AN: This is my second Swanqueen fic but kinda like my first proper oneshot for it. Based upon this headcannon and its accompanied artwork "Wish world Emma recognized Regina right away because she spent countless hours admiring an old portrait of the Queen in the forbidden room she wasn't supposed to enter" I saw this and this instantly came into my head. I do feel a little bad for writing this since I'm not a 'proper' Swanqueen shipper but I thought I'd give it ago. It's unbeta'd so all mistakes are mine and sorry if there is any/some part sounds weird/it doesn't make sense but I hope you like it :) For the Lana Parrilla Network Secret Santa, I give this to Angele...finally.
There's room she's not supposed to enter- Daddy told her that when her adventurous trait kicked in. He told her there was places in the castle she wasn't allowed to enter.
One of these rooms on the list was the room the servants dubbed as the 'Forbidden Room'. Each night, Emma would walk past the room, head wandering and eyes widening as she resisted every urge to forgo all rules and enter the room.
Until one day she did. The day her parents were off negotiating with a neighbouring kingdom was the day she set all the rules aside and ventured into the room.
To say it was a little dusty was an understatement. Cobwebs and thick layers of dust covered everything. Objects covered the stone fall, knocked over in what appears to have been a struggle.
Emma coughs a little as ash swirls around in the air. It's obvious the room hadn't been used since the Reign of the Evil Queen, maybe even before then.
She creeps into the room more, hesitance briefly taking over her before she pushes it away with curiosity. Still, the slight fear she felt when she entered the room still gnaws at her. Anything could be living here. She keeps it buried down, though. All in the thrilling feeling of the 'to-good princess' breaking the rules.
Said princess lets out a little scream when something grips onto the hem of her gown, some of that buried fear bubbling to the surface. Embarrassment also joins when she looks down to find it was only a knocked over cage (her mind fleets over to what the Evil Queen would need a cage for but that realises that she doesn't want to know) Emma's eyes shift around the room in shame. It's ridiculous, no one else is here.
As her eyes wander about, she spies a dark cloth covering something square. A window maybe? Still, she frowns and finds herself moving over to it, hopping over the leftovers of what was once a chaise by the looks of it, until the girl finds herself face to face with the square covered cloth.
An uncertainty swoops over her as her heart begins to pound. She's being stupid; there's nothing there. It's just a window, it's just a window, it's just…
Emma grips the velvet curtain, eyes slamming shut as she counts to three in her head before pushing back the cloth, hearing it scratch against the rusty old pole.
She breathes in as she slowly brings her hand away from the hanging material. When her eyes slowly open, the breath she'd sucked in releases quicker than what she'd inhaled.
It occurs to her, in that moment, that Emma had never seen the Evil Queen before, Mother and Father having defeated her before she was born. Since then, the girl had been left to stories and snipets of the once powerful queen. But now, standing opposite the portrait, the stories don't do her justice, do her beauty justice as she sits poised and refined, posing for the artist.
She can see now though, how the Queen got her name, all wound up in black and heavy makeup with dark brown eyes staring down at the good princess, sending a shiver through the white and pure girl.
She shouldn't, she's good, the Gentle Daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, but she wonders what it would be like to be that evil, as evil as the stories do so state, to hold that much power, that much hate over a ten-year-old girl, to make a kingdom- an entire realm- suffer for it. What it feels like to have everyone at your mercy and command.
It's wrong, and she shouldn't think it, but on the days she can, the Gentle Princess Emma escapes into this room, stares at the portrait of the once Great and Powerful Evil Queen- Queen Regina she'd hear servants whisper when they thought nobody could hear them- and allowed herself to daydream of power and control and what it could be like to be an evil queen.