"Blessed be she who is both furious and magnificent"- Taylor Rhodes
"How are you feeling Daddy?" Regina sat at her father's bedside, sponging his sweaty forehead.
"Not well," he coughed.
"Don't talk like that, you're going to get better." She picked up the bowl of soup on his nightstand. "I'll make sure of it."
"Regina, I am an old man-"
"No, you are all I have in this world. What would I do without you?" she gripped her father's hand. "I'm not strong enough."
"You're stronger than you know Regina, look at you. You've set aside your hatred of Snow White for all these years, I cannot tell you how proud you have made me." He coughed into a handkerchief. Regina helped him to sit up, rubbing him on the back, her eyes fell onto the bloodstained handkerchief.
"Daddy how long has this been going on?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Henry tried to hide the handkerchief.
"I'm talking about the bloody handkerchief, how long?"
"A few months," he murmured before coughing again.
"Why didn't you tell me? I could have healed you, I would have found a way, you know it." Regina pleaded.
"Regina I am old, I have lived a long life. And watching you grow up has been the highlight of it."
"Excluding the evil parts, I'm assuming," Regina muttered.
"No, including them. You lost your way, but you found your way back when you refused to cast that curse. You never did tell me why,"
"Because I couldn't live without you," she said as two large tears fell from her eyes. "That would have been the price I had to pay."
"You see? You are so strong. I am so proud of you Regina," he looked her in the eyes before succumbing to another coughing fit. More blood flew from his mouth as he tried to conceal it into his handkerchief, but his breathing became erratic as he tried to draw breath. Regina tried everything she could think of to save him but by dawn, he was gone.
Regina stumbled from his room; her eyes sore and red, her hair frizzy and stuck to her neck with sweat. The walk to her chambers felt even longer than normal, her footsteps echoing off the walls of the somber dark castle. A numbness spread from her mottled heart to her hands all the way down to her feet as she put one foot in front of the other and slowly opened the door to her chambers. Her dress weighed heavy on her shoulders, the corset making it difficult to breathe; with shaking hands, she began to remove her gown. She blindly tried to unlace the laces at her back, a spark of anger igniting as her fingers fumbled with them. The fabric of her dress ripped as she clawed at her back, a frustrated growl bubbled up from her chest as she violently tore the gown from her body. The fabric pooled at her feet as she stepped out of it and stumbled to her wardrobe, wrenching the door open to scan for something new to wear. Her eyes fell onto the mirror embedded into the door and a face she hadn't called upon in many years came to her mind's eye.
No, she couldn't; she wouldn't call upon him to spy on Snow White. Not when she had abstained all these years. But her anger and her grief burned deep in her chest, filling her up until it threatened to spill through her fingertips as small flames.
"Mirror!"
"You called my Queen?" he answered as if it had been only yesterday that she had last called upon him.
"I need to see her, show me Snow White," Regina snarled, her throat hoarse and her eyes hot.
"It's been many years since you've asked me that."
"Just do it!" Regina roared. The Mirror cast her a contemptuous look before dissolving and bringing to view a castle Regina had once known, along with a grown woman Regina had known as a child and a bandit. Snow White had grown gracefully into a queen, only a few lines around her eyes and the grey streaking through her hair gave away her age. Regina watched as she talked to a young woman, who couldn't yet be twenty years of age. She had to be Snow White's daughter, the Savior, no doubt beloved by her parents and her people perhaps even more so than Snow White had been. Regina regarded the girl who was prophesied to defeat her. She clearly took after her shepherd father, the light blonde hair that fell nearly to her waist in golden waves was clear enough along with a defiant streak that her father possessed. As Regina glared at the happy mother and daughter duo as a young boy on the cusp of becoming a young man burst into the room followed by the false prince who was holding a small girl in his arms.
Regina regarded them as wave upon wave of anger and resentment, and grief hit her square in the chest. Once again Snow White was surrounded by people who loved and adored her, while she, Regina, sat in isolation and exile. Her moment of weakness when she refused to crush her father's heart all those years ago had been pointless, she lost him anyway and Snow White still had everything.
She lost her true love, Daniel, she lost her mother Cora, she lost the respect of the Dark One, and now she lost her father. She lost everything and Snow White gained not just a True Love but three brats who no doubt loved her.
Well, it's time to fix that, Regina thought to herself. She had lost everyone, it was time for Snow White to lose something. Magic came easily to her as she dressed herself with a wave of her hand. She found the spell book in which she discovered a spell that had been all too tempting all those years ago but unfortunately the necessary ingredients hadn't existed yet. But now, Regina looked back to the mirror and narrowed her eyes at the image of the blonde young woman. Now she had everything she needed. And nothing to lose