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Chapter Text

Clarke rolled her eyes as Mr Kane made yet another vegetable-based pun, looking about at her classmates in derision. She was a straight-A student with a flawless record, but due to a minor indiscretion involving the lying, cheating bastard Finn and a frying pan, she'd been offered two options: take an extra class, or spend the rest of her Saturdays in detention. Obviously, she'd opted for the extra class. It had come down to Runework, the History and Magical Applications of Garden Gnomes, or Cookery. Obviously, she'd opted for cookery.

Now, as she sat at the back of the classroom and attempted not to gouge her own eyes out in boredom, she thought that maybe the gnomes thing could have been fun. At least she wouldn't have had to put up with the kind of friendly, practical, all-around irritating people that took cookery as an actual subject, and not a punishment.

Perhaps there was more to her hatred of it that she was ignoring; cookery reminded Clarke of her mother, and Clarke didn't like to think about her mother. Ever since her father's execution, she'd felt distance between them, and since she'd found out that her mother had turned him in - well, let's just say that she didn't come home in the holidays anymore. Not that she particularly enjoyed spending her days at this godforsaken boarding school, full of budding sorcerers with bright futures, blah blah blah. 

Mr Kane's voice snapped her out of her reverie. "Clarke, Bellamy, since your partners aren't in, you'll be working together today. Miss Griffin, please come and join Mr Blake at the front. Bring your recipe book. And put your apron on."

Clarke could've cried. Of all the people to be stuck with, Bellamy Blake was the worst. He was hot and popular, and he knew it. In all his other classes, he acted out constantly, but for some reason, he excelled at cookery. It was weird, and Clarke had disliked him on sight.

She came up to his desk, dropping her book on it. It landed with a loud thud, and he slowly looked around, one eyebrow raised.

"What's up, princess?" He smirked.

"Let's just get on with this," Clarke almost growled, flipping open the book to the page on chicken and mushroom pie. With a flick of his wand, Bellamy conjured all the ingredients. Clarke rolled her eyes. Show-off.

Together, they began to assemble the ingredients using magic, both making eye contact across the desk. Clarke couldn't look away; there was a challenge in his dark eyes, like he was daring her to keep staring into them. She narrowed her eyes, and with a flick of her wand, covered him in flour. He spluttered, coughing, but in the confusion of flour and flurry of movement, Clarke could see that he was smiling.

Of course, Mr Kane yelled at Clarke and they had to abandon the pie, as he moved her to her seat at the back of the room, where she sat for the rest of the lesson, as Bellamy used magic to clean himself off.

When the bell rang, everyone filtered out of the classroom. Clarke was about to pass through the door, when she felt a hand on her arm, pulling her back.

It was Bellamy, that same infuriating glint in his eyes, mouth turned up in a smirk.

"You're going to have to make that up to me."

With that, he let her go, and Clarke shivered, but not entirely for negative reasons.

Chapter Text

Bellamy awoke in a cold sweat, his head pounding.

For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was, until he recalled that he was in his cell, lying on his bed, which didn't really deserve the title, considering that it was basically a board and a blanket.

He had to remind himself that Octavia was fine, she was fine. His mother wasn't, but he pushed that to the back of his mind.

Then he heard a noise. A rustle.

That wouldn't have been odd anywhere else, but here, in his cell, where all he heard all day was the impregnable silence and the slosh of his own blood in his ears - here, it was very odd.

Momentarily, he froze on his bed, filled with the illogical impulse to pull his blankets over his head and breathe as quietly as possible. After a long, staggering exhale, he reminded himself that he was not a coward, not a guard, not a child. He was a fighter, a brother and damn it, he was Bellamy Blake.

So he peeled off his blanket, leaning his head over the side of his bed.

When he saw what was under there, his eyes widened, his whole body going stiff, as his brain shut down.

It was a big, fuzzy, purple ball with glowing, blue eyes.

After a moment, and to his horror, it spoke, "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. I'm Clarke."

"Clarke,"Bellamy managed to stammer, horror seeping into his blood as the ball bounced forwards.

"Yes, Clarke. I live under this bed."

"I see." Bellamy was not taking this well, not well at all.

"I wanted to talk to you. I don't usually, it's just that you keep having nightmares, and I... well, I wanted to talk to you about that."

Bellamy still wasn't sure what to do. On the one hand, a ball of purple fuzz was speaking to him, but on the other hand, he hadn't spoken to anyone (or anything) in weeks. Deciding that he was probably cracking, finally going mad, Bellamy decided to humour the fuzzball.

"Yeah, I'm having nightmares."

"Do you mind me asking what about?"

Bellamy paused, considering the question. "No. They're about the moment my sister was found."

The little fuzzball seemed to sigh, and Bellamy felt oddly gratified, to have something express a modicum of sympathy towards him. "What's her name?"

"Octavia."

"Do you miss her?"

"More with every day."

"I'm sorry you're stuck in here," the fuzzball said, taking another bounce towards Bellamy.

Bellamy scooped the ball up in one hand as it squealed in protest, proclaiming, "Well, it's not too bad now I have someone to speak to."

He didn't mean that, of course. It was too bad, to put it mildly, but it was admittedly nice to have a conversation.

For good measure, he kissed the fuzzball on the top of the head. "You're my new cellmate, Clarke."

At that moment, the fuzzball seemed to start moving, morphing, and Bellamy dropped it, eyes widening in panic. It was surrounded by purple mist and, when the mist cleared, a girl was crouched on the floor in a pair of purple pyjamas.

"Oh my," she said, "You broke the curse."

"What?" Bellamy yelled, scrambling away from her, "What are you talking about?"

Her big eyes captured his as she said, "I was cursed. And only true love's kiss can break a curse."

Chapter Text

Monty shook out his wings, scattering pixie dust about as he flew over the city, passersby mistaking him for a mere flash of light, a star, or perhaps an airplane. Blue lights flashed below him, bring the shadows alive, as a siren screamed, a police car racing down the road like white blood cells racing through veins to the site of infection. It was a cold night, and although he told himself that pixies didn't get cold, he was freezing, fingertips turning blue. He began to beat his wings fater, trying to get home to the flat he shared with Jasper.

I wish I could feel peace.

Monty sighed. Someone had mistaken him for a shooting star, and made a wish. It was a dejected wish; the person obviously didn't believe it would come true, but he wasn't a shooting star, he was a pixie, so no one had any choice in that matter. It is a pixie's duty, after all, to fabricate happy endings. Monty began to fly lower, searching for the face belonging to the voice. 

It was a man, with dark hair and gaunt features, obviously strong but obviously tired. He was sat on the corner of a street, staring into nothingness, blood dried in his hair, bruised from a fight. 

I wish I had something to live for.

Another one? Again, Monty sighed. This was going to be a busy night. This person wasn't far away, a woman, long blonde hair swinging behind her; she was walking slowly along the streets, aimlessly, staring at the stars. She looked like she'd survived something.

The man had that look about him too. Like he had survived something, but like he'd lost something important in the process.

It was then that Monty had his brainwave. Flying up, up, up, far above the soulless buildings and the grey, winding streets, Monty watched the woman walk away, and closed his eyes.

Pixie dust shimmering around his hands, he began to weave a tale, a spell; he began the beginning of the end of this chapter.

Dark and light they find their way

Blue eyes meet brown at the first light of day;

He will find peace, she will find a reason,

And they will feel love, season upon season.

With that, Monty continued to fly home, the dark sky feeling warmer, for no reason at all.

Clarke turned on her heel, walking back. She hated nights like this, in the city, walking with no purpose. It was the story of her life. No purpose. She'd wanted to be a doctor, once, but with her father's arrest and the legal fees, there was no way she could go to medical school. She'd moved to this godforsaken city to start again, but somehow, she hadn't found a home between the hard concrete and grey skies. On nights like these, she'd sometimes wander down to the river, and look into the water. She wasn't going to jump, she was a survivor, but sometimes she wished that she could let the water submerge her. She didn't want to die, she just wanted to be free.

She'd started thinking whimsically recently, a trait she tried to crush but couldn't. She'd just wished upon a star; she must be really desperate.

Clarke hadn't noticed where her feet had been taking her, but as the sun began to rise, light cracking through the clouds, she turned a corner.

Brown eyes.

A pair of brown eyes caught her blue ones; a man was sitting on the street. He had a darkness about him, a sadness, that Clarke recognised. His eyes held hers; neither of them looked away until the bleak, dawn light was swallowed up by a passing cloud.

She walked up to him. Neither of them spoke.

She sat down.

That, she supposed, was the beginning, or maybe the end, of everything.

Chapter Text

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Bellamy was curled up in his favourite corner of the library, absorbed in the dystopic world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the pages dog-eared solely, he suspected, from his re-reading of the only copy in the whole building. Frowning, he tried to tune out the noise coming from the centre of the room. Sitting behind some bookshelves, he couldn't see them, but there was a gathering of children for Children's Literary Week. They were all being read 'Mr Crocodile Lives In The Nile,' a new and especially insipid picture book. Bellamy just felt sorry for the poor sod sitting at the side, dressed in a crocodile suit, being clambered upon by several children.

With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. 

He kept reading for a while, allowing himself to forget where he was and be totally immersed in his book. Every so often, he would hear the children laugh uproariously or gasp at the, frankly, hackneyed exploits of Mr Crocodile. Eventually, though, that faded away from his conscious mind too. Outside, the sky turned from blue to indigo, not yet dark enough for the stars to reveal themselves, but dark enough that the shadows seemed denser. It was winter, the temperature dropping with the sun, but it was not yet late. The library would be open a little longer. Turning the page, Bellamy shook the pins and needles out of his leg, continuing to read.

How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now.

Bellamy thought that idea was fascinating, if in a slightly disturbing way. The concept that, by changing language, you could narrow peoples' minds; if they didn't have the words, they wouldn't think anything you didn't want them to. He wasn't sure why he liked this book so much. Perhaps it was just the concept of control, of total control, that fascinated him. It wasn't that Bellamy admired the means, but he'd always considered it to be quite an interesting prospect. He felt like either he'd like to be the one in charge, or the one leading the attack on it.

And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?

Bellamy was never quite sure of how realistic the book was. It would be impossible, surely, to oppress people like that. He liked to think they would fight back. He would fight back. Then again, there was oppression all over the world anyway; but people always fought back. Even the strictest regime could not crush people. China's one child policy, for example. Bellamy couldn't see how anyone thought that was a feasible idea; he'd been studying it in class, and it seemed to work overall, but it wasn't easy to enforce. Most things weren't.

That was when Bellamy noticed that the library was silent. And then he noticed that it wasn't.

The sound of a siren had replaced the sound of laughing children.

And then he smelled the smoke.

That pulled him out of his reverie, jumping to his feet, as a large crocodile barreled into him, grabbing him with one arm and hauling him up.

The crocodile pulled him out of a side door, and out of the library.

Panting, Bellamy took in the sight of fire engines and scared-looking children, as the crocodile removed its mask.

It was a woman, with long, flowing blonde hair. She fixed him in her piercing eyes.

"You're a bit of a daydreamer, huh."

Bellamy looked at the smoke pluming from the roof of the library, eyes wide. "The books," he breathed.

"They'll be fine," the girl reassured him, stepping out of the crocodile suit, revealing a shirt and jeans. "I'm Clarke, by the way."

"Bellamy," he replied, still staring at the building, even as the firemen extinguished the flames. "Did everyone get out safely?"

Clarke nodded, as a car beeped from the road. "That's my ride. Give me that book." She reached for Nineteen Eighty-Four, Bellamy instinctively pulling it away. After a moment of her glaring at him, he handed it over. She flipped to the first page, scrawling a sting of numbers in biro, her handwriting scratchy and scrawled. It brought to mind the mess of a doctor's prescription-pad.

"Your number?" Bellamy asked, although the answer was evident, slightly shell-shocked.

"I want you to call me," she said, no question in her voice.

"Why?" He asked, for wont of a better word.

She turned to him, grinning as she walked away, the light glinting in her eyes. She held the crocodile suit under one arm, her whole face filling with life as she said, "I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane."

Bellamy was left standing there, in the street, a quiet smile spreading over his lips. 

Man, he loved that bloody book.