shifted_logs | if you sing loud and clear, someone passing by will surely hear you

Characters: Prince Morgana and the tower-bound Asch the Long-Haired
Location: A Fairytale Woods
Time: During the fairytale plot
Summary: Asch meets his Prince Charming, who is ~~NATALIA?~~ a strong-willed princess who insists on fighting herself with passionate but occasionally misguided ideals. And Asch sings wonderfully.

Morgana rode out into the woods, as she did each day. She sought adventure and looked to the well-being of her people, except when she remembered that these were not her people. Then she looked for a way home. But today she did not remember. As her horse nudged aside branches, picking a careful path along the road, Morgana sank into herself and became the errant prince. And as that true self was carried away, the regnant mind heard a sound.

She had never heard anything so beautiful.

Morgana turned her horse off the path. Recognising the treachery of the forest floor, she dropped down and guided her steed through the woods, following the song. Soon, the pull of it brought her to the base of a stone tower too tall to climb.

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He watched her with a calm expression as she tried to reason with the fairytale. But in the end her memories won, and it was something of a relief that he wasn't alone anymore.

... Wait. There was something...

Something didn't feel right, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe the longer he resisted the fairytale, the deeper it sought to pull him in. Whatever. He'd have to analyze it later. For now, he was far more concerned with the woman beneath him, his only ally in this maddening place.

"I have my part to play, too," he admitted without much relish. "Mine is being locked up in this tower. There's no way down for me." To be kept prisoner by Van... It was poetic injustice in its lowest form. And he hated it. His knuckles whitened on the sill. "I can't free myself like this."

"Then we will break you free." It was not a question. There was an injustice; it had to be righted. That was how things worked, both for Morgana and the prince she could have become. "I could find a rope, perhaps, and attach it to an arrow. Then I could fire it up to you and you could climb down with that."

Not that Morgana had spent large portions of her childhood considering ways to climb out of her window or anything.

Her declaration surprised him. She hardly knew him, and yet she felt like she could help? Even he had doubts. If they somehow managed to kill Van, what good would it do? He'd probably come back after the experiment was over, and besides that, it didn't offer Asch a way down.

But the arrow idea did. It wasn't something he'd considered, and for that, he chided himself. Thinking so two-dimensionally wouldn't help either of them.

"That might work."

He was a bit flustered at the idea of someone helping him so soon. He was entirely out of his element. But... it could be useful. For now.

She considered for a moment where they might find what they need. Wasn't there a fishing village just a little down the path she had left? They would have rope for netting and other supplies. "I know where I can find what we need. I'll return in half an hour, if you will be safe from whoever holds you for that long." Everything in Morgana rebelled against leaving somebody alone if they were at risk, but she could not help him by staying there.

So far, Van hadn't done anything threatening except imprison Asch in the first place. He was doted on not unlike a suffocating mother. It was extremely... peculiar behavior coming from Van, but it felt right at the same time. It unnerved him.

"Just go. I'll be fine," he told her. Even if he didn't feel at all confident in what was to come, they had to try.

She recognised that sort of brashness, and she frowned. But there was nothing she could do. With a tug of the reigns, she was off to the village, and in a little more than the half hour she promised she had returned with bow and arrow and enough rope to make the height. She hadn't fastened the rope to the arrow yet--she was in too much of a rush to get back to Asch. For whatever reason, the worry was acute.

She was a little hesitant to announce herself, lest Asch's captor came back. So she strained her head to look for any signs.

if you sing loud and clear, someone passing by will surely hear you

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