Sleeping Beauty [WMMAP Fanfiction]

Chapter Six: Her Morals

Arms crossed as she leaned against the expensive wall, the dry, faded blood on her only added to her scary aura.

Felix glanced to Alice, remembering the quick scene that flashed by in the garden.

Ice, similar to the giant icicles of a town's main attraction she had once brought them to, rippled out from underneath them in a meter radius. Compared to that, it was much, much smaller. And with another cough, the ice turned red. The magic it let off was ominous.

Felix didn't understand then, but he did when it happened already; Alice had swiftly drawn some sort of conclusion that had her shoving Athanasia into his arms when he tried to approach.

It was like she was trying to rein in her magic, Felix remembered at her hunched over figure when Athanasia was gone from her arms. Her biting voice had shouted the best she could at them to help the princess.

"STOP STANDING AROUND!!"

Claude went to take Athanasia while Felix handled the magic situation; they couldn't leave someone unsupervised when their magic was visibly not listening to them. It was dangerous.

His hand was about to touch her shoulder. Then she forced herself up with too much strength, standing from sheer tenacity alone. She slapped his hand away, eyes hazy.

Don't touch me, she had said.

Her ice was the exact same as a monument in a town of their kingdom; ice shards from an unexplained freak accident, yet to melt.

A magician was summoned, from whom Alice refused treatment. It took coaxing from Felix to get her to bregrudgingly agree, as he said the princess wouldn't want to lose her. Now they were in this situation.

To Alice, the world was spinning. The floor threatened to pull her back down, and her lungs burned enough that she could barely breathe.

The young miss also seemed to be the same, sobbing in her unconscious state. She had yet to awaken.

It would be better if they left her to help the princess, the one she had sworn to protect. Yet, illnesses and abnormalities in the body weren't things she could protect her from as easily as cutting someone down.

Even as the magician focused on Athanasia, he had no cure.

To her left, Athanasia slept in Claude's bed, whining in her sleep. At least, the two were not throwing up blood. But Alice's bloodstained fingers tapped away impatiently at the handle of her rapier, because this magician, bowing at their feet right now, could not stop Athanasia's tears. Painful as it was, to want to touch her head, Alice couldn't, lest she risk worsening one of their conditions.

Athanasia took a sharp breath. Her eyes, flooded with sparkly tears, snapped open wide.

"Young miss!"

Felix and Claude glanced over at Alice's sudden squeak. Her fingers reached out, but hesitated. She stepped back.

Felix marched up to the bed, looming over her. "Princess! Can you see me? Do you know my name?"

Athanasia's hands clutched at her tiny chest, dressed in white, before sobbing loudly. "Waaah! It hurts, it hurts..!!!"

"He hasn't healed her," Alice muttered spitefully, on edge. "Shall I kill him?" she inquired coldly of the two.

The robed magician, prostate before them, flinched.

"What did you do?" Claude asked, sounding like he would accept her offer.

"I-I beg your pardon, your majesty, but the princess's condition has not worsened. It's only because she's awake that she feels pain."

"She's been crying in her sleep," Alice bit out, seething. "Explain that."