Once Upon a Lost Kingdom Prologue
The kingdom of Veraranckle faced one of its very toughest periods. The prince Naruto was gravely ill. All the healers in the land came to try and heal him but all failed. Struck with grief King Jiraiya and Queen Tsunade felt helpless. Then a warlock named Orochimaru came to the castle saying that he could not heal the prince but could place the prince under an enchantment that would seal the price within solidified fire, the prince would not age and not die. He would be kept in that state until a cure could be found. The King and Queen refused to lose hope and sent the warlock away, after all warlocks used black magic which would surely come at a terrible price to the prince.
They tried to heal the prince once again calling the most powerful of the healers. They placed the prince in the sacred pool in the royal garden. Under the moon light where their power was at it's strongest. They tried their best but the prince did not stir, then the prince began gasping horribly and his hair turned as gold as the sun hidden somewhere above him. The prince had gotten worse and was on death's door. Terrified the King and Queen called for the warlock and begged him to do his enchantment. Not wanting their son to die. The warlock did as bid and encased the prince in solidified flame.
The King then had the prince placed inside a secret hidden room below the castle. Keeping him safe until the cure could be found. A week pasted and nothing could be found. Then a horrible plague spread across the land and everyone died. The prince lying dormant and forgotten below the castle. Thousands of years pasted the castle now but ruins and the prince still in deep slumber. . .
Chapter one
"Che! Stupid bunch of rocks!" I mumble bored.
"Ruins, not 'a bunch of rocks'. Why did you come then? You knew like the rest of us what this trip entailed." Shikamaru said with a slight yawn.
I grunt.
"Perhaps you'll . . .like . . .it." Hinata looks at me with a some what shy smile.
I role my eyes at her. Hinata and Shikimaru are the people I tolerate the most. I knew them since elementary school. We were placed in the same freshmen class. We live in a pretty small town so the high school was small too. After all there were only three freshmen classes.
We are on there way to the Vera castle ruins. Or at least that's what everyone called it. Every piece of written material had mostly turned to dust. What they could scavenge said that the name of this castle was called Vera. . . something. The ruins were a big tourist attraction, because the language in which they spoke and wrote was amazingly similar to English. Not only that, but the scenery was beautiful. There was a lot of the castle, though that was left undiscovered. For the simple fact that the sight was three thousand years old and some places were very near crumbling. A boring place if you ask me.
The only trips that I'd ever taken were to here, since it was the only interesting thing in the dreary little town of Mocano. The ruins were on the boarder of Mocano and Onea. There had been a feud going on between the two towns about which side of the boarder the ruins were mostly on. After the entire town that controlled the ruins controlled the tourists which spent money. In the end that was all it was about, the money. So far though Mocano had claim on the ruins.
We were finally there. We came out of the bus and the teachers started to separate us into groups of four. I was placed with Shikimaru, Hinata, and Sakura. This nearly made me gag. (I despise Sakura.) There weren't enough facilitators to monitor each group, but because my group consisted of me, Shikimaru and Hinata. (We are honor students in the top ten.) We weren't given a teacher. Thankfully.
We were told to keep to the safe paths, which were the paths without yellow safety tape across it. We were to be out and meet each other at the busses at one for lunch. It was nine-thirtyish so they had about four hours. With a warning to keep on the safe paths and a quick word to be safe we were off.
We went to one of the side entrances which no one else went to. Most went into the center, because it was the place that had the most sections without yellow safety tape, they could explore more. An hour or so in and I was beyond ready to leave. Not only was I bored but I couldn't seem to shake Sakura and to make it worse she seemed to think we were in a deep conversation. It erked me. Hinata wasn't much of a distraction since she was fascinated with every nick and cranny of the place and well Shikimaru was Shikimaru.
I pretended that I had to tie my shoe and told them to go on ahead. Sakura seemed to not want to leave me. As soon as they turned the corner I sighed and sat down. Looking around I try to think of a way to by time so I wouldn't have to catch up with them right away. I saw a gleam of light on the wall beside me. I stood up and walked over to investigate. I touched the wall and pressed against it gently, it swung open. Curious I peered inside. It was a flight of stairs. I saw no yellow safety tape, plus this was the perfect excuse to not have to return to Sakura's annoying chatter. I almost grinned, why not?
I took a step and began walking down the stair case, five minutes and I was still going down the staircase. (Annoying stairs.) The staircase curved and soon I saw the exit. It lead to another tunnel this one almost pitch black except for shards of light shining through broken holes in the wall and ceiling. I went through the tunnel and ended up in a large empty room which contained nothing except something in very the center. I approached slightly bored. It looked like a stone, a huge stone, was it a coffin?
I pull out a flash light that was given to me before we'd entered the ruins. I shined the light down and my boredom vanishes. A boy. He looked to be my age if not a tad younger. He was inside a clear red stone. The boy was dressed like royalty. His shirt and pants startling velvet with a golden stripe on his collar, the ends of his sleeves and pant legs. As well as his cape. A golden crown which was imbedded with beautiful purplish black stones lay upon his head. His short messy hair a golden color. His eyes were closed. His skin a sexy tan.
I wasn't sure but I'd say that I had just located Vera's prince. I poke the stone. It was solid. I pressed my hand down against it. The stone became warm and felt like it was throbbing. I removed my hand slowly and watched it curiously as the light shone on the stone. The boy within looked like he was breathing, his chest moving gently, his lips parted. I am fairly sure that the kid wasn't doing that before. The stone started to sizzle, I stepped back carefully when it began to melt. Or technically it looks like it was evaporating. Soon there was no stone, and the boy lay on the ground. I approached him and kneeled beside him, still shining the light on him. I poked him.
The boy's eyes crinkled and suddenly opened. They were an ocean blue. I just stared at him.
The kid smiled seductively. "I wasn't expecting you until tonight, but since you're hearing now. . . " The prince lifted his hand layer it on the back of my neck and swooped up and placed his lips on mine. I pushed him away easily and raised my eyebrows.
The prince pouted. "What do you think your doing? I order you to come here!"
"Che." I sigh. I left one annoyance only to find another.
"You dare disobey the orders of a prince!" The prince threatened, eyes narrowed.
"Annoyance. You may have been a prince once, most likely before this castle became ruins which were about thousands of years ago." I say annoyed.
The prince's face became pale. "Surely you jest?"
"Che! I do not joke! This castle is a tourist attraction. Nobody lives here. Nobody even knows your here. I found you by accident and you were in a stone." I grumble annoyed.
The prince became even paler and almost swooned. I am forced to catch him, lest he fall on me. The prince eyes were glazed over as if he were somewhere else. "So it was true. . . "
"Hn?" I ask slightly curious and slightly annoyed.
The prince looked at me. "My name is Naruto. I am the only child of the King, Jiraiya and the Queen, Tsunade. As the only child and sole heir to the kingdom of Verarankle I was. . . how should I put this? Spoiled. I flirted recklessly with the noblemen, servants, and even guests. Though I never slept with anyone. As long as I just did this with men, and not women who in which I would be forced to marry, my parents paid no mind. Though there was one boy, the son of a great sage in which I flirted with a lot. I believe that he saw my flirting as something besides what it was. We were alone and he pressed himself to me, I laughed thinking it a joke but he started to kiss my neck and his hands began to wander. I told him to stop but he didn't. I threw him off and told him that I had no such feelings toward him, and that if he didn't leave that I would call the guards.
He told me that I would regret this, that he knew great terrible magic from the books in his father's library. He said that he would send a plague that would kill me then my people. . . " Naruto paled and his voice shook. "The red stone that you speak of it is black magic, forbidden magic. The only reason that I would be placed in such a thing is if I were gravely ill and on the verge of dying. To keep me alive father and mother would have done anything. They would have kept me in that stone until a cure was found. But they never would because if he did all that he said then the plague would have overwhelmed them soon after. . ." Naruto grasps my shirt and lays his head on my chest and begins to weep, I start feeling uncomfortable and pat Naruto's back feeling rather uncomfortable.
"You should not cry."
"How 'sniffle' how can I not, 'sob' it is my fault that my people are dead!" Naruto sobbed.
I sigh. I do not like to see him cry for some unfeasible reason. "Now did you kill your people? No. He did because you didn't return his advances. It is not your fault that they died."
He looks up at me through his tears. "You really believe so?"
"Che! I do not tell lies to people to keep them from crying." I say slightly glaring at him.
He looks at me with half closed eyes, a flushed face, lips opened slightly. The very being of sensuality. He leans into me, his hand goes to my shoulder. His lips hover below mine. . .
"Well so this is where you went off to!"
I turn and glare at her. Hinata, Shikimaru and Sakura stood by the end of the staircase. Hinata looking relieved, Shikimaru look annoyed and Sakura looked pail.
"Sneaking off to see your lover?" Shikimaru asks dryly.
"You c . . .could have told us! We were . . .were looking every where for you!" Hinata scolds. (I am surprised that she has not apologized after saying this. I must have truly scared her.)
"Sasuke! Why are you doing this!" Sakura asks looking like she's about to cry. I just stare at her blankly.
Shikimaru and Hinata look at Sakura. Hinata asks shyly. "Are . . .are you alright?"
"Noooo! Of course not! How can I be when Sasuke . . . my Sasuke almost kissed . . ." Sakura trails off into tears.
Shikimaru grimaces. He is obviously uncomfortable with crying girls.
"It's okay Sakura . . ." Hinata says trying to soothe her.
"No it's not!" Sakura shouts/sobs. "Sasuke please tell me that this is not what it looks like!"
I stare at her not saying a word. She sobs one last time before she runs up the stares
.
I feel tugging on my sweater and look down. Naruto is looking at me confused. "Who are they?"
"Shikimaru and Hinata." I say gesturing to them as they come toward us. "The other girl was Sakura."
"We're his friends." Shikimaru supply's as they reach us.
Naruto asks suddenly. "What is 'lovers'?"
Hinata blushes crimson and hear Shikimaru mumble "What a bother."
I stare at Naruto who stares back with wide, blue, curious eyes.
"You don't know? Seriously? You come from a different country or something?" Shikimaru asks slightly curious. He bends over and looks at him like he's a new kind of animal or something along those lines.
Naruto opens his mouth to say something and I quickly say." Yes he is from Spain. We met over the internet, he likes cosplay." I answer easily answering all their questions.
Shikimaru looks skeptical then says. "Didn't know you were into that kind of thing. . . then again I didn't know you were gay either . . ."
"I'm experimenting . . ." I say with a sigh, troublesome little blond.
"So he's dressed up as a king? So does that make you the lowly servant that gets whipped into submission? Kinky!" Hinata says giggling.
I stare at her. I've never seen this side of her before. I shiver my yaoi fan girl alert screaming.
"Whip? A good king knows that his servants and people will always work better with positive encouragement not force. Why whip when seduction is soooo much more fun . . ." Naruto purrs as he crawls between my legs, running his hand up my thigh . . .
I'm not entirely sure but I bet that the others are starring at us with eyes wide open. "Che!" I glare at him holding him away with my arm. He, not getting it, licks my arm.
"If you keep being defiant something will have to be done. Just because I won't whip you doesn't mean that restraints are totally out of the picture . . ." Naruto says a sly grin appearing on his face. I get a sudden feeling of foreboding.
The blonde was proving to be more troublesome then he was worth.