The castle stood, somber and silent, high in the mountains, embraced by a blanket of perpetual fog. The stars barely peeked through the dark clouds, and the moon, always in its splendid vigil, illuminated only the ruins of what had once been the Evil Queen's stronghold. Now, the Queen watched from her solitary tower, where the walls echoed with her own thoughts.

Her gaze was cold, yet at the same time burning, caught between desire and despair. Her eyes, like two deep obsidian mirrors, reflected a broken soul, torn apart by the love that could never be. In her hands, slender and pale as marble, rested an enchanted mirror. But this was not a simple mirror of beauty, like the one that had so often guided her in her youth. It reflected her darkest thoughts, her deepest desires.

"Tell me, mirror, why does this condemnation drag me down?" "—she asked in a soft but trembling voice, her words filled with a despair that not even glass could dispel. "Is it a crime to love the one who should be my enemy?"

The mirror, ever wise but implacable, didn't answer. Its silence was like a knife piercing deeper into the Queen's heart. She listened, but didn't understand. She couldn't.

In the distance, in the green and lush gardens of the castle, walked Snow White. Her skin, like freshly fallen snow, shone with a purity that made even the Queen's darkness seem denser. Her eyes, two mirrors of innocence, reflected a soul so pure that it seemed impossible that evil could exist in its proximity. Snow White was the light that could never belong to her, and yet, the Queen couldn't help but seek her out, observe her, desire her.

She was a princess, radiant and fulfilled in her youth, so oblivious to the darkness that stalked her. Her every laugh was like a bird's song in the morning, her every gesture a glimmer of sunlight illuminating her world. And the Queen, from her tower, watched her. From afar. Always.

"She..." she murmured, her voice breaking. "She doesn't know... She doesn't know what I feel... What I'm capable of doing for her."

In the dimness of her room, the Queen approached the window. From there, she could see Snow White skipping among the flowers, her hair black as night and her face filled with a joy that tortured her. It was like a dream, a dream she could never achieve.

Suddenly, a rustling sound broke the silence, and the Queen turned, looking with searching eyes. A whisper in the air made her shudder. The magic that resided in her veins was beginning to manifest itself, as it always did when her heart was stirred by something more than power or revenge. It was a dark, forbidden love, a feeling that twisted in her chest with every beat.

"What would you do if she were near?" she asked herself, her fingers brushing her face, as if trying to feel her, as if trying to understand her. But there was no answer. The mirror, which had been her guide in the past, remained silent. She already knew she would receive no comfort.

In the main hall, the queen walked with the majesty of a fallen pharaoh, her black robes heavy like the fate that awaited her. She was a woman of unbreakable strength, but her eyes reflected the fragility of a broken heart. Her black hair cascaded like the shadows that surrounded her, and her tall, haughty figure projected an image of power. But no one saw the truth behind that facade.

And no one would ever see what her soul desired more than anything in the world: Snow White, the young princess who could never belong to her.

Every day, the Queen spent hours watching her in the gardens, in the castle, wherever she was. Snow White was the sun, and she was the moon, destined to gaze at her from a distance, with no hope of coming closer. The Queen often wondered if one day that purity could be destroyed, if the darkness that consumed her could obscure the young woman's so bright soul. But the love she felt for her kept her prisoner, always by her side, always watching.

One day, the Queen found herself in front of her mirror, more broken than ever, her face marked by anguish.

"It's my curse, isn't it?" she whispered. "To love a creature like her... Is it my damnation or my salvation?"

The magic in the air thickened, as if fate itself were playing with their lives. And then, for a moment, in a fleeting reflection, the Queen saw a vision: Snow White, in the same garden where she used to dance, pausing for a moment, looking up at the tower. Her eyes, full of innocence, seemed to be searching for something, though she didn't know it. As if, in some corner of her soul, she recognized the Queen's presence, even if she never fully understood it.

The Queen, trapped in that moment, felt a pang of hope, an impossible wish. But when Snow White turned to return to her carefree happiness, the vision vanished.

"Is it worth it to keep looking at her from the shadows?" the Queen thought, almost breathless, as a new storm of despair engulfed her.

At that same moment, Snow White, unknowingly, turned once more toward the tower, as if, for an instant, her soul was searching for it too.

The wind began to howl outside the castle, battering the windows with the force of a storm only the Queen could understand. It was the kind of storm that not only battered the stone walls, but tore at the soul, and the Evil Queen, in her deepest solitude, found herself facing her faithful confidant: the mirror.

ver the years, the mirror had become much more than an enchanted object; it was her most faithful friend, her silent companion in the darkness. It was the only presence that didn't judge her, that didn't see her as the villain of the story. It only watched her, listened to her, and understood her pain.

Its voice, though cold and full of mystery, had never abandoned her. It was the only one who listened to her when no one else did.

"Mirror, my mirror..." the Queen whispered, her voice more broken than ever. "Is this love of mine such a great sin? Is my passion a condemnation that not even you can forgive me?"

The mirror's reflection flickered briefly, and the answer came, not in words, but in a vision, as it always did. The Queen watched the distorted image of Snow White, the princess who occupied every corner of her mind, walking in the castle garden. The vision was almost as clear as reality itself, but more ethereal, like an impossible dream.

"Love is not weakness, Regina. But you have mistaken it for punishment."

The Queen closed her eyes. Regina. A name no one had spoken for years. A name only the Mirror remembered, with a tenderness as ancient as it was cruel. A name that belonged to a woman who no longer existed. A woman who could still have been saved.

"She belongs to you, but you can never touch her." The mirror's voice was deep, laden with sadness and wisdom, as if each word weighed heavily on the Queen's soul. "Your love for her is a flame that consumes your very being, but don't you know that love can destroy as much as it can save?"

The Queen felt the weight of those words on her chest, and for a moment, her heartbeat echoed louder than her thoughts. A shudder ran through her body, a mixture of love, despair, and fear. She didn't know how to manage this whirlwind of emotions. Every night, every sigh, distanced her further from what she most desired.

"Tell me, mirror!" she cried, her voice breaking, but filled with an almost inhuman intensity. "Why do I love her like this? Why does my heart betray me? I cannot live in this torment… I cannot continue loving someone who will never be mine."

The mirror shone with a dull light, a warm response that pierced the darkness, touching the Queen's deepest recesses.

"Because in her, you find what you've already lost: your humanity. She is the light your darkness yearns for. It is not an easy love, nor is it a fair love. But love knows no justice, no laws. Love... is a sacrifice."

The Queen leaned closer to the mirror, her fingers brushing the surface, as if they could pass through it, as if they could touch Snow White through it.

"Sacrifice..." she repeated, the word like an echo. A word so bitter it made her feel empty. "I have nothing left to offer her. My soul is made of shadows, and she is light. There is nothing in me worthy of her."

The mirror, ever patient, observed her silently, and then, as if sharing the Queen's anguish, whispered with disturbing gentleness:

"Do not look within yourself for what you can never find. What you have lost, you will find within her. It doesn't matter if it's an impossible love. Love doesn't always need a happy ending to be true. Sometimes, the truest things hide in the shadows."

The Queen turned away from the mirror, her body trembling, unable to accept those words, but they were etched in her heart nonetheless. The whispers from the mirror surrounded her, giving her a strange feeling of comfort and condemnation at the same time. She knew she could no longer live among shadows, but she couldn't find the courage to leave them.

At that moment, a distant noise broke the silence of the tower. The Queen turned quickly, her gaze dripping with silent fury, and saw Snow White, once again, in the garden. This time, the princess was not alone. A man, one of the princes who always courted her, accompanied her, smiling with a sweetness that seemed to illuminate everything around him.

The Queen felt a pang of jealousy, a wave of pain that drowned her. She couldn't bear it. Seeing Snow White so close to another, so oblivious to the Queen's suffering, was like watching her own heart bleed silently. But she couldn't stop looking. She couldn't take her eyes off the princess who, unwittingly, was becoming the cause of her doom.

Snow White looked up at the tower where the Queen was hiding, as if sensing her presence. Her eyes, large and curious, rested for a second on the Queen's silhouette. But before she could understand what was happening, the prince took her hand, and she smiled, filled with that happiness that only the innocent can know.

The Queen, her heart torn, collapsed. A tear, never before allowed on her face, fell silently, like the last shadow of her humanity.

The mirror, which had borne witness to her suffering for years, offered no solace, but a truth harsher than any other: The love the Queen felt for Snow White was the love of a fallen angel, a love that could never rise to the light.

But in that darkness, the Queen found something she herself had not understood: love, though unrequited, had left a mark on her heart that would not fade. That love, that silent passion, was the only thing that kept her alive.

"Don't go away..." she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Even if I cannot be your love, even if I cannot be your shadow... I will always be your angel, Snow White. Always from the shadows."

And while the princess laughed and danced in the garden, the Queen remained there, in her tower, lost in her own abyss, her soul marked by a love she would never reach.

The darkness that enveloped the castle wasn't just a product of the night. Darkness permeated every corner of the halls, every corner of the Queen's mind. As she descended the stone stairs that creaked beneath her feet, the air grew thicker, as if the atmosphere itself sought to stifle the despair seeping from within. The sound of chains dragging and the distant wailing of the prisoners echoed like a macabre melody.

The dungeon walls, covered in moss and mold, smelled of dampness and death. The Queen walked silently, her black robes thudding against the cold stones. Her gait, though firm, seemed to carry the weight of centuries of curse. She knew she was about to face something darker than her own heart.

At the end of the corridor, the cells lined up, narrow and repulsive, filled with shadows and muffled screams. In each cell were women, some as young as the princess, others aged with despair. All of them had once been part of her kingdom, but the Queen now saw them as threats.

Threats to Snow White.

Each of them had done something. Each of them had tried, in some way, to steal her princess's attention, her love, her soul. And in her mind, these women weren't mere prisoners. They were guilty. They were the intruders, the ones who had made Snow White look elsewhere. The ones who, perhaps, could destroy the only thing the Queen loved in this world.

"Enough!" she cried, raising her hand, her voice echoing in the darkness. The response was a unanimous cry, a whisper that filled every corner of the castle, a murmur of fear and despair that soon died away at the sight of her face.

The women who occupied the cells retreated to the back, away from the iron and the cold, but not out of respect for the Queen. It was fear that kept them away. Fear of the power, of the dark magic emanating from her, fear of the wrath that could be unleashed in a single breath.

The Queen stopped in front of one of the darkest cells, where a pale-faced, wild-eyed young woman trembled, her chains gleaming in the dim torchlight.

"Who are you?" the Queen asked, her eyes fixed on the woman, the fire of anger sizzling within her.

The prisoner didn't respond immediately. She feared that when she spoke, her voice would sound too weak, too broken. But in the end, fear overcame her, and her words came out as a whisper:

"I am... I am one of those who... served the princess." I only wanted to help her... but they sent me here... because... they told me I loved her, that I looked at her.

The Queen stared at her. Her eyes flashed like sharp knives.

"Help her?" Her voice became lower, more dangerous. "How? How did you think you could help her, when all you want is to steal her from me?"

The woman couldn't help but tremble, but her desperation was greater than her fear.

"No... I don't want to steal her, my Queen... I just... I just wanted to be near her."

The Queen gritted her teeth, and a flash of dark magic coursed through her body, her hands trembling with the suppressed power. In the blink of an eye, she approached the cell, her fingers caressing the iron bars with icy intensity. Her breathing became heavy, as if anger itself were taking shape in her throat.

"You are an insect. A spider that stalks what does not belong to you." Her voice resounded with the force of a thousand storms. And then, a softer, almost inaudible whisper: "No one will dare touch her."

With a single movement, the Queen raised her hand, and the chain binding the prisoner broke. The woman fell to the floor, terrified, tears streaming down her face.

The Queen watched her coldly, her heart pounding with rage and a strange satisfaction. That woman, like all the other prisoners, was a reflection of what she feared most: that Snow White would ever leave her.

A distant shout from another cell momentarily distracted her. The Queen turned on her heel, moving down the corridor, and her eyes fell on a cell farther back, a cell that, unlike the others, was empty. But what she had left there was even worse.

On the floor, a letter, crumpled and torn, lay. The Queen approached, her breathing now labored, lifted the letter in her hands, and saw that it was addressed to Snow White. The sweet scent of a stranger was also present on the envelope.

The poison in her heart intensified. Her hand clenched the paper until it crumbled to pieces, falling like ash to the floor. An unbearable fury took hold of her. Of all the men and women who had wanted to approach her princess, only she would have the right to touch her, to love her.

A fleeting vision of Snow White, in her gardens, laughing with someone, crossed her mind. The thought was too much; the Queen lost her calm.

"There will be no more threats. No more approaches. No more thefts." The Queen's scream echoed through the stone walls. The sound reverberated in every corner of the dungeon, until the echoes of her voice died away.

Then, a deep, familiar, and cruel whisper emerged from the darkness. The Mirror spoke once more, as always, relentless, wise:

"She is yours, Regina." But remember, even dark-winged angels can fall...

The Queen, staring at the destroyed letter, breathed deeply, her chest rising and falling like an animal trapped in its own cage.

There would be no more interference. Nothing and no one would steal her love.

The moon, that silent lover, shed its silvery light through the window. The silk curtains moved gently, as if they too breathed to the rhythm of the night, to the rhythm of what Regina felt. The air was thick with a silence so thick it seemed to absorb every thought, every whisper.

Regina, dressed in her black cloak, slipped into the darkness like a shadow. Her face, hidden by the cloak, reflected only the moonlight in her eyes, which shone with a strange glow, as if the very sadness of her soul were seeping through them. She stood there in the doorway of Snow White's room, like a figure not part of this world, a presence that should never have existed.

Inside, the princess slept. Snow White, her angel. Her sun.

Regina approached with light, almost imperceptible steps, as if the ground itself feared disturbing the young woman's sleep. In the dimness, she saw her there, in her white linen bed, so serene, so oblivious to the storm brewing outside and inside that tower.

Regina's heart, normally relentless, now beat with a gentleness she had never felt before. A warm ache spread in her chest, a love that tore at her from within. And for the first time in her life, the Queen showed weakness. Her soul, always so strong and controlled, broke at the sight of Snow White.

She leaned slowly toward her, so slowly that not even the breeze dared to disturb the air between them. Her fingers, as slender as a statue's, touched Snow White's hair, stroking it tenderly. The night-black hair slipped through her fingers, as soft as silk, so light it almost seemed not to belong to this world.

"Sleep, my sweet child..." Regina murmured, her voice soft, so low that barely the moon itself could hear her. Sleep... unaware that I am your shadow, your guardian, the one who watches you from the shadows.

Regina's eyes closed for a moment, as if she could not bear the weight of the beauty before her. And when she opened them again, her lips trembled. It was not a smile they formed, but an infinite sadness, a sigh caught between life and death.

She leaned even closer, until she was so close that she could hear Snow White's quiet sigh, the beat of her sleeping heart, the gentle flow of her breathing. Her chest, so oblivious to the softness of these moments, trembled.

"If only you could know..." Regina continued, her voice trembling like a leaf in the wind. "If only you could see beyond the darkness that surrounds me. But you won't. You won't know. Not for me. Not while I'm your shadow."

With a delicate movement, her hand slid to Snow White's cheek, touching it gently, as if afraid of breaking something too fragile. Her fingers traced the perfect line of her face, every contour, every curve, with the devotion of someone looking at a painting of unattainable beauty.

"I belong to you, even though you will never belong to me," the Queen whispered, barely a whisper, as if her very soul were falling into that confession. I belong to you, even though I cannot touch you. Even though I am only your shadow, even though you are not mine...

And then, for a second that seemed eternal, Regina stopped. The silence between them was palpable, as if the entire universe were watching that moment.

Her normally impassive face softened, and for the first time in her life, Regina allowed herself to be vulnerable. She, the Queen of Shadows, the one who had banished the light, surrendered to the love that consumed her. Her heart, broken by the distance she had always maintained, opened in an invisible fissure.

With her soul trembling, and her body so close to the young woman that her warmth almost burned her, Regina leaned her face toward Snow White's. She closed her eyes, and her lips, cold as the moon, gently touched the princess's forehead.

A kiss.

A kiss that was not an act of possession, but of adoration. A kiss as tender as a sigh in the darkness. A kiss that was the last vestige of a broken queen, a lost soul, who could never have what she most desired.

"I love you..." Regina murmured, not knowing if Snow White would hear her, not knowing if those words were only wind, only echo. But she said them. And with that confession, that whisper, she collapsed completely.

With one last glance, full of love and disdain, Regina stood up. And as he walked toward the door, his shadow projected across the floor seemed to stretch on forever, a reminder of what could never be.

The Queen looked one last time at Snow White, there, so vulnerable, so oblivious to everything happening around her. And she silently withdrew, leaving the princess's heart in her hands, but with the conviction that she would never be able to hold it.

The wind whispered in the night.

And the Queen, her dark-winged angel, vanished like a shadow, leaving behind a single question that echoed in her soul:

"Is this love a sacrifice or a curse?"

Time, that ancient enemy of tortured souls, passed slowly, dragging the days with it like dry leaves blown by an invisible wind. The castle, once home and prison, now seemed a mausoleum, a silent structure where the whispers of the past intertwined with the cold. The same tension that one feels before a storm hung in the air, as if fate had decided to pause before the final fall.

Snow White walked through the halls, just another shadow in that gray world that had taken over her life. There was something in her gait, something that made her different. She was no longer the innocent princess of before. There was something new in her gaze, a maturity that could not be denied, something marked by pain and unfulfilled desire.

In the room where she rested, the same light-colored wooden bed, the curtains gently swaying to the rhythm of the breeze that slipped through the half-open window. The moonlight, with its pale glow, illuminated the shadows dancing on the stone floor. Snow White, sitting by the window, gazed into the darkness, thoughtful, her eyes empty of dreams and full of memories.

There was something she couldn't shake: the echo of Regina's kiss.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the softness of those lips on hers, the fragility of that touch, so brief yet so profound, that had penetrated beyond her skin, beyond her soul. What did it mean? Was it just a fantasy, a dream, an illusion of the mind clinging to something that would never be?

"Regina..." she murmured softly, as if her name were a prayer, a forgotten song that would never stop echoing in her chest.

From the darkness, a figure approached. Silent. Elegant. Like a shadow, yet as powerful as a god. Regina, the Queen, the storm that had shaken her heart from the first day.

Snow White looked at her, but didn't see her completely. Something about her face had changed. There was a different sparkle in her eyes, a trace of an unrequited love that could no longer be hidden. Regina had become the same fog that had always surrounded Snow White, but now that fog carried with it the weight of everything unsaid, of everything that could never be.

"Why?" Snow White whispered, her lips trembling as she formed the word, so full of aching hope. "Why didn't you tell me how you felt?"

Regina remained silent, as if the words were trapped in her throat, as if she could no longer speak. But the silence between them spoke louder than any words. The echo of the shadows they shared was louder than any scream. In her gaze, Snow White saw fear, the fear of being loved and not being able to reciprocate, the fear of losing herself in a love that could not exist.

Regina approached slowly, the air between them charged with an indescribable energy. Snow White didn't move away. Nor did she move. The distance between them seemed to exist only to be erased.

And when Regina stood before her, without touching her, without saying a word, Snow White reached out a trembling hand. She touched her face with an almost imperceptible gentleness, as if afraid to break the fragility of the moment.

"I have loved you..." the Queen said, her voice breaking, like a sigh that couldn't escape before. The words came out with difficulty, as if an unbearable weight had finally been lifted from her soul. "But I have loved you from the shadows, Snow White. From fear... from the love that cannot exist."

The tears, which had been held back all this time, began to fall silently down Regina's cheeks. The Queen, the strongest, the most relentless, was now nothing more than a broken woman, banished to her own internal prison.

Snow White, with infinite tenderness, drew her to her, embracing her with a fervor that needed no words. The Queen, lost in the warmth of that embrace, closed her eyes, allowing herself to be carried away by the refuge of a warmth she had never believed she deserved. A refuge that was not hers, but that she desired more than anything in the world.

The two women stood there, silent, embracing, as if time had decided to stop. Neither spoke. Neither tried to escape. Both knew that, in that instant, it didn't matter what had been or what would be. Only what mattered was what they felt at that precise moment: love undeclared, unrequited, but nonetheless as real as life itself.

And, in that embrace, Regina kissed Snow White's forehead, as if it were the only kiss she could give. As if their love could only exist that way, in silence, in darkness, in the prohibition of all that could be.

"I have loved you..." she whispered once more.

And Snow White, with her eyes closed, with a sad but peaceful smile, whispered back:

"I know."

And so, amid shadows and caresses, the love that could never be melted into the darkness, leaving only the trace of an eternal, silent, and tragically perfect love.


I hope you enjoy this oneshot, I got the idea to do this oneshot after seeing Disney's new version of Snow White, I hope you enjoy it