Bare feet cooled in the waters of Willowmere, a high full moon over head. Her supper lies beside her, berries and cheese to be picked over at her leisure, and wine in a silver cup. She relishes the lack of ceremony. Though, princess through and through, she understands the necessity of pomp and pretence when required. That some courtiers need reminding of their place, often better leashed by decorum and niceties. But here she is free of it.
Gold glitters on her neck. A gold ring on a gold chain, ever entwined. She hooks her fingertip through the loop of the ring, and slides it absently along its chain, back and forth. More and more she finds herself reaching for it, where it lays over her heart. A power that both is and isn’t hers. He’d acted like it was nothing more than a trifling gift; a trinket, he’d said. Like it was just another jewel bestowed on her by just another prince. She clutches it, finger curling, and wonders why it feels much more like a promise.
She knows he’s there before she turns. Before he speaks. Awareness of him prickling up the back of her neck. A smile, unchecked, blooms upon her lips.
“I did not think there could be anything more beautiful than this lake on a moonlit night,” he begins, and she lifts her gaze to him, like a flower seeking sun. There’s a glint in his dark eyes, and he smiles like a rogue. “It all pales compared to you, Princess.”
Her laughter is a huff of breath, derisive but still goodnatured. They’ve found an equilibrium like this: light and flirtatious, never delving too deep.
But the deep is always there, beneath a smooth surface waiting to be broken.
Wants to dive in and drown.
“Pretty words. Will you catch me if I swoon, Duke?”
He dips his chin, grin never fading, “Of course.”
She’ll dip her toes in and settle for the ripples she makes.
“And are you using me then?” she asks, still coy and sweet. Though they both see the truth in her question.
She does not believe he is, and yet she still fears it.
“Yes,” he replies as if it is a secret they share, and her heart soars. His attempt at rakishness is admirable but his smile, which now should be mocking and predatory, seems to turn inward instead, and her own widens.
The gold ring drops from her grip, and she watches him watch it, as it falls back into place against her breast. A promise. Rising to her feet with a graceful glide of her body, she steps close to him, too close, until they stand toe to toe and William must gaze down his nose to meet the challenge in hers somewhere near his chin.
“Are you really?” Hers is a siren’s voice, soft and warm and full of teasing. She swears she can see the tips of his ears burning in the silver moonlight. It thrills her. “Then I am at your mercy,” she whispers and delights in how it trips him up, no more pretty words on the tip of his tongue. And while she says she’s at his mercy, and only half doesn’t mean it, when dark eyes meet grey once more, the darkest awestruck part of her feels like maybe she has him at hers.
the extended cut of:
odila: are you using me?
william, only semi-convincingly: yes.
odila: are you really? *flirting*
william: 😳