BLOG ARCHIVED-- MOVED TO A MULTIMUSE! Affiliated with AskStoryKidsHQ. And you thought my cousin Uma had issues with being "unknown". Admit it, it's okay... you didn't know me. Don't worry, I'm used to it. But you know something? You will know me. Daughter of Ariel & Eric. (Written by Destini)
Welcome to the idyllic town of Addersfield, located on History Island in Auradon, home of Illedale University.
Students here are children of some rather famous faces. And some have made fame in their own right, like King Ben or the Lady Mal. We’re proud to boast a diverse student culture and a rich history–
[–and that’s enough of THAT broadcast! Is this thing on? Hello? Can you hear me?
Good. I’ll warn ya right now, everybody– if you thought Auradon Prep was wild, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Illedale is bigger, meaner, and with the past not so distant to us, tensions can run pretty high around here.
‘Course, you probably know the story by now. When preparing for his coronation, King Ben declared his first royal proclamation to allow over 4 VKs from the Isle of the Lost to come to the city. After a whole showdown about good and evil, the four integrated into Auradon society pretty well, and then after drama at Cotillion, Mowgli rallied the Auradon people to fight for the disbandment of the Isle, sending the villains to rehab and their kids to Auradon Prep.
Catching you up since graduation, pretty much all of us ended up moving to Addersfield for higher education in Auradon’s system– cuz man, I gotta tell ya, it’s a lot better in Auradon than it is anywhere else. Well, ‘cept for all the evil takeovers, I guess.
But not everyone’s cut out for college itself. The nice thing about Addersfield is that it’s all a pretty tight-knit community based around the school itself. More of a college township, as it were. So some of AP’s graduates moved to town to work with a crowd they know well.
I can’t stay much longer, but don’t let the stuffy advertising fool ya about this place, folks! We’re a lot more than what the surface wants to pretend. I’d drop your application while you can if I were in your shoes! This is P. Warner, sending you right back to your regularly scheduled programming!]
–and enroll in your future today at Illedale University, where the story starts anew.
“Okay, seriously, how are people blaming this on me? Really?! Seriously, you do one bad thing one fucking time. NOT that anyone asked, but I was the one who WOKE UP people to protect Ben.”
Celena sat up straight. She’d felt that. Out of them all, the one she’d been most concerned about was James.
And he was awake.
“DAMN IT ALL!” she screamed, rising to her feet, breathing heavily and seething with rage. She twitched, screaming again. “We’re going to pay that wretched little king a visit.” She turned, flicking her cloak as she did, storming off.
Cassandra blinked. She didn’t like that. She drew her sword, glancing at Audrey and wincing. She didn’t even recognize her friend. Not like that. She followed after Celena, sword in hand, silent.
Audrey lifted her chin, clutching her scepter tightly. Her scepter. Hers. She followed along after Celena, reaching up to adjust her tiara as she walked, not even glancing at the others.
Snap out of it, goddammit, her brain screams in Audrey’s general direction uselessly. Yeah, her inner five-year-old who wanted telepathy to talk to her friends ALL THE TIME is desperate.
Holly sighs. “Right this way, then.”
It’s not as hard as she expects to get up there… but then they reach the closed door to the office. Holly holds up a hand when Hailey reaches for the doorknob. “That will ensure this place locks down tighter than a military fort. Here.”
She reaches over to a number pad on the wall and silently hopes it works, her fingers glossing over the keypad before she quickly types, 4-6-5-5-9.
The light ticks to green and the lock clicks, the door swinging open slightly. She privately smiles. He kept his promise. After all these years.
Holly takes the lead in walking the group in as unceremoniously as she can, masking her joy at the sight of Willa and Hannah in chairs in front of Ben’s desk, Ben in his own chair. All three appearing asleep.
She knows in her gut exactly what that means.
Taking a deep breath, she settles herself. And sets her shoulders. “Well, just like that. Simple, right? Simple enough. And just like that… we have both upheld our end of the bargain.”
The redhead never looks to Celena, not once, taking deep breaths to steady herself. “Your majesty?”
And Ben’s eyes open and he sits up at his desk, standing abruptly. “Yes, Holly?”
“I offer you the allegiance, loyalty, and protection of myself, Princess Hannah Fitzherbert, and Willa Russo against invading enemy forces.”
“Accepted, and welcomed,” Ben nods, as Hannah jumps on her feet and both girls whip around to face Celena.
Holly sets her shoulders as she steps directly into Celena’s line of sight, between her and Ben. “If you want him, you have to go through me first.”
“And me,” Hannah adds, going around the desk, her eyes never leaving any of the others, as she protectively gets directly in front of Ben.
Holly looks up when the door squeaks on the hinge, the door having not closed entirely behind them, smiling at who walks in. “Hi, gorgeous.”
First had been the nice girl with pink in her hair sissy introduced to him once. Peony. She had a flower name like sissy did. He remembered. Neptune had found her in a classroom, sleeping at her desk, and had quietly pushed the bag sissy had given him over by her head.
She seemed to settle a little bit when he did. He quickly backed out the door and carried on down the hall, stopping when he hears someone coming and ducking behind one of the bigger kids.
He blinks up at the girl walking by with curly blonde hair. He doesn’t like her. She looks mean. But not mean like how sissy looks mean or sissy’s special friend Sarah looks mean. They look mean, but they also look like they’d be nice to him, and they are.
She… doesn’t.
He doesn’t like her.
When she’s gone far away, he keeps on going, finding the girl with purple hair and all the sparkles on her face and pictures all over her arms asleep in her room. She’s crying when he finds her and lays the little bag on her tummy, wishing he could make her feel better…
Seeing a bag beside her, he bites his lip and opens it curiously. Maybe it’s like the bag mommy packs him with toys when they go on long trips? Most of the stuff looks boring… but then he finds a stuffed kitty cat that he gently picks up and squishes into her arms. She wraps her arms around it when she feels it.
He likes to think it helped. Heading out of there, he carries on down the hall, stopping and ducking around a corner when he hears someone running… but they stop and hide, too, from the sounds of things.
He just waits, peeking down the hall, ducking back when the short girl with a scared look on her face runs past him really fast and goes to one of the rooms. He wonders quietly what that was about but decides to keep going.
He finds himself near the room with all the instruments in his search, struggling to reach for the door handle before he gets it, pulling the door open… backing up and running away quickly.
Because none of sissy’s friends are in there but there are two people who are, they’re awake and sitting by the drums and hugging really tightly like something scared them and he doesn’t think they saw him.
Nobody comes after him to tell him the game is over, so maybe he did it.
Still looking. Still looking.
He finds the girl with the red cape not long or far from there. Mommy’s talked about her. She’s said bad things, lots of bad things.
But sissy never looked happy when she heard those bad things. And she was one of the people sissy was playing with. So he gently tucks the bag into her hand and runs away.
As he runs down the hall, he runs into another girl who’s already awake. She has a ponytail He stops short, and so does she, and for a moment he thinks he made sissy lose. But she looks around and doesn’t seem to see him, shaking her head and running along. She stops at a boy asleep on the floor and kneels down beside him, looking… confused, before she reaches up and holds his arm and goes still, her eyes closing and her head drooping a bit.
Okay. Weird. Not the time. As he keeps going though, he finds one of the last two people sissy sent him after.
He likes her. This is sissy’s special girlfriend Sarah. She did magic. Maybe that’s why it looks like she’s covered in ice. He reaches out and sets the bag with her, accidentally touching her hand. It’s cold. But nothing bad happens… she wakes up.
If she was on sissy’s team, she was allowed to see him, right? She looks around, looking dizzy, then narrows her eyes a bit. “Powers infernal, reveal to me, what being stands hidden in front of me.”
He doesn’t see anything, but then she asks, “Neptune?”
And he smiles and nods, but he doesn’t think she sees. But he quickly carries off again to find the last person on his list from sissy.
King Ben. He knows who he is, of course. But he doesn’t know WHERE he is.
He goes through the library out to the courtyard, stopping momentarily and peering up at a boy asleep at a table close to the library doors with another girl asleep beside him… before moving on quickly. Not him.
Where is he? He’s the last one he has to find for sissy to win the game. And he wants sissy to win the game.
He sees a big window up on the top floor of the office of the school, squinting up. Maybe he’ll see Ben from that office. Or maybe that will BE his office. He doesn’t know. But he has to try. So he starts off quickly for there.
Hannah stirs softly when Holly peers into her room. Waking up. Holly’s quick to move on, but privately, she’s relieved.
It means Neptune found her. He’s probably found the others. Hopefully, hopefully… hopefully, they’ll find the notes. She tucked a note into the drawstrings of the pouches so each of her friends knew what was going on when they woke up.
Hopefully, Neptune was doing the best job and was already back in her room and this would all be over soon.
But she keeps that reserved as she goes to find Celena to check in on the progress and probably lead her to Ben.
Celena cannot know.
Hannah swears she hears someone rush away when she wakes up.
Wakes up.
Her hand comes up to her hair, running her fingers through the ends. Short hair. Short, and purple.
She looks down at her arms, seeing her tally marks on her wrist, the crossed fingers with the rainbow bursting out of them she has that matches with Duke…
It’s real. Hannah clutches Kitty tightly.
Wait, Kitty? How did Kitty get in her arms? Kitty had still been in her bag.
Pulling the stuffy back, a small pouch falls into her lap. Picking it up, Hannah looks it over. Herbs? Wait…
Hadn’t Holly had a whole ordeal with a witch? The witch she claimed manipulated her but… knowing Holly, that could be a ruse to get her parents off her case.
She pulls the small note rolled up in the strings loose, uncurling it to read.
Hannah,
If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re awake. There’s a lot going on; I don’t have time to explain. I’m a double agent to an evil fairy planning to overthrow Ben.
If you want to help, find Ben. If we’re not there yet, pretend to be asleep there. If you don’t, I wouldn’t fault you, especially in your shoes.
Love,
Holly
PS: I’m sorry. Please forgive me for this.
And… that, that she thinks, she can do. Hannah bites her lip… then stands up, brushing herself off and setting Kitty down on her bed.
Ben would be in his office.
She can at least go to get him the hell out of there when the time comes.
She had let herself treat her cousin the way their family had, for so long, never knowing how to break herself from the cycle, not understanding how much she had to be hurting Holly. But she knew it was wrong. And she had to do something about it, anything, even knowing Holly would never forgive her.
So she seized her chance when she saw Holly sitting there alone. The mermaid slowly walked over to her cousin, sitting down at the table with her and bracing herself.
“Hello, Holly,” she said, trying to smile a little. “How are you?”
Holly blinks, stunned, staring at her, forgetting herself for a minute. “What– what are you doing?”
She shakes her head, blinking a couple times, clearing her throat. “I’m– I’m sorry, I just never expected…”
Shaking her head, she holds up her hands a minute and breathes. “I’m… all right, I… I guess? How… are you?”
Holly sighs and takes a deep breath to herself for a moment as she sits down with her lunch at an empty table.
She’d been trying to remind herself to look after herself better. Trying to keep back her own demons in favor of… actually caring about others’ demons, like Hannah’s. Hannah, of all people.
They were talking again.
But she had to do more than just ignore her own problems. She knew she had to worry about herself, too.
And she stares at the food on her tray for a long minute before taking a bite, closing her eyes for a minute and trying not to cry. She was doing it. Something, at least.
Today was going to be a pretty good day.
She opens her eyes quickly, blinking back her tears abruptly and trying to eat, looking up when someone sits with her, somewhat surprised. “…hi.”
"Hey, lovely... I need your help with something. Things have gotten really bad and I'm... kind of in danger, maybe, but you, Peony, Neptune... you're going to be in worse shape than I am. I can't let that happen." -Holly, @merbxtch
:
Sarah blinked, “What’s wrong?” She’d rarely seen Holly so upset. “Are you okay?” @merbxtch
Sarah’s mouth gaped, “Later, we’re going to go over why in the name of the Master you didn’t tell me sooner,” the witch tried to calm herself and shook her head, “Dream magic is…notoriously tricky. Tricky to cast, control, and even trickier to counter. It’s highly unstable because dreams can shift in an instant. Then throw in the fact that fairies are,” she wrinkled her nose, “fickle. And this is much more complicated.”
She wracked her brain, “We can place circles of beans under the beds of some people. Sometimes the creatures in charge of nightmares will be distracted and count the beans. If a person is directly attacked, moving the left toe can sometimes thwart a nightmare spirit.”
“Agate can be used as a protection against nightmares, as can ash. Our wickedest bet though- since it’s a fairy -would be to try to help people lucid dream, meaning that they realize they’re dreaming and can control it. In which case, we need danburite. And lots of it. Do you know anyone who might have that stone? I’ve got a supply in my room, but I don’t know how much I had left.”
“I– no, not off the top of my head, no, but darling, I’m a princess. Arguably not the most recognizable, but the title affords me access with people and I can find out. What I’m thinking is– is Neptune, Neptune’s small and he’s going to be kept safe from this. If by chance I can reasonably get him here at the school, I can use that to my advantage– she’d never notice him running around, he’s five and he’s energetic. If there were a magic means to counteract the dream magic that only requires it to be put out, I could arguably, reasonably, set him loose to do that while I’m with her and she’d never even notice.”
Holly combs a hand through her hair. “Um… okay, okay, okay… okay.” She tries to focus, trying to breathe, pacing a bit.
"Hey, lovely... I need your help with something. Things have gotten really bad and I'm... kind of in danger, maybe, but you, Peony, Neptune... you're going to be in worse shape than I am. I can't let that happen." -Holly, @merbxtch
:
Sarah blinked, “What’s wrong?” She’d rarely seen Holly so upset. “Are you okay?” @merbxtch
Utterly taken aback, Sarah took a minute to absorb the information, “Wait, how in the seven hells did you get into a magical contract with a fairy? Who is the fairy? And what exactly were the terms of the deal?” Her mind was whirling, “Some magical deals can be broken…” She sincerely hoped that was the case, because in her experience, many other magical deals could be dangerous, particularly when people took part in them without any magical training.
As a witch of the Salem Tradition, Sarah could call on a variety of demons to assist her. But fairies were a special breed of annoyance.
“She… manipulated the knowledge I’ve been wanting to lean more into evil. Uh, exact terms were just that I’d ‘help her’ with taking over Auradon and she’d keep you and Peony safe. Kinda had to strike a separate deal to keep Neptune safe, um, I lead her into the heart of the palace, to where Ben will be… asleep, because she’s like this dream-night-whatever, talent fairy, essentially she can manipulate dreams and nightmares… I’ve been guessing that she’s going to use that to trap everyone in nightmares or something? I don’t really know a lot, she’s not exactly been up to keep me in the loop.”
Holly runs a hand through her hair. “Technically the deal I struck for Neptune’s safety was true, so she can’t screw me over, right? When I struck the deal one of the contingencies I mentioned was, as of the exact moment we struck it, I had no connections to anyone else here in Auradon, and no loyalties beyond the two girls I already was trying to keep safe and my brother. That’s changed since then but when I struck the deal it was true. Oh, hell, I don’t know what to do, Sarah.”
She tries to calm her racing mind, shaking her head, pacing for a minute, starting to come up with something. “Neptune… you… Sarah, is there some form of magical way I can combat bad dreams? Y’know, something subtle, like an herbal bag thing that could be left beside someone? I have an idea that hinges on my ability to convince my parents to bring him to see me, and the answer to that question.”
"Hey, lovely... I need your help with something. Things have gotten really bad and I'm... kind of in danger, maybe, but you, Peony, Neptune... you're going to be in worse shape than I am. I can't let that happen." -Holly, @merbxtch
:
Sarah blinked, “What’s wrong?” She’d rarely seen Holly so upset. “Are you okay?” @merbxtch
Holly clears her throat, shaking her head, tears in her eyes. “It’s bad, Sarah, it’s– it’s just really bad.”
She pulls at the ends of her hair. “So, to make a long story short, I’m sort of trapped in a deal with an evil fairy who can manipulate people’s dreams and she’s threatening to use that for… something, I’m not sure of everything she’s doing, but I know I struck a deal with her to keep you, Peony, and Neptune safe but… I have other friends who I can’t protect.”
She sighs, shaking her head. “This is a genocidal maniac who’s already destroyed Pixie Hollow and to keep you three safe I basically handed Auradon to her and I just–”
