She doesn't notice them at first. Or rather, she doesn't think anything of them at first. But she notices, of course she notices, the single robin feather on her windshield, resting against her wiper in a smattering of other leaves brought down by last night's rain. Damp and a bit mangled, she lifts it away from the slowly drying leaves plastered to the glass, smoothes its edges a bit and slips it into her pocket. She wipes away the rest if the debris, and tells herself it's okay to keep silly, sentimental things that remind her of him. And if she slips her fingers into her coat pocket and feels the soft edges of it now and then, well, nobody needs to know.
She notices the crow's feather, too—dark and inky black as it rests on the step of her family mausoleum. It must have been a big bird. Majestic. She's always liked crows, and not just for the image. They're smart. Loyal. She lifts the feather, carries it with her down into the depths of her vault, setting it aside in an empty nook. When she leaves for the night, she feels the inexplicable need to take it with her, finally putting it to rest safely in her bedside table.
Then there's the swan feather resting on the bench near the duck pond. She and Henry have come for a quiet walk, a moment of peace. He's getting so grown up, so perceptive, but he still enjoys the way the ducks flock around his feet when he scatters a heel of stale bread. She watches, smiling wistfully, trying to memorize every changing angle of her little boy's face, and then she sits back, her palm settling on the worn wood of the bench beneath her. Their bench, she tries not to think. Hers and Robin's. She tries not to, but she can't help it, her heart clenching, her fingers clenching, too, and it's not until then that she realizes there's something other than wood under her palm.
She lifts the delicate white feather with a little frown, runs a finger through the downy softness at its base. It's odd, she thinks. She's never seen swans at this particular pond before. Not once in thirty years. Her newly hopeful heart whispers something overly sentimental about happening on a feather so out of place, in this place, just as she's thinking of him, but she tells herself not to be silly. When she settles it next to the stark blackness of the crow's feather later that evening, she thinks it's fitting. Light against dark. It feels like them. Silly, but it does, and nobody has to know the things that she takes comfort in. The frivolous, hopeful, ridiculous things.
She dreams of him that night, of his death. Dreams of it often, honestly. So often, in fact, that she'd gone quietly to Maleficent, and procured herself a tiny vial of sleeping draught. One drop in her tea before bed and she'll sleep the dreamless sleep of a babe, she's been told. She hasn't used it yet. She doesn't sleep well, but she's a masochist: she'd rather see the blue tinge of his soul, that soft smile he left her with, dissolve again and again than spend a night in empty blackness. She misses his face.
But she wakes tired, wakes terribly, bone-crushingly sad, and it's all she can do to go through the motions of her morning. She steps out onto her walk, fumbles her keys, and they drop to the pavement and land right next to her black, pointed-toe pump. And the blue jay feather it's resting on. She jerks her foot back like it's crushed something precious (stupid, silly), and bends to pick it up. It's small, with its white tip and its stripes of dark and blue. She thinks of the blue of his soul, wipes a traitorous tear, and slips this one into her pocket, too. The robin's feather still rests there, and she finds herself reaching for them almost compulsively whenever she wears the coat. Soft reassurances. Could it be him? A sign, maybe, that he's not dissolved into nothing after all. That he's somewhere, beyond, peaceful. Watching over her.
She's never believed much in guardian angels, helpful fairies, departed souls that keep watch. It had been too painful to think of someone standing by and watching over her terrible life and doing nothing. But she stands in this clearing waiting for the others to arrive, draws the blue feather out and studies it again, dares to whisper, "Is it you?"
Twenty minutes later, she's standing with Snow, and David, and Emma, as a cardinal feather floats down from the sky and manages to tuck itself right into Snow's hair. Regina laughs until she's wiping tears, her heart feeling ridiculously light all of a sudden. Robin would, she thinks. He'd think it was funny – probably wouldn't laugh as outrightly as she had, but he'd find it funny. When she manages to catch her breath, they're all staring at her like she's gone halfway round the bend, and she supposes it must look that way. Regina shrugs a little, says, "It struck me funny," and reaches to pluck the feather from Snow's fingertips.
The less hopeful part of her, the cynical darkness that wasn't quite evil enough to be sucked out in the split, whispers Coincidence to her as she sets the cheerful red feather with its black and white friends, leaves the robin feather, too (she keeps the blue in her pocket; it feels special, somehow). She places a ward over them, protection for her little treasures, and shuts the drawer again. It could be a coincidence. But she'd asked, and she thinks he answered. She chooses to hope that he had.
And she starts to notice the feathers, now. Starts to really look for them.
The brightest colors seem to appear during her darkest moods. Tucked into her driver's side mirror, resting on the back porch rail, the outer sill of her office window. Reds, and blues, a surprising violet that she doesn't recognize. The robins when she's feeling most discouraged. She thinks they're a bit plain for him, and then she realizes that no, they're just right. Robin had never been flashy. He'd been steady and grounded, a man of the earth and the forest. The simplicity of the robin's feather is fitting. The stark inkiness of the crows find their way to her when she needs strength, and she finds it odd that he would send these – her bird of choice then, the messengers of the Evil Queen. Now that she's rid of her (sort of), she wonders if there's some deeper meaning to him handing her darkness when she feels weakest.
She has a moment, a panicked moment, where she wonders if maybe these feathers aren't from Robin at all. Maybe they're from her, the Queen, the one person who knows her best, who is her, who knows her weaknesses, knows exactly how traitorous her hopeful heart can be. How easily she could be sucked into this ruse. Maybe he really is gone forever, destroyed, maybe she's just a fool. But how could the Queen know? About her moods, her thoughts. How could she know when Regina feels lowest. It must be Robin; it has to be.
She sleeps restlessly again, dreams of him dying again, again, again, and wakes with the first light of dawn. Wakes to the scent of pine and wood sap and smoke, not a memory or a dream, but not real either. She breathes in the familiar smell, eyes still closed against the slow orange glow of morning, and imagines he's just stepped away from his camp for a moment. Just stepped away from a cheerfully warm fire. Maybe for a stolen moment with her, maybe… maybe. There are tears on her lashes when she blinks them open, and she brushes them away, sits, runs her fingers through her hair, and hopes for another blue jay this morning. Hopes it will feel like the last one, reassuring and light, and not full of doubt and desperation.
And then she turns her head and her breath catches. There on her bedside table rests her collection of feathers. They'd been safely stashed inside the drawer when she fell asleep, protected with a charm that she'd finally managed to tweak enough to keep out her evil other half, but there they sit. Fanned out and arranged by size as best they can be, the smaller ones on the outsides and in the middle. It's a bit crude, but it's unmistakably a heart. Her eyes well with a fresh flood of tears as she reaches over, brushes her fingertips along the smallest feather. She can still smell him, the fading scent of tall pines and fresh air, can feel a buzz like ozone in the air, and as her fingers touch the silky softness of the feather she feels the clean clarity of certainty wash over her.
They're no trick, no ruse. No manipulation.
They're gifts. Little hellos. Little I-love-yous.
She wipes tears from her eyes, conjures a square pane of glass and clears off the rest of the nightstand before covering the feathers carefully. They're pretty like this, and she likes the idea of waking every morning to his reassurances like those mornings she got to wake to his kisses.
When she takes her coffee out to the back porch later that morning, there's a blue jay feather resting on her favorite chair, and she smiles.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
- Emily Dickinson