vi.

THE MOON SEEMED TO COME out from hiding behind the clouds just for her, it seemed to Isadora Tremaine. It wasn't a sharp crescent like it had been the last time she had fully been at liberty to observe the largest gem in the night sky-it startled Isa how the moon changed. It was now fuller, rounder, bigger, mightier. It waned and waxed, went through phases and emerged with its everlasting and unchanging glow each time. If it could do it, so could she.

But then again, who was she to compare herself to the moon?

"It appears the moonlit waltz was not quite the epiphany as my cousin so claimed," The dark foreign prince holding her spoke, his low tone making his baritone heavier-and the goosebumps on her skin wilder in response.

Isa blinked, gazing into his eyes curiously.

"For it appears my lady is quite taken with the moon itself than me," The prince smiled, his teeth gleaming in the dim light. "I feel small-quite a strange feeling I must admit."

Isadora laughed, her eyes briefly falling on the original spinning couple still on the ballroom floor. Prince Charming and his mystery lady. To Isa, it seemed like they had been dancing for ages, forever locked in time.

"I apologize, your highness," She managed, meeting the prince's intense gaze again. "I just-the last time I saw the moon it was but a mere crescent."

The royal's brows furrowed slightly. "Does my lady not have leisure time to spend on the sky?"

Leisure time? Isadora didn't know what to make of the term. She didn't work, but she wasn't at leisure to. She didn't remember ever being at leisure. Maybe perhaps before her father's death she had known leisure. After his death her life had been a pre scheduled routine that she had been forced to stick to.

Breakfast, study lessons, piano lessons, sewing, lunch, etiquette lessons, dancing lessons, dinner and then the lights were switched off. Everyday it had been the same cycle over and over until she had completed her academic studies and that portion of her life had been replaced with harp lessons that Lady Tremaine had forced her to saddle on. Her training had started at six, when her father's coffin had been lowered into the ground. Training to be an accomplished wife to a wealthy husband who did not have consumption and would not die without leaving her anything as had been her mother's case.

In all her life, Isadora Tremaine had not discovered even her hobbies. She had an acute idea of what portions of her curated days she had enjoyed, but she could never dwell on them when the clock struck and she had to move on to something else.

After Archie's arrival into her life, Isadora had torn herself out of the complexity of the routine she was being grinded into by her mother. She dropped all the lessons-piano, singing, the etiquette which had convulsed into the borders of the imbecilic-she replaced all of that with caring for Archie. And gradually she had dropped out of a routine entirely, her attention fixed continuously on her four year old. Lady Tremaine was infuriated, but the woman didn't stop-instead fixing her own attentions on Lucinda to make the girl somehow become accomplished for two.

In culmination, Isadora Tremaine was a mother, and she didn't have leisure to pursue idle fascinations with a son's future stark in her mind.

"I do not," Isa managed when she realized the prince was waiting and she hadn't spoken.

She turned her eyes away from him. The foreign royal spun her around gently when the music took a gentle dip, before bringing her back to face him. A wind blew a piece of her stray hair into her face as she looked back into his brown orbs.

There was something in his look that kept softening each time she looked, yet his features remained schooled until he let himself smile, before his face took on a standard stoicity. She couldn't understand it. He seemed to show emotion primarily from his eyes only, and the feat alone intrigued her.

"I could have you painted in this moment, Miss Tremaine," The prince conferred then, his voice gruff and he lowered his head slightly forwards, making clear that his words were meant only for her.

"And I would never tire of looking at it-at you."

Isa blinked, dropping her eyes briefly as a furious blush cascaded up her neck. She had always held her resolve when faced with men-but this prince was someone else entirely. His comments seemed to surge straight into her-a feeling reminiscent of being struck through with an arrow. His praises didn't bounce off of her like other people's-ones at the marketplace and essentially everyone else's besides those she lived with.

Perhaps it was because she had become so used to hearing the violent envy that lay beneath compliments that she hadn't ever heard any devoid of that parasite before. Compliments without envy were.. startling, to say the least.

"Do prefer having paintings of ladies you find beautiful, your highness?"

Her question was calculatingly asked but teasingly put, as she maneuvered to discover if the prince in front of her was another rendition of Prince Charming. Isadora had heard tales of how the kingdom's prince had fell in with ladies-princesses or otherwise-in his study endeavors abroad. Which had ultimately coined the term 'notorious' for Prince Charming as a result of his excursions.

The foreign prince, however, smirked to Isa's surprise. He was a picture of quintessential dominance-an utmost control over his expressions, actions, thoughts and the words he spoke. His very presence radiated strength and Isadora found herself drawn to him in explicable ways. The mere common smirk that every other person made use of was somehow startling on his dark features-Isa found it easy to believe that every positive expression on a man was ten times more so on this foreign prince. Still, she didn't even know his name or the kingdom he was from.

"I don't," He shook his head, his smirk profound on his face. "I have never-much to my mother's dismay-expressed a desire to have a lady painted. Except of course if that lady be my mother. I do cherish her portraits that adorn our castle hallways."

Isadora was oddly touched. She wondered what it felt like to be fond of one's own mother, it certainly must be an unusual feeling.

The music softened some more before the piano lifted it up again-a satisfying dip and rise that gave Isa slight chills.

"As for our conversation on the moon," The prince twirled her around on cue and then brought her close-his movements tinged with skill, patience and a certain.. urgency? Though his tone did not betray such a thing.

Isadora saw Prince Charming and his lady creep closer, until they were dancing right beside Isa and the foreign prince. She couldn't see the mystery girl's face still, for the movements of the dance had caused the girl's perfectly curled corn blonde hair to entirely embrace the wind, hiding her face from everyone else's eyes but Prince Charming's.

"King Reginald has a fine observatory," The foreign prince brought Isadora's attention back to him. "Though not finer than my own at our palace, but still doable I suppose."

He spoke the last phrase with a certain amusement in his tone.

"My reason for mentioning this is that I would like to host you at Reginald's observatory."

"Host me, your highness?"

Isa's brows furrowed. She knew the intricacies of an observatory, but she hadn't ever been to one. What did the prince mean by hosting her there? Surely the royals did not socialize in places like observatories or libraries-that wasn't proper.

The prince faltered slightly, catching the error of his phrasing.

"I mean, I would like to show you around it," His eyes bore into hers with a budding hope. "I am often there. Astrologers say a star is emerge beside the moon any day now. They are calling it Satix. We could-look at it together."

Isadora Tremaine blinked, intrigue making her heart pound wildly in her chest. The prince's speech-smooth and determined-was now less so as she he looked at her with hope mixed with uncertainty. It was as though he wanted her to say what he had planned in his head, but instead of being sure that she would say it, he appeared apprehensive that she wouldn't.

Isa turned her eyes away from him to look at the gathered crowd in the dark corners of the ballroom. She had almost forgotten there were other people present, not just the entirety of Toulouse but the entirety of the kingdom as well as guests from other kingdoms watching her dance with the foreign prince, while the kingdom's own prince was occupied with someone else.

"You make me stir to the edge-," The prince pulled her attention to himself again with only his words, his eyes swirling with an intense emotion as they caught hers. He swallowed.

"When you stop speaking. It feels as though I could kill just to hear you say something."

Isa didn't speak, her brows merely pinched together softly as her eyes searched his-trying to decipher him. It appeared to her that he was doing the same. They were two people on a moonlit, purple undertoned, darkened dance floor deciphering eachother by violently trying to get through the windows to souls that were their eyes.

"I-," Isadora started, not knowing what to say. It was strange, she never opened her mouth if she didn't have anything to say.

"Come to the palace tomorrow," The dark prince urged, desperation leaking into his voice regardless of the fact that she could sense him trying his utmost to mask it.

"I can send forth a carriage for you-to your house. Where in Toulouse do you live?"

Isadora swallowed hesitantly, a sudden fear coarsing through her. This night had not been set upon by her to ensnare an invitation to the palace observatory-as much as she would like to go. She had had different intentions, the most significant perhaps was the one where she met a wealthy gentleman who was looking to marry as his foremost intention.

Isa's time was not running out, she wouldn't have married instantly if she had found such a man. A normal courtship would've been alright with her, once she had the process started. But she hadn't, she had met no such man, only a dashing foreign prince who was merely a guest at the ball and probably had no intentions to marry at all let alone her.

"Your highness, I can't," Isadora stopped and gently broke away from the dance as the prince halted at the loss of her form, features contorting into dismayed confusion.

"Why not?" He stepped forwards, not caring for the breach in propriety on her part for breaking away from a dance with a royal in the middle of the ballroom with thousands of eyes on them.

"I can reschedule it," He countered, tone lifting up. "We can do it on any day you want. I'm in the kingdom for a few weeks yet."

"No, your highness," Isadora dropped into a curtsey, adrenaline and anxiety coursing through her veins. "I shouldn't."

"Why not? Have I offended you in some way?"

Isadora straightened to look at him in surprise. Aside from Ruby, this foreign prince was the least offensive person she had ever met, and she didn't even know his name and was not even sure if she was allowed to ask.

"No, your highness," She hastened to correct him. "You've been simply wonderful."

Isa didn't know why she had added the last phrase. It was the truth, yet she was unsure of why she had admitted it. Certain true things served no purpose when they were said. What was a prince to do with this mediocre compliment from a town girl playing pretend at being accomplished but with no wealth to back up her claim?

The big town clock struck twelve in the distance, its bang thrumming in the background.

The prince's dark brows were furrowed, his eyes full of uncertainties melted together as his lips parted to speak. Before he could, a semi loud voice broke into their peripheries.

Prince Charming stood a distance away, having stopped dancing as he was now trying to hold onto the milky hands of the girl he had been dancing with. She broke away from him, apology tracing her manner as she spoke something inaudibly, before gathering her skirts and hurrying away towards the exit.

Isadora Tremaine found her sudden urge to leave return aswell. There was nothing for her to be accomplished at the ball now, and her little boy was alone, waiting for her at the chateau. Perhaps the mystery girl too had somene waiting for her, though that was only an assumption. For all Isa knew, Prince Charming might've offended her.

"I must go now too, your highness," Isa glanced apologetically at the foreign prince in front of her.

The man was startled at the run that had happened in his periphery, upon Isadora's words, his shock dissipated into evident dismay.

"No, please, not yet," The man stepped closer to Isadora, gently taking her gloved hand in his. "We haven't yet decided on a day for the palace observatory."

"Your highness I am otherwise engaged."

The prince blinked his dismay morphing into confusion as he searched her eyes.

"Is it a suitor?" He managed the words, and they were as hard as rocks on his tongue, yet his eyes remained human in hers.

"No," Isa shook her head, biting back an urge to scoff. She wished it was a suitor-a wealthy one, for the sake of Archie if not for her own.

"It's my son," Isadora asserted, finding herself bothered with how he would take the information. It was a disgusting feeling, she had never cared about what other people thought of her taking in Archie, before.

Sensing her own distress, she turned her face away, slightly gathered her skirts up and hurried towards the exit in wake of the mystery girl and Prince Charming.

Isa didn't want to hear what the foreign prince had to say about her little boy. Caring what other people thought was a jarring feeling, and she felt disgusting for having felt it. To stay and listen to their response, or even watch the assortment of expressions flicker on their faces, was worse.

She didn't hear footfalls behind her, and she was glad for it.

Isadora's pace quickened until she found that she was running. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she realized that it was tired-for it had been pounding for a while yet, and she just had refused to feel it.

She came to entrance way, stray curls of her dark hair whipping on her face. Starting down the stairs, she saw Prince Charming in his cream white suit and the kingdom's emblem blue sash across his chest. He was bent over on a step, inspecting something before he stood up and clasped it protectively in his white gloved hand.

Isadora ran down the steps, passing him by and glimpsing that the object he held was but a glittering glass slipper.

The kingdom's prince-shaken out of his stupor-noticed Isadora against the backdrop of the red carpetted stairs and amidst his own internal confusion.

"Miss? Miss please wait!" He called out to her.

Isa wanted to stop and listen, but she knew it wouldn't be wise. The prince was reeling from his mystery girl running away, just because Isadora was running away from something too did not mean their situations were the same.

The carriage that had brought her family to the palace pulled up front at the foot of the stairs, and Isadora was thankful for the driver's alertness.

Without waiting for the driver to get down, open the door and help her inside, Isa resorted to doing the last two things herself, shutting the door hurridly.

"To the chateau please," Isadora hastened. "You may come back for Lady Tremaine and Lucinda afterwards."

"Yes, Miss Tremaine," The man muttered before yanking on the reins as the carriage jostled forwards and picked up a pace, leaving the castle entrance behind.

Isadora turned to look behind, only to see the figure of her foreign prince looking back at her retreating self. He stood tall, his arms pinned behind his back and his jaw tight even from this distance. He was standing beside the dismayed Prince Charming on the stairs, as the former spoke something to him and he responded-his own dismay concealed carefully under his skin.

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A/N:
ok was this chapter cute or what. gosh i'm so excited for what's in store for these two-or these four i should say haha