Kiss Me Chapter 1, a smallville fanfic

DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE. I OWN NOTHING.

KISS ME

oXo

CHAPTER ONE

Tomorrow is my sixteenth birthday. I do not suppose it necessary to explain the furor this has caused in the kingdom. Each year on my birthday, guests come from around the world to celebrate and they bring gifts! Of course, my sixteenth birthday is of special importance. Rumor has it that a ship has sailed all over the world, collecting items for my pleasure. They say it has even visited the British colony on the other side of the world. I believe it is called Virgin Land.

But more than guests, more even than presents, is the actual hope that this whole spindle business will end today. Before her sixteenth birthday. That was what the witch Maleficent had said. So tomorrow Motherella and The General will rejoice at having completed the Herculean task of keeping their stupid daughter away from a common household sewing object for sixteen years.

And then I can live the ordinary life of a normal princess who does not need to know how to sew anyway because...hello, princess.

It is not merely spindle avoidance that has been my difficulty thus far. Rather, because of this, I have been effectively shut out from the world. Other young maidens of my station have traveled to France, India, and even the wilds of Virgin Land. But I have not been permitted to make the shortest trip to the nearest kingdom, lest one of the populace there wished to attack me with a spindle – because that is so common. In the castle, the very tapestries seem to mock me with their pictures of places I have never seen because they undoubtedly have spindles. I am barely allowed outside, and when I am, it is only with Lady Lutessa as chaperone, who I at times suspect would like to attack me with a spindle herself. I am fifteen years old, and I have never had a single friend. Who would want to be friends with a girl who is guarded day and night from the sewing kit?

Likewise, a young princess my age would ordinarily have dozens of suitors requesting her hand. Her beauty would be the subject of song and story. Duels would be fought for her. She might even cause a war, if she were beautiful enough…and hello, I am me.

But though my beauty has been spoken of, raved of even, there has not been one single request for my hand. The General says it is because I am young yet, but I know that to be a lie. The reason is the curse. Any sensible prince would prefer a bride with a hooked nose over one who might fall into a coma at any moment she takes up knitting.

There is a knock at the door. Lady Lutessa. "Your Highness, the gowns are ready for viewing," she calls from outside.

The gowns. They have been prepared especially for tomorrow. It will be the grandest party ever. The guests will arrive at the palace door in carriages or at the harbor in ships. There will be a grand dinner tonight, and tomorrow a ball with an orchestra for dancing and a second orchestra for when the first tires. There will be fireworks and a midnight supper and a special bubbling wine made by monks in France, then a week of less extravagant parties to follow. It will be a festival. I will be at the center of it, of course, courted by every prince, and before it is over, I will have fallen in love—and I will be sixteen, cured of the curse.

"Your Highness?" Lady Lutessa continues to knock.

The gowns – one for tonight and several for the ball tomorrow and a dozen or so more for the coming week – must be perfect. And then, perhaps The General will speak with the tailor who designed the loveliest one and have him create fifty or so more for my wedding trip around the globe.

Truth be told, it is the trip, rather than the wedding, which appeals to me. I care not for marriage at someone else's whim. But it is my lot in life and a cross I must bear to gain the wedding trip around the world. I yearn to see things, experience things, investigate things, and report them back to the kingdom. I am more than ready to leave Pandora, having been trapped here for almost sixteen years.

I fling the door open. "Well? Where are they?"

Lady Lutessa produces a map of the castle.

I take it from her. One has to admire her organization. I see now that Lady Lutessa has marked out the rooms which will be used to house our numerous royal guests. Other rooms are marked with a star. "What is this, Tess?"

"On the occasion of your last birthday, you told your father that, upon the occasion of this birthday, you required 'the most perfect gown in all the world,' because heaven forbid you should have merely a pretty dress from a Pandora dressmaker." Your father took this request quite literally and sent out the call to tailors and seamstresses all over the world. There are small children being pulled from their cribs as we speak to make your dresses."

"Very good, Tess." I know she thinks I am silly and spoiled. Was I not gifted with intelligence? I also know this not to be the case. How can I be spoiled when I never get to do a single thing I want? I did not ask that children be pulled from their cribs to slave for me, but since they were, is it not only courteous to gaze upon their efforts and, hopefully, find a dress or two that will be acceptable? I can already picture the gown in which I shall make my grand entrance at the ball. It will be green, to bring out the green in my hazel eyes. "The map?"

"Yes, the map. Each tailor was asked to bring his best creations, all in your exact measurements. Your father believed that you might be overwhelmed, gazing upon so many gowns at once. Therefore, he decreed that they be placed in separate rooms of the castle. In this way, you may wander about, choosing as you will, since you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time that is remotely productive."

"We had best get started," I tell Lady Lutessa.

We begin to walk down the stone hallway. The first rooms are on the floor above us, and as we climb the stairs, Lady Lutessa says, "May I ask what you will do with the gowns which do not meet with your approval?"

This is a trick question. Like all of Lady Lutessa's questions, designed to prove that I am a spoiled brat. Why do I care what Lady Lutessa thinks? But I do, for much as I loathe her, she is my only companion, the closest thing I have to a friend. So I rack my brain for an acceptable answer. Give them to her? Surely not. The gowns were made to my exact measurements, and I am, after all, me. There is only one me.

"Give them to the poor?" I say. When she frowns, I think again. "Or, better yet, hold an auction and give the money collected to the poor. For food."

That should satisfy the wench!

And perhaps it does. At least, she is quiet as we enter the first room. Quiet disapproval is the best I can expect from Lady Lutessa.

Dresses line the walls, covering even the windows. In different fabrics, different shapes, but every single one of them is blue!

"Was it not communicated to the tailors that my eyes are hazel – green mixed with brown with flecks of amber – not blue – and that nobody should make a brown gown?" I ask Lady Lutessa in a whisper loud enough for the tailor to hear. I want him to. He hears. "You want-a green dresses?" He has an accent of some sort.

"Not all green," I say. "But I would not have expected all blue."

"Blue, it is the fashion this year," the tailor says.

"I am a princess. I do not follow fashions – I make them."

"I am certain one blue dress would be acceptable." Lady Lutessa tries to smooth things over with this peasant while glaring at me and trying to squish my head between her pointer finger and thumb. "Louisa Johanna, this man has come all the way from Italy. His designs are the finest in the world."

"What did you call me?" I say.

"I said…oh, never mind. Will you not look at the dresses now? Please? Lo?"

I look. The dresses are all boring. Completely and utterly boring, with boring ruffles. Boring, like everything else in my life. Still, I manage to smile so as not to call out another lecture from Lady Lutessa. "Lovely, thank you."

"You like?" He steps in my way.

"I will think about it. This is the first room I have visited."

This seems to satisfy him and I am allowed to pass to the next room. This room and indeed the two after it are little better. I find one dress, a dandelion colored one, which might be acceptable for a lesser event like Friday's picnic, some event at which I would not mind looking like a lemon confectionary dessert, but nothing at all to wear on…hello…the Most Important Night of My Life.

"Lo?" Lady Lutessa says after the third room. "Perhaps if you gave more than a cursory glance –"

"Perhaps if they were not all from Dante's Third Gluttonous Circle of Hell, Tess!" I am devastated and hurt, and Lady Lutessa does not understand. How could she? She could go to shops and choose her own clothing, even make it if she liked. I will never be normal, but barring that, I would like to be abnormal in a simple lovely green dress without too many frills. Is that too much to ask?

"Here is a green one," Lady Lutessa says in the next room.

I glower at it. The ruffles would poke my eyes out. "This would suit…my grandmother."

"Could the ruffles be removed?" Lady Lutessa asks the tailor.

"Could you create a gown that is not a blinding eyesore – and I mean that quite literally?" I add.

"Louisa…"

"What? True Story."

In the next room, I spy an indigo velvet with a heart-shaped neckline. I reach to touch the soft fabric.

"Beautiful, is it not?" Lady Lutessa asks.

I pull my hand back. I am thoroughly sick of Lady Lutessa and dresses and my life. Suddenly, the company of even Maleficent herself seems preferable to that of Lady Lutessa.

"Do you have anything better?"

"Lo, you are being terrible."

"I am being truthful, and I would thank you to remember that you are in my father's service."

"I know it. Would that it were not the case, for I am ashamed to be in your presence when you are behaving like a spoiled brat."

She says it with a smile. The tailor, too, smiles stupidly. I stare at him. I decide to test him. "Are there any gowns which are less likely to make me want to shred it with scissors to improve its appearance than this one?"

The man continues to smile and nod. Test complete. Just what I thought.

"He speaks no English," I say. "So what do you care what I say to him?"

"I care because I am forced to listen to you. You have grown more and more insolent in recent weeks. I am ashamed of you." She nods and smiles.

I feel something like tears springing to my eyes. Lady Lutessa hates me, even though she is required to like me. Probably everyone else hates me, too, and merely pretends because of The General. But I hold the tears back. Princesses do not cry.

"Then why not leave me alone?" I ask, smiling as I was trained. "Why does no one ever leave me be for one single, solitary instant?"

"My orders –"

"Were your orders to yell at me and call me a brat?" I begin to pace back and forth like a caged animal. I am a caged animal. "Tomorrow I shall be sixteen. Peasant girls my age are married with two and three babies, and yet I am not permitted to walk down a hallway within my own castle without supervision."

"The curse –"

"You do not even believe in the curse! And yet it has come true, not the spindle part, but the death – I am living my death, little by little, each day. And when I am sixteen and the curse ends, I shall be given over to a husband of someone else's choosing, who will tell me what to do and say and eat and wear for the rest of my life. I can only pray that it will be short, pray for the blessed independence of the grave. I will always be under someone's orders." I begin to cry, anyway, to sob. What difference does it make? "Can I not simply walk down a hallway on my own?"

Through it all, the tailor smiles and nods.

Lady Lutessa's expression softens. "I suppose it would be all right. After all, the tailors have been thoroughly searched and the spindle regulations explained to them."

"Of course they have. Heaven forbid a tailor is caught with a sewing instrument." I sigh and roll my eyes.

Lady Lutessa turns to the man and speaks to him in French.

"Thank you!" I sob. I point to the indigo velvet gown and say, in French, "It is beautiful! I shall take that one and that one as well." I point to a charming scarlet satin with a neckline off the shoulders, a gown I had purposely ignored before during my tantrum, but which now looks quite fetching.

"For a girl looking for green gowns you seem to have quite the affinity for fabric colors of red, blue and yellow."

"Can it Tess!"

"Very well." Lady Lutessa hands me the map. "Just point to what you want, and they will put it aside."

I nod and take the paper from her. Free at last—at least for an hour!

Free of the encumbrance that is Lady Lutessa, I fairly skip down the stone hallways. I would swing from the chandeliers, could I reach them, but I content myself with jumping up toward them. My life is no less horrible than before, but at least there is no dour Lady Lutessa to remark upon its horribleness.

In short time, I have chosen five dresses, thankfully none brown, but none special enough for my grand entrance at my birthday ball. Although one is green, it does not match the exact shade of the green in my hazel eyes.

"It will look lovely on you, Your Highness," says the tailor, who is from England.

But his apprentice says, "Indeed. It may not be the same shade of green that is in your remarkable hazel eyes, but the green fabric will bring them out. And it will highlight the amber flecks beautifully, Your Highness."

The tailor quickly shushes him, lest the boy disgrace them both by speaking so to a princess. But I turn toward him and smile. He is my age, no more, perhaps the tailor's son. I am not quite sure, for the tailor is towheaded and the apprentice dark. And – I find it difficult not to notice – he is handsome. Quite handsome. Perhaps the most handsome boy I've ever seen. For a commoner. Tall. Muscular. Hair like a raven. And tousled all over the place like its nest – but the messiness works on him. His eyes are the color of cornflowers mixed with grass.

"Do you think so?"

He looks down, blushing. "I meant no disrespect, Your Highness. But yes. It will look lovely on you, as any dress would."

I wonder what it would be like to be a common girl, who could flirt with such a handsome tailor's apprentice with such abandon. Or, better yet, to be the apprentice himself, to be a boy, so young, yet traveling far from home. And to learn a trade such as making a dress. In all my life, I have never created anything, never done anything at all other than silly paintings of flowers for my Italian art master. The General hung them in his and Motherella's bedchamber, where they would be seen by no one. Is it enough to be a princess, when being a princess means nothing?

I nod and turn reluctantly away from the handsome apprentice to the tailor. "I shall wear it tonight for dinner. Many noblewomen will be in attendance, and if they compliment my gown, I will tell them your name. What is it?"

"Kent, just like the county in Canterbury."

"Kent." I nod and start for the door. The tailor bows, but the boy does not move. He is staring at me. I get the shiveriest sensation across my arms. I can tell he thinks I am beautiful, but I like that he sees me – he noticed the amber flecks in my hazel eyes immediately with just one look. I noticed his eyes immediately with just one look too. Not blue. Not green. A mixture of both. Cornflowers mixed with grass. I wonder if this is what it will be like when I finally meet my prince.

More rooms and still the dress I desire has not been found. It seems a small task, certainly one the best tailors in the world should be able to accomplish. And yet they have not. I sigh. Perhaps I will wear the English tailor's dress to the ball after all. Perhaps it will bring out the green in my eyes. Perhaps the amber flecks as well. Perhaps The General and Motherella will request the English tailor and his apprentice make my wedding gowns. Perhaps I shall see the handsome apprentice again – at my wedding. Perhaps he is standing next to me. Perhaps he is holding my hand. Perhaps he is placing something on my finger. Perhaps.

I reach the end of the hallway. I have never been in this part of the castle before. Amazing. These rooms have barely been used, but surely a child – a normal child – would explore every room at some time. But I had not been a normal child.

I spy a staircase in the shadows. This is not one of the stairways I am accustomed to using to reach the fourth floor, and when I check Lady Lutessa's map, I see that it was not included. How odd. I am seized with a sudden urge to run up its steps, even slide down the banister. I turn back down the hall instead. Suddenly, I hear a voice:

Kiss me, out of the bearded barley

Nightly, beside the green, green grass

Swing, swing, swing the spinning step

You'll wear those shoes and I will wear that dress

A woman's voice, singing. Entranced, I start up the staircase following the voice:

Kiss me, down by the broken tree house

Swing me, upon its hanging tire

Bring, bring, bring your flowered hat

We'll take the trail marked on your father's map

At the top of the stairs, there is an open door. I stop. There is no tailor. I knew there would not be. But instead, there is an old woman sitting upon a bench. I see not what she is doing, for she is surrounded by dresses, so many dresses. But that is not the remarkable thing.

Each and every dress is exactly the same shade of green as in my eyes.

"Perfect!" The cry comes from me unbidden. I run into the room.

"Good afternoon, Your Highness." The old woman attempts to rise from her chair with great effort. She begins to curtsy.

"Oh, please don't! Stay!" I say. She is, after all, very old.

"Ah, but I must. You are a princess, and respect must be accorded certain positions. Those who do not take heed will pay the price."

She is almost to the floor, and I wonder how long it will take her to right herself. Still, I say, "Very well." I wish for a second—but only a second—that Lady Lutessa were here so that she might see how I follow her directions about not arguing with my elders.

I step back and study the dresses. It seems there is every style and every fabric: satins, velvets, brocades of all designs, and a lighter fabric I have never seen before, which will float behind me like a cloud of butterflies.

Finally, the woman rises. "Do you like anything?"

I had nearly forgotten she was there, so enchanted was I with the gowns.

I sigh. "Yes, I like everything! It is all perfect."

She laughs. "I am honored that you believe so. For you see, I am from Pandora. I have seen you all your life, Your Highness, and have flattered myself that I knew better than any foreigner the designs that would suit my own princess. All I had to do was open my box."

"Indeed." I try to recall if I have seen her before, perhaps in the crowds at a parade. Her eyes are unusual. They are not glazed over with a film of white, like the eyes of so many very old people are. Instead, they are lively, black and glittering like a crow's.

"Have you a special favorite?" she asks.

"This one." I start toward the lightweight dress.

"Do you mind, Your Highness, if I sit back down? I know it is not the correct way, but I am quite old, and my knees are not what they once were when I was a young woman like yourself, dancing at festivals."

"Of course." I am flooded with gratitude toward this stranger, who knows what I want, who understands me as Motherella and The General and Lady Lutessa do not. I approach the dress. The old woman has settled back onto her stool and has begun some sort of needlework. There is a contraption in her hand, something that looks like a top with which children play. It is nearly covered in wool that has been dyed a deep rose.

"What is that?" I ask her.

"Oh, it is my sewing. I make my own thread and sell it for a good price. Sixpence. None the richer. Do you wish to try?"

Sewing? I step closer. The contraption is a wooden spike weighted at one end with a whorl of darker wood. A hook holds the thread in place, and when the thread is finished, it winds around the stick below the whorl, to be used for sewing. There is a quantity of unfinished wool at the top. "Oh, I should not."

"Of course not. I misspoke. It would be unfitting for a young lady such as yourself to make dresses. You were born merely to wear them. Humble souls like myself were meant to create."

I nod, approaching the dresses again.

"Only…"

"What is it?" I am touching the fabric, but I glance back at her.

"They say it is lucky. It was handed down to me by my mother and her mother before her, and all who make thread with it are entitled to one wish."

"A wish?" I know what Lady Lutessa would say on the subject. Her thoughts on wishes are much like her thoughts on magic. Superstition is the opposite of religion. Still, I say, "Have you ever wished upon it?"

"Yes." She nods. "I have indeed, when I was young. I wished for a long life."

I stare at her. Her face is like crumpled silk, and her hair the color of paper.

"How long ago was that?"

"When I was your age, fifteen. So about two hundred years ago."

I gasp, but the old woman holds my gaze.

"What would you wish for, Your Highness? I know you must have wishes, trapped as you are in this castle, longing to marry if only to get out, not daring to hope for freedom." Her voice is very nearly hypnotic. "Be not afraid. What do you wish for?"

My freedom. Or normalcy. Or true love. Or…the world. I wish to travel the world, to not be a princess trapped in a protected existence, but a normal girl. A normal girl who can fall in love with a handsome apprentice and travel the world with him holding my hand and dancing in the moonlight and…live happily ever after.

The old woman starts singing again:

Oh, kiss me, beneath the milky twilight

Lead me, out on the moonlit floor

Lift your open hand

Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance

Silver moon's sparkling

So kiss me

"I think…" I say, "I will try it."

She nods and moves aside to make room for me on the bench. Her movement is less labored than before. She pats the space beside her. "Sit, Princess." She hands me the object, stick first. "This in your right hand. Then take the thread in your left, and spin it clockwise. When the thread has begun to spin, you make your wish."

I take the stick. I am distracted, thinking of my wish, my freedom, of seeing the world. As I reach for the thread, I feel a stab of pain in my finger. The hook at the end has punctured my left ring finger. When I glance down, I see a drop of crimson upon my skirt. Blood.

It is only then that I realize what the object is.

A spindle. The princess shall prick her finger on a spindle.

I hear the evil witch's laughter. Maleficent!

I begin to sink down to the floor to her final words. "Your true love will magically disappear…because he has many powers but is not invulnerable to mine…and he will return as an infant to the world from which he came…with no memory of you or this world…and your stars will never cross again…as his star will be destroyed…as is his destiny."

My last thought as I hit the ground is – son of a biscuit eating whore!