Crystal endured the next 5 days of torment form Gold. She hoped that he would give up when he saw that she would not be broken, but he was far more persistent than she expected. On Sunday, Crystal went to church, praying that Ho-Oh would give her the power to over come this and be happy. Because despite her promise that she would always be happy if she could help her kingdom, she had not expected Gold. Crystal always went to church on Sundays, but that day she spent hours there, praying.
When she left her knees were incredibly sore and she her throat felt dry from praying aloud. Despite having spent the day "sitting" but she still felt exhausted.
Gold was waiting outside Ho-Oh's temple.
"You're lucky I'm religious, I can't touch you in Ho-Oh's presence," he teased.
Crystal tried to just walk past him but he stuck by her side. "They say Ho-Oh is always watching. If you don't want them to see your actions, maybe try not doing them."
"Your words wound me," Gold joked dryly. "And why pray to Ho-Oh? Isn't Lugia more of a symbol of strength? Or were you going to ask Ho-Oh to resurrect your marriage possibilities after you kill this one?" Crystal suavely raised an eyebrow. "I'll admit, not my best wordplay, but my question stands."
"I don't need to tell you, I owe you less than nothing," Crystal stated directly. "But if you want to know, I was praying for happiness, so that I can find a way to enjoy this relationship."
"Perhaps if you ended it-"
"How don't you get it?" Crystal exclaimed. "You could murder my family and I would still go through with this. Because this marriage gives my people a chance at survival. I'm not a coward like you, I'm not just going to flee from the problem and let everyone else get hurt for me. I will move forward!"
Gold looked shocked and disappointed. He looked away from her and sighed.
"I saw you praying. Even doing something like that, something freeing and relaxing where Ho-Oh should take all your troubles away, you looked far too serious."
Crystal wasn't sure how to react. She just told him off, told him he was a coward and that she wasn't. And instead of defending himself, or admitting defeat, or doing anything remotely intelligent, he called her serious again.
Serious, straight-laced, boring, all work and no play, etc. Why did her attitude toward life bother him so much? She was a princess, she was responsible like she should be. He was the one with the bad attitude, just slack off and do what you want and things will eventually work out? This man was next in line to be king! He couldn't think like that anymore.
"You are an idiot." She turned her head away from him, not caring to see if he followed her or not, and started walking. Far away from him.
Crystal was doing more studying in the library. Ever since Gold 'accidentally' had his horse stomp all over her chrysanthemums, it was the only place where she felt he couldn't destroy anything. He did still come in to bother her at times, but he never touched the books.
"Hey Princesserious! See what I did there? Are you going to come down for dinner?" Gold shook her shoulders to make her loose focus and annoy her.
"No, I'll eat later. You go now, I insist," she answered bitterly.
"And what kind of fiancé would I be if I let my future bride eat alone? Here, I'll accompany you until dinner, what are you studying?"
Coming from anyone else this would be a kind, friendly gesture. From Gold it was annoying mockery. But maybe it was the fact that she spent so much time that morning praying or the fact he hadn't bothered her until then. But either way, Crystal was feeling compassionate and she indulged him.
"I'm researching the three divine beasts and their role in humanity."
"What role? I just thought it was fire dog, thunder dog, and water dog?"
"Gold!" Crystal reprimanded. "These are elemental gods chosen by Ho-Oh! Don't be so blasphemous!"
Gold held up his hands defensively, "excuse me then. So what's their role with us humans?"
Crystal bit her lip, "well besides being messengers for Ho-Oh, I'm still not sure."
Gold hooted and laughed. "Absolutely priceless! Now come on, clearly you're getting nowhere with this, so lets go to dinner." Gold picked up her hand and tired to guide her out of the chair.
Crystal stopped and saw an opportunity. "One condition," she began.
"Oh?"
"Tomorrow you spend an hour in here studying with me."
"...You're kidding, right?"
"Tomorrow, one hour, here," Crystal demanded.
A mischievous look painted itself onto Gold's face. "Fine, but I get a condition too."
"What is that?"
"You can teach me stuff, but you can't study yourself. You have to do something else."
Crystal frowned, "fine."
They went to dinner and ate in silence.
Crystal didn't see Gold until breakfast the next day, which was odd. She started to wonder what he was doing when he wasn't bothering her. During lunch Gold mostly ignored Crystal and talked with Silver. When he finished Crystal stood up abruptly.
"Gold, you agreed to study with me. Let's head down to the library and start."
"Right now?" Gold asked.
"Well we can't do it before lunch, now can we? Follow me."
He did, without much protest either. Perhaps she was finally rubbing off on him.
She wasn't.
Gold kept scribbling ink on the side of his paper instead of writing down notes.
"Take this seriously Gold! No matter what you want, we're getting married and you'll be the king someday. You ought to know how the kingdom works!" Crystal lectured.
"I know all about Johto! It's super close to the Highlands and we worship the same Gods. I already know the important parts of the history," he complained.
"Fine. You can move onto the economy-"
"That's even worse! Look, I know the major cities and trading ports, and once you call this off-"
"I'm not doing that," Crystal reminded him.
"Fine- if we get married, I'll be briefed on all this, so what's the point of studying now?"
"Because I don't want you to go into those meetings knowing nothing, because then you won't learn anything."
"I already know the basics-"
"How many languages do you speak?"
"Just the one," he shrugged.
"Perfect. You're going to learn Latin," Crystal smiled.
Gold's jaw dropped, "why? It's a dead language?"
"I know the Highlands were founded by people who broke off from Johto during the Holy War, so you don't read old Johtean scripture there, but you'll use it in religious ceremonies here. And it'll help when you learn French."
"Why do I need to know French?"
"It'll impress the Kalosian royalty."
"If you teach me French you know I'll only use it to seduce kalosian women."
"I don't care." Crystal pushed some hair behind her ear and got up. Gold didn't follow so she had to bring back a stack of Latin books herself. "Here, these are simple ones, for children, with lots of pictures. I want you to translate them. Page by page. And here's a Latin to English dictionary for when you don't understand a word."
Gold scowled and picked up a book on top. "Where's your assigned reading?"
"Hm?"
Gold's face brightened. "Don't tell me you forgot! Princess! I'll go get a good one for you!" He ran off into the isles.
Crystal sat shocked. She had forgotten that she agreed to not study. Gold seemed to have taken that as her reading novel or something. Another way to waste her time.
"Here you go, I've heard it's great." Gold had a smug look when he passed her the book. It wasn't very thick, it had a hard red cover with metallic, curly words and i's dotted with hearts.
"Wishful Nights?" Crystal read the title. "What's this even about?"
Gold smirked, "you'll just have to read it."
Crystal opened up the book and started on page one.
...I dreamt last night that he touched me, and made me feel like royalty. His perfect, soft lips against my-
Her face bloomed red when she realized what kind of book he had brought her. She hadn't even finished the first 5 pages and it was already... Crystal was a princess! She was supposed to be a symbol of purity! She shouldn't even be holding something so risqué.
"I am not reading this," Crystal hissed.
"But Princess, you gave me your word. Are you about to become a lier? When we get married I intend on replacing an entire wall of the library with books like these."
"I said I wouldn't study. I never said I would read whatever you gave me. And where did you even find this? I've never seen this book in our library."
"It was right there. When was the last time you went into the fiction section?" Gold teased.
Crystal tensed, "just the other-" She stopped talking. No the other day she only thought about reading for fun. She read that one book about travelers- no that was a biography. When was she last time she read fiction? It had to be more recent than her early childhood.
"Wow, you really need to losen up. Whatever go find yourself a book. But I'll make sure it's fiction. Maybe try fantasy," Gold dismissed.
Crystal took his advice and tried reading a book about a boy who meets dragons. It was good and she felt her mind being swept away. Her and Gold sat in silence, the gentle lull of his pen on paper soothed Crystal and the experience was almost enjoyable. The first pleasant experience she had with him.
They both lost track of time, every once in a while Gold would tell her he finished translating a picture book. Crystal would check it, tell him what he did right and wrong, and he would start on the next while she went back to her book.
They weren't interrupted until Silver burst through the library door.
"There you are Gold. I've been looking for you for hours, you missed dinner."
Gold gaped and turned on Crystal, "what? This study session was only supposed to last an hour!"
"Don't look at me! I had stuff I wanted to do too! How could we lose track of time like this?"
"Whatever," Silver sighed. "Gold lets go. We need to talk tonight, remember?"
"Oh, yeah! I'm coming!" Gold practically ran out the door and Crystal was left shocked.
Days until the wedding: 20 days