Notes: I'm going to complicate things a bit. Please don't be angry with me. 😇
It mentions non-consensual marriage and relationship, please skip it if it doesn't suit you.
I hope you like the chapter.
She thought that one's life was shaped by themselves. She imagined that she would make choices, that she would experience the consequences of those choices. She thought that she would decide for herself which dress she wanted to wear, what food she would like to eat, which house she would live in, who she would marry. She was sure it was the worst thing to happen to her as a princess when she was forced to wear the dresses chosen by her mother, but it wasn't just scraps of cloth that were stolen from her life. When she lost her freedom, her world was plunged into darkness. When she lost her love, she didn't even have a reason to live. She began to lose her identity day by day.
As she grew older, she realized that her willpower was nothing but a pattern. She was a princess, yes, but a princess led by her mother. She was queen now, but a queen ruled by her husband.
She has stopped counting the number of losses under her shell now. She doesn't even know where her motherhood is in this list, even if she knows, there is nothing she can change anymore.
Even after spending all day in the forest avoiding everyone, she couldn't quench the fire in her heart. She doesn't want to step foot in that palace again. However, she has to tell her husband that she accepts his offer, she has to stay away from Robin. She has to act like everything is alright when storms are brewing inside her. And she has to do all this at once.
On the way back, Regina felt as if it were only a matter of time before the emotions she had buried years ago came to light, her stone heart cracking and love and pain seeping in. She had to intervene before all her plans were ruined, before her life became more complicated.
She paused for a moment to clear her mind of the blue eyes preoccupying and closed her eyes. She had to get rid of him before she could enter the gardens that stretched out before her. Was it enough to close the eyes, but what would do with the forest scent in her lungs? She couldn't stop breathing either!
She had learned at a young age that chasing the impossible would not bring her happiness. What she had to do was be a wife, a mother, a stepmother, a step-mother-in-law, and not giving more meaning to Robin than that. There was only one solution for this.
The darkness of night descended upon her. She straightened her posture, tossed her hair back. She managed to calm her emotions, even though it was harder than usual. She still had her usual determined expression on her face. She kept repeating one thing inside her. "You are the Evil Queen. You will have your revenge at any cost."
She paused in front of the room given to the Prince of Sherwood at the head of the corridor, what she wouldn't give to come in and be thrown into his arms. Instead, she took a deep breath and continued on her way, stepped into her inferno.
Leopold was about to go to bed when she entered the room. He immediately noticed her presence. "I thought you'd stay with Henry..." The king was interrupted by his wife's lips.
Regina had never done anything like this before, Leopold had always wanted it. The king was stunned for a few seconds, but he wrapped his arms around the queen's waist. "What's going on, Regina?" He said in a whisper.
"Okay." She said, her voice never shaking. "Let's make that child."
She took another blow from her fight with life. Once again, her happiness turned into impossible. She found herself in the arms of the man her body belonged to, not the man her heart belonged to. Again...
Perhaps he was reading the same page for the tenth time. None of the sentences made sense. It was as if the words all merged into one name, whispering it into his mind. Regina... Regina... Regina…
Finally, he gave up the effort and threw the book in his hand on the sofa and went out to the balcony. How had he found himself so enthralled? Robin never believed in fate. Even a few days ago, he would not have thought that a woman would affect him so much; but as he stood there in the Enchanted Forest Palace, just a few aisles away from the woman he had in mind, he could swear it felt like fate.
The next morning, when he went down to the living room for breakfast, there was no sign of the king and queen. The prince and princess were waiting for him in their armchairs. He overheard the conversation between the two siblings, who hadn't yet noticed that he had entered.
Henry was giving news to his sister with his eyes shining with excitement. "I ran into my father before he went into town this morning. He said we'd have a sibling. I'm going to be a big brother, isn't it amazing, sister?"
He didn't even take time to realize what he had heard, and quickly and silently backed out of the hall. The air of this palace was poisoning him, he couldn't stay there any longer as he felt like her scent was everywhere.
Robin believed in signs. Maybe more than your feelings. While his heart was telling him that it was true and that he couldn't resist his fate, his brain and the signals say the opposite. Regina is the queen, Regina is married, Regina has a child, Regina is pregnant…
If he let his emotions guide him, he'll darken the lives of two children. He will shatter a family. Regina is too good a mother to build happiness on her children's unhappiness, and Robin can read that in her eyes. He'd rather suffer himself than anyone he cares about, certainly more honorable than that.
He didn't even realize that he had reached his friend's house. He was more surprised than Will himself when he appeared in the middle of the room with his white face and pale eyes. "Robin? Weren't you going to stay at the palace, what are you doing here?"
So much has happened since their last meeting that he doesn't know where to start. It's easiest to go back to where it all started. "The woman I met in the woods is the queen."
"Oh my God! I told you, there aren't many people who can do magic here. Do you need to run? You can go to the border with my horse…"
With a quick wave of his hand, he interrupted his escape plan. "I am not running away. It's just that the woman I fell in love with is married, has a child… And pregnant."
Robin put his head in his hands as Will's eyes widened in surprise. When his friend came and sat next to him, running away didn't seem like a bad idea at all. If he didn't say, maybe he could convince himself that it was all a dream.
"Do you realize what you're saying?" He just said. Please be out of your mind, man.
"As long as I am aware of who I am."
Maybe he heard wrong. Maybe he just dreamed. He just wants it to be a maybe. He asked like a child, questioning what he had heard. "Are you in love with the queen?"
"I know what I said, you know what you heard. And yes, I am aware, she has a family. She is happy. I won't spoil it."
He was silent for a minute, Robin didn't know Will was thinking that moment that if he was telling the truth or that if his decision was right, but it was neither. Will was struggling with whether to share a memory from his past with his friend. He finally decided he needed to know. If he knew his friend even a little bit, this decision would put him in danger, but if he didn't tell, he was sure that he would do him a great injustice.
"I know it's not right to tell you this, but I have to. Please act in a way that won't make me regret it or cause me to lose my friend, will you?" She said. His gaze fell on the carpet on the floor. "When the queen and the king got married, they hired many attendants to prepare the palace, and I was there. I thought I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but maybe that's a sign, as you always say. Maybe I was where I needed to be." After a moment's pause, he turned back to the man next to him. "I heard the Queen talking to her mother. Robin, they forced Regina to marry the king. She didn't love him. Besides, I think she was only 16 years old. She was called the child queen back then. Some people claimed that she was an old witch under a child's body, but I saw that she was just a timid young girl. I wish there was something I could do."
Robin rested his elbows on his legs and bowed his head. Regina was much younger than Leopold, he knew and had seen, but his thoughts were so full of the queen that he never calculated age. Who knows how scared a 16-year-old girl was, what had she gone through? Moreover, she was doomed to live with the man who persecuted her, there was no way out. No one, not even the strongest person in the world, could build a happy family on such unhappiness. This time his feelings were telling him the truth. He had to save Regina.
The sun had just risen when the queen awoke. Without waking the man on the other side of the bed, she got up and locked herself in the bathroom, where she would spend the morning. From the moment she sat in the tub of hot water, she had been rubbing the pouch against her delicate skin for a second without stopping. It was as if she was dirtier than usual, not feeling clean at all.
All of Tink's senses of fear were activated when, after searching everywhere, she found her friend sitting in the foam with her crimson body. "God, what are you doing? Are you sick, what's going on?"
"I've got nothing, don't make a mess." She hissed, continuing to rub with the bath glove angrily her neck.
The woman, who more or less understood what was going on, pulled the hard fabric from her hand. "Drop that!" She pulled her hair off her shoulder, exposed her neck, which was irritated by friction. "What did you do to your neck?"
"It doesn't seem cleaned..." She said as her eyes filled with tears.
She felt a sense of déjà vu as she soothed her damaged skin with refreshed water and foam. "You've stopped doing that. You were used to it."
She regretted what she had said as soon as it came out of her mouth. How would she get used to it? "I'm sorry, honey."
Regina frowned and turned to her friend, but she could see the regret in her eyes and that she didn't mean it that way. "It seems like everything is getting worse."
"Gina..."
"Let it go, there's nothing left of me." She pulled her arm. "We've talked about this a lot at the time, it's nothing but pain."
The woman who knew her very well knew there is something different. "What made you so angry today?"
But the queen avoided the answer. "Can you give me my towel?"
"I can't. Answer me. You're hiding something."
As Regina raised her hands, purple smoke enveloped her. Did she really run away? Oh, for God's sake, this woman's stubbornness drives Tinker Bell crazy sometimes. "I wonder how far you'll run." She whispered.
"I didn't run away, I'm here." She wore a blue long jacket over black leather tights and covered the redness around her neck with a piece of feather the same color as her outfit.
An involuntary smile formed on her face. "You didn't have breakfast, did you?"
"No." Regina smiled too. "To the picnic?"
"To the picnic."
The two friends spread out the picnic mat in a quiet part of the forest and cleared all the bad memories of that morning. Years ago they decided to have a picnic to create a space of their own and a moment of peace. It became a tradition later.
Knowing that a good breakfast is good for her queen, Tink asked while peeling an apple. "Well, I want to hear everything now. Tell me."
Although she thought of denying it at first, she accepted that it wouldn't work, and that her friend was just as stubborn as she was. Her green eyes were narrowed in defiance. She finally surrendered. "The problem is Robin."
"I knew!" Tink said excitedly, holding out a slice of apple. "You are in love with him."
The Queen laughed mockingly. Before she could say how ridiculous that was, the blonde woman silenced her. "Does your heart beat like crazy when you see him? Are butterflies flying in your stomach? Are you out of breath? Do you imagine yourself in a future with him?"
Regina's brows furrowed quickly. Words of denial were already lining up in her mind, but then suddenly she felt her heart tighten even at the mention of him. Her face softened, realizing the truth.
"Yesterday, I offered Leopold the issue of having a child, just to forget about him, not to think about him, so that everything would be as before." She tilted her head slightly. It was much harder to admit what happened next. Maybe it was even harder to admit that she was in love with him. When She looked at Tink again, she found the young woman looking sadly at her. "It didn't work... Rather, I pictured him as Robin. Tink, I enjoyed last night what had been torture for years."
"Oh, so that's why today…"
When she finally opened her eyes the previous night, the man she loved was not there, there was her tormentor. She regretted everything she felt so much that she thought she was going to die from that feeling. She felt as if she had betrayed herself and Robin. "But he wasn't Robin."
Tink's sad eyes lit up again. She dispersed the clouds of sadness and almost screamed. "Regina, you're in love!"
"Don't say that again, please."
"You'll be happy finally. I'll be sure to say it over and over again."
"This will never happen."
"You're going to give Robin to Snow with your own hands, are you?"
Her chest heaved with anger. "Tink, my revenge is more important than my love. They have to pay for what they did."
"You lost a love because of your mother and Snow. Now you have another chance, you have a choice to be happy. If you spend it on your revenge, won't they indirectly ruin your life again? Will you allow it again?"
She didn't even want to think about it. She didn't want any thoughts that would turn her off her path. "There's nothing keeping me going except my vengeance and Henry." She whispered.
She held her hand that in her lap. "It will happen if you let it. You can have a happy life with Robin and Henry. Isn't that the best reason to stand?"
"It would be." She said while smiling, but there was nothing but pain in her smile. "If it wasn't impossible… I have no escape from Leopold, Tink. I can't leave him, I can't kill him. I am doomed to live this way. Maybe it'll be more bearable if I just see them suffer, that's all. I have no life outside of that. My only priority is to protect Henry. And for that, I must forget about Robin."
Fearing that he'll get hurt, Will decided to come to the palace with Robin. He had made a decision, and he would have to face the consequences. If that meant walking around your friend like a bodyguard, so be it.
"Let's introduce you to the king first. Then I'll find Regina." The prince, who had regained his resolve after learning the truth, said.
When they were admitted to the king's study, Will stopped looking around and tried to maintain his respect as Robin introduced him. If he was going to protect his friend, he had to be in the palace and alive. However, not everything goes as you planned. The king did allow him to stay at the palace, then politely dismissed him from the room at once. Robin would find out why he was here obviously.
After Will left, Robin took the seat shown to him. Henry's voice rang in his ears. "We will have a sibling." His heart seemed to be pumping anger instead of blood. The man in front of him was touching the woman he loved last night, the previous nights, whenever he wanted... He opened his clenched fist. Leopold should have thought about it, not him. After all, Regina was his wife. It was Robin who acted dishonorably. He had feelings for a married woman and was jealous of her husband. He was angry with himself. It was against all his rules to let it happen, but it did.
He could not continue his inner struggle any longer with Leopold's intervention. "Did your father tell you why you came here?"
"He didn't, Your Majesty. I was hoping you would explain."
The king cleared his throat lightly. "We've talked to your father, Robin, and we have made a decision for the sake of our kingdoms... We have agreed that Snow and you should marry."
Notes: They are both helpless, what do you think they will do now? We'll see if they can resist each other from the next chapter. I guarantee the tension between them will rise a lot.
See you soon.