Knees and Sisters

Summary: "Princesses never scrape their knees" was something that Amber had once told her when she first became a princess. Scraping her knee after a bad fall, Sofia's worried Amber will be upset with her which isn't the case. *requested by wormwood2.

"Princesses never scrape their knees."

Sofia felt her eyes widen like flying saucers as she looked down at her knee. The blood from it was starting to stain part of her stockings as Hugo came up to her.

"Are you alright?" He asked, helping her stand up.

"My knee!" Sofia groaned, putting a hand on it in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"Come on. Let's get it cleaned up."

"But Amber will notice! I'm not supposed to scrape my knee Hugo!"

"Well there's nothing you can do about it now," Hugo said, taking her in his arms. "I promise it'll only be for a few minutes. It is getting late anyway."

…

Sofia sighed miserably as she walked to the carriage. Her knee was cleaned and bandaged while her stockings had been cleaned with a spell though those few minutes standing there with just her dress barely covering her bloomers in front of Hugo was an embarrassing moment she'd never forget.

James' smile greeted her as the coachman driving the carriage opened the door for her. Her brother squeezed her hand, his cheeks red from the cold.

"Hugo told me what happened. He said you were scared the entire time," James said.

"As I should be!" Sofia moaned. "Amber's going to be upset with me!"

"She didn't stay late for a reason today. Though I know why."

"Why not me?"

"Let's just say she's embarrassed to tell you," James admitted. "You noticed that she was sitting next to me this morning did you?"

"Yes. She usually sits with me. I just thought she was having an off day," Sofia confessed.

"Not really Sof. She'll tell you eventually."

Eventually? Sofia wondered in her head. Amber never gets embarrassed about anything. What could make her so embarrassed?

She covered her knee with her dress as best as she could the moment the carriage made its arrival back to the castle.

Back in the village, Sofia never felt ashamed of having a scraped knee. In fact she was used to being covered in bandaids from rough play or sewing needles or bumping into something.

Except now as a princess, things were different.

You couldn't make a fool out of yourself when you were a princess. According to Amber, princesses had standards.

The moment she saw her sister though, Sofia ran to the best of her ability with a scraped knee while unaware of the hurt look in Amber's eyes.

By the time she made it to her room, she was panting as Clover, who usually took a nap while she was gone, stretched and stared at her in concern.

"Whoa! Where's the fire kid?" He joked a little.

"There's none, Clover, you don't have to worry," Sofia assured him, nearly limping to her bed and laid on it miserably.

Clover hopped on it and nuzzled her cheek.

"What's gotten you so upset? You can tell me"

Sofia sighed, turning on her stomach before facing the rabbit and began to pet him.

"I scraped my knee today during ice dancing practice. Amber's going to be so upset with me if she finds out."

"All this over a scraped knee?" Clover asked, leaping onto her stomach and placed his front paws on her shoulders. "You're not the first princess to get one and you won't be the last."

"You mean Amber… Clover I don't understand."

"I do. She was two when she first got one. And you won't believe, this but she actually liked frogs until that day."

"What happened?" Sofía wondered.

"You know about Princess Tiana's story don't you?" Clover asked. Seeing her nod, he continued. "Well she got inspired by it and tried to find a frog to kiss but the one she found was too slimy so your sister dropped it and ran until tripping over herself. Your brother came to her rescue and helped her up before they both started crying, alerting the king. If you ask me what happened next, I wouldn't be able to tell you."

"Were you Amber's um helper at that time?"

"No. I waited another two years. Back then I mostly just snuck into the garden and ate what I wanted while occasionally looking out for your sister."

"That was actually sweet of you," Sofia admitted with a smile. "Now that I know that it's normal for a princess to scrape her knee, I feel terrible! Amber looked like she wanted to talk to me but I got so afraid of her being upset with me that I completely ignored her."

"But you'll make up with her just like any other time you two hadn't seen eye to eye with one another. You always do," Clover assured, now putting his paws on her face.

Sofia giggled at the touch of his fur on her face. Despite his occasional gluttony with food and sometimes messiness, Clover really did know how to cheer her up when she needed it.

…

Dinner had just ended as Sofia sighed softly, reaching for the door handle to Amber's room, feeling unnerved by the small amount of blood staining her bandage knee.

She had taken off her stockings earlier so it'd be easier for her to walk without feeling like she was limping. Reaching for the door handle, she stopped and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" Amber called sweetly before frowning at Sofia's presence. "Oh Sofia. What happened?"

Sofia bit her lip. She desperately wanted to lie before remembering her conversation with Clover and sighed.

"I scraped my knee today while doing enchanted ice dancing. Hugo was teaching me some new spins but I misheard him and fell hard on the ice. I didn't even know that I scraped it until feeling some pain," She smiled weakly, surprised by her sister's sympathetic smile. "You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?"

"You said that princesses never scrape their knees."

"I never meant for you to take most of the rules to being a princess literally," Amber smirked playfully before rolling up the front of her dress, stopping towards her stomach. "I… I confess that I may have taken that rule seriously too. That's why I may have went home early today. If I had undressed in the girls locker room, someone, you or possibly Hildegard, would've said something."

"Hildegard maybe. You know how she is!" Sofia giggled, her eyes widening at the bandage on Amber's right knee. "How'd you scrape your knee anyway?"

"I was outside star glazing and I did something you wouldn't expect. I climbed one of the trees to get a better view but James startled me so I fell out of the tree and instead of landing on the grass like I was hoping for, I landed on the ground. James apologized, telling me that Baileywick had asked him to tell me that I needed to get ready for bed."

"Were you limping?"

"No!" Amber assured with a chuckle. "But it did hurt pretty bad. Sleeping with a bandaged scraped knee isn't so comfortable." She noticed Sofia's stained bandage. "Let me clean that up as an apology for how I acted and for that rule about princesses never scraping their knees. I didn't mean to scare you. Were you scared or worried that I'd get upset?"

"Maybe I was worried," Sofia admitted, sitting down on Amber's bed as her sister unwrapped the bandage and gasped.

"I see what you mean by a bad fall. Promise me you'll be more careful next time."

"Only if you promise not to climb a tree just to look at the stars. We have the observatory for that."

Amber was hesitant about the promise for a moment as she brought out what was left over from her patch up earlier in the day but soon smiled.

"Of course," She promised, noticing Sofia flinching from the spray before cleaning the wound and bandaging her knee. "I did the same thing last night when Marcy helped clean me up. But maybe we learned something from all this."

"Really?" Sofia wondered."Other than to not follow every single rule for princesses?"

Normally she would've been annoyed with Sofia's lack of being a proper princess, but Amber couldn't help but laugh as she helped her sister to stand.

"That and I guess we can say that we're scraped knee sisters. Until they're healed."

Sofia giggled, hugging her close before the sisters stared at Amber's mirror and saw their bandaged knees.

"Princesses can scrape their knees. I know James said that you were embarrassed about it but thank you Amber. If it's not too much trouble, maybe we can have a sleepover tonight."

"I wouldn't mind having a sleepover with you tonight one bit," Amber smiled. "Great idea Sofia."