This show quickly became one of my favorite anime shows. It was so pure and beautiful and I've watched it several times already.

As far as this story goes, I borrowed some elements here and there from the manga, but it will generally follow the plot of the anime.

:)

Today was a rather interesting day, Heine mused as he started towards the quarters that had been reserved for him as the new royal tutor. The princes are certainly going to be a handful.

He had only been inside his unnecessarily large room for less than a minute when there was a knock on his door.

"Yes?" he called.

The blonde-haired maid slowly opened the door. "Um, Professor Heine? I'm sorry for disturbing you so late, but the princess would like to speak with you."

Heine raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Princess Adele?"

What would the three-year-old girl need from him, especially at this late hour? Shouldn't she be asleep?

"No, sir," the maid answered. "Princess Helena."

Heine's eyes widened for a brief moment.

Surprised that the eldest royal wished to see him, he quickly gathered his composure and followed the maid to the princess's room.

"Princess?" the maid called as she knocked on the large set of double doors. "The new tutor is here."

"Send him in," a voice called back.

The maid opened the door, and Heine slowly stepped inside.

It was no secret to the kingdom that the elder princess had been born very premature and had never fully recovered. No one knew exactly how she spent her time inside the palace, but they did know that she never left and she never attended any social functions. Heine was fairly certain some people in the city didn't believe she even existed.

He was fairly shocked to see that despite her constant state of illness, the princess remained strikingly beautiful.

She was almost dangerously thin and her skin was quite pale from a combination of her illness and the lack of sunlight it received, but other than that, she looked quite normal. She was smiling at him and he couldn't deny that her pure and bright smile would have the ability to light up any room she entered.

"Don't worry," she said kindly. "My brothers have been coming to see me for as long as they've been alive, and they haven't caught what I have yet."

Heine silently berated himself for the extended pause he had taken whilst examining her features. "Forgive me, Your Highness," he said with a polite bow. "It was not my intention for my actions to come across as such."

"Let me guess. My brothers have all given you a hard time today, and you were worried I would greet you the same way."

"It was not a particularly warm welcome at first, but I hope to get to a good point very soon."

Helena looked him over. "If you don't mind my asking, exactly how old are you?"

Heine suppressed an eye twitch. "I assure you, I am a full-grown man, Your Highness."

Helena laughed lightly. "I believe you. I apologize for calling you here at such a late hour. But I prefer to meet with all the new tutors on the first day of their employment. I'm kind of protective of my brothers and like to know who they are going to be spending so much of their time with."

"As expected of an older sister."

"I would've called for you sooner, but the servants said there was an issue and you were not inside the palace."

"Yes, there were a few complications, but nothing I couldn't handle."

The princess smiled a little. "Did Licht say anything too vulgar?"

Heine's cheeks reddened as he recalled the rather…awkward question the youngest prince had imposed on him earlier. "Nothing horrible. Though I did have to institute a rather intense educational measure on him."

"Whatever that measure was, I'm sure he deserved it. And Bruno? He's usually rather condescending towards tutors. How did you fare in the chess match with him?"

"I was able to successfully defeat him in seven moves."

Helena's eyes widened. "Did you just say seven? I didn't even know that was possible."

"Yes. And I bested him in all the other challenges he presented me with."

"Really?" Helena laughed again. "I don't think that's ever been done by anyone who draws breath. It appears Bruno may finally have met his match."

Heine elected not to tell the princess that Bruno admired him so much after he had beaten him at everything that he had taken to calling him 'Master'. He hoped to rid the prince of that before he addressed him that way in public.

"What about Kai? Believe me, Professor, I know he may look frightening, but I promise, he's—"

"I'm aware of his kind nature, Princess," Heine said, fully aware he should never interrupt a royal. Somehow, he knew she wouldn't mind. "I will admit, at first I thought he disliked me, but I quickly came to see that was not the case at all."

The smile disappeared from her face. "And Leonhard? Did he run again?"

"Through my own devices, I was able to get him to take my competency test. However, he only scored one point and that point was for his name."

Helena visibly winced.

"After that, yes, he did run off on horseback. I managed to catch up with him."

"You…you caught up with Leonhard?"

"Yes, Your Highness, that was why I was not in the palace earlier. And I convinced him to at least attempt his studies. We will have to see how it goes from here."

"I'm amazed, Professor. Not just that you caught him, but that you got him to attempt to take studying seriously."

"I heard from the other princes that he has had a tough history dealing with tutors."

Helena sighed. "It's not so much that he hates tutors, it's more that he's afraid of them. My brothers can tell you about what his first tutor was like, but only I can tell you about what I saw…"

Helena was just about to finish reading her book and turn out the lights when there was a soft knock on her door.

"Yes, who is it?"

The door opened a crack, and six-year-old Leonhard poked his head through. "Helena?"

"Leo, come in. Are you all right?"

Leonhard came inside the room and shut the door behind him. "I just finished studying."

"Have you been studying all this time?"

The young boy nodded his head, tears filling his eyes and threatening to spill down his cheeks. Though judging from the redness of his face, he had already been crying for some time.

Helena's brow furrowed when she caught a glimpse of Leonhard's hands. "Leo, let me see your hands."

Leonhard quickly put his hands behind his back.

"Leonhard."

Her younger brother winced at the use of his full name in such a stern tone by his normally sweet sister and slowly put his hands into her awaiting palms. He tensed up, afraid that she was going to berate him just like the scary tutor did and blame him for the state his hands were in.

Helena's breath hitched in her throat when she saw his knuckles. They were completely torn up. "What happened to you?"

"I…I didn't know the answers quick enough."

"Wait a minute, the tutor did this to you?"

Leonhard nodded shamefully. "Are you mad at me?"

"Of course not." The mere idea that her younger brother thought she would be mad at him for this kind of abuse made her heart ache.

"Can I stay in here with you?"

Helena's heart then broke at the sheer pain she heard in her brother's voice. "Come here."

She held her hand out for him, and he climbed up into the bed next to her. She wrapped her arms around him protectively and gently ran her hand through his blond hair.

"I promise that no one will hurt you while you're here with me."

Helena rocked him back and forth as she comfortingly stroked his hair.

It wasn't very long before he fell asleep in her arms.

Another soft knock on the door alerted her to someone else's presence. She looked up to find her father walking in. "Helena, what are you still doing up?"

She quickly put her finger to her lips so that he didn't wake her younger brother.

"What is Leonhard doing in here?" he asked quietly.

Helena frowned. "Look at this." She gently held the boy's hand up so that their father could see the damage done to his tiny fingers. "The tutor did this to him. There's a difference between incentive and downright cruelty."

Viktor frowned deeply. "I will speak with him about this."

Helena knew that tone. The tutor wasn't going to be working in the palace much longer.

Viktor gently took Leonhard out of Helena's arms without waking him. "I'll put him to bed. Get some sleep, Helena."

"Good night then."

Heine sighed quietly as Helena finished relaying her story. It became much clearer why Leonhard so detested tutors.

"I had never seen such scratched and bleeding knuckles before," she explained. "I can't remember a time I've felt angrier. That is why I started meeting with all the new tutors." She looked up at him almost pleadingly. "Please, Professor, whatever methods you use, I must ask that you don't put him through something like that again."

Heine calmly took his teaching stick out of his robes. "This is my teacher's pointer, Your Highness. It is a teaching tool. It is never meant to be used for violence of any kind. You have my word that nothing like the incident with Prince Leonhard shall ever happen under my watch."

Helena's smile returned. "I'm very glad to hear it. You may return to your quarters now. I'm sorry to have kept you from your sleep."

"Not at all, Your Highness."

"Professor? One more thing. I know that I do not need a tutor and that Bruno is intellectually more on your level. But every now and then, I wouldn't mind getting to converse with you about various subjects. When confined to a bed, what else is there to do but read and study? I am familiar with many things you may teach on and would quite enjoy the opportunity to discuss them with someone who knows what I'm talking about."

Heine bowed again. "It would be an honor, Your Highness."