Regina lay there, still dazed.

“Er…,” said a very soft, hesitant voice below her. “Perhaps we could, um… find a place to embrace where there is not a large stick poking in my back?”

“Oh you have one poking you too?” said Regina absentmindedly, only to be surprised by the fact that Prince Artem could somehow turn even more pink. “Well, I suppose that is better than the other things I could be poked with… although I do wonder how you managed to get a stick on top of you that could poke me.”

Prince Artem’s blush was suddenly incandescent, so much so that Regina was halfway afraid he would become like his scapegoat ‘cousin’ and ‘faint.’

Deciding she had had enough trouble for the night and deciding that the gardens were finally Alpin-cousin-free, Regina sighed and began creeping out of the hedges carefully.

By the time she was done, her beautiful white dress was covered in enough dirt to disgrace the expensive lace that her father must have agonized over purchasing. 

“I wonder,” Regina dryly said after she poked her fingers through a gaping hole in her dress, “if I can send that watery-eyed cousin of yours a notice that he needs to repay me for my trauma and pain, as well as my poor sleeves.” 

Yet even as Regina sat covered in leaves, dirt, and small things that she did not want to examine too closely, she realized something. 

She realized she did not want to die, even if it meant crawling into hedges for the rest of her life.

Yet before Regina could formulate any sort of plan for survival... she found the prince kneeling before her and clasping her hands in his own.

"You are my savior!" said Prince Artem, showing an... understanding of the situation that Regina was not expecting without a several hour explanation, probably with diagrams.

“Uhm,” Regina said before she snapped to her senses and added, “I mean – yes! Obviously!”

“Yes,” Prince Artem joyously cried, “for you have helped me escape yet another of Cousin Randolph’s boring entrapments! In fact, this is the first time someone has ever tried to entangle their body with mine to avoid entrapping me!"

Before Regina could even begin to make sense of his words, Prince Artem continued with a presence that somehow sparkled even more than it had been before the attempted entrapment. 

"Your rescue was just like when Mother saved Father, minus the snake and the knives and with many added leaves! This… this means you truly do love me!”

Unsure of what to do, Regina just shuffled awkwardly.

“You need say no more,” Prince Artem responded. “I know it is difficult to speak openly of such passionate feelings. But my lady…”

Prince Artem pressed a tender kiss to Regina’s fingers that sent a spark through the rest of body.

“You are brilliant and amazing and I have never been wooed before but it is just as amazing as Father said it would be and I cannot possibly begin to repay you unless-"

That was when Regina discovered the answer to all her problems.

"Unless," said Regina, slowly smiling at the man gazing soulfully at her, "I tell you just what kind of payment I need." 

Author's Note: So our lovely villainess Regina has her man at last... but can she persuade her family to change her engagement? Find out next time...!