Warning: There will be mentions of marital rape (but no actual depictions) throughout the story. Thoughts of suicide as well.
Regina should have known. She never got her way. But she couldn't help the way her heart sank when Leopold replied to her request.
"Now, Regina, don't be rude. Lady Tindra is our guest, and she's been injured on the castle grounds. I'm not about to throw her out." Leopold didn't even look up from the edict he was looking over. "And you know better than to come to my chambers uninvited."
Regina turned and stormed out without bothering to thank him for his time or offer him the customary curtsy. It wasn't like there was anything he could do to make her life more hellish than it was, anyway. She made her way down the stairs and out into the garden, stopping by the far gate with its view of the valley below.
It was the farthest she could go. The iron fence that kept her penned in like an animal. She hit her palm against the bars, furious.
She'd been outside these gates with Tinkerbell. Twice. Sitting unnoticed in town, telling the fairy all her secrets, had been the happiest Regina had been in a long time.
And Tink had ruined it, trying to pass Regina off to be some other man's property. And Regina had been stupid enough to run back to her cage.
Every inch of her crackled with fury and magic, and the young queen forced herself to turn from the fence and breathe, calming herself until magic and emotions were in check.
By the time Tinkerbell found her way out to the gardens, Regina was tending to her beloved apple tree. Tink knew she had to leave, had to give Regina what she wanted, but she couldn't resist the urge to look at the queen one last time. To memorize every inch of her so that she could keep her close.
Memorization didn't seem enough, so she borrowed a pencil and paper and sat some distance from Regina, sketching silently. If the queen saw her there, or heard the frustrated sighs each time Tink found her talents not quite up to the task of capturing Regina's beauty, she gave no sign.
"What are you drawing?" An over-loud voice pierced the silence, and Tink could tell from the way Regina stiffened that she was certainly aware of this new presence. The former fairy turned to see the princess sit down on the bench beside her in a poof of pink taffeta. "Oh my, that's lovely," the girl said, leaning in for a better look at the sketch. "Regina, you must see this. Lady Tindra has drawn the most marvelous picture of you."
Regina didn't even spare a glance in their direction. "Admiring pictures of yourself is terribly vain, Snow," she said with just a hint of bite in her voice.
"Then I will admire it for you." Snow took the paper from Tink's hands without asking. "I only wish I could draw like this. I'm hopeless at drawing people."
Tink wanted more than anything to snatch the picture back. It was hers. Snow White got to look at the real thing every day. "I've practiced many years," she told the princess as cordially as she could manage. "If you do the same, I'm sure you'll find that you have more talent than you know."
Snow's eyes lit up, an idea suddenly dawning on her. "Lady Tindra, you must stay and teach me how to draw."
That was enough to pull Regina from her tree and towards the bench. "Snow, I don't believe that's a good idea."
"It's a great idea," Snow replied proudly. "Father asked you to find me a new arts tutor months ago and you still haven't, you know."
"I'm sure Lady Tindra has much better things to do with her time," Regina added, cutting her eyes towards Tinkerbell.
"Yes, that's right," Tink started, but Snow was already on her feet.
"I will go talk to Father right away and he will surely agree that you must teach me," Snow said, running towards the castle with the drawing clutched in her hands.
Regina sank down onto the bench beside Tink, and the former fairy offered her a sympathetic smile. "She really is as bad as you claimed."
"She ruins everything," Regina said, not looking in Tink's direction. "You must refuse."
Refusing didn't seem to be an option. Leopold met Tinkerbell before dinner and gripped her by the elbow as he steered her towards the banquet hall. "My daughter has shown me your work, Lady Tindra. I am so glad that you'll be teaching her."
"Actually…" Tink started.
Leopold stopped short, turning to face Tink and still holding her tightly enough to bruise. "One does not simply walk away from such an opportunity, my Lady," he said. "You will be handsomely paid, live a life at court…" He smiled, and something about the way he did so turned Tink's stomach. "I will even commission a portrait of my daughter, and the King's patronage is something many artists would gladly die for."
It was true, there was no way that Tinkerbell could excuse herself from this. And there was a threat in the king's grasp, in his seemingly harmless words. In the way he steered her to the proper table in the hall and firmly sat her down.
Tink hardly ate, too busy trying to catch Regina's eye and offer some sort of apology. But the queen did not look her way. She didn't look at anyone, it seemed, keeping her eyes on the tablecloth and barely eating.
Regina always felt sick when she left Leopold's chambers in the evening. She could still feel him on her skin, bare underneath her robe. And it lingered until morning, since Regina was forbidden from washing after. That rule had been put in place after she failed to conceive in their first year of marriage. The longer it took, more restrictions were piled on her.
At least now that Leopold had mostly lost interest in her, his frequent travels meant fewer visits to his bed. But on nights like tonight he made up for lost time, keeping her for hours, taking her as many times as he could manage before exhausting himself.
She slipped back into her room, closing the door and pausing to rest against it. She could feel where bruises would likely crop up on her hips and the familiar ache between her legs, and she forced herself to swallow back the bile in her throat. She pushed off of the door, smiling gratefully at the bed that she never had to share, where she could be safe and alone.
"Regina?"
Regina jumped, startled. No one had reason to be in her room at this hour, and the only people who ever called her by her first name were her husband, stepdaughter, and father.
And Tinkerbell, she realized, finding the blonde sitting at her vanity. "I've been waiting for hours. I almost thought I had the wrong room."
"You need to learn to take a hint," Regina snapped. The last thing she had energy for was the fairy. "I hear you've taken the job of Snow's drawing tutor."
Tink turned in the chair, watching the pained way Regina sat down on the edge of her bed. "I don't want to stay if you want me gone, but your husband didn't give me much of a choice."
"No, he's not big on consent," Regina told her bitterly. "But don't you need to get back to your tulip?"
Tink wanted badly to cross the room and sit beside Regina, but she forced herself to stay put. "I've been banished for stealing that dust," she admitted. "The Blue Fairy took my wings."
"And that's why you fell," Regina mused. She felt badly for her role in Tinkerbell's banishment, but not badly enough to deign to apologize. She just wanted the blonde to leave her be. "If there's no getting rid of you, I trust you'll keep our history to yourself. Or we'll both be killed for treason."
Tinkerbell looked a bit sad that Regina had offered no sympathy, but she stood to leave anyway, noting Regina's disheveled appearance and exhausted expression. "Neither of us wants that."
Although as Tink shut the door behind her and Regina sank down into her pillows, the queen couldn't help thinking that execution might be preferable to this life. She glanced at her balcony, the moonlight glinting off of the replacement railing, and wished she'd never met Tinkerbell at all.