Magic's dead

Lived long enough to become the villain
◥		mayorbelle

Leave 'Lived long enough to become the villain' to get a glimpse of my muse being a villain.

^{So many years had passed, years lived in seclusion, that it was almost impossible for a person such as himself to stay off the darker path. All the trials of life had shaped him into something rougher, and as if to pay some form of homage to a sinister past, he had embraced his birth name once more. Baelfire was no longer a young boy with a tragic course of life, but a man who would go through great lengths to protect what little of value he had left.}

^{Emma was part of everything that was lost to him, and by extent, Henry had slipped through the cracks as well. He hadn’t seen them in years, and he had all but given up hope of ever seeing them again; a picture of Henry as a young boy was all he had left now, and it was his most prized possession—-that is, aside from what glistened in candlelight in a dimly lit room.}

^{Unlike what his expectations had told him back when the curse had brought him back to the Enchanted Forest, the dagger had not been able to help him find his father again—-but it had given him so much more in return. It had become a tool in his hands, and with every spin against his fingertip, every glint of light that would reflect off of the blade and into his eyes, he seemed to have grown that much darker. After all these years, he could finally understand his father’s point of view.}

^{It was addictive, the power that pulsated through the dagger. First thing in the morning and last thing in the evening, the one habit he would have was to run his fingers along the blade and spin the tip on his index finger, as if to quench a thirst he’d never realized he had.}

^{The light that reflected off the blade fell upon a strand of wavy hair, and for one split second, he imagined it was one of his long-lost relatives. Then, when his eyes focused, he was met with the disappointment that was her.}

^{“Hmmm—-Belle.”}

^{The name rolled off his lips as though they were leaking a thick grime, making it evident that it was almost impossible for him to pronounce it without some form of resentment. He wasn’t going to hurt her—-not today. But the thought of repayment was constantly in the back of his mind, ticking like a clock that was nearing its turning point. Who the victim would be when he would ultimately come undone was as much a mystery to him as it was to the people he had once known, who were now avoiding him like the plague. The only thing everyone was absolutely certain of was that he would come undone…and there would be terrible consequences. Perhaps a reckoning of sorts, something artistic and cunning—-or perhaps a simple bloodbath to repay karma in kind. In any case, today was not the day just yet.}

^{He turned to her, darkened eyes fixing on her petite form, and gave her quite the invasive once-over, as though he was examining every inch of her body in search of a flaw, a weakness. In stead of playing upon such things, however, he simply turned the corners of his mouth upwards into a filthy kind of grin.}

^{"There is nothing for you here. Nothing I can give you. Why, pray tell, are you here?”}