Optical Delusion

Summary: Vivian has accidentally been placed under a spell, which is causing her eyes to change colors, each accompanied with a new personality. It's up to the Royal Prep kids to figure out how to get her back to normal before the final personality becomes permanent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing! :)

A/N: Yay, Vivian is back! Since I saw that she was in a recent episode and obviously her kingdom is no longer overtaken by Baron von Rocha, I finally figured it was safe and appropriate to bring her back into my stories. :D Enjoy! [Note: References to my story Mood Swings in here!]

A/N 2: Just to help everyone out, I've made a color key for you to keep up with the changes.

Red (Angry)

Orange (Confused)

Yellow (Excited)

Green (Peaceful)

Blue (Sad)

Indigo (Affectionate)

Violet (Afraid)

*Story*

"All right, class," Fauna announced cheerfully as she floated from the back of the room to the front. "I take it you have all been reading up on ocular spells here recently. If done properly, ocular spells can be used for a variety of reasons: treating vision problems, changing eye colors, figuratively 'opening someone's eyes' to situations, and so on. As long as the intent is connected with the appropriate spell, you can be successful."

"That sounds awesome," Sofia gushed to Vivian, who smiled at her friend's excitement. "Changing your eye color? That would be neat. Although I like mine."

"Yeah, me too," Vivian echoed with a nod. "I just think it is neat, though, that these options are available to us." She picked up her wand and tapped it against her desk. "So which one would you like to do for our project, Sofia?"

"Hmm… I think the eye color one would be awesome. Ooh, maybe I could have purple eyes!" She giggled as Vivian smiled.

"You and purple… Okay, so what's the spell for that? And who should test it first?"

Sofia grinned as she leaned forward onto her desk, making Vivian blink.

"I don't like the look you're giving me."

"Oh, come on, Vivian! It'll be fun! Besides, it's only temporary." She smiled as the other princess reluctantly nodded. "I've got the spell. What color eyes would you like to try out?"

Vivian pondered before becoming a bit shy, something she thought she'd grown out of. "Well, I like a lot of colors…pink, blue, green…would it be too hard to do rainbow eyes?"

Sofia gasped at the suggestion before beaming, causing Vivian to smile in amusement at her reaction. "Ah! What a brilliant idea! Gah, 'brilliant.' Now I'm sounding like James." She giggled. "Okay, hold still." She peered into the pages and skimmed the spell before clearing her throat and holding her wand toward Vivian. "Change the color of her eyes; truthful irises disguise. Rainbow lenses, let her see…how different a perspective new windows can be." She tapped Vivian on the head, causing a spark of magic to fly out of the end of her wand. "Mutate!"

Vivian squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head slowly. "Mm, is it supposed to feel weird?"

"Huh?" The Enchancian princess gasped softly and glanced down when she noticed her amulet was glowing a soft pink shimmer. Oh, great. That couldn't be good. She quickly cupped it and willed it to settle, which it eventually did, before she turned back to her friend. "What do you mean, weird?"

"I…oh, never mind. I'm okay." She opened her eyes and gazed at her friend. "Well?"

Sofia grinned. "They're rainbow, all right!" She turned toward Hildegard. "Hildegard, do you have a mirror with you?"

The girl scoffed. "Is that even a necessary question?" She smirked and fished a mirror from her desk before handing it over to Sofia. "Be careful—it's a collectible.

The auburn-haired girl rolled her eyes good-naturedly and turned the mirror around to show Vivian. "Look!"

"Oh, wow! That's so neat!" She blinked when she noticed that the rainbow color seemed to be shifting, altering to one solid color… "Sofia, I…" Before she could say anything else, her eyes settled on one color: yellow.

Sofia blinked. "Vivian? Are you okay?"

"Am I okay…?" Vivian lowered the mirror, her eyes now a bright and vibrant yellow. A smile stretch across her face. "Are you kidding? I'm awesome! Ahh! I have rainbow eyes! Well, technically right now, I've got yellow eyes. YELLOW EYES! AHH! Who in the world has yellow eyes?! Oh, wait, a cat might! Haha!"

James, Khalid, and Zandar paused in their project and turned to the girls. "Is she okay?" James asked in concern.

"Well, she seems to be," Sofia laughed nervously. "Though I've never seen her this excited before…"

"Poor Vivian is having optical delusions," Amber remarked with a small laugh.

Vivian's eyes flashed to a new color: orange. "Huh? Optical delusion? Isn't it supposed to be 'illusion,' Amber? I'm confused." She blinked a few times, her head tilting to the side.

"Um, it's just…a play on words," the older Enchancian princess muttered with a shrug. Wait, had her eyes just changed colors again?

Sofia noticed this too and raised her hand. "Ms. Fauna?"

"Yes, Princess Sofia?" she responded as she floated over. She took one look at Vivian and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, my. So you two decided on an eye color changing spell. Wonderful! Though I'd not expected anyone to select orange…"

"Well, technically, she chose rainbow."

Fauna frowned in concern. "She did?" She made a face as Vivian shut her eyes, her hands massaging her temple. "Oh, dear. This may not be too good."

"Why, what's wrong?" Clio asked curiously.

"Well, it's one thing to alter one simple eye color to another simple eye color. But if you try to involve all natural colors, along with just about every one of the colors on the spectrum, well…you tend to overload the spell, so to speak. Typically, it just causes some discomfort."

"Well, she's been acting differently each time," Hildegard remarked. "Yellow—super annoyingly excited. Orange—baffled beyond belief."

Clio giggled. "Hey, Hildy! That's alliteration! Ha!" She grinned sheepishly as the dark-haired princess gave her a puzzled look. "Never mind."

Sofia became concerned at that point. Forget discomfort. If Vivian was changing moods on her, she had to do something about it. And she just knew her amulet had something to do with this. "Um, Vivian, maybe we should get you changed back, huh?"

Vivian's usual green had returned now, along with a strangely serene look on her smiling face. "All right, Sofia… You know what's best," she added airily as she gazed around the room. "Wow, how lovely… Did you ever notice all the different textures in this room? Interesting."

"Spoken like a true artist," Sofia giggled before grabbing her wand. "All right, let's get this spell reversed."

"No!" Vivian suddenly whirled on Sofia, her irises a despairing shade of blue, tears streaming down her face. "No, Sofia, please don't! Don't do it! I don't want you getting hurt!" She sobbed as she lowered her head to her desk, her shoulders shaking.

"Oh, my gosh!" Clio whispered in realization. "Hildy! Doesn't this remind you of that time we put a spell on Sofia and made her have mood changes?"

Hildegard lit up in realization. "Oh, wow, it does! Except this time, there's extra to it. I wasn't expecting the eye thing."

"Hold on a minute," Sofia stated clearly before glaring at the other two girls. "You guys are the reason for the mood swings in our castle that time? You should have said something! Mr. Cedric thought I was low on potassium or something and wouldn't spend much time with me for a week after that!"

"Potassium?" James asked Amber curiously, laughing uncertainly when she shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. After all, she'd been present during that time, and while she didn't necessarily have anything to do with the spell, she hadn't exactly stopped the girls either.

"Sofia, maybe get back to the matter at hand," Fauna suggested as she hovered next to her. "Vivian is experiencing something akin to mood swings, yes, but in this case with the ocular spell in place, I'm afraid it's a bit more serious. If we don't get her back to normal, her mind will lock on whatever final personality she demonstrates, thereby becoming permanent."

Zandar winced. "Are these spells even legal for Royal Prep, Ms. Fauna?"

She chuckled. "Well, normally…but there seems to be a bit of interference this time…" She gazed at Sofia, who shrunk back, unwilling to admit to anything given the circumstances.

James stood up from his desk and walked over to his friend, gently patting her on the back. "There, there, Vivian. We'll figure this out. We won't let you go hyper-personality on us." He laughed.

Vivian lifted her head, her tears ceasing as her eyes now shone a curious shade of…purple? No, indigo it seemed. She smiled lazily toward James. "Hmm. How kind of you, James. I find it sweet that you care about…little old me."

"Huh?" The blonde boy blushed a bit when she leaped forward and hugged him, her grip rather tight. "Ms. Fauna! Help! She's trapped me in her hug of doom!"

"I imagine that's how he's going to respond when we actually get around to the whole dating thing in a few years," Amber muttered to Sofia, who snickered.

Fauna laughed and shook her head. "Hang in there, Prince James. I seem to remember the counter spell, but some of the words are a bit fuzzy…hmm." She grabbed the book from Sofia's desk and sifted through it. "It must be in here somewhere."

"Amber, Sofia? Zandar? Random person walking by in the hall and stopping to stare at my predicament? Anyone?! Help!"

"Oh, honestly, James," Hildegard remarked with a grin. "I figured you would like having someone gush over you."

Vivian finally retracted her hug and stared at the boy with a frightened look, her eyes darkening a few shades to violet. "Y-You're scared of me… You should be. I'm scared of me too." With that, she dropped out of her desk and crawled under the table part of it, pulling her legs to her chin and rocking back and forth.

"Ah-hah! I found it!" Fauna floated back to the kids and waved her wand. "With these words, I set you free—"

"Grr…" Vivian stood up abruptly, knocking down the desk in the process. Her eyes flashed a horrid shade of red as she grabbed the wand from Fauna and snapped it in half. "Leave me alone! All of you! Just LEAVE ME ALONE!" She ran toward the front of the room, exiting into the hallway.

"…So I'm guessing that is Angry Vivian," Clio stated unnecessarily in order to break the silence in the room.

"This is all my fault," Sofia lamented. "Ms. Fauna, let me see the spell and I'll get her back to normal."

"Okay, dear. But be careful. Rage seems to be her final stage, and if she's not helped in a few minutes, I'm afraid it might be her permanent personality."

"Again, how is this legal?" Zandar wondered with a roll of his eyes.

Sofia grabbed the spell and ran out the door, hurrying after her friend. She passed a few rooms and searched up and down the hall. Where would Vivian go…? What did she love more than anything? She finally had an epiphany and gasped. "The music room." Turning on her heel, she headed in the opposite direction.

Vivian thrashed about the music room, scattering sheet music all over the place. She picked up a music stand and hurled it at the wall, causing it to dent a bit before clattering to the floor. She whirled quickly around when she heard her name being called. "Grr, Sofia."

Sofia, feeling timid for once in her life at seeing her friend acting this way, frowned in concern as she held her wand in one hand and her amulet in another. "I'm sorry, Vivian. I did this to you. But I'm gonna make it right! I can't have you going through life being angry all the time; that's no way to live."

"What do you know, Sofia?" she spat with a deep frown. "You don't know what it's like to be the shy, strange girl that no one wants to talk to. You don't know what it's like to have a talent for something and then have someone exploit you for it, or even attempt to steal that talent away. No, you're the outgoing, lovable princess with the knack for magic and making friends with everyone."

"I also make more enemies than everyone here," Sofia defended, her left hand clutching her amulet tighter. "I don't ask for it; it just happens. And most of the time, it's because I'm trying to do the right thing and help you guys—protect my friends. No, I'm not super shy, and honestly, Vivian…neither are you. You've come a long way from a few years ago when you hardly spoke two words to me." She smiled softly, seeing the cracks in her friend's mask forming. "We haven't had the same trials, but I know what it's like to think you know someone and have that trust shattered…and sometimes it doesn't get mended." She considered her recent interactions and shook her head. "But sometimes it does! And now can be one of those times: something good can happen again. Let me fix this."

"You think you can fix me? Prove it." Her words weren't even spoken with malice. Instead, it sounded more like a challenge…so Sofia took it.

"With these words, I set you free. I reverse the spell so you can truly see." She noticed the amulet glowing out of the corner of her eye, but she ignored it for now. "Like glass that shatters and reveals what's true, open your eyes and see only you!" She gasped when the wand sent forth a stream of magic and encircled the dark-haired girl. She blinked a few times, trying to clear away the magical remnants. A few moments later, she asked curiously, "Vivian? Are you okay?"

Vivian opened her eyes, her normal, green eyes, and smiled kindly toward Sofia. "Hey, Sofia…" She looked around, gasping at the completely trashed state of the music room. "Uh, what happened?"

Sofia giggled as she grabbed the other girl's hand, leading her toward the hallway. "It's a long story…" As she guided her out the door, she pointed her wand back toward the room and said one simple command. "Abluo." She smiled in satisfaction as the room cleaned itself and repaired any damage the other girl had accidentally caused. Then she left.

That night, Sofia had taken off her amulet and placed it on her bed. She was now staring at it, willing it to do something. She frowned. "Look, we need to have a talk." She then paused and looked skyward. "I'm talking to my amulet now…and Elena isn't even in it to offer any type of response. Great." Sighing, she stared back at the jewel. "I appreciate everything…all the help you've given me over the years. I am thankful for my powers. I'm glad Elena was set free. I'm glad you and Elena have sent princesses to guide me in the right direction. And I'm even glad I was cursed a few times to learn necessary lessons… But can you please stop trying to 'help' me in all magical situations? Like today? Vivian?" She shook her head. "No offense, but I'm not sure if that was the best way to demonstrate the ocular spell."

She noticed the amulet was now shimmering a bit, almost as if in response.

"So…we're good? I will make my wishes still if I need to, and I appreciate any real help if I'm in danger or anything…but if it's something little like that, I think I can handle it." She giggled. The amulet glowed once before dimming down, becoming stagnant once again. "I'll take that as a yes." She picked it up and put it back on, peering down at it thoughtfully. "It's weird, but…in a way, I kind of think of you as my friend now too, Amulet. You've been with me as long as some of the others have, and you've helped me become a better princess and person in general. So…thanks." She yawned and lay down, snuggling under the covers and pulling the blankets over herself as she drifted off to sleep.

Her amulet never made another shine of acknowledgement that evening, but Sofia instinctively knew things were only going to get better from here on out… She just needed to trust her amulet, her friends and family, and herself. If she could do that, she could conquer anything.

The end