Btw you might see i have a lot of references to songs that are by billie eilish. I actually came up with this story listening to her songs, so just fyi i don't own any of the songs in this story or the selection or anything like that. cool. enjoy.
I'm forgetful sometimes. I forget the most important things like teaching Harry how to play piano after he's asked me six times or to help father with his political matters that are buried somewhere in my desk. Sometimes it's hard to remember something you just need and want to recall.
In the same time, it's so difficult to forget something you so want out of your mind. I tended to write songs about things that troubled me, things I could never get out of my head. Would you be surprised if I told you none of them were about girls or heartbreak?
Yeah, me neither.
"What are you doing?" my father asked, from his desk, peeking over at me as I was supposed to be reading messages from the opposing armies. Quickly I hid my papers below the coding ones, frantically answering, "Sorry I got distracted,"
Oddly, he didn't seem angry.
"Mhm." more worried than anything.
"I'm ok dad," I assured, the stress of these wars starting to get to me. Twenty two years of being a king let him know how to read a person. Sadly I was more transparent than I thought.
"You know Kado, you're still just a kid-
"I'm 21 in a few weeks,"
"That's still a child from where I stand," I smiled, comfortable with him, even if for just a moment.
"Maybe you should go be with your brothers, relax a bit," I shook my head, marking the paperwork briskly in order to seem focused.
"I think I've had enough of them for today," As I brought my reading glasses back up my nose, I remembered how Kent always used to tell me they were too big for my head. I couldn't help but grin at the thought of him drawing big circles in ink on his face to match me when he was six.
"Can't stop talking about the girls can they?" Father shuffled through some papers, typing something into a coder to send to his secretaries.
"Yeah,"
"Well don't be too hard on them. You have no idea how excited I was the first day my selection." For some reason it was hard to imagine dad as a young man, waiting for the women to fill the room.
"Any of them interesting?" Interesting yes. Worth trying to find a queen in no.
"Kine likes Fawn and Beatrix I think. He kept staring at them when we crossed them in the hall," Father chuckled.
"Kine couldn't stop staring at that stallion he wanted," he reminded me.
"I don't think he rode him more once or twice,"
"Bad analogy dad," He sighed at my humour, but I knew it made him laugh, secretly under that beard.
"What about Harry and Kent?"
"Harry's 16. He couldn't stop staring at all of them."
"Haha, yes well that is to be expected. Make sure he doesn't date any of the girls more than a year older. I wouldn't want them taking advantage."
"Way ahead of you," I still had that mental note in my head of all the girls I thought untrustworthy. Although that list was getting dangerously close to 35.
"Kent liked the smarter ones." I said, father now barely listening.
"Kent likes a challenge. He'll soon discover; a girl doesn't need an IQ of 135 to challenge him." He wasn't completely wrong. Kent liked a challenge. I wasn't sure how much he'd like the challenge of dating, not that I had much experience myself.
"What about you?" Oh no here it comes.
"I really don't want to talk about it,"
"Kado," He said, his voice lingering on the last syllable of my name like a soft warning.
"Dad," I replied, desperate.
His eyes were so annoyingly piercing, like two voids with the voice of god threatening to lock me in my room for the rest of my life.
"Fine!" I ceided.
"I don't like any of them. They're all either manipulative husband hunters, mousey dimwits, or foreign weirdos."
"What did we say about respect?"
"Is it really disrespectful if it's true?" He stared at me from above the line of his glasses.
"You promised me you'd try."
"Alright alright," I shook my head, desperate not to give in.
"The last one was… interesting." he seemed confused.
"The poor one?"
"Now who's being disrespectful?" he did not enjoy it when I talked back, so I continued, "Yes dad, the one from the Barrens."
"Ah, the orphan. What was her name again? Terra? Patricia?"
"Pena." I corrected, the image of her rebelling chin tilted upward at me suddenly poking itself into my head. Those annoyingly eye-catching eyes that seemed to enjoy challenging my own. And that smile, that dumbing smile I couldn't stop thinking about. Her voice, that tone of such defiance, like she wanted to test how far she could go past the boundary line.
"Interesting is a start." Father was having a conversation with himself as far as I was concerned.
"I never said interesting in a good way,"
"Kado, you're going to have to make an effort. Pick one of the girls to go on a date with."
"Why do you enjoy torturing me?"
"Are you sure you aren't gay?"
"Of course I'm not gay!" I yelled, standing up in frustration.
"There's a war going on! Everyday I'm afraid that we might get shot at if we show our faces outside the castle. I find myself telling Harry not to go to the gardens anymore because I'm afraid of him being out in the open on his own. People are getting massacred in our own backyard. Our soldiers are dying somewhere past the Barrens where we can't send help anymore. Dad I understand why you're making this happen now and why you think this will make Kent and Harry and Kine happy- and it will… but I'm not ready for this. Life is already so complicated as it is. We just lost mom a year ago dad. I have to take care of an entire kingdom with you, an entire war with you. And I have to protect my brothers from both of them. I can't find myself falling in love with a girl and having to lock her inside because I'm afraid she'll be shot at or kidnapped. I just need time before I even think about a queen."
The king nodded his head slowly at me, sitting back in his chair, his glasses thrown onto the desk before him. Sighing, he ran his hands through his hair back and forth and looked up at me, his lips folding one another.
"I miss mom," I admitted, watching him pour himself a glass of whiskey.
"I miss her too son," He grabbed another glass.
"I know you're not quite 21 just yet," the brown liquid poured into the bottom ⅛ of the glass.
"But I think we both need one of these tonight," Handing me the glass, we clinked, shooting down the burning liquid hoping it would soothe the worries in our minds.
"You know I knew your mother was going to marry me the moment I met her," My almost soothed stress was replaced with a certain nostalgia as I heard him.
"How?" I asked.
"You know how girls that age can be; all coquettish, girlie, and sometimes well just textbook swooning." Where was he when we were meeting our selected. I nodded.
"Your mother had this gentle air, kindness, genuine kindness in her soul." She had it with me too.
"She didn't tell me how handsome I looked or how beautiful everything was." His eyes were dreamy, as if he was picturing her standing in the room with us.
"She told me how rude I was being to the servants and how we ought to have more parties to cheer everyone up." he laughed.
"Your mother may have been beautiful Kado, but above all she was just…" he stopped, exhaling, maybe remembering she was gone.
"Perfect?" I asked. He shook his head.
"No. she was perfect for me,"
I never connected with my dad, not really.
He was a pushy, demanding, rude king, always so focused on how we reflected him and how his kingdom would perceive him…
But at the end of the day, when we really talked- for real. Well, it might've been the whiskey, but things didn't seem so bad afterall.
"Who are you going to ask out first?" little brother asked me at the breakfast table which I was now forced to attend.
"There are more things to worry about in this world than dates Kine," he rolled his eyes, trying to read the papers I was sorting through. Without my glasses it was awfully tough to read through, but I'd rather be photographed dead than with my big round reading glasses.
"What about you?" I asked, trying to avoid making him feel rejected.
"I don't know yet," he said, looking across the sea of girls at our breakfast table. Most of them were much more subtly dressed today.
"You seemed to like the redhead," I reminded him, looking to find her in the crowd.
"Trixxy?"
"Mhm,"
"She's cute," He admitted, looking over at her as she caught his gaze and smiled lightly.
"And my age too," He smiled and waved subtly at her. Trixxy placed her hand on her mouth and giggled, waving back and coyly turning to talk to the other women.
"Ask her out today. Father is eager to have us in front of the cameras talking to these girls and she seems pretty eager to meet you,"
"You're right," he said, silently planning as he stuffed his face with a piece of waffle inelegantly. I shook my head at him in humoured embarrassment.
"What about you?" he asked, his voice muffled.
"What about me?"
"You know, you're not as good at hiding things as you think you are," He said, swallowing.
"You may not like any of them yet," I barely tolerated any of them.
"But you're curious." since when was Kine observant.
"I can tell when something is on your mind."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"A war. That and handling you three are the only things on my mind." I whacked his head with my pen, and he swatted me away.
"Oh don't play that card Kado. It's a desperate attempt to dodge my question and you know it," He accused and it was getting harder and harder to ignore him.
"I've known and lived with you for seventeen lonnng years brother." I put all of the papers done, getting them together and placing them down in front of me as I drew my plate in. I only momentarily considered throwing my breakfast in his face.
"I can tell when your distracted," With that he wiped his mouth and stood, patting my back as he walked (almost skipping) over to the girls.
Out of an anxious boy from the day before, there was now a big flirt ready to charm his way into that group of girls. As he got to their side of the breakfast table, all of the girls smiled, the excitement of opportunity lighting them up like christmas trees.
"Great," I said to myself, my eyes absentmindedly drawing over the women. At the end of the table, I stopped. The only the girl who's head wasn't up and staring at my brother attentively. No instead her eyes were fixed on the windows as she watched the sun draw in and out of the clouds.
Pena. The temptress from my play. It was actually a devil as I looked through the book the night before.
"A devil comes disguised as a beautiful woman: Pena." it read, and ever since then I couldn't help but think of the irony. How a beautiful girl had come to the castle from a place where no one lurks. how her radiant eyes caught the light in such a way that you couldn't help but stare at them endlessly. How unschooled she was in the ways of royals. How she had not an ounce of nervous mannerisms, a confidence she shouldn't have in the face of the four second most powerful men in the country. How she walked in such a way that bled entitlement.
Father used to say you had to walk into every room as if you owned it, because, well we did, but I could never pull it off like she had.
When her eyes drew away from the windows to face the world, they met mine, and suddenly I realized I'd been staring at her all this time. Embarrassed slightly, I threw my eyes down to my half empty plate, desperate to avoid looking into those oceans she called eyes.
Perhaps she would think I was only scanning the room, but already I could tell she wasn't that imperceptive.
Still, I had to look, peaking up with my face still tilted down to the table.
As I did, I noticed she still wasn't wearing a proper attire again. She sat outfitted in some sort of denim jeans and a white sweater who's neck looked outstretched, a black leathered band of a necklace around her neck. A silver pendant hung from it, although she was too far away for me to see exactly what it hair was still tied back in that neat ponytail hanging all the way down to the sides of her hips.
Her eyes met mine again, and she leaned back, pushing her empty plate forward. That challenging look she gave me, like she was above me even, it only enticed me. How could she look at me that way, not knowing whether I'd kick her out for it.
Practically silent, Pena pushed her chair back, placing her hand on Katherine's shoulder and whispering something in her ear before standing to leave. Katherine smiles up at her, nodding. I didn't know any of the women could have gotten so cozy already. It seemed the devil was good at making friends after all.
As she walked around the table, proceeding to the hall, her eyes drew back to me again.
And then, as luck would have it, that stupid fricken smile showed itself again, as if she was laughing to herself.
A single maiden rolling in a cart of more food interrupted her stride.
"I'm sorry miss, was your breakfast not satisfactory?" She asked genuinely.
Pena's smile retreated, replaced by a genuine one.
"It was wonderful actually. I don't think I've ever had better." The young maiden blushed and let her chin fall downward with a shy nod.
Pena reached behind her, grabbing a piece of buttered toast and taking a bite into it. Chewing she looked at me again, maybe not understanding why I was still looking at her.
As she went to leave the hall, she stopped right above me, not looking down as she whispered, "you know, you have my picture. If you like staring so much, I suggest you refer to that instead of well." She paused, tilting her face down. I wasn't facing her, but I could just tell.
"Embarrassing yourself,"
Did she just?
I couldn't help but look back at her over my shoulder then, that smug smile on her lips and overconfident look on her face too much to bear.
She strut out of the room, her ponytail swaying back and forth along her back.
For a second, I considered staying seated, giving her the satisfaction of having the last word. It would show I was the bigger man, capable of not being insulted by a girl who didn't know when to shut her mouth. But as you probably figured out by now I'm an idiot.
"Fuck it." I whispered to myself, pushing my chair back and throwing the napkin onto the table.
"Kado?" Kine questioned, seeing how displeased I looked as I walked past him and the bevy of giggly girls.
Finally in the empty hall, I caught sight of her backside.
She seemed confused, her steps slowing as she looked to her left and right, not exactly knowing where she was.
Suddenly feeling the ability to be smug myself, I stopped behind her
"Lost?"
She jumped, spinning around to face me her cheeks reddening when she realized how close I'd gotten.
"Oh I'm sorry," I chuckled.
"Didn't mean to embarrass you," She looked up with an annoyed glare, rolling those eyes at me.
She wore natural colors, the fabrics unsupple. It was the only sign of humility on her.
"Can I help you?" She asked, making me want to teach her how she should address her higher ups.
"You don't have much experience with royals do you?" She snorted at me.
"You think because I choose not to get on my knees nor act the grateful idiot I have never been in the company of a King?"
"Funny that you think it's a choice." I corrected, knowing she was only trying to have her fun with me. She did not like that comment, for once that mysterious devil's face showed me how she really felt; insulted.
"You're supposed to say, your majesty, your grace, or my prince when you address me." I reminded.
" ah but you see you are not mine oh dear and wonderful ruler, so I cannot dream of calling you 'my prince'" she mocked
"And sadly I find you neither majestic nor graceful Kado." I'd never heard her say my name before or any commoner for that matter.
"Do you know what could happen to you if my father heard you talk that way to me?" She smiled again, that smile that was starting to become infuriating.
"Do you always rely on your father to fight your battles?"
I was wrong. She wasn't a devil disguised as a beautiful woman. She was just a bitch.
"Let me make something clear Barren." Addressing her by the disgusting place she came from made her furrow her brows at me. It had the effect I was hoping for.
I took a step forward and she took a step back.
"You are here as long as I allow it." Another step forward met by another step backwards.
"Say something like that again," She kept backing away, my tone beginning to frighten her.
"And you'll be finding yourself someplace much worse than where you came from." Her breath hitched as she hit the wall behind her, her hands against the white in a defensive form.
Looking up at me, the sea in her eyes was fighting through a hurricane, the anger in her passing through the fear.
I couldn't believe I let myself be so affected by her words for a moment. People had said worse to me and I'd only just met her. Finally able to make words again she stared back at me, her defiance intact.
"You used to say worse to me you know?" She said, holding the silver pendant on her necklace tightly in her fist. For a moment it seemed she was listening for something, not me, but rather a voice in her head.
"What?" I asked, questioning her sanity.
She laughed, throwing her head back against the wall, exposing her sharp little jaw and the lines of her neck.
"You really don't remember me, do you?" She said again.
"Has it really been so long? Or have I just changed that much?" Pena. Pena. Pena. The name meant something to me I knew it and more than from just a play. That face that smile, those eyes. I'd seen them all before I knew it I just couldn't place it. It drove me to hell, trying to remember, trying to see where I'd met her before.
"No need to look so worried," she placed a hand on my cheek.
"My Prince," she added in, the warmth of her fingers against my skin inviting me into her touch.
"We all forget where we come from sometimes,"
Defensively, I pulled my face away and grabbed her wrist tightly, so much so that she gasped at the feel of restraint.
I pulled her arm up so that she was almost against me, those blue diamonds shimmering in the daylight. She wasn't fearful despite my harshness. In the moment, my jaw locked and unlocked as I grit my teeth.
The panic I remembered on the day of meeting her came back to me and for some reason my body was so determined to keep it away I did things the sane me wouldn't even think of.
"I meant no offense Prince Kado," she whispered, her lips inches away from mine.
"But if you wouldn't mind letting go of my arm." Coming back to a state of reality, I realized what I was doing and dropped her, turning around, ashamed to face her.
"I'm sorry Lady Pena. I don't know what I was-
"It's fine." She said not completely upset as she rubbed her wrist which now had a red mark on it.
"I shouldn't have put so much on you all at once," with that she smiled and seemed to find her way again.
"Hey!" I called to her.
"Meet me at the garden tonight at 11. I have a feeling we have things to talk about."
She was late.
11:12 and still no sign of her.
I paced back and forth in the gardens, admiring the night sky above head. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
I sent the guards away, the order reluctantly followed. Still, I wanted to be alone with her, I had to be alone with her. I couldn't let her distract me anymore. The war was too important. I couldn't deal with my brothers, my father, the fricken armies, the selection, and this stupid girl. This had to stop now. It had been less than 24 hours and already I was being driven insane by a woman who wasn't even my girlfriend.
That night at dinner, father made me sit between two of the selected, Fawn and another one whose name I couldn't remember. All throughout all I could think about was the dispatch heading out in the morning and the calculations for cost of weapons I had to make. Well that and where the fuck I knew Pena from. I swear to god if I knew her from a single childhood event where we had a two words conversation I was going to shoot my brains out.
She wasn't wrong when she said I was embarrassing myself staring at her. At dinner she finally decided to wear something appropriate and chose dress pants along with a blouse I was sure belonged to Katherine. It was a little low cut for my taste and I caught Kent staring at her where he wasn't supposed to once or twice, but still none of them talked to her. They thought I liked her.
"Are you alright?" I spun around, my fingers tugging at the hair behind my neck as I tapped my foot frantically.
"No." Pena tilted her head to one side like a confused puppy, her hair finally down and framing her face. The locks had begun curling slightly, the true nature of her strands coming alive at night. It fit her quite nicely actually. It was less for lack of a better word, conserved and collected than her original ponytail.
"I'm sorry about earlier," she said.
"I shouldn't have tried to antagonize you so much. I just thought, you were so displeased with me within the first few minutes of my arrival that…" her sentence faded and she brought her gaze to the rosebush beside a stone bench. As she went to sit, I finally got to see the shape of her. The nightgown she wore wrapped around her hips tightly, slipping down to her ankles with a slit reaching up her thigh. It was tasteful despite its size, the light blue matching her bright eyes. Her tall, thin stature paired with the curve of her hips and muscle that lined her legs. She was built like a runner, yet her arms and neck seemed delicate like a rider's.
"No." I said, trying not to keep staring at her body like that.
"I apologize. It was rude of me to dismiss you so quickly," she licked her pouty lips and looked up at me through her lashes.
"I would've dismissed myself to be honest," she laughed.
"Not exactly the best girl to be seen with. You the one who dared to wear pants to meet the country's rulers." she joked. I couldn't help but give a humoured breath.
Nervously she grabbed the edge of the bench with each of her bony fingers, rocking back and forth on her heels as she didn't know what to say next.
Her hand.
I remembered how they it that afternoon, pressed up lightly against my cheek as she mocked me. Despite the situation, I remembered the touch more than anything. It was comfortable, intimate regardless of its sarcastic nature. Her skin had a warmth I recognized, as did those eyes paired with it.
"I know you," I said, breaking the silence.
"And you know me," She nodded, biting her lower lip ashamed.
"I didn't think you'd remember," she whispered, letting go of the stoney edges and rubbing her hands together in the cold.
I sat down next to her.
"I don't- I mean I do! But I just can't," for some reason the thought couldn't escape me. She gave me a sympathetic grin.
"Ya I know." My head dropped and I groaned, my hand tugging at my hair again (a nervous habit)
"I barely remember until my dad reminds me that we used to play together." I want her to keep talking, drive herself out of my head for good.
"We did?" I asked.
"Mhm. Your mother brought you. She needed my father's help and well, I was always there too." I thought back to a time when mom was alive, when I was young and she brought me into the city. I couldn't quite remember that part, but Pena's face did look so familiar, especially when I thought of a rounder, younger face not so grown up. And those curls, I knew those curls too.
"I wasn't lying you know," she smiled to herself.
"Could never forget that hair," she pointed at the mess on my head, making me self conscious. I patted down the puff in an attempt to make her stop laughing at me like that. I have to give her credit though. It was quite a nice laugh; not mousey or giggly or fake, just a laugh that thinned her eyes and reddened her cheeks.
Real.
"You're one to talk," I said, referring to the now even frizzier locks climbing up her body. Pouting up at her hair and back at me, I rolled my eyes at her attempt to get an apology out of me.
"At least I couldn't get a job as a circus clown." she smirked a little too smuggishly for me.
"Well maybe not a clown" I raised a finger.
"But I hear the circus business is always looking for freaks who can shove a hundred pieces of toast down their throat in a minute," her jaw dropped and rose back up as she sneered.
"Learn how to count clown head. It was 87." she winked at me as I chuckled.
"Now I think I remember." I said, a hopeful gleam lighting her eyes.
"Do you remember that you called me simpleton?" she asked. Yeah that sounded like me.
"Haha, no but I do now." She pushed my arm playfully, laying an elbow on her knee and placing her face gently on a closed fist.
"Didn't you call me…" i paused trying to phrase it right.
"Connard?"
"Cõnnāŕ" she corrected, that accent of hers so sweet to the senses.
"Connar." I repeated, butchering it still.
"That's beautiful."
"You think so?" She asked, still not facing me.
"Yes."
"Good."
"What does it mean?"
"Asshat." She said, her lips thinning into a single line as she tried to stop herself from bursting into laughter.
"Oh yes very funny," I teased as she fell over herself her hand over her mouth as she convulsed. I watched her then, only for a moment. Pena. The devil from my play. I was wrong again. She wasn't a devil. She was just a girl I'd forgotten once.
"Don't do that," I said absentmindedly. She looked confused.
"Hm?" I grabbed her hand, bringing my arm across her slowly and placing it down on her knee.
"Don't cover your mouth when you laugh." she furrowed her brows.
"Oh dear. Am I breaking yet another royal rule? Do you want to check my teeth?" She bared them, a silly girl in the night.
"Haha, no," I said, watching her receide, smiling that unbearable smile that made me crumble.
"But its nice to see you laughing,"
Did I just?
"Thanks," she took it lightly, as if I was her friend- well actually, apparently I had been.
"Why are you here?" the question shot out of me to change the tone. The conversation had changed in a way I wished it hadn't (and by own doing none the least). I had to watch out for that.
"Oh," she said.
"So I guess you've figured out by now that I'm not exactly here to in your father's words, 'win over your heart'" She put her hand on her chest, mocking him with a fake pride on her face.
"Yes, yes." I sighed and she chuckled.
"Ok well, since you don't seem to be interested in this selection either, can you promise to keep this between us, at least until your brothers agree to eliminate me?" I'd never actually made a promise before. No one had ever asked that of me before. It felt strange, but somehow I knew this promise was worth making.
"Mhm," I nodded.
"I come from a place where I don't really, you know, fit in that well. And a lot of the time, I'm not even welcome in the place I was raised. So, my dad and brother thought it was best I try this you know? Get a chance to find a place where I do fit in." Her ocean eyes waved calm water through her irises, those dark blue flares of shipwrecks buried in stillness.
She was vulnerable.
"Little did I know how hard it would be to fit when I don't even want the same thing as all the other girls here-
"What do you want?" I interrupted her thought.
"What?"
"You heard me. If you don't want what all the other girls do, then what is it you want exactly?" Her vulnerability hid away at my push. She gripped her pendant that hung around her neck for a moment, breathing unevenly, thinking, listening, waiting for me to speak again.
"What about you?" She deflected.
"What is it you want?" I shrugged, locking my jaw back and forth.
"I want this war to end." I admitted. No harm could come from me telling her the truth.
"I want my brothers to be safe and to choose girls who won't want them for just the crowns on their heads and the money in their pockets." She listened attentively, authentically.
"I want my dad to understand that I can't handle everything all at once. I can't handle 35 girls, 50 army dispatches, 3 opposing sides, 17 allied countries, and 3 brothers." There was a moment of silence as I let go of a breath I thought I'd been holding in way too long.
"What if I told you I wanted the same thing." I turned to face her and she continued.
"What if I told you I wanted this war to end so I could go home, that I wanted to keep my family safe too, that I wanted to them to understand I'm not cut out for this." I swallowed.
"Then I guess I'd say we'd make a pretty good team." Her mind spun in circles, I could see it in the way she bit her bottom lip. Standing, she wrapped her arms around herself in a shiver and grabbed a white rose from the bush.
"Oh, here." I said, taking off my blazer to put on her shoulders. The gesture seemed less romantic in my head. With the rose in her hand she gripped the sleeves of the blazer and slid her own arms into it, thanking me with her little smile that I hated so.
"Let's make a deal," she said, holding the rose out in front of her.
"You let me stay here till the final candidates, till the war starts to die down in the Barrens. And if you let me stay, I promise I'll do everything to make your father believe you're actually participating in this. I'll even ask Katherine to go on a fake date with you to make it seem like you're weighing your options."
It was tempting. The thought of never having to actually participate while being able to focus on all the tasks I had to get to. I'd never have to talk to any of the mousey girls or get involved with my brothers. I could say Pena and I were going to the movies when really we just both sat in a room while I worked and she did, well, whatever she wanted.
"My dad's not an idiot." I said.
"If he thinks anythings up you'll be gone." Pena, looked down at the rose, one of her fingers pricked by a thorn.
"Then we'll just have to convince him." She raised the rose to me and I grabbed at it tightly, the striking end piercing my skin.
Her hand outreached to shake my own and I joined in.
"Deal."
"Deal."