The Trickster's Test {Prinxiety}

Chapter 17

Third Person

Alexia Crawford, for the longest time, never thought of herself as careful. It simply wasn't a word whose definition could align with anything she did.

She hadn't been careful when she decided to paint the walls of her art room, a section of the floor still sporting the yellow splatter that she had made when she dropped her brush. She hadn't been careful when she rode away from her governess on horseback, leaving the woman alone in the middle of a town she had little knowledge of, while Alexia failed to learn to ride a horse as she went along and was thrown off a spare block or two away. She hadn't been careful when she found a raccoon investigating some rotten apples that had fallen unripe, and still had five pinkish marks on each arm from that day. And she certainly didn't so much as think about being careful when she approached one of the most dangerous people she had ever had the displeasure of meeting, because she knew there was no way Virgil could survive what they had planned.

They hadn't seen each other in years, but that didn't keep her from feeling almost obligated to help the younger. She did owe him after basically abandoning their friendship in favor of continually escaping responsibility through less than admirable adventures. The journeys had caused Ouranian soil to feel foreign to her, and provided some much needed brevity from the near excessive 'everything is fine' atmosphere the country possessed. They had helped her a great deal, but her relationship with Virgil had been left unkempt and neglected. It seemed only fair that she attempted to make it up to him at some point.

There was still plenty of time for something to go wrong, one could argue, but she was fairly satisfied with doing everything in her power short of murdering everyone else at the manor to help Virgil escape. She wouldn't be able to see him exit the escape tunnel on the outside from the second story window, and there was no telling if he actually would be able to escape. She could have been more obvious about where the hatch was, but alerting Dallas would not have been the best idea. Although, if she did manage to talk to him alone and tell him about the hatch, Virgil probably would have been much more suspicious of her. Revealing it outright would have been too easy, to him, it would have felt staged. Having Dallas there was a bit of an inconvenience, but without a good reason for him to leave them alone, giving them privacy would have been strange, so it ended up working out pretty nicely.

"Those silent pricks are packing up shop, and the rest of us won't be far behind. So, if you want a ride away from this crap house I'd suggest you get going," Alexia hadn't heard Dallas approach, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let him realize and get any satisfaction from it.

"And I'd suggest you stop calling the thieves 'silent pricks.' They happen to be quite good at eavesdropping, and I doubt they'll appreciate the nickname. Also, no one here would be opposed if they decided to take offense to your comments and leave behind a bloody pulp in your place," She responded plainly, turning away from the window unhurriedly, "Now, why are you all getting ready to leave? We're supposed to stick around until Captain Clemons can get here."

Despite all the possible threats to his life she had outlined, Dallas looked quite smug by the time she finished speaking, "Change of plans. Clemons showed up earlier than expected and found the young prince outside with his guard, presumably about to run off. To avoid losing them, he immediately transported them to his ship. One of his men was sent to pass the message along, and the change in speed didn't receive any protests."

Alexia had always possessed a few ticks that liked to show themselves at inconvenient times, and she was starting to wonder why she hadn't worked to stop them before now. The one that most often damned her, and the one most people that knew her could recognize, was when something bothered her, she would twitch. It could be a small uptick of her cheek, or a rapid open and close of her fist; it didn't matter. The things that triggered this particular habit varied. In this case, the unexpected arrival of Clemons, that just so happened to coincide with Virgil's attempted escape and reunion with his personal guard, had done just that. She had meticulously planned the rescue of her old friend, to the best of her abilities anyway, and having it all go off the rails and leave Virgil in danger again was irritating.

So, when her hand quickly twisted, as if she were opening a bottle, she felt like slapping herself.

Now, she completely believed that Dallas wouldn't have noticed anything, but she wasn't nearly as confident in the stupidity of the woman that had just reached the top of the staircase.

"To whom do I owe the pleasure of being in the presence of two royals on the same night?" Alexia asked, her voice level in spite of her earlier slip-up. At least she got something done right, she couldn't guarantee that there'd be more times like this for the rest of the night.

"Inattentive dock workers, I suppose," Princess Melanie offered quaintly, brushing invisible dirt off her pristine white gloves that Alexia wouldn't be surprised if she had waited to put on until reaching the house; the Sidero's in particular were very intent on keeping up their perfect appearances so she wouldn't risk getting the accessories dirty, "I would have liked to send Virgil off with my regards but as long as James can do his job I guess there's no reason to complain. It is embarrassing that he nearly managed to escape the two of you and the Geminians. It's quite irritating when my help embarrasses me."

It was quite irritating for Alexia to learn that Virgil nearly escaped too, so at least they had something in common. She would continue to consider that to be something even remotely important, if only to help keep her from simply attacking the princess in front of her.

"Apologies, but none of us wished to spend too much time in the dungeon with him. It appeared as though the whole basement could cave in at any moment," Alexia's condolences were insincere at best and hostile at worst; she had to speak more carefully.

"Even still, I couldn't help but worry about the consequences had Virgil escaped, and I realized I'd have to run a bit of a tighter ship, per se," Her eyes were dark and nearly unreadable, but there was nothing good there, "And I thought this would have been common sense, but I won't tolerate loose ends, Alexia."

As if to punctuate her point, Dallas slowly removed a dagger from his belt all too cheerfully. Virgil, you better be really grateful and find some way off that stupid boat, she thought, not the least bit jealous, more annoyed at the duo in front of her than anything.

"Then I suppose we've reached an impasse, because I have no interest in dying tonight." 

A/N: This might be one of my favorite chapters, partially because of the cool cliffhanger, partially because I love Alexia so much. She isn't even that major of a character, only appearing in a fraction of the chapters, but idk man, I just really like how she acts. And her name, Alexia is a cool name that I like for inexplicable reasons