Lliam had never seen so much ice. The most he had ever seen was a sphere of it in his father’s drink once. Now here it was, covering an entire pond.
“It’s really frozen all the way down?” he asked, tone full of wonderment.
“Yes, it is.” Diana replied, brimming with joy at getting to show him such a wonderous thing.
“How can you tell?”
“The temperature outside. There’s no way the water wouldn’t freeze all the way through.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then it breaks, we fall in and soak our feet in cold water. Can his majesty dare to risk his feet feeling cold?”
“They’re already cold.” He said, more than annoyed at her mocking him, again.
“Then come on, let’s go!” She said, taking off across the ice like a bird in flight.
She took off away from him incredibly quickly. Like she more wanted to do this and have him be there, than do this activity together. He took a moment to think before attempting to chase after her. He was so tired of doing this. Always having to “prove his bloody worth” when she never has to do the same. She was always running off too far ahead or going too fast in the hopes that he would love her enough to chase after, keeping up when she goes too far. Obviously, he didn’t have to do that, but if he didn’t then she was going to be all huffy for the rest of the evening and accuse him of not really loving her. “Do you even care about me?!” She’d bark in disgust, using that same insultingly condescending tone she uses every time. The more she asked him, the more he thought about the question. Did he? He knew he did once, but still? The fact that he’s unsure should provide his answer.
Whatever the case it seemed like a poor time to bring that up, and an even poorer time for him to be burdening his mind with it’s energy, so he set to the ice. His feet on the blades seemed to slowly crawl forward without his consent. He had heard Ice was slippery, but it doesn’t make sense for it to just move him. He tried taking steps, but that was shaky, prone to slipping, and even when it worked, he wasn’t getting the speed she was getting.
Diana made a lap around the edge of the pond and zipped by him in a flash. He watched what her feet were doing and tried to emulate it. It looks like she’s pushing off to the side, and somehow that’s pushing her forward? She’s pigeon footed as well, maybe that helps. He angled his toes out to face the world and pushed in the back-right direction. He propelled forward-left at a much sharper a pace than he was ready for, and his warrior instincts kicked in. He threw his back in an arch and caused enough momentum to swing that he knocked himself off his feet without a single touch. He of course caught himself with his right hand, but on the ice that didn’t mean anything. He slipped and lost his grip, the blades slip so fast his feet pointed to the sky like a cartoon. He collided with the floor bottom first rolled the rest of his impact onto the glassy surface and nearly cracked his head. He laid there without saying a word, too infuriated by the combined pain of falling, the frustration at failure, and the resigned hatred at hearing her laugh at him one more time.
He heard her start sliding over to him and he knew this was his last few breaths of peace before she arrived and made fun of him again. He took this moment to look up at the night sky which now stretched out before his eyes.
The stars shone in their millions before him, making a galaxy of untold splendor and possibility. He thought about everything that must be out there. All those lights…could there be a city just beyond the sky? Many say you go up when you die, is that the afterlife? Royal scientists said they were able to see giant rocks up there, big enough to support continents and oceans. Could they really? Because that could mean that they do, and life among the stars is already happening. Such endless wonder and countless discoveries just waiting patiently for us to figure out how to make them. A whole universe of different outcomes, different ways of living and different kinds of people.
His thoughts were viscerally interrupted by her coming to a stop right beside his face. She stopped extremely hard, scraping up frost and chips of ice and spraying them on his face. She stood over him smiling, unaware of what she had done and how much it bothered him.
“Need help up, your highness?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on, get up.” She said reaching and grabbing his shoulders to lift.
“No! I’m fine.” He said, shoving her off, and getting up himself. He found that getting up with enormous blades on your feet was a more incredible task than he first mistook, and he would have liked some help, but not from her.
Eventually, he did manage to get up, though he did come up facing away from her. Not on purpose, he wasn’t trying to be spiteful, that wasn’t how he liked to handle these things. He just didn’t know how to control his body on these things. He took a few breaths to compose himself and try his best to distance what he was feeling from the pain of falling over. That wasn’t her fault, she shouldn’t be treated worse for it. He quickly ran through his list of options, and decided that though he did want to fight, he wouldn’t now, because that had to be the pain talking. There’s no way a good boyfriend would ever want to fight, right? No good boyfriend would ever want to do that to his girlfriend, right? So he would put it on pause. He turned around to face her. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth hung slightly agape, like she was waiting for him to say something. She stood in almost complete disbelief.
“She really didn’t see anything at all she had done to warrant that kind of treatment?” He thought, hating this pathetic “wait for you to apologize” attitude she was taking. He again tried to let it go, choosing to believe it had to be the fall that made him lash out at her in the first place.
“Sorry I snapped.” He said, brushing the ice chips off his face and shirt. “I fell and it hurt more than I expected.”
“I thought princes were supposed to control themselves better than that.”
…
“Yeah I guess…I guess I must be nervous for the deployment.”
“Why? You love war.”
“I don’t love war.”
“Oh, it must just be the chance to get away from me then, huh?”
She started skating away. Quicker than before, not looking directly at him but glancing back every now and then to make sure he was watching. Another one of her games. Another one of her stupid moments when he was supposed to chase her, weeping and begging on his hands and knees that “no you are the love of my life, I’d never want to be away from you for even a second, I did everything wrong, I’m so sorry, please forgive me.” He stood dumfounded for a little while longer. He didn’t know ow to respond to this. She kept making fun of his bloodline and how he was so wealthy and how proper he was, yet at every moment he made him chase her and prove that he was lesser. Was she really so childish and ignorant as to not see the insecurity in that?
“You know what? Yeah.” He thought. “I am thrilled to get away from you.”
He pushed and scraped along the uneven ground until he arrived at the edge of the lake. He sat down, untied his skates and kicked them off. They skidded across the frost until they morosely ran out of momentum near the center of the pond. He stomped his feet down into his real shoes and marched off in the direction of their horses. She hadn’t noticed him leaving yet, and deep down he really wanted her to. He wanted her to chase him like he has been forced to chase her so many times. He wanted her to beg like he has begged, make bold promises about how wrong she was and how handsome and always right he was, but combatting these feelings was the quickly overriding feeling of just never wanting to hear her voice again.
He made it back to his horse and untied it quickly. He had used an ancient sailors knot his uncle taught him, one that is impossible to remove through force, but if you know just the right cords to pull it comes unraveled as smooth as cream and even balled easily for convenient storage. The knot nearly burst open he pulled on it with such force, and his fluid arm swings wound the rope into a tight ring, which laid securely on the hook attached to the saddle. Laying the rope onto the saddle brought into his line of sight the engraving he had done on the seat. “Diana + Lliam Forever” in a little heart. It nauseated him, attacking his eyes as pungently as a bad smell attacks the nose, and he couldn’t bear to look at it. For a second, all he did was look away, thinking he was strong enough to do that and leave it be, but time revealed that not to be the case. It bothered him so much he had to do something about it. He wasn’t content to just let this blasphemy live beside him in peace, it had to be destroyed. He retrieved the emergency knife from his saddle bag and slashed the carving across in two quick jabs. An X to mark the finished status of his relationship in the real, and in his mind.
He threw his leg over the saddle and mounted his horse. He whipped the bridle and kicked the horse’s sides simultaneously. He shouted at the beast with all his emotional turmoil revealing itself, causing the poor creature to think it’s life was in danger. The diamond white ardennais charged it’s mighty hooves in the direction of home so hard it sounded like hail, crashing through and destroying ever leaf of plant life in its wake.
He knew it was dangerous to leave her alone, but he didn’t care. If she was so much better than him than he didn’t need to be there anyway. She had a horse, she’d be fine. He knew he’d get in trouble. He’d be yelled at by his father, the girl’s family would shun him, and he might lose privileges at home. None of that mattered to him. All of that sounded better than riding the three hours back home next to her, even in silence. He was done. She needed to know it, and he was never coming back.