Chapter Text
Once upon a time there was a little boy with golden hair and eyes the color of lake water.
He was the precious only son of a high born princess and a very rich man. The rich man and the princess had longed for many years for a child, yearning, wishing, until finally one day their wish came true.
The rich man was happy for a little while, the boy would grow and become strong and be the heir to his own vast fortune; except his eyes were too large and his face too blank and his voice too quiet. His son’s eyes followed him across the room, haunting him.
Soon the rich man could only think of his son with dread. The child’s eyes stared through him, straight to his soul, but worse was to come; for in their quest for a child the rich man had traded magic for money from his silver tongued brother-in-law, and magic always comes with a price, that price being, as the man was soon to learn, his health, his strength, his very life.
For as his son grew taller, stronger, smarter, the man himself grew weaker, and weaker. And slowly the man grew to hate his only son.
He blamed him, cursed his name, declared that he was no son of his own, but a monster, a demon, a changeling born of nothing but magic and fairydust. The son could not respond, could not fight back, for as long as his father possessed a certain silver banded ring, the son had no choice but to obey his father’s every command.
The days passed into weeks, and the weeks turned into years. But one day the sun rose and the rich man died, and his son was finally free. He took his father’s ring and placed it on his own hand, and swore that he would be controlled no longer; not now, nor ever again.
But it was a lonely and terrible world, he learned.
He was no mere mortal, not truly flesh and blood, but born out of stardust and desire, a creature wished into being. And he walked the world and realized that he would always be alone, that there was no one who was truly like himself.
So he pushed his own feelings aside, for his cousin, his magical brother, was lost, trapped in a cage by his own powerful father, the once silver tongued brother-in-law who had shared his magic so long ago, who had cursed his family with the poison of magic.
So the prince decided to destroy him.
His quest took him across the sea to another realm. His uncle nearly proved too much, and faced with the possibility of his own demise, the prince took a great risk, struck a terrible deal, paid a horrible price. Even though others had paid in his place, he knew it to be a terrible price nevertheless.
But he was free, he was alive, he was safe, and he did not care.
Once upon a time there was a princess with a heart made of ice.
She knew it very well, it wasn’t knowing that was the problem; rather, it was more of a matter of what could be done about it. Her mother sent for the best physicians in the land but they all shook their heads sadly.
“There’s nothing we can do.” they said. “It’s lucky it’s not fatal.” they said. “She’ll be all right as long as it never shatters.” they told her mother, warning in their eyes.
She was brave, she knew, and she was smart, she knew. She did as she was told. She thought she knew about life.
She met a prince with hair as golden as the sun and eyes cornflower blue. She thought he loved her. But he didn’t.
She wondered if it was because of her frozen heart, because he thought that she could never love him back, if that was why he did not love her. She followed the steps, did exactly as her mother said, but still, he did not love her.
Her heart ached under the strain, but it did not break. It was frozen far too deep for that, like the hard winter’s ground that breaks a shovel handle.
So she lived through her pain, like a winter that lasts for one hundred years. And, just when she began to believe that her winter would last forever, he came, like the sun. Bright and burning and fearless, glowing through the twilight.
“Take my hand.” he said, eyes shining bright. She takes it, the warmth burning through the frost covering her skin.
The ring that he placed into the soft palm of her hand rests there, heavy.
And her heart, suddenly, beats.
When he kisses her she knows that the curse has been broken, the veil lifted. They walk through the twilight, hand in hand.
Some might say that they lived happily ever after, but actually, that was up to them.