Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 10] Ch. 8 Roles Reversed

[A/n] I had to unpublish and republish this chapter in order to fix some update problems.]

"Wha! Hyde! Where did you go last night?" Minerva swung for me, but it wasn't hard to dodge since it wasn't anything serious.

"Hey, you want to go on a real date today?" I deflected.

That's when I lost Minerva. No really... she tripped and got a face full of sand and I had to go back to help her.

"Pft pfffffft. Yegh, sand. Just can't just... pfft." She spat the sand out of her mouth.

"Hold on..." I kneeled down and cradled her chin. "Say ah." I ordered.

I can't say if she really opened her mouth to say 'ah' or just gaped at me, but I took the chance I summoned some water magic from the air and used it to scoop the sand out of her mouth in one go. I flicked my wrist and threw the mouth water onto the sand like it was no big deal, but Minerva jumped backward with her hand over her mouth while the entire upper half of her body flushed with embarrassment.

With no precedent for such an act Minerva froze and just stared at me. I slowly stood up and brushed off my knees. "As you know, yesterday was a 'for show' kind of date. But I've taken an interest in you." I brushed off my hands and stuck them in the pockets of my shorts as I looked at her. "I'd like to take you on a real date... as myself... and not the grumpy warlock I've put on for show."

Minerva looked both ways and noticed we were alone for the most part. "What are you trying to pull?"

"Look Red..." I pulled my hand out of my pocket and itched my ear. "...I've not been fair to you in a lot of ways. I'd like to make up for it. The mission last night..." I looked at the waves of the ocean. "...just about everything that could have gone wrong, did." I looked at her sheepishly. "We almost lost Julie and Professor Kallit."

"What?" Minerva said aghast. "Are they-?"

"They are okay now, we got lucky." I scratched my ear again. "I don't know how much I'm really allowed to say. I also won't get preachy about turning over a new leaf since that's not what this is."

I cool morning breeze carried the smell of saltwater by us as I looked at Minerva. "Warlocks don't retire, which means I may not be here tomorrow or next week. So just once I'd like to say I took you on a real date, as myself."

"What game are you playing here, Hyde? What do you get out of this?" Minerva asked letting down her guard.

"I get to know you better." I answer. "At this point, I can finally say it's what I want. I want to know you better, Minerva Sudaven."

*

She had agreed to it and as soon as I said: 'it's a date then,' She blushed wildly.

Then we continued our jog and awkwardly talked about what we might do.

I visibly relaxed around her and she took immediate notice. How could I tell? When I watched her running before she was elegantly striding with a practiced grace. Now that we were running together, she had become a giant klutz.

It's refreshing. And not in the 'I'm happy to see her acting like an idiot' kind of way. I was just happy to see this new side of her with uncloud eyes. Julie had healed my heart in more ways than one. All the resentments I had, seemed to have been washed away. I realized that many things had changes for us over the years, and Minerva was no exception.

"Tell me, Red..." I said while we jogged next to each other and she visibly tried to avoid tripping.

"You can call me Minni if you want..." Minerva said shyly.

"Nah... I like your red hair too much." I said casually.

"Wha-" Minerva tripped, but didn't fall over.

It's true. She has really pretty red hair. "It's like the sunset." I said absentmindedly. "Anyway, you want to tell Jekyll something, right? You want to make restitutions or something like it. What have you done over the years in these kinds of circumstances?"

"Well, um, it depends." Minerva said after calming down a little. "Wow you are fast." She remarked. "I started with the maids. I ordered some new uniforms for them. I'd noticed that many had some that had flecks of blood on them, stains, and tears. It wasn't something my father noticed since he spent a lot of time coming and going to help stabilize the kingdom. I stood in front of everyone when the new uniforms showed up from the Cherub's Garden company and personally handed them out and apologized for my behavior."

"How did that go over?" I asked.

"Well it didn't fix everything if that's what you are asking." Minerva answered, then she laughed sadly. "Of course, it wouldn't. I tried to learn as much from Sebas as I could and tried to act like him. I started running in the morning. I trained with the Knights, I studied magic and berserker discipline with my dad. I pushed myself until I was as beaten and bruised as Sebas on that day I almost killed him. I even learned guitar from Cedric. I think that's when things really began to change."

"How do you mean?" I asked. Wasn't Cedric the one she went out of her way to off?

"Well that was about the time I realized I was in love with Sebas." She answered. She was about to say something else, but it was my turn to trip.

"What?!" ... And then the ground.

"Oh no." Minerva turned around and kneeled in the sand next to me. "Are you okay? I meant I was in love with him not that I am any more... I..." she hung her head and slumped. "I don't know anymore."

When I wiped the sand out of my face, I looked up at her and it was like looking at her for the first time. I didn't see the tyrant brat who had ran amuck with little to no supervision. I saw a girl. A beautiful girl. One who was crying because her heart was broken by some selfish jerk... me. One who had finally turned her life around but still carried the weight of her actions.

"I- I'm sorry, I just don't know anymore!" Minerva sobbed "I was in love with him, but now I really like you. I just don't get it." She tried to wipe away her tears with her both sides of her hand to no avail. "He did so much for me, and I was so terrible to him. He tried to be nice and I smashed the guitar he named after his mother. He went through a hard time after Marsanth and all I could think about was how his attitude inconvenienced me."

The gears shifted in my head and in my heart. "Hey, hey, hey." I said as I scooted closer to her. I couldn't think of anything other than holding her in my arms... It was so bad that I couldn't figure out just how to pull off that maneuver while kneeling in the sand. But before I knew it, I had one hand on her shoulder and the other brushed her hand when she looked up at me.

There was no trace of the unrepentant ice that used to dominate the cold blue of her eyes. Instead I only saw a haunted blue ocean of pain and remorse. "Do you think I'm a Devil?" The quiver in her lip reminded me of my one slip of the tongue. Instantly, I couldn't help but feel like the scum of the earth.

I did this.

"Of course not." I answered instinctively.

I'm the one who turned into a Devil while you finally found your Wings.

What a pair we made...