#iridescentaes

THE FAINT CLOUD OF SMOKE THAT BLANKETED   the sea of sweaty adolescent bodies,  pressed against each other in a vye for any morsel of attention,  made cassie’s eyes water.   or so she would tell anyone that would pass by and touch her arm to ask if she was enjoying herself.   with her college boyfriend engulfed in conversation and pretending she didn’t exist,  cassie found it hard to stomach   the infectious energy   of the party washed in strobing lights.   instead she turned to her favourite friend and   coping mechanism:   cheap alcohol and a healthy serving of avoidance.   the red solo cup sat flush against her chest,  and she barely recalled when maeve had settled into place beside her.   which inevitably meant that cassie had found herself in the   i’d-rather-not-be-here corner   of the event  —  the corner where all the miserable people wound up to avoid bumping into their ex or after a failed attempt at getting their dick wet.   not exactly what she had been going for that night,   but fuck it   if she cared anymore.

maeve wasn’t the   worst   company she could ask for,  but maeve made her think more than she usually had to under the influence of hard liquor.   she wondered what it felt like to have a brain that constantly came up with the important questions,   it would surely tire cassie out.   she gently pressed the rim of her cup against glossed lips,  careful not to smear the meticulously applied cherry lip tint.   ❝   i guess,  uh,  ❞   it was clear that no one had ever asked cassie such a question.   most people didn’t ask cassie much overall.   she was seen and not heard,  and that’s how   all the boys   liked her.   she had grown up cooed and cawed at for her beauty,  and she had learned at a young age that pretty girls didn’t need anything except their dazzling smiles and doll eyes.   she was good at that,   being pretty.   being a sight for sore eyes and a strong medicine for sore hearts.   but she didn’t think that was the thought provoking answer maeve was looking for.

the sun’s smile is resplendent,    incandescently spreading her cheeks,     replacing the earlier nervousness which veiled its shining face with faint clouds.     but how strange it’d been for rapunzel to see so many people in one place:     and more,     to see so many non-thuggish,     non-motherish ordinary people in one place,     of all shapes and sizes and all of them with dreams of their own,     lives of their own,     provincial and yet far more expansive than the walls of her tower.     it was enough to boggle her mind;     but there would be so much time for contemplating it later.     right now all she wanted to do was walk among them,     be one of them,     share in the festivities of the late-spring festival     (  and later,     she thinks with an anxious hiccup of a heartbeat,     there will be lanterns in the sky.     how they rose,     the paths they carved alongside the stars,     the shape of their drifting constellation each year   —  all of it increases her curiosity to near rapture,     but she puts it off like you put off happiness you’re afraid to grasp too tightly.     it could be taken away and leave you alone and dreaming.  )

the runaway tilts her head,     gazing up at eugene.     his was a funny name,     somehow both too sophisticated for a thief and just right for him.     rapunzel had busied herself earlier with correcting the voice in her head that still considered him,     the stranger she’d stuffed into her closet just yesterday,     an acquaintance.     now he was more,     maybe possibly potentially much more:     for the span of a great day could change everything,     and people that you had preconceived notions of could start spilling their darkest secrets to you before you even guessed they had them,     much less gotten over the fact that they didn’t have pointy teeth.

❛❛     ... so,     do you come here often ?    ❜❜     she asks,     less tentative than yesterday but just a little shy nonetheless.     there were so many posters all over the place with her companion’s face plastered front and center,     declaring him a wanted thief with a reward on his head.     it wasn’t exactly welcoming,     but she couldn’t see how anyone would stay away from the kingdom once they saw it     (  unless of course there were other places like it,     that were a bit less concerned with flynn rider’s fake reputation.  )    ❛❛   sorry for asking so many questions.     it’s just that you know so much about this place,     and how it works,     and  ...  everything i don’t yet.    ❜❜     rapunzel stops in bare-footed tracks,     a gleam in her green eyes spread wide,     to behold a shop front with pastries arrayed in pretty colors and topped with cherries.   she tilts her head,    thick tresses lopsided.       ❛❛    they’re cakes !  —  but small.   ❜❜

beneath the ice-laced trees and a beaming crescent sentry,    clara rises sometime past midnight in the forest of snow.     the flakes fall gently,     like the petals of a cherry tree,    flat and thick,     and touch upon the lovelier details of the lovely prince before her.     they land in his lashes,     in the crop of hair adorning his head,     tucking themselves between brass buttons and his very fine coat.     clara flushes,     her cheeks like two ripe sugarplums sprinkled by the cold,    though her skin does not shudder.    an aura of warmth crept over the space of their restful hour.

❛❛    how long was i asleep ?    ❜❜     she asks as relief washes over her too,     that this moment was not apparently a dream,     and she had not woke upon the divan in the parlor with the clock dully clanging against its gears to sound the hour,     the strange owl like pallas herself upon the top of the mantle looming over clara’s yet raw wakefulness as if admonishing her lack of wisdom     (  for thinking that clever toys came to life and were not just talismans that children and especially-sentimental girls clutched to bosoms,     eager to imbue lives of their own into wood and carved faces,     and let fancies take on external qualities and inclinations.  ) 

you are not a doll in a house,    she thinks in a reverie of frost and stars.    you are a prince in a wood;     you are real.     right now you are real as i,     or i am insane and i wish to be nothing else ever again.

clara rises onto her elbows,     sitting up in the glade of trodden-soft ground beneath dry grass blades and moss,     which welcomed her sleeping form beneath a taller towering tree.     with a strange realization,     she notes that the frills of her nightgown do not carry dirt or crumble with the toils of their journey.     her eyes flick to her prince,     a radiant figure in the night,     with eyes like glass windows and a nose tinged the hue of a cherry gumdrop.     a smile spreading lips.     ❛❛    we are safe here,     aren’t we my prince ?     these woods are so peaceful.    ❜❜    a broad glance around,    discerning no birds or strange creatures to flock the branches and send pine needles tumbling down on their heads,    nor the steady race of a brook against rocks.    the air is crisp,     the sky a portrait of thin clouds etched into a deep blue canvas.     ❛❛    nothing like the forests of the continent.    they say children used to vanish into them,     and never return,     save as ghosts hungry for the bread of the living,    sometimes their firstborns.    is that not very silly indeed ?    ❜❜

❛❛   the moonlight here is more beautiful too.     i wish to bottle it up,     and take it with me.     though i would rather take you with me,     to meet my mother and father and brother,     and perhaps the strange clockmaker we have visiting.    ❜❜