A.N: Yay to the reviews, and alerts! Keep 'em coming, cause they really do help my confidence with a story for a fandom I am still scared of. Love to everyone who has read the story, and so far I'm still unhexed by hordes of Gleeks so... also yay.
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or the characters therein.
Enchanted
Chapter 2
Snow sat next to her daughter at the high table that looked out over the rest of their guests and watched as Emma searched through the crowd with an anxiousness Snow had seldom seen from her daughter. She knew exactly who Emma was looking for, and she knew that the woman in question was not in the room. Everyone would have known if Regina had returned from putting her little son to bed because the woman's presence couldn't help but be felt.
As her daughter let out a sigh of disappointment Snow considered Regina with a quiet frown.
The Queen of the Summerlands was twenty-four and very little was known about her personally. Indeed Snow hadn't realized that Regina had a son, and she knew for a fact that Regina had not been married for even a short time in order to conceive the boy.
If the boy was four then Regina must have given birth to Henry in the second year of her reign. The decision to keep the child was a bold and reckless one as her throne had been anything but secure at the time. The rebellion of the nobles had just been put down at the time and the men and women who'd escaped with their lives would no doubt have been waiting for any opportunity to point to Regina as an unfit ruler. A young unwed mother conceiving a child and then keeping it on top of it was reason enough to challenge her reign yet again.
Snow took a sip of water and had to concede that the fear Regina had instilled into the nobility of her Kingdom must have been terrible to have kept both Regina and Henry safe after such a scandal. It had even been kept quiet if Snow hadn't heard about it which was the feat of feats.
Next to her Emma straightened and let out a breath. Snow followed her daughter's gaze and saw what she was looking at, or rather who. Regina had entered the room and swept it with her gaze. She settled for a moment on a table full of the nobility from the Summerlands before a sneer curled across her lips and she shifted as if she would turn and walk out of the room as quickly as she had entered.
James, bless him, must have seen this because he stood and called out, "Queen Regina! Your Majesty? Sit here beside me!"
Regina paused and a look of surprise crossed her face for a brief moment before she smoothed her features and made her way towards the high table.
On Snow's other side Aurora hissed, "Why would he invite her up here?"
Cinderella shrugged, "Maybe he liked her?"
Aurora waved a hand, "Her son was cute, but that woman is a menace! Did you know she sent a dead fish as an answer when I invited her to the ball last year?"
Cinderella let out a giggle that she tried to suppress, "She actually did that? I thought for sure it was a rumor."
Aurora huffed, "No, she did it and before that when we broached the subject of a match between her and Charles her note said she'd rather marry a troll and let him eat her on their wedding night." She growled out, "She's rude!"
Cinderella, ever fair, spoke "She has no reason to be polite to any of us Aurora. We abandoned her when she needed friends the most. It wasn't her fault that her mother kept her so isolated as a child and teenager. She'd have grown up alongside Emma and Alexandra, and all of your boys, if Cora hadn't been so controlling."
Aurora let out a grudging sigh, "If I'd been raised by that woman I'd have jumped from a cliff by the time I was five, so I suppose a level of... rudeness can be excused. She'd have been better off raised by wolves."
Snow spoke up quietly as Regina drew closer to the table, "It probably helped that Regina was allowed to arrest the woman during the revolts."
Aurora's face twisted at the thought, "To be so concerned with your own status that you would stand against your own daughter? She would have been well within her rights to execute the woman."
Cinderella shook her head, "I think it speaks well of her that she avoided executions where she could. The ones that she allowed were strategic, and no one can blame her for having her cousin executed after what he tried to do to her."
From next to Cinderella her daughter Alexandra leaned in and joined the conversation, "What did he try to do?"
Cinderella smiled at her daughter and then the smile washed away as she spoke quietly, "He tried to force her to marry him, three days after her father had died, before the old King was cold, he stormed her chambers with a large majority of the high nobility and informed her that they were to be married to legitimize his throne."
Alexandra put a hand to her throat and gasped, "What? But she was the heir! He had no right."
Aurora nodded in agreement and suddenly her disapproval of Regina seemed to have never been present in the first place as she hissed, "He tried to rape her, but she managed to get away. She fled the palace and rallied the people under her banner. That's probably why the nobles haven't tried anything again, the people support her as Queen."
Snow shook her head, "They haven't given up, they just grown more subtle in their plots. Just last month we sent a warning to her that a poisoner had been hired by one of her more powerful lords."
Aurora paled as she turned to watch Regina who was being guided into her seat by James, "She… by the fates."
Snow nodded sadly and the perked up, "Maybe that's why she came, because she wanted to acknowledge our warning."
Aurora leaned past Snow and raised her voice, "We are so pleased you could join us Regina, did your son settle into bed?"
Regina paused and raised eyebrow, likely because of how friendly Aurora sounded before she nodded and replied evenly, "He did, he was quite taken with our guest chambers."
Snow watched as her daughter seemed to force herself to speak, "And did he get his story?"
Regina's impassive face warmed just a bit as she addressed Emma, "He did, and three songs."
James laughed, "Perhaps Henry should carry out the negotiations with the trolls instead of our generals."
Regina cracked a smile at the thought, "He is impressively persuasive."
King Philip spoke on Regina's left, "And how has your Kingdom faired this winter Regina?"
Regina answered him in a quieter voice as she turned to him and away from Emma. Snow couldn't help her frown when her daughter scowled and leaned over her plate now that Regina's attention was focused elsewhere.
Snow looked between the young Queen and her own daughter and hoped she was wrong, because she had no idea what they would do if her suspicions were correct.
Regina was certain that coming to this ball was the worst idea she'd ever had after the seventh uppity lord had asked her to dance rather than go bother the Princess the ball was actually for. She understood on an intellectual level. She was already a Queen in her own right, while Emma had years to wait before she might ascend the throne. The lords, grasping as they were, were insultingly transparent though as they heaped flattery on her, telling her of how highly their parents spoke of her, of how respected she was, how she was the fairest of them all.
Which was goblin piss, excuse her mouth. The nobility didn't speak highly of a monarch who'd so violently quashed an uprising led by other nobles. She'd cut off heads, stripped lands, ripped out hearts, and destroyed so many noble families, and financially ruined others that not a single noble present at the ball was unaffected by her particular brand of justice, and she wasn't even sorry about it. The noble houses, incestuous as they often were, had all felt it when she came down on the nobles in her Kingdom. So no, they didn't like her, why would they?
She would acknowledge that playing to her vanity about her looks was not a bad idea, so calling her beautiful was more honest than calling her well liked.
She shook her head as another lord began his approach and donned her most fearsome snarl, silently warning the young buck to walk away.
He blanched at the hard look on her face and spun around, causing James and Philip to laugh on either side of her.
"Regina, how will you ever find your true love if you won't dance?" James asked her as he waved away a serving girl and refilled Regina's goblet himself.
Regina let her lips curl up at the corners before she turned to look across the ball room where the young royals were standing, milling around.
She smiled to herself as Princess Emma sent another suitor off without a dance and murmured, "I will dance tonight, I promise you that much."
Emma watched as Aurora and Philip's youngest rubbed his hands together and rolled his shoulders, "I'm going to ask her, any second now…"
Emma smiled gently at the younger Prince, "George, you've been saying that for an hour."
George, who was seventeen and the handsomest of Aurora's trio of sons, glared at her "I will ask her!"
His brother William let out a harsh laugh and clapped George on the back, "Of all the jokes George, you'd never have the courage and even if you did, she'd never say yes."
Alexandra spoke up from William's left, more kindly than William had, "She's seven years older than you George, and she has a son."
George crossed his arms stubbornly, "That just means she'll be a good mother to our children, and she truly is the most beautiful woman here." Emma, Alexandra, and some of the other royal ladies leveled him with harsh stares and he winced, "Sorry…"
George's older brother Charles stepped forward and spoke in his quiet voice, "She won't have you George. Mother and Father have already approached her about a marriage with one of us, she declined."
George rolled his eyes, "That was before she met me."
Alexandra scoffed, "She still hasn't met you, what with you being terrified of her." She was decidedly less gentle now that George had insulted her looks.
George let out an angry growl before he set his jaw and spun away from the group and began his march towards Queen Regina.
The gaggle of royal youths let out surprised gasps as they elbowed each other and watched him go. Emma wasn't sure if she wanted George to get his dance, because he was her friend and Emma didn't want his pride to be injured, or if she wanted Regina to send him away.
She considered her feelings and wondered why she would care if George got his dance or not. Perhaps she liked him and hadn't realized it? She watched George smooth his hands over his backside and fluffed up the back of his suit and smirked. No… that wasn't it.
George came to a stop in from of the trio of monarchs and bowed deeply before his father, Emma's father, and Regina. He spoke to Regina once he had straightened and for a moment Emma was sure Regina was about refuse him until she glanced at Philip and nodded once.
Emma and her friends gaped as Regina unfolded herself from her chair and stood before offering George her hand and allowing him to lead her to the dance floor where he began to lead her in a fast waltz.
Regina was a very good dancer, as was George but there was something very stiff about the Queen, as if she was having trouble letting the younger man lead her anywhere, even on the dance floor. They made a handsome pair though, George with his pale eyes, and fair hair, and Regina with her dark eyes and darker hair.
Emma could see that they weren't talking as they danced, the speed of the dance didn't really allow for conversation. When the dance was over, George could have picked better, as it was a relatively short song, Regina gave a shallow curtsey to George and swept from the dance floor, right back to the company of Emma's father and King Philip. Both men stood and waited for her to resume her seat before they sat and began speaking at the same time.
George, for his part wandered from the dance floor with a stupid look on his face, like he'd ingested enchanted mushrooms, or the black ones that were found deep in the forest that didn't need to be enchanted.
The look irritated Emma for a reason she couldn't name.
Snow had watched her daughter watch Regina for the last three hours with a small frown in place as she sat with some of the more prominent noble women and Aurora and Cinderella. When Emma wasn't trying to subtly watch Regina, she was grudgingly dancing with the young men that had approached her. She never danced more than one dance though.
One of the women, from Aurora's kingdom, spoke "Does it bother you Queen Snow?"
Snow turned to glance at her, "Hmmm?"
The woman nodded towards Regina, who was seated between James and Philip, "That she seems to have cast a spell over your husbands?"
There was a nasty glint in the woman's eye and Snow had to fight the urge to snap at her. She was quiet for a moment as she watched James gesture wildly. A moment later Philip was roaring with laughter and Regina had cracked a small, almost shy smile as the two men conversed and tried to draw her further into their conversation.
She recognized the look on James' face when he looked at Regina, and it wasn't lustful, instead it was rather like how he looked at their Emma. He'd positioned his chair slightly ahead of Regina's and had taken to staring down the men who were still brave enough to approach the young Queen.
Snow couldn't begrudge him his protective instincts, and the fates knew Regina needed someone who would look out for her with the vipers of the nobility surrounding her. Snow had to admit it made her nervous to think of Regina dancing with any of the nobles, an assassin could easily stick a knife in between Regina's ribs while she danced and whirl away before anyone could be sure who'd dared hurt her.
She remembered how James had raged when they'd been warned by one of their spies at Regina's court about the poisoner. He'd been furious at the gall of the nobles, insisting that Regina would have been better off lopping off all their heads and staring over with a fresh crop of nobility drawn from the common people. Snow would never voice such a thought, but privately she was certain James was right.
She wasn't afraid that her husband would stray with the young, beautiful Queen. She was afraid that he'd be hurt or furious should one of the assassins succeed in the future as he'd taken it into his head that Regina needed protecting.
She spoke up finally, "It does not, I rather think James has always wanted another daughter, and Philip certainly doesn't lack for sons, but has never had a girl to dote upon. She's so young that they probably feel she should be protected."
The woman raised an incredulous eyebrow, "You aren't worried that he might stray?"
It was Aurora who snapped out, "True love does not stray Lady Trouville. Our husbands are simply being gentlemen."
Lady Trouville sniffed, "She should be here with us."
Cinderella shrugged good naturedly, "She's so young though, she probably wants to be with Princess Emma and all the other young ones, but she's a queen so she feels like she can't simply be young anymore."
Aurora smirked, "And Philip and James are still children at heart."
Snow let out a giggle, "They really are."
Snow perked up as Regina stood and smoothed a hand over her dress before she turned and curtsied, rather deeply, before James and Philip who had stood with her before she turned and made her way across the ball room.
She stopped near the royal youths and waited as they all curtsied and bowed before her. After they'd all straightened themselves she stepped forward and appeared content to listen as some of the young men spoke to her and Alexandra reached out a hand to touch the jeweled necklace Regina wore.
Emma appeared mute suddenly, even from a distance.
Cinderella smiled brightly, "Maybe you'll get your marriage after all Aurora, George was the only one she's danced with after all."
For her part Aurora looked horrified at the notion that Regina might have taken a shine to her baby boy, "He's just a baby though…"
Snow was silent, sure that Regina was about to scandalize the entire ball as she focused her dark eyes on Emma and spoke. The stunned faces of Emma's companions let Snow know that she was right.
And now all Snow White could do was wait to see if her daughter would say yes. She couldn't say which answer, yes or no, would suit her better.
Read and Review cause reviews are the crack that helps me keep my muse in line.
