'Once upon a time,' the Wicked Witch of the Woods said to the little girl, stroking hair away from her temple, 'there was a boy who never could seem to do as he was told.

'His parents had lived their lives exactly as was expected of them, and although he wished more than anything to make them happy, it always seemed somehow that he was not the way they wished him to be. While the other lads fought with swords and played games which ended in death and glory, his dreams were gentler things, soft and bright and full of colour. He found he preferred beautiful things and magic to ugly acts and war, and though his father called him half a man and his mother could not comprehend him, he found ways to make himself happy, without their approval.'

She looked up at him with soft blue eyes wide with horror. 'But... they were his parents. Why didn't they love him?'

The witch smiled sadly and chuckled her under the chin. 'They loved him, darling girl, but they couldn't understand him. His father told him that he had to marry, because that was the final test of his manhood, a final chance to prove himself. "In love," his father said, "you will find a way to be yourself". But the boy didn't understand, because he knew who he was. He just couldn't seem to find a way to be himself without disappointing the people he loved.'

'What did he do, Papa?' Avery looked at him with serious, wide green eyes, her little face framed by two mouse-brown braids.

'He did something very brave. He realised that no one has the right to tell you who you are, or who you should be, no matter how much you love them, and so he left. He left his family and the place he was born, and he travelled.'

The storm raged outside, but in their little cabin in the woods, they were safe and warm. The witch struggled not to worry whether his repair job on the roof would hold out, and instead, he tucked his beautiful five-year-old daughter into her bed, tucking her cloth parrot under her chin.

'He found people like him, brave souls who were themselves no matter what. He met a young maiden, who was a brave and fierce warrior, and who desperately wanted a babe of her own. She was his greatest friend, and the best person he knew, and so their love became a child.'

'Me.' She stuck her chin out, and he grinned. She looked like him, but she had her long-since dead mother's guts. Avery's mother had been from a tribe of warrior women, and she'd been as unwilling to have him be her lover and husband as he'd been to take the role, but she'd wanted Avery so badly.

Wanting Avery had killed her in the end, and the witch had lost his best and only friend, but he could regret nothing that had brought this child to him.

'Yes, little love, you. And in the end, his father was right – love taught him who he was.' He kissed her forehead. 'Sleep, now, Avery.'

'Love you, Papa,' she murmured, and turned on her side, away from him.

He sighed, and stretched gracefully, then made his way over to his workbench, where a half-cast charm was sitting, waiting for delivery. His long, pale fingers moved swiftly over the deft work, carving runes and sigils. He'd always been good at magick, something else that no one in the land he'd been born understood. It was supposed to be changing, there, under the rule of King Cooper, who even had a court Witch, but... he sighed, and began weaving a charmed ribbon for the charm to sit on. There was still nowhere safe for a witch to practice. He'd moved the two of them, himself and Avery, deep into the Enchanted Woods for that very reason; as someone connected with magick and the earth, it was defensible.

He wished more than anything that when Avery grew up, it would be into a world where no one who was different had to fear people turning against them.

There was a knock at the door, at the same moment that a rumble of thunder shook the little cabin.

He cursed softly, so that Avery wouldn't hear his habit of using foul language, and wiped his hands on his leather apron. Who dared visit him after dark, in the Enchanted Wood?

'Kurt!'

The voice was familiar. Too familiar, and his stomach plummetted to his feet when he heard the name that hadn't been spoken in so long. Since Avery's birth, he'd been witch or father, but never just himself.

He opened the door, and was immediately pushed aside by two figures; one, tall and well built, the other tiny and dainty as a doll.

His brother looked at him with desperate, pathetic eyes. Try as he might, he'd never been able to deny Fynnian anything, and one of the reasons he'd kept the newly knighted man out of his life was to protect himself from the vulnerability of that.

'You've got to help us, Kurt.'

'I haven't got to do anything,' he snapped, and then turned to the woman his brother had dragged along, who was drenched and dressed in a completely inappropriate grey hooded cape. 'I'm sorry, milady, it was a mistake for Fynn to bring you here.'

She was shaking, and not from the cold. He realised, with an unpleasant shudder, that she was scared of him.

Gods, all it took was for a man to live alone in the woods and work spells, and suddenly he was evil? Just because Kurt had a quick, biting tongue and had been known to chase bullshitters off of his property with flames in the shape of lions...

'You don't have to be afraid, though, milady. I'm not as the stories paint me.'

Her head moved, and she fixed on Avery, who had turned over again in her sleep and was snuffling softly.

'You have a child?'

He blinked. Her voice was the most equisite thing he'd ever heard, like honey and summer nights.

'Fynn. Why are you here? Why are you risking Avery like this?'

Fynn blanched immediately. 'No! I never meant to... I love her, you know that. I need your help, and I don't know where else to go! We. We don't know where else to go. We're in love, Kurt. I thought you might understand why I'm willing to do anything for her. It's what you'd do for Avery.'

'Avery can't protect herself,' he snapped. 'What have you done?'

The woman removed her hood, and Kurt found himself staring at liquid brown eyes, a regal nose and flawless warm skin.

'He married me,' she said, and he knew who she was. 'We eloped, and now... the Shadow Prince is going to hunt us down and kill us. He and I were betrothed, but I met Fynnian and I just couldn't do anything but love him. My soul knew him.'

Kurt blinked at the Princess Rachael and, forgetting the little girl sleeping in the corner, said the only thing he could think of to say.

'Well. Fuck.'

At that very moment, the Shadow Prince was singing happily to himself under a cascading waterfall, enjoying the water running down heavy over his training-tired shoulders and back.

Things were going to be alright, he told himself, a mantra which had gotten him through an awful lot of disasters. Things were going to be fine.

Certainly, he was in this kingdom to marry a woman who didn't love him, and whom he didn't love. And granted, he was going to become king of this land, when he couldn't think of anything he'd like less.

But he'd spent his whole life doing things he didn't particularly want to do, always trying to live up to the standard set by his perfect brother, King Cooper. He was an excellent knight, the kind of prince other princes aspired to be, but it would never be enough to be quite as good as Cooper.

He shrugged and flawlessly hit a high note. So what, if his own ridiculous dream of being a famous bard and poet was destined to be nothing but that: a dream? He was so good at mimicking appropriate behaviour his brother had nicknamed him the Shadow Prince.

He frowned, briefly. He'd heard some of the servants in the Dual Kings' palace whispering that name, and he'd come the conclusion that the people of this kingdom had decided he was more prone to killing people than he actually was. He wasn't sure if he preferred they think of him as a poor copy of his brother or as a ruthless killer.

The Dual Kings, fathers to Princess Rachael, were a revelation to him. For some reason, he had never once considered why there were two kings in this land, and Cooper had never enlightened him; he'd been surprised to find that the two great men were lovers. Apparently, that was not as unusual here was it was in his own land, and the idea had been niggling at the back of his mind since he had come to this place.

They seemed so blissfully happy together, so delighted that he should join their family. He couldn't imagine happiness like that. It had always been expected of him to marry well, a woman of flawless virtue, and to produce a dozen children.

He loved children, more than almost anything. They were sweet and fun, and never expected anything from him, except perhaps another song or piggy-back ride. But he'd realised a long while ago that while he loved women – loved their softness, their elegance, the strength in them – he could not bring himself to lust after them.

He'd wondered if there was something broken in him. But seeing the Dual Kings... they made his heart swell with longing.

He wanted someone to look at him like that. He scrubbed at his thick, curling black hair, and contemplated Rachael. She was beautiful, and sang well, and although they had not spoken much he was sure he could love her.

He would love her. Decided, he smiled up into the cascade of water. He would love her, and they would marry, and his children would be much cuter than Cooper's, and at long bloody last he would have lived up to all of the expectations heaped upon him since birth.

'Prince Blaine!' The servant who stood at the side of the pool, gaze averted, had been joined by a female palace guard who was unabashedly taking in the sight of the drenched Shadow Prince. 'Come quickly!'

He awkwardly ran through the water, reaching the edge and wrapping the proffered towel around his waist. He turned on the guard, who blushed prettily.

'What?' he snapped, and she quailed. His momentary guilt disappeared when she stood her ground.

'It's the princess, sire. She's been kidnapped.' Her eyes flashed with anger; Princess Rachael, the Songbird Princess, was beloved and her abduction would not be bourne. 'You have to save her. Please, my Prince. You have to find her, and bring her home.'

Blaine sighed and glanced heavenward for a moment.

Well, that was his grand master plan royally fucked.

I write a lot of serious fantasy, but this is going to be pure, M-rated fluff between my favourite boys. I'm really busy atm so I'll probably continue in a week – sooner if I get some good feedback! xx