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Ivy didn't know what she could have possibly done to Bella since their little midnight rendezvous in the library.
Since then, Bella hadn't bothered to talk to her, let alone acknowledge her.

She had apologized to Bella before she left their makeshift room made of curtains and cushions. She left in tears, but her own personal feelings had gotten in the way of what was truly important; she didn't want to see Bella heartbroken.

At least, that was what Ivy had told herself when her true feelings lied with not having to see Bella choose a Charming over her twice.

"Pumpkins? Ms. Evelyn, they're gooey on the inside!" A student exclaimed, shivering under their warm winter clothes.

Winter had finally arrived at Everfable, and nobody had been happy to see when the snow trickled down from the clouds that morning. Except Ms. Evelyn, who had surely planned her students' discomfort and brought them outside for their lesson.

"I've explained this before, having the ability to turn yourself and others into any object of your desire is the utmost power a future Godmother and villain could acquire. The only thing that can null that power is knowledge." Ms. Evelyn tutted, snapping her fingers before the rather terrified student next to her shrunk into a hefty orange pumpkin.

The students gasped, watching as the pumpkin moved, but couldn't talk. "Today, I will turn all the girls into pumpkins. Boys, you must pick which ones are girls disguised as pumpkins, and which are fakes."

With another snap, Ivy felt herself shrink and compress, watching as the other Godmothers and Princesses shrunk down into different hues of orange and white pumpkins. The boys were left gobsmacked as they saw each new pumpkin moving around.

Ivy had caught Bella turn into a beautiful, perfectly round white pumpkin. She thought to herself if she couldn't talk to her when they were human, maybe she'd have a better chance without being able to talk.

"Boys, you must turn around and wait until I say go. The girls will move around the garden and alcove, and you must pick which ones are one of the ladies. Bonus points if you can identify between the mannerisms of a Godmother and a Princess, just in case..." Ms. Evelyn trailed off, raising suspicions to her insinuation.

Princesses are trained to act like a Princess and Charmings are trained to act like a Charming, no matter what their destiny may be. It's one of the strengths of villains, since they knew what their enemies were looking for and can execute a perfect disguise.

It's been the reason very few villains actually won in their stories.

Ivy quickly shifted herself to the alcove, following the pumpkin Princess. None of the other girls had truly bothered to come deeper into the alcove like Bella and Ivy had, and Ivy's heart leapt in her hopes of being able to communicate with Bella about what had happened.

She pushed herself next to Bella, who had sat still. Ivy nudged her, with no response. She nudged her again, immediately being nudged back much harder.

"Bella, it's me!" Ivy yelled in her mind.
"Go away! You're going to blow my cover!" The Princess replied.

"Boys, you may begin."

Ivy jolted back in surprise. They couldn't hear the pumpkin student earlier, but they can actually talk to each other as pumpkins?

"Listen, I don't know why you're not talking to me, but I'm sorry." Ivy drooped, her leaves tickled her orange skin.

The white pumpkin jumped. "You don't know why I'm avoiding you? Maybe it's because my only friend ditched me while she was crying! We're friends, you were supposed to tell me what was wrong!"

Suddenly, Ivy knew. Bella had been staying away from her to teach her a lesson. "I-I can't tell you what was wrong, Bella. It was very personal, and I'm not comfortable sharing it with you yet. I'll say it again, though, I'm sorry."

Bella jumped more, thumping against the ground. "Personal? Ivy, I've shared many personal things with you! You haven't shared a single thing with me!"

"Well maybe if you weren't so hung up on Filip and actually appreciated me as a friend, maybe I would've talked about myself more!"

Bella's pumpkin gasped, ready to tear into Ivy. She bonked her, nudged her, and Ivy was having none of it. Ivy bounced, pushing the Princess back.

"Over here! There's two jumping around!" A familiar voice called, rushing towards Ivy and Bella.

"If you think I'm so hung up on Filip, watch this! He'll choose me when he has to identify which one of us is a Princess!"

"That's not what what Ms. Evelyn meant, he's not picking his true love! Godmother, you can be such an airhead!"

"An airhead?!"

The pumpkins scrapped, their leaves flying everywhere as their fellow students watched them fight.

"What-what do I do?" Filip turned to his teacher.

"Pick which one is the Princess and which one is the Godmother. Princesses value being civil, but keep in mind a Godmother is the epitome of elegance. Choose wisely, Filip."

"I-I should pick the Princess, right? That way I'll know in case my true love needs help."

The teacher shrugged, her eyes shifting back to the pumpkins, who had not bothered to pay attention to their surroundings.

Filip slowly approached the pumpkins, "Stop! Filip is coming!" Bella exclaimed, pushing herself in front of Ivy.

"Fine! Let him pick you, then you can see how 'great' you'd be together! You don't even lnow if he's your true love!" Ivy spat, shifting herself away from the white pumpkin.

She turned around to stare at the trees, patiently waiting for Bella to start gloating, but she stayed silent.

"This one, this is the Princess." Filip said,

Ivy waited, her heartbeat rumbled in her ears. She braced herself for the bragging...

Only to be scooped up in a pair of strong muscled arms.

Filip cradled Ivy. "This is my Princess."

"My?!" Ivy exclaimed. Ms. Evelyn snapped. Ivy yelped as she popped back into her human form and right into a princess carry in Filip's arms. Her eyes met with Bella, who had looked as angry as angry could be.

"Bella, I-"

"Better luck next time on the bonus point, Filip." Ms. Evelyn grinned.

~

Ivy paced her room. She was two doors down from Bella, all she could do was apologize for Filip's choice during Ms. Evelyn's class. Ivy refused to, though. Bella was adamant about Filip being hers and hers only, but hadn't bothered to be an actual friend for Ivy, not like she had much going on in her life besides Bella.

It still would've been nice for her to not focus on Filip and focus on being friends.

"Listen, Bella, I said I was sorry. Filip accidentally chose me during the assignment, and that's okay! It wasn't my fault or yours, but it's also not Filip's. I just think you're overreacting-"

Ivy smacked her forehead, "Overreacting?! Who would say that to somebody who is already ticked off!" She groaned, plopping onto her bed.

The swish of paper against the wood of Ivy's door caught her attention, finding an envelope slipped under her door.

Her brows furrowed as she picked it up and opened it, revealing a letter written in a beautiful cursive font:

I feel terrible about what happened today, please meet me at the river bridge at 10pm tonight.

Ivy's brows creased even more in confusion. The letter wasn't even signed, and yet a pang of guilt rang cold through her veins. A sense of surprise mixed with the sour feeling at the thought that Bella wanted to apologize first, but why at the river bridge? That was nearly outside of school grounds, sneaking to their place in the library would've been easier!

A knock sounded at her door, "Ivy? Can I come in?"

"Yeah, come in." She called back.

The door opened, and Reign popped his head in. "Hey, I heard from Filip that Bella seems pretty mad at the both of you for what happened. The sun is shining now, would you want to go for a walk and talk about it?"

Ivy's face softened. "I-I don't know. Is Bella okay? Or Filip? I don't understand why she would be so mad at him, though."

Her friend leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. "I dunno, either. Seems a little out of character for her to be so upset at you for Filip calling you a Princess." He chuckled.

Ivy gulped. She knew what Bella had heard, and even though it might have gone over everybody else's heads, her and Bella both heard him say 'my' before 'princess'.

She shrugged, grabbing her pale purple jacket. "I'll give her some time, it doesn't seem right to pester her about it." Ivy said, looking out the window. The sun was fading fast, and now was her chance to sneak off to the bridge to meet up with Bella after her walk with Reign. There was no other way she would be able to do it without getting caught if she left after curfew.

"Okay, well let's go, we're losing light." Reign grabbed Ivy by the arm, leading her out towards the grand entrance.

"So, now that we're outside and away from Princess crazy-"

"Don't call her that."

"Anyways, tell me what happened."

Ivy sighed, a warm cloud forming from her breath. "I might have said some pretty hurtful things to her while we were pumpkins."

Reign cackled, "I'm sorry, you guys could talk to each other as pumpkins?"

"Yes! Now, stop interrupting!" Ivy scolded. "I said some stuff that I shouldn't have, but she was mad at me because a couple of nights before, we met up in the library at midnight. We were there to make up some more plans to get her with Filip, but-but I fell asleep and she doodled some... creature to scare me."

"And?"

Ivy scoffed, "You know how I am, I practically jumped straight into tomorrow! I ended up scrambling right on top of her and-and the sight of her underneath me, it..."

"Freaked you out?" Reign finished, reading her mind. "Been there, one time I was at a party last summer-" He caught Ivy's stare. "Sorry, keep going, I didn't mean to ramble on about my own experiences." He coughed.

"I ended up crying because I realized that I wasn't focusing on the right things. I thought I was okay, helping her out and stuff, but as time went on my feelings almost grew stronger." Ivy continued, fidgeting with her fingers.

Reign didn't say anything. The sound of their footsteps crunching against the soft layer of snow on the ground was the only thing that could be heard through the path created through arched trees.

"So, are you actually helping Bella get with Filip?" Was all Reign could ask.

Ivy pursed her lips, stopping in her tracks. "No, but not entirely for selfish reasons." She stated, defending herself from Reign's look that screamed that he was suspicious.

"I'm actually trying to keep them apart for as long as I can while we're here. I... I just don't want to see her get heartbroken now, that's the thing."

"You don't think they're true loves."

"Exactly, and she doesn't even know, either! That's what I want to protect her from. With her being my future Cinderella, I have to be careful. I'm already marrying her off once, I'm not going to do that when I don't even know if Filip will be the Charming in our story." She admitted, wiping stray tears from her eyes.

Reign hugged her tight, "Ivy, you know that's kind of messed up, right?"

She nodded against his warm chest that smelled of eucalyptus and sweet grass. "I know, as much as I don't want to see her with anyone else... I don't want to risk seeing her heartbroken, too."

Reign hushed and soothed her as the sun quickly drained its last little bit of light left against the horizon, leaving the two students under a black twilight sky.

"We better head back, it's almost curfew." Reign said, turning back the way they came.

"I'll catch up with you later, Bella is supposed to meet me at the bridge soon."

His eyebrows raised, "The Dean's daughter who is pretty mad at you wants to meet with you after curfew outside of school grounds?"

Ivy nodded. "I don't know what she's going to say, but I hope we both apologize and be friends again."

"I hope so, too." He paused, "Goodnight, Ivy."

"Goodnight, Reign." She waved goodbye, heading the other direction towards the trickling and bubbling sound of water going downstream.

She hadn't visited the river yet, but she had heard from gossiping students that it had been a romantic spot.

Ivy rested her arms against the pale wooden posts on the bridge, taking deep breaths of chilly winter night air. She didn't know if she was ready to face Bella so soon after the events in their morning class, but she felt it necessary to at least hear Bella's side.

Ice had yet to overtake the deep blue sparkling water underneath Ivy as her gaze followed the river's direction. It hummed a quiet melody, calming Ivy's nerves.

Rough footsteps against snow took Ivy's attention away from the serene view, her face going as pale as the snow and her blood as cold as ice when she saw who it was.

"Filip? Why-why are you here?" She stuttered.

Filip paused before the bridge, "I was the one that gave you the note. I meant to apologize earlier about what happened, but Bella tore through me like a banshee's scream."

Ivy stayed frozen in place on the bridge. "I-I actually thought you were Bella coming to apologize about this morning. You don't need to apologize to me."

"But I feel like I owe you one, because I shouldn't have called you my princess. It-It was just some stupid choice of words that flew out of my mouth unknowingly. And not only are you not a Princess, you are also not mine." He chuckled, a sad look glazed over his icy blue eyes.

The Charming approached Ivy, resting his arms next to hers on the posts. "I know you don't like me like that, and I also felt that I owed you an apology for the way I've acted towards you. I didn't mean to come off so strongly onto you, and now we have some weird rift that we can't get rid of."

Ivy snorted, "It's not that I don't like you or anything, you've always had a special place in my heart. My feelings are just... complicated, you know? It doesn't help that we would be a forbidden couple."

Filip scanned her face, moving in a little closer. "I understand, and just so you know, since I clearly haven't been hiding my feelings all that well, I wouldn't let all the hatred and mockery get to me. If we got together, I mean."

"Filip, that's really, truly sweet. But, your story. You're supposed to save a damsel and marry her within the span of a week! I can find love with someone within my role, you would be costing a poor Princess-who doesn't deserve to have a Godmother chosen over her-her happily ever after. It just doesn't seem fair." She replied, her head in her hands.

The prince removed her hands from her face, his piercing eyes staring into her pools of brown. His hand cupped her cheek, his warmth heating her cold face.

Ivy's breath hitched. Was she really starting to feel something? For a Charming?

He moved a stray strand of her short jet black hair behind her ear, "You know, the moonlight makes you look more beautiful than I could've ever imagined."

Slowly, their faces were mere inches apart, fogging breaths intertwined. Filip's lips parted, waiting for Ivy's to meet his.

A pit in Ivy's stomach kept her back, it felt right. It almost felt too right in the moment. Her mind was a jumbled mess. "Filip, we-"

"What in the name of all stories?!"

Filip's eyes widened, whipping his head to the source of the voice.

"Bella," Ivy croaked.

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