Cwtch [KH/FF]

You woke up slowly, reluctant to pull yourself from the pleasant haze sleep had left you in. Your limbs felt heavy and a little stiff which, truthfully, wasn’t surprising considering the position you had fallen asleep in. Legs sprawled out on front of you, back pressed into the corner and your head resting against the window made for an uncomfortable way to fall asleep, but you had proudly mastered the art of sleeping anywhere years ago.

You yawned and stretched out as much as you could before turning slightly and pressing your head against the side instead. The soft purr of the engine lulled you into a light doze as you struggled to find the will to move. You knew logically that you had to get up but your exhausted body had other ideas. You sighed and yawned again before sitting up, eyes still screwed close. You dragged a hand across your face and mumbled nonsense under your breath before finally cracking open an eye.

The familiar furnishings of the Royal Limo met your bleary gaze; the same black seats, black doors, blacked out windows that had become a staple of your teenage life. You opened your other eye only to blink and sigh at the amused, if exasperated, look your handmaiden was shooting your way. The younger girl smirked at you, bright blue eyes glittering.

“Don’t,” you muttered as soon as she opened your mouth.

“Sleeping Beauty finally awakens,” she said anyway, smirk widening. “And here I was thinking we were going to have to call a Prince Charming to kiss you awake.”

You scowled. “Shut up, Xion.”

Xion laughed, shaking her head a little. “You’re so grumpy when you wake up, Princess.”

“No, I’m grumpy when I wake up after falling asleep in this damn limo,” you corrected, rubbing at your eyes. “How far away are we?”

Xion snorted but allowed the subject change. “We’ve got ten minutes before we change cars, and then another twenty minutes until we get to the house.”

You groaned and slumped back into your seat, your head lolling back as you stared at the roof of the car. “Why are we changing cars again?” you asked, despite knowing the answer.

“Because you insisted on keeping the fact that you’re the Crown Princess of Hollow Bastion a secret,” Xion stated cheerfully. “Which means we can’t show up to Destiny Islands in a limo.”

“Right,” you sighed out, fighting off a pout.

Xion was right, of course. Turning up to Destiny Islands in the well-known Royal Limo would render your plan of laying low completely pointless. And you were going to keep your royal heritage quiet if it killed you. Well, probably not quite to that point, but it’d take a lot. As much as you loved being a princess – and, really, you did – it did have its downsides. Not only were you and your family constantly in the public eye (though you had somehow managed to keep your picture out of the papers since your tenth birthday) but you never knew if your friends were actually your friends or just in it for getting to say they knew the future ruler of Hollow Bastion.

When your parents had finally relented to two solid years’ worth of nagging, whining and cajoling and allowed you to attend high school, you had no doubts in your mind that you wanted to be as anonymous as possible. It would be nice to shed the masks, leave behind the politics and forget about your responsibilities and just get to act like a normal teenager. Xion had been helping you out in that regard; she had coached you in all the things most teens knew about and how they acted. It was decidedly improper to act like that as a princess, but at this place you were just going to be [Name] [Surname], a regular junior like everyone else, and there was nothing wrong with a regular junior obsessing over the newest big TV show or dancing like an idiot in public.