Co-written with miss mika namariya! We own nothing!

Fairy tales traditionally end with the kiss and a happily ever after. but we're not quite there yet. So let's jump back in… where were we? Ah, yes.

A kiss in an empty ballroom.

Kuon had never even dared to dream of it.

And before he even had time to register more than oh my god Kyoko's kissing me, it was over. Kyoko drew back, gave him a sharp nod, and disappeared into one of her many hiding spots.

Leaving him dazed, confused, and with his pant leg covered in punch — he must have dropped his glass. A few stray sparkles littered the floor.

Sir Hoppington was going to get an earful of confused prince tonight.

LINE BREAK

"Roob," said an exhausted Sir Hoppington, at 3 o'clock that morning. "Roob."

"And then she just — she walked up and kissed me!" Kuon was wearing a path in the leaf-shaped rug in front of the tank. "And then she just nodded and walked away! What does that mean?"

"Roob." He looked up at him through the glass. If he had been human, he would have yawned.

"Before she was freaking out because I even suggested there was something there, and then she just —" He gestured wildly with his hands.

"Roob," he repeated. He was happy for his two-leggers, he really was, but did it have to impinge on his beauty sleep? A knight of the realm had certain standards to keep!

"She — I just — GAH!" He threw his hands up in the air and then sat down, hard, on the floor. He leaned against the glass, eye-to-eye with his knight. "Do you think she realized?" he whispered.

Sir Hoppington blinked slowly and wetly at him.

"Do you think — does she know?"

"Roob. Roob-roob."

"You're right. I'm sorry. It's late." He ran a hand through his already-mussed-up hair. "I should go to bed and let you sleep. This — this will make more sense in the morning."

LINE BREAK

It didn't. It didn't make a damn bit more sense in the light of day. Kuon stared up at the canopy of his bed as the cool winter light filtered in through his curtains. He'd slept — some — but it wasn't enough to help his poor brain figure out the machinations of Kyoko. Or lack of machinations. Maybe she had just kissed him. Maybe it was a tradition amongst changelings. Or maybe she had realized, finally, that they were True Loves, and — no, he couldn't let himself get his hopes up.

"Good morning!"

Especially not if he was supposed to have breakfast with her. And she was acting like nothing fucking happened. Like they didn't have the best dance of his life, and then she left him standing alone like an idiot. Like she didn't come back, interrupt his sulking, and kiss him.

No, Kyoko was acting completely normally. "I brought breakfast. It's a little more carb-heavy, since you had some of the mead last night, but it should still be light enough to not give you a stomach ache."

"Thanks." He sat up, vaguely aware that he was still in his clothes from the ball. She mentioned that he'd had alcohol last night — did he hallucinate it all? But no, he hadn't had that much to drink.

Kyoko looked over at him and frowned. "The laundry's going to be mad at you. It's a pain to get wrinkles out of those fancy clothes."

Sir Hoppington snored in the tank. Lady Lily ate half of the bugs, leaving the rest for him. Her poor, handsome knight had been up late serving the kingdom. It was tough being the prince's right-hand frog.

"Sorry. I should change."

"Alright." Kyoko turned her back and continued setting up their breakfast.

"I'll just… go over there. Right." He scrambled to grab his things and headed to his washroom to change. When he got there, he was horrified to see that he had spectacularly awful bedhead. It took some scrubbing to get it back to a reasonable state. By the time he emerged, Kyoko had fully set up breakfast and was looking worriedly over the sleeping Sir Hoppington.

Luckily, Lady Lily was there to assure her that everyone's favorite knight was not ill, just tired from serving as a sounding board to the prince of the land. She had the tact not to say exactly what the poor frog had been the sounding board for; she was a Lady, after all.

Kyoko returned to the breakfast table, content with that answer. The prince was such a hard worker, to have been discussing matters of policy even after a ball! She smiled across the table at him as he sat down, making his heart skip several beats.

I should say something. It'd be normal to say something, right? Kuon thought.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked, giving his food a pointed look.

"Uh, yeah." No. He took a bite of breakfast, not really tasting it. When he swallowed, he asked, "Did you?"

She nodded. "I was trained to fall asleep swiftly."

"How do you even train for that?" he asked before his mouth caught up with his brain.

Kyoko launched into a long-winded explanation of something that was definitely only semi-legal. He really needed to find a way to have the so-called academy investigated. He nodded along as they ate and she explained. This was good; not the food — though that was, as usual, excellent — but the fact that he was interacting with her normally. He was going to score well in interactions, which was normal to want and possible to achieve. Yes. He was acting normally, and definitely not freaking out inside because she fucking kissed him last night and now was acting like nothing changed.

Had he imagined it?

Was it some sort of changeling tradition he didn't know about?

Or did she just regret it?

He didn't know which of the three options was the worst.

LINE BREAK

Kuon sighed heavily. In the end, he'd been too much of a coward at breakfast to ask Kyoko why she'd kissed him— again, assuming she'd kissed him at all. The Prince was fairly certain it had happened since he'd found stains from his shattered punch cup on his breeches, but he couldn't quite rule out the idea that he'd hallucinated the whole thing.

He was still in the dark, which meant there was no way he could possibly concentrate or even think about anything else until Kuon knew for sure. So he did the only logical thing and skipped out on the meeting he was supposed to attend in favor of wandering through the more deserted palace halls and sighing heavily at regular intervals.

"What's wrong?" Kyoko poked her head out from a slab in the floor.

"I'm pining." Might as well be as straightforward as she'll let me.

Kyoko gave a small frown. "You're more of an oak, I think."

"What?"

"Strong, sturdy, grounded, and nice leaves. Well, hair, in your case."

"Oh." She likes my hair! That's a win, right? No, Kuon didn't want to get his hopes up. Maybe she was just impressed that (unlike so many other royals), he hadn't gone bald before the age of twenty.

When he did not perk up much, Kyoko's brow furrowed. "If you want to be a pine… you need sap. I'll go get some." She vanished, and a few minutes later, she returned, holding a wad of sap. "Here you go!"

"...Thanks." He took the sap.

"Don't thank me, it's my duty to serve you. Whenever you're pining, you can always come to me and I'll help!" She smiled at him, and it did help.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Ribbit," said Sir Hoppington from Kuon's pocket. Kyoko walked over and gave him a very sticky pat. Kuon just looked at the sap and thought that it might as well be a mirror.

LINE BREAK

"As always, your flirting skills leave much to be desired," Kijima observed with a world-weary sigh and a shake of his head. If he had a face like Kuon's (not that Kijima thought himself bad-looking— just not as handsome as the prince), he'd certainly put it to better use. "What a waste," the knight muttered.

"She gave me a handful of sap," Kuon said a bit defensively. "Not exactly a lot of material to work with."

"You have to use your imagination! I swear, what are all those useless lessons for?" The knight whined. Then he brightened up. "You could have called her a spruce. Because she spruces up your life! Get it?!"

Kuon groaned. "That's not any better. That's actually worse. So much worse."

"It's better than nothing."

"Need I remind you how your attempts at flirting with Kyoko went?" Kuon asked, eyebrow raised.

Remembering the duel, Kijima winced. "Touché."

"You two are both idiots," Lory chimed in, leaning through the open doorway. He gave both men a look. "Is this what you two think flirting is? No wonder the kingdom's population is in decline. And you," Lory said, looking at Kuon, "you'd better do something. At this rate, you'll be eighty before you get anywhere."

"Yes, please join us, why don't you," Kuon said, barely managing to not roll his eyes.

"Alas for you! I have plans," the Duke said with a gesture to the twelve feet of bright pink velvet cape that trailed behind him, unaware that this explained very little to either of the younger gentlemen. "But I will say, I think Mogami is wrong — you're obviously a weeping willow if you're going to keep wallowing like this."

The Duke swept down the hall.

Kuon dragged both hands down his face. He couldn't believe that it had come to this— getting love advice from Kijima and Lory. Then again, desperate times call for desperate measures, and both Kijima and Lory would certainly call the Prince's case desperate. And Kuon had to admit they had a point. But even so, he knew better than to try and win Kyoko's heart through tree puns.

LINE BREAK

"So, things are fine between you two?" Kanae asked, glancing up from her book.

Kyoko, who had of course told Kanae of her Grand Realization, nodded. "Of course! Why wouldn't we be? Everything's good."

The Archive flicked her eyes over at the prince, who looked like nothing so much as a wet, bedraggled puppy, and suppressed a snort. "Does his highness have anything to say on that point?"

Kyoko looked expectantly at him.

"I'm… fine if you're fine."

Later, when Kyoko was off-duty, she came back to Kanae. "He does seem kind of down. Did he think it was anticlimactic? Should I have gotten him a rose or something?"

"Mmm." Kanae tried not to laugh.

"Do you think he's worried about being a grandparent?"

That made Kanae look up from her book. "A what now?"

"Sir and Lady Hoppington are expecting — though you're right, they'll be more like nephews and nieces than grandchildren."

"Yes. That's absolutely why. One hundred percent," Kanae said, not dripping with sarcasm.

Kyoko nodded. It was the only thing that made sense. After all, she'd found him his True Love! He had to be nervous about the tadpoles.

LINE BREAK

"So!" she said, popping out of the wall and making Kuon drop his pen. "I was thinking we should celebrate!"

She kissed me. Maybe she realized? And has just been too shy to mention it again until now? "Celebrate?" he asked hopefully.

"I was thinking maybe a shower." She brushed some dust off of her arm. The secret passages hadn't been used much in their absence.

"I… didn't think you'd be into that, but sure." Like. Like a wedding shower, right?

"We should get them some new moss."

"What?"

"Their old moss is starting to wilt. I'm sure they'd appreciate some new flora. A baby shower is usually for supplies but I don't really know what they'd need, aside from some more space."

Oh. He honestly wasn't surprised. "I can commission a tank extension." Their frogs deserved it, after all. "Who should we invite?"

"Moko, of course, and Lady Maria," she said, sitting down across from him and stealing his pen to make a list.

"Sir Kijima will show up regardless, so we may as well invite him."

And with that, the crown prince got really into planning a tadpole shower. Later, he would comment to the father-to-be, "Sure, it's not the healthiest coping mechanism for disappointment, but it's good to have something else to think about."

"Riiiib."

"Besides, you guys deserve it. They're still eggs and they're already so cute."

Sir Hoppington puffed up proudly.

Leave your guesses about what they play at the tadpole shower down below!