Title: hourly conceived and hourly born
Disclaimer: if you recognize them, they're not mine
Warnings: goes AU at the end of season 1
Pairings: Jefferson/Grace's mother
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 970
Point of view: third
Prompt: Once Upon a Time, Jefferson/Mad Hatter, One is painfully sane, the other is mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Iakov had once been the youngest prince of a magically-rich land where everyone had at least a spark of magic. The royals always had just a bit more; they needed to be able to defend the land, after all.
Iakov's mother was King Elisabeta, his father the Royal Consort Hadrian, his oldest sister the Crown Princess Aurelia, and his older twin brothers the Princes Darius and Drago.
Her Majesty Elisabeta's talent was elemental; His Highness Hadrian's talent was with mindworks. All four of their children could bend the world around them to their whim: Aurelia by enacting her will on the living vegetation, the twins by summoning and banishing whatever they liked, and Iakov –
Well, Iakov could open portals to other lands at the drop of a hat.
Literally.
.
When Iakov was sixteen, he decided to wander through the realms. A decree from his mother would've kept him home, of course, but she understood the desire. She had once felt it, but as the only of her siblings suitable for ruling, she could not leave.
"I'll keep watch on you," his father said. "And should you ever need us, just call. No matter where you are, I'll hear."
Iakov swore. (And he did keep that promise – but Wonderland muffles all magicks that are not native, and he had known better than to go there again. But go there he did.)
.
It was not Prince Iakov of the Dragon Clan who stepped through the hat. He spent three weeks with a new name in every village until he finally settled on Jefferson. Jefferson, the portal jumper, traveler and thief, charmer and rogue. Jefferson, ally of the Dark One and friend of the Evil Queen.
(He laughs about it with Darius; Drago doesn't find it as funny, but he's always been nicer than his brothers. And Aurelia only wants to hear the stories that won't call for his arrest.)
When he meets Rochelle, she is the servant in a house he is robbing, and she closes his portal with the wave of her hand. "Take me with you," she orders, "or you won't be leaving."
He takes her with him.
She decides to stay.
.
A hat is a hat is a hat.
A portal jumper needs a portal.
Jefferson is a portal jumper.
Once… once, he was Prince Iakov of the Dragon Clan, walker of worlds.
.
Jefferson loses Rochelle when Grace is three summers old. She is bitten by a viper and dies immediately. Jefferson knows a magical construct when he sees it – no snake is so venomous that the healing spell handed down for fifteen generations cannot counteract it.
Jefferson heeds the warning.
(Mama, Da, Aurelia, Darius, and Drago all beg him to come home with his daughter.
He should have.)
.
Jefferson ceases work for the Dark One. When the imp tries to threaten him, Iakov of the Dragon Clan peers out his eyes.
Jefferson refuses all contact with the Evil Queen. When she sends minions to fetch him, none of them ever return.
Jefferson and Grace are happy and free.
.
The magic of the Dragon Clan has never worked correctly in Wonderland.
He screams for years and his father never hears.
.
In Storybrook, there is no magic.
Jefferson is a portal jumper. He needs a portal.
But Iakov…
His first night in Maine, he screams and he hears Iakov?!
.
Iakov of the Dragon Clan, Walker of Worlds, could break the Curse. Unfortunately, it would drain his homeland of most of its magic.
Iakov clings to his family through the tenuous connection with his father and practices what little magic he can actually reach. For an hour every day, he visits with his parents and his siblings.
And years pass. His siblings wed. His parents grow old.
He dreams of Wonderland.
He watches Grace.
There is a dragon inside him and he is caged.
.
His father dies in the eighteenth year, three months before Regina adopts a child.
Drago's oldest daughter has a talent for mindworks, but Iakov refuses to trap a child as he has been trapped. She isn't strong enough, yet, to reach him unless he reaches first.
It hurts, but he turns away from her questing call.
.
He dreams of Wonderland. Of the Queen of Hearts.
He dreams of Rochelle.
He dreams of Regina's heart breaking.
He is three men, all trapped inside a marvelous house.
He –
.
Later, he does not remember much of the decade after Regina adopted the boy.
But he wakes from a nightmare of Wonderland when the Savior crosses the border. He has had a trickle of magic for 28 years, and none at all for however long he was in Wonderland.
The Queen of Hearts' prisoner cackles inside him. Jefferson cries at feeling magic again.
Iakov of the Dragon Clan uncoils.
.
He reaches. Ileana reaches back. She is a woman now, as powerful as the still-reigning King Elisabeta.
What do you need, Uncle? she asks.
Iakov smiles. When the Curse is broken, my daughter and I will come home. Is there still a place for us?
Always, Uncle, Ileana promises. May you find shelter beneath the dragon's wings.
Iakov of the Dragon Clan finishes, And may the fire be ever-hot and the wind ever-strong.
.
Jefferson was a portal jumper in need of portals.
A hat is a hat is a hat.
But this is Regina's game, even though she never fully understood all of the players.
He is content to let it play out.
.
The Curse breaks. The Dark One brings forth magic.
Iakov of the Dragon Clan stretches his wings and goes to his daughter.
.
A hat is a hat is a hat.
.
The first thing Iakov says, standing in the front room of his mother's suite, is, "You've gotten old, Mama."
Her Majesty King Elisabeta laughs, pulling her youngest child into her arms.