Note: I'm writing this precisely because I have a paper due in eight hours. It may find its way to Sic Semper Tyrannis, though. Unbeta'ed drabble.

Cora believed it every time she told Regina that love is a weakness. That fool Henry, who doted on the child he knew was not his, was proof of that. Each time it crosses her mind, she savours the fact that Regina made a sacrificial lamb of him to satisfy her rage. Regina was fathered by a dark sorcerer who was skilled, ruthless, and desirous of immortality. Regina would be his dark legacy, and as for Cora, the girl would be the perfect weapon for her ascent from an insignificant Lady from the Boondocks. She could have fashioned her so much more easily without Daddy and his indulgence. Seeing Regina's potential for power slowly diminishing because of filial devotion only made her react with deliberate and sustained cruelty toward the girl. How lucky for her that she caught the fool and that man-child before her plans came to ruin. Killing Daniel had proved necessary because Regina had deluded herself into thinking some hogwash about true love. Daniel's devotion to Regina could have kept him alive – lovestruck idiots are so wonderfully pliable and would be useful on many occasions. But, she was perfectly fine with letting Regina think that she lost her true love that night because when she reached in to take her daughter's simple, ungrateful, and devastated heart, she encountered an old magic that even Regina's true father could not defeat. Cora realized that Regina's heart was destined for true love, and letting her live with the untruth that she lost it with Daniel's passing was how her transformation to the Evil Queen began. As Queen, Regina was malevolence incarnate, and Cora could not be prouder of her creation. Committing parricide to curse her enemies to half-lives without the possibility of finding happiness – even both her biological parents would have had to stretch to come up with that. Now, though, Queen Snooty Snow and her sappy ilk were back on the throne, spreading the lie that the erstwhile Queen had been executed in that other world, the one they were trapped in for so long. For Cora, the stain at the mines proved what she sensed from the edges of the Enchanted Forest – Regina was alive and somewhere in the realm. She must find her quickly, and use that sense of failure to reignite her anger. Without the Dark One, people would look for something to fear, they would invent it if necessary, and Regina could very easily fill that need. Cora smiled to herself as she thought of how unlikely that the worst impediment to her plan would find her daughter now – for how could true love find one of the most reviled "dead" monsters this side of magic? Regina's anger and ambition would keep it at bay long enough for Cora to reap the rewards of her many maternal sacrifices.