Chapter Text
A slight breeze was blowing in her right ear, sunlight pouring on her resting face. She felt something soft and ticklish beneath her, carressing her arms and legs - that is when she woke up to the sounds of chirping birds up above. Raven Queen opened her eyes and blinked into the clear blue sky. The clouds seemed to be in a rush, chasing through the sky, and now and then dappled light shone through the gaps. Not a single sign of danger or anything out of the ordinary, and yet Raven suddenly felt a shiver go down her spine. Oddly enough, she felt like she was being watched. Was it an animal in the woods around the clearing, hiding between the trees and lurking in the shadows? She squinted her eyes against the sunlight and glanced into the forest. She couldn't see anything, which should've been obvious to her at the start - if a wolf was lurking in the shadows, her simple eyes wouldn't have seen it. She would have been oblivious and a nice meal for a bad wolf.
Raven decided she needed to return to Ever After High immediately - wondering about how she had gotten here in the first place is something she could do in the safety of her and Apple White's room. She got up and was just about to set off, when she heard a faint, distant voice.
"Raven ..."
Did it not sound just like Apple's voice?
"Raven ..."
But no, it sounded like her mother's voice!
Her face darkened, as she turned around to face her mother, who at that moment should have been trapped in her mirror instead of ominously wandering around the Enchanted Forest. But there was no mother she could face, only a naked, seemingly dead tree. She raised an eyebrow at this.
"How weird," she whispered to herself. "This tree doesn't fit into the Enchanted Forest at all."
And it truly didn't: unlike the rest of its kind, it was of a dark, grayish bark, had not a single leaf even though it was only july, but had an eery aura to it. The immediate proximity of it looked strangely much more shadier and murky, and the trees around it had seemingly grown bent in order to avoid getting too close to it. The treetop's thick, twisted branches looked like arms reaching out to anything that gets near. Raven backed off a little, feeling as though the branches were also reaching out to her. On top of it all, there was a huge, gaping hole in the middle of its body. Like a black hole, hungry for anything full of life.
Or like a mouth. Raven heard a voice again, and this time she knew she wasn't imagining things. "Raven ... !" it called again, the voice that now sounded like Briar Beauty's. It sounded like it was coming from inside the hole, a warped, uncanny echo.
"The forest's playing tricks on me," Raven mumbled disgruntled and turned her back to the tree. She would no longer give it any more attention - she had to get back to Ever After High.
After what seemed like hours of stumbling through the woods, she somehow managed to find back to Ever After High. The magical trees seemed to lead the way, as their branches looked like arms pointing towards the school. When she finally emerged out of the Enchanted Forest, she found herself on a hill full of blooming colorful flowers; Ever After High stood proud in the distance, the light of the noon sun hit the castle tower-like school in a way that made it shine and shimmer, the blue sky and the chirping birds and warmth on Raven's skin made her almost forget about what had happened.
Though she kept cool and stayed grounded. By the end of her walk back to Ever After High, she was fully exhausted and her feet hurt like hell. And that did anything but help her when she opened the school door and stepped inside the hall. Suddenly, all eyes were on her. Some only threw covert, prying looks at her before turning around and whispering stuff that Raven could already imagine herself. Some decisively and instantly entered the next best room in order to avoid her. Some just stared at her like an attraction. She wrinkled her nose annoyed and frowned at this. She was used to being stared at, she was used to being disliked and mistrusted by many. But that didn't make it any easier for her.
"Raven! Raven!" Although of course there were one or more students that didn't back away as soon as she came a little close. "Raven!" None other than Apple White, her roommate and ... complicated friend made herself a way through the crowded hall. She waved at her in nearly a frenzy, and most students stepped out of her way, but out of other reasons that for Raven - out of respect. Apple White, daughter of Snow White, was loved and appreciated by everyone. And yet, even though Raven Queen and Apple White were polar opposites of each other, Raven had found a friend in Apple White, in spite of their many differences.
Raven walked down the steps to Apple, hearing someone faintly whisper "It's the Evil Queen's daughter!", but determinately chose to ignore them.
"Where have you been?" Apple asked Raven. Her worry was evident to all. "I woke up this morning and you weren't in bed, so I thought you had made the decision to be an early bird for a change, but I didn't see you all day! After the first break, I decided to ask around if anyone had seen you. But not one Royal nor one Rebel knew what you were up to."
"I would also love to know what I was up to this morning," Raven thought to herself. For a second she looked into Apple's blue eyes and thought about telling her about the tree in the Enchanted Forest and how she woke up in the clearing without any memory of how she had gotten there. "No," she decided, "Apple would totally freak out if I told her."
Just then, the school bell rang as the halls started getting less and less crowded, the students flooding their classes instead. Raven felt relief sweep her body - she could finally focus on something other than this strange morning.
"Come on now, you've already missed so many classes today!" Apple exclaimed as she linked arms with Raven. "And I have, oh, Kingdom Management! My favorite subject!" Apple White beamed at Raven. "And you have ..."
"General Villainy," Raven concluded Apple's sentence. Apple shivered at that.
"I just cannot wrap my mind around how you could enjoy such a subject!" she said incredulously, freeing her arm from Raven's again and crossing her arms before her chest.
"I don't -"
"But oh well, like mother like daughter," Apple figured and smiled at her. Raven could only sigh. Her favourite subject was Muse-ic, and in fact she disliked anything malicious, unlike her mother, but she decided not to oppose Apple's opinion - she did not want to argue with Apple White about her family and, even more so, her apparent "destiny". All she really wanted was to lock herself in her room and sleep, as she was exhausted and wouldn't have to think about that tree.
... That weird, strange tree ...
Thinking a class about something she hated but was accused of often times in her life would pen in her thoughts about what had happened was a grave and foolish mistake. Raven couldn't force herself to listen to Mr. Badwolf's instructions and explanations a single second throughout the whole period.
The cauldron in front of her was bubbling a gooey green liquid she couldn't for the life of her identify, and Mr. Badwolf's instructions were only a muted noise in the background, a film playing in the other room. Raven stared out the window in nearly a trance - was there a storm brewing in the distance? The clouds seemed so, so gloomy and dense, like they were about to burst open and release a rainfall this whole summer hadn't seen yet.
Raven narrowed her eyes as she looked into the distance and scooted a little away from her cauldron. Did she hear that right? Hadn't she heard her name again? But whose voice was it? She couldn't quite recognize it, even though it sounded unbelievably familiar. Suddenly, she felt the urge to go after the voice.
It had something important to tell her, she just knew it. Something that would ...
"Raven Queen!" There it was again, calling out for her.
Raven abruptly stood up, still staring out the window, an urgent look came over her face. Her trembling breathing was fast, alarmed; she clenched her fists so hard her knuckles appeared white and bloodless.
"Raven Queen! Will you snap out of it?!"
Fully caught off-guard, Raven turned to Mr. Badwolf, who stared her down angrily.
"I'm aware that my class is not in your top ten, but that does not give you the right to completely disregard my class!" he yelled at her. "Watch your cauldron, for goodness sake!"
Only when Mr. Badwolf mentioned Raven's cauldron and deliberateley pointed at it, was when she finally took notive of it again. It was bubbling over the edge and eating acid holes into Raven's table - the students next to her had moved away from her and her cauldron as far as possible, concerned faces stared at her. Raven's face darkened when she noticed that specifically two students were all but concerned: Faybelle Thorn, a few rows behind her, looked more than amoused, her ellbows on the table and her head comfortably planted on her intertwined fingers. Next to Faybelle, Raven noticed a wide, toothy grin emerging out of thin air. In a matter of seconds the mischievous grin gained a face and body - Kitty Cheshire, daughter of the Cheshire Cat.
Raven turned around to her overflowing cauldron, from which the liquid was slowly but surely seeping its way to Raven. Her right hand got enshrouded in a mystical purple fog, before she instructed the magical goo to quickly back off and get back in its cauldron with just a short turn of the hand. Mr. Badwolf grunted relieved and turned back around to the board, which was filled with writings Raven hadn't taken notive of the entire class. Her classmates on the other hand decided not to get closer to Raven again. Raven heard high-pitched snickering coming from behind her, and glancing over her shoulder she saw Faybelle and Kitty giggling with eachother.
Sighing, Raven tried to ignore them and looked out the window once more. Her brows furrowed - she realized that what she had been watching in the distance the entire time, over which the sky had darkened and the ashen clouds were strangely spiraling, was the Enchanted Forest ...
After General Villainy, she would have had her favourite: Muse-ic class, and usually she couldn't wait to show up at Professor Pied Piper's class in order to play her favourite instruments and express her love for music, but that day was a different day. A strange, puzzling day. She knew she wouldn't last a second in that class without having to think about that tree, the voices calling out to her and their ... importance.
Raven figured that whatever this mytserious tree and its voices were about, it was more important than one day of school, so after somehow making it through the rest of class, she booked it back to her and Apple's room, and she was relieved to see that Apple wasn't there. She tied her long ravenblack and purple hair into a ponytail, put on some more comfortable clothes worth a longer walk over a hill and through a forest, and even took her little purple bag with her.
No way in all of Fairytale World would she tell her friends about the tree! Strangely enough, she felt as though she simply shouldn't; a dark and grueling feeling overcame her when she stopped at the door and looked back at Apple's bright and royal-looking side of the room.
"Apple just wouldn't understand it," she thought to herself, "This tree ... it could possibly alter my destiny. Apple can't know about this. Ever."
And with that final thought, she clenched her fist around the strap of her bag and turned around to leave Ever After High, and return to the Enchanted Forest.
To Raven's presumable misfortune, she snuck out the entrance hall while everyone was at class - everyone but Apple White.
Apple White stood by the lockers, hiding around the corner in the shadows. "What's she doing now?" Apple murmured to herself as she watched Raven sneak out and close the great door behind her. She had seen Raven storm out of General Villainy. "Daring, tell Mrs. Her Majesty I'll be late to Princessology," she had told Prince Daring and followed Raven to her and Raven's room. Even after Raven had changed clothes and sneaked down into the hall Apple had followed her. Now she wacthed her leave the school ever so suspiciously.
Without another thought, Apple also left Ever After High, in order to find out what Raven was being strange about the whole day. She was hiding something, Apple knew, something dangerous, and she had to stop her friend from indulging in it!
When Raven finally entered the Enchanted Forest again where she had left it, the noon sun had set into the afternoon sun - soon it would be evening, the sky draped in orange and golden cloths. But where she was at, the sky was far from beauty like that. Above her, the clouds looked heavy with rain, still in a haste like during the morning she had woken up in the clearing. A sharp and eerie wind blew about her ears and hair and through the thick of the woods, making the leafs rattle, singing an ominous, melancholic song.
The forest seemed to guide her again; somehow she just knew which turn to take and which tree she knew from her first time on this way, and the branches that had previously shown her the way out now showed her the way in.
Meanwhile, Apple was freezing. If only she had also changed clothes - these high heels and those short puffy sleeves were more fit for a princess than a hiker - but of course she had had no time for that then. Thank the fairies, Raven didn't notice Apple following her through the forest. She hid behind a thick tree every few steps, wrapped in the shadows and bushes, and tried her very best to both be stealthy and not loose Raven. The Enchanted Forest felt like a dark and sinister labyrinth that day - completely foreign to Apple White, as she had ever and always perceived the Enchanted Forest as a place of whimsical goodness, not one which leads evil daughters of evil queens to questionable and wicked places.
At long last Raven found the clearing. It suddenly looked nothing like when she had woken up, not in the slightest - the shadows between the trees around the clearing now felt like they were filled to the brim with dangers lurking; werewolves and vampires, tree monsters, shadow creatures and ghosts to top it all off. Raven looked up at the sky. Right above her were the clouds brewing together, truning in a circle around each other fastly - the eye of the imminent storm. Suddenly it was like thunder struck her mind - what in all of Fairytale World was she doing here?! If the clouds decided to break open now, possibly throwing thunder bolts as well, she'd be doomed.
But all those worries and thoughts dropped from her shoulders as soon as she saw the tree that she had woken up to just a few hours ago. Apple hid behind one of the trees around the clearing, spying on Raven, though she instantly paused when she saw the tree Raven was looking at. Apple stood there awestruck, her mouth agape and her eyes widened in shock. She backed off a few steps. That tree's aura was overwhelmingly negative. Its completely lightless hole seemed to want to suck Apple in, swallow her whole and enjoy every piece of her live body. The branches of the naked, greyish tree rattling in the vehement wind, its body seemed to shiver or ... quake.
Apple White wanted absolutely nothing to do with this ... thing ... but she realized Raven still stood there, in a trance-like state, just staring at it in awe, like it wasn't emitting the most off-putting, evil energy in all of Fairytale World.
Then they heard it - a sound as of something turning and cracking bones echoed through the clearing. And both knew it - it came from the tree. Apple and Raven both looked closer, when they realized that the tree was somehow turning itself.
"Raven!" she heard it call out for her again. Apple heard it too - stunned, she could only stare when Raven abruptly starting walking towards the tree.
Raven stepped closer to the tree, until she could softly put her fingers on its bark. No doubt, the tree was cold and dead. Gosh, but she just couldn't get herself to back away from it. It was talking to her in that voice again, that voice where she couldn't quite put her finger on where she had heard it before, let alone why it felt so familiar made her feel so warm inside. And it sighed her name, less urgent now, rather conspiratorial. It whispered promises promising answers to her deepest, darkest questions - promises that promised an escape from what is said about her in the Storybook of Legends - a refuge from what everyone believed was her destiny - to step into the shoes of her mother - to become the next Evil Queen, while Apple White would turn from a friend into her natural nemesis.
"Why must your promises be such tantalizing secrets?" Raven whispered to the tree.
"Secrets exist to be found out" the tree whispered back, an ever so warm and welcoming voice coming from the depths of the tree's hollow hole.
"Raven, no!" Apple White suddenly yelled, running up to Raven, who was just about to step foot into the tree's hole - Apple grabbed Raven by the arm, yelling at her to get away from the tree, but the tree unexpectedly had one more card up its sleeve: Thunder sounded from the sky up above, the clouds opening their gates and rain sweeping the Enchanted Forest - the wind began to pull and drag at Raven and Apple. Through a powerful gust of wind, Apple was shoved against Raven, who pushed her hands against the bark around the hole as to not tumble into it. Her face distortet with pain as the bark digged itself into her hands, when Raven's arms caved under the pressure of both Apple's body against hers and the vigorous wind.
The last thing Raven Queen and Apple White saw before vanishing was the black inside of the gloomy, out of place tree.
As if nothing at all had happened in the last few hours, the rain became less and less before eventually fading, the clouds above the Enchanted Forest moved on in a slow, almost careless manner, and the sun started shining and smiling bright again, while the wind turned into nothing but a pleasant summer breeze.