A/N: This fic is a stand alone and is not in the Noctum/Eclipse verse. It's AU!
It's a surprise fic for War. Surprise! Her request was for a fic on the seasons.
It's also a song fic for Lady Gaga's "Summerboy" and Paul Oakenfold's, "Starry Eyed Surprise".
Summertime
There was just something about summer. The three months out of the year where you could spend all day in the sun and laze about the day thinking of nothing but boys and candy and suntan lotion. Every day was lazy and every day was free. Stress was gone and the heat melted away the tensions of a long winter and equally long war. Instead of the same four walls, there was sand and there was water and there was the blissful breeze that warmed instead of chilled. Summer was the time for fun.
The salty sea air was such a nice change from the rush and bustle of Tenebrae. As much as she loved her kingdom, there were times that she just needed to get away. The summer holiday had been just what her young heart had needed. After a long winter filled with endless lessons and lectures, she needed a reprieve. It had been time for a vacation. So after making a clever argument about the benefits of the sea air and visiting neighborhood nations, her father had granted her a leave. A leave with an official chaperone that she had run away from more often than not. It was hard to keep the façade of anonymity when one was constantly escorted by a scruffy looking middle aged envoy that most certainly would not qualify as a relative.
It had been her first day there and the weather had been perfect. She had finally managed to get away from her chaperone and was walking along the boardwalk. The energy and the sounds around her had been thoroughly intoxicating and she could feel the dark winter within her fly away with the breeze. The Boardwalk had been filled with gaming booths. Filled with the various colors of countless balloons. Filled with the titillating smells of the candy stands and the sounds of grinding metal and screams from the rides. A gigantic Ferris Wheel stood brightly and proudly at the end of the line. Its carts carrying couples and families and she could not wait to get on it.
She was going to do just that when a cute boy behind the cotton candy stand had waved at her.
"Hey there pretty girl," he called as he motioned for her to approach him. "You just have to try my cotton candy." The offer was given with a wide, friendly smile that had her smiling in return.
"Are you going to give me a little extra?" she asked teasingly.
He answered her with a wink and proceeded to make her the biggest puff of pink cloud she had ever seen. When he was done there was almost no room for her to hold the confection.
"Candy for an eye candy," he had said with another wink and after handing over the appropriate funds, she was on her way.
This really is too much, she had thought to herself as she was walking away.
It was then, right then, that a strong breeze had picked up and the entire pink puff of sugary cotton flew off the white paper cone and into the face of a passerby.
Her sapphire eyes had widened into the shape of saucers as she had watched it hit the person right smack in their face and they widened even further when she realized who it had been.
"I am so sorry! I must apologize," she had said as she rushed over just as he had pulled the sticky confection away from his face.
There were pink bits in his midnight hair and in his eyebrows and she would have laughed if she had not been so appalled at herself. She can hear his friends laugh behind him as he blinks his eyes several times before red eyes turn to regard her.
She manages a weak and frightened smile. "I really am sorry for this," she had said.
Red eyes seem to twinkle in amusement as they regard her and a smirk crosses his lips. She had never seen the Caelum prince in person before but she had heard plenty about him and his friends. The four of them were known trouble makers that did nothing else but chase girls and being a general nuisance. But his family had power and it was best not to get on any of their bad sides.
What were they doing here? she had remembered thinking.
"Perfect shot!" cried one of the boys behind him. He had dirty blonde hair and a face that was used to making many grins.
"I think she needs to get a prize for that," said another. This one had brown hair done with a slight wave in the front and glasses on his nose.
"Couldn't have planned it better," said the last one. He looked a bit intimidating with a scar clean across his eye and obviously was the strongest physically of the group.
"I think I had better replace this," responded the Prince as another smirk forms across his lips. He did not seem upset that his friends had teased him. "Since I ruined a perfectly good piece of candy."
She had only managed a weak smile and a shy nod.
"Might I have your name?" he had asked and his voice made her feel like the hovering balloons had made their way inside her.
"I would like to know yours first. So I can appropriately apologize," she had responded with her own smirk.
"You can call me Lucis," he had answered.
Two could play that game. "You can call me Nox," she had responded.
So it had started. A random encounter had led to the most romantic and nostalgic summer of her young life. The rest of her days had consisted of mornings stuck inside with her chaperone. Her afternoons filled with sun and endless beaches with nights filled with dancing and strolls along the sand. He won her stuffed toys and she dragged him onto every ride. He taught her how to surf and she taught him how to skate. He took her dancing and she showed him how to move on the dance floor. Days were sunny and lazy and nights were starry and dreamy. Days blended into the minutes when they would see each other again and then it was the last day. The last day of summer and a signal to return to the lives they had left behind. Summer had been ending and winter was on the horizon.
It had been easy to forget their worries during the light of that day. They had done what they had done the days before. He won more prizes. She ate another cotton candy. He held her in his arms as they both screamed on the roller coaster. She had shared her ice cream. They both held each other's hand all in between and kissed in secret corners.
It had not fully hit them both. Until the night sky revealed the stars above as they walked along the shores hand in hand after another night of dancing. The sounds of the waves and the moon shimmering over the surface of the water and the ever chilling breezed served as their warning. Their summer was over.
She had been so distracted and depressed by this fact that she had not noticed that he had stopped walking until she felt his hand pull at hers. Her eyes fly to his and she can see him hesitate. He did not know what to say. She had felt the pangs of her first broken heart as she looked at him.
"You do not have to say it," she had said to him. "It does not change anything."
There really had not been anything that they could have said.
"There is one thing that I do need to know," he had said.
"What?"
"I want to know what your real name is," he said.
"No, that is something that would not do either of us any good," she had replied. The frown that had appeared on his face told her that he had wanted to fight this but she stopped him. "We both knew this would end with the season."
He had nodded but he had still wanted to press the issue.
"Think of me when you think back on the summer that you will always remember fondly," she had said as she squeezed his hand.
"I still want to know your name," he had said stubbornly.
She had smiled in response before reaching up and kissing him deeply for the last time. She remembers letting go of his hand and running a few feet away before turning back to him again. "I want to be the one that got away."
Even with the distance and the darkness, she had still seen his smirk. "If I chase after you now?"
"You won't," she knew that he would let her run away.
"What if I never see you again?" he had called out to her.
"Then we'll still have the summer afterall."
They both had shared a smile before she had run the rest of the way back to her rooms.
When she looks back on those days, she feels that same listlessness and contentment wash over her. Those lazy days and starry eyed nights. The summer she had fallen in love for the first time. The time she had fallen in love with Noctis. They had not seen each other again after that, but the warmth of that summer had carried on over to the cold winter months that had followed. Duties and obligations had soon buried the nostalgia of first love. Yet in her mind, they still had the summer afterall.