Those Violet Eyes

Chapter 1

By the last light of the setting sun, Gillian Cobbler scratched down the final sentence of her essay on magical creatures with her quill. With a satisfied sigh, she set the quill down on her bedside table, where it rested for about three seconds before a certain duck jumped up and greedily gobbled it up.

"Peaches!" Gilly swatted the bird off the table with a THUNK! and began quickly rolling up her scroll. No way was that stupid duck even thinking about eating the essay she spent 2 hours writing.

"Be nice to Peaches." Maxine sat up on her bed across from Gilly's and rubbed her eyes, just waking up from her afternoon nap. "She hasn't had her lunch yet."

"Well that's no excuse for her to eat my homework." Gilly tied her scroll with a ribbon and tossed it out the window, watching a bird snatch it up and begin to fly down to a lower floor to deliver it to Professor Sebastian.

"She didn't eat your homework. She ate your quill. There's a difference." Maxine frowned at the massive drool stain she left on her pillow. She had managed about a year ago to control her constant drooling, except when she was sleeping. It drove her crazy.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Gilly grumbled. "I don't think I'm going to get used to living with that dang duck again."

"It's only for a few weeks," Maxine pointed out. Even though the girls had "graduated" Fairy Tale Reform School three years ago and moved back home despite still attending classes with Professor Sebastian, they had to temporarily move back into their old dorm room due to a month long class project he had randomly conjured up out of the blue. The "project" was basically doing exactly what they had already been doing almost every day for the last three years, except this time they were each assigned a younger student that had just began attending reform school to assist them with their assignments so they could get the gist of Professor Sebastian's special class for reformed students. While this might sound nice(less work for one person), it really wasn't. The younger students were all fresh troublemakers who did everything in their power to not help with the assignments and basically just make life harder for the older kids. But no matter how much Gilly and the others complained, Professor Sebastian held his ground and insisted everything was fine, adding that the older students used to act just like that when they were twelve and they should know how to handle the younger ones. Gilly secretly thought that he just made this "project" up so he wouldn't have to deal with those students himself.

"Well, I need to go find April. Where's Janelle, anyway?" Maxine asked.

April was the young student assigned to Maxine. She so far was the least problematic student out of the others that were assigned to Jax, Ollie, Jocelyn, AG, and of course Gilly. Janelle was assigned to Gilly, and of course was the most problematic student out of the others. She had so far, in the one week Gilly had been back at FTRS, almost set her bed on fire, "accidentally" dropped Wilson out the window(he's fine. Blue caught him), and "lost" Gilly's favorite boots(they were found being chewed on by one of the pegasi. Thankfully Hal, Gilly's dad, was able to easily fix them). It was driving Gilly crazy, and she couldn't wait to go home to her own Janelleless, duckless room(it came with the new house the Cobblers moved into after the Stiltskin Squad burnt their old one down three years ago. No more sharing with little siblings!).

"I don't know, and I don't care." Gilly pulled on her boots and began lacing them up. "Sebastian was crazy to assign that little demon to me."

"It makes sense to me," Maxine said. Gilly gave her a look. "I'm serious! Who was the one in our little group all those years ago who drove Pete the most crazy? You. Of course Professor Sebastian assigned Janelle to you."

"Well I don't know what he was thinking, because it's just not working out." Gilly swung open the door to their room. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a ride around the grounds with Macho." And with that, she half-slammed the door behind her.

Maxine tsked. "I don't know what to do about her either, Peaches." Peaches responded by hacking up Gilly's quill onto the floor.

***

Gilly spread out her arms, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of the cool air that whipped her long brown hair(with it's purple streak, of course) behind her as Macho flew past the trees at the edge of the woods. Usually the professors and Headmistress Flora prohibited any students from taking both hands off the reigns of the pegasi, but Gilly was an exception, as she was technically a graduate, and she was also technically an expert at flying pegasi. She had ridden Macho to school and back every day for years now. Usually that was all, but since she came to the school for the project last week she had so far flown Macho every day for the past four days. It was her only escape from Janelle, who was terrified of pegasi.

"Need some company, Thief?" A sudden familiar voice made Gilly squeak in surprise and grab the reigns again. She opened her eyes and saw two violet ones staring back at her with an amused glint.

"Could you not do that, please? I almost fell off Macho."

"Oh, please, you'd never fall off Macho. You're not that inexperienced." Jax adjusted his hold on the reigns of the pegasus he was riding next to Macho, some cream-colored one Gilly had seen around.

"Experience has nothing to do with this." Gilly looked away. She decided not to tell Jax that she gets distracted whenever he visits her in the sky, heck, whenever he visits her ANYWHERE, and that he was the only one who has made her almost fall off her favorite pegasus before. The truth was, ever since the two of them graduated Fairy Tale Reform School, they hadn't seen each other nearly as much as Gilly would've liked. She had a lot of time to catch up on with her family(especially Anna), and with Jax always being so busy with royal stuff, they never had time to hang out anymore. Sure, they saw each other every day in class, but it just wasn't the same thing. Even though she would never admit this to anyone, Gilly almost missed the days when Alva and Rumpelstiltskin were a threat to Enchantasia, because then she could fight side by side with her "partner in crime", as he used to call her.

"So, how have you been?" Jax casually began a conversation. Gilly could practically feel the awkwardness between them. The awkwardness that had been there for three years, getting in the way of the best friendship she's ever had with anyone. The awkwardness that was muffled when they were with their other friends, but was blaring when they were alone.

"Good," Gilly simply answered. She knew she should probably ask how he was doing in return, but she felt too awkward. Too strange.

"That's good," Jax replied. Then they flew on in silence. The awkwardness between them grew and grew as the seconds went by. Gilly wanted to say something, anything, but for some reason couldn't. Why was it so hard to talk to him? She glanced in his direction. The wind made Jax's head of messy blond curls even messier, but it somehow made him look better. Gilly blushed and looked back in front of her. She knew why it was so hard to talk to him. Because of her stupid crush.

Gilly thought back to her days when she first came to FTRS and she and Jax were best friends. They got along so well, and they could be alone with each other without any weird thoughts running through her head. But then there was the day when they got rid of Alva and Stiltskin once and for all. The day Jax disappeared with Han and Hamish, and they were all presumed dead. The day Professor Sebastian, out of sympathy, gave Gilly Jax's '5 years from now I will be...' essay. The day Gilly read those last two sentences:

"I guess I'll just need a queen. And maybe, just maybe, I already have one in mind."

At the time, she was too heartbroken to think too much about those words. When Jax and the boys safely arrived back at FTRS, she did feel a small spark of attraction towards him as they reunited. But she knew at the time that she wouldn't attempt to bring up any feelings she might have until a few years had passed and they weren't so young. Now that she was fifteen, she knew those years had passed. But...now it was weird. Now her silly crush on her best friend made things between them awkward, and the fact that they didn't see each other nearly as much as before didn't help. Jax had no idea Gilly ever even read his essay, and has probably been wondering what the heck happened that made her so distant all of a sudden. She knew, though. What made her so distant was those blond curls, that kind face, those violet eyes. What made her so distant was the prince she used to call her best friend. The prince she wanted to be something more.