"Come on!"
Percy rolls his eyes and lifts his arm to allow himself to be dragged along by the girl with the wild blonde hair. She smiles at him and tears off down the stairs with Percy in tow.
The girl has been a source of fascination for a little while now, Percy thinks as his head is bumped on a low ceiling tile and she shoots a quick apology back at him. He laughs at her with her ragged clothes and bright grey eyes. He's recently made it his duty to make sure his step-father – sorry – the king, as he's been told to call him, has spared this young girl of the wrath he usually induces on the staff.
Percy found the girl one day while ducking away from his father during a particularly bad spell, as his mother calls it. A spell, to the best of Percy's ten year-old mind can gather, is when his father goes out with some friends and drinks so much and stays out so late (not that Percy misses him) that he becomes a positively horrid creature when he gets back.
This specific spell had driven Percy's mother to tears and both of them were threatened with the notion of being kicked out.
Of their own castle.
In which Percy's step-father, not his mother, had married into.
Okay…
Percy had had enough. He walked coolly out of there, ignoring the demanding voice of his step-father, and told the first servant he passed to make sure that his mother was okay. He ducked into a hallway when he ran into a girl around his age.
She yelped and took a step back, immediately apologizing frantically for anything she did to disturbthe prince. Percy shook his head and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, telling her that it was alright and that he should be apologizing to her. She shook her head but didn't say anything else. Percy asked her what her name was, but before she could answer, a women appeared further down the hallway where she exclaimed and ran to the girl. The woman, whose bun hurt Percy's head to look at, pulled the girl behind her, immediately apologizing for, what Percy's guessed was, her daughter's behavior. Percy waved her off and leaned around her body, looking at the girl. He asked her if she ever wanted to go outside and play, but her mother laughed and took her away before she could answer.
Percy and the girl ran into each other several other times in the course of the next couple weeks, but Percy never seemed to extract her name from her. He finally got her to come outside with him where they picked flowers and watched the toads jump across lily pads in the lake near the castle and Percy watched as she would weave intricate flower crowns together. They had left each other with the promise to meet up in their usual spot, in the library down of the forgotten aisles, next week.
Now, the girl pulls him down a sharp corner and down one more flight of stairs and Percy finally realizes where they are headed – down back behind the castle. Percy decides that now would be a good time to remember that he is supposed to be sulking in some room with other boys and girls while their parents' discuss 'very important matters'. But all thoughts stop as the wild haired girl pulls Percy through a stooped doorway and out into the night.
Percy's been outside the castle several times, with other young boys while visiting (in which Percy never saw them again), but never at night, and never back behind it.
His eyes widen as he takes in his surroundings. The small cabins that house the servants of the castle create a semicircle around a large square patch of concrete. A fire blazes in a pit in the center and its light mixes with the warm glow of the open doors and windows of the neighboring houses. A band, composed of banjos, a harmonica, a pair of bongo-looking drums, and a guitar, plays in a circle around the fire. Percy smiles as he feels the sensation of pure joy rolling off of the dancers and singers and members of the band as they weave in and out of the fading light.
Percy looks over at the girl and finds her smiling at the scene. He squeezed her hand and she looks over at him.
"What did I tell you? We have our own way of having a little fun."
"You were right." Percy agrees.
So, this is a new AU idea that I am completely obsessed with.
Hope you liked it and stay on the look out for a new update (or a new story, you know how I get...)
:) Darcy
