A/N: Trigger warning at the beginning, but it doesn't get too detailed.
Please let me know what you guys think of the chapter!
~Silver~
Red's Decent
"I said to wear something respectable."
Red looks herself over in the mirror, not really seeing anything beyond her unfocused vision. She already knows she looks as she always does. At least, as she has since stepping into this present. Family Day is supposed to be a semi-formal event, according to Chloe. One where girls are expected to wear dresses and the boys wear suits.
She's in her normal garb. Her mother would be ashamed of her.
This is the first time she'll see her mother since Open House. Will she still be kind? Will she still love her- even if she is ashamed?
"I find this outfit… offensive."
"I wish being me didn't offend you."
Maybe she should actually put something formal on, so she doesn't set the woman off after only the second time interacting with this version of her daughter. But this has always been Red- fingerless gloves and leather and layers. It's her own kind of armor.
Red rubs her hand down her mesh sleeves, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that have suddenly sprouted across the entirety of her body. Her fingers hesitate over the raised lines on the inside of her arm, accessible between the spaces of the mesh, and she looks down at them, still angry and in the process of healing.
She hadn't meant to do it. She was in the shower and looking at her hands and her body, and it didn't feel like hers- it wasn't familiar in the slightest.
It wasn't her body.
She needed to make it familiar.
She didn't snap out of it until Chloe's screaming registered, and only then did she become aware that the water was cold and her arms were red and so was her lap and the tiles under her, the color replaced as quickly as the shower rinsed it away.
She had spaced and woken up to both her arms mutilated, more cuts than she'd ever done at once before, her switchblade dangling loosely from her fingers.
She was dizzy and she felt weak and it took a long time to calm Chloe down and convince her not to tell. Red doesn't like the way the princess looks at her now, sometimes, even though Red promised that it was a one time thing.
Despite not having meant to, running her fingers over the marks guiltily makes her feel better. Her arms look more like her arms rather than a stranger's. It feels more like her body that she's inhabiting, instead of someone else's she just possessed.
Red pulls on her jacket, covering them.
"You're such a disappointment."
She closes her eyes, breathing out slowly to calm her nerves. She doesn't want to see her mother.
Arms wrap around her from behind, and Red jumps before her eyes fly open and she realizes that it's just Chloe. She's wearing a soft, frilly blue dress that makes her look even more like a princess, and Red can't help smiling for a moment.
Then thoughts of her mother race back in. "What if she's not-"
"She will still love you. Everything's going to be okay, Red. Things aren't going to randomly change back to how they were. Time travel doesn't work like that."
Red presses her lips together, trying not to snap at her only friend, the only person in the world who knows how things used to be. It's hard, but she's had to show a lot of restraint these past couple weeks (Blue wouldn't have called it restraint). Besides, she doesn't want the other girl to move away, and a fight would undoubtedly cause her to put distance between them.
"Come on, I want to introduce you to my mom," Chloe pulls back anyway.
"I've already met your mom," Red reminds her. "She's 'Aunt Ella,' remember?" (Red sentenced her to death).
"So I won't introduce you, but I want you to know her."
She reluctantly allows herself to be pulled out of the room. She'd much rather hide in it for the duration of the weekend.
They find Ella right away. The blue hair is like a beaconing sign through the pastel colors of the other parents and students. Auradon must not have a lot of inherent magic, because she's not seen many kids with colored hair. Those that do mostly seem to be from the Isle.
Chloe drags her blindly through the other people on her b-line for her mother. She lets go of Red's hand a couple feet away and flings herself forward.
"Mom!"
Ella catches her with a smile and laugh, and Red's stomach flips unpleasantly. And then the regal queen catches sight of Red and reaches for her next.
"Oh, Red, come in here." She seizes Red, and then she's dragged into that unending embrace along with Blue. No one outside of Chloe has tried to hug her since that first day, and she's finally got people keeping their distance, or at least ignoring her while they talk to the girl she's always trailing beside.
Red stiffens under the smothering hold.
Chloe must sense Red's bubbling discomfort, because she's the first person to pull back, even though Red knows she'd spend the whole day in her mother's arms if she could after Ella died the first time around. After Red killed her.
"How are you doing, dear?" Ella asks them both, touching first Chloe's hair, and then Red's. Red holds perfectly still. This is fine, everything's fine. She can handle a little bit of touching from her 'aunt.'
"Fine, Aunt Ella," she says, and takes a half step behind Chloe, shamelessly using her as a shield. The name feels awkward on her tongue. Foreign.
Chloe reaches out to hold her hand, and her mother's gaze drops to watch it.
That's when red flashes in the corner of her vision as a warped version of her mother swoops through the crowd.
"There you are, sweetheart, I've been looking everywhere for you!" She manages only one shuffled step back before the Queen of Hearts descends on her. Red tries not to (this is Bridget, not the Red Queen), but she can't help the way her skin flinches away from her mother's arms. The way she braces for pain to follow the contact.
But her mother only hugs Red so firmly that her feet lift off the ground. The world swoops dizzyingly around Red. She can't help staring at her mother as she withdraws but doesn't stop touching her- her hair, her shoulder, her cheek- as if she actually missed Red.
This version of her mother loves her. This version is smiling so brightly and genuinely. Red stares at her mouth, waiting for it to suddenly twist, to turn into a sneer or scowl- it's a trick, it has to be a trick.
"Red!"
But it's not. Her mother has never hurt her. She has no scars (none except the ones she recently gave herself).
"Darling, you haven't answered any of my calls." Her eyes pass over Red's outfit, so obviously out of place among the formal garments and dresses of everyone else, but she doesn't say anything about it. She doesn't frown in disappointment. If anything, Red's outfit seems to give her slight amusement.
"Guess I've just been busy," Red utters. After finding all those contacts, she shoved her phone under her mattress and hasn't looked at it since. It's probably dead by now.
"Well, I suppose I remember how busy the first few weeks of school can be. Now," she finally turns her attention to Blue, her smile turning blinding again, "Chloe, give me a hug. I didn't get to say goodbye at Open House, and I've missed you."
For the first time since they changed the timeline, Chloe seems to be the one thrown. She freezes for a moment, before stepping into the Red Queen's arms with a smile that rings so false to Red.
Red finally breaks her gaze, shoving her hands into her pockets and ducking her head. Another pair of eyes catch hers, staring at her from almost all the way across the grass. Principal Uma doesn't try to hide the fact that she was staring. Her eyes bore into Red's, making her feel nearly as uncomfortable and stifled as Ella's hug had.
Red jumps as a hand is laid on her shoulder, and it takes everything she has not to yank away from the red nailed grip. The touch has all of her attention swinging back toward her mother. The touch was gentle, just the fingertips, but she still braces for the nails to cut into her skin.
Stupid. She's stupid. Her mother has never hurt her. Everything is perfect. Everything she's always wanted.
A frown pulls at her mother's lips, but even that expression is soft and foreign. "Are you okay, Red?" She ducks her face closer, so close that Red's breathing stops. "Have you and Chloe not worked things out?"
"Of course we have. All good, closer than ever, right, Blue?" Red steps away from her mom to snatch up her friend's hand. She doesn't know why her mother keeps bringing up her and Chloe. Chloe is the one thing that does feel right in this world.
Blue looks up, startled from where she had been immersed in conversation with her mother. "What?"
"We worked things out. Closer than ever. Best buds again?"
"Uh," from the incomprehension on her face, Ella probably hadn't brought her own concerns about their relationship up with her daughter. "Of course! Better than ever!"
The two queens share a look over their heads, and she really wishes she knew what was going on. "Does that mean you two are official now..? Or…"
Blue becomes unnaturally still, eyes widening, but Red just presses on, wanting the questioning to end. "Officially official!" she blindly agrees. She wouldn't have if she knew it would cause her mother to squeal and engulf her in another hug. She's never been hugged so many times in her life.
"Oh, Sweetheart, I'm so happy for you! You and Chloe make a darling couple!" What? "Now, where is that brother of yours, he really should have found us by now."
Everything in Red freezes. Her heart, her brain, her breath. She can't breathe as her mother looks around before perking up. "Oh, there he is. Of course he got distracted by Repunzel's boys. Bishop! Come say hello to your sister."
Red's body and breath remain stuck as a little boy comes charging through the crowd of parents, who merely laugh and juggle their drinks as he crashes through them. He can't be older than nine. His features are so boyish it hurts, and his grin lights up wide when he spots her.
"Red!" She takes a step back as he collides with her, feeling like the world is distorted and swooping sound her. Her hand automatically comes down to rest on his head of pink hair. The same pink Red's was when she was younger, the same pink she now knows Bridget's was. The same pink that will darken to red as he grows into his magic. "I missed you," he says against her stomach, "the castle is so boring without you!"
…
What?
Her heart finally jumps, and it's painful. Her insides hurt awfully.
…
Red looks over the food options, not really interested in any of it. She excused herself to the bathroom a while ago, and she knows that the time she's been away must be suspicious by now, but she can't bring herself to return to that happy fucking family with all the smiles and touches and kindness.
Meeting Bridget was jarring. Seeing her mom's face and hearing her voice, acting like Bridget, is nerve wracking.
She has a brother.
She's playing with a piece of shrimp (something she's never eaten before and she's not sure how she likes it) when blue enters the corner of her eye, too vibrant to be Auradon colors. Her eyes trace along the table, looking for something her friend might want, when the voice that actually speaks makes her stiffen.
"Red, right?"
Red turns, holding tightly to her plate. "Principal Uma."
The pirate captain's wide stance and the way she rests her hand on her sword could almost look threatening if it didn't also look so natural.
She looks very much like Ulani with the same skin tone and dreaded teal hair. Uma's stature is noticeably smaller, though, as she's noticed all Isle kids are. Even without the stature, Red isn't scared of the pirate due to her unfortunate relation to Ulani. Red wasn't intimidated by the bully in the slightest. The scariest thing about her was her sister's eel.
It's the way she observes Red that makes her feel so unnerved.
The principal's eyes look over Red so searchingly that it leaves her feeling uncomfortably bare. "So you're the lucky daughter of the Queen of Hearts." She says Queen of Hearts, in a way that means the complete opposite from the way it was said as she grew up. The Queen of Hearts here is a sickeningly sweet woman who is all about positivity and being kind and who bakes flamingo cupcakes. Not 'Off with your head!' if you do something that so much as catches the woman's attention in a negative way.
"Yup, that's me. Lucky," Red agrees. Because she's so lucky to have a mother that loves her. That is so sickeningly sweet and notices when something is wrong. Nothing is wrong.
"Get it right, or I'll show you what punishment is!"
Everything else doesn't matter. It didn't happen.
The sea captain's eyes casually take in their surroundings, but there is no one nearby. That's why Red found this little corner of the lawn.
"Look, kid, I don't know your mom, but I've seen enough trauma responses in my life to recognise one when I see it, and you are projecting all over the place. Does she hurt you?"
Red freezes, eyes going wide as the words register. "What?" That's not right. Not here. Why would anyone think that? Her mother is the poster child for sugar, spice, and everything nice. "She's the perfect mother."
"Maybe," Uma shrugs, but her expression shows her doubt. "Where I came from, no one bothered to hide abuse- no one cared. Things are different in Auradon, though. They are good at hiding evil here- usually under pretty smiles and good deeds."
Red tosses her plate toward the trash can, not caring that it misses and spills out onto the lawn. She crosses her arms, heart pounding.
Uma can't go after Bridget. She's literally never done anything wrong. Not here. "My mother is the nicest person you'll ever meet, and it's genuine. She doesn't hurt me."
Uma frowns slightly, and there is still disbelief in the way her eyes stare into Red's, but then she shrugs. "Okay then," she says, taking a step back. She wasn't crowding Red before, but it still feels like a relief to have that little bit more distance. To have this conversation be coming to an end. "If that changes, though, or your answer does, you can come to me. I'd believe you. I'd help."
Red doesn't know how she's supposed to respond. Probably in a way that says she can't imagine a world in which her mother hurts her, or would suddenly start hurting her. But it is feasible. It took so little last time. Just a dumb prank and her entire personality changed.
"Thanks," she finally utters, and then ducks her head as she leaves to go find Chloe. Maybe she can pretend to get sick and go hide in their room the rest of the day.