So this all comes out of Fitz's whole "we're cursed" thing from 3x08 because I figured that warranted a story where Fitz is actually cursed. This first part is a bit Sleeping Beauty, but after that it goes a bit away from traditional fairytale lore.
I am so insanely excited about this AU. It's going to be a pretty slow burn, but we'll get a lot more characters and all sorts of vaguely Medieval background in the next few chapters. In terms of titles and terminology for this chapter and the rest of the story, it's all fairly accurate to Medieval/Early Modern Britain, but there's definitely some pulling things from different time periods which I'm justifying by saying at this is a fairytale so it doesn't have to perfectly historically accurate. I'm hoping to get the first real chapter up before exams in two weeks, but after that I should have almost a month of relative freedom (just in time for the hiatus) so i can get a lot work done on this then.
I really really hope you guys like it! Enjoy!
A hooded figure stared down at a baby in its cradle, a long thing finger reaching out to stroke its tiny cheek.
The child whimpered.
"Don't touch him!" The words ripped out of a richly-clothed man standing horrified across the room, the candlelight reflecting off the jewels in his crown. A brown-haired woman stood beside him, her crown smaller, but the fear in her eyes the same.
The figure moved its head back as though laughing uproariously, but the only sound that issued from the dark space under its hood was a cross between cracking tree branches and nails along a blackboard.
The congregation on the opposite side of the hall gave a shudder at the noise, shrinking away from the figure even more than they already had been.
"Oh, Your Majesty," the figure finally spoke in a voice as harsh and gravelly as the coarse sand that swirled menacingly at his feet, "Phillip Coulson, if I wanted your child dead right now, he would be already, I assure you." The sorcerer turned back to the baby. "No, I need him to live… for now." He looked up at Coulson again. "You know my name, I trust."
The king nodded slowly. "Maveth," he said, his voice small, but resolute.
"Good," the sorcerer said, sounding as though he was grinning underneath his hood. "And the meaning?"
The king faltered at this, his hand reaching down to clutch his wife's.
"Oh, come, come, Coulson," the figure said, with a cruel warmth that caused the queen to turn her face away. He stretched his arms out in some twisted mockery of welcoming. "You know the answer."
"Death by punishment," Coulson said finally, his eyes locked on the floor.
"Precisely," Maveth replied, turning back to the cradle. "Death by punishment. That's why I have so rudely interrupted this special day. I don't wish for your precious child to die right now; I need him for the future. But there can always be punishment."
"He's only a baby!" The queen spoke for the first time.
The sorcerer looked up as though surprised. "Now, Audrey. Let's not be too hasty. You don't know what this boy becomes. I can see everything. This boy is to be both my savior and my downfall. And for you? Suffering. Only suffering."
The crowd began to move as a man shoved his way to the front.
"Get out of here, you monster!" Without even his helmet, a young knight unsheathed his sword and swung it out in front of him, not quite in control.
"Eoin, no!" A woman's voice called from the crowd, distracting him, but the knight shook his head and turned back to stare at the sorcerer, his face set.
"Someone has to defend the prince."
Maveth watched the action in the crowd with polite interest, but after the man turned back to face him, the sorcerer laughed that same unnerving sound from before.
"Oh, Sir Eoin Fitz, is it?" Maveth greeted the knight. "The youngest of Coulson's cavalry. You're barely more than a boy, and you think you can hurt me? Silly lad."
As the sorcerer turned away from him, Eoin launched forward, his sword thrust out ahead of him.
Maveth whirled around and the sand swirling at his feet instantly picked up, the wind turning into a swirling vortex that surrounded the sorcerer and the young knight.
Blinded by the sand, the crowd and the royal family shielded their faces from the gale.
After a moment, the sand settled, and Maveth reappeared next to the cradle, young Eoin Fitz nowhere in sight.
"That's better." Maveth turned back to the baby. "Now, as I was saying-"
"Where is the boy?" Coulson interrupted with a glance to the crowd that was looking all around for any sign of the young knight. Eoin's mother and his wife stood at the edge of the mass of people. The younger woman looked confused, but the older woman seemed to already understand what had happened.
Eoin's mother had been one of Coulson's mother's ladies in waiting many years before, and she had married one of Coulson's father's finest knights. Together, they had had six children, of which Eoin was the youngest. Eoin's wife was the daughter of a lesser nobleman from a village across the kingdom. They had not been married six months.
Maveth just laughed. "That was a lesson to you all. This is what will happen if you try to oppose me."
A wail went up from the crowd. Eoin's wife had collapsed onto the ground, Eoin's mother trying to quiet her even as tears slid down her cheeks.
"Yes, how tragic," said Maveth callously. "But your knight is meaningless. I'm here for the baby." He turned back to the child. "As I said, I can't kill him yet. I need him for the future. He will be brilliant, one of the most brilliant minds the kingdom has ever seen, and it will be my salvation. But that brilliance, if left unchecked, will spell disaster. So I offer a gift, if you will. That's what one gives a baby at a christening, is it not?" He reached down to take the child in his arms.
The baby began to scream, its cries competing with those of young Lady Fitz.
"My dear prince," Maveth cooed, his cracked voice somehow cutting through the cacophony around him. "Always when a spell is cast on an infant there is a caveat with 'true love's kiss,' so I plan to use that to my advantage. Here is my gift to you, intelligent child: you will work so hard and accomplish so much, but at true love's kiss, it will all be lost. You will remember your friends, but they will not remember you. You will know your parents, but they will see you as a stranger. And the one you love beyond anything: she will forget you except to hate you. You will become nothing. And you will have your death by punishment."
"No." Audrey's voice was hushed with disbelief as she shook her head. "You can't! Take it back!"
Maveth laughed and laid the baby back in his cradle. "It was so lovely to see you all. Coulson, Audrey." He nodded at them and then turned toward the crowd. "And I'm terribly sorry for your loss, Dame Isobel, Lady Fitz."
With a crack of thunder, the wind picked up, the sand swirled around him, and, in an instant, he was gone.
The entire hall was in an uproar. Mothers clung to their children. Young knights hurried to help both Fitz women where they sobbed on the ground in each other's arms. Coulson and Audrey rushed toward their baby.
Audrey picked him up, clutching him to herself and whispering to him soothingly.
"We have to keep him safe," Audrey said to her husband, unable to stop herself from crying.
"We will, darling," Coulson replied reassuringly, though his hand shook as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I promise you, we will."
He took Audrey's free hand and led her over to the women weeping on the ground.
"I'm so sorry Isobel, Margaret," Coulson said to the women, his head hanging down, ashamed. "I should have… I should have done something."
The older woman smiled sadly at him and shook her head. "Your Majesty, please don't apologize," she said, her words full of emotion. "There is nothing you could have done. Maveth is merciless. But perhaps there is a way to save your child."
Coulson looked up at her words.
The woman continued. "If Maveth is killed, the curse will be broken, and all will be well, but, even if he is not, Maveth made one crucial error. He used true love as a joke, as a way to make a mockery of an emotion he does not understand. Maveth does not know the power of true love. If it is strong enough, that love may yet break the curse."
Coulson nodded, his eyes both serious and skeptical. "We will do everything we can to kill Maveth. He will suffer for what he has done to you and to us." He turned back to the child, now quiet in his wife's arms. "But, for now, we will have to watch my son very closely. Even with this power you speak of, there is no guarantee that the curse will be broken. If we cannot kill Maveth, then we must prevent this kiss from taking place."
Audrey sniffled behind Coulson as she knelt down beside Margaret who was still sobbing. Another woman, very obviously with child, held her as she cried, a knight behind them, concern and horror etched in his face.
"I'm her older sister, Your Majesty, Agnes Simmons," the other woman explained. "Sir Eoin and Sir John were on patrol in our part of the kingdom when we met them." She nodded back to her husband, the knight standing with them who looked several years older than Eoin. "John and I fell in love, but Margaret and Eoin couldn't stand each other. And then at our wedding, Eoin told Maggie he was mad for her, and she said the same, and that was that." Lady Simmons gave Audrey a sad smile.
Margaret let out a sob. "Eoin."
Agnes held her closer.
"Margaret," Audrey said kindly.
The woman looked up from her sister's shoulder.
Audrey smiled at her softly. "I'm so sorry, Margaret. Your husband was such a brave man, and he deserved better." She glanced up at her husband who nodded at her. Then she turned back to the grief-stricken woman. "We'd like to tell you what we've decided to name our son. He is called first after Phillip's grandfather, Leopold. But his full name will be Leopold Fitz Coulson, Prince of all the Kingdom. Your husband's sacrifice will not be forgotten, and Maveth will pay for what he has done. I will not let him take my son away from me." She stared wistfully down at the baby in her arms as a tear dripped down her cheek. "My Leopold Fitz."
