Sleeping Bishie Started: 4/9/2003 Finished: 4/10/2003
Mallory York/Threshie ^^V
There was once a king and queen who longed for a child. For years, they prayed for a healthy heir to their kingdom, Sanq, but none was born. At last, the queen gave birth to healthy baby boy. The child, whom they named Milliardo was so bishounen and kawaii that the king and queen were joyously happy, and they decided to hold an enormous banquet to celebrate his birth.
The king invited nearly everyone in the land to the celebration, including twelve good fairies who were to be his special guests. Now, there was one more fairy in the land, but the king only had twelve golden plates for them to eat from. Afraid of the thirteenth fairy's wrath if he suggested that she, an honored guest, eat from a silver plate instead of a golden one, the king neglected to invite her to the celebration at all. Besides, she was an evil fairy with cockroach eyebrows--wherever she went, bad luck and misfortune followed.
On the day of the celebration, everyone came to see young Prince Milliardo, and showered him with gifts. The feasting was joyous, the royal family serving every special dish the cooks could make in record time. When the feast was finished, there came the part where the king's special guests, the fairies, would bless Prince Milliardo with gifts of magic. The first fairy, a pretty blonde girl wearing a gossamer pink gown, said gently to the baby boy as she held him, "I give you, young prince, the gift of peace. Your heart will always be peaceful, and you shall never strike out in anger."
Next, a lovely fairy with an odd hairstyle (it looked something like a pair of cinnamon buns) and a flowing, green gown held the child, proclaiming, "I give you the gift of bishounen. You shall always remain handsome and gorgeous, even if you stay up for a month without any beauty sleep at all." And so the fairies went on blessing, the next, a pretty little blonde fairy wearing a necklace with an odd, rectangular little game attached to it (^^;; Sounds odd to describe Midii in a medieval setting, doesn't it?), giving Prince Milliardo the gift of song--his singing voice would be so wonderful that crowds would come just to hear him, she promised.
The next fairy, one with short blue hair and baby blue eyes, gave the prince the gift of gentleness--he would always be kind to those weaker than himself, and to those equal. To those stronger he would offer respect and the same gentle kindness. The fairies continued their blessing, gifting the young prince many virtues that would surely shape him into a wonderful, beautiful and very bishie person. The last fairy had stepped up to hold the child, her lavender eyes sparkling happily and bouncy red hair bobbing against her shoulders as she walked, when who should come barging straight into the middle of the festivities but the thirteenth fairy!
Angrily, she cried, "How dare you invite everyone but me! If you think this insolence shall go unpunished, think again--it is in the fairy nature to create beautiful wars and hardships--and so I shall create yours!" Waving her hands before anyone else could say a word, the cockroach-browed fairy cried, "I curse this prince! On his nineteenth birthday, he will prick his finger on a fencing foil and die!" Then, laughing evilly to herself at the grief she'd caused, she vanished in a poof of black smoke.
Horrified at the curse, the queen looked down at her baby son's kawaii little face and began to cry. The king was unsure quite what to do--a fairy's curse or blessing was sure to come true! However, the twelfth fairy stepped forward and smiled gently.
"While I cannot completely erase the thirteenth fairy's curse," she began, "I can change it so that the prince will not die. On his nineteenth birthday, when Prince Milliardo pricks his finger on a fencing foil, he will not die, but instead fall into a deep, dreamless sleep that will last for one hundred years. And at the end of this one hundred years, he shall awaken, alive and well, and the entire castle shall awaken with him, for they will slumber as he does."
The king and queen thanked the fairy, much relieved. The next day, the king, fearing for his son's life, had every single fencing foil in the entire land brought to him and melted down. The creation of fencing foils was outlawed, and soon no one practiced fencing at all. (It was hard to fence without a foil, after all.)
Prince Milliardo grew to be everything that the fairies had promised--he was kind, gentle, handsome, very bishounen and his singing voice was gorgeous. In fact, he sang so well that he often broke windows while hitting a high note (seriously, only people who can sing good can break glass with their voices. No, really! I'm serious!), which the king and queen would laugh at as he apologized to the servants who had to put the new windowpanes in.
Now, as it happened, the king and queen were away on a peace mission to their neighboring kingdom, Romefeller, on Prince Milliardo's nineteenth birthday. Seeing as everyone else around the castle was busy with their own various jobs, the prince was very bored. With nothing to do, he began to wander around the castle aimlessly, humming absently to himself (he'd been forbidden to sing too high of notes in the castle for fear of more broken windows, so he was humming quietly and in a lower range than usual).
By and by, he came to a stairs that he didn't remember. Curiously, he followed it, and entered a room in a tower at the highest point of the castle. This room was vast and had a clear, open floor of polished wood. Across the floor, dressed in a white fencing outfit, a female figure with long blonde hair was practicing fencing moves solo. Seeing as he had never seen anyone fence before--fencing had died the day the foils had been melted down, and then he was still just a baby--, Prince Milliardo was curious as to what, exactly, the woman was doing.
So he asked, "Beg pardon, lady, but what are you doing? I've never seen anyone dressed as you are, and moving so gracefully!"
"I am fencing," replied the masked blonde woman, her voice reflecting cheerfulness, "It is an art that has been practiced for centuries, and one that represents the beauty and grace of battle!"
"I am not so sure about the part about battle being beautiful," Prince Milliardo answered truthfully, "But the graceful part is plain to see. May I try?"
Tossing him a broken fencing foil, the woman said rather menacingly, "Of course you may!" At this point, catching the snapped-off foil in his hands, Prince Milliardo pricked one of his fingertips on the jagged tip. Immediately, he fell into a deep sleep, collapsing to the floor in a heap. (Hey, the bed can't be conveniently placed in all of the renditions of this story, can it? Hehe--it rhymed, too.)
Cackling evilly, the thirteenth fairy removed her white fencing mask, cockroach eyebrows twitching slightly. "And now he is dead! Ahahahaha!" The in a poof of black smoke, she vanished, her work in the Sanq kingdom finished--or so she thought. She did not know about the twelfth fairy's revision of her curse on Prince Milliardo, and so she never returned to Sanq and learned that he had no died.
The king and queen, who had just returned to the castle with their carriage and procession, fell into the enchanted sleep in the middle of the road. The servants and bakers fells asleep, as well as the dogs, cats and everyone else in the castle. The birds in the trees tucked their heads under their wings and slept. Everything was deathly silent, but for the occasional snore. (^~;; Not everybody sleeps quietly!)
For years, the kingdom of Sanq slept. The neighboring kingdom of Romefeller's king Treize came by to investigate when they fell out of contact with Sanq, who had just arranged a peace treaty with them, but found the entire castle to be surrounded by an impassible wall of enormous, thorny rose vines. Adoring roses, Treize picked himself a large bouquet of them before riding off, shrugging and deciding that Sanq must not want to have any contact with the outside world. It wasn't his problem.
Years and years passed, and finally rumor came of the sleeping bishounen, Prince Milliardo, in the tallest tower of the castle. Many brave young women (and the occasional brave young man, usually sent by his less-than-brave sister) attempted to pass the thorny barrier of roses surrounding Sanq's castle, but all fell victim to the vines' enchanted viciousness and died where they were caught, unable to escape. For a hundred years, Prince Milliardo, his parents and everyone in the Sanq kingdom slept peacefully and dreamlessly, undisturbed.
Finally, the hundredth year had come to pass. At this time, a brave young woman named Lucretzia (but who preferred to be called Noin, as it was easier to spell and pronounce--you've gotta think about these things, parents!) rode to the Sanq kingdom on her trusty steed, Aries. Upon arrival there, she saw that the thorny barrier which had killed so many other men and women who had attempted entry to the castle, parted for her, somehow sensing that she was the girl who was meant to pass through and find the sleeping bishie.
And find him she did. Leaving Aries happily munching grass in the royal grounds, Noin entered the castle, which was covered with dust, much to her dismay. Picking her way through the dusty, cobweb-covered halls, she used her sword to hack through a particularly thick set of webbing, only to find a set of stairs that led up past all of the others. Climbing these, she found the open doorway into a vast, open-floored room with fencing foils on every wall, white fencing outfits neatly folded on shelves near the door--and a gorgeous white-blonde bishounen sleeping in a heap on the floor.
Awed at his bishie, handsome, beautiful looks (not to mention that he had great hair), Noin came over and knelt beside him. Realizing that this was the famed sleeping bishie that all of the stories of Sanq described, she knew then that he matched every one of the descriptions and more--and that upon laying eyes on him, she had instantly fallen in love. In fact, she was so filled with love that she bowed her head and kissed him right then and there--and as she did, he opened his eyes and smiled at her, and everywhere in the Sanq kingdom, thousands of people and animals awoke.
The kitchen servants went back to their unspoiled cooking endeavors, while the hounds awoke and yipped joyfully, chasing each other all around the castle grounds. In the stables, the horses and their keepers awoke, and the birds perched on the rooftops began to sing. Everywhere in the Sanq kingdom, life sprang anew. The curse was broken.
Seeing as they had both fallen in love with each other at first sight, Prince Milliardo and Noin were joyously married two days later, much to the happiness of the prince's parents, who were glad he was marrying someone who came from their peaceful neighbors in the kingdom of Romefeller. Noin explained that the Romefeller kingdom was not currently in a peace treaty with them, as they had cut all contact with anyone a hundred years ago, but she was sure Romefeller's new queen, Mariemaia, would agree to declare peace with them once more if they visited her.
Married and no longer cursed, Prince Milliardo and his fair and brave Princess Noin lived happily ever after, eventually peacefully ruling the Sanq kingdom themselves for many years.
--Owari
AN: ^^ Wow. The rate I'm writing these things is amazing--but then, this was one of the sorter ones. Usually I go a little more in-depth, but I didn't really feel the need to do that here. Oh, well. As usual, I'm following my 'replace the princess with an MS/Gundam pilot' gag. Zechs makes a good sleeping bishie, I say! ^^ I credit the title for the fic to my little sister, Couy-chan-SAMA--she came up with it, and it fits perfectly.
Lessee…I don't own Gundam Wing or anything in it. ^^;; Yes, that includes that Heero sitting in the cockpit. =P No, seriously, I don't own the anime show/manga Gundam Wing or any of it's characters, places, etc. Hope you enjoyed reading this--please leave me a review, as I really appreciate feedback.
'Bye for now!
--Threshie ^^V
Japanese Notes:
Bishounen - Handsome young man OR pretty boy
Kawaii - Cute