Note: I've been sitting on this thing for like 3 months, and I finally pieced it all together. I don't have a proof-reader, so all mistakes are my own. I wrote this to explore a dynamic I don't often see in BDSM/Dom-Sub fics, which is safewording and its aftermath.
This contains established Swan Queen in a domestic discipline-esque relationship, so the Dom/Sub aspects are consensual. So this is the warning that this fic contains spanking of an adult female.
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time.
The cavernous house echoed with the turn of a key in the front door. Regina's ears perked up at the jingling as the metal was removed from the door and placed in the bowl in the entryway. She didn't move from her spot on the chaise lounge in her bedroom, since she knew Emma would wander up the stairs when she got her nerves under control.
"I need your help tonight," the text message had read, Regina recalled. Though she had been anticipating the words for days now, reading them on her phone at 11 a.m. that morning hadn't stopped the pang of hurt from coursing through her heart at the thought of Emma struggling emotionally.
I expected as much. What time will you be home?
She was deep in her thoughts about her blonde lover when Emma finally crept into the room. The sheriff didn't acknowledge Regina at first, since she turned towards the closet to deposit her shoes on the bottom rack silently. On her now-bare feet, Emma padded to the bathroom before returning to the bedroom. She let out a shaky breath before greeting Regina.
"Hey."
"Hello, dear. You're home early," Regina remarked with a nod toward the mantle, where the clock's hands ticked away the seconds of 4:16 p.m.
I'll be home by 6.
"I couldn't focus at the station," Emma said with a shake of her limp curls.
Then I'll be waiting.
"What couldn't you focus on?"
"I don't know. Focusing?" the blonde's joke lacked a light-hearted tone. As Emma's frown deepened, Regina became awash with concern.
"Are you ready for me, or do you want to wait until after dinner?" she asked.
"After dinner, if that's ok."
"Of course," she assured.
Emma nodded before disappearing downstairs.
Without Henry home, the mansion was too quiet, and the palpable tension between the two adults provided more incentive to maintain the silence. When Regina eventually trekked to the kitchen to warm up leftovers for dinner without catching a glimpse of Emma and without hearing the TV, she assumed the woman was hiding out in the study.
After knocking on the door, but receiving no response, Regina entered the room. She let out a sigh upon seeing her lover bent over paperwork at the desk, though the blonde hadn't bothered to turn on the lamp.
"Sitting here in the dark isn't going to help your mood," she said before plucking the pen from Emma's hand.
Emma ignored the remark in favor of saying, "This paperwork still isn't done."
"Let's just set that aside for now. Dinner is ready."
"I'll be there in a minute. Just start without me, Regina."
Regina's placating mood broke when she clenched her teeth and gave into an outburst of, "Leave it, Emma! You need to come eat now!"
The seated woman raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked up at Regina for the first time since she entered the room.
"Fine," she said as she pushed her chair back from the desk under Regina's hard gaze.
"I wish you would just make up your mind," Emma muttered as she brushed past, leaving Regina to gaze at her in bewilderment and wonder what that sentence had meant.
Their dinner was unpleasant, but not due to a lack of good food. They never picked up conversation with one another beyond discussing Henry. Funny how much they seemed to talk about their son when it was just the two women alone. Regina briefly wondered if they relied too much on the topic of him as one of their bonding points. Was that common bond corroding what the two women had with each other beyond that?
In order to distract herself from that disheartening thought, especially on a night already filled with enough gloom, Regina tried to ask Emma if their whole family was going to meet the Charmings for breakfast tomorrow morning, as per their usual Saturday engagement. However, the conversation soon returned to Henry, since he was staying the night with Snow, David, and little Neal. Both women let all talk die off once that topic had worn itself out.
Emma offered to load the dishwasher, so once dinner finished, Regina retreated to her room to mentally prepare for the next part of her night.
This isn't violence. This is care. This is mutual support, compromised and agreed on by both of us, Regina reminded herself. When Emma fell this deeply into an unhealthy, unhappy state, this helped guide her out of it. This is about listening to what Emma wants and carrying out the task in a consensual, safe way for both of us. She'll smile again when this is over…so will I.
She took deep breaths while attempting to quiet her thoughts. Regina removed her rings one by one, and carefully put them away in her jewelry box before moving on the bathroom to take off her makeup. Once her face was cleansed, she returned to her room, where she found Emma standing by the bed in just a shirt and her panties.
"What position do you want to be in tonight?" Regina felt lighter just by finally being able to talk about what was going to happen.
"I want to be on the bed, but I want…" Emma trailed off uneasily, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
"Say what you need to say, dear," Regina encouraged as she moved closer to the woman, eventually reaching out a slender hand to rest on Emma's lower back.
"I want you to hold me."
"During?" she clarified, catching Emma's green eyes with her own.
"Yeah," came the quiet answer. "If that's possible."
"We'll figure something out."
Regina narrowed her eyes in thought for a minute before moving onto the bed. She sat with her back at an angle against the headboard, her legs spread in a V and stretched in front of her on the dark comforter. It was an awkward position, no doubt, but Emma had expressed her desire to be held tonight, so Regina decided she could handle the back pain. All things considered, Regina expected that within a few minutes, her lover would be aching in places much more intimate than Regina's own back muscles. Once situated, she reached for one of Emma's hands and lightly pulled the younger woman toward her.
"Alright, dear, take off your underwear, kneel between my legs, and put your hands on the headboard," Regina quietly instructed.
The cadence of her command soothed some of the knots in Emma's stomach, encouraging her to do just as Regina said. The woman helped Emma climb onto the bed, and she wrapped her arms around Emma's bare waist where her shirt had ridden up. She caressed the soft skin there for a moment, since she knew the action would calm the other woman down. Immediately, she felt Emma's rapid breathing slow down considerably.
Regina took a quick look at Emma's face, and sighed quietly as the deep frown taking hold of Emma's thin lips.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah." Emma left the frown in place, but Regina's prodding caused her to turn her gaze further away to one of the macabre paintings adorning the wall.
Deciding not to push further at the moment, Regina proceeded, though sadness pulled at her heart.
"You have your safeword?" she prompted.
"Yeah, same as usual." The blonde's voice was tight—almost as tight as her grip on the headboard.
"Very well, then. How many today?" As the words left her mouth, Regina's eyes wandered to the pale, almost boyishly flat ass cheeks presented before her. She schooled her expression back into an impassive one despite the urge to grimace at the thought of how red the skin would soon become.
Regina listened for Emma's answer, but the woman didn't offer one. An uncomfortable silence fell between the two women, but Regina waited a few more seconds while Emma fidgeted.
"How does twenty sound?" Regina suggested, opting for a lenient number, since Emma's current situation was voluntary.
Emma shook her head, giving no elaboration. She continued to shift her weight from leg to leg, indicating a rising up of regret and discomfort regarding her current position. Often times during her sessions with Regina, Emma could only tolerate short instances of being held or otherwise physically comforted before she withdrew and disconnected from Regina completely.
Sensing this, Regina slowly took her hands off the woman's waist. Her right hand came to rest in her lap, but the left reached up to gently turn Emma's face toward hers, forcing the blonde to make eye contact.
"Why not, Emma? Too many? Or not enough?"
Tears sprung to Emma's green eyes as a look of worry creased her features.
"Not enough," she whispered, closing her eyes in shame while allowing several tears to roll down her cheeks.
"Thirty?"
In the beginning, Regina had arbitrarily picked a number of swats, but her low selection led to Emma becoming even more shut off and moody than before the spanking. Since then, Regina urged Emma to be honest about her anxiety, pain threshold, and how many smacks she felt she deserved. The true struggle for Emma came before the pain, when Regina needed her cooperation in voicing her needs. Regina suspected the woman either felt like her voice wasn't worth listening to or that she would be ridiculed for speaking up.
And Regina knew very well what both of those emotions felt like. So if a little prodding helped Emma get what she desired—and ultimately put a smile back on the Emma's face while restoring the balance and sense of equality between the two women—then Regina would gently urge her lover to communicate.
She moved her hand from Emma's chin to her cheek, and this seemed to encourage her into answering.
Hesitantly, almost regretfully, Emma spoke.
"Forty?" Sad eyes opened, regarding Regina with uncertainty.
"Emma…" Concern flooded Regina's tone before she remembered to rein it in. Usually, Emma responded negatively to any emotion she deemed too strong to be aimed at her, both positive and negative emotions—indicating just how far away she was from reaching true self-worth, despite her progress with Henry and her parents…Even after all her time spent with Regina, when they both engaged with one another in genuine, intimate ways, Emma still had trouble accepting care from others.
So, Regina once again checked her expression, but she couldn't help the frown from creeping over her lips. They had never agreed upon a number higher than thirty-five before, since Regina had slight qualms about marking Emma in a harmful way. But if Emma was asking, almost begging, for a number higher than that, then her stress level and exhaustion were beyond even what Regina had thus far witnessed during the past week.
Emma leaned her face into the palm cupping her cheek, mumbling a tired, "Please," against the warm skin.
"Why don't we start with thirty, and see how you're feeling once we get through those, hmm?" Regina proposed, not wanting to relent completely.
Nodding in agreement, Emma opened her eyes fully, and Regina could see the tears nearly disappeared in a show of relief.
Regina took a moment to resettle and roll up the cuff of her right shirt sleeve. She and Emma had discussed the use of implements, but Emma adamantly refused (much to Regina's relief.) The hairbrush on Regina's bathroom counter had been used for its traditional purpose during other moments of stress relief between the two women, but the idea of bringing the item into this situation put both women off. Besides, Emma had recently admitted her love for the intimacy of the skin-to-skin contact she experienced when Regina struck her with her open palm.
"Bend over a bit more for me, dear," Regina instructed, "and stick your bottom out."
Once Emma complied, Regina set her right leg over Emma's calves. The weight would prevent Emma from kicking her feet up and disturbing her balance.
After taking a moment to wrap her left arm around Emma's waist again, Regina took a deep breath and raised her right arm, steeling herself against the emotional onslaught the next few minutes would prove to be.
"Wait," Emma called, turning her head to lock her eyes on the outstretched arm behind her.
Regina lowered her arm but became concerned at the woman's continued hesitation.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just…" Emma swallowed hard before she continued in a wavering voice. "Don't be nice during it. I don't want you to be nice during it." Regina would find the blonde's avoidance of the word 'spanking' endearing if not for the unusual sentence accompanying the habit.
"What do you mean, Emma? I don't know that I want to be cruel to you, especially now."
"No, you don't have to be cruel. Just…punish me. I know that's not what tonight is supposed to be about, but I don't think I can handle this right now if you keep treating me so well. You're great with being gentle before and after, but I need you to not be that way right now." Emma didn't speak loudly, but her ability to regain a solid tone struck up a determination within Regina to do the best she could to give Emma what she needed.
"What would you have me do, then? Scold you? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't feel like yelling at you or being angry at the moment."
"That's fine, I get it. Scolding is good…and maybe…don't let me get away with things. Talk me through it." Despite her customary inability to articulate herself, Emma elaborated.
Regina picked up on Emma's unspoken request to be treated much younger than her thirty years. This was a topic neither woman had brought up in conversation outside of these intimate moments in the master bedroom, even then they only referred to it with veiled terms, as Emma was doing now. Honestly, Regina couldn't see the appeal in reliving the dark, lonely and disgraceful times of childhood, but it had a therapeutic effect for Emma. To comply with the request, Regina took a moment to summon some of her darker emotions and tougher exterior before addressing Emma in a stern tone.
"Alright, young lady, if that's what you say you want. I don't think you fully understand where you have just landed yourself. I dare say that after the next few minutes you won't be so eager to proposition me in this manner again." She paused her sharp words to tighten her grip around Emma's waist, and she felt the air leave the woman in her arms in anticipation of Regina's harsh treatment. Regina let her wait as she continued, "Now, you know my expectations for your behavior during a punishment, just as you know the consequences for failing to meet those expectations. However, for the sake of tradition, I'll say them again."
From Emma's ears to her torso, the woman flushed a dark shade of red, and the squirming that accompanied her reaction to the lecture caused Regina to pull Emma flush against her in an iron grip.
The authoritative woman was unrelenting as she kept on, "You will stay as still as you possibly can. If I think you've been squirming about too much, then you will find yourself with your nose in the corner when we are through here. Your hands will not leave the headboard, and if they do, they will go grab the hairbrush from the bathroom, and I will finish spanking you by paddling your bottom and thighs until they are a nice, dark red."
Though both women knew that statement to be an idle threat, it didn't stop the gasp from leaving Emma throat.
"And no cursing—at me or otherwise. Foul language is unbecoming for a young woman. You'll earn extra smacks if I hear any curse words come out of your mouth. Have I made myself clear, Emma?"
"Y-yes." Regina would have laughed at the woman's worked up state if not for the somber air surrounding their current situation.
Still, she got her digs in where she could.
"Yes, what?" She knew it was a bit unfair to ask Emma to refer to her by a title when this was meant to alleviate stress, but she would be the first to admit that she fell into certain roles all too easily.
Emma didn't seem to mind, though, since she quickly amended, "Yes, ma'am."
As she watched Emma's knuckles turn white as they held onto the cream-colored headboard for dear life, Regina once again raised her right hand. This time, though, its descent went uninterrupted.
A loud gasp from Emma accompanied the sharp smack as Regina's palm connected with the curviest part of her lover's right ass cheek. For several moments, the only sound splitting the evening silence in the bedroom was skin connecting with bare skin.
Emma held in her reactions for as long as she could in the hope of avoiding added vulnerability, but once Regina started spanking her sit spots, the blonde couldn't keep yelps of pain from escaping her mouth.
"That hurts, doesn't it?" Regina surprised herself with how maternal her voice sounded.
"Yes," Emma admitted before whimpering as Regina struck the same spot twice in a row.
"I daresay it doesn't hurt as badly as it would to fall down the stairs," she remarked, commenting on an incident that had happened early that morning.
Despite Regina's prodding for the woman to get out of bed on time and leave for work, Emma had stubbornly over-slept. When the blonde had finally emerged from the second floor of the mansion, she had attempted to rush down the stairs while shoving her boots onto her feet, but she had stumbled and almost fell onto the hardwood floor of the entryway.
Emma clearly didn't remember this, though, since she choked out a sound of confusion at Regina's words.
"You've been a silly, clumsy girl today! You nearly broke your neck running down the stairs this morning in your rush to get to work on time. And as I recall, yesterday you spilled your food all over yourself at the dinner table after I devoted time and energy into cooking a lovely meal! You'd think a girl your age would display more self-control." Regina let the scolding words spill out without over-thinking them.
Emma yelped out that she was sorry as her torso twisted in an awkward, desperate dance in reaction to the heat engulfing her backside.
"Empty words, my dear. However, I would also guess that you're anxious to get this spanking over with because of how tired you are. You have been neglecting sleep for the past few days."
"No, I haven't! I've been sleeping just fine—" Emma abruptly stopped her sentence when Regina smacked her inner thigh. "Ow!"
"Back talk will get you nowhere, young lady. In truth, you have only been letting yourself get about five hours of sleep a night."
"I'm just doing what needs to be done for my job," Emma huffed out as she squirmed for several seconds, prompting Regina to tighten her hold on the woman's waist to keep her from toppling off the bed.
"Well, the completion of your duties shouldn't come at the expense of your health." She accompanied her words with a pair of hard swats near Emma's right hip. Just because she was over-emphasizing her exasperation for the sake of the spanking didn't mean Regina hadn't been secretly harboring the feeling to some degree all week as she watched her lover self-destruct.
"How the hell else am I supposed to get everything done? This isn't fair! One minute you're breathing down my neck about getting the paperwork done, but when I actually do what I'm told, I still end up getting punished for it!" Emma yelled through her tears.
At her lover's words, Regina tried not to let her confusion turn into uncertainty. Hadn't Emma been the one to ask for this tonight? Was she really feeling like this was just another punishment? Maybe in this frame of mind, Emma viewing her spanking as a punishment made it easier to endure, Regina rationalized. So Regina decided to refer to the spanking the same way Emma was.
"Firstly, I sufficiently warned you not to curse, little miss, so for that you'll be getting five extra smacks." This news caused Emma to groan in what Regina labeled pseudo-frustration. She waited until the blonde quieted down before continuing, "And second, I don't think you understand what needs to change here. Your idiotic habit of procrastinating is what landed you in trouble with me at work in the first place, but I foolishly turned my attention the other way after you promised me everything would be completed. For that, I am sorry."
"Oh, come off it; you're just going to tell me it's all my fault, anyway…"
Regina could hear the plea underneath Emma's words. Emma wanted to hold herself accountable, but she needed a push from Regina to do that.
"For once, my dear, you are absolutely right. You obviously still need hand-holding when it comes to time management—which is the true issue here. Your failure to allot yourself a proper time frame resulted in you over-working yourself instead of getting adequate sleep. When that happens, you walk around all day hurting yourself."
Emma didn't retort, which on its own was indicative of her agreement.
Regina spanked in silence for the next minute, before adding one last sentence to her lecture, "Your own irresponsibility is what's causing you so much stress."
At these words, Regina heard Emma's breath hitch into sobs. The sound nearly broke Regina's heart in half, but she clenched her jaw and aimed the next several swats for the woman's sit spots. She counted in her head as she delivered the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth smacks, relieved that they were finally, finally nearing the end of this ordeal.
"I'm sorry I was bad!" Emma sobbed out.
Regina stopped short of giving Emma the last five swats as the anguish in Emma's tone caused tears sting Regina's eyes and an unbearable ache to throb in her heart. Her voice trembled as she said their safeword, trying to pull her lover out of the dark moment.
Regina gently removed Emma's hands from the headboard, and she placed a soft kiss on each knuckle before releasing her lover's hands. She placed a pillow between her stiff back and the headboard before relaxing against it fully, murmuring to Emma that they were finished.
"Come back to me, dear. We're done. It's over, and I still love you."
Quickly, she gathered Emma in her arms, turning the blonde so her sore bottom wouldn't touch the comforter. She urged the exhausted woman to stretch her legs out after keeping them bent under her for so long.
Regina sat in silence, listening to Emma's sobs quiet into sniffles during the next few minutes. Once Emma regained full awareness, she reached for a tissue from the box on top of the bedside table and cleaned her face and nose with it. After throwing it away, Emma leaned against the Regina's front with her head tucked on one shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Emma says miserably. "I couldn't even make it to the end."
"There's no need to apologize, Emma. You took a big step today by asking me to do this. Tonight is about helping you. I decided that spanking you any more would no longer be helping you. Do you want to talk about it yet?"
Emma groaned while shaking her head against Regina's collar bone.
"You have five minutes, then. I'm going to rest my eyes, but when I open them, we're going to talk about what just happened," Regina warned, letting her brown eyes slip closed.
"Alright," the blonde said in a weary voice.
When Regina opened her eyes, Emma was sitting up with one leg dangling off the bed and her green eyes focused on the framed family pictures on the dresser.
"Don't go far, Emma. Come back to me," Regina softly called out while reaching for one of the woman's hands.
Emma refused to keep the contact, but she eventually spoke.
"I don't know why you keep me around."
"Don't go to that headspace, Emma. That's not a good place for you," Regina said. "You're here because I love you and because you promised me that I wouldn't scare you away."
"Too bad I'm scaring myself away at the moment."
"Emma, you are not bad." The words make her chest tighten with painful memories of Cora and magic. Emma knows about some of her childhood now, but the blonde never specified what her own mind wandered back to when she heard that word.
"How can you say that? I'm even irresponsible when you're punishing me."
This arrangement isn't supposed to be filled with shame, Regina thinks as catches Emma's gaze.
"This wasn't supposed to be about punishing you. I didn't know you wanted to be absolved of anything," Regina revealed.
Emma finally maintained eye contract with her partner's deep brown eyes.
"I haven't been contributing to this family or my job or to you in the ways I should have been in the last few days."
Hearing those words prompted Regina to shake her head in disagreement. It's unnerving to admit how far from perfect they are. The gaps in their communication have shown up clear as day.
"And what about to yourself? Do you understand that taking care of yourself first is what makes you capable of contributing to those other roles of mother, sheriff, and partner?"
"You'd think me of all people would be able to take of myself."
"Emma, you're putting too much pressure on yourself." Regina recognized how hypocritical she sounded in this moment. But Emma didn't comment on it, so Regina put hint of guilt aside in order to keep this talk moving forward.
"How are you not upset with me right now?" the blonde asked in an irritated voice.
"I'm frustrated more than anything. Especially since you keep referring to your attitude and actions as things that make you 'bad.'"
Emma didn't respond.
"When we brought this coping strategy into our relationship, what did you specifically ask us to agree not to do or say?" Regina kept pushing the conversation. She understood that Emma was extremely uncomfortable talking about this, but they couldn't talk through their separate emotions, their joint arrangement would crumble into an unhealthy one.
"That we shouldn't dwell on our mistakes. That punishing ourselves would work against the progress we would achieve in our sessions." Emma said in a hushed tone.
"And what did I insist upon for instances when a session became too much for one of us, especially if what you've just mentioned invaded our minds and actions?"
"A safeword," Emma admitted.
"I wish you didn't have to struggle with feeling worthy of having a say in your own life."
"You're one to talk," Emma poked, but watery voice matched her tearful eyes as she looked up a Regina's face. "I'm lucky we're so in tune."
"It took us a long time to build this much trust." They held each other's gaze for a few seconds before Emma's eyes broke away.
She licked her lips before saying, "Thank you for safewording."
"I think I'm going to have you practice saying it a few times during our next session. To prove to you that you can use it."
After a compulsory eye-roll, Emma agreed and snuggled back down in Regina's arms. Having her arms around Emma filled Regina with serenity, an emotion she was still getting used to experiencing. Whatever uneasiness had been swimming around her heart earlier finally dissipated when she felt Emma's arms circle around her.
Regina brushed Emma's disheveled hair out of her puffy face before urging, "Next time, don't wait so long to ask that of me, please, my dear."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you don't have to apologize. This was simply too emotionally tiring an activity for the both of us on a Friday evening."
"I'll make sure to schedule my next emotional breakdown for a Monday night, then," Emma joked, prompting Regina to mock-glare at the woman in her arms.
"If you're still being cheeky, Miss Swan, I can round out our final count to forty," she warned, but her serious tone lost all effect once a laugh escaped her throat.
Emma couldn't help but laugh along at the terrible pun before responding dryly, "I think my 'cheeks' have definitely had enough attention for tonight, thanks." Absentmindedly, her hand wandered back to rub at the aching muscles.
Concern filled Regina for a moment, causing her to lean over and take a closer look at Emma's red ass. Always one for aesthetics, Regina noted with a hint of pride that the color was an even, bright red, except for the blonde's thighs, which had been left untouched aside from a few spots on the inside of the left one.
"It doesn't hurt too terribly, does it?" Regina ventured to ask.
After answering with a shake of her head, Emma shyly admitted, "It feels nice, actually. A little achy, but mostly it's just warm. Sort of feels like a tight hug." The younger woman quieted her own rambling by lifting her head to plant a placating kiss on the Regina's cheek. "Thank you," she said softly.
"Of course, dear. I'm proud of you for speaking up about how you were feeling." The older woman accompanied her statement with caresses along her lover's back before moving her fingers to comb repeatedly through Emma's long blonde hair. "I'm proud of you for not throwing a temper tantrum this time."
"I didn't want a punishment spanking."
"Hmm. It sort of turned into one, though, didn't it?"
Emma buried her face in Regina's chest and refused to answer.
"You're a lot harder on yourself than ever you want to admit, dear."
The talking quieted before ceasing altogether as the two women lay in peaceful silence for a bit. Eventually, Emma found herself fighting to stay awake as the rhythmic tick of the clock above the fireplace lulled her into a sleepy state.
Having noticed this, Regina shifted them both into a less constricting position before she switched the lights off with a flick of her wrist and a sprinkling of magic.
"Sleep, dear," she commanded quietly.
Emma shook her head, mumbling something about Regina leaving the room if she fell asleep.
"I'll still be here when you wake up," she assured the blonde.
This seemed to be all the reassurance the tired woman needed, since she drowsily replied, "'K. I love you, Regina," before giving in to her body's need for rest.
A watery smile crossed Regina's face before she whispered, "I love you too, Emma."
Regina contentedly watched the woman next to her sleep for a little bit, reveling in the silence of the house. As opposed to dreading the absolute quiet several months ago, even several hours ago, she now took it to mean that calmness and safety had settled over her life and the ones she loved. She turned in bed to face her sleeping lover, closing her eyes and trying to match her breathing to Emma's. Within a minute or two, both women were sleeping undisturbed.
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