Last Time
My eye twitches involuntarily, "I've had enough of talking about for the day. Let's talk about ways to get your mom to like me, yeah?"
"My, my, my," I hear a dark, melodic voice chime. "It seems like you've bought me a Grimm, my precious daughter, one with some malice towards out sweet little Aurora. Why is that?"
I slowly turn to see Maleficent, the Maleficent, in her dark glory, lazily draped across a vine throne…and she's glaring directly through my soul. This day just got ten times longer.
Mina's POV
"Hi, mom," Nina replies nonchalantly as if seeing her mother in such a manner is such a normal thing (which it just may be for her family, but my mom doesn't just chill on a throne).
"Hello, sweetheart," Maleficent smiles sweetly at her daughter before turning her attention back to Teague and I. "I thought I made it very clear, Teague, that I did not want to see you again since the idiotic plot to run away with Aurora incident."
I cut a sharp look at Teague who so conveniently found his shoe laces oh so interesting in the presence of the fairy. I clear my throat before speaking.
"We came here to ask for your help, your majesty," I say respectfully.
Maleficent snorts at the honorific and Nina flat out laughs. My cheeks burn in embarrassment; the woman's striking features are so queen-like that I forgot she isn't legitimate royalty. Oops.
"Buttering me up won't make me help you," she lazily grins, "but it will make me listen. You have a minute. Go."
A sand timer appears out of thin air and my mouth hangs open for a second. She literally meant a minute.
"Okay so today me and Teague were just at this waffle place and when we came out this Minotaur" Maleficent's perfect eyebrows arch in surprise, "came crashing down the street and tried to kill us. We ran through some of the city and knocked over some things in the ally to get it off our trail. It eventually caught up but I was able to get it in the Grimorie" I hold up the book in my hand for emphasis "while Teague distracted it. It told Teague 'You are no Story Teller in this plane. In your absence Her Majesty the Queen has taken over. Under her rules, any tale has a chance to kill the Grimm, including the stories untold.' before the book got him and now I'm freaking out because the curse is gunna outlast me and go to Charlie and—"
"Your time is up," Maleficent interrupts, pointing to the outted timer. "I have to admit, you talk faster than a woodland creature."
"Um thanks?" It comes out more as a breathless question than a polite response. After all I don't speak like Busta Rhymes everyday while my life is on the line.
"From what I could understand, the Queen has opened up that little loop hole in the story. Quite a low blow, if you ask me," Maleficent's red lips pull back into a smirk. "She never could take loosing very well."
It's my turn to look confused, "wait, what?"
Nina's mother waves off my question with her perfectly-polished hand, "oh me and the woman have a history together. What you should be focusing on is how you're going to repay me for the help I'm about to give you."
"What do you want?" I ask, "you already have all the land you can want and you don't seem like a jewels kind of person."
"True," she chuckles, "make it unique. I want to see what you come up with."
"Got it," I nod.
"Alright, so the rules of The Story—ironically called The Plot Line—states that the stories found in the Grimm's brothers' lives are able to be reenacted no matter the level of complexity. That includes stories that they've heard from when they were children in school. Meaning—"
"Books from their history classes," I groan, running my fingers through my hair. "And folklore from that area."
"Bingo," Maleficent chimes. "The Story can going for another solid twenty years on that alone, but only if it has a Story Teller. The Story can be considered over once there is no capable Royal family member to put situations into play for at least two solid weeks. I suppose the queen began stitching a story together and appealing to some powerful Faes to allow the Minotaur to go to your Plane as is, so the Story wasn't inactive for the duration of Teague's leave."
Teague finally decides to break his sudden vow of silence, "define 'not capable'. My mother may not be the nicest, but I don't want her killed or hurt too badly."
"I'm using the literal definition of capable, having the ability, fitness, or quality necessary to do or achieve a specified thing. As long as you either disable—for pretty boy over there I would suggest temporarily but for my sake have a bit of fun—the queen or do something that will disqualify her from being able to handle the Story, you'll be able to finish what your ancestors started."
"You said a 'Royal family member' a while ago, meaning anyone in that if one of Teague's cousins from God-knows-where appears then they could take the role?" My nose wrinkles at the thought, "I don't think I could win a fight against the queen, more or less the entire clan."
"Ah, you've got smart friends, Nina," Maleficent grins. "A member of a royal family is defined as the immediate family of the reigning monarch, meaning the king. He has a sister that no one has seen since he got married—hint, hint—so we have very little people to worry about. The king does have more family members, but they're up in ages and can remember when dragons were seen flying overhead almost every day rather than every few years. They definitely wouldn't be considered capable."
I smile a bit at her praise, "how will the Story officially come to an end. Is it like when one of my Plane's cases goes to Supreme Court for a final verdict on something serious?"
The raven-locked woman's grin grows wider, "exactly. As soon as you have proof of the queen's inability to control the story, you'll have to go the Fate's Counsel to put her trial into play. The trial will only last a few days, so keeping the queen down for the rest of the time limit is going to be difficult. I'm interested to see how you all will go about this whole ordeal."
I bow my head in appreciation, "thank you so much for your help, Miss."
"Misses, actually," a smooth, dark voice says from behind us. There stands a pale man with a beak-like nose dressed in all black. He confidently strides over to Maleficent and gives her a peck on the lips. Hu. Her lipstick didn't smudge a bit. I wonder what the Faes put in theirs to make it so good.
"Dad," Nina groans, "I told you to stop doing that!"
"Sorry sweetheart," the man chuckles, "I couldn't resist."
"Where were you, Diaval," Maleficent asks, a light smile tugging at her lips.
"Off visiting Aurora," the man's black eyes narrow at Teague. "It seems like someone else has plays to do the same."
"Don't mind him," Nina chuckles, "he's in love with Mina. They're the absolute cutest couple. Well I don't know if they're official yet, but they're my IRL OTP and they need to get together and get married ASAP then have some beautiful half-Fae babies and I'll be their godmother in more than one way and—"
"I think you're turning the poor girl into a tomato," Diaval chuckles. My cheeks flame up even more at the acknowledgement of my said redness. Nina is a bit too passionate about a relationship that isn't hers. I sort of get it because I was like that about Johanna and Finnick, but that was a crack ship since they're not cannon and all—wait. Did I just call what Teague and I have a relationship?
"Well," Teague says, cutting through my mental ramble, "we ought to be heading home now, it's getting late and all and if we leave now we might be able to catch the last half of school and still be able to go to practice."
"Practice," Maleficent arches an eyebrow. "They're in cheer with you, Nina?"
"Pft, I wish," Nina snorts. "Mina would make such an amazing flyer and Teague has some pretty good handsprings. Imagine what a killer trio we'd be! Mina, Nina, and Teague: the cheering Fae revolutionists!"
Nina's parents roll their eyes at her. Even they get tired of her antics sometimes.
…
We make it back to class in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of lunch. Nan and Nix, who are sitting a smidgy closer than usual, fill us in on what happened while we were gone. Nan, despite not knowing where we went or why, covered for us and told a few of my teachers that I was panicking from the whole drop thing we did because I'm deathly afraid of heights and Teague was comforting me, so we're off the hook. The students, however, didn't believe her story at all. Rumors are circulating as per usual and it takes Nix, Nan, Nina—wow. Starting to realize that all my close friends all have names with N's, what are the odds?—and I to keep Teague from punching this one guy at a nearby table for making a comment about me (though in the boy's defense he did whisper it but the Faes have a wicked sense of hearing, Nan lives for any whisper of gossip, and my quests have made my senses sharper).
The rest of the day goes by swimmingly, even practice (pardon the pun). It turns out that I'm a pretty fast swimmer even when my life isn't in immediate danger. I'm talking with Coach McMullen about the possibility of me joining water polo next year (her idea, not mine) when a group of girls walk by.
One of the girls goes into a fake coughing bit and fits the word "slut" in the middle of it.
"Fake," another coughs.
"Whore," the last one finishes.
Coach turns a nasty glare to the girls. Coach lets out a fake cough like they did, ending it with, "Four laps."
"Ugh," the girl who started the whole thing sneers, "what a teacher's pet."
"Make that five laps," Coach sings. One the girls are gone, Coach McMullen leans over and whispers, "she's a mean one, Gretchen Finch."
A grin pulls at my lips, "she's most definitely the nightmare before Christmas."
Pre-author's corner word count: 1800
Well I hope you enjoyed the punny ending and all. I'll cut to the chase and tell you all that I haven't been on here that much reading or writing because of school work and stress but in less than 48 hours I will be freeeeeeeeeee! I'm proud to say that I am a4.0 student and a very diligent worker. I survived my freshman year of high school! Yay go me (Suite Life of Zack and Cody reference there).
Questions and Answers from last time
Are you the jealous type and/or the type to react to situations like that? Not really. I'm a pretty chill person.
Are you a leader or follower? Leader. I could care less about following trends and trying to fit to people's standards. Live your life for yourself, sweethearts!
Are you a Starbucks fanatic? Nope. I have had a little of 2 drinks from there in the past year and a half.
Can you guess what other language I know? I'm near fluent in ASL (American Sign Language) I'm absolutely in love with it. If you have the opportunity to learn it, do it. I promise you won't regret it.
Current Questions
Anyone graduating this year?
Any guesses on how I'm going to disqualify good ol' queenie from her little hobby?
Call of the 5sos Fam! It started out a weekend…
Anyone from England? And if so how does it feel that a truck load of teenagers are absolutely obsessed with your country (I know I am)?
Do you guys actually care for these questions or do you answer them sometimes to humor me?
Well that's my (unedited and probably typo-filled) chapter, guys. I hope you enjoyed this and feel free to make some suggestions or something if you want.
Sorry for any and all typos
-K