#[ this is kinda like idk brothers grimm / rapunzel / some new breed of a fairy tale but i kinda love it ]

[vuulpecula]

18. A DISNEY AU WHERE KHAN IS A DISNEY PRINCESS AND FOX IS THE PRINCE THAT SAVES HIM

various drabble aus | always accepting cuz i’m trash | @paramounticebound 

DISNEY AU. 

      He was within the pages of her favorite story, a legend, a myth, of a prince LOCKED away high above the world in a crooked tower. Some versions had a dragon, others a troll, and all a deadly curse that claimed the life of ever knight and prince and king who tried to save him. As legend went, no man could save him from his lonely, isolated fate. The tower itself had only one door, locked by powerful magic. A great and terrible wizard had cast the spell and trapped the boy within the curving stone walls ( in some retellings, the boy had been his SON ), claiming the magic he held was too GOOD for the world. Every WAR in the kingdom could cease to be and the FAMINE that stretched across the southern part of the continent would end. The wizard only wanted more bloodshed and death, it gave him more opportunities to use his dark arts. He had sworn to her while in the cells beneath the castle that the boy, now a man, was the only one with enough power to kill him and that he would never, ever again set foot on the ground beneath the tower. NO MAN CAN SAVE HIM, he had reiterated over and over again with his yellowed, cracked teeth clacking. He laughed and laughed, thinking himself immune to death while the boy remained locked away. For one of the most powerful dark creatures in their world, he was a fool. The feral northern PRINCESS beheaded him herself and turned up her nose at the head that rolled into the dried leaves and sticks littering the courtyard. 

      “He was a man poisoned by dark magic,” the KING explained after. “There is no boy or man trapped within a tower.” He did not wish to fill his daughters head with fantasies when he knew her inclinations for fairytales. “We are on the brink of another war with the western kingdom, I need you here, not chasing after a folk tale. Believe in what you see, Fox, believe in the faeries and the men that shed their skin to become wolves. Do not believe in prince’s in towers and false prophecies.” The fearless creature he raised continued tightening her horse’s saddle. Her will was stone and iron. 

      “You heard the warlock, he said himself that the stories were true. Our kingdom and every other kingdom’s last hope is in peace. If a PRINCE in a tower is said to have the power to bring upon us that peace and unite the kingdoms, I must try and find him.” As heir to the northern throne, she knew the fear in her father’s eyes was genuine. He worried too much for a brutal creature born and bred in war. 

      “It matters not if he is real or not. No man can save him.” The KING repeated, helping the PRINCESS into her saddle. Fox tested the reins and cast a wolfish grin her father’s way. 

      “I am no man.” The air around them seemed to lighten, as if those words alone lifted some part of the curse that bogged down the rest of them. Off she rode into the fog that was slowly lifting. For seven days and seven nights, she pressed forward to the center of the continent. The supposed location of the tower. Nestled deep within a WICKED wood, one filled with all sorts of beasts and the residue of dark magic. The old wizard’s hut was somewhere between the moss covered trees and deep bogs. Fox followed the flapping of crows, keeping her eye every fixed on the line just above the trees. On the eighth day, she saw it. A lonely spire reaching for the sky. The tower itself was more HORRIFIC in person than it had ever been in any storybook. So dangerously narrow that it seemed to sway in the wind, and jutting out in sections like bones protruding through flesh. The air around it was foul, filled with the scents of bog water and rotting flesh. Her trusty stead was left within the woods where it seemed safer compared to this cursed place. 

      Fox was careful as she threaded through the treeline, searching for enemies. The curse itself had leeched color from the earth around the tower, nothing lived, it was only dirt and bones. How could anyone survive being in this place for more than a day? Not even an hour and her head was spinning. Pressure built up the closer she crept, searching for stones that would allow her to climb. It would be an awfully long way to fall if she slipped. Out of caution, she tried the tower’s solitary door anyway. No handle had been welded on and as hard as her toned muscles allowed her to push, it would not budge. Climbing it was. 

      Ensuring both her bow and her sword were secured on her back, Fox began her ascent. It was hard to grasp the stones so near to the cursed door. Her gaze could not focus on any one spot, still, she pressed on. The further she climbed, the lighter her head began to feel. It gave her hope that this was, in fact, the tower from the stories and that inside it she would find the answer to all the world’s problems. A CRUEL breeze blew from the south, nearly knocking her to fall a kilometer to the ground. Looking down, seeing how far she had already come, there was no going back. Her knuckles split, her fingernails cracked, her skin scrapped and still, the PRINCESS climbed. Crows flapped around the tower, constant circles that were always just out of reach. Another kilometer later and she was mere inches away from the singular tower window. No man could fit through it, but she was no man. She was a woman raised on whatever the farmers were able to grow in the rocky soil. Hunger was an old friend. Only the truly wealthy, those who dealt in flesh or jewels, held fat on their bones. Fortunate as they were, they never would’ve been able to fit through the glassless gap. Fox pulled herself up and over with ease. Collapsing on the dust covered floor beneath it with her heart pounding. A crow flew inside after her and perched on the edge of a massive four-poster bed. From the outside the tower was too thin to house anything so grand, but inside... It was magic. GOOD MAGIC. Only beneath the window, where the curse could still leak in from the outside, was there dust. Everywhere else was polished and warm and glistening. Confused, the princess drew her sword. Could what she had assumed was good magic, be another trick of the curse? Where were all the bodies of the fallen? Where were the torture devices? Where was the prince? Tentatively, she crept further, letting out a low whistle to alert any nearby to her entry. A dozen mice flooded in from beneath the bed. Soft, brown creatures that peered up at her with interest. The crow cawed. One brave rodent ran for her boot, shooting up it to pull with its little paws at the hem of her pants. Was it...feeling the fabric? With slight disgust, she shook it off gently and tripped back. Pressing into the firm, warm body of something that had not been there before. 

      Sword hand tightening, the princess rounded on the creature. Teeth bared. His appearance almost made her snap her snarling mouth shut. Tall. Handsome. Radiating with a strange, pale light. Not a boy. Not a man. Not a prince, but a KING. 

      “They have never seen a woman in pants,” he spoke with such softness her skin tingled. “Are you here to kill me?” She was of the feral kingdom and yet, he held more mannerisms of the crows and mice around him. More animal than man even if he was dressed in fine, tailored clothes. Another trick of magic, she supposed. 

      “I am here to save you,” she still had not yet lowered the sword. “If you are truly are the prince, that is. Are you?” He could lie easily and she would know not. Yet, she felt as though she could trust what he said, as if she had known him long before he was locked away within the tower. The prince nodded his head once before shaking it.

      “You cannot save me. No man can save me. Many have tried and many have been eaten alive by the dark magic.” Suddenly he lunged for her sword arm, grabbing hold of her wrists. “You must not venture to the door. I cannot loose another. I cannot watch what it does to the mortal mind.” His eyes were desperate, but she made no reaction as she huffed a heavy sigh. 

      “I am no man,” she repeated the same words she had said to her father. Having complete faith in them, for as foolish as the warlock had been, he was clever too. Hiding the answer in plain sight, likely believing that no WOMAN would ever venture to the tower, nor scale its rocky surface. He knew not of wild princesses who fought mountains with teeth and nails, who danced naked in the most violent of storms with laughter in their throats, and who loved and killed and cried as mother nature had created them too. “And I WILL save you from this fate.” Wrenching her body from his, she returned the sword to her belt and headed for the stairs. Down, down, down it a deep yawning mouth of darkness. His pleas for her to stop fell on deaf ears. She would not become another prisoner of this tower. No. She would get them out or she would die trying. The fate of the continent depended on it. 

      The prince and his mice followed. The crawled up his robes and sat upon his shoulders and cradled into the nook of his arms and his open hands. Where her climb had taken a few hours, the descent seemed to take double. Down they went until she was sure they were deep into the earth by the time her head began ringing. DARK MAGIC. It was like stepping into deep water. Suddenly she was submerged. Even in the dim light, she could see now what remained of the others. Dark imprints on the walls, the silhouettes of bodies gone missing. The magic truly had eaten them alive. Fox dug deep into herself, seeking out the ancient will that sat within her. Strong and unyielding. Gritting her teeth, she pressed ever on. The prince a warm beacon of light behind her, his mice hid within his robes now. Fearful of whatever they could sense in the darkness. It was getting hard to breathe in the pit of the place. Each step took ages to achieve as the magic continued to drain. Was it eating her alive already? Just as she began to lose hope of ever finding the door, it appeared before them. A sliver of outside light cut through the stones near the bottom. Again there was no doorknob and no way of pulling it open. Pushing it was. Although her muscles felt too heavy to move and her energy was nearly spent, she pressed herself against the old wood. It budged, she swore it budged. Another push, another budge. Again and again and again until it was just about open enough to stick a hand through. From the steps, the prince watched in shock and awe. His mice poking their sweet faces out to observe what was happening. The bravest of them, the one from before, jumped down and ran for her. Using his tiny paws to press with the human woman against the wood. Following suit the others joined. Together they cracked the door open enough for a shaft of sunlight to fall upon the prince’s royal head. Suddenly the whole door swung open and the tower gave a TERRIBLE SHAKE. The curse had broken! All the mice ran out into the field beyond the tower, heading for the trees, but the prince remained. Too afraid, she figured, to leave behind all he had known even if at had crumbled. 

      “Is this real,” she heard him whisper as he stared at her and the light beyond. There was no time to let him figure that out as the tower threatened to collapse upon them. Her hand grabbed for his and instantly his magic flowed through to her. Strengthening the muscles that had previously gone stiff and weak. The princess pulled him from the darkness and into the light. A wild yelp of laughter bursting forth from her throat. She had done it! She had SAVED THE PRINCE. They kept running for the treeline, straight for where her horse remained tied to one of the ancient oaks. The mice, it seemed, had already scurried up his legs and hid among her saddlebags while the prince’s crow flew above. Cawing out warning after warning as the tower behind them let out a DEAFENING crack. She gave him no time to rest as she swung herself up onto her saddle and reached again for his hand. Helping him up and instructing him to hold tightly to her waist as she rode them far from the falling stones and rising dust. Another call of triumph on her lips. 

      Another seven days and seven nights and they would be home and the world would be safe once more. Well, so she thought. The dark magic, it seemed, was not as willing to let go as the prince was to leave. But that is a story for another time.