Page 13 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

The assembled heroes of Winter watched as the explosion of ice and snow and infinite cold splashed itself across the void, recreating, inch by inch and mile by snowcapped mile, the landscape that had been erased by time and the slow march of human narratives. All she was putting forth was cold, but that was all that was required for mountains, glaciers, even evergreen forests to unspool.

“She’s doing it,” whispered the Snow Queen, voice heavy with awe and wonder.

“Yes,” said Santa Claus, as he wondered—and not for the first time—whether Aurora’s insistence that they follow the old, painful ways had been born partially out of fear. She had insisted from the start that she wanted Velveteen for Winter, but sometimes what a person said and what they meant were very different things. With that much cold inside her, the girl could have challenged Aurora for her position eventually…and she could have won. “Yes, she is.”

I am going to miss her, thought Santa, as Velveteen drove her hands down into the snow and held on for dear life. She was gasping now, and the white was bleeding out of her skin into the ground, replaced by a healthy brown. But even that was paler than it should have been, like she was pouring more than just the cold into the Winter.

“Aurora, maybe that’s enough,” said Jack Frost. “She’s rebuilt half a sky.”

“She can give us more,” said Aurora. “She has it in her, and I want it.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” whispered Velveteen, and she pushed as hard as she could.

The last thing she heard before she slipped into unconsciousness was the beating of her own heart.

* * *

Persephone came from out the forest, and her footsteps left trails of snowdrops and crocuses behind her. The snow would cover them quickly, but their mere presence showed how close she was to the tipping point. Spring was calling her, and she had to answer, whether she wanted to or not.

“Is she ready?” she asked, when she was close enough to the group to speak without raising her voice. Persephone had never been one for shouting, outside of her own home.

“Here,” said Santa Claus, gesturing toward the sleigh where Velveteen, exhausted and human, lay curled in a bed of furs. The reindeer attached to the sleigh’s reins pawed at the ground and snorted, sending warm clouds of breath into the air. “We wore her out, I’m afraid.”

“Spring will be kinder,” said Persephone. She climbed onto the driver’s seat, flicked the reins once, and was away.

Velveteen never woke.

VELVETEEN PRESENTS THE PRINCESS vs. Public Relations

The Princess scowled at her reflection. Her reflection scowled back. The brightly colored birds that were in the process of arranging her hair in a complicated chignon—she thought they might be lorikeets, which made sense; lorikeets were the best at really elaborate braids—didn’t scowl. Their beaks weren’t made for it, and besides, they had other things on their minds, like making her presentable before she had to face her public.

“I know y’all have only my best interests at heart, and I know you’d never do anything that I wasn’t comfortable with, which is how I know that those are rhinestones you’re tucking into my curls, and not actual diamonds,” she said, her voice as sweet and deadly as rhododendron honey. “I have to look humble and like I appreciate my station, and that means not accessorizing with more money than some families see in a year.”

One of the birds stopped braiding long enough to chirp something apologetic, before it returned to hairdressing. The Princess sighed.

“I know rhinestones never look as good in the photographs; that isn’t the point,” she said. But she didn’t tell the birds to stop, because really, looking good in the photographs was the point. Even if it meant wearing so many jewels that she felt like she was about to be the target of a complicated heist. Even if it meant putting on the sort of undergarments that pushed her boobs up until they became a virtual shelf.

Even if it meant spending a perfectly good afternoon—one that could have been spent on visiting children who needed a moment of her attention, or fighting crime, or hell, just watching television away from the public eye—answering questions for a bunch of vultures who wanted nothing more than to see her fail. The media conglomerate that paid for her insurance and kept her away from organizations like The Super Patriots, Inc. was generally happy to let her do whatever she liked with her time, especially since her powers came with their very own innate morality clause. But occasionally they asked her to step up and face the press, and when that happened, she didn’t really have any other options.

A raccoon slunk shyly forward, holding a tube of lipstick in each paw. The Princess looked thoughtfully between them before picking the slightly darker shade. It was still more “rose petals at dawn” than “blood of my enemies,” but every little bit helped.

“All right, darlings: thank you for all your efforts. I’m as pretty as I’m going to get.” Pretty enough to stop a heart, if she used it right. The Princess gave her reflection one last lingering look before she stood and turned away from her mirror. This was the life she had always wanted, the life she had dreamed about and wished for on every star. If she had to pay the piper every once in a while, well.

There were worse prices to be paid. Carrabelle Miller took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched off to face her public.

* * *

Since its founding, The Super Patriots, Inc. has managed to control a dominant share of the world’s superhumans, largely through control of the legislature and active recruitment of individuals too young to be licensed heroes without a corporate sponsor. Those individuals not under the control of The Super Patriots, Inc. have traditionally been branded as supervillains, save in the rare cases where doing so would have been too difficult to be profitable.

Consider the case of Michael “Flying Good Guy Man” Ward of Columbus, Ohio. Exposed at a young age to the same radioactive maple syrup as was responsible for such heroes as Majesty and Action Dude, and such committed villains as Property Damage and Boom Boom Pow, Michael was exactly the same sort of individual who was usually sought out by the company as an asset. Michael had also been born with Down syndrome. The company neither extended an offer of support for his parents, nor an offer of employment for Michael, who went on to become a beloved hero in his local community, receiving his license directly from the state at the age of sixteen. He flew, fought, and served the public good, all without The Super Patriots, Inc. guiding his steps. While the company never admitted their mistake, they did become more flexible regarding disability among their recruits.

Consider also the case of Sandy “Maid on the Shore” O’Neil, whose powers activated while she was sailing off the coast of Florida with the rest of her graduating class. There were no fatalities, but the entire vessel was swamped, and Sandy herself was marooned on a small island of her own creation. Such powerful local area manipulation should have made her a perfect candidate for recruitment, had it not been for the fact that Sandy’s powers had been discovered when she saw the boy who had assaulted her the week before prom come up onto the deck. He had been allowed on the trip by teachers who thought he deserved to enjoy graduation as much as anyone else—as much as the girl he had hurt. The Super Patriots, Inc. looked at Sandy’s case and decided that she was too “controversial.” She has been on that island ever since. Any boat which comes too close is gently nudged away. She seems happy enough; there is really no way for us to know.

And finally, there is the Princess.

Born Scott Miller, the child who would become the Princess showed no signs of superpowers until the day when the Miller family visited a popular theme park designed around a series of beloved fairy tales. The afternoon parade began as normal before transforming into the greatest spectacle of magic, wonder, and glitter the world had ever known. Scott—who had been going by the name “Carrabelle” since her eighth birthday, when she had finally gathered the courage to explain her true gender to her parents—was lifted by birds onto a float that had materialized out of confetti and pieces of the neighboring gardens. There was a large song and dance routine, which everyone in the park seemed to instinctively know by heart. Several animatronics came briefly to life and explained their positions on topics ranging from climate change to the state of social media today. It was an eye-catching spectacle.

It was understandable when The Super Patriots, Inc. showed up at the Miller house the next morning, offering a contract, offering pleasant threats coached as promises. It was perhaps even more understandable that young Carrabelle was already gone, taking refuge in the safe castles and safer lawyers of the corporation that owned the park where she had awakened. She understood fairy tales well enough to become their living embodiment: she had been watching for an evil queen or a wicked vizier since the first bird said her name.