They walked from the courtyard to the garden.

My kingdom wasn't known for much, but our one pride and joy, was our inclusion of everything magical.

The garden was flush with magic, every plant, every animal, hell, probably even every rock was magical.

A towering flowering bush greeted us at the entrance, large enough to be considered a tree, neon pink flowers the size of your head speckling the eerie dark green-ness. (I had figured out one of the charms of the plant, if you walked inside of it, it would be much bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It was like its own little sneaky retreat.)

Giant butterflies fluttered around it like bees to a hive, the normally gentle and carefree creatures almost looked like guards, the bush their castle.

A pink and yellow one drifted closer curiously and I held out my arm. It delicately perched on my arm like a bird, wings opening and closing slowly.

I turned to the Prince slowly and motioned towards the butterfly and then his own arm.

The path split around the bush, and the elder royals continued down the left one, leaving us behind.

He looked around the garden in amazement. His own kingdom had magical items, but nothing on this scale. He looked towards the princess, calming down on the outside. Seeing the butterfly landing on her arm and her motioning for his, he slowly held up his arm to them.

The butterfly calmly stepped off her arm and onto the princes. It seemed to shift for a second before finally settling down on the cuff of his sleeve. Messa glanced down the left path, the parents long gone. Whatever, she could give the prince a better tour than whatever the Advisor had in planned anyway.

As long as they met up for dinner.

She spoke directly to the prince for the first time since she'd seen him. "Hm, your hair looks like a cloud."

Perfect. First impressions? Who cared about those?

He looked up at his hair. " Thanks. Its supposed to be more of a cold white, not a...cloud white. " He looked down at the butterfly on the cuff of his sleeve, then at her. " Yours looks like chocolate. " He hoped she didn't take this as an insult. Although, he didn't know anyone who would take having chocolate-covered hair an insult. But he didn't know her.

I instinctively curled some of my hair around my fingers. "Oh thanks," I hummed, I spent a lot of time growing it out.

Apparently the butterfly had become bored with the prince because it flew off back to the flower tree.

I began thinking of the next place I'd take him. "Do you like animals?"

" Yes. " He replied with a faint smile. Sometimes whenever he found wounded birds or foxes in the wild, he would bring them home and care for them until they were healed. He also recalled the time a bird died on his watch, and he cried for an entire week when he was 7.

"Oh good." She didn't elaborate any further, instead taking the right path out of the garden.

He followed her closely, careful to put a bit of distance between them.

The path sided up against the castle briefly before slowly becoming a more worn down path of cobblestone and dirt, it wandered away from the castle and into the forest.

After a few minutes of walking through the pines, the trail emptied out into a large clearing. The clearing had a large barn and outside stables, a corral, and a few tool sheds around.

One of the stablehands squawked in disbelief when he caught sight us.

He had just exited the barn, his arms so full of hay he had to look around the pile to see. "Ah, Princess! I didn't know you'd be coming by today." he didn't seem to have noticed the prince yet.

Alexander didn't mind that the stablehand hadn't noticed his presence. He preferred to go unnoticed most of the time anyway, but he shouldn't have to worry about the stablehand. He most likely didn't know he was a prince.

He looked around the clearing, being a bit intrigued.