Prompt Three: "Where I'm from we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true. We call it history."
-Gregory Macquire
Henry silently crept into his mom's (he silently corrected it as Regina in his mind) vault to look for whatever it was she was working on with her mother. After all, with the Queen of Hearts and the Evil Queen working together, whatever it was couldn't be good.
Which was why he was now trying to push the top of his namesake's coffin off to get down into the room where she kept all her magic things. After several minutes of pushing and only getting it moved by about two inches, he was about to look for some other way to open it, when he finally succeeded in getting it moved enough to get down the stairs.
The air was damp and heavy as he walked cautiously down the surprisingly slippery stairs, into a crowded room with all sorts of magical items that he knew could be used for some sort of nefarious purpose, he just didn't know what., exactly. There was a slightly smaller room on one side that had no lighting, but he could see small glimpses of the still beating enchanted hearts Regina's family was so fond of collecting.
He stayed far away from that part.
On the other side of the vault was a room lit by flickering torchlight. Cautiously, he decided to investigate there first, and walking inside, he found a library full of magic books, most of them either without titles, or with titles in strange languages he couldn't understand. One book in particular caught his attention. The title was,. thankfully, in English, written with the same golden lettering of his storybook and the same kind of leather. The title was The Dark Queen and he had an inkling as to who it would be about.
He knew he shouldn't look, besides making his mom (once more he had to mentally change it to Regina) really angry with him, and it being kind of private, it wasn't likely to contain any nefarious schemes she was likely to be planning or any magical spells she would use to kill Emma. Still, he plucked it carefully from the bookshelf, putting the strange shocking sensation that hit his hand down to static electricity, and began to read, justifying it in his mind as finding her motives and maybe some sort of weakness in her magic.
He was proven correct on the first page with a picture of a younger Cora lifting a baby Regina and pronouncing her name. The story started out happy enough, with a few stories of Regina and her father, with little mention of C0ra. But that soon began to change, with a story about Cora punishing Regina for dropping a teacup. It continued, showing his mother (he didn't bother correcting himself that time) as a teenager, and finally, showing her saving Snow White's life.
It continued, steadily growing darker, and when it got to the failed resurrection of Daniel, about a quarter of the way through the book, he slammed it shut, not even realizing that he was crying. Which was when Regina walked into her vault and to the bookroom, where she found Henry with the book still shut on his lap.
"Henry" she gasped when she saw him sitting there with a book, silently thanking every god she could think of, from both realms, that she had decided to use some of the last of her magic to make him a real Mills that actually shared her blood. Otherwise he would be sitting there dead from trying to touch her books. That relief was quashed slightly when she read the title on the book.
The one book she hoped he, had hoped no one, would ever read. Even she didn't finish it, the stories inside being too painful for her to relieve in full vivid detail. And now her eleven year old son had found it. "Please tell me you didn't read that book" she said, despite knowing that he had indeed already read at least some of it.
"Mom...I'm sorry. I didn't know" he whispered, wiping a few tears out of his eyes. and looking up at her.
"Well I should hope not, there's a reason why I kept that book hidden down here you know" she replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
"But why does my book not say any of this? It makes it sound like you're evil just to be evil" he exclaimed, still clearly in quite a bit of shock.
"Because, Henry, I was the loser. And it is the victors that write history, the winning side that has all the tears and pain, all the victories and the reasons for doing what they did. Whatever happened to the losers, to the villains, all but forgotten about by the storybooks and the histories" Regina said with a sad smile.
To Regina's shock and surprise, he didn't reply right away, instead flinging himself into her arms and hugging her. She wasn't about to question his actions though and instead she only hugged him tightly right back.
"It isn't fair" Henry said, slightly in protest, and slightly in a statement of what just was.
"Life isn't fair. It hands everyone different cards with different values. Some get an entire deck of 52 cards, some get five or six small cards, all under ten, while others still get a single black queen" Regina said with a sad smile.
"Someone really should change that" Henry said, with a determined look on his face that told Regina what his next project was probably going to be.
"Maybe someone will" she replied, hugging him closer again.
And so, they did.
So, actually managing to do it consecutively for thirty days went down the drain rather quickly. However, in my defense, I spent all of yesterday in bed coughing so hard I could barely breathe, so... Anyways, this is another, fluffier piece for you all, because sometimes my mind isn't completely and totally morbid, just mostly.