This fanfic is a prequel which takes place during the first season of SM. For obvious reasons, this will have to be the NA version. Disclaimer: I have not met any of the real-life personalities portrayed in this story, and the information I have on them is limited, so there is a good deal of artistic license employed in this story.

The idea behind the story is good, but I don't know if I have the talent to pull it off...

Oh yeah, the quotes are scrapped. By the time I finish my third fanfic I'll have exhausted all of them! 8-\

Dan Orner

Double Cross

Part One

The Stress Flood

It's gone too far.

Have you ever been in a dark room trying to fall asleep, and a single phrase keeps sneaking back from the submerged recesses of your mind to tease you? Have you ever spent a sleepless night concentrating unwillingly on one idea?

Perhaps you have an inkling of how Malachite felt at that very moment, staring down at the sleeping body of Prince Darien, entrapped by a glowing field constricting his motion and his mind.

And the words which haunted him were: It's gone too far.

Recovery. I wish he *would* screw up and get his memory back, so I could kill him for once and for all. I was doing fine without him. He was the cause of everything. He doesn't deserve to live.

"Admiring my handiwork, Malachite?"

Malachite closed his eyes and turned his head. "No, my queen," he answered blithely to the voice in his head.

"Then stop wasting time. I want you in the Great Hall, now. We have something to discuss about Prince Darien."

Of its own accord, Malachite's hand closed into a fist. "At once, Queen Beryl."

He shot another glance at the impossibly, wrongfully peaceful Prince Darien, and disappeared.

Yes, it's definitely gone too far.

And at the same time, in another world, someone else was staring at a crude drawing she had made, of someone who had been in her life and then wickedly snatched away, someone with a quirky, sarcastic smile and deep eyes, and she began to cry.

"You called, Queen Beryl?" Malachite laid his right fist across his heart and bowed.

Beryl's ubiquitous crystal ball seemed to smirk at him as her hands unendingly passed over it, back and forth, her eyes closed and her mouth in a tight line. "You're not happy with Prince Darien?"

Malachite began to sweat. "I in no way meant to displease your highness-"

Beryl ignored him. "I suggest you get used to him, Malachite." Her eyes flew open. "Because if I had to choose between him and you, he would prevail."

"Yes, my queen."

Beryl finally smiled, and Malachite did not like the look of it. "If I discover that you have taken any action to harm him in any way, Malachite, your punishment will be far worse than that of any of your predecessors."

Eternal sleep. Stabbed to death, painful life energy oozing out. Destroyed slowly by the hand of the Queen herself. None were ideas Malachite particularly relished the thought of, especially not with him as the recipient.

"I understand."

"Good. Now go. And I'll be watching you."

Turn the Page
Close the Book