Arranged

1: Dire Straits

"You want me to what?!"

She wasn't sure she had heard him right... surely her mind was playing tricks on her. Kalia's father shifted before her in his throne, his eyes levelled with hers as he took in her expression. There was no doubt that he had expected her reaction.

"Kalia, you are my eldest daughter, and as of late, no longer a child. Please don't make me tell you twice."

And her father was right. Technically, she wasn't a child anymore. She had turned eighteen almost a year ago, and at the time, she had been so excited about the future that she'd desired for herself, but right now, all she wanted to do was reverse the clock.

She went over his words again in her head. "You want me to marry a man I don't even know? From America?"

Another sigh escapes his lips as King Ateli lifts himself off of his chair and takes his daughter's hands into his. "Not just any man. He's a prince. A respectable one." Kalia rolls her eyes, and he gives her one of his famous looks of disapproval.

"You try so hard not to be a princess, but your maturity flies out the window when you hear something you don't like. I hope you don't treat our guests with that much disrespect when they arrive next week."

Her blood runs cold. "Next week?"

She felt her world crashing down around her in fiery pieces, and there was nothing she could do - no one she could sway to stop it from crumbling down on her. She wasn't stupid - she knew what this meant. She had to move away... far from everything she'd ever known.

Her parents - the King and Queen of the United Kingdom - link eyes from across the hall, not speaking another word in tongues.

"You want me to move to America?"

Queen Lania intrudes from the sidelines, putting a hand to her eldest daughter's cheek. "Of course we don't, darling. You know how much we love you," she smiled sadly.

"You can visit as often as you like. Every weekend, even," her father's eyes lit up at the thought as it left his mouth. Kalia could tell they weren't ecstatic about shipping her off a couple thousand miles away from home, his eldest daughter, their first child... but she figured tradition beat everything else that could give her a chance against this exchange. It was out of her hands.

"But..." she tried to find an argument within her, but came out weak. Shock outdid her. "But I was supposed to start college in the fall..."

With my friends, she thought solemnly.

"I'm sorry sweetheart." After some silence, he continues. "I'm sure he won't mind you continuing your studies in the States."

Maybe he was right... but that didn't mean that she was ready to move across the world for an education she was supposed to get here, the country she was born and raised in. The place she called home. But, of course, that was the least of her problems.

"I've met the prince, he is a kind man. Under his protection, I don't see why he would say no."

Kalia scoffed. "Yeah, I'm sure he is..."

"Kalia. I'd like to think we raised you with a bit more respect." Her father's eyes twinkled with authority, and she knew he wasn't mad at her reaction. Just disappointed.

"We've let you do what you like your whole life. It's time to live up to your responsibility."

Responsibility. Sometimes Kalia had forgotten that her parents didn't grow up in the modern day and age like she did. To her knowledge, the only responsibility a teenage girl is supposed to have is to enjoy her life and try to...

Try to please her parents.

She knew that this was the life a princess was supposed to live. In the world she was brought up in, this was prime time to get married. Kalia knew it would come, just not so soon, as she'd seen it happen to other girls from her world - cousins, girls from other kingdoms - but she had it so good compared to the others, who didn't have as much freedom as she did, that she let herself forget about what has always been expected of her the moment she was born a daughter into the royal family.

"You won't be leaving until after the wedding. The date is still yet to be decided."

She blinked, swallowing her distaste. "That's why they're coming?"

Her father nods. "And so that you have a chance to meet, of course."

Kalia couldn't stand around long enough to keep her mouth shut and her parents happy. There wasn't enough patience in her body for both.

"I'm going to head to bed." Upon being exposed to this delightful news, she silently doubted that she would sleep at all tonight.

"That's a good idea, this was a lot to spring up on you so very last minute. Some rest would do you good." Her mother kisses her forehead as though they just had an ordinary chat; as if Kalia's life hadn't just ended the moment their conversation had.

Before, she had been so engrossed in the idea of living and making decisions as she went, and that was the beauty of it. There was no plan.

Climbing the staircase to the third floor gave her the few minutes Kalia needed to pull herself together, just enough to fall back apart when she'd curled into bed.

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