The Princess and the Prince

I hadn't thought this plan through.

"I'm from the west," I said. I didn't give a place - I didn't have any to go off of. All I had was a very shaky idea of how this world worked, and it wasn't the type of idea that could answer specific questions like that. "What about you?"

That answer was too vague not to be the answer of a man who was hiding something.

She pretended not to notice. That wasn't her problem tonight.

"I'm a relative of the royal family, I'm afraid my family history is a bit confusing, but I live here much of the time. Otherwise, I'm at my mother's estate in the country."

She'd rehearsed this story so many times by now, the lies were practically second nature. Ivy was as much her as Megara for the night. It wouldn't stay that way, though. Ivy was a pushover.

The answer wasn't as vague as my own, but I had already figured out that she was telling just as much of the truth as I was. Ivy was no member of this royal family - I could tell.

But I wasn't going to draw attention to that. My lie could fall apart if I did.

"It must be confusing going from one place to the other," I said. It was far from the same situation, but I felt that way about going from London to the other world I had ended up in. "I'd hate to lose something as constant as a home."

...I had hated losing something as constant as a home, back when I was alive.

I leaned back and looked at the night sky above - studying stars just as unfamiliar as the ones on the world I was supposed to be on. If I looked hard enough, would I be able to find the star my Earth circled around, or the one that had my new world in its orbit?

"It's a beautiful night out," I said - unsure if the comment was for me or her.

She studied him.

The familiarity she'd felt before had faded a bit, but at the same time grown stronger. Like this was a side of him she hadn't been able to see in whatever part of her screwed up life she'd stumbled across him in.

"It is," she agreed.

The conversation was simple, frustratingly so, but she couldn't afford to make it more interesting. Anything she'd like to talk about would out her story as a lie and bring up too many questions for him to live through. And, as petty as it was, he was too pretty to kill just yet, even if she wasn't the one asked to do so.

She almost felt sorry for him at the idea of Briar being assigned to deliver his death.

She didn't imagine there'd be much of a body left to hide, if that were the case.

I looked back over at her, the stars momentarily forgotten as I tried to understand her better. I still couldn't figure out why she was so familiar - it was taking all of my control not to reach out and grab that mask off of her face.

But I resisted the urge.

As I was looking over at her, a couple slipped out into the garden. They looked at us for a moment before returning to the dance floor with disappointed expressions on their faces - apparently wanting the privacy of the place that Ivy had brought us to.

I looked back up at the sky.

"The stars are so bright here," I said. I paused. I knew Ivy was someone I knew, but I also knew that this conversation wasn't ever going to be more than just that: a conversation. We'd both go our separate ways after this conversation concluded, and Ivy - whoever she was - wasn't going to impact my life anymore.

And when I thought of it that way, being a little more open than usual didn't sound nearly as bad as it should have. "I used to always look up at the stars," I absentmindedly commented. "I always used to imagine I was one of them when I was a kid - I always thought they were more special than I was."

She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her at that. It wasn't a condescending laugh like those she would use normally, it was more gentle, more genuine. She'd have to be careful of that.

"What would make a little pinprick of light more special than a stargazing little kid?" she asked.

She decided it was nice not to have to be so...malicious all the time. All of this could just be passed off as an act when she inevitably reported back on her kill and collected her reward, or punishment, if she hadn't been as effective as she thought at hiding her limp.

The laugh felt wrong coming from her, but I didn't question it - I liked the sound of it, even if I would never admit it unless I absolutely had to.

"The stars had a family," I said. I was telling too much now - I knew I was. Even Lucy and Nikko didn't know; I hadn't ever tried to tell them. Why would I? All that mattered was the person I was now, not the boy I was before. "...The stargazing little kid didn't."

I let out a sigh.

"...I'm not trying to make you pity me," I clarified. "You just asked me a question, and I wanted to give you an honest answer instead of saying something shallow like 'I wanted to shine like them!'"

She laughed again, warmer this time as she got used to the genuineness of it.

"I most definitely wouldn't have believed you if you'd've said that," the humor drained from her tone for her next statement, "But my pitty goes to the stargazing little kid, not to you. I've no reason to think you and he are the same person anymore."

She forgot about her mission for a bit. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened.

Suddenly, she was just a girl, talking to a boy in a garden. Not a drop of blood on her hands.

It was a nice little fantasy.

"I have changed since then," I agreed.

As we sat there, I could feel all of my troubles fading away. Maybe this was a sign I needed a therapist, but there was just something comforting about this scene.

"What about you?" I asked. "Did you have a childhood of looking up at stars?"

Her easy smile faded.

"No," she said quietly, "no, I didn't."

Then she remembered who she was. She was Ivy. Ivy had the perfect childhood full of loving parents and horseback rides through the countryside.

But she couldn't take it back now. She just prayed that the gods were feeling merciful enough for her words to go unheard by her father's spies.

"Oh," I said.

I fell silent.

I wasn't sure how to reply to that. I had known that Ivy wasn't everything she had seemed to be, but I hadn't expected her to admit something like that. It went against how she had been trying to act up until this point.

But maybe she needed a therapist just as much as I did.

"That's sad," I finally said. "Every kid should be able to look up at the stars."

She chuckled again, but this time it was darker, more like her.

"Not every kid," she corrected, still quiet, still gentle.

She should leave. Give him an excuse and go collect on whatever she would get for this. If she was to be punished, she might as well get it out of the way, if she was to be rewarded, she had a few shady clubs to spend her money and pick up fringe jobs in.

This conversation, as enjoyable as it was, wasn't worth the risk.

I was starting to feel bad for her.

I could tell she was hiding something, and that made me want to stay instead of leave like I should have been. I didn't care about her romantically; I didn't know if I would ever feel that way about someone. But I kept seeing Nikko and Lucy in her, and it was hard not to feel like I had to care when I saw the resemblances.

"What did you spend your childhood doing, then?" I asked.

She eyed him, trying to figure out what he looked like under that mask.

"That's not for you to know, love." The last word was an instinct, a slip of the tongue.

In her regular life, when was Megara, the condescending assassin with a supposed god complex, calling every opponent, acquaintance, and ally by terms of endearment like that helped build her image. Most found it annoying, especially in the middle of a fight, or frustrating. And a frustrated opponent was a dead opponent.

But here, it was wrong. Ivy wasn't supposed to use words like that. She wasn't supposed to know how.

Megara turned her eyes to where her hands were folded in her lap and hoped he didn't react.

I turned away from the stars and stared at her.

...Love?

Why did that sound so familiar? I hadn't heard many people use it before, but I couldn't think of who I had heard use it. I must have only met her once or twice, but she had to have made an impression on me.

But Ivy didn't match anyone that I knew, so who could she possibly be?

Spoiler

I'm starting to think that we might not be able to keep Skull from figuring it out in the next few posts - I wanted to make him oblivious, but he sees her just as much of a mystery as she sees him. And he actually has some clues, so he'll probably be more successful.

Maybe we could have them have to run away together, or have them separate before running each other later on?