The two had created a sort of code to covertly express their feelings in public without anyone being the wiser.

A press of their palms was the equivalent to a kiss on the cheek; slowly entwining their fingers while their palms were fused together was a light kiss to the mouth, touching two fingers together meant "I love you", while fingers caressing the underside of a palm and wrist, innocently lightly rubbing the outside of a knee to the other's, and subtly caressing the shell of an ear under the pretenses of moving a stray hair behind the other's ear all meant something more flirtatious and intimate.

"Oi! Are you two even listening?" Briar demanded snapping her fingers irritably.

The witch and princess sitting across from her jumped back into reality, Raven blushing deep red as she slid her exposed wrist away from a pouting Apple's grasp.

"Sorry, what was that?" Raven asked apologetically.

Briar heaved a patient sigh, making a note to ask later as to what had been getting into those two lately with the weird hand touching and the intense looks that were passing between the two. "I was talking about Daring's outburst the other day, you know where he kept muttering to himself; "Two whole months, two whole months, ye mighty hairbrush up in heaven it's been two whole months I have lost my mind!" and running out of class in tears."

"I honestly haven't a clue as to what goes through that boy's mind." Raven denied with an exasperated sigh.

"May be he's got a freckle or a dark spot that he hasn't managed to bleach from his skin." Apple proposed darkly sounding more than a tad resentful.

"Well maybe it's important, he's been in a state for months now, and that is just not like him. I know that he's not your prince anymore but you do know him better than most, his brother and sister are very worried-" Briar tried.

"He's a big boy, it's about time he learned how to deal with real issues on his own instead of seeing the world through his own reflection, if I have to hold his hand then he'll have learned nothing." Apple snapped almost hatefully much to Briar's blinking surprise.

Apple didn't know why she felt this angry at Daring since he did promise not to go after Raven in a romantic way anymore and she had made mostly successful short work of the rest of the eligible youth of the Charming clan by making it abundantly clear to then that issuing the title of "the illusive fair maiden" on the witch was a particularly bad move, seeing as how Raven was the Rebel Queen and would not and was definitely not interested and if they pushed the matter it would be more harassment than charm, if they properly caught her drift, which they did, with intimidated wide eyes and confused unspoken questions written all over their guilty little faces.

Charming's were notoriously stubborn however and in absence of a proper explanation every so often a stupidly brave one would pop up to try to do something obviously charming like give Raven a flower (they kept forgetting that cut flowers tended to wilt in the face of all the dormant magical power that Raven extruded on a daily basis, a not too uncommon side effect of having so much magic jam packed into one's genetics), or smile at her (something that never worked either because Raven didn't faint when a blinding smile came her way, she tended to yelp in pain from the flash and became too busy trying to blink back her vision while attempting to not run into anything to really care about who had smiled at her, mostly she said stuff like; "Hexit Daring! What have I told you about doing that? I get that you've been upset lately but I'm getting migraines because of you!" and thoroughly embarrassed over producing a subpar blinding smile the Charming in question would skitter away and happily let Daring take the blame) while saying something patently charmingly witty (to which Raven would blink blankly at them and being the sensible witch she was with tastes that were just as sensibly modern would kindly ask them, as if talking to a small child, if they had hit their heads on something recently and that maybe if they continue to speak with all these thou's and tis's along with some very odd language regarding visions of heavenly halos and all that perhaps they should go see the healers).

Raven was in actuality being purposefully oblivious to being labeled "the illusive fair maiden" by the resident youth of the Charming clan, firstly it actually disturbed her more than being known as "the daughter of the Evil Queen" and frankly she didn't particularly like the style of wooing that the Charming's were trying to use on her anyway, made her feel downright cheap actually getting recycled lines from old books, nothing new or original, and receiving colorful cut flowers that she could never fully enjoy and that were usually too poisonous for her to do anything with in her usual side witchy practices or cooking (at least with regular roses she could make a decent tea and dry the stems to trade to Cupid who liked to us them to make love charms, but apparently regular roses were considered "not Goth enough" and she always got the scentless black ones that didn't make very good tea) along with a box of store-bought sweets that were so sweet and so surgery that it gave her stomach reason to yell at her through the ach (not even Ginger approved of those kind of sweets, the other witch condemning them with as much conviction as her pleasant personality would allow as a mockery to real sweet-making talent, after all sweets were supposed to be a guilty pleasure that you did not end up regretting and if they gave Raven stomach aches and caused Apple White, who normally loved sweets, to spit the morsels out in favor of finding a drink of her apple cider in order to get the taste out then there was definitely some crucial corners that had been cut with the expensive things) so she would thoroughly remove any and all notes left to her and quietly hide the toxic treats someplace where the Headmaster, completely unaware of where the candy came from but not one to question good fortune, would stumble across them and devour contents of the sweet boxes before Giles could swoop in and reminded his brother about his diet and stealing what was not his to eat.

Apple would have joked about Raven unintentionally slowly poisoning the Headmaster with things that were bad for his health and weight but she kept her mouth shut because she did not want to risk Raven feeling guilty and stopping such a convenient way of getting rid of the unwanted tokens of false affection from rival suitors.

Secondly Raven knew that being targeted in this way was making Apple anxious, and the princess was feeling more than a little sour over the whole affair.

It would have been better if Apple felt jealousy over Raven getting all of this attention from suitors instead of her, that was something that Raven knew how to deal with by merely running to Apple and showing the princess just how uncomfortable this was all making the witch, Apple could have then shifted her attentions on doting upon Raven and heartfelt talks about perhaps this being for the best since fair maidens and future fair queens had more important things to worry about than mere jealousy over someone else getting more amorous attentions than herself, or if this was all some temporary deal that merely lasted a few days until the fad of courting the Rebel Queen wore off instead of the Charming youth getting it into their heads that this was a challenge and therefore something that one of them, surely any of them, could possibly hope to beat even if it meant marrying Raven and braving Apple's bad temper, they were now determined to see this through to the bitter end, or it would have been even better if all this attention was directed at Apple, that was something normal and both witch and princess secretly thought to themselves that it would have been preferable if all this attention was directed at Apple since she was considered the fairest in the school and it was so expected to the point where it was practically obligatory to say something of chivalry in her presence before moving on!

But as it was Raven had gone from merely a curious glitch in Daring's perfect record (everybody didn't consider his attempt at Lizzie to count since they all knew what she was destined for and it would not have turned out well for either of their reputations of futures if they had tried as far as everybody who was of the Royal faction was concerned), to an oddity that should be cautiously attempted since by then it had gotten out that when Dexter tried to do the proper Charming thing and discuss how their happily forever after was going to turn out and somehow that had caused the daughter of the dreaded Evil Queen to decide to dump him and run out like the mere mention of having a better life (in the entire family's opinion save for Darling who actually knew a thing or two about non-fairytale relationships and Dexter who had gotten a stern and long talking to from both Darling and Cupid which in his own best interests and future health he decided to take seriously and listen to what they told him about the foreign concepts of "non-fairytale" romantic practices) that only marrying and producing children with a Charming could bring frightened her.

But now, now it was getting more than a little out of hand, sure Apple had been able to scare off most of those who went for direct proposals and the entire youth of the Charming clan from both genders, since somebody (Kitty) leaked that the witch was attracted to both sexes, was growing a healthy respect for her wrath but Raven was still getting the flowers and sweets accompanied by the elegantly worded (and more often than not, copied from some old family tome) love letter from a secret admirer or a request for Raven to meet the suitor somewhere private. Someone (Blondie who had talked to Tiny who had then gossiped to everyone else like he tended to do, bless his sweet heart) had mentioned the ongoing theory that Raven being raised by the horrible Evil Queen had in fact turned her into a pitiful little abused thing under all the bravado and rebellious charisma, who was so badly treated as a child that physical contact with others frightened her and that she was starved of any true kindness and that was why she was the way she was today, fighting against tradition just in the mere hope of defending herself against the cruelty of her mother.

This misunderstanding made Raven irresistible apparently, because while being the Rebel Queen was a challenge for the Charming's, however the false idea that Raven had a side of her that she hid from the public, a side that seemed to be in need of saving… that, that was what had done it. The Royals in the Charming youth ranks thought to themselves that perhaps they could save Raven from herself, the more dedicated ones being thoroughly convinced that if they were to woo her properly that she could be swayed back into tradition and while running the risk of becoming the next "Good King (or Queen but that was the handful few more eccentric Charming princesses who considered it, quite thrilling to be the willing bewitched captive who had also managed to tame the rebellious witch)" was indeed rather high in their minds, they figured that it would be worth it if they could succeed and… well Raven did have inheritance to a more than handsome sum of land, wealth, and power… even if it half of it was all witchy and the other half was from the man who was crazy enough to still love the Evil Queen, despite it all.

The Rebels of the Charming youth were far more realistic and less insulting as far as Raven was concerned, though it did not spare her from that particular group's amorous advances, to them she was a thrilling mystery as well as someone that they looked up to on a regular basis, and while admittedly Raven's inheritance did play into it somewhat, mostly the Charming Rebels saw her as almost an… escape. A good majority of the Charming Rebels were those that didn't quite fit the mold; Charming princesses who didn't want to be damsels, Charming princes who either wanted to wear dresses and be damsels (Raven had always been secretly known to be especially kind and supportive of that group) or preferred their own gender and were petrified of the rest of their family and friends finding out but knew that Raven could protect them if they managed to convince her (or any rebelling villain really) to… be their cover story.

And yes, there were those who genuinely had a secret forbidden crush on Raven (this group consisted of mostly the females though there were more than a dozen boys interspersed within) because she was cool, and mysterious, and braver than anybody else that they knew, and really quite attractive in both personality as well as looks once you took the time to take a closer look, they figured that while Dexter had managed to muck it up somehow that they could at least give it a good try and… who knows maybe it could work out and maybe they could find a happily ever after with Raven after all.

But mostly the general agreement was that Raven did need saving and there were so many eligible Charming's wanting to be the "special one" to do that, because Raven was such a special enigma. It was such a strange notion that it made the witch's head spin.

For all of her faults, and there were many, The Evil Queen was actually quite affectionate and loving beyond measure towards Raven as the young witch was a child and loved Raven's father with a passion despite him being such a goodie-goodie, if it weren't for her tendency of taking the job of being evil too far, and of course her insanity, Raven knew in her hearts of hearts that she could have had a happier life overall and the three of them (or possibly more if her parents had produced more children) could have been a very happy, if more than a little odd, family.

Even now with her rebellion and her determination not to follow in the Evil Queen's footsteps, Raven's mother still loved her and was fiercely proud of her rebellious daughter despite herself and her own evil dreams for her daughter's future.

So in the midst of it all Raven was left feeling hunted in a completely uncomfortable and embarrassing way that she had never, not even when they all hated her for merely being alive, ever had felt before.

…And Apple who was suddenly acutely aware of her own Charming heritage as well as how uncomfortable her girlfriend, her mate, was feeling about all of this only fueled the growing irritation swelling in her belly. She felt the distinct urge to publically mark Raven as her own and savagely fight anybody that dared try to lay hands on what Raven allowed to be hers.

Of course this was hardly appropriate for a Charming, or a future Snow White, therefore Apple decided to direct her energies towards quelling the Charming interest (since at this point not even she could outright extinguish this without hurting Raven in the process) in Raven through sheer reputation that being overly amorous to the witch would make Apple highly (intensely terrifyingly) displeased.

And the one day after graduation, if it all worked out and if Raven would do her the honor, she and Raven would either elope or have a very tiny wedding and only inform all of the rest of the world while they were away in some secret location for their honeymoon.

All the waiting and secrecy would be so worth it if it happened like that!

"Raven… did you teach Apple how to smile that evilly?" Briar asked reproachfully as she eyed her smirking blonde friend.

"Evil Linguistics 203 was the one class that I was unable to test out of remember?" Raven reminded, Rubbing Apple's shoulders in worry as the princess was lost in her own little world where she and Raven ruled the land together and all of her unsuspecting rivals wept at the lost chance to have something nearly as good as what Raven gave her. "I'm barely passing that class as it is… the literature part of it is fine but I just can't get the hang of cackling or making myself act… well evil."

"You do often resemble a cute little black bird, or a baby dragon at times." Ashlynn observed. "That is if one were to compare you to an animal in both appearance and in personality."

"Huh." Said Blondie. "You know… she actually does look a little like a dragon when she's angry or hungry, in a cute, human sort of way of course." The reporter was quick to assure.

Cedar who had been slowly edging away from Apple, peered over at Raven, and made a guilty nod that, yes; Raven did indeed have more dragon-like qualities than evil-type qualities.

"Gee thanks." Raven said flatly, Maddie giggled good-naturedly beside the witch who coincidentally looking like an unimpressed dragoness now that Briar had the proper image comparison in her mind.

"Hey sweetie, sorry I'm late- HOH-mygosh! Um… is everything all right with Apple?" Hunter unconsciously jumped behind his girlfriend the moment he laid eyes on Apple's grin.

In the background Kitty scowled. "Nice try Apple White but there is only one person around here that can pull off a Cheshire grin properly." The feline-girl scolded, much like an exasperated mother cat would to an overzealous kitten.

XXX

Daring's lip wobbled almost as much as his knees did, a healthy blush painting his nose and cheeks and spreading to his neck, his insides felt like a sack of happy goo being frolicked over by teeny tiny butterflies.

Tis must be but a dream for there doth be no other explanation for the impossible lightness that I feel at every opportune glance you pass my way, the perfect placement of our wide palms chastely kissing skin to skin, the slide of our fingers interlacing with more elegance than the finest thread of a queen's bodice, the way the sun's warm caress shined shyly down upon your angelic masculine countenance at our last meeting as you regaled my besotted ears with the myths and legends of your country's homeland. Tis be at that moment where I thought to myself: alas his voice is that of a caterpillar's heady smoke to my unworthy senses, his flowing accented words of stories from lands far, far away drip like the addicting syrup of the finest honeyed nectar from the wild puzzled floating jungles of the white rooks from his shapely lips, his exotic skin and sculpted body echoing his hypnotizing accent of his homeland, eyes shining with excitement as he spoke of his home, the land to which bore such a lovely creature such as he, his sweet kiss that he gifted to my unworthy lips that day beneath the droop of the willow's branches beside the river, warm sun and cool shadows dancing waltzes all around us as his spicy and hesitant touch fragrance captivated my senses and I thought that surely this must be a dream, for the world of the waking is never so perfect. I know that this dream like all others in the lands of sleep will not last forever and I shall savor every precious moment I have with you my dear prince and keep these spaces of time that we were something together close to my undeserving heart when the time comes for you to say that it is time for me to awake.

…However I can only pray that you forgive me for these selfish thoughts that I have of never waking from this dream and desiring in vain to always live in this dream.

Please forgive this knighted fool beloved prince from the far off lands of smiles and charms, I only beg for your forgiveness and for you to be kind to me and these impossible fantasies that I am most unworthy to have.

Yours truly, Chase.

Daring's eyes misted over, his lip wobbling more dangerously now.

XXX

"You know that it's not as bad now as it had been a few weeks ago." Raven murmured while Apple reverently kissed the lids of her eyes and the sides of her face. "It's bearable, downright ignorable now so there is no need to get so worked up over those Charming's 'kay? I'm not going anywhere."

"'M not worried 'bout you going anywhere." Apple nuzzled Raven's ear. "'S because most ov' dem aren't doing it because they're really in love with ya, and the ones that do like you that way are being really rude by not taking your no's seriously. You dun't operate by damsel standards, if they really cared they would respect you better by stopping, you've already been through too much not to be allowed some reprieves from all of this and I love you too much to just stand by and watch how uncomfortable this is making you."

"Ha, my savior in pearls and heels." Raven half-heartedly giggled as Apple trailed butterfly kisses down the column of her neck. "You're wearing too much." The witch whined trying to push down the bodice of Apple's half-unzipped dress only for her hands to curl uselessly into the fabric when the blonde human nibbled at a particularly sensitive spot at the juncture of the witch's collarbone and shoulder.

"Shh, my turn to take control remember?" Apple smiled into pale skin, her bare hands lightly dragging down the witch's chest and sides, feeling the softness attempting to memorize every curve and line through touch. "You did all the work for so long when we first started this, I wanna do things to you now."

Raven made to reply but her breath caught and stuttered when the princess cupped her hand quite pointedly.

"Hush, one afternoon spent with someone else in control won't hurt." Apple murmured lowly, blowing a puff of air into the witch's oversensitive ear as Raven's toes seemed determined to curl right into the mattress of the bed her mind quickly going blank as Apple continued to-

"OH WOAH IS ME! WHY MUST THE BEAUTIFUL SUFFER SUCH ABNORMAL CONFUSION OF THE HEART?"

That is until Daring's mournful shout sounded out from the window…

Apple muffled curses into the witch's chest, Raven looked over to the window in concern.

"Maybe we should-?"

"Daring is a big boy and we're off the clock." Apple pointed out without looking up. "We both agreed to not come running to every single shout or investigate every new odd occurrence remember? Besides when has he ever had an actual crisis that didn't involve his appearance? Or even something remotely important by the standards of pretty much the rest of the world? No, it's best to just leave him alone and not encourage him, maybe he'll finally learn to grow up along the way."

"You are still really mad at him." Raven observed sounding impressed despite herself.

"Of course I am, if he were any better at being a decent human being he would have realized that just marrying me for the title and taking credit for your hard work would have made me miserable and that wooing you for the sake of that bet was a very disgusting thing to do. He seriously needs to stop looking into mirrors and start growing up." Apple stated matter-of-factly with narrowed blue eyes. "Now if we could please continue I'd like to-"

There was the sound of heavy hurried footsteps outside in the dorm's hallway before someone began knocking frantically at the door.

"Raven? Raven are you in there?" Daring's voice pleaded. "I beg I need to speak with you!"

Apple growled as she felt the back of her dress being zipped back up.

"I'll be there in a second!" Raven called, gently removing Apple's hand and breathing deep in an attempt to collect herself.

"He probably got some gum stuck in his hair and needs your magic to take it out." Apple hypothesized (as it had turned out Raven had a special skill for getting sticky things out of hair, a fact that had been brought to light after Ashlynn had become the accidental victim of someone's failed attempt at blowing a bubble from their wad of gum, before the panic could properly set in Raven had come up and with a flick of her wrist the gum came falling out of Ashlynn's hair and into a piece of tissue to be disposed of later, after that Raven became the go to person when the O'Hair sisters were busy to get stuff out of their hair), clinging to Raven's waist, drawing distracting kisses to the witch's spine as she attempted to grab her robe. "Don't be afraid to tell him off if what he's so freaked out about is a waste of your time."

"I'm sure it won't take long." Raven assured placidly, gently extracting Apple's arms. "But for him to run for my help is odd enough to warrant an investigation don't you think?"

As if to answer her, the two girls could hear Daring begin to sob outside the door.

"Coming! Coming!" Raven called, securing her robe to preserve her modestly and rushing to the door.

When the witch opened the door she was nearly knocked over by Daring's larger bulk being thrown at her middle, the boy was on his knees, wrapping his arms around Raven's back and burying his face into the plush fabric of her robe and began crying uncontrollably.

"O-oh dear." Raven stared at the boy with wide eyes.

"Nothing to see here." Apple glared at the growing number of on-lookers just outside the door while simultaneously attempting to pry the boy's grip away from her girlfriend. "He's got gum in his hair, really, there is nothing special to see here!"

Almost as one the girls out in the hallway all made understanding hums and proceeded to go their own ways (after all most of them at some point or another had come to Raven asking for help with getting gum or an exploded chem-myth-stry assignment out of their hair, and Daring's propensity to freak out over every little detail in regards to his looks was legendary).

"What is wrong with you?" Apple demanded the prince in a scolding voice the second she was able to get the front door shut.

Daring started to cry all the harder.

XXX

Two hours later…

"So just to make sure that we got this finally sorted out…" Apple rubbed her temples tiredly. "Back when you had been a jerk and trying to woo Raven into dating you to fulfill a bet that you had made with yourself that you could snare any female on campus with a pulse, you ended up with a streak of hilarious karma-like instances where you would jump out of nowhere to surprise Raven with your charms but kept accidentally making advances towards every male on campus instead. One of those males being the Red Knight aka Chase Redford from Wonderland who had been relaying a message from the Queen of Hearts to Lizzie at the time, Chase for some reason took your proposal seriously and accepted to go on a date with you, and since you were so embarrassed over being unable to hit your actual mark you ended up going on a date with him, which led to another date and another date and so on until you realized that somewhere along the way-which was most likely the second date- you were going on dates with him of your own volition and not to cover up you embarrassment for continuously striking out with Raven."

Daring replied with a sad little coo his face buried in the black pillow he was cuddling on the two girl's bed.

Said two girls were sitting on a red and gold fainting couch that they had pulled up beside the bed when it became obvious that neither was capable nor willing to try to lift Daring off of the spot where he had collapsed into a little ball of hysterics.

"Why come to Raven for help? I would have thought that you were avoiding her since you had so had so stubbornly declined to help me get the rest of your family off of her back about the whole "illusive maiden" thing issued on her." Apple asked coldly, still quite irritated that the boy refused to see reason and continued to swear that it was an "honor" for someone like Raven to be relentlessly wooed whether she wanted it or not.

"S-she likes both genders right? She'd know what is going on with me right? I've never- I've always liked being a bachelor! I… I've never really even kissed anybody on the mouth before him… save for when Apple was poisoned by-"

"Faybelle via the Evil Queen." Apple interjected since Daring, for some reason, still had it in his head that Raven had been the one to do the poisoning or had at least had slipped and tried to follow her destiny for an hour or two, even after it was proven that Raven hadn't laid a single malicious finger towards Apple.

"Really?" Daring blinked watery eyes at the blonde. "Does that mean that she stole Raven's destiny then?"

"Fair's fair Daring, my mother stole her mother's right to be the Evil Fairy, I'm perfectly fine with it… aside from the weird crush that she has on my mother of course…" Raven shuddered; she knew a lovesick fairy when she saw one and Faybelle had it bad for the Evil Queen.

"Really?" Apple asked. "Like, ew."

"So you haven't kissed anybody on the mouth save for when Apple was unconscious and when you had your last date with Chase?" Raven asked, quickly changing subjects.

"It was… different than kissing Apple, it made me feel… different. I've been on lots of dates with maidens before and I've been kissed on the cheek and impressed them by being the best charming prince and I am attracted to girls… but when I'm with Chase it's not quite the same as being on a date with a maiden and it is very different than hanging out with the fellas even though we do much of the same things that I normally do with both maidens and with the other boys… the closest I've ever come to feeling this way was when I danced with Cerise that one time but she's not nearly the type of caliber of maiden that I usually date so I never pursued it…" Daring trailed off, looking into space, thankfully being completely oblivious to Apple scowling and Raven cutting the princess off with a hand to her mouth to prevent Apple from snapping that an unconscious girl does not count as a first kiss, merely an attempted means to cure the Evil Queen's poison, if there is no romance and if the other person wasn't aware that it happened it does not really count as anything special (as far as Apple was concerned, her first kiss with Raven was a far better first kiss than any she was not awake to remember).

And that's when a light bulb went off in Apple's mind.

"Daring when you kissed me did you feel your insides melt as if they had turned into warm magma or did you get nervous butterflies in your tummy?" Apple asked, gently taking Raven's hand away.

"Of course not! I was confident and charming like I was supposed to be!" Daring sniffed proudly.

"And when you and Chase kissed, did you feel confident and charming then?" Apple deadpanned.

"…No I-… felt my insides melt and there were a lot of… fluttering things inside…" Daring admitted in a quiet voice after a long moment, almost sounding like his words were trying to hide behind each other in embarrassment.

"Good." Raven gave the boy a bright smile. "That's what is supposed to happen when you are being genuine about these things."

"Huh?" Daring blinked in confusion.

Apple rolled her eyes. "She means that the only remedy for the bad feelings that you are feeling right now is to find Chase, tell him that you are willing to see how well things go between the two of you as long as you take it slow and don't spook each other by rushing things."

"I- what?" Daring sat up, still hugging the pillow and looking highly perplexed.

"It is scary finding that you like something that is out of your usual comfort zone." Raven held out Chase's love letter for Daring to take. "He's saying that he accepts who you are just the way you are in there by the way, that he is grateful for the time that you have graced him with but he's worried that if you don't feel the same way that he does and if you continue on like this then you'll both end up getting hurt. However it is very clear that you do feel somewhat that same feelings for him that he does for you, so if you choose to be brave enough… well there is nothing holding you back from being more diverse, let alone more monogamous when it comes to you continuing to be a Charming prince."

"But… the fairytale…" Daring said barely understanding the witch but knowing enough to point out the big issue.

Raven's merely grinned widely. "Yes, as a player in a Wonderland fairytale and therefore a native to a place where the rules of tradition are as flexible and as adaptable as they come… should it manage to work out between you two I'm more than certain that there would be a part worthy enough for you to play by Chase's side. Trust me Daring your future role in one fairytale or another would be secured, so do not worry about that and try to be more concerned with deciding if you are brave enough to try something new, albeit a tad bit more serious, with Sir Redford, if he is the type that is worth it then he will understand that you want to take things slow. There is no shame in being your own Prince Charming instead of a carbon copy of one found in a book's description."

"My own… what?" Daring blinked bewilderedly.

"Your brain will catch up to it eventually Daring." Apple's tone was one of warning and so commanding that even Raven shivered with rapt attention. "Now get up and get out, Raven's going to catch a cold at this rate."

Obediently Daring got up and began walking towards the door only to pause thoughtfully before his hand touched the handle.

"Wait, Raven are you wearing anything under that robe? And why is Apple's hair so messy? …Come to think of it, earlier I saw the two of you stuffing something lacy under the bed- why do you have one bed? And-"

"Raven and I share everything. We were doing girly makeover stuff. Now get out before you embarrass Raven further by preventing her to at least put some decent clothes on!" Apple shot out more sternly than Daring had ever heard her, the princess talking over Raven's mortified stuttering as the witch seemed to unconsciously hide behind Apple.

"Right. Going now." Daring wisely fled the room.

"It took him that long to notice?" Raven asked after the door clicked shut.

"That was what I was supposed to marry and run a country with?" Apple shook her head in disgust. "Too far in his own head to notice a practically naked girl sitting right in front of him, dear gods that's sad."

"Do you suppose that it'll work out for them?" Raven asked, peering curiously to where Daring had left.

"Only time will tell." Apple sighed. "Next time though, we should hide instead of answering the door, he probably could've managed to handle this all himself after a few hours rolling on the floor in a fit. The last thing we need is for the RA to think that we've opened up a brothel."

"…I am kind of chilly." Raven admitted.

Apple offered the witch a tired smile. "Let's take care of that shall we?"

There was a light, hesitant tapping on the front door.

"Ignore it." Apple ordered, pulling Raven into the bath.

XXX

"My mirror fell out of my pocket." Daring whispered to the closed door meekly, suddenly feeling embarrassed and suspecting that in his haste to seek Raven's advice he had neglected to notice that he had ran in on something significant. That and the witch being half naked and him not noticing for nearly the entire time and Apple appearing to be rather cross with him was… well it was not good, he knew that much.

"…Maybe…" Daring gulped, feeling both terrified and excited. "I should go find Chase first."

As the young prince walked away, towards an unknown future, he neglected to notice that his heavy pure gold crown had tumbled off his head sometime during the previous two hours. Oblivious to this the boy oddly felt much lighter than normal.