Author's note: Special thanks to Lady Elvira for prompting me to not be quite so vague and fix some mistakes sooner rather than later
"And so the princess and the prince live happily ever after." Sheska reads and everyone politely claps, except for one girl in the back who cheers loudly.
"Yay! They found one another." She cries. "I had a feeling they would but for a moment it looked like it wouldn't happen."
"Well, it's a fairytale." Sheska tells the blond girl looking so out of place with a blindfold over her eyes. "In them, the prince always saves the princess, the evil witch dies and everyone lives happily ever after."
"Do you think they can be real?"
"What do you mean?" Sheska is frowning now. The girl's eyes seem to be watching her eagerly behind the scrap of red cloth.
"Fairytales." she asked. "Do you think that somewhere there's a grand adventure out there waiting for you?"
Sheska shakes her head, "No, I'm happy enough with the adventures my books can bring me."
"You never wanted to save a prince from a curse? Or save a kingdom from the clutches of an evil witch?"
"That's what fairytales are for."
The world around Sheska darkens and she hears crying. Mournful crying laced with sorrow and angst. A sound filled with pain and misery. The young woman looks around, searching for the source, listening inside the darkness.
"Why?" she hears a man whisper. "Why did he have to die?"
She takes a step and feels something squish under her feet. The crying continues and the question is repeated. Someone cackles from within the shadows and chills run down her spine.
Something isn't right, Sheska realizes and feels something brush against her skin. Goosebumps rise up and she hears cries and laughter merge.
"Why did he have to die?" the man asks once more
"Because this is how it begins!" the voice of the blindfolded girl maliciously answers.
Sheska jerked awake, gasping for breath. The cool night sky is spread out above her head, the stars like tiny holes microscopic moths have eaten through an indigo blanket.
Despite the campfire at her side had long since died and turned to blackened embers, Sheska finds she's oddly warm. She exhales loudly, her heart beat slowing and buries her face in the soft fur beneath her.
Wait…fur?
She hears a rumble underneath her and goes to launch herself away from whatever she is laying on when a large black paw wrapped itself around her. Sheska smothered a whimper at the sight of large claws inches from face.
"Go to sleep, Miss Homely ex-librarian." Came Envy's voice clearly from the mouth of the animal. She sees a recognizable flash of light off to her right and a slender arm pulls the sleeping bag up around her.
Flushed with anger, Sheska slapped the thick side of the bear and he lets out a quiet ooof. She smacked him again when the homunculus had the gall to begin laughing.
"You couldn't even tell the difference between me and a real bear." Envy told her. "Some psychic you are."
"I was asleep!"
"Liar, you were making noises."
"I was dreaming." Sheska argued. Envy shifted his form, the transmutation tickling her skin. She shivered at the sharp appraisal in his eyes.
"What was it about?"
"A-a memory of when Nicollete and I met." She stammered. Sheska could feel his relentless eyes boring into her as she looked away.
"That day I read from a book of fairytales and she asked me if I ever wanted to live in one. I told her that reading a fairytale was the closest anyone could get."
"But then it changed." She told him with a frown. "Everything went dark and I heard a man grieving. He asked why he had to die and she answered him."
"Nicollete."
"She said it was how it began." Sheska looked back at Envy and shuddered, the sleeping bag slipping off her shoulders. "Was that even a vision? It didn't feel like one."
An expression of smug clarity showed in the homunculi's eyes. He shifted and wrapped the sleeping bag back around her.
"It was a vision." Envy told her confidently. "But of the past. She had a few vague ones about the past."
"What could it all mean?"
"Try to figure it out."
Sheska saw the hint of a smirk quirk one side of his mouth and she fought the urge to hit him again. He let her get away with it once but no doubt wouldn't allow a second time.
"How it begins. Someone's death. The first time we met. Fairytales. A cursed prince."
When she heard Envy snort, Sheska knew she was on the right track.
A cursed prince's death is how a fairytale begins? No that's not right, that's too clear of a vision. She frowned and tried taking out the obscure references.
The death or loss of someone is how it starts? What is it that begins? Maybe it's her words that are important. A grand adventure for me about saving a place from an…wait.
"An evil witch with a kingdom in her clutches. A powerful woman I couldn't imagine. Hiding from the military, who are…"
Sheska was coming to a horrible conclusion and a delightfully wicked gleam appeared in Envy's eyes.
"And I was beginning to have doubts." He cooed. "Imagine that, a few offhand comments and an ambiguous prophetic dream and you figured that part out."
"Is the military… under your Master's control?" she silently urged Envy to deny it and felt her stomach plunge when he gave her a gleeful smile.
"For the most part."
"Most..ly?"
He happily nodded, "Ever wonder what's under the Führer's eye patch?"
An Ultimate Eye, something whispered. It reached out to her, promising answers. Sheska felt a stab of pain and she forced that Pandora's Box closed. She couldn't afford the time she'd lose recovering.
"No, I never did wonder." She whispered. "I never wanted a grand adventure outside the pages of a book."
"But books can't get your heart pounding." Envy pointed out. "No book no matter how well written can replace the real thing."
"Adventures can get someone like me killed." Sheska retorted and Envy's expression grew serious.
"I won't let anything happen to you." he swore and suddenly she was overcome with a sense of déjà vu.
Oh yeah, she told me the same thing before Envy and I met. It was her promise to me, Sheska realized. And she made one to him.
"You just want to be shown where he is"
Envy's eyes subtly widened. Sheska wondered what she might have said to receive such a reaction when shock swiftly yielded to fury. A sudden chill hung on the edge of his words.
"And what do you mean by him?"
"I-I saw…a vision…after I passed out." She stammered. "You promised her to protect me so I could carry on a promise. The one she was sorry about not keeping."
Sheska gulped and he snorted relaxing as he shook his head.
"And funny enough, you're doing that."
As he shifted beneath her, she became aware of just how intimate their positions were. Her chest pressed to his, one of his legs trapped between her own. A rush of pink stained her cheeks.
"Oh dear," cooed Envy. "Don't tell me it took Miss unemployed spinster with no social life this long to realize exactly where she's laying?"
"My name is Sheska, Mr weird cross dressing alien with a green fetish."
"Touché." The homunculus replied with delight and then innocently cocked his head, "So Sheska, going to get out of my lap anytime soon?"
He gave her a devilish grin, "Or did you want to sit there and talk about the first thing that pops up?"
Sheska promptly scrambled away from him landing in a heap, hopelessly tangled in the sleeping bag. Envy laughed at the pathetic sight she made.
"Get back over here." He told her morphing back into the form of a bear. He rolled onto his back and patted his belly. "You'll end up freezing."
Sheska struggled within the sleeping bag which seemed to amuse him further. When she began helplessly rocking around on the ground, Envy threw back his muzzle and let out a great peal of laughter.
It was deep timbered, kin to the voice she heard before in the hotel. She had a feeling that the smoldering voice that promised steamy erotic nights was his actual voice. One that he didn't use often and was only revealed by a rare occasional slip.
"Are you stuck?" Envy purred, his dark honeyed voice sending shivers down Sheska's spine. She struggled ineffectively against the cloth prison before letting out a defeated noise.
He chuckled as he rolled, slid a large paw underneath her and pulled her up on his chest as he rolled onto his back. There was a brief flash and a human arm rearranged the sleeping bag.
A companionable silence passed between them. Sheska, warm lying on top of Envy's soft bear fur. Envy, relaxed but standing guard as he stared up at the starry sky. Moments passed and Sheska was about to fall back asleep when Envy quietly spoke.
"I can see why she liked you. Easily teased, quick wit but stupidly innocent."
Envy snorted and his voice shifted back to the more feminine one, "With how much she talked about you, I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to fix us up."
"Wouldn't date you if y'were the last male on the planet." Sheska slurred and she felt her soft bed begin to shake in silent laughter.
"Four eyed, frumpy egghead."
"Transvestite alien."
Sheska drifted off into dreams listening to Envy chuckle.
