Hedith's hair swum in the intensity of her magic, flaming the tips of her long, aquamarine hair. The ward that surrounds the room projected a harrowing ticking sounds and holographic images of clocks racing through in different time.

The time machine in Hedith's hand made noises as if it's panicking, itself as the goddess of time — the Princess of the Underworld — grip it tightly in her clawed hands.

Mavros, a giant two-headed, black greyhound, stood above the woman, providing a much more terrifying image of the powerful goddess.

It was in one of those moments Uma realized that Hedith is not the same young troublemaking girl from the Isle of the Lost. Not the same little girl who would look up to her and make her ragdolls out of cut-out fabrics that washed up ashore the Isle. This is a being of pure magic and mysticism. A being much more powerful than her and her mother. 

"Hedith," she called.

The girls were still on the ground, backing up towards the wall. Absolutely terrified. But then Hedith returned to normal. Her hair fell and the noises stopped. The images around the room disappeared, leaving only the ward.

"Girls, sit down," Uma ordered, nodding towards the couch in front of Hedith and Mavros. The hellhound laid back down as Hedith huffed and sat down regally. The time machine laid beside Mavros's head on the couch.

Red and Chloe scrambled to sit and despite looking and remaining shaken, they sat in the way their royal training dictates them to be.

"Alright, now. What did you do? What did you change in the timeline?" Uma asked, leveling the girls with a firm stare.

They meet each other's eyes. Chloe gulped and Red took a deep breath, wiping and ribbing her palms against her pants. They refused to talk until Red caught Hedith's piercing gaze.

"We went back in time to prevent my mother from becoming evil and a tyrant," Red confessed, earning het another glare from Hedith.

"The Queen of Hearts? She's...She's so sweet," Uma said, in disbelief.

"Well, now are you happy?" Hedith bit back.

Red's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Well, yeah. Now my mother is not a tyrant queen, Wonderland's free from oppression, and I now have a mom who actually likes me for me."

Uma can see the tensing of Hedith's muscles.

"Well, how valiant of you," Hedith spits out with venom. "Do you know what else you just did? Time is a sensitive and delicate entity. A change in the past can affect the future in ways beyond your jurisdiction and the paradox of it all destroys the prior timeline."

Chloe's eyes widened and her mouth opens as if trying to ask something but nothing came out. At this, Hedith stood up and paced around.

"Your mother was supposed to be a tyrant. Your mother was supposed to be defeated by Alice. Your mother wasn't supposed to be good," Hedith pointed and waved her hand and the ward showed an image.

A slideshow of events Red remember from the old Queen of Hearts. Her tyranny, her cruelty, her dislike of her daughter's individuality. Then the slideshow was replaced by an image of a little blond girl in a trial room, with her mother as judge and undergoing a nonsense of a judicial process.

"Who's that?" Chloe whispered.

"That is Alice. The hero of Wonderland. In the original timeline, she fell down the rabbit hole and went to defeat and end the Queen of Hearts' rule. She grew up and had a daughter who would have then attend Auradon Prep during the time Mal, Evie, Jay and..." Hedith took a sharp inhale. "And Carlos."

Uma went to Hedith's side and put a hand on her shoulders for comfort.

"Then someone went back way further than the two of you had and messed with time. This resulted to the Queen of Hearts, who were then, Bridget, to be stuck in the same time as Cinderella and Alice. This resulted in an irreparable paradox that destroy the original timeline. My timeline!"

Hedith's voice cracked at the end, her tone rising.

"What timeline is this?" Uma asked, soothing Hedith's shoulders. She remembered Hedith crying and confessing about this three years ago.

"The third one," Hedith said and waved her hand again, revealing a few images that seems new to Uma, but for the three other girls in the room, it was complete history.

"Moving something in the past can cause a butterfly effect. Alice died early and so the Queen of Hearts ruled Wonderland to this day. Mad Hatter died under the Queen's reign, forcing his son into servitude instead of being an instructor at Auradon Prep. And then you, Princess Red, were born."

"What?" Chloe gasped.

Red was speechless for a moment, "H-Hold on. What... What do you mean?"

"You were never conceived. You weren't supposed to exist. But because your mother was yanked a few years into the future, here you are now," Hedith seethed. "And now, you also touched the fabric of time and you created a new timeline while simultaneously deleting the other one."

"Oh no. What else changed?" Uma asked, panicking and trying to think of any off-putting feelings she has lately.

"I do not know yet. But one thing's for sure," Hedith sneered as her eyes drifted to the portraits on the wall. Her eyes softened at the image of Carlos. "It didn't change the fact that I will never see my Carlos and my baby nephew ever again."

She grabbed the time machine again and angrily looked back to the girls.

"I will take this. And if I ever hear or see you try this again, I will not hesitate to send you to my father, myself," Hedith threatened and went to the door, dissolving the ward. "And another thing. No soul must know about this. Try and I'll know.

---

Chloe and Red returned to their shared dorm room and dropped on their respective beds. Red is still shaken from all that happened in the last few days. First time in Auradon and she had already saw her mom stage a coup, go back in time, met her teenage mother, fight a stone owl while they broke into the most powerful wizard in history's office, changed the timeline, get a sweet and caring mother, and meet a goddess who is also going to be her teacher, who also happens to hate them. 

"What do you think other things we've changed?" Chloe asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Nope," Red said, shooting back up her feet paced around the room. "That woman is probably just scaring us into submission. The only thing we changed is my mom becoming good and our moms staying friends."

Chloe frowned. "But she's the goddess of time, Red. An all-powerful being."

"Funny, cause I also thought my mom is—was an all-powerful being," Red snarked, rolling her eyes.

"Hedith is different. She's a goddess, Red. A goddess!"

Red rolled her eyes and sat back down on her bed with a deep frown. She knows to herself that what she did was good. She saved her mom from being a tyrant. She saved Wonderland from plunging into a dictatorship. She saved Chloe's mom from being killed. And she saved Auradon from being invaded by Wonderland. Okay, they saved everyone. Chloe is as much as a catalyst to the change as she is and she wholeheartedly believe they did the right thing. No one is hurt.

But the images she saw earlier and the things that Hedith said weighed on her mind more than she'd like to admit. Specifically the idea that she wasn't supposed to live. That this is not the original timeline as Hedith said. Chloe and her came from the second timeline. A timeline where she first appeared as a butterfly effect of some guy dragging her mom further into the future than she's supposed to.

She wasn't supposed to exist.

She wasn't supposed to be a princess of Wonderland.

Her mom wasn't supposed to be her mom.

And Chloe and her wouldn't be...well, friends still feels like a stretch, but welcomed company feels...amendable.

But that doesn't matter now, does it? She did good. She is good. As Chloe believes her to be.

So she's fine.

Everything's fine.

She is good.

Right...?

---

Meanwhile, a heavy downpour visited Auradon that night. Up in the palace, by the third tower in the West wing, Hedith said on the alcove by the window. Her head against the glass and stared at the blurry visage of Auradon Prep. The light outside created shadow of droplets on her pale face, her aquamarine eyes glistened over.

On her right ring finger, she fiddles with a single ring with delicate accents of diamond and a rounded star diopside gem in the center. She looked away from the school and pulled her legs to her chest to look at her ring, a numbed look on her face.

"Why? Why must this happen again?" she muttered to herself, caressing the gem.

"I tried everything. I did everything to ban and destroy anything that would allow time travel," she said, her eyebrows furrowing and her voice rising a little.

"And why does it always involve someone from Wonderland?" She growled and fisted her hands, her nails digging into her palms. "That meddlesome, nuisance of a kingdom! Always messing with my domain! Without better understanding of the consequences!"

Mavros sat up from where he was sleeping. One head shooting up faster than the other. Hedith noticed this and apologetically smiled towards the hellhound.

"I'm sorry, Mavs." She approached the dog with light steps, the fabric of her nightgown flowing along the gentle breeze of her steps, accentuated and dramatized by the heavy rains. She kneeled down beside the hound's bed and patted each head with gentle hands.

"I'm just... frustrated."

One head whined and the other grunted in displease. The the former leaned into her right hand and licked at the ring. The other leaned against her hand and both laid down on her lap.

"I know, Mavs. I miss--" Hedith choked and looked at her ring. "I miss him too."

Both head whimpered and leaned closer to Hedith. Hedith wanted to cry. She wanted to wail. She wanted to scream. She wanted to smite the people who wronged her and make them regret their actions with the price of their lives. But she knows that she cannot do all of those because such actions would not just affect her. 

Her domain was inherited from her grandfather. A tyrant who ate his children to ensure he wouldn't be dethroned. 

She's the daughter of the evil fairy, Maleficent, who was credited as the most powerful and heinous villains in all kingdom.

She's the daughter of the King of the Underworld, Hades. A reformed villain with a reputation and important job to uphole.

She's the sister of the Queen of Auradon, one who was also reformed from her teen years and now a paragon of change, peace, and prosperity.

If she slip and let out her negative feelings, her pain, her grief, she couldn't imagine how it would affect her family, much less the trust of the other kingdom to Auradon and its queen. She cannot slip now. She cannot be controlled by her emotions. She cannot let herself fall into the darkness she so desperately try to avoid. She cannot. She cannot let it happen.

Not again.

Never again

---

I will be updating weekly at 12:00 am GMT+8 every Thursday starting with the next chapter.

What are your thoughts about the story so far? Let me hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading.

~RSE out