Re: Hannah & Jeremiah; Jester's Court
When he'd been a very little boy, he'd snuck into the living room while his elder sister watched princess movies, and he knew them all by heart, having learned early on to scatter when his father had returned home, or if his elder brother came around. But Jeremiah had loved them - the princesses and the princes, and sometimes he'd wanted to be the princess and sometimes he'd wanted to be the prince - both parts felt like him at times, sometimes he was in need of saving, sometimes he could be the one who fought off the dragons, and the thorny walls. Tonight he'd sung the Prince, but Aurora sang the verse too, and maybe he was still both tonight. And maybe he knew Hannah was more Pinocchio than Aurora, but all he could see was Aurora. He could never see her as anything other than a real girl, with hopes and dreams and fears and worries.
For a moment he kept his eyes closed, aware of the feeling of her against him, arm-to-arm and hip-to-hip, and it felt as if something stirred in his chest and he had no circuitry to blame it on. This was something at once simpler than circuitry, and far more complicated.
He turned his head towards her, and his eyes opened for a moment, watching her face, and her hair in the breeze, and it sprang to his lips unbidden: I want to see you. He closed them again, breathed in, and then out. The park, not Hannah, or at least not specifically Hannah. He squeezed her hand.
"I want to see all the possibility," Jeremiah finally said, his eyes closed once again. "Although I don't think I can add to what you said, really. I want to see everything there is to see, and I want it to be good." He squeezed her hand again, and opened his eyes, and this time it was his turn to tug on her hand to pull her forward towards the castle. "It's our castle tonight," he told her. "Our kingdom. Let's find what treasure there is to find."