The Faerie Chronicles of Kenshin & Kaoru: The Sleeping Prince, a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 17 - In which Enishi and Titania put the castle to sleep.

"And till seven years were gone and past

True Thomas on earth was never seen."

Thomas the Rhymer

o.o.o

The Faerie King and Queen traveled through the bounds of time, aware of each other yet unable to communicate until they had emerged on a clear night in Himura Kenji's fourteenth year, soon after the reunion of his parents, who were currently halfway across the country dealing with some crisis. As soon as they arrived safely not too far from Himura Castle, Titania turned to Enishi and said indignantly, "I didn't invite you along, Unseelie brat!"

"Kenshin asked me to keep an eye on you," he shot back, folding his arms. Actually, it had been his sister who had asked him to follow the Faerie Queen on her errand, but there was no need for Titania to know that.

"Did he, now," she huffed. "It's like the boy doesn't trust me."

Enishi rolled his eyes. "I'm not even going to respond to that."

"As if you're any better?" she snapped. "The one who tried to kill him, and his wife, and-"

His hands had curled into fists, but he refused to rise to the bait. "That's over now," he said through gritted teeth.

A look of realization suddenly crossed her face, and she grinned. "No...no, it's not, dear," she said sweetly. "As I recall, at this point in time you're still gnashing your teeth in the depths below the Unseelie court." She clapped her hands in mock-delight. "Wouldn't it be a lovely idea to go visit your past self in prison? I'm sure it'll be fun!"

He raised his hand, which had begun to glow ominously. "We've fought two or three times by now, haven't we?" he said, falsely casual. "The only time you beat me was when you had a hostage. I'd speak more carefully, if I were you."

She switched gears at once. "Oh, hush, I don't have time to play with you. I've got a job to do, remember?" She lifted her arms for the spell, but Enishi stopped her.

"Kenshin's children are still in there."

"I knew that," snapped.

"I'll be back," he said shortly, and vanished.

"Hey!" she shouted after him, but of course he couldn't hear, and wouldn't have listened even if he could. Rolling her eyes, she flopped down as if onto an invisible chair and waited.

She was playing with a mouse, turning it into a frog and then a thimble and then a squirrel and then back into a mouse again, when she looked up and realized that people were streaming out of the castle. Her mouth came open indignantly, and the mouse frantically scampered away. It was in that moment that Enishi finally returned. He had an unconscious teenage boy slung over his back and a sleeping girl under each arm.

"You told them?" Titania accused, pointing at the castle.

"Did it ever occur to you," he said irritably, "that some of Kenshin's lesser minions might not want to sleep for hundreds of years?" He knelt carefully and laid the little girls down on the ground.

"And what about his important minions?" she challenged. "Sagara and Sôjirô and the rest? As I recall, you're not very popular around here at this time. Why would they trust you?"

"I showed them Kenshin's letter," he said shortly, "and the photos. They agreed to the plan." He grunted as he pulled the boy down and laid him out beside his sisters. "How helpful do you think they would have been if they were to wake up in the 1980's with no warning, no clue what's going on back there?"

Titania wasn't listening. "Kenji!" she gasped in delight when she saw him. "Oh, I forgot how cute he was at this age!"

Enishi glared up at her. "Don't you have a job to do?"

"It can wait," she said impatiently, reaching eagerly for the boy. Before she could touch him, Enishi cast a glamour so that Kenji suddenly resembled a red-haired toad. "How dare you?!" she shrieked, a little frantically. "Take it off! Take it off!"

"No, I don't think I will," he said pointedly.

Glaring, she turned back to the castle and raised her arms again. Inside those stone walls, a deep sleep fell upon the remaining inhabitants. They slumped down where they lay, their breath suspended, the beating of their hearts paused, frozen in time. Saitô remained upright, a roll of tobacco still dangling from his mouth. Yahiko's insensate fist still gripped his weapon; both Megumi and Sanosuke would have been outraged to find that the spell had caught them with his arm around her shoulders. Sôjirô's eyes remained half-open, unblinking, as if somehow keeping watch. Tae and Tsubame, their faces a little frightened, still clasped hands even in this charmed sleep.

"There," Titania huffed. "Now make Kenji beautiful again!"

Enishi was studying the castle with a thoughtful frown. Impatient at her insistence, he dissolved the glamour without sparing much attention from what he was interested in. "It's not going to hold up through the wars and the Great Fire."

She looked up from where she was affectionately brushing Kenji's hair out of his eyes. "But it's still around now," she said. "I mean, back where we came from."

"It's also," he murmured, "got protections around it. Very old ones." He smiled coldly. "I'd wondered who could have cast a barrier of such strength and permanence. My turn." He raised his arms.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then Titania noticed a dark shadow creeping slowly up the walls, and she frowned. "What is..." Plants, she suddenly realized. Snaking up as if to grasp the castle, enfolding it in an expanding thicket of thorny growth. "Rose bushes?" she said skeptically.

He had no attention to spare at the moment, but when the spell was complete, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, "It's transmutable, of course. Kenji'll still be able to hack his way through and reclaim the place when he's of age, but the protections will stay in place for as long as..." He shrugged. "Well, they're still there."

"Are you sure?" she said condescendingly. "In case you've forgotten, there aren't any roses growing over the castle in a few hundred years."

His lip curled disdainfully. She never had learned to stop underestimating him - it was like she still saw him as a little boy trotting around at Oberon's heels. "Wall of flames. Stone battlements. Chain-link fence. Even invisible for all I know. Doesn't matter; enemies will see what they expect to see, the barrier will remain...and so will the castle."

"How lovely," she said sweetly. "Dear Kenshin will be well protected, won't he?"

"I don't care about him," he said shortly. "As long as..." Tomoe was living there now, with her youngest children. He would die before he let any harm befall them.

"Well," Titania said brightly, "now that that's done, what are we going to do with Kenji?"

Enishi didn't bother to answer. Obviously they were going to have to go chasing down Kenshin and his wife (of this time, anyway), and he was not looking forward to seeing whatever mayhem his brother had caused here before deciding that this world was less interesting than the future.

"I could always take him back to the Seelie court," Titania suggested slyly.

Enishi glanced at her in mild annoyance. It took him a moment to recall what she was talking about. "You're not going to be able to get your hands on Kenji 'til he's fifty years old and well able to handle you. I don't think so."

She sighed, then pouted. "No one ever lets me have any fun..."

To be concluded...