“I’m going to check on the flowers,” Ray called as he saw his father hurrying towards him.

King Anthony gave an approving nod, then hurried off in another direction, the tails of his jacket fluttering behind him. Ray would never understand why his father was so obsessed with party planning. They had a royal party planner! Of course, he always complained that the king would never let him do his job, so even he didn’t know why he was hired.

“When I’m king, I will let the royal planner take care of everything,” Ray muttered. 

All week he had been avoiding his father as much as he could. He was running out of excuses! And people to piggyback on. The head of the Royal Guard had gotten sick of him after just two days. The head gardener kicked him out after he had pulled up some of the lilies. They were just barely starting to sprout! How was he supposed to know they weren’t a weed? His siblings thought his situation was hilarious, so they were certainly no help. And his father had already told all of the council members that he was to be on party preparation duty, so that option was out, too.

“We live in a freaking huge castle! You’d think there’d be more to do!” Ray threw open the garden doors as he loudly voiced his frustration.

“That is not language becoming of a prince,” one of the newer fairies piped up from the flower he was lounging on.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not be a prince right now, thank you very much.”

Ray stomped deeper into the fairy garden. Maybe he could find Lara and get an update on her search. Or find out how he was supposed to know who she had found. The ball was only a few days away and he had yet to see the bubbly fairy.

The deeper he went into the garden, the calmer he became. He looked among the lilac bushes, but all he found was a group of fairies tuning tiny instruments. They hadn’t seen Lara recently, either.

The alliums were another bust. A fairy family was teaching their kids how to make flower crowns from the plentiful, tiny blooms that made up each of the purple flowers. Ray didn’t dare interrupt them. Child fairies were so skittish.

Among the pansies, Ray interrupted a fairy designing a new dress from the multicolored petals. She was not happy with the interruption, so Ray wasn’t sure if she had actually seen Lara or not. He would rather not push the fairy further. Her pink skin had begun to turn red and it was rather alarming.

Finally, Ray came to Lara’s favorite spot for late spring; the bleeding hearts. Ray laid his head on the ground to get a good look under the bushes, but still he did not see Lara.

“Lara! I need you,” Ray called. “I’m starting to worry! Are you even back yet?”

Ray rolled onto his back as he waited for an answer. Lara wasn’t known to be the quickest to respond to being called. She came when she was ready. Ray pushed his dark blonde hair off of his forehead as he pressed his palms into his eyes. He tried to relax. He focused on the feel of the grass against the back of his neck. Tried to identify the birds by their calls. He even tried matching his breath to the breeze. But nothing was working.

Deeming that he’d waited long enough for Lara to show up, Ray slowly rose to his feet. He took his time brushing the small specks of dirt off the knees of his blue trousers. Trying to give Lara as much time as he could, he took off his matching blue vest to shake off any blades of grass that may have stuck to it. With no hint of Lara, Ray accepted defeat and shuffled back through the gardens and into the palace.