A/n: I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any Faybelle/Raven fanfics floating around, let alone any Faybelle/Raven vs. Apple/Raven fanfics, and if there is, I can't find them. So I decided to try my hand at one.
Now I'd like to clarify first that Faybelle/Raven isn't my main OTP ship in this fandom, I'm more of a Raven/Apple fan. The reason I have written this though, is partially to be one of the first to write about these three in a love triangle capacity and partially because of a few reviews that had come up from my previous fanfic (if you have read through my previous story; The True Love Loophole, you will see that I had made light mention of Faybelle flirting with Raven to get on Apple's nerves, this was initially just a light hearted story plot but now I've gotten interested in taking things a step further) that stated how interesting it might be if there was a Raven/Faybelle fanfic out there or if there was more Faybelle vs. Apple for Raven's heart.
On another note I've decided to keep my theory that; Raven had been physically abused by her mother, in this story as well; it just makes the story flow better and makes the Evil Queen easier to write up as being truly monstrous.
Hopefully this will be shorter than my previous story.
XXX
Some year's prior…
"Maddie you didn't have to pull that trick out of your hat, now everybody thinks that there's this bouncy ball monster out there seeking to drag little children to their doom." An eleven-year-old Raven chided softly as the two sat on a low branch of a tree in the deserted part of the playground.
"I don't have to be polite to bullies harming my extended kin." Maddie sniffed swinging her legs, her usual madly chipper mood dampened with something that passed for simmering anger on any other person. "You've already proved more than enough times that you are not like that horrible creature and yet they condemn you so readily even after you had proven yourself."
Raven merely shrugged looking down.
The witch's friend hesitated before speaking. "Perhaps if you show them that you too had been wronged-"
"Maddie no, telling them about the owies she gave me… that will only make things worse." Raven shook her head. "It will only give them more reason to hate me."
"They would hate you for suffering wounds and mistreatment from the same woman who had wronged them?" Maddie challenged. "In Wonderland you would be seen as very brave for surviving such crimes. You would be given the chance to train in order to defeat our common enemy and right her wrongs so that proper madness could be restored!"
Raven sighed at her friend's (her only friend's) outrage. "It's just not how things work in Ever After, I do not have the opportunity to prove anything, my name has been disgraced, I will be hated for following my destiny, and despised if I don't by the same people, my only hope for a normal life is after my role has finished… after I change my appearance and become someone different." Raven looked up at the sun peeking at her through the leaves of the tree. "I won't have any children of my own, they won't be able to find me if I hide in plain sight, I will be presumed dead or simply missing and Headmaster Grimm will be forced to find some other family to take on the role."
Maddie makes an irritated clicking sound with her tongue. "I don't understand this world at all, there is no method to this madness." She growled. "Not even the adults here will protect you. They'd sooner throw you to a hungry jabberwocky and then complain about how your screams were giving them a headache."
"I am dishonored." Raven spoke as she blinked away the mist covering her eyes. "Unless I can find a way to regain it, the only thing I'm good for to them is… just a puppet playing a part in a story, once they have finished their happy ending and throw me away… I'll disappear, become someone they don't recognize, only you and my father's family will know what had become of me, and they'll never think to find me in plain sight." The witch repeated trying to make herself better.
"Is there no other option?" Maddie asked gently gathering her friend into a hug, out of habit she is mindful of the covered wounds that had long ago healed into scars upon the witch's flesh.
"If one becomes available… even if there is just a fraction of a chance of it working… I think that I'd jump for it…" Raven mused as she rested her tired head on Maddie's shoulder.
XXX
Present day…
Raven stared down dejectedly at her bare body as small streams of water flowed down over the scarred skin of her torso. She sighed heavily as she rested her forehead against the metal pipe that stood in the center of this particular walled off shower corner in the girl's locker room. The pipe had five showerheads affixed to it that allowed a water to spray in all three hundred and sixty degrees of direction for multiple people to use, not that the extra showerheads were really necessary since there was more than enough individual shower stalls and other shower corners in the girl's locker room to satisfy over three ten-student P.E. classes, really all that was needed was for the school to install a large bathing pool and they could open up a bathhouse just like the ones that were so common in both the Queen family's realm and her father's kingdom.
They should just simply convert this building into a bathhouse the witch mused, as a general rule at Ever After High girls taking P.E. was strictly optional and all the girls with P.E. in their schedules were assigned to the last period of the day to have that class, and since most girls preferred the privacy of their own dorm bathrooms to freshen up virtually no one used the showers in the girl's locker room.
Which was why Raven was in here now, late in the evening after having set up her emergency overnight kit and sleeping bag in a warm, dry corner and getting ready to spend the weekend hiding in the deserted locker room.
The past two days had been… not terrible but difficult; it was maiden appreciation weekend which meant that she had to spend a good portion of her time on Friday tactfully dodging Apple and her attempts to get Raven to join the best villain contest featured as one of the main events (which comprised of Raven waking up before Apple and quietly rushing through her morning routine and getting out the door before the princess could wake up, and ducking out of the princess's sight all day).
Apple had gotten back at her for daring to avoid the issue and the princess, because Apple had taken the liberty of signing Raven up for the blasted competition anyway. Raven had a good five minutes of her life wasted explaining to an elated (it was almost heartbreaking how happy the man had seemed) Headmaster Grimm that it was Apple who had signed Raven up for the competition without her permission and that she was not going to participate in the best villain contest regardless of being signed up for it or not, which added about ten more minutes of Raven's wasted time to the tally as she argued with the grown man (though it was difficult to see him as such since she had met small children with better, more mature arguing skills than this man in regards to her life choices) telling him that she didn't care that they had reserved some special spot for her at some victory dinner and pointedly reminding him that he could not force her to go if she did not want to (As politely as she could because even though the Headmaster was not acting like a proper mature adult, he was still the Headmaster and so out of self-preservation Raven did her best to at least pretend to listen to the man's reasons before shooting them all down as nicely as she could).
While the festivities of the two and a half day celebration of Maiden Appreciation Weekend were still all far easier to deal with than Princess Appreciation Day (Raven dreaded that day the most, it even beat the anniversary of her mother poisoning the different worlds and barely topped the anniversary of the day she had received her scars), between several Royals insisting on screaming and running away from her and this whole business with the villain competition, Raven had decided that she could stock up on nonperishable food, take her kit, and hide for the next three nights and two days.
Normally she would've just bunked with Maddie… but she had left with her roommate and current girlfriend, Kitty, for the weekend to spend some quality time together in the Queen's realm (sixteen was the legal adult age in Wonderland and since they were both seventeen and therefore, by their homeland's laws, consenting adults…) Raven had even gone so far as to pull a few strings for them so that they could have her family's beachfront cottage all to themselves, the two deserved some time to relax after having to deal with all the sympathetic looks people were giving them after the anniversary of Wonderland's poisoning earlier in the week.
Raven placed her hands on the warm metal pipe to steady her as she arched back and let the hot water drop onto her forehead and hair, through squinting eyes she stared up at the mosaic on the ceiling (why they had put a mosaic there she could not fathom why), the artwork depicting an old-styled map of Ever After, the witch's eyes traced over the boundaries between the kingdoms that were visible to her before settling on the Queen territory situated over the far dividing wall and then to the King kingdom directly above her head.
Raven stayed like that, staring contemplatively between the two realms, both were her homelands by blood and yet…
Raven padded her way to the fat ribbon of unclaimed land that stretched between the two realms, separating the two for centuries… until she had been born.
Raven reached for the King lands, her fingers stretching in vain to touch the colorful stones.
"Father…" Raven whispered, grief lacing her voice, she missed her father terribly and she hated that he was unable to claim her as his blood relative until she had graduated and enough years had passed for the stigma of her mother's blood had faded, a far better prospect than before she had denied her destiny, where she would have had to change her name and appearance before she could become his legal heir.
On that thought Raven turned to the Queen territory her other hand pointing almost accusingly at the mapped image of her maternal lands, a scowl settled onto her features.
"Mother." Raven spat remembering why parts of her still ached when the weather changed and how her blood had been used as an ingredient to make curses used to poison the other worlds…
A fact she daren't tell anyone else aside from Maddie, the last thing she needed was to deal with was even more fodder for people to throw in her face as an excuse to despise her for crimes she had not committed.
…And Apple would be devastated if she knew the truth.
While Apple's determination for Raven to become the next Evil Queen was, annoying, and sometimes hurtful… Raven cherished the princess's clear minded innocence on the issue, it seemed like Apple genuinely believed that Raven's life would get better if she finally gave in and became the Evil Queen, played out the part in their story, and proved to the world that she was not her mother.
Or at least that was what Raven had deduced, after all Apple said that she cared about Raven and therefore would not actively wish the witch to live the rest of her life under the scorned shadow and shame of being related to the current Evil Queen.
Apple was one of the few Royals who was nice to Raven, treated Raven well despite their differences in beliefs.
And despite herself Raven had begun… to develop feelings, dangerous, inappropriate feelings for Apple, her story's princess…
And if she followed her destiny she would lose that princess in both friendship and… well any potential for anything else, to the story, to the prince, the title, and the hatred directed towards the witch for becoming the very thing everyone loved to hate…
But if she did not follow destiny, like she was going to do, Apple will grow to hate her, eventually giving up on Raven, perhaps even going as far as to ostracize her while searching for a villain alternative.
So in the end Raven would lose the last person who hoped for a brighter, honorable future under the path of tradition.
Raven let her arms and head fall.
"Do I… belong anywhere?" She whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
Her father could not claim her as his heir.
Her mother had hurt her, dishonored their name, and left Raven to pick up the pieces.
And Apple would eventually throw her away, it didn't matter which path she chose, Rebel or Royal. Her last tie to the tiniest scrap of her maternal family's honor… her precious friendship with Apple… gone.
If only she could runaway from all this… insanity just as easily as she had just missed the ridiculous villain contest, find a way to free herself from the blood obligations and restore her family's honor in one fell swoop, keep herself safe from the scheming Headmaster and others who would like nothing more than to parade her around like… some sort of exotic pet, or bound demon, always to be seen and feared but not heard.
The Rebel cause was one way but would it be enough to save her from them? Was it possible for her to ever hope to become a child of both her inherited lands? Or would she have to disappear, become someone new, a stranger to herself before she could ever truly taste freedom?
She dreaded the hype that was going to come her way on Monday…
"Hex it Apple White! Why did you have to sign me up for that stupid competition?" Raven pled the green tiled wall heartbrokenly.
"So what I overheard was true, you never wanted to be in this competition in the first place?" A voice spoke from behind her.
Raven turned sharply around to the sight of Faybelle standing in the open entrance to the walled shower corner.
To add to the shock the fairy wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing on her body.
"Fa-Fa-Faybelle?" Raven squeaked, as she stood frozen to her spot.
"Hi." The fairy waved.
As if she had stepped on a live wire Raven broke out of her frozen shock and did the only logical thing that anyone who had just turned around to discover an unnoticed naked intruder in a place that was supposed to be deserted would do.
The witch screamed, flailing comically before retreating to the opposite corner, sat down and attempted to cover both her nudity and her scars.
"You startle easy, has anyone ever told you that?" The fairy observed calmly hands on her bare hips.
"What are you doing here? No one comes here!" Raven asked a blush spreading over her cheeks.
"Well…" Faybelle pointed obviously to the running shower pipe. "Does taking a bath in a public bathing place offer up a satisfying explanation?"
"But you said that you hated this girl's locker room, you said that the one you and the other Cheerhexers use by the stadium is more than enough! I heard you call this place a waste of space!" Raven pointed out still completely frazzled by the other's presence.
"That's because it is." The fairy snorted. "You remember me saying that? Impressive… for a wannabe Evil doer." Faybelle admitted reluctantly, it had been months since she had last made grumbling comments about the useless building they were in.
"Why are you here Faybelle?" Raven growled warningly. "The truth this time!"
"I had seen you walking in this direction earlier and so after you had somehow managed to win the first round to the best villain contest without hide nor hair of you being seen, I decided to sniff you out to pick a bone with you about it." The fairy admitted easily, unashamed of her actions.
"I what?" Raven shrieked completely outraged. "But I wasn't there! I didn't want to be signed up for that in the first place! That's why I hid; I didn't want to be apart of any of it!" The witch howled, tugging agitatedly at her hair.
"Good to see that you despise this just as much as I did." Faybelle admitted with approval. "The competition lasts until the last day, were you really going to hide here until the weekend was over?"
"I don't see myself having any other option!" Raven hissed irritated.
"Well it's not like they can force you to do anything." Faybelle pointed out.
"You haven't been living with Apple White for the past year, even though she can't make me do anything, both she and the Headmaster can cause me enough grief that hiding would just make everything easier." Raven grumbled sulkily. "And I was getting a migraine from everyone screaming every time I entered a room."
Faybelle regarded Raven as if the fairy was looking at the witch for the very first time. "A witchling of the Queen clan cowering in terror from her own princess… there is just nothing about this scene that seems at all… dignified for my clan's enemy and my personal rival." The fairy murmured as she crossed her arms, sounding disappointed.
That had done it; Raven felt something inside her snap as the last of her patience fell away.
"For the last time I don't want to become the Evil Queen!" Raven roared getting to her feet and waving her fist at Faybelle. "I want to break free of that blasted family tradition, I want to restore honor to my name! How can you keep going around as if the title of Evil Queen is something that I can be proud of and yet you know more than anyone the shame I bear for the sins of that sorry excuse of a mother of mine? If you are so disgusted of the prospect of me becoming a villain then why don't you take over my destiny? You'd make both a better Evil Queen and Evil Fairy than I could ever hope or want to be! I've made it clear that I don't want it so why don't you take it?"
Silence hung between them, Raven standing angrily before the other and breathing hard while Faybelle stared at her with wide eyes.
"You'd give the title to me?" The fairy asked cautiously, a little vulnerably, as if she was fearful to believe her ears.
"I don't want it." Raven swore hoarsely. "But Apple still want's her fairytale and you would make a better Evil Queen than I ever could. It would be for the best, I have already suffered enough pain from my cursed blood." The witch swallowed thickly. "You're probably going to laugh at my weakness but to be completely and utterly honest, if you freed me of this cursed title… there would be a strong danger of me kissing you I'd be so grateful."
"Pain…" Faybelle whispered her aloof attitude changing into something more real, gentler towards the witch somehow. "You mentioned suffering pain because of your destiny, your scars… were they made because of your blood?"
"It was a long time ago, I don't want to talk about it, and this is none of your business." Raven said lowly, wrapping her arms around herself and looking away.
Faybelle shook her head taking a step forward. "It's too late to back out now Raven Queen, if you truly want me to take your title away from you, then you have to tell me about those scars, I need good cause to take away your title the honorable way and I get the feeling that those are my best bet."
The witch stilled, the implications of the other's words sinking in. "You are serious?" Raven breathed shallowly, studying Faybelle intently. "No tricks?"
"I want to become the most Evil Fairy in history, of course I'm serious!" Faybelle spat. "My family is due the honor your mother so rudely took from us, so cough it up!"
"You can't tell Apple!" Raven pled backing up till her skin touched the tiled wall. "If Apple found out about my scars, about how I got them she'll be devastated. She's so innocent and… and she still thinks that there is hope for me, to get my honor back, if she finds out the truth she'll pity me- I can't take that much pity from anybody-, or equally as bad she'll grow to fear me for something I could not control, just like the rest of them do." The witch nearly sobbed, hating that she was feeling so exposed and vulnerable in front of someone who openly despised her, hating that she had gotten to the point where she was willing to risk more hurt just for a chance that Faybelle might actually help her…
Raven was so scared right now; she trembled where she stood under the weight of all the things that could go wrong.
"Kind of hard to fear you when you're trembling like a leaf and waxing on like that lovesick toad." Faybelle snorted. "Dear gods you would have made an embarrassingly horrible Evil Queen… Alright; but only because you insist, you have the honor of my word that I'll go about this discretely, but I still need to know, if not from you, then in some form of physical evidence. A paper trail I can present, healer visits, a complaint, hex knowing your mother there might be a death certificate for the person who had done this to you."
Raven flinched her breath hitching in panic.
"How did anyone even get close enough to touch you?" Faybelle asked suspiciously. "Even as a child you were well guarded, so much so that not even my mother could figure out who your father was, I suspect that it is not him since Briar has commented in the past how obviously fond you are of the man, so who could have gotten close enough to you that your mother could not protect you from them in time? And it certainly couldn't have been your mother who had done this." The fairy scoffed.
Raven flinched again; this time a pitiful whimper escaped her throat despite her best efforts to squash it. But if Faybelle needed the truth to take away that cursed title from her…
"I… my mother… is the one…" Raven looked down, shame washing over her. She felt overwhelmed, and far too exposed, but the proposal of being free of the Evil Queen destiny… it was just too good not to take a chance on. "She needed my blood… for the spell." The witch finally whispered, squeezing her eyes tight as the words escaped her mouth.
Raven could hear Faybelle's sharp intake of breath as the fairy stiffened.
The witch flinched but stayed still when pads of fingertips gently traced the line of a scar running along her clavicle and upper breast.
"Your own mother did this to you?" Faybelle's voice sounded grim as her fingertips continued to explore.
"I'm taking a big chance telling you this." Raven spoke her voice full of restrained emotion. "You better not be lying to me because I am truly desperate right now."
"There is a file, confidential of course, but there is a record that I have access to, of everything that had happened… please, if I give it up, you must be quiet about the information, not only for the sake of my life but that of my father's, his too could be on the line if the information got out to the wrong people." Raven admitted, clenching her hands as she prepared herself to take this final leap.
The Grand Coven, a group originally founded by witches to protect themselves from mistreatment and persecution, had evolved into a complex organization made up of all different kinds of magic-users, and they had their fingers in many trades, one of them being militaristic, mostly to combat threats like the current Evil Queen, the same branch that had rescued Raven so many years prior.
"You can download it to my phone." Faybelle murmured her breath cooling Raven's wet skin.
When Raven didn't move she felt warm hands rub her shoulders soothingly. "Are you going to be alright?" The other girl asked, in an uncharacteristic display of worry.
If I've gotten so low as to practically confess to something that could potentially make my life worse if just one thing goes wrong… no… but it's been like that for so long I don't remember how to care anymore. Raven thought as she sighed, opening her eyes as she tried to shuffle past.
Raven paused when Faybelle refused to move away. "Why are you naked?" The witch said instead, her brows furrowing.
"'Cause I knew that your reaction to my lack of dress would be amusing." Faybelle admitted with a shrug.
"And was it?" Raven asked dryly.
"Yep. You didn't disappoint." The fairy nodded assuring-ly as she escorted Raven out of the shower.
"Good to know." The witch said, rolling her eyes.
They didn't speak as Faybelle dressed and Raven accessed the mentioned file with ease and as promised she downloaded as much relevant information she could, pointedly leaving out certain documents that did not relate to Raven's scars, Raven may be acting reckless but she was not so far gone as to give up everything to a practical stranger, before handing the phone back to faybelle.
At the very least her father's name had not been mentioned in the report, he would still be safe.
Raven stilled when the fairy levitated a towel to the damp witch and then wrapped Raven securely up in it.
"I will contact you when I've got more information, if don't have anything by this weekend it will surely come together on Monday." Faybelle stepped back, waving her hand around. "Have fun hiding from Apple in here. At least I'll know where to find you…" The fairy trailed off awkwardly as she made her leave.
The witch stood there, as still as possible, as her brain tried to grasp how fast the past few minutes seemed to have gone, how she had managed to lose control of the situation, and her life, so quickly.
Raven turned back to the shower in order to turn off the running water, finished dressing into her pajamas (an old and tattered t-shirt and shorts combination that Apple had been trying to quietly throw into the trash whenever she found them while gifting Raven with elegant dark silk sleeping gowns to wear instead), and curling up into her sleeping bag on the hard carpeted floor.
Sleep did not find the witch until a distressingly early hour in the morning, it was a good thing it was the weekend and she was hiding from the world because Raven did not believe that her nerves could take any more of the drama that usually happened on a natural day to day basis around Ever After High.
For her own sanity she hoped that Faybelle brought her some news before she had to face some other (now surprisingly less important) consequences by Monday.
XXX
A/n: just one last thought… do you guy's think I should include my previous OC's from my last story into this one (that is assuming that you've already read my previous story TTLLH)?