i really fucked it up this time, didn't I my dear?

With a thoughtful hum, the princess nodded her head again. It was an odd thing to suddenly remember her own privilege, especially when for a while now so many of the people around her were born with the same shared privilege. “I suppose if it does become a problem you can tell whoever is asking that I asked you to make them for me.” She doubted it would come to that, but she couldn’t be certain.

He needed something better to think. Well, he couldn’t disagree with that statement. Unfortunately, it seemed like his morning offered him nothing but a collection of grim thoughts. At least the horrible apple blend helped push the news of his betrothal to the back of his head. “Seems like your apple thing is the highlight of my morning, thus far,” his shoulders traveled with a shrug, and his voice carried a sad undertone. “And, well, if not, you can always tell them I gave you permission to use my apple quota.”

Samson’s response was to frown slightly. “Had other less than pleasant thoughts put into your morning then?” he asked, feeling as though it was the proper thing to do. He doubted that the other man would open up to him, they were strangers after all, but at least asking seemed like the polite course of action. “Careful, I might use up that entire quota,” he teased.

“Oh, yeah! I was the one that gave the idea, no?” he loved sweet things, something that could be too sweet to others, a lot of times, were something that was just perfect to him, “I’m not an expert in it, but if you’re saying, I trust you,” he let out a small laugh, “Until we wait, we can talk, if you want to. There’s probably a lot I don’t know about you.”

“Fair point,” Samson chuckled, nodding his head. He continued on with what he was doing, getting the apple dunked and such until that second layer, the caramel, was coating it and set down to dry. “This should be interesting....” he trailed off, speaking more to himself than to the prince. “I enjoy being trusted,” he grinned.

“Oh, that’s just silly. Unless all of it is rationed, I don’t see why it should be such a bad thing. It’s not like you’re trying to get them all.” Maggie explained with a small shrug. It seemed silly to her, but then again, a lot of things in her life were given to her through rules being bent. “I would say I won’t be able to look at caramel after this, but I know that won’t be true.” She joked as she got ready to dip the apple.

He listened to her before nodding his head. “Fair enough,” Samson decided. “Might as well just go for it,” he decided, doing as was decided. With two apples in hand, the man got started dipping each of them into the two different melted vats. “I have a feeling that this whole event is going to ruin any interest I have in sweets for quite a while,” Sam admitted, laughing lightly.

“I’m fairly certain the whole idea of apple coating is meant to be a messy business no matter how we look at it,“ he countered as he nodded to the mans comment. “Agreed. We just make the two apples and if someone comments we just do it anyways because really, who is going to cause a scene over apples. It’ll probably just make more people want to make two apples out of spite and then it will be a mob scene.“

Samson thought about it for a moment before nodding his head. “Probably. I also imagine that it’s going to get stuck in the teeth and be both embarrassing and annoying to deal with,” he mused, chuckling lightly. “That’s a good point,” he decided. “Besides, what are the chances of them running out of apples? Surely they plan well ahead.”

@samsonmorales​

Axelle was in dire need of some quiet time in the library with some of the large textbooks in her bag. Even though she was working as a surgeon, she consistently felt like she needed to be on top of her reading and studying game so that when she got back to work she wouldn’t be too far behind. The only problem was that she was also in dire need of a massage after lugging around so many heavy books and journals in her bag. 

Getting into the library, she set everything down at one of the tables and decided to look around for a moment. She just wanted to see if there were any other books that could add to her research. What she didn’t account for was having tunnel vision and accidentally bumped into Samson. She’s seen him a couple of times before but had never talked to him. “I’m s-so sorry!” she stutters out. 

When Samson wasn’t in his office, it was rather easy to find him in the library. He was working, of course, he always was. But working in the library gave him a bit of a change of scenery that he appreciated. When it was nicer out, he’d get some work done in the gardens but as it was well below freezing and there was snow everywhere, that was out of the question. So he was in the library, collecting a number of books he could pass on to the royals he was working with, when the woman walked into him.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he replied with a small, growing smile. “I’m not even phased,” Sam chuckled, shaking his head. “A little preoccupied?” he asked, happy to have a conversation with a new person to distract him. 

She’d been avoiding Samson. There was no doubt in her mind nor was she trying to convince herself of anything else that might be going on. Ever since the night of the masquerade she’d been deliberately going out of her way to not see him because…well because he made her happy. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else but her, she knew that, but the happiness that the man elicited from her scared her too badly to try and keep it going. She had accepted after Birdie’s death that life just did not want her to feel that way anymore and now anytime she got close to it something always seemed to make it go away. She wouldn’t let that happen to Sam.

But she’d had too many drinks that night and Samson was right there in the dining room with the rest of them looking as handsome as ever. And she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. She’d done so well with keeping herself occupied the past few months and yet the princess had allowed the two of them to drift closer and closer until she’d heard him address her, out of character and in a tone that the girl couldn’t read. 

“It’s Ester, actually, Ester Házy. I don’t believe we’ve met.” She held out her hand for him to shake, a challenging gaze sent his way. Would he fight this or go into character and play pretend for a little while? He had to be angry with her after everything but she wanted a moment where things could be easy again, where she wasn’t making it difficult. “Please…-” She glanced at his card before continuing. “Mr. Baklava. I don’t know who this Sarika is.” If only he knew how true those words were.

The man couldn’t help the sigh that escaped his lips. Sam wasn’t exactly sure what he was feeling, though her reply had him wishing he had just allowed her to keep avoiding him. Why even bother trying with someone who wasn’t interested? There were mixed feelings of annoyance and hurt, a sure sign that he should have just given up. He was far too old to subject himself to any sort of pain, especially pain caused by a royal, a woman he certainly couldn’t hope to have anyway.

Fighting back the urge to simply turn and walk away, because that would be rude, Samson simply nodded his head. Fine, if this was what she wanted, he would oblige. But he would most likely keep the conversation short and simple in order to get out of this uncomfortable and awkward situation as quickly as possible. “Ester then. Hello,” he decided.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“I am like you. I do not care for sweets very often. We did not have a lot of them when I was growing up, still do not, so most of the time it is a little too sweet to me. I think if I were to go for one it would be the candy coating but that is because I’ve never had it.” He was smiling at the other man, the rambling amusing to Alexi, until Samson had mentioned the girl. The corners of his mouth dropped and he tilted his head as he looked at the tutor, confusion evident. “The Hungarian? The one who the maids whisper about constantly? I did not know you were friends.” He feigned interest in the caramel and the candy coating in front of them but his curiosity over the mention of the princess was still overtaking everything else. Alexi had always complained to Samson about the royals but he had never really gotten an idea of the other man’s stance toward them.

Samson slowly nodded his head, listening intently as his friend spoke. “I can definitely understand how not being exposed often to a certain flavor would impact how much you like it. I do like sweets but not...very sweet sweets.” And then he laughed as he realized the absurdity of what he had just said. “I think you understand what i’m trying to say.” At the comment about Sarika, the man couldn’t help but frown slightly. “They whisper about her?” confused about what anyone could say. “Yes, she’s lovely,” he shared. 

“Nice beard.”

“Who drinks from a stranger’s glass?”

“I wish she could see that i’m here to help.”

Sarika:

“I’ve never seen such beautiful eyes.”

The blonde nodded, a silent chuckle on her lips as she thought about the absurdity of trying to mix the flavors and textures of the two apple coatings. “If you’re going to do two separate ones, then I think you’ll be fine.” She assured him, with a gentle smile. “I’m pretty sure my brother is now carving his fourth pumpkin so the rules here seem to be loose.”

“Exactly. They would know quickly we could cause a full out revolution of apples at this table if they denied our needs,“ he said with amusement in his tone. “Of course. I want caramel on one, and the candy on another… Though I suppose a worst case scenario option would be to half the apple. one side caramel and one side candy coating, but really that just isn’t fair to our needs here.“

“I think that attempting to coat an apple with candy on one side and caramel on the other would get a bit...messy to say the least?” Sam countered, frowning slightly as he thought about it. “Though, at the same time, I guess that this is a rather messy affair to begin with...” he mused, shaking his head as he laughed. “Lets just assume no one will scold me for making two apples.”

There was no such thing as too sweet to him, so he would honestly love to eat an apple that had two layers, one of each, “I may do the same thing, because now I feel like eating an apple with the two,” he admitted, he usually let the candy apple making for people that were less messy than he was, but he supposed that he could try to be as careful as possible, “Yeah, I wouldn’t either, will be better if you let it dry first.”

“Really?” Samson asked, a bit surprised. “That’s something that you’d be interested in?” He was a bit shocked as the idea of the two layers still felt sort of...odd to him but, again, he was a man who was willing to mostly try anything. It was just how he was. “Shouldn’t take more than a few moments for the first layer to dry.” 

“Who would ever yell at you for something like that? Wait- has someone done that already?” Maggie faked a gasp. Although, it wouldn’t be too shocking if someone did take a silly offense at that. “Well then, if that’s what makes you feel better, I’ll do it too!” After all, she was used to be criticized over and over again. “Let’s do caramel! The more the merrier, always.”

Samson simply shrugged his shoulders. “It’s more that i’m not sure if this is a “one per customer sort of situation,” he explained. At least if that customer wasn’t a royal as he doubted that anyone would stop one of the royal guests from taking as many apples as they wanted. “Caramel works for me,” he laughed, reaching for an apple on a stick before passing it over to her.