Some weird Magic/Fairy Tale AU I came up with for MCSM. It's inspired by Merlin, OUAT, and a few other fantasy books and such.

Because this is an AU, some characters' personas might be slightly altered, but the heart of their characterization will be preserved. Also, the characters' speech is a bit more fancy, given the nature of the setting.

Uses the first variant of M!Jesse. To make him distinct, let's call him Jaysse.

Magic was highly illegal in the prosperous Kingdom of Murex, and on the outskirts of that kingdom, there was a house simply saturated with it. It was hardly a nice house. The floorboards creaked terribly, and the roof was crooked. Rain sounded like rollicking drums as it beat against the shallow walls. Odious smoke poured out of the chimney any day of the week. The house was adjoined by an herb garden, and a rabbit pen sat behind it. It was the home of an eccentric mother and her eccentric son.

"Were it not for the magic holding this house together, it would collapse in on itself," she explained as she flipped through the pages of a ragged spellbook. "I must find the spell which will strengthen the bonds."

"What is in need of reinforcement?" asked her son. "The supports, the roof, the windows?"

"All of those things, and more still! I do wish I had taken notes with more clarity. This is almost as hard to read as those scrolls from the desert kingdoms!"

"You, at least, can read them. I looked at them one time, and all I saw were a lot of strange drawings. Mother, is it true that the drawings stand for letters? Why do they not just use proper lettering? Surely that would be more practical."

"They stand for both lettering and entire words, Jaysse," she said, her tone a bit condescending. "A difficult field of study, I shall admit. I prefer runes to hieroglyphics, and even then, I believe Latin lettering to be the superior. However, there are many old spells that have not been translated, and thus necessitated learning their native script and language."

"When will you teach me? I have been asking for...I do not even remember how long."

"I will when you are older and more experienced in the skills you already possess," Jaysse's mother said, in her default response to the request.

Jaysse groaned in frustration. "But you always say that! Every time I ask, you say that I must wait until I am older. Well, I am older now! Eighteen years, that is my age! Why is that not old enough?"

"Jaysse…" she said sternly. "You are not to take that tone with your mother."

Jaysse sighed, but he backed down. He knew, from past experience, that continuing to act up would anger her, and an incensed Nimue was terrifying. He much preferred the calm, if somewhat condescending, Nimue.

He rested his elbows on the table whereupon his mother was heating water and crushing herbs. "I suppose I can wait a little while longer."

"Indeed you can. Do you know what you can also do?"

"What?" He glanced up at her. She didn't look down at him. Her bizarre scarlet-colored eyes, like the color of a flaming sunset, were focused on her work.

"At length, I found the spells for which I have searched. I also realized that we are clean out of lavender and dreamshade."

Jaysse frowned, sensing the imminent assignment of a chore.

"Would it trouble you to run down to the meadow out back and pick some?"

He was quiet for half a minute, before finally conceding. "All right. How much of each do you want?"

"Two bundles of lavender and one bundle of dreamshade. And, please, use caution when picking the dreamshade. It is-"

"-Very toxic, I know," Jaysse finished the sentence for her. "Worry not. I will be careful."

"I have seen sorcerers who were not careful around dreamshade," Nimue mused. "Or rather, I have seen what remained of them."

Jaysse, who had just pulled his leather satchel off its hook, paused. "What do you mean?"

"The fools mistook the dreamshade for an ordinary plant and harvested it without a care. A dreadful mistake, that was! The thorns scraped upon their skin and the dreamshade leaked its poison into their blood. They had only enough time to consider their fate before they died. I saw the black blood in their veins and the lesions on their skin."

"Horrifying!" Jaysse said, aghast.

"Now you see why I warn you so. Dreamshade is full of useful magic, but only when its poison has been canceled by another reagent. Please, do be careful when you pick it. Do not even smell the plant."

"Mother, I will do no such thing," Jessie promised.

"Splendid. You should find them in the meadow, as I said."

Jaysse nodded and checked to make sure he had his shears, for pruning plants, in his satchel. Then he rubbed some kohl under his eyes, which would help cut the sun's glare as he worked. He shouldered the satchel, said good-bye to his mother for the time being, and left in a hurry. The door slammed shut in his wake. Jaysse rounded about the cottage and headed toward the meadow behind it.

It was about a half league away. Forests flanked the meadow, glimmering emerald green in the summer sun. Jaysse rarely ventured therein, as he was afraid of the animals and monsters said to lurk in the shadows. There were lighter woodlands south of his home to provide whatever resources the meadow lacked. He had also heard stories of irascible lumber-men and fur trappers who would not take kindly to a scrappy hermit boy on "their" land.

Still, Jaysse did not want to pay those hooligans any mind. There was a delicious summer day to be enjoyed. The ankle-deep, sun-warmed grass felt good on his bare feet. His too-big tunic fluttered in the wind. The way it billowed around his lean frame made him feel light and free, almost as if he had wings.

No-one set any grazing animals on the meadow, so the greenery was overgrown. The grass reached up to Jaysse's knees, and the flowers formed colorbursts all over the hills. Jaysse sighed, breathing in the sweet, hay-smelling air of the vale. He bent over slightly and scanned the field, looking for the lavender and dreamshade.

The task was harder than he had expected. The field blazed with more dandelions than stars in the sky, making it difficult to spot any other kind of plant. Clusters of crabgrass and clover mushroomed over the ground. Jaysse mistook a growth of wolfsbane for lavender and an ordinary bramble for dreamshade. However, he was actually glad for the latter case, as the thorns scratched his arm when he reached for the plant. Had that actually been dreamshade, it would have injected its poison into his blood and ensured his death. He would have stupidly done the exact thing Nimue had warned him about.

He eventually found the lavender growing by a small creek. He grabbed two large fistfuls of the sweet purple flowers and stuck them in his satchel. Lavender oil is a known calming agent, and as such, a whiff of the flowers' delicate scent eased his anxieties over the dreamshade. He reminded himself to be more careful picking thorny plants from now on.

To find the dreamshade, Jaysse had to walk to the other side of the meadow. There, the ground rose up into a rugged crag. A sad jumble of hard vines clustered near the top. Thorns stuck out of the vines at odd angles, and a black fluid oozed from those thorns.

"Dreamshade," Jaysse said. He started climbing the crag. He scraped his knees on the rocks, but otherwise, the climb was without incident. He paced in a circle about the dreamshade plant, trying to figure out the best strategy to harvest it. Certainly he couldn't just pluck a vine from the plant as if it were a harmless flower. At length, he took the shears from his satchel and cautiously approached the dreamshade. Watching the deadly dark gunge drip from the thorns, Jaysse held a vine between his fingers, careful to avoid the thorns. Then he brought up the shears and lopped the vine from the plant. Very carefully he pulled it away and stored it in his satchel, in a pocket separate from the lavender.

He slipped down from his perch upon the crag and turned to go back home. However, a figure emerged from the forest and made its way into the valley. Jaysse ducked behind the crag for shelter. He panicked somewhat. He could not even remember the last time another person came to this valley. Wondering what the reason for their presence was, he allowed another peek. To his surprise, the stranger was a woman. Her armor, decorated with the insignia of Murex, shone like a mirror. It must have been newly polished. She carried a sword. She wore no helmet, putting her short reddish hair on full display. And Jaysse noticed, with no small amount of dismay, that this woman was headed straight for the crag with the dreamshade.

Is she...Is she going to pick some of that dreamshade? he wondered. Surely not. Surely she knows its dangers...the magic pulsing within it.

Even through the leather folds of the satchel, Jaysse could feel the magic flowing inside the dreamshade. Or perhaps he was more sensitive to it, being magical himself. After all, his mother was a strong sorceress, and her magic was in his blood, too.

But what did this royal guard woman want with dreamshade, of all things? If she worked for his majesty himself, surely she would know about the laws against magic and the possession of magical items. That would be one of the first things they would teach a new soldier in the army. Or maybe…?

There were many theories, so Jaysse lay in wait to see what would happen.

The woman was young, not really any older than Jaysse, it would seem. She approached the crag wearing the stoic expression of an experienced warrior. Without hesitation she sheathed her sword and then began to climb the hill. Unlike Jaysse, the stranger (not an unattractive stranger either, Jaysee observed) easily ascended the crag without scraping her knees.

However, it was obvious that she knew nearly nothing about plants. She carelessly reached for the dreamshade, as if it was a common dandelion and not brimming with deadly toxins. Jaysse gritted his teeth in panic. The last thing he wanted was to see the girl scratch the skin on her exposed arms and sentence herself to painful death. She would be startled by the sudden appearance of Jaysse, but that was preferable to…

"Wait!" Jaysse cried out, exploding from his hiding-place. He stumbled onto the rocky hill. He waved his hands fervently at her.

Mercifully, the girl paused, albeit because she was confused. "What?"

"Do not pick that plant!" he warned. "Do you know what it is?"

The girl shrugged. "Thorny brambles. I was asked to find some."

Jaysse shook his head. "Oh, no, ma'am. Those are no ordinary brambles. That is a dreamshade plant. It is very toxic."

"Is it?" she challenged. She reached for it again.

"No! Please, refrain from picking it. If the thorns scratch your skin and the poison gets into your blood, you will die. Inevitably and painfully."

"I find that hard to believe."

A hawk passed overhead. The bird was carrying a mouse it had caught, but it abruptly lost grip of the rodent and dropped it as it flew over Jaysse and the young woman. The mouse survived the fall and scuttled across the rocks, but scraped its back on a dreamshade thorn as it did so. It was dead within the minute.

The woman gasped. "So this is true?"

"Deadly poison pulses inside that plant. It is best to let one more experienced pick it. Why do you require dreamshade, ma'am?"

"I...It was an assignment from my superior," the girl explained. "The king wants to grow a bramble fence around the farmlands of Murex, in order to protect them from wild beasts and rogues. I was sent to find a bramble plant, that we might grow more brambles from it."

"Surely you would not need something as potent as dreamshade."

"I did not know it was dreamshade. You...I believe you spared me from possible death." She looked at the toxic plant and then at Jaysse. "Um, thank you."

"You are welcome. So you are part of the king's army?"

"Not just the army. I am in the Royal Guard."

"Congratulations." Jaysse's tone straddled sincere and sarcastic.

"My name is Petra. How are you named, hermit?" She crossed her arms.

"Jaysse," he responded.

"Jay-sse? Odd." Then she noticed Jaysse's bemused expression and quickly added, "But nice, and certainly unique. Like you."

"It stems from the name Jesse. Which means 'gift' in Hebrew. My mother said she called me so because I was a gift to her."

"You know what your name means? Most do not know such things."

"You said your name was Petra? That is Greek. Means 'stone.' It is the feminine form of Petros, from which we derive the name Peter."

Petra looked stunned. "You are smarter than I would expect a hermit to be."

"Is that compliment or an insult?"

"I meant it as a compliment. Do you live out here in the wild, Jaysse? You have the look of a hermit. What with the torn clothes and the...what is that under your eyes?"

"Kohl," Jaysse said.

"Coal rocks?"

"No, not that. Kohl is a kind of eyeliner. I put it under my eyes to reduce sun glare. The sun is very bright in an open meadow."

"Quite. What were you doing out here?"

"Looking for lavender flowers. Uh, if you need help finding thorny brambles…"

"You could help me?"

"I think I would be able."

"But I should not bring dreamshade to the king."

"No. Not only is it very toxic, it is also very magical, and we know how the king hates magic."

"Magical?" Petra shot him a suspicious look. "How would you know that dreamshade is magical?"

Jaysse bit his lip.

Her eyes narrowed. "Did you…"

"I just know so from botany books," Jaysse stammered. Guilt stabbed him in the gut for lying, but telling Petra the truth would endanger himself.

The captain of the guard nodded slowly, as if unsure whether she believed him or not. "Botany books. I suppose that is expected. You seem like a learned person, even if you are a hermit."

Jaysse stifled his relieved sigh.

"You are quite right, though. It would be stupid of me to bring his majesty the very thing he hates. Show me where the common brambles are."

So Jaysse did. After coming down from the crag, he led her to the east side of the meadow, wherein he had found the bramble patch earlier this morning. Being careful not to scratch their arms, Jaysse and Petra uprooted the plant. The captain of the guard placed it in a burlap sack and thanked Jaysse for his time.

"Well done, Jaysse. I should learn to not underestimate your kind. Would you care to come to the city with me?"

"What for?" Jaysse pulled a thorn out of his wrist and pinched the skin to keep it from bleeding.

"Well, I could have died from that dreamshade, had you not warned me about it, and you helped me harvest this common bramble" she replied. "Your prudence and kindness ought to be rewarded."

Jaysse wrung his hands. Going into the city made him nervous, for he feared accidentally revealing his magic. But on the other hand, he did not want to disappoint Petra.

"All right. Let us go."