Sri Sathya Sai Baba once said 'Love is the rose, lust is the thorn,' and Emma Swan was most definitely a thorn, a thorn in Regina's side. Like the large talons of a bird of prey, they cut through her very soul like a hot knife through butter. Curled deep, these talons secured their grip and the more she resisted, the more she struggled the more damage they inflicted.
She had had a love once, but her rose had long since withered and died. There would be no roses in her life's garden, no sweet smelling bouquet, no velvet petals, no colour. Instead all that would reside were the thorns in the barren waste of her existence. Roses would never grow again, yet thorns flourished like the weeds of her soul, finding a way to grow in the radiation soaked soil, the destructive harmony of evil, bred from sin, fertilising their advance.
Since the curse had been broken and Henry had left her life, there had been no reason to feel anymore, so she had snuffed out the light of emotion until she was numb. But now, with every passing day the knotted bracken of her lust for the blonde grew, cutting deep into her soul. With every cut she was reminded that deep within her corpse she still existed. She'd watch as the lecherous crimson droplets fell, staining her skin like the tears of a fallen angel, blood the only colour in her otherwise monochromatic life.
Lust wasn't a novel feeling to Regina Mills, it was a feeling she knew all too well, an old friend. When she had been much younger she had lusted after freedom, and then as the years had passed lust learnt of the sweet taste of power. Like the bittersweet taste of blood on ones tongue, the metallic tang, which should bring forth disgust but more often than not brought a smile to her lips. Lust was a feeling she welcomed back with open arms, as an addict does when welcoming back a vice. Lust was the poison that corrupted her soul, a poison she craved. Her nemesis and her only friend, it controlled every inch of her body, her mind, and her soul. Without it she feared insanity or obscurity, unsure which was worse. Too weak to resist, her body ached with longing as her mind screamed for the flames of hell to purge her of her lustful thoughts and feelings for the insufferable blonde.
But that's how addiction works, how lust controls; against logic, against reason, and against free will. Her intense and uncontrolled desires made her head spin like a restless hurricane symbolic of her own lack of self-control. Her desires stuck in her throat, asphyxiating her, but she craved the pain, the pain of wanting Emma Swan.
If she could simply control her sexual wants for the blonde then all would be well. If it were her plan or a scheme then all would be well. Maybe it was a scheme, just someone else's; maybe it was fate, or karma. What could be worse than involuntarily lusting after the daughter of Snow White? Voluntarily it would be pure poetry, but involuntarily it was like acid fumes, burning her lungs until she screamed, stripping her of everything she was, everything she had ever been. Snow White had stripped her of her true love, Emma Swan had stripped her of her child, and now she and the fates wanted to strip all that remained of Regina Mills.
The lust she currently harbored for the blonde would be her downfall. The bricks of her reputation, of her security that she had steadily built for years around herself, would finally begin to crumble. But that's what addiction does; down the rabbit hole she would fall, her hands bound behind her back, there was no way to stop the impending end. She watched it in slow motion, in Technicolor, incapable of stopping it.
There was a fine line between a dream and a nightmare, between a vision and a phantom, and Emma Swan was the phantom of her waking nightmare. The dreams that stalked in through her open eyes and controlled her as easy as one of Henry's remote control cars. Emma had the remote, she could strike at any time of day or night, from wherever she was, just a flick of the switch and Regina's mind whirred into action. The batteries of her lust never seeming to falter or die. Emma was the remote. The rough edges of her beautiful body the rigid structure, her passion and energy the never-ending source of power. And finally, her biting words the toggles of control.
In her mind's eye Emma's lips were so close she could taste them, sweet like honey, chapped and bare. The harder her words bit the more she wished to feel white teeth sink into her skin. The softer the smile the more she craved those lips against her body.
She wondered how strong Emma was, remembering the flex of her muscles, the power in her punch, the way she had forced her against the shelving in a hospital closet with rage in her eyes. Yes, Emma would be strong enough to handle her, to take her how she needed to be taken.
She had lost. Snow White had won, Rumplestiltskin had won, and Miss Swan had won. She'd lost her son, her power, and her love, what did her self-respect matter now? Nobody respected her, why should she bother. It was easier to loathe herself than to love herself, especially when everyone around her did the same. The bile that formed in the pit of her stomach, bubbling so ferociously forced her to taste her own disgust. The daughter of her nemesis, the savior – The destroyer, she should have been dubbed, all that followed her was carnage and destruction, she broke a curse so what? Any fool could do that, as proven by David-fucking-Nolan even he had managed to break a curse.
Maybe that was it, once The Savior broke the curse, the curse marker was cursed for all eternity; she felt cursed. Why else would she lust after her? Emma Swan was belligerent and headstrong, idiotic and obnoxious, beautiful and selfless… Wait what!?
Maybe she didn't want to stop it, maybe she craved her own destruction as she craved her own death, or maybe she craved absolution. Then again, maybe she just craved the soft velvet of a rose, because lusts thorns were nothing without the sweet smell of loves rose.
Maybe one day a rose would grow from the thorns.