The sparrow is taking flight
;;
So, it did take a few hours after takeoff to make Mia shut up about Michael, but whatever.
Getting off planes is honestly the hardest thing in whole wide world –your legs won't cooperate, your butt wants to stay planted exactly where it was for hours and hours, your brain is just like, 'okay, you didn't need me for eight hours and we weren't even sleeping, screw you for thinking I'm going to work now'.
Seriously. Mia stood up, and then immediately had to sit back down, her legs were so useless.
Still – if there was one perk to the princess nonsense, it was the fact that flying first class was never a question of 'this is happening'. She'd flown coach before, with her mother. It sucked. She didn't want to imagine what it'd be like to have to do it for longer than four hours. Ugh.
Mia peered out the tiny window in the plane.
Even in though it was December, just six days from Christmas, the sun was shining. Sure, there was snow on the tree tops and they were an hour away from sunset, but still. Sunshine. Grandmere wasn't even pulling on her thickest coat, the one she'd been wearing when they least New York.
Mia wondered if her outfit was warm enough – Sebastiano had picked out the blue dress, and told her to wear it with black stockings and tall boots, so she had, and Grandmere had made her pair it with a grey wool trench coat from Burberry, and they both knew more about Genovia's winters than she did.
There was another reason Mia was required to look so picturesque. And why she wasn't allowed to take her own belongings off the plane – the phalanx of photographers and camera crews on the tarmac, ready to capture the moment the royal family returned to Genovia for Christmas.
The door to the plane opened, letting in a gust of cold air.
Okay, yeah. Mia was dressed warm enough.
Her dad turned to her, a comforting look on his face. "Ready?"
Mia wrinkled her nose. "More like ready or not."
Grandmere hadn't given Mia a lecture on what the protocol was for exiting a plane as a princess, but she gripped Mia's hand, declaring that Philipe would go first, and Mia and she would make a show of exiting the plane together, holding hands. Okay.
Okay, she could do this.
Mia watched her dad step out into the glare.
;;
It felt weird, knowing that people were taking her picture. They weren't too far away, maybe fifteen yards or so, held back behind a velvet rope. Mia followed her dad down the steps from the plane, onto the empty tarmac.
Yeah, that was the other weird thing. Before now, whenever Mia came to visit for the summer, she was just put on the plane with everyone else, and she exited it with everyone else at the general airport – sure, she was escorted off before everyone else once in Genovia, and there was always a car waiting to take her to Grandmere's chateau, but this was a different beast. There was a rolled-out carpet for them to walk on. Sure, it wasn't red, but still.
"You're not going to speak to any of them, Amelia," Grandmere hissed quietly. Her hand was a vice in Mia's. "They're here for your father's statement, not yours. Simply wave when I do, and then get in the car."
Okay. Mia could follow those orders. Normally she'd resent Grandmere being so authoritative, but she was so nervous her free hand was shaking a little. Probably the reason why Grandmere was holding her so tightly – to try and get Mia to stay cool. It wasn't working, but whatever.
At least these reporters were being more orderly than the ones she'd had to first deal with in New York – the ones that had clogged up her school grounds and pushed together into a mob to try and hear Mia answer a question. These ones were the formal press corps of Genovia – the ones called whenever her dad had a press conference to give, or something. They knew the rules.
Still, Mia took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. All her excitement from that morning had left her behind. God, Michael, be a memory to get Mia through this!
Grandmere smiled at the photographers and their snapping cameras, slowly raising her arm. Mia did the same – Grandmere had actually once sat Mia down to explain the best way to wave at cameras – a fast blur of a hand was the farthest thing from photogenic, after all. Certainly not befitting Mia's station.
This memory in mind, Mia followed Grandmere's lead, ignoring the questions shouted their way. Honestly, through the whistling wind and sounds of the jet, plus the questions being shouted in very quick French, Mia couldn't make out what they were asking anyway.
Her dad approached the velvet rope, drawing all the eyes to him.
Grandmere stopped letting their pace be leisurely, instead gripping Mia's hand somehow even tighter, and got them into a quick-step to the car, still making sure to smile for the cameras.
The limousine was dark inside, and certainly not empty. There was a man in there, in a grey wool suit with a purple waistcoat and tie. He was maybe forty-ish, with a neat beard and crows-feet at his brown eyes. He kissed Grandmere's hand when she greeted him.
"Viggo," Grandmere said. "Allow me to present Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Renaldo." She left out the Thermopalis. She always did. Mia smiled at the man, trying not to let her confusion be utterly obvious on her face.
Viggo smiled gently at her, holding out his hand for hers. When Mia gave him her hand, he kissed her knuckles. "Princess, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
His tone was that of a fond stranger.
"Amelia, this is Viggo, the palace's expert in royal protocol. Should you have any confusions about what you should do during your trip, Viggo will be the man you ask. He will be joining you during your tours of Genovia when your father and I cannot."
"Oh." That was all Mia could really get out, so she just smiled at Viggo. He smiled back, warmly, like he knew she was totally out of her element, and he didn't mind. He probably would when Mia asked him a thousand questions a day, but they weren't there yet.
;;
Asana rolled her head back towards the ceiling, her expertly-done eyelids fluttering closed. "Is anyone else annoyed about the princess? I mean, we'll meet her like, once, she'll forget our names immediately because she's meeting a billion people in two and a half days, and then every event forever more we'll have to make polite awkward small talk until she goes back to America to ignore Genovia's existence until the next time the Dowager Princess makes her come back."
Lionel and Andrew didn't look away from their video game on the TV, but Nick flicked Asana a look from his book – something about detecting economic crimes - before returning to the page. Elyssa smiled in a sympathetic manner, but said nothing. Asana took this as a group permission to continue.
"Guys, seriously? Do any of us care about this girl?"
That got Andrew to talk. "It's not about caring, Asana. It's about having a connection with her. You know politics, yeah?"
Asana rolled her eyes. Everyone in the room knew her plan in life was to have literally nothing to do with politics, despite her Minister-father's hopes for his eldest.
"Then this should all be obvious to you. Your Dad needs to keep appearances up, and you're dragged along for the ride. You know this." Andrew's usual crisp accent was tinged with annoyance.
"I'm still allowed to be irritated about this whole procession, okay? It feels like we're expected to just wait around our entire winter break for Her Highness to deign us with her presence."
Lionel paused the game, forcing Andrew to turn and face Asana as well. "She's the heir apparent, Asana," Lionel said. "She's literally going to run the damn country one day. I get that we're all off-kilter about the fact that Philipe's both had a kid this whole time and never mentioned it and we've never met her, and that that kid is both American and gonna rule Genovia one day, but I think we're just gonna have to get used to that. It's not like we have a choice."
"Well. One of us has met her." Elyssa said, totally throwing Nick under the bus, deliberately, he could add. Everyone else in the room swivelled their heads to where Nick was sitting, innocently reading his book. Nick sighed.
"Yeah, I've met her. This isn't news."
"But now she's the princess."
"Yeah, Elyssa, I know that." God, how do you address this? Mia should be meeting these guys first, honestly. She'd do her own personality more justice than Nick ever could. "She's nice."
"That's all you've got?" Asana retorted. "She's nice? You've spent almost every summer hanging out with her, she's gotta have more of a personality than just nice."
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. "What do you guys want me to say?" he could feel everyone's stares drilling into his brain. How do you develop a headache this quickly? "She's nice, she's shy, she's been alternating between freaking out over this princess thing and being really, really irritated by it."
"Wait," said Andrew. "She's been freaking out about it? Present tense?"
"We've been emailing each other for years, Andy. I told her that Philipe was Crown Prince last year – this was before the cancer – and she messaged me the same day she found out about her dad's chemo's side effects."
"The infertility thing."
Which is. One way to talk about the Crown Prince's cut-off testicle and resultant chemotherapy-caused infertility.
"Yeah. Her mum told her about that, she put two and two together, and got really annoyed about the whole thing, more than anything else."
Elyssa wrinkled her delicate eyebrows. That was Elyssa – blonde, pixie-like, delicate in everything. "Then why did you describe it as a 'freak-out'?"
"Mia a walking textbook description of anxiety. She hides it behind a wall of shyness, which you'll all see, but once you get to know her, it's all 3AM insomnia-induced anxiety emails and capslock messaging."
Lionel widened his eyes, smiling a little. "Whoa."
"Yeah." God, Nick loved Mia, he really did, but he could do without logging into his email and finding three emails about Mia's latest mental breakdown. He didn't hate it, but fuck if it didn't make him worry. The fact that Mia didn't always address them whenever they chatted next really didn't help.
"How did you meet her?" Andrew asked. Fair enough – Nick hadn't really made an announcement that he'd been hanging out with Prince Philipe's bastard daughter to the rest of the social set until the announcement.
"You know how Princess Clarisse's chateau in France is, y'know, a ten-minute ride to over the border from my house?" 'House' was probably the humblest term for his home. 'Mansion' was closer. 'Decent-sized modernised castle' was probably the best description Nick'd ever heard. Everyone nodded.
"Mia's spent every summer of her life there, more or less. Uncle found out who she was – I have no idea how, so don't ask," Clarisse had told, probably. Or one of the servants. "And Uncle started sending me there over summer break to, quote, endear myself to Philipe's mother, unquote. Which I guess once you translate that to English, means 'make friends with the Prince's daughter because he loves her and that could be a useful alliance one day'."
Nick cast a look at the others. None of them were friends, specifically, but there was a kinship between them. You really couldn't help but try to get along with people when you're getting dragged to boring-as-hell functions by your politician relatives, and there's only a handful of people there actually close to your age. Andrew Jacoby was the eldest, being a year into University at Cambridge; Elyssa Puck the youngest, in ninth grade. She was only two months older than Mia was, actually.
Nick and Lionel Motaz were only a month apart in age, but despite both of them having dark hair, that was about as much as they had in common. Asana Pearman was probably the person Nick got along with the least, but that was mostly due to clashes in personality – on the rare occasion that the two of them found middle ground, Nick found he liked her quite a bit.
But right now, she was shit-talking Mia before she even met her.
And Mia, more than anyone else in the room, was Nick's friend. He didn't have many of those. "So yeah. Sorry your families aren't desperate social climbers like mine."
That made everyone wince – they all knew what Nick's Uncle Devereaux Mabrey was like. Being the only family in the room who hadn't managed to marry/breed into the Royal House of Renaldo beyond a few Grimaldi and Migonette cousins was a sticking point for John Devereax Mabrey. Why, Nick had no idea, given that his maternal something-generations back grandmother was sister to a Tsar of Russia, and his paternal something-generations back grandfather was the second husband of a princess of Italy.
Nick didn't know.
Elyssa, ever the optimist, piped up, "Well I, for one, am looking forward to meeting her. It'll be nice to have someone new at all these balls and dinners who's also my age. And if Nick says she's a friend, then that's nothing but a good thing. Asana, you're just looking for negatives in the situation. Maybe here's a positive – you both probably watch those soapy drama teen-shows that America's always making. I'm sure you'll find at least one thing you guys can talk about."
Probably right. Mia was always signing off to watch some TV show or other.
"And we meet her tomorrow, before her royal duties begin in proper, so if nothing else we get to eat lunch with her or whatever the plan is."
;;
Waking up in a bed in a palace is completely different from waking up in her own bed. For one, the mattress is maybe twice the size of her own – sure, Mia's got a double-size mattress, but this one is, like, a jumbo-queen size. For another, she's never been awoken by a maid before.
Actually – that's not true. She has been, a couple times at Grandmere's, but that wasn't the norm. Mia just set an alarm.
But she was so tired from the flight and her late night before she left, and she's never been able to sleep on airplanes, so she managed to stay awake long enough to get back to the palace, have some dinner and unpack a little bit before passing out in the bed by nine o'clock.
"Princess." The voice was gentle, like whoever it was was trying to be unobtrusive. "Princess." A gentle hand was on her shoulder.
Mia opened her eyes. God, she was still tired. "Hm?"
"I'm sorry to wake you, Princess." Now that Mia was actually looking, she could see that the voice belonged to one of the maids in the palace she'd met the night before. What was her name? Brigitte? Brigitta? There were two of them named something like that. This was the brunette one. "It's almost eight-thirty, Princess. The Crown Prince wanted you out of bed before nine, for your brunch with the children of Genovia's Ministers who are staying in the Palace until the Christmas celebrations."
Oh, right. That. Mia sat up, trying to be at least a little dignified about it. She didn't really succeed, but Brigitt(e/a?) smiled at Mia once she was sitting up. Was she supposed to speak French or English? She couldn't remember. She settled for English. "Okay."
It took her time, but she got into the ensuite bathroom of her rooms – rooms, plural, because apparently being princess means she got a sitting room, a whole wardrobe of pre-supplied Sebastiano clothes, and a bathroom, all to herself.
The shower was luxurious, honestly. A giant showerhead probably bigger than the width of Mia's own skull, gorgeous pressure, the beam controlled by a stop-start button, and she only had to control the temperature.
Thankfully, she'd shaved her legs Friday, and they were still pretty smooth. She had to wash her hair, though, and with unfamiliar shampoo that felt a million times silkier and more expensive than her own stuff at home.
Brigitt(e/a?) was waiting in the walk-in wardrobe for her, with a number of outfit options. Apparently, Grandmere had given her a bunch of orders about what Mia should look like on her first day of being a princess, properly. Mia was willing to defer to Grandmere's choices, just this once, and given that Sebastiano had been nice enough to also supply dresses that Mia actually wouldn't mind being caught dead in, Mia managed not to look like a fifty-some-years younger version of her grandmother – she decided on a knee-length blue wool skirt and a long-sleeved cotton shirt that had blue flowers embroidered on the sleeves, paired with the stockings like the ones from the day before, and boots again, good for standing and walking in for long periods of time.
Overall, she didn't think she looked too bad. Not overly formal, but what was she doing today? Brunch, meet and greet with the palace staff, palace tour. She had to change for a formal dinner, but she could fix her legs and hair before then.
She looked like a fourteen-year old right now. Wasn't that important too? Her looking her age, so that people's expectations weren't ridiculously high?
Whatever. Mia liked how she looked – crisp, clean, professional enough.
She put on a little makeup – lipgloss, concealer, mascara. Anything more and Grandmere would probably hate it.
Mia let Brigitte lead her to her where her dad was having breakfast – she'd finally admitted she couldn't remember if Brigitte was Brigitta, and she'd been informed that brunette = Brigitte, and blonde = Brigitta. Good phonetic for her memory, Mia supposed. She wasn't supposed to sup too much with her dad – her main meal was going to be in about an hour, so she couldn't gorge herself.
She approached her dad, asking "So, is this appropriate for my first day?" and did a twirl for her dad's eye.
"Very appropriate. And pretty." Her dad went back to his papers.
"Thanks." Mia sat, practising the poise Grandmere had drilled into her. She sat like that at school a lot too, and at home, unless she was tired, but Mia figured the more she did it in Genovia, the less likely she was to screw it up. She took a croissant from a plate on the table, and thanked the waiter who gave her a cup of tea. Her dad smiled at her out of the corner of his mouth.
Clearly he didn't mind how she was doing so far.
"Where's Grandmere?" Mia asked.
"Still sleeping. She won't be joining any of us until after lunch."
Mia cocked an eyebrow. "So she's allowed to laze, but I don't?"
"She's the Dowager Princess, Mia. Technically speaking, when you're in residence at the Palace, all of Mother's responsibilities are yours." Philipe drank some tea. He took his black tea without sugar or milk. He was a masochist like that.
"Seriously?" Mia was too tired to whine about the unfairness of that, but that didn't mean she wanted to dad to go through his day unaware that Mia thought that was total bullshit.
Going from his expression – a bit of a smile, with a sympathetic look in his eyes – he got her message. Good.
"So who are these people I'm eating lunch with?" She learned about this plan yesterday, and she'd been given exactly no information past that. It seemed to be a reoccurring thing for this trip.
"Well, you know Nicholas," Her dad began, finally looking Mia in her face, "and the others are the children of the ministers we'll be having dinner with tonight. They're staying in the palace at our invitation, to accompany you as you do your rounds of Genovia, at least before Christmas. And you're having brunch with them, honey."
"Dad, if you're basically skipping breakfast for a few hours and then eating lunch food at eleven, it's lunch," Mia argued.
Her dad rolled his eyes. He'd heard this one before. "Their names are Andrew Jacoby, Asana Pearman, Lionel Motaz, and Elyssa Puck. The rest are older than you by five or more years; or not in high school yet. Andrew's in university, Lionel and Nicholas are in the same year level at St François', Asana and Elyssa attend St Amelie's. Elyssa's your age."
"And they've all been yanked out of their own homes to keep a total stranger company for a week. I'm sure they're thrilled."
Philipe didn't dignify that with an answer, instead continuing to eat his breakfast. Mia did the same thing, feeling only marginally less like there was a rock in her stomach.
Nick will be there. Nick will be there. Michael couldn't be there, so Nick would have to be her life raft for her awkward. Nick was probably better as her life raft than Michael would be, actually. This was a battlefield he knew better than Mia did.
Nick wouldn't let her make an ass out of herself. When they were alone and messing around baking or dancing or whatever, sure. But not in public. Not for this.
Mia drank some more tea, trying to remind herself to calm down.
Like, she knew that there was a decent chance she'd have to spend a bunch of time with other teenagers, but she hadn't really expected to have to do it on her first day, okay? Seeing it written on an itinerary is a different beast from knowing it's happening an hour from now.
Which is also Mia's whole mindset since yesterday, honestly. She'd been so giddy about Michael and everything from the Winter Dance, that her reality hadn't settled into her brain yet. It's one of those things, isn't it? You're so focused on the lead-up to something that once you get to the thing, your ability to comprehend what's happening fails you.
Of course, Mia was so busy stewing in these thoughts, staring at her cup of tea for the answers, that she completely missed Nick walking into the room!
"Oh my god!" she yelped, leaping at him. Nick caught her, obviously, and staggered a little at the force of her.
"Well," Nick said, a little winded. Philipe snorted a little with laughter at the display. "I missed you too?"
Mia pulled back. "Sorry – sorry. I'm a little tense."
Nick gave a wry nod, a smile on his face. "I figured."
Mia felt flustered – her first day, and she's already acting like a needy child! She pulled away from Nick and sat back down, Nick circling the table to the seat across from her.
"So how've you been?" Nick asked, reaching for some of the food on the table. Philipe's wait staff had apparently forseen her dad having company for breakfast, given that the table had been set for at least four people, with enough food to feed twice that.
How's Mia been? "Uh, well. Before this morning, I've been pretty good – actually, no, I've been great – you know the thing with Michael?" Mia could feel herself winding up a head of steam to talk with.
Nick nodded, spreading marmalade on some toast. "The unrequited feelings thing."
"They're a lot more requited." Mia wanted to gush, like, SO MUCH, but playing with their words were how she and Nick talked at each other in person.
And she got Nick's attention, his eyes wide. "Yeah?"
"Yeah!" he clearly got her meaning.
Although her dad was apparently tired of both of them, even after less than five minutes – which was honestly a pretty natural state for her dad around Mia and Nick. "And by that, she means that the older boy she's been saying she's in love with for months has told her he loves her back." Philipe crinkled the papers in his hands, a weird tone of voice to his words. He sounded – not mad, but like there was an emotion there he didn't want to share.
Nick raised his eyebrows, "Really?"
Mia grinned. She wasn't going to let her dad get in the way of her good news. "Yeah, Michael loves me! Back, I mean! He told me at the Winter Dance, and we spent the whole night-"
Her dad cut her off, saying, "They spent the night happily dancing with their friends, celebrating their school break and holding hands." Philipe turned and stared at his daughter, his expression in a firm 'Do Not Say Anything Contradictory, Amelia. I Do Not Want To Hear It'. "Right?"
Mia grinned at her dad and Nick, who was smiling like he was holding in laughter. "Totally, Dad."
She and Nick scarfed down a bit more food, before booking it out of the dining room to go do something else before their bigger breakfast. Lunch? Bigger lunch? Whatever.
;;
Eventually, Mia and Nick ditched her Dad to his paperwork, and Nick led her down a couple hallways into a sitting room – how many of these does a palace need? – and the moment they got out of sight of anyone in the hallway, Mia yanked Nick into a hug.
He laughed, "Oh, so you really missed me," a hugged her back.
"Well yeah," Mia's voice was muffled in his shoulder, "although I've also been quaking in my boots since I woke up this morning and hugging my Dad in front of his staff probably isn't a good look."
She wasn't sure, but Nick might've kissed her hair. "I'm sure they'd forgive for not being a stoic princess yet. If anything, it'd probably be pretty endearing. Your Dad would probably come off as a human again."
Mia snorted. "I'm not sure about any of this, Nick. I don't think I can do this." In flagrant disregard for etiquette, Mia flopped onto one of gold-gilded chaise-lounge chairs. Nick sat in the one across from her, with far more grace than Mia had displayed.
"I think you'll be fine." A simple statement, full of truth.
"My expectation in life was to be invisible, Nick. And I was good at it."
What do you say to that? Nick wasn't sure.
;;
So, this story is set between chapter's 10 and 11 of 'I pretend I am a Princess so I can Act Like One'.
Hilariously, I thought I'd be able to get this whole fic done before Christmas. What a fool I am.
But yeah. My work's kicked up my hours - I'm working every day until Christmas and Boxing Day, and then every day after that until after the New Year. And I've got family staying. And I'm trying to organise moving to a new place because I'm going back to university in February.
The point is my writing will be happening significantly less for maybe a month. And probably after that, too.