If there was one thing the Evil Queen despised, it was failing to get her spoiled way. It always made her angry when she thought of something she couldn't have.

Probably because she was such a powerful woman that almost anything she wanted was handed to her swiftly and thoughtlessly. The person handing her her desires might as well have been someone playing Poker with her who assumed they were going to win. Until they saw her hand and gave up, showing their good "but just not good enough" cards.

She felt like she'd been forced to eat venison for dinner, to mollify the king of another land into doing her bidding even though she hated the taste of venison no matter how it was prepared. She'd even eaten coyote she liked better, and her cooks had no idea how to cook coyote. Venison was the nastiest meat to Snow's personal taste buds.

Though she'd never tried bluebirds, so perhaps bluebirds would be worse. They were her darlings; therefore, she would never eat them. Though she'd heard when David was really young, his mother had been unable to get anything for dinner one night and ended up killing a few bluebirds and feeding them to her family for a week. Snow refused to ask him about it. To find if he had actually liked it because she might crush his heart if he said, "Yes," in an eager, honest, and naïve manner.

Then she'd be sad because her blow-up doll that mirrored James would be gone. It'd be a lot more painful to not have James at all than to have a lookalike pillow that lacked his spirit. A pillow with James' eyes but none of their connection.

What was the point in identical twins with disparate personalities?

And what in the blazes was that stupid purple magic of Regina's?

It mattered not since the Evil Queen had an infallible plan that involved Chrissy, that kid she'd groomed the Light One into handing over. One which would indisputably grant her…Regina's head on a platter.

But damn, it was almost insipidly simple to kill the woman at long last. The nimrod had tried to turn her into a bug, but she'd gotten her maid instead! That had been Snow's chance.

And she'd bloody well blown it faster than a trumpeter blew his horn.

Snow was turning red with rage and clawing at anything in front of her. Feeling the compelling urge to destroy, to break, to scratch something up. She was seated at her private room with the books, countless heart boxes, and magical objects. And she kept magically bringing an uninteresting potion vial to her and grabbing it up in her claws then smashing it hard on her vanity. When the bottle opened, there were various reactions, but the ones that were most satisfying popped and hissed at the same time then made a loud fizzling noise and dripped liquid.

She pulled some hearts from boxes and dug her nails into them. Scratching with fury but not crushing them. Knowing whatever nameless nimrod said heart belonged to was in intense pain did not—for once—quell her rage or make her smile.

She had to scratch up about seventy-five hearts and break around one hundred and fifty vials before her fury was pretty much spent. But not quite. She called a servant whose entire purpose was for her to unleash her rage on him, and she beat him up until his body was bleeding and sore from her kicks, punching, and bites. He did not look afraid, though. His eyes were dead. He'd gotten past the stage of fear before she'd hired him, which was why he was so perfect for the job.

However, she almost never had such pent-up fury inside of her. Once a year, on average, though once she'd been extremely ornery for three days in a row. The servant had taken her beatings three times a day until it'd finally fizzled out of her.

His perks of the job were three warm meals a day, free room and board, and a paycheck.

Living in the castle was so much nicer than being locked away in the tower with that insane Savior who called Snow White…"Mom." The gall of such idiots. Snow wished she had some of that potion that could melt through helmets and kill…not that she needed to.

Smirking to herself, she thought, Being trapped in a tower by a dragon is a much more fitting punishment than death. Being chained with tousled hair and unable to have her freedom is sweeter than taking her up as a maid and finding she escaped in the dead of the night…

Her smirk was short-lived because the foul mood consumed her. Covering her face with her hands, she thought, feeling like cactus quills were puncturing the back of her neck, That sap hugged me. The Evil Queen shuddered then reached for the edge of her vanity table so she could puke on the floor. Her head quaked for a minute. Sharp, strong, and unbearable, a very brief migraine tore through her head then left her alone a minute later. It was so in and out that Snow took a lingering minute to speculate if she'd only imagined the ghastly headache.

She realized she hadn't. She wasn't insane. The Savior was. Completely insane with her love of apple-glazed veal…er, well, that'd been Snow's doing, but Snow still felt a smidge of satisfaction over how she'd magically manipulated the daft woman into ordering her potion-ridden veal.

Not enough to drown out her sorrow that she'd lost the tattletale.

Oh that bastard Regina! Snow White seethed angrily, her face contouring like Ursula's in Disney's animated Little Mermaid when Eric had almost "kissed the girl".

To herself, she thought, I bet that gold digger is dreaming when she dethrones me, she'll squirrel her way to being queen. Almost smirking smugly but not quite there yet, Snow snarled inwardly, If she thinks such, she can dream on. In order to be queen, people have to want you to rule, and all anyone sees that scamp as is a punching bag or kicking ball. No matter what a social climber she thinks she can become, she'll always be trash. Filth on my tiara!

The Evil Queen got lost in angry fantasies of the orphan rising to queendom with a few well-placed manipulative sentences. She envisioned the brat taking Queen Snow's garments, studying them with self-satisfaction on her young face, and deciding they needed embellishing. She envisioned the woman using her purple magic to instantly change Snow's dresses…make them white as snow or green as a sour apple. Then putting Snow's sullied dresses on herself with magic.

Worse. Queen Snow imagined her parading them around in Snow's modeling stadium, showing off to a mega audience what she'd done to Snow's prized, specially created garments. Then winking, blowing a kiss, and singsonging, "The Evil Queen is dead. Long live Snow White and her cruddy ashes."

Snow didn't realize what she was doing until she came out of her ball of fury. Her magic hands had brought a maid's uniform between them. She was ripping the dress up with her claws, tearing into it as if it were Regina.

She wiped perspiration out of her eyes and thoughtlessly fixed the holes in the uniform. Before realizing it'd been the uniform Regina had worn. Once again unable to control herself, Queen Snow White burned the dress to ashes. Wondering why the hell she hadn't done so ten years ago.

"Good riddance," she snuffed.

Deciding she needed a different outlet, Queen Snow snatched her whip off its shelf then teleported to the room she made mischief with David. With his heart smushed up to her puckered lips, she bossed, "David, bring your flexible butt over to me. Stat."

Unbeknownst to her, the imprisoned man was in the middle of consuming his lunch while having a friendly chat with a servant he enjoyed talking to. When she summoned him, he stood up so fast, his knee jammed into the underside of the table, and his half-eaten tray of food slid off. His barely-sipped iced tea spilled all over his pants and the floor. He winced at the pain in his knee then limped out of the room, wiggling his fingers at the servant and leaving a skinny trail of liquid instead of footprints or breadcrumbs.

Walking to the room where the queen waited, he massaged his wrist, for it was brimming with tension, and kept his eyes closed. He'd learned he didn't need to watch where he was going when she summoned him, and pretty much the only amusement he got out of being her robot was shutting his eyes while sauntering to her. He slipped a couple of times on the dripping tea but righted himself so thoughtlessly, without bothering to briefly open his eyes.

He walked with a limp because he'd gotten his knee good.

When she saw the condition of his pants, she asked, "Why are they wet?"

Against his will, he tried to explain, but even with closed eyes, he could tell she wasn't listening to the answer but rather eyeing him like he was a rather large sirloin steak and she was a dog who'd gone three weeks without eating.

She was just about to take a chunk out of his neck when a small head appeared in the doorway. Flabbergasted, the Evil Queen demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Defiantly, the kid asserted, "I have a name." Thunder in her eyes, she challenged, "And it's a female name too, so bugger off." Silkily, she informed the Evil Queen, with no shred of meekness, "If you want me to answer any dumb questions of yours, you will address me as Chrissy."

Snow White found herself looking upon a cocky young woman instead of a child. She couldn't stop herself from tittering gaily and remarking, "You sound so grown-up! It amazes me that you're only five. Unless you're actually a dwarf or a hobbit or a gnome…whatever name they're going by these days?"

Chrissy caved her brow but said nothing in response.

"Alright, Chrissy." Snow White abandoned David to stand in front of the child, crouching by touching her knees. "Why are you here instead of in your room?" Then she noticed something. "And what happened to the buttons on your dress?"

"I bit them off. Look, I hate dresses. Give me some trousers."

"You…bit…them off? What kind of child are you? Were you a teething Doberman magically transformed into a little girl? Ugh!" Snow White stamped her foot and rose out of her crouch, turning from Chrissy. Making acute angles with her arms, she put her hands on the sides of her head. "This is exactly why I don't need motherhood in my life. Children are so unpredictable…but it's okay." She turned flashing eyes at Chrissy. "You won't be here long anyway."

"Glad to hear that," the child combatted frostily. "Now, can I please go out back and play? I promise I won't leave because the only place I'd want to go is to see Rumple. And that's over." Her chin trembled.

"The baby?"

Chrissy tried to hold onto her fierce expression, but it wavered. "Of course."

"How sweet. You putting Rumple's happiness above your own. What a self-sacrificing little doormat." Pressing her nose against Chrissy's, Snow White swaggered her head with joy. "And you're making my job so easy, sweet thing!"

"So you're going to get rid of me in a few days, eh? Don't worry; I won't become attached to this joint. I'd rather be in a jungle."

The Evil Queen clapped. "You will love your new home then!"

Chrissy brightened. "I'm going to live in a jungle?"

"A very dangerous one," promised Snow White. Picking up one of her servant's hearts as a bluebird perched on her finger, she ordered, "Make Chrissy some pants and shirts and make them grubby, stat." Putting the heart down, she asked the child, "Are you settled?"

"I still want to go outside and climb some trees."

Snow White swirled the fingers on the hand that wasn't holding up the bluebird. Dark red magic swirled around the five-year-old and teleported her out back, to her sheer delight.

As Snow White satisfied her rage on David (who blocked out his reality as best as he could with dreams of not being a slave), Chrissy made happy little girl noises as she leapt on the first tree and tore the skirt of her dress on a branch. As she got twigs in her hair and breathed the outdoor air, she felt incredibly happy, for she'd been cooped up indoors for several days. There was something about the outdoor air that soothed her lungs in ways being trapped in a castle never would.

If the queen weren't planning to ship her to another home (one with a jungle!), Chrissy would most definitely run away. Maybe not today, maybe not next month, but surely before her year anniversary had begun. Being alone on the road sounded a lot better than being stuck permanently in the castle. She didn't want to be a princess. She wanted to be a wild tiger.

As a wind nestled itself into her hair, a contented light brightened her face. She couldn't wait to leave…