Quite the Tradition
by misscam
Author's Note: Written for the following prompt: AU wherein Snowing are teenaged betrothed royals & they love to sneak off away from balls.
II
When she's eleven years old, Princess Snow White learns it will be her duty to marry Prince David, the (second) adopted son of King George, and like all her duties, she will fulfill it.
But she is also Snow, a 'bandit' as her mother affectionately calls her due to all her mischief, and she will steal a few moments for what she really likes to do. Which in this case is sneak out of the ball before all the dull introductions, and roam around the castle grounds.
This is going to be her castle as well, she reasons. Prince David is the heir now that Prince James tragically died a few months ago, and this is his castle.
"Shouldn't you be inside?" a voice says, and she spins around to see a boy looking at her. He has bright, blue eyes and unkempt hair, and his arms are folded. He looks unimpressed, so she gives him a steely look back.
"I should be where I want to be," she says primly, folding her arms as well. He's caught her, but she refuses to feel guilty about that, instead going for angry at him.
He narrows his eyes. "Who do you think you are, some sort of princess?"
"I know I am," she shoots back. "Who are you, some sort of Prince Charming?"
"I'm a shepherd," he says defiantly, lifting his chin and looking proud.
"Charming the shepherd," she mocks, half tempted to stick her tongue out at him.
"At least I am dressed for being outside," he replies, giving her pink dress a look. "You can't even run in that."
"Can too."
"Can not."
"Catch me then!" she flings at him, and turns and runs.
She hears him splutter, and laughs at it, and then the chase is on. She ducks under beams, jumps over hay balls, weaves between horses, but he still manages to be right behind her. She can see the determined look on his face every time she throws a quick glance behind her, and it's infuriating.
So she does what any proper bandit would do. She lets him catch up to her and think he's about to win, then turns around and shoves him into the moat.
She feels bad about it the second she does it, seeing the look of utter betrayal on his face as he falls, even if he looks downright comical too. But she bites back that feeling, and instead runs all she can into what she thinks is the stables, but turns out to be full of sheep instead.
Huh. A stable full of sheep. Still, she finds a hiding spot in the back and waits, trying to calm her pounding heart and her ragged breath. She will win this one. She will..
A pile of hay hits her smack in the back, and she whips around to see the boy grinning infuriatingly triumphantly at her. He's wet, she notices, but even that does seem to dampen his spirits.
"I found you," he says, sounding pleased with himself.
"This time," she corrects him.
"I'll always find you," he promises grandly, and this time, she does stick her tongue out at him.
That's the moment her parents and King George come barreling into the stables, and Snow learns that Charming the shepherd is actually Prince David, newly adopted and not so pleased with having to leave his farm, and even less pleased to learn he's betrothed to the very princess who threw him in the moat.
II
The good thing about balls, thirteen-year-old Snow has learned, is that with so many people, there is always ample opportunities for distractions and thus sneaking out, and once she's slipped away, her parents never find her.
Unfortunately, someone else seems to have.
The room is pitch dark, but there is no mistaking the warmth of the hand that just brushed hers, or the quick intake of breath she heard. Someone else is here, right next to her, but seems to be as startled as her. Maybe someone else who likes sneaking out of balls, she realizes with rising excitement. All her friends seem to love balls and gowns and grandeur, and she does like a bit of it, she just wants...
She wants adventures as well, and someone who enjoys them just as much as her. Could this be it, could this be...
"Are you..." she begins, then hears the door at the other end of the room open. Before she can even think, the hand next to hers has taken hold of hers, pulling her along. She follows, her heart pounding with excitement as they slip quietly through the dark, to an open window.
She blinks at the moonlight as she climbs through it, steady hands helping her onto the ground outside. She smiles up at her friend, then gasps.
"Charming!"
It is him. He smiles sheepishly at her, eyes even bluer than she remembers. They're still holding hands, she realizes, and wonders if he's going to drop her hand as if burned now that he knows who she is.
He doesn't. He just smiles, and it seems to light up his face.
"Snow," he says. "I knew it had to be you."
"Why?" she asks, feeling a touch self-conscious.
"You're the only princess I know who loves to sneak out of balls," he says, still smiling.
"You're the only prince I know who does," she counters, and his smile falters slightly.
"I'm not a prince," he says, voice low. "I'm a shepherd. King George only adopted me because my twin died. He forced me. I can't even see my mom or he'll burn down her farm."
She looks at him. She's heard the story, of course, of how Prince James died tragically, and it was revealed he had been adopted in the first place, and that there was a twin who would now become the new prince. But she hadn't really thought about how it would feel to be forced to be a prince.
"I'm sorry," she says, and means it. He seems to believe that, because he nods slightly. "What's your mom like?"
His face lights up again, and she can see the love in his face. "She's wonderful. She has a new farm now. I wish I could see it."
"Maybe you can," she says, an idea forming. "We'll take my horse and visit her right now."
He stares at her. "But..."
"I sneak out of balls all the time," she says, and he snorts slightly at that. "We'll just tell everyone you saw me sneak out and went with me to make sure I was safe. King George will think you behaved like a prince, my parents will thank you and no one will know."
He looks dubious, but she can see the longing in his face.
"Come on, Charming," she says, and he shakes his head at her in a way that means she's won, she's sure.
His mother is wonderful, Snow soon learns, spending an evening at a sheep farm with David and the shepherd and Ruth his mother, and loves it and them far more than any ball.
II
At the age of fifteen, Snow has sadly learned that there are men who can't keep their hands to themselves.
Which is why, when she feels a hand at her back, she instinctively reaches for the nearest rock and whips around to slam it against what turns around to be a guy's chin.
Down he goes, with a pain grunt, and that's when Snow realizes she has in fact hit her fiance, Prince David to the kingdom and Charming to just her, the teasing nickname that has become a term of affection instead.
"Charming!" she breathes, and he stares up at her, rubbing his chin. There's blood, she realizes with dawning horror.
"Hello to you too, Snow," he says dryly, and she falls to her feet, putting her hands on his chin. He winces.
"I'm so sorry!" she exclaims. "I thought you were... Not you."
"I should hope not," he says, wincing again as she brushes her thumb across his wound. It's not too deep, she notices, but it will probably leave a scar. "I had hoped we had moved beyond bodily harm."
She laughs at that, she can't help it. He smiles at her, and she feels that familiar flutter that seems to come more and more frequently when she meets him. Ever since they snuck out of the ball to meet his mother, they have become something akin to friends, exchanging letter via birds. Snow even keeps contact with his mother, since he can't as easily. But there is something else whenever they meet in person, a... A flutter, a warmth, a strange sense of wanting something.
"I'm sorry," she says again, then remembers what her mother always did with scrapes and hurts.
She kisses his wound, pressing her lips against it and holding. He goes completely still, and she can hear him swallow. Slowly, very slowly, she moves her lips upwards until they find his.
Her cheeks seem to heat and the flutter in her stomach seems to spread into her very skin, and what she wants seems to be this, only more.
He has soft lips, full lips, and after a moment he is meeting her kiss with light pressure of his own. His hand moves to her cheek, and she is very aware of his thumb hesitantly stroking her cheekbone.
She pulls away after a few moments, looking at him while her heart pounds in her chest. His eyes seem a touch hazy, and his lips have parted lightly.
"Snow," he says, and she hears the want in his voice that she feels in her heart.
So she kisses him again, and wonders if all kisses with him will feel as good as this first one.
II
Kissing, Snow knows at seventeen, kissing is good. It's good whether it is a polite peck in front of her parents, a brush of lips in the hallway when no one is looking, locking lips while meeting on visits to Ruth's sheep farm, or like now, making out in a dark room in the castle, having snuck out of the ball yet again.
The wall is hard against her back, but she doesn't care, far too pleased with how Charming feels pressed against her front. Her fingers have found the smooth skin of his chest through patient working on his laces, and he's making appreciative moans into her mouth.
They haven't broken the kiss once since they pretty much crashed together in the eagerness to kiss, and she's feeling wonderfully breathless and ravished. Her lips are swollen and heavy, but she still wants more. She wants his lips, his mouth, his throaty growls into her happy sighs, him, him, him.
His fingers brush the top of her breasts, and she arches into it. She wants more than that. She wants his hands to dip lower, because she knows how wonderful it feels when he cups her breasts through cloth and can only imagine it feels even better with only skin.
"Snow," he growls, and she bites lightly into his lower lip, then licks it better. "Snow, we have to... I have to... Snow."
She loves the way he says her name like that, she thinks. Thickly, darkly, filled with want. He's the only one who says her name like that, the only one she wants to. Oh, he has so many other ways of saying her name as well, and she loves them all, but this one... This one brings a thrill.
"Charming," she murmurs, and then her hands are locked above her head by his hand and she moans at the loss of his skin under her fingertips.
"Snow," he says again, his voice nearly catching. "We have to stop."
"No, we don't," she says, pressing her lips against his scar. He closes his eyes briefly at that, as he always does.
"We're not married yet," he murmurs hoarsely. "Snow, I... It's not honorable."
"You're the most honorable man I know," she tells him fiercely. He is. He spends his time making this kingdom better without King George noticing or giving any credit, still moaning about the son he lost. Charming might have been born a shepherd, but he's far more worthy to call himself a prince than any nobles she knows.
He smiles lovingly at her. "Snow."
"You are," she insists. "Your mother agrees with me."
He brushes his nose against hers, letting go of her hands and letting them rest on his shoulders. "You're both biased."
Yes, she thinks, and smiles fairly as he kisses her so tenderly it makes her toes curl. By love. She hasn't dared say it yet, but oh how she's felt it.
He leans his forehead against hers after a moment, looking wistful. "I wish she could come to the wedding. It's all she ever wanted for me."
"To see you married to a princess?" she teases, and he shakes his head.
"To see me married to someone I love," he says seriously, and her breath catches at the sincerity in his voice and in his eyes. Then she crashes her lips onto his and kisses him good until she's certain he knows she loves him right back.
II
There is something better than kissing, Snow learns at eighteen. There is Charming and skin, and only skin, his body warm around her like a blanket. Her own body feels like pooling heat, building with every steady thrust he makes. He is hard inside her, but already it feels less like an intrusion and more like a joining.
Snow and Charming, joined. Married too, even if it is a secret to the kingdom. The official wedding is still a few months away, but this, this was just as real, as far as Snow is concerned. She and Charming may have snuck away from another ball to have it, and it may have been had in a simple garden, and Charming's friend Lancelot may have been the one to perform it, and Ruth may have been the only witness, but it was her and Charming and wedding vows that were sincere. That makes it real. That makes her wedded to Charming, and this their wedding bed.
Even if it is technically not a bed. It's a flowerbed, with Charming's cape as a mattress, but that's a minor detail.
"Snow," Charming whispers lovingly, kissing her lightly until she deepens it and dries to draw him deeper into her body as well. He growls at that, as she knew he would, then draws moans out of her as his fingers brush against her at every thrust.
Charming, her Charming, she thinks possessively, her only conscious thought as every sensation in her body seems to be pleasure so sharp it is almost painful and then simply is everything and everywhere.
Charming too, seems to lose himself moments later, burying his face against her shoulders as his hips jerk against hers. She runs her hands down his back, feeling him press kisses against her shoulder and then neck while her breath steadies and her mind seems to refocus.
He lifts his head to kiss her lips after a while, and she smiles into it. Yes. Kissing is still good. There is just something better as well, and she finally has it.
(And will have it again, as often as possible, she has already decided.)
II
At nineteen, Princess Snow White takes the hand of her (official) husband and sneaks him out of the ball, official duties fulfilled.
They always fulfill their duties first, greeting everyone, doing a few dances. But every ball, without fail, they also sneak out.
It's becoming quite the tradition.
Charming is smiling at her as she pulls him out into the courtyard. The sky is dark above them, littered with stars, a beautiful evening. The air is slightly chilled, a reminder that winter is coming. It might even snow soon.
Charming pulls her into a kiss a few feet into the courtyard, and she grins into it. It still thrills her that he wants her as much as she wants him, that the boy she was meant to marry for the good of the kingdom turned out to be so very good for her.
And with King George's health failing and Charming very soon to inherit, she is pretty sure there will be a happy ending for this kingdom in all of it as well.
"Charming," she murmurs, and he breaks the kiss to rest his forehead against hers. "Do you know where we are?"
"Mmm," he says, stealing a quick peck. "The spot where I first saw you when you were a willful eleven-year-old princess who snuck out of the ball."
"And you found me," she adds.
"I will always find you," he promises. It was a boast at eleven and is now a vow, and she smiles at it. Then she gives him a teasing kiss before stepping out of his embrace.
"Catch me then!" she says mischievously, and turns and runs.
He does catch her in the end, in the stables, just as she intended, and kisses her until they fall breathlessly into the hay and she knows they won't be getting back to the ball for quite some time.
It's like a tradition, after all. Snow and Charming, and sneaking away from the ball. It's how they met. It's how they started a friendship. It's how they fell in love. It's even how they got married the first time.
It's how they'll spend a marriage, she sincerely hopes; she's going to be proven right.
FIN