Page 16 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

The press conference had devolved into predictable blandness after that. Anyone who might have been considering a question that was a little bit daring or boundary-pushing or, God forbid, interesting had decided to hold it back after seeing their supervillainous colleague carted off by the birds. And dull as it was, it had still managed to drag on for another two hours before her handlers had come in and rescued her for the afternoon parade.

Finally, another two hours after that, the Princess sat at her vanity and stared at her reflection, willing herself to find the energy to start removing her mascara. If she didn’t, she was going to fall asleep with it still on, and no amount of childhood faith and trust could keep her face from sticking to the pillow while she slept. It just couldn’t be done.

“You survived,” she informed herself sternly. “You don’t have to do this for another six months. Now be a big girl, and wash your makeup off while you still have a chance.”

It didn’t help. She was still exhausted, and her face was still a sea of cosmetics.

She could have called the raccoons to come and wipe it off, she knew, but they always used too much makeup remover, and they weren’t good about keeping it out of her eyes. It was almost better to risk sticking to the pillow.

Someone knocked on the doorframe. The Princess brightened immediately, turning her chair around and leveling an accusing finger at the figure standing there. “You are late,” she said, sounding almost triumphant about it. “The press conference ended ages ago. You missed an honest-to-goodness supervillain. The birds carried him off. Now what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I got hung up at the North Pole,” said the woman in the doorway. She was plump and pretty, with pale skin that glittered slightly when she moved, like all that glitter that the Princess had been slinging around earlier had somehow become a part of her. Her hair was white, but not just white, no: it held all the hidden colors of the aurora, sprinkled through it like secrets. Her cheeks were rosy, and her lips were faintly pursed, like she was fighting not to smile. She looked tired. “I’m sorry. I would have been here sooner if I could have.” She stopped then, looking at the Princess hopefully, like she was expecting something.

“Aw, honey, I’m sorry,” said the Princess, rising from her stool and pulling her robe a little tighter around her waist. “I shouldn’t pick at you, I know that. I just was really hoping you’d make it. What with Vel gone and everything, I feel like you and me should stick together as tight as we can. Do you need some cocoa? I know mirror travel takes a lot out of you, I don’t understand why your daddy doesn’t set you up with some flying reindeer of your own…”

Jacqueline’s face fell. “Santa Claus is a very busy man,” she said, in the sort of tone that managed to imply problems at home and beg for understanding at the same time. It was a nice trick. She’d clearly had a great deal of practice. “I’m fine with using the Snow Queen’s mirror if that’s what’s easiest for everyone.” She looked at the Princess carefully. “Is that…is that all you wanted to ask me about?”

The Princess frowned. “I don’t know what else I could have needed, sugar. I wanted you to be here, but it’s all right that you weren’t. I’ll tell you what. Help me get this makeup off, and we can go spend the afternoon slumming around the park, playing tourist. You know you get to skip lines when you’re with me.”

Jacqueline Claus, daughter of Santa Claus, heir to the North Pole, did her best to force herself to smile. It felt weak and insincere to her, but the other woman didn’t seem to notice. The Princess was already digging for makeup remover and a clean washcloth, chattering a mile a minute about the press conference and all the fun that they were going to have at the park. It should have been reassuring. It should have felt like normalcy, and home.

But this wasn’t normal, and this place wasn’t her home, and no one seemed to notice that anything had changed. The world had been sliced open and had healed around her, substituting her for another girl, one with skin like a winter sky and hair like a blizzard in the process of forming. She didn’t belong here. She had no idea how she was going to find the way home.

“Jack? Honey, you still with me?”

Jacqueline turned toward the Princess, forcing herself to smile. It was easier than it should have been. This woman looked so like her own Carrabelle, and she was so lonely. “Sorry. I was just thinking. Come over here, and let me get that makeup off of you.”

The two women sat together, the one helping the other to restore her sense of normalcy, even though her own normal was something far away and half-forbidden, and everything was peaceful, for a time.

VELVETEEN vs. The Thaw

Cradled in a bed of moss and new spring leaves, draped in a blanket of flower petals and thistledown, Velveteen slept. Her skin was back to a healthy brown, and her hair had grown six inches since the last of the cold had bled out of her and her body had remembered what it was to be a living thing. That was the only sign of how much time had passed while she was in Winter, and while there had been some discussion of cutting it before she woke, Persephone had pointed out that Velveteen was likely to have better things to worry about, and wouldn’t realize the significance of the change anyway. So the sleeping heroine’s hair had gone untouched as she slept on.

She had been asleep for six days as the ice passed out of her heart and her dreams came creeping back to her, their hats clutched in their hands and their eyes cast toward the distant idea of the ground. Snow did not dream, after all, and she had been frozen for so very long. So much longer than she knew.

On the seventh day Velveteen gasped and opened her eyes, staring at the tangled ceiling of vines and intertwined branches. A few squirrels and brightly-colored songbirds were perching there, staring down at her with cartoonish curiosity. Velveteen blinked.

“Oh, good,” said a voice. It wasn’t familiar—she was quite sure she’d never heard it before—but she knew it all the same. It was the voice she sometimes heard in her dreams, when she had been beaten badly on a patrol and was trying to sleep despite the pain in her ribs and knuckles. It was the voice of slow growth and swift decay, and she knew it loved her, even as she knew that it wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice her if it saw the need. “You’re awake. I was starting to think you were going to sleep straight through to Summer, and since they’re the only season that doesn’t have a claim on you, that would have been awkward for all of us.”

Velveteen attempted to speak. Her mouth barely moved, and the sound that escaped it was no louder than a butterfly’s sneeze. Her eyes didn’t widen, exactly, but the muscles around them tensed, her pupils constricting in temporary panic.

“It’s all right,” said the voice. “Please, try to stay calm; don’t get yourself worked up. Winter had twined itself into your bones. That’s what Winter does. It chills you until you think you’ll never be warm again. We’ve been pulling the cold out of you, a little bit at a time, like churning the earth in the garden before planting. It was necessary, you see, but it would have been extremely painful if we hadn’t numbed you first.”

Velveteen managed, with an extreme effort, to blink. The motion seemed to knock a little bit of feeling loose from the numbness: she felt threads anchoring her to the ground, rooted deep in her flesh and feeding on whatever substance she possessed.

Velma “Velveteen” Martinez was not prone to overreaction. A lifetime spent defending her community and working minimum wage jobs to make ends meet had left her tough, determined, and capable of rolling with almost anything. This was a step too far. Closing her eyes, she allowed unconsciousness to take her back.

Persephone, seated next to Velveteen’s bier, smiled and continued knitting. Patience was a virtue, and she had always been a virtuous woman.

Besides. She wasn’t going to need to wait much longer.

* * *

The Seasonal Lands are interesting from a scholarly perspective, mainly due to the contradiction which they represent. They are living mirrors of the human subconscious, painting humanity’s ideas about faith and death and the wheel of the year across metaphysical space. They are primal manifestations of the forces of the universe, immutable and malleable at the same time, constant only in that they will always, always change. Changes to the real world will echo in the Seasonal Lands. Changes in the Seasonal Lands will do the same in the real world.

This phenomenon has been well documented but remains notoriously difficult to prove, as it requires both access to the Seasonal Lands and a means of implementing and measuring change. The anecdotal data is strong. The proof is not. Regardless, it seems certain that what impacts one will impact the other, keeping the two realities inexorably connected, regardless of the desires of their respective occupants.

Spring has historically been the most mercurial of the seasons. It is the time of rebirth and new growth, of the world coming back to life after the long, slow days of winter. It is also the time of heavy rains and fierce winds, of destructive recovery. Everything has a price, in the spring as well as in Spring itself, and nowhere is this more perfectly embodied than in the patron goddess of the country, Persephone, who watches over both life and death. No one has ever called her cruel. No one has ever called her particularly nice, either; she is not the place to turn for succor without judgment.