Veritas Virumque/P2E2

"And it was as if I had rapped sharply, four times, on the fatal door of destiny."

The address Gabriel Fanfarinet was given was this anarcho-syndicalist cafe in BookEnd.

It was called The Little Red Hen Cafe. On the walls were posters for upcoming concerts and gigs and protests, and in the back of the shop was a bookstore of revolutionary material. The “new releases” section featured the faces of several prominent Ever After High students, most notably Raven Queen, and books promised “hexclusive interviews and updates of the recent Ever After High ‘Royal or Rebel’ drama”.

Gabriel ordered an espresso, and sat down with his MirrorBook out to continue his work.

He was half-an-hour early.

Half-an-hour early, because his mother had always taught him to be five minutes early to make the proper impression. Half-an-hour early, because he had looked up this place meticulously beforehand, found that it had free WiFi and a menu “so sustainable, it rivals people’s mindsets to the destiny system!”, and was intent on exploring it. Half-an-hour early, because he needed more than one coffee.

He ordered another shot, and finished the final conclusion of a paper he had to work out, and sent out a proposal for a new project to his current manager, and checked in on some of the students he was being a destiny consultant trainee for.

Pythia Adalinda arrived, fifteen minutes earlier than the scheduled time. She found him easily enough - it was not a busy cafe, and she stood right in front of the table, and stared him down with the most serious look.

As the daughter of the Serpent Queen in the Singing Springing Lark, Pythia Adalinda displayed her heritage proudly. The tote-style handbag she was carrying had handles wound like a pair of snakes, whose mouths were open, as if in attack or in pain. In formality, she extended her hand to shake.

We’ve met Pythia Adalinda before. She was Royal Student Council, she ran a lot of events around campus, and she made Turnus cry once.

“You’re Fanfarinet, right?” she asked. “My mother has a gift for you.”

She was destined not to be a princess, but a queen. She was meant to rule a kingdom whose greatest power would lie in trade and the economy. When her mother, the Serpent Queen, gifted things, the value of the gift was contained only within the price.

Pythia opened up her handbag, and took out a small box. “The casing is selkie skin,” she explained, as she pressed it into Gabriel’s hand. “The clasp is some alloy, that’s not really important. There’s some designs leather stamped on the box as well - all flowers. All of these are zinnia--” she pointed to a bouquet of flowers, of different colours -- “and the borders are meant to be starwort”.

“Thank you,” he said, a little bit stunned. Gabriel still wasn’t used to the luxuries of being a legacy. He undid the clasp and took a peek inside the box. Inside, were a pair of cufflinks. One was shaped like a LEGO brick, the other shaped like a pink convertible car.

“And one more thing - you’re like, legal to drink, so I don’t feel bad carrying this for you.” Once again, she opened up her handbag. From it, she took out a bottle of absinthe.

He smiled politely at the gift.

Gabriel Fanfarinet was not Bastion Fanfarinet. But when he smiled, it was the same enigmatic smile Bastion smiled with. Only the corners of their mouths would tug up, never the corners of their eyes.

“It feels like such an irresponsible gift, doesn’t it?” he said, picking up and admiring the absinthe. “I must come off as a very responsible person, then.” Gabriel did not seem particularly happy, though it could have just been his voice. Whatever it was, he at least seemed thankful.

When he was going to drink the liquor, he didn’t know. He didn’t have many friends outside of work in the first place to drink with, and surely he wasn’t going to drink alone. That would just be admitting to himself that he was in an unfortunate position.

“She’s very kind, your mother. Or rather, they’re both very kind, both of your mothers,” he added. “I’m sure you’re the same.”

“He was my best friend.”

Well, that threw Gabriel off-guard.

“I’m sorry?”

“Was. Up until Ever After High, we were best friends.”

He knew that Lanius Nightshade forbade him from communicating the existence of Bastion Fanfarinet, but Pythia Adalinda was on a very short list of people who was ‘in’ on what happened. This was one of the times he could speak freely.

“I’m sorry.”

It was silent. And the silence continued, and dragged on, and he noticed that her hands around the handle of her handbag were clenched very tight, and that her lip was quivering only ever-so-slightly, and perhaps his very presence was disturbing to the poor girl.

“I can leave, if you want. I appreciate the gifts, really. Thank you, Pythia.”

“Thank you, Fanfarinet,” she said.

Fanfarinet… an address by his legacy title. An address by his name - but it was his last name, the name that signified his family. She acknowledged his destiny, and who he was meant to be. She did not acknowledge him. Gabriel Fanfarinet, his own person.

“You’re an Ever After High student,” he said. “You must be busy. I don’t want to keep you.”

“Thank you,” and she left the cafe.

~*~

Up until Ever After High, Pythia Adalinda and Bastion Fanfarinet were best friends.

Even during Ever After High, he would spend the summers and other breaks at her kingdom, though it never quite felt the same as it did in their younger years. He grew concerned about his future, and he stressed over the rest of his life. It interrupted their conversations sometimes, especially while Pythia was trying to talk about her own future plans.

Bastion Fanfarinet knew who Turnus Wyllt was, back in his Ever After High days. He knew the boy from Day One. But no one had bothered scheduling a time for them to meet and talk and discuss, they had all hexpected everything to fall naturally in place with destiny come. Both boys were also too nervous to even approach one another. Turnus Wyllt was still too overwhelmed from the fairytale world; Bastion Fanfarinet had learnt to be good at being uptight. Besides, meeting the man you’re meant to serve or be served by is a grand occasion.

You have to get really good at timing things.

Pythia Adalinda knew that Bastion Fanfarinet knew who Turnus Wyllt was. Bastion Fanfarinet would sometimes point the prince out.

“There he is,” he said once.

At that one occasion, they were in the castle-teria, early morning. She remembered that they had their notes spread out on the table, taking up the space of at least two other people. The notes had a purpose - they were prepping for their first debate tournament. The notes had another purpose - Pythia barely saw her friend as much anymore, and keeping a table for themselves was a way of maximising their time together.

“My liege,” he added, in a tone she knew as sarcastic. He gritted his teeth a little.

“That’s him? Your prince?”

All long purple hair and skinny arms, Turnus Wyllt sat with his back turned to them. He seemed very concentrated on a discussion with the princes he was sitting among, and even had his phone pulled out to check statistics to back up his argument. To Pythia, he did not look like much, just yet another prince destined to be a prize for a protagonist princess.

“He’s very handsome,” Bastion said. “Very smart, too.” But there were no emotions behind those words. They were statements.

“He’s alright,” she said, and glanced back up at her friend. His eyes were dug into the back of Turnus’ head. “Do you think you’ll ever talk to him?”

“I’ll hurt myself at some later point.”

~*~

Turnus Wyllt sat in the archives of Ever After High, leafing through a book of financial records. After the failure with celestial magic, after everything that had happened over the past weeks, only stability seemed to clear his head. There were two things certain in life, people said, which were death and taxes.

He was mulling over the latter, trying to gather sources for his new blog post on tax evasion, when his reading was disrupted by the sound of footsteps.

The footsteps were very familiar. They were discordant and loud. It was Utility Fei.

The fertility witch looked tired -- or was it bored? While the footsteps sounded the same, there was something off about their gait, a sort of nervousness yet stridency. Turnus picked up on those things, and did not assume anything. Perhaps they were just having an off day.

“Hi Utility!” he said, still sitting in his spot. He waved at them.

“Turnus,” responded Utility. “Glad to see that you’re back. How is your brother?”

“I didn’t realise you knew them! Small world,” he frowned, then remembered that Sofia recommended him to Ever After High in the first place, so she must have connections, somewhere. “Small school.”

“Honourable, really,” they sat down at a spot near them, and absentmindedly pulled a record book from the nearby shelf. Utility leafed through it, without looking at the pages once, then put it back. “Lowly fertility witch, lowly non-legacy, getting to interact with all these eminent people… makes you yearn, sometimes.”

Turnus felt an odd sort of sadness. It was so difficult to be angry at the fact that he was at Ever After High, when he was beyond luckier than anyone he knew back home. Sofia really did mean the best for him.

“I met your friend,” he said, deciding to continue the conversation. Utility was so fascinating, with such connections, that it was worth asking about them. “Uh, I’m blanking on their name. A changeling, I think? Red hair… about this tall… Canadian.”

“Oh yes, Chanel! I was a plus one. Fun times, that wedding. Sofia was a little surprised to see me, I definitely changed from when she last knew me.”

“I did say hi to you, but we didn’t talk much.”

“It was a large gathering, that’d would have been really difficult,” Utility waved a hand, as if waving his concerns off with the hexcuse, or as if they were waving this conversational topic goodbye. “What are you reading?”

He lifted up the book in his hands. “Financial records.”

They shook their head, and decided that the best thing to do was to recline down on the floor, face-up. “Yawn. How boring. It’s all the same, isn’t it? Large sums of money spent here. And also there. Then you earn more large sums. And there’s a large sum of money that’s somewhere, unaccounted for.”

Turnus frowned. “Why are you lying down? Why aren’t you starting work?”

“Not my shift.”

Their eyes were fixated on the ceiling. One leg was bent acutely so their sole rested flat on the ground, and the other leg propped up on it. The changeling looked relaxed.

Placing the book of financial records down, Turnus moved to sit down on the floor, adjacent to the changeling.

“Alright,” spoke Utility. “Your brother’s wedding aside, what’s new in your life?”

“Uh, a lot,” Turnus frowned. He didn’t know where to begin.

“I’m prepared to listen through a lot.”

So he decided to isolate the important parts. “I realised my dad’s more like Merlin than I thought. He’s a cambion. And that makes me half-cambion, which is really ironic, I guess. Two mages as parents, and one of them is half-demon, and I have nothing magical about me? The universe makes funny plans.”

“Not as funny as the plans people make, but I see,” the changeling did not move from their position.

“How long are you going to stay like that?”

“You’re right - I am being a little recumbent in this body. I’ll shift soon.”

“Anyway--” and at that, Turnus was back on his feet, and intense enough in his thoughts to start pacing the room. “How valid is the trichotomy of human-fae-celestial in regards to magic? I tried to see if I could access celestial magic, but that’s closed to me as well. Listen, Utility, you must know, you’re both fae and witch.”

Their host’s body was still lying face-up on the floor. Very slowly, they raised their right hand off their stomach, to their face, to check their nails, as if they were bored by Turnus’ ramblings. Then, they snapped their fingers.

Last time Utility snapped their fingers, Turnus recognised the effects of the magic they performed as that reminiscent of a witch. Last time, Utility had conjured a bouquet of rhododendrons.

This time, instead of a bouquet in their hand, petal-like magical effects enveloped Utility, like a caterpillar in a chrysalis. The petals were translucent. Once they wrapped around the changeling, if you squint, you could make out Utility’s form, which soon seemed to liquidise and reshape.

Rhododendrons… Turnus had never bothered learning the meanings of flowers. But your narrator has, and I’ll tell you now: it symbolises danger. Despite its beauty, all parts of the plant are poisonous.

A bouquet is not a gift. It is a warning.

“Both fae and witch,” Utility stood up, in a body that mirrored Turnus’ own. The green hair was now purple, and no longer done up in buns, but loose. Their body was much taller and thinner, and their eyes were not a murky brown, but shining gold. “Both fae and witch, fine. Maybe I’ll give demon a bit of a spin as well.”

When they stood, it was nothing like how Turnus stood, none of the slouched back and awkward disposition. They seemed more in command of a body that Turnus never associated with, and despite being the same height, seemed to tower.

“That’s… you’re not… you’re not me,” he said. He could not see Turnus Wyllt in the body that was facing him.

“No, but are you even yourself?” asked the changeling. “Take a good look, I have a few friends of mine to give you time and space.”

Turnus yelled as he felt a backwards pull into a mirror portal that manifested behind him. The force of the pull - it was directed at his hair, at his clothes, all the things he had on him that were dead and unaffected by his anti-magic nature.

Changelings have a tendency to replace beautiful people, and Utility Fei likes to play prince.

~*~

“You want a more ordered world, right? Then you have to funnel all the rest of that chaos somewhere else. Second Law of Thermodynamics, or whatever.”

~*~

“See, software and the fae are very similar. They’re both very good at following very precise instructions.”

~*~

“Rule of three. Remember the rule of three. You’re fairytales, for von Schonwerth’s sake, learn your tropes.”

~*~

The two-year anniversary of being Utility Fei was about two months ago. The changeling had celebrated it alone. It was a weekend and they spent it eating good food and taking naps.

There was a reason why they had been Utility Fei. The fertility-witch-to-be had three things they wanted: grant money, access to private patient data, and this one really cool spectrometry machine present in the laboratory they worked under.

Right now, in the archives, the changeling was talking to themself. ‘Right, Utility, you’ve got this’, then quickly reprimanded themselves. “You’re not Utility Fei anymore,” they said, this time aloud, into the empty shelves of the archival room. “You’re Turnus Wyllt. Right, Turnus, collect yourself.” Feiymann paced the room in their new body. The new center of gravity will be something to quickly adjust to, and the more elevated height made them briefly dizzy.

For the narrator’s sake, and for the sake of ease on our readers, we must have a change in terminology for our characters.

Turnus Wyllt, our favourite human, is Turnus Wyllt, as always.

The fae that once disguised themselves as Utility Fei, but who is now Turnus Wyllt, shall be referred to by the name most default to them: Feiymann.

And the human that is Utility Fei--

We’ll see about that.