What Curiosity Killed

by Lilly K

"The true nature of innocence is not goodness, it is curiosity." AU, my take on what might have happened had the writers of Legend thought more like me. Lili/Darkness, but instead of her being corrupted, they both facilitate a change in each other (Oh stop, it's not as mushy/generic as it sounds! Just read it!) Res ipsa loquitur. T for mild spiciness.

5. Chapter 5 Mini-Chapter

MINI CHAPTER (This is not the end either. This was a whim)

In the torchlit caverns beneath the gnarled sacrificial tree, Darkness sat, eyes closed, on the same chair where he had felt the triumph of holding Lili in his now empty arms. He could have explored the world of light that day, but for Darkness it was a day of loss. She was out there somewhere, happy because of what he chose not to have done. She had chosen the boy, he thought. Of course she had. At least if things could not be as they should for him, they would be for her—but today was a day of loss. The shards of his father's shattered looking glass strewn across the floor sparkled with their piercing testimony to that.

Why had she kissed him? She had not meant to be cruel. Why had she given him so much false hope? Darkness did not know how long he sat alone in sorrow, for in that place of evil magic all days lost in despair were one. He sat alone until an annoying fluttering light before his eyes refused to be swatted away.

"Darkness, Darkness, dreaded lord under the tree," said the tiny voice, "I have known pain like yours. I have known lost love, and self-loathing. But look at me—I can still gleam through my tears. We mustn't let it all crush us. We mustn't let it bend our bones and slash at our skins. There is still hope."

"What do you know of hope, Oona, fairy of the forest? All hope leads to loss. Leave me," he sighed. There was nothing commanding in his voice. It was soft and defeated.

"I know a hope that we can share, you and I, though it is small," She changed from the golden orb into her young, beautiful form. "And that is Lili will not marry Jack, at least not now. He told me everything. He told me how she sees him, lacking things... things I think you have caused her to desire. Is this not so?"

He lifted his head, "Could it be?"

She nodded, "Then it is! And so there's still a chance I could have Jack! But if we leave it up to chance, they could change heart and be in love again. What can we do?"

Darkness pulled the alicorn from his belt, letting the hope touch his chest, letting the possible lead him out of inaction and onto its last, desperate course. His face was wrinkled with the emotions of a lifetime that wore him down as they burst out in a day, "Through dreams," he said, raising the horn, "I influence mankind."