#in one will’s shoulder width perfectly matched the fairy’s

[ghostdrinkssoup]

“you make leaps you can’t explain”

(image credit: @/spriteismadebyfairies on instagram)

[thaisibir]

La Vie en Rose (Bede and young!Opal time travel fic)

La Vie en Rose (Life in Pink)   Rating: T (for character deaths and language)   Chapter 7/10 - A Family Torn Apart (length: ~4k words)   Summary: Bede doesn’t get why that loony old bat Opal wants him to be the next Fairy-type Gym Leader. To help him understand, Opal has Celebi take Bede back to the time of her youth.

(For other chapters, look up the tag “pokemon la vie en rose” or go to my profile)

Bede’s shaking legs couldn’t hold up anymore. He sank to his knees, hugging Celebi tightly against his chest. Had his journey through the past come to an end? Rubbing away tears on his sleeve and blinking open his eyes, Bede found himself kneeling on the floor of a darkened, unused hospital room, rather than inside the ring of yellow mushrooms where the Opal he knew would await him.

“You have more to show me, Celebi?” He whispered. 

“Bi.” The time-traveling Pokemon nodded. Bede swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I can keep going.” The image of Opal’s face covered in cuts, blood, and tears, and of the glass shard through her right hand, seared itself into his mind like a hot brand. Celebi rested a little green hand on his wet cheek. “Yes, you can,” it seemed to say. “You have to. Opal did.”

Bede grit his teeth and forced himself to stop shaking. He shouldn’t be wimping out. Opal wouldn’t have picked a wimp to be the next Gym Leader, right? Slowly but steadily, he rose to his feet, and he let Celebi gently lead him by the hand out of the dark room. On numb, heavy feet he walked down the hall, slipping past doctors and nurses, and entered a room occupied by a patient. That patient was Opal.

He almost didn’t recognize her at first. Her impeccable hair style and sense of elegant fashion seemed to be wiped clean upon her arrival at the hospital. Now her dark hair was limp and unkempt, and a plain white gown framed her thin, slumped figure. Her eyes, normally vivid and bright blue, were dull and unfocused as she seemed to be in the process of memorizing the placement of every tile on the hospital’s laminated floor. Stitches, tape, and squares of gauze—depending on the width and depth of the cuts—covered her face so she looked to Bede like a patched-up, hand-me-down doll he once saw in the orphanage toybox. The largest stitches had sealed the big wound in her right hand.

Bede realized he had been standing in the way of anyone else entering the room when Celebi drew him aside. A bespectacled grey-haired man in a white coat walked in past him, and when Opal didn’t look up, the man cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, Ms. Opal?”

She seemed to take a second or two for her eyes to focus on him. “Yes? Who are you?” Her voice was like a Gastly—light and wispy.

The doctor took a seat at her bedside. “Hello, Ms. Opal, I’m the gynecologist.”

She frowned at him. “Gynecologist? I haven’t gone to one since I was pregnant with Jasper. But this time I’m not—“ Then her face paled. “No.”

The doctor tightened his lips to a thin line. 

Hers was covered by her good hand. “How...how did you know?”

“The medics had found you bleeding between your legs at the crash site. You had passed out from the blood loss and came into the trauma unit unconscious. I was called in to do an abdominal ultrasound. We do abdominal ultrasounds for all trauma cases, but what the medics reported was cause for greater concern.“

She leaned toward him, hanging on his every word. “What did you find?”

“The ultrasound showed a fetus that’s, I’d say, more or less five weeks old.”

“And?” 

“And...and there was no heartbeat.”

Opal leaned back and sat perfectly still in bed. The only part of her body that moved was her good hand bunching up the bedsheets.

With audible hesitation between every few words, the gynecologist went on, “The ultrasound also showed that you took significant damage from the impact. There was extensive scarring and bleeding in your uterus. It had to be removed in an emergency operation. I’m so very sorry to tell you all this, Ms. Opal.”

She said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she murmured, “Thank you for telling me.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am? Any questions or concerns?”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Only when he asked a second time, her gaze snapped up to him and she shook her head. The gynecologist softly uttered another apology before he moved away to leave her alone.

Opal seemed to withdraw back into her silent stupor, but then she stirred in her bed, as if suddenly remembering something, and said, “Wait.” Her voice cracked as she struggled to raise it and call for the doctor.

He poked his head back through the open door he had just disappeared through. “Yes, Ms. Opal?”

“My husband, Roger...my son, Jasper...and my brother, Kestrel...what happened to them? Where are they? Are they here in the hospital too? May I see them?”

The gynecologist bit on his lower lip before he replied, “I’ll get your other brother in here. He ought to be the one telling you, I think.”

“My other brother? Randall is here?”

Sure enough, Randall came into the room a few minutes later after the gynecologist fetched him. Pyroar and Boltund flanked him, and relief was stamped all over his face.

“Opal, you’re awake. I’m so glad.” 

“Randy.” Cuts on her cheeks made her smile lopsided and uneven. “I didn’t expect to see you again like this.”

“Me neither.” He didn’t laugh at the wryness in her comment.

“Roger, Jasper, and Kes...have you seen them?”

Randall didn’t reply, making Opal tense.

“Come on, Randy, tell me. Where are they?”

He sank into the stool the doctor had just occupied and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I...I don’t think this is a good time to see them.” 

“I want to see them now.”

Randall said nothing for a while. Then, in a tight, small voice, he said, “I’ll take you to see Kes first.”

Opal still had to recover from her surgery, so she couldn’t walk on her own yet. Randall needed a nurse’s help to move her from the bed and into a wheelchair. Bede followed them out of her room, and ahead of them, at the end of the hallway, he spotted a trio of police officers hanging around and talking in hushed tones just outside a room. Their badges read “Wynwall Police Department.” A pair of Growlithes and a Machamp waited patiently beside their human companions.

As it became clear that she was being wheeled to that room, Opal stiffened. “Randy, why are the police here?”

He didn’t say anything, except that Bede noticed how his grip tightened over the handles of the wheelchair.

One of the officers, the youngest of the three, regarded Randall and Opal as they approached. “Are you family of Kestrel Roy?” 

“Yes, his brother and sister,” Randall replied.

Bede heard mild shock in his voice, as if in disbelief that anyone working for the city of Wynwall wouldn’t know of the esteemed Roy family. To be fair, this officer looked young and wet behind the ears. Or not from around here, maybe.

“You may go in, but I can’t let you be in there by yourself,” the officer went on.

“Of course,” Randall said.

The officer led him and Opal into the room. Bede went in after them. Kestrel sat up in bed, in the same white gown as Opal, but not sporting nearly as many cuts as she did. What Bede saw next made his heart almost stop. Kestrel was handcuffed to the bed.

Opal must have noticed, too. Her voice was high-pitched in disbelief. “What’s the meaning of this?”

The lump in Kestrel’s throat bobbed before he spoke. “Opal, I—“

“Shut up,” Randall snapped. “Don’t you say another word.” 

Kestrel flinched and stared down at the handcuff binding him to the bedside. Randall turned to the officer and gestured at him to answer instead.

“Well, ma’am, we found this on him when we arrived on scene.” The officer produced the canteen Kestrel had strapped to his hip. “It was full of liquor.”

Randall squeezed his eyes shut, like he had heard this before, while Opal stared aghast at the officer. 

“It can’t be,” she murmured.

The officer looked down at her with solemnity that didn’t match his young freckled face. “We arrested your brother for vehicular manslaughter while under the influence.”

She blinked at him as if he was speaking to her in a foreign language. “Manslaughter?”

Randall cut off the officer with a shake of his head before he could go on. He walked around the wheelchair to face Opal and kneel down to meet her eyes. He clasped her hand that wasn’t covered in stitches. “Opal...I’m so, so sorry. Roger and Jasper...they didn’t make it. They’re gone.”

She dropped her gaze from Randall’s face to her lap. What came out of her mouth was so quiet that Bede had to lean in to hear better. “Drinking? On the job? What the bloody hell were you thinking, Kes?”

“I-I couldn’t help myself.” Her youngest brother’s voice was thick with shame and self-loathing. “I got so nervous about the trip. You know what I do when I have to calm my nerves. You locked up all the drinks at home, so I flew out of town to buy and drink some before we flew out. I didn’t think I drank that much. I just wanted to make things right.”

Opal didn’t reply. Instead she sprang out of the wheelchair and pushed Randall out of her way. The sudden vehemence of her movement startled everyone in the room, including Bede. Randall recovered quickly and moved faster than her. He threw both arms over his twin sister from behind, over her shoulders and around her chest, cutting off her mad lunge at the one responsible for the deaths of her spouse and son.

“Opal—“

“I’ll kill you,” she screamed at Kestrel. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Opal, please, calm down,” Randall pleaded into her ear. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

She struggled in his embrace, grabbing at his sleeve with her good hand, but not for long. The officer had stepped forward to help Randall restrain her, but she went limp and sank back into the wheelchair sobbing. Randall kept his hold over her shaking shoulders.

Kestrel buried his tear-streaked face into the hand that wasn’t cuffed. “I’m sorry, Opal. I’m so sorry.” 

“You can say sorry until you’re fucking blue in the face,” she spat. “It wouldn’t make a difference. That won’t bring my family back.” Opal lifted her gaze up to Kestrel, her blue eyes like Sheer Cold that sent shivers up Bede’s spine. Her whisper was just as stark and chilly. “You’re dead to me. You’re no longer my brother.”

Unspoken hurt and shock struck Kestrel’s face. When she said “family,” she didn’t mean just Roger and Jasper, Bede realized. She meant Kestrel, too.

Opal looked away, and all the fight seemed to leave her as she slumped in the wheelchair. “Get me out of this room,” she said to Randall. “I want to see Roger and Jasper.”

He wheeled her out, away from Kestrel, but as soon as they were outside he said, “Are you sure, Opal? I’ve talked to the medical examiner when you were unconscious...she said that they aren’t viewable.”

“I don’t care.” Her voice shook at what she said next. “I can’t believe they’re gone until I see them for myself.”

At the futility of fighting his sister’s stubbornness, Randall sighed in resignation. “All right. I’ll come with you.”

At Celebi’s prompting, Bede followed Opal and Randall downstairs to the hospital morgue. He shivered and hugged himself. This cold wasn’t like the cold of a winter in Ballonlea Town. This cold brought no promise of warmth. It smelled like disinfectant...disinfectant that tried to mask the smell of death.

In a compassionate brotherly gesture, Randall took off his coat and draped it over Opal, who was shivering in her thin hospital gown. Pyroar kept pace with the wheelchair and let Opal bury her good hand into its mane for more warmth. Bede, meanwhile, cradled Celebi to his chest for comfort.

He had never been in a morgue before, and no thanks to scenes from thriller and mystery movies he had seen, he braced himself for something dramatic and distressing—some part of the floor they forgot to scrub clean of blood, or sheets thrown back to flash the dead body, like some sick magic trick. 

There was nothing like that. A mortuary technician awaited Opal and Randall in a viewing room. He sat down with them and carefully and gently informed Opal on the details of the Flying Taxi accident. A carriage of metal and glass falling from a great height, with multiple impacts, had to have killed Roger and Jasper on site. There was almost no chance that they could have survived that kind of fall. Most of their bodies were crushed and mangled beyond recognition. Only their faces were deemed intact and viewable. The mortuary technician showed Opal photos of their faces, to which she nodded and insisted that she was prepared to see their real faces.

She held onto Randall’s hand when the bodies of her husband and son were pulled out of the storage. The technician unzipped the bags to show their faces, then stepped away to give Opal time to say good-bye. She was wheeled up to Roger first. Minus the dried dark cuts on his face, and the body bag, of course, he looked like he was sleeping.

Opal leaned in, as if to brush his hair back and kiss his forehead, but thought better of it and withdrew her hand. “You really went and left me,” she told him. “You promised that we were going to grow old together. You remember that? Don’t think for a second that I forgot.” It was obvious to Bede that Opal made a brave attempt to act like Roger could hear her. She sniffed and briefly pressed the sleeve of Randall’s coat over her eyes. “You remember the duet we sang in the forest? The song that made us meet and fall in love? I’ll sing it for both of us.”

The first verse of the song was supposed to be Roger’s part. Opal sang it for him, then her part, but ended up not even making it halfway through the duet. Her singing dissolved into quiet sobs. Finally, she said, “I can’t sing this without you, darling. We always sang this together.” She tightened her good hand into a fist over her chest. “One day we will do that again. Just wait for me, okay?” She drew back and gathered herself with a shuddering sigh before turning to Randall. “You can take me to Jasper now.”

Her son looked like he was sleeping, too. It was his little, innocent, round face, the look of a boy who would never grow older than five, that made Opal completely break down when she came up to him. She cried so hard that her sobs came out like cries of pain. Bede clutched at the part of his jacket right over his heart. A mother’s grief was the most terrible thing to hear.

Randall knelt down beside his sister to let her cry into his arms and chest. He hadn’t said a word since he and Opal entered the morgue. What could he possibly say? There were no words for this. She seemed grateful for his silence. Perhaps that kind of unspoken understanding was possible for twins like Randall and Opal. A minute passed, then Opal pulled away looking determined to give Jasper more than her wordless tears.

She allowed herself the briefest stroke through her son’s still curly hair. “Jasper, darling, this is Mummy coming to tuck you into bed one last time. I bet that you’re with Daddy now, flying on a Pidgeot, to a magical land where you can eat all the ice cream and candy you want. I’m sorry that I can’t be there with you. Not yet. I bet that you’re with the baby, too. Someday you’ll get to tell me if you have a brother or a sister.” Struggling somewhat with her injured hand, Opal blew a soft air kiss to him. “Sweet dreams, darling.”

Bede had to lean against the wall for support. He blinked hard and scrunched knuckles over his eyes, feeling the tears threatening to overwhelm him again. Opal lost her husband, son, and the child she hadn’t known she was carrying until too late—all in one day. She also lost any chances to have more children. And she had carried this terrible pain close to her heart for decades. Bede couldn’t even imagine.

She had vented all the sounds of her anguish in the hospital. By the time she was discharged and had headed back home to Ballonlea Town for the funeral, she was a figure of blank, unbroken stoicism as her husband and son were laid to rest.

Opal didn’t have time for rest of her own. Soon after the funeral, she was summoned to court for Kestrel’s trial. True to her declaration of disowning him at the hospital, she adamantly avoided meeting his eyes and acknowledging him as anything more than an alcoholic and a murderer, even when she stepped up to read her victim impact statement:

“The hurt and pain you have caused me is a thousand times greater than what had landed me in the hospital. Roger trusted you with his life, and you betrayed him by taking it away from him. Jasper adored you, and you killed him because you adored alcohol more. I blame myself for thinking that you had changed, for entrusting the lives of my husband and son to you. I will carry more than scars on my body. I will carry the regret of my mistake of believing in you for the rest of my life. I have said it before, and I will say it again: you are dead to me, and you are not my brother anymore.”

The amount of fury that Opal could channel through her composure frightened and astonished Bede. This was not the quirky, friendly old woman he knew. Kestrel, meanwhile, said nothing in his defense. With an unshaven lower half of his face and bags under his eyes, he looked like the oldest of the three instead of the youngest now. Opal’s words utterly destroyed him, and the look on his face told of how much he felt deserving of all his sister’s anger and hatred. Despite everything the man had done to tear his family apart, Bede actually felt a bit sorry for him. Kestrel had really tried to fix mistakes he had made in the past, but he wasn’t strong enough, and he ended up making the biggest mistake of his life. For handling a Flying Taxi while intoxicated, and for the deaths of two family members in the process, Kestrel was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Roger’s death released his Pokemon from his ownership. Likewise, Kestrel’s sentence relinquished him of his Pokemon as well. It was up to Opal to deal with all of them. They were gathered in the front yard of her house, facing the armbench where she sat.

Her gaze and words directed to them were filled with sympathy. “You can’t go back to your Trainers anymore. That’s just not possible. I’m sorry.” With her good hand, she held up a pair of fingers. “You have two choices. You may stay with me, or you may run free to live in the wild. Whatever you choose, you have my support.”

Corviknight, Staraptor, Pidgeot, Mightyena, and Obstagoon stared at Opal for a few more moments, looked at each other, then made their decisions. Kestrel’s bird Pokemon spread their wings and uttered piercing cries. Hovering close to Bede, Celebi touched one side of his head, and from that moment on he received flashes of telepathic clarity. Corviknight, Staraptor, and Pidgeot were announcing their intention to leave Ballonlea Town. Opal didn’t train Flying type Pokemon, and the treetops hemming in the town didn’t make an ideal habitat for Kestrel’s Pokemon, who liked to soar high and freely. One by one, they stalked up to Opal to touch their heads and beaks against her hand to convey their condolences, then stepped back to take off.

Corviknight lingered the longest, and Opal actually reached up to wrap her arms around the Pokemon’s neck. “Thank you,” she said, “for protecting me back in Route 10. I could’ve had worse injuries if I had gotten up. You kept me down even knowing that I didn’t like you.”

Corviknight uttered a soft caw, which Bede heard as “I’m so sorry for what happened.” Opal touched the flat part of its crest for a moment, sharing in the loss of the man who had been its Trainer and her brother. Then she let her hand drop back to her side. 

“I’m never riding a Flying Taxi ever again, but you were just doing what you were told, and I don’t blame you for the accident. I hope you remember that.”

Corviknight nodded, then stepped away to join Pidgeot and Staraptor. As for Mightyena and Obstagoon, they made soft grunts, saying in unison that they had no intentions of going anywhere.

Opal regarded them with surprise. “I’m not a Dark type Pokemon Trainer. And Roger is...” Her voice shook. “Roger is gone. You’re sure you still want to stay with me?”

Obstagoon crossed its arms and grunted, which Bede heard as “This is our home, and that hasn’t changed even though our Trainer isn’t here anymore.”

Mightyena whined and wagged its tail to mean “We like having a home to look after and protect. You gave us and our Trainer that home.” 

Obstagoon uttered a soft growl, saying “Let us give back and look after you.”

Opal couldn’t understand them like Bede temporarily could, but their determination to stay made her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, you two...you really don’t have to...”

Mightyena bounded up to rest its head on her lap, while Obstagoon lumbered over to hug her. She wrapped her arms around them and cried into Obstagoon’s white chest fur. Opal’s Pokemon team came through the door, perhaps at the sound of her crying, to join her and Roger’s Pokemon on the bench.

Surrounded by the love of all these Pokemon, despite losing her husband, son, and unborn child, Opal smiled for the first time since that fateful flight.

Notes: I lost my dad to a stroke on January 13th of this year. The grieving process is still very raw and real for me, so I ended up channeling that into Opal’s grief for the family she lost. It felt cathartic.

[believingispowerfulmagic]

“Reunited at Last” Chapter 2: The Storybook

Regina stared at the girl, dumbfounded. She wondered if she had misheard her before she checked for any other children. Perhaps this was a cruel prank she and her friends were doing. No doubt they had been told to stay away from Regina Mills, that she was someone they shouldn’t respect or associate with. It wouldn’t be the first time she had been the butt of a joke and she was certain it wouldn’t be the last.

Diana frowned. “Regina?”

“Go home,” she replied wearily. “I’ve had a really bad day and I don’t need whatever prank you and your friends are pulling right now.”

She began to close the door but Diana stepped closer and placed her hand on the door to stop it. “I am not pranking you. I am your daughter, you are my mother. I can prove it. Please, just let me in.”

“What is there to prove? I don’t have a daughter,” Regina argued, starting to close the door.

Diana scowled as she stopped her. “Yes, you do. And I can prove it.”

“The only thing you’re doing is going home. Run along and leave me alone.” Regina closed the door and started to walk away.

Pounding on her door stopped her. She turned around and gaped at it, amazed that such a little girl packed so much power. Her doorknob jiggled and made a metallic clinking sound as it did so. Annoyed, Regina marched back over to the door and wretched it open. “What?”

“I promise I’m not pranking you,” Diana said, clasping her hands together. “Please, please give me a chance to explain everything.”

“What do you win?” Regina asked exasperatedly.

Diana frowned. “What do you mean?”

Leaning out, Regina once again looked for any other children. “If I let you in, do you get extra points? Do you win this sick little game? Get a good laugh with your friends?”

“No, of course not! I’m here by myself and this isn’t some joke. Please, just listen to me,” Diana pleaded with her.

Regina felt her resolve softening at how genuine the girl sounded and shifted a bit in her doorway. Seeing her chance, Diana squeezed past her and stood in her foyer. It was clear she was not going to leave until she said whatever it was she had to say so Regina closed the door with a sigh. She would let Diana say her piece but if it got too ridiculous, she would end it for good.

Diana dropped her bookbag on the floor, unzipping it and pulling out a book. The book was large and had a simple brown cover. Gold embellishments framed the front cover, which matched the title written in a large ornate font.

Once Upon a Time

           Regina raised her eyebrow. “What’s with the book?”

           “It’s the proof I was talking about,” Diana replied.

           “How is a book of fairy tales supposed to prove I’m your mother?” Regina asked. She then added: “Which I’m not.”

           Diana opened it. “Every story in this book is true. And everyone in Storybrooke is in it. See?”

           She held out the book, now open to a page with a beautiful illustration on it. It depicted an older woman and a younger one outside a cabin, confronting a mob with torches and pitchforks. Though she wore a brown linen dress that looked like something from a movie set during the Middle Ages and carried a crossbow, the woman with graying curls and silver half-moon glasses looked just like Winifred “Granny” Lucas, who owned Granny’s Diner and had been her first employer. Beside her was a character that looked just like Granny’s real granddaughter Ruby who was dressed in a similar outfit to her grandmother and wore a bright red cloak.

           “Looks just like Granny and Ruby, right?” Diana asked. “Except that’s Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. But there’s a twist. Red Riding Hood was also the Big Bad Wolf. She’s a werewolf, like her grandmother was, and the people ended up chasing her off because she, uh, ate her boyfriend.”

           Regina crinkled her nose. “That’s pretty gruesome. And this is supposed to be appropriate for kids?”

           Diana shrugged. “I told you, it’s based on real life. It’s not going to be like all the fairy tales we’re used to.”

           “I don’t think the stories are real,” Regina said. “The illustrator must live in town and took inspiration from the people he or she met.”

           “Okay,” the girl replied, turning the book around and flipping through the pages again. She found the one she was looking for and faced the book toward Regina again. “But do you think anyone would draw Mother Superior like this?”

           Looking at the picture, Regina’s eyebrows went up. Mother Superior’s image was burned into her memory after her years at the convent. Though a petite woman, she carried herself as if she towered over everyone else. All the sisters wore the same habits every day and often made Regina dress similarly. There was the overly starched white button shirt with collars she had to made sure laid perfectly against the scratchy wool blue sweater she had to wear over it. She then wore a knee-length navy skirt with crisp pleats, black stockings and shapeless black shoes. While all the sisters had to wear their hair in buns, Regina was allowed to style herself differently--just as long as it appeared neat and she didn’t dye it. Still, it was no wonder she had been teased so often as a child when she could easily be mistaken for a sister as well.

           Therefore it was surprising to see how the Mother Superior was illustrated in the book. Her brown hair was curled and pulled into a bun atop her head. Flowers were tucked amongst her locks, almost forming a crown. She wore a light blue gown with a tight bodice that showed off her breasts. Regina didn’t even think she had any under the shapeless habit. Pink flowers formed two straps that held up the bodice, which was attached to a skirt the color of the sky. Its width was bigger than its length, barely reaching her mid-thighs while extending past her shoulders. Pink and white flowers decorated the skirt and lacy strips hung from its hem. Translucent blue wings came from her back and Regina could tell she was hanging in midair.

           “Is...Is she depicted as the Blue Fairy?” Regina asked, surprised. Though even as a fairy, she still carried an air of superiority about her--as if she knew better than everyone else.

           Diana nodded. “I’m not sure if she’s a good character or not. She claims to be but can be pretty judgmental.”

           “Sounds like Mother Superior,” Regina muttered. Louder, she asked: “So, are we in this book?”

           Nodding, Diana turned the book back toward her and flipped almost to the end. She then held it out to Regina. “Here we are.”

           Taking the book, Regina let out a soft gasp as she studied the illustration on the page. It was definitely her and she looked beautiful, like a queen. Which she was depicted as, if the tiara was any indication. It was nestled amongst her dark locks, her curls pinned into a cascading ponytail to keep them off her neck, which had a diamond chandelier necklace around it. She wore a pale blue gown with lace angel sleeves and a silk Basque bodice with a scoop neckline that showed off her breasts in a way Regina never would after years of dressing like a sister. It included a full skirt made of lace and silk, completing the regal look. The dress was the most beautiful she had ever seen and she knew there was no way in a thousand years she would ever be able to afford one like it, let alone the diamond necklace or tiara.

           In the picture, she held the hand of a young girl who looked just like Diana. Her dark hair was curled and fell around her shoulders, held back from her face by a diamond encrusted Alice band. She wore a white dress that was an exact replica of the gown Regina wore, except with a squarer neckline that was closer to Diana’s neck than the neckline on Regina’s gown. The young girl smiled up at Regina, who gazed down at her with love and adoration in her eyes and a soft smile of her own. Whoever the illustrator was, he or she depicted so much love in the picture that Regina almost felt it herself.

           “What fairy tale is this?” she asked.

           “It’s our own,” Diana replied, “and not well known. But I guess you could call it the untold second chapter of Snow White.”

           Regina frowned, lowering the book to the look at the girl, who was watching her with hopeful eyes. “So I’m Snow White?”

           Diana shook her head. “You’re Snow White’s stepmother.”

           “You mean the Evil Queen,” Regina commented, suspicions starting to rise as she got the feeling she was being pranked after all. “Who was so vain she disguised herself and tricked Snow White into eating a poisoned apple before being killed by a bunch of dwarves all because a mirror told her that her stepdaughter was prettier than her?”

           “All the stories of Snow White here get it all wrong and leave a lot out,” Diana replied, pointing to the book. “This is the right version because it’s the real version. You didn’t hate Snow White because she was prettier than you but because she told a secret that cost you a lot. And though you were the Evil Queen, you eventually became good after meeting your soulmate. You fell in love, married him, had me and became a hero that everyone loved.”

           “Enough!” It was too much and too cruel. All Regina had ever wanted was to be loved and now this little girl was claiming she apparently had all of that but forgot about it. She had long ago learned the dangers of living in a fantasy for too long. Reality always bit her in the ass and reminded her that she wasn’t some great queen with some great love story. She was just an average nobody with no one to love her.

           She pinched her nose. “Look, I’ve had a shi--horrible day and I don’t need all this nonsense. Your prank isn’t funny so just stop.”

           “You don’t believe me,” Diana said, eyes growing watery as her lower lip trembled.

           Regina sighed, no longer seeing a child trying to prank her but a lonely little girl. In a lot of ways, she saw herself in Diana and so she knelt before her as she handed the book back to her. She then tucked her fingers beneath the girl’s chin, gently lifting her head so that Diana’s eyes met her own.

           “Look,” she said, softening her tone. “I get it. I had a lousy childhood, an orphan no one wanted either as a daughter or a friend, so I used to escape into books all the time. I used to wish that my father would be some king who would swoop in and take me away, to love me and let me be happy as a princess with lots and lots of friends. But I eventually had to admit to myself that was never going to happen. I had to learn how to live in reality.”

           “The reality is I’m not your mother. I’ve never been pregnant or given birth. Just because someone decided to base characters off us and make them mother and daughter doesn’t mean we are. Besides, I know who your mother is and I remember when she was pregnant with you. Everyone was so excited and your birth was a big celebration, almost like you were a princess. She loves you very much and has given you a great life. You don’t need a fairy tale,” she told Diana.

           Tears rolled down the girl’s cheeks as she clutched the storybook to her chest. Guilt filled Regina even though she knew there was nothing she could do. She wasn’t Diana’s mother and there was no magic wand to make it so. There was only one thing she could do.

           She stood up, reaching for her keys. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. It’s getting dark and you shouldn’t be walking by yourself.”

Continue reading on FFnet, AO3 or Wattpad

[shorthaircutsmodels]

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[rustleandeddy]

Chapter 8

Eddy drifted gently along in a mild current, trying to let his tail recover a bit. His enthusiasm for the adventure ahead hadn’t cooled in the slightest. His body wasn’t holding up nearly as well. His tail burned with fatigue, but the smile had yet to leave his face. This was all in spite of the fact that it had been hours since they’d left they mysterious chamber of Stuartia and little of interest had presented itself since then.

He held Rustle gently in his hands as the fairy did whatever it was fairies did to sense the magic of the world around them.

“You are searching, right Rustle?” he asked. “Not just hoping to spend all of the time until we can leave?”

“Even though that would be a good idea, I’m doing my best. It isn’t easy. I can still feel that first chamber. It’s so much more powerful than everything around it. You’ve got me looking for a specific drop of water in the whole of the sea.”

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be an adventure. Chores are easy. Adventures are hard! Keep trying.”

“I am. Just try to be quiet. It takes a great deal of concentration.”

Eddy nodded. He flicked his tail a few times to keep them moving. Doing so must have jostled him a bit, because his stomach released a churning grumble that, in the relative silence of the tunnel, was enough to startle Rustle.

“What was that?!” the fairy yelped.

Eddy took one hand away to rub his stomach. “That was the sound of hungry.”

“Uh oh…” Rustle said. “There isn’t any food here for you!”

He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Do not be silly, Rustle. Always the sea gives us what we need. If you cannot find something you want to eat, it means you aren’t hungry enough.”

“You should eat some of the sweets,” Rustle said, tugging himself free of Eddy’s grip and darting into the bag.

“No, no, no.” He retrieved his friend. “You are not an eater like me. You need the sweets, and one or two won’t do me much good. You keep the sweets. And keep looking for the evil wizard! I will look for something tasty. That way we are both doing something we are good at.”

He glanced about, seeing little but the endless black volcanic stone that formed the rest of the tunnel and the rippling pocket of air above him.

“Strange that there is nothing alive here. It is not easy to find a place in the sea where there is not something alive, and this place is very much not alive at all. Even the wizard was not alive.”

“Which is another good reason not to take orders from her.”

“Ah, but you are wrong, Rustle. Because dead people at least know what killed them, and they can tell you not to do that. Also, she is the least dead dead person I have ever met.”

“That’s only because we accidentally… Uh…”

Eddy tipped his head. “What did we accidentally do that made her less dead?”

“Uh…” Rustle repeated, looking a bit anguished.

“Come to think of it. She was only less dead when I woke up.” He grinned. “Did you do a dumb thing to make the adventure move forward?”

“I said it was an accident. I was trying to get you free and I spilled some of your blood. That dish in the middle of the room was an altar. It was… we sort of did a ritual, I think.”

Eddy nodded slowly, a knowing smile on his face. “A ritual by mistake. That is a very ‘adventure’ thing to happen. It proves we are on the right track. Always things like that happen. That is fate making sure we turn the page. So is that what it takes? Some blood on an altar to make people less dead?”

“I think? These are all stories I’ve heard from fairies who heard them from fairies who heard them from fairies.”

“Stories from long ago. Also a very adventure thing.”

“You make it seem like we can’t make a mistake.”

“We can’t. This is our adventure. You never hear a story about adventurers who make a blunder and fail, do you?”

“That’s because those adventurers died and no one ever heard from them again, Eddy.”

He scratched his head. “… I do not like that sort of thinking, Rustle.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“It’s too true. Too true is not fun. Maybe true, that is fun.”

Another rumble rolled through the water around them.

“We really need to find you something to eat,” Rustle said.

“That was not the sound of hungry,” Eddy said, glancing off into the darkness. “Oh, yes! We were looking for a sound before we found the wizard! Since we can’t find the next wizard so easy, let’s look for that again!”

“Eddy, can we please stay focused!” Rustle snapped. “You can’t just go charging off after every shiny thing you see!”

“Did you see something shiny?” Eddy asked, craning his neck and glancing about.

“No. I mean we can’t let ourselves get distracted or we’ll never get anywhere.”

“I am not distracted. This is what you were teaching, right? The wizard, and whatever you are looking for, is a maybe true. I like maybe trues, they’re fun! But the sound we just heard? That’s very true. Too true. And you think those are better, right?”

“… I suppose there is some logic to th—”

Eddy grabbed him and thrust his tail. “We go!”

#

The burst of excitement energized Eddy enough to bring bring him a fair distance off to the side of the cavern. As they’d traveled, the sheer size of the place became increasingly awe inspiring. By now they’d probably traveled as far under the sea floor as they’d traveled to get to Eddy’s farm.

Their detour from the admittedly aimless search Rustle had been conducting had revealed yet another mysterious and distinctive feature of the cavern. There had been no shortage of tunnels thus far, but all of them had the meandering, jagged quality of things crafted by the whims of nature. As the dim glow of the fairy and the merman cast upon the floor of this stretch of cavern, they found a branching series of tunnels that were anything but natural.

“Look at them…” Eddy said, running his hand over the smooth surface of a tunnel that was a bit wider than his arm’s width and perfectly circular. “Even when I try very hard, I cannot make the walls of my mine this smooth.”

“They’re like glass…” Rustle said, flitting up to the shiny black surface.

His distorted reflection stared back at him and reflected his light back in hypnotic ringlets all around.

“It is polished,” Eddy said. “Not like with chisels and sand and cloth. Like what heat can do. More Glowing Pools things.”

“Are we getting close to this Glowing Pools place?” Rustle asked.

“No, no. That is very far. But I suppose there can be places besides the Glowing Pools that can do such things. If we find a place like that…” Eddy looked aside. “The things I could do if I had a Glowing Pool of my own…”

They swam forward. The tunnel was much more direct than the others they’d explored. It had no sharp turns, and heading in straight line in a broadly downward trajectory with only minor deviations upward or downward. After having the whole of the cavern open around them, the tunnel felt oddly cramped to Eddy.

“Most of my own tunnels I make when I mine are only a little bigger than this,” he said. “But the big cave is much nicer.”

Rustle nodded. “I don’t like it here. It feels closed in. I don’t like closed-in places…”

“Lucky for you you’re so small. Smaller places feel bigger for you.”

Rustle shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Big or small, once I’m trapped someplace, all I can think about is how I can’t get away if something comes along to try to get me.”

The fairy was still oddly transfixed by the glassy wall. Eddy looked ahead.

“So things in tight places are scarier for you than things in the open?”

“Yes.”

“You should not look forward then.”

Rustle’s head snapped around and his glow flared. Ahead, something had caught their glow. It was smooth and metallic, but in all other ways was more deserving of the label ‘monster’ than machine.

They couldn’t see much of it. The thing was almost precisely a match for the size of the tunnel. Its form was composed of bronze or brass plates, marbled with a green patina but otherwise smooth. They joined with impossibly complex linkages, such that it looked as though this might be a suit of armor for a horrible beast, or maybe the scales of a fish or dragon that was never meant to exist. A stout, tuna-like tail hung limply against the floor of the tunnel. It had six legs, each built of metal segments and tipped with pincer-type claws composed of a dark, stone-like material. The segmented legs joined to the hexagonal body smoothly, just where the tail thickened to nearly the diameter of the tunnel. Its body blocked the path ahead, and thus hid the rest of its form.

“Is it dead?” Rustle asked, peeking out from behind Eddy’s ear.

“This is a thing someone built. Things you build don’t die. They don’t live either.”

“Built?” Rustle leaned out further, curiosity starting to edge past fear. “But it is so complicated. You can build something that complicated?”

“I cannot,” Eddy said, tugging at the blunt edge of the fin. “But someone can.”

Eddy leaned closer, bringing Rustle along with him. The fairy’s curiosity was piqued, but not yet to the degree that he was willing to get as close as the merman wanted to be. He flitted out and watched from a safer distance as Eddy grabbed hold of two of the legs and gave another tug.

“It is very heavy. Fins aren’t so good for pulling things backward,” he said.

“Be careful,” Rustle advised. “… But what does the front half of it look like?”

Eddy pulled himself forward between the two legs and just barely managed to ease his head between the wall and the metallic body.

“There is not much body left. It is very stubby. There is not much tunnel left. Just a little ahead. The tunnel ahead is very rough. I think maybe this thing was digging it.”

“A digging machine? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Eddy glanced over his shoulder. “I know. Isn’t it great! I think maybe I can push it out if I get ahead of it. Watch the bag.”

He wriggled back into the clear section of the tunnel and dropped his bag far enough back to give him room to move the mechanism. As the tunnel had taken a slight up-turn in this section, the bag slid quite a way along the glassy floor before coming to a rest. He took his pick in hand and darted back up to the widest gap he could find. It took a bit of lashing of his tail and tugging with his arms, but he managed to cram himself into the space ahead of the mechanism.

“What does it look like!” Rustle called.

From the echo of his voice, he’d retreated quite far. Eddy carefully ran his fingers along the wall.

“The wall is sharp here. And there are all sorts of chips and flakes down on the bottom.” He squinted and poked at the flakes with the pick. “The ones near the machine look round, like they were half-melted. Yes… Yes, and there are lines here on the walls. Like the marks I make when I dig, but deeper and very much the same to one another. A pattern. Definitely this machine was doing the digging.”

“What about the machine? What does the front look like?”

He turned and analyzed the previously unseen bit of apparatus. A somewhat blunt beak of sorts jutted out from center. Little flecks of black had been driven into the metal there, and it was a bit more polished than most of the rest of the surfaces. Six perfectly round, amber-colored domes were set into a stout ring around the beak. Most were fractured or rendered cloudy, but the two along the left side appeared to be intact. Each had a thin sheet of metal hinged above it, a shutter of some sort.

“Well?” Rustle urged.

“It looks like a swordfish. One that has too many eyes. And ran into walls until its nose got blunt. And the nose is a little too round.”

“That doesn’t help me, Eddy. I don’t know what a swordfish looks like. … And from that description, it sounds like it doesn’t really look much like one anyway.”

“Hmm… What do you know that I know… Oh! You know the eel I offered? The tasty one?”

“Yes.”

“It is like the head part of an eel. But too many eyes, no mouth, and too round. And only the head part. Because the rest of the thing looks like blocky tuna wearing a skirt made of legs.”

“You are very bad at describing things, Eddy.”

“Maybe you are very bad at imagining things! I will push it out until you feel like you can come and look at it, and then you will see.”

“Wait! Just be sure it isn’t moving or alive or anything first. If it’s just sleeping, I don’t want you to wake it up. We’ve woken up enough dangerous, magical things already.”

“It does not seem like it is moving, but that is good thinking, Rustle. I will listen close.”

He set his pick down and pressed his hands and ear to the warm surface of the mechanism.

“I do not hear anything. Nothing like a heart. But I do not know what the inside of a big mechanical thing would sound like. … Wait… I do hear something…”

It was subtle, but something was rattling.

“I hear it too,” Rustle said. “It’s not coming from inside the creature, it’s coming from under it. Get out of there!”

“Good thinking!”

Eddy gripped the mechanism and hauled himself forward. It was a tight space to navigate and trying to do so swiftly didn’t make it any easier. He’d barely gotten his shoulders free when the rattling revealed itself to be just the first audible indication of a growing rumble that shook the entire tunnel. This wasn’t the same thunder that had drawn them here. This was something far more substantial. This was the same sort of earth-shaking that so frequently spoiled the routine and damaged the walls back in Barnacle. But this was more powerful… and much, much closer to the source.

The merman eased his chest through and was on the cusp of slipping entirely free when the heavy mechanism shifted. With a metallic clank it rocked to the side, pinning Eddy to the wall. He cried out.

“Eddy!” Rustle yelped.

He darted forward and tugged at the merman as he struggled against the machine. Despite his exceptional strength, Eddy didn’t have the leverage to shift it aside.

The rumbling was getting worse. The water transfered the motion with destructive efficiency, rattling their bones and threatening to deafen them. Fractures split the wall of the tunnel behind them. Fragments of razor sharp stone pelted fairy and Merman alike.

“Go! Rustle! Go!” Eddy called, waving the fairy away.

“What about you!?” Rustle cried.

“Don’t worry!” Eddy smiled through the fear. “I bounce good, remember? Better I get buried than you!”

Two cracks racing across the ceiling met. A slab of stone dropped down and shattered behind them. Pulverized stone began to pour through behind it.

“I can’t just leave you!”

Eddy didn’t waste time arguing. Instead, he snatched Rustle firmly in his grasp. Trapped as he was, he had precious little range of motion, but he didn’t need much of a windup for what he had in mind. A snap of the wrist hurled the fairy’s streamlined form like a dart.

#

Against his will, Rustle cut through the water, as more of the ceiling tumbled down around him. He buzzed his wings and flailed his limbs, trying to bring himself to a stop. The terror that seized his brain was almost maddening. His fairy instincts screamed at him to take this precious head start and swim for all he was worth away from the collapse. His concern overruled them. Eddy was his friend, they were in this together, and he was in danger.

He brought himself to a stop and turned. Bravery, alas, wasn’t always enough. He’d barely managed to begin is heroic flit back toward the merman when the roof of the tunnel completely let loose. Stone collapsed, forcing the water aside. A wall of water and debris struck him, forcing him backward faster than he could ever hope to fly. He and Eddy’s bag, the only loose things in the tunnel, launched, slid, and bounced along its length until they were both ejected ahead of a plum of waterborne dust.

Rustle coughed and shook dust from his hair, trying to get his bearings. He was drifting in the center of a cloud of silt. He could scarcely tell up from down. His meager natural glow barely illuminated more than a his arm’s length around him. He held still and clutched his hands as the rumbling continued. There was a very real threat that the whole cavern would collapse, but the concern that pierced his chest and burned his mind was all for his friend.

After what seemed like an eternity, the earth calmed again. Rustle waited and watched as the dust settled and his vision cut further into the water around him. When he could finally see the floor of the cavern, his heart dropped.

“No…”

The whole of the floor had slumped downward. Riddled as it was with these bizarre, unnatural tunnels, it completely gave way. Where once had been the entrance to the tunnel that held his friend now was nothing but a field of jagged stone.

Rustle buzzed about, tugging at this stone and heaving at that. He would have to move half a mountain if we hoped to find Eddy, but right now his mind refused to even entertain the possibility that his friend was lost. He spotted a distinctive form among the rubble and cleared away a layer of silt to reveal Eddy’s bag. He plunged inside and emerged with the digging gauntlet, then ducked inside again and found the single claw he’d dislodged earlier.

Properly equipped he went to work, digging and chipping at the broken ground.

#

In Barnacle, Mira held tight to the wall as the last of the earthquake subsided. It was the worst the city had endured in many months. When the danger was gone, she surveyed the damage. Her own home had only one fresh crack in the wall, but from the sound of it, others nearby weren’t as lucky. She swam to the exit. There were at least two homes she could see that had taken considerable damage, and one had partially collapsed.

“Does anyone need help?” she called.

The community had sprung to action more quickly than she had. Injuries seemed to be minor, and at least one of the damaged homes was mercifully empty when it had succumbed to the quake. Any other time, she would have rushed to help regardless of the fact matters were well in hand. Not right now. She knew in her present state of mind, she would be of little use.

For the last hour she had been drifting about in her home, casting frequent glances to the west, in the direction of their farm and mines. Eddy wasn’t late yet. The return tide was only just starting, and thus on a normal day he would only have just been leaving for home. That hadn’t steadied her nerves. Ever since her chat with Disaahna she’d had the worst feeling. When the earthquake came, it was almost as though she’d been waiting for it.

She surveyed the lesser consequences of the tremor. Things were in terrible disarray around her. Displays of bones had toppled to the ground. Eddy’s spare tools had tumbled from their hooks. She reached down and gathered the worn, crooked pick he kept for light work. It, like most of their tools, had belonged to their father. She gripped it tight, then swam for her room. She rummaged about in the mounds of clutter that had once been her personal library and wardrobe.

“Where is it?” she muttered, thumping books into rough piles.

She’d not looked into her old spellbook in years. In truth, there were only a handful of spells she really made use of. A bit of language, the indispensable water-for-air, and a handful of warding and defensive spells to protect herself were enough to allow her to survive and thrive. She’d memorized the rest of them—it was part of her education--but as with any spell it was usually best to refresh oneself rather than risk miscasting. But her most basic spellbook was nowhere to be found. Without it, she couldn’t be certain she would have proper protection from depths much further down than Barnacle itself.

There was no telling what had happened to her spellbook. In another state of mind, she might have suspected her brother, but at the moment she was too busy feeling anxious about him to feel suspicious of him. So she abandoned the search.

The book she’d misplaced was anything but rare. There were probably three more similar books to be found within Barnacle. But her fellow residents were busy picking up the pieces. What’s more, the more her mind swirled and churned through the terrible things that might have happened at the farm, the more she feared she might need help. And if Barnacle was busy recovering, her next best bet for help was the nomads. They were never far from Barnacle this time of year.

Mira grabbed a large conch shell. She cleared away some of her fallen belongings until she uncovered a small chest set into the floor. Among the charms on a chain tucked within her bodice was a small silver key. She clicked the chest open and revealed a satchel of hand-picked gems and pearls. She hoped she wouldn’t need them all, but for what she had in mind, she’d need something. Those people didn’t work for free…