It took me so long to update this (I have no excuses).
Thanks everyone for the reviews and alerts!
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Still beta-less. Some references to violence here, so if you don't like this sort of thing you know what to do.
Late twilight sent shy traces of tangerine light against the castle's walls, unfamiliar colorations that might give some the impression of peace. Those illuminations follow her, fluctuating, as her needle high heels thuds against the floor with poise, echoing her passage for anyone foolish enough to get in her way.
Regina doesn't race this, rather makes her stroll twice slower. She had plenty of time to dissolve this event, moped around the unfairness of her fate enough counts in the privacy of her room to have her resolve cracking just now. What's bound to happen is merely means to an end, she repeats, and almost hears Cora's cooing at the foot of her ear: I'm so proud of you, Regina.
The smile she sends a guard's way at the start of the spiral stairs is not that different from Mother's after all. Shrugging such disturbing associations aside, she downs each of the steps gracefully, nodding curtly to another one of her men as she reaches bottom to a small gate that's quick to open.
The smell of the Dungeons reminded her accurately of death. It's raw scented and fairly substantial - intoxicating energies pouring out of every passing cell like smoke. Not for once does her focus falter from the entry at the end of the hallway, despite loud commotions emerging at her presence. She's way mature nowadays to pretend they're not out of rage.
Two heavy doors scratched loudly together before going separate ways. Instinctively her eyes spotted him down on the floor, neck hung low and toned arms limp at his side. Oh the irony of his position makes the little Rumpelstiltskin inside her head giggle hysterically. She would laugh herself too, if this wasn't sick as it was.
One gesture of a hand sends the knights away, the identical scratch informing they're alone at last. For a while Regina doesn't move or say a word, simply scrutinizes him mercilessly from the golden-colored crown of his head to the deplorable condition of his clothes. There's a minor squeal at each end of his breaths that alerted his pain much like a tea kettle boiling minutes on-end.
It appears she'd got a little too late to prevent any techniques, she observes, studying the tense set of his shoulders - something must be broken - and the carmin spots of dry blood painted all around his ripped garments.
He couldn't look further from a King if he were to try.
The remarkable thud of her steps causes his breath to momentarily hitch; true to her spirit, her pace is just as careful as her consideration of him is. Seconds allow realization to wash over her in an all-encompassing wave. Suddenly it's all so simple the stars might've as well aligned.
The man before her, this righteous criminal so feared by others: here he kneels at her feet.
Regina could make him do anything.
It might be alarming the way this superiority still thrills her. It likely drenched her voice with ruthless arrogance, just the way Mother would have her sounding like. Composed, but accurately authoritarian.
"Look up." She ordered, already expecting the pause it took him to comply.
In the next breath all she saw was frozen blue. Piercing, throbbing oceans staring back at her, grudge depriving his eyes of any warmth. Regina didn't expect him to look so beaten, although the surprise is nothing short of naive. The angry skin of his cheekbone is swallowed, purple and black battling for dominion over the bruised spot. A huge gash outlines one of his brows like a hat, sanguine traces of fluid still scatterly glued to his shaggy face. The fact that his pupils were displayed so wide, so defiant, could purely confirm obscure tales surrounding his name. Alive unlike the rest of him, it screamed for every part that no longer could.
The infamous Robin Hood sustained her gaze as if he knew her resolve could be shaken, and by doing so, he immediately granted her only one single alternative.
To shake his.
"Stand." is the next command to leave her lips.
Curiosity bubbles up inside her effortlessly at the rising anger reshaping his features. The beast in her understands the threatened beast in him, perhaps, so when she forces the sadistic smirk out of her expression it's enduring something akin to respect. His square jaw flexes several times as a private debate afflicts him. Stupid boy, she thought. Stupid, prepotent boy.
It's another second or two until he huffs a breath and inches forward, hoarse groans drawn out of his throat with frantic pants. At some point his respiration nears a sob and Regina has half a mind to wish she'd rip her heart out for this - almost overtaken by relatives of regret. When the thief's hand finally leans on the putrid ground, it's already too much and his body holds nor strength nor balance to carry on. Robin falls onto his side, piercing screams filling the walls and awakening its ghosts.
At least now she knows the arm is what's broken.
Loud cries keep on coming, the convulsions taking hold of him impeding his weight to shift out of the injured limb.
Involuntarily, the muscles of her throat burn; that girl who loved horses and daylight and a stable boy forcing Regina to fist both hands in order to not act on impulse. She has to find the will to quickly shut that stupid girl up, because this is leverage and the only step to take after leverage is power.
And power is all that's left to seek.
She's fairly certain the black is rooting further into the fibers of her heart as she lowers down on her calves. The thief mumbles incoherently now, seemingly lost between two planes where neither endows him mercy. A twisted serenity within her took its time examining his torment, fingers inching toward him with a delicate tilt of her head.
At the contact, he quit breathing altogether. "Are you scared of me?" She then asked. A pensive edge to her voice matched her dazzled eyes. As feather-light as a lover's caress, her fingers didn't flinch away at the touch of warm tears and saliva, instead spreading them like artistic clay.
He looked enchanting somehow. Maybe the allure of his pain engorged her ego, for she was the one able to cure - the God of his torture, his only angel. Maybe her insanity had reached irrevocable levels. Whichever way, right then between his moans and the orange sun and the fetid floor, she decided he shall be hers.
Like a puppy!
Her delight is short-lived though, volatile as any other. In a wink of an eye the hand that's petting is the one gripping his chin, roughly, stretching his neck and making him wail. "Answer me if you don't want a pair of broken arms." Regina grits between her teeth. Her eyes throb as if they're ready to pop out of her head, flaring nostrils orchestrating a mask she's not sure she'd want to face. No wonder they call her the Evil Queen.
She can feel malice striping through her veins like hot liquid.
With encouraging nods she watched him babble, until something sounding awfully similar to "Please" reached her ears. She inched her head closer until every scent of him could be smelled. Sweat, mud and excretions didn't rock her will to chain his stare thoroughly.
It was barely as vivid as minutes ago. "Are you in pain?" She probed with what resembled commiseration.
Oxygen sliced his throat in several stutters. "Y-yes." Then, firmer, an insistence that only comes out of despair. "Yes."
There's a pull at the corners of her mouth that curls it upward, bit by bit, until she's close to beaming. The suicidal drops of tangerine light seemed to be offering its goodbye as they cast over his begging eyes. It's just when she sees the surrender she'd been waiting all along that she sultrily speaks:
"Remember that the next time you dishonor your Queen."
He's still trying to comprehend her words the moment she pushes him back onto the ground. Hardly.
Even on his back, the harsh encounter is enough to hurt him regardless. She could only imagine the degree of the bruises she couldn't actually see. As his brusque puff of air echoes through the room once more, Regina stood up with an overly annoyed sigh. She might be a sadist, yes, yet surely sadists have other business to attend as well.
His voice piercing through her thoughts is just as unexpected as the clarity to it. Breathless, albeit audible, she thinks she hears some sort of hostility back to his tune. Not so far from a child's tantrum, she muses. "What do you want from me?" Robin Hood asks.
The laughter she wanted to give does not flourish, dark humor abruptly leaving her. No answer should be requested for she was the Queen, and answered to no one; and in case she wanted something, all she had to do was take it.
Begrudgingly, she still snaps: "What I want doesn't matter." Glancing out the minuscule window, the darkening sky fits suitably with her lower, almost melancholic voice. "But it's certainly not you."
The thief says nothing in return, whether over exhaustion or insurance. She feels she's overshared either way, dropped her weapons too inadvertently, so she's quick to reiterate. "You made quite a popularity for yourself, outlaw, I'll give you that." Peeking over her shoulder, his body remains immobile on the floor. She imagines his eyelids were closed, though can't be sure as she briskly focused outside again, a biting chuckle exiting her lips. "There's a whole bunch of gypsies camping outside my castle, for heaven's sake!"
She turns around with a hostile smile that submerges at the face of disinterested silence. Drawing a deep breath, she straightens her posture before pacing around the dungeon like there was something remarkably worth-seeing about it.
The gasp comes after a few seconds of forged examination.
Her back is to him, but if the shifting noises along the sea of tiny rocks are any indicator, the picture of him is indubitable. Out of the corner of her eye she's roughly certain he's sitting up on his recently healed criminal ass. The upcoming shadows of the night say she's running out of time, so Regina continues. "They do love you." Furrowing her brows at the reason she couldn't yet grasp, she spun on her feet to face him. "Why?"
Despite no longer injured, his appearance was altogether the same. Big glittery eyes were the single distinctive feature about him, outspread to their maximum as it gawk at her. "You- w-what... You did this?" He stammered, divided between horror and astonishment. His gaze kept flicking from her to his arm as though somehow the connection might be lost over this invisible bridge.
Setting her jaw with zero intentions of reassurances, Regina barked: "Do you recall what I said about answering my questions?"
The threat served to halt his movements, although not out of fear, she dreadfully noticed. Consciousness has seemed to bring his confidence a little bit back, and she finds herself muffling the urge to mock what a big man he was. Instead, she waits as he takes a second to remember her question in the first place.
"Is it because you give them things?" She probes beforehand, in ridiculous rushed syllables that has her swallowing her girlish agitation down. "I offered them everything. More than you ever could."
"At the expense of a life." Robin points, and it's probably the arch of his eyebrow that has her fuming with rage.
One familiar scold deforming her expression, she hisses towards his kneeling figure. "What does it matter?" Her crazy glare turns her all the more insane. "To kill a spoiled little brat isn't worth a peaceful life?"
A smirk crossed over his mouth for a fleeting millisecond, as if what he knew Regina wouldn't ever in a million years. His accent squeezing her gut into a tight knot, he answered with an ease so contrasting to her hysteria. "That would be the opposite of a peaceful life."
A bitter grin emerges at his words. Then, lifting her brows with cynic understanding, she mockingly bowed. "Very well. I shall no longer attempt to perjure your follower's honor" she acquiesced, pausing solely for effect. "You will."
Face scrunching in confusion, his eyes narrowed until blue was barely seen. "What do you mean by that?"
Unprecedently, her pulse accelerates as if her nerves had been plotting an ambush of perfect timing all along. When her voice resonates through the stone walls, she hears herself but it's something darker, something else speaking through her vocal chords. It's both freeing and terrifying to not fight the Evil Queen any longer. Surrender feels like a life-long craved night of sleep.
"What I mean is that you are to do the services I've proven incapable of so far. You'll tell your friends of the Queen's ultimate benevolence and how deeply she sorrows her deceased husband-"
"They'll never believe me." He cuts her off with what could only be outrage.
Regina smiled knowingly to the truth of his words, but didn't seem afflicted over such shortcomings. "They won't. But they might believe us." She gave two long steps until her feet were before his knees, an expression so collected she might as well be reciting a tale. "The story of the lonely Queen and the ethical prisoner who fell madly in love with each other."
Both her eyebrows arched awaiting a reply other than the stupefied gape of his mouth. Casually cheery, she prodded, "That'd would be pretty believable, don't you-"
"What if I refuse?" He spoke above her, at last meeting her brownish stare. The perpetuous crimp above his lips insinuated his disgust was starting to reach physical proportions.
It had her reacting in kind. "Then I fry your entire tribe of friends alive, one by one, and have you watching."
If there was any awakened humanity inside her, it might've been startling to know she meant each word. So vehemently she can picture it, almost drop her original plan altogether so she can prove this ultimatum to him, Regina isn't bluffing. Collecting her poise back, however, she thinks her tone is edging on sweet, too much amicable to pass on as genuine. "See? We're all granted choices. It's up to you to decide which is the most honorable one."
The dazzled panic on his face speaks far more than his silence, and in case it were to be broken, Regina's steps are quick to avoid it and walk away.
She doesn't look back. All the reverse way through the screaming cells, faceless knights and heavy doors, her numbness is too heavy to give room for any other thing.
The sunset has burnt out into a forgotten pool of gold by then, a tragedy in the name of each star. It's when her camouflage finally feels at home between the dark, empty corridors of the castle.
As she makes it to the solitude of her chambers, standing there, curiously apathetic, all there is left are naked facts:
A crowded heart in her chest, a bitter victory in her pocket and no ring on her finger.
Nothing else.