Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time.

Author's Note: There was a girl, an unwilling bride and a reluctant queen, who succumbed to the evil surrounding her. There was a man, a loving father but a cruel husband and a foolish king. There was a girl who knew good and evil but none of the shades between them, who saw what she wanted to see and chose wilful ignorance, who was a beloved princess but inept queen. This story isn't about them, it's about the guards that watched over them and saw a family fall apart and a kingdom destroyed.

I've been pondering this idea for quite some time. There's a lot of suggestions that Regina was not the evil queen from the get go; there's no strong suggestions that the lower classes are starving, there's an episode where she's shocked to realise that people call her the evil queen, and she even tells Mary Margaret that she was always known as the queen, it was Snow White who added the Evil moniker to her title. This story builds on how Regina and her development into a queen, and how the relationships deteriorated, as seen and observed by the Kingsguard. I admit to being at least partially inspired by the Kingsguards from A Song of Fire and Ice and the stories of Elia Martell (admittedly all AU). Anyway, this story also ties in closely with Thicker Than Blood, for which I have a solid plot rather than a series of one-shots. Do tell me what you think. From the next chapter onwards, it'll be less guards and more actual happenings with Regina, Snow and Leopald in it all.

Word count: 1950

Vow of the Queensguard

'Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.'

~ Mark Twain ~

Sir Gareth had known, of course Sir Gareth had known. The oldest member of the Kingsguard and the only person to have been guarding the family when the current king had been born, there was nothing about the family that he didn't know, and it shouldn't have surprised Sir Beda but it had. Regardless, Sir Beda turned his blue eyes, still sharp and shrewd despite his years, to his right where Sir Gareth was seemingly focussed on shoving spoonfuls of gruel into his mouth.

'So are the rumours true? Is the king marrying once again?' Sir Haerviu was looking eagerly from one knight to the other. Latest of the knights to join the Kingsguard, he was a child with barely two dozen summers behind him, had never been to battle and had never witnessed bloodshed. It was a mystery to Sir Beda why the king had added him to the Kingsguard. His immaturity never shone so bright as right now, clearly anticipating a joyous marriage rather than one which had more hurdles at the start than most. And unstable, unhappy royal families made for unstable, unhappy kingdoms.

Ser Gareth paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. He turned his eyes, once a deep blue but now faded to an indeterminate grey, glaring at the hapless new guard. The smile slipped off the child's face and his green eyes widened a fraction, only looking away once Sir Gareth was focussed on filling his stomach again. Sir Beda hid his smile; the poor child had no idea of what being a member of the Kingsguard would involve.

It wasn't till later that Sir Beda raised the same topic. Alone in the bedchambers that he shared with Sir Gareth, he asked bluntly, 'You are concerned about this impending marriage?'

'As are you,' had grunted Sir Gareth, his scarred face showing few emotions but the two of them were the oldest members of the Kingsguard. They had spent decades fighting side by side and there was no other who knew him as well as Sir Gareth did, and vice versa.

'You think the woman is after power? You think she will be a threat to Princess Snow or the kingdom?'

'I worry she isn't after the power and the king is threat enough to the kingdom,' the knight had retorted sharply, his words practically a snarl as he undid the metal armour surrounding his chest.

Sir Beda didn't have the fastest of reflexes or the greatest accuracy. His fitness was declining but what he did have was a certain sense of timing. Rumours and myths said that once a person gave up their families and identities to become a member of the Kingsguard, the kingdom they were meant to guard with their lives would imbibe them with powers, nothing as startling as the magic most witches and warlocks wielded but a magical strengthening of their natural abilities, and Beda often thought that, for him, it was his sense of timing. It had won battles and skirmishes in the past, that inherent knowledge of when something was going to happen, and it was those senses that told him now to keep mum and shut up.

'His father had many vices but he was not as great a fool as the king,' Sir Gareth spoke, and Beda could recall rumours of orgies and debauchery, of alcohol drank far too much and far too regularly. 'Nor was he unmindful of his duty to his people.'

'A young bride could help him, improve him,' Beda suggested softly, not convinced of his own words.

'He is far too old and set in his ways to learn any new tricks,' the grey eyed and grey haired man had snapped back and there was something there, underneath his voice that gave Beda chills. 'She's a good hearted girl, and not just for show. It'll be luck if she manages to pass on any of that consideration, kindliness to the princess before she becomes as spoilt as Leopald.'

Beda cast his eyes around the room. The words were becoming treacherously close to sounding like treason and whilst there was much Sir Gareth could and had gotten away with, there were some lines that were forbidden, even to him.

'It's a pity she isn't ugly,' Sir Gareth muttered and Beda raised his eyebrows at that. 'I saw her, when the king proposed. She's a beautiful little thing, dark hair, beautiful dark eyes, pale skin...'

'Just like Eva,' Beda breathed out, feeling sick to his stomach as his eyes met that of his friend.

'And she's a handful of years older than the Princess.'

'He just wants a mother for his daughter,' again, Beda's words lacked any conviction. Sir Gareth merely snorted at the suggestion.

'She's younger than the Haerviu idiot,' he said after a beat, and didn't that sum up the entire monstrosity of the wedding about to take place? How could a girl play mother if she was barely more than a child herself?

'She seems caring. And she cannot be as stupid as the king we have been cursed with, so there might be hope for the kingdom yet,' Sir Gareth grunted out before resolutely turning in his bed to face the wall and presumably sleeping. Beda fell asleep too, but his dreams were plagued by the Battles of the Western Mountains, where the less trained soldiers had run amuck, raping any woman or girl they came across and in his dreams, the faces of all those dastardly soldiers was the face of the king and all those raped bore the face of the young queen-to-be. When he awoke, his bad mood perfectly matched that of his friend and the scowl didn't leave his face for more than a week.

They had no contact with the bride-to-be after that, and Beda wondered how much of that was Sir Gareth's doing. The offering of the protection of the Kingsguard for those about to marry into the royal family had always been optional but maybe the lack of protection offered to the little girl (little woman?) said just as much about how the king felt about her. It did nothing to quieten their fears and only served to make Sir Gareth grumpier than he was wont to be. The guards only ventured forth when the Princess was to be with the bride and she appeared more preoccupied with her clothes and her hair and how she wanted the wedding to be... It left a taste of ashes in both their mouths.

It's the night before the wedding that found Sir Haerviu knocking urgently on their door, his partner, Sir Aédan standing beside him. Sir Haerviu was pale, his green eyes and red hair in stark contrast to his skin, with a greenish tinge to his face that made Beda's hands itch to reach for a basket just in case.

'She's younger than me,' he said without preamble, and there's something akin to shock, maybe a touch of horror in his eyes.

'And she does not wish to marry the king,' Sir Aedan the Patient's low timbre adds. Silence surrounds them for a moment before Sir Aedan speaks again, his voice slow and each word carefully weighted, in keeping with his moniker. 'She came to him, begging him to call the wedding off-'

'She was in tears,' Sir Haerviu added, his youthful voice trembling.

'The king said,' and for the first time, Sir Aedan lets fall his passive mask, showing a disturbed countenance. 'He said that Snow needs a mother, wants her as a mother... She hasn't seen twenty summers yet and he wants the child to play mother to his daughter?'

The silence around them is filled with tension and unease, all eyes focussed on Sir Gareth, the head of the Kingsguard. 'The king is selfish. He cares for naught but himself and his child.' There's no murmur of disagreement and Beda wants to open his lips, utter words of caution that this is venturing into the treason territory but the words are too true. And the origin of the Kingsguard was to protect the kingdom, protecting it from their leaders if necessary. 'She's got a good heart, and she's not stupid. We could train her, teach her to be the Queen the kingdom deserves.'

'And you think the king will allow his little bride to rule in his name?' Sir Aedan asked the question nobody in the room wanted to.

'I think there might come a time when he is far too toxic and dangerous to be allowed to rule. But that decision must be amongst us, and must be unanimous. And when that day comes, we shall rid of him as we must and aid the queen in doing as she must. For the good of the kingdom.'

There's no murmur of agreement; there's only silence but it's damning in the lack of any disagreement and Beda knows that their words, choices, will change the history of the kingdom. He just hopes it's for the better.

It's raining on the day of the wedding and all of the Kingsguard are present, wearing grey cloaks with King Leopold's insigne garishly sewn on. It's less for protection, more of a nasty mixture of blind tradition and a show of power. The newly married Regina, Queen Consort, looks a vision in white, but when she forgets to smile, she looks like a frightened child.

It hadn't taken long for Sir Haerviu to take place near to her. He flashed smiles at her that she struggled to return, muttered salacious details about all the nobles who grovel before her. She gives more genuine smiles at those but the frightened child in the fluffy white dress and jewels too heavy for her age remain, despite it all.

The night wore on, as did the celebrations. The king drank wine happily and heavily, the queen barely touched hers. The princess sat chatting to anyone who would listen, but her preferred spot was by her new stepmother, oblivious to the large frightened eyes, the knuckles that whitened as pale as the dress her hands clutched but Snow, too, was eventually sent off to bed. The bride's mother bid her goodbye, the smile tender and the touch loving as she left but her father was the one with tears in his eyes and leaking unashamedly down his face as he held her tightly to his chest. It was long minutes before he so reluctantly let her go.

The wedding night was to take place, and the little queen's colour seemed to pale even further. As she was led by the ladies to the room, the king followed her and it wasn't hard to notice the way his eyes followed the young bride. They entered the chambers and the doors shut behind them, the babble from the lords and ladies overpowering. Sir Beda and Sir Gareth stood outside the door, forcing their ears deaf to the voices outside as well as within the chambers.

'We might be wrong about the girl,' Beda's voice whispered across to Sir Gareth.

'Yes,' Sir Gareth agreed, scowling at the drunken lords that loitered. Their words were vulgar, talking about a girl that was the same age as their children but that didn't deter them. 'We will protect the kingdom from all threats.' His words drifted back to Beda. 'We'll protect the kingdom from the king and if the queen or the princess threatens it, we'll protect it from them too.' They stood with straight backs and deaf ears, ignoring the sounds from within the bedchambers, and when the king exited the chambers the following morning they refused to look him in the eyes.