For Regina, today was a day like any other day. Get up, have breakfast, go to her office, do paperwork, visit her daughter in the stables at lunch, check on her crops, go back to her office, convince herself that what she was doing would matter somehow, someday...the only real variation was whether she succeeded or failed. If she succeeded, she might indulge in a midnight gallop on horseback. If she failed, it was the sauna or a knock on the wall.

She wouldn't even have stopped in the cafe, except that she heard Vax slurring something about his birthday. No one ever wanted her at parties, but he was helping her in the fields and she ought to at least wish him a--

Oh dear.

"The royal we, is it?" Regina felt every minute of her three quarters of a century looking at him there. Maternal impulse overwhelmed her reserve such that she reached out and brushed a hand over his hair. "It must be bad. I don't use it and I am a queen."