Warning: There are mentions of child abuse.
A/N: I hope you enjoy, please review! Also I wanted to thank my Beta, Rae D. Magdon for all their help!
Chapter 2:
A breeze pushed past the trees, carelessly dancing. A small swallow played along the wind, following it, gracefully gliding above to watch over the Queen. Slowly, the sun's rays peeked past the branches, and the huntress stirred. Her arms were wrapped around her Queen. She smiled softly, burying her face in her lover's hair.
Regina's eyes opened and she groaned, shielding her eyes under her hands.
Emma laughed. "Is it too bright for you, my love?"
Regina grinned slightly. "No, I'm just unused to it."
Emma couldn't resist her lopsided grin. She gently kissed the Queen's jaw, slowly making her way up to her lover's ear, nipping gently behind it.
Regina closed her eyes. "Have you ever had a lover?"
Emma paused. "Yes... a man I was forced to marry by my father. He was kind, but he couldn't understand my needs... to be independent, to have my freedom. I could never be the wife he wanted... I refused to bear him children. So we parted ways... my father couldn't understand. He told me how I had failed in my duties to him as a daughter and failed the kingdom. He didn't realise what it was like for me... I'd rather die than be anyone's puppet. To lose who and what I am, I could do that for no one... not even you."
Regina's thumb gently rubbed Emma's palm. "Is that why you ran away?"
Emma looked down at their hands. "How did you know?"
Regina gently kissed the back of her hand. "You said you had nowhere else to go. No one hides in a forest unless they are running from something."
Emma held her tighter. "My father has been ill, and as time goes on, he has only gotten worse. So the court finally had their chance to strike me down. To name a new heir to the throne." She scoffed. "After all, a women couldn't possibly have a title. They sought to be rid of me. Put me through a mockery of a trial for my 'transgressions against the crown'. They merely sought my execution. So I ran... I refuse to die. It is not in my nature to simply flee. But as my father once told me, you must learn to pick your battles."
Regina turned, gently holding the woman's face in her hands. She saw a fire blaze behind those eyes. There was so much hatred. It was all too familiar, from a life long past.
Regina pulled her huntress into her arms, holding her tight. "That hatred will consume you if you let it. It will create nothing but destruction. Once you allow that flame to blaze into a storm, there will be no stopping it. It shall destroy you and all those around you. I once allowed myself to be seduced by that same compulsion for vengeance, and I lost everything... so I ran. I refuse to make the same mistake that I did then. In the end, everyone lost. I not only rid myself of my enemy, but all I ever cared for."
Emma clenched her fists until her knuckles were white. "Regina, it was because of them that I lost my mother. She took her own life, because she had no one. They chose to ignore her in hopes she would disappear, so she did. For the simple reason that she was of common blood. They were going to kill me when my father was on his deathbed. They deserve nothing more than to have their throats slit open for their crimes."
The Queen gazed into her hollow eyes. The fires that consumed the huntress would burn her beyond recognition, changing her into someone so broken... it would strip her of what she was and bend her into a creature bereft of mercy. A creature that would feel nothing but an emptiness that would never be satisfied. The Queen couldn't allow that to happen. She would not stand idle and let this woman become what she once was.
Gently, the Queen rubbed thumb against her huntresses cheek. "Would you gamble with chance of happiness, true happiness, for one moment of vengeance?"
The huntress looked away, "I thought you didn't want me... not in the way I want you."
Regina smiled softly. "In time I could."
It was then the huntress felt a flicker of hope.
"I choose you, Regina. Always you."
….
The swallow swooped into the shadows.
The huntress raised her bow.
The Queen paused. "What is it?"
"Can't you hear it?" Emma turned, gripping the bow. "We are being followed, by something in the shadows."
The Queen smiled. "That lurker is a Shifter. A creature I made long ago... it protects me."
Emma lowered her bow. "A what? You can create life?"
The Queen smiled, holding her huntresses face in her hands. "I can do many things, my love, but I cannot create life. That is something that was not granted to mankind, at least not in this world. I may not be able create life, but I can change it. I took a seed from an apple tree that I had tended to since I was a child. I buried it and dripped three drops of my own blood for it to grow. After a few days, a creature clawed its way out of the earth and came to me. It is a shifter. Many believe it has no true form, I know better. It is an animal, a master of mimicry. It could even pass as human, if it wished. Though it cannot talk, it has protected me for all that time."
The huntress stopped mid-step. "It kept souls here, stopped them from passing on. They claimed that this creature, your protector, bound them there."
Regina stopped and turned to Emma. "It may not be able to talk, but do not underestimate it. It is a highly intelligent creature. It is a creature of emotion and instinct. It follows them without hesitation... and uses is mind to follow these impulses. It cannot control itself and how it feels. It simply follows how it feels."
The huntress felt sickened. "Can you control it?"
Regina looked to the shadows. "Yes...it is mine. It will follow my every order, as if it's life depended on it. A creature of magic is at its very essence magic itself."
Emma followed the Queen's gaze. "Could anyone make such a creature?"
Regina smiled gently. "Spell wielding was a dying art even when I was alive. I can't imagine the discipline still existing now, though nothing is impossible."
The huntress turned to the Queen. "I suppose. Not many believe in it now. They consider such things foolish. How did you ever learn this dying art?"
Regina turned away, her eyes became distant. "My mother... I learnt from her books when she did not see me. If I ever got caught, I just knew she would have..."
Emma felt her heart stop as she took the Queen into her arms. "It doesn't matter. You don't have to tell me."
Regina felt herself pull the blonde closer. Her head rest on her shoulder. Images of a past life flashed behind her eyes. A child with a broken hand... crying in a corner... and her mother...
She was so angry.
"So, you thought you were going to become powerful? Destroy me? Is that what you want, Regina? To destroy your own mother?"
The little girl clutched her hand. "Your not my mother."
"Oh, aren't I? Don't I feed you, and clothe you? No one could care for you like I do. I'm your mother, Regina, and I only ever care for you. Everything I've done has been for our future, for your future. You may not see it now, but you will. One day you'll understand."
The little girl stood on shaking legs. "But I don't, mama. If you care so much, why can't I learn? Shouldn't I be able to protect myself?"
Cora just laughed. "Who in the world would you need to be protected from? I'm here, I'll always protect you."
The door was closed and the girl was left shivering in her bed with a broken hand.
She whispered. "But it's you that I need to be protected from, mama."
Regina was shivering, clutching to the woman. "I still don't understand, Emma. She told me I would, so why don't I? Why don't I understand? She lied to me. She said she loved me, but her love was poison, she twisted that word and turned something so beautiful into a disfigured abomination. She twisted me, Emma. She stole everything from me. She took everything from me and bent me into something even worse than her. But I got her. In the end, I got her, and it was all for nothing. My life, those I killed. I even killed a young child, an innocent that I blamed for my mother's crimes. I lost my lover, she was all I wanted, but I couldn't even have that."
The huntress was at a loss. All she could do was hold her Queen as she cried silently into her chest. She felt a new flame burn within her. She couldn't believe what that woman had done. That monster had broken her love. If she could, she would have enacted her revenge on that vile creature. Yet she couldn't, and that left her with this beautiful broken woman. She couldn't have loved anyone more.
The huntress held her Queen until her quivering stilled and her sobs disappeared into the night.