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Once upon a time, a princess is saved from the Evil Queen’s curse by a kiss from her true love — from her Prince Charming.
There’s a lot more to the story, details to flesh out the world that will soon be a reality for Apple. Seven dwarves, a small home filled with laughter and smiles and freshly baked pies and joy, a magic mirror, a vengeful yet devilishly beautiful stepmother, jealousy and trickery and betrayal, a poison apple as red as a ruby. She knows it all, reads her mother’s story like a bible — “How do the books get written, mother?” “Oh, don’t worry about it, sweetheart — just know they do, and that one day yours will be written in the same golden ink and calligraphy as mine, and you can read it to your own darling little girl before she goes to bed.” — and until the age of four clung to it like it was a part of her, until her mother gave her a gentle lesson about how carrying such a thick book with her at all times was unseemly of someone of her status and destiny.
Apple White is all-too-familiar with the story, can still to this day recite the copy she clung to so lovingly from memory. It’s how her mother won back her crown, how she met the love of her life, and how Apple came into the story. It’s the very reason for Apple’s existence — to renew the storybook magic, to have her own chance at the story her mother followed so carefully. And Apple embraces this role wholeheartedly.
It’s why she’s here, after all. Just-turned-fifteen, and about to start her first year at Ever After High, sitting across from a blond boy with a stunning smile, in her nicest formal gown.
Daring Charming .
The first-born of one of the many families of Charmings that reside throughout the various realms. Apple had begged her mom to set up this formal dinner for them, going so far as to make a slide-scroll presentation about why it would be mutually beneficial for both her and Daring if they were to meet prior to their schooling at Ever After High, and how it would lead to their destinies being the most successful they could be. And her mother had always been sensible, so she’d agreed, and who would turn down a dinner invitation from Queen Snow White herself?
“I’m Princess Apple White,” she says, and Daring gives her another trademark smile. She laughs demurely, being sure to make eye contact with Daring, smiling privately to herself when she can see a blush beginning to rise in Daring’s cheeks. (It’s truly wondrous, what a few specialized sessions with a Courtly Manners and Conduct tutor will do for you. Most of it is likely the work of her natural princessly aura, the same talents that draw in birds and rabbits and squirrels with merely a melody, that paint her as kindhearted and caring and fit to rule, but learning techniques to enhance your natural abilities is how a prodigy becomes a master, and Apple White was nothing if not a strict disciple of mastery.) “It’s a pleasure to meet you — officially , that is.”
Daring looks confused at this, but brushes it off with a laugh that reveals a little too much of his true emotion beneath the jovial surface. “Officially? I’m not sure what you mean, Your Highness.”
“Oh, please, call me Apple,” she says. It works like a charm — Daring seems further infatuated, and Apple knows her destiny is only that much closer. “I mean, you are part of my destiny; I guess you could say that part of me has known you forever.”
He lets out a small chuckle, stunned nearly out of words. “Well, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Apple White?”
“I hope not too many!”
They share a laugh, and from the other end of the table where Snow White is dining with Daring’s parents, Apple can see her mother look over and give her an approving glance. Daring is already perfect, and Apple knows that she’s perfect, and their destiny is perfect, and Apple can practically taste their happily ever after already.
+
By the time Apple makes it to the start of her second year at Ever After High, her and Daring are the most popular not-couple to walk school grounds. (Despite the mutual knowledge between them that they were destined forever after, and that knowledge not being a secret to the rest of the student body, they still aren’t officially dating. They’ve got an entire happily ever after together, Apple reasons, and it’s true, and it’s just enough to sate anyone that questions why the destined couple isn’t official yet.) It’s the perfect start to a perfect year.
It was, at least.
And then in swooped Raven Queen. (Sure, Apple requested to be her roommate, but — aside from a few conversations where Apple would inevitably end up referencing their story, their destiny , and Raven would find a way to leave the conversation, they hadn’t talked a lot.) Raven Queen, who was nice , (could you believe it? The daughter of the Evil Queen, a genuinely nice person) and had all these grand ideas about not signing the Book of Legends and choosing her own destiny, and really, if Apple didn’t know any better she’d call this the most evil thing Raven could possibly do. To take away Apple’s happily ever after, the same fairytale ending that she’s been preparing for since she could walk, for something as selfish as choosing her own destiny? When she played such an important part in Apple’s story? And after her own mother had risked the safety of all of Ever After by going off-book? Truly, it was just too much, and if Apple had a mote less kindness in her body she doesn’t know what she would do to Raven.
Apple White closes the door to her room behind her, the goodbyes she just exchanged with Daring still lingering in her mind, glimmering, sweet, everything a goodbye and goodnight wishes should be in a pre-destined not-relationship. She loves Daring — of course she did, who can’t love Daring Charming — but small things like these, him walking her back to her dorm, cements in Apple’s mind that he’s the perfect Prince Charming for her story.
“You and Daring still aren’t dating?”
Startled, Apple turns towards the other side of the room, relaxing slightly when she catches sight of Raven’s familiar face, hair twisted neatly into two braids and face clear of makeup, gently rubbing scale polish over Nevermore. “N-no, we’re not.”
Raven quirks an eyebrow in Apple’s direction, seemingly uninterested as she continues to groom her dragon. “Really? You’d think the most popular couple ever after would be a bit more successful with their own dating lives.”
Apple perches delicately against the edge of her bed, regarding Raven cautiously. “Daring and I will have an eternity together — we’ve got time to figure it out.” Her heart is beating faster than normal, an apple-red flush in her cheeks, voice shaking just slightly. She clears her throat, ignoring the heat of her face, the thrumming of her heart in her chest. “It’d be reckless of me to rush things.”
“To rush a currently four years long courtship?” Raven sets her scale polishing brush down next to her, petting Nevermore gently as she talks, her dragon’s soft hums lilting through the air behind Raven’s words. Apple’s heart starts beating faster, skin prickling and a flush rising in her cheeks as Raven stares towards her — a piercing, violet gaze that always, always seems to entrap Apple before she can even realize she’s caught in a snare. Sometimes Apple gets lured in by Raven’s bouts of kindness, or idealistic attempts to rewrite her own story, and other times Apple remembers that Raven Queen elicits an emotion in Apple that she can only describe as fear. “What is it , Apple? What is it you still have to figure out?”
Apple White opens her mouth, and closes it, and swallows, and there’s a hard lump growing in the base of her throat, and she swallows again, and Apple White doesn’t have an answer.
+
Apple White doesn’t think she’s ever cried as much as she has in the past twenty minutes, in a pile on the floor of the dragon stables, surrounded by hay with her arms wrapped around her knees. (Apple White doesn’t cry, except for when she does, and when she does it’s often on command, or a demure sob that never makes it past tears building in the corners of her eyes and along her lower lashline. Apple White cannot remember the last time she let out sobs as ugly and loud and wailing as these.) If she tilts her body twenty degrees to the right and peers out the crack between the main stable doors, she can see a few dark specks against a sky getting more blue by the second, undoubtedly Raven and everyone that left with her.
Raven’s words echo in her head. “No, you’ve changed. We’re not on the same page anymore. That’s not how the story goes, Apple.” Somehow, Apple became so preoccupied with making sure that her happy ending would come to fruition that she forgot what’s supposed to happen after.
Somehow, Apple forgot that in her happily ever after, Raven gets exiled, for daring to poison the kingdom’s most beloved princess out of jealousy and fear.
Why was it so heartbreaking, to have Raven tell her that she wouldn’t be able to have her in her happily ever after? She— she likes being Raven’s friend, and roommate, and hanging out with her outside of classes. Despite it all. Despite their destiny. Not having Raven anymore would be worse than taking a bite out of a poison apple meant to kill.
Apple doesn’t like to think too much about what that sentiment means.
“Apple?”
Instinctively, Apple releases her arms from where they grip tightly around her knees, shifting herself into an elegant sitting position much more befitting a princess, and dries her tears the best she can. Peering against the sunlight towards the main stable doors, Apple can barely make out a mess of curly blond hair and an embroidered blue jacket. “Alistair?”
“I was looking for Maddie,” they say by way of explanation, walking further into the stables. Their eyes pass over Apple — sitting on the floor of the stable, in a day-old dress, eyes swollen and rimmed with red from crying, marks in her arms from where her perfectly manicured fingernails bit into her perfectly soft skin — and a small furrow of worry forms between their brows. “She didn’t come for early-morning tea with me and Bunnie, so — I figured I’d investigate. Have you been crying?”
Apple doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the almost frightening bluntness the Wonderlandians are so fond of.
(If she’s being completely honest, it angers her because she envies them. Envies how they can so easily speak what’s on their mind with no fear for what might come against them in the aftermath, how she has spent her whole life teaching herself how to say the right thing at the right time to always get the right result and how people like Maddie and Alistair and Lizzie simply say what they think.)
“A little,” she says sheepishly. “I, uh— got into a fight with Raven as she was leaving.”
Alistair takes a seat on the floor beside her. “You and Raven care a lot for one another.”
“I mean, we’re best friends,” Apple says, but her heart twinges at the statement, Raven’s voice echoing in her mind. Were they still friends? Could they still be friends, even if Apple got her happily ever after? “It only makes sense that we’d care for each other.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be enemies?”
Apple freezes. She forces herself to laugh, but she can hear how fake it is, the tinny sound ringing in her ears as she answers. “Well, there’s nothing saying we can’t be friends before our story starts! It’s like how you and Bunnie are friends—”
“Me and Bunnie are dating,” Alistair says, a hint of bemusement colouring their voice as a red as bright as her namesake fills Apple’s cheeks. “But you’re right, there’s nothing in our story that says we’ll date.” They stare at Apple, and for the nth time in just as many days, Apple can’t read the expression of the person in front of her, despite her observant nature. “Wouldn’t you say that by wanting to stay friends with Raven, you’re wanting to go… off-book ?” Apple opens her mouth to retort, but Alistair doesn’t give her an ounce of space to interject. “Is it really just friendship? These feelings, so strong that you, the rule-following, destiny-abiding Apple White are willing to forget about her happily ever after for?”
“I’m in love with Daring,” Apple says by way of response, and the words ring hollow and false as they leave her mouth.
“Really?”
“I have to be, don’t I? Because I’m Apple White, and he’s my Prince Charming, and someone has to be the one to wake me from my poison-apple-induced slumber, and be my true love, and marry me, and help me rule Ever After, and, and,” and Apple’s breaths are coming a bit too quickly, a bit too shallow, and the walls of the stable feel like they’re closing in on her, “and if I’m not in love with Daring then he’s not my Prince Charming and what in the ever after will happen to my story? What am I without the security of that apple and that kiss?”
“That isn’t a yes,” Alistair points out ever-so-helpfully, and Apple bites down the frustration rising in her throat. She is Apple White, and she is calm, and collected, and kind, and doesn’t yell at people who are only trying to help the best they can, even if the things they say make her want to tear her hair out. Alistair purses their lips, and now Apple can get a read on them again, and tenses in preparation for whatever they might next say.
Their voice is carefully held with a tact that Apple finds surprising from a Wonderlandian — though, Alistair has never been just a Wonderlandian, have they? The one brought in from the outside for the glorious story beyond, the one that’s lived in Wonderland their whole life but in their story is meant to be looking in — maybe it’d do Apple well to stop painting them all with the same brush. Maybe it’d do Apple well to stop assuming, twisting people away from who they are and into who she wants them to be, how she needs them to be for her story to reach its eventual completion. “Think on it, Apple. I doubt you’d unconsciously go off-book for something as simple and clean-cut as a friendship.” They give Apple a warm smile, then stand and move to exit the stables. “I doubt anyone would.”
Apple White sits in the stables until her legs go numb from the hard ground beneath her, and thinks, and thinks, and thinks.
+
“Daring?”
Daring sits despondently on a tree stump about a five minute walk away from the school. Apple knew he would be here, because Apple took him here on their first official date, and they carved their initials into that same tree stump while sitting on a pristine red-and-white checkered picnic blanket and feeding one another hors d’oeuvres that Apple had delivered special from Castle White. Apple knew he would be here, because they both come here whenever they need some space. “Oh, Apple! You look fairest as always,” Daring says, pushing himself into straight posture, plastering his famous megawatt grin onto his face. “What a pleasure, seeing you here!”
“We need to talk,” Apple says, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t notice how Daring’s face contorted briefly with emotion, too quick for Apple to identify but just slow enough she could see. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while.”
“That’s crazy, because I’ve been meaning to tell you something.” There’s a note of nervousness in Daring’s voice, his voice shifting two degrees closer to crazed than confident. They both hesitate, and there it is again, this terrifying half-beat of uncertainty and falling out of rhythm, despite how they’re supposed to be perfect together, and Apple is only more sure of what she needs to say.
They blurt out their words at the same time, overlapping and terrified and falling out in a rush.
“I know who woke me up from the poison apple—”
“I’m in love with Lizzie Hearts—”
There’s a still, surprised moment where they both stare at the other, reeling, processing both the enormity of the words they just spoke and the enormity of the words spoken to them. And then Apple can’t help it, she laughs, she laughs long and loud and hard and in a way her mother would definitely call un-princessly at the ridiculousness of this situation, at the fact that she doesn’t and has never loved the man who is supposed to be her Prince Charming, and that her Prince Charming is in love with the princess-turned-queen of an entirely different story, and that maybe them, together, Apple White and Daring Charming, were what the Storybook of Legends and their Happily Ever After’s wanted but maybe that wasn’t what they, Apple and Daring, needed.
“Lizzie?” Apple asks gently, and the smile that tugs at the corner of Daring’s lips isn’t the practiced, perfect, brilliantly blinding one that he uses to woo the fair maidens of Ever After, but something a little softer, a little more quiet and sweet and true.
“She’s — beyond words, Apple. She manages to keep me on my toes in a way that no one else can— No offense,” he adds, almost an afterthought, but Apple just laughs to match the sweet smile on Daring’s face. “And, god, she tries to be so imposing and powerful like her mother but she’s sweeter than she lets on, and — Apple, I think she makes me a better person.” He can’t meet her eyes, instead staring down at the green grass that blankets the small clearing they’re standing in. “When we were— together, it felt correct, like we were making all the right moves, playing their game perfectly, but it didn’t feel right .” His voice softens, and his fingers absentmindedly trace the carved initials near the top of the stump. “Being with Lizzie feels right. I like who I am when I’m around Lizzie.”
Apple walks forward a few steps, and Daring instinctively moves to make space for her on the base of the tree stump. Regardless of what might have been or should have been or wasn’t between them, they still fit together well as friends, still knew the way the other moved and enough about one another that, thinking more on it, would probably make Daring one of Apple’s best friends. She perches lightly next to him.
“So, yes, I know now that Darling was the one who woke me up from my poison-apple-induced enchanted sleep. And… that changed some things.” Apple nudges Daring’s foot gently with her own. “A lot of things, actually. For starters, I realized that despite your irresistible charm, I’ve never actually ever been in love with you. Not for real, anyways.”
“I’m pretty sure everyone at this school has been in love with me at some point,” Daring says, his familiar blustery bravado returned, “barring the ones that don’t like men— Oh. Oh. ”
“Yeah.” Apple tips her head back, until she’s staring up at a canopy of tree leaves and the blue sky beyond, vibrant and perfect as ever. “And once I figured that out, it made a lot more sense why your kiss didn’t work on me and Darling’s did.”
Daring goes quiet for a long moment, and a thread of worry and nerves starts twisting its way through Apple’s thoughts, but he speaks before Apple can say something, anything, to try and lessen the blow, cover her tracks. “Does this mean you’ll go forward with your story? With Darling instead of— me?” Apple would be lying if she said she didn’t hear the way his voice twisted, shook, broke.
It’s been the same for both of them, Apple knows. Clinging to a destiny that was promised to be certain like a lifeline, the only thing keeping them afloat. When Raven ripped her page out from the Storybook of Legends, the closest way Apple can describe how she felt that day was drowning, the lifeline gone, awkward hands and legs that fumble through never learning to swim, a deep and endless ocean below her. And maybe, on that day, Daring started to sink beside her, nothing left to cling to but each other.
“I don’t think I’ll be following it anymore at all, with you or with Darling,” Apple says, and the shock-turned-worry-turned-uncertainty on Daring’s face is palpable. “As much as I talk about following my destiny,” Apple continues, voice a bit quieter and less vibrant than her usual royal cheer, “I fell in love with Raven Queen. Despite everything I ever thought about myself, and about you. And I went off-book when I fell in love with her, and royally screwed up when I didn’t even realize that I was in love until she left the school when her mom took over. Even if I didn’t mean to — maybe this was going to happen anyways.” She stares Daring right in his sky-blue eyes, eyes that she’s memorized from half a lifetime of staring into them with what she thought was love, eyes that are familiar and comforting despite it all. Daring stares back, as unsure and shell-shocked and determined as Apple feels. “Maybe Raven is more right than I thought, and maybe going off-book and choosing our own destinies won’t be as awful as we thought it would be.”
He quirks an eyebrow at that, though the small smile on his face is far from mocking. “Raven Queen? Really?”
“Oh, come on, it’s not even like I’m the only one! Have you ever seen how Dexter looks at her?”
“You say that, but I’m pretty sure I caught Alistair kissing my brother behind the bleachers the other day.”
Apple shrugs, leaning into Daring, savouring his comforting warmth and the golden glow of the sun and the knowledge that despite it all, Daring is still someone she knows and cares for and loves, even if that love isn’t exactly what her destiny demands. “Our destinies got turned topsy-turvy the moment Raven made the choice to not sign the Storybook of Legends. I think it’ll be fine if your brother wants to kiss Alistair, or you’re in love with Lizzie Hearts, or if I’m in love with the villain of my story.”
“So. Friends?” Daring asks.
“Is that even a question?”
Apple doesn’t need to see his face to know Daring is smiling, that same soft, quiet smile that rare few get to see.
“So… do you want me to wingman for you?”
“Wh— I am perfectly capable of courting Lizzie on my own, thank you very much!”
+
A few weeks ago, Apple White would not have been able to identify the quick beating of her heart, hummingbird wings thrumming in her chest as she looks at Raven Queen from across the castleteria as love. A few weeks ago, Apple White was still trapped in a prison of her own unconscious making, bars strengthened by the affirmations and pleased whispers of all those around her, all the people she wished so desperately to please. But that was then, and this is now, and if she looks ten degrees to the left she can see Daring talking to Lizzie Hearts, and their eyes meet from across the room, and Apple White is filled with more resolute determination than when she stepped up to sign the Storybook of Legends.
She takes her usual seat next to Raven — she can’t remember when they started sitting next together during meals, sometime during the fallout of Legacy Day, a political ploy from Apple to maybe sate the Royals and Rebels still on edge from the monumental day. (It didn’t work, but it did bring her and Raven a hell of a lot closer, so Apple still counts it as a win.) “So,” Apple starts, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently, and—”
“Has anyone ever suggested that you think too much?” Raven shoots back with her familiar wit, a tongue never meant to do more than tease and taunt, no real venom behind her barbs. “Always in her head, Apple White.”
And Apple thinks on it, swirling Raven’s words around in her head, and realizes as she mulls it over that she’s doing exactly what Raven described, and instead reaches out and grabs Raven’s face, turning her attention to her in a single moment, and Raven drops the spoon in her grasp as Apple takes her face in her hands. “Can I kiss you?”
Raven lets out a noise of shocked surprise. “I— yes, you, what? Sorry, you want to—”
“Kiss you, yes,” Apple says, and if it comes out a tad impatient, well, she’s been unconsciously waiting for this for months, she thinks she has a right to be a little frustrated, “can I?”
Raven nods, wordlessly, and that’s all the confirmation Apple needs to close her eyes and press her lips against Raven’s.
Her lips are soft, and Apple knows when they part that the dark lipstick Raven is so partial to will leave traces on her own lips, and she tastes like cinnamon and apples and it’s probably from the porridge she was eating earlier but nothing has ever tasted so right. They pull apart, and they’re both breathing a little heavier, and Raven’s face is warm under her touch, and Apple doesn’t think she’s ever done anything in her life that has felt as right as kissing Raven. Like the ground beneath her has been constantly shifting, adrift, and when her lips touched Raven’s it locked into place, firm and steady under her feet. “Wow,” she breathes out, and it takes everything in her to not go back in for a second kiss.
“So,” Raven says, and she sounds as stunned as Apple feels, “any reason in particular for that, or…?”
“You told me I think too much,” Apple replies, “so I thought I would show you through action instead.”
A laugh escapes Raven, and stars above, Apple could listen to that sound forever. “Well, you certainly got a point across.” Raven’s voice is full of bemusement and warmth. It wraps around Apple like sunlight. “Mind sharing what exactly that point was, though?”
“I’m in love with you,” Apple says matter-of-factly, and the surprise-turned-softness on Raven’s face is worth skipping every extravagant metaphor and long-winded explanation Apple wanted to turn to, rely on like a crutch. “And it took me a long, long time to realize, and I could care less if that means I’m a Rebel now for going off-book, because I can’t control the fact that I love you any more than I can control the sun or the stars or the moon, and I think a part of me always knew that no matter what might happen in the next few years, I want you with me. Forever.” She pauses, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, voice shifting closer to hesitancy. “If you want to be with me, too, that is.”
Raven gives her a grin. “What part of that kiss felt like a ‘no’ to you, and do I need to kiss you again to prove it?”
A smile spreads over her face before Apple can stop it. “Maybe not to prove it, but I definitely wouldn’t turn it down…”
Raven’s hand reaches up to Apple’s face, guiding her closer until she can press her lips against Apple’s again, a little less desperate and driven by fear and hope and hard-won determination, a little more soft and sweet and promising. Apple doesn’t think she’s felt this content since well before Legacy Day.
If the other occupants of the castleteria noticed their antics, they wisely pretend not to as Apple and Raven exited the room, hand in hand.
Their dorm room is exactly the same as it was when they left it this morning — Apple’s side as white and golden and red and tidy and sickeningly perfect as ever, Raven’s a bit more messy, more lived in, darker and dimmer and alive. Still, it feels different, and Apple’s shoulders feel lighter with the weight of endless expectations and an entire destiny removed. They collapse onto Raven’s bed in a giggling mess, pressing sweet-soft kisses into one another and basking in the joy of the newly shared love, fitting together seamlessly. It took them a lot to get here, and Apple doesn’t regret a single step of the way.
It’s — terrifying, breathless, it’s jumping off the giant’s beanstalk, it’s walking a path without knowing whether the ground under her feet will crumble beneath her, it’s learning how to swim after clinging so desperately to that lifeline for so long. It scares Apple to her very bones, but she made this choice, and no matter how uncertain the path ahead of her might be, she knows, despite it all, despite everything — she won’t be alone.
And if her friends will be there, if Raven will be there, hand in hand, then what else does she need?