Zarina

        She has been around for so long that it is impossible to list everything that has happened to her, living her life as a fairy that goes by the name Gold. She is a powerful fairy, the equal to Blue in the fairy hierarchy, showcased by the fact that the two fairies are each a star in the pair constellation they are tied to; the Blue Star (Reul Ghorm) and the Second Star (Reul Dárna). Together the two guide their fellow fairies, eventually falling in love and engaging in a relationship.

        Ironically much of her life being bland and uneventful until a fateful meeting changed her life forever. After Merlin finds the Holy Grail and gains his magic and immortality, he meets the golden fairy during his travels in the world. Charmed by her nature and glad to meet another immortal being, the two form a bond and he becomes her first true friend. The two stay friends for ages, helping him hone his magical abilities and develop the small community he lives in that will eventually become the kingdom of Camelot. Gold is able to witness the formation of true love first hand as Merlin meets a woman from a destroyed nearby village, Nimue, as the two fall deeply in love all the while the community continues to grow around them. As Merlin proposes to Nimue with a ring of straw (that Gold transmutes into gold), Merlin sees a vision of the future that changes everything. He sees Gold with his and Nimue's child, who she calls Bethan, and this solidifies a decison he had been considering for a while. While him and Gold work on a way to cut the ties of his immortality, Merlin tells Nimue the vision he had of their future. She's overjoyed, asking Goild to be the child's Fairy Godmother and gifting her with the name Zarina so she would feel like part of their family. The quest to make Merlin immortal does not go as they hoped, however, and Nimue succumbs to darkness and becomes the first Dark One. Merlin, Zarina, and his apprentice, Archimedes, work together to craft the shattered piece he’d kept from the fight into a dagger that he binds Nimue to but when he confronts her, Merlin cannot bring himself to hurt the woman he loves and he falls.

        Having essentially lost them both, Gold falls into a deep that no one, not even Blue, can get her out of. In her grief, she lets out a burst of magic that essentially puts a curse on her gifted name, Zarina, so that she can preserve the memory of the friends that gave it to her and preventing anyone from speaking, hearing, even perceiving it without her permission. The only thing that pulled her out of her despair was hearing that Nimue had been pregnant when she was changed and had given birth to a little girl, who she named Bethan.

        Camelot may not have had much love for the little darkling, but Gold fell in love with her. Nimue was a bit of an absent parent, so Gold happily took over taking care of the child. This caused a rift to form between Gold and Blue that only widened when Nimue was attacked and killed one day. Nimue was able to call out to Gold and cast a spell to protect Bethan, but still fell and passed the mantle of Dark One on. Gold tried to kill the man, not knowing he inherited Nimue's immortality, and she fled with a cursed toddler and darkened heart.

        Gold hid Bethan away with Merlin's young apprentice, Archimedes, while she searched for a way to break the sleeping spell and dark curse that afflicted the poor child. She lived a double life for a long time, bouncing between her fairy duties and taking care of the tweo children, mentoring and befriending Arcimedes as he grew while doing he best to care for the still sleeping Bethan. But things could not stay calm forever and she had a falling out with Blue after the other fairy finds out what she has been up to. It culminates with Gold using a spell she created to alter herself, no longer the golden fairy she once was but out of Blue's control. She shed the name of Gold completely, cutting herself off from the fairies completely apart from the power she holds from her star, and goes by Zarina (or Reul Dárna for those who can't speak her true name).

        Now with all the free time she could ask for, Zarina dedicates every moment she can spare to finding a cure for the curse affecting Bethan. She has little success, able to cast a temporary spell that draws on her power to at least stop the curse from spreading, but nothing that can actually remove it. She gets into riskier and darker magic, none of it succeeding until one day, a woman arrives to ask for help from Reul Dárna. She was a woman, a human who had found the metamorphosis spell Zarina used to change from a fairy to a pixie (which Blue had taken to calling her) and used it to change herself into a fairy. The woman’s name was Fiona and she was desperate, at her wits end trying to save her son from a terrible fate given to him by Blue and the other fairies. Just two women trying to save their children, how could Zarina refuse?

        The two work together, Zarina using her knowledge to try and create a spell to protect Fiona’s child while Fiona offers to look into the fairy archives for a cure to Bethan. To both fairies credit, they each come up with the promised solutions, but the exchange hardly goes the way that either had hoped. Zarina creates a spell, that should grant the greatest wish of the caster, but the greater the wish the more powerful the cost and Zarina fears what the cost of tampering with fate will be. And Fiona, well she found a way to cure Bethan of the darkness that threatens to kill her, but only by transferring it to another of equal to Bethan. Another child. The two fight, Zarina truly fearing the woman once she hears what exactly the woman has planned and how willing she is to pay that price, and eventually get the attention of not only the child’s godmother, Tigerlily, who Fiona nearly kills trying to cast Zarina’s spell, but Blue as well. The attempt on Tigerlily’s life corrupts not only Fiona with irredeemable darkness, but Zarina’s spell as well which Zarina barely takes back from Fiona before Blue banishes Fiona into an inescapable realm of darkness. Blue then turns on Zarina, trying to banish her as well, but Zarina just manages to escape though this time Blue leaves a mark on her. She casts a spell, erasing Zarina’s memory of the final confrontation with Fiona, so when Zarina arrives back at the cabin with a dark curse in one hand and an evil cure in the other, she cannot tell Archimedes how exactly she came upon either. Now a grown man, gifted with immortal life from Merlin as long as he needs to fulfill his purpose, Archimedes studies the two spells with the fairy, recognizing the bones of the curse as the one Zarina created, but neither are sure how it became infused with darkness they cannot remove. The cure, however, the cure they may be able to do something about. It takes some time, only a couple of years which is a blink to immortals, but they find a way to cast it without killing anyone. There is a cost that they cannot predict, an effect they won’t be able to avoid, but one that Zarina hopes she will be able to take on. So she casts it, a wave of darkness shooting through the kingdom, a plague of sorts but one diluted enough that Archimedes is able to wipe away without too much strain. And finally, after nearly 120 years of magical slumber, Bethan is awake.

        The unconventional family lives happily for a long time, Bethan is happy with her godmother and pseudo-brother, keeping both on their toes as they have to figure out how to care for such a young child. Archimedes takes over Merlin's tower, gathering notes and books and anything he can find to help him and the fairy with childcare in addition to the other things he begins to take on. Zarina is completely out of her depth, given fairies don't raise children, but it's a challenge she is happy to take on though she leans heavily on Archimedes as she learns what humans need. He wasn't always there though, travelling often on his own, and because of his absence it takes a long time for Zarina to notice that anything is wrong with Bethan. Despite eight years passing, Bethan had stayed exactly the same. No taller, no older, still the little spitfire toddler she had been when she woke up. The little girl was cursed, changed by the cure her guardians used to heal her or maybe suffering a side effect of being under a sleeping spell for as long as she was they couldn't say, but for now they do not know how to break it. The community gossips behind their back, about the seemingly disgraced fairy tainted by the darkling who hasn’t been aging, spreading rumors about Bethan based in no kind of reality that only feed into each other and rile up the town against her. The immortal guardians of the ageless child agree that it’s no longer safe for Bethan in Camelot so they say their goodbyes, the fairy taking her little girl to a place she knows will be far from any who would wish them harm.

        For some time, long enough that Zarina can't remember when it started, Zarina visited the realm of Neverland. A small realm, and island, seeped with unique magic that she'd been studying for a long time, even more so as she continued to learn any magic she could get her hands on and experimented with fairy dust. She knew the realm well, knew there were few inhabitants, on land at least and she got along well enough with the mermaid clan, so this was a place she felt comfortable taking Bethan. The island is a drastic change from the kingdom, a much needed calm for the both of them. Zarina is not worried about people hurting Beth or Blue coming for her so they live in relative peace for a long time.

        Over the next fifteen years, Zarina watches as Peter Pan comes to the island, fairies start to ask for help leaving Blue and Zarina creates a community for them on the island, Zarina turns her star into a portal for the fairies to come to the island as they need, and Beth plays with the children who visit the island in their dreams. She seems happy, unbothered by the strangeness of the place they live in, and enjoys slowly being surrounded by fairies, though she still wants to spend most of her time with Zarina. The fairies were absolutely charmed by Beth and felt protected by Zarina, naming the community Pixie Hollow after Beth insisted doing so, and overall life was good. There were people who came to the island, Zarina suspected they were sent by Blue, but those who meant harm to the people under her care were dealt with before they were ever an issue to the Hollow though Pan continued to be a nuisance she could not get rid of. They could have lived on the island like this forever, but all happy things must come to end.

        One fateful day, a marine ship flies through her portal and two men land on the Neverland shores. Brothers, a captain and his lieutenant, looking for a plant on the island. She goes to scare them away, but makes a deal with them instead. She doesn’t care what they do with the Dreamshade, only that they leave her island, but over the course of leading them to the plant then to the only cure she knows of when the Captain poisons himself, something changes. She doesn’t care for Captain Liam Jones, nor does he care for her, but she finds herself inexplicably drawn to his younger brother. Lieutenant Killian Jones. Even after she sends the brothers away, he lingers on Zarina’s mind. Unfortunately, so do some of the things Liam said to her about Beth.

        She isn’t human, how could she know how to care for a human child, how could she know what the child needs? What if he’s right, what if Beth would be safer with her own kind? What if she’s doing a disservice to Beth, making her live on an island where no one ages, doing nothing to break that curse? These thoughts weigh on her for a year before she finally decided to do something. It took her a while to find a family that she thinks is suitable, more time to convince Beth that this is for the best, that Zarina will still come and check on her, that she is only a wish away. With a broken heart, she leaves Beth with a family, disguises herself, and goes to search for the only person she can trust.

        A lot can change in a year, especially for a mortal. It’s not hard to find him, he’s made quite an impact on the world, not as the naval lieutenant she knew but as a fearsome pirate captain. All that bravado melts away from both of them when they reunite, talking for some time about what had happened since they’d seen each other last, about Liam’s death, Beth’s new family, her need for his help, for a home. He takes her in without question, without hesitation, gives her the name Lyra as a new identity to help her hide among humans, and jokingly refers to her as the other captain until it stops becoming a joke. She stays with him, protecting his ship and crew, leading them alongside him, and they travel the realm helping her search for a way to cure Bethan of whatever magic was keeping her a toddler. She’s not always on the ship, going to Pixie Hollow as needed, traveling around the realm and helping (or sometimes hurting) people she encounters all while trying to find a way to help Beth. She loves life on the sea, loves the freedom it brngs, and watches with amusement as they port regularly in the same place because Killian becomes smitten with a woman in that town. Three years later, the captains help that woman escape a husband she no longer loves, and she joins them on their ship. Around the same time, convinced that Beth is safe and happy, she stops visiting Beth and spends all her time looking for the cure for her.

        Zarina doesn’t know what to do with Milah, this new person aboard the crew staying in the captains’ quarters. She picks up on life aboard the Jolly Roger with surprising ease, integrating herself in the crew and becoming a first mate of sorts in a short time. Zarina can tell she wants to get closer to her, to the partner Killian obviously cares for deeply, but she just doesn’t know how she’s supposed to interact with her. It takes time, but Milah is persistent.They bond, they get closer, become friends, Zarina trusts her with her true name and identity, she teaches Milah to fight, tells her stories of her old life, stories about Bethan, they get even closer, and then they fall in love. It scares Zarina, given the state of her last relationship, but this time it’s different. She feels held, loved, like an equal, like she’s home, and for nearly ten years they’re happy. These people know her, love her, they help her hunt a way to help Bethan, make plans to take in Baelfire and Bethan when they can, raise them both on the ship, they make plans for a happy life of adventure for them all.

        And then things derail so fast. Zarina answers the call of a young man, a man who has the misfortune of being a son of the Dark One, the second she’d ever heard of, and he begs for her help. He wants his family back, his father back, and Zarina has to help him. He reminds her too much of her Bee, another darkling, but this one she can help. She sends him away, gives him a bean that will take him to a realm with no magic, and she hopes desperately that this one family can be saved. She learns too late that that child is Baelfire, her love’s son, and learns that he went through the portal without his father, Rumplestiltskin, her love’s former husband. He summons Reul Dárna and discovers that this fairy that took away his son is the same that helped take away his wife. They fight, she slips and lets him know of a dark curse before he attacks her, gravely injuring her as she gets away only to be tracked down by Blue. She’s even worse off after this fight, losing her wand and thus most of her connection to her fairy magic and getting burned by silver but she manages to make it back to her home. She cries as she tells Milah and Killian about her mistake and she expects Milah to reject her, but she doesn’t. She’s saddened about her son, but far more concerned about her husband, which she is right to be. Not long after this, they run into him again. He nearly kills Killian, injures her again, takes Killian’s hand, and crushes Milah’s heart in front of the both of them. They may have gotten the last laugh, keeping the bean he did all of that to get, but there were no winners that day.

        Filled with a rage that consumes her completely, she takes Killian to Neverland where she knows he can continue living as they dedicate themselves to finding a way to end the Dark One. Their individual flames combine to create an inferno of rage, this new quest being even more personal for her as she cannot help but be reminded of Nimue and everything she had lost. There’s a brief moment where they almost stop, they almost let their revenge go as fate drops Baelfire into their laps again, but that could never have lasted. He discovers his mother’s possessions in their cabin, tries to fight Killian, nearly kills Zarina when he disowns her, and the pair let the Lost Boys and Pan take away their last chance of salvation. Zarina refuses to work with her old adversary, but Killian does and maintains that partnership to keep Pan away from Zarina and her fairies.

        This is the way they live for over 300 years. Killian deals with Pan while searching for a way to destroy the dagger, Zarina helps her fairies and looks for a way to sever the Dark One’s connection to the blade in addition to Bethan’s cure. She’s able to travel much more easily than Killian, able to access her star without needing to go through Pan, but they are still able to leave and travel to the Enchanted Forest as they need, Zarina able to go to other realms because of her talents and magic. They meet countles people, appear in countless stories, but struggle to reach either of their goals. The only solace they have is that they are still together, but even that changes. Zarina tampers with Rumplestiltskin one time too many times and he finally manages to imprison her.

        Rumplestiltskin’s smart and powerful and learned about fairies during the time they’d been feuding and tries to use her knowledge of the Dark Curse to lead him back to his son. After a time, Killian’s search for Zarina and her own refusal to help him becomes too much of an inconvenience and he cuts off her wings with his magic. The violent act leaves violent scars, and he presents Killian with her wings in a pendant as “proof” of her death, to be cruel and direct the pirate’s energy back to his quest to kill him rather than locate his fairy. Plucking her wings weakens her greatly and the use of magic means the wounds are slow to heal, making it impossible for her to escape much less stop Rumple’s plans to cast the Dark Curse. But one day, a soft voice comes into her mind, one she had thought was lost to her forever. Zarina thought she would never hear from Beth again, the child having disappeared from where she had left her, but there she was after all that time. Making a wish to her star. Even realms away, the child’s belief in her empowers Zarina enough for her not only to escape, but also to grant her goddaughter’s wish, though the effort to do so from so far takes all her strength and she collapses in the woods.

        Luckily, she’s found by a group of bandits, the Merry Men, who take her in without question and help her heal from her wounds. Outside of captivity and able to use the supplies they can get her, she does much better, even growing close to Robin Hood and his son Roland, both still grieving the loss of their wife and mother. A grief Zarina understands too well. As much as she wants to stay, she needs to find Killian more, so once she is healed enough to travel alone, she sets off. Sadly, she never reaches her destination.

        Mistaking her to be a powerful witch, Queen Regina manages to arrest her and keeps her in the queen’s personal dungeons alongside Belle while she tries to figure out who Zarina is and why Rumplestilskin is so interested in her. Zarina and Killian just barely miss each other when he breaks into the dungeon to speak to Belle, but she doesn’t have the strength to do anything to get his attention. She does finally escape when one of the Queen’s guards, a huntsman, breaks her out just before the Dark Curse is cast, discovering who she is and hoping that she can use her knowledge of the curse to help the Savior break it. Though she tries to find Killian before the curse sweeps the kingdom, when she finds the crew, they’re without their captain and their ship and she gets wrapped up in the curse alongside everyone else.