Crowns ~ Smosh

Two

Just a warning, parts of this chapter will seem a bit awkward, and I am doing everything I can do avoid this awkwardness, but since this story is based off a barbie movie, there are plot holes and things I have to fix so this story makes sense with what I am going for. So if you have any suggestion on how to fix certain parts of this chapter feel free to let me know, I am all for constructive criticism!

~Jo  

The princes and princesses dashed down the stairs, stopping excitedly at the wagon of the royal cobbler that was parked in the courtyard. 

They all stood in line, waiting patiently, except for Noah who was nearly jumping up and down with anticipation. The cobbler emerged from behind the wagon. 

"Do you have our shoes?" Noah asked excitedly. The man looked down at him.

"Was I supposed to bring shoes?" He jokingly asked. 

"Yes!" Noah exclaimed, and the man chuckled.

"Perhaps you could help me?" He asked, handing the young boy the key to the back of his wagon. Noah excitedly opened it and the man helped pull the correct pair of shoes out for him. He went down the line, handing out the shoes to the correct people, and they all smiled and thanked him. Mari was last, and she happily took the dancing shoes from him, discarding her other shoes almost carelessly. 

"If only we had music!" She exclaimed glancing at all her siblings who were happily testing out their new shoes, twirling around with each other excitedly. The cobbler awkwardly put a hand to his chest, blushing in embarrassment, but he coughed quietly, bringing Mari's attention to him.

"Perhaps I could help with that?" He asked, pulling the flute from it's hiding place in the inside of his shirt. 

"You play?" She asked, looking at him and the flute. This brought over her siblings, all looking at him smiling. They knew him decently well, but they didn't know that he played an instrument, and everyone besides Noah was too afraid to call him by his first name, although he happily called them by theirs, of course with their respective titles. 

"A little," He responded, still not meeting her eyes in his embarrassment. "Not well, but it'll do." Mari smiled up at him, seeing that he was much taller. 

"Thank you," And she grabbed Matthew's hand. Everyone split into partners as he began to play, twirling around the courtyard. Every once in a while they would switch partners, twirling around with a different sibling. 

The cobbler could not stay as long as they wished that he could. Soon enough he had to wish the princes and princesses goodbye and take the long trek back to town so that he could be home before night fall. 

But they kept dancing without him. They danced until the servants ushered them back inside, tell them that it was time for dinner, and even then they still hummed the song that the cobbler was playing, tapping their feet to the beat under the table.

Their mother had made dancing a tradition, and none of the children would ever forget it. They danced when she was alive, and now that she wasn't, they danced even more. They felt like it was a way to connect with her, a way to make it feel like she was still there for the older ones. The younger ones barely remembered her, if they remembered her at all, and so the older ones tried to fill that hole with stories and dances, and somehow it all made it a little better. 

The king was absent, as he sometimes was during dinner. Running a kingdom was a lot of work, and the princes and princesses knew this, so they did not mind that he was absent, well they did, but they tried not to let it show. 

Once all the plates had been cleared, the royals made it up the staircase of their wing of the castle. That wing held their bedrooms. It was made up of three rooms. One bedroom for the boys, one for the girls with a common room in the middle. 

Each room was colorful, each bedspread a unique color for each child, and the walls were covered with paintings. Each painting told a story, and each story was personalized to the child whose bed was in front of it. Each bed had a trunk in front of it for the personalized items. And inside each trunk, besides Noah's, was a story book, with their mothers favorite story. David's trunk held two, one sitting patiently, waiting for the right moment to be gifted to the youngest brother. 

In the common room there was a beautifully crafted, marble, decoration in the middle of the floor. It was composed of circles, one large circle holding many smaller circles inside of it. The smaller circles held different flowers, crafted out of different colored marble. It was beautiful and each of the children loved that they had it, but they never knew why it was there. 

Every time they had asked their mother about the mysterious floor decoration, she had only smiled at them, before continuing on with whatever she was doing. And so when Noah came to the age of wondering why it was there, none of the older children ever had an answer for him, but they loved and appreciated it, because they knew it was from their mother. 

Of course they loved their father, but he never quite understood them the way their mother did. There is always something different about a mother's love, something that children seemed to desperately need, and so the eldest daughter seemed to take that honorary spot. 

Mari, unlike David, was not training to run the Kingdom, and many outsiders wondered why the princess was still unmarried. She was of age, but she never wanted to, or had the time to court. She was the woman of the household and she was in charge of everything her father could not do, meaning mothering the younger children. 

The older ones, like Joshua, Matthew, Wes, and Shayne, would help her, but none of them could mimic a mother's hand like Mari could. And so it was Mari who was reading the bedtime stories, it was Mari helping the maids when she was too young to know how to properly care for a child. Out of all the children, it was Mari who grew up much too quickly. David was still a child at heart, and since Mari was the caregiver, none of the other children had to grow up. 

"Time for bed," Mari finally called, gently tugging the notebook out of her younger sister's hand. Courtney pouted, but allowed the older sister to place the notebook into the trunk at the foot of her bed. 

"Ericka, Olivia," She called. "It's getting late." The girls grumbled, but listened to their sister, putting away whatever they were working on and making their way into the shelter of their beds. 

Mari smiled at them as she opened the door to the common area. She walked across the decorative marble to the boy's room. She could hear the shouting before she even made it into the room. She knocked on the door, and opened it before any of them could answer, in true motherly fashion. 

"Time for bed," She called into the room, walking across their messy floor to Noah's bed. She gently pried the book from his hands, and placed it on top of his trunk. "Go to sleep everyone, David especially you, you have training tomorrow." She earned a groan from the eldest child and she laughed a little. 

"Goodnight Mari," The boys mumbled. "See you in the morning." 

"Goodnight," She responded and blew out the candles in their room. She turned to look at the clock, shaking her head as she realized that they were pushing ten o'clock once again. She entered back into the room she shared with the other girls, and blew out the candles in their room. She wished the girls goodnight and stumbled to her own bed. 

But little did any of them know, that their entire world would be flipped upside down when they awoke.