Chapter Text
Inside of Briar Beauty's dorm, the remnants of a massive party were strewn across the place. Streamers stuck to the walls with magic, an empty punch bowl inside the fireplace, and a variety of sleeping students scattered across the various futons.
One of the first to wake up, Raven Queen rubbed the corners of her eyes, letting sparkly bits of sand fall to the floor.
"What time is it.. Wait, is this Sandman sand? Oh no, I remember now..."
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The crowd gathered in for the party watched as a fairy flew over them.
"FAYBELLE'S IN THE HOUSE AND SHE BROUGHT PIXIE DUST, BITCHES!" She cackled as she flew over the crowd, depositing the dust everywhere.
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Raven sighed as she remembered the event, and picked a Post-It note of off her forehead. Someone had hurriedly scrawled "Last seven left still asleep have to clean up!" followed by a smiley face.
Raven's head fell into her hands, "Ugh. I never should have let Maddie take me to this party. Speaking of which-" She did a quick headcount of the other students still asleep. Cedar and Cerise were cuddled up together on a futon, Blondie took up a bit of the floor, along with Briar. A quick of the bathroom revealed that Maddie had fallen asleep in the tub, and somehow Cupid had managed to get caught in the chandelier.
"All in all pretty normal for one of Briar's parties. I don't want to just leave everyone like this-" With a deep breath, she started to cast a spell. "Er, shoot up from sleep like you've taken a shot of espresso!"
That got the room moving.
"Wowza! Raven did youusemagicbecauseIswearMymouthTastes Like coffeee-" Maddie said, spinning out from the bathroom.
"Ah! Slow down a little Maddie?" Raven glanced to the others, who were thankfully not as caffeinated as Maddie.
Maddie glanced to the ceiling, "Oh hey! It's nice to meet you new author! Are we doing something important soon or-"
"Talking to the Narrators again?" Raven jokingly asked.
"Actually, they're just an author this time!" As the two friends chatted the rest of the group started to picking through the remnants of the party. Most of the rest of the group, Blondie and Briar had started a makeshift interview in the middle of the room.
Cerise pulled her hood down a little further, "Can we stop the podcasting? Class starts in a few hours."
"Oh sure!" Blondie stood up and held her microphone up to the girl in red, "But would you mind answering a few questions on the Upcoming EAH Sports Festival? You are one of the leading athletes at our school!"
Before Cerise could even refuse to answer, Cedar chipped in. "Things would go a little faster if you helped Blondie. You always know how get things just right-"
"Of course I do! It's essential to my life and legacy!"
"Right..." Cerise chucked another ball of streamers to Cupid, who deposited them in the trash.
"Thanks! Do you think would should start on sweeping and mopping now?"
Briar, who had woken up to only fall back asleep, woke up for the second time. "I don't really... like have a mop or anything. Magic works well enough." Most of the group pointedly turned to Raven.
"Wh-? My magic isn't perfect, I don't want anyone to get to hurt. Or burn any of Ashlyn's stuff-"
Briar pushed her sunglasses up, "Ashlynn barely has any stuff here. It's all at the shoe-shop or in Hunter's dorm." She yawned before continuing. "Could you at least get the mirror clean? I think that's a soda stain."
Maddie swiped a finger across the sticky surface of the mirror, licked it, and nodded. "Yup! Soda and glue!"
Holding back a complaint, Raven decided to just go for it. "Mirror mirror on the wall... Soap and scrub, let all seven of us see the cleanness of... Our souls?" The purple spell shot towards the mirror.
The room let out a cheer as the mirror cleaned itself.
Raven smiled a bit, "I-I did it! Ha, I was worried that something might go wrong with the spell. Like that one time we ended up in Wonderland-" The mirrors shook a little, responding to the mention of Wonderland. Its surface went as dark as night. Those more accustomed to Raven's odd magic immediately ducked, waiting for it to blow up or spit something out.
"Ohoo hooo! This must have something to do with why we're being narrated!" If the author wanted to acknowledge Maddie's existence, they would have agreed with her. This was indeed why the seven of them in particular were the ones left behind at the party. But because this work of fiction is already marked as 'crack' the author chooses to ignore Maddie's statement.
"I see what you're doing there-" But just as Maddie was about to continue, a ripple in the mirror interrupted her. A shape appeared, like that of three circles, one for the head, two for the ears.
A voice came from inside the mirror, bubbling out like a thick syrup.
"𝘏𝘈-𝘏𝘶𝘩! 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴! 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩, 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴!"
The oil-slick surface of the mirror twisted into little pools, daring them to get closer. Enchanted by what she had accidentally unleashed, Raven reached a hand out to the mirror's surface. It started to suck her into it, with all the force of a riptide.
"Not this time Michael!" Maddie grabbed onto Raven's hand, trying to pull it out of the mirror. Instead, it too started to suck her in.
"Stop trying to eat my friends!" Cedar grabbed Maddie's free hand, and Cerise grabbed the puppet's other hand. Without a second thought, Cupid joined the chain and pointedly motioned for Briar and Blondie to help. The human chain heaved against the mirror, but it was for naught.
With a huge 'whoosing' sound, the seven were absorbed into the mirror. For a moment they all floated in that dark space, slowly losing sight of each other. Then,spe the space shattered into seven different pieces, each of the girls flying through the air.
....
...
..
.
The first to awaken her new surroundings, Maddie admired all the rosebushes scattered around.
"These look just like the ones in Lizzie's garden! Except that these aren't red. Huh... Got any clues for me author?" Maddie asked. There wasn't anything in particular the author cared to mention, other than to keep an eye out for the card soldiers. Especially since none of her friends had appeared in this rose garden.
"Oh that's right! I guess I'll find the others later. It is tea time after all." As Maddie set up her impromptu tea party, a pair of bickering voices approached her.
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And what happened to the to the others? Well, let's take a quick look.
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Securing her sunglasses over her eyes, Briar beauty barely glanced at the room she was in. She figured the quick memory of being dragged through a mirror was a weird dream. She was still laying on her comfortable leather couch- Huh. She didn't have a leather couch in her dorm. She pushed her glasses back up, taking a better look at the room. It was honestly pretty tacky, neon green and black being the main colors. And who accents those colors with purple?
[Whatever] she thought, [At least there's no creepy prince standing over me, so I know I haven't been asleep that long... Maybe I'll just go back to sleep and whatever weird magic Raven cast will have worn out.]
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Feeling herself fall to the ground, Cerise tucked herself into a ball, landing with a summersault onto the sandy path.
[This isn't any of the trails around Ever After High... it's too desert-y.] Her ears twitched, exposed to the air. She quickly tossed her hood over them, looking down the path for signs of the others. No luck there, but she could smell someone coming down the path at a jog. Tucking herself behind a scrub bush, she made a quick plan. Stop them and ask for directions. If that wasn't successful, she could probably outrun to... somewhere else.
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𝘚𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘩! Cedar fell into a large pool, something that looked pretty similar to the one they had the school's gym. She could clearly imagine the smell of chlorine, just like she could imagine the temperature of the water was cooler than room temperature.
[I'm lucky I'm made of wood.. Otherwise I might have just sunk to the bottom of the pool.] She didn't need to treed water, so she began slowly start swimming the backstroke to an edge. That was until something brushed the water underneath her. The realization that she wasn't alone hit her hard.
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The first thing Cupid noticed was the change in temperature. The air was suddenly hot and humid, like she was in the middle of a desert. In the distance, she noticed a building of some sort in the distance.
[Ah, this reminds me of the first time I came to Ever After High from Monster High... Did I just dimeson hop again? Oh well, it can't be helped.] She brushed off her dress and started to make her way towards the building in the distance. The closer she got, the easier it was to make out the snake details on the black-and-red banners that decked the building's entrance.
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Dizzy from the trip through the mirror, blondie kept her eyes closed for a few more moments before popping them open again.
"Oh my! This place looks like the gaming room of a convention..." Blondie gagged a little. "Smells like one too!" She retrieved her phone from her pocket, extremely disappointed to see she was getting an out of area message. She switched to offline-recording and started to film.
"Hey everybody! I'm just as sorry as you are this isn't live, but that's what comes with magical mirror teleportation!"
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With her voice caught in her throat, Raven could barely make a sound as she landed in a sculpted topiary. She pushed herself out of it and spit out the leaves in her mouth.
[I can't believe I messed up a spell again... this is just like the Wonderland incident.] Bringing her knees into her chest, she debated just closing her eyes and staying there for a while. But when a quick glance around proved her friends weren't with her, she begrudging got up.
"I have to find the others before I can make plans to get back to Ever After." Nodding to herself, she started down a well-maintained gravel path.