Bellarke One Shots Book 1

22) Fairytales

"Daddy will you tell us a story?" Claudia asked after dinner one night, while thick snow began to pile up outside their small cabin, the brightly-glowing fire keeping the cold at bay.

Clarke looked up from the book she was reading, her feet tucked under her in the chair next to the fire. Across the worn wooden floor, Bellamy sat in the rocking chair Lincoln had made them when Aurora had first come along, a daughter curled against either side of his chest. Quiet nights like this were rare in the Blake household but that only meant that they were more precious.

Bellamy looked down to Aurora and smoothed a hand over her blonde curls. "You want a story too?"

She smiled and nodded, the quieter of the two with just as much conviction and spunk in her spirit as Claudia wore on her sleeve.

He met Clarke's eyes and winked. "Well I guess we'll have story then, won't we?" He cleared his throat and a smile spread on her lips because she knew what was coming. "Once there was a princess from a kingdom in the sky."

"Was she beautiful?" Claudia asked quickly with a wide-eyed stare up at her father.

Bellamy grinned, looking down at her. "Only the most beautiful princess in the kingdom. No one could compare to her, but she had no idea the way she could charm the men."

Clarke bit her lip and tucked her place mark into the pages of her book, setting it aside.

"What color was her hair?" Claudia asked as soon as the words had left his mouth.

Bellamy laughed, too infrequent a sound in Clarke's opinion. He was always more open at home with their family, but that didn't mean that the stress of the council didn't get to him (or her for that matter). "I'm never going to get to the story if you keep asking questions."

Claudia didn't seem intimidated, only giving him a pursed lip frown, her little brow wrinkling. "Daddy, these are important questions."

"All right, I suppose her hair color wouldn't hurt, just for accuracy's sake," he conceded with an overly dramatic sigh. "She had long wavy blonde hair."

"Like Mama's?" Aurora asked softly, peering up at him.

Bellamy met Clarke's eyes and a smile twitched at his lips. "Exactly like Mama's."

She rolled her eyes at him but couldn't hold back the amused grin pulling at her flushed cheeks. Their affection was usually subtle, a touch on the arm, a smile across the table, a kiss on the cheek when no one was looking. This was new and she didn't mind it one bit.

"This princess had some very hard decisions to make, you know. But she was the smartest princess in the sky and she realized that the cloud her people lived on was about to rain and no one wants to live on a thundercloud, so she had to take her and her people to the ground. And do you know who she met on the ground?"

The girls shook their heads.

"She met her knight, the man who saw her for the princess that she was and swore to protect her even before he realized that he loved her. They were a great match, these two, leading their people through this strange land they were learning about together."

Clarke's stomach twisted and she had to look at the flames of the fire to avoid the eye contact she knew Bellamy was trying to make. But then he'd see her blush.

"Why wasn't it love at first sight?" Claudia asked with a slight whine. She was ever the romantic, wanting stories of true love and good conquering evil, traditional fairytales.

"Well," he began with a chuckle. "This knight was a little rough around the edges. He didn't know how to treat a princess who made him realize just how rough he was."