Author's note:
This is basically a "twisted fairy tale" historical flashback in the style of the show (but for OCs), set long before canon in the same AU that I have for "From Troubled Seas". One CC appears briefly, if you squint. The main canon element is the magic used (heart ripping, True Love, and the Dark Curse, albeit with an alternate backstory).
Elves are mentioned in OUAT, but never shown. They are distinct from "fairies", who are basically Disney pixies (Tinker Bell, the Blue Fairy, etc.) and according to my headcanon, originate from Neverland. I use "fey" to refer to elves (mainly) and related races (in my AU/headcanon, this includes ogres and goblins). In this AU, they were the native inhabitants of Misthaven/the Enchanted Forest. The unnamed elven king is a composite of Math and Gwydion from Welsh mythology.
Edit 12.10.2017: Since it's been questioned whether this actually qualifies as fanfiction, I will note...
[SPOILERS!]
...this is an alternate take on the origin story of the Dark Curse (THE Dark Curse that sent everyone to Maine...but NOT actually everyone, since logically there had to have been millions of people in the original Enchanted Forest, but only a few thousand in Storybrooke) explaining who created it, why, how, and why it had the price it did, why it sent people to another realm at all, and why it wasn't actually cast until Rumplestiltskin managed to get someone to do it. And yes, it even says in the text of the story that it takes place in Misthaven (old name of the EF). I wasn't satisfied with the canon origin given in season 6, so I wrote this as my version. All the plot points I tweaked from the original Blodeuedd myth for this story were specifically for the OUAT setting and the OUAT Dark Curse, not just any old curse from any fandom/original setting! :)
Explaining away all the annoying little oddities of canon is one of the reasons people write fanfiction (along with entering challenges and having ideological issues or whatever in this case.) Well, it was clear to me why this was OUAT fanfiction. Hopefully it's clear to the reader, now, too!
[END SPOILERS]
Trial
Her accuser was dead — Lugh the Shining One lay in pieces on the wooden bier raised underneath the King's Oak. He had become food for maggots and pigs when his father the king found him after long searching. Made ugly by death, his corpse was preserved from further decay by magic strong enough to freeze the flies midair. His soul flew from rotted flesh to reside in the eagle that now perched atop the oak, shrieking a single word to the woman who had been his wife: "Faithless!"
"You will have justice, my son. That I promise you." The king of the elves held court in the meadow on the hill, a dozen nobles gathered on one side to bear witness and a dozen human changelings on the other to serve as the jury, for his son's wife was not of the fey kind.
She stood in their midst, wrists shackled by silver chains to the judgement stone, her head held high in defiance. She scoffed in bitter unbelief, "Justice? A fine jest!"
"You shall have fair judgement from these who are of the same race as your treacherous lover. It is they who are to decide your guilt in this matter." The king nodded in full courtesy to those gathered. "Behold the accused and be not deceived by her false beauty, for her heart is rotten with poison. Listen..."
"Faithless!" cried the eagle.
"She took to her bed a human man, betraying her wedding vows within a year of speaking them.
"And with this man, she conspired against her husband.
"Through her cunning she learned from his own mouth how he might be slain.
"For a year and a day, she and her lover plotted murder...
"And when it was done, they hid my son's body in the forest." The king's eyes turned towards the bier. "See how they treated him!"
"Faithless!"
The king turned back to the woman. "Do you deny it? Have I spoken truly?"
"I cannot deny it. It happened as you have spoken." The woman looked as if she wished she could say otherwise, but the silver chains compelled her to honesty. "He is dead, and well dead, and I would have it no other way!"
Twelve times unloved
It was under the light of the full moon that Prince Lugh's twelfth proposal of marriage was turned down. Though moonlight lent the Shining One an air of mystery that could only add to his appeal, it did not sway the human target of his affections.
"Forgive me, my lord. I cannot. There is another who holds my heart." The changeling was fair-spoken and handsome, yet compared to the inhuman beauty of the elven prince, the youth was coarse and clumsy.
"Another? Who?"
"He is an apprentice blacksmith in the village on the edge of the forest."
"A wild human. An uncouth beast, all soot and bad smells," said the prince. Though his words were insulting, his tone held only confusion. "Why would you choose him over me? Am I not well-born and pleasing to the eye?"
"Please, my lord. I love him."
"It's a hard life outside the hollow hills. If you leave us, you'll have to roughen your hands and sweat like the other humans." The prince, who was honest in his own way, knew that true love could not be bought, and it was true love that he wanted for himself. This came perilously close to bribery, so he changed his argument. "This apprentice may tire of you in a day, a month, a year... what then? There is no return; you know that."
"In a year he may die, or I may die, or the world may end, but it may also happen that we are happy together! My lord, don't hate us for our love."
"You have done me no wrong; why should I hate you? Nay, if this is truly your choice, then go. In the king's name be you free of us."
"Thank you, my lord!"
Lugh watched him vanish into the night, then sighed deeply.
"Was that the tenth or eleventh time?" The king's voice came from behind him.
"The twelfth," admitted Lugh.
"They will never have you," said the king. "And to try again would be the unlucky thirteenth."
"But what else am I to do?"
"As to that, I may have an answer for you. But tell me, which would please you more, a male or a female?"
Genesis
The king conjured her out of the flowers of oak and broom and meadowsweet. She was the loveliest woman Lugh had ever seen, as beautiful as one of the fey, and as innocent as the flowers from which she was made.
"Give her a name, and she will be yours," instructed the king.
"She will agree to marry me?" breathed the prince, afraid to break the spell. "She is capable of love?"
"She is made for love, and with none of the impurities that mar mortal women. Her heart holds nothing of darkness."
"But will she love me?"
"Your face will be the first she sees, your voice the first she hears. If she knows no other, she must love you."
"And will I love her?"
"That I cannot say. If you can find it within yourself, then you will be the first of our people to know love."
"I will love her," he vowed. He hesitated a moment longer, then took the woman by the hand. "Blossom. Your name is Blossom."
Mirror
"That's you."
They stood side by side in front of the glass, but she didn't understand what he meant until she lifted a hand, and the hand of the image rose to meet her. In the mirror and in life, his shape was covered with soft draping things that reminded her of wet leaves.
Cloth, the word came into her mind, and then, clothing. Yesterday she had been nothing, an emptiness dreaming of sun and rain. Today she was a woman. Blossom. Other concepts rushed in after that. Dizzy, she forgot that she was no longer rooted to the earth. Hands steadied her, held her upright. Bare skin shivered at the touch. She turned, eyes wide, wondering.
"I'll find you some clothes." He was called Lugh. He had named her and thus had the power of command over her. Her master.
She nodded dumbly, accepting it, accepting everything. New in the world, her only thought was to obey.
Betrothed
The king gave formal blessing to the union before his court. Later, the prince's sister came alone to his chambers.
"It's true, then. You plan to wed this creature. My brother, is this wise?"
"She is as sweet-natured as she is beautiful," said the prince. "And no other will have me."
His sister sighed. "You could wed one of our own folk."
"But such a one would not love me, and I must understand this 'love' that humans esteem so highly." He took her by the hand and entreated her, "Please, sister, stand with me."
"Your fascination with these mortals I have long known, but I question why our father indulges this wish of yours. This is no small magic, nor will its price be small." She squeezed his hand. "Humans are unworthy of your emulation. Our father would banish them from Misthaven if he could. Remember what they once did to our people."
"That was many of their generations ago," Lugh said. "These, now, are innocent."
"Then leave it alone. To conjure a wife from flowers — this is a perversion of destiny, and tempts the fates." The princess slipped free of her brother's grasp and turned away. "Better to bespell a mortal than to wed this... this living doll..."
"That would be a lie, and how can true love arise from a falsehood?" He followed her, looked her in the face.
She turned away once more. "But if the lie be believed long enough, in time it may become truth..."
"Then you are only deceiving yourself, my sister."
"As to that, there are deceptions and deceptions..." she said darkly.
Wedding day, wedding night
The day was a confusing storm of color and voices and music. The king held a great feast in celebration of his son's wedding. The guests were too many for Blossom to number, and too many to look at, so she closed her eyes until the time came for the vow-taking. Her master told her to look at him, then.
He told her to smile and to take his hand.
She looked, and smiled, and took him by the hand.
They made vows of faith and loyalty, to be husband and wife until death should part them. The night was quieter. She, alone with her husband, in his bedchamber. He, close and ever closer — taking off that which he had gifted to her — clothes. Magic instilled in her mind a vague knowledge of how he might couple with her, two bodies joined for a time. And so he did, and so she did, and it made little difference to her whether he would or no.
She had no choice in the matter. He was her master; she obeyed. She could think no ill of him, for she was made without the capacity for dark thoughts.
In the gray light of dawn, he murmured into her ear, "Do you love me?"
She didn't answer; she didn't know how to answer, because he hadn't told her what to say.
In the Shining One's House
Whether to please her or to ensure that her love found the right target, Lugh cast a glamour over all his household servants, that they be invisible to her sight.
"No need to close your eyes," he told her. "They are here to serve you. You need only command them and they will obey."
"Yes, my lord." She had few commands for them; her needs were simple. Life was pleasant, dull, one day much like the next. Her master smiled at her and she smiled back. He kissed her and she embraced him. It hadn't taken long for her to learn her role. When he left her to her own devices, she sat in the sunlight, driven by some half-remembered instinct. Her heart was quiet, her mind unstirred by any thought more troubling than the choice of what to eat for supper.
So passed the days, and then the months.
The king's test
The time came when Prince Lugh left his wife at home while he went to see his father, to wish him health on his birthday. The king bade him stay a while — another of the human changelings had fallen in love, but the king had set the lovers a test.
"As you have such an interest in 'love', I thought you would wish to bear witness."
"Indeed it is so." The prince thanked his father and together they went to the chamber where love was to be tried.
There awaited twenty-four identical crows arrayed on wooden stands, each a human or an elf transformed by magic, each forbidden to move or make a sound. A girl was led in, blindfolded, and told to find her lover. A wild human from the Frontlands, she was heavy-fleshed and mortal with no spark of magic within her. None, save the one.
King and prince watched as she walked among the crows, touching first one, then another. At last, she stopped. Breathless, uncertain, she picked a bird from the flock.
"This one."
The king nodded, stripping the blindfold from her head and lifting the spell from the crows in a single complex gesture of sorcery that left the girl clinging to the hand of her lover. She had chosen correctly and won their freedom. "Begone!"
When the chamber was empty again save for father and son, the king asked in weary amazement, "How is it possible? Such a feat defies all reason..."
"Yet she had no confidence in her power. Her hand trembled and her steps faltered as she approached them. This 'love' is a strange thing indeed."
"And have you come closer to grasping it?" the king asked. "What of your bride? Is she all that you hoped?"
"I could ask for none better. You wrought well that day, Father."
"Does she love you? Do you love her?"
"Perhaps. I find myself pleased in her presence, and is it not the same with her? But to pass such a trial as you set the mortals..." The prince shook his head and sighed. "I don't know. The magic is elusive..."
"They have it and we do not. It gives them strength, though they are barely more than dumb beasts. Every year there are more of them and fewer of us."
"No matter. Soon I, too, shall possess that magic."
"May it be so."
Awakening
The day that her husband left began like any other. For most of it, Blossom barely noted his absence. The summer days being long, she had leisure after supper to climb to the top of the south tower to watch the sunset. There she lingered, enjoying the cool breeze that came welcome after a warm day. As dusk overtook the land, she saw a stranger at the edge of her husband's estate.
It was a human man, trudging slowly along the boundary line, burdened with a deerhound that he carried across his shoulders.
Dormant knowledge of the laws of hospitality arose in her mind, and she hurried downstairs to order the servants to open the gate for the stranger. "For the hour is late, and we will be disgraced if we let him go elsewhere and do not let him in."
The servants obeyed, and one was sent to meet the stranger. He accepted the invitation, giving his name as Goronwy. He had been hunting, part of the retinue of an elven lord, but had struck off alone after a missing dog.
"Nerth is his name, my lady." Goronwy presented the hound as gravely as one might introduce one's own child. "See, he has gone lame in one leg, but the hurt is soon mended."
Blossom smiled, glad for the dog's sake. She bade her servants arrange a bed by the fire for Nerth, then offered Goronwy food and drink and conversation as best as she knew how. It was the first time in her life that she was moved to give anything to anyone of her own will. As they sat together at the table, she found that the more she gazed at Goronwy, the more she liked him. And from his answering glances, she thought that he might feel the same.
So it proved that night. Once she had dismissed the servants from their presence, he confessed the love and affection he felt for her.
Love. How many times had her husband asked if she loved him? Never had she been able to answer. She felt something now, for Goronwy, that she had never felt before. Thus she took him by the hand and led him to her bedchamber. Behind shut doors, she thought perhaps anything might happen.
A kiss. She pulled away, touching her lips in confusion.
"Is aught amiss?"
She shook her head, unsure. "It was as if a cloud came over my thoughts."
Goronwy's face darkened. "You are the Shining One's wife. Likely he has placed some enchantment over you, binding you to him."
"He is my lord. I vowed... I vowed faithfulness to him when we were wed."
"But are you happy? Is it your wish to be with him?"
"Until today, I have never wished for anything at all. Now I want only you," she told him. But when she pulled him to her bed and tried to embrace him, her thoughts withered unborn, and it was as if she slept. Goronwy, helpless to break the spell, would then have left, but she begged him to stay. For that night and the next three days, he kept her company, and their affection and desire for one another grew only deeper.
On the day of their parting, their lips met again for a last farewell. Light washed over them in a shockwave of magic. The barriers around Blossom's heart broke open, and what rushed in was darkness: anger, hatred, and resentment at what had been done to her. Tears flooded her eyes and she clung to Goronwy as she wept.
"True Love's Kiss," said Goronwy, astonished. "The most powerful magic in the realms. It has freed you. Come with me, we will flee this kingdom..."
"I am not free. While I am married to the Shining One, my name can never be my own."
"He is the king's son. They will never release you from your vows."
"Nevertheless." From wanting nothing she had grown to want everything: freedom, love, a name and a life...
When he could not persuade her to run, Goronwy said, "There is one other way..." He lowered his mouth to her ear and told her what to do.
He was not her master; his words were only a suggestion — she could heed him or not, as she chose. "A good plan. So be it."
And so Goronwy left, and Blossom stayed to await her husband's return.
A question of love
Lugh sensed the difference in his wife at once; there was a liveliness to her that had been lacking before. She met him at the gate, smiling to welcome him home. She asked after his father's health, and then his own.
Is it love? wondered Lugh. It's said that one values more that which one has lost. My absence must have kindled the spark of love in her heart...
When she spoke of her fear that he would die and leave her bereft, he was quick to reassure her. "My father laid this fate on me when I was born, that I would not be killed by day or by night, on land or at sea, clothed or naked, walking or riding, indoors or outdoors. No weapon can strike me save a spear that has been crafted over a year, worked on only in the dark of the moon. So you see that I am well protected..."
At first she seemed satisfied with his answer, but as the days wore on, she ate poorly and slept not at all, until finally she told him that she would never be at peace until she knew that he would not die. "For surely there may be some flaw in your safeguards, a loophole that an enemy might slip through..."
Lugh was gladdened by her care for his well-being, but amused at her foolishness. He took it as further proof of her love, for was it not well known that love addled the wits? Humoring her, he told her the details of the only way his death might be achieved.
Loophole
A year later, at twilight, Lugh reflected that truly, love addled the wits. Why else had he agreed to this demonstration of his vulnerability? His wife had asked it of him, and because he loved her (he was determined to love her), he was here on the riverbank halfway inside the little hut built especially for the occasion. It was absurd; Lugh felt it in every bone as he stood with one foot on the back of a goat and one foot on the rim of the bath tub inside the hut, wearing nothing but a fishing net.
He wanted to laugh, but a spear struck him in the side and instead of laughing, he gave out a horrible scream and toppled from his perch. Poison raced through his body. In moments, he was dead. Thus ended the marriage of Lugh the Shining One.
Pursuit
They had no hope of escape. The king with all his magic did not take long to learn of his son's death. Blossom and Goronwy counted every hour they had together as a victory, even as they ran for the borders of the kingdom. At the end, as their last hiding place was discovered, they shared a final supper together. It was a cold, rough affair, but she had slipped a sleeping draught into the stolen bottle of wine — which she had only pretended to drink from.
Beloved, it was by my will that the king's son is dead — the price is mine also to pay. I will draw him away and buy you time to flee.
The king pursued her to the shore of a lake. She leaped at once into the water, thinking to drown rather than be taken alive. But the king refused to let her go so cheaply, and imprisoned her with a spell.
Vengeance
Goronwy, who could well guess his lover's fate, had no heart to run. He took up the poisoned spear and prepared to make his stand. He was unsurprised to find the king arriving in a cloud of magic at the threshold of the ruined cottage that was Goronwy's last home.
The greater shock was the sight of Lugh standing before him, eyes glaring in hatred at his murderer.
"My son is dead, but his spirit will find no peace until he settles his score with you," said the king. "This body he wears is naught but a clay vessel, but it will serve well enough."
The golem Lugh was mute, but he pointed at the spear in Goronwy's hand, and the meaning was clear: for the blow Goronwy had struck, he must take the same in return. The king through his sorcery took them back to the riverbank where Lugh had died. Where Lugh once stood, now stood Goronwy, atop the goat and the tub, the absurdity transmuted now into the horror of anticipation.
Goronwy's courage failed him then, and he begged for mercy. "My lord, it was for love of Blossom that I struck at you. If ever you loved her too, let me take yonder slab of stone and place it between myself and the blow."
One slow nod gave Lugh to Goronwy, and so it was done. But such was the strength of the Shining One's arm that the spear pierced through the stone and broke Goronwy's back.
Verdict
"Guilty."
"It is decided. What have you to say?" The king looked at Blossom.
"You made me and bound me to obedience. Your son's death is on you," Blossom accused him. "If I was free, then you enslaved me and your son paid the price for your sin. If I never had a will of my own, then you created me to be a murderer."
"Faithless!" cried the eagle.
"Faith can only be given, not compelled," said Blossom. "I am faithful to the one I love..."
"Do you mean this man?" The king lifted his hand, and the broken body of Goronwy fell to the grass before them. "Why then did you flee alone, abandoning him to his fate?"
She blanched. "I meant to save him from your wrath..."
Goronwy stirred at the sound of her voice; he was not yet dead. He groaned her name, dragging himself by his arms towards the standing stone where she was bound.
She strained to reach him, pulling her chains taut. "Goronwy!"
Fingers touched, and in agony Goronwy finished his journey, his head falling to rest in his lover's lap. "My love, I am dead. Only sorcery keeps my breath in my body..."
She looked over to the king. "Why? Why torment him? Mine was the thought that wished your son dead..."
"It's a test," whispered Goronwy. "That's the truth behind this trial. He would know the strength of our love..."
"Why?"
"For this he created you. This I know, because when his magic stole me from the threshold of death, his thoughts could not be hidden from me."
The king made no answer. The court and the jury were silent. The eagle was silent.
"He's gone too far. Not even true love can bring back the dead." And then Goronwy reached into his chest and took his own heart in his hands. "I will be his plaything no longer. Please, my love, you must free me..."
The curse
He had once freed her. Now she did the same for him. She pressed her hands together. Black dust trickled through her fingers, and Goronwy breathed no more. She said in a choked sob, "King of the heartless, with this heart I curse you. Lugh is dead. You have nine children remaining, but you will live to see them all die, and no more shall you ever get!"
A shudder of magic swept the meadow under the King's Oak. The eagle screeched, then became smoke, before it became nothing at all.
Her moment passed, and the king spoke his own judgement. "I will not kill you, for it is true that I have wronged you. But for what you have done, your penance will not be light."
The woman was gone. An owl stood in her place. It cried out once, then lifted itself into the air and flew away.
Waiting
As the years passed, death came to the king's children one by one. When the last was buried, the owl came to him once more.
It is finished, then. My curse.
"Yes."
A heavy price to give your son what he could not have.
"But worth it for what I learned. Your curse is finished. But mine is yet to be cast." The king smiled, the king who had never smiled before in the time that she had known him. "You are my creation. What you know, I know also. What can you do that I cannot?"
You cannot love.
"True. My curse shall be cast by another — someone human. By their own hand, they will bring the darkness upon themselves. A final justice for my people."
That day may never come.
"It is closer than you think."
The owl did not leave after that; she stayed at the side of the king. One had killed both her husband and her lover, while the other had lost all his children in pursuit of his justice. All that was left to them was the empty waiting...
Waiting for darkness to fall.
Acknowledgements: The original tale of Blossom (Blodeuwedd, or "Flower-face") comes from the fourth branch of the Mabinogion. In addition, I owe thanks to burnseleanor21, whose brilliant Movellan series, with all its insights on AIs, logical creatures, and the relationship of the created to their creators, was the other main inspiration for this story.