Regina decided that since she was dead, she did not need to listen to people insulting her and the politics of petty, boring nobles.
Ignoring the cluster of nobles continuing their veiled insults and speculations behind their smiles, she watched as not-Regina continued to move forward to the center of the ball room… only to sink into a deep bow that left real-Regina’s knees shaking in sympathy.
Behind her, Regina’s father followed, looking more prideful now than when he cut off the figurative, and possibly literal, legs off his rivals.
“Lords and ladies,” her father said, “I bid you welcome to my daughter’s engagement ceremony.”
Even as the real Regina started so violently that her elbow should have collided into the shiny blond man in front of her, not-Regina and Regina’s father were joined by a stunningly handsome blond man who had obviously been waiting for the announcement of the engagement ceremony.
Even in this strange evening full of bizarre events, Regina found it hard to grasp that any version of her could be engaged to a man like this. Regina was not a woman prone to self-doubt. She had managed to make it to one-and-twenty without dying and that was something that made her one of the most remarkable women in Carcosa considering her family. However, this man was as far beyond someone like her as an eagle was beyond a sparrow.
For one, this man was so handsome he looked like a prince from a storybook, so elegant that he almost seemed to glide rather than walk, and so intimidating Regina found it hard to look into his icy blue eyes. Regina was impressed that her other self was able to overcome that terrifying gaze by looking down demurely.
Still, this terrifyingly beautiful man managed a tight smile for her other self and then looked around the room, his even voice somehow reaching every part of it.
“Friends,” he said, “we greet those who have come to bear witness to this engagement –”
But before the man – her other self’s fiancé – could finish his sentence, there was a loud bang as the doors of the ballroom were flung open and the ballroom floor was suddenly flooded with guards who seemed to easily outnumber the lords and ladies.
“What is happening?” Regina’s father cried, even as both Reginas spun around wildly, staring at the sudden influx of guards stamped with intimidating blue-and-gold-livery. “How dare you disrupt a royal engagement party?!”
“Do you dare,” said a grizzled looking older guard with an especially intimidating row of medals on his uniform, “stand between the imperial guards and a daughter accused of betraying the crown prince and Carcosa itself in her role as its future queen?”
“What?!” both Reginas cried at the same time, before not-Regina collected herself enough to speak with a calm that would have made nightgown-wearing Regina proud if nightgown-wearing Regina was not both terrified and confused.
“Good sir,” not-Regina said, a waver in her voice but steel in her eyes, “I do not know what you are accusing me of but I - I have never betrayed anyone in my life!”
The guard did not look at all moved by her pleas – and unfortunately, neither did Regina’s fiancé – who was apparently Carcosa’s Crown Prince and future King.
“Please believe me!” not-Regina pleaded again, this time with her fiancé. “Your Highness, I – I just arrived at the Capital City but a month ago! I know nobody but my family and have no ambitions but to – to –”
“To stay alive,” the real Regina muttered, horror overtaking her. “Only I do not seem to be succeeding.”
“Cease your falsehoods,” the grizzled head guard raged, even as not-Regina was suddenly entirely surrounded by other members of the imperial guard. “Lady Regina Sheridan, you are a villainess whose conduct is unworthy of a future crown princess. The royal family has uncovered evidence that you have trampled on those you are responsible for –”
“What are you speaking of?” not-Regina cried, even as she shrank back from the guards surrounding her. “Who am I supposedly trampling?!”
“You,” the head guard said while the handsome blonde man, who had to not only be a member of the Alpin royal family but the crown prince, looked mildly appalled at the proceedings, “are convicted of the basest cruelty to commoners.”
“Commoners?!” a familiar voice cried, before Regina’s mother suddenly appeared next to Regina, looking as wild-eyed as Regina herself felt. “Since when did the royal family give a damn about commoners? You would bathe in their blood if you thought it would increase productivity or provide an advantage over the other noble families!”
While that was not the most tactful thing for her mother to say, the nightgown-wearing Regina had to agree, as did the bouncing blond man in front of her. Regina had been so absorbed in the horror of the stern blond crown prince she had nearly forgotten this very shiny, very bouncy other blond.
“By the blood,” he muttered, now moving his hips in what Regina assumed was a circle of sympathy. “Poor Lady Regina is in more trouble than ever. Does her mother not realize that there is no better way to get your head chopped off than to say truths nobody wants to hear?”
Unfortunately, the shiny blond appeared correct as the look on the Crown Prince’s face shifted from mild concern to an actual glare.
“Captain,” the Crown Prince said, “What exactly did Lady Regina do to those poor commoners?”
Regina realized she could not remember the last time she even interacted with a commoner. The Sheridan estate kept a few commoner servants but Regina was paranoid to the point of being practically self-sufficient when it came to her food and drink. As she tried to determine when and how Not-Regina could have possibly even encountered commoners, she was interrupted by a stern voice.
“Lady Regina Sheridan,” the apparent captain of the guard said, “has abused the maids given to her by His Highness in the most abominable of ways.”
“What do you mean?” the not-Regina cried, sounding as baffled as the real Regina felt. “I have never abused a maid! The most I ever did was tell them that I wanted to make my own tea so that I could ensure it was not being poisoned in the making!”
“Ah,” the Captain said, looking grim. “That explains it. You must have been upset that they disobeyed you by attempting to care for you…”
Even by Regina’s understanding of the strangeness of Carcosan law, that seemed an odd accusation of treachery-
“...and thus, killed them before fashioning their corpses into a throne,” the Captain finished, oddly triumphantly.
Well, thought Regina, that was at least a little more understandable cause for concern, if only because it seemed terribly unsanitary.
Even past her newfound ring of guards, nightgown-wearing Regina could see that her finely dressed counterpart looked utterly horrified.
“Why would I murder them?” not-Regina asked. “In fact, how would I even murder them, seeing as how I have no magic or training in weapons?"
“Is that actually true?” the Captain said, looking almost intrigued. “It would be an easy enough claim to prove… if you were willing to share the Sheridan abilities with us. It seems very suspicious that nobody outside of the Sheridan family knows the magical powers of the Sheridans.”
“Whatever they are,” not-Regina snapped, “they certainly do not lend themselves to outright murder! Though even if they did –”
It was an interesting statement for not-Regina to make, real-Regina realized. It was entirely possible that the Sheridans’ magical powers allowed them to murder people. Regina had no idea and if not-Regina was being married out of the family… she had no idea either.
Of course not-Regina had more pressing concerns such as…
“Why would I make my maids’ dead bodies into a throne?! ”
“Very true,” the shiny blond man in front of nightgown-wearing Regina said. “That seems very unsanitary.”
Regina was relieved that at least one person in this room shared her thoughts on personal hygiene… even if it was depressing that it was only a shiny, bouncing blond man who reminded her very much of a bobbing dandelion.
Unfortunately, Regina did not have the presence of mind to linger on that heartwarming connection with a stranger because, without another word, her finely dressed counterpart began to be hauled away by the guards at last, even as her parents silently watched.
“Mother!” not-Regina cried. “Father! Please tell His Highness that the – the guards are making a mistake! Please!”
Then Regina’s vision of her other self and family were drowned out by her own blurring words as she closed her eyes, unable to look any further.
Then she closed her eyes and turned around, only to see the shiny blond man next to her shake his head, suddenly no longer dancing and looking oddly… sad?
The nobles that had been speculating about Regina’s other self were behind him, looking far less devastated by her fate. The fact that not a single one of them seemed to think that fate came about from not-Regina building furniture out of body parts was a very sore comfort.
“By the blood,” Lord Ocean Waves said, “was that little upstart stealing the royal family’s secrets to pass them onto her own family? I would not do so even if it helped us Poissons catch the best fish in the ocean. What a way to court disaster!”
“Especially if you got caught,” Lord Feet Fish said, “which is likely if you do not have a feet fish to teleport you around.”
Once again, the other nobles stared at Lord Feet Fish for a moment before electing to ignore him.
“I suppose,” Lord Red Hair said with an unpleasant smirk, “the Alpins now know that there is a reason they should stick to prettier brides with finer breeding.”
Lord Leaf Brooch just snorted. “The Alpins fear powerful noble families too much to breed with any who can rival them. If they cannot pluck a flower from about their feet, they will simply go back to breeding from their own family circles – which will eventually lead them to disaster.”
“That may be why they chose poor Lady Regina in the first place,” Lord Grass Hair said, shaking his head.
“Do not tell me you pity her,” Lord Red Hair said, looking startled. “If she was fool enough to displease the Alpins of all families, she fully deserves her fate!”
“Does she?” Lord Grass Hair asked. “Though she clearly crossed the Alpins to give some sort of advantage to her family, she is so young… and with such a crime on her head, she will be lucky to ever see sunlight again.”
Lord Ocean Waves looked confused. “So you think the Alpins will let her keep her head and not execute her immediately?”
“Probably,” Lord Feet Fish said, with far more chill in his voice than before. “The Alpins enjoy making examples of their enemies… and death can be less of a deterrent than an ill-treated living reminder.”
For once, Lord Feet Fish’s words seemed to lead less to confusion and annoyance than fear. Looking around, Regina could register the uneasiness on each of the lords’ faces before one of them changed the subject.
“Lady Regina will hopefully live,” Lord Grass Hair said, “and given her youth, may even receive a relatively lenient charge. She is someone else’s puppet so what need is there to harshly punish her?”
“What of her family?” Lord Ocean Waves said, looking nervous. “Will the Alpins not make an example of them, since she must be their pawn?”
“I suspect,” Lord Leaf Brooch said, “we will soon discover that answer.”
Eyes wide, Regina spun around, hoping beyond hope that maybe her parents were prepared to defend her or support her or… or… do something that could help her -
Yet if either Regina was hoping for a sign of familial affection, she was doomed to be disappointed.
Tears burning in her eyes, the real Regina watched as her father and mother stood by and watched their last surviving child be taken away by the assembly of guards.
“Some people,” Lord Feet Fish said, suddenly looking older than his youthful and handsome face would indicate, “do not deserve their children.”
“If children were given only to the deserving,” Lord Leaf Brooch said, “would any of us even be here?”
The Regina Sheridan who was still in the room with them simply stared blankly over the shoulder of her blond dandelion shield, into the space where her other self had once been.
“She deserved better,” the shiny blond man still in front of her said. “I wonder whether she would have enjoyed frolicking? I hope she gets the chance to find out.”
On that cheerful note, darkness fell.
~♦♥♦~
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