Cedar felt… weird.
It was different from any normal weird feelings she had ever gotten in the past, being made of wood sort of limited the things that she could feel, her father described the few sensations she could feel as just a byproduct of being held together and existing by magic, that once she became a real girl she should be prepared to feel a little overwhelmed when the actual feeling of touch and the sensation of blood flowing through her new veins became apparent.
That's what made this strange sensation she was feeling at the moment so odd, because as she was stumbling her way up the stairs leading to her and Cerise's dorm room she could… feel that the smoothness of the brass stair railing was more than what she had ever felt before, the warmth radiating from her body and the chill… the chill that came from the spring air around her… she could feel that, the drafty breeze that collected up and down the stairs, and she could have sworn that the chill was making the wood on the surface of her bare legs and arm tighten and when she looked closely the surface of the wood on her arms had formed tiny little bumps that she would have to sand down later… after she had a good lie-down and slept off whatever this strange thing was.
"Ow!" The girl cried out and stared at her hand in beweilderment when the door handle of her dorm gave her a small static shock. That had been unpleasant… it had hurt!
Something was thumping inside of her; she could feel it as she stumbled inside the dorm, a rhythmic beating that pounded against the inside of her chest and a faint whooshing sound could be heard in her ears, which was strange because she was made out of solid wood, and she would have noticed if a wood bug had tried to burrow into her body, nothing should be moving inside of her!
Cedar's chest section began to convulse and it felt like something inside was burning but she couldn't call for help for some reason, and her vision was blackening, and her head felt cold and light, and as she collapsed to the floor her thoughts were leaving her and-
Automatically Cedar's body took over drawing much needed air into her newly formed lungs, as the girl lay unconscious she gasped her first breaths of air.
XXX
"It's not that I'm afraid of the Thorns or unappreciative of all that they've done for my family… it's just that I know that they're planning more permanent aspects of my future for me while I'm distracted with my kingdom's problems and if I survive all of this I'd like to be the one to have a say in what I want without having to worry about any other contracts that I've been tricked into making with them while I was distracted." Raven explained to the two elder men sitting across from her, they had moved her into an elegantly furnished drawing room and set her still-limp form down on an ornamental franc-mage style fainting couch.
"That's why I asked you to make it seem like you claiming me as your granddaughter was all your idea and why the Evil Fairy was so hostile to you when you surprised her with the news." Raven coughed apologetically. "Thank you for enduring that by the way."
"Oh no need to look so sorry, I sort of guessed by the way you practically leaped at the opportunity to come back here whenever you wanted and the way that the Evil Fairy was being frostier than usual that something was up." Milton assured awkwardly, and really it wasn't any trouble at all for him, after having to deal with the sting and the insecurities that plagued him after Clawstorm had reacted so negatively toward the news of him being her father, Raven's almost easy acceptance of the idea of him being her grandfather (which was nothing short of amazing, and the ancestors knew he was still in shock about the whole idea himself) was more of a relief than he had expected.
"With two such profitable kingdoms along with all of their territories that you are to inherit someday it is of little wonder that you are in such a predicament." Giles hummed to himself.
"Well that and I actually do like it here, contrary to popular belief." Raven pointed out. "Though I will admit that it will be a slight relief having a decent excuse as to why I will not loom little Thorn clan fairy-witchlings so early in life handy, apparently me not feeling that I am ready yet is not considered a good excuse."
Milton and Giles raise their brows.
"My new lodgings in Hathor Academy include a nursery in the floor plan and there is several competent family planning clinics in the city a few miles away from the academy." Raven explained. "Not exactly a subtle push on my in-law's part."
"…And because you now have rights to run off to one of the Grimm controlled areas of Ever After they can't bully you into becoming a parent at seventeen in exchange for your safety." Milton hummed to himself, trying to see himself as a great grandfather and having the sudden, overwhelming urge to faint at the idea.
Raven shook her head. "There's more to it than that." She said firmly. "…This… this is going to be awkward and it won't be as easy as either one of us likes due to our different views but I am serious about… maybe trying out this whole having a grandfather thing… or whatever you feel comfortable calling it… that is if you want to I mean." The witch gulped nervously.
"Ah, yes well… if you don't mind… I mean I would not be opposed to…" Milton fidgeted nervously.
"You two are definitely related." Giles sighed. "My brother is trying to express the fact that he'd love to be your granddad and have all the responsibilities that comes with the job description. Oh don't give me that look brother, you can't deny that you've tied yourself up in knots worrying about whether or not she'd want anything to do with you when she found out."
"I do want to have something to do with him." Raven assured making Milton nearly startle out of his chair. "As long as he wants something to do with me. It's going to be complicated what with everything that is happening but… maybe it can work out? Somehow?"
Milton hesitates. "Do you really not mind having me as a grandfather?" He asks, hoping that his hopeful tone did not show too much in his voice, because ever since the day he realized that what he had with Elenore was probably the only hope he ever had to having a stable happy relationship while he still kept his station as a Grimm, he just couldn't ever quite let go of what could have happened if he had just realized how good he had things at the time and that having someone like Elenore genuinely love him for himself and not his station was a blessing he should not have let go, and all those years spent wondering what having a family with her could have been like… he had always, always wanted to bring back at least just a little spark of the happiness he had felt back when he was young and never felt more alive then when Elenore was close by.
And now he was a father and grandfather and he didn't want to have this chance to at least get to know his granddaughter… to help protect her and be there for her and do all the other things a good grandparent should be willing to do slip by him.
But what if it blew up in his face again? Him leaving the girl's grandmother, the terrible way he treated her mother, did he really have a chance to hope?
"I always sort of associated you to a grandparent sort of figure. And Giles is already practically like everybody's uncle at this school." Raven admitted slowly, as if she was trying to gauge his reaction (and that is when Milton remembers that the girl can read faces so she probably saw all the hope and nervousness he was feeling a mile off). "I'm confident that I can build on that until it'll be nothing but natural seeing you as my actual grandfather."
And that statement makes Milton relax almost by magic because maybe… just maybe there is a chance that this could work after all.
"I always regretted leaving your grandmother." Milton confesses because it has to be said. "The happiest years I've ever been in my life were when I was with her. It was a mistake me leaving her and if I had known about your mother… I would have done anything to be a good father, you have to believe that."
The witch gives him a wry smile. "I believe you." She assures.
A silence descends upon the three that is part nervous tension and part utter bewilderment.
"I have no clue where to start." Raven eventually states. "I'm not even sure if there will be time for me to ask some of the questions I have for you if Apple and Faybelle decide to come for me early."
"Only a half an hour of time left." Milton sighed to himself as he rubbed his chin. "Do you suppose that you will be allowed to come back anytime soon? I don't think that I've made very many allies with either the Queen of Hearts or the Evil Fairy today."
Raven bit her lip, thinking. "If I can't beg my way back here then we will just have to figure out another way of making you a necessity in my life." She states simply. "I'm listed as Raven Bride of the Thorns in the academy school database and that is the same surname that I've listed to this latest product line deal I've signed with Daring Charming and the O' Hairs, fifty percent of the royalties from that deal goes to the Thorn clan and the other fifty percent goes to me… now I've been figuring regular amounts of my cut to be donated anonymously to several key non-profit organizations in my kingdom."
The girl gives Milton a pointed look. "These organizations are fronts for covert government operations that offer aid and Underground Railroad options for the average citizens being held hostage on their own lands across the border, the Thorn clan knows this little fact as well."
"Sounds serious." Milton stated leaning forward.
"Very, and since you are a concerned relative of mine, the Thorn clan can't object to you insisting upon becoming a co-benefactor on my end of the deal so that you can monitor whether or not someone tries to figure out who has been giving such large donations to these organizations. And as for the rest of the world I am no longer a student or a fairytale character so if I wanted to continue selling my product formulas to the O' Hair sisters…"Raven trailed off expectantly.
"I would need to get involved because they are my students and you are not and you are also involving Faybelle Thorn in this deal as well with your acquired surname and since she is also a student it is my job to ensure that all is well on that front also." Milton finished. "Sounds like we will have no choice but to arrange several meetings for the two of us to meet."
"Indeed." Raven nods in mock seriousness. "It is your job after all."
"And I'm free to show up just about anytime I'd like, since the bad guys seem to have forgotten my existence entirely." Giles volunteered. "Kline didn't mention me at all, he just started ranting on about my brother."
"Huh. That is true." Raven blinked in realization. "There are more than several dozen mentions of my grandfather in the intelligence we've gathered on the enemy, but absolutely nothing about Giles has been found thus far."
"Seriously?" Milton raised his brows at the news. "But he's my brother, wouldn't he be considered a soft target?"
"Hey, I know how to defend myself!" Giles sniffed. "But seriously, there's nothing that you've found on me?"
"I think that it's mentioned in one of the reports that I gave you that your father had him and a younger sibling… maybe…" Raven pointed her chin to Milton as she tried to remember.
"Er, no, not even that much, it just said that I was the grandson to one of the former headmasters." Milton recalled.
"I feel offended and overlooked." Giles muttered darkly. "I'm perfectly capable of being a tangible threat to those goons!"
"I think that they were more distracted by him and my grandmother's relationship." Raven piped up helpfully.
"Well I'll admit that was rather distracting, especially back then, a witch and a human being so openly romantic at Ever After was a big deal back in the day." Giles hummed.
"Yes but their plan had failed." Milton stated. "I never married into any of their families and like hex am I going to allow ex-new-guy anywhere near my school or my granddaughter! So why did they never try to use Giles as leverage?"
"They got pretty quiet when my mom went berserk." Raven sighed. "Like really quiet, I'd be surprised if most of the underlings even remembered anything past the scary witch lady who was crazy enough to curse several worlds just to try to hunt them down."
"…So in other words… we're the plan that they've been forced to scrap?" Milton realizes.
"Maybe…" Raven twitches. "But it's still too early to tell what's going on with these nut-jobs."
"So you don't know what their future moves might be." Giles stated grimly.
"Actually we've got a very good idea of what they want to accomplish." Raven murmured to the ceiling darkly. "They want war, and lots of it from the recent political attempts at starting a war in the months leading up to my mother's hasty attempt to stop it all… it is pretty clear that whomever is pulling the strings on this is trying to start a domino effect throughout the kingdoms of Ever After, digging up old insecurities and race hatred in two large kingdoms and causing enough upset in other kingdoms for one thing to lead to another and then everyone will be up in arms."
"The Book of Legends." Milton gulped.
"Would have been essential in their plan after the two of you passed away and… that man became Headmaster." Raven breathed out slowly, fidgeting with the new Book of Legends still held in her arms, it had stopped glowing while the Queen of Hearts had been yelling at her grandfather. "But then my mother came along and changed the game, and now here I am making things even more difficult, if the leaders to this… thing is smart he'll have at least realized that Ever After High is the wrong place to try anything but we can't be too sure…"
"If your kingdom was one of the targets then where was the other?" Giles asked, because it was a very good question and he'd like to know where the spear throwing might start so that he could avoid finding himself stuck in the middle while he finally took that long awaited vacation, because catastrophic instances tended to happen on his vacation days (example A: Clawstorm going completely FUBAR on the worlds at large, it happened just when he was about to leave for a vacation).
And that's when Raven clammed up. "I'm pretty sure that my mother took care of it… and Apple will make sure it stays that way."
Before the issue could be pressed further the private intercom line buzzed.
The secretary sighed into the microphone. "Sir Miss White and Miss Thorn-"
"Mrs. Thorn." Faybelle could be heard correcting the woman.
There was a pause. "…They've come for Miss Queen-"
"Mrs. Raven Bride of the Thorns." Faybelle corrected again.
There was another pause and a cough that sounded suspiciously like a complaint about not being paid enough for this. "…Shall I send them in sirs?" The secretary's voice came out a little strangled.
"Because if not we can send ourselves in." Apple's voice piped up helpfully with false cheer. "It's really no problem."
"They are going to drive me insane by the time the weekend is over." Raven groaned.
"I'll take the Book, you say goodbye to your granddaughter." Giles suggested as he retrieved said tome from the girl, Milton soon following to gather the girl up and carry her into his office.
"Stay safe." The man spoke, squeezing the girl a little closer as the worry leaked into his voice.
"The same to you." Raven pled. "I don't want any more tragedies to befall my family, no matter how long I've known that they were family."
"Let's try to meet sometime within the month." Milton proposed. "There is a lot to catch up on and we both sorely need to have a talk where we both take each other seriously."
"Sounds good to me." Raven gave the man a brave smile before turning her attention to the squawk Apple makes when the princess sees that the witch is obviously not completely recovered by being hit by a magical book.
XXX
"That was Faybelle, she says that they've got Raven and that she's more or less all right for a person that nearly had a brain overload from a book being crammed into her head." Blondie announced holding up the hext that the fairy had sent to her.
"I hope she's doing better than me." Clawstorm sighed gingerly adjusting the sunglasses on her face. "I feel like I've been run over by a semi-truck."
"Semi… truck?" Blondie blinked in confusion.
"It's a mode of transportation in the dimension I got my degrees from." The witch explained.
"Degrees… as in you have more than one?" The reporter asked.
"Mad science, anatomy, magical summoning with a specialized view into golem creation, and finally as of last year fall semester I got a degree in diverse magics of the forbidden variety." Clawstorm listed out. "Let's just say that I had a lot of free time in mirror prison."
"I can see that." Blondie nodded dumbly. "By the way I need help on my math homework, are you free this weekend sometime?"
"Yeah sure thing." Clawstorm snickered. "Just for future reference you might want to ask that nice Tiffany girl for help with homework too if I'm not available, it is my understanding that she skipped up several grades when she got here."
"Who's this man in these photographs?" Blondie asked the question that had been itching at her for a while since the older woman had calmed down and promised not to run screaming into the afternoon just because the blonde had found out Mira's secret.
"Oh that's me in my male form." Clawstorm stated breezily.
"Male form?" Blondie felt her eyebrows rise up to her hairline.
"It happens sometimes in witches and warlocks, where we are born with something… extra in our genetic makeup I guess you could say, for instance I was born anatomically female and I stay female most of the time but hidden in my DNA were these bits of warlock characteristics, for my magic this was rather confusing for it, to be living in a body that looked female but only felt half female so every so often it naturally does a gender-shift on my body so that things are… more balanced." Clawstorm hummed wondering if she was making any sense.
"So you're like a part time transgender person?" Blondie asked tilting her head to the side.
"I've never put a name to it but that is a close description to what it is… kind of. Except with transgender people they feel a strong sense of dysphoria with their own bodies for being born the wrong gender, I've never felt that, male or female I tend to feel at home with myself. I'm more like whatever a clam would call itself actually, because lots of species of clams can change their genders at will when it suits them or just for the hex of it." The woman scratched the side of her head. "Does that even remotely make sense?"
"It does actually." Blondie nodded. "You're you but with the luxury of being you in both genders."
"Precisely." Clawstorm nodded.
"So were you like Raven's second dad too?" Blondie asked because from the looks of the photographs Raven seemed just fine with a male version of her mother.
"Had to be sometimes." Clawstorm pursed her lips. "Raven's father is a fantastic man don't get me wrong, but since neither he nor I really loved each other enough to tie the knot or live together, and Raven was being raised with half human concepts she sometimes needed a mama to kiss her bumps and scrapes all better and a male version of her mama to bonk the shadow creatures upside the head and send them packing without supper."
"Raven used to believe that shadow creatures would get her?" Blondie asked. "I thought that for most kids raised in human homes had an aversion to the boogieman."
Clawstorm shrugged awkwardly. "Actually… for children born with magic… actual, real spooks, like the shadow creatures, come out of the woodwork to scare the little tykes to the point where their magic jumps out to protect them, the shadow creature then proceeds to absorb the untrained magic and revel in the taste of the child's innocence that the kid is spilling out in their fear. And as a side note; most of the boogiemen that I've met are quite nice and the whole concept of hiding under strange children's beds kind of makes them feel a little bit too dirty so a good majority of them tend not to do that."
"You are not pulling my leg on this are you." Blondie realized as she paled considerably.
"I'm afraid not." Clawstorm shrugged again. "But if it's any consolation Ever After High is so full of protection spells that a shadow creature would be hard pressed to try to sneak in here, and since most of you guys are both non-magic-born and you are old enough to be the scary ones to the creatures and not the other way around, you see the taste of adolescence is too much for those guys so they steer far clear from teenagers and adults."
"…So that thing in the corner of my room as a child-?" Blondie asked faintly.
"Was probably just a harmless dark empty corner, shadow creatures do not find your kind to be particularly worth the effort." Clawstorm assured. "Humans have evolved to be weary of the dark and human children are particularly vulnerable to be plagued by the instinct to be suspicious of places that they can not see clearly, and tend to be sensitive to the psychic residue left over from… areas where something bad actually happened, it shows up in their dreams as night terrors."
"W-well male or female I'm sure that Raven appreciated you getting up so late to deal with those… things…" Blondie sure knew that she'd appreciate having a mother who bopped the scary things on the head and sent them packing if she were Raven.
"It wasn't much of an issue, I was busy studying for my first two degrees in mad science and golem making so late nights were common, and when Raven met her friend Maddie she learned how to take care of the shadows herself after a sleepover the two had together, apparently Wonderlandian children are not the kind of little ankle biters that tend to be cowed by dark things in the closet." Clawstorm chuckled at the memory of a big scary shadow squealing in fear and running right out the front door from a giggling little girl chasing after it in her brightly colored PJ's and little Raven following behind with a wide, impressed gaze.
Blondie was silent for a moment, things had been… really happy and bright for the woman before all this had started, that much was obvious… it made the girl feel melancholy and… angry that what sounded like such a strange but happy family were all torn apart just because somebody wanted to play war games.
"What do you plan on doing now?" The girl asked.
Clawstorm sighed. "Ever After High is filled with the children of leaders to dozens of kingdoms in the Ever After realm, I stay here, keep my ears to the ground, and hope beyond hope that nobody starts whispering about their parents declaring war on the Queen lands."
"And the Headmaster?" Blondie coughed. "If you don't mind me asking of course."
"Like I said before, he doesn't like me." Clawstorm shrugged. "He may be all wishy washy now because he knows that I'm his blood and all but… really it doesn't erase any of the bad blood that happened between us back when I was in school for me. …He treats my daughter with more respect and neutrality than he ever did me, and that is the single most reason why I never laid a finger on him while I was in mirror prison and he was going about his life like a sitting duck. And who knows, he might actually do a good job with this whole grand-pops thing but… I just can't trust him. For years he was so angry with me for being the child of his ex-lover and a reminder to everything decent that he had lost when he gave my mother up, and then he turns around, tells me that he is my father and that he cares about me? Cares about what is going on and that he is sorry for everything? I-I just… I don't know about that chief. I don't think that I can trust it ever."
"Because what if he had never found out about you being his kid and ended up not caring about all the bad stuff that you were protecting your family from and what if he's just being all nice to you because he wants to grasp onto the idea of a family that he had lost his chance at all those years ago?" Blondie filled in the unspoken blanks.
"Before… all the bad stuff happened…" Clawstorm waved her hand vaguely in the air. "A part of me wanted him and all of my old bullies to find out about my second career as Dr. Clawstorm Grimmbook, they all seemed to think that I was either nothing but a disappointment like the Headmaster was fond of calling me for a while, or that I was just another fuddy duddy witch to be made fun of because I wasn't human. I had thought that I would feel this sense of satisfaction at their confusion of the dreaded Clawstorm Queen doing something entirely non-evil and being really successful at it…"
"I'm sensing a "but" in here." Blondie sat down the photographs on the desk and plopped herself across from the witch.
"Chief… a while ago… an ally of mine overheard him say that he was… proud of me. Dreadfully confused as to the reasons why I went nutty on places like Wonderland… but he said that he suspected that someone… someone as smart as me had a good reason, and that he was proud to have such a smart, intelligent daughter, regardless of the whole cursing thing." Clawstorm sighed. "How do I know whether or not I should put myself out there to feel… anything good about that?"
"Keep your ear to the ground and keep an eye on him." Blondie shrugged. "You'll be here for a while I'll bet so maybe you might just get the answer that you're looking for."
The witch nodded. "Maybe I will."
XXX
"You guys barged in three hours early." Raven observed when the fairy and the princess had carried her back into Apple's dorm.
"Well since you were already packed we had nothing to do but to come after you, so we did." Faybelle stated as she set the witch onto her former bed.
"I found out why the Headmaster has been spying on me during class." Raven began conversationally.
"Did you now." Faybelle raised a brow. "Is it something that we should be concerned about?"
"Not really, as it turns out a few months ago he found out that he was my grandfather." Raven sighed up at the dark purple canopy above her.
"…What?" Apple strangled out after a stunned pause.
"Headmaster Grimm is my grandfather." Raven repeated. "He's the one my grandmother has been so hung up on for all these years."
"Him?" Faybelle burst out sounding appalled. "She fell for a guy who's… that?"
"Apparently." Raven pursed her lips. "Just as a heads up; he's called your mother and declared himself to her, he's planning on me coming back here, or him going over to Hathor Academy for several meetings with me under business guises for both our protections."
"And you fully plan on meeting up with him." Apple finished with a knowing look.
"That I do." Raven acknowledged.
"Dear spirits he actually managed to procreate! With an actual woman!" Faybelle continued to gag as she tried to scrub the mental images out of her eyes. "Crap he's gonna be my in-law! The man who cursed and locked up his own brother is going to be my grandfather-in-law! …Say Raven just how protective has he suddenly become now that he knows that you're pretty much his only living and viable blood heir? Is he demanding that you break off your marriage to me and becoming the next future Headmistress to the school or something equally ridiculous?" The fairy asked nervously.
"No, actually he was quite nice to me." Raven hummed. "I think that he was in shock that I didn't immediately start saying cruel things to him about how things ended between him and my grandmother mostly. Though he did have a chance to skim through that folder I left for him and… he got your card declaring our marriage and your new title…" The witch cast the fairy a dirty look. "He wants to talk about who I'm married to by the way, he sounded… concerned for me."
Apple bit both of her lips into her mouth, her entire frame shaking in mirth.
"Yeah well I didn't know that he was your grandfather!" Faybelle defended. "I'm the Evil Fairy Queen, part of the fun of being married to you is that I get to gloat about it to stuffy old fuddy duddys and make them all riled up and uncomfortable!"
"And make them point and say that Faybelle Thorn is the most evilest villain in Ever After because she seduced the dreaded daughter of the Evil Queen into giving up her title and becoming a fairy's bride." Raven deadpanned. "I know how this kind of stuff works, and I know that you'll be all too happy to brag about this big score of yours for years to come."
"Because that's how this kind of thing works!" Faybelle emphasized.
"That's right." Raven nodded. "But the dynamic changes when said stuffy old fuddy duddy is your wife's grandfather and it changes even more when as it turns out, much to my surprise, that he actually appears to… care! At least that's what I've been able to read off of him thus far."
"I'm not downplaying your observations skills sweetie, but the Headmaster has been… well he hasn't exactly been very supportive of your life choices. You said so yourself that he's got a tin ear when it comes to anybody's ideas but his own." Apple pointed out gently.
"I didn't say that I would be trusting him completely." Raven assured. "I'm just going to give him a little bit of trust and observe what he does with it. He could have tried to send me off to some heavily guarded far off place today ya know, not that it would have worked… but he still didn't. I think that he actually listened to me and my reasons for doing what I've done… and maybe I should listen a little bit more to what he has to say too, I mean all the times that he and I have argued before he goes on about my family pride as if it were back in the old days and my family still had it's honor intact. And he always got this pathetically hopeful look on his face whenever I would do a minor act of villainy on occasion and in his presence, granted that was mostly to keep him off of my back…"
"You have way too much respect for the elderly." Faybelle complained.
"I can't help but feel sorry for the man." Raven shrugged. "He's practically desperate to get things back to normal, remember when he nearly got gored by that unicorn trying to prove that Ever After myths were true?"
"That's more than practically desperate, it's self-harmfully obsessed." Apple admonished. "Trust me I know the difference."
"…Ok, maybe I'm being a little too soft about this. But I still want to get to know him, and I really do think that he'll be useful to getting all the bad stuff to stop." Raven gave the two a pleading look.
Faybelle rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "Fine, we'll see if he can be at all useful or if he's telling the whole truth about him wanting to be your grandfather in more ways than just blood. But take the princess with you, Apple at least is still on his good side and all that time spent with Blondie should have instilled some basic recon skills."
"People rarely think to question my motivations for anything." Apple mused looking conflicted between insulted and interested. "I guess it's the whole fairest of them all assumption. It explains why my mother seems to have gotten away with so much."
Raven eyed the two in bewilderment, normally by now they'd be at each other's throats but at the moment it almost seemed as if… they were getting along.
The witch was suddenly overcome with a foreboding feeling and she wasn't too sure whether this was going to develop into a good thing or a bad thing…