Why?
One word ran through Rosa's mind as she hurried through the picturesque castle town of Nimbasa.
The question was directed in many ways.

Why did he run off?
Why was she so worried?
Why did she get stuck with this job?

She knew the answer to the last two, of course. She was stuck with the job because she was one of the only skilled samurai in the area who wasn't occupied with keeping the current dynasty in power. "Was" being the key word. Rosa's job was to guard Prince Curtis, who was next in line for the throne.
Which was why she was worried. She didn't want to think about what would happen to her if something happened to him.
As for the first question, she could only wish she knew the answer.

Rosa quickened her pace, scanning for any sign of the wayward royal in the loud and varied crowd. Normally, she would just have to listen to the people around her to find out where the prince was, but he had had the brilliant idea to try to blend in with the stream of commoners going about their daily lives in the city's center.
At least she knew what he had been wearing - a simple, black cotton robe and a hooded cape to both block the chill of the early spring breezes and hide his distinctive greenish-blonde hair.
Rosa hoped no one decided he was a threat - or worse, that he wasn't.

Curtis was a kind teenager, though he really had no idea how to be a prince. Whispers among the palace servants even suggested that he didn't want to be a prince. The notion baffled Rosa. His siblings certainly enjoyed being royalty. Who wouldn't?
Whatever he thought of it, Curtis was still the prince, and Rosa still hadn't found him.

He must not be in the main square, thought Rosa. That was bad. The further into the city's labyrinthine streets you got, the more likely you were to run into... unsavoury people.
Rosa decided to check the biggest path leading out of the square, a market street.

She searched for most of the afternoon, panic slowly making itself known.
Where is he? Why did he do this?
Where? Why?

And then suddenly she turned a corner and there he was.
Rosa's breath stuck in her throat. On one side of the small side street, Curtis held his arms out protectively while two young brunette girls hid behind him.
On the other side, three young men glared at the hooded figure, one with a wicked-looking knife in his hand.
Rosa put one one hand on the largest of her two swords and the other on its sheath. Nobody had seemed to have noticed her, and though samurai were supposed to fight with honor, this was a situation where surprise would be invaluable.
"What's your problem with us anyway?" said the one with the knife. He had short, bright blue hair.
"What is your problem with these girls?" answered Curtis. However, he didn't quite sound like Curtis, and it took Rosa a moment to realize why.
He was angry.
Curtis was anything but a violent or even short-tempered person - kind, shy, easily frightened and flustered. Anger was not an emotion he had ever expressed around Rosa.
But now, his voice only betrayed a cold fury.
She apparently wasn't the only one to pick up on it. The other two hooligans fidgeted a bit, hands straying to the knives at their waists.
"We ain't got no problem with them. But they can sure do a lot for us!"

Curtis knew exactly what the thug was talking about, seeing as the same threat constantly lingered over his own head. Anybody who kidnapped him would get a ransom worth several lesser nobles.
Such as the twins he was protecting.
He had been wandering along the big market street, enjoying the fact that he could talk to people and buy things from the vendors without being recognized. He also felt a bit guilty for abandoning Rosa, who he knew would be extremely worried. It wasn't really fair to her - she wasn't noble, and therefore couldn't afford for anything to happen.
However, this was something he had to do. He wanted to see how the common man lived, and he wanted to meet people he would never even lay eyes on as a royal. People like the old couple selling freshly baked dumplings from a street cart.
People like the young man his age who he helped carry water for his family.
People like Lia and Lily, the two girls he was trying to protect now, who had hit a feathered ball into his path during a game of hanetsuki.
"I'm not going to let you do anything to them." It wasn't just an expression of the situation they were in now and its immediate dangers, but of the repercussions that would ripple outward from it and force these girls into a life like his where any sense of normalcy was faked on borrowed time.
Now, he just hoped his words and appearance would be enough to keep that from happening. They were only empty threats with nothing to back them up.
If there's one thing us royals are good at, it's lying, he reflected bitterly.

The two teens watched breathlessly, waiting for the stare-down to end. Finally, the blue-haired ringleader backed away, whispering loudly to his companions.
"He looks dangerous. They aren't worth the trouble." Though the other two didn't quite look as if they agreed, they followed his lead anyway, slinking away while Rosa tried to hide and prayed her bright, white-and-pastel robe wouldn't give her away.
That worry, at least, was unfounded, as the thugs exited via the other end of the alley.
Curtis finally allowed himself to breath a sigh of relief. Then, he turned to the twins and said "You should probably go home for a while. How close is your home?" Rosa had a mini panic attack at his words, as she did not want to deal with another situation like the one that had just ended. However, the girls only lived a single street over, and insisted they would be okay without an escort. Rosa decided to claim her charge before he ran off again. As she once again rounded the corner, she saw that Curtis had kneeled down to be on the same level as the girls.
"Thank you, mister!"
"Ahahaha, you're welcome!" Rosa couldn't help but smile herself at the sound of Curtis' laugh. His happiness was always infectious, but it seemed to appear less and less as time went on. Rosa hated seeing Curtis in the silent gloom that seemed to hang around him quite often lately. Of course, because of her position, it would be improper for her to voice these feelings, but she did view Curtis as more than simply the person she had been charged with protecting, and she saw keeping that luminous smile of his on his face as another part of her job.
The twins left for their home, acknowledging Rosa with a softly but brightly spoken "Excuse us, miss!"
Curtis stood up again as Rosa came up to him.
"Please don't do that again," Rosa said.
Curtis smiled sheepishly. "Yes. I'm sorry. That really was not fair to you. It's just..."
"Just?"
"Ah, nevermind. I shouldn't burden you with my problems."
"What?" Rosa persisted.
But Curtis simply kept his head turned and refused to answer. Rosa stared at him for a few seconds. She was rather disappointed, but not surprised, that he wouldn't confide in her. Not only did she want to get to know him a bit better, but she also got the feeling that he desperately needed to talk to someone. But he was retreating to within himself. He wouldn't talk now.
"Come on. We should go back." Rosa swept her hand vaguely in the direction of the palace. "You can walk in front, if you want... so people won't think I'm with you..."
Curtis simply nodded and began to walk in the direction Rosa had indicated.
Though his eyes were an incredibly bright green, in that moment they looked as dark and unreachable as the depths of the forest.

A few hours later, Curtis and Rosa were leisurely strolling through the verdant palace gardens. However, even among the life and blooming crocuses and cherry trees, it seemed that there was a thin sheet of ice between the two that refused to melt, even in the direct light of the now-setting sun.
Despite this frozen wall, they both stopped in front of the grandest of the cherry trees, as if by silent consensus. The petals decorated the branches of the tree in a way reminiscent of a Sawsbuck's antlers.
Rosa stole a glance at Curtis. Before, in the alleyway, seeing his bravery, she could have almost believed that he lived in city, that dealing with hooligans was a semi-common occurrence for him. But now, in his fine green silk robe trimmed with black, and with the lime green tips of his hair in full view, there was no doubt that he was the prince and heir to the throne of the Unovan Empire.
Curtis could sense her eyes on him, but as he turned his head, Rosa looked away to the delicate pink petals in front of them.
Even so, Curtis was not fooled.
"You want to ask me something."
"N-No sir, I-"
"Spare me. You never call me 'sir' anyway." Curtis interrupted her with a wave of his hand.
Rosa debated her question. She wasn't sure if it was a question that should be asked, but she came to the conclusion that she at least needed to try and find out.
"...Why does it seem that... you... hate being a prince?"
When Curtis only looked over his shoulder and did not answer, she started to worry.
"I-I'm sorry, that's much to personal for me to-"
"Because it's true."
Rosa blinked in surprise. The rumors... were true?
Curtis sighed slightly. "I suppose you wonder why." He looked toward Rosa for confirmation.
She nodded mutely, still trying to process his confession.
"People do not see me. They see a royal. Someone who is out of reach, out of touch."
Such a simple answer, yet it was a revelation for Rosa. The reason behind his waning happiness, his motive for wandering in a way so far below his station...
What surprised Rosa even more was that she truly understood the feeling.
Rosa wasn't even remotely noble. She'd grown up with nobility a vague concept in her mind. Her friends had been the same way, in many more ways as well - the foods they ate, the games the played, the clothes they wore... But then, when she had become a samurai - even when she had only been in training - she also became a foreigner to the people she had wrestled with and confided in as children. When they had just stared at her when she waved, when they had bowed when she said hello - it had hurt, but because she was a samurai, she had pushed it back. And now, the loneliness she hadn't allowed herself to feel or even realize she possessed was eating a hole in her chest and causing her eyes to water.

"Are you all right?" Curtis hadn't expected his words to have the effect they did. She had been swallowed by her own thoughts, and then her eyes started to water. He wasn't inclined to think it was pity, and he didn't dare to hope that she could relate. It wasn't something he had been able to find with anyone up until then.
However, his voice seemed to snap her out of her thoughts, and when she looked up, that was exactly what he found - the understanding between two people that only comes from going through the same trials.
When their gazes met, her sky blue eyes showing a rare vulnerability and his grass green ones full of worry, the monster called loneliness that had settled in both of their hearts began to shrink back.
The barrier that had separated them shattered when he reached a hand out to her shoulder.
Her heart lifted at his touch, and she smiled.

"I... I'll be fine." Rosa was not fine, but Curtis understood the meaning behind her statement.
His mouth turned up at the corners, mirroring hers almost perfectly.

"I think we'll both be."