Once Upon a Time

PG

Anna belongs to PrincessRuka

A fairytale story starring Anna and Ryuuga, with a little cameo of L Drago.

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away there lived a quiet and lonely girl called Anna. She rarely left her little cottage because her parents used to tell her scary tales of the world outside, about how dangerous it could be.

Those tales scared her to the marrow and she stayed inside, only leaving the house when she absolutely had to, she kept herself amused, reading and painting. She would look out of her window and think how loud and scary the world was, with the people on the street selling their things loudly, trying to get the attention of any prospective customers who passed.

Life was boring, but at least she was safe, which is all that matters to her.

Until one day she had heard a commotion outside in the middle of the night and peeping through her window she saw a young man being left for dead on the ground right outside her door. She quietly went to opened the door and looked at him, hearing him groan in pain and her pale eyes flicked across the street before moving to pull him to the house.

She placed him onto her bed, looking at all his injuries and ran off to get her medical kit. Although she never left the house she was also rather paranoid about injuries so made sure she had something available.

Anna treated his wounds as best as she could, when he woke up she made sure he drank plenty and that he ate enough to keep his strength up. During those few days he hadn't spoken a single word to her and for a moment Anna wondered if he could talk at all.

"Who are you?" He finally asked after being there for a three days and she jumped at the sound of his voice.

She stared at him for a moment and realised that he was actually asking her as question; "I'm… I'm Anna,"

He slowly sat up although she tried to persuade him to lie back down again he refused to listen; "I owe you Lady Anna,"

She blushed and shook her head; "No, no. It's okay," It was then that she actually noticed the golden dragon crown on his forehead and saw the little garnet gem stone that was its eyes; she realised who was in her home. She might have never left her home, but she was fully aware of the commotion outside her home whenever the Royal Family were due to either visit or ride through the town.

Carefully she noticed the other obvious signs, like his tanned skin and amber eyes, those only occurred in the Royal line, along with the white hair with the red streak.

I… I've been helping a… a… Prince! She exclaimed inside her head, wondering what she should do now.

He began to move off the bed; "I shall repay your kindness, I give you my word on that,"

Anna shook her head, blushing as she did so but kept her eyes to the ground, remembering that you should never look a Royal in the eyes; "No, it's… It's all right, Your Hightness,"

He stared at her and then grinned; "Most people notice right away,"

Her blush deepened and then she felt his hand on her cheek, pulling her head up to look into those golden eyes and for a moment her heart fluttered.

"Well I…" She began to say.

"Come with me," He told her; and part of her did want to go with him, to see where he would take her and know that she would probably be safe with him as she was in her own home, but another part told her not to go. It was a dangerous world out there and even though he was a Royal he had been battered and bruised, left for dead right outside her door. Even if he did protect her, he would end up kicking her out of the Palace, or where ever he would take her and she would have no way of getting home.

"I… I'm sorry… I can't," She declined not seeing him frown at her as she lowered her eyes and looked at her bare feet.

"Anna, Anna," He rolled the name around his tongue, almost as if he knew of her, but she was certain that she had never met him before, meeting a Prince wasn't something you were likely to forget after all.

"You are the girl who never leaves the house?" He asked her.

Her pale green eyes went wide in surprise; How does he know…? All she could do was nod that it was indeed her that he spoke of.

"I see," He took her hand into his own and pulled her close; "I insist that you leave,"

"But… But I can't!" She cried and pulled away from him sharply, trembling ins fear as she backed away; "Many bad things happen out there," She pointed to the window; "People are killed, they fight each other… They kidnap women and children too, who end up dead in the ditch not far from their homes!"

He took two long strides towards her and gently took hold of her chin, making her look into his eyes again; "Trust me Lady Anna, I will make sure nothing happens to you when you are with me,"

"But you will just kick me out…" She blurted out and he laughed.

"I appear to have a reputation," He said with a friendly grin.

She blinked and backed away from him, or at least tried to; "I will not just…" She blushed a deep red and he just grinned some more, moving to kiss her lips softly.

She stared at him; The Prince is kissing me…. The Prince is kissing me…. What am I to do?

He pulled away; "Come with me," He said and rubbed his nose against her's; "I promise you that the moment you wish to come home I will make sure my finest men will bring you back,"

She knew she couldn't argue any more with him, after all he was the future ruler of the land, so she followed him and picked up his white cloak and black shirt, both of which she managed to clean of the blood and sew back together.

As he turned to speak again he smiled;

"A perfect little house wife,"

She felt like all she ever did was blush since he had begun to speak, she knew that she was no house wife; after all she stayed indoors because of her fear, not because she enjoyed what she did.

Anna clung to his arm as he found his faithful mount a long red dragon, much to her surprise. He pulled on its golden fur and in lay down for her to climb onto its back; she sat in front of him and he made sure that her hands were holding onto the dragon as well as wrapping one arm around her waist before the dragon took to the air and flew.

Glancing down at the world below, she was in awe at it, she was seeing colours in nature that she never thought would belong; all the while the Prince breathed in her scent, enjoying the fact that he was the one letting her experience this wonder.

When they landed the Prince helped her down and began to give her a tour of the Palace.

Once again she was in awe of her surroundings having never believed that anyone could live such a luxurious life. The paintings were amazing as were the statues and then there was lunch. The food was something else; she had never tasted such wonderful food in her whole life.

She was even allowed to stay the night, and her room was huge, it was at least four times the size of her home back in the city. She found herself rather enjoying the Palace life, able to relax and go out with the Prince by her side, know that there were guards around and who always patrolled the grounds regularly.

But all good things must come to an end and the Prince had indeed repaid his debt to her, she had been living in the Palace for almost the same length of time as the Prince had been in her home, so the next morning she was to return home.

So the next day she was on the dragon, with the Prince's arm around her waist once again and they took off into the sky, although she noticed they were not going in the direction that they came from a few days ago, if anything they were moving further to the countryside.

"Your… Your Highness, where are…" She began to ask and she felt him try to contain a laugh.

"You can call me Ryuuga,"

"Prince Ryuuga, where…" She began but he interrupted her.

"Just Ryuuga, out with the court and the Palace walls you can call me by my name."

She nodded, but felt a bit uncomfortable at the sheer thought of calling the Prince by his given name.

"As I shall call you Anna,"

"But it's different," She tried to persuade him.

"How?"

"Well you are…"

"A Prince? What difference do that mae?"

"Well, you are of a higher class than I…"

"That," He began and moved his cheek to rub against her's and she felt her breath leave her; "Means nothing,"

Looking at her from the corner of his eye he got the dragon to land in a field, then he helped her off, making sure she didn't fall over as she stumbled.

She looked around herself, wondering why he had brought her here and then; her blood ran cold as she realised that something awful was going to happen, the stories that had haunted her came back and she pulled away from him, only to bump into the dragon.

He noticed the fear in her eyes and he reached out to touch her; "I'm…" He saw her flinch away from him; "I haven't done anything to hurt you,"

"But you might," Anna said, slowly moving around the dragon.

"Why would I do that?"

"I… I don't know," She said and realised that she let her imagination get the better of her.

"I brought you out here," He said and took her hand, slowly having her walk with him; "So that you would see the outside world properly for once. To see the world as it truly is,"

She looked at him and then moved to look at the field they were in finally noticing the flowers and began to pull away from him, her hand reaching out to touch it when suddenly his own stopped her; "Huh?"

"Gently," He advised and let her hand go as she nodded; her finger stroked the flowers petal and smiled at the softness.

For the rest of the afternoon, aside from when they ate the lunch that Ryuuga had already thought to bring with them, Anna spent most of her tip touching and smelling the different flowers around them.

As it began to get dark he helped her back onto the red dragon and once again she was surprised to find that they were not going back to her home, but returning to the Palce.

"I… I should go home," She began to say but once again he rubbed his cheek against her's.

"No, we are going the right way. I will not allow you to return to that life, now that I have shown you that there is nothing to fear,"

"But I…"

"No, no," He said softly into her ear; "You can stay in the Palace, you'll be perfectly safe there," He kissed her cheek; "You'll also have me too,"

She turned to look at him, blushing at the fact that her life had changed in the course of a few days and yet she couldn't wait for it to truly begin.