Title: The integrity of your revolution
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Denise Levertov
Warnings: violence, minor character death, implied rape, torture
Pairings: Cora/Jefferson
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 400
Point of view: third
Prompt: author's choice, author's choice, end of torture means having nothing left to take away
The portal-jumping hatter is an amusing diversion, at first. He's handsome and still has some fire left, no matter how Cora hurts him or uses him. There's even something regal about him - and those eyes, she's seen before. Before Regina, before even the first child, the one nobody knows about. Prince Jeffrey with his cold eyes and colder heart. Cora recognized his game and stayed away.
"You look like your father," she tells the hatter, smoothing his messy hair along his forehead. "He was much better than you," she adds, reaching into his chest and stroking his heart, lying purely for the pain it'll cause. Such exquisite pain it is.
He bucks beneath her, mouth open in a silent scream. He no longer screams for her; that he still has such strength of will is part of the reason she returns.
The hatter can go where he likes in her castle and on the grounds. He cannot leave, of course, and must return to the workroom every night. She doesn't warn her courtiers to leave him alone as he wanders, ever seeking a way out, and she loses over a dozen before they realize that no matter how they beat him, he will still fight. One of the silly noblewomen demands restitution for her dead son and Cora laughs in her face.
Any of the hats would work, if Cora allowed it. He makes some in what he believes to be secret, hoping if she never lays eyes on them, perhaps the magic will seep through – he knows better, of course, and Cora strokes gently along his jaw, kisses his lips so softly. "You are magnificent," she tells him, kissing his lips and his chin and down his neck to his chest.
The last time Cora sees the hatter, he looks her right in the eyes. Something is different about him; the fire that had been dying down after so long has been stoked back up, and he says, "She looks like you."
Cora knows that Regina has some plan in the works, though she has yet to ascertain exactly what. That the hatter knows about her daughter - she slaps him soundly across the face and hurries out (in rage, not fear) as his laughter echoes behind her.
Three days later, a pirate comes calling and the hatter, no matter how amusing a diversion he has been, slips her mind.