A Fairy Tale Fantasy

His and Her Circumstances

I felt Von's eyes boring into my back as I was strapping my roller skates on. I resisted glancing back at him. When Lance and I arrived at the skate park, I didn't look at him because the weird feeling in my stomach was acting up again and I hated it. I snuck a peek at him though and I immediately looked away when our eyes met. He was staring at me and it unnerved me a little.

After I finished with my roller skates, I pulled my hair into a ponytail. I began to skate around the park, making sure that I give Von and his friends a wide berth. They were goofing around as usual and it seemed that they were ribbing Sid about some girl. Von suddenly looked up and met my eyes and I looked away immediately, almost colliding someone on the path. I muttered a quick apology, my face turning red from embarrassment and turned only to bump into someone else.

"I'm sorry--," I began but then I glanced up and saw that it was Von. "Oh, it's you."

"Let's skate!" he announced before grabbing my hand and pulled me with him.

I squeaked in surprise and almost stumbled but he righted me and pulled me again. I looked down and saw that he was wearing roller skates, too.

"Let me go," I muttered, trying to pull my hand from his grasp but he tightened his hold.

"If you pull your hand one more time, I'm taking you to the ramp," he threatened cheerfully before giving me smirk.

That made me shut up. I glared hard at him and he smirked.

We whirled around the park, holding hands and made only one stop at the ice cream vendor. Von bought me a Popsicle and I only protested half-heartedly. Hey, it was ice cream. Free ice cream. He bought another for himself and we started skating again.

After a while of skating aimlessly around, Von must have gotten bored so he led me to a spot under a tree and dropped his body to the grassy ground.

"Sit," he said, beckoning beside him.

"And who just died and made you my master?" I asked, crossing my arms. I wobbled a little because of the skates. Or was it because I was shaking from nervousness?

He rolled his eyes.

"This could be hard or this could be easy, princess."

Wait, did he just say princess? I stared at him in surprise. He stared back at me with his face void of any emotion. The way he said princess reminded me of somebody, a memory formed in my mind.

**********

Lance and I were playing when he arrived. He looked like he was mad about something but he was suppressing his anger. But instead of asking why, I became excited to play with him, dragging him towards Lance, since the summer was almost over.

"I don't want to play," he mumbled moodily, kicking his shoe on the table I set up for tea.

"Oh, come on," I whined, tugging his hand. "You be the prince again and I, the princess. Now slay Lance, the evil knight!"

His blue eyes flashed with anger but being the shallow girl I was, I ignored it.

"Okay, and while we're at it, let's tie you up in the tree while I rescue you," he muttered sarcastically.

I squealed with delight as he tied me up on a tree in our backyard.

Lance glanced worriedly at him but he just shrugged and they began playing swords. After a while, mom called Lance in the house to do something for her. I was left with the kid, me still tied up on a tree and him cleaning his sword.

"Prince, can you let me go now?" I asked, tugging my binds. It hurt because he had tied me tightly and it was getting hard to breathe.

"Why?" he asked, not looking up. "You're the princess, you should play the damsel-in-distress so shut up until I save you."