The one bad thing about treating a girl like a princess and spoiling her rotten for months meant she felt entitled to all the queen's secrets. Meghan stole the spell book for the day, planning to return it before Regina realized it was missing. Then she went to the one room she was forbidden to enter in the entire castle, Regina's vault of hearts.
The door to the room was only ever locked with a minor spell. Something to simply keep servants and guards from entering against Regina's will. Meghan pushed the spell aside like it was nothing, then closed the door softly behind her. The golden wall of vaults stood before her, a soft thudding rhythm emanating from it. Meghan moved away from that wall as far as she could. The only reason she was hiding in here was because this was the last place Regina would think to look for her.
Settled in the corner, Meghan opened the book and flipped straight to the section on increasing magical power. Regina thought she was useless, damn she'd show her otherwise. Meghan found the page with the tree first. She blew softly on the pages, causing purple to smoke to rise up, which she breathed in. She had seen Regina do this once before. Meghan suffered a head rush and had to wait a few minutes to recover before she tried again. She spent the rest of the day reading about ways to increase magic.
Meghan learned that spells of power had a common theme: death and sacrifice. Most of the spells were about draining the life out of plants, animals, and people. Blood sacrifices, strange potions, wild sex orgies, and conjuring evil spirits were a few other tried and true methods, according to the book.
Meghan decided to start small and went out to the garden the next day. She decided to practice by the back wall. It was a more secluded area because of tall hedges and the stone wall. She'd just have to keep an eye out for the gardeners who would wander through from time to time. She picked a rather insignificant weed to start with. Holding her hand over it, she muttered the words she had memorized and watched the plant wilt before her eyes. As it turned black and eventually crumbled into pieces, she felt it die. But it's just a stupid weed, so who cares? Meghan thought to herself. She started draining the next plant of its life force.
As soon as the gardeners noticed the plants were routinely dying by the back wall, she couldn't risk returning there. So she started killing those stupid obnoxious blue birds Snow kept sending her. They sang outside her bedroom at the crack of dawn until she was sick of it.
The secret communication between Snow and Regina seemed to be going well. Meghan believed that soon Emma and Henry might be traveling to visit them in secret. Even though Cora's forces still prowled the edges of their lands, she had yet to show open hostility to either monarch.
Snow thought her blue birds were being lost on their journey to the castle so she kept sending more. They apparently bred like rabbits, which meant Meghan had an endless amount of targets to practice on. What to do with the corpses was another matter. She was keeping them all in a box she had spelled shut and ordered her servant not to touch. Now as long as Regina didn't ever go rooting through her stuff, she would probably be ok. The spell kept the scent of rotting bird flesh trapped inside the box, so there was no outward sign of its sickening contents.
The time of the Harvest Moon was fast approaching and Meghan was running out of time. The next step after plants and animals were human beings. But she didn't think she find any volunteers for that. "Excuse me, do you mind if I practice dark magic on you for a little while?" didn't fit in between "please pass me my book" and "who ate all the tea cakes?"
She was also temporarily distracted from her predicament by the impending visit of Henry and her mother. Snow and Regina finally thought it was safe enough to attempt a secret visit to Regina's castle. So Regina spent weeks fretting over every little detail, wanting everything to be perfect for Henry when he finally arrived. She was even trying to reorganize Meghan's bedroom, though Meghan kept telling her it was perfectly clean, there was no reason to panic over every single thing. But that was how Meghan's dirty little box of secrets was discovered the day before Henry's arrival.
The servants were rearranging furniture and items in her room while their queen barked commands. Meghan watched with exasperation while sitting on the bed.
"That box there, move it onto the other table." Regina pointed at Meghan's red box of secrets.
"You don't need to micromanage every little thing...!" Meghan tried to stop her.
The servant touched the box and let out a little yelp as it stung her viciously.
"What. Was. That?" Regina questioned suspiciously.
"It's just some stuff...It's mine." Meghan couldn't come up with a good answer.
Regina marched over, ripped the spell off the box with her magic, and opened it.
As soon as she did a putrid smell filled the room. Regina stared at the box's contents in open disgust.
"You!" Regina glared at her, "You were the one killing the messengers. And we both thought it might be Cora interfering."
"They wouldn't shut up. They kept nesting outside of my window." Meghan argued weakly.
"A likely story. This box stinks of dark magic. What the hell have you been doing?"
"Killing blue birds." Meghan deadpanned.
"This is not a joke, Meghan."
Meghan shrugged, pretending she didn't care. That was the last straw for Regina.
She swooped across the room without warning and grabbed Meghan by the throat, intent on intimidating the girl into submission.
Meghan gasped in fear at the sudden attack, staring into eyes as black as the abyss. Was this the Evil Queen of legend finally showing her face to Meghan?
Still...maybe she could prove to this woman that she should be taken seriously now. Meghan grabbed at Regina's wrist and shot dark magic into it, making Regina hiss in pain.
The sting of dark magic brought something out in Regina that hadn't been present for years. Pushing Meghan back onto the bed, hand still on her throat, she towered over the girl. Shooting her own magic into the girl through their skin contact, Meghan gasped and squirmed underneath her. Her body bucked into the queen's for a moment. Oh...it would be so easy to do to Meghan what her mother had done to her. The queen's lips hovered awfully close to Meghan's face. Her continued squirming just brought the predator out in full. But with an unimaginable effort she pulled the beast back into its cage and released Meghan. Emma Swan would be here soon. She could fuck her brains out and release some of the tension then. She left Meghan lying there on the bed, and without another word, grabbed the stupid box of dead blue birds on her way out.
Regina kinda accidentally insulted Meghan's pride that she isn't good enough to be taken along for anything real. XD Remember this is the girl who always did exceptionally well in school so she believes she can learn anything if she sets her mind to it.
Box of dead blue birds, anyone? *insert mad scientist laugh here* For some reason I want to send that box to Snow on her birthday, just to be mean. Mwhauahahaa!