Here's the short story of Nimue's journey as the first and original Dark One before Gorgon the Invincible, Zoso, Rumpelstiltskin, even Emma Swan and Captain Hook. Well, the part when she gets stabbed by someone else to start the Dark One Cycle.
WARNING: I DO NOT OWN OUAT OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS.
Many centuries ago, there was a young woman whose name was Nimue. Nimue lives in the village of Oxleigh, where Middlemist flowers are known to grow.
When a warlord named Vortigan stormed the village in search of a relic that can give him powers called the Holy Grail, Nimue escaped unscathed, taking Middlemist flower seeds with her, while all the villagers were slaughtered by Vortigan.
At Camelot, a sorcerer named Merlin who gained great powers and immortality from the Holy Grail. At a village, he was healing a female villager from an illness.
"There. You're healed."
"Gratitude, great Merlin." the villager's husband said.
"You're both very welcome." Merlin said with a smile before the couple walked to their house.
Merlin's Apprentice walked to him. "I think that's it for today." Then, he saw Nimue. "Wait. I didn't see her arrive. I'll get her to leave."
"What does she want?" Merlin asked.
"Don't you know? You always know." the Apprentice said.
"I'll talk to her. Uh, you head back. Check on the brooms."
Merlin walked to Nimue who looked nervous.
"Have you come to see me?" he asked.
"You're Merlin?"
"Not all wizards have long white beards." Merlin said with a smile. "Please, tell me. What brings you here?"
"My village... Uh, I was in my garden when a masked man rode in. His name is Vortigan. He ransacks towns, burns them to the ground, so I-I fled on foot to the woods. I looked back from the hillside, and everything was in flames. He had killed everyone."
Merlin was feeling sad for Nimue's loss. "I'm so sorry. Please, allow me to help you. What can I grant you?"
"Revenge. These were all I had on me when I ran." Nimue said as she showed Merlin seeds.
"They're seeds from the Middlemist flower. They only prosper around my village. When Vortigan scorched the earth, he could have killed them forever. My best revenge would be for them to live on despite him."
"We will plant them here." Merlin said and he placed his hand on a pot full of dirt.
"Thank you. If the flowers survive, at least something other than me lived on." Nimue said before she pours the seeds into the pot. "I'll try and pass through again in the spring. I want to see them in bloom.
"Well, why wait?"
Merlin used his magic to make the seeds grow in no time. Nimue gasped in amazed as the Middlemist flower grew.
"Stay close. You can come and see them anytime." Merlin said.
"You see the future. Do I do that?" Nimue asked.
Merlin sighed "With you, for some reason... I have no idea. I hope so. What's your name?"
"Nimue."
Years later, Merlin and Nimue mutually fall in love, and after they have been together for some time.
"Is this some new magic? Are you frowning them into growing faster?" Nimue asked.
"Just thinking. There's a man I'm considering helping. He's tired. He's spent his life tending to others, and now he just wants to marry the woman he loves and grow old by her side. But there's an obstacle."
"He sounds awful." Nimue said before she laughs. "If I teach you nothing else, it will be to laugh at yourself. If you want to propose, go ahead."
Merlin and Nimue embraced a kiss.
"Now, tell me about this obstacle." Nimue said.
"Well, you know that I didn't always have magic, but I've never actually said how it happened. It was a gift. I found the Holy Grail." Merlin said.
Nimue was surprised. "What? The Holy Grail? You found the Holy Grail? Merlin..."
"I drank from it, and it gave me magic. But it also gave me eternal life. That was 500 years ago. I don't age. I don't die. So if I were to marry you, then I would have to watch as you leave me behind. I would rather share a life with you to the end than go on without you."
If you still had the Grail..." Nimue was about to say.
"I do. It's in the bottom of the chest, in the main room of the tower." Merlin said.
"It's in my living room. Wait. There's your answer, o wise one. Let me drink from the Grail. We can live forever together." Nimue said.
"I'm so sorry, my dearest, but I've already seen the cost of immortality. Life is made of little moments, precious as diamonds. But imagine there were an endless sea of diamonds. They'd all be worthless. They'd be as common as sand. I do have another solution, if you'll accept it.
We take the Grail, and we remake it into a sword. Such a blade could cut away my magic, my immortality, and then we can come back here, and we can live normal lives together."
"You would really give up so much?" Nimue said.
"For you." Merlin said.
Merlin twists two Middlemist flower leaves into a ring, and puts it on Nimue's finger. It turns into gold.
"I don't want this moment to get lost in an endless sea of time." Nimue said.
"Come. Come make the preparations."
Unknown to Nimue and Merlin, a cloaked man with golden mask, Vortigan was glaring at them, hearing what Merlin was planning.
That night, Merlin and Nimue were on a quest to the Oxleigh Village. When they finally made it to the village, all there was in there were ruins. Nimue was filled with sadness and anger.
"This was my village. My home. Look what's become of it. My house was... Was right here. Or maybe... Maybe it was there. Oh, it's so different now."
"Sometimes the sole survivor of a tragedy can feel guilty." Merlin said. "In the future, they'll call it..."
"I don't feel guilty. I feel angry. This shouldn't be the way that those who cannot take are taken. If I had magic like yours, if I had a million lifetimes to hand out power to those who need it and to strike down those who..."
"Nimue, shh. It's been decided." Merlin said. "Look. In the street, cups.
"It looks like every household brought out their cups for him." Nimue said. "Why would they d... Oh!"
He was questing for the Grail and torching down each hiding place... As he annihilated it. Will you check the pack and make sure the Grail is secure? I've never taken it away from the tower before. I'm going to perform a detection spell."
Merlin took a deep breath to cast a spell. Nimue secretly takes out the Holy Grail and drinks from it, without Merlin's notice, in the hopes she can be immortal and never have to part from him. Then he sees Vortigan in a vison.
"Vortigan. He's here, over the horizon, the way we came! Hurry!"
"He's just a man! You could kill him with one magical word." Nimue said.
"If I use magic to kill, darkness will take root inside of me. Nothing... nothing is worth risking that. Come."
Later, Merlin and Nimue made it at a structure.
"It's amazing." Nimue said.
"Come. You'll see that's an understatement." Merlin said.
"Are you sure this will work?" Nimue said.
"I'm quite sure. This will give me the life I wish for... Shorter... And full of love and meaning."
Merlin casts a spell and the flames of Prometheus started to roar. He melted the Holy Grail, and it forged into a sword… Excalibur. Nimue turned around and saw someone.
"Oh, my God. Wait."
"What?" Merlin asked concerned.
"Vortigan."
Vortigan appeared from the shadows, glaring at the sword.
"There's no more Grail, sir. Leave us be." Merlin said.
"He wants the sword." Nimue realized before Vortigan grabbed her and hold her hostage.
"The sword will bring you no joy." Merlin said.
Nimue elbows Vortigan, and escapes his grasp.
"Nimue, be still!"
"I can do this! You don't know!" Nimue said.
Nimue fights against Vortigan. He tried to attack, but Nimue removes his mask and revealed a disfigured face. Vortigan stabs Nimue.
"No!" Merlin ran to Nimue. "Nimue. Nimue? Oh, no, no, no!"
"I'm sorry." Nimue said in her last words.
She closed her eyes, and her spirit had left her body.
"Nimue. Nimue? Nimue!"
Vortigan grinned evilly and walked away with Excalibur. Merlin looked at Vortigan with anger and teleported in front of him.
"You killed her."
"And now I'm going to kill you." Vortigan said.
"That power was never meant to be a weapon!" Merlin said.
"Then you shouldn't have turned it into a sword." Vortigan said.
He was about to strike Merlin, but there was a flesh rend sound. He fell down on his back, and he sees Nimue alive with his heart.
Merlin was surprised. "Nimue."
He did not know how she was still alive.
"How?" Merlin asked, but he realized what she did. "When I cast the detection spell…"
"Yes. I drank from the Grail. You didn't tell me what it feels like to be strong, Merlin, to be immortal."
"Nimue, you let me watch you die." Merlin said.
"I'm sorry about the play-acting, but it was my last chance to remind you what death looks like."
"What matters now is that you're holding a man's heart in your hand. Please, spare him." Merlin begged.
"He doesn't deserve sparing!"
"If you kill, your magic will turn dark. You'll commit atrocities that you can't even imagine." Merlin warned.
"This man took my home and my family. I had nothing to care for but a handful of seeds!" Nimue said.
"I'm not fighting for him! I'm fighting for you! I need you to be the woman that I know. I cannot bear to watch you become this. I know you feel you've lost everything, but, Nimue, if you do this... then we've lost everything."
Unable to let go of her grudge against Vortigan, she crushes his heart to ash. Because she gave into darkness, Nimue undergoes a physical transformation, with her skin becoming scaly and bluish. Seized by the grip of darkness. She grabbed the sword.
"Let's not think about cutting away anyone's magic or immortality."
"Please don't... Don't do this. Nimue." Merlin begged.
Nimue breaks the sword in two."
"No! No!"
Merlin fell down on his knees in despair.
"I'm sorry." Nimue said.
"No, Nimue. I'm sorry."
Later, that morning, after Nimue corrupts herself, Merlin was working on the half of Excalibur.
"Too bad you couldn't see her future. You could have not talked to her in the first place." the Apprentice said.
"No, no, my boy, no. Never think that. Even now I would live through it again. Life is made of moments... And I had the best moments of my life with her."
Merlin makes the severed sword tip into a dagger to bind Nimue, the first Dark One, to it, so she will have no choice but to obey the owner of the dagger.
"This dagger can control Nimue." Merlin said. "But, as I fear, it would kill her."
"Would you?" the Apprentice asked.
"I couldn't. But, that is not the woman I loved. That is the Dark One."
Merlin placed the sword into the same stone he got the Grail from. And only a hero could remove Excalibur from the stone and snuff out the Darkness.
In the dark forest, Nimue came to don the robes and mask of the deceased Vortigan. She constructs a vault. She makes her first public appearance, under the title of Dark One, emerging from this vault.
The Darkness she had created became a part of her, a shapeless entity, a dark power of the Dark One.
"From this century forward, I shall be known to snuff out the light. The Dark One shall never be stopped."
That night, knowing the threat Nimue poses as the Dark One, Merlin summons her with the dagger, intending to get rid of her once and for all.
While she heeds his call, Nimue toys with him, continually teleporting back and forth a short distance away.
"Dark One? Dark One!"
Nimue was still teleporting.
Enough. Stop, I command you to stop!"
Merlin was holding the Dark One Dagger, and Nimue froze.
"How?" she asked.
"This dagger is bind to your soul. You destroyed her. The only woman I ever loved. And now... I will destroy you."
Merlin was about to use the dagger to kill Nimue, but he pauses, unable to plunge the dagger into the Dark One.
"I can't."
The Dark One uses magic to force Merlin to the ground. Nimue takes the Dark One Dagger and places it to his neck.
"I miss her."
A tear started falling down from his eye, and Nimue absorbs the tear in the dagger and turns Merlin into a tree.
"This will be your prison for all eternity." Nimue said.
Years, later, the Apprentice grew into an adult, protecting Merlin's Hat from the Dark One who would use it to free her binding from the dagger so she would not be controlled by others.
The Apprentice was in the process of sweeping the floor, when suddenly the fire on the torches went out. The Apprentice stops what he was doing and looks up, drops the broom on the floor and draws his sword.
"Show yourself, Dark One."
Nimue was walking into the vault, and she removed her mask.
"You have grown, Apprentice."
"You have changed as well, Nimue." The Apprentice said.
"Now, why don't you give me the box, and I'll let you live." Nimue said.
"Not in my life."
The Apprentice moved to strike the Dark One, but she disappears. He once again goes to strike, but Nimue uses her magic to throw the Apprentice back, before stepping up onto the podium and focuses on a small box.
"You don't want to know what you'll unleash if you open that box."
Nimue removes his hood and turns to face the Apprentice. "Then Merlin should not have put his faith in someone like you."
She turns back to the box and attempts to open it with her magic, but she was suddenly thrown back by an invisible force, and she lands a few metres away.
The Apprentice stands up again and looks down at Nimue "Fortunately, Nimue... I am not the only thing he puts his faith in."
"An enchantment. Cast by the sorcerer himself." Nimue said.
"And no one who has succumbed to the darkness in their heart can ever break it." the Apprentice said.
Nimue felt defeated, she magic's herself out of the vault.
"You will never gain this box." the Apprentice said.
Some years ago, Nimue was out to terrorize some other villages, a thief who's named Korsen Thesh entered the Vault of the Dark One. He was searching for some treasures he thought that would be there, then he had found the dagger.
He grabbed the dagger and raised it to the air.
"Nimue! I summon thee."
Then, Nimue appeared into the vault, as the thief holds the dagger, he controls him.
"Dark One. I control you now." Korsen Thesh said.
"Yes, you do." Nimue said. "Wield that power wisely. What would you have me do?"
"How do I gain your power and immortality for my own?" Korsen Thesh asked.
"Hmm, I have a thought about that. If you would stab me with the dagger, the Darkness shall be a part of you." Nimue said. "Now, is that what you want?"
"Yes. The power is mine."
Korsen Thesh stabbed the Dark One with her dagger. Nimue gasp in death with a sinister smile.
"Congratulations, Korsen Thesh. You are now, the new Dark One."
While Nimue perishes physically, her dark spirit remains tied to the dagger and inhabits the soul of her assailant, turning Korsen Thesh into the next Dark One.
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