Title: One For Another
Author name and e-mail: mistykasumi at mistykasumi at gmail dot com
Fandom: Fairy tales, specifically, Sleeping Beauty
Summary: Instead of death, he finds a cursed princess.
Rating: G
Genre: General
Disclaimer: I am too young to own this. Really.
Notes: For weeklyquote's challenge #2.
When he dies, you will mount your horse and leave your kingdom, your grief too much for you to bear. You will roam everywhere, not wanting to go anywhere but especially not wanting to go back home because the memories will still be too raw for you to face.
You will wander to a great mass of thorns when your last suit of clothes (not that you will have packed more than three, really) will almost be almost in tatters, and you will think that to yourself that you may as well end your life where no one will ever find you. You will be certain that your parents have given up hope for you.
You will make some effort to hack you way through the tangle of vines and thorns in the middle of nowhere because how else will you actually get into the mass to die? But you will find that everything breaks easily when your swords chops it, and you will go deeper and deeper into the great darkness, thinking that soon, the vines will become too thick for your sword because you will have seen skeletons everywhere, wrapped around the creeping tendrils.
You won't realize that you've gone all the way through the vines until you step into the daylight and find yourself in a castle. You will find everyone there asleep as you walk everywhere, trying to find someone to whom you will be able to talk, and your feet will take you up the steps to the highest tower.
You will open the door to find a beautiful princess sleeping upon an ornate bed, and you will kiss her because you have heard that curses are broken by kisses. She and everyone else will awaken because of your kiss, and the thorns will shrink in upon themselves, taking the skeletons of your failed predecessors as they disappear. She will proclaim you her true love and lead you downstairs to her parents, who will thank you graciously and give their daughter to you.
You will have a splendid wedding with the princess you will rescue, and everyone will be invited to attend, including your parents. They will shower you with love and tell you that you have made the right choice, that you will become a king as they have intended you to be.
Before you say your vows, you will think to yourself that the only reason you even rescued this princess will be because of your lover's death, and you will remark to yourself how ironic it is that by seeking death after your loved one dies, you, instead, will give life and become another's beloved.
