Chapter 17: Queen
Character: Alison, Mona
Quote: Off with her head! (Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

The thing about hating someone this way is that your enemy knows you so well.

It's about baring a piece of your soul to them and having them tend to the wounds, about seeing in them a piece that matches up to you.

These are the sorts of people who you need to neutralize, and early on. Labels are easy to place and easier to make stick; the only problem is getting them the ability to scrape off the identity you gave them.

They trade one label for another, popular girl becoming dead-girl and loser-girl becoming popular, call it the cycle of life.

(it's their roles, as far as they know them: it's their definitions and their relation to the other)

They're passive enough, it begins as biting words and sly glances designed to be cryptic to everyone else.

Here's the thing, though: they are not so different. One might even call them identical, because they know the other perfectly and carefully. They watch each other and live their lives around the other, but when it comes down to it, each one knows more about the other than she'd like. Both wants to be queen, but only the one is, born to the role and taking it like it's her birthright.

They cannot rule together, either: they are both too strong, too clever and biting to complement the other.

Off with her head, each thinks in the privacy of her home. They don't do anything about it though, because that's risky and anyway, their enmity is well-known in the town.

In the end, the subject gets it into her head that she'll make an attempt at overthrowing her queen. The queen no longer deserves her loyalty; she is too cruel to her subjects, too falsely kind when it suits her. She'll do her damndest to hurl the queen from the throne, even if she loses her own head in the process.

(and anyway, the school could use some new blood.)

Her defiance goes beautifully. She becomes cleverer than ever, sneakier as well. On days like this, she comes home from a task and her eyes glitter wildly, hair tousled and it occurs to her: this is the sort of queen she'd be.

The queen is gone in a nearly-bloodless coup, swept off the throne and into an early grave (though that was never the intent) and then whisked out of town. Her royal carriage is a beat-up old car; her clothes functional and there isn't one person with her.

Back in the motel she tugs her hair out of the two ponytails. Her queen was right – they are childish, and even though she doesn't have any product with her she brushes her hair all together, sweeps it over her shoulder.

(for the first few days she checks in with the queen for clever messages or secret code. finding none, she goes to sleep happy)

Summer's a perfect time of year. She makes herself up, redoes her image until she is a queen and then goes to find her co-ruler, someone already established in the school, someone who's just a princess right now. Here is her double, the sweeter one; the one who will be queen of hearts to her queen of mischief and wickedness.

The princess is there alone, lonelier now that her friends have all drifted, and so she creates her co-ruler in the image of her first queen.

They rule together, perfectly opposing the other: tall and short, light and dark, sweet and snark. This is what she wanted when she pictured herself ruling, someone who got her, complemented her and worked with her instead of against her. They fight over shoes, not something deeper that the rest of the world can see and never understand.

Here is another secret: they aren't twins, with matching pieces of soul. They are identically ambitious, but they don't know the other's darkest places. It's true that they know each other deeply, but not in the true way of enemies gathering ammunition. While this is a friendship with a foundation of lies, it's also built on the need for a friend.

(she drifts aimlessly, none to see her perform, none to watch her or dance attendance on her)

There's a striking lack of emptiness when she's not queen anymore. Sometimes, it all feels like a game, like she was only playing at the role and not competent enough to remain in the role. Other times it feels like it's all she has left, the attitude it required to pull off daily boldness and keep it even as a dead girl.

She's been forced to step away from her throne; the house is replaced with shelters in all the different forms they take, and people seem to have the ability to look straight through her. It's not as though she looks like a beggar; she's assessed herself in front of enough windows that she knows herself to still look healthy, even as she's begun to look a bit worn out. Her attitude isn't right either, too assertive, too confident, too proud.

(one day she goes online, checks in with everyone from school; her rival and her former subject have taken the throne together)

Off with her head, she thinks idly, fingers worrying a bracelet that she refuses to take off. Of all the people in school, it had to be those two, and this is unacceptable to her. It doesn't seem that they wasted any time, going seamlessly from her disappearance to their own joint makeovers, striking while the iron was hot. The worst part is, she gets it. She was never the one to wait around for something she wanted, preferring instead to go boldly after it and then implore forgiveness later – forgiveness that she didn't even really care about getting, now she thought of it.

Off with their heads, she corrected herself.

(straightened her spine, tossed her hair over her shoulder and vowed to be back one day)

They co-rule together, and it occurs to her one day that there's something to be said for not knowing every little detail. She'd never given much thought to being a queen, living with the rule of the first one, but now that she's here and in the position she has become used to it. It's weird being able to make or break a reputation, a story or rumour, and she's always careful of the power she wields because she never quite knows when it could come back to haunt her. She saw this happen the first time, tiny cracks in a façade and a queen becoming ever more paranoid, ever more just slightly afraid because she'd created secrets for herself.

(still, she keeps her own secrets because now she's prettier than ever and some things are too ugly to tell)

Anyway. They rule, the two newest queens. Respect is given to them, because together they seem to have everything – plus, they're improved versions upon the first. They rule so well because they made themselves queen in their own right, not because they demanded it be given to them. This success, they worked for, and it's a perfect tale for all the would-be queens of next generations.

And then comes the problem: they have no successor. One dies, and the other is tarnished a dozen times over, and the first one sweeps back into town. She doesn't have a problem snatching back her crown, of creating a new court amidst accusations, because she knows how to take the long view and make sure she has someone to follow in her footsteps, someone to carry on her poison long after she's gone.

Off with their heads, she vows as she cuts down anyone who crosses her, harder and harsher and sharper than before. Her time away has done nothing but quicken her wit, force her to rely on instinct and if she has to be a little more cruel than she used to – well, that's the price a queen pays.

(here's the final secret that she doesn't tell and her successors don't know:

none of it matters after this.)