A Curse Upon Thee 2-10

“… the Infinite Forest.”

After literally days after days of walking, the suffocating tree line finally opened up. One second, he’d been ducking another thick branch that hung too low and seemed magically and vindictively determined to keep smacking him right in the face.

The next, all five of them stood right at the edge of an open field that expanded all the way out to an open ocean, right below a cliff face. 

“The Infinite Forest…” Finn worked the name out slowly, clicking his tongue. “Really, MM?”

“Yes, Finn. Really.” Mary Margaret let out a breath that was as drawn-out as it was breathless, adjusting the bow on her shoulder. “The Infinite Forest. For the third time.”

“The names in this place, seriously…” Finn shook his head, one hand waving back at the endless wall of ancient trees. “Of course. ‘Ah, of course. The Infinite Forest.’ Why even name it that?”

“I don’t know why, Finn.” The schoolteacher patience was still there, and he had to applaud her for that but it wasn’t going to stop him. “That sort of thing wasn’t exactly up to me.”

Emma gave the both of them a sideways look, eyebrow raised high before her eyes landed right back on Mary Margaret. “I don’t know about that. Weren’t you literally the queen of this whole place?”

“Emma, I…” Another sigh slipped out, this one much quieter. “Trust me, we had significantly bigger things to worry about during my very short reign.”

“Bigger than an Infinite Forest?”

Mary Margaret let out a third sigh, the lopsided smile on Finn’s face not fading a bit as she just kept on walking. 

“…wow.” Ten minutes later, Finn found himself just staring blankly at the unfiltered majesty of what had to be the absolute saddest castle he’d ever seen in his entire life. 

Which, to be fair, was a very very low bar but still…

Broken stone towers jutted into the darkening sky, rotten jagged teeth pointing up. Ivy grew up, out, and around; dark green vines choking the crumbling outer walls. Too many walls had already collapsed in and out, entire sections of the castle exposing the rooms and grand hallways inside to the harsh elements. It was almost like a dollhouse that someone had systematically taken a sledgehammer to.

“Okay…” Finn let his head slump, watching another piece of masonry crumble into the crashing waves below. “Maybe you had a point about those bigger problems.”

“It…” Mary Margaret’s breath caught as she stared at the castle. “It… it never looked like this before.”

Finn nodded slow. “Yeah, I’d hope not.”

The inside of the castle somehow managed to be worse than the outside, something Finn was surprised could even be possible. Fancy wooden furniture was rotted down to weather-beaten bug-eaten frames, entire sprawling rooms open to the twilight sky, and several doors were completely blocked off from the rubble. 

Despite it all, Mary Margaret almost glided through the wreckage like she knew every single blind corner, leading them all inside confidently with the kind of muscle memory that only came from living there. 

“This… this was the Royal Castle of Valoria.” Mary Margaret turned away from them, her voice dropping as they walked carefully through what looked like it had been a grand dining hall once upon a time. “It wasn’t my birth kingdom but…” 

She shook her head slowly. “It was mine anyway. Mine by marriage, at least. The happiest in all the land, they used to say.” The queen raised her head, eyes on the single blonde in the group of five. “You would have loved this place, you know.”

Finn didn’t have to pay much attention to notice the look on Emma’s face, or the way her shoulders went tight. Everything about her body language screamed discomfort, Emma shrinking in on herself more and more as Mary Margaret kept gently talking; pointing out exactly where Emma would’ve lived, detailing exactly what her life would’ve been like as a literal princess, and pin-pointing all the magical things she’d permanently missed out on.

Her jaw locked tight, Finn could see the woman shutting down with every single sweet, nostalgic word from Mary Margaret’s lips; everything clearly reminding Emma of how she’d grown up without a family.

“Soooooo…” Finn slid in as Mary Margaret finally took a breath, stopping the woman before she could go any further. “What’s this whole place… realm?” He shrugged his shoulders with a grunt. “What’s this whole realm actually like? Like, day-to-day, you know? You guys have, like, stores? Markets? How’s the basic economy even work here?”

Mary Margaret blinked at him, looking completely thrown. “I… I mean, yes, of course we have markets. Local merchants, established trade routes, large guilds as w—”

“Guilds?” Finn latched onto that word. “Like what? Blacksmith guilds? Magic guilds? You guys got adventurer guilds in Narnia?”

“What manner of realm is Narnia?” Finn blinked over at Aurora, the usually quiet princess actually offering a question his way.

“Well…” 

“This is absolutely not Narnia,” Mary Margaret corrected before Finn could answer, royal firmness clipping the syllables. “Narnia is not even real.”

“You say that now,” Finn pointed her way, two fingers out, “but watch me find Lion Jesus.”

“Jesus?” Mulan finally spoke up with a grunt. “What is a Jesus?”

“Great question but that’s a lot to get into and I don’t really carry the Jerusalem Translation on me.” Finn shot a look over at the Chinese warrior, the woman currently tracking every single shadow in the ruins. “But what about you, Miss Mulan? The giant monster hunting a thing you do for a living, or that more like a weekend hobby for you?”

Dark eyes met his, Mulan studying him silently for a long moment before her lips even bothered to open. “I hunt monsters that harm the people. Both villages and smaller settlements, from threats they cannot handle themselves. Wandering bandits, mostly. Sometimes stray ogres and other territorial beasts.” 

“Nice-nice-nice.” Finn nodded his head, lips pursed. “So, how many ogres you actually killed?” 

“Perhaps a half-dozen over the years.” Her frown deepened as she stared at Finn, as if unsure how to answer the question. “They are exceptionally dangerous monsters.”

“Yeah, they’re definitely a bitch and a half.” Finn kept nodding, unable to deny that much. “I’ve probably killed like, I dunno, maybe two dozen in the last week? Probably more. Mostly just been taking them down to get some practice in with my Cursed Technique.”

The reaction in the hall was immediate, almost everyone freezing in the ruined space. Mulan’s dark eyes narrowed further, eyes suspicious slits as her hand drifted down toward the hilt of her blade. “Cursed Technique?”

Emma and Finn blinked as Aurora and Mary Margaret both turned to stare his way, both women serious and focused in a way he hadn’t seen since the ogre showed up.

“Yeah?” Finn raised an eyebrow at all the attention on him, eyes on Mulan’s sword as he scoffed. “Flame Among Ashes. It’s my Innate Cursed Technique.”

“And what do you mean by Cursed?” Mulan’s voice went completely flat. All deadly business, the final word landing hard. “Explain yourself, wizard.”

“…first of all, watch yourself, warrior.” With a roll of his eyes, Finn folded his arms across his chest and stared back at her. “You saw my Kindle Kyaku. I know you did. It’s part of my technique. I can pretty much set things on fire when I hit them. Hands, feet…” He clicked his tongue. “Even my knife. The fire is all part of it. I’m like a lighter and hitting things is how I spark it up.”

Aurora stepped back behind Mulan, something incredibly fragile in that cracked-porcelain expression. “Yes, but what is the curse of such a power?”

“Not like that.” Finn bit back a sigh. “Not that type of curse, okay?”

“What type of curse then?” Mulan’s sword inched free from the scabbard. “You have no problem with flapping your tongue before. Use it now.”

Blue eyes narrowed back, Finn’s hands clenching tight at his side. “I could use a lot worse than my tongue, lady.”

“Why don’t weee—” A hand on his chest had Finn take a step back as Emma stood in front of him, her other raised toward Mulan “—just take a little step back first?”

That sword went out another inch, Mulan’s teeth grit tight. “You would protect a wizard who deals in curses?”

“And I…” Mary Margaret stepped back, bow in hand and ready to be drawn. “Would protect my daughter. So, let us all calm down and let Finn speak.”

Five pairs of eyes turned his way as Finn tried to find the right words that would actually make sense to fairy-tale people. Guess they do have good reason to be iffy about curses. “Look…” He clicked his tongue, one hand running through his hair as he looked back at them. “Where I’m from, people like me are called Jujutsushi. Sorcerers, basically. If you wanna get technical, the proper term is practitioners of the cursed arts. Now, wait…” 

Both of his hands went up with a grunt as Mulan stepped forward, sword halfway free. “Before you try — and fail — to cut my head off, let me explain first, Christ. We Jujutsu Sorcerers are born different. Everybody has negative emotions —fear, anger, grief, whatever— and that’s its own magic. We just have way more of that magic than most people and we can use it as something called Juryoku which can be translated as Cursed Energy. Pretty simple, just what we call the stuff in our souls, get it?”

Emma tilted her head. “Seems pretty simple to me, I guess.”

“Emma, no…” Mary Margaret’s already pale face had gone as white as her real name. “Finn, that… that sounds very, very much like dark magic.”

“Doubt it, but maybe?” He shrugged again, entirely unbothered. “I’m a fighter, not a book guy so I really couldn’t get into the details.”

“No, you don’t understand me.” Mary Margaret turned to face him full, bow lowered as her tone almost seemed to plead. “Dark magic… it blackens your heart. Permanently, Finn. It twists your soul and makes you evil. I’ve seen firsthand what it does to people.”

Finn met her worried eyes squarely, shaking his head. “Then what I have isn’t really dark magic then, is it? Because it doesn’t do that to sorcerers like me.”

Finn stared at all of them, meeting their eyes as everyone found themselves with nothing to really say. 

The heavy silence held until Mulan finally let her blade sit back where it belonged. “…Aurora and I will stand watch at the gate.” The armored woman kept her eyes on him as the princess kept at her back. “You can take your cursed sorcerer back where he belongs. If you don’t return in an hour, we’ll asume you’ve left.”

“Glad we could clear that up.” Finn kept his arms over his chest, eyes on Mulan and her sword as the woman walked away from the rest of them with Aurora in hand. “Let’s keep moving.”

And keep moving, they did.

Soon enough, they passed through even more destroyed rooms and collapsed, open-air hallways. After minutes of this, the sky outside getting darker and darker, Mary Margaret finally stopped dead in front of a set of wooden double doors that had somehow managed to survive the years mostly intact.

“The Wardrobe…” She stepped forward, voice gentle as she raised her hands. “It should be right in here.” With a grunt, those small hands pushed the heavy wood open and the massive doors swung inward.

The dark room opened up as they stepped in, Finn raising an eyebrow as his attention slid past all the mess — the place less wrecked than everywhere else — to land on what they had to be here for.

Huh. The wardrobe stood tall, taller than even he was, and looked carved out of a single solid block of wood. So, this was Emma’s way out of fairyland. He’d heard the story a few times already, Mary Margaret eager to explain it, but even with all the sorcery he knew of…

Well, it was still hard to believe.

Man, I wish you could just learn techniques like spells. Wait… A frown formed on his face. Can you learn techniques? Finn had heard about and even seen stuff like Miwa’s Shadow Style or whatever but he hadn’t paid it much attention after he’d been told that learning all the hidden knowledge would get you executed. Yeah, the higher-ups and clans locked all that stuff away, I think. Damn…

“…ere’s the on button?” Finn blinked up at Emma’s voice, the doors of the wardrobe swinging open as both mother and daughter stood in front of it.

“I’m not sure that’s how it works.” Mary Margaret stepped back, staring into the empty space. “I think our best bet is to take it back to the camp and hope someone has enough magic to get it working.”

“Uhhh, excuse me…” Finn stepped forward, waving a hand at Emma and Snow Margaret. “You got a magic man right here.” I might only have grade three reserves but that should be enough for whatever, right? Honestly, Finn wasn’t even sure he was sitting at Grade 3 anymore, definitely not with his reserves and his physicals… well, that was more than obvious. Yeah, we’ll be fine.

“Thank you, Finn.” Mary Margaret looked back at him as she shook her head. “But no thank you. We don’t know what your cursed energies could do to our only way home.”

Finn raised an eyebrow. “…why do you say that like it’s a bad word?”

“I think we all know why, Finn.”

“Fair.” He shrugged again, arms crossed as he walked up to both women. “So, what’s the plan then? I’d like to get home before Mulan tries to stab me. Or you know, other people start bleeding.”

“C’mon, Finn.” Emma pulled a face. “Don’t be gross.”

“I was talking about having to use my knife.” The redhead looked her way with a scoff. “Get your head out of the gutter, Emma.”

“…anyway.” Emma sighed. “If we can’t have Finn juice it up, what are we doing, then?”

“Well, we could carry it back to camp.”

The fuck! Finn spun on his heel, Slaughter Demon sliding free from its sheath as Finn pointed it at the open door behind them.

A tall man stepped smoothly into the room in full gleaming plate. A classic Western knight in armor that looked nothing like Mulan’s, he was dark-skinned and broad-shouldered, standing even taller than Finn with absolute confidence he was where he belonged. “I can definitely lend my assistance there.”

“Lancelot!” Mary Margaret’s entire face lit up as she turned around too. “How’d you g-”

“Don’t move.” The harsh words ripped violently out of Finn’s throat, one hand out to keep Mary Margaret from doing something he knew was stupid. “Don’t fucking move, MM.”

Mary Margaret froze at his voice, confusion clear in her words and on her face. “Finn, what… what are y—”

“I don’t know who the hell this guy’s supposed to be…” Blue eyes were locked dead onto the knight, tracking the way the oily residuals of Cursed Energy that clung to the man like a disease. “But I’m pretty damn sure they’re actively using that horrible dark magic you literally just warned me about.”

The room held quiet, no one saying a word for a long second until ‘Lancelot’ finally smiled at all three of them. “Well, well, well… isn’t this interesting?”