A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, b57 – write a fic with at least three dividers.
Once Upon a Time there was a Wish
They were tales to make one's toes curl in fright, to make the smooth contour of skin rise in irregular lumps, to make the young child cower under her bed at night and the elder one laugh because they knew full well it was the stuff of fairy tales – except it wasn't a fairy tale. It was reality and she couldn't listen to it and hide under the blankets and pretend it was all make believe, pretend she was safe. She didn't even want to.
She was the only one in the world who knew the truth.
She made the truth.
.
Once upon a time, the world was a quiet fairy tale. She lived in a glasshouse surrounded by a lush garden and was waited upon like a princess. The sun shone, and when the sun didn't shine it was the lights atop the glasshouse, glittering like stars in the grey sky. It was never black. And sometimes the rain ran down the glasshouse walls in tumbling drops, or the hail tapped away in a rhythm far clumsier than the birds outdoors.
In the pleasant days she was carried outside. The birds were all soft, gentle birds. They ate from her hands without snatching skin and blood from them as well. They sung gentle lullabies and fluttered just out of reach otherwise. It was almost fun, trying to poke them, them trying to dodge – it was almost like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey's face but she wasn't a hungry girl. Her keepers fed her well. It was just a game in the end and they played to their hearts' content.
Luckily, they were never content.
And she was content but never happy.
And in the more dreary days she stayed in the glasshouse, watching the rain pour and, on occasion, the thunder grumble and coax the gently swaying flowers to break their tether and curl.
But that was once upon a time, and once upon a times lasted forever only in fairy tales.
And it was never towards the happier end that such twists turned.
.
Dreams crumbled. Dreams were made to crumble and she'd been living in one: her little glass house.
Till this day, she's not quite sure why it all crumbled. After all, she'd been the same: the frail little girl who needed to be carried everywhere, who needed to be waited on hand and foot… But then one day the glasshouse was gone and she was put into a white room with a single bed and machines and not much else.
And it was painful and ugly and boring and intolerable.
.
It was a passing, token, gift. Usually flowers that paled to the ones that had been in the garden and who died all too quick. Sometimes chocolate the ghosts in white would take away before she could muster up the strength to reach for them – but this stayed. Maybe because it wasn't something that could be spoilt, or could spoil her.
At the beginning though, it was as boring as everything else around her, those WIXOSS cards.
.
With nothing else to do, she dreamed. She created her own fairy tale, full of the twists of her own glass dome and the beautiful garden beyond. She drew them from the tales her handlers would tell her, from the stories she'd red, from the bland white room she was now in with nothing save sparse white ghosts and the packet of cards someone had brought for her and the instruction manual it held. It was an interesting game as it was, and she embellished it further. The girls in the pictures came to life. Losing had consequences. Winning had consequences too. Just living, just playing, came with a price.
After all, she hadn't asked for her glass haven, and she hadn't asked to lose it as well.
Life was just like that, giving gifts and then snatching them away.
.
Once upon a time there was a game that could make your wish come true.
It started as the perfect fairy tale.
But reality had a dark twist thrown in. There was a price to be paid with all. And wishes were things beyond dreams, beyond that soft rolling water down a glassy wall…
Once upon a time, she'd wished to be cured, to be healthy. She could be content in that glass house but not happy, never happy.
In the cold wide room she couldn't be either of those things. But she could watch the others, watch her game unfold, spread like a spider's web and ensnare more and more…
It was a web of hopelessness. A web of truth that caught them when they didn't believe. Those fools who still thought life would grant wishes on a birthday cake. Who thought winning a simple game would be enough to tempt fate's generous hand.
Fate wasn't generous. And in the smaller world of her game, she wasn't generous either.
In that world, she was Fate. And she made the truth.
That all stories that started with wishes ended in despair. And despair was an unescapable, expanding web.