A lavender alicorn sat in the library of his crystal castle. He sat on a pillow, reading one of those sappy romance novels his tailor friend loves to read. Dusk Shine flipped the page of the book, a bit worked up at the current situation in it. The stallion was trying to fix things after he had a fight with the love of his life, but all he was doing was making things worse. Dusk huffed, starting to wonder why he was reading this book again. He always preferred the nonfiction section of the library when he lived in Golden Oaks, and most of his now personal library consisted of it. Anything from history to a book on animals’ mating calls and what they mean. He also had some fiction books, but most of them were along the lines of mystery, science fiction, and historical fiction. His reading for fun consisted of learning something new. He loved learning new spells, but he had already learned all of the spells in his library.
Back to the book in front of him, he started reading romance about a month ago, but he still didn’t quite understand the big deal about it. There were two reasons he continued reading after the first novel he read, and one was because he had already read all of the books in his library multiple times. The other being he had started developing these weird feelings a few months ago. It was whenever he was around a certain white coated stallion. He would feel all warm and fuzzy whenever he made him smile or laugh, his heart would beat faster and butterflies filling his stomach whenever he got close to him. Don’t forget about how his heart would soar whenever he was called ‘darling’ or ‘dear.’ He was perplexed when these feelings first started surfacing. He didn’t know what they were, knowing nothing of love or romance. He may have dated a mare or two in the past, but never a stallion. Even at that, he never understood the meaning of dating, which lead to him only ever going on first dates. Granted, he did have a few books on dating in the self-help section of his library, but those had been untouched until a month ago, after realizing what these weird feelings were.
He took a deep breath, trying to focus back on the book he was reading after realizing his thoughts had wandered off. That had been happening more than he would like over the past few weeks. It happened the most whenever he was reading these sappy romance novels. Seeing as he had been rereading the same paragraph for the past ten minutes, he shut the book in defeat. He wasn’t going to be getting any farther into the book.
“Why can’t I stop thinking about him? Everything I do, even read, I seem to find something that’ll get me thinking about him.” Dusk thought to himself as he stood up, levitating the romance novel over to its spot on the shelves. He shook his head as he made his way towards the doors leading to the hallway outside. Maybe doing some of his princely duties would help him take his mind off of things. Specifically that tailor who lived a few blocks away. That handsome, charming, and dapper stallion.
There he goes again, thinking about him! Why couldn’t he just get him off his mind for more then ten seconds. He frowned as he walked into his study, closing the door behind him. Barb knew that when his study door was closed to not disturb him, so he didn’t have to worry about being interrupted. He sat down at his desk, taking a deep breath as he looked over the things Prince Solaris had sent him earlier that day. Quickly flipping through the papers, he glanced over them. Mainly things that just needed a royal signature. Though, he had to read them before he could just sign, as much as he wished sometimes he could just sign it and put it aside. However, today he was grateful he had to read them. Maybe that would take his mind off the stallion that has been plaguing his thoughts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The small purple dragon stood on a stool in front of the counter, mixing together some gems into a batter. She figured she deserved a small treat after what she had to go through a couple days ago. Her crush had called her over to his home and sat her down. She had hoped with all her heart that maybe he was finally going to tell her that he returned her feelings and that would be the start of their relationship. She had been sorely mistaken.
Barb thought back on that fateful day that Elusive broke her heart. He told her that it was time he stopped leading her on. He had said it swiftly, a look of regret on his face as well. She remembered feeling her heart break, tears appearing in the corner of her eyes as she recalled the memory. She hadn’t been over to Carousel Boutique since that day. She couldn’t see his face, it hurt her too much.
She continued mixing together the batter for the gem cake, blinking a few times to try and get rid of the tears. She started thinking of the pony she saw as an older brother, Dusk. He had been acting a bit weird these past few months. She had seen him start taking interest in a genre she never thought he would read: Romance. Not only was that weird, but he had also been acting different around Elusive.
“He can’t have a crush on Elusive, can he?” Barb thought to herself as she poured the batter in a round cake tin, putting it in the oven. “He has started stuttering and blushing around him. Is it possible? No. Dusk is most definitely straight. Maybe something embarrassing happened between the two or something, that’s all.” She jumped down off the stool after setting the timer, walking over to the table and picking up her comic book. She began to read it as she waited for the timer to go off. Deep down, she knew exactly why Dusk was acting like he was. She acted the same way around Elusive. Well, used to; Now she is just avoiding him.
She wanted to deny that her older brother was developing feelings for the stallion she had a crush on. Maybe that was why Elusive sat down to have that talk with her. He had picked up on Dusk’s new behavior around him and returned the feelings. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her feelings more by just straight up dating Dusk without sitting down and having a talk with her. That would make sense, right?
She hadn’t realized how caught up in her thoughts she was until she heard the timer going off, causing her to blink a few times. She hadn’t even read the first page of her comic book. She closed it, setting it down on the table as she hopped out of the chair, walking back over to the oven and opening it. She put on her oven mitts before reaching in and removing the hot pan. She set it on the counter, leveling the cake and snacking on what she cut off. She flipped the pan over on the wax paper covering the cooling rack, letting the cake slide out and rest on it. She didn’t bother with the cooling process, going straight to covering it with her favorite icing. She licked the spatula off after covering the entire cake, taking a claw and eating the leftover homemade icing. She let out a soft moan of delight from the taste, closing her eyes. She loved this icing almost as much as she loved gems.
Her relishing in the wondrous taste of her icing was interrupted by knocking on the castle doors. “Coming!” She shouted as loud as she could, making her way to the castle doors. It was quite a run, since the kitchen was towards the end of the hall that broke off the entrance hall. She finally arrived at the two doors, opening one of them. “Hello, how may I… Oh, hi Elusive.” She trailed off at the end, looking down at her feet.
“Hello Barb, is Dusk home?” Elusive asked, looking down at the small dragon. Barb muttered under her breath before nodding, holding the door open wider and stepping aside. “Oh good. I need to see if he has a book I need for a bit of research for a line I’m working on.” He said as he trotted inside the castle. Barb silently closed the door behind him. She looked at his flank, trying her best not to break down. His mane was perfectly coiffed as always, his white coat just as pristine as well. Elusive stopped a few feet away from her, turning around. “Do you know where I may find him?” He asked kindly, a smile on his face. Barb forced a smile on her face, hoping he wouldn’t see through her façade.
“Oh, well he’s probably in either the library or his office. I’ll walk you there.” She offered politely, walking ahead of him. She was still wearing her apron, having not bothered to remove it. She kept up her façade as they walked.
“It’s nice to see that you are doing much better today. I could have used your help yesterday, though.” Elusive said as he walked alongside Barb. They walked up the stairs to the second floor. “I was afraid you were going to be an absolute mess and Dusk was going to come tan my hide.” He said, looking over at Barb. “I’m glad that wasn’t the case. Though, I don’t doubt you were a little upset.” He said softly, continuing to follow Barb down the hall.
She stopped in front of the doors to the library, looking in and trying to find Dusk. “Uh huh.” Was all she said in response, her voice indifferent. After her scan of the library came up empty clawed, she continued down the hall, heading towards Dusk’s study next. She just wanted to get back to her gem cake and eat it as well as get as far away from Elusive as possible. They came up to Dusk’s study door, Barb noticing it was closed. She knocked three times before putting her hand down, waiting for Dusk to respond.
“Come in.”
Author's Note
So, this is my first chapter of this story. I already have the second chapter written, but I do hope you, the readers, like this. If there's anything wrong with it or you have a critique, let me know in the comments or in a pm. Thanks for reading!
~ LoLo June
