seventeen three ravens

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HAPPILY EVER AFTER WAS NOT SOMETHING EVANORA EVER DREAMED OF. She never wished to be a princess, waiting for a prince, or ruling a kingdom. Never cared for fancy crowns or gigantic dresses, never fell in love with the voices of the cartoon royalty on her screen. When they lived happily ever after, she didn't sigh and wish the same, and she never ended her stories with them either.

         Happily ever after always seemed so unattainable. It felt like just another myth people hear like love at first sight to make them feel better, dreaming about a world that didn't exist and fantasies that never collided with reality. It was just something people said for then, that chapter, but the next page could always be a different story.

         Happy endings didn't stay happy endings. Eventually there was hardship and bitterness, betrayal and anger, and that high happy feeling always came to an end. Happiness was relative, and circumstances always changed.

         These beliefs Evanora held firmly. Happy endings simply don't exist forever, because something was always waiting in the corner to strike, but then she held Maggie's hand and kissed her lips and she thought maybe – just maybe – this could be her happy ending.

         Because Maggie was so bright, so pink, and she held Evanora like she was porcelain and she wanted to stay like this forever. Evanora never associated her happiness with one person, rather her life around her, but Maggie changed that too.

         Maggie was happiness incarnate, a sunny smile and bright eyes that were always so intense when looking at her, loving her, and she wanted to be loved back. She wanted to fall back into Maggie's arms and never leave. This was joy – pure joy – and she laughed and smiled and held Maggie's hand, making sure she never got far away or else the sun would stop shining.

         Maybe happy endings did exist, or at least very happy middles, and Evanora never wanted to leave this happiness. She wanted it to last forever, never-ending, and holding her tightly.

         "Why are you looking at me like that?" Maggie shied under her gaze and Evanora quickly blinked, turning away in embarrassment for being caught.

         She thought it was a simple glance, not a gaze, but once she peeked she couldn't look away. "You just look so happy," Evanora commented, an explanation in a sense but not entirely. Maggie always looked happy, and for a time she wondered how, but now she knew. She understood.

         "I am happy," Maggie confirmed, "Are you happy?"

         "Yes," it was easy to answer this time. Months ago, she would lie with this answer, and she would think about how her mother died and Colleen was a bitch and she was trying find her place, but now that was settled. Her mother wouldn't approve of her life choices now, they didn't reflect an Elder in the making, but she didn't need her mother's approval anymore.

         Her mother was gone, had been for six months, and she couldn't keep comparing her life to what her mother wanted and going down that course because it was what she was supposed to do. That course had ended the day her mother died, it just took her a long time to realize that.

         And Colleen wasn't a bitch anymore, or maybe she never was. Evanora saw the concern, the care, and she knew that although they were both too stubborn, they would protect each other. Her circumstances weren't those of a regular teenager or witch, demons didn't usually attack so fast or have a special interest, and the voice in her head calling out her name most definitely was not normal at all.

         "I am happy," Evanora echoed her, looking back at her girlfriend with a hint of a smile.

         The demon might be coming after her, and happiness never lived forever, but it was alive right now with her. She couldn't let it go to waste, so she let herself be overcome with it, drowning her out.

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         THREE RAVENS SAT UPON THE FENCE, SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER AND PRACTICALLY EYEING THE HOUSE. Colleen bit her lip as she cleaned the dishes, eyes dashing towards them and away again and again as she did. Birds were always omens, and ravens were one of the worst of them.

         Evanora, she knew, would laugh off the birds, but she was still terribly young and naïve. Living in a bubble that everything was fine, that no one could touch her, and she was unstoppable this would mean nothing to her. Colleen, however, knew better.

         Birds were telling of what was to come, and birds sealed the fates of those who did not listen. She had lived long enough, longer than her human lifespan. She looked at herself in the mirror sometimes and wondered who she could have been before, truly a good person as the Elders told her or a nobody who was neither good nor evil. Just there.

         But her identity before did not matter to what she did now. All that mattered was the name she had now and the missions she was sent on, the witches to protect. That mattered, as did these ravens. She shut the water off, cleaning her hands as she kept eye contact with the birds.

         They could just be ravens, and she could be silly staring them down, or they could be shapeshifters. Demons, coming after Evanora, so she would not break eye contact they leapt into action.

         Her hands clean, she broke eye contact when the door opened at the front of the house. She could faintly see Evanora's figure and her heart began to race. When she turned back, two ravens were there – not three. One of them had moved, so she cast down the towel she used and rushed to the front corridor where Evanora was taking off her jacket.

         Not sparing her a glance, Colleen looked out the front window where she saw the third raven – only it was evolving from a raven and into a shadow.

         "You alright?" Evanora joked lightly at her panicked nature, but Colleen only took her hand and reached for the girl's.

         "Listen to me closely, someone is coming for you. Go to the secret room and cast another protection spell on yourself."

         Eyes wide, tone serious, she gripped Evanora tightly almost enough to form a bruise. "No," Evanora immediately responded, "I won't leave you alone here."

         "I will be fine – you won't. Go!"

         She shoved Evanora away from her, striding to the front door when the shadow faded into the room. It said nothing and she stayed quiet herself. When the shadow lunged, she moved as well, starting a dance with the demon.

         "I won't let you have her!" she yelled, shoving all the energy she had into the shadow, harming it with the light for just a moment before the wisps surrounding it reformed.

         The shadow formed into a corporal figure, a man with blond hair and angry eyes. "You shouldn't have done that," a smirk gliding over his features, he took out a knife. Sharply grasping her, Colleen thought for a moment for warping away, but that would leave Evanora defenseless, so she struggled and struggled. The demon was stronger, taking her into its arms and plunging the knife into her chest harshly, twisting it around as she cried out, only for him to take pleasure in it.

         And Evanora watched in shock. The demon had not yet seen her inside the house, focused on Colleen who was going limp in his grasp. Quickly, she rushed down the hall, muttering the spell to reveal the hidden door.

         She closed it behind herself, flipping through the pages of her mother's spell book while her heart raced. Any moment and that thing could be in here – any moment and she could be dead.

         Her vision blurred as she tried to skim through the headings, hearing the slow footsteps of a power high demon coming towards her. She gasped out for air as she found the page, immediately reciting it. A cackle was heard and she got louder. Laughs surrounded her and she heard her name being called.

         Evanora, Evanora, Evanora.

         Her heart beat like a drum. She just looked at the page and recited the words louder.

         Evanora, Evanora, Evanora.

         She got louder. Forceful. She would not be stopped, she would not be killed.

         Evanora –

        She screamed out, squeezing her eyes shut and forcing this spell to work again as it did before. She would not be stopped, she would not be killed. She would save herself this time; she would be her own hero.

         A burst of energy came from her heart, exploding out of her and forcing everything around her to fly away. The voice in her ear stopped murmuring her name, and the presence of any demon seemed to disappear.

         When she opened her eyes, she saw a ruined room. Her heart was speeding and she couldn't breathe, tears swelling in her eyes. She opened the door, rushing out of the room where the bloody figure of Colleen stared at her.

         "Colleen!" she called out, dropping to the floor to take Colleen's head into her lap. Eyes draining away as the life fully left her body stared back at her. "No! NO!"

         She heaved, sobbing and holding Colleen close to her. "You can't be dead, Colleen, you have to wake up...I can't do this without you," she cried into the dead body, waiting for a miracle that wasn't occuring. "I can't do this without you."

         Blurry eyes looked around. There was blood on the floor, blood splattered as the knife was taken out of her chest – the very weapon that killed her staining the ground as well. And there was her: bloody hands and stained cheeks from the tears that never seemed to stop, utterly exhausted.

         The water everywhere called out to her, and violently she thrashed around until everything erupted. The sink in the kitchen exploded, as did everything else. But the water couldn't match her own tears.

         "Wake up!" she yelled out again, jolting the body around in her arms. "Please – wake up!"

         Out the front window, a raven croaked, swarming around the house. Evanora collapsed.