Chapter Text
Chip didn't want to go to a dumb meeting. He didn’t want to sit on massive uncomfy chairs, he didn’t want to ‘stop fidgeting’ or ‘be quiet’. Chip wanted to go play with all of the normal kids. But Chip couldn't do that, because Chip wasn’t a normal kid. He still didn’t understand it. Why could all of the other children his age get to go to the small school in the square? Why did they get to plant carrots and go fishing? Why did they get to run around in the woods and then roll in mud in said woods? It was totally unfair. But according to his father Chip was very important and it would help if he and his half sister stayed away from the public and went to this conference.
At Least they wouldn’t be the only children. Between the six kingdoms attending, two others also had young heirs. Maybe he could make some friends! He could finally play with someone other than Elizabeth (she could get really really annoying).
Having a friend would be fun, Chip guessed. He had nothing to base this idea off of since he hadn't really had one before. He and Elizabeth weren’t friends, you can't be friends with your sisters, especially not ones that like to steal your stuffed animals and shove your face in various soups (not that he wouldn’t do the same but that didn’t matter, he was justified… somehow).
And Elizabeth was boring, he loved her, but she was boring. She never wanted to make potions with the pretty flowers in the gardens or poke the frogs by the koi ponds with sticks to see what they did. She just drew and threw knives. Bor-ing.
“Son, you haven’t spoken in at least ten minutes, what’s going on up there?” his father ruffled his hair, making it stick up in strange directions and look even more like a bird’s nest than usual.
Elizabeth snorted loudly, “Nice hair,”
Chip pushed her.
She slapped him in the back of the head.
The fight continued, getting more and more frustrated the longer it went on until the coachman had to ask for them to please stay in their seats and stop attacking each other as it was becoming physically impossible to drive the carriage straight and they might plough through one of the Featherbrook residents' cottages. They remained silent after that but continued to send each other laughable exaggerated glares from across the seating box.
By the time they made it to Featherbrook castle Chip was hungry, really hungry.
“Oh. My. Gods. Chip, I told you to eat something before we left you absolute moron ”
“Being a meanie isn’t going to make me less hungry!” Chip stuck his tongue out at his sister, she crossed her arms and looked away angrily.
“I’m just telling the truth! This is entirely your fault!”
The king put a hand on Elizabeth’s head and chuckled, “You’re doing great sweetie, but try not to call your brother a moron, especially when we are in someone else’s palace,” he smiled at Chip “and you too angel, don’t call your sister a meanie when she definitely gave you an apple earlier and you were the one that threw it out the carriage window,” now it was Chip’s turn to cross his arms and look away angrily. Sure, he had done that but he didn’t know what Elizabeth had done to the apple! She could have spat on it! She could have poisoned it! She was evil! Well not really but… but.. You know!
“C’mon Chip, you’re going to come with me to find princess Ava, she’ll probably get you something to eat, she's really nice,” Elizabeth said huffily as she grabbed onto Chip’s forearm and dragged him through the marble floored halls.
This castle was a lot different from their own. Their castle back in All-port had red curtains and detailed carpets on its dark wood floors. The red and brown colour palette made it feel cosy, despite being giant. This castle felt cold. The floors were shiny and hard, with none of the character belonging to the creaky floorboards back home. The walls were tiled entirely white and blue, with the occasional gold accent, it made Chip uncomfortable.
There was a large portrait above the double doors they were headed towards, it illustrated two adults and two children. A woman with brown hair, cropped just above her shoulders but still slightly wavy, standing next to a man in a dark blue tunic and a white cloak, his hair was very red. The man had a hand placed on a girl’s shoulder, she looked about Chip’s age, maybe a little older, she had burning orange hair curling out and in at uneven intervals causing it to look like a roaring fire. One of her eyes was deep ocean blue and the other was a catlike yellow. And finally there was a tall girl that looked Elizabeth’s age, wearing similar colours to the king and had shorter, redder hair than the other girl making it look less like a blazing inferno and more like a cosy flame.
“That’s princess Ava,” Elizabeth pointed to the taller of the children. “She’s so cool” his sister sounded dazed, as if she was under some kind of charm. She suddenly snapped out of it and pointed to the next person “That’s princess Jay, Ava’s sister. That’s queen May, Ava’s mum and that’s king Jayson A-”
“Let me guess, Ava’s dad?” Elizabeth went red.
“Aha yeah yeah, you would know all this if you actually came to meetings rather than bothering the poor frogs around the koi pond,”
“Hey! I don’t bother the frogs!” (he most definitely did) then she yanked hard on Chip’s arm and they burst through the double doors.
There was about twenty people in the room but the only person that took notice of their sudden and loud arrival was a little triton boy. He smiled brightly and waved at Chip, causing his eyes to squint slightly. The boy had sharp teeth, but that didn’t make his smile any less pretty. Chip didn’t know people could have pretty smiles.
He felt like the floor had been taken away from under and feet as he stared dumbly, all of the sound in the room had been dulled to a low hum and Chip felt his ears turn red, he rushed a wave before continuing to get pulled around by his sister, losing sight of the triton child in the crowd of adults.
What happened? Oh! That feeling! That must have been what it was like to be friends with someone! He finally had a friend!
Chip frowned. Perhaps the boy smiled and waved at everyone, if Chip had a smile as sunny and bright as that he didn’t think he would ever stop smiling. If the boy was a prince, which was to be assumed, then maybe he was just being polite, like Chip was always told to do? Hm.
His train of thought was suddenly pulled to a stop as he felt the tight grip on his arm release.
“Ava! Over here!” the girl from the portrait looked up and towards Elizabeth. There was a group of people around her, a triton girl with pink streaks in her hair, Jay (Ava’s sister) and… Oh! The boy from before! How did he get over there so fast?
“Lizzie! Oh my gods! I haven't seen you in ages!”
“Lizzie?” Chip muttered under his breath and watched as the two girls ran up to each other and embraced, Ava picking Elizabeth off her feet and spinning around in circles before putting her back down. Both girls erupted into a fit of giggles.
“Oh! Lizzie, you haven’t met these two yet have you?” Elizabeth shook her head as if to say no but she hadn't stopped looking at Ava, how was she supposed to know if she’d met them if she didn't even look? ”So that's Edyn and next to her there is her little brother Gillion. They’re from The Pearl district,”
Woah! The Pearl district? Chip had heard about that place from his father, apparently he and one of the lords had been very close friends, along with king Ferin’s estranged brother (Chip had no clue what ‘estranged’ meant but he had heard his father use it before). He had said it was very beautiful, lots of coral pinks and shiny whites and deep turquoises. He could just about see the upper level of the kingdom from his bedroom window back in All-port. The other half was under water, awesome.
Chip’s stomach grumbled.
“Oh of course! How could I forget? Chip’s absolutely starving because he threw his breakfast out our carriage window”
“Elizabeth!” he gasped, embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it! We can go down to the kitchens and get you something to eat, let me just get the others,” Ava jogged back to the other three and left Chip and Elizabeth alone.
“Isn’t she so awesome?” she sighed dreamily.
“I guess…?” Chip shrugged, before Elizabeth could challenge his answer, Ava hurried back, now with the others trailing behind her. She had somehow already got herself in an extremely animated conversation with Edyn as Jay and Gillion looked at them with faces of concentration and awe.
Chip trailed behind the group, not yet feeling confident enough to join them. What if they didn’t like him? What if they thought his hair was funny or his eyes were weird or he had too many freckles?
Gillion grabbed his hand and pulled him into the group of younger siblings. Well he didn’t have to worry anymore. Jay was the first to speak.
“Hi, I’m princess Jay but you’re also a prince right? So you can just call me Jay, I usually don’t let people call me that, even if they are princes, but you’re sister is Elizabeth and I like Elizabeth so I like you too, you’re my friend now and me and Gillion are friends so, like, you’re also friends with him,”
“I’m Chip, I’ll be you and Gillion’s friend but I don’t like Elizabeth,” Jay gaped at him.
“What?!? How could you not like Elizabeth?” Before Chip could respond to her with something along the lines of ‘she likes to dunk my face in food’ the group came to a stop.
“This is it! I can ask them for some bread or something if you want?” Ava turned to look at Chip with a warm smile and waited for a reply. His sister answered for him,
“Well, he loves raspberry shortbread, that’s practically all he eats!” Chip glared at her and she smiled synthetic sugar.
“What is a raspberry?” Gillion tilted his head to the side slightly as he looked at Chip, blue eyes wide and blinking.
“They’re like urchin berries, Gill, very sweet but also bitter,” said Edyn matter-of-factly, he hadn't properly heard her speak yet, she had a similar voice to her brother. Gillion’s eyes somehow grew wider and he grinned at Chip.
“I love those!” Then he moved his eyes to Ava, “I would enjoy a raspberry cookie as well, if they are available,” he smiled.
Ava, Elizabeth and Edyn all left to the kitchens, meaning Jay, Chip and Gillion were by themselves in the corridors. It was awkward at first but they soon got into a loud and interesting conversation about their siblings. Chip was astonished to find out that neither of the other two had never even felt the slightest bit of annoyance when it came to their sisters. In fact, both Gillion and Jay only sung prayers of their older siblings and found Chip’s horror stories of food fights and wrestling matches completely alien but also utterly hilarious.
Gillion’s sleeve rustled.
“What was that?” Chip pointed down to where the movement was. Gillion’s flicked his eyes up and down the corridor before pulling Chip and Jay into a huddle by their shoulders.
“I’ll show you her, but you have to promise not to tell anyone,”
“Her?” Jay whispered, looking at Chip with confusion. He returned her gaze and shrugged, just as confused, before turning his eyes back to Gillion’s sleeve.
“This is my best friend, her name is Pretzel,” Gillion pulled out a small pink sea creature with dark blue eyes and eight tentacles. Pretzel nuzzled into Gillions hand and chirped happily. Chip and Jay’s eyes glittered with delight,
“What kind of animal is she Gillion?” Jay said as she leaned closer to her tilting her head to get a better look, Pretzel copying her much to Jay’s delight.
“She is a frogtopus, they have them here, do they not?”
“I have frogs next to my pond,” Chip rubbed at the back of his neck guiltily but luckily neither of his friends picked up on it.
“And I’ve definitely seen octopuses in books,” Jay added, still not looking away from the frogtopus. Suddenly, Pretzel chirped in shock and stared behind Jay before hurriedly squirming back into Gillion’s sleeve.
“Children, what are you doing here, the meeting starts in five minutes, go to the hall whilst I find your sisters,” a large man loomed over the trio, staring dead into Jay’s eyes.
“Yes father. Sorry father,” she ducked her head in apology before grabbing Gillion and Chip’s hands and dragging them back in the direction of the hall.
“Hey Jay! Wait!” Ava ran towards them followed by Elizabeth and Edyn, all of them completely ignoring king Ferin other than a slight bow from each. “I got some cookies,” as they caught up to the group she extended her hand, showing about ten miniature jam shortbreads. Small hands snatched one each and then they were running again, this time six instead of three.
“Make sure you don’t slip on the marble!” king Ferin shouted after them, then grumbled “they're not listening are they?” before shaking his head and following after them.
The conference lasted about three hours, meaning Chip had to sit in a massive uncomfy chair for three hours without talking or fidgeting. It would have been much harder to do but luckily he was sitting directly opposite Gillion, who was taking turns between sneakily feeding Pretzel crumbs of his cookie and playing three way rock paper scissors with Chip and Jay. Maybe going to the meeting wasn't so bad after all.