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In the beginning, before the kingdom and the forest and the stones they stood on, there was the dance.
Lizzie was the lead. She had always been the lead. All Cleo could do was follow, swept aside in the wake of her presence.
The Shadow Queen had not always been so formidable. Cleo had been there back when she was still a fae planting oak and ash in her small, insignificant circle.
Cleo had still been human then. Well, not entirely human. Too much exposure to magic changed a person, and they had more experience than most. Humanity no longer interested them after they had shed their mortality.
And they would be here now, when Lizzie took the lead once again. She cut an intimidating presence, that made their enemies and allies alike think twice before looking her in the eye.
But Cleo didn't. They knew her Name, and to know a name is to know a person. Her soul was a thing of beauty, of pain and strength.
Autumn had fallen upon the Fairy Fort. The seasons were not the linear progression of the mortal world. The leaves fell and grew at their queen's command. Cleo wondered if it was conscious, if thinking about red and green and the reaper's scythe finally coming to call had brought this upon the fort.
Cleo knew the sacrifices of being close to a fae queen. Lizzie did not see love in the same way Cleo did. To her, to love was to be consumed. To Lizzie, giving up her name was the ultimate surrender. A sacrifice.
Cleo didn't see that as love, though. To them, love was the spare, fleeting moments where their heart soared. The way their hands brushed in the meadow in the center of Lizzie's domain. The flowers they would bring Lizzie, and the way her smile lit up her face.
But the dance had to end somehow. One of them had to fall.
Cleo knew it was coming. But they still felt a cold sense of shock when Lizzie's smile grew sharp, when she dove in for the kill.
She started with the skin. Then the muscle. Slowly, lovingly stripping Cleo of their secrets, their defenses. They had not asked for this.
Naively, they had hoped that Lizzie would spare them when the dance ended. But Lizzie simply loved them too much for that. Maybe she was afraid of Cleo. Afraid that someone out there had seen her stripped bare. Cleo had always told her there was nothing to be afraid of. They loved her.
Cleo had been left in their meadow, the remnants of their body strewn across the wildflowers.
Lizzie saw love as consumption, but Cleo saw it as a promise. One that even death could not break. They did not sew the bite marks back together. Did not try to reconstruct their body. If they felt like a monster before, it was nothing compared to now.
They did not know if what they were feeling was love. Did love feel like it burned you from the inside out, filling you up until you spilled over? Was it a poison or an antidote? The line between love and hate was as thin as the skin Lizzie had ripped through.
The fire started off small. Cleo still wondered how Lizzie had not prevented it. Did she create a blind spot just so she would not have to see the mess she had made of her love?
But soon, the whole forest was ablaze. The trees were crying out in agony, the wildflowers weeping as they were burned away by the hungry fire. Cleo had planted them, they remembered it clearly. And now, they would unmake them. There was a beauty in destruction. Reveling in the unraveling.
And in the middle, they saw a familiar face.
Lizzie.
The fae who had been there for Cleo when nobody else had.
The fae Cleo had dedicated their life to. Even now, they knew that they would not be complete without her. Whether in love or in the absence of it, they were still forever entwined.
And in the destruction, Cleo descended, feeling in that moment like royalty.
They extended a hand, holding out the foxglove, and Lizzie knew what to do.
The dance was older than the burning trees. Maybe older then the pair who danced it. They both knew how it would end.
Lizzie smiled as she went, body convulsing, poisoned by the very flowers she had cultivated. And yet, Cleo kept dancing. Still they went through the practiced motions. They danced until the flames crept upon them, hungrily consuming what was left of their body.
They would come back someday, feet still doing the same motions, as they stood in the ashes of what had once been tomorrow.