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

[mooneternal]

Deep within the silent woods the princess has laid since she was young. Her finger pricked by a cursed needle, she was doomed to sleep. The kingdom had long sinced mourned her eternal slumber, believing she would never wake from her fate, her body now set up as some sort of memorial.

She looked at peace, her hair spread out neatly framing her face, and flowing outwards alongside her still body. Flower petals were scattered around her, seeming like they were almost frozen in place, just like the princess they rested near.

It seemed as though there were nothing more than rumours on how to wake her, and nothing so far had worked...

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[waterfell]

"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.

[mooneternal]

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..."

[waterfell]

"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.

[mooneternal]

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?"

[waterfell]

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.

[mooneternal]

"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."

[waterfell]

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."