The Queen's Game

3. A Little Bit of Deja Vu

It all felt like deja vu to Nina—walking to the gardens with Felipe, arguing about who had the bigger palace, the better food, the better family. Felipe always won with that last category, not for lack of Nina's trying.

They needed to go up a small hill to see the orchard, and when she stumbled, he was here to help her up, just like they used to as kids, although now, they were alone. There were no nannies trailing behind them to remind them of propriety, no secretaries or aides to follow after their parents. Not a word passed between either of them until they reached the top overlooking the orchard.

"It looks exactly the same." She breathed with just a hint of disappointment.

The lanzones trees were planted on the day Nina was born, and now they were fully grown and bearing fleshy yellow fruits like it was nobody's business. According to local legend, the lanzones fruits were poisonous until an angel descended from heaven and and touched them. The black and brown spots on the yellow fruits were her fingerprints, and was a sign of a ripe lanzones fruit. Some say it made the fruits even sweeter, but to Nina, lanzones meant home, no matter how many angels touched them.

Without waiting for Felipe, Nina went down to the orchard, picking a couple of ripe fruits as she walked along the orchard path. This was where she learned how to walk, her chubby fingers grasping leaves and plants, anything that could hold her up. This was where she learned to ride a horse. This was where her father told her about her future as the Queen of Cincamarre.

Nina swallowed the lanzones she'd plucked, the fruit suddenly without its sweetness in her mouth. She wiped away a few stray tears with the back of her hand as she tossed the fruit's inedible skin aside.

That was when she heard the scream.

"Ow! Oh fuck."

She followed the voice to where Felipe had apparently stuck his foot into a sinkhole. His back was turned to her, his muscles straining against his black, slim cut suit as he struggled. He kept running his hands through his hair, making his dark brown tresses stick up more than it already was as he desperately tried not to panic.

For the first time that day, Nina actually laughed. He was handsome in a classically British way—tall, cut a nice figure in a suit and oozing with charm and sophistication while managing to flail like one of those inflatable dancing tube guys she'd seen in LA. She called out to Felipe and asked what happened.

"What do you—"He turned around to face her so sharply that his ankle twisted, and he fell to the ground in a tangle of legs and a cloud of dust.

"Ow," he finally said after a fit of coughing.

"That's no way to speak to a Crown Princess." Nina joked, coming up closer to him.

"Well, that is no way to speak to a visiting dignitary." He huffed, his back still facing her. "A little help, please?"

He squinted up at Nina in the sunlight, and sweet nostalgia hit her hard. He'd always reminded her of the Little Prince in the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry book—concerned with trying to understand the world around him, caring for his rose, (or in Felipe's case, roses) and ultimately a very lonely little boy. She could see it in his eyes now, as unfamiliar as his new face was. She understood that a little better now.

How many times had this happened to us, him and me? She wondered. He was always getting scrapes and falls as a boy, while she was always the one to pull him up, even reluctantly. Felipe had grown, in every sense of the word. And while he'd grown up much more handsome than she had expected, not much had changed. He still had those bright, lonely brown eyes and that smirk. That little smirk that used to drive her crazy as a kid now made her stumble slightly as an adult. It was disarming.

"Why did you come here?" She asked him, holding a hand out to him to grasp. Warmth immediately shot up her arm as his larger hand enveloped hers. "Aren't you supposed to be in the condolence line?"

Nina tightened her grip on his hand and tugged hard enough to free his foot from the ground. Felipe swore again, bending his knee to hold his injured foot up before he regained his composure.

"There's no one to console in that line if you're here." He pointed out, fumbling a little as he tested his weight on his foot. He winced and used a nearby tree to support himself as he stood. "I was also looking at the irrigation system and checking on the trees. Your father asked me to consult with him when the flowers bloomed too early a couple of years ago."

"Why am I not surprised that you became a farmer?" She sighed. "And you were crowned Prince already?"

"Yeah. Inherited when my mother abdicated, so Prince. And I prefer the term agriculture specialist. I'm very rarely allowed to do any actual farm work. Not to say that I don't. It's just that there are a lot of things to do in the palace sometimes." He sighed like he'd run out of steam. "Anyway. Not your problem. Welcome home."

"Am I?" She asked dryly, still watching him. "And how did you end up with your foot in a hole?"

"I was too engrossed in checking the trees for pests." He confessed, hopping on his good foot. "Why were you wandering the orchard?"

"I can do what I like in my house, thanks."

"Famous last words, remember?" He asked as he started to limp away from the tree and toward her. But he estimated it wrong and ended up hopping toward her like an oncoming car crash.

She threw her arms around his torso to brace for the impact. His body was a rock-solid wall of muscle, with a chest so firm and warm that she wanted to bury her face in it. Climbing up trees and scampering through other people's palaces apparently did a body good.

"Bit intimate," he commented.

"Oh my god," she rolled her eyes as she re-positioned her stance so that his arm was draped over her shoulder instead. "When did you become such a flirt?"

"I haven't had anyone to practice on." He shrugged as she elbowed him lightly. "Ow!"

"And such a baby too." She smirked, shaking her head. How on earth did they fall into this kind of dynamic so quickly? Earlier they had been all about the stony silences and the passive-aggressive hellos. Now they were flirting, and holding hands? Hugging? Granted, it was all sinkhole related, but the change was making Nina woozy.

"Can you do this? I'm pretty heavy." He pointed out to her as they started to hobble back to the palace.

"Can you shut up for a second? I can call for help as soon as we get inside." She grit her teeth and huffed as she half-dragged him through the orchard.

"How are you," he asked, after a beat of silence, his voice low as the air between them turned thick and cloying the closer they got to the palace steps. Nina swallowed a lungful of air. She was drowning in Felipe and the coming sea of condolences and expressions of grief. They stopped.

"I'm fine." She assured him unconvincingly. "I just don't feel like standing by a throne I don't have and accepting condolences from people I don't know."

Felipe nodded and said nothing as they continued on to the top of the hill. The only sound in the air was the wind whipping at them and their breaths catching up to their movements. He was in pain, and she was exhausted, so they decided that rest was well-deserved.

They sat down together, Felipe lying against the slope of the hill as Nina took off her shoes to wiggle her toes in the grass. They looked at the view together. Every hill they saw had another behind it, and another and another until it reached the open sea. The endlessness of it all, the sheer size of the view in front of them actually terrified her.

"Why do you hate me so much?" Felipe broke the silence, the question throwing Nina off-guard, making her sit ramrod straight beside him.