Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When they first met, he didn't know she was human, much less that she would be his wife one day. Hell, he nearly shot her out of the sky. But there’s no woman Daniel would rather be dancing with right now. As they glide across the forest floor, he can’t help but smile; his advisors would have been fuming were he here even a week ago. Him, dancing with a baker girl? And in the woods no less! 

But the magic of this place… the colors, the sights, the sounds, and most of all, the beautiful girl before him. It’s tantalizing. She steps so lightly, almost floating as they come together with the swell of music. How could he ever have mistaken Odile for her? Odile, for this lovely creature who for some reason decided he was worth saving?

“What is it?” his partner spins under his hand as she asks, cocking her head with a smile. “You seem far away.”

“Not at all,” said Daniel, and it was true. He was happier than he could remember ever being. “Simply lost in your iridescence.”

She giggles: “Flatterer.” One, two three, one, two, three. Another melody catches the wind, causing the feathers of her dress to flutter. It reminds him of the first time they danced. One, two, three, one, two, three. “But I know you better than that. What’s wrong?”

Daniel almost misses a step. Curse her sharp eye; he could never get anything past her. His swan.

“Odette, we very nearly died,” he said.

“And?” She laughs. “Look around, Daniel. You’re safe. I’m safe. Both kingdoms are safe. There’s no need to worry any longer.”

“And yet they almost weren’t,” he whispers, “because of me.” As he says it, he realizes it’s true. It’s been only weeks since Rothbart had stolen away with Odette; only weeks since he nearly left his kingdom with no heir. No future. Only weeks since they’d both been on the brink of never seeing their families again. Daniel considers himself a good hunter, a great hunter even, but he’d never been so close to death before.

He’d never had someone he was so willing to die for before.

Odette simply watches, lets him parse through what he wants to say. “I simply can’t understand why you’re so… calm,” he says at last.

“I’m the furthest thing from calm,” she says as their song ends. They bow, and she takes his arm; he leads her to the lake, away from the crowd. The trees reach over their heads, shading them from the worst of the sun. “I’m scared for the future, for all the work we must do both for your land and mine. I’m excited to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m even angry—” Daniel winces, anticipating her next words— “that such lengths were needed to get here in the first place.” He releases a breath. “But I’m also hopeful. We’ve come through such steep odds, Daniel. I can only imagine we make it through whatever comes next.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Daniel replies. “I can’t get past that moment, though. I’ve never been so scared in my life, and I’ve never been so afraid that–” he cuts himself off. Looks up into the branches above.

Odette takes his hand. “That what?”

He swallows, throat suddenly dry. “That a mistake I made would cost someone their life. Would cost you your life.” Odette lets go of his hand, and he stiffens, sure that she would leave and never come back. That she’d finally realized he would never be able to atone, never be enough for her.

Instead, she reaches across his back, more gentle than moonlight, and lays her head on his shoulder. “In another world, maybe,” she says. “But Daniel, not in this one.” He can’t tear his gaze from the sky. 

“Hey.” She reaches for his chin and turns his face to meet hers. “There’s no use staying in the past, and there’s no one I’d rather go forward with.” Her lips look endlessly soft. He wants nothing more than to kiss her, forget every misgiving in his mind and sink into her presence. But…

“How can you ever forgive me?”

Odette’s eyes widen, roaming his expression. “Forgive you?” she says, genuine in her confusion. “Whatever for?”

“I asked Odile to marry me. I told her that I loved her with all my heart, and it almost killed you,” he said. “Everything that went wrong that night is because of me. And I’m sorry for it every day, every waking hour and every sleeping one, but it means nothing without your forgiveness.”

“Daniel,” she says, and he clings to every word like a lifeboat, “there’s nothing to forgive.” When he makes to object, she holds a hand to his mouth. “No, Daniel. Truly. You were under a spell; one you’re free from, now.”

He grabs her wrist and shoves her hand away. “Sure, now. And with that clarity, I can recall each and every detail I should have questioned then. Odette, she may have looked like you, but her actions spoke of a character I could never love.”

“Which is why,” says Odette, finally beginning to show signs of frustration. At last, the anger he’d expected, that he knew how to combat— “I love you.” What?

“You heard me. I love you.” Oh. He must have said that aloud. “For all that you obsess over every moment of that night, for all that you pick apart the pieces of her facade, you forget one thing,” she says.

“You asked her to marry you under the pretence that she was me .” She has the gall to smile, the sentence tumbling past her lips like nothing could be more certain. “You told her you loved her because you love me . How could I call that a sin?”

He feels his heart breaking in two at the thought: “But you almost died,” he says, his protest weak even to his own ear but with no other thought to offer. 

“You know? I think we actually did,” Odette muses. She seems utterly unperturbed by the notion. “For a second, I was moving towards something bright, but though I try to recall, I don’t know what or where it was. All that mattered was that you were with me.” She looks him in the eyes, more captivating than any canopy of oaks. “And then we were alive. Daniel, I want to cherish that. I want to cherish you. Please say you’ll allow me that.”

He searches her gaze, looking for any sign of blame, any hint that she’s holding something back. There’s nothing.

“Well then,” he says, turning back towards the party. “We should probably get back to the dance, no?” Her answering grin reaches every corner of his being with its luminance. “I know how you love the waltz.”

“Hmm, I always preferred ballet,” she says, taking his arm once more. “But this will do.” With much pomp and circumstance, they reenter the fray, and Daniel knows one thing with all his heart: he loves this woman. And looking at her now, practically glowing among family and friends, wings of an angel and the countenance to match, he prays to whoever might be listening that he never has to let her go again.

Magic listens.

Chapter Text

Liana remembers. Ever since she was a child and knew what love meant, she was certain someone was out there, waiting just for her. Her parents brushed it off as a fantasy of true love, like many children have at such a young age, but Liana held fast to that belief all through her life. 

Through village fire that tore through her entire world. Through an adolescence spent wandering from place to place, never truly belonging. Through sleepless nights, wondering why she was cursed to know a home, a warmth, that she was beginning to believe she could never have in this life. Through an eighteenth birthday spent alone, wondering if her love even existed.

But then, she met Alexa, and suddenly she wasn’t alone anymore. 

Liana decided she was done waiting for someone who clearly wasn’t looking for her and took to gardening not like she’d done it all her life, but like something she’d never done before and yearned to master. In the end, Alexa was more skilled with the flowers than her, but that was alright because at the end of the day, when both were tired and worn from long days in the sun, Liana could ensure their bellies were full with the best bread she could make with their meager income. 

And they loved each other like sisters, like an echo from a past Liana ignored with all her might. They sang together, a new passion different enough from her last that it didn’t even hurt (despite her idle movements to each waltz, her careful twirls beneath the rose arches). And it was enough.

Until the mirror.

Now, magic was back in her life, determined to carve its way back into her heart. She’d embraced it in the past, and look where it got her? Back at the beginning, with only herself to depend on until Alexa. A head full of memories she wasn’t even sure were real and a healthy disdain for hope. But Melody needed help. Liana, despite her hurt, never could turn down a soul in need. And Alexa could never turn down Liana.

They packed their things, what little was left at least, and traveled west as far as they could walk. Well, as far as they could walk on an empty stomach. 

And then there was Ian and Jeremy. Rude and dismissive self-absorbed and terrible singers and completely and entirely… familiar. They looked tired; for all the bravado the brothers paraded about in, their frames were slight and their eyes never stopped darting about. Their clothes were grand but worn; their instruments, scuffed with use. Despite all of this, their gait had an elegance unmatched by any Liana had seen in this life. In her last life, however…

For all that they were identical, there was something about Jeremy in particular that felt familiar. It didn’t matter, though. It never would matter because Lydia was there, and she had magic, and they had to get to the seven stones before it was too late. 

Except the twins kept following them. It would’ve been charming (rakish, roguish) if it wasn’t so maddening (so like someone she used to know). Couldn’t they respect that Liana was trying to run from her past, not towards it? Even if it was him, he clearly didn’t know her, and he clearly didn’t know what he was getting himself into. What were the odds they could beat the odds a second time?

They didn’t leave. A troll (who looked too much like—) and an evil sorceress (far too similar to—), and they still stayed.

Unlike Alexa. Liana thought all she wanted was a home: a place to belong that wouldn’t disappear, a family who loved her. In the end, she was the one to leave. Curse her heart; she never could turn down a soul in need, even if it brought her nothing but pain. She hated to separate the puppies, but she also couldn’t stomach being on her own. As great a friend as she considered Melody, she wasn’t here in a way that mattered to Liana’s aching chest. At least Sparkles was some comfort.

And then Alexa was mesmerised. They were both stuck, Lydia had won, and there was nothing Liana could do to help Alexa, goddamnit . For a moment, she’s back outside a ballroom window (there’s no music here), wings spread against the wind (the air is still in this cave), staring at the man she loved as he unknowingly doomed her (just like Alexa). 

And then she was back. And then Alexa was back. And then the twins were there, Jeremy was there (he’s always just in time). And then Melody wasn’t. And then, somehow, this life’s passion, the thing she took up to forget her past with magic, was the key to saving this life’s magic.

And then she was a princess. Again. (At least there was no accompanying kingdom to care for; she’d had enough of that for a lifetime. Literally.) Melody was alive and well, music was abundant, and for the first time since never, Liana danced. If it were anybody but Jeremy, she doesn’t think she could’ve managed the steps, but one, two, three, and they were slotted together like they’d never been apart.

He followed her home, of course, just as Ian followed Alexa. For all that their cottage and their flowers were more than enough, the boys made it more than just a home. 

Which brings her to now. Jeremy is climbing off the stage after a wonderful show—both brothers had quickly made a name for themselves in their small village, but Liana only had eyes for him. Their flowers were a hot commodity now that they grew with gemstones, and word spread fast about magical goods. Royalty had started stopping by. It was only a matter of time before someone caught Jeremy’s eye, and for all that the brothers stayed in Alexa and her cottage, they never stopped their passing remarks about leaving to see the world one day. 

Liana didn’t think she could stand to see him leave after so long without him, even if he didn’t know it. His smile made her lighter than air, and his music reminded her of a forest filled with magic, of years spent in bliss and good company. He didn’t used to play music, but then, neither did she.

Alexa and Ian had already spent a night together. Neither were subtle; Liana knew that Alexa was too headstrong to let him get away, just like she knew that wherever Ian stayed, so too would Jeremy. It didn’t assuage her nerves as she approached the stage, though.

Melody told them a story, once, back when they were traveling. About a princess under a curse and the prince who awoke her. The story varied, she’s said, about the curse itself, but the cure was always the same. True love’s kiss. 

If this was a curse—and surely, with the life they’ve led, with the torment Liana lives with each day, looking at him and knowing he doesn’t truly see her, it must be—then maybe this will break it. She only needed the bravery to try, which had been evading her for months. Not today, though.

“Ah, Liana!” says Jeremy, snapping her out of her thoughts. She feels her cheeks warm; she hadn’t realized she had stopped in her tracks. “I trust you enjoyed the show?” He walks, no, prances over to Liana. She thinks she loves this new part of him.

“You were a little pitchy,” she says, smirking at his astonished expression, hand on his heart as he pretends offense. 

“I was not!” he cries, continuing: “If anything, I was even more perfect than last time we played!”

Liana laughs, heading towards their meager backstage area. “Which really isn’t saying much.”

“Well I never!”

“Poor man, did I give you a bruised ego?” They’ve made it behind the curtains. Ian stayed out front to haggle for tips; it’s now or never. “Should I kiss it better?”

Jeremy stops in his tracks. “If the lady would be so kind.” He says it with his usual aplomb and wink, but he’s looking at her lips, hand gripping his guitar like it might break if he lets go.

Liana notices. “If you don’t want me to…”

“No, no, that’s not it at all!” he rushes to say. “I just…”

“Just?”

“I want to make sure you know—” he looks up, suddenly nervous in a way she hadn’t seen him before— “that you aren’t… that is to say, I won’t…”

Liana raises a single brow.

“You’re special, Liana,” he manages at last. “I don’t want to mess it up by taking this lightly.”

Something in her chest flutters, and she smiles. Foolish man. “I never imagined you would,” she says, and leans in.

It’s just as she remembers. 

-

It’s just as he remembers.

He sinks into her presence, wants nothing more than to keep kissing her, forget every misgiving in his mind. But…

He pulls back from her arms, not enough to separate them, never that, but enough to see her face, to look her in the eyes when he asks: “Odette?”

Those same eyes fill with tears as she flings herself toward him, burrowing into his arms just as she did once upon a time, when she was the one with a sibling and he the only child, when he still had a mother and she a father, when they knew nothing of muses but everything of magic. Except it seems, not everything.

“How is this possible?” he gasps, holding her a thousand times tighter than he’d gripped his guitar (now lying forgotten on the floor), trailing his free hand through her hair like it was entirely new to him. 

She digs her head further into his chest, if possible. “I don’t know. All I know is I was alone so long, and I tried to ignore it, I did, I promise, I tried to move on, but then you were there and you wouldn’t leave and you were just the same and completely different and I fell in love all over again and—”

“Shh, it’s alright. We have time.” And he hopes he’s telling her the truth. Really, he has no clue how long this will last. But the two parts of him are in agreement: he loves this woman, and he’ll do anything to bring back the easy joy he remembers her by.

Jeremy (Daniel?) keeps stroking her hair. She used to like that, said it kept her calm, but he has no clue what she likes now. It seems to help, at least, and soon she’s taking larger breaths, rubbing the tears from her eyes. At least, those left after Jeremy wipes away the bulk of them. 

“Od- I mean, Lia- um.”

She sniffles a chuckle. “Liana works best, I think.”

“Liana, then.” He leads her to a nearby bench and sits them both down, never letting go of her hands. “Tell me everything.” And she does.

She tells him of his death, how she stayed by his bed until the fire went cold, long after he’d taken his last breath (a hunt gone wrong). She tells him of her life, how she’d grown older than him by far (touched by magic for longer than is natural). She tells him of their children, how their son was a wonderful king whose husband reminded her of Alexa (both too stubborn for their own good). She tells him of their great-grandchildren each by name. She tells him of her last day, surrounded by loved ones, and how there was no light to move towards, unlike their first brush with death.

She tells him of this life, of running, of questioning her memories, of meeting Alexa, though he already knew that part. She tells him of meeting him , and though he knows this part too, it’s far different from her eyes, already knowing everything and nothing about him. 

In turn, Jeremy tells her everything she doesn’t already know. Which twin was older (Ian, despite what I always said), why they never stopped moving (I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what, and Ian would follow me anywhere), the reason he shies away from mead (our father wasn’t a good man). Liana tells him that he doesn’t need to, that he is always enough, that she doesn’t need to know every facet of this new him to love him, that she already does, but Jeremy is insistent.

“Will this last?” he asks, the question on both their minds, both too scared to speak it too loud. 

“I don’t know.” She looks away, drawing her hand back as if taking less of him for herself would preserve what’s left, but Jeremy darts forward and pulls her back into his arms.

“Even if I cease to remember, maybe I’ll know something is missing.” He kisses the top of her head. “You can remind me.”

“What if I forget? What if I’ve traded my memories for yours?”

Jeremy laughs, gently rubs her arm just below the shoulder. “Then you have no reason to worry,” he says. “I’ll tell you what you told me so long ago. We’re alive, and I want to cherish that. I want to cherish you . And, I may be ad libbing a bit here, I fell in love with you then. I’m falling in love with you now, if I haven’t already. No matter what happens, I want you to be happy. If me being here makes that true? I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me, memories of a life long gone or no.”

“Promise?” Liana asks, voice weak and full of hope. Jeremy wants that hope to live forever.

“I promise.”

-

And stay he does. Alexa and Ian notice something different, of course, but they chalk it up to the “blossoming” relationship between Liana and Jeremy. There are different flowers in Liana and Alexa’s hair every day, never mind that they’re the ones growing them, and between the two of them, the twins always have a new love song for the village inn. The older women think it’s sweet; the men call them lovesick fools but stay to listen anyways. 

Liana and Jeremy relearn each other. The way Liana sings is new and so is Jeremy’s guitar. Her passion for gardening keeps him on edge; shovels are heavier than they look, he learns. There’s a fire to them both now, sprung from a second chance seized with two hands; he has a certain spunk to him from years playing music on the road. She’s picked up her late sister’s adventurous spirit. It's a long and happy life, filled with laughter, a best friend Odette always wanted, and a brother Daniel never knew he needed. Neither couple has children, but the village visits often, and every schoolkid knows the famous magic gardeners; they call them “auntie” and “uncle.” They stay humble. When it ends, Alexa at Liana’s bedside and Ian at Jeremy’s, they smile, ready to dream once more.