starlight | forever young

The Duchess and the Prince

The Yacht deck was crowded enough that nobody noticed the sound of their apparated arrivals, tucked to one side of the cabin at the front, between the large lifeboat and the starboard hull. Regulus arrived off balance and tripped into Maryrose's side, catching her arm as she laughed and straightened him up. She pursed her lips up and clucked her tongue, "Tsk, tsk; not very distinguished!" She reached 'round him and straightened his tie and ran her fingers through his hair, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Don't you reckon these people will notice that they haven't the faintest idea who we are?" Regulus laughed, looking over her shoulder at the rich-looking crowd on the deck, mingling and sipping sparkling goblets of champagne. They wore fancy, long dresses and fancy, penguin-like suits, and Regulus laughed and turned back to Maryrose, "They'll notice in a moment we're not one of them."

Maryrose's eyebrows came together, "I'm sorry, aren't you of the Noble House of Black?" she said in a tone that mocked the one he'd used once when telling her of the House Moste Noble, "A Prince of the Wizarding World, one of the blood of the Sacred Twenty-Eight?" She was fidgeting with his tie as she said these things in a lofty manner.

"None of those things are things to brag about," Regulus said.

"These people would think so," she said. Then she took a step back, looked down at her clothes, screwed up her nose and with a soft sound like jingling bells her dress fell longer, all the way to the floor, and held closer to her body, sparlking with magic and dark blue like the inky sky overhead so that she shone like the stars and her ears were suddenly studded with silver dangling stars and her hair was white as the starlight.

"Slytherin's Ghost - look at you."

She laughed and touched his shoulder and he felt his dress robes reshaping themselves around his body, felt the loose fabric tightening, tucking, changing until he was wearing a fine suit as fine as any on the men about the dock and he laughed when with a -pop- a top hat burst upon his head.

"I'd rather look at you," Maryrose replied. Then, a coy smile on her lips, "Let's tell them you really are a Prince. And I'll be a Duchess."

The giggle in her voice was too much for Regulus to try to resist.

"And we'll be really, really offended that they don't know precisely who we are," he added.

"Yes!" Maryrose chirped.

He smirked and bent his arm into a triangle, offering it to her and she curtsied and hooked her arm through his, and together they walked into the midst of the crowded deck, both fighting back the laughter at the idea of what they were plotting, just waiting for the first person to stop them and speak to them as they made their way through the press of important somebodies.

"Where shall we be Prince and Duchess of?" Regulus whispered, bending into her ear as they walked.

Maryrose cast her mind about, thinking of what the most random place she could think of might be and finally said, "Dubrovnik." 

"Is that a real place?" Regulus asked.

"In Croatia."

"Have you been there?"

"We both were born and raised there, darling," she laughed heartily and pecked him on the cheek, then, affecting an accent that he had a feeling was not a thing like they would sound in the real city of Dubrovnik, she added, "You have preserved your humor despite being named as the youngest ever Prince of the City, yes? I am much proud of you."

Regulus laughed, "And I am much in love with you right now, you crazy girl," his accent was even wonkier than Maryrose's and she snort-laughed at the sound of him stumbling over the words as he spoke them. "None of these fine people are going to believe us with this accent," he added, snickering as he leaned into her shoulder.