The Coward's Daughter [An OUAT Fanfic]

A Purple Storm

Orange light filtered through the windows of
Y/N's apothecary, the large tower room her father had given to her to use to brew her potions and conduct her experiments.

The shelves were lined with bottles containing almost every sort of ingredient a person could think of, fragrant herbs of every color hung from the ceiling, and the elegant yet filthy mahogany tables surrounding the central cauldron were covered in empty tea cups, scrolls, and old books stacked precariously high.

She liked her little witches den like this, though she did miss the brown haired woman who used to clear out her dishes.

Y/N tossed a frog's leg into the large caldron at the center as she hummed a gentle tune.
"The witch had a twitch, the witch had an itch." She sang as she carefully measured out a beaker of crushed wolfsbane.

As she slowly emptied the wolfsbane into the cauldron she heard a roar of thunder. Her heart stooped, it was happening.

Y/N threw off her heavy apron and darted to the window. A cloud of rich purple smoke poured over the horizon enveloping trees, towns and mountains underneath its fury. Y/N unlatched the window and crawled out onto the roof, she wanted to see it, she wanted to feel it in the air.

After scaling the marble wall she leaned against a chimney, watching the storm speed closer and closer. Her Y/C/H that had grown long and ragged from neglect tumbled in the wind, she stared into the smoke, transfixed.

Regina had done it, she had finally cast the Dark Curse. After decades of waiting, decades of careful planning and preparation from both Y/N and her father, the Curse was finally here, ready to transport them to a new land, a land without magic. Y/N thought of her father, Rumplestiltskin, could he feel the curse being enacted, even in the dark cell he had been trapped in?
"Can you feel it Papa?" She shouted into the roaring winds. "Can you sense it in the air?"

Y/N stared into the abyss of the curse as it came towards the castle. She wondered if it was worth it, if she'd truly see him again, Baelfire. It had been over a century since he'd vanished into that portal, was he even alive? Would he even recognize his twin sister after so much had changed?

Y/N sat down on the roof, smoothing out her skirt. No matter what had happened to him, the Curse was here, she would soon be sent to a land where all she loved would be taken from her, and would lose all her memories.

But for now she was still in the Enchanted Forest and if this was her fate she vowed to accept it gracefully, as the storm passed into the castle's grounds Y/N took a deep breath, she raised her arms out as if in an embrace and felt the Curse's dark magic wash over her.

Y/N could have never predicted where she'd wind
up next.