Disclaimer: We do not own fairytales. We do not own Ever After.

Claimer: But we do own this story.

A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first time in Fairytales… and hopefully not my last. I am writing this fanfic in conjunction with drugged-on-chocolate. I write Crystal's point of view, and she writes Adriene's. It all works out. Please R&R? 

CHAPTER 1

Adriene:

Everyone always tells me that my parents had a whirlwind romance that would last through the ages. And they do, but what about us? I mean I'm sixteen, and still there is nobody at court who I'd even think about talking to…They're all so…dreary.

But I'm Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Adriene of France and my grandmother wants me to find myself a husband. But I just want to have FUN and TRAVEL and see things that Leonardo Da Vinci told me about when I was a little child sitting listening to his stories about flying machines and shoes that let you walk on water.

Why can't I leave the ruling the country to Crystal? My younger sister seems fine with the whole idea.

My life simply rotates around balls and functions and dinners and courtiers. My father groans whenever my mother tells him of another one, but he goes and smiles politely and then they both run off to their university and hide.

How I wish I could do such a thing, and yet somehow whenever I try to hide someone finds me.

I

Crystal:

Mother always told me that no matter who I was; no matter what I was, I had the power to change the world. But with Adriene lies the true balance of power. My sister is the crown princess to France. Me? I'll probably just end up wedding some rich noble with a heart of stone, and not a drop of love for me. But if that's what Mother and Father want, I suppose I can have no objections.

I don't want to be a bride. I want to have the power to change the world. Maybe just to change France. But I don't have the courage. Adriene has that courage. I admire her for that. She knows exactly what she wants, and somehow, I know she's going to get it. She's going to make a great queen one day. And I will be her most loyal subject.

Crystal:

The sun is shining brightly through the shadow of my draperies. I open my eyes and blink a little, trying to get used to the light.

"Good morning, your highness." Fiona, my handmaiden, walks in. I can never understand how she knows exactly when to enter my room. "How are you this morning, highness?" I have given up trying to get her to call me by my name. I suppose that retaining the use of 'highness' preserves a sense of propriety and respect. It's hard enough to respect me anyway.

"I'm good, thanks, Fiona… and yourself?"

Fiona flushes and drops a curtsey.

"I'm well, thank you…"

"What is the message today from Mother and Father?"

"They are in the dining hall. Waiting for you so they may commence breakfast."

"Right."

Fiona helps me dress, and twists my hair back. I sit, still and unmoving, while she engages in the mundane chores that are essential to life in the royal family.

"Done?" I ask, trying not to show my impatience.

"Yes, your highness." –yet another curtsey

Fiona opens the door for me, and I descend the tower stairs.

"Good morning Father…Mother…" It is my turn to curtsey. But as I drop my gaze demurely, I feel a slight pang. Adriene, Mother, and Father… they all look so alike, with their dark hair and confident airs. I am the misfit in our family. My hair is a honey brown, and my eyes are a distinctive green. I am so different… and those differences make me awkward.

"Good morning Crystal." Father speaks for all of them. "Come… sit…"

I sit and busy myself with my food, taking care to sit up straight and appear interested. I always don't know what to do around my family.

Adriene:

Sometimes people have these perceptions about you, and they are completely untrue. Take me for instance (Yes I am trying to make a point here) people always look at me and say "there will be a good queen for our nation," what if I don't want it? I mean, I do want it, and yet I don't? Oh I'm not making any sense here am I?

What I mean is that life deals certain people certain cards, some are born poor and are forced to become servants, others? Well, others are born to privilege and with that come certain obligations.

I walk down the hallowed stairs with an assortment of maids following me shaking their heads in frustration over the state of my gown. I'd just gotten back from my morning ride and I really couldn't be bothered getting changed for breakfast. I walk into the breakfast room

"Morning Mother, Father." I greet them. I see a book on the table in front of them. Utopia. "Reading this again?" I ask my mother as I sit down in a chair and flip through the ancient book. A wedding present from my mother's stepsister on their wedding.

I take a slice of toast off a plate and am about to lift it to my lips when my sister Crystal walks in. "Come…sit," my father tells her

The differences between us are so acute - take for instance the fact that she is formal around everyone whereas I am so informal that I have to be warned before delegates from other countries arrive.

Crystal sits down, her back remaining ramrod straight, staring so hard into her food that I want to slap her.

Mother looks at Crystal and asks her if everything is all right. That is how it goes most mornings: Crystal acting awkwardly and both my parents not sure how to treat it.

We usually spend the time in silence, usually that is until my grandmother walks in.

"Henry," she shrills. "Henry, the Spaniards are coming again, this time they're bringing their son with them."

Father groans and stands up, "Excuse me girls, duty calls." I smile as Mother rolls her eyes.

Another lady walks in followed closely by her husband, the lady is my step-aunt Jacqueline and the man is her husband Commander Laurent.

"Danielle, Please help, Louise is having a heart attack over the linen for the Spaniards arrival."

My mother smiles and asks if the world will stop spinning if she doesn't do something. I smile as she goes away and then it is just Crystal and I alone in the room with only a table of toast between us.

Crystal:

Well. This is suitably awkward. Mother and Father have made their hasty exits, and I am left in the dining hall with Adriene. My sister and I have never really gotten along. Oh, don't get me wrong, we have never fought, or argued, but we have never talked or laughed together either.

It's strange.

Adriene sits there, determinedly not looking at me. Finally, the tension in this room is so thick, that I cannot stand it any longer.

"Adriene?"

She makes no reply.

"Adriene? You are aware that I exist, aren't you?"

She has to look at me now.

"I know." She says, sounding extremely bored.

"Do I even matter to you?" I don't know what possesses me to say these things. It is so… unlike me. "No, wait, don't answer. Please don't answer. I'm sorry. I'm babbling. I don't know what I'm saying." I dab at my mouth with my napkin, and stand up gracefully.

The butler opens the door for me. I sweep majestically from the room.

Adriene:

I sigh and stand up slowly placing the faded copy of Utopia on the table. I stalk out of the room to follow my sister. The Butler nods to me in the hall.

"Where'd she go?" I ask.

"She ran off to the river ma'am, down past the rose garden." I thank the butler kindly.

But she stays inside reading all day, since when does she go outside? She doesn't even ride a horse for fear of it messing her skirts, I think as I run through the castle and out into the rose garden. From the small stage in the middle of the garden I can see my sister sitting at the riverbank not seeming to care that her skirts are caked in mud or that water is lapping at her feet. I walk slowly over to her and lean against a tree facing my younger sister.

"I've never been a sister to you have I?" I say softly, almost scared of what Crystal might say in reply.

"You've been all you can." Crystal says staring out into the river. "And that's all I can ask for, right?"

"No, I've run away the few times you ask me to be a sister. I'm sorry I guess, but I don't really know what I want at the moment" I try to explain what I was thinking.

"Don't change for me." Crystal seems to be warning me. "I'm fine, I've coped for the last fourteen years, why worry now?"

"Then why are you out here letting your dress get soaked in mud? Maybe because for the past fourteen years I've been too conceited to realize that you were there."

"So you think that I'm just a pampered little royal snob?" Now she is accusing me. "Adriene, I've been here so many countless times you just didn't know. You don't know me."

I sigh and let my head fall to the tree I am leaning against. "No. I don't know you, I guess that's what I'm trying to get at here, I don't know my own sister and that scares me

"You're trying really hard, aren't you?"

I almost laugh. "Is it that obvious?"

"But... Adriene... Addy..."

"You haven't called me that in years" I remember when she would come running down the hall calling out that name.

"I know." She let nothing show, not emotion no recognition.

I finally admit something. "I miss it.

Still she refuses to let me in. "You're only doing this because you think you don't know me. You can go back to your normal existence."

"No, I'm doing this because I know that I don't know you."

"You won't miss what you've never had."

"Why not?"

"I'm... not you. I'm not made to fit in."

I laugh to myself. "I think our parents find the fact that there's only one of me a good thing. So you're different that isn't a bad thing."

"Look in the river, Adriene. Look in the river Look at yourself."

"What am I looking for?"

"Look at Mother. Look at Father. Then look at me. Doesn't that say anything?"

I look at both of our reflections. True there are differences, but there are also similarities. "Nothing except that you take after Mother's mother, from the painting of her even I know that you have her eyes."

"Adriene, don't fib."

"I'm not!"

"There isn't any painting of her, there never was."

"Haven't you seen it? Mother has it in her dressing room"

"I...I've never been... there…"

"Her friend Gustav's father did it of her mother right before she died."

Crystal doesn't say a word; instead she looks out over the river to the opposite bank. A stony silence enveloped her.

"Then get up of that mud patch and I will show you, " I decide to take control, or at least attempt to.

"That's exactly what I mean." She says quietly.

"What?"

"You think you're the only one in the family who runs around like a maniac, the only one who gets dirty? Don't interrupt!"

"I wasn't going to." I try to defend myself.

"You just did," she points out.

I sigh. "Fine, go on then".

"I am more like you than you think, I am more different than you know. I ride. I swim. I run. And I sit in mud patches."

" Since when? I've never seen you ride".

"You've never seen me outside of the dining hall." I hate her logic.

"True, but I'm always outside, I would have seen you... wouldn't I?"

"Have you?" she asks slowly

"Well no." I realize. "That's why I thought you were in the library"

"Adriene... do you even know where the library is? Where my library is?"

"Yes...your library?"

"My library."

"You have a library?" For a moment there I am transported back to childhood and want a library simply because my sister had one.

"You know the one where I spend most of my time in? When I'm not outside in an invisibility shroud so you can't see me? I've seen you riding so many times you just haven't seen me you just weren't looking"

"I'm sorry" I sigh not sure what else to say.

"Maybe you didn't want to see?"

"Crystal...I...I..."

"Maybe you didn't care? Maybe this is just your way of making yourself feel better?"

I have to interrupt her, "Don't say that".

"Making yourself less guilty?"

"No" is all I can say.

"As in, 'at least you tried?'"

"Crystal please"

"Well, forget it. I don't need this"

Without another word Crystal stands up from her mud patch and dives into the river.

As I watch her swim away I whisper under my breath, "And I do?"

I hitch up my skirts once again and begin the long trudge up to the castle to get changed.

Crystal:

I just had to get away. I didn't want to know what she would say next. I only knew that she couldn't swim. All that time when she was pattering around, showing off on her horse, I was perfecting my riding skills, my swimming skills – in private. That's one thing about Adriene. She likes to publicise things. She likes everyone to know if she's achieved something.

Me? I'm a private person. That's why Father had my library made for me. So I wouldn't have to bump into all the cousins and uncles and courtiers who come in to giggle over Father's picture. Or even Daniel's. Dear Daniel. How I miss you. Maybe if you were still with us, we wouldn't have to be like this.

Maybe we would be happy.

Now, I sit in my library, drumming my fingers against the tabletop. Acting on an impulse, I reach over and start writing a letter.

Dear Daniel,

How are you? It seems so strange writing to you when I haven't for so long. I don't know if Adriene or Mother or Father write either. I don't think they do. That's just another thing that makes me so different, I guess. Oh well.

What are you doing with your life now? How is it to be free? I wish I could join you.

I miss you.

Crystal.