Twisted Happily Everafters

Chapter Two: The Dark Swan Prince

Ivy paced anxiously, holding her hand mirror and applying natural coloured lip gloss while talking to her father. Ivy was in her new dorm which was much too plain for her taste and she couldn't stand it so much that she had spent the first night at the academy in her sister's dorm. Ivy knew that the academy was meant to be a challenge but she never thought she'd be given an assignment with little to no directions or requirements.

"I just don't understand the assignment father. She just told us that if we follow the rules we'd graduate and if we didn't we'd move up in level? Like that doesn't make any sense," She complained, dragging out her words in exasperation. Godmother Academy was nothing like she thought it would be and it made her so distressed. Her father's face appeared in the mirror so she stared at him for a moment or so before putting lip gloss away in her desk drawer, trying desperately to think of a bright side to her assignment. He sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry sweetheart I would try to help but I don't remember my time at the academy," he told her which made her freeze in her tracks.

"What do you mean you don't remember it?" she questioned, flopping onto her bed. Herr furrowed his eyebrows but that didn't seem to jog his memory.

"I'm sorry Ivy I just don't remember it," and that was that. Ivy hung up on him, shoving the mirror into the pocket of her dress, and pulled her assigned book out from under her bed. The Dark Swan Prince was definitely not her favourite fairytale as it featured almost no princesses but she could always appreciate princes and sometimes on rare occasions, they were even better than princesses depending on their handsomeness or their choices of action. This assignment was nothing like what her father used to give her and her sister for homeschool lessons. With homeschool lessons there always seemed to be a bright side or easy thing to start with that Ivy could grasp but with this assignment, there was only this beloved fairytale she grew up reading. That was the only bright side she could think of. She stared desperately at the book, carefully beginning to flip through it for about the one-hundredth time but she still found no assignment, no clues on what to do. Ivy thought about what the headmistress had said yesterday. The only instructions she had given. Place the book on the floor, open it to the first and then jump on onto it. It seemed like such strange instructions but Ivy thought it might be worth it to give it a try and see what happened so she did exactly that. She placed the book open to the first page in the middle of her floor and took a step back ready to jump on the book but before she could the dorm door swung open and her roommate Violet walked into the room.

Violet was the complete opposite of Ivy. She was jumpy, a redhead, and had dark brown eyes. Violet also rarely ever smiled and wore only back and purple. Her hair was cut in a way that gave her sharp, crooked bangs that she obviously straightened along with the rest of her hair every morning and she had black streaks of colour throughout her hair.

"Are you actually going to do that stupid jumping thing Miss. Godmother wants us to do," Violet's voice held no emotion, she was like a real-life zombie. I took off my jacket, folded it neatly on my bed, and grabbed fistfuls of my skirt, bunching it up to make it easier to jump.

"Yes. Yes, I am. I thought why not give it a try," Ivy explained, readying herself for the jump a second time because of Violet's interruption.

"What do you think is going to happen? Magic?" Violet asked, her voice still deadpanned and waving her hands in front of her into a sarcastic rainbow motion. Ivy stared at her lost for words then she backed up and took a run for it. She jumped high but as she came down she didn't land. Instead, she sank straight through the pages, beginning to laugh as she slid down what felt like a hill made for going down during the winter. Ivy looked down as blossoms swirled around her as her outfit changed into something much more masculine. Until she suddenly landed somewhat gracefully on her feet with an abrupt end to the slide. She glanced around in awe at the dark forest that now surrounded her.