Sleeping Beauty's little Sister.

Chapter 10

Hi!!!! Haha, I know I said I probably wouldn't update again until Wednesday, but here I am sitting around bored. So, I thought, why not update a chapter since I got the time.

I've decided there's only gonna be 16 chapters & maybe a sequel...

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Gakuen Alice, they belong to the fabulous Higuchi Tachibana. Story inspiration from E.D.B.'s story.

Although both Mikan and Natsume were ready to leave early the next morning, they had to wait for Prince Tono, who was still sleeping. Mikan wanted to go wake him, but when she asked Lady Hillary for the location of his room, the lady-in-waiting looked shocked and told her that it wasn't proper. Not knowing who else to ask, Mikan waited until Tono finally sent for her, saying that he was ready to go and that he was providing horses for Mikan and her guard. The horses did help Mikan's bad mood, but shortly after they crossed the boundary between Corealis and Alicean, Tono insisted that they stop to eat at a village inn they were passing.

"We only just started our journey!" said Mikan. "We've been on the road for less than an hour!"

"We wanted an early start, so I didn't eat before we left," said the prince as he swung his leg over his horse's back and dismounted.

"That was an early start?" Mikan said as Tono disappeared into the inn.

Natsume shrugged. "You were the one who wanted him to come along."
"Yes," said Mikan, "but I didn't expect him to be so slow. Let's hope that he isn't too hungry and we can get back on the road soon."

When they stepped through the door, they found Tono already seated at a table already eating a slab of roast beef and a hearty chunk of bread. "Have a seat," he said, waving his hand at the bench across from him. "You too," he told Natsume. "I don't stand on ceremony when I'm traveling."

Natsume looked annoyed when he sat down, but Mikan was worried. She was thinking about the curse again, and she still didn't know what the hundred years part really meant. Did Taru-chan really have to sleep for one hundred years, at which time a prince would automatically come find her, or could the prince come early, as Mikan was trying to arrange, and still be able to wake her?

Mikan was doing her best by encouraging the princes to come, but what if that wasn't enough? What if Taru-chan had to sleep the hundred years, too?

Mikan was sipping a mug of lukewarm cider when a farmer came stomping into the inn, shedding clumps of dried mud from his boots. He took a seat a few tables from Mikan and her companions, and scowled when the innkeeper's wife approached him.

"So, Dobs, have you gotten any more flowers?" she asked with a broad grin.
"No, I haven't!" said the farmer. "But if it ever happens again, I'm going to sell that danged beast! It'd be a shame, too. She's my best milker."

The innkeeper's wife laughed. "Maybe I'd buy her. My daughters and I like flowers." She nodded toward the beautiful bouquet of flowers of tulips, daffodils, and irises filling a big copper kettle on a table in the center of the room.

After taking his order, the woman stopped by Mikan's table to ask if they wanted anything else. "What was that all about? asked Natsume, gesturing toward the farmer.

"Farmer Dobs over there had a cow get loose last week. He looked for her all over, but he couldn't find her and no one'd seen old Daisy. The very next day he heard a knock on his door and what did he see when he opened it? There was Daisy decked in flowers from head to tail. The fairy Sweetness N Light had led her there all the was from her garden using a daisy chain. Well, Dobs here had so many flowers that he didn't know what to do with them all, so he gave them to the ladies in the village. The ones he gave me are still blooming just as fresh as if they'd been picked yesterday."