A/n: curse you for not letting me post more than six thousand words per chapter.
I didn't mean to but it seems that I've just made an AU story to TTLL, oh well it's shaping up pretty well so far.
XXX
Faybelle stood discretely outside the healer's offices at lunchtime, holding two takeout boxes and staring at them in bemusement.
"There is nothing weak about checking up on one's intended bride." The fairy murmured lowly looking around the hallway to the staff and a few students exiting the doors. "But since this is a secret elopement it would be best not to draw too much attention…"
If Faybelle had it her way then she would have spirited Raven away two days ago and spent a week off from school completing the marriage ritual so that she could announce to everyone and everything that she had gained the rights to the Evil Queen title and had stolen the vile woman's precious daughter to boot.
But Ever After High's most watched witch and herself disappearing so suddenly would raise too much suspicion, with so many scheming eyes watching Raven Queen's every move, hoping to find a weakness and push the girl to fulfill their own agendas… that would be very troublesome indeed.
Once it had appeared that everyone had exited for lunch Faybelle spirited herself into the healer's offices and focused on evading the eyes of the lingering staff while she quietly peered into rooms trying to find her intended bride to be.
She eventually found Raven, or more like she had sensed Raven's magic, in one of the far back examination rooms, when she opened the door Faybelle was greeted to the sight of the dozing witch strapped down to a complicated looking padded chair and wearing a medical gown that had a front and a back and tied together at the sides, her legs and feet hidden underneath a heavy cotton blanket.
But that wasn't what had caught Faybelle's eye the most, since the glowing magic circle around the chair and the clear plastic tubing filled with different colored liquids attached to Raven's skin should have been enough to give even the most dimwitted pixie a reason to pause.
"Can I help you Miss Thorn?" Asked a gruff female voice.
Faybelle startled, finding that while she had been staring at Raven, Healer Phalange had managed to walk up behind her.
At the sound Raven blinked awake and turned her head. "Faybelle?" She asked sounding dazed.
"I brought Raven her throne-work for the morning and some lunch… is she allowed to eat?" Faybelle held up the boxes in her hands while allowing herself the luxury of looking at Raven with equal parts worry and horror. "Is she alright?"
Healer Phalange gave Raven a questioning look.
"Yeah, it's alright to tell her, I give permission for her to know my medical condition." Raven nodded, leaning back so that she could rest her head more fully onto the neck pillow provided for her.
"Upon initial examination we have found that Miss Queen's magic core has been infected with a curse." Healer Phalange explained, walking past Faybelle to activate a large mirror-holographic-computer, pulling up images of charts and reports with her fingers to float in the air as she did. "It took us most of the morning to figure out the nature of the spell and how it was affecting Miss Queen since my magic-user staff could detect a presence of something being wrong but at the same time being unable to disable the curse through normal means, we even called in a few princes and, at Miss Queen's insistence, one princess to see if their natural inherited curse-breaking abilities would have an effect, much to their wounded prides, it had not."
Faybelle noticed that Raven had pulled a face at the mention of Ever After High's resident princes' "help", making Faybelle suspect that the witch hadn't been too keen on letting a bunch of males kiss her in order to see if they could break her curse.
"And then lab tech number nine had discovered something odd with the blood sample we had taken. As you can see we are both straining the things out of her blood and introducing body-fluid friendly potions into her body to help her combat the magical hold they've got over her." Healer Phalange pulled up two images of two different circular metallic strips, with magical spells etched into them using one of the old languages, dwarfed amongst what looked like a magnified picture of blood cells.
"Someone had somehow managed to get their hands on the technology to create these hellish microscopic things, completely harmless to the body on it's own but with the amount of magic embedded into each of these, to be honest Miss Queen is quite lucky that the one who made these had apparently known what they were doing, even though it's a damn worrying thought to consider the amount of research they must have had to go through to make sure they injected Miss Queen with just enough to not end up killing her, since this is the first I've ever heard about such a thing like this."
Faybelle gave the older woman a wide-eyed look; according to Charlotte and her mother; Healer Phalange was some sort of famous (and sometimes infamous) legend amongst the medical community, for the woman to be saying that she had never seen or heard of insanely tiny talismans being injected into people's bloodstreams was… Faybelle looked over to Raven who was looking paler than normal and doing her best not to look at the holo-mirror.
The healer pointed to one of the microscopic talismans. "The one on the right is what has been tampering with Miss Queen's magic ability and the one on the left is designed to keep a specific individual away from her, we haven't determined how this talisman goes about ensuring such a thing, nor have we translated the particularly confusing bit that states just who it is trying to keep away from Miss Queen, or when these could have been administered by the current Evil Queen, however I suspect that there is someone in this room who might be willing to oblige the medical professional everything I need to know about the who, and the when, maybe even the how."
Raven stiffened, looking like a caged animal. "How did you know that it was my mother who did this to me?"
In answer to this Healer Phalange brought up a third image of one of the metal strips, this time the writing was written in standard.
"On the backs of the talismans used to curse your magic we found that… someone has gone to the trouble of signing her name." Healer Phalange stated dryly.
Faybelle squinted hatefully at the hologram as she could distinctly read the words; PROP. OF EQ etched into the material.
"That bitch." The fairy hissed quietly. She was really going to enjoy marrying Raven now, not just for the title, or for the bragging rights, but the very idea that she was taking away someone who the Evil Queen considered property set a determined sort of primal glee in her gut, much like the feeling that she had often read her ancestor's describing when they procured a bride from an enemy human family to help them gain leverage and bragging rights over the weaker race.
The fairy resolutely tried to ignore the pangs of pity towards Raven, the girl may be her intended and Faybelle had personal interest in ensuring that the witch was healthy, satisfied, and safe, but it was still early days, not more than a few days ago Faybelle had been so certain that the witch was an overdramatic pain, Faybelle had been proven wrong, but she still did not know Raven all that well.
"What was that?" Raven asked.
"You told me that you remember your magic going screwy on you sometime around the poisoning of Wonderland." The fairy said turning to look at Raven squarely in the eye. "Healer Phalange is bound by her oath to keep mum in regards to your health and past history, plus she has been given references for this job by my own mother, trust me she doesn't do that for just anybody."
Raven's eyes widened. "Are you saying that-?"
"This is far too important to keep her in the dark Raven." Faybelle told the witch sternly. "I mean look at you, your blood is being strained through a tube above your head for ancestor's sake!"
Raven peered up to where she could see tubes carrying her blood stuck into her strapped down arms leading up to a box of some sort fixed above her head, the lab tech that helped set her up mentioned that the box was usually used to filter out blood incase one of the students accidentally got bitten by an incredibly rare two-headed venomous snake that had been spotted on occasion in the deeper parts of the forest surrounding the school, there had been no recorded bites as of yet and hardly anybody was willing to travel that far into the woods, but they kept the equipment on hand just in case, you never knew what might happen with so many villainous classes and personal experiments going on the side (donations by rich families to the medical offices no doubt made Ever After High the best place to get sick or cursed because the healers seemed to have every medical device under the sun).
Raven sighed. "I… don't know. Are you absolutely sure-?"
"Yes." Came the dry chorused reply from both Faybelle and Healer Phalange.
"Again, I point out that you are currently strapped down, with your blood, being strained, through a metal box, above your head." The fairy said slowly, as if talking to a particularly simple individual (she knew that Raven was far from simple, stubborn as hell there was no doubt, but she at least seemed to be a creature driven by logic, with hope, reason would win out over the girl's insecurities).
Raven blinked, Faybelle could see the gears turning in her brain as she considered the fairy's reasons, she looked around her no doubt looking to make sure that there were no mirrors in the room (even though for privacy reasons all regular mirrors were banned from the medical rooms and she was sure that Raven had already scanned the room for them anyway,) and after taking one last look at the box and the tubes filled with her blood suspended over her head, she began speaking.
"I'm pretty sure that it's my grandmother who is the one my mother doesn't want me to be around, I know that she has been cursed to fall ill if she gets anywhere near me or the Queen territory so it wouldn't be surprising if my mother had decided to be double cautious and decided to curse me as well as my grandmother… mother had always had this thing about being completely thorough."
"The Evil Queen cursed her own mother?" Faybelle asked incredulously.
"Grandmother was not at all pleased by my mother's actions in her career as Evil Queen… or with the way she treated me." Raven sighed. "My… parents never married, they were supposed to share equal custody of me for the most part, but my mother was often away doing who knows what with her time so she used to just drop me off with my grandmother when it was her turn to have me over. Due to my mother's… past behavior, my grandmother was the one who used to run the Queen's lands, my mother was barely mentally fit enough to take care of me let alone a kingdom. The two of them rarely got along especially in the months before Wonderland was poisoned…"
Raven swallowed. "One day my mother did not take me back to the estate in the Queen territory, for a few days I hadn't really suspected that my mother was going to do anything malicious… until she used my blood as a sacrifice in a ritual for… a curse, my memory's kind of fuzzy about the whole thing but I think that my mother could have injected me with whatever that stuff is along with the pain medication she kept giving me. I was really out of it but the only thing I really know, from what other people had told me was that my grandmother had tracked me down and smuggled me away while my mother was off terrorizing Wonderland… that's pretty much the last I've seen my grandmother in person she's… well she was in a medical facility for a while, they tried to figure out how to cure her so that she could help raise me and rule the territory but they never did… so now she's off teaching at a witch academy under an assumed alias… whenever she is well enough, and using the resources there to try to strengthen her body and fight of her… condition."
"Condition?" Healer Phalange asks. "My junior lab tech found those metal bits in your blood within an hour of you coming in here, if your grandmother really is suffering from the same case of microscopic talismans swimming in her veins, what medical facility would be so irresponsible as to not look at her blood in a routine examination?"
"After Wonderland and the other worlds had been poisoned death threats had been issued to my entire family, they moved her to the only place that would both let her in and was remote enough that no one would try to finish her off… although I will admit that she would agree with you, when I asked about the place she was staying she had some… very colorful words in regards to how the Brotherhood of Shimmy Gaba is run."
"That would explain it." Healer Phalange sneered in disgust at the mention of the secluded medical temple. "I'm surprised that place is still open considering that it's being run by a bunch of old men who can't tell the difference between a foot and a hand."
"What condition is your grandmother in now?" Faybelle asked, the way that Raven had talked about her grandmother's health had sounded… suspicious.
Raven twitches in her restraints nervously. "My mother did some other things to my Grandmother that has left her… physically and magically impaired… well as much as anything can attempt to slow her down or get in her way. She doesn't like to talk about it much but, um… if you wanted to know more about it, it's… not my place to say, but if you give her a good reason I'm sure that she or her nurse will tell you all about it, just make sure that there are no mirrors within hearing distance of you when you call."
"Somebody has been spying on Raven and all of her acquaintances through the mirrors." Faybelle clarified when the Healer gave the witch a strange look.
"Right." Healer Phalange sighed. "Utmost discretion. Where is your grandmother staying?"
"Hathor Witch Academy." Raven said, making Faybelle do a double take.
Healer Phalange nodded approvingly. "It's going to be half days all this week as the school prepares for that game thing; how's about you keep coming in after class for treatment until we are able to clear your blood completely and get your core back up to a healthy speed. For now, I'll call in the lab numbers to unhook you, with the supervision of Miss Thorn, I'd like you to eat, and drink lots of juice, after that I'll come back and we can all call your grandmother together."
"K." Raven nodded timidly.
"Great, now if you excuse me I've got to go an make some old men cry before alerting several more credible institutions that I will be sending them some very unique talismans that I need them to study pronto, I promise to be vague when it comes to where I got the damn things from, but it is highly necessary that I know what kind of spells were used so that I can counteract any unforeseen side effects." The healer proclaimed before opening the door and leaving.
Raven closed her eyes and breathed. "Grandmother is going to blow up something if it turns out that she's got these things in her blood too." And the witch meant that literally.
"Look on the bright side." Faybelle steadied her voice into a cool seductive tone, walking forward until she was standing next to the witch, close enough to lean in till her face was inches from Raven's. "On Friday I will whisk you away, and come Monday you will be my bride."
Faybelle was surprised when Raven actually smiled up at her. "Thank you for taking this title away from me, I know that you're doing this for your own gain but it really does make me happy knowing that you are helping to free me of all this mess. Thank you."
The fairy blinked. "You're acting rather calm and cheery for someone whose about to be married off to a wicked fairy for mutual personal gain and not love." She trailed a finger down the side of Raven's cheek. "You will be considered mine, you do realize that right? Fairies are very territorial creatures, and I am one of the wretched ones, now that I have you I won't let go until I get what I want from you."
Raven gave her a wry little smile. "Well as long as we treat each other right, and work at being civil with each other then we can stand a chance to at least be content with this arrangement right?"
Again Faybelle felt surprised. "Well obviously we are going to have to figure out a way to stay in the same room together without the indignity squabbling over every little thing like one of those human arranged marriages." The fairy sniffed. "And I'm going to have to eventually use actions to better show potential rivals that you are mine, at least until I can safely announce that you are my wedded bride. That is just the way that this is going to have to work."
"Isn't that how most token marriages between our races are supposed to go?" Raven asked curiously. "Even though you'll be hard pressed to find a rival who is willing to try to steal away the daughter of the-"
A ringtone echoed out in the quiet of the room.
"That's the ringtone I gave for Apple, shoot I forgot that I promised to call her with news as soon as I could, I guess not hearing from me by lunchtime has her worried, I'll have to call her back after they unhook me." The witch murmured, her attention turned away from Faybelle and to her folded clothes in the corner.
Faybelle narrowed her eyes, realizing that if anyone had the power to put this whole deal at stake, it would be the clingy princess that had unknowingly stolen the witch's heart already.
The fairy took hold of the witch's chin, turning the other's head so that Faybelle could place a chaste kiss to Raven's brow.
"You can call her after we are finished conducting business with your grandmother." The fairy ordered gently. "Focus on your needs first before dealing with your soon-to-be-former princess."
Raven blinked up at Faybelle in confusion before nodding in agreement since the fairy did have a point.
XXX
"Kitty why do you always trick Professor Pied Piper into playing an instrument?" Raven sighed tiredly, glancing at the wall's clock, it was the last class before lunch and she was anxious to get whatever horrors the healers had in store for her over and done with so that she can work on finally mastering her magic without the curse messing with her.
"Because it never fails to be fantastically amusing." Kitty grinned cheekily.
"Raven. Psst. Hey Raven." Daring leaned over his seat to tap Raven on the shoulder.
"What is it Daring?" Raven turned her attention to the boy. "Do you need me to help you take another picture of you playing an instrument… again?"
"Maybe later." The boy whispered. "I was actually… just wondering if my princely kiss has cured you of your curse yet, seeing as maybe it just took a while before it was broken."
"Princely kiss?" Kitty asked.
"The Healers brought in a bunch of princes and Darling to see if they could break my curse by kissing me." Raven clarified sounding resigned. "And no Daring, they found that the only way of getting rid of the curse is to strain my blood, the person who had cursed me designed the whole thing so that it would be resistant to even a prince's kiss." The witch informed, gingerly poking at the bandages on her arm.
"So I had no effect at all?" The boy seemed to deflate.
Raven hesitated. "Well I did have a headache from when the healers used magic to try to pinpoint the location of the curse… and that did go away…" After Darling has kissed her and the rest of the princes had walked out of the healer's office defeated.
Daring broke out a delighted smile humming happily to himself as he watched the professor try to round up the rats that were running loose in the classroom.
"Your Rebel cause has made you soft." Kitty warned with a flat look directed towards Daring.
"I can't deny the truth." Raven shrugged, not sounding concerned at all.
Daring seemed to halt mid-hum as a realization finally struck him.
"Wait, did you just say that they're having to strain your blood?" The prince asked horrified.
"Raven Queen report to the Headmaster's office." The announcement speaker spoke boredly.
Raven looked over to the wall clock. "But I have to go to the healers right after class!" The witch complained exasperatedly.
"Then you better start moving now." The speaker snapped at her.
"Kitty, Daring, could one of you please tell the healers that the Headmaster called me into his office and that I might be a little late." The witch grumbled as she got up, glaring at the speaker as she did so.
XXX
"Miss Queen what happened to your arms?" The headmaster asked her the moment she stepped into the room. The tone of concern in his voice only seemed half-false
Raven looked down to her bandages, mentally thinking that the small pieces of taped gauze were far less interesting than what the Headmaster was making them out to be. "They're from a procedure that I have to go through every day this week in the healer's offices after morning classes." The witch said, deciding that it would probably be fore the best not to elaborate.
This time the Headmaster's concern turned genuine. "What procedure?" He asked now looking at her arms with genuine interest.
Raven shook her head gently. "It's a long story and I really don't have the time to explain it now seeing as I need to get over to the healer's as soon as I'm done here."
That seemed to throw the older man a little. "Of course Miss Queen, do you have some time for something to eat, maybe a boiled dragon's egg? Why don't you sit down?" The man gestured to the surprisingly comfortable chair placed in front of his desk (it hadn't been there the last few times Raven was sent to the office) he tried to sound cheerful but his eyes kept straying to Raven's arms.
"I can't eat anything until after the healer's have finished with me." Raven sighed as she sat down. "And you don't have to pretend to be so nice to me, I already know that you… don't like me much… it'll be faster if you just tell me why I'm here, in your normal tone of voice." The witch sighed unhappily, really she had nothing against the Headmaster but his desperate behavior towards her was sometimes… difficult to take, a little heartbreaking really, well she at least admired how merciful he had been towards her thus far.
The Headmaster leaned forward, looking a little hurt. "Now Miss Queen do you really believe that I dislike you so much?"
"Yes." Raven said simply, with so much honesty that the old man actually winced. "But it's really nothing new to me, and I don't hold it against you… although if I'm perfectly honest I am confused as to why you are so keen on getting me to become the Evil Queen. I had thought that you would have jumped at the chance to expel a troublemaker like me so that you could get someone who actually has their family honor intact to play that role."
"Is that what this whole thing has been about?" The Headmaster asked looking torn between relieved and disturbed. "Miss Queen I know that whole honor business had been hard for you but it's all a bunch of ridiculousness, you are not accountable for your mother's crimes, and we are living in an era where such archaic customs hardly matter as time wears on."
"The Waco clan is still shunned by almost all the honored houses for a crime where one of their ancestors had started a cult and then gave their followers a potion that sent them into a rage before it killing them, that had been one village wiped out nearly two hundred years ago, my mother attempted to wipe out half a dozen worlds at once and rule over whoever had survived." Raven stated unhappily.
"But the Waco's have secluded themselves to their land, are hostile to outsiders, and still uphold the practice of using the bones of those massacred villagers, as well as the bones from old graves, -and the occasionally donated body- for forbidden magic practices and to decorate the halls of their ancestral home." The Headmaster pointed out. "You and your family are nothing like the Wacos Miss Queen, if you become the Evil Queen then you can prove to the realms that you are nothing like your mother, that you have just as much honor… as your grandmother… and all those who came before her."
Raven shook her head. "It's not that simple and you know it."
"But I believe that you are strong enough to do it." The Headmaster stated with what seemed to be genuine emotion. "You've already made so many future allies and so much of the school looks up to you."
"That's still not enough to bring back the honor my mother took away from me, the only way out is if I never sign the Book and someone else takes the title in my stead." Raven's voice shook only slightly but she remained firm and dry-eyed as she spoke.
"I strongly believe that if anyone can accomplish this, it is you." The Headmaster insisted with actual sincerity, making Raven pause.
"You aren't tapping your fingers." She said dazed. "You're telling the truth, you actually believe that."
What does tapping my fingers have anything to do with me telling the truth?" the man asked a little guarded.
"It's your tell." Raven explained. "The Good King's mother would only give me pocket change to spend from what I could win off her and her friends in pirate style poker, I mostly played with her because it felt better knowing that I had worked for my money rather than asking the Good King for some, so I've gotten good at catching people's tells."
The Headmaster raised his brows.
"It was a life skill she wanted me to get good at incase I ever needed to acquire funds in a remote area, she also taught me how to play several forms of chess, sticks, marbles, how to make trick shots for pool, cheat at drinking games, and play dominos, for just that purpose." Raven shrugs. "She's worried that I might be run out of a town or two when I grow up."
The Headmaster continued to stare at her in the same way lots of people did when they found out about the Lady Good King's "lessons" (and Raven's human grandmother loved it when people stopped what they were doing to give her the same look the Headmaster was giving Raven, made her feel accomplished as a grandmotherly figure in Raven's life).
"I'm honored that you think so highly of my abilities to gain back my family's honor, but I'm still not going to sign the Book." Raven told the man as she made to get up from her chair. "I'm not going to risk the reputation of either Apple or what family I have out in the world by signing it and potentially making things worse."
"It's dangerous not signing Miss Queen, your story could disappear." The Headmaster tried, his mind still stuck on the fact that there had been someone who had taught Raven, as a child, how to gamble. "You and the rest of your Rebellion could disappear."
"I highly doubt that we'll disappear." Raven said dryly, keeping in mind that the sisters wanted complete discretion in regards to their existence so it would be best if she did not reveal that they were still alive to the man. "And at any rate Apple's fairytale will be the first one to start and since I never signed the Book I will be the first to go, so if I disappear then that should be decent enough warning for everyone to make the time to not end up like me, that is if that myth proves to be true, which I'm pretty sure it's not."
"This is not something you should joke about Miss Queen!" The Headmaster snapped in reprimand.
"I'm serious." Raven told him seriously, looking him directly in the eye. "If I thought for even a second that I was putting anybody but myself at risk, that there was no hope at all for me to live out my own destiny, I would have not tried to do something so as publicly scandalous as what had happened on Legacy Day."
"You would have signed the Book?" The Headmaster asked, suspiciously hopeful.
"Oh no, I would have ran away and waited until you had no choice but to have someone else take my place." Raven told the horrified man, not at all sounding disturbed by her own words. She was tired with this whole conversation. "My family's dishonor has already taken away my culture, my family name, my father, and my grandmother at the very least I'd like to keep what's left of myself before the rest was taken away from me."
"What would your grandmother think? To have raised such a resigned, troubling child!" The Headmaster gaped in outrage.
"My grandmother did not raise me after Wonderland was poisoned." Raven nearly growled, she was at the end of her rope, did the man not understand just what an impossible task he was asking of her? Of what he demanded she give up? The only thing she had left was her birth name and the freedom that came from denying destiny. She did not care if this argument resulted in her expulsion, or if such a thing were to happen somewhere down the line, becoming the Evil Queen was the one thing that Raven could not allow to happen.
"She… what?" The wind seemed to be blown out of the Headmaster's sails.
Raven stood up. "She had no choice in the matter, and she still is hardly happy about it, but the consequences of my mother's very poor choices with her career made it… it was far too dangerous for her to stay, and she was far too injured to force the situation to be more reasonable, so she used her influence to get the Good King and his family to take me in and to look after the Queen territory, now if you will excuse me Headmaster, this painfully awkward conversation about the past and all the could-have-been's has been fun but I really have to get going." The witch informed brusquely, intending to leave before she lost control of herself and turned the Headmaster into a chicken… again.
"Elenore was injured?" The Headmaster asked now seemingly completely focused on Raven's grandmother for reasons that confused Raven greatly.
"How do you know my grandmother's birth name?" Raven asked suspiciously.
The Headmaster looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "W-Well M-Miss Queen… the former Evil Queen was a well respected classmate of mine while we went to school togeth- at the same time as each other and I felt… much respect for her and we were very close- friends, friends we were-" The man gestured wildly.
"Never mind!" Raven grimaced holding up her hand to signal the man to stop, she had seen the same body language from enough men in relation to both her grandmother's to know what relationship the Headmaster had, or wished he had with her grandmother. "There are some things about my grandmother's private past affairs that I really would rather not know about."
The Headmaster actually blushed much to Raven's horror. "Oh no you misunderstand-"
Raven closed her eyes feeling pained and utterly scared for life. "All due respect sir, please don't ever play poker, it would be a really terrible idea." She moved past his desk and towards the door in a desperate attempt to escape.
"Miss Queen!" Raven heard the man call out.
"Important medical procedure, I am out the door now!" Raven said quickly as she fled the room.
The Headmaster bit his lip, feeling rather awkward now that secret was out; he jumped and looked at his phone wearily when it rang.
"Yes?... Why hello Healer-… yes I was the one to call Miss Queen into-… yes she did tell me that she had an important procedure-… er, no, I did not think to check to see if she had any other pressing engagements-… why I called her in? Well I wished to inform her about the Book being brought out for Throne-… yes I know that the medical wing holds equal or more power to me in regards to a student or staff's health-… yes I do realize that I have been putting off my medical exam-… Miss Queen is on her way as we speak Healer; there is no need to resort to that sort of thing-… my head feels perfectly fine Healer, there is no need to check it-… yes… yes… I am sorry if I kept her for longer than necessary, time got away from me-… no! Please don't schedule an office visit! I'm a busy man-… I was planning on going in for my exam eventually, I swear!"