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"They never accepted you, did they, Trini?" Rita asks carefully, a slow, creeping tilt at the corners of her lips. She brings a hand up to Trini's chin, holds it between her thumb and forefinger and jerks her head up. Trini doesn't fight it.
Yellow light flashes in her eyes, blinding her briefly, not long enough to frighten her. Trini grits her teeth.
"Yes," Trini answers, at last. Rita smiles.
Alone, in Rita's castle, here they are, a terrible duo they make: mistress and puppet, Trini is well aware.
A means to an end. The end of the Rangers; of Zordon.
"He never accepted me. For who I am," she says quietly, thoughts of that trapped blue head threatening to enrage her once more.
Rita nods once, then again, a slow rock of her head. She keeps her fingers on Trini's chin.
Trini shifts on her feet, looking down, suddenly nervous. She feels again that sense of being less predator and more prey.
When she faces them again, for the first real time, barren and unmasked without the cover of the visor, the helmet... who will she be, in that moment?
Who will she have become, by the time this will be over?
Trini looks back up from her feet, back at Rita. The woman is still smiling.
Rita, without a word, quietly drops her fingers from Trini's chin; instead, she brings the same hand up to lightly brush through Trini's hair. With her other hand, she presents a glowing coin.
In the background, the green candle glows brighter.
"Dread is so becoming of you," Rita says softly, still stroking her hand through Trini's hair. It makes her shudder; part discomfort, part something unknown, something that, in her anger, she has no time to dissect.
In place of a response, Trini cautiously lifts her hand to the coin in Rita's. She doesn't yet grasp it; she lets her hand hover over it. She looks up at Rita.
The witch grabs her hair and pulls.
Trini jerks forward, her hands flailing about, falling to her knees. She swears she heard— no, feel— hair rip out of her head. She breaks her fall with her hands.
From above her, she hears Rita's unmistakable cackle.
"Oh, darling," Rita says, pausing in her laughter.
Trini, before she looks up, feels, before seeing, the doubtless edge of Rita's heeled shoes. It pokes at the edge of her chin.
"You'll do wonderfully," Rita continues. "Just wonderfully."
Before she registers it, Trini smiles.