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Part II
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The princess' staff were stunned by the soaked state of their sovereign when they stumbled upon her at last.
"Your Highness!" they cried in unison. As one, they swarmed to check her for injuries.
"I'm fine," she stated, waving them away as she dismounted. "Please, don't fuss over me."
The princess' lady-in-waiting came rushing forward, patting her down and feeling around her head.
"Rose," said the princess sternly. "I said I'm fine. What are you doing?"
Rose's fingers closed over a tiara pinned among the wet tangles. "Oh, thank God," she breathed, relieved. "It's still there."
"I am altogether affronted and amused at your choice in concern," said the princess.
"Oh, you are always fine, Highness," said Rose. "Whether it is because you are blessed with good luck or that God simply favors you, I don't know; but I do wish He would show the same favor towards your wardrobe, seeing as how I am in charge of it."
"Well," laughed the princess, "You pin this thing so tightly to my head that it manages to stay put, even when I dive into a lake."
The lady-in-waiting stared her down. "You did what now?"
"Never mind that," said the princess hurriedly, avoiding the other maiden's disapproving gaze. "There are more important matters to attend to. Ahem," She raised her voice so that the rest of her retinue may hear, "This is a royal command. We are to remain in the area for a few days. Sir Michael," she turned to the captain of the guard, "Please find the nearest inn for us to stay in, for the time being."
The captain bowed. "Yes, Your Highness."
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An hour later, within a room at the inn, the princess related to her lady-in-waiting the story of how she had met the light prince, and how she desired to help him find his lost gravity. Rose found the whole matter rather suspicious.
"Your Highness—Christine," she began (having grown up together, they dropped all formalities when out of the public eye), "This is not like one of those beggars or cripples that you always sneak into the palace and nurse back to health. This prince has a curse that knows no cure. And besides…what about the other prince whom your father has sent you to meet?"
The princess was nonchalant. "What of him?"
"What would the king think of you delaying your meeting with him?"
The princess shrugged.
Rose inquired next, "Who is the prince whom you are meant to meet, anyway?"
The princess shrugged again.
"What! You don't know?"
"What of it? You don't know either," retorted the princess.
"I am merely your lady-in-waiting," protested Rose. "I simply follow orders."
"Yes, and I am merely the daughter of a king. I simply follow his orders."
Rose threw up her hands. "How do we even know where we are going?!"
"That is the captain-of-the-guard's job."
"But surely the king would have told you, if you asked," insisted Rose.
"I suppose. I trust my father's judgment though, so I felt no need to ask unnecessary questions."
Rose scrutinized the princess. "You simply didn't care, did you?" she concluded. "Never once have you cared about princes or political alliances, not even when they came riding into the kingdom offering lands and gold for your hand in marriage."
"I leave it up to my father whom I shall marry."
"Because you don't care," Rose persisted.
"Perhaps," the princess admitted begrudgingly.
Her lady-in-waiting smiled. "So why is it, then," she began, a gleam in her eye, "That you are suddenly so interested in a prince now?"
The princess paused. "That is different," she asserted at last.
"Is it?"
"Do you know any other prince who can be tossed about by the wind?" she asked dryly.
"I do not see how that makes him more appealing than the others."
"I didn't say it did."
"And yet," said Rose, "No other prince has moved in you the desire to come to his aid."
"Because no other prince has ever needed any aid," the princess pointed out. "All they ever wanted was to impress and charm and win me over. But Prince Haruka does not. He does not care to."
Rose lifted an eyebrow. "And that is a good thing, how?"
"It shows true sincerity."
"It shows apathy!" cried Rose. She sighed and shook her head. "How you always see good in others when there is none to see, I shall never know. But," she added with resignation, "I suppose it is befitting a princess."
Rose knew, from experience, that there was no talking Her Highness out of helping another human being once she had made up her mind to do so.
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The next day, after swearing Rose to secrecy, the princess quietly stole away from the inn and returned to the lake, where she found the prince already floating about in the center of the water. She thought about waving and calling out to him, except that his courtiers were not too far off on the other shore, and would surely notice her. Not keen on attracting their attention, she decided, instead, to take a slightly more subtle route. So she began to softly sing a tune that her old nurse used to sing to her, and this is what she sang:
"Man with hair as black as night,
Find, within your heart, a light;
Open up your spirit's eyes,
Lest your soul and spirit dies.
Eyes to see and ears to hear
Are what you'll need to shed a tear
Of living waters that renew
Your heart, and give you life anew."
Before she had finished her song, the prince had swum up to the bank where she was sitting atop of. His ears had led him truly.
"Hello, prince!" the princess called down cheerfully. "Would you like a fall?"
"There you are," he called back up in a monotone voice. "I was wondering how long you would take. Yes, if you please, princess."
"How did you know I was a princess?" she asked, surprised.
"You have the disposition befitting a princess," the prince answered vaguely.
"What do you mean by that?"
Prince Haruka looked askance and mumbled something.
She strained to hear him. "What?"
"I said," the prince repeated, slightly more loudly, "You're very kind." He paused, then added, "That, and the tiara on your head yesterday gave it away."
The princess' cheeks heated up. "Ah. Yes, that. I'd quite forgotten about it."
The prince glanced at her then. "You are not wearing it today."
"Right, well, yesterday I had not been expecting to jump off a cliff and into a lake. I am better prepared today."
"I see."
There was a beat of silence.
"Well then," said the princess at last, "Come on up, Your Highness."
"I require assistance, lest we have a similar mishap as yesterday," said the prince, and then, as an afterthought, added tonelessly, "If you please, princess."
She seemed to consider him for a moment. At last, she leaned downwards and reached an arm out to him. "Call me Christine," she told him. "That is my name, by the way. Seeing as how I already know yours."
He met her eyes with a blank stare but said nothing; simply reached up and took her hand to pull himself onto the rock.
Within moments they had ventured to a higher vantage point and leaped from it into the water together. The splash they made was tremendous, and their swim stupendous. Several times they swam back to the bank and climbed atop the rock, to jump into the water once more.
The third time around, Princess Christine made the prince pause before they jumped.
"Pay attention to how it feels to fall," she instructed him.
He gave her a strange look. "Why?"
"You would like to learn how, yes?" said she. "Perhaps, if you understood it better, you would be able to."
Prince Haruka looked doubtful but did not protest. This time, as they fell into the water, he closed his eyes in concentration.
When they resurfaced, he turned to her and said flatly, "It felt like going up."
"…I see," said the princess.
In truth, the only thing she could see was that this was going to be difficult.
"How is it," he continued, almost accusatorily, "That what you call 'falling down' actually feels like 'going up'?"
The princess thought about this for a moment. "Well," she began, "I suppose it must be the sensation of flying that you feel in your spirit."
The prince simply stared at her unblinkingly, not understanding.
"It is like..." the princess floundered for an example, "Like love. They say that you 'fall' in love, when in fact it feels like you are floating, flying; because of the joy that you feel in your heart."
The prince only looked more confused.
The princess sighed. Clearly, Prince Haruka could understand falling neither literally nor figuratively.
"Never mind," she told him. "We shall try it again later. For now, let us have a swim."
The prince did not have to be told twice; and in a flash, he had dove down deep into the water. The princess smiled a small smile and, shaking her head, swam after him.
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And so, day after day they met, and swam about in the clear lake. The princess was rather surprised that Sir Michael did not put up a fight over continuing their journey; but she was a princess after all, and had employed her most royal tone of voice when commanding him that they would be staying just a bit longer. For whatever reason, the captain of the guard simply obeyed without a word of protest, for which the princess was grateful. Never before had she had such fun and, frankly, she wanted it to last forever. Nor had she ever felt so free; for with any other prince whom she had held court with, it was always a tedious affair of social etiquette and forced charm. Not so with Prince Haruka, who spoke little and, when he did speak, did so concisely and without pretense. Princess Christine found this refreshing, like a cup of cool water on a hot summer's day. And how she enjoyed falling in with him, too! Why, it positively felt like flying, each and every time. So much did she enjoy her time with the prince, that she often fancied she was swimming in the sky instead of in the lake.
"I feel like this is a taste of heaven on earth!" she laughed to him one time.
At this, he had only looked dreadfully confused.
Sometimes, she thought that perhaps he knew what she was talking about, but simply didn't realize it. When the moon was high in the sky, one of his great delights, which she joined him in, was to dive deep into the water, and then, turning around, look up at the great orb of light above, shining and radiant through the clear lens of blue. Together, they would shoot up through the water; and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and bright, and very lovely, set in a sea of stars.
"It's at the bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than ours," said the princess one time.
The prince considered her for a moment. "And is that what you are always calling 'heaven'?" he inquired.
She looked at him and smiled. "Oh, I suspect that's much farther off than the bottom of the sky; and yet, at the same time, closer than the top of the ground."
The prince glared at her. "You confuse me, princess," he told her bluntly.
"I am happy to return the compliment, dear prince," quipped she.
And indeed, she did find the prince confusing; for in the water he was very much like other people, at least in terms of gravity. And besides this, he was not so empty of emotion as he was on shore; for he would express delight in their swims, despair over his condition, and even deference towards her. Perhaps what confused the princess most was the increased lightheartedness she felt in his company. This would not have been so odd an occurrence (as Princess Christine was generally joyful already), except that the feeling was accompanied by one of lightheadedness, too. She wondered if she was beginning to be infected by the prince's peculiar condition, and that it started on your insides first.
Finally, after a week and a half (which was triple the amount of time she had intended to stay), and many knowing looks thrown at her by Rose, the princess caught on to something. It didn't just feel like flying whenever she fell in with the prince…it felt like flying every single moment that she was with him.
"Haru," she said one day (at some point she had begun calling him by nickname and, although he looked rather affronted at first, he had made no protest, so she saw no reason to discontinue), "Do you know what it is to love?"
He gave her a look wavering between bafflement and disgust. "I am sure I do not know," he said, after an uncomfortable pause.
"But you must," she insisted. "For surely that is what you feel when you are in the water."
He made no reply; simply stared stubbornly at her.
Perhaps it was the lightheadedness that he made her feel, but for whatever reason, the princess felt emboldened to say next, "And that is what I feel when I am in the water…with you."
Mayhaps the prince recognized this as a confession of love, and mayhaps he didn't; but if he did, then it is a sure thing that he pretended he didn't. For all he did in response was stare at her some more in blank uncomprehension. But then, after a moment, he looked puzzled, as if he were trying to understand something.
"If you know," he said, "Then tell me, what is it to love?"
"Well, it—it is when…" the princess stammered, then stopped to think for a moment. "It is when you care for something, or someone very much," she said at last. "So much so that you feel like you would do anything for them…even exchange your life for theirs."
The prince seemed perturbed by the idea. "Who on earth would do such a thing?"
The princess wanted to say, I would, but was starting to get the sinking suspicion that it would be an unwelcome statement. So instead, she said, "I've heard that God once came to earth as a man, to die for us, because He loved us."
Prince Haruka looked utterly unmoved. "Why would God do something so foolish?" he asked.
The poor princess just looked at him at him sadly. "I suppose it's because, for whatever reason, He found us worth dying for."
The prince made an expression of extreme distaste. "That sounds like madness."
"Perhaps it is," she replied resignedly. "Never mind that, then; shall we carry on swimming?"
In reply, the prince simply swam off and away from her without a word or second thought. She sighed a small sigh and, as always, followed after him.
.
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Now, I should think I have made it quite clear by now how fond the prince was of his precious lake. So imagine his consternation when, diving with the princess the next day, a sudden suspicion seized him that the lake was not as deep as it used to be. He shot to the surface and, without a word, swam full speed towards the deeper end of the lake. The princess followed, begging to know if he was ill, or if something was the matter. But he neither turned his head nor took the smallest notice of her. Arriving at the shore, he made an intense scrutiny of the water level along the rocks. But he was unable to come to a conclusion, for dusk was approaching, and so he could not see well. He turned therefore and swam home, without saying a word to explain his conduct to the princess, of whose presence he seemed no longer aware of. She thus withdrew to the inn that night in great perplexity and distress; thinking that perhaps her talk of love the day before had caused some alarm in him (as talks of love are apt to do in most young men).
The next day the prince did not rejoin the princess at her side of the lake; but instead swam about on his own to make some more observations, which, alas, strengthened his suspicions. He saw that the banks were more dry than usual; and that the grass on the shore and the plants on the rocks were withering away. He made marks along the borders and examined them, day after day (during which he seemed to have all but forgotten about the poor princess); until at last the odious notion became an absolute fact—that the surface of the lake was slowly sinking.
The prince nearly went out of what little mind he had. It was unthinkable to him that the lake, which he cherished more than any living thing, should lay dying before his very eyes. Yet there it sank, slowly vanishing. The tops of rocks, which had never been seen until now, began to appear above the water. Before long they, too, were dry in the sun. The prince could bear to swim no longer, and shut himself away in his chambers, refusing food or drink. His very life seemed bound to the lake; even as it sank, so too did he pine away. People said he would not live an hour after the lake was gone.
But he never cried.
His parents, deeply concerned, made a proclamation that whosoever could bring a stop to the lake's decrease would be rewarded handsomely. Nagisa and Rei applied themselves to their theorizing and hypothesizing, but all in vain. Not even they could reverse the disappearing of the water.
Of course, the Duke Rin was at the root of this mischief. Now a young man, the duke still held onto his childhood resentments. When he heard that his cousin found more happiness in the water than anyone else out of it, he fell into a dark mood and cursed himself for his lack of foresight. For Rin himself had been fond of water since childhood; hence his affinity for using it in spells. Had he known that his use of water in conveying the curse would enhance the prince's own abilities in water; why, then, he would have re-thought his whole plan! But it was too late now, and the duke, still as prone to irrational tantrums as ever, promptly decided that, if he could not enjoy the water for himself alone, then no one could.
"The king and the people shall die of thirst," said he, "And that twit of a princeling shall dry up into a husk before I lose my revenge."
Then he enacted a terrible curse, the process of which I shall not relay here, for it is not something little children should know. But this curse began the process of draining dry the lake; and not only that, but every stream in the country ceased to ebb and flow, and began to fade away like the last breaths of a dying man. Within days there was no sound of falling water to be heard along the borders of the lake. All the springs and rivers went dry. What were once cascading waterfalls turned into barren mountainsides. And not only had the fountains of Mother Earth ceased to flow, but also those of her inhabitants; for all the babies throughout the kingdom were crying dreadfully—only without tears.
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Never since the night when the prince left her so abruptly had the princess been able to meet with him again. She had seen him once or twice more from afar; but each time he had swum about frantically on the far side of the lake, observing the water levels, and all but ignoring her from where she waited on the opposite bank. She had sat and sang, and waited for him in vain. Now, he had ceased appearing altogether. Like the fish in the lake, he was wasting away with the water; sinking as it sank, withering as it dried.
When at last the princess noticed the change that was taking place in the level of the water, she was greatly alarmed and perplexed. She was not sure whether the lake was dying because the prince had forsaken it; or whether the prince would not come because the lake had begun to sink. But she resolved to find out.
So she disguised herself in simple attire and, going to the palace, acquired for herself a position there as a maid. Specifically, she requested the task of cleaning a section of the palace which just so happened to include the prince's chambers. This was rather cunning of her too, as the prince, being so light on his feet, couldn't possibly leave much dirt on the floors for her to clean.
She did not alert Rose or her courtiers to her course of action, as she was sure that they would try and prevent her from taking it. Soon, she came to learn that the prince's disappearance was directly linked to the disappearance of the water. So, on the days that she was not charged with cleaning, she roamed about the lake, searching every depth that remained in order to find if there was any source to its leakage. But, never coming across anything, all she could do was put extra polish on the floor of the prince's outer chambers, in which he never set foot anymore.
For the prince kept to his room, with the curtains drawn to shut out the dying lake. It haunted his mind day and night so that he felt as if the lake were his soul, drying up within him, first to mud, then to madness and death. He thus brooded over the disappearing water until he was nearly at the end of his sanity. As for the princess, he had very much forgotten about her. However much he may have enjoyed her company in the water, he did not care for her without it.
The princess, meanwhile, befriended the prince's personal guard, Makoto, and learned all that could be told about the prince. She sought out the two young metaphysicians also, for their wisdom and counsel on the subject. At length she began to develop a sneaking suspicion as to the source of the sinking water.
"Makoto," she said to the young guard one day, as she was polishing the floors, "Tell it to me again—there is a rumor that the reclusive Duke Rin is the one who cursed the prince…is there not?"
"I have told you many times to call me Mako, Christine," replied the guard (and in the future, whenever he would think back on how he had unknowingly addressed the princess with such informality, he would feel awfully abashed). "And yes, there is such a rumor. I remember as a young boy, at the prince's christening, that the duke's behavior was exceptionally questionable."
"So then," continued the princess, "Does it not stand to reason that he may have also cursed the lake?"
"Oh-ho!" cried a voice from nearby that made both of them jump. "The maid has the mind for a metaphysician!"
Around the corner and into the hallway skipped Nagisa, closely followed by a stern looking Rei.
"Her theory holds value," Rei acknowledged begrudgingly, "But, a mere mind does not a metaphysician make."
"Well, that's good," giggled the golden-haired young man, "Since you hold the position of the latter, though you sometimes seem to lack the former."
"Nagisa, Rei," said the princess hurriedly, cutting of any ensuing argument, "You must tell me how I can find this duke."
"What?" exclaimed Rei. "What on earth for?"
"Someone must try and reason with him."
"The maid is mad," Rei muttered.
"Christine-chan, no one dares seek out the duke," explained Nagisa. "The combination of a gift for magic and a bad temper makes his company less than desirable."
"No one can reason with him," concluded Rei.
"Someone must try," insisted Christine.
Makoto, meanwhile, had been observing the maid-disguised-princess with quiet contemplation. "Why are you so insistent on helping His Highness?" he asked her.
"He is our prince," she stated matter-of-factly. "And we his servants. Is it not our duty to do whatsoever we can, for his sake?"
"And for the reward?" inquired Makoto.
"Bollocks to the reward!" cried the princess, in an uncharacteristic fit of passion. "What wisdom is there in wealth without water? The prince wastes away with woe—and the people thirst from famine," she added quickly, so as to not make her affection for the prince so obvious.
The guard considered her for a moment longer. "I shall take you to the duke," he told her at last.
"What? Mako-chan!" cried Nagisa, aghast. "You can't!"
"And let the maiden go alone?" replied Makoto, turning to the shorter boy. "If nothing else, then I must ensure her safety. But I, too, wish to help the prince."
"It isn't her safety alone that you should be worried about," Rei cut in dryly. "The duke could very well curse the both of you."
"Then come with us," the princess pleaded. "Both of you."
"I fail to see the logical transition between my warning and your request, lady," said Rei flatly. "We are not as keen on being bewitched as you apparently are."
"But surely your wisdom could aid us," pointed out the princess. "You must know some way to counteract his charms, if need be…don't you?"
Rei's pride having been baited, he abruptly erupted into pompous laughter. "Ah-ha! The maiden must be aware of the score of arcane volumes within our college library! Of course, the only one who could make any sense of them is a highly learned scholar such as myself—"
"And every other member of the college of metaphysicians," added Nagisa wryly.
"To which I humbly accept the assignment of saving our sovereign heir," finished Rei, ignoring the other boy.
"Your books will tell you how to deter the duke's dark arts?" questioned Makoto.
"I recall a section in the library regarding that subject," said Nagisa. "I suppose we could peruse it and discover something."
The princess, overcome with gratitude, hugged both the metaphysicians; to which one responded jubilantly and the other uncomfortably. I shall let the reader decide who did which.
"Thank you," she said upon releasing them from her embrace. "Then, at the soonest opportunity, let us seek out this Duke Rin."
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A/N: This is going to be a three-part story, so the next installment will be the final one. Thank you all for reading so far!
