Peeping Princess

By Evil Orange Crayon

Disclaimer: I own nothing, if I did I probably wouldn't be writing this here and show would have some definite adult overtones to it. :E

She's at an appropriate age for this to be reasonable. She's a little ooc cuz well... I honestly doubt she'd do this. So she's channeling my inner perv. While this part may not have any real "adulty" goodness to it there are some definite overtones to it that I personally enjoy. It's rated M for the mature content that I intend to place in it.

I'm basing the tattoos on a very nice picture of Cedric that's floating around the interwebs. I didn't ask for permission to use it, though I really should, but I couldn't keep myself from including tattoos in it. I have a thing for them.

I got my feet wet in this fandom now it's time I muck it up some!

She was so excited as she raced up the stairs to her favorite sorcerer's tower, she could hardly contain herself after the day she had had. She wasn't long from graduating Royal Prep, but one of the fairy teachers had commended her and advised her to take advanced magic classes. Something neither of her siblings had the privilege to. While sorcery wasn't a necessity in running a kingdom, or in her case being a duchess as she was bound to become, it did bring a level of ease to finishing stories that the library supplied. The idea of having an array of advanced spells under her belt left her with the urge to dance! But first, she needed to inform her tutor of her slight change in curriculum.

So, as soon as the carriage had come to a halt in front of her family's castle, she launched herself out of before the driver could even open the door for her. She had practically raced through the castle to his tower. So, when she reached the door she forgot to knock in all her giddy excitement, as she sometimes tended to do. While she didn't throw the door open, it swung open quickly with the momentum from which she had been running. She managed to catch it before it crashed into the wall, but upon seeing the empty workshop she was given pause.

"Mister Cedric?" It was very rare for him not to be held up in his workshop, it was his sanctuary from the rest of the castle's inhabitants. She and Bailywick being the only people that tended to visit him. He was always here when she got home from school, usually he was the first she would come to see. Eight years and she was almost like clock work. So, when not confronted with him, and receiving a lecture on how it was very inappropriate for a girl to come barreling into his rooms without so much as a knock, she grew concerned.

She was about to turn and start a search through the castle for when a noise caught her attention. A curse really. It came from the door on the far side of the room, one she assumed was his private quarters. He would never allow her into it, it was no place fit for her to be he would claim. But, now, the door was cracked open and a small commotion seemed to echo from it. Curiosity practically pushed her to the door, peering through the sliver of an opening to give her an eye full.

And an eye full is what she got. Her sorcerer had his bare back turned toward the door and appeared to be redressing himself. He still lacked a shirt, but her view of his bare backside was enough to cause her to cover her mouth and nose to smother the gasp that threatened to escape. A large tattoo covered the expanse of his back, from the top of his neck just under his hair line to his tail bone. It was comprised of a series of circles, that she knew to be magic though she couldn't pinpoint its origins or uses, and symbols that surrounded the circles and was within them. The symbols even trailed down his spine.

While it most definitely distracted her, her attention went back to the part of her sorcerer that she had never seen. She had never seen him in any state of undress before, if you will, but she had always imagined him as gangly, all arms and legs and no bit of muscle to him. Though the vision had never deterred her from mooning over him, this sight put her imagination to shame.

He had muscle to him, though not as James or any of the other boys at school did. His was lean and while not entirely defined, she could see the tone in his thin waist and his arms as he plucked up his olive green shirt with the intent of continuing to dress. She noted tattoos circling the upper part of his arms, just under his shoulders with more symbols that could only be words in a language she didn't know. Her study of them was interrupted when they were covered and he began to button up the shirt.

She nearly whimpered at the loss of the expanse of his skin that she could no longer see. But, she was sure it would be burned in her mind and something she would be seeing each time she looked at him. She placed a hand on the stone door frame to steady herself and continued to watch him dress quietly. Well, she would have continued to watch if she weren't interrupted.

His familiar landed heavily on her shoulder, his claws digging in, "What are you doing here, Princess?" He asked snootily before peering in to see what she saw. "Peeping! I never thought you could be so vulgar, girl! Here, let me help improve your view." He cackled and sprung up from her shoulder before she could utter even a protest. He landed on the top of the door and with a little effort on his part had the door opening wider.

She back peddled away from the door, "Wormwood, stop!" She whispered furiously.

"Let's get his attention, perhaps he will offer you a better show, hm?" He swooped down from his perched, "Cedric!" He squawked loudly, though all his master heard was squawking, "You have a visitor!"

Fear of being caught and judged by him made her flee. She turned and ran back out the way she had came, scurrying down the stairs and back into the hallway that led to his tower. She could still hear the raven cackling at her embarrassment. She couldn't stop, she sped away looking for solace in her room and hoping that her sorcerer hadn't caught sight of her as she ran away.

She wouldn't be able to get the sight of him out of her mind. She would close her eyes and see him, pulling his trousers up to cover his behind. He hadn't been wearing anything beneath them, as far as she saw. Did he go without undergarments? Her face heated at the thought and she sat heavily at her window seat and peered at what she could see of his tower. She would never get a chance to see again. And to ask was out of the question, though he would be too offended to even answer.

She would have to tread carefully concerning the raven, he would likely do his best to distract her and shame her for what she had seen. And though she was grateful that her sorcerer would remain ignorant of it, she knew that she wouldn't be able to keep from reacting to the bird's words.

She would have to skip tonight's lessons, she decided. He would be cross with her, but she would have to swallow whatever ill treatment he would give her for missing her lessons. She… She just couldn't face him. Not after seeing all that she saw.

The next day she ventured up to the tower of her sorcerer, well after she had arrived home from school. She finished her homework, had a snack, then decided to brave it. She was prepared for the ire she would receive for missing the magic lessons he gave her, at her behest. What she wasn't sure she could handle was seeing him and not having the vision of him nearly naked taunting her. She would have to brave it, she needed to apologize for her absence and couldn't have him thinking that she was shirking her desire to learn under him in favor of other things. Sometimes he could be sensitive.

When she got to his door she hesitated, hovering her hand over the wood poised to knock. She was listening intently for any of his tell-tell grumbling and didn't seem to hear any. She tapped lightly on the door, just be sure. She didn't get an answer so she carefully opened the door, straining to hear anything that might be going on in other rooms of the tower.

The raven sat dutifully on his perch, almost cackling when he saw her, "Sorry, princess! Cedric is not here right now for you to oogle." He flapped his wings and preened a bit. "He has gone out. Though I suppose I could inform you that he was insulted by your absence yesterday, if I could tell him why you weren't here for your lessons I'm sure he would be even more offended."

She couldn't help the heat that went to her face, but she had come prepared. She knew that the raven would taunt her. So, she did the only thing she knew to do to silence him. She would bribe him, she pulled a little pull string pouch from the sash of her gown and offer it to him. "Wormwood, I just walked in the door and I have already had enough. I have brought you a peace offering."

"Bribery, you mean?" He hopped on his perch looking curious. "What is it?"

She opened the pouch and poured a little bit of bird seed into her hand. She offered it to him, "It's your favorite." She gave him her best winning smile and watched, with some relief, as he taste tested a few seed from her palm.

He hummed and puffed his feathers, "You have a deal, princess. I'll keep quiet in exchange for you bringing me seed. I won't assist you in your perverseness though."

She winced and went to the hanging cage, pouring the rest of the seed there, "I didn't ask you to help me. I just want to be able to do my lessons without you hounding me."

"You do know I will expect you to bring me more bribery every time you come a calling, right?" He flew up to his cage and began to enjoy his snack. "This will not be a one time deal, princess."

"I guess I'm lucky he can't understand you," she grumbled, knowing that the bird would rat her out if he were able. Once that deed was done she peered around the workshop and wondered if she should tidy it up while she waited on him. While it didn't get particularly messy since she begun her lessons there were times that he would employ her in different projects that he had and she wasn't able to do her duty of keep the workshop clean.

She pulled her apprentice robe on and began to sweep, hoping it wouldn't take him long to return. She had just begun dusting when the door swung open and a very disgruntled sorcerer stood in the doorway. He grimaced when he saw her and lugged his carpet bag to his table where he proceeded to drop it. "Princess," he started with quite a bit of snark in his voice. "You are not supposed to be here today and your lessons were yesterday. In the event you forgot."

She looked down, flushing in shame and struggling to meet his angry gaze. "I'm sorry, Mister Cedric. I..." she struggled for a viable excuse, one he might accept and understand. "I wasn't feeling well when I got home from school. I laid down for a nap and didn't wake again until Bailywick summoned me for dinner. I-I should have come after that but I thought it was too late."

He grumped for a moment, turning to open his bag and begin taking out items. "You weren't feeling well? So unwell, you couldn't come for a potion or a cure for your ailment. I see you are feeling well enough today though."

Lying wasn't her forte and she struggled for a moment to come up with an answer that he would accept and not question. She also had to tread carefully, there were times when her amulet would punish her for trying to do anything but the right thing. She grimaced for a moment before, grasping for straws, she latched onto the one thing she knew he wouldn't want to discuss. It wouldn't be far from the truth, she was close to that time of the month anyway surely she could claim a bit of exhaustion before hand. "It... it was premenstrual," she winced. When she saw him blanch, she knew he wouldn't question it further. "I didn't think it was something to bother you with. Happens regularly enough."

She shrugged for affect, eyeing him carefully.

He waved a hand, "That's quite enough. Consider yourself forgiven as long as a conversation like this never occurs again. This is information I could go without knowing." He sat heavily in his seat, "It was so much easier before you hit puberty, now I have to worry about your monthly thing making me uncomfortable."

She tried to smother a snort of laughter, with as much time she spent in his presence he always seemed to note her differences in personality and mannerisms. The majority of the time when she was uncharacteristically short or moody were unfortunately blamed upon her monthly visitor. And while he wasn't often wrong about it, it was a bit bothersome that whenever she seemed unreasonable to him he would blame that. "Sorry, I hear it's an unfortunate side effect of growing up."

"Yes, well, I much preferred you as a child," he patted her stool, signaling for her to sit beside him. "You were easier to please then with the simplest of tricks and now I have to actually work to keep you entertained."

She sat beside him and looked at him hard, trying her best to ignore the vision of him without his shirt. "Now, Mister Cedric, you and I both know that that isn't true. I don't come up here for entertainment and you don't have to work to entertain me," she batted her eyes at him. "I just enjoy your company, besides the world's best sorcerer doesn't really have to make an effort. All that you do is natural." Sometimes petting his ego helped as well.

He glowered at her for a long moment before sighing at the compliments and nodding, "Yes, yes well. I still stand by the fact that you were easier to deal with as a child. Though, I suppose there is the benefit of you not hugging me near as much as you did then."

"I could hug you more, if you like?" She snickered, knowing full well why she had to refrain from hugging him. It wasn't long after her breasts had begun to develop that she had hugged him and perhaps squeezed him a little too tightly that he had yelped and suddenly demanded that she stop hugging him. At the time she had been hurt, near tears, and run from his tower. It wasn't just her monthly visitor that unnerved him, though when she peered down at the slight bit of cleavage her gown afforded she could understand why they unnerved him. They only seemed to grow in size and while there were some of the boys at school that enjoyed the sight of them, her sorcerer seemed to want to keep a distance from her developing self. She had relented to his request and tried her best to keep from hugging him.

He frowned hard as he started to unpack his bag, pulling out a notebook, "No, that is not necessary. Let us not make our relationship anymore uncomfortable than it needs to be."

She sighed and nodded, "What do you want me to do?"

"Turn back into a little girl and lose your teenage sarcasm and snark," he grumped before he motioned to his bag. "Pull out the vials in there and you can help me label them and put them away. If we do this in a timely manner, you can assist me with some of my potion backlog. Like you were supposed to do yesterday."

She did as commanded, trying her best to not point out that if she had any sort of snark she would have gotten it from him. She began labelling each vial with the contents that he instructed were in it, keeping her handwriting neat and legible. He seemed to keep a log of it in his notebook, dipping his quill in the well and scribbling as he spoke to her. Together, they made quick work of the potions and vials of ingredients that were in his bag. When she placed the last bit in his storage closet she turned to him for more instruction.

He scribbled one last thing in his notebook and with a wave of his wand dried the ink, "Quick work, very good. Let us see if we can't file down this stack of potion requests, shall we?" He paused to rifle through them, plucking out the easier requests he was sure she could handle on her own. "Fetch a cauldron, and then you can start getting out your ingredients. These are fairly simple and you should have no issue brewing these."

He handed her a small stack of parchment, her fingers inadvertently brushed his. He didn't seem to be bothered by it at all and turned back to his own task. She, however, felt as if she were struck by lightning. She found herself staring at his back, seeing through the robe, vest and shirt to the swirling circles that were etched into his skin. "Come now," he snapped at her. "What are you staring at? We have a lot of work we have to catch up on!"

She blinked and turned to get to work. He had caught her staring but hadn't seemed disturbed that she was staring at him. She would be okay as long as she stayed focused on the task he gave her. She lugged up one of his cast iron cauldrons and tipped it over to his work table. He paused in his own task to give his wand a wave and start a fire underneath it then took a moment to summon the appropriate amount of water into it.

She shopped distractedly for the ingredients in his cabinet and wandered back to the work table to begin the process of brewing potions. She found the first potion in the index of his copy of 'Magical Drafts and Potions' and read through the instructions of how to brew a never freeze potion for the nearby village's farmers. "Be careful with that dragon sweat," he grumped beside her. "That is as difficult to get as it sounds."

They continued in what she thought was a pleasant silence, only occasionally broken when he offered bits of advice or reminded her to keep an eye on instructions to make sure she didn't over stir or any of the like. She was nearly finished with the potion before, in a great huff, he turned towards her with his hands on his hips and glared menacingly at her. "Out with it."

She paused, looking confused. "Out with what?"

"Girl, you are never this quiet without cause or reason. Out with it," he demanded again.

She fidgeted with the sash of her robe and looked away from him, eyeing the potion she was brewing with an effort to look distracted. "I just… I just want to make sure I brew this potion correctly. Winter is just around the corner so it's important to have it done right. Besides, if I mess it up Dad will blame you. We can't have that."

"I am touched that you are so thoughtful. I will have you know that I have not had a mistake in front of your father in ages," he shot her a smirk at that. "He has no just cause to think me second rate." He seem to accept her excuse, going back to his own work and only pausing to extinguish the flames below her cauldron when her potion appeared to be done. "When it stop steaming you can put it into the larger crystal vials."

She went to fetch the vials as she waited for the potion to cool, busying herself to avoid conversation, which as he pointed out was uncharacteristic of her. While he was usually grumpy in her presence he was a man that appreciated conversation, she could often hear him holding one sided conversations with his familiar. When she visited it gave him a chance to hold conversations with someone that could voice their opinion on a matter or, as he often liked, shower him with compliments. Of course, she should have known that silence on her part wouldn't go unnoticed. She begrudgingly hoped it was something he would write off as a symptom of her monthly troubles.

She had begun ladling the potion she had made into vials, putting a stopper into each she filled and then labeling them for him once she was done. She stood back and admired her work, five full vials of the mild blue liquid. He had paused to inspect her work then gave her a smile that made her heart beat quicken, "Very well done, princess. Shall we test it tomorrow in the garden?"

She nodded quickly, "Though I doubt it's could enough to really put in a good test."

"Do you doubt my ability to conjure a snow storm?"

She smiled, "I don't doubt your ability to do anything, Mister Cedric. You are the world's best sorcerer after all."

"That's what I thought," he hurumped.

After a wave of a wand cleaned her cauldron she began the next potion. They continued brewing potions and exchanging strained small talk until Baileywick came to fetch her for dinner. She hung up her robe and left him to finish the rest of his work. She did alright, though there was a few moments where she had to catch herself and keep herself focused. She just hoped he wouldn't be cross with her due to her behavior.

She cleaned herself and decided that she would just have to get past her mishap with seeing him undressed. There couldn't be anything to come of it. No matter how much she might want it.