thehonestandmoralone

Charlee twisted her fingers incessantly as the car drew closer to its destination. She was positively affright with nerves, and so many questions whirled around in her head. Would the prince like her? Would the people? Was he kind? Was he handsome?

That last one was kind of frivolous in the grand scheme; the man’s attractiveness had no bearing on the situation at hand. But she hoped he was at least average looking, and not covered in zits, or hair, or obscenely fat if she had to have sex with him from time to time.

“Stop that. It’s unbecoming.”

Charlee looked up at one of her hand-maidens, though far from a maiden at her age. She was more of a hand-marm. But Louise had been with her since birth, or at least as long as Charlee could remember, and she had been in trusted to look over her with the other handful of servants and bodyguards bound to accompany her on this journey and help her on this transition from fledgling princess to wife and future queen. It all still sounded like a dream to her. Or perhaps a nightmare.

“Your Grace, look! It’s so lovely!”

The young princess looked out the window at the sprawling green grounds of her new home. The castle she would live in towering like a beacon of white stones with its banners in the breeze in the distance contrasting with the emerald.

“You don’t have to call me ‘Your Grace’ when we’re in private Gwen.”

“Absurd!” Louise announced immediately, her pointy nose crinkled in disgust. “You are a princess. And one who will one day be a queen. You are no longer expected to be in the background. You must be front and center and ready at all times. So this foolishness of you commiserating with your staff ends here. And you! Do not yell. It is unbecoming.”

The younger girls both mutter ‘yes ma’m’s at the woman, and go back to sight-seeing out the window in silence as the castle came closer, questions still buzzing around in Charlee’s mind.

theonlypiecethatdoesntxfit

Charlee hummed a quiet tune to herself as she shelved the new arrivals of books and relocated the old merchandise to a new home.

She had been working at The Nook, aptly named because the store was carved out of the literal corner of its building and not the electronic device, for some time now. Her friend Marcus knew the woman that owned it, Eden, who Charlee supposed was also a friend of hers, but it was mostly his influence that allowed Eden to give her the job. The older woman seemed to not regret the decision.

Charlee was smart and more than capable of handling her tasks. Her bubbly, sweet personality gave her a good rapport with customers and her smile usually soothed any disgruntlement from the bat. Eden liked to tell her that she was a ‘puppy of a person’ and who could hate her?

"Can you read me another story?"

"I already read you two now it's time to go to sleep." Charlee told Abel while he pouted, though it's effects are a little lost with his race car feetie pajamas on. "Don't give me that face. I know what you're doing and it's not going to work." She told him 'sternly' as she tucked him in. The little boy always tried to scramble for more time, asking for water or more books or different pjs cause these itched, to stay up just that little bit longer so maybe his father would come home. Sometimes it worked. Most of the time it didn't. But every night, baring him being too tuckered out to try, he always made an effort to stay up past his bed time.

"Is Daddy gonna be home soon?" He asked.

And of course Charlee has to say, "Of course," though she isn't exactly sure.

'Regular hours' weren't something that came with this job. Jax-Mr. Teller, kept strange hours for his.....work, that everyone knew about but didn't say anything about.

Charlee's friends had been nervous, that she was working for a criminal, but she needed the money and Jax-Mr. Teller did pay her considerably well for the odd hours he kept or basic on call status he kept her on. Not to mention having to deal with his mother, who 'drops by' often to 'see her grandkids', when Charlee really knows she's checking in on her. Genma calls her an outsider when she thinks Charlee can't hear her. Or maybe she knows Charlee can and that's why see says it.

But, that isn't her problem. Ja-Mr. Teller hasn't asked her to leave and the kids seem to like her and he thinks she's doing a good job.

Her cheeks flush a little bit before she leaned over to kiss Abel's forehead and tell him goodnight before turning out the light.

‘This doesn’t look right at all…’ Charlee thought with a moan as she looked at her surroundings and then at the map again. Yep, she was lost. Totally lost was she.

Charlee sighed out loud and put her map down with a frown. She honestly should be able to read a simple map. She was a college sophomore after all, at a university and everything. But her old school was nowhere near this big, being a private institution, so the sprawling grounds of her new school was a little daunting.

And it wasn’t like she had had a tour or anything. Hell, she had barely made it to check-in for her dorm room on time. Her parents had been against her transfer to a public, non-Christian school, to the point that they had originally refused to help her move her things to the new school. They said that it would lead her to sin and ruin. But, given that the tuition for this school, as ‘sinful’ as it may be, was half the price of the other school, they eventually came around enough to at least help her move; even though they complained about everything from the long drive to the smell of the campus.

But, Charlee loved it. All she ever wanted to do was to branch out and make more of her college experience than just with books. Find herself like all those books and movies said college was about. She loved her parents but they were….stifling. Was it wrong not to like you parents? Either way, it wasn’t like they could stop her. They were the ones dumb enough to have her college trust fund transferred over to her completely when she turned 18. She guessed they thought she would never leave.

The brunette took a deep breath, ran her fingers through her hair, and stood up from her bench. Dwelling on the past and circumstance wasn’t going to get her anywhere, namely the bookstore, so she pulled out her map again and started following the tiny blue path on the paper with focus. Up until she literally ran into someone.