I stared at the flower in my hand.

It didn't make sense. Just a few days ago I had absolutely no control when it came to my Plague magic.

Now I was able to make the flower petals fall off with minimal effort.

"What's the point of this again?" Eres was sitting across from me. He was weaving some of the flowers together into some sort of hoop.

"It's genetic mutation, but since I'm not very good at it I'm practicing on plants instead of animals or people." I rolled the flower between my fingers.

"Plague magic can do that?" He looked up at me. "I mean to people," He motioned to the flowers around us. "Obviously it works on flowers."

I nodded. "They're known as the magi of disease, but they can manipulate the body in ways that help people."

He nodded once. "So like, what can they do?"

I smiled slightly. It was nice to see I'm interested in anything magic-related. He liked to learn."It depends on how powerful the Plague is. For example, Finnick can stop the function of certain organs. But he's pretty powerful, a normal Plague could do anything between that and hair loss."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Why would anyone want to make their organs stop functioning?"

I almost laughed. "Not all of them. Just the ones you don't need. It's easier than having them removed because you might want it later."

"I'm still lost." He frowned. "What organ would you want to temporarily not want?"

"The one that makes kids." I cocked my head to the side. "Does Kalehiem have schools?"

He laughed once. "Ohhh. Not gonna lie, I forgot that was an organ. I thought you were talking about kidneys or something, but I wouldn't recommend turning those off."

"What did you think it was?" I laughed.

"I just wasn't thinking about it. Don't be mean." He threw a flower at me. "So does this mean you've mastered Plague magic?"

"Technically, just don't make me do this on a person." I leaned back on my elbows.

"So, what's next?" He went back to weaving his flower hoop.

"Vision or Quake magic. Probably Quake because I'm terrible at Vision magic."

"Why do you even need to master all the different types of magic for this ritual thing? He glanced up at me.

I sighed. "I don't know. The stories never said why, they just said I had to. I could probably ask Vorneya, but she only speaks in riddles when I want real answers."

He turned the flower hoop around in his hand as if inspecting it. "You know, you would make a badass tyrant." He joked.

I collapsed with laughter. Eres looked slightly concerned "I don't think I'm that funny."

"Do you know how council members are selected?"

"No?" He stared at me. "I thought it was random."

I laughed again. "I guess I thought you would've figured it out from my memories. When a council member dies, they pick the next one. But, they can see everything that we would do if we were given the power. The Spirit before me saw my life, she saw what I would do with the power, and she gave it to me."

"So you can't be a tyrant?" He moved to sit beside me.

"None of us can. It goes against everything we are." I sat up.

He set the hoop of flowers on my head. "That's sort of amazing."

I touched the hoop. "What the hell is this?"

He gave me a half-smile. "A flower crown? Have you never seen one?"

I grabbed the flower crown and studied it. The flower stems were tightly weaved together, I was surprised none of them had ripped.

Most of the flowers were at the front of the crown where the stem wasn't visible. They were blue, purple, and white. Each one missing just a single petal. Even though we were surrounded by flowers, he only used the ones I had modified. "It's beautiful, where did you learn it?"

He grabbed it from my hands and placed it back on my head. "My cousin taught me when I was young. My aunt is in charge of the royal gardens. She always has been, that's how my mother met my father. My parents had flowers woven into their crowns at their wedding." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, my mother doesn't think it's proper for the crown prince to make flower crowns. Naturally, I learned to spite her."

I touched the crown lightly. "Sometimes I forget you're a prince, then you go and say things like that."

He shrugged. "It's not as great as people make it out to be."

I leaned against his shoulder. "You've never told me about your parents."

"You've never told me about yours either."

"But you have been in my head. You know enough about mine." I looked up at him.

"Fair enough." He sighed. "My mother is the most controlling person alive. One time she wrote a speech for me and I changed one word, she almost killed me. She picked out every single outfit I wore, she controlled what I ate and when. My father is the complete opposite, which is strange because I've never seen them have any sort of disagreement. I love them both, but I'm not sure how I feel about that right now." He looked down at me then quickly looked away. "They hate magic, they hate magi. And I love them anyway, but I-" He paused. "I just don't know what to think at the moment."

I studied his face. For a second I thought he was going to say he loved me. I was glad he didn't, I might've broken down.

"Kovi hates you, I still love her. You don't have to agree with someone to love them." I tried to lighten the mood.

He kissed the top of my head. "Vey, I think you hated me more than Kovi did. My father would kill you on sight, Kovi went against what you said to be nice to me. I'm afraid they aren't the same."

I leaned back on the grass and smiled. "You're using that nickname?"

"Does it have some secret meaning?" He laid down on his side so he was looking at me.

"Not really." I looked up at the clouds. "There just aren't many people who use my name enough to care about shortening it."

"I find that hard to believe."

I was surprised to feel tears forming in my eyes. I looked at him. "Eres, people don't really like me. They're only nice to me because they have to be, it's out of respect."

He propped himself up on one elbow. The look in his eyes was so intense I thought he was about to yell at me or hit me. Instead, I was met with soft words. "It's not your fault, they don't know you."

I couldn't fight the tears anymore. "They did know me. They knew me and they ran away because they didn't like me."

He cupped my face and wiped away a tear with his thumb. "They didn't. If they really knew you they would love you."

"No, they-"

"I love you." He cut me off.

I stared up at him. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. I just cried.

I was scared and I didn't know why. I was so scared. The world around us was gone. It was only me and this amazing, smart, beautiful man. And he loved me. He loved me.

He pulled me into his arms and held me.

I cried in his arms for what felt like forever. I cried until I couldn't anymore.

When the tears finally dried up he started to apologize. I wasn't even sure what he was apologizing for, I just heard him say the word 'sorry'.

My voice was broken and weak. It was barely above a whisper. "I love you too."

...
Okokokok. Before you say "iT's tOo sOon" or something along those lines, remember how fucking weird and crazy love is.

These two are young af and have never been in a real relationship before, they're going to fall in love way faster than they "should"

also it's fantasy and I make the rules here so shh.

idk when exactly the smut is happening. I just don't know when a good time is. just soon.

alr. have a good night/afternoon/morning.

<3