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He said he'd return.
He meant it when he said it, he hadn't thought he would return chained to a deposed queen whose head was larger than most watermelons and whose presence he completely despised.
He had been a prince.
She had always been striking, every since she was a baby. Never a conventional beauty, but always worth giving a second glance to. Mama had had hopes for her to catch someone important. Being a wealthy family wasn't enough, they needed titles.
He had first seen her in the garden. Rabbits weren't the only creatures coming and going between the Under and Above. As a prince he was privy to a few privileges. Though he hadn't exactly meant to go up the rabbit hole, it had just sort of happened.
She hadn't meant to get lost in the hedge maze, but it had just sort of happened.
"Oh Imogene, what have you done this time?" She twirled in a puzzled circle. She could have told her self not to go into the hedge maze, but that was out of the question. One always did have more sense later--when it wasn't needed rather than before when it could have prevented so much trouble. She tried to hop up and down as high as she could, the hedges were, however too tall. "Well, I suppose I shall just walk as fast as I can. I shan't get anymore lost and I will run out of options that much faster." Oddly enough, Imogene's fast walk resembled more of a run. Her long legs dashing across the soft grasses. Too busy listening for the rest of the tea party to actually see where she was going (which doesn't make all that much sense, but Imogene was never at her brightest in the here and now). With a good solid 'twunk' she ran into something much more solid than a hedge.
"Oh dear..." she muttered, brushing off bits of grass and twig, her dark hair had fallen forward and all she could see were an imposing pair of black boots. "Oh my! Could you perhaps tell me if we are at the center of the maze? You see I was trying to ru--err...walk as fast as I could to exit this silly thing." She pushed herself off the ground forgetting that as a lady perhaps she could have waited for the gentleman to offer his assistance.
The prince had never had a woman look him in the eyes before. She was tall enough to do so, and he was taller than any of his 10 brothers. It wasn't just that she was capable of looking him in the eye that caught him off guard however, it was something about her. There seemed to be so much to her. So much to see in those eyes. So much.
"I'm afraid I don't know, I am lost too." He barely remembered what her question was. It was always best to stick with the truth though. "Perhaps we can help each other." The marvel of being raised in Underland is ones complete assurance of self, this woman however had not been raised in Underland. She did not have that but she did have a certain unconscious certainty exhuding from her. He felt the need to find out more about her.
She then remembered she was supposed to be a lady, she gave a low curtsey. Not the most graceful that Stayne had ever seen but he found her slight awkwardness endearing. Her elbows and knees bent just so made such wonderful angles, he wanted to analyze them and find out out if they were right angles. Right angles were so very important after all.
"My name is Imogene, Imogene Kingsly." And her name had royalty in it. She was so very perfect.
"You may call me Illosovic," it was a privilege to call him thus. He was after all a Jack, a Prince of Spades.
She turned her head, loose brown curls bounced from one shoulder to the other." Perhaps we can go this way--Illosovic?" She lifted a hand and pointed to the right, the direction neither of them had been coming from.
In the next several hours of being lost together they found they had much in common. Both hated blueberries but loved raspberry tarts. Both of them preferred the season of falling leaves to any other and neither loved to dance but thought it filled the time well. She could not draw and he did not enjoy art. Neither had a favorite color but decided between them that if they had to had one, that when around each other they would choose black--it was a very respectable color after all.
"Imogene!" She heard her mother only a little ways away. Imogene grabbed Stayne's sleeve in excitement.
"Oh listen, we are not that far." She started to pull him forward. His movement slowed and stopped when she turned around to ask him why.
He had to think of a quick lie as to why he could not venture out of the hedge maze.
"My timepiece,my watch that is, I left it back there I am afraid. It must have fallen from my pocket when we knocked heads." Her face instantly became one of extreme worry and guilt.
"Oh! But it took us so long to get unlost, how shall we do it again? And it is all my fault. It is hardly a way to make a good impression I am afraid." She squared her shoulders ready to do what needed doing. he gently laid his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs briefly grazing her collarbones. Her forward motion stopped and she angled her head at him just so, not a right angle this time--it wouldn't have been healthy a good obtuse one, perhaps one hundred and thirty degrees.
"No dear Imogene," he called her dear! Her heart fluttered slightly, she blushed at the realization. He smiled at the blush and regretted they had found their way so soon after all. "I shall go back for it. I have a fairly good mind of where it was and how to get back." Not back here that was, back to the Underland.
"Oh but Illosovic--" she cut herself off, what more could she say? they had only just met, but somehow...
His hands fell downwards and pulled her fingertips towards his lips, lowering his head. The lengths of his dark hair gave butterfly kisses to her wrists before his lips descended onto her knuckles and there he lay a lingering kiss that no butterfly could bestow.
"I'll be back, I promise. This won't be the last time that we meet." She pulled her hands to her chest trying to imprint his kiss on her heart. He made a very graceful, right angled , bow before he pivoted on his heels and strode off to 'look for his watch.'
That entire spring and summer Imogene and Stayne met within the hedge maze. They continued to find things in common and happily agreed to disagree on a few items, such as the value of cats, and whether stripes looked better going up and down or side to side.
By the time their favorite season was dawning they were more than ninety degrees in love.
"Oh Imogene," he looped one of her curls around his fingers, "I must explain things just so to my parents before we are allowed to wed. I am only the eleventh son, but I am still a prince. My father expects certain things. My mother demands certain things." He leaned in a brushed a gentle kiss against her cheek. "But I know I can convince them, it must be just right though."
She leaned into him with a happy sigh, she trusted him utterly and completely. "We shall have our happily ever after, I don't doubt you Illosovic, I am just impatient for it to begin. But I shall be patient for you. You are worth it, I shall wait forever if I have to." Little did she know.
They laid in the grass that whole afternoon, they planned names for the dozen children they would be having and debated on the number of girls that would be best. After all, every brother should have a sister, but there can be too many sisters at times. Stayne was all too familiar with the danger of two many sisters. Even when they weren't his.
There were no tears when they said good-bye because neither suspected it would be their last. Imogene went home to her parents ate her dinner and was happily content to wait for her prince, she never doubted he would return. Yes, she grew lonely and sad knowing her life was not as she had planned it to be but what is life without a few surprises?
Illosovic Stayne went home that night to his parents as well. His was not a content dinner however, he spent it chewing food in his mouth and ideas in his head. How to best approach his father with his intended and beloved Imogene?
Stayne never figured out the proper way . He did stumble across a colossally improper way however. It managed to get every member of his family, father, mother, brother to declare him an outcast.
He was no longer a prince. At first he was ashamed to visit his Imogene. Then he was too sick. He did not miss his eye and Irasebeth loved the irony of a fallen spade wearing a heart, as if it were a spade flipped on its head. His illness had left him so weak that by the time Irasebeth had found him and fallen for his new deformity and nursed him back to health he no longer had the means to see his Imogene. Nor did he wish her to see him in his fallen state. He was no longer worthy of her love. He had now seen what courtly love was, Irasabeth killed her husband, no doubt his Imogene would have found another. Someone better. So he told himself, but deep, deep down he could not deny the truth. A woman so perfectly made, one who's very bones spoke the truth in right angles could not find another when she had promised to wait for him. He did his best to push all thoughts of her from his mind.
He did not know first starting out, when he had lost his right to wear the spade, that to be a heart--one must have a broken one.
Imogene, Imogene, Imogene---imagine.