***Nathaniel Derrington***

"Nathaniel!"

I turn my head and feel my face stiffen as I take in the jangling monstrosity sitting in Marigold's hands. She giggles. I can't tell if it's because she's so in love with the suit she prepared for me or because of the flash of horror that I didn't manage to mask in time. Knowing Marigold Constallion, I'm guessing the latter. She's got a bit of a masochistic streak.

It's a little more prominent tonight because she's mad at me, though she won't admit it. Ever since she found out that my royal guard initiation ceremony would fall on the same day as her fifteenth birthday, she's been a lot bitchier than usual.

Marigold's birthday celebrations are so big they're practically a kingdom holiday. I can't compete with that but my initiation (as painful and fucking awkward as it was) soaked up just a bit of the limelight she usually had all to herself.

She's not a bad kid, though. Just spoiled. Not that you could expect anything less from a princess. 

And me? I'm just a lowly knight, my sole purpose to protect the royal family and do their every bidding. Unfortunately, this includes wearing a hideous costume fringed with jingly bells and dancing with every clubfooted dumbass from all four corners of the Evecian continent. 

The two things I hate most in the world are dancing and forced small talk, which is probably why Marigold is hell bent on making me attend. When I protested she pulled out the scroll on royal guardship and pointed to a section listing the shit that no one actually reads because it's about a mile long and scribed in such tiny print you'd probably go blind trying to finish it. And that's when I found out that I'm bound by contract to attend. (No really, it's within Marigold's full legal rights to file for my beheading if I don't, stated specifically in Section XXIV, paragraph twelve.)

But to be honest, I didn't need a thinly veiled death threat to convince me to come. I want to see Rose.

It's hard to get time to spend with her - the competition is stiff. Between traveling, volunteering at low-income villages, distributing necessities, studying law and slowly immersing herself into the convoluted world of royal politics, the successor of the Arthonian crown has a lot on her plate. And of course she'd want to spend what little free time she did have on her family, not some knight. Even if said knight was Nathaniel Derrington, the Young Dragon Slayer.

It's annoying because I usually get what I want, not that I really want for much these days. I mean, I've already got it all: talent, money, looks. But I know it takes more than that to impress someone like Rose. I guess that's what makes her attention worth fighting for.

"You actually expect me to dance in this?" I ask, raising the sleeve of the fabric. At some parts the bells are sown together so tightly they couldn't even ring properly. 

"Of course!" she replies, grinning wider than she should. "You just look so... so... merry!"

"I really hate you right now."

"Whaaat? That's impossible. Eeeverybody loves me!" Marigold says, stapling her fingers under her chin and batting her eyes at me.

"Unbelievable." I roll my eyes but not before she sees my mouth twitch. 

"You're just jealous that everyone loooves me," she says, sticking her hands out and spinning in drunken circles. "Love, love, love, love, love, lo-"

The back of her hand makes a loud smack against a wall.

"Ow!"

I grin. "Idiot."

"How dare you insult your poor, injured princess at her time of need..." she says, collapsing into a dramatic pile on the floor. Her dress mushrooms around her so when she falls back I can hardly see her face. Her injured hand shoots up and waves about like a white flag admitting defeat. 

That's when I know she secretly feels guilty for forcing me go to the ball. Marigold sucks at apologizing, so when she wants to make it up to somebody she clowns around to try to get them to laugh. The only other time she acts like this is when she's insanely bored, but with the ball coming up this evening it's pretty easy to rule that out.

Her hand falls to her side, denting the fluffy cloud-shaped folds of her dress.

"You know you won't be the only one dressed funny, right?" she says a bit nervously, like I might actually be mad.

"Yeah. It's the theme of the ball, isn't it? Bells?" I reply, my tone dry. I'm not actually that pissed. It's just that Marigold is almost cute when she's feeling guilty, so I milk it for all its worth because I'm a terrible person.

"Yup. And, well," she replies, "Rose is gonna be wearing one too. You know. With the bells and everything." 

That statement can roughly be translated to: "You don't have to worry about feeling stupid in front of your crush because you'll look stupid together."

I hadn't thought of it until Marigold brought it up, but I would definitely be self-conscious talking to Rose if I was the only one that looked like a wreck. Not because I have a crush on her, though. It would just be embarrassing. 

Some time ago Marigold had sunk her teeth into the idea that I was in love with her oldest sister. I don't blame her. Rose is probably my favorite person in the world, just not in that way.

It's easier to let people believe that I have this pitiful one sided crush on the oldest royal sister than admitting that I'm actually infatuated with her dad, so I let Marigold's assumption slide. I just hope that Rose never hears about it, though. I would be pissed if things got weird between us.

"So what about Poppy?" I ask. Using the second eldest Arthronian royal sister as bait to change the subject is usually a safe bet. 

At the mention of her sister, Marigold flops forward as if she's yanked by an invisible rope.

"Ugh." She clears her throat and shakes some of her hair out of her face. "Remember how she made that ugly emissary's daughter cry last year? Even after that, Mother forbade me from forbidding her to attend my birthday party. What the hell? I mean, it's my party. Besides, isn't that, like, straining political relations and stuff? Having someone like her just... being herself?"

Marigold can be overdramatic, but she has a point. Recently her birthday balls have developed this weird political undertone, another reason why I usually stay away from them. Kingdoms from all over the Evecia send in ambassadors and their children, sometimes even royal successors or their siblings. They say it's for maintaining international relations, but I'm sure more goes on behind closed doors.

"Princess! Princesss Marigold!" a maid's voice calls from the hall. It fades as she walks away from us. "Princess Marigold, it's almost time to greet the guests..."

"Oops," Marigold says, bouncing to her feet. "Gotta run."

She's out of the room in a flash of white ruffles and light footsteps. It doesn't take long for me to hear her footsteps tapping back.

"Nathaniel?" she says, poking her head into the room.

"Yes, Princess?"

"You'll be there tonight, won't you?" 

I leave her hanging for a few moments, just to mess with her.

"Of course," I finally reply, but she's out the door before I even finish, confident that she'll get the answer she wants. 

I laugh. She's a hard kid to say no to and she knows it.

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For critiques: What are your thoughts on the dynamic between Nathaniel and Marigold and themselves as individual characters?