Falling petals

The first Meeting of Lifelong Friends. Part 1

"-ess, -ncess, princess please wake, it's time for dinner."
Sakura hears a soothing voice call for her, causing her to wake from her slumber.

Sakura moves around, she feels something warm covering her to block her from the cold, she removes her arms that where wrapped up well and rubs her eyes that felt like rocks were on top of them.

Gabriel sees the sleepy princess squirming out of Ariels cape, her whole body fully covered by it that it would have been hard to even notice her if she hadn't started to move, she grumbles away, hard to decipher what she is saying, butoby the tone and her furrowed eyebrows, you can tell she wasn't really pleased being woken.

"Dun wanna", she grumbled.
"Please princess, you slept for some time, your going to miss dinner. Are you fine sleeping the whole night with an empty stomach?", Gabriel tries to reason with the sleeping child, and gently shakes her shoulder.

While still being half asleep, she stretches her arms out to him and mumbles a small "cawy me," her eyes not even bothering with opening.

Sakura can hear a chuckle, and then feels someone carrying her, her arms wrap around Gabriel's neck, her head laying on the crook of his neck, and her mind returning to slumber.

"Seems that the princess is a bit of a sleepy head, Haha", Ariel laughed, looking at the princess sleeping on Gabriel and using him as a body pillow.

"It has been a while since I carried a sleeping child, my son has lately been more serious since he has been taking manner and ethics classes." Gabriel had a small smile on his face, he remembers the time he was a child, and a noble one at that, his father and mother were too serious so they had him attend ethics and other classes at a young age.

If he had to remember at what specific age, he was 3. He didn't have time to go out and play, he wasn't allowed to be a normal child, not until he became 10, that's when everything changed.

It was the Crown prince's 5th birthday, he was 5 years younger than Gabriel but was called a genius, a protege who learned quick and wasn't needed to be taught twice to understand. Gabriel was jealous of him, 'his parents must be proud of him, never making a mistake, always meeting his tutors and parents expectations', Gabriel really didn't like the crown prince, even if he never met the young boy.

At the preparation for the upcoming birthday, his parents bought new clothes and made sure it was presentable in front of the emperor, they wanted to leave an impression. Gabriel watched his parents fret about and getting the clothes ready, they worried what present to give that the emperor would be pleased with, wondering what will catch his attention.

Listening to his parents speak about the present, Gabriel furrowed his eyes and wondered 'isn't it the princes birthday? Shouldn't they be worried what he would like and not the emperor?'
But his parents don't seem to notice. They seem to want to appeal to the emperor, since they were just viscounts, they wanted to go higher, that's why Gabriel thinks his parents raise him with strictness and an early education, so he can be bragged about and be treated as their achievement for having such a bright son, but in the end, it wasn't enough for him, they weren't satisfied.

"The prince has full Marks! Yet you ended up missing two or three points for mathematics and philosophy. What must your tutors say behind your back? That you are worse that a baby."
"How can you expect us to happily praise you if you can't even reach the level of a 5 year old."

"A true embarrassment that you studied for so many years more, and can't even get better than that toddler. What would people say about you when you meet them?"