I'd rather spoil all my friends with my riches
the working title for this was 'boys ain't shit'
;
Diaspro sat with perfect posture at the booth. The restaurant was a semi-classy place, only three stars on the 'perfect food' scale for Magix restaurants. Personally, she would have chosen a place more upscale and befitting for royalty, but Princess Stella had a reputation for being less-than-royal from time to time, and Sky's [how could he] little attempted-mistress was a commoner to the point of apparently not knowing who he was, and probably wouldn't appreciate an upscale eatery the way it should be.
See, Teen Fairy? Diaspro does know how to be considerate to the lower economic scale.
Whatever.
Diaspro was there to commiserate with two other girls that had been duped, not eat with dignitaries.
She was early, either way. The other two were not going to be on-time for another fifteen minutes, but she'd turned up early deliberately. She wanted to stew in her thoughts for a while before. Diaspro hadn't ever really spent a lot of time with commoners, nor other princesses outside of official functions. Her time was spent mostly preparing for her future role as Lady of Isis and, eventually, Queen of Eraklyon. Which wasn't going to happen now. She wasn't going to be Queen of Eraklyon.
Diaspro stared hard at the cocktail in front of her, wishing its contents could give her answers. What was she going to do with herself? Her whole life, from the age of four until a week ago, was designed and sculpted into a script for her to follow until she married Sky and fulfilled the purpose of her existence.
Her mother once told her that the reason her parents had been married was with the expectation that their first child would marry the first heir to Eraklyon. Marrying Sky was the whole purpose of Diaspro's existence. And now, through no fault of Diaspro's own - all she ever did was acknowledge her status as Sky's fiance - it was never going to happen. She had to start her life and everything she expected of it from scratch.
The thought terrified her.
Diaspro snatched up her cocktail and took a great gulp. This evening was either going to be gratifying or awful.
;
Stella had calmed down, at least a little, over the past few days.
Oh, she was still steaming mad, but she was way too mature to take it out on anyone other than Sk-BRANDON. His stupid name was Brandon. She really had to remember that more. No more slip-ups.
Brandon.
She felt like a fool.
He'd played her for a complete fool, and Prince BrandonSky - as Bloom called him - had yanked on Bloom's heart and the fiance she was meeting soon too.
Stella didn't know much about Diaspro of Isis - she'd heard of her, vaguely, when she was being taught about the nobility of Solaria's allied realms, but Stella wasn't the sort of princess to memorise the spider-web of connections between nobilities [at least, not the ones on Solaria].
Still, that wasn't much of an excuse - she should've known better. She was crown princess! Not knowing when she was being blatantly duped was just disgraceful! Bloom should not have had to literally run head-long into her kinda-boyfriend's fiance to find out he'd been lying to her! He should've not been lying to start with!
The whole mess made Stella feel sick to her stomach. If she couldn't even be a good friend, and set up a friend with a cute boy that wasn't going to jerk her around, how could she be a good monarch?
Well, it was [what was the Earth term Bloom used once?] a catch-22, as far as Stella was concerned. If she couldn't do right by her friends, then Stella wasn't able to be a good ruling Queen. She'd do better. She had no choice but to be better.
She looked over at Bloom, staring out the window of the bus they were on. Bloom had that careful expression on her face - the one Stella had seen her put on deliberately to hide whatever she was actually feeling. Bloom was good at that. It was a structured mask - a careful pout, dull eyes that still saw almost everything. Stella wished she could hide her thoughts like that, but no etiquette lesson in the world had ever managed to teach the Princess of Solaria to fully mask her emotions.
It was an infuriating situation – how do you fix a problem you didn't cause? How do you move on from a betrayal that didn't happen to your face, that was thrown in your face, but quietly, sadly admitted? A betrayal that occurred in service of your friend, who is also your sovereign? Stella wasn't sure you could. But she DID know she could never, ever ask anything similar of her friends. Lie for her, sure. Lie to help her, sure. But lie about your everything, your name and life and family? Never.
But Bloom, at least, was approaching the situation from a pragmatic stance – well, emotionally detached was probably the better term for it.
;
Stella was not the Best at reading Bloom's dead-eyed face however. Beneath its bland, bored-looking exterior, Bloom was a roiling mess of emotion. She wasn't sure what she'd been thinking, inviting Diaspro to drinks – she hadn't even got drunk since that one party back on Earth, before coming to Alfea. She didn't even know Diaspro. This was dumb. Dumb, bad idea. Bloom, you're stupid. Stupid, impulsive, reckless. Ugh.
Well, this would either end in tears, of both bad or good variety, and either a new friend or awkward acquaintance.
Well, Bloom thought as she and Stella approached the restaurant, it doesn't look so bad. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic.
There is a part 2. I just haven't written it yet.