*Bela Talbot's POV*

"Bela."

The tired sigh draws her attention to the doorway. She's knew Paige was standing there, of course (some assassin-in-training she'd be, letting a princess-ling sneak up on her!) but didn't bother to acknowledge her until now. Waiting for her to make the first move.

Bela lifts a hand from the warm water of this lovely pool, water redirected from the main hot spring to a private bath for Princess Mains, and waves cordially. "Hey!"

Paige sighs. "You can't just use the door like a regular person?"

She's not actually mad. She just sounds exhausted. Bela lets playful indignance seep into her voice. "Paige!" she gasps, affronted. "I'll have you know that sneaking in through your window is great practice!"

Paige shakes her head. "One of these days," she says, wrinkling her nose, "someone will actually catch you, and you'll be in trouble. All because you can't bother yourself to knock."

"Alright," Bela says patiently, "but if I'd knocked, I wouldn't have gotten a response, because you were in that meeting with Maddy until just now. And I needed a hot bath! Those exercises they have me doing are cool and I know how to kill a man in under thirty seconds in four different ways with my bare hands, but they make me so sore, you know?"

Paige raises a finger in contradiction and opens her mouth, thinks better of what she was about to say, and closes it again. Bela grins triumphantly.

"There are other places to soak in the spring water than my chambers," Paige finally says. She sighs again and finally leaves the doorframe, stepping forward into the moonlight so she is no longer backlit by the lamps in her changing room. When she drops her robe and steps into the water too, Bela lightly flicks a few drops at her.

"There are, but I wouldn't find my best friend at those places," she points out.

"Prepared for every response, aren't you?" Paige asks wryly, flicking water back at her.

"Look, I have to have something to do while I wait for you to get out of intelligence briefings or whatever you were talking about with Madison. Honestly, it's way too late to be doing court business, what's up with that?"

Paige sighs, sinking down into the pool until she's slouching on the carven bench and the water laps at her chin. She's silent for several seconds, and the only sound is the gently flowing stream that circulates the springwater out of the pool. "It's because it wasn't official court business," she finally says, just as Bela is about to ask if she's okay.

"It's still kinda late, even for unofficial court business," she says instead. "Wanna talk about it? ...Can you talk about it?"

Paige smiles wanly. "It's nothing major," she says. "I just get stressed out thinking about all the different ways everything can go wrong, you know? Politics is so hard, there are a dozen different ways to accidentally offend someone in a single conversation, and when you're second in line and not the heir, you're probably the one who will get sent to actually interact with other diplomats more often, which means you have to be good at talking to people, which I'm, uh, not, and the fact that me being too nervous to think clearly could end up in me offending some foreign dignitary and sending us to war or something makes me really anxious, which sucks! Because it makes me even more nervous about talking to them!"

"So," Bela sums up, "you're nervous about feeling nervous, and that makes you nervous in case you feel nervous about feeling nervous?"

Paige groans and nods miserably, closing her eyes. "Yup. Pretty much."

"If it makes you feel better," offers Bela, "I don't think you stammering your way through a conversation would offend anyone enough to declare war on us."

Paige opens her eyes and looks over, something contemplative in her green eyes. "Us?" she repeats.

"Us," Bela says firmly. "I love my country, but I love you, too, so I'm sticking by your side. And that means your kingdom is mine, too. Is it so weird for a girl to have two places she calls home, Paige?"

Paige's smile is even softer when her face is kissed by silvery moonlight. "No," she says. "Not that weird. You're a good friend, Bela. I'm... I'm glad you're here."

Bela smiles back. They sit quietly for a just a moment, a heartbeat of silent solidarity before she slumps down, everything but her eyes covered in water.

"Wow, Paige, you've gotta be really tired," she says glibly. "You're getting sappy on me. I can't exactly go back to Genosha right now, you know? I don't think my father would take that very well. I sure do hope you're glad I'm here!"

Paige splashes her. "This is what I get for being sappy," she complains, and Bela laughs. "I'm sure your father will change his mind soon, too. I bet he misses you."

Bela thinks of the last email she got from home and personally isn't that sure, but shrugs anyway. After all, that email was a long time ago. Who knows, maybe her mother and father have calmed down by now! They'll probably forgive her for running away, eventually. Someday. At least they weren't mad enough to force her to come back... though that was probably because they knew she'd just bolt again anyway! So there's no need to dwell on it!

"Maybe," she says. "I kinda try not to worry about it too much, you know? I'm going to go back one day, but not yet. I'm not gonna think about it too hard in the meantime."

"Alright," Paige says. She doesn't look entirely satisfied, but she doesn't push either, so that's okay. Bela knows Paige deals with problems differently, anyway. She prefers to bottle everything up and then let it all out at once, to lay everything on the table and think about it and bare her heart completely-with Paige, it's kind of all or nothing. Bela deals with things differently, in really small steps, here and there.

"Sorry," Paige adds, and Bela blinks. "For bringing it up. I know you don't like to talk about that."

Bela shrugs. "It's okay," she says. "I brought it up, too. And it's also okay in a different way. Because, y'know, with you, I don't really mind."

Paige smiles again. "I'm glad," she says.

Then she splashes Bela again, and Bela squawks. Oh, it's on!

***

*Paige's P.O.V.*

Three years later...

"You're getting very good at this," Marya says approvingly, and Paige glows with the praise. Almost literally, too-emotional magic is hard to hide, and sometimes physical manifestations become visible.

"Thank you," she says, smiling bashfully. "You're a good teacher."

Marya tosses her head and laughs, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. "You little charmer, were you even trying that time?"

"No," Paige says. "I was being genuine, actually."

She blinks. Then she grins. "Ah. Well, in that case, I know that, kid! But I'm glad you can see it, too."

When Marya ruffles her hair like she's a toddler, and Paige ducks her head. She's laughing and Paige knows that her friend knows the princess doesn't actually mind it. "Is that all for today's lesson?"

"I want you to try the last exercise again, just one more time," Marya says, settling comfortably back into her chair. "I'm thinking about something. Tell me what emotions you feel me projecting."

Projecting? But if she's just thinking about it, that's not a projection, is it? A projection is more along the lines of emotions that are intended to be felt...

"Is that a trick question?" she blurts. "In the other exercise, you said you were thinking about something and asked me to tell you what it made you feel."

Marya beams.

"I was hoping you would catch that!" she exclaims, clapping her hands together twice. "Good. As for your question, I want you to focus and tell me what I feel. Not what I project. Got it, squirt?"

Paige nods, determined. Empathic magic has always come to her most easily out of all the schools out there, though she's always loved elemental. She's been training with Marya for years now, both in empathic magic and her training Marya in dance, which is her other passion in life other than magic.

...Enough years that she doesn't really object to her calling her "squirt". It's been a long time since she's bothered complaining about the nicknames.

"Alright," Marya says. "I'm ready. Tell me what I'm feeling, Paige. And for an added bonus, keep your eyes open this time. I want you to be able to do this without people knowing you're looking at their projections."

Isn't that kind of dishonest and invasive? She doesn't ask that question. Yes, it is dishonest and invasive. But she's a princess. She has to use everything she's got to serve her kingdom.

Keeping her eyes open, she retreats into her own mind, staring at a fixed point over Marya's shoulder. She can't quite do this yet without looking like she's just really spaced out because it takes a lot of concentration, and she already knows it'll take a lot of practice until she's good at doing it undetected, but she's willing to do what she has to for her people.

This is so much easier if she closes her eyes. She carefully extends her magical senses, as if she's reaching out toward Marya, but without actually moving, and from that she can already feel the emotions she's projecting for her to read, like a cloak disguising her actual feelings. It's a very well made cloak, too, and if she didn't know what signs to look for, she would think those are the feelings, but training under her rigorous hand has taught the princess well. She probes the edges, then slips between the cracks when she finds them.

The projected feelings were nondescript-bland indifference, mild amusement, warmth. The memory-related feelings are... different.

She takes a deep breath, withdrawing her magical senses, and looks Marya in the eye. "You were feeling proud," she says.

"I was," Marya agrees. There's a hint of that pride in her voice now, too, and Paige barely knows what to say to that.

"Why?"

A fond smile plays about her lips. "I was thinking about how far you've come from the little kid who barely knew what magic was, let alone how to use it. You're getting good at this. I mean it, Paige."

"Ah," she says, bashful and blushing again. "Thank you."

"Anyway!" Marya says breezily, hopping to her feet. "Magic lessons are over for today. You're coming to dance lessons this evening, but until then you have the afternoon to yourself. Go play on that phone but don't forget-"

"-to meet with Madison again, I know," Paige assures her. "I was going to do that over lunch, so right now, actually."

"Oh, good," Marya nods. "Run along then, we both know your sister is one busy woman!"

Paige nods, standing as well. She could use lunch-using magic for extended periods of time always makes her hungry and tired when it doesn't leave her brain feeling fuzzy. It's kind of hit and miss like that. "I'll see you this evening," she says as she steps to the door, pausing to wave once before she heads down the hallway. Bela melts out of one of the shadows behind a nearby pillar and falls into step just behind her.

"Hey," she greets.

"Hi, Bela," Paige says. "I'm going to lunch with Madison. Are you sitting in with us?"

"Are you discussing things I'm allowed to sit in on?" Bela asks. Paige frowns in thought.

"You know," she says, "I'm not actually that sure. I can ask her when we get there."

As it turns out, Maddy is waiting outside with a picnic basket. "I already got food from the kitchens," she says as soon as she sees Paige step outside into the sunlight. "Texted Mom and Dad about taking the afternoon off, too. Anyway, let's go sit in the gazebo, what do you say?"

"Sounds good to me," Paige says. "Can Bela come?"

Madison casts Bela an amused glance. "As if you'd leave her if I said no."

Bela doesn't even have the shame to look abashed. She just shrugs and grins. "Guilty as charged!"

"It's not top-secret state business, anyway," Madison shrugs. Then she pauses. "Well... it kind of is. Keep it quiet, at least. Nothing is set in stone yet, so we don't want word getting out. But I know both of you are pretty good about that anyway."

They end up having a simple picnic lunch at the gazebo in the central garden. Madison pulls out three bowls and three sets of chopsticks (as well as a fork in the event Paige needs it), and Bela laughs because she already assumed she'd tag along. Paige snorts. At least they're consistent.

"So," Madison finally says. "Mom and Dad were talking to the diplomat from Ruritania yesterday. You know, the one who they sent to talk trade deals."

Paige nods. She knows they were having that talk. She doesn't know what the talk was about because apparently, it was secret enough that the diplomat wanted to talk to the king and queen only, but she knows Madison knows because it's a little-known fact that Maddy is actually the head of Pandora's intelligence.

"Wait," Bela says. "Wasn't that literally top-secret state business?"

Madison rolls her eyes. "Technically, yes," she says, "but I think Paige needs to know now before she's officially told, and I know she'd tell you anyway. As if you wouldn't be listening in from her shadow or whatever."

"I don't hide in people's shadows," Bela protests. "That's not how shade enchantments work, Your Highness!"

"What do I need to know?" Paige interrupts before the two of them can start needling each other about Bela's admittedly kind of nosy tendencies.

Madison squares her shoulders slightly. "Look," she says, and Paige is more than a little surprised when she reaches over and takes her hand, resting their joined fingers in her own lap. "I want you to know that you can say no to this. Okay? If you don't want to do it, I'll help you get out of it. I don't want you to feel trapped. And it's only an option on the table, it might not actually happen, either, so please don't, like, freak out. But..."

"But?" she prods, eyes wide as dread and anxiety already start pooling in her chest, squeezing at her heart with a vicelike, icy grip. She can't stop there, not when she's under this much suspense!

"There was talk about an arranged marriage to seal the alliance," Madison says, squeezing Paige's hand. "Between the Crown Prince of Ruritania, and you."

Paige's world lurches dangerously.

"What?"

"You don't have to do it!" Madison bursts out, grabbing her other hand and squeezing it too. "You don't have to do it. They didn't even come to a decision about whether they wanted to keep that option on the table last night. I just-I wanted to tell you so that you don't go into anything blind when talks with Ruritania come up. Mom said she would only consider it after meeting Prince Winchester in person."

Arranged marriage.

Paige has always known that it would be a possibility, in theory, but it never seemed real until now-not just the thought of having to spend her life with a stranger, working on national interests and whatnot, but...

Prince Winchester is Ruritania's Crown Prince. Paige is just the Second Princess of Pandora. Crown Princes outrank Second Princesses. Paige's presence at the Pandora Royal Castle is not necessary. Prince Winchester's presence at Ruritania's Palace is.

If Paige has to marry Prince Winchester, she'll have to leave Pandora, and everyone and everything she knows and loves, behind. Not only that, but she'll be leaving them for Sam Winchester, the so-called "Prince of Ice", rumoured to be cold and aloof and ruthlessly cunning. She has never met Prince Winchester, but she might have to agree to spend her life with the man, and all she can think of is how it will be frigid.

The thought terrifies her.

"Paige?" Madison interrupts her frantic thoughts. "Paige, breathe. You're shaking. Paige, look at me-hey. Little Sis. Look at me. Nobody will force you into anything. Our parents would never do that to you, and I would never let that happen. Okay? Nothing will happen that you don't want."

"I d-don't want this," Paige stammers, blinking back tears. She is shaking, she realizes-that would be the anxiety, roiling in her belly like a snake trying to slough off its skin. "Wh-when are they going to-were they going to tell me? I-I don't want this, I don't want it-"

"I think they were going to tell you tonight," Madison says. Bela places a soothing hand on Paige's shoulder, and the touch helps ground her, just like Madison's firm grip on her hands. "I thought you might need forewarning, that's why I wanted us to have a private lunch today."

"Thanks," Paige whispers, staring at her barely-touched food. She doesn't feel hungry anymore. Madison says she won't let her get packed off to Ruritania, but they need this alliance, ever since Genosha and Koguryŏ signed their mutual nonaggression pact last year, so... if she's given the choice, wouldn't it be incredibly selfish to turn it down just because she's terrified of having to leave Pandora to live with a man she's never met?

Madison's thumbs stroke her knuckles. "Don't look so scared," she says again. "I promise, nothing will happen that you don't want."

That's the thing. She has to want this. Their people will be in danger, otherwise, because without Ruritania's pledge of allegiance, Pandora could risk a two-front war, should conflict break out with Koguryŏ. After all, Ruritania could side with Koguryŏ in that case. It's a matter of making working with Pandora worth more to Ruritanian working against them with Koguryŏ. Part of that is playing up the suspicion that Koguryŏ wouldn't be reasonable with treaty terms, should they win a war with Pandora, and would want more of the spoils than a fair share. If Ruritania suspects Koguryŏ won't compensate them for an alliance, they're less likely to go for it.

But unfortunately, there's more than just one part of this problem, and another facet is convincing Ruritania that Pandora is truthful and loyal as a partner and ally. And what would be a better token of esteem than sending the second child of the royal family to Ruritania?

If the marriage is on the table, Paige has to take it. She owes it to her people. She owes it to her family. She has to do it.

"You still look terrified," Madison mutters. "Paige. Even if it gets brought up tonight, nothing will be decided until you meet Prince Winchester, at least. And until I meet him. My little sister isn't going to marry an asshole if I have anything to say about it."

"Add me to the list of people whose tests he has to pass," Bela says. She squeezes Paige's shoulder. "If he's not good enough for you, we'll get the whole affair called off. It'll be fine, Paige!"

Madison knows. She's smart and she's Crown Princess of Pandora. There's no way she doesn't know Paige has to do it. It doesn't matter if Prince Winchester turns out to be absolutely awful, even though he seems quite handsome from the pictures on the internet and from what Paige knows of him. There are things bigger than Paige at work here, forces in motion that don't care about her feelings or her happiness.

Madison knows. She has a duty to her people and she knows that. And she knows that she knows that. So why is she still saying all this?

"We need that alliance," Paige says softly. "You know it as well as I do."

Madison freezes then presses her lips together firmly. "We do," she agrees. "But I'm still going to look out for my baby sister anyway."

That night, the plan is suggested for her consideration, and Paige, her heart sinking like a stone, accepts the terms. She will meet Prince Winchester, and she already knows that no matter how that meeting goes, she will accept his hand in marriage.

It's her duty.

Alone in her bedroom, Paige bows her head and cries.