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“Do you think anyone would notice if we left?”
C’yra glances up from her flute of that sparkly pink champagne and fixes Adora with a curiously quirked brow, her eyes glinting softly in the ballroom’s lighting. They had long since abandoned the dance floor in favour of prowling along the edges of the ballroom, heads tucked together, their cackles dancing over the heads of the surrounding attendees. They have been inseparable from the moment they met, and everyone seemed to be acutely aware of how the two princesses have clicked, like two pieces solving a puzzle.
She’s known the princess of Eternia for only one night, but it feels like she’s known her for a lifetime. Only hours since their first interaction, their dance -- one that held much more romantic tension than either are willing to admit -- and it feels like she knows her more intimately than she really should. Realistically, she doesn’t know her that well at all; she doesn’t know her favourite colour, season, her biggest pet peeve, her hobbies...but she knows that she would certainly like to know. She wants to drink in everything about this girl.
A small, insecure part of her knows that it will only hurt her in the end. This alliance will last forever, but Adora will not be on Etheria for the rest of her life. Eventually, she would have to go back to her home planet. It’s a thought that C’yra doesn’t want to entertain, but it tugs insistently at her, a needless reminder that nothing she wants stays forever.
“If we’re subtle enough, I think we can pull it off.” C’yra makes a quick survey of the room. “Why, are you putting your nefarious seduction plan into action?”
Adora’s smile is cheeky, though there is a slight tinge of red to the apples of her cheeks. “If I was, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, silly.”
It isn’t hard to sneak out, in the end. Slowly, they began to shrink into the shadows lurking at the edges of the ballroom, watching and waiting as guests became too increasingly distracted to look for them anymore. Another song starts up and most of the guests get caught up in the dancing that begins to take place. Seizing the opportunity, they leave their empty glasses and make a break for the door, slipping down the long corridors of Brightmoon’s palace, muffling their snorts and giggles behind their hands.
They eventually come to find the entrance to the gardens, completely by accident. It's empty, silent, save for the sound of rushing water in the great fountain at its center, the sounds of leaves brushing against the gentle breeze. It’s peaceful, a nice break from the greater volume and throngs of people inside the ballroom.
Adora stretches her arms up towards the sky, breathing a content sigh, before she begins to remove the pins holding her hair up. The softest-looking fishtail braid tumbles down and rests between her shoulder blades. C’yra can’t seem to decide if she wants to drag her fingers through that golden hair or to brush her fingertips the pale dip of her spine, just to see what Adora would do.
She’s broken from her trance by the feeling of something hitting her in the shin. With an indignant squawk, she realizes that the princess has hiked her skirt up and kicked her heels off, using them as projectiles to get her attention. “Hey!”
The blonde laughs, and it turns into a snort, and dammit, it should be illegal to be this cute. “You zoned out on me, princess!”
C’yra’s eyes narrow, picking up on the challenge that lingers in Adora’s voice. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that.”
“Catch me if you can, kitty.”
-
Somehow, they find weapons.
They’re just bo staffs, propped up against one of the outer walls of the garden, made of smooth wood with capped ends. Training staffs, likely. Perfect enough to see just how much of a fighter the blonde really was.
And she’s good. Better than C’yra had expected.
The way Adora fights is fluid, strategic, she makes it look as easy as breathing. Like she was born to do it. Her strikes are firm and confidant, her blocks are strong; though she is not as quick or flexible as C’yra, what she lacks she makes up for in pure skill and determination. She’s a worthy opponent, one that the Magicat princess has not seen in years, one that is not willing to hold back just because she is a princess, and one she is glad she will be fighting alongside rather than against.
For the first time in a long time, C’yra feels unsure if she would win in a real fight against Adora.
C’yra moves into a downward strike, which Adora blocks with ease, bringing her stuff up with both hands to halt it in its tracks. For a few brief moments, they remain locked in this position, sweat glistening on their temples, eyes locked intensely.
“We still haven’t decided what the winner gets, you know,” she points out, fangs glinting in the sharp light of the moon.
Adora grins back. “Well, perhaps that is up to them to decide when they win. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sounds good to me.” Without warning, C’yra breaks from the hold to flip her staff up against the underside of Adora’s, effectively knocking it out of her hands.
What she doesn’t expect, when she goes for another strike, for Adora to catch the staff with her bare hands, and yank on it. The Magicat goes flying, flipping through the air until she lands hard on the grass, back aching and the wind knocked from her lungs. It takes her a few brief moments to recover; without the staff, she moves without thinking, sweeping Adora’s legs out from underneath her, until the blonde joins her on the ground, breathless.
C’yra pounces on her, pinning her to the ground, ending the match.
“Pinned ya.”
They’re out of breath, panting and gasping for air, but the grins on their faces are wide and bright. The adrenaline rush begins to fade, leaving C’yra to glance down and realize that she has not yet let go of Adora; one glance into her eyes, seeing the way they are glinting with something...different, something intense, makes her snap out of her trance in a single beat. She scrambles to stand on wobbly legs, offering her hand to the other princess, who accepts gladly, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.
“Well, you win,” Adora points out, still trying to catch her breath. “What do you desire of me, oh great and humble master?”
Something inside her, something primal, wants to tell Adora to kiss her. The desire tugs at her insistently, the desire to feel Adora’s lips on hers, to feel her breath on her cheek, to bring her close and hold her until everything else crumbles around them. Until nothing else matters, but just that feeling.
She doesn’t. Fear is like an old friend, and fear of rejection is it’s greatest weapon against her.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to be too cruel to you, since you’ve only just arrived on Etheria. Why don’t you…” She glances at their surroundings, until her gaze comes upon the fountain. “Go take a dip in the fountain?”
Adora’s heavy gaze is fixed on her, and part of her wonders if there is...disappointment in her eyes. But perhaps it is just wishful thinking. Her lips curl into a smile, and it takes C’yra’s breath away.
“Your wish is my command.”
Without missing a beat, Adora takes off at a leisurely skip towards the fountain, hands holding up the skirt of her gown. When she reaches it, she easily hops in and proceeds to dunk her entire body into the water.
C’yra can’t help it; she begins howling with laughter, because frankly, a part of her hadn’t thought Adora would actually do it. But perhaps her expectations will continue to be thrown out the window when it comes to the princess. It’s not like it’s a bad thing for her.
Adora resurfaces, brushing her wet hair out of her face and rubbing the water from her eyes. Grinning cheekily, she places her hands upon the slope of her waist and cocks her hip to the side, eyes expectant. “Satisfied?”
C’yra couldn’t wipe the grin off her face if she tried. “Very.”
-
“Let’s ask each other questions about ourselves,” Adora suggests, squeezing the excess water from her braid.
“Like what?”
“Anything! Favourites, hobbies, funny stories. I wanna know more about you.”
Warmth settles in C’yra’s chest. “Okay, well...you go first.”
Adora’s lips purse. “Favourite colour?”
“Seriously?” C’yra can’t help but snicker.
“Hey, it’s a start!”
“Red. What’s your weapon of choice?”
“Sword, mostly. Most short-range weapons I like. First word?”
“No, unsurprisingly. My parents wanted me to take a bath. What’s a lie you told someone that they still don’t know the truth about?”
“I sat in my mom’s favourite lounging swing in her garden and broke it, and I blamed it on a hurricane that happened the next day.”
C’yra breaks into peals of laughter. “Anyone know the truth besides me?”
“Only Adam. And he knows that if he tells that I’ll snap him over my knee like a twig. What’s a story your family always tells about you to people?”
“When I was very little, I grabbed onto my dad’s face and whispered to him that I had just pooped and I didn’t wash my hands.”
Adora begins to roar with laughter and collapses onto her back.
“Shut up! I was four!”
“You were a vindictive four-year-old!”
“True. Ever kissed someone before?” The question comes out before she can even stop herself. Stupid, who just asks that to people they just met?
Adora’s gentle smile suddenly turns to something sheepish, almost embarrassed. “One time Adam beat me in a sparring match by yanking on my hair, so I went and kissed the girl he had a crush on. Her name is Teela, we’d known her since we were kids.”
C’yra, through the glee of knowing she likes girls she likes girls she likes girls, and besides the tightening in her gut, can’t help the guffaw that escapes her. “No fucking way!”
Adora’s face is rapidly turning red, and she covers her face with her hands, smothering her embarrassed giggles. “Shut up! She's my best friend now!”
C’yra, despite herself, can’t seem to stop laughing, despite the sudden spike of jealousy that rises in her chest. How stupid is that? Feeling jealous over a girl she’s never met before, who is just Adora’s friend and nothing else? How clichéd could you get, C’yra? “Okay, casanova, your turn.”
Adora stops, and ponders, eyes trained up to the sky. "Tell me, C'yra, what's the one thing that you want in this world, more than anything?"
She isn't sure why, but something about the ambiance of the palace gardens, the way the moon's light gently caresses the high points of Adora's cheekbones, shimmers across her golden hair, reflects on the silk of the gown she still has hiked up, makes the princess appear so ethereal and otherworldly that it takes C'yra's breath away. There's dirt smudged on her cheek and grass stains on her knees leftover from their sparring. Her hair is slowly coming undone from the braid. She has never wanted a person more than she wants Adora, but stars above, she's too much of a coward to say it.
I want to marry you, is what she wants to say. Come home with me. Come home with me, and I’ll give you anything you desire. I’ll dig up every bit of gold from the rivers, and shake every fruit from the trees, and pluck every feather from every bird, you’ll only need to ask. Come home with me, come home with me, come home with me.
"To be honest," C'yra starts, brows furrowed. "I think I'm far too selfish to want just one thing."
Adora smiles, open, willing, trusting. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a bit selfish."
If she hadn’t been pining before, she definitely was now. The openness that Adora projects to her makes her face feel hot, and her palms feel sweaty. “...dork.”
“Only for you,” Adora replies, punctuated with a wink. “Your turn.”
“What’s something from Eternia that you miss having here?”
“Stars,” is what Adora immediately answers with, without missing a single beat. “I always knew Despondos didn’t have stars, but knowing and seeing are two different things, I guess.”
C’yra finds herself sitting up, holding her weight up with her hands braced behind her. “What are stars?”
“You can only see them at night,” the princess explains, reaching out to press little dots in the dirt at their feet. “From the ground, they only look like tiny dots in the sky, but there’s billions upon billions of them, and they are glow so brightly you can see them without any sort of magnification. They’re just clusters of burning gas, held together by gravity, but trust me, seeing them can take your breath away. Their central core is extremely hot, and it produces energy; they come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes, colours, you name it.”
“You know a lot about them,” C’yra comments.
“My mom taught me everything that I know.” Adora’s smile is fond, content. “She knows everything about the stars. She isn’t from Eternia; she’s from a planet called Earth, in the Milky Way galaxy. She was a pilot, and then a space explorer, until her last mission threw her ship off course and she became stranded on Eternia. That’s how she met my dad. He took her in when she had nowhere to go, and tried his best to help her get home...but they fell in love, and she decided to stay.”
The Magicat princess felt her chest tighten with a strange fondness; it’s a lovely story, she thinks. What are the odds you find your soulmate on a planet that is not your own, in a galaxy far from your own?
“That’s cute.”
“She misses it sometimes, I think, but she doesn’t really mention it. She definitely doesn’t regret it either.” The Eternian stops and surveys the cluster of stars she’s poked into the dirt. “I’ve never been there, but she tells me all about the constellations there.”
“Constellations?”
“They’re patterns of significantly brighter stars that are visibly from the ground, ones that are closer together. They make shapes in the sky, and each one has a name. Eternia has them too, but they aren’t the same as the ones you can see from Earth.”
Curiosity overcomes her, she can’t help but ask. “Tell me about some.”
Adora immediately begins to trace lines in the dirt, connecting the dots, so to speak. “Some constellations were named after mythical heroes, like Serenia.” Her fingers moved rapidly, confidently, tracing lines and circles and curves to create the image. “Serenia was a famed hero, a champion of the gods, and the constellation used to appear over Etheria too. It only appeared in the summer, and only over one specific area. A desert land, I think. It seemed pretty grim and desolate.”
“The Crimson Waste, probably.” C’yra offers, simply because it seems to be the best fit for the description.
“Maybe!” She moves on from the picture of Serenia, to trace more lines in the dirt. “Eternian constellations are nice, but there was always something about Earth constellations that were so interesting. They’re all so different, but they all have a story behind them.” She traces a multitude of different constellations in quick succession. “The Big Dipper is the most popular one, but most people can’t see the bigger constellation it’s apart of, called Ursa Major, the Great Bear, especially in polluted air. This is Cassiopeia, the Queen. Canis Major, the Great Dog, is where you’ll see the brightest star in the entire night sky, called Sirius. This is Perseus, the Hero. Orion, the Hunter, who some people say is the master of Canis Major. Oh, you’ll like this one! This is Leo, the Lion.”
The shape, though a simple line connecting stars together, creates the vague shape of a large cat. C’yra grins, enough to show her teeth. “You’re right, I do feel rather inclined towards that one.”
Gods, if she could spend the rest of her life watching Adora rave about the stars and constellations, she would do it in a heartbeat. And frankly, she feels as though her own heart is about to burst from her chest. To fight the heat rising in her cheeks, she attempts to change the subject. “Which one’s your favourite?”
"Oh, Lyra was always my favourite constellation." Slowly, Adora's finger begins to trace the shape in the dirt, her strokes sure and slow, as though she had been born to do it. As though she wanted it to
look perfect, so the other princess could see how beautiful it is. "It represents the lyre that belonged to Orpheus, from Earth’s Greek mythology."
C’yra, though she couldn’t quite picture it in her mind, something she had never seen, couldn’t help the curiosity that overtook her. “What was so special about him?”
Adora’s smile became impossibly wider, like she had secretly hoped the Magicat would ask. “Orpheus was a poet, a musician. He was the son of the Muse Calliope, and they say his golden lyre was given to him by Apollo, the God of the Sun. When he sang, the rocks and trees moved themselves to be near him, because his voice was so beautiful. No god or mortal could deny him anything when he sang.”
She moves to speak more, but it’s as though she shrinks, leaving the drawing in the dirt and wrapping her arms around her knees. “I’m sorry, this is probably boring you. I can talk about a more interesting one if you want?”
Something inside C’yra’s heart broke in two. She could tell, in just a few sentences, that Adora held a great deal of love for this story, for this one cluster of stars that she hadn’t even personally seen before, and someone...someone had told her to stop talking about it. Someone had once made her feel like she’s boring others with things she is passionate about. Why would C’yra want her to stop talking, when the princess visibly lit up at the prospect of talking about it? When her eyes sparkled so brightly, that she’s certain they could have birthed those stars all on their own? When her lips pull into that stunning, eager smile, oh gods, she wants to kiss those lips so badly. Desire burns in her chest, hotter than any blazing inferno, brighter than any star or any sun; have you ever known desire until this moment? All those stories of people falling in love in a single day always seemed so silly to her, but up until now, she hadn’t thought herself capable of wanting someone so badly.
She understands it now. She’s never wanted someone like this before.
C’yra scoots herself closer, until their sides are just brushing each other, and reaches to take one of Adora’s hands. “Hey, it’s not boring me at all. Can you...tell me more? About Orpheus? Why do you like him so much?”
Adora pauses, and she can see the way the gears are turning in her head. Her eyes softened, and the squeeze of their hands is returned tenfold. It’s tinged with gratitude.
“Well...the most famous story about him has to do with his wife, Eurydice,” she explains, thumb tracing the back of C’yra’s hand. “She was a wood nymph, a shy thing, but he fell in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her. And it was the same for her. He could have anyone he’d ever wanted, and they would want him back, but he saw her and he knew she was the one he would love forever. They would get married, and it would be the happiest day of their lives...but it didn’t last long. Right after the wedding occurred, Eurydice was bitten by a viper, and she died right in front of him.”
Though it was only a story, a myth, C’yra could feel her heart sinking. To lose the love of your life, right when you thought you had achieved happiness, is possibly one of the most devastating things imaginable.
“He was no longer the same carefree man,” Adora continued, without missing a beat, though it seemed to sadden her. “They say Orpheus was so overcome with grief, with the pain of losing his
beloved wife, that he could not bare the thought of her being lost. He decided that risking certain death and the wrath of the gods was a fate better than living one more second without her. So he picked up his lyre, and he journeyed down to the underworld, the place where the dead go, to get her back. And he was going to get her back, even if it got him killed.”
C'yra is not like Orpheus; she is not a poet, or a musician, and the rocks and trees will not move at the sound of her voice. She doesn't know if she could be brave enough to do what Orpheus did. But when she looks into Princess Adora's eyes, and sees that beautiful sparkle, she thinks perhaps it would not be difficult to decide if she would.
“Very few mortals could travel down to the underworld and live to tell the tale. He went down, determined to convince Hades, the God of the Dead, and his wife Persephone, the Goddess of Spring, to let Eurydice go back with him. They denied him at first, but he sang a song to convince them to change their minds. It was so beautiful that it moved them, so much so that Hades allowed Eurydice to go with Orpheus, back to the surface. But there was a catch; in order for Orpheus to return with her, she would have to walk behind him, and he could not turn back to make sure she was coming with him. If he turned to look back at her at all during their walk back, she would have to stay down in the underworld forever, and he would never get another chance. It was a test.”
Adora seemed to grow more and more saddened as she spoke. C’yra nudged her with her shoulder, almost a comfort, almost to lighten the mood. “Did they make it?”
“No,” Adora answers, looking as though she’s been punched in the gut. “He lost hope. He was so scared that Hades had tricked him, and was tormenting him, only for him to leave the underworld to find that she had not been there the entire time. Right as he left the underworld, he turned, and she was right there. She hadn’t stepped out yet...and he lost her forever.”
“Couldn’t he go back and try again?”
“No, the gods would never allow a mortal to travel to the underworld twice while remaining alive. It was unheard of. He was never the same after that...he spent the rest of his life in depression, singing songs for the love he lost, right until he died.”
C’yra can understand now why the blonde is so sad. It’s such a jarring feeling that she pokes the other princess in the cheek, just in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Are you one of those people that
feeds off of sad stories, you weirdo? I’m sad now! I thought this was gonna end happily!”
The tension breaks, and Adora instantly begins to laugh, squeezing her hand tightly in apology. She had almost forgotten they hadn’t let go yet. “I’m sorry! I guess I should have warned you.”
“Why the hell do you like that story so much if it makes you so sad?” C’yra questions.
The blonde doesn’t even seem to stop and ponder the question. She already knows the answer, it seems. “It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking, that Orpheus risked everything and lost her twice, that they never got to be happy together. But I love it because he was willing to risk everything, even his own life, just at the prospect of getting her back. Even if he died in the attempt, he didn’t even hesitate, not for a moment. That’s the kind of love I want to feel for someone, like I would move heaven and hell and barter with every god that listens, just for them.”
It feels as though C’yra’s breath has been stolen right out of her lungs. Only a single night has passed since she met Adora, a princess from another planet, almost a complete stranger, but she feels something move within her. An awakening. It feels as though she had not been living her life until she met her, and she doesn’t think she wants to live the rest of her life without her.
“Yeah...me too.”
And all the flowers will bloom...when you become my wife.