Chapter Text
It’s a nice day out in Yuuei, a soft breeze hangs in the air.
Izuku twirls around his room as he gathers the last of the golden leafs from the windowsill of his small abode nestled in a tree of the Enchanted Forest. He lays them atop his makeshift prince charming, taking a few steps back once he was done to examine his handiwork. The prince is gorgeous, with his golden locks and piercing red gem eyes—but something was off. Something was still missing.
But what?
“Are you done, kero?” Tsuyu croaks, turning her head to the side to take in the almost finished piece. “It looks nice.”
“He’s missing something, though!” Izuku exclaims, studying the face of his prince hard. He perks up again once he notices the pinkish skin of an apple left over on his work bench, snatching it up and placing it on the prince to give him lips.
“There! Now he’s perfect.” Izuku says with a smile, placing his palm gently to the mannequin’s head to cup its cheek. His prince was almost a perfect recreation of the one he’d seen in his dreams.
“I’ve been dreaming of a true love’s kiss.” Izuku sings as he wraps his arms around the shoulders of his makeshift prince. “And a prince I’m hoping comes with this.”
He twirls in a circle with the prince in his arms, imagining them dancing in a big ball room together. Both of them will be dressed in beautiful suits; his prince’s will be a beautifully rich maroon, and his will be a deep forest green. They’ll sway in each other’s arms, losing themselves in the presence of the other until the stars hang brightly in the sky.
“Midoriya, I urge you not to talk so loudly. Trolls have been running rampant in this area.” Tokoyami interrupts his day-dreaming with a good natured warning. Izuku chuckles, removing one arm from his prince’s shoulder to pet over the raven’s head with two fingers.
“Oh, Tokoyami. You’re going to run yourself thin if you worry so much.” He replies, scratching that special spot just below the raven’s skull that makes the bird chirp.
Tsuyu hops up onto his shoulder. “What’s got you so interested in finding a prince, kero?”
“I saw him—in my dream.” Izuku sighs longingly, free hand coming back up to thread itself in the golden leaves that make up his faux prince’s hair. He closes his eyes, swaying both of them gently as he recounts his tale. “He had such beautiful features, and breathtaking eyes. We danced the whole night, and I knew he was the one when our lips almost touched.”
“You’re doing this because of a dream?” Tokoyami huffs, landing on his other shoulder so his presence would not go unnoticed by the still slightly-dazed Izuku.
“Well, no—sort of.” Izuku stammers, face flushing as he fumbles to put words together. “It wasn’t the dream itself, it was the feeling the dream had. It felt like I had found something I was missing, something calling for me; and I want to find it.”
He twirls his fake prince in his arms once more before balancing on his heels to mimic being dipped by his dance partner. His heart skips a beat as he pictures those piercing eyes staring into his from this angle. Izuku stands upright once more, placing both hands upon the prince’s chest.
“Besides,” he says wistfully, “true love’s kiss is the most powerful magic of all—”
“Midoriya, you should really keep your voice down—” Tsuyu croaks, hoping off his shoulder and onto the work table once more.
“And I just can’t wait to experience that magic for myself!” Izuku continues on, lost once again in the dream he’d had of his true love. “A happy ending with my prince charming—doesn’t it sound so romantic?”
Tokoyami joins Tsuyu’s side on the worktable, shaking his head. “Midoriya, I think you’re—”
But whatever he’s about to say is lost to errant and incessant shaking of the tree his humble house resides in. Izuku scoops Tokoyami and Tsuyu onto his shoulders and away from the side window where the culprit—a troll, as Tokoyami had predicted earlier—was headed. He narrowly ducks out of the way of the giant, yellow-tinged and disgusting skinned hand as it pads around the room.
“Midoriya, I’ll take care of Tsuyu. Escape out the emergency exit.” Tokoyami instructs, clasping his talons gently yet firmly around Tsuyu’s squishy frog body and making a quick escape through the now destroyed window.
Izuku does as told, running as fast as he can out of the house. He manages to climb across a few tree limbs before the troll bellows in anger, voice loud enough to rattle through all of the surrounding forest. The troll spots him at that point, climbing down the bigger tree limbs until they were on the same one.
“I eat you now.” The troll growls as he crawls towards him at an incredible rate.
Izuku yelps, scrambling towards the furthest edge of the branch until there was nowhere left to go but to drop. He turns back to face his certain doom, arms trembling and threatening to give out in panic as the troll moves closer and closer. Its mouth is slightly agape, a line of drool starting to drip from the corner of its lips.
“Midoriya! Move!” Tokoyami yells, swooping in from the right to distract the troll with dives and pecks to its face.
Izuku cries as his hands slip, bark scraping against his palms painfully. He flails, scrambling to catch the branch again and missing. He braces himself for impact with the ground below, but it doesn’t come. Instead, Izuku finds himself caught in the awaiting arms of a beautiful knight in shining armor.
Figuratively, at least.
The mysterious man has split red and white hair with bangs that dangle temptingly in front of heterochromatic eyes that were absolutely stunning. Izuku’s heart skips a beat when the man smiles down at him.
“Oh!” He stammers, desperately trying to will the blush away from his cheeks and failing spectacularly. “It’s you.”
The other man chuckles, and Izuku thinks it may be the most beautiful sound in all of Yuuei.
“It is.” Mystery prince says. “And you are?”
“M-Midoriya. Midoriya Izuku.” He answers, curling further into the prince’s chest to hide his cherry red face and spare him the embarrassment of it being pointed out.
“My name is Todoroki Shouto, and we shall be wed in the morning.” The prince—Todoroki—replies, smile lighting up his face and radiating a sense of happiness that Izuku never knew existed. Is this what love feels like? He thinks so.
Oh, he could feel his happily ever after coming to life right before his eyes—yet the image of the blonde haired and red eyed prince still lingers within him.
But that was just a dream, and what happens in the dreams themselves hardly matter. It was the feelings within them that did, and right now he was feeling every ounce of giddy excitement he’d felt during those dreams.
Todoroki takes one of Izuku’s hands in his, twining their fingers together. “Midoriya, you’re the fairest I have ever met. You were made—”
“—to finish your duet.” Izuku interrupts, mirroring the prince’s smile with one of his own. He clings to the other man’s chest as they ride off over the rolling hills of his Enchanted Forest, sunset painting a more beautiful backdrop for them than Izuku could ever think of for the beginning of his happily ever after.