A/N: This ship will drive me insane. Here I am, writing another saga for a princess and her sorcerer, and desperately trying not to make it drivel with a pedaphilia edge. I swear to you, nothing naughty will happen until our Sofia is at least 18. Even so, Cedric is 15 years older than her, and if anyone complains I shall remove this. But it won't let me sleep at night until I type it out11!
Suggestions and comments, even flames welcome!
Princess Wilde: Chapter One
I really thought that I was just a girl. Well, I was a princess, yes, so I guess that's a little bit special, but that was kind of an accident really. I tried my best not to let it go to my head.
So I was just a girl. Who could talk to animals and get in more than my share of trouble,ok fine. But I really had tried to be better the last few years. Being a good daughter, a supportive sister, and a fun friend is a lot to juggle. Add princess and flying derby champion and magical apprentice and I had enough on my plate. I was pretty happy being just another girl in Enchancia. A human girl.
It was about two months after my fourteenth birthday when I woke up really early after a terrible night's sleep. No matter how tight I pulled the curtains, it seemed like the moonlight would creep in and keep me awake. The sky was barely light with a pre-dawn glow when I opened my door. There was the most delicious smell wafting up to the bedchambers from the kitchens far below. I didn't even remember to put on slippers or a robe, I just followed that heavenly scent down hallways and stairs until I was in the kitchens.
There was a side of beef on the spit, just starting to roast over the fire for tonight's meal. The almost raw meal would have been revolting to me the day before - I had vowed to give up eating meat not long after my Amulet let me talk to animals. But now - I don't even want to think about how all that glistening fat and red flesh made me salivate. I stepped closer and closer, and I swore I would have taken a bite of it right then, if Rufus - the kitchen dog - hadn't greeted me with an enthusiastic, "Howdy, Princess, what'ya doing down here so early. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Can't eat it though. Get my share later!"
I remember staring at Rufus and nodding an automatic hello, then spinning around and sprinting away from the kitchen, dashing down the hallways, the noise of my bare feet slapping the marble echoing like cannon fire. My vision was blurred with tears and I felt so lost, so out of control. I slammed into a wall of human at top speed.
Cedric cushioned my fall as we slid backward onto the hard stone floor. He grunted enthusiastically, his arms wrapping tight around me. I stared into his eyes for a long moment as I lay on top of him, frozen in the awkwardness of the situation.
His face went from perturbed to resigned to concerned in mere seconds. "Princess Sofia? Are you ok? You're awake awfully late...or awfully early, and you've been crying?"
It all crashed down on me, the hunger, my lack of sleep, and the general restlessness that had been building in me for months. I lay my head down on his chest and cried my eyes out, clutching him like a giant teddy bear. I bearly felt him sit up, rearranging my body like a limp ragdoll. He patted my head awkwardly and simply let me hold on. As I ran out of steam, he scrambled to his feet and put his arms around my back and under my knees and actually picked me up. It was a feat of strength that should have been shocking for such a thin man as Mr. Cedric, but I didn't question it. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my head against his robes, my nose brushing the bare skin of his throat - he wasn't wearing his bow tie, and his shirt was half unbuttoned. I didn't question it then, but I thought about it often later. I inhaled deeply, taking comfort in the scent of him and his potions - honey and vinegar and bitter herbs and things i didn't really want to think about. There was also the scent of pine, and something undefinable that was just Mr. Cedric and magic.
He was walking, and I finally noticed that he was taking me outside, out into the gardens. The sky was just starting to turn to blue and orange with the coming dawn when he stopped in a sheltered corner of the garden with a view toward the East, one with a garden bench.
"Can I set you down, Princess?"
I nodded, unsure that I could actually speak.
He set me on the bench and I managed to let go of his neck, though I felt a distinct pang to be separated from him. He stepped back and I noticed his dishevelled state - no waistcoat, simple trousers and shirt, and no shoes, though he still wore his robes. He stared at me a moment, his eyes wide and searching. He swallowed, his eyes narrowed, and he nodded, as though answering a question that had not been asked aloud.
He pulled his wand out of his sleeve and muttered some spells in a soft voice, as though he didn't want to alarm the birds just starting to chirp. I suddenly felt slippers on my feet and a warm robe wrapped around me.
His own clothes appeared in perfect order next, from shoes to yellow bow tie. Then another gesture and a table appeared, followed by a pot of tea, two china cups, both chipped, plates and flatware, all familiar pieces I'd seen in his tower rooms. Not the elegant stuff from the royal dining rooms, these were Cedric's own.
He sat down next to me and poured out the tea such as I liked it, one sugar and a bit too much milk. Then he faced me and cocked his head. "You are Hungry," he stated plain as day. I could feel that capital letter. I felt myself blush, which was an odd reaction I suppose, but thinking of that terrible Hunger I'd felt in the kitchen seemed so embarrassing.
I picked up my tea with a shaking hand and nodded quickly. I didn't have the presence of mind to question how he knew, what he knew. I just stared at him, trying not to think about anything at all. I was trying to be numb. I wasn't very good at it.
With deft movements of his hand, our plates filled with steaming food - omelets oozing with onions and mushrooms and goat cheese, paired with a pile of succulent black cherries. Before I could control myself I had reached out and popped a cherry into my mouth, biting into the thick flesh of it and savoring the rich tasty on my tongue, the hardness of the stone inside against my teeth. It was real.
I smiled at Cedric, trying to be the cheerful Sofia that annoyed him to no end. "You know, when you aren't nervous, you really are sensational, Mr. Cedric. You perform magic like it was as simple as breathing. It's beautiful!"
It really was. He shrugged his shoulders and dug into his food, and I followed suit, staring at him out of the corner of my eye and trying to understand the odd roiling sensations in my heart and the heaviness in my lower stomach when I looked at him. It would take me years to understand what my body knew in that moment.
We watched the sunrise in companionable silence as we ate. As the bees began to awaken and buzz through the garden, Cedric started a running commentary on the importance of bees in the pollenation of magical plants and of bee products to the stability of most useful potions. I let his words wash over me as I made appropriate noises. I realized that he was making me comfortable, trying to return me to normal. My sister, my mother, not even Clover could have calmed me down and made me feel human and normal quite so fast.
"It's time to get back to your room, Princess. No doubt Baileywick will be around soon enough to wake you up, and you wouldn't want to start a panic by not being where you are supposed to be." He gave me a long suffering look, as though I didn't know how much trouble I routinely managed to get into.
I stood, pulling the robe about me tightly. "Thank you, Mr. Cedric. I..." I had no idea what to say to him, no idea what had happened to me.
He swallowed thickly, as though he too was lost for words. "I too feel...hungry sometimes. I find it easier to deal with out of doors, and perhaps in the company of a friend?"
I stared at him, a thousand questions running through my mind, but I just nodded in response. I turned and fled back to my chambers. I closed the door softly and padded across to my window seat, looking out at the early morning activity just beginning in the courtyard below. Clover stirred, openning his eyes and wrinkling his nose. He coughed slightly and stretched, groaning under his breath at his aches and pains - he was old, very old, for a bunny. I treasured every day he was with me.
He inhaled suddenly and looked up at me, something strange in his eyes. "Princess. You...how are you feeling? You are up very early."
"I...I didn't really sleep very well, Clover." How could I tell my friend about the horrible hunger? How could I make him afriad of me? "Clover...tell me, do I seem different to you? Different from other girls?"
Clover climbed slowly into my lap, and I stroked his patchy grey fur. He sighed appreciately, then looked up into my face. "You are different, Sofia. You are Royalty."
"I know I'm a Princess, Clover, I mean..."
"Not that...human royalty means nothing to us animals, girl!" he chuckled dismissively. "I mean, you are royalty of the forest. An Honored One. I thought you knew that."
"What does that mean, Clover? I've never heard of that."
Clover looked at me with a furrowed brow, "Really? Do your schools teach you anything useful? I thought for sure that the other one would have said something. You can change...well, someday. You are too young yet. But someday, you'll be a Guardian of the forest."
I looked at him blankly. He snorted and rolled his eyes. "I don't know what kind...but you are a predator, Sofia. The animals look up to you with respect now, and a little bit of fear. Haven't you noticed?"
I bit my lip and nodded. My friends had changed over the years, some leaving on migration, some starting families, and some dying. Animals have such short lives. I had cried over every one, but I understood that was the way of things. But lately, the new friends I made were different, more distant, more respectful. I thought it was because I was older, but...
"What kind of predator? And what other one?" I whispered, still trying to wrap my mind around what Clover meant. I never wanted to hurt any of my friends, he had to know that.
But Clover was already asleep once again, curled up in my lap and snoring. With a loud knock on the door, Baileywick announced it was time to wake up, and Claire would be coming in soon to help me dress. I put Clover gently down on the cushioned bench and went about getting ready for breakfast and school. I vowed to bring him an extra big batch of carrots that afternoon, and get some answers out of him
But that afternoon his cough was worse, his nose dry and hot. I forgot about my own woes as I worked to nurse him back to health, bothering Mr Cedric night and day for curative potions and rejuvenating spells. Surprizingly, he did not chastise me or push me out of his tower rooms or berate me for treating him like an animal apothecary. I never questioned it then, I was simply grateful for the help.
Two weeks later, and Clover was on the mend, but seemed very forgetful and tired. And I had new worries. My bleeding time had finally come. I was not terrified, as Amber had been almost two years before. She told me all about how she had fainted and thought she was dying until Mother had told her she had become a woman. Amber had actually been rather cruel in her taunting me that I had yet to grow curves or begin to bleed, I had just grown taller and taller, and I was a gawky stick figure of a girl.
But here finally, I was a woman, and Mother explained to me how my body could now carry a child, and how that child was created by a man and a woman, and how I must protect myself from the advances of unworthy men and guard myself until I was married. My thoughts spun with this new knowledge, and my body seemed a foreign thing, not quite my own any more.
Two weeks later, the moonlight again taunted me, allowing me no sleep, and the intense hunger gnawed at my belly throughout the night. I was out of my room long before dawn, roaming the garden as far from the house as I dared to go. I found myself once again in front of the conjured table I'd shared with Mr Cedric a month before, and there he was, waiting expectantly. He was once again less formally dressed, as though he'd put on clothes in a hurry, and once again he lacked shoes, something that should have been odd, but oddly made sense. My own feet seemed to itch being confined in my silk slippers, and I longed to run my toes through the dewy grass.
"Long night, Princess Sofia?" he waved a hand at the other end of the bench he sat on. I sit, closer to him than I probably should have, close enough that his loose robe brushed against my hip.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He smiled at me, and nervously tapped his fingers on the table. Once again he called up a sumptous breakfast that seemed to almost satisfy me, and once again we watched the sunrise and spoke of the natural world and it's interaction with magic.
The scene repeated over and over again, and I never really asked why. I was too grateful to question it, worried I would break the spell. I was still very much the little girl at fourteen.