The Twelve Kingdoms

In Your Dreams

/// Sleeping Beauty

Teleport Kingdom ///

Breathe in. Breathe out. That's how it always was. That's how it always is. The kind of suffocation that made him measure out and count his breaths, or else he would stop breathing altogether. His fingers curled into fists, clutching at the silk sheets. A dull pounding headache muddled his thoughts and all he really wanted was sleep. The kind of sleep that would never end.

Scrambling off of the enormous canopy bed, tripping a few times, he finally got to the oak chest cabinet, pulling out the top drawer. His fingers came in contact with the smooth glass of the jar and he pulled it out, breathing heavily. The jar contained exactly two pills every time he woke up, and this time was no exception.

He sat back down on the bed, his blond hair not a bit mussed after a week of sleep. His chest felt constricted and it was starting to get harder and harder to breathe. He stared at the two transparent pills through the glass of the jar for a few moments before emptying them out into the palm of his hand and bringing them to his mouth, throwing back his head to swallow them dry.

The glass jar fell from his grip, dropping to the polished wooden floor and shattering into a million glittering shards. Prince Zoran was halfway to unconsciousness as well, his head gently bouncing off the pastel pillow arrangement and his eyes sliding closed. His breathing evened out and his features transformed into the epitome of serenity: long dark lashes against porcelain skin, plush ruby-red lips, soft locks of gold covering the forehead.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

A long field of green grass stretched before him and he could finally breathe freely. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile as he spun in a circle and then teleported to the very end of the field. The blades of grass and the soft dirt beneath his bare toes felt so real, almost as if he wasn't dreaming. Almost as if he wasn't locked up in an abandoned enchanted mansion on the outskirts of his kingdom. Almost as if the spell guarding his room didn't completely restrict him from using his power and make it hard to breathe.

Almost as if he wasn't basically half dead anyway.

He closed his eyes, the smile not leaving his face, and when he opened them, he was in the mountains with pine trees all around him. He knew this dream world like the back of his hand; he already explored every single part of it, every forest, every field, every beach. It was a dream, he knew, a continuous dream world, but here he could do everything he couldn't do when he was awake. Here, inside the cage his mind built, he was free.

He walked down the path between the trees, eventually breaking out into a run, laughter spilling from his lips. The trees thinned out into a flower-filled meadow and he collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily (but for a different reason this time). The sun warmed his body and he closed his eyes. And even if he knew it was a dream, he was glad for it.

A shadow fell over his face and he could feel a presence of something, someone. He opened his eyes, squinting into the hazy light. A pair of startlingly wide dark eyes peered at him from above and he sat up, unintentionally knocking their foreheads together. It sent a small jolt of pain to his head and he had to marvel at just how realistic this dream world was.

He looked over to the boy sitting by his side, now rubbing his forehead with a disgruntled expression on his face. He looked young, with childish features and the enormous eyes and the squishy cheeks that he all of a sudden wanted to pinch. The boy turned to him, as if sensing the Prince's thoughts, and glared.

"So, how do you like it, Prince Zoran?" he asked, still glaring.

Zoran blinked a few times, a little creeped out by how this strange boy knew his name and a lot confused by how he even appeared here in the first place. "Like what?"