-xoxo-
So Much for My Happy Ending
-xoxo-
Raven let out a sigh and carefully brushed the last lock of her hair as she looked away from the vanity in her dorm room. A new day had arrived - and Ever After High was always full of drama, but adding on the fact that it was now a one-month anniversary since the Legacy Day incident, MyChapter was already blowing up with comments.
How wonderlandiful.
Adjusting her tiara to keep a decent appearance, but not nearly as vain as the other princesses, she headed over to the door to exit, however, her gaze had decided to stray along the walls.
Not a single space on her side of the room was bare, and she adorned every area with precious moments and memories that couldn't help but make her smile. From the pictures back in Spellementary School she refused to get rid of, to her first day at Ever After High and even a few newer photos recently printed out from her spark of rebellion. An entire story, Raven Queen's New Beginning, was splayed out before her.
...and she couldn't be happier.
There was the day she first met Cerise, who was a shy clumsy mess back in the third grade. How crazy that Raven had watched one of her best friends change into someone so bold now.
Also, the time Raven and Cedar had gotten all tourist-y in Rome on a visit last summer, which resulted in the two of them almost getting noticed by normies which was both thrilling and hilarious.
Finally, there on the far right was a picture that made Raven's brightened expression slightly falter - it was one that was fairly old, but still noticeable to be sort of recent. There, side-by-side, smiling and probably at their happiest, were Maddie and Kitty together. Now, that was no surprise, the two had grown up together and were thick as thieves, but this photograph... it was different.
With a small date scrawled on the frame - Raven always dated her pictures - it was revealed that this picture was a year old.
In fact, today was the anniversary it was taken.
How had time flown by so fast?
Gently touching the black frame, Raven winced at the memory she knew that was behind it.
"Hello?" a sudden voice trilled, and the door swung open.
Taking the sorceress by surprise, the Rebel leader nearly jumped as she saw her completely and utterly mad Best Friend Forever After standing there before her, with her usual mega-watt million-dollar smile that could never be replaced by any other.
Raven let out a relieved sigh, with a soft laugh. "Hey, Maddie," she replied.
With a jokingly elegant bow, Maddie giggled. "The one and only," she declared.
"I wasn't expecting you until later. You said we were leaving at... oh." Raven had checked the time. Maddie was not, as she had thought, early. In fact, the Mad Hatter's daughter was right on time, down to the second.
Then again, that was no surprise, Maddie wasn't late for anything. (Her habit of always checking the clock for tea time had turned into a habit of wanting to know the time at the oddest moments.)
Looking to the wall, and smiling up at all of the photographs, the completely mad girl also felt a sense of nostalgia as she too began to point out frozen moments in time that were plastered into her memory. So many things in happened one's life, and pictures were the perfect way to remember them and keep track of it all.
Her eyes lingered on the picture of her and Kitty.
"When was that taken?" she asked, touching the frame.
"Last year, see?" Raven pointed to the date scribbled right below the slightly faded picture.
"Oh," Maddie said softly.
A moment of silence passed, only before she let out a sigh, and twirled a curl absentmindedly around her finger, now turning to her friend. "Well then," she piped up. "Are you ready to go out shopping for True Hearts Day? Briar trusted me in getting the cakes and teas and you have a certain someone to impress."
Raven rolled her eyes playfully. "I'm not going to impress anyone," she argued. "I just like hanging out with you."
Maddie slightly smiled and smirked... but her friend noticed that it wasn't as bright as usual.
"You know-" Raven spoke up, as she looked at the center photograph once more. "It's kind of nice that you and Kitty are still best friends, even after everything that happened."
"Yeah," the Mad Hatter's daughter replied softly. "It is."
Her blue eyes flickered navy, refusing to look back up - and being the loyal companion that she was, Raven obviously noticed this, and became the slightest bit concerned for Maddie's well-being. After all, having a best friend as mad as she was, it only made sense to worry.
Raven glanced to her friend, and raised an eyebrow. "Hey, is everything ok?" she murmured.
Maddie nodded, giving a half-hearted shrug. "I just wish I could remember what happened," she said.
"You mean, you don't?" Raven questioned.
"It was a year ago," Maddie defended. "And... sometimes, my mind gets all wibbly-wobbly and cuckoo so it sorta rejects the things that it thinks aren't important, I guess. But now that you mention, when I hang out with Kitty lately, it almost feels like our friendship is... different."
Raven reached out and placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. She couldn't imagine not being able to remember something so drastic. She had read once that the average mind tried to block out any unpleasant memories, but she hadn't really pinned Maddie down as average.
She hesitated, biting her lip. "Listen," she murmured. "A little while after that picture was taken, something went down between you and Kitty."
Maddie's gaze snapped up, and she raised an eyebrow. "What in the land are you talking about?" she inquired. "Me and Kitty have never argued, ever! It's impossible to argue with her, and that's about us! We're the masters of breaking the impossible!"
"It still happened," Raven said, slightly wincing. "Do you want to know?" Oh, Godmother, she was so stupid! Why would she want her best friend to be haunted again? "Or, y'know - we can just go shopping. Like you want."
"Well, I do enjoy a good story." Maddie sat on the end of Raven's bed, pulling a table, a teapot, teacups, and her pet mouse out of her hat. "We can have a tea-riffic tea party while you tell your story." She took a long slurp of tea and nodded to Raven.
Slightly surprised that Maddie was so willing to hear something from her past that was potentially depressing, Raven nonetheless gave in, and sat down next to her, accepting a cup of delicious peppermint tea.
Taking a cautious sip, settling into her seat, Raven began the story. "It goes a bit like this-"
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, last semester]
"Get a room you two," Cedar said suddenly, only before covering her mouth and letting out a groan. "Curse this honesty spell!"
Raven laughed at her roommate's misery, then turned her attention to her other two friends in the room, who had now ceased in their hand-holding and quick kiss-stealing, as an identical blush spread across the expressions.
"We do have a room," Kitty spoke up, drawling in her overly-sweet way. "Just separate ones. And Lizzie told me she would have our heads if she walked in on us... again."
Maddie giggled, and tossed her hair over one shoulder. "And Blondie kicked me out for being 'Just Wrong' with my decor - whatever after that means - plus she might expose us, so this is the only place we can hang out together," she explained. "Besides, you two were the ones who invited us over to a sleepover!"
"Yeah, but keep it on the down-low here," Raven teased. "I'm sure no one would find out if you two went to go act all sappy in the Enchanted Forest."
Kitty scoffed, but nonetheless still sporting her signature smile. "Enough about that," she said simply. "Are we going to watch a movie or not?"
"No normie horror movies!" Cedar wailed. "That Texas Chainsaw one kept me up for weeks!"
Raven glanced at her stack of horror films and sighed.
"Fine, no horror movies. Kitty, Maddie, what did you guys- you guys!" Kitty and Maddie were kissing again, and Raven threw one of her pillows at them to pull them apart.
"I brought The Notebook!" Cedar piped up, holding up her movie choice.
"We're not watching that sappy thing," Kitty said, curling her nose up.
"What, so we have to watch you guys, but we can't watch The Notebook? The normie actor is so enchanting." Cedar sighed, stroking the cover of her movie.
"No matter how enchanting he may be, the plot is the movie is so generic," the feline female pointed out. "I'm all for a good mystery."
"Clue is the only mystery movie you know," the marionette girl argued. "And we've seen that so many times we could all act it out backwards if we tried."
This prompted Maddie to hold up a DVD she had grabbed pretty much out of nowhere, and she smiled. From the looks of it, the cover seemed a mix between a normie film but something that could also pass off as a typical movie from the fairytale world. A woman who looked like a Princess was dressed in a shimmering gold gown trimmed with blue, and the title of the film was etched in a fancy bronze.
"Anastasia?" Raven questioned as she read the cover. "This isn't a normie fairytale rip-off, is it?" Maddie did have a habit of picking bad movies...
"It says it is a true story," the Mad Hatter's daughter defended. "And it also says it's a musical." Well, that was that. No one could budge if she had picked a musical - she simply adored anything with a good music score.
Raven took the disc from Maddie and popped it into their DVD player. The movie began and Maddie leaned against Kitty's shoulder, a smile on both their faces.
And as much as Raven and Cedar hated to admit it, their best friends did look quite cute as a couple...
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, present day]
"So," Maddie hesitated, and stopped, her happy smile slightly twitching as she placed down her cup of tea. "Kitty and I were dating? Together? Girlfriends?"
Raven gave a half-hearted shrug. "Anyway you want to put it, yeah," she said simply. "You were."
"I suppose that explains a lot," Maddie said. She was still smiling, but her eyes didn't reflect the happy, go-lucky teenager Raven had become best friends with.
Reaching out, Raven gently placed a hand over her best friend's and met her gaze. "Hey, are you ok?" she said softly.
Maddie nodded, blinking slowly as she bit her lip, thinking hard. It wasn't often she did so, but this was one of those rare moments she actually analyzed things, taking moments to reflect and be serious for once. She looked like a lot like her father when he was serious as well - her curls slightly deflated, her expression was emotionless, and her sparkling eyes were dull. If someone else who didn't know Maddie well was in the room, they wouldn't bat an eye at it, but Raven had now grown concerned.
"Maddie?" she questioned.
No response.
"Maddie."
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Madeline."
This snapped Maddie out of her trance and she blinked quickly. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'm fine. Just... thinking."
Raven let out a sigh. "I shouldn't have told you, should I?" she asked.
Maddie shook her head. "I'm glad you did," she replied. "In fact, I'd like to know more." She stiffened her lip, her smile fading away yet again. "Why aren't we still together? Kitty and me - what broke us apart?"
"Are you sure you want to know?" Raven said slowly.
It wasn't pretty. She could remember those days very easily, and to tell Maddie them... she was almost scared to know how her best friend would react.
"Tell me," Maddie encouraged, as that spark in her unforgettably blue eyes returned and she squeezed Raven's hand. "I want to know."
Raven nodded. It was hard to say no to Maddie when she was actually being serious for once.
"Ok," she said firmly. "It was around this time last year-"
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, last semester]
Maddie was going over her Crownculus homework, her eyes squinted.
"Maddie, take a break. You're gonna go mad from all this stress." Kitty joked. Raven and Cedar laughed. The four of them were having a little study party. Raven had her muse-ic notes in front of her, Cedar was sketching different types of trees, and Kitty and Maddie were going over their notes for their test next week.
"I have to get this right," Maddie muttered. She hadn't slept in a while, her focus being on her grades.
"Oh come on," Kitty urged, with a sly smile as she leaned in, brushing her lips against her girlfriend's cheek.
Normally, Maddie would have tossed her homework away long ago and let herself get dragged out of the room by Kitty, who would take them out for a snack at a cafe or off who knows where to make out, but for once, the Mad Hatter's daughter was as serious as she had ever been.
"Madeline~" Kitty trilled, in that one way no one else could as she played with Maddie's tri-colored curls.
"Katherine!" Maddie snapped, swatting her girlfriend's hand away. "I know you can't possibly understand this, but I actually need to pass this test if I want to participate in Legacy Day next year. You're passing. You can help me out, or you can leave me alone for a minute until I get this right!"
Kitty backed away slowly, watching her girlfriend bang her head softly against the desk.
"Maybe you should give her some space." Raven suggested.
"Yeah, she seems pretty stressed." Cedar said, her tree sketches forgotten.
With a soft stammer, Kitty's signature smile twitched and she got up from her seat, slinging her plaid lavender tote bag over one shoulder and leaving the dorm without another word - instead of just using her usual disappearing act.
A moment of silence passed, only before Maddie stopped, and bolted out of the chair she was sitting in, running out of the room.
"Kitty!" she called. "Wait!"
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, present day]
"And that's all I know," Raven muttered. "You ran after her and I guess you guys had a fight, because you came back crying like the world had just ended. I don't know what you two said to each other, but it must have been harsh, because you thought Kitty hated you."
Maddie's expression went pale, and tears brimmed her eyes. "Oh, Godmother," she said softly, her tone of voice almost monotone rather than cheerful. "I think I remember that day now."
That said, flashes of the past flooded her mind...
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, last semester]
Kitty whipped around, and saw her girlfriend rushing to her. "Maddie?" she said softly.
"Look, I am so super duper sorry for snapping at you, really, I am," Maddie blurted out, clasping her hands together. "I'm just... frustrated, but I want you to know you didn't make me mad and-" She stopped, and let out a sigh, hanging her head. "Can you forgive me?"
"Already have," Kitty chuckled.
However, she noticed the spark in Maddie's eyes - a spark that was not the usual type.
"You're sure you're alright?" she questioned.
With her usual smile, Maddie nodded. "Fit as a fiddle now that you know how sorry I am," she piped up, standing up on her tip-toes to quickly kiss her girlfriend, who backed away. "Something wrong?"
"Someone could see," Kitty hissed.
Maddie pulled out a piece of paper from her hat, holding it out to her girlfriend. "I forgot to give this to you earlier," she trilled. "I think you'd like it."
It wasn't much, just a small folded up piece of white paper, and when Kitty accepted it, she could've sworn she felt her smile grow genuine and irreplaceable as tears of happiness trimmed her eyes. A childish doodle, because Maddie was horrible at drawing but it was still cute.
"This is adorable," Kitty said. "But if you tell anyone I said that, I swear I'll... do... something."
Maddie giggled at her girlfriend's words, and nodded. "Cross my heart," she declared, doing the famous motion to go along with it.
With a sweet smile, the feline female looked over her shoulder quickly, only before leaning forward and taking Maddie by surprise, giving her a brief kiss that caused the completely mad girl to let out a light squeak, only before she kissed back eagerly, reaching back and swinging her arms around her girlfriend's neck, pulling her in closer on the embrace, tangling her fingers in those silky soft lavender curls.
...however, a soft shriek, a loud gasp and an audible click was heard, thus interrupting their kiss.
The Wonderlandians pulled away and looked back, frightened to see none other than Apple, Briar and Blondie standing in the hallway before them, each with a completely different reaction.
Apple looked completely horrified, Briar was shocked beyond belief and Blondie was holding back a smirk as she held her cell phone out.
This caused Kitty to push Maddie away, and with a blink of an eye, in a flash of glitter, the feline female was gone, her smile barely visible as Blondie continued to snap pictures of the scene.
Maddie could hear the three of them making comments, but instead, she quickly turned on her heel and high-tailed it out of there.
~xoxo~
[Ever After High, present day]
"And she left me," Maddie said with a shaky breath.
Raven nodded. "Yeah," she replied. "You kind of had a mental breakdown that week too - you wouldn't even let me near you and you didn't come to school either. So I don't blame you for forgetting it all. I hate to say it, but... you were probably better off, anyway, y'know, not knowing the truth and all."
"The truth may hurt like fire, but lies are like being trapped in barbed wire," Maddie muttered.
Raven's Riddlish was very rusty, but spending enough time with the Hatter family had taught her this one. And she had to admit, the meaning behind her best friend's mismatched words was very true.
A solid, almost eerie, moment of silence passed between the two best friends, only before Maddie bit her lip and asked yet another question - "How did everyone at the school react?" she murmured.
With a slight shrug, Raven hesitated. "It was nothing but a rumor that died out after a few days," she admitted. "Everyone thought that Blondie's photos were shopped, Kitty denied everything and thankfully, no one talked about it after that."
"Oh," Maddie said softly, as she blinked back a few tears.
"Listen," Raven sighed. "I don't know if you forgive Kitty for what she did, but ... now that you know the truth, I think maybe talking to her about it would help." She released a deep breath, and bit her lip. "Because I think she still cares about you like that. You brighten her up like no one else can, and even if you don't get back together-" She reached out, gently wiping away Maddie's tears as she hugged her Best Friend Forever After. "I think it'd help you both. You, especially."
Maddie shrugged.
"I don't know," she said quietly. "This was all back before I was... you know, really mad. I was just Wonderland-Mad back then. Now I'm more like Hatter-Mad."
"It doesn't matter to anyone," Raven said. "If Kitty still cares the way I think she does, it won't matter to her either."
Maddie's famous smile began to slightly shine through once more. "You really think so?" she said softly.
Raven nodded. "I know so," she declared.
The Mad Hatter's daughter was silent for a moment, only before she nodded, her smile glowing a bit brighter now. "Okay," she declared. "I'll talk to her about it." Her watch suddenly came to life, and gears shot out, alerting her that they were indeed late. "Well, in a bit! We're going to be late for a very important date!"
She yanked Raven up off of the bed, bolting the two of them right out of the room.
And sure, while the chore she had delayed was on her mind, the thought of a certain Cheshire smile wouldn't leave Maddie's mind...
~ la fin ~