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“I'm so excited!” Athy chirps. It's really been too long since she's seen Jeanette– that glimpse at her coronation hardly counts by any measure. Fortunately, it's time for her promised trip to see her dear cousin.
“I don't understand why you're so excited,” Lucas grumbles. “You two write each other letters all the time. It's not like you don't know how she's doing.”
“Don't act like you don't get it,” she replies as she looks through her dresses. “If you could only communicate with me through letters I can't imagine the kind of tantrum you'd throw.”
“You wouldn't do that, right?” He asks, teleporting in front of her.
She blinks, surprised. He's terribly close to her. They've been closer, though, like when she gave him that kiss on the cheek–
“If I tried to send you somewhere far away, you'd go as far as to invent a new form of sorcery just to find a way to crawl back here and see me again,” she mutters, ducking to hide her blush.
“You really think I could?” Lucas says. He sounds pleased, so she hopes he won't pull any other strange moves today.
“It's terribly unlike you to imply there's something you couldn't do. Tell me, are you possessed?”
He laughs, and she hears him flop himself onto her bed. Satisfied he won't disturb her further, she redoubles her efforts to go through her closet.
Her and her father plan to be away for a week. It's not too long in the grand scheme of things, but for a princess, that's a lot of dresses that need packing– suffice to say, she's got a lot of work cut out for her. She could always ask her maids to pack for her, of course, but there's no fun in that.
After some time of sifting through clothes, she finds herself choosing between two day dresses. They're both the kind of thing you'd wear to tea, but one is a soft green, and the other a bold mix of black and red. She wishes she could ask Jeanette which one she preferred, given that's who she's going to see, but she can't exactly just pop over to the next country and ask.
Well– she could, but she isn't sure exactly where Jeanette is staying, so it'd be hard to teleport discreetly. Besides, seeing her cousin now would spoil the fun of the trip. She could ask her dad, maybe, or Lily?
She discards both ideas after a mere second of thought. Neither of them, her father especially, would just give her honest feedback. That's well and good sometimes, but she doesn't want to hear them say she’d look great in them both right now. Well– her dad might say nothing, actually, but she knows him well enough to know what he'd mean by that.
Lucas shuffles a little on the bed, and she figures that despite everything, things are as they have always been. Really, there's only one person she's ever trusted to give her honest advice.
“Hey, Lucas?”
She turns around, and holds both the dresses up.
“Which of these do you prefer?”
“The red one,” he responds immediately.
Athy nods, and sets the red dress in a pile to be packed later while returning the green one to her closet. Lucas glares daggers at it, like it has offended him somehow.
“Are you only asking me because your daddy isn't here?”
“I care about your opinion,” she muses absentmindedly. “We are dating, right?”
“You think so?”
She turns. He's all on top of her again, pinning her against the wall, but– this time, she cannot really blame him.
“You said you'd try to like me,” he says, breathless. His cheeks are red. It's sort of cute. “Do you?”
“I've always liked you,” she mumbles, turning her head away to hide her blush.
“Hey,” he says, serious yet panicked, reaching out to grab her jaw and make her face him. “Do you like me, or– do you–”
“You're so rough with the crown princess,” she complains, mostly to get her mind even slightly off all the emotions she's got running haywire right now.
She recalls that he's right. She hasn't asked him out, rather, she'd merely told him that she'd try to like him back. They haven't talked about it since then, in favor of falling back into their usual routines, but nevertheless at some point in her head she'd started thinking of the two of them– of her and him, of Athanasia and Lucas– as a couple.
“Please answer,” he asks softly. It sounds very unlike him, she thinks.
The truth is, she doesn't know. But–
“I don't want to do any of this without you,” she says, gesturing wildly at nothing in particular. “The little things, like this, and the big things, like saving daddy back then.”
“And that means?”
“I'm not great at feelings, but I want us to be partners, however that looks.”
He leans forward, his ruby eyes fluttering shut as he rests his forehead against the wall above her shoulder.
“I don't know when it started,” he says quietly. “I used to see you just like anyone else, but now, I don't know what I'd do if you weren't around. Hell, I miss you when you're as much as out for the afternoon.”
“Then,” Athy says, daring to be brave, “we want to be together?”
“Obviously,” he says. “We're always together.”
“You know that's not what I mean.”
“Use your words, princess,” he says, smiling.
“We want to start dating,” she ventures, carefully. It takes some effort not to trip over her tongue as she speaks– it'd been a lot easier to say when she wasn't really thinking about it.
“To tell you the truth, I want to marry you,” he replies casually.
Athy sputters, and he only laughs. The idea of marriage is still very far off in her mind, even if she knows, as the crown princess, that it'll have to happen eventually. She, especially if what Lucas said about extending her lifespan is true, wants to hang on to the trappings of her childhood for as long as she can manage.
She manages to peek up at Lucas, and finds him gazing at her fondly. Perhaps, she catches herself thinking, getting married wouldn't be too bad, actually.
“Not yet,” she says firmly.
“Then someday?” He asks.
“... Someday,” she acquiesces.
“For now,” he asks, “can I kiss you?”
Her face grows hot– she's sure she's bright red, but Lucas doesn't comment on it. He just keeps looking at her in that way of his she's seen so much of recently.
“You may,” she says quietly, knowing he's more than close enough to hear.
He leans down, and kisses her softly, and her life– she thinks– is perfect.