"You have to start wearing dresses,"
Pena and I were walking on the track inside the athletics section of the castle, empty and free of guards or servants. I always tried waking up as early as I could. Sleep was a waste of time when I had to deal with everything. Somehow, she was up before me, wanting to run to destress or something.
"That's not very convenient for track now is it?" she said, the straightness of her hair restored, the silky yellow pony tail back in its place.
"Be serious. The people like you because you're not catty, you're pretty, and so far you're not completely unbearable. But you have to dress the part and that means you know, ladylike clothing and jewelry and stuff like that. Things a princess would wear." She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. That was really getting old.
"Aw you really think I'm pretty Kade?" she mocked. I glared down at her as we turned the corner.
"Don't call me that,"
"Would you prefer I call you Cõnnāŕ?" Oh that smugness.
"Relaaaxx your majesty. I'll wear your dresses if you lend them to me, ok?" Begrudgingly, I just accepted her talking that way to me.
To be honest, Kine has always talk to me that way too, disrespectful or not. But he had a semiright as a prince. She had neither the right nor the affordance.
"So why do you wake up so early?" She asked, swinging her arms forward and back with her steps.
"Habit I guess. When I have a lot of work I usually get up early to catch up."
"So why are you here with me?"
"I wanted to make the boundaries and ramifications of our deal clear to you, see if you had anything to clear with me."
"You make it sound like we're two countries getting ready to sign a peace treaty,"
"Isn't that exactly what this is?" I asked, coming to a stop.
"A peace treaty between u and I?" She turned to face me.
"It's more a…" she thought it over
"symbiotic relationship, a partnership if you will," For a barren she sure knew how to talk.
"Alright." I agreed.
"An alliance." I finalized continuing forward with Pena at my side.
"You really are politically minded." She wasn't completely wrong.
"Just how I was raised you know?"
She thought it over, her gaze loosely fixed on the ground of red and white path. The smell of rubber was quite potent, the room freshly cleaned just the night before.
"Sometimes I feel like it's a lot to handle; a war that's my responsibility to end. And now it's worse than ever. Our own people are unhappy, we have more and more casualties. 4 of the opposing sides are starting to encroach on the Eastern region." I let myself go away with my thoughts, no longer remembering who I was talking to.
"We're just— we're not losing, but we're far from winning. Illea has always been on unsteady terrain when it comes to Its allies and we're barely clinging to the ones we have left. Sometimes I wish I could tell my dad that I need more time, more resources, more individual focus to be what he wants me to be."
She took my hand for a moment, bringing me back down to earth.
She held it out in front of her. Feeling unthreatened, I let her take it in that gentle outreach. Her palms were soft, delicate even, the bridge of her knuckles sliding over mine as she reached to her ear. Removing her little silver earrings, she placed them in the pit of my hand, closing my fist over them and letting it go.
"I understand how hard that can be," she said.
"Being shapes your whole life to be something you don't think you can be." She reached down to tie her sneakers tighter on her feet.
"But hey," she put her hand on my shoulder.
"At least you have a castle right?" She lept off her feet, jogging out in front of me. She'd done that a few times,finishing a lap and stopping to walk next to me earlier.
I sighed, her attitude as entertaining as it was, embittering. She always made me think we were getting somewhere and then… well, not.
She jogged forward, the pony swinging with the movement of her legs. Her black leggings looked new, the slight shine in their design definitely something she borrowed from the palace.
She wore this tight little tank top that stopped right at the edge of her ribs, tight around her torso. The ensemble made her look even taller than usual, those big eyes keeping her youthful air intact. She turned the corner behind me and almost caught up before she ran right past me.
Was she trying to get me to run with her?
She looked back at me, running backwards for a second, before winking and continuing down the track.
"Catch up Kade!"
God she was aggravating.
The goal to get her out of my head so I could focus didn't work out so well the night before...but I mean at least she was useful for something now.
"Think you're cool?" I called, before she yelled back, "Yup!"
Another lap, and she passed me again, blowing a kiss before yelling, "Are you always this slow my prince?"
Another lap.
"Come on Kade, don't let me have all the fun here."
Ok that's enough.
As she tried to pass me, I grabbed at her waist with both my hands and lifted her up.
"Hey!" she yelled, grabbing at my hands, and kicking one of her legs out.
I grunted,putting her down to face me. As she went to say something rude with her pouty lips I grabbed her wrists. They were bony little things, her skin warm against my palms. She was sweating the slightest bit, trying to wriggle out of my grasp. Finally she submitted, her chest rising and falling as her pulse quickened below my touch. I couldn't tell if it was because we were so close together or because she had overexerted herself.
"Rule number 1 of this deal Pena," I said, her eyes watching mine attentively.
"You listen to me. Whatever I say goes. So when I say not to call me that, you don't call me that, especially not in front of anyone." she nodded.
"Fine, fine, let me go you brute."I dropped her down, watching her recompose herself. She was actually quite cute all flustered.
"I swear to god you're gonna sprain my wrists one day." she said, looking at the red mark that lingered from the afternoon before.
"Should I kiss it and make it better?" Oh yes. I could play her little games too.
Her eyes darted up at mine, a surprised gaze with underlined indignation. She knew I was teasing her, yet there
Placing gentle hands back at her sides, Pena tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck.
"Careful Kado." she warned playfully.
"Our deal doesn't include as much as you may think it does."
"I don't remember you saying that when we were kids. Come to think of it, I think I remember you kissing me once or twice." Her jaw dropped, that crinkle between her eyebrows rousing a smile in me.
"I was four. I didn't know what kissing was."
"I was six. I think you just assaulted me." The more I remembered about her, the more I remembered my mom dropping me off in this little backyard telling me to be nice to the little girl with puffy yellow hair.
"Oh Kado." she clicked her tongue.
"If I assaulted you, you'd know it." her arms crossed over her chest and she raised a single challenging eyebrow.
"Rule number two." she said authoritatively.
"No sex."
What the-
"Excuse me?"
"I'll do whatever you need me to do to convince your father and the cameras, but ever lay a hand on me without my consent and you'll lose the hand."
36 hours. I'd known her for 36 hours and already she was threatening me.
"Who says I want to touch you?"
"It hasn't been two days and you've already grabbed me more times than I can count."
"That wasn't- I wasn't-
"Rule number three." she said, making me wish I'd just let her keep running.
"I like chocolate. Not flowers." She winked.
"Isn't that a bit presumptuous?"
She shook her head no.
"If you're father's going to think you're interested in me you have to make it seem like you care what I think of you. Generally girls like boys who give them chocolate or flowers. I like food." She smiled.
"And rule number 4." Her arms eased down to her side, that stern expression gone from her.
"If you're overwhelmed— really overwhelmed by the war or your father or anything else," her defensive stance relaxed as she spoke.
"Then you come to me." I didn't follow. What would she get out that?
"Why would I come to you?" Her eyes shut, the ghostly smile on her lips.
"Well all need someone who understands what we're going through,"
For the first time since actually meeting her, in meeting anyone actually, I found something I'd only ever seen in Harry.
Kindness.
The next day came about in a rush. After my run with Pena, things seemed to slow down. Father allowed me to ride in the forests like I did a few times a month on my own. There was just something about the serenity of the forest that drew me to her, the remainder of my mother's soul lost in her winds and oaky air. I spent so long there, just trying to exist, I hadn't realized how late it'd gotten.
Coming home, my father intercepted me in the hall. With droopy eyes and worn out lines on his forehead, he welcomed me home with an embrace I hadn't expected.
"Thank you Kado, truly." He said, letting me go as I awkwardly stared back at him.
"You're welcome? Did you see my proposal for the Eastern Region's tactics?" I felt my heart jump. Finally he began noticing that I wasn't failing at every task he gave me. Finally I'd done something useful for him and my country.
"Oh that? No, no, I was talking about this." He held out a newspaper with a black and white fuzzy picture on the cover.
"Given your reluctance in this entire process I didn't think you'd come around, but as always you came through." He patted me on the back as I began reading the article.
"I have to go. I have a late meeting, but keep up the good work alright? Maybe go out with one of the other girls too you know just to keep up moral along the girls too old for your brothers, ok?" My heart sunk back from where it came.
A picture of me and Pena standing in the garden in the late night was on the cover. The darkness obscured the image a tad, but you could see the shape of my jacket on her shoulders. You could see the way I looked down at her, how the blue of her eyes caught me so enthralling. I remembered that moment we shared; when she told me that we could help one another as we had when we were kids.
"Fucking hell," grabbing at the scurf of hair at the back on my neck, my other fist crumpled the paper.
It'd taken me months working on that proposal. The selection had been going on two days and my father was already starting to overlook all my contributions to the war. Maybe this was how the women felt when it was time for them to marry.
The ire lingered in me throughout the night.
Sleepless, I laid in my bed above the covers, thinking about the last 24 hours.
2 attacks, 16 miles of farmland burned to a crisp, and 13 casualties in 24 hours. The numbers played over and over in my head. I'd known one of the soldiers who died in the fire.
His name was Edmund. I remembered meeting him when he assisted Colonel Burke in preparations for the Barren hold outs two months ago. I'd spoken to him after the meeting about what his thoughts were on the conditions army men were exposed to. I remembered his smile and how he told me that the conditions were as favorable as they were ever going to be. "A war against an enemy like this, we have to be grateful for anything we can find." He'd said. I remembered how his newly wed bride had come to the castle with him, holding a baby in her arms.
That woman was a widow now, her child destined to grow up never having known his own father. Somehow... Knowing that was worse than any number of death's recorded on a sheet of paper.
Breaking into a sweat of anxious energy, I hurled myself out of bed and rushed to the desk covered in an endless stack of paperwork I'd been working on for what seemed. Staring down at it all, I only saw my failures; all the decisions I'd made shot down by the king, all the proposals and plans I'd ever put my heart and soul into that he threw away.
I couldn't take it any longer.
Fuck this attacks. Fuck this war. Fuck my plans, Fuck the armies, Fuck my father, Fuck. Every. Fucking. Thing. In this fucking world.
Fuck the world for all it'd done. Fuck it for deciding that seven countries needed to shed more blood than ever before in history. Fuck it for taking so many sons and daughters. Fuck it for killing the prosperity so many deserved. Fuck it for sucking the life out everything I loved. Fuck it for taking my mother when I needed her most. Fuck it for hurting my brothers
Suddenly
, I was out of breath, my heart racing against my lungs. My hands shook and when I looked down they were red, covered in smudges of blood and cuts.
My desk looked like it'd been ransacked, the papers once neatly organized all over the floor, torn up as if by a rabid animal.
I had to calm down, I had to recollect myself, I had to just-
...
A deep breath made its way into my throat and I let it go slowly, counting the seconds, not the beats that pounded in my temples. The darkness carresed my trembling skin, enveloping it in a kindness to calm my heart. Through the open doors of the balcony, the wind gently blew through my drapes. As it reached through my hair and over my face, I heard the gentle voice carried in the breeze of a woman I once knew.
"Breath." It said, a goddess' voice.
And so I did.
When the rush of anger or anxiety or whatever it was in me had subsided, I looked down at the mess of a desk that I had ruined. Slumping back into the desk chair, defeated, I started picking up the papers on the ground one by one. Within a few minutes, all the papers were neatly put in the trash can near the door, never to be seen again.
Picking an untarnished, uncrumpled piece of white paper from the depths of a drawer, I began writing. My pen flew across the page as I wrote the words that demanded to escape my mind.
Anxious, ire filled phrases filled the paper, equally angry music notes above them.
When the sun began rising, I was still at the desk, a new stack of wildness spread about the table.
And for once, I was proud of it.