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Lillian stares at her floating just shy of arms length and feels like her heart is beating in frantic time with those damn wings. Lillian thinks about what it would be like to have that freedom, the ability to just fly away when things went sour and left that tang of disappointment sitting heavy on your tongue. Lillian imagines being able to flee this gilded prison on a pair of painfully thin wings, imagines scooping up her Fiona from that damn tower and dragon, imagines fluttering on sturdy little wings to their happily ever after.
(She’s dreamed about that too many times now for it not to feel like a terribly sad memory. She wishes with everything that she got to see her baby girl grow into the woman she is now. She wishes she was responsible for it. She wishes but no one answers those anymore. Wishes turn to ash in her lungs and turns whatever hope blossomed to ruin. You can’t grow a garden without any sun. She hasn’t felt the sun on her fair skin since forever and a day ago.)
Lillian stares at her Eee floating just shy of arms length and has the insane notion to leap off of the balcony. To hell with this, Lillian thinks. To hell with this, Lillian breathes in once. Twice. Thrice. Lets out after several long, painful beats. To hell with this, Lillian meets her eyes for what seems like the first time in forever, and honestly? It feels like it was just a day ago they met at That Ball. It feels like The Incident was a few minutes ago, not months.
It feels like she’s just pulled back from those painfully soft lips, smothered the parting gasp with a rough twist of her mouth. Lillian feels her teeth against her tongue, her lips, her neck.
Lillian thinks she has made monuments from those teeth. Lillian half wonders if they’re more like testaments to the dead or celebrations for moments rendered. Lillian wants nothing more than to have them on the inside of her thigh.
Lillian thinks - no, knows - she needs some wine. Perhaps a map? She is so dreadfully lost in her eyes, after all. The terrible pick-up line makes her half smile.
Lillian wonders when everything got so… sticky . Toffees stuffed into your dress pocket on a sunny day and forgotten until you reach in them to put another found treasure, fingertips sticky, licked clean with a half smile.
Lillian remembers that sunny day so much that it seems more like a dream. Everything is washed in soft violet, the sky a muted lilac, the clouds so lazy and fat you thought they’d drop right down because they forgot how to float in their lethargy. The water glittered in the babbling brook they crossed with giggling leaps.
Their hands never left one anothers that sunny day.
(Lillian fosters ghosts that haunt her with a tenderness that leaves her breathless, sometimes. A lot of things leave her breathless. There’s a blue sky on the horizon and she thinks for rain so she won’t float away - breathless, headless - in that endless sun rich sky.)
Lillian thinks of wine, again. Drunk off of fruits. Her lips tasted like apples that day. Lillian tasted them and got the spins. She remembers hearing about poor Snow White for the first time. She remembers biting into an apple and - oh. That almost (truly) sinful crunch of that first bite gave her the spins. Ripe juice spilled from it, tracing a wet line from the corner of her mouth to chin.
Lillian was breathless and Harold thought she was poisoned too. There were no apples after that for a long, long time.
Lillian is thirsty. Lillian has been staring this entire time. Lillian thinks, to hell with this.
Lillian says hello. No, no. She can’t start on something so mundane. Her back is turned to Lillian now. Lillian hates the broken eye contact, wishes for it back so she can get lost in them for forever and a day.
Lillian leans against the wall, lifts her hand to her chin and asks carefully (cheekily), “So… who grants your wishes?”
Eglantine starts in mid air. Looks at Lillian carefully from the corner of her eye before turning her head around.
“I grant my own.”
“Yourself? That sounds… dull.”
Lillian looks up, hand falling from her chin. Her mouth remembers how to be soft. She smiles and tilts to look better at her Eee.
“Why don’t you let someone else grant yours for once.”
Eee startles, head flinching a bit. She wasn’t expecting Lillian to ask her this. She wasn’t expecting Lillian to be so, soft. Like melting butter on a perfectly plump pancake. Damn, Eee is hungry now. She thinks of Lillian’s mouth. Her legs. Her fingertips.
“What do you want?”
You , Eee thinks, so desperately cliché that she may throw up. The Incident is an arms length away. Everything seems oddly dangerous, though she can fly away anytime she wants to. Lillian steps to the balcony railing. Eee wants her to jump so she can have some semblance of control in this sticky situation they’ve gotten themselves into.
(That they never quite seemed to be able to get themselves out of. Not since that sunny day. It was like a wish came true. Violets make her hungry and dizzy and crave toffee.)
Eee would catch her, if she jumped. Eee would control their descent, where to place her hands on Lillian so she’s not uncomfortable, how they would fold onto the cold grass in graceful heap and not move until the sun warmed their dreadful mess.
Eee would take Lillian away if she asked. Lillian never did. Eee wasn’t strong enough to put her down if she had of said no, besides.
Eglantine closes her eyes for a moment against the glaring softness of Lillian standing there, puts her up her hand as if to non-verbally say no to the shape of Lillian’s mouth.
“What I want is not important. I can obtain anything I want.”
Lillian’s dreadful, dreadful, dreadful mouth opens. She says, “Anything?” Eee has become close enough to see this all happen within arms length. She’s so hungry. Ravenous. Eee is on a diet. Eee thinks of apples. Of biting and juice flowing down her greedy chin. Eee’s evening is going terribly. She doesn’t know why she happened upon this balcony, in this palace, in this kingdom, in the first place.
Lillian’s hand is on top of hers. Her long fingers cover Eee’s shorter ones. The world ends in an outpouring of softness.
Eglantine flushes red. She looks away. Lillian wants to -
“- No that… I would have to be given -” Eee’s words are jumbled.
- grab her Eglantine’s face, pull her in and kiss her. Lillian wonders about wishes and dreams and reality and decides, to hell with this.
Lillian pulls Eee closer with a soft hand that curls around her cheek, guiding her lips to her own waiting mouth.
Not to be dramatic or anything, but damn . The Incident holds no flame to this one. It’s a kiss for the ages. Real True Love Business hours up on this balcony. Eglantine sparkles. Stars are born between their hungry mouths, drunk off one another. Stars implode in Lillian’s brain when Eee’s teeth graze against her bottom lip. The ensuing shock wave causes them to part, panting and flaming.
Eee’s glasses have steamed up, so when Lillian says to her, “How’s that for fulfilling a wish,” she looks at her as best she can with a cheeky twist of her smudged mouth.
“Amature… but there’s room for improvement.” Eglantine wants to clearly see Lillian next time.
She gets her wish a few minutes later, though it feels like forever and a day.