AWAKENING

When they find her, the place is in ruin.
The castle is a sleepy giant of silent stone, still in the middle of the forest like the rest of their land has been for the past few years.
Phillip knows this place very well - it's where he planned to spend the rest of his life together with her - and still it looks strange, ominous and scary. It is polluted by whatever has ruined the fairy land and it smells exactly the same. It's a strong, nauseous reek, something that comes from the deepest and darkest of places, something he can't put a name on but that he fears.
Aurora lies asleep on a bed of stone, with just a cushion between her body and the cold surface. Her cheeks still blush and her lips are soft and smiling, her beauty is untouched, but the stillness of her form and the way her hands are crossed over her stomach give to her sleep the form of death. It's like whoever posed her like this didn't really believe she was going to wake up again.
Phillip can't blame them. Aurora did pricked her finger with the winder as Maleficent had predicted and Maleficent's curses were strong. When Aurora touched the ground in her enchanted sleep, for everybody she was as good as dead because true love is the strongest magic of all but it's also the rarest, and happy endings aren't so common in a land where the Evil Queen rules.
Phillip gets closer to Aurora's resting place and looks at her. He wonders if his kiss can really wake her up or if what he calls true love is actually just a mere infatuation, the very same he felt when he caught a glipse of her in the woods that day of a lifetime ago. Many years has passed since that moment, and he has never seen her again after that before she fell asleep. He is not so sure true love can grow so strong so fast. He wants to believe it does, but the truth is he doesn't know. For all he knows, this trip could have been useless and she could be bond to not wake up at all.
Sometimes along the road that brought him here, he has thought that things like that only happens once in so many years and he has already seen it happen to his friend James. Snow White was sleeping, not dead. James broke the curse with a kiss. That was true love, indeed. It couldn't have been anything else after all they went through to be together.
Phillip just wonder if they can all be so lucky to have two couples tied up in true love within years from each other. Part of him strongly believes so, the other thinks he's just a fool, which doesn't make what he has to do any easier. As long as he doesn't kiss her, he can still believe. If he kisses her and she doesn't wake up, then that will be it.
Mulan nudges him over. Her hand is not gentle as she pushes him forward on the stairs that lead to Aurora's mausoleum. She told him she understands this is an intense and long overdue moment, but they have no time. And she is right as she often is.
Phillips nods to her and she feels her duty has been done, so she steps back and mounts guard alone a few feet away, leaving him his privacy and his meeting with Aurora the space it needs.
Suddenly alone, Phillip feels his heart beat as fast as it has never done before. As the wind rises around them, he leans over and kisses her lips. Their tenderness is as cold as stone, so it is her skin. For the longest moment of his entire life - which can be an eternity since he has been frozen for years - Aurora seems to remain as she has been for all these years. Cold, still and apparently dead.
Then, one by one her fingers move under Phillip's hand, her skin gets warmer and warmer and he listens to her breathing change.
When she opens her eyes, Phillip is already smiling as he feels her coming alive again. For a split second the surroudings seem to reverberate from whatever force they are summoning. The air burns up too and Phillip feels the electric shiver through his whole body.
That's when the wraith wakes up too.