Blinding Light: A Sleeping Beauty and Snow Queen Remix

Chapter 15

A/N: Princess Isabelle Ricosta^

Viviana woke up in whiteness again, and winced.

She did not recall how she had gotten here, but she remembered what always followed.

This time was different, though. She didn't feel pain.

She forced her eyes wide open and stared at Princess Isabelle, completely shocked she was not greeted with a book to the face.

Instead, Princess Isabelle was sitting calmly in front of her, her ankles crossed, sipping tea from the same white teacup at the same clear plastic circle table.

"No more headshots?" Viviana asked, just to be sure.

Isabelle gently set the teacup down in its saucer and stood up from her chair, tugging on the sleeves of her lavender floral print dress and smoothing the braid over her shoulder. "I do apologize for the violence. You caught me by surprise both times."

"And now?"

"I know to expect you when Tikki says it's ten o'clock." Isabelle said simply.

"Tikki?"

Isabelle pointed to the wall the bed was pushed up against. On the same wall were a bookshelf, an organized display case, a dollhouse, and a short cubic bedside table. The bedside table had a clock with a yellow emoji smiley face, sculpted cartoon arms, and legs ending in white-gloved hands and tennis shoes, respectively. The time was displayed both on the clock face with manual hands, and on a digital display beneath the face.

"That's Tikki. He only talks if you flip the on switch, but his voice sounds congested and rather high pitched. I turned him off so he doesn't announce the time at fifteen-minute intervals. It was driving me mad."

Tikki was not alone on the bedside table. There was also a doll propped up in a wire stand, wearing a delicate frilly pink dress tied with a white bow and white sandals. She had bangs like Isabelle, but her hair was black, with half of it tied back in a pink ribbon. Her brown eyes were the eerie type that could close like the doll was blinking if you tilted her head the right way.

And those weren't the only toys in the room either. The organized display case had nine spots. Toys took up four of the spaces, framed pictures took up three, and the remaining squares were occupied by bins. The toys themselves were... not exactly typical. A white, yellow, and black action figure, a stuffed alien sharing with a white bear, a snow globe sharing with a toy piano keyboard, and an array of barbie dolls, which were lined up in perfect parallel lines.

The barbie doll lines actually made Viviana shudder.

It looks like a brainwashed army.

Isabelle thought she was shuddering at something else though.

"What? Don't judge me for my superhero!"

The next second, the Princess was in front of her, clutching the action figure.

"Sir Flex-A-Lot may be sticky, but that's because it's one of his abilities. He's supposed to stick to walls and then flip down them. See."

She threw the action figure at the wall, and sure enough, he stuck with a splat, and steadily flipped head over heels down to the floor.

Isabelle picked him up, and then bent him cleanly in half. Viviana yelped and turned away.

"Stop it stop it stop it! Put him back, please!"

Isabelle returned him to his cubby and frowned. "So you don't like Sir Flex-A-Lot?"