So here's chapter eight! Hope you guys enjoy it, and as always, please review! :D


Holly O'Hair's Fanfiction Diary

Eight: Introspection and Imminence


Raven hadn't been effected by Holly's 'Rapple' story. To be honest, she'd been the target of far worse rumors since elementary school. The story itself hadn't caused her to question anything about herself.

What had caused her to question herself was her own reaction to Apple's reaction to the story.

Apple had been dead set on being close to Raven since the first day of school, when she'd discovered that Raven was to become her Evil Queen. It had been suffocating, obnoxious and just a little bit infuriating (especially all of Apple's hare-brained schemes to turn Raven evil), but after some time had passed, Raven gradually got used to it. The hand-holding, the clinging, Apple randomly popping up when she felt she wasn't getting enough attention…at first it had shocked, and even mortified the far more introverted Raven, but slowly she began to grow immune to this behavior, accepting it with little more than long-suffering sigh.

When Apple had abruptly begun distancing herself, and even actively taking steps to avoid Raven, it had been a shock for more reasons than the obvious one. Despite the obvious worry she felt for her roommate due to this sudden change in behavior, Raven fully expected herself to be at least a little bit relieved that there wasn't a tiny, excitable blonde hanging off her arm.

But she wasn't.

Instead, whenever Apple would catch sight of her, then make some lame excuse to rush off, Raven felt something inside her chest squeeze, and not in the good way it sometimes did when Apple would do something unexpectedly and incredibly sweet for her. It was worse in class, when Apple would go out of her way to pair up with somebody, anybody other than Raven. It used to annoy Raven when Apple would grab onto her and loudly, playfully stake her claim on her. Now that she wasn't doing so, Raven found herself feeling almost ridiculously hurt, even wounded, when Apple made a beeline for Briar in Chemythstry. In less than a day, Apple had gone from practically glued to Raven's side to not being able to get away from Raven fast enough. And that hurt far more than Raven thought it strictly should, especially considering how annoyed she'd been by this behavior before it had abruptly stopped.

Now, though, Apple had made the reason for her avoidance after Holly's story came out abundantly clear.

And Raven had no idea how she felt.

She liked Dexter. She did. He was a sweet guy and he treated her well…or at least, he tried to, but the poor guy was just so…bumbling sometimes. Dexter was sweet and he never looked at Raven like she was the villain—like he was afraid of her. That had been one of the things that had drawn her to him, back when the whole school was scared she'd turn them into toads or something if they got on her bad side.

When she was with him, before and after he had finally worked up the courage to ask her out, she felt…nice. It wasn't exhilaration, or heart-pounding, necessarily…but it was nice.

With Apple, though…

With Apple, it always felt like an adventure. It didn't matter if they were going off to fly dragons together or just taking a detour on the way back from Crownculus class—somehow, Apple's almost childlike positivity and seemingly inexhaustible energy made everything feel like so much…more…than it really was. When Apple would grab her hand and shoot her that dazzling smile, Raven felt like Apple could be taking her absolutely anywhere and she'd follow her there.

Apple had completely and utterly flipped Raven's life on its head the day they had met. Raven could say in complete honesty that she had never, ever met another person quite like Apple White. Apple was naïve, clingy and selfish, and didn't even realize it. Apple loved to be the center of attention and would plow right over the line if it got in her way. But when she looked at Raven with those eyes and that dazzling smile, it made Raven (cautious, cynical Raven) feel like she was the only thing Apple saw.

Dexter was safety, dates at the movies and niceness. Dexter was a warm, soft peck on the forehead because he was raised to be a gentleman.

Apple was unpredictability, unplanned adventures and exhilaration. Apple was a heated, desperate kiss like she absolutely couldn't hold back any longer.

And Raven had no idea what to do.


A hundred years...

It was such a very short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Humans had been around for hundreds of thousands of years, after all. One person, one destiny, couldn't possibly hold any significance in the great story that was life.

And yet…

In the span of a hundred years, entire civilizations had crumbled and fallen to ashes, to dust. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost every single year. How many lives was that, in a hundred? Did those lives matter? Was that big enough to make a difference in the story?

Briar sat at her desk, staring out at the sky while Madam Maid Marian went on about…something or another. Something to do with princes and dragons, probably.

Princes…

Did it really count as rescue if she had to wait a hundred years for it? Hadn't she already suffered her fate by then? Wouldn't all of her friends, all of her family—wouldn't they all be dead already?

Briar was beginning to think that hers was a story in which there was no true rescue.

But when Holly wrote that story about her…something inside of her had twitched, as if awakening from a long slumber of its own. Something like…

Like hope.

She still wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Hope was a dangerous ally at the best of times, always ready to turn against its own. But at the same time, it was precious—a candle in a pitch black cave, or a light at the end of the tunnel. Hope was a lot like love, really. Intoxicating, euphoric, it leaves you feeling like you could do absolutely anything.

Until it's lost, or proven false. And then it feels like the whole world is crashing down around you, and you wish you'd never known that incredible feeling to begin with.

Briar stopped her thoughts there. She hated getting down—it caused her to want to sit around and feel sorry for herself and if she was busy doing that she couldn't go out and live the remainder of her days with her friends to the fullest. Besides that, she was aware that some of her peers looked up to her, and having a hexistential crisis simply would not do. Especially now, when so many of Ever After High's most basic principles were being uprooted and overturned, leaving many students confused about where they belonged. And of course Holly O'Hair's fanfiction blog, which had taken the school by storm since its first post, was causing some students to doubt themselves in other ways on top of that.

But Briar was of the firm belief that if things needed to change at Ever After High, or at least that they weren't 'just right' as they were, as Blondie would say. And if that meant uprooting every last ancient, biased foundation one by one (as it so often did when change of any kind came about), well, so be it. They would all just have to buckle their seatbelts and hold on tight for the ride.

As for Briar herself…well, she tried to remain unaffected by the whole frenzy. After all, Briar was usually far more laidback than her friends, and it was perfectly natural for her to completely ignore any rumors concerning herself, whether they left her in a positive light or a negative one. She had tried to do the same with Holly's story, and had halfway succeeded. The first bit was easy, because she really didn't care if half the school was convinced she was in bittersweet love with her fairytale villain (although Faybelle did, if the way the entire cheerhexing squad looked even more terrified of their leader than usual was anything to go by). But she had to sympathize with the other subjects of Holly's fanfiction in that it was very hard to remain completely unaffected by the story.

And try as Briar might to ignore the feeling, to push it down, Holly's story had brought it bubbling to the surface like water boiling over the pot, impossible to stop.

Hope.

A belief that, however fragile, however dangerous, there might just be a way out that wouldn't cause her entire story to unravel. And she didn't know how or why, or even whether the belief was founded by anything beyond Holly O'Hair's fanfiction, but something within Briar told her that the first step was to find Faybelle.

This was why she hated hope, she thought as she sighed and turned her attention back to Madam Maid Marian, who had, for some inexplicable reason, donned hand puppets. It made people do crazy things.

Then again, crazy things were kind of Briar's specialty.


Poppy walked into the dorm room she shared with Holly after a rather grueling practice session with Duchess to find her twin hunched over her desk, long locks splayed out around her like an enormous red halo.

She took her time on her way to her bed, removing her flats as she went and sighing softly as her feet felt the fresh air and hit the soft carpet. These practices were killer on her feet, and half the time her whole body ached from what could be anywhere between thirty minutes to two hours of holding herself in proper dance position. Yet the thought of walking out on Duchess, of just quitting, hadn't occurred to her since she first made Duchess come clean about her motive. It was kind of weird, really, but she supposed the time she spent with Duchess outweighed the aches she walked around with the next day.

She stopped halfway to tossing her bag on her bed, pausing on that last thought. Spending time with Duchess outweighed physical pain? For a long moment Poppy stood there, letting the thought sink in. Then her eyes flitted back to Holly, whose arms were now stretching straight out across the wood of the desk, her face flat on the hard surface, and she decided that wasn't something she really needed to stress over at this particular second.

Dumping her bag haphazardly on the floor, she sauntered across the floor until she was staring directly down at her sister.

Holly twitched, but gave no other sign that she was aware her sister had even entered the room.

"Writer's block?"

A low, despairing moan told her all she needed to know. Poppy shook her head, rolling her eyes affectionately, and dropped her hand onto Holly's head, patting her sister reassuringly.

Living with a writer for her entire life meant that Poppy was completely unfazed by Holly's behavior, which may have alarmed anyone else.

"You'll get over it," she said. "You always do."

The reply she got in return sounded a lot like, "Not this time," but Holly's voice was clearly being muffled by both the wood her face was currently resting on and the generous hair tent surrounding her. Poppy rolled her eyes and dropped her hand. She knew better than to try to get Holly out of her weird funks. The only reason she'd said anything was out of obligation as her twin.

Crossing back to her side of the room, leaving Holly to bask in her despair (which she wasn't entirely sure Holly didn't actually kind of enjoy), she flung herself onto her own bed.

What was she doing?

Was she seriously developing feelings for Duchess Swan? Was she really going to go there?

The idea that she might like a girl didn't bother Poppy. She tended to crush on boys more than girls but it wasn't like she'd never been there before. What disarmed Poppy wasn't the gender, but the person herself.

Fucking Duchess Swan.

Ha, she thought after a second. Double meaning.

But seriously. Duchess Swan wasn't the best person to be crushing on—in fact, Poppy was pretty sure she was just about the worst. She didn't know if Duchess liked guys or girls—her raging jealousy over Apple White's veritable harem was, Poppy was quite sure, more out of jealousy over the attention than jealousy over the boys themselves. But even tabling that issue…Duchess was certainly not an easy person to love. Bitter, jealous, vengeful…not the best combination if things ever went sour.

But…

But.

Poppy was discovering that there was so much more to Duchess than the jealousy and the snark. Of course, she'd never really thought Duchess was a genuinely bad person—it was far too obvious on the odd occasion she went too far that she regretted hurting those around her. But she'd never really bothered to look deeper, to find out what was underneath that cracking bitter shell. Half of her really wished she hadn't now, because despite being unusually immune to all the petty crushes and swooning that came with being a teenage girl, Poppy couldn't help but melt a little when Duchess let herself just relax.

Because though she was oftentimes every bit as bitter and vengeful and jealous as she behaved, Duchess could be incredibly sweet when she let down her spiky wall. There had been multiple occasions upon which Duchess had refused to let Poppy leave their practices before she had a look at Poppy's feet and/or legs to ensure that she hadn't strained or sprained anything. The jealousy, when not necessary as a defense mechanism, seemed to manifest as protectiveness and concern. What really killed Poppy was the way Duchess would look at her sometimes, in the middle of their dancing or during their idle chatting before they left, oak-colored eyes soft and warm, full of something Poppy never would have equated with Duchess before. She was starting to realize that, besides making Duchess somewhat bitter and quick to jealousy, the reality of her destiny and the way she was constantly coming in second made Duchess very attached to those people who did care (who, dare she think it, she cared for herself).

In a relationship, Poppy had no doubt that Duchess would be high-maintenance, jealous and possessive. That alone was enough to make Poppy hesitate. She had always been very independent, had never liked relying on anyone for anything she could do herself, and hated being held back from what she wanted to do. But…

But when Duchess looked at her like that, like Poppy was something precious that she was terrified of losing, she felt like she could want Duchess enough to let that slide, just a little bit.

And that was what scared her about potentially liking Duchess. Not that she was a girl, or even that, when provoked, her tongue was like a sharpened blade. Poppy was scared that she could lose herself in Duchess, and that for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be in complete control of herself and her emotions.

But this was all pointless. Duchess would never stoop so low as to even consider dating Poppy, who was not only a female, but didn't even have a fairytale to her name.

Sighing, she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. As if this wasn't enough of a pain in the ass, Duchess had apparently decided that her skills were adequate (perfect) enough to invite an actual male to their next session. It wasn't as if the standards were particularly high (Sparrow Hood was hardly anybody's Prince Charming), but it signified something much more than that. It implied that Duchess was starting to hit the bar she had set for herself, and when she did, it would mean the end for their practices, and for herself and Duchess being anything more than indifferent acquaintances.

It was a little bit silly that such a prospect depressed her so much, and the fact that it did kind of made Poppy want to kick her own ass. It hadn't been much more than a month since Duchess had dragged her kicking and screaming into the suspiciously deserted classroom to begin with—being so depressed over losing a maybe-friendship she'd had for less than two weeks was pretty ridiculous. As was developing real feelings for anyone that she'd only had any real contact with for such a short period of time, she reminded herself.

Grimm, she was turning into Holly.

As if on cue, Holly slumped out of her chair and fell face-first onto her bed, letting out an utterly pitiful groan and kicking her feet half-heartedly.

Poppy rolled her eyes. Okay, maybe she wasn't quite that bad just yet.

And she didn't have to be. All she had to do was clumsily (though she in actuality she was getting quite good) waltz her way through another few practice sessions with Duchess without allowing her feelings to grow any further.

Yep.

No problem.

She was Poppy O'Hair, after all. She was the last person who would ever lose herself over something as silly as a crush.


Okay! So that's chapter eight! I really hope you all liked it! As I have said before, I have no particular set schedule for the timing of metafic chapters and purely story chapters, and obviously this is one that focuses on story again. Please, bear with me—as the story continues and pairings expand and develop, obviously more time will need to be given to the story to really give it the fleshing out it deserves. There will be metafics throughout the story, obviously, as they are the driving force, but like I said, as more of the school starts to be affected and intertwined by Holly's fanfiction, more time will need to be spent on that. I don't want to cough out a bunch of cheap, short little cop-out bits around a big metafic when feelings and plots need to be focused on more.

I really hope you guys understand and still enjoy both aspects of the story! Please remember to leave your reviews as always—you guys are really awesome about that and I really, really appreciate it! Please continue to review, as it really is my main motivation and I really do look forward to hearing from you guys!