Stone and Jaguar: 18
In the mid of the dusky time, while the owls were softly cooing at the night figures, Ava was still awake as a night owl, strolling inside the King's chamber, her hands warmly hugging herself with a thin blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
She was in deep thought, gently wiping away the tears when the door to the balcony of the chamber slowly flew open by the force of nature that drifted her attention to the opened balcony.
" It's a full moon day, " she mumbled ever so softly, taking her steps towards the balcony, her long dress following her behind by gracing on the ground.
The cold breeze that immediately engulfed her as an old best friend resulted in an audible sigh from the mortal Queen, her lips gently drawing up into a smile remembering the old days when she and her brother, Xavier were still young children with their grandparents in their small house's garden, talking about random things on a random night while watching the bright moon.
All she could remember from her childhood was living with her grandparents. She couldn't remember her mother's face or her father's, after the accident, though Xavier and her grandparents told her she was a carbon copy of her mother and Xavier had their father's eyes and hair.
Cylov Winslow, their father and Helena Winslow, their mother fell in love when they were in high school and after some teen love feelings, they found themselves as teen parents when they were barely 19 and 20 years old. Helena's parents, Grey Jonathan and Margaret Jonathan were so raged and wanted nothing but their daughter for themselves as they misjudged that Cylov was just trying to use Helena as it was a period when there was the term _playboys_ was so popular in town.
Don't blame the elders. They knew nothing about the young boyfriend of their daughter, who only introduced himself to his girlfriend's parents when he found that Helena was pregnant with his child. Even the name Cylov sounded made up to the old-cultured parents which was why they, firmly, tried all their best to keep the 20-year-old away from his girlfriend.
And about Cylov, he was pretty scared to face his girlfriend's scary father as Grey Jonathan seemed like a bull on fire waiting to pounce upon the boy at any time.
But Ava's mother, Helena was different and she dared to move out of her parent's house to her boyfriend's after a long huge argument and fight with her parents because she thought her child must have their father by their side and was determined to make her parents believe her boyfriend or just move out.
As they were already pretty much earning from simple jobs, they found a shady apartment and worked their lives off for their future child and got married when Helena was fully expecting and barely after the wedding, they were blessed to see their son, Xavier Winslow to patch his feet on the world.
Xavier was a big pile of happiness and a motivation for the young couple to lead their life from a shady apartment to a small house after a year or two. Soon after six years into their marriage, Helena confessed to her husband that they were expecting again.
Still then, the Jonathan couple were pretty mad at the young couple and didn't make any tries to connect with their daughter. So, Cylov, as the lovely husband, who couldn't see his lovable wife sulking at night because of her ignorable parents, came up with an idea to get both of their children to Helena's parents' house immediately after the birth of the second one.
They did it after Helena gave birth to their daughter, Ava Winslow.
Though the old couple was still mad, they didn't defy their love for their only grandchildren and showered them with everything they had. Cylov mostly maintained a distance from his in-laws for a long time but never missed a single weekend to go fetch his children from their house because he missed them a lot and loved them a lot.
It was on a weekend again, Xavier was 9 years old and Ava was barely four when their father didn't come to get them back to their home. It was also the day, the children lost their parents to an unexpected fire accident in their small house.
From then onwards, the older couple took care of the siblings and never let them feel unloved but the old parents always regretted never asking Cylov even for a single picture with them or alone.
Because right after the death of their daughter and son-in-law, they lost everything that belonged to them except for their children.
Margaret showed Ava no photo of her mother because she was guilty and felt terrific about what might happen if little Ava suddenly cries out loud and ask for her deceased mother.
Honestly to say, after the young couple's death, it was a horrible period for the Jonathan couple to overcome their loss along with Xavier.
Xavier loved Ava with all of his heart. He, of course, remembered his beautiful mother and handsome father and cherished every memory of them he could. He loved them dearly even when he was so small. He was always responsible and smart whenever it comes to things at a very young age as it didn't seem so hard for him to move out of their grandparent's house when he was barely 22, of course, accompanied by his little sister.
But the Jonathan couple did a whole damn argument about not being willing to let their only grandchildren get away from them like how their daughter did but Xavier gave all their worries a full stop and continued working hard to feed himself and his sister.
Ava was almost 16 at the time and soon after her last academic exams, she dropped out of school and ran for jobs to help her brother and enjoy her life. She learnt tailoring at the time and worked as a part-time tailor in the mid-day.
" It feels like it was just yesterday when we moved to our new house... How fast night can change? " she mumbled, sadly leaning her head on the door frame, her eyes gently twinkling with the coating of tears due to the unreal brightness of the moon.
After a long deep silence, she took a deep breath and stared at the moon, looking down to peak a look at her old mobile. She clicked it on and smiled at the old picture of her grandparents.
" Hey, old man, hi, Margaret, I'm sure you'd have pinched my ear if I was before you right now. But I can't... I miss you guys so much... Like a lot, old man, trust me, like a lot. Why did I end up here? Do you remember— Yeah...you wouldn't. " Ava breathed, choking. " According to you, you only have a grandson... But it's okay, I'm still happy that I can remember you... I'm pretty happy as I can remember almost all of our happy moments. I hope you guys are doing good. I hope you'll do good even if I'm not around... "
She chuckled and wiped the small tear that escaped her eyes when she remembered her best friend.
" Maybe now you don't have a dance partner to dance at late night, Nancy, and it's not a big problem for you... But I miss you, girl... " she tried to laugh it off but eventually as ever, her night ended with tears.
#
" So, Your Majesty, this is how the demand starts to increase when the price is fixed. "
Ava suddenly snapped her eyes open, directly looking at the male looking back at her, standing before a huge green board with multiple theories and curves drawn here and there.
" Were you sleeping? " asked the male, squinting his hazel eyes like he couldn't see the Queen lazily blinking and trying her best to hide how her mouth was ajar due to the loud yawn she'd been trying to suppress since the male turned around.
" Of course, she's been sleeping from the beginning of the class. " A new male too yawned, leaning on the huge green board with some papers and books about Economics, his blue eyes softly blinking.
" Mr Stone, may I have a bathroom break? " Ava raised her hands, asking innocently, as if they weren't talking about how irresponsible she was, right before her.
" Of course, I don't want to say no to you, My Queen, but right now, we're in the middle of the class. " The first male responded firmly with a shake of his head.
Ava, dramatically, raised from her seat with a fist over the table, breathing like an angry dragon.
" Just because we're in class, you cannot stop me from doing my personal things, Mr Stone. This is nature's call! You cannot stop nature! "
" So bad for you, I didn't know nature was so in love with you, My Queen. But sorry to say, I cannot permit you for the 16th bathroom break since morning. " Mr Stone was determined when he turned back to the board, his back stiffened when he heard Ava whining to the other male.
" Mr Leopard, please, tell him. "
" That's not Leopard but Jaguar, My Queen, but still I can't do anything, " The other male yawned again, struggling with himself to keep his eyes open while Mr Stone only groaned hearing them yawn over and over again like a couple of newborn kittens.
This was how Ava's daily afternoon and evening were going after the night when she agreed to the King of becoming someone who'd be able to help him with the country's economic status.
About Economics, Ava wasn't sure if she had ever remembered seeing these many curves and numerous theories on how a thing could suddenly go down in sales and suddenly rise like a volcano, stimulating production. She was completely clueless when she met her new teacher or trainer, Dylan Stone and his assistant, Wulfric Jaguar.
She had been doing everything she could do to escape from Mr Stone's stone-gazes all through the class as if he knew she knew nothing and just wanted to fly away as soon as possible. But it wasn't possible when the stone-named guy had both his bodyguards to guard the entrance along with her Knight, Isaac, who was surprisingly too responsible for the duty.
Adding to that, Lucas Aston, the once busiest, smartest, cleverest and the King of the most feared and largest country, who never had time to stay in the castle, suddenly had a lot of free time to randomly stroll around the enormous castle and when stumbling into the 3rd floor accidentally, he thought that peaking a look at the Queen taking classes wouldn't cost him a lot of time than strolling around searching for butterflies and bees as that was what he said to his Knight when he was asked about it.
But the thing was, the King almost, accidentally, stumbled more than once every three or four hours into the same floor as if he didn't know that the Queen was taking her class on the same floor.
Only after a long lecture on how the long-run and short-run economy runs around the country's development, Ava, finally, ran away at the speed of how the last curve suddenly heightened from the 6th labour to the 10th one in one go.
" I don't think she was ever interested in doing economics, " Wulfric stretched with a small yawn as he saw Dylan sighing out loud before taking his coffee from the side table to take a sip.
" I don't see who asked for your opinion, Jaguar. "
Wulfric rolled his eyes at the stone's attitude and just simply slumped on the bench to take a nap, mumbling something about the stone man to which the stone never bothered.
" Finally, freedom! " Ava yelled in triumph when she found no guards guarding the door or no Isaac waiting for her at the door to shoo her back inside.
" Fine but it's better to escape before Isaac returns from wherever he is in. I don't think he'll let me run— "
" Oh my, Queen Aston, what are you doing here? "
Ava flinched turning around, spotting the old lady of the castle and also the King of the country with her, staring back at the Queen with his usual soft smile.
" Lady Oh, eh—how are you? What...what are you doing here? "
" I'm doing absolutely fine, Queen Aston. The King here has asked me to take a look at you— "
Lucas, suddenly, stopped the lady and took a quick look at Ava and nodded to his Knight, who had been standing beside him all the time.
" I think the Princess might need you right now, Lady Oh, "
" Then why did you even bring me here, My King? " Lady Oh was pretty blunt to look straight at the King, who blinked but managed to look cool when Aslan unwillingly jumped in to save his King.
" Yes, she's here, over. " he quickly clicked his earcom as if he had a sudden call and turned to the old lady, saying: " Lady Oh, princess Alaia is searching for you in the nursery and her guard says that she's searching for inspiration for her new art. "
Lady Oh gave him an ' Oh, is that really? ' look and nodded before bidding bye to the King-Queen, leaving them behind in the corridor as the King's Knight too followed her in the name of safely escorting her to the ground floor because she was old as Lucas had annoyingly signed him to go away for now.
Ava expected Lucas to tell her something or just converse like how they usually do whenever they're alone. But his very first question was:
" So...how's your class going on? "
What would've been Ava's reaction?
She backed off immediately, running to her boring economics class, abandoning the King behind.
According to Ava, it was a lot better than answering Lucas's questions.
To be continued