- Roused

- Chapter 021

~ Finding the Princess

"Good. Well, back to the story. You found the glowing dream girl in the forest by following your own boots" prompted Flynn, giving the stew over the fire a stir.

"Yeah," Phillip had a look on his face that shouted, 'this story is so nuts.'

"Ah, yes, well, I had to find out who this girl was. I came up behind them and replaced her animal friends with myself and danced with her and sang with her. This, of course, scared her. I could tell she wanted to run away, but I held her hand and spoke gently to her and began to sing to her to calm her."

"For a moment everything was perfect; we were singing and dancing together, we ended up leaning on a tree, looking at the castle and I asked her name, as casually as I could, so as not to frighten her. Well, that broke the moment and she panicked and ran. Saying we could never meet again."

"That almost panicked me. I had to be with her, marry her; be with her forever. I pressed that we could meet again tomorrow. And she said that we could meet that evening, in the cottage in the glen."

Phillip frowned again and looked at Eugene.

"Tell me that isn't another one, from 'we can never meet again' to 'come to my house tonight' in one sentence?"

Eugene opens his mouth, but Phillip waves off what he was going to say.

"Okay, the cottage in the glen. Which wasn't exactly specific enough for me to find her. She picked up her shawl and berry basket and ran off into the forest with those animals all around her. I watched and followed her slowly and she was following a straight course, I figured out which direction she was going. She was also barefoot and there were tracks I could follow."

"I was so happy, I could meet her again that night, before Aurora came home maybe. I rode home to tell Father that I found the woman I was going to marry."

"I thought you were going to marry Aurora," interjects Eugene.

"So did I. But this woman was the woman I should marry. I knew that. It was brave, it was foolish, it was rash, it didn't even make sense, but it was the right thing to do. I didn't want to disrupt the kingdoms. The whole point of our betrothal was to help make King Stefan's kingdom safer. They had been living under the shadow of Maleficent for decades, ever since she took over the mountain in the chaos after the earthquake. I rode back to the castle and told my father, he wasn't happy about it."

"I could imagine," says Eugene.

"Heh. He tried to throw away his crown. Then I turned around and rode back to the forest and followed her tracks to the cottage, and right into Maleficent's trap. I tried to fight off about a dozen goons, but that's too many, unarmed. Then Maleficent appeared, and she was …expecting a peasant," finished Phillip slowly.

"That's another one. She was expecting a peasant and bagged a prince. She was happy, and I was angry, but it was something neither of us was expecting. Whatever's going on was powerful enough to effect even her without her noticing."

"I've been keeping a low profile. That's why I was in disguise for the ride in the forest. I've been moving throughout Europa for years hiding from Maleficent. I was the key to breaking the curse if the fairies failed. We know Maleficent isn't always at the Forbidden Mountain, though where she goes isn't known. Goons can't go everywhere and while those are the only minions we've seen besides the bird, there is no reason for her not to have one or two human minions for searching for me. She knew about the betrothal and me. We had to assume she was looking for me too. I've had to cut and run several times when odd things started happening around me. I was Aurora's last line of defense."

Eugene whistled, then frowned.

"Wait. I thought you said that Maleficent said that she was expecting a peasant and bagged a prince?" asked Eugene.

"Yeah," replied Phillip, his eyes narrowing.

"Wouldn't that mean she wasn't trying to capture you, Prince Phillip, but someone else, who was just a peasant."

Phillip was rubbing his head, it was beginning to ache again. "Okay. Let's see. What pieces do we have to this puzzle? I was expecting to find the peasant girl and her family, but found Maleficent. Maleficent was expecting a peasant but found me, a prince. The peasant girl was Aurora and her family must have been the three good fairies. They must have run when they learned that I knew where they were. To keep Aurora safe from me they ran right into Maleficent's arms. She must have learned that Aurora had fallen in love with a peasant, when she accomplished the curse. Then she came to pick him, me, up on the way back to make sure that the curse couldn't be broken. She just wanted to capture whoever was her true love, who everyone apparently thought was a peasant, but just happened to be me. I should have listened to Samson." Phillip shook his head with a sigh.

"Samson?" asked Eugene.

"My horse. He's pretty smart. Right now, I think he's smarter then me. He just wanted to keep riding." Phillip said wearily.

"I know the feeling, Maximus is really smart too. He helps me a lot."

Phillip got up and began to pace, the fire reflecting off of his scratched armor. But he was beginning to sound very serious.

"Back to the story. They dragged me and Samson to the Forbidden Mountain, showing me off to the mob of goons she had, and announced the successful cursing of Aurora. That hurt a lot. All that hiding, all that work; all for naught."

"So here I was surrounded by goons, in the throne room of Maleficent. I needed to escape and find Aurora and hopefully break the spell. Then find the peasant girl I wanted to marry, I was very concerned for her. The cottage looked more messed up then just from the fight so I was hoping she got away from Maleficent. I was hoping she would make her way back to the cottage or the castle or something."

"Then she threw me in the dungeon herself, magically closing the chains on my wrists and ankles. She came back later and tormented me with a fairy tale version of what she was going to do to us." Phillip looked very serious.

"Oh, boy." Eugene said worriedly.

Phillip continued grimly, "Maleficent said that the princess was the peasant girl, but I thought that was a lie. She is the Mistress of All Evil after all. She would keep me in the dungeon growing old for a 100 years and then let me go to wake the un-aged princess and show the power of true love. I'd learned a few things about torture and cruelty in my studies, but that was the worst thing I'd ever encountered. She left me to brood on that. I don't really want to go into the thoughts I had then."

Phillip put his hands on his hips, "And then the good fairies came and broke me out. This is another one. I was surprised. We had gathered as much information about magic, Maleficent and the good fairies as we could, all of this second hand because we couldn't talk to them directly. The good fairies had never confronted Maleficent in any way, at best they have tried to mitigate the effects of her magic."

"Like they did with Aurora. Maleficent has destroyed a lot of what the good fairies have tried to do to help people. But now the good fairies are suddenly brave enough to go into the depths of Maleficent's lair to rescue me. They used magic in combat, too. They had told King Stefan they couldn't do that." Phillip frowned.

Eugene frowned too. Having an army backed by magic, even a little bit of magic would make them formidable. Even evil magic users stayed away from that, the slaughter of people with magic and armies would be terrible and could destroy everything. Even if evil won there would be no one to rule or worse, gloat to.

"They turned arrows into flowers, boulders into bubbles, and blocked boiling oil and made bridges with rainbows. I had to chop my way through the thorns, but even then they kept the thorns off of me so I could do it. When Maleficent came herself and turned into a dragon; they enchanted my sword again so I could finally kill her."

"Then the land restored itself from the damage Maleficent's spells had done. They healed me, which was wonderful; I was exhausted, and hurting. I think I may have to upgrade my training." Phillip finished grimly.

"Oh, you're expecting to go up against a dragon again," quipped Flynn.

"No, something worse." said Phillip seriously.

"I was kidding." Eugene looked shocked.

"I'm not. I am getting the feeling that there is something much bigger going on here then Maleficent's curse, and maybe even this war with the goons. Anyway, I ran up the tower stairs. Trust Maleficent to make it just that much harder to save the princess." Phillip rolled his eyes.

"I was surprised that Aurora actually was the peasant girl from the forest. I figured it a lie to torment me more, but Maleficent had actually told the truth. I didn't think that was possible. I kissed her, she woke up and so did everyone else. Which was good, I didn't fancy kissing everyone to wake them up, especially our parents."

Eugene shared in the joke. "So, what's the problem? Ding-dong, the witch is dead, the princess is safe, all you have left to do is to mop up the goons, and get married."

Phillip sat by the fire again. "It isn't that simple anymore. Aurora is in trouble or you wouldn't be here. We're also losing this war."

- End of Chapter 021

Author's Note: I thought it was hard enough to see Sleeping Beauty from Aurora's point of view, but trying to make sense of what Phillip was doing was even harder. The audience knows all of what is going on so it looks so romantic and wonderful. But from his point of view? Not so much.