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Chapter Text

Edging

Queen Regina of Thornewood is a proud, formidable sort of woman — the kind that mothers have long told their children to avoid if they can, and approach with caution if they cannot. Though perhaps it is to be expected, for one with the weight of a Kingdom on her shoulders. And Regina's Kingdom is formidable — the largest in the realm by quite some measure, passed down her family line throughout time immemorial. Like a folk song, it has changed its tune subtly each time it has been shared. Her lands are as much her own as the generations that preceded her, as much her forbears as she can bear to retain. Still, Regina's style of ruling is forthright, with directness colouring her diplomacy and rendering anyone who might think themselves an enemy to think twice before crossing her. To her allies, it's her greatest strength. To anyone who dares to cross her, it's her greatest flaw.

To Regina, it's survival. Experience has taught her to take with force the things that she desires, rather than to risk them slipping through her fingers, to risk being taken from.

To date, there are only two people who have dared to follow through and attempt to take that which they seek from her.

The first was her mother, who had tried to take her life.

Queen Cora had been a terrible mother, all told. Either absent or cruel, and often tempted by the dark side of power, she had always expected perfection from her only daughter in a manner that had always made Regina question whether she could ever be enough. Still, Regina's father had been a doting sort, and he had seen to it that his wife was never too forceful in her shaping of his beloved princess. For as much of a cautious balance the three had maintained throughout her childhood, it had all shattered on the night that Regina's father had died, a single pin falling and throwing Regina into a stomach-lurching nightmare feom she still hasn't been able to awaken.

He had been killed — and no one had seen the murderer, nor the weapon — but whoever had done the deed had left his kingdom in the hands of a thirteen year old girl and her grieving mother. Cora had lost all semblance of the kinder parts of herself on the very same day. Terrified that she was going to lose the control that she had relied on her husband to give her, and that the young princess would seek revenge for her painful childhood, Regina's mother had turned her spells against her own daughter.

"Love is weakness," Cora had shouted to her stunned daughter, compelled by her grief to impart one final lesson. "I know that now more than ever."

Regina had survived, somewhat unexpectedly.

In the heat of the moment, her fear had transformed into purple wisps of magic that had clung to her mother like venomous snakes, squeezing and wringing the danger from the room until all that had been left was her crown, jagged edges glittering like knives in the moonlight.

And so Regina had become an orphan, a sorcerer and a Queen all in one evening.

~.~

The reason why Regina has become such a formidable creature is not widely known, even a decade and some change later, when she has become every part the Queen that her mother's crown dictates — from its perch atop Regina's carefully sculpted ebony curls. Time has been kind to the young queen, with her sharp, undiluted beauty renowned throughout the realm. But there remains a growing tide of dissent amongst her court at her lack of urgency to find a husband and begin producing heirs.

And so, to appease them, she had agreed to host a ridiculous farce of a tourney — a charade more than anything, a chance for a male heir to another kingdom to win himself an audience and a chance to woo her.

As if her happy ending would ever be something so trivial as a man.

But still, with all the questionable grace and unflinching inevitability of a boulder rolling down a hill, they had paraded and performed and tried to prove their prowess.

Regina had been largely uninterested, though she had of course performed a perfect guise of feigned attentiveness. Her interest had only been real for one of the knights in attendance. It hadn't been at his perfect record, which was impressive, despite the blandness of his competition. Even she'd had to admit he was in a league of his own.

No, this knight — one of the King's Sun Guard of the adjacent Somersfeld to the South, a land famed for its fair-haired rulers and rich gold-mines under its sandy plains — had impressed, and galled, Regina with his single false step, his single failure. He had fallen in the final Joust against Prince James, the King David of Somersfeld's son, and her commander, in all likelihood. It had all been far too choreographed to be accidental. He had collapsed with lithe movements, the sort that he had shown himself capable of throughout all of the other events. Of course, no knight worth their salt would unseat their own Royal family. It would be considered treason. So it must have been a deliberate mis-step on the part of the curiously talented Sun knight.

And perhaps Regina should have left it there, focussed on the display of poor gamesmanship that the knight had had the audacity to pull off right in front of the Royal Stand.

Perhaps then, her record would still stand at one. Only her mother, and no other soul brave enough to try to take from her.

But alas, she had been too intrigued by the knight in a league of his own to leave him there — alone — where he belonged. No, she had invited him, alongside his Prince, for an audience in her own private chambers.

Neither had declined, of course. Regina is still the fearsome thing her mother had shaped her into, and very few faced with her would refuse her anything. Least of all, a knight in front of his master, who had been caught in the act of lying in broad daylight, and whom she can have tried for any crime she decides had a matching sentence.

~.~

"Exemplary performance from you both," she says by way of greeting as the two march into the Throne Room, where she'd been enjoying a cool glass of wine to recover from the heat of the day.

They walk in, accompanied by a loud clinking of metal against metal as both kneel and bow their heads as protocol demands. The cacophony comes not from the prince, who has changed into a tunic which cuts a much more flattering line across his masculine figure. His knight, however, is still dressed head to toe in the suit of armour he had favoured on the tourney field, despite the heat lingering in the early autumn afternoon. It must be a mark of deference after his aggressive mis-step whilst jousting. She hums her approval, for it is a fine and dashing build as any she has ever seen.

"Thank you, your majesty," Prince James offers in a commanding tone. His white-blond curls move invitingly against his face as his head returns to the vertical, followed swiftly by the rest of him.

The other knight remains silent, as he has all day, waiting for his companion to rise first, before he does the same. Exemplary conduct, just like he had shown for all but one of his bouts on the tourney field. Regina feels a warm pang of admiration, perhaps, at that. The armour croaks against itself as he stands, the sound richocheting off the walls in an uncomfortable symphony that irritates Regina almost as much as the secret it hides. It's not often that people are bold enough to deliberately cover themselves in her direct view.

Prince James talks uninterrupted for a whole two minutes then, mostly extolling the virtues of Thornewood and all that they had seen of it on their route to the tourney, and reminiscing fondly on the parts which he had frequented as a small child and neighbour to her lands.

It makes her feel uneasy, as though she were a piece of meat hanging on display from the corner of a market stall. She's never managed to get close enough to enquire of those, but she can almost feel him salivating with a desire to come to know her, her worth, and her price.

She supposes her mother would have been proud of her for withstanding the compliments.

She would not be pleased with the way Regina's gaze remains on the brutish helmet of his counterpart for the entire time the Prince is talking. She stares uninterrupted, as if her eyes could turn the metal to glass such that she might see the more impressive of the two men from her position on a raised dais in front of them.

He has still not spoken, not even moved, in fact. And that speaks as much of his quality as a knight as it does of his rigour as a man.

She raises a hand, silencing the prince with a single gesture, once he begins to lose steam.

"Yes, I am delighted that you take such pleasure in our lands," she dismisses him diplomatically. "I would pay the same compliments to Somersfeld, but I am confident you are aware of its beauty, for there are books and songs aplenty that describe it much greater than I could wish to."

He smiles, mollified and entranced by the flourish in her manner of speaking.

"I would like to know his name," she demands, her attention never once leaving the suited man.

The late afternoon sun dances like dappled sunlight through the canopy across his chest, so at least she has an excuse for it. It's unsettling, because she's more drawn to him than she generally allows herself to be. But once his secret is out, she's sure he'll fade into a muted grey watercolour like all the other men who have tried to court her.

Prince James, to his credit, does not comment on her rudeness to him.

"Ser Swan is a member of my father's Sun Guard," he says, words perfunctory as much as his tone belies an underlying fondness, a closeness that she does not feel for anyone paid to work for her.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Perhaps the knight is mute. She's heard tell of an elite cult of trained fighters who have their speech removed from their throats to allow them to focus on their training. It would make sense.

Or perhaps his skills are barbarian in nature, a beast both on and off the battlefield whose intellect has been surrendered after one too many blows, and now is unable to communicate with words.

Or perhaps he is merely shy. She tends to have that effect on people. Other Royals can often overlook it, by virtue of their own bloodlines. But common folk read enough into her aura to avoid poking the bear.

"Does he speak?" She asks bluntly.

"I do," comes a rich tenor, muffled slightly from behind the visor. "Your Majesty," he tacks on, as if forgetting himself in her proximity.

For someone who has so seldom been denied anything, Regina does an excellent job of holding in her frustration at this knight — a knight, not even a Prince or King — who is so hellbent on waiting her out, teasing her beyond what is tolerable without revealing so much as his name. She imagines he is grinning broadly under that helmet of his. The thought displeases her.

"You need not continue overheating in that helmet, Ser Swan," she says. It's a demand masquerading as a offer, and one that does not go unanswered.

"Thank you, your Majesty, but I am quite comfortable."

A denial?! Unforgivable. Insupportable, even.

She's not sure whether she imagines the teasing undertone, but it roars something unpleasant within her.

"You mistake me," she threatens, hating the way her pique spikes into thorny rage without permission. It's a different kind of anger to most, one that scorches with a delicious heat and settles somewhere south of her stomach in a soft ember. "That was not a request, it was a demand."

She hears Prince James' sharp intake of breath, and that in and of itself should be a warning.

"If you insist, your Majesty," Ser Swan grumbles. Grumbles.

"I do—"

Her words are staccato bursts, shot like arrows towards the impenetrable steel target between her and her would-be conquest.

The helmet still hasn't moved, and it fixes a heaviness between them.

Regina waits. If there's one thing that duty has taught her, it's an infallible patience that always catches her mark.

She refuses to break, to give into the temptation to hurry things along with the magic she swore she'd never use again. It comes to her fingers, beckoning with its dark talons in purple mimicry of her own hands. It burns her skin with its unfamiliarity, the ghost of her mother goading her from beyond the grave. She swallows it down.

All magic has a price. She knows it in the cold stillness of her father's form, still etched into her eyelids when she tries for sleep. She knows it in her mother's final blood-curdling scream, echoing agianst her skull even now. And she knows it in the certainty that this man will yield and her curiosity will be satisfied. Without her revealing herself.

So she waits, on the edge of her seat, for him to capitulate to her demands.

~.~

The knight lifts his helmet slowly, tauntingly, as if it were the tight leather boots that have often been all but molded to her thighs. It feels ilicit somehow, in a manner that Regina is familiar with. No stranger to taking her night-time pleasure from courtiers or men-in-waiting, she watches the tension in Ser Swan's frame as he uses all of his charm to have Regina gasping for even a glimpse of his features.

She almost breaks her vow to remain patient, but another spark of her mother's wisdom keeps her seated, cools her broiling stomach. Queens never beg. She will not allow some lowly knight to have her sumbitting to that urge.

The helmet reveals a clean-shaven chin, rounded and smooth even at this late hour of the day.

A young knight. And so even more attractive to her, despite his teasing nature, a mark of his foolishness and his youth, no doubt.

Smooth metal inches slowly upwards still. Regina's breath hitches. She doesn't care that Prince James is watching her coming delightfully undone with each careful movement from his charge.

And then he does it. The metal headgear is removed and the truth spills out.

Finally.

Regina is met with long blonde princess curls that are pale straw in colour. They spill from the metal like a waterfall and land on broad shoulders as if in mimicry of the white foam collecting against rocks at the bottom. Nested between them is a woman's face. A beautiful woman's face. And Regina can't even speak with the shock of it all.

Just the shock, mind.

Of course, there's no rule that prevents women taking up office in the Royal Guards, but it is still incredibly rare. Regina has met one other, a Ser Mulan of Esterwind, whose master had visited her father when he was still alive. She had been a fearsome thing to behold, but she had been nothing, nothing compared to the blonde marvel in front of her.

"Ser Emma Swan, of Somersfeld, at your service, your Majesty," she says proudly. Her voice thick with an accent that's not so far from Prince James', by way of the gutter she was probably raised in. It gives her an edge and a bite that Regina finds terrifyingly compelling.

Regina inhales, stutters.

Fuck.

The dappled sunlight spills slowly across dimpled cheeks, now they are in view and smiling warmly at her. Defiant green eyes sparkle as though cut from the stained glass which throws rainbows across her perfect face. And Regina drinks it all in like she's just seen the sun for the first time.

Inconvenient. At best.

"Would you like me to extoll the virtues of your kingdom, your Grace?" She smirks, and Regina's eyes lock in on the half smile with a fierceness that makes most men cower.

But Ser Emma is no man, and that makes her unique. She doesn't so much as flinch.

And she's not done.

"I fear my Prince has stolen the words I would have chosen, but please — if there is anything I can do for your pleasure, I am only here to serve."

Her voice is low, flirtation hidden under layers of deference. Ser Swan's prince probably doesn't even notice it. She wouldn't have, but for the way she has hidden that exact tone herself under a blanket of false niceties before.

It means she is dangerous. For the both of them.

God—

Regina can't be sure if Emma's words were sent to disarm or devour her, but she feels fire etching her skin either way.

Damn, it's a compelling thought, Ser Swan and her pleasure.

Nonetheless, her body does not know of the inconvenience that this attraction could cause them both, so her lips part, suddenly parched and of their own volition. Under the autumn sun, the room feels as though midsomar has returned not two moons after it departed. All there is is heat, thick and sticky and impossible to ignore. It burns something wretched in her gut as the anger is replaced with want.

There's no way other than the obvious to account for it, but Regina finds herself wishing court clothes were not so restrictive, and not for the first time. She has never felt that desire quite so strongly as she does confronted with the face of Ser Emma Swan for the first time.

It's enough to make Regina want to do something reckless.

"Ser Swan. Prince James." She addresses them in turn, for this concerns them both. "I have been searching for a new Head of my Royal Guard these many months now, and I have seen enough of your prowess on the field today that I would like to make you and your King an offer," she opens in her usual formal tone of voice. It comes out on the edge of raspy, and Regina wills herself to pull it together.

There's a soft clinking sound in response, Emma's armour betraying the roll in her spine as she processes the Queen's words and shudders slightly. It's impossible to tell whether it's borne of arousal or fear, but Regina knows that her offer has affected the blonde knight.

As if that isn't what she had been aiming for.

"Thank you, your Majesty. That is a high compliment indeed," Ser Swan replies in that same strange accent as before. It sets her apart as richer and better trained than most non-nobles that Regina has had the dubious pleasure to get into dealings with, but it also settles her on a rung beneath the Prince who accompanies her. Of course, her accent and her outfit cement her status far beneath Regina herself, even if her beauty elevates her to equal in at least one manner. All of it only makes Emma more attractive to her still, layers upon layers of complexity that Regina cannot wait to pull from her like her own restrictive layers of clothing, and preferably soon.

She has been toyed with enough for one day.

The knight defers to her prince, as is protocol, despite there only being one correct answer to the powerful woman sitting in front of them both. Still, they have a silent conversation without Regina being privy to what is communicated unspoken between them.

"Ser Emma Swan will transfer into the service of Queen Regina of Thornewood. My father can spare her such that our two kingdoms may retain a prosperous and peaceful relationship," James decrees to the assembled persons. He speaks with conviction, and embues his words with the grace that his title carries.

"I swear to protect you, my Queen," Emma declares in a proud echo.

Regina, it turns out, is quite overcome at that.

She swallows it down, her mother's last warning reverberating in her eardrums and cautioning her treacherous heart. She doesn't even know the girl, and her heart is a blackened, wretched thing anyway. No, Emma's words leave a trace of pride in her chest. Nothing more.

Prince James, for what it's worth, appears to be genuinely sad to have handed over one of his knights into her care. In so doing, Regina catches a glimpse of it again — this strange fondness which her brain cannot begin to fathom, rich with the scent of goodness that she has long left behind — but she shakes it aside in favour of covering her gratitude.

"Thank you, Prince James. Allow me to extend the same wishes for our continued friendship," she says slowly. The last word is delivered with practiced spines, designed to ensnare the listener and set them on edge. Friendship is a curious word, but she is happy at his obvious design to appease her. She can't have him getting too comfortable, but she feels like she's a winner today.

What a generous thing he has just gifted to her, in any case.

The blonde knight remains carefully guarded, even with her full face on display now. Regina watches as the only emotion that makes itself known is disappointment, and even then it's only visible in the small downturn of her lips, and only because Regina had been watching her with such intensity. Even so, it disappears as fast as it had come on, and the woman instead kneels with her right hand across her heart in a gesture of fealty to her new Queen.

And fuck, Regina is entirely torn between discomfort and delight at the blonde's display of loyalty to her previous employer.

Her conquests have always been so much more fun to subdue when they can't get a handle on their emotions.

But she's not even sure if she wants to subdue the marvel that is Ser Emma Swan. Part of her wants to scratch at her edges until she comes completely undone. But perhaps there is a way that she can achieve both.

She's certainly going to enjoy trying.

~.~

Chapter Text

Magic

The last of the summer takes its time leaving, lingering in small corners of Regina's castle with a sweetness and warmth that does not quite belong there. Ser Emma Swan settles into life in Thornewood with enthusiasm, as Regina has come to believe she does all things. The serving staff, not that Regina generally trifles with them, only have kind words for their new arrival. The queen watches the skill of her whole guard growing as Emma begins to impart her knowledge and practice with them. Whether in the training ground or in Regina's quiet company, she carries herself with grace and equanimity, a credit to her profession.

It's been two months, and Regina cannot find it within herself to regret indulging herself and bringing Emma into her world. It's seldom the light breaches the thick castle walls, but with their teasing back and forth comes a levity that Regina hasn't felt in a long time. It's the first time that anyone has dared to challenge her, to cast aside the deference that so many get caught up in.

Emma had earned that right, though. Both that first day on the tourney field, and then against a team of bandits who had attacked the queen's carriage upon a visit to a dignitary in Emma's own homeland around five weeks into her tenure. They had been on the return journey home, and Regina had forced the party to carry on into the night rather than stopping at an inn, despite Emma's warnings that it would be safer to wait until morning.

Regina had heard the sickening sound of metal against hardwood, and then the sparks of metal against metal as Emma had responded to the threat on her life. It had been six men to three, but Emma had dispatched of the rugged would-be attackers without the other two members of her entourage gaining so much as a scratch. Only Emma had been marred, in the form of a nick across her eyebrow, from where she had lifted her visor to peer into the dark and been ambushed by the first of the thieves.

And Regina had been forced to admit that the resulting scar looks good on Emma, in a rugged and depraved kind of way. There's definitely something terrible in Regina that thrills at the sight of her knight marked whilst attempting to protect her, as if their time together will leave its footprints on her life, too.

Still, it's testament to Regina's confidence in Emma's skill that she had not reached for her magic — not even once — despite the fear that had it pooling in her palms like some kind of noxious vapour sent to destroy them all.

All magic comes with a price.

It has been outlawed for centuries across the realm, the only few known users of royal blood and doing so in deep secret. Regina had been amongst their number for a short while after the Incident with her mother had revealed her own capability for it. The depth of her natural ability was greater than any her tutors had seen, but she refused to indulge them in continuing to practice. Her tutelage had been just enough to learn how to control it, to prevent herself from becoming that which almost killed her. She had vowed to not slip now, not for something so trivial as bandits.

Besides, she had known Emma would save her.

Still, it had been a cacophony, a terrifying soundscape that Regina had taken weeks to fully recover from. And Emma had kept guard outside her chambers still, stealing her sleep between Regina's screams, rushing inside to ensure that any intruders on her majesty's peace were no more real than the ghost of Regina's mother.

~.~

So Emma has earned the right to tease her, to challenge her, to get closer to her than any other human has succeeded in her life before. It feels as though Regina's been playing this game for months, delicately edging herself with the thought of taking more from Emma, but never quite cutting to the chase. She lingers in solitary corners to savour the seconds of Emma's attention on her and her alone. She encourages the blonde knight to accompany her on unnecessary walks about the castle grounds. She just happens to be passing through the courtyard at the hour that Emma trains her swordplay in the morning. Gradually, gradually, she seems to warm the blonde to the idea of her presence. And that's saying nothing of the sparks that crackle into existence when they are alone together.

Ser Emma Swan, for all the composure she had displayed on the tourney field, has an infuriating habit of leaving her Queen utterly discomposed.

It's not something she's indulged in for a long while, because people talk, and her duty to Thornewood comes first and foremost, beyond any of these desires which creep unbidden when she's at her least guarded.

But Ser Emma Swan is a unique torment.

She's been nothing but obedient and loyal, committing to her office how she had committed to dispatching the other knights and then the bandits, and Regina gets the sense that it's just how Emma is.

God, but she wants Emma to commit to her. And then to commit that to memory.

"Do you take delight in vexing me, Ser Swan?" Regina calls into the quiet morning. It's still, just after dawn, and only the harshness of Emma's sword hitting to the hilt in a haystack breaks the birdsong.

Emma turns around, startled. She's almost naked, a rough tunic cutoff at the arms showing her Queen every ripple in the arms that lend her so well to her craft. The tunic hugs her in places that would make a weaker woman blush.

And Regina has seen her in her nightclothes, coming in to assuage the queen's night terrors. It was enchanting then, but there's something about seeing her bared like this under the sleepy light of the early morning, rather than the soft candlelight of Emma's vigils, that has Regina caught off-guard.

Regina just eyes her hungrily, unrelenting. She's the one seeking Emma out, so it is perhaps harsh of her to start with a complaint.

"I apologise if I have done anything to displease you, your Majesty," the knight offers, out of breath from the exertion with her golden hairs pulled roughly atop her head. Sweaty flyaways frame her face at its most devastating, and Regina sucks in an unsteady breath at the sight of her.

"Quite - ah - quite the opposite," Regina replies. She curses herself for losing her nerve. It's out of character, but then Emma is an exception to all of her carefully crafted rules and behaviours.

"Is that why you've come in all your state to watch me, at this hour?" Emma asks, her voice rich with an undercurrent of teasing.

Regina bristles, frowns at the impudence, then-

"If you wanted to see my body in action, Your Majesty, all you had to do was ask," she says calmly. "I would not disobey a direct order from my Queen."

Does she mean...? Surely not.

A beat, thick and lustrous silence expanding between them, and then Emma stomps over to where her sword remains nestled in the hay to clean its blade.

It feels like Emma has the upper hand, and that is not a feeling that Regina is accustomed to.

"I gave you an oath, and I'm not about to break it," she continues, when Regina remains silent and standing still. She's properly teasing Regina now, and the queen feels as though she should have maybe put an end to it sooner, because Emma's having entirely too much fun at her expense.

"That's not-" Regina stops herself. She feels the anger flaring like hot air between her teeth at Emma having raised her expectations only to dash them again. Two can play at that game. "I require you in my bedchambers. You may forgo bathing until after I'm finished with you."

Fuck, she hadn't meant to go there, to break so soon.

But, well… with Emma standing there, looking as shocked and delicious as she does, Regina feels something dangerous pooling in her gut.

"Will that be an issue, Ser Swan?" She dares the woman to defy her.

"Of course not, your Majesty."

Emma, for her part, still appears to be working through her surprise, but she doesn't seem unhappy about the idea. And Regina had deliberately been quite clear in her intentions, so she congratulates herself on a successful pre-breakfast jaunt and turns around with a practiced swoosh.

She glances over her shoulder as she stalks away, to see Emma sheathing her sword and gathering her things together. It's delightful to see her scrambling a little, and the dark, possessive part of Regina roars at the evidence of Emma's discomposure. It bodes well for all that she wants to take from her.

"Well come along, Swan, we haven't got all day," she drawls, thinking privately to herself that, in the absence of any major feats of diplomacy, they actually do have all day, should she require it.

Clearly, Regina is so lost in her mental preparation for the day ahead that she doesn't notice her slip, but one look at Emma's face speaks of it. She's not once dropped the honorific, not in the entire time that Emma has worked for her, and the way that her Queen speaks the single syllable now, hesitating afterwards in her own signature flourish, well it has Emma scrambling just a bit faster towards the Western Tower where Regina resides.

Regina is already halfway there when Emma catches up, and that can't be her normal walking pace. But perhaps Emma has more trepidation than she's letting on.

And all too soon, they're at the threshold to the Queen's private chambers, and Regina can hear the blood rush in her ears at the anxious reality that Emma has actually followed her.

~.~

It all escalates rather quickly after that, and not in the way Regina had been intending.

A black raven arrives at her window, just as they cross the threshold, and it bears a scroll with a crest she never thought she'd see again. She drops the scroll at the first tight of the deep purple wax seal, the sigil so intimately linked to her own, but with the dark raven in place of her favoured three horses.

"My mother is alive," she says woodenly, devoid of all emotion.

Emma's a smart woman, aware of her Kingdom's history, and that of her neighbouring lands. So she had known of the Child Queen of Thornewood long before Regina had grown into three devastating dimensions in front of her. Regina knows this, knows that she will pick up on the significance of those words.

"Oh, good news!" The knight brandishes her enthusiasm like a clumsy weapon, unaware of the damage those words have already done, in the split second since she spoke them.

Regina's anger is eclipsed only by her fear. Both take a physical form in her magic, all thoughts of Emma and taking her time to become intimately acquainted with her knight in shining armour vanish in cloying purple smoke that has both of them suffocating. She doesn't have time to think of the consequences of Emma seeing this side of her, her eyes clouding over with the storm of her emotions.

She almost burns the letter with the fireball that comes unbidden to her hands. Halting herself only as she registers the other person in the room.

Emma has the good sense to shy away at the danger in Regina's display of destructive instinct, flinching at the burning heat in Regina's fingertips. Her feet remain firmly planted to the ground, so maybe her White knight saviourism sometimes manifests as a death wish.

If there were space alongside Regina's turbulent terror, she supposes she would have found that attractive.

As it is, it's a reminder of Emma's presence. Of what Emma had just seen.

Magic is as outlawed as treason, even for a queen. Shit.

~.~ 

Chapter Text

Prisoner / Hostage

"Your majest—"

Emma's tone is even, as one may perhaps try to talk down an animal caught in the instinct to freeze before its brain takes the reins and startles it into a sprint to get away.

Regina does not run, for she's an attack kind of a beast. Despite her refined appearance, she has always been quick to bite back. A cat with claws hidden under a soft exterior, she pounces at the slightest implication of a threat from the curl of Emma's exposed biceps.

Regina stills her with a flick of her wrist, purple ropes forming a mesh around Emma that stops her from moving, prevents her from running away. Emma's words break in surprise at the sensation. Good. Regina doesn't want to hear the disdain. She can't hear it. Not now. Not when she's an open wound, a mass of vulnerability on painstaking display for the one woman who she's allowed close enough to see it. Regina's always been selfish. Here, regressed to a thirteen-year-old with her mother's dark magic swirling around her, is no different. She doesn't spare a second thought for Emma's safety, acting instinctively to protect herself.

Emma's eyes widen, fear spilling onto her countenance for the first time this day. Stained glass eyes turn liquid in an instant, a forest rumbling with the terrifying force of the wind ripping through their depths.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"I don't want to hear it."

Regina tightens the ropes, imprisoning Emma in lockstep with her raging terror.

"Let's be reasonable about this—"

"YOU. DON'T. KNOW. REASON."

Regina's voice, imbued with the fire of her magic, would send even the bravest of soldiers cowering home with their tail between their legs. Fortunately, Regina had taken Emma's home from her on the fateful afternoon in the throne room, and she cannot move even an inch within Regina's restraint.

"I know — ah, fuck…" Emma struggles against the tighter and tighter restraints. "I know you, my queen."

Her presumption knows no bounds. A prisoner chained by forces beyond her control — beyond her comprehension — Emma still has a furious kind of fealty to her that has her reckless in her attempts to calm the raging storm of a woman in front of her.

"You know no such thing, Ser Swan."

"Please, Regina—"

"HOW DARE YOU."

Emma swallows, the fear morphing into something tangible as Regina closes in on her.

And yet, helpless against her own loyalty and lauded by her own stupidity, Emma doesn't back down.

"You're blowing this out of proportion, I can help—"

"Help?" Silence crackles in the aftermath of Regina's stunned surprise. It's broken only by the whistling of her magic for a frozen second where even Regina isn't sure whether she wants to fuck Emma or strangle her. She holds fast, denying herself either short-term satisfaction. Because she realises the position that she's managed to freeze Emma in. The knight had been standing with her arms up in surrender, a gesture of friendship where Regina has only ever expected enmity. Her next words are softer, warmer, as a result. "I am a Queen. It will do you well to remember your place, Ser Swan."

She notes the relief in Emma's eyes, the furious wind calming to a strong breeze as she sighs audibly.

"I have helped you before. And I think you liked it?" She chances, so perhaps she does have a death wish after all.

The presumption, with all that's laid before them, with what few kind words her mother had ever said still ringing as loud in her ears as her final betrayal. Emma may have saved her life once, but no act of kindness has ever gone unpaid for, and Emma's continued attempts at reassuring her only stoke the flame.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you, right now."

"I — you—"

"Quickly, I haven't got all day," she closes another step towards Emma. They're within touching distance now, but there's a wide berth between the sort of touch that Regina craves and the immobilisation that renders Emma unable to give it to her.

She breathes against her neck, watching the skin prick with fear and desire, indistinguishable at this distance.

"I could do it, you know. Bury you with the evidence of what you think you can see now. Invent some other kind of treason to justify it."

Her words of warning hit Emma's neck like shards of ice, her goosebumps becoming more and more defined with each passing second.

She speaks, and it's not fear that Regina hears. Foolish girl.

"I don't think you want to do that, Your Majesty," she cautions, defiant as ever.

Regina pauses, the first sign of surrender. Emma smiles.

"Just let me go, and we can work out a solution to this — whatever it is with your mother — together."

And there's an idea… together.

The word feels foreign, even spoken silently in Regina's mind. It's tempting. But she can't… her mother… it's…

Regina has to put an end to this, before the darkness consumes her.

"Be quiet, I can't think, not when you—"

Emma continues to struggle against her bindings, and Regina's only human, despite feeling like some kind of festering darkness incarnate. Emma's tunic is low on her chest, her arms displayed with every ounce of rippling muscle to their hungry audience. And the line between lust and anger has always been a fine one, especially when the thin sheen of sweat has not once left Emma's overheated chest, not since they had come to her bedchambers together.

The fullness of her surrender comes over her with the grand swell of a rolling tide.

Within seconds, Regina is sagging, dropping against the four poster bed as she allows the adrenaline to leave her system, freeing Emma from her bindings but not without directing a wave of her hand towards the door to secure the room. She may have allowed her desire to cloud her better judgment, but she will not allow the object of it to run away and ruin everything.

Come to think of it, there's almost certainly something incriminating in whatever her mother has just sent to her, and it would be best if the head of her Queens' Guard finds out about it in a more measured way. It would not do to invite a scandal — or at least, more of a scandal than Emma has already been privy to.

~.~

Chapter Text

Blindfolds

Emma had taken a single step in her direction when the purple ropes had dropped her, stumbling against the floor. Anyone else, and Regina would have sent a fireball, but Emma's clear desire to be near to her sets off a different kind of warmth in Regina's stomach.

"Stay where you are."

"Why release me if you want me to stay still?" Emma deadpans, though she doesn't move. Her hands, which had started to return to her sides, snap back in front of her in a show of diminishing her threat level. Regina releases a shaky breath.

"I want to know if I can trust you," she answers.

It's the truth, raw as anything she's already let slip to Emma today, and the blonde just nods solemnly, as though deciding not to fight her on it.

"Of course you can, I took an oath," Emma says simply, stating the obvious.

She doesn't move, cementing her promise and her trustworthiness.

"After what you saw, your fealty becomes a crime," Regina reasons.

"I can't exactly unsee your magic, your Majesty. So the way I see it, I'm either keeping your secret and under your protection, or you give me some kind of memory potion and send me on my way."

She pauses, and Regina can tell Emma is testing whether memory potions are consigned to legend, or if they're as real as the magic she had just witnessed for the first time.

"I could make one. A memory potion. But I cannot guarantee it would work as intended. It has been a long time—"

Emma nods, satisfied. She squares her shoulders.

"Even so, I would choose the first option."

Interesting.

Regina had taken Emma into her guard without so much of a choice on Emma's part. This understanding, tentative in nature and brief in its resolution, is the first confirmation that Emma would have chosen this life.

"You would—?" Regina stops herself.

"I would. I will." She pauses for a moment, and then— "I do."

God, such an avowal she cannot unhear.

"Well, then."

"I swore to protect you, my queen. And I will do so with my life."

And —

Regina doesn't quite know what to do with the rich, hot pleasure that fills her gut at that.

Emma softens, and stakes a rushed step towards her.

The adrenaline from the receipt of her mother's letter rears its head at this new perceived threat, and Regina acts on instinct.

"I can't protect you if I can't see!" Emma shouts angrily as she processes Regina's latest magical infliction. A blindfold, a chance at allowing herself to hide if Emma had followed up her step with something more substantial.

Regina doesn't apologise, instead choosing to leave Emma standing there in silence. A moment of stillness will do them both some good.

"Yes. Well. We are alone here. No one for you to protect me from," she says brusquely. "And besides. I must see what my mother has to say, and that is a task I must do alone."

"Are you sure you—"

"Silence." Regina's demand cuts off the protestation. "If I want you to speak I will ask. But I should warn you, Ser Swan. I am not habitually a creature of patience, and you are getting increasingly bold in your pursuit of testing mine."

Emma swallows, hearing the truth and the threat in Regina's words. She wisely doesn't attempt a comeback.

"Good girl," Regina rasps.

She watches Emma squirm blindly on the spot, and chuckles a dark lilt to herself.

~.~

The letter, it transpires, contains a long-release snare designed to dismay and then entrap Cora's daughter. Regina reads it with shaking hands and even less steady breath. She knows Emma will hear the signs of her distress, but she cannot hold them back either. The knight stays rooted to the spot, with her lips closed against a no doubt considerable tide of curiosity.

My darling daughter, the letter reads.

As IF.

Let me begin with a promise, that I forgive you with my whole heart.

It could be the truth. She allows herself to think so for a fraction of a moment. But Cora had sold her heart long ago, and Regina knows that any promises to that end are as empty as the vastness to the North of the Kingdom, past Ravenscourt and into a wintry wasteland.

I know you did not intend the incident that caused my banishment. And although I detested the decade I passed in the Land Without Magic to whence you sent me, I am willing to set aside the animosity that such a thing necessarily renders.

Regina can't help the shudder that travels down her spine at the shocking turn of events. Her mother is alive, returned from banishment rather than death.

"NO—" she shouts.

Emma follows the noise with a clumsy step, and Regina responds with a strangled "don't" that Emma thankfully heeds.

Returning to her mother's letter, she gains some understanding, and a renewed sense of dread.

I recently returned to this realm, though the price to do so was extortionate. So I shall need a little time to gather a traveling party, but to admirable ends, for I would like to reconnect with my only daughter. You will return this raven with your response, such that I may know how to act. But I should remind you of your duty, to your kingdom and our family line, and suggest that you are expeditious in your invitation. I do so long to see my home again.

Your Mother,

Queen Cora of Thornewood

Regina collapses once more against the four poster. Emma hears the clatter and steps once more towards her.

"Please let me—"

"No. Stay where you are."

Emma lets a high-pitched growl of frustration out, and Regina doesn't respond. She's busy planning how she can thwart her mother's plans. Her objective is clear, of course. Regina can see through all the smoke and mirrors of it all. Cora intends to re-ascend to the throne of Thornewood, to usurp her own daughter by any means necessary and to complete the job she had failed to do just over a decade ago now. She wonders what Cora means by gathering a traveling party, for a small burst of teleportation magic should do the trick. But perhaps she has forgotten how, after ten years without magic.

Regina shudders. Whilst she is not a fan of the darkness which accompanies her magic, she cannot imagine how it must feel to have such an essential part of herself stripped from her against her will.

But she does not feel sorry for her mother.

Not after what she had done.

She will reply with a blank letter, then, rather than give Cora the satisfaction of an answer, or an excuse to paint Regina as the bad guy. She burns her mother's missive with a flick of her wrist and a grim smile on her face.

Mind made up, Regina allows the tension to escape her with force. Emma has done an admirable job of retaining her stillness, and gaining Regina's trust in doing so.

Yes, she has proven herself worthy of Regina's attentions. And in a desperate bid to grapple some control out of the situation, Regina decides that there's no time like the present to seek distraction in Emma's perfect form.

~.~

Chapter Text

Dubcon

Regina allows Emma her eyesight back once she has replaced the turmoil of her emotions with her usual mask of control. She takes a deep breath, and allows the storm to redirect towards more pleasurable forms of overstimulation. Her hunger for Emma is about the only thing as powerful as her despair over her mother's reappearance.

"Thank you, Ser Swan. Despite your flagrant disregard for the terms of your employ, I am grateful that you followed at least some of my instructions." In an undertone, she speaks for herself alone. "I am glad that you were here."

"Your majesty," Emma offers in a voice shaped like agreement, dripping with subservience.

"Still, you shall do well to remember who delivers the orders here." Regina forces the issue, washing away the blindfold into watercolour smoke, and then brandishing a small purple cloud that is nothing more than a display of her power, a threat to force Emma into compliance. She's not sure whether it's necessary, but always better to be on the safe side.

Emma nods, eyes stuttering and blinking against the morning light. When her eyelids settle open, Regina sees her unexplainable desire reflected in Emma's deep green pools.

"Your majesty," Emma chokes, eyes trained warily on the magic in her counterpart's palm. "You don't need that—"

"You do not tell me what I do and do not need, Swan," she asserts. "You will not presume to take any liberties with me. You will obey me without argument, as you have sworn to do."

She steps closer, relishing in the control that comes when Emma's eyes drop to the floor.

"Please—" Emma begs in little more than a whisper.

Regina supposes that could be a request for her to stop, but if it is, Regina wilfully misreads the signal.

"I knew it. Even after all of this, after what I could do to you— you still want me," Regina asserts. Emma swallows, seemingly afraid.

Emma's eyes say yes, even if her body language is uncertain.

"I don't." Emma's words are tense. So maybe it was a plea to stop. "I don't want you — not now." She swallows. "Not like this—"

It's a concession, but one that Regina is ready to steamroller over.

"You can do better than that," Regina goads her. If Emma is going to protest, she had better do it properly. Regina's arousal swells with the idea of putting her in her place.

"I hate you," Emma shouts angrily, picking up on Regina's game and baiting her further. It's with enough visceral dislike that Regina almost believes her.

"No, you don't," Regina reassures herself.

"I do — you took me from my home. You didn't even ask," Emma huffs wearily. There's enough truth in there that it stings, even if it's part of an ill-defined game. She's not finished. "And I've tried, I've tried to be everything my oath asks of me. But fucking hell. You're impossible. You drive me up the fucking wall with all your teasing and denial. All your unreasonable requests and demands. I can't work out what you actually want from me—"

Emma's ranting now, and it's good. It means Regina's got her right where she wants her.

Regina's anger spikes, and the magic comes to her fingertips with the swell of emotion.

"So you choose treason, then?" She asks, nonchalant. "I could have your head for any one of those things you just said to me."

"Fuck you," Emma adds one more crime to the tally, allowing her temper to get the better of her as Regina continues to grind all of her gears, one by one rendering them circular and ineffective as Emma fumes and fumes and gets less and less able to speak clearly.

Regina's anger gathers pace when Emma steps towards her and places a crushing hand on her forearm. It's clearly intended as a reminder of which of the two of them is stronger than the other. But Emma clearly suffers from short-term memory loss or is downplaying Regina's magic for sport. Because Regina hadn't been joking when she had said that she could kill Emma. With almost no effort, she could snap her fingers and snap Emma's neck.

It's a move she would probably regret for the rest of her life, but she could do it.

"No, darling," Regina eventually replies, running a single finger along Emma's exposed collarbones in a predatory manner. Her voice settles on a trained low rasp which she has used to conquer many more than just Emma before.

Emma shivers, hanging on Regina's every word.

"I'm going to fuck you," she finishes.

She feels the shudder, rippling from Emma's head to her toes.

"You wouldn't," Emma bristles.

"Oh but I would. You even want me to."

Emma doesn't deny that, and her silence speaks volumes. With a significant look in her eye, Regina lifts the tunic, fumbling with the rough-spun fabric of her breeches before vanishing them away without warning.

A moan, and Emma's anger wavers.

"See. You want me to," Regina smirks in triumph. "You're so fucking wet for your queen, aren't you?"

The question is rhetorical, but Emma is as eager to please as she ever is. She's not quite so skilled at the delivery, but it doesn't matter. Not to the woman who is currently holding her between pleasure and pain.

"I — ah, fuck," Emma curses as Regina moves her fingers in a practiced motion, designed to distract and detain without delivering a single fraction of the pleasure she knows herself capable of.

Emma squirms, and Regina stills her movements to make sure she has Emma's attention.

"Do I need to restrain you again, Ser Swan?"

"N-n-n-no—"

Regina thrills with the evidence of Emma's capitulation to her desires. A power unlike that she has felt even with her magic surging to her fingers covers her at once. To be in charge of Emma in such an intimate setting, to feel the strong knight buckling under her fingertips, she almost forgets the ashes of her mother's letter in the heat of it all.

Emma becomes a lot more pliant once Regina relents and touches her properly. She starts with slow, rough movements. The intention, well received as it is, is to remind Emma of her place in this, completely at Regina's mercy and desperate with it.

"Don't—" Emma gasps as Regina's fingers circle her opening. "I don't want you to—"

"Oh but you do. I can feel how much you want me. And I don't take well to liars, Ser Swan."

Emma whimpers as Regina's fingertip breaches just slightly inside her.

Regina chuckles deeply at the evidence of just how sensitive Emma is for her.

"So fucking wet for me, darling. And so sensitive," she encourages.

Emma cries out as Regina's finger slides through her slickness and up to her second knuckle.

"Stop—"

Oh Lord. Regina's not sure she can. Her emotions are so taut, and selfishness takes the seat. She needs the power, the control, of seeing Emma fall apart at her bidding. After the heightened emotions of the afternoon, she can't not take it from her.

"You don't want me to stop," Regina argues, stilling her fingers in some kind of sick compromise. Held in the in-between, she traces the outline of Emma's face with her other hand, attempting to offer some comfort in the hopes Emma relents and understands how much Regina needs this — needs her. "I can feel how aroused you are. And I can make all that go away. I can make you feel better."

Her persuasion seems to have more success than her previous attempts to take without kindness. Emma nods, exhales a shaky breath, and allows herself to grind down onto Regina's fingers. Fuck, yeah.

"I don't want you to stop," Emma echoes.

It lights something feral in the queen, who removes her finger far enough to add two more together, and then she sets a brutal pace with all three in a tight triangle pushing in and out and spilling forth a delicious symphony from Emma's lips. The girl is more moan than woman, and Regina's possessiveness, her insatiable need to be in control, roars with the vision writing and begging beneath her.

Emma is poetry, her body a verse which refuses to rhyme as Regina works her into the shape of her bidding.

"I don't— oh, God— I don't want you to stop," Emma echoes her earlier words.

Still too coherent for Regina's liking, the hand that had come to rest on Emma's face migrates to her neck.

Emma's words fail her as she releases a strangled moan.

"You don't want me to stop, hmm?"

She slows her movements, releases her grip on Emma's throat to allow herself to speak.

"N-n-no," Emma responds. "Please—"

That's more like it.

Regina increases her pace again. Soon she can tell Emma's release is imminent, and she backs off just slightly. Emma writhes, and whimpers, and all of it condenses white hot power in the seat of Regina's undergarments. And God, is Regina looking forward to Emma throwing boiling water on that flame.

"Please. Let me—"

And Regina may be selfish, but perhaps there is a way in that moment that they can both win. Her hands move again, with a renewed sense of urgency that Emma screams at.

Emma collapses at Regina's side when she is spent, expounding a soft cry of "my queen" as she comes.

Regina's own arousal will surely become a problem soon, if not attended to. But Emma is so delightfully boneless with her thin tunic hitched aside and her hair in a sweaty halo around her head. Regina eyes the colour in Emma's cheeks with pride, satisfied beyond belief with the knowledge that her hands put the watercolour pinkness there.

The taboo lifted, Regina runs her fingers languorously through Emma's aftermath, smiling at the gentle hum.

"See, I told you you wanted me like that," Regina teases her.

"I have been told not to disrespect you— not to dissent, your majesty," Emma avows, a cheeky undertone speaking of her lack of real displeasure at how their first tryst had unfolded.

"That's my girl," Regina replies, unable to help herself.

Emma's eyebrows shoot up at that, but she smiles, and grinds into Regina's palm.

"Now," Emma begins. She swallows. "Tell me how I can best serve you, your majesty."

Regina chuckles at Emma's impatience, but her laughter morphs into a moan as Emma brings her hand to hover expectantly above her chest. Regina can feel the heat through her day dress, and she feels an unfamiliar kind of thirst bubble underneath her skin, as though the mere idea of Emma's touch could boil her very blood.

"I only want to please you. So please— Teach me."

And it's a compelling offer. Regina doesn't have to consider it for more than a few moments, before she grabs Emma's wrist in a firm hand, pulling her astride her skirts and demonstrating.

And as much as Regina's mother had interrupted her original plans for the morning, she finds that they are more than able to conjure a fitting alternative.

And so a tentative truce is born, an agreement that gives Regina a new sense of hope against the despair of her mother's return. As she feels the aftermath of her second orgasm penetrate across her skin, she knows that at least some part of this day will be remembered fondly.

~.~

Chapter Text

Wandplay

So it continues for a number of months. A delicate push and pull, a meeting — a war, really — of wills, landscaped across short days and long nights, huddled together for warmth against the harsh winter chill.

Regina allows the slow tide of trust to mould them both into something she doesn't quite have words for.

They spend long hours together searching through Regina's extensive library for clues at the curse she had managed to put on her mother, and whether there is any way for Cora to succeed in getting her magic back. Candles burn low, are replaced, and return to their wick once again. Regina is surprised both at Emma's literacy — though she keeps that to herself — and her patience. For a woman so clearly designed for motion, Emma is a force for calm in the quiet hours they spend alone.

Of course, the intimacy of the dark corners of the library presents its own diversion, now she has Emma right where she wants her, but Regina refrains from allowing the unique pleasure of Emma Swan to completely distract her from the task at hand.

Regina had managed to secret herself in the library alone after an early lunch combing through a far corner for any information on her mother's likely whereabouts — and company. An hour in, there's nothing to bring her any closer to what Regina's magic had accidentally set in motion. It hasn't been an entirely unfruitful morning, though.

Her mother had sent another missive. This one is brief, as though she were paying a case of gold for each word. And maybe not gold, but Regina is certain her mother's bid for reconnection is costing her. Humbling her, if such a thing is indeed possible.

Two can play at that game, child of mine. You have made your position clear. Take care, until we meet again.

Regina's outburst had been more controlled this time, alone in the library without Emma to oversee her as she tried to sooth the rippling magic from her own fingers. She understands the threat in the adieu, the instruction to sleep with one eye open, rather than a charitable 'stay safe' that Regina herself often means by those words.

She throws herself into her reading with furious intensity, not surfacing until much later. And so she opens a heavy, thick tome to discover talk of a dark force in Ravenscourt, the kingdom far to the North and on the edge of what is habitable, that has been known to help a sorceress for a price.

It's the closest thing to progress yet, and she allows herself to call for a glass of wine to settle herself.

~.~

The morning morphs into a still February afternoon, not long after the winter solstice and the feast of the Old Kings. Emma joins her straight from a cold and viscous training routine with the rest of Regina's elite guard. The fact that she had come to Regina first, before even changing out of her outdoor leathers, had made Regina's heart race. The fact that she stays makes it settle and somersault all at the same time.

"Find anything good?" Emma asks, unstrapping her leather gauntlets and rubbing her pink fingers together to stimulate some warmth.

Regina's eyes zero in on the movement.

"Not yet, Ser Swan. But I think we are getting close," she replies, her tone clinging to the affectation of her mother's reminder, a few months after the first contact.

Emma picks up on it. She has an unsettling ability to do that. Silently, she asks if everything is ok. Regina hears the question as if she had shouted it.

"My mother sent another note, but I don't want to talk about it—"

Emma remains silent, not pressing the issue.

Regina takes a step closer, confident in her movements even as something makes her feel a little uncertain of herself. Emma's been doing that to her a lot lately. She's not sure what to make of it.

It's just sex. Just service to their infallible attraction and Regina's desire for control. That's never been an emotional attachment before, and it's not going to be now.

Still, she takes the blonde knight's hands and rubs them between her own, stimulating warmth. Emma remains silent, smiling. Her eyes are stained glass storm collectors again, burning Regina with the intensity of her gaze.

"How was training?" Regina asks cordially, pointedly changing the subject.

"We're making progress. But I don't think you really want to hear about that, your Majesty."

"No?" Regina humours her. It's alarming how much she's been doing that, recently.

"There's far more important matters at hand, my Queen," Emma replies, deliberately vague. Hers grab Regina's, halting the rubbing motion and pulling her palms to her chest.

Regina chuckles, but doesn't remove her hands.

"Is that so?" She drawls, massaging gently.

Emma moans. Delightful.

"Well, I've been doing some more reading," Regina says. Her voice drips with practiced flirtation, and she feels Emma's heartbeat quicken under her hands. "And so far, this book has revealed a potential source of support for my mother, which is more than nothing."

"Huh—?" Emma entreaties her to continue. She is so delicious when she loses the ability to form words. Regina slows her attentions on Emma's person to give them a fair attempt at civil conversation. Emma whines. Regina smirks at her and continues.

"An enchanter, famed for his magic wands and his ability to create and destroy anti-magic. In the past, he sided with the wrong dark sorcerer, and his son paid the ultimate price. So he should be malleable to my mother, and all. He's based in Ravenscourt, which is exactly the kind of place where She would go to bide her time."

For all of Emma's intense charade of listening, her response annoys and delights Regina in equal measure.

"A wand, you say? Your majesty."

Regina scoffs.

"Incorrigible. Is that really all you think about?"

Regina's voice raises in pitch and volume, and Emma's eyes widen to hear her amused derision.

"When you're in front of me, pretty much—"

Regina had guessed as much, but it's still hugely arousing to hear the candid admission fall from Emma's lips.

"It's just as well that one of us is able to keep her head, isn't it?"

Emma doesn't reply, just raises her brows in recognition of the minor innuendo in Regina's words.

"Dear Lord. You are a child, Ser Swan."

"Would you like me to call you Mommy?" Emma responds, defiant.

And oh. That flips something in Regina's chest, and she's not sure it's a good thing. Her own relationship with her mother having been what it was — what it is, regrettably — she doesn't know how that one sits with her.

"I thought I was clear when I told you I prefer my proper honorifics," she replies, steely as ever.

Emma raises her hands in surrender, and a delicious wave of power replaces Regina's uncertainty. It drives a fiery hunger in her, and she waves her hand to seal the large doors without waiting for Emma's protestations. It's been a number of months since those ceased. Emma watches purple smoke evaporate in the keyhole, and Regina watches her swallow.

"Now look what you've done," Regina berates her firmly.

Emma stands, defiant in her own urgent way. Regina wants nothing more than to devour her. Books be damned. Finding her mother and putting a stop to her can go to hell. Emma is here, and she is solid under Regina's fingertips. Though she's never been particularly gifted at doing so before, she puts the rest aside.

"Follow me, Swan," she commands, turning on her heel and allowing her dress to swish behind her in a foreboding motion.

They end up in a far corner of the library, the scent of old books a rich musk that makes what Regina hopes will follow feel like a unique kind of blasphemy. It's where the most recent research volume had come from, which is why Regina had selected this corner. Because Emma's mouth is good for so much more than talking, and the ornate ladder on casters is the perfect platform for Regina to command Emma to use it.

She doesn't even need to ask, because Emma takes one look at the ladder and understands Regina's intention.

"Hot—" she breathes. So they're in agreement.

Regina waves a hand, and her skirts dissolve into smoke. It's incredibly liberating to use her magic without fear of consequence. Never has she been able to share that dark and twisted side of herself with another human being, but Emma has taken everything Regina is in her stride. Regina feels the lure of her magic's talons inside her, the dark and destructive urge to expand and destroy everything. But Emma — and their liaison — gives Regina something good to channel the feeling into.

It's freeing, and Regina smiles into it.

"Oh, your Majesty."

Emma says it with such reverence, sinking down to one knee as Regina bares herself magically in front of her. She makes a show of kissing up and down Regina's legs, which has the queen moaning and whimpering and grasping the sturdy railing of the ladder with tight fingers.

Regina feels hot breathing on her cunt before long, and it's enough to have her grasping on even tighter as her legs feel weak.

"Get on with it, Ser Swan. We do not have all day."

Emma laughs softly, throwing hot staccato bursts across Regina's centre. White hot beads of pleasure shoot through her with each breath.

"Wanna try something new?" Emma asks, chancing her luck.

"Try again—" Regina enforces. It's considerably more breathless, more desperate than she had intended. But in fairness, white-blond curls spill across her own thighs, their owner a hair's breadth from where Regina wants her most to linger.

"Would you perchance enjoy a novel experience, Your Majesty?" Emma tries again, laying it on thick for Regina's benefit.

"I appreciate the effort," Regina praises in her own way. "And I would not deny myself the pleasure of novelty at your hands."

It's unusual for Regina to cede control like this, but there is a first time for everything. It's testament to Emma's wisdom that she does not comment on it. Emma doesn't act on her curious offer immediately, instead choosing to warm Regina up with her fingers and lips, as she has become accustomed to on a somewhat regular basis since the night of Regina's mother's first letter.

Regina is panting, ready to fall apart against the rows of books, when she feels a familiar yet shocking sensation wash over her.

"You—?" She demands as she processes the pinpricks for what they are.

Magic, rich and warm and nothing at all like her own dark spiced flavour, surges from Emma.

What the fuck?

There's a lightness to the air, a smooth cloying sweetness that feels like honey dripping over her whole being.

Emma has magic. Emma is magic.

And so she surprises Regina again. Regina, who had thought it impossible for anyone of non-noble blood to carry that source of power within them. But Emma has always been a walking contradiction.

Perhaps that is why Emma has been able to touch her as no one else has. Why Regina had felt this inexplicable draw to her, even at their very first meeting. Maybe the attraction isn't just sex, maybe its more—

She can't allow herself to think like that.

Emma will leave, just as sure as everyone else has. The fact that she has magic only cements that. With the power to step away at any moment, Regina realises that her control over Emma is nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion. That startles her anew. If Emma has always had this magic, then she would have been able to break from her bondage on their very first encounter. Regina cannot account for why she did not, but it makes Emma dangerous.

Desirable, perhaps even more so than before. But dangerous.

It has Regina wanting to put Emma in her place even more than she has before.

~.~

Without warning, she feels the magic morph into an extra appendage that gains substance with every passing second between her legs. There's a caress of something akin to smoke, and then—

"Fuck—"

Emma takes Regina's shaft between her hands, and the startled queen feels every slight change in pressure as Emma's hands move slowly around her.

"What the FUCK do you think you're doing?" Regina shouts, her shock eclipsing the considerable pleasure that she feels with each motion. She's still reeling from the revelations, and from the foreign feeling beneath her bellybutton.

She's hard, so much so that she's lightheaded with it, her arousal not having left her for a single second since she heard Emma enter the library. It's not unpleasant, Emma's familiar fingers drawing pleasure across her skin in a way they have done to a more concentrated ball of nerves before. The new equipment means that her pleasure is widened and flattened, a steep cliff becoming a steady slope that she is not struggling to climb in the slightest.

Emma replies, breathless at the sight of her. Perhaps the power isn't an illusion after all.

"Servicing your wand, your Majesty," Emma teases.

Regina's eyes dart down to where Emma is still kneeling against the library ladder, gazing up at Regina with wide eyes, mouth still slightly agape next to the new appendage. Regina's cock — for that is what Emma has conjured, a fully functioning, large, magnificent penis between Regina's legs — twitches hungrily, the pressure mounting under her skin as she feels it getting firmer and firmer under Emma's hands. It's long, slightly curved, and in a slightly pinker hue to the rest of her skin, but that may just be the blood rushing to the surface of her erection.

She's never done this before, for all her experiments with her magic — not out of some misguided aversion to the ilicit. No, she had never felt the need, knowing her own body and how responsive it could be in the height of pleasure. But this, the curious newness of the feeling… the way Emma is looking at her like she might disintegrate, she finds herself strangely glad that this first time is with Ser Emma Swan.

Fuck, she's not supposed to think like that.

Given it's the first time, she knows she will definitely not be able to play at their delicious game of control for above a few minutes, but she doesn't allow that to dampen the heightening enjoyment.

Emma's hands move insistently, twisting and stroking and God—

She takes the tip between her lips, and Regina can't help the natural motion of her hips, thrusting towards the source of the rippling, wonderful sensation. Emma swirls her tongue around the head, and Regina cries out.

"Fuck, Swan—"

Emma's hand begins a firm and relentless motion along the shaft of the immaculate object, and Regina thrusts into her hand apologetically.

"Take me in your mouth," she commands. "To the hilt. I want to hear you choke on me. I want to cum down your throat."

And yes, Emma knows her well, because this appendage gives Regina the perfect excuse to maintain an elevated roughness with her. The thought surges something red and possessive in her gut, and she follows her demand with a practical application of it. Her hips push her entire length into Emma's waiting throat, and the blonde gags as though not expecting the enthusiasm with which Regina would take to her new wand.

It's heat, a warm and all-encompassing feeling.

Regina holds herself still to become accustomed to it.

Emma moans, a garbled sound against Regina's length pressing on her tongue.

Fucking divine.

She moves her hips, thrusting with infinite slowness as she tries to hold the fragments of her desire together. The motion pulls her from Emma's mouth with a wet pop, a soft chuckle, and then she's back pressing against the back of her mouth.

Regina lasts an admirable length of time before she explodes, shuddering and praising, her head thrown back in pleasure against the spines of the old books which have witnessed the unholy coupling below.

The thing appears to be functional, if the white-hot pleasure is anything to account for. It shoots from her tip in a physical force, coating the inside of the knight's throat as she breathes through the aftershocks.

She has no words, so she spares them both the mess of an attempt. Instead, she pulls out still twitching, and smiles down at Emma with approving eyes.

"Delicious," the knight says, wiping her hand over her chin to clear the mess of saliva and the last of Regina's cum — the small beads that had escaped on the way out.

"Mhmm," Regina responds, needing a moment to gather her thoughts against the tide of blissful pleasure. "I believe I would allow you to conjure that again, Ser Swan."

She waves her hand to remove it. Emma hasn't earned it filling her elsewhere quite yet.

There's a gentle sound of disappointment, followed by Regina's dark laughter. Each expulsion hardens her, allows her to process that which Emma has wilfully kept from her. Pleasure morphs into anger, and Emma shrinks under it.

"No, no. Don't you dare complain," Regina soothes sharply. "We have some talking to do. I am extremely disappointed that you kept this from me."

Her eyes are hard set, an expression that is strengthened when Regina re-conjures fabric onto her frame and climbs down from the ladder with more put-togetherness than she feels. The revelation of Emma's powers still reeling, Regina feels the roaring urge to put Emma in her place saturate her chest.

She hears an unintelligible grumble from Emma's direction.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you that Life's Not Fair?" Regina twists the knife.

Emma's face falls.

"Mine did. Repeatedly. And she may not have been right about many things, but that is one piece of her wisdom that I live every day."

It stings, even remembering how cruel her mother had been in her pursuit of perfection.

"And it made you cruel."

Emma's never been one to shy away from Regina's truth. Unflinching as she has been since the first day, she goes straight to the jugular.

I am not my mother, Regina reminds herself. I am not.

"It made me want to take fairness from those who withhold it from me. I do not think that makes me cruel."

Emma stares defiantly for a moment, and then nods her concession. Regina knows she is selfish — Gods, she would not have even thought about indulging in her desire for Emma Swan if she were not — but she is not vindictive. She believes in cause and effect. And if someone has caused her wrong, then she will ensure they feel the effects.

For example, Emma Swan is about to enter a world of denial for having hidden the timely knowledge of her own magic from Regina.

It is all a case of cause and effect.

~.~