The aftermath of Angelique's dangerous past has come into fruition. She has finally awaken from her slumber, but returns to this plane of existence as a different girl. Her age has been reversed, her mind has been enlightened, and her heart no longer beats. Angelique will soon learn that she can't run away anymore, that she can no longer break the rules and get away without feeling any remorse or guilt. This is the beginning of the girl who died.
Life is like a river with endless streams. Endless outcomes, but there will always be one that ultimately leads into a much bigger ocean of possibilities. That some endings are more likely to come true compared to others. In this story, everyone's role begins to falter and shift as one vital character manages to exist. In a chance of more than a million, she will lead everyone's future into the most unlikely endings of them all. This singular speck of life will divert an entire current away from the roaring tides of fate.
Jolting violently from her resting place, she felt gallons of water sloshing around her, afraid she might drown until she felt two strong arms wrap themselves around her, and suddenly she wasn't drowning anymore. She was in a dark room, of glistening onyx, a group of people surrounding her. The pair of arms pulled her in with a deathly grip that punched the wind from her aching stomach. As a matter of fact her entire body was sore, every muscle in her body heavier than she remembered. She felt a rush of alertness begin to overwhelm her as she tried to make sense of her environment.
"You're back," a woman's voice breathes into her neck, unable to completely process what was happening she couldn't find the right words to ask or say as this stranger held her so tightly, "after all this time, you're back from the void. I thought we had lost you, oh starlight."
Dear circe, has it been so long that she's forgotten the sound of her own aunt's voice? Calmly, void of any panic or anxiety or innate need for comfort she gradually returns the hug until both of them are entangled with one another. Warmth began to gradually return to Angelique's cold soaked body.
"I can't have been gone for that long..." Angelique whispers, mostly to herself still disoriented from her return, unaware of the drastic change, but more concerned with why she wasn't in a frenzied panic. Her vision was still adjusting and the feeling of her limbs returning felt foreign as she curled and uncurled her fingers. Her aunt kept brushing through her wet and matted hair. Trying her best to not tug too hard on a tough tangle.
"Raquelle remove yourself from my daughter" a voice Angelique most definitely recognized spoke out of turn. She casts a shadowy frown to her mother in the room who donned her ever ethereal attire, long wispy pieces of silk draped over her head, the gold intricate embroidery glimmering against the rich iridescent fabric of her gown. Her unmistakable mismatched color eyes looking at them with indifference, as always.
"You actually sent me to the void. You actually brought me back to life." Angelique muttered, pulling herself off the enormous marbled bed, immediately regretting it as she nearly fell on herself. Her mother still not in the least bit concerned as she remained seated in her chair with a steaming cup of herbal tea in hand
"It would have been nice to know you would send me here if I died." Angelique seethes bitterly
"If you would stop refusing to use your gift, perhaps you would have expected this to happen..." Of course her mother had to argue with her tone remaining unsettlingly calm, "...I saw no need for you to know. I foresaw you to venture forward. So I acted accordingly."
Spitefully Angelique retaliates with a bitter glare, "Because you know everything, don't you m'an?"
Yet her mother remained unfazed taking another sip of her tea, completely unbothered. Before Angelique could get another word in, Racquelle reached for her face. Upon meeting with her worry ridden eyes, Angelique's expression softened. Her aunt that touched her so delicately looked older, more worn than she remembered. Angelique wondered if anybody stayed by her side all those years. She imagined her aunt and godmother were the only people who were worried over her well being. As opposed to her mother who forever remained aloof. Raquelle peered into Angelique's own mismatched eyes, raging pink hue on the left, and a bursting yellow shade on the right side. Her jaw nearly dropped as she whispered woefully, "Angelique, your fleeting..."
Once again her mother remained neutral, not in the least bit as concerned as her aunt, her trembling hands still lingered over the slope of Angelique's cheeks. She rested her head against her chest, listening carefully, she was relieved to hear a steady rhythm but her shoulders slumped as she waited for the next sound to echo through her chest. It didn't take long for a frown to replace the relief that washed over her not too long ago.
"Your heart shouldn't be beating this slow" she turns to Angelique's mother in a subtle fit of fury, "You killed her, Calista."
In that instance something had finally engulfed in the pit of Angelique's stomach. Her fists clenched tightly as she began to rile herself, finding the strength in her to stand and approach her mother with a dangerously killing scowl.
"You said I've been gone for how long?" she demands as a question.
A pained look scathed over Racquelle's face, while her mother replied after taking yet another calm sip of her piping tea, peering into the tea leaves with observant eyes ''you didn't age a day. You would have long graduated by now..."
"How long?" she asked more strongly now. Calista looks at her daughter in the eyes, the intensity radiating from her mismatched irises shooting straight to Angelique's core. She was unsettling as always. Being so all knowing made it even worse. She could foresee every mistake, every natural disaster, every tragedy. It felt as if Angelique's secrets and thoughts could just be laid bare at any moment. This familiar feeling washed over her, and it was all from just the mere sight of her mother.
"You've been swimming in the astral void for four years." she says without hesitation or sympathy. Her attention focused on the gem that swirled in her other hand, "We expected at least ten, but you worked faster than I predicted. As the true heir to Delphine, I should've expected that out of you. You're much earlier than we had initially planned."
"...what was the plan, m'an?", Angelique demanded, her voice coming to a growl.The realization that she had missed nearly four years of her life. That she would have to deal with the collateral damage she left behind when she decided to leave the living. Her hands were shaking no longer from the cold but out of sheer anger. He could see a hazy reflection of herself on the sleek surface of the room. Swimming in the void has returned her youth, and she's returned to being a child.
"You madwoman," she whispered with a shaky breath, "are you that desperate-"
"You will train under the Arcane. By the time you're seventeen you'll be ready, granted you will live under the guise of a Beauxbaton student. And when the time is right you will do as predicted, and the curse will be lifted. The alignment of the planets will ensure both our victory and the victory of the boy."
She said it so simply without any remorse or sympathy, only angering Angelique more as her fists tightened and her teeth began to clench. She held this feeling in her chest and her teeth grit at just the sight of her ever ethereal mother who was acting as if she were paying her daughter a humble visit. As if welcoming her was nothing but a favor. She can foresee another future, where her mother wasn't there at all, and she was left to simply follow instructions.. Her clear visions proving swimming in the void has done some good for her, but Angelique never saw it that way...
"When the time is right..." Angelique repeats almost baffled at how easily planned everything was, that none of it was chosen by her at all, and she had no say in it, "...what am I preparing for-"
"If you're anything like your father, you'd live up to his expectations." her mother interrupted, with no need to allow Angelique finish her sentence. An unsightly habit her mother has. No care for the present, only looking towards the future when everything has already been solved, as if nothing in the moment ever matters. That feeling was a trivial, tedious thing for those who aren't enlightened. But that didn't stop Angelique from expressing any of her predictable responses.
"I-"
"And If you were any good as Morgana herself you would've known that this is inevitable." Calista interrupts her face remaining expressionless, but the raise in her voice is enough indication of her frustration.
However, her demeanor shifts ever so slightly, a softness around her sharp edges, "I know this is the best for you, mon étoile. You can spite me, hate me, curse me all you want. But it will never change what happens next."
Her mother brings a dainty hand to her daughter's face and runs her finger along Angelique's skin as if admiring a precious diamond, "Je peux sembler froid et indifférent, mais vous devez savoir à quel point votre avenir est important pour moi. Que je t'aime autant sinon plus que ton père." (I may seem cold and indifferent, but you must know how important your future is to me. That I love you as much if not more than your father)
The weight in her voice stood with Angelique, it was remarkable how her ever ethereal mother can switch her demeanor so drastically. From merciful goddess to a cold heartless empress. She mumbles in a drifting tone, peering into Angelique's face, "Vous avez le visage innocent de votre père. Un homme si dangereux, qui portait un cœur aimant" (You have the innocent face of your father. Such a dangerous man, who had a loving heart)
Pulling away from her daughter she adds returning to her indifferent self, "I can only hope you make the right decisions for yourself. That this...life, the love you find will make you stronger."
A frown deepens on her face, her grip on her other arm tightening as Angelique spat, "That's ridiculous. A Delphine can never find love. We only know heartbreak and tragedy..."
A small breathy laugh escapes her mother's lips, catching Angelique's attention, not knowing her mother is capable of finding anything funny, "That was exactly what I had said about your father."
Calista looks to her daughter with an unfamiliar glimmer in her mismatched eyes, a glimmer of knowing, a mischievous glimmer, "Do not underestimate fate. She is a strange but beautiful thing. Doing as she pleases. Your path is peculiar indeed."
Angelique draws herself away, before retorting with anger lingering in her words, "We're not allowed to love, mother." she turns on her heel unable to stand another minute imprisoned in the enclosed room any longer, "Not when every person who has fallen in love with us dies. We don't have the privilege to love."
With that Angelique leaves the chamber, Racquelle looks to her sister, trying, struggling to tell herself that she knows what she's doing. She always has after all, but for some reason, the odds aren't exactly in favor of them.
"She's right, Calista." Raquelle murmured carefully, her voice echoing against the silence of the chamber
Calista stands from her seat and replies passively, without sharing even a glance, "You don't think I'm not aware of that?"
Something odd and peculiar swirled in Calista's eyes, as she looked to the entrance of the chambers, her daughter's prescience still lingered. She tapped her long jewel adorned nail against the crystal before adding in a hazier tone that contradicted her usual rigid unnerving voice, "Angelique's different and if what my mother said was true, and if my visions come true, this curse will be finally lifted..."
"But what makes you so sure Fate won't change her mind?" Racquelle argues as they both make their way to the exit, "She's aware of the family curse, she's experienced so much tragedy in her life. ."
"I and many of those before me were meant to be followers of Fate," she points a pointy manicured finger in Angelique's direction, "that girl will spit in the face of Fate..."
Raquelle's face scrunched with worry, biting down on her nail, "She would never give her life away. I don't need the gift to know that she would never risk falling in love knowing the former is destined to die"
"Do you propose to let her indulge in narcotics and hard liquor, wasting her life away?" her mother retorts coldly, "This wouldn't be so difficult if that incident didn't happen at that disgusting nightclub. Clearly this is deeply rooted. A spiritual cancer that can't be amended by rehab or modern medicine. No spell or charm that can relieve her suffering. And she can't keep distracting herself with poison either."
Calista's voice returns to its nonchalant tone, her glass-like heels clacking against the glossy ebony floors as she returns to the small table she waited so patiently in, "You haven't seen the visions I've received. Angelique is unpredictable and reckless. I am not basing my bets on foresight, but my intuition of her. And my intuition tells me, no matter how much she refuses to acknowledge her feelings, no matter how much she wants to deny her upbringing, the conclusion is that the curse may break. I know it deep within my core..."
Sighing with defeat Raquelle murmurs, "You put a great deal of trust on her, she's extraordinary, but is she truly the one to defy fate?"
"Her existence, her presence in this timeline around that school, just proves she defied fate simply being born. In another life the Arcane doesn't exist, we are insignificant to that Potter boy everybody is raving about, but this isn't about him. This is about her and...that man. This is about our curse, and not some boy's destiny. He will prevail nonetheless...it's the other one that will help Angelique break us free. No Delphine will ever have to know pain."
Raquelle couldn't argue with her eldest sister any further. She was far superior both spiritually and scientifically. A doctor who happened to be a direct descendant of a long line of legendary witches. Just as the seers before her, Calista was taught to remain unfazed, emotionless with whatever future came to her. To be numb to whatever fate had in store for her, even if her future offered nothing but despair. She does this now as she watches her own daughter struggle to walk the same path. She watches her daughter fight the tides of destiny despite it all being futile. Calista sets her cup down and brushes past her sister who stood in ignorance, before pausing.
Raquelle braced herself, knowing her sister well enough to be aware of when she's going to scold her with clairvoyant wisdom, "That child is the butterfly effect to this insignificant little stream of time. Whether her presence in this story will have any value will determine how much we stray from the river of probability. Her existence is an anomaly in its own right. Had I not brought her into this world, things would have played out much easier."
And as usual, Raquelle accepted her words despite not knowing at all what Calista was talking about. But that didn't stop her older sister, "But if we're going to get the ending we want, with all its flaws and changes from the original current of time, we can't afford to make mistakes. This would be the only path that would lead to ultimate doom, and as long as we exist here we can not let that happen. Not when there's even a window of a chance."