Finding Your Story (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter Thirteen: The Heart of the truest stepbeliever

Drizella: Henry was right...Perhaps I wasn't powerful enough to crush his heart. I still had deep feelings for him, and those couldn't just disappear in a poof of smoke. It was the challenge of it, sacrifice my beloved in the name of revenge or my revenge in the name of my lover.

I didn't know what to do. I was caught in the middle of light and darkness, love and hate. I yearned for both sides of the coin but not even my magic was powerful enough to allow me to have both things.

As I placed my eyes on the fireplace in front of my new home, a small mansion I found abandoned, far from Jack's palace or the Tremaine Manor, someone opened the doors with her magic and made a glorious entrance.

"Doesn't this sound familiar? A heart full of steam, a curse built on vengeance."

Regina, covered in black, faced me with feisty eyes.

"And a nosy witch thinking she could change my mind."

"Give up on this curse and I'll find a way to help you!" she begged me to listen to reason. I was intrigued. Last day she was ready to poison my heart, now she was trying once again for me to listen to reason? That sounded like a trap, so I instantly raised my hand towards the queen and chocked her with my magic.

"I don't need your help! I don't need anyone's help!" I made sure she knew I could make it on my own, I knew what I was doing. At least that's what I wanted her to think, the real thing was that I had no idea of what to do.

Regina started laughing at me, and my magic seemed hurtless.

I stared at the inked hair queen, confused, and gave up trying to suffocate her.

The witch laughed harder as her body transformed. She became a paler skin sorceress, with lighter eyes and braids covering her head, each of them had a specific shade of gray or black.

I recognized the dreadful witch that stared before me. It wasn't Regina, it was Gothel.

"Gothel! What are you doing here?" Gothel was a witch that imprisoned my mother in a tower, a long time ago. I heard dark tales of her, when I was a child. Those stories used to taunt me in my sleep when I was a little girl. She was probably the one person my mother feared.

"I'm here to test your commitment. And I must say I'm impressed. It seems you really want to cast the curse."

"Yes, I do. And nothing or no one will stop me."

"Right now, the only person stopping you...is...yourself. I see, the curse's price is too high and you don't have the strength to pay it. But, what if I told you I am the leader of a coven of witches whose magic may be strong enough to find a loophole in your curse. Together we can find a way to cast it without having to sacrifice the heart of your beloved."

"You're lying. No one's magic is that powerful."

"Am I? You have a choice, Drizella, come with me and get a chance at having both love and revenge or stay here, alone, in the dark, suffering because you can't take Henry Mills' heart." After saying those words, the witch poofed in a cloud of gray smoke, leaving me with a choice too seductive not to take.

I decided to take up on Gothel's offer. I went to the woods, in the hopes of finding her and the rest of the coven.

Gothel had a small assemble of women covered in black. I couldn't see their faces, only that they were six scary witches.

"So...You decided to choose power and love, after all?"

"Of course, I want to have everything, I'm just not sure if you can actually give me that."