A/n: I've decided that this all takes place sometime before my other fic; The Case of the Illusive Raven.

XXX

"Do you think that they'll eventually stop knocking on our door?" Apple almost hissed vexingly at the dull thuds and the muffled shouting floating in through the closed bathroom door and from the locked front door. The princess huffed and rubbed her fingers along Raven's bare flank soothingly, the witch had startled at the noise and had seemed to try to both burry herself into Apple's chest (and not in the fun sort of way much to the princess's growing disappointment) and hide her body as far under the bath water as she could go without obstructing her mouth or nose.

"I'm more worried about them breaking in." Raven murmured in a near fearful voice, imaginings of people bursting through the doors with the intent to turn their anger out on the bad example Rebel Queen… or to gape in utter shock at her and Apple's current compromising position flashing across the witch's mind.

She could almost see the headline on Blondie's news show; DAUGHTER OF THE EVIL QUEEN DEFILES EVER AFTER'S FAIREST PRINCESS.

Raven said as much to Apple who in turn snorted in a half-embarrassed manner and pointed out to the witch that she was pretty certain that she had been the one to defile Raven in this case, punctuating the point by sliding her hand south on the Witch's body and causing Raven to squeak.

Apple rolled her eyes. "Honestly they are acting like such children!" She growled lowly. "If this keeps up I'm going to have a serious talking to with several key individuals who should have had the sense to take the initiative by now."

"I'm sure that it won't come to that." Raven assured peeking her head up slightly from the water, knowing the full extent of the scariness of Apple's little known, but legendary temper, and the thought of that being turned on to the unsuspecting people outside made the witch feel a little safer.

"This almost feels like trying to teach little kids a lesson by not giving in." Apple sighed. "I am far too young to be a mother to a bunch of teenagers." She mourned. "And it doesn't help that you keep enabling your Rebel faction by practically babying them by the way."

"I don't baby them, I just…" Raven trailed off trying to think of a word.

"Pat their heads and kiss their boo boos all better." Apple finished flatly. "Don't deny it, I saw you do just that after that manticore and rockslide incident."

"Daring was the one who wanted his scrapes kissed better." Raven defended weakly. "He had hit his head and the drugs the healers gave him made him all weepy and child-like, I couldn't just say no to the guy when he was in that state."

"And the fact that the Rebel freshmen have started to call you mom?" Apple raised a brow.

"… Uh… they were trying to be funny?" Raven winced because he had been given the chance to gently veto that nickname but didn't in the face of so many begging faces.

"You big softy." Apple chuckled fondly.

XXX

It had taken almost two and a half days for someone to come up with something that had ended up in the eviction of the uninvited crustaceans. Which had been Melody Piper and Sparrow Hood working together with the students in charge of the PA news systems to lure all the crabs into a large sealable container to store them until they could figure out what to do with them (the popular opinion at the moment, which had been suggested by Ginger, was to have one big crab cookout for the entire school but since it was still fuzzy on just where exactly the crustaceans had come from and whether or not they were considered an endangered species from said place they were from).

"It was about time that you guys figured something out." Apple eyed the people sitting at the table in disappointment making several individuals look down shamefaced into their food because when Apple was disappointed in someone it almost felt as if rainbows and little puppies were disappointed in them too (Raven was obviously one of the few people that was immune to this shaming tactic thus leaving Apple no choice but to find other tactics when verbally sparring with the witch). "Raven and I were running out of the weekly stash of food we keep in the dorm for our between-class-snacks to eat as meals. And we weren't sure just when the Headmaster would lift his emergency no-school-because-of-unforeseeable-circumstance days, forcing us to wander out in order to get to class."

"If you were so inconvenienced then why didn't you two come out to help take care of this huh?" Duchess demanded, venom dripping in her tone. "We could have used the help you know, it took forever to find Sparrow to help Melody Piper record that tune that got rid of the things! What were you doing in there all this time anyway? "

Raven blushed bright red and nearly choked on her drink. "Find Sparrow?" She coughed out to distract everyone from her reaction.

"He took to the trees the first while." Humphrey explained. "Then he discovered that the crabs could climb trees so he hid in several other places to get away from them, since there were only a few hundred that had been brought here to the campus he was able to be free of them the deeper he ventured into the forest. His cousin Cerise eventually found him hiding out at her mother's place."

"That was clever of him." Apple mumbled in approval (still blushing from the first question), much to the surprise of the table.

"What?" Briar asked bewildered.

The blonde princess sighed. "To answer the previously asked question I have to first ask how long it took you guys to come up with a solution to this?"

The table shifted in confusion.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Duchess snapped irritably.

"Everything." The princess snapped back just as irritably, surprising the dancer into stunned silence with the uncharacteristic coldness and force of it.

"Er…" Dexter shifted meekly from his seat at the farthest corner away from Raven.

The witch had terminated their brief relationship at what was supposed to have been their fourth date, citing that it was for the best after she had begun to complain about the lack of privacy their fledgling relationship had with the school's populace; chiefly she was highly disturbed by the fact that people were beginning to drop hints about forever after's and children after a few measly exploratory dates and was just on the edge from thinking that the whole thing that they had was just not worth it and Dexter had misinterpreted her body language for insecurity that she didn't think that she'd be pretty enough, or something of that sort, to be dating a Charming (which had been his experience with his brother's old girlfriends being hesitant about starting a relationship with Daring), and sought to assure her that he thought that she'd look fantastic in white and more than one child would assuage any wagging tongues about conflicting duel destinies.

Dexter had (obviously) interpreted the witch's body language very, very wrongly which had resulted in an immediate quietly hushed (and nearly hysterically terrified) break up speech from the witch and Raven practically flying out of the restaurant and high speeds, the whole thing had been so out of the blue (for Dexter) and had happened so quickly that the boy's brain didn't register that he should retract his statements or to chase after the departed girl until it was too late and Raven was far, far away.

Dexter never got up the nerve to try to smooth things over with the witch (because, yeah, he understood that this had been his fault. Treating the Raven Queen just like she was like some sort of perfectly scripted maiden instead of the independent beautiful individual she actually was) it didn't help that Raven seemed very keen on putting it all behind her as if it were a scrapped bad idea that should be forgotten (and throwing away the last chances Dexter had to regain his dream romance with his dream girl).

Though she had attempted to assure Dexter (from a distance because Dexter couldn't bear to have the girl get too close these days for fear that he'd spontaneously burst into tears in her presence) that she still cared for him in a caring-friendship capacity and if he ever wanted to try being friends again in the future he'd always be welcome and she still cared for him an a platonic bromance sort of way.

Dexter hadn't wanted to talk things out and reestablish their platonic friendship (if it could be called a platonic friendship since he'd had a majorly serious crush that had turned into love for the girl for so long he didn't even think that there ever was a platonic bromance on his end) yet, he was still too busy mourning over his lost pride and what was supposed to be his one chance at a perfectly epic romance with the girl of his dreams.

Said girl of his dreams who was currently quietly encouraging Cupid (his platonic bromance gal who apparently had a major crush on him! Or at least that had been the situation that he'd accidentally overheard between the two girls one day at lunch) to see if she could make things work with Dexter after he was over Raven…

He didn't know what hurt worse; that he lost his chance with the perfect girl, the fact that she was being a complete sweetheart and respecting his obviously hurt feelings with the same loving care that one would apply to an open, seeping, and burnt dragon bite, or that his best friend had a crush on him and the girl of his dreams was encouraging Cupid, a girl he had bromance feelings for, to be… he didn't want to say replacement because Raven would never intentionally do that to him but…

"You've got something to say Dexter?" Raven prompted gently and with extreme care, as if she were afraid to frighten the boy.

Dexter winced. "W-well it took us a half an hour actually… not counting the time it took us having to find Sparrow…"

"After we realized that you and Raven had abandoned us." Duchess sneered.

"And how long did it take to round up all of the crabs?" Apple pressed on, ignoring Duchess completely, causing the dancer to twitch irritably at the act.

"Over the course of the morning…" Dexter trailed off.

"So my question is; if the answer to this problem was so obvious why did you all waste time waiting for me and Raven to show up and solve it for you?" Apple asked with a raised brow, her tone was light and innocent however her gaze was highly unimpressed (the resulting effect was pretty creepy). "Last I checked this was a school filled with brilliant future rulers, so why I ask, is it our fault for this thing not being taken care of quicker in the opinions of certain persons- including a certain swan who had summoned the ghastly things in the first place- if there were so many people who were even more qualified than we to take care of the situation from the very start? Last I checked we are neither the headmistresses nor the supreme overlords of this school; it is simply not our jobs to have to be constantly dragged to and fro to solve other people's problems without even a prayer of a thank you. Simply put we were not qualified to have to deal with this pest situation and so we did not do anything."

The table was quiet for a moment, everyone sitting in stunned silence.

"It's not that we don't care." Raven was quick to add. "It's just that aside from situations where we have little other choice or are the best candidates to deal with the problem… we really think that grabbing one of us to deal with every crazy thing that pops up is… well it's gotten to be a bit too much to ask of us… to the point where I was struggling to keep up with my schoolwork at one time actually…" That is until Apple had taken it upon herself to help out the witch, going as far as encourage Raven to study harder for a period of time in order to test out of many of the witch's mandatory Evil classes and thus lightening her workload.

"And for the past few months I've barely heard a single thank you from most of you." Apple added in sharp reprimand, getting a little bit worked up. "Which is very rude considering we are taking time out of our lives to do nice things for you guys."

"I guess that I can see your point." Briar shrugged easily, many heads from the table nodding in agreement.

"But Apple's the future Snow White and Raven's the Rebel Queen." Daring pointed out as if that was a decent excuse as to why the two girls were constantly being called into action. He seemed to be confused as to why the two were complaining about what had essentially became, as far as the student body was concerned and therefore practically law in his mind as long as it stayed popular, their official duties to the school.

"And if memory serves me true many others hold royal titles and therefore have equal capabilities to right wrongs, you for instance are supposed to become the next Prince Charming and after that a king, not to the kingdom of Ever After as recent events have shown, but a king to somewhere and therefore you, like many other future leaders, have the responsibility to be competent and work towards a solution during a crisis… unless my impression of how a Prince Charming is supposed to act is flawed of course…" Apple gave the prince a chilly smile as she spoke, batting her lashes innocently when the boy looked as though he had just been slapped.

"Hopper came up with the solution this time around!" Dexter reported cheerfully.

"Really?" Raven perked up. "Excellent work Hopper! I'm super impressed, you did a fantastic job with this!" The witch addressed the boy in question.

"O-oh it really wasn't anything special, just had to use a bit of common sense was all." Hopper blushed looking bashful.

"Well a little common sense can travel a long way. I'm super proud of you!" The witch praised.

The rest of the table erupted in rounds of praise for Hopper and his good work after the witch had spoken (excluding Daring who was pouting something awful for not only being scolded so soundly but also being deliberately left out of the spotlight).

"I guess many of us have been rather lazy as of late." Lizzie admitted once things had died down. "It's not exactly fair of us to simply expect for others to constantly take care of things for us."

Both Apple and Raven appeared to relax by fractions when the others (save for Daring) seem to sheepishly agree, it's not much but it is a start at the very least.

"Hopefully we'll get a little bit more privacy after this." Apple whispers to Raven after lunch is over and the two are walking hand in hand down the hallway.

The witch blushes from head to toe but can't exactly say that she isn't looking forward to see if such a luxury might happen if things pan out just right…