Of Winter Meetings II

What was there that man would've commit heinous crimes to acquire? Some may list down countless women.

One for a wife, the rest, perhaps four, meant to be mistresses with jobs of quenching yearning lust. To be held of high regard by all standing women of society, to be pleased whenever or wherever they want, may it be in brightest of daylight or the darkness of twilight, on the bed or the couches.

A few may add, a humongous amount of glittering golds, silvers, and bronze— galleons and galleons of wealth. Of financial abundance and overgrown supply of money. To bathe in the finest of jewels, the softest of silk. To live in a world of leisure that accompanied expenses.

Albeit, one or two would've possibly want a single. And that was to grasp a hold of neverending power. To rule above the heads of all the living. To be in charge of everything. To sit on a throne, head adorned with a crown, the floors lined with men and women alike all bowed down.

A word only served on silver platter for those destined to inherit the throne. For short, power was something Princess Cassia Van Sappherine could and would get even with the littlest of persuasion and demand, within a snap of a finger. Because it was crafted and made to be passed to her after her father's rule.

It was hers before she was even born.

Albeit, Harris was stumped. Her mind filled with helical thoughts of Cassia and her confession of reprobation to he right of taking the crown and throne in the nearest future. None would've foreseen such words from the lips of a successor.

A thing made to be hers but something she wouldn't want to hold nor be in connection of.

"I beg your pardon?" Harris spoke quite abruptly upon the register of the mindblowing secret. It was something she deemed inappropriate for Cassia to reveal in whispers but in front of gossip-loving servants, except for Bonnie, of course. Her nannie since young was never one to eavesdrop.

Harris could only pray that no one other than her, have heard the heaviest baggage that Cassia unconsciously placed onto her petite shoulders. She couldn't bother to slumber well later at night, she could already tell. She could already envision her small form, hunched over the window sill or her little slippered feet petting against the whitest snow in a late garden rendezvous.

Albeit one was for sure certain, Harris would be in a rollercoaster ride of sleeplessness— her head filled with buzzing thoughts regarding Cassia's secret. And the guilt that comes with it for hiding something so important. Yet who was she to tell? It wasn't hers but hers to keep, however, it was Cassia's, for a fact, to reveal.

"Is there a problem, princess?" Bonnie worriedly questioned as she eyed the princess of current attention. She tried to gauge the princess's expression and was confused at the show of blatant surprise etched on her cherubic visage.

Cassia, on the other hand, gnawed her lips— ever so regrettably drowning in her foolish revelation with many in one vicinity. She should've waited. But the excitement to reveal something she was committed on foraging was too uncontainable to bear.

Snapped from her daze, Harris tensed as she shook her head, "Nothing's wrong. Harris was just nervous to meet the neighboring royals from the neighboring kingdom. . ." Poor princess hoped that Bonnie would accept that.

"Aww! Princess, nervousness is completely understandable. Especially since it'll be the very first luncheon you will be attending!" Polly exclaimed, rewarding herself with a playful scowl from Hanna, who wished to have said similar lines to the princess first. They literally crave the attention of young Princess Harris.

A clear of a throat, Hanna didn't want to be held behind her peers, hence she added. "If you must know princess, I too was so nervous when chosen to work within palace grounds. However, there's one trick that my late mother had passed onto me that greatly aided!" She exclaimed.

"Oh, hush it Hanna," Polly countered with a scoff. "That silly myth of yours is, in fact, utterly ridiculous. Surely you wouldn't tell both princesses present, especially Princess Harris, that 'trick' as you love to call it."

Hanna was to but in when they were cut off by a soft yet firm intervention, "You shan't mock what customs others have grown to. Nor do you have the right to insult someone's customs out of how silly you perceive something they're accustomed to." Princess Cassia, the mediator, the one who had the intestines to scold someone wrong.

The bravest woman, Harris have ever had the privilege of meeting and growing up with. She absolutely adored her principles and virtues that she too would love to be the same woman Cassia would grow to be. A fortress hidden in a lovely paint.

"Forgive me for my brash thoughts." Polly murmured apologetically.

Cassia shook her head, evidently displeased, "Instead of directing an apology to I, why don't you tell that to Hannah? It is her you disrespected, after all. Not me."

Concerned for the well-being of Bonnie's companionships, Harris took action and grabbed Cassia's hands to garner attention. She projected a sweet grin, one that would hopefully defuse the ungodly tension. "Anyway, as I do recall, you're here to fetch me for the luncheon, if I'm correct?"

"Indeed I am, Dear Harris." Cassia replied, endearingly.

"Princesses, please do pardon, however both of you may run tardy if you prolong your stay here," Bonnie winced, visibly disliking the way she literally shooed the royals. Albeit, it needed to be done. The two shouldn't be adding their shoulders with stress due to the controllable situation.

"Ah! I forgot. Come,dear cousin," Cassia linked grabbed a hold of Harris' shoulders, squeezing them lightly as she gave her a caring-lazy smile. "Our guests must've been waiting for our presence."

Bonnie ushered the two out of the comfort of Harris' bedchambers, and from then on it was just them two and the awfully silent halls. Harris would've loved the silence, albeit the tension had been following them like looming shadows from the back. Dark, imposing, simply over bearing.

"I want you to learn something, Harris." Cassia spoke in sudden. Disposing off the tension and replacing it with an ambiance whom the mentioned couldn't fathom. She remained silent, falling in sync with Cassia's steps as they traipsed the halls to the grand gardens. "Life isn't and will never be equal in one way or another."

"There are folks born in a household filled with scarceness, of the lack of food to feed in a day, of the rags to wear in daily basis, of the poor judgement of society," She paused, taking a minute to glance at her cousin to read her reaction.

Harris, upon the mention of the lowest class of families, stopped on her tracks. Her hands unconsciously balled into small fists, so tight her knuckles painted in white.

Flashes of scenarios engulfed her already overflowing mind. Occurrences of someone blurred as she watched in third person. A movie of sort— of someone who joined a family on a table with half of a loaf for dinner ; of someone who viciously scrubbed horse stables for pennies; of someone glaring distastefully at the sight of well clad men and women in the finest of fabrics.

Of someone who made her heart wrench in different shapes that made it burn. Her hands seared, feeling the hotness and pain of scrubbing hours long for bronze coins that could never afford three meals per day. Whereas her judgement was drenched in a bucket of rage for the unequality of life.

"At the same time there are people born in lavish families. Experiencing grand parties. Wearing the finest cloths society has to offer. Eating more than three meals a day, stomachs filled with tasty delicacies," Harris unknowingly spat, still in her fit of displeasure and loathing. "Families who never worry a second to find money to fend their needs. Families who trample on those who they believe 'crawl on dirty mud'."

Now it was Cassia's turn to be stunned. Her lips hung open, her hands suddenly clammy with sweat. Where on the name of Capricus, did her young, six-years old cousin, ever learned that?

As far as she recalled, Harris was never out of palace premises. She had never been to the slums, never witnessed how the poor begged and begged on their knees for coins.

"Harris. . . Where have you ever—", Cassia concernly placed a hand on her cousin's shoulder, hesitant as she did so. However, her gesture was midway interrupted by a call.

"Princess Cassia, am I glad to see you. I've been circling the palace in hopes of fortune in finding the way to the grand gardens, but got lost instead," said a new voice, though at some point sarcastic yet respectful in mix.

Harris somehow knew that voice somewhere. Albeit it was different at the same time. It was. . . younger and empty. As if every single happiness that life could ever give was stripped harshly from the boy.

She lifted her head, her irises widening at the hues that screamed of familiar oddity. A bloody red, somewhere in her mind, it felt like she was staring at a pair of yellowish-grey ones. Not to mention. . . Jeweled.

Her breathing hitched, and the overwhelming sensation became much more unbearable.

Too much for a single day, for a single hour, for a single young princess. It was nauseous, her stomach kept on churning, and now her head was graced with pounding ache.

"O-oh! Harris! Let me—," Cassia was now very frantic, her hands now flailing to which defies the etiquettes a princess should follow. Her teeth were chattering, unsure of what to do as she was still recalling how harsh Harris' hasty response were.

Harris felt someone grab her hands tightly clasped on another pair that radiated comforting warmth, of shaky guilt, of insatiable yearning. She felt lips graze the skin of her knuckles, and her gaze fell on the boy who had kissed her with questioning remorse in front of her cousin.

"We met again." He whispered.