Could be. I am expecting it to be another fairytale character though. Honestly, if it wasn’t for that travesty of a “backstory” for Maleficent, this would have been an awesome time for this story to be about how Regina met and became friends/enemies with her. I remember people once speculated Maleficent was once her fairy godmother :/ If its Daniel, that’s cool too, but we already know how that story ends so I don’t think it’ll be him for that reason but it could be.
It sounds like the story is mostly set when Regina was ‘young, pure and innocent’. So I doubt she was friends with anyone shady – unless of course, it was someone who later developed into a villain. If it was someone other than Daniel who was a nice person, I can’t help but think that we’d have heard of them. Regina didn’t seem to have many people in her life at that stage. A good friend would have been a HUGE supporting factor for her. That’s why I can’t get past Daniel. Either way, reading about Regina developing a friendship will definitely be interesting.