A/N: Hello! As you know if you follow For the Sake of Family, I planned on adding a prologue to the story, but couldn't figure out a easy, quick way to do it that didn't involve a chain of replacing ALL the chapters (at best) and complete story deletion and republication (at worst).

So here's the bit of Ellyn's family history posing as a prologue.

Oh, and as a side announcement, anything established in either this or FTSOF will continue to be canon for these two fics regardless of whether season 5, and it's take on Arthurian legend, disproves them. (For the record, I'm still very mad about the writing quality for season 4- excuse my language, but among other things, they seemed to be just pulling random stuff out of their asses- and as such, I don't know if I'm going to let handsome knights bait me into watching this season. So I might not even know if my up-coming sections of Camelot adventures holds true to OUAT, nor will I care either way.)

Anyway, enough with the angry rant! Enjoy.

Prologue

Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed, smoothing the hair back from her grandson's face. He was a young boy, with the brown hair and dark eyes that ran strongly in their family. Her daughter's oldest boy, Phelan was named in honor of his aunt, lost when she was babe. He bore a strong resemblance to both his lost aunt and his estranged, curse uncle, a similarity in more than just the shared meaning of his aunt's name and the three's near-black eyes; he was fiery and strong-willed, everything Elizabeth's daughter had shown signs of being, along with being a deep-thinker and brave, as Elizabeth's only son was.

"Tell me a story, Nana." The boy requested sleepily.

"What do you wish to hear, lad?"

"Tell me about the wizard and the princess."

Elizabeth smiled; the story of their ancestors was Phelan's favorite, as it had been her own when she was small.

"Once upon a time, here in Listenoise, there lived a prince and princess of the kingdom. Their father was a kind and just man, and raised the boy and girl as siblings, even though the little prince was not of his blood. As the children became adults, they were told of the prince's heritage, because, though the oldest, the young man wasn't the king's heir.

After this revelation, the siblings grew apart. The brother, looking for another way to the throne, threw off the title of prince and became the king's general, and went off to war. The revelation of his parentage had turned him bitter and angry, and he secretly wished to return one day to claim the kingdom for his own, as he had thought for so long it would. While returning for a visit years later, the princess, long since having stopped seeing her father's ward as her brother, was struck by how handsome the king's adopted son had become. She thought herself instantly in love, and asked her father to marry them. Her childhood brother was eager for a wedding, seeing his way to gain the crown, but the king was unconvinced. He set out a series of nigh-impossible trials for the princess to complete if she wished to be betrothed to the young general. If she completed them, he said, she would have shown the determination and drive that could come from true love.

Knowing she was unable to complete the tasks set before her, the princess sought out the help of magic. On the outskirts of the castle-city Corbin lived a sorcerer. He had been born and raised in Listenoise, and grown up poor during hard times. When he was grown, the wizard, then just a man, sailed to the land of Mysthaven, and returned with unheralded power. Despite the sorcerer's widely known monstrous nature, the princess set out to find this man and secure his help.

The wizard heard her story and agreed to help, as it was his nature to make deals, though he warned the girl that his magic had a price she would later have to be willing to pay. They set off to complete the king's trials, and grew close along the way. When the princess returned to her father, triumphant, he was willing to marry her to the general, but she declined. She had learned what love was during the trials, and knew it wasn't the infatuation she had felt for her once-brother.

The general was furious that he no longer had a claim to the throne. He attempted to seduce her to change her decision, and forced himself on her when she rejected his advances. After her brother left, the princess, hurt and sobbing, called out to her wizard, knowing he could hear the cries of desperate souls.

He appeared, and when he had calmed her enough to learn of what happened, the wizard flew into a rage. He went to the king and had the princess recount her ordeal, and threatened to destroy the kingdom if the ex-prince was not punished. The king, both angered by his daughter's assault and fearing for his people, had the general hunted down and brought back to palace. In the courtyard the next day, the king, with the wizard beside him, had the young man tied between two posts and torn apart by a pack of wild dogs.

But the prince had not been idle in the time that passed between the assault and his capture. He had sought out the wizard Mathonwy, the king of a neighboring land and an ally of the general. With Mathonwy's help, the general cursed his sister, that if she had children, they would be born abominations. As he died, the prince told the king and the dark wizard of this curse, prophesying that the beast would make the same sound as the dogs that would kill him.

After the prince's death, the princess and the king feared for the succession of the throne, for they feared that the prophecy was true and no heir would be produced that would be worthy of the crown. The dark wizard, who had been secretly courting the princess in the months since her brother's death, was unconcerned about the throne succession. That is, until the princess discovered she was pregnant."

"Who was the father?" Phelan asked, right where he always did.

"Ah. That was subject to debate. The king knew nothing of his daughter's love for the dark wizard, and so thought his late ward the father. The wizard believed the child to be his."

"Who was it really, Nana?" Phelan interrupted, something he didn't normally do. It was a surprise, but Elizabeth smiled.

"The dark wizard. My grandpa is our blood."

It was something that had only recently been proven; Elizabeth's lost daughter possessed the magic that had remained dormant in the family's blood for generations, a power that could have only come from the child's many-greats grandfather.

"So what happened after they found out she was pregnant?"

"The dark wizard, determined to remove the curse from his child, set out to find Mathonwy and reverse it. Mathonwy was a strong magician, from a family of strong magicians, but no one could stand against Grandpop's power. At the threat of the death of his own newborn child, Math, Mathonwy consulted with the wizard about the curse. Originally, the curse was a bastardization of the bloodline curse of the born wolf-men."

"Is that why we have the power of the wolf, Nana?" Phelan interjected. He had only recently learned that he still bore the blood that had been diluted by Mathonwy's curse, and that he would still be a lycan even if he died before the Curse of the Barking Beast passed down the family line.

"Yes, Phelan. But this was different. Diluted. With it, the child and any of it's future siblings would shift into a monster much deadlier than a wolf while in the womb, and be born into the world having never known a human life.

There was no reversing these effects completely, so the pair of wizards worked to limit its backlash. They were able to shift the curse, from an infliction of the princess's womb to a hereditary curse of the blood, as it is in lycanthropy. They were also able to set back the time at which the curse set in. When they were done, only the princess's firstborn would bear the effects of the curse. This child, the dark wizard's child, would be born human, and enjoy a human life. When the child reached adulthood, the curse would be able to take hold, transforming he or she into the monster they were destined at birth to be. When they died, the curse would pass on, to take root in the nearest living relative.

The princess gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and all seemed well. The king, however, eventually learned of his daughter's relation with the dark wizard, and was enraged. He disowned his eldest grandson, saying that a boy who had possibly inherited the darkest aspects of the wizard and the curse was not to be trusted. The boy was raised in Corbin by his father, often visiting his mother in the palace.

Under the king's order, the princess was married to a nobleman, despite her protests and the threats of the wizard. After many days of tension, the princess had resigned herself to the fact that the kingdom would need a legitimate heir, and she wed the nobleman, though she loved the wizard and continued to see him and their son. After a few years, the nobleman sired the princess's second and last child, a son who would later take the throne. Though the years offered several hardships, the princess had her wizard and sons, who she loved with all her heart, and she was content until the day she died."

"What about the sons, Nana? What happened to them?"

"The son of the wizard grew into a strong and clever man, who came to be the steward of Corbin Castle and guard the secrets there, as his father had been helping to do in the years since his son's birth. The son of the nobleman took the crown after his mother retired, and began to rule as a fair king.

All was not well, however. The son of the wizard fell in love young and had a child, but the curse that had lain dormant in him for years finally seized control when he turned twenty. He became the Barking Beast, and though he resisted it, he found out the nature of his curse. The Beast was not just that of a monster: it was one bound by the hunt. Unless it was seeking prey or was the prey, it's life drained from it. The wizard's son eventually gave into the action that would save him, and began to kill travelers who dared to brave the roads at night.

The nobleman's son, the newly crowned king, was petitioned by his people to stop this monster. His grandfather and mother told him the story of the creature's origins, that it was his own half-brother, and that killing it would only pass the affliction down to wait in the soul of the wizard's newborn grandson.

While the king despaired what to do, his grandfather came to him in secret, and implored him to hunt down and kill the Beast. With his mother both old and unable to wield any weapon, it was the young king's duty to right her mistake, and do what she should have done when the monster was born. At first, the king denied his grandfather's request, but more attacks came, and one day the Beast killed the king's lover.

It was then, in his grief, that the king of Listenoise heeded his grandfather's advice, and sought to destroy the Barking Beast. Both were masters of the hunt, and they pursued each other without much headway for ten years. But the young king was smart, and in the first years he sought the wizard's grandson and daughter-in-law, seeking to eradicate the bloodline to keep the curse from one day passing on and creating a new monster.

The dark wizard learned of the king's hunt when his assassins made an attempt on the wizard's grandson. Enraged, the wizard went to the capitol and sought the king, intending to kill him. The king's mother, still the wizard's love, intervened, calming him and begging him not to harm her son. The dark wizard was unable to bring himself to deny her request, and stormed from the castle. He took his grandson and daughter-in-law and hid them away in a small town a day's ride from Corbin, where the king's men wouldn't think to find them. The same town we still live in now.

After thirty years of hunting each other, the king finally killed his half-brother. The curse passed to the wizard's grandson, now a grown man with two children of his, and took effect immediately. He was the Barking Beast for six decades, surviving one of his children. One, his eldest daughter, died before she could have any children. The other, my mother, had only me. The curse passed to her, and still claims her today.

Perhaps it will be mine one day. Perhaps it will be yours. But until then, remember what may await you. Love your family, and live without regrets."

Phelan scrunched his nose slightly; he liked the story for the history and the drama, not the life lesson that his grandmother always threw in.

"Yes, Nana." He intoned. Elizabeth smiled, and made to rise. "Nana?"

"Yes, lad?"

"What are my aunt and uncle like?"

Elizabeth froze. His only aunt and uncle were the two children she had lost; the latter was her eldest child, the former her second by a different man. If it weren't for her great grandfather, the dark wizard that still lived after well over a century, she would know nothing of them or their fates. What she little she did know had only been learned in the last few years.

Elizabeth swallowed her feeling and answered the boy. "My son had the heart of a wolf. He was a wanderer, a hunter." A restless soul, never at peace, was how the dark wizard had put it. "His mind was sharp, and his loyalties deep."

"And my auntie?" Phelan prompted after several seconds of silence.

"I know alittle more of her." Grandpop, as the entire family called him (the appropriate 'greats' got tedious), had partially raised her oldest daughter. "She was a creature with one foot on land and one in the sea. She loved and angered deeply, but was not found of those outside of family. And she was protective of what she cared about."

I pity the fool to try and harm one of her brothers, were Grandpop's actual words.

There was a stretch of silence as Phelan considered these words, then nodded, satisfied.

"Goodnight, Phelan." Elizabeth said.

"'Night, Nana."

Just then, from elsewhere in the cottage, there was a knock at the door, and the sound of Elaine exchanging words with someone. Elizabeth's sole remaining child came to fetch her just as she stepped out of Phelan's bedroom and shut the door.

"Mum, there's a man here for you."

"Who is it?"

"He says his name is Tor."