A/N: I own nothing but plot. Enjoy!
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Annabeth wasn't sure whether she was dreaming or not. Whose memories were she experiencing?
There was an older man in the dream who sneered the few times he saw her. Otherwise, Annabeth was hidden away in the shadows, raised to be even lower than a maid. Somehow, Annabeth knew he was a king and her father. The queen of Kiran ignored her even more until she wanted something to amuse her, by which Annabeth would be taken out and forced to do humiliating and subservient actions. Princess Alana drifted out of her vision here and there, but Annabeth and her sister never had the opportunity to talk until they were at Eldoris.
All these memories were so vivid, so life-like and different from the narrative of Clarisse's novel. All this time, Annabeth had been viewing things as though she was an outsider, merely browsing through in third-person perspective. Now she was experiencing everything as though she were the original Kiran princess herself.
Every word of abuse or slap of pain was so realistic. When the original Kiran princess passed away from the attack on her carriage to Eldoris, the last memory was of meeting the King of Eldoris. His green eyes were shocked and held traces of bitterness as he held her hand, watching the last bit of her soul slip away.
Annabeth wanted to lift her hand up and pat the king's head. She was okay, she wanted to say. The original princess was free now.
Then the dream shifted into modern life in New York. Her earliest memories were a blur as a toddler. As a child, she was still happy. Much happier than that the original Kiran princess experienced. Her parents may have been divorced but each side took care not to make her feel all the emotions and turbulence that came with being the child with divorced parents. Annabeth became the adored daughter of two split families. She had friends, a burgeoning career. She had been typing on her laptop to review Clarisse's upcoming novel. Annabeth could almost hear the keys click-clacking underneath her fingertips.
Annabeth blinked. She had collapsed on a cold but familiar floor. It was unmistakably her expensive but tiny studio NY apartment. There was her winter coat, put away neatly in her closet.
Had she somehow returned to New York?
"I love you."
Somewhere in her unconsciousness swam those three words. A gentle smile with adoring green eyes. No. They were full of fear and concern now.
Yet, it felt like something was missing. But what?
Didn't the original Princess Annabeth want to feel loved? The man who whispered those words was clearly sincere.
Something twisted in Annabeth's heart. But part of her didn't want to go back to New York. If she did, it was like leaving a part of herself in that world. This was clearly throwing a wrench in their contract. Would the original Princess Annabeth come back then? Would Percy accept her? There was a part of her that actually...didn't want to let go.
What did all of these mean?
On the floor of her apartment, Annabeth's fingers twitched. If she wanted to, she still had enough strength to push herself up or dial 911. Instead, Annabeth closed her eyes and melted into unconsciousness once more.
She didn't know how long it was until she woke up again. Would it be back in NY or some bed in Eldoris?
Soft lips brushed against her forehead.
Oh.
She could feel an actual touch in this dream. Was this still her dream?
Annabeth mustered the strength to open her eyes. The king was sitting beside her, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"Percy?" She coughed out.
The king stilled. Perhaps it was because it was rare for the queen to call out his name unless in the most intimate of moments or when it suited them to get rid of parasites. Or perhaps the relief in his green eyes was all too evident.
"Shhh. Don't talk yet."
He quickly handed her a cup of water. Perhaps because Annabeth had not used her muscles for a while, her hands shook as she held the cup. A few drops of water splattered onto her fingers.
Quickly, the king moved to hold the cup steady and brought the water to her lips. Embarrassingly, even her mouth did not seem to obey her and only a half-hearted sip coated the bottom lip.
The king took the cup from her wobbly fingers and swallowed the contents. Before Annabeth could react in her muddled head, his lips were pressed on hers. Her throat gulped as water soothed the parched dryness.
Sir Grover was about to knock on the door but paused with premonition. He had grown wiser at trusting his innate sense at times like these. Sometimes it saved his life. At other times, it saved him from intruding onto intimate moments like now.
Had he not listened to his instincts, he would have seen the flowery scene, he might have thought...You beast, Your Majesty. The queen has yet to even fully recover and yet you...
The knight quickly turned away and only beckoned the guards to be more strict in their duties.
Unbeknownst as to what had just occurred outside the bedroom's door, in her hazy mind, Annabeth wondered just who was the thirsty one here? Why was the king the one kissing her as though he was a man who had been lost in a desert for days and was now seeking for water from her lips?
Annabeth weakly pushed against his chest, but it was not enough to budge him. Finally, the king let go of the kiss. He didn't stray too far though, leaning his forehead against hers.
"Your Majesty?" Annabeth finally questioned as soon as she got her breath back.
There was something different about the way the king was holding her now. Something more precious, perhaps.
"Are you all right, Annabeth?" The king asked gently. "Should I call for the physicians?"
Annabeth shook her head before he could do that. "I'm fine. Really."
Despite being a little weak and a faint throbbing in the shoulder where she had been stabbed, Annabeth didn't feel too bad. On the contrary, Annabeth could see the dark circles underneath the king's eyes. He must not have had the opportunity to shave either, as her chin was scraped slightly by his dark stubble.
"How long have I been out?"
The king stroked her hair softly with one hand and grasped one of hers with his other. "It's been almost three days."
His voice nearly cracked in the end. Neither of them mentioned it, but Annabeth quietly squeezed his hand with a little strength. The king intertwined their fingers together.
"What happened to Lady Ceto?" She asked.
"She's been arrested and will be sentenced for her crime by the end of this week." The king shook his head. "Don't worry about her anymore. Just concentrate on resting. Your work's been handed off to the administrators temporarily."
"But I–"
Her words were shut off by the king's lips on hers again. It seemed that he was determined to close her mouth this way anytime she asked about business. Swallowing her words, Annabeth let his tongue enrapture hers instead.
Perhaps realizing that she was still a patient in a sickbed, the king didn't deepen the kiss further.
"No buts or speaking of work. It's why we pay the staff a handsome salary. If you open your mouth one more time, I'll have to kiss it."
Annabeth opened her mouth. Smooch! And again. Smooch!
By the fifth or sixth kiss, the king pinched her cheeks. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"
Annabeth smiled, not opening her mouth to answer.
The king sighed. "And here I thought you wouldn't have enough energy to tease me."
He cradled her gently after a while. Annabeth was reminded of when she had breathed in the poisonous incense from the dowager queen's ball.
"Why did you do it?" He asked, softly.
"Do what?"
"Push me out of the way." His green eyes glittered down at her. "Something like a knife wouldn't do too much to me. Even if the knife was poisoned, there is very little poison that can harm me since I was inoculated from poison at a young age. "
Annabeth blinked. How terrible of the royal family's condition to have to feed their young children this way.
"Even if you can survive all sorts of poison, you would have suffered!" She said, adamantly.
"At most, I would have suffered some light side effects but I wouldn't die. But you...you don't have any resistance to poison at all. Even the Kiran royal family inoculates their heirs with poison."
Annabeth pursed her lips. As an illegitimate heir, no one would bother poisoning her anyways, not while they were spending time beating the original princess up.
"Anyways, why would you jump in front of that knife anyways? What were you thinking?" His soft tone wasn't accusatory, merely wondrous.
"I wasn't really thinking about anything. All I knew was...that the knife was slashing towards you and you couldn't dodge out of the way. It wasn't as if I didn't know that you couldn't handle it. My body...just moved on its own."
The king's green eyes were so bright and shiny as he looked down on her. Annabeth coughed and looked away from his burning gaze.
"Thank you," the king said at last. "I'm glad you're safe. But don't do that again, okay?"
Annabeth pouted slightly as he gingerly pinched her cheeks again.
"Your Majesty...I'm a patient. How could you pinch my cheeks?" She shot him a coquettish glare.
The king's eyes darkened while Annabeth blinked innocently. Even if he wanted to do something, he couldn't do it, not without fear that her wound would open.
"You just wait until you're all better." The king smiled. "I'll sort you out until then."
Annabeth lazily laid her head on his shoulders, stroking his broad chest and smiling at his grouchiness that he couldn't do anything back.
He spent a little more time with her before regretfully going back to work.
While he was gone, Lucy, Lady Piper, and Sir Nico came in and apologized for not keeping her uninjured. Annabeth waved their apologies away. How could they know what she was about to do? She hardly knew it herself until she was frantically pushing the king out of the way.
Lucy and Lady Piper updated her on the rest of the news and work she was missing. Because the king had threatened them, they would only tell Annabeth the bare minimum.
Lady Ceto was jailed in a high security prison and had fallen sick. It was estimated that she probably couldn't even survive this strange illness for her sentencing at the end of the week. Annabeth surmised that either Ceto had been poisoned by whoever had given her drugs or the king was unwilling to keep her alive for the attack against Annabeth. Either way, such a silly girl had her fate ended like this.
The king must have been busy throughout these last days but he always found time to accompany her before she fell asleep at night. When he thought that the queen was asleep, he would kiss her gently on the forehead and whisper three quiet words.
She suddenly thought of those three delicate words she had also heard through her feverish days.
Her heart blossomed with something she didn't even know she had in her. She couldn't call this love yet. But she was happy when this man beamed down at her. She felt intense sorrow during that memory when she had passed away in his arms. And when she thought of him being with another woman by his side, she couldn't deny the unmistakable stabs of jealousy that hurt her heart even worse than the knife stab she had encountered.
Annabeth curled into the king's embrace even more. She liked him, very, very much.
Their contract had never mentioned that they couldn't fall in love. She liked him enough that when the time came for their contract's terms to be up, she didn't want to leave him at all.
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The queen of Kiran was still unconscious, her body sweating feverishly. Her maids were discussing what to do. The king of Kiran did not visit his wife often, indulging himself in other women, though he was careful not to make the same mistake he had when siring the elder Kiran princess. Princess Alana was busy entertaining guests from Barinia and running other affairs as the sole heir of Kiran to take notice of her mother.
The queen's fingers suddenly clenched before falling limply, the golden sparks of magic flickering brightly for a brief moment before sputtering out like dying candlelight.
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A/N: I will most likely take a break from uploading next week but we shall see. I have just one chapter left of my pre-written chapters, so hopefully in the next two weeks I'll have more time to write.
As always, see you all next week!