Chapter Text
It had grown cold outside. Cupid felt it most of all. The halls had always been draughty, make no mistake. They always would be. It’s how places like Ever After High retained their mystical nature. Keeping themselves exclusive. The last ivory tower to stare over the hills. Unmoved by its stubbornness, or the modernisation of everywhere else, or even the inner cries out against its own bigotry which inflamed with red placards within like internal wounds. This, she had come to realise, was the very essence of the place. She was part of that. They all were. What she focused on now was keeping that pure and sane. Driving out whatever disease may come from afar to taint it.
For without exclusivity, what was anyone?
What was she without her own unique selling points? What was anyone? They told you the exact same. Find ways to stand out in the personal statement. Offer something new. Give them a reason to care. Because they wouldn’t do it just from the kindness of your own heart. If God made everyone perfect, the reverse was very true at the same time. That’s the part the Bible cleverly kept hidden so others didn’t realise the truth till it was too late. Only one had been made truly infallible. And he had already passed on for whatever sins she may have committed next. So whatever black spirals welled in her chest, whatever wobbles came across those feeble little legs, whatever final cries came charging across her conscience…
Dismiss them.
Nevertheless, whatever chill did arc across could never merely be draught. This stung more. Threatened, not without substance, to take your entire body and freeze it totally solid. Not just nip at fingers. Nor chastise cheeks. Removing feeling from a nose was not enough for these winds. The skies grew more bruised by the second. The last slivers of sun suffocated with their narrowminded warmth of yesterdays. All that remained was the chill which pierced right through them all.
They’d come through that door right now. She’d be ready. One nod to Amanita confirmed as such. Another text to Dexter went easily. A reply came back easier. The movements came easily when you spent your entire waking hours ensuring their mechanical existence. It had to come exactly. Same as the way every Barbie doll on her shelf had a different position. Smiled upon a different boyfriend. One always being there to comfort. No mistaking the methodology.
To her right, partially obscuring whatever light had not yet been suffocated by steel-coloured clouds, rested a knight’s armour. Forever observing a dungeon it would have once presumably guarded. Seeing injustices. Seeing torture. Wearing the very flag which endorsed all kinds of improprieties. Yet said nothing. Acted only as it was told to for fear of defying social laws. But why didn’t they give it a moment’s thought, one might ask? Why didn’t it seek the support of fellow knights to think and act for themselves? Why didn’t they at least speak their own mind?
As Cupid asked those very same questions, knowing what they did, what she would do, her face turned from the usual soft complexion to a stony mask of rage defined by its shadows.
Part of her cried out. Looking at her charge. Wondering the consequences. Any other sides? Begging to consider the fear at her mercy. Held by her in both respects. For her. Against her. Empowering her. Weakening her. She’d never see that last part until the final chinks of sun had been smothered completely.
Ban. Right into the wood. A couple of splinters hissing onto the linoleum floor. That itself drenched in darkness. Hope below her flickering for a second.
She grimaced, snapping her fingers. Amanita there again. Her breasts never once leaving the eyeline, as if calculated expertly for the maximum effect. The lore was that’d never work. But the lore was also that the earth was flat, that leaving the EU was the right idea, that she was actually worth more than the notes she scribbled down and the prizes she was destined for. The university place with her name etched on before the application even went off. They said her worth hadn’t been scribbled on one sheet of paper. Put under the scrutiny of some lecturer she’d never meet until it was already too late. That was what defined everyone. How could she of all people hope to be any different?
Further bangs punished the door.
He thought of saying something. Words formed just below the Goddess of Love. Trying to find a way to fight back. No way of hiding who he really was now.
“Be yourself. Be unique. Be a monster. That is the mantra of your school, is it not?”
The ensuing whimper sounded from Spelldon Cauldronello.
“Well, things don’t always go to plan.” Cupid spat. Remembering all the times that this very boy, this very ruse, had made such a sentence one she knew all too well.
“But you’re being yourself now, aren’t you?” Amanita simpered, thrusting her wasp-waisted body forward. Green right on green. Her grinning madly as his breaths shrouded in muffles. His breath grew more muted. Hers more alive, yet animalistic. He tired of it. Grew more horrified. While she grew stronger the more she pressed on him. Was this love? Of course not. But neither was the alternative. So it’d have to do.
The door at last caved in and there he stood.
Before either spoke, they eyes locked. That would’ve been game over for anyone else. He’d have won. No justice. She would fall into the obscurity her brain always reminded her that she richly deserved, offering little evidence beyond the same loops. Yet that warmth came to stave him off. Reminding her of why she still stood. Why he would fall. Of the only reason she kept this skinny, doll-like body alive despite all the starvation and disappointment. Despite, even though she was an adopting, flouting even that second chance. His entrance alone struck a definite second chill right past her. But she would never back down.
“Spelldon!” he cried, at once throwing his arms round what he could. But all that sounded was a low cackle, slashing through everyone’s hearts like a scythe moving round and round. For Spelldon’s face didn’t move one inch when he did so.
“Spelldon? Are you alright?”
Still nothing.
“Spelldon?”
“Spelldon?” Whisp inquired. “We’re here to save you. What’s going on here?”
“Spelldon?” Now Raven piped up. But with every step she advanced under, the more her face fell victim to its own shadows.
“C’mon, Spelldon, it’s us.” Clawdeen spoke with a rare streak that furrowed her brow. Made her look almost soft. “What’s wrong?”
Spelldon grimaced again as he surveyed the tiny room. Then the footsteps began to encroach all around. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Like a twisted heartbeat. More like him thrown to the ground. Unable to tell if the following crack was their bodies or the stone. Or in the case of Ely, both. There’d be more pain to come yet. Neither he nor Kieran knew that as they stared into each other’s eyes. The same emotions two-thirds of the way there. One had it all. One was ready to rekindle it then and there. One had come all this way. Given everything. Shrugged the entire contents of his past off. The other wished they could say the same. But knew too much for it to be the truth. Perhaps Kieran had always known that too. It started to gnaw at both already. How could they have been so blind?
And as they began to frown, Cupid dared herself to smile.
“What do you think, Spelldon?” she asked innocently. “Who’s he really here for?”
Kieran began to grow flustered. “Casta? What’s going on?”
Casta shook her head. “Spelldon? Spelldon? What’s the matter?”
“Only now do you come to care about me.” Spelldon declared in a resolute, yet monotone and defeated voice.
Clawdeen raised an eyebrow. “Spelldon, we’ve always cared about you.”
“You say that now cause it’s easy to say it.” A little more venom behind his words this time. His wiry eyebrows forming accusatory angles as his eyes grew fierce. Marked by shadows underneath. “Casta may have once cared. Now she no longer has time to.”
“Spelldon, I know tours have gotten busier and there have been more of them and we’ve had to prepare for Battle of the Bands but…”
“Excuses, excuses, excuses. The Goddess of Love told me everything. If you want the real reason as to why Casta never spends any time with her own brother-ask him!”
A green finger stabbed squarely at Kieran’s heart. Where else? Now Cupid fully let that smile infect her entire face. She had him now.
Kieran rolled his eyes almost out of instinct. Yet as soon as he finished there, the tears came thick and fast. As if she could conjure them direct from the ducts. On command. He said. He did. He claimed. He denied.
“Spelldon, I’ve always loved you in a way I’ve never loved anyone else! You’ve genuinely made me feel like I belong and I’m not weird and worthless for the first time in my un-life. I promise that it will always be this way. Im not trying to just use you as a move for Casta!”
A small beep sounded just above his head. Nearly too inconspicuous to even register. An equally diminutive red light began to flash in a far-off corner every second. Photos playing of moments he never saw himself. But he knew them to be true. And the more his horror grew, the more she took stock in it. The more they all found themselves cornered by the second. Unable to hide from the seemingly unequivocal, undeniable truth.
“Then why did you spend seven minutes of heaven with her back at Briar’s?” Cupid asked imperiously.
“That was just a little conversation!” Kieran gasped.
Cupid rolled her eyes. “See? He’s lying even now, when he’s been caught in the act.”
“Caught in the act?”
One final, deafening beep did the rest to seal his fate. Now it was Dexter’s turn to control the room. A few murmurs Ely made beyond the gag in his mouth did absolutely nothing to avail. He pressed the button. Cupid smiled and blew a cheap, fake kiss at him. That alone made the rest a formality.
Kieran’s jaw dropped the second it registered. The first five seconds. Spun onto their own tale. That Southern accent he knew all too well once again chilling his spine as he said it. But he didn’t say it.
“Spelldon, that’s not real. I promise you that is not real.”
All Spelldon did was look at Casta with ever-increasing horror. “Did you-do you-is it still…”
Amanita got there first. Her stealing the scraps of fabric Clawdeen had given him for their next session went by unpunished. For the far greater crime he was directed to without any input but her own. Her spindly, crooked finger right onto his lips. Those eyelashes fluttering with a Botox-aided, hypnotic gaze. Every second her body threatened to pounce on his and suffocate his conscience entirely.
“He’s told you what he’s done, hasn’t he?”
Spelldon nodded. The tears right on cue.
“I bet he’s told you all about how, like, he’s different and is trying to make amends and a bunch of other crap.”
“And who are you to judge whether that’s true or not!” Raven bellowed. Violet magic surging through her every vein and word.
Apple reinforced at once. “It cannot be either of your destinies to end it like this. The happily ever after is so close!”
Amanita threw that ocean of purple curls back one last time and laughed. “The fact you of all people are trying to defend this is crazy to me. A descendant of evil trying to defend something evil. And when the queen becomes a reject, she joins in to try to bail herself out. Oh, it is too good!”
Clawdeen gave a low growl and advanced. Hackles raised in an instant. “Oh, I know you did not just say what I think you said was evil.”
Amanita shrugged. The red beeps broadcasting what may as well have been an exact script far and wide.
“Let’s not kid ourselves here. It’s not like friends of Cleo de Nile have any real places to go or anyone who really wants them. But hey, you gotta make it work somehow, ghoul. I’m not getting’ at cha for that. So you lie to yourself and them. Ain’t no other way it’s gonna work for ya, is it? You say that it’s okay to fail to attract anyone again and again. That this is just the newest progress. Look at your face even now. We both know it’s bullshit. And now Spelldon can see the truth as well. I see no problems with him facing down this evil at last.”
Clawdeen went for her. Blow after blow landed with absolutely no reprieve. The beeps continued. Red now spurted from above and below. Light on the top. Liquid on the bottom. She went closer. Kieran went back. All of it went straight in front of Cupid. And what could she do but sit back and look at her achievement?
One nod to Dexter. Service with a smile. He loved it. Lapped it up. Hungry for more. He may as well have gone for her now with the way he eyed her up. Best not tell either of them how she really felt about it. There’d been enough lies about love already. She was here to end that. With every blow landing on that fake face, they gave her all the ammo she needed. She already wasted so much just by breathing and she knew that full well. They all did.
Best not to waste any more.
Then came Raven for her. Hands ablaze. Animalistic anger written all over those piercing blue eyes. A thrill of fear shot through Cupid. Right into the heart like a bullet. But it died as quickly as it came when she realised the true meaning. Swipe after swipe. Each meant to kill. Each prompting a further beep. Each changing nothing. Each breath Raven took grew into more of a shallow pant. Swiping for the face. Intending to rip it off at full strength every time.
And as this realisation came, the final chinks of light became smothered fully under grey, emotionless and unsentimental clouds. Entirely dark bar the artificial lights she’d planted. Nevertheless the cold punished every goosebump it forced onto her skin. Her only warmth came from the knowledge that as she pursued the truth, as she pursued justice against the insecure manchild that now crawled back into the shadows, he felt it just as much as she did.
Ely murmured more and more beyond the gag as she stepped closer. Clop. Clop. Clop. Those dainty pink heels striking every cobble with a chilling clinical nature. Nowhere for him to run now. She reckoned that as he had no choice to stare right at her, he had half a mind to look down her shirt. Smirking at the idea of him wanting desperately to gain one last desperate glimpse before she snuffed his lies out for good. He wanted it all so bad, didn’t he? Willing to lie, cheat and ruin for a brief high. For his own narcissism.
“It must be so nice having such a delusionally high opinion of yourself.” She found her own voice developing into a sneer as she grew within the kiss or kill distance. How she abhorred the former and desired the latter. But that would have to wait.
“So you were behind the whole thing?” Kieran gasped. He looked as if he were about to cry, either out of astonishment or hurt. He was a bloody good actor, she’d give him that. Such a fact only made the whole thing more damnable. Her own actions more necessary. “Wow…”
“I wasn’t behind anything. Spelldon figured your lies out for himself. It’s just like last time. Only yourself to blame.” She recoiled a little as she spat those last few words out. Having to remind herself this was part of the process. Ely’s muffled shouts now as much background noise as the beep. Her steps shoving him further and further into a corner doctored that to perfection. No equivocation this time. One truth. Her truth. Her safety. His downfall.
The thuds above set it in stone now. The loudest scream ever from Ely. But still stopped by the very substances she had set in motion. Spelldon at the back starting to come round. Amanita never letting his eyes, not even for a minute, leave her bouncing body right on where all other men would have folded long ago.
“Why?” The thuds came closer. Her smile grew wider. He showed nothing more than complete horror. Not animosity. Not an iota of desire. For revenge or anything else. Horror.
“Simple, really. Your time was always due. You hurt endless girls with your lies and promises of love. And now boys too. You destroyed all I had and all that made me worthy and everything about love that made me worth living. I’m just returning the favour.”
“And you think that’ll fix anything? Never mind everything. Do you think that’ll fix anything?” His tempo never sped up and his voice did not raise. He spoke to Cupid almost like a brother, sad to see their sibling behind bars on those grounds alone.
“It’ll get you out of the picture.”
“I made Spelldon and all my friends happy by being there. You’re hurting multiple people. So I ask you again, do you think this will fix anything?”
“Then he can see the truth. And, more importantly, he can see the lies you’ve led him astray with for what they truly are. For what you truly are. Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same, doesn’t it?”
Kieran scoffed. “I would ask what you actually know about love. But I suppose you’re the goddess of it, aren’t you? That explains everything as far as you’re concerned. It doesn’t matter what happens next. What the Goddess of Love says goes. All else, everyone else, be damned.”
The door burst open and she need say no more. Kieran’s face dropping in both mouth and complexion. Thud. Thud. Thud. One last protest from Ely. Falling on deaf ears inside this room and out. At least, that’s what Cupid liked to think as the rocky hand enclosed right round Kieran’s body. Nearly choking the life out of him with one touch. Certainly choking the life of anything he had with Spelldon. Merely looking on in mixed emotion. As Cupid intended. How could it have gone this perfectly? He fell right into her trap! Right for his own delusions. Pathetic hope. Got
them all in the end. The only difference was when true, legitimate love came to save you.
They kept chasing. But with every grunt, Kieran grew further and further away in the clutches of his old enemy. He’d had it coming for damn near a century now. The man that refused to die. Exemplifying his mere nature as a vampire in everything he believed in and acted on. Herself marching behind with those definite clops on ancient cobblestones. Once walked by knights. Great protectors. Those willing to fight and die for a land’s great principles. It’d be foolish to consider herself in that class. That much she appreciated from the start. If only for her own dainty, brittle figure. So devoid of courage everywhere else. So devoid of anything worthy. Test scores and radio shows made that. Not her own constitution which was so lacking again and again. Lacking whenever she so much as drew breath. Perhaps it would always be that way. But she was none the wiser as the Lightning Demon took him up every cramped stairway. Past every student initially zombified by shock, then under the same grim expectation as her. They knew it just as much as her. And for the briefest of moments, that disguised the gaping, gnawing hole in her heart which threatened to eat her entire worthless being next.
All chasing behind. Howling orbs of purple smoke whizzing past her ear. Bouncing off the mace of the Lightning Demon, whirling ever closer to ancient walls in response. Spelldon not there. Perhaps that’s why Kieran still put on his despicable show of being the good shepherd. Never accepting his fate even as it stared him down. Literally having him, and his stupid ideas and lies of loving men, by the throat. Clopping ever closer to his soul. Knowing him inside and out. No hope for him now. His friends may run under the same delusion and the same rainbow, hoping something lay on the other side. But he drew further away.
And as soon as the mouth of ancient stone and contained destinies opened to a steely sky, those great stone wings unfurled with a burst of lightning and shot up.
He would go north now.
And there they were. All staring down. Raven wasting no time in striding up to punch her square in the gut. Reeling over. Caked in mud. Sweating profusely. But not defeated.
As she began to crawl back onto those pink heeled feet, like a brittle deer clambering to its feet for the first time, a grin crept across her face at them all. Notable by their absences. Shabbiness all that remained. They could cover themselves in makeup and studs and slogans all they wanted, she thought to herself. The same story sounded underneath. Ironic how those who said not to be afraid of who you were proved most afraid of it. From there it grew easy to dream up a million quips to describe such fear. That being the reason for their failure. Yet never once did it occur to turn those formidable guns on herself, and find something very similar indeed.
Casta could barely look at her. Melody already having turned her back. No doubt texting Abbey to try to seal her fate there. Let them try. She opened her mouth as if to say something. But thought better of it. The chasm, still there within her soul, pulled that tongue back. Yet just as she did so, a significant blast of icy air whipped past them all. Tiny white droplets cascading from above. Right onto the lapel of that pink jacket Melody herself had given her. To think of what that had been. A bridge to the impossible. And she’d always known it deep inside just as Cupid had. No avoiding it. Raven and Apple staring on in a mixture of horror and fury. One doing nothing about it. The other bubbling with rage. Shouting pleas which fell on deaf ears. And not because of headphones which remained stolen even after all this. The easy thing to do would concede it as no more than a small price to pay for victory. Yet in truth, she could not honestly say that.
Kieran no more than a meaningless speck on a grey horizon. Ever After High hers again. Monsters shown for what they truly were. The Goddess of Love prevailing once more. And still…
Nothing.
There came that same girl. Eyes still tainted pink. A totally vacant expression beneath. And as she fired off a fresh round of compliments and coos, the same truth came round again. She tugged at her own heartstrings. Move, for God's sake! Move! Let herself be shunted into town and a nightclub and enough double shots to make an elephant keel over. Just come back, please!
Still the snow fell.
Violet kissing her. Pretty sure one touched the other at some point. Maybe a threat of going to bed or spending the rest of their lives together at some point. Nothing to curb an ever-greater hole gnawing at her from a thousand angles. The jacket looked awesome, she'd give Violet that. Both of theirs did. But just with the message on the back of hers, it came with an added sting. Like the smell of Violet's perfume, the weight in her chest remained even when she recounted her newfound liberties and the radio booth which would now be hers again. The steam train that imprisoned him, inching out of Bath Spa with an eerie whistle and definitive huffs, merely symbolised her own joy having long since departed.
Joy subsiding quicker than a candle in what now became a nipping blizzard. Snow which would be pretty instead shards of cold stabbing her neck. Chastising her. The same thoughts and wishes for death swirling round again as if they’d never left. Only disappeared into the wings for a more horrible following act. They all turned their backs now. Trudging back inside. Those grey clouds seemingly right behind them to infect the entire microcosm of society that she called school.
Alone again. Unwanted again. She would conclude unworthy again were it not for that fact always ringing true. Every day as she cursed merely waking up. Every evening as she, exhausted of her own brain and with a hole in the bed next to her, crawled into bed. Praying it was her last. Kept alive only by the resolution that she must not, no matter what, by hook or by crook, let Kieran win.
Now that had gone, she had nowhere to look for the sadness she felt beyond herself.