Chapter Text
The sun had only risen an hour ago and the Vandsiden castle was already full of life: cooks, housemaids and servants were all attending to their daily tasks. Except for one particular butler walking down a corridor in the royal wing of the castle towards a large door.
He knocked exactly three times and asked, “Your Royal Highness ?”
No answers from the other side of the door. He waited a few minutes, standing still as usual, then tried again, more sympathetically,
“Miss Athena ?” Still no answer. “Please wake up, their Majesties and your sister are waiting for you to eat breakfast.”
Athena growled back, just loud enough so that the kind butler could hear.
“They told me to inform you that today was, and I quote, “such an important day that you wouldn’t want to miss it”, unquote”
She finally decided to respond with actual words, “Do you think they remembered?”
“Remember what exactly, Your Royal Highness? Auradon Prep Orientation Day?”
“Please Mitchell I already told you to just call me Athena…” she paused, a hint of sadness in her voice “…and it doesn’t matter, I’m pretty sure they didn’t, they never do…”
Though the end of that sentence was purely mumbled, Mitchell got the general idea.
“You’ll never know if you don’t come and eat breakfast with them.”
So she got up and picked the first shirt and pair of jeans she could find in her moderate-size wardrobe. The princess was almost sixteen years old and still refused to be dressed by a maid, as lovely as they were.
She finally arrived in the large dining room, greeted by her mother, the Queen, who stood up quickly out of her chair to come and hug her tightly.
“We’ve been waiting for you! Is everything alright? Have you slept well? Are you sick? Do I need to call a nurse?”
She touched Athena’s forehead to check the temperature. The young girl was distant, clearly not used to all this attention, but luckily her father, who was still seated, interfered to stop the avalanche of questions.
“Ariel, sweetheart, let her at least sit, poor thing clearly didn’t sleep enough, she looks exhausted”
Ariel looked at her husband, smiled, and observed her daughter again.
“Right. Come dearest, the breakfast is absolutely delicious, it’ll give you more energy”
Athena smiled timidly back “yeah, probably.”
She sat down next to her mother, right in front of her older sister Melody, who was eating her breakfast with grace and all the etiquette her status as heiress required. Athena uncovered the large plate that had seemingly been waiting for her and started eating with appetite. All four of them were enjoying their meal in an absurd silence that was just waiting to be broken, so she did,
“So today’s a special day, huh ?”
Her mother put her fork down and cleaned the corners of her mouth graciously before turning to her daughter enthusiastically,
“Oh yes! I suppose the butler must’ve to-”
“Mitchell”, Athena interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“His name is Mitchell”
“Oh, of course, yes, then I suppose Mitchell must’ve told you why?”
“Apparently it’s an “important day” but I don’t know much more about it” she shrugged her shoulders in ignorance.
Ariel was excited to tell her daughter what she had been organising for weeks but tried to keep a calm attitude, “You do know that, tomorrow, your sister will attend her first day at the best university of Auradon”
“Yeah I know that, and?”
“To celebrate that, I hired a painter to make us a new family portrait, he comes at 3pm !”, she frantically clapped her hands, “it’s exciting isn’t it?”
Athena’s eyes opened wide in disbelief before her eyebrows furrowed in a new, slightly angry, confused expression,
“You did what?”
Her mother hadn’t considered this reaction and was left speechless. Eric and Melody stopped eating and the only noise was the rattling of their forks and knives when they put them down on their plate.
“What’s wrong sweetheart? Are you upset? On the last family portrait we made you were about nine years old, I thought you would be hap-”
“How could I possibly be happy ?” Athena interrupted, her voice rose slightly and her speech accelerated due to the anger that was rising “you knew that today was important for me and yet you chose to organise this today, not even for me, for her” she pointed towards her sister who was too stunned to speak.
“Please Athena, tell me what’s the problem? I don’t understand”
“THAT IS THE PROBLEM”, she stood up, only the anger and disappointment were left in her voice,
“you never see what you did wrong, you never care about whether I deserve something special, it’s always, always, about her, it’s like I don’t even exist.” She felt tears pooling in her eyes and took a deep breath and finished slowly, “Today is Auradon Prep Orientation Day and I intend to go” before sitting down again.
In absolute silence, Ariel thought about everything her daughter had just said for a moment before suggesting, “I suppose… we could make an appearance and still be back by 3pm.”
Athena let out an ironic chuckle and shook her head in disbelief “You don’t get it, do you?”
Ariel pinched the bridge of her nose “I don’t understand what you expect from me, I try to deal with your tantrums and it’s never good enough for you.”
“All I wanted was one day, just one, about me. One where you would actually remember you have another child, but you’re not capable of that. On that last family portrait, I was ten. And you know why you had it done? Because she was entering high school. But, you know what, it’s fine, you don’t need me here, after all I’m not the one in line to become the Queen.”
She stood up again, calmly, and declared in a very serious tone “Your Majesties, your Royal Highness, please enjoy your family time today. If you are ever in search of me, I’ll let you know that I will attend Orientation Day, as it was planned for months.”
She bowed and her family looked in her direction as she left the room in complete silence, only followed by Mitchell.
“Is everything alright, Miss Athena?”
She stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to look at him, tears started rolling down her cheeks.
“Will you come with me to Auradon?”
He smiled and nodded, “Of course I will.”
She tried to stop her crying before giving up and hugging him desperately, the words “thank you” hardly came out of her mouth. He didn’t know how to react to that but reciprocated the hug and reassured her.
“It’s okay, it’s okay… Now let’s get you prepared for that Orientation Day, I’m sure you’ll make plenty of friends there.”
“Yeah I hope so”
Little did she know what was waiting for her at Auradon Prep…