Royal Jester

24. Mason

It had been a normal day for Mason up until roughly twenty minutes into his world history class. 

The professor had spent the past fifteen minutes explaining their upcoming assignment, Mason was barely even paying attention, too focused on staring at his phone. He had texted Paris just before the lecture began and she still hadn't responded. He was getting a little impatient. 

"Now, if everyone can please flip over the sheet of paper in front of you." There was a sheet of paper in front of him? 

Mason shook his head to clear his thoughts, following the instructor's directions and turning over the notecard on his desk. "Whatever is written on this paper will be what you are researching, whether it be a kingdom, a war, or a person."

Mason's paper read The Mysterian Kingdom; he'd never even heard of it before. 

"The assignment is due in two days." Well shit. Mason didn't even know what he was supposed to be submitting, he was totally fucked. 

His phone vibrated just then and he almost knocked his laptop off the table in his haste to pick it up. He grinned as he saw Paris's contact name, absentmindedly thinking that he should change it to something other than just her name now that they were dating. He just wasn't sure what. 

Mason's chest warmed as he read the text. It wasn't an especially sweet or flirty message by any means, she was simply asking if he had eaten (he had a terrible habit of forgetting when he had earlier lectures) but it still made him happy to know she was thinking of him. 

He quickly responded, informing her that he had in fact eaten that morning, before finally turning his attention to the assignment. Hopefully Mason's professor had emailed everyone the instructions as well; she usually did. 

Mason quickly checked his inbox, sighing in relief when he noticed the most recent email was for his current class. 

After quickly skimming the longer-than-necessary paragraph he finally surmised that he was supposed to be writing a research paper. He could definitely do that. 

He swiftly typed the topic he was given into the search bar, eyes growing comically wide when the first photo to pop up featured a very familiar face. "What the hell," he muttered confusedly. 

Was that Paris?

"Holy shit," he whispered to himself with a grin. 

There was no way in hell that this was how she was getting back at him. He couldn't even begin to imagine what she had to do in order to get his professor involved. And - seeing that Mysteria was a real place based on the map on the corner of his screen- he was wondering how the hell she managed to guarantee her photo would be the first to come up.

To think she had done all this for a silly ass prank; Mason had to give the girl props.

He laughed softly, disbelieving as he clicked on the link that the photo led to. But wait- why was the article dated over a year ago?

His stomach dropped. 

He quickly went back to the search page, going into the Images tab and scrolling only to see dozens upon dozens of photos with Paris in them. He enlarged a photo featuring only her - albeit she was surrounded by a group of people - wearing a very expensive looking outfit. 

The caption was Princess Anastasia Paris Middleton of Mysteria visiting her people.

Mason reeled back as though he was physically hit, his mind struggling to wrap around the newfound information and his hands beginning to shake.