𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧
"ɢᴏɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ"

𝗔𝗡𝗘𝗜𝗥𝗔 𝗞𝗘𝗣𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙 𝗙𝗢𝗥 the rest of the school day after witnessing Gregor's second death. She barely even ate her lunch or dinner by the time those two meal times rolled around. All she wanted to do was escape from the School for Good.

She didn't have much of a plan as to how she would escape, just that she'd leave by nightfall and be gone by morning.

There were no portals to Gavaldon, nor to the Enchanted Forest. No Aggie, no mama, no father to run to when she was sad or upset. No older sibling or grandmother to comfort her.

She was all alone in this strange, mysterious world. When Dovey ordered the students to go to their dorms, since it was now curfew, Aneira actually started to formulate a plan.

First, pack up just a few items to take with her. If she needed food, she'd procure some with her magic. Second, she'd head out through the Blue Forest.

She hasn't seen much of the actual forest but there has to be a way to escape through it. And third, 𝙙𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩.

The Ever girls she shared a dorm with were already deep into their sleeps when Aneira put her plan into action.

She changed out of her nightgown and wore trousers and a shirt. She scavenged through the storage trunk in front of her bed in search of her father's black trench-coat.

Dovey promised her that it would be safe when they picked out her outfit for orientation.

"Yes!" She whisper-yelled to herself when she finally found it. Yes, a moment of triumph for her. After throwing it on, Aneira quickly packed up some of her things, and headed straight out of her dorm.

But now she had to get past some of the teachers and guards. Nothing a little commotion down the hall could fix.

"Rascal students! Get to your dorms, now!" One of the teachers shouted. Aneira chuckled, double checking if the coast was clear to safely pass through.

༇

Getting past the rest of the school guards did not come without a little struggle, but Aneira managed to get through it. She now found herself standing in front of the gates of the Blue Forest. Professor Yuba was thankfully away from its entrance.

"How did he get this thing open?" Aneira asked herself. Maybe the doors locked after a certain time? "Open!" Aneira shouted. The doors didn't open at the sound of her voice.

She tried again, but it didn't work. She decided to take an alternative route, a route she didn't want to use too frequently during her escape.

The doors flew open and closed when Aneira entered through them with a wave of her hand.

"Okay, it's the pansies first...," Aneira muttered to herself as she passed the field of the pink pansies. Some tried to bite at her, but with one flick of her hand, they were frozen over. Others she passed didn't even bother to bite her.

Aneira heard the faint sound of the curfew bells going off in the distance. She didn't have a watch, but she could tell the time should be around 9:30 pm. She was lucky to have no one looking for her yet.

But she soon felt tired and decided upon resting near a tree before continuing with her journey in the morning. She made herself a makeshift bed out of sticks and leaves, then lay down to rest.

༇

The sun was the first thing Aneira saw when she opened her eyes into the new days. It was right at the crack of dawn. Aneira gathers her items together, formulating a plan about what's to happen next after she somehow escapes the place.

Passing through trees and bushes, Aneira stumbles upon a horse eating grass. The horse was white with gray spots all over its body.

She held out a hand and slowly approached the animal.

"Hey," Aneira says, trying to be calm. But the last time she attempted to speak to an animal, Tedros killed it. He thankfully wasn't here, so she might be successful.

"Hey. I come in peace," She tells the animal, "I'm not here to hurt you, I promise."

She was getting closer and closer by the second. The horse stood tall. Aneira pulls out an apple from her bag and offers it to the horse. It sniffed the fruit suspiciously before gladfully taking it.

"Take me away from here. Wherever it is," Aneira stroked the horse's mane and mounted it with ease. Riding a horse bareback was a skill she learned from her mother at an early age.

The horse whisked her away at a fast speed. But as the horse ran deeper into the forest, Aneira felt the environment becoming more familiar. "Where are you taking me?" She asked.

The horse stopped in the clearing Gregor was last alive in. His ice statue still stood in that very same spot.

"Gregor..," Aneira sighed. The horse started to shake Aneira off of it. "Okay, okay! I got the memo, buddy. What do you want me to do?"

The horse neighed at her.

"Destroy it? No! That's my friend!"

It neighed again.

"At least let me grow a few flowers," Aneira says. The horse nodded its head and watched Aneira hold out her hand. "Why am I taking orders from a horse? I have no idea," Aneira scoffed.

Streams of blue fizzled out of her hands towards Gregor's ice statue. The ice slowly started to melt and red flowers, to match Gregor's hair, took its place.

"There. Happy?"

But before she could hear an answer from the animal, the sound of a horn fanfare filled her ears. It was followed along by shouts of the Ever boys.

"I think I see her over there!" One of them shouted, which sounded familiar to Aneira. She brushed it off and turned to the horse.

"We should go. Before they see us," Aneira says to the horse as she rides on it again. She just hoped and prayed that she'd escape before potentially getting caught by the Ever boys.

Aneira rode through many bushes to get at least a little far from the boys. But when she heard another set of horse hooves behind her, she knew she'd been caught. "Aneira, wait!" Tedros shouted.

"Just leave me be," She replied. She tried to ride forward, but the horse refused, and then shook Aneira off.

"Seriously, you have to stop doing that! Geez!" She scoffed.

"Do you even know how to ride a horse?" Tedros asked.

"Of course I know. My mother taught me when I was little. It's just 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦," She gave an evil look at the horse and rolled her eyes. She sighs, continuing, "𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 is being difficult. He doesn't like me."

"Or perhaps he does and he's being cheeky," Tedros jokes. Aneira scoffs and starts to walk away from Tedros. The horse she rode didn't follow after her. Tedros dismounted his horse and followed after her.

"Aneira, wait!" He called out.

"You don't need to follow me," Aneira replied. But Tedros continued to follow her.

"Do you want another black eye? Because you're really asking for one now," She questioned, turning to him. His left eye was a mix of red and purple, clearly badly bruised. The Ever boy's shouts were faint but seemed to be getting closer.

"I just want to make sure you're okay. Espe—."

"Especially after you killed my friend? Yeah, I'm not doing okay, Tedros."

Aneira shoves past Tedros.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to the school. That is why you came to the forest, is it not?"

༇

Aneira was sure to receive a scolding from Dovey when she returned to the school with Tedros trailing behind her. He wanted to make sure that Aneira wouldn't escape when he wasn't looking.

Tedros didn't know her that well, he never really interacted with her, but Aneira seemed like the type of princess to run away just like Cinderella ran from her prince at the ball.

He followed her all the way to the doors of her dormitory.

"You can't get in here," She says.

"I do not intend on it," Tedros replied.

"Great, now you can leave," Aneira informed, pointing down the hall. But Tedros didn't budge. He had a full intent of waiting outside of her door until she was finished. Dovey told him to do so.

Seeing that Tedros just positioned himself to stand across from the hall, Aneira slams her room door shut and uses her magic to ice the handles over.

༇

Aneira and Tedros both went into the dining hall through separate entrances. Aneira wanted to find Sophie, while Tedros went to mingle with the other Ever boys.

In the crowd, Aneira spots Sophie with an annoyed look on her face. The girls met in the middle of the room.

"We have to talk," Both girls at the same time.

"Did you give Tedros my letter?" Sophie asks Aneira. Aneira rolls her eyes and scoffs. The last person she wanted to think about was him of all people.

"Yes, but something very bad is going on here," Aneira replied.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sophie says, "I just got visited by a swarm of bees that is apparently the most Evil man in the world. Some guy named Rafal."

A swarm of bees... Aneira connected the dots quickly. Rafal must've been the same man Aneira saw in the library in the tower of blood. "That's the guy I saw. No, no, Sophie. We have to get out now, kiss or no kiss," Aneira panicked.

"No, wait. What did Tedros say?" Sophie asked.

"He said your friend had one hell of a right hook."

Aneira scoffed at the sound of his voice. Sophie's neutral face turned into a smiley one when she turned to Tedros. She froze at the sight of Tedros's injury.

"Oh no. What happened to your eye?" She asks him.

"Uh, ask your friend," Tedros replied. Sophie turned back to Aneira with a disappointing look.

"You hit him? Annie, why?" Sophie scolds.

"I just had the nerve to save her life, you know."

"You want it to heal?" Aneira angrily waves her hand and Tedros's eye instantly cleared from the bruises. Aneira folds her arms, "Just meet me outside when you're finished doing whatever you have to do."

༇

While waiting for Sophie to meet her outside, Aneira felt that something was wrong. No, not felt, she knew something was wrong.

As soon as she sat down on one of the benches out in the courtyard, she saw flashes of Sophie and Tedros. Now she wasn't sure if it was real, because her visions aren't always accurate, but she saw Sophie talking to Tedros.

And then she was dragged away by one of the wolf guards, screaming. Her blood boiled, and so she made it her mission to go confront Tedros.

She spots him leaving the dining hall when she re-entered the school.

"Hey, dumbass. Stop!" Aneira called out, using her magic to immobilize Tedros. She released her hold on him and he turned to her.

"What did I do now, Annie?" He asks.

"You stood there while one of the giant dogs dragged Sophie away screaming. Why didn't you help her?"

"Hey, I rescue princesses and defeat Evil. I don't save it. Okay?"

"You know who's Evil?" Everyone has had a touch of darkness back where she was from. No one was truly "good" or "evil". Clearly, Tedros was one of them.

"Yes. Because it's literally on the name of her school. Because I'm Good," Tedros says. Aneira didn't believe him one bit. "That's what I'm supposed to do. That's what I have to do, okay? Start getting the concept of this place, Aneira," He continued.

"No, I get it fine. And it's ridiculous. You know that "Evil" stymph you killed?" Aneira questions, Tedros nods. He looked more annoyed, but was willing to listen to her.

"Yeah, that was Gregor. My friend. You clearly saw— and I know you did— that he wasn't trying to hurt me," Aneira continued.

"No, it wasn't. I would have known that," Tedros replied.

"Mm, but you didn't."

"Are you sure?"

"Ask Dovey. And then come back and tell me how you know Evil when you see it," Aneira turned to head off. She had to think for a moment. What would've her grandmother have done? Her father? Her mother?

So she turned back to him, making sure to confront him face to face.

"You know what? Try thinking for yourself for a change, and you might see past the black and white this school wants you to see," She says. She looked him straight in the eyes.

"You might be surprised by what you figure out. I believe in you, Tedros. Don't make me regret it.. again," She sighed.

With every step Aneira took away from Tedros came a stream of magic and then a familiar flower. One of his favorites ever since he met her.

"Snowbells," He smiled. Tedros waited until Aneira was gone to pick them up one by one.

༇

Intermission time came straight after lunch. Students were free to wander around the school (as long as they didn't leave it) and mingle with their classmates. Aneira went straight to her room and produced parchment and an ink pen out of thin air.

If the mirror didn't work to communicate with her parents, maybe throwing a letter through a mirror would work.

She'd seen her parents do it a few times and it usually worked. She just hoped and prayed to the gods that it works for her.

"I'll have to get a fitting in before the ball—."

Aneira wrote as quickly and neatly as she could because she didn't want to be seen. She signed her name off, magically stamped her family's crest, then walked over to a mirror.

"Please work," She shuts her eyes and mutters a quick spell before throwing the paper into the mirror. Kiko and another girl walked in just as she turned away from it.

"What were you doing?" Kiko asked. She moved back in with Aneira just two days after rooming with Beatrix.

She explained to Aneira that night that Beatrix was being overbearing and wanted to room with Aneira instead. Her mother and father taught Aneira to always "𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥", so she welcomed back Kiko with open arms.

"Nothing. Just... checking myself in the mirror," Aneira replied, faking a smile. Kiko nodded awkwardly before turning out of the dorm. Aneira sighed in relief, turning back to the mirror.

Her eyes go wide.

The mirror glowed bright blue and shimmered with sparkles. This was a sign.. a sign that the spell was working. And then it turned back to normal.

She kept her fingers crossed and prayed that the spell really worked. It 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 to work.

༇

𝗮/𝗻:
let's hope the message works..
or else..