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23XX, SPRING
They meet for the first time during Leo’s sixteenth birthday. Halley has just recently turned eight, and it’s his first time at a proper ball. He’s made his way to the railing on the third floor, where he gets a view of the entire room, and can focus intensely on the first dance that’s about to begin.
Leo looks dazzling in his suit. Halley watches as he takes Natassia’s hand and they start to waltz. In this moment, Halley thinks to himself, his brother is the coolest person in the universe.
It’s not until after the dance ends, and the hall fills with applause, that Halley realises he’s not as alone in this secluded corner as he had previously thought. There’s a girl, about a head taller than him, leaning against one of the pillars. She holds a book in her hand, the newest release in the Starlight Romance series, and stares at him with a curious look on her face.
Halley thinks he recognises her from somewhere, but can’t place a name to the face.
“Did you come up here to watch the dance too?” he asks, still a bit starry-eyes.
“What? Of course not” she scoffs, “Dances like this are stupid.”
Halley finds the very notion insulting, but he remembers his manners. It was hard enough to convince his mother to let him attend, and he wasn’t going to risk it by snapping at someone. He tries a different approach.
“Um, what about the book? Are you enjoying it? I have more in the same series if you would like to borrow one for the rest of the evening?”
The girl quickly hides the book behind her back, looking just slightly embarrassed.
“It’s none of your business. Aren’t you a bit too young to be in a party anyways? Stop bothering me and go back to whoever is in charge of you” she says, sticking out her tongue.
Halley frowns, but doesn’t press the issue further and turns around to go back down the stairs. It’s probably for the best not to stray away from Nanny Minnie for too long.
He finds Leo and Natassia once he makes his way downstairs.
“Hey little man!” Leo says, ruffling Halley’s hair, “Where did you go? You didn’t miss my dance, did you?”
“I didn’t! I went upstairs to make sure I had the best view!” Halley answers, and continues after a brief pause. “There was a girl there too.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah! I thought she was also there to see the dance but... she was pretty mean once I asked her about it... so maybe not”
Next to them Natassia stifles a small laugh and pinches his cheek.
“Don’t stress too much about it, Hal - I promise most other girls you’ll meet at parties from now on will be nice”
——
It’s not until a few weeks later that Halley sees the girl again. He’s visiting the gardens after managing to convince Cass to tag along with him and Ollie so they could play a proper game outside of the Estate. It’s a warm, breezy afternoon, and he notices her walking alongside the flowerbeds next to the other side of the court.
“That’s her.” Halley says.
“Her?” Ollie asks,
“The mean girl from the party.”
At this, Cass looks up, and looks at the figure in the distance.
“I’m not too surprised Hal” he says, in a light but teasing tone “The Ice Queen is known to be mean to everyone, regardless of whether you’re a little kid or not”
“Hey! Who are you calling a little kid?!”
“Oh, absolutely no one, Mr. I-Turned-Eight-Three-Months-Ago” Cass replies, sticking out his tongue.
“Ugh, whatever” Halley passes the ball to Ollie before continuing “I’ll just be a second”
He turns to sprint towards where the Ice Queen now leisurely sat, underneath the golden trumpet tree. She’s holding this month’s copy of Starlight Romance, carefully turning each page as she reads, and too engrossed in the novel to notice the half-orc boy approaching.
Halley slows to a halt before her. Here, with her sitting down on the park bench, they are almost the same height.
“New book, huh?” he says, startling the girl into closing the book.
She takes a good look at him and seems to recognise him as the boy from the party.
“Again, none of your business”
“Did you like the ending of the last one?” he asks. He receives no answer from the girl, so he continues. “I did. It was, in fact, one of my favourites.”
She seems to consider him for a moment before replying.
“Yeah, it was good,” the Ice Queen says.
“Even though it ended with a dance?” Halley replies, with a big toothy grin.
The girl just opens her book again and doesn’t reply, clearly trying to signal for him to go away again. Halley doesn’t want to push the boundaries too much yet, so he starts his way back. A couple of steps in, he turns around and says,
“See you next week, Ice Queen!”
It’s probably on the too loud side of proper, but he doesn’t wait to see her reaction. Just sprints back to where his brother and friend waited for him. Ollie pouts at him as he approaches.
“Took you long enough”, he says, but Halley only grins in return.
----
Halley takes to going to the gardens more frequently after that. Nanny Minnie is usually the one who takes him now, but Mother is happy about it as he is spending more time reading.
“He’s growing up to be so studious, just like Galileo,” she comments to her husband during dinner one night, “Isn’t that wonderful my dear?”
She hasn’t realised that as opposed to his older brother, Halley doesn’t spend his time with scientific journals but rather with an ever growing array of fairy tales and romance serials. However, Halley supposes, what his mother doesn’t know can’t hurt her.
More often than not, the Ice Queen is there, with the monthly copy of Starlight Romance, and slowly but surely they start kindling something akin to a friendship.
----
It’s about a year into their reading sessions, when the weather begins to warm up again and they can spend entire afternoons in the garden’s springtime warmth, that Halley has come to a decision.
“I’m not going to call you Ice Queen anymore,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Well, you’re never really mean to me, so I don’t really think it fits you. I’m just going to call you Queenie instead”
“Queenie?” she seems to think about it for a bit. “Well if I’m Queenie, then you can be the Little Prince”
Halley gives a little smile, and he nods, satisfied, before going back to his book.
----
23XX (+3), AUTUMN
The start of the school year brings many changes. Halley finds himself getting ready for his first day of middle school, and his mum has arranged for their photos to be taken now that Cass and him get to wear the same uniform. Cass is usually not one for formalities like this, but Leo has just recently moved out following his wedding, and he knows Mother will be happiest if he doesn’t kick up a fuss.
Ollie ends up in the same class as Halley, and they’re both ecstatic over the fact. Homerooms are dictated by your entrance exam scores, but stay the same for the following six years. Father is slightly disappointed at Halley ending up in class B instead, but being the third son, expectations for him are usually lower, so it’s not too much of an issue.
He spots Queenie at lunchtime, as he stares outside the classroom window waiting for Ollie to gather his belongings. She sits alone next to the large agaves in the courtyard, seemingly going over her notes for the day.
“Queenie!” He yells from the open window, “I made it to class B!”
She looks up and waves at him with a small smile, before going back to her books.
“Do you always have to be so obnoxious about it?” Ollie asks, joining him as he stares at the window.
“Obnoxious about what?”
“Being the only one she cares to talk to”
At that, Halley just grins and gives him a cheeky wink, before making his way to the classroom door.
“Come on Ollie, or else the good snacks will run out”
----
School gossip travels fast, and Halley Haven’s second day in middle school sets the precedent for what is perhaps the rest of his school life. Being an heir to Haven Corp, as well as being apparently the only student the Ice Queen will go out of her way to be genuinely friendly with, lands him in a spotlight that is just slightly brighter than he had ever expected, much to Cass’s chagrin. He loves being the centre of attention, especially in settings that he can play out to his advantage, so it’s not too much of a bother. He sees D’Sardet a lot less than he expected to, but tries to take it all in stride nonetheless.
He makes fast friends with two girls from his class, Violet and Maggie, as well as Clara from class A who is also an avid reader. The days get warmer, and then cold once more, and the first year passes quietfully and uneventfully. A lull before the storm.
----
Sixteenth birthdays are important. Halley knows this for a fact. Or at least, he knows it because Nanny Minnie has let him watch 16 Candles an unsustainable number of times. So when the next year rolls around the first thing he does is ask D’Sardet for her plans.
“I’m not holding a party”
“What? Why not? A party would be like, perfect for you, Queenie” he says, with an exaggerated pout.
D’Sardet doesn’t meet his gaze, and instead looks up to the cloudy skies as she replies.
“Mother doesn’t allow for such frivolities”
By now, Halley knows enough not to press further when it comes to things like this.
“That’s okay. I’ll get you the most fantastic present, and you can come here and I’ll arrange for a tea party, even if it’s just the two of us”
----
As it turns out, Cassio is also not one for such frivolities, and has convinced their parents to take them on an off-world trip for his sixteenth. This, however, means that he’ll miss Queenie’s actual birthday, and this upsets Halley to no end.
“Would it kill you to not look so miserable?” Cass asks “Come on Hal, it’s my birthday”
“I’m not miserable”, Halley retorts, but remains frowning at the ceiling.
“Would it make you any happier if I asked Mother to let you bring a friend along?”
It’s a peace offering, of sorts.
“Can I invite anyone?” Halley asks, sounding a bit hopeful.
“Yeah, anyone,” and after a carefully considered beat, “anyone but the Ice Bitch”
Halley throws his book at Cass, and hits him square on the nose. His aim is getting better.
----
In the end, it’s Ollie that tags along. He leaves D’Sardet’s present under Clara’s care, and apologises over the phone over missing it. D’Sardet ensures him it’s fine, but even now that years have passed, Halley would consider this as one of the things he’s regretted the most.
----
23XX (+3), SUMMER
The days leading up to Halley’s own sixteenth go by like a whirlwind. Turns out preparing for a large scale ball includes a ridiculous amount of preparation, and between outfit fittings, sorting out catering, and organising performers, he’s barely had time to catch up with people.
He has a missed call from D’Sardet on the morning of, but figures that if it was urgent she’d come running in person as has become customary of her. He’ll be seeing her in the evening, so it can probably wait until then. She promised she’d have his first dance, after all.
By the time the evening rolls around, the ballroom is splendidly decorated. His friends shower him with gifts, and Leo and Natassia surprise him with an early return. It’s almost everything he ever wanted until the minutes keep passing and he realises that he hasn’t seen D’Sardet at all.
He keeps stalling for time, delaying the first dance in the hopes that she’ll show up in some sort of dramatic entrance, just like in the novels they love to read. Real life, however, is not like a book, and waiting just keeps his nerves rising.
Ollie pulls his arm, and quietly whispers,
“I don’t think she’s coming Hal”
Halley has been sad before. He cries easily when his favourite books end, or when he runs and trips and skins his knees. Sixteen years into his life, it’s the first time he feels like his heart is made of cristal and it has cracked cleanly through. Still, he knows that over his feelings there’s propriety and good etiquette, and that just crying over a girl would reflect terribly on his family name. Instead, he nods and swallows the knot in his throat.
Violet, bless her heart, guides him through the first dance in stride, and his friends follow suit, taking turns dancing with him. Even Ollie, who unfortunately was born with two left feet gives him the honour of dancing with him.
At night, once all the guests have left, Halley decides he feels angry. He calls D’Sardet, at least a dozen of times, but she never picks up.
It’s not until they go back to school in the following weeks, that Halley realises that she's simply not there anymore. No one knows where she’s gone, and his parents later inform them that Haven has cut all ties to the D’Sardet businesses.
Halley had expected his heart to be on the mend, but it’s at that moment where it shatters completely. Akin to safety glass once crushed, everything that’s left is blunt dull pieces and no clue how to put them back.
He cries a lot after that. Thankfully, his friends are there to pick up the pieces, and eventually, grief turns into a dull ache, forgotten.
----
It’s not almost until a decade later that Halley reads another issue of Love Amongst the Stars. Now, he finds himself in a new, unfamiliar planet, and the ache has faded enough so that the only memories that resurface are nostalgic ones of a happier, simpler time. He pays the seller for the copy of the books, and carries it as a reminder of home.
----
It’s surprising to Halley to see her again, after so long. He’s thought about how this moment would go. A million different possibilities. A million planned speeches. However, after so long, he finds that he’s just relieved that she’s fine.
A little worse for wear maybe, and maybe a bit rougher around the edges, but still her, so he just smiles instead. They’ll have time to catch up.