Birthday fic for nonsequiturvy! Inspired by the scene in Anne of Green Gables where Gilbert snubs Anne at the Christmas ball, but you don't need to be familiar with that story at all to enjoy this. Happy reading!
One minute Regina was half-listening to patrol reports and Granny's latest inventory of the larder, inwardly yawning and wondering just how irate Snow would be if she poofed back to her chambers right now (it wouldn't be her worst offense, surely?), and the next Snow herself was chiming in about yule and feast days and Regina couldn't snap her head around quickly enough.
"What?"
"I said," Snow repeated with a look like she didn't believe Regina hadn't heard her perfectly the first time, "that this seems as good an opportunity as any to make preparations for the Yule Ball."
The days had been growing shorter, Regina knew – she had taken a terrible comfort in the chill that leeched through the stones of the castle, in the solemnity that came with grey mornings and long nights – but she was honestly surprised by the news that Christmas was upon them so soon.
"Out of the question."
"It's tradition."
"It's also tradition for people in this realm to bathe only once a week and for these council meetings to be private," Regina said with a meaningful flick of her eyes to the thief, the words sharp-edged. "But I see we're not holding to all the old ways."
"It's one night, Regina. One night of cheer, which, I think we might agree, is in rather short supply these days." Snow's voice softened from exasperation to something kind, too close to understanding. "It would do us all good."
An unspoken ...wouldn't it? hung clear in the air between them, Snow suddenly so much younger for it, and Regina thought of (thirty years ago, not so long ago) a wedding interrupted, threats made and kept to the ruination of them all, and she shook her head.
"Staging a celebration like this is all but inviting the Witch to take us unawares while we're drunk on cheer and incapable of mounting a defense."
Robin shifted forward, tracing a lazy pattern on the table in front of him as he hazarded, "Are the wards on the castle suddenly going to fail in the presence of music and feasting?"
"Of course not."
He kept his gaze carefully trained down, but Regina would swear she saw the muscles in the thief's cheek twitch with amusement at the vehemence of her answer – and why did they let such a man attend council meetings if not to tease the civility out of her inch by painful inch?
"Then we will be just as guarded as ever, and perhaps better restored by one night of merry-making than by a fortnight's uneasy slumber."
She made a low, displeased sound in her throat, but there were no words behind it.
He was being (damnably) maddeningly reasonable, and she had no answer.
It had been foolish to protest in the first place: let them have their dinner, their dancing, if they would, and she would watch the skies for them as she always did. She wanted no markings of the passage of time, not while each turn of the year took her that much further from…
Loss, like a second heartbeat, sat just below her breastbone. It was no longer the wild thing she had sought to bury in the woods but a tantalizing echo of what had been, still within her hearing but somehow less formed, and that realization brought its own grief.
Robin looked at her now and, interpreting her introspective silence as doubt, spoke again.
"You and I might stand double-sentinel against any unwelcome guests that night, if you think it necessary, milady."
He thought he was doing her a kindness, and she sneered to show him wrong, but the action only drew a smile from him, and an eyebrow raised in playful challenge.
"Or we can both attend the ball and prove just how capable the castle's defenses are. Perhaps you'll even...let your hair down for a dance or two."
A titter, an actual titter (and Regina might have laughed herself at hearing Grumpy make such a noise on any other occasion), broke out, sparking around the table like a lit string of firecrackers, until Regina glowered at each in turn with lethal intent.
Smiles were hastily covered with fists, everyone overtaken by fits of coughing or a sudden need to clear their throats, while Robin sat unblinking through it all, cheeks still dimpled good-naturedly, and, oh, she would see him drawn and quartered thrice over for this.
It was an effort to unclench her jaw enough for the words to slip through. "Nothing would please me more."
Regina wasn't sure anything she'd ever said had sounded more of a threat. She felt Snow flinch beside her, the remnants of a deep-bred flight response nearly unseating her, as it would for anyone who had a lick of sense. And Robin...
Robin inclined his head, satisfied, as though he thought he'd won this round.
Oh, she would make the fool pay for that.
For the rest of the week, Regina suffered the comings and goings of a court alive with the promise of a party.
Garlands and paper decorations were strewn over every flat surface of the castle, and wafts of smoke and spices, heady and sweet-sour, traveled up the stairways from the kitchen until the smells – pleasant enough, Regina conceded to herself – permeated even her bedclothes.
The castle seemed brighter for the activity, nights turning more easily to day, and faces and voices were warm with excitement, with purpose, for perhaps the first time since they had returned to the realm.
The day before the ball was set to begin, the men who had been scouring the forest for game returned with a boar (a great beast of a thing, too), and Granny nearly imploded at the prospect of being able to celebrate Yule properly, with every traditional course represented at her table.
Robin, flushed from the December wind and the success of the hunt, caught Regina's eye in the crowd and turned to his man purposefully, speaking loudly enough for the words to carry without drawing the whole room's attention to them.
"The boar wasn't the only prize from the hunt, was it, John?"
John's forehead crinkled in thought before his face lit, and he thumped Robin soundly across the shoulders.
(Regina hoped, viciously, that thieves bruised easily.)
"Aye, yer right at tha'."
A large hand fumbled into too-small breast pocket and retrieved, with a victorious flourish, a few limp sprigs of mistletoe.
Robin sought her out again as John called for hammer and nails, and he didn't wink at her, quite, nor smirk, nor make any movement besides reaching for a shoot of the plant that had fallen at his feet and twirling it idly between thumb and forefinger – but the insolence, the wink, was implied, and never had Regina met a man who so refused to be scorned.
(But he – he had never met a woman as resolute as she.)
"You can't wear black to a ball, Regina – you can't. It's so...funereal."
"That was the idea," Regina grumbled as Snow began rifling through her wardrobe, desperately, for something lighter in color, though whether it would be Robin's funeral or hers was a matter still up for debate.
She should not have agreed to this.
"Ah!"
Regina took a steadying breath before she turned to see what monstrosity Snow had extracted from her collection (she would sacrifice any of her lesser internal organs for one tastefully simple gown right now) and, well, it was eye-catching, bold in color and cut, and how could she appear at a ball in anything less than what the kingdom expected – her most dramatic (bordering on ridiculous) finery?
It was wine-red with skirts designed to twirl prettily in dance, and the sleeves were oddly puffed between shoulder and elbow in what had once been the fashion. Regina couldn't quite convince herself that it was the height of elegance, but it was a sight better than the other options, and giving Snow even this much freedom with her wardrobe was too dangerous to continue for any longer.
She fingered the sleeves with curiosity (they weren't hideous, hardly wider than on a fitted gown, but she didn't know quite what to make of herself in them) as Snow circled her and made thoughtful noises.
"What, Snow?"
"It's perfect. You look beautiful."
Snow spoke with the half-hushed wonder she had as a child, and Regina looked to her, suddenly shy and embarrassingly grateful for the younger woman's presence.
"Now, for your hair, don't you think…?" Snow started innocently, the peace between them broken once more as Regina growled, with enough force to scrape her throat rough, "Leave it."
She had (pointedly) braided and coiled and pinned her hair up so tightly that not a single strand had a hope of escaping until morning, using so many pins she'd likely pull all the muscles in her neck out of line just by holding her head up for the next few hours.
"Will you dance if he asks you?"
"Who?"
Snow rolled her eyes. "Will you?"
"That's assuming Robin even knows how to dance, and that's quite a stretch for someone better acquainted with trees than with people. He wouldn't dare ask me, and if he did…"
Regina slowed, thinking, the moment growing taut (her heart quickening peculiarly) before she shrugged in dismissal. "If he did, he wouldn't know what to do with me."
"He might surprise you."
"Don't be absurd. That mulled wine is clearly poisoning your brain."
"But I haven't even had any –"
Regina didn't let Snow finish her protest. She swept out of the room, Snow tumbling along in her wake, and drummed a call to arms with every step, making herself a war cry from head to toe.
Somewhere below there awaited a ball, and a bandit, and a bet to be settled, and Regina meant to conquer all.
The sensations – light and color and sound, all roaring – were overwhelming at first, and Regina was glad for Snow to take the lead, dragging her through the crowds by the hand and exchanging the necessary pleasantries for them both while Regina scanned for a particular set of sea-blue eyes.
She found him just as Snow located Charming at the head of the ballroom, darted a glance over her shoulder to keep Robin in sight as she muttered 'hello' to the prince and tried to focus on the bland conversation happening in front of her, to little avail.
She knew, even with her back turned, that Robin was dancing Belle through the half-remembered steps of a folk dance, both of them laughing warmly at the other's misdirections, and she didn't care at all, that he had chosen to give his attentions to another before she had arrived.
Not at all.
(But her head, overburdened with its collection of pins, wouldn't stay still, turning, always turning towards the pair like the needle of a compass swinging home, until even Charming could no longer ignore her distraction.)
"Perhaps he'll ask for your hand next," Snow said gently, knowingly. "The slow waltz is one you're better matched for."
"The thief? I hadn't noticed him."
"You're staring right at him."
"Harder to recognize when he's dressed in something other than a huntsman's rags."
The music stopped, and the three of them watched as Robin bowed over Belle's hand, acting the gentleman, and how, in rising, his gaze caught on the royal party and stuck there long enough to be impolite.
Regina felt a shiver of anticipation as Robin parted from Belle with another easy smile. Pressed close in a waltz, she'd be able to test his knowledge of the steps thoroughly (she had no doubt he would be found wanting), and, if nothing else, she could tread on his toes before he had the chance to do the same to her.
She felt his approach as she carefully looked past him, suddenly fascinated by the dwarves attempting to drink each other under the table in the far corner of the room, and ignored even Snow's persistent elbow nudging against the boning of her corset as the other woman tried to draw her into the conversation.
Regina kept half an ear on the polite murmurings, and then:
"Are you spoken for in the next dance, your highness?"
She opened her mouth to respond scathingly, to correct his misuse of royal titles once again, but it wasn't her hand that Robin had reached for – the words hadn't been directed to her at all but to an astonished Snow, who gaped helplessly, trapped between horror and honesty.
"I-I am not."
Robin did not spare so much as glance for Regina.
"Then, shall we?"
Heat rose to her cheeks (though she had learned long ago not to betray any signs of a blush, thankfully) in humiliation – anger, she amended hastily – and Snow was just as mortified, less able to hide it, as Robin escorted her away.
Charming offered a hand, as if to lead Regina in the waltz himself (as if the loss of the dance was what burned her), but she stalked past him, shouldering her way through the crowds with no purpose except to escape before her anger took physical form.
She followed the tail of a draught to a balcony that opened out into the night, breathing deep to let the air cool her cheeks and her fire (her ire) as the smart of Robin's slight blazed insistently through her.
Everything was suddenly cloying, her manner of dress too restrictive, and she began pulling the pins out of her hair viciously, not stopping to work out the tangles but simply ripping through them with grim satisfaction.
One pin would not free itself from a lock and dangled stupidly against her cheek, and that (of course) was the precise moment footsteps sounded behind her and announced a certain masculine – and highly unwelcome – presence.
"You ran off so quickly I thought for sure you were in danger of transforming into a pumpkin," Robin said, and Regina turned to face him, to force him to see just how completely he had undone her. He frowned thoughtfully, his voice no longer light. "Though I suppose that was the carriage. And another story entirely."
"I did not run off."
"No?"
"My attention was required...elsewhere." She gestured vaguely over her shoulder, wishing she had chosen a more useful part of the castle to take refuge in.
"Keeping watch against witches and winged beasts?"
"Reindeer."
Robin might not understand the reference, but he read her tone, its touch-me-not flatness, and he moved a cautious foot forward, every line of his body outstretched in entreaty.
"Regina, I -"
"Don't."
She couldn't bear for him to apologize. What had he done, really, besides stand witness as she made herself a fool? She had presumed him eager to dance with her, easy to humiliate, and had only proved the opposite in front of the whole court.
She determinedly plucked another pin from her hair and dropped it underfoot, as if to reveal and hide the evidence of her folly in one.
The action (or perhaps the little care she showed while tugging it loose) stirred Robin, and he came to her side without fear, all gentleness.
"Let me."
Regina was unsure what he was asking, but Robin waited for no permission to free the wayward pin that lay against her cheek, smoothing the knotty strands with knowledgeable fingers as he worked. His hands explored her hair methodically, extracting each pin as he located it – and pocketing them for later use as lockpicks, she thought, and had to swallow the traitorous snort of amusement that threatened to break from her – until what remained of her updo was perilously balanced, anchored by only the last few linchpins.
"Just needs a little…" Robin breathed against her temple, suddenly in such clear focus before her she could count the lines around his eyes if she wished it.
He didn't smell like forest anymore, she realized, and some small part of her, striking downwards, twinged in protest.
(Robin would tell her, later, that he always meant to kiss her hair down, but Regina would never be convinced she wasn't the one who had caught his mouth first.)
The force of the kiss, of each kiss that followed (dizzily uncountable), dislodged the rest of her hair, and it fell around them, Robin wasting no time in claiming more of it by touch.
"Much improved, I think," Robin murmured when he found the breath, a hint of his old smirk (softer, now) returning as he tweaked a lock that ended just under her breast.
Ever the mischievous boy, and yet Regina was more aroused than annoyed, biting her lip to keep from kissing him again – damn the thief, for this was theft of some sort, surely?
It was a mistake, all of it, memories for her to choke on later in the darkest hours before morning broke again, and yet she could not stop reaching for it, for him, with both hands.
Impulsive. She always had been.
Robin caught her fingers with his, kissing there now in a gesture as old-fashioned as her gown. "You owe me a dance, still, milady."
"Are you asking?"
Yes whispered over her knuckles, at her throat, against her lips, and she answered wordlessly, teeth and tongue and touch, knowing she would kiss him and deny him in the same breath – and he understood this of her, and did not pull away.
The regret of allowing this much, of not allowing more, would hound her relentlessly, and she had neither strength nor desire to keep outrunning it.
She would regret him, then – so be it.
It seemed a worthy enough price to pay in the moonlight, and it was impossible to not feel the promise of something kindling them between them no matter how she might fight it for weeks and months and years yet.
Robin would ask her again (she had never met a man as resolute as he), and someday, maybe, they would both say yes, to a dance and everything that came after.
Someday. Yes.