Author Note: Happy Valentine's Day to everybody! Here is my gift to all of you! For Day 4 of the Sleeping Warrior Week: True Love's Kiss. English isn't my first language so sorry for the possible grammatical mistakes, but I hope you will enjoy it anyway. :)
Sleeping Beauty
Snow and Emma come back to the enchanted forest after four years, followed by everybody who wanted to come "home". They settle in the joke of a Kingdom that Philip and you and all the refugees you could find, managed to erect.
They look happy to be back and you know you should be too and you are, in a way, you just don't really know how to be happy anymore.
X
They ask about Mulan on the third days.
And hearing someone pronounce her name after two years feels like having your heart ripped out of your chest all over again.
Philip looks at you unsure of your ability to announce such dreadful news, and he is right because you can only bear to say three words before that breathing becomes too painful to speak more.
"She is gone"
Philip is the one to explain what happened. How Mulan and you bravely rescued him, how the three of you traveled together for a while attempting to find other survivors. How she sacrificed herself to save you.
And it kills you to hear the whole story once more but you can't leave, can't tear yourself away from the tale of how you lost… whatever she was to you; you've never really got the chance to found out.
X
There are days you don't want to wake up.
You just want to stay in the burning room, so you would have a reason to hurt that much.
You look for her when you're there, shouting her name as loudly as the smoke filling your lungs allows it.
When you wake up crying you tell yourself it's because of the nightmares, not because you miss her so much it feels as if you could never smile again.
X
Emma once told you that people, back in her land, call you Sleeping Beauty.
You think bitterly that they probably never saw what Mulan looked like when she is asleep, then.
You insisted that her bier be placed in a private setting; you know she would have hated to be laid out vulnerable for all to see. It's a shame, you think, when she is so utterly perfect, so breathtakingly beautiful.
You spend hours looking at her, daily.
Imagining what she would say about the dress, made of the most gorgeous silks, that she is wearing, probably something snarky. You doubt she would approve of this clothing even while in a glass coffin.
You talk to her about things happening while she is asleep, about how Philip wants the both of you to finally get married, about how strange looks Emma and Queen Regina's relationship. In short, about things that don't matter and things that do.
You just talk to her, hopping that one day she will answer.
X
Henry goes on and on about True Love's Kiss, about how it can break any curse and that it's the "totally logical solution", but Henry is a 14 year old kid and he should be old enough by now to understand that not everyone's life is a fairytale, even in fairytale land as they call it.
The cold hard truth is that Mulan doesn't have a true love.
You searched her homeland, looking for anyone who knew her, who loved her, and returned drained after finding only desolation there. You made Philip kiss her and she stayed despairingly still. You read every book of the library on the subject for an alternative solution and came up empty.
You just had to give up after a while… that's what Philip said anyway.
You don't tell him that Mulan never asked you to give up on him.
And now with a good part of the land back, so many possibilities offer themselves to you that you can't help but start to hope again.
X
You ask Regina first.
Emma keeps saying that she left the dark side, whatever that's supposed to mean, and is not a threat anymore. So you don't see the harm in asking a few questions.
If only the answer wasn't always the same, that is.
You start to get so infuriated with their narrow minded thought process. She is the Evil Queen for God's sake! She should have something a little more original to propose.
"That's hardly a possibility if she doesn't have a true love!"
The queen just arches an eyebrow, staring you down with a curious expression on her face.
"Doesn't she, though?
X
You ask Rumpleteltisskin… or whatever his name actually is, next.
It's reckless of you but you're getting so desperate that you would do pretty much anything.
"The real question is: why don't you see something that is right in front of you? Dearie! "
At this point you just roll your eyes. You're beginning to get sick of their riddles.
"Look, can't you just make a potion that would cure her?
He snorts at you, as if the very idea seemed preposterous to him.
"It's too much effort for a problem which already has a solution"
X
Philip doesn't take well your demand to postpone the wedding… again.
But you forgot how to care; you forgot how his frowns used to give you goose bump and his smiles once made your heartbeats fasten.
You forgot what it's like to be in love with him.
And after a while, he notices it too.
"Sometime I feel like you wish you didn't rescue me"
You want to say that he is wrong, that you would do it all over again if you had to, but then you think about Mulan, would she be awake if you hadn't saved him?
Your silence speaks louder than words.
X
He departs the next day.
Because the both of you know that you would never leave the castle, you would never leave her.
It takes you longer than expected to finally understand what they all mean when they say you can save her.
But who can blame you?
You know love when you see it, you never said anything about when you feel it.
x
So, you do kiss her in the end.
You lift the lid of her glass cage and stare at her for ages.
Your breathing is shallow and your heart speeds up to a worrying rhythm and you think your hands are shaking a little but you're so dizzy you can't be sure.
You caress her faultless visage, committing each of her perfect features to memory. And then you fingers touch her lips and your eyes can't look away.
And before you know it your lips are on hers.
X
Maybe they're right, you think, True Love's Kiss might just be the solution to everything.