🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕 Trails of bright red stain his white doublet, the same shade that stains his smiling lips. His smile is not that of a prince, but that of a boy, which I often forget he is too. Koen puts his goblet down with a clatter, and stands. He towers over me, steps closer, catches my hand in his own. He raises it above my head, guiding me into a twirl. When I’m spun back to face him, a devastating smile paints his face. “Come on, Mae.” He whispers, cloudy eyes pleading. A step closer, and he’s closing the distance. “You’re.. intoxicated.” I mutter, though I’m finding it hard to muster any real bite. “I’m no more foolish drunk than I am sober, I’ll have you know.” There’s a certain slur to his words that sounds jarringly casual, and it has my insides fluttering. “Simply.. less concerned with the repercussions of what I do.” Those eyes of his gleam like molten gold in the candlelight of this room. I almost protest when his hand meets my waist, pulling us into a dance. On muscle memory, I follow, keeping up with steps that I must have rehearsed a hundred times over at the academy. “You know how to dance?” I ask, amused. “Heart, you forget I am a prince; of course I can dance.” With another crooked grin, he’s twirling me, then dropping me into a dip that has my stomach tumbling, and my hands fumbling, grappling for his shirt. He catches me-of course- not before ensuring my heart rate has significantly spiked. He knows what he does to me- knows what he’s doing to me- I see it on his face. He leans down, presses his wine-stained mouth to mine in a fleeting kiss that has me more breathless than I’d like to admit. “Koen-“ I scold, but he’s laughing. It’s a sound so light, so delicate and rare and sweet- how I wish to bottle it and indulge in it over and over- and I suddenly don’t know what I was scolding him over. If a bottle or two of liquor and some dancing (at my expense) was all it took for him to laugh like that, I find that I would make this a habit.