"That dumb prince, he's always trying to be heroic, and finally it caught up to him. He's stupid as f—"

"He can hear you, you know!" Princey snapped.

"Anxiety, Roman." Logic scolded. "Would you be so kind as to calm down for a bit? I'm trying to formulate a sufficient plan."

"A plan that we wouldn't have needed if SOMEONE had listened to me! To Logic! To any of us!" I glared at Prince.

"Guys, guys, we're all a little tense under the circumstances, but it would help a lot if we could all just calm down. For now we just need to keep Princey away from spinning wheels." Thomas said.

"It will only prolong the inevitable. He's destined to find one. That's how the curse works. Didn't you guys watch the movie? We could go back home and pretend the whole thing never happened, but the curse will play out eventually. Spinning wheels are rare but not impossible to find. He'll fall under the spell some way or another. It's fate." I explained, letting some of my inner Disney nerd show.

"Well, we just need to find someone Princey's in love with, right?" Morality asked. "Prince, is there anyone you're in love with at the moment?"

"You can't just ask someone that..." I mumbled, but was ignored.

"Uh... No." Prince stared off to the left of him, his eyes fixed on the Disney style green grass. "I'm not in love with anyone."

"Studies show that if one stares to the left of them while speaking, there's a high chance that they're lying and/or hiding something." Logic said.

"Why would he lie about the one thing that could save him?" Thomas asked. "Even if it is a personal question, we're just trying to help him."

"Right." Prince said.

I glared at Prince. He just had to be heroic and so here we are in this mess, struggling to come up with an idea to get out of it.

It's all his fault.

I was just furious with him.

He's so annoying. I hate him so much.

And now he's cursed and we might lose him if we can't figure out a way to break the spell and it's all his dumb fault.

Stupid Prince.

Stupid, stupid Prince.

It's all his fault.

"What if we can't break the curse? He's going to fall asleep eventually, and what if we can't break the curse?" I couldn't bring myself to say the last part.

What if we lose Prince for good?

"That's not going to happen." Thomas said with false confidence. "We're going to break the curse. I know it."

There was a silence.

"What about the whole sixteenth birthday thing?" I asked. "Age and birthdays don't apply to us, cause we were never officially born. We're parts of Thomas. We sort of just... developed."

"That was part of Aurora's curse. Maleficent didn't specify age when she cursed Prince. That means, hypothetically, it could happen at any given time." Logic said.

I felt uneasy.

"So at any given time I could feel drawn to a spinning wheel and fall under the curse?" Princey gulped.

"Hypothetically." Logic nodded.

Everyone felt a bit uneasy by that.

"Can we set Prince up with several different princes and princesses and see if he falls in love with anyone?" Morality said.

"You can't fall in love with someone over a matter of days. Didn't you ever see Frozen?" I pointed out.

"It's worth a try." Thomas said.

~~~

"We're really doing this?" I asked.

"You have a better idea?" Morality asked.

I stayed quiet.

"Then yes, we're doing this."

We asked Prince if he had any gender preferences, and he said princes and princesses were fine.

We had the court (or at least whoever was interested) meet up and we would try to set up individual people with Prince. Thomas had asked the king to announce it to get the word around.

I thought the idea was stupid.

But it was better than Prince being stuck in a coma for years on end, so...

I watched as Prince met up with the first. A princess with long brown hair and brown eyes and fair skin. She was beautiful.

I turned to Logic, Morality, and Thomas. "I'm gonna sit this one out. I'll... explore the castle and try to come up with a better plan."

"Be careful." Morality warned.

"I will." I said, and left.

Logic watched me go suspiciously. I could feel his eyes on me, but I ignored the feeling. I knew why he was eyeing me, and I didn't like it.

Logic has this thing where he thinks I'm in love with Prince or something. He says he can tell because he's the most observant one of the group.

And now he probably thinks I'm jealous or something.

I'm not.

I just think this is stupid.

I'm not going to sit around and watch Prince try to flirt ridiculously when I could be doing something more productive, like find a better solution to the problem at hand. The chances of the date idea working are very slim. The spell has to be broken by true love, and you can't be in love with someone you just met.

I mean, this might be a Disney movie, and Prince might be an annoying heroic prince with no sense of reality, but even he knows that you can't love someone you just met. He's a Disney fan, he's seen Frozen. He's a prince who loves Disney, but not a Disney prince. He won't fall in love with someone he just met.

To expect him to be 100% totally in love with someone he just met is utterly ridiculous.

I walked into the castle.

As I walked down the halls, I found myself muttering for the sake of my own satisfaction.

"Stupid Prince. Stupid Maleficent. Stupid everything." I sighed.

Honestly?

I wanted to break down and cry.

This was too much.

If the dating thing doesn't work... Would we lose Prince?

Would we have to return home without him, leaving him in his coma that'll last forever because we couldn't find true love in time?

What even defines true love?

Who gets to decide that?

I sighed. I couldn't think about this right now. I needed a plan.

A plan to save Prince.

In the story, all spinning wheels were destroyed when Aurora was cursed.

But that didn't happen.

Prince was cursed.

Prince was a stranger to the king.

He didn't have all the spinning wheels destroyed for some random stranger. Just letting us organize this dating game thing was out of sympathy and gratitude for saving his daughter.

That means there's still spinning wheels out there, and prevalent.

Prince really could go under at any moment.

Oh, no.

No, no, no.

This is bad.

I bit my lip.

I ran through the castle, dodging servants and royalty as I passed, receiving lots of rude comments as I went by. I didn't care.

I found a spinning wheel fairly quickly. There was a woman working with it.

"Can I please see this?" I asked the woman politely.

"Sure, go ahead." She said.

I snapped the point off and tossed it out the window. "Sorry."

I dashed out before she realized what had happened.

I felt a little bad, but it was for Prince.

Suddenly, I heard shouts outside.

I thought I heard Morality yell, "Roman!"

This can't be good.

I sprinted out of the castle, but I wasn't exactly close to the entrance.

By the time I got outside of the castle, Prince was only a matter of yards from where I was, and he was making his way towards the castle. He seemed to be in some sort of trance. Morality, Thomas, and Logic were busy trying to hold him back, but with no luck. The public was watching with horror.

This was it. The curse was taking place.

"Oh shi—" I hissed.

"Anxiety! Help!" Morality begged, desperately.

I ran towards Prince as fast as I could. I purposely slammed into Prince, hoping to knock him down and delay him, but it barely did anything.

I shoved against his chest with everything I had, but in all fairness, I wasn't exactly the strongest. I blame Thomas. He's not athletic, so neither am I.

"Roman." I slapped him. "Roman. Prince. Princey. Roman. C'mon, snap out of it, you dumb prince! You're going to go into a coma!" I punched him square in the jaw.

His face didn't show emotion at all.

It was eerie.

I hated it.

This isn't the Prince I know.

He's in a trance.

Logic and Morality were each trying to act as anchors, both holding onto one arm. Thomas had his arms wrapped around Princey and was digging his heels into the ground, but it didn't do anything.

Princey had almost an inhuman strength.

It was fate.

He would find a spinning wheel.

It was only fate.

Only a matter of time.

I meant to kick Prince in the chest, but I aimed a little too low.

When he didn't react to that at all, I knew there was nothing we could do.

"It's fate." I said with despair.

"No, no, we can still try." Morality insisted.

"I'm afraid Anxiety's right." Logic said, his tone melancholy. "It's inevitable."

"I'm not giving up." Thomas declared.

Neither did any of us.

We kept trying.

Even when Prince made it into the castle.

Even when Prince approached the spinning wheel.

We tried and then we tried harder.

We didn't stop until it was too late.

His body went limp, and he would've hit his head if I hadn't caught him.

It was too late.

Prince was in a coma.