Aurora Harper had never sat and thought about death, afterlife or the consequences of ceasing to exist as tea-time musings. These thoughts were usually three A.M. contemplations that the blonde had mastered to overlook. If she's dead the next day then she'll see what comes after that. If she's alive then she'll tackle the next day when it comes. Aurora Harper lived in the moment, celebrating the present without giving a rat's arse to what may happen in the next.
One could say she was a constant gambler on life and opportunities and come what may, she had learnt to live bravely.
Her world worked on an easy principal of give and take, action and reaction, and she was pretty well versed in it. She enjoyed reading fantasies of Hogwarts and watching the Avengers on Netflix but it was only for a sense of entertainment. Aurora Harper had long given up the desires of escapism to the gruelling schedule of her work-life.
She was twenty. She had seen death right in the eye, crystal clear, befriended it and jumped with it into a new world.
Maybe the Fates faught again and caused another celestial fuck-up and Aurora Harper just happened to be an unfortunate victim of someone else's actions and consequences.
To say that she was enraged by such treatment would be an understatement. Her whole being is boiling with vengeance. Her small palms coil into fists as her teeth grit. Her big brown eyes stare ever-so-furiously at the man sitting before her, commanding her to confess to sins that someone else's consciousness had committed.
"Tell me, Iris, did you steal Duchess Arabella's necklace?" The man questions once again, tone rough and commanding as he stares her down through his golden monocle and emerald eyes. His rosegold pant suit and lime green dress robe gave Aurora an eyesore. No matter how handsome all of his figure was, there was no forgiving such a crime as a poorly coordinated outfit pallette.
Aurora's furious soul pounces to exclaim her reply, "Your Grace looks eminently dashing today but I can sing you a ballad about how that lime green does not goes well with the rosegold of your outfit! A darker undertone, say black or a pure white would have done wonders with your complexion!" Her small button nose continues to twitch with all the power she had used to scream her words out.
The young boy with cyan eyes and an unblinking stare, laughs out loud. Earning a glare from, whom Aurora presumes to be, the court officials.
Aurora scowled at him. She had yet to figure out the natural speech pitch of her current body and hence when Aurora opens her mouth to sing, she croaks out words instead.
"OnE fInE DaY, iN a LaNd LoSt AnD fAr AwAy, ThErE LivEd—"
And she is struck by this strange, fascinating, realisation that: HER ABILITY TO SING IS AS LOST AS THE SENSE OF HOW THE DRAGON AND THE DONKEY MADE BABIES TOGETHER!
"—a KinD mAn wiTh—"
"Shut her up, please," the pink haired woman, seated on the throne beside the Grand Duke, elegantly groans, whilst holding her head in her hands.
Before Aurora could zip it, she feels an external force pushing her head down, forced again inside the bucket full of water and pulled out with much haste.
"Did you or did you not steal her highness' necklace?!" The maid all but shouts in Aurora's burning ear, pulling at her hair awfully harshly.
If furious had a face, it would be Aurora's right now. The ravenette all but barks in the maid-woman's ear, "Have some manners you absolute cache file of a cave woman! What proof do you have against me?!" Aurora shouted, not thinking enough of the consequences.
The woman is caught off guard by Aurora's snap and lets go of her hair. The ravenette takes hasty steps away from the madwoman and much to her dismay, a bunch of black hair strands fall onto the awfully clean marbel floor.
Hairfall! Good grief!
Aurora hadn't had a single wasted strand of hair ever since eighth grade!
Now, here she is, eyeing her fallen strands like martyrs of a battle. A proud disappointment to have lost them.
What a nightmare!
She sniffles whilst a guard pulls in another maid-looking-woman, in a dull orange dress who looked oddly like an old candy, and orders her, "Tell His Grace, Grand Duke, what you saw!"
The frozen candy person bumps to a start, "I-i s-saw Iris, um, lurking around H-Her Gr-race's chambers a-all day long," she chokes out, awfully looking on the verge of passing out. Her big black eyes were roaming all over the place, not staying long enough to make accidental eye contact.
Aurora looks up from the ground and stares at the woman with death in her eyes. The maid lets out a choked squeal, backing up. Aurora blows in her direction, to mess with her, and the maid actually falls to the ground!
What the actual fuck?
The ravenette turns to face the Grand Duke again, who was already eyeing her with some unchecked abhorrence. Aurora shifts her gaze to the Grand Duchess instead but she was staring off into some strange space. Kindness was dead in this world.
Aurora had no idea if she had actually stolen the necklace or not. If she asks the body's belongings to be searched for, she does not knows if they would find the necklace or not. Let alone, what if they find something else? What if this body' former resident was a kleptomaniac? Or just a selfish thief nonetheless -
"I am asking you one last time, did you or did you not steal my Arabella's necklace?" Grand Duke presses his lips in a thin line and questions in a crisp tone. A restrained animosity.
Aurora visibly cringed. She had already died once- quite probably, if her memory still stands credible, and there was no way she was going to survive in this talentless placid body of a child.
If she is here, right now, being tried as an accused thief Iris and dead as Aurora Harper, then she has nothing more to lose but another miserable life. Now that the moment of action stood grandly before her, she decides to give all of herself to it, without consideration involved. To heck with everyone, she shall speak her mind to the fullest!
"Do you think I had a use of it?" Aurora challenges the Grand Duke with a counterquestion. It was a method she had often used in interviews to fish out the answer that people wanted to hear. To stand up to one's expectations she must know them first.
"How dare you talk back to His Grac—" a push begins to pester the back of her head but the ravenette is quick to dodge it and jerk the maid away. This time, Aurora snaps.
"Oh enough with your dipping tricks! His Grace and I are trying to have a civilized conversation, not that the likes of your uncultured ear drums could comprehend, and if His Grace is offended by a mere question then His Grace must be a petty piece of cow shit but I know His Grace isn't a fragile fragment of cotton candy fluffed up by your head so how about you get off this pretentious high horse of wasteful knightdom that you have on, shut up, and let His Grace decide for himself, okay? Because he is His Grace. Now, be as still as a candle stand! Any squeak out of your mouth and it shall be a direct offence to His Grace's honor. Am I clear?!"
The hall was stunned to a chilled silence as the woman blinks in bafflement, a furious frown etched on her forehead. Exasperated and lost, the maid turns to face His Grace, the Grand Duke, and to her utter horror, had a small smirk graced on his face.
Even young prince Arcel was grinning ear to ear!
"Now, where were we? Yes, the necklace, do you think I have a use of it?" Aurora asks again, addressing the Grand Duke, demanding authority in the little form of Iris.
Grand Duke shifts his focus to look at his wife who replies him with a weary look. Her eyebrows, as bright as the spring cherry blossoms, furrow together before she sighs out a reply, "I cannot fathom a reason as to why a five year old with no magic would need it." The Grand Duke takes his wife's hand and intertwines his fingers with hers.
Cute-
Aurora was totally not salty or bitter.
"Precisely, no need, no magic —" Magic?! They have magic?! What on Earth — wait, it's not Earth! Or is it Earth?! She doesn't know! For the first time in forever, Aurora Harper knew nothing about the role she was playing. Thrust into a situation so elaborately demanding and draining, she had to solely survive on Ad-libs now.
Ha! Who said sci-fi was difficult without a backdrop. Try an imperial fantasy and then she'll have a chat.
Grand Duke presses his bejeweled fingers over the unknowingly formed creases on his wife's forehead and eases them out. "Detain the maid until further investigation. Deploy guards in the Orient and Occido wings to search for the stone. We'll continue this tomorrow."
Ha! Victory! That was easy, but as expected of the finesse from Aurora Harper!
Aurora smirks, eyeing the maid with narrowed eyes, stacking up condescending remarks to berate when the woman would be dragged away. But, as if both of Aurora's baskets of life were marked misfortune, the guards walked past the maid and held her by the arms instead. Her small figure dangled in between the two who swept her out of the room and the last glimpse her eyes caught was a pair of cyan eyes smiling at her.
She shrieks, yet again, in protest and in defence, "No! You have the wrong person! You absolute pea brains! I am not a maid!" Or was she? She wouldn't know. But her cries only fall on deaf ears as she is dragged into a cold dungeon prison and locked inside.
"No! Don't leave me here! I will dance for you! Do you know ballet? I can perform all thirty-two fouettés of the Swan Lake, to the tee! Or maybe I can show you belly dance? You do look like a person who would enjoy some belly dance! Do you like bellies?"
But their retreating backs were cold and impenetrable.
At the end, it was only her voice that echoed back to her, repeating offers over and over to the one who offered. Aurora sighs and falls to her back, laying on the cold ground, she scoffs to the fate which brought her here. Who would have thought that The Aurora Harper would offer to perform free shows and not a soul would turn to accept?!
This was a nightmare within a nightmare. And if she wasn't dead by daybreak tomorrow, it would just be the beginning.
And just when she was flailing over the dirt laden floor, a cold voice questioned, "What is the Swan Lake?"
And Aurora, for the nth time in one evening, screamed out loud. Lord help her vocal cords in this life.