A/N: Viviana Morales exposed as the cute witch she is^^ Unfortunately the complexion is off but oh well.
Viviana's ears were still ringing unpleasantly.
Jeanette had half-screamed the entire time the plane had been descending, saying she thought her ears were about to fall right off her head, they hurt so bad. Which, to be fair, Viviana had felt the same way. But having Jeanette half-screaming next to her hadn't made the pain any better. It had crushed her optimism temporarily, and she had grumpily stormed off the plane, glaring at anyone who so much as looked at her for a second too long.
Even now, in a car on the way to the hotel she would spend the night in with her friends, she was still in a black mood. In fact, her mood was dark enough, that Preisha hadn't dared to complain right away once they had retrieved their bags and left the airport.
Preisha was complaining now though. Just not to Viviana, even though Viviana could hear everything her familiar said.
"We are never doing that again! I was stuck in darkness for hours, and the noise? Awful! Not to mention I couldn't talk to Viv. What happened to her though? I know why I'm upset, but she's not saying anything!"
"Well... she fell asleep on the plane, and she hasn't been the same since she woke up." Santiago whispered. Viviana pretended not to hear him, her thoughts absorbed entirely by her dream with Princess Isabelle.
She still didn't understand what had happened.
Dream traps were rare, and most times diagnosed accidentally as comas. But they were quite different. A person trapped in a dream could only wake up if they outsmarted the trap, or some different condition was filled for them in the conscious world.
The fact that she had been able to wake up, implied that it was not a dream trap. At least, not for her.
But she could not help but wonder if she had truly spoken to Princess Isabelle. The dream was too detailed and immersive to only be a dream.
And if she truly had spoken to the Princess, did that mean it was the Princess's dream trap? Was the Princess not really in a coma at all?
No. That can't be right. It's a medically induced coma. It has to be... right? What would even be the point of trapping the Princess in a dream? Is it for her own good because she's dying? IS IT EVEN A DREAM TRAP THEN? Agh, so confusing!
Preisha poked her nose out of Viviana's shoulder bag, which was sitting on the taxi floor between Viviana's feet. Preisha nosed Viviana's knee, and Viviana jumped, glancing down at her familiar.
"What are you shouting about?" Preisha asked.
"Nothing." Viviana grumbled.
She felt Jeanette and Santiago exchange a concerned look, but she didn't bother turning her gaze from the taxi window to find out if they were actually having a conversation with their eyes. She couldn't wait to crash at the hotel. Then, maybe she could get back into the dream and have a more in-depth conversation with the Princess, and get more answers.
***
Viviana muffled a frustrated scream with the pillow when she woke up the next morning.
At first she was happy, and refreshed, until she realized she had dreamed of nothing. That meant no progress, no answers, and no idea if her way for saving Princess Isabelle was more complicated than she'd originally thought.
"Again, Viv?" Jeanette mumbled sleepily, sitting up in her bed nearby. "I thought sleep would help y- Viv! It's 3 o'clock! Go back to sleep."
Viviana pulled the pillow off her head to glance at the clock properly. It did in fact say 3, not 8, like she had originally thought.
"Sorry Jeanie." She whispered into the quiet room.
When she was certain Jeanette was asleep, Viviana pulled her standard spellbook out of her shoulder bag, and powered on her phone.
Her standard spellbook had a little bit of everything, and as a result, it was her only physical resource on anything close to dream traps.
Of course, no book she had ever come across went into depth on them. If you wanted to curse someone, you had to figure it out yourself. Unless you somehow found your way to Maldeena Nightblood.
But Maldeena was dangerous. All dark magic witches were. Only desperate or crazy people ever tried to find her, because a normal person, witch, or warlock would never dream of endangering their safety in such a way.
Viviana squinted as her phone screen lit up, glowing into her eyes with the force of the midday sun. Viviana hissed and slid her fingers across it frantically, turning the brightness down once it unlocked.
Now that she could see, she quickly clicked on her browser, and clicked out of the normal human setting by smashing a tiny sprite in the bottom corner of her screen. A new window appeared, looking exactly like the browser, but with a hyphen adding on that it would show magic results.
Nazeen's special internet specifically designed to help tech savvy and struggling magic students.
Hooray. It still works. Hopefully they don't charge extra for this on my data.
She tapped the search bar, and when her keyboard slid up, she typed out: common magic symbols
She clicked the images tab, to see if any of the first results looked like the green ones in Princess Isabelle's book. Of course, the first images were the most basic of signs, the ones she had been taught five years ago. As she scrolled through, she recognized all of them, until ones she had yet to be taught appeared.
But they were all standard signs. The runes she learned in her magic signs class. The ones that required chalk, and a lot of space. Runes were for advanced magic, and extreme beginners. They provided stability to spells, and acted as a safety net in case something went wrong.
But none of them matched the symbols in the mysterious book.
Viviana frowned and tried "magic symbol language" instead.
She gaped at what she received.
No results. Perhaps your search contained a virus. Try again.
Viviana swapped the order of the words. "Language magic symbols."
No results. Try again.
"Symbol language magic."
No results. Try again.
Viviana hissed in frustration. "Come on!"
"Uncommon magic symbols."
But the chalk drawings returned, and she knew she had gone in the wrong direction. She swapped back over to sites, and scrolled down until she found one that seemed promising.
"Picked up a book you can't read? Try these translations!"
She opened the website and grinned in victory when she scrolled to the bottom of the list to find the same mysterious symbols written in Isabelle's book. But there was no translation attached like with the others. This one just had a link.
She clicked on the link, hoping she was finally getting somewhere. Her spirits crashed back down when a new message popped up.
The user has removed this page in agreement with NNS. Auth. NHSIF.
Her eyes widened at the acronyms.
Holy... NNS? NHSIF?!
The second you saw those two series of letters, especially together, you knew you had found something you weren't supposed to.
NNS stood for Nazeen National Security. NHSIF was Nazeen's Homeland Special Investigative Force. Somehow, these symbols in Princess Isabelle's dream book were a national security issue.
She quickly closed the tabs.
No wonder there weren't any search results. They must have been blocked. And if they were blocked from the magic browser, there's no way they're in the normal one. NHSIF is twice as thorough about the information available to humans... not that it matters. Even if you give a human a spell book and the right pronunciations, nothing would happen. Wait a second-
She thought back to Princess Isabelle. The Princess had been attempting to summon a soulmate. And even though there wasn't a reason, this completely disproved one of the most widespread facts about Princess Isabelle.
The possible dream trap either created by or for the Princess was another topic altogether. Because now Viviana had to account for the fact that Princess Isabelle could have created it.
Why?
The spell book. It had worked, because Viviana had been summoned, against her will of course. She hadn't recognized it before, but she could now. But it should have been impossible for Princess Isabelle to use a spell book. According to everyone throughout the entire kingdom of Nazeen, their Princess was human.
She had to be. Both of her parents were human. King Silas and Queen Magdalena didn't have a drop of magic in them.
And magic was hereditary.
Therefore, Princess Isabelle wasn't their daughter. Or one of her parents had lied about their magical status.
Viviana dropped her phone onto the blankets, her fingers trembling at the unexpected epiphany. One was more shocking and scandalous than the other, and both were equally possible.
But wait, I'm jumping to conclusions. How do I know that was the real Princess Isabelle? It could be someone pretending to be her to lure me into a trap.
But then she thought of Princess Isabelle's reaction. A book to the head, and the way she had tried to stay as far away as possible.
A headache pounded on the fringe of Viviana's mind. She felt as though she were overthinking and under thinking things at the same time.
Well... I guess I can separate this into several possibilities. 1: it's a dream trap, for me, created by someone pretending to be Isabelle. 2: it's a dream trap created for someone pretending to be Isabelle. 3: it's a dream trap created by Isabelle. 4: it's a dream trap created for Isabelle, I have nothing to do with it. 5: it's not a dream trap, Isabelle didn't create it, and someone is pretending to be her. 6: Isabelle created it, but it's not a dream trap. Or 7: it's not a dream trap, I really talked to Isabelle, and someone is pulling intense strings behind the scenes.
Honestly, she couldn't even tell which situation was the most terrifying.
Viviana cast a glance at Jeanette's sleeping form as she turned off her phone, and she made a silent vow to herself.
I'll figure this out before we get to Ilsadora. I can't let Santiago and Jeanette worry about this. They already doubt my convictions over Ilsadora's intentions. I can't add gasoline to the fire, or we'll never save Princess Isabelle.
A/N: Not Viviana being a typical protagonist and withholding key info. Who does she think she is?!
QOW: snowman or sledding?
I'd rather sled.
See you next week!
-Eva