Work Text:
“Princess Emu! May I enter your room?!”
The knock on her door and the familiar loud voice of her knight instantly brought her back to her usual spirits – he came at the right moment, too. Now dressed in her pink nightgown, she yelled:
“Come in!”
“Thank you very much!” The slight creaking of the door opening was heard. Tsukasa entered her bedroom, bowing, “I apologize for interrupting your sleep, Your Highness, but I wanted to check if you’re okay. Especially after that Rui guy crashed the ball…”
Princess Otori Emu is the most beloved person of the town: due to her kindness and the usual cheerful demeanor, or the way she helps the commoners with any task they have trouble with and can easily cheer children up with just a smile, it was easy to say that she was the most appreciated member of the Otori lineage.
Their Kingdom occasionally hosted balls where only the higher members of society were invited (Emu had suggested allowing the commoners to come as well but her idea was instantly rejected, something she told him one day). While people usually came for dancing or catching up with each other, there were days when princes would come just to ask for Emu’s hand in marriage.
She always said that her knight was the most important to her.
Because of that, he always felt that he had to stay by her side to protect her in case anything bad happened, no matter how many times the girl would giggle and say that she’ll be fine– these sort of moments barely started months later however, after a magician begun to sneak into their kingdom, looking for some sort of jewel.
He caused various battles because of that. Two other knights, Akito and Akiyama, always helped Tsukasa when it was needed, sometimes the mage Emu occasionally visited to buy potions helping out as well (she said she only does that for the princess though, much to his annoyance. Besides, it was clear as day that she and the magician were friends after two or three more battles.)
“I'm very okay! It was fun, too!”
“I am deeply glad to hear— wait, ‘fun’?”
“Mhm!”
He blinked at her.
“...I still can't get you.”
“Weeell… Before you came, I never fully experienced how fun it was to witness sudden battles, or to have my own knight I was close with.”
“...Really?”
She nodded, not seeming to care that Tsukasa was now sitting next to her on the bed; she never would’ve cared anyway, and they both knew that,
“My family is always very cranky. Father only cares about how everyone could work on making our kingdom the best out of the rest, while my brothers are grumpy and always tell me to take things seriously. Especially my older brother! He tells me to stop having my head in the clouds, and to focus more on becoming a respectable queen…”
“Ah…”
“But, Hinata is very nice and cuddly!” She continued, now fidgeting with the hem of her sleeves, “she always comes to visit me, and even brings me flowers and other gifts…
I think she was the one who helped me continue trying to keep this Kingdom the way Grandpa built it. Or to stop what they're trying to do.”
“‘What they're trying to do’? What…?”
Emu just looked at him with a small, melancholic look…
It was strange: for the few months he’s known her, she was always a cheerful girl who had way too much energy, to the point where he always had to look after the stubborn princess– who was either talking to the townspeople, or picking up flowers, even surprising him with her athletic skills, which she usually used to jump right on Tsukasa whenever she had the chance to.
She was very excited when she learned that someone intended to become her knight, much more so when that someone was Tsukasa ; she hadn’t even met him then, but the many promises he made about protecting the kingdom and keeping it the way it was made her heart skip a beat, as she told him a month after, when she ran to him when his training was finished.
“It’s nothing important! Don’t worry about it!”
‘Nothing important…’
There was something in her that now began to worry him, and a deja vu of sorts, but he didn’t know what or why: Her tone was back to how it usually was and the usual big smile was now on her face, but the hesitation before that was clear.
He knew how nearly her entire family found her to be strange. She couldn’t forget about her promise of keeping the Otori Kingdom as it usually was, or about the ‘crazy, unagreeable’ ideas she sometimes suggested, or the way she was so full of energy and not too serious or stern regarding the Kingdom’s manners or duties.
Tsukasa always thought that maybe they were jealous or couldn’t keep up with her, but this clearly was different; not to mention how he did hear a little bit of something the brothers were talking about a few days earlier.
For her to act like this… he’ll find out what’s wrong for sure–
“Tsukasa!”
Finally snapped out of his thoughts (how long had he been sitting there like that?), he stared to his right to find out that no one was there. And then he looked to the front:
Emu was now standing in the middle of her bedroom, a big grin on her face.
“Let’s dance!”
“Huh?! ”
Tsukasa stared at her in shock after finally processing everything, “But, the ball already ended! It’s too–”
“That doesn’t matter, I was waiting for so long to dance with my knight anyway!” the girl jumped closer and closer to him, and he felt his face getting warmer for a reason he didn’t know of, “Can we? Can we?”
. . .
“Well! If my dear princess wants that so much, then your wish is my command!” he striked a pose for a couple seconds but then gave her a pleading look, “Just don’t step on my feet, please…”
She giggled out a “I won’t!” and turned on the record player, letting Tsukasa wrap his arms around her.
Emu was good at dancing– as expected for a princess. She moved gracefully even when she was dancing to a quiet song at her bedroom in the middle of the night, or even if she was just dancing with her knight and not the other guests;
However, as much as it felt like a privilege to have his princess trust him that much, to fill up his ego daily with very creative praises and with certain ‘surprises’, there was still something that was eating him up, but he didn’t know what.
Truth be told, the only reason why he wanted to become a knight solely for this kingdom was because of a dream: with a fancy kingdom and a queen who always had a smile on her face, even if it sometimes didn’t reach her eyes. Seeing a princess picking up flowers for the nearby children the very next day made him believe that this was a sign: a sign to become her knight and possibly even rule the kingdom flawlessly, to have everyone gaze in awe because of his efforts…!
…until he did become her knight. That was when those dreams appeared more and more, increasing from one night a month to three to occasionally even more nights a week, but it was different:
That queen was laying on the ground filled with blood with a shaky smile on her face. “Save this kingdom,” she muttered, “leave me to lay here…! Thank you for helping me, all this time...”
Whatever else she had to say was covered in complete fogginess, in the mornings where he tried to remember them.
Starting from that day, he felt a need to protect Emu: one thing that always came along with the excruciating pain he’d have from his head every time he needed to do that.. It always happened when she seemed to be in danger, and he didn’t know why…
“This is so, so fun!” Emu said between giggles, “You’re so good at dancing, Tsukasa! I never knew someone like you would know so well!”
“Of course I am! In order to be a great knight, my dancing needs to be immaculate– wait. what do you mean ‘someone like me’...?”
“I just never expected my knight to be such a great dancer! Hehehe… this is so fun…”
This was fun, he thought. Nearly fun enough for him to set all his worries aside and just focus on impressing her with his incredible dancing skills (or, more accurately, on making her laugh.), however...
By a mere chance, he feels like he knew this princess, with her long, pink hair, the curious and enthusiastic look on her face and her dress embedded with ribbons and lace, a long time ago.
The one thing he didn’t realize, even after so many months of protecting her and spending time with her, was that she felt the same way too.