Twyla shivered, the intensity of the portal still stinging her skin a little, and she squinted against the bright light that was obnoxiously present in the room before her, whereas Howleen seemed totally content with this sunny configuration.
"Cerise is probably downstairs with Auntie Red, come on!" She said, grabbing her by the hand.
Twyla for a minute didn't recognise her though and pulled her hand away, staring in awe at the human looking girl before her.
"Howleen? Is that you?" She asked.
Confused for a moment, Howleen furrowed her brows before suddenly coming to the realisation that obviously Twlya didn't understand the concept of "universal conformity", which was a term which was coined by the government to describe the conversion of ones appearance from one universe to the other in order to conform and adapt to the new environment.
"Yeah, it's me! The portal does it to you, just have a look at yourself!" She said, for the first time taking in the odd sight of her usually glum friend.
Twyla took a peek behind her and screamed at the sight, unprepared to see her skin so much paler, and the shadow markings absent from her legs, replaced with intricate, spooky looking stockings.
Well, heck, her whole OUTFIT was different! She was so busy freaking out about her new appearance, she didn't even notice the equally confused and disturbed wolf girl to the side of her.
"Oh! Cerise! Good, you're still home!" Howleen exclaimed, dragging a reluctant Twyla away from her own bizarre reflection.
"I'm so pastel...and fluffy..." She silently screamed, her skin crawling.
Cerise growled in slight offence at the stranger, "What is the meaning of this? Who is SHE? What are you doing Howleen?!" She reeled off in a huff.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down! This is important...TWYLA! Snap out of it!" Howleen turned to the still stunned boogie monster and tapped her shoulder fiercely.
"Wha-? OH! Yes!" Twyla stood at attention and then finally made eye contact with the other girl, "I'm so sorry about this," she began, "I'm Twyla, a friend of Howleen's."
Cerise hummed, and then glared at Howleen for better answers.
"Cerise, Twyla was fanging around in the mirror portal room back in our world, and she has some bad news!" She said, getting down to business.
"It's about Daring," she said.
Cerise gasped, truly caught off guard, and the raised her hands to her chest in a panic, "Daring? What happened? What do you mean by 'bad news?'" She asked, turning to look desperately at the boogie monster girl.
"Well...I was floating around in the portal room after finishing a nightmare job, and I heard someone carrying on, screaming and everything. I hid and turned to look where the noise was coming from, and I saw this:"
She pulled out her coffin shaped phone, (still-coffin shaped thankfully) and opened up a picture she had taken.
Cerise's eyes widened and she unintentionally yanked to phone from her hands, scrolling left and right, looking at the photos..
"Oh no...oh my goodness! That's Dexter...what's going on? Who's that girl there..." She shuddered and almost dropped the phone as she came to the realisation that the photos of Dexter were of his GHOST... His body...was see through...
"It's his father..I think...I remember him calling him that anyway. I don't know what's going on, but I heard him mention something about your boyfriend, and Holween said we should tell you immediately." Twyla explained.
Cerise began to pace, fur sprouting out by the second with nerves, as she tried to calm down.
"Cerise, what happened last time you saw Daring? Was there any signs of something being wrong?" Holween tried.
She shook her head, but then stopped and stared at the mirror, "He was afraid his parents might find out about us..." She whispered.
Howleen and Twyla looked at one another, "Is that a bad thing?" Twyla asked.
Cerise growled in frustration and whipped around, "OF COURSE IT IS!"
Howleen pushed her back, holding her down, "Hey! Cut it out! How was she supposed to know that?" She insisted.
Huffing angrily, Cerise compiled but continued, "You have NO idea what the royals are like here! They LIVE to force their kids to be perfect...and I..." She trailed off, choking, pulling her cloak over her head, as she slipped to the ground, against the bed...
"I'm NOT perfect. They would never approve..." She said.
"That is NONSENSE!" Howleen scolded her, lifting her up off the ground with a paw, "you stand up straight and tell us what we can do."
Taking a few deep breaths, she turned to Twyla, "what did you hear them saying? Can you remember?" She started.
Twyla lit up and instantly unlocked her phone again. "Yes! Yes actually. I was worried something bad was happening so I recorded the last few things the guy with his that prince's body said..."
She pressed the video and they all watched.
It started with Cupid comforting him, and then she fast forwarded it to the last piece of dialogue she was able to capture:
"I...I'm alright, and yes."the ghost-Dexter said, "but we're all going to be in big trouble if we don't hurry. My father got all mad-crazy obsessed with destiny and he turned Daring into The Beast, and then decided to use my body as a drone to marry Apple. Now daring is lost in a random forest, my body is gone and I'm trapped inside a mirror!"
The video ended with a panicked and fearful Dexter.
"NO!" Cerise shouted, her heart smashing into thousands of pieces... "no...why..." She said in a softer voice.
She turned away and wiped her eyes. She wasn't used to this and she hated it. She liked it better back when she could just be a callous and impersonal lone-wolf with no attachments holding her down.
Most of all, she hated feeling heart broken.
"Where is the rest of it? What did you do after that?" She asked Twyla, "Did you speak to him?" She asked.
"No, I went through the portal that he was sent through to see what was going on. I came back when Howleen was there and told her everything" Twyla admitted, feeling foolish for not speaking directly with Dexter.
Cerise didn't seem to care though as she grasped her frantically, "What did you see on our side? What was there?" She begged.
Twyla loosened herself from her clawed grip and then replied, "I was in their castle, and it took a while to locate him. There were so many windows in that place that I couldn't find much cover to travel through the shadows, but when I DID find them, they were preparing to leave."
She finished adding only one more thing, "they said something about Snow White. That's all I heard before I came right back."
Cerise was now too beside herself to be frantic anymore. It was hopeless. What could she possibly do? The royals had won. And poor Dexter...how was raven going to take this?
"Wait! Of course!" Cerise said, looking at the mirror with a sudden revelation.
"What is it?" Her cousin asked.
"Dexter is Raven's boyfriend...Raven as in THE EVIL QUEEN'S daughter! If we've go to her she might be able to use some magic to help us find Daring, and get Dexter back to our world!"
Twlya stepped forwards and muttered, "Evil queen? Like the one from the fairy tales...oh, wait...duh.."
"And!" Cerise added, turning to them, "She would know a lot more about how these mirrors work! Her whole story and life is FILLED with magic mirrors! If we get to her, she could maybe even use one to show us where they all are so that we can find them faster!"
The two ghouls nodded, agreeing with the plan, "Can we take a mirror to get to her then?" Holween asked.
Twyla, finally understanding the situation, tapped the portal and then said a few words. The wolf girls looked at her suspiciously.
The portal whirred to life and a vision of a feather littered dorm room came to them.
She looked at them, and then shrugged sheepishly, "I eat people's nightmares...and that ditzy roommate of hers is always having dumb ones." She said. She had put two and two together and realised that over her course of action in the fairy tale world, a certain princess with a certain evil roommate were a common place of work for her, and just so happened to be the people they needed to see.
Without waiting another moment, they jumped through the portal and hoped for the best.
XxXxXxX