A/N: Princess Isabelle Ricosta^
Jeanette shakily climbed to her feet, bumping her head on the underside of the table. Viviana tried to help her friend as best as she could, but Jeanette had other ideas.
She sidestepped Viviana, and gave Santiago a scarily blank look.
"Start explaining, before I lose it." She said simply.
In response, Santiago held out the newt again. "I found my familiar, Jeanette. Her name is Ainara."
Jeanette gaped at the tiny newt in Santiago's hands.
"You're telling me, we almost died, murdered by falling plants and a black hole, and it was just a giant dimensional gateway for a familiar that is smaller than a basketball?! Why couldn't they size the gateway correctly?"
Preisha wound her way around Santiago, trying to see Ainara.
"It's just a standard, Jeanette. There is no sizing it."
Santiago figured out what Preisha was trying to do, and he knelt on the floor, allowing Preisha to see.
"Ainara, this is Preisha, Viviana's familiar."
Santiago had barely gotten the words out when Ainara croaked and crawled up Santiago's sleeve. Preisha looked slightly guilty, while Santiago frowned in confusion.
"No, Ainara, it's fine." He glanced at his sleeve. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I mean, she has pyrokinesis but that's not-"
He cut himself off abruptly, and Viviana realized she was listening to a one-sided conversation between him and his familiar. She felt like she was intruding. First conversations were always the most private and most complicated.
Or so she'd been told.
She didn't even remember hers.
To give Santiago time, she returned her attention to Ezra, who was just starting to shakily stand up herself, from underneath the table. Ezra's expression was stricken, like someone had stabbed her with a dull sword, as she kept her gaze fixed upon Santiago.
Viviana's expression crumbled into sympathy that she tried to disguise, but Ezra caught it before Viviana could hide it.
Ezra's eyes became devoid of emotion and her face shuttered, becoming passively blank, and now Viviana felt as though she was the one who had been stabbed.
Ezra just said she's still waiting for a familiar, and then we show up, and Santiago receives his. The timing could not be worse for her. She must think the universe is trying to tell her something. That she's not good enough, or that she can never belong. It's not fair!
"Tiago." Ezra said quietly. Santiago glanced up from his sleeve, where Ainara was still hiding, and blinked.
"I'll take you to Ilsadora tomorrow." Ezra mumbled, picking Del and Fay up off the floor, refusing to look at the rest of them. "There's blankets and pillows in the closet by the front door, you can use them to set up some kind of arrangement. I only have one bedroom, and that's mine. I'm going to bed."
She walked away from them, toward a doorway Viviana hadn't seen before because plant vines had been dangling over it. Viviana heard footsteps on stairs after that, and she swore she heard a sniffle, before Ezra's blue hair vanished completely.
Viviana was wracked with guilt. But it was also quite clear that Ezra did not want her sympathy or pity. If she tried to follow Ezra, she'd likely be lashed out at.
Santiago's eyes followed Ezra as well, a frown clinging to his lips. He had also likely figured out the reason for Ezra's abrupt departure, and determined that he was unable to help her.
Jeanette started drifting off after Ezra. "I got this, guys. You know... healing. It's what I specialize in. Don't bother making a pillow nest for me. I'll make one for myself."
When she disappeared through the vine door, Santiago turned to Viviana.
"Slumber party like the old days?"
***
Viviana opened her eyes to the blinding light typical of Isabelle's room. She didn't know what she expected anymore. She just knew that she would no longer be hit with a book to the face.
She definitely didn't expect to see the room entirely void of Isabelle.
Viviana turned around the room in a panic. Up until this point, the Princess had always been sitting in the exact same spot. Princess Isabelle was always sitting in the white chair with a pink cushion at the clear table by the window.
Princess Isabelle was not the only thing missing from the room. The pillow and blankets over the bed against the right wall were missing too, along with the teacup and saucer that always sat on the table by the window.
No! Where'd she go?! Is she ok?
Viviana held her arms out in front of her, swiping them through the air above the chair, just in case Isabelle was invisible for some mysterious reason.
Her arms didn't hit anything, but her sleeve did fall back, revealing faded ink on the inside of her wrist.
She held her wrist up to her face, and read the questions she'd written there.
1: How does Isabelle know it's a dream?
2: Who gave Isabelle the dream spell?
3: Who gave Isabelle the spellbook?
4: Why does Isabelle need a soulmate?
5: Who/what is the man with the pirate hat?
Oh yeah. I forgot about those. If Isabelle's ok, I should really ask her all of these, and get real answers for once.
The thought of Isabelle being hurt in any way, sent knives through Viviana's heart. She'd become quite attached to the Princess, and the last thing she wanted was for anything more to happen to Isabelle.
The Princess had been hurt enough by those around her.
Viviana forced herself to take calming breaths, but she was surprised to see that her magic was not writhing beneath her skin. Whenever she became anxious or angry, it was always there, demanding to be let out and "fix" whatever was causing her stress.
Something about the dream spell must be suppressing my magic.
Viviana wrapped her arms around herself and breathed. The moment she paused to calm down and listen, she realized the window was open.
She moved closer to close it. The sounds outside sounded so real. She could hear the far-off sound of running water, the rustling of leaves in a breeze, and-
Singing.
The same song from so long ago, when she'd first encountered this place. Back then, she had no idea who it was. The sound had seemed to come from everywhere, and nowhere, all at once. Now the singer was back, and outside the window.
Viviana moved away from the window, looking for the door to the room. The last time she'd just run at the wall instead of finding a door, she'd been woken up. She needed the door this time if she wanted to stay here and find Isabelle.
Perhaps the singing person would tell her where Isabelle was.
The far wall, with its cream walls, stared her down like an arch nemesis. It would not give her an easy way out of this room.
"Please?!" She demanded. "I know there's more to this place than this room. Why else would an outside exist?!"
The cream wall rippled in front of her, turning to the consistency of water. Through the rippling cream tinted water, she could see the outside, where she was trying to get to.
"Yikes that's scary." She bit the corner of her lip, analyzing the ex-wall in front of her. "Keep your other rooms secret then. All I wanted was a door."
She tentatively tapped the watery wall in front of her. It rippled like a curtain, but nothing shot at her. The wall physically felt like silk fabric more than water, but it also wasn't a solid.
At least, not anymore.
Viviana steeled her nerves and threw herself through the wall, staggering out onto the grass and falling on her knees when her feet tripped over each other. She stood up and checked her red jeans for grass stains.
There weren't any. The grass looked completely fine, despite the fact that her fall should have at least ripped up a few blades. Then again, it wasn't real grass. It certainly didn't feel like real grass beneath her hand. Real grass was itchy, and sometimes spiky. Viviana realized, in that moment, why dream studies in any form were so complex.
Dream spells had their own entire set of universal rules. It wasn't obvious, but the subtle differences in the way things functioned, such as a wall just suddenly turning to water, so defied physics, that even with magic, it probably wasn't possible in reality. But dreams also lacked detail.
Which is why when Viviana turned back to look for the wall she'd stepped through, she wasn't necessarily surprised to be met with blank whiteness.
She exhaled and turned back around toward the side with the grass and a thick line of trees on her left that curved right. She jumped when a pale stone path appeared out of nowhere, tracing beneath her feet, curving right with the tree line and down a slight hill she hadn't noticed before.
"Ok, so we go this way." She glanced around nervously, before following the path, her black boots crunching on the gravel of the pathway.
She reached the bottom of the tiny hill, and followed the path until it stopped at a stone fountain, set into a concrete patio in the middle of a flowery field. An abandoned picnic basket and the blankets and pillows from Isabelle's bed sat next to the fountain, on the grass.
Isabelle's teacup was sitting on top of the closed basket, upside down on its saucer.
"Where are you, Princess?" Viviana tried to listen, and strangely, she heard the singing. It was almost fainter. And coming from the woods.
Viviana huffed a sigh of frustration. She wasn't a big fan of anything sciency because math and science and logic were not exactly best buddies with magic, but she would have liked to have something make sense.
She walked toward the forest, tugging the hood of her favorite red jacket over her head. She wasn't questioning where it came from, just as she was trying not to question the boots.
Last she'd checked, she'd fallen asleep, barefoot, and in pajamas.
The woods were shrouded in dark green and shade. Leaves rustled continuously, providing a background noise that made her jumpy, because it sounded like things were following her, just out of sight. The stone path did not pass through the forest. Instead, she was following a dirt trail in between the trees.
The singing was definitely louder. And somewhere on her left.
But the trail didn't go left. It turned right.
Viviana did not want to play games with the dream spell. All she wanted to do was find her Princess Isabelle and-
Wait a second. "My" Princess? She's Princess of all of Nazeen. There's nothing "mine" about it. Saying it that way sounds wrongly possessive.
But you did mean it that way. A traitorous part of her head whispered.
"Nope. No way." Viviana grumbled, shaking her head, stomping off the path to the left. "I meant no such- Ah!"
Something tripped her, nudging her foot, and she crashed forward, flipping head over heels down a hidden hill only to crash with a splash into a knee-deep stream.
The singing stopped abruptly, and she heard splashes approaching her.
"Oh dear. Are you ok?"
Viviana shoved the dripping hood out of her eyes and looked up at the source of the singing.
Princess Isabelle stood on a flat rock nearby, barefoot, in a white dress with a blue and purple floral pattern. Her ash blonde hair was not french braided for once, so Viviana could see it was actually down to her waist, with elegant curls at the bottom.
In short, she looked absolutely beautiful, and somehow almost fey-like, as though she belonged in the forest.
Viviana shook herself out of her daze abruptly. She could not afford to be distracted. She had questions!
And soaked boots.
Viviana stood up, taking off her jacket and tossing it to Isabelle as she walked out of the stream.
"Glad I finally found you, Princess."
Isabelle frowned, hanging Viviana's jacket on a nearby tree as Viviana took off her boots. "I wasn't trying to hide."
"Well, you sure did a good job of it."
Viviana reached up, flipping her hair to one side and attempting to squeeze the water out of the ends. Her eyes fixated on the ink on her wrist, miraculously unsmudged, beneath the strange long sleeve white shirt she was wearing.
She believed it was "strange" because she did not and had never owned a shirt like the one she was wearing. She had always wanted to. The sleeves flared out at the ends, like little bells, and a red ribbon threaded through the bottom of the shirt, cinching it around her waist with a bow.
Isabelle stared at her, taking the jacket off the tree branch. "Cute shirt."
"Thank you." Viviana replied, her face flooding with warmth. She prayed she wasn't blushing.
It was not often a beautiful girl complimented her.
Isabelle motioned to Viviana over her shoulder, extending her hand. "Let's head back to the blanket. It's warmer in the flower fields. I don't want you to be cold."
Viviana carried her boots with one hand and held onto the Princess's hand with the other. Her heart was pounding relentlessly, fed by mortification, adrenaline, and hesitation. Princess Isabelle did not seem to notice, which was a good thing.
Viviana could already picture the look of distrust that would appear on Isabelle's face when she started asking questions. The thought of it made her heart sink. She wanted the Princess to trust her.
She needed the Princess to trust her.
But how could Isabelle possibly trust her if she could barely trust herself?
Viviana was thankful for the dream then. She had never felt so free from her magic, or felt so clear headed.
It was so much easier to think straight when she wasn't blinded by fear of what horrors she would accidentally cause.
Isabelle led her through the forest with ease. One moment, Viviana was standing by the stream. The next, she was looking down at the blanket as Isabelle spread her jacket across the grass to warm in the sun. Viviana set her boots by her jacket and sat down on the blanket across from Isabelle.
"Do you want tea?" Isabelle asked, setting her teacup and saucer upright and reaching into the basket. "I didn't used to be so obsessed with it, but I think I've become addicted to it now. It was one of the first treatments I received. Now I just drink it out of comfort."
Viviana did not have to ask what the treatment was for. Isabelle had known she was sick. Probably long before anyone else.
But does she know it's all because of a curse? How many lies has she been told?
"No tea for me, thanks." Viviana smiled tightly. "To me it's always tasted like garbage water."
Isabelle laughed and poured her tea from the teapot she'd pulled from the basket. "I suppose that's fair."
"Princess."
Isabelle looked up from the tone of distress in Viviana's voice. "Yes? Are you sure you're ok?"
"How do you know this is a dream?!" Viviana blurted, clutching the edge of the blanket in her fist so tightly the tips of her fingers turned white.
Isabelle blinked for several seconds before she slowly set the teacup down.
"I know, because I asked for this." She said quietly. "It is my safe haven, my true escape, made real by the kindness of a girl who visited me right before I was put in a coma. I tried to welcome her, tried to hide the pain as I had been instructed to do for all visitors. But she saw straight through me. She gave me the greatest gift of all: a reprieve from pain."
Isabelle smiled sadly. "She was so lovely. So kind... she did more for me in the span of an hour than my mother has done for me my entire life. But do you know what her second greatest gift was?"
Viviana shook her head. And Isabelle recited, with her hands folded in her lap and a fragile smile on her face, "May you walk the world in dreams, and explore life the way you were always meant to, before it was taken from you."
"So all of this-" Viviana motioned to the dream world around them. "Was a gift from a little girl?"
"Yes." Isabelle opened the basket, and gave Viviana the spell book. "This was the only other thing she gave me."
"The symbols." Viviana muttered, taking the book, and flipping to a page filled with the green symbols. "You know, I tried to look them up. I never found anything. Whatever they are, not even witches know about them. Which of course makes me wonder... Who exactly was this little girl? Would I know her?"
Isabelle tapped a finger against her lips. "Maybe. You know Prince Ashton White of Staroix's girlfriend, Fiona Nighle? She's the one who 'dropped her off'." Isabelle made finger quotations around the words, a slightly confused look on her face. "But I don't remember the girl's name."
Viviana frowned. She couldn't really blame Isabelle for not remembering a name. At the time, it was likely the Princess was under several different pain medications. If that did not affect her memory, it was highly possible that the dream world did. As it was, Viviana would not have remembered her questions if she hadn't written them down on her wrist.
But now, she had the answers to questions 1 through 3. The dream spell was a gift, not created by Isabelle, but for Isabelle. It was a gift, like the spellbook, from some little girl in Staroix. That meant these dreams were not traps, and that they were completely safe.
Finally, Viviana sighed in relief. Some security.
She peered at her wrist again, double checking the questions she had left.
4: Why does Isabelle need a soulmate?
5: Who/what is the man with the pirate hat?
Just questions four and five. One of which Isabelle could not answer, but the other...
You already asked about the dream. What's a question about a soulmate?
Viviana tugged her white sleeve back down subtly, checking to see if Isabelle had seen. The Princess was busy examining the flowers with forced interest, as though it was difficult to meet Viviana's eyes.
Viviana forced herself to break the silence.
"So, you still think this dream spell is a gift, right?"
Isabelle's blue eyes snapped to Viviana's green ones, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows.
"Of course." The Princess said warily, twining her hands together in her lap. "It is one of the best things that ever happened to me."
"You don't get lonely?" Viviana pried, her head tilting to the side as she studied every minute expression on Princess Isabelle's face.
"A little." Isabelle admitted. "But I have always been lonely. You must understand, I don't have friends or siblings. My mother strictly limited my life, controlling everything. My father just went along with her. Here, I have true freedom. What is a bit of continued loneliness in the face of that? Besides, I'm not lonely anymore. Now I have you, don't I?"
Despite the terrible first few sentences, Viviana felt her heart fill with warmth and light. An unbidden smile spread across her face, making her eyes twinkle as she reached out a hand, grabbing one of Isabelle's.
"Of course, you have me, Princess. Don't doubt it for a moment."
Isabelle smiled back, her eyes glinting with lavender flecks before a look of seriousness appeared.
"But why do you ask?"
"Well, if you aren't lonely, what exactly do you need to summon a soulmate for?"
Isabelle stiffened, her expression becoming guarded, but she never let go of Viviana's hand.
"Do you want to know a secret?" Isabelle asked, leaning forward slightly so her face was a few inches away from Viviana's. Viviana felt her breath stall in her lungs, her heart beating faster, thumping an erratic, adrenaline induced, unsteady beat.
What is my Princess doing?
Viviana felt ensnared. She held Isabelle's gaze against her will, unable to look away. Isabelle moved until her lips were right by Viviana's ear.
"The girl said my soulmate could save me from death. She said to trust in love, however and wherever I may find it, and believe in the power of true love. Somehow, it is supposed to transcend the power of death."
Viviana gulped nervously as Isabelle leaned back.
"That is why it is so important to me." Isabelle's blue eyes glittered with unshed tears. "My soulmate is my last hope."
Viviana folded Isabelle's hands in her own, giving her the most earnest expression she could muster through the hole in her heart.
It was too much to hope that she loved me. I'll save her, and help her find her soulmate, after I get Ilsadora to remove the curse. She deserves a chance at life. A chance to be happy. And if she won't be happy with me, then I will simply have to step aside for the person that is truly meant for her.
"It'll be ok, Isa." Viviana refused to blink, in case she started crying herself. "You will wake up. You will have a life. And you will find love. I promise."
Isabelle's expression crumpled and she retracted her hands to swipe at her eyes. Viviana tried to reach out to comfort her, but white fog descended over the meadow, obscuring the distraught princess from view as Viviana opened her eyes with a heaving gasp.
***
Viviana clutched her hands to her heart, a whimper of pain escaping her before she could stop it, as tears streamed down her face.
The emotional pain was so intense, it was physical.
Maroon magic glowed ominously in a spiraling circle around her, fraying the blanket she had been using to sleep. Viviana shoved the blanket away in a panic, forcing herself to take deep breaths.
It's ok. She told herself, hugging her knees to her chest. It's ok. You'll find Ilsadora, she'll save Isabelle, and everything will work out the way it's supposed to.
But what if it doesn't work?!
Her breaths caught in her throat, the room blurring before her eyes as she worked herself up.
What if Isabelle dies?
"No. She can't." Viviana gasped. "She can't. She has to live! If not with me, with someone else."
"Viv?" Santiago sat up, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Viviana flinched away, her magic barely clinging to her. Even now, her magic was demanding to be unleashed. It didn't matter if it was released, hovering above her skin. It was not enough. Viviana barely registered Santiago's panicked gasp and rushing footsteps.
"Viviana, look at me. Breathe. You're ok." Santiago was kneeling in front of her, his eyes searching hers, before they flicked upward. "Jeanette!"
A pair of hands settled on her shoulders, and a feeling of warmth worked through her veins. Jeanette's healing powers, meant to fix whatever could be ailing her.
But some wounds and illnesses were too deep or severe to heal.
A broken heart was one of them.
She will live, but she won't love you if she does.
Who cares? I only need her to live.
Please, Latsyr, or Faeyluna, let her live.
Viviana's breathing slowed, her sight cleared, and her magic was absorbed back into her skin, to hover safely beneath the surface as both Jeanette and Santiago exerted magical control over her. She could not bring herself to care. Perhaps later she'd be angry at them.
But not now. Not when they pulled her back from the brink.
She'd never been so close to losing control before. Not since Preisha's accident.
Ainara and Preisha appeared over Santiago's shoulder, both of them floating in midair.
"What was that?" Jeanette asked, forced calm tamping her voice down, but Viviana caught notes of extreme stress and partial hysteria. "You kept muttering 'Let her live.'"
Viviana kept her gaze on her hands. Her magic was sealed away, but she swore she could see it anyway, hammering against her bones, demanding to be set free.
Viviana met Jeanette and Santiago's stares with one of her own.
"I dreamed Isabelle died, because we were too late to save her. It was just a nightmare, nothing more."