Twist of Fates

𝕸𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖈𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖂𝖔𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉

✧✶Julianna Valentina De La Bellam
²³.⁹ ᵖᵃᵍᵉˢ

Crowley paced around his office. His gloved hands raked down his mask.

"Can't see magic. Can't see magic, she says! EVERYONE sees MAGIC. And yet she speaks the truth. HOW did you choose the ONE inept child in ALL OF TWISTED WONDERLAND!?" He slammed his palm into the wall and dropped his head into a hand. He griped, "My test was a complete and utter waste."

As pleasing as the music of slander was, Julianna liked the original track better. AKA, her mother. He had no right to plagiarize her Maman.

Julianna stomped directly into his space and sneered when he jumped back, "You know how we could have avoided that? TALKING. How about you just fucking say what you mean!"

"Well, since you insist your intelligence is simply that indecent, I suppose I shall humor you, for I am gracious. Tell me, Miss Dare, what you fail to comprehend."

He pressed his back into the wall the closer she stepped.

"Everything!"

"Then, I can not extricate you from your premature fate." Crowley's taught smile pushed uncomfortably close into her boundaries before he shot briskly past. He tried to avoid her. And she wasn't about to let that happen.

Her hand shot forward.

"You can't just–" She stiffened. Blot exploded past her lashes. Heavy black globs dripped from her nose and chin.

Mildew. Yeasty.

It got in her mouth.

She doubled over and retched as creamy chunk slopped across her toes.

Then she slipped.

The heel of her palm slammed into a stray puddle and she swallowed a scream. At once, the nearby blot attracted to her like a magnet and seeped straight into her pores.

The blot monster flickered ominously behind her eyes.

Grinding his teeth, Crowley strangled his arm in a vice grip with the veins in his neck bulging. He towered over her, the wrath of glaciers in his booming voice, "Understand now!?"

Julianna's wide eyes shakily wandered up. She numbly shook her head and flinched.

Crowley shook his arm and a spray of blot hit her skin.

He raised a claw, "Listen clearly because I will never coddle you like this ever again." He hissed.

"You and I? We are spurned. Damned by every major and minor category of EVERY species for the origin of our magic: the direct gifts of He of Evil. Thus, if you are caught, I am caught, and I don't want to be a SPECIMEN of S.T.Y.X. or a FUGITIVE to High Castle! I wanted to reclaim his glory and soar higher than those traitorous Great Seven, but then you came along. And now, he is to live through you and not me! Ludicrous! Yet the undeniable truth. And DON'T you worry your face at me like that now, your pathetic guilt will get you NOWHERE. In fact, stop it. Pulverize that ridiculous heart of yours and commit to something!"

Her breath clouded in front of her. The windows frosted over and her palms slid across the floor. Crowley's entire frame shook, but no matter how heavily he huffed and puffed, no clouds formed for him.

His voice cracked and got louder.

"You and your guilt," he sneered, "Pathetic. You take action and cower beneath your own heart afterward as if you didn't just savor the ruin you caused! And then you hesitate to do MORE!? WHY DO YOU HOLD BACK? WHY? You carry his blessing– what more could you POSSIBLY want? Either commit to this miserable disguise or wear a new one. You're not fooling anyone with that tough brute because EVERYONE sees you for the mushy weakling you are! And if, after all that, you still insist I parent you, then fine. Go to your room! OUT! OUT OF MY SIGHT!"