White.
White, like the knight that was supposed to save her.
Like the dress she was supposed to wear. Like the step-daughter she was supposed to have. White, like the lies she tells. Regina hates white even though she sees it everywhere. Feels it everywhere. Hears it in the stolen breaths between Mary and David. Smells it in Emma's hot cocoa.
White, like the life she wanted here.
White, like the life she can never have.
Purple.
Purple is the color of royalty, they say, which is why Regina only saves it for special occasions.
When she needs to feel a Queen is when she wears it. It empowers her, strengthens her resolve. Regina wears it when she needs to be reminded who she is, where she came from, how she got there.
Why she's where she is now and what she means to do there.
Purple is Regina's color.
Purple is her subtle triumph.
Red.
She dreams in red.
Regina awakens in a surge and blinks once, twice, three times, before her eyesight adjusts to the blackness of the room and she is comforted by the distant glow of the moon.
She rises and stands by the window, the cool night air tickling her flesh. Regina's eyes anchor on her apple tree and she observes its torn and frayed limbs, anger darkening her thoughts. Emma. Emma makes her see red.
Red, the color of blood. Red, the color of hate. Red, the color of love.
Regina hates red.
Blue.
The color of Snow's eyes when she found out her father was dead.
Piercing, deep, vivid blue––shining like they always did when she was about to cry.
Regina likes blue. Something romantic about the threshold of tears in another's eyes, the way they pool just before spilling over and releasing an aura that's just so…
Well, blue.
Blue like a storm. Blue like the jacket she bought Henry that he almost never wears. Blue like the water under the toll bridge in the summer.
There was something about blue. Something peaceful, subdued. The gateway to a more powerful emotion. Blue––potential. Potential for heartbreak. Potential to augment and become destruction. Blue––sadness, in its purest form.
Regina likes blue.
Grey.
Regina feels in shades of grey.
There are no absolutes. She cannot hate or love completely, though she often forgets this.
It's part of her nature to doubt. Doubt everything. Doubt even herself at time. She feels in the in-betweens. She thinks in the in-betweens. Greyscale, monochrome. There are no truths in her world. She needs someone one day and discards him the next. She oscillates back and forth from one extreme to the other, never leaving the middle of the spectrum.
Grey is her wardrobe. Grey is her home. Grey is her heart.
Regina exists in shades of grey.
Yellow.
The sun shines yellow in Storybrooke, the prison Regina created for herself. Funny, she muses, she doesn't remember it shining this bright before.
It's incredible, the effect suffering can have on something as simple as the brightness of the sun. But itis brighter for Regina. A world where everything is her own.
Finally.
Storybrooke is pitiful and Regina loathes it but it's hers, all hers. Built from the misery of its inhabitants who don't even realize how truly miserable they are. Pathetic. So deliciously pathetic.
Well. It was, anyway.
But now Regina stares at the sun with a grain of defiance and thinks to herself, yellow.
Yellow, like Emma's hair. Casting over the town like a fever scourge. Yellow, she seethes. The sickness that infected Mary, Graham, David, Kathryn, everyone. The sickness that begins and ends with Emma.
Yellow.
Yellow is Regina's enemy.
Green.
Green is the ring she wears and the secrets she keeps. Green like the forest, which, they say, holds many mysteries.
You never know what you'll find in the deep woods, Regina would say before. It's just the same in Storybrooke, she says now.
There are some things that remain true for any universe.
Like mysteries in the woods. Like pain in her heart.
Green is for suffering. Quiet and hidden, for no one to seek. Green is the proof of unchanging heartache. Green is the confirmation that happiness is not for her to have.
Just like the ring she wears, the secrets she keeps.
Green is where the truth hides. The truth she has no desire to find.
Pink.
For the memories of her mother; the daughter she knows she should have been. A girl, a princess. A testament to human beauty.
Pink is for the pearls her mother always wanted her to wear. The color she should have loved. The thoughts she should have had.
The ghost of what could have been that haunts her even now.
Pink is for the should-haves. Pink is for regrets. Sweetness and charity, those virtues she so neglects.
The love she should have had for the king; not quite red but not quite white. The childhood she should have given Snow. The life she should have lived.
Pink is her sorrow. Pink is her failure.
Regina sees pink and she recalls the past. Regina sees pink and she feels disgust.
But not shame.
Pink may be the color of should-haves, but Regina takes nothing back.
Copper.
The way blood looks when it's dried––the way it should have looked when she crushed Graham's heart to dust, if it wasn't for magic.
Magic, unnatural. Blood to ash before blood to copper.
This is one of the things Regina loves about it.
Not as messy, no tracks to cover up. It halts the natural process of life and reminds her that she is above it.
She is above life as it naturally occurs, she muses, mind lingering on the double meaning of that truth.
Blood flows blue in the veins, red on the flesh, copper in the stale air. But Regina doesn't see this.
She doesn't see anything at all.
Black.
Black is her cloak––black is the shroud in which she hides. Black is her safety. Black is her respite. Black is her solace.
Regina is herself when she is in darkness. The absence of color, the absence of light. Which is what she is, anyway, isn't she? The absence of color. The absence of light.
Heartless, that word of Emma's echoes in her thoughts. Heartless.
A smile touches her lips and she realizes she is proud of the reputation she has. Good, she says, let them fear me. Let them think I will stop at nothing.
Which is true.
For in the blackness, there is nothing to stop her.
Brown.
Brown is her favorite childhood steed. Brown was her escape; her hope that one day if she just rode fast enough she could outrun her mother forever.
Brown is the color of her father's hair before it turns silver, gray, white.
Brown is the color of Daniel's eyes.
Muddied intentions, murky memories, the divide between what is and what was, what could be and what should be.
Brown is her favorite steed.
Brown is the color of Daniel's eyes.
So, by extension, brown is death. Brown is loss. Brown is the love she once felt and the love she won't let herself feel now.
Regina is terrified of brown.
Gold.
The wealth she had as queen that never fulfilled her.
The material and the incorporeal. The constant reminder of Rumpelstiltskin, wherever she went. Gold.
When she looks at him she sees her mother. She sees ineptitude , incompetence. Brokenness. A power vacuum for her to fill.
And fill it she will, but not with gold. No, not with gold.
She fills it with black, because black she can trust, and gold she cannot.
If there was one truth Regina lived by it was never to trust gold. Gold lies. Wealth lies. Rumpelstiltskin lies. Gold leaks with deceit, corruption, hate.
Gold is broken trust.
It is a fitting name for her enemy.
A fitting bane for Regina's existence.