Chapter Two

More Than You Bargained For

Lance did a double-take, yep, her eyes were open. He stared at her and half expected her to jump up and drag him outside which he did not want to happen. Ever. He tried to take a step towards her, tried being the keyword as he failed, tripping and landing partly on the side of the bed before smacking the floor. He quickly got up and pretended that embarrassing fall hadn't happened. Goodness, I'm probably in front of a princess. Can I not fall over myself?

This caused Sleeping Beauty to look in his direction, as if finally noticing he was there. "Who are you?" she asked slowly.

"I-I'm Lance, Your Highness-Majesty-Lady?" he stumbled over his words blushing once more. He noticed her eyes were a calm blue, Like the sea, he thought. She furrowed her brow before moving to stand up. Lance watched her not quite believing this was real before she asked him to move out of the way. He moved quickly and this time managed to not fall.

She sat there at the edge of the bed before looking his way and asking, "What is the date?"

There were tears in her eyes and he felt incredibly uncomfortable, "It's 2nd June 2022."

At this her eyes began to water, a lot. Lance's eyes flitted around everywhere trying to look anywhere other than the girl. The girl then heaved a sob and Lance felt terrible though he didn't know why.

"Why-why are you crying?" Lance asked her trying not to upset the girl any more. She heaved another sob before stopping almost instantly.

She turned to him and answered, "I have been trapped in this curse for over 900 years. 900 years! And now I know of no one and am miles from my country."

Lance stood there stunned, Okayyyy. That went well. At least she's not crying anymore. But, wait- 900 years?! There is so much more to this than I thought. I reallyshouldn't have come.

Lance noticed a shimmering in the air and began to freak out.

"Okay, what is that?" he asked, pointing to the light show.

"Time is running out, we must leave. I never should have wasted time complaining. Get ready, young man, we must leave quickly. Now, what do you have at your disposal?"

Lance was still stuck on the fact that she called him a 'young man'. No one had called him that in ages. Then what she had said sunk in.

"What do you mean, what is at my disposal?" he asked.

"I mean, do you have an army, a dragon maybe or a bit of magic? What do you have to aid us on our escape?" She was looking at him completely serious.

"I don't have anything. I mean-"

The girl cut him off, "What do you mean, you don't have anything?! You are the chosen one! Did you simply come here by yourself? If so, I don't see how you accomplished it, what with getting here of your own accord and waking me."

Lance was really confused and chose to answer the simplest question, "I came with a few friends of mine-"

She cut him off- again, "Excellent, where are they?" She swept her arm out for him to lead the way. Wide eyed, Lance could not refuse.

He hesitantly took a step forward and then another and quickly made his way to the door from which his friends had exited. He cautiously opened the door and was surprised to find no one around. Literally no one around. No guards, tourists or anyone really. He turned around to ask the girl if she knew what was happening when she gently pushed him aside and told him to touch them when they came into view and say the words, 'qui per vivum relinquo'. He hesitated, not knowing what she was going on about before she lifted her arms up, palms to the ceiling and whispered something. It felt like there was wind blowing around, her golden hair fluttering on a ghostly wind. It seemed like the world was becoming lighter and he began to freak out but then he began to see shapes of people and he realised what she had wanted him to do. As the people became a little clearer he finally recognised his friends, they were frozen, as were all the others, he went and tapped them on their shoulders, whilst whispering the words she had told him. He had been worried that he would forget the words but it was almost as if his body knew what to say, like an instinct- which was weird because he had never done anything close to that before.

He felt like he was walking on air, the fog closing in on him but he felt free, like anything was possible. Rain turned to hail, pelting him. The wind whooshing, ruffling his hair as if fond of him.

"Hey, what's going on? Lance? What are you doing?" a voice called out through the fog, the dream shattering as he came back to reality.

He opened his eyes which he hadn't realised were closed and saw his friend, Enrique, standing in front of him, looking at him with a confused look on his face. He looked around and saw that everyone was looking at him strangely, including the girl- he really needed to find out her name. She had an extremely weird look on her face, almost nostalgic.

He realised he had been holding himself like she had been before, with his palms facing the ceiling. He brought them back down, a little nervous though he didn't know why. He hadn't done anything wrong.

This seemed to snap the girl out of her thoughts, "Chop chop, people. We need to get going."

Everyone's attention immediately snapped to her.

"Who- How- What- When- Why? Why?" Enrique stammered finally deciding 'why' was the way to go though he wasn't sure why.

The girl seemingly decided that a formal introduction was needed, "Hush now. When you have found your tongue you may speak. I am Princess Marillier of the Kingdom of Ennkey, also known as the Sorceress Rose of the Briar. We must make haste, the spell will soon wear off."

Marillier, Rose, that was her name- or well, names. Such pretty names for her, she definitely looked like a princess and she had made his friends appear so she probably was a sorceress like she had said. And the spell- wait, what was going to happen? Lance snapped out of his thoughts and asked her what exactly was going to happen when the spell wore off. Seeing as they were probably not going to budge until she told them she began a short explanation.

"We are inbetween planes of existence right now, there is the spirit plane and the material plane, my… a subject was able to bless me to this rift inbetween planes in order to help me escape whichever prison I am held in."

Everyone was shocked into silence, including Richard who for once had no ill-meaning comment at the tip of his tongue.

"I fear we have run out of time," Marillier's sombre tone didn't escape anyone's notice.

Hello again! I hope you enjoyed reading this. If there are any mistakes please let me know. Also, please let me know what you thought of this chapter! You can review or PM me.

Also, thank you to Qoheleth for reviewing, they were good questions. Hopefully everything will make sense at the end of the story.

If you don't understand anything you can always PM me.

And also thank you to AspiringAuthor101 who left such a lovely review, it helped me finish this chapter!