Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Twas was the year of Legacy Day, a momentous event where the students of Ever After High pledged to all the magic world to follow the same paths as their fairytale parents.

And they better, or else.

I’m sorry, who’s telling the story here?

“Would you two stop fighting!?” Spoke Hatter yelled up at the narrators, an irritated expression plastered upon his face as he stopped in his tracks to angrily glare at the sky. “Peace and hack clients, it’s getting annoying,” he grumbled as he trotted forward to catch up with his best friend.

Sorry, Spoke.

Spoke Hatter, the one and only son of the Mad Hatter of Wonderland, was a psychic and one of the only two fairytale characters who possessed the supernatural ability of being able to hear the narrators of their story, the other one being Subz Chesire, son of the Cheshire Cat. But he was usually too busy sleeping and or chaos to bother paying attention to them, so it was usually just Spoke.

“Um…who are you talking to?” Ash Queen asked as his best friend’s tri-colored hair popped back into his peripheral vision, magical purple top hat sitting slightly askew on the top of his head.

“Why, the narrators of course! Oh wait, you can’t hear them,” Spoke scratched his neck at the confused look on his best friend’s face, playfully poking a finger into the other boy’s shoulder, “only I can.”

Ash Queen, son of the Evil Queen and a prince in his own right, was definitely no stranger to Spoke’s constant semi-maniacal behavior, being, well, ‘Mad’ and all. Having only had Spoke and a select handful of other students who weren’t terribly scared of him as his friends, including Roshambo Hood, the son of Little Red Riding Hood, and Terrain Wood, son of Pinnochio, and later on, his boyfriend, Ash had spent a good portion of his waking hours with Spoke, which had been more than enough to grow accustomed to Spoke’s daily rants about tea or or his weird habit of spontaneously switching of languages without command. Hell, Spoke arbitrarily spoke in Riddlish so much that Ash had begun to pick up a little bit of his best friend’s mother tongue.

A small smile pulled at Ash’s lips as Spoke broke out into a fit of high-pitched giggles, bringing his silk-glove clad hands up to his mouth as his eyes broke out into crescent moons. This was just another one of Spoke’s many antics that Ash had long grown accustomed to, and he knew that it was just best to let him get over his small fit of hysteria before continuing. Not that he had any issue with it, he even did quite appreciate it at times when he really needed a positive figure next to him.

He quickly resent another small burst of black magic out of his palm to restrengthen the dark cloud that was holding up his trunk in front of him, raising it a few inches so it was levitating a few feet off the ground. Ash knew very well that his public use of dark magic was not helping his whole “I’m not evil like my mother” case very much, based off of the the horror-stricken looks of the passerby and the way the bridge troll had yelped and ran away when the two of them had approached the entrance to his stone bridge, but he didn’t have a magical neverending top hat like Spoke or an army of doves like Branzy to carry his things around in, so just a tiny bit of levitation magic was his best bet.

Furthermore, a little bit of levitation magic never hurt nobody and he was all about that work smart not hard life, unless you count that one time he had gotten stressed about an assignment during lunch break and had unintentionally sent an entire lunch table hurling towards the ceiling in the middle of the canteen when he stood up. Although it wasn’t all too bad, as the headmaster had found it “perfectly evil” and had let him off without any consequences.

“Can I talk now?” Ash asked once Spoke had calmed down and resumed his usual upbeat walking patterns beside him, the loose collar of his colorful wool jacket flapping from the bounce in his step.

“Mhm!”

Ash sighed, his face falling as the thought rekindled to him.

“It’s just, I’m sick of everyone thinking I’m ‘so evil’,” he muttered as he threw up air quotations, “just because my mom was. Just because she had evil intentions doesn’t necessarily mean that I do too, and yet everyone here seems to think that I’m so keen on following her footsteps that I’ll like, I don’t know, hex them into toads the second they make eye contact with me or curse their entire bloodline if they step within a ten-foot radius of me,” he ranted, angrily sliding one the many metal rings doting his fingers off his hand and throwing it out like a frisbee, the piece of jewelry returning to his palm a couple seconds later with the help of some black magic.

Spoke quickly placed a soothing hand on Ash’s shoulder as he sensed his best friend’s temper rapidly rising, his light blue eyes widening in surprise as the other boy let out a “it’s just not fair!” and opened up a teleportation portal out of anger and sent his trunk through it, closing the swirling mass of black and purple magic a few moments later in a bang with the clap of his hands.

Like Ash, who had grown used to Spoke’s ‘mad’ antics over time, Spoke had also quickly gotten used to Ash’s occasionally uncontrollable temper and spontaneous fits of anger. Ash was usually quite skilled at controlling his black magic, tending to only use little bits of it at a time and in proportion, but his magic was also prone to wild outbursts of uncontrolled lengths when he got angry.

As he liked to say, “Ash controls magic, but emotions sometimes control him. It’s like tea! You can pour yourself a nice cup of tea and still break the teacup if you set it down too hard. Although I’d prefer if you didn’t smash teacups, Ash, it makes Earl Grey very upset.”

Ash crossed his arms and irritatedly narrowed his eyes, the flame of anger simmering down inside him into a pile of ashes. Spoke watched as his pupils returned to their natural royal-purple hue and his shoulders sag back down, the smooth black leather coat slung over his upper body curving and wrinkling around the bend of his arms.

“No one thinks you’re evil,” Spoke chirped as he slung an arm around Ash’s shoulder, “now you’re just talking crazy.” He pressed his lips together and made a cu-koo swirling motion with his pointer finger beside his head, playfully crossing his eyes as Ash lazily scoured at him.

“The son of the Mad Hatter calls me crazy? Something seems off there,” he halfheartedly joked, twisting his neck to the side to look Spoke straight in the eyes before closing his eyes and letting out a groan, releasing the tension in his neck to let his chin drop down onto the other boy’s lower arm. His braid slipped off his shoulder, the twist of thick black-and-purple hair falling down his back.

For as much as Ash loved Spoke as his best friend, there were just some things that the wonderlandian didn’t understand about his internal and external battle with destiny, and things that Ash never asked him to understand. Spoke Hatter was nearly a carbon-copy of his father, the Mad Hatter of Wonderland, with the same wild blue eyes and overly-optimistic nature, leaving it no question to anyone that he was more than happy to follow his father’s footsteps and fulfill his destiny. Ash was happy for him at that, knowing that at least one of them wanted to do so.

Although, even though Spoke was content with his own destiny, he never seemed to think that everyone else had to follow theirs. One time, under the dark cover of midnight in the cozy abode of their dorm, Ash had admitted to his best friend that he had started to contemplate whether he absolutely had to follow his destiny and mother’s footsteps or not. To his surprise, instead of looking at him like he had gone completely insane, Spoke only chirped in glee and ran a hand through his hair before turning back to Ash with a giddy expression on his face.

“Well, who said that you have to follow the path that everyone has laid out for you, other than some random tradition that came from who knows where that everyone seems so keen on following? You didn’t choose to be your mother’s son, nor did you choose to be born of your bloodline, so why should anyone be chained to one single path of stepping stones? You didn’t choose those stepping stones, I think you would have chosen another rarely-walked path if you were given the choice. Let me tell you, Ash, you do what your heart tells you to do, that’s one of our Wonderland mottos! Actually, we have a lot of mottos, all in Riddlish of course, some of which don’t actually have accurate Ever After English translations, but I’m pretty sure…”

As Spoke trailed off into another long rant of his about Riddlish translations, his words repeated themselves over and over in Ash’s head. Even days after the conversation, Spoke’s cheery voice never left his head for too long, always repeating itself over and over whenever Ash began to have more and more transcending thoughts about his future. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and before he knew it, Spoke’s words had permanently engraved themselves inside his head for over a year.

——

There weren’t many things that had stuck with Ash over the years, in fact, if he thought hard enough, there were only three moments in his life that had stuck with him for over a couple of days, all said by the three most important people in his life. One, his father telling him that he loved him after his mother was locked away when Ash was child, two, Spoke’s advice to him about destiny, and three, his boyfriend telling him how much he loved him for the first time.

One of those people was already nearly gone, and Ash was determined to keep the other two as close to him as possible for as long as he could.

Destiny, as Ash thought about it more and more, seemed foolish. A path set out for you even before birth, a path that you were trained your entire life to follow, and a path that rarely anyone dared to deviate from. For the princes and princesses who had promising and glorious destinies set out for them, like Branzy White, son of Snow White, or MidMystic Charming, the eldest of the three Charming children, of course they wouldn’t want to deviate from their path. They had their entire futures handed into their awaiting palms, a shiny golden crown and diamond-encrusted thrones waiting for them to become of age, and all they had to do was go along with the flow until they would eventually reach their promised position.

Why did these royals, these “good” royals who had commoners and countrymen alike throwing flowers at their feet wherever they went, deserve what they had? How was Ash Queen, a prince who was destined for hell on earth, any different at birth from a royal like MidMystic Charming? What had he done to deserve the cursed destiny laid out for him, for him to suffer and go mad in prison in his adulthood?

After countless sleepless nights pondering over the logistics and reasonings over the concept of legacy, there was no transparent conclusion that he could come up with as to why it had to be followed. What would happen if he didn’t? Ash didn’t know, but something deep within him told him that Spoke’s words may have been right.

It was commonly known as tradition passed down from generation to generation that the fairytales were to not be fulfilled and relived, that they would fade away and cease to be. The system of storybook legacies was said to be in place only for the sake of the existence of Ever After and keeping the stories alive, although never officially proven. The only instance of a fairytale descendent refusing to submit into the system and not sign the Storybook of Legends was Bella Sister, destined to be the ‘ugly’ sister in ‘The Two Sisters’. Bella, like Ash, had been destined for a wretched and terrible destiny, one with no Happily Ever After and full of suffering and misery. But she had stood up for what she believed she deserved from a birthright and put down the feather instead of signing her name, and fled. No one knew what ended up happening to her and her sister Brutta after she refused to sign and disappeared, so who could say for sure if they just faded away from the world in a painful death only to leave their unconventional story and rotting skeletons behind, or if they had somehow escaped to another realm and happily lived out the rest of their lives without the restrictions of the system?

When Ash had originally stumbled upon the story, he had simply refused to believe that their story and fairytale had truly just ceased to exist. He had gone down to the Queen Castle library and spent hours scrounging through the old books to find their story, and indeed had he found it. Sitting in a long untouched shelf towards the back of the massive room between two other thick leatherback volumes, sat a yellowed but legible book titled ‘Tale of the Two Sisters.’

If this book was still here, old and untouched or not, then their story could not have truly faded away. He had every reason to believe that they had too not stopped existing away with their story, and that there must be a way to free one’s self from the shackles of the system.

Another thing that had been irking him ever since he stepped foot in Ever After High was the fact that everyone seemed to think that he was “just like his mother.” He could see the fear in their eyes whenever he stepped into the room, freezing them in place before they would spin around as fast as they could and run away. He saw the way students pointed at him as he walked past them in the halls and heard the not-so-quiet whispers of “he’s evil” or “he’s going to hex us all!”

When, in the entire 16 years that he had been alive, had he ever acted like his mother? Even from birth, Ash had never liked nor participated in his mother’s evil teachings in his upbringing, such as lessons on how to quietly curse and entire town without any trace or how to drive innocent people out of their minds by the means of mental torture. He would bite down on his bottom lip as to not show any emotion as his mother told him her plans of realm domination and how she would turn the entire world dark and wicked, making herself the ultimate empress and everyone else merely her pawns.

Ash didn’t want to be like his mother, not in the slightest bit. He didn’t want to invade other fairy tales to ruin their stories, he didn’t want to take over the Ever After realm and slaughter entire towns, and most of all, he never wanted to be the title that he was born into.

“The Evil King.”

The name was a sour grape on his tongue. His mother had accepted the title of “The Evil Queen” with a wicked glee, the dark magic running through her veins building up and getting stronger the further and further she strayed away from the good side. Not long after she ascended as queen, she went insane with power, messing up the Queen of Hearts so bad that she, too, went madder than she already was, and proceeded to rampage through the realms in a whirlwind of black magic and pure force, spreading terror and panic wherever she went.

Ash still remembered the guilty relief that he had felt the day his mother was trapped into the mirror prison, falling into his father’s arms in a pile of weak limbs and trembling fingers.

As much as he wanted to, Ash really couldn’t blame the students of Ever After High for being initially scared of him. It made sense, as his own mother had rampaged through their own parent’s hometowns like a jabberwocky and scared them half to death, while destroying many stories and nearly erasing countless others.

But he had thought that they would come around after they saw that he was nothing like his mother, and that he was simply a fifteen year old boy with a passion for music and an exceptional talent in piano. He was waiting for the day they would drop their guards and welcome him as one of their own, in which he could socialize and make friends with the “good” royals despite his background.

But the day never came, and his classmates never even gave him the chance to socialize and make friends with them. They would always run from the lunch table when he sat down with them, never making eye contact with him when he would approach them with a question, only answering with short one-word replies before scurrying off as fast as their legs would take them, never once giving him the chance to prove himself.

His stature might have also played a part in it, he realized later on. Standing at a height of six-foot-three, he loomed over many students male and female alike, and paired with his unusually colored eyes and intimidating choice of clothing (not intended, he simply just liked the look of black-and-purple jackets and heavy chains), the prince definitely was not the local Branzy White, who looked like an angel and dressed himself in smooth white silks and royal gold.

But somehow, and he frequently thanked the gods above for their mercy and kindness, Ash Queen met his forever after.

——

Ash Queen’s story didn’t include a princess or queen for him, but as for most stories as such where a romantic partner wasn’t part of the storyline, it was usually just assumed that the person would marry another of their own social class. Like Ash’s mother, for example, married a prince, the Good King. It wasn’t a happy marriage, not even close to one, and it was seemingly obvious that his mother only used her husband to produce an heir for herself before completely disregarding him.

Because of this, from a very young age, his father had continuously urged him to find himself a partner whom he truly loved and would not only use for children. Ash found himself agreeing with his father and closing off his heart until he would eventually find the one who possessed the key to open it again, doing whatever he could to prevent his future marriage from ending up like his parent’s.

His mother had also talked to him about finding a future partner, but it was more…violent. Instead of finding a significant other that he loved and could be happy with, like his father wished for him, she wanted him to find someone who would either render a servant to him, or assist and help him with her plan of wicked world domination. Her idea of his marriage was driven by power, never once telling him that his choice of partner would be picked from his own romantic feelings.

When Ash reached his tween years, the time frame in which many kids reach the age of self-discovery and realization, he had found the answer as to why he had never once looked at a female with any romantic feelings. Instead of fawning over paintings of beautiful princesses and admiring the beauty of girls his own age, Ash found himself lingering just a little bit longer by portraits of handsome princes on white stallions with sashes around their shoulders and cutting jawlines.

After a long trip to the castle library and a mountain of realizations, it didn’t take long for him to put a name to the feeling he had been experiencing.

In some twisted form of humor, in which Ash had been half out of his mind with fatigue, he had once made the joke that “technically, I did fulfill both of my parent’s wishes for me. I found a partner who I love very much, who is not only just a royal, but a royal with one of the most powerful bloodlines in the realm.”

But after a few moments, sleep had begun to pull him into unconsciousness, his eyelids giving out as his head sunk further into the pillow, but not before a last thought escaped his lips.

“Although, the fact that my forever after comes from such a powerful family was definitely not a factor I considered before falling in love, and it honestly might just be a bad thing in our situation.”

The Charmings were well-liked for their good looks and effective ruling strategies, and surely his father and mother would have been happy with him for the family that he had found his lover in.

Although, with one small, small detail left out.

Ash’s forever after was not a princess, but a prince.

——

Reddoons Charming was the third child of King and Queen Charming, a year younger than his older sister, Mid, and twin brother to Clown Charming. Being a Charming and all, he was raised in a palace where he was constantly warned about staying away from evil and always looking to the ‘good’ side. And, like all royal princes, was lectured from a very young age that a princess would be in his future, and that he would be betrothed by destiny to a pretty girl of his age.

But he, too, was not romantically attracted to women.

Unlike Ash, who at least had the freedom to read and scrounge around his castle library as much as he pleased due to the fact that his mother was constantly absent and his father being practically useless under the reign of his wife, Red was left in the dark for years as to why he could not find himself attracted to the lovely young princesses that visited their castle from time to time and found himself staring for a bit too long at their brothers, instead.

He had only realized that there was nothing wrong with him as to why he wasn’t like all the other princes who constantly talked about foreign princesses and how pretty they were, when he had accidentally knocked an old dusty book off the shelf while looking for a history textbook in the Charming Palace Library.

It was a rusty old thing, with a slightly damaged brown-leather cover and yellowed pages, fraying at the edges but still leaving the words on the pages legible.

Reddoons bent down and dusted the debris off its cover so he could make out the title engraved into the leather, possibly with a knife or another sharp tool.

Swimming in a Mirror it read, a clean-carved symbol of a crown and a sword laying right underneath the swirling letters.

Red had never seen a book like this in the library before, as the servants usually kept the shelves dusted and polished, so it was quite out of place for a book like this, so old and worn out, to be just laying on the shelves without being replaced or recopied into a newer version.

Two years later, while lying under his covers with his beloved boyfriend pressed up against him in his arms, had he only realized that it was the narrators that had made that book appear in the library.

It wasn’t part of the royal collection, it was a supernatural interference from the ones above made for him and just for him to read. Just for his eyes to see, and for his hands to hold.

Something about the book, not too light nor too heavy, sitting there in his palms, called to him.

It turned out to be a novel, a love story. Under the cover of the night and through the warm glow of his bedside lamp, a fourteen year old Reddoons uncovered the lost tale of a prince who had fallen in love with a commoner boy.

——

As the story went, a young prince met the son of a blacksmith after sneaking out of his castle one night, laying eyes upon him from across a bustling marketplace.

The boy had been traversing his way through the crowd with a basket of warm bread loaves tucked under his arm, in which the prince had noticed his struggle and offered a helping hand.

From there, it was truly love at first sight. He immediately fell in love with the other boy’s deep chestnut eyes and fluffy brown hair, and continued to visit him almost every night for nearly two years.

The two of them quickly became best friends and later, lovers, going on midnight adventures together, making their way through the dense thickets of the West Forest and swimming across the cool nightfallen lakes of the town, and always ending up right back at his family’s blacksmith shop before the sun rose again.

This cycle repeated over and over again, and the prince never got bored of their moonlit endeavors together no matter how tiring they got. The boy didn’t care that he was the prince, didn’t treat him any differently just because he was of royal blood, and constantly poked and prodded at him just for the pure fun of it. To him, as long as he had the boy by his side, he could do anything and was the happiest prince alive.

Until one day, he suddenly disappeared.

The prince was heartbroken and found himself in a state of deep sorrow from not knowing what had happened to his best friend and lover. Night after night he would escape to their meeting spot, a quaint little clearing overlooking a mountain range to the south and a lake to the east, only to find no boy, and no happiness that he had looked forward to every day.

He cried himself to sleep for a couple nights before he had no tears left to cry, and the tear ducts of his eyes ran dry.

After a couple months, he was starting to give up hope until one day, he saw him again.

Not in the village, but in his castle.

The prince had been just passing by the hall when his attention was caught by a series of guards pulling open the massive golden doors to the throne room, revealing a slightly raised podium draped in silk and a row of silver knight uniforms laid up against the far wall.

The prince immediately knew that something important was about to happen, as the throne room was only ever used for greeting foreign royalty and important events. It couldn’t have been another royal family’s arrival, he deduced, as his parents definitely would have told him weeks in advance and would have constantly reminded him about the royal protocol that had been tattooed in his head for as long as he could remember, so it had to be some other special event.

And that was when he heard it.

From the other side of the hall, a line of young men and women were being directed towards the room by a tall man dressed in a knight’s attire and holding a sword at his side, marching in unison in two perfect ranks.

The prince immediately understood. This was the annual knighting ceremony, in which top trainees aged 18-22 from the Royal Knight Academy would officially be knighted and become protectors of the palace and kingdom. It was an honorable role, being a knight, and many commoners and townsfolk raised their children, no matter the gender, to one day hopefully become a guardian for the royal family while bringing honor to their own.

He quickly slipped behind a giant china vase to avoid being seen, wide eyes watching with interest as the columns drew closer to him until they came to a halt outside the left door, and turned in.

Row after row of young men and women walked past him without noticing his presence, their faces all molded to perfection, although the prince did catch a few shaking hands and a couple of foot jitters. He didn’t blame them the slightest, as this was one of the most important events of the year and he knew that their friends and families would probably be over the moon when the news reached them.

His eyes slowly scanned over the passing trainees until one almost made him tip over the vase he was hiding behind.

For some miracle from the gods above or a sign from the universe, he locked eyes with a oh-so familiar pair of brown pupils staring right back at him.

It was as if time had stopped, and that they were the only two people in the world there at the moment, just a young prince and a soon-to-be knight. He stared at the boy in shock, although, “boy” might not have been the proper word anymore.

He was now a man.

For the almost two years they had been meeting each other, the prince always remembered him as somewhat smaller than himself, shorter than him and with a slightly skinnier frame, although never scrawny or malnourished. However, comparing anyone to the prince was too high of a standard, with him standing at a height of six-foot-three with an expected build of a prince, with wide shoulders and an overall build of an athlete.

Looking at the figure standing in front of him now, there was no way anyone could ever mistake him for a boy. When he had originally disappeared, he was freshly 19 and 3 years the prince’s elder, but still noticeably skinnier than the other boys of the village. Now, his arms had gained a noticeable amount of definition and his entire frame had been fitted out into his royal blue uniform, each dip and angle perfectly filling out the coat and suit pants that had been faultlessly tailored to his body.

Although not any significantly taller, as he had always been half a foot shorter than the prince himself at five-foot-nine, he no longer looked like a thin village boy who worked at his parent’s shop for a living, but a young guard who had clearly been well trained and well fed.

His hair had also been cut, now only covering the top part of his head instead of the brown strands falling down over his ears the prince had grown to recognize. His jawline had also been filed out, his cheeks sinking in to reveal a sharp jaw and long, sleek neck.

The only part of him that the prince could have immediately recognized without a double take were his eyes, the deep brown eyes that he had looked into a thousand times over and got lost in every single night.

It seemed as if the other had recognized him, too, his look piercing into the prince’s own forest green eyes, but his reaction didn’t seem as surprised as his own.

Instead, he simply just pulled his lips into a small, knowing smile before turning his back and following his column into the room, a slight air of enigma following him as he went.

The prince was dumbstruck.

How? What in the world had happened, for his lover who had disappeared months ago to suddenly show up at his palace, as a knight?

With a million questions running through his head, he patiently waited until the last of the rows had entered the room and the doors were slammed shut to come out of his hiding spot and make a beeline for the staircase leading up to the second level, stripping off his coat in the process and stuffing it into a nearly closet to avoid attracting attention.

He raced up the marble staircase until he came to a set of double doors at the top, in which he quickly picked the lock and slipped behind them, quietly pushing them shut again before rushing over to the balcony.

The balcony was the upper floor to the throne room, overlooking the magnificent golden thrones and silver-lined carpets below. Usually, when the throne room was used for greeting foreign royalty and mass ceremonies, the upper decks would be filled with dukes and duchesses from all over, with their finely pressed suits and thousand-dollar ball gowns, eagerly watching the procession below.

But now, the upper balconies were completely empty, the velvet-backed chairs and gold-lined banisters rendering empty and silent. He silently scurried across the richly-painted floors and hid himself behind a massive limestone pillar that stretched nearly eight feet in circumference and forty feet tall.

From behind the pillar, he watched as the trumpets blew as his mother and father walked into the room, sitting down on their thrones before saying a few words and handing the ceremony over to the head guard.

His hearing muffled as his focus zeroed in on a certain brown-haired man towards the end of the line, the booming voice of the head guard fading into white noise as he squinted to get a better look.

Truly, he was here. The prince did not know how he had gotten here, nor why he had suddenly left without telling him so, or why he had never told him anything about his plan to become a knight, but deep inside, he was just happy that he was able to see him again.

Tears glistened at the corner of his eyes as he watched the man he had fallen in love with walk up to the podium and get down on one knee, and the tears almost fell as his father laid the sword down on his shoulder and officially commenced him as a knight and guard of the royal palace.

A smattering of applause broke out through the room after the entire line had been through, and the newly appointed knights stood in front of their respective suits of armor, each one beaming with pride as the sounds of their accomplishments echoed off the domed ceiling and around the room.

The prince pushed himself off the pillar and ran back down the staircase the second the knights began to file out of the room, heart thumping in his chest as the hallways and windows blurred out and disappeared as he sped through the empty halls, quickly ducking into a small corridor behind the hall when a line of servants exited a room.

He wasn’t thinking rationally, he couldn’t, his heart beating out of his chest for the man he had longed to see for seven long months, now so close, so close, here, in his castle, if could just-

A flash of brown hair whipped by his eyes, and before he knew it, he was grabbing the man by his shoulders and pushing him through an open door and kicking it shut behind him.

They just stared at each other, wild eyes and flushed cheeks standing parallel from each other for a few seconds, sweat dripping from their faces and chests violently heaving up and down in surprise.

The prince didn’t know who broke first, but all he knew was that within a fraction of a second, their hands were all over each other and his lips were covered with another’s, biting and pulling at the pink flesh. His hands landed on the shorter’s waist and lower back, gripping at his coat and pulling him closer, closer, and oh so much closer.

The feeling of his lover’s body pressed up against his was enough to confirm that this was real, and that he indeed, wasn’t dreaming.

He was back. Truly.

A couple weeks later, the prince was approached by his father in the dining hall. Apparently, the king had decided that as he was becoming of age, as his eighteenth birthday was in the near future, that he would need a knight. Like a servant, but as he would be traveling out of the kingdom more and more as an adult, his father decided that he would need a companion. Alas, if he were to be attacked, a 2v1 would be more advantageous than a 1v1.

He was then handed a list of names with every single guard in the palace and was told that he needed to pick one by the end of the week.

He didn’t need a week.

He already knew which name he would choose.

—--

There was only one picture in the entire book depicting the characters, illustrated on the last page in fading color. It was obvious that the picture had been a copy of another, larger original painting, scaled down and painted onto the last page to rest.

A tall blonde man with bright green eyes and a crown atop his head stood behind a shorter man in a knight’s uniform, with fluffy brown hair falling around his face and his helmet tucked under his arm. His eyes were painted a deep chocolate brown, a soft contrast against the pale white skin of his face.

The prince’s left arm was around his lover’s shoulders, royal blue and gold wool resting atop steel shoulder plates. The two of them were faced towards each other, the prince looking down at his knight with adoration plastered all over his face, lips pursued and eyes shining with love. The brunette was staring back up at him, only the left half of his face being visible as he turned away from the painter.

Even if it was a painting, a non moving picture drawn out upon a blank piece of parchment, Red could see the love in the picture and their eyes. The way they stared at each other like they were each other’s entire world, like nothing else mattered as long as they had each other.

Whether it was a true story or not, he didn’t know, but he also supposed that it didn’t matter very much, as it had very much helped him come to a conclusion about the unspoken question that had been hovering over his neck for as long as he could remember.

Reddoons had finished the book within three nights of starting it, spending hours and hours under the blanket of midnight flipping through the fading pages, completely immersed in a love story that he never knew existed.

It was a beautiful concept, showing how two lovers, no matter the gender, no matter social class or hierarchy, could still be together. If he were to apply the story to his own life, Red would possibly be allowed to love not only a commoner and not a royal, but a boy instead of a girl. Sadly, such standards did not exist anymore.

But as it turned out, Red Charming fell in love with a prince, the son of a Queen.

The Evil Queen.

——

Spoke’s voice pulled Ash out of his thoughts.

“Would you stop with the worrying? Come on, let’s go, it’s almost tea time!” Spoke detached himself from him and started to climb the long stretch of limestone stairs leading up to the school entrance, stopping a couple steps up to check if Ash was following him.

He sighed, mentally locking that thought away for later and begrudgingly dragging his feet over to the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

As they climbed the steps, Spoke began to tell him about some sort of new cake recipe he had come up with over the break.

Spoke and his father had opened up a Tea Shoppe in Book End after escaping the Wonderland to the realm of Ever After, in which he found great delight in hosting Wonderland-style tea and an infinite assortment of pies and pastries in any flavor and combination imaginable. Ash listened with interest, always happy to hear about his best friend’s newest icing flavor or tea concoction.

His nails dug into his palms as they approached the top of the stairs, digging into his palms and leaving crescent moons in their place.

“Something tells me that they’re about to run away the second I step in there,” he muttered.

“No one thinks you’re evil, everyone at school loves you!” Spoke chirped in reply, eagerly bouncing on his toes as he looked just about ready to run into the school at any given moment.

The entrance hall was filled with students from all over the realm, from stories Ash could not remember and places that he had never been, happily chattering amongst themselves. Ash wished he could just do so, walk up to a random student in the halls and strike up a conversation about Zam Lockes’s new Mirrorcast or the lastest hot topic in the kingdom, instead of being a literal human repellent simply just because he was him.

Suddenly, a shriek echoed through the hall.

“IT’S ASH QUEEN! RUN!”

As if on command, every single head in a sixty-yard radius turned in his direction, scared out of their wits as their eyes widened in fear. Then, as if some supernatural force had turned them all into fearful cowards, they all let out a cry of terror and fled the hall as fast as they could, leaving behind piles of notebooks and loose-leaf pieces of paper in their rush to get away.

“He’s evil!”

“Run, everyone, or he’ll hex you all!”

“OH NO, it’s the son of the Evil Queen!”

He tiredly closed his eyes as the terrified shrieks rang in his ears, the voices of his own classmates’ reactions to his presence echoing through the now deserted room.

“Yeah, that was love if I’ve ever seen it,” he sarcastically groaned.

Spoke just shrugged.

Already being done with the day before the clock had even struck 12, Ash rolled his eyes before unclenching his fists and stepping into the empty hall, snakeskin boots clacking on the tiled floors. Spoke quickly caught up beside him, the ever-present cheery expression on his face unwavering. Ash sometimes wished that he could be like his best friend, always the sunshine of the room and notorious optimist.

Also, as expected from the son of the Mad Hatter.

“Oh lookie, someone left their cookbook! Ash, do you think they would let me borrow this for the Tea Shoppe?” Spoke asked as he stopped to pick up a fallen cookbook from the floor, probably left by a student in their mad dash to get away from Ash.

Ash cracked a small smile.

“Do as you wish, Spoke. I’m sure you’ll make something hexcellent out of its recipes,” he replied.

“Yippee! Oh, wonderful, it’s a dessert book too! Ooh, look at this macaron recipe! Ash, do you think this would look good in turquoise?” he started excitedly rambling as he ran to catch up with the other boy who was already almost all the way across the hall, recipe book clutched to his chest and wild curls bouncing as he pranced across the floor.

“Of course, as long as you let me be the first person to taste test it.”

Spoke giggled. “Of course, your highness! I would have never done anything else.”

Ash playfully gave him a little shove, making him stumble back a couple steps in his fit of laughter. “Don’t call me that, it makes me feel like I’m commanding you or something.”

“Technically, are you not?”

“Spoke!”

“You’re doing great, I swear! You’re doing great at this whole royalty thing, being the commander and not the comandee and that whole shabang,” Spoke continued to tease, his voice pitching higher and higher the more he talked.

“I agree, he is quite good at it,” a voice commented from a couple yards away.

From across the room, three familiar figures faded into view. A girl in the middle, with light brown hair and a small golden crown sitting atop her head, on her left, a tall black-haired boy with a silk sash across his royal-blue suit, and to her right, an even taller boy with cherry-red hair and a pair of black sunglasses shaped like a crown pushed into his locks.

The Charming Siblings.

MidMystic Charming, the eldest child of the family and heir to the throne, and her two younger fraternal twin brothers, Clown Charming and Reddoons Charming.

The three of them were all quite good-looking, the Charming genes, of course, still looking sort of identical to each other even when not a single one of them still retained the natural iconic yellow-blonde hair color that ran in the Charming family, all of them choosing to dye their hair a different color that suited their personal style more.

Together, they posed a powerful stature of strength and royalty, the three children who would bring about the next generation of the famous Charming family, but Ash only had eyes for one.

“Hello, my prince.”

Ash’s face broke into a smile when he heard the nickname that his boyfriend had called him, the very nickname that he had been using since day one. It was a nickname that he held near and dear to his heart, as it was Red’s preferred pet name that he loved to call his forever after, combining both of their official titles and a little bit of comfort and love with the addition of the ‘my’ before it.

Ash loved it, and they both knew that very well.

“Your highness!” Spoke squeaked in surprise, immediately dropping into a hasty bow as they approached. Ash found this comedic, as there was absolutely no need for such honorifications and pleasantries between the students of EAH no matter the social level, but again, sometimes muscle memory and protocol did come out without thinking.

An idea popped into his head, and he smirked to himself as he quickly followed Spoke into the same position right before the three of them stopped a few feet away.

Ash stared at the floor for a few seconds before slowly rising back up, eyes slowly glancing upwards until he finally came face-to-face with his lover, a smile pulled across his lips as he tilted his head to the side the tiniest bit, teasing the other boy as to see whether he would break the protocol or not.

The two of them had agreed to keep their relationship secret and only allow the ones closest to them know, as Ash said, “A Charming prince dating a man, nevertheless to say the son of the Evil Queen? That’s like, double the rebellion. He’s supposed to marry a nice, pretty princess and slay dragons in his free time, but instead, he doesn’t even like women and decides to date the offspring of the most infamous evil villain of all time.”

But with nobody in the hall, thanks to their hectic flee when Ash had arrived, he let his guard drop.

“Hello, darling,” he replied.

Red’s light blue eyes softened as he took ahold of Ash’s waist in his hands and hoisted him up out of the bowing position, their faces mere centimeters away from each other before he broke and connected their lips.

Oh, how good it felt to finally be back in the arms of the one person he loved the most in the world. Red had always been significantly warmer than he was, for whatever reason, and the feeling of the comforting warmth rolling off his boyfriend’s body made him want to do nothing more than wrap his arms around his figure and stay there forever.

When Ash and Red had originally started dating, even if it was in private, there was still the whole situation with destiny and legacy looming over their heads.

While most fairytale characters only had one heir because of the fact that there only needed to be one heir to follow the storybook destiny, some families did have more than one. When that would happen, the destiny would automatically go to the oldest child regardless of gender, and they would be the one who would have to carry out the legacy. The rest of the heirs would be left with destinies that were not set in stone, allowing them to have a somewhat freer reign of their own lives.

Since Mid was the eldest, the role of a Prince Charming had gone to her, her destiny being to become the Prince Charming of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.

Although, sometimes things did get a little wonky with legacy and heirs.

There were a lot of Charmings in the fairytale world, as the last name was quite common amongst royalty and royal families, hence the many fairytales with a ‘Prince Charming’ as the hero.

Although, due to a lack of heirs produced by another branch of the Charming family, a second Prince Charming was needed for another story, the Snow White story. Situations like these rarely ever happened, so there was really no rule about who the destiny would fall upon to step into the place. It had come down to either Clown or Red to fulfill this role, although nobody truly knew which one of the twin boys destiny had picked.

But instead of a long legal debate over which brother would be appointed into the role, or a bunch of signing of useless documents guaranteeing one of them into it, everything was cut short when Clown fell in love with Branzy White, the son of Snow White.

From there on out, everything fell into place. Clown would go on to become the Prince Charming of the Snow White story, and Red would be left to his own devices, and everyone was fine with the outcome.

Well, all until Ash, the son of the Evil Queen who was supposed to play the role of the antagonist in the Snow White story, started questioning the true meaning of destiny.

But that’s a story for another day.

“Technically, Red nor me are breaking any rules about destiny or any of that bullshit by dating, as neither of us have a set partner for us in our respective stories,” Ash had ranted to Spoke after a particularly long day, “hell, no one even knows what his story’s supposed to be. And, technically, if you really think about the logistics of it, there’s nothing in my story that says I have to stay single forever, if I was really that keen on following my fucked up destiny. Which I’m not.”

Needless to say, Spoke had agreed, and later, when Ash had told Red about it, he too had the same reaction.

“Hey, you two, a little bit of space, yeah? This is definitely going to be on the first back-to-school edition of Zam’s Mirrorcast if he sees this,” Clown commented.

Ash pulled away from Red and rolled his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure no one’s going to see, if you know what I mean.” He motioned to the completely empty room.

Clown let out a soft laugh.

“Yes, we did hear the commotion earlier. Mid and I had originally thought that something had gone wrong inside the school and were ready to start running in, but Red just laughed and said something along the lines of ‘is Ash really that scary?’

Ash laughed and ran his hand through the hair at the base of Red’s neck, another thing that he had learned that his boyfriend liked.

“Well, I think Ash can be kind of scary sometimes, especially when he’s trying to use black magic to fix the broken doorknob of the dorm and accidentally ends up blowing the door into pieces,” Spoke answered, looking slightly scared at the memory.

Reddoons chuckled and removed his arms from around Ash’s upper body and turned to face his siblings. Slightly frowning at the loss of contact, Ash decided to spare them some humility and simply swing his arm around Red’s shoulders instead of his waist, common enough to not be considered out of the norm but just enough for him to be still holding his boyfriend.

Oh, how Ash had missed him. After returning home from his first year at EAH, he had spent countless days wandering the halls of the empty castle in silence, with nothing to do and nobody to accompany him. With his mother locked away in prison and father not in good health, the only thing Ash looked forward to were the thirty precious minutes every day that the doctors let him visit his father in his room, in which he would cherish and try to take in as much of his father as he could before he was ushered out of the room again.

After one particularly agonizingly boring day, he had gotten sick of the silence of the castle and how it didn’t feel like the home it had once been while he was a child anymore, and decided to busy himself with something that would come in handy.

Making teleportation portals.

Portals and pathways were one of the hardest things to create with the limited amount of dark magic he possessed, as they required an mass amount of spiritual energy and focus, but after what felt like a million accidents and even more failed attempts, Ash had finally taught himself how to conjure up the simplest form of one: a seeing portal.

Seeing portals did not allow humans to pass through them, but simply acted like a high-tech sort of camera. When activated, a person could send it to wherever they liked into the hands of another person any distance away in the realm, in which they would be able to both hear and see each other through the mirror, as well as being able to pass inanimate objects through it.

The three Charming siblings were kept at their castle during the break by royal protocol, only being allowed to leave with the explicit permission of one of their parents or a royal advisor. Red had warned Ash of this before they had parted for the summer, profusely apologizing for the fact that they probably wouldn’t be able to see each other in person for a stretch of time and telling him how much he would miss him.

While he could have asked for permission to go visit Ash from his parents, it would have to require him to say “oh, hey dad, I want to go visit my partner who’s actually a male and also the son of the villain who’s your arch nemesis in his castle” in one way or another. And sneaking Ash into the castle wasn’t an option either, as someone from the Queen Castle would realize that he was gone and cause a whole other situation.

So as it turned out, seeing each other in person was impossible.

At least Ash had managed to find a way to slightly lessen the prickling ache in his chest that had settled in after about two weeks out, not taking the separation very well after almost half an entire year of being able to be with Red in person every day.

The one-or-two hour long ‘portal meetings’, as Red liked to call them, was enough to keep both of them happy enough. Almost every night, Ash would draw up a seeing portal and send the other end to his boyfriend’s room, in which the Charming would place the whirling mass of magic and air at the foot of his bed and stay with Ash in his nightclothes, talking about their respective days and passing small trinkets and plates of desserts that Red had snuck up from dinner through the portal until they both started to get tired.

While the ‘portal meetings’ had been nice, it was nothing compared to the feeling of physical touch and having the other in a certain proximity at all times.

Mid elbowed her brother in the ribs, making him wince and frown at her.

“Clown, let them be. At least you were permitted to see Branzy over the break,” she softly said, turning back to Ash with a kind smile on her face and opening her arms. “Hey, Ash, I hope you’ve been alright,” she greeted him as he bent down and gave her a hug.

“It’s been okay, I’ve been…handling.”

Red turned his head and stared at him with a concerned expression, in which Ash grimaced and squeezed his arm in response, a silent reply of “I’ll tell you later.”

He didn’t look convinced, but nodded nevertheless.

Mid looked like she wanted to say something, but another shout from behind them cut her off.

“IT’S BRANZY WHITE!”

A series of cheers erupted from around them, and in the blink of an eye, all the students that Ash had scared off returned, this time running towards the hall, not alway from it.

From over the crowd, Ash could see two lone figures standing at the entrance, one of which he assumed was Branzy.

Branzy White, son of Snow White and the next King of the Ever After Realm, was known throughout the lands as a ‘perfect’ boy. From his beautiful family heritage and royally perfect upbringing, he was the textbook definition of ‘perfection’ in the eyes of the people, always stopping to help any person or animal he found in trouble and never seen with anything but a kind smile on his face.

Ash squinted at the figure next to him, realizing that it was no other than one of Branzy’s best friends forever after, Vitalasy Beauty.

Vitalasy Beauty was the son of Sleeping Beauty and EAH’s biggest party thrower, widely known for his fashion sense and amazing party-planning skills. With his whole “sleep for 100 years' ' destiny, the brunette was on a constant roll to live up his life in the present times before he had to fulfill his destiny, throwing the most page-ripping parties Ash, or anyone, had ever seen, at any given occasion. Back-to-school parties, study parties, post-exam parties, parties-for-parties, you name it, he did it.

Ash wasn’t specifically jealous of them per say, as just the thought of having to constantly be in the public eye and dressing in the soft colors Branzy always wore on his back sounded more like a punishment than anything else to him, but watching the crowds flock and push each other to get to get a glimpse of Branzy did make Ash wonder why that was so.

Of course, he knew that Branzy was beautiful and smart, being the son of Snow White and all. But, what had he done, to be born of the evil side instead of the good, like Branzy and Vitalasy? People ran away from him simply because he was the son of the Evil Queen, and flocked to Branzy because he was the son of Snow White. Did they like Branzy for himself, or his heritage? Of course, those two things were closely intertwined, but Ash sometimes couldn’t help but wonder if Branzy would have turned out differently if he wasn’t born into the White family.

Everyone liked Branzy because they knew he was nice, because he was supposed to be, and everyone hated Ash because he was supposed to be evil. But he wasn’t, not even close to it, but nobody even gave him the mere chance to prove himself otherwise. But Branzy didn’t need to prove himself because it was already assumed from birth that he would turn out the way he was, and it irked Ash to no end as to why destiny and defining by heritage was even a concept.

“Branzy White!”

“Branzy, I’m such a big fan of you and your mother!”

“Vitalasy, I love your sunglasses!”

“Branzy, you’re so handsome!”

“Branzy, did you have a nice summer break?”

“Vitalasy, I just know your back-to-school party is going to be the best one yet!”

Ash quickly removed his arms from around his boyfriend, shuffling a few inches away. Red seemed to understand and did the same, lacing his hands together behind his back and flinching as he looked up.

“Branzy, could I help you with your books?” a shy voice asked from above, and Ash looked up just in time to see Tiny the Giant, who definitely was not tiny in the slightest, reach down to retrieve Branzy’s trunk from the grasps of four white doves.

“Why thank you Tiny, aren’t you just the sweetest little thing?” he heard Branzy say in that sugar-coated voice of his, blowing a kiss to the giant before he left.

Clown’s eyes immediately lit up at Branzy’s arrival, looking like we wanted to barrel into his boyfriend as fast as he could but deciding to patiently wait his ground instead, waiting for the mass of students around his boyfriend to dissipate. It was understandable, as Clown had never been too fond of big crowds, always rather preferring to leave the spotlight to his sister or brother.

“Well, looks like Branzy’s here,” Reddoons muttered as he watched said boy give out hugs and compliments to the students around him, steadily getting through the crowd while making sure not to miss a single person. Ash looked at him and nodded, moving closer and tightening his grip around his boyfriend’s shoulders just the slightest, still enough to be passable as ‘brotherly’.

Since the legacy and destiny fulfillments of their stories didn’t require any specific gender or age, it wasn’t uncommon to see same-sex couples be bonded to each other by destiny. But the world was only accepting of them when they had to be together for their stories, and tended to treat any other mlm or wlw couple out of destiny with disgust and detest.

Destiny overrides social construct, that was the motto.

That was why Clown and Branzy could hold hands and share kisses in the public eye while Ash and Red were constantly on edge in public about their relationship, as if it ever got out, there was no question that Red would be accused of ‘bringing dishonor’ to the Charming family and be shipped off to another foreign land, far far away from Ash, who would also most likely be accused for witchcraft and for feeding a Charming prince a love potion (which he didn’t even know how to make.)

Most of the time, Ash didn’t quite mind the fact that Red and he couldn’t be a couple in public, per the fact that neither of them were huge on PDA, but at times like these, as he watched Clown run towards Branzy at full speed and scoop him up into his arms bridal style and proceed to spin him around, something deep down in his heart panged at the realization that he and Red would never be able to do the same thing.

He could see the same thought reflected in Red’s eyes as he turned back to look at him, the slightly downcast hue clouding his eyes giving it away. Ash couldn’t help but put the blame on himself, and to his cursed destiny, even though Red had told him a million times over that it was something neither of them could control.

He watched as Branzy shrieked and laughed as he clung into Clown’s shoulders for dear life, peppering his face with pecks and kisses in happiness. Next to them, Vitalasy just laughed and gave Clown a little pat on the back before leaving to give the two of them some space.

“MidMystic! Reddoons! Ash! Spoke!” Branzy called to them after Clown had put him down again, waving as he told ahold of Clown’s wrist and started pulling him back over.

“Nice to see you again, Branzy!” Spoke greeted the blonde, bounding up to him and giving the prince a quick hug. Ash let out a small sigh as they began to exchange pleasantries, knowing he would also have to do the same in a few moments. It wasn’t that he disliked Branzy, in fact, he would perhaps go as far to say that they were friends, but technically his presence was the reason that he had to take his hands off Reddoons.

“Ash! My darling Ash, it’s excellent to see you again!” Branzy turned to him as soon as he was done hugging Mid, face shining with excitement as he held out an arm.

“You too, Branzy,” Ash replied as he plastered a fake smile on his face and slid his arm off Red’s shoulder to accept Branzy’s hug, making sure that his sour mood was hidden well under the stone mask all royals were taught to master.

Branzy smiled even wider as he pulled away, and Ash couldn’t help but momentarily feel a little bad for having to fake a happy face.

“Are you ready for Legacy Year? We’ll finally be able to sign the Storybook of Legends, isn’t that exciting?”

This time, Ash couldn’t contain the huff that escaped his lips.

“Yeah, exciting. Definitely.”