I don't know if anyone's even still reading Librarians fanfic, but I've been working on this for months (and probably thinking about the idea for over a year) so here's the Casseve Princess AU that Nobody Asked For and my first real AU story ever.

This was inspired by a few episodes of Once Upon a Time that took place in a realm called The Land of Untold Stories, but this is NOT a crossover story, so you don't need to have watched OUaT. I'm just borrowing their world. I promise - you'll only see Librarians characters here.

Enjoy :)

Her cheek hit the pavement as she fell through the darkness of the portal and back into daylight, no doubt leaving a scrape on her face that would look very unbecoming on a princess.

Princess, she thought with a bit of snicker. The title that had never really fit her to begin with, other than through the birthright she had no control over, pretty much vanished as soon as she'd drawn her sword and risked her life for the little magic bean that had opened the portal that brought her to this land. Nobody who put herself before her kingdom deserved to be called princess, even if she believed the kingdom would be better off for her decision.

Eve had never traveled between worlds before. It wasn't an easy thing to do, so this trip – fall, really – through the portal had been her first of that kind, and as she regained her bearings and glanced around her, she quickly realized she'd landed right in the middle of a busy town square. Scrambling to her feet, she brushed off her riding pants as she stood, embarrassed at having landed flat on her front. She expected the spectacle of her falling from nowhere to have drawn a bit of a crowd, but as she looked around, Eve discovered that nobody nearby had seemed to bat an eye at her suddenly appearing on the cobbled street. A few people nodded at her in greeting and pleasantry, as if they recognized that she was a newcomer, but falling from the sky – that didn't seem to faze them. After all, Eve realized, most of the townspeople had probably arrived in this realm the exact same way at one time or another. It wasn't like anybody was actually from here.

The Land of Untold Stories, Eve thought. The refuge where time stood still, the place people went to run away from their fates, or so she'd been told. Nobody really knew anything about this land for sure; there was a lot of chatter about its existence throughout the kingdoms, but it was all legends and stories, myths and musings, nothing concrete enough to even prove its existence, let alone make a sane person abandon their life and leave everything behind, which is exactly what Eve had just done. But the people who came here weren't sane; they were desperate. The magic bean she'd used to open the portal was a one-way door, traveling between worlds was limited, and she had been hopeless enough to take the gamble, banking on the idea that the folklore surrounding this place might actually be true.

Eve's head turned towards the sound of water, and she made her way to the edge of the town she'd found herself in. Her eyes widened as she took in the overwhelming sight around her. These islands, this realm, looked like every land she'd ever seen or heard of or even imagined all thrown into one. Across the water were castles on hills, futuristic towers on flattened mountaintops, towns on top of forests and waterfalls, with hot air balloons and windmills, among other things, in the distance. Smoke from factories billowed in the air behind her. The town behind her looked real. The scene in front of her looked like a fantasy. Where was she? When was she? No wonder everyone back home referred to this place as nothing more than the Mysterious Island.

This land was going to be her home, now and for a very long time, if the rumors were true, and Eve had no idea where to start. She turned away from the river and looked back into the town she'd landed in, her eyes scanning her surroundings. She didn't really want to stay there; this part of the land seemed crowded, and she knew the lush forests across the river were more her style, but while she considered herself to be both smart and capable, she wasn't about to go wandering through a strange land completely blind. A building to her left was marked as a library, and she walked towards it with purpose, hiking the bag of everything she'd deemed important enough to bring with her higher onto her shoulder. Maybe she'd be able to find a map or information or something she could use to wrap her head around the new home she'd be spending…well…eternity in.

A little jingle bell rang as she opened the door to the naturally-lit library. A few townspeople sat at tables or in chairs throughout the room, again, glancing up as she walked in, but otherwise not paying her much attention. Eve made her way to the empty front desk, looking around to see if anyone who might be able to help her was there, and an older gentleman appeared between the aisles of worn books to greet his new arrival. She watched him as he traveled to the front desk; he was well-dressed and carried himself with dignity and honor, and she immediately wondered how he'd ended up in a place like this. A flash of recognition traveled across his face as he got a good look as his patron.

"Princess Eve," he said with surprise.

"Uh…yeah," she said apprehensively. "Yeah. How did you…?"

"I have lived a very long time, your highness. I know all the kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest," he said. "Been to many of them, too. Yours is quite lovely, might I add." He held out his hand in a gesture for hers and introduced himself as Galahad.

"From Camelot?" Eve asked, giving him her hand. He brought the back of her palm to his lips for a kiss.

"Indeed," he said. "Did you just arrive in this land, Princess?"

"Yeah, okay, look, I'm not really looking to be a princess here, so…just Eve will do," Eve told him.

"In that case, you can call me Jenkins," he replied. Eve's face morphed into a look of sudden confusion, and he added, "Many of us are here to shed former identities for one reason or another."

"Okay, Jenkins…quick question, and then I'll be on my way," Eve promised. "You're right; I just…landed here, we'll say, and I'm not sure where to…"

"Where to start?" Jenkins said, finishing her sentence.

"The view out there on the water is a bit overwhelming," Eve said with a nod. "So how would a girl find her way around around here?"

Without another word, Jenkins reached behind the front desk and pulled out information about the land. She leafed through the documents he'd presented her – maps and brochures, descriptions of all the different areas of the Mysterious Island, and her brow twitched in surprise.

"Something wrong?" Jenkins asked.

"One more quick question," Eve said. "It is possible to leave this land, isn't it?"

"Having second thoughts already?" Jenkins asked.

"Nope," Eve said with a bit of a chuckle. "No, no, no. It's just…nobody I talked to before I got here seemed to know anything about this place, and you just handed over all this information…"

"If any of those documents leave this land," Jenkins explained. "Their contents will magically disappear. Outsiders will simply see blank pieces of parchment."

"Really?" Eve asked, holding one of the documents up to a window. It looked like regular ink on the page to her; she glanced back at Jenkins.

"This place is a sanctuary," Jenkins reminded her. "There are certain…precautions around its being."

"Of course," Eve replied, feeling a little stupid for not thinking of that herself. She was still overwhelmed, and she still had no idea how to go about building a life in this strange land, especially when life was always something that had just kind of happened to her as part of the royal family in her kingdom, but at least now, maybe, she wouldn't get completely lost along the way. She neatly culled the papers together and gathered them in her arms.

"Thank you," she said. She nodded goodbye and headed back the way she'd come. She could find a bench near the water, she thought. Maybe look out at all her different choices as she tried to decide which way she should go.

"Princes…Eve," he called, correcting himself along the way. She turned around to look at him again. "There's another princess here," he revealed.

"There is?" she asked with surprise. She instantly rolled her eyes a little at her own naivety. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she had thought she might be the only princess in this territory. After all, who would run away from a life of guaranteed comfort and esteem to fend for herself in a daunting, mysterious land of refuge? This place was thought of as a last resort back in her kingdom, nobody was even sure it was real, and Eve suddenly very much wanted to meet the other woman who had come to the same conclusion she had in the face of despondency. "You know her?" she asked.

"Yes," Jenkins said with a fond smile. "Lovely girl. Comes in quite often."

"And what brought such a lovely princess here?" Eve asked.

"Oh, that is her story to tell, I'm afraid," Jenkins said. He wandered over to Eve and pulled the map from her pile. "Princess Cassandra of the Northern Isles – she lives out near the edge of the forest, below the bustling cities across the lake."

Jenkins pointed to a spot on the map, indicating where Cassandra lived. Eve looked at him in confusion. "That's it?" she asked. "That's all the directions you've got for me?"

Jenkins sighed. "I don't know where exactly the princess lives, Eve. I've never been there myself." He pulled a small timepiece out of his pocket and said, "She'll probably be here sometime in the next few hours, if you'd like to take a seat and peruse all that information here."

"Can't tell me anything about her, huh?" Eve asked.

Jenkins sighed as the caring smile fell across his face again. "She's…beautiful, and I don't mean in appearance, though she is stunning in that way, too, of course," he said. "You'll see."

"Very cryptic," Eve muttered.

"I meant what I said earlier, Eve," Jenkins said. "We all have our own stories to tell; I'm not at liberty to tell another's tale."

"But you think she'll be willing to help me?" Eve asked.

"Oh, I have no doubt in my mind as to that," Jenkins said. "As you've already suspected, we don't get a lot of royalty here, and those who do make their royal heritage known tend to stand out."

"Hence your name change, Knight?" Eve asked.

"Precisely," Jenkins confirmed.

"Do people know about Cassandra?" Eve asked.

"Very few, as far as I know," Jenkins said. "She found herself in this library, much like you did, when she first arrived; I gave her some of the same guidance."

"So you can't tell me anything about her, but you can offer up the information that she's a princess?" Eve challenged. Jenkins sighed.

"It is as much for her as it is for you," he admitted. "This place can be very lonely. I think Cassandra could probably use a friend a little more like herself, and I thought perhaps she would be a good way for you to start finding your place here. You might not feel the need to hide who you are with her as you would with some of our other neighbors."

Eve nodded. That was good advice, she decided. She certainly hadn't intended on divulging her royal status to anyone in this land. She didn't want to be treated like a princess. That was part of the reason why she'd left everything behind, but having a friend with a shared background, having someone who'd been there to guide her through figuring everything out…that wasn't the worst idea she'd ever heard. The worst idea she'd ever heard…well, that was another part of the reason she'd left everything behind without really looking back.

"How will I know when she gets here?" Eve asked. "In case you're lost in the stacks or something?"

"She always has flowers that look like the night sky woven into her red hair," Jenkins said. "Keep an eye out for those."

She wouldn't have needed to know about the flowers, Eve thought as her gaze followed the lady who'd just entered the library to the front desk. There were, indeed, little purple flowers that looked like the night sky in Cassandra's hair, but unlike herself, Eve thought Cassandra looked like a princess. How could she have possibly felt the need to run away?

Her red hair fell in curls around her shoulders, the longest locks stopping nearly at her stomach. The dress she wore almost matched the purple color of the flowers in her hair and featured a dainty floral pattern of its own with short, butterfly sleeves. The floral fabric split into a v-shape beneath her breasts, revealing a simple light pink dress underneath, the skirt of each layer just barely remaining off the floor. The colors of her dress and her hair were striking against her pale skin, and even from across the room, Eve couldn't help but notice her big, blue eyes, and lips that had just the slightest hint of a pink sheen painted on them. Cassandra even moved with the effortless grace of a princess, the grace that Eve had never quite mastered herself, much to her father's dismay. The only thing surprising about the other princess was her apparent age. The reverence that Jenkins seemed to have for her – Eve had expected somebody older. Cassandra looked younger than Eve herself.

Cassandra held a basket holding a small bouquet of the enchanting flowers in one arm, the basket crooked into her bent elbow; she carried a small pile of books in the other. Unlike when Eve had entered, Jenkins apparently hadn't heard the jingle bell ring as she walked in, as he hadn't yet appeared by the time Cassandra reached the desk. She stood on her toes and peered around the library. When she couldn't find him on her own, she placed the basket onto the desk, an impish grin on her pretty face. Her hand freed, she let her pointer finger hover over the little bell on the front desk for just a moment before rapidly tapping the top, ringing the bell over and over again.

It didn't take long for Jenkins to peer his head around one of the aisles across the room. Cassandra noticed and halted the ringing, wiggling her eyebrows at him. Jenkins disappeared behind the aisle again, presumably to return a book to the shelf, Eve thought, and Cassandra started ringing the bell again. Eve grinned as Jenkins quickly started making his way to the desk.

"For the love of god, woman, I'm coming," Jenkins sighed. Cassandra giggled and stopped ringing the bell once and for all. Jenkins made his way behind the desk, and Cassandra stood on her toes again, leaning over the desk to kiss his cheek. He smiled as her lips brushed his skin and gestured to the books in her arm. "Well, what did you think?"

"It was great," Cassandra sighed, placing the small pile of books on his desk. "You were right."

"You should know by now to just trust me," Jenkins replied.

"The science in that one you gave me last month was complete nonsense!" Cassandra argued.

"But you liked the underlying story anyway, did you not?" he asked.

She sighed and reluctantly admitted, "Yes."

"And what do you have in there?" Jenkins asked, peering into the basket.

Cassandra pulled back the cloth covering the basket contents and said, "Apple cookies and mini brown sugar muffins."

Jenkins immediately grabbed a cookie from the basket. After taking a bite, he looked at the eager girl across from him and said, "You try too hard to keep my sweet tooth happy, my dear."

"I try to keep you happy," Cassandra replied. "And what do you have for me today?"

Jenkins pulled another small pile of books from behind his desk and passed them over to Cassandra. "The one you requested and two surprises," he said. "Just give them a chance."

"You've yet to steer me wrong, Galahad," Cassandra said.

"Keeping that in mind…" Jenkins said, coming back around the desk to stand directly in front of her. "There's someone I'd like to introduce you to, if you're willing."

Cassandra nodded, her eyes wide, and said, "Of course."

Jenkins grabbed the basket, and Cassandra grabbed her new books, and Eve quickly shuffled her papers back into a neat pile as they made their way over to her table. Jenkins took a seat next to Eve, and Cassandra sat down across from her, curling her legs underneath her to sit on her knees, piquing Baird's curiosity yet again as to just how old this other princess before her was.

"Princess," Jenkins said to Cassandra. "I'd like you to meet Princess Eve of the Enchanted Forest."

Cassandra quickly turned from looking at Jenkins to looking at Eve, her eyes bright with a hint of excitement and astonishment. "Princess?" she asked quietly. "Like…like me?"

"Yeah," Eve replied, matching the quiet tone.

"Hi," Cassandra said simply.

"Hi," Eve replied with a smile.

"Rough landing?" Cassandra asked with a knowing grin. Eve's hand immediately flew to the scrape on her face.

"You could say that," Eve replied.

"I thought perhaps you could aid in Eve's acclimation to this land," Jenkins told Cassandra. "You remember, I'm sure, how scared you were when you first came here."

"Sure," Cassandra said softly. She looked at Eve again. "What can I help you with?"

"Anything, really?" Eve said, still not quite sure where to begin. "I kind of just took a leap of faith."

Cassandra nodded, the tale all too familiar. She rose up on her knees, leaning across the table to tenderly caress the skin around the abrasion on Eve's cheek. She glanced at Jenkins, her hand still holding Eve's face. "Okay to cut today's visit a little short?" she asked.

"Of course," Jenkins agreed.

Cassandra looked at Eve again and, with one last little stroke of her thumb, dropped her hand. "Come with me," she said. "I have something back at home that can fix that."

If anyone out there's actually reading this, please leave a comment and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading :)