the exhaustion present in her every
word only making her statement all the more resigned. There are tears in the
duchess’ cheeks, watery trails barely visible over reddish cheeks that die at
the corners of her attractive mouth, where the wrinkles of age are more
prominent, making her features a little softer. They’re quiet tears, because
the duchess doesn’t know how to be anything but reserved, but not for that are
they less startling.
Even to this day, Regina remembers quite vividly her first meeting with Duchess
Adela, back when she’d been queen for barely a few months. In those days,
Leopold had still been proud to present her to the court, the beautifully
peculiar creature that he’d bought for himself and his daughter, and he’d
introduced her with such pomp that Regina had been hard-pressed not to flinch.
Duchess Adela, younger than today and yet impossibly adult before Regina’s
eyes, in her light grey gown and with her mouth pinched with indifference, had
examined her briefly and without subtlety.
“Ah yes, the queen,” she’d stated after her appraisal, dismissive and
judgmental and haughty.
She’d made Regina feel small in the same way mother made her feel small, and
for many years, Regina had despised her very presence. Nonetheless, the duchess
is no fool, and her pride has always run hand in hand with wisdom, and has
never stopped her from changing her opinion or appraisal, and so she’d come to
respect Regina enough that Regina had chosen to pay that respect back. In spite
of it all, that the duchess should shed tears over her demise is almost enough
to jolt Regina into an uneasy sense of jittering panic.
“That’s enough of that, Duchess. Do gather yourself.”
Stepping back towards the cot, Regina sits down heavily, her lightheadedness
unbaiting. She ignores everything but the woman before her, and with a jerky
and sudden move, she leans forward to clean her tears with the bottom of her
sleeve. She’s purposefully rough, and hopes that the cheap fabric scratches
against the duchess’ smooth skin. It is not the time for tears, but the time
for pride and dignity, and if the duchess of all people breaks before her then
surely Regina has no hope regarding the matter.
Adela slaps her hands away after a moment, recovered from her brief spell even
if the telltale signs of tears remain on her face, like etchings on a statue.
Her hands don’t leave Regina, but rather search out her jaw and her chin,
settling the back of soft fingers there, as if to regard her better. And this
woman, who looked upon her as if she were nothing but the foolish caprice of an
even more foolish king once upon a time, now gazes into her eyes with
terrifying reverence.
“You will walk to your death with your head held high and a smirk upon your
lips, Your Majesty,” she says, curling her lips into a bitter smile, ignoring
the thought that they both know well-enough that Regina’s face will be covered
for the execution, and that no smirk will make a difference.
Regina smiles, if only to fight the onslaught of feeling pushing against her
ribcage, and reaches up with her one free hand, the one not holding a red
apple, to twine it with one of the duchess’ own – a strange caress between the
two of them that feels well-earned nonetheless.
“And you shall do me one last service, Duchess,” she commands, her tone as
authoritative as she can make it. “I want her to come speak to me. Tell her so,
and push her into this last desire.”
“Your Majesty, I don’t think–”
“Do as I tell you, Adela. I want Snow White to tell me of my destiny herself; I
want her to look me in the eye and understand that she’s paying for her crown
with blood – myblood; I want her to carry this with her for as long as she
remains living, so that my death won’t be forgotten. Not by her, never by
her.” 
===============================================================================
 
Snow doesn’t come to see her, yet she allows father to be brought before her,
his shoulders hunched and his eyes tired, hiding inside their depths all the
fear that Regina hasn’t felt herself during the days leading to her demise.
Something cracks inside her at the sight, and for the first time since she left
the palace all those months ago to fight her war, her heart constricts inside
her chest, painful in its wake, as if it had forgotten true feeling and now it
must hurt to bring it back. For the first time, Regina allows the tears pooling
at the corners of her eyes to fall down her cheeks, past her lips, all the way
down until they plop, wet and uncomfortable, against the papery skin of
father’s hands.
Father cries with her, sorrowful in his gentleness and broken in his knowledge
of her destiny. He claims that Snow may yet forgive her, and yet he must know
that Regina won’t accept whatever possible deal may allow her to live if it’s
to be under the princess’ thumb. He does try to convince her towards yielding
her pride, though, so sweetly and carefully that Regina can barely resist him.
She does, however, and shushes his pleas so she can soak up the comfort of his
presence instead, relish in the smooth touch of his hands against hers, even if
they must hold them together through the iron bars of a cell.
Father will be taken care of, for instructions have been left regarding the
matter on Adela’s hands. He shall be allowed to keep the manor where Regina
grew up, and as many servants as he requires; Regina’s lady’s maid and the head
cook at least, if he’ll have no one else, as well as whoever remains of her
Black Guard. Regina knows Snow won’t deny him such kindness, and if anything,
will be ready to make sure he’s well-taken care of, and happy. Even the idea of
such a gift makes something dark itch under Regina’s skin, the certainty of
Snow’s gentle benevolence a reminder of that which has made the world call
Regina evil and crown Snow in her stead. Snow won’t be cruel to Regina’s father
the way Regina’s was to Snow’s, but then father had always been affectionate
towards Snow, where Leopold had been nothing but a jailor for Regina.
Fury lays to rest before father’s presence, however, and instead grief breaks
her apart with the ease of crashing waves. Regina holds onto father’s hands for
dear life, and bends until it’s her forehead that’s resting against them, a
penitent asking for a blessing that she doesn’t deserve. She’s so very tired,
though, and if anything, she must ask for this absolution.
“Cielo, cariño, princesa… mi princesa…”
Father’s words soothe the open wounds that Regina’s firm disposition and pride
have kept stitched together, but they fail to heal, and instead leave her
broken open and vulnerable. By the time father is forced away from her, his
hand lingering between hers for as long as he’s allowed, Regina feels out of
sorts and completely unprepared for the nothingness that the future has to
offer her.
Time passes in a strange manner then, Regina’s fever taking ahold of her and
leaving her with nightmares that have her reaching desperately for the memories
of father’s beautiful words, for the smooth sound of his rumbling, lowered
voice, for the whispers that they’d once shared in the dark confines of her
childhood bedroom, eating chocolate the way naughty children do, and hidden
away from mother and her pressures and impossible desires. It’d been love
hidden under wraps, scared of the world outside, ashamed of itself, and the
only kind Regina has ever known – with Daniel, with Maleficent, always secrecy
and fear, trapped by the designs of Regina’s destiny. Regina barks out a laugh
at such a thought, laying down on her cot and feeling cold and hot at the same
time, her magic pulsing beneath her skin like coiled wires, searching for a way
out and only causing pain.
“Not destiny,” Regina mutters, her lips barely moving, “not destiny. Mother,
Rumpel – notdestiny.”
She holds onto the thought, barely, hoping keep the burning anger that it
brings with it. After all, what else is there to feel when mother will outlive
her, a crown above her own head and pride intact? What a disappointment she
must be, a disgraced queen dressed in rags and waiting for execution, such a
failure that not even her greatest enemy deems her worthy of one last word of
contempt. She wonders if mother will regret ever having spent her energies on
her, if she will forever bemoan every thought she ever spared her, every effort
ever wasted on her upbringing. Mother, with her calloused hands and her cold,
cold eyes, who clawed her way out of misery and claimed that which didn’t
belong to her with masterful dignity and a glint her eye. If only she’d been
more like her, but then. But then to think of being nothing like father. She
can’t bear it, and therein lies her weakness, the fragility that mother surely
spied on her early on, and hoped to discourage with well-placed and harsh
lessons. She will die a mistake, an obstacle at best, a failure in mother’s
otherwise flawless ascension to power.
Mother’s absence weighs heavily on her, more than she’d thought possible. She’d
done her best to banish her away from her life, her thoughts and her heart,
after all, and while she’d hardly succeeded in the past, she expects rest from
the idea of her on the eve of her death. She finds herself longing for her
firmness instead, denying herself the notion that she may be wishing for a last
tender touch instead. It’s foolish and reckless, she knows, this desire for
sentiment at the end of it all, and yet she can’t quite cleanse herself of it,
finding herself resenting mother for her absence instead. After all, she has no
doubt that she must have heard of her situation, if nothing else through
Rumpelstiltskin’s murmurs and plans.
Then again, the imp hasn’t shown his face either. Regina was hardly expecting
him to, and yet she’d harbored the silly idea that her death might be a step-
back in his plans, if nothing else. Another ill-advised notion, surely, to
think that Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t have a back-up plan for whatever it is that
he wishes to obtain, or even that she’s the main plan at all. For all she
knows, she’s been little else than a project on cruelty, an occasionally fun
experiment in a long life of schemes and senseless plots. For all she knows,
there’s no purpose to her whatsoever, if Rumpelstiltskin is so quick to dismiss
and sacrifice her, not even a last distasteful giggle of delight to part ways
with her.
It is in such turmoil that she finds herself on her last evening of life, the
waning light outside beginning to darken the corners of her cell. She looks
about herself with eyes that won’t rest, and stares at the tray of uneaten
lunch pushed against one of the walls, a big, fat rat gnawing at the hard bread
with pointy teeth, and thankfully keeping itself busy enough to stay away from
Regina herself. How delightfully humiliating, she thinks, to live her last
hours accompanied by rodents and bugs, surrounded by the pervasive foul smell
of humidity and enclosure, wasting away under her rags. Her mouth is pasty, and
she tries licking her lips and doing away with the nastiness of it, realizing
that the lingering taste at the back of her throat must be that of the fairies’
magic and its fight against her own. It tastes just like that clear
aguardientefather had been fond of back when she’d been younger, and which
she’d once secretly pilfered to share with Daniel. It had tasted strong and
nasty, and it had burned as it traveled down her throat all the way down to her
stomach, and the sight of her gagging after the first sip had made Daniel laugh
like never before.
Blindly, Regina searches for the familiar touch of the engagement ring dangling
between her breasts, her hand finding nothing but the coarse fabric of her
dress. She hadn’t taken it with her to war, and she knows fairly well that the
token of her love for Daniel is safely absconded in her bedchambers at the
palace, inside a pretty little box lined in purple satin that father had gifted
her on her fifteenth birthday. She’d wanted the ring to be safe while she
battled her enemies, and she only finds herself regretting the action now, when
its cold metal may have provided a sigh of comfort. She wonders, briefly, if
there’s any chance that they may bury it with her. Perhaps, despite everything
she’s been and everything the world accuses her of being, Snow will allow
father to care for her remains, and so she may be find her end dressed in a
beautiful gown, with Daniel’s ring put to rest with her, so that their doomed
love may find its peace with Regina’s demise.
Nothing but madness lies inside her thoughts, and perhaps what she’d believed
to be insanity lurking at the edges of her mind has already caught up to her
completely, after all. However the case, not lunacy nor pain would make her
miss the person entering the hall before her cell, much less so when it comes
accompanied with an ever too formal proclamation of titles.
“Her Majesty, the Queen Snow White!”
Regina can’t help herself, and she snorts even before she lifts her gaze to
settle on the lone figure of Snow White, clad in riding clothes and furs, her
hair wild and making an effort to escape what must have been a tight braid at
the beginning of the day, and her cheeks flushed rouge, as if she’d just been
out riding and had only then decided to run up the stairs to Regina’s tower. It
must be that, Regina muses, an ill-advised last minute decision to see the
woman that she must have been urged to keep away from.
Regina laughs, brief and rough, the sound woolen and tired. “I see it didn’t
take long for you to lay false claim to my crown, Snow White,” she sneers,
lacing her voice with venom to surpass her exhaustion, twisting her lips into
an ugly grimace to make her distaste palpably overt.
Snow says nothing, keeping silent for a long and tense moment, every small
movement betraying how she’s steadying herself, as if in need of a particular
kind of strength to face this conversation. Regina narrows her eyes in
contemplation, watching as the princess licks her lips and slows her ragged
breathing down, the tactic seeming to fail altogether when she can’t get her
fingers to stop twitching where they’re holding onto the thick furs of her
vest. To anyone else, she might have been the picture of calmness, much more
settled in her own body as she is in riding clothes than in the garish gown
Regina had last seen her, but then, Regina knows her far too well, and the
years haven’t changed Snow’s telltales so much that Regina can’t both recognize
and exploit them.
Regina wants to laugh, something dark and perhaps hurtful, but she’s not quite
ready to provoke Snow’s anger still, so she uses the gifted time to accommodate
herself much in the same manner the princess is doing. She sits back as
comfortably as humanly possible on her small cot, crossing her ankles and
throwing her shoulders back, her head held high and her hand resting over her
lap and arranging the fabric there, making sure to be the queen that she’s
still is, never mind the cell or the rags she’s wearing. Her lips, twisted in
an unimpressed grimace, close the picture of nonchalance, and she wonders if
she can sell this position at all, or if Snow can look past it and see the
cracks much in the same manner Regina can with her.
Snow takes one step forward, fake bravado filling her chest and pushing her
chin up and her eyes forward. “Regina,” she says, and her name feels funny
coming from Snow’s parted lips, as if a prayer lost to deaf gods, so full of
longing that Regina has to blink the sudden emotion away. “Regina,” Snow
repeats, more strength inside her voice this time, “won’t you please consider
my next words carefully?”
“So polite,” Regina replies instantly, derision dripping from the elongated
words. Gesturing vaguely at herself, she says, “I think it’s fair to say that
I’m hardly in a position to deny you any favors, Snow, so why don’t you spare
us the pretense and say whatever it is you need to say?”
One more step forward, and Snow is wrapping nimble fingers about the iron bars
of Regina’s cell, dismissing the worried interlude from one of the guards. She
looks at Regina with eyes that fail at hardness, and speaks with a voice that
is painted with edges of pleading. “We were once a family, were we not?”
Regina breathes out harshly, the sound rattling inside her own head, the
pounding of it not enough to deafen her to Snow’s words, which keep coming
without minding her obvious discomfort, barreling without rhyme or reason, as
if capable of erasing years of war with good intentions.
“We might still be, Regina,” Snow is saying. “Won’t you leave this prison and
live by my side? Even if the crown is officially on my head you could still
rule next to me, you could–I could certainly use the help, and Regina, Regina I
know there’s still good in you, I know somewhere inside you lives the girl that
saved me all those years ago, and that–that, well surely it would take the
court some time to accept you, but I know with time and my blessing they
would–”
“You dare!” Regina exclaims suddenly, cutting Snow’s rant with words that are a
barking order. She stumbles as she stands up from the cot, forgetting her
tiredness and every pain in her body when anger explodes within her, rash and
unstoppable. “You would come here and dare spew such nonsense, even now!” She
sneers, straightening up and looking at Snow with disgust etched on her
features. “Must you be this stupid on the eve of my death?”
“You think hope is stupid; of course you do.” And there’s such disappointment
in her voice, as if she’d been sure to move Regina’s more deeply rooted
instincts and desires with a few shallow words and a plea for surrender.
Regina laughs, bitter and loud this time, wanting to punch Snow’s disenchanted
expression out of her face, wanting to finally steal away that overflowing and
naïve optimist out of her. She shouldn’t be surprised, that even after
persecution and war, after a clash of wills and years of cruelty, Snow would
still refuse to see the truth of who they are and who they’ve been to each
other, and would dare call upon the tender feeling of family. Even now, with
the truth of their lives and the hatred tied within them right before her eyes,
she refuses to see. To see that Regina hates her, to see that death is their
only choice, to see that Regina would claim her heart if she only had the
chance.
Snow doesn’t stand down from her position, never mind Regina’s antagonist
demeanor. Stubborn to the last moment, and Regina would hate her all the more
for it if only it hadn’t made their fight more meaningful. After all, if she’s
to end her life in defeat, the last she can ask for is a worthy opponent.
Snow brings her arms about herself, crossing them before her chest only to move
them back down a second after, as if realizing the vulnerability of her
defensiveness, and choosing to face Regina with all the bravery she possesses
instead. She sways on her feet, undecided, but doesn’t take a step forwards nor
backwards. Then, she searches Regina’s eyes.
“I’m trying to offer you a chance, Regina.”
“A chance?”
“Yes!” Snow exclaims, thinking perhaps that she’s finally gotten through to
Regina. “A chance at redemption, at peace and love and a happy ending.”
Scorn finds its way to Regina’s voice, disdain twisting her guts as she stares
into Snow’s hopeful and shiny gaze. “A chance for you to be the hero that saves
the big, bad Evil Queen? Please,the last thing I’ll do for your ego is bow down
to such hopelessly shortsighted attempts at a truce.”
“I have nothing but genuine in–”
Regina barrels through Snow’s excuses with a raspy peal of laughter, holding
onto the coarse fabric of her skirt for lack of something better to do with her
hands, and quickly enounces, “Have we not played such a game already, Snow?
Have I not bended to your every wish for years on end that you dare ask me for
such humiliation again and have the gall to call it a gift? I’ll welcome death
before I agree to accept anything from you.”
There is no gasp coming from Snow, nor any other sign to show distress, and yet
Regina knows her to be anxious, very much in the same way she used to be as a
child whenever she was denied her desires. Not that such moments were many, but
certainly enough that Regina can read the frustration settled between Snow’s
eyes quite clearly. She must have thought Regina would reconsider her position,
if out of blind hope or sheer dullness of mind Regina can’t tell, as if turning
a blind eye to the years past and offering a hand after everything would change
anything.
Snow takes a step back, as if reconsidering her stance. She straightens up, and
now that her cheeks have lost their earlier flush and her eyes only betray a
smidgeon of conflict, she looks very much the part she’s playing, far more
regal in simple riding clothes than in any gown her subjects would rather see
her in. Regina wonders, briefly, if they will love her anyway, if they will
shower affection upon her even if she denies them the pleasure of a traditional
ruling queen, clad in fine fabrics of all the right colors and walking on the
arm of a handsome king, smiling kindly and using her smarts only behind closed
doors. They just might, Regina thinks, the world always ready to accept Snow’s
eccentricities while rejecting her own, the court more than ready to accept a
queen in beige riding clothes when one in black coats and armor had been found
so disagreeable. The thought stings, bitter, and so Regina finds herself
standing her own ground, lifting her chin up and keeping her shoulders back,
forgetting every ache in favor of this final battle.
After some time, it is Snow who finally breaks the lull between them, stating
her next words with an air of harsh judgment. “You reject me out of pride, so
much so that you are willing to die for it.”
“I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.”
“So that’s it,” Snow accuses, surprisingly angry all of a sudden, Regina’s
stubborn denial shattering whatever fantastical lie she has been telling
herself while coming up here to see her, whatever future she had concocted
where the both them found a way to live together and in harmony, Regina forever
grateful for the chances given. “I should have listened to my council, then;
there truly is no hope left for you.”
At that, Regina snorts, the sound undignified yet inevitable. “Your council?”
she mocks. “Let me guess – dwarves, werewolves and fairies. Ah, and let’s not
forget your farm boy prince, of course.”
“They are good people.”
Twisting her hands away from her dress, and moving them about with sudden
confidence, Regina can’t help but smirk as she speaks. “They are fools, unfit
to rule themselves let alone two newly forged kingdoms after a war. If
anything, it’s a shame I won’t be here to see you fail and to see all those
little followers of yours lose faith in those insipid speeches of yours.”
“My speeches have given me victory!” Snow exclaims, such pride in her puffed up
chest and her knowing smile that Regina can’t help but reach forward, her hand
poised as if ready to will her magic. Her magic remains tampered with, however,
and so the gesture makes her feel empty and weak.
“Treachery has given you victory, Snow,” she replies, a sneer painting the
curve of her lips. “And hope won’t feed your people.”
“You are impossible!” Snow exclaims, giving way to childish frustration and
curling her hands into fists, her arrogant demeanor getting lost in a genuine
demonstration of desperation. Her face contorts into an ugly mask, and this
time she does take a step backwards, as if she were in need of protection,
never mind the iron bars between them, or the spell holding Regina’s magic
prisoner.
Regina parts her lips to deliver the final blow, disarmingly happy that even in
her situation, power seems to be on her side, her own disregard for her own
life and for any offers that could possibly be made giving her the upper hand
before Snow’s innate wish to make everything around her reconcile with her own
naïve view of the world. However, Regina is given no chance to speak, Snow
moving forward once again, frantic in her every gesture, and interrupting her
thoughts as well as her speech.
“Regina, I–I can’t… Don’t ask of me to–to–”
“To what? To kill me? I’m hardly asking, dear.”
“But you refuse me otherwise!” Snow exclaims, passion in every syllable and in
the hands that she once again wraps around the iron bars, in her desperately
searching yet pointed look, in the twist of her pretty mouth and her newly
flushed cheeks.
Such a beautiful sight, and perhaps it is such desperation that her followers
had wanted to fend off when they’d followed her to war, for it paints tragedy
in features meant only for promise and belief. In Snow’s anguish Regina sees
weakness, yet perhaps the world has seen something precious to protect, and she
wonders whether she would have been loved by that very same world had she worn
her grief in her eyes, instead of hiding it behind anger and pride. Forget the
world, then, if fragility is the price for its love.
Yet love is what she sees when she takes a moment to look deep into Snow’s
eyes, those dark, warm pools that had regarded her with such admiration in
their past, before they’d become enemies separated by a cell door, when they’d
almost been something like sisters. There is nearly no change in what Snow’s
eyes expose when they meet Regina’s, for they are filled with a terrible kind
of love. Unwanted love, selfish love, and yet layered with truths perhaps as
devastating as the lies that had fed it. Snow loves her, and for a brief
second, Regina believes it to be genuine, despite the twisted threads of hate
twined within it. Regina rejects it, adamantly so, and yet when she reaches up
and out with a hand that has to fight its trembling away, she does so with
fingers that curl in familiar softness, and that seek the warm apple of Snow’s
cheek with a pang of long lost affection. Snow flinches backwards, looking at
Regina’s hand, now hanging in the air and between the bars, as if a stranger,
an unexpected intruder. A beat of silence passes, noisy and jagged breathing
pounding between them and tension in their every limb. Another beat, like a
clock ticking between them, and it all deflates when Snow sighs nearly
inaudibly, closing her eyes in tired defeat and allowing herself to lean
forwards and into Regina’s touch. Regina’s knuckles rest against Snow’s warm
skin briefly, the touch odd and yet familiar, her fingers blind when they
uncurl and lay gently against Snow’s face, the caress a moment of their past,
lie or truth Regina doesn’t care to understand, but brief deliverance in a
conflict more than a decade long.
“Dear Snow,” she breathes out, and her words tremble with uncertainty.
It is a lapse of judgment on Regina’s part, a moment in time that fleetingly
puts a stop to the storm brewing within her chest, to the anger and the grief,
to the desire for revenge and personal gain, to the need for retribution and
blood. As if a thick fog were cottoning her feelings, a tendril of something
long lost threads its way from the pit of her stomach and all the way to her
heart, where it pounds with the notion of impossibility. She remembers, with
quiet slowness and a bizarre density about her senses, how she’d once cradled
Snow between her arms with sincere gentleness, how she’d dried her tears over a
mother lost with tender care, how she’d welcomed her to her table and into her
chambers, how they’d laid together on the floor, between pillows and blankets,
like children – like sisters.
They had been children, both of them, and with that thought in mind the
tenderness flies away in a instant, her sudden remembrance only the beginning
of a thread that holds no more good memories once Regina begins pulling from
it. They had been children, indeed, and when they’d been woken up that morning
by King Leopold, Snow had remained as such while Regina had been forced to
fulfill her role of queen and wife, the one that she’d been deemed both too
proud and too foreign to truly deserve, the one that she had been told was an
honor, when there had never been such in Leopold’s bed, nor in his consort
seat. The thought bites her with bitterness, and the moment ends as
instantaneously as it started, Regina’s lips curling into an ugly grimace as
her hand loses its tenderness and curls about Snow’s chin instead, her fingers
tight against her cheeks and around her mouth. Snow gasps this time, opening up
eyes that are shiny with unshed tears and red with tiredness, like bruises in
features that only now Regina notices are far too pale. Snow’s own hand shoots
up to wrap around Regina’s wrist, fighting her unforgiving grip.
The vulnerability of the moment feels like an open wound against Regina’s
chest, and it makes her all the more vicious for it. She pouts childishly, and
touches her words with venom when she mocks, “I’m sorry, dear Snow, but do you
miss mommy dearest? Is that it?”
Relentless in her pursuit, Snow replies, “You’re the only family I have left,
Regina.”
“Oh child, you’re either blind or a complete fool,” Regina spits, tightening
her fingers about Snow’s face when Snow tries to pry them open by pulling from
her wrist, even as she once again refuses help from the prison guard with a
swift and silent order coming from her free hand. “You honestly believe the
nonsensical words you’re spouting, don’t you?”
“There is no denying the truth, Regina,” Snow declares, a surge of power coming
from her voice and raising it above the whispering desperation she’s been
exhibiting up until now. “We were a family, you and me and fat–”
“Not by any choice of mine, and you will do well to remember that.” Regina
laughs, the sound like sandpaper against the rocks, her fingers burning with
unreleased magic. “You wanted a mommy, and the king wanted a wife, and I wanted
none of it.”
“But you’ll die clutching the crown that came with it all, won’t you?”
“A mere trifle for what I sacrificed.”
Snow sighs, obviously exhausted, and before she says her next words, she lets
go of Regina’s wrist, as if freeing her of the pressure might prompt her to
perform an equal favor. “Regina,” Snow begins, forcing a soft smile. “Regina, I
will always be sorry for the fate that befell Daniel, but that doesn’t mean–”
“Don’t, don’t you dare speak his name,” Regina snaps, tightening her grip
further and pushing her nails onto Snow’s skin, broken and short as they are,
hoping that they’ll sting. Unwittingly, her free hand looks for the ring that
isn’t there, and fruitlessly curls itself about the fabric around her
collarbones instead. “Don’t pretend to understand, to know,what I–what we–”
Regina stops herself, and as suddenly as she’d trapped Snow in her grip she
lets her go now, bringing her hand back to her chest to join the other one and
even taking a step back. It burns to think of Daniel when he’s lost to the
ether of her memories and when he hasn’t been avenged. His death remains
unpunished, and his blood will forever coat the crown that they’re fighting
for. Daniel’s life and Regina’s innocence had been the toll paid for the lowly
prize of being queen, a useless title that only her own endeavors had turned
into something meaningful. And now Snow will rip her efforts away with the same
ease with which she’d ripped Daniel from her.
“Is there nothing I can do, Regina?” Snow pleads, her eyes sunken and hurt,
impossibly bewildered before the twists of Regina’s temperament. Her plea is
honest, if silly, a mere prayer sent to a broken goddess than can’t possibly be
bothered to consider mercy as a choice.
Regina paints a cruel smile onto her lips, willing it to be menacing even when
she feels as if she may just faint from exhaustion, the simmering magic under
her skin rolling painfully within her and making her hands burn up, a pyre with
no space to breathe.
“You could surrender your heart to me,” Regina states, “if you wish to please
me at all.”
Snow scoffs, offended and probably drained by Regina’s inflexibility, by her
own ineptness to make Regina care for her pleas. Even now, and despite the
hardships of her years of persecution, she’s that very same child Regina grew
up with that can’t bear the simple notion of being denied her hopes and
desires. Always the pretty princess that thinks she knows better, Regina
thinks, always the spoiled brat who believes her way to be the right one, and
so forever the naïve demon shackling Regina with good intentions and the
privilege to force them upon her. Regina will be glad to be rid of her, even if
she must die to accomplish such a feat.
“Let us speak the truth, Snow White,” Regina drawls, slowly regaining her regal
posture with the notion of death already settled in her spirit. She has nothing
to lose, and so she can stand proud even if she’s the one behind iron bars. “We
find ourselves at an impasse, do we not, dear?”
Snow harrumphs, brings her hands back up so she can wrap them about the iron
bars once again, as if needing something to hold onto. “I’m giving you a
choice, a chance,Regina.”
“I will not speak in circles with you. As it is, I don’t have long to live, and
I don’t think I want to waste my time with your foolish pleas.”
“What do you want from me, then? What could you possibly expect fr–”
“I want you look me in the eye and send me to my death, Snow White,” Regina
states with conviction, drawing near to Snow one more time, so they can indeed
be eye to eye as she so desires. “Go ahead at take my crown; wear it as I did,
with blood dripping from its edges. And remember the price you paid to make
yourself queen, remember, when you’re being told that you’re the hero of this
land, that it was my life that you sacrificed, that it was my heart that you
destroyed with your itty bitty hands when all I ever did to earn such a fate
was save your life.”
“You’re mad, Regina, you’ve gone mad!”
Regina laughs, a big and fake cackle to confirm Snow’s accusation. “Perhaps,
dear Snow; but remember that my madness is in your hands, that if there was
ever an Evil Queen then you’re the reason why.” She laughs again, a deranged
giggle of sorts that leaves her breathless, as if she’d been running rather
than imprisoned for weeks on end.
Snow steps back at that, jerky if not clumsy, her breathing harsh when she
turns her back on Regina, hugging her own frame as if protecting herself from
truths that she knows to be genuine.
“Don’t turn your back on me!” Regina bellows. “Don’t you dare turn your back on
me!”
As tough ordered by magic, Snow turns back again, swiveling on her heels with
the grace of a drunken lout, and keeping her arms around herself, one pressed
firmly against her stomach and the other clutching at her shoulder, her nails
digging in. She’s crying, tears trailing down reddened cheeks and making her
look ugly, unnatural even.
“Queen Regina, you have been sentenced for the crimes of murder, treason and
treachery, and you shall be executed at last light on the thirtieth day of the
year’s winter, drawn to the place of execution and there to be pierced by
arrows until you are dead, by the Queen’s will, and may the Lord have mercy
upon your soul.”
“Good Snow, I almost believe there is something like resolve in your trembling
lip and your ugly sobbing.”
Snow says nothing and does nothing, impervious to Regina’s mocking words and
cavalier stance, nothing but quiet tears to offer to the silence now settled
between them. Time ticks away however, and Snow doesn’t leave, staring at
Regina and ignoring the guard’s worried words by complete impassiveness. A
fitting end for them, Regina supposes, even as her own body defeats her and
she’s pushed to find her cot and sit down, her primness and composure a saving
grace that she can maintain when all she wishes is to lie down and sleep, rest
quietly before rest becomes eternal, and curl into herself so she can mourn a
lifetime of wasted choices. Snow’s stillness offers her no reprieve, no comfort
nor repose when all Regina can do is keep their stares locked together,
refusing to let go.
What else could Snow possibly want from her? Repentance, a plea for mercy, a
change of heart? She must know it won’t be coming, no amount of her own
determination enough to quench Regina’s opposing spirit. Yet Snow remains,
still and quiet and stubborn, dismissing a change of guard and her own prince,
who appears to beg for her presence at the dinner table while pointedly
refusing to look Regina’s way. She does whisper something in his ear, quiet and
impossible to decipher but surprising enough to make Charming breathe with
disapproval, which Snow quenches with eyes that stray from Regina’s and find
his, and a hard kiss to his lips that Regina can’t help but groan at.
“What sick sort of torture is this, then?” she complains plaintively, receiving
no answer for her troubles but for the prince’s hard eyes on her, accusing and
uncomprehending, as if the spell that seems to have taken Snow over is her
fault.
He disappears, though, not before leaving some plaintive instructions to the
guards to skewer her on the spot where she to be planning some evil trick, but
respecting Snow’s wishes enough to walk away. What a thought, a husband with
respect for his wife.
Snow remains stoic in her resolve, but it is not long before their silent
battle of wills is interrupted once again, this time by two maids dressed in
pale blue and carrying covered plates with them. Behind them, two soldiers
bring with them a table and two chairs, spiking Regina’s curiosity enough to
drive her gaze away from Snow. Either way, Snow isn’t looking at her anymore,
but she’s ordering Regina’s cell open despite the befuddled protests of the
night guard, the oldest of them all who had once been Leopold’s personal choice
for security. He looks at Regina much in the same manner the prince had moments
before, as if there is some ploy at play that she’s somehow responsible for.
Well, Regina will at least die with the certainty that she has instilled fear
in every soul, if they believe her so capable of plots and schemes even while
weakened and behind bars.
Stating her curiosity with a pointed look, Snow dismisses her with something
close to a smile and hands that are busy waiving soldiers and maids both inside
her cell, and directing them to settle the table before her, and the trays
above it.
“You have no magic, and you wouldn’t stand a chance before the guards or even
my own hand, Regina,” Snow explains, neglecting to realize that her weakened
state is in fact a consequence of Snow’s own orders, which have kept her magic
trapped, her meals scarce, and her conditions demeaning.
Nonetheless, Regina finds some humor in her voice when she says, “Careful,
dear, I might still be quick enough to gauge your eyes out before your guards
manage to stop me.”
“I have no doubt,” Snow deadpans, amused in spite of the solemnity that had
clouded her for long moments only a second ago, and mindless of the tears yet
clinging to the corners of her eyes.
Nevertheless, when one of the maids offers Snow a handkerchief, she takes it
with a grateful word for the girl and cleans her own face of the tear tracks,
blowing her nose as gracefully as possible. By the time she’s done, a table has
been set before Regina, and while maids and soldiers remain outside the cell,
the door stays open, and Snow right under the threshold. Momentarily, Regina
has a vision of a time long gone, of a last meal shared between step-mother and
step-daughter before one had sent the other to a walk in the company of the one
that should have been an executioner, but had turned out to be a merciful pup
instead. She remembers Snow as she had once been, beautiful in the way angels
are meant to be, young and careless, and yet somehow already having broken the
seal of her own love for Regina, and seeing her for the first time as a threat.
“Regina, I do love you,” Snow had muttered that day, after pressing a touch
that hadn’t managed to quite be a kiss to Regina’s cheek.
Snow had nearly broken her resolve that day, the lingering feelings of a love
Regina might have felt once pulsing under her skin and wanting so badly to
conquer her anger and her grief. Had they managed to do so Regina might have
walked a different path altogether, but they hadn’t. She hadn’t chosen peace
and mercy, instead claiming blood for herself in the name of her own pain, and
so it is that she finds herself back where she started, with a table set before
her and Snow White under a door’s frame, not quite with her but not quite gone,
love shining in sad eyes and burning Regina’s insides with such passion that it
bends itself into hatred.
If Snow had gone out the door in the past, effectively beginning a war between
them, this time she walks inside instead, marking its end. Nonetheless, there’s
a table set between them, and the smell of warm food wafting from ornately
covered plates. Regina rests her hand softly, almost unwittingly, against her
own stomach, watching Snow taking a seat before her as if they were back at the
palace, in the days where Regina had bought the court’s approval by showering
Snow with affection, and when sitting down for a quiet meal together had been a
regular occurrence. Snow pays no mind to Regina’s turmoil, her own still
shining within her eyes, and instead uncovers fine plates of spicy rice with
steamed, fresh vegetables, crusty and thick white bread, sliced cheese and
shiny green grapes. There’s a pitcher of what looks like rich wine as well,
which Snow pours herself into two heavily ornamented goblets. There is no meat,
nor fish, yet considering the strife of war, it is most certainly a meal fit
for a queen.
“Regina, would you please?” Snow asks, her tone betraying her unspoken command
by being too soft, nearly pleading. She motions towards the empty chair in
front of where she’s sitting herself, and lets the silence linger, putting the
decision to be made on Regina’s hands.
Regina eyes her surroundings warily, yet with a clinical eye. One soldier
remains inside the cell now, standing tall and stiff at Snow’s back, and Regina
holds the vague notion of lunging at his sword and making a play for Snow’s
heart. It would be foolish, and it would get her killed, considering that even
if she manages to surprise the soldier into a mistake, Snow herself is by far a
stronger fighter now that Regina’s magic is trapped and that her body is so
weak. A maneuver of any kind would be suicide, and she plays with the idea of
robbing Snow of a properly cold and distant execution, of forcing her hand into
a bloody end in a wintry and moldy cell, her last gesture of good will lost to
the madness of a woman hell-bent on her death. The thought is enough to make
Regina feel hysterical, however, so much so that when she looks at the table
set before her, the only sign of civilization and the kind of life she’s led
that she’s seen since she left her palace to fight the war, all she can do is
give in.
Standing up from the cot, Regina takes the offered chair instead, ignoring the
soldier’s wary look and the way he puts his hand to the hilt of his sword, and
being careful to sit properly and slowly, even as her stomach rumbles when the
smell of saffron first touches her senses. All the fresh food she’s had for
ages is the single apple Adela brought her as a gift, and even that feels like
a dream of a different lifetime. Perhaps one where she hadn’t resigned herself
to her own death quite yet, one where she would have coated the walls of this
cell with her own blood before even considering the idea of sitting down for a
meal with Snow willingly.
Regina has half a mind to go for the wine, hoping for the release of a drunken
stupor, but her stomach recoils at the idea. On second thought, she waits until
Snow fills her own fork with food and brings it to her mouth, and then does the
same herself. It’s not the best meal she’s ever had, the rice too buttery and
the use of spice far too conservative for her own taste, but it hardly matters.
It’s a gesture of peace they don’t deserve, a wistful gift of sorts that Regina
readily accepts, buying into the lie of it all if only for this one moment. She
could still backtrack and take Snow’s offer, she muses, her eating slow and
mindful, the meal falling a little too heavily on her underfed stomach. She
could take Snow’s hand and choose to live, choose quiet and uncomfortable
dinners, choose Snow’s constant and relentless hopeful desire to make her into
something that she’s never been, choose walking the hallways of this castle
proudly, hated and disrespected, while being regarded as the capricious result
of the princess’ boundless benevolence and compassion, choose a slow and
withering death, a life devoid of magic and purpose.
The thought makes her sick.
Regina pushes the plate back and away from her after only a few bites, the
smell of food suddenly unpleasant. She does go for the wine, after all, taking
a healthy swig and letting the strong coppery taste stick to her tongue. When
she puts the goblet down, the touch of silver against wood loud with the
strength of Regina’s movement, an air of finality rings against the damp stone
walls.
“Enough, Snow White,” she states. “Enough.”
Gently, with exhaustion evident in every corner of her frame and every lilt to
her voice, Snow agrees, “Enough.” 
===============================================================================
 
Enough has never been a word that has shaken Snow’s resistance away and,
unsurprisingly, this time is no different. Morning comes, but no one drags
Regina away to her promised execution, instead prolonging her stay in
confinement for another four days. She demands to know the reason behind the
delay, her voice trembling with madness when she receives no answer, and when
she’s forced to go back to a steady watch over her guards to keep up with the
time of day and not lose her marbles altogether. She is allowed no visits
either, despite her requests and despite clearly hearing Adela’s voice from a
close distance uttering similar demands. Not even a quiet and desperate plea
for father receives an answer, and so she simply blankets herself in the
thought of him instead, wishing for his soothing voice and the papery touch of
his familiar hands, longing for an excuse to allow brimming tears to fall down
her cheeks. If father were with her, crying wouldn’t feel like such weakness;
but without his presence and with mother’s echoing voice torturing her from
within her own head, she can’t bear to break down.
The time of reckoning does come, eventually, at first light on the fifth day
after Snow’s last visit, and it does so with no shortage of humiliation. Her
face covered and her hands tied behind her back with heavy shackles, Regina is
manhandled out of the prison and to the front courtyard of the castle, where
the scent of the sea is so strong that it teases at her with a sense of
nonexistent comfort even through the coarse fabric of the bag covering her
face. She’s weaker than she believed herself to be, forcing the soldiers
carrying her into making the effort quite literal, as her still naked feet drag
behind her, her sole stinging where she hurt herself still, and dust crawling
up her legs.
She’s pulled up and then down, and even if she can’t see, she knows she’s now
on the execution platform, the sound of the crowd around her, while
surprisingly subdued, clueing her to the fact easily enough. She feels dizzy by
the time they unlock her shackles only to pin her to the execution pole, her
shoulders pulled too tightly back, and forcing her chest forward in order to
breathe. The bag is yanked away from her face quite suddenly, and Regina
squints her eyes against the morning light, particularly shiny even though it
is the middle of winter, and the cold sips into her bones through the flimsy
material covering her. The crowd does begin to murmur then, peasants and
royalty alike surely excited to catch even a small glimpse of the Evil Queen’s
dead body, their own morbidity justified under the guise of justice owed.
Regina doesn’t pay them any mind, and instead directs her gaze at the podium,
where Snow White sits next to her prince, in much the same fashion that George
had sat all these years past, ruling over the distasteful affair with sullen
determination. She can’t quite make out Snow’s expression from her own
disgraced position, and with what may as well be one of her very last breaths,
she wishes for guilt and grief to be etched inside her eyes, and to never find
purchase anywhere else, to forever cloud an otherwise proud and kind gaze. You
killed me, Snow White,Regina thinks; for hadn’t she, in every way possible?
She’d taken her prisoner the day she had first set eyes upon her, when Regina’s
kindness had granted her Snow’s admiration and, iron bars and cells or not,
Regina had remained so up until this very moment, when the life that Snow had
snatched away from her with her tiny, privileged hands will finally be laid
down before her, nothing but Regina’s corpse and a kingdom aflame to show for
Snow’s crimes against her. And Snow will be acclaimed for it, while Regina dies
a figure of nightmares, an Evil Queen of dark heart and cruel inclinations, the
girl she’d once been turned to dust between Snow’s nimble fingers.
Regina’s thoughts are cut short by her impending fate, and before she can even
think about what is about to happen, the bag is being pulled over her head yet
again. She swallows a gasp, forgets to even think about the speech Snow just
gave, or about the flicker of golden, scaly skin she’d caught on the corner of
her eye. The bastard would have the gall to show up at her execution, of
course, even if he’d refused her even a hint of acknowledgment during her
imprisonment, but she refuses to allow her last thought to be the cursed named
of Rumpelstiltskin.
Regina closes her eyes, denying herself the flickering of the light filtering
through the worn away fabric covering her sight. As she does so, she leans
back, stretching her limbs to fight the pull of her shackles, and leaning the
back of her head against the wooden pole, grounding herself in the physical
reality about her, holding herself to it as she feels her breathing become
suddenly ragged. For a moment, it’s all she can hear, her nervous, loud breaths
trapped within the bag, warm puffs of air coming from her parted lips, humid
and uncomfortable against her dry skin. She realizes, shatteringly, that she’s
scared. She wants to laugh, and she does, but there’s barely a sound coming,
the wheezing tone vibrating against her as if enclosed, and sending a shiver
down her body. She finds herself trembling, shaking so hard that her knees feel
weak, and she’s suddenly grateful for the support behind her back, forcing her
chest forward and her head high, pushing her to remain standing and to receive
death with a whisper of pride. But she’s scared, so very scared and with such
sharpness and clarity that she has to fight the urge to cry out for mercy, to
claim that she’ll take Snow’s hand and her offer of mercy after all. She denies
herself the pleasure, the weakness of it, and instead presses her lips together
tightly, bites down on the plumpness of the lower one and drifts away. She
thinks of mother, who would want her to choose death over a life of submission;
she thinks of daddy, thankfully not present among the crowd, of his sweet voice
and his love hidden among the shadows, of the boundless care and infinite
tenderness between them, of his whispered words and the laughter they’d shared
despite a world that had been so unfair to them both, of the way he’d smiled
down at her when they’d danced on her twelfth birthday, carefree and happy; and
as a filtered order of letting arrows fly against her reaches her ears, she
thinks of Daniel, sweet, wonderful Daniel who hadn’t been allowed a life, who
had been torn from her too soon, who had been but the first victim of a
lifetime of blood and loss, who had loved her, whom she had loved so very
dearly.
I am ready,she tells herself, for whatever it is or it is not after this, I am
ready.Yet, she’s denied, once again.
===============================================================================
 
 
Nearly three days later, Regina stumbles onto the wet ground of the forest,
hands and feet finding the cold mud as she bends down, close to convulsions,
her body making an effort to vomit yellowish bile and the few bites of bread
she’d managed to stomach that morning. Her head pounds, incessantly, and her
whole body rebels against herself, a hot wire of pain and confusion at the
magic she’d just used, the first flare of such that she’d been capable of ever
since the fairy spell had been set upon her. She tries standing up, and fails
miserably. Her knees give up on her, trembling even at the thought of
supporting her light weight, and the rest of her shakes, cold and hot at the
same time, her skin and bones unsure of what hurts most. Nausea invades her,
but there’s nothing left on her stomach and her throat can’t bare the strain,
so she shuts down her instincts and tries to breathe in an out slowly, to calm
the dizziness threatening her with unconsciousness.
The swampy ground beneath her palms feels disgusting but cold, and when she
forces herself to take a deep and slow breath, she smells the thickness of
trees and the humid scent of cold water. She holds onto the feeling, to the
idea of cleansing water and open spaces, closing her eyes tightly and fighting
against the quivers conquering her body. It’s useless, the world around her an
oppressive weight of sensations. She needs to move, she knows; to hide and keep
away from anyone who may cross her path, to force herself to make her way back
to her palace, the only safe place left in the world for her, yet she fears the
mere of idea of moving, positive that her legs won’t hold her, that the
pounding in her head will only get worse, that she will black out the moment
she tries the simplest of movements.
Her lips part almost of their own volition, sticking together briefly as
they’re so parched, and she realizes that they’re beginning to shape a familiar
name, beginning to ask for the unwitting help of a demon that may choose not to
even try, or may just ask for a price that she’s not willing to pay. She’s
weak, tired and sick, and she hesitates. Yet, she knows, Rumpelstiltskin may
just be her only choice in her actual predicament, even if his glee at her
humiliation is already much more than she should be willing to give.
Survive,she thinks, sure than even mother would choose to do so. Survive and
take your revenge; survive and kill Snow White for refusing to end everything
once and for all; survive just to prove that she’s the one that should kill
you.
Regina licks her dry lips repeatedly, the taste of vomit prevalent and
disgusting, enough to make her dry heave and to stop her voice from crawling up
and away just in time to hear someone else’s nearby. Panic sets immediately,
her heart palpitating fast and sudden against her chest, as if punching her to
startle her into action. She moves, violently, the dizzying sensation sticking
to her skull making it impossible for her to know whether there’s someone
close, how many people there might be, or whether she’s simply delirious and
painting monsters where there are none. Eyes open and breathing ragged, she
stumbles two steps forward before she’s falling down on her knees yet again,
the wet sound of her limbs bending against the ground sickening, yet not enough
to chase away the voices that she’s now sure belong to real people.
“We shoul–”
“She’s hurt… wouln… come, come now an…”
Voices come and go, and Regina whimpers silently, entirely too aware of her
weakened state, her depleted magic, her rags and her thinness and her
dizziness, her mind conjuring the worst scenarios. Is this it, then – should
she die an anonymous beggar somewhere deep in the darkness of the woods,
unrecognized and pathetic after being stubbornly pardoned from her execution by
her rightful enemy? She refuses, refuses with all her might, yet the next jerky
movement that she manages is swiftly stopped, a body that feels stronger than
any other she’s ever known holding her still. She fights the hold, arms weak
and senses confused, believing that it is a mighty man keeping her prisoner,
the fur of his coat suddenly touching the skin of her cheek making her jerk
back, punch back with determined yet fragile fists, like a little girl playing
at duels. She cries against him when it all fails, wounded animal and desperate
woman both, revolves in his embrace even when it doesn’t budge, blind with fury
yet tired beyond her own imagination.
“It’s alright, it’s… help–we just want…”
“… her go.”
Abruptly, she’s let go, and the little strength she’d gathered goes just as
fast, so that she stumbles out of the man’s hold and right back towards the
ground, tumbling down gracelessly and painfully, her hands failing to catch her
fall so that it’s her arm and hip that bear the brunt of the plunge, her
shoulder slicing her with sharp pain right before her head crashes against the
dirt, bouncing once, before plummeting her into darkness. 
===============================================================================
 
Regina comes back slowly, confusion settling even before she opens up her eyes.
She’s disoriented and a little cold, her back uncomfortable where she seems to
be laying on the ground, and her mouth feels pasty. She makes an effort to
center herself and recall where she might be, and when it does come back to
her, she sits up with a start, her gasping breaths betrayed by a coughing fit
the moment she does so.
“Careful there, milady, you shouldn’t rush yourself.”
Through eyes that seem nearly stuck together, Regina spies the figure of her
interloper, and even before she can put conscious thought behind her movements,
she stands up on weary legs, her hand making a cupping motion as if ready to
conjure up a fireball. Her skin tingles and her magic flickers, the spell
within her palm flaring up to life briefly only to extinguish the next second,
leaving behind nothing but a slight itch.
“We mean you no harm.”
The words get lost somewhere inside her head, where logical thought is entirely
impossible, and where madness prods at her to run and attack at the same time,
to do away with this situation even before she knows where it is that she finds
herself exactly. She has half a mind to be curious and cautions still, yet, and
she runs over her surroundings with quick moving eyes. There’s a fire lighting
the small clearing of the woods where she’d been laying, on as comfortable a
cot as one could possibly make outdoors. She’d been laid down on some kind of
woolen blanket and covered in furs, she realizes only now. Blinking rapidly,
she gazes at what she must for now assume are her assailants, and is surprised
when she finds herself staring at two figures, and when one of them is a woman,
her armor and heavy weapons a jarring attire when her face is thin and pretty,
her hair long and shining with the light of the fire.
“I believe we should be worried about her hurting us,” the woman says, her
words aimed at her companion even as her eyes settle on Regina and refuse to
leave her. One hand settled on the hilt of her sword, she takes a step forward,
and Regina believes her silent threat with the experience of someone who’s seen
many people cut down before.
“Mulan, please,” the other says, a smooth voice with a hint of pleading in it,
and Regina would do well to look at him, except that her eyes seem much more
interested in staying fixed on the woman.
Mulan, however, answers to her name on the man’s lips by relaxing her stance
the smallest bit, her shoulders lowering and stealing away her predatory
demeanor, even if her hands remain on her sword. With a huff, she says, “You’ve
seen the magic, and you said yourself the town was brewing with news of the
Evil Queen’s escape!”
“We don’t know that she is th–”
“Oh, please, Phillip!” And there’s such fond exasperation on the tone that
Regina has to bite her lower lip not to chuckle.
Nonetheless, there is something interesting in the two before her, and Regina
considers her options briefly, gauging to the best of her ability the true
threat they may present. If she’s honest with herself, her chances of escaping
anything at all are slim to none, and her wisest choice might just be to
navigate a truce in between herself and her would-be saviors. After all, she
doesn’t know where she is at all, her magic is but a tingle longing to build
itself up, she’s hurt and tired, and she still doesn’t have a pair of shoes to
cover her naked feet, a fact that seems intent on pointedly reminding her of
her vulnerability, and of the past weeks spent in a dank cell.
“If I may interrupt your… charmingdiscussion, I must claim innocence on the
deceitful accusations being made,” Regina interjects, instilling her body with
a casual stance, her voice with humor so as to dispel the tension in between
them, so as to place herself as non-threating and barely annoying at best. “I
did not, in fact, escape my prison,” she clarifies. “I was set free.”
The incredulous set of eyes that settle upon her are nearly comical, Mulan’s
face a picture of contempt and disbelief. Phillip’s brown gaze merely strays in
between his companion and Regina herself, as if deep down he knows he’s been
dismissed for his more interesting friend. Regina does bother to take one brief
look at him, though, to study a scruffy beard that can’t quite hide baby-faced
features, and to notice the mannerisms of royalty in the way he holds himself
together, leg thrust forward valiantly and hands settled purposelessly on his
sword, merely a resting place for limbs taught to always make others take
notice of the fanciful and jeweled handle of his weapon. Phillip won’t swing
his sword, though, Regina knows, his whole demeanor projecting calm
hospitality, but Mulan may just yet do so.
“There is no need for lies, milady,” Phillip intercedes, and Regina doesn’t
know which part it is that he doesn’t believe – that she’s in fact the Evil
Queen Mulan knows her to be, or that there was no escape of her prison but by
Snow White’s own will.
Scoffing lightly, Regina glowers, “It’s Your Majesty, dear.”
Unexpectedly, Phillip’s following reaction startles her, his change in posture
immediate after her words. Legs drawn together and arms spread forward, he
offers a perfectly and well-practiced bow, head and eyes bent down properly,
and shoulders squared admirably.
“It’s an honor, Your Majesty; allow me to introduce myself. I am Prince
Phillip, and this is my faithful and sworn companion, Fa Mulan.”
Regina cocks an eyebrow up, stupefied yet mildly delighted, and can’t help the
peal of laughter that emerges from her parted lips. “Well, I didn’t know they
bred them so polite these days.”
“And so senseless at times, too,” Mulan snaps, barely hiding that she’d rather
call him stupid altogether. “There is no reason for us to bow before a prisoner
of war, and the Evil Queen at that. We should hand her back to the
lawfulqueen.”
“Ugh, such honor,” Regina counters. “How terribly disgusting; and to think I
spied a brief spot of amusement for a moment there.” Throwing her shoulders
back as if in challenge, Regina stares straight into Mulan’s pretty eyes, and
bites her next words with care. “However, Fa Mulan, you may find your self-
proclaimed queen with no wish to set eyes upon me anymore. As I very clearly
stated before, I was set free.”
Mulan’s eyes remain unconvinced, and yet they don’t leave Regina’s, as if
judging the possible truth of her words. Regina stares back shamelessly. After
all, she is being nothing but truthful, her staggering into the woods with a
flare of wild magic only possible after Snow White herself had opened the iron
bars enclosing her inside her cell, and after she’d put a knife between her
fingers and had foolishly expected Regina not to use it. How disappointed she’d
looked then, when Regina had lunged forward with every bit of strength she’d
had left to dig the blade on her stomach, searching for blood. There had been
none, however, whatever bargain Snow had struck with Rumpelstiltskin protecting
her from Regina’s bloodlust and murdering hands, and if Regina hadn’t found it
in her to be angry at the imp quite yet, then it was only because she had
nothing left after the fury that had flared inside her at Snow White’s futile
trial of faith. It had been enough to pull her magic away from the spell
holding it trapped, but not quite that it had landed her back in the safety of
her palace as she’d intended, rather than in the middle of the woods, sick
enough that she now found herself in the hands of this quirky pair of
strangers.
 Phillip turns to Mulan then, walking the few steps that have kept them apart
until now, and reaching out for her arm in a familiar gesture that has Mulan
turning towards him with ease. Regina has little time to ponder on the nature
of their relationship before Phillip is mouthing a rather interesting set of
words.
“I figured, perhaps, we may strike a bargain.”
Interest picked, Regina is miffed by the following whispered discussion between
the other two, and which she finds herself not privy to. They draw close
together, and so Regina decides to ignore them altogether and look about her
instead, wondering at her chances of escape. Her companions don’t seem like the
kind to hurt her mindlessly, but then she knows better than to trust kind faces
and kinder words, particularly from those wearing armor and carrying weapons,
when she finds herself rather vulnerable.
They’ve set up camp on a small clearing of the woods, and their surroundings
are thick enough with trees that Regina can’t see far beyond the small cot
they’ve built for her with a few spare blankets and some fur. The sky has been
darkened by a heavy and cold night, nearly starless, and the fire built a few
paces away is barely enough to shine orange hues on the skin of the other two.
Looking up at the sky, Regina wonders briefly about the time passed, and thinks
that she may have been unconscious for longer than a day. After all, she’d
encountered Phillip and Mulan at night, and they’d had time enough to listen to
the news of her supposed escape from prison. There is no point in dwelling
further on the matter right now, however, and so she focuses instead on the
cool scent of sweet water reaching her nostrils, and the faraway sound of calm
waves hitting the shore. There must be a lake close by, which only means that
her pathways are closed by woods and water, and that the horses tied together
to a lower branch not too far away might be completely pointless were she to
try and escape on one of them. They’re not even saddled, having been freed of
their burden for the night, and Regina is not particularly sure that her body
is in any condition to ride bareback and with no possible way of knowing where
she is, or where to go. It seems, then, that her chances are very much reduced
to this bargain that Phillip wishes to strike, although she can’t for the life
of her figure out what these two could possibly want from her. Magic, she must
guess, for what other strength does she have left now that she’s been stripped
of title, lands and pride?
Carefully, Regina reaches for her magic in a vain attempt at conjuring herself
away from this situation. It’s futile, she knows, and when a cold sweat breaks
against her forehead and the back of her neck, she stops pushing. Her body
hasn’t flushed out the fairies’ spell quite yet, and the effort she’d subjected
herself to in order to transport herself away from Snow’s castle and to this
lost part of the woods has left her depleted of energy. Her magic is but a
tingling thread trying to find its way back to her, pricking at her much the
same way her limbs do when one goes numb for too long a time. Oh, her magic
willcome back soon enough, but it’d be foolish of her to think that she can
exert the necessary control to finish her way back to the palace with it with
the weakness that has woven itself to her bones.
Frustrated, cold, and honestly unsure of how much longer she can remain
standing, she breaks the council before her by demanding, “Stop whispering
already, and tell me what you want.”
“Phillip,” Mulan warns.
Thankfully, he follows no advice, and turns big eyes towards Regina, much like
those of a puppy asking for a treat. “I mean to ask for your help in freeing my
beloved,” he requests, his head softly bowed.
Regina scoffs carelessly, not caring for his submissive stance. She’s cold,
hungry and tired, tired enough that even anger feels like too much of an
effort, and the last thing she wants to be doing is granting some stranger’s
desires, never mind her own perilous situation.
“And why, pray tell, would I help you? As your loyal companion wisely pointed
out,” and she takes a moment to grasp at whatever wits she still possesses, a
moment to take back stolen pride and to even draw a bit of a careless flourish
with her hand, “I am the Evil Queen.”
Phillip blinks, and it is Mulan who answers in his name, a scowl marring pretty
features and her tone that of a petulant child when she explains, “He means to
offer you safe passage to wherever you desire to go; we shall escort you.”
Regina perks up at the idea almost immediately, the sense of relief surprising
in its strength as it washes over her. She’s so very tired, so bone weary,
after all, and finding these two kind strangers feels like the one bit of luck
she’s had in years of nothing but beating the heaviest of odds. Rather than
confessing to what will be a thoughtless agreement, never mind the price to be
paid, Regina smirks to the best of her abilities, and says, “I suppose I have
ridden with worse.” Then, “Name your price, then, Prince Phillip.”
He smiles, softly, far too softly, absentmindedly refusing to consider Regina a
threat, or even to take her seriously, and motions towards the fire burning
before him. “Perhaps over some food, if you will, Your Majesty.”
Regina acquiesces with ease, understanding Phillip’s offer to break bread for
what it is – a truce of honor for as long as destiny keeps them together, and a
promise of no harm to come. Soon, she’s sitting by the fire with borrowed furs
covering her and shielding her from the cold winter night, watching as Phillip
disappears in search for water to warm for tea while Mulan gathers leaves and
herbs from her own purse. Regina watches, glassy-eyed and tired, wondering if
they won’t try to put her to sleep with some natural drug, after all, choosing
to execute their loyalty while keeping her under the softest of cuffs. She may
just find relief in such a thing, in allowing her body to heal under the care
of a properly brewed draught, but the thought of the fairy dust still clinging
to her every pore and fighting its war inside her makes her feel queasy at the
idea instead.
Distracted as she is, a little dizzy too, she’s startled when Mulan drops
heavily next to her, her armor making for an awkward landing. Regina blinks
owlishly at her, entirely too tired to even think about confrontation, and yet
surprised when she finds none. Instead, with a grunt of clear disapproval but
with gentle hands, Mulan offers her some folded fabrics, as well as a pair of
old and well-worn boots that nonetheless look to Regina like a saving grace.
“They’re not fit for a queen,” Mulan quips, her words a shameless challenge, as
if she can only offer Regina such a kind gesture while reminding her that she’s
unwanted here. Mulan would have gladly given her up to the closest sheriff
post, Regina knows, or would have simply left her to fend for her own, yet now
that she’s saddled with her presence, this is the path she chooses.
The corners of Regina’s lips twitch as she tries to avoid a smile, and she’s
quick to take the offering while jokingly pointing at her own clothing
situation, the starchy woolen grey dress that she’s worn for weeks, which
probably smells as foul as it feels against her skin. “I’ve had worse, I assure
you, dear.”
Regina stands up on wobbly feet, reaching out blindly when her knees shake and
her stomach sends an unpleasant wave of nausea up her chest and all the way up
to her throat, threatening vomit. Her hand lands against the one Mulan
unintentionally offers as support, and when they touch, Regina feels hard
callouses in between patches of soft skin. She has the hands of a warrior, used
to weaponry yet unused to human touch, if her startled gasp when Regina holds
on tighter is anything to go by. They stare at each other for a moment then,
Regina standing higher yet close to collapsing out of sheer tiredness, and
Mulan sitting down yet steady as a rock, and Regina thinks she may just be the
most beautiful person she’s seen in a very long time. Mulan’s features are
unlike any she’s seen before, her eyes slanted, her skin a light golden shade,
her hair black and shiny, falling straight as arrows all the way down to her
shoulders, and her cheeks sharp. She wonders, briefly, about Fa Mulan, loyal
companion of a conventional prince, wonders about the place she comes from and
the circumstances that have made her hands so familiar with the shape of a
sword. Then, she wonders what it might be like to kiss her, and can’t help but
be amused at her own thoughts. She must truly be desperate for affection, if
this stranger with a frown between pretty eyes and such obvious disfavor in her
gaze can affect her with such notions. Still, momentarily, she wonders too if
Mulan would allow herself to be seduced, not just into her bed, but into her
service. Not that Regina has very much of an idea of what the future holds for
her now, but she can’t help herself from the allure of strength and kindness
wrapped up in just the right hint of discontent. She’s always liked people who
know how to be honest with her, after all, even if she’s usually inclined to
disregard their advice.
She disentangles herself from Mulan eventually, and without much consideration
for the matter, disrobes herself in as fast a movement as she can manage,
ridding herself of the coarse fabric that has been her clothing for far too
long now.
Behind her, Mulan exclaims, “What are you doing?”
“I thought that was obvious,” she replies, a hint of a smile on her lips when
she looks behind her to see Mulan averting her eyes and fixing them on the fire
instead.
“Phillip may come back any moment now,” Mulan says quietly, her excuse weak
when the blush painting her cheeks glows beautifully in between the hints of
firelight coloring her skin.
Regina can’t help herself from teasing; on the contrary, she’s quite pleased
with the entertainment. “Why, dear, you think he shall mind the view?” she
taunts, with just a hint of provocation.
Mulan doesn’t take the bait however, and merely groans her disapproval, keeping
her gaze firmly planted away from Regina’s naked flesh while murmuring
something about the cold and how Regina shouldn’t brave it after days of
unconsciousness anyway, and about just what kind of fool Phillip is for
allowing an unpredictable woman to hold their honor in her palms. Regina takes
a moment to ponder just how much she can get away with, but Mulan is not
completely wrong in that the cold won’t do her any good. Rather than keep
teasing then, she takes a disgusted look at the grey wool still between her
hands, and without a second thought, throws it right into the fire, effectively
putting an end to the last shreds of her days as a prisoner. Her ill-fitting
undergarments follow, and as she stands completely naked in the middle of the
woods, she digs her feet on the ground with intent, as if trying to grow roots.
Reaching for the clothes Mulan offered, she makes an effort to not look at
herself for too long a time, knowing that she’s far too thin, that her skin
feels rough and dry, and that the healthy tan that she’d won during her days of
war has turned into a haggard and ill-looking grayish pale, wherever her skin
isn’t purple or green from not yet cured bruising. She dresses quickly,
suddenly thankful that Mulan didn’t choose to take a look after all. There’s no
corsetry to be had in the clothes provided, but the riding pants, thick blouse,
fur vest and boots feel as luxurious as her most expensive gown to her at that
moment. The clothes are all well-worn and obviously have been washed
repeatedly, but they feel nice and clean against her skin, and warm her up
almost instantly, so much so that she can’t help herself from turning to Mulan
once she’s fully dressed, and uttering a nearly timid thank you.
Mulan nods her assent, and only after Regina is sitting down and covered, does
she dare look at her yet again, if the gaze that she tries to set immediately
against Regina’s own wavers momentarily on her chest and the skin of her
collarbones.
Regina smiles, and withholding her instinct to provoke, laces her tone with
gentleness when she says, “There is nothing wrong with it.”
“What?”
“Looking, there is nothing wrong with looking.”
Mulan’s blush flares with such celerity that Regina has to laugh, and in such
predicament Prince Phillip finds them when he does come back from his trip to
the lake. He looks between them, obviously baffled at Mulan’s grumbling
complaints and Regina’s wide smile. Putting them both out of their misery,
Regina chooses to get back to business, and so takes her eyes away from Mulan
and searches Phillip’s gaze instead.
“Let us speak then, Prince Phillip, and tell me just what exactly it is that
you expect from me.”
Prince Phillip speaks then, and as if given life by her request like one of
those little wind-up toys that had been so popular during Snow’s teenager
years, he simply does not shut up after – not for days.During the next three
days, they travel north, and soon enough Regina begins to discern the places
about her, until she’s certain that her companions are in fact taking her
exactly where she’d asked – back to her palace. The days are long and boring,
and Regina tires easily, walking leaving her winded and riding making her
bruises painful anew, and impeding their healing. Phillip seems oblivious, but
Mulan, quietness and observation where her companion provides noise and
abstraction, notices her plight and does her best to dispel any discomfort,
forcing them into far more pit stops than such a journey would generally
demand, and making sure that they change between their legs and the horses
often enough. It is also her horse that Regina shares when they ride, and
Regina takes no issue in leaning her weight back and into Mulan’s warm hold,
allowing her to guide the horse and giving up control in the face of Mulan’s
gruff gentleness.
As they journey, building fires at night and travelling lightly transited roads
during the day, or even the middle of the woods for lack of better coverage,
Phillip speaks unguardedly and easily. His story is simple enough that Regina
barely pays attention at first – a princess and a witch, a curse trapping the
beautiful damsel behind a forest of trees, brambles and thorns springing about
her resting place, shielding it from the outside world and preventing his
passage with dark magic that makes them grow whenever he dares cut them. It
makes for something pretty and romantic, a tale like those Little Ace had loved
so much and had insisted on reading out loud for her, even as she’d always
finish her readings with scorn for the damsels and the princes both, having no
taste for that kind of love herself. Much time is spent on Phillip’s love for
his princess, and on the attributes that make her the subject of such passion,
so much so that Regina nearly overlooks a tale that she knows well, and just
which witch it was that put this particular princess to sleep. However, details
reveal themselves among Phillip’s words, and Regina realizes that he’s telling
the tale of Briar Rose’s daughter, whom Regina herself had once upon a time
help curse, encouraging Maleficent to defeat the enemies that had wronged her
so. Never had Maleficent confessed to Briar Rose’s crimes against her, but
Regina remembers the pain etched within her eyes, and the mirth with which
she’d told Regina about trapping the prince as well, making him into a creature
that could never wake his princess. And even so, with a sleeping princess and a
cursed prince, one more spell had been cast upon the castle where the princess
lay, a forest touched by magic that Regina had seen Maleficent cast from
nothing, her own still inexperienced fingers trembling with excitement at the
sight. What twist of fate, then, that she should be delivered into the safe
arms of her friend’s rivals now that they’re no longer friends, and asked to
dispel the secret of the ever-growing branches in exchange for her own safety.
It is with pettiness in her heart that Regina promises Mulan and Phillip both
the magic that will part their way to their princess, as well as knowledge of
the potion they will have to concoct. As she does so, she thinks that this may
just be the first favor fate has ever done her in a lifetime of obstacles and
fortunes given to no one but her own enemies, and wonders if it is perhaps a
sign of changing tides, even in such a dire situation as she finds herself in.
Regina’s promise only spurs Phillip’s hopeful excitement, bringing forth every
tale possible about his short courtship of Princess Aurora, and the deep
feeling that had joined them from the moment they had set eyes upon one
another. They grow so tiresome and repetitive that on the second day of their
journey, and without much of a thought, Regina twirls her hand in the air,
effectively deafening herself to the prince’s voice. Magic curls about her
fingers instinctively, relief flooding her at the knowledge that power and
control is already taking shape inside her after being trapped for so long.
“What did you do?” Mulan snaps next to her, looking at the oblivious prince,
prattling away still, and then at Regina, accusation written in her eyes.
Curling her lips in amusement, Regina shrugs and says, “Just a little trick,
dear; if I have to hear one more word about Aurora’s hair and the way it shines
against the morning sun I may just succumb to my most terrible inclinations.”
“But how–”
“A deafening spell – terribly useful for boring meetings with inconsequential
court members, I assure you. Just nod and smile, and the prince won’t be able
to tell the difference.”
“That seems rude,” Mulan states, even if her frown can’t completely hide away
something that might just be a grin.
Grinning herself, Regina replies, “For future reference, politeness is never my
goal.”
The spell lasts but a moment, but it is enough to make the prospect of the rest
of her journey a more bearable affair. The easy camaraderie she has developed
with Mulan, too, despite the other woman’s relentless denial of such silent
connection, provides an easy and delightful distraction that allows her both to
carry herself with confidence, and to not dwell for too long moments on what
the future holds for her, or on the grieving anger that she’s sure will strike
her once she allows herself to think momentarily of Snow White.
Nonetheless, the nights are cold and long, and they give way to quietness among
their little group, only Phillip’s inexhaustible cheeriness breaking up the
mood from time to time. Her companions travel light and with little provisions,
yet they share what little they have – cheese that is too soft and that runs
the risk of turning moldy any moment, hard bread that they dunk on tasteless
barley gruel so it won’t hurt their teeth, and flavorless soups that they cook
with whatever they can find. Mulan makes some efforts towards hunting, but the
weather is too cold and the war has killed all life, it seems, so that not even
a rabbit crosses their paths, and it is only the howling of hungry wolves that
they hear for sounds of the wild life about them. They share ale so bitter that
Regina all but dreams of sweet strawberry wine, yet Mulan refuses to do the
same with the tea that she brews dutifully every night, and which only Phillip
has the privilege of tasting. Regina wants to whine at the exclusion, something
childishly jealous consuming her as she watches what seems like the most
intimate exchange between the other two. However, the almost ritualistic nature
of Mulan’s movements stop her from doing so. Lacking the natural yet always
quick quality that her movements have whenever she’s reaching for her sword,
Mulan’s hands move delicately instead, hypnotic as they carefully distill tea
leaves that smell bitter yet spicy, and painstakingly attentive as they pour it
on intricately painted ceramic cups.
Phillip sleeps peacefully and profoundly, and soon enough Regina suspects that
Mulan’s tea is laced with a sleeping draught that allows for such a feat. Mulan
herself is a light sleeper, silent when she wakes and still in her slumber, so
quick on her step after only a second of alertness that Regina believes her to
be deadly, if only given proper motivation.
Regina doesn’t sleep well, senseless nightmares making her fidgety and afraid
of closing her eyes, the black and red tint of her dreams encroaching in on her
and forcing her out of sleep in nervous fits after barely resting for a couple
of hours. That she’s sleeping uncomfortably on the wet ground, cold despite the
fires and always watched by either Mulan or Phillip, lest she runs away in the
middle of the night, truly doesn’t help her grasp at comfort. Nonetheless,
waking up outside calms the too-fast paced beating of her heart with nothing
but fresh air and open spaces, chasing away the nightmares of closed cellars
and her own tiny, child-like voice asking to be released. She touches the
ground beneath her as she wakes, every time, feeling for the dampness of winter
and the grounding sense of reality it provides, pushing her ghosts as far away
as she might, burying them at the back of her head where they won’t dare come
out. They haunt her still, however, mother’s prison confusing itself with
Leopold’s and Snow’s, with Rumpelstiltskin’s, awakening her with the feel of
tightness about her wrists and tingling about her belly.
“Drink this,” Mulan offers brusquely on the third night, when Regina hasn’t
quite recovered from the darkness of her dreams, so that Mulan’s voice feels
too loud and almost like it may just be part of the nightmare.
She startles, and peers at the cup being offered as if a completely foreign
object. Mulan motions impatiently at her, and Regina moves without much thought
to take the drink, some of that tea that she’s been denied so far. A floral and
warm scent wafts up to her nose, and Regina drinks mindlessly, the yellowish
brew sweeter than she’d expected. It only occurs to her that it might be
drugged after it’s nearly gone, but then, she wouldn’t peg Mulan for someone
capable of such dishonest trickery. The brew does relax her somewhat, however,
warming up her insides in ways food hasn’t accomplished these past few days,
when even the blandest of choices has been enough to cause nausea. Slightly
relaxed, and sufficiently bone-weary to let down her guard, Regina sits up
against a tree trunk and leans back, lowering her shoulders and closing her
eyes, a silent sigh crossing parted lips.
“You’re not sleeping,” Mulan states next to her, “you barely eat and the only
reason you seem to be able to trek with us is sheer stubbornness.”
“Aw, dear, are you worried?” Regina mocks, amused tilt to her lips even as she
remains resting with her eyes closed.
“We can’t walk into your palace with a corpse, Your Majesty, and if you don’t
survive the journey, it will all have been for naught.”
Regina tilts a curious eyebrow as she opens her eyes and turns to regard Mulan,
not unlike the many times she has already done so during these past three days.
She’s tempted to laugh, amusement teasing the corner of her mouth, the severe
seriousness of Mulan’s speech adding tough urgency to her words, as if she’s
ready to lay her life for a quest that isn’t her own, as if she would perhaps
be happy to do so. Had she been in love with the prince, it may have had a
certain kind of tragic sense, the woman willing to sacrifice herself in the
path of someone else’s happiness, but while Regina can’t quite put her finger
on Mulan’s problems, she understands that they ran deeper than unrequited
passion championed by a deeply rooted sense of honor. Not for the first time,
Regina spies the blackest of shadows in Mulan’s becoming face, cast there by a
fat and oddly tinted cloud of past regrets and unspeakable disgrace. Mulan is
running away from something, Regina is sure, and that she found herself the
excuse of an honorable quest in order to do so is only a wide open window into
the inmost parts of her soul.
“What is your story, Fa Mulan; what are you running away from?” Regina
questions, much more interested in her companion’s secrets than in the fleeting
thought of trying to grasp sleep again. The sun will be up in little time, and
they’re already so close to the palace that she might as well wait for her eyes
to close again as she lays down in the comfort of her very own bed.
Mulan has no answer for her, her unwillingness to talk made clear by her
turning her back towards Regina as she busies herself with putting herbs back
into her purse and other menial tasks, already readying herself for her the
day’s journey.
“Oh, come on,” Regina prods, teasing, “surely you know your duties; you must
entertain your queen.”
Mulan turns to her, hardness in her eyes and the thin line of her mouth, and
then in the words that follow. “Is that what we all must be – entertainment for
the queen? I am not your subject, and I owe you nothing.” Then, in a lower tone
that is equally harsh, “Neither does the rest of the world, and you have
already claimed so much for yourself that you didn’t deserve.”
“The world can’t pay enough for the debt I am owed, and you will do well to
reserve your judgment and bite that ignorant tongue.”
“Or what?”
The challenge enough would have been cause to snap Mulan’s neck right then and
there, but the spike of fury that travels up her spine is what makes her
movements jerky and her instincts impulsive. Regina’s hand flies up and curls
into itself, but the spell misses its intended target, her muddled senses and
tired limbs impeding swift execution, and her magic still clumsy at best, much
more so when faced against Mulan’s stoic and quiet rage. Leaves rustle under
Mulan’s feet, barely, and before Regina can try her hand at a second conjuring,
she finds her wrist held tight in Mulan’s grip and pressed up and into the tree
trunk, the tightness not quite registering when Mulan’s sharp sword finds its
way to her unprotected neck. The steel is cold and unwavering in Mulan’s hands,
and Regina knows that the only reason she’s still alive is because Mulan wishes
it so.
“Well then, go ahead,” Regina whispers in the small space between them, briefly
and maddeningly thinking that dying with Mulan’s face up close and the hot
puffs of her breath mingling with her own harsh panting is a much preferable
death that the one she was nearly dealt days ago.
“I would, I should,” Mulan answers, even as her grip remains motionless,
dangerous but not yet fatal.
Regina narrows her eyes, mistrust yet simple understanding taking shape before
her despite the sudden peril of her situation. She laughs, cruelty in the sound
this time as she smirks with unbidden delight. “But you won’t, will you, dear?
You silly, heroic lot, always needing an excuse to bring death about.”
“Isn’t what you’ve done, who you are, excuse enough?”
And Regina knows that Mulan is asking such words to herself, grappling with the
thought that she has the Evil Queen at her mercy, and that by the gods the
world would be a better place without her in it; yet what has Regina done in
the past few days that Mulan should be judge and executor? The truth of the
matter is that the agreement made between them both and the prince has been
fulfilled thus far, and that Regina has been on her best behavior, if only out
of sheer exhaustion.
Taunting, still cruel, Regina mocks, “No, it is not, is it? Not when you don’t
know the truths behind the rumors, not when Snow White might be as much to
blame as myself for this dreadful war of ours.”
“But you are evil, you are–”
“And what do you know of me, Fa Mulan of foreign lands? Not every rumor spread
about me is true.”
“Enough of them must be,” is Mulan’s quiet answer, a whisper that betrays
confusion as much as the small frown between her eyes, stealing away the
determination present in the hand resting upon the sword still at Regina’s
throat. “And what of what you will do, Your Majesty?”
“What I will do?” Regina questions, this time making the confusion hers, rather
than Mulan’s.
Looking wild rather than as severely serene as she has thus far, Mulan states
her next words with such certainty that they must surely be a prophecy.
“Something terrible – too determined to die or give up and with nothing left to
lose, you won’t forgive Snow White, and we will all pay for it.”
Something terrible,Regina thinks, wildly. Mulan’s not wrong, not in her
assessment nor in her soothsaying, for what else can Regina do but something
terrible? What else can she do when life, love and pride has been stolen from
her grasp repeatedly and cruelly, when retribution has been denied and when her
enemies thrive under the guise of promised happiness? What else might she do
when everything is lost but her resolve and her recklessness, when all she has
left is the prospect of stealing lives the same way the world stole hers when
it first made sure her path crossed Snow White’s? What else is left, when she’s
no one but the Evil Queen herself?
She laughs, maddeningly so, and it makes Mulan flinch, if her hold doesn’t
loosen, not on her wrist or her sword. How cruel, that someone with the
kindness swimming in Mulan’s eyes should be the one to decide whether the world
could be spared pain if only she slits the throat of someone she’s honored
bound to, someone she all but saved. How delightful, that for once in Regina’s
life it should be her that is spared pain by the benevolence of a stranger, in
much the same way Snow was once, when the huntsman refused to swing his sword
and unwittingly began the steady path towards the war fought and now lost.
Hinting at compassion, Regina lifts her free hand, not with harming intent or
with clumsy magic brimming inside it, but with softness in its touch when she
leans it on the apple of Mulan’s cheek. The skin under hers is rougher than
expected, but nice to the touch, and Regina cups the cheek under her hand
without shame, hating that Mulan won’t allow herself the weakness of leaning
into the caress.
“Don’t worry yourself over nothing, dear,” Regina coos. “Me and my evil deeds
are not on you, and you don’t want my blood on your hands. Let us walk this
path together for as long as we must, and I promise we shall part ways
peacefully, my thankfulness and the secret to freeing pretty Princess Aurora in
your hands.”
The clouds in Mulan’s eyes don’t dissipate, her stony expression revealing
nothing. Mulan has no desire for blood, however, if her hands are quite capable
of claiming it, and soon enough she’s stepping back, liberating Regina from her
deadly embrace and stepping back from her touch, embarrassment present in her
flushed cheeks and the closed off demeanor she puts back her sword with. She
looks down and away from her Regina, displeased.
“Get some sleep,” she orders then. “We will end our journey tomorrow, and then
we can be done with each other.” 
===============================================================================
 
Regina’s home – the Dark Palace, as it has come to be known in the past years,
ever since she’d claimed it for herself along with her title of Evil Queen –
appears before her eyes at sunlight the next day, and by the time the sun is
high up in the sky, as bright as it dares be in the cloudless winter day that
has thus awoken, midday has struck and Regina walks the threshold of her
property with her small party in tow. A smattering of children, ill-dressed yet
mildly well-behaved and definitely well-fed had followed them from the moment
they’d first crossed the Royal State, and they only stop their bellowing race
once the horses have made their way past the front gates, where soldiers
welcome them instead.
It takes a minute before she’s recognized, and Regina can’t help the upturn of
her mouth when the few guards present first try to stop them, and then suddenly
bow before them once the quickest one of them all spots her and alerts the rest
with a gasped out order. There is too much movement then, and in the moment it
takes for Regina to dismount from her place above Mulan’s horse and for her
feet to touch the cold marble floors of her front patio, a commotion has
unleashed before her, soldiers trying at once to kneel, call for a higher
authority, and point their swords at Regina’s companions with uncertainty and
murderous intent both, lest they be kidnappers rather than saviors. Regina
clears up the confusion with ease, finding immense relief when her orders are
followed quickly and exactly, and when Mulan and Prince Phillip are freed of
threats by nothing but her own will. And oh, how she’s missed command and
obedience, how sweet it is to be queen and be answered to with such swift
loyalty.
It isn’t long before familiar faces crowd the entrance, Duchess Adela at the
front and followed by her ever-loyal Claude, old Countess Ninny and her
granddaughters making haste inasmuch as the old woman’s legs permit. Not far
behind them, Regina catches sight of the huntsman’s glassy eyes, but she
doesn’t linger, not when he’s guarding father’s steps, who is running at the
risk of his own knees, Regina knows, always weak and now even more so as the
years pass and travelling becomes uncomfortable. It is to him Regina runs
nonetheless, her own tiredness giving way only once she’s all but collapsed
into his arms, both of hers around his shoulders and her face finding her
favorite hideaway spot against his neck, where he smells of powder and a hint
of tobacco. He cries even when Regina finds that she cannot, maybe the public
about her not allowing her the freedom to do so, or maybe her exhaustion being
much too heavy to bear the tightness of tears. She clings to father, however,
listens to his softly spoken words even as she shushes them, finding comfort
and giving it back in equal measure. It’s foolish to take too long a time in
such manner, though, when Regina’s body is ready to collapse at any second, and
when she would rather spare herself the humiliation of yet another public
fainting spell. Thus, she takes command of her court with familiarity and
orders herself taken to her chambers, a bath prepared, her windows opened
widely and every comfort provided. Having nearly forgotten about her party of
saviors, it is her espionage of Mulan’s hardened face on the corner of her eye
what makes her order them cared for as well.
Ridding her mind of the memories of the past few days with the same ease she
later rids herself of her borrowed clothes, Regina soon enough finds herself
alone in her bedchambers, father and Adela having been sent away with the
excuse of taking a bath, and her lady’s maid having understood Regina’s desire
for solitude after one single pointed look. Thus, and for the first time in
nearly a year, Regina finds herself completely and utterly alone. After the
war, after her imprisonment, and after the last stroke of fate that had taken
her to Mulan and Phillip, she’s finally free of any presence, friend or foe,
and left to fend for herself in the confines of her own bedchambers. She
breathes in slowly, keenly aware of the air going in through her nose and out
of her mouth, noisy as it does so, ever louder until she realizes that she’s
panting, an odd mix of exhaustion and fear making her anxious. The room is
bright and big, however, filled with the cold comfort of luxury, the linens
under her hands soft against the fingers she curls about them, and the rich and
heavy drapes billowing smoothly with the wintry winds filtering from the open
view of her balcony. It smells fresh, of the colorful winter pansies and blue
forget-me-nots that have surely been set just for her pleasure by the windows,
so the wind will hit them and their scent will carry. Regina forces herself to
take a deep breath, to soak in the wafting essences and forget the grime and
foulness of war and incarceration, the smell of rotting flesh, dampness and the
dusty, pervasive and ancient density of death. It doesn’t quite work, her body
still undecided in between revulsion and relief.
Regina closes her eyes, tries to decide between dipping herself in the warm
water of her bath or simply collapsing on the bed and hoping for the bliss of
dreamless sleep. She hardly remembers the last time her body rested on her
comfortable bed, but then again, she hasn’t taken a bath since her ill-fated
visit to Maleficent’s fortress, and cleanliness may just offer a further sigh
of not just simple relief, but a recovery of her sense of self, lost somewhere
in between her efforts at being a war chief and her time as a condemned
criminal against the crown. Eyes closed and fighting to slow down her
breathing, Regina is suddenly struck with a stab of a memory, an undesired
remembrance of the many winters spent scurrying through the corners of this
palace, and only enjoying the pleasures of walking without a care when joined
by Snow White. The hold of the memory is strong and unrelenting, perhaps
because it is held with the consideration of her mortal flesh, her mortal love,
and so it is bewildering in its fierceness, lodged as it is in her early
womanhood and Snow’s childhood both – one late winter evening, when the sun had
waned yet they had found themselves by the edges of the Royal State, horses
abandoned a few steps behind after Snow had capriciously began climbing a small
slope in search for a smattering of light pink primroses that had matched the
color of her winter-chilled cheeks. Young and uncaring, Snow hadn’t worried
about the bottom of her rich, light blue coat, now hopelessly covered in dust,
nor had she cared for Regina’s warning against the dangers of the slippery
ground. And Regina remembers then, almost as if she were back then and there,
the perverse delicacy of her own mind, which had so immediately betrayed her
desire for Snow to tumble down and hurt herself, to maybe break an arm or a
leg, to come out of her adventure with scratches and bruises, with tears
marring her pretty, pretty face. So strong had Regina’s cruelty struck her that
she’d endeavored to climb after Snow herself, just to keep her safe, so as not
to give into her worst and most secret desires, so eager to deny what she was
turning into back then, and to preserve her already darkened heart from further
obscurity.
“I have it now!” Snow had exclaimed, still chubby hands freed of her gloves and
now busy forming a bouquet of wild flowers, and babbling about bringing them
back to light up her bedchambers, eager for them as if her rooms weren’t
perennially swarmed in flowers by the palace’s servants.
Regina had smiled at her then, the ever-spoiling and sweet companion that she’d
forced herself to be back then, doing her best at ignoring the twisting dagger
of hatred making itself a deep hole within her chest. The butcher knife
stabbing at her heart twists itself now, painfully so, bringing Regina out of
her daydream with such suddenness that she feels faint with dizziness, a thin
sheen of cold sweat breaking on her forehead.
“Snow White,” she intones, speaking at the empty bedroom at large, at no one
truly and yet at everyone that can’t possibly hear.
Snow White and her pretty little hands, shaping her destiny even now, first by
stealing life away from her with her soft spoken desires and her well-
intentioned notions, and now keeping her away from death with more of the same.
How she always thinks she knows better, the little brat, and how Regina will
make her pay for it. The thought is sudden, yet not surprising – you’re going
to do something terrible,Mulan had said, and how right she’d been in her
judgment. But then, Snow White had set her free on the world once more, so
won’t Regina’s actions from this moment on rest upon the princess’ shoulders?
Yes, they shall indeed, and so the destruction of the world will come by her
hand but by Snow White’s will, the privilege that had once destroyed Regina’s
dreams now cause for everyone else’s to follow. After all, whatever little
spell Rumpelstiltskin had cast in order to protect Snow and her prince won’t
stop her from hurting anyone else, so she might as well make use of such a
selfish and thoughtless act.
Feeling just a tad more invigorated, Regina casts her thoughts away in favor of
the mind-numbing actions of taking care of herself. She finds herself in one of
her mirrors, and sees the poor figure that she cuts, clad in a baggy shirt that
yet manages to be tight about her bust. She divests herself with a sudden and
desperate need, and then uncoils her oily hair to the best of her abilities,
hating the sight that welcomes her. Nonetheless, before lowering herself into
the tub, she takes a good and long look, taking account of the yellowish
bruises, the chaffed skin of her thighs, the as of yet unhealed cut on her
cheek and the slight swelling around it, the greyish color her skin, now
completely devoid of the warm tan the war had afforded her, her sunken eyes and
the bags under them, black as bruises and only made more noticeable by her
sharpened cheeks. She looks brittle, a porcelain doll that has gone uncared
for, marked by age and abuse. She refuses to be such a thing, however, and so
she steps into the warm water and uses her bell to call her lady’s maid, her
solitude not as precious now that she needs the war and imprisonment scrubbed
away from her skin, perfumed and powdered away until there’s nothing left of it
on her skin.
There is only so much water and her lady’s maid determined scrubbing can do for
her, however, and even while shrouded under the fine fabrics of her nightgown
and thick robe, and scented with lavender and sandalwood, Regina’s bones are
weary and her spirit just as well, and rightly so. Hatred can only carry her so
far, after all, and on this very evening, it only manages to help her stumble
her way towards her bed, all the while rejecting offers for food that she knows
she won’t be able to stomach.
Blissfully, sleep comes to her, and when she wakes up, she does so to a bright
winter morning and soft breeze filtering through her open windows, carrying
with it the faint scent of winter flowers and clean humidity. More so, she
opens her eyes to the sight of father, carefully hunched on one of her chairs
and reaching out for her, one papery thin hand holding onto one of hers. Regina
smiles softly at the sight, and searches for his cheek to kiss after throwing
furs and covers away from herself. Clad in thick slippers and an even thicker
robe, she takes the few steps that separate her from her balcony and stands by
the doors, closing her eyes against the weak sunrays and breathing in the cold
air, taking in the freshness and luxury, finally allowing herself to relish in
her freedom. She’d been so close to death, and quite ready to welcome it too,
yet the flash of fear her chest had palpitated with when her face had been
covered and her back so surely secured against the execution pole had been real
and vulnerable, a sign perhaps that there is still life left for her to live.
As for what to do with it, well, as much as she refuses to give definitive
shape to the storm brewing inside her, she’s quite certain her mind is made up
already. Something terrible,indeed.
Father insists on breakfast, sweetly so, and Regina sits with him gladly,
swarmed by the nostalgia of shared meals and a table nicely set before her.
However, her poor appetitive only allows her to force a few bites of smoked
salmon and soaked bread past her lips, and even that is too much of an effort.
Concern laces father’s brows, and soon it follows with her lady’s maid’s and
Adela’s, the three of them looking at her as if she may just collapse any
second. Truth be told, Regina finds herself inclined to agree, yet her mind
feels so completely free of mundane worries that it’s hard to pay attention to
their furrowed faces and words of advice. Nonetheless, Adela insists on her
care, and Regina allows her old and wise woman to inspect her, all the while
listening to Adela prattle about the news of the kingdom that Regina hasn’t
asked for yet. She listens to them both with half an ear, dismissing the old
woman when she looks at the paleness of her face and then her nails, when she
asks about the numbing sensation on her limbs and when she prescribes a diet of
eggs, leeks and liver meats, all of which sounds so entirely unappetizing than
paying much more attention would surely make her sick.
Adela, dutifully fulfilling what she believes to be her duties, even if such
notions are foolish now that Regina is no longer queen, insists on informing
Regina of every small detail that she believes to be of importance. And so it
is that Regina spends the next three days being persecuted by her advisor and
her father both, one seeking decisions on the next steps to take, all the while
the other worries over Regina’s lack of obedience in terms of her care. The
truth of the matter is that Regina feels as if she might just be somewhere
else, her dresses and her chambers failing to remind her of who she is, or
perhaps forcing her to rethink her place in the world. After all, no longer
queen, what is it that she has left to decide upon? There is certainly the few
straggled souls that have made the palace their sanctuary and refuge, and there
is the new rule of Snow White to think about, but Regina no longer should think
in terms of laws and kingdoms, in the strict norms settled upon the title of
queen. Even if she’d so adamantly broken rules and standards with delight as
part of her dominance and defiance, no longer can her actions be deemed as
unlawful, since there is no rule by which to live under anymore. She’s been
cast out, after all, an exile even within her own walls, whoever remains by her
side a prisoner of a world outside of the world itself. It feels delightful,
yet displeasingly hesitant, full of possibilities yet infuriating in its own
limitations. What to do, Regina thinks, what to do if not punish the world that
dares cast her out?
It might be her magic, she thinks, and the strange ways it’s choosing to come
back to her, in bursts and bubbles, sometimes filling her up with such adamant
strength that she has to fire a spell of any kind somewhere, if just to feel
grounded to her own body rather than ready to fly high above the clouds. At
other moments, she fears it might be trapped still, imprisoned under the
fairies’ spell and unable to get out, so that she feels compelled to distill it
sweetly, carefully, aiming at precision rather than power. When that happens,
and she finally feels it trickle down her spine and past her breastbone,
tickling at her arms until it’s pooling inside her palms, bright and smooth,
relief washes upon her like never before. Nevertheless, she believes it’s
making her mind wobbly, if not a little weak, so that sharp focus is made
impossible. Her attention span is completely gone, and even her memory seems to
be lacking, so that she finds herself making Adela repeat her words, even if
she doesn’t particularly care for them very much at all.
Time passes regardless, and a week into her recovery, Regina finds herself lost
still. She endeavors to regain concentration, trying to find her old self by
wearing Daniel’s ring around her neck and holding onto it during the oppressive
hours of darkness, by taking long walks by father’s side, the huntsman trailing
them like a lost puppy, and daddy’s voice a smooth balm against her wandering
mind, by forcing just one more bite of food on every luxurious meal. Something
keeps nagging at her, however, stealing away her thoughts with abstract
attraction and notions of the absurd, something that tingles like magic and
whispers at her with the giggling hiss of Rumpelstiltskin’s schemes.
“A world made for you, Your Majesty; made byyou,” Rumpelstiltskin had said
once, a long time ago, before the war had even been an idea, before the death
of her little cousin and the madness that had followed, before an apple and a
sleeping curse, before a True Love’s kiss and a death sentence, before there
was nothing left to lose.
And how she hates him, malevolent imp, for pulling his strings and drawing his
paths, for pushing her towards war and death just to trick Snow into letting
her escape, a clause of safety settled upon her and her prince. For who else
could Snow’s ally be if not Rumpelstiltskin, and which other goal could he have
but to leave Regina no other answer than the Dark Curse he’d claimed to be her
destiny? Yet, how she might follow his lead, making of his games and schemes
the best that she possibly can, much as she’s done ever since that day she’d
first read his name from mother’s spell book.
She wavers, still, remembering the all-encompassing power of the Dark Curse,
the way it had muddled her thoughts just by being in her possession, the way it
had whispered its way into her head and her heart, speaking of retribution and
violent desires, of building a world of no order and no concert, other than
that which Regina herself desired. Even more so, she wavers at the thought of
mother’s hands around her wrists, of the shackles that had followed those of
motherly love – Leopold’s, Rumpelstiltskin’s, Snow’s – and how this curse may
just be but one more trap that she sets upon herself. Such are her thoughts,
and as her mind tumbles and falls about them, Adela’s words waterfall around
them without time to hold onto the edges of her mind. Thus, Adela crumbles with
angry agitation as she spins her stories, in turn infuriating Regina with her
severe black gown and her determination.
“I did advise against making a pirate into an ally, Your Majesty,” Adela chides
during a cozy afternoon, an uneaten plate of walnuts between them and sweet
cherry wine making Regina’s stomach feel queasy.
They’re sitting outside, the walls of the palace upsetting Regina today and
making her feel anxious, and even though it’s much too cold now that the sun
has almost set, she refuses the many offers made by the countess’ girls to walk
back inside. The gardens are beautiful this time of the year, any case, and the
scene before her is nearly picturesque in its quality. Wine is flowing freely,
and everyone is busy munching on something or other; nuts and fruits, a
privilege that many can’t afford on regular circumstances, much less so on the
hard times that are following the war. There are many people about her, and
Regina wonders, briefly and without caring much at all, how exactly they came
to be here, and why it is that they have decided to stay. The countess and her
girls were a given, much like Adela herself and her little charge, a few
stragglers of her army, all gathered about Claude, and the huntsman, an eternal
prisoner even now. Mulan and Prince Phillip join the party as well, and it is
only Mulan’s hard stare what makes Regina remember her saviors, who had left
her mind as promptly as they had left her side, and that now sit as an
uncomfortable reminder of a deal made, and which she must fulfill as soon as
possible, lest Mulan’s accusing glare turn into something more dangerous.
Prince Phillip, however, seems content to rest among them as of now, probably
far more used to the luxuries of court life, and to just how slowly royal
business tends to be conducted; after all, Regina did promise them the solution
to their little problem, but she very much didn’t state when she would fulfill
such a promise, a severe misstep on both her savior’s parts. She has no plans
to keep them trapped here, but she certainly can’t account for her feeble mind
these days, and for whether they will slip her thoughts completely yet again or
not.
She drags her gaze over the small gathering once more before bringing blinking
eyes back to Adela, her pinched expression displeasingly bothersome. Honestly,
that the woman insists on such sobriety even now, not just in her demeanor but
also in her every word and in the severe black gown covering just about every
inch of skin. Even her beautiful hands are hidden behind gloves today, and her
face too is partially covered under black netting, making her look like Regina
used to imagine ghostly widows might as a child, whenever father summoned them
in his stories.
“Yes, Duchess?” she intones, bored out of her mind yet inescapably bound to the
severity written in Adela’s eyes, that air about her that never fails to remind
Regina of mother.
“As I was saying, I did advise against making a pirate into an ally, Your
Majesty,” she insists, offended by the mere thought of having to repeat
herself.
Regina motions vaguely at the air about them, so that Adela may elaborate on
the thought, however useless it may be. As she speaks, Regina’s mind finds just
a smidgeon of focus, and reminds her that Adela had been telling her about the
fate of her Navy, which Regina had honestly forgotten all about even before the
war had ended. After all, everything had been lost on the maritime front quite
early, Prince Eric’s forces far outnumbering her own and counting with a naval
experience bred from the history and traditions of his kingdom. Adela informs
her that Nubia had survived, however, and so had a few of the strongest ships
of the fleet, a number of which Nubia had chosen to make a statement with. The
duchess tells her that at least ten galleons and warships had been burnt by the
waters of the Royal Castle’s cliff, leaving Snow and her prince to watch as
they were lost to the fire. Two carracks had remained, along with a small and
fast caravel that Leopold had inherited from his father and had favored above
every other ship, and which Regina had been more than pleased to gift Nubia for
a flagship after their first meeting. Nubia had taken all three of them under
her command and under a pirate a flag once news of Regina’s sentence had been
made public, and had sailed away never to be heard of again. Adela is appalled
by it all, but Regina can’t help but laugh at the tale.
“Is there nothing that will make you grieve your losses, Your Majesty?” Adela
questions.
Regina shakes her head, thinking of the pirate queen with sudden fondness,
remembering the days spent with her between the sheets and staring at the seas
she’d so loved, listening to her speak of faraway lands that smelled of
currants and saffron, kissing her scars with wet and willing lips. She rather
cherishes the thought that Nubia is still out there, free and alive and
beautiful, than to think her foolish enough to remain by Regina’s side when
he’d thought her doomed, and resign herself to a fate that didn’t befit her.
“I’d rather Nubia run away with my ships than have them become an asset to
Snow’s kingdom,” is what she says instead, causing the duchess to hum
ambiguously, as if unsure on whether she should disapprove of any notion that
proves to be a disadvantage for Snow White.
“Her duty as Naval Officer, howev–”
“Oh, duchess, do spare me your stuffiness for once; we are all having fun
today, are we not?”
Soft, gay laughter follows her statement, and Regina quickly finds the source
somewhere at the far end of the gardens, where a small group of four toast her
way as soon as they meet her gaze. Regina had missed the group completely, but
she easily recognizes Lord Ashton and his closest ally, Lord Dwennon,
accompanied by their lovely wives. Both Lords had once upon a time been the
worst-kept secret of the kingdom’s court, lovers from the day they’d met each
other and married to equally resigned sisters who had probably been happy to
pop the mandatory child and forget about the affections which their respective
husbands weren’t keen to provide. They had always made for a funny little
foursome, both the men fanciful gentlemen with a taste for luxury, and both
women making the best out of husbands who were happy to spend money on them and
expected nothing in the form of physical affection. As far as court members go,
Regina had decidedly had a predilection for the four of them, if she’d never
been under the impression that they were anything more than shallow
entertainment. Truth be told, she’d been positive they would have sold their
own mothers if it meant not having to work, which makes their presence here all
the more surprising. A nice surprise they are, nonetheless, more so when Regina
remembers that one of the sisters had had a penchant for pretty women herself,
and had once spent a night on Regina’s bed, laughing merrily at the absurdity
of her life and that of her husband’s. Thoughtlessly, Regina directs a bright
smile her way, and wonders at the possibilities. After all, if her mind insists
on wandering so, perhaps all she needs is to ground herself back into her body
by occupying her thoughts with nothing but a pretty mouth between her legs.
The thought is brief, however, and even as Regina endeavors to chase after it
and revel in the idea of pleasure, she finds herself impossibly distracted by a
bout of unusual nostalgia. The lords and their wives bring forth hollow
sentimentality over the mish-mash of people that she has had to endure during a
lifetime where she has cared for few and detested many. She wonders just how
many of her so called allies would have applauded her death, how many were
present when Snow was meant to end her, and how many would have relished the
sight of her dead body. She finds the thought horrendously morbid, and escapes
it by turning once more towards the duchess, meeting her eyes and finding a
sort of desperation settled within them.
Regina thinks the duchess may be unraveling before her, that she may have just
been doing so from the moment she stepped inside Regina’s cell and was forced
to face the fate of someone she had come to respect. It disgusts Regina,
viscerally so, and she would hate the duchess for it if it only didn’t give her
an excuse to remain strong, and to refuse the coddling being offered with
coldness. Someone must endure, after all, she muses.
Still, Regina can’t quite shake her distaste, which only settles more firmly
against her breastbone at the sight of Adela’s ill-boding black gown. The thick
fabric of it falls heavily around the duchess, and yet where other women of
similar size would have been dwarfed by the somber ensemble, the duchess looks
imposing, completely composed but for what she finds to be glassy eyes. Regina
has the sudden and absurd thought of pulling the pleated veil holding her hair
up away from her very head, tugging at it until the rich chiffon is torn.
“Must it be black today, Adela?” Regina questions, the roughness of her voice
pulling uncomfortably at her throat. “Have we not defeated death by the
sanctimonious desires of the new queen? Surely you mustn’t wear black for me,
duchess, not when I myself would have rather have gone in red, had I been given
a choice on the matter; or purple, perhaps. Something pretty and expensive,
most definitely, impractical by every standard of propriety,” Regina
fantasizes, pulling yet again a chorus of laughter from somewhere in her
audience. “Death is such an ugly thing, wouldn’t you agree? I rather fancy
making a beautiful corpse – when the time does come, will you have me buried in
something darling, duchess?”
“Quit your jesting, you – you improper infant,” the duchess snaps, so suddenly
and out of character that Regina flinches, the barb landing unexpectedly unkind
and almost physically against her chest.
Regina reacts with unwitting violence, standing up as her hand shoots forward,
curling around thin air and willing it to do so about the duchess’ neck, too.
Her magic bursts forward, yet Regina denies it escape despite her most foolish
and underlying instincts. Even so, the duchess stands up as well and trips
backwards, her foot catching the tail of her dress and making the movement
clumsy enough to shake her severe demeanor momentarily, betraying something
akin to misery in the expression hidden behind the elegant netting of her
headwear. Regina spots the weakness with boundless hunger and despair both, and
feeling disappointed, scoffs and takes one step back, allowing for breathing
space in between them.
“Pardon me, Your Majesty, I–”
“Duchess,” Regina stresses through gritted teeth, hoping to get the woman
before her to behave in a manner that neither frustrates not angers her.
The duchess purses her lips, and the gesture must bring her back to her senses,
for she immediately snaps her shoulders back, tensing her frame as she looks up
and straight into Regina’s eyes, whatever intentions towards hiding she’d been
harboring not seconds before now completely gone. She stretches a steady hand,
then, and offers Regina a small and pretty wooden box, light red oak crafted by
masterful hands in a simple and clean motif. Nothing good has ever come of
pretty boxes of mysterious origins, but then Regina is at a standstill, and
what could possibly affect her now? She reaches out herself, taking the small
object and prying it open carelessly, if taking a moment to appreciate the rich
fabric lining holding what looks like a tear shaped pendant on a long and
intricate gold chain.
“Very beautiful,” she muses. “Old fashioned craftsmanship, if I may say so. Now
whatis this, duchess, and what is it that you intend for me to do with it?”
Regina is quick to question, frustrated beyond belief. It is too late for
mysteries, considering she’s never had much patience for them to being with.
“Duke Nicholas would have you forgive him for the sentimentality, but he had no
wife nor daughter to speak of, and it is a dear family heirloom,” Adela
explains, her tone, flat and nearly disinterested, not quite managing to mask
the dejection of what lies in between her words.
Regina blinks her way, wordlessly willing her to go on, her mouth suddenly dry
and her parched lips glued together by her inability to form the questions
piling at the forefront of her mind. Duke Nicholas, she wonders, and for the
first time in far too long weeks she remembers her dutiful Military Advisor,
and how she hasn’t seen him since that last day on the battlefield.
“You forgot about the Duke, did you not? After everything you were to him,
after changing his very spirit and becoming–”
“Duchess, speak clearly, and do so now.”
Scoffing, clearly having a hard time stopping her first tirade, Adela explains,
“The duke saw fit to take it upon himself to protest against your execution
with a handful of foolish men, sword in hand and no hope to speak of. He
berated me, the stubborn man, for even contemplating a life under Snow White’s
rule, and he wouldn’t listen to reason, he wouldn’t–“ Adela stops, breathes in
as if in need of containing her own emotions, and continues, “No wonder you
were both such comrades in arms at all times. He refused to live longer than
you, I believe.”
“How – When?”
“On the night it was made official. I was–I saw–well, there was a commotion and
so much blood; do not think he didn’t take some soldiers on his way out
but–he’s gone now,” the duchess finishes with a long sigh, as if expelling her
grief by the mere act of describing the facts. “The execution was postponed,
you must remember, out of respect, so you see, Your Majesty, the black isn’t
for you – not today.”
The words are a trigger, and Regina succumbs to an abrupt and terrible
magnification of all sensations – the hard collar of her gown feeling like
starch where it meets the leather of her corset, the quiet chitter of the few
winter birds inhabiting the gardens seeming like the squawk of a giant beast,
and the cold night breeze making itself pervasive enough to cause shivers. All
of Regina quivers, grounding her inside her body in the most uncomfortable way.
Rather than finding her own bones a comforting thought, she feels heavy and
clumsy, her hands spidery and numb when she places them against her belly,
where liquid cold settles painfully. She has the sudden thought of being stared
at, and realizes that she is indeed being inspected by every pair of eyes
surrounding her, which seem keen on exposing her weaknesses and flaws. She
flees, uncaring of the thoughts her escape will afford, and finding relief in
the swift swirl of magic that takes her straight into her bedchambers and into
the arms of solitude.
Regina stumbles forward and into her bed, remaining still and dazed for long
enough that eventually, there are knocks and voices at her doors; father, she
thinks. She sends him away, though, unwilling to allow him to pull at her heart
until she gives way to grief. She has no tears left, has no energy to spare on
regret, and no pity for a man that made his choices and stood by them. A man
that she’d forgotten in the whirlwind of her own predicament, and who had
kissed life goodbye behind the curtains, leaving her with nothing but a trinket
for a keepsake. The small pendant is still resting inside the hollow of her
hand, and Regina stares at it, dumbfounded, wanting to laugh and cry at the
same time. She thinks of little Prince Bernard, who had abandoned her in much
the same fashion, and who had too left a bauble for her; she thinks of Little
Ace, who had gone in silent agony and had had no time to spare Regina a token
of their short-lived affections. She refuses to think of the cold touch of the
chain holding Daniel’s ring around her collarbones, refuses to give new life to
her oldest and most powerful despair.
Instead, Regina sinks into sleep, looking for oblivion. Her dreams afford her
none, however, and she conjures up aimless, convoluted illusions – dreams
within dreams of ludicrous pursuit, of quests for unknown prizes that take her
to harsh destinations, up steep stairways, by alleys and labyrinthine pathways
that begin at Wonderland and finish at the manor where she’d spent her
childhood, that see her cross the threshold of a never seen before white
mansion, and finally across garishly lit basements and tunnels that lead her to
the dank cell at the top of the Royal Castle’s tower, which in turn transforms
itself into the nightmarish confines of the cellar she would be imprisoned
within by mother’s orders as a child. Her goal is an enigma, and so her dreams
just trail up and down until Regina doesn’t know whether she’s running towards
something or away from it, only that her steps are heavy and cacophonously
deafening, nothing but the cry of a child managing to get through them.
Dreamlike spaces twist and turn and then Regina is running yet again, always
running, down a dusty path and towards a cry and she knows this dream – it is
no dream at all, but the prophecy Maleficent’s unicorn had once shown her, of a
woman and a baby and Regina’s saving hands, and Regina wants to
runrunruntowards it, to a goal that now seems more certain than anything.
She wakes up abruptly with fear in her breathless pants and something dark
twisting at her gut. The darkness outside confounds her, making her feel as if
she’s still inside her dreams, still following one path and then the other,
never knowing whether she’s walking forwards or backwards, whether she will
find her childhood nightmares or the uncertainty of the future. She’s lost, she
realizes, physically and mentally and in every other possible way, anxiety
muddling her every thought. She was meant to die or conquer, yet Snow had
condemned to a nightmare where she can do none, where she’s no longer queen yet
she hasn’t been defeated, where there’s still magic and power coursing through
her veins yet where everything she’s built for herself is destroyed. And now,
with one less advisor by her side, with no one that she cares to trust, she’s
lost, open wide to notions and ideas that at other times she has adamantly
rejected. Why else, if not, does she find herself so utterly conquered by the
thought of the Dark Curse?
Restless, Regina groans as she scooches to the edge of the bed and settles her
naked feet down on the floor, enjoying the warm feeling of the rug under her
soles. She stands up then, quickly stepping into her slippers and her thick
robe, so as not to completely loose the warmth from the furs and heavy linens
of her bed, and all the while ignoring the brisk glimpses her mirror offers her
even in the dimness of the room. The moon is shining brightly enough, and
Regina wants to ignore what she imagines to be her own haggard appearance,
certain that all she’ll see are eyes like bruises and a too pale complexion.
Adela had insisted at some point that she’s suffering from a deficiency of the
blood, and she’d recommended a diet that had forced Regina into swallowing a
tasteless lentil stew for a meal, the memory of which assaults her senses now
with nauseating effects. She gags, and promises herself that she’ll eat nothing
but that which pleases her anymore, since none of the suggested remedies seem
to be helping her look nor feel healthier anyway.
As means of shaking her agitation away, Regina chooses to step away from her
chambers, deciding that she would rather appreciate the sight of what must
surely be a beautiful night, and that she fancies a bit of a walk, instead of
the stillness of her balcony. She must do something with her swirling thoughts,
and giving her body impulse and motion will surely put her mind at ease, if
nothing else. Outside of her chambers and by her door, she finds daddy, asleep
on a chair and probably uncomfortable beyond belief, the hefty woolen blanket
someone must have thrown over him crumpled on the floor at his feet. Next to
him and slumped on the floor against the wall, is the huntsman, asleep as well
in much the same manner a dog might at the feet of his caring owner.
Regina takes a moment to pick up the blanket from the floor and settle it over
father’s small frame, carefully tucking it about his shoulders and neck, so it
won’t fall again. He looks and feels small to her, and the sight hits her with
a sigh of absolute and unbridled tenderness.
“Daddy, oh, daddy,” she whispers, placing a small kiss on his forehead and
smoothing the wild white hairs at his temple. “Toda va a ir bien, papi; te lo
prometo, te lo prometo. No sé cómo todavía, pero vamos a superar esto, y todo
va a ir bien.” (1)
Soon, Regina is walking outside and by the edges of the garden, her steps
thoughtless. It’s cold, but the night is clear, so the stars are bright above
her and so is the moon, round and full and grey, making for a strange sense of
satisfaction to settle upon Regina’s shoulders. She encounters a few guards in
her way, and receives courteous greetings from them. She also finds Lord
Ashton, Lord Dwennon and their wives engaged in a card game at candlelight,
laughing gaily and making it seem like the most common of entertainments for
bored court members to engage in. She offers them a bit of a smile, listens
with only half an ear to their invitation to join the silly game, and keeps
walking until there is no one around.
The palace’s gardens have been spared the fire and brimstone that many forests
have fallen prey to during the war, yet they have certainly gained an air of
wildness and carelessness, a bit of disorder that Regina decides she quite
likes. It makes her feel as if in a place she’s never been to before, as if she
could truly get lost in the mazes of greenery and sweet smells, with nothing
but the random bouts of winter breeze causing the leaves to stir.
Despite her walk following no rhyme nor reason, she realizes eventually that
she’s making her way towards the palace’s graveyard, the sight of which causes
a sigh to lodge at the base of throat and tease at her with tightness. She
steps into the hallowed ground nonetheless and soon finds exactly what she may
have been unwittingly looking for. The newest slab sits grey, small and still,
its carved letters reading simply Duke Nicholas, with no other quote or title
afforded to the man. He’d never been a man of many words, and it suits his
spirit. Truth be told, she hadn’t expected to find him here, not knowing
whether the transportation would have been allowed since his death had happened
at the Royal Palace, but of course Snow had allowed it, kind and lacking
pettiness even in this.
“Insipid child,” she murmurs under her breath, “of course you couldn’t be
expected to put up with her or her rule, of course.” Then, suddenly angry, “But
how foolish, too, dear duke, how silly for an old man like you to go down on a
blaze of glory on your queen’s name. Whose advice am I to ignore now, huh?
Adela has already given up on me, and I think I might do something quite
terrible, duke, something definitive.”
Silence is all the answer she gets, and she only snaps out of a momentary
nostalgic spell when the wind rustles the trees surrounding the small
collection of graves. Regina casts her eyes far and away from the duke’s
resting place, her gaze catching minutely at Little Ace’s tombstone, engraved
with her full name and some quote Regina had never bothered to read. Father had
chosen it, she thinks, or maybe her little cousin herself before she’d passed,
but it hardly matters when it probably fails at encompassing Little Ace’s wild
soul.
Further back, a shrubbery of thick brambles has been allowed to grow over the
late king’s respective place. Snow had rejected the idea of a mausoleum back in
the day, respectful of her father’s simple tastes, and had had a white, marble
slab engraved with the words King Leopold, beloved father and
kinginstead.Regina remembers softly talking her out of adding the word
husbandto the memorial, carding some story about the importance of his role as
monarch, and the extension of such as father, and how his romantic endeavors
should only pale before those.
“Regina, you are so kind, ever so kind, and he loved you so very much,” Snow
had answered, even as she let go of the idea of crowing her father’s death with
the one word that would join him to Regina in eternity.
Regina smirks now, happy that she’d ordered the thickets of greens to be
planted by the king’s tomb, so that she may completely forget him, his
wandering hands and the engagement ring he had imprisoned her with. She escapes
the thoughts of her late husband with determination, turning her eyes up
towards the sky and the pretty moon, breathing in the cold air. A few moments
pass, and she hugs herself for warmth, bringing her robe closer about her
frame. It’s time for her to go back, and to try catch a smidgeon of dreamless
sleep, she thinks. Perhaps tomorrow her mind won’t be as feeble, and she will
be able to turn her efforts towards something other than idleness, which she’s
sure is what Duke Nicholas would have asked of her.
“Dear duke…” she whispers one last time.
“I am deeply sorry for your loss.”
Regina startles, not enough that magic springs forward but definitely enough to
make her jump and gasp, turning her frame jerkily towards the sound. Had Mulan
spoken a little louder, she may have just broiled her on the spot, a fact of
which she informs her promptly.
“Sorry,” Mulan replies, her little smile betraying that she’s anything but.
Regina closes her eyes into slits, regarding her sudden companion with keen
interest. Mulan’s dressed down enough that Regina nearly misses the dagger
safely tucked at her waist, cinched about it and settled along her thigh
comfortably. It’s not her sword, but Regina doesn’t doubt she could do just as
much damage with it, if not more, given Regina’s own choice of clothing, her
nightgown and robe certainly much more vulnerable than any of her thick
corseted gowns would have been. Mulan looks relaxed however, whether because
she actually is or because her attire suggests so Regina can’t be sure,
however. Out of her armor and in simple breeches, boots and shirt, all clean
and settled snugly about her shoulders and torso, she casts an air of ease
about her, of agility and litheness. Regina envies it briefly, and then
contents herself with being able to enjoy the beautiful sight that she makes.
“You have wandered far,” Regina states, noting the interested way in which
Mulan is looking about her, at the thick trees and whatever may lay beyond
them.
After the briefest of smiles, Mulan confesses, “I’m looking for means of
escape, shall the need arise.”
“Escape?” Regina’s eyebrows climb up her forehead, surprised and delighted at
the same time. Curse her ailing mind that had allowed her to forget just how
much she’d enjoyed Mulan and her mysteries during their time together.
Gathering her wits about her, Regina smiles herself, and questions, “Are you
not being treated adequately, that you would leave me so soon?”
“Oh no,” Mulan reassures, her searching eyes wandering back to Regina. “The
warm bathing water has been a blessing, and I have never before slept in a bed
so comfortable, or been fed with such care.”
“Then?”
“A comfortable prison is still a prison.”
Regina laughs at that, the sound loud and carrying with the wind. “You’re free
to leave, dear; when I decide to keep you for myself, I will let you know,” she
lets suggestion leak into her tone, and even endeavors to wink Mulan’s way,
even if the gesture has always managed to escape her and make her look a little
funny.
It’s all wasted on Mulan, any case, who either doesn’t notice her antics or
doesn’t care for them, and who simply tenses what had up until now been a nice
smile. The white pressure about her lips hardens her whole expression, making
her following words all the more serious for it.
“A bargain was struck, Your Majesty, and you have failed to fulfill your end of
it.”
Regina sighs, her wavering at whether teasing Mulan further would be amusing or
not short-lived. She’s rather tired, she finds, and she has no wish to tease
someone as stony as Mulan has proven to be, nor to spend time with someone who
would rather be anywhere else. Thus, with a flourish of her hand and a spark of
the magic that is now back under her full command, she conjures up a written
parchment and a vial of shiny potion.
“I confess our little deal may have escaped my mind,” Regina says, pursing her
lips, “however, I do not break my promises.” Reaching out, she offers both
objects to Mulan, who wraps a greedy hand about the vial and looks at the
written words before her with interest.
Her agreed prize in hand, Mulan’s shoulders seem to relax, and she
absentmindedly walks towards the closest stone bench she can find and sits down
blindly, her eyes scanning the words as her lips mouth them silently. Regina
used to do the same as a child whenever she’d wanted to memorize something,
usually whichever snippet of knowledge mother had decided to make her priority
on any given day, but Regina guesses Mulan might be doing so for a different
reason. Regina can’t completely guess at the woman’s background, even if it’s
obvious to her that she doesn’t come from the same kind of upbringing her
companion Phillip does. She might not be royalty, but Regina knows her to be
educated, if perhaps not much in the same manner as herself. Nonetheless, she
believes the common tongue might not be Mulan’s native one, and that her
mouthing the words might be an easy way to help herself understand and
translate.
Feeling serene herself and having let go of the restlessness that had thrown
her out of bed, Regina sits by Mulan, close enough that she can feel the warmth
from where their thighs would be touching if only she would inch just a bit to
the side.
“It will take you some time to gather all ingredients, but I have provided you
with the magic you will need to finish the potion,” Regina informs, taking on
the tone of a bored teacher. “Of course, once the first spell is broken, you’ll
find your princess under a sleeping curse, which I can do nothing about.”
“She’s not my princess,” Mulan snaps, a warm blush spreading through her cheeks
immediately, and prompting Regina’s laughter.
Mulan’s embarrassment is so deliciously pretty that Regina would love nothing
more than to lean towards her and kiss her lips. Unfortunately, she’s positive
Mulan wouldn’t allow for such a thing, and Regina doesn’t take particularly
well to rejection, so she keeps to herself. In any case, Mulan doesn’t leave
her much time to ponder the possibilities, instead clearing her throat at
directing her attention forward and at the graves before them.
“He was a close friend?” she asks, motioning vaguely forward.
Regina shrugs, unsure of how much she wants to share or of whether she wants to
be here at all. It seems to her that Mulan is taking much too many liberties
around her, and that Regina is simply letting her get away with them. After
all, not a week ago, she’d had Mulan’s sword at her neck, which should have
been enough reason to throw her in her dungeons and completely forget ever
meeting her in the first place. She’s not quite sure why she hasn’t done just
that, and if she’s honest with herself, she may find a well of thankfulness for
the warrior and her companion that she refuses to explore. It would do nothing
other than remind her how little kindness she’s known, and how eager she’s for
it, that she’ll forgive trespasses and liberties with pleasure.
Whatever the case, Regina finds herself answering Mulan’s question, and letting
her mind run with her words. “The duke was my late husband’s Military Advisor.”
“Your husband?”
“The king.”
Mulan blinks at her, mouthing a quiet, “right, the king,” as if the notion that
Regina’s title was something she married into, rather than something that she
was born with is bizarre. “And he became yours?”
“Something along those lines, I suppose,” Regina muses, laughing softly as she
recounts, “Duke Nicholas wouldn’t even look at a woman back in the good old
days,” and this she says affecting an accent, as if she were one of those jolly
and fat men of the court, so secure in their power and seat that they hadn’t
seen change coming their way. “He thought us annoying at best, and useless on a
good day. He didn’t even have a particular sensual taste for us, you see, but
one day he got his little mustached face out of his ass and realized I was the
one ruling the kingdom, and he was quick to change his tune. He was smart
enough to change his ways, if nothing else.”
When she looks back at Mulan, she finds a strange expression on her. Closed off
and unreadable, Mulan’s lips turn down into something that resembles a pout,
but that may just be utter disgust. Bewildered by it, Regina isn’t even
bothered when Mulan stands up abruptly and stays still before her, the hand
that isn’t clutching vial and parchment wrapping itself about the hilt of her
dagger.
“There was a man, back in my village,” Mulan says, the non-sequitur
confounding, and not something that Regina particularly cares for. Whatever the
point of Mulan’s change and story, she has an inkling that she won’t like it,
and she can already feel herself getting angry in anticipation. Nonetheless,
Mulan either ignores the signs or chooses to step on then, for she continues,
“Shang, he was a good man, an honorable man. We fought well together and he
cared for me, didn’t even raise an eyebrow at my–my–“ and at this she motions
at herself, encompassing everything from her breeches to her weapon and her
stance. “He was a good man,” she repeats.
“But he was a man,” Regina says, completing what she thinks may be Mulan’s
thoughts, “and you would rather not marry one at all.”
Mulan nods, the gesture quick and short, matching the aplomb of her expression.
“I thought I could, but I took my word back. I dishonored my family.”
Regina snorts, raising her eyebrows in amusement before Mulan’s stony grief. If
opposing her own mother would have been a simple question of honor,then Regina
would have been free of her quite sooner. What would Mulan say if she were to
tell her that she spent the better part of a year rolling around the grass with
her secret lover, happy to forget honor and virtue and have joy and love
instead?
“Is that why you made Phillip’s quest your own?” Regina wonders, “You figured
that if you can’t honor your family by spreading your legs at their will you
would at least make sure some other poor princess does?”
“You’re so–”
Mulan recoils, saying nothing else and flinching when Regina barks out a laugh.
Regina knows her crassness bothers Mulan, and she wouldn’t find herself so
inclined towards it if not for it. It makes her happy, this kind of petty
amusement.
“Why are you telling me this, Fa Mulan?” Regina wonders. “Are you seeking
absolution or judgment? I shall give you none, dear, but I will bed you if you
want.”
Mulan takes a step back, shaking her head and settling a steady yet stormy gaze
upon a Regina. “I brought dishonor upon myself and my family, and that choice
is one I must live with, but you, you–”
“Yes?”
“You speak of changing a man’s principles, a man’s ways and understanding of
the world as if it were nothing,” the statement is both passionate and
frustrated, and Regina blinks at it, not quite sure that she understands or
whether she wants to. She doesn’t know if Mulan is readying to strike her or
build her up, but the shimmering anger of anticipation within her gut hasn’t
faded. Taking a deep breath, Mulan speaks again, her words hard if her
countenance less agitated. “Whenever I heard stories about you, the big, bad
Evil Queen, I figured you were a monster, no better than an animal, worthy of
pity at best.”
“Are you testing my limits, little girl?” Regina snaps. “I will allow for your
next words to make up for your insults.”
“That is the thing, Your Majesty, you are no animal. You’re resourceful,
respected, you’re capable of changing the world about you, of changing people,
of having them look upon you with admiration, of – of making me wish I had
strength like yours, to so easily disregard other people’s rules. It makes you
worse than a monster.”
Regina stands up at that, feeling herself reach for her own stomach as means of
stopping herself from reaching out with her magic. Mulan doesn’t quiver before
her, and stands her ground, keeping her pretty eyes steady on Regina’s and her
hand curled about her dagger.
“You have a choice,” Mulan tells her. “In a world where many have none, you do,
and you’re choosing to be this thing, this terrible, terrible thing. If you had
any honor in you–“
“Fuck your honor, dear, and stop your blabbering mouth!” Regina exclaims, the
bubble of anger climbing up her throat and past her lips, straightening her
frame until she feels like the terrible, terrible thing Mulan is accusing her
of being. “There is no honor in a forced marriage bed nor in a world which
demands it. I won’t be bound by the priggish notions of a world that points its
fingers at me and calls me evil, that would forever choose honorable and
insipid Snow White.”
“But you changed a man–”
Regina snickers, unkind. “One man in a sea of idiocy, one man in a world that
would readily condemn you, darling Mulan, for speaking your mind, and be quick
to sacrifice you to its notions of morality.”
“So you would rather burn it all to the ground?”
“Oh yes, and believe me that I have tried,” Regina tells her, viciousness in
her voice and in the smirk that follows, pervasive anger mixing with something
like mischief and allowing laughter to pour out. “Then again maybe you are
right, and it is time for a change.”
Mulan stares at her after such words, uncomprehending and magnificently tense,
the hand at her dagger a prominent threat. Perhaps Mulan should use her weapon
and cut her throat, save the world she feels so bound to from the torture that
Regina’s mind is already giving shape to. However, Mulan can no more kill her
now than Regina could have allowed Snow to succumb to death at the back of a
horse or at the hands of sickness, both their natures tied together in anger
and misunderstanding, yet in prevalent madness just as well. Even if Regina
will commit a crime against this world unlike any other before, and even if
Mulan suspects the notions if she can’t fathom its ways, she won’t make use of
her killing hand.
“Don’t you worry,” Regina intones after a minute, suddenly soft in her lunacy,
as well as in the hand that she reaches forward to rest upon Mulan’s shoulder
briefly. “You may not mind a world governed by my desires, dear. After all,
silly honor won’t bound you to useless grief once everyone is nothing but what
I order them to be.”
Mulan takes a step back at that, more affected by Regina’s careful tone than
she was by her anger before, her eyes betraying a sheen of fearful resignation.
“You would do something like that, something so–”
“Terrible? Why yes, of course. I am the Evil Queen, am I not? And if I’ve
filled this role then it has only been because this petty world and their
pretty, pretty princess have stolen away any other person I have tried to be –
so I shall repay them with an equal favor and steal their lives away.”
The hand resting at Mulan’s dagger opens and closes about its hilt, yet it
doesn’t tremble, nor does it spring forward into action. Regina smirks in
Mulan’s direction, smug in her superiority and in the knowledge that Mulan’s
principles afford her doubt but not resolve. Suddenly, Regina find her as
insipid as Snow White herself, her kindness so blind so as to set a monster
free on the world. Straightening up and throwing her shoulders back, Regina
exhorts Mulan to run if she dares, to try and escape the fate Regina has
already decided this realm must suffer, to leave her sight before she changes
her mind and decides to throw both her and her prince in her dungeons just out
of petty amusement. Mulan does leave, one last look between Regina’s face and
her own dagger enough to throw away her inner struggle and push her to finally
leave her side, and quickly enough, Regina knows, her every thought. It’s
better this way, she knows, for she has no use for judgment or advisors
anymore, not when her mind is resolute and her heart settled upon her desires.
A world of her own making, what a terrible notion. She laughs silently, and
after a while, decides to walk back towards her bedchambers, and to claim what
she knows will be dreamless sleep this time. She must rest, after all, for
there will be much to do and much to consider. Rumpelstiltskin will be visiting
soon, she now realizes, for surely he must play his own role of scheming
mastermind and try and convince her of doing something that she has already
decided to do. She’ll let him do his talking and twirling, if only for the
entertainment, and will even allow him one or two cruel barbs, just to let him
think he’s one step ahead. It will amuse her so, and she’s due some enjoyment,
just as she’s owed retribution and command. Yes, she will most definitely do
something terrible, and she will do it with delightful glee.
 
Chapter End Notes
     (1) Everything will be alright, daddy; I promise, I promise. I don't
     know how, but we're going to get through this, and everything will be
     alright.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
