Jesse took a shaky breath as she regarded the glowing heart in her hands, feeling the glass surface vibrate gently with each heartbeat, pulse against her fingers as if whispering, I'm still here. You're still alive.

Three years.

Three whole years since she'd been cursed.

It was a bit of a wonder that she'd managed to keep it a secret for that entire period of time. There had been a few panicked moments back when she'd tripped into the campfire last year- a few moments where her brain short-circuited and screamed, That's it. That's it. I'm dead. This is how I die. In fact, if Axel had not run forward and hauled her out of the fire rapidly, she probably would've died right then and there. As it was, she'd been badly burned and had been bedridden for three weeks.

Axel and Olivia had been a little suspicious- after all, Jesse's burns had been incredibly severe, more so than just tripping into a campfire should probably warrant for- but they'd just put it down to Jesse's rather poor luck and natural clumsiness.

Absentmindedly, Jesse ran her thumb over the smooth, glassy surface of the heart- her heart, she corrected herself. This was her heart. Not just a pretty ornament that she could set on the mantel. It was her heart, and if this thing broke she was done for and that would really kind of suck. She wasn't ready to die yet.

Stay away from Lukas.

Jesse's hands jerked at the sound of that voice, the glass heart jumping out of her hands a little bit as a lance of fear hit her in the chest. Reuben let out an alarmed squeal at the sight of the fumble.

Thankfully, through some quick grabbing, Jesse's fingers just barely managed to catch ahold of the heart, just before it could slip to the ground and shatter into little pieces. Quickly readjusting her grip on the heart so that it was in a much less precarious position, panting as her green eyes darted around the room, she was vaguely aware that the heartbeat was going at a much quicker speed.

Looking around the room quickly, Jesse couldn't see anyone or anything. With the exception of Reuben, now rubbing his Ender-Dragon-mask-clad head against her leg in a comforting way, there was nobody else in the room.

Three whole years since that witch had cursed her.


"Stay away from Lukas."

Jesse paused, turning back to face the girl she'd just run into. Said girl had long black hair with purple streaks, a darker skin tone, and a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, and her pale blue shirt went well with her black skirt. "Um... I'm sorry, what did you just say?" she asked, hesitantly. It was starting to get dark- in fact, the forest was already throwing long shadows across the ground- and she was in a bit of a hurry to get home, like every other sane person.

"You heard me. Stay. Away. From Lukas," the girl repeated, voice dropping into a more dangerous tone.

Jesse stared blankly at her. "Why?" she asked, a moment later. She couldn't really think of any reason to avoid Lukas. Okay, sure, he was a member of the Ocelots- a group that, admittedly, bullied her and her friends quite often. But he was nice. Very polite. And okay, sure, maybe he was a little arrogant sometimes. But then again everyone can be a little arrogant sometimes. So she had no idea why this complete stranger was warning her away from the blonde.

"He's mine, that's why. So you need to back off."

Jesse couldn't help it. She just couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. "Wait, this- this is what this is about? Miss, I'm sorry to tell you this, but, uh, I think you're mistaken. I have no romantic inclination towards the guy. Heck, I don't even talk to him on a regular basis. So, uh-"

"Are you saying that I'm wrong?" the girl asked, her voice rising in anger.

Jesse was doing her best to stifle a furious round of giggles and not doing very well. "Uh- no, I'm sorry miss, I really don't know what you're talking about. I don't like Lukas that way." Or that much at all, she added mentally, but she decided not to complete that thought. The girl in front of her already looked furious enough.

"You have the gall to deny it and then laugh at me?!" the girl's voice had risen into an angry shriek, and now Jesse was finally able to quell her furious little giggles in favor of trying to calm this girl down.

"No, I'm just saying, I think you've been misinformed-"

The girl raised her hand, eyes glinting with an ugly, malicious sort of look. "I'll teach you not to laugh at people!"

Jesse suddenly felt a small tug on her chest. At first, it was just a sort of little tug, but then it was harder, and harder, until it felt as if someone was trying to rip her heart right out of her chest. Jesse gasped a little, reaching up and grabbing at her heart-

And grabbing ahold of something.

Automatically, Jesse's gaze flew down to her hands, to see a glass object the size of her fist and the thickness of a thick cookie drop into her grasping fingers. Upon slightly closer inspection, it was a glowing heart, emitting a pleasant, red sort of glow, a little light in the center of it and pulsing away-

To the same rhythm as Jesse's heartbeat.

"You're quite persistent in trying to convince me that you don't love that boy," the girl sneered. "Well, my steadfast little soldier, perhaps you should learn a lesson- you shouldn't steal other people's things and then lie about it."

Abruptly, something else dropped into Jesse's hand, next to the glass heart. Jesse leaned forward to take a slightly closer look. It appeared to be a small, tin soldier- the type of toy little boys would play with. The tin soldier seemed to be missing a leg.

Suddenly, even though Jesse's conscious brain was still a bit muddled and very confused, something in her subconscious clicked, and Jesse's eyes widened as her head snapped back up. "You're a-"

A blast of white light exploded through the area, Jesse throwing up one arm to cover her eyes as the toy soldier burst into spears of light, searing her eyes with blazing light.

When the light finally faded and Jesse had blinked the spots out of her eyes, she found that there was nobody else there with her. She was the only one in the forest.

The only one to realize, glass heart thudding away in her hand, that she'd just been cursed with the Fairytale Curse.


Jesse let out a little sigh, thumbing the heart a little bit. She'd barely recognized the fairytale that the witch had cursed her with, but it had been one of the saddest fairytales she'd read growing up- the Steadfast Tin Soldier. She'd had to go scouring several of her old fairytale books to find it, but she'd managed to track down the fairytale.

Rereading it, again and again, it always seemed sadder than she'd remembered. A little boy received a box of tin soldiers on his birthday, but one of the tin soldiers was missing a leg. The tin soldier saw a ballerina with a shiny metal sequin on her sash, also standing on one leg, and fell in love with her. That night, a goblin in the form of a jack-in-the-box warned the soldier to stay away from the ballerina.

The tin soldier refused to stay away from the ballerina, and the next day he was knocked out of a window onto the street, where some more little boys found him, picked him up, and put him into a paper boat, sending him down the stream against his will. Despite the odds being against him, he succeeded in making his way back to the ballerina and to the little boy.

Without warning, the little boy suddenly picked the tin soldier up and threw him into the furnace. A gust of wind carried the ballerina into the furnace as well, consuming her in the fire. The next morning a maid that was cleaning the ashes out of the furnace found the nothing but a tiny tin heart, and the ballerina's metal sequin, burned as black as coal.

Reading and rereading the story, sad as it was, had at least given Jesse a general idea of how her curse would play out if she didn't manage to break it. If she didn't break it, some form of bad luck- or perhaps it was a spell from the witch that had cursed her in the first place- would continually try to knock her into fires and burn her to death, like a witch being burned at the stake. And the only thing that would remain of Jesse once she'd burned to death, was the glass heart that was currently pulsing away in her hands.

The witch that had cursed her had apparently decided, however, that that in itself was not enough, and had decided to add another nasty little way for Jesse's curse to kill her. If the heart were to break somehow- and I'm not talking about a crack in the heart or something, I'm talking about smashing it into multiple pieces- Jesse would also die. So the girl was now constantly at pains to be extremely careful with letting her heart take a fall. She really didn't want to risk it.

Without letting Olivia and Axel know- how could she let them know? They'd leave her in a heartbeat (Jesse smiled grimly at the unintended joke) if they found out that her heart had turned as delicate as glass (literally!)- she'd been quietly researching on how to break the curse. On how to return her body to the way it had been before. Breaking the curse would definitely free her from having to act as if she was a delicate little flower all the time, because she really wasn't.

There was just one little problem.

Jesse had no idea how to break the curse.

It wasn't even that she had a vague idea, or even the inkling of an idea. She had no idea. The tin soldier had died in his story. In every version Jesse had managed to find, the tin soldier died, burned to death in the fire. There were no versions- not one- where the tin soldier survived. There was no indication as to how to break the curse in the story, either.

One year had passed, and then two years, and by now it was the third year, and Jesse was exhausted of pretending that she was still normal, that she wasn't cursed, as if that incident had never happened; of poring over the same books and hoping that she'd missed even the smallest detail, even one word off; of automatically reaching up and grabbing at her heart protectively when anything alarming happened.

Letting out a slightly annoyed sigh, Jesse reached up and placed the heart carefully back into its designated pocket, zipping it up so it couldn't just up and fall out randomly. Now wasn't the time to worry about this; she had a competition to prepare for.

Besides... it wasn't like she was pretending all the time. In fact, when she could forget about her curse, when Reuben was playing with her, when Axel and Olivia playfully argued as they planned for their next Endercon build over dinner... those were the nights she rested the easiest.

"Alrighty!" she muttered, looking over at Reuben and allowing a determined grin to cross her face. "Let's not keep Axel and Olivia waiting for too long, shall we?"

Reuben perked up at the sound of Jesse cheering up, squealing slightly and butting his head into her leg. Grinning cheerfully at her little pig, Jesse went over to the nearest chest- which happened to be near where Olivia had been placing her redstone- she reached into the chest, to find a pair of shears. "Shears. Definitely taking these," Jesse said cheerfully, sliding them neatly into her pocket, "never know when you might need to shear some sheep."

Jesse got the distinct feeling that Reuben was secretly grinning at her with that comment.

Moving over to the other chest, Jesse absentmindedly flipped it open—

And froze in her tracks.

The only thing in the chest, the one other thing that neither Axel or Olivia had thought to bring with them for the competition, was one of the things that Jesse had been subtly trying to avoid for the past three years.

A flint and steel.

Flint and steel was less dangerous than carrying around a lit torch, but unfortunately, with Jesse's 'bad luck', flint and steel would often ignite a little spark whenever she was near it. Once near the beginning of the three years, she'd been carrying a flint and steel in her pocket— she'd been using it and that was quicker than sticking it in her inventory— and it had just randomly clicked together while she was walking and set her pants on fire.

Luckily, she'd been near a stream at the time and nobody was in the vicinity, so she'd just jumped into the stream and extinguished the fire, although the fire had definitely destroyed her jeans and she'd had to wade all the way back home to avoid getting caught on fire again. It had also been one heck of time trying to explain to Olivia and Axel without revealing the curse why she was soaking wet and how her pants had caught on fire.

This was why she wore overalls now and why she avoided putting anything that might catch fire in her pocket. For example, flint and steel.

But, a flint and steel might come in handy today, so, hesitantly, Jesse picked up the flint and the steel as if it was a hot potato. Of course, it wasn't, but you never know, with Jesse's luck it might've just burst into flames randomly right then and there.

... okay, so maybe I was exaggerating about that a little bit, but still, better safe than sorry.

When they didn't, Jesse proceeded to separate the two parts of the flint and steel, and stick them as far apart in her inventory as she could. They probably would not just randomly ignite a spark in her inventory, but nobody ever died from being too careful.

Standing up, Jesse glanced around the treehouse absentmindedly. Well, seeing as she'd just wasted several minutes worrying over her heart (like she generally did), she figured she should just head down and re-join the others now.

Reuben, sensing that Jesse was about to start heading down the ladder, let out an excited squeal and began running around, making Jesse grin at the little pink pig as she approached the trapdoor, the pig-dressed-as-an-Ender-Dragon running around her before she managed to scoop him up into her arms. He always managed to cheer her up. And he was always looking out for her. Once, while she'd been mining in a cave, she'd accidentally fumbled her heart and Reuben had caught it in his mouth before it could hit the floor.

"C'mon, Reuben," Jesse said cheerfully, opening the trapdoor and starting down the ladder with the pig cradled under one arm, "let's get going."

Olivia and Axel greeted Jesse with twin smiles as she made it to the floor— Olivia, her expression filled with slight anxiety even though she was smiling, and Axel, who looked confident and overbearing and cheerful as usual. "Do you think that's everything?" the curly-haired redstone engineer asked, slightly anxiously.

Jesse took a deep breath and gave them a big nod and grin. "I'm pretty sure."

"Let's roll," Axel said, gesturing with that huge grin still on his face.

Olivia rolled her eyes at their friend, smirking slightly. "Yeah, dude. 'Roll'," she teased slightly, eyes glimmering with slight mischief. She was clearly still a little miffed about his prank with the creeper mask.

Jesse laughed, beginning to walk with Reuben trailing behind her a little bit. "Let's go," she joined in the teasing, hiding a giggle at the way Axel's grin turned into a playful pout.

She might be cursed, but sometimes she sure didn't feel that way.


A/N: Aww, fluff!

I'm technically not OFF my hiatus— (Mom hasn't officially said), but I'm going to start getting into biweekly (or possibly triweekly) updates, like how Toni42 updates Movie Mode. Except my chapters are shorter, so they'll probably come out too fast and I'll just lapse back into a general cycle xD It's just better for me to get into a sort of schedule. So... technically, for some time at least, I'm back.

My schedule is going to be The Fairytale Curse, Minecraft: Normal Mode, Hybrid: Cinematic Mode, and Composite. In that order. Update dates are probably going to be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (Probably. It's up for debate, since I'm still waiting for Phantasmagoria's script to be fully beta-read, and after that's done, I'm going to be busy working on that as well. Also, school. Also, I have another fanfiction I'm going to publish. It's MCSM.)

Replies to reviews!

Fanfiction:

ShiningHopeBeast: I'm glad you like it so far! A really big part of me was concerned that people wouldn't like it, haha. / I'm definitely continuing it after all the comments I've got— wow a lot of people are curious. / Yeah, that was a nice part too. X3

LunarTheMooncake: (pokes) Thank you x3

TheAmberShadow: Hopefully x3 / Glad you like it! / Well... yeah, it's literally just Jesse's heart. xD

NoItsBecky: Yes, yes I have! / I'm glad you like it! / I'll try to remember, I'm literally snowed under from everything! XD

Princess of Muffins: I'm glad you like it! And hopefully.

AquaK13: That's great! Glad you like it! / I've only played one Legend of Zelda game (the one with the train), and I didn't finish the game. XD / No, not a heart CONTAINER... xD / I missed you guys too! And I'm glad you like it so far, I was worried nobody would xD

J.M.M.: I don't really know what you mean by '?' XD

homeworkoverload: I shall continue it xD

CamronXTheXGamer: Yep! XD

Guest: I'm glad you like it so far!

Quotev:

Eve: Yep xD

Djbeats backup: Okay then! X3

Diamond: Then here is more x3

||EnderDragons|| EnderIndustries: I rarely collab with people unless I really know them and we're good friends, and I like the way they write and their story ideas. Maybe come back to this topic once we know each other a little better... x3

Well, that's all for now! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x