As fanlib is closing and I only had it there, I, The Hooded Menace, am transferring this as well as other files over here. Please review!

Perchance To Dream

The young princess slumped in the elegantly carved bench in her room, exhausted. The day was not yet over, but how she wished it was. Actually, she wished that the day had never come. It started out with such promise; it was her birthday, and birthdays were supposed to be special. And it was, at first, more so then she could have imagined. Her eyes welled with tears, remembering, and she cradled her head in her arms, starting to shake. It had been so perfect – he had been so perfect – she had thought that it was a dream come true. But like any other dream, it turned to dust when confronted with reality, or in this case her aunts, or whatever they turned out to be.

With this thought, her tears really started to flow, and she tried to muffle her cries against her sleeves. She knew she should be happy to be a princess, happy that she had been protected for all these years, happy to be back in her parents' castle, but all she could think of was the boy in the woods. If it was possible, she'd trade her new position, and all the wealth and power it came with, just to make the date tonight with him in the woods. Sobs wracked the girl's slender form, making her feel weaker than ever. The physical and emotional effects of the tears were taking its toll, and all she wanted to do was sleep, sleep and wake up to find out that the latter half of the day never happened.

The princess was about to sink into a restless sleep when the light appeared. It looked sickly and unnatural to her eyes, but yet she felt drawn to it. Almost against her will, she rose, following the orb. Thoughts flitted through her mind, mainly ones of curiosity, but also thoughts of warning, tempered by her overall feeling of sorrow. Still, she could not but help to follow the light, though with every step she felt worse, more tense. Something was not right; normally, she would have fled, but now, she was too tired to care about her safety.

She followed it through halls, up narrow winding spiral stairs, her legs weary but still finding the energy to trudge on. All sense of time had vanished when she reached the small room at the top of the tower. Inside, the light encased a strange instrument, one with a wheel and a spindle. The princess had never seen such a thing before, and she reached out her hand to touch it. Before her finger contacted it, voices filled her head, suppressed memories coming back from a lifetime ago. A curse – a prophecy – spinning wheel – death – sleep. Her mind felt so jumbled, as if it had been shaken and then replaced. Quickly, she drew her finger back. Some voice, something, was telling her to touch the spindle, to touch it, but others were speaking of a curse. The girl wanted to scream, to tell them all to shut up so she could think, but the clamor continued. Desperate to keep calm, she clung to one thought – sleep. She wasn't quite sure, but touching the spindle had something to do with sleep, and oh, how she craved it. Just to sleep, perchance to dream, dream of the boy in the woods. An eternity dreaming of him would not nearly be long enough. And maybe, when she awoke, she'd find a world with something for her. With that thought, Princess Aurora stretched out her hand for a second time and touched the spindle.

The first thing she was aware of was a light pressure on her lips. There – there was something there, someone there. Fighting off the last traces of sleep, the girl's eyes fluttered open. A smile curled on her lips. Why, she wasn't awake; she was still dreaming! For how could the boy from the woods be here with her now? It was only when he smiled back and gently cupped her hands in his that she realized that it wasn't a dream; no dream ever felt like this. She didn't know how, but she fell asleep to a nightmare and awakened to a dream come true. Her smile sweetened. She had always wanted a happy ending.