Author's Note: The inspiration for this story (believe it or not) came from watching the Inuyasha movie that was on TV the other night (I didn't see the beginning and I THINK it was the fourth one). I only watched it 'cause I had nothing else to watch/do and so…this was born! Well, basically, the ideas for the demons in the story came from Inuyasha and their looks from the Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. Everything else I made up as I went along.
I'm happy with how it turned out actually, so I hope you guys liked it too. Thanks for the reviews too. They motivate me to write a bit faster : ) Well that's all I have to say for now so, until next time!
Summary: -Draco/Hermione- You're my angel-princess, my songstress. You showed me what the world of light is really like.
Disclaimer: If I owned anything, I would have tons of money to spend at this upcoming anime con. Seeing as I have very little spend I clearly own nothing.
"You ought to be going to bed now."
The little girl was sitting between her mother and father on the soft suede couch. She turned her silver eyes to her father (who nodded in agreement with her mother's statement) and then her mother as she flicked back her wavy brown hair. "I'm not tired though."
"Tomorrow is your first day of school," her mother replied calmly. She turned a firm gaze on her daughter. "You need your rest."
The little girl twirled around in her seat and looked pleadingly at her father. He stood and picked his daughter up from the couch. "No sweetheart, it's bedtime for you."
"But Big Brother is still awake!" the girl whined. She twined her small arms around her father's neck anyway. She glared at her mother over her shoulder. "It's not fair! If he's still awake, why can't I be too?"
"He's two years your senior," her mother said, "So he gets more privileges than you do. Come now, to bed." The woman stood up and shuffled her husband and daughter out of the sitting room.
The girl's bed was already turned down and so her father plopped her down on it and tucked her in. "Goodnight sweetheart," he kissed her forehead and then grinned. "You're getting too old; you're too heavy for me to carry around anymore."
The little girl dropped her eyes. He laughed and patted her on the head before leaving the room, his black housecoat flowing out behind him. The girl's mother sat down on the bed. "Very well then," her mother said, "I'll tell you a bedtime story, but then you must go to sleep. Understood?"
"Yes, mother."
The woman nodded and then began.
Once upon a time, there existed a world far different from our own. The world was separated into three parts: the heavens in the sky, the underworld beneath the soil and the earth that existed in between as a bridge between them all---
"That sounds like Earth," the little girl interrupted.
Her mother frowned. "Have you been listening to your brother again?"
The girl nodded earnestly. "Big Brother was telling me about all this! He said that we live on Earth while we live an if I'm a good girl I'll go to heaven when I die and there'll be lots of angels and clouds and horses! But if I'm a bad girl he said I'll go to hell---"
Her mother raised one hand. "Quite now. You don't need to worry about any of that. Don't listen to what your brother says; he's just trying to scare you, that scamp. He's just like your father. Now, may I continue?"
"Yes, mother," the little girl nodded meekly.
Below in the underworld where the demons lived was a young prince who was more curious than most of his kind about the Earth. His kind were called demons by everyone else and while some were not feared others---like himself---were widely known and feared above all others. Yet this young man had a gentle nature that he carefully concealed behind a mask of cold indifference.
One day, while he was alone wandering the labyrinthine ways of his dark world, he heard a voice from far above. This voice was so beautiful that he knew it could not possibly be of his dark world. So entranced by this voice, the young prince could not longer contain his true nature behind his cold mask of indifference and his curiosity got the better of him. So he stretched his wings---"
"I thought only angels had wings," the little girl interrupted again.
"It all depends on how you imagine things," her mother said gently. "This demon has wings too."
The young prince flew up from his underground lair and abruptly found himself surrounded by a lush and green forest. Birds chirped and the voice was much clearer now. He folded his wings back and slowly walked towards the voice. Soon he came to a small clearing in which there was a small pond. He crouched behind some bushes and looked at the scene before him undetected.
A young woman sat at the edge of the pond with a ginger cat—
"Crookshanks?" the little girl asked in a surprised tone. "Mother, is that young---"
"You are interrupting again. Settle down so I may finish."
---by her side. The young woman had hair the precise colour of mahogany and her eyes were a deep chestnut colour. She wore a simple white dress belted around her middle with a thin silver chain. Her feet were bare; the young prince could not remember seeing anyone as beautiful as she.
He suddenly felt very self-conscious. Among his own people he was considered extremely handsome. His wings were both large and powerful, unblemished by the scars left by arrows. His body was perfectly toned and his hair was a perfect blond colour no one could hope to match. He wore a pair of black breeches made of silk and embroidered in gold. Several golden chains hung around his neck.
Yet among the people of earth, he would look intimidating and fearsome. His nails were longer than any normal person's and razor sharp. His teeth had points to them and his eyes were a silver-gray that seemed to pierce into someone's soul.
The young prince suddenly became aware that the ginger cat had sauntered over and found him kneeling among the bushes, his wings hanging limply down his back. The cat hissed and darted out from the bushes and back to the girl as though she could protect him from the creature in the bushes.
"Is someone there?" the young woman called from where she sat on the bank. She sounded curious and a bit frightened.
The prince could not bring himself to answer and so he stood and ran back the way he'd come and reentered his own world. He didn't know if she had seen him or not. He didn't dare think that she had in case she never came and sang by that pond again.
Yet everyday when he took his walks through his underground lair, the prince heard the young woman's voice. For a week he managed to keep his curiosity in check but finally he could no longer stay away. He wanted to hear her voice clearly again and he couldn't understand why. So as he flew towards the surface for a second time, he pondered this and came up with no answers.
"Is he in love with the princess?" the little girl asked. She squeezed her favourite white teddy bear close. Her mother smiled.
"Whoever said she was a princess?"
"She has to be!" the girl insisted. "She has to be."
"Why?"
"I…I don't know! She just has to be a princess," the little girl said stubbornly.
"Well maybe she is, maybe she isn't. As for him being in love with her…I suppose we shall soon find out."
The girl nodded.
Now every time he went to visit Earth, the prince made sure to be quiet and hide himself better than he had the first time. He sat high up in trees where his wings could trail down among the leaves and hidden among the darkness, completely unseen by anyone below. The only person who ever visited the pond was the young woman herself. She would sit by its edge every day and sing for hours on end, one of her delicate hands stroking the cat beside her.
The young woman became an obsession to the prince and he wondered where she came from. He never dared follow her in case she noticed him. Instead he came up from his underground home long before her singing started. She normally arrived at midday, sometimes with a picnic basket, and left at sundown every day.
So it came to pass that the weeks came and went and the young prince (aside from the animals of the forest) was the only spectator to the girl's secret concerts. One day, however, the girl did not appear. This troubled him; she had never once failed to appear. Very disappointed, the young prince decided not to remain and stood to lift off into the sky and return home when a voice called up to him from right below.
"Why are you hiding up there?"
The prince was so stunned that he lost his balance completely and fell right out of the tree. His eyes were tightly shut and when he opened them he was staring right into the eyes of the young woman. She looked at him curiously. He probably looked completely ridiculous lying on his back with his wings underneath him and his golden chains all askew. He noticed that on one arm she carried a picnic basket larger than the one she usually used. Suddenly, she started laughing.
"What is so funny?" he demanded with as much indignation as he could muster. The young woman continued laughing so hard that she too fell down onto the forest floor.
"Nothing," she replied once she had regained some of her composure. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you fall out of the tree…"
"How did you even know I was there?" Frightened beyond imagining that she might run off at any second he tried to assume his usual mask of indifference and realized he was failing miserably in that task. She was grinning and she didn't seem frightened at all.
"A little birdie told me," she said airily. She stood up and brushed off her dress. The young prince got up too and handed her the basket she had dropped. She smiled shyly. "Thank you. Why don't you…come and eat with me?"
The prince was very surprised that she would so easily invite him to share a meal with her and he accepted with as much formal and polite language as he could muster. She smiled again, a faint line of pink appearing over the bridge of her nose and led him to the bank.
"I…don't know what you like to eat," the young woman began, "So I…brought a bit of everything. Please, take what you like." She laid out each dish on a checked blanket she had brought with her and the prince examined each one curiously. There were fruits (which were a rare treat in his homeland), homemade buns, sliced meat which he correctly identified to be chicken, and butter tarts.
"It tastes very good," he said politely (and truthfully) after taking a few bits of her homemade buns and devouring the chicken. "You are quite the cook."
This made the young woman blush once more. "You are very kind. Um…you never answered my question."
The prince glanced at her nervously. "Which question?"
"The one about why you were hiding in the tree…" She paused. "I don't mean to pry but…you've been here a few times lately, haven't you? The birds told me you see."
This only served to make the prince more self conscious than ever but he decided he ought to reply to this lovely young lady who had fed him and been very kind to him. She hadn't run and she hadn't told him to leave. "I…I was just listening to you sing," he said honestly.
"But why were you hiding?" she asked again. Apparently she felt that this was not a satisfactory answer to her question. The prince felt his cheeks grow hot and he was forced to look away from her.
"I…"
"Were you…afraid I'd be frightened of you? That I'd run away or something?" she asked earnestly. Her eyes were wide with horror at the thought.
"Something like that…"
The sun was setting now, the prince noticed, and the young lady apologetically began to pack up the lunch. "Will you come back tomorrow?" she asked him suddenly.
The prince hadn't considered the possibility of the young woman wanting him to return. Just because she was nice today didn't mean she would want him to return (although he didn't think he could keep himself away even if she requested he do so). "I would be honored."
"Please return," she said in almost begging sort of tone. "It's…lonely to sing with no one to listen."
The prince nodded solemnly and turned to lift off into the sky.
For several weeks, the two were able to meet every few days and it was at these times that the prince felt most at ease. His initial surprise at the young woman's unquestioning acceptance of him had not yet worn off and he suspected that it never would. Even among his own people, he was not his usual self as he was always longing to return to the World Above.
It was his mother, a cruel and cold woman, who finally confronted him about his recent change in personality. "You've been visiting Earth more and more often of late," she said coldly. "Why is that, my son?"
Now among most demons, humans were not seen as anything very special or worthy of notice. Humans were weak and powerless compared to themselves and to angelic beings in heaven. In fact, among his own demonic people, the prince was the only one who didn't think that way, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by his queen mother. The prince realized that it would be a very bad thing for him to reveal the young woman to his mother and so he sought to keep her secret.
"I am merely curious about it, dearest mother," the prince said in an indifferent voice. "I have heard interesting tales about it and sought to verify them."
"Is that so…" The prince nodded stiffly. His mother walked forward and placed her hand against his brow without warning. Her hand had an iron grip and the prince was unable to escape her magic. Her expression never changed but her voice was like ice when she spoke again. "You should know better than to lie to me, my son."
The queen ordered her son to be locked away in the deepest cell. Fraternizing with a human woman was a forbidden act among their people and crimes were always met with punishment. The prince cared not what happened to him; he feared about what would happen to that lovely and innocent young lady who had been so kind to him. He sat sullenly in his cell feeling terribly guilty that he had to miss all their planned meetings now. He missed hearing her voice.
"Is the prince going to be all right?" the little girl asked quickly.
"We'll see, won't we?" her mother replied with a kind smile.
"I'm glad you're not like his mother, mother," the girl said.
Her mother only smiled and continued her story.
Finally, the queen and her councilors came to a decision. The prince would be killed since that was the usual punishment for wrongdoers. And his was a particularly heinous crime. The first stage of his process consisted of his beautiful wings being brutally torn from his back and the wounds clumsily bandaged. The actual execution was to take place the following morning.
The prince sat in his cell feeling lonelier and more upset than he had ever felt before. He wished that he could hear her sing just one more time before he died, to tell her that he wouldn't be returning again. There was so much he wanted to say to her still…
Suddenly the prince felt something brush up against his leg and he looked down to examine the source of the sensation. The young woman's ginger cat was there looking at him suspiciously through golden eyes. Irritably the cat walked to a dark corner of his cell and flicked his tail impatiently before vanishing into the darkness. At first the prince wondered how the cat had got in here or if it had simply been a figment of his imagination. But it was not and when he examined the spot where the ginger cat had vanished he realized it was a hole in the wall, a passage out of the cell, unknown to anyone else.
A feeling the prince could only name as hope suddenly flared in his chest and he boldly stepped into the narrow passage. Cold stone steps led upwards; the stairs went so high that the end was lost in darkness. Nevertheless the prince was not daunted by such a task and began his climb with renewed vigor. The ginger cat was always visible a few steps above him, urging him onward.
The way was long but the prince refused to falter; he continued up and up into the darkness that seemed eternal. Once or twice he thought he heard the voice of that young woman and it filled him with strength. He vaguely wondered how long the journey had been since he started. It didn't matter; he was almost free.
Abruptly, the prince stepped out into the bright sunlight and stumbled forward slightly. He was not used to walking without the added weight of his wings yet and expected to hit the ground. A pair of hands, surprisingly strong yet delicate, caught his shoulders and when he looked up he was looking into the eyes of his lovely young lady.
"I'm so glad you're safe!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "I was so worried about you! So I sent my cat to find you. I hope that wasn't too presumptuous of me…"
"I would have died if not for you," he said honestly. The young woman suddenly noticed that he was without wings and gasped.
"I…I didn't know! I would have sent him sooner if I had. But…you're here now. You're not…going to leave again, are you?"
"No, I'm not going anywhere princess."
"I'm…not a princess."
"You are to me," the prince insisted, "My angel-princess."
"I'm not an angel either," the young lady pointed out.
"You are to me," he said stubbornly. "And besides, even if I'm an exiled prince if I say you're a princess then you are."
The young woman giggled. "Very well then. If you insist."
"I do insist," he said softly. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. "I love you…"
"I love you too…" the princess whispered.
"And naturally," finished up the woman, "They lived happily ever after."
"So she was a princess!"
"If you think she was," the woman agreed. "That's the beauty of storytelling; the characters can be whatever you desire. Now, it is time for you to sleep."
"Yes, mother," the little girl said with a wide yawn.
The girl's mother kissed her forehead and shut the door lightly as she left the room. She claimed back her seat on the couch beside her husband who put down his crossword puzzle when she returned.
"Finally got her to sleep have you?" he asked. His wife nodded. "Good then. What took you so long anyway?"
"I was telling her a bedtime story."
"Don't children grow out of those by her age?"
"I still like them," she said crossly, "You'd never think to tell me one though!"
Her husband smirked and leaned toward her. "Oh really? Once upon a time there was a pretty and naïve Gryffindor girl who suddenly found herself in love with the most handsome and cunning Slytherin boy there was---in fact, he was the most handsome and cunning boy in general, not just in Slytherin House. They lived happily ever after," Her husband kissed her lips softly. "The end. Was that good enough, princess?"
She smiled and kissed him back. "Yes, it was."