𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘 - Cinderella AU

V - though the rose is vermilion

v.

HIS WORDS WERE HARD in his baritone and delivered with such ferocity, though it lay in the words themselves and not the civil effect the foreign prince made use of. He appeared to only graze his intentions with his words, Isadora Tremaine could sense the depth of the intentions that lay beneath.

A certain familiarity struck her then, was she too not the same? Picking out single words from the ocean of her depth and presenting them as they lay inside her, instead of watering them down for those she spoke to.

"Yes, your highness. I apologize," Samuel Harrison stuttered, before steeling his facial expression. "I will take my leave."

He dropped into a low bow, and pivoted to leave.

Isadora watched him go briefly, for her senses were much too encapsulated by the presence of the royal beside her.

Exhaling softly, she slowly glanced at the prince, lowering her lashes instantly when she met his intense brown orbs and dropping into a gradual curtsey.

"Thank you, your highness," She managed, keeping her eyes on the crimson carpet of the entrance way under her feet.

"I apologize for the scene," Isa continued, her humiliation rising to the surface. "I am mortified for it."

Not only had she been caught in midst of the embarrassing scene, she was not even aware of the identity of the handsome foreign prince in front of her. Perhaps it was just as well that commoners and nobles alike couldn't address royals with their names and the kingdoms they came from. Isa couldn't remember having been as remotely glad for anything else at present.

"Please," Chocolate brown irises met hers when she straightened, a soft look in them that made a nerve in the pit of her stomach flutter wildly.

"It is not your fault. There need be no mortification on your part, Miss Tremaine."

Isadora blinked once in slight thought, her eyes fixed into the foreign prince's. There was something else she felt other than that fluttering nerve when his eyes met hers. It was a strange feeling, as though her heart had been taken out from the ice cold water that had numbed it and was now dunked abruptly into lukewarm water. The sensation was different than anything she had felt before, she didn't know why it had come upon her or what it mean.

The foreign prince was a carved piece-someone that artists perhaps replicated in marble busts. He was intimidating, with a fierceness in his intentions and in his words alike. He was handsome, but she shouldn't feel towards him what she was feeling at present. It was out of place, it was disrupting.

Isadora realized too late that she shouldn't be meeting a prince's gaze head on like he was her equal. She was used to meeting people's eyes straight, and it didn't occur to her to refrain from the habit in the present particular case when suddenly her family name was called in the formal presentation happening in the ballroom, dragging her by the hair out of her spiraling thoughts.

Isa gasped slightly, her palms fisting at her sides, eyes shut tight. She couldn't run to catch up, it would be unseemly were she to barge in now at the last minute to make the presentation. Her mother would be furious.

Isadora opened her eyes and her dark orbs met the prince's amused brown ones.

"Your family presentation," He spoke, letting no other emotion show.

"Yes," Isa managed a small smile, not wanting to let her distress show. She would find a way to protect herself and her son from her mother's anger. She had been doing so for a while now, she could do it again.