VELVETEEN vs. True Love’s Kiss #3
It wasn’t the Castle they were looking for, but it was a place to start.
Velveteen nodded to Polychrome, who took Victory Anna’s hand, and together the trio started for the castle, clear landmark that it was.
People turned to stare as they passed, but they were moving with sufficient purpose that no one tried to stop them.
That was a pleasant change. The sounds of the living park engulfed them, joyful screams and droning machinery, and music coming from every direction in a discordant serenade.
And on they walked, into the middle of their ongoing storybook.
* * *
The castle didn’t contain an entrance to the Castle, but did contain a variety of restaurants and gift shops that enchanted Victory Anna, slowing Polychrome down as she tried to avoid losing track of her girlfriend.
Victory Anna was prone to producing a full toolkit from nowhere and starting to rebuild machinery when overly excited, and the Princess wouldn’t like that.
Reminding Victory Anna that they were guests in what was technically the Princess’s home calmed her somewhat, as she held the rules of hospitality very close to her heart, but “somewhat” was a sliding scale, and it wasn’t long before Polychrome turned to Velveteen and said, half-desperately, “I’m going to take her to ride the carousel. You go ahead and keep looking.”
“I will,” said Velveteen. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” said Polychrome, before allowing Victory Anna to pull her away, heading for the tinny sound of the carousel. Velveteen sighed, smiling fondly, and turned to continue her search.
The themed areas of the park had some overlap.
The large hedge maze bridging two of the zones was an example.
There were direct paths cut through it for parents with strollers and people in a hurry to get somewhere, but the majority of daytrippers chose to experience the maze as intended, losing themselves in the twists and turns of the lush, cool greenery.
Velveteen turned down one of those winding halls through the green and kept walking.
After a certain distance, the sound of people behind her faded away, replaced by the rustle of branches and the whistle of the wind. She kept walking. The wind blew harder, ruffling the leaves around her, and she smiled, still pressing onward.
She turned a corner in the maze, and there, out of nowhere, was a door. It was tall and imposing, gold leaf over red cherrywood, with the emblem of a crown carved at dead center. Velveteen stepped forward and knocked.
Several minutes passed. Then the door swung inward, revealing a very large raccoon in a smart footman’s uniform, an African gray parrot resting on its shoulder. The raccoon looked inquisitively at Velveteen.
“I’ve come to see Carrabelle,” she said.
“The Princess is indisposed and not presently receiving guests,” said the parrot, while the raccoon spread its hands in a hopeless gesture.
“I’m not a guest,” said Velveteen. “I’m family.”
The raccoon and parrot exchanged a look before the parrot focused on Velveteen. “She isn’t feeling well,” it said, insistently. “It’s our job to preserve her peace. I’m sure you can understand why we need you to come back later.”
“Isn’t it part of her job to facilitate true love?” asked Velveteen. “I’m not here because I need her to entertain me. I’m here to see my boyfriend.”
The raccoon and the parrot exchanged another complicated look, one containing more nuance than they should have been able to convey.
The raccoon took a step back, still holding the door, and the parrot bowed on its shoulder.
“Enter, and be welcome in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle,” it said.
“Our mistress is indisposed, but we trust you know the way.”
“I do,” said Velveteen, and stepped inside.
The door swung shut behind her, and was no longer there.
It had never been there. What would be the purpose of a door in a hedge maze?
The sound of the park returned, and soon, a few guests came wandering down the path, unaware of what they had barely missed witnessing.
The day marched on.
* * *
Velveteen found herself in a high-ceilinged hall, the roof a tapestry of stained-glass scenes, each one outlined by red roses and pink feathers.
She’d been here before. That wasn’t always a guarantee when visiting the Princess; her castle was made up of the dreams and ideas of all the children young enough to still believe in fairy tales, and while the name had remained constant since the company she worked for began selling playsets, the interior could, and did, transform itself overnight.
But Velveteen had been here before. She knew the way.
“Thank you,” she said softly, speaking to the magic that controlled the castle as much as to anything else, and kept walking, passing closed doors and open halls until she came to the glass solarium door.
She paused then, allowing herself one last moment of uncertainty.
Beyond this point, she needed to be more sure than she had ever been of anything in her life.
She had always been more inclined to behave like the rabbit they’d themed her after than anything else.
She kept her head down and her options open, only committing when she absolutely had to.
She was committing now. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and it didn’t fade as she opened the door and stepped into the vaulted cathedral-style room.
It echoed the patterns of religious places while being clearly non-religious: there were no obvious symbols of any god she knew.
She thought she remembered horses being featured in the décor, but since Victory Anna had become a part of their group, the horses had disappeared.
This wasn’t a space pledged to Epona. This was a neutral place of contemplation and grief.
At the center of the room was a coffin made of glass, pristine and perfect and gleaming like a carved crystal in a show room. Velveteen walked toward it, swallowing hard to keep herself from hesitating.
And there, plainly visible through the clear sides of the coffin, was Tag.
Tad, really, since he was in street clothes, face as visible as the rest of him.
He hadn’t changed a bit since he’d been sealed away.
He was still holding the apple that had killed him for the second time in one hand, the fruit as perfect as it had been when he took the fatal bite.
Velveteen let herself be distracted by how white the apple’s flesh was, how flawless.
If the Princess could market a food storage line based on the coffin’s magic, she’d be richer than the entertainment conglomerate she worked for.
With an effort that seemed to go all the way down to her toes, she turned her eyes away from the apple to his face. His eyes were closed, dark lashes resting against his cheeks, and while she knew he was dead, he looked more alive than she felt.
“Hi, Tad,” she said, resting a hand momentarily atop the coffin before sinking to the floor and leaning up against it, hugging her knees to her chest. “I know you’ve been waiting for me.
True love’s kiss and all of that. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.
I’ve just been trying to deal with my feelings for—well, pretty much everything.
My head’s a mess. I’d say I need therapy, but any therapist worth their degree would tell me I had so many issues that I shouldn’t be patrolling, and I can’t give that up.
Not after I fought so hard to get it back. ”
She laughed, high and a little shrill, then leaned her head back against the coffin, closing her eyes.
“It’s funny. I think that’s the word I want, anyway.
It’s funny, because I went so long fighting against the idea that I was ever going to be a superhero again, and now I feel like I’m not good for being anything else.
This is what I know. This is the community I belong to, and this is who I want to be.
I’m always Vel, whether I’m Velveteen or Velma, and it feels like accepting that is better than all the therapy I could ask for. ”
She sighed. “I miss you, Tad. I miss your laugh. I miss the way you move. I miss a lot of things, but I worry I’m too selfish in my missing you to love you the way you deserve, because what if I just miss having another animus in the world?
I’m all alone now that Supermodel’s gone.
I don’t like being alone. Rabbits live in colonies, and superheroes live in teams, and you’re supposed to be here.
But I only get one shot at this. What if I get it wrong? ”
There wasn’t a sound to tell her that she wasn’t alone any longer, just a faint, almost indefinable shift in the texture of the air. Vel didn’t open her eyes.
“Hey, Princess,” she said. “I thought you weren’t entertaining visitors today.”
“I’m not,” drawled the Princess. “I’m in a pretty foul mood, for some pretty good reasons. But it seemed like you might be going for it, and I wanted to be here to see it when you did. Jackie’d kill me if I missed it.”
That didn’t sound right. Jack had never gone by “Jackie,” and she’d never been particularly close to Tad, having never done a winter special with him or anything.
Still, something about it was so painfully correct that Vel couldn’t help but nod.
“She’s probably missed him almost as much as I have.
Does true love’s kiss have to be romantic? ”
“Never has before,” said the Princess. “But I don’t think she could ever have been the one to wake him. Not now, anyway, and please don’t ask what I mean by that, because I don’t know. Everything is sort of tangled up right now, where she’s concerned.”