"Ah-choo!"
Kendra sniffed and rubbed at her nose. Everyone had pitched in with cleaning the old manor after the brownies refused to work with so much dust in their way, and today was her turn. She wasn't thrilled, to say the least. The dust drifting in the slants of sunlight was beautiful, but it was going to be killer to clean. She dropped the duffel with cleaning supplies Dale had given her and steepled her fingers.
"Just one room," she muttered, and sneezed again.
"Bless you!"
Kendra could jump quite high when she wanted to, and she did now. Next thing she knew, somebody with awfully nice arms was holding her up.
She looked up into a pair of blue eyes. "Bracken?"
"Uh, sorry." Bracken smiled at her. "I didn't mean to scare you, I heard you were out here and I figured I'd say hi..."
"Well, hi! I've missed you!" Kendra spun around and crushed him in a hug. The unicorn prince hadn't been weeks, but quick conversations through the coin had proven how busy he was with construction. The one time he had shown up, he had granite dust in his hair, had made some quick adjustments to the shrine, and left within five minutes.
"I've definitely missed you too," Bracken replied cheerfully. He lifted Kendra off her feet and spun her around. "So much has been going on, I can't wait to tell you about it all!"
Kendra laughed. "You're gonna make me dizzy!" Her cheeks must've been a bright red, but hopefully Bracken was moving too fast to notice.
Bracken grinned, but he set her back down. He stepped back, and Kendra felt cold without his hug. "Say, what are you doing out here? I thought this place wasn't ready to be lived in."
"Oh, everyone's cleaning this place first, and today's my turn." She shrugged. "I would've been here yesterday with everyone else, but I had to help Dale with some of the dryads, so I figured I'd just come today and do my share."
"Well..." Bracken tilted his head. "It'll be much faster with two sets of hands."
"Really? Thank you!" Kendra almost jumped forward to hug him again, but she didn't want to seem too excited. Just spending time with him, even cleaning the old manor, was wonderful.
Bracken picked up the cleaning duffel and pulled out a Windex bottle. "Yeah, it'll be fun—" His hands slipped on the nozzle, and cleaning fluid squirted in his face. He choked.
"Oh, god." Kendra rubbed his face with her shirtsleeve. "You okay—?"
"I got it in my eye—"
"Keep your eyes closed!"
"Okay..." Bracken gave a sheepish smile. "Maybe it's better you take charge of the spray bottle."
—
Most of the manor had been cleaned yesterday, so the only thing left was a small parlor. It was quite a ways into all the scrubbing, dusting, and sneezing before Bracken piped up.
"Alright, don't laugh at me for this..."
Kendra looked over her shoulder. "I won't."
"Okay." Bracken poked at the phonograph in front of him. "It's not like I had TV at the time, so no one knew what this thing was called, and the TV never really talked about it because it's so old. Everyone just called it the music-maker... what's it really called?"
"Oh, the phonograph?" Kendra studied the device in question. "You had one?"
"A phonograph?" Bracken's eyes lit up. "Yeah, there was one! Not too many things to play, though. One of the older prisoners thought the records were food, so, um, let's just say there weren't many left." Bracken chuckled.
"Do you want to play something? I'm sure there's something here we could put in!" Kendra turned to the shelf, skimmed her fingers over, and picked one at random.
Bracken pulled out the record and popped it on the box. Once he moved the needle over, a soft song started playing. Kendra listened carefully and picked out the sound of piano, soft drums, and some kind of wind instrument.
It was only a few notes in when Bracken did a little twirl, stepped off of the rug, and tapped his shoes on the hardwood floor. "Kendra, come dance with me," he invited, and put out a hand.
Kendra gladly accepted, and immediately was swept off her feet into a two-step that must've been from the fairy kingdom. For a moment she tried to figure out the movements so she could do them herself, stubbed her toe on Bracken's, and just let the unicorn lead her.
"You're a really good dancer," Kendra said.
Bracken turned silver, which was sort of surprising—had she flustered him? She could do that? Nice.
"Thanks," he said. "My sister Ophelia loves dancing, and she always grabs whoever's nearest when she wants to practice, so I've picked up some. Maybe I could teach you sometime."
Kendra did a little spin. "I'd really love that."
"Yeah!" Bracken let go of her hands and stepped back. "Here, the step is one-two, one-two, one and usually a dip!" Bracken fell back in the couch behind him, clearly mimicking a dip, and sent up a plume of dust. Both of them started coughing.
"Aw, crud," muttered Bracken. "And we just dusted, too..."
Kendra couldn't help it, but she burst out laughing. The unicorn prince just looked awfully silly with dust in his hair. "Sorry, sorry," she spluttered, still giggling. "C'mere. You've got to take a shower when we go back to the main house."
Bracken stood up and let Kendra brush the dust from his hair. "If it wasn't for the fact that I get to spend today with you, between the spray bottle and this, I'd say today isn't my day," he sighed with another sheepish smile.
Kendra couldn't hold back her smile. "Today is a great day," she said. "You've just got to make it that." With that, she leaned forward and gave Bracken a light kiss.