Regina was twiddling her thumbs over a rock, trying to force her purple magic to levitate it. Concentrating but not hard enough to give herself a migraine. If magic was too difficult, even if she succeeded, splitting her brain in two wasn't worth picking up a rock without her hands.
It'd require almost no muscle strength. If it cost all her brain power, who needed magic?
She was propped on her lower legs with her butt on the soles of her bare feet. On the edge of a forest, tucked behind the first line of trees. There was a dirt path with a few rocks. This was the area she'd selected.
With a groan, she alleviated her concentration even more. The only reason she was doing this in the first place was that newt dude playing brain twisters with her head. She hadn't wanted that book he'd offered—it'd made her nervous. In a weird way. Thinking of it now gave her the very real need to vomit. The fact that this book had so much power over her made her feel safer the further away she was from it.
She didn't want to think about how there might be more books almost identical to it. Lurking in other towns. Maybe even in the café she was now sitting a few yards from. Maybe lying carelessly in the manager's desk.
She hadn't known that putrid thing existed, and now she did, all sorts of thoughts were stemming from its point of origin.
Regardless, she felt possessed. Since the newt-man had implanted the idea in her mind that she could do more magic if she only tried…it wouldn't leave her mind. The thought of how nice it'd be if she could make her magic do something because she willed it…and not because she was about to die.
But the rock didn't want to rise for her.
The fairy dust necklace slipped out of her shirt collar and swung in the faint breeze. Staring down at the rock, Regina pictured a cloud of purple dust cradling it and easing it upward…
A whiff of purple smoke appeared before her eyes. Frowning, she blinked. Her eyes went crossed.
The whiff was gone. Heart beating fast, she leaned forward, studying the rock. As if it could tell her, if she gaped hard enough, whether she had imagined the whiff or not.
When she closed her eyes briefly, there was an imprint of light.
No, she hadn't imagined it. For one: she knew she saw it, and for two: the whiff had been the brightest of purples. It had burned her retina, however fleetingly it'd lingered. That's what caused the imprint of light surrounded by darkness when she shut her eyes tightly.
Opening her eyes, she nibbled thoughtfully on a tiny part under the back of her bottom lip. So. Her magic indeed had possibilities beyond saving her life.
But only if she worked toward it. And at the moment, it looked like a lot of work and dedication. Neither of which she was sure she wanted to invest.
Still, it felt encouraging to know of the possibilities.
Even more encouraging to realize she hadn't worked herself into even a dim headache.
Even so, she didn't want to try anymore today.
The smell of coffee beans being tossed greeted her nostrils. She glanced at the café through the tree branches and realized night was befalling the town.
Stretching, she deduced it was time to build a campfire. She grabbed her boots from their hideout behind a tree and held them to her chest.
Strolling away from the outskirts, she came nose-to-nose with a woman wearing a red cape and carrying a basket.
Heart banging against her throat, she choked out, "Wh-what are you doing out at this hour?"
The red-caped woman smiled widely. "What do you think? I'm off to see a lizard—wizard." She winked but looked nervous herself. "I'm meeting a boy, cute as can be. C'mon. Summer lovin' and all that jazz."
Icily, Regina grunted, "Never meet a man who doesn't want to introduce you to his friends. He's not worth it."
The red-caped woman lifted her forefinger. "Ah! But in this case, it was I who wanted to keep our meeting a secret." Dropping her hand to her cape pocket, she grumbled, "My granny treats me like a minor. She won't let me out after dark because there are mangy wolves killing people after hours."
"Wolves?" Regina had never heard such a thing, but this was a town of the country she wasn't in very much. It was a town surrounded by mountains on one side and steep hills on the other. It was on the edge of Queen Snow's territory then dropped south into no man's land for hundreds of miles. Desert no one could survive without magic. It was an area someone who didn't want to be trapped wouldn't relish being anywhere near. Right now, Regina felt like she'd shown her face too often in every other part of the country. And something wasn't letting her venture northwest into Gaston's territory or northeast into Moe's. Then there was Arendelle, which was straight north from Queen Snow's territory, but one had to weather lots of snowstorms to reach it. No way to enter Agrabah without treading south through that godawful desert, and in order to reach Merida's land, one had to travel west by ship for several weeks.
"Well," the red-caped woman studied the ground, frowning at a hare track. "One wolf, I guess? It's mighty big and lightning-quick, but oddly enough, there does seem to only be one. This cape is supposed to protect me from the wolf, yet Granny still flips her lid if I say I'd like to get out at night. But Peter and I aren't hiding our relationship," she informed Regina as easily as if Regina had every right to know her business. "Granny knows. She doesn't approve of him, but she's not trying to chain me to the wall or anything. It's just the get-out-at-dark thing she's a pain about."
It was nice yet strange for a stranger to be so chatty with Regina. Her fight-or-flight instincts bristled with fear, but her logical side saw how easygoing this woman was. Regina felt sure this woman was no threat to her—and probably wouldn't be even if she'd recognized Regina from the Wanted posters.
"Should I be worried about the big, bad wolf?" she wondered, following the red-caped woman.
"No, don't worry." The woman inhaled deeply. "You've got dark fairy dust in that vial, don't you?"
Regina blanched, stuffing the necklace down her shirt collar. "Um…"
"Yeah, if you come face-to-face with that nasty thing," the woman uttered offhandedly, "just toss that stuff on him. He'll be taken care of right quick."
Trying to keep her voice firm and level, Regina forced away the instant anger looming. Something about the way this stranger had assumed she was carrying something so dastardly for no reason was rubbing her wrong, though she doubted the woman intended to offend. "I've got someone specific in mind, and not someone with teeth longer than my dagger." She flourished it out of one of the boots she was carrying.
"Well, there's no use using it on 'someone specific' if the wolf tears your throat out, eh? And that's what this beast does. He tears the throats out of people."
Frowning, Regina followed the woman while stuffing her feet in her boots and righting the dagger in place. "Then why are you marching around in the dead of the night?"
The red-caped woman pointed flamboyantly at the hood over her head. "Hell-lo? I told you this protects me. It's magic, repels the wolves. Big and small. They don't like red." She sniffed. "They like green and brown." She turned back to Regina and studied her garb. "The colors you're wearing."
Regina gulped nervously.
"I say get out of this area of the country." Then the red-caped woman stopped in her tracks and pivoted to face Regina. Her eyes seemed to be glowing in the dark as she studied Regina's face. "Wait a minute," she uttered slowly, comprehension dawning on her face. "Who're you going to use the dust on?"
Regina thought about lying or evading answering, but her instincts told her she could trust this woman.
So much different than Will, in which she wrestled her instincts and forced herself to pipe down and trust him in spite of her instincts blaring, "Danger! Danger! This man is a demon!"
Her voice so quiet someone with average hearing shouldn't hear her, Regina answered, "The Queen."
The woman with the red cape smiled slyly, her nose wrinkling with nasty sourness. "I hate her. I had two friends—Ashley and Mulan. Queen Snow 'needed' them for something, and they came back with their personalities torn plump off. Now they're all about robbing random men and pretending they're attracted to them…well, we have nothing in common anymore." She spat on the ground. "I despise the Queen. Beyond that, thanks to her stupid high taxes, my granny can't sell cupcakes anymore. She's going to stuff us in prison because we're too poor to pay her taxes. And you know why?"
Regina had no idea why Queen Snow would want to throw poor people in prison. She only knew of Snow White wanting her hide on her wall for tattling to the fairy and getting her lover murdered. Also for inducing her marriage to David, Regina supposed, though that was all on Snow, not Regina. But hey, the more she could blame Regina for, the happier Snow White would be.
"Because," enlightened the red-caped woman, "she enjoys torturing people. Those people in the jail cells? Her guards bring them out, in ropes and chains. They put them in a courtyard. The Queen and her friends sit on the sidelines and watch them beat the person up. And it's always people who can't afford her high taxes. And you know what she does? She laughs hysterically the whole time."
"How the hell do you know this stuff?"
The red-caped woman sighed heavily. "It's top secret, but a couple of my friends had it happen to them. I know a lot of people in poverty, some of them homeless. The thing is, once she decides to take you in there, she doesn't let you out. Two of my friends escaped after the beating. I think they used magic because they both told me how desperate they were never to have it happen to them again. How they shook the steel bars in desperation…and they don't remember how they got out after that. They just did. Blacking out and everything.
"The beatings they underwent were so brutal that they died two days after getting home. And they were a mass of bruises. They looked horrible and could barely open their mouths.
"She starved them too." The red-caped woman grunted. "One of them said she heard Queen Snow giggle to her guard, 'I have striking means for getting rid of vermin.'"
Regina couldn't believe Queen Snow could be so cruel. Well, not Queen Snow but anyone. Even after all the mean things people did to her, she usually thought it was because they took an instant dislike to her. That she herself wasn't lovable, not that the mean person was the problem. She lived with it like a man afraid of getting stabbed in his sleep lives with his dagger. "Wow, I feel so self-centered. Thinking of my own issues with the Queen…next to that…what am I complaining about?"
"We're dealing with a very unlikable queen. That's all we need to know," asserted the red-caped woman. Then she thrust her hand forward in a manner that reminded Regina of an eager dog. But this was a dog she liked, unlike Will. "I'm Red, by the way! Well, it's not my actual name, but it's what everyone calls me because of the," she beckoned at the cape with her other hand.
Regina shook her hand warmly. "Hi, Red. Call me," she blurted out the first name that came to mind, "Nala."
It was astounding that Regina still had the capability to like people and believe in their goodness, yet she had no trouble believing Red was a good person.
"You know why we haven't been shoved into prison yet, Nala?" Red murmured, looking up at the tops of the trees. Regina tilted her own head up. There was no sky visible, only tree branch undersides. There was only a slit of light surrounding them now; it was twilight. "It's because of the hoodlum."
"Hoodlum?"
"Robin Hood."
"Oh." Regina blushed, comprehension dawning. That was why she still believed in human goodness. Robin Hood. "He helps?"
"Yep. Steals from those slimy gits and tosses a bag of money to my Granny. He helps as many as he can, can't save them all, but he's extremely fond of my granny. Good thing too. We'd be dead if not for his help."
She turned back on her way with Regina following along. They came near a waterfall, which rushed through the darkness. Looking up in a tree branch, she glimpsed an owl twisting his head about and stirring his wings in preparation for flight.
"Sorry for this, but considering where we are, if I don't get to Peter, he might worry the wolf's got me. Granny's right; we've seen the aftermath of the wolf attacks. But she told me the cape repels wolves, so why worry if I've got it? Why not Hakuna Mata—" Red's voice trailed off when she glimpsed something lying on the ground. Something too far away for Regina's eyes. "Oh no. The wolf's been here…" Red tucked her mass of wavy brown hair behind her ears as a sudden wind tried to blow it into her open mouth. "Peter!" she yelped, bounding forward.
Regina followed at a much slower pace. Red was covering her eyes with her hands, but her fingers were splayed as she looked down at the figure on the ground. Bloodied, torn apart, barely recognizable as a person.
"It is him!" she gasped breathlessly, fat tears sliding down her cheeks.
Regina didn't know what to do. She had never the luxury of having a friend to comfort. Every person she'd ever thought was her friend was only playing her so they could betray her. She no longer wanted a friend, for that hole in her had been filled with mud and sealed off with cement.
Yet, instinct pulled her feet forward so she found her hands were rubbing Red's back comfortingly. Red reached a hand up and grasped one of Regina's, squeezing her fingers as she sobbed.
Regina couldn't take Red's pain away, but she was helping her feel slightly better.
Suddenly, Red tilted her head back and let out a very wolf-like howl. Her hood slipped down her shoulders. Then she took off running. The last Regina thought she saw of her was a tail swishing in the shadows, light grey against the darkness.
It had to be Regina's imagination. It couldn't possibly be Red. Because if it was Red….
…she killed her own boyfriend.
Suddenly, a wolf came strutting toward Regina. Menacingly large, it took no notice of Regina. It headed straight for Peter…reached its muzzle down…
…and began to eat him.
Regina wasn't in the mood to watch something so disturbing, so she melted in the shadows and beat it out of there. Heeding Red's advice, she ran until she was out of that town. Out of the wolf's area. Past the hills that bordered the town. She found a backyard after running nonstop for an hour and collapsed, scaring a couple of possums away.
Her pulse was gonging in her wrists at what she'd newly witnessed. It hurt so much. She hadn't known a pulse could hurt her, and now she was experiencing the physical pain.
Her stomach clenched as the image of the wolf tearing into Peter arose in her memory. She leaned over the garden and vomited.
When she lifted her head again, her vision went temporarily hazy.
It occurred to her she couldn't feel the fairy dust necklace. Anxiety jumped into her chest. Panting heavily, her side screaming from the run, she reached her fingers up to the back of her neck.
She didn't feel it, so she groped down with sweaty hands.
And there it was. The same temperature as her skin. She yanked on the necklace and pulled the vial out of her clothing.
It was safe. Everything was okay. It had somehow mimicked her body temperature, which was why she couldn't feel it. But the important thing was it hadn't been lost.
Her mind raced. Now she knew Queen Snow White was…much more evil than she had anticipated. She was torturing people for not having the money to pay her ghastly taxes. And their suffering made her laugh. And she enjoyed watching them being beaten almost to death.
Regina felt very self-centered indeed. Sure, this was secret information, stuff that wasn't spread in thick rumors around the country like some contagious disease. It was more a disease kept in a laboratory.
But it existed nevertheless, and the question was—
—why hadn't she known? It wasn't like she thought Snow White was a sweet woman. She was very obviously nasty. Shoveling popcorn in her mouth when a man was about to behead her prisoner. She'd had more than the stomach to watch him lop her head off. She'd plainly found it worthy entertainment for a queen.
How demented did the Queen have to be not to turn her head away but watch with poring eyes?
Yet, Regina's distaste for her had mostly been personal, not for the greater good. But more an alley cat who wanted to scratch the nose of a Doberman drooling all over her and threatening to bite her neck in half.
Taxes were insane, sure. Trying to force people to be so poor they can't afford a cupcake. But it wasn't sadistic so much as greedy. Regina had seen those taxes as mere proof the Queen wanted all the monies in the land in her castle. Which was foolish, fair enough, and could also be seen as thirty shades of ignorant about the world.
But Regina had been wrong. Those taxes had been a means so she'd have an excuse to torture.
Another thought flitted briefly in Regina's head.
And what of this imprisoned woman who calls herself "The Savior"?
Regina shivered. She wasn't sure what she was doing here. But all she knew was…
…now she had to fight. Not just for herself. But for the people in Queen Snow's land who didn't have the wealth of lords under their belt.
She had to save whoever she could.
She would do whatever it took to turn that woman into a bug.
Clutching the vial in her fist, she promised herself she would do everything in her power to help Red's friends.
