A Tagatha Drabble
Hi all! I'm rereading the first book (at last) and got inspired to write this little number. Timeline is maybe a little bit choppy, hope you don't mind. (Wasn't really paying attention to the details while reading) I know people usually post on tumblr or ao3, but the former scares me and I deleted my ao3 account a really long time ago and haven't gotten around to making a new one yet.
As for Wattpad? No thanks.
So, here we go. It's titled "The Danger of Dreams."
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Tedros dreamed of a field of briars.
It stretched without end beneath a pale spring sky, thornbushes rolling over the hills in great crimson swathes. Roses swayed in the wind, hundreds upon hundreds of them, red as split pomegranates, their velvet petals heavy with dew. The air smelled thickly of earth after rain and something sweeter underneath. Fruit left too long in the sun. Wine warming in a cup.
Your princess awaits you.
The voice moved through him like distant bells beneath water.
Tedros walked forward slowly, boots sinking into damp soil. His silvered eyes had gone hard as hammered steel, his broad jaw set tight enough to ache. He reached for the nearest bloom, shaking fingers brushing the layered petals. Soft. Plush. Alive almost. The rose bent toward his hand as though it knew him.
Only one is yours.
Tedros stilled.
The wind stirred through the briars with a long whispering hiss. Petals trembled. Dew slid slowly down thorned stems like beads of crystal blood.
Only one.
His heartbeat sounded deep inside him now. Slow. Heavy. Each thud climbed up his throat and rang behind his ears. He shut his eyes for a moment, breathing in the perfume of the roses until it coated the back of his tongue.
When he opened them again, the field had changed.
The roses had begun to unfurl wider, crimson folds peeling open with languid hunger. Fragrance poured from them in waves so rich it turned the air syrup-thick. Slender green stems gleamed wetly beneath the blooms, leaves soft as brushed silk.
Tedros felt his thoughts dulling beneath it.
Focus.
The word struck him sharp as a lash.
Suddenly he saw his father again. Arthur lying pale upon bloodstained sheets, great hands trembling as they clutched Tedros by the shoulders with the last of their strength.
Choose the one who is good.
Tedros clenched his jaw so hard he felt his teeth shiver.
Then he saw it.
Far beyond the swaying roses, nearly hidden against the edge of the briar field, stood another bloom.
It was no fairer than the others. No larger. No brighter. Yet it alone had not opened itself to him. Its petals remained drawn close together, shy as folded hands. No sweetness drifted from it. No seductive perfume clouded the air around it.
Still, Tedros felt his heart lurch toward it so violently it stole his breath.
Heat flooded his veins. Fear too. Hot and sharp and strange.
He shoved through the briars toward it, vines clawing at his breeches, thorns scraping over his skin with little snapping sounds. Around him the other roses swayed harder now, almost frantic, their crimson heads brushing against one another in feverish patterns.
Tedros did not stop.
His pulse battered at his throat. Every breath came shorter than the last.
Closer.
Closer still.
He tore branches aside with both hands until at last there was nothing between himself and the hidden rose.
The one that made his sleeping heart wake.
The one that felt like happily ever after.
Tedros stared at it almost reverently, lips parted slightly.
When he was awake, he had always chosen wrongly.
He had chosen beauty over truth.
He had chosen Sophie.
He had chosen evil.
And Agatha—
Agatha had been the mistake he made over and over again.
Yet here, in this strange dreaming place, certainty filled him whole and terrible.
This was his princess.
He reached for the stem and closed his hand tight around it.
At once the thorns drove into his skin.
Tedros jerked back with a sharp breath as blood welled bright across his fingers, running in red streams down his wrist.
The rose trembled.
Doubt flickered through him.
Then warmth bloomed low inside his chest. Soft at first. Then spreading. Love. Longing. Something aching and unbearably tender. It flushed beneath his skin until his cheeks burned faintly pink.
Only the best good can disguise as evil.
Tedros seized the stem again.
Harder this time.
The thorns ripped deeper into his palms, but he only gritted his teeth and pulled with all his strength.
The rose tore free from the earth.
Dark soil scattered from its roots. Blood dripped steadily from Tedros’ hands now, streaking over the green stem, yet he clung to it fiercely, unwilling to release whatever wild rush had taken hold of him.
The rose shook violently.
Golden light burst suddenly from within its petals, sharp as spears through fog.
Tedros staggered backward and let go.
The flower convulsed in the grass.
Leaves snapped free one by one. Crimson petals exploded outward in a storm around them, filling the air at last with rich perfume. Tedros breathed it in desperately, but already the petals were withering as they fell, curling brown at the edges before dissolving into the earth.
The light grew blinding.
A shadow formed at its center.
Long pale legs emerged first beneath dark skirts soft as smoke. Tedros lowered his arm slowly, breath catching in his throat.
An arm appeared next. Thin. White. Another followed, rising quickly to cover startled lips. Black hair spilled downward in tangled straws around a face still unfinished, dark strands feathering across hollow cheeks.
Then her eyes opened.
Brown.
Deep brown, like wet bark in summer rain.
Tears glimmered inside them.
The last of the magic released her gently to the ground.
Agatha stood before him trembling, her hands falling slowly away from her mouth at last.
That mouth…
Soft.
Sweet.
Smeared with his blood.
Something inside Tedros went utterly still.
Like the waves of a tormented shore lapping and ebbing gently after a storm.
“All along,” he said quietly, dropping to his knees before her, “it was you.”
Agatha stared at him in naked terror, unable to speak.
Tedros had never felt so calm in all his life.
“How did I not see it?”
Then the dream shattered.
Tedros woke with her name already on his lips, sweet as crushed fruit against the inside of his mouth.
“Agatha,” he whispered thickly. “Agatha…”
He lurched upright with a ragged gasp.
Agatha.
“No.” Tedros shook his head violently, breath uneven now. Pain pinched through his chest like a hooked blade.
She was a witch.
An evil.
A mistake.
She was—
His princess.
“No,” Tedros spat again, harsher this time, angry heat flooding into his face as red stained his cheeks.
——
Tedros scarcely heard a word of Good Deeds.
His head still swam with the remnants of that morning dream, thick and feverish beneath his skull, every thought dragging slow as mud through rainwater.
Again and again, his gaze cut toward Agatha from across the classroom, hard and suspicious beneath the weight of his frown. His jaw flexed restlessly, teeth grinding behind a scowling mouth.
Agatha sat hunched over her parchment, worrying at an ink pen between bitten lips gone raw and pink. There was something feral in the habit. Nervous. Unthinking.
Tedros had once demanded to know how she did it—how she wormed herself into his thoughts so thoroughly, how she had made him choose her—and had earned nothing except one of her sharp-tongued remarks and a look that made him feel foolish for asking.
Asking now would be worse.
It would tell her the spell had deepened. That she had followed him past waking thought and into sleep itself. Into dreams.
It would feed her vanity. Encourage her.
And humiliate him all over again.
Tedros ripped his gaze away and bent over his book.
The words refused to settle. Black letters swam together like molten metal poured into water. Ink bled across the parchment in slow dark veins. The blot thickened. Spread wider. Darker. Until the page held nothing except a warped black shape curling against pale paper.
A head.
Black hair, shorn short around the jaw.
Huge strange eyes blinking up at him—
Tedros slammed the book shut with a crack that echoed through the room.
Several students jumped.
His eyes snapped immediately towards Agatha again, fury rising hot behind his ribs, ready to spill from his mouth—
The pen between her teeth splintered.
A wet click.
Black ink burst over her tongue and lips.
Agatha choked violently, coughing into her hand as dark liquid streamed down her chin and stained the front of her dress. Thin ragged breaths scraped from her throat.
Then her eyes lifted.
Straight to him.
For one terrible moment, she looked exactly as she had in the dream.
Frightened.
Lost.
Ink running from her mouth like blood.
Blood running from her mouth like ink.
Tedros’ chest clenched so hard he nearly doubled over from it. Worse than before. Worse than waking with her name trapped between his teeth and sweat cold on his skin.
He nearly gasped.
“Agatha!” Professor Dovey cried, blanching pale beneath her spectacles as she hurried down the aisle. “Oh dear—”
Agatha made a helpless choking sound.
Around them, the classroom stirred with muffled laughter. Girls leaned into one another whispering behind curled hands, boys snickering openly at the sight of black ink smeared down the witch’s face like tar.
Professor Dovey sighed wearily.
“Yes, yes. Off you go and… clean yourself up.”
Agatha nodded quickly. Her pale hand caught beneath her chin to stop the ink dripping onto the floor as she hurried from the classroom with her head lowered.
The door slammed shut behind her.
Tedros inhaled slowly.
Relief flooded him first. Heavy and immediate.
Then came the uglier thing beneath it.
That awful lightness in his chest. That terrible ease.
The realization that Agatha’s absence soothed him nearly as much as her presence consumed him.
He thought again of her eyes.
Dark and mysterious and softening at the edges like deep woods beneath daylight, where the shadows no longer threatened harm.
Calm.
Tedros shut his eyes tightly.
Calm.
——
Lunch was about as good as the rest of the day. That is to say, not good at all.
After the nymphs handed out their woven lunch baskets beneath the shade of the bluewood trees, Tedros sat with Chaddick, Nicholas, and Tristan along the long stone benches near the clearing. Sunlight spilled in pale ribbons through silver leaves overhead, dappling the grass and the polished gold at Tedros’ shoulders.
Sebastian and Clarence battered each other across the field in a graceless game of rugby, crashing shoulder-first into mud and roots while Evergirls shrieked encouragement nearby.
Tedros barely looked at them.
He pushed beetroot around his plate instead, red juices staining the arugula leaves like fresh cuts. His fork scraped quietly against wood.
“Teddy.”
Beatrix drifted towards him through the clearing, graceful as a swan upon a lake. Her blonde curls gleamed beneath the afternoon light, ribbons fluttering behind her in soft blue trails. Every Evergirl nearby watched her pass with admiration sharpened by envy.
Tedros forced a smile before she slipped beside him.
She pressed close without hesitation, warm and perfumed, her cheek nearly brushing his shoulder. Sweet acorn syrup. Roses.
The scent struck him like a blade.
At once, visions unfurled behind his eyes, endless roses opening in thick crimson rows, lush petals curling apart beneath golden light. Sweet. Suffocating. Hungry.
Tedros stiffened.
For one terrible moment, he could almost taste them again.
Around him sat dozens of beautiful girls with soft hair and shining eyes and lovely smiles rehearsed to perfection. Watching him. Waiting for him. Longing sharpened every gaze.
How many of them wanted Tedros?
And how many wanted a crown?
His father had told him to find a girl who was good.
But Guinevere had once been beautiful too.
Gentle too.
Beloved too.
Beauty had not saved Camelot.
Goodness had not saved Arthur.
So what was he even supposed to look for?
Tedros’ chest tightened so violently it felt as though iron bands had been driven around his ribs. His pulse stumbled hard against bone.
His hand rose instinctively to his chest.
The world tilted faintly.
“Teddy?” Beatrix asked softly, finally noticing.
Tedros stood too quickly.
“Just— one second,” he muttered.
He disentangled her carefully from his side with stiff princely manners drilled into him since childhood. Even now, gasping beneath panic, he remembered courtesy.
Beatrix stared after him, confused blue eyes glinting beneath curled lashes.
“He’s been strange all day,” Chaddick murmured quietly beside her.
Tedros hardly heard them.
He crossed beyond the clearing and into the deeper woods where the light turned blue and cold beneath tangled branches. The air smelled damp and earthen there, thick with moss and sap.
He braced himself against the trunk of a lapis tree, fingers digging into bark as he struggled to breathe.
Beautiful girls flashed through his mind one after another.
Golden curls. Pink lips. Sweet smiles.
Girls who looked like Sophie.
Girls crowned in roses.
Girls promising him ever after.
Then Arthur appeared instead, pale and still upon his deathbed, hands folded over his chest like a king carved from marble. Flowers surrounded him too. Sweet-smelling and lovely enough to disguise decay.
Faster.
Tedros’ heart slammed harder.
He saw a graveyard swallowed in mist.
A lonely house upon a hill.
A pale figure standing upon its porch.
Faster. Faster.
His fingers clawed at his collar. Buttons snapped loose beneath shaking hands, one scattering somewhere into the brush below.
The girl from his dreams stared back at him with huge hollow eyes.
Your princess awaits.
Tedros sucked in a thin breath.
Another button tore free beneath trembling fingers.
The Good.
The Pure.
Only one.
His knees nearly gave beneath him.
Tedros slid roughly against the tree trunk, shoulders shaking as panic climbed higher and higher inside him like floodwater rising beneath a door.
Then somewhere nearby, someone sobbed.
The sound cut clean through everything.
Tedros blinked hard.
Another sob echoed softly across the woods.
Beyond the trees sat a lake dark as polished glass, and at its edge curled a girl dressed in pink.
His heartbeat slowed a fraction.
Something about her drew him forward despite himself, quiet and aching as a thread pulled taut between them.
Princes, after all, were raised to answer crying girls.
Tedros pushed aside hanging vines as he crossed through the underbrush.
The girl’s shoulders shook heavily. Short dark hair brushed her jaw as she bent over herself.
Tedros stopped several feet behind her.
In the lake’s reflection he saw only a broken image. A girl hunched at the shore weeping like her heart had been split open.
Ink stained her mouth and chin in gray streaks. Smudges darkened her fingers. Agatha scrubbed furiously at her cheeks, but fresh tears kept spilling faster than she could wipe them away.
“Agatha?” Tedros said quietly.
She startled hard enough to nearly fall sideways, whipping toward him with red eyes and a face so openly miserable it caught him off guard.
Quickly, she smeared at her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
His voice came out softer than intended.
Agatha sniffed. “Just peachy.”
A terrible smile stretched across her face.
Tedros looked unconvinced.
“Practicing,” she added quickly. “Beautiful, tragic princess crying.”
She wiped her forearm along her snotty nose, pulling strings of mucus with each clumsy drag.
Tedros blinked.
Well.
It certainly looked tragic.
“Right,” he said flatly.
He stepped cautiously toward her.
Agatha immediately froze.
Tedros stopped too.
“So you came all the way out here alone,” he said slowly, “to practice crying?”
His disbelief only deepened.
Agatha forced another smile, but fresh tears welled instantly in her eyes anyway.
“Every princess needs a prince,” she muttered bitterly, throwing her arms out with theatrical misery.
Something in Tedros softened despite himself.
“You know it’s not actually the crying that gets the prince, right?” he said awkwardly. “Anemone just says that to make the others feel better.”
Agatha sniffed once.
Then rolled her eyes hard.
“Of course." She said, lips thinning.
Then she shot up, chest flared, like an angry sprout bursting from yellow grass. “You mean to say, it only ever works when the girl who’s crying in your arms is beautiful.”
Tedros fumbled for words, ear tips sparking red.
“Erm— Well, it’s not..”
“And I guess I would have agreed with you except,” Agatha interjected, staring at him as though his very presence here was proof to her next point. “It worked on you, didn’t it?” she snapped.
Agatha shoved herself upright and stormed past him.
Her shoulder slammed hard against his chest.
Tedros stumbled backwards, boots slipping in damp dirt near the lake’s edge. He lurched forward at the last second to catch himself before falling in.
Water rippled below him.
His reflection stared back from the dark lake surface.
Flushed cheeks.
Bright eyes.
Breathing too fast.
It's not actually the crying that gets the prince.
Tedros straightened, blue eyes still as the lake’s edge, his gaze fixed ominously on the water. Its surface revealed nothing of what lay beneath, only silver fish circling through brilliantly dyed coontails.
Had he not looked closer, he would never have seen it: flickers of green shifting beneath the water in sweeping shades of mint, lime, and deep forest.
There was little more to a lake’s veneer than a reflection.
Little more to a girl’s cry than a sound.
I came because it was you, Agatha.
At once, that awful tightness returned to his chest.
--
Yep that's pretty much it. If you stuck around this long, thank you for reading :)
Appreciate it <3