Warning: attempted rape, incest, mentions of child abuse and suicide
This was originally going to be smut, but it went dark instead.
It was fitting that Regina was brushing her hair when Zelena first met her, because that was just one of the many things Zelena hated about her. The hair, and just about everything else about the way Regina looked. It was pure Cora, for one, in a way that made Zelena question whether they really were related. And besides that, Regina was beautiful. Just one more reason why everything fell into the younger girl's lap. Zelena had yet to have a single offer of marriage, but Regina was already wed, and to a king, no less.
Zelena flipped open her blade, the one her father had used to shave – just another man who was sure to remind her that she was far from pretty enough. Using it to spill Regina's blood would be the perfect sort of justice.
It took mere seconds to cross the room to Regina's side and press the blade against her throat. The girl stared at her in the mirror, doe-eyed and terrified, and Zelena's lips twisted into a smile.
"Don't scream," she said against Regina's ear. "I can slit your throat faster than your guards can save you." To prove her point, she pressed the blade just slightly harder against Regina's skin, bringing a few beads of blood to the surface and a pained gasp to Regina's lips.
Regina closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing hard against the cold metal. "What do you want?" she whispered as she met Zelena's gaze in the mirror. "Gold? Jewels? Take anything."
Zelena let out a low laugh. "I want you, Regina. I want to destroy you."
She'd expected many things: tears, pleading, but not this. Not Regina lifting her chin, exposing herself more. The posture was defiant, but Regina's eyes looked almost tired. "Do it."
Zelena faltered, her grip slipping on the knife, but she recovered quickly, wrapping her free hand around Regina's neck for good measure. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing."
"I'm not," Regina told her softly. "Go ahead."
"You think this is going to be easy?" That's what Zelena had planned, just to kill her younger sister and be done with it, but not if that was what Regina wanted. "You're going to beg for death by the time I'm done."
Regina turned cautiously, trying to avoid slicing herself against the blade. "Who are you?"
Zelena used the flat of the knife to tilt Regina's chin up and get a better look at her, face to face. While the young queen had been beautiful in the mirror, she was even more striking like this with her dark eyes boring straight into Zelena's. Glancing down, Zelena could see what appeared to be Regina's sole imperfection, the tiny pucker of a scar nearly hidden by her lipstick. "Didn't Cora tell you?" she asked. "I'm Zelena, your sister."
"That's impossible."
"Ask your dear Rumple, then." Zelena grinned maliciously down at her. "If he can recognize you by the time I'm done with that pretty face of yours."
Regina furrowed her brow, not sure what to believe. And Zelena just stared at her, not sure what she wanted to do. She should have struck when Regina was just a pretty doll sitting in the mirror, but now they were face to face and Regina was real, flesh and blood, intelligence and emotion.
Zelena had never killed anyone, barely even hurt anyone. Maybe it was just Regina's beauty playing tricks on her, making this yet another moment when Regina got everything she wanted and Zelena walked away with nothing.
She would not settle for nothing.
Zelena dropped the knife, Regina's eyes widening in surprise as she heard it hit the stone floor. The older girl still had a hand around Regina's neck, however, and she used it to yank the queen out of her chair and kiss her hard.
Regina made what came out as little more than a squeak, freezing for a second before attempting to pull away. Zelena tightened her hold on her sister's neck, catching a hand that was pushing at her shoulder and holding it firmly by the wrist.
"You're not my sister," Regina said, shocked, when Zelena finally came up for air. "A sister wouldn't…"
Zelena pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh, my pretty. Don't make me get the knife again."
"I don't understand," Regina pleaded, glancing down at the knife and then back up at Zelena.
"Oh, Regina, a pretty girl like you doesn't need to understand," Zelena cooed. "She doesn't need to be smart. She gets everything she wants, even when she doesn't deserve it."
"I don't want any of this."
"Well, my pretty, I don't care. Unlike Rumple and Cora and everyone else, I'm not under your spell." Zelena knew she was, at least a little, or Regina would be dead by now.
Instead, she kissed Regina again, harder, forcing her tongue past Regina's lips and exploring roughly. When Regina struggled, Zelena magically bound the girl's hands behind her back.
"If only you were strong enough to counter my spell," Zelena teased.
Regina made a brief attempt to break free, but resigned herself to Zelena's hold with a speed that surprised the older girl. "You're just like her."
Zelena shoved Regina's shoulders, backing her against the vanity. "What's that?"
"Mother," Regina said, lifting her eyes to bore them hard into Zelena's. "Cora."
"I'm not the one with her pretty hair," Zelena pointed out, summoning the knife into her reaching hand. She raised it and cut off a long lock of Regina's dark hair, grinning as she twirled the silky strands between her fingers.
"You have her black magic and her twisted desires," Regina spat out bitterly, voice rising. "You have her heart."
Zelena had her knife to Regina's neck again. Rumple had told her how their mother removed her own heart – he'd made a point to add that this was long after Zelena's birth, that she'd been abandoned while Cora still had the ability to feel. "She had no heart."
Regina just raised an eyebrow and waited until Zelena understood. "There's nothing you can do to me that she hasn't already done."
Zelena smirked, dragging the flat of her blade down over Regina's collarbone and to the front of her simple nightgown. Regina winced when the blade nicked her, but she didn't protest when Zelena began to cut the nightgown open. "I'm sure I can think of something." She cut slowly, reveling in each new inch of flawless skin, until impatience got the better of her and she threw the knife down and ripped the garment with both hands.
Regina wasn't flawless, after all.
She was still beautiful, of course, and Zelena envied the glow of her skin, the perfect curves. But Regina had scars, some so faded that they were clearly from childhood. "She was going to magic them away before my wedding," Regina explained, her voice steady as if she didn't notice that she was naked in front of her sister. "I didn't give her the chance."
Zelena reached out and put her hand on Regina's hip, thumb tracing a particularly long and jagged scar. "You're trying to make me feel sorry for you," she said, pulling her hand away, reminding herself of her reasons for being here. She was going to destroy her sister, take her hard against the vanity, debase her so thoroughly that Regina begged for death.
"You don't know how lucky you are that she let her go."
Zelena slapped her, angry at the mere idea of her being the fortunate sister, and Regina cried out in a way that wasn't quite as satisfying as she hoped. "You have no idea what I've been through. What it's like to be unwanted."
Regina turned her face back towards Zelena, and there was a bit of the spark that the older girl had been hoping for in her eyes. Just a hint of fight. "And everybody wants me," she said, her words bitter this time. "So go ahead. Take what you came here for." With her hands still bound behind her back, Regina took a step closer to Zelena, her bare body brushing against her sister's dress. "Be just like her."
Zelena swallowed hard, and not from the prospect of a pretty girl naked against her. It was one thing for her to want Regina—that she could excuse. They were strangers to each other, and all Zelena wanted to do was rip her apart. But a mother touching her daughter, someone she was meant to protect…
The bile rose in Zelena's throat and she stepped away, dissolving Regina's bonds with a wave of her hands. She'd hoped Regina would pull the ripped garment tighter around her, hide her battered body. Instead, Regina bent down and picked up the knife.
Zelena held up her hands, expecting Regina to attack, to protect herself, but instead the brunette pressed the blade to her wrist. "You're not exactly like her, I suppose," Regina said, staring at the blade and the way it indented her skin. "She never wanted me dead."
"I…" Zelena wasn't quite sure what to say. Ever since she'd learned of Regina's existence, her only thought had been to end it. But the scarred and broken girl in front of her, offering herself up to be killed, was too difficult to hate. Summoning the blade from Regina's hand to her own was so easy that she hardly even realized she'd done so. "I don't want anything from you, Regina."
She left the room the way she came, in a cloud of green smoke, before she could change her mind. Not that she would hurt Regina, but that she would feel more for her. When she returned to her own room, Zelena was glad to see that Rumplestiltskin wasn't there waiting for her with useless words like "be careful what you wish for."
Zelena undressed and stood in front of the mirror, unable to help comparing herself to Regina. She was pale and freckly, but her skin was unblemished. Her adoptive father had always hated her, feared her, even, but he never laid a hand on her.
She turned, looking at herself from all angles, and there was no green anywhere on her body.
