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[wickedwest]

Name: Steve
DW username: chargingstar
E-Mail: nephroblargh@gmail.com
IM: dementedloop @ AIM
Plurk: opticblast

Other Characters: N/A

Character Name: Zelena
Series: Once Upon A Time
Timeline: 3x19 “A Curious Thing” (after taking the memory potion in the flashback)
Canon Resource Link: Zelena on the Once Upon A Time wiki
Character History: From pretty much the moment she was born, Zelena's life was incredibly unusual, even for someone who was born in an Enchanted Forest full of storybook characters. Her mother Cora abandoned her in the woods, claiming that giving up Zelena was her (Cora's, not Zelena's) best chance to get what she wanted. But luckily for Zelena, she didn't grow up in the woods, raised by whatever inhabits the actual forest portion of the Enchanted Forest. No, thanks a timely tornado, she was whisked away to the land of Oz, where she was found in the woods by her future adoptive parents.

Zelena was raised by and lived with these people for quite some time. Up until she accidentally cut her father while shaving him. Trying to help, she summons a handkerchief using magic to clean the cut, only for him to freak out and call her a witch. Oh, and reveal that she's not his kid. Upset and angry at being rejected by the only family she knows and wanting to see her real family, Zelena goes off to see the Wizard, though whether or not he's wonderful is up for debate.

There, the Wizard shows Cora abandoning her and explains her reasons for doing so. And after the debacle with her adoptive father, seeing that her real mother gave her up because she couldn't be royalty caused Zelena to be well, upset. And to make matters worse, she also saw her younger half-sister Regina, who Cora didn't abandon in the woods and wasn't carried off to Oz by a magical cyclone. She also learns about Rumplestiltskin and his efforts to teach Regina magic.

Upset and jealous, Zelena remarks that he should be teaching her and begs the Wizard to tell her how to get there. In a seemingly kind gesture he gives her a pair of silver slippers that will take her anywhere she wants to go, and all she has to do in return is bring him something that belongs to Rumplestiltskin. Before she returns to the Enchanted Forest, he worries her about the dangers of envy, but she doesn't appear to take it to heart.

Once there, she meets Rumplestiltskin who, after learning her identity, starts teaching her magic and mentoring her, and everything is going great for Zelena for once. She's got someone who actually seems to want her around, who she's falling in love with (and even making him meat pies just like the people that raised him used to make), she's learning magic, and somebody's finally picking her over Regina. She's so happy. Or was up until she found out that Regina was still learning magic from Rumplestiltskin. To say she reacted badly is probably an understatement.

Her skin starts to turn green (maybe she should've paid more attention to the Wizard's warning), and she attempts to murder Regina. And by attempts to, that means she appeared in Regina's room and stabbed her...only for Regina to reveal that she was actually Rumplestiltskin, and that Zelena failed a test. He'd wanted either Zelena or Regina to cast a curse that required the heart of the thing the caster loves most, and since Zelena loves him, that wouldn't work. Upset at being rejected yet again, Zelena explains that she could've used the slippers to give him what she wanted and then returns to Oz, vowing that he'll choose her, not Regina, next time.

Back to Oz, Zelena insists that the Wizard help her travel back in time to change the past, a feat he says is impossible. Angry at his refusal, she exposes him for little more than a man behind a curtain and turns him into a flying monkey. As she uses the Wizard's things to continue watching Regina's training, her skin becomes completely green as she vows to find a way to keep Regina from being born.

Some time after this happened, while Zelena is continuing to spy on her half-sister and plot her eventual removal from history itself, Glinda shows up and offers her a life that doesn't involve breaking the laws of magic to go back and erase her half-sister from existence. Zelena's intrigued by this, and by a prophecy that a cyclone will bring someone to Oz who will be a powerful protector and goes along with Glinda's offer. She's given a pendant that will harness and protect her power, and her skin even stops being green. She stays with the other witches, becoming the witch of the West for a time, and then a cyclone brings a young girl named Dorothy to Oz.

So let's recap. Zelena, who was rejected by her mother and then replaced with Regina, rejected by her adoptive father, and then rejected by Rumplestiltskin in favor of Regina, is finally accepted by people, and given this nice life...and then someone else shows up who could also be the one that prophecy is talking about. She begins to think that Glinda and them are going to replace her with Dorothy, and despite Glinda's insistence that it isn't true, checks the Book of Records (the source of the prophecy) to see just what it says.

And it says that a powerful protector will be brought to Oz via tornado...and will save Oz from the worst evil its ever known. Not knowing that part, an outraged Zelena accuses Glinda of thinking that she was the horrible evil mentioned. Glinda tries to explain that Zelena that she herself shapes how evil she is, but Zelena leaves to figure out how to remove Dorothy from the picture.

Green again (envy apparently does a number on one's skin), Zelena appears and apparently decided that incinerating Dorothy was the best way to get rid of her. Dorothy panics, throws a bucket of water at Zelena, and the witch appears to melt. And since the worst evil Oz has ever known is now really most sincerely dead, the Wizard grants Dorothy a pair of silver slippers, which take her back to Kansas.

Wait. Wasn't the Wizard a monkey? Yeah, the whole thing was setup by Zelena to get rid of Dorothy. She appeared to melt, posed as the Wizard, and sent Dorothy out of Oz so that she couldn't stop her. Oh, and then she banishes Glinda to the Enchanted Forest too. That'll learn her to try and help people not become the greatest evil in the history of Oz.

At some point after this, the people of the Enchanted Forest (which includes Snow White, Prince Charming, and a host of other fairy tale characters) return from Storybrooke, Maine (which is a very long story in itself), and Zelena, wanting a baby for her time travel scheme (which apparently requires a newborn baby), threatens Aurora and Prince Phillip's baby if they don't inform her when the others return. She doesn't plan to use their baby, but needs to know when the others have returned because she wants a different baby.

Aurora and Phillip argue about what to do while the others head for Regina's castle and are attacked by a flying monkey, which manages to escape with some of Regina's blood. And when they get to the castle, they discover that Zelena, or well, some mysterious person they don't know about, has co-opted the protection spell Regina placed on the castle. Inside the castle, Zelena adds the blood to a potion she's working on and later sends the monkeys to let her sister know she's in the castle.

Unfortunately, Regina doesn't appear interested in meeting the sister she doesn't even know exists, and plans on enacting a sleeping curse on herself. Zelena, not wanting to be cheated out of tormenting her younger sister, appears, steals the curse, reveals that they're related, and then flies away on her broom threatening Regina with a fate worse than death, and without threatening to get someone and their little dog too. The conversation doesn't entirely go her way, as she's surprised to learn that her mother and Rumplestiltskin both died in Maine, but that doesn't really ruin her attempts to promise some sort of horrible fate.

While still in the Enchanted Forest, she forces Lumiere to assist Neal and Belle with their attempts to revive the deceased Rumplestiltskin. As their attempt succeeds, Lumiere reveals his alliance with Zelena, who shows up and seizes the magical dagger that can be used to control Rumplestiltskin. Lumiere intervenes when Zelena orders Rumplestiltskin to kill Belle, allowing her to escape and inform the others that Zelena now has the Dark One under he control. In addition to this, Aurora and Phillip reveal their deception to the group, only for Zelena to show up and start turning people into monkeys.

Eight months after this, our heroes are still trying to defeat Zelena, who's just biding time, waiting for Snow White's baby to be born so she can use it to power her time travel spell. They find out from Glinda that Zelena can be beaten by removing her pendant, but it requires white magic, and there's nobody in the Forest that can use that. So they decide to reenact the Dark Curse that sent them all to Maine in the first place since Snow White's daughter lives in that world and can use white magic.

After they sacrifice Prince Charming to enact the curse, Zelena shows up, throws a potion into it to make them all forget and proceeds to taunt them. In the real world, she'll be free to continue working on her plan while none of them remember who she is or how to defeat her. After informing Regina that this is how to ruin a happy ending, she flies back to her lair and drinks a memory potion, ensuring she'll be able to remember what, for everyone else, the curse will erase.
Abilities/Special Powers: Okay, let's start with a brief overview of magic in Once Upon a Time. Typically, it's fueled by the user's emotions, and it comes in all sorts varieties so far (Light Magic, Dark Magic, Blood Magic, Genie Magic, and the list goes on and on.) and as the show likes to drill into the viewer's head repeatedly, it always comes with a price (though often exactly what that price is appears to be a mystery because it's not always explained). The price can be something vague, but the corruption of the user over time seems to be a common one for abuse of darker magic.

Now even with the price paid, it's still not a free pass to do whatever you want. A magic user can't, barring ridiculously specific circumstances (Like really crazy circumstances. Like having Snow White's baby, Prince Charming's courage, a gold Rumplestiltskin brain and the Evil Queen's heart all put in a weird magical symbol in a barn somewhere), bring someone back from the dead, change the past, or make someone love them. Aside from those...it kind of actually is a free to pass to do almost whatever you want.

Now with that all out of the way, Zelena's been shown to do the following:
-Teleportation
She can teleport herself, objects, and other people from place to place, even teleporting Glinda to another realm entirely at one point.

-Telekinesis
She can throw people around with a wave of her hand. Open doors, throw things, stuff like that.

-Shapeshifting/Illusions:
The show's not actually clear on which one of the two she actually did here (and other episodes show that both exist), but she was able to make it seem to Dorothy like she melted into a puddle, and after the curse returns everyone to Storybrooke, she was able to disguise herself as Ariel.

-Transmutation
She can turn someone or something into something else. The Wizard into a flying monkey. Other people into flying monkeys. Lumiere into a candelabra. Red apples into green apples.

-Pyrokinesis
This is a really fancy way to say she makes fire in her hands and can throw it at people. People like Dorothy.

-Magical Cardiectomy
She can use magic to reach into someone's chest and remove their heart. Or rummage around in it with a confused look on her face if there's nothing in there.

According to how magic works in Once Upon A Time, you can actually live with a removed heart, so this isn't fatal. However, it's not exactly pleasant either. If somebody has your heart, they can do all sorts of things with it like using it to control its owner or crushing it to kill them. If someone were so inclined, as Zelena plans to do, the right heart can even be used as a spell ingredient to turn back time, so there's that as well.

-Potion Making
Sort of straightforward if not really explained in canon. She can make potions assuming she has the proper ingredients for such things (like dragon scale for a memory potion or Regina's blood for the unidentified potion she added that too).

-Curse Casting
She can cast curses too. Like cursing someone's lips so that if they kiss someone else, the kissed person loses their magic. All curses depicted in the show have come with some sort of cost, so there was definitely some sort of price for this, but it wasn't shown.

-Broom Enchantment
She can use magic to fly around on a broom. A little stereotypical, yes. Presumably she can enchant other things too, but this is the main thing we see it used for.

-Magical Amulet
Though it's not really explained as well as I'd like, the amulet around Zelena's neck is said to protect and harness her power. Here's what we know about. It can be removed via Light Magic, once it's removed, she's completely powerless, and if the wearer were to die, their magic is set free and can apparently activate spells (or at least this is the closest thing to an explanation we have).

-Blood Magic
In addition to witchcraft and dark magic, Zelena's also shown the ability to utilize, or at least hijack, spells created by blood magic, which is magic tied to the caster's bloodline. Such as hacking into her sister's blood magic seal on the castle and altering it for her own ends.
Third-Person Sample:
Even though she still expected this little side trip to Wonderland to be a short one, Zelena was still annoyed by this whole turn of events. After all, this part of her plan was supposed to be time consuming, but that was about it. Most of the problem would've been waiting for that baby to be born. Gathering the brain, courage, and heart, well, she wasn't expecting too many problems there. What she didn't even remotely plan on though was ended up here instead of Maine.

No, that was rather surprising. And she didn't particularly care whether it was something they actually did, perhaps tricking her into mistaking something else for the Dark Curse, or some weird magical fluke. Though she really doubts it was the former.

“No, they're not nearly clever enough to do something like that,” she muttered aloud, dismissing that notion entirely.

However it happened though, that really wasn't important. What mattered to her is that once again, her life wasn't going the way it was supposed to. Which pretty much was actually the story of her life. Not an exaggeration like it would be for most people. Since birth, her life had gone pretty much any way other than the way it was supposed to. Being abandoned in the woods, raised in Oz, not being chosen to cast the Dark One's Curse. All of it was wrong. But wrong as it was, it was something she'd correct relatively soon.

“Now then, just need to get things back on track and bring an end to this little...vacation,” she said, frowning since she wasn't really sure quite how to do that. She'd tried teleporting, but that wasn't going to work. A pity, really. Banishing Glinda had been relatively simple, but it seemed leaving here was going to be a bit more difficult. Still, it shouldn't be too hard. She'd figure it out soon enough. After all, if she could break the laws of magic, which she will do, then leaving here shouldn't be a piece of cake with the right spell.

“And I will find the right spell,” she promised, continuing to think out loud. “Even if I have to tear this place apart to find it.”

First-Person Sample:
I must say this wasn't at all where I was expecting to end up.

[Take equal parts annoyance and surprise, blend them together, and that's her expression right now. She's not a fan of surprises. Or at least not ones that she didn't cause.]

No, not at all, I'm almost disappointed. Really, I was expecting some place far more...ordinary.

[It might seem odd, but she's actually disappointed by that.]

No matter though. I don't expect to be here for long. Though if anyone knows a way to speed up my departure, I suggest you share it.

[That may have sounded a little threatening.]

After all, I don't want to take up any more of your time than I absolutely have to, and the sooner I can get back to where I'm supposed to be, the better for everyone involved.