That night, sleep did not come easily to the young Raven. She lay amidst the luxurious sheets of her bed, feeling their pleasant texture against her skin as she gripped them tightly and rolled them in her hands. She stared up at the ceiling, noting the elegant pale pink, almost whitish paint that had begun to peel. She traced the lines of the cracked paint with her eyes, imagining faces here and there on the walls, and hummed softly with her restless mind that refused to grant her sleep.
Of course, she couldn't be blamed for it. She was going through a very confusing time. After all, she had been threatened by four men, five if you included that little nerd who tried to get her alone in the library, but that could be completely unrelated. She chuckled again as she mused she might actually regret it.
Perhaps that was just a fateful meeting between a young Elon Musk? But no. Elon never went to school, right? Well, that didn't matter. What mattered was those men who hated her so suddenly all had to do with Lady Eloise, who... who what? What exactly was her purpose or reason? She was just a timid young girl who was beloved by a lot of dangerous people. It didn't make any sense.
Frustrated by her inability to sleep, she threw off the covers and rose to her feet, feeling the softness of the carpet beneath her bare toes. She walked to the window and opened it, listening to the eerie quiet of the city. Taking a deep breath of the crisp night air, she mused at the fact that even after all this time, she was not accustomed to the silence of the night. There were no streetlights, no light to guide the way save a torch or magical spell. When the sun vanished beyond the horizon, the town quieted and slept. It was, in truth, quite vexing. It was too quiet, and in the stillness, one’s thoughts could be heard all too clearly. When one’s thoughts refused to be silent, sleep was forever elusive.
With a sigh, Ravina spoke aloud to the silent city before her, "Fine, let's figure out what's going on then. We have four, five guys who would seemingly do anything for this girl. Who's just a person, apparently. I mean, the prince is interested in her. And what, just because the prince is interested in her, it makes her special? I mean, that doesn’t make sense because he already has a fiancée." She chuckled softly, her laughter drifting through the night like a gentle chime in soft wind. "Lady Moore is too good for him,” she muttered. shivering at the chill of the wind she pulling the collar of her nightdress closed with one hand and closed the window with the other. Looking around,, she barely made out where she had put her robe. She quickly crossed the room and pulled it on before making her way to her desk. Sitting down in a soft chair, she sighed softly, "Ah."
"Whatever," she muttered aloud, leaning back and gazing up at the ceiling once more. It was cracked and aged, yet it possessed a certain elegance in its decay. She raised her hand and began tracing the lines with a finger. Suddenly, she stopped and stood up with a burst of energy.
"A young lady with unknown origins arrives at a school," she said aloud, speaking slowly as if she were unconvinced of what she was saying herself. "This girl is loved by multiple individuals who attend the academy. A school… Ha! A school." She chuckled softly. "What did I say when I first got to the academy? Oh my God, there were cherry blossoms falling... oh my God, no. That's... no, that can't be right, can it? No."
She could only laugh because the idea was absurd. There was no way she had found herself in a romance novel. After all, she was already in a narrative that foretold the end of the world or something to that effect. She rubbed her head. "What was it again?" she said aloud, trying to recall the story. There was a threat, something that would end the world, and it came from the empire. But what was it again? She struggled to remember.
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"No wonder they all write it down," she mused with a scoff. "No, this could be another story, a parallel story,"she mused with a scoff. "But if that's the case, then is this girl important? If everything was aligned right, then this girl would turn out to be a saintess who had the ability to heal the world. That would make her quite valuable, which would explain the prince's interest and the teacher's interest. The teacher might have known something they didn't."
"That would make me..." Ravina said aloud, raising her hands to her sides as if questioning everything around her. "The villainess," she concluded, realizing she was cast in the role of the young girl who opposed the heroine in her quest for love. Or at least, that is how the world would perceive her.
Ravina didn't see a young girl starved for love, but rather a young girl possessed by others. She was shivering every time she saw her. More than likely she was still traumatized by whatever happened opening the story had for her to make her endearing to the reader. Probably abuse. It was always abuse. Writers seemed to have no other way to make a reader like their character than making them miserable. Or perhaps writers were just sick to begin with, enjoying twisting people's lives for their own amusement. Well, she wouldn't play their twisted game.
Lady Eloise seemed muted, unable to speak for herself, and the gentlemen in her life seemed incapable of providing the assistance she truly needed. In fact, they probably made the situation worse. Blinded by love they would perceive everything however they wanted.
And that made Ravina’s school life dangerous. As the young aristocratic lady who belongs in high society they would assume that she disliked the young girl who gained the attention she thought she deserved. As such they would see her, Arriving at school, pushing the woman who ‘stole’ her place down. Offended, the villainess would try to tell the heroine her place until, of course, the hero appeared, protecting the damsel in distress.
When she encountered Eloise again, it was clear the girl merely wished to communicate, to speak with her. She had sought her out, after all. But to the man who had once again "rescued" the damsel, it likely appeared she was tormenting her anew. After all, Eloise had been trembling and could barely speak. Of course the men couldn't understand and thought she was being bullied.
“No, it's most likely they don't care to try and understand.”
Then there was the classroom incident... Okay, so she couldn't figure out what the classroom meant, but whoever took her away from her obviously thought she was being bullied, and the teacher thought she was being bullied in the alleyway.
"So I'm a villainess?" she questioned aloud. "But what about the war?" she wondered. "There was a war, after all. It was coming, right? I mean, her father had already talked about it. They made plans about it. There was a... Oh my, what's going on?" She couldn't figure it out. She paced around her room, her thoughts racing like trains off their tracks. It was not until her pinky toe collided with the hardwood chest that she halted, falling to her knees and clutching her toe in agony, crying out in pain.
It took her some time to recover. After all, the pinky toe had an uncanny ability to find and strike furniture in a manner that inflicted maximum pain. Eventually, she lay on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the cracks once more.
"So if I'm the villainess, then that leaves really only one option," she said. "Expulsion, death... okay, there are many options," she admitted to the face cracked in the ceiling. "Either way would usually mean the end for her and perhaps ruin the Ravenshield name as well. It all depends on what kind of story this was."
"Well then," she said, "there's only one option." She nodded to herself as she stood up. "It's quite simple," she said as she made her way back to the bed, pulling the sheets from the floor. She curled herself inside. "There's only one option," she whispered again. With the goal in mind she easily drifted off to sleep.