Weakness
By walutahanga
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine.
Warnings: There's some non-consensual sex towards the end. Zedd's not a nice guy.
Summery: Zedd and Rita had a history before she went into the Dumpster. This is my attempt to fill in a few gaps in canon.
Rita had been Zedd's most favoured concubine.
It had been her that saved him from the zeo crystal's wrath, using her magic to hold his body together and force it into some hideous semblance of life. She had been the only woman to carry his seed to term following that terrible disfigurement. All his other concubines had miscarried or still-birthed, but Rita had used her magic to keep Zedd's son within her womb until he could be born safely. Saving Zedd had ensured her favour, but Thrax's birth had catapulted her from the hundreds of beautiful, dark-haired women filling Zedd's harem to Empress in all but name.
She had razed a thousand worlds on Zedd's command, carrying out his orders willingly and eagerly, outdoing even his highest expectations. Back then, she'd been a ruthless force bent on destruction. Her beauty had been matched only by her ambition. She'd burned with an inner fire of hate and malice. She had been magnificent.
"Conquer earth," Zedd had told her as she knelt before him in his throne room. Their son, Thrax, had stood on Zedd's right, careful to show none of his approval as this honour was bestowed upon his mother.
"Yes, my lord," Rita had rasped in her smoky, seductive voice, eyelashes lowered.
"It will be dangerous," Zedd had said. "Zordon has chosen earth as his stronghold. Defeating him will be hard."
"I can do it, my lord," Rita had assured him. "I will destroy this thorn in your side, and present earth to you."
"You had better," Zedd had said with a hint of a warning. "Goldar will go with you. He will help you defeat Zordon."
And to ensure her loyalty, though there'd been no need to say it. They'd both understood the rules of the game they played. Rita had bowed her head.
"My deepest thanks, my lord."
"One more thing." Zedd had reached out, touched her lip with his thumb. "Do this for me, and I will marry you."
Shocked whispers had travelled through the thone room. The male lords had looked thoughtful, calculating. This marriage would further legitimize Thrax's claim to the throne. A few of the female lords had looked thwarted as their own chances of securing the throne vanished. The few concubines present had looked horrified. The rise of an Empress might well mean an end to the harem and those who dwelt within it. It was doubtful that Rita would tolerate rivals, even former ones.
Rita's eyes had lit up with calculating greed and she'd kissed Zedd's ring.
"As you wish, my lord," she'd said. "I shall return with Zordon's head!"
"No need," he'd said benevolently. "A hand or a finger will do as well."
Her soft, delighted laughter had sent a thrill down his spine. He had thought at that moment, that he could perhaps come to have a glimmering of appreciation for the concept of love.
It would be the last time he'd see her for ten thousand years.
After Rita's defeat, Zedd spent a whole year on earth. He tried magic and alchemy and finally brute force, but the dumpster wouldn't open. He'd once thought that being flayed alive by the Zeo crystal was the worst torment anyone could undergo. He now knew better. Having Rita so close – just out of reach – and being unable to get to her, this was true torment.
Thrax was the one to finally convince him to return to the Zedd Empire. His son could have used his absence to consolidate his hold on the throne, and Zedd was both touched and disappointed that he hadn't. Plainly he and Rita had invested too much affection in this son of theirs. Rita had an excuse – she was only a woman. But Zedd should have known better. He focused his attention on the throne and the lords who'd grown too bold in his absence, and immersed himself in power struggles.
He kept visiting earth, though. Not often. Once every century or so, when it drew close to the anniversary of Rita's defeat. Quietly, discretely, always wearing a human guise prepared by one of his senior concubines, Jinta, who specialised the magics of disguise and illusion. She had become his most favoured following Rita's imprisonment, though she was a poor substitute. She was calculating and self-absorbed, but she lacked Rita's burning ambition to destroy. Thus Zedd became an unintentional witness to human history, watching them develop from hunter gatherers to agriculture, and then progress with sudden leaps and bounds to technology.
It was towards the end of the twentieth century (and the end of Rita's imprisonment, though he did not know it then) than he came to have a much closer encounter with humans. He was walking through the streets of Angel Grove, the human city that had been raised over the ancient battlegrounds. It disgusted him. Zordon had been his greatest adversary, and to see his memory – and Rita's – smothered in human dwellings made Zedd's blood pressure rise. He longed to wipe it off the face of the earth.
He was seated in a park, when a young woman sat down beside him.
"Disgusting, isn't it," she said. "All these buildings."
"Yes." Zedd agreed without thinking, her sentiment so exact a reflection of his own, he at first thought them nothing more than a continuation of his own thoughts. "Why are you talking to me?"
"I saw your expression," she said. "You're as repelled by all this consumerist crap as I am."
Zedd studied her. She was a tall woman with olive brown skin and high cheekbones. Her silky black waterfall of hair was held back from her face by a white hairband. She was, in short, the exact kind of woman that Zedd filled his harem with.
She held out her hand with a friendly smile.
"Samantha Trueheart. And you are?"
Zedd eyed her hand for a moment, before sliding his own into it.
"Hades." He used on impulse one of the older names that humans had called him, ever since they were old enough to be aware of him.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Groovy. You into the revolution?"
"Revolution?" The ins and outs of human politics bored him, mostly because every cause he encountered now would be forgotten by the time he visited again.
"The revolution, man. The way people lived in the sixties, when people actually gave a damn. Sex, drugs, music. Live and let live, without that capitalist bullshit. Worship the mother goddess."
Zedd had more or less tuned out until the last sentence.
"Mother goddess?" He said.
She beamed.
"You know, the moon mother. The centre of female power."
"Interesting."
Indeed it was, because Rita had been imprisoned on earth's moon. That old story had evolved over the generations, warped by ten thousand years of re-telling, until only a vague association existed between females and the moon. Some civilizations had actually worshipped Rita: a practise he'd found almost as amusing as the discovery that some actually prayed to him as well, in his guise as death-god, destruction incarnate.
"You know, we've got a summoning going on later on," Samantha says. "If you're into that."
"Summoning?"
Samantha beamed again.
"It's where we enter into a trance, and the mother goddess speaks through us. It's totally rad."
It was a crude description of a very ancient ritual, used by only the most high adepts of human priests and priestesses. Zedd doubted this silly child had enough power to do it properly. Still… Finding one willing to perform this ritual was difficult. If she offered herself up, why should he not take advantage?
He smiled at her.
"I would that very much."
The dwelling she took him to was filled with many women and a few men. All of them were unkempt, even by human standards, and the smoke of hallucanogenic substances filled the air.
"Hey, everyone!" Samantha stood on a battered couch and waved her hands. "This is Hades! He's gonna be joining us for the summoning tonight!"
Everyone greeted him with the enthusiasm of the mildly intoxicated and promptly forgot him all over again. Humans amused Zedd with their idiosyncracies. The way Samantha described it, it was a religious gathering of deep spiritual significance, but all he saw was a group of humans abusing their senses.
"Don't worry, it'll pick up later on in the evening," Samantha said, mistaking his quiet for disappointment. "Once we get past the summoning."
She gathering ingredient from the kitchen and began drawing a circle on the lounge room carpet. Zedd noticed to his surprise that what she was doing appeared to be fairly accurate to the ritual he was familiar with.
"Where did you learn this?" He asked. Samantha smiled, brushing her hair out of her face.
"My dad's a shaman. He has no sons or nephews to learn his craft, so he taught me some stuff so it wouldn't be lost. 'To pass onto my sons'." She snorted. "Hell, no. I'm wishing for ten daughters and no son in sight."
She completed her preparations and sat down. The others had began to gather, sitting in a circle around her. Zedd deigned to join them, watching with interest as they passed a bowl around, red smoke rising from it. He identified it as a mild relaxant, of the type used by human shaman to open up the mind to otherworldly influences. It's effect on his system would be minimal at best.
In the middle of the circle, Samantha was sitting, cross-legged, eyes closed, hands resting on her denim-clad knees. The humans were chanting softly in some language that Zedd was unfamiliar with. He felt the pulse of energy pass through the circle, and realised with a slight surprise that Samantha must have some talent for magic. Inherited, no doubt, from her shaman father who had taught her just enough to put her in danger, but not enough to protect her. That had been very foolish of him. Were Zedd not here, she might even have managed a brief moment of contact with Rita, a mere image or emotion. But Zedd was here, and her father's error was his opportunity.
Zedd poured power into the circle, ignoring Samatha's gasp as the magic wrenched out of her grasp and took on older and darker permutations. She stiffened, head flung back, as power poured through her. To the untrained eye, she looked like she was in the middle of some drug-induced seizure.
When Samantha's eyes opened, it was no the insipid human behind their gaze. They fixed on Zedd, and her lips broadened into a smile of wicked glee.
"Zeddy!" She squealed. She flung her body – Samantha's body – out of the meditative position and crawled into Zedd's lap. The other humans found nothing unusual about this, already drunk on their toxic smoke, their senses dulled, minds distant. They laughed, someone made a crude comment, but they were beneath Zedd's notice. He was taken up with the woman in his arms. Rita. His Rita, returned to him after an eternity without her. She kissed him deeply, and his hands rose to cradle her jaw, the silky weight of her hair. It was as if the centuries had melted away, and he was once again that young warlord on his meteorotic rise to power, untouched by loss or the weariness of unending power struggles. If he kept his eyes closed, he could almost imagine that they were in their room back in his fortress, and Thrax was in the very next room...
Finally, too soon, she pulled back. Samantha's face was filled with Rita's confusion as her fingers touched his jaw.
"But why are you wearing this guise?" She said. "This is not your face."
"A convenience," Zedd said. "To walk among the humans."
"Humans." Rita's (Samantha's) lips curled in a sneer. "I have felt them, trying to reach me in my sleep. Few have managed so far." Her disdain sent thrills through him, almost as arousing as the warm flesh pressing against him. Samantha had held some small appeal, but to know it was Rita inhabiting this vessel made her body close to irresistable.
"Your prison is shut up tight," Zedd said. "I have attempted to open it, but to no avail." It was disturbingly close to an apology, but he ignored it. Rita understood there were no apologies between them, just as there were no lies or deceit. In this regard they were of perfect accord.
"Nevermind, my love," she says, open - alien - affection in the way she strokes back his hair. "I know you tried. It doesn't matter anyhow." She leaned in conspiritally and whispered. "The walls are thinning. Soon I will walk more than the dream world. Soon I shall be free."
"How soon?" Zedd demanded, his offence at her forgiveness overriden by his interest in this news. She shrugged.
"Twenty years. Less."
Zedd nodded slowly, absorbing this information. It was good news, the best he'd had in centuries. The Zedd Empire was not as strong as it once was, and the return of a general as ruthless as Rita would be of great benefit to him. Of course, she would need to rebuild her reputation, to show the galaxy that a single defeat could not stop her acheiving ultimate victory. Once she did that, he would be free to marry her, as he had promised all those millenia ago. Thrax was gone, of course - the thought still ached - but that would not stop them from producing another heir, one to unite the two darkest strains of magic and aid his father in leading the Zedd Empire to it's former glory. And there was always the M-52 galaxy. Rita's father was old and Rito was unlikely to ever produce a child. That left Rita as the sole heir, and she had always been ruthless in her ambitions. A drop of poison on the right cup, and Zedd and Rita could rule an entire galaxy sooner rather than later...
One of the humans laughed, interrupting Zedd's musings.
"Man, I don't know what she's on, but I'll trade you my whole stash for a hit."
Zedd grabbed Rita's (Samantha's) wrist and yanked her to her feet, careless of damage to her human vessel.
"In here."
He dragged her into another room and shut the door. It was a human sleeping place, and they had some privacy here.
"Oh my dark lord," Rita breathed, wrapping her arms about his neck. "I have missed you so much. Ten thousand years is far too long. But tell me of my family. Tell me of Rito, and Scorpina, and Thrax. How is Thrax? How is our son?"
The words were right, but the smell of her, the touch of her skin was all wrong. This was not his Rita, power trailing in her wake like a bewitching scent. It was a weak human vessel, and Zedd was repulsed. He unwound her arms from about his neck and took a step back.
"Our son is gone," he said harshly, not bothering to soften the blow. The smile faded from Rita's face.
"But how?" She said, hand rising to cover her mouth. Tears filled Samantha's big, dark eyes. Human tears, and Zedd resisted the urge to strike her. She would never rule a galaxy with an attitude like that.
"The Sentinal Knight," he said roughly. "He imprisoned our son, the same way you were imprisoned."
The disgusting grief in Rita's eyes hardened into edges of diamond rage.
"The Sentinal Knight," she hissed. "I hope you punished him."
That was his Rita. It must be the human vessel affecting her, making her take on human mannerisms. Zedd reassured himself of this.
"His body is gone," he said. "He drifts, much as Zordon does, powerless to affect the world, doomed to watch the consequences of his mistakes play out."
"It is not enough," she hissed. "You should have destroyed him."
His fingers close about her wrists, tightening almost to the point of shattering the fragile bone.
"That sounded like an order," he said, and watched respect re-enter her eyes.
"My apologies, my Lord," she said quickly. "I spoke without thinking. Please forgive my intolerable idiocy."
He released her, and she rubbed her wrist.
"You will be free in twenty years," he said. "I will return to earth then, and I will expect to see it under your thumb."
Rita's eyelashes fluttered and she said nervously:
"But my Lord, Zordon still watches over Earth. He has already defeated me once…"
"And now he is trapped within a timewarp. You will have the advantage, Rita Repulsa. I suggest you use it."
He ignored the hurt in her eyes as he reminded her sharply of her place, addressing her as he would his lowest general. But apparently ten thousand years had wrought as much a change in her as they had him, and he must make it clear to her that whatever leniancy he once showed her did not extend to questioning his orders or methods. It was better he make the lesson sharp now, so it would need never be repeated.
"But – "
"Your Lord has given you an order, Repulsa. When your Lord gives you an order, you obey. Be it impossible, you will find a way."
She bowed her head.
"Yes, my Lord," she said softly. She seemed sufficiently cowed. "My Lord, my hold on this vessel is failing. If there is anything else you wish to tell me…?"
It was an invitation for more, a subtle opening for him to throw her some small scrap of affection, some vague assurance that she was still his favoured concubine. Once he would have touched her chin or told her to fix her hair: a statement uninterpretable by anyone else, but having a whole realm of meaning between them. It was the only way they, two monsters, could express tenderness. He was tempted to give her the comfort she sought, and was horrified by his own weakness. Had he truly once been so enslaved to her whims? To plan a future with a woman was one thing, but to allow her so much leeway was another entirely. Plainly it was time to remind them both of that.
"Yes," he said. "There is one more thing I require of you."
He shoved her back onto the bed. Her eyes went wide as he kneed her legs apart. He has no doubt that she would cooperate quite willingly were he to suggest or seduce. This taking leaves her in no doubt as to what she is: a warm body, a relatively useful tool that can easily be replaced. He mounts her angrily, hating the hurt in her eyes, and the small sounds of pain she makes that she tries to disguise. His fingers curl about her throat, with the vague intention of snapping the human's neck at the moment of climax. It would not kill Rita, but it would hurt her and serve as a final message of his contempt. But his fingers do not squeeze. He cannot kill Rita, even by proxy.
Afterwards, Rita lay huddled on the bed, eyes closed. He ruthlessly restrains the urge to comfort her. If he is to force her back to her previous inhumane glory, he cannot be soft or gentle. It will only encourage her to be the same, and he has no use for weakness. She will thank him for it, eventually. As he stood, her eyes opened, and it was not Rita anymore, but Samantha who stared at him with a very satisfying expression somewhere between horror and terror.
"What – what are you?" She said, and he realized she must have been aware of at least some of what passed between him and Rita.
"I told you," he said. "I'm Hades."
She scrambled back up the bed, clutching a sheet about her naked body as if she truly believed he could be tempted by such a sight. His only interest in her had been as a possible connection to Rita, and now that was over, she was less than nothing to him.
"Silly girl," he sneered. "Did you imagine yourself Persephone descending into shadow? You're nothing but a foolish child, dabbling in matters beyond your comprehension."
She burst into tears, stifling her sobs into the sheet as she huddled away from him. He considered killing her, but she was really not worth it. Nothing more than an insect really, crawling across the face of the earth. Within a hundred years she would be dead and gone. Not even worth the effort it would take to lift his hand and finish her.
"The dark tide is coming, human," he told her. "Remember, and be honoured that you formed some small part of it."
He departed the human dwelling, and reverted to his normal guise, the fragile illusion snapping and fraying like spider silk. Rita was returning. A short twenty years, and he would behold her again. The thought was intoxicating. But this time he would be careful. He would guard his heart. No tenderness would uncurl his fist, no love soften his voice. He would be as cruel and uncaring as the cold hard vacuum of space, and maybe then he would be able rid them both of this disgusting weakness once and for all.
He told himself that, as if eventually he would come to believe it.
A/N: A cookie for anyone who figures out Samantha's significance. Here's a hint: Zedd could have saved himself so much trouble in the long run if he'd just killed her there and then.