Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

✩₊˚.⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧

With Legacy Day breathing down their necks like a warning for all there is to come, Ren couldn’t help but grow in his resentment, while everyone else grew in dread. It was a pressure on his back, this feeling of time slipping through his fingers - of his life being yanked slowly out of his control. The string of fate was tightening around his neck like a noose. If he looked at it from the right angle, Ren thought he could see it on every single one of his friends. Some tighter, some looser, all of them struggling to breath through it.

Like a tick of a clock, it was forever present. Ren could not ignore the call of this feeling aching to have him do something.

Five days left of life as his own person, five days until Legacy Day, five days to live as something other than his father’s son in a line of Evil Wolves just like those from his own nightmares.

It made it hard to focus.

“And then I told ‘im, well I Sher-would. You know, like in Sherwood forest? Where I’m from?” Martyn finished with a giggle, making Ren realize that through their whole lunch break he had been unable to hear a single word he said. Of course, Martyn noticed. “Everything alright, my Lord?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s…” Ren considered telling Martyn but as soon as the words started to leave him he cowered. How was he supposed to explain the unease he felt? The apprehension? Martyn wouldn’t get it, and if he did, Ren did not know how to explain it either way. “...uh, you know, low moon low energy,” he justified.

There were some things Ren could not trust himself to say out loud. Whether or not Martyn caught the lie, Ren wasn’t able to tell. 

It was more than the weight of a fate that he did not want any part in, it was the paralyzing feeling he got whenever he was told to move forwards. 

“Well, better get a good meal dude, tonight we do the final practice.”

Ren fiddled with his mother’s ring, glad it could fit that day. “I know.”

That night the Headmaster had prepared one final bid to their lives as themselves, a final practice for the most important night of their lives. They were meant to be excited for the day to come, but Ren could hardly name more than a couple of people that were truly enamoured with their fates. Their generation might just perform the saddest Legacy Day in Ever After history.

Ren could not lighten the mood either, he hated his fate too. At least he would have that. He sighed, and imagined breaking free from the rope at his neck.

✩₊˚.⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧

With magic, Ren thought to himself, one might expect that decorating with days to spare was an unnecessary task, but their Headmaster was nothing if not a calculated person. Little fairies and helping elves were putting on decoration to the grand podium while the students were instructed to get into their respective positions. Although many people were running from one end to the other, the air of magic and purpose inundated the scene. There was order in the movements of the people working to make the most important night of their lives special, to make it something worth seeing in portraits.

This time Martyn would not be able to sneak a couple places in the line just to be next to Ren, he regretted. The order in which they would sign had purpose and was meticulously planned as well. First, an interesting character to start the night, then follow it up with royals and if the same year has people from the same story they shall sign one after the other too, then make combinations of students you know would make grand speeches from their performance in classes. That loose set of rules made it so that Ren ended up somewhere in the middle squished between Pearl and Grian, and Martyn as the last student of the night.

He would have liked the comfort of having his best friend next to him, but at the same time he remembers the whispers of what happens to villains once they sign their books. Legend has it they changed instantly, some turn nearly unrecognizable, molding into the perfect shape for the role they have to play.

Lizzie had told him once among hushed whispers on shadowed halls how her mother swore she had not been evil when she was young. The woman would swear on the magic of the book, how it clouds your vision and turns you into someone worthy of dying in jail. But Ren also remembers his father, the oldest among a family of seven other wolves, who had known he was likely to have the roughest story out of them. Even in his drunken mellow state Ren would not be able to tell whether his cruelty was a result of the magic of the book or the bitterness towards the life the book had given him.

Ren was not ready to find out which one would change him. He did not know which one would be worse. Regardless, he knew he would be changed.

“Alright, students,” the Headmaster called, his chest filled with pride that could not hide the anxiousness that made him check every detail of the event a thousand times over. “Given that this is the final rehearsal we will be using the real Storybook of Legends, just to allow you a glimpse into your wonderful futures through the eyes of your parents when they achieved their fates. Don’t get too excited yet! The book only has its special magic one night a year, which means you will not be able to sign early. But do not fret, in less than three hundred hours you will be accepting your destinies in front of the world!

“I would hope you already know the steps you must take and the place you must be in…” he continued, scanning the crowd. If Ren was not as nervous as he was, he would have laughed, it was too obvious he was checking to make sure Martyn was in his place. Ren heard BigB chuckle. “That said, let the ceremony begin and be ready for what the book may show you!”

Ren winced at the thought alone. This was not the first time they had the opportunity to interact directly with the Storybook of Legends. In other classes they were encouraged to learn spells to make their connection with destiny stronger, for instance by trying to make Ren trigger his Wolf form regardless of the cycle of the moon. In others, they were taught how to see glimpses of the future. He had never been particularly good at either, all the strength of his fate began and ended in his appearance; Ren had little affinity with magic and visions barely showed him glances. All he ever saw were sparks of red and the glint of metal. He was not expecting for the day to go any different for him.

First to go was Joel. As he touched the book he flinched lightly, deepening the scowl on his face. For all his bravado the prince looked awkward, not at all displaying the straight confident posture the Headmaster had instilled on them since the beginning of the school year. Much less the kind of stance expected from a Prince Charming.

A special key had been placed in the podium for them to train with, although they were told it was different to the one that would show in front of them on their Legacy Day. The Headmaster needed a way to use the Storybook of Legends, after all. The book would not open otherwise. When Joel used it, his eyes glowed white. A vision flashed before his eyes and he continued with the motions without showing what he learned. Ren did not know what Joel saw, but he could guess it would be the guarantee of a princess at the end of his tale. Many would kill for that, but Ren felt for him, well aware of Lizzie coincidentally looking away from the scene.

From the point of view of his father, it was unlikely that Joel would be able to tell which prince he was destined to be. Perhaps many would think his attitude had to do with it. But Ren knew more than most the bitter side of him.

The thought made Ren wonder what exactly he would see. What had his father done in his past that Ren was doomed to repeat. Most likely eating the goat children alive, Ren feared. How had his father done it, Ren would never know. Just seeing it would be more than what Ren wanted to do.

Before he knew it, it was his own turn.

The Headmaster stood to the side, not once taking his eyes off them. Ren felt intimidated. It forced him to straighten his posture and say the words as if he meant it.

“Ren Dog, Son of the Big Bad Wolf, I am ready to accept my destiny and follow my father’s steps,” he said, hoping it transmitted the confidence he did not feel.

He holds the key and inserts it in the book.

A breeze of magic surrounds him instantly. The pages turn on its own until they find his story. It feels like it takes on forever as the pages move back and forth between different chapters until they finally find it. Ren does not read the title before his vision is swallowed by light.

✧

A mix of nausea and disorientation is all Ren can feel the moment his senses are attempting to understand what they are seeing.

He does not recognize the scene, which is to be expected given his father had never told him the details of the tale he had lived. But he does not recognize the scene because it’s the complete opposite of what a wolf like him should expect to live.

Ren was in a grand hall.

Ren had never seen one in person, but he could tell from what he had seen in paintings. The lights on the ceiling were the kind of chandeliers they had in castles.

His breath got caught in his throat but the scene in front of him kept playing.

Where was he?

The light made everything blurry, the haze took the vision away from him and as he felt being yanked out of his control he looked down to the sight of dainty hands covered in jewels resting on top of the fanciest dress he had ever seen.

✧

Ren stumbles to the ground as the light fades away from his eyes.

He feels his hand, trying to ground himself, and without hearing clearly he knows he’s being told to put himself together, that he must embrace his destiny regardless of what he had seen. How horrified he must be from the horrible things his father had done to fall to the ground like that, they must be thinking. Ren had always been bad with blood, those who knew him must believe. His father ate those children whole, he was hunted and his stomach was carved open to save them, perhaps sensation was transmitted through the vision. 

Ren knew he looked pale, breathing harshly from the ground, but it was all for the wrong reasons.

There was another part of the practice Ren had to say but he could not for the life of him remember how it went. So he forced himself up from the floor and walked towards the chairs where those who had said their vows went. Somehow, the Headmaster let him slide.

He was supposed to have a glimpse of his future through something his father had lived, not that.

Were those even dainty hands? How could he be sure he had seen a grand hall? The lights had been off, Ren had been dizzy and he had never been any good with any kind of magic.

“Ren,” someone said, effectively snapping him out of it. “Your glasses fell off,” it was Grian, handing him his shades. In his stupor he had not noticed he had lost them or that the ceremony was still going despite the turmoil inside him.

Ren scurried to put them on. “Thanks.”

Grian stood for a little longer than what would be considered a not awkward amount of time before finally saying what he clearly wanted to. “We shouldn’t be forced to sign,” he murmured. “What if we wanted to write our own stories?”

“Yeah,” Ren agreed.

“They don’t even tell us what would actually happen if we don’t sign.”

“How would you know that?”

At that Grian winced looking away. “I guess I don’t,” he shrugged, walking towards his seat.

Ren had thought about it too. As much as he liked to deny himself and insist he would never put his life at risk in that way. Of course he had thought about it. Every single one of them had thought about it.

What if he didn’t sign?

Would he die? Would it be a fate worse than the one written down for him? Would he doom the others in his tale alongside him? Would the story replace him instead?

But now he had other things to ponder about.

Those had been a woman's hands. His own felt massive in comparison, a joke with the single ring that was too tight on a thing like him.

What had been all that?

“Was the dice weighted?” BigB asked, appearing next to him without warning.

Ren looks up from his own hands. “What?” he asked, not exactly following where the question came from.

“I’ve been thinking about it, from our last game,” BigB elaborates. “Was the dice weighed? I know you and Impulse had a story to tell that could not work if you didn’t roll right.”

“Ahh, about that…” Ren chuckles, getting slightly red in the face. “You caught me there!”

“Was it meant to be seventeen?”

Ren sighs. “Not really.”

“It’s kinda like fate, that,” B says. “The weight in the dice.”

Him and Impulse had a story they wanted to tell about a rogue wizard being possessed by a cursed king, certain things could be left for random chance but this part of the story was essential for their adventure. They had put a weight in the dice hoping it would fall on eighteen.

But it didn’t work. It was close enough you could argue it works, but it did not work. Later on Ren realized he had prepared it poorly.

“What did you see?” BigB asked him, dark eyes staring right through him.

“I… it was weird.”

“How?”

Ren felt the gaze of the Headmaster fall on him. Jimmy was currently going through his own promises. They could not talk about it here.

He sighed.

“In our room.”

✩₊˚.⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧

“Oh, so that was it,” BigB says, processing Ren’s retelling of what he had seen in the Storybook of Legends’ vision.

The air was heavy around them. For one Ren did not understand what he had seen. A part of him thought it must have been a mistake, the book got confused. Magic was never meant to be perfect. Destinies were. A look to his face said everything he was ever going to be. He was a wolf, he had the face of a wolf. Even in the waning phase of the moon his fate was written all over his features.

Ren remembered the hazy images he had seen, he did not know what they meant.

“It has to be your mother, right?” BigB says what Ren had been thinking but did not allow himself to even vocalize. Something akin to fear impeding him. A thought he could not allow to enter the narration.

“That it’s hard to believe-” Ren says, interrupted by darkness entering their room.

A shadow alongside the bottom of the door grew until it reformed into a pink haired fairy. “Ren, I think Joel wants to break up with me,” Lizzie burst into the dorm. Her expression of distress transformed as soon as she saw BigB in the room. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry about it, I already knew about you two,” BigB shrugged.

“W-what, how?!”

BigB looked up, as if he would find anything up there. There was nothing. “I’m very perceptive.”

“Since when can you do that?” Ren asked, referring to the sneaking as a shadow beneath the door.

“It’s kind of a new thing for me but,” Lizzie dropped on his bed. “I think it’s just that part of magic that answers to emotions, I needed an out from all that Legacy Day practice.”

“Tell me about it,” Ren groaned. “What’s that about you and Joel breaking up?”

“He keeps saying he wants to talk ever since Legacy Day started getting closer and…” she drew a breath in. “I thought I was fine to accept it once the moment came but I’m not. Would it be so bad if things didn’t change even after I sign the book?”

“I don’t know about that, Lizzie.”

“Just think about it, right,” she proposed. “I can fulfill my destiny but why does it have to be instant? Can’t it wait? Surely, I can just do it later. Postpone it. I’m not ready for that so soon.” Her voice dwindled the longer she went on. “I don’t want to let go of him just yet.”

“I…” Ren hesitated. He wanted to say Joel was not thinking of breaking up with Lizzie, but truth is he had no reason to believe that. He was not specially close to Joel, and although he believed he cared about Lizzie. “I don’t think he wants to break up with you.”

But fate made their lives much more complicated than simple wants. He may not want to, yet it may not make a difference.

Ren didn’t think his father wanted anything that he did in the past. Ren knew he didn’t want anything to do with it either. But he was haunted by visions of a distant future.

From her distress, Lizzie was too.

“What did you see?” Ren asked her.

“When my mother cast the spell on the princess,” she said. “It was awkward because I’m pretty sure Bdubs saw the same thing from the opposite perspective.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ren reassured, sounding a lot less confident than he hoped.

Lizzie squinted. “What did you see?”

Ren and BigB looked at each other.

“Well, what is it?”

“We need to get into the Headmaster’s office.”

At that she raises an eyebrow, inquisitive but not judgemental. “What for?”

Ren and BigB locked eyes. Ren was unsure of how much of the truth he could say. “I saw something… strange in my vision, I just wanted to try it again.”

Lizzie looked at him with sympathy. The kind of understanding children of villains had between them. She likely remembered the scene he had caused during the practice. He had a visceral reaction towards what he saw, but it was not for the reasons she might be thinking of. Ren wouldn’t know how to explain without sounding like a lunatic that he had seen what could only be his mother’s past.

“I’ll help.”

“Thank you, Lizzie.” Ren sighed. The weight on his shoulders was a little lighter, but he could not deny the raw fear that overcame him whenever he thought of what was hidden behind the Storybook of Legends. 

✩₊˚.⋆☾𓃦☽⋆⁺₊✧

“I can get you in with my little shadow beneath the door trick,” Lizzie explained quietly as they walked through the halls looking around them as subtly as possible, making sure no one was listening. Unlikely, given it was late at night but one could not be overcautious in a world like theirs. The shadow they were walking in was not soundproof. “I cannot go in with you though. A little prank in my second year got me banned for life and I don’t want to get cursed over it.”

“Don’t you mean the time you made all the ink shadows?”

“Gee no!” she denied, offended at the prosper. “Ren, I’m only now getting a little better at spells. My specialty is actually concoctions. I replaced the ink with invisibility potions which meant most papers they tried to sign disappeared,” she explained, without mentioning the frustration that inkless pens brought to anyone in a working environment.

“I support that,” BigB piped in. “Could that work for signing the Storybook of Legends?”

Ren chuckled. “Dude, if it was a possibility someone must have done it before. There are rotten destinies out there.”

“Shhh!” Lizzie called, making them stop at the turn of the hall, pushing them towards the wall. “It’s Jimmy, what’s he doing there?”

They were hoping the Headmaster’s office would be empty, most likely with a teacher around and in the worst case scenario the Headmaster himself would be in there. Seeing a student, and Jimmy out of any of them, was unexpected. Ren leaned in at the edge of the corner hiding behind the wall out of habit more than necessity. At least Jimmy looked like he was leaving, but Ren could not discern what exactly he had been doing there.

Had he…? Ren shook his head. It did not matter if he was already walking past them none the wiser.

“Really?! Limited third person perspective?” BigB groaned to himself, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling of a hall with no one but Lizzie, Ren and himself. He looked annoyed.

“Hush!” Ren and Lizzie echoed. It was not the moment to talk to himself.

He raised his arms in defeat. “Sorry,” he murmured, staring off at the distance.

Once the coast looked clear they collectively left out a sigh of relief. It seemed Jimmy had been there on his own. No one came as he was leaving. As odd as that was, they needed to move on.

“What could he possibly have been doing?” Lizzie wondered to herself. “Ugh, doesn’t matter. Ready to go in?”

“Not really,” Ren admitted.

“What does it feel like?” BigB asked at the same time.

“Oh, it’s nothing! You won’t feel it,” she reassured. “I’ll be here if you need anything.”

“Wait, I’m not-” Ren began but before he could finish a sentence a swirl of darkness engulfed him. He could not see his nose nor tell up from down. His insides could not either. Gravity felt like it was going everywhere except where it was meant to even though he felt lighter than ever. “That was not nothing!” Ren gasped, regaining his breath as his body regained shape.

The shadows retreated. Once Ren looked around he knew he was inside the Headmaster’s office.

“That felt like going home!” BigB chirped in.

“What?”

“You know, the rabbit holes to Wonderland,” he explained, “Or anywhere really, once you get along with the rabbits.”

Ren hesitated, unsure of what that meant. “Right,” he said.

When he looked around, a sight to behold confronted him. This was a place he had seen before but it never failed to amaze him the level of regal it possessed. A desk of fine wood, a masterful piece of art with edges of gold. The chair that went along with it fell nothing short of a throne, grand and illuminated by the moonlight.

Somehow, without the Headmaster, it felt more intimidating. The ghost of his authority was still in the room. Or perhaps, the shiver that went down his spine was a result of the book that on the desk.

The Storybook of Legends.

It was mocking that a book that held so much power could simply rest in front of them.

“Is it me or is this too easy?” Ren asked.

“Some things are just meant to be,” BigB shrugged. “We still have to find the key though.”

“Oh,” Ren perked up. “Of course, I forgot!”

Ren and BigB proceeded to inspect the room. Opening cabinets, checking the bookshelves. All in hope the Headmaster did not take the key with him. He should not, given it was not technically his, but a man such as him was cautious and controlling.

Their hunt would be meaningless if they did not find the key. They must find it.

Treasure always seemed to be in the last place to be checked, especially when it came to secrets such as these. The Headmaster had always been careful of his things. A man that followed the rules in the way he did. He followed the rules by the book.

“Oh! I know it,” BigB cheered as he looked in the book of Perfectly Reasonable Rules in the office’s library. Effectively it was hollow and it hid the key to the Storybook of Legends.

Ren’s eyes opened wide. “Great find, B!”

“Thank you!” BigB grinned, handing the key to Ren. “Ready?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that…” Ren murmured, looking at the book. “Not really but I need to know if what I saw was my father… or something else.” Or someone else.

“So should I just get the key close or…?” Ren asked, making a mockery of the motion of opening the book with the Master’s key.

He was not halfway through it when pages started swirling, from one side to the other. The room brimmed with magic. Inside those walls he could almost taste it.

His eyes were engulfed by light.

Ren saw.

✧

He was not any less dizzy than the first time around, but this time Ren knew what to look for.

The scene surrounding him was covered by the haze but it did not stop being any less distinctive. He was in a castle looking down on faces he could not recognize.

There was red and gold and soldiers whose shapes unformed. There was a grand hall and windows the size of his house. The more he looked around he saw there were way too many people

It felt like a distorted vision of everything he wanted, except it was everything he wanted and he could not let himself believe it.

He looked down to his hands, dainty, covered in golds and rubies.

He saw his reflection in glass, there was a crown on her head.

✧

Coming out of the vision felt like being gutted.

This time he did not fall over. The shock froze him in place.

“If that was my mother… then it means she was a royal,” Ren said, barely believing himself. “...and I’m destined to be her.”

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

Chapter Text

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

Ren always wanted to be King, the Storybook of Legends revealed he just might become one.

The grandeur he always wanted to taste, the feeling of never belonging to his own skin and the ache he felt whenever he thought of the fate of being a wolf finally had an explanation; he was meant for more.

Except, Ren had no reason to believe it was true.

“Where did your father meet your mom?” BigB asked once they were in the safety of the hall.

Ren had not been much help once released from the vision. At least BigB was cautious; he put the key back in place and made sure nothing looked suspicious. They were able to open the door from the inside. BigB had mentioned something about Lizzie texting them that she left when a teacher walked in too close, but Ren had not answered it.

It certainly saved him from having to explain to her something he didn’t quite understand.

“In Ever After, I think,” Ren asked, still in a haze state not quite dissimilar to the one he felt while in the vision.

According to his father’s ramblings he knew very few things about his mother. All he had of her was the tight ring around his pinky finger, after all. But he could vaguely remember the man making a hurtful comment on the woman that ruled his heart or the closest thing to it.

As a young boy he had clinged to any mention of the woman. In retrospect, he now knew he was simply hoping for something better. The woman who abandoned him was a great image to project all and any desire for unconditional love he wanted as a child. Someone kind, sweet and pretty who would save him from his fate.

Ren had never met her. As far as he understood, his father said she had abandoned them the day he had been born, leaving his father to take care of him alone. Ren believed she must have her reasons, he had never been resentful over it, instead, he had hoped he could meet her someday even if it was just to ask why she would leave him to grow up with a poor evil wolf.

“Do you know which generation your father graduated from?”

Ren gulped, weighting the new information. “Yes.” He had been curious once and looked over the yearbooks, back when was younger and thought by sight alone he would know who she was.

“Great!” BigB cheered, quicker to process the new facts than Ren himself.

He started walking with strong steps without even mentioning where they were going.

“Right! I forgot to say!” BigB stopped himself in the middle of the hall. “We are going to the archives to find yearbooks. We will find who your mom is.”

We will find who you are meant to be was left unsaid.

Ren thought of the vision, of what it promised for him. How could someone like him be anything but the Big Bad Wolf was beyond his comprehension, but for now he would go through the motions. For now, he would try to find the truth.

About himself, about his fate.

He just wished it did not mean he had to get his hopes up only to be crushed with the curses destined for those who defied fate.

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

As it turns out, the archives close at night.

Without Lizzie around to sneak them in, Ren and BigB were forced back to their own dorms. It was pretty late anyway, BigB had tried to reassure him. However, Ren was not in any way close to being tired. In fact, he would not be surprised if he wasn't able to get any sleep that night.

The image of that woman reflected in glass kept nagging in his mind. The more he thought about her, the more her features seemed to disappear. He had a picture of her in his head, but he was starting to second guess himself. He saw a red head? Or maybe she had brown hair, like him? 

If he couldn’t remember the hair of the woman he saw, how can he be so sure she had a crown? Or worse, that it was him seeing through her eyes. Maybe, he was his father being trialed after everything he did and he saw the face of the lady that would condemn him. Except even he knew that made no sense.

But his mother being royalty also made no sense, so who was he to judge?

Perhaps if he saw her he would recognize her.

“Ren,” BigB called out from his own bed.

Ren felt bad, thinking his tossing around was making too much noise. “Sorry.”

“You never met her, right?” BigB asked.

“No, it’s always been just the old man and me,” he sighed. “And he never liked talking about stories of the past, so.” Ren shrugged.

For a world so centered in storytelling, his father had always seemed to be the opposite of it. He had never told him stories, neither of himself or his mother. Ren only knew which wolf his father had been from rumours in the town.

On the opposite side, his mother had never been in the picture, other than as the faint ghost that lived only in his fathers memory. There were never pictures, never conversations. Ren had her ring, but his father had pretty much tossed it to him once without even letting him have a look at the letter it came along with.

BigB stared at Ren from his bed. With decision, he sat up and pulled out genuine emotion out of himself.

“I’ve never met my parents, either of them,” BigB confessed, snapping Ren out of it. He had no idea. “I know they are alive though,” he clarified. “They kinda had to have me, y’know? Not long before I was born a disease spread through Wonderland and a lot of people died unexpectedly, there were very few characters to replace others in case some couldn’t or wouldn’t have children. There certainly was no one to replace Alice, and without an Alice the story is over.

“That’s why I grew up in Wonderland, instead of, y’know, following the tale and discovering Wonderland later on.” BigB continued. “She had me, but she wanted nothing to do with it so the town took care of me instead.”

“That’s terrible, B.” And worst, not unheard of.

“I know.”

As much as Ren resented his father and his fate he knew his father took care of him. They didn’t have much, but Ren never went hungry. As crude as he was, his father had always been there for him when he was younger. Age made him more bitter and Ren less susceptible to accepting it as it was. But Ren knew life had hardly been kind to his father. Taking care of a son alone in a world that despised him for the things he had no choice on had been hard.

Ren is certain his toddler years had been spent going town to town in search of a place that would give an evil lone wolf a home. Even if his father was able to hide his wolf features, a son that changed with the moon gave him away. He was a cruel thing destined to roam the streets.

The more Ren thought about it the less he wanted to have children.

“I’m just saying tomorrow we are going to find the truth, okay?”

Most people of their generation saw BigB, but no one truly saw him. He knew his role, a nutcase, and he played it well. Ren felt a knot form in his throat. BigB had been helping him throughout all of this and Ren had never thought he might have more reason to it than lone curiosity.

Ren could not help his hesitation. Thinking his mother might have been a queen is unimaginable. Children between tales, children between most characters are strictly prohibited. Not only is it prohibited, A child from that would die, their teacher had said once, when Lizzie asked about it. Fate is a cruel creature that does not enjoy thinking hard about fixing the problems its own rules spawned; fate kills the children born of parents with wildly different tales.

There’s no such a thing as a combination of Queen and Wolf. There’s not.

“I cannot just… hope, B.” Ren says, his usual cadence gone. His tone is a murmur. His mother, a queen? As if. “If it’s not true and I’m meant to be a bitter lone wolf… I cannot take thinking I could have had it and then not anymore.”

“Ren, I…” BigB stammered, not certain how to verbalize his thoughts. After all, words cannot change destinies. “Look, I know I talk crazy half the time but this, Ren? I believe this matters.”

Without his glasses, it was easy to see that Ren’s eyes were getting misty. Flashes of his youth, the outcast he was, a crumbling down house at the edge of the forest, the hatred of his peers, the exhaustion on his father's weary bones. All his life Ren had felt wrong about who he was meant to be, for the longest time he had thought it was fear. Now he discovers that his mother, against all rules, might have been a queen.

Bugs crawled onto his skin at the mere thought that if he believed it true, it would be proven wrong. Fate would yank hope away from him, or worse, make him pay for it.

“B if that were true I would be dead.”

“But you’re here. And your story is being told right now. That has to mean something, right?”

Ren turned off his night light. “I hope you’re right.”

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Ren would be lying if he said he was well rested, but four days away from Legacy Day it was hard to say any of his friends were.

For a lack of a better word, no one had woken up on the right side of the bed. Not even a hundred years of sleep could fix that.

In the end, Ren and BigB had decided sneaking off in the middle of the morning might be just the right amount of suspicious the Headmaster might come look for them himself. They would head to the archives in the evening instead. As a result, Ren had attended class as if everything was normal. He did not absorb a single thing about it, most of his teachers took pity on him and let it slide.

By the time lunch came by, the air felt stagnant. Even mixed with students from different years, the tension felt thick. Like the feeling of a single pea would be enough to break them.

Ren went to the table with the rest of the self proclaimed Red Army and they sat in awkward silence. Not even Martyn dared to break it with a quip.

The idea of telling his friends about what he had really seen in the vision crossed his mind, but he was not certain how they would react. Ren, a royal? As much as he liked to act like it in their games it was far from their reality.

Surprisingly, it had been Etho who said something. “Yesterday I saw something I wasn’t expecting.”

“What about?” Skizz asked.

“My fate,” he explained. “Or more like Gem’s. I guess the exercise was kind of… flawed? Her mother was not actually the princess from the Nutcracker, that was mine, but I was born out of wood so I’m my father’s son. I suppose her lineage might be close enough to be my- the princess of my tale.”

Everyone listened to Etho carefully. Ren did not know the details, but he had assumed something along those lines related to Geminitay and Etho’s connection. Although unusual, or something most people wouldn’t like to admit, sometimes fate had to make side characters something more important as long as they fit the mold. If two main characters had only one child together, a single child would not be able to carry on the fate of both after all. That did not happen often though, even as fate suggested certain couples lived happily ever after, most of the time they would not have children together.

It seemed Etho’s parents might have actually loved each other.

“I don’t think she saw anything worthwhile in her vision, if her mom did not share her fate though. She asked me what I had seen and I didn’t know how to tell her,” he braced himself. “In my vision the Nutcracker did not kill the Rat King, even if that was the story that was told. It was the princess.”

“Huh,” Martyn conceded. “That’s a big change in the story, isn’t it?”

“I would think so,” Etho shrugged.

“But it was never told,” Skizz pointed out exactly what about the situation had been bothering Etho.

“Yes,” Etho said. “I’ve just been thinking, what if stories have more changes than we are told? That would be nice, right?” he locked eyes with Ren and he saw for what it was.

Etho had been trying to cheer them up.

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

After that, there was little they could do to delay the inevitable.

The door to the library stood tall and proud in front of them.

Ren did not stay in the place often, although he enjoyed borrowing books every now and then. Somehow, the fact they were here to find the truth about the story of him made the place more scary than it was most of the time.

The halls of the library stretched into labyrinths, with bookshelves that closed into a high ceiling that never seemed to end. Just thinking about all those stories sent shivers down Ren’s spines. 

 One of those belonged to him. He did not know which anymore.

The whole library was an archive out of principle. The stories in the books more often than not happened. But BigB and Ren were looking specifically for the section that hosted records of everything that happened in the school grounds, including the yearbooks that belonged with every Legacy Day that had happened from the beginning of time.

With all the tension they remained silent as they walked through the halls. There was nothing left to say once they stood in front of the shelf that held every yearbook in the story of Ever After.

“Right here!” BigB cheered once he found the yearbook corresponding to his father’s Legacy Day and every other year that graduated in that decade.

BigB handed him the book, but did not stay far. He wanted to know too, after all.

The book showed pictures taken before they said their vows, alongside a list of those present in the image and their corresponding legacies. Ren remembers his father’s Legacy Day exclusively because of how much he used to cling to everything he learned about the mother he did not know. He had never thought holding that information close to his chest would once prove vital to explain who he was meant to be. 

Ren skipped to the page that belonged to his father’s generation. The man had been easy to spot even if he did not look like anything Ren knew.

For one, he looked young, but that is to be expected. His Legacy Day had been over twenty five years ago. There was a different look in his eye reflected by the picture, a confidence so different from the defeat that the man he knew always carried. He had refused to turn into his Wolf form for the day and he looked smug about it. Unlike Ren, his father could control how he looked, at least until it came to strong emotions. He looked in control, as if he expected nothing bad could ever happen to him. Ren wouldn’t know if it had been a mask, because his father must have known that as the oldest brother nothing good was waiting for him.

The picture had been taken before they swore their fates, Ren realized.

“Oh, look! That’s Scott’s mother!” BigB pointed out a young woman with little blue wings. BigB was only familiar with Lizzie’s, in comparison, this woman’s were minuscule. Perhaps that’s why Scott did not have any, despite being a fairy as well. In the description of the image Ren saw her name alongside her role. “And a Cinderella too, do you feel like the shoe fits?”

“Not really…” Ren hesitated, going over unfamiliar faces. “She does not look much like me, right? Besides, I’m pretty sure there’s a Cinderella a year below, our birthdays would make it hard for her to be my mother.”

A Wolf, a Godmother, a Cinderella, a Prince Frog, a Witch, a Hansel and a Gretel, a Rapunzel, heroes and villains and kings and queens.

None looked like the odd reflection he had seen of her.

“I don’t think any of them are…” Ren sighed.

He couldn’t help but start to feel himself filled with doubt. What if his father had lied and he had not met his mother in Ever After? What if Ren was misremembering her image, and she was staring at him from right under his nose?

Was Ren ready to have his heart broken?

He did not want to be a pessimist, but it was hard to be anything but when he did not see the woman of his vision in the pictures of his father’s Legacy Day.

“I’m sorry, Ren,” BigB said. “I thought we could really find her like this, we can still try a different way-”

“Wait!” Ren interrupted, being hit by what might just be the answer. “They met in Ever After, that does not mean they were from the same year.”

Ren scrolled down to the years below his father. He skimmed through faces, names and fates but none of them seemed right. The year right below did not have any princesses, the year below that did not either. The next had loads of them, but none of them had the features of the reflection he had seen.

His throat was dry. Ren was starting to fear this would not give him an answer either. He went over all the generations after his father he could have possibly met while studying in Ever After. None of them looked in any way close to the image he had in his head, or better yet, like him. If he did not find her today, Ren was not sure what he was going to do.

Wait for Legacy Day? Find the truth there? Search somewhere else? Ask his father? None of it was soon enough, none of it would put rest to the wave of desperation he felt now that he was so close yet so far.

But the story is being told for a reason.

His breath hitched.

When looked at the generation that graduated one year before his father, he saw her. The woman of his vision. He knew it had to be her.

“That one!” Ren exclaims, pointing at a woman wearing a red dress, her hair brown like Ren’s own, framed with red strokes at the front. “Who is she?”

“Let me see…” BigB’s eyes opened wide as he read the name. “I can’t…” BigB hesitated, genuine shock going through his voice.  “You have to look at this.”

Ren felt his own heart beating at his ears, his hands numbed as his fingers slid over the names of everyone that had their Legacy Day that year. He could not feel his voice even if he wanted to say something- that he was scared to see, that she wouldn’t be who he expected, that she might just be someone related to his father’s tale instead and nothing to do with what he wanted her to be.

Ren read her name.

Queen of Hearts, Rachel Hearts.

It echoed in the silence.

Queen of Hearts. The woman of his vision was the Queen of Hearts.

BigB was unusually quiet next to him.

“Are there any paintings of her in here?”

“Um? Yeah, there should be,” he answered absent mindedly. “The Wonderland section keeps paintings of Kings and Queens.”

Ren rushed towards it. Filled with adrenaline, he ran through the halls, not caring if he caught the attention of the odd student also in the library. He knew where the Wonderland section was, if he rushed through it enough he would be able to find the paintings. He knew BigB was following too.

And then he found it.

From the first Queen of Hearts to the most recent one with a few Kings in between. Ren took a deep breath in until he was standing in front of the latest Queen of Hearts. It was her, with the brown hair, red streaks and golden crown. She sat on a throne that looked giant for her size, her hands over her lap.

Ren looked at the ring around his finger. 

Red ruby in the center, dented, but identical to the one the woman in the painting had.

That was his mother, Ren thought in the kind of clarity that was only described when heroes finally met their destinies. All of a sudden, Ren was no longer inundated by fear. She wore the ring she had left him, all this time, she gave him the biggest gift of who he was meant to be.

The story started to make less and less sense in his head. But the answer must be written somewhere. He could feel it.

Then Ren looked down to the text beneath the paintings. Two dates rested beneath her name, inked in the most brilliant of golds as if that could ever lighten the message it carried.

The Queen of Hearts had died around the time Ren was nine.

Ren choked on air.

A disease that made it so most characters in Wonderland did not have any kind of replacement, Ren remembered. If she died before having any other children that might just mean… that might just mean…

Ren the Dog was destined to be the Queen of Hearts, otherwise, the Storybook of Legends might just kill him if he tried to sign the book when two different fates pulled at his strings.

At least, that’s what they say.

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

Chapter Text

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

Ren could not tell how to feel.

These past few days he felt like he was being pulled in unknown directions ever since the vision showed him a lady instead of his father. A lady, that as it turns out, was the Queen of Hearts and dead. He had never met her, but he supposed he was meant to feel something about it. He’s not sure what, though. Loss? Pity? She was not very old when she passed. Her tale must have been long since finished, she was meant to have the rest of her life to herself.

Then there’s the fact everything told him he should not be alive.

The way fate worked said that destinies were inherited from one character to another. Early in life children show clear signs of fate that define which parent they are the sons and daughters of. Magical features, personality traits, abilities, customs. Every day of his life Ren had seen himself in the mirror and seen a monster. He was his father’s son.

Relationships between tales were strictly prohibited under the rules of the Storybook of Legends, because those can result in children that do not have a clear destiny. The possibilities were too unruly. Fate was too volatile. Their teacher had said: destiny killed them.

Ren was alive for his tale to be told, but that could very easily turn into tragedy. A warning story.

BigB perked. “What are you thinking?”

Suddenly, Ren felt awkward. He had been thinking about himself but if anything of what they had discovered was true then that meant he was the villain to BigB’s story. He had not even stopped to think about that, too caught up in the Queen aspect of the tale he was under. BigB must feel some way about it, Ren would be his antagonist.

“Only one of two though,” BigB offered.

“Ah, did I think out loud?”

BigB waited for a beat. “Yeah, that,” he said. “And,” he added, “I can’t say I’m not surprised too but… I think I’ll be fine if it’s you. You wouldn’t cut off my head, right?”

“No! Of course not!” Ren laughed, the thought alone felt ridiculous. He tried to push away the voice that told him the Storybook of Legends was known for changing people. BigB winced. “I don’t even know if I’ll even get that fate. I mean, what says any of this is true? We could be seeing things where there’s nothing.”

It’s not like there was a person out there able to answer his question about his existence.

“And there’s no way to test it?”

“We could always look at the Storybook of Legends again. Lizzie might find it odd if we ask twice, but I don’t think she would not help,” Ren offered, trying to keep up his spirits. He knew the answer to BigB’s question and he did not want to say it. A part of him told him BigB already knew. “I guess…”

After all, Ren had to admit, this whole playing detective, tracking doing paintings and yearbooks was a sad excuse to avoid the one person that knew the truth about who Ren was. He did not want to get there. A part of him hoped their search would prove futile just so that he did not have to utter the words.                                                              

“I think we should visit my father.”

Who else was better qualified in Ren's story than the man who conceived him?

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

The trip to the town Ren had grown up took around four days, three if the roads were in good condition. By the time they were on their way back, Legacy Day would be pretty much over. But then BigB had said he knew a way to get there.

Which apparently, involved running off to the restricted areas of their campus.

That is far from out of character for BigB, so at least Ren has the comfort that among an unpredictable world his friend remains the same as he always has been.

With this thought in mind Ren was not surprised they had found Martyn on the wrong side of the woods, even when Martyn saw them first.

“Ren!” he called, genuine surprise in his tone.

Ren had known Martyn had a place he liked to run off whenever he was troubled, but he had not been expecting to discover it that day. Yet there he was, sitting on a tree branch doing nothing but look at the birds. Even their singing was dulled, as if they knew about the troubles of their imminent Legacy Day. The sun was setting already, neither of them had nothing to do out there.

Or at least they shouldn’t have anything to do out there. Ren was awfully aware of how he was effectively sneaking out of campus with BigB. And Martyn was perceptive when he wanted to be. Particularly when it was about Ren.

Martyn squinted. “What are you two doing out here?” he did not necessarily sound accusing, but that did not stop it from being an accusation. He dropped from his seat to inspect them closely.

Ren froze. He didn’t know what to say.

“Are you an early bird or an early worm?” BigB asked cryptically, saving Ren from having to answer the question.

“Mate, I’m not a very punctual guy.” Martyn chuckled. “But I know you are,” he pointed at Ren, “so why are you here and not getting ready for today’s pre-Legacy Day dinner?”

“Oh!” Ren remembered suddenly.

“Right,” BigB hummed. Thinking of an excuse was futile. “It was today?! I haven’t heard anything about it before.”

Dinner for Legacy Day was quite the event but given everything that has been going on he could not blame them for not remembering. He is sure they are far from the only student that forgot about it.

Martyn raised an eyebrow. “Really? You forgot about it?”

“I did…” Ren admitted. “I… how do I say…”

And that’s the thing. There is no way of saying it. In a different universe in which Ren did not have a clue on the mystery surrounding his fate he would have spent the evening pretending to be someone else at the pre-Legacy Day dinner. Ren would dress up, cover himself up in fine silk and any jewelry he had. He would be early, walk in head high, as if he wasn’t an Evil Wolf. Whoever that saw him would have to think twice because Ren refused to play the part of the evil creature. Ren dressed like a royal.

But things are different now.

There is a substantial more than zero chance he might actually be some kind of royalty.

Why would he play pretend when the truth might hide a better fate? That’s not something he could easily explain.

“Look,” Martyn interrupts his silence, suddenly grim. He must have thought Ren’s silence meant something was terribly wrong. He hesitated, the next part visibly paining him. Martyn had never been one for emotional vulnerability. Between the two of them Ren was the one prone to sudden fits of feeling, it was strange to see his hand like this. “I don’t believe the book will change you, it will always be Ren Diggity Dog for me. I know things are tense right now, but I know you, okay? A book wouldn’t change you.”

Ren sighed shakily. In a different circumstance, this was exactly the kind of moment in which he would have broken down and revealed everything to Martyn. A part of him felt guilty. Martyn was there to support him in all steps of the way. He trusted the Ren he knew, but the convolutions of fate had revealed neither of them truly knew who Ren was, much less who he was meant to be.

“Thanks, Martyn,” Ren said, meaning it fully.

“So…” Martyn sighed, hesitating on his next question. “... you and BigB? You two are together a lot,” he pointed out. This was an accusation.

“Oh no!” BigB denies.

“What? No!” Ren laughs. “Not like that!”

Ren is amused to find Martyn blushes.

For such a self assured guy his voice sure sounds tiny when he says, “Really?”

“Martyn, you know everything about me,” Except the things you don’t. But it’s not like I do either.

“Dude, all couples do is come to this place thinking no one is ever here and, let me tell you, Joel speaks way too loudly.”

“Martyn, trust me on this one.” He places his hands to Martyn’s face. Martyn held his breath. “We are going to do something… I will not sign the fate of my father, I promise. Would you cover for us?”

A moment of silence.

Martyn pulls away.

“Fine,” he accepts, not looking at Ren, like his holding back an instinct. He’s clearly not content with not knowing what they were doing, but he was not going to dig further if Ren did not want him to. “You didn’t need to be so persuasive, I wouldn’t snitch on you, Ren.”

“Thank you,” Ren smiles, understood without words somehow. He thinks about getting closer to Martyn again, just because he had proven he could, but right now it’s far from the moment to explore that story line.

Regardless, it feels good to know he can count on Martyn.

Martyn turned back on them and walked to the way they came. “I’ll make up some excuse as to why you two are not there,” he shouted as he went. And he dared to complain about Joel's volume.

“Thank you, hand!” Ren shouted back and Martyn did not see it necessary to say anything more.

“Why didn’t you tell him?” BigB asks.

Ren had certainly been wondering the same thing. It was clear Martyn already hated being left out, he just happened to trust Ren enough to let it slip. That did not mean heaving Martyn on their side would not be helpful.

But with Martyn… it was different.

Regardless of the face of the moon Martyn never saw him as anything else. He was just Ren for him. It was a comfort Ren did not have as a child. His classmates made sure to turn him away anytime he looked too much like a monster. But Martyn does not leave. Ever.

Ren has always feared the book would make him a different person. The magic of fate would teach him about his role in ways his father was never able to. Finally, Ren would be the monster. He had seen it, he knew it was possible. But now there is a chance he won’t even have to risk his identity. But there is also the chance that he’s wrong.

If Ren ends up signing anyway and it changes him and if it makes it so that he can’t be with Martyn… Ren does not know how he would look himself in the mirror then.

“I don’t want to disappoint him,” Ren settled for.

BigB wanted to, but did not say, how he did not see any way in which Martyn would be.

“And at that you’re right,” BigB said, wincing instantly at the face Ren made. “I, huh, wasn’t talking to you. Sorry.”

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

“BigB… that’s a hole,” Ren stated.

“Well, yes.”

There was, in fact, a hole in front of them. Ren had been anything but short of surprised when BigB had announced they had made it to their destiny. Ren had assumed BigB knew something about portals. They were far from uncommon in Ever After, but it’s not like every town had one conveniently placed or that did not need an important kind of payment to be used.

“You want me to jump in?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“I dug it,” BigB explained, which explained nothing. That thing was at least three meters wide and Ren could not see the bottom of it.

It was weird! What else was he supposed to think?!

“You’re losing me, dude.”

“Oh, it’s simple,” BigB says, patient as ever. “It takes you to Wonderland.”

“You dug a hole all the way to Wonderland.”

“How else was I supposed to visit home?” BigB argued.

“Through… the portals?”

BigB did not answer to that.

“Besides, once you befriend the rabbits they can take you pretty much anywhere. Sure, it still takes so much time but you cannot feel it pass, but once you believe in their power they get you to your destination.” BigB explained. “Do you believe it will take us to your home?”

“Well… I trust you, B.”

“Then that’s all we need.”

And he dropped down.

Going down rabbit holes was not easier but Ren was starting to see how that was the least of his problems.

He really was going to go see his father now, huh?

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

BigB was right. It felt exactly as it did when Lizzie snuck them to the Headmaster’s office. Except, it was also worse in every possible way. Ren had never been the best at magic. This amount of exposure in such little time was bound to make him sick soon.

The world around him was spinning and he felt dryness at the back of his tongue. Despite it, there is not a world in which he’s not able to identify the silhouette of the house he grew up in.

The sun looked fresh above them, forcing Ren to squint. They left in the evening, from the looks of it, it was already morning. The trip down the rabbit hole must have taken the whole night.

“Is this the right place?” BigB asked, pointing towards the runned down wooden shack at the edge of the woods.

When his father arrived at the place the town did not feel safe with a wolf inside, but when they saw he came with a child they compromised on letting them live on the outskirts. At least that’s what his father had told him once when he complained about how much he had to walk to get to school.

“Yeah, home sweet home.”

They walked up to the porch, where Ren was less than a few centimeters apart from the door. It was now or never.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” Ren said instantly, because otherwise he would end up going down the rabbit hole again. Somehow, even though he still felt like throwing up, that still felt like the best solution to facing his own father. Ren knocked once loud and clear.

Then, Ren cursed him when he didn’t answer the door. The second time around the gruff voice answered right away. He always did that, insisting if he gave up knocking the first time around then it wasn’t important. His father cared for little more than himself. But Ren was looking at himself in the windowsill, the reflection was not his father.

“What?” the gruff voice from the other side of the wall said.

“Father.”

Something fell to the floor and clattered. Ren felt himself blush. He wasn’t even inside and he knew without him there it must be a mess. He had never brought anyone to his childhood home, much less to see his father. That was for a reason.  With the state of his father Ren only had more reason to hope it was true. He just hoped the man had not taken the night to drink. Or the morning.

When the door was finally opened the hope disappeared.

“The prodigious son himself,” he gruffed. “And a friend?”

“This is BigB,” Ren introduced him. “Son of Alice in Wonderland.”

At that his father raised his eyebrows taking a sip from his drink. “Is he really?”

Ren frowned. Everything they have done came to this. The simplest question that would finally answer, with certainly everything that ever felt wrong about his life.

“Father,” Ren said, taking a breath. On his side, BigB placed a hand on his shoulder. “Who was mom?”

“I’ve told you that before, bud!” His father laughed from the other side of the phone, that old sound mocked him all his life. “Your mother is one thing only, I’ve been saying for a while.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

The gravity on his own voice was nearly unrecognizable. For a moment, he expected his father to mock once again how much he cared. Instead, the man seemed to hold himself to more seriousness. Ren wondered if he had been smoking when he arrived.

“What? Why do you ask?”

“You remember I’ll sign the book this year or do you not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” the man dismissed. He did not look at Ren when he talked. “Ready to face your fate, aren’t you?”

Ren grips his hands into fists, frustrated with what he knows is his father’s intentional ribbing. “I would, if I knew what it was. The Storybook of Legends has shown me things, father.”

“You’re a wolf, son.” His father said, slow, as if he wanted Ren to hear him clearly. “What else could you be?”

“We both know I’m not.”

His father’s face darkens.

As much as his father wanted him to be, as much as he tried to teach him, The Wolf had known his son wasn’t his. That child was the mirror image of the woman who birthed him. A truth scarier than the monster his father prayed his son would turn into, for both of their sakes and the sake of a poisoned word such as destiny.

“Alright,” he conceded. “Since you seem to know so much about it, why don’t I tell you about the tale that didn’t make it to the The Wolf and the Seven Goats book.”

  𓃦 ☽ 𓃵 

His stomach had been cut open.

The Wolf does not know how he’s alive after all that gore. The taste of blood was still fresh in his tongue, as was the fact he had not been hungry and he had not wanted to do it. But the moon had been full and his signature was inked beneath the fate he had been assigned. It was nothing but the weight of promise.

His stomach had been cut open. The goat children inside had been replaced with rocks.

The Wolf does not know how he’s alive after the weight dragged him to the bottom of the river. He can’t hardly blame the mother. Written down or not, few would let your young be eaten and do nothing about it. The Wolf would have been content with his own death right then. What else could he do but drown? Even if he made it, there was no way he was anywhere near capable of gurgling out the rocks in his guts.

But he made it. He had survived his tale without drowning. The currents were kind to him. The Wolf couldn’t dare to waste a chance to live free of the ties of fate now that he was done with it. The events of the story would forever remain engraved in his mind, muddled alongside the lack of control of his own body. But he was alive.

The Wolf spent days dragging himself unable to eat but angry enough to persist. Eventually he found a doctor foolish enough to believe his poor excuse of being a minor prince but got the short end of the stick. The Wolf did not always look like a Wolf, it certainly helped the lie. Something about actions is that, fated or not, people faulted you about them.

Fault him they did.

Even though the tale was over, the Goat Mother would not be satisfied until she saw his dead body. When she arrived at the town and revealed what had happened, and how he, an evil devious monster, had eaten her children, the town was very quick to show their kindness.

The Wolf ran away. Even though he had fulfilled his role he remained a monster and people wanted justice.

Wolf face or not, he could not show it anywhere. He realized the world was not fated to be kind to him. He was not welcome to any of the nearby towns, much less get a job to feed himself of anything different to the fruit the forest might offer. The Wolf had no money, no place to call home. This world would never welcome him.

But he remembered someone lunatic enough that just might.

So to a wonderful place he went.

☽

Wonderland was different to what he expected. The place was distant enough no one gave mind to a wolf among walking cards and talking cats. Getting directions to the castle was challenging, but The Wolf managed to get there. He had checked before, the tale of Alice in Wonderland had been finished a couple years before his own. He would not be unwelcome, he hoped.

As much as it might risk his head, The Wolf got a private audience with The Queen of Hearts and hoped she might have mercy on the lone dog she once knew in Ever After.

So The Wolf told her his story. Everything from his drunk father to the aftermath of signing his fate, thinking he could live life in town until he found that dreaded house in the outskirts of a town by the river, how the moon made him something unlike himself. He asked her to have him whichever way would allow him to stay in the place no one but her would know him.

“I hear what you say, Sr. Dog.” She smiled at him.

“Oh, come on, Rachel,” he teased, finally free now that she accepted to have him. “Sr. Dog was my father.”

Finally, she cracked. “Whatever you say, Loren.” The Queen of Hearts rolled her eyes, much more like the girl he had fooled around during his years in the Ever After grounds. “Yes, you can stay.”

Loren was allowed a room in the gigantic castle. He had food, a roof and a field to play cricket if he ever wanted to. Days were slow, whether or not that had been related to how none of the clocks worked, Loren had never been able to tell. But they were good days. Rachel would invite him a drink or two from time to time to take the edge off, they were friends.

The Queen and King of hearts never saw too much eye to eye though, it was clear they didn’t like each other. Rachel would often complain about the man, how little he cared about her despite claiming fate brought them together and his jealousy over everything she did and was. He had wanted her role but now it’s too late, Alice has long since left Wonderland.

Rachel Hearts proves to be the same girl dedicated to her fate as she was when he had last seen her in her graduation. Loren had never resented their breaking up when she left Ever After, by then he was trapped in a fate that would be cruel and she had been excited to get started on her own. She would have heads rolling everywhere with glee as long as that was what she was meant to be. Rachel thought it was important, following their fate. How did he ever convince her to go out with him back then he never understood. She was never the kind of person to get crossed with someone that wasn’t tied to her string of fate.

But then again, she didn’t like her King.

Truly, their inevitable reconnection felt like fate.

And then it turned into a habit.

It was a wicked spark, their passion. Loren just happened to be exactly what she liked so justifying it was hardly a challenge, having known each other before just made it simple. Bending the rules now would be easy. She has finished her tale, he’s done with his destiny. Surely they would get to have this.

Loren had free range around the castle, but that did not mean what they did was good in the eyes of fate. He had to remain a secret. No one could know a Queen finished her story and went on to screw a Bad Wolf. That doesn’t say the correct thing about fate and royalty.

The King of Hearts knew, but he had nothing to fight against Loren, which shamed him enough to never spill anything about the relationship between his wife and Loren.

But something as aberrant could never be allowed to last. For which they had to pay the price.

The Queen of Hearts was pregnant.

The people were rejoyed, finally a child to take on the role of future Queen of Hearts. The disease that spread through Wonderland a few years prior remained ingrained in everyone’s memory. They needed children to keep the story alive. But they knew the truth, the King himself knew the truth.

They had thought the conception of something so far away from what fate allowed was not possible, they were taught children of parents from different fates are not even possible. They had not been careful. A part of them hoped the child could be the King’s. It was not entirely impossible, but the dates did not match well enough for it to be something to bet a life on.

☽

Nine months passed torturously slow. The pregnancy had been hard, sickening. Rachel said it was punishment for what they had done, Loren had nothing to say, he was her dirty secret after all. At a time he had not minded the position, it certainly gave him a good life. But the pain and the nausea and the hunger in her body made her distant. Loren hoped they might just get lucky, the child might resemble her.

“Don’t be a fool, Loren,” she scolded him, looking at him with pity, almost the same as when they were younger, a lifetime ago, and he told her how much he regretted signing the Storybook of Legends, how he had wanted to run away with her. “What I’m growing here is a monster.”

Loren couldn’t help but wonder whether that was what she saw in him.

“I’ll love it anyway,” he said, convinced. He thought about his distant father and his role as the older brother of six siblings. He does not know what happened to any of them after. He does not know what will happen to him now.

☽

“When the full moon welcomed you to the world I didn’t need to be in the room to know what had been born. The whole castle must have known. You were born of a full moon, a wolf child entire. From the moment the world saw you and you saw the world it was obvious what you were destined to be and who you were the son of,” his father said. But the tale did not end there.

☽

The King of Hearts remained prideful as he approached Loren. From his looks, Loren knew he also hoped it would take after the Queen of Hearts. Instead, he carried a child completely covered by cloth. The King held him far, as if even being near it would damage him. But it was just a baby, even if it was a baby wolf, and it was crying.

He gave it away with a disgusted glare. It was then when Loren saw his son for the first time. He would love him, he would love him, he would love him. He had to raise the monster. Had he been born anything else, Loren does not think he would have been so easily spared, even if it allowed the Queen to pretend it did not come from Loren. A child like the one he held carefully could only be meant to be a Big Bad Wolf. With a face like that it wouldn’t defy what rules everyone knew about fate, it was a Wolf child, nothing more.

“She does not wish to see you.” The King of Hearts said, as Loren met his only son and his heart broke. “You’ve been banished by the Hearts Crown. Get out of my Kingdom before I execute you and your blood, Wolf.”

The Wolf ran away leaving Wonderland and his heart behind. He had a child to raise.

Even if The Wolf had control of how he looked, the child he was carrying did not. Finding a home would not be easy, but at last a place finally had sympathy for the desperate man carrying a toddler. They allowed him a home at the edge of the town in exchange for keeping other monsters out.

As the nights pass, The Wolf would learn his son changed with the moon and beneath the monster he would see a child with the face of his mother.

With a bastard son, The Wolf should have known from the start he was destined to be a lone. The Wolf could only hope the same was the fate of the son with the face of his mother.

Letting them be killed by the King of Hearts might have been a mercy.

☽

Later, The Wolf would learn it had been the Queen who ordered his banishment. The whole event was covered up and any leftover relation between The Queen of Hearts and The Wolf was erased. The people of Wonderland would be led to believe the child had died at birth, and it would have, had she followed the wishes of anyone that saw the child that came out of her.

It’s not fate that kills children of different fates. Fate does not have hands. Fate cannot touch you. It’s the people, they carry the will of destiny. Fate rights itself, what a bunch of bullshit.

  𓃦 ☽ 𓃵 

“She died, you must have been ten around then,” his father said. “She sent me a stupid letter, apparently she knew it was coming for her. Probably still thinks it’s her punishment for being with me… that idiot.”

“I should have sold the ring she sent it with, but that’s a family heirloom. The Queen of Hearts never had any other children, what can you do?” he shrugged, as if he didn’t care, dismissing the fact Ren could clearly see his bloodshot eyes had little to do with his habits. That had been the first time his father told anyone about his lover, Rachel Hearts. It must hurt him. It’s not like Ren could judge, he was biting his tongue as if to not allow himself to feel grief for the woman who abandoned him. “You know the rest.”

No, he doesn’t know the rest, Ren thought bitterly. He had wanted to look in the book to give himself strength and now… now he had what he wanted.

Ren was the only son of the Queen of Hearts in a time where there was no one else to replace her even though he was the farthest from a prince and yet the closest thing to it.

Ren would be King. He was destined to be Ren the Dog, Queen of Hearts.

His mother did not save him, not in the way he had dreamed of as a child. But this was the closest thing he would ever have. More than he could ever make himself believe.

Only one thing he was sure of. “I won’t be you.”

“Hah, as if I don’t know that, you made it so obvious for so long.” His father laughed, then sent himself into a coughing fit. The days were catching up to that lone wolf, but he was sharp when he raised his voice once more. “Do you really think they would let you be king?”

The question felt like the stab of a knife because that’s what Ren knew it would come back to in the end.

Workings of fate and destiny were a mystery to most, but no one would ever see him and believe he’s the future Queen of Hearts.

But Ren cannot bring himself to care.

He’s the son of the Queen of Hearts. He will be Queen of Hearts. In fact, he will treasure the fate he got with everything he has. Ren will be the best King to ever see Wonderland, whether they like it or not.

He could only laugh with glee. “Watch me.”

The image in the Storybook of Legend promised. Ren would make everything in his path to ensure it would stay true.

Ren did not want to be The Wolf. All this time the feeling of wrongness at his fate had a reason. He could not allow them to tell him otherwise.

I don’t need to be allowed to be king if I’m destined to be, Ren thought to himself.

Ren turned towards the door. Only then he realized BigB had never left his side through the whole encounter with his father. Ren offered a sincere, even if tense, smile towards B. The familial revelations had nothing to do with him, and yet, Ren is glad BigB chose to come with him.

“Thanks for giving me truth,” Ren offered as goodbye to his father.

BigB was already out the door when his father called. “Ren,” he said, softer than anything Ren had heard out of his mouth. “Please don’t die.”

And it was the kind of request that could only come from a man who loved his monster son without knowing him, even if with all his faults the love came out wrong.

Please don’t get yourself killed, his father was begging him, as a wolf you would be safer.

But that safety would never bring him happiness. Ren was not fated for the comfort of certainty.

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦

They left without a word. BigB instructed him on how the way back would be pretty much the same. Believe it would take them to Ever After. They should be back by Thursday, the day before Legacy Day.

“Ren, are you okay?” BigB asked, concerned. “That was kind of heavy.”

Ren glanced back surprised that it was even a question. “Yeah, of course I’m fine.” He grinned back at BigB, soothing his expression from whatever BigB had seen before. “I’m going to be king.”

He didn’t have time to ponder on the story of his birth. The shame behind it. The shame behind him. However little his mother had wanted him, even if she loved him enough to spare his life. Save him the sob story. Ren had no time to linger on that. In less than two days he would sign away his life to his dream.

Ren ran a hand through his hair, a desperate laughing sound leaving him. He was alive even if he had two different stories in his blood. That did not matter. There were dozens of wolves out there, there was only one Queen of Hearts. 

Why wouldn’t he be fine?

Ren was going to be king. The Storybook of Legends promised.

𓃦 ✩₊˚.⋆☾♕☽⋆⁺₊✧ 𓃦