A/N: My God, the response to last chapter was absolutely phenomenal! Thank you so very much to everyone who left a review. I was actually going to skip posting this week because of finals, but after reading all that encouragement, I just couldn't leave you guys hanging like that. So here's the next chapter for ya.

The Handmaiden's Philosophy
Chapter Eight

Regina POV

In all her years living in the Enchanted Forest, Regina had never encountered a creature quite as distasteful as the flying monkeys that were attacking her now. Not only were they aesthetically displeasing, but their shrieks and howls grated, they'd killed five of her best guardsmen, and they were inexplicably protected against magical attacks which forced her to batter through their magical defenses with brute power alone. They were ugly and exhausting, and they were really starting to piss her off.

They'd also managed to bring her –the Evil Queen—to her knees. Until Emma had run out from the safety of the carriage to help her, that is.

And help she did.

Regina was, quite frankly, flummoxed. Her cheeky little blonde handmaiden didn't have magic. She didn't. Magic users –those who came by their powers naturally, anyways—leaked, for lack of a better word. The magic that a natural magic user had inside them was a quasi-independent form of energy that lived within them but reached out to touch the outside world almost constantly, and it would fluctuate and flare in instances of strong emotion to instinctually protect its host. But Emma… Regina hadn't felt magic on her ever. Not once. And with the sheer power the blonde apparently wielded, she definitely should have. It should have knocked her off her feet the moment they met.

Though she'd never admit to it, Regina was terrified in those first moments when Emma took ahold of her hands and forced her magic into Regina's weakened body. Not only was the sudden influx of energy a jolt, it was absolutely the last thing that the Queen had expected the other woman to do. After all, Emma didn't have magic.

Except that she did.

Moreover, it was complementary magic. Regina had never, ever encountered such a thing before in another living being. Compatible magic, yes, but never to the point where it could be shared freely and equally between two casters without any negative symptoms of her body rejecting the foreign energy. And that was exactly what happened. Regina was cold and empty with her magic used up and floundering inside her, and the horrid monkeys (those that had survived her initial onslaught, at least) were still circling up above her in preparation for a renewed attack… and then Emma was there with her gentle blue-green eyes and warm hands and explosive magic that filled her with toe-curlingly pleasurable heat from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet even as Emma was crying out in agony and fainting in front of her. And it was frightening. First, because she didn't understand what was happening, and then because Regina had never felt anything quite like Emma's magic before. She was empty… but then quite suddenly filled up with everything that was Emma, and it was beautiful, and her tired achiness just drifted away as if it had never existed, replaced by the most delicious tingles. She felt drunk off this magic. In better circumstances, Regina might have taken the time to bask in the glorious sensation, but as it was, she had more monkeys to deal with.

In her haze of trembling bliss, Regina didn't really remember finishing off the last of her attackers. She didn't remember levitating the limp body of her spent handmaiden behind her as she returned to the carriage, nor did she recall the trip back to her castle accompanied by her remaining guard as more than a haze of sensation. The vibration of carriage wheels against cobblestone, the smell of fear-sweat, the blush of scarlet slowly seeping across carefully bound wrists… She did, however, remember having the blonde carried to an empty chamber in the east wing on the same floor as her palace mages slept, and moving to unwrap the unconscious woman's bleeding wrists.

To unwrap just one of her many secrets.

Complementary magic. Regina remembered reading about it in her studies on theory, as well as the more common related phenomena known as compatible magic; but she'd never witnessed it. (Or known anyone else who had, for that matter.) She hadn't really given the idea much thought at all, actually, until she'd made a surprise visit to Maleficent about eight years ago and found her in one of her fits of rage. Maleficent was a woman with… harsh tastes when she got worked up, and Regina wasn't unaccustomed to hearing the agonized sounds of the woman's prisoners calling out from the dungeons whenever she walked past the area during one of her sporadic visits. On that particular occasion though, the blonde sorceress was absolutely seething at her newest prisoner. And yet, she did not allow him to die, which was rather unusual. Maleficent was cruel, true, but Regina had honestly seen worse. The woman allowed her toys the mercy of death long before many others did –like, say, King George.

So of course, Regina had asked what it was this man had done to earn such ire from her.

Regina and Maleficent had an interesting friendship. It was part snark, part desperation for companionship, part genuine care, part intellectual intrigue, and part convenience. They shared compatible magic. Essentially, this meant that they could cast spells or curses or even enchant items together without their magics attacking each other, and Regina enjoyed that. Not only because the results of such efforts were almost always more powerful than what could have been achieved independently, but for a more sentimental reason as well. Magic was many things, but most people only witnessed Regina's magic when she used it to hurt, and it wasn't often that it was a beautiful experience that she was able to share with others. Or just Maleficent, in this case.

There were levels of compatibility, of course. Some magics she had been exposed to were volatile in their aggression towards her own while others were merely tolerable. When Regina cast with Maleficent, their magic formed a mildly pleasant harmony buzzing in her limbs. The man –a half-elf mage the blonde had encountered in a nearby town—that Maleficent was torturing that day, however, was far more suited to the blonde woman than Regina's magic was. Unfortunately for him, he did not wish to ally himself with her, and Maleficent took offense to that.

She always was such a sensitive soul.

They had a very in-depth discussion on compatible magic that day. Their own was a rare find, for it was indeed unusual for magic from two separate casters to entwine as cooperatively as theirs did. The man in the dungeons worked better for Maleficent, but now that he had refused her, he was… indisposed. A popular (but largely unconfirmed, aside from a few suspect written accounts) theory on compatible magic was that the pinnacle of magical compatibility ended in what was termed as complementary magic. Magic that was entirely balanced in strength and flavor, and flowed freely and interchangeably between the two users in question, heightening their power to otherwise unachievable levels.

Regina had scoffed at the idea then; she was certain that such a thing was impossible. Natural magic was a very personal thing. It existed as almost a second entity within the person born with it, and was both fueled and driven by their most passionate emotions. Regina's magic was a manifestation of the deepest and most secret parts of herself, and the same was true for every being born with arcane powers. That being said, the mere closeness implied by the very thought of sharing complementary magic with another person was just… strange, and quite honestly somewhat unsettling, regardless of how impossible it seemed to someone who had only –outside of Maleficent—been repelled by the natural magic of others.

But Regina wasn't scoffing anymore, because she'd just experienced the very thing she'd once expressed disbelief in when Emma had come to her aid. Malefecent would probably have been able to do the same for her, were she there at the time, but Regina knew she would not have recovered from the physical symptoms of magical exhaustion half as quickly. Moreover, she wouldn't have had such perfect control over the borrowed magic.

Powerful magic. Regina could taste it. Of all the magic users she had encountered over the years, only the Dark One and herself would be able to rival Emma's power.

Which begged the question –why was this beautiful, powerful creature languishing about in her castle and attending to her as a handmaiden?

The tavern girl from Lyon was no ordinary tavern girl. But then again, Regina did acquire her shortly after watching her slaughter three bandits armed with only a dagger. She could hardly be accused of expecting normality from the blonde. But skill with a dagger was one thing. This… hidden, powerful magic… was a completely different animal. It was dangerous.

And it infuriated her. Because Regina actually liked this girl, but she'd apparently been lying to her all along. Well, more than what she'd initially assumed, anyways.

This room was bigger than the servants' quarters. It was bare still, but that was more due to the fact that it was unlived in than purposeful minimalism. After she'd had Emma carried in and placed on the bed, Regina had sent the footmen attending her away, leaving the two of them alone in oppressive silence. Still unconscious and very pale, Emma looked so very small splayed limply on the bed. A few stray golden curls had escaped her now customary bun and coiled gently around her face, and Regina couldn't help but once more note that her handmaiden was an exquisite creature. All strong cheekbones and delicate lips and lovely golden tresses. A beautiful mystery. Carefully, Regina swept towards the girl, leaned down, and laid her palm flat against a porcelain cheek. Emma's soft skin was chilled and somewhat clammy to the touch, telling Regina that the other woman still suffered from the depletion of her magic.

She didn't understand. Why? Why did Emma go to so much trouble to hide such powerful magic, only to reveal herself in a way that was so very harmful to her own body? Why give Regina the magic instead of making use of it herself? Why resign herself to the life of a servant when she had the power to be so much more? When –based upon her literacy, political savvy, and mannerisms—she had been born more?

Regina had taken Emma in because she was interesting. She'd never anticipated such a grand puzzle as this, though.

Frowning, the Queen's attention was drawn once more to the blood seeping through the bandages of Emma's wrists. Her hands had stilled in the process of unwrapping them when she'd been lost in thought. Scars, Emma had told her. Given to her by her mother.

Scars didn't bleed though.

As soon as she removed the linens however, Regina felt some of her questions had finally been answered, even as her stomach roiled in a nauseated sort of way at the sight that greeted her in a mixture of horror, anger, and pity. What had been done to Emma –and Regina had little doubt that this had been inflicted—was really quite grotesque, even by her standards. (And she was the Evil Queen.)

Around Emma's wrists were clasped two plain silver bracelets, perhaps an inch wide. They were, upon first inspection, quite ordinary. Just twin silver bands innocuously adorning the body of a beautiful woman, plain and smooth but for a single thin etching of a square atop each. But Regina could sense the magic. She could see that these were no innocent ornaments, but shackles. Not in the physical sense, of course, but magically.

It made sense now, that Regina had never felt Emma leaking magic. It was trapped within her as surely as the prisoners in her dungeon were chained to the walls. Magic could not truly be contained, of course, which is why Emma had still been able to transfer the energy over to her Queen despite her limitations. However, a heavy price could always be exacted for its use, which made the binding of magic possible in its own way.

And what Regina was seeing now were the results of just such a procedure.

Emma hadn't quite lied. There were scars. Old scars, layered over by new ones. Deep enough to appear white and lumpy all around the silver bands and stretched lengthwise, as if her arms had grown significantly even after she'd gotten them. But there were fresh lacerations just beneath the metal as well. The cuffs had burned deep into Emma's pale flesh, leaving raw, open wounds around their girths that oozed droplets of blood like tears, and Regina suddenly felt an overpowering urge to light Emma's mother on fire.

My mother gave them to me.

Regina understood why Emma was content to be a handmaiden in that moment. She still remembered the agonized scream the blonde had produced as she'd forced the magic past the inhibitors and into Regina's depleted body. These cuffs were no crude work of an amateur, and she had little doubt that the pain they inflicted in punishment of pushing the magic past them was nothing less than utterly excruciating. No one could perform more than the most minor of magic in conditions like that. Emma had been effectively neutered, and at a very young age if her scarring was any indication, which was truly a shame. Emma was so powerful, and the feel of her magic…

Regina shuddered pleasantly at the memory.

Emma's magic was perhaps even more exquisite than her body, or even her mind. And now that Regina had had a taste of it, she wasn't pleased to find such bindings upon the other woman. No, this wouldn't do, Regina decided, dropping Emma's cold hand back down onto the mattress and taking a step back. With a snap of her fingers, she was engulfed by a violet mist and teleported into her quarters. Emma's magic was simply too intoxicating to be locked away like this, she decided.

Regina very much wanted to experience it again. And she would. She was a Queen.

And Queens always got what they wanted.

A/N: Happy belated Mother's day! Give your mom a hug today, guys.