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lynelovespopculture · 4 years

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A CAOS CHARACTER PROFILE: AMBROSE SPELLMAN

The only male Spellman family member is quickly becoming a fan favorite and given Ambrose’s quick wit, charm and love for his family, it’s not hard to see why. Yet in a show where there are so many rich characters and so much going on in 2 short seasons, is it fair to said that Ambrose is the most underdeveloped Spellman of all?

BEGINNING

One cannot think of Ambrose’s early days, his birth, his childhood, without pondering about the question that people had been asking since day one; who are Ambrose’s parents? Now, normally in a show of this big a cast, it wouldn’t be such a big deal except that Ambrose is a Spellman and the Spellmans are the main family of the series. (SIDE NOTE: I know the CAOS tv show is based loosely on the comic book of the same name but I’m not much of a comic person so I haven’t read it but it keeps coming up in my research but I don’t think Ambrose’s parents are in the comics but since I didn’t read it, I could be wrong.) So, yeah, Ambrose being a Spellman is a big pothole made even bigger when you consider that the other 3 Spellmans are quickly explained how they are related to each other. For example, even though Hilda is played by British actress Lucy Davis with a thick accent and Miranda Otto, an Australian actress which what I think is to my Canadian ear is an American accent, portrays Zelda, we are told very clearly that Zelda and Hilda are two grown unmarried sisters who share the maiden name of Spellman. They have a late brother, Edward, who was the father of Sabrina. Ambrose is not so interconnected within the family. Almost, if not every, viewer of the show have noticed this and with 20 episodes made and not 1 word of explanation, viewers have drawn their own conclusions. There are 2 theories about Ambrose’s parents, one of each is that in addition to Zelda, Hilda, and Edward, there was an 4th sibling. While this would make Sabrina’s his 1st cousin and Hilda and Zelda, Ambrose’s aunts, this theory has its own line of questioning. Why is this 4th sibling never mentioned? I feel like a strong family unit like the Spellmans would talk about all its members. Would it be another brother or another sister? Personally, I think it would be a brother because in this world orphans and illegitimate children are given the surname of Night like Prudence had before her father gave her his name. Also, if Ambrose’s mother was a born Spellman but married, Ambrose would have his father’s last name. The 2nd theory is Ambrose is a distant cousin to the Greendale Spellmans. It’s in the Christmas special that Zelda tells the others that she plans to tell people that Leticia is a Spellman from another country, perhaps like Ambrose? We might not know who Ambrose’s parents are, but we do know what happened to them. Both were killed by witch hunters when their son was very young. There are clues in this show that Ambrose is originally from England. Chase Perdomo, his actor, is British, there’s a union jack on the wall of his attic bedroom and he refers to places in London. After his parents’ death, little Ambrose was claimed by his relative, Hilda Spellman. I believe that Hilda, at least for the first few years, was the little boy’s sole guardian. When Ambrose is in the witches’ cell, Hilda demands to see him, claiming to be ‘the only mother he has ever known’, a claim she cannot make with Sabrina. This would also explain Ambrose and Hilda's very close and special bond. I’m not saying that Zelda and Ambrose hate each other, far from it but he always seemed closer to Hilda. Either Hilda made a special trip to England and decided to stay, or Hilda was already living in England, training to be a midwife when Ambrose came to live with her. A few years later, Zelda came into the household and Ambrose got used to life with 2 aunties. Like all Spellmans before him, at 16 Ambrose signed the book of the beast and was enrolled in Greendale’s Academy of Unseen Arts. His aunts also decide to return to their home in Greendale. After completing school at the Academy, Ambrose was free to roam the world. Ambrose published a collection of poetry at 17, went to several different universities, painted with the Surrealists and even taught stage magic to the world-famous Harry Houdini. During his wild adventures, Ambrose might have discovered he was sexually attracted to both men and women. As much as he enjoyed his life and as dearly as he loved his aunts, Ambrose had always longed for a father figure. This might have been why Ambrose became a follower of real-life occultist Aleister Crowley. It is while following this cult that Ambrose got involved in a plot to blow up the Vatican. He was not the only one involved but somehow Ambrose was the other one who got caught. The witches council offered him a plea deal, Ambrose could go free if only he would name his partners in crime. Ambrose refuses, speaking to Ambrose’s loyal and kind heart. I doubt that blowing up the center of the Catholic faith would be a great concern for the council. I think the real crime is the exposure to the coven.

HOUSEBOUND

After Ambrose refuses to name names, the warlocks of the witches council used binding spells to make sure that Ambrose is unable to leave the grounds of the Spellman house. I suppose that house arrest is not the worst punishment in the world but for a social butterfly like Ambrose, it’s bad. Still, Ambrose doesn’t bow to the pressure. Instead, he makes the most of it. Ambrose collects rare books from all over the world as information to the outside world, keeps himself busy working in the family funeral home. Still, being unable to leave the home, I’m pretty sure that Ambrose must have missed out on a lot. The wedding of his Uncle Edward and the mortal Diana. (Which, I’ve noticed Ambrose never mentions them, it probably means nothing but I like to give you guys all my thoughts) Anyway, some time later, Edward and Diana both died in a plane crash and an infant Sabrina comes to live with her aunts and Ambrose. When the show opens, Ambrose’s house arrest has been in effect for 75 years. Ambrose, not surprisingly, has a hell of a case of cabin fever. Ambrose loves his family but the aunts and Sabrina who is now nearly 16, can come and go as they please. Sadly, poor Ambrose cannot. He’s lonely, the only people he can talk to is his family, the people who come over for a funeral and service people, like delivery and mail people. For most of the first season, Ambrose can mostly be seen dressed in PJs and housecoats. When people dress like that for a long time, it’s a classic sign of depression. However, Ambrose masks his depression well by his humor and his desire to help his beloved cousin with her doubts about her upcoming dark baptism. Meanwhile, on the job front, Ambrose is tending to the body of a young man named Connor. His parents are mortal, so Ambrose is confused to discover a witch’s mark on Connor’s body. It is confirmed by both aunts and Father Blackwood. Connor must be a warlock adopted by mortal parents. While Ambrose is pondering this, Sabrina is running for the house. Having fled her baptism, the entire coven is after her. Ambrose loves his cousin like a little sister, so he gets rid of the coven with a rather impressive bluff about protection spell, then he leaves to do the spell. A few days later, Ambrose finds a lizard on top of Connor’s coffin. He knows that this is Connor’s familiar. Zelda says it’s better just to kill it, but Ambrose rather tries to coax it with food and keeps it in his room. At Connor’s funeral, Ambrose meets Connor’s old boyfriend, a guy named Luke and there’s a spark between the two. Later, they hook up and the next morning, Ambrose discovered 2 things, Luke left his number and sometimes during the night, the lizard dropped dead. Apparently, this means…nothing! I’m serious, the whole Connor storyline is dropped never to be spoken of again! Anyway, Ambrose wants to go on a real date with Luke but he’s still housebound so he talks Hilda into watching over him as he astral projects to Dr. C’s. However, he breaks his promise, he knows he should go but he stays. He is brought back by an angry Zelda who reminds her dear felon that his sentence includes his spirit. Next, the Spellmans are haunted by a dream demon, exposing their worst fears. Not surprisingly, Ambrose’s is that he’ll never, ever leave the house. His dream begins well, Ambrose is given a full pardon, tons of cash and a car to take him to the airport. Yet, just as Ambrose goes to leave, the demon murders him and he is forced to work on his own body. This plays on a loop until the demon is defeated. Even with the day saved, our boy is still depressed. The dream has rammed into him that he is still basically in a prison and worse still, Luke has stopped calling him. As fate would have it, Hilda runs into Luke in the bookstore and decides to help the young lovers by spiking Luke’s drink?! (Seriously? Hilda, WTF??) It works, (I guess) because we soon learn that Luke has an in with Father Blackwood and will speak to him about Ambrose. Indeed, Faustus comes to the house and offers him the original deal; his freedom for the other names. Blackwood says to think about it and Blackwood will return tomorrow for Ambrose’s answer. Before he can consider the high priest’s offer, Ambrose catches Sabrina using the Cain pit, leading to Sabrina getting yet another lecture about how she cannot misuse magic. The next day, Ambrose tells Father Blackwood he’s sorry, but he can’t give up the names of the other warlocks, even now. To his complete surprise, Blackwood says he respects Ambrose’s loyalty and offers to lift his sentence if he would go to work at the academy. Ambrose accepted the deal and because it was Faustus was the one to set him free him, Ambrose sees Father Blackwood as his new father figure.

BACK IN ACTION

Ambrose was, of course, is super excited about his new freedom and job. He walks around the house in his new clothes. On his 1st day, Blackwood gives Ambrose a basic warlock right, a new mouse familiar. Ambrose discovered that the Greendale 13 and the red rider of death are coming to destroy the town. He and Luke rushed to warn the coven. The coven decided to stay at the academy. The Spellmans decided to stay in town and help the mortals. As they gathered in Baxter High, Ambrose didn’t stay long, Luke teleports him to safety because he loves him. Season 2 starts at the beginning of a new school term. Luke doesn’t support Sabrina’s bid for top boy and Ambrose avoids the subject even after he and Sabrina have a big fight. Ambrose is questioning Luke where he was, Luke says he was on an errand for Father Blackwood and this is the last we ever see Luke. At the start of the very next episode, Ambrose can be seen making out with Prudence. This is so odd that even Sabrina questions it. Her cousin only says that Luke is away on business and not to worry. But by the very next show, Ambrose himself is so worried about Luke, he’s asking the fortune teller about him. Instead, Ambrose is told how Father Blackwood will order him to kill Sabrina and their aunts and he does it. Upset, he steals a card and runs off to ask Faustus if he’ll hurt the Spellmans. Blackwood seems confused. So far, he’s been good to the Spellmans, he freed Ambrose and he’s engaged to marry Zelda. He does have some sad news; Luke has died on a mission for the church. Ambrose looks down at the card he stole, it marked for death. As the wedding approaches, Ambrose is depressed for Luke and can’t find his mouse. Sabrina has found her father’s manifesto and because Ambrose is on guard duty the night before the wedding, she can present it to the anti-pope. This turns out to be a massive mistake on the cousins’ part because this enrages Blackwood so much and he fears that the anti-pope will prefer Edward’s work to his that he decides to kill him using Ambrose and the other guards. Ambrose is found over the bloody corpse, knife in hand. Blackwood kills the other guards but Ambrose teleports away just in time. Only in the safety of Sabrina’s room, Ambrose begins to panic but Sabrina assures him that he would never do such a thing. Nick hides him at Grey’s, where Ambrose’s vomits up his mouse and puts together how Blackwood used him. It only takes a suggestion from Grey to wrongly convince Ambrose that Blackwood killed Luke. Ambrose decided to kill Blackwood for Luke, not for the anti-pope. Next, Ambrose makes his dumbest move in the series (well, so far.) Instead, of waiting until Blackwood is alone to kill him, Ambrose chose to attack Blackwood at his own wedding, yelling DIE, BLACKWOOD, DIE! Ambrose is caught and thrown into the witch’s cell. Prudence, drunk on the power that her new last name has given her, tries to get a confession by tricking both Ambrose and Hilda. It doesn’t work and Ambrose even gets a chicken bone key. He frees himself and opens the front door to come face to face with witch hunters! (The same witch hunters that killed Luke, but they never get to know this.) Blackwood returns and it seems Ambrose’s fate is sealed but the other Spellmans are ready. It’s the hangman who loses his head and the dark lord himself excuses Ambrose. Now free, he helps Sabrina with her mandrake problems and learns of the dark lord’s plan to make Sabrina his queen. Ambrose is last seen bonding with a redeemed Prudence and together they leave to track down a fleeing Blackwood.

LIKE THIS? DID I MISS OR FORGET ANYTHING? WHAT CHARACTER SHALL I DO NEXT? LIKE, REBLOG AND COMMENT!!!!!!!!

#chilling adventures of sabrina #caos #fan theory #fanfic #character profile #ambrose spellman #chance perdomo #hilda spellman #lucy davis #zelda spellman #miranda otto #sabrina spellman #luke #prudence blackwood #faustus blackwood

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theadoptedhale · 4 years

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verse set in the witcher universe, netflix & game inspired

the two most common ways to acquire lycanthropy are the following; through a curse, or by having a werewolf parent. it’s a ‘magical illness’, therianthropy that changes the affected humans into animals during the full moon. those who inherited therianthropy have full control of their abilities & can change between the three forms at will. in vincent’s case, both of his parents were werewolves & they had children while being aware what it would mean for them. the difference to standard werewolves in this case is that born wolves can’t be cured, while a curse can surely be lifted. living as a werewolf isn’t so different than it is as a human, but it does bear a great risk nonetheless. every full moon night, ordinary werewolves lose all control, the wolf inside them runs free & they do unspeakable things. born wolves, if strong enough remain in control.

vincent’s pack was quite sophisticated, living among the humans & only during the full moons or when they were alone on their own property did they indulge in those urges. his pack, though - exiled him as a young pup for killing a rival pack leader accidentally during a full moon. especially for the young, it’s difficult to control the wolf inside. to appease their enemies, the young pup was left in the woods far from home, left alone to fight for his life in the wild. the pup made it, obviously, but at what cost? a human raised by wolves who only made it back into the human world because he was saved by none other than a witcher. feared by humanity, yet he saw the good in the wolf man & dropped him off with a druid in the town that hired him to chase down the feral wolf pack. he wasn’t paid to kill a boy after all. the druid took the young man in & taught him all he knew once he realized the young wolf had a heart of gold despite his heritage.

now vincent works as a healer himself, the chaos in him is weak, yet strong enough for the work he does. healing is his life, helping people means everything to him. some people in town suspect, but only few have valid proof against him & he’s trying his best to stay under the radar. he just wants to live a normal life, one dedicated to helping others.

SKILLS:

shift into wolf, half-wolf

extraordinary sense of smell

speed

inhuman strength

limited use of magic (specialized in healing, though signs like igni and aard for instance were the first things he was taught to channel his chaos)

NOTE:

vincent can be in his teens or an adult for plots

vincent can control himself during full moons, but he cannot stop shifting, so he will either be a half-wolf or a wolf for the duration & it’s a struggle to keep the wolf at bay

it is said werewolves can be cured by finding “true love”, but vincent was born a wolf, so he believes there is no love for him out there

vincent is not afraid of or disgusted by witchers (unlike many humans)

vincent is quite naive

vincent eats a lot, he loves food a lot

POSSIBLE PLOTS:

your muse is injured & vincent helps (duh)

let us meet mages pls

your muse if also a werewolf & our muses smell each other -> friendsss

your muse finds out vincent’s secret

a) and your muse is ok with it

b) and your muse tells someone else who sends hunters after vince

give us witchers pls

all the witchers

we seriously just want to make witchers happy tbh.

and and anddddd...

#v: тнe вloodlυѕт oғ a wolғ & тнe нearт oғ a нυмan ( aυ; werewolғ \ тнe wιтcнer )#//i have a 200% soft spot for all the witchers #ahhh #lemme indulge pls #let us love u

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alka-di-kijarr · 3 years

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Hunters Journey - 016

Disclaimer. The following part of the hunters journey was connected to my #CallOfThePharah on deviantArt in april2021. English is still not my native language, but I wish you a lot of fun reading the next adventure of Nero, Vaas and all the other hunters.

Vazemi species is a closed species. If you want to get your own, please contact me.

The winner of this design - and so the new owner is - AmCymbelmine

Hunters Journey - 016

Lauriel had passed the middle part of the HQ and rushed towards Seths meeting rooms. Between her arms, the weight of an ancient book. And the weight of the unknown. How would they react? Would they believe her? The young huntress had been abroad for a few days, leaving the HQ behind her and paying her grandma a visit. She was kind of a rather spiritual person. At least more spiritual than everyone else she had met until today.

As fast as her legs carried her, she run up the stairs, focusing on the things she could tell Seth to convince him. Would she need to convince him? Absolutely. Would it be easy? Absolutely not. Seth had this vibe around him, blocking away everything that could even lead into the direction of spirituality or "ghosts". But Lauriels Nana had known it better for so many years and the fact that everyone in the village came to her, asking for advice, remedy and absolution, was enough for the young huntress. She needed it to be enough.

Working with creatures like Gemini or Capricorn had taught her more about the world she lived in and the rules that held it together, than any teacher or schoolbook ever could. Geminis aura and power were something astonishing for sure, but when you took the time to sit back and just watch him interact with the world around, you could see what made this big creature so different.

Smaller animals backed off, as you would expect it, but even big creatures, other monster-class-sized beasts withdrew, or left their place when Gemini was around. For a long time they held Gemini and the Aquarius close to each other, and it would be really polite to say "they didn't like each other". Aquarius was a real-life nightmare. Feeding him was still nerve-wracking and many of the other caretakers decided to just throw the food over the fence and leave it be.

But Lauriel wasn't like them. She believed in balance and the creatures' intelligence. Aquarius - the Butcher. Not that his name would leave space for much positivity anyway. After months of just standing at the fence to watch him, standing at the entrance and sharing his area with him, opening the door without walking in, Aquarius had let down the tension in his body when she was close to him. At this time she could feed him, clean his area. But everything with a proper distance to the beast. She could sense his glare, staring at her and how she moved around. Aquarius must have made terrible experiences - at least Lauriel was convinced so - and that it just needed time and "a long-lasting feeling of safety and kindness".

At the end the discipline and her eager will of not letting go of the naive idea a beast could become a friend, was the magic ingredient in the question of why Aquarius had joined the fight alongside Gemini, to save her and the other hunters. Every person she knew, believed the first moment a chance would appear to push the king off of his throne, the Butcher would take it. None of this happened and at the end and Lauriel was the one to throw a shining smile at the other caretakers when they passed Aquarius' habitat, while she was standing there brushing off the Algae and the mud from his back, while the butcher was laying in the sand, enjoying a hot sunbath.

Nonetheless, there were creatures even bigger than Aquarius, and so she believed, even mightier than Gemini. One of the stories her grandma had told her, was about Horus, the Vazemi-King of the Sandlands. A creature risen by the pharaohs' family since he was a little hatchling. Trained for combat, trained for being a friend. But there would always be a wild and untamable aspect to this creature.

When the pharaohs' son Tifnut took his place on the throne, he already had trained several creatures to accompany him - and protect him from all the envy and jealous traitors around him. Despite the warnings of his right hand, general Hip'Nahng, Tifnut rose the blade of the kings against an old enemy one day. The Zarukai.

After a ceremony - originally to strengthen their friendly bondings - the pharaoh declared war over a simple nullity. One of the sons of the zarukai-clans king Jar'Varal, didn't appreciate the - let's say unfriendly and vigorous - flirt attempts of Tifnuts daughter Shezni. He apologized in a polite manner, telling her his heart belonged to another person. Yet Shezni was enraged. She stormed through the pharaohs' palace for three days, leaving servants and maidens in fear of her arbitrarily punishments. She threatened everyone and everything. Leaving her father no choice but to take revenge after the entire kingdom learned about her failed approaches.

"They despise me, father! Because of this son of a lizzard! The entire kingdom is making a joke out of me!" Tifnut, already old in terms of a pharaoh, had never fought a war. Yet to lead an army into battle, was one of the biggest achievements someone could earn, to placate the gods who would wait in the underworld for his arrival. So Tifnut, without the calming voice of his already deceased wife beside him, followed the rage of his daughter. In more than 120 years, nothing had shaken the ground of the empire Azramud as intense as this very war. Tifnut ordered his commandants and generals to attack the caravans of the Zarukai empire and kidnap any fathers' son they could find.

The war should last for many years and become crueller and crueller with every attack and every stroke of revenge. The moment pharaoh Tifnut died, his daughter Shezni took over and nearly squashed the kingdom in her merciless hands. But the table turned with her attempt to ride into battle herself, on the back of Horus.

The Vazemi carried her onto the battlefield, the army of Azramud behind them, but as they flew to face the Zarukai, Horus took the straps himself. Hovering over the army, he out of a sudden rolled over mid-air, shaking off the pharaohs' daughter. She fell, deeper and deeper and everyone was in shock, still thinking Horus would reach her soon enough to catch her. That it was an accident.

But Horus had nothing similar in mind. He built up speed, grabbed the princesses torso and slammed her into the stony ground.

The battlefield remained silent. No voice, no order, no drums. Horus' scream echoed over the field, causing a rampage between the other creatures of the Azramud empire. One after the other threw off their rider, tore loose from their leashes and left. Horus glared at the new Zarukai king, who stood in front of his army. He was the son of the old king. The one son, that politely dismissed the offer of Shezni. Grieving, raging, full of despair over the losses he had to count on his side. There was no place for mercy in his heart.

Now, hundreds of years after, people could argue about the decision the young king fell on this day. Purging the people of Azramud from the planet's surface. But Lauriel could understand him, a bit. It was told he had seen the face of Shezni and the face of his lost bride, wherever he went and in whomever he met. Nothing should touch his heart softly ever since.

And so Shezni not only threw her own kingdom into misery, but also rang in one of the darkest periods of the Zarukai empire. Led by a king who was thorn in pieces by grief, hate and agony.

But Horus... Horus had led the creatures into a wild land. Nobody knew where they were and how they did. If they survived and how they could make a living in peace possible. They had left their human friends behind to die on the battlefield, just as they had left their creature companions to die. For nothing.

Legends tell the soul of Horus was still out there, wandering through the mist of Kahoré, guiding creatures who suffered a painful death into a better life, under his wings and protection. Bond to the idea, that almost only creatures and beings who had to encounter horrible, drastic events, would roam the Kahoré, there was no question if they would make a use of the fading barriers between the dimension.

Just where and when.

#worldbuilding #story time #short story #fantasy story #writer #artwork #creature art #contest #winner #adoptable #lore #alka-di-kijarr

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ks-caster · 4 years

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Blood of Fire, Heart of Darkness

Fandom: Once Upon a Time

Characters: Belle, Rumplestiltskin

Notes: A what-if for why Belle was locked up the whole time during the first curse - when Regina cursed the town’s residents and gave them all new personalities, she discovered to her great consternation that Belle already had a second personality: a violent, magic-retardant persona named Lacey, who existed to protect Belle from harm, and the trauma of her childhood.

While there are people who can use magic and people who can’t, there are also people called Fuillisang, who are immune to magic’s effects. Belle is one of these, which is part of why she’s so against Rumple doing his magic - and why she’s never particularly scared of him.

A partial beginning and the rest of my notes are available under the cut.

Lacey showed up for the first time when I was eight years old. I say “showed up” instead of “born,” because I have no way of knowing if she existed prior to that—but I say “showed up” instead of “made her presence known” because I also have no way of knowing if she didn’t exist before that. It’s possible that she never would have existed, that I would have spent my whole life as just me—just Belle. It’s equally possible that she would have slept in the back of my mind, waiting throughout my whole life for a danger great enough to awaken her.

I suppose I’ll never know.

But I’m rambling, aren’t I? This is meant to be a history, not a sprawling memoir.

It began with my mother. She was something called a fuillisang, more commonly known as a “fireblood.” They’re human…ish. They appear to be basically normal, until they’re in danger. During periods of high fear and stress, firebloods manifest a violent alter ego, designed to protect them, mainly by ripping their way through all comers until they sense the danger is passed. They’re fast, strong, smart, and incredibly resilient, healing from injuries a dozen times faster than any other mortal creature.

They’re also almost entirely immune to most forms of magic.

These qualities—as well as a general sense of ruthlessness and a complete lack of moral compass—place those with the boiling blood in high demand as mercenaries and assassins. My mother, Sasha, was one of these; she was highly skilled, devilishly clever, and had made quite a name for herself even in her youth. They called her the Death Spinner, likening her to a spider skillfully entrapping its prey.

The year Sasha was eighteen, she got in a bit over her head; played both ends against the middle one too many times, and had to hide out—the long kind of hiding, with a new identity and a back story no one would dare question. She was fantastically beautiful—something she’d often used to get people to let their guard down—so she traveled to a small country and seduced the crown prince, securing herself the titles of princess and then queen in record time.

I don’t know if she intended to have me, or if I was an accident. Probably she let herself get pregnant to keep up the ruse of being a sweet little wife, or perhaps she just wanted the excuse to hide away from the public eye and raise her child. Either way, she had me about a year into her marriage, and named me “Mirabelle,” after the sweet yellow plums she grew in her garden. My father hated the name—said a princess should be named for something more majestic than a plum. If it had to be a plant, it ought to be a rose or a lily or something; something you’d see the queen carrying in her royal portrait, not something that you’d find in half the gardens in the land, and certainly not something edible. He shortened it to Belle, meaning “beauty,” but my mother would call me Mirabelle in secret. I was too young to understand the implications; I just thought I had a nickname, but my mom liked the long version better.

But, getting back to the point, fireblood is hereditary. So, cute little me, with my auburn curls and dimples and controversial fruit name and the little yellow outfits my mother favored for me to match it; I had fireblood too.

A few years later, after the commotion surrounding Death Spinner’s questionable loyalties had died down, she began to slowly, secretly, take contracts, spending more and more time travelling, often taking me with her, with the excuse that she wanted me to be a well-traveled, independent woman when I grew up. Nobody would suspect the queen and the toddler princess were up to anything nefarious; perish the thought! For the most part, I’d stay at our lodgings while mum “made calls,” then she’d take me to see the sights, teach me about the history of the places we’d visit… as soon as I could read, I’d spend my time in the castle holed up in the library, fascinated by the endless tales of adventure and peril and heroism—just like the ones she’d tell me when we travelled.

Occasionally, she’d have no way of preventing me being near the danger, and she’d tell me to close my eyes, cover my ears, and sing to myself until she came to get me. I was a trusting child, and quickly developed the habit of doing that every time I was scared. However, even though I could sense the danger we were in during those times, I never felt the need to protect myself, because my mother was always protecting me. I’d sing myself lullabies and keep my eyes dutifully shut until my mother had washed her hands, hid the bodies, and told me it was all right to look again.

Eventually, my father discovered the truth about his wife. She tried to escape and take me with her, but he used all of his considerable royal resources to find us. I was seven years old, so even now I’m uncertain of whether he wanted to save me, or just stop her from sullying the image of the royal family. Maybe he felt guilty for accidentally harboring such a dangerous criminal. I don’t know. He never talks about her. What I do know is they caught up to us eventually, they killed my mother, and I missed her final moments, because I got scared, and did exactly what she taught me; tuned out the world, closed my eyes, and sang a song. By the time they coaxed me out of it, she was long dead, and I was on my way back to my father.

Few people who aren’t firebloods understand exactly what it means to be one. My father… he feared greatly that I was “infected with the same demonic poison as my mother,” so immediately upon my return, he sent for clerics and exorcists, anyone he thought could cleanse me of what her bloodline might have wrought in me. Funnily enough, as I said in the beginning, if he hadn’t done that, if I’d just grown up with my nose in a book, grieving a mother I lost too young, then perhaps I might have never manifested Lacey. But unfortunately, I wasn’t given that opportunity.

They were not gentle with me—the men my father brought from all corners of the land to try and drive the evil out of me. They subjected me to freezing cold water, they beat me, they spent long hours telling me what a horrible person my mother was, and making me repeat it. My father said he couldn’t bear to see me in pain, so I didn’t see him during that time. Once I understood and accepted that my mother was dead, I knew that no one was going to save me.

One day, I snapped. Of the eight men who tormented me, only two survived, and the dead were so thoroughly mangled it was nearly impossible to tell whose parts were whose. I have no memory of the event, but I remember what the bodies looked like afterwards. My father’s next cry for help went out to magic users, and the Blue Fairy explained to him that fireblood was a part of me, but it would only manifest when I was in danger. That meant he couldn’t get rid of it entirely, but he wouldn’t ever have to see it again as long as I remained safe and protected.

I spent the next ten years surrounded by walls and guards. I became betrothed to Gaston, who my father often reassured me would protect me, as he was the greatest hunter in the kingdom. His concern for me would have been touching—if I’d trusted that it was for my benefit. Nobody ever talked about what happened with my mother, and I blocked a lot of it out. However, I retained a strong and ever unfulfilled desire to travel the world and have adventures, and a vague idea that my father was not to be trusted.

When Rumpelstiltskin showed up, demanding me as the price for his help, I immediately agreed. If I was to spend my life as a prisoner, then it would be the prison of my choosing. At least this one didn’t involve a loveless marriage, and a family who saw me as nothing but a wild creature in need of taming.

Lacey was often near the surface as I was growing up, but she rarely had occasion to come out. However, while I lived with Rumple, she lay dormant and content, because not only was I in no danger from him, I learned quickly that he would protect me from harm. He was eccentric, had a lot of trouble being serious even when situations warranted it, and was on comfortable, intimate terms with his dark side. He often liked to pretend that his good side didn’t exist at all, but I knew better, and how could I not? Nothing is ever so simple as one person is a good guy and one person is a bad guy and everyone just plays their roles and that’s the end of things. I hated to see him sell himself so short, and in my quest to draw out his good side, I poked in a bit too far.

Instead of just trying to get to know him, I went and fell in love with him.

And while we’re on the subject, I don’t regret that for a moment.

The only time Lacey turned up during my time living with Rumple was when three witches kidnapped me. She slid in quietly, and was getting ready to hack her way out, when Rumple showed up, all rage and pride and pry-me-from-their-cold-dead-hands-if-need-be. The minute I saw him, I knew I was safe. Lacey wasn’t too happy about the part where we almost got squashed, but Rumpelstiltskin saved me, as I knew he would.

I should have told him, back then. At first, it was just the dark secret I had never had cause to tell anybody. Then, it became something that I hid because I was ashamed of it; Rumple saw me as this paragon of virtue—the special snowflake of humanity, the one who never stopped believing in him. No matter how much he might’ve denied it, I knew that he relied on that. I feared that if I admitted that I had a dark side, had that kind of dark side, then he wouldn’t believe I really saw good in him. He’d just think I was projecting; seeing what I wished to see. But I should have told him—I should have been brave enough, but I wasn’t. I was too scared of how he might see me differently.

I was scared that I’d have to admit aloud what Lacey—what I—had done.

And perhaps a little scared that he’d like Lacey better than me.

I never said a word about her.

He dangled the freedom I had craved my whole life in front of me, offering me the chance to walk away and never return, but also holding the possibility of letting me into his heart, of telling me about his son, of truly opening up to me for the first time. It’s true that I met Regina on the road and she brought up the true love’s kiss thing, but I can’t be certain how much influence she had over my actions that day. I’d been on the cusp of confessing my feelings for a long time, by then, and even if I had chosen to leave, I know in my heart I wouldn’t have been able to stay away very long.

In any case, I returned, I kissed him, the spell began to break, but he flew into a rage and rejected me, flinging me into the dungeon, and later telling me to leave the castle. I was in shock for so many reasons. Part of me was convinced that even if he did truly love me back, the kiss wouldn’t work, because there was something so wrong with me—my love was tainted, not to mention the whole resistant-to-magic bit.

Then there was the shock of his reaction. I did for him what I would give anything for someone to do to me, take away my darkness, make me human, and what does he say? He thinks I’m trying to take away his powers on the queen’s orders. The kiss was working, and that meant it was true love, but he didn’t care, he loved his power more than he loved me. And it didn’t work on me at all—not that I had very high hopes for it. I wasn’t under any sort of curse; I was born like this the good old fashioned way.

Lacey showed up about a week after I left the castle. I was emotionally extremely low, but I like to think I wouldn’t have harmed myself. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done anything else foolish without exactly taking my safety into account, though. Without a physical danger to fight, she took up drinking and dancing and beating strangers at cards. An entire personality formed to protect me from any and all danger has both a surprisingly good poker face and an impressive ability to sense when her opponents are bluffing. I never wanted for money, and when I would drift my way towards the harsh and unloving world, she would drink me back down into oblivion. For about two months, her control was a relief. I didn’t have to force myself to live, to go through the motions, because she took care of all of that while I had peace and stillness to grieve what was, and what never was.

Eventually she had to admit that she might be damaging my liver, and began to ease up. As she cut back on her drinking, I began to emerge bit by bit. There were a foggy few weeks where the lines between us were blurred, and I would slip back and forth in the middle of a conversation. As I regained my strength, Lacey’s friends began to drift away, while I made some of my own—a dwarf, a warrior maiden and a prince among them.

I began to feel whole again, and I decided to go back and confront Rumpelstiltskin. I still loved him, but being Lacey for so long gave me perspective. I did say that fireblood personalities were intelligent, didn’t I? She reasoned that no one could love a thing—even a power—more than their true love. That was the point of true love. People who loved themselves more than absolutely anyone simply don’t wind up in true love. That meant that whatever was going on with Rumple that he didn’t want to give up for me, it wasn’t about the magic. It was about someone. It only took me one guess to figure out that he probably needed magic to regain his lost son. Once I got my head back on straight, I decided to return to him and offer him my help. He didn’t have to choose between us—and what sort of monster would force him to choose between his child and his true love? I was a fuillisang; there had to be some way I could help. Then after father and son were reunited, I could break his curse, and we could all live happily ever after.

The evil queen captured me about thirty minutes after I began to make my way back towards Rumple’s castle. So much for idealism.

Lacey was exhausted—and, honestly, had worked up quite a debilitating alcohol addiction—from her long stint as the primary force in our shared consciousness. Her first escape attempt was sloppy, which alerted the queen to exactly what sort of monster she was dealing with. (Also the bit where she tried to rip the queen’s jugular out with her teeth might’ve been a bit of a giveaway.) Unfortunately, the woman was quite the diabolical one, and knew all manner of ways to ensure I wouldn’t be able to leave her dungeon. My memories of the last few years before the curse are extremely foggy as a result; Lacey was out for probably nine tenths of the time.

When the curse hit, there was only so much it could do to me—one of the few perks of being a fireblood. Instead of giving me a new personality, it simply pushed me and all my memories down to the darkest, quietest corner of my mind and barricaded us in. All that was left of me was Lacey, who was institutionalized for general safety almost immediately. For twenty-eight years, she was confined in a padded cell, four paces across and three deep. I was consigned to oblivion during that time, and even now, I’m barely even aware that it happened. I don’t know if that’s a result of the curse trying to affect me through the fireblood’s protection, or just because there was so little to remember. I was heavily sedated during that time—how else were they going to keep something like me confined, after all—so even Lacey’s edge dulled down to almost nothing. She, a shade of me, became a shade of herself.

By the time the stranger broke in to set us free, telling us to go find Mr. Gold, Lacey was a wreck, so weakened and exhausted from the drugs and the three decades of solitary confinement that it was all she could do to stumble out and ask a passerby for directions. Gold’s joy and desperate relief didn’t even compute for her, but he said he’d protect us, and that was enough. Lacey stumbled after him until the curse broke and she was able to collapse into the back of my mind and let me reunite with Rumple.

As I sit here writing this, a part of me hopes he’s doing something Dark-One-ish and magically reading this over my shoulder so that I won’t have to have this conversation out loud. But at the same time, I don’t know if I want him to know everything right away—if there are parts I’ll decide in real time that I’d rather keep to myself. It’s been a week since the curse broke, and I get the feeling he’s brewing something up to deal with Regina, totally going against his promise to me to leave her alone. I want to confront him and talk about it, but I also feel like, who am I to tell him not to go after her? If Lacey was still in control when the drugs left my system, she would have been absolutely game for whatever form of retribution he had in mind.

I don’t know my own mind, and I’m with someone who has just as much trouble with the whole moral compass thing. I don’t know how to support him, I don’t know what I need from him to support me… I love him with all my heart and soul—even Lacey was relieved when she saw him, and that’s saying something—but I don’t know what will happen to our relationship if we can’t be honest with each other.

I am so, so afraid.

Further Notes:

+The twist? Belle didn’t create Lacey. Lacey (Mirabelle) created “Belle,” because she couldn’t handle the idea that all of her mother’s attempts to protect both her body and her innocence had gone completely to waste in the end. Belle exists to protect her mother’s final wish, because she fundamentally changed that day.

+When Moe and Smee send her in the mining cart, Lacey takes over and knocks over the cart, dislocating her shoulder in the process. She then picks the lock on the cuffs with a hairpin, and returns, screaming obscenities at Moe, about how this had nothing to do with Rumple, it was just that he was scared she’d turn out like her mum, and he cared so little for her that he was willing to destroy her, take away everything about her, in the hopes of hitting the reset button and recreating her more to his liking. Rumple hears that, but doesn’t pry into her history just yet.

+After that ^^ when Belle and Rumple want to address the fight they had about Rumple hiding his magic, Belle moves out. She says that she loves him and wants to be with him, but the fact is that they went straight from “no, we’re definitely not in a relationship, absolutely not,” to “I haven’t seen you in thirty years, I miss you, I love you, let’s share a house.” They never did the part where they learned to communicate, learned to solve problems, and now Belle is paranoid and Rumple is doing magic in the basement and neither of them has a clue what to do about it. She assures him she’s not breaking up with him—in fact she simply loves him too much to let their relationship implode because they jumped in too hard too soon.

+They date like normal people, and communicate better, but Belle still hasn’t told him about Lacey. Then she gets attacked by Hook and fights him off. He runs, and she realizes that she MUST tell Rumpelstiltskin about her alter ego, now, before she comes out and introduces herself in the worst way possible. But before she can tell him, he realizes the shawl is missing. They go after it as they do in the show, but this time, Belle knows that Hook can’t kill her because Lacey is there to fight him off. When Rumple starts beating him up with the cane, she eventually interferes physically, putting a hand on his upraised arm.

+Rumple wants so much to leave and find his son, and she selfishly fears he won’t come back if she tells him what she is, so Belle doesn’t bring it up, just says that when he gets back, she has something to tell him, but it’s too long a story for right now. She comes with him to test the shawl, Hook shoots her across the line, but this time, Rumple can’t heal her, because she defaulted to Lacey, who is resistant to magic. They rush her to the hospital, he’s following in a panic because he doesn’t know what she remembers or why he couldn’t get the bullet out of her shoulder, but Lacey manages to slip out of the ambulance while it’s driving. She gets the bullet out, and her healing factor kicks in to stop the bleeding—she’ll be fine by tomorrow night. Belle has been pushed down even further than during the curse, so even though there’s nothing holding her there now, it’s going to be harder and harder to find her.

+Lacey is terrified that Belle might be gone forever, so she goes to find Regina, following the prickly feeling of the magic in the town to its origin. She demands to know how the border works, so she can figure out what it did to Belle. Cora shows up pretending to be Henry, but of course Lacey can see through that and immediately gives her away.

+Lacey steals the dagger to keep it safe from Cora and Regina? She knows that Gold is the only magician in town who will always try to help her get Belle back, so she wants to ensure that he’s protected. Her presence masks its magical signature, so they’re on a wild goose chase. Consequently, Johanna doesn’t die.

+Lacey spews out all the reasons she hates Gold—basically every way he’s failed Belle—to hurt him so that Belle will be forced to come back to protect him (Bad Guy Way)

+Rumple remembers vaguely that between long, loud crying sessions, she’d sometimes sung to herself while in his dungeon.

#Beth's New Year's Cleaning Queue #free to a good home #Any and all parts available for general use with credit #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic ideas #ouat #Once Upon a Time #Ouat fanfic #writing #writing prompt #rumplestiltskin #Belle

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