Sebastian's Web

4)

Sebastian and Arabella's relationship started off pure. They were both the same age, 12. On the brink of becoming a teenager and of the edge of losing your childhood.

Sebastian was a quiet and collected kid. He didn't talk much, which made it hard for him to make friends. The only friends he really had, was Winston and Zachary. The only boys who seemed to crack his cold exterior. Mainly due to the fact that their father were soldiers for the king.

He grew up in an abnormal environment, being the kingdoms heir and all. He walked to the gates of school with 6 bodyguards on each side, employed there by the power of his father, their king.

It wasn't a shock that people didn't treat him like a normal person. People walked eggshells around the young prince, afraid that with any misunderstandings, they would be thrown in a dungeon.

It was ridiculous how scared people were of a kid. It made Sebastian feel like he was a born to be a king, and not allowed to be a kid. He felt pressured to grow up faster than anyone else.

There was one person who made him feel like a kid.

A new batch of maids scurried into the place with their belongings. The king had just fired the last few, dissatisfied with the fingerprint stains on his prized crown.

In walked Arabella Windsor. A petite girl with a worn out green dress. She awed at the castles appearance. And while she gawked at the kingdom, Sebastian was eying the young girl from the window of his bedroom.

"Who is that?" Sebastian asked his best friend Winston. He eyes staying glued to the window.

Winston got up to take a look himself. "The new maids, probably.

The prince furrowed his brows. "A maid? That young?"

The prince was right to be confused. The kingdom wouldn't hire a 12 year old girl, who seemed so inexperienced in the field. Her mother begged to let her daughter help her in the kingdom and somehow they obliged.

The kingdom was huge, yet Sebastian felt himself running into the girl more often than not. He wouldn't pester her, just observe her clean from afar. She was the only girl his age in the kingdom. Like most kids, he left the instinct to get to know her. He wanted to play, like most kids do, but he wasn't most kids. So he didn't have the courage to go up and ask her.

Something as simple as hide and seek, or tag, was a rarity in his childhood. As he watched the girl blow bubbles with her pink bubblegum, while humming along to a song, he wondered if that's what having fun looks like.

Sebastian could have any toy, anything really. Yet this girl looked like she was having more fun cleaning floors than Sebastian ever had.

In a way, he was envious of her.

He was drawn to her. She gave off this aura. He could only describe it in bursting colors and powerful rays. He wanted to get closer, and then he remembered his standing.

He was going to be the king one day, he had more important things going on.

Unbeknownst to him, she felt the presence of the boy almost every time he came to watch her. She let him of course. What was she suppose to do? Tell the prince to scram?

The more and more he came to observe her, the more she wondered why he wasn't off doing something else. She came to understand that he was probably bored, being only of the only kids in his kingdom.

She did it without thinking. Her mom would kill her if she knew what she was planning. No one, let alone a maid, was suppose to approach a member of the royal family.

She wanted to show him something. Something she thought she hoped he would like.

A cootie catcher. She remembered kids in her village showing her how to make one.

With the little time she had away from scrubbing floors, she made one.

The next day she occupied herself with her usual work, waiting to see the boy in the corner of her eye. It was taking longer than usual so she began to give up, focusing solely on getting the prints off the floor.

Sweat began to build up on her forehead from the vigorous scrubbing. She wiped at her forehead with the back of her wrist and threw her head back in exhaustion.

A gasp got caught in her throat as she came face to face with the very boy she was anticipating. The young prince hadn't skipped out of observing the girl today, he merely changed his spot to one higher up.

The boy hung his head over the gold accented railing. He was sat at the very top of the staircase. His eyes widened as his cover was blown. He immediately averted his eyes and got up from his seating position, ready to flee.

"Wait! I have something for you." She called out hastily, afraid he would get away before she could give him the cootie catcher.

The boy froze, obviously perplexed by the young girls words. He turned back around to the girl slowly, and peeked over the railing again. Wary eyes and a cautious stance.

She fished the cootie catcher from her pocket and fixed it into its proper form. She held it up high for him to see with a toothy smile.

His eyebrows creased at the foreign object, he had never seen something like this before. He hesitantly eased down the steps, his eyes flickering between her and the cootie catcher.

He finally approached close enough to reach for it, immediately snatching his hand away once he got ahold of it.

She was surprised at his erratic behavior but nevertheless grinned as he inspected it with visible confusion.

A light giggle released itself from her lips. "It's a cootie catcher. You've never made one before?"

The boy tilted his head at the word. Cootie Catcher? What type of ridiculous name is that? He shook his head no, a frown forming on his face.

The girl pursed her lips before grabbing the toy back into her hands. Surprising the boy, as no one ever took anything away from the prince like that, especially someone who worked under the prince.

"Here I'll show you." She began showing him how its work.

The prince observed the girl, not really grasping the idea of the game but still focused intently on the girl and the way she described the game passionately. His eyes should've been on the paper toy, but they kept going to her instead.

Arabella had to leave the boy once she heard her supervisors footsteps approaching. She shoved the toy in his hands and bid him a goodbye. He stumbled back and watched as she went back to scrubbing the floor.

To say he was interested in the girl was an understatement. He spent the entire night fiddling with the toy he made her. Sebastian truly never thought she would make him something. He didn't even know she knew he was watching.

When the silk pajamas were laid out by his maids he knew it was time for bed. He carefully put the paper toy into his drawer and locked it.

The only other things in that drawer was a bejeweled ring that his mother gave him as a family heirloom and a notebook where he wrote his every thought. The notebook was gifted to the family from a neighboring kingdom, as a congratulatory gift for giving birth to their first heir.

That cootie catcher written with crayon and slightly crumbled paper laid alongside those ever-so precious belongings of his.