onepassingnight | ( slightly backdated to april's theme! ) oo2 ☾ ❝ sleeping beauty... ❞

The knight hurried through the trees that seemed to snatch at her cloak, through the brambles that she hacked at impatiently with her sword, driving them off only for them to grow up again just as fast, progress slow and often frustrating. She made short work of them, skilled with her weapon and confident in her purpose.

Something told her not to tarry here. There was something in this wood, though, something which should not be awakened, something which she must guard to be sure it was never disturbed to walk this world again. She must reach the center before some other fool did.

Edited 2012-05-01 06:58 (UTC)

There's a slight breeze that seems to kick up from no where, dragging along with it several of the blossoms that lay at rest in the clearing just ahead. From above, the clouds seem to part and a single ray of light finds its way down to shine upon the princess' still form.

There: her goal. The knight dismounted her black horse, which had reared at the thorns and trampled the vines, and stepped into the clearing on foot. For a long while, she eyed the still body with a grim satisfaction. There would be no more disruptions caused by this princess' birth, no more stirrings of her own jealousy.

The face was lovely, even with so many reasons to remind herself not to be trapped, she could see that. In repose, the princess (the face: it) looked peaceful, almost ethereal. Just a girl. And somehow, images came to mind of this girl laughing, moving, living, full of energy and enthusiasm and joy.

It felt wrong to see her like this, next to that. The knight crept a little closer. As if it was a spell, too, the more she looked at that face, the more she moved on her own. The princess did not stir and, without any conscious will of her own, the knight's hand raised to brush the sleeping girl's cheek as she bent to press their lips together.

Edited 2012-05-01 07:12 (UTC)

The warm contact is something she hasn't felt in a long time -- her eyelids flutter open slowly, her large blue eyes sweeping from side to side as though to try to make sense of the scene around her. As her gaze falls to the knight, a deep blush sets in in cheeks and she rises slightly, clutching at her dress. "You are..."

The knight brushes back the hem of her cloak, revealing her face and her stature; and the mark of her country's royalty like a jewel at her forehead, for she is no simple, ordinary knight.

"Princess Mizuno, of Mercury." The words are spoken with pride, and if she regrets what she's just done, it only shows in - perhaps - the hint of stiffness to the introduction.

Now awake, what will this Princess Serenity do?

Edited 2012-05-01 07:25 (UTC)

"Mercury..." there's a softness in her voice, as she lifts herself further from the pillow, her hands clasped close to her chest. But then... All within a few seconds her face no longer presents that angel-like expression, her eyebrows furrowing. "It's way too early to wake up, the alarm hasn't even gone off!!

The princess of Mercury stares for several moments before her eyes narrow. "You're just as they said," she informs the Princess of Silver Millenium.

"I could have still been sleeping in! Ahhhh, I can't believe it..." The princess groans, attempting to turn back over and get comfortable again.

"The time for sleeping was over a hundred years ago," the knight says without sympathy. "Lazy, empty-headed..."

It's so easy to fall into this somehow, criticizing the princess for (if she were more honest with herself) nothing more than failing to welcome her warmly.

"Hey, that's no fair..." she whines, seemingly more awake now that she sees her friend a getting bit worked up... "You don't have to say it like that... It was just so comfy and peaceful... I couldn't help it."

"If you'd rather sleep, go back." The knight juts her chin back towards the bed, stiffly. As though the words sink in only as she says them, she pauses, and adds belatedly, "It's better for you to stay sleeping."

This is true. The princess is an existence that must not awaken. She knew that when she came, and yet- Why had she gone so far, even knowing it was foolish?

"Ami-chan..." her voice has a hint of a whine to it, as she sits there pouting. There's no way she can go back to sleep knowing that one of her friends is cross with her. She groans, swinging her legs over the singular bed, and heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry. Don't be angry. I know I should get up, you're right."

She'd known the truth, and yet when she saw the princess laying there, so still and so quiet, and thought of the girl acting much as she is now, the knight hadn't been able to leave it alone. Foolish or not, there is something in the princess that she can't ignore.

"How long has it been?" she asks, as though the inconsequential question can distract them both. "How long since you fell into this sleep?"

The Princess heaves a big sigh, her shoulders sagging with the effort. "I don't knoooww..." her tone is a little whiny; all she knows for sure is that it doesn't even seem like it's been long enough.

She opens her eyes for a moment and looks around her, for the first time becoming aware of her surroundings. "Hey... wait a second... where are we?!"

The knight, too, glances away from the source of her confusion, and to the trees that surround them. "This is the forest where you were meant to stay for the rest of eternity," she says, without shielding the princess from the truth of that fate. "You were never supposed to awaken."

"Never wake up?!" All right, yeah, sleeping in was one of the best things in the world, but sleeping forever?! No thanks! "But if I never wake up how am I ever going to be able to taste the newest ice cream flavours?! Or cupcakes, or crêpes?! No way I can just sleep forever!"

"This is more important than that!" By now, surely the princess was used to such scolding; and this was even more important than that. The knight composed herself, and continued.

"The curse on you wasn't just your punishment," she told the princess, as if she knew all about it. "It was because when the princess awakens, calamity will befall this land."

She turned to face the one she was indirectly naming as its source. "Why not sleep peacefully instead?"

She doesn't mind the scolding; in fact, she somehow welcomes it -- you scold those you care about, after all. But the things that she hears next make her freeze -- "Calamity...?"

"That's right. The purpose of confining you, the purpose of keeping you away from the prince, the purpose of all of that was to prevent that calamity."

It's hard to stay so calm when she's about to have to admit her own fault, her own fault that couldn't let the princess lie there safely. There's an emotion she can't quite hide to the next words.

"However, I see that was an impossible goal." Nothing, nothing, nothing else had worked, not in so many worlds, so many times.

The princess shakes her head. She doesn't want to believe that. This is a world she loves; one that she wants to see thrive into a prosperous future.

But there's something else that she notices, too. This knight is the one who -- "You... saved me."

"Don't confuse yourself," the knight refutes the very idea. "I never came with the intention of saving you, or helping you at all."

This does very little to reinforce the notion of her own claims, as it leaves open the question of why she did save the princess, intentions or no.

No. Intentions were never what mattered most. It was the results. And right now, her results are all wrong. She isn't even sure what to do next; worse, she isn't even sure what she will do next.

Serenity seems to move with a grace that she hasn't shown up until this point, sitting up to the edge of the bed, her barefeet hanging thanks to the height. "Even if it wasn't your intention... you did. And now that I'm awake... if there's anything I can do -- I want to help protect this place."

"There's one thing," the knight agrees, after a long silence that grows nerve-wracking.

"Don't look at the prince." Unbidden, the absolutely crazy notion of running away with the princess herself actually flits through her mind, before she tells herself it's insane (and not even something she wants - right?) and shakes it off with a quick shake of her head.

"Eh...?" to say the question caught her off guard would have been an understatement. For a moment, she sat there, blinking in disbelief. No one was supposed to be aware of her entanglement with the prince so how did...?

"But... I..." Serenity looked down, ashamed that it was something she couldn't agree to. This one request... the most impossible thing for her.

The knight nods as if this answer is expected. Once again, the princess has chosen the prince- and only the prince, willing to throw everything else away.

"Everything else you claim to love will pay the price," she says simply. That's the other half of this choice of the princess.

"Everything else..." she repeated the words, watching as her hands began to twist their way through her long hair nervously. She was fidgeting. "But... Ami-chan... do you think -- you could follow something like that? If -- if it was someone you loved..."

"That depends," she said unhelpfully. "It depends upon whether I care for anything else in this world at all."

The princess, she's lived these years believing, does not; and thus, she was able to destroy them all for the sake of the only thing she cared for, Endymion.

Serenity's head shakes gently from side to side. "I don't want to see anything like that happen... I want everyone to be able to live peacefully. So that's why... I want to believe we can all be together. That... that's not wrong, is it?"

"It is wrong." The words inject cold realism into that ideal. "It was that thinking that allowed the tragedy to occur to begin with, and will allow it to repeat."

Perhaps it was normal for the prince and princess to want a future with each other. Love, or what passes for it, was meant to be normal. However, telling themselves that, and putting that above everything else, was what made them forget the people destroyed by their carelessness of anything but each other.

"Then..." she pauses for a moment, "if you had the choice to make sure that the world was saved -- or to be with someone that you cared about... you would choose the world, wouldn't you?"

"I'd choose the world," the knight affirms. This is not hypocrisy. Whatever her mixed motives, one of them had been that very reason: saving everything at the expense of one life. And in the fate she knows she avoided, she would have done the same - or tried to.

Even in the past life, while the princess had clung to her prince, the rest of them had been forced to fight the very men they'd come to fall in love with.

Of course, she knew that answer was coming. But... "Then... if it's because of me that you say all of this will happen... why would you save me?" when she lifts her gaze this time, she's searching the knight's face for an answer. Words that the other might not speak.

"You could have left me here alone. But... you..."

"When I saw you there," she admits as much of the truth as she can, "my body moved on its own."

There's no other explanation, no lingering tenderness she's willing to consider or delve into. The brush of their lips, and the caress she'd given the princess' cheek, she can't deny. But she can blame the princess for being the one at fault. She can say it was more manipulation.

Except she doesn't. That simpler explanation suffices instead.

A soft, almost hopeful smile crosses the Princess' lips. It's fragile somehow -- but she holds onto it. "Wouldn't you -- want to live in a world where everyone can be happy together? Isn't that a future you want to believe in, too?"

The knight falls silent, and glances away as though considering this, as though envisioning it.

The world she'd thought she was fighting for at first: light, laughter, and perhaps even love. A life among friends and family. ~~A life where she wasn't considered a slave, or a weapon.~~ A life with challenges they'd face together, where she'd grow from a girl into a woman.

But it's the wrong life. It's a life built on - she believes - lies and deception and half-truths and concealment.

"I believe in a future that exists, instead," she says finally.

"I do too," she reaches forward, with the intention of taking Mercury's hand in to her own. "I believe that future can exist... I've seen it. And I know... that we can make it come true. As long as we all stay together... we can build it with our own hands."

The knight stares down at their joined hands, lost in quiet thoughtfulness. In a way, it'd be easy to follow her body, to grab the princess by the hand and take them both away from here.

But she's gotten good at putting her duty first. And her duty, even before the royal house, is to the kingdom. She takes her hand away.

"I'll build it with my hands. I don't need to be told that."

It had taken a lot of effort and time to get this far. The woods had been a virtual maze of trees and pitfalls, and vicious animals that attacked without warning! But now he was here, and all was well for the moment. The dark knight stood near the girl, resting from his trials and tribulations, and took assessment of where he found himself.

Now this was a cute babe. He had heard tales of her beauty, but it just didn't do the girl justice. It just wasn't fair she had to sleep her life away like this, time passing around her. Not fair at all.

She continues to look quite peaceful, her hands clutched together at her chest as though in prayer. The sun in the clearing keeps her warm, giving her skin a healthy glow.

Wow. That was rather breathtaking, if he wanted to be honest with himself. Such a fragile, soft look on her face. How could he resist?

Slowly, he leaned over, wary of any sudden movement that might result in a slap, and gave her a kiss. It was a brief, soft kiss; definitely nothing over the top. If she woke up she would probably ask questions if it had.

The kiss doesn't wake her up entirely -- but it does seem to have stirred a reaction out of her. Her arms lift slowly from her chest, moving to wrap around the knight's neck and embrace him more tightly -- tugging him downward towards her lips again. "Mamo-chan..."

"Wha-" he was about to say something when their lips met again, stifling his surprise that she actually moved.

It seemed like he had found the answer to the secret of the mystery princess's enchanted sleep, and unintentionally too. But who was "Mamo-chan?"

That wasn't Mamoru's soothing voice. The princess' eyes snapped open then, and as the view of the stranger came into focus, her eyes widened. "Iyyyyaaaaahhhh!!!" comes her panicked cry, as she moves her hands to press against the knight's chest, trying to push him away. "You're-- you're not Mamo-chan!!"

First she was yanking him down, now she was pushing him away. Why can't sleeping damsels make up their minds? He staggered backwards, off balance for a second. "No kidding!" Rubbing his face, Reno shook his head to clear it after that scare of a girl screaming in his ear. "Why the hell did ya grab me, then?"

"Waaahhh I thought you were him!! My perfect fairy tale kiss is ruined now, I just can't believe it!" Yeah -- she's pretty much going the whole nine yards with this -- complete with a river of tears flowing down her cheeks. Her hands find their way to the many layers of her gown, bunching them up in her hands as she continues to wail.

Frowning, her temper tantrum started rubbing on his nerves. Besides, he thought he was a pretty good kisser. "Y'know, I can't say you're what I was expecting, either." He folded his arms, looking rather grumpy. "What's with those pigtails?"

[You know, one day someone's going to realize how cute Ventus thinks forcefully enchanted sleeping girls are, and he's going to be in a world of trouble.]

[...B-but it's not his fault, really! Aurora had been really pretty, after all-- and she's really pretty too. He didn't mean to stumble upon her, but now that he has, he honestly does think she's really pretty.]

[The trick then, it to wake her up. And the first thing he's going to try is just, you know, nudging her shoulder a little.]

Hello? Good morning?

[...huh.]

( the nudge does seem to get a reaction out of her. it's a long, loud snore... the princess stirs a little, then settles back into her rest. she really is out... sorry for that unladylike behaviour, but sleeping is serious business. )

( slightly backdated to april's theme! ) oo2 ☾ ❝ sleeping beauty... ❞

backdated by an hour and a half! how dare you! XD

:3c

ilu? XD

dont kiss and tell, amichan!!

o////////////////o dfkjdlkfjdfd just don't let anyone ELSE wake you up, ok? :| JUST HER.

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... i snorted XD

|D

/giggles ilu

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Have a creepy dark knight in non-shiny armor?

just... leave your mag rod at home, okay

What are you implying there B| lol

real men fight with roses, not compensating rods...

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*^* you know you love me-- peacock

no one can say no to ven ;A;

^ you know you love me-- peacock