Once Upon A Princess

27: Bride To Be

The fall season was turning the hot and sticky days into cool and tempered ones. Amelia couldn't see trees from the windows in the castle, and so she wasn't sure how the colors of the leaves were changing. It made her miss Avenor even more. Many of the trees she'd seen on her travels in Gell were very tall pine trees, anyway.

At least the company was nice, even if her spirit was as declined as the temperature. Amelia happened upon Julien on a random walk through the palace, and he'd asked her if she'd seen the gardens yet. She couldn't help recalling when Castiel had asked to take her on a tour of the gardens. Then it made her think of the last time she'd seen him, so she stuffed the memory down as Julien smiled at her.

"I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about any plants. Botany wasn't on the lesson plan, I suppose. Are there any you recognize from Avenor?" he asked.

They were walking at a leisurely pace, and the flowers all around them provided exciting color and smells to the scenery. It was a stark contrast to the dark colors of the palace walls. Maybe she should have come out here earlier.

Amelia didn't know much about plants, either. The bright pink flowers on her side of the path could've easily also been in Avenor's castle garden. She'd never paid much attention. So she shrugged.

"Flowers are flowers, I guess," she admitted with a tense laugh. There were so many bees around, and she found herself distracted by them. They were big here, and totally round. They were also much louder. The incessant buzzing felt like a sort of horrible song in the background.

Julien, possibly realizing neither had a sense for botany, quickly changed the subject.

"Are you excited about the upcoming ball? It'll be the biggest one this year, what with it being Castiel's birthday celebration and all."

Amelia had heard whispers through gossiping maids that this weekend's ball was to be extra special, but she hadn't known that was the reason. It made sense they'd go all out for the crown prince's birthday. She tried to hold in her sigh. Frankly, she'd already felt like she'd endured enough balls. And there'd only been a handful. At least Julien had been there to dance and converse with at every one.

"At least I'll have a dance partner," she said, looking at his face and watching it slowly bloom pink.

"Ah, um, actually," he started, a hand going to the back of his neck, "I'm not invited to this one. It's mostly going to be the highest in Gell's nobility attending, and I think there's a slight age limit anyway. I assume you'll be the youngest one there."

Great. She wondered if she could somehow get out of going to this one. The ball would be nigh unendurable if she'd have to listen to people praising Castiel all night with only herself for company.

But perhaps one good thing had come out of it. The past few weeks had been mostly empty of the Bellemere family from Amelia's daily meetings. Perhaps they'd been too busy with party preparations to pay much attention to her. Which, to be honest, was all well and good with her, because she was rather cross with both of the sons. She felt like she was always cross with Theolon, but Castiel was a new target for her annoyance. He had seemed perfectly charming and lovely at first, but she supposed that was the diplomacy speaking. Everyone always seemed to have a charming façade to mask their true natures.

As if she could summon the family with just a thought, a page interrupted the pleasant stroll with the request that Amelia go to the king's office. As soon as the page hurried away, Julien gave her a disarming smile.

"Maybe he has news from home," he suggested.

Letters from home were few and far between, which Amelia found disheartening. She highly doubted the king would care about news from Avenor unless it was particularly bad, so in this case she did not wish for a message from home.