naught but fire and starlight

Chapters: 2/5 Fandom: Cinderella’s Castle - Team Starkid Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ella Ashmore & Tadius, Ella Ashmore/Tadius Characters: Ella Ashmore, Tadius (Cinderella’s Castle), Various Castle Staff, CC Sleeping Beauty Additional Tags: Sleeping Beauty AU, Post-Canon, Fairy Tale Curses, Angst with a Happy Ending, True Love’s Kiss, What Even Is True Love Anyway, Feelings Realization, You Remember the Dream Ball From Labyrinth…? Author Sure Does, Curse Breaking, Ella Ashmore Needs a Hug, I Cannot Be Clear Enough That the Titular Sleeping Beauty Is Tadius, And Wow Does Ella Ashmore Have Complicated Feelings about Another Close Companion Being Hurt in Her Place, Almost Seems Like We’ve Got a Whole Complex…about…Curses, Tadius Can Finally Rest But at What Cost Summary:

“As you slept, oh, was it terrible?” It must have been. A curse, to sleep like death. Another pocket. Another nightmare. She didn’t want to know even as she had to ask. The fate that had waited for her in plain sight. That he’d blundered into, always reaching out for her.

Being beautiful did nothing to sway the nature of the news, as this new cousin of hers could only shake her winsome head. A smile that was too soft and sweet for how distant her eyes were. “No, not so terrible. I was just dancing, you see? Dancing and dancing and dancing.”

From the look on her face, the tender way she picked at a spindle-struck streak of red that split the nail of that lovely cursed hand permanently, it was a place she returned each night. A struggle, marvelous and wretched, to wake from it at dawn. “I’d have never even thought to come down from that dream on my own.”

The next question was so obvious, it might as well have been a blessing she’d received young. Something long fated.

“How do I wake him?”

Even in his deepest dreams, there is no other night he would revisit. No other partner than her.

a new knight :)))