I feel like the most horrible writer in the whole world! I am so so sorry! it has been so hard for me to write and it has been so completely frustrating. But I have this Chapter and two and a half more completed! So I will be posting another chapter on Sunday!
Or or tomorrow if you ask nicely ;) enjoy! And I am so so sorry!
Regina had avoided him since that thunderstorm. She had kept to herself and barely spoke a word to anyone. She was tired and annoyed and lonely, longing for something deeper than anything her huntsman could offer. But while she still held anger toward Snow and David, she felt it more potently toward herself. For wanting the attention of the infuriating shepherd, for wanting his help to learn how to live again, for not knowing how to ask for his help, for not knowing what to do with herself at all. She felt useless and pathetic and weak and she hated it.
So she sat upon her favourite window seat, her feet up on the cushioned bench and dark blue velvet pouring down on to the floor as she watched the snow fall. It had been only two days since their tempers had snapped and he had pinned her down. But the days had been slow and she felt even more lonely than before. It made her stomach churn and her lip curl back in disgust. She hated how much she wanted to be held by the shepherd. Hated how attached she had become. She was pathetic, latching on to the first person willing to stay in her company despite the past atrocities held between them. It made her skin crawl.
And yet still, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around the persistent shepherd's neck and cry while he held her tight and close just as she knew he would if she gave him the chance. As much as she despised admitting it, she missed being touched.
"I'm leaving."
She jumped at the sound of his voice as she swung her head around to look at him. Standing in the middle of the room was the shepherd dressed in heavy furs to ward off the cold outside the palace walls, ready to indeed leave. "Where?" Was all she could say and his brow furrowed at her question. As though his statement shouldn't have required such an inquiry.
"Home. To Snow," he replied and she stilled. Sobered even. Not that she had been particularly flamboyant or arrogant to begin with, but something about his answer had quieted her. He had expected a scoff, a laugh, a 'good riddance', some form of snark. But she simply sat there as beautiful as ever in a dark blue velvet gown and her hair spilling over her shoulder in near ebony waves. The white light coming in through the snowy window made her skin glow. Not a word spoken, not a scowl offered.
It gave him pause and he even went as far as reconsidering his decision to leave. It took quite some time for her to respond at all and when she did it was bored and void of any tangible emotion.
"Why are you still standing there then."
"In truth, your majesty, your reaction has given me pause."
"Whatever for?"
"Well I feel I must now ask," he started and she listened but remained incredibly distant and shut off, "would you prefer I stay?" He asked and there was a beat of silence to follow, as though she were considering it. Or perhaps just trying to make sense of what had just left his mouth before she scoffed a laugh. But her smile still didn't reach her eyes.
"Be on your way, shepherd. Your company is not wanted," she bit and felt something die a little inside her as the shepherd stepped away.
He had hesitated but when she didn't move and her cold expression didn't give way, he did dip his head and back away, "your majesty," he bid farewell but she only glowered and remained perched beside her window. So he left and he hated that he was leaving but he just couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't get stabbed again, he couldn't be thrown off the castle spire again, he couldn't die again. He was exhausted and even though it didn't sit right with him, he had decided to leave. Lest he snap her fragile little neck as he had almost done two days prior. He had had enough. So he turned and left her to be. Despite every part of him telling him to do otherwise.
Regina watched him leave and she wanted to say 'good riddance' but there was a stone in her chest that made it impossible to ignore the feeling of loss. She was alone again. It was nothing new, and she had never liked David, but it didn't make the loneliness sting any less.
One may argue that she had wanted him gone and while that was true, it didn't negate the fact that she had been left once more. Alone.
Everyone always left.
And as she looked down out her window, she jutted her jaw forward and a tear rolled down her cheek while she watched the shepherd ride away from her. It was funny, if you thought about it, had he come to her with more questions or had pushed her just once more, she would have caved. She would have given in, she would have crumbled before him and he would have won. It wouldn't have been pretty and it wouldn't have been everything but she would have let him in.
But instead she was sitting alone in the window watching the snow fill the shepherd's tracks, feeling colder than ever before still wondering how it would have felt to have just sunk in to his arms and cried away the pain in her dark heart.
...
It had taken only a day and a half of travel to get home as opposed to the full two it had taken with the convoy when they transported the queen. He couldn't recall the amount of times he had nearly turned around and rode back to the dark palace. Back to the queen. Back to Regina. It still didn't feel right leaving her there alone, it bothered him to no end but it also didn't feel right turning around and going back to her. He was stuck. He was torn. And he missed Snow.
He missed her so much it hurt and he was so completely exhausted both by the travel and the queen's company. He just wanted to go home and be where he was wanted. But he also could not get Regina out of his head. So he rode with his eyes down at his horse's withers and watched his shoulders move as he carried him up the road and in between various wool bundled common folk warding off the winter chill. It hadn't stopped snowing since he had left the dark palace.
They were big fluffy flakes that had accumulated higher than his horse's knees in some parts of the road he had chosen to travel. Even if he couldn't quite feel his toes, he loved being outside in the weather. The earth was clean and white, the trees weighted with bright white snow, the air crisp and fresh, just cold enough but not too cold. It was a perfect day. He only wished his mind wasn't so filled with torment.
The castle could be seen through the trees, big and covered in snow. It was probably still another hour's ride away but given that he had already travelled nearly two days, he was almost there. And yet while he was relieved to be so close to home, he felt equally as sick to his stomach over leaving Regina alone in the dark palace so far away.
He knew it would do her no good. In fact, he knew being left on her own would make things worse for her. Loneliness was kind to no one and it paid an especially cruel toll on the dark queen. But she was just so stubborn and so violent that he just simply could not take anymore. So he frowned as he rode and paid no mind to the merchants packing up their work for the day.
And then for whatever reason, he looked up. He looked up and over to his right and when he focused on what had caught his attention, he halted his horse and studied it for a moment. And then he slumped his shoulders and laughed a tired laugh.
He had to go back to the dark palace.
...
"David!" Snow laughed as she hurried to him and he gave her a weary smile and hugged her in to tired arms, "I didn't know you were coming back today," she laughed and he nuzzled his face in to her neck and took a deep breath, "are you okay?"
"Mhm," he mumbled and was ever so grateful when she didn't say another word and just hugged him tight and let him hold her back. He hadn't quite realized how much he had missed her, but above all else he hadn't realized how much he had missed being wanted. Missed being welcome, missed holding someone close, missed having another person who wasn't trying to kill him every time he turned a corner. It made him wonder if the queen felt the same. No, he knew the queen felt the same and it made his chest ache even more for her as he enjoyed every ounce of love and comfort and familiarity between him and his fiancé.
"How did it go?" She asked with a happy smile and a kiss to his shoulder without so much as thinking to let go of him.
"She is impossible," he sighed and she hummed as her fingers started twirling through the hair at the nape of his neck, "and exhausting."
Snow couldn't help but laugh a little for she knew exactly what he meant and could sympathize better than anyone. Except for maybe Regina's father. "Did you make any progress?"
"I don't know," he breathed and hugged her a little tighter, "I've missed you. So much."
"I've missed you too," she laughed softly and then hummed once more in adoration before asking again because he was holding her far longer than he usually did, even on his worst days, "are you okay?"
"Just really tired. Mentally. And enjoying the fact you aren't going to kill me the first chance you get," he told her and she gave him a sad but adoring little laugh that was an apology on behalf of her stepmother.
"She can be a real piece of work," Snow offered and he scoffed a small laugh, "you lasted a lot longer than I thought you would. I was starting to wonder if she had actually succeeded in killing you."
"You won't be rid of me that easily," he teased and she laughed again and lifted her head, encouraging him to do the same so they could look at one another.
"I am proud of you for trying," she told him as she cradled his head in her hands and he smiled a little.
"Hmm."
"When are you going back?"
David wasn't sure why she had assumed that he would be returning to Regina and not leaving her to rot away in the dark palace. Perhaps it was her blind love for her stepmother and blind faith in him, but regardless, she wasn't wrong. "Right away," he told her and she shook her head with a surprised smile but he didn't smile at all for his mind was chasing a piece of the queen he had grasped at down at the market outside the castle.
"So soon?"
"Yeah..."
"...Are you sure you are alright, David?"
"I don't think I should have left in the first place..." he murmured more to himself than anything else but Snow heard him regardless. It was all coming together now. Regina's quiet and reserved nature the morning he left, the fact she had actually complied when he had pinned her down and yelled at her to stop on that stormy night, and then the way he found such relief and comfort in coming home to Snow and being able to hold her close because she was his person. Regina had no one. Not a soul but her father and she wouldn't so much as talk to him on the best of days. She didn't have a person. And yesterday morning he had been so close to finally getting through to her.
He could see it now. He shouldn't have left. He should have seen it. She had been so quiet and so unstable, she was so far from her regular self that he should have seen it and approached her. He was a fool and he had left her. Just like everyone else. And he had been in her head, he knew how she felt about being left, he knew what it did to her and he had gone ahead and left her anyway. If he had just taken another step.
"David?" She repeated for the fourth time and finally snapped him out of whatever thoughts plagued his mind.
"I have to go now."
"Now? David you just-"
"Snow, I was so close to getting through to her but I didn't see it, I need to go back before everything is lost, before she is lost again," he tried to explain desperately but she didn't argue, only gave him a smile of utter adoration and moved her thumbs over his cheeks.
"Just promise me it won't be so long until I see you again," she smiled for she understood. She understood that Regina was difficult and that her windows were narrow and short lived. She understood what it was like to find yourself so completely invested in her. She couldn't judge, she couldn't argue, she was in the exact same position as David. He simply had more of an opportunity to make a difference than she. So who was she to keep him from going back.
With a sigh of relief and a tender smile, David placed his hands over hers on his jaw and shook his head, "I promise."
"Good," she smiled and hummed a little laugh when David kissed her palm, "and stay longer," she scolded and he laughed and pulled her in to another hug with a kiss to her cheek.
"I promise."
"I miss you."
"I miss you too."
...
Hollow is how she felt. Hollow and numb to the cruel world she lived in. But despite that, at the drop of a hat she could be so completely taken over with rage that she would smash everything in sight and kill anyone in her field of vision. Needless to say, her remaining staff had been offering her a wide birth these past three days. A very wide birth.
"Appeal to them, my child."
"No," she growled lowly, her top lip pulling back to show her clenched teeth for how dare he insist such things from her. Over and over again. She had hoped to be free of him today, especially having come to stand outside in the cold.
"They will listen," he pleaded gently as he stepped up behind her but she kept her back turned and her gaze out on the forest the past the iron rail fencing the upper courtyard.
"I will not bow to the likes of Snow White," she snarled and her hands wrung the iron rail in front of her. The only thing keeping her from falling from the great height on to the mountainous rocks behind the palace. It was ice cold but it didn't matter, the fact that she could feel it at all reminded her that she was still alive. Alive and filled with hatred and pain. She felt like she was being crushed. But her heart, it seemed, was not only as cold and as dark as coal, but just as strong and would not let her die under the weight of her life. Merely let her suffer instead.
With a frown, Henry stepped up beside his daughter and let his shoulders drop at the disdain in her profile. "You were once so happy, my child," he told her tenderly and watched as her jaw jutted forward and tears glossed her eyes, "do you remember?"
"That was a very long time ago."
"You can find that happiness again," he told her but she gave a sharp laugh as a tear dropped to her cheek.
"It is far too late for that," she argued with a low and raspy voice as she studied the grand expanse of white for as far as her eyes could see, ignoring just how cold she was, "it has been far too late for a very long time."
"It is never too late, my child," he assured and she scoffed and her warm breath could be seen in the air before she bared her teeth at the beautiful landscape before them, "this can be fixed."
"How?!" She barked as she turned her focus on her father but he didn't jump as anyone else would have, "I have been banished! I am stuck here! Alone!"
"There is nothing holding you here, Regina," he reminded kindly and she gave a pitiful little laugh and let go of the frosted railing, her slender hands red and cold.
"I have nowhere else to go," she reminded harshly but he was unfazed as he always was and instead stepped closer to her and tried to reach for her hands.
He reached but she snatched them away and turned from him with a scowl and a glare as she walked away, the snow around them absorbing every sound but the click of her heels on the stone beneath the snow. "You could build a home, Regina," he told her and she stopped a few strides from him but he didn't believe it had anything to do with what he was saying. She was just content with the distance between them. Where he couldn't reach her.
"You could start over, you can build the life you want."
"I would have nothing," she growled and turned to face him, "and Snow White will have everything," she replied but her voice broke to reveal her pain and torment and tears blurred her eyes as her voice shook and grew in volume, "she will have everything! Everything she took from me! She will be happy, and I cannot live knowing she will suffer no consequences for what she did to me! And I cannot love another! I will not let anyone that close again! I will not go through such pain again when they are lost to me!" She shouted with a wave of her arm and a shaky sob caught in her throat.
Henry's shoulders dropped with his frown at the sight of his daughter shaking with the agony she let no one see. She was not shivering from the cold, there was a difference. He wanted so badly to take it all away from her, to see her happy again, but he just didn't know how. "There is nothing saying your next love will leave you, my darling daughter," he pressed gently, pleading that she see sense or at least find hope. But she only laughed. Quietly through a wide grin that only added to the sorrow and pain reflected in her dark eyes.
"Everyone leaves," she told him and just as every time before, she felt a stab to her heart at the sound of those words leaving her lips. And then her grin fell in to a snarl, "there is no one left."
"That is not to say there will be no one else."
"No, I am to say there will be no one else. And there will be no one else," she snapped with a single step toward him.
"Regina," he breathed with a shake of his head while a storm raged within hers, "is the opportunity to love again, to be loved again, not worth the chance that they may be lost to you?"
"No," she answered firmly and held her father's eye, "it most certainly is not," she bit and felt her heart cry out in protest. But she knew better than that foolish organ. She would not fall for its tricks again, she would not suffer because of it again. They stood in silence for a few moments, each one of them letting the words shared sink in before anything more was said. But when her father did speak again, it hit a chord in her that set her off once again.
"You wanted David gone."
"And he left!" She snapped, startling even herself over how potent and sharp her tone was.
"But was it truly what you wanted?" He prodded gently and she opened her mouth with a breath to give a violent reply, but it wasn't her voice that reached their ears.
"It is freezing out here."
Her skin flushed in panic at the sound of the shepherd's voice. Panic, for she did not know all of what he had heard but even if he had only just joined them, they were still words she wished he hadn't heard. So she spun around to see if her ears had deceived her but there indeed stood the shepherd, clothed in the same furs he had departed in three days prior. He at least had the decency to wear an apologetic expression but that did nothing to keep her from glowering at his cold flushed face once her shock had passed.
"What are you doing here," she rumbled lowly and David began walking up to her while her father backed away and disappeared from her peripheral.
"I wasn't leaving indefinitely, your majesty," he told her for it was, in part, true.
"You think you can lie to me and I won't notice?" She scowled but he simply stepped even closer.
"Alright, perhaps it is only a half truth," he admitted and her chin lifted a fraction higher as her dark eyes looked him up and down. Dark eyes and cheeks rosy from the cold, the slight wind blowing the soft short hairs around her face in to her eyes and across her forehead and cheeks. Even cold she was beautiful. "But leaving hadn't felt right from the very beginning," he told her with a slight twist of his head as he stopped perhaps a stride from her.
"Then why did you?" She pressed and wished she wasn't as anxious as she was to hear his answer.
"Well, quite frankly, your majesty, I was tired of you trying to kill me," he answered bluntly and her expression of constant annoyance didn't change except for the slight cross of her jaw. "However, it seems I have grown rather fond of you despite it all and I couldn't bring myself to leave you here alone in the dark," he added and she seemed to perhaps be softening to him. But he couldn't say for sure. Everything she did was either too subtle or too loud.
"And this, shepherd, just came to you on a whim? That you like me?"
"'Like' is a very presumptuous word, your majesty. I'd say 'tolerating without disdain' would be far more accurate," he adjusted with a slightly teasing tone and her posture straightened further while she lowered her chin and kept those wonderful dark eyes on his. "And no, I did not come upon it on a whim. I would have come to the conclusion eventually but on my way home I passed a caravan of merchants and this caught my eye," he explained and then fished the item out of his pocket.
It was a little horse carved of blue stone, no bigger than a large cherry, small enough that she could wrap her hand around it but not so tiny as to seem delicate and fragile. And good god if it didn't make her melt just as much as it made her want to choke the life out of him with her bare hands. He had no right to touch her heart like that.
"I saw this on one of their tables as they were packing up for the evening and, of all things, it brought a smile to my face," he told her as he examined the little horse standing on his palm. And then once more, he smiled at it and shrugged a shoulder, "I asked if they had one in a lighter blue stone but this was the only one of its kind."
It was a thoughtful gesture. One that was kind and selfless and one that had put her state of being first and foremost in his mind. It was sweet and completely unnecessary but he had done it anyway. He had brought her a gift for no reason at all. He brought her a gift when she deserved it the least of almost any person. He cared enough about her to bring her a gift and smile about it. A gift of her favourite colour and creature.
It made her stomach flutter with warmth and her blood thirst flex her tense fingers. He made her so confused and she hated being confused. "You brought me a rock," she inquired with a tone that pressed he watch his step lest she kill him. He merely gave her a face. One that was still amused but scolded her for coming up with the most belittling words when she knew very well it wasn't just a rock. And she did know. It was why she didn't like it. But also why she loved it.
"I brought you your first blue horse to start your collection," he corrected patiently and with a smile and she merely glowered at him. But he had seen the way her expression had faltered and given way to a tender and surprised gratitude when he had first revealed the horse to her. She knew what it was, she remembered him teasing her over combining her two favourite things in to one, she had wanted to smile, had wanted to take it from him. She had loved the thought he had given her. It was something that was just theirs, something small and ridiculous but something she hadn't forgotten because his stupidity had annoyed her to no end. And he had now gone and made it a tangible thing, something she could see and touch and be reminded that she was not alone in the world. But then something had twisted the reflex of small happiness and she had gone back to scowling in moments. Probably the recent past they had shared. But he had seen the light shine through.
He had seen it and if that lightness, that tender happiness, was her knee jerk reaction...well it gave him a significant amount of hope for her. There was good in her now. Right now amongst all the darkness and hatred and anger, there was good in her. Something he hadn't quite been able to get a grasp on even when he had been tied to her. He had been going off of her past, hoping to bring that lightness she had once carried, back to the surface. But he didn't have to find it. It was already there and he had been going about it all wrong.
He had been pushing her, had been asking her questions, grilling her for information and reasons behind her choices. He had nagged and had been forceful and she had been forceful right back. But if a tiny gift could make her crumble so quickly, even if it was just momentary, what could other small kindnesses do? A touch, a carefully placed compliment, a flower, a special meal, attention paid on a date special to her. It brought peace to his heart. And he was so happy he had turned around and had come back so he could see that momentary expression on her face and in her body. She was not a lost cause and he was going to do better for her. He was going to be kind to her. He was going to be kind and he was going to make her feel wanted, for even if the conversation between her and her father had told him nothing, the feeling of finding home in Snow's arms certainly had. And he was going to make this queen happy if it was the last thing he did.
"A collection of blue horses is a ridiculous notion. I thought I had made that clear."
"Oh I disagree," he told her gently and extended his hand a little further as a gesture for her to take the horse standing on his palm. She didn't even look at it. She kept those dark eyes on him with her jaw clenched shut and he simply smiled a little more at her stubborn nature. So he carefully reached forward and gently took her wrist in his fingers and was genuinely surprised to find no resistance as he lifted her arm and turned her hand so it lay palm up atop his where she couldn't drop her hand away. Her skin was absolutely freezing to the touch and it made him worry for just how long she had been standing out there. Clearly it had been too long but he didn't dare say a word about it.
"I think it could be a beautiful thing," he argued with a smile as he stood the horse on her cold palm so it was facing her. The moment it's four legs touched her skin, her eyes were on it and it made him smile just a little more as he took great care in positioning it just right on her palm, "while making the exchange I had asked the merchant if there was any significance to the colour blue. He told me it is a calming colour, one that can bring about peace to a person's soul. It also symbolizes trust and strength. Wisdom and loyalty. And it is the colour of the sea and the sky and there is nothing more infinite or free than those. Combine that with the power and grace of a horse," he drifted off momentarily as he turned the horse ever so slightly on her hand so it was looking straight at her before he withdrew that hand but kept the other supporting hers from beneath, "well you would have quite creature on your hands, your majesty," he finished gently and studied her expression as her mask dissolved once more.
The tension between her brows, the softening of her jaw, the tired frown on her lips. Whether she was aware of it or not, she was giving him a glimpse as to exactly how tired she was inside. And how desperate she felt to just be free of it all. So with a lingering touch of his fingertips over the back of her winter chilled hand, he withdrew himself from her and stepped around her, leaving her with her horse and her thoughts. She didn't look up at him as he left but instead kept her eyes down on the small horse and it made him smile a little as he left her in a different sort of turmoil.
The blue stone was not carved in great detail but it had been smoothed and polished without flaw. The horse stood on four straight legs coming out from its body at slight angles to widen its stance and better balance upon the four rounded points the legs ended on. Its tail held high and away from its hindquarters, its neck high and arched forward just enough to make it look like a horse and not a swan. And then its small head and tiny ears were angled and worked with great care to give it an expression of alertness despite having no face to show it. It was perfect. And David's explanation behind it made her want to cry.
But almost more than that, she wanted to throw it and scream at it as it shattered against the hard cobblestone of her courtyard. Her lip curled back in a furious snarl but as her hand closed tightly around the horse in preparation to throw it, she stopped. She stopped and couldn't bring herself to follow through. Her muscles refused. So with a seething breath through her nose, she closed her eyes and gently brought her clenched fist to her chest where it softened and she bowed her head down to it with a troubled frown. She didn't know what to do anymore.
