Work Text:
~ You're Living Like a Disaster ~
"Why did you follow me?" he snarled, putting his sword to her throat.
"Because I want you to kill me."
Her answer was outside the realm of anything he could reasonably have expected.
When he did not proceed to thoughtlessly, heartlessly slaughter the girl... the corners of her lips quirked upward into a small sarcastic smile.
"You could get away with it easily enough," she said, as if the thought of how much trouble her death would cause him was the only thing stopping him from cutting her down where she stood. "All you'd need to do is claim that you thought the person sneaking around the garden was another assassin. You could even claim that it was actually self defense. Everyone would believe it if you said that I attacked you."
A single drop of blood slid from the small cut his sword had made in the delicate skin of her throat. Upon seeing the bright crimson streak against her flesh as the drop of blood traveled toward the neckline of her dress, the crown prince moved the blade away, letting his arm drop to his side.
"I'm not going to kill you," he told her.
"Too bad. It was worth a shot," she said, more to herself than to him, as she turned to leave.
Before she could flee, however, the prince caught her by the elbow. He tugged and she stumbled backward. His sword dropped to the ground as he caught her around the waist, pulling her back against his chest.
She froze, and when he looked down he saw that she was blushing.
He insisted on providing first-aid for her injury before allowing her to go back to the audience hall, and while she grumbled about it, she did allow him to treat the cut - which was small and shallow and didn't reopen after a few long moments of having its edges pressed together under the prince's handkerchief.
It probably wasn't a very good idea to insist on walking her back to the party himself, but he did anyway, and although they didn't actually make it all the way back to the hall before being intercepted, it was worth it for the look on her brother's face when he saw his sister walking arm-in-arm with the crown prince.
~end~