The Prince & I
王子与我
-----------------------
-
For Rose Velvet, whose reviews are a source of inspiration for this story.
For all those who have reviewed, Thank you :')
-
-----------------------
. Summary .
AU. Prince Natsume had just been issued a verdict by the King: Marry or forfeit the throne. Now he faces the fate of countless balls, simpering ladies, and a very confused and clumsy princess... Natsume and Mikan pairing.
-----------------------
Disclaimers: Gakuen alice does not belong to me...I am just subjecting the characters to my cruel sadistic imagination.
-----------------------
-
sometimes, all it takes is a good kick to the shin.
-
-----------------------
-
-
Chapter two: Arrival of Her Royal Highness Princess Su-er Mikan
The day had started out deceptively beautiful, with fluffy clouds that floated across the blue sky lazily without a care in the world, the sun had taken refuge behind the clouds and birds were chirping a happy song on trees all around.
The trip to the neighboring Hyuuga kingdom had started off without a hitch, with both Princesses doing their routine sniping (Sumire-hime) and cowering (Mikan-hime who was serving as company for her sister) as the carriage bumped down the road happily.
It had gone along well enough until Sumire saw him.
And decided to elope.
Now let us recap a bit the events that led up to this very shocking royal affair…
"Ask the driver to stop. I need a break." Princess Sumire waved an airy hand gesture at her sister before continuing to preen herself in the reflection provided by the carriage window.
"Why can't you do it by yourself?" This was muttered with a pout as Mikan shot her sister an unhappy look.
It had always been Mikan this, Mikan that, Mikan everything until Mikan was beginning to feel like her older sister's personal slave.
"What did you say?" The menacing voice was accompanied by a sudden darkening of the atmosphere and little lightning sparks around the oh so lovely princess Sumire.
Mikan gulped and squeaked out," Nothing. As you wish sister dear." before immediately turning and tapping onto the little connecting glass pane that allowed the driver access to its passengers and conveying the little message to the driver.
The carriage pulled to a jarring stop a few meters away and Sumire got up, her voluminous skirts sweeping as she stepped out of the open door with aid from royal servants the King and Queen had sent along to follow them, Mikan a few steps behind.
Then, he came.
A tall, strapping man on a white horse, his indigo hair shaved close to his head, eyes a shade darker than his hair, stopped in front of Sumire, leaped down his horse in a smooth gesture and bowed deeply to Sumire.
"My Lady," He intoned in a deep voice, an enigmatic smile on his lips.
And Mikan saw the exact moment Sumire fell head-over-heels in love.
First, there was the smile that slowly crept over her face.
Mind you, never in her entire seventeen years of existence had Mikan seen that kind of goofy smile gracing her sister's face and now, simply one minute in this suave stranger's attention, it appeared.
Simply suffice to say that at this moment, Mikan's jaw detached itself and hit the ground.
Second, the dreamy gaze that came over Sumire's eyes.
Shocking.
Thirdly...she giggled. Softly behind her glove.
But. SHE. GIGGLED.
The world as Mikan knew it fell away in tiny bits and pieces and the world simply stopped rotating on its axis.
She could practically see the throbbing hearts that had replaced her sister's emerald eyes as she stared at the oh-so-handsome stranger, who, by the way, still hasn't given his name.
"Lord Mochu, Earl of Hemingway at your service My Lady. May I just say how beautiful you are today." He spoke in that deep baritone before he pressed a kiss onto Sumire's palm.
Ew, ew, ewwwwwwww.
Sumire, on the other hand, melted, into a puddle like a popsicle under the searing heat and blinding sunshine.
Three seconds later, Sumire announced she was going to elope with the dashing Lord much to the horror of everyone present.
No one dared to go against her, and the entourage watched mournfully as their strong-spirited Princess rode off into the hills, far, far away.
There you have it, the entire sad tale of how Sumire eloped and left Mikan alone to face the music.
At this point of time, Mikan was busy brain-storming on the different ways she could break the news to the princeling as the carriage bumped its way to the looming palace in the distance.
Even though she had considered going home to tell her parents about the elopement, their advisor, Misaki, who was with them for this trip had decided that they should at least make an appearance in order not to offend the royal family.
Which is why Mikan was seated in the plush seat of the Sakura Kingdom's royal family's carriage instead of Sumire, and why she was frantically coming up with excuses for Sumire's 'disappearance'.
"My sister has decided to elope, Your highness." She tried out and promptly winced as the words echoed in the empty space.
"Hotaru!" She wailed out in despair as she tossed herself onto the violet eyed female seated opposite her in the swaying carriage.
"Don't snivel on me, hime." Came the unconcerned reply before a handkerchief was shoved unceremoniously under her nose, a clear command to clean up her face.
Imai Hotaru, the daughter of a duke in the Sakura Kingdoms, was no more a fawning court lady than Princess Mikan was a very bright child.
One had to speculate though the exact reason as to why these two people who would seemingly repel each other like like-pole magnets stuck together like glue (Mikan-hime) on paper (Lady Hotaru).
When asked, all Lady Hotaru would say is that 'she makes good money', which, if one takes into account the glint in her violet eyes as she said it, was very ominous indeed.
A rustle of silk sounded together with the 'thwack' of the wooden base of the fan connecting with a very hard head, Mikan-hime's in this case.
"ITAI!!!" The younger female cried out, cradling her head as though it would lessen the pain. Teary amber eyes lifted to fix on cold violet ones accusingly, her mouth trembling in a thin line.
All the violet-eyed female did in reaction to the famous puppy-eyed look was to sniff disdainfully, unconcerned with the fact that she had just hit without qualm the head of a royalty.
"Don't be such a baby." She said unconcernedly at the same time she reached over to pull back the curtains covering the windows of the moving carriage.
Rain pelted hard onto the grounds as they rumbled past, and in the far distance, glimmering like a diamond in the pitch-black sea, stood the castle of the Hyuuga Kingdom.
She dropped the curtains, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts as she sought out the possible solutions to this situation, completely ignoring the princess, who was looking decidedly unhappy what with the new bump on her head and the fact that her best friend just scolded her.
"Listen." She finally said, overriding Mikan's moping with the single word. "Here is what we will do..."
-----------------------
The carriages finally rumbled to a stop outside the formidable entrance to the castle.
The rain showed no sign of relenting, instead pelting down so hard that the rain ricocheted off the top of the carriage with the impact of two-pound flour bags.
Lightning streaked crookedly across the angry maroon sky, illuminating everything and making the castle look more forbidding than ever.
Servants rushed down from the rear carriages to shelter the Princess from the rain as she alighted from the royal carriage, the carriage wobbling slightly with each step she took.
What happened next couldn't really be said as her fault. Rather it was the rain and the inborn clumsiness in her that happened.
She slipped.
Frills, petticoats, lace and all flew up into the air as the princess landed with an inelegant splash into the dirty puddle below her with a loud squeal.
So used were the servants to their princess' occasional bouts of clumsiness that they managed to keep a straight face as they helped the hapless and desperately trying not to blush princess onto her feet.
Rubbing her sore bottom discreetly and pushing the crown back from where it was perched precariously on one side of her head, Mikan fought down the blush that threatened to liken her to a ripe tomato as she cast a wary look around her to make sure that no one (out of her own people )had seen that.
"I saw that." This was said very smugly by a certain violet-eyed female who was right behind our lovely and graceful princess when said thing happened.
Mikan stuck out a tongue at the girl before, head high, shoulders squared, she proceeded towards the entrance with all the dignity and gracefulness of a member of royalty.
"Hime," Hotaru's voice cut smoothly through the air as she moved to the Princess' side.
"You have a patch on your...," Her pause for the sake of delicacy was belied by a glint in her violet eyes.
Dread filling her heart, Mikan twisted around and looked down at her new pale green ball gown.
There, exactly on her bottom, was a humongous brown patch.
Kami-sama.
Taking pity on the horrified Princess, who had after all been her friend (however unfortunate for Princess Mikan), Lady Hotaru took off the sea-green silk ribbon wrapped around her waist and secured it on the Princess' waist so that the blotch was covered.
Tears of relief gathered into the Princess' amber eyes and she was about to launch herself at the Lady when the snap of the fan stopped her.
"No hugging." With the command, she swept up to the castle with a twirl of her sapphire blue skirts, leaving the Princess to trail after in a very unconventional manner.
"Meannie!"
"Thank you."
By now, the Princess was pouting as she picked up her skirts, elegant be damned, and ran after the violet-eyed female who was already walking down the red carpet, a secret smirk on her face.
Huffing and puffing, she screeched to a stop in front of the scandalized looking herald and glared at Hotaru, prepared to deliver the most blistering of lectures about decorum and 'how-to-treat-your-best-friend'.
"How could you leave me behind like that Hotaru! You meanie! I am your-"
"Princess ..Sumire?" The herald ventured tentatively, taking a wild guess from the circlet on her head.
In the midst of her lecturing, Princess Mikan simply waved a hand at the poor guy, a gesture which roughly covered the range of yes, no, maybe, go away and die.
The herald shrug.
He had to do his job.
"Your highness, if you may step forward…" The man gestured to the curtained archway.
With a look that promised more 'I am your friend!' talks later, a seething Princess Mikan stepped up together with Lady Hotaru, who calmly gave her name to the herald.
"Very well, Your highness, Lady Hotaru. If you please…"
With the nod from the Princess, the two liveried servants standing on either side of curtains drew back the blood-red velvet cloths at the same time, revealing the glamorous ballroom that lay behind.
"Announcing the arrival of her royal Highness, Princess Sumire of the Sakura Kingdom!"
Mikan pasted a smile on her face and started her descent down the stairs.
Wait.
Princess SUMIRE?
She twirled around, prepared to correct that very fatal and incorrect detail when she felt her satin slippers slip on the edge of the stairs and she was falling backwards into nothing.
Her heart rate sped up and incoherent thoughts ran through her mind, one of them being that if she were to die, she would haunt the guy who invented stairs forever.
All the screams and cries of horror were muted, as though there was a shield of water blocking the sounds from coming to her.
She squeezed her eyes shut even as fear wrapped itself around her, forcing her breathing to become erratic.
She waited…and waited…and waited.
No floor.
No horrible sound of breaking bones.
No pain.
Why was the fall taking so damn long?
"Walk much?"
Amber eyes snapped open in accordance to the annoyingly smug voice that seemed to be next to her ears.
And no wonder, for she was pressed back against a chest (a flat one mind you), her arms gripped firmly by a pair of hands.
She wasn't dead.
She was alive.
And, judging from the twitters that were beginning to sound, going to die from acute embarrassment.
Remembering her proximity to her savior, she jerked away quickly and spun around to face him, unknowingly slapping him full in the face with auburn tresses that had somehow slipped from her hairdo.
With an annoyed grunt, the man drew a hand over his face once before settling a heavy-lidded glare at her.
A crimson heavy-lidded glare.
He had the most unusual shade she had ever seen, blood-red eyes that seemed to draw you in. He had a face that was bordering beautiful, like the princes in the storybooks her nanny had used to read to her.
"Done staring?"
The annoyed tone cut across her thoughts and brought Mikan back from her reverie with an unpleasant thud.
Why, this rude rude person!
His heart was probably as black as the scowl on his face!
"I'll report to the King about your rudeness, commoner!" She glared at the man, aggravated even more when an amused look replaced his annoying smirk.
"Go ahead, Princess." The sarcasm in his tone was more than she could stand.
In these circumstances, she did the only thing a lady would do.
She lifted her skirts, drew back her feet and kicked him soundly in the shins.
The yelp of pain and the indrawn gasps that resounded in the ballroom was music to her ears.
Ha! Take that you ill-mannered man!
"Princess, are you alright?" The worried voice had her turning towards a courtier who was dressed flamboyantly in purple, a bejeweled crown on his head. Behind him, an entourage of guards were following indiscreetly together with a harassed looking man she could only assume to be the advisor.
This could only be the King.
The ill-mannered man forgotten, she sank into a deep curtsy.
"Hai." She answered as she straightened and stared into smiling blue eyes.
"That is good!" The King gave a happy laugh and captured her hands in his. "Now, let me introduce you to my nephew!"
Already, bare minutes to being introduced, she already liked the kind and bubbly king. She was sure that his nephew would be as wonderful as he was unlike the boar standing next to them.
A black scowl took over her face as she cast a withering look at the crimson-eyed male that was glowering at her.
"And this is my nephew!" The King gestured to none other than the annoying creature from hell
To say she was shocked was an understatement.
Alas, why couldn't she have died then?
-----------------------
A/n: sorry about the long wait (winces)...it wasn't meant to take so long (I am really sorry!)
GARCA is now open for voting at the GARC Forum (link at my profile :))..please do support!
Meanwhile, do review :)