Woah, such a positive response... xD We love you guys! This'll be the last, We think. It's been a nice time, hasn't it? We're so excited! This is Our first continuation that We've actually finished! xD Roy is so dramatic in this chapter with his big speech. -eats clams- Mm, clam. It's Caturday, you guys! Serious business!
Review Replies:
Jane Austen Girl: No? We love that song. Actually, We started out hating it. xD Eddie? Yesh, he does need huggles, huh?
Bar-Ohki: This is what now! xD
Momma Mustang: xD Did you really? xD Was it? We're glad Taisa liked it!
o-o Oooh, true... xD Okays, nyu. Taisa'll just have to bug Us to update stuff. Bug Us lots. xD Shush, you know there was nothing else We could do with her as much as We does. xD We're updating! We're updating! xD Love Us!
LoveChild Rosie: THAT HE IS. xD Innee horrid? Didn't even knock.
GreedxEd: xD They're bi, okay? Well, at least Roy is, Ed didn't care who he dated at all, or if he even did, so it kinda makes him bi too. xD But neither of them care much about sexual preference.
silver candle: xD Isn't he mean? Poor Edo's got it rough. Oh well. He's always cuter when he's in compromising situations. xD
AirElemental101: xD;;; Sorry! Here's your chapter! xD Augh, that stupid thing. Sorry! The sentence was supposed to be 'And during that time, his wife had sickened and died', however, Our keyboard likes to type what We put at different places in the sentences. O-o Sorry, We didn't catch that.
It's been a nice time with you guys, but now it's time for an end. xD We're sorry! There might be a sequel, though, bug Us to do it and maybe We'll figure the rest of the plot out. xD Good night.
Disclaimer: Don't own it! Song this time is In The Land of Twilight, Under the Moon by Yuki Kajiura, an insert song from .hack//SIGN.
THE PRINCESS DIARIES
emerald
His mind was rather in a state of disarray. The princess... a fake? But the prince... why would he take on such a disguise? And where was the real princess?
He had too many questions. Roy wanted to ask them all, but he sensed Edward wasn't in the mood for such things. "So..."
"Save it." The blonde wasn't looking at Roy, he was looking at the sky outside the window. "There's not much I can do now. You know my secret, Rose knows, Allie knows, Sensei knows, Winry knows, Rubens knows... there's just no point in hiding who I am anymore, is there?" He paused. Something was going on below, and it wasn't anything to do with his mother. It wasn't the heavy silence of mourning, it was a bright, happy cheering, the bouncy excitement that allowed the deer to run in their jumpy way. "Shit," said Edward pleasantly, taking Roy's hand and dragging him to the wall. He began to run his fingers over it. Both had forgotten about the lie, at least for now.
"What're you doing?" asked Roy, who was quite interested. He stepped forward, and Ed let go of his hand, going back to searching the wall.
"There's a little -- aha!" Suddenly, the wall swung upen, and Edward hugged himself as a gust of wind passed him. He was only in his boxers, after all, and the air in there was pretty frigid. "Anyway, this's been here for ages. It's for defense of the Royal Family -- it's a series of passages that goes through the entire castle. There's an entrance in every room. C'mon, we gotta go to my room." He walked off. Roy found himself following.
/In the land of twilight, under the moon/
They walked through the tunnels for a while. The passages twisted and turned, and Roy had bumped into a lot of corners. Edward felt a little bad about this. He had neglected to bring any sort of light, and thruogh he knew the way around, Roy did not. He opted to remedy it by taking the man's hand again, and it seemed to do some good. Finally, Edward stopped, grasping a small doorknob and opening the little door. Light spilled into the passageway, and both males turned their gazes away for a moment.
Edward stepped forward then, and began to root through a bureau. He pulled out some proper mens' wear, slipping it all on with the air of a starving man who has just been given a flask of water and a loaf of bread. "Ugh... you do not know how good this feels," he mumbled, sighing happily. "After dresses and corsets, this is heaven."
Roy blinked. He'd forgotten momentarily that Edward had pulled off such a deception. "Yes... about that," he began. Edward began to say 'save it' again, but Roy held up a hand. "You lied to me, Edward. You lied to the whole court, played with their trust and their faith. You conned me into falling for you, and you don't give me any reason to trust you anymore. And yet... yet... If I leave right now, I don't think I could possibly live with myself. You may be Risembool's prince, but I can't help who I love."
Edward... well, he stared. He wasn't exactly expecting this. He expected to be scolded, told he was a treacherous snake, that he'd never be able to take the throne now. But here they were, in the middle of this situation, and Roy was confessing his love? What a weird guy. "No," he replied quietly, stepping over to the man and linking his arms gently around Roy's middle. "I can't help it either."
There was a cheer from below then, and Edward stepped away again, looking out the window. "Lucky my room's got a good view of the front gro -- HEY!" The blonde darted away, hauling open the door to the corridor.
Roy dashed after him. "Wait!" he barked. Edward turned, looking at him in impatient curiousness. "...We'll go together."
Edward grinned, nodding. He slipped his hand into Roy's as the other passed him, grin widening when the blackhaired man's grip tightened a little. He was really trying his hardest not to jump out the window or something else incredibly stupid. The person at the entrance to the castle was someone who definitely would not appreciate his dying because he was excited to see them. "Let's go, then," the boy said after a moment. "We're the only ones up here, and besides, everyone's waiting for us." Edward looked up at Roy. When the young lord nodded, the boy grinned again and darted away, dragging Roy with him.
/We dance for the idiots/
It didn't take too long to dash through the halls, past towering suits of armor and vast tapestries depicting a likewise vast amount of subjects. There were statues and pillars to dodge, corners to turn, and carpets to sprint down. They reached a row of maybe twenty-five portraits and Roy paused to look at them. They were all identical: men with long blonde hair tied back in ponytails, yellow eyes, and beards. Some had glasses, some didn't, and the names below the portraits were all the same too: HOHENHEIM OF LIGHT, and then a Roman numeral beside the name. He identified them immediately as past kings of Risembool Castle. The last one was XXIII, and Roy expected that this was the current king. "They all look the same," he said blankly.
Ed, who had been walking on, turned to see what Roy was talking about. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. For some reason, the King has always looked the same. I'm glad I don't look like that. I'd rather not look like a bastard," he added under his breath. "C'mon. These guys are boring anyway."
Roy blinked, smirked, and nodded. "All right." He took Edward's hand, and they dashed down the hallways once more.
There was another pause, actually, in which they reached the grand spirally staircase. It wasn't the straight one that Edward always went up to go to his room; this was the formal staircase that most would take to get to the closed ballroom above. It wasn't the same ballroom as the one they'd had the masked ball in so many weeks ago, obviously; this one was reserved for coronations and wasn't used very much otherwise. This part of the staircase had a small landing and then continued up to the ballroom and above that to the domed roof of the castle, in which the floor, ceilings, and walls were all made of glass. One could look up and see the sky, and then look down to see the Great Hall. Not, obviously, for those who didn't like heights. Ed didn't really care, but he didn't go up there much anyway. Now, he went to a small door in the wall, opened it up, and pulled out a couple of satin sheets. Roy blinked. "What's this for?" asked the taller male, lifting a brow as Edward began to wrap the sheets around his hands.
Edward just grinned. This had always been a favorite pastime of his and Allie's, and hell, even their Mama had joined in a lot. It was Mama who'd got them into it anyway; she'd taught them to do it, and they would do it for ages, yelling and whooping the whole time, and then run back up the stairs for another run. "Banister sliding," he replied, knotting off Roy's sheets and going to get some for himself. "You'll be picking calluses the size of gold coins off your palms if you don't cover them up in something. Satin's best cause it's slippery. C'mon." He swung a leg over the side of the banister, Roy staring at him the entire time as he positioned himself backwards on the banister, facing the top of the stairs. "We're going down." Edward was obviously holding on tightly, Roy could see, because his feet weren't touching the staircase and, well, he had begun to slide slowly down the banister. He was obviously loosening his fingers.
"Hold on!" barked Roy, descending the stairs to the place Edward was now. The boy tightened his fingers again, blinking up at the darkhaired man as he stopped. "Is this even safe?"
The face of the blonde immediately split into a wide grin. "Of course not," he answered. "We all like it anyway. The risk makes it fun. C'mon, it's faster."
Roy watched in near-horror as Edward loosened his fingers completely, keeping just enough of a hold on the banister to keep from falling, but sliding rapidly down all the same. His braid flicked forward over his shoulder, pushed forward by the air that was whipping over his shoulders. And then he actually took a hand off the banister when he was about halfway down, grinning and waving at Roy as he slid. When he was just about to fly off the bottom of the rail, the boy actually pushed himself up, turned around, and vaulted off the end, curling as he hit the ground and rolling into a somersault. "Yes!"
The young lord stared. And stared some more. What the hell had just happened here?!
Edward was waving at him from the bottom of the stairs, grinning as he began to unbind his hands. "C'mon! We don't have all day, Pony!"
Roy groaned, then swung his leg over the banister, mounting it like he would a horse. "Here goes nothing," he mumbled, a little uneasily, but Edward's pure ecstasy in doing such a thing had allowed him to decide that it wasn't going to be that bad at all.
/Ring around the roses, jump to the moon/
Roy's slide didn't actually go as he'd predicted, with broken limbs and a bloody Roy. No, actually it didn't harm him at all, except for knocking the wind out of both he and Edward as, when he'd flown off the banister (Roy had no skills like Edward did, obviously), he'd flown smack dab into Edward, and both of them tumbled in a knot of arms, legs, and metal. By this time, even if Roy was always one to be calm, cool, and in control of everything that happened (because nothing was inevitable for Roy Mustang), they were both laughing too hard to care. Edward squirmed for a moment, then found himself both untangled and pinned under Roy. A slight tinge swept over his face, but he managed to grin. "Hiya," was all the blonde said, grin increasing tenfold as Roy's normally-pale cheeks turned slightly pink. "I'm all for this, but can we wait till after? We're kinda in a hurry, remember?"
"...Yes," said Roy, with a hint of regret, but he rolled off Edward all the same. He stood, extending a hand, and Edward took it gratefully. He was glad Roy understood that the person out there could not wait. It would have been impossible to explain why, since Roy hadn't seen the person outside the window, but he seemed to understand, and if he understood then there was no explanation needed.
As Edward stood, he dashed off again, down the hall that would take him to the main stairs and the main entrance of the hall. Roy was jerked forward, but quickly regained his balance and jogged after the exciteable prince.
/We sing with the castanets/
Edward Elric pushed open the door to the front grounds and found himself swallowed up into the embrace of one Allie Elric. "Allie!" He clung to her. She was a little skinnier than he was used to, and she was entirely too grubby, but despite her short hair, the princess of Risembool Castle was highly recognizeable, and obviously she didn't care about disguises anymore, because she just grinned and buried her face in his shoulder. "Allie... where were you this whole time?"
Roy stepped out after him, smiling as he realized just who the boy was hugging. So this was the actual Princess Elric, hm? No wonder people hadn't recognized Edward in the disguise: they were quite alike in their looks. Both were blonde, with the same passionate yellow eyes. There were a few differences, but all dressed up, most people would overlook them. Edward's eyes were a different shape than Allie's round ones, but they were still quite alike. Roy could see why Allie had forced her brother to take her place. She'd obviously seen the similarities.
The younger blonde looked back up to her brother, smiling. "Out in the wild blue yonder," she replied with an Edward-ian grin. Both Edward and Roy were a little taken aback at how similar to Edward's own it was. "I went to Xing for a while, actually."
"...Across the desert?"
"Mmhmm! I bought a horse from a dealer and rode across."
Edward stared. This was his baby sister. And she had gone across the great desert, across the Xingian border? He... really had underestimated her, hadn't he? He smiled, though, letting her go to look her over. "Did you have a good time not being princess, Allie?"
"I did, nii-san!" she chirped, grinning. Her attention was drawn to Roy then, and she blinked at him for a moment before smiling. "Is this the suitor?"
The blonde prince blushed. "Yeah, um, about that..."
Allie paused for a moment, thinking. Then her smile widened. "I see. Have fun with him, nii-san." She stepped away from her brother with a small cough. Edward's lips curved downwards into a small frown before he was totally rammed into by Roy, who actually picked him up, and found himself needing to use those lips for something entirely different. He grinned through the kiss, knowing that just about every girl in the kingdom who fawned over him was watching him kiss this man, and he didn't care at all. Too bad for them, was all he was thinking about that, and then he threw that thought away and threw his whole being into that one kiss.
Allie, who was standing with Rubens, Rose, Armstrong, and just about the entire rest of the court, grinned. "Knew it," she announced in glee. "Rose, Rubens, you guys owe me like thirty sens each."
Edward, who had just broken the kiss, more for air than want of stopping, glared over at them. "You guys were betting?!"
