The Union of Peanut Butter and Jelly

A Romantic Getaway and An Evil Plot

As the Festival of Hearts began to draw to a close, both Caddaric and Aimee were in the royal music room indulging in one of their shared passions, creating beautiful music together. "It will soon be time for you to go home, Caddy," Aimee said sadly to Caddaric as he played the piano that they were both seated at, using the nickname version of his name that she often called him. "I know, my love," Caddaric said, equally saddened by the thought of being separated from her. "I just wish that it didn't have to come so soon."

"What do you mean by that?" Aimee asked him rather curiously. Caddaric immediately stopped playing the piano, and he turned towards Aimee, and he took her into his arms in a loving embrace and spoke. "Aimee, whenever I am with you, I feel like that time has stopped allowing us to have more time with one another than we have. However, whenever I realize how much time we have left to spend together, my heart begins to ache because whenever we are apart, I always feel empty and incomplete."

With his words of love and honesty, Aimee looked deeply into Caddaric's light blue eyes, and she softly told him the words that she had been waiting to say to him. "I feel the same way about you, Pooka. But what can we do? I long to go on a long trip to see the world and spend more time with you. However, I doubt that my mother or even your parents would allow us to go traveling on our own without a royal entourage."

Caddaric quietly listened to his princess as he began to think about their predicament. Once Aimee had finished speaking her mind, Caddaric smiled at her lovingly and told her the carefully thought-out remedy for both of them. "My wee Aimee, I think there is a way to achieve what we both want," Caddaric said as he began to tell her about his well-thought-out idea. "We can say to my parents and your mother that we want to go traveling to spend some more time together. I am sure that they will understand once we explain to them that we are adults and that we do not need a vast entourage to look after us. That way, we will be able to have time alone together and complete privacy."

"We could, but what if they still refuse to allow us to travel without a royal entourage?" Aimee said as she questioned her prince about the possibility. "If they refuse to allow us to travel without an entourage, then we will tell them that we will travel with an entourage made up of our closest friends for the first year and a half and alone for the last year. That way, we will have an entourage made up of people we know and trust. We will still be able to get some alone time together since our friends will understand when we tell them that we want to be alone. Once the first year and a half are up, we will be able to spend the last year of our travels alone with just the two of us together."

Once Aimee had heard Caddaric's idea for a compromise, she lovingly cradled his face in her hands, and she kissed him on the lips. "You are more intelligent than you give yourself credit for, you know that," Aimee playfully told him. Caddaric smiled bashfully as he slightly blushed at her compliment towards him. "If you say so, my love," Caddaric said as he gently placed his hands around her wrists as he placed her hands into his own. "Come on, my darling, let's go and see if we can gain their approval."

Immediately, the young couple left the music room hand in hand and went to see Aimee's mother and Caddaric's parents. However, after the young royals explained to the elder royals what they wanted to do, Aimee was proven right. Both Queen Mermelada and Caddaric's parents, King Erdnuβ and Queen Avellana, were reluctant to allow them to travel alone with each other without the company of a royal entourage. Once they had heard their parents' concerns about what they wanted to do, Caddaric proposed their compromise to them in complete detail. After the elder royals had finished listening to the young prince's compromise in full detail, they agreed to allow the younger royals to travel together, much to the lovers' joy and delight. 

After they had finished talking with their parents, Caddaric and Aimee thanked them, and they immediately left to return to their chambers to prepare for their long trip together. Over the next few days, Caddaric and Aimee spent most of their time planning and preparing for their trip. They had a caravan prepared for themselves and separate caravans for their friends. They packed up all of their clothes and the necessities, and they made sure that they would have enough money throughout the time they would be traveling. Luckily, all of their closest friends, including Charles and Athena, agreed to go with them on their travels, and everyone agreed to bring their own money with them and help out with the cooking and the laundry.

Two days after the Festival of Hearts had ended, Caddaric and Aimee, along with their friends, said goodbye to their families and left to travel the rest of the world. Throughout the first year and a half of their travels, Caddaric and Aimee's love for each other just continued to grow stronger, along with the familial bond with their friends. Caddaric and Aimee saw the sights with their friends in every kingdom they visited. Whenever they wanted to spend some romantic time alone together, they would sometimes go to a local restraint to eat or go on a picnic in the nearest meadow filled with flowers. Whenever they needed time apart from one another, Caddaric would spend his time with their male friends doing their favorite sports or gathering up firewood whenever they ran low. In contrast, Aimee would spend some time with their female friends, looking around the various shops in the villages they visited.

As promised, when the first year and a half had ended, Caddaric's parents and Aimee's mother finally gave the young couple permission to continue their travels on their own. After all of their friends had returned home to their families, Caddaric and Aimee spent the last year traveling on their own through the most romantic and beautiful kingdoms they had saved for later. By the time Caddaric and Aimee had returned, it was clear to everyone who saw them, including their friends and their families, that their love for one another was a love that was meant to last forever.

Unfortunately, one person was not happy with their relationship because he was too heartless to see that it is True Love. In the few years since Aimee had ended their relationship, Prince Pelmazo had been trying his luck with a princess from a lesser-known kingdom. For the past three and a half years after Aimee had ended their relationship and his departure from the Jelly kingdom, Pelmazo was never invited or welcomed at the royal courts of the most wealthy and well-known kingdoms. Once the complete details about his relationship with Aimee, along with his poor treatment of her, had gotten out. Everyone, especially the people outside of the royal circles, refused to associate with him. Almost all the royal families declined to grant him their permission to court their daughters.

Although he had finally been granted permission to court a king's daughter, Pelmazo's financial status was no longer as prestigious as when he was with Aimee. He was now completely broke and in deep debt with all of his creditors, much to his dismay. Instead of looking for a way out of his financial situation, Pelmazo spent all of his free time with his two allies from the Council of Magic, Lady Jezebel and Lord Judas, learning more information about Caddaric and Aimee's growing and loving relationship. With each new piece of information that he learned, Pelmazo's envy and jealousy towards the two lovers continued to grow, especially his jealousy towards Caddaric. "That should be me with Aimee instead of that so-called prince," Pelmazo complained to himself in private with Jezebel and Judas as Judas looked at Aimee's picture with a look of lust and want. "He is unfit for her. He can't even make sure that she looks perfect and acts as a proper princess at all times."

Pelmazo was still in denial about how he had treated Aimee during their relationship, both public and private. He believed that his treatment of Aimee was acceptable and that women should be treated as objects to be modeled into a man's version of perfection. However, the heartless prince and his allies were planning how they could break the couple apart as his act of revenge against Aimee. "Princess Aimee, you will rue the day you threw me aside," Pelmazo declared as he began to plan his strategy for revenge. However, both he and his allies knew that they had to wait to put his plan into motion, and, unfortunately for Caddaric and Aimee, they did not have to wait long.