Rose

“I would be honored to have you as my master. Your highness, Princess Ashfell. I swear I will always protect you,” he said. I’ll always protect you, I thought to myself. Where have I heard that before? And he looks so familiar as well… I was trying to figure out where I had heard those words before and how he seemed so familiar. And then I was suddenly reminded of a boy I met a long time ago.

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I can’t let them find me. I remembered thinking. Then I jumped because someone came up behind me where I was hiding in the bushes.

“What are you doing?” asked a little boy who looked maybe 10 or 11, around my age at the time.

“Hiding,” I replied meekly.

“Why are you hiding?” he asked. He seemed very curious as to my actions.

“Because if they find me they’ll punish me…” I replied quietly and looked away from him.

“What did you do to be punished?” he asked.

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me. They say it’s because of what I am,” I replied.

“Well what are you?” he asked. He asked many questions.

“I don’t know…” I replied.

“Then they shouldn’t punish you if you don’t even know why you are being punished, there’s no point. How can you learn from being punished if you don’t know what you did?” he asked.

“I don’t know…” I replied, and he laughed, which confused me.

“You don’t know a lot of things,” he said, and smiled. “What’s your name?”

“18.”

“18? That's what people call you?” he asked for me to confirm and I nodded.

“That isn’t a nice name for a girl with such beautiful red hair…” he trailed off as he thought, and the said, “I know! Your name can be Rose! Because your hair is the same color and you’re as pretty as a rose.” He smiled again.

“Tha-thank you,” I said to the boy. “But, even if I have a name now, they’ll still punish me when they find me,” I said solemnly and tears came into my eyes.

“Hey, don’t cry!” he said, “Don’t worry! I’ll go with you! If I’m with you I’ll tell them not to punish you anymore.”

“But why would you do that for me?” I asked him.

“Hmmm….I don’t know, I guess it’s because I want to see what you look like when you smile,” he replied simply, and put on a smile of his own. “You’re always seem to be pouting and I want to see what you look like when you smile! So don’t worry. I won’t let them punish you. I’ll always protect you. So you can smile.”

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I realized that he, Edwin Amaranthys, was that boy that I had met all those years ago. But you wouldn’t think that otherwise. That boy had been smiling every time I saw him. But I hadn’t seen the current him smile yet. I decide I would do the same thing now that he did for me back then. I was going to get him to smile.

“Are you alright, Princess Ashfell?” Edwin asked.

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Don’t call me that, call me Rose,” I told him. You are the one who gave me the name afterall. I thought. When I looked at him I saw that he had a puzzled look on his face as if he had almost figured out the same thing that I just had. But he shook his head and went back to his gloomy self. I pouted.

“Are you sure something isn’t wrong Princess Ash–I mean R–Rose…” he asked. He seemed to not want to call me Rose. I pouted even more and then looked away and huffed.

“No, nothing’s wrong. Let’s get going. Into the carriage,” I ordered and he bowed and obeyed. He was going to annoy me with his formalities. He helped me into the carriage and closed the door. After he did we set off towards the palace.

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As the carriage passed people on the street they cheered. I waved and instructed Edwin to do the same. At which point he did so awkwardly. How did he become so introverted? I thought to myself. I made a mental note that I would need to fix that, and quickly. We reached the palace within the next hour.

When we arrived Edwin helped me out of the carriage and escorted me to the door. I led him to the room where he would be staying. Which would be directly next to mine; in case something were to happen in the middle of the night.

“Are you sure this is okay Princess…” I shot him a look and he changed his words, “Rose…? Are you sure it’s okay for me to live here, within the palace?”

“Yes, I’m sure...You have to live in the room next to mine in case something were to happen in the middle of the night,” I walked over to a door with in the room and pointed to it, “If you need to access my room as soon as possible, that door connects directly.”

“But that's…”

“It’s fine, just knock before you come in through the door,” I assured him. I felt a little bad because he seemed so nervous now.

“Yes, ma’am,” now it seemed like he was doing everything possible to avoid calling me ‘Rose’ so I decided to give it up for now.

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After that, the next two weeks passed uneventfully and with no change in Edwin’s attitude towards me. In the second week of him living in the palace I had given him the job of waking me up in the morning so that he would be forced to talk to me at some point each day because near the end of the first week he resorted to walking around the palace aimlessly and avoiding me completely. To give him the task I had to write it on a note and leave it on his bed.

Even when he was given the task to wake me up he did a very bad job of it because he refused touch me. He wouldn’t yell either. So he would just be speaking into my ear when I woke up. I told him that in order to wake me up he was either going to have to yell, shake me, or take off the covers. He chose to take off the covers.

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“Edwin!” I had been searching the entire palace grounds since late morning trying to find him so I could talk to him. I had made it my mission to find out why he was so nervous around me and find out why he was avoiding me so much.

He turned around when I called his name. He seemed surprise and so he didn’t try to get away from me. I grabbed his hand just in case which made him flinch. I was breathing heavily and it took me a few moments to catch my breath.

Once I did I looked up at him and said, “Edwin, we need to talk.”

“Wh-about what?” he said, eyeing my hand.

“Why is it that you’ve been avoiding me?” I asked him.

“What–what do you mean?” he said, avoiding my gaze.

“Look at me and repeat that,” I commanded. He looked at me in the eyes and tried to repeat it but he couldn’t. “Yeah, I thought so. Now answer,” I demanded as I looked up at him.

“I-it’s just...you speak with me as if you know me so well but I don’t know you. I’ve only known you for two weeks and so it makes me really nervous, I guess?” he replied. I could tell he was unsure but I was still a little hurt and annoyed by his words.

“Just come with me,” I said.

“What? Where, wait…”

“Shut up,” I said, and dragged him out to the courtyard. The palace had been rebuilt to be exactly like the old one so the area wasn’t too hard to find. I brought him to a part of the garden where a large bush grew. I pointed to it.

“Look at that bush,” I said, “Do you remember it?” He just looked back and forth between me and the bush confused for a few moments but then he got a look of realization on his face.

“Wait,” he said, “Are you telling me that….You were….That... Girl….Was you?”

“Bravo! Great deduction Sherlock!” I threw up my hands and clapped sarcastically.

––––––

Edwin

During my first two weeks living at the castle I began to avoid Rose more and more. I hadn’t meant to really, it just kind of happened. I was thinking about how she reminded me of someone I met one time but I just couldn’t put my finger on who it was or how I met her. I knew that I met the girl somewhere in the palace when I was little but I just couldn’t remember her name.

My thoughts continued to dwell on it and I ended up completely avoiding by the Princess by accident. During my second week living in the palace Princess Rose gave me the task of waking her up in the morning, apparently she had wanted me to stop ignoring her. I didn’t want to touch her because that would have been rude, and I didn’t want to yell because I might have woken up someone else by accident. She later told me that pulling her covers off would work so I did that.

Until the day she stopped me in the hall and dragged me off to the courtyard. That’s when I realized that she was in fact the girl I was thinking about. The one I had met when I was little. That would explain why she wants me to call her Rose so badly. I thought. And, that would mean I said we didn’t know each other very well when I was the one who gave Rose her name in the first place. I thought and suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized and fell to one knee, “ I should have realized sooner….Rose.”

“I-its fine!” Rose said, and turned away. She appeared to be flustered so I asked what was wrong.

“It’s nothing!” she said and took a few steps forward away from me. Isn’t this a strange twist of fate? The she was a slave attendant when I was a prince, and now that she is a princess I am her knight. What are Royal Switch.

End Part 2