a|n: birthday fic offering #1 for narcolepticbadger; also, incidentally, based on a word prompt she gave me many moons ago!
hubris
She should have watched where she was going.
To be fair, everything about this Sherwood place had started to look the same to her after trekking through it all damn day, and Regina honestly couldn't be bothered to care how hunters' traps were concealed, or the best ways of avoiding them, when she was the one the forest ought to fear most anyway.
Besides, she couldn't very well be expected to concentrate with him always…just…there, telling her the best route to her own castle, and then turning to joke with Neal as though the two idiots were headed off to summer camp together.
"Milady," the thief would call back to her every now and then, and there was no mistaking whom he addressed despite his insistence on doing it wrong, "careful where you step—the way can be treacherous, and those heels of yours are not what I'd have chosen for this journey."
(Only Snow's careful grip on her elbow had saved the thief from suffering what would have been a most untimely demise under the most unfortunate of circumstances.)
When Charming had called for a break, a chance to rest their weary feet and perhaps find a nearby source of water, Regina found herself volunteering to aid in the search, stalking off before anyone got any ideas about joining her.
The thief had warned her to watch her step.
So, of course, she didn't notice the round patch of flattened ferns and twigs, laid out much too meticulously to pass off as a natural occurrence, until it was too late.
This is how Regina winds up stranded twenty feet below the ground, wet and miserable and cursing out the thief every way she knows how, as though he were the one who'd personally seen to stationing a goddamn well in the middle of nowhere.
The walls have grown mossy from disuse, dotted over with a curious, blue-petaled flower that, as Regina soon discovers, has the immensely irritating effect of suppressing her magic, when she manages to hover five feet into the air before the purple smoke dumps her gracelessly back to the bottom.
Unbelievable.
She'll never hear the end of it from him.
There's far too much anger in her to make room for anything else at the moment, and certainly not anything that remotely resembles humiliation, or wounded pride, or panic.
She's heard tell of these traps before, designed by those desperate enough to bargain with witches, offering freedom in exchange for turning their luck around with a few simple enchantments or potions.
Regina would rather take her chances with a hundred flying monkeys than be made some village imbecile's personal bag of magic tricks.
This is all his fault.
Whoever had built this charming little prison cell had done an infuriatingly thorough job of it.
The stones are hopelessly smoothed over, offering her nothing by way of a foothold, and the crevices in between are slick with muck and rainwater and damnably narrow at that, nearly impossible for her to find any sort of leverage and haul herself up to the surface.
Not to mention the fact that the very prospect of walking, let alone scaling a stone wall, presents a bit of a problem at the moment.
She summons her magic to her fingertips, meaning to incinerate the flowers and then blast her way to the top, but the pathetic-looking flickers she's able to conjure fizzle out within seconds, and the petals themselves seem to have absorbed all her fire, searing her palms when she moves to tear them apart at the roots.
She's glowering at the burns on her hands when she hears her name, cautiously voiced, somewhere above her.
She'd been hoping Snow would be the one to locate her first; she hasn't failed to notice the woman watching her, hawk-like and hardly subtle about it, on their travels back to the castle. Snow never has learned to mind her own business, and she'll have likely assumed the worst and thought Regina determined enough to bury her heart a second time.
She might not have been half-wrong about that, though Regina would have at least preferred to do so on her own terms.
Still, she could have made the most of her situation before being discovered. That fist-sized cleft beneath the rock where she's rested her ankle would have been the perfect size for it.
Trust the thief to steal even that small, bitter seed of hope from her.
There's the sound of quickening footsteps, then the rustle of leaves being brushed aside, and a pair of twinkling blue eyes appears over the edge to squint down at her, delicately propped on the driest stone she could find and glaring most balefully up at him.
His entire face splits into a wide, wide grin, all dimples and blinding whiteness, as though he's never seen such a wondrous sight.
She's pretty sure she's going to kill him.
"Milady," he calls down to her, and she resolves to end him for that alone, "are you all right?"
He sounds far too amused for his own good.
"I'm fine," she sniffs, pulling her gaze away from his to stare resentfully at a beetle as it scuttles its way up the stones.
"You had me worried," says the thief mildly, reaching around to grab for something, and she takes advantage of his preoccupation to scrutinize him again, confused by his words.
What's in it for him, whether she dies or survives? She is the Evil Queen, after all, who'd cursed these lands and, as he'd more or less accused her of doing, sent her Black Knights to give his men a good chase back in the day.
(She's still certain he must have done something to deserve it.)
For all he knows, that very same fate could still be awaiting him the moment he's pulled her to safety, as he's clearly intended to do, and for reasons she simply can't fathom.
She's of little use to him; Snow could just as easily lead them to their castle—not that he requires much directing, as he'd happily pointed out to them—and he's already proven himself more than capable, not to mention more than proud, of having bested that monkey on his own.
She hadn't asked to be rescued, least of all by him.
Oh, but of course.
This man's a thief who thinks himself a hero, stealing for the poor, saving those whom he's deemed in need of saving.
She'll rot in this damn well before letting him use her like that to feed into his own delusions of grandeur.
"Can you hang onto this rope if I throw it down to you and pull you up?"
"No," she says snippily, but she won't stand for the patronizing look he gives her then, like he's the level-headed one and she but an obstinate child, so she mutters, just loud enough for her voice to carry her confession across the stones, "I think I've turned my ankle."
"Ah," says the thief, disappearing from view for a moment and leaving her with the distinct impression that he'd only done so to hide his smile.
Regina eyes the abandoned bucket beside her, wondering how feasible it would be to chuck it at his face the next time he dares to show it.
He doesn't emerge again for some time, and she can hear with a growing sense of mortification that the others have joined him now, their voices conspiring amongst themselves, no doubt gloating over her current predicament.
To her everlasting astonishment, when the thief reappears it's with the rope secured around his waist, and he grasps the free end of it, tugging it taut and nodding to someone before beginning his descent.
He rappels downward in slow, measured increments, carefully bracing his feet to the walls as he makes his way toward her, lower lip tucked between his teeth in a look of intense concentration that she finds herself oddly grateful for.
She doesn't think she would be able to stomach the indignity of being forced to play damsel if the insufferable thief had been smiling at her all the while.
By the time he reaches the bottom he's flushed with exertion but overall looking quite satisfied with himself, refusing to be fazed when she exhibits nothing but disdain for the hand he's extended to help her up.
"What do you think you're doing?" Regina demands to know.
"Were you planning on staying here much longer?" he wonders innocently.
"I was about to magic myself out when you showed up and insisted on saving the day," she sniffs, but at his pointed glance toward the flowers and back, she scowls and falls silent, rather galled that a thief should have been the one to catch her in a lie.
"You know, if you're enjoying yourself that much, I can always come back later." He pauses. "So long as you allow me a look at that ankle first."
"Not a chance," she growls, slipping her heels beneath her hemline.
"Later it is, then," he says agreeably, retreating with exaggerated steps as though to climb back up and leave her there, but he's underestimated her in every way, and he looks momentarily baffled by her commitment to resisting him.
She fully anticipates that he'll call it a day and send someone else down—Snow, perhaps—to deal with her, but it appears that she's grossly miscalculated his resolve, too.
"I've seen many types of enchanted wells," he muses then, with a curious eye to the blue-flowering plants. "These are a fairly uncommon find. You're, ah…lucky, I suppose, is hardly the right word to ascribe to your having stumbled upon one. Though it's certainly not so rare as a wishing well."
He smiles sympathetically, as if he could know anything of what she's lost (a son, more vital than any organ), as if a wishing well could return to her what worlds of magic have ripped apart—
But the thief only means to show her kindness, because he couldn't possibly know, and yet she wonders if the grief, so heavy it weighs her heart to her heels, isn't more obvious to him than he's let on.
"Look." He levels her with a warm gaze, something like understanding held in all that blue. "I know you didn't ask for my help. But I'm asking you now—please, let me return you to your people, Your Majesty."
How little he truly does know, then, she thinks with a sneer (with relief), a scathing refutal of whatever people he thinks he's referring to ready to leave her tongue, but there's movement above them then, and Snow and Charming are peering down, matching outrageously in their expressions of collective concern.
She hears Granny in the background, hollering orders on how to tie a more durable knot around the tree they've employed as their anchor.
Regina's lips press together, lacking for words.
"What happened to your hands?" he inquires then, this man who already seems to understand too much of her, with a gentleness she doesn't know how to handle, and she looks askance to hide her discomfort.
"Nothing a little magic won't fix later," she mutters, using fists to cover her palms and deter any more of his useless questions as she stands and steadies herself on her good ankle.
It's all the permission he needs to step forward, winding the loose end of rope into snug loops at her waist. He pulls her closer with each methodical twist and tug until she's fastened securely to him, their bellies flush, her arms at her chest to put as much space between them as possible.
Regina starts in protest when he reaches around to press a hand against her back, glaring across the remaining distance from her eyes and his, trying not to breathe him in by accident.
"Hang on to me," he murmurs, and her fists tighten in stubborn refusal as he tilts his chin up to address the rest of their party, exposing the curve of his throat to assault her unwilling senses, the tanned expanse of stubbled skin, the scent of leather and pine and this godforsaken forest.
"Ready whenever you are," Granny yells, and with a jolting lurch they're being pulled upward, the thief's arm supporting half her weight as she finds her hands unfurling to grip his tunic collar in a way that feels like a betrayal.
She turns rigidly away when she catches him smiling.
His cheek brushes against her hair, strands of it snagging in his beard, and she can practically feel each breath expanding his chest, deep, even, almost hypnotic, warming her ear with every exhale as she watches the ground beneath them slowly recede into blackness.
Regina can't untangle herself from him fast enough once they've reached the top.
Charming has barely untied the rope from her waist when she hurriedly accepts Snow's outstretched hand, letting the woman pull her away before shooing her off and hobbling over to a nice, solid patch of grass. There Regina becomes thoroughly absorbed in the task of mending her ankle, desperately grateful for the distraction, and for the clean, open air, gulping it in to get rid of his scent.
Snow and the rest of their party slowly wander back through the treeline to tend to their restless horses, leaving her alone to nurse the various injuries she'd sustained (some more easily healed than others).
Well—not entirely alone.
The thief is carefully examining his bowstring when she finally approaches the edge of the clearing, endeavoring to look every bit like the Queen that she is, and not like the helpless thing she had been in the last hour, trapped yet again into suffering the assistance (the sympathy) of others.
He seems intent on allowing her to pass first, and she strongly suspects he'll be the one to watch where she steps from here to the castle, evidently operating under very little faith that she'll do so herself.
Regina thinks of the well, how it would've made a fine hiding place for her heart—another shard of blackened rock that no one will think to miss—and she wonders if he isn't wrong not to trust her after all.
"Thank you," she tells him stiffly without meeting his eye, and she doesn't bother awaiting his response before brushing past him to rejoin the others.