Prince Nickolas and Princess Alexa were brought together every summer and forced to "play" together. Nick and Alexa disliked each other from the get-go. Nick thought Alexa was too girlie and snotty, while Alexa thought Nick was immature and conceited. They tried desperately to avoid each other for the 3 months a year that they were with one another, but it got hard to say away from each other after a while. Though they were never told they would wed, until Alex was 16, somehow the two of them knew something was up. After all, why would they be forced to spend their summers together?
As soon as Alexa turned 16, and Nick was 25, their parents felt it was the right time to tell them... after all, they'd be getting married in the next year. They decided to sit their 2 confused and stubborn children down, on a summer even in July, and tell them the news.
Nick was arguing with his mother about getting a drum-set, when Alexa entered the room and took a seat. "Mother," he was saying, not bothering to acknowledge the presence of the princess. "It's the 90s and I may be a prince, but I'd like to be treated like a normal human being-" Alexa scoffed at that statement. Nick went on, "-I don't see why I can't have a drum-set."
"Nickolas! A lady, not to mention a princess, has entered the room and you have failed to so much as bow to her! I swear, your manners seem to be getting worse and worse the older you get!"
Nickolas' face flushed, "Mother!" she'd managed to insult him in front of the one girl he despised, not to mention call him Nickolas, which he hated... it was so formal. He turned to Alex with a smug expression, "Good evening, Princess Alexa," he bowed slightly, to keep his mother, who was smiling, happy.
Alexa's countenance mirrored his own, "Prince Nickolas," she nodded her head at him.
Nick leaned back in his chair, waiting for Alexa's father, King Harold, to arrive so they could tell Alexa and himself why they were sitting there. Nothing would have prepared either the prince or princess for what they were about to hear.
~ * ~
The dining room door slammed open and an angry and frustrated Nickolas and Alexa stormed out of it, followed by King Harold and Queen Amelia, Nickolas' mother. One of the maids watched what was unfolding before her eyes, in shock.
"How can you 2 do this to us... I mean, to me!" Nick screamed in anger. Marry Alexa?! There was no way he could marry her!"
"To us, Nickolas!" Alexa shouted at him, "I don't want to marry YOU either!"
"Children!" King Harold and Queen Amelia shouted over the bickering of the prince and princess.
Nickolas and Alexa took a break from their arguing, looking at their royal parents, their anger now directed towards them.
"I will not marry her, mother!"
"And, father, I will not marry him! I don't love him, and he is a selfish child!"
Nickolas looked at her, insulted, but said nothing... after all, for once they were on the same side.
"You WILL marry him, Alexa! Do not doubt that! Maybe you will grow to love him... This will be the greatest, most powerful kingdom merger in history!"
"So you'll give up my happiness for power," Alexa scoffed. "How typical." She stormed off to her sleeping quarters with tears running down her face.
"Get back here, young lady!" her father yelled, beginning to run after her, but Queen Amelia stopped him as she watched her son retreat to his own room.
"Give him time, Harold. Just give them time."
~ * ~
It was 5 o'clock the next evening and Alexa still hadn't left her room. Her father was becoming very agitated with his daughter whom he'd always considered very mature. Now, in his eyes, she was acting as a little girl, and that was completely unacceptable. In all actuality, Alexa really wasn't much older than a little girl. She was only 16 and she'd just been informed less than 24 hours ago that in a year she would marry a man that she didn't love. In fact, she wasn't in the least bit fond of him. It wasn't one of those situations where in fact she had a crush on him and that's why she was mean to him, and pretended to be annoyed with him, but she actually couldn't stand the guy. How she looked at it was she was 16 years old and he was 25... he should be more mature than her, but that wasn't the case and it never had been.
"Y'know..." Nickolas was saying, after watching Alexa's father glance up towards the grand staircase, in hope that his daughter would make her way down them. "She could rot up there for all I care."
Queen Amelia gave her son a horrified stare, "Nickolas! You know what? You COULD be up there trying to get some communication going between you two, but instead you're sitting here making horrible remarks! Dinner is about to be served and the poor girl must be starving..."
"Good," Nick muttered bitterly.
"Nickolas!! Get up out of your chair and go upstairs and try and get your future wife down here!"
Nick cringed at her words. Future wife. How dare she say that. "Mother... I can learn to live with the fact that I'm marrying her against my wishes. I can get used to that. But I will NEVER forget the fact that it was my own mother who decided to choose power over her own son's happiness and future." His jaw clenched with hurt as he stood from his chair, his hands in tight fists, "I will never forgive you for that."
Nickolas walked out of the dining room and up the staircase, to try and persuade a distraught princess to come to dinner.
