Chapter Text
Fifteen years a Queen. Four a peasant. Eighteen a fugitive. And twenty more until the end of doom.
Bane stood, fist clenched around the cold dagger. Her destiny would not so easily be undone by some mewling slip of a girl! Not again!
She had planned it all out. Though the universe conspired against her at every turn, she would thread the needle and defy the fate that lay before her. Two decades more, and she would be free. And now it was all unraveling.
It was not the first crisis Bane had faced. Her very existence flew in the face of universal order, and contrivances upon contrivances would seek to thwart her careful plans. Yet she survived, scarred and weakened but still standing proud. She just had to slip through the cracks in destiny one more time.
But how? All she had was a dagger and an extreme willingness to inflict violence. Once she had preferred to let others bloody their hands on her behalf, but she had learned from that mistake. Fifteen years a monarch, and it had all slipped away because her chosen executioner got cold feet and served her a pig’s heart instead of Snow’s. Never again. She should have ripped that girl’s heart out herself when she’d had the chance.
Rapunzel required a gentler touch, more’s the pity. No heart in a box here, or the sundrop would be lost forever and with it the only hope Bane had of surviving the twenty years until she could regain her full powers. The girl needed to stay hidden, and she needed to sing. Thus far it had been easy, by adopting the role of Godmother – “Gothel” in the local dialect, though of course she had the foolish little thing call her “mother” as often as possible. But harsher methods for making her sing were always on the table.
Where to find her though? The satchel presented an impossible puzzle. Someone had come here, bearing a crown and a wanted poster, and had left with the sundrop. Why bring a crown to an abduction? Why leave it? And how did the poster fit into any of this? A criminal would hardly be expected to carry his own wanted poster. More likely it was a convenient scrap of paper torn from a wall to wrap the crown. Or was the abductor an enemy of this Flynn Rider? How many moving pieces were there in this labyrinth?
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
Bane stepped into the center of the room. She had no magic for a conjuring, every last ounce of her mystical energies were consumed with the spells preserving her mortal existence, but it mattered not.
With a clear voice, she addressed the air around her, “Zhan Tiri, you miserable cur, I know you’re watching!”
And from the gloom of the shadowed tower, a child’s voice answered with sing-song cadence, “aww, does my little lost disciple need mommy’s help?”
“Cut the theatrics”, Bane snarled. “Sugracha and Tromus might enjoy the showmanship, but I’ve got a sundrop to recover and you’re going to help me do it.”
“And why would I do a silly little thing like that, when you renounced me centuries ago?” Zhan Tiri projected no image, but Bane could still hear the pout in her voice.
“I’ve seen the future. The sundrop and moonstone will be destroyed, and you along with them. I outlive you by nearly two decades, until those wretched bears…”
Zhan Tiri chuckled. “The bears? Didn’t they all die or flee when the moonstone fell?”
“Most, but not all”, Bane said with a sigh. “They start trying to rebuild after the moonstone is destroyed, but we’re getting off topic. Aren’t you more concerned about your destruction?”
“Of course, but I’m not the one who will lose to Gummi Bears, of all the pathetic fates for a self-proclaimed ‘master’ of the dark arts. And yet here you are, still taunting me with your continued insolence. That, to me, is the bigger question here.”
Bane bristled. “If you don’t want to help–”
“Oh I’ll ‘help’. Old momma Zha-zha will ‘help’ her poor lost daughter Bane. Or is it Gothel now? I could swear it was Grimhilde for… what was it? Fifteen years? Three less than you’ve been hiding up here in this tower.”
“I ruled as a Queen!”
“Ah ah ah, no lies with me, precious. You were a Queen Consort, not in line for the throne. You ruled merely as a regent, a placeholder keeping the throne warm for the true heir, and you only managed that a few scant months before you lost the girl and then throne. Cassandra has more claim to that throne than you, and you lost her too, the price of your own greed. And now you’ve lost a third daughter. Oh how dreadful! But,” and here Zhan Tiri's voice descended into a hissed whisper, “I’ll help you, even though you’ve done nothing to deserve it, if you tell me how you escaped your doom.”
Bane ground her teeth. Of anything Zhan Tiri could ask for, that was the most dangerous. But her own survival was on the line. No time for half measures.
—
Bane barely knew anything of Zhan Tiri’s death when it came, nor did she care. The other disciples of Zhan Tiri had kept themselves and their faith alive by choosing a half-life, unmoored from mortal existence like Zhan Tiri herself, but Bane had chosen a different path. She had been the strongest of them, and the only one never to serve that fool Demanitus. An eternal, ghostly existence was never her end-game, for what use was beauty and power without the admiration of the lesser mortals? So she perfected techniques to restore her youth and beauty without becoming something truly other than human.
But humans change. She had sworn vengeance on Demanitus and Corona when her patron had fallen, but idle centuries of manipulations and research had eroded her grudge and her concern for her former patron to a distant memory. When the shockwaves of the annihilation of the sundrop and moonstone reached her, she was already fifteen years deep in a project to uplift a clan of Troggles, granting them increased intelligence and undying loyalty to her. Too many times had the jealousy and greed of man betrayed her; she would teach these Troggles language, tool usage, and obedience, turning them into perfect minions. And with the sundrop and moonstone gone, there was nothing to do but continue the project.
Fifteen years later, her patience waned. The Troggles were incomplete and buffoonish, but they would have to do. She sent them throughout the Northern Mountains to track down the lost city of Ursalia, and though it took years they succeeded. Unearthing Ursalia's arcane secrets proved more challenging than expected though, and those ridiculous bears drove her and her Troggles away.
But Bane knew the bears hid ancient secrets. The fall of the moonstone had nearly driven them to extinction, but they clung on in deep holes and dark corners, and she would root them out.
She chased them to the source of it all, to the land long known only as The Dark Kingdom. There she found the humans already building a new colony, renamed Dunwyn, ruled by King Gregor Der Sonne, husband to the Queen Regnant of Corona. Strange. There was a story there, but she did not care to learn it. Instead she used her magic and her Troggles to gain influence over a rival faction and pursued the bears relentlessly.
The bears, in the end, were her undoing. Through trickery and deceit they robbed her of her most treasured possession, the magic that preserved her youth. And the witless Troggles, no longer recognizing her, fled.
Aging rapidly, and lacking the strength to save herself any other way, Bane resorted to an act of desperation: projecting her consciousness decades into the past.
Pain and weakness greeted her when she awoke. Bane's magic was but a remnant of its former power, much of it consumed with the endless task of preserving her consciousness in this body of her former self. She could no longer rely on her old tricks and was no longer an army unto herself, not until she surpassed the terminus of her original timeline and could regain her true powers. Until then, she needed physical, tangible power. So she resorted to taking a husband.
Even without her full arcane powers at her disposal, King Georg of Germania was easy to ensnare with some subtle charms and glamours. His tastes ran to dominant women, which suited Bane perfectly, and perhaps she grew slightly fond of the fellow over time. She even tolerated his wretched little daughter, for his sake.
This was a weakness, she knew, and out of character for her. Affection for lesser mortals was beneath her. Even with his stately figure and greying hair, he was a mere child in comparison to she who had walked through centuries. But, perhaps, lacking full access to her powers brought her more into kinship with the rest of humanity. And though it had never been her intention, when he passed in a hunting accident she was already carrying his seed in her belly.
But after fifteen years of happy marriage, she was still Bane. Her rage at the loss of Georg was incandescent, and she took it all out on poor motherless Snow. She should have killed the pathetic thing immediately, but some vestige of affection for her father stayed her hand until Prince Florian came sniffing. The indignity of Snow receiving suitors before she did was too much to bear, and her mirror confirmed her worst fears. For the first time since the rise of Zhan Tiri, she was aging as a human would.
Snow had to die. She sent the huntsman, who betrayed her as human men were wont to do. And when she went herself, she was driven away by a pack of pint-sized ruffians and fell to what nearly became her death.
Battered and bleeding, one arm and several ribs broken, she clawed herself forward until she found the one thing that could still save her – the sundrop, still in its flower form and intact. By her count there were still two decades or more until it met its fate. For the first time, she cursed herself for not looking into the circumstances.
The sundrop could restore her health, but not her magic. Still Bane persevered. She bore Georg's daughter alone and in silence, and for a time that occupied her. Throughout long centuries, she had never had a child of her own, and the novelty was amusing. A daughter equal to her in power and ambition would be a strong asset, but in her heart she knew she worked best alone and would tire of her progeny long before she could raise her to be someone worthy of her respect.
A mere four years later, fate made the choice for her. The infant princess Rapunzel became the sundrop incarnate, and the choice between her and the child Cassandra was no choice at all.
And now she was gone, vanished into thin air, leaving only an impossible crown and an inexplicable poster.
And with no magic left, and no knowledge or skills she could bring to bear, she turned back to the start of it all. She turned to the only being that had ever earned her respect. She turned to Zhan Tiri.
And Zhan Tiri laughed.
----------------
Pearls of childish laughter echoed through the cold stone tower. “You absolute fool! You blithering simpleton! You’ve tied a knot around your own throat so tight a Lorb couldn’t squeeze through! Ah, and to think I once called you the best and brightest! I believe I owe Sugracha and Tromus an apology for that one now. They’ll be delighted with what a fine mess you’ve made for yourself here!”
Bane raised herself to her full height. “Laugh all you want from the shadows, warlock, but do it knowing that I outlived you!”
“Oh no no no, my dearest Bane. Did I teach you so little? Remind me then, my darling little pupil, of the rules of prophecy.”
“This is no time for tests! The sundrop is in peril as we speak!”
Again, Zhan Tiri’s childish giggles rang out. “The sundrop is safe, or safe enough. She’s found a boy, despite all your silly warnings of pointy teeth, and will charm her way into his heart soon enough. She’s as strong as a horse, nigh-indestructible, and can heal any injury. If her beau gets too forward she can twist his head clean off. She’ll be fine. But you, ah, dear Bane, you will not.”
“So you keep saying. But you’ve never had visions of the future.”
“It’s true”, Zhan Tiri sighed dramatically. “Alas, we were never all-powerful, at least without the sundrop and moonstone. But apparently, I still understand prophecies better than you do.”
“What prophecy”, Bane snarled. “I have made no prophecies in centuries! All I have told you is simple memory.”
“Tut tut tut! To you it’s a memory, your past. But to me it’s a prophecy, our future. It tells me that within a few years, something dramatic will happen with the sundrop and moonstone. You believed them destroyed, but perhaps what you felt was my final victory, now close at hand. Then, there will be twenty years of silence. I can do that. I have waited centuries, I can ascend and yet reign myself in until your prophecy completes. You have given me everything I need to secure my path to apotheosis, and the promise that it is close at hand.”
Bane rolled her eyes. “You’re welcome. Or do you expect me to start buttering you up like a piece of toast?”
“Never, sweet pupil. The day you start flattering me is the day I know you plan to put a dagger in my back. It’s such a shame you could never live to see my final victory.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Ah, but I do. Your prophecy leaves me gaping holes to wiggle through, but strangles you like a noose. They’re your own memories, after all! You can bend them – turn left instead of right, eat stew instead of porridge – but we both know that fate can only be bent so far. And when you went and sired a whelpling, you pushed it riiiiiight to the breaking point. I bet you even tried to infuse the sundrop into her, like Arianna managed to do quite by accident, and it just wouldn’t take. The sundrop’s an anchor of reality, and little Cassie was never meant to exist. The strands of fate could never bend that far. Not without help from yours truly, at least.”
Bane’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying I need to kill Cassandra–”
“No! That’s the funny part, it’s too late even for that! You’d have to kill everyone she’s ever met, and then replace every last one of them with dopplegangers, and we both know you never had that kind of juice even in your prime. But even without Cassie, you’ve gone so far off the rails of your own destiny that your room to maneuver was all but expended anyway. You’ve probably felt it already, the doom quickening in your bones. You probably need the sundrop’s restoration twice as often as you first did. Soon you’ll need it every day, then every hour, just to ward off the inevitable. Oh you’ve got a delicious little slice of cosmic reality there and it’ll get you a long way, but how long can you or that naif of yours keep up that pace, waking every hour lest you wither away to nothing? A year? You’ll need twenty, and that’s never going to happen.”
“Laugh all you want, warlock, but I’ll find a way. I just need to find Rapunzel first, without traipsing all over Corona, and need I remind you that you promised to help?”
“Yes yes, I promised to help you, and I’ll keep that promise. I just want you to know that the best you can hope for is to twitch in the breeze a short while longer.”
Bane snorted. “Yap, yap, all you can do is yap. But if you insist, I’ll try to keep that in mind. Now where’s the girl?”
“In the last place you’d ever look”, whispered Zhan Tiri, her voice fading back into the shadows like a half-forgotten dream. “Not the castle, or the highways, but a rustic little place you’ve seen a hundred times but never bothered to go into. Your precious little sundrop, your second stolen daughter, your ticket to nowhere… is in… the Snuggly Duckling…..”