The morning of the field trip dawned as yellow-gold as leprechaun treasure. The great castle of Ever After High seemed gilded with the light.

Songbirds swooped and sang, butterflies danced with fairies, goblins yawned and crept into the cellar to sleep.

In her dorm, Lizzie dressed carefully, as always, arranging her red-and-black hair under her crown. She peered at her mirror, painting a red heart around her left eye. Her mother bore a heart-shaped birthmark. Lizzie was born without the birthmark, so she drew one on each day to be a little more like her mother.

She had told you this when you were trying so hard to get her to understand that she did not need to rule over her peers like her mother did in Wonderland. She told you this in confidence. She regretted doing so.

Her relationship with you at this current moment was rocky at best. You had realized this Yester when you asked her to take the lead for the play. She had mostly brushed you off, which upset you. Then she upset you in a different way by choosing to speak to Daring over you.

Stupid pretty boy with his perfect teeth and his stupid crown.

A field trip day was a bubbling cauldron of excitement. The corridors were raucous, the laughter constant. By the time Lizzie marched and shouted her way through the school and out to the wishing well, there was an enormous line.

And standing in the very back, was you.

You didn't qualify as Royal or Rebel, so you were actually allowed to choose where you wanted to go. You chose the West Wind since you didn't exactly feel like going to the Dark Mountains.

The fact that the headmaster even allowed this was beyond ridiculous to you. He was, like, 100. He shouldn't be so petty. But you also had the play to watch over. You did drag Lizzie into it, it was only fair you should watch.

You could tell which students were going to visit the West Wind by their attire, all swimsuits and flip-flops, reeking of coconut sunscreen. In front of you, two fairy-godmothers-in-training prattled on endlessly about the supposedly spectacular hollowed-out mountain palace the East Wind lived in.

At last it was your turn.

After a rush of sparkly darkness and freezing-hot breezes, Lizzie hopped out of another wishing well in the Dark Mountains beyond the Dark Forest. She looked around for a royal sedan chair carried by four servants (preferably card soldiers), but when none appeared, she was forced to trudge up the mountainside like the rest of her class.

Maddie: Hey, Lizzie!

Madeline Hatter hopped up on one foot. Maddie was dressed in layers of turquoise and purple, which matched her hair colors. Her striped and polka-dotted skirts flounced with each hop.

Maddie: Hop with me!

Maddie held out her hand. Lizzie’s hand twitched, almost reaching back.

But readily her mind called up her mother’s advice: A ship is only as floaty as its leakiest timber, and friends are the leakiest timber of all.

Sail not on the Friend Ship, Lizzie, lest you drown in an ocean of tears!

Lizzie: A princess of Wonderland never hops.

She walked through the forests of the mountain path alone.

Maddie pouted, but she looked up when you poked her cheek.

Y/N: Come on. I'll hop with you.

No blue-skinned North Wind (in swimming trunks or otherwise) waited at the top of the mountain. Instead an amphitheater of log benches faced a small stage.

Maddie: Ooh, are we watching a play? Tea-riffic!

Blondie: This is just right.

Blondie Lockes settled onto a bench alongside other Royals, including Briar Beauty and Holly O’Hair.

Lizzie started for the backstage. Behind the curtain, Apple and Daring were slipping on costumes over their clothes. You also stepped in the back with a clipboard.

Lizzie: Break an egg.

Humphrey: Excuse me?

Humphrey Dumpty squeaked as he passed by, his white-pale cheeks turning so pink he seemed to be dyed.

Y/N: It’s leg. Break a leg.

Lizzie: Oh. That’s actually much better.

Mr. Grimm: Now, students, quiet down, please.

Headmaster Grimm was on the other side of the curtain. You could all hear him from the back part of the stage.

Mr. Grimm: You’re probably wondering, ‘Where is the North Wind, and what is this beautiful forest amphitheater?’ And perhaps even, ‘I bet Headmaster Grimm is skilled in the theater arts, and when will we see an example of his genius?’

You rolled your eyes. Someone in the audience shouted something you couldn’t make out.

Mr. Grimm: No, Mr. Hood, you will not be able to meet and speak with the North Wind, as you did last year with the West Wind, or the beach dude, as you call him. The Winds are part of the magnificent heritage and history in Ever After. But the reason why you can’t speak with the North Wind herself is a tragedy, one I fear you all need to hear, especially now.

Lizzie straightened her crown. It wasn’t her tall gold one with ruby red hearts that just screamed “Wonderland” (sometimes literally). This was the costume crown of Princess Aquilona, and while a shoddy representation of true royalty, it was still a crown and should be respectably oriented.

Mr. Grimm: To best communicate why the North Wind, though present, can no longer speak with humans, I have written a play.

You suddenly realized what you had agreed to. Was he making this all up to get the Rebels to stop being, well, Rebels?

Y/N: Oh, that son of a....

Mr. Grimm: Behold, The Tragedy of Aquilona, performed by the Ever After High Royal Players!

The curtain rose to thunderous applause. Faybelle Thorn shouted “Boo!” so loudly and brightly it sounded like a cheer. Lizzie, flustered, yelled the first line of the play that Apple had written for her, and the crowd silenced.

Grimm lifted his arm up grandly and intoned.

Mr. Grimm: Long ago, Boreas, the great North Wind, ruled the mountaintops.

The headmaster’s voice was suddenly high-pitched and trembly, like someone trying to sing soprano who really shouldn’t.

Maddie: Why is he talking like that?

You could hear Maddie whisper loudly from the audience.

Ruby: Is someone choking him? Oh no. Is Y/N choking him? Is it finally happening?

Daring marched forward with his typical easygoing yet kingly demeanor.

He was dressed in a white billowy wind costume that didn’t completely cover his muscles. Some of the girls in the audience squealed.

Daring: I, Boreas, rule the winds of the North!

Mr. Grimm: The nature of wind is to be wild.

Apple rushed onstage in a fringed blue cloak. The audience applauded, several shouting, “Apple White! It’s Apple White!”

Apple: I am the wild wind!

A few birds in the surrounding forest sang out in happy response.

Maddie: Shh, she’s not talking to you.

Mr. Grimm: But Boreas was the shepherd of all the winds of the North, directing them hither and yon.

Daring: I shepherd you!

Daring pointed at Apple.

Daring: Go hither! And yon!

Someone in the audience actually did yawn at this point. Lizzie had to admit the lines Grimm had written were a little flat.

Mr. Grimm: Boreas’s companion in his great work was his daughter, Princess Aquilona.

Lizzie placed her fists on her hips.

Lizzie: I am Princess Aquilona!

The line was longer, but Lizzie deemed it too boring to finish. The headmaster waited for the rest, but Lizzie just folded her arms.

Grimm cleared his throat.

Mr. Grimm: Princess Aquilona was destined to take on her father’s responsibilities, but she refused.

Lizzie: I will not take on your responsibilities!

Lizzie pointed at Daring.

Daring opened his mouth in a parody of shock.

Daring: Ridiculous! It is your destiny! To deny your destiny would destroy everything!

You groaned and face palmed with a few of the Rebels in the crowd. How did you not realize sooner? You helped revise the script!

Then again, you did just quickly look it over before deciding you wanted to throw it in the trash then promptly forgot about it until Mr. Grimm told you you needed to replace Briar.

So.....you were partly to blame.

Lizzie: Then I shall leave forever and go where the North winds cannot travel!

The audience gasped. Lizzie smiled. Maybe this strutting-about-a-stage business wasn’t so bad. She glanced at the anxious face of Headmaster Grimm for inspiration and decided to make up a few more lines.

Lizzie: I will not be the daughter who does nothing but watch her wrinkled father writhe with the agony of age and death, your voice slowly becoming more nasal and oddly high-pitched, as if you were being strangled by a possum or a really weak octopus or something.

Daring pressed his lips together, valiantly attempting to hold back a laugh, and ultimately failing. You even covered your mouth with your clipboard. You looked up to see Humphrey also laughing.

Daring covered his face with his hands, and Lizzie knew she must do something to save the play.

Lizzie: Do not blubber so, Father. When you stop weeping, I will be gone.

Headmaster Grimm cleared his throat and lowered his voice to its natural pitch.

Mr. Grimm: And so, Aquilona ran away to be selfish, ignoring her great destiny so she could do whatever selfish things she wanted. Selfishly.

Headmaster Grimm looked significantly at Raven Queen, who was sitting in the back row of the amphitheater. Raven rolled her eyes.

Mr. Grimm: Meanwhile, Boreas got old.

Daring pulled a white beard from his pocket, stuck it to his face, and began to shuffle around.

Mr. Grimm: And died!

Daring: I die!

Daring collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Mr. Grimm: Without a shepherd, the winds tore up trees and hassled hills.

Apple, her wind cloak flapping, danced around, spinning and leaping across the stage, shouting “Whoosh” and “Boom” and “Rustle rustle rustle.”

Mr. Grimm: The winds, wanting a shepherd, blew all the way to Aquilona. But Aquilona was too selfish to claim her destiny, as previously mentioned.

Apple and Lizzie spun in the circles they had practiced, but Lizzie was not as good at remembering steps as words, and the choreographed dance turned into a sprawling slap-fight. From the floor, “dead” Boreas started to chuckle.

Lizzie shrugged into a ragged blue cloak like Apple’s.

You smacked the clipboard against your head. You may have to step in if it keeps going down this way.

Mr. Grimm: In her struggle against the wind, Aquilona was stripped of her body, becoming wind herself. She had no body after that, and without a mouth, you can’t talk. And that is sad. And it was her own fault. So be warned: Those who run from their own destiny just might be chased down and turned into wind.

He cleared his throat again and added grandly one last thing.

Mr. Grimm: Or something! The end.

The headmaster began to applaud, and about half the audience followed his lead. The other half just silently glared, so Lizzie glared back until the curtain fell.

Daring laughed, his fake beard wiggling.

Daring: ‘A really weak octopus?’ I just about lost it out there!

Y/N: You did lose it.

Apple: Great job improvising, Lizzie. Turning his laughter into tears was perfect.

Lizzie: Yes, turning laughter into tears is a skill I learned from my mother.

Apple: I think your mother would have loved your performance.

Apple patted Lizzie on the shoulder and heading off the stage. Lizzie held her breath, surprised by a knot of emotion in her throat.

Daring followed Apple. Lizzie heard him mutter “strangled by a possum” under his breath, letting out another chuckle.

Lizzie stayed in the quiet behind the curtain, fingering her ragged blue cloak. She was a princess separated from her kingdom, just like Aquilona.

All portals between Ever After and Wonderland had been magically sealed ever since Raven’s mother, the Evil Queen, went royally off script and infected it with some magical contagion.

If the greedy witch hadn’t rebelled and tried to take over everyone else’s story, Lizzie would be home right now.

Unlike Aquilona, Lizzie yearned for her destiny. But cut off as she was, how could she become like her magnificent mother? If only she could be so scary and large and… and loud!

If only she could live with Mother at home, where everything made its own kind of wonderlandiful sense, and rabbits talked and people didn’t unless they were offering you cake and tea, Your Highness.

What if she was trapped in Ever After forever after? One day her mother would need Lizzie to take over, and if she couldn’t get back…would a pack of wild playing cards worm their way into Ever After and steal away her body, just like the winds did to Aquilona? Would they carry Lizzie back, bodiless and mouthless, as insubstantial as a wind? The thought was terrifying.

She wished she had brought her hedgehog, Shuffle, with her. Even if it was unqueenly, just then Lizzie really needed a cuddle.

You noticed her standing there with a look of distress. She seemed really quiet, which was not in character for her, and it worried you.

Y/N: Hey, you alrig....

Lizzie suddenly hugged you which made you freeze. You half way expected her to suddenly stab you with some heart-shaped scissors, but she didn't.

She just cried. You didn't know why, but you suddenly sobbed yourself. Her grip tightened and you finally placed your arms around her.

Seeing her like this just broke you. Maybe it was because you knew what she was feeling. Maybe it was because you knew what she was going through.

You both lost your homes. You couldn't go back. And you didn't know who had it worse.

Lizzie's mother was still alive. She was still out there. But, she can't even reach her. There was no way for her to go home and see her people.

Your people were gone. Your home was in ruins. Even if you did go back, it would be to nothing.

So, you both dropped to your knees and held each other. Lizzie cried, not even caring if anyone saw her. But, when your tears fell, they only fell from one eye. Your other remained dry.

Y/N: It's okay. It's okay, Lizzie. It's okay.

You didn't know who you were talking to anymore.

The End Is Just The Beginning......