Work Text:
Snow whirled and fell on frozen earth outside the castle grounds, coating the maroon shoulders of Regina’s high-backed dress and sprinkling her dark hair and eyelashes. A full moon hung bright in the sky, illuminating a winding trail to nowhere.
The further she wandered from King Leopold’s castle, from her husband’s loyal subjects and Princess Snow’s adoring gaze, the more Regina let the magic warming her slip from her veins, the glow and false smile fall from her cheeks. When the castle was nothing more than a sharp silhouette on the horizon Regina leaned against a tree at the forest’s edge, shivering so furiously beneath the watching stars that she thought she might freeze; the sweet fierce song of magic gone from her lungs.
It had been nothing more than another day, much like the last and probably precisely like the next, but somehow this evening she could not bear to sit alone in her room learning spells. The promise of distant revenge did not warm her as it should, a forgotten queen in her husband’s lonely castle.
Regina thought of the king, with eyes only for his daughter, and of gentle Daniel long dead. She thought of Rumple’s increasing cruelty and of Mother’s loveless voice, gone but never forgotten. Regina wondered idly if what she had heard was true, if freezing to death felt like nothing more than going to sleep. She so missed the days when she could sleep.
Regina stood a long time on the edge of consciousness. She’d begun to slump and was dimly aware that she had stopped shivering, that her body relaxing meant she was flirting with a more permanent rest. She thought of how fitting it would be if snow’s soft embrace was the end of her.
Then a sound, something huge moving in the distance, snapped her to attention.
She forced her eyes open and watched as great black wolf, larger than any she had ever heard of in story or song, stepped out of the treeline.
Its eyes were gold like distant lanterns and its paws the size of lesser dogs. There was blood streaming like saliva, hot and thick from its jaws, melting the snow beneath it and staining it a vivid red. The beast turned towards her, lip curled, and bared its pained, hungry voice to the night sky.
At the howl Regina’s blackened heart stuttered suddenly back to life, pumping wildly in her chest. That old, vengeful magic rose within her like phoenix song, strengthening her spine and straightening her shoulders. Nothing gave Regina life like struggle, like survival, like someone to lash out at and destroy.
She stalked forward through the snow in perilous heels and a frosted-over crown as the wolf began to charge.
It had nearly reached her when it leapt high into the air, claws and teeth flashing deadly in the moonlight. For a single heartbeat Regina wondered if it’s jaws could bring her peace, then she flicked her wrist and sent it slamming into tree roots with a crash, its great limbs sprawling as it fell.
And Regina knew at once that she was stronger. She was always stronger.
The rage and bloodthirst pouring from the wolf’s crimson spirit called out to Regina’s own magic. The beast’s anguished soul, the infectious curse of werewolf, felt powerful and ancient. It called for violence, for pain, for death; for all the things that Regina’s own battered heart ached for.
The beast struggled to its feet with a snarl, snapping wildly at the air, but was forced flat again by the queen’s magic. She twirled her fingers and wrapped it in strong, invisible tendrils.
“Down, beast,” she said cooly, that purple fire blazing in her eyes. Frost whirled around Regina and made her look five times her size, indomitable as the cold itself. “Are you the monster that’s been terrorizing my husband’s kingdom so?”
Regina had heard talk of a beast stalking villages to the north, killing dozens of men on the full moon. It was said to be unstoppable. She only smiled.
“I’m sorry, dear, but this will be my kingdom someday.” Her lip twitched, fist clenching in the air. An invisible pressure tightened at the wolf’s chest. Staring up at her, it let out a pitiable whine. “And I am the only monster allowed in my kingdom.”
It whined again, weaker now, and when she released it with a flick of her wrist the wolf cowered before her, flattening itself against the snow, ears pinned and eyes wide with fear. Regina scooped up the hem of her dress and grinned, twisted and hungry, before striding forward.
The beast let out a ragged cry as she plunged a fist into its ribcage.
She would pluck its great heart and squeeze the life from it, as she had done to more precious creatures, as she was learning to do to people. Her fingers danced magically past the tendon, flesh, and bone and the wolf cried out in agony as she grasped its heart. The organ was hot, nearly scorching her palm.
Then a woman, tall with dark hair and pretty eyes, flashed before her. She wore a red cloak and a kind smile. She longed, deep in her heart of hearts, for love. She dreamed, in the softest parts of her soul, to be free.
But wolves, Red had learned, were not built for freedom or for love.
The wolf cried out again for mercy and the snow whirling around Regina stilled, hovering strangely mid-air as she remembered a time she too lived out of joy instead of spite. She looked into the big, brown eyes of a wolf that was also a girl and let Red’s heart slip, tenderly, from her fingertips.
The snow resumed falling normally, icing the stones that bejeweled Regina’s dress as she slid to the cold earth. The fight had gone out of her and taken her magic with it.
Red the wolf slunk to her feet, an impossible tower of muscle and fur. Regina closed her eyes and felt hot breath, sharp and metallic, beating over her face. She could picture huge jaws bared above her, feel drips of blood trickling onto the exposed skin of her throat. For several tight heartbeats Regina awaited a gruesome end, wondering idly if anyone would find or even recognize her once the wolf had finished with her; her only consolation that Red would terrorize her husband’s kingdom long after she’d gone...
But the pain never came.
There was only a soft warm tongue licking at her cold hand. Regina opened her eyes to watch the monstrous beast slump, clumsily, to rest an enormous, bloodstained head in her lap.
Snowflakes sat like little stars in the wolf’s black fur, crystalline on her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. Lamp-like eyes looked up at Regina, one oversized paw gentle on her thigh, and despite having someone else’s blood smeared over her chin the wolf looked almost docile.
Wonderingly, Regina reached out a hand. Her fingers were dwarfed spectacularly by the huge face, vanishing into dark fur as she cupped the wolf’s cheek.
“There is a woman in you,” Regina said tentatively, reaching up to stroke between the beast’s ears. The very tip of the wolf’s tail gave a small wag, sweeping a path through the snow. “I can feel her.”
Red’s fur was soft and smelled pine-sweet. Regina wondered if the woman would submit to her like the wolf, if perhaps what Red needed most was a mistress she could not kill. Two souls with a taste for blood, with darkened hearts, locked eyes quietly beneath the moon and stars.
“When the woman in you makes her appearance, we will have much to talk about,” the witch told the wolf as it shifted to curl around her, easing her shivering and protecting her from the snow. She rested her head on its huge shoulder and envisioned a wolf turned woman in the morning light, warm and bare in her arms.
Yes, maybe life could be worth living after all.