Page 51 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“Privileged jerk,” said Yelena.

“Now it really feels like old home week,” said Velveteen. “Has the Princess calmed down?”

“She’s getting there,” said Yelena. “Torrey’s talking her back to normal. She does fairy tale logic really, really well, when she needs to. But it’s bad, Vel. You got that, right? The Princess is hanging on by a thread, and it’s not up to her. Every time a child decides that she’s the bad guy, she shifts a little further from who she’s always been. Once she passes a certain point, I don’t think she’s going to be able to come back.”

“One friend gone, another going…” Velveteen glanced at Jacqueline. “Nobody told me this could be the cost of going to the Seasonal Lands.”

“Not even Santa can see the future,” said Jacqueline. “If he could, I like to think he would have tried harder to keep things from happening the way that they have.”

“All right.” Velveteen took a deep breath. She was still so damn tired. The Seasonal Lands had all but used her up: she had nothing left to spare. She needed a month of soft beds and hot showers and heavy meals, things that would put the meat back on her bones. Somehow it was no surprise that she wasn’t going to get any of those things. She never did, when she really needed them. “We have to fix this. We’ve come too far, and we’ve fought too hard, for things to end this way.”

“If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m ready to hear them,” said Yelena.

Velveteen looked at her, shrugged, and said calmly, “We need to go see Santa.”

None of them had an answer for that. Overhead, the fireworks continued to explode.

VELVETEEN vs. Going Home Again

The Princess sat on her (increasingly tarnished) throne, hands gripping the armrests so tight that it felt like she was going to break a nail. The petitioners standing before her on the blood-red carpet clustered tightly together, trying not to look like she terrified them. It would be easy to raise a hand and banish them to the thorny wastes, so easy⁠—

“Nope,” she said, and her accent was still honey and good red dirt, still Alabama all the way down to the core. She was still herself, down where it counted. “Not going to do that. Thanks for offering, though.”

“Uh, Princess?” Velveteen looked around, searching the shadows that swarmed, almost impenetrable, in the corners of the hall. They were getting deeper. They were getting darker. And they were getting closer, which was not a comfortable feeling, given that they had no obvious source. “Who are you talking to?”

“All the fairy tales the world has ever known, and let me tell you, they’ve got some teeth on them.” The Princess grimaced, leaning back in her throne. “I’ve known the Fairy Tale Girls for a long time. They’re a grim little band, and they reflect the darkest sides of our mutual stories, but they’re on the right side. They’ve always fought for good. I thought, if I ever had to channel those same aspects, that I’d be all right. Turns out I’m weaker than I guessed I was.”

“You’re not weak,” said Vel, remembering her time in Winter, when freezing all the way to the bone had been so much easier than she had wanted it to be. “You’re overwhelmed. The Fairy Tale Girls got one story each. You’re getting them all.”

“Too true. Too, too damn true.” The Princess pinched the bridge of her nose. The motif on her throne seemed to be shifting every time Vel looked away, now roses, now skulls. The skulls were winning. “It’s good that y’all have a plan that gets you out of here. I don’t think you should come back.”

“What?” Victory Anna straightened, eyes wide and alarmed. “I can’t remain in Winter’s domain. My presence is enough to call the Snowfather out of your Santa Claus, and my aspect of the giving season isn’t meant to exist in your world.”

“See, this is my life.” The Princess waved her hand vaguely at the group. “Most people hear that sentence, they’re going to assume you’re drunk. Me, I figure you’re sober and telling the truth and that you’ll explain things if I ask you about them, which is why I’m not asking. I don’t know who this ‘Snowfather’ is, and right now, I don’t actually care. It’s not safe here anymore.”

“Why not?” asked Action Dude.

The Princess turned her blue, blue eyes on him and smiled like the first frost of winter: cold and unforgiving and beautiful, in its own way. Velveteen, who had felt that frost consuming her, shivered.

“Because you’re a good man,” said the Princess. “Look at you. The all-American boy, very picture of a prince, standing there with your one true love and her faithful friends—you’re a fairy tale waiting to start, and I don’t know how long I can resist you. All of you. I’m going to be the worst enemy you’ve ever faced soon enough, and it’s killing me not to do what my story wants. I can’t let it go. It’ll find someone else if I let it go, and it’s not clean right now. It’s going to do to them what it’s tryin’ to do to me. But I’ll sure have an easier time fighting it if I don’t have to look at your stupid heroes’ faces and remember that I’m never gonna be one of you again.”

Jacqueline stepped forward, away from her friends, climbing the shallow steps in front of the Princess’s throne. The Princess watched her come with weary eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Jack, touching her hand. “I really am. I’ll tell Papa what’s happened. I’ll get him to start the North Pole’s media counterattack. We’ll get you back. We’ll figure out how to make the children start believing in you again, and we’ll get you back.”

“I sure do wish I could believe you, sugar,” said the Princess.

Jack leaned in and kissed her on the temple, leaving a glittery smear of lip gloss behind. Then she jumped down from the dais and ran back to the others, pulling a snow globe out of a pocket concealed somewhere in the skirt of her gown. “Hold tight,” she said, grabbing Vel’s hand.

Action Dude grabbed Vel’s other hand. Polychrome grabbed his, and Victory Anna grabbed hers. Jack stole one last glance at the Princess’s anguished face before smashing the snow globe against the floor. A swirl of marshmallow-scented snow swirled around them, and they were gone.

* * *

According to scholars and historians alike, superhumans have always existed. They may seem like recent additions to the world stage, but they have, in fact, been around for millennia. Their recent prominence is attributable to two major factors: an increased willingness to celebrate one’s neighbors for being able to fly or bend steel with their bare hands, rather than having them burnt at the nearest stake, and centuries of stories talking about the exploits of ostensibly fictional individuals doing the same things for the public good.

Much as modern audiences have difficulty believing the intelligent people capable of coming up with brilliant mathematical and architectural theories could believe that disease was caused by vapors from the earth and that handwashing was thus optional, there was a time when most chose not to believe in the existence of superhumans. They were consigned to myth, legend, and cautionary tale, and remained that way for centuries.

The rise of the superhuman in modern times is interesting in part because it has happened so swiftly and steeply, and in part because it seems as if it should have happened centuries ago. Unmasking is an inevitability, once there is a mask to remove, and while certain power classes have certainly become more common with time—a prehistoric technomancer, for example, would no doubt be indistinguishable from a modern earth manipulator—the birth rate of most superhumans seems to have been consistent throughout human history.