Chapter Text
Snow had fallen in light sheets over the Genovian capital. Even though it was already Christmas Eve, the snow had melted before midday – only to begin falling again a few hours before six in the evening; or at least it would.
Mia sat with her mug of tea, watching the snow slowly melt into puddles on the grounds outside. Her big speech was in T-minus nine hours, and she honestly wasn’t sure if she actually felt ready, or if she was going to be sick.
So far, she’d been doing pretty well – no major screw-ups, no embarrassing clumsiness (or at least, not where cameras could see it), she’d been perpetually polite and friendly, if not entirely without some shyness, and she even felt she could count Nick’s peers in the Genovian peerage as actual friends – or at least, people she wouldn’t hate calling friends one day.
Even though Mia was sedentary right now, there was nothing else inside the palace that was – that outside-the-window-scape? Not an empty view. There were footmen and maids and the butler and PR people and bodyguards and her father’s whole crew of assistants, all running around for the biggest PR event of every year for the royal family.
And Mia had a not-100%-chance of screwing the whole thing up.
Look. She’s got a speech. It’s pretty. It’s sweet. Grandmere’s drilled it into her head how to say it with just the right amount of honesty and sweetness without coming off cloying; and it’s going to be on a script directly in front of her. It’s less than five minutes – they know, they’ve timed her.
No one’s expecting her to be flawless – except Grandmere, of course – and if anything, apparently, her stumbling a little will make her seem more like an actual teenager and less like a trained doll.
That’s the description she’s been given in the less-charitable press, by the way. Her “shyness comes off rather genuine, it’s true, but there’s no denying that Princess Amelia’s affectations towards her duties make her seem more like a breathing, life-size porcelain doll than an actual teenager”. Thanks for that, The Sun. Real nice things you lot have to say about a fourteen year old.
Whatever. Nick, Asana and Andrew had all given her the speech – Lionel and Elyssa hadn’t been in the room at the time – about how she’s doing fine, and stop worrying, and she is actually very likable and competent and blah blahblah.
Look, she’s been doing this princess thing fine for the last four months, and yeah, when she was in New York, she wanted nothing more than to be able to just be done with it; but here in Genovia . . . it just feels like everything she’s doing, she’s doing it wrong. Which is why she’s not going off-script. No sir, no thank you so much – it’s the script she’s been given, even though its literally just light-hearted fluff about how she intends to be a good, exemplary princess for the people of Genovia, looking forward to her future being their Crown Princess and therefore the main point of international contact and representative and also the person on whom blame will fall should something-anything go wrong during her reign, and-
Mia took a sip from her mug to try and calm down. Her hands shook a little.
She didn’t want to have to be thinking about this – she’d been thinking about all of this non-freaking-stop for the entire time she’d been in Genovia; a screw-up here and there during a meeting with the Genovian Olive Grower Association is forgivable, a screw-up in front of the ENTIRE WORLD ON A TELEVISED BROADCAST is not.
You know what Mia wants right now?
To really, really be someone else. Anyone else. A normal girl. A normal girl, who gets to spend her first Christmas with a boyfriend with that actual boyfriend – you know, cuddling in cozy sweaters as snow falls gently outside, drinking eggnog and kissing under mistletoe, sharing that good-luck midnight kiss on New Years.
What does Mia get instead? Old dudes. Old government dudes and press releases and photographers and a tiara.
She’d so rather have a Christmas tree.
She’d even settle for it being a real one, instead of an environmentally not-part-of-the-destruction-of-the-ozone-layer plastic one.
Still, silver linings – this is the one-most-important day, and then if she screws it all up, well, two weeks from now she’ll be back home in New York, where she can safely stick her head under her bedcovers and sleep in. For like, one day, before she has to go back to school.
That silver lining is the width of a spider-thread.
;;
Mia breathed – in, out, in, out, in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow and steady. And not obvious, Amelia, for gods sake, you’re being filmed!
Thanks Grandmere. Mia was totally about to forget that fact.
But still. She’s standing here, in the dress that Sebastiano had designed – white with a blue sash, for the colours of Genovia, a square-cut neckline (Sebastiano had been given full creative control once it had become clear that Mia really, really didn’t care) and full-length sleeves and a big poofy skirt like Cinderella’s, all simple-but-opulent, and made of silk so Mia could be terrified of moving around in it anywhere near any kind of food or drink.
So she’s also mildly dehydrated, because apparently water stains silk something fierce. Ugh.
And she’s been standing for a solid fifteen minutes, as her Dad was presented by Prime Minister Motaz, and he’s giving his whole speech and then he’s going to present Mia, and then Mia’s going to give her speech, and then blessedly, blessedly, they’ll be done.
No, Mia isn’t counting the minutes.
She’s trying really hard not to fidget, with her hands clasped together in front of her, and she isn’t touching her hair, where she’s got her tiara in for the first time – the thing’s actually digging in in a way that’s actually kinda itchy and uncomfortable – and thank god, everyone decided not to put Mia in heels for this event, because otherwise her feet would actually want to rip themselves off her body.
Okay, okay. She’s okay.
Oh, shit, her Dad’s – “It is my pleasure to present to you all my most loved daughter, and your new princess, Her Royal Highness Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopalis Renaldo, who will speak shortly with you all now.”
Shit. Mia took a deep breath, before plastering on a smile for the cameras as her dad waved her forward, the photographers and camera-people all hushed – and Mia could hear the applause of the people outside who were watching everything on the giant screens that had been hung in all the city squares and parks in Genovia (the big speeches occurred indoors, so that there was never a risk of a fleck of snow landing on someone’s face as they gave their speech, before everyone moved to the main overlooking balcony to wave to the populace) – and Mia waved to the cameras as she walked to her dad.
He took a second to whisper in her ear as she moved, “Honey, breathe. You’ll be fine.”
Mia didn’t get to say anything back. Instead, she looked out at the crowd of reporters and representatives, and the bright lights that had been set up so that all the cameras would catch zero shadowing.
Mia looked at the prompters in front of her – the high-tech ones that were directly in front of the podium and were clear from the back, so that Mia could read it without any of the cameras being obstructed. She looked at the camera directly in front, and she opened her mouth.
;;
“Well, that was perfectly adequate,” Grandmere said – either it was to Mia, or to the glass of Sidecar in her hand, Mia couldn’t say. “At least you stuck to the script and didn’t go off on some rant about, I don’t know, that Christmas Tree thing you made me suffer through for half a dinner back in America.”
Which – was something that really should have strung – why should it, it was an important issue, and Mia IS right, Christmas trees are necessary for the environment, cutting them down every year just so that they can slowly die in someone’s living room is a completely unjust waste and damaging to the environment, and definitely something that can be curtailed by people investing in plastic Christmas trees that can be recycled after ten years of use, therefore NOT contributing to the destruction of the polar bear’s natural habitat and destruction of the Ozone Layer, and Mia opened her mouth to say all of this to Grandmere –
And was promptly tackled from behind by Elyssa, who wrapped her up in a bony hug. “Mia, that was so good! You’re an awesome princess!”
Which, if nothing else, was nice to hear. Sure, Elyssa was a total optimist (she and Tina would be joined at the hip if they ever met, Mia could tell), but someone telling her she did well was a balm to Grandmere’s words. Mia spun in Elyssa’s arms to return the hug, telling her friend “Thank you!!” with as much excitement she could muster right now – speech-giving takes it out of you, honestly.
Mia heard Grandmere snort into her Sidecar behind her, muttering something about the ruination of Mia’s dress with wrinkles, but guess what? Mia can’t even care right now, because Andrew and Asana and Lionel and Nick all swooped in for a group hug, kind of. They were achieving a bit more decorum than Mia and her girlfriends usually had when they group-hugged, but that was just because there was a bunch of stuffy politicians all in the room judging them.
But then it all had to be put off to one side, so that Mia could go change – there was still the annual Christmas Eve Ball to attend, even though it was already ten at night, and her formal speech-dress that Sebastiano had designed was beautiful, it wasn’t very conductive for an evening of dancing.
Instead, her third-cousin - or whatever distance-relation Sebastiano was – had made for her another white dress, this one with gauzy sleeves and embroidered orange flowers on the bodice, and matching flowers printed on the multi-layered tulle skirt that flew all the way out when Mia twirled. It really was a super princess dress, and the first time Mia felt like she was actually maturing in her role, when she wore it.
Of course, along with the dress-change, she also got to swap her diamond-bedazzeled tiara for a much smaller (and infinitely more comfortable) diadem with close-enough orange garnet gemstomes in it that Grandmere said was commissioned by her great-great-grandfather for his wife on their tenth wedding anniversary.
Mia wouldn’t say she knew a ton about her family’s interpersonal history, but apparently her great-great-grandma had taste similar to Mia’s when it came to jewellery – comfort-first, please.
And after that forty-five minutes of fussing over Mia’s dress, and then re-doing her hair, she finally got to go to the actual ball itself.
Now, Mia’s never been to anything fancier than Grandmere’s dinner parties (she left Mia behind whenever she went to a ball before Mia was a princess, back when Mia spent the summer’s a Grandmere’s France house), and no dance more dressy than the ones at AEHS.
But this is a whole shindig.
The chandeliers are all lit up, there’s flowers everywhere, an orchestra, waiters all going around with trays of food and drinks, and she and her dad had to open the dancing by waltzing together.
Definitely not a thing that happens at AEHS school dances.
But still, after that first dance, it seemed to be the signal for everybody to unclench and try to actually have fun, because soon most everybody had a drink in their hands, and making jokes and the room was filled with laughter and fun swing-music songs from the orchestra and people were bopping along to the tunes on the dance floor.
Andrew tried to have Mia dance swing, which she’s only about half-good at, so she kicked him in the shins a couple times, so Elyssa took over to show Andy that at least one of them could keep up with him; Asana pulled Nick and Lionel into a weird three-person dance while Mia was waltzing with Prime Minister Motaz, Lionel’s uncle, who was genuinely a lovely man who clearly adored his wife, given that she only saw him dance with herself, Grandmere, and then nobody but his wife all night.
One day, maybe, that’d be her and Michael. His prom was going to be next semester – and she was his girlfriend, so yeah, that could would be them . . .
The one person that wasn’t her dad that Mia danced to with real comfort and confidence, though, was Nick: so she danced with him every chance she got.
(It’s times like this that make you realise why dancing was the main exercise back in the 1800’s – doing the foxtrot is a workout.)
But it was sometime around two in the morning that the party petered out – most of the people in the room were in their forties-to-seventies, after all. The old-uns need their sleep.
Come to think of it, so does Mia.
She felt weirdly keyed-up, despite her drooping eyes.
But it was during that last hour, between one and two, when the night truly came to its proper conclusion: you know, that time of the night when some part of you is just like Okay, that was the emotional high we came here for, specifically. Time to go to bed. The one for the Non-Denominational Winter Dance was when she and Michael kissed, that first time. And this was this night’s:
She stepped outside for some of that nice, blistering-cold air, no wind, but snow gently falling the way that only belonged to fairytales and Hollywood movies.
She’d snagged a glass of champagne from a waiter – yes, she’s fourteen, yes she’s not supposed to drink alcohol, she honestly isn’t even really enjoying this except for the fizz, but it’s also Christmas, and a few hours ago she had to stand in front of an entire country (and the world) and not make a complete ass of herself. Let her have it. Just the one.
So she’s standing in the night, right, sipping her drink and shifting her feet in her dancing-heels to try and take her weight off the balls of her feet, and also not risk getting a snow-stain on her pretty princess dress; and then the door opens behind her.
And Mia turns around, right, because technically, she’s not supposed to be out here, she’s supposed to be inside being the belle of the ball, so her shoulder’s are tense up around her ears –
But it’s Nick. He winks at her as he shuts the door, before quietly asking, “Did you not want company?”
Mia shook her head ‘no’, so Nick came quietly up to her shoulder, and they looked out over the balcony onto the palace grounds, at the snow landing gently on the leaf-less bushes and catching on trees in the distance.
“Is it anything like this, in New York?” Nick asked quietly.
“No.” Mia said. She matched her friend for volume – it felt like there was a spell over them, that they couldn’t speak any louder than a whisper, lest their special moment be ruined by the real world, just inside the door. She didn’t make a big shiver, but Nick clearly noticed the goosebumps on her skin, because he shrugged out of his suit-jacket, draping it gently over her shoulders. The jacket smelt a little like cinnamon, a little like that smell that was just Nicholas Devereaux alone.
“Looking forward to going home?” was Nick’s next question. Mia was so distracted with his jacket she missed the question.
“What?” God, if Grandmere could hear her.
“Your trip is half over, Mia. You’re halfway home.” Nick pulled his eyes from the night-coloured horizon where his gaze had been kept since seeing her shiver, finally bringing his eyes to meet Mia’s.
“I guess I haven’t thought of it, really. It’s mostly been Get Through Each Day until now.”
“But everything eases up now, doesn’t it? Your schedule.”
“Yeah,” Mia nodded. “I get something close to actual time off each day now. It’s more like an hour of something chill, rather than rushing from event and meeting to event and meeting.”
Nick made a noise that would’ve been a laugh, had it been louder. “I’ll miss you, when you leave.”
(There was something wry about his tone – like there was a joke underneath Mia didn’t know, but would soon. Mia didn’t notice it until much later, but it was there.)
Mia looped her arm through his, where he’d rested his forearms on the stone balcony, not even caring about the edging of snow and what it’d do to his silk shirt. His body thrummed with warm blood, helping her feel that little bit warmer. “I’ll miss you too. But I’m coming back – Genovia every school break forever, now. And the rest of my life.”
That got an actual laugh from her friend. “And the rest of mine.” He didn’t have a glass in his hands, but he knocked his fingernails against her champagne glass, making that little ting! noise that a glass-toast normally would.
They didn’t really say much of anything else, before they had to sneak back indoors, and everyone started going home.
Mia managed to give him a giant hug – she’d see him within the next week, at the New Year Ball, but she wanted to hug him before then. Nick pressed his lips to her cheek, near her ear. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but his whisper of, “You look really beautiful”, in her ear made something that felt like a kiss-aftershock go through her, and left something warm and soft in her chest for the rest of the night, following her into sleep.
;;
Christmas broke bright and early, and frankly, far too early. YES, it was nine in the morning, that is a perfectly reasonable time for a teenager to be woken up by the maid that didn’t ask for any of this, but
A) CHRISTMAS, and
B) HOW LATE WAS SHE UP THE NIGHT BEFORE? Mia’s fairly certain you can’t say ‘last night’ if you feel asleep during what was very early morning.
Well, for the Too Long Didn’t Read, Grandmere and her Dad were hungover, the gifts were lovely, and the whole day was honestly the nicest she’d had since arriving in Genovia – mostly because there was nothing really scheduled, as Christmas was apparently that one holiday in Genovia (along with Good Friday) were nothing had to happen At All.
The night before really was the Peak of Mia’s trip, wasn’t it?
Well, in that case, she wasn’t going to pitch a fit. She was going to take an afternoon nap.