A/N: Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews; they were a blessed relief from the revision. I'm sorry if I didn't get back to you, but every review counted and lifted my day. I'm back to normal now (as normal as ever, anyway). Thank you.

Chapter 10: Questions and Answers

"So how did the lunch go?"

"Terribly," Baron replied simply. He had visited Lune's room, just so he had some company after the disastrous meal. "Princess Haru did turn up, but she was late, and had quite obviously been crying. She ate a few bites, then when Hiromi tried to persuade her to show me round the gardens, she just left."

"Yep, sounds pretty bad."

Baron picked up the absence of any previous malice which had been brewing ever since he'd walked out to find the library. "You seem to be in a good mood," he noted. "Did you get a visitor or something?"

"What makes you ask that?"

Baron nodded. "Thought so. You did get a visitor. Was it that nice maid?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hm, of course you don't."

"Honestly, you are so nosy."

"Well, are you going to come clean about it? Was it that maid?"

Lune paused. "Her name is Yuki."

Baron grinned, being proved correct. "That's a pretty name. Oh, don't pretend that you're not attracted to her. She's a nice girl."

"I don't even know her that well."

"Well, get to know her then."

"How?"

Baron smiled. "You're smart. You'll think of something."

"Thanks, because that helps."

"Alright then, I suggest you have lunch with her. By the sound of it, every lunch she comes round and cleans the rooms. Instead of coming down to lunch, stay in your room and when she arrives, ask her if she wants to have lunch with you. If anything it'll give you a chance to talk."

"Are you going to follow your own advice?"

"What do you mean by that?"

Lune raised an eyebrow. "I think you were just a little too quick to accept the fact that we were stuck here for three days. Who is it? Is it the fairy?"

Baron shook his head.

Lune's eyes widened. "The princess? Oh, please don't tell me you've fallen for her."

"What's wrong with her?" demanded Baron defensively.

"One, she's above your station. Do you think her mother would be pleased if her only daughter fell for a baron?"

"At least I own land. Plus I have very good connections with the heir to another thrown. And her mother is very nice. I don't think she'd be too bothered about it, as long as Haru was happy."

"Two, she doesn't even like you."

"No, she's being frosty with everyone, if you hadn't noticed."

"From your stories, it seems she's purposely avoiding you."

Baron paused, knowing it to be true.

"And three, she's a total nutcase!"

"She is not!"

"She. Has. Problems!"

"So would you if you'd been through the same as her!"

"What do you see in her?"

Baron thought for a moment, remembering the girl he'd seen in his dreams. The one who'd smiled and laughed. "I see the girl that she used to be. I see the one she could be."

"What makes you think that she'll ever be who she was before? People change."

He looked fully over at his friend. "I want to see her laugh again. She hasn't laughed properly in a long time, and when she does laugh, she's... beautiful and... amazing."

Lune had an expression that was either disbelief or astonishment on his face – Baron couldn't quite tell. "Baron... are you smitten?" he asked, doubtfully.

"No... I just believe that there's another layer to the princess that I can uncover. Anyway, as you said, even if I did like her in that way, there would be no chance of anything between us. I just wish she'd stop putting her barriers back up every time anyone got close to her."

The next day, the princess didn't turn up for lunch at all, which Baron wasn't entirely sure whether he was relieved after yesterday's disaster or disappointed, but he spent the meal refining his small talk with the other occupants at the table quite happily. Lune followed Baron's suggestion and had stayed in his room, in the hope of catching another moment to talk to the maid, so Baron didn't have a friend to back him up, although he found Machida's mother, Rei, to have a quick wit and easy-going humour, making her a relaxed companion.

"Oh, Haru was always having klutz attacks," Rei laughed, halfway through one of her stories of when the princess was young. "Graceful as a butterfly when she was dancing, but take the rhythm away and she's stumbling over air!"

The queen smiled at the shared memory, of simpler times, of times when her daughter still laughed. "We always used to say 'If only she'd been blessed with grace.'"

"And she always used to reply, 'Yes, but instead I was blessed with beauty and song,'" joined in Hiromi.

"What exactly is this thing with the blessings?" asked Baron. "I've heard people refer to them, and I know it's got something to do with the curse, but no one's actually told me what it is."

"It starts with Haru's christening," explained Naoko. "In our day, when a prince or princess had been born, we'd invite the four christening fairies to the christening. And each of the fairies would bless the young royal with their certain gift. Generally, Masami gives beauty, Sora gives wit, Hiromi gives kindness and Kotone gives the blessing of song."

Baron glanced over at the lilac fairy. "I didn't know you were a christening fairy."

Hiromi sort of shrugged, as if it was no big deal when in fact it was. "I suppose I'm not really anymore. That was the last christening I went to. Since then, belief in fairies even in general has degraded. The other fairies haven't received another invitation either. People just don't believe in magic the same way, and so I haven't blessed another child since Haru. Was Lune blessed?"

"No... Before now I've never heard of a christening fairy. I was just surprised that you were a specific fairy."

"I stayed here because Naoko said I'd be welcome and because I could tell even then that people were beginning to wane in belief in us. I didn't quite imagine that it'd be to this extreme and that Haru's christening would be the last I went to."

"Can you bless other children apart from royalty?" said Baron, curious.

"Yes, I suppose so. Originally, it was always royalty, because it was expected to be only for the most important, and because there are certain rules to our magic, but if we were invited, I expect there would be nothing to stop us. Maybe the magic wouldn't be quite as strong, but I don't know."

"We invited all the fairies we could gain contact of – that was Hiromi, Masami and Kotone," continued the redhead queen. "However, the last one – Sora – hadn't been seen for fifty years, and so we failed to get an invitation to her. Unfortunately, she took it as an insult and... well cursed Haru for it."

"She cursed for Haru to prick her finger before her eighteenth birthday and die," filled in Rei. "Masami and Kotone had already blessed Haru, but Hiromi still had her blessing left, so she used hers to soften Sora's spell." She smiled over at the fairy. "We're still very thankful for that."

Hiromi waved it away, as she'd done so many times before. "Don't be. I only wish I could've done more."

"What did you do to soften the spell?" Baron questioned.

"You saw. I made it so she didn't die, only fell into a deep sleep that lasted a hundred years, and would be awoken by a prince's kiss. It was the best I could do at such short notice and with such a powerful curse."

"And if you hadn't been there, we wouldn't have Haru today."

"What happened to the other fairy – the one who cursed her?"

The others frowned. Hiromi shrugged and Rei shook her head. "We're not entirely sure," the woman said. "She disappeared after that and no one's seen her since. Probably cursing some other poor child for all we know."

"So... Haru was only blessed by Masami and Kotone? She didn't get the usual blessings from Hiromi and Sora?"

"Yes, which means she only got the blessing of beauty and the blessing of song."

"So her kindness and wit are entirely her own decision?"

Naoko smiled sadly. "You must think that Haru would've been better off if she had been blessed by Hiromi, with the way she's been recently, but before she fell to the curse, she was one of the kindest people I knew."

"No, I feel better knowing that she wasn't blessed to be kind," said Baron earnestly. "If she had, then I would've felt that it wasn't kindness out of her own heart, but out of what she was made to be, and that it was beyond her control. What she does is her choice, and that includes any compassion or anger, and that means that any kindness she does show will have much more meaning behind it."

"You mean it gives her free will," said Rei, interestedly. "I hadn't quite thought of it in that way."

"That kind of thing is important to me."

Naoko nodded. "I'm glad you think so."

Pudding was served out, which was some kind of crumble, and the conversation naturally moved onto the topic of recent news. The residents of the castle had been out of time for a hundred years, and a lot of things had moved on since then. People of their kingdom had drifted away after the castle had disappeared in the tangle of the rose wood which had sprung up after the curse had struck, and had moved to other kingdoms. Their kingdom had been swallowed up into several other kingdoms, after all the royal family had been accounted as missing, presumed dead, leaving Naoko as the queen of a dead kingdom. Naoko took this pretty calmly, nodding as Baron covered everything that he could remember of Lune's kingdom's history, since his kingdom had swallowed most of Naoko's, being the neighbouring one.

"I hadn't expected anything less," said the queen. "We have been gone for a century, by now our very existence would've probably faded into stories and myths. As it apparently has."

"What are you going to do now?"

"We still have enough power to be self sufficient. I expect once the story gets out that a long lost line of royalty has come back, people will begin to return. Some of the other kingdoms might even return some land in the hope of starting a friendship between this kingdom and theirs. How's Lune's kingdom doing?"

"I can't imagine Lune's father will care about improving relationships, unless he can see he'll get something out of it. However, when Lune comes to power, I think he can be persuaded to help you."

Hiromi smirked. "You mean, you think you can persuade him to help you."

"If I remind him that it'd be the right thing to do, and if he's still talking to me by then, then yes, I think I would. Also, by the records, I think quite a bit of your old kingdom is part of Lune's. I'll have to talk this over with him before I can promise anything though."

"Naturally," the queen agreed. "How is he doing? He hasn't been down to any of the meals, is he ill?"

"No, just homesick."

"But you said that you often leave the palace."

"Yes, but he likes to be doing something. Right now he feels like he's stuck here, and he can't stand being stuck in one place. That's why he's travelling so often."

"Do you share his passion of travelling?"

Baron paused at the question. "I enjoy seeing new places," he said first. "Not everyone gets the chances I get, and I appreciate that. I've seen dragons and kelpies and other things I never thought I would."

"But..." added Rei.

"But, sometimes I wish I could just have the chance to relax. It's always one adventure to the next with Lune and although I enjoy it, I do miss home. As I said, I've never quite learnt how to look after my own garden because I've just never found the time."

"You have someone special at home?" Hiromi asked slyly.

"Not exactly," he answered truthfully. "There's Louise, but we're just friends. However she's annoyed that I never get to spend any of my time with her, which is fair, since I spend more time away from home than I do at home."

"What is she like?"

"She's..." Baron looked for the right words to describe the girl. "I think the term 'best friend' would be fair, even though I've got Lune and my other two friends. She doesn't ask me to be anything more than I am, and she's insistent that I don't change for anyone. Which makes her easy to be around. She loves to ride and she knows exactly how to make me smile after a long day. She's confident in her views, and she can be as stubborn as anything sometimes, but she's willing to listen to another side to it as long as she's not forced to accept that view."

"She sounds like a lovely girl," commented Naoko, cutting Hiromi off before she could ask another question. "Is she the reason you miss home?"

Baron was surprised at the directness of the question, but he nodded. "Yes, partly. She's like family to me, especially since my own parents passed away five years ago. But I also miss home just because it's a place I can call my own," he continued before the others could offer their condolences, which he could see they were about to. "I think I would enjoy the quiet life if only I had the chance to."

"Have a quiet life, meet a nice girl, settle down..." listed Hiromi. She grinned. "That sort of thing?"

He looked over at the fairy, wondering what her game was. "Yes, I suppose."

"So Lune has no desire to have a quiet life?" Rei asked, perhaps sensing all the questions on Baron's personal life was unsettling him.

"No, not in the least," he laughed. "Or, at least, he's never given that impression."

"Is he running away from something?"

"In a way, yes. His father is pressuring him to marry, and has been for while now. But Lune has never gotten on with his father anyway, and I think all his travelling has mostly been a way to escape home."

"He's rebelling," said Hiromi flatly. "That's all it is, him rebelling against his father."

Baron sighed. "I think you could be right."