Iris and Arcel stood at the edge of the Maynard lawn, under blossoming cherry blossoms raining petals akin to a soft caress. A crescent moon glowed softly in the arms of a cloudless sky, beaming mercifully upon them. Their faces held smiles, Iris' a dimpled one scrunching all other features of her face together and Arcel's a gummy one, stretched out rather charmingly.
These smiles held a similar goal but entirely different motives.
'I will find the necklace, get those fifty thousand coins and run away from here!' was Iris' motive as she hooked her thumbs under the belt straps of her wannabe-paper-bag dress.
'I will go on a nighttime adventure out of the castle! With Iris! It will be super fun! And I can skip milk tonight!" were Arcel's motives as he barely contained a stable momentum on his toes. Going to and fro over his heels, repeatedly.
The duo exchanged determined glances before marching forward with a mission on their mind. No plans, back-ups or even amenities to last them through the night if they were to get lost, upon mischance. Just dumb and dumber huddled together, swinging their arms away in the dark of the night.
Lady Crimson would have their souls sealed if she found out about it, but such risks were buried deep under soft quilts with a pillow body-double (courtesy Aurora's prop skills) and a colourful 'Do-Not-Disturb' sign (courtesy Arcel with his inability to choose a single colour and wanting to use them all.)
But the best part was, as they tiptoed their way out of the main gates with not a soul noticing (no wonder there was a robbery here, the security was as lax as it could come), neither Iris nor Arcel knew — where exactly was the Lake Virae?
"What do you mean by, 'I dOnT knOw,' Arcel, I thought you grew up here!" Iris lets out an exasperated groan, wide brown eyes scrutinizing the brunette with ample disappointment.
The Prince, rather than owing up to his directionally challenged mind, shrugs nonchalantly. "I have never been out of the castle grounds before," he merely replies, eyes fixated on the grassy grounds as he hopped around, stepping only on places with no cherry blossoms resting. It became a rather jerky journey on his toes, for him, as he flailed around mercilessly trying to avoid a petal or two— much to Iris' annoyance.
Obvious questions started brimming in the ravenette's head as soon as the greed of money diminished with the increasing darkness surrounding them. The tree were getting thicker, the air colder, and the cherry blossoms had disappeared way back, giving way to purple leaved plum trees. Not even crickets chirped to eat up the silence. It was a hollow, void of sound and it irked Aurora's senses.
What if the thief was dangerous? What if the necklace was cursed? What if they get kidnapped and sold off to some far away land?
The little girl gulps, hands suddenly going clammy upon the intrusion of thoughts. Arcel was still hopping around, avoiding crushing the dark purple leaves as the forest cover, over them, got thicker by the minute and the moonlight eventually stopped peeking through the branches. He looked so innocent, like the real child he was. Not a fake one like Iris. She should have known better though, she is the older one! If anything happens to this child— she'd be responsible, right? What is this situation, where are they going?! They should really head back!
But the money—
Oh, heaven have mercy on her!
"Arcel, does this forest have b-beasts or creatures lurking around? Do they e-eat humans like us?" Iris wonders out loud, crushing the leaves in order to get closer to his side, much to Arcel's horror for he was far too invested in his made-up game.
The brunette looks up at her with a frown, lips puckered up, "What do you mean by creatures? Beasts don't just roam around in other people's territories. Every creature has their own domain!" Arcel whines out as if stating something as obvious as the colour ofleaves.
Iris sighs at that. "Wonderful! Here I was going off cliche plots and wondering if we'll get awfully bruised and beaten up by some creature and develop trauma of some sort and only heal in each other's arms or some bullshit. Bahaha. We're not a tragedy," Iris flips her hair, heart resting much at ease now that the silence held no ill intentions against her.
Arcel stares at her with a frown, lips stretched into a line, before her questions, "What's bull shit?"
Iris almost curses him for being so observant of her words. She flicks his forehead instead, before asking, "Didn't the Duchess say she'll be sending knights to the Lake?" Other than a thick, neat overgrowth of trees, there wasn't much to be awry of, around them. Yet.
"Yes, I believe," Arcel answers, jumping over a trio of leaves and landing on a clean patch of grass like a real ballerina, on the tip of his toes. The ravenette giggled, watching Arcel balance himself as he alternated his attention between an eventual fall and Iris' laugh.
"Is this the only way out of the castle? Like, is there a possibility for the knights to pass through here?" Iris wonders out loud.
Arcel, having balanced enough over the past ten minutes, falls on his face. Iris laughs out loud, ruthlessly, as Arcel grumbles incoherent words under his breath, whining over how his plan failed and now how 'woe was all he knew'. Before Iris could stop him, the brunette had started chanting, "fuck my life, fuck everything nice."
Iris picked up a leaf and stuffed it in his mouth, much to his bafflement. "I bet you a blink, you are not allowed to say the F-word! It's a bad thing! You mustn't!" The ravenette persists.
Arcel spits out the leaf, passionately, before wiping his mouth and tongue over his sleeve. 'Wow- what manners. Lady Crimson would have a stroke if she were to witness her beloved Prince in his primitive habitat,' Iris thought.
"Why are you so mean to me?! Okay, I won't say it! I just won't do anything. I'll sit here and not move at all!" He whines, petulant with his actions as he settles himself over the ground, much to Iris'inconvenience.
"Must you be so unreasonable?" The ravenette sighs, missing her assistant dearly. She would do spectacular with a can of cola right now. Or a cheesy burger to regret an hour later, when she was lounging on her therapy chair with a face mask on.
Iris descended beside him and sat down as well, "What should I do to get you up?" She bargains, wanting to get done with this as fast as possible and soak in a long, hot, bath if she makes it alive by dawn.
Arcel rolls to face her, pout diminishing into a gummy smile. "Tell me a story!" He claps merrily. Iris rolls her eyes, he was a child afterall. Smack in the middle of an unknown forest, all he wants is a story. He had the ambition of a caterpillar.
"Alright, today I shall indulge you in beauty and the beast," Iris announces as an idea pops in her head. Standing up, she crosses her feet around her ankles, bowing elegantly. "If you let me, kind sire, I shall tell you a tALe aS oLd As TiMe," she croaked, reminiscing one of her favourite musical of all times.
Iris usually looked sucked and drained out of her life, as if being dragged forward against her will, but when Iris was telling stories— her sunken brown eyes would sparkle up with a life that Arcel admired. He liked watching her when she was telling stories. Her hands would make big gestures, inexpressive face would phase into a rainbow of characters. She would squeak, shout, groan, make her voice deep and even laugh ever-so-evilly that would get him invested. Not much in the otherworldly plot and characters she talked about, but her, as a person and her ability to entrap someone's attention so passionately into characters he didn't know existed until a few minutes ago.
'Wow Gaston is a chamber pot! Why did her father do that? Belle is so brave and smart! Wow the beast is so mean—!' were Arcel's instinctive exclamations.
Arcel, who had lived a life among monotonous royals and overly coddling adults had not before witnessed such brazen audacity until Iris. She's the most fun Arcel had ever had in all of his miniscule existence.
"The sun doesn't rise in the east," Arcel interrupts her lyric of the iconic Tale as old as time song, rather brightly, much to Iris' dismay. "It rises from the orient," He points eastwards.
Iris raises an exasperated eyebrow in a 'does-it-really-matter?' manner, pinching her cheeks to get out of the tea cup's character, before point westwards. "What direction is that?" she asks.
"That's occido," Arcel replies, "Oh, I forgot you don't know your directions!" The brunette openly snickered, before pointing northwards, "That's Borealis," next he points southwards, "That's australis. Those are the four Draco Directions," he concludes.
Iris nods with an open mouth, going over the new-found information in her head.
"Why Draco?" Iris prompts, was Harry Potter a religion over here?
"Because- it just is?" Arcel shrugs.186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHnphC7VFv8
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Aurora, for the nth time that night, realises that Arcel is a child and leaves it at that. "And who is Virae? Is the lake named after them?" She asks instead, remembering her question from before.
Arcel pouts in reply, shaking his head. "You didn't finish the story," he whispers, as if saying it loudly would make him a bad person for keeping information.
"Well, they fall in love and lived happily ever after, now tell me," Iris replies hastily, with an equal whispering intensity.
"B-but, how can they? Isn't the spell still on?" Arcel protests, looking quite concerned with his tongue racing over his teeths.
Iris scoffs. "Are you saying that beasts don't deserve love?!" She argues with dramatic necessity.
"Beasts are actually some of the sweets of species. After witches, that is. But how can they live happily after this hostage situation?!" Arcel questions in bafflement.
Iris' jaw hangs low. She blinks over this unnecessary wonderment. She agrees she did not complete the story and after the ball room dance the real drama happens, but what did this child have to be this woke?
"You do not have to look at it like that. She fell for his soul and was not repulsed by his body and that's true love," Iris explains but Arcel's frown doesn't falter.
"Beastmen have amazing bodies. If I don't meet a dragon then I'd surely love to meet a beastman. They're are...manly," Arcel all but drools. She hadn't had these many (read passionate) discussions about Disney in the actual twenty years of her real life and here she was, in a whole different realm, arguing over Disney like her life depended on it.
Iris sighs, once again. "Okay, how about this. I am Iris, right? But what if I wasn't really Iris but someone else captured in the body of Iris? Wouldn't you consider it an ill fated hostage situation as well? Now, say, you met me and we are barely even friends, but we still play together because you force me with bets. Isn't that a hostage situation as well? Nevertheless, I spend time with you so, I'd eventually come to think—oh wow, you're quite a spectacular person, maybe I love you! And maybe you'd spend time with me and think, oh wow- she looks like a walking dead rat but she's pretty charismatic! Maybe, I love her! Isn't that, rising above your current circumstances and, accepting your partner regardless? A one true love?" Iris rants.
"You don't look like a dead rat," Arcel says with a serious face. Iris rolls her eyes at that. The last person she'd be taking an opinion about her beauty would be from a child who wants to see dragons.
"That wasn't the crux of it."
"Well, I do not agree with either of those situations. No one should be forced to do anything that they do not want to. It gets sad," Arcel states.
"You don't get to say that!" Iris seethes at the hypocrisy.
"My bets are a mutual agreement,a give and take situation, with an equal win to lose possibility. If I win it, I deserve it," Arcel explains, getting up and dusting his breeches, shirt and hair to rid them of dirt and leaves. "Shall we get going?"
Though, as if on cue, a searing gust of darkness zooms past Iris. Spine-chilling nerves consume her goosebumps to rise. The serene silence was broken as the ravenette turns, to her horror, and finds Arcel pinned to a tree, at the mercy of a screeching dark creature.
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Her her soul logs off quite promptly.186Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGSOvt9KDMH
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