Curious, a A Little Princess fanfic

Liberties taken with their ages. I’m sure you understand.

Dedicated: Willow. You were right about the Tigers. –draws- HERE IS THE PROOF!!

Curious

She stumbles about the ship, trying to maintain her balance as the boat rocks about. Her fancy shoes click loudly; it is what drew his attention to her. She is tiny, and frail, and when she trips on her lovely dress, he catches her and sets her upright.

Those pretty brown eyes look up at him, and he is filled with a powerful sense of joy.

“Your welcome, Princess.” He tells her before she can even utter a thank you. He is gone, then, but he watches her between the loose boards of the ship’s walls as she darts from one area to the next, grabbing on to whatever she can to help her maintain her balance.

His monkey coos and jumps up on to his shoulder, watching her with him.

“Curious, isn’t it?” Ram Dass asked the small animal, which clicks its tongue in response. Ram laughs, and shakes his head. “Curious indeed.”

She stumbles along, tottering about almost aimlessly with the rest of the , an almost unrecognizable face in the sea of green faces and pale skin. It’s her eyes that give her away – soft and brown and far too nice for someone of her status. Eponymous or not, she is still a little princess.

The monkey croons, rolling its tongue in a sound of approval, and hops upon his shoulder, and Ram raises a hand to soothe him.

She walks away, not recognizing him – but he hadn’t suspected that she would. She had been young then, much as she was young now. Ram laughs, a rich and hearty sound that has Thomas looking at him as though he has grown another head.

“Curious, isn’t it?” Ram asks no one in particularly. No one answers, because no one knows what he means. “Curious indeed.”

The next time that he sees her stumbling around, he doesn’t recognize her for another reason. Gone is the shine of her hair, the blush of her skin, and she would be a hollow person, too thin to be healthy, just like the rest of them, if it wasn’t for her eyes, which glow the same warm brown that they always have. Except now those eyes have a harsh tilt, and he knows that she has seen things that would astonish the weak.

Would probably, in fact, astonish him.

“Curious . . .” Ram mutters, confused. When did his little princess become such a pauper? “Curious indeed.”

His monkey isn’t there to agree with them.

She isn’t stumbling.

In the cold night of the winter, she lets the snow in and dances, spinning wildly in circles with the cool flakes in her hair. The icy wind causes the color to return to her cheeks, and with her skirts and hair spinning faster, faster, following her lead, she looks as healthy as she had that first night on the boat.

Except she isn’t stumbling.

He bows out for his Princess, and she, the dear that she is, bows back.

“Curious.” Ram is less worried than he is. . . something else. “That the Princess would bow to the Lascar.”

The monkey, who wouldn’t agree with him if he could, remains quiet.

In their country, where the language is not English or French, but Hindi and body movements, it would not be illegal for him to woe her. It would be, in fact, encouraged, because he is well to do now, and she is fair of skin and face. He brings her gifts, purposefully ignoring the fact that in their country, he wouldn’t woe her without her father’s permission.

He was willing to overlook a few facts.

He kisses her brow as she sleeps, tucked close to her dear friend for warmth. He wraps a blanket around them, and she stops shivering long enough to smile.

It makes it worth it.

She doesn’t stumble when she sneaks in to his home. She shakes as she crawls, hand over hand, across a dinky little board three stories in the air.

He doesn’t hear about it until later, and wishes he was there to protect her.

When he sees her, hiding in the paneling, he knows what she’s doing and doesn’t give her away. He lets her think she’s hidden, because he knows it makes her feel safe the way that he can’t make her feel safe right now.

She is cold and wet and it is by iron willed self-control that he doesn’t comfort her, or dry her off in his arms.

He protects her in less obvious ways.

She is on her way back to India, rocking the back on the car. He doesn’t wave as he watches her go – she doesn’t know what he’s done for her, because he never worked up the courage to say. She isn’t as healthy as she was when she came to this country, and he knows that the homeland would do her good – put some meat between the flesh and bone again, return some of her coloring.

Becky is with her, and she will protect her, he knows. Becky will protect her until he can come back, come home to her, to protect her the way he wants to – in the daylight, less magic but more man.

Sara looks up for a second, just before the car turns the corner, and she gives him a shy little smile and a wave that could have been for someone else, but wasn’t.

She knows.

He laughs, a rich, rolling laughter, and the monkey returns to his shoulder. “Curious, isn’t it?”

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