When Little Princes Grow Up
Fandom: Sailor Moon
Genre: General/Drama
Summary: A retelling of "The Promise of the Rose" through the lens of Saint-Exupery.
Rating (all chapters): PG
Warnings: Dub names, vague descriptions of death, unrequited Fiore x Darien if you squint
Author's Note: My brain seems to really enjoy taking aspects of books I've read recently and applying them to my favorite anime. In this case, "Le Petit Prince," by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, mixed with Sailor Moon. I hesitate to call this a crossover- I borrowed some of the novella's themes and tried to mimic its overall style, but most of the "Prince" characters that appear only do so indirectly as allegory for certain Sailor Moon characters. Plotwise, this really just an adaptation of the Sailor Moon R movie (with a few extra scenes and a bit of artistic license thrown in), although I should state up front that I may be only marginally successful with the SM characterization because at the end of the day I'm most familiar with the dub universe (hence dub names).
However, I did choose to ignore the dub's decision to call the hospital an orphanage because really, what were they thinking?
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
Part One: The Fox
Once, not so very long ago, a little prince in a transparent bubble arrived on Earth. This little prince had no home, and didn't even know what exactly he was a prince of. All he knew was that he had been wandering among the stars for as long as he could remember, and he was terribly lonely.
He was found lying in the rain, just a few feet from where he had landed, by a boy with no parents. The boy soothed the prince's heart with gentle words, and took the prince to the hospital with him. In their sorrow, they found solace in each other, and soon became fast friends.
Every night, they would watch the sunset together, and the prince would tell the boy about all the stars he had seen on his travels, and the boy would tell the prince about life on Earth, all while helping the prince learn how to look and act more human. When no one was looking, they laughed at the foolish grown-ups who couldn't see the prince for what he really was, and they agreed that the most important things in life are those which are invisible to the eye.
"Your planet is so large," said the prince to the boy one day, as they were standing on the roof of the hospital looking down at the street below. "There are hundreds of thousands of people living in this city alone, and all of their faces blur together in my mind. And yet I have never seen another human just like you. How did you come to be unique among men, Darien?"
The boy pondered this for a while. He always gave the prince's questions careful consideration.
"I think I seem unique to you," he said carefully, "because we understand each other."
"What do you mean?" asked the prince, burning with curiosity. He always had so many questions.
"I don't know," confessed the boy. "Before the doctors let me get out of bed very much, the nurses brought me lots and lots of books to read, and one of them had a chapter about taming animals- small ones, like rabbits and birds and squirrels. They can be very shy at first, and run away if you get too close, but if you leave little things for them to eat, and wait for them at the same time every day, then little by little they'll get used to you being there. When they're ready, they'll let you watch them eat, and won't mind if you start sitting closer and closer. Eventually, if you're patient, maybe they'll be the ones waiting for you!"
The prince listened raptly to the boy, for he loved to hear his friend talk.
"Reading all that made me think. To most people, each squirrel looks like every other squirrel. But if you took the time to tame one, I have to think you would learn to recognize that one squirrel in particular. He would become special. I'll bet there would come a point where you could pick your special squirrel out of a hundred if you had to, and I wonder if it would be the same for him, too. I hope so."
They were both silent for a time.
"Did you tame me?" the little prince asked, twisting his fingers together.
"I don't know if you can tame a person," said the boy. "Maybe. But you're my friend, Fiore. We're equals. If I tamed you, then I think you tamed me, too."
The boy smiled at the prince, and the prince smiled back, for he knew the underlying truth of their conversation. Once you tamed something, you became responsible for it forever. The prince cared for the boy; he would always watch out for him, make sure that nothing bad happened to him ever again. And the boy (thought the prince) cared for him in turn; Darien would always remember him, even if he couldn't remember anything else.
They belonged to each other, heart and soul.
The prince would have liked nothing more than to stay on Earth with his friend, but something in the Earth's air made it difficult for him to breathe. The prince was young, and afraid of dying, so he made plans once again to seek his fortune among the stars. The boy was very sad, but understanding, and on the day the prince was to leave, the boy gave him a flower unlike any the prince had ever seen.
The boy called it a rose.
The prince did not know how to thank the boy, because not only was it the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, it was also the only gift he had ever been given.
"I... I didn't get you anything," stammered the prince.
"Yes you did," said the boy, whose eyes were full of tears. "Whenever I look at the stars, I will think of your laughter. That is the gift you have given me."
"I'm glad," said the prince, whose heart felt like it was about to break. "But it's not enough. I'll come back someday, Darien, and I'll bring you back the most beautiful flower in the universe, something worthy of our friendship. I promise."
"I'll be waiting," said the boy, managing a small smile. "Goodbye Fiore. Until we meet again."
And so it was that the little prince left Earth, a rose clutched to his chest and the boy's smile etched in his heart.