Anonymous requested: Oooh! These are so fun! Surprise and Rapple please! xoxox
From a writing ask meme on Tumblr where sending me the word "Surprise" and Poison Apple meant I would write a drabble about "one character discovering something surprising about the other."
Raven perched on her toes, fingers straining, when the old spellbook fell into her hands along with a cloud of dust. She coughed and patted the dust from her skirt with an agitated sigh.
The thought occurred to her, and not for the first time that Friday, that she could have been back at her dorm, happily composing a new song on her guitar like she'd planned, but no. Instead, she was wandering the vacant, musty aisles of the Ever After High library, and she was pretty sure she was the only one left in the entire place, not that she would know all the way back in the barred section so warmly titled Dark Magic.
Oh, there were lots of villainous professors at Ever After High, Raven thought, but none so devious as the one who only just assigned her a historic hexes paper due that Monday.
She grumbled, so caught up in her irritation that she nearly missed the familiar head of blonde curls as she walked past an aisle.
Raven hurried back to peek around the bookcase and, sure enough, there was Apple, sitting on the floor and leaning up against a shelf with book in hand. Too engrossed in whatever she was reading, Apple appeared not to notice her walk by and, the moment Raven realized this, a mischievous smile curled her lips.
Silently, she eased her way around the bookcase, crept up to Apple, and…
She screamed, a scream so loud it was a wonder to her that Apple's shrill squeal could even match it. Apple nearly fell over in the process, instead throwing her hand out to her side and then scrambling to tuck her book beneath her folded legs.
"Oh, oh!" Raven cried, holding the stitch in her side with her free hand. "You should have seen your face! Grimm, Apple. If I knew you were that easy to scare, I would've done it sooner." Raven wiped at the tears welling in the corners of her eyes before glancing down at a tight-lipped Apple. Her laughter abruptly cut. "Whoa, I didn't know you had glasses?"
Apple's hand flew to the bridge piece of her oversized, apple-red glasses. Something like dread flitted across her face. "Oh, yeah," she squeaked.
Raven paused, watching a wash of pink spread over Apple's face and chest. She cleared her throat. "Uh, I mean… They're really cute," she said encouragingly, but it only seemed to worsen the princess's blush.
There were a few beats of silence too many to be comfortable when the first, couple pangs of guilt settled, heavy, in Raven's gut.
"So," she dragged, "what are you doing back here in Dark Magic?"
"Reading… Wanted to be alone…" Apple mumbled. She avoided Raven's gaze in favor of tucking a glossy curl behind her ear.
"Yeah? What are you reading?" She perked at Apple's reply, eager to change the topic, though it somehow had the opposite effect she was hoping for because Apple only further wilted. "Must be good if you're that into it. Maybe I could read it after—"
"I have to go!" Apple blurted, jumping to her feet. Eyes soft blue and round with fear, she looked down at her book, still lying open on the floor.
"Here, let me," Raven offered, only for her hand to stop midway. She froze, taking in the image of a blonde woman with her fingers grasping at the shirt of another woman, their lips hovering, moments from a kiss.
Apple, too busy snatching up the book, didn't seem to notice Raven's pause. Rather, she squeaked something unintelligible before rushing down the aisle. In a swish of golden hair and billowing skirt, she was gone, and Raven was left, fixed, with a sudden and not entirely unwanted fluttering in her stomach.
A/N: Apple was reading an actual page from the manga What Does The Fox Say, an 18+ lesbian series.