"Strip."
Silence follows the blonde's order as the Queen glowers at her dangerously through the bars. She is furious. Livid. Not since enduring the wrath of her mother, long ago when she had still been weak and prone to failure, has she felt as uncomfortable as she does now. It is not a look she wears well. She has no qualms with her body, quite the opposite, but what she simply can't abide is being ordered around.
Especially by the daughter of her sworn enemy.
Especially by Emma Swan.
Narrowing her eyes, she raises her jaw defiantly, seething with hate as cool green glitters back at her wickedly. She knows that Regina had often found herself somewhat intrigued by the Saviour's eyes, even before she had found herself in favour of the woman herself. The blonde's face is often schizophrenic; she can be both greatly expressive and completely shut down. Her eyes remain forever cool, however, and the Mayor had long since discerned this was not just down to colour but rather a calm- disturbingly calm- warning. Even when creased with laughter or shimmering with tears, the blonde's eyes retain one very simple- very calm- message: don't fuck with me.
No. It's not just that. Not when she looks at Regina these days. Not when she looks at you.
No.
I dare you to fuck with me.
Yes, that's it, and it's so tempting to take her up on her offer.
"Are you sure you want to play this game?"
She breathes, adopting her own cold expression of disdain. It's a long shot, and she isn't wholly surprised when her challenge earns her a smile, but this response does nothing to alleviate her mood.
Bitch.
"You know, it's funny, Your Majesty. For all your bullshit about winning this little game and your delusions of superiority, I would have thought you'd have a better hand to play than to stall. Maybe I overestimated you."
Emma sighs, injecting a purposely bored dose of disappointment into her tone that garners her a glare of pure contempt.
"You have no idea what I'm capable of."
The Queen hisses, and the blonde pulls a face very similar to the one she will offer Henry when the kid suggests something especially unlikely, before shaking her head.
"I think it's maybe time to quit with that particular line, Your Highness, given how this has all played out."
She flashes a sly, commiserating smile and the brunette shows her teeth.
"Your mother showed a similar brand of ignorant cockiness, and look where it got her."
The Queen warns.
"My mother lives with her husband and child in a very nice converted flat where the rent has remained the same for the last thirty years. I'd say she's doing just fine."
"She spent twenty-eight years a slave to my demand."
"True... Until I came along."
"You-"
"-Which brings us back to the matter at hand, and the fact that you stand on that side of the bars while I stand on this side, so I would think it wise- less embarrassing, even!- if you would can the whole high and mighty superior act and just do as you've been told."
"Make me."
The Queen challenges, striving to keep any emotion from showing on her face. She finds the younger woman's mannerisms unsettling. Where Snow had been smug whenever she'd held the upper hand for a short time, Emma seems rather more clinical. It's clear from her demands that she's enjoying this current turn of events, but she has kept the fact hidden from her expression for the most part. Her crude order has a lot to do with playing her hand, but the twist of the knife is coloured with retribution as well as a simple desire to win the game, and this makes her a dangerous opponent in the brunette's eyes. Snow had been unhappy with her but righteous for the most part, and had served more as an annoyance than a threat. Emma is angry yet collected, and her mind will happily go to dark places where her mother's had not.
Her mother also never threatened me carnally whilst bound so deliciously in leather.
She swallows as the blonde takes another step closer to the bars; remaining locked in the Saviour's forbidding stare as she keeps her head high and a sinful smile painting her lips.
"I'll ask you again. Strip."
The younger woman repeats, almost casually, although nothing in her eyes speaks of any tolerance should the brunette disobey.
"Make me."
The darker woman reiterates venomously, in no way about to break down and give the idiot woman what she wants. She glowers at her captor through the bars before her eyes widen and her fists tighten around rusted iron. For a moment, the pleasing bind of her corset tightens cruelly, forcing a pained gasp from her lungs, and then a swift slice of power ripples down beneath her coat; slicing thick ribbons cleanly in two.
"Ah!"
A choked noise of surprise escapes her mouth before she can help it, and the blonde touches the tip of her tongue lightly to her top lip as she cocks her head to observe her specimen.
"This would go much more smoothly if you'd listen to me."
Emma sighs, and the Queen's lip curls into a snarl as she can feel thick fabric now hanging loose and useless against her slim frame. She notes with some irritation that her stomach feels tight with excitement against ruined garments in spite of her fury at being treated with such disrespect.
"You're going to regret this."
She warns, already picturing just some of the ways she might punish the blonde. Emma bites her lip in response in a parody of nervousness before raising a brow and once more adopting a dry smile.
"So you keep saying... But, as you seemed so intent on getting to know things about me, I'll give you one for free. I've been behind bars, as you well know. I've been behind them when you had me falsely incarcerated, and I've been behind them when I agreed to go along with a fucked up plan that, looking back, was doomed to fail. Your little town's holding cells have nothing on Phoenix... Women who are cooped up together against their will can get a little moody, as you might imagine. It's just not cohesive to everyone staying in the best of spirits. As such, stuff goes down that just... Ugh, I mean it can really mess with your day, Your Majesty... Do you want to know how many people I've warned will regret their actions? Do you want to know how much good it did me while stuck on your current side of the bars? I can let you guess if you like?"
Silence as the Queen seethes, but the younger woman seems undeterred as she pushes her hair back and opens out her palms.
"It did no good, no matter how surely I meant it. Do you want to know why? Because it's a power play. Power breeds obedience, but it also breeds fear. Right now, you have nothing, you can do nothing to me. Right now all that threatening bullshit is completely empty. It's laughable... See if you like how that feels."
Emma finishes angrily, and the brunette shifts her weight uncomfortably as she can't remember the last time someone spoke to her the way the blonde does now. Searching for a response, she comes up empty, and she watches with deep loathing tinged with something headier, lustier, as the younger woman once more moves her hands to her hips to study her cooly.
"The next time you make me help you do as I say, I'll cut deeper."
The blonde warns, and dark eyes glitter, before the Queen appropriates a smile- purposely seductive and free from any hint of discomfort- and shucks off the thick velvet of her coat. She finds some solace in the fact that she spies the younger woman's throat ripple as she swallows. Keeping Emma's gaze firmly locked with her own, she plucks away the ruined remnants of her corset and allows them to fall to the floor.
"No need to get nasty."
She scolds quietly, her heart beating fast and her sex clenching as she allows cool green to study her intimately. She is aware that Emma strives not to show any immediate reaction, but she hasn't missed the way the blonde had blinked a couple of times before regaining her icy facade, and she cocks her hip salaciously in response.
"Feel better?"
She asks wickedly, and finally, the younger woman adopts her own smile as she reasons with absurd sweetness
"I told you to strip, not flash me. You've not won any game here, Your Highness."
"Eager to see the rest?"
"I'd just like you to do as I've asked."
The blonde counters, and while she detests being ordered around in such a way, the Queen has to admit to herself that she's in some ways glad that the younger woman's darkness has come out to play. It makes this all much more interesting, if a little precarious, but after thirty years trapped inside a progressively mundane prison, she's all for things getting a little dangerous.
"Is it what you imagined?"
She asks as she begins working the fastenings of tight riding pants, and she looks up curiously when Emma fails to respond. She is met with an interesting sight; the blonde's lashes casting a shadow as she watches the darker woman's movements with her lids at half-mast. Smirking, the Queen straightens up and tosses her hair back as she pushes down the tight fabric to reveal her fully, calling the younger woman out sharply.
"Saviour!"
She prompts, and the blonde's eyes snap open as Emma meets her knowing grin with a thinning of her lips.
"Well?"
"I can't say I ever imagined it this way."
The younger woman states coldly, and the Queen laughs quietly as she steps out of the fabric pooled at her ankles and once more wraps her hands around the bars.
"But you have imagined it?"
She muses, shaking her head as the blonde opts for silence.
"Come now, don't get shy; you'll ruin the vibe."
She teases, and Emma's eyes flicker with irritation as she snaps back
"Smug words, given how you initially resisted."
"Don't deflect... Tell me, what is it you imagine when you're lying in bed next to the pirate? If you say it's never been me, I'll call you a liar."
"Fine. Then I'm a liar."
"Oh, Emma, as you have me here, won't you at least play the game?! I-"
"-I've never thought about you in that way... Sometimes, I guess I would think about how certain situations between myself and Regina might have... Gone differently."
The blonde shares carefully, and when she catches the smug superiority on the brunette's face, she plays her at her own game and elaborates without coaxing
"I always figured she'd be angry with me if I ever tried anything like what I sometimes pictured in my head. She never seemed the type to like it rough, which is a shame... She's pretty good at it when I let my imagination run wild."
"... Who would be getting rough with whom?"
The Queen asks, her eyes pure darkness as her pupils blow out; drinking in the blonde as she admits to her sins.
"There was more than one scenario."
Emma replies with a small smile; knowing that for now, she's winning the game. She aims to keep it that way, although it's hard not to find herself slightly flustered as her attention drops now and again to appreciate the darker woman's enviable form in its entirety.
Just make damn sure you keep thinking of her as the Queen. Don't start thinking of her as Regina, or this is all going to get messy.
A nervous voice speaks up in her head, and she remembers how it had been before, back when she'd first accepted the curse of the dagger. It had been that same private war in her mind. Her conscience would speak up, but its voice would be little more than a whisper as the darkness would push it out and render it meaningless. At the time, she'd given the analogy a lot of weight, particularly after coming back from the brink of blackness, as it served to make her feel more comfortable with her actions. Now though, she's beginning to accept that the idea of her being the Dark One exists only as far as she will let it. She has control- lots of it- over herself, and if she wanted to play this whole scene on the safe side, she could.
She just doesn't want to.
No, but you're doing this because the bitch deserves it and it's proving to be rather interesting... Regina is not the same, and you would do well to remember that.
No. She knows. But without the fantastical garments that had spoken of the Evil Queen rather than her friend, it's a lot harder to differentiate between the two, and as she stares the brunette down cooly following her suggestive admission, she recalls several of the scenarios to which she refers in which Regina had been just as bare as the Queen is now.
Not that you ever allowed yourself to fully go through with those thoughts...
No, she hadn't, and the darker woman's goading about lying with a busy head next to Hook stings as it's entirely accurate. On more than one occasion she can recall staring up at the ceiling once the pirate had fallen asleep, her mind wandering dangerously as her thoughts turned back to sex. She'd allow the images in her head to get so far as the Mayor's office, the cells in the Station, the alley behind the Rabbit Hole. Allow her thoughts to get to the point where she might lean in and taste the darker woman, gasping as the brunette's familiar touch turned cruel, dominant, delicious, before swiftly pushing any further fantasies away with her throat rippling sheepishly.
Those were the nights when you'd wake up the next day irritated and hard to be around. You've never worn confusion well... Not that you'd quite accepted that's what it was.
She hadn't. It had been the Queen posing as Regina that had finally forced her to do that, and her eyes narrow now as she studies the darker woman pensively.
She's winning the game, and she wants to make sure the Queen knows it.
"What about you? I never asked after your little trick with the mirror. At the time, I guess I was surprised and angry, but now I find myself a little curious... What were you thinking while you were watching me?"
"That I'd, in essence, bought very disappointing tickets to a highly anticipated show... You shower as you do most things; entirely lacking in any elegance or intrigue."
"I'm so sorry."
The blonde sighs, striving to hold back a grin, as while she remains face to face with the Queen, there is something utterly 'Regina' in the darker woman's grievance.
Don't go there!
"I could have thought of several ways it might have been more fun."
The darker woman continues.
"Yeah?"
"Indeed."
"Like what?"
Emma prompts, stalking closer to the bars so that she stands almost nose to nose with the brunette; her eyes bright as she challenges the darker woman to up her game.
"It would have been interesting to see you relieve some tension. After all, I'd worked so hard getting you all riled up."
The Queen smirks, and the blonde raises her jaw, standing tall as she looks the darker woman up and down, before casting her gaze down at herself clad in tight black leather that fits alarmingly well.
"And now? What do you think now? Now that you're not in control. Has the... Hmm... Game lost its appeal?"
"Oh, I'd still play."
The brunette confides huskily, and she's fairly certain that she's eating right out of the younger woman's palm, but it seems pointless to deny the truth. That, and one thing she has learnt while at the mercy of the Mayor's ever-growing conscience is that arrogance can be a weakness. Ordinarily, it has been herself- Regina- to have learned this the hard way when dealing with the blonde, but now she dares to bet that she has Emma right where she wants her.
The Saviour smiles; pure malice and sin.
The Queen cocks her head, daring the younger woman to make a move.
"You like what you see, don't you, dear?"
"So what if I do?"
Emma asks, her smile remaining but that slight note of ingrained distrust never quite leaving her tone.
Clever girl.
"I was just curious... Of course, it doesn't matter in the end."
The Queen shrugs, and the younger woman's brow furrows as she demands through the bars
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that whether you like what you see or not, you don't have the guts to play to win. You don't even have it in you to play the next hand."
The darker woman goads, and the blonde's eyes flash with warning as she snaps back
"You think I'm so idiotic that I don't recognise bait when I see it? You're not asking me this out of any real interest, you're asking me because you're waiting for me to fuck up... Well, it's not going to happen, Your Majesty. I know how this dungeon works and I know that you're stuck in it unless I see fit to release you. You can challenge me all you like, but I'm not about to open up the gate just to prove a point. Not when I know it's what you want."
Emma warns, and she smirks as she spies a shadow of irritation flicker across the darker woman's face.
"Fine."
The Queen sighs, throwing the younger woman a caustic glare.
"Have it your way. But, I stand by what I said. You claim I'm all bark and no bite, but so are you. You've played your hand, and now you're out of moves."
"No."
The blonde whispers, fury quick to ignite as the brunette calls on her to show some gall. She's a sucker for refusing to back down and she knows this, but after everything the Queen has put her through the last couple of days, she sees red.
"No?"
"No. I can bite."
She assures, gripping the bars and staring the darker woman down through the gaps; the brunette impossibly close. Slipping one hand through the bars, she pulls the Queen closer to her with a rough yank of her wrist; crashing her lips against her captive's and kissing her hungrily. The darker woman reciprocates with a sly slip of her tongue, before sinking her teeth viciously into the blonde's bottom lip.
"Ah!"
"So can I."
The brunette grins, her lips red with the Saviour's blood as the younger woman staggers back with her hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes wide with shock.
"What the-"
"-I'm sorry, dear, I really am. That was quite the heated moment, and you did play well... But you see, while you may know who this cell belonged to and the basics of how it works, this is my castle by rights, and I know the specifics."
"What?..."
Emma breathes, removing her hand to show a scarlet trail tracked down her chin.
The Queen simply smiles, raising her fingers to her lips and wiping them clean of the blonde's blood with obscene slowness. Finally, she displays their reddened whorls to the Saviour before touching them to the iron bars.
"Specifics such as that a prisoner may be freed by the blood of their captive... I suggest that you- how did you put it?- run."