Written for Mahmfic at Comment_Fic.
Prompt: Zelena, you'll have to try harder than that if you want to kill this wicked witch.
AFFINITY
by Leni
Rumpelstiltskin should have chosen anything else as a murder weapon.
Of course, Zelena discovers this only after her middle has been pierced and her world explodes in pain. She has a second to consider regret, perhaps even repentance, and then she scoffs at the thought. The Wicked Witch may have lost, but she refuses to surrender her pride as well. Rumpelstiltskin's revenge may well break her, but she will not bend.
That's when pain flares up and hauls her beyond its barriers. In a moment, she finds herself in a swirl of hatred and thirst for terror and so much want. There's anger and the will for utter destruction and it's not hers at all.
There's recognition.
Power envelopes her, more hungry than protective, hurtful in its senseless greed for her, but it shields her from mortality all the same.
Zelena laughs into the darkness, and greets her new friend.
She claimed the Dark One's dagger after it had spent centuries condemned to gather dust. She became its mistress and gleefully used its power for months. She has torn lives, broken hearts, and almost destroyed the realm with it.
Of course it misses her.
Blood to blade, innards to metal, their instincts as one, they reach to each other.
Zelena is full of hate and bitterness.
The dagger's power laps at her with renewed hunger.
She wants the best, and only the best. Let the others scavenge in her leftovers.
The Dark One's dagger was made to give its owner the world - or burn it at their will.
It doesn't want her to die, this mistress who understood its purpose.
Zelena doesn't want it to kill her.
What power she lost with her pendant is beyond her reach, but her ability to use magic is still hers. The dagger is made of spells older than her (older than Rumpelstiltskin too, and darker than he would ever dare imagine). Buried deep within her body, it lets her sip at its power. Not a lot, not enough to warn its current wielder, but enough.
Zelena wants to laugh in Rumpelstiltskin's face, mock him for his stupidity. He has been betrayed by the very source of his power, and he will never know it. But her old master still controls the dagger, he still is the more powerful of the two, and so what little strength she's won must be used to flee.
She allows her body to turn to dust; her will guides what remains, opens the portal she needs. Her spell tugs at her, drawing her into its vortex, and Zelena laughs in victory.
The past is hers.
The Wicked Witch has won.
THE END
27/08/14