Robin and his men mostly kept to themselves during those first few weeks in the castle, wary of attracting the wrong sort of attention (the Queen, of course, had already given every indication that they'd long overstayed their welcome as far as she was concerned).

Roland, on the other hand, had no trouble making friends. Within days of their arrival, Leroy had granted him honorary dwarf status, and on the seventh morning he marched right up to sandwich himself between elbows at the royal table, much to Robin's outward chagrin.

(In secret, he found he rather enjoyed the way the Queen would startle and soften, letting Roland sneak crumbs off her plate while she smiled in a way that made it impossible for Robin to look anywhere else.)

His boy was also quite fond of the cats – strays, much like themselves – that roamed the courtyards when the weather permitted. He took to storing small bits of fish in his pockets for them, until Robin, having grown tired of washing out the smell from his clothes, suggested they ask Granny to stock up on some extra containers of cream instead.

They spent many of their afternoons out in those courtyards, Roland practicing his sparrow calls until the cats slunk out of hiding to join him. Robin would relax his weight into the base of a tree, idly whittling arrows from fallen tree branches while his son chattered at his newfound friends. They would mewl and purr contentedly back, rolling belly-up for him to scratch at once they'd had their fill of the milk he brought them.

They mostly tolerated Robin's presence, so long as he sat there quietly; truth be told, he had never considered himself much of a cat person anyway, and he was fairly certain he was at least somewhat allergic to them. Once they'd determined him to be nothing more than a harmless, larger-sized version of Roland, they would come sit near him from time to time, batting at his pile of arrows or rubbing their heads against his forearm when he wasn't paying them enough attention, looking quite taken aback each time that he sneezed.

The majority did not hang around long enough to earn themselves a name, but there were a few regulars: an orange-spotted tabby that Roland took to calling Pepper, a tortoiseshell with prominent brown ears that got nicknamed Pinecone.

One cat in particular would not emerge until the very end of the day, and even then she remained deliberately perched between shadows, just beyond reach of the sun and not a paw more than that. If milk was what she came for, she made no sign of it; rather, she seemed satisfied to stay by her little corner of stone until Robin was forced to grow strict about bedtime, and he would gather a yawning Roland into his arms (reminding the boy of that storybook Queen Regina had lent him when he refused to go easily).

Robin didn't mean to make a habit of it, but each time his gaze would swing back, searching, to just catch the tip of her ebony tail as it slipped behind columns and became one with the night.

He found himself taking notice whenever she joined them, always poised at the very edge where sunlight met darkness, though whether this was done out of caution or simply by choice Robin didn't feel he had any right to say.

She was a curious creature, he thought; stunning, really (…again, not that he usually made a point of thinking such things about cats). Her coat was sleek and satin-like, black through and through with the exception of a thin sliver of white just to the right of her nose. There was a decidedly regal air about her, too. Most evenings she would sit there, unblinking, moving only to lick at her paws in a delicate manner before pressing them primly side-by-side again.

Roland was not one to play favorites, but he seemed to make an exception with her.

He must have sensed the royalty in her as well, taking it upon himself to provide her with only the best that Granny's kitchens had to offer. Robin had already drawn a line with the fish, so Roland insisted on leaving her small dishes of other, less pungent things, juicy slices of roast and spoonfuls of rich, clotted cream for dessert.

(And Robin, sighing, resigned himself to being held responsible for absconding with these extra plates from the table each day, not missing the way the Queen would scowl at him as he walked past her seat in the dining hall.

"For later," he'd smile by way of explaining, never minding the fact that she always acted as though he'd said nothing at all. It was probably better that way.

He couldn't imagine she would approve of them inviting any more strays into her castle.)

The cat, of course, never deigned to touch a thing while they were around, though the food would mysteriously vanish by morning when Roland rose early to check. Pleased as this made him, however, he kept a respectful distance whenever she returned to sit by her pillar in the afternoons, waving shyly to her from across the courtyard before turning his attentions back to the others.

When Robin commented on as much to him, Roland would heave an impressively long-suffering sigh and say nothing but a mysterious, "Papa, be patient," almost in the tone of a scolding.

She didn't appear to care for the other cats any more than she did the humans, eyeing all the Peppers and Pinecones with what Robin could only describe as disdain; and after a few overconfident males made their advances only to be rewarded by a withering stare and a hiss, they learned to leave her alone as well. Her gaze would narrow dangerously whenever the girls came to sprawl themselves over Robin's lap, as though she found it indecent of them, her tail whipping impatiently about until Robin grew restless and shook them gently off.

When the days began to lengthen, the air warming enough to serve as a reprieve from the stuffiness of staying indoors, Roland insisted on moving story time out to the courtyards.

"Then Regina can come too," he declared, stubbornly hopeful as ever. Robin didn't have the heart to say otherwise; he highly doubted that a night spent in his company would be at the very top of her list of enjoyable things to do with her time.

Nevertheless, there they would sit at the base of that old maple tree, the boy and his storybook against the crook of Robin's arm. Together they would thumb through the pages, Roland frequently making them pause to marvel over pictures of dragons while Robin's own thoughts turned to the enchantress who guarded them, cursed to live her life in darkness in order to save the man that she loved.

The other cats, quickly bored by these stories, would slink off to wander other parts of the castle, but she would always stay, her ears twitching on occasion to hear Robin's voice go heavy and soft when the enchantress became gravely injured while trying to protect her dragons from an evil, masked huntsman.

Roland gasped audibly as the man removed his mask and revealed himself to be the very man the enchantress still loved, now under the spell of her rival. The magic invariably lost its hold over him as he gathered her into his arms, and here Roland began to chant, "True love's kiss. True love's kiss!" with his fists pounding the air, emphatic, until Robin turned to page twenty-three.

"I told you that would work," Roland said a moment later, looking pleased as the two of them embraced before riding one of her dragons off into the sunset.

"I didn't doubt it for a second," Robin replied, shifting his gaze toward the shadows again. The cat had gotten comfortable while he read to them, curling herself into a little black ball with her chin tucked over the length of one paw. Her eyes were half-closed, but they drew fully open again, wide and alert, when she sensed him watching her.

"What shall we name this one?" Robin wanted to know, cautiously nudging a leftover saucer of cream forward while she stared, unmoving, at him from her post several yards away. "Midnight? Black Beauty?"

Her expression grew even more dour, if that were possible, giving off the air of one thoroughly unimpressed by all his suggestions.

"She already has a name," frowned Roland, clearly perplexed as to why he would need to point out such an obvious thing. Bemused, Robin turned to scrutinize the cat as though she might answer, and she immediately stretched and turned, tail flicking haughtily upward at him as she stalked back into the shadows.

Still they fell into an easy routine, the three of them, making their way through the Queen's storybook while the cat settled into her regular spot and the sun took a leisurely dip behind the walls of the courtyard. Once Robin even thought she might have fallen asleep, but Roland was adamant – almost to the point of combative – when Robin made as though to approach her.

"No, Papa," he whispered urgently, and Robin, sighing, retreated before she could wake up and catch on to what he'd been planning.

As it was, the first time they made an official acquaintance of sorts did not happen entirely on her terms, either. It was a sweltering day, for the tail end of winter, and while the heat only seemed to fuel Roland's energy, Robin felt his mind straying further than usual, his eyelids drifting closed, closed…

If the sudden thumping sounds weren't enough to drag him out of his drowsy state, then the sensation of something very cold and very wet pressing into his cheek certainly did the trick. Robin jerked awake to find the cat glowering down her nose at him while his son sat clumsily on the ground just behind her. Roland's face was screwed tight with the effort not to burst into tears, and he was holding his ankle remarkably still, the skin around it already swollen and purple.

"I stepped on it funny," said Roland in a trembling voice, and the cat sidled up to him with a plaintive little yowl. Momentarily sidetracked, he reached out to pat her on the head, and she warmed to his touch in an instant, back arching, face nuzzling into the palm of his hand.

"Thank you," Robin told her, and she froze to look up at him, evidently taken aback by what he'd just said. She eyed him warily as he bent to scoop up Roland, giving her a crooked half-smile before rushing his son indoors to tend to that ankle.

(He made it about as far as the drawing room when the Queen happened upon them, her lips pursing rather aggressively together at Robin's rueful expression and Roland's pitiful cry. She moved brusquely forward while Robin set his son down onto the nearest chaise, but then her face turned uncommonly gentle, her hands looking soft as they reached to examine the extent of his injuries.

She glanced up at Robin, as though to ask his permission for something. The light did not bloom from her fingers until he nodded in quiet consent, and he watched as the puffiness slowly faded away, Roland giving his ankle an experimental roll before beaming brightly up at them both.

"Milady," Robin broke in when the Queen made to leave, and they were each startled to find that his hand had closed over her wrist, holding her there as gingerly as she had Roland's ankle.

She blinked at him, waiting, but what he felt extended beyond just gratitude then, and he could hardly muster the words before she began to look impatient with him again and shook herself free of his grasp.)

While the incident hadn't endeared him any more to the Queen, the cat in the courtyard seemed to find him slightly less intolerable now, or at the very least decided she ought to keep a closer eye on them for Roland's sake. The following afternoon as they pulled their storybook out, she ambled over to Robin's other side, sitting just near enough that she could peer past his arm to look at the pages herself if she wished it.

"You're allowed to get closer, you know," he told her, which she (predictably) ignored.

In fact, for all that she'd chosen to sit next to him, he may as well have been any other tree stump or stone in the courtyard, given how minimally she seemed to react toward his presence. When he shifted around to get more comfortable, his knee brushed past her and she gave a small start, lifting a paw in an alarmed sort of fashion as though she'd only just noticed him there.

He bit back his smile while she proceeded to clean herself like nothing had happened, licking her paws and rubbing them over her ears, each cheek, the corners of those orb-like eyes. Otherwise she would hold herself very still as he read to them (he liked to think she was only pretending not to listen, anyway). It was a tale about ogres this time, and the princess who found herself lost in their swamps, eventually falling into a most unlikely romance with one of them – much to the kingdom's horror, of course.

"Will the ogre turn into a prince?" Roland wanted to know, and he held his breath as they flipped to the following page, where True Love's Kiss awaited their heroine.

"Papa," he exclaimed next, looking delighted as the princess began to transform into something hideous, green and distinctly ogre-like.

"For as you can see," Robin continued aloud, "beauty lies in the eye of its beholder, and their love would never know any boundaries, no matter which form they took." Roland sat back, appearing to think very hard about the lessons to be had with this particular tale. Meanwhile, Robin reached absentmindedly to pet the cat beside him, forgetting for a moment that this wasn't a perfectly normal thing that they did.

He was startled to hear her purring.

"You've a soft spot for these love stories, don't you?" he murmured, moving his palm around the side of her neck before daring to scratch beneath her chin next. She stretched to meet his touch, eyes closing into content little slits. "If I didn't know better, I'd say there's a bit more warmth to your heart than you'd have liked me to believe."

She cracked open one eye on a withering glare, but she let him go on petting her for several more minutes before deciding she'd had enough for the day. Shaking herself loose from his arm, she abruptly stood with a stretch, pointedly turning her backside to him as she strutted off.

"Heartbreaker, that one," Robin remarked, closing up their storybook.

Roland only giggled as he set out a bowl of apple-smoked pheasant he'd readied for her, the scent of it infusing the air. It occurred to Robin then that he could actually breathe through his nose again, that his eyes had neither itched nor watered once that evening, and he smiled.

…

Robin was just as disappointed as his son to find that they were nearing the last of the stories. The majority of his day was taken up by countless meetings about witches and a dwindling larder (the tedium broken only by the Queen's determined hostility toward anyone who so much as breathed the wrong way, while Robin struggled to hide his amusement from her). More often than not the meetings accomplished very little despite the hours put into them, and so he looked forward to these lazy afternoon rituals of reading by their tree.

"Hello, darling," he'd greet her when the cat would slink across the courtyard to join them, somehow managing all the while to give off the air that she'd only done so by coincidence.

Still, with each passing day she seemed to bother less and less with maintaining such a front of indifference with him, even utilizing his body as a step ladder on her way to settle in Roland's lap (the boy cuddled her close to his chest without missing a beat, as though it were the most natural thing to do in the world). Robin made a dramatic oofing sound each time, though he hardly minded the extra weight, and she made for an instinctive resting place for his hand in between page turns, her fur inordinately soft and her belly a pleasant hum of motion against his palm and fingertips.

Upon reaching the book's final page, there was a moment of stillness before they both turned expectant expressions up at Robin.

"Until tomorrow," he promised, and the cat even bumped her nose into the inside of his hand as he and Roland stood, each of them taking time to stretch out their limbs as though they might make the evening last a bit longer.

(True to Robin's word, that evening found him lingering outside the Queen's private study, quietly enjoying how the candlelight played with her features until she noticed him standing there. She set her quill down on the ledger she'd been perusing, eyebrow at a delicate arch as she looked him over.

"I'm sorry, I must not have heard you knock," she remarked at last, tone dry.

He smiled, pushing his shoulder off of the doorframe. "I didn't."

She let out a sigh, but the look she gave him seemed more akin to exasperation than one of genuine displeasure with him. He approached her without reservation, setting the storybook she'd lent him down beside a sheaf of overturned papers and another feathered quill, its tip still half-glistening with a vibrant gold ink.

"I've come to return this."

She trailed a hand over the cover before asking in a neutral manner, "I trust you made good use of it?"

"I did, thank you."

"And I expect you've come for another?"

"I have."

The Queen rose from her chair, moving toward an empty stand of shelves by her desk with the air of one who'd been greatly inconvenienced by his request. She slid the storybook back in place about a third of the way across one unoccupied shelf, and the spine of it shimmered before simply vanishing into nothing. The Queen stood there, contemplating for a long moment, fingers dancing over titles he could not see, careful in a way that seemed out of proportion to the impatience she'd just shown with him.

Robin had schooled his face into something bland again by the time she turned around and pressed her selection into his hands. It was significantly older than the last book, the corners frayed, its leather binding worn and soft. The gold embossment had faded with use such that it was nearly impossible to make out a name, but there was no denying the weight of it, the magical properties it must contain within its pages.

He could almost swear he felt the book give a quiver before resettling into his arms, startling him before he could mask his surprise.

"It's not dangerous," the Queen interjected needlessly, having misread the look on his face. Her shoulders turned to rigid squares, back straightening in a way that let him know she expected some sort of objection from him.

Robin tucked the book against his chest, holding her gaze steady with his. She stared obstinately back while he let his expression soften, the silence gentling into something almost wondering between them until he felt he had neither the will nor the inclination to ever look away. "You know Your Majesty is always welcome, if you'd care to join us."

She blinked, clearly caught more off guard than he'd planned, and her head tilted almost imperceptibly at him, like he was some riddle she couldn't quite solve. He kept his smile friendly, not wishing to press her, and a warmth began to spread in him as she pursed her lips and allowed a stiff "Perhaps sometime" while resuming her seat behind a stack of ledgers.

"Well," said Robin lightly, trailing a finger along the grooved lines of her desk, "I think tomorrow is as good a 'sometime' as any, don't you?"

She jerked her head back up at that, lips half-parted as she stared at him, speechless, clearly thrown by all the liberties he seemed to be taking with her today. The moment was short-lived, lasting hardly more than a second, but she'd paused long enough for him to take nothing less as her answer.

"I look forward to it," he told her as she swiftly went back to ignoring him, glaring hard at the papers in front of her. She lifted her quill again, poised over her scrolls though she made no move to write a word, and there he thought it best to let her stew over things as she pleased, excusing himself with another smile that refused to abate all the way back to his quarters.)

…

Roland could not sit still in his excitement when Robin presented him with their new book the following day, marveling at its heaviness even as it nearly toppled him over. "There must be hundreds of stories inside, Papa!" He touched the front cover with a reverent hand, clearly itching to take a peek.

"Our friend has yet to arrive," Robin pointed out, gesturing across the courtyard at the unattended pillars. Roland instantly snatched his hand back, looking put out by the fact that Robin had thought he needed reminding. "She may be disappointed to find that we've started without her."

"She'll be here soon, Papa," said Roland, in such a reassuring tone that Robin was startled to realize he hadn't been so sure of it himself.

They preoccupied themselves with the other cats as they waited, Roland playfully batting around a spool of twine to engage them while Robin fended off Pepper, who had gotten very interested in the strips of quail breast he had stored in his pocket.

"I'm afraid these have already been spoken for," he said, gently extracting Pepper's claws from his clothes as his gaze found its way back to the pillars yet another time.

Still she did not appear, and as the remaining cats drifted off, the sun now streaking everything in reddish golds and browns, Robin began again to doubt. He heard his voice growing more and more distant in response to Roland each time the boy pointed out a new shade of sunset he'd just discovered, or another sprouting bud on the rose bushes.

Perhaps it had been hopeful of him to expect anything different.

He wondered why it mattered so much.

It wasn't as though they were friends, not really; more like sometimes-civil acquaintances who happened to occupy the spaces adjacent to one another every once in a while.

Sighing, he bent to pick up her storybook. It shivered again the moment his fingers came in contact with its cover, upsetting the pile of freshly carved arrows that had accumulated there. Roland paused in his current task of plucking wildflowers along the courtyard perimeter to watch as Robin began to pack the rest of their things, offering his boy a rueful half-smile to signal their bedtime.

"Okay, Papa," was all Roland said, and he dutifully went to retrieve his spools, some of which had gotten lodged beneath the rose bushes. He flattened himself belly-down to the ground (Robin tried valiantly not to picture how the Queen would disapprove of such a sight), briefly obscured from view as he wriggled and reached under the branches again.

At that exact moment, Robin looked up to see her nose peeking out at him from between the pillars.

She stared at him with those large, inscrutable eyes, one paw poised mid-air as though something had prevented her from taking another step forward.

Truthfully, Robin did not think she would care to approach him without Roland as some buffer between them, busy as the boy was with unearthing the rest of his spools. Still he smiled at her, perhaps a little more freely than usual as he set her saucer of cream back down in case she elected to join him after all.

"We were waiting for you," he called to her, hefting the book as she seemed to consider him. "I think we've time for at least one story, yeah?"

"Yeah!" came Roland's voice, muffled in the leaves as he successfully scooped out another ball of twine.

Her eyes never strayed from Robin's, and after several seconds of silence stretched on, he let his gaze drop down to the book again, thinking to give her a bit more room to decide what she wanted.

There was more deliberation in her step than before as she neared, an openly inquisitive air to the way she regarded him up close when he turned sideways to greet her, reaching to smooth back the fur between her ears.

"There's my girl," he murmured, running his hand along the arch of her spine as she moved to examine his offering, giving it a very careful sniff.

"It's not poisoned, if that's what you're implying," he told her when she looked suspiciously up at him. "Honestly, I'm offended you would think such a thing."

She stared at his pockets next, as though she knew exactly what he'd stowed away in them, and he felt his grin slip into something sheepish when she pointedly gave them a very wide berth.

She surprised him then by jumping onto his lap, his hand reaching on instinct to touch her back and steady her landing. Pressing her two front paws into his chest, she stretched with her whole body until her nose came into contact with the underside of his jaw. He pulled a face at the sensation, though it was not an entirely unpleasant one, and he resisted the natural impulse to laugh when her whiskers dragged over his stubble to find the more sensitive spots of his skin.

"So we are friends, then." He scratched at her neck while she carried on sniffing him. "You know, I've been told that I smell like forest." She paused only a moment before she resumed her exploring, paws kneading into him as she put her nose into his tunic collar next. "Something tells me you don't mind it as much."

Roland was making his way over to them, arms full with his cat toys and the stray bits of dirt and foliage they'd picked up from their tumble on the ground. With a wide grin, he leaned forward, losing half his spools as he went, to plant a loud mwah! onto her forehead. She briefly touched a paw to his cheek in an unmistakable gesture of affection, letting out a low, happy mrrow as the boy took a seat beside them.

Robin half-expected her to abandon her perch on his chest now that Roland had returned, but she only settled more comfortably against him, half-curled into his middle with her paws tucked underneath her body.

Her eyes closed, everything humming as he stroked her fur and tickled that spot she favored behind her ears again.

"It's a shame Her Majesty never took me up on my invitation to join us," he remarked in an offhand fashion, moving to spread the book open across his lap. "Too busy scowling at everyone in sight, I would imagine."

"No, Papa," Roland disagreed, a very serious frown pinching his entire face together, "just you."

"Thank you for that, my boy," Robin replied wryly while she began to flick her tail about, an irritable thwip, thwip, thwip against the pages, though to her credit she did not open her eyes to glare at him again.

He flipped to the first story with a solemn "Your wish is my command," and if a cat had the ability to sigh at him, he didn't doubt that she would have done so right then.

The moment he began to read aloud, he understood why the book had such a heavy feel to it, what had possessed it to shake and pulse whenever it had been neglected too long.

It was, quite literally, filled with magic.

No sooner had he uttered a "Once upon a time…" than the words sparked off of the page, bright scripted gold that lit up the air before burning out in a dazzling crackle.

"Well that's going to be very distracting," Robin commented (smiling when the cat appeared to bristle impatiently at him), but the following lines remained firmly affixed to the page.

As he read on, however, the story began to take on a new sort of life, unfolding before their eyes in perfect tandem with Robin's telling of it. A single brown bean suddenly popped out between pages, rolling to plunk and bury itself into the soil by their feet. A green shoot sprouted upward moments later, the cat yowling unhappily when Robin was forced to make room and nearly knocked her out of his lap.

"Apologies, sweetheart." He cradled an arm around the length of her body, scooting her further up onto his chest while maneuvering Roland and the book away from an over-enthusiastically shooting stem. He wouldn't put it past the thing to tear straight through whatever lay in its path, limbs or parchment or otherwise.

"Whoaa," said Roland as he took in the scene, sitting up on his heels to better investigate this wondrous new shrub (careful not to put his face too close to the little snapping leaves when both Robin and the cat turned sternly matching expressions on him).

Astonishingly, she did not appear to mind having been jostled about, only stretching her front legs around either side of Robin's neck before resting a paw over the fold of his collar. Her eyes blinked open, once, when he nudged his chin over her forehead, and then they were shutting again, his entire chest vibrating now where she'd half-sprawled herself over him.

"Papa," Roland reminded when the plant sprouted half of another bud and then seemed to stall, as though waiting on further instructions.

Clearing his throat, Robin gave an apologetic "Yes, of course," as he resumed reading. On cue, a miniature Jack about the size of Robin's thumb appeared over the toe of his boot, hauling himself up by the laces, scrabbling over the page they'd just turned to and making a spectacular jump onto one of the rapidly growing stalks as it swayed overhead.

"That's so cool!" Roland exclaimed – a phrase that Leroy had taught him, no doubt, one that struck a foreign chord and yet rang true as something any excited young boy would say.

She quietened then, her purring subdued by a degree that Robin felt more than he heard. He drew her closer, freeing his other arm to surround her cheek with his palm, rubbing his thumb over her forehead, fingertips circling around to stroke at the other side of her neck, until she seemed to let go of something and relaxed into him again.

Miniature Jack turned, saluting to Roland before disappearing into a puff of cloud that had accumulated roughly shoulder-level with them. Through the fog they heard the sounds of mischief being made, and then Jack was scuttling back down the beanstalk with a handsome sackful of coins and a finger held to his mouth as he winked at them.

"Hmm," said Roland, looking deeply perturbed about something.

Twice more they watched Jack return, descending each time with treasure more splendid than the last: a golden goose egg the size of a pea, and then a harp with strings that played of their own accord, serenading them all with sweetly tinkling tunes while Jack tiptoed his way back home.

Roland let out a delighted gasp when the unmistakable roar of a giant shook through the clouds, which began to darken ominously as the yells made way for claps of thunder. A pocket-sized bolt of lightning zapped through the air then, singeing a charred little hole through the book (before Robin could so much as wince at the damages, however, the pages had already repaired themselves, the burnt bits disintegrating as the torn parts resealed).

And then it began to rain.

Robin's first instinct was to throw out his cloak as a shield – there wasn't a doubt in his mind that she would prefer not to look like a drowned cat if she could help it – but they remained blessedly dry as the raindrops landed, some abruptly diverting themselves mid-plunge to avoid splashing onto them.

Wide-eyed with wonder, Roland extended a hand to see if he could chase the storm even further away, looking positively elated when the rain was successful in evading his every move. He gave the cloud an experimental poke, gulping down a scandalized "Oops!" when a piece of it broke off and drifted, dumping rain onto Miniature Jack just as he reached the front door of his tiny straw house.

"Oi!" came the squeaky, petulant voice of Jack, shaking a fist at them before hauling his magical harp inside. The instrument landed with an operatic thunk against both sides of the doorframe, chiming innocently away while Jack grunted and turned red in the face from his attempts to dislodge it.

"Well my papa says it's not right to steal," Roland countered loudly, looking very indignant. "Except when it's for helping somebody else!"

Robin bent to hide a smile in her fur, giving Roland his moment to take over the story. Her purring had grown louder, and he thought he'd never seen her so content as this, letting him hold her while the dramatic little storm raged on up ahead.

He turned another page, and a warty green foot emerged from one of the clouds, stepping blindly onto a limb of the stalk for purchase. Distracted from his scolding, Roland watched in rapt attention as the giant – a remarkably hideous thing, with a veiny, protuberant nose and thick tufts of hair sprouting from every imaginable surface of his body – began trundling down the beanstalk, howling his fury about his stolen possessions.

Jack was looking very frantic now, shouting something into the house about retrieving his axe so that he might bury the monster once and for all.

"Oh, no," said Roland, aghast.

Robin gave a small wince, hoping the giant would not meet too visibly gruesome an end. Despite having heard this particular version of Jack's tale numerous times before, he'd never given much thought to the matter of which was the story's true villain – if any at all – until now, and it hardly seemed fair that this giant should be written off in such an unforgiving way.

He'd spotted Jack's house from his perch on the beanstalk, growling out an aggrieved sound to see the lad manhandling his harp. As though sensing its true owner nearby, it began to pluck out a more forlorn tune, its playfulness from earlier giving way to something longing and melancholy.

Roland straightened, his little chest expanding with the air of one determined to set things right, and before Robin could so much as open his mouth – whether to dissuade him or to cheer him on was as yet still unclear to him – the boy had bent resolutely down to remove the harp from Jack's unsuspecting grasp.

"This is not for you," Roland said in a firm tone, gingerly lifting the harp between two fingers and returning it to the giant with a winning smile.

"I'm not sure that's how the story goes, my boy," Robin tried to tell him at last, as gently as he could manage, realizing how truly ridiculous he sounded the moment he could not take back the words.

Slowly, as though a jar of obliterating ink had been spilled at the top of the page, the gleaming golden script began to smear at the corners before dripping downward, pooling at the bottom edges until the rest of the story had been wiped clean.

Roland looked guiltily up at them, but Robin rather thought he'd never felt prouder. He smiled, pointing out where the leftover words had formed little glinting beads on the grass, dotting his bootlaces, some even finding their way onto her fur until she fairly glittered from it.

There was an unreadable look on her face as she surveyed the scene, suddenly alert, starting only a little when Robin tried to rub some of the drying bits of ink out of her back paws.

The giant, who was looking about as stunned as Jack did just then, could only blink stupidly at Roland for several long seconds. The harp, meanwhile, had brightened considerably; it picked up the pace of its tune, sounding perfectly cheerful again as the giant clutched it to his chest and continued staring at each of them in turn – all of them giants in their own right too, Robin supposed.

Roland had gathered as many of the gold ink blots as he could find, rolling them into a ball to rival the size of the stolen goose egg. With great care, he offered it to the giant, who accepted it from him with a speechless, dumbfounded expression.

The giant jabbed at his chest and garbled out a grunting noise, which Roland evidently took to be his name, grinning and introducing himself in turn with an earnest, "It's very nice to meet you!"

The giant beamed back at him, his beard expanding into some craggy, toothless approximation of a smile, and then he was nodding jerkily to them in farewell, ascending the beanstalk with his newfound treasure in hand.

They watched him pause with his head just touching the clouds, appearing to marvel at this uncharted freedom. Robin wondered how many times he'd been forced to relive that first fate he'd been given, in this tale that was – he hoped – no longer Jack's alone to tell.

The harp struck a more resonant chord, cascading loose in a series of crystal-like sounds, and Robin closed his eyes for a moment, feeling nothing else but that rumbling warmth over his chest and belly, the unbelievable softness at the tips of his fingers and palm.

Once the giant was safely back inside his cloud, he reached a knobbly hand down to grip around the beanstalk, yanking it up by the roots with a force that traveled, unearthing dirt in all directions and pulling the ground out from beneath Jack's feet as his straw abode began to teeter.

"The end!" crowed Roland, and he turned to regard Robin with a smugness not at all unlike the way the Queen often chose to look at him.

"That was quite the story," Robin agreed, "and quite the book that Her Majesty lent us. I'll be sure to give her a proper thank you when I see her next."

Some of the heat in his chest abated a bit as she stretched and stood, front paws kneading down his torso until she'd perched herself daintily back onto his thigh. Warmth of a different kind began to spread when she blinked up at him, content, looking languid and unrestrained in a way that he'd never thought possible with him.

He idly thumbed the bony parts of one paw, smoothing down her fur, feeling the velvet-like pads at the bottom. She retracted her claws from him each time he eased them out, finally pressing her paw against the center of his palm in a reproachful manner, stilling his movements.

He closed his fingers around her, careful to leave her the space to swat him off if she wished it, but she only turned away again, evidently concluding that he and his peculiarities simply could not be helped.

Roland, meanwhile, was sneaking a furtive peek at the pages ahead, the wealth of stories as yet untold. A grubby hand belonging to some sort of gnome took a lazy swipe at him as he darted between tales, a fox's nose attempting to nuzzle its way out of another chapter that he flipped to with a curious eye.

It was considerably tempting to read just one more (Roland already turning to fix them both with a hopeful expression), to wait out the last bit of sun and welcome the twilight as the first of its stars popped to life. Stalling, Robin traced a lazy pattern over the length of her tail, now draped over his forearm in a way that made him loath to move.

She'd resumed her purring, appearing satisfied to leave matters in his hands for a while longer, but then he caught Roland trying to muffle a yawn while coaxing a just-hatched dragon back inside its egg.

"Shall we save the rest for another day?" Robin asked, giving Roland's curls a good ruffle as the boy nodded his head in agreement. "Perhaps someone will even let us start at a reasonable hour tomorrow." He bit into his lower lip when he sensed her spine stiffen, the fur there prickling beneath his touch, and he found he couldn't help himself, adding a very grave-sounding, "These stories certainly aren't going to rewrite themselves."

His gentle teasing stirred her into motion once more, and she leapt gracefully from his lap to land, soundless, onto the ground where the giant had reclaimed his beanstalk some moments before. She didn't spare him another glance – not that Robin had expected it of her – but her tail brushed up against his knee in passing, lingering there before she sashayed off.

"Until we meet again, then," he called after her as the pillars and shadows swallowed her whole, his voice unbearably light now from the sound of his smiling. "Your Majesty."

…

She was making herself look busy, tidying various ink bottles and stacked rolls of parchment on her desk when he returned to her that evening after putting Roland to bed.

"You can't possibly have finished that book already." She looked the perfect picture of skepticism, wine-red lips curled up at one corner, that damnable eyebrow of hers cocked permanently skyward at him. But he felt her uncertainty in the half-softened edge of her words, the way her hands would not stop fiddling, and he thought it wouldn't hurt to humor her another moment longer.

"Indeed not." Robin lifted his own hands, free of any storybooks and injured ankles, disagreeable felines and other excuses to be near her like this. His smile gentled when she could only blink at him, not bothering this time to mask her confusion with the usual level of ire she reserved for his benefit.

"So what is it you want from me, thief?"

"Well," Robin started, navigating with great care around the corners of her desk to join her on the other side, "as you very well know, I was hoping to entertain a certain individual's company tonight." He kept his tone mild, unguarded, mindful of the way she'd all but frozen to see him approach her so boldly without invitation.

"I was attending to other…things." She gestured dismissively at the pristine state of her desk, the objects there that did not look a hair out of place from what he'd last seen of them just the day prior.

"Yes, it certainly appears that way," he said to her, very seriously, his grin going lopsided when her lips thinned together.

She seemed determined to act as though he were no more than a floor lamp or some other thing happening to occupy space in the room, now that he stood there without the boundaries of her workspace between them. Clearing her throat, she raised a lofty hand to straighten some quills, looking indifferently anywhere but him.

Still, she'd shown no immediate signs of pulling away, and he shifted closer, his movements easy and untroubled, leaning past her to toy with a glass vial near the edge of her desk.

He sensed her still as their shoulders brushed together, powerfully aware of the sharpness in each breath that she took, his own gaze growing heavy to take in the sight of her like this. Half-wary, half-open, with something like shyness in the way that she held herself just within reach.

"What's this?" His words were but a gravel-like murmur as he turned the bottle over in his hand, examining its molten gold contents.

"It's just ink," she told him, with a not-quite-scowl meant to thwart any more of his questions, and she reached to tug the bottle back by its little round stopper. When he failed to let go of it their fingers caught, the shock of contact suspending the two of them in place.

"It looks magical," he observed, watching her gaze fixate on their hands as they lowered, together, back to the table.

"It…serves its purpose," she allowed, with something that resembled a smile showing through, small and secretive and strangely wistful in a way that twinged deep in his chest. Her voice had lost that last edge of hardness to it, and without it she sounded almost exposed, seductive for her teasing coyness, cautiously inviting him in.

He moved over her, cheek just grazing her temple as his chin angled downward, drawn into her as much as he thought she'd permit for the moment. He felt her stir against him, her silky-smooth hair where it tickled his nose, the shallow warmth of her exhales touching his neck and the open vee of chest at his collar.

She shivered when he lifted his other hand, fingers tangling with the curls she'd swept over one bared shoulder.

"There," he said a moment later, voice rough as he liberated a wayward gold bead that had matted itself in her hair. "Curious, how that might have gotten there."

Their eyes locked, her expression a blend of dismay and half-breathless anticipation, everything suddenly still between them.

He reached for her again, cradling the side of her neck in his palm. His fingertips curled to grasp at her hair, brushing a thumb across her cheekbone with a tenderness that seemed to make her breath catch again.

Their noses touched.

"Regina," he murmured.

Her lashes fluttered at the sound, a sultry heat to her gaze that threatened to wind him.

She learned forward as he slanted his mouth against hers, firm and reckless and utterly incapable of holding himself back any longer. Her arms rose, bracing, to flatten her palms over his chest as though to push him away, but then they pressed upward, fingertips skimming the length of his neck, his jawline. She sighed into his mouth, the sound of it so very irresistible to him, and he deepened the kiss, groaning low in his throat when their tongues came together.

Abandoning any last sense of restraint, he wrapped his other arm around to embrace her more fully, cupping the back of her head and angling her sideways while everything in her unwound for him. The lines of her body relaxed inch by inch to fit against his, her spine arching beneath his touch to better pull him down into her.

Robin gathered her closer in kind, feeling her lighten and ground him in place all at once. She hummed into his mouth, stretching to meet him until he'd nearly bent her backwards over the table, his hands roaming and gripping and savoring the way she sparked and set fire to everything that he had.

Gods but did he burn for her.

His lips moved over hers, hungry, heated, and the rest of him followed as their bodies pressed and coursed together, the pressure between them building to some exquisite degree. He lowered his hand to the small of her back, anchoring her to him with his other hand fisted deep in her hair, and she surged upward, bending easily to his will.

He ached to know how much of herself she had opened to him, how vulnerable she'd let him make her. Still, there was that strength – that temper, as vital as any pulse – that Robin so admired in her, a power that could scorch the earth or make worlds turn in equal measure.

He longed for nothing more than to hold her close while everything swayed and spun around them.

She tugged his bottom lip between her teeth and bit down, gently demanding, and he nearly lost himself with another strangled groan. Their kisses slowed to something sensual then, lazy passes of tongue amidst ragged moans and quiet, broken gasps for air until he was half-senseless in his desire for her.

They parted a moment to take each other in, every last inch of him weighted with want at the sight of her undoing. Her chest rose and fell against his, heavy and hitching ever so slightly, and it took a monumental effort not to steal what he could from her again in that regard. As it was, he hadn't quite recovered himself, and so he settled for nudging his nose into hers, mouth quirking up in a drowsy half-smile when she raised her eyes to lock with his.

She looked uncommonly soft as she blinked at him, her lips full and inviting in a way that he could not refuse. He stooped to press a kiss at one corner, lingering there to trail another down her throat, and Regina made a sound not at all unlike a purr as his hold on her tightened.

He was sorely tempted to tease her for it, the ruses and the haughty airs, the failed attempts at keeping her distance when she had thought him none the wiser. But there would be all the time for that yet, to tell of these things and whatever came after, for theirs was a story that had – at long last – just begun.