Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Taylor

Taylor lived in a big house. Her family was big, but she often felt lonely. Mostly because she was a screw-up. And her whole family hated her for it. She wasn't very good at school. They'd run some tests on her and told her that something about her was all wrong, but they didn't say what.

She was walking back to her room through the big hallways, full of roses, after school-she couldn't even get the basics right, as her aunt had made abundantly clear. Her aunt yelled really loud every time she made a mistake and the fresh bruises on her face really drove home how worthless she really was. At least she had Her. That was something.

Her aunts, uncles, and cousins glared at her on her way. Some of them muttered bad things about her. When she was little, when they'd first realized how much of a waste she was, it hurt but now she knew that it was just the truth. It still stung a little.

She was waiting for her in her room. Sitting in the rocking chair, in Her pretty blue dress, and Her pretty red hair. Taylor picked Her up and carried Her to the bed.

Honestly, she was probably too old to have dolls, but she was all she had. She'd been a gift from Daddy. Taylor hadn't seen Daddy since she was little. Not since they found out how worthless she was. Daddy had to do something important, but he'd failed. The Lady had told her that it was Taylor's fault that Daddy failed and had to go away, but that was okay because Daddy had never loved her anyway… but then why had he given her Her?

There was a knock at her door. She got up quickly and answered it, and it was The Lady. She was smiling. Taylor had never seen The Lady smile before. The Lady was so pretty when she smiled… Wait, The Lady was smiling at her!

The Lady hugged her and said kind words about things Taylor could do that would make her and the rest of the family love her again. Taylor, of course, said yes, but couldn't help but feel scared when The Lady said what it was...

...Taylor was meditating in her room, which was a lot emptier than before, when the Lady came and led her away.

Taylor didn't speak, she wasn't allowed to, but she nodded and tried her best to swallow her fear and nerves. She was scared, more scared than she'd ever been, but The Lady finally loved her. The Lady led Taylor through the house, through the estate, through a maze of rose bushes to a dead end. The Lady waved her hand and the ground vanished, revealing a staircase down into the Gymnasium from school.

The lady led her up to a table at the far end and said some things that soothed her nerves while lots and lots of cousins in suits and dresses filled in.

Suddenly, Taylor was wearing a beautiful white dress. She ate cake, and punch, and then stepped out onto the floor to dance with her cousins, who gifted her with lots of pretty roses and…

...Suddenly, she was naked. Four of her cousins picked her up and carried her to the table where the Lady, still smiling as beautiful as ever, said something that filled Taylor with the intense feeling of betrayal and then poured a bucket of blood and flower petals over her.

I snapped awake and sat up in bed. "The fuck was that!?"

I blinked the sleep from my eyes, grabbed my glasses, and checked the time. 3 AM, shit.

Nothing else to do, I got up and went to the kitchen, where I boiled some water for tea.

A little while later, while I was drinking my tea, Opal floated into the kitchen. "Princess," she said, "it's not good for a young lady to be up at this hour."

"I know," I said, "It's just… I had this weird dream and… ugh."

"Oh, really?" Opal said, floating up to me. "Tell me about it."

"Oh, it wasn't anything important, just..." I thought back. "Like I had all these cousins that I'm pretty sure I don't have in real life and they hated me but then they loved me, and there was this Lady who I wanted to love me enough to do things that terrified me and then we were at a school dance and then I got covered in blood like in Carrie... Honestly, it's just weird."

Opal hummed to herself and got this look about her. "I don't know," she said, "dreams can mean things. Especially the dreams of Magi and other practitioners of Magecraft. It could be prophetic, or it could just be your subconscious trying to process everything that's happened since you got 'outed.' "

It'd been a few days and things had been weird. No attacks at home, at least none that I'd noticed before I got the wards updated and did the same for Lisa and Brian's places, but I was starting to regret insisting on going back to school on Monday. Lots of kids who'd never given me the time of day before or teachers who ignored me as things happened had suddenly been trying to get buddy-buddy with me. As for Emma…

She and Madison hadn't been expelled or anything, yet… But they were basically total outcasts now, and Emma had had a breakdown on Monday. Last I heard, she'd been committed to some kind of mental hospital.

"Let's start with this 'pretty lady,' " Opal began, "a beautiful woman who you want to love you even though all she seems to do is hurt you... " Opal hummed sadly, "Perhaps on some level… You wish things could go back to the way things were when you were younger and Miss Barnes was still your best friend? Even as you know that she'd only hurt you?"

I thought about it and thought back to the lady in my dreams. Pretty and always smiling even as she said things that hurt me… "Yeah, I can see that." I'd thought I was over everything, but…

"Just remember, Princess," Opal went on to say, "feelings don't have to make sense."

"I guess."

"Now," Opal continued, "the fictional cousins are easy, and probably tie into that sudden school dance: It's all those pesky social climbers who ignore or facilitated your abuse but are now attempting to get into your good graces," Opal shrugged. "Who's that one young woman who's been trying to talk to you for the past three days?"

"Cheryl or Charlotte or something," I answered.

"Think, did any of those cousins look like her?"

I thought back to the dream again… "I guess, maybe? I don't really remember."

"Now then," Opal went on, "what's this 'Carrie' thing?"

"Oh uh," I hesitated. 'Going Carrie' had been slang for a kid who fit the school shooter stereotype getting powers and going crazy for as long as I could remember. I never thought I'd have to explain it. "Uh, Carrie was the title character of a Steven King story, it was adapted to film and TV a couple of times about a girl with telekinetic powers. She was bullied at school and abused at home by her psycho-religious mother. Then she got made prom queen as part of a prank that ended with her getting pig's blood dumped on her so she snapped and used her powers to slaughter everyone at the school."

Opal hmmed. "Princess, I'm going to ask you something and I want you to promise me that you won't get upset. Can you do that?"

I nodded.

"Promise me."

I rolled my eyes. "I promise."

"Is it," Opal said hesitantly, "is it possible that maybe some tiny part of you maybe wants to… Lash out, against the people who hurt you?"

"No!" I said… "I mean, no… Maybe." I tried to suppress a couple of thoughts I had a while ago. "I, I thought about… Getting rid of the Trio a time or two, but… Am I a bad person?"

Opal floated up and patted me on the head. "No, Princess. The desire for revenge is deeply ingrained in the human subconscious, having such feelings is natural. The fact that you refused to act on them and merely treated the brutes as being as far beneath you as they are, it speaks well to your character."

I exhaled. "Thanks, Opal."

I finished my tea.

"I think I'm done trying to make sense of that dream… I'm just gonna try and get back to bed."

"That sounds like a plan," Opal began, "and perhaps in the morning, we can focus on something a bit less serious. Like maybe finding that pervert that's been writing fiction about yourself and Victoria."

"Wait, What!"