(A/N): Hello again~

As promised, I remembered to update today. And I think I've planned out all the chapters for this fic (there should be about nine chapters.) Considering I've written five or six now, it's very likely that I'll be able to update every three or four days instead of every week very soon.

This chapter is set around the end of The Crypt Keep's Solution, or perhaps the beginning of Choose Your Coffin. Again, its more of a flesh out conversation between the two, but I feel like the same themes come up between these two that start to develop throughout the fic.

Chapter Two/Fourteen : The Crypt Keeper's Solution

'Hansel and Gretel'

Of all the things that Agatha disliked about being away from her home, she couldn't stand her room. All the frills, all the pink - all the mirrors. Wherever she looked she met her own dark, brooding gaze. It barely took five minutes before she couldn't stand it.

So she started studying in classrooms instead. She actually started studying because if she ever wanted to get home, she had to pass her classes. And if she wanted to pass, she had to be somewhere where she could concentrate. Some of it was, surprisingly, bearable.

She revelled in the silence - without girls chirruping away like canaries. She liked it not reeking of a thousand different sickly sweet perfumes. She liked that sometimes little animals sat by her and didn't scurry away when she looked at them. Not nice animals - mostly pigeons and rats (though they could have been oversized mice to a teacher) and the occasional bat. It was a good opportunity to practice talking to him, because, where she despised Princess Uma's airy-fairy ways, she was all the more lonelier without Sophie, and if humans weren't going to hang out with her, maybe animals would. She always preferred animals to people anyway.

Eventually, Agatha found herself frequenting the Hansel's Haven classrooms the most; because then she could snack whilst she studied. (Though, since coming to the school, she found herself being tempted by the candy less and less. She still loved it, but she also considered filching sandwiches and vegetables from the kitchen for a bit of variation. Maybe Professor Anenome's warnings had a subconscious effect...)

She withdrew her mind from the strange thoughts and buried her nose in her book. Since when did she care about warts?

Most of the time, she had to roll her eyes at the textbook's content - sickly sweet girly lies straight out of a tween magazine. Sometimes, though, there were parts that held some merit. Puzzling out riddles and being able to tell an old woman in need from a witch in disguise...that could be useful...

The door suddenly opened and she jumped out of her skin. Was she caught?! Would she be told off for being here?!

As soon as she saw how it was, however, she hid her surprise under a layer of disgust.

"Oh, it's you." She drawled.

"It's normally empty in here," Tedros muttered, his own voice veiled with distaste. He seemed slightly embarrassed to be caught sneaking in. He spotted the piece of gingerbread in her hand and smirked. "Don't you know how much trouble temptation brought Hansel and Gretel?"

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't Gretel shove the witch into the oven?" Agatha simpered in the same sarcastic tone.

"Are you saying that boys are useless?" Tedros asked, venturing into the room.

"Are you saying that they're not?" Agatha closed her book and looked him square in the eye. "What can a boy do that a girl can't?"

"Learn fencing?" Tedros suggested, his eyes glittering. He knew that Agatha hated the school being split into gender classes and it was a blow beneath the belt.

"Good point," Agatha muttered, glowering at nothing in particular. A pigeon, who had been following Agatha around, cooed, then defecated on the floor of the classroom. The boy and the girl looked at it for a moment, then smirked at each other.

"Dovey will have your head," Tedros said, sitting on one of the desks. It sunk a little under his weight, but whatever magic held it in place stayed.

"Well, if I can't fight an ogre or a troll, at least I can make a pigeon poop on them," Agatha said sweetly. She realised she was smiling and looked away - slightly aghast that Tedros would have to see that - forcing her mouth back into its usual shape.

Just like that, the two seemed to remember that they hated each other and there was an awkward tension in the room. Agatha listened to her rat squeak at her and replied curtly and swiftly. As if. She felt a gaze on her and her eyes flickered back to Tedros.

"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious. She had always thought Princesses complete crackpots to talk to animals, and here she was...talking to animals.

"Firstly; that's like talking in a foreign language to your friend, I just get the feeling that you're badmouthing me-" He said, counting off his fingers.

"I was," Agatha said dryly.

"-Second; that's a mouse." He spoke over her.

"If you're scared of mice, then you and Beatrix are made for each other," Agatha allowed herself a smirk when she saw Tedros wince, touching the rat - mouse - between its velvety ears.

"I meant a rat would be more fitting." Tedros shot back, just as venomously.

Agatha recoiled.

The mouse nudged her fingers, it's nose slightly damp.

It drew her gaze to it, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing -but that's a mouse.

"What's the difference between a rat and a mouse, anyway?" Agatha asked slowly. The tiny grey creature blinked up at her with huge dark eyes.

"Rats are for nevers, mice are for evers," Tedros' voice replied. He sounded so certain, considering his argument was so empty.

Agatha sighed, leaning her head back on the windowsill so that she was looking at the ceiling. What was with this mentality? Was it drilled into these kids from a young age?

"Do you really believe everything is as black and white as that?" she pressed. "That you're either born good or born evil and that's all there is to it? That you have no choice in who you'll become?"

She lowered her chin so that she could meet his eye. Not unusually, the Prince's face was screwed up in concentration (he often struggled to keep up in Good Deeds, or, any lesson that wasn't physical), but she felt a spark of triumph. He was thinking!

Eventually, after at least a full minute of silence, Tedros pulled his hand through his curls.

"Princesses aren't supposed to-" he started.

"-Think?" Agatha interrupted, raising an eyebrow. He flushed slightly but said nothing. "It's a good thing I'm not a Princess then, isn't it?"

His blue eyes stuck on hers. There was such an intensity, beyond the vacancy that she always saw, that she looked away, her finger tracing the spiral patterns the candy made on the floor. She hated being looked at like that - like she was an animal or an enigma he just couldn't figure out. She hated the binary labels of the place - why couldn't she just be Agatha?

"I suppose it is," Tedros said slowly.

There was a sudden crash from the corridor, and the ambience of a group of bawdy teenage boys appeared all too suddenly. They both jumped and looked away from one another, as though scared of being caught in the act of speaking to each other. As far as Agatha could tell, girls didn't speak to boys here. If they did spend time with them, it was to be a decoration, like Beatrix. (It almost made her feel sorry for her. Almost.)

A group of the boys, led by Tristan, thumped down the corridor and swung their heads around the door.

"Oy, Tedros!" he called, his face bright red and shining with sweat. Behind him, they continued to throw a rugby ball about dangerously. (Taking out at least three light fixtures.) "You coming for a workout, mate?"

"Sure," the Prince replied easily. It was easier to spend time with guys than with the only girl he knew that spoke her mind to him. (Which he kind of liked - he just wished it wasn't her.)

"Was that the witch in here with you?" another one of the boys asked, catching the rugby ball one handed and jostling to get a better view of the room.

Tedros glanced back, ready to call her out and tease her a little (then he wouldn't have to think about her question), but Agatha was gone. A missing piece of floorboard, broken pen and over-sized mouse was all that was left of her.

"No," he said, snatching the rugby ball away. "No, it was just me."

Crouching under the windowsill precariously, trying to find the next step to get back to the ground, Agatha breathed a sigh of relief. Her heart was pounding from the effort of staying hidden.

She loathed Tedros. But just for a moment there, he seemed to think. She kind of liked having a sensible conversation with someone - she just wished it wasn't him.

(A/N): Thank you for all of the support - I know I've had some very interesting conversations as a result of posting this fic. I hope you guys will stick around for the end.

(In regards to the third book, I don't think I will ever read it . I have flicked through the ending and I just don't want to sit through something I know I won't enjoy. I'm going to stick to taking the first book as a stand-alone book, which may be a bit a-holeian, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

See you next week~! C: