my brain dump

Chapter 2: The Dove

Apple White, daughter of Snow White, was frustratingly blonde. She pursed her lips, and her reflection in the golden, gilded vanity of her glorious room in her glittering palace pouted back. She went through the list in her head: skin as white as snow, check; lips as red as blood, check; hair black as ebony…

She huffed a melodic sigh as she tossed her golden curls. The songbirds behind her flitted about, mimicking the noise.

“My sillies! Are you all making fun of me?” Apple laughed, turning to face the purple and blue songbirds who had settled on her enormous bed’s canopy. The multi-tiered flooring rose up to the platform where her bed sat, and her elaborate golden bedsheets soaked in the light from her crystal skylight. In fact, the entire ceiling of Apple White’s bedroom was made of crystal glass, sloping and twirling into a point, the highest point of the royal palace’s highest tower.

Apple lifted herself up and floated over to the birds, plopping herself down and giggling as she rolled onto her back, soaking in the sun. It was a beautiful day! She would be returning to Ever After High later that morning, and she simply could not wait. It was Legacy Year, after all! The year when Apple and all her peers would be signing the Storybook of Legends, forever tying each of them to their destinies! Apple would finally be that much closer to living out her happily ever after, forever after!

Apple shrieked and kicked her feet, rolling her body over and opening her MirrorPhone to call her best friends forever after. She opened her hext chat of Briar Beauty, daughter of sleeping beauty, and Ashlynn Ella, daughter of Cinderella, and hit ‘enchant’. The phone hummed twice before Ashlynn picked up. Briar’s icon tweeted a few more times before going dark.

Ashlynn sang her greeting, “Hello Apple! Oh- looks like Briar’s missing us again.”

“There’s no surprise there,” Apple razzed, “She’s definitely taking a power nap before move in, she was just hexting me at dawn this morning about how hexstatic she is about going back to Ever After High! How are you feeling?”

Ashlynn groaned, “I have almost everything packed, but my baskets of shoes are far too heavy for any of my squirrel friends to help move them!” She flipped her camera around to reveal some very pooped-looking critters.

Apple brought a polite hand to her lips, holding in her giggle. “Have you asked your Great-Fairy-Godmother for help?”

Ashlynn flipped her camera around in a hurry, “What a magical idea! I had almost forgotten she’s visiting! You’re a good apple, Apple.”

Apple blushed her rosy cheeks, “Aww, you know me,” she flushed.

“So, is Daring picking you up?” Ashlynn batted her long eyelashes, bringing her MirrorPhone close to her eyes and blinking expectantly.

Daring Charming, the eldest of the Charmings, was Apple’s not-boyfriend. He was the prince destined to wake her from her poison-induced coma with a kiss of True Love. Apple’s stomach did a somersault just thinking about it! She was endlessly excited, but everyone at school knew that the two of them were destined to be together. Apple thought that that totally took the pressure off of having to date him! They might as well be betrothed, in her mind. She had dealt with countless disagreements with her mother and friends about her refusal to pursue him, as they all believed that the handsome blondes would make such a great power couple. But Apple refused. She thought she was already powerful enough as the most popular princess at school with parents who ruled Ever After and all its villages. Besides, she had her entire forever after to spend with Daring, why rush into things? Maybe after the two of them signed the Storybook of Legends, she would feel different.

Apple replied to her shopaholic friend, “Yes, Daring is coming by on his way from his castle to help move my things. It's nothing romantic, just him being his princely, masculine self and me acting like the baskets are too heavy so I don't have to carry them myself. I would do it all if I needed to, but why would I when I’ve just freshly painted my nails!” Apple posed her hand for the camera, showing off her glittery red nail polish.

“Oh Apple, those are flawless! Your cuticles are perfection!” Ashlynn raved in her sweet, comforting voice, “Oh, hold on, my mice friends are about to band together and give my second box of heels another go, I should really help them before anyone squashes a tail. Charm you later!!!!” And the call dropped.

Apple let out another giggle, she was just so filled with joy. Her stomach did another flip when she thought about Daring again. This one didn't feel quite like her usual excitement about her destiny, though. She had been feeling slightly queasy recently when she thought too deeply about having to fall in love with him. She truly did hope that after she signed her page, her affection for her friend would be able to deepen. Her songbird friends chirped at her inquisitively, imploring her to open up about her change in mood.

Apple rolled away from them, softly furrowing her brows. She took a quick deep breath and erased the worry from her face, turning back to her friends. “Oh, nothing, you worry flurries! Let's worry about getting all of this to the front of the palace instead,, shall we?” She lilted, sitting up and climbing off of her comforter.

Like clockwork, the songbirds swooped down and smoothed out her bedsheets, polishing out the indent that Apple had just left with her plush body like she was never there. Apple hummed her thanks, skipping sweetly over to her balcony where she whistled out to her woodland friends. She waited expectantly, a soft smile lighting up her dove white face. After a brief moment of listening to the rustling from the green forest branches below, a snow white dove flitted up to her. Apple raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.

“Just you?” She said to it, feeling a kinship with her feathered friend, “You know, my father would sometimes call me his little dove growing up,” Apple twitted, lightly stroking the bird’s white wings. The dove let out a low crooning pattern.

“Well, you are welcome to join us. We’re moving all of my baskets of- Wait a spell, where did the others go?” Apple turned around to an empty room, without so much as a feather to signify where her blue and purple friends had flown off to. “How odd. Maybe my mom called them out of the room for something, I’m not the surest of them all.”

Apple walked inside, but her dove friend just perched on her balcony railing and twitched its head at her. Apple turned and placed her hands on her hips, swaying her weight to one side and eyeing the bird. “You’re an odd one, aren't you,” she sang back to it.

The dove just stared.

“Well, then, I’m assuming you don't feel like helping me with all of these, now do you. That’s okay, I’ll just get them myself!” Apple pouted lightheartedly, stooping down to grab a basket of dresses whilst trying to trick the little bird into being as helpful as Apple was used to.

The dove just trilled at her.

Upon lifting the basket, Apple realized that she may have stuffed it a little full as she faced a face full of tulle piled higher than her crown. “You're seriously going to perch there while I deal with all of this? Well, that's fine, I’ll manage it all even if it takes my own blood, thread and tears!” She yelled through the faux fur and silk.

The dove stayed silent, watching with its small, beady eyes. Apple took a few steps before tripping on one of her own stray heels, dropping the basket with an unceremonious squeal and falling forward. Luckily, the pile of fabric she had been holding made for a soft landing as it broke her fall.

Apple rolled into a sitting position, neatly tucking her legs under herself by force of ladylike habit. “Still nothing?” She called to the bird before being interrupted.

A new birdcall had reached her ears. A raven’s caw. Apple’s head had never spun around so quickly. The dove wasn't watching her anymore, its gaze was transfixed upon the raven flying by, ebony black feathers glinting green and purple in the sunlight. Apple rushed to her feet, gliding over to the balcony and perching herself close to the dove on the banister. The two doves peered up at the unsettling sight of the raven climbing into the great blue sky before swooping down again and again, slicing through the air in a bizarre pattern that gave Apple a headache to watch.

“I’m meeting a load of odd little guys today,” Apple said under her breath.

As if in response, her finicky fowl friend flapped its wings erratically and took off into the sky, soaring up to meet the raven and joining it in its odd dance in the sky. Apple thought it was a spellbinding sight, mesmerized as the black and white feathers became a harmonious blur in the mid-morning light.

“Oh, so no help for me but the strange and creepy raven has everything you need. That makes perfect sense,” Apple’s red lips uttered.

The girl turned from the balcony with hesitation to stop watching, but she knew Daring should be up any minute. The sight stuck with her, however, as she wandered back across her room. The raven and the dove. Huh. I guess the dove needed the raven to have some sense of direction for itself. It reminded her of someone. Someone very important to Apple, despite her never having truly talked to them at length. Apple stopped her pacing and pulled out her MirrorPhone. She had to make a call.

“Mirror mirror, through thick and thin, please show me Headmaster Grimm.”

The End (is just the beginning...)

chapter 1: The Raven

Raven Queen, daughter of the Evil Queen, stood outside one foggy morning, so early even the sun had not begun to rise just yet. The night stood silent for Raven as she made her way down the path behind her castle through the brush to a small lake just beyond the castle grounds. ‘Castle’ may be an overstatement, as the years have turned the once spectacular Visha Aconitum into a nightmarish sight. The lonely spires were so tall, Raven could see their gothic spires reflected behind her in the lake’s water.

Her pale skin seemed to glow in the water as the setting moon lit her face. She sighed at her reflection, violet eyes blurring as she dipped a hand into the water, sending ripples cascading through the still water.

Raven thought she looked older than she did since she came home this summer. She hadn’t exactly seen her own reflection since leaving school in the Spring. She hadn't even told her best friend, Maddie Hatter, daughter of the Mad Hatter, about her aversion to mirrors when she was home.

It started recently, within the last few years. As she grew up, pressures began to grow for Raven to follow in her wicked mother’s footsteps. As she grew older still, she became more and more aware of what that demanded of her. The onus felt as if it was mounting higher and higher until the weight of it all felt like suffocation, and every mirror felt like an eye on her.

So she covered them up. As far as she was concerned, they were no longer there. She never had visitors over, anyhow, and the only person Raven ever left her haunting mansion for was Maddie and her family, who simply couldn't care less about the state Raven arrived at their tea shoppe in.

But Raven hadn’t seen her since a few weeks after school had ended, and she had generally been feeling pretty down this summer, not spending any time taking MirrorPhone selfies or posting on Hexbook or Sinstagram. She thought it was stupid that she could only have accounts on the social media apps for ‘villains’. She had toyed with the idea of downloading the normal versions, but she didn't want to have to deal with people wondering why she was on there. Plus, she doubted any of her peers would love to be ‘friends’ with the Evil Queen’s Devilish Daughter online, when no one had been so keen as to even smile at her in the hallways at school for the entire past year.

Raven ran a wet hand through her dark hair, finding it not too difficult to detangle her ebony, purple and maroon wavy locks. She had to be somewhat presentable by morning, when she would be traveling back to the land of light - Ever After High.

After another beat of making eye contact with herself and lightly touching the dark circles under her eyes, Raven sighed and collected herself. Standing up from the dock, she looked up and saw the only other creature in the forest she’d seen since she came out there. A lonely raven, on a branch high above the water, was staring directly at her. It made her feel similarly to how she had just felt studying herself in the water.

The two Ravens beheld one another until the first veins of sunlight split through the fog, lighting the bird’s feathers to reveal shines of purple and green reflected amongst them. With the first rays of sunshine came an incongruous sight - a white dove flitting through the branches, swooping down by the lake and singing a joyous song until it landed right next to the raven. The two birds looked at one another, sizing one another up. Something stirred in Raven’s heart. Unlikely friends, could it be? A sign that Raven would not be so ostracized this year, that she might finally be seen by someone, anyone, and soon be able to find that sense of camaraderie that she has been longing for all these years?

Just when the beginnings of a smile began to twitch at the edges of Raven’s mouth, the black raven snapped at the dove with sudden force that shocked Raven’s core. She took a step backwards as the dove fell from the branches and crashed into the lake.

“Get up, little thing,” Raven whispered aloud, hushed voice coarse from lack of use. She couldn't tear her eyes away as the white feathers began to sink.

The raven was looking back at her. Raven hated that she had just felt such kinship with the creature. She backed away, slowly, until the raven dove, cawing at her. Raven turned away in hatred as her eyes burned. She began to sprint, thinking if she ran fast enough, she could stop the tears from falling. She raced back through the gates of the land and up the cliff to Visha Aconitum’s great front doors, blazing past them until she reached the servant’s entrance. She opened the door and slammed it behind her, hyperventilating and sinking down to the floor until her head was between her pale knees.

It took ages for her breath to slow. She kept hearing the crisp break of the beautiful dove’s neck, how the melodic cooing ceased so suddenly. Raven felt deafened by the silence that followed. The silence that matched her pace and lingered throughout her empty home. The silence that had her craving silly pink princesses laughing at her from a distance for no reason, no matter how rude they were. At least there was life at Ever After. She would be lonely, but at least she wouldn't be alone.

Besides, she would be rooming with Maddie, she remembered. The thought gave Raven the strength she needed to stand back up. When she found a window, she saw that the sun had already made some distance up the sky, lighting the grey haze that seemed to permanently linger around Raven’s manor until it gleamed a light purple shade.

Raven withdrew to her room, passing by hallway after hallway of mirrors draped in fabric. As she climbed several floors, the black fine silk gave way to table cloths and even some shredded gowns that Raven hadn't worn in ages that had been repurposed to block all reflective glass. It was hard to find enough material to cover all of the mirrors that Raven’s vain mother had left in her wake.

Her bags were already packed and waiting for her by the door. She put on the clothes she had laid out the night before. She didn't mind the gothic fashion, it felt true to herself despite having once been true to her mother. She was about to hex her trunks of belongings to follow her out the door when she remembered what she had forgotten to do. She grabbed her makeup bag and left the room, going up one more flight until she reached the top of the highest tower. At the top, a pair of black, ornate double doors awaited her, chained shut to forbid entry. Raven took a deep breath and closed her eyes, digging under her sorrow to channel some of the anger within her into her core before sending it out through her mind, bursting the doors open in a flash of magenta flame and evaporating the chain into dust. She had been the one to place it there, anyways. It was for show, simply to remind her that her mother’s evil could not reach her unless she allowed it to.

Raven stood in the doorway of a rather large bedroom, complete with a cliff side window overlooking the murky bay down below. To the right was the forest, and to the left… An embellished full-length mirror reflected Raven Queen back to herself in all her disgrace.

“Hello, mother,” Raven quipped.

She approached the mirror and promptly sat down in front of it, eyeing herself cautiously. She was lanky, bordering on gangly, and she made a note to eat better when she was back in school. The true magic mirror was there, at Ever After High, and Raven was sure to have an unavoidable meeting arranged for her to see her mother face to glass eventually. But Raven allowed this mirror to remain uncovered so that she could talk to her mother on her own terms, in a way that didn't allow her to talk back. Raven couldn't be sure that her mother could actually hear her up here, but she could swear she could feel someone’s eyes on her, like the raven’s that morning.

Raven opened her makeup bag, pulling out a pale shade of concealer to cover her dark under eyes. “I figure I don't have to look as cruel as they want me to look- as you want me to look,” Raven began, moving on to eyeliner, “I’m hoping to make some friends, even. And I know what you’re thinking, you either think I’m stupid to want that, or that I’m a genius to enlist people who will eventually do my evil bidding for me. But no, Mom. I just want to live with people. And spend time with them. I don't want to be you.”

Raven took her time, fighting the paranoia she had from just sitting there. She has spent so much time being the thing people were afraid of that she found it erratic to give into her own senseless fear. She applied her favorite lip color and stood. She nearly shocked herself. In an effort to diminish her haunted look, she had become all the more haunting. Her high arched eyebrows seemed even higher and darker. She had donned a spiked headband, pulling her bangs from her face and revealing her high cheekbones and angled nose. She looked… powerful. She hated it.

She turned from the mirror and stormed out of the room, drawing the doors closed with a powerful, magenta slam.

She would show them. She would show them all. She would show them that she was kind.

But the dove’s body falling from the sky would never leave her mind.

Follow it here:

no, one mourns the wicked