Shaking. That's the first thing that Zelena registers about herself as she plots a way to escape her confines. She's trapped in an ordinary jail cell, an ordinary jail cell! Trapped in it by the very sister she had set out to destroy. She would laugh about the situation, about how ridiculous it all seems to her, but she doesn't. Not one ounce of her energy can be wasted on anything not directly related to her and her escape, however it is going to happen. She'll figure something out, she's sure. She always does, in the end.
The moment that she thinks that particular thought she feels something new, something different: Magic, it's back. She isn't sure how, or why, but it's back, and different. It isn't the kind of magic that she had a few hours ago. It doesn't seem to be as strong either, but it's there, and it's enough, Zelena believes, for her to escape. She just has to figure out how to use this kind of power, that's all. Simple enough, she just has to feel something, anything, and see whether the power grows or weakens. Easy, child's play even.
So she concentrates on her sister, on just how much she loathes her, how much she hates her for everything that she's done to her, and for somehow managing to turn good. It couldn't have been possible, but it was. Just like that, she had light magic, and once again, she was left with absolutely nothing. Why, it always turned out that way, Zelena wasn't sure. But she wanted it to change. She wanted to be the one who won, the one who got their happy ending. She wanted Regina to suffer even more now that she had thought for even a second that she could make her sister go soft as well.
The power grows weaker. It's still there, but it's different. It's not as powerful. It's not enough for Zelena to simply escape the damn cell that they had contained her in.
Zelena focuses on something else in an attempt to see what will fuel this new magic. If it isn't rage, if it isn't jealousy, then what is it? She thinks for a few seconds, trying to focus on coming up with a new way to fuel the power. She could care less about what it was that she had to do, about the price that she would have to pay or the emotion she just had to feel, so long as it would simply work. And as she thinks those thoughts, the power grows back to the level that it was when she first felt it.
Briefly she wonders if what she's feeling isn't magic at all and that she is simply imagining it in her desperation.
She thinks about something else, about what she'll do when she'll escape, about just how much devastation and destruction she'll rain down on Storybrooke if only she would simply break down the door, or crumple it like a ball of paper, and the magic shrinks again, this time nearly going out completely. Zelena nearly pounds her fist into the wall in rage but she manages to restrain herself, thinking over and over again about just how much she wants to get out, about how much she wants to have her power back.
About how much she's willing to do to get it back.
As she thinks that final thought, the power levels increase once more. She notes that they seem to be focused on prices, and about how much she's willing to pay them. Briefly she wonders if this is just a trick being played on her by Rumple but she immediately dismisses the thought. Regina had picked up his dagger, and now he was powerless to harm her, just as her sister had commanded. She smirks at that, at the thought of The Dark One still not having his dagger, at the thought of him being unable to harm anyone without permission.
She immediately curses that line of thought though, as it isn't productive in her escape, and that's what she wants: to escape. Not to hurt Regina like before. Not even to get revenge on Rumple for choosing Regina. To escape.
The magic flares a bit more.
Zelena processes the new information, trying to come up with an acceptable explanation but she finds none. What could possibly be the cause of the magic if it wasn't a thirst for revenge, anger, or jealousy? The only possible magic that could be linked with anything else would be benevolent magic, and after everything she had done, she would never be given such a gift as anything light or good. She would receive only darkness. She would be only darkness. After all, wickedness doesn't simply disappear. Rather, it stays with you forever.
Still, on the most ludicrous off chance possible, she might as well try to make sure that it wasn't. She would hate to rule something out only to find out that it was indeed that, without so much as at the very least trying to test it. And so she sits there for a few seconds trying to try and find the easiest way to test whether or not the magic would be light or dark with her limited about of time and resources.
With a sigh, she thinks about what Glinda had taught her all of those years ago about light magic, along with how it is made stronger and weaker, before she comes up with a theory in the form of the very same things that she had tried to use to create her spell to go back in time in the first place: the four sides of magic, love, innocence, courage, and wisdom.
This would be perfect, Zelena thought as she continued her line of thought, trying to figure out which of those four things would be the easiest to test, magically and mentally. Innocence was out of the question she said, narrowing that out easily. Love only slightly more possible with her present circumstances, and wisdom being a bit out of range without enough time to think things over a bit. That left courage, something that she didn't possess in the greatest numbers, admittedly, but at the same time, it was something quick and simple, which was currently the best way of doing things in order to escape.
So, she concentrated once more, putting even more of her mental faculties into her current goal, just so she could say that she had tried her hardest when it didn't work, and then she waited for something to happen,a fluctuation in the magic or a sign that nothing was going to occur at all. She thought of bravery, of the idiotic prince and the way he had fought her even after he knew it would be futile. She thought of how she would run into plain sight and let everyone know that she was still to be feared, and finally, she thought about how she would rather die trying to escape than remain caged.
It happened then, with more force that Zelena had imagined it would. She felt the magic surging up to all the corners of her body, and she watched in shock as her hands were illuminated by the unmistakable white light of good magic. She immediately used it to throw the door of the cell open, still completely shocked, but still, she ran away as quickly as she could, immediately deciding that there would be time to answer questions later.
Quickly, she ran out the door of the sheriff's station, not even bothering to close it behind her. She knew that she must look ridiculous but she didn't care, as if her plan worked, she would be gone from Storybrooke, and if it didn't...Well, people's opinions of her wouldn't matter much anyways. And so, with her long scarlet hair being whipped in the wind behind her, she ran as quickly as she possibly could, out of practice as she was, caring only about escape and not about what anybody else could possibly say or think about her appearance, as this had to be one of the few times that she could afford not putting on a good face.
She managed to remain mostly unseen, only a few people so much as noticing her as she ran on the back road, as far away from one of the main ones as she could get while still nearing her destination. She zigzagged away from people who she knew would recognize her, and stayed out of the line of sight of other's if she could help it. The downside to not being at all prepared for a run was the fact that she would attract more attention than she would like. She'll just have to deal with it, though.
After several more embarrassing movements, Zelena was finally at the portal. She tried to focus her new magic on in an attempt to get it to spark again, when she heard a noise from behind her. Quickly, she turned around, braced and ready to attack if necessary, when she saw someone who would be... problematic to say the least, in the form of Emma Swan, Savior, Sheriff, and perpetual annoyance to Zelena.
"I'd step back if I were you dear, in case you haven't forgotten, you don't have magic anymore" Zelena says with a smirk, glad to have her bravado back.
"Yeah well neither do you, and I've got a gun" Emma says, blissfully ignorant to her current predicament.
"Oh really dear, I don't have magic back? Then how do you explain... this" Zelena says, pushing Emma back with a wave of her hand.
"H-how, we still have your pendant" Emma stutters out, keeping the gun aimed at Zelena anyways.
"Oh really dear, my pendant? Do you really think that I'd allow myself to be confined to such a silly thing as that" Zelena bluffs, trying to make herself seem more dangerous than she currently was, which was still rather dangerous.
"But that's what they said would block your magic" Emma says, her tone a mixture of annoyance and fear.
Good, great even. Zelena liked it better this way when they felt it too.
"And you really believed it would work. You really are as foolish as I thought you were" Zelena says, before realizing that Emma could possibly call reinforcements that might actually pose a threat to her, namely Rumplestiltskin. Oh and Regina too, she supposed if she was going to be completely honest.
"Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but portals to open and all that" Zelena says before knocking Emma down again with an immobilization for good measure. There, that should hold her for as long as it took for someone else to come by this way.
With that, she focused on lighting the portal, and once that was completed, she stepped into it, allowing herself one last laugh.
And with that, she was gone.