A/N: Life happens but alas, the next chapter! Thank you for your lovely reviews.

"So you're the Queen's relative?" GoGo asked. "You don't look alike."

"Not by blood," the Prince answered. "She married my cousin. My uncle was my grandfather's second son. Died a couple years after she took the throne."

"So why does she rule instead? Is it because of the curse?" Once she started, she couldn't stop. Every answered only opened up more questions. Thankfully the Prince didn't seem to mind and answered patiently. If she wasn't mistaken, it seemed as if he was enjoying the conversation.

"Well, partially," he said. "How much did you learn about our history in school?"

She shrugged. "I remember a little bit about a previous family, but the way I was taught was they all died, and so Queen Abigail was some distant relative who took over. Everyone was very hush-hush about it. They didn't explain the whole story at school, and there were no books on it in the library."

"I guess our family was careful not to let the truth out."

"Was the previous family yours?"

He nodded. "My mother died in childbirth and my father fell ill. Shortly after he died, I was supposed to assume the throne. But then the enchantress came and, well, that threw everything down the drain."

"So Queen Abigail took over," GoGo realized.

"Yes, she's the one that sends the food and supplies over."

"How come you didn't want anyone knowing about the curse? I mean, I can somewhat understand why. But couldn't someone in the kingdom find a cure?"

"Lord, what good could come out of it? People might start panicking about enchantresses. Enemy kingdoms could find a way to take advantage of this. Besides, my father wouldn't have liked it."

GoGo nodded. She still thought someone could possibly find a way to break the curse, but he had his reasons. "How old are you?"

He laughed. "Well, if you want to get technical about it, twenty-nine."

If she'd been drinking, she would have spit it out. "Twenty-nine? But you... You don't come off as that old."

He kept chuckling, and she couldn't see what was so funny. "I was nineteen when I turned, but the enchantress held our ages in standstill. We haven't aged in ten years. And you can clearly see it when you talk to my brother."

The cup. He certainly hadn't matured in ten years. "Will you be same age when you turn back?"

He paused. "Yes, I suppose so."

When he came to a halt, GoGo wondered if she'd offended him again. She peeked over his shoulder and found large wooden doors with lion carvings in them. The Prince placed his squeaky hand over the brass knob and pushed the door open. Laying before GoGo's very eyes was a grand vision of colossal shelves crammed with endless books. In the center of the library rested a low table cluttered with books, papers, measuring instruments, and an inkstand.

GoGo's jaw dropped, and she slowly spun around watching everything in awe. "This is all yours?" she asked in a low whisper, as if it was all a precious secret.

The Prince chuckled. "I didn't think it would be such a surprise given I own a castle."

"There's just so many."

He waddled over to the table and sat on the maroon carpet, gesturing for her to sit on the other side. "Sorry for the lack of chairs. I'm usually the only one in here."

That was hardly a problem. Gladly, she plopped herself on the other side, crossing her legs and slouching as she peered over the papers. "What are these?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he mumbled, grabbing them and shuffling them into one neat pile before tucking it away in the corner. "Enough about me. I'd like to know about you."

She frowned. "Me?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but this is the most talkative you've been since you got here."

Huh. Strangely enough, he was right. In fact, she never recalled talking so much even at the village. But in an enchanted castle, anyone was bound to have a flood of questions. She still had more, but perhaps he grown tired of answering every one. "Okay. Shoot."

He cocked his head to the side. "Is your name really GoGo?"

She snorted loudly. In the library's huge space, it echoed. "No. It's a nickname the villagers gave me."

"Oh. Because I was wondering - why do they call you that, anyway?"

"Because I rush home when I'm grocery shopping." Or she used to, but she didn't say that aloud. "They sometimes call me GoGo Tomago because they messed up my surname, too."

"So what's your real name?"

"Leiko Tanaka. But I don't care if you keep calling me GoGo."

His eyes fell to the inkstand. "That's a pretty name."

"Er... thank you, I guess."

"What's it like out there?"

"The forest?"

"The village. Everything out there."

"Why do you care?" She crinkled her eyebrows, coming to a sudden realization. "When was the last time you set foot outside this castle?"

He gave it some thought. "Well, we certainly never left after we were cursed. But even before that, very rarely. Father never let me go to any of the villages - he said they were for peasants. Mostly we visited the neighboring kingdoms or homes of council members."

GoGo was taken aback. Why should the Prince care about meager peasant life when he had riches and grandeur in his own home? She thought back to her own life back at village when she only left to go grocery shopping, borrow books, or get supplies for her creations. But he was waiting for a response, and so she told him what little she knew since she had never traveled the seas or even outside her little town once. She told him about her aunt's bakery first, which always smelled of fresh baking bread, and the demanding customers. She spoke of the bustling town, always crowded and gossiping about trivial things.

"Most of the time they gossiped about just any little peculiarity, but sometimes there were people who really were... odd."

"How so?"

"Well, there was this one girl Belle. She was pretty, I suppose, but one time she got a book and the first thing she did was sit down to read to a bunch of goats who ate the pages and she didn't even care."

But her most favorite places were the library and the pawn shop. The library was of course pathetic compared to this one, and the pawn shop might have bored anyone else to tears. To her, however, they were places of endless wonder and imagination. The ideas she'd drawn from a single glance in there! The things she could create with such tools, even if the other villagers thought they were just junk.

"That sounds amazing," the Prince said.

"This library by far is more impressive," GoGo dismissed.

"Not the library - all of it." He rested his arms on the table and leaned in, eager to hear more. "The bakery, the market! The hunters!"

"It's so... mundane."

"It's like nothing I've ever dreamed of. Do you know what I'd give to be in your place? Just once? Er, as a villager, that is."

GoGo stared at him as she had done the first time she laid eyes on him. Here was a prince with everything he could possibly ask for (save the curse), and he would give that all up to be a meager peasant? What kind of water were they drinking in this castle?

"Why would a prince want a peasant's life of all things?"

"Well... there was no expectation for me other than to become King. Everything is set for you."

"Oh, how wretched."

"I didn't have a choice in anything. Not my lessons, my schedules, my clothes... not even my own bride." He let his eyes wander to the books, tucked neatly into their spaces. "Before the curse... I often looked out the carriages and watched village children playing with one another. My brother was the second son, so he was free to do as he liked - at most he'd marry another princess for the sake of some kingdom alliance. But villagers... you're free to choose what you want to do with your life. You can spend all day in bed if you'd like, choose who you'd like to marry, and live simply without the fate of the kingdom resting on your shoulders."

The peasant girl watched him intently, processing all this. She recalled all those moments she complained to her aunt of wanting to escape village life and do something more. She hadn't considered imagining greater things was a type of freedom. Prince Tadashi would escape ruling a kingdom to live the simple provincial life she despised. She could have laughed at the irony.

Something else hit her then. "You're not too concerned with breaking the curse, are you?"

"What makes you think that?" he asked a bit too quickly.

She frowned. "You give me all that whining and don't expect me to suspect a thing? I may be a peasant but I'm not stupid." She traced her finger in a crack along the table. "The curse gives you an excuse to shy away from all those... kingly duties. Wouldn't want a broken spell to get in the way of that, would you?"

The Prince took a sudden interest in his fat fingers, squeaking them together nervously. "You won't tell any of the servants, will you?"

Aha. "No. Not very interested in palace gossip."

Still he avoided her gaze. "Thank you."

She shrugged.

"You're not entirely correct, though."

"Oh?"

"I can't leave the castle in this form. So in a way, I'm still trapped, and I've dragged all my friends along with me."

...

GoGo awoke before Honey Lemon could charge in announcing breakfast. Groggily, she slipped into one of her new dresses (the wardrobe, it seemed, forbade black) and picked up Honey Lemon as soon as she arrived, sparing her the trouble of having to hop all the way down the stairs.

"You ever think of an easier way to bring the others upstairs instead of making them hop all the way?" GoGo asked the Prince over the meal.

"I did propose it in the beginning," he answered. "But they insisted against it since they believed the curse - " He cut himself off.

She decided not to push the matter. "Well, it's been ten years and quite frankly I don't really care for carrying a bunch of ornaments up and down the stairs. We live in an industrial age, after all."

"I haven't gotten much word on new developments."

"No? Well, I have a new one in mind, Your Highness, and you wouldn't want your guest bored out of her mind, now would you?"

...

The guest clarified later on that her idea was very basic and still had holes, but it intrigued Tadashi nonetheless and made him question what other advancements had occurred in his decade-long absence. After fetching long rolls of paper and plenty of pens and measuring instruments as per her demands, she had rough sketches mapped out for him in the library.

"I'm afraid there won't be room for anything too big," she murmured, "and since installing anything steam-powered will take too long, we'll have to go manual..."

"Interesting. What's it called?" Tadashi asked.

"I haven't thought of a name yet, really." She frowned. "A lifter?"

"I'll send a letter to my cousin requesting supplies, and then we can - "

"We?"

"Well, I can't have my guest laboring on something for the castle herself, can I?"

"I'll do fine," she snapped.

"Maybe. But two people can get the job done faster."

She mulled over this. "All right. But you let me handle the details."

Tadashi stifled a laugh. "I'll keep that in mind."

The two spent most of the week plotting and detailing the contraption in the time they waited for the materials to arrive. That Tadashi had his own calculations and suggestions to contribute surprised GoGo, which he attributed to his long hours spent reading in the library. When at last the Queen complied to their request (the deliveryman was quite surprised for a young lady to pick it up as opposed to leaving it at the gates for once), GoGo took direction while Tadashi followed her instructions.

The first few days, she scrutinized his work every minute, wary of his ten-year absence from society and the advancing world. Luckily he was a fast learner, and later on her leering eyes only lasted seconds before carrying on with the next instruction. She was a strange girl, Tadashi decided, but he'd wait until the end of the project to make any judgments.

"Whatcha making?" Hiro asked as he retired to his room one night.

"She asked me not to tell." Threatened was probably a better word, but still.

"Ooh, keeping secrets already? You're fast!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't play dumb, brother."

"It's not what you think."

"Yet."

"We're just..." He tried to find a good phrasing. "We're just friends for now. We'll... take it slow, all right?"

The younger brother sighed in exasperation. "Well, don't take too long. I'd like to get out of this body before the last petal falls."

Tadashi didn't respond.

...

"Was this really necessary?" GoGo grumbled, crossing her arms and glaring at the cloth draped over a box half their height.

"It's not often they get gifts," Tadashi said, "and Honey Lemon and Fred love dramatic flair."

She rolled her eyes, but decided to humor him. They waited for the smaller servants to arrive, and out of the corner of Tadashi's eye, he noticed the shock registering in GoGo's face at the sheer number of them. It was lucky they were all small enough to fit into the room, but she'd probably never had a worker in all her life, much less an entire legion of them.

"Well, we don't have all day!" a dish snapped.

"Harold!" chastised a bowl.

"GoGo's built something for you," Tadashi announced.

"Not all of it," she mumbled.

"What is it?" Hiro asked.

"She's noticed how you have a harder time scaling the stairs than the larger objects, so..." Dramatically, he pulled the cloth off to reveal a box with cogs and wheels attached to a wire.

"A box?" Wasabi said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's... lovely," Honey Lemon said awkwardly.

"Hop into the stupid box," GoGo commanded, pointing at it.

Without question (and looking slightly terrified), Honey Lemon, Hiro, and Fred obeyed. GoGo gave a two-fingered salute to the coat hanger at the balcony of the second floor, who saluted back and pulled at the wire. To everyone's wonder, the wheels cranked and spun and the box lifted to the second floor with ease.

"Come try this out!" Fred yelled to the rest of them below. "It's like magic!"

Almost instantly, a line had formed to try this nifty creation, and some children were rushing back down begging for another turn. Some of the others thanked GoGo vigorously, to which she refused eye contact and mumbled something like, "Whatever" in return. Tadashi had to chuckle.

"What's it called?" Hiro asked eagerly.

"Er..." GoGo scrunched her face. "I thought about elevator. Like... elevate... er. But that's too complicated."

"Let's just call it 'the box'!"

"Fair."

"How are you going to operate it?" Wasabi pressed.

"Jack will be in charge of lifting," Tadashi explained.

While the rest of the servants continued taking turns on the box, Tadashi glanced at GoGo, who kept silent as she sat at the foot of the stairs watched her own invention operate. With squeaky footsteps, he waddled over to join her.

"You did an amazing job," he said.

Like with the others, she refused to look at him. "You built half the thing."

"Not the blueprints. That was all you."

"You threw in a few good ideas. I can't take all the credit."

"Fine. Half and half. Fair?"

She pressed her lips together before nodding. "Fair. I think this is the most fun I've had since I got here."

Pleasure swelled up in him just a little. She'd gone from not hating him to actually having fun in the castle. And if she had fun, she could actually like him. And if she could like him, she could perhaps...

Too soon. Too soon to thing of such things, just enjoy the moment, the Prince told himself.

"If it makes you feel any better," Tadashi said, "I'm glad you came."

Her cheeks tinged pink.