Dy (no_savior) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-04-21 20:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | edward of andalasia, peter petrelli (future) |
Who: Prince Edward of Andalasia and Peter Petrelli of the Future
What: Differences of Opinion
Where: A park
When: Recently
Rating: G
Status: Complete!
This was a very strange place, Edward had decided. He'd spent some time watching the car-beasts, observing people getting in and out of them, and had deduced that the witch had been correct when she'd told him they didn't eat people. The people seemed perfectly willing to get into the beasts, and none of them seemed to be getting eaten.
The buildings were strange as well; so tall, and -- ugly. Andalasian buildings were beautiful to a fault, even if some of the towers were so slender and elegant that there was barely room for one very tall, narrow room inside them. But then, towers weren't actually used for much, beyond the bedchambers of young women with excessively long hair.
He'd found something that looked familiar, though -- a little park, with a tiny pond containing thirteen small golden fish, two crabs the size of his thumb, and a duck and her ducklings. Delighted, Edward squatted by the pond, forgetting to shift his sword out of the way so it didn't stick into soft earth, and reached a hand out to the ducklings. Andalasian ducklings always liked being petted, even if they were too young to talk.
"Hello, there. It's lovely to meet you," he said, giving them a bright, dazzling smile. "And a fine family you have, Mother Duck!" he added, looking at the duck, which ruffled its feathers and gave him the sort of mad-eyed look that ducks have when they're considering how best to dispose of an inconvenient human.
Peter liked the park. It was open, very airy, and lacked and concrete under heel so long as he watched where he was stepping. He was sitting under a tree at the moment, watching as some damn fool was about to get his fingers snapped at by a protective, Los Angeles born and bred mother duck.
It was hard not to notice the gaudy costume. He looked like he'd just walked out of some Disney flick. Maybe he was an actor from Disneyland? Or, there was the slight suspicion that, given his pompous and carefree attitude, he was another misplaced extra, like so many of LA's current inhabitants.
He decided to offer the man a word of advice. "Watch your step," Peter called. "There's a rat nest behind you. She might think you smell like one of them."
Edward half-turned and gave the man a brilliant smile, getting to his feet... or, at least, starting to, and falling backwards when his sword remained stuck in the dirt.
That sort of thing didn't happen in Andalasia.
"I find rats rather friendly," he told the sky, in lieu of being able to face the stranger, and tugged at his sword, eventually freeing it from the ground.
Peter raised a brow, carefully containing the smile behind a wooden expression. "Do you? You must be new to LA. These are like New York rats; ready to bite, and share the rabies."
He got to his feet to help the man up. The duck scowled at him before gathering her young to go back to the pond.
"So where are you from, stranger?"
Edward accepted the help up, brushing off his trousers.
"I don't think I know what rabies is," he said cheerfully. "It must not be something we have in fair Andalasia."
Andalasia.
Peter let out a slight groan, rubbing his fingertips against his temples. Not another one. "Rabies is a disease. Not a pleasant one. It fries your brain and makes you go mad. Mad as in crazed, not angry."
He looked over the young man and asked, "Your name wouldn't happen to be Edward, would it?"
Edward blinked.
"That sounds very unpleasant. Why do people let it happen?"
At the question, he brightened.
"Yes! How did you know?"
"People don't let it happen. it's a disease. We can try to treat it, but we can't stop it from existing."
He wondered how much he would have to translate into fairy-tale speak for this one.
"Giselle told me about you," Peter explained, watching Edward's reaction.
Edward brightened, if it was possible, even more!
"Giselle! I've been looking for her, but I haven't been able to find where she is," he told Peter, a tragic expression crossing his face briefly, before one of worryingly empty realisation replaced it. "You must be her hero! Peter?"
Peter's eyebrows shot up. "Hero?" he said, starting. "No, no. I'm no hero. She just didn't know how to cross the street."
He glanced around, as though worried someone might have overheard Edward's claim.
"She's fine, she's staying with my niece right now. Safe. This is a dangerous city, you know."
His voice had taken on a scolding tone, one of wariness and mild anger.
"She said she was staying with your niece, yes. They're both very worried about you," Edward said cheerfully. "And people have said it's dangerous! It certainly isn't at all like Andalasia. But I don't mean for us to be here overlong. We must return for our wedding, after all! Everyone will be so disappointed if their preparations went to waste."
Peter let out a sigh. "Yeah," he said. "I was... detained for a while."
Stupid, evil, worthless witch. Peter was going to rip her heart out of her body first thing, if he ever saw her again.
But then his eyes focused back on Edward. "Right," he said, his voice dry as a desert. "Wedding. She mentioned that."
"Everybody worked so hard to get the castle ready," Edward said, blithely unaware of the dryness in Peter's voice. "They're such helpful fellows! Especially the broomsticks. Why, they stayed up all night sweeping the floors! We shall have to get them specially re-strawed and polished, as a reward," he said thoughtfully.
"And what does the mouse in the big hat get for telling them what to do?" Peter said, mocking Edward's cheerful tones. "A big piece of cheese? Maybe a whole roll of cheese?"
He raised a hand, meaning to quiet the excited conversation. "Edward, exactly how long have you known Giselle? She made it seem pretty... brief."
"Oh, the mice are fond of cheese, but they like peanuts even better, especially when we crush them into a paste," Edward said cheerfully.
At the question, he sighed, a faraway expression entering his eyes.
"How long have I known her? Long enough to feel her sweet embrace--"
Where did those violins come from? And why were doves suddenly cooing on the tree behind him?
"How long have I known her, how long have I loooooved that perfect face?
How can you set a clock to one heart's beat
When it mingles into two
How long have I known her? Long enough to say 'I do'!"
Peter simply stared for a long moment. Was this guy for real? What the hell? Doves? Violins? Peter shook his head sharply, waving his hands. "Okay, okay, enough of that."
Things were weird enough here without someone breaking into song (with musical accompaniment).
If this was an ability that could be absorbed, Peter didn't want anything to do with it. As the thought occured, he stepped back several paces, hoping the singing bit wasn't catching.
"So... you don't think you might be rushing things a bit?"
Edward stopped singing, looking at Peter and frowning a little.
"Rushing? No, I don't think so."
"But you don't even know her. Does she like to have things bought for her, or does she prefer to make them on her own? Would she rather have a diamond ring, or a roll of cloth? Do you even know what kinds of things make her happy?"
Edward blinked, looking confused.
"That's what after the wedding is for. You find out all of that."
Peter shook his head. "You're supposed to find out those thing before the wedding. Not At the wedding. What if you're just too different for one another?"
"But we shared True Love's kiss," Edward protested, the capital letters almost audible. "It's the way things happen!"
Peter raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it was true love's first kiss?" He wasn't as good at pronouncing capital letters. "Or was it just... a kiss?"
Now Edward looked even more confused.
"Is there any other kind?"
"There are friendly kisses. There are even, 'oh-my-goodness-thank-you-for-rescuing-m
Edward sat down, frowning, and absently petted one of the remaining doves, which looked a little confused as to what it was supposed to be doing now that the song was over.
"I don't understand."
Peter decided to try another approach. "Is your mother alive, Edward? Or your father?" He assumed so, since he was 'Prince' Edward and not 'King'.
"My stepmother," Edward said, brightening. "The great Queen Narissa! Andalasia is fair and free and bountiful under her most merciful rule."
Stepmother? Peter paused. Weren't stepmothers in fairy tales the evil ones?
He shrugged and went on. "Have you ever given your stepmother a kiss?"
Edward blinked at him.
"No. She's my stepmother."
"Not even on the cheek?"
"Stepmother isn't a very touchy person," Edward said cheerfully.
Peter frowned. "So... have you ever kissed anyone other than Giselle?"
"Of course not!" Edward laughed. "Why should I do something like that? She's my True Love."
"But how do you know that if you've never been with anyone else?" This man's line of thought was straight, and unyeilding. Peter didn't know whether it should be admired or ridiculed.
"Because when you kiss your True Love, you just know," Edward said, looking up at Peter. "Have you not found yours yet?"
Peter was about to nod, to give his answer, but something in him silenced his tongue. When he considered, there were names in his mind. Embraces. Kisses. Some lost, some found, some never to return. Every one had been unique.
"I've been blessed with many Loves, Ed. And no two kisses have ever been alike."
Edward frowned, considering this. And, like every concept that was too difficult to understand, it promptly got forgotten.
"I'm not sure I understand. How can you have more than one love?"
Peter scratched at his forehead. "I was briefly in love with a girl I had met once. She was beautiful, sweet, strong... but we never could have been loves. But we love one another to this day, only with a different passion. Then was a mocha-skinned beauty with blue eyes. I loved Simone with everything I had in me. I thought she was my one and only, and she probably way. But she was killed, and died in my arms. And two years following, when I thought my heart had no more feeling than a lump of coal, I met Niki. She reminded me what love was, and I love her still, to this day. Three very different women, and I would consider each a love of mine."
Edward's eyes widened, and when Peter spoke about Simone's death, he actually started tearing up.
"You," he said, in a voice full of emotion, "have such strength, to undergo such hardships. Would that every man had half so much strength in him, the world would be a better place."
Behind him, a group of frogs began to croak in harmony, looking surprised.
There was a song coming on.
Peter lifted a finger, glaring at the frogs, and they silenced themselves. "Don't," he said. "Don't even start. My personal soundtrack gets written by Maynard James Keenan, or no one at all."
Then he turned his attention back to the weepy prince. "We can all hope and pray that no man have so much as half the strength that I do. That's power enough to crack the world in two. Let's just hope they've got at least half the common sense I've got."
Which seems far more than I can say for you, bud.
Off-balance from the lack of time-appropriate (for him) singing, Edward blinked at Peter.
"You really don't believe in True Love?"
"No," Peter answered, without hesitation. "I don't believe in True Love. I don't believe in Happily Ever After. I don't believe that everything works out for the best. I don't believe that evil sows the seeds of its own undoing. I don't believe good guys go to heaven, and bad guys go to hell. There are no happy endings, there are too many shades of gray between black and white, and ultimately, the only choices we truly have in this world are what we choose to base our actions on. The actions can be lies, and even the beliefs you base them on can be lies, but the choices are always ours. That's what I believe, Eddie."
Edward was just staring at him.
He'd never heard anything like that before. And of everything in this strange, alien world, it was...
...it was the most frightening thing.
Peter smiled, shrugged, and clapped Edward on the shoulder. "But hey, that's just what I think."
He turned to leave. "Whenever Giselle tells me she's ready to see you, I'll come and fetch you. Okay, Eddie-boy?"
"Wait!" He sprang to his feet, looking almost pleading. "I need to see her."
Peter paused, turned, and asked slowly, "Does she want to see you?"
Edward blinked at him. "Why wouldn't she?"
Gently, Peter laughed. "You just don't know anything about women, do you?"
"...I know about some women," Edward said thoughtfully. "But not very many. Stepmother didn't like for me to meet very many women."
Peter furrowed his brow at that. "Why wouldn't she want you to meet women? Isn't that sort of... what a prince is supposed to do? Prepare to rule a kingdom, ensure that the kingdom has a future, that sort of thing?"
Again came the thought, weren't all stepmothers evil in fairy tales?
Edward shrugged, still looking far too cheerful.
"Stepmother knows best, I'm sure. She must have her reasons."
He had to ask.
"Um. Ed? Aren't stepmothers... I dunno, wicked, or something?"
Edward's sword was out of its sheath in an instant, and his expression turned hard.
"I will not listen to you slandering my stepmother, sir."
Peter stared at the sword for a moment, then covered his mouth when he couldn't help laughing. After turning the short chortle into a dry cough, he cleared his throat and said, "Alright, alright. Sorry, Ed. Just something I heard in a story somewhere, about an evil stepmother. Wrong story, clearly."
Still eyeing Peter, Edward returned the sword to its sheath.
"Clearly. Stepmother is a paragon of virtue."
Why else would his father have married her?
Nodding, Peter pushed a hand through his hair. "Of course. If you don't mind my asking, how did your father die?"
"A wasting disease," Edward said simply. "I was very young."
"I'm sorry."
He let out his breath. "Okay, fine. Let's just... go back to the hotel. You can talk -- talk -- to Giselle there."
"I was very young," Edward repeated. "I don't really remember him or my mother very much."
He brightened at the mention of Giselle, bouncing to his feet.
Peter put up a hand to hold the young Prince where he was for a moment. "If you upset her in any way, Edward, I will not be pleased. And if she doesn't want to speak with you, accept it graciously. You understand?"
Edward frowned at him, looking confused.
"Why would I do anything to upset Giselle?"
Peter waved it away. "I said if. Let's go. I'll catch us a cab."