Page 106 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

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Velveteen walked silently along the backstage hall, her vast, feathered tail waving from side to side as it counterbalanced her steps. She was a graceful outline in the dark, the feathers of her headband jutting jauntily above her head. They were always happy to see her fans, those feathers, even when she wasn’t happy to see anyone. As a child, her handlers had been eager to tell her how fortunate she was to have a costume with a happy face built in, displayed such that it could never be forgotten. But it had meant she could never show her own joy, which was pressed flat by the headband carrying the joy that belonged to everyone else. It had meant no one knew how miserable she was until it was too late, and she’d almost been lost to villainy.

It was very nearly funny. There was her team, supposedly the jewel of the Super Sapients crown, up-and-coming heroes who would one day be responsible for protecting the entire world, and half of them had been in therapy before their first heroic mission could be carried out. Vel, whose true intentions and feelings were concealed behind a childishly optimistic costume, and Sparky, whose own feelings had shown in the changing chromatic patterns of her feathers, impossible to shut away, impossible to hide.

It was amazing how close something as small as an inability to tell someone’s feelings had come to knocking everything down. But it had. It—Vel stopped as she heard claws clicking on the floor up ahead. She stepped to the side as quietly as she possibly could, pressing herself up against the wall and using it for a small manner of cover.

Another raptor of her approximate height and build came bobbing along the corridor, neck carried at a relaxed angle, plumage—species-appropriate, adult plumage—jaunty and unconcerned. The light was too low to show her the details of coloration or costuming, but Vel tensed all the same, waiting for some sign of who this could possibly be.

“Vel?” said the raptor, voice pitched barely above a croon. “The stage crew is ready for you. You need to come out and get your mic and light checks out of the way. C’mon.” He swished his tail alluringly. “They said if I found you, I could get a line during the big reunion scene.”

“Do I care if you get a line?” she asked. “Sorry, I forgot that was still my concern.”

“Hey, now. You’re not still mad that I said you’d do this?”

Vel sighed heavily, her own feathers going flat with displeasure. He’d be able to tell from her silhouette: after as much time as they’d been together, both socially and professionally, he was better at reading her moods than anyone short of Yelena. Maybe even better than Yelena: they didn’t have any pesky periods of estrangement to work around. “I’m a little mad,” she admitted.

“Why? This is an incredible opportunity!”

“Is there any chance you’ll drop it and let me deal with things my own way?”

He cocked his head to the side like he was listening to someone neither of them could see. “Nope,” he said, finally. “You can tell me what’s really bothering you, or I can keep making a fuss about the way you’re acting. But you can’t have silence and my meek acquiescence. That’s not my style.”

“Neither is going for the spotlight, and look where that gets us: you, and Lena, and Vic, all on the sidelines while I have to stand up there next to Doctor Darwin all by myself. I have a team for a reason, Tad, and that reason is called ‘I don’t want to go out there without backup.’”

The male raptor blinked, crest drooping, and ducked his head before he moved toward her, tail so low his feathers brushed the ground. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, that wasn’t what I was trying to—Vel, you know that isn’t what I was trying to do. You’re amazing. Not enough people realize how amazing you are. I just wanted to make them all eat the eggs they’ve been laying on your reputation, that’s all.”

Vel sighed and twined her neck around his, burying the tip of her muzzle in his feathers. She exhaled, then pulled away. “Next time, ask me before you volunteer me for something that’s guaranteed to stop my heart?”

“I will,” he said, solemnly. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“I do. Now can you get me out of this?”

Tad just laughed.

* * *

Jacqueline and the Princess exchanged a confused look. Jack recovered her voice first—a rare enough occasion to be noteworthy, under other circumstances.

“If that’s Tad, how is he out there?” she asked

“Well, the Castle is located in fairy tale-space, which isn’t real, as such things are generally measured; it’s a little porous when the situation calls for it,” said the Princess, haltingly. “If this version of reality wouldn’t have allowed Tag to be hurt the way he was in our world, he’d never have gone into the glass coffin, and she’d never have been called on to wake him up. It doesn’t take a big change.”

“But is he out there and in here at the same time?”

The Princess blinked. “Well, sugar, that’s a question I don’t quite know the answer to. Let’s find out.” She turned her back on the mirrors and began walking briskly away. Jack chased after her, feeling like this might be the start of an answer—or at least the start of something they could actually do about the situation.

The Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle was built, as the Princess said, in fairy tale-space, which was malleable and mutable and sometimes a bit more excitable than anyone wanted it to be. As the Princess gathered her skirts in her hands and broke into a run, the castle helpfully provided her with dramatic corridors suitable for running down, and beautifully decorated rooms best seen in a glimpse as people barreled past them. None of those rooms would ever be seen again.

The Princess held out until her headlong flight brought her next to a marble fountain carved with a pattern of leaping salmon and flowering roses. Then she stopped, only panting a little, put her hands on her hips, and said, “You can cut this shit out any ol’ time now. It’s getting old.”

Jack ran up next to her. “Cara? What’s going on?”

“My castle’s been having a little fun at our expense, and it’s done now,” said the Princess sternly. The marble fish somehow managed to look ashamed. “Isn’t it?”

There was no audible reply. But a door swung open in the nearby hedge, and the Princess nodded in satisfaction.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, and swept toward the door, Jack following close behind.