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The sound of boots hitting cold concrete was the only peculiar sound to be heard in the prisons of Ever After. Everything else — the clinking of soldiers' metal armor and the pleas of desperate prisoners — was merely routine.
That's why, when Dexter Charming entered the corridors, the whole prison decided to keep quiet, as if it knew there was something strange about to happen.
And indeed, there was.
The silence sent shivers down the guards' spines (never a good sign) as they escorted the prince to his cell in corridor 8 of wing 5 of the underground floor, or as they used to call it: the condemned section; Not that Dexter needed any help to find her, of course, because he felt her even though they were separated by meters (maybe kilometers) of marble. He felt it so much that he turned left even before his own guides.
The first time, he swore it had been mere intuition, but it had happened far too often to be a coincidence.
When they reached the cell, he noticed the security had doubled: not just one door, but three, all made of solid, heavy metal. The perfect doors for a perfect assassin.
The soldiers opened the final door with their weapons pointed and cocked, aiming directly at the beautiful face of the witch who glared at them with a mocking smile. Then, with a hoarse voice, as if she hadn’t spoken in days, she said:
"I’ve been expecting you," her eyes landing on Dexter, curious, analyzing every detail of his face.
The prince smiled. Of course she knew he was there. She was a powerful witch, and there wasn’t a blocking spell in the world that could change that fact.
He suppressed his smile, remembering why Raven Queen was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers and doors several meters thick.
Courtly Jester, Apple White, and the Queen of Hearts' guard—all dead.
The first, so brutal that no one dared to gather the remains together for a proper burial. Her mangled body was laid somewhere in the Wonderland, rotting under the sun as a clear warning that the Evil Queen's daughter was ruthless and merciless.
The second death was bloodless, but no less horrifying: bulging eyes and a purple neck marked by fingernails all around it. Another warning: the Evil Queen's daughter didn’t tolerate interference.
The third—or the thirds—were the entire guard of the Queen of Hearts, reduced to a pile of shredded cards that looked as if they’d been swept through with sharp scissors. A third warning: the Evil Queen's daughter could not be contained.
No one knew exactly how she was captured. Dexter believed it was intentional because there was no other explanation. Deep down, perhaps he hoped it was intentional. He had faith in her, which was why he was there today. He wasn’t supposed to feel sympathy for that murderer. Quite the opposite—he should despise her, spit on the ground at the mere mention of her name, just like everyone else did. Like his mother, his father, his sister, and all of the royals did.
But they didn’t see what he saw.
They didn’t dream what he dreamed.
They didn’t feel what he felt.
They didn’t had visions of Ever After ablaze, his sticky fingers reeking of blood clasping the hands of the one who would bring ruin to entire kingdoms. He wasn’t holding her hand to stop her but to support her—as her partner.
"Do you see it too?" she asked, her eyes glazed over, as if envisioning the same thing.
He hesitated to answer, aware of the guards' judgmental gazes—were they still there?
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"Liar." Her voice sent shivers down his spine. "Why are you here, then?"
"I want to know why." He didn’t elaborate; he knew she’d understand him.
"You wouldn’t get it."
"Try me."
"Even I can't understand it, Dexter. How can you ask me to explain it to you? It's just something that simply exists and I had to do it."
"Like an instinct? Is that why you killed them all?"
She averted her gaze, fixing her eyes on the guards as if calculating her words to avoid a bullet through her heart.
"Instinct isn’t the right word. It's destiny." You could hear someone in the background dropping a weapon. They were afraid of her, even though they had her life in their hands, and she relished it.
"It doesn't make any sense. Your destiny was to poison Snow White and die in a mirror prison as a consequence. You fought for none of this to happen, for it to be different, but in the end you made everything much worse, and I want to know why" the prince says, trying to get the witch to admit something, at least.
She gave him a mischievous grin.
"I made it much worse, didn’t I?"
"Answer the question," he demanded, his patience wearing thin and with authority sharpening his voice. He didn’t want to waste another minute in that hellhole.
"I fought for my freedom for years, preaching the existence of a reality that I believed it could have happened. That I and countless others could simply ignore and move on as normal beings, without being dependent on something that was imposed on us at birth. But guess what I discovered?"
"What?" he asked out of habit. His heart, however, had already whispered the answer to him. It was interesting, not to say frightening, the way he knew where she was by pure instinct, and now knew exactly what words she was going to say without even opening her mouth.
Oh no, it was no coincidence
"I discovered, Charming..." The pronunciation of his name came out velvety when spoken by Raven's lips, almost sinfully pleasurable, and Dexter didn't know why he loved it so much. "That it's useless. Completely useless. Everything I did, everything I fought for—useless."
She cleared her throat and continued:
"No matter how hard we try to escape, destiny hunts us down like criminals. It torments us in our dreams, forces us to sign the book at all costs. And guess what? It has no mercy for those who disdain it."
One of the soldiers behind them snorts at a considerable volume, and you could hear him say something about shooting the girl straight away and pretending nothing happened. Dexter gives the guard a deadly stare, and he shrinks back. He was still a prince, after all, they owed him obedience and respect, but they all seemed to forget that very quickly when it came to him.
Raven, however, just gives a mocking smile.
"Do you see how worthless our lives are? How hypocritical they are?" she moves a little and jerks, and it's only now that the boy realizes that her hands are stuck in some kind of iron ball, which is stuck in the walls of her cell. "They have made my life a living hell, begging me to give up my only life to fulfill a role that wasn't even my choice. And when I decide to do their bidding in a more... different way, they lock me up. They want me to rot, you know that?"
Dead silence filled the Charming's ears. No one would dare desecrate it, at least not while Raven was telling her side of the story.
"We're mere meat puppets, Dexter, we're fools to think we have the reins of our lives. That's the truth. Scapegoats for a book that thirsts for the blood of helpless little princesses and needs someone to do its dirty work for it..." She looks down at her hands covered by the small steel cage and sighs "... and instead of eliminating us after the job is done, they leave us alive, so that we can breed and teach another generation of alienated people who sign a contract of their own misery. Pathetic"
"Watch your mouth, witch. The Storybook of Legends is sacred" The soldier steps forward and points his large sword at Raven Queen's neck, who only spits at his iron breastplate in return. The man becomes enraged and starts bombarding the girl with swear words and violent hand gestures, and it's up to his other colleagues to calm him down so that he doesn't plunge the blade into the woman's throat.
"Enough of this nonsense. Mr. Charming, your visiting hours are over." He turns around and his men follow him
"I'm not finished here" The boy keeps his feet firmly on the ground. He wouldn't go anywhere without the answer to the question he'd been avoiding for months.
Ever since Raven was arrested, he has dreamed of the day of her release. The dark sky, the sound of thunder in the background and the sound - or should he say symphony? - of screams and the heat of the fire enveloping his body like a demonic embrace that he didn't want to let go of for a second. They weren't dreams. They were visions.
But why was he seeing all this? It wouldn't make sense for him to have visions of a destiny that wasn't his.
Unless...
Oh heavens...
"You see." Raven Queen said, her eyes glued to the prince's as if she shared his vision. There's no point in Dexter trying to deceive her or pretend otherwise, because she knows.
He knows that she knows, and he knows that she knows that he knows.
"I see." He says "And I need you to answer me so that I can be sure."
"And what would that question be?"
Dexter pauses, takes a breath and spits out the question as he exhales, along with his courage:
"Do you love me?"
The soldiers looked at each other, not liking where the conversation was going. As they repositioned their sights on the woman, who had gone completely pale, they heard her determined reply
"I've only ever loved one person in my entire life: myself. But-" she pauses and looks shamefully at the floor "You, Dexter Charming, are very dangerously in second place"
She was genuine. And that was enough for him.
Dexter grabs Raven's face and glues his lips to hers before he can even think about it. His hands are shamefully on her neck, bringing her closer with desperation and longing.
It's what he's wanted to do since he was a teenager. It's what he wanted to do right now. It was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Raven was surprised by the kiss, but it didn't take her more than half a second to give herself completely over to it. How she wanted to get rid of that damn cage in her hand, so that she could grab his face, or take off his shirt, or even unbuckle his belt while her lips were still roaming his without separating for a single second. Her eyes glowed in a shade of purple that ignited the spark of power inside her.
Her insides burned with power, imprisoned with blocking spells for all this time. It wasn't long before she began to emit her usual purple aura all over her body.
The kiss between the two is broken when they drag Dexter away from her. But she still has the chains on her body, so there's not much to do but watch as the prince struggles in the soldier's arms, with no way out.
She tries to release her power once, and fails. She tries a second time, and is unable to do so, but she sees a glimmer inside the iron ball that surrounds her hand. She takes a deep breath and tries a third time, focusing her anger on that spark of power.
The pieces explode and go straight into the face of one of the guards, who collapses on the spot. All the others move away, trying to calibrate their aim on the girl again.
"One more step and you'll explode, witch. And if you don't behave, this one will suffer too" he points the blade at Dexter's cheek.
"Blow me up, then. I'd love to see you try." she takes two steps and then disappears in a purple cloud, reappearing behind the soldier as he tries, unsuccessfully, to hit her at close range.
She lifts him off the ground with her power and uses her chain to bind him around the neck, while the others just stare at her in fear of being next.
Raven looks at Dexter, seeking his silent advice on the man's fate.
He looks at her, and something in his subconscious tells him that he should discourage her, ask her to let it go and say that “she's not like that”. But that would be the old Dexter, the one that everyone ignored, that everyone treated with indifference and that no one respected as a person or as an authority. He wasn't that Dexter.
Not anymore.
A small nod was all it took for Raven to be satisfied and tighten the chain so hard that in a matter of seconds the sound of “crack” coming from the guard's neck filled the ears of everyone present. No one dared take a step after that.
The woman walks calmly up to the prince as if she had all the time in the world on her hands. She holds his hand and asks, when she sees the confusion on his face:
"Are you coming or not?"
"Doesn't this place have blocking spells?" he replies
"And when have you seen me obey any rules, Charming?" she gave him a cruel smile
"Fair enough...” he replied and took a firm hold of the woman's hand, then his whole world spins and he stops in the prison yard, inside the walls.
Judging by the look on Raven's face, that shouldn't have happened.
"It's been a long time without using my powers properly..." she explains, surprising Dexter with her sudden embarrassment
"There's no need to justify yourself, Queen. I'll never condemn you for making an effort for me."
She stops and looks at the man, and a few tears spring to her eyes. The next thing she knew, her lips were pressed to his again.
"I see" Dexter says, half out of breath, after breaking the kiss "You and me against the world. Against Grimm and against my parents."
She looks at the horizon, surely remembering exactly the view he was talking about
"i'm one of the few fates that wasn't in the book of legends, Raven, and now I know why." he continued "Because I'm a new destiny in a new story. And it includes you, Raven Queen, as strange as that sounds."
"Correction: it includes YOU, darling. I'm the protagonist of this story" she strokes his cheek. "Or would I be the antagonist? Either way, we're here."
Dexter gives a genuine smile when he notices the humor in Raven's tone of voice. She made him feel so good. It didn't matter who she killed.
And it didn't matter who he had to kill from now on to be with her. He only wanted her, and she was enough.
A few seconds later, the sound of prison sirens echoed everywhere, accompanied by a frantically flashing red light. Shouts could be heard from the men who were preparing to hunt down the witch who had escaped.
"That's our cue" she says, holding onto his arm to prepare for the teleport "Is there anything you still want to do here?"
"Yes, there's just one little thing I have to do, after waiting so long for this."
Raven was visibly confused by his desire, especially since they were in such a hurry at the moment, but she didn't forbid him anything. The poor guy had already been held down by chains for too long. She just nods slowly as a sign of her approval.
Dexter clears his throat and shouts at the top of his voice for everyone to hear:
"Long live the queen and ruler of evil, Raven Queen!"
Raven's eyes widen. He was actually doing that. He was giving up everything for her. Because he loved her.
Raven then clears her throat like him and screams as loud as she can:
"And long live her loyal partner in crime, Dexter Charming! May you soon remember our names!"
Then Raven kisses Dexter, again, as if they were sealing a pact of fidelity with each other. Two nefarious souls, succumbing together.
And although there was a horde of thousands of soldiers in front of them, ready to open fire without even hesitating, the world, for both of them, was only them.
And so it would remain.
Forever.