Chapter Text
Six years. The Queen could barely believe it.
Her little Princess was six years old.
And she was now the only heir to the throne.
“Lynn, darling,” Regina knelt down to her daughter’s height, the two of them in the snow, kept warm by beautiful fur coats. “You need to keep your gloves on,” She lightly scolded, gently tugging them back onto her daughter’s hands, the little girl giggling. “I don’t want you to get too cold.”
Lynn all but jumped up into her mother’s arms, wrapping her small arms around her neck. “Sorry, momma,” She hummed. “It’s like playing with soft crystals.”
“I know,” Regina smiled, cupping her daughter’s cheek. “I’m only looking out for you.”
“You always are.”
Regina nearly fell over as she lifted up her daughter close to her chest, turning suddenly towards the disembodied voice. Letting out an irritated sigh, she eyed the woman stepping through pale blue smoke sharply, holding her daughter a little closer when she began to approach. Please be the real Fenella and not mother again. A warm, fur trimmed shawl falling over her shoulders, it was seeing the woman’s pale blue eyes flash almost pure white that finally put her at ease. Her daughter giggling and waving at her, she smiled widely when the Light Witch affectionately patted the top of her head. What she whispered to the Queen, however, caused her to stiffen and take a small step back. Rumpelstiltskin is still keeping tabs on you but sealed your mother in Wonderland. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to intercept her before she scared you and Mary Anne Lynn. Hesitantly, the Queen nodded and, feeling her starting to squirm, set her daughter down. The little Princess began humming to herself and laid down on the snow, staring up at the sky to watch it continue to fall, smiling and waving every so often at her mother and the Light Witch as they began to pace and speak in hushed tones a mere few feet away.
“What do you know about my mother, Fenella?” Regina said, careful to keep her voice low. “I sent her to Wonderland years ago, and she’s only now sealed?”
“She might as well have been,” The Light Witch calmly replied, brushing her long, ice blonde braid over her shoulder. “But Rumple made the decision to seal her there after witnessing her growing power in that realm.”
Regina took in a sharp breath. “She’s gaining power again? How so?”
“She’s begun to be referred to as ‘the Queen Of Hearts,’ which I believe says it all,” She shook her head. “I should advise you as well – it was Rumple who rescued your father. He’s going to operate under the assumption you are in his debt until you make clear to him you are not.”
“Of course he will,” Regina swore under her breath. “There’s always ‘more’ with him.”
“It’s in his nature,” The Light Witch said with a faint scoff. “If I could do more against him for your sake, I would, but his magic is…unique. My understanding is he is ‘the Dark One,’ but the extent of that magic continues to elude me. Yet another reason to be wary of him as he tries to force you to view yourself as in his debt.”
“Or beholden to him,” Regina said, glancing towards her daughter who was still happily rolling around in the snow. “I felt the same towards my mother, before her banishment.”
“I recall you saying you took ‘drastic action’ to spite her,” The Light Witch mused. “Though you never did say what it was.”
“I wasn’t quite comfortable saying what it was. I wasn’t sure, even, that it was the right decision, but what’s done is done,” Regina lowered her voice further. “I…I made the decision to render myself barren shortly after I – with your assistance – killed Leopold. I didn’t want to have another child that wasn’t Daniel’s. I still don’t.”
“Which is perfectly reasonable,” She calmly reassured her. “You went through an immense amount of grief and emotional turmoil at the same time.”
“All because of one stupid girl,” Regina said, her gaze darkening. “Speaking of whom, she won’t be an impediment any longer.”
The Light Witch raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”
The Queen’s lips turned upwards in a smile that unsettled even the Light Witch.
“She’s dead.”
“Dead?” The Light Witch quietly repeated, glancing to the Princess, careful not to frighten her. “You killed her?”
“Do you take me for a fool?” Regina frowned. “No, Fenella, I did not kill her myself. I left that to the lead of my Hunt.”
“You asked your prime Huntsman to kill her?” She eyed her closely when the Queen nodded. “How did he do it?”
“His task is to cut out her heart and bring it to me as proof of her death,” Regina pursed her lips when the Light Witch looked uneasy. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Because, even for you and even for retribution for what she has done, that seems harsh,” She hesitated. “What do you intend to do with her heart?”
“Seal it in my collection,” Regina said, laughing when she saw her daughter had stood up and was spinning around with her tongue out to catch snowflakes. “Of the hearts I’ve taken from those who have crossed me.”
The Light Witch stared at her before, slowly, summoning a rune in the palm of her hand. The Queen startled when she reached for her nearest wrist and pushed up her sleeve to wrap her palm around it. When she lifted it up, the rune did not linger, and the Queen snatched her arm away.
“I had to be certain,” The Light Witch said gently. “That you did not darken your heart. All I am asking is for you to be careful, Regina. The last thing I want is for you to become a conduit for dark magic in face of your desire for justice.”
The Queen frowned. “Seeing as you treat dark magic almost flippantly because you view it as ‘your shadow,’ I mislike being given a lesson in morality from you.”
The Light Witch sighed. “It’s different for you, Regina. You have a daughter to care for, and a kingdom to rule. For that alone, you need to be careful.”
“And you think I am not?”
“I think you are single minded, at times, and as a result blind to your own capacity for cruelty.”
“Cruelty? What is more cruel, Fenella? Taking away the chance for an innocent man to know his daughter or taking the life of the person who did so?”
“The former, of course.”
“In what world, then, is what I have done to Snow cruel?”
“It isn’t inherently cruel. What worries me is the manner of it. An arrow through the heart, or the neck, would be quicker and far less painful.”
“She must feel the pain. I cannot give her an easy death, Fenella. Did Daniel get an easy death when, because of her, my mother ripped his heart out of his chest and crushed it in the palm of her hand?”
The Light Witch said nothing, only glancing over to where the Princess had run over to greet her grandfather emerging from the palace.
“If I could have her beheaded before the whole of the kingdom, I would, but to do so would cost Lynn the throne. I would have to admit she is not Leopold’s child, and paint myself as an adulteress. The people would see me as a shrew, killing their beloved Princess Snow out of nothing more than jealousy, perhaps even jealousy as vain as her youth and beauty, her –”
“You aren’t even six and twenty, Regina. In what world are you not youthful? As for your beauty –”
“Do you expect them to save me if I make a martyr of Snow?”
“Why would you even want to make her execution public?”
“To make her suffer the way – no, worse – than I have.”
“So it is cruelty.”
“No. Retribution.”
The Light Witch hesitated. “Maybe so,” She eventually said. “But it can be cruel all the same.”
Regina narrowed her eyes. “Are you going soft on me, Fenella?”
“If I am, it is not purposeful.”
“Then what is it?”
“I suppose you could say an abundance of caution.”
Regina eyed her closely only to tiredly shake her head and begin to walk away. The Light Witch wrapped her cloak a little tighter around herself. The Queen smiled when she took her daughter from her father, who waved at his happy granddaughter with a smile.
“Leave, Fenella,” Regina told her when she turned around with her daughter in her arms. “Leave.”
“You know where to find me when you need me.”
The Light Witch vanished in a pale blue haze, almost the same colour of the still lightly falling snow.
“Magic is pretty,” Lynn hummed, curling up in her mother’s arms.
“Yes,” Regina said before falling silent. “Yes, it can be.”
“So,” The young woman in a thick red cloak said, tossing Snow a piece of bread. “How exactly does one go from being the heir to the throne to being a bandit in the woods?”
Snow paused to take a few bites of bread, swallowed hard, and then sighed.
“My step mother…” She hesitated. “The Queen,” She corrected. “Sent me out on a hunting trip. I caught some decent game with my escort, and it did help me until…well, until I ran into and met you, but…”
Red eyed her closely, tilting her head slightly. “You alright?”
“I’m not sure,” Snow said, nervously reaching up to pull some of the leaves, snow, and small pieces of branches caught in her hair. “It’s…I never thought I would come to this.”
“I’m glad I found you before someone else did, then,” Red said, tearing off another piece of bread she threw to Snow. “But that didn’t answer my question,” She said as kindly as she could. “Are you alright?”
Snow glanced down at her hands and the fraying pieces of baked dough in them. Her stomach sinking again, weakness and emptiness gripping onto her, she slowly began to eat again. Every so often, she bit the inside of her cheek, too. The fear of never having anything to eat again in her hands stopped her every so often, followed quickly by another. What or when will I be able to eat? Or have clean water to… She glanced at the clean, boiled and now cooled water in a wooden cup beside her. A bit of guilt began to whisper in her when she almost knocked it over when, a bit startled by it, Red came over to her from the other side of their tent and wrapped her large, red cloak around them both. Taking the cup into one hand and the bread in the other, Snow only hesitated for a few seconds before letting the other woman closer to her. She warmed her almost instantly; the kind stranger’s soft but strong body’s heat keeping away the cold outside their tent.
“I don’t know if I’m alright,” Snow finally said, pausing to take a few more bites of the bread and a few sips of water. “I…I don’t even know why, but she – the Queen – meant for me to die. I –”
Red let out a horrified squeak. “What?”
“She…my escort said she had asked for – paid – him to kill me,” Snow began blinking back tears. “I don’t know why,” She mumbled again. “It came out of nowhere!”
“I’m so sorry, Snow,” Red only waited a few seconds before pulling her into a hug. “Do…do you want to know what I think?”
Snow coughed a little but nodded. “Go ahead.”
“I think,” She took in a deep breath, waiting to make sure Snow was still eating and drinking her water. “I think that she wants her biological child to succeed her as Misthaven’s Queen.”
Snow pulled away from her, shivering when she did so. Her body shaking, she let Red pull her back in.
“Lynn is my half sister, she’s only six, a…a small child!” Snow exclaimed, horror etching itself into her countenance. “And…and Regina…she was horribly sick when she was with child, and for nearly a year after Lynn was born! She loves her more than anything else! Why would she force her own child to grow up knowing she is only going to be the Queen because her sister was killed by her mother? That…why would she ever do something so…”
Red chewed nervously at the inside of her cheek.
“Snow,” She slowly began. “There have been whispers for years that Regina killed your father…and that she had never wanted to marry him.”
Snow stared at her, looking down at her hands and taking another few bites of her bread. When she finished, she took a few more sips of water, swallowing hard each time she did so.
“I remember,” She said quietly. “Regina had been in love with a stable boy. He had been one of the hands on her family’s estate, and she had known him for at least a few years. She had, I think, loved him, but he had run away. It broke her heart. I remember she and father were never particularly affectionate in public, but my sister is still…”
Red sighed. “I suppose, seeing as she tried to kill you, I can’t make her seem much worse,” She shook her head. “No one will say anything, but King George –”
“The monarch of the Northern Realm?” Snow glanced up at her, brow furrowing in confusion.
“– King George supposedly revealed to his court that Queen Regina’s daughter was conceived before the marriage of Regina and Leopold.”
Snow stared at her in disbelief.
“That’s not the only thing he is said to have revealed to his court,” Red nervously said. “King George learnt from a source close to Regina – so he says – that she killed Leopold with vipers. Or, at the very least, did so with help from someone he calls ‘the Darkest Witch.’”
“Regina would never risk having anyone who could even conceivably be called ‘the Darkest Witch,’ anywhere near her or her court,” Snow shook her head. “Even if what you say is true, it would have been done in the name of keeping her daughter safe and close to her.”
“I don’t believe the last part of it,” Red said with a brief roll of her eyes. “That, I’m sure, is George making an outlandish claim to scare his court into submission by making Regina seem more frightening than she truly is. But did she kill your father? That I do believe.”
“I don’t understand why she would do so,” Snow fell quiet. “Even if she did not love him, even if Lynn was not my father’s child, I don’t understand why she would kill him.”
“It sounds all too simple, but…” Red glanced at Snow, not wanting to scare her. “She might have chosen to do so in order to ensure she took the throne for herself.”
Snow shook her head again. “She already had it. She wouldn’t need to.”
“You said she was in love with someone else, wasn’t she? Someone who might have been your step sister’s true father?” Red looked over Snow, not wanting to scare her. “I know it’s hard to hear, but I believe King George’s claims that Regina killed your father, and that her daughter is not Leopold’s.”
“I…” Snow closed her eyes, trying to blink away tears rising behind her eyes. “She comforted me, after his death. Cried with me, and…” Her voice grew weak. “I can’t believe someone who did that would have also killed him.”
“You said yourself she sent you out to die,” Red gently reminded her. “Isn’t that proof enough she isn’t the woman you thought she was?”
“For Lynn’s sake, I can’t think anything else,” Snow said, dejection entering her quieting voice. “If Regina is this…this monster you’re saying she is, then my sister isn’t safe with her and I have no way of bringing her to safety.”
Red nodded, shifting to reach over and tighten the flaps of the tent to keep them from letting in the falling snow or the wind.
“You care a lot about her, more than Regina does, I’d bet,” Red eventually said after she was satisfied with the security of their tent. “It makes sense you want to protect her, but, sometimes, you have to be willing to put your own safety and peace of mind ahead of theirs. You’re on the run from everything you’ve told me, Snow. How could you protect her if you can’t protect yourself?”
“I don’t know, but how am I going to be able to do anything if I may spend the rest of my life on the run?”
“By being there for the little things, and helping people as best you can without revealing who you were before,” Red slowly reached over to touch Snow’s increasingly matted hair. “The first step might be to dye your hair blonde. I know a way to with herbs we can find in the forest after the storm clears, and –”
“I can’t do that,” Snow said, blinking back tears again. “I can’t…I need to be able to recognise myself. If I can’t, who else will I be?”
“That’s for you to decide,” Red calmly told her. “You’re, in some ways, free now. You can do and be who you want to, now. And I get the feeling that is a very good person.”
“I do my best. It was what my father taught me to do,” Snow took a few more sips of the water and began to rub at her wearying eyes. “I can’t believe Regina killed him. She…she can’t be that selfish, can she?”
“In the name of anger it seems she held towards your father because she did not love him when she made the choice to marry him?” Red let Snow curl into her to keep her warm as the Princess began to cry. “Some people let the worst in them come out when their hearts have been broken in one way or another…I can’t speak for her nor from what little I’ve seen and heard alone at a far distance and far removed, but something tells me she killed him and my first instincts are rarely wrong.”