(open)

[just_another]

Despite his mother's warnings, Joel has found himself on the beach once again, not far from where he sailed straight into a storm not three days earlier. She would be furious if she found him here, but this is where he feels most calm, where he's always felt most able to think clearly and lately it seems he's in desperate need of thinking clearly.

So much has happened over the past several days and while Joel is completely certain what he feels for Spencer is real and genuine, he's also truly conflicted for the first time in his life. He has duties. There are expectations that have been placed upon him and in less than two weeks time, he is expected to have picked a bride.

That's something Joel knows he simply cannot do.

Walking along the sand, he looks out into the water for a moment, then begins to shed his clothes. He doesn't care how it might look, if there's anyone nearby to see. His fingers fly over the buttons of his shirt and he drops it to the sand. A moment later his pants follow and he wades into the water in only his breeches, pushing through the waves and then diving under, cutting through with strong strokes. The cold water clears his head and he turns over, floating on his back for what feels like forever before he finally makes his way back to shore.

It's as he's dressing again, his pants once more fastened and his shirt half done up that his vision suddenly goes dark. It's like he's under water, he realizes. Shafts of sun cut through the gently rolling waves, but the deeper he sinks, the darker it gets. There's a flash of a shimmering tail, too big to be a fish, too small to be a shark. Dark laughter. A brief glimpse of a beautiful woman with long, black hair. She's smiling, but Joel doesn't much like what he sees in that smile.

She's saying something, her lips moving, but the voice that comes out isn't hers. It's Spencer's. It's the voice he remembers from that day on the beach and Joel stumbles in the sand, only realizing then that he's still standing on the beach. All of this, everything he's seeing, it isn't really happening.

He directs his attention back to the woman with the tail just in time to hear Spencer's voice whisper two words. A promise.

He doesn't know what any of it means, but as soon as it's begun, it's gone. Joel is left standing on the beach, his hands still on the buttons of his shirt, staring off into the waves as if they can give him some kind of answer.

[Joel's an adopted prince who doesn't know he's also a witch and has no idea he's just had a premonition while on the beach anywhere you want to find him. Enjoy? :D]

Comments

[just_another]

"I'm..." Joel pauses, weighing his options when it comes to answering, because he doesn't know her at all and he's learned the hard way that there are people who will take advantage of him simply because of who he is and what he means to the kingdom. But on the other hand, he's never particularly liked being dishonest, even to people he doesn't know at all and so he lets out a soft huff of laughter and finishes buttoning his shirt so that they both might be a little more comfortable.

"Yes, mostly," he says finally. "It's been a bit of a strange week is all. Not three days ago I was caught in a storm on a sailboat and nearly drowned, but was saved by a man currently staying at the palace who doesn't seem able to speak. And just now I would have sworn I heard his voice."

Then he smiles and says, "But such a thing is not possible."

[callmeemily]

She's got no idea, even now, that he's the Prince. She thinks he's a lord - clearly, his clothes are fine enough for him to be a man of station, but the prince-- she would have babbled and wouldn't even know what to do with herself if she'd known that fact. But he laughs, and she can't help but smile in response. There's something about his face that seems kind, to her. He looks nice, and-- and like he smiles a lot, really.

"Oh, goodness. You're alright? From the nearly drowning? It's-- It's very lucky that that man saved you. Does he know the Royal Family?" She thinks, from what he said, that the man's staying at the palace but that Joel isn't. "There's no-one here, maybe-- maybe it was your memory? Or have you never heard him speak?"

[just_another]

Joel huffs out a soft, surprised laugh at that, then feels faintly embarrassed. It's second nature for him to assume people know who he is, which he realizes it quite arrogant of him, especially when he's presented with someone who clearly has no idea. It's a lesson in humility, one he could probably do with experiencing more often apparently.

"He knows me. And now my brother and my parents," he says with a small, embarrassed smile. "I'm Joel." He hates introducing himself as a prince and so more often than not, he just doesn't. "But I am, I'm alright. And maybe you're right, but I... it felt real."

[callmeemily]

She looks pretty confused, when he laughs, and says that the man knows him-- which makes sense, but then.

But then.

'I'm Joel', he says like it's just how you introduce yourself, like there's nothing else about it besides a name, but Raleigh-- her eyes flare wide, and she stares at him, the first thing that goes through her mind is Oh, no.

"Joel. I-" Her voice is a little high and squeaky, her heart pounding in her chest. "I'm guessing that you- It's not just... you know, a coincidence that you have the same name as the Prince?"

Because it's not. Because he's the Prince. She's talking to the Prince on the beach and she saw his shirt half unbuttoned, and for some reason he's just talking to her like she's a normal person that he's supposed to talk to.

Oh, lord. "Did you hear him talk when he rescued you?" Still squeaky, still high-pitched, but she's trying not to show just how thrown she is.

[just_another]

"No, it isn't just a coincidence," he agrees, still smiling, his eyebrows lifting at the squeaky quality her voice takes on. She doesn't introduce herself in return and Joel isn't sure if it's because he's made her nervous or because she doesn't want him to know her name, but either way, he lets it go for the moment. He doesn't want to make her any more uncomfortable than she already seems to be.

"I did, yes," he says and his smile fades a little as he thinks back to it. "He introduced himself. Told me a story to keep my mind off the fact that I was coughing up what felt like the entire ocean. The moment I saw him the second time I knew his name. I couldn't have known that if he hadn't told me, right?" He sounds like he's trying to convince himself.

[callmeemily]

She's bright, bright red - and she didn't even think of introducing herself, to be honest. Mostly because she didn't really know if he'd really care one way or the other who she was, but also because her brain's going around in circles, saying The prince! The prince!

But then... normal. "You couldn't have known unless he told you, unless you're like... magical? But it makes way more sense that he just told you while you were half conscious and you just remembered it when you were more awake the next time, right?"

[just_another]

"Right, exactly," Joel agrees, though the word magical feels familiar in a way he doesn't understand. Little things have happened to him all his life, instances of unexplained circumstances he hasn't been able to understand and so has put away without much thought. But she says that word and it makes him wonder.

The king and queen aren't his birth parents, after all. He doesn't know where he's come from.

"And what is your name?" he asks a moment later.

[callmeemily]

Raleigh just keeps looking surprised - almost every time he says something, she looks surprised, and it's not exactly how she plans to look. She just does, because this isn't really how she'd ever expect this conversation to go-- not that she'd actually expected it to happen at all. She hadn't really ever thought about it, the fact that she could be standing on the beach talking to the Prince, with a pouch of the money she'd stolen on her belt.

"Raleigh," she said immediately - she didn't think to lie, didn't know why she would, but he actually asks her name and somehow she doesn't think it's so he can do anything bad. He just sounds curious, if she tells the truth. "I work for the baker in the village." Chewing on her lip, Raleigh frowns for a second. "Shouldn't you have like... guards, or something? Not that you need them, I just-- I thought that's how it all worked."

[just_another]

"Raleigh," he echoes and nods, committing it to his memory. He may not see her again, but he spends an awful lot of time in the marketplace and if she works for the baker, the chances are fairly good.

She asks about guards and he glances back in the direction of the palace as if he expects to see them. "Oh, well, yes. Probably," he says. "They're likely on their way or will be soon, depending on how long it takes them to realize I'm not anywhere on the grounds."

They know where to look for him, though, and while he knows his disappearing act frustrates them, he has no intention of stopping.

[callmeemily]

Raleigh looks over his shoulder like the guards are going to come over the hill any minute. "I- uh. But- But that means-- I should go, right? I mean- Only if you want me to, I just- wouldn't they think I'm..." She doesn't even know what she'd say. A threat? But she's obviously not threatening. Dangerous? She is, but it's not like that's obvious, given the fact that she looks like (and is, although she's got some interesting... hobbies) one of the baker's girls.

"Intruding?" That's what she finally says, mostly because she can't think of anything else to say. "Or... something. Different? That I'm different, then the people you'd normally... talk to." She's a servant, and it's just still sort of flummoxing her backwards and frontwards that she's currently talking to the Prince.

"Unless you just don't care?" When she says that, it's because she's only just sort of realised that that may actually be the case-- he may just... not care that that's who she is.

[just_another]

Joel's brow creases as she speaks, because she really isn't different at all from the people he's usually with. The palace is filled to the brim with maids and cooks and servants, all of whom Joel has grown up around in one way or another. Even the guards, for all they're tasked with his safety, tend to treat him more as a comrade than a job. The only time he sees royal families other than his own is at special events, which he truly doesn't attend as often as he should.

"Well, I don't," he says. "Care, that is. And you aren't all that different from the people I spend time with on a regular day. I'm in the palace more often than not and the people in the palace are my friends..." Yes, they're well paid to do what they do, but they wouldn't work in the palace if their company wasn't also enjoyed. His mother spends so much time bustling around the kitchen herself that it's practically a requirement to be the queen's friend in order to work there.

[callmeemily]

"Oh." And he says she's not any different, and all she can think is that he doesn't actually know how different she is, given what she does in her free time, but it's not like she's going to actually own up to it for any reason, and instead she nods. "I... I mean, I suppose not, if you spend your time with the servants." She shrugs - she's got no real idea what he does in his spare time, but she's not about to argue with him about who his friends are. "Well, then," she says after just a moment. "I don't know if I'll see you again, but... thank you. For being--" She paused, and then actually spoke her mind, since he didn't seem like the type to mind. "You're nothing like I expected, and that's actually- it's such a good thing," she admitted, her cheeks pink. "So thank you, I suppose."