"I cannot risk my son's life," the Queen said as she raised her arms and –

Dropped to the floor like a puppet with all its strings cut.

"And I," said Regina's mother, holding the sheathed knife that she had just used to coldcock the Queen, "cannot risk the life of my daughter."

~♦♥♦~

As Regina stared at her mother standing over the Queen’s now still form, she could only find one thing to say to the woman who had given birth to her.

Mind blissfully, utterly numb, Regina felt the words pouring out of her, without any control on her part.

“Do you realize,” Regina said, “that at this point, we Sheridans have officially concussed half the royal family?”

“Is that so?” her mother said, not looking particularly startled by this information. “I had wondered what happened to that prancing prince you were set to wed. Did you murder him already?”

“If so, good job,” Regina’s father said, stepping out from behind a pillar to give Regina another burst of shock in her already strained heart. “I never did like him. He cost us a fortune in window repairs even after he insisted on moving in with our family.”

Regina made a noise like a dying animal and her mother rolled her eyes.

“Oh, if you have not murdered him, I am sure your prince lives,” her mother said. “Alpin heads are so hard they likely will not even remember what we did – or notice what we will be doing.”

There was something oddly comforting about her parents’ calm acceptance of the possibility that Regina had murdered an Alpin prince.

It was less comforting when Regina realized what this meant about her parents’ perspective on murder in general and all her fears about her own death by Sheridans started to rise once more.

That was when Regina stared at the still sheathed knife in her mother’s hands and remembered her earlier realization that when she had died in a “tragic carriage accident” during her first vision, it had been due the machinations of her own family.

While it was possible that her parents had wanted to take a scenic stroll of the Alpin catacombs, the fact that they had tracked down Regina alone in the dark while carrying a weapon was not terribly encouraging.

It was not as if they could have expected Queen Natasha to come murder Regina. After all, there were neither horses nor ledgers lying about the catacombs.

At this point, Regina had the horrifying realization that her mother might have saved her from death at the hands of her mother-in-law because the Sheridans wanted to make sure they personally made sure that Regina was dead.

Regina clutched at the last weapon she had left, Artem’s final brooch, and wondered if she had the nerve to strike out against her own mother to keep living.

Slowly, carefully, she started to unfasten the brooch while her parents were occupied in some kind of dark staring contest.

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Dimly, Regina realized that in her many, many attempts at avoiding assassination, at no point had she actually tried to murder someone else.

As she stood there, her hand starting to tremble, she realized that if there was a murder she could start with, no matter how terrible her past had been, no matter how necessary it was for her survival…

…she was unsure that she could start her career as a killer by murdering her moth-

“Regina, stop being a fool and put that brooch down – your pathetic grip is embarrassing me.”

Regina stared at her mother, suddenly directly in front of her.

Regina’s hand could not stop shaking.

Before she could even find words, or movement, the brooch in her hand was gone-

“No,” said Regina and her voice was more of a moan than actual speech.

Her mother was coming towards her with the brooch and she could not move and-

Her mother carefully, crisply pinned the brooch back on Regina’s nearly dissolved corset.

“There,” she said, cocking her head. “You never could put those on straight.”

Regina stared at her.

There was the sound of a throat clearing and Regina slowly turned her head.

Her father pushed his glasses up his face with his one hand as he thrust his other towards her-

-to hand her some very strangely shaped strings-

“You seem,” said her father, “to be missing some laces.”

Her father, Regina realized, was missing his shoes.

Shoes would not stay on his feet without laces.

The floor of the catacombs was covered in rocks and shards and burnt ashes and his feet were already bleeding.

“Thank you,” said Regina, as she awkwardly held onto the laces that could not save a corset so badly damaged.

Her father equally awkwardly proceeded to not quite look at her as he said, “You do not need to thank me. It would have been easier to kill those assassins on the way here if I had not made so much noise while walking.”

Regina tightened her hold on the laces until her fingers turned white.

Of course the Nevilles would not have taken any chances that Robin would not have been enough to kill her.

Of course there would have been other assassins sent to make sure Regina Sheridan never became Regina Alpin.

The Queen had killed one and her parents had killed several-

Her parents had killed several assassins.

Her parents had killed more assassins than Queen Natasha, former assassin.

This meant that her parents were more dangerous than Queen Natasha.

Regina stared at her father awkwardly holding his foot and cursing the blood after stepping on her discarded urn shard.

Regina turned to stare at her mother who was… cheerfully carving her name into the side of a catacomb pillar with her knife.

So many thoughts swirled and rose and died in Regina’s head as she tried to understand what was happening and what the rest of her life had even meant.

In another life, these people had brought her to her death.

So why had they come here, into this catacomb, killing the assassins that would have allowed them to dispose of Regina without getting their own hands dirty?

A light much brighter than the one remaining Alpin lantern started to bloom inside Regina’s mind as the horrifying truth filled her heart.

There was exactly one truth that Regina knew.

One truth that had bound every single potential murderer that had met with Regina in these darkened tunnels of death.

“Do not tell me,” said Regina, resigned to the absurdity of her existence. “You are here because you have a secret plan to falsify my death and smuggle me out of the country.”