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Art by Mariazalea143 on Tumblr.
“Very well then, Hero. We’ll conclude today’s lesson here.”
Hero let out a deep sigh of relief as he closed the hefty tome on economics. In the months since Mari’s curse had been broken and he’d moved with her to the capital, the young man had been hard at work learning the ins and outs of royal duties. Mari’s father, king Suzuki, had been adamant that if Hero, a peasant, was to marry into the royal family; “you’d better be well prepared to stand by my daughter’s side”. To that end, Hero had been assigned a tutor in the form of Verona, Basil’s distant cousin and one of Mari’s old friends in the capital.
“Oh, your highness!” Verona cried as the door swung open.
“How’s the education of the prince-to-be coming along?” Mari asked playfully. A laugh that sounded like bells sounded in the room, and Hero’s heart was immediately put at ease.
“Slowly” Hero sighed.
“Well, I’m not sure I’d phrase it like that…” Verona said “but-“
“Anyway” Mari smiled “Lady Verona, I came to let you know that Hero will be taking the next few days off from his duties. Lessons will resume next week, if that’s alright.”
“I understand” Verona curtsied.
“Mari, what’s this about?” Hero cocked his head.
Mari winked and put her finger to her lips. “Royal secret” she smirked.
The princess led Hero out to the stables where the royal carriage had been prepared. “A trip?” Hero asked.
“Back to somewhere very familiar” Mari smiled “I thought it would be nice to spend New Year’s, and your birthday, among friends.”
“Back in the village? I didn’t exactly have a lot of friends there you know.”
“No, silly. In Pyrefly Castle!”
“Is that really alright? For us to just leave the capital for a vacation? Don’t you have to give a New Year’s speech?”
“I may have pawned that particular duty off on my father this year. I told him there was no way I’d miss my first chance to celebrate your birthday!”
“I didn’t expect the roads to be so cold” Mari shivered.
“You didn’t expect the roads to be cold… at the end of December?” Hero raised an eyebrow. Mari puffed out her cheeks.
“You know, if PB was here he’d chide you for not offering to share your body warmth.”
“I… uh… um…”
Mari snuggled closely into Hero’s body. His face, already red from the cold, became redder. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered” the princess laughed.
After a few minutes of silence enjoying each other’s presence, Hero spoke. “You know, you never asked me what I wanted for my birthday.”
“Wait, what are you… what did you want?” Mari started panicking, thinking of the carefully planned party awaiting them at Pyrefly Castle. Had she miscalculated?
“Well, I’ve always wanted a kiss from a beautiful princess” Hero grinned. It was Mari’s turn to blush.
“But you get that every day!” Mari protested.
“And I still want more” Hero retorted as his eyes grew large and pleading.
Mari giggled. “You know Hero, you’re the sweetest suitor I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, did you, uh… have a lot of them?” Mari could detect a twinge of jealousy in Hero’s voice. Maybe her teasing had gone a bit too far.
“None at all” she sighed “Surprisingly enough, not a lot of people lining up to woo a cyclopean hairball.”
“Their loss” said Hero “I happened to know a cyclopean hairball who was an excellent conversationalist. A great dancer, too.”
“Mhm” Mari snorted as she snuggled closer to Hero’s chest.
“You know, I sometimes miss our time back in Pyrefly. Everything was so much… simpler.”
“What, you preferred me as Something? You have strange taste” Mari teased.
“Mari, I’ll love you no matter what you look like. You know that, right?” Mari frowned. Once again, Hero had been taking her teasing too seriously.
“Hero, what’s going on?” the princess sat up and looked her fiancée dead in the eyes. “You’re acting way more timid than usual.”
The young man sighed. “I guess I’m just… I’m just scared. About everything. You’re supposed to be marrying a prince! Someone who knows what they’re doing! I… everyone in the palace is always looking at me like I have a second head. I just don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I belong there.”
“Hero, you remember the first night we spent together? When I accidentally insulted you so much you ran off into the woods?”
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Because the nobles in the capital feel the same way I did then. They’re so stuck in their pre-conceptions that the idea of a commoner being worth anything doesn’t even occur to them.”
“But-“
“But they can change, just like I did. After all, you’ve already won over my parents and most of the younger nobles.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Even my father likes you.”
“He has a weird way of showing it… but I suppose I see where you get your emotional stubbornness from.”
“Well, now I know better than to keep my feelings bottled up. Speaking of which, I think I still owe you that present.”
Mari leaned up and kissed her fiancée. A warm tingling ran through her body, as it had with every kiss the two had shared since that fateful day on the castle roof. Back then, Mari had thought the sensation was some after-effect of the enchantment lifting. Now though, she knew it was something she’d read about but never believed she would experience – true love.
The royal couple stopped at Hero’s village on the way to Pyrefly. All Sweetheart’s posters were long gone, and her gaudy mansion had been repainted into a more pleasant shade of pastel. In the town square, Charlene, Mikhail and Angel were hard at work making snowmen with the village children. Sweetheart’s old bakery had been refurbished by Daphne and Bowen, who noted in hushed whispers to Mari that ‘the delivery’ had already been made to the castle. If Hero hadn’t witnessed it all firsthand, he’d have been hard-pressed to say that anything out of the ordinary had ever occurred in the sleepy town.
From the village, the ride to the castle was brief. Still, Hero and Mari drank in the winter forest landscape. With the curse lifted, Pyrefly forest had once again become a sun dappled arcadia. A few prints in the snow indicated that non-spider animals were returning, and stark white against the trees almost beckoned visitors to lie down and make snow angels.
Hero gasped as they pulled up to the castle. The structure was completely restored, the gates gleamed like new, and not a single brick was out of place. The front doors seemed to radiate a sense of invitation.
“Ah, it’s good to see the castle back to its old self” Mari smiled wistfully.
The carriage came to a halt before the gates. A young pink-haired woman in the armor of a guard opened the front door. “Mari! Hero! You’re- ahem. I mean, welcome, your majesties.”
Mari nearly jumped out of the carriage and embraced her friend. “Aubrey! I missed you so much!” The younger woman relaxed and returned the princess’ hug. After the knight helped Hero out of the carriage, it was his turn for a hug. Despite the strength of the knight’s arms, and the cold of her armor, Hero relished the embrace. It was a far cry from their unwelcoming first meeting.
“Hero!” Kel and Sally nearly tackled their older sibling to the floor in their rush to greet him.
“Kel! Sally! Oh, it’s so good to see you two! How is everything?”
“Everything is great! I love living in a place where I don’t need to worry about freezing to death in the winter!”
“Kel, you know we can set you up with an estate of your own, right?” Mari asked.
Kel shook his head. “What, and leave the excellent company here?”
“It doesn’t bother you that you were almost imprisoned here for life?” said Mari.
“Nah!” Kel grinned “If that all hadn’t happened, I’d have never met Mincy, or any of my other new friends! And you and Hero would have never met!”
“When he puts it like that…” Hero chuckled.
“Don’t worry, we still have his cell nice and cozy if he steps out of line” Aubrey said.
“Aw, don’t be like that! You know you’d miss me!”
A soft voice came from the hallway. “Mari? Is that you?” A short young man with dark hair stepped inside the room.
“Sunny!” Mari ran to her brother. Any pretense at royal protocol disappeared in the sibling’s reunion.
“I missed you…” Sunny said.
“I know, I know. I missed you too, little brother. But look at everything you’ve done! The castle looks better than ever! And the village is flourishing! Was that your doing?”
“Not just me… everyone pitched in.”
“Me and Kim tracked down all the looters and got back the castle’s property” Aubey said “Then we offered amnesty for looters who would help repair the damage they caused.”
“Basil and Polly organized a gardening initiative” Kel chimed in “and I helped!”
“More like you dug a bunch of holes for everyone else to plant stuff in, then went off to make moony eyes at a certain painter” Aubrey rolled her eyes.
“Oh, like you were any different. I know for a fact that you rushed through some of those searches to get back to Sunny.”
“Speaking of Mincy” Hero said, trying to change the subject before Aubrey and Kel were at each other’s throats, even if the dispute was good-naturedly “What happened to those Sweetheart paintings you all made?”
“Rococo bought them with his own savings. No idea what he plans to do with them” Kel shrugged.
Hero shook his head. Perhaps some questions were better left unanswered.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HERO!”
The entire castle had gathered for a feast in Hero’s honor, with Gino’s special sandwiches as the main course. The final course had, of course, been a birthday cake. It was predictably delicious.
“I know I already gave you one present today” Mari said as the plates were cleared “but allow me to indulge you with another” she passed a bound scroll to Hero. Hero undid the clasp and unfurled the parchment. Stamped upon it was a seal he didn’t recognize, under a banner reading “Prince Henry Royal Culinary Institute”.
“What is this?”
“We just started renovations on an old culinary school in the capital. We’ve already got three chefs agreeing to come teach!”
“I don’t understand?”
“I know being a chef was always your dream. Just because you happen to be marrying into royalty doesn’t mean that dream should die. So I thought, ‘why not create a royal culinary school’ so you can still pursue your dreams?”
“You’re giving me an entire culinary school?” Hero’s eyes went wide.
“Well, it’s not just for you. I’ll admit there’s some selfishness. I don’t want you losing your edge!” Mari smiled “I can’t stand the thought of not having your delicious cooking!”
“Alright” Hero grinned and held Mari closer “but you have to promise me that you won’t give up on baking either.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it” Mari said “I’ve also set up an endowment so that commoners can get a free culinary education. No more abandoned dreams just because of someone’s station.”
“You… really?” Hero felt tears starting to well up in his eyes.
“Of course. And this is all just the beginning” Mari kissed Hero’s cheek “I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together.”
Dinner was followed by a dance beneath the moonlight. Hero allowed Mari to lead in the waltz. “Our third dance in this ballroom” she giggled as they pulled close. “You know, during our first dance, I was a nervous wreck.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well, I had been planning to confess to you on the balcony that night. I was just about to do so, actually, when Mincy arrived with news about Sweetheart. Even though I was sure you would have rejected me. I just… I needed to tell you how I felt.”
“Mari, I…”
Mari held a finger to Hero’s lips. “I… when we first met, I just thought that I could use you to break the curse. I didn’t think about what would happen after. But I think it wasn’t long before I really fell for you. Before it became just as important to make you happy as it was to lift the spell.”
Hero laughed “I think I had the same journey. At first I just wanted to get through the year and get out of the castle. But if you had told me on that night that you loved me, I would have told you the same thing.”
“So if we’d both been more honest, we might have broken the curse early?” Mari said incredulously.
“I believe so” Hero nodded “And I… I’m sorry about that.”
“You don’t-“
“At the time, I had no idea how much you were hurting. What you were going through.”
“You couldn’t have known, Hero. The curse ensured that.”
“Still… I hope you can forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive” Mari smiled, pressing her body up against Hero’s as the dance shifted. “After all, we got our happy ending.”
“I prefer to think of it as a happy beginning.”