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Princess Piper Mclean wakes up to the midday sun and sighs contentedly, stretching her languid limbs until they shake. It is one of those rare days when her princessely duties are non-existent and her mother wouldn’t bug her because she’s not there. She hears the soft chirp of birds outside and peers out the window to see scarlet-breasted sparrows hopping along the branches and singing merry tunes. She loves summer. Everything is always so cheerful and full of life. It reminds her of childhood. A gentle knock sounds at the door and she recognises it as her handmaid/tutor/nanny. Her friend.
“Come in Anisa.”
“Princess,” She smiles, bowing her head with one hand over her chest.
“Hello,” Piper sits up in bed, “I like your hijab.” It is the most beautiful shade of blue, like sapphires in glittering water.
“Thank you.” Her lady smiles, “I have brought you something to eat.”
“Are we classifying this as breakfast or lunch?” The princess teases, knowing her need for order and compartmentalisation.
“Brunch. A truly glorious invention.” Anisa huffs, scrunching her nose at the crack.
“Well thank you all the same. Are you going to join me?” She takes off the silver cover of the tray to reveal berry and cream waffles and a steaming cappuccino with the prettiest leaf design. “Chef Ambrosia is really getting creative with their designs.”
“I’m pretty sure they just have the biggest crush on you and the only reason they haven’t put a heart is because it would be wholly inappropriate.”
The princess just laughs and digs into her meal with vigour. They talk about non-essential things like her dress for the upcoming ball and their various plans for the weekend. Anisa was finally going home to see her children and anyone could see the excitement radiating off her. Now that she didn’t have to be a nanny all the time she could actually look after her own children. Finally the waffle is demolished and the cappuccino nothing but froth.
Anisa looks at her carefully.
Piper raises a brow, “What?”
“I have some news.”
Immediately her heart is beating a thousand miles a minute and there is disaster after disaster crossing her mind. “What?” She says again, this time breathless with worry.
“A certain Prince wants to visit.”
She immediately lets out a gush of air, her whole body dropping in relief. And then she registers what her friend had said and her brown eyes go as wide as saucers. The last time she had seen that prince, because undoubtedly it could only be that prince, she had nearly ruined their lifelong friendship by almost kissing him. Now she doesn’t trust herself around him, which means she’s been avoiding him.
“I think you should say yes.” Anisa gives her a pointed look, “He’s worried something is wrong because you can’t woman up and face your feelings. You’re hurting him by avoiding him.”
The Princess groans, scrubbing a hand across her face. “I know, I know. But I just can’t face him without wanting to either make the world swallow me up or jumping his annoying pretty bones.”
“You should invite him to the ball.”
Piper closes her eyes, the sun suddenly too bright, too hot against her sensitive skin. If she invites Perseus she’ll get to see him and reassure him and actually get to spend time with her friend, which she misses, greatly. Her own fault. If she doesn’t invite him she can put off dealing with her ever-growing, constantly-harder-to-ignore feelings and have an embarrassment, possibly rejection free night. The coward’s way out. She is many things, but a coward has never been one of them.
“Okay,” She nods, letting the decision settle in her core, “Let’s invite him. He can stay the night. Hell the week if he wants.”
Her friend claps her hand and gathers the empty dishes and cutlery. “Ill be here to collect the letter this evening to send out for the night post. Don’t be late.” She waggles a finger, ever the mother. “And use the blue wax seal. It’s his favourite.”
“It is?” Sometimes she feels like a terrible friend.
Anisa just winks and makes a graceful exit, her hijab catching in the once again warm rays, and glittering sweetly.
A week later her castle is abuzz with activity: caterers and decorators and various other event planners all running around like hounds are at their feet. There is little more than an hour to the ball and Piper is finally getting around to putting on her dress and swiping a little lipstick on. She fell in love with her garment the moment she laid eyes on it and now that she sees it in her gilded mirror she feels as if every stitch was made with her in mind. A deep maroon fell across her in waves of silk, starting with the string-thin straps over her shoulders, into the straight neckline, and down, down, down to the skirt that flared at her waist and trailed against the pristine marble floors. She buckles gold shoes at her ankles and slips on two small diamond encrusted earrings. With a final glance at her reflection she steps out of her room and into the transformed hallways. There are flowers hanging from the ceilings and stars underneath her feet and she feels as if the world has turned on its axis. Adequate considering it is Summer Solstice which marks the changing. She nods hello to the guests and servants rushing through the passage and then she is outside the ballroom doors.
With a deep breath she smiles at the doorman who returns it before pushing the door open.
“Presenting Princess Piper Mclean of Hanaan.” A loud clear voice says from somewhere to her left.
She curtsies low to the room and then glides down the stairs to greet her mother. All the while her eyes are scanning the room, trying to catch a particular head of black curls, and skin only slightly darker than her own. When her scan comes up empty she hides the disappointment behind a practiced smile and engages in conversation with some duke and duchess. She really isn’t paying attention to anything so it catches her by surprise when a warm hand brushes her waist and the familiar scent of ocean, and wind, and life surround her.
“Sorry Duke,” A charming smile disintegrates her worries. “May I steal the princess away for a dance?”
“Please,” The duke is jovial, waving them away. The duchess smiles that smile that says aw cute young love.
Piper wants to see them through her eyes. But before she can think on it she is being whisked away and planted on the dance floor, suddenly staring up at hypnotic green eyes and that troublemaker’s smirk.
“Sorry for my tardiness Princess. Wanted to make a grand entrance.” Crown Prince Perseus Jackson grins.
She narrows her eyes at him as they sway across the floor, “You overslept your nap again didn’t you?”
He rolls his eyes, stealing a pinch on her side that tickles more than hurts. “Actually I got caught up in the music room.”
Her eyes light up like crackling fire, “Will you play for me?”
“Anything you want,” He whispers and pulls them closer, so her dress is flush against his suit, also made of the smoothest satin.
“How have you been?”
He gives her a look that she chooses to ignore. “You would know if you weren’t avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding you,” He dips her, and she thanks the heavens they put her hair up or it would be sweeping the floor.
He pulls her back up and sets a determined gaze on her, “Yes you are. I haven’t seen you in almost three weeks. We’ve never gone that long without-”
“Okay, okay,” She’s never going to win this argument. “Maybe I have been avoiding you just a little.”
“Tell me why.” His voice is soft but his tone is demanding. She loves when he gets like this.
The music speeds up and before she can reply he’s twirling her so fast only the years of ballet are keeping her from dizziness. When she stops abruptly right against his chest she is only faintly aware of the scattered applause.
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me.” Raspy, gentle, caring, raspy, raspy, raspy.
She suppresses a shiver. “I’m planning a surprise party for your birthday and i’ve been a little busy with the details.”
He growls in her ear before lifting her up in a twirl of his own and setting her down, “Liar.”
“Am not.” She huffs. The music speeds up.
They spin, and spin, and spin.
“You are. You used the surprise birthday party excuse every year for something or the other.” A gleam enters his eyes as he dips her and swoops her all the way up until she’s back to looking at his beautiful, angular face. “In fact last year you used it because two books from your favourite series were coming out at the same time and you didn’t want to be disturbed until you were finished.”
She stifles a giggle and looks anywhere but at him, because she will burst out laughing if she sees his judgemental look.
“Okay, okay.” The music reaches a crescendo as he lifts her high above his head, so she can see every patron attending the ball, and the crystal chandeliers hanging like rose bouquets above her. He sets her down and they stop abruptly; the last chord of the violin reverbrates through the room. “But let’s go outside.”
She is breathless, his chest is heaving, and the applause is deafening. They are angelic. Percy raises a hand to present her and she curtsies for their audience. The claps get impossibly louder. She maintains a dignified smile, but can do nothing about the beautiful flush of her cheeks as she presents her dance partner who bows low and blows a kiss. The spectators laugh, some swoon, she wants to scowl. She smiles brighter.
And then they’re racing outside and into their favourite place to get lost: the Maze of Madness. He laces their fingers together and sprints for the center, diving around corners and cursing at dead ends. She just laughs, her hair coming loose and her princessly state unhinged. She is nothing but sweetness, and flower petals, and summer breezes.
Finally they get to the center where the white stone bench sits, engraved with the words Si vis amari, ama. If you want to be loved, love. Gifted to them before she was an inkling on the horizon by the Kingdom of Caelum. The bench has held many a love story, and supported many a heartbreak. She believes it’s good luck.
They collapse onto it, stars glittering in their eyes and take a moment to catch their breaths.
Percy is the first to break their silence. “So,” he pokes her side, ‘Why are you avoiding me?”
“I was being a coward.”
He turns his body to her and gives her that intense look that simultaneously makes her wince and sets her soul on fire.
She starts slowly, trying to find the words that wouldn’t ruin their friendship but would still make her feelings clear. “I wanted to do something that night in the House of Hope but it might have turned out badly and I didn’t want to risk it”
He doesn’t say anything for a while, doesn’t even seem like he’s breathing, so she forces her gaze upwards, to see green eyes burning into her.
“Some risks-” He is just as slow with his words, just as gentle. “Some risks are worth it.”
Percy puts a hand to her cheek, cold fingers brushing her skin. There is a question in his eyes that opens the cage of butterflies in her stomach.
“Kiss me Percy Jackson.” Piper whispers.
His answering smile lights up her every nerve, and when he finally brushes his soft lips against her own, every beat of her heart shudders to a stop. He cups her face in his hands, and brushes their lips over and over and over. Like he’s tasting the barest hints of her. Like if he goes any deeper he’ll never stop. She doesn’t ever want him to. So she laces her fingers behind his neck and keeps him pinned to her and when he groans her world detonates. They explore each other, in languid, deep strokes. His lips. Her tongue. His teeth. Her lips. Their hearts. They kiss like they mean it. They kiss like they’ll never get the chance again. They kiss like this is the meaning of life.
And when they break apart for gasping-interrupting air they are both grinning as wide and bright as moonlit ice. Her lips tingle and she touches a finger to them to make sure they’re still there, working, experiencing what she did.
He chases her hand away and brushes the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “You are so beautiful.”
Before she can reply a messenger rounds the corner, breathless. “Prince, your mother would like you back at the castle. She says it’s urgent.”
“Can it not wait till tomorrow?” He doesn’t bother to put any distance between them as he turns to the young boy. Her lips brush his cheek.
“I’m afraid not Prince, she says it’s a matter of great importance.”
He nods stiffly, and she can see the exasperation trying to escape his lungs. The messenger hurries away and Percy turns back to her, resting their foreheads together, eyes half-closed.
“You should go home,” The princess says after several beats of silence.
He presses a kiss to her forehead. “I’m already home.”
And she cannot help the smile that bursts out of her, like fireflies escaping the glass jar.
“We will continue this again soon, yes?” He opens his eyes, looks at her with all his intensity.
“Yes,” And the possibilities running through her soul float her up to cloud 9.
“Good,” He nods once, captures her lips with his again, and then tugs her up. “Then i shall go home, attend to whatever emergency my mother has and come back within the week.”
“I can’t wait.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, a clock is already ticking.
He kisses her again, like he can’t get enough, like he’s addicted. “You are beautiful Little Dove.”
Her heart squeezes at the familiar nickname. “Come back soon.” She hugs him by his car. “Come home soon.”
“You should come to Mare with me.”
“I cannot. I have to be here for the ball, and besides it’s the Floating in a few days.”
He takes her hands in his, kisses her knuckles. “Then I will be as fast as I can.”
Her eyes are shining with love as she pulls him in and kisses him one last time. He returns it with vigour, promising, promising, promising worlds between their lips.
And when she waves goodbye to the retreating black vehicle until it blends in with the night she decides the bench is in fact goodluck.