Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't own. Don't sue.
A/N: mslead was the one who suggested I write something up for angst week, so here's my submission (not insane enough to do one for every prompt sorry). Enjoy! *cackles*
Memories were funny things.
His earliest memory was of his mother reading him a story at bedtime. It was an exciting story about a prince turned into a monster, and how love had saved him. As a child he'd always imagined that one day he would be a mighty warrior or wizard and be the one to heroically save the princess or help her save the cursed prince.
He'd never dreamed in that long ago time that one day he himself would be the cursed prince.
Of course, that was before the raid. Before the Zeref fanatics had cut down his mother before his eyes with the same detachment she had used when killing a chicken for dinner. Before he'd been captured with the other children and taken to a desolate island where the meaning of the word slave was beaten into him.
He remembered those days far too clearly. Remembered the forced labor, and the magical experiments. Remembered the punishments for rebellion. Remembered the agonizing pain as they'd done things to him. Things he didn't, and wouldn't, understand until much later. He remembered the days of exhaustion, and terror, and crying as he curled up in his own scrap of floor. In fact, there were days he wasn't sure he'd ever grown beyond the terrified child huddling with all the other terrified children.
There had been only one bright spot in those dark, miserable, days. His friend.
He had found her by accident one day while working in the tunnels. She had been tiny and half dead from the cold. It hadn't even occurred to him to be afraid of her. All he'd seen was another being suffering like he was, but instead of abusing her the way he was abused he'd picked her up and curled her into his chest so she could leech off his body heat.
They had been inseparable after that.
He sighed at that memory. It was one of his most precious, but these days it never failed to bring a stab of hurt. After all, he knew how the story ended.
It was just ironic that it didn't end in death. At least not the physical kind.
He closed his eye and ignored the others around him as he thought about that memory some more. No matter what pain it brought it was still precious, and he would gladly endure the hurt to remember the pleasure.
Unbidden, more memories flowed over him on the heels of that one. Memories of his beloved friend curled around his wrist for warmth at night when he was a slave. Memories of her clinging to him when the future Titania rallied them to rebellion. And memories of after…
At first, he'd hated remaining on the island. He hated the tower and everything it represented. He'd wanted to take his friend, his beloved Cubelios, and run away. As far away as they could get. It had been Jellal who had persuaded him to stay. To try it his way. Just for a month. Just one. If he still wanted to leave he would be free to. He was, after all, no longer a slave. The first month he'd spent cautiously enjoying the rest from work and the good food and better baths and clothes. He'd had his own room in the tower and not a scrap of floor. They were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, and sleep in soft beds.
The clincher, though, had been the magic.
He'd never considered that he might be a wizard before. Not seriously. Most people weren't after all. But the moment Jellal had confirmed what he was, his quiet little prayer to one day hear his friend's voice had erupted into a desperate desire. A desire he knew he could fulfill if he could just find the right magic. It made sense after all. Cubelios was magical herself.
His lips thinned as he tried not to remember the next parts. He didn't want to think about his training. About learning about the lacrima implanted into him; the cause of so much of his pain at the hands of the fanatics. He didn't want to think about developing his hearing and the agony he'd experienced with the enhanced sense until he learned to properly control it. He didn't want to think of any of that.
He wanted to think of the quiet nights curled with Cubelios around the fire with the rest of his friends when they were camping out for a mission or training. About the way she would wrap around him lovingly, and he would pet her as they laughed and talked.
In retrospect, those years had been the best of his life. He'd had faith then. Faith that his prayer would one day be answered, along with the others. That one day there would be peace and an idyllic world to live in. He'd never given a second thought to if what he was doing was right or not. The fools he'd fought had simply been blind to the truths Jellal and Brain had opened their eyes too. They would see for themselves one day. He'd been sure of it.
And if they had to call themselves a dark guild for it then so be it.
He'd been a blind idiot back then.
And like all idiots he'd been cocky and sure of himself right until the moment it had all crashed down around him.
He scowled a little as he remembered it. Nirvana. Natsu. He'd been so confident in his superiority. He'd had a right to it. The Oracion Seis had been among the strongest of the dark guilds. Brain's pride and joy. They'd worked hard and had achieved a level almost unseen in most wizards. Only the wizard saints themselves had been stronger. Or so they'd thought.
He still burned a little over the defeat Natsu had handed him that day. It galled him that the dragonslayer had turned his greatest strength into his greatest weakness. It didn't matter that he should've seen it coming. It still pissed him off, and the dragon in him growled and snarled softly in the back of his mind for a rematch. It was too bad he was unlikely to ever get one.
More painful were the revelations he'd 'heard' from the man he'd considered his father.
Just the thought of it brought a fresh stab of pain and anger to his heart and his fists clenched involuntarily. He could tell immediately by the way Jellal had shifted across the fire that he'd seen it. The other man said nothing however, and he didn't feel like taking a peek into the man's thoughts. His own were bad enough.
He carefully unclenched his fists as he tried not to think about what had happened next. About the defeats, and the arrest. About being separated from Cubelios. That was what had hurt the most. She'd been his one constant, and though he would never wish prison on her there had been a part of him that had howled and raged behind the smirking mask he presented to the guards.
It was the part of him that was the scared little boy not wanting to be in a cage ever again. And the part that was the raging dragon roaring furiously over the loss of his most precious treasure. It was the part of him that lurched between rage and painful heartache as scenario after horrifying scenario played through his mind over Cubelios' fate.
After all…he, better than most, knew how dark and cruel and horrifying the world could be. And while she was an apex predator in her own right, he wouldn't have put it past those annoying fairy flies to harm her.
They hadn't though. They'd done something else. And the truth was far worse.
They'd broken the curse on Cubelios.
Not for the first time, he kicked himself for having never noticed it. Never thought about it. It made sense after all. Children were being taken for experimentation and punishment, which generally meant the same thing, all the time. He'd suffered through it the same as many others. Sometimes he could still hear the screams from the children as who knew what had been done to them.
So why had it never occurred to him that his beloved friend would really be a girl cursed?
He didn't know, and it upset him that he'd never thought to check. To find out if all was well with her magically. She simply had been for so long that he'd accepted she was a real snake. A magical snake perhaps, but a real snake all the same. Finding out different was shocking. What kind of friend was he?
He still remembered that moment. The moment he'd stared at the young woman with purple hair and the confused expression. He hadn't known who she was at first. After all, he'd been searching frantically for a giant snake. Not a beautiful woman. It had taken him a moment to realize that despite the different body she moved the same. Sounded the same. Smelled the same.
His friend, his precious treasure…had turned out to be far more precious than he'd ever dreamed.
In that one moment of realization he'd fallen helplessly in love.
He'd ached to pull her into his arms and hold her. To take her away and never let her go. To listen to her achingly beautiful voice for the rest of time.
In that moment he'd been happy beyond his wildest dreams.
In the next he knew his dreams were exactly that.
She'd been cursed by dark magic. A curse that was only half broken at best. He'd seen it start to overcome her when she'd desperately asked him who he was and why she could hear his voice calling her.
His heart had shattered at the realization.
She had amnesia because of breaking the curse. It was the only way to break such a curse if one wasn't the caster. She would never be able to remember him, or the memories they'd created together. There was no way he could take her in his arms and whisk her away even if he wasn't a wanted criminal, and that damned Rune Knight bastard wasn't standing right there. He was nothing but a voice to her. A ghost from a past she couldn't remember. And he never would be more.
It broke his heart, but he'd ignored the throbbing pain, and given her the only gift he could. Her freedom. His only consolation was that his prayer had been answered. Though even that was somewhat bittersweet as a new wish had immediately taken its place. The wish to never hear her stop talking to him.
Still, he'd heard it once, and on nights like tonight he liked to play it back over and over no matter how much pain it brought him to do so. He'd endured pain before, and while this pain was nothing like physical pain, he bore it anyway.
He would bear anything for her. It was the least he could do.
It was kind of ironic in a way. When he was a child he'd firmly believed in fairy tales and dreamed of becoming a hero to help others. He'd believed that everyone would get happy endings in real life too. Now he knew better.
Now he knew that fairy tales absolutely existed. It was happy endings that were the myth.
He was the proof of that.
Just like the cursed prince, he'd turned himself into a monster. But unlike the story from his childhood there was no hope of rescue. No princess to save him. His princess couldn't even remember him. And she never would.
She would never know. And every night his heart bled a little more as he remembered why and wished, futilely, that it could be different.