Justine and Nathan

Justine Dancer. Her Storybrooke counterpart is Nicole Meyers.

I know that they say that Justine has 11 older sisters, but I don't believe that. I believe that she's the daughter of the youngest princess from the story and she has 11 cousins who each represent a different dance with Justine being ballet. As for the others...

1- Waltz

2- Pop

3- Tap

4- Salsa

5- Roquette

6- Swing

7- Tango

8- Hip Hop

9- Belly

10- Irish

11- Flamenco

So, Justine's story involves another dancer. Yes, she did help Duchess with her problem, but there was another dancer in Justine's life, Nathan Nutcracker, son of Marie and the Nutcracker. In Book 13, Justine catches Nathan trying to steal the sacred silver and gold leaves from her palace during a party. According to him, he knows that the leaves have healing powers and needs them to cure his mother of a deadly illness. Wanting to see if he's telling the truth, Justine offers to go with him and he allows it. They make it to Nathan's world, the Doll Kingdom through a secret passage behind a Grandfather Clock, and sure enough, Nathan was telling the truth about his mother and Justine allows him to use the leaves.

Let me talk about Nathan now because I just love the story of The Nutcracker, both the original story and the ballet. So, Nathan was a minor book character in the Shannon Hale books and I think he was just a nutcracker who could speak. But in my story, he's kind of like Cedar, he's human-size but made out of wood. He actually used to be a human until his family curse turned him into a human-size nutcracker at the age of 14. His curse can only be broken when a girl falls in love with him despite his looks, similar to the Beauty and the Beast story.

But even with his cursed body, Nathan still does the things he loves such as practicing sword-fighting and even doing ballet. Though lots of men do ballet, Nathan refuses to dance in front of anyone except for those at his palace. However, after the night when he took Justine to his world, the two became close and would even dance together. But Nathan still refuses to dance in front of an audience, even in front of those he knows but aren't from his world.

When the Dark Curse happened, Nathan was turned into a lifeless nutcracker. Nobody found him until Justine did in the antique shop. And thanks to Farrah using the Blue Fairy's wand, she was able to turn him back into himself. Well, he may be awake, but he was still in his cursed human-size nutcracker form. When he wakes up, Nathan has no memory of being a lifeless nutcracker, not that he minded since it was for the best that he didn't remember any of that. And to Justine's surprise, Nathan still has the ribbon on his wrist that she gave him one day as a good luck charm.

So, in the Monster High universe, there's the Rat King and his daughter, Mousecedes. In the Nutcracker story, he's called the Mouse King, but he has always looked like a rat to me so I think that they're the same being. The Rat King may be enemies with Nathan and his family, but Nathan is actually close to Mousecedes, not super close, but they consider each other to be allies.

Anyway, I wished that I could have written more about Justine and Nathan, but I didn't really know how to do that. But I will say that before the curse, the two dancers were smitten by one another. And their feelings continued to grow after Nathan woke up from his nutcracker form. In Storybrooke, the two continued to dance with each other and Nathan even faced his fear of dancing in front of an audience with Justine as his partner. When they returned to Ever After, Justine and Nathan had their first kiss which breaks the curse and turns Nathan back into a human.

The two eventually got married and opened up a dance studio in Nathan's world.

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