Disclaimer: I do not own any of the canon characters that you will read about. Any OC's that you come across? Yeah, they're mine.

AN: I make no promises with the excellence of this story. Reviews are more than welcome.

Prologue

To know my story, we must go back to the beginning. Though it gives great import, it is not happy. But then, aren't most stories told, begin with some grim introduction that will give us the hope that things will get better? I wish I could say that about my story. Unfortunately, I cannot. For you see, my story, though filled with such wonderful pleasures as adventure and love, does not have a happy ending. Even now, as I am held tightly within the grasp of the person I love most in the world, the ending is just a breath away, and we will be separated. I will have no recollection of him, or of the love we so passionately bore towards each other. There is, despite all great efforts, no hope.

I was born on a warm mid-summer's eve, and was christened Evelyn Dormier. My mother, Ember Dormier, was a woman who wielded great magical power. She fell in love with a mortal man, and he with her. Though my mother's heart was free as a bird, his heart already had a word stamped upon it: "taken." My father was betrothed to another woman, and for some strange reason my mother was fine with this. Even after she had given birth to me, and when father married that woman she was fine with it. I've never been able to imagine my father as an intelligent man, but I do give him credit for having kept us a secret until I had reached the age of ten years.

When his wife did find out about us and the fact that she was pregnant, she used every available option to keep my parents apart. I heard whispers that she even resorted to seeing the Dark One so that some sort of poison could be slipped to my mother in the dead of night. My mother begged and pleaded for father to leave his wife, but in the end, he left us…stranded and alone. My mother had sacrificed nearly everything for love, and all she had left now was me and her magic. She'd once been so good and used light magic. But when father left, her magic became twisted and dark. It ate her alive, and consumed her. One day, I came home from the village, and I found she had died.

That was when everything changed. That was when there was a small glimmer of hope on my horizon for I had only known misery for fifteen years. My father came for me. His wife had died in childbirth and my half-sister would need someone to grow up with her. Though part of me, and I didn't know how controlling that part was, hated me for what he did to me and my mother, I recognized the chance to leave. I saw the opportunity of never having to worry about where my next meal would come from. I grasped on to the knowledge that I, for at least a part of my life, could escape the chains of poverty and destitution.

So, I agreed. The home that I had shared with my mother was left behind, as well as all of the painful memories. I had little to bring with me as father said that I would be treated like family, so there was no need to worry about clothes or anything of that sort. All I brought was my mother's hand mirror, her book of spells, and a locket that I wore like a talisman.

"Never take it off, Evelyn," my mother had fervently whispered on my fifth birthday. "It will protect you from all evil, so long as there is someone alive who loves you."

It was another reason why I was so desperate to get away from the village. Living with my father would give me safety, so that I could not be harmed, now that the only person who loved me…was dead.
As I stood in the great throne room of my father's castle, I clutched the locket, as if it would protect me from the unknown. My father had gone to go retrieve my little sister, who was only five years old. When he returned, I wished that I had been able to wipe away the dirt from my face, or at the very least change into something a bit more decent. My half-sister was dressed in a light blue dress that brought out her dark hair and blue eyes.

"Evelyn, I'd like for you to meet my daughter." Maurice's eyes led me to understand that there was to be no referring to this young girl as my sister. "Her name is Belle."