Aligned
Everything was a blur.
The room seemed to be spinning as she watched her world crumble apart right in front of her, slowly, just knowing what was to come at the sight before her.
Snow looked up to her stepmother whom had just strode into her secluded chamber, clad in a cloak of black, her eyes searching the face of the one person she thought she could trust at one point in time, long ago. But all that was there was a wicked, satisfied smile, hardly visible between the gleam of a nearby wallset torch and the suffocating darkness overcoming the room due to the billowing clouds of the curse enveloping the palace at that very moment. She held her newborn daughter closer to her on the canopy bed, trying to sit up, as much as it hurt her, in her state of postpartum, having just gone through her daughter's agonizing birth not minutes before. Her husband hovered over the pair from the side of the misshappen bed, staring daggers at the queen before them.
The older woman, across the circular room from the family, looked at her with an intricate sense of revenge gleaming in her eyes, her hands twined together in front of her, as if she was comfortable with the situation. "Hello, dear... I believe you know of my purpose here." The young queen watched as she sashayed to the single, full-length, glass balcony doors, witnessing, to the new mother's dismay, the green mist of the Dark Curse rolling towards the castle on all sides. The Dark Curse. Snow's mind traveled, for a moment in time, to the dank dungeon from that one day not too far behind them, having confronted Rumpelstilskin there. He had told her and her husband of this dark force to come, explaining that their only hope was the wardrobe and her daughter. The savior. As she thougth back to this the general idea of their original plan seemed more and more impossible, now that she couldn't escape with her daughter. Not like it would have worked anyways, or so she believed. The carved out, enchanted trunk of the tree-turned-teleportation device loomed just through the entry doors, across the hall and into Emma's nursery, hardly visible from her perspective. The way to her daughter's safety seemed so close, yet so far away now.
But reality snapped her out of memory as she felt a weight disappear from her trembling arms, now draped barely across her chest. Her eyes whipped upwards to her enemy's figure, just then noticing the form of her tiny daughter now present in the Evil Queen's arms. "NO!" She felt herself involuntarily utter the scream, previously having been paralysed with fear. She felt her beloved move from her side silently, but all of her attention was on her captive daughter now, her mind whirling. The little one wasn't going to make it now. How was the savior to save them if she wasn't going to escape the curse? All of the plans that the pair had for their child seemed completely hopeless, crushed to dust like one of the queen's hearts, or so she had heard. She had known this from the start of their plan to save Emma, but it hadn't seemed real until now. Their excitement, the genuine love they would have given their daughter... Gone to the wind. Who knows what the queen would do to her now? Like she didn't have much time...
The queen looked down to the infant, wrapped up in a softened quilt, and smiled, though it still had a touch of satisfaction from it all, including Snow's dismay, and not an ounce of sympathy. The younger ruler came back to as she heard a sword being pulled from its sheathe at that very moment, knowing exactly which one it was. Charming, not two feet away from the bed, pointed the tip of his large blade at the queen's throat, still a distance away from her, in the position of a threat. The queen looked back up as the room darkened more so, a crooked smile still upon her features at his reaction. "Honestly, Snow, why did you bother with this one?" She looked the king in the eye and took a hand out from under the child, snapping her fingers. What happened afterwards was a mind-dizzying blur; Her husband was catapulted at the stone-laden wall just to the side of him, and she heard a sickening crunch, seeing him hit it chest-first, in unision with the clattering of his sword as it fell to the floor.
Snow felt her heart practically cave in on itself as she looked from the queen to her beloved, now splayed out on the floor near the stone, a pool of blood starting to form nearest his abdomen and right arm. She felt her stepmother's gaze burn into her back as she immediately gathered her stiff and sore muscles, slipping off of the bed and clutching at her own stomach as she struggled across the room to him. The queen gave her just enough time to fall down beside him, taking him up in her arms, but nary the time to try and bring him back to consciousness, to which she immediately tried to revive him by planting her lips on his cold ones, to no avail.
Snow jolted up from her husband's from, on the verge of tears at seeing him unresponsive. She looked up towards the queen. "Why are you doing this?" She manage to choke out, her breathing irregular. The queen seemed all the more joyful, though out of a successful shot at vengeance, at seeing the family crumble right before her. "Because this is my happy ending," she hissed, which made Snow's heart sink as she looked to her daughter, starting to cry in Regina's arms. The Evil Queen's eyes darted down to the tiny babe, realization seeming to dawn on her in small porportion compared to the rest of her ensemble of emotions. "And because of this right here, dear," she chided, not bothering to look up at the child's rightful mother, Snow watching with a horrified expression as the witch cradled her daughter. "Your daughter would bring you joy; Everyone knows that this comes to parents with their children. We know that that can't happen. And if I am unable to have children, why should I give you the satisfaction of having one of your own? Not like you will be happy any longer, anyhow..."
Just then, she heard a shatter and her vision became blurred. So much happened at once. The first that she could notice was the bursting of the windows, and the spilling of a green, puffy mist climbing into the room. She ducked down for a moment, still trying to comprehend the situation. The curse. It was here. But unexpectedly, she heard a door slam open. She lifted her head from her husband's bloodied chest, her raven-black curls tumbling down partially into her eyes, to see a man burst out of the darkness and quickly evaluate the situation. "Regina, love, what-" She heard him muster from the floor, looking to the queen. Regina shook her head, her eyes still shining with her successful act of revenge through the darkness, and immediately took her free hand to her back, to which she pulled a dagger out of a hidden holster.
Snow seemed surprised by so many things at once as the clouds bustled around them. How did the Evil Queen find love? What was she to do with that dagger? Why would she even think to kill said love? But all of her thoughts evaporated as she saw the elder woman take the small blade to the infant's throat, the young monarch's eyes widened to saucers as it slowly started to pierce her skin. All that she saw through the foginess that enveloped both her surroundings and mind was her daughter being threatened and the wicked smile upon Regina's heartless face before she quickly staggered up to her feet, running at the queen through the centripetally-forced wind. But the last thing she felt was the searing pain that went through her nerves as she hit her head on the rough wall, and the last that she witnessed was the clouds consuming all of them before the whole world went black.