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Chloe glowers at herself in the mirror, swathed in layers of puffy red taffeta, the grimmest and gaudiest bride-to-be since the dawn of time. Chloe would know; she was as avid a scholar of history as she was a scholar of everything. Apparently the princess of Wonderland had picked it herself, according to the ladies-in-waiting that had dressed Chloe in it, deeming it the only dress “as perfectly posh as the girl wearing it”. Even the handmaidens seemed to pity Chloe as they adjusted the final garish bow on her sleeves.
It was just one of a million things Princess Red had done to mock Chloe ever since their engagement a week ago, where Red had selected her to be Wonderland’s future queen and Chloe had agreed. The former choice was more scandalous than surprising: the royal brat of Wonderland rebelling against her mother by choosing the one girl over the countless respectable and proper princes courting her? That was to be expected. But the princess of Auradon, known far and wise for being as accomplished as she was morally upright, marrying the villainous Red Queen’s heir? The nobility of the world were going madder than the mad queen herself. None more so than Chloe’s parents, who were practically hysterical when Chloe returned to Auradon after the ceremony’s conclusion.
“If that girl has threatened you, compelled you in any way, she’ll bitterly regret it,” her mother had told her, clutching her shoulders. “The gall to–it should have been clear you were only present in a diplomatic capacity, we never wanted you to do anything of this sort.”
Chloe had allowed herself to be held, feeling a little silly. “I haven’t been compelled. Had she tried anything like that I’d have made her regret it long before you could.”
“Then why–that awful girl–” Her father paused. “My dear, are you–”
“No!” Chloe interrupted, too loud and too quick. “I’m not–it’s a political arrangement. Wonderland wants to destroy us, the Queen will never overcome her hatred for Auradon. But no matter how much she loathes us, she’ll never be able to attack the home kingdom of her heir’s wife.”
“You don’t need to do anything of the sort!” Her mother insisted. “It doesn’t matter how strong Wonderland is, Auradon is stronger. Chad and his knights will handle whatever comes.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. She was well aware of how excited Chad and his egotistical coterie of knights were for combat; they talked about nothing except their desire to prove their manliness on a real battlefield. Depriving her brother and his friends of that glory may be the best part of her future marriage.
“Auradon is supposed to stand for peace,” Chloe said. “It doesn’t need a war, and it doesn’t need to be living in fear of one any longer.”
“But–”
“Please,” Chloe said earnestly. “This is my choice. I want to do this.”
Her parents exchanged a look with each other, looked back at Chloe, and then sighed in eerie unison. Chloe knew they didn’t fully understand her reasoning, but they knew she had made up her mind. For the rest of the day, they remained mostly silent on the subject, limiting themselves to periodically reminding her that she was always welcome back to the kingdom that adored her, marriage or war be damned.
Her conversation with her brother had been far shorter.
“So you’ve got a thing for crazy chicks, I don’t judge.” He’d clapped her on the back. “Go have fun.”
And with that, Chloe was shipped off to Wonderland, swept up in the storm of wedding preparations. During that time, she’d barely seen Princess Red, who preferred to communicate in the form of infuriating pranks: shaving the horses of Chloe’s marriage, leaving crabs in her bath, commanding the royal bard to sing treacly love ballads outside her window in the middle of the night. Ballads written by Princess Red herself, if the lyrics about Chloe’s peacock blue hair and prissy attitude are anything to go off of. Chloe supposes this explains why Princess Red chose her. She’s meant to be a bored royal’s plaything, suffering for her amusement. In her wedding dress, she already looks like the sort of doll a bratty little girl would shave bald and throw across the room.
Someone knocks on the door. “Are you decent? I want to see how lovely you look in your gown.”
Chloe grits her teeth. Maybe someone was getting thrown across the room today. There’s no use delaying Red’s derision; she throws open the door and glares daggers when the other girl doubles over giggling.
“Your sense of humor is beyond juvenile,” Chloe says, tone dripping with venom.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you look positively ravishing, your Majesty.” Red wipes tears from her eyes. “Like a frosted macaroon.”
“What are you even doing here, isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t wait to see my beautiful bride.” Red walks into the room like it’s hers and drops into a nearby chair. “Shame about the bad luck, you don’t think this means we’ll have an unhappy marriage, do you?”
“It wouldn’t have to be unhappy if you’d just be courteous. ”
“Courteous? Nah, not in my vocabulary. You know what is in my vocabulary, though?” Red’s eyes flick up and down Chloe’s body. “Tacky. Garish. Excessive ruffles. Just some random examples.”
Chloe’s face heats up as she stalks towards the other girl. “The insults are one thing, but these immature little jokes are beyond the pale.”
Red tilts her head. “Jokes? What ever do you mean?”
“This dress, for one, the horses, the crabs, the incident with the grandfather clock–”
“Some of the guards are saying the clock looks better bright green, actually.”
“It’s unbecoming of your station to be this disrespectful.”
Red’s eyes widen. “You’re not suggesting I had something to do with any of those deeply regrettable incidents, are you?”
“You expect me to believe the royal bard’s been singing me love songs of his own volition?”
“Well, who wouldn’t?” Red smirks and reaches forward to wrap the ends of one of Chloe’s bows around her finger. “You’re beautiful, Princess Charming.”
She pulls until the ribbon unknots itself, looking as pleased as a cat that’s unraveled a ball of yarn. For a moment, Chloe watches Red’s hand, briefly overcome. With fury, surely. How had she not noticed how close they were?
“I…” Chloe reminds herself of everything she learned from her lessons on manners, and sharpens her tone. “I won’t put up with your pranks. I don’t care about your ceremony, I don’t care that the wedding is today. I will return home.”
Red gasps, the hand on Chloe’s arm flying away to cover her mouth. “Oh, please don’t, our bard will be so disappointed. He’s been practicing the most beautiful song lately, I hear the screech of his piccolo from yards away.”
“Godmother, I don’t see anyone could stand being married to such a mean and spoiled child.”
Red sighs. “Well, as much as I may weep, if you really insist then I suppose this is goodbye. I’ll think of you every time I see a wishing star, or a particularly angry and yappy Pomeranian.”
“I didn’t mean–I can’t leave now .”
Red huffs. “Well, why not?”
“Because the wedding is in mere hours?”
“Just enough time to escape out the window. Grab the bedsheets, we’ll tie a rope.”
“Because if I do your warmongering mother will–”
“Oh, drop the martyr act,” Red says, waving her hand in the air. “Your Knights of the Clown Table could come over here, crush my mother’s army by themselves, and go home for lunch. It’s unfair, really. What is it about noble intentions that lets the idiots beat a hundred men each without a scratch? But that’s besides the point. There’s no way Auradon would want its precious jewel married to a villain’s kid even if it was risking complete annihilation. The commoners worship their oh-so-perfect princess, and your doting mother and father would welcome you back with open arms even if you killed a man. I’m sure when you get tired of this you’ll find celebrations in the streets back at home.”
Chloe stares. The other princess’s assessment was surprisingly insightful. No, more than that, it was completely accurate. With all of Red’s bluster and inane stunts, Chloe never would’ve suspected that she had a commanding grasp of politics.
“Auradon is–supposed to stand for peace,” Chloe says hesitantly, parroting what she’d told her parents days before. “A war would only–”
“So you’re not going?”
“I’m–” Chloe squares her jaw. “I’m not.”
Red frowns, and a shadow of frustration flickers across her face. It’s difficult to tell from simply a moment, but Chloe could’ve sworn that she seemed as exasperated with the situation as Chloe was, and as determined to resolve it in her favor.
As quickly as it comes, the look is gone, replaced by the same impish expression that preceded it. Or at least, something similar to Red’s former merriment, mixed with–something else.
“Oh, I see.” Red stands up and stalks closer to Chloe, her smile somehow warm and dangerous at the same time. “You’re not doing this for political reasons.”
Chloe stumbles back, her back hitting a bedpost. “That’s not–what other reasons could I possibly have?”
Red laughs as she continues moving forward, the sound of it curling in Chloe’s ears like vines around a trellis. “You can’t even deny it.”
“You can’t possibly be implying that–”
“What, that you’re madly in love with me? No. Or at least, not now. However–” Red puts a hand on the bedpost, right above Chloe’s head. “I might be implying that you don’t hate me as much as you want me to think.”
If Chloe had ever done anything wrong, she assumes this is what getting caught would feel like. Or perhaps being punished, she doesn’t know which. Because, well, she isn’t lying about going through with the marriage for diplomatic reasons. She would never leave her kingdom for a girl, much less a girl like Red. But maybe she can admit to herself she’d rather be with a girl like Red than any of the princes that have been vying for her hand lately.
Every other thought having abandoned her, Chloe answers honestly on instinct. “I never said I hated you.”
Red grins. She is impossibly close. Scarlet hair falls into her face, brushes against Chloe’s cheek. Chloe is struck with the same perfectly irrelevant thought that has lingered with her since the moment she met Red: the other girl was breathtakingly beautiful.
“No, you didn’t say that, did you?” A tentative hand slides up Chloe’s sleeve. “We don’t need to have an unhappy marriage, you know. I can make it very, very fulfilling for you.”
It’s a surprisingly gentle touch for the brash princess. Through the layers of puffs on her dress, there’s no reason Chloe should be able to feel it. Her skin burns anyway. Without thinking, Chloe’s eyes flick to Red’s mouth, and–
Chloe finally notices, then, the twist of irony in Red’s smile, the sign that this has all been just another one of Red’s jokes. Suddenly, Chloe’s face is burning for an entirely different reason.
She grabs Red by the collar and shoves her back which only seems to delight the other girl even more. It suddenly occurs to Chloe that after all the nonsense she’s endured from Red, nothing has really embarrassed her, it’s merely infuriated her. Only now does Chloe feel well and truly humiliated, not only the first time she’s felt it since arriving in Wonderland but the first she’s ever felt it this keenly and painfully.
Red moves back towards Chloe's direction, but this time ignores her entirely and flops onto the bed, still snickering to herself. “You should see yourself right now, Charming, you’re so red you almost look genuinely smitten with me. Can you imagine that? Auradon’s little Princess Perfect crushing on delinquent villainesses, even I couldn’t come up with a joke that funny.”
“Is your cruelty inherited from your mother, or is this all yours?” Chloe snaps.
At that, Red goes dead silent. Her languid demeanor shifts; all her mirth burns away. She sits up in bed, and her posture is every bit as stiff and arrogant as a princess’s ought to be.
“Stop acting like you’re stuck here with me,” she bites out, cold and hard as steel. “I’m the one that’s stuck here with you. I never asked for this marriage.”
“Never–” Chloe scoffs incredulously. “ You asked me to marry you.”
“Because I thought you’d say no .”
“I–what?”
Red stands up and starts to pace the room. “I thought you were a miracle, you know. I couldn't find any way out of that horrible ceremony, and then who shows up but the princess of Auradon, entirely uninterested in my throne and unforgiving of wrongdoing? I thought I’d actually found a way to escape it for a little longer, buy myself more time to plan, but no, you just–and now you won’t even leave .”
Red stops in front of Chloe, eyes blazing. “Don’t you want a real marriage? Like your parents? I imagine I’d want nothing else if I was someone who could have it.”
“Someone that could have it?”
“Yes, someone who could be loved.” She says it so easily, like it’s nothing, like it should be common sense. “I bet you’ve been dreaming of your happy ending ever since you learned how to walk in little glass shoes.”
As quickly as her anger became confusion, her confusion became sympathy.. Perhaps Chloe is sheltered–well, no, Chloe is definitely sheltered–but she feels this may be the saddest thing she’s ever heard. To be as full of life and passionate as Red is and still feel that unloved, it’s unthinkable to Chloe. Love is all she’s ever known. The thought of living without it–Chloe would go stark raving mad with longing. Compared to that, Red is a saint.
Chloe considers what to say, but the expression on her face must say enough, because Red sneers and rolls her eyes.
“Save the Auradon magnanimity, your pity is as unwelcome as you are,” Red says bitterly. “Let me guess, you’re dying to tell me that despite all evidence to the contrary, there’s a Prince Charming out there just waiting to make me the happiest blushing bride the world’s ever–”
“You can be loved,” Chloe says.
“Yes, I know what the kind of bedtime stories they read to you in your lovely kingdom, but the rest of us have to be a bit more realistic than–”
“Stop.” Chloe steps forward and grabs Red by the arm, as determined as a knight about to enter battle. “You can be loved, Red. You deserve to be loved. Disbelieve me if you’d like, but I know it. Nothing you do can make me change my mind. Deal with it.”
Red looks down at her arm, lips parted in shock. “Chloe...”
The sound of her name in Red’s voice makes all of her boldness melt, as well as the majority of her thoughts and sense.
“And you should keep calling me that,” she says helplessly. “While I’m making commands.”
A moment passes where neither of them move or say a word. Red’s eyes are so, so wide, and so, so bright. Chloe holds her breath; she suspects if she didn’t a stream of even more foolish things would pour out of her more and destroy her dignity forever.
“Sorry,” Red says solemnly. “That was a pretty speech, but it’s difficult to take anything you say seriously when you’re wearing a dress with more layers than our wedding cake.”
Chloe groans and steps back as Red cracks up over her reaction. It’s similar to their dynamic of before, Red teasing and Chloe condemning, but even as Chloe glares daggers at Red for the slight, she can tell something has changed ever so slightly, something too small to name but big enough to feel.
“Are you capable of a single moment of earnestness?” Chloe asks.
“I’m only ever earnest, haven't you noticed?”
“Fantastic, and now because of your impossible sense of humor everyone in Wonderland will see me wearing this monstrosity of a garment.”
Red smiles, Chesire-like. That is, if they can even see you through all this puffy lace. How do they even fit this all on one dress?”
Chloe rolls her eyes. “Oh, damn this.”
Red flinches in shock at the swear, then flinches even harder when Chloe wrestles the dress over her head and tosses it on the bed, leaving her standing in only the white petticoat and corset underneath. She straightens up to full height and looks Princess Red dead in the eye. Princess Red looks away.
“I’m not wearing it,” Chloe announces.
“Yes, I can...” Red clears her throat. "I can see that."
“I’m going to wear my own clothes from home, and you can’t stop me.”
Chloe steels herself for an argument, but to her infinite surprise, Red just nods, still barely looking at her.
“Alright.” Red takes a deep breath. “Well–as long as you’re wearing something. Talk about–talk about uncourteousness, I thought princesses were supposed to be modest.”
Chloe raises her eyebrows. “By the end of today we’ll be wives, I think we’re a little past modesty.”
“Right. Well.” Red, blushing enough to live up to her name, backs out of the room, hitting the door frame on her way out. “Happy nuptials. Chloe.”
Then she flees, leaving Chloe with blushing cheeks and the distinct awareness that, at the very least, her marriage would be an interesting one.