#i too want to be emma vanitys trophy wife | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angstbotfic · 6 years

Text

Fic: Her One True Love’s a Sailing Ship Ch29

Read at AO3

Regina watched with her heart in her throat as the guards converged and stepped onto the platform. When the disguised sailors took Snow and Charming into custody instead of Emma, the room dissolved into chaos. A couple of people cheered. One voice shouted, “Protect Queen Snow!” and got a few affirmative responses. But mostly it was just a loud babble of confusion.

They had all been right there with Emma as she spoke. Regina knew they would respond if someone took control, but Emma didn’t look like she realized she needed to. Nausea washed over her as she realized what she was about to do, but she fought it down and raised her voice, “Queen Emma! Queen Emma! Queen Emma!”

The people closest to her turned in surprise, but quickly smiled and picked up the chant. “Queen Em-ma! Queen Em-ma!” It built through the room, louder and louder as more people joined in.

Soon it had swept up the entire gathering, and people were cheering. Emma blushed furiously at the attention and dipped her head in solemn acknowledgement.

Regina knew she should help consolidate Emma’s power. There were proclamations to make to the kingdom and messages to send to allies and Snow’s supporters to round up and imprison, but she just couldn’t. Her crew would do what needed to be done. She needed some air.

Regina didn’t know how long she’d been out here. The air was crisp, and it was blissfully quiet, and she’d changed back into her shirt and pants, and if it hadn’t been for the weight on her chest she would have been able to breathe easily. But the weight would be there no matter where she was, and at least out here she didn’t have to put on her polite face, and so she stayed right where she was.

“So this is your tree, huh?”

Marian had found her. “Yes.” She hoped her first officer would take the hint.

“I see why you love it. It’s beautiful.” Marian never would take a hint.

“It’s one thing that I missed when I left here,” Regina found herself confessing without quite meaning to. Marian could always do that, somehow, say the right thing to get her to talk. It was helpful and infuriating all at once.

“Now you’ve come back to it.”

“I wish I could, in some ways,” Regina said, then stopped. She sighed and looked down where her arms were hugging her own stomach.

Marian just came and sat beside her and let her get there in her own time.

“It’s the only thing I have left of my father, you know,” Regina said at last, voice sounding rusty to her own ears as she looked up and away. “And he was the only person who ever loved me.”

“Was. Not anymore,” Marian reminded her simply.

“Yes.” That true love’s kiss had proven that.

“Is it enough?”

“I can’t be somebody’s trophy wife again, Mar,” she said all in a rush, turning to look at her for the first time.

“You can’t possibly think she’d ask that of you,” Marian chided.

“I don’t think she’ll have a choice,” Regina sighed, looking at the tree again. “Her rule will be precarious enough starting this way without weakening herself by sharing power on top of that. Consorts are to be seen and not heard,” she added bitterly.

“You have to talk to her about this,” Marian insisted. “She’s starting to make plans that include you.”

“Thank you for helping her make plans,” Regina said.

“Regina,” Marian said severely.

She turned back and held up her hands in surrender. “I will.”

“She asked me to find you, you know.”

“I thought so.” She swallowed hard. As she stood up, she had a horrifying thought. “Please tell me she’s not staying in the royal chamber.”

“No, she’s in her old bedroom. Down a floor.”

Regina breathed a sigh of relief. Then she steeled herself.

She stopped outside Emma’s rooms for a long, long moment before she knocked, calling “It’s Regina.”

Emma’s “Come in” was immediate, like she was expecting her. Probably she was.

Emma was brushing out her hair at the vanity, wearing some beribboned monstrosity of a night dress that just screamed that it had originally been chosen by Snow White. “Hey,” she greeted, trying, and failing, to sound casual.

“Hey,” Regina said back. She stood just inside the closed door, feeling trapped, feeling out of place, wanting to crawl into Emma’s lap and knowing it wouldn’t help a damn thing.

“I missed you,” Emma said next, lightly and without turning to look at her.

“I needed some air. I-” She had no idea how to go on, so she didn’t.

“I get it,” Emma said. “It has to be weird, being here.”

Regina was relieved that Emma understood as she admitted, “It’s not easy.”

“I think it’ll get easier once we get settled. Get a routine, you know.”

“A- routine?” Regina repeated stupidly.

“Yeah, like Mondays we take petitions and Tuesdays we go riding, whatever.”

Emma was planning a life with her. Emma was planning a life with her and it was wonderful to be so loved. Emma was planning a life with her here, a life of being a royal possession to be displayed again, and it hollowed out her insides to think about it.

Regina realized she’d been silent too long when Emma put down the brush and turned to look at her. “Those were just examples. We can do things however you want.”

“However I want,” she echoed again, sarcastic this time.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You have yet to ask if this is what I want.”

“But- but y- you agreed to help depose my mother?” Emma sputtered.

“Because it was the right thing to do! Not because I want to play the good little queen again!”

There, it was out. A heavy silence fell.

After a long, long moment Emma spoke. “I didn’t think-”

“Of course you didn’t,” Regina snapped. “You really are Snow White’s daughter.” She hadn’t really meant to say that, but everything hurt so badly that she lashed out.

“What the hell, Regina?”

“Every memory I have of this castle is a nightmare. I wandered around here for years with nothing but my hatred to keep me company. And before that- the king-” She couldn’t bring herself to talk about that. “I can’t be a consort in this castle again,” she finished simply.

#swan queen #sq ff #swanqueen fanfic #swan queen fan fiction #work: pirate regina

3 notes · View notes