It must've been a miracle that they both made it back to the castle and inside without being caught by the guards. Both girls entered the queen's bedroom, out of breath and gasping for air.
"I don't think I ever have done something that spontaneously before in my life!" Alison said, falling on the bed.
"Maybe you should do spontaneous things more often." Emily said, sitting down on the bed next to her.
They hadn't even been in the room for more than two minutes when there was a firm knock on the door. Alison groaned and sat up, every muscle in her body ached.
"Speak." Alison commanded to the person on the other side of the door.
"Prince Noel requests to take you on a picnic on top of the hill... Without the company of your assistant." the man said on the other side of the door.
"Why must my assistant not come?" Alison asked, frowning.
"That is what Prince Noel requests."
"I will be ready in no less than an hour." Alison said, standing up and looking at her dirty dress.
"Uh, my queen, he requests that you are ready now-"
"Silence!" Alison snapped, cutting off the man. Silence is what followed Alison's order. "I will be out when I say I'll be out. I didn't think it was unclear who has the higher status around here." she spat cruelly.
"N-n-no, my queen. Certainly not. I will tell Prince Noel that you will be done soon." the man said, his voice trembling. Alison heard footsteps walk away from her door and she walked into the bathroom.
"I need to be free of all of this dirt." Alison said, ridding her body of all articles of clothing. She waited as Emily got everything ready, her eyes thoroughly interested in Alison's soups and bath, not her. Why wasn't Emily looking at her? Alison never noticed until now that Emily always kept her eyes on other things when washing Alison, and it bothered Alison. Was there something wrong with her body? Was there an imperfection that she needed to fix so that Emily would stare at her body?
"Are you going to get in or aren't you?" Emily asked.
Alison looked at Emily but got in without saying anything. Emily wets her hair and began to massage Alison's head, creating a lather with the soup in her hand.
"You know I never asked you how you are so good at massages." Alison said, almost moaning as she allowed her eyes to close.
"Working in the bakery just helped. Kneading dough all day contributed." Emily said casually. "Keep your eyes closed, I'm gonna rinse the soap out."
"Hold still." Emily said, as she finally fits Alison's crown on top of her head.
Alison, who was irritated with Emily, returned to her straight yet powerful facial expression. She kept wondering how Emily was able to look at her with minimal clothing on, but always cast her eyes away when Alison wasn't wearing any clothing. It almost infuriated her, but she had other things to worry about, like what Noel was up to having dinner on top of the hill.
When Alison parted ways with Emily and was swept towards the back exit of the castle towards the picturesque hill on the castle grounds with Noel, she pushed the festering thoughts of Emily to the back of her mind. Emily had Alison's mind going on a whirlwind, and even when she tried to, her mind refused to rest over the matter. Noel seemed to notice this, because he kept looking uncomfortably at Alison as they trekked up the hill. The picnic basket he was holding kept knocking into his leg, causing the contents of the picnic basket to shake.
They reached the top of the hill and Noel opened the blanket he took out of the picnic basket and spread it out. He held out his hand automatically and helped Alison sit down on the blanket, facing her towards the sun which was beginning to set. Noel sat down next to Alison and opened the picnic basket between them.
"I have some watermelon and steak sandwich-" Noel began taking things out of the basket until Alison interrupted him.
"I'm not hungry." she said, and she wasn't lying. She really wasn't. The food that she was given to her from Emily's mom had really filled her up and she wasn't going to eat anything else that night.
"Ali, I didn't poison it." Noel said, holding out a sandwich for her.
"It's Alison. You may not call me Ali." Alison said, remembering that Emily was the only one she had granted permission to use that name. "And I really am not hungry."
"Why not?"
"I previously ate."
"With your assistant? Do you know how wrong that is?" Noel said, looking at Alison like she was crazy. "She's lower class. We aren't supposed to eat with the lower class, it's barbaric."
"I wasn't eating with the lower class." Alison lied. Lying had always come naturally to her, it seemed easier to lie than to tell Noel the truth.
"Well don't in the future. They're all filth." Noel said, laughing at his own comment.
Alison's jaw hardened and her tolerance for Noel's crude remarks skyrocketed. She was mad and confused that she was getting mad at Noel, she would've laughed at these comments a few days ago. But it was different. She thought of Emily as...a friend. Her first actual friend, and now Prince Noel was calling Emily filth and her family filth when they surely weren't. They probably were the nicest people that Alison had met in a while.
"Maybe you should watch what you say. Someone could hear you." Alison said, clenching her fists into balls.
"Who? Your assistant won't, she's back at the castle doing God knows what." Noel said, taking a sip of the wine he poured himself.
"She's better company than you are." Alison muttered.
"Excuse me? Did you say your servant is better company? Listen, I know we haven't been on the best of terms, but she's as dumb as a nail. All common folks don't have the slightest bit of education like us, I'm surprised if she can hold a stimulating conversation." Noel said.
"This is boring. You're boring me." Alison said, crossing her arms.
"Maybe you should meet more people, are you always like this?" Noel asked.
Alison desperately wanted to leave, but knew that it was probably best that she don't. Instead, when she felt she could finally unclench her fists, she heard Noel's new speech on changes he's going to do once he moves into the castle. Alison grew frustrated by Noel's comments, like how he said he didn't like the color scheme of the dining hall where as Alison quite liked it.
"Is this really all you talk about?" Alison asked, thoroughly bored with what Noel had to say.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we've been, or should I say you've been, talking about the same thing for the past ten minutes. You're going to kill me before it's done." Alison said.
"Well we could talk about something else. I mean, we could start thinking about our wedding. I was thinking, we could have it here, at the white church that's close by. Only a few people will be able to watch, just the people we care about. After that, I can be coronated in front of all of Rosewood as Rosewood's king and-"
Alison stood up, rolling her eyes. "I'm going back to my room. Enjoy your dinner."
"Are you seriously storming out again? It seems whenever I try to do something nice for you, you always end up storming out of the house in a fit of rage or this time boredom." Noel said, standing up and yelling at Alison's retreating back.
"Well maybe you should learn and get a filter! Or try to talk about something interesting in your life!" Alison called back, as she approached the exit. Two guards held the doors open for her as she entered her castle. On top of her thoughts of Emily, Noel had rocked the boat even more. She really couldn't understand his child like behavior. It was rather obnoxious.
She entered her empty room and headed towards the large window in her room. The huge window looked out to the people of Rosewood, making Alison have to dim her lamps so that the people below couldn't see her. She rested all of her weight on the railing, looking out at her kingdom. The sun had just lost itself under the horizon and the lanterns were slowly being lit below. If someone looked out from where Alison was now, they would see a beautiful scene. Something that should be captured in a painting and cherished for a long time.
However, Alison wasn't paying attention to the beauty of her kingdom in front of her, instead she was in deep thought about things that had been bothering her since she returned to the castle. Lately, she always wanted Emily to be around her, she assumed before that it was because of Emily being her assistant but now she wasn't so sure. She was surprised that Emily wasn't up in Alison's room where she belonged and missed having Emily's presence with her.
These past few days, Alison's life seemed to have taken a complete 360. She had laughed for the first time in a long while. The kind of laugh that had no sense of cruel was at all and instead was full of a sudden happiness that she felt when she was in the presence of Emily. She also had smiled, and it wasn't a smirk. She always smirked when she realized she had the upper hand in the things, but that smile made her feel like she was eight again and she didn't know why.
There was a soft knock on the door and Alison assumed that it would be Noel at the door, demanding an explanation for her actions out on the hill.
"Speak." Alison commanded automatically.
"Ali?" Alison heard a soft voice from the other side of the door and her facial expression softened.
"Come in, Em." Alison said, her voice softening as well. She heard the opening of the door and the pattering of feet as Emily walked in and cautiously approached Alison's turned back. Alison finally brought herself to turn around to face her assistant. Emily was standing in front of her dirt free with her purple dress covering and clinging to her body.
"I'm sorry I didn't come up earlier. I was getting the dirt off myself and I didn't expect you would already be done in less than an hour." Emily said, apologetically.
"Prince Noel has a way with getting on my nerves, if he knows it or not." Alison said, turning around to look back out at her kingdom. It was considerably dark now, and she could make out the guards patrolling the streets, holding torches in one hand and swords in the other.
"You're going to be married to him for a long time." Emily stated.
Alison groaned, "I know, and I've been trying to accept him like you said but I can't do it! He really acts like a twelve year old boy half the time and the other half he has too much mud in his ears to allow anything penetrate his thick skull."
Emily didn't say anything and Alison didn't blame her. Who could respond to that? What could she have said? 'Get over it?' No. Even if Emily did say that, Alison didn't think she would be able to. She wanted to marry Noel less and less than before, horrified with having to spend the rest of her life with him. If Alison could tolerate spending the rest of her life with, it would be Emily. She hoped Emily would stay her assistant for a while, and not be forced to have to get rid of her. Although, Emily was Alison's friend now, they shared laughs and smiles. The word friend lay ancient on Alison's lips, but it made her feel good to finally say that Emily was her friend, even if it was her assistant.
"I'm still hoping that there's a way that I don't have to marry him." Alison said sadly. She felt Emily come and stand next to her, looking out at the kingdom as well.
"Maybe there is. But maybe there is nothing you can do. This type of thing probably happens all the time." Emily said. "This really is a beautiful sight isn't it? You're lucky to have such a gorgeous view."
Alison nodded and watched Emily through the corner of her eye. Emily was wide eyed and smiling as she took in the full sight. A small smile played across Alison's lips as her gorgeous assistant marveled at the gorgeous landscape. Emily eyes darted everywhere, looking at everything down below. Alison was wrong before about the landscape, Emily was the one who should be captured in a canvas picture, just so that everyone could see her beautiful faces for centuries onward.
"Hey Em." Alison spoke up after a while of watching her assistant watch the kingdom.
"Yes my qu-, I mean Ali." Emily said, shaking her head at her mistake.
"You remember how before you said to do more spontaneous things?" Alison said, turning to face Emily.
"Yes I remember."
"I want to do something spontaneous again." Alison said, her stomach flipping at the decision she was about to make.
"Now?" Emily asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes." Alison said, nodding while trying to find her confidence.
"But isn't it a bit late? Can't it wait until morning?" Emily asked.
"No. It won't take long. We aren't going to sneak out again" Alison said, taking a deep breath.
"Than what exactly do you have planned?" Emily asked, confused.
"This." Alison said.
With a final burst of confidence, Alison did something that she would never have dreamed of doing a few days ago. She leaned forward and closed the gap between her and Emily, without thinking twice. Warm lips pressed against her own in a sweet and chaste kiss. She was scared to see how Emily would react, would she get freaked out and push Alison away? When Emily didn't pull away and instead kissed Alison back, all fear of her action left her body, almost causing Alison to sigh. As they kissed, Alison finally came to terms with how she felt. She now knew that she did in fact think of Emily as more than a friend. This was the first time she ever in her life had romantic feelings for someone and honestly, she was terrified of this foreign subject that she never really thought about until now.
It was hard to believe that it hadn't happened until now, and that it would be Emily, who she would be sharing it with, but that August night was;
The night The Killer Queen had her first kiss.