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He did not feel it. The power of the dagger — in the end, he didn't even feel it.

He spent so many years fearing it and yet somehow anticipating it, until a chatty redheaded princess made him feel it, briefly, and he hated it. He spent so many years fearing it would happen again; he lived through a year of horror living under the spell, when the witch held him in her power. He lived in constant fear he'd have to suffer it again — that heavy suffocating feeling of impotence, that dreadful weight of alien will binding him, separating him from his self. He'd wake up at night with a stifled cry, drenched in cold sweat, when he dreamed that it happened again. He closed his heart to his beloved for fear that she would to control him; he closed his heart to her even though he knew he provoked her to do it — why did he do that? Did he want to be disappointed? Did he want an excuse to harden his heart and concentrate on his quest of freeing himself — the quest that made him lose himself, break his promise to his son, break his promise to himself — the quest that made him break his marriage vows? That quest of freeing himself made him a slave to his old self — brought him so much closer to the bitter, lonely, distrustful man he used to be before he met her and loved her. Perhaps it was a price of that ultimate deal: he had to become truly dark again to severe his connection with the source of his dark power. Or perhaps he was deluding himself; perhaps he was just very, very confused and unable to even start living a life of a normal, loving man. Too much time and pain and power and loss on his shoulders to shake them off so easily and just... live; he spent a lifetime depending on magic for solving his problems — how could he suddenly believe that no magic was required for simple bittersweet happiness her love could give him?

It did not matter now, all his convoluted reasoning. He embarked on his selfish quest fully believing he was doing it for love; he did shameful, bad things for all the good reasons. And he did the worst thing he could along the way — he rejected her, yet again. He closed his heart to her...

And he succeeded in his quest — all that he did and all he kept silent about brought him to this moment, this truly glorious moment when he stood there, under the starry sky, feeling the magic of their light connect with magical stars in the Sorcerer's hat, and ran through his veins, endowing him with true omnipotence — how absurd of him was to feel all-powerful when he was reborn as the Dark One, his power then was child's play compared to what was in his grasp now: the complete power of freedom, just there, an inch away — just a twitch of his fingers on his enemy's heart, and the whole world would be his.

And the power of his dagger, held in his true love's trembling hand, stopped him. And he didn't even feel it — that power that he dreaded so much. Apart from inability to close his fingers over the gleaming heart in his hand, he felt nothing. No dread, no treat, no pressure of alien will.

For the power that stopped him was not alien. It was Her power: his love, his heart.

How ridiculous of him was to fear her. If only he did not fear her, so many suffering could have been spared; so many lies; so much heartbreak.

Yet how terribly she was changed now, because of his fear and his lies and her pain.

How stern, and decisive, and cold in her determination to do the 'right thing'; to stop him — to punish him.

How cruel she was, and how powerful.

What happened to his bright, loving, hopeful and ever-forgiving girl?

What has he done to her to change her so?

He looked into her face, into her eyes, so full of light once and clouded with tears now, and couldn't recognize her. She forsook everything she ever cherished; she was always so curious, she urged him to tell her everything all the time... She didn't want to listen to him now. She was always so compassionate, sometimes she felt his pain even stronger than he himself did, it seemed; she had no pity for him now, none at all — not for his fear, not for his pain, not for his reasoning.

She always saw the best in him and it made him hope — it made him strive to be better.

She only saw the worst now, and delivered him to darkness.

If only she'd listen to him, let him explain... Her arguments, choked through heart-wrenching tears as they were, were silly — absurd. She used that stupid gauntlet to find his 'greatest weakness, the thing he loved the most', and it showed her his dagger — not her. So she was convinced he loved power over most things... His silly, silly darling; she was using the gauntlet, and of course it couldn't show her his greatest weakness — herself.

She was his weakness. For Her he needed his power; for her he needed his freedom.

If only she'd let him explain. If only she'd listen. He never spoke up when she urged him to be honest; he wanted to reveal everything now, and she wouldn't listen... Just how ironic was that?

She didn't want to listen. She didn't even want to think. She saw nothing but herself — her hurt, her pain. 'I only wanted you', she said. And he heard an echo of her voice, then in forgone times in his castle, asking him if he was a man once — an ordinary man; and he remembered his bitter thought of how she wouldn't have noticed him, ever, if he were ordinary; the princess that she was, she would just walk past the pitiful creature he used to be.

He came to believe, in years past, that she had some secret knowledge of his true self — that when she said 'you' she spoke of some wholesome inner person he could be if he only tried hard enough.

Could it be that he was wrong, and all the time she said, 'I see the man you are inside', she did not see the real him — she just saw the man she wanted?

She saw what she wanted to see, his beautiful young princess. And now all she wanted to see was the beast who broke her heart.

'I wanted to be chosen', she sobbed.

Didn't she know she was, many, many times? Didn't she remember? Did she really believe that everything that happened between them — all their long-suffering love — was a lie? Couldn't she, standing here on the town-line, recall a similar scene — a moment when she was sending him to find Bae, and promising him she'd wait for him when he returns — wait for him forever if needs be? That was just a moment before he lost her to the attack of the very pirate whom she saved today. Didn't she remember that? Was he the only one to remember the light in her eyes, the love in her voice, the faith in her heart?

She promised him she'd go with him, forever, once.

And now she was slowly and relentlessly pushing him towards the town-line — out of her life.

What happened to their forever?

What happened to their love?

It would have been so easy to blame her change on the dagger still shaking in her hand. How weird it was that he still didn't feel the power — did not suffer from it. He had to obey it, yes — but in such a different way from all previous occasions... It would have been easy to blame everything on the dagger. It would have been easy to think that she was still somehow under the spell of Shattered Sight: the thief's wife did not recover from the ice magic completely; perhaps his wife was afflicted as well.

It would have been easy to blame magic for what was happening. But, as he listened to her tears, as he looked into her eyes, as his heart broke in pain for her pain as well as for his own he finally caught the main thing she was saying — the thing she meant to say all the time as she accused and argued...

'I lost myself', she said. 'I lost myself trying to help you find your way'.

He knew was she was talking about — he knew how it feels when the thing you love most is stealing your life's purpose. He lived through it once, when he was falling in love with her, once upon a time in his magical castle, and knew that this love cannot be, for it would distract him from finding his son. He had to choose between his power and his love, then, and chose power, because it was his self then and he needed his self to find his child.

She had to choose between her love and her self now. She had to stay complete; she had to remain whole, and that meant she had to push him away.

He could understand that.

He did the same thing once.

And he knew suddenly and clearly that whatever he'd say now would have no effect on her, wouldn't make her change her mind. Nothing she said then made him change his. 'It was working! That means it's true love!..', she cried then, and he screamed at her to shut up.

'I don't want to lose you', he said now, in such a weak, weak voice.

'You already have', said his cruel young wife.

And he looked into her beautiful tearful face and saw a shade of his own features, contorted with rage, as he pushed her away back then.

She was pushing him away now, and he moved obediently.

He looked at her slight figure, all tensed in her effort to part with him, and remembered the icy stiffness of his body as he came into her cell and told her he did not need her any more.

She did not see him back then as he raged around the castle, screaming and sobbing and breaking things over his loss of her, but he knew she felt his pain as she sat in her cell.

Stepping backwards over the line, losing his balance, falling on his knees he lost sight of her; he could not see her anymore, for they were in different worlds now, but he did not need to see her to know that she reels with pain, and tries so very hard not to look at him over her shoulder; he did not need to hear her to know that she is crying. He could feel all that, for they were connected still.

It was working. It was true love; no amount of hurt could change that.

Just as he didn't realize that their separation would diminish his love and his pain, back then, she didn't realize that physically banishing him from her life wouldn't heal her heart.

She said she doesn't want him or need him anymore, just as he did, then. But, just as he was wrong then, she was wrong now. She wouldn't find herself — oh he wished she could, for her happiness, but it was impossible; they made it impossible with all their eternal vows.

She wouldn't find herself without him.

All she'd have is an empty heart and a chipped cup.

She left the town-line — she stumbled away, sobbing and still clutching his now useless dagger in her hand. He didn't need to see over the magical border to know it; he knew how she'd act now — how she'd be brave and useful and collected; his little princess. His hero.

He knew her so well.

He remained alone in the middle of the road for a long time, still on his knees. Strangely, he didn't feel much — no heartbreak, no loss; he thought that his understanding of her ultimate justice sustained him, until he realized he was shaking all over.

He didn't feel much because he was stunned; he was in shock and, as it started to pass, he became aware of the world around him. The coldness of the air and of the stones on which he sat. The muffled sounds of the forest. The impenetrable darkness of the night.

Something was different about him, as well. He frowned, and concentrated, and then he understood, and had to smile wryly.

His leg, his mutilated leg was hurting.

He was human again.

She did what she always wanted to do, than. Changed him.

Not for long.

If she did not know what he is inside, if she was confused, he'd show her. 'I know that you are confused about yourself, so I'm going to tell you...' He did it once. He'd do it again.

She'd find herself when she finds him. They'll do it together. There is no other way for them.

It would take some time and effort, that is true. It would take some careful planning and wit. He had no problem with that; he could plan for years, and he had plenty of wits; used to live by his wits only for years and years, before he found magic.

No magic, now. Oh but he doesn't need it — not yet, anyway.

Didn't need magic to die. Wouldn't need magic to build a new life.

Uncertainly, unsure of his footing he stands up and limps towards the forest edge — to find himself a fallen branch, to turn it into a cane. He needs a cane to walk away from here; for to ultimately return here he needs to travel far away first, and form new alliances with old enemies.

Ah, this piece of wood would do nicely — it would do fine before he gets a chance to find a proper cane.

It feels strangely comforting and even... pleasant to walk along the road with his new cane. He was so used to walking like that — he did it for twenty eight years, after all.

And all these years he thought she was dead — lost to him forever.

Even if angry and far away from him, she is alive now. And if she is alive, nothing is lost.

He walks through the night briskly, half-smiling, his mind busy with planning.

He walks through the darkness that surrounds him, darkness that tries to whisper to him; it is frantic; it doesn't understand what is going on.

Yet he is oblivious to it.

He is human now, and darkness has no hold over him.