Stealing a Princess (A Rise of the Guardians Fanfiction)

Poison

Tooth discreetly made her way through the halls, fiddling with the thin white sleeves of her stolen blouse. They were scratchy and uncomfortable, but she would bear with it, if it meant learning how to defend herself. Over the past few days since she had last seen Jack, she had done her best to ignore her jumbled and confused feelings and concentrated on her studies with Sandy. There were only a couple more months until her 18th birthday after all, and not being able to defend herself against Pitch would not be wise, considering his marriage offer still stood.

No other suitors had come forward to ask for her hand in marriage, unfortunately. Sandy suspected Pitch had something to do with it, and her mother was practically mad with worry over finding her a new husband.

“Why can’t you just call the marriage off?” She had whined, clutching one of her mother’s silk pillows to her chest as the Queen brushed and braided her hair. She hadn’t told her mother about her lessons with Jack yet; somehow, she knew her mother would not be happy about her learning how to fight from a notorious thief.

“As much as I would like to, calling off the marriage would mean making an enemy of Pitch, daughter,” her mother replied, running the comb through her brown hair. “Pitch may be a bad man, but he has many allies, including many of the nobles in our kingdom and other kingdoms. I am afraid he would stage a rebellion to steal the throne if we called the marriage off, Toothiana.”

As much as she despised the thought of marrying Pitch, she could see the reason in her mother’s explanation. Pitch was a very powerful man, and angering him would not be wise. She knew that.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she passed under the decorated stone archway on the way out of the castle, mumbling about how dreadfully horrible

Jack was supposed to be waiting for her at their regular meeting place, ready to train her. He was very patient with her, even when she had to try repeatedly to get the punches and kicks right; the punches and kicks Jack so effortlessly demonstrated for her every time.

A thief like him was teaching her how to fight. Tooth wasn’t naïve – she knew Jack was here for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to teach her how to fight. The only thing he could be here for had to be to steal something, but what?

Her father had a great many riches, though he mostly collected paintings from famous painters. Could Jack be after the royal jewels? Tooth was sure her father wouldn’t mind if a few jewels went missing from the royal treasury, and the King mostly collected paintings as way to display how powerful and wealthy he was to the other kings.

Though recently, she had heard whispers of a beautiful painting that radiated sunlight and brought peace to whomever touched it. Surely a painting as wonderful as that would be in the possession of her father, for he was not one to let such a fantastical painting fall into the hands of another man.

The King was not greedy per se, but her mother had told her that because their kingdom was a peaceful one, they needed to display wealth and power to warn off other kingdoms from invading. That logic made no sense to Tooth; why would other kings even hesitate to attack if their kingdom was rich? Even if their army was strong, they were not known for their military prowess. Wouldn’t the thought of bringing a rich kingdom under their rule be enough to make a king order the invasion of one such kingdom?

She had voiced those thoughts out to her mother once, and been rewarded with a deep, in-depth explanation of politics, which she had found dreadfully boring. Court politics were not something she excelled in; rather, she focused on her studies and dreamt about being a healer one day.

Of course, she would not be able to pursue her passion for medicine - all because she was born a princess.

How she wished she could be free like Jack. He had no one’s expectations to fulfill, no duty to the kingdom. Though she knew it was not his fault, she could not help but be a little bit envious of Jack and his life as a thief. Not that she would ever replace her family and friends, for they were all too important to her for her to let go of.