A/N: Heheheh…where did this idea come from? If anyone cares to know, I thought to myself the other day that I'd rather be the daring dashing Prince in a fairytale than the Princess…and this sort of popped up *nervous laughter*

Please enjoy the story!

'~'Princess Charming'~'

Chapter 1

He should have stayed at the banquet.

The evening had started out innocent enough. His mother had called upon him and his brother and informed them that they would have visitors tonight. As usual, the visitors were important: a duke and duchess of high birth with a daughter who was not yet wedded. From the look his mother gave him, Soul could tell that this was another marriage plan in the works.

While his servants were dressing him, he wondered for the millionth time what he had deserved to be locked up in this castle, to be stuck as his mother's pawn for more fame and glory. His father had died many years before, and so his mother was the reigning queen of the kingdom. Everyone thought that Wes would be the only choice to take the throne, but a glitch in the late King's will stated otherwise: He who got a bride first became the ruler.

So for that reason, and that reason only, he was forced to review countless wedding matches. It was no big secret, after all, that for some reason their mother preferred Soul over Wes.

Things were going fine for the first good three fourths of the banquet, when the elders got drunk and the shy duchess to be kept trying to catch his eye. But then somehow the laughter faded away into stern smiles as the topic of marriage inevitably showed up.

"So…" started the Duke, "As you can see, my daughter Agatha is of fine marriageable age. In fact, she has had a few marriage proposals, but none have suited," a sly glance to the queen, "…her tastes."

Inwardly, Soul scoffed and decided that it was the parents' tastes that any nobleman had not satisfied. Why settle for the common wealthy lord when you could aspire to be parents-in-law of a king?

At this point though, the Queen was laughing and simultaneously glaring at Soul, willing him with her eyes to propose.

But he sat there, looking at everyone looking at him, and suddenly felt the air slowly suffocate him.

He had to…had to…get…away—

"I have to go to the restroom."

Without a second word, he abruptly stood up and fled to his room.

He kept a brisk pace until he made it to his doorway, where he locked the door with a soft click. He breathed out in relief.

Soul fell onto his bed sheets, sighing a bit. With his face in his pillow, he thought about his evening.

What was his mother thinking, trying to get him to suddenly ask for the hand of some random aristocrat he had never met before? True, he knew what he was getting into beforehand, but he hadn't expected the Queen to be so…sudden.

Soul groaned into his pillow. All this fuss was seriously stressing him out.

He tried imagine a relaxing image. A warm place, with a bit of wind. Calming. Outdoors. Slowly but surely, his troubles seemed to ease away…

"Rough day, Prince?"

He jumped, and his first reaction was to snap his head to find the source of the voice.

There on his balcony, curtains sputtering in the breeze, was a dark figure.

"Wh-who are you?" How did some random person get up here? The castle walls were much too high to climb…at least too high for someone normal.

"Name's not important, for now. Anyways, we're behind schedule, so if you wouldn't mind…" the figure, he now could identify, was all too female.

She made a slight gesture with her hand that beckoned him to leave his room and step out to the open air.

As if, he thought. Suspicions pounded him like rain. If this person could get through all of the castle's heavy defenses, then that meant that they—or she, as this case applied—was not exactly doing anything on a legal level.

"What?"

Her voice was impatient and snapped him out of his thoughts.

"I should be asking that!" his voice was loud enough to scare himself.

"Shh! It's like you want the palace guards to hear us!"

"Well of course I do! I mean, a random thief just shows up in my room and expects me to follow her!"

"Hey, I am not a thief! I'm not that low!"

Soul was taken aback. It made sense though; she didn't threaten him for money or anything.

"Then…are you an assassin?"

Silence. The girl redirected her strong gaze to the half moon outside.

"Sometimes. If I have to. But not for you, luckily."

"Oh, that reassures me."

"I'm trying to be serious here!"

"Man, this is so not cool…"

Her face turned a shocking shade of red and she was about to yell at him again when suddenly there was a loud knock on the door.

Both girl and prince froze.

"…crap."

"Prince Soul? Is there a problem? We heard yelling, and Her Royal Highness requests that you return to the banquet immediately."

This would be about the time when he should shout, yes, there was a problem, but somehow the mysterious girl's stare shut him up.

She moved towards him, slowly, and then he saw what she looked like.

Her hair was done in two simple ponytails, and her cloak helped her blend in with the world around him. A black bandana covered the lower half of her face, but her eyes…her eyes were exposed the soft moonlight, glinting a bright color the exact shade of pine.

What was this feeling?

She moved close enough that she could reach out her hand and touch his face. Or slice his throat.

"Prince? Prince Soul!"

More banging on the door, and he could hear the soldiers getting ready to knock it down.

He heard them, but he didn't. The girl moved closer now, placing one of her hands on his chest, right where his heart was. With her other hand she pulled off her face mask, and he glimpsed her mouth. Then, a huge crack echoed.

"I didn't want it to have to come to this. So don't get mad, okay?"

Her voice was crystal clear as it synced with the sound of his bedroom door breaking.

Within seconds, the soldiers started to pile into the room.

Soul was still frozen, his heart beating faster than a hummingbird's wings as her face aligned with his. He felt stuck, and completely entranced.

"Soul Unleashed!" she shouted, and then quickly pressed forward to touch her lips with his.

The Prince was completely stunned, but he didn't have time to even realize that the girl stole his first kiss because he felt his mind ripping from his body.

It happened in a second and then it happened in an hour. The feeling was immense, swallowing him up and molding him, electrifying every nerve. He felt like screaming but he couldn't. Flashes of red and black appeared in his vision, but as soon as he could recognize it the pain stopped abruptly.

His mind was back in his body, but he felt different. Looking down, he noticed that he couldn't move at all because there was nothing to move. He was just a solid bar!
"What the hell is going—"

Without giving him time to finish that thought, he felt firm hands grip around him and swing him around.

"HUUHHAH!"

Soul heard the girl scream with frustration as he felt his head (or whatever was there instead of it) collide into something firm yet able to give away.

And it happened again and again, her swinging and him feeling dizzy not from the swinging but from trying to figure out how sane he was at the moment.

Then he realized: his head was hurting the soldiers. They were hurting them.

He was a human weapon.

This revelation scared him so much that his mind just shut down. He suddenly felt as if though he were to change back again, but then she muttered an "Oh no you don't" and jumped off his balcony with him in her arms.

Unfortunately, this time he had the senses to scream.

That triggered his transformation, and as he fell to the ground he was normal once more.

Before he could catch his breath, she grabbed his hand and started to drag him away from the palace.

"Hey! Slow down!"

"SSH! Listen, we have to get out of here."

"Okay wait," he wrangled his arm out of her gloved hands and looked at her with the authority his birth right entitled.

"You, a random assassin, climb onto my bedroom balcony."

"Isn't that stating the obvi—"

"And then you say, 'Hey let's go far away!' and expect me, the Prince of Evanlan to follow you."

"Yep. Now, c'mon, we have to get going."

"But where? And how do you know that I even want to go with you?"

She sighed at him, closing her eyes and rubbing her head like she had a headache.

"Are you telling me you don't want to be saved?"

His vermillion eyes blinked.

"Saved? From what?"

She looked back at him and smirked with her now uncovered mouth.

"That…will be told later. Now, we just need to dig under this patch of bushes…"

Soul sighed and watched her brush away a bunch of weeds until a good sized hole in the wall was revealed."

"I came in the harder way, but seeing as you lack training…"she trailed off.

"No. No way am I crawling in that filthy mud."

"A bit of dirt won't kill you."

He crossed his arms defiantly. "I will not. I don't even need to follow you or anything. In fact, I should be running the other way and getting help right now."

She glared at him. "Listen Prince, you have two options here. One, you can come with me like a good little boy. Two, you can crawl back to your wimpy guards and mommy, stuck forever in this stupid place."

Soul turned around with an angry huff. In the dark moonlight, he could see the outline of the castle, strong and almighty and an unaccustomed sight. He wasn't let out of the grounds very often: in fact, he hadn't seen the palace like this ever. Stay or leave? Stay as a pawn or finally get out of his mother's game? Stay in the only place he'd known or go to some foreign area where who knew what would happen?

He grumbled and got down on his hands and knees.

The girl next to him let out a breath and crouched down too.

"Good. If you didn't come with, I would have had to kill you."

"What?"

"Sorry, sorry, but hey, everything's cool now." She looked at him with a smile. "It's not like I wanted to kill you."

Soul saw the girl in a shocking new light. To think that she'd kill him if he didn't allow himself to be kidnapped!

"Who exactly are you?"

Holding apart a bit of branches, she turned back with a malicious expression.

"Just call me your Princess Charming, Prince."

~.~.~

A/N: It was the first chapter, so it was short. Tell me what you think!