Protagonist Bound (15 page)

As it turned out though, Blue actually considered herself lucky. She was only about twenty feet up in the tree when it hit her, rather than all the way at the top. And, while the pang had been fairly strong and knocked her out of the tree, she’d been able to rally enough consciousness to claw and grasp at its branches to break her fall on the way down.

Still, despite the fact that she described the experience as fortunate, she was clearly banged up pretty badly. Then again, I gathered that with someone like Blue, the bruise on her ego from being taken to the infirmary was a lot more upsetting than the actual bruises she’d received.

After some awkward silence I got the nerve to ask her what SJ and I were subsequently dying to know.

“Well, what did it say?”

Blue sighed lengthily. “Well, as expected it was pretty vague. But the general gist is that I am going to go on a really dangerous adventure with a lot at stake. I’ll be involved in a monster fight at some point, and am supposed to unite some people. My varied skill sets will be useful along the way. I, uh, will make certain decisions that will either save or destroy a few people, and . . .”

Blue’s eyes darted away from us and I saw my friend’s face twist into another unusual expression for her character. It looked like pain.

“Blue, what is it?” SJ asked.

“Jason . . .” she said sadly.

Then, suddenly, she shook off whatever burden had been plaguing her and a scowl crossed her face. “I’m supposed to end up with Jason,” she said angrily as she banged her fist onto the cot’s bedside table. “I can’t believe it. I mean it’s him and only him, non-optional and non-negotiable. What in the heck am I supposed to do with that?!”

Blue started to rant about how enraged she was, how her identity was no longer hers to define, that it was unfair she really couldn’t do anything about it, and—most importantly—how she would love nothing more than to wring the Author’s neck right about now.

I could totally sympathize with how she felt. Moreover, I still couldn’t believe this had actually happened to one of us. It was real now. The thing we’d each been dreading, but ignoring our entire lives had claimed Blue. Her fate had been taken out of her hands.

I was sure she was at least a little relieved that her prophecy was not a ridiculously dull or passive sentence. It did say she would have an intense adventure that would utilize her skills, and a monster fight (which I was sure she was already looking forward to).

Even so, the rest was of it was way more than unsavory. Making decisions that would save or destroy people was a lot of pressure, sure. But no longer having a say in who you would end up with was an absolutely awful notion. Jason was a good guy and everything, and a friend, but no one should’ve been forced to spend their lives with someone they didn’t pick out for themselves.

Furthermore, Blue was Miss Independent! She prided herself on the fact that she didn’t need to rely on others. She was feisty and untamable and an adventurous free spirit. So the Author telling her that she had to be with one specific person forever was as intolerable an idea as it was a depressing one. Because, not only did it mean she was virtually shackled to the boy for the rest of eternity, it also implied that no matter how hard she’d worked to define who she was on her own terms up ’til now, she was still at the mercy of pre-ordained destiny. None of her fighting had made a difference in the fate she’d been assigned.

And if that was the case for a girl as strong as her, what hope was there exactly for someone like me?

“I’m so sorry, Blue,” I managed to muster after some time had gone by. “I wish . . . I wish there was something we could do.”

“Me too,” she said bitterly. “But wishing doesn’t change anything, now does it?”

Snow White & The Seven-Minute Study Break

rincesses should not have to be stuck doing homework at ten o’ clock at night. That’s my humble opinion, at least.

Barely a month into the school year, the pile of required reading books on my nightstand was so tall I could’ve constructed a city for SJ’s bird friends outside. It was like our teachers had a bet going over who amongst them could obliterate the most of our free time.

I had a research paper on Thumbelina due Thursday for my Fairytale History class. Friday I had a presentation on “How Saying Less is More” in D.I.D. (that oddly enough had to be at least twenty minutes long). Even my Animal First Aid elective, which I’d actually been doing fairly well in, was kicking it up a notch.

I mean, how was I supposed to learn how to suture a wound on a deer’s leg by next Monday? It’s not like I could very well go shoot one in the forest and get it to hold still while I tried.

Presently, I was sitting on my bed leaning against the golden headboard with a textbook open to some miscellaneous chapter on my lap.

Past the recollection of a few random terms like “Stiltdegarth” and “Shadow Guardian” though, I couldn’t have told you what the pages of said text covered. Honestly, I’d stopped reading around nine o’clock and, despite the masses of homework I had to do, was now far more interested in the pile of darts sitting beside me.

We had a dartboard taped to the back of our bedroom door because practicing throwing darts relaxed me. SJ thought it was a constructive way to let out aggression and work on focusing my mind on accomplishing my goals. But she insisted we cover it with a poster of a scenic meadow during the day, lest someone catch us with it. Blue, on the other hand, thought it was just a good way to practice aim and suggested that if anyone caught us with it and tried to take it down we could throw the darts at them instead.

As I continued to send one dart after another at the target board, my roommates immersed themselves in far less procrastination-based activities.

Blue was flopped down on her bed pouring over a scattered pile of open literature. If the girl’s prologue prophecy was bothering her, it was difficult to tell. Aside from the day it actually appeared, she hadn’t shown any signs of dismay. In fact, Blue hadn’t mentioned it once since receiving it several weeks ago, and rather seemed to be pretending like nothing had changed in the slightest.

It was a weird reaction for her to have. She was so distraught about the prophecy the day she’d received it that I would have thought she’d be complaining about it nonstop. Even girls at school who were happy with what their prophecies said, tended to speak of nothing else in the weeks immediately following their bestowment. But, for whatever the reason, Blue was staying silent.

Naturally, SJ and I had followed her lead by not bringing up the matter either. We weren’t about to rub salt in the wound. Still, the behavior bothered me as I truly didn’t know how she could suppress such agony. Out of the corner of my eye, I studied my friend from across the room with both curiosity and concern.

At the moment Blue seemed perfectly content to be absorbed in her plethora of books. Her eyes were currently scanning excitedly across a particularly large, fancy copy with weathered pages and a shiny bronze cover.

To each her own, I guess.

On the other side of the room, meanwhile, SJ was deeply focused on reading her special potions book. Unlike Blue, whose hair resembled a bird’s nest the way it was bunched up on top of her head with a large scrunchie, SJ’s hair was still tightly and intricately woven behind her. She literally didn’t have one hair out of place—even after a full day of school. And while Blue and I had long changed into our pajamas and were spread out on our comforters like cats, SJ remained in her gold-colored day dress and sat with such perfect posture at her desk it would have made statues feel self-conscious.

At that point my unceasingly ladylike best friend got up from her seat and made her way across the room to retrieve a fresh jar of ink from our shared bookshelf. Once she’d passed out of my firing zone I continued to launch dart after dart at our target board. Although, when SJ turned around to head back to her desk, she stopped in her tracks and properly took notice of how I was spending my study hours.

“Crisa,” she sighed at my lollygagging. “You are wasting time.”

“SJ, I’m working on my aim. That is most certainly not a waste of time,” I said, throwing another dart at the board.

It landed just barely outside the vicinity of the bullseye and I scowled at the target in frustration.

“Well, I suppose you do need more practice . . .” my friend said with a hint of teasing in her tone.

SJ walked over to my bed, picked up a dart, and gave me a
“watch and learn”
look. Then she threw it across the room and it landed right in the center of the bullseye. My eyes widened in shock.

“How did you do that?”

“What?” she shrugged. “Can a girl not have other hobbies besides singing to animals?”

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but SJ waved me off before I had the chance. “On to more important matters, Crisa. Practice needed or not, you really should be studying,” she chided as she went back to her desk.

“I
am
studying,” I retorted as I fired off another dart—trying to replicate SJ’s surprising accuracy. “I am studying the art of doing nothing of particular importance. Frankly, I think Madame Lisbon would be terribly impressed; it is very damsel-in-distress behavior. She may even give me extra credit.”

SJ was not amused; she took studying, no matter how silly the subject, very seriously. Blue, however, laughed at the remark and seemed to think the budding conversation was worth breaking her homework concentration for.

“You’re so right, Crisa,” she grinned. “Your level of purposelessness right now is downright exemplary. Madame Lisbon and damsels in distress everywhere would be proud.” SJ’s mouth curved into a smile as she shook her head at the both of us. Then she noticed the big, bronze book that Blue had been focusing on so intently.

“Blue, what are you reading?” she asked.

“Oh, um, it’s a collection of
Snow White
adaptations from some of the other realms,” Blue said as she picked up the text proudly and held it up for SJ to see.

Contrary to what might be expected, Blue was actually a huge fairytale history nut. The irony of it was pretty funny really. While my rebellious friend hated the limitations and absurd consequences fairytales and fairytale life imposed on her, she was absolutely fascinated by them nonetheless.

I guess maybe it was a “knowledge is power” kind of motivation?
Seriously though, you could ask her any question about any version of any fairytale and she would know the answer. With all the research and readings she’d immersed herself in over the years, she probably knew more about the combined trinkets in the Treasure Archives than the majority of the school’s staff put together.

“Blue,” I chimed in. “Haven’t you read
Snow White
about a million times? How interesting could so many adaptations be?”

“Actually, a lot more interesting than you’d think.”

“Yeah, okay,” I scoffed.

“No really,” Blue said eagerly as she sat up and pulled the fat, fancy book onto her lap. “For starters, did you know that, like, all versions of
Snow White
mention the poisoned apple, but only a couple mention the poisoned corset and poisoned comb that the witch tried to use on her first?”

“Well, can you blame them?” I asked sarcastically. “Death by a fashion appliance or a grooming tool is not nearly as exciting as death by fruit.”

SJ put the jar of ink on her desk and crossed her arms.

“Ha ha, Crisa,” she chided. “Judge while you can, but one of these days the Author might just write a story where some enchanted knickknack gets
you
into a great deal of unwarranted trouble.”

I smirked and hopped off my bed in response. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll probably get taken down by something really lame, like a poisoned toe ring or a magic paperweight.” I picked up a paperweight from my desk, feigned a fainting spell, and dropped to the floor dramatically. “Total ka– ka– karma,” I choked as I pretended to die.

I opened my eyes and grinned at my friends.

Blue was laughing openly, snorts and all. SJ had her hand to her mouth—trying to stifle her “unladylike” guffaws. But after a moment she couldn’t hold them in any longer either and laughter burst from her like water from a dam.