Their Own Fairytale - Dia/Gina

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From the first time Martha read those stories to two tiny girls cuddled into her lap in exquisite little white nightgowns made by her own hand, Dia and Gina have loved to play fairytale more than anything else.

At least, Dia has; Gina has always loved more than anything to see Miss Dia smiling instead of looking sad and lost because the master's wife doesn't come home anymore even when the master does.

And playing fairytale makes Miss Dia smile.

Dia, who has been the frail little princess all her life, always sick with something and easily tired when she isn't, plays the Handsome Prince, trotting around in her riding clothes, snug leather breeches and smart little green velvet blazer, pretending that Martha's mop is her horse.

And Gina, who has been the princess's attendant since Grandma first brought her here, is dressed up in one of Miss Dia's fanciest little frocks, with a necklace pinned over her hair, long and uncharacteristically loose about her shoulders, to be the Sleeping Princess and the Evil Enchantress by turn.

They'll stage swordfights as well as two little girls whose entire experience with such things extends to the pictures in the heavy volumes Martha reads from possibly can. (Although after they've finished reading Ivanhoe, curled up together on the big cushions in Dia's room just as soon as Gina is finished with her work, they both decide gravely that their technique has gotten much better)

Once the Evil Enchantress has been vanquished, tapped gently over the head with the broom handle and tackled – carefully, so as not to wrinkle Dia's pretty dress – to the floor, Gina will scurry into Miss Dia's bedroom and take up her role as the Sleeping Princess.

Dia will approach the bed silently and reverently, taking a moment to really feel the Prince's awe at this vision of beauty before him, and then she'll lean over her bespectacled Princess, eyelids fluttering slightly in an effort to look natural, and drop a kiss, light as a rose petal, on her best friend's lips, soft pink and slightly parted.

Sometimes the game ends here, with Gina sitting up dizzily, rubbing her eyes until Dia frowns at her because it ruins the mood.

But sometimes, when Martha isn't too busy, the game continues and the Handsome Prince and the Sleeping Princess are wed by the Kindly Godmother. Dia made the mistake, once, of asking Papa to be their Priest, but she's never done it again, because it really wasn't worth the trouble of explaining to Gina all afternoon that she's not just the help, and they really are best friends forever. There was something about pulling her best friend into a warm hug and drying her tears with a delicate lacy hankie that Dia liked, but it still wasn't worth Gina's lingering misery, just to have a priest with a properly solemn, dignified expression.

And anyway, they haven't played Fairytale much lately.

Gina's been so busy, and Dia's come to prefer snuggling down amid her pile of cushions with a favourite book and letting the hours fly by, to running around.

Besides, she doesn't know how she feels about stage-kissing Gina anymore.

She thinks sometimes that if she stooped low over her Sleeping Princess, let her lips brush over those beautiful soft pale pink ones, she wouldn't stop when Gina's eyes fluttered open, would just keep doing it until they were both breathless and Papa came in blazing with fury.

However, she thinks with a sly little smile when she finds Gina sound asleep at the kitchen table over the book she started on her lunch break, Papa isn't here right now.

Dia approaches her attendant, heart catching in her throat at the fans of spidery little shadows Gina's eyelashes are casting on smooth, pale cheeks. She bends closer, and freezes as Gina murmurs a little in her sleep and smiles contentedly, cuddling her book.

The little dark-haired girl smiles slightly to herself, then presses a swift kiss to her best friend's slightly parted lips, and scurries silently from the room, a hard little knot already gathering in her throat because she doesn't know when she'll get to do that again, and once just wasn't enough.

And meanwhile, Gina cautiously opens one eye to find the Master's daughter gone, then sits up and sighs sadly. She feels a little bad about resorting to trickery, but just now, it can't be helped.

Who knows how long it might take before Miss Dia will kiss her when she's awake?

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