Hah!!! Two chapters in one day! Take that writer's block!!!
Chapter 9
Waiting
"How come their daddies didn't come?" the first little girl wanted to know.
"'Cause Daddies' mommies always stick their noses into the weddings," said another girl. "That's what Mommy says!"
"Did they find the ladies right away?"
"Did they really turn into turtles?"
"I like turtles."
"They bite."
"No they don't!"
"Yes-"
"BE QUIET!" shouted one of the smaller girls furiously. "Keep going with the story, please."
Leonardo strode down the halls of his home.
It had been almost one year since he and his family had been cursed and he had already resigned himself to living for the rest of his life this way. The one who had made them this way had said the spell could be broken, but how could any girl fall in love with someone who looked like him.
He was about six feet tall, with reasonably broad shoulders and a shell that had been torturously heavy the first month. He had left off wearing human clothes as just about everything private seemed to be covered be chest plates – carapace, Donny had called them – and shell and now simply wore a blue mask over his eyes and his twin katanas on his back – shell.
The worst thing about being a turtle – besides the way he looked – was how he could no longer spend very much time outside in the colder temperatures any more. He had loved going out in the snow even as a teenager, admiring the untouched portions of the white powder. Now it looked as though he would never enjoy the snow as much ever again.
Once in a while people would stumble onto the castle, but Master Splinter would always order them to stay out of sight and tell the servants to attend on them for the night and show them to the door in the morning.
Only once had one of their guests ever caught sight of one of them.
A slender girl with long black hair had come across Donatello and had nearly screamed the roof down. Thankfully, her friends and family chalked her terrified ramblings to exhaustion and the nervousness and strangeness of such a magnificent, somber place and being waited on by the elements themselves.
Leo had felt the slightest yearning to follow them when they left, the urge to be around real, normal people again.
But he didn't.
Being a monster kind of put a dampener on those kinds of plans.
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Raphael sat in an empty stable stall where his favorite horse, Faust, had once stood. Once he had changed, no horse would come anywhere near him and after the third time Faust had screamed and kicked at him, he had lost his temper and driven all of the horses out.
He had stood at the gates for an hour after that, already regretting his outburst and wishing that one, just one, would return, showing that they remembered the young man who had ridden them. But no, they saw only a freak.
Physically, Raph had adjusted fairly well to the transformation, the strength he had had as a human apparently was easily translated as a turtle. He had easily gotten used to lugging around a shell and had started wearing a red bandanna mask over his eyes. Mentally and emotionally was a whole other story.
He had been furious when the girl had screamed upon seeing Donny – it wasn't as though they were monsters! They were princes, for God's sake!
The first few weeks he had stormed through the castle, hurling everything within arm's reach at the wall; the fire servants had taken to moving everything rare and valuable – which in a royal castle meant just about everything – away from him as he walked through the halls. While never the calmest or even-tempered of his brothers, he was now only a hair's width away from flying into a rage that rivaled anything he had ever managed before the curse.
He was never entirely sure of how he felt – even on a good day – and couldn't decide if he wanted to be in the same room as his family or not. He had removed every mirror in the castle that he could find, hating to see what he now was – Raph had never been vain by any stretch of the imagination, but it still hurt somewhere in his chest when he saw his reflection and remembered how he had once looked.
As for breaking the curse, there was no chance, there had never been a chance, and there would never be a chance.
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Donatello was even quieter these days.
The transformation had been painful for him but he had pushed through it, choosing a purple mask for himself.
He preferred to spend most of his time in the library or in his workshop just down the hall from his bedroom and the library. There had to be another way to break the curse and he was going to find it.
He often missed dinner and fell asleep in his workshop and the library twice as much as he slept in his own room.
Though he never spoke of the young woman who had screamed at the sight of him, he held the memory of her wide-eyed, horrified face in his heart. It hadn't been so much the screaming he had cared about – Mikey could scream at quadruple that pitch – it had been the sheer repulsion in her eyes.
He was going to find a way out of this. He WAS.
Donny Hamato was going to fix this no matter what it took.
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Michelangelo hummed happily to himself as he backflipped across the training room. His shell was still rather cumbersome and he was still getting used to it.
On the whole, he had fared well. He was not as tall as his brothers – but then again, he never had been – and had decided on an orange mask. The masks had been his idea, why not? They did look pretty cool.
He spent most of his days wandering and wreaking havoc around the castle, something his brothers did not appreciate. Leo was always off meditating, trying to come to terms with the curse. Raph was always in a dangerous mood and ready to go off at the slightest provocation. Donny was grumpy and snappish from staying up all night, trying to find a cure.
Mikey was actually very calm about the whole turtle thing. There was a way out of it and he had faith that something – or someone – would come along and break the spell. He just had to be patient.
And the youngest prince, for all his insanities and eccentricities, was actually a very patient young man.
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King Splinter learned how to walk without the use of the staff and took to wearing robes that covered his body but allowed for easy movement.
Every night he was visited by the mothers of his sons and given a report on their search. So far they had only bad news to give him.
Several months into the curse, he had asked them, "Why aren't your husbands ever with you?"
Leonardo's mother had looked at him in open astonishment. "Since when have men ever been any good at matters of the heart? Beer, yes, but love they don't know anything about until it bites them."
He had left it at that.
Every time a group with a young woman came, he went to bed hoping this would be one, but every time the women told him that the girl wasn't the one.
Another year passed before he finally received the first hint of an appropriate young lady.
Okie-dokie, here's another for you guys. Kindly review!