Al wasn't in the room when I ca backprobably getting soone to bring us a warm drinkso I hurriedly put on my nightgown and a different dry robe for warmth and sat on a couch by the fire with my hair wrapped in a towel turban.
"What on earth are you wearing?"
I turned and saw Al holding a tea tray complete with doughnuts with a very confused look on his face.
"This helps dry my hair faster. It's a trick from the countryside."
"The countryside sounds like a very interesting place," he said while setting the tray down.
"No hot chocolate?" I asked with a crestfallen expression on my face.
This was tea! Al knew I didn't like tea so why?
"Apparently this kind of tea is ant to prevent colds. I expect you to drink two cups."
"Two?!"
"Two," he confird sternly. "I don't want you to get sick because of your little stunt in the rain. I brought doughnuts to compensate for it."
Alright, I'd accept that. I begrudgingly sipped my tea though my tongue recoiled at the taste. This wasn't the worst tea I ever had but it wasn't the best either.
Taking bites of doughnuts between sips helped. Marcy had made glazed and cinnamon sugared ones this ti. Bless her.
A thought occurred to . "Al, did you go all the way to the kitchens like that?"
"No! I put on shoes and a coat first. A long one. I would never let other people see in my nightclothes," he said indignantly. "What do you take for?"
Ah yes. A palace isn't like a house. One does not simply walk around in their pajamas where the staff could see.
"Alright, no need to get defensive about it."
"Drink your tea," Al muttered.
I complied though I hated it. He sat as far away from as possible while still on the sa couch and drank a cup of his own while looking like a sullen child.
What was his problem? This whole excursion had gone so wrong. I was never going to bring him to play in the rain again.
Eventually I finished my nasty tea and unwound my turban to check on the status of my hair. It was damp but much better than before.
Now was the ti to brush it out so the curls wouldn't be horribly tangled in the morning. I absentmindedly detangled a few sections before the brush was snatched out of my hand.
"Let do it."
I hunched over with my arms around my knees, too tired to argue. Fine. He wanted to brush my hair, he could go right ahead.
"Justif you hit a knot, hold the hair above it before you keep brushing or it will hurt."
He nodded before ticulously getting to work. Nobody had brushed my hair for like this in about fifteen years.
The maids who twisted my hair into elaborate styles didn't usually use a brush as they worked due to the fact that curly hair can only be brushed when wet unless you want a gigantic frizzy puffball.
"Your hair is so long," Al comnted after a while.
"I know, I hate it," I sighed. "When I get out of here, the first thing I'm doing is cutting it."
He continued detangling, pausing so briefly I wasn't sure whether or not I imagined it.
"Why? I think it looks good the way it is."
"It's heavy, difficult to work with, and gets in the way of everything unless it's up. You try having this much hair weighing you down. Especially when it's wet it feels like I have twenty pounds hanging off the back of my neck. Why is long hair such a big deal anyway? As long as it's long enough to pull back sohow it's golden," I complained.
"I suppose I never thought of it that way."
Of course he didn't. Unlike his brothers, Al kept his inky hair short.
"I thought ladies liked having their hair done up."
I scoffed. He had clearly never talked to an actual girl about their hair before. Everybody I knew back in my world griped about their hair at so point.
To be fair, things might be different in this world though since most noble girls wanted nothing more than a titled husband.
"I'm not a lady."
Al chuckled a bit. "You're certainly one of a kind. That's what I like about you."
My heart sunk a bit. Which kind of 'like' though? The last thing I wanted was for this princefor my husbandto fall in love with . That would completely ruin the story.
I wasn't stupid enough to ignore the signs completely, as much as I wanted to. I knew he liked as a person or he wouldn't have chosen to be his coconspirator.
I suspected he liked as a woman because he got jealous, smiled at differently than he did other people, and went along with anything I wanted to do.
How was I supposed to convince sobody who had a crush on to fall for soone else? The easiest thing to do would be distancing myself but I had already tried that and it was a dismal failure.
I thought about what Mariela said before. I was already here. However things were supposed to happeneven though I wasn't supposed to be a part of this worldI ca anyway.
Was it even worth it to try and get things back to how they would have been without ?
Would it be better to just let the chips fall as they may and accept my role in this world as it was now? I didn't know if I could do that.
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