Work Text:
"I have to go." Ella murmured as Kit lead her through the gardens, turning to the tower clock that read eleven thirty. The magic shall only last so long, the words echoed through her mind and daunted her.
"Stay." Kit breathed, lightly brushing her arm with his fingertips as she moved to leave, stopping her mid step and causing her breath to hitch. "Please." He urged, and Ella was so, so tempted to agree, to stay with him forever and ever, if he wished her to.
"I really must." She insisted, feeling his finger tips burn through her bare skin with a suppressed sigh.
"Why?" He asked, concerning etching onto his fair features. "Can you not stay a while longer?" He needed to know she was the one, he needed to show her something, something that might confirm his suspicions of her, assert his hopes and dreams.
"Everything will change, I'm so sorry." Ella apologised, and she could tell he saw the difficulty this had on her. "Please, don't ask me again, for fear I might not heed my own advice." She begged, and he nodded. That was it, she then realised. She feared to remain, she feared the one she trusted above anyone else she had ever known seeing her as she truly was.
"Is there anything at all I may do, anything at all?" He persisted, adamant she might keep her at his side for just a while longer. "Might I know you're name at least?"
"It's Ella." She smiled in return, knowing that, given the opportunity, Kit would have exerted every effort to ensure she was there for another hour or two, just as she would have (had she been given the option to remain in her particular form for said period of time). His face lit up at her name, and she saw more than heard his lips forming the word beneath his breath.
"Then, Ella, I must confess I do not know to which extent my feelings are, or what they mean, even." He warned, and Ella felt her heart flutter and stop as his crystalline blue eyes met hers, the sincerity of the very world amassed in their depths. "All I know is that you make me feel more than anyone has ever made me feel." He looked to the sky, now, abashed by his antics and laughing at the absurdity. "I wish I could convey what, exactly, those feelings are, but that is for my mind to discover as of yet."
"Do not think them unreciprocated, then." Ella said, and part of her knew, now, that he might - just might - love her, and love her for herself, despite not knowing who she was - did that make sense? "I... I.." She stammered, searching for the worlds, her resolve to leave crumbling with each small glint of his beautiful, beautiful eyes. "Things might be very different, if I was to remain."
"How so?"
"Kit, what if I were not a princess?" Ella hesitated, looking to the ground. Beneath the infinite amount of layers of silks ranging through all manner of blue hues, glass slippers adorned her feet and Ella wondered at the reality of it all. Well, she used reality in a broad sense of the term. "What if I were exactly as you saw me to be, as I was the first you met me? Would you still feel as you have professed?"
"I would." He affirmed, and all the fear in Ella's kind heart melted away, almost for forever. "Ella..." At her name, she returned her gaze to his face and he saw his expression change. "Ella, I think I'm in love with you." Ella was fit to burst with happiness as she let out a small giggle - that sounded somewhere between a gasp of delight and a sob of joy - and her vision blurred slightly.
"Tell me when you're sure." She laughed, and was taken by much surprise when she felt his lips on her own, a spur of the moment act that was entirely clumsy and uncoordinated, at first. Initially it was hardly a true kiss, seeing as both were smiling too much, but then there was nothing in the world other than them and the delicate brush of their lips against each others, which soon evolved into less than delicate. As propriety dictated, however, it was not to last and Kit, recalling his gentlemanly requirements, broke apart from Ella with a sigh of longing before their activities became too heated.
"I love you." There was not a single doubt about it, he loved her, whoever she was.
"And I love you." Ella had not heard those three words in so long, and she knew she returned such affection before he even uttered them. "Kit, Your Royal Highness." She blushed, ducking her head. "I am no princess." She forced out, knowing she needed to. Have courage and be kind. "I have no carriage." It was not as though that really mattered, but it was a fact. "No parents." Her voice caught at that, and she could not express how she wished it were not so. "No dowry..." This ball was for him to find a wife, and she would make such a poor one as she was. "But will you take me as I am? An honest country girl who loves you?"
She looked to all anything but a simple country girl, the very air about her glowing in her wake. She looked more of a goddess, or spirit of fae, than anything. She was the woman he loved, he would never see her as anything but the representation of her inner self. And her inner self was the most beautiful thing ever to grace the earth.
"Only if you take me as I am." Was his response. "An apprentice monarch still learning his trade."
"I am afraid, then, I have something to ask of you."
_
It was a strange sight to see, the remnants of magic returning to their original forms within the confines of a secret garden. Footmen reverting to lizards and a coach driver slowly becoming a goose. Kit, however, payed no attention to them as the blue haze of a dress turned pinkish in colour and fell to rags about Ella's slim frame, her hair cascading down lose and despite her new appearance, she kept her aura of magic, of kindness and compassion and impossible perfection. And Kit failed to care that she was no princess, because he loved her as she was - the good honest county girl he met in the woods.