frerard one shots | ✔️

eighty ~ to kill

I thought I'd mix it up and write a twist on Cinderella, and for once, it's a short one. It's not supposed to be canon to Danger Days, but I used their aliases. sorryyyyyy 

Enjoy :)

"Good evening, everyone," Panthera's voice didn't echo, in fact, it barely bounced off the starchy, dark walls around us. She adjusted her ski mask, making sure that everything but her eyes was covered. "Thank you for joining us once again. Please extend your hands so we can see proof of your allegiance."

Unison was our strong suit, so I wasn't surprised when everyone's hand extended in the same moment. I held my breath. Even Panthera knew that there weren't any new bodies, but protocol is protocol, and our safety comes before everything. I looked at our hands; each one bore a discoloured scar, an echo of an old, deep gash — a representation of our connection.

"Excellent."

Hands were stuffed back into pockets and laps. Mine fit snugly into my fingerless skeleton gloves, and I held them under my thighs.

Panthera exhaled, and her breath echoed in the dim light of the room. "I will be assigning everyone new missions today, and these are the most difficult ones we've got so far. The last thing we need is one of us being caught, so we need to be inventive, and dare I say... Creative."

She whispered the last word, and the already-still air seemed to halt even the tiniest of its movements.

"I know," Panthera said, and even though nobody could see it, I just know she smiled. "But that's the reason we're all here, right? Is to bring our country's arts and creativity back?"

There was nervous movement from all around me, but I stood still. That word had been used as a weapon against us, and even now, it seemed too early to reclaim its true meaning.

"These nine years have been far too long to have been hiding our paints and brushes, our canvases...  our silks," a young man, seated a few people away from Panthera, agreed.

A murmur of agreement passed through the couple dozen faceless bodies there, and when the air stilled again, Panthera spoke again.

She said, "You will each receive your assignment now, memorise it, and then burn it here. As always."

Another murmur of agreement floated through us, but this time, it was laced with excitement and enthusiasm.

"Party, you're first," she said, and I got up at the sound of my alias. She called out the names quickly, so I didn't have to worry about anyone reading over my shoulder. I sighed and opened my scroll with my back pressed tightly against the crumbling wall.

The prince. I had to kill the prince. I almost shook my head, but instead, I stayed quiet. Any hint of who I had been assigned to or who I was could make my mission go horribly wrong. Even Panthera didn't know who we were. In the case that one of us was caught and questioned, everyone else had a safety net.

Listed below his name were places that he'd be in the near future. It was too bad, as a teenager, I'd had feelings for the prince; it was part of the way I'd realised I was gay. I'd take my sister's male barbies, pretending that one was me and the other was Prince Frank. Son of two carpenters, little Gee, wanting to kiss the prince. It almost made me smile. 

But that was before everything came crashing down. When his parents went crazy, people like me, in fact, everyone in this room represented a threat to their new governmental system. Artists, queer people, feminists, writers... all the social progress we'd made in the past couple hundred years had gone to waste. It was 1818 for God's sake, I thought that as a society, we'd be past this, and yet, it seemed like everything had just begun.