An Uninvited Guest

What a bleak morning for travel, Ravenna thought as her black carriage squelched over a muddied path through the countryside. It rained again the night before, nothing torrential, but enough to hinder her travel. Her driver had already stopped twice now to dig himself out of potholes. The quicksand-like mud didn't help their progress either.

Her maps indicated that the closest civilization twenty-six kilometers to the south was, not surprisingly, Stefan's kingdom. Fate, she decided, had a funny way of working things out.

Unfortunately, her trip would take longer than she thought. Twenty-six miles by carriage usually took a little over four hours, but that twenty-six miles constituted the exact distance between the two kingdoms. If she went the direct route, she would have to cut straight through the Dark Forest, an obvious no go, so instead she took a ten-mile detour around the forest. Adding that on, with luck she should reach the kingdom by midday.

Usually on long trips she brought a book to stave off boredom, however this time she chose to go without. Instead, Ravenna let her mind wander to the conundrum at hand; how to alter the memories of Stefan's subjects so he might reclaim his place as King. Thinking, she looked out her window; the countryside held little in the realm of scenery, unless one enjoyed watching dirty water collect in puddles and vegetation droop with humidity, much like her hair.

It looks like the fields will flood again this year, she thought miserably. This will be the third year in a row the crops rot in their stalks. It may not be too late to replant, she thought, perhaps the farmers could dig a grid of trenches around their plants to collect the excess water. Just then, an idea struck her like divine lightening.

Why change the memory when she could just implant a new one?

Slowly, she smiled. Change is difficult, but learning something new? Easy.

For some time Aurora entertained the illusion that life as a King or Queen would be easy; with an endless supply of money, resources, and labor, as well as a team of advisors and a bureaucracy to practically run the country, what was a King or Queen but a title, a figure head? Royals just sat there and drank tea all day, wore fancy clothes, gossiped, and caused drama.

How wrong she had been. Money, resources, and labor had not proved as endless as she imagined, and in fact she could see the bottom of the barrel more often than she liked. The advisors and bureaucracy in place did try to run her country for her—on a burning chariot straight into the ground. Both teams were inefficient. Their constant squabbling and grasping for power put most political decision making into frustrating, tangled gridlock. Corruption infected the ranks like termites, tunneling a lattice into the system, threatening its moral and physical integrity. She felt like a parent, constantly reminding her children of right and wrong, only to have them roll their eyes, turn around, and do it all over again.

On this particular day, the castle functioned on the precipice of disaster, per usual, and Aurora scrambled to pull it from the edge. The new prep cook nearly started a fire in the kitchen (the old prep cook had run off with the milkmaid, which reminded Aurora, she needed to find a new milkmaid), and while Chef managed to put it out, it had cost him tonight's chickens, as well as his eyebrows. The castle fire brigade usually handles fires, as they are more common than one might think, but they were unavailable at the time, as Aurora sent them out earlier to handle a brush fire headed towards the Moors.

Flooding in one valley, fires in another, it never ends, she thought. Either way, Aurora had to figure out what they would serve tonight (stew, she later decided, as a way to use up leftover vegetables and meat), and had to gather servants to help clean the soot and ash from the kitchen so preparations for tonight could begin. Just as she began this, another crisis occurred with the seamstresses. After a little begging, Aurora convinced Diaval to handle it for her.

A few minutes later, just as the servants began making headway in the kitchen, a young maid scurried up to her and whispered breathlessly in her ear:

"My lady, a guest has arrived. She claims to be a neighboring Queen!"

Aurora's eyes went wide. She could not receive guests today; she simply was not prepared for it. She didn't have the linens for it, not after the fire in the laundry room last week, and she still wore her house clothes, not nearly presentable—

The maid tugged her hand, deciding for her whether or not she would accept a guest today.

Ravenna stepped out of her carriage on to wonderfully dry ground, taking her coachman's hand so as not to stumble. She wore one of her best travel dresses, a silvery grey number with black lace flowers on the sleeves. She wore a more subdued crown for this visit, not the heavy silver thorns she so favored; she didn't want to overshadow her host; impressions were everything.

Moments later the castle door burst open with a small, blonde girl holding its handle. Ravenna first suspected it that it was the maid, which struck her as odd first because the doorman should open doors, not the maid, and secondly because the girl stared straight at her and grinned broadly. Servants never looked directly at their masters, and certainly not Queens. Ravenna narrowed her eyes, and then noticed the light colored eyes and gently sloping nose, the high cheekbones and slender face, all traits reminiscent of a certain fallen King. Of course, the delicate gold crown partially hidden by her yellow locks was also gave her away; this was no maid, but the Queen Aurora herself, tempered with a glisten of sweat on her brow and black smudges on her arms.

"Welcome!" the girl shouted enthusiastically, walking briskly to meet her guest. Ravenna chuckled internally. It was quite the welcome for one who was plotting her demise. "How wonderful to finally meet our neighbor from the north! I am the Queen Aurora."

"And I the Queen Regina," she replied, giving a false name, "I do hope my stay is not a hindrance to you, I am just passing through and need a place to rest."

"No trouble at all, I shall have a room made for you immediately. But first, I'm sure you're famished from your travels, let me treat you to tea."

The two women, as well as several ladies of the court who'd heard about the visiting Queen, congregated outside for tea, as Aurora did not wish her guest to see the mess inside. The servants literally ran about in a mad rush to have everything orderly for Regina's stay. During the sixty minutes the nobility used to lounge outdoors and gossip, the castle turned into a beehive, with the hum of frantic activity masked by the calm façade of cold stone walls.

Far away, in the southern end of the castle, Diaval sat on the floor in the laundry room, one man in a circle of middle-aged women. Surrounding the circle were a hundred spindles, each wound with miles of spidery white thread. Earlier, a short, plump woman by the name of Ethel slipped on a loose scrap of linen and sent the load of thread she'd been carrying flying. The strings became senselessly tangled, and Diaval decided the only way to sort out the mess was to stop and untangle them manually. Still uncomfortable interacting with human strangers, he shyly told the women his plan, and after observing their quiet unraveling for a moment, joined them on the floor. Honestly, he found the mindless unknotting of string rather relaxing, and while it was not enjoyable per se, it beat flying circles around the castle, eyeing suspicious-looking butterflies and whatnot.

"Say, um…" A woman spoke up. Diaval looked up and found she was referring to him. "What's your name deary?"

"Diaval," the singular male inserted politely.

"Diaval, where did you get those scars? The one right there," she traced a crescent on the side of her face right outside her eye, "looks rather nasty."

"I was attacked by a dog as a child," he answered, partially truthful. The women all oh'ed around him.

"That's awful," continued the one who'd asked the question. "I'll tell you, my husband said he wants a dog, but I told him, 'not in this house your not'," The woman said, turning from Diaval to speak to the group. "A dog is an animal and it's got to stay outside; can't have it dirtying up my house, attacking our children. Nope, I told him to keep it in the barn with the others if he wants it.

"I hear you Mathilda; my boys are at that age where they're bringing every creature that slithers, walks, or flies into the house, asking to keep it as a pet. And I tell them, 'what are you going to feed it? Where's it going to stay?' and they say…" and on and on and on. Diaval almost laughed at the mundanity of their human lives. If only they knew who he really was, and the fact that he himself had been a dog only yesterday morning.

Then his thoughts drifted as they always did to Aurora. This would be her life one day, making small talk with a bunch of old birds (he laughed internally at the idiom) about children and marital troubles. Is this what she wanted, or was it just an inevitable truth that all humans would end up this way, wrinkled and boring?

No, he thought, twisting two strings apart, she could never be like that. She had a heart for excitement, rule breaking, and fun. He remembered how in her youth she would regularly go against orders and venture to the thorny wall, peering inside, looking for a break in the branches

Always curious, he thought. He remembered her thirteen year, when Flittle decided to paint her bedroom blue; Aurora stole some of the paint and lacquered her finger and toenails, much to her "aunt's" chagrin. Then he recalled her many trips into the moors under the guise of a dream. The look of pure, innocent bliss on her face was enough to make even Maleficent's stony lips curl into a grin. No, he thought again, she could never become like these women, especially not after everything she's seen and been through.

He finished raveling the spool and placed it in the bin with the other spools. Looking at the mess around him, he sighed. It was going to be a long day.

Clumps of Monarch and Emperor butterflies formed hungry swarms over the tall lilac bushes edging the courtyard, but no ravens. Fat bumblebees swayed from daffodil to tulip, lazily pollinating in the afternoon heat, but no ravens. She heard a rabbit or a squirrel rustle in the bushes, but not a raven. A few pigeons lined the courtyard wall, with one or two magpies, but the ravens apparently did not get the memo. The hunt for the shape shifter was not going well.

Ravenna lazily stirred her cold tea, annoyed with her lack of progress. There no doubt were hundreds of black birds in this area, but she had yet to find one. How could she ever find the raven if she couldn't find any ravens?

Of course, the ladies of the court did not assist in her search by pestering her with questions and wide eyes. She felt like an animal on show, but played along all the same, lying through her teeth just to have them go away. After her novelty wore off and the ladies became contentedly distracted with other gossip, mainly concerning the teenage Queen, Ravenna leaned to whisper something to Aurora, who was sporting an obviously fake smile as she tried to ignore the other women talking about her

"Aurora," she drawled quietly, "does your castle happen to have a rookery?"

"Rookery?"

"Yes, it's a tower riddled with open windows for birds to roost. Bird watching is a bit of a hobby for me and I was just wondering if your rookery had any breeds I haven't seen yet," she explained.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we have that."

"Oh, well that's quite all right," Ravenna replied, not feeling "all right" at all.

"Is there anything else you would like to do during your stay?" Asked Aurora as a servant came by to collect their teacups.

"I would love a tour of the town. It looks so quaint and adorable; I've always wanted to see a little hamlet like this," Aurora's smile became tighter. Did this newcomer just insult the largest urban center in her kingdom?

"It would be my pleasure. I am always eager to show off my kingdom to newcomers."

The two agreed to meet in the castle foyer in an hour. Ravenna retired to her freshly made room and, after her coachman set her bags in place, she placed a trap in her window; some dried corn kernels placed under a cage triggered to drop. A simple enough contraption Finn showed her before she left. She hoped she could at least start her search this way.

Aurora already had a coach waiting when her guest eventually made it downstairs. While Ravenna usually agreed with separation of royalty and commoners, the only way she could identify the shape shifter was to sense the creature's magical aura, something she could not do behind carriage doors.

"Do you mind if we go on foot?" she asked politely. "I've just been riding in a carriage all day; I'd like to stretch my legs."

"Oh, of course," Aurora answered, surprised. Walking was her own preferred mode of transportation, but she knew how the ladies of the court hated it, viewing it as a cheap and dirty way to get around. Aurora agreed, it was dirty, especially if one went barefoot like she did. If it wasn't for the insult earlier, Aurora might say she was beginning to like this Queen Regina; she liked animals and walking, two things Aurora loved too.

The pair set off, preceded and flanked by two soldiers each. Aurora showed Ravenna the large brick church where she'd been baptized and confirmed a few days ago; the law mandated that the ruling head of state be a member of the church in order to fully assume their powers. She mentioned how behind the church laid the graveyard, where the bulk of her kingdom's dead were buried, including her late father, the former king.

"I'm so sorry," Ravenna said, giving the designated polite response to such news. Internally she smiled. If only she knew.

Aurora pointed out a few more buildings and places, trivial things Ravenna oohed and aahed at while searching the sky. Before long they reached the center of town, a bustling intersection. A few vender's roamed close by their respective stalls, hawking their wares to anyone who came too close. Traffic was heavy this time of day, with farmers moving to and from their booths, transferring produce and goods. Mules and oxen brushed each other as they hauled heavy loads of precariously stacked purple radishes and rhubarb, deep green spinach, and early strawberries. In the middle of the square stood a large well, the old-fashioned stone circle, throw-a-bucket kind. Attached to a wooden beam lying over the stones were three thick ropes, with buckets presumably tied to the other end. Two young girls, not over ten years of age, giggled as they struggled to yank one rope up, bringing water home for their family.

"This is our main well, located right in the center of town. The water for the entire city and castle are all connected via underground tunnels," Aurora said proudly. "King Henry's grandfather installed the system several decades ago. It is quite sophisticated, modeled after the ancient Greeks."

Ravenna oohed over the system, then peered to the roofs of the houses. A few crows rested on a chimney, but they looked innocuous enough. She trudged on, half listening to Aurora jabber on about her ridiculously dull town as she kept a sharp lookout for iridescent, black-bodied birds.

The rest of the evening carried on much like the beginning of the evening. Ravenna saw few crows, and the ones she did see were one hundred percent garden-variety, non-magical vermin. The trap on her sill caught not a crow, but a rat, which disgusted her profusely. She tossed the poor creature off the ledge and watched it fall to the ground where it hit with a hideous, yet oddly satisfying splat.

Later that night, after a ship-wreck of a dinner, Ravenna retired to her room. Her trap had once again failed her, this time storing a nightjar, which she simply released, not having the energy to deal with it otherwise. From one of her bags she pulled her bronze scrying dish. Filling it with water, she repeated the whistling words from the day before and dropped the black feather into the glistening liquid. Like a compass needle, the feather began gently spinning in place, yet no ripples formed, not even a half ripple, if that was even possible. The spelled water remained impossibly calm, causing Ravenna to narrow her eyes.

He's here, she thought with a sly little grin. Right here in the castle. Just have to find him.