Disclaimer: I don't own The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But I do own many characters/places/ideas I invent!
A/N: All the books/authors mentioned in this chapter are fictional.
When she entered her old room, Magenta gasped. It looked exactly like it had when she'd left. The two beds still had those awful old quilts, the drawings of the beach still pinned to the walls…
The shelf on her side of the room still had all the same books. Now, of course, they were covered in dust. But it was the same third edition copy of Cassi F. Fiin's Adventure, by Cate Ecc. It was a gift from good old cousin Emerald. Since Cassi F. Fiin's Adventure – like anything by Cate Ecc – was considered something only geeks liked, Magenta never read it. Right next to it was a book she had read many times: a collection of children's tales by Eryk G. Thop. Most of them seemed to involve princesses and commoners being friends.
Smiling to herself, she walked over to the half of the room her brother once lived in. Old textbooks still pilled the desk. Riff hadn't been able to decide what sort of science he wanted to study at first. So, he'd studied them all for a while. Once he'd gotten to the university he'd done classes biology and engineering. That's how he'd ended up on the mission to earth. He knew so much…
Magenta decided not to touch the desk or the piles of books. It felt somewhat wrong to her. Keeping his half of the room as untouched as possible sounded like the right thing to do. So, she began to read her copy of Diary of Ruagi Poe. It was a classic written in 1108 by famed author Nina Q. Gimentu. These days it would've been considered cliché, but it was groundbreaking 200 years ago.
Just as she was really getting into the story, somebody knocked on the door.
"Come in," Magenta called.
To her surprise, it was a young girl. She wore a simple dress and had curly red hair very much like Magenta's. Of course, many people in their family had red hair. But her brown eyes made the resemblance even more uncanny. Almost the exact same eyes had stared at Magenta in the mirror for years…
"My name is Rose," the girl said. "Are you my older sister?"
"I'm Magenta Satis," Magenta replied.
Rose smiled a wonderfully bright smile. 'Then you are my sister. I think I was born after you left. Mummy always said I looked like a younger version of you."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Mummy often speaks of you. It must be nice for her that you're back!"
Magenta didn't really know how to reply. It was all so strange. They'd been wishing she'd never left all this time yet never went looking for her or anything.
"Did they ever speak of my br- our brother?" Mags asked.
The girl nodded. "Sometimes. They said he's a great scientist who invents all sorts of exciting things while living in the city. Of course, they never exactly said what the exciting things he invents are… do you know what he invents?"
Awfully enough, Magenta didn't have the heart to explain that he hadn't ever really 'invented' anything – except for a muscleman, and that was only because he'd been ordered to – and that he wasn't living in the city. He wasn't even alive.
"His inventions are a secret that he never tells anyone," Magenta lied.
Though it felt wrong to lie to the girl, at least Mags could lie. That child she'd babysat while living with Janet could hear/read/whatever people's thoughts. So it was pretty much impossible to lie to her.
Despite looking a bit disappointed, Rose's cheery manner didn't falter.
"Do you want me to read you a story?" Magenta asked.
What else does someone say to a child? Especially a sweet, innocent one like Rose. You just wanted to block out anything scary or sad with the sound of an exciting story when you saw such a child.
"Can you tell me a story instead? You know, make it up as you go along?"
That wasn't as easy. "Okay… about what?"
"Romance and adventure!"
Magenta laughed. "Well, then. Once upon a time, in a far-off star system, there lived a girl with curly red hair and nice brown eyes. She was a princess and would one day rule an entire planet. Unfortunately, an evil mad scientist who wore woman's underclothes with nothing over them-"
"Why did he wear woman's underclothes with nothing over them?" Rose asked, looking confused.
"Because I once knew a very bad person who dressed like that," Magenta explained nervously. She hadn't meant to say that…
"Oh. Keep telling the story, please."
"So. The villain who kidnapped her wanted to keep her prisoner until she'd paid her debt to his. Thankfully, a wonderful young man named Rif, er, Ricky decided to save the day. He fought a terrible sword fight with the guy in woman's underclothes. Finally, after almost getting his arms cut off in a very gory manner, Ricky won and rescued the princess. Then they got married and lived happily ever after. Neither of them died for a very long time, and she never got part of her foot burned off by gloopy blue stuff. The Galaxy was saved from a crazy scientist in women's underclothes and all was well."
"That wasn't a good story," Rose said, after a moment.
"What do you mean?"
"It was too short and it didn't have starships in it. A good story needs starships in it!" Rose explained, rolling her eyes at her older sister's foolishness.
Mags sighed. The girl was right. It wasn't a good story. But it wasn't because it didn't have starships in it. The main reason it was awful was that it was mostly just what Magenta wished had happened.
She felt like the Earthling poet Edgar Allen Poe. His beloved wife/cousin Virginia had died far too young. So he'd spent years writing poetry about beautiful women who'd died young. Of course, an awful fairy tale wasn't really the same thing as a renowned work of verse. But it was close enough…
This wasn't healthy, Magenta knew. She needed to focus only on living people. Like her parents or her cousins or Rose.
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