AN: Regina finds out what happened to Red. ATTENTION! To those who have been victims of sexual trauma or who cannot endure reading about it, turn away now. Please, please, please heed this warning for your own sake. Further notes for the chapter can be found on AO3.
Standard Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me, which is a good thing else I might never get anything done. They are Adam and Eddie's. Please, guys, don't sue me!
"If you don't deal with your demons, they will deal with you, and it's gonna hurt." - Nikki Sixx
Chapter 3 – Scenes From a Mirror
Two desolate days pass by during which Regina scours Sherwood forest and portions of Misthaven for any sign of her missing lover. As those days turn into a week, she begins to fret at the possibility that her proposition they abscond to another realm together had – after careful consideration outside the heat of the moment – driven Red away. But at night as she replays that conversation in her mind, she convinces herself how unlikely that is.
Red is not a deceptive person by nature. In fact, the only time Red seems capable of lying is when she is maintaining appearances inside the Dark Palace. Unlike the Queen and her cronies, however, Regina can easily discern untruths in Red, which makes her question both the intelligence and the perception of her mortal enemy (although she concedes the possibility that the Queen simply does not wish to see what is right in front of her).
More than once Regina has ferreted out an untruth from her younger lover with little more than a well-timed question. Extracting confessions from Red requires minimal effort compared to what is required with more practiced deceivers, such as the nasty brigands she often interrogates for information about what nobles will be trekking down the Queen's road on any given week.
In retrospect, she had witnessed no hint of deception in Red's enthusiastic agreement to abscond. The only emotions Red had displayed were awe and wonder and a radiant happiness that is virtually impossible to fake. As sure, then, as Regina is that sun rises in the east, she knows that Red was genuine in her desire to start a new life together. Thus, with cold feet ruled out as the motive, Regina can think of only three possible reasons for Red's disappearance.
One is that Red was unexpectedly sent on a mission. Oftentimes she is forced to play bodyguard for the Queen when the monarch travels abroad, while at other times she is required to make random inspections of the garrisons that dot the realm due to her ability to travel long distances with astonishing speed and then reconnoiter the target without being detected. "The wolf has its advantages," Red would say. And then there are the hunts, which Red despises but acquiesces to out of a need to maintain her cover. She helps those she can to escape, but sometimes she has to sacrifice her morals to remain unsuspected of treason.
"I mostly do that by letting Snow have the bad ones," she'd told Regina, full of self-recrimination as they discussed the hunts one night. "I tell myself that they deserve it, that it's not my fault they're criminals and murderers and rapists and thieves. But that never helps much at night when I can't sleep for hearing their screams."
Regina's attempts at comforting Red, while accepted, did not assuage the guilt she felt, so Regina prays that Red's absence is not due to one of these hunts. Yet, it is the least worrisome of all options.
Another, and decidedly worse, possibility is that Red is hurt or worse, and physically unable to make the journey. Regina refuses to entertain the latter for any length of time. As irrational as it is, she believes she would know if her lover was dead, that she would sense it in her heart in spite of the distance between them.
However, upon contemplating the idea that anyone has managed to wound Red so severely as to render her unable to travel, Regina finds it unlikely to the point of absurdity. Being that Red is a werewolf, she is unnaturally strong even on two legs, but as the wolf she is capable of dispatching an entire company of the Queen's Black Guard on her own. And were Red simply hurt, she would have found a way to make contact by now if not returned outright – albeit limping or bleeding but alive.
Having excluded all other scenarios, only one option remains, and it is the one Regina has most feared since the moment she succumbed to temptation: the Queen has discovered the truth. With a heaviness in the pit of her stomach, Regina realizes it is the most plausible explanation for Red's disappearance.
And yet if it were so, why has she not heard about it? News travels slowly in the Enchanted Forest, but when momentous events occur such as the ferreting out of a traitor among the Queen's most trusted confidantes, it tends to spread from village to village in a matter of days much like wildfire through a parched forest. Had Red been caught, her betrayal should have been widely publicized, and even if news has not yet reached Sherwood, Regina has other means of gathering information at her disposal that would have informed her of such a development.
Since becoming a bandit, she has established a network of informers that she keeps well paid with excess funds from her thefts. None of them have reached out to her and each operates under specific instructions to watch for any mention of the Queen's werewolf. She has heard nothing from any of her sources, leading her to believe that there is no news to report.
Uncertain of Red's fate as she is, Regina struggles to contain her anxiety. Over the course of a sleepless night, she wrestles with what to do. Some way or another, she has to find out where Red is and what is happening to her, for rest will be impossible until she has answers.
The next morning she decides on a whim to check their monthly meeting place, so she gathers her travel supplies, including her sword, her bow and a quiver full of arrows, and then sets out at first light. Having set a fairly punishing pace, within an hour she has reached the border where she meets Red each Wolf's Time.
Upon arrival, she sets about searching the area for any signs of recent activity, only to be disappointed when she finds nothing amiss. Out of a need for thoroughness that has always characterized her, she repeats the search twice more to no avail. In despair, she plops down heavily upon the fallen log where she often waits and peers out forlornly over the eerily silent clearing.
"Where are you, Red?" she speaks into the crisp morning air, hoping against hope for some kind of magical response. When it doesn't come, she clamps her eyes shut against the onset of tears.
But then she hears the crackling of magic, and her eyes snap open to sweep out over the meadow. When they settle upon the glinting of a glass object next to an enormous forked pine, her heart gives a lurch. Launching up from her seat, she scurries over to the tree and roughly drops to her knees. There at the base lies a mirror of ornate design, silver filigree snowdrops etched into the frame. Dread settles into her stomach. The mirror, she knows, can only belong to one person.
Heart thudding painfully in her chest, Regina grasps the mirror with her gloved hands and lifts it to the level of her eyes. Upon gazing at her own reflection, she hardly recognizes herself. The woman she sees is no longer beautiful to behold, but seems to have aged in a matter of days. Her complexion, once olive, is not wan and pale, and dark bags are present under both of her eyes due to many sleepless nights fretting herself sick.
"Looking a little worse for the wear there, my dear," a voice echoes through the mirror, startling Regina.
She stumbles back, dropping the mirror as she scrambles for purchase to keep herself from landing on her ass. It falls to the ground face up as if willed to. As the mirror lies upon the grass, the polished glass surface begins to swirl with magic, and in seconds the Queen herself is revealed. Resplendent in a high collared black dress trimmed with ornate silver thread, a pompous grin is plastered across her face.
"Well, hello there, Regina," she greets, heavy makeup lending a sinister edge to her carefully applied veneer. "Nice to see you again after so very long. However are you doing?"
"What have you done, Snow?" Regina demands, scrambling forward to retrieve the mirror. She grasps it with tremblings fingers and holds it up to her face once more. Though she cannot see her own reflection now, she knows her expression is betraying how terrified she is. And while giving the Queen a glimpse into her emotional state is a colossal mistake, concern for Red has overridden any sensibility. "Where is she?" she demands, ignoring the Queen's smug demeanor. "Where is Red?"
"Oh, I think you know." The Queen's response is deliberately obtuse in order to provoke Regina, though her toying does not last long. After a brief moment of savoring Regina's desperation, she turns away and crosses over to the door on the opposite side of the room. Upon reaching it, she raps upon it once with the back of her hand and then yells out, "Bring her." As she returns, she makes a show of strutting in a taunting manner, head held high and hips swaying. She does not speak again until her visage has filled most of the frame.
"You know," she then says, finger tapping her chin thoughtfully, "when I learned Red was lying to me, I just couldn't believe it. My oldest friend. The only person who has yet to betray me in some way. I'd thought her loyalty unquestionable. So just imagine my shock when a trusted knight reported that she has been skulking about at odd times and no longer visits her old haunts during Wolf's Time. To be sure of her infidelity, I had her followed, and lo and behold, the accusations proved true! It seems betrayal is a commonality among all of my acquaintances, which in a way is a reassurance. I am no longer required to live under the pretense that there are any strings of affection to which I am attached."
"How did you track her?" Regina inquires, failing to see how it is even possible. "No one can track Red when she doesn't want to be found. Not even me."
The Queen laughs, a terrible sound that is a mockery of the warm melody Regina remembers from long ago when a young princess was happy and carefree, back when that innocent girl was someone Regina adored. But that Snow is long gone, having been replaced by the Evil Queen, an insane woman whose iron rule over the Enchanted Forest has plunged the kingdom into darkness.
"Oh, Regina!" she answers after her mirth ends. "Have you so swiftly forgotten about my friends who are not limited by terrain."
"Ravens," Regina supplies, castigating herself for not anticipating their use. She should have known, should have been more alert when Red was visiting. If she had, she might have spotted the spy lurking unseen in the shadowy canopy of Sherwood Forest as it witnessed Red's acts of treason to report back to its mistress. If only she'd paid more attention, none of this would be happening.
"Indeed," Snow confirms. "Even with their report, it was hard to believe. I had to find out on my own, so I assumed their shape and reconnoitered in person. I witnessed it with my very own eyes. I watched Red sully herself by running willingly into your arms." At that, the Queen's expression shifts into something meaner, something malefic. "You stole her away from me, Regina. Was being responsible for the death of my True Love not enough for you?"
"But I didn't steal her, Snow," Regina replies with beseeching eyes, hoping beyond hope to reach some sliver of a remnant of the girl the Queen used to be. "She saved my life, nursed me back to health. I didn't seek her out."
Making a noise of triumph, Evil Snow claps her hands, looking beyond delighted. "As I thought," she trills, not to Regina but to someone else who has entered the room to her rear. "You see, she doesn't really love you. At the first opportunity, she put all the blame onto you just like I said she would."
With that, the Queen deliberately shifts to reveal Red standing behind her, bound hand and foot in chains. Her clothes are tattered and her face bruised and filthy, but her eyes are clear as they radiate a profound hurt that reaches far beyond the surface. Regina instantly realizes that she has just been manipulated into hurting the only person left in the world she truly loves.
"That's not what I was saying at all!" she objects, willing her lover to believe her. "Red, you know that I love you! I wasn't blaming you at all."
"Then what were you doing?" the Queen queries on Red's behalf, stepping next to her prisoner to run a tender hand over a wild, unkempt mane. Out of reflex, Red flinches back, which angers Snow enough that she snatches a handful of hair and yanks Red back with it, holding her forcefully in place. Red's eyes swim with unshed tears, probably from a combination of physical and emotional pain.
"I was trying to explain to you that I couldn't have stolen her away from you," Regina explains. "I can't steal what never belonged to you in the first place."
That, Regina finds out, was the wrong thing to say. To her dismay, Snow growls and wrenches Red's head by the hair so violently that Regina legitimately fears her lover's neck might break.
"How dare you!" the Queen explodes, ignoring Red's groans of protestation. "She is mine! She always has been and always will be."
At that maddened declaration, Red finally recovers enough from her misery to grit out a reply. "No, I'm not." Although her voice is strained, her eyes blaze with indignation. "Regina is right. I was never yours. What we had was an innocent and sweet friendship. You loved James. Remember?"
"Don't you dare speak his name!" the Queen sneers, wild-eyed and clearly teetering on the edge of violence. Without warning she slaps Red so forcefully that she falls to the floor upon her side. Over Regina's shouts, the Queen growls, "and as for you, you should learn to mind your own business. What I do with my pet is my own concern."
"She's not your pet, Snow," Regina insists, her love for Red making her bold. "She's a proud and honorable werewolf who is meant to be free. She belongs to no one save the person she has chosen to share her life with."
The Queen places defiant hands on her hips and gives a derisive scoff. "And I suppose that someone is you?"
"It is." Regina states this as fact because to her it is. In the same way Red has given herself to Regina, so also Regina has given herself to Red. Their belonging is reciprocal.
Seeming to consider the statement for a moment, Regina half-expects Snow to burst out into a tirade of epic proportions. But instead, she cocks a hip out, lips quirking into a devilish smile.
"Well, then," she practically purrs, "that should make my offer all the more appealing."
Rather than intrigue, Regina experiences only alarm. Offers from the Queen are rarely advantageous to anyone save herself, having learned the art of deal making from her master, the Dark One Rumplestiltskin. But with both herself and Red in such a delicate position she has little choice but to entertain it.
"What offer is that?"
Turning from the mirror, the Queen circles Red once more, inspecting the prisoner like a slab of meat as a third individual – a man in finery fit for a prince – enters the frame. Regina recognizes him as the one Snow refers to as Prince Charming, the twin brother of the deceased Prince James, the Queen's True Love. Charming obediently assumes his place behind Red without comment and then folds his hands in front of him. Yet, as he warily studies the scene before him his features stretch into a perturbed grimace.
With Charming now in place, Snow snatches another handful of Red's hair and violently wrenches her head up. A small trickle of blood drips from the corner of her lips where she'd been struck. Regina's blood boils at the sight, but she remains silent out of fear of further provoking the Queen, who catches Regina's eyes.
"I'm sure Red has told you of the way I...correct my pets by process of 'adjustment'," she says, and the word elicits an immediate response.
While Charming stiffens uncomfortably, Red gasps and tries to seek Snow's attention. Her struggle is fruitless and met with yet another cruel yank of her hair. She winces, returning horrified green eyes to Regina. The fear rolling off of her in waves is somehow able to transmit through the mirror where it proceeds to infiltrate into the deepest recesses of Regina's heart.
Seeing Red so distraught is incredibly disconcerting, but Regina is more rattled by the mention of the Queen's so-called process of 'adjustment'. Red has, indeed, informed her of how the Queen prefers to correct her wayward subjects, and the word in this case is a blithe euphemism for sanctioned rape. Regina can remember telling Red that she'd thought the practice as perverse as it was deplorable, and that it served as evidence of how sick an individual the Queen was.
Suddenly, though, the threat of it is real and present, and the very possibility of this awful indignity being visited upon Red lingers like a pall in the air, robbing Regina of what little remains of her bravado.
"Snow...please," she begs, pride abandoned due to desperation. "Don't do this. Please."
Giggling as if amused, Snow releases Red's hair and places a hand on her waist. The other hand she twirls around as she summons her dark magic, and before Regina can even blink, two sockets appear on the floor to which the chains binding Red's hands and feet are magically welded. A snap of the Queen's fingers has Red jerking forward to her hands and knees. Regina gasps aloud, her hands clenching the mirror until her knuckles grow white and her fingertips scream from the pressure she is exerting upon the metal bindings.
"I can see that you have been informed. Very good," the Queen then chirps, that diabolical edge back in her voice. Her eyes burn with twisted hatred as she maneuvers herself to stand at Red's hips. Behind Red, Charming coils up even more tightly, clearly fighting against the control the Queen wields over him to force his obedience. "In that case," Snow continues, "I'll be succinct. Turn yourself in by the end of the day after next. If you do so, I will not properly adjust Red. If you don't, I swear to you by my mother's grave that she will be made to suffer as no other ever has."
Unbidden, memories return to Regina of her conversation with Red not one week ago, of her promise to sacrifice herself were the Queen to ever learn of their affair. Now, she is stuck living through a scenario she couldn't have imagined even in her most harrowing nightmares. If she turns herself in, she will no doubt be tortured prodigiously before her death, likely in a much more gruesome manner than whatever the Queen has in store for Red. But at the same time, she very much believes Snow's threats to be sincere. If she fails to surrender, Red will no doubt suffer in her place through abuses no woman should ever have to endure.
While Regina harbors no desire to meet an early death and does not wish to endure being tortured to death, she has no alternatives from which to choose. Better me than Red, she thinks.
"Alright," she whispers, head bowing in defeat.
"What was that?" Snow asks, not that she hadn't heard so much as she feels compelled to rub Regina's face in her defeat.
"I said alright!" Regina restates, barking out her words wretchedly. "You win. I will turn myself in. You have my word."
The Queen crows with delight around a burst of excited applause. "Excellent! In that case, you have spared your lover much pain. However, I can't just let this treachery go unpunished, nor can I trust your word. You have lied to me before, after all. With that in mind, I believe you'll require...extra motivation."
At that, the Queen snaps her fingers for a second time. At her command, Charming steps closer to Red, positioning himself directly behind her. The abhorrent nature and inescapability of what is about to occur slams into Regina full-force, literally knocking the air out of her lungs.
"Snow, please!" Red begins frantically pleading, her tears spilling freely now as Regina heaves for breath. "I'm your friend! Don't do this! I beg of you!"
"You were my friend...once upon a time," the Queen responds as she reaches out place her hand at the small of Red's back. The touch is incongruous in its gentility considering the savagery she is about to order be committed upon a helpless and objectively innocent woman. "Sadly, you are now my enemy, and not of my choice. This is your own doing. Remember that." Snow then straightens suddenly, her hand lifting from Red's back as she steps a pace away. When she speaks again it is in the imperious and cold tone of the Evil Queen. "Red, as your Queen I have found you guilty of treason, and though it pains me greatly, you must be punished. Your sentence will be carried out here and now, and don't even think about shifting to escape these manacles. They are made of the sturdiest silver in the realms."
"Snow! Stop this madness!" Regina screams, her voice piercing through the night air. "We had a deal! We had a deal, Snow!"
Turning back to the mirror, the Queen glowers, which casts baleful shadows across her features. "And we still do for the time being, but your pathetic grovelling is trying my patience."
Placing the mirror on the ground, Regina leans over it, grasping at her hair with her fingers as she watches Red's futile struggle against her bonds. Blood is now streaming from where her thin wrists are being abused by unforgiving manacles, and it drips upon the pristine stone floors of the castle, staining them crimson.
Regina can feel Red's panic rising exponentially, and it only feeds her own. "Then why are you doing this? You're breaking our accord!"
"But I'm not." The Queen smirks lazily, malice giving way to a perverse enjoyment. Exploitation, it seems, is an enthralling recreation to the Evil Queen. Regina's hatred roils in her gut. "I only promised to abstain from properly adjusting Red, not that she would not be subjected to it at all. This is her punishment for treason, and it is a lenient one if I'm to be honest. You should be glad I've yet to kill her or promise her to the rest of my Guard. Fifty men is a lot for any woman to withstand, after all, even one as limber and durable as our Little Red Riding Hood here."
Hopelessness and abject despair descend upon Regina in a deluge as she watches Red suddenly go still. Upon their gazes locking, she can see that there is no longer any fear or hysteria or terror upon her lover's face. Now, Red seems dulled with resignation, lacking any spark of life whatsoever. And as they stare at one another over the medium of Snow's magic mirror, Regina can feel her slipping away behind the mental barrier of detachment required for her to survive what is coming.
"I love you, Red," Regina cries, burying her face in her hands as her ravaged heart breaks a little bit more. There is nothing else she can think of to say and nothing at all she can do. She is powerless to help and wholly responsible for Red's predicament, and her shame and guilt press in upon her until they threaten to grind her soul into a million infinitesimally small grains of sand. "I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry! Please forgive me!"
"Hey," Red calls out, her voice monotone but commanding. "Don't do this to yourself. Look at me, Regina!"
Regina peers up to see her beloved werewolf smiling gently in encouragement; her pale cheeks are rosy and splotchy from her tears. Ever selfless Red, ready to sacrifice herself upon an altar of responsibility not meant for her.
"I love you, too," Red then says. "And this is not your fault. I don't blame you even for a second. Okay?"
"But you should," Regina replies brokenly. "If you hadn't loved me, if you had just let me die that day, none of this would be happening."
"Not a chance," Red protests. "There is no pain on this earth that could make me regret loving you or saving your life. You are worth it to me."
Snow tuts her interjection, appearing disgusted by the conversation. "Don't be so sure of that, honey."
Unable to bear the looming atrocity, Regina gives one last effort to reason with the girl she had once thought of as a daughter, even if grudgingly. "Snow, please, I'm begging you. I am begging you! Don't do this to her. I will take her place if you just stop this now. Please. Take me instead!"
"Regina, no!" At Red's shout, another blow lands across her face from the Queen who has suddenly become enraged.
"Enough! I'm fed up with your spinelessness, Regina," she sneers and then glances back at Charming. "Proceed." Instead of obeying, Charming takes a step back. It is a brave but stupid move on his part, and the Queen is quick to growl out her immense displeasure. "I said, proceed." Again, he remains unmoving in refusal. This time the Queen approaches, leaning in so close that their noses nearly brush. Fuming now, she orders through a taut jaw, "For the last time, Charming, I...said...proceed!"
"No." As if finally unafraid after enduring years of abuse, his calmness is almost serene, and his face is a blank slate as he boldly disobeys the most wicked woman to ever terrorize the lands. "Enduring your advances is bad enough, but I won't do this. Not to Red. You'll have to kill me first."
The Queen's anger dissipates as quickly as it had come on. She sighs as if dealing with an unruly child and then snaps her fingers to summon a glowing red heart into her hands. Charming's heart.
"Oh, Charming, when will you learn? If I wanted you dead, I'd have disposed of you long ago. Death is too kind an escape for your ilk. I much prefer to stretch out the torment." Lifting the heart to her lips, she speaks in a smooth voice, "I command you to obey. And Charming? Make it hurt."
Though he struggles heroically against the magic compelling him to act, the effort is useless. With Snow in possession of his heart, he has no choice but to submit.
The revulsion upon his face speaks to his true feelings, but still Charming retakes his place behind Red, whose stoicism vanishes upon the dawning of the worse moment in her life. She pulls and jerks viciously at her chains in a vain attempt to escape, but they do not yield. The only result of her wild thrashing is the production of a series of jagged cuts along her forms and wrists from which a steady flow of blood pours.
"Now, now, Red," the Queen purrs, "you'll have to be still for this to work." With a twirl of her finger, her powerful magic produces a series of chords of deepest purple, and they wind themselves around Red's torso before constricting to freeze her in place. Rendered utterly incapable of resisting, Red displays only unrestrained terror as she begins to tremble from head to toe.
Unable to stomach what is about to happen, Regina averts her eyes from the mirror and clenches them shut.
"You will watch, Regina!" Snow's booming voice cuts through the oppressive emptiness of the clearing. "You will witness every moment of this or our deal is void."
Turning back to the mirror with her heart beating as if set to rip through her chest, Regina opens her eyes just in time to watch Charming unfasten his pants, raise Red's skirt, and then tear her undergarments aside. Red is now openly sobbing, and the sound of her unspeakable misery pierces Regina clean through. A mere breath later Charming moves to enter her, and to the backdrop of Red's cries of protest, Snow laughs at the top of her lungs.
With one harsh movement from Charming's hips, Regina's worst nightmare begins. A strangled scream is torn from Red's throat as her eyes clench shut against the horrible indignity of being so brutally and unwillingly invaded. Her face twists in pain as Charming then fists a hands in her hair and pulls her backward to the point Regina fears her spine might snap. Time slows to a crawl as Regina watches the puppet Prince roughly thrust forward once more before beginning to move in earnest.
The wretched sounds of Charming's grunting, Snow's deranged laughter, and Red's stomach-turning mixture of sobs, fruitless screams, and cries of agonized protest score the hellish symphony to a nightmare from which Regina cannot escape. Agonizing minutes pass before the ordeal is mercifully signaled over by Charming's cry of release. He slumps over Red's back, spent, and promptly begins to shudder out his own tears.
After a stern look from the Queen, the unwilling pawn quietens and then straightens himself up. As he refastens his breeches, an expression of torturous self-revulsion etches upon his face.
The sickness swirling a thousand miles per hour within Regina's stomach intensifies upon realizing she has just witnessed the violation of not one but two people by a woman who had once been of purest heart and intent. The depths to which Snow has sunk seem unfathomable, yet the evidence irrefutable, and it crushes Regina to know she is the cause.
A snap of Snow's fingers releases Red from the magical bonds, and now freed the hysterical werewolf collapses to the ground in a heap. She curls into herself as she howls out her anguish, and the sound lodges into Regina's brain so that she knows she will remember it for long as she lives. Meanwhile the Queen does nothing but stare with an obscene smile until Red has cried herself into unconsciousness.
Beset by a rage she has not felt in years, Regina directs a withering lance of utter abhorrence toward the Queen.
"I hate you."
Snow grins ominously. "Believe me, dear, the feeling is mutual. But let this serve as both a lesson and a warning. Do not defy me. You have two days from the rising of the sun on the morrow to surrender. If you've not done so by then, things will get much worse for your precious little puppy. Much worse."
And with that, the image in the mirror vanishes, leaving only smooth glass reflecting a twisted visage Regina barely recognizes as herself. Her grief is incomprehensible. Ravaged by a punishing sense of failure, she grabs the nearest rock and then proceeds to smash the mirror to pieces as she rages maniacally into the night. Once the offending item has been thoroughly destroyed, she tilts her head upward to the sky. The moon is hanging low overhead, nearly three-quarters now.
Thoughts of Red pierce through her consciousness as she stares at the pale celestial body above. Her beloved werewolf. With memories of the love they have shared blending into those of the horror she has just witnessed, Regina's fury and despondence escalate until the rampaging emotions are impossible to contain. In the cold, lonely, and quiet forest, she empties herself through a series of piercing, banshee-like screams that do not cease until her voice has ceased to function.
Although her voice is spent, her misery continues to pour out in great waves that shake her entire body. For the first time since her forced marriage, she allows herself the luxury of breaking without maintaining a single thread of restraint. In her irrational state, she prays for a chance to turn back time if only to commit suicide before Red saved her life that day in the woods, but her prayers go unanswered, just as they almost always do.
And as her tears fall unabated, the night appears to grow darker and more oppressive, as if a wall is closing in on her from all sides. Suffocation seems inescapable. Nearly hysterical, Regina works herself upright to pace the tiny clearing, pulling at her hair until her roots ache from the unrelenting pressure. Hours pass before she exhausts herself enough to pass out upon the forest floor.
The slumber is fitful at best. She awakens half a dozen times in a cold sweat from some shadowy nightmare whose secret torments her brain refuses to divulge. Only once does she recall the awfully vivid scene conjured by her unconscious mind, for in it she had stood in Charming's place.
After vomiting up what little she'd forced down earlier in the day, she scrounges up enough energy to stumble her way back to her home. The short journey back is a blur of staggered movements and shuddering hiccups, but she somehow makes it without losing her way.
Upon arriving she fumbles inside as if drunk and then collapses in a pathetic heap upon her tiny mat. The stress of having watched Red suffer crashes down upon her, settles upon her shoulders with a weight that makes her joints and muscles seem leaden. Unfortunately, her brain remains clear in its recollection of the nights events. She is hesitant to even give name to what has happened for fear it will become real.
But it is real, and she knows it. There is no denying or escaping the fact that Red has been raped simply because she dared to commit the unpardonable sin of loving Regina.
That terrible word, that awful, horrible word, chokes Regina of her breath and reignites the roiling sickness that has taken up residence in her stomach. For what seems like hours she alternates between crying and retching, and only dimly recognizes her inability to cope with a reality that is far too grotesque with which to reconcile herself.
She is both confused and angry that something so obscene could happen to someone so undeserving. Red is as perfect a human being as Regina has ever known, having against all odds remained unblemished by the ugliness she's lived through day in and day out as a resident of the Dark Palace. That innocence, however, has been all but obliterated. Snow, in her madness, has seen to it that Red's purity is forever tarnished.
And yet Regina also remains cognizant through the fog of her enraged grief that if she does not meet the Queen's demands, what is left of Red will systematically be stripped away until nothing remains but an empty husk. Death awaits Regina at the end of one choice and insanity at the other.
The choice looming monstrously before her and the torturous thought of Red being so utterly diminished robs Regina of her ability to rest, so she fetches a vial she'd traded for some time back containing a tonic which will knock her out cold. She swallows it whole, allowing the soured tang to ground her senses. The potion works quickly. Within minutes, her lids grow heavy.
The last thought that crosses her conscious mind is of green eyes cast over a bowed shoulder, fraught with pain that cannot be expressed. Red's lips don't move, but Regina hears her accusations all the same. "Why, Regina? Why are you doing this to me? Why? Why? Why? Why..."