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glambitions-a · 4 years

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just one bite.

prompt: “it would warm my ancient heart if you could accept this modest gift on your birthday. just one bite... and a good fortune to the fairest of them all.” unhappily ever after collection

tags (open): @cherry-bxtch, @cosmosstarstudio, @go-sullivan, @tacobacoyeet

she wraps a finger in a stray curl of her hair, it’s not black enough. even with the yellow ribbon tied in dark brown waves it’s not enough. she huffs and tugs it out, the ribbon floats daintily to the surface of her vanity (a grace delilah herself could never achieve) and she stares at it with jealousy. she had tried so desperately to make herself light as a feather, her waist so petite it looks as if she had been squeezed into a thousand corsets. her skin so pale her mother swears that she looks like death, and you can see the veins in her her wrists. her friends had sworn they could see her ribs even through the sweaters she keeps over her.

delilah sighs and sucks in her cheeks, and she almost has no skin to pull in between her teeth. the rouge brush tickles her cheeks, but smiles give you wrinkle lines so she can’t afford a giggle to pass her rosy lips. she had perfected the perfect smile, it was unnatural, sure, but it minimized wrinkles so it was okay with her.

she sets down the brush delicately, presses her fingers to her cheeks anxiously, as if to get rid of the skin that had been raked by well-manicured nails several time before. she was only thirteen, but she had become so vain so soon, and she had to. her mother was only fourteen when she died.

and dying certainly wasn’t on delilah’s to-do list but if it happened maybe she could be the picturesque princess asleep on a death bed of flowers. all she wants is to be like her mother, people adore her. she has tried everything, but yet she hadn’t yet reached the beauty of her mother yet. well, she had tried everything but plastic surgery, but she was forbidden from that.

she had asked once when she was younger, but her mother had nearly fainted at the question and her father had given her the stern and noble ‘you’re beautiful just the way you are’. so she dutifully apologized and ran up to her room to sulk, as you do. delilah had learned what questions to ask, like ‘how lovely is the weather today?’ or ‘where did you get that dress?’ she knew better than to ask silly things concerning literally anything else. she was a princess, not a little girl.

she cradles her head in her hands as she glared into the mirror. delilah hates the way she looks, she’s not different enough to be pretty on her own, so people constantly compare her to her mother. ‘you look just like your mother! a splitting image!’ and at first she beams and thanks them. but then they tilt their heads and look harder at the practiced pinkish pout that doesn’t pass as red only slightly and the not quite ebony hair. ‘well, almost just like her.’ so she tried harder, she has to.

at first she may have been pretty, but it wasn’t enough to be pretty, she had to be snow white. delilah had to be the kind of pretty that princes would risk their lives over. even if the blue veins were very easily seen on her limbs, and the shadows under her eyes, and her lips had turned a sickly grey-pink, there was still something so delicate about her. pretty, almost, like glass.

and yeah, she had been taught to avoid apples like the plague but in secret she didn’t, not at all. the minute she heard princess audrey had been cursed by the daughter of maleficent (even by accident) delilah knew her time would come. she had begun looking for things to take from strangers, spending more time in the woods and even volunteering to help the survivors from the isle of the lost just in case the evil queen should see an opportunity.

over the week, all she could think about was how she looked, that she needed to appear perfect at all times in case a terrible tragedy should occur. delilah has scarcely eaten anything at all, and when she did eat she felt so sick to her stomach that she almost immediately coughed it back up. some days, she could keep it down, but others she couldn’t.

so here she was, seated at her vanity, clutching a lip tint with a deadly grip in her hand as she shakily traced it over her lips. it’s supposed to make her lips rose red, but it’s too pink. delilah purses her lips and sets it down, groaning. she needed to look just like her mother, she wasn’t enough on her own after all. the thirteen year old stood up, brushing off her pale yellow pleated skirt.

she adjusts the blue sweater on her shoulder, and pretends not to notice how dead she looks because it’s too big and keeps sliding off. she might as well have no skin at all with the look of her bony limbs. she practices her smile in the mirror before grabbing her bag to head off to school.

it’s around four in the afternoon before she gets back to her awaiting parents, who are seated at the table oddly silent. normally she’d catch them in post afternoon tea, where they would be discussing the weather, or how her mother’s career was doing. but today, they don’t even notice she arrives until she comes to next to them, because they were too wrapped up in their thoughts.

she touches the teapot in the middle of the table, it’s cold. their tiny cups are full of dark liquid, so she knows they have something to tell her, probably bad. they never waste perfectly good tea.

“darling,” her mother sounds so disappointed, so concerned. “sit down, please.” she grits her teeth behind closed lips. she obeys of course, she has to be a good daughter, and a perfect princess. “are you aware of what tomorrow is?”

she shakes her head, and pretends not to notice the dread filled fingers pressed into his pale temple. “of course you don’t.” her mother scolds him under her breath, but it’s too late. if her kindhearted father is disappointed, she must’ve really forgotten something important.

her mother purses her classic red as blood lips, seemingly preparing for her next words. “it’s your birthday,” is what comes out first. “tomorrow’s your birthday.” she corrects almost immediately afterwards. delilah almost hits herself, how could she forget her own birthday? her calendar was always correct one-hundred percent of the time. she wouldn’t forget to plan a party, her own party nonetheless.

she supposed it’s possible she didn’t mark it on purpose, after all the evil queen is loose, who knows what kind of havoc she could wreak on the birthday of a princess. (though that seemed much more maleficent’s style wasn’t it?)

“oh, i completely forgot.” that was true, she had forgotten, and she honestly doesn’t know how. “with all of these tests... i’m so sorry, mother.” paired with big guilt ridden eyes, she could get away from this without a scratch. her eyes found her fiddling fingers in her lap. if she could blow it off, she could go up to her room and do homework. that wasn’t really what she wanted to do. but she would do it to make her family proud.

“it’s alright sweetheart, me and your father have a party planned.” her breath caught in her throat. she had been sort of distant with her friends lately, so a birthday party would be awkward and strange. “it’s a quiet little garden party, but there will be quite a lot of people there, i suppose.”

she sucked in another breath, delilah could no way tell her mother she had been blowing off her friends to constantly pick at her insecurities and tiny flaws of her appearance, oh what would she say? “that sounds so lovely, thank you!” she walks over to delicately put her arms around her mother.

her mother seemed to stiffen in her arms, “delilah honey, you look like you’ve let yourself go.” she almost flinches at her words. she stands back up, and crosses her arms. “i can’t remember the last time you ate anything besides apples.”

delilah almost curls in on herself to wallow in self pity, “i’m fine mother.” her tone turns cold, but she’s trying too hard not to cave and tell her mother how she feels, “thank you for the party, i’m going to go find something to wear.”

and then she’s sitting in her closet, alone. her phone is next to her foot, and for the first time in weeks it was plugged in and the screen was lit up with texts. she looked over at it, it was the only thing she could see since she was completely concealed in the dark.

delilah gnaws on her lip as she reaches for her phone, her fingers hovering over the keyboard it takes her a little bit to muster up the courage to ask the girl on the other side of the phone if she wanted to go shopping, she had some christmas money left over after all.

to not press the send button was so very tempting, but she really didn’t want to be alone in her adventures of looking for something to wear so she pressed it. and in true delilah style she immediately regretted it afterwards. her head was buried in her arms atop her knees, and she really was starting to wish the party was cancelled. if it was this hard for her to talk to one person, how hard would it be for her to be at a party. and to make it even worse she would be the center of attention.

she waited with her nerves filling up her own body, all from just from not speaking to anyone outside of school for a while. the phone pings from where it sits and she picks it up, a sigh of relief flowing through her lungs as she read the words of agreement on the screen.

it didn’t take long to decide on a time, and it was equally as quick to get to the mall (probably due to her mother’s love of the mall, so the castle was close to it) the girl she was with was the daughter of rapunzel, so she was good with coming up with what to do.

the mall was fun, but it was over soon with delilah coming home with a navy blue and buttercup yellow dress that looked unnervingly similar to the one her mother wore, only shorter. but delilah persisted that it was what she wanted. the dress was now in her hands as she started to pick out other things to wear with it. her birthday was on a saturday, and today was friday. anxiety stirred in her stomach thinking about the party, even though all she had to do was show up.

the mary jane shoes at the bottom of her closet looked promising so she grabbed those and a pair of plain white socks with adorable little ruffles. there was a little necklace with an apple charm that she layed out next to the dress also before deciding the outfit as done and hanging it up in front of her wardrobe.

by the time her and her parents ate a silent dinner, all the worrying she had done had tired her out plenty. so much so that she almost immediately fell asleep as soon as she got into bed. even with how tired she was it was a miracle that the millions of thoughts in her head didn’t keep her up all night.

the next morning she felt sick, and she tried to tell her mother that and snow white simply brushed her off with a perfectly perfect laugh. okay, so she didn’t feel actually sick, but her stomach was twisting because she hadn’t hung out with anybody since forever. and yeah, she did hang out with rapunzel’s daughter the other day but there wasn’t a lot of talking. of course she turned down breakfast and although she didn’t miss the concerned look on her mother’s face, it was routine now so she didn’t care about it much anymore to be very honest.

she slipped on the dress and shoes before carefully latching in the golden necklace, after all she’d had it since she was a baby and didn’t want to damage it or break it in any way. her hands were practically shaking as she went over to the vanity. delilah pretended that she was just doing her makeup, covering up her shadows like she normally did. lips glossed red, cheeks brushed pale pink, it was normal.

she was used to this by now, and she knew how to make it look like there was no effort put in. a little extra sparkle on her eyelids made her feel like this was something new. she curled her hair, tied a ribbon over her head like she normally did. delilah adjusted herself in the mirror before leaving the room.

she stepped down the stairs quietly, delicate as she normally was, how she had to be. she was thirteen, turned fourteen and yet delilah white knew how to look small and feel small in almost every way imaginable. her shiny black shoes creaked on the stairs and she winced at the noise, even though a warm call of her name from downstairs immediately followed.

her parents were awake and sitting at the table with their morning tea, as normal. but the difference was that there was a little baby blue wrapped box on the table. she smiled softly, before reminding herself of the wrinkles that could follow. when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she kissed her mother’s cheek as affectionately as possible. “good morning, mother.” her voice was honeyed, but her parents didn’t know that.

“good morning dear.” she kissed her father’s cheek as well before sitting at the seat the little box was placed in front of. it couldn’t be bigger than a tissue box but still delilah felt a little warmth in her heart. she trailed her fingers over the soft fabric covering the box. her smile only widened as she felt the silky material.

“is this for me?” her voice was soft, maybe even childish, but the fact that she had forgotten her birthday had hit her hard enough so much so that she was surprised her parents remembered to get her a present.

her parents nodded cheerfully in response, but just as she touched the ribbon to start to pull, the door rang. she smiled apologetically and told them she would get it. delilah’s footsteps on the wooden floor seemed to echo in her eardrums. a twinge in her chest led her to think that something bad could happen, but she ignored it.

she opened the door and nearly gasped at the sight before her. a fairly ugly old woman wrapped in a black cloak stood before her with a soft wrinkled smile. “hello dear.” delilah nodded and forced out a quiet ‘hello’.

her wrinkled hand stretched out to reveal a shiny red apple, the color of blood, the color of her mother’s lips. “it would warm my ancient heart if you could accept this modest gift on your birthday.” now, delilah wasn’t stupid. she knew her mother’s fairytale forwards and backwards. and in her heart she knew how this would end. but all she could think about was fulfilling her mother’s legacy, how pretty she might look wrapped in a flowered deathbed.

she smiled gratefully and took it in her hands, trying to mask the shaking of her fingers. she didn’t need to be worried, right? it was just a sweet old woman giving the princess a gift on her birthday. delilah raised it up to her lips, the bottom of it touching the apple first. only when her teeth just pushed open the skin of the fruit was when she heard the woman say something, her voice sounding younger and meaner. “just one bite... and a good fortune to the fairest of them all.”

delilah didn’t even realize she had swallowed the bite that had made its way into her mouth until the room was spinning and her vision darkened, her mother calling her name and the woman cackling. but even then she knew she was dead.

ʚĭɞ | if you want to be on my taglist, all you have to do is like this post. hello darlings! this is my story for the writing event i started for fifty followers. please share the collection linked before the cut of this piece, i really want to get some more writers on this! i’ve been dreading writing this for some reason, but it feels good to get it out of my drafts!

#unhappily ever after collection #ofc #original female character #descendants original character #post descendants three #post d3 #my writing #disney descendants #descendants #descendants three #rory's fifty #tw ; angst #tw ; death #tw ; spells #tw ; eating disorder #descendants fanfiction

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