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Raven hardly liked to spend time by the Enchanted Lake at the edge of the forest, but for some spell-forsaken reason when the portal that left her before Ever After High chewed her up and spat her out, her legs took her in the opposite direction of the grand building. Her luggage she left where it was — somebody or something would come to clear it later, like they always did, and she hardly cared for receipt of her class schedule.
After all, it wasn't like they'd suddenly decide to swap out Advanced Spells and Hexes for Muse-ic Class. Daddy had assured her that if she just asked nicely then he was certain Milton Grimm would be more than happy to swap out one of her courses for Muse-ic.
Raven may love her daddy, but she often found it hard to believe him.
So she turned her back on the looming stone doorway of Ever After High, on the engraved school motto leering at her — Amor Fati — and on the promise of more mouths already prepared to do battle with the Evil Queen she had yet to become. She barely noticed any of the inquisitive or downright hostile glances of her classmates as they made their way in the opposite direction.
She had learned to ignore the hard, glassy eyes of strangers the year they had taken Mother away, so much like the lenses of the flashing cameras that had been shoved incessantly in her face.
She had hated it. The press and the pull of the crowd, hands grasping and snatching whilst Daddy had tried to pull her through.
It had been during one of these flurries of human activity that Raven had used magic unattended for the first time, without Mother's hands to guide her motions. All she could remember was pressure, pressure, pressure and a desire to make it stop, make them all stop and then… peace.
The earth stood still for her. Reporters, security… even Daddy, all held in place by the intensity of her intention. She didn't like it. Once she had escaped Daddy's stiff hand gripping her shoulder tight, she tried to make him move by pulling on his rigid limbs to no avail. As the fear mounted, she had bolted like a startled faun at the snap of a twig underfoot and ran, ran, ran into the castle, up the stairs and collapsed before the large mirror Mother had spent so many years gazing into.
The large mirror that Raven knew Mother might be lurking behind.
So she'd begged and called and cried for help, for a murmur of comfort, for the answer of how to undo the magic when she was unsure exactly how she had done it in the first place.
The mirror stayed silent. After so many years of seeing Mother's reflection in the glass, she felt something shatter inside of her when all she could see when she peered into it was a little girl, upset and afraid and alone.
The headlines published the next day were bold in their departure from the usual Evil Queen story. Instead they boasted of the seed of Evil that Mira Queen had planted in her daughter; instead they told of the immense power held in little Raven Queen and how willing she was to use it on the innocent; instead they already held court to condemn the next Evil Queen, already so advanced in her training.
Peering into the clear, reflective water of the Enchanted Lake, Raven no longer saw that scared little girl but a young woman, who was neither upset nor afraid but certainly no less alone.
She did not often take the time to look at herself. Every time she glanced in the mirror, it was never herself she saw. But now, in the safety of water where Mother could not see her, she allowed herself to look without expectation.
It was true what people said: she really did look like her mother. They shared the same high cheekbones, the glossy purple hair, the arched eyebrows and pouty lips. Their eyes shared a shocking, unnatural shade of violet, their irises poisoned by the magic in their blood.
She wondered if perhaps there would be a way that she might be a Slightly Less Evil Queen… or perhaps invite Apple to partake of the poisoned apple of her own free will. Maybe, if she told Apple that the apple was poisoned, then she would not be treated so harshly when the storybook shut.
Could she do that? Could she alter Destiny?
With a snarl of frustration, Raven found herself swiping at her reflection in the water. It was so unfair that she had been born with poison in her blood. It wasn't like she could choose who her parents were, and yet everybody treated her like she'd already killed their beloved Apple White! It wasn't like she could choose her Destiny! If she could, she would happily sign her name elsewhere in the Storybook of Legends, but it wasn't like—
Wait. Raven's eyes were fixed on the dissipating ripples in the disturbed water, and when they cleared, she noticed new differences in her reflection. Certainly, she looked like her mother, but looking closer, they were hardly identical. Where Mother was all hard lines, there was a softness to Raven's face, her cheeks round like the plump apple she would one day use to poison Apple. And her eyes were wider, gentler, like Daddy's.
She had been so focused on mitigating the terms of her Destiny that she had never even considered the possibility of changing it. After all, who said she couldn't swap Destinies?
Attention drawn so closely on her own reflection, it was difficult to miss the sudden flash of colour over Raven's shoulder.
"Practicing for your fairytale?" Madame Yaga crooned, eyes as sharp as her words whilst Raven whirled around to face her. There was a stern clarity to her voice, an inherent distrust of Raven's moods. "You've never been a mirror gaze before, Birdie."
Baba Yaga spent a second assessing her old best friend's daughter before her face wrinkled with suspicion and pre-emptive scorn.
"Whatever you're thinking about doing, young lady, I would forget about it now, before it is too late." Baba's voice was cold and distant, like a winter frost in September, threatening the lives of the beautiful flowers that still persisted in growing cold.
But it wasn't the lives of the flowers, however, that Professor Yaga was concerned about, rather the bird that fluttered amongst them.
"And fulfil my Destiny like a good girl? Isn't that kind of defeating the point of Evil?"
Menace danced in Baba's eyes like women twisting and turning in a diabolical dance before a fire, like the taste of madness, sweet as berries poorly picked on the tongue, like the flash of steel in the moments before blood. Raven could almost smell the magic in the air, hot and heavy, but it could not compare to the vice grip with which Baba Yaga had captured her wrist, pulling Raven forward so their faces were inches apart.
She could not escape the Evil in her eyes then.
"You listen here and you listen good, Raven Queen," she hissed, her foetid breath warm and rancid on Raven's face. Raven knew, instinctively, that the grip on her wrist would come up purple in the morning, but she had also never seen Baba this serious. It scared away any impulse to fight back. "These are dangerous thoughts and even more dangerous words. You, of all people, should know what happens when you challenge Destiny. Or was your mother being imprisoned in that mirror not enough to get that message across?"
"Hey!" Raven began to struggle — indignant and more than a little offended — trying to wrench her wrist out of Baba's grip, but Baba only clutched on impossibly tighter, the bones grinding against each other. The pain lanced up her arm at once and sprung tears to her eyes immediately. Never had anybody dared lay hands on her before! But she didn't dare complain because this was her Baba; even Raven, especially Raven knew that normal rules didn't apply to her Baba. "Babushka! You're hurting me!"
"I am not done speaking yet and you are not done listening." Baba growled. Satisfied that Raven would not try to interrupt again, she let go of her captive wrist and sweetened her voice to the smoky lilt of the Baba of Raven's childhood — somewhat saccharine but almost certainly threatening. Madame Yaga clapped her hands together. "Now, if you know what's good for you, you won't let Milton Grimm hear you saying anything remotely like what you just said to me. If you're a clever little blackbird, like I always suspected you would be, you won't let Milton Grimm hear you talking about Destiny at all, you hear me?"
Raven nodded her head sullenly.
"Excellent. Now, you are late for Book-to-School Orientation." Baba paused, surveying Raven with a critical look, before a crooked grin split her wrinkled face. "Naughty girl — A+!"
"Ah, Ms Queen, so good of you to join us," Milton Grimm addressed the opening door in the middle of his speech, allowing his sudden silence to settle like sediment coming to rest in a riverbed.
"You know, Headmaster Grimm, I wouldn't miss it for the world," she drawled, flashing him a toothy grin (and ignoring the horrified gasps from the crowd because ooh scary teeth!) before sloping off to find a spare seat amongst the crowd.
"Insolent girl," Headmaster Grimm muttered under his breath, but did not bother to turn his mouth away from the microphone at his lectern. Raven tried to ignore the heat pressing against her cheeks and pooling in her ears as the insult echoed around the amphitheatre. The royals in the front rows didn't bother to cover their sniggering, so neither did Raven bother to hide her scowl as she sunk into her seat beside Cerise on the end of the back row. Despite never taking her eyes off of the headmaster, Cerise somehow managed to shoot Raven a disapproving look, an unimpressed eyebrow raised pointedly.
"Didn't fancy joining the rest of us peasants for the Legacy Year initiation?" Cerise whispered, her voice nothing short of a growl.
"Isn't that what the peasantry are for?" Raven drawled, pushing Cerise's elbow from the armrest to lean on it despite having a free one of her own on the other side. "Doing the things royalty don't want to?"
Tension crackled in the air between them before twin smirks broke out on their faces. Raven leaned back in her chair, releasing the captive armrest. They snickered between themselves, content in the safety of obscurity that the back row afforded.
That was, they had been content until they each received a solid whack on the back of their heads by the hefty spellbook Madame Yaga always carried with her. Raven realised with a sudden chill that she had not seen Baba shuffle off with her usual motions to try and find a seat amongst the faculty. Rubbing the backs of their heads, they turned to see her iridescent eyes glowing in the dark directly behind them glaring. With two bony fingers, she pointed to her own eyes and then out at Grimm.
Obediently, they turned back to the podium.
"Now, where was I?" Grimm postured, as though he ever really forgot his place in his lengthy Book-to-School lectures. Besides, it was beneath the great and mighty Milton Grimm to lose his place over somebody as low and loathsome as Raven Queen, of all people. "Oh yes, Legacy Year. As you all well know, coming into final year at Ever After High requires that you undergo the same right of passage that each and every one of your fairytale ancestors has completed before you: signing the Storybook of Legends and embracing your fairytale destiny…"
Raven sighed heavily, allowing the words to wash over her as she let her mind wander. As much as she knew she ought to put it out of her mind, Raven couldn't help but wonder about trading destinies. But then if Raven wasn't willing to accept the weight of her legacy, who in their right mind would ever want to be the Evil Queen?
Slowly, ponderously, Raven allowed her gaze to travel across the assembly. Who in their right mind would want to be the Evil Queen? Eventually, her gaze settled on Duchess Swan, notoriously malcontented with her own fairytale…
Maybe…