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Fragile
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Deep into the last night of the year, while most of the palace is twirling about in the grand ballroom (and a few hiding behind the curtains), two figures sit in a darkened room on the other side of the palace. Two who would have been much missed from any other event, but on this particular night, no one even takes note. Over the years, it's become a fact, one of those that are never thought of because the mind overlooks it as a simple coincidence, but if ever asked about would be able to state with startled, but absolute certainty - that the Crown Prince and Princess are never present for the year's final moment of celebration.
It's always been this way, since the years they were sent away to bed (after being thoroughly cooed and clucked over in their matching Conte-themed dress wear) before the alcoholic drinks were brought out, and he would sneak into her room to mutinously wait out the midnight bells together.
It's tradition.
As is the silence, stemmed from fear of discovery, and then held on to as they grew older and realized that a world of social engagements and royal obligations pressing down on them presented far more stress than a pair of scolding nursemaids. It's a night that's theirs, and only that – a point to reflect, to rest from the life that catches them up more and more each day.
Reflecting on the past ultimately leads to thoughts of the present. And the one most predominate in their minds this year is one that must, for the sake of these fragile moments, be pushed away - the underlying knowledge that this will be the last year they can sit like this: dark heads and clasped hands together.
Silence has many hues. The one radiating from him is dark, and hers lighter – because she always did try to give him what he needed. They blend with the light of the moon to form a semblance of peace. But when the palace bells rupture the air with their suddenly ominous clangs, they jerk apart not from excitement but fear. Looking into familiar sapphire eyes; seeing identical ones reflect back with the same question…"what will next year be?"
But does it really change?
That next year, they slip away from balls on different continents, and two souls pass into the new year together – like always…almost.
She leans over the windowsill in her north-facing suite, painfully aware of the fact that the air here can never feel like the middle of winter, and conscious of the protective necklaces resting against her chest that she does not dare take off, even now. He slips into her room at the palace, noting quietly, like every other time he's ventured in here, that their mother's decree to leave everything as it was has only made this room so much lonelier. He's grown accustomed to it, to some degree, in the months since he started coming here to gather his thoughts. But still he walks quickly to where the air seems lightest, over the one corner of the bed that is considered his, and feels the essence of her press down from the room around him.
Both wait in silence, remembering the past year of whirlwind events that had torn them apart. Yet here they are, looking over the same distance that was now so much safer because of those events. And when the bells sounded; melodic this time…
It was the moon, it was how the air seemed to lift just then, it was the warm, familiar shadows they saw in flashes out of the corner of their eyes - everything really - that somehow gave the feeling that change didn't always have to be a bad thing. Nor, really, could it change everything. For them…
There was a truth behind that word...
Tradition.
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A/N: I seem to have curbed the italics obsession a little... What think you?