The apartment is small, providing as little comfort as the studio they just left. Nothing but the bare minimum – a bed to sleep and kitchen to eat, a bathroom and wardrobe – yet Bellamy takes it all in as he sits at the small table with the princess by his side. Each and every detail, his eyes scan, looking for proofs and clues as to this Maya's true identity. She had only said 'I'll explain everything in private' before leading them away from the bus station and towards her home.
And here they are now, waiting for her to indeed explain. She's making tea for them, in a set of delicate porcelain more beautiful and expensive than anything else within those four walls, cookies and little cakes in a complementary plate on the side. If she feels the inquisitive pairs of eyes on her, Maya doesn't show, instead humming to herself as she waits for the kettle to whistle and cuts thin slices of lemon.
Despite her excitement only days before, the princess now seems as wary of the little brunette as Bellamy feels, and he still hasn't decide if it is a good thing or not. Surely, there is advantage in sharing the same opinion, but he liked it better when she was smiling and happy, so far from the frown pulling on her forehead ever since Maya introduced herself to them.
Bellamy can almost hear the princess's thoughts for she screams them so loudly, searching for Maya's identity in the Enchanted Forest. Because she is from their realm alright, there is no denying it – her knowledge of the princess's title enough proof of that. Friend or foe, though, it is impossible to tell yet, and it leaves them both on their guards, not knowing what to expect of her. She seems inoffensive enough, and Bellamy could take her down were a fight to break, but it would prove itself useless if she turns out to be a sorceress of some kind.
Gods, he hopes she's not a witch.
Seemingly unperturbed by both sets of glares on her neck, Maya turns around with a cup of tea in each hand, walking towards them so she can put both cups in front of them. She adds a, "Here you are, Your Highness," for good measure, before she goes back to the kitchen to grab the third cup as well as the plate of biscuits. When she sits on a vacant chair around the table, she turns even so slightly so she faces the princess, Bellamy all but forgotten.
"Who are you?"
Ah, the princess, always so tactful. Not that Bellamy can blame her when the question has been burning on his tongue for the past twenty minutes or so. He needs the answer as much as she does, and misses his sword deeply – he is a guard, first and foremost, he swore to protect her.
Maya stares back at her for long seconds, lips pursed into a contemplative pout, before she stands up once more and moves to her wardrobe. She opens the door, only to pull some kind of cylindrical box out of it, one Bellamy doesn't recognize. But, if her little gasp of surprise is anything to go back, the same thing can't be said of the princess.
"Where did you get that?" she asks as Maya comes back to the table and puts the box on the fourth, empty, chair.
"It is mine," she replies simply. "I'm the Hatter."
Brain finally catching up with the conversation, Bellamy can only frown at Maya's statement. He has heard the tales, of course, everybody has – that of the Hatter helping Rumplestiltskin and the Doctor, before turning to the Evil Queen. There are tales around the fireplace, from a far-away period in time; the thing of legends, the stories bards so like to sing about.
Noticing his confusion, as well as the princess's, Maya goes on with her explanations. "The Hatter is a title, not a person. The hat is passed down from parent to sibling, the way it has been for centuries now. The Hatter you know is my ancestor. My mother was Hatter before me, and I took the hat after her death."
Maya busies herself with a sip of hot tea, long enough for Bellamy to share a glance with the princess. His confusion matches that of her blue irises, both too careful to list Maya as a friend yet. None of the stories ever drew the Hatter as a hero, after all, and neither of them is ready to put such a title on the brunette, not until she has proven herself worthy of their trust.
"Why has no one ever heard of another Hatter through the years?"
Maya looks back to the princess calmly, even as she continues to talk. "We know of our ancestor's stories. His mistakes are ones none of us wanted to repeat. Lord Cage searched for a very long while before he found my mother, with only legends and rumours to help him. He forced her to work for him. Everyone knows who his father is, so she had no other choice but to accept. She helped him travel between realms, and that's how she learnt of the Curse he was looking for. She stayed by his side long enough to gather information about it, and then refused to keep using the hat. He killed her for it."
The princess's fingers twitch around the porcelain of the cup, as if wanting to reach for Maya's hand but not daring to. When Bellamy closes his eyes, he can only see how glassy the King's eyes were as he lied on the floor, warm blood pooling around him. Of course it would affect the princess, more than it does Bellamy – his own mother still alive, if cursed, his father nothing but a faceless shadow.
He's the only reaching for her, finger wrapping around the flesh of her knee under the table. She sends him a look equally surprised and thankful, before dropping her own hand to her lap, fingers entwining with his softly. He squeezes in reassurance.
"She had told me all about the Curse before her death," Maya goes on, unaware of the moment they shared. "I decided the best course of action was to go on with what my mother had started, so I used the hat to come to this realm and to wait for you to come through the wardrobe."
"How did you know when or where I would come?"
Maya laughs softly, a little cold and a little self-conscious. "I didn't. That's the problem. I didn't know, and I had no wait to go back. There is no magic here, I can't make the hat work. So I waited, hoping I would come across a clue as to your presence here. When my professor told me about two people asking weirdly specific questions about magic, I knew it was you."
"And so you found us."
"I did," Maya agrees with a nod.
The princess's fingers tighten their hold around Bellamy's hand, only clue as to her true feelings even when her face gives away nothing. She isn't as peaceful as she seems, Maya's story leaving her confused and pensive, and Bellamy knows they need some time alone to discuss things and plan out their next move. Doing so without raising Maya's suspicions seems like an impossible task, though.
"What else do you know about the Curse?" the princess asks anyway, never one to back down from a confrontation. It is a smart move too – they might as well learn as much as possible from Maya while they can, especially if they find her to be a threat to their success.
"Only that time is frozen over people who are cursed, they won't age as long as the Curse isn't broken. And, of course, that you are the only one who can break it, Savior."
The title seems to make the princess uncomfortable, if the way her fingers squeeze his hand even more as she rolls her shoulders is anything to go by. They haven't talked about it yet, not when all their thoughts were focused on finding their people first, but Bellamy isn't an idiot – he guessed she has no idea how to break the Curse a long time ago, and that this responsibility weights on her even more than she likes to show.
"Do you know where my people are?"
Maya opens her mouth in reply, but no word comes out of it. Instead, she looks confused for a moment, before her eyebrows shoot up in realisation. "That's why you're been traveling around? You don't know?"
A growl gets stuck at the back of Bellamy's throat, as he stands straighter in his chair, not liking in the least the mocking edge of Maya's voice. Or perhaps disbelief? At least not respectful enough for Bellamy to like it. The princess must sense how drawn his every muscles are all of a sudden – she's yet to let go of his hand and damn him if he will the one to back away first – for she glances his way with the tiniest shake of the head. An order as any, and so he forces himself not to move, not to react at Maya's insolence.
The girl tries for a more serious face, but the ghost of a smile dances at the corners of her lips and it takes all of Bellamy's willpower to stand still. His muscles almost ache from how taut they are, but he knows better than to go against an order from his princess.
"Where did you land? Because wherever it is, you people mustn't be far."
The princess almost breaks her neck from how fast she turns it to look at him, eyes widening and mouth open on a wordless sentence. They both remember the town, little and quaint, and the policemen who had not so warmly welcomed them to the Land Without Magic. He can still picture the bed and breakfast where they had spent the night, the station where they had waited for a bus to take them out of town but… But no name, of course. They were still lost, disoriented, not caring about the details yet.
But there is something, nagging him at the back of his mind, something that tells him he knows, he always has, he just needs…
"Your shirt!"
He's on his feet before the princess even has time to react, reaching for their bags by the door. He almost rips hers open in his hast, and then furiously rummages through it until his fingers wrap around the soft cotton of the worn, grey shirt. He pulls it out with a tug and, when he looks back to the princess, sees recognition in her eyes.
She reaches for both their cups of tea only seconds before he pulls the shirt down on the table, flatting it with the palm of his hand. The logo is there, in fading black ink but still readable – Police Department, and then in smaller letters, Bluemont, Virginia.
"Huh," the princess says from the back of her throat. Such a usual noise from her that Bellamy can only grin down at her – or perhaps it is the fact that they are so close, closer than they've ever been. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter when she beams up at her, fingers wrapping around his wrist and eyes shining with a newfound happiness.
"Bluemond, Virginia it is, then!" Maya says.
As if sharing a brain, they both turn to look at her in perfect synch. Neither of them finds it in them to tell her she is not going, though, not when bliss surges through their veins and the brunette is looking at the princess with hope in her eyes.
…
Maya insists they take the plane instead of the bus to travel from one coast to another and, even if they are wary at the idea and the prices, there is no valid reason as to say no. Bellamy is tired of bus rides anyway, and he can see in the princess's restlessness that she can't wait to be back to her people. Money won't matter once they're reunited with the others anyway, so they do buy the plane tickets, and take a taxi to the airport the following day.
(The night is as awkward as can be, the princess sharing the bed with Maya while Bellamy is relegated to the floor for the first time in so many months. They're yet to spend more than a couple of minutes alone, and it weights down on the princess as much as he does him.)
No one bats an eye when they present their fake papers to the airport's security, and Bellamy smirks at the princess's sigh of relief once she puts her shoes back on and grabs her bag. She keeps close to him as they walk toward the gate where their plane waits, and the way her knuckles keep brushing against his with each step they take drives him crazy, slowly but surely. She's almost been attached to his hip even since Maya joined them on their quest and he can't even find it in himself to enjoy it when he knows it comes from a position of discomfort and mistrust, when she clings to him like he's the only one who has her back.
(He is, but it is neither here nor there.)
Maya keeps giving them those glances, like there is a question on the tip of her tongue that she doesn't want to ask, and it reminds him of the old lady with the cookies, reminds him of all the disappointed looks women threw his way when he leant over the counter to talk with the princess. He wants to tell Maya she is wrong, but he also really doesn't, because it's the most comfortable the princess has been around him and he doesn't want to spook her.
He sits in an uncomfortable metal chair, the princess settling next to her, as their wait to board their plane, and Maya disappears all of a sudden with a few words about buying coffee or something. As soon as she's out of sight, the princess twists in her seat to face him, legs bent beneath her.
"I don't trust her."
He laughs, deep and loud. "Oh really? I hadn't noticed."
She punches him lightly, her little wrist doing nothing when it collides with his arm. It's the thought that counts, probably. "I'm serious. We can't trust her."
Bellamy isn't exactly certain they became a we, but he loves the sound of it. Hates himself for loving it so much. "I know. And we won't. We don't need to run anything by her anyway."
The princess nods, a little thoughtfully, before her eyes dart to the screen above their heads. Boarding hasn't started yet, and it only announces the destination of their flight, but she still smiles tenderly at it.
"We're so close," she says. Doesn't need to say more.
He wants to take her hand again, but forces himself not to. They're so close and soon she'll break the Curse. Soon she'll be back to her family and her fiancé, his ring still on her finger, and he'll be back to Octavia and being a member of the guard. Soon life will be back to the way it was, and they'll be back to being barely more than strangers to each other. The way it was, the way it's supposed to be.
He can't afford to get attached.
(He's more than halfway there.)
"You'll be back to your family soon, princess."
She tilts her head at him, confusion dancing in her eyes at the clipped tone of his voice. They've gotten good at reading each other through the months, secondary effect of spending so much time together, but he refuses for her too read the emotions in his eyes. It would only complicate things, and they can't afford for her to get distracted by a kitchen boy's puppy love when she is destined to grander deeds.
Maya chooses that moment to come back, juggling three paper cups of steaming coffee in her hands. She offers one to both of them before plopping in the seat by Bellamy's other side. He smirks a little when the princess sniffs at her drink with a little face, and makes a point of taking a long sip just to rile her up a bit. Ruffling her feathers is easy, he can do that.
She wrinkles her nose at him before take a sip of her drink, and they fall into an easy silence until boarding starts and they all stand up to enter the plane. Without a word or even needing to clarify details, they let the princess have the seat by the window, Bellamy sitting in the middle so that a catfight doesn't start when they're halfway through the flight. Maya doesn't seem to mind, anyway, shrugging off her jacket before she sits next to Bellamy.
Even with her nose pressed to the window, the princess gulps audibly when the plane starts, and reaching for her hand feels all to natural. His thumb brushes against her knuckles as the plane takes off, her nails digging into the back of his hand and her teeth biting down on her bottom lip. She seems more at ease once the plane is in the air, though, going back to staring out the window at the landscape beneath them, and Bellamy spend the entire flight watching her, smiling when she turns around to point a mountain or a lake to him.
The landing is not too different from the take-off, with more handholding and lip nibbling, before they follow Maya out the plane and wait for the luggage to be brought to them. Washington's bright afternoon sun winks at them once they're outside the airport, waiting for a taxi to bring them downtown to the hotel rooms they booked the previous night off Maya's computer.
Bellamy knows only one of the two rooms is a one-bed room, and damn him if he's going to make sure Maya is the one to get it. In the end, he doesn't even have to worry about it all that much, as the princess grabs one of the key cards and hands the second one to Maya with a little smile.
"We'll meet for dinner later today?" she asks sweetly. Bellamy recognizes the tone as her princess voice, the one that means she won't accept no for an answer, and you can go fuck yourself while you're at it. He loves that voice, when it's not used against him.
Maya has no other choice but to say yes, and they part ways in the corridor as they open the doors to their rooms. Theirs has only one bed in it, bless the gods, and Bellamy mentally slaps himself at the surge of joy when his eyes land on the mattress. Do not get attached, he chastises himself, like it could help.
They've done that a hundred times, though, so falling back into their routine is easy. The princess takes a shower first, and then he follows, smirking at the smiley face she drew on the shower's door with her finger. When he gets out of the bathroom, in clean clothes and with his hair still a little wet, she's lying in bed, eyes closed. He wonders if she's asleep for a moment, until she lazily opens one lid to look at him.
"So close," she whispers with wonder in her voice, and Bellamy beams at her. So close, indeed.
He falls head first on the bed next to her, groaning at how soft the mattress is – a clear improvement from the less than stellar motel rooms they've slept in lately. He has no doubt sleep will come easy to him tonight, and keeping his eyes open now is no easy feature. Still, they remain that way, not a word to break their comfortable silence, until Maya comes to knock softly on the door, asking if they are read to head down and eat something.
They opt for a little sushi shop down the street, stuffing themselves on rice and ram salmon and iced tea, before heading back to their hotel rooms for the night. The sky is not quite low in the sky yet, bright with the summer weather, and so Bellamy settles against the headboard with a book while the princess gets ready for the night.
When she comes back to the main room, it's to sit cross-legged on the bed, facing him. He arches an eyebrow in silent question even if his eyes don't leave the book, and she sighs a little.
"Tell me a story."
Both eyebrows rise at the odd request, and he finally tears his eyes from the line he's read four times in a row. He hasn't used his storyteller skills since the celebrations of the Fourth of July, and didn't know she had liked it so much. It had only been a mean to an end to keep a handful of children entertained, after all, and a way for him to compensate Octavia's absence.
He puts the book aside and sits a little straighter against the headboard. "Which legend should I regal you with on this beautiful evening, Your Highness?"
Her lips twitch in a smile she swallows down. "Tell me of Emma."
"Emma of Legends," he echoes softly. "Hers is a captivating tale, Your Highness has good tastes."
She doesn't quite manage to hide her smile as his haughty voice this time, snorting through her nose as she finds a more comfortable position, and that more than anything else has Bellamy throwing himself into the tale. It's a well-known one – she isn't called Emma of Legends for nothing, after all – and one Octavia loved to hear when she was a wee girl. So the words come easy to Bellamy as he tells the princess of the Evil Queen and the Curse she had wanted to cast, of Emma's bravery through all of her adventures in all the lands, fighting dragons and befriending giants and traveling to Oz to defeat the Wizard himself.
Every step of her quest is an adventure in itself, until Bellamy tells of Emma's final battle against the Evil Queen, White against Dark magic, hero against villain. Emma's tale ends in victory, of the land finally free from the Queen's dark power, and that is where Bellamy stops speaking, with the happy ending spreading over Mist Haven.
The princess wrinkles her nose at him. "You didn't talk about Hook! It's the best part and you didn't talk about it!"
"There is absolutely no proof Captain Hook helped Emma on her quest!"
"There is and he did! He was her True Love, you know it!"
"It doesn't matter." She's getting herself worked up over it, if the frown and the twist of her lips is anything to go by, but Bellamy only scoffs derisively at her. Her glare darkens as he adds, "It doesn't make sense anyway."
His blood is boiling in his veins – anger at her, at himself, at the world. Anger at his fool of a heart for falling so easily for her, for believing even of a second that she could feel the same, that something could happen between them. Bellamy shakes his head, at himself or her he isn't sure, before he sneers. "A princess falling for a commoner? A pirate? In which universe would it happen?"
She opens her mouth wordlessly but, whatever she is about to say, Bellamy refuses to hear it. He stands up in an instant, suddenly grateful he hasn't changed into his night clothes yet, and grabs his wallet and the key card where they wait on the little desk opposite the bed.
"Where are you going?" she asks in her princess voice.
It only makes matter worse, and he forces himself not to look back at her as he makes his way to the door. "Out," he replies in a bark. "Don't wait for me."
There is a sense of finality in the way the door slam behind him.
…
Finding a bar to crash is not the most difficult thing in the world. There is one just around the corner, and it is enough for Bellamy as he enters and goes straight to the counter to order a beer. It does nothing to cool his nerves as it settles warmly in his stomach, and the buzz of it is not enough to make him dizzy. So he down it quickly, and then switch to whiskey, hoping it will do the trick.
The alcohol burns his throat as he locks eyes with a pretty brunette by the other side of the bar. She's tall, skinny and all sharp angles – the exact opposite of the princess sleeping in his bed. She's perfect.
Flirting with her comes easily once he's offered her a drink, Bellamy is used to sweet-talking the ladies when he stands by the other side of the bar. He leans into her and relished in the wideness of her pupils. Her laughs are a little forced and high-pitched, but Bellamy doesn't care when he pulls her into a bruising kiss. Out of breath, lip swollen, she takes his hand and leads him outside. She doesn't bother with a car or a taxi, just pulls him in a nearby alley and has her way with him.
Or Bellamy has his way with her, he doesn't know anymore. He pushes her against the wall and fucks her with her long legs wrapped around his waist and his jeans at the ankles. She moans and pants in his neck and he doesn't care if those sound faked too. Doesn't care when he comes and sees white, biting down on her shoulder to swallow down a moaned name that definitely isn't hers.
When he lets go of her, he feels like shit.
He doesn't look back as she straightens her too short skirt and smoothes her too dark hair, doesn't look back as he heads down the street. The clerk behind the counter glares at him when he enters the hotel's hall. The sky is dark outside and the hotel silent as he makes his way to his floor and then his door, not even bothering quietening his steps. He fumbles with the key card until the light turns to green and he opens the door.
He smells like alcohol and sex and cigarette, and the princess glares at him like she means murder. He wants to feel ashamed, because it would be the right thing to do, but looking at her – in that damn grey shirt, hair falling down her shoulders, eyes wide with fury and concern and something else – upsets him once more. He locks himself in the bathroom, not caring that he's running away from her like the coward he is.
He splashes some cold water on his face and looks up into the mirror to find her standing into the doorway, looking at him with wide eyes. She looks so pure, so innocent, and he adds this to the ever-growing list of reasons why he can never claim her as his. He isn't worthy. Of her concern, of her love. Of her.
"You've been gone for hours," she says softly, afraid speaking too loud will have him snap and leave again. He hates himself even more for it.
"I told you not to wait for me." A little too sharp, too cold.
"Hours, Bellamy. I thought –" She stops, shakes her head a little. "You can't leave like that. I need you. The entire kingdom needs you."
Stab him in the chest and twist the knife. Her words play on repeat in his head – I need you I need you I need you – before he snaps out of it. She doesn't mean it that way, she can't mean it that way. She only needs him to help her break the Curse, help her fulfil her destiny. Nothing more, nothing his alcohol-induced brain would like to believe. She worries because he's her ally in this, and because she is kind. Not even a friend, barely more than that, the princess worrying about her knight in rusty armour.
"I'm not going anywhere," he replies roughly, hoping against hope his words convey none of the underlying meaning he could pour into the sentence. But she draws in a sharp breath, and he may not have been all that successful at it. "Go back to bed, Your Highness."
She eyes him carefully, perhaps afraid he'll disappear again if she looks away, before stepping out of the bathroom and back to bed. He closes the door behind her before taking his second shower of the day to get rid off the stench of the city and nightlife clinging to his skin.
After slipping into his pyjamas, he hesitates for a long while by the side of the bed, wondering if the best course of action would be to sleep on the floor. He doesn't want to, not with such a comfortable mattress and with the day they'll have tomorrow, not when it may as well be the last time she sleeps by his side.
In the end, she chooses for him, invading his side of the bed to grab his wrist and pull her toward him. He stumbles a little before settling under the covers, careful never to brush against her. He's all too aware of her slow intakes of breath, of the rustle of fabric against fabric with each movement of her body. Only exhaustion allows him to fall asleep, and even then his mind is restless with pictures of princesses and pirates and kisses that bring you back from the dead.
…
When he wakes up, mouth like cotton and brain heavy with a headache, the bed is empty by his side. He blinks against the morning sun even as his fingers brush against the mattress where her body should be, before he turns around with a groan. She stands close to the door, facing the mirror there as she holds her hair up and turns her head from side to side.
"We need to do something about my hair," she says without even looking his way.
He frowns, which proves to be painful, and lets his head fall back against the pillow. He remains that way for a while, only listening as she moves around the room and gathers the few things they unpacked the previous night. He almost expects her to bring back yesterday's mess once he finally forces himself to stand up and dress, but she proves to be skilled in the arts of deflecting, not mentioning it once. I need you, she had said, and the words haunt him still, heavy on his mind and in the air between them.
Something has shifted. He can feel it, almost tangible, even if he has no word for it. So he decides to take the easy way out by ignoring it as he pulls on his pants and checks the bathroom to make sure they didn't leave anything behind.
"What was it about your hair?" he asks as he zips close his travel bag.
"Cage knows what I look like. He will recognize me in an instant if I show up like this." She gestures at her face, for good measure. "We can't risk it."
He gulps, Adam's apple moving painfully up and down, before nodding. And, five minutes later, he finds himself in a little shop, buying a pair of scissors and a bottle of hair dye. They do it in the bathroom's sink, his fingers massaging her scalp as the water turns brown and his heart plummets in his stomach. The first strand of hair is the hardest, and he watches it fall to the tiled floor with morbid fascination.
It gets easier after that, only making sure the length is even all around her head – something he has done with his sister more than once, when their mother was too busy to do it herself. Still, it doesn't stop him for mourning her golden mane when she looks at him in the mirror, hair now a boring chestnut as it stops above her shoulders. It won't stop Cage from recognizing her from up close, but it will give them some time as long as they stay away from it. It is all that matters.
They meet Maya downstairs for breakfast, the girl barely quirking an eyebrow at the princess's new look before she pours herself a mug of coffee. Breakfast is a quiet affair, and then they're heading outside to catch a taxi that will lead them out of town and to Bluemont. It will be a trek down the forest from there, so they all eat more than is necessary to gather some strength for the day.
The taxi ride is spent in much the same manner, Maya sitting next to the driver while Bellamy shares the back seat with the princess, an heavy silence settling between them that only the car's radio breaks. Bellamy's hand rests on the seat between them, hers only inches away. If he wanted, he could brush his little finger against hers, a wordless invitation to lace their fingers once again. He doesn't, though, mind still reeling over the events of the previous night. Ever as she tries to pretend nothing happened, something is different between them now, and Bellamy curses himself for ruining the flimsy relationship they had built through the months.
Thankfully theirs isn't that long a car ride, even if it leaves Bellamy's wallet emptier than it was before, and soon their find themselves on the side of the road, facing familiar buildings. Nothing much changed since their first visit, not that Bellamy expected otherwise – flowers bloom by the windows and everything seems a little more colourful in the summer, but that's basically it.
The princess leads the way out of town without a word, determination in her brows and her every step, so Bellamy simply shrugs at Maya before following her down the street. He's not entirely convinced of the Hatter's intentions yet, but she has picked up on their clues all morning, and he can only imagine how uncomfortable things must be for her, standing between the two of them.
They don't meet the policemen this time, which is a relief in and out of itself, and soon find themselves under the shadows of the forest, walking between the trees in the same silent. Everything is familiar but also isn't, and Bellamy wonders how long they'll have to wander through the woods until they find what they're looking for. With only their bags and little to set camp, it's not as if they can afford to settle for the night and continue the following morning. They're as unprepared as can get, the map they snatched unhelpful as hell, and Bellamy curses the princess's stubbornness, knowing fully well there is no changing her mind now, no turning around and heading back to town again.
They only stop once, the sun high in the sky and hot on their skins, and only because Bellamy forces the princess to take a break with a hand to her arm. They munch on sandwiches and gulp down water before starting back with steel in their legs and a weight on their chests. Every tree looks like the last, making it impossible to exactly pinpoint the place where the wardrobe sent them – not for a lack of trying from the princess, of course.
He falls into step with Maya at some point, and has a newfound respect in her because her legs are tiny but she keeps up with him anyway. They settle into a quiet conversation, voice a little parched from not using it for a few hours, talking about her position as Hatter and the realms she travelled to, talking about the latest news in the kingdom before an orange cloud came and ruined everything. Bellamy isn't good at politics, knew absolutely nothing about it up until becoming a member of the guard, but working in the kitchens come with its handful of gossips so he tells her about that – weddings and alliances and wars that were brewing in the distance.
Maya is in the middle of a sentence about Oz when she stops, words dying on her tongue, as her head snaps to the left. "Do you feel that?" she asks, low enough that the princess stops in her track and turns around, faces them for the first time since lunch.
"Feel what?" Bellamy asks, because her lips are set into a straight line and he knows she won't ask if he doesn't.
"Magic."
He doesn't know what she means – if it's a smell or a noise or just a feeling – but Maya is the one who's been around magic the most, so he guesses they can trust her on that one. Have no other choice but to trust her on that one, actually, as she darts to the left, following the trail of whatever she found out all of a sudden. The princess raises both her eyebrows but doesn't comment as she follows Maya between the trees.
Bellamy fumbles a little with the map as he tries to open it while walking, and he makes a mess of things before he indeed manages to opens it on the section of woods they're wandering. There is nothing around according to the map, beside a single road a few miles north. No village, no town, absolutely no sign of human life.
Officially, there is nothing on the map. Doesn't make the town they stumble upon any less true, though. There is a road leading to it, one that stretches to the north, probably to join the road Bellamy saw on the map. Maya raises her hand in the air, as if to touch something that is not here, right next to a sign that reads 'Welcome to Arkadia'.
Bellamy blinks. Twice.
The town is still here.
"We made it," the princess whispers, with no small amount of wonder in her voice. She looks exhausted but happy, a lazy smile blossoming on her lips as she tugs a strand of brown hair behind her ear. She glances up at Bellamy and her smiles turns into a grin, too dazzling for him not to mirror it.
They made it, indeed.
She takes his hand, very much on purpose, and tugs on his arm until he follows her down the road. He looks behind his shoulder, to make sure Maya is following too. She disappears from his sight for a second before she appears again, as if walking through some kind of invisible curtain. It leaves him confused, but then again it also doesn't, because that was the magic she felt, the one she tried to touch. The magic cloaking the town from the rest of the world, even if Bellamy has no idea why it allowed them to enter. He decides now is not the time to think about the specifics.
The town is no different from Bluemont, the same kind of low buildings, flowers on the windows and cars parked in the street. There is a peaceful feeling to the place that brings a shiver down his spine, though, something a little off and not exactly right. The princess must feel it too, if the way she tightens her hold around his hand is anything to go by. He brushes his thumb against her knuckles before nodding to what looks like a diner.
The sign flickers in blue and red neon, reading The Dropship in round letters, and their stomachs come to life at the sight of it. They've been walking for hours and the sun is low in the sky; food will be more than welcome as they plan for their next move.
The dinner is unlike the one they visited through the months. It has a retro vibe to it, alright, but there are posters of space on the walls, planets and nebulas and stars, and everything looks like it's out of a science-fiction movie. Weird, and surprising, but Bellamy doesn't let it affect him. The princess chooses a booth in the middle of the room, and he slides in next to her while Maya sits on the opposite bench and busies herself with the menu.
The back door leading to the kitchens opens loudly, and Bellamy looks up to the sound, eyes widening immediately. He nudges the princess with his elbow before pointing to the girl walking toward a table, juggling with four different plates. Her dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail, sleeves of her red jacket bundled up at the elbows and feet clad in army boots.
The princess bounces in her seat and beams at the sight of her, at the glory that is Raven, in the flesh in front of them. Bellamy feels like sighing in relief, and crying a bit too perhaps, because this is it. This is real, this is their kingdom in this little town in the middle of nowhere.
"What can I get you?" Raven asks as she nears the table.
The princess and Bellamy are so busy staring at her, it takes them long second to react. Long enough that the front door opens with a bang, the little bell ringing furiously as a group enters the dinner and invades the table by the window.
"Feet off the table!" Raven barks at them immediately, like she's done it a hundred times before. Then she adds, under her breath, "Fucking Grounders."
Bellamy turns around, both out of curiosity and to follow the stream of heated discussions and heavy laughs. A black man, tattoos on his neck and down his arms, wraps his arms around a girl's waist to pull her into his lap even as she's in the middle of an argument with another woman. She laughs, the sound loud and rich, and brushes her long black hair away from her face.
His heart plummets in his stomach.
"Octavia…"
