I still can't figure out how to space the lines out so they aren't so crowded and it won't let me indent! It's driving me crazy. I LIKE TO INDENT D:

Anyway, weird dream leads to ideas that won't go away so writing them down might help. Maybe you'll enjoy. :)


The sun was high over her kingdom when she awoke, and her eyes burned as if she had lived in the dark her whole life. She tried a few times to get up, finding that her body was very hard to move, as if it bore the weight of years of inactivity. Finally the fair-haired woman settled for propping herself into a sitting position with her silk pillows, allowing the embroidered sheets to slide from her legs.

The light of noon streamed through the windows of the tower, the gold of her bedposts and silver of her dressing table shining like the sun and moon. This place was very beautiful, even a tomb as it was. Licking her dry lips, she wondered for how many years she had slept. For a while, she stared at the golden spinning wheel that sat in the corner, a testament to both her foolishness and her destiny. She wondered if there were anything she could have done to prevent the prophecy from coming to pass, but eventually told herself that it did not matter, for the curse was finished. She knew not how—perhaps the maleficent one had been destroyed, and with her, the magic that kept the princess asleep?
"A mercy from the gods, for sure, if she is dead." She tried her voice, finding her vocal cords dry and scratching, but usable.
"Lady, we wish that were the case." A wry voice caused her to give a start, and she turned to the doorway of her tomb where a short redhead with piercing green eyes stood scowling.

Another redhead joined her, though the first was a redhead in the way that blood is red, and this second had a much more normal shade. However, her eyes were the color of wild lavender. This second redhead, who was not nearly as short and skinny, but curvaceous and well-endowed, smiled at her placidly.

"What she means to say is that we woke you to help us defeat the witch who left you here. I'm afraid Nao did not receive the gift of tact from our mother." She added, glancing unhappily at her companion.

"If that's what you want to call them." The short girl, Nao, said, staring pointedly at her sister's gifted chest. The taller of the two crossed her arms over the subject of conversation and scowled.

"We're on a mission here, Nao! Why can't you hold in your attitude for even five minutes!" she said, stomping her foot as a child would. The princess smiled, finding amusement for the first time in—how long? Nao made a face of rebuttal, but the fair-haired woman raised a hand in command for silence.

"How long have we been asleep?" she asked, and the short one crossed her arms.

"Who the heck is 'we'?" she asked seriously, and the taller redhead stifled a laugh.

"It's the royal 'we,' Nao, she's the princess of the second largest kingdom on Atlantis. Have some culture." Nao growled. The princess filed their use of the term 'Atlantis' for her home country away for later. Only those from outside the Shimmering Isles referred to this place in that way.

"Have a brain." She replied, and the taller redhead made to reply, but the princess raised her hand again, and she stopped, collected herself, and answered.

"Five hundred years." Nao answered before her lavender-eyed companion could. The princess felt that her tomb had suddenly lost much of its color. Perhaps, for the moment, much of existence had lost its color to her. Five hundred years was two generations. Everyone she had ever known or cared for was dead. Her father must have been a horribly tortured man for the latter half of his life.

"I'm sorry." The taller redhead offered, and it did not lessen the blow. The princess did not want to marinate in this helpless, lonely feeling, so she instead fixed a cold, determined gaze on the girls in front of her. The taller one shrank away from her instinctively.

"Why wake us now, after all this time has passed? What can we possibly do to defeat the maleficent one?" she asked directly, feeling exhausted. "We are only a sleeping princess."
"Not the sleeping princess." Nao started with an unpleasant smirk, "The Sleeping Beauty, who awakes within a curse." The shorter girl recited obviously. The princess narrowed her eyes, and the taller redhead elbowed her sister to silence.
"A prophecy given by the crystal cave." The princess did recall the crystal cave. It gave visions and prophecy to the most powerful wizards and witches of the Shimmering Isles. They were, perhaps, the only predictions that could be trusted implicitly.

"May we hear it?" she asked, and the lavender-eyed girl looked to her sister. Nao shrugged and spoke.

"The fairest of them all becomes Maleficent, and she will control the whole of the Land. When she is most powerful, another will gain the power to usurp her. She will be white as snow, and the Land itself shall embrace her purity of heart and soul. The Fairest Queen's darkness will come for pure Snow White from each corner of the Land, and alone her removed heart will serve to strengthen a maleficent hold on the people. The only victory lies in the protection of the princess by Sleeping Beauty, who awakes within a curse and a palace become tomb." She paused, "Even though it seems like you only got an honorable mention there in the last line, it looks like we can't save Snow White without you."

The princess stared at them for many moments, digesting this information. Certainly, there weren't many princesses who could have been put into a cursed sleep and left in their own bedrooms for five hundred years, even giving that much time for history to repeat itself. She had also heard the witch call herself "The Maleficent One" whilst she offered a monologue to the fair-haired girl as she had fallen into her half millennia sleep. How, though, might she be capable of protecting this Snow White from the witch? The fairies had given her beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and even the ability to play musical instruments, but none of these seemed as if they would stop a witch from taking the girl's heart.

"Our kingdom?" she asked the girls, and the shorter one looked pointedly at her sister.

"Was taken over by the Queen when your father…was gone." The princess knew she would find out why the reluctance to clarify at a later time, "This palace was sealed up, like a tomb, and it was forbidden by royal decree to enter here. She then began war with the neighboring kingdoms, and most combined to fight against her. This is how yours became the second-largest kingdom." She offered. "Ten years ago, she took the largest kingdom on Atlantis not through war, as she had failed for five hundred years to do, but with subterfuge. Once she consolidated her power and built up a singular military strength, she began systematically taking control of the smaller nations one by one. Very soon, she will control the 'whole of the Land,' like the prophecy says." She finished somberly.

"On the bright side, it has taken her ten years because she sucks at this. Mai, you really have got to find a sense of humor. You're very Debbie Downer over there." The younger sister said, and Mai frowned.

"Well, this isn't a joke." Nao shrugged.

"It probably should be." She told her lavender-eyed sister, who sighed.

The princess lost herself in thought, weighing many things, and trying not to think of her father. She failed at that though, and her mind refused to stop telling her that he was a great man who believed strongly in always doing what was right. That was how she had ended up in this bedroom for five hundred years, another side of her pointed out. Did she even want to help this Snow White? And what power would she call upon to do so, were she to accept this fool's errand? Certainly, she was royalty, but if the maleficent one was Queen of her kingdom and all others, then the princess had no kind of power at all. Perhaps, if she did this, it would be only to protect the purity and innocence of this Snow White, who by this nature could not deserve having her heart taken out. By rights, most people did not deserve that. Perhaps, if she did this, then much like her father before her, she would be doing it because it was the right thing to do.
Decided, she found the strength to stand, and moved to the mirror next to the spinning wheel. Mirror, Mirror; she had remembered the witch talking to herself in the mirror. She made eye contact with herself and inhaled sharply. What was the matter with her eyes? They were blue when she had fallen asleep, she was certain. Now they were as red as Nao's hair. Her hair had faded from goldenrod to a nearly colorless chestnut. Perhaps that was because she had been inside for five hundred years, but her eyes? She glanced over at Mai, who had a knowing look in her eyes. She raised an eyebrow in question, and the girl knew better than to make her wait.

"You awoke…within a curse. We…didn't break it. We couldn't—we don't know how." She explained, and the princess narrowed her eyes. She was still cursed, and her hair and eyes had likely changed when she had been cursed-physical changes often ensued when one was touched by magic. Her appearance had changed when the fairies had given her their magical gifts as well. Perhaps hidden in this curse was the power she had to save this Snow White. She watched herself in the mirror for a few moments more. She removed the tiara from her head, very aware that it no longer meant anything at all. She was not sure if she mourned or celebrated this fact as she turned to the girls in the hallway.

"We shall go now. You will tell me who you are and how you came into possession of this prophecy." She forced herself to speak in the singular. It would not do to be speaking to peasants in the plural if she did not want to be noticed. Mai nodded, and Nao snorted. She found Nao extremely unattractive, but supposed she could not expect someone of low breeding to behave in a ladylike manner.

"Um…we found you with lots of history-hunting and magical scrying, but…" Mai began, and the princess raised a brow at her unwillingness to continue. Nao rolled her eyes.

"We found a 'sleeping princess,'" she clarified, "But we don't know who you are. We don't know your name."

"Oh." The princess said, and offered them a small smile. "Our name..." she paused to correct herself, "My name is Shizuru."

"Then, it's nice to meet you, Princess Shizuru." Mai offered with a smile, "This is Nao, and I'm Mai. Our family name is Grimm." The princess shook her head.

"You should simply call me Shizuru, as I will not be a—what is this?" she lost her sentence as she left the room, finding guards and maids alike sleeping in the halls of her palace. She recognized many of them. They had been asleep as long as she had.
"Turns out, miss 'Good Fairy,' you know, the one that gave you the final gift that made the curse breakable? She also figured you'd be lonely or something, and put everyone in the castle to sleep as well." Nao Grimm said with a roll of her eyes, and Shizuru frowned.

"We have awoken, why have not they?" she asked, knowing that many of them would wake (if they ever did) with the same knowledge she had—everyone had gone on five hundred years without them.

"The curse isn't broken yet…we figure…after we save the world, or even while, we can search for information that helps us figure out how to do that." Mai offered sheepishly, and the princess nodded.

"Then…my father?" she felt she had to ask, even though she suspected he was not among those here. "My mother?" Mai seemed to be searching for something to say, so the fair-haired princess turned to Nao, who shrugged and said,

"They're dead. They weren't put to sleep like these subjects. It was everyone in the castle at the time…they weren't inside." The princess nodded, showing none of her inner despair to them. This was not a time for weakness.

"I will need to change, I suppose." She said, glancing down at the dress she wore, made of embroidered silk and covered in silver and gold. "Follow me." She led them toward the servants' section of the castle, where she would find something befitting a traveler or peasant to wear. The thought did not please her, but it was necessary. "Who are the two of you? I have your names, but I know nothing aside from the fact that you have been touched by magic and you are not from the Shimmering Isles." Mai looked shocked at the information she had already gleaned with her magically-acquired 'wit', but Nao just snapped her focus angrily to her sister.

"I told you not to call it Atlantis, Mai! I told you I had never read a single piece of written anything from this country that did not refer to this place as the Shimmering Isles! But nooo, you didn't believe me!" she ranted with a victorious smirk. Mai huffed.

"I…well, I was just sure I'd seen it called both on all kinds of scrolls." She muttered in defeat, while Nao laughed loudly. Mai turned her attention back to the princess. "Anyway, yeah, her hair and my eyes changed when that Good Fairy of yours cast the spell to let us travel here. I guess normally we can't even see this place because it's like, the 'land of magic' or something. She was the one who told us about you, and how to wake you up even though we don't know how to break the curse."

"Which is weird," Nao added, "Because I thought the curse WAS sleep." The corners of the princess' lips turned upward.

"Things are not always as they seem." She answered, having read much of the history of the Isles. "Although I must admit, I was under the impression that was the curse as well. Why the two of you? Why were outsiders chosen, and why could not the Good Fairy herself awake me?" Mai and Nao both averted their eyes in discomfort. The princess narrowed her own in suspicion.

"Well, um…we're sort of…collectors of information." Mai finally said, and Nao scowled.

"Well, she hoards, I hunt. I like the rare stuff. Stuff that nobody else has ever heard of." Nao said. Mai rolled her eyes.

"And by hunt, she means steal. She steals rare scrolls and tricks valuable information from anyone she can. I collect mostly historical records and what we call 'fairy tales'." Mai explained, and Nao grinned.

"Not stealing and tricking, just liberating from dark places and loose tongues is all. We both like the stuff most people call 'fairy tales,' or any kind of wild story that's hard to believe. Because our mother was born here, and she told us about this place before she died. So we know it's not always just stories." Nao finished, glancing a question at Mai.

"The fairy told us what was at stake, and we said we'd help. She said she couldn't trust anyone here, and that her power had been almost completely drained by the spell she used to hide Snow White from the Queen when she was eight." Mai said, and Shizuru nodded. The princess turned into one of the servants' quarters, finding a girl roughly her size asleep in her bed. She began rifling through the girl's drawers for something that she could stand to have against her skin. She suspected that she was a bit spoiled. "She also was not sure that the princess was Snow White. She suspected, but wanted us to help her to verify it, as well as to find the princess now."

"All right, then. Now tell me what you know about Snow White." She asked, determined to keep her mind occupied with thoughts of business and purpose. Otherwise she might begin thinking about the girl asleep in the bed behind them, and whether or not she had family inside or outside of the castle.

"Pushy, pushy." Nao said, and gestured to Mai. The princess had noticed that they seemed to defer different information to each other, as if each had their specialty. For instance, Nao had been the one who recited prophecy. Perhaps they took their favoritism a bit far, and deferred all related information to the other for memorization immediately after categorization. It would be strange, but efficient. Nao took mystical, vague, or obscure information whilst Mai took historical and political.

"I told you that ten years ago, the Queen took the largest kingdom in Atl—um, on the Isles—by subterfuge. She poisoned the king's wife and courted the grieving king in disguise. He fell under her spell and eventually married her, at which point his two sons were mysteriously killed in a hunting accident, and his daughter disappeared. She was with them that day, and while the fairy could not save the boys, she led the young princess deeper into the forest. The animal that the Queen had sent to kill the boys refused to harm the girl, and instead chose to become her companion. Eventually, the fairy led the princess to a lonely hunter who took her in. She was presumed dead by the Queen when her magic could not locate the girl."

"The doing of the fairy?" The princess clarified, and Mai nodded, glancing at Nao, who picked up the monologue.

"The princess is our Snow White." Nao began, and Shizuru looked a question. "Chill out, I'm getting there. Anecdotally, the prophecy talks about her purity and connection to the Land itself, and this big scary monster decided to become the girl's pet..." she pointed out, and then took a deep breath for storytelling. "The story is that when the king's first wife was trying to conceive, she pricked herself on a rose in the garden while walking in the winter. She saw the blood in the snow and wished aloud that her daughter could have hair the color of ebony, lips red as blood, and skin white as snow." She emphasized, but the princess wasn't convinced and she could tell. "The Land with a capital 'L' heard her and granted her wish, as it sometimes does, and she ended up with a girl that fits just that description. When I picture a kid like that in my head, I can't decide if it's absolutely adorable, or hideously creepy." Nao added unnecessarily and at Shizuru's eye roll continued, "…but we encountered the daughter of a midwife of the princess', and she told us that her mother and father used to call her 'Snow White' as a term of endearment. So." On the word of a midwife, it seemed they were going into these woods in search of, as Nao had so eloquently put it, an eighteen-year-old girl who would be either beautiful or unsettling to lay eyes upon. Sighing, the princess stood, dropping the garment in her hands and leaving to find her own rooms again. "What the—seriously, lady?" Nao groused.

"I do apologize, but it seems I will not be able to force myself into those kinds of clothes at all." she might have apologized for their benefit, but the princess didn't suppose she was actually remorseful. Those kinds of clothes were far too dirty and did not allow for any kind of grace at all.


The princess emerged from her quarters an hour later looking absolutely freaking amazing, in Nao's opinion. Glancing at her sister, she decided she wasn't the only one who felt that way. She had found a dark colored cloak that she was fastening around the gorgeously crafted dress she was wearing to hide it, but even the cloak seemed a little too nice for the type of people they were likely to encounter. She remembered having stared at the Sleeping Beauty for a lot longer than was necessary when she and Mai had arrived here to wake her up. They'd both commented on how unnaturally beautiful she was. The capitalized title the prophecy had given to her was definitely not coincidental. The girl was gorgeous, graceful, and when she spoke, it was a lot like a song. Later when she had got out of bed, Nao had noticed that when she moved, it was like she danced instead of walked.

She was so amazing that Nao found her presence insufferable. The redhead didn't much like feeling inadequate, and even the princess' anger made her feel just that. It was just a look and a narrowing of the eyes, and it communicated this anger more strongly than Nao's fist ever could. Not to mention she kept treating them like subjects-raising her hand to stop them talking, like it wasn't worth her words or something. It was driving her nuts, and she was looking forward to seeing the fair-haired princess get knocked down a few pegs once they got outside. She was betting that when something didn't go her way, this Shizuru chick would break down into a petulant child. It would make her feel much better about this whole working with her indefinitely thing.

"What the heck took you so long?" Nao Grimm asked with a scowl. Shizuru offered a placid smile, as she always did when talking to them. It was polite, and her voice was amazing to listen to, but the smile and manners never reached her eyes. They were cold, kind of like she would step on you as soon as look at you. It also made the redhead dislike this girl more.

"We…I had to do some sewing to render this dress more practical." She answered simply, and began walking toward the castle's exit. Nao gave Mai a look that told the older sister to stop hero-worshipping and follow them.

"What? I didn't—" Mai started to defend herself to Nao and stopped when Shizuru glanced their way. "Oh, nevermind." She followed them down the stairs, out of the castle, and into the evening.