Farah Dowling WRITOBER 2O22

'Cause darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream

TRIGGER WARNING
Light descriptions of (imagined, but still graphic) torture, mentions of blood and non-con elements. Please, do not read if you find any of those disturbing.

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You have been brought up believing she is a traitor, a weak excuse of a fairy, a tyrant.

Andreas, the man you think of as a father, never tires of making snide remarks about her – you've always gotten the feeling they were never close, even as teenagers – and he has made clear that he hasn't forgiven her for imprisoning Rosalind Hale.

"At least she didn't have the balls to kill her" he always says when you talk about it, and then he spits on the grass.

But the first time you actually meet Farah Dowling it's difficult not to let her astonishing magical aura suck you in.

You knock on her door and when she opens you are so taken aback by her presence that instead of simply reciting the words you have rehearsed in the hope to ingratiate her, "obsessed with this place, its history, your history", you begin with a streak of profanities that gains you a stern look.

You can't blame her too much when she throws the door in your face.

The following day you make a clumsy second attempt, stopping by her office to ask her if you can help with the Vessels you know she's going to use at the Stone Circle, for her first official class. She's gorgeous in the morning light. "You look so..."

You manage to bite your tongue before you humiliate yourself. "...well rested."

She refuses your help, of course, and you avoid her after that, because she has no right being that intriguing when you're supposed to hate her.

You can't help but show off during classes, though. You don't know why, since you believe that she keeps a far too cautious pace when it comes to magic and that the assignments are ridiculously easy, but something stirs in your stomach when she compliments you.

You begrudgingly ascribe it to the fact that she is, after all, a decent teacher, and you try not to think too much about it.

What you cannot ignore is the fact that she's starting to haunt your dreams. You sleep less hours, find a couple guys to have sex with, become angrier and nastier.

The day you find her room and break in to see if you can find some clue on how to elude the charm that protects Rosalind's prison you have to force yourself not to lie on her bed and touch yourself. The thing is the fucking room smells like her. And the massive half-tester bed takes up most of the space. What does a prude such as the Headmistress do with this kind of luxurious bed?

Looking away, you search the desk, but you don't find anything apart from an old picture of her, Silva, Harvey, Andreas and Rosalind carefully tucked inside a book. You check the cover: it's a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Dowling has underlined a few sentences on the pages where the photograph was.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

A bubble of sarcastically bitter laughter rises from your throat. So the woman can be funny.

You put back the book and go search the wardrobe. As soon as you open it a whiff of her perfume assaults your senses. You look inside, but you make it a quick work - something you didn't like was moving in your chest as you went through her clothes.