AN: EDITOR: K. It's been two weeks, babe. What's going on?

ME: Work. Work. Work. Oh! But I signed on for my first apartment and also super hurt my shoulder by sheer stress! You know how my boy Stannis Baratheon grinds his teeth in, like, every other description G.R.R.M writes for him? That's just like me! Except with my shoulder!

EDITOR: You grinded your shoulder?

ME: …I'm on a lot of pain medication right now, dude. Man, he deserves the Iron Throne. I've wanted this since 2013.

EDITOR: He's dead.

ME: SPOILERS

EDITOR: WATCH TV SOMETIME IT'S BEEN A YEAR OF DEATH. EVERYONE IS DEAD. YOU'RE DEAD. I'M DEAD.

ME: FINE BUT I WAS WAITING FOR THE NEXT BOOK

EDITOR: YOU'LL BE WAITING IN YOUR GRAVE

ME: YOU'RE MEAN WHY ARE WE FRIENDS

EDITOR: WHERE IS THE NEXT CHAPTER

ME: OH NO, I've totally been doing that. Here, it's 50 pages.

EDITOR: You wrote 50 pages for one chapter? What the f

ME: Yeah….kind of got carried away.

EDITOR: …Do you think they'll like it?

ME: I twisted everything up again. But I think it's pretty good.

EDITOR: so…there's no bell-

ME: -OKAY SO THERE IS NO BELLE IS THIS CHAPTER BUT AURORA THO

EDITOR: /slaps on #1 Sleeping Beauty Fan pin/ SOLD

ME: OH THANK GOD BECAUSE I AM REALLY TIRED AND AM GOING TO SLEEP NOW

AN#2: Thank you all for being so patient. I hope you enjoyed the conversation I had with my editor, haha. A few housekeeping notes before you dive in:

- the poem quoted in this chapter is from: Le Printemps by Théophile Gautier

- yes, this is 50 pages. My longest chapter yet. I hope that isn't too terrible. ;-;

- yes, Aurora and Prince Philip are in here. I have played with a few details for realism and to give our sleeping beauty a bit more…complexity, as I have with the other princesses.

- I have decided to have Maleficent's body remain in the form of her dragon-self instead of turning into dust A La Mother Gothel for funsies

- I have made a slight tweak to the ending of Sleeping Beauty because I have wanted to play with playboydickAdam(withasecretheartsomewhereinthere) since the beginning of this fic, and am delighted to have it appear here. This change is my taking Philip and Aurora's wedding and postponing it by a few months to recover from her sleeping curse.

- whatever happens, Aurora and Philip are going to be fine, I promise

- Aurora is going to appear in future chapters in a more mature form compared to the other princesses. I've been dying to have young!Adam meet a young!Princess for a long time now. It worked out quite well for the rest of the story that I have laid out. That being said, since this particular chapter obviously takes place about six or seven years before the curse is cast on Adam, this chapter implies the characters involved to be older when we return to the "present" chapters. If Adam was cursed at about age 24 or 25 or so, then spent ten years a beast before Belle broke the spell, then it goes without saying that Aurora and Philip are to have aged as much as Adam (or at least for Adam mentally, if you don't like the idea of an older!Adam). I have also decided to formally make her Queen in those future chapters, because she is totally a Queen B youknowwhatImean?

- finally: thank you for enjoying and I apologize again for the delay!

THE DRAGON'S HEAD OF HER CAPTOR STARED AT AURORA FROM THE CENTER OF THE TABLE. It had been over two months since her daring rescue and introduction back into her parents' kingdom, hidden deep within castle Poperinge, and yet the dead beast's body still followed her wherever she went. She hardly needed to look upon it without her skin prickling in unnatural discomfort. It sent her blood to chill, her jaw to clench tightly, far too tightly, as her mother might chide to her, for a lady to look so distraught in mixed company. However, the beast's body never behaved as it should either, and in that, Aurora took comfort in what spiteful, moody humors she could afford herself in her dive from forest to riches; her life, after all, was finally, finally to begin anew. It seemed that this new life of realizing one was, indeed, royal, was as full of surprises as well as many mysteries.

The Dragon was most obvious of these. It was the talk of all the kingdoms. Philip's kingdom offered the loudest of their voices, as well as her own, but it seemed every royal clamored for a piece of the conquest. Its massive body had been keenly sliced to show off whatever section its victor thought best to parade the tale of their legend. A left leg to hang in the market square in Corona. A right to stun all who approached the massive port gates to Denmark. Perhaps its front quarters as far reaching as Maldonia for all Aurora could guess. Its head was unquestionably saved for only Aurora's alone, she had come to assume, as it adorned every feast table she sat and promptly soured her mood at every ball she attended. It never was far from her person. Once, as a mean joke, Philip even dropped its massive jaws into her hot bath for 'safe keeping', whereas Aurora, in a fit of rage, decided to drag him down into the water with it, her limps as cunning as a Greek water nymph, to teach Philip she wasn't to be toyed with so easily.

For all Aurora adored in Philip, he was never shy about his passion for big game hunting. The Dragon, his most succulent kill at the ripe young age of only twenty, he was more than proud to court it about. For it was The Dragon, the final true heart of the Dark Fairy of the Mountain, and there was no rumor of any dragon after her.

And for Aurora, it meant only one thing: she wasn't dreaming anymore.

Maleficent was dead, finally, unequivocally, and her rule for many years between the mountain pass that split Aurora's kingdom from that of its beautiful, pine-feathered Arendelle, was over. Finally, Aurora's sister kingdom had been brought forth in shared piety. As Aurora trailed after her prince, so did the quarters of The Dragon. From balls to social parties, to celebration, to the very last handful of the few remaining kingdoms that sought to pay their respects to the found princess…

Aurora could not wait for it all to be over.

She wanted nothing of it. Of course she wished to smile and look pretty and meet new people. She loved all of that…for a little while. How exhausting it was to face stranger after stranger and share in that strained, practiced dance of "welcome home, royal one, your life is yours again…when your people allow it to be". The celebration could not seem to end. At the sagging tail of every ball, all she wanted, deep, deep down, was Philip's attention. And, if the rebellious, fancy to take her imagining far away from the bores of social-lighting, to imagine the frost layering her skin as she would one day rid herself of that damnable, awful monster. Philip's pride be damned, as Aurora, toe after toe into the snow, wished to drag it up that mountain to bury the body herself. She wanted to be safe and happy within the walls of her lost kingdom. She wanted to be married already. She had found her life and was free! Free of curses and expectation and magic…

I'm not dreaming anymore.

Magic, Aurora found, was connected by its primal source. Maleficent never aged and neither did her people nor herself when she had been placed under the sleeping spell. This, in turn, had convinced Aurora that the magic stayed true to the corpse of the beast.

The Dragon never took to rotting. Its bones never lost their incredible flexibility or unbreakable strength. The nails, teeth, and claws also never suffered any natural malady like how other prized beasts had often lost theirs in the primped processes that went along with stuffing. The Dragon's jaws and dagger tipped horns remained as sharp and as deadly as the moment Aurora had opened her eyes to gaze over the remains of her life's prophecy. The scales never dared to lose their luxurious, obsidian shimmer, akin to fresh cut diamonds from Snow White's northern mines. How it was only a matter of time, or perhaps a turn in the music, or some innocent placement that, somehow, some terrible way, it always afforded that Aurora be once more caught in the lantern of its burning, toxic glare, just waiting for her to turn around…

Aurora felt herself recalling upon these speculations with absent dejection as she sat, dutifully, elbows away from the table and head straight forward. She was staring obediently at the two hushed figures of the gentlemen conversing from across the dining hall. A large brick fireplace peered out from behind the banquet table left, leaving swirls of pumpkin-orange light that flooded the shadows of the spacious pillion. The playful, bounce of glowing embers took to the winter's numbing breeze, skirting over the darkness to frequently alight the faces of her father, her wonderful, doting father, and the face of another man.

This other man. Another mystery that captured her father's attention all night.

He was a stranger she had only a moment to meet.

Like most, he had taken her hand with cool indifference, his own rings prominent over his knuckles, as he bowed to her.

He said little and ate even less. Most of the dinner had been stolen away by guests and sticky-fingered servants but the rest of the feast lay around her on silver plates and golden goblets. Cherry wine and roasted quail. Bread and mead and various, odd colored puddings. It didn't seem to matter at all to the stranger. He picked up only the small bones of the prime cuts and cracked them between his teeth before tossing the scraps away. When his dark eyes cut into Aurora's, she found herself unable to look away, caught in her own rude stare. So often her father would easily dismiss her "rudeness". Yet, this stranger with his dark, foreign curls stared back at her without a hint of intrigue or charm, or even disgruntled affront to be ogled by her.

It had happened before. Her whispered background of being raised in a forest churned the stomachs of those she met that deemed her unworthy of her title; the condensing tones of well how she wasn't quite preen'd yet to be a fit for a princess. They scalded her.

How often did she remember when she had been told she was a princess; she could hard breathe. She only cried, silent and solemn, her life nothing more than a shadow, puppeteer by a force so masterful, she felt nothing more than a little girl's doll, helpless and without any true form. These feelings did not leave her so easily with how often her mother corrected her posture or her father motioned for what spoon to use.

But, suddenly, on this cold night, with no one having a word to say to her otherwise, Aurora thusly stared to her heart's content.

Well, no one would have had a word to say… had she been entirely alone.

While the older man with his dark, curling hair and narrowed dark eyes flickered to her face for a few fleeting moments before returning to speak with her father, Aurora sat up straight and tall, refusing by all fronts to meet the eyes of his son.

This had been going on for quite some time.

It was not as if he sought for her attention. The feeling of mutual digression was nearly palpable. Aurora might slightly turn her head to steer her view of The Dragon away from her, and the boy, dare she really call him that, he was clearly even older than her, eighteen or so, would match her. His chin pointed ever so slightly down at her, eyes to the plate in front of him. He had spent the silent remainder of the night methodically switching the places of his meats and garnish between each other. The scraping of the plate infecting her ears like a low, maddening growl.

He looked every bit like his father, this king of sorts, but he acted like no such prince she had yet to meet. He said nothing beyond a common, well-practiced introduction of his name and nothing else. Adam. Adam and…that was it. He never smiled and he certainly never moved to touch her. For since, Aurora was deeply grateful. So many unfamiliar people in the upswing of her new life, and so many that felt they could handle her still without even daring to ask Aurora's own permission. The only instinct that called Aurora to pay him any mind at all was the moment when she had caught him stealing a glance at her, and then away once more.

What had started as feigning ignorance soon took on a sort of unfriendly game. She to scrutinize him with her eyes with little else to do, and the foppish prince before her, pretending to pretend that he wasn't regarding her the very same way.

The blue of his eyes startled her, an upstart that collected more of her attention than she wanted to admit. They were quite blue, a winter's coat, like how the waterfall near her cottage might freeze over during the winter and she could slip down it, crystalline and pale. It was only when Aurora caught his eyes, usually on the quick of him turning away from her, she couldn't help but notice how his brow tightened, the blue of his veins actually noticeable over his pale skin, visibly annoyed, clearly holding back just as much as Aurora was herself. It was as if he was failing his own attempt at sabotaging the final legs of his journey to see the forest princess. His regard of her, a single wick that continued to alight no matter how often he snuffed the expectation; his own curiosity irritated him.

Here, Aurora found herself staring at him. The profile in his face in dull red light. There was something handsome about him, she supposed, like many of the young princes she had come to waltz with, but something decidedly unmanaged. His hair was longer than those she at met, something adduce with French stylings, she imagined, and he had a gauntness to his cheeks, exposing cheekbone at length, as he looked more akin to her servant staff than to Philip's healthy, athletic physique. With the way he sat, slumped, disinterested, she wanted to give a little jeer at him. Picky eater? Never in her forest. She had learned early to appreciate the tastings of all natural flavors. In fact, just the day before, her and Philip had a wonderful time hand picking blackberries and attempting to catch them in one another's mouths. Often enough, she only ended up pegging him straight in the eye, but Philip merely grinned that adoring grin at her, snagging the flesh of a berry between his teeth to offer to her …only to swallow the berry away when she went to grab it…

Philip, she thought sadly. Would he find himself missing her at all? Soon. Soon, they would be married. Soon.

She leapt her eyes to his father again. Took in the darkness of those features. She frowned. She studied her dining partner. The king had eyes the color of nightshade berries; his son's like that of a winter's hoarfrost, but each gaze was equally piercing. Interesting. She always had a wonder about the eye color in people. Hers were particularly unique, violet and pale, like the delicate skin of a flower opening in boom. She always found herself repelled when a stranger pulled her gaze for much too long; they always looked as if they wished they could pluck out the color from her eyes.

When the prince looked at her again, she found herself repressing an involuntary shiver.

She willed herself back to the task at hand; her father's attention.

Aurora could only faintly wonder what it was that was so fascinating to discuss at length when nary every guest had returned into their guest chambers for the night. Without daddy's blessing and good night kiss, she could not turn into the warmth of her own bed and he was all too consumed to not come to aid her various attempts appearing thoroughly done sighing and huffing from her spot at the table.

All too soon, Aurora's eyes occasionally found the beast's massive head, its snout, this time, covered in ivy and the fillings of rubies and jewels heaped upon her from the last visiting kingdom to see her, respectfully, in person, a French kingdom of Villeneuve, its king and his son. She crossed her arms over her chest to will away the reflex to sigh.

Will you never leave me? Aurora thought. She forced herself not to blink as she met its dead yellow eyes, still poised, wide and glistening, as if in waiting. Even in the dim cradle of fireplace light, those yellow eyes seemed to spark from within, as if the Dark Fairy of the Mountain only lay sleeping, with Aurora to be its jailor for all time.

She allowed the air to seep hotly from her nose, a ragged attempt to hide her disdain. How badly she wanted to leave the chill of this place. How little she had to say to the man before her. How stupid it was that Philip could pick and choose his entrances and she, dog to chain, a prisoner at her own party.

It was only after hers and the prince's father stepped away from the hall and into a side parlor that the silence was broken and not in the way Aurora had been told to expect. Without warning, the prince, the boy, Adam, swung the blade of his knife in a single, smooth blur. Aurora flinched and kicked away from the table. The handle of the blade was sticking straight up between them. He had landed it deep into The Dragon's horrid yellow eye. Now, green blood oozed gently, like a weeping poisonous tear from its great socket.

This seemed to amuse him, much to Aurora's horror; his lips turned up into a snide little grin, an eccentricity that cut through his enduring will to remain unmoved. Those blue eyes hunted her own, determined now to meet her reaction head on.

"How disappointing. I was told it was impermeable." He said. For his thin frame, his voice was remarkably low in his throat.

Aurora could hardly form her answer. "I—impermeable?"

Adam's expression flattened. "Yes, I wasn't sure if you'd even know the meaning of that word—I suppose your rather woodland upbringing wouldn't teach you much beyond—"

"I'm fully aware of what 'impermeable' means." Aurora snapped back at him. She was standing now, her hands resting over the table, with her eyes unable to look away from the knife draining the eye of The Dragon, the One Thing Above All, The Beast Philip Would Die To Hear Was Ironically Injured In Death. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?"

Here, Adam reached out and gave the knife strong pull, wiggling it into the socket in his attempt to remove it. It wouldn't budge.

"I had an idea. I wished to test it. So I did." He explained curtly.

"That is my husband's prized trophy—you've ruined it!"

Adam fixed his eyes over Aurora's and scowled. "The dragon has been slain. What more is there to say about it?"

"I wouldn't know," Aurora continued heatedly, her fingers now folding tightly over the wood. "But you mean to tell me your first idea was to stab it in the eye? What is wrong with you?"

"I have sat here, hating this dragon all night long, all the while noticing that you seem entirely upset by its very presence and you're angry that I'm agreeing with you?"

"There's nothing to agree about; it wasn't yours to stab!"

"By all rights, it shouldn't be your beloved fiancé's right to make whole what is, undoubtedly, your tragedy." The prince countered, his voice only lowering in tone, remarking over Philip's actual position far too condescending for Aurora's comfort. It was as if he was daring to imply that he didn't care about her own feelings, or worse, that they weren't be wed so soon. She would be. Days now. It would be mere days. She could count them across four fingertips. Even if Daddy didn't know that yet. Even if it were more eloping than the grand wedding her mother wanted.

Her wedding meant little as long as Philip was hers and hers alone.

"My tragedy? He saved my life! There wouldn't be a 'me' without him! I would still be that thing's prisoner! I would still be sleep—forever!" Aurora growled, her lips reddening from how she had accidentally chewed too hard on them in retaliation.

Adam stood from his chair as well. Although he had to be merely a year older than she was, he was a tall young man. He didn't match Philip's height but, then again, Philip was nearly three years older. For as small as Adam could make himself seem, he certainly knew how to make himself look impressive: he bared his shoulders forward, moved his legs apart, and spread his own hands to…Aurora blinked. He was mirroring her. He was mirroring her again.

He had matched Aurora's position completely. His hair slid down to drape over the sides of his face, focusing his attention directly over the young woman before him.

"Do you feel more empowered this way?" He gave a small mock of his head to match the princess's own. "What a funny girl you are. I've been told that a way a woman holds herself while she is alone is everything, but, by far, you move more like a man."

Aurora felt the blood roar in her ears. All night, she had sat and wondered about his strange young man and then, with every word that fell from his mouth, she only wished she had gotten up sooner to walk away. "What I do with my body is my business alone and I won't have you commenting on it."

He gave a small chuckle at this. The very nerve of him to laugh at her. The sound seemed to move through her, to clip her bones, to settle inside of her lungs, like a pressure she was only now aware was building inside of her. He closed his eyes briefly as if the notion tickled him so much that he couldn't stand to look at her. Then, those harsh blue eyes trapped her once more. "Do you really believe that?"

Aurora ground her teeth at him. "Remove that knife from Her head or I will remove it into yours."

"Threats of violence," Adam tisked at her, his tongue flickering against his teeth. "Not very princess-like of you. What will Daddy say?"

He purred her pet-name for her father through set teeth, this time relishing his mockery her once more. No doubt, he faked the entirety of his distance the entire evening. He had paid attention to everything, every time she thought she'd faint to see The Dragon ever closer to her, every time she sighed and called for her father's attention. Aurora could only redden in shock.

"Nothing, you arse." She so easily fell into that smooth, discreet tone that cast off her fears and replaced her anxiety with hot, white, anger. "Once you leave, Daddy will think nothing of this."

At once, Adam's smug expression dashed. He blinked at her, openly, astonishment washing across his face. He brought up a hand to hide his mouth. Aurora fought not to take off her shoe and toss it at him. She couldn't tell what he might be thinking with his expression hidden.

"What?" She prompted, her shoulders pitching tightly and her eyes willing holes into his clothing. "What is so funny?"

"You are serious?" Adam questioned, his words inching somewhere far less humorless than his tone implied, and when she said nothing, his voice turned cold. "You are serious."

"What?"

"Aurora," Adam leaned in close. It was a mere whisper of a word, but with more edge, more urgency, like a breathless hiss of disdain and wonder that all at once melted into one unique sound. It made her beautiful name sound acidic inside of his mouth. "Your father is planning to marry you off to me in the next room, right now, as we are speaking."

All the space in the hall and the shadows seemed to creep up to Aurora with every beat of her heart. It didn't make sense. What was he saying. It didn't make sense.

"Liar. You stab Her eye and now you're just playing with me, like how you did with your food."

"I am being quite honest with you." Adam sustained. He kept his voice quiet. A glance of those eyes to the parlor door. "I was mistaken to think you understood why I was even here."

"Why?!" Aurora demanded. She smoothed her hair back in fury, the fluffy golden shine looking almost green in the dwindling of the fire. It was too much. Too soon. She was scared. She was terrified. She was still staring at Adam, a lone shadow before him, feeling torn and shredded in a few seconds of conversation, and that demon head was still laying on the table before her, locked with a knife through the eye. "What in the world would make you think such a thing?"

"…Because this is what my father does." Adam answered. His tone turned bitter. "Because you think you have a say in this." He closed his eyes again, as if pained, or perhaps exasperated. "Because you're so…innocent." He slid this final word between closed teeth. "I should have known better." He opened his eyes once more but he did not look to her. Instead, he focused over the knife. "I've wasted so much time."

Aurora felt her nails dig deep into her palms. Philip's name rushed to her tongue. She should call for him. She should scream for him. He could come. He would always come for her. "I don't believe you."

"Mademoiselle, belief has hardly anything to do with our lives."

"Our lives?" She sputtered, uncaring that she sounded un-lady-like, uncaring of who might hear her yell, and dare her to yell once more, which she would gladly do. "I'm marrying Philip for love!"

"Yes," Adam agreed with a measured, disdainful rumble from the back his throat. "I know. But we weren't borne for sentimentality. My father's land is far bigger and my pedigree higher. Our commerce better...for the moment. It's not complicated, it's just good politics. The show and dance of the dragon is very impressive, even I must admit to that. But glory fades, mademoiselle. Money is forever."

"Love is forever." Aurora urged, her tone aggressive and hot inside of her mouth.

"Yes, and I suppose him being wealthy and handsome are just the conveniences of our times, hm?" Adam returned smugly, his grin, more teeth than anything, hard along his jaw. "You are nothing but a royal lapdog for our families to interbreed till the end of times. As am I. only, you shall find I'm not a terribly obedient little pooch. This is why father's plans never work."

"I would never marry you. I don't even know you." Aurora snapped, her pretty mouth twisted in incredulous fury.

"Let us keep it that way, shall we? Then, we are to be agreed." Adam responded in turn.

Aurora felt herself shoved again without anything to move her. She stumbled back. Her voice sounded far too broken to be anything close to a voice she might own. "…What?"

"Aurora?!" A quick pattering of feet met the resounding silence as Philip, face red from taking the stairs three at a time, came to ungainly halt nearest Aurora. He wrapped one hand tight along his throat and sputtered a few breaths before he began: "What is all this yelling about? What is going on?"

At once, Aurora flew to his side. She curled into his arm and wrapped herself around him.

"…What is going on?" Philip intoned again. This time, his voice was muted. Darker. Aurora did not need to see to know that Adam and her love had locked eyes. "Why are you upsetting her?"

A soft sound left Adam's mouth. A sigh of sorts, but it sounded defeated. "…Must you play this game, too?"

"What 'game'?" Philip spat the phrase back at Adam. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know precisely what has been going on. You were too cowardice to step down here until she was nearly in tears." At once, Adam's voice seemed to focus entirely on Aurora but still, he sneered. "At least I purpose agency in this, Aurora. While your beloved fiancée, he already knows everything about what is to conspire here."

Aurora pulled her face away. She pulled at Philip's sleeve, hard, demanding his height match her own. Eye to eye. "Philip? Is this true? Is anything of what this man says…true?"

For once, Philip did not meet her eye. However, he did not pull away from her. "Aurora, listen."

Her eyes were alight with fury. "You knew? And you left me here?" Aurora rose her voice vehemently, dominating her shadow over her prince's, the fire flickering with its own heated throws to stay alive over its pile of ashes in the hearth. "You knew?!"

"Aurora, please, quiet your voice darling!" Philip explained quickly, his face ashen, arms poised as if to muffle her mouth to his chest. He rushed his voice to a gentle murmur, talking to Aurora, and Aurora alone. "I knew, yes, I did, darling, I did, but, listen, listen: this man is delusional. Your father knows me! He—he owes me! I only did what your father requested out of respect but I love you! I saved your life! We deserve to be together! Your father loves you, Aurora, this will never come to pass—with some foreigner— who clearly hasn't encountered a dangerous beast in his entire life!"

"Ah, yes." Adam interrupted the pair quite coolly. "The name calling. Very original."

"You have said enough," Philip darted his dark eyes to Adam. "Be quiet."

Adam's icy eyes rolled over the pair in rebuke. He returned to his chair and slumped down, leaning arms over the table, resting his chin on his steepled hands. He gazed at their shadows in the fading darkness, twisted and crumpled together, until one could hardly tell them apart. "What a lovely couple you shall be. How easy it must have been to fool your parents with declarations of love and the story of a dragon between you. How charmingly provincial."

Aurora snapped her head away from Philip to glower in Adam's direction. "What did you just say?" Those five words were as biting as the winds outside, jamming windows with invisible frost and locking doors with frozen keys.

"I do not believe in this fairy tale you have made for yourselves nor will I indulge in it. Particularly not while under the impression that your prince spent nearly all his time gallivanting across the country side and happened across you, I'd dare to think, and got lucky for it." Adam explained at length. While he meant these words, he unhurried them, distracted by the knife once more.

Aurora bristled at the conviction of such heresy; he spoke of her life as if he was already bored to tears by it all. "You've a lot to say for someone that traveled so far just to see me."

"Is that what you think?" Adam drawled at her. He gave a tight sniff from his nose, eyed the princess once more, and then turned back to the closed parlor door, his expression soured. "The forest princess. Once lost oh-so-long ago, returned home at last. You're a curiosity, it's true, but not mine own. I made no plans to come here. But that is irrelevant now."

"Aurora," Philip urged. "Do not give him a second more of your time. We should leave and seek your father at once." His skin was tight over his cheeks, his complexion unusually pale. "I had plans to ask your father for your hand in two days' time. How could have this slipped under my nose so quickly?"

The stress tightened his youthful gaze. A faint pulse seemed to faintly move the skin at the base of his left cheek, as if his heart protested as strongly as his words. Aurora had half a mind to touch there, fascinated and alarmed. She had never seen Philip's levelheaded nature so shaken.

"You are surprised to be placated by her father's words?" Adam asked with a careful look. "Kingdoms are not protected by good intentions." He shifted once more in his seat, to cross leg and connect ankle to the opposite knee. "Surely, you've heard of Corona's missing child by now? Stolen nearly four years ago? Gone without a trace." At this, Adam lifted his eyes to meet Aurora. A strange chill trickled down her spine. "She will never be found."

"I was found. If I can be saved, so can that poor little girl."

"My point exactly. The notion that you were 'lost' at all is ridiculous. It's uncanny. I do believe your parents spurned you and have only collected you once more. You weren't ever really missing. You are a boon crafted out of a political strategy. And this story, this dragon, while there's evidence, it doesn't tell nearly an idyllic tale as you want the world to believe."

He returned to working his knife from the monster's eye and failing with every attempt. He cared not for the couple before him, how their eyes stared with heated insult across his face.

Adam merely gave shrug at his own loss before he continued:

"Love and knowing someone? Hardly the truth. And for you, princess, squeezing to his side as if the very thing that made your life miserable isn't dead before you already. You all act as if it's still alive. 'What is wrong with me', you ask? What is wrong with you? You and him, and whatever flea-bottom forest they dropped you into as a child, feel free to lecture me about political intrigue and what I don't know. What little mind you may possess for slaying a "monster" you've so much to learn of how to stop a real tyrant."

"The dragon?" Philip began. He had placed his hands at Aurora's shoulders, fingers soft over the sleeves of her dress. Now, they were clenched, knuckles white. His face still did not dare to turn to stare at the man before him. He breathed in deeply through his nose, as if willing an unreachable calm to control the blistering incredulity of his voice as he said: "You mean to imply it a hoax?"

"Yes, absolutely, you might have the entire kingdom eating out of the palm of your hands, but you shall find that I am not so easily persuaded."

"The Dark Fairy of the Mountain is dead and her corpse is enshrined through multiple kingdoms." Philip growled.

Aurora resisted taking his hand to pull them both away from this and alas, she did not move. Philip would not be moved so easily. He was sweet, encouraging, and protective of her, that was all very true, but his eyes now seemed to boil in ire. A resentful need to prove Adam wrong.

We shall be agreed, the prince of Villeneuve had told her.

While his snides were arrogant and his manners trying, he did not disengage the way other members from other nations had. This captured Aurora, despite all warnings, despite Philip's wounded pride. This feeling of confliction was new and a bit alarming to the princess. Aurora found herself caught between the two men. Philip knew of this arrangement and had said nothing, nothing to her, but she pushed down that small pain inside of her chest. He would have to have his reasons. She was sure of this. She just was not sure why she couldn't have known. That it had come from the mouth of this insolent young stranger to prove her worst fear so close at hand.

If it were true.

But yet, he seemed convinced.

The way those hollow carriages with hollow people came and went, so passive and charming, never daring to step out of line or fancy a rumor. For once in her life, Aurora felt she was all too privy to conspiracy she was never meant to hear. Aurora knew she was sheltered. She had grown up quite lonely and away from any other children. Her godmothers could only provide so much attention to a curious girl. Even her curse had been still and quiet. Could it actually be that this young man's words were her only source of reality from the outside world?

"Do you know anything of magic?" Aurora asked of Adam. Her eyes were wide with the possibly of holding information that someone else did not already know. Was this prince so absent that he did not see magic was very real and very, very dangerous?

"No. I hardly believe in it myself." Adam replied slowly. "But I do understand entertaining a decent logic puzzle. Likely enough, this story is only one piece away from being completed. Multiple kingdoms with exclusive valuables not found between here nor Roeselare?" Adam observed. "Trade in smelting ore to forge hard scales, fangs with iron, so close to the most sought after gemstone route this side of the North Sea?"

Adam gave pause. He studied the handle of the knife once more, lacing his fingers over its handle, and twisted the knife in deeper into the eye. The wet sounds of tearing tissue made Aurora's stomach feel like water.

"Besides, there's an air of desperation about you with all this boasting. You do try to be so worthy of her. It makes me think: why couldn't this dragon be a tryst between smaller kingdoms…like yours, Philip?" A contemplative glare tested Philip's integrity to rip the knife out himself, but he did not move, lest he risk the look of satisfaction resting in Adam's eyes. "It only bleeds if you knew where to stab it."

Aurora felt those words far too ominous. Their meaning doubled. With the rising of the men's voices, Aurora worked quickly to gain back what little control she felt she had before Philip had arrived.

"Everything bleeds," Philip seethed. "Including you, I'd like to think, even if you share your father's snake blood. I think it red, like anything else."

A wolfish grin lit the young prince's face. Aurora did not need to try very hard to imagine points at their tips. "I do believe you would like to see my blood very much, wouldn't you, huntsman?"

"The Dragon is no hoax. The Dark Fairy Maleficent is dead and she is never coming back."

"It is the closest thing you've got to any sense of grandeur. I would cling to the lie, too. I hear it was just an old woman you stabbed through the breast. Noble of you. Magic, if it exists at all, begets magic alone. No sword could match that power. No love, or passion, or dedication, would be able to kill a beast such as that. So I propose it a hoax. It will not rot. It is indestructible in every way. But I believe that the chances are…there is nothing inside of it. A gilded glory, just for you, Philip."

A sharp thunk struck the air. In one powerful move, Philip took back the knife from Maleficent's eye. He flipped the blade between practiced fingers. Then, Philip shouldered himself away from the table.

"Enough talk." Philip demanded. "What is it, exactly, that you are trying to prove?"

Adam sighed, long and tired, before he fixed his eyes to the dragon's ruined eye. Then, they moved to Aurora. Unblinking. Waiting…

"…I think he means to stop the engagement," Aurora answered Philip quietly.

Adam leaned forward. A tight, unfeeling smile resting over his lips. "And, now that you've arrived, we really haven't much time left, so, Philip, s'il vou plaît, won't you leave us?"

At once, Philip's composure crumbled. "No. I will not."

"My plan did not account for you being here." Adam edged out, his tone hard. "If you care for your dear princess at all, you will lay down your pride and—"

"My pride?" Philip sputtered. His cadence washed away. Aurora had never heard Philip sound so disgusted in all her life. "Do you even hear yourself, you self-righteous bastard?"

"And of what of you to idle in the glory of old victors? The dragon, if ever was it real, lay dead and yet all the congratulation never seems to satisfy you. If there be none of like it, I pity your unsavory hunts for the rest of your days. Are you so empty headed that you cannot see how your poor princess hates it?"

"Aurora knows what it represents. It shows goodwill and prosperity of Poperinge and Roeselare, as do she and I. It is a symbol that shall last forever." Philip declared rigidly.

Those black scales shimmered from the corner of Aurora's vision. Was it breathing? Did it move? It never failed to play with her mind…as if she had never woken up. If the dragon existed, its magic and malice, then how was her endless dreaming truly over? And forever? What could Philip mean by that? Was it just one more diplomacy she could not speak against?

Why? Aurora fought not to cry out. Why must The Dragon stay with me forever?

Suddenly, Adam threw back his head in laughter. The pealing crisp and deeply amused. He brought up a hand to muffle the noise but the shaking of his shoulders could not be controlled.

"Tell me, did this dragon actually fight you? Or did it just lay down and die in light of your chivalry?" Adam managed to ask.

"It nearly killed me." Philip defended.

"Perhaps," the young prince leered. "Even if it was all just the conjuring of that frail old woman."

Philip stilled the knife between his fingers.

"You know. I've heard of you as well." Philip kept his eyes to Adam. "The sickness your family carries. They say the plague is in your veins. It's why your father has been cutting out trades all over the nation, one by one, spreading and dashing away. That's why your father is so desperate to marry you off before your kingdom becomes a complete despot."

Adam flashed a cold smile that made Aurora tremble. His eyes held hers perilously, as if they had only barely yielded to Philip's accusations, and had far more intrigue into her reactions to hearing it.

The plague, a walking death that terrorized so many. Did Adam know of it? Is that why his father forced reconciliation before it was too late for his bloodline? Adam's eyes drew in all the warmth away from the room. If they had looked a winter's storm before, now they appeared strikingly willful, as if Aurora might walk across the thin ice resting inside of his eyes only to fall through, plunged into darkness, forever, and Philip was only risking the fall to be ever greater.

What lay under the surface of Adam's looks and disinterest, Aurora could only stare back in absolute wonder. A strange heady pulse raced up her wrists and the balls of her feet. The more Philip willed this fight, the stronger her heart beat under her ribs, winding her. Adam's veil of condescension was cracking with every verbal spar that Philip lodged at him.

I have to stop this. I have to do something.

There was a tinge of fear, and anticipation, and then, nestled at her throat, a very real flush of a thrill. For all his regality, Adam looked a mere instant away from his skin slipping back and that dark, primal anger locking its jaws around Aurora's throat.

For he only kept his eyes on her.

Your tragedy, he had told her.

This was getting them nowhere. Regardless of who he was or how clumsy his exhumation of her future, Aurora knew what she had to do.

"Philip," Aurora broke the tension determinedly. "I want you to leave."

"Aurora?" He turned to her in absolute shock. "You cannot be—"

"I mean it," Aurora cut in again. "Go back upstairs. Act as if you never came down."

Philip turned in shock at Aurora, the two exchanging a long, breathless moment of determined staring, before Philip retreated.

"Fine." Philip snorted as he lodged the knife into the wood of the table. Turning swiftly on his heel, he stifled walked back up the stairs and was soon out of sight.

Silence.

Aurora stared down at Adam. "What did you mean by 'my tragedy'?" She sniffed the word. "Marrying you?"

He looked up at her from his seat. "Your tragedy is easy to see. All those nobles preying on the ignorant nature of some forest girl. This wild twisted fantasy they've wrapped you up in, Aurora, the delusion your life. It's innate. Mad, even. You just don't know any better than to believe." He pushed himself up from his chair, moved around the table, and to stand an arm's length away.

Aurora matched him. She took a step closer, her eyes tight to his face. "The Dragon was real."

"I'm not talking about the beast, Aurora. I'm talking about you. You have no idea how difficult your life will be from now on. The tragedy is that I know you are aware of this. I can see it in your eyes."

A hot panic crawled through Aurora's chest. Her insecurity laid bare across her face by those cold eyes. It was if he knew so much about her by studying her face in the silence of the entire evening. More than her father could see. More than her mother. The way he inched ever closer with every controlled breath. "What is your plan to stop this?"

He glanced toward the closed parlor door. "It won't be long now."

Aurora furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

"I will tell you this. Once this occurs, I will not be welcomed back to this kingdom. If not by your father, then my own. I won't be attending breakfast nor dinner tomorrow evening, either."

Aurora shook her head. "Wait. If this is the last time I'll see you…please. We should do something more—we should stop this from going on! What about the next princess or the next after her?"

"It will be over. He has to die one day. That or I will not rest until all optional candidates have thoroughly been sacked."

"Please." Aurora disputed. "Can I write to you? At least to thank you."

Aurora looked toward the stairs, the ones Philip had ascended, how far away he felt from her.

"You're right." She finally managed. "Is that what you want to hear from me? I get that I don't understand. I get that what I dreamt my life to be won't come true, and not while I stand here and pretend with all my might. I don't have friends—not people that would offend and fight and dare to step on toes as you do. I've never even seen a fight before now and …You've…I don't understand how but…you've corrected my life back to the way I thought it might be. What can I do to repay you?"

"Nothing." Adam said. "Forget me. Forget my face. That is what you can do. It is what I do."

Aurora's eyes widened. Closer than before, she peered at Adam in guarded wonder. "Why do you say such things? Why did you say such cruel things to hurt Philip? And…me as well. As if you know my life? You don't know me!"

"That is precisely what I am trying to tell you, Aurora. Yours is a life that is not worth knowing." He met Aurora's stare, a heartbeat away now, and stopped before her.

Aurora felt struck at those words. Her face paled. She refused to show the hurt. "I don't understand you; what is it that you want from me? You wanted to stop our forced union only to insult me?"

"You look but you do not see. Did you ever see the dragon alive or where you supposedly slept for that nightmare? Then, why is it still here? When do your horrid little dreams begin and end? And what if none of it was ever real? Which is worse: the lie you believe or the reality you cannot face? Philip is a disgrace and a fraud as much as you are some lost little orphan that was pretty enough to make a good figurehead to be sold to the highest bidder. And that happened to be my father."

"I am not just a pretty face." Aurora squeezed her fists tightly at her sides. "The Dragon is real." She repeated again, her tone heated. "Her curse was real."

"You have no earthly idea what real truly is." Adam continued, his blue eyes tight to her face. "You think you've awoken from the nightmare of your childhood but you're wrong. You think you belong in this life of royalty and happiness and they want you to believe that. But they're wrong. None of this is real, not real for us, anyhow. It's just another state of dreaming. And, now that they've found you, you won't ever wake up."

Aurora felt her hands clench. She stepped forward, unafraid of how close she was to his face. She could feel the sweat damping the curls of her hair at her neck, her shoulders. What could this boy know about her new life? Why did he pick apart every good thing she had welcomed into her heart? How did he know that she was still afraid of it all being a lie?

I am not dreaming anymore, her thoughts flew, and she barked the words into his face: "Be quiet!"

"Do you want to know the other rumors I've heard whispered about you?" Adam wondered aloud. He was so close to her now his words became nothing more than a hushed whisper. "The thorns around your castle swallowed the lives of horses and men indiscriminately. All, of course, except for Philip." He leaned in close into her ear. In a hoarse whisper, he said: "'and how the thorns parted before him like a lady's thighs'—"

Then, Adam stopped. He tasted a hint of blood in his mouth. The sudden pain of tongue against teeth. Aurora struck outwards with the back of her hand, blinding him across the face.

"Will that quell your tongue?" Aurora demanded of him, her teeth grinding under tense lips.

Adam reached up to touch at his mouth, before he pulled away, and with the movement, he merely smirked at her, red over the white of his teeth. "Oh no, mademoiselle, you will have to hit me far harder than that."

"Do not tempt me!" Aurora said loudly, her hand poised once more.

"AURORA!" An older voice cried out. Her father stared at her, aghast. His face was red from the excursion of his disbelief. He hurried to his daughter's side, sweeping her away from Adam as if she had been the one in the wrong. "Aurora! Whatever are you doing, child?!"

Aurora quickly dropped her hand. Shame crawled up her back. She had never struck anyone before. She had moved without thinking. She was certain this would cost her dearly. She was so absorbed in the spite of the young man before her that she had not heard the parlor door open, hurrying the two men into the hall, concerned by the rising of loud voices.

"Aurora?!" Her father demanded once more. Now, she was pulled even further away. She felt her father touch at her shoulders and smooth his palms down her arms. He gently collected her hands within his own. "...What happened, my pet?"

At once, the knowing smile Adam had worn disappeared. He only stared straight ahead, shoulders locked tightly, his eyes downward. Aurora turned stiffly to spy Adam's father only an arm's length away, a tall, looming shadow that stood behind the prince. While her father puffed and bothered, his hand wrapped around Aurora's own, the king of Villeneuve was entirely collected.

His eyes moved to Aurora's nervous face, to his son, and back to hers again.

Then, with a calm voice, Adam's father spoke. His words clear and direct. "What did he say?"

Aurora made to open her mouth but the words did not arrive. She merely turned her head away. "It doesn't matter now."

"Yes," King Stefan disagreed at once. "Yes, it most definitely does!" She watched as her father turned to give a disappointed look at the young prince's face, a look she was certain was meant for her. "I am sorry for my daughter's irrationality. Please, excuse us."

Aurora did fight not being led away. She only looked back once to see how Adam still endured to not to move a single inch from the second those parlor doors had opened. Her brow furrowed in confusion. Adam's rage, his stubborn smirks, his articulate tongue. Where did all of go? What had he been thinking? Did this ruin everything?

It was impossible to say. The dark of the hall melted much of the light, and their faces fell into shadow. The last she saw of Adam that night was his father, reaching out to take the boy by the neck, and force him in the opposite direction, towards the guest wing.

Aurora waited and waited, her face turned away from her father, to stare back into the dark, for any sense of understanding. Adam did not once turn back to look at her.

"Aurora," King Stefan said. "Please, my pet, won't you look at me?"

Aurora would not. She was seated in the very parlor her father had been plotting in. The air reeked of foreign tobacco and rum. She pulled her knees to her chest, lifting her legs dainty from the floor, curling into herself. Her dress of pink silk evaded her pulling and snuffling. It was still smooth and pearlescent in the bubbling yellow light of the candles that lit the room. She was holding her head in her hands. Her mind full of voices that whispered of conspiracy and anger.

He was right. That terrible boy was right. If he hadn't been sure, if he hadn't had spoken his mind, they would have been promised in a fortnight to one another. Promised. Like cattle. Like an animal with no discerning need to say anything against the decision. To be brought home in a whirlwind and then shipped to France on a whim.

"How could you." Aurora answered in a hollow whisper.

"My sweet, you have to believe in your old father. There is a delicate balance to these kinds of things. You and Philip are well-known to me and your mother. Your marriage to Prince Adam would have never—"

"I know. It would have never actually occurred. But yet, it was true. For a few hours yet, it was once true."

"Yes…" Her father lingered on for a moment longer, struck by the distress over his daughter's face. "Aurora…you are so new to this life of politics. It takes a lot to run a kingdom. Trade, demand, markets, armies, they depend on money. You must understand why I at least had to entertain the idea."

"There are apparently many things I don't understand," Aurora pressed. She raised her head to burn her words into her father's reasoning. "But mark my words: if you dare to use my affection in your sick games, I will run away from here with Philip, and you shall never see your "lost" daughter again."

King Stefan could only stare on in fragile sorrow. "Clearly, Adam's words have deeply upset you." He moved himself to sit at his daughter's side. A hand moved to cup the curve of her cheek. "Please, do not sulk my beautiful girl. You shall not be seeing that boy again. He will regret the blasphemy he said to you. All of it. His father assured me of this."

"Regret them?" Aurora gasped in awe. "I should thank him! Callous as his tongue may be at least he was honest! He only said the words that a thousand others might be thinking. How I glowed in my ignorance! I feel like such a fool. How long has it been before I saw real emotion in your eyes? Or mother's? Why do you hide me behind curtains and meager fair weather friends? What are you so afraid of?! Maleficent is dead, is she not? What else will you be hiding? Was I ever even lost?!"

"Aurora," Her father murmured. "Please, calm yourself. It's over now." He went to rub at her skin soothingly, but she smacked his hand away with a fire of repulsion.

"No! It is not his words, daddy, or any other man that has brought me to my darkest conclusion! I am sick to death of men and strangers telling me that I don't know my own thoughts! I have always felt this way! You just do not find it proper for a princess to plainly speak her mind! I cannot believe I have to tell my own father that I am not Shetland pony to carousel about!"

"Aurora, that is enough!" King Stefan recoiled away at her outburst. "This conversation is over. If you dare to yell in my face one more time you shall be sent to your chambers all of 'morrow without breakfast! Am I clear?"

"I am going to find Adam and thank him!" Aurora cried. Her face was crumpled in pain, how easily she was dismissed by her own father. "Go, and tell mother, too, how I also will not be present at breakfast!"

She was quick. Aurora was across the parlor and slamming its heavy door within seven heartbeats. Her father did not follow behind.

There, Aurora stayed, her back pressed tight to the door, holding in her anger at her father, the uncontrolled shaking of her legs for yelling all of her greatest fears into the crowded night. It was likely the entire castle had heard her now.

She clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle a sudden sob that racked her body. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. However, she pressed on. She would find Philip first and demand his truths. Heaven help if it he did not share as easily as Adam.

"No," she whispered to herself, each step weighting down on her, heavier than the last, as she climbed to the upper floor. "I'm not dreaming. Not anymore."

To abide by her mother's rules, Philip and Aurora could not stay in the same suite together until they were married. It did not matter how much Aurora begged her father to change his wife's mind or how entirely hilarious Philip's father, King Hubert, thought the whole fuss was. It only made Aurora pace the castle grounds tirelessly. It made Philip only more headstrong to sneak away to see her. In terrible twist of fate, Aurora now felt her whole life dictated whether she was or was not awake, and Aurora could not understand their reasoning.

Was she not good enough? Did they think so poorly of her that she had to be separated from her love during the most vulnerable time of the night? Was this the way by which all kingdoms treated their princesses? Aurora couldn't say. Before tonight, it was yet another set of expectations that Aurora had come to behold, even if she thought often, often thought very loudly, that the whole speculation wasn't fair.

She was sixteen—soon to be seventeen in just one more month. It was ridiculous. She attended all of her endless etiquettes courses. She minded her tutor. She could even walk steadily with a stupid book on her head. Where was it really getting her? And if she showed that she naturally excelled in everything her parents wished her to know, when would she finally earn their trust?

It hardly mattered to Aurora tonight. She had answered her own bitter thought. She had done it all for her parents and they had lied to her. Philip had lied to her. Everything she had done, everything she had put up with day after day she did for those around her only to be put aside. Her own father treated her as if she was the one that had ruined that insane proposal. As if he didn't hear all of those nasty things Adam was so happy to say straight to her face.

Philip would be at their garden. Aurora could only hope, this time, he would not lie to her again.

"Aurora?" Philip held her gaze for a single heartbeat. He could feel her body tense under his arms. She had come to him in tears and spoke rapidly about Adam's insults, her father, a slap…it was all rather fast for Philip to get in one breath. He pressed his face into the crown of her hair.

"Are you not going to stay with me tonight?"

He had hoped his voice did not tremble as badly as he felt his heart might. He was told all throughout his life that he was patient man. If not by nature, then by practice. The thrill of the hunt demanded more of his mind than just his body. Tedium (leaves deliberately breaking under boots, a ripple in the air, the wind too strong, ruffling of the scent of his hair, the doe already fled) turned into anticipation. Anticipation (bolt or blade, arrow, quiver, his breathing becoming a solid pressure that burned his lungs, breathe shallow, boy, shallow) to thrill.

That thrill was his sole reason for rising in the grey, pre-dawn light. It hardly left his blood. His triumphs had caused his parents to glow with such overwhelming pride, Philip often joked their pride was brighter than the gates of Roeselare.

Philip had not known restlessness once in his life. . .until Aurora. Meeting her felt like his organs rotated inside his body. The point of the horizon slipping in reverse, a hundred moon sets and sun rises. He had just killed The Dragon, a legendary win that would bring his name into hunter of mythos, a new constellation next to Hercules himself. His nose filled with charcoal, legs shivering from adrenaline, his mind nothing more than a canvas covered in unearthly green blood. Philip thought himself finally a man.

Until Aurora had opened her eyes for only him.

Philip's vision had tingled to black. Surely, inhaling Maleficent's smoke had made his knees weak. Yet, it wasn't the magic infused blood on his skin that cause him skin to tingle. He had stared Death in the eyes and drawn his sword on instinct alone.

But Aurora, Aurora had slain him with a flutter of her eyes.

. . .and the princess's bed rushed up to meet him very quickly.

The next thing Philip heard was her laughter, radiant and hypnotic as her eyes.

"Aren't only the damsels supposed to faint?" Aurora had teased him gently.

Philip scrambled upwards, his fists collecting the sheets of her bedding. "Poison? I've been poisoned?" Philip urged, his voice soaked with embarrassment.

"Oh, pardon me, sir," Aurora scoffed, unconvinced.

He had lived through a litany of horrible beastly encounters, but that moment, Philip knew, Aurora would never let him live it down. . .

. . .still, she had not answered him, Like a malfunctioning machine, Philip's patience struggled to remain. Could that wretched young man truly have wounded them both? Aurora had asked him to leave. To leave! They hardly spent a day apart since their reunion, meeting in secret just outside the palace garden. Often, they went woodswalking, trying to catch hold of a childhood they should have shared together. 'Woodswalking', Philip had smirked at her, the endearing little term Aurora had crafted for her love of traveling through the thick woods surrounding her kingdom. He indulged her in her walkings as frequently as he could—even if her loud walking disturbed any chance of hunting.

The garden, however, was where they were tonight. Aurora was still and pallid in his lap with her gold hair tickling his nose.

This was not how he had envisioned they might spend their precious few hours alone.

Philip sighed quietly. He tightened his hold over her. Aurora was of many fine temperaments, but only when she showed them. Philip understood little of women, could never tell what they might be thinking, and Aurora, his love, his everything, was a steel trap of the deadliest sort to presume. If she was nervous, especially as nervous as Philip felt, and fought to hide.

He should have been truthful with Aurora. He knew this now and the shame beat upon him from the inside out. He never meant for her father's courting of Villeneuve to cause Aurora any pain. He had been born and raised well in the careful dance of broken promises, swallow trades, loose family ties partings torn by a hidden folly. Hardly any whirlwind political betrothal came to pass anymore. It was fading with the growing of new ages and new queens, new kings.

Aurora was just so, so new to this life, delicate even, constantly overwhelmed, he only wanted to not place any unnessary pressure onto her shoulders when none of tonight's transpiring really mattered.

Had it been any other rival, Philip might have objected further, but he knew exactly what most royals knew: Villeneuve was a crumbling kingdom without venture. Aurora's father merely played the humble host as he should. The appearances and select trade of France was profitable for now. She would never be married to such a cursed kingdom, wrought with plague and the whispered suffering of its people.

How to explain this to Aurora now and not bite his own tongue in the process? Would explanation only make things worse between them? Would she think he was being as condescending as that terror of a prince?

And that boy. What an absolute absurdity he was! It was as if he hated the very idea of Poperinge. As if he had plans of his own that went against everything the tradition of the political dance called for!

The realization crept slowly upon him.

"Aurora," Philip began faintly. "I've just had a thought."

Her reply came late. "…Yes?"

"I do believe he wanted that to happen." Philip replied lightly. "I know you said that he wanted to stop the betrothal, but I think your spat with him was his plan."

Slowly, Aurora pushed Philip's arms away. She arose from his lap but never turned her back away from him.

"Why did the truth come from his mouth and not yours?" She asked this in a whisper but the silence of the garden carried the conviction straight to Philip's shame.

"…My only thought was to ease your fears. You needn't know what would never come to pass. You already try so hard for everyone else. You shouldn't try for a stranger nor for me."

"Well, you have failed! You left me at the hands of that man and yet I feel wiser for it."

"Wiser?" Philip countered. "He may have been more honest than I, but he was only using you to just the same! He may have been plotting your outburst, exploring your insecurities, the entire time!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I do think he meant every word he said but he was trying to get you to snap this whole time. That was the trigger. So quickly it came to pieces. His father and yours are separated now and when you spoke of their reaction to you and Adam …it's so methodical. Brilliant, for a foolish, arrogant man."

Aurora stilled in the moonlight. The pink of her dress appeared ethereal over the grasses, a timid ghost before him.

"…I am so tired of these games, Philip." She turned. Then, she flew towards him, ensnaring her body, his arms instantly opening in reflex to catch her. She pressed a cheek to his chest to hear how hard his own heart was beating. "How am I to know what's real anymore?"

Philip pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Aurora, I am so, so sorry my love. I never meant…" Philip closed his eyes. "It is my fault you're hurt."

She merely shivered in his arms. "Yes," Aurora said sadly. "And no."

"No?" Philip remarked in confusion. "Will you tell how I can make this right? Do you mean the riddle of your words?"

"What's done is done. I just wanted to see you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and placed a kiss to his lips. It made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. A sudden, unexpected shock to his system. He wanted to pin her in the grasses right there, so that this would be over, all clean and new, with his idiotic attempt to be, once more, her shield against the prying outside world, sundered.

But Aurora covered his mouth with her hand. He could hear the words on the wind before she even spoke them.

"I cannot stay long with you. Not tonight."

"…I know." Was all Philip replied.

"I must go see him."

Him. The prince. Adam. They locked eyes in dispute at once but Aurora had him transfixed to the ground. She would not compromise in this.

"Why?" Philip offered the word gently. If he could not stop the fall out of his own mistake, he might at least know her intentions would keep her safe.

"To thank him. To find the rest of my answers."

Philip swallowed to no relief. "Aurora, my love, you may not like what you find."

Her eyes laid into him with a sharp, annoyed glare. "I know what I am doing."

"No, no," Philip amended at once. "I only mean…be safe." He flickered his eyes out to the woods, scanned the high towers behind them, and then back to his princess, and her alone. "There is something not quite right about him."

"….People whisper those very same words about me."

"Aurora," The bite of his words could not hold back his staggered anger, what she dared to imply. "There is nothing wrong with you!"

"I was cursed, Philip, from birth!" Aurora stormed. "Maleficent certainly thought otherwise!"

"Maleficent is dead, Aurora! When are you going to accept that?"

"And what if she is not?" Aurora screamed back at him. Her shoulders heaved, her eyes darkened and damp, in anger, in fear, frustration. "What then, Philip?!"

Philip leapt to his feet, spurned by his fiancée's contempt. He could take this assault no longer. "I shall kill her a thousand times more! Again, and again, until you know freedom!"

Aurora's expression splintered in rage. She threw out her hands to shove Philip away. "You will never understand!"

"Aurora—!"

He reached out to touch her sleeve but entangled himself in Aurora's desperation to get away. Fingers to silk, the sleeve ripped, sloughing off of her shoulder. Philip gasped and pulled back, stumbling away from her, fingers locked together as if he had been deeply cut.

Aurora was unfazed. The night air had cooled her skin. All the color had fled from her face.

"She will never leave me, Philip."

She looked at him and through him, as if he were no longer before her, lost in shadow and the silver fractals of light that beamed down through the frost-covered trees. She was so sure she would see those horrible yellow eyes through the brush, hunting her with every quickening of her heart, summoned by her own name. Aurora wrapped her arms around herself. She quickly turned her back and fled. "I have to go."

"Aurora," Philip called after her. His was voice hoarse in his attempt to not wake the entire castle. "Aurora, wait!" He caught up to her quickly. "Will you be back tonight?"

She said nothing. She would not even look at him.

Philip felt his lungs tighten like a vice, cold and painful, his breathing suddenly powdery over the air. She kept her head straight ahead, unhearing. A painful, human magic all her own; an invisible wall between them that left him unbearably cold. He tried again, with all of his will, and repeated his wish: "Will you be back tonight?"

"Aurora!" He called again. He slowed down, a jog, a walk, and then he was still. "Aurora!"

But there was no response. Soon, she was gone.

The only sound left between them was Philip's breathing. The hunter felt purged from him. He turned to watch a blackbird rise from the wood and into the night sky, the only pair of eyes to see their lover's spat. It split the air with every beat of its wings. Philip found himself staring after it, imagining its flight far over the wood, driven away from here by the fear of human voices.

Then, and only then, did Philip feel entirely alone.

Aurora walked silently down the empty hall that split the guest wing from her own private wing. The windows were shut tightly, but the chill from the gardens made Aurora long for the warmth of the fireplace in the dining hall. She did not long for her bedroom nor her bed. To be afraid of the dark was a child's fear. It no longer scared her. The passing outlines of moonlit clouds over the moon did not bother her, either. Rubbing at her arms she came across the ripped cloth of her dress, slick over her fingers, and gave a sigh.

She would at least need to change out of it and into something warmer if she were to sincerely hope to find Adam without catching her death…

…she was soon inside her room but she found herself sitting quite still along her bed. Her wardrobe untouched. Her dress unchanged. Her long hair tangled beneath her fingers, locked against the sides of her head, as a dull headache slithered around her neck. She had trouble finding the will inside of her to move, not with Philip's voice still echoing back to her. It was easy to stand up to Philip in the garden.

It was harder to face herself alone.

…What am I doing? Did I really scream at Philip? She leaned back to properly lay across her bed, head buried into her arm. What if I only made things worse between us? Her stomach turned cold, twisted in no small terror, and ached at her limbs. Can I do anything right? Why did every fight, every thought, always lead her to back to Maleficent?

Philip was right. He had to be. The Dragon was dead. The Dragon was dead and—

A terrible wet sound echoed from the hall.

Aurora held her breath.

Something was moving outside of her door.

Her heart picked up speed. She was no longer cold. Sweat began to drip down her face, crushed to her pillows. Philip's name raced to her lips but she couldn't make a sound. It was as if she had forgotten how to scream. Her curse of sleep made her fear not the dark, but silence. Her curse was made of silence.

Then, the something stopped. With her purse lingering in her ears, Aurora lifted her heard to stare at her bedroom door.

Whatever it was, it had stopped there.

Her body cold. Her ears pricked. She could only listen.

Breathing. It was breathing. The sound was strange. Uneven and hard, as if it had been running. Laborious. It paused for a long time before it lurched into a painful hitch. Slowly, it moved onwards.

The gooseflesh spread across her entire body like a flame.

Maleficent is dead, Philip had said.

Aurora sat up. She forced her feet to meet the floor.

Maleficent. Maleficent. The name was deep inside her bones, as if the witch had carved it there herself. It whispered with every step. Aurora curled up tighter into herself, feeling foolish and worn. Was this to be the rest of her life? Haunted by a dead woman? Haunted by all foul magic that she could not fight herself? She shut her eyes tightly and hugged herself again.

Finally, she found herself staring into the dark.

A new purpose was calling to her from the back of mind. Furious and untapped. Almost like the spinning wheel had done...

She would find it.

She wished pain upon her fear. If The Dragon had returned, so be it. She would see it done for good. She would break into her father's armory and take his claymore. She would walk the length of the chambers, down the stairs, and into the dining hall. She would stand over The Dragon's skull and align the blade with a marksman's grace. She would rise the weight of the blade high over her head and bring it down into the eye of Maleficent, wanting to see her blood, needing to see her blood. Adam was right. It only bled if you knew where to stab it. And she would not stop. She would never stop! She would stab it a hundred times, a thousand times, until the name Maleficent disappeared into the pits of the earth forever and ever!

She threw open her door with all her strength, adrenaline heady in her veins, to find nothing.

Aurora blinked. She padded further out into the hall. All around it, the hall was empty. It appeared entirely normal as well. Moonlight pooled through the crustal, icy glass of the windows. All the doors were closed.

Her eyes traced down the dark halls. She moved forward slowly. Nails cutting into the soft flesh of her palms. She moved a few heartbeats away from the safety of her bedroom, circling around and around until her foot touched something wet.

Aurora stiffened. Her skin crawled. Swallowing a sound of surprise, she forced herself to look down.

There, just under her left foot, was a small, inconspicuous droplets of water. In the pale light of the hall, it nearly looked white. Aurora carefully stepped away from it to bend down, to further investigate. She gingerly smoothed her hands over the liquid, pulling away it back towards her face before she realized that the tips of her fingers had gone dark. Red.

Blood.

Aurora bit back a scream, rearing herself tightly to the nearest wall. Her thoughts reeled in all manner of horror. Who was bleeding? Was it her? It didn't smell the way Maleficent's stench had wrought upon the beast's mutilation. A quick inspection told Aurora that she was uninjured. The blood was red. Dark and wet between her fingers. She felt disturbed at how the color seemed to calm her.

Only Maleficent's blood was green.

The Dragon is dead, she thought to herself, a weak attempt to slow her anxious breathing, to remain quiet in the hall. She turned to look further away from the blood stain and down the stairs. The blood did not stop at her feet. It trailed onwards. It was so faint, so spread apart, like droplets, like the lightest drizzle of rain, Aurora puzzled to think that she had come to find it at all. Clearly, she had paid more attention to Philip's passionate ramblings of his hunts than she thought. If the blood was still wet, still such a dark shade of red, it could only mean one thing: it was a fresh wound.

Someone was bleeding in her castle. Someone was hurt. Struggling to breathe. Breathe! That breathing she had heard? And what did she do? Nothing! She had cowered for minutes on end like a terrified child! What sort of princess am I? Beyond hopeless, Aurora thought to herself, consumed for a moment in her bitterness. Beyond mad!

What if they need help? What if they were looking to her for help?

At once, tripping over unsteady feet, Aurora made a mad dash for the stairs, taking them near three at a time. She did not care that her dress was torn or that her breathing had transformed to a heavy pant. She hit the banister hard in her rush but, strangely enough, she did not feel any pain.

Philip had spoken of this often. A soft of palpable reinforcement of the nerves that deadened pain when the mind was decidedly focused. Aurora continued her spring with a new vigor; if only she could feel like this at all moments! It is no wonder Philip chased after his beasts with such desire!

Only, the feeling ended too soon. Her stomach dropped when she spied a shadow dwelling at the very bottom of the stairs. Her feet would not move an inch further. She slid to a halt with little grace.

It was a man. A man, from what little Aurora could see, that was hunched over. A hand was pressed to the wall that descended along the path of the stairs. She quieted, leaned forward to listen. He was breathing. He was breathing in that same Aurora had heard outside of her door. Ragged, shallow…painful. He was still, as well. Paused to lean heavily against the wall. One of his arms was coiled tightly to hold his right side.

Aurora tried not to panic. Her heart hummed in her chest, dread overtaking her nerves. Her body shook in uncertainly. What had happened to him? Did some intruder break in and attack? Was he signaling for help? What happened to him? Should she call out to him? Would that scare him? A few helpful questions with no right answer.

Aurora merely waited a moment more. To watch. To see what he would do next.

The man was not aware of her. He seemed determined to move, reguardless of what his body told him. Another loud cough burst from his mouth, causing the man to stagger forward. His fingers clawed at the wall in a vain attempt to support himself.

It all rapidly clicked for Aurora. The blood. The delicate spray over the floor. She stumbled forward instantly. He was coughing up blood!

"Wait!" Aurora cried out.

At this, the man shuddered. The sound had frozen him in place. Slowly, he craned his neck to look back. A naked flash of surprise was sprawled loosely across his face. Then, fear.

Aurora felt numb.

Those frenzied eyes. The color of ice.

Adam. It had to be him. Even covered in shadows, Aurora could pick out the handful of details she had assigned to him over the dinner mere hours before. His long hair, the gauntness of his body…his eyes. He was here before her. He was…hurt.

"You…?" Adam gasped. He managed a step away from her. His brows tightened at her very image.

The world did not feel real for a horrifying second. The blood on her hand. His blood. His voice. His huddled figure before her, exposed and estranged. Aurora pushed forward.

"Stop," Adam ordered weakly, calling out as he stepped back again. He sounded breathless. "Stop! I said—don't—"

She was too quick. Aurora did not care for the furious glare she was met with as she approached him. It was futile. The injured look of a man with no hope of escape.

"Adam?" Aurora's voice was hushed. They were at arm's length. A distance that Adam kept between them at all cost, stepping back with every other movement she took forward. She swallowed thinly, instantly nervous. Confused. Hardly daring to meet Adam's incredulous stare.

"What are you doing?" Adam asked her. There was blood on his lips. He did not even bother to hide his state or lick the blood away. Did he even know it was there?

She drew closer, hesitant and unsure. Aurora could smell the stale sweat that radiated off of him. His faced was soaked in perspiration, the droplets clinging tight to his skin. A red flush bloomed across his face the longer she stared at him without speaking a word. His eyes were fever-bright, alternating between staring at her and, to Aurora's assumption, looking for a way out.

There would be no silence between them now.

Every breath rattled Adam's chest, the sound labored and uneven. He tried to straighten himself but the effort only caused his face to spasm in pain. Pale as he already was, Aurora felt unnerved to be able to count the straining veins along his neck.

"Adam…what happened?" Aurora hurried through her awkward delay. She reached out her hands halfheartedly, unsure where to begin, what to do.

Those cold eyes narrowed at her. "How—did you?"

"If you're about to lie to me, I'd think twice." Aurora opened her hand to show off their red hue. "I know you're bleeding."

Adam stared at her palm in disbelief. He only offered her a weak laugh. That, too, sounded raw.

"Do you," he rasped, "not sleep?"

She glared at his spiteful jest. His taciturn nerve to not answer her directly while he looked moments from collapsing. "What happened?"

At this, Adam shouldered away. He turned from her without another word. Aurora blinked. Was he truly going to ignore her?

"Adam," Aurora hissed his name. She threw out a hand to stop him. All at once, he tore himself from her light grasp, the motion swaying him on his feet, but he continued on. "Adam!"

She went to reach out again but he abruptly stopped her. A hand still clutching at his right side, he stared back at Aurora, as if he meant to dare her. "Do. Not. Touch. Me." Each word he emphasized with a potent fury.

Matching his glower, Aurora did as she was told. She lowered her hands but kept pace. It certainly wasn't hard. He stumbled more than actually walked. He kept himself pointedly towards the dining hall. The banquet had been cleaned hours ago, wood polished, chairs exchanged, and yet The Dragon's head remained, entirely untouched.

While Aurora refused to look at her, she repressed a shiver.

Adam paid no heed to anything. If, Aurora wondered with dread, he could register the hall at all. The cold air chilled her through her thin dress, frosted Adam's heated breathing, but he did not react to the cold before them.

"Adam, please, tell me what happened." If she could not touch him, words were all she had left.

He said nothing. He sputtered a wet sounding cough, dragged in a breath, and continued forward.

She tried again. "Can you tell me where you're hurt?"

Adam kept his eyes away from her. "This doesn't concern you."

"I'm not leaving you," Aurora said firmly. "You're my guest. What happened?"

"…weren't supposed to see…" He muttered lowly. Aurora hardly heard him speak.

"You don't want me to touch you and you won't tell me what happened." Aurora pressed. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

"Why? What is it with you?" Aurora snapped. "Your pride will be the death of you."

"Good."

They'd reached the door into the back kitchen. Before Adam could reach it, Aurora stole herself in front of it, blocking his entry. She stabled herself and pressed her shoulders back against the door for good measure. "Tell me what happened. Now."

Another shallow breath. "…Move."

She sharped her glare. "Tell me the truth."

"Haven't," he growled. "lied."

"Tell me."

"Move!" Adam thundered, yelling the word straight into her face. It echoed throughout the hall, stirring Aurora's hair at her shoulders. She flinched. Her eyes snapped shut in fright. But she did not budge.

"Or what?" Aurora drawled. She said this easily. The effort it took to scream clearly winded him. He gritted blood stained teeth at her. His eyes flashed with muted anger. Then, without warning, he threw out a hand to shove her aside. Aurora flinched again.

But felt no pain.

Aurora squeezed open one eye.

Adam's face was a breath away from her own.

His palm braced the door, baring his weight over the length of his arm, as she started up at him in shock. Aurora watched the muscles slither to hold himself away from her. She made the choice to hold Adam back from the door, and now, she felt pinned. While the sudden movement had scared her, she found herself reflected back in his eyes in fearful symmetry. She studied the red over his face. The burning of his cheeks, the stain over his teeth, the vessels in his eyes, exploded and bloodied themselves, threatening over with tears—tears—in pain, desperation.

"Aurora," He murmured her named in a single pain-filled breath. "Please. Leave me alone."

There was no contempt in his voice. His last nerve to keep fighting the princess was wearing him down. His eyes drifted closed as he muffled another cough. Aurora's stomach turned to knots to listen to the swallow that followed.

Her eyes widened over his face.

She had never seen a man cry before.

He's begging me.

"You saved me from a marriage against my will." Aurora whispered. "I found your blood. Compromise with me. What are you searching for?"

A soft groan left his lips. Another short breath. He cracked open his eyes to watch her, to maintain some dignity. Finally, he gave a defeated sigh.

"…Water." He confessed, matching her whisper.

"Fine. Water it is."

Compromise was what Aurora was expecting but nothing close to what she actually received. With Philip, they would have worked as a team. It would have been easy. Half the struggle and half the exasperation. However, nothing was so simple with Adam.

Adam simply allowed things. He allowed her to slide under his arm to help him walk. He allowed her to show him where basic kitchen utensils were, how a cup might be laid out from a lazy house-keep, the pump handle, a dragged over stool for him to sit. He was adamant about nothing being out of place. He insisted he only use what was not put away. No matter how Aurora might prod him to see that he was welcome to whatever he wanted, he would hear nothing of it. He only gave her longer, more disconcerted stares, before he turned away entirely, leaving Aurora to blink after him. Philip talked at length and often as much as she did; Adam, when apparently left on his own, had so little say.

Or…maybe, it was something else. Something Aurora was picking up with every passing minute they shared. She was coming to understand his unusual quietness, his slights and ticks to be as rational as possible. It was…bizarre, frankly, for someone that spat up blood and washed it away with utter nonchalance. Aurora fell from a tree once, badly scraped her elbow, and cried for three days about it. She had a right to be loud. It bloody hurt. But here, as she sat in the dark with this strange young man, who, hours before, she could hardly stand…Aurora felt a faint urge to understand. It wasn't that Adam had little to say.

It was that he couldn't.

This was a secret.

She'd…never been trusted with a secret before.

A secret that felt heavy. And dark. And lingering close to an answer that Aurora treaded towards with a suspicious, uneasy hand.

What happened to you?

What he didn't know, to Aurora's keen ability, was that once she was allowed in, she would not be pushed back out. No rule would stop her questions. No mask or etiquette to halt her cunning. When she was a child, what was denied to her, she only wanted with a deeper hunger.

And, there was no one awake in the entire castle to rid Aurora of this curious moment.

Adam refused the stool. He motioned weakly for her to sit, instead, and slowly lowered himself onto the kitchen's dirty tiles. He didn't seem to care. He braced his back against the back of a baker's pyre, and drank the water down in one thirsty go, as if he thought it alcohol and not well… water. He shifted cautiously, wincing now and again, a hand still tight over the lower half of his right ribcage. He never removed his hand from the spot. His fingers only tightened, white knuckles popping outwards with force, and then they relaxed, as if the pain ebbed like the ocean's waves.

Aurora peered closer to him, on her knees, pillowed in front of him, her head titled. Adam merely slowed his drinking. It had been nearly four entire cups water before he slowed to normal pace.

"…You aren't going to tell me, are you?" Aurora finally said. She rose a blonde brow at him, testing the very idea and then let it fall.

"No." He said this sternly, but there was a faint tremor to his face, nearing some type of…relief. "Thank you for the water."

"…Of course." Aurora commented minimally.

"Aren't you thirsty?"

Aurora blinked. "You want me to drink?"

He gave a single shrug of his shoulder, as if her own question answered anything. She did not fail to notice that he favored the left side of his body. Something had to be wrong entirely on his right side. A fight? Did a horse kick him? What in the world…

"…If you still had any frets about our marriage, I can tell you with finality that it is off." Adam continued. His tongue was still stained a light red. Aurora watched his mouth with sudden fascination. She wasn't sure why his lips kept bleeding. No amount of water was washing it away.

"…Thank goodness," Aurora murmured, her chest tight. 'Our marriage'. God, to think, I'd actually be married to someone like you. She raised a hand to touch at her bangs, to pull a strain behind her ear. "I…don't know how to thank you. Uh."

She stuttered to a halt. Here, her mother would reprimand her but nothing else came.

Adam watched her calmly, a dull look of discomfort persistent behind his eyes. Still, he said nothing.

Here, Aurora broke into a sad smile. "I don't know what to say."

"You already said it." Adam flickered his eyes back to the floor. "You're welcome."

"…What happened to you…does it have to do with, um, our wedding?"

Adam never moved his eyes. His brow furrowed once more. "No."

"You're lying."

He blinked. "Why does this matter so much to you? Haven't I insulted you enough?"

"I…I think you calculated it." Aurora said. She lifted her chin stubbornly. "Philip and I both do."

He gave a sharp grunt. "Ah, well if it's in accord, then it must be true."

Aurora felt her tempter flare. "Fine. Then if you won't tell me, I'll ask you father."

In reflex, Adam's entire body tightened. His nostrils flared outwards, the fingers around his drink curled inwards, and the hand along his right side sank fingers deeper into the fabric of his undershirt. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"…He won't see you."

Aurora deflated. "You can't be serious."

"He's…already gone." Adam answered, his voice strangely flat. "He left after dinner. After we were separated."

"He left you here?" Aurora couldn't help but to ask.

"I have horses to take me back." Adam replied. He winced again. What little color the water had revived to his face was gone once more. "I can leave now, if you wish."

Aurora could hardly believe all she was hearing. "Your own father just left you here? Knowing you're hurt? How—how could he? If it were my father, he'd tear the entire country-side apart just to know I was safe! How could he just leave you, Adam?"

He swallowed. He looked everywhere but her eyes. "I asked him to leave."

Aurora softened. "You…don't care for your father much, do you?"

A small, bitter sound reached from back of his throat. A laugh? A growl? A choked sob? Aurora couldn't say. "Am I now your prisoner?"

"What?"

"These questions you're asking. I'd like to know for how much longer they'll go on."

Aurora dropped her jaw, her eyes tight in exasperation. "I'm sorry, are you busy right now? Because I'm certainly not. You can hardly walk without me, and I don't plan on letting you go, so—"

"So," Adam cut in. "I am your prisoner?"

Aurora snorted hot air from her nose. His satisfied grin did not earn any favors to win her over to his dark, attempted humor. "I don't understand."

"Wardens of jailers ask prisoners questions. It's called an 'interrogation'. It's what you're doing now."

"You confess to being a criminal?" Aurora mocked, ready to turn his mockery back upon him. "Whatever do you steal? Cups? Dragon eyes? Hearts?"

A weak laugh. He winced at it but kept his tone light. "So doubtful. I woo plenty of women."

Aurora could not have made her stare any more skeptical if she tried. "You disgust me in every way. Even without the blood."

Here, Adam gave a roll of his eyes. "And you, the picture of a princess?" He scanned over her dress with a terribly practiced eye that nearly made Aurora recoil away. Perhaps he knew more of hearts than she dared to know. "That color pink is garish to your complexion. Who picked it for you? Philip, I imagine?" Adam merely shook his head, mindful of his side. "It ruins you."

Aurora scoffed. "Well, I didn't put on this dress for you. You'd be such a lovely friend if your tongue didn't ruin you. What does your mother think of her prized son, rushing all over France to find the latest virginal girl?"

Another shrug. He seemed unmoved. "She's been dead for over a decade now."

Oh. Aurora felt the wind knock from her chest. Her teasing suddenly dropped. Her face paled.

"I'm…sorry." She breathed out. "I…I was just…"

"You needn't be." Adam returned quietly. His teasing façade faded as well. He stared at her solemnly. "What Philip said? It is entirely true."

Aurora forced herself to keep looking him in the eyes, despite her embarrassment. "The plague?"

"Yes. It was the sickness that killed her."

"Then…everything Philip said. He meant?"

"I'd imagine he would. I'd be more concerned if he didn't. I was tearing you apart before his very eyes and he strove to defend you. Isn't that what you've always wanted from your fantasies? Your prince come to your aid? Defend your honor?"

"No," Aurora said quickly, her thoughts flying to make sense of Adam's one decent answer. "What I mean is: Philip meant what he said. And you—you didn't."

A low whisper of a breath echoed across the kitchen. Adam exhaled heavily then leaned back. His eyes blinked towards the ceiling. She had caught him. "I convinced you I meant it. That is what matters."

"Then, The Dragon—"

"Is probably real." Adam replied in turn.

"And my demeanor?"

He chuckled hoarsely. "Is adequate. You're… fine. You're perfectly…fine, if that's what you're so desperate to hear?"

"And Philip?"

"Has good intentions. Even if he is selfish." Adam rasped.

Aurora picked at the tear in her sleeve. Her thoughts swirling, connected and disappearing, as she studied all his answers. "…The plague cannot possibly run in your veins."

When Aurora spied his reaction, she found him already rising to meet her eyes. "Exaggeration, perhaps, but not fully a lie."

"You're just full of…"

"Lies?" Adam intoned.

"No. Half-truths."

"Half-truths," Adam considered the word. "Fair."

They were quiet once more. Only Adam's dim breathing filled the spaces, sprawling across the kitchen. If pain were tangible, if it had feathery tendrils that sought to bind other people, Aurora was certain she could be consumed by all Adam was not showing her. She tried not to imagine what his wounded side might look like beneath his clothes. Dare he even let her get so close.

Now, she understood. She had pushed the answer away all night, like an unconscious fear that drifted too close to her content bubble she had made for herself. His mother gone. His father now miles away. Why he didn't turn to look at her in the hall. Why his person changed so quickly once his father entered the room.

"It didn't need to come to this." Aurora murmured.

"It always needs to come to this," Adam disagreed, his face turned away from her. "You have to understand that we are never alone. Any social engagement between two people of our stature will always lead to someone listening, low borne or high. Always eyes watching, always a staff member somewhere whispering what they've s—"

He winced again, the notion cutting off his words. He resisted a cough. Then, another, until the sound wretched out from between gritted teeth. He pulled in another breath. Aurora could practically hear the agony slandering his words as he went on:

"People have to know; that is the point. They must know. If no one knew, then our words wouldn't matter. We wouldn't matter. Our words are only spoken to be listened to. You're so lost in your new dream that you never noticed how you are never alone. And you shall never be alone again, no matter what you do, where you go, what you wish. Welcome to the royal life, fairy princess. It always needs to come to this."

His eyes were tight to her face. His breathing splintered. He coughed again, his little speech costing him what composure he had left. Now, he could not hide the edge of a moan that lingered on every breath.

Silence again.

Without a word, Aurora pulled herself up and moved over to Adam. Here, she grasped his free hand, giving it a little tug. Adam merely looked up at her in resolve before he understood.

It was only when Aurora helped Adam up the final step of the stairs the she realized what was amiss. She moved through the darkness, steadfast and holding tight to someone that…needed her. And she didn't think of The Dragon's head. Not once. It was as if it didn't matter anymore.

Perhaps her fear would not entirely be over. But it was lesser than it once was.

And for Aurora, that was more than enough.

"I hate the cold," Adam complained. He had not said a word since Aurora had taken him to her bedroom, far to opposite wing of where Adam and his father had been staying. He did not remark upon her frilly, purple bedding, her hand-painted glass dolls, her lavish pillows. Nor her un-buttoning his shirt, and the layer beneath that, in a skillful movement. But Aurora, opening her windowsill to collect a small handful of snow to lay over his skin? That was far too much. The more he attempted to move way, the harder it seemed to numb the pain.

"You're only making this worse," Aurora allowed. She tried not to stare too obviously at Adam's side. It was nearly black from the worst of it, the layers of skin after circling out like the rings of felled tree stump, black to purple to green to yellow…she knew so little of how to heal a fever, let alone a broken bone. But, she was certain that was entirely the cause of his pain.

"I'm making it worse? I'm certain placing anything there is the absolute worst of it, Aurora," Adam guarded, his voice tight. "It cannot get any worse than this."

"I'm sorry to say that you aren't dying. That would be the worst of this."

Another roll of his eyes. "Just find me that knife in your dragon's eye. I'll do it myself."

"You couldn't if you tried." Aurora snapped. She was close to finding some way to hold him down. Perhaps to pin him, as she had with Philip? She meant it entirely to ease his pain, but still, she flushed. She'd yet to have Philip into her private room (yet), on her bed (yet), and still, here Adam lay, twisted and pain-filled with his blue eyes demanding her attention.

Not exactly what she had wanted her first encounter with a man across her bed to be like.

"Bah. I never cared for feats of strength."

Using her free hand, Aurora placed her palm over the center of his chest. Then, she laid the snow over the bruise, tensing up her hand as Adam shuddered under its cold bite. "There."

"Je brûle en enfer," Adam gritted at her. She certainly did not know French, yet, if her mother had anything to say about it, but Aurora bit back a laugh. It most certainly sounded like a swear. He forced his body to be still. For a moment, his breathing stopped. And, much to Aurora's surprise, he heaved a sigh. It almost sounded pleased.

"What do you do then?" Aurora asked softly. She really was quite curious. She had only known time with Philip and those short hours at every ball. What did other princes do for fun?

"…Read, I suppose." His answer came quietly. He had turned to look outside her window. In his eyes, Aurora could swore she could see a reflection of the moon.

"Read?" Aurora wondered at the response. "I've never met a young prince that enjoys reading. No…hunting? No…sailing?"

"Meeting people? Going places?" Adam countered, his voice edging on the dramatic, as if he had to press upon Aurora his further disdain for others. "When I am king, that is the first thing to go."

"You don't like doing anything?"

He wrinkled his nose. "I like when I get to choose who comes to my parties, who I want there, who I wish to see." His narrowed his eyes in thought. "I don't have the patience for strangers, or beggars, or worse, fools."

"What do you like to read?"

His mouth quirked at this. His brow furrowed, as if distraught, their banter halting awkwardly. "I...I meant, rather." He gave a rough clear of his throat. "I enjoy listening to stories, whatever they may be."

"You? Idle gossip? What a captivating pastime. I am not surprised."

He glanced at her in distant amusement. "I forget you've taken me captive. No, no, I demand a chance to ask my questions, too." He smirked at her. "What do you like to read?" A pause. "Tales of sweet, boorish lovers? Poetry, I presume?" His voice took on a tone of peculiarity, speculation, before he came to a promptly negligent answer. "I suppose the forest princess deplores the idea of rougish conspiring."

"You aren't funny." Aurora bit back. "I enjoy a variety of literature, do you think me so pedantic?"

He gave a dry chuckle, the shallowest he could manage, while still remaining sincere. It hurt to breathe, let alone laugh. "You are fun."

"You're still an arse."

He nodded at this. "Yet, I'm in your bed? Have you ever had a man in your bed before?"

"And, apparently, an awful flirt."

"I'd be better if you changed that dreadful color of your dress."

"I will hit you."

"What's to stop you?" Adam returned wittily. His grin turned disastrously charming. "You have before."

She honestly felt herself blush. "I'm taken."

"Yes, but once by my hand, mere hours ago. A pity, really." He turned from her to stare outside the window once more. "Blue is more your color, by the way."

Quiet. His breathing was starting to slow. Aurora felt herself nervously pick at her dress once more. She moved to the window and opened it again, just to feel the chill of the midnight breeze over her face. She added more snow into her hands. She felt a thrill of satisfaction to watch Adam squirm under the new layer of cold.

Then, they both returned to the window.

"You've said that there is no escape. But there is." Aurora said quietly.

"Is that so?"

"For all your jokes, I really did love growing up in the forest. And…I go back to it, sometimes. Philip joins me on occasion. I…" She felt herself tense, the sudden notion of sharing her own secret too overwhelming.

"…Go on?" Adam inquired softly, his voice raspier than usual.

"Don't laugh."

"Fine."

"I mean it, Adam."

A faint chuckle. "Okay. There."

"I call it 'woodswalking'. It's an escape. It's a real, honest escape. I promise that. You just go into the forest and…"

"…You consider not coming back." Adam answered.

Aurora stilled. Her heart felt heavy. She gave a nod, unsure if Adam could see her do so in the dark. She took in a sharp inhale of air. It was now or she might never truly understand him.

"Don't you wish for anything? Anything different than what has happened to you?"

"I can take care of myself." Adam answered.

"No." Aurora argued. "I feel that is the very least at what you are capable of doing. Taking care of one's self is letting me know you do before you do it. Taking care of one's self is so I can help you in your plans and taking care of yourself is not antagonizing your father until he beats you."

"…Yes. Well…" Adam rumbled gently. "My father does take my interference in social occasions rather hard. But, if we're talking about wishes, about stars and praying," here, he gave sneer. "I don't have wishes. Wishes aren't applicable to my life."

"Anyone can wish. Everyone wishes for something, something they want."

"Well. A wish recognizes the impossibility of the idea, the absurdity of the desire. What I want, I always get. Wishes and wants are not the same thing."

"Wanting," Aurora struggled to grasp the word. "What about caring? What about loving someone?"

"I have saved you from myself and our wretched miserable lives together, so please, consider that my parting gift when you and dear Philip are happily married. That is caring enough."

"Why must you say his name that way?" Aurora swung her tone low to give a sharp mockery of Adam's voice, drawling Philip's name out as drearily as she could.

"Because," Adam added with a click of his teeth. He pulled himself slowly from her bed, sitting up to stare at her irreguardless of the pain. "He's such a gallant hero. Heaped with praise until his dying days. As if he would have rescued a stranger. He knew you since childhood, or did I mishear you father's words?"

"You're saying, what, that if I wasn't entangled in your life, you wouldn't have rescued me?"

"Yes." Adam replied coolly. "I can hardly rescue myself."

"You're a fool." Aurora said. "If you were to just tell me what was to happen, this all could have been avoided. And the price you pay…"

"It is easy to play a game when one knows the outcome and how it will or will not change. In a game of chess there are so many pieces and only so many moves to make. I make the indicated moves, I become the pawn, the king, the queen, and this—"he gestured to himself from the bed, to his side with a flourish. "This is checkmate. I get what I want. There is no losing. There is nothing to lose in a game with only two players that matter."

"You are bleeding so badly you can hardly stand! I consider that to be quite lost!"

"Aurora, you see things in such a black and white way. I assure you, this is worth everything it cost."

"Nothing is worth the price of blood." Aurora retorted, her voice close to breaking their quiet, heated whispering. She found herself staring straight into his eyes, no longer humorous or soft, but the edges of his blue eyes frozen and hard. "And do not make light of what magic is or what it has done to my life. It isn't something to be trifled with, Adam."

Suddenly, she found she was close to him again. Very close. She could smell the blood on his skin. The crushed petals for the soap he had used to wash his hair.

He gave her a slow, dark smile. "Have you ever tasted blood, Aurora?"

Aurora held fast into their next moment, where the only sound was of her own heart beating and Adam, his chest, the rise and fall, to hint at his breathing, responding to her. She felt made of stone. His eyes traced the curve of her face, inching closer to her.

Those eyes. They called out to her. Like the spinning wheel. Like he was some dark, forbidding thing she couldn't touch.

"You have the most unusual eyes." He murmured. Aurora felt her skin prickle at how close his lips were to delicate shell of her ear. "It reminds me of words I once heard. Or, perhaps, a place I have once been. I don't know how." He whispered deliberately. "I don't believe I was ever pure."

"I…was going to say the same about yours." Aurora managed. Her cottage. The river. Her childhood. She stilled her breathing. She blinked her eyes closed, then opened them again. He was still here. She wasn't dreaming.

"Et le ciel reflate/Dans la violette/Ses pures couleurs…" He recited slowly. He then studied her warily. "God, how could it be that you're still so excruciatingly innocent?"

She swallowed thinly. She didn't want to pull away. She had no answer to give.

"Have you ever tasted blood before, Aurora?" He whispered close to her throat, a soft repeat of those words that moved like water down her spine. "Don't worry, princess. I will only give you this one exception; once you know blood, it is hard to go back."

He moved gently to close the gap between them. Aurora felt her heart flutter at the base of her throat. A single kiss. His lips, chapped and cold and red.

She shuddered. She was awake. The morning sun. She was alone. Her hair coiled above her, golden and untouched. She was awake. She had fallen asleep still in her dress. The sleeve still torn.

Her first thought was: Maleficent. Somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. She must have fallen asleep just before she went to find…

Aurora paused. She reached up her fingers to find her skin clean and pale. She touched at her face to know the truth. Her sheets were unsoiled, but the smell of Adam's sweat lingered in the room...or was it the heavy scent from the frozen woods? Philip's musk as familiar to her as his arms? The window somehow left open, glass trembling from a cold morning draft...

Where was Adam? Was he still bleeding? What of last night and Maleficent's gouged eye? What was real? Was she still dreaming?

I know what is real. Aurora forced her first breath of the morning, smooth and icy, her chest rising with her final conviction. I know what is... real?

A check of the castle would tell her soon that Adam's horses were gone. The servants had little to say about the night. Aurora could find no blood over the floors, nothing misplaced in the kitchens. If he hadn't left with his father that evening, Aurora was at a lost to find their hoven prints, perhaps quietly buried under a layer of glistening morning frost.

Upon her lips, she tasted blood.