CHAPTER 34

Saturday the 25th of January

Princess Carolynn Schreave

Everyone was especially sad to see Nathaniel go, in fact, all the selected went to see him out of the palace bringing with them several cards and promises to call when he got home.

Or so I heard -I didn't go obviously. I'm not planning on talking to any of these guys after I eliminate them ever again. Could there be anything more awkward in the whole world?

Although, I suppose I might be forced to if my husband remains friends with them. I don't think Dad had a lot of friends in his selection, but I know my Aunt keeps in contact with some. I had to witness firsthand how awkward it was for my Uncle when her friends came to visit. Please God don't let that be me.

Hey, I guess the solution is to marry someone with no friends which leaves about...no choices. Even Nishav seems to moderately like some of their companies.

But, speaking of Nathaniel, his departure got my Mom thinking. It's about time, well actually, it's past time for me to meet the families of my selected and make sure they're people I can actually stand. A very important quality in husband, so she said. I don't know how much I believe her, considering that I rarely see Dad's family. They all live in Midston anyway.

"What are you all doing?" I say, pushing open the door to the parlor all the selected were gathered in. A very nice maid had pointed me in the right direction, so I wouldn't have to wonder around looking for them. There were way too many rooms in the palace for me to do that. It would take at least an hour if I was lucky.

"Tic Tac Toe tournament," Nyson responds with a grin. "I'm winning."

"You most certainly are not," Nishav answers quickly. "You're tied with me right now and considering that Sebastian is about to beat you, you're probably not going to make it to the next round."

"Wha- how is Bas going to beat me?" Nyson asks. I glance down at the piece of paper they turned into the tic tac toe board - It looks like an old itinerary from some ambassador's visit. Someone, I'd wager my money on Garnet, must have dumped it in here, and considering how infrequently the lesser-used rooms of the palace were cleaned no one had ever found it.

I sigh, bending down to Nyson's level whose sitting on the couch. "He has two of the corners, no matter which way you put your thingie you're going to lose."

"Don't give away my strategy," Bas complains from across the table. "It took me a while to come up with that."

"Oops. Anyway, when you finish this I want to talk to all of you about something." I say, clasping my hands together. Bas and Nyson nod, too preoccupied with their silly game to worry about whatever it is I'm planning on telling them. Nishav looks mildly curious, and Divesh looks like he's worried someone's going to yell at him. Poor boy.

It only takes about thirty seconds for Bas to win the game, but it takes another five minutes for Nyson to demand a rematch, Bas go along with it, and then win again. By the time they both finish and clear away the papers my patience is wearing thin.

"Okay, now is everyone ready?" I ask, pausing for everyone to nod their approval. "Great. So, how many of you have missed your families in the past few months?" I ask, hedging the question. Bas, Nyson, and Divesh's hands shoot up, after a brief pause and scowl, Nishav lifts his halfway off the coffee table to dispel the weird looks Bas was giving him.

"Well, I'm sure you're all aware of this, but during the elite I'm supposed to meet all of your families, since one of them will be my future in-laws after all. It probably should have happened a few weeks ago, but with the holidays and everything, well, we just didn't get around to it. So it's far past time for this." I finish, clasping my hands together.

"Time for what?" Nyson asks, looking confused.

"Your families will be visiting." I explain, almost rolling my eyes from the idiocy of the question. "Next weekend. So I hope none of them have any plans, or neither of you."

Bas looks excited, patting Nyson on the back. Of course, he loves his family more than anything. Nyson seems equally excited, even if he's never actually mentioned his family to me. I suppose that he must love them anyway.

That's where the excitement ends though.

Divesh, who in the past spoke very fondly of his family, looks nervous, but doesn't he always. Still, he seems somewhat happy. I know he's probably missed his parents more, considering that he's in a different continent. I would ask about the nervousness on his face, but I have something, well, someone, to be more worried with.

Nishav is a whole different story from the other three selected.. "Is this a required event?" he asks, his tone clipped.

"I think so." I answer, pressing my lips together. "It's tradition." I add.

"Well, I suppose we simply can't mess with tradition." Nishav conceded, obviously aware that the other's, particularly Bas' gaze was focused on him. Probably trying to figure out why he was so against his family visiting. Nishav stood suddenly, "Your Highness, if I can talk with you in private?"

"Uh, sure." I answer, allowing Nishav to pull me away into the hallway outside the room. "You know, there's really nothing that I can do," I start, prepared to give him a whole speech.

"No, no, I figured as much. No offense to you, Your Highness, but it's quite clear that you're not the one calling the shots here."

"Thanks...I think."

"Carolynn," Nishav started, after a long pause. "Do you know who I can speak to about this? Whether Miss Van Der Witts or your father?"

"Probably my mom." I tell him. "I mean, normally I would say go to my dad. He's more likely to say yes anyway, but this whole thing was my mom's idea, so he would have to ask her anyway. Better to go to the source I guess." I say, not adding how I actually wanted to meet Nishav's family. They seemed interesting to me, how different they were from my family.

"Right. Do you believe that she'll agree?" Nishav asks. I can tell that he's trying to keep a cool exterior, but he's obviously worried about this.

Again, I shrug. "I don't know. It depends on why she even wanted the family day to happen. It's not like she would have told me. Maybe."

"Ah, and do you think that...Her Majesty will be okay with me wanting to talk to her? I know she's very busy. I wouldn't want to inconvenience her."

'No, I'm sure it'll be fine. It's Saturday." I supply. "Here, I can go with you if you want. Not to listen to your conversation, I know that's private," I add hurriedly, even though I would like to listen. I don't think Nishav would enjoy that very much. Maybe not the best quality in someone I might marry in a few months.

"That would be nice, Your Highness." Nishav answers, looking a little mollified at my clarification that I didn't want to eavesdrop. "I'll let you lead the way," he says, offering me his arm. I take it quickly.

"So, Your Highness, how has your week been?" Nishav asks, in probably the first attempt to speak to me that he's ever made. Wow.

"My week?" I repeat, "Stressful. Sad, I guess. I feel bad about what happened with Nathaniel." I say.

"Yes, I think we all do. I'm happy you're okay though." Nishav adds. Aw. He cares maybe just a little bit.

"I'm happy I'm okay too. I don't want to talk about that though. I'm sick and tired of everyone asking me about what happened or stuff like that. Tell me about your week instead. It was probably much more interesting than mine."

"I doubt that. It was pretty much just lessons with Lady Van Der Witts and Mr. Brooms. They're...well, I'm sure that they're qualified, but I don't know if they were the best choices for teachers. Sometimes I feel like I would do a better job teaching the class myself."

"You probably would have. This whole hiring process was kinda last minute."

"Maybe. We would have to see about that."

"Wait here," I tell Nishav, as we reach the foot of the steps up to the third floor. I'm pretty sure my Mom wouldn't be okay with him coming up. "Give me like five minutes."

"Mom," I announce, walking into her room, "Can you come with me?"

She looks up at me from her book. I can't see what the title is from here, but knowing Mom it's probably some cheesy autobiography from some stupid ex-president of America or whatever the old country was called. "What happened?"

"Nishav wants to talk to you."

"Nishav as in your selected Nishav? Might I ask why?"

"He doesn't want his family to come to the event." I answer bluntly.

"Isn't the whole point of family day that the families visit? You told them that, right?" Mom asks, waiting for me to nod. "Well, I suppose that's to be expected. There's always one...I hope he has a good reason for this, retracting the invitations is not going to look very favorably on us." Mom mutters the last part to herself.

"I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Probably. Oh, Carrie, that reminds me, do you and one of the men want to go to the aquarium? They sent over some tickets since there's apparently a new exhibit on penguins or something like that."

I do like the aquarium. Particularly the gift shop, but I digress. "Yeah. I'll go. Are you going to tell me who to bring or do I get to choose?"

"Whoever you want, Carrie. I almost can't stand to think about your selection anymore, the amount of problems it's caused me." Mom sounds tired now that I stop and listen. The Divesh thing must have pushed the selection over the edge from a minor inconvenience to a major annoyance. I almost feel bad for her.

"I'm sorry." I say. "I mean, it was your idea in the first place, but I guess I'm sorry."

"That was one of the worst apologies I've ever heard Carolynn." Mom stands up as she talks, placing her book on the coffee table in front of her. "Is Nishav outside? I can go speak to him now. I almost can't believe the amount of issues your selected have."

"He's by the staircase. The bottom of the staircase," I add before Mom can yell at me for letting him up to the third floor.

"That's good. Tell Jenna when you want to go to the aquarium. I'm sure she can get the tickets for you." Mom says as she leads me down the stairs.

"Your Majesty," Nishav says when he sees Mom and I.

"Nishav," her voice is suddenly much more cheerful than it was a few seconds ago. "I hear there's something bothering you, why don't we go talk about it. I'm sure we can come up with a solution." She says as she leads him down the hall, probably to some sitting room or another.

Now then. Who to take to the Aquarium.

Not Nishav. He's obviously preoccupied.

Divesh...I still haven't fully forgiven him for not keeping his mouth shut and listening to me. So he will not come to the Aquarium, or on any date. Not yet at least, I still need some time for that,

So that leaves Bas or Nyson.

Well, I guess it's an easy decision. Between the two of them, I've spent substantially more time with Sebastian and I'm not sure that I want to deal with Nyson feeling left out. Besides, he's nice enough. Plenty good looking.

I can go with him on the date.

The other three guys are still sitting in the Men's room when I make my way back downstairs. They seemed to have put their tic tac toe tournament on hold, now having the weather app pulled up and debating the possibility of snow. Clearly no one told them -or they weren't smart enough to process- that it was never going to snow in Angeles.

Ah well, I guess they can figure it out eventually.

"Nyson, can I talk to you for a moment," I ask, pulling him away from the other two. The numbers in that room really are dwindling fast.

Nyson went pale. "Your Highness," he started once we were out in the hallway.

"Calm down Nyson, you're not being eliminated. Do you want to go on a date to the aquarium?"

"Is that even a question?"

"Well, I mean you don't really have a choice in the matter, but technically speaking it is one."

Nyson smiled. "I would love to, Carrie."

"Don't get too cocky with that Nyson. First name use is a privilege," I tell him, though it doesn't do much to deflate the grin from his face. "I'm ready to go now if you are." I say, motioning to my outfit. It was on the simpler side, but nothing that the press would scoff at. "And you?"

"Yup. I'm ready." Nyson agrees. "I assume the limo is waiting out front?"

"Isn't it always. Come, you must know the way by now." I say to Nyson, letting him lead me down to the foyer of the palace. After several wrong turns, and a few close calls where I physically can't help but tell him that we're going the wrong way, we make it. By some miracle, the chauffeur hadn't yet left to investigate where we were. I certainly would have, if I were him, but I guess he waits on people all day. The nineteen (Yes, I timed it) minute delay certainly wasn't the worst he's ever experienced.

Nyson settles into the back of the limo, looking surprisingly comfortable in it. I guess he's gotten used to it over the past few months. "There's no more of the rock candy," he says in dismay looking over the candy section.

Maybe a bit too comfortable.

"Oh. Tell your butler, I'm sure he'll get the kitchens to put more in. Unless there's a sugar shortage, but I didn't hear anything about that."

"I'm sure you would have been the first to know."

"The second. Maybe the third, but definitely not fourth," I say, pushing my hair behind my shoulder.

"Good to know. So you're the second, maybe third, most important person in the country."

"That's how I like to think about it. One day I'll be the first." I add, smiling slightly. "That's going to be a great day."

"So you're excited to be Queen?" Nyson asks.

"Of course, I was raised for it. Why wouldn't I be?"

Nyson shrugs. "I dunno. Lots of reasons I guess. Everyone talks about rebelling against their parents. You don't want to do that sometimes?"

I shake my head, "No, you silly. Of course I want to be Queen. I'm sure you want to be king if you could. Everyone wants to be."

Nyson doesn't look convinced. "I guess. I'm pretty happy with my life, but I like all the candy and fancy dinners and stuff."

"Yeah, that's nice too. We're here," I add, jerking my thumb towards the window. The limo had come to a stop outside the large building. It was probably bigger than the palace, which made sense considering the thousands of liters of water that they had to have inside. "I'm not sure I'm in love with the paint color."

Nysons follows my line of vision. "It's just gray."

"Exactly. They could have gone with blue or something vaguely...ocean-y."

"The ocean can be gray."

"I know, but that's kinda depressing, don't you think?" I ask Nyson as I want for the guards to clear the entrance way.

"A paint color isn't that depressing. Unless it's orange. I hate the color orange." Nyson adds as an afterthought.

"Huh. Okay, we can go." I say, seeing that the guard is motioning at us to get out of the car.

"I'm excited," Nyson tells me as we leave. He waits for me to get out first, which is slightly against proper etiquette, but a nice attempt on his part. I guess the etiquette teacher can't cover everything, nor did she probably want to.

"Me too." I agree.

The lobby of the aquarium itself isn't as intricate as most of the national museums, galleries and other things of that type. It's simple with a design of a large jellyfish in the middle of the flooring. Most of the money went to the habitats for the fishes. Which is probably a better use of funds than making it aesthetically pleasing, but still a tad bit annoying.

"Where do you want to go first?" I ask, studying the directory.

"I don't care. Let's just walk around. We don't need to have a plan of where we're going."

Normally I would argue, probably just to prove myself right, but I can see Nyson's point. Most people who come to the aquarium probably don't have a complete plan of where and when they're going to go to certain exhibits. I guess I can pretend to be a normal person for a day, see if their lives really are as miserable as they seem from a distance.

"Yeah. We can do that. This way?" I ask, gesturing towards the first hallway to the left.

"Works for me," Nyson says smiling.

We don't spend that long at the Aquarium. At the end of the day, fishes just aren't that interesting, and it takes us a little over two hours to make our way through all the exhibits. I'm perfectly happy to go home early, but I do feel a little bad for Nyson. He shouldn't get his date cut short just because I'm bored of looking at fishes. Besides, I don't have that much going on today. I can probably squeeze something in.

"Is there anything else you want to do today?" I ask, seeing if Nyson has any ideas. "I don't mind, we can do whatever you want."

"Really? Okay, um do you want to go get some ice cream? I know it's January, but it's pretty warm out. Not like January where I'm from.

"Sure. If that's what you want." I turn to one of my guards, asking them to find an ice cream parlor on route back to the palace. I'm sure there are plenty of them. Ten minutes later, the car pulls up in front of a brightly painted shop covered in neon lights. It's certainly not sad, the exact opposite of the aquarium, but to be honest, I don't like it that much either.

"What flavor are you getting?" Nyson asks, looking at the menu.

"Vanilla."

"Vanilla? That's so boring."

"Did you just call the Crown Princess boring?"

"Well, actually I called your choice of ice cream boring."

I shake my head, "Then what are you getting?"

"I'm going to get cotton candy and orange melon sorbet," he states proudly. He's obviously pleased with himself for coming up with the flavor combination.

"Together?"

"Yeah." Nyson asks, looking surprised at the question. "Why would I get them apart? It'll ruin the complex taste"

"Taste?" I scoff, "That's going to just taste like pure sugar."

"I love sugar."

"I think I'll stick to vanilla," I respond, going to purchase my ice cream. "Hey, Nyson.

"Yeah?"

"I had fun today. More fun than I expected."

The amount of time it took me to write this chapter is not hot. I've literally been writing a little bit every Saturday for about a month, but tonight we finally finished. Very Proud of myself for that one. I don't have a lot to say right now, but just know that I'm going to try to write more in the future, but with the way school is going it'll probably be a while. Also apparently this story is over a year old which like...what? That's so weird to think about.