Nixiesocean: Hello! I'm back with a new chapter of Rose Petals! Forgive me for not updating over spring break; I had a lot on my plate over break. I was cleaning/redoing my room, so I had little time for the computer. If I did, it was to check up on which stories were updated and to review those that I was following.

Enough blabbering!

Responses:

Dark Ninja of Mount Hope: Yeah, yeah… :-) Some obvious foreshadowing there. :-D

Bingo5: My brother lives next to me. I always know when he's on the phone because his voice carries… :-P In any case, I thought it would be cool… And the thinking twice thing? Yeah, me too!

Piratess of Summer: How am I supposed to respond to that? Lol! Anywho, it's actually rather mature looking… It had beige walls and it's really organized… I really don't want "cute" walls, cuz I'd hate 'em and wish I'd never painted 'em that color…

Read, enjoy and reiview!

Chapter 5: Can Princes Get Grounded?

Pine and Spots were excellent hunting dogs. Marcus took down every bird; the dogs were very well trained to scare them into the air. He gave them both a pat and grinned. A bark from Pine brought Marcus into reality and away from his dreams of wandering the woods unhindered, hunting game.

Spots also barked, though his was threatening. Macus turned. He saw his sister's form, accompanied by another, fur-wrapped form. His sister moved across the snow like an angel; she was born to it. The other, probably Princess Hannah, moved ungracefully, keeping her eyes on her feet and walking with uncertainty. Mercy turned and saw her brother. She turned back to the other person and they started to walk toward Marcus.

"Marcus!" Mercy called. "Look, Hannah's out on the snow. She's a natural!"

A muffled voice replied, "Are not. I am not graceful at all!"

Mercy beamed. "She learned quickly. What're you doing? Why is Pine acting so mean?" Rosy hues added dimension to the northern beauty's face as she smiled.

"That's Spots and it's because he doesn't know Her Highness." Marcus gently patted his hunting dog's head to reassure him. "How are you doing, Your Highness?"

"I am well." Hannah replied carefully. Why is he being so polite? She wondered. "Mercy is a patient teacher. I fear I will never be so elegant in these… snowshoes as she is."

Mercy noted the change in Marcus' tone as he spoke to her and to Hannah. "Marcus, we'd better get going. I don't want Hannah to catch a cold out here."

Hannah curtsied as best she could in furs and snowshoes. "It was pleasant seeing you today, Your Highness, I hope to see you at court this evening."

"I will try to attend." Marcus lied. He truly intended to be out with his dogs. "Have a nice day, Mercy!" He called to the retreating backs.

- - - - - - - - - - -

"He never told me to have a nice day." Hannah told her friend. "He just said it to you. I saw that lie plain on his face."

"I know." Mercy replied. "Marcus hates court. He'd never agree, especially not for you, whom he so obviously doesn't get along with. I'm not sure why, though." Hannah flushed when Mercy so candidly spoke the obvious. "I don't mean to be rude, but-"

"I do not blame you when you speak the truth." Hannah said kindly. "You… just put it so bluntly."

This time, it was Mercy's turn to blush. "I'm sorry. Marcus says I speak frankly as well."

Hannah patted Mercy's shoulder as best she could. "It's all right, my friend. I don't mind."

Mercy laughed. "Right."

- - - - - - - - - - -

Marcus sighed as Mercy and Hannah left. She tried so hard to make this girl appeal to him. She had even convinced the southerner to come outside and snowwalk, something he surely would've never done.

"Pine," He said as his female hunting dog whimpered. "Quit that. You'll get your food soon enough." Spots soon added his cries for food and the prince, ever doting on his lovely dogs, conceded and allowed them to lead him inside. He noted a slight bulge in Pine's stomach and guessed a new litter was on its way.

How he would love to raise a litter of hunting dogs all on his own! They might be the perfect breed of Spots and Pine. They would be loyal and loving, strong, hardy and be able to sniff out any prey.

This thought brightened Marcus' day very greatly.

He even forgot about the slight twinge he had felt when he had seen Hannah out in the snow.

- - - - - - - - - - -

"Mercy, do you think Marcus hates me?" Hannah asked as they sewed by the fire.

"I don't rightly know," She responded. "He refuses to tell me…"

Hannah bit her lip. Her red-tinged brown hair glowed about her face. "He… oh, I don't know!" She yelled. "I'm so mad!" She threw the ring of wood with embroidery and linen across the room, breaking it on the stone wall, and jumped up from her seat and paced the room.

Mercy, who had never seen the docile princess yell, raised an eyebrow. "Why are you mad?" She went on sewing by feel, keeping her eyes on her royal friend.

Hannah looked back at the fair northerner. "Father sent me here to get a marriage proposal from your parents. It seems I've failed, yet I can't leave without bearing shame back to my father."

Mercy gasped. "That is why you came?" She quickly looked down to reassure herself that the tree she was sewing was still good. It was. She looked back up.

Hannah laughed. "I'm ten, Mercy, I need to have some sort of idea of who I'd like to marry sometime soon."

"You said-" Mercy started.

"I lied!" Hannah yelled. "I need him by eighteen and that's eight years. I want to marry a boy I like so bearing children won't be duty but-" Hannah gasped, blushed, and covered her mouth all at the same time.

Mercy grinned broadly at the foreign princess. "You want children? I think they will be a pain. Besides, I know Mother and Father have a man picked out for me, so I get all my freedom in now, while I am still single and they think I don't know that they have a man picked out for me."

"And you do not care?" Hannah asked quietly, almost fearfully. Mercy noted that when the princess calmed down, she spoke properly.

Mercy shrugged. "I tend to like people easily. As long as he is not egotistical or rude, I believe I will like my man."

"You are different, little Mercy," Hannah sat back down, intrigued by this northerner. "Most girls would long for the romantic love that are in books, those that can read. Yet, you… you are fine with marrying a man you do not know?"

Mercy shrugged and looked at Hannah slyly. "Maybe my opinion will change with my age, but at this point, I care not." To avoid the looks from Hannah she looked down at her tree.

Hannah sighed and sat down with a plop. "I am leaving, Mercy, I cannot stand it here."

Mercy smiled kindly at the princess. "I guessed as much. You should leave with the morning: that is when the laziest guards are on duty." Mercy sighed. She pulled the linen out and sewed the edges as she spoke, "Will you keep in touch with me?"

Hannah's smile boarded as her friend spoke. "I will."

Mercy finished the small square of linen. "Take it with my blessing then." She flipped her hair back. "And years from now, when you are married to the man of your dreams, remember the northern princess you met so long ago."

Hannah's lip quivered as tears began to overflow. "You speak like a married woman!"

Mercy sighed. "I will never be that old!" She yelled as her young, eight-year-old self overcame her. "I will chase them all away so I can visit you any time! I will run into the woods with Marcus and find you again!" Mercy sobered. "But I want you to be happy, Hannah." She stood to leave.

"As long as you will say you dismissed me." Hannah told her. "You are allowed to do that."

"I will not lie, Hannah. I will say I allowed you to take leave." Mercy whispered as she left Hannah's room. That was the last she saw of the princess.

- - - - - - - - - - -

"THE PRINCESS HAS LEFT!" He heard someone yelling outside his rooms. "PRINCESS HANNAH OF BAVAR HAS LEFT!" It wasn't a happy voice. Groggily, Marcus recognized the voice as that of his mother. "LET ME IN YOU LAZY SON!" Sleepily, Marcus managed to open his locked door to a frenzied mother. He yawned at looked at her through sleep-deprived eyes. He wasn't quite sure why, but he hadn't had a good night's sleep.

"Morning, Mother." He told her.

"Don't you 'morning, mother' me!" She hissed. Brushing past him, she entered his parlor. "Why did not your manservant answer? Where is he?"

Marcus shrugged. "I gave him today off."

Queen Anna sent a glare his way. "Why did you scare her off like that? How'd you convince her to leave?"

"She's left?" Marcus repeated, never really hearing what she had woken him up with. "Her Highness is gone?"

Mercy's eyes bored holes into him. "Yes, Marcus, gone. Vanished. Not here. Need any more words? Her train left with her. They knew precisely when to leave, who to bribe and the back roads."

"I didn't, for sure. I've scarcely said a paragraph to her." Both royals looked toward Mercy's room.

"You think?" The queen asked. "Do you think Mercy told her?"

Marcus shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe, but Her Highness was Mercy's friend. Wouldn't she want her to stay?"

Anna stood straighter. "Friends don't let friends get caught up in these things. Mercy would've wanted her to stay, but understood. As I take it, you two are very close." The queen swept past her son for the second time. "You will speak to her about it. And you will tell me what she said." Eyeing her son, Anna added, "Or there will be no hunting for a week and a day." Marcus gulped. "And you'll stay inside the whole time… doing Arithmetic and learning Hanor's history – right from it's founding."

"Mother!" He groaned. "That's nearing nine hundred years!"

There was no response except the swishing of silk on stone.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Review, please…