"Luddy! Luddy! Catch meee!" A little Italian boy ran giggling down the farm road. His milk-chocolate brown eyes alight with child's laughter and the curl in his hair bobbed at each step.
"Feli! Come back! You got a head start!" his blonde companion complained as he tried to keep up, "Come back!"
The little Italian boy sat in the crook of a tree, his feet swinging gently above his companion. "Luddy, you're no good at tag. Let's play pretend!" He smiled and kicked his legs in excitement.
The other narrowly avoided being kicked in the head as he replied, "What kind of pretend?"
After a moment of hard thinking the brunette answered, "Knight and Princess of course! You'll be the knight and I'll be the princess!"
Not a second went by before the blonde objected, "But Feli, you're a guy! Guys can't be princesses."
"What?! Yes we can! Besides, this is pretend. If I want to be a princess, I'll be a princess!" The much more optimistic and energetic of the two crossed his arms and gave a pout.
He heard a sigh before the answer floated up to his ears, "Fine. Then you can be the princess."
In his excitement, the Italian almost fell from the tree. "Yay!" he said, "Ok, now you have to get your sword and I'll have to climb up into my castle tower!"
The younger protested once more, "But I don't have a sword!"
This was responded with a roll of brown eyes, "Luddy, you have to use your imagination! Use a stick."
Once both parties had gathered their props and assumed positions—and after Feli had told Luddy exactly what he was supposed to do as a knight—their game began.
"Help me! Someone help me!" The young Italian sat in one of the lower branches of the oak tree he had climbed. Atop his head was a crown of twigs and he'd made his already high-pitched voice even more venerable and feeble. "Please, anyone!"
Luddy, looking a bit fed up with this game already, called out in a monotone, "Oh no, the princess is stuck in a tree. I, a glorious knight, must save her."
The "princess" broke character to stage whisper, "No, Luddy, you're doing it all wrong. Talk like a knight would," he raised his voice once more, "Help! I've climbed up this tree, and I can't get down!"
Said knight gave a 'hmph' before repeating the line. "Oh no!" this time he was more enthusiastic, "The beautiful princess is stuck in a tree! I, a glorious knight, must save her! –Him!" He quickly corrected the error in his speech this time.
Feli giggled at being called 'beautiful' and made a show of searching around for his rescuer before his eyes landed on Luddy below. "Ah! Ciao kind sir. As you can see, I have no way of getting down from this big tree. Can you please help me?"
There was about to be protest but Feli intervened, "Only the most brave and wonderful knight would be able to help a princess such as I."
That made backing out of his role much more difficult, and so Luddy blundered on as the heroic cavalier, "Of course, fair miste— maiden?" Hearing what the other had been about to say, the princess quickly shook his head vigorously and nodded at his rescuer when it was corrected.
After a few more mistakes, and some coaching from his princess, the knight helped him graciously climb down—fall—from the tree to be caught—dropped—in waiting arms.
"What now?" Luddy asked as Feli brushed dirt from his trousers.
The other boy looked up in shock and surprise, "The knight has to marry the princess of course! Then they live happily ever after!"
Of course, this new development brought immediate protest from the other, "Feli! We're both guys; that would be weird! Besides, the princess is a princess! She's only supposed to marry a prince!"
Feli crossed his arms childishly and tried to seem taller to no avail, "I don't think it's weird. And have you never heard a fairy tale before? The princess always marries the knight. It's like a tradition."
"I think it's weird! Why don't we be different from all of the other fairy tales and the princess and knight just be best friends?" the blonde offered.
"Luddyyyyy!" Feli whined, "Marry meeee!"
Finally his friend gave in with a muttered "Ja, fine", and the Italian jumped up and down in glee.
After his joyful excitement calmed down, Feli made the blue-eyed boy ask him properly. When questioning why he had to be the one to do it, and how come the princess can't be the one to ask for once, the answer was, "Because that's how it is, and that's how we're doing it."
They found a sleepy brown farm cat to marry them, and Feli made Luddy a crown of wheat to match his own twig circlet. The knight slicked back his hair, and the princess dawned on her best dress ("Just pretend Luddy. I'm not going to run all the way back to Papa's to find one of Mama's old dresses").
The animals gathered in the trees and chattered about the upcoming event while the two boys ran about to hurriedly prepare for their very own wedding—dinner was soon, and Feli couldn't stand to miss a meal. Finally, all were ready for the ceremony to begin.
A curious squirrel watched on and the song birds started up their first tune as the groom waited for his blushing bride.
Said bride was busy getting his crown just right and making sure not a speck of dirt was on his shirt or trousers. The birds changed their song and Feli quickly popped out of the wheat stocks in the nearby field. He almost ran to the aisle made from rows of branches and old cement blocks from the road wall. Once reaching the walkway, the young boy slowed down the match the bride's song he was humming.
Luddy gulped and shifted around where he stood as his soon-to-be made his way toward him and the still sleeping farm cat. It didn't take long before both children were facing each other. After prodding from Feli, the blue-eyed groom took both of the smaller hands in his own.
"Ok, repeat after me." Noticing that their stand-in priest was still napping, the bride took over his roll, "I, Ludwig ...Beil…Beilsh—"
"Beilschmidt."
"—take Feliciano Vargas to be my lovely wedded wife."
Luddy took a deep breath before reciting what his friend had said, "I, Ludwig Beilschmidt, take Feliciano Vargas to be my," another deep breath, "lovelyweddedwife."
A brown curl bounced as the other giggled before he gave his own lines, "I, Feliciano Vargas, take Ludwig Beilschmidt to be my lovely wedded husband." He glanced down at their priest—still in deep slumber it would seem—and continued on, "You may now kiss the bride." He'd forgotten the rest of what was supposed to happen at a wedding, but he remembered this part.
Once again, Feli's words brought on a string of protests. "What! I can't kiss you! You're a guy, that's gross!"
And yet again, the protests were met with a solid argument, "But that's what people do in weddings! Plus, Nonno told me he's kissed a guy before!"
Both of the children continued arguing until Luddy finally gave up and very quickly kissed the other boy's cheek.
Soon after came the correction of, "No no, you have to kiss me on the lips. Otherwise it doesn't count."
Luddy almost objected again and his cheeks turned cherry red before he finally found the courage. He leaned forward and press his lips against Feli's.
The kiss was one of innocent children; it lasted merely two seconds and was nothing more than a careful touch of mouths. None the less, Luddy stayed quiet on the walk back home when his friend intertwined their fingers.
Ludwig still wonders if he and Feliciano have ever really stopped playing Knight and Princess.
A/N: Originally I intended to just have that first short snippet before moving on to when they were older, but I thought of the marriage scene and this quickly turned into something completely different from what I intended (but that's how these things usually go, isn't it?).
Yes, they were married by Greece in cat form. You have to love child logic. That's the best kind of logic there is.
It's not specific, but as I was writing this, I was thinking of them in the AU of The Dragon's Boy just outside of Annabeth. Speaking of The Dragon's Boy... I should get around to writing more of that.