Royal obligations

Fall festivals

Christian was so happy to be able to spend every day with Ella, he could feel their bond strengthen each day and he fell more and more for her each day, hell each minute they were together he fell even more for her. There was just one thing that put a damper on all of this, and that was that he needed to tell her about who and what he really was. He was so afraid that she would get scared and reject him that every time he had made up his mind to come clean, he chickened out.

    The weeks flew by, with an extreme work load of studies that Ella, Julia, Christopher and Christian went through together since they had most of the same classes. Ella and he had almost all the classes together except one, she had finance class he wasn’t taking and he had a business class that Ella wasn’t taking. That meant that every day, except for one, they could spend the whole day together, which they did.

   At the end of September the town had its fall festivals that were a mixed celebration for both the humans and the lycans. For the humans it was a festival of harvest and for the lycans it was their festival to pay tribute to the moon goddess. It was a week-long festival that had different activities and celebrations each day, on the last day there was this big carnival and a dance which all the couples of the town attended together. Christian had never been to the dance since he had only turned 18 last spring and he was looking forward to going this year with Ella. It was just the matter of him coming clean with her and seeing if she would accept him for who he was. He could only hope.

    The tradition of opening the festival was for all the women over 18 to make a picnic basket to be auctioned out to the men over 18. Christian and Christopher encouraged the girls to participate in this event and promised that they would get their baskets. The girls agreed but told them that if they would let someone else get their baskets they would be really hurt. Ella and Julia went to town with the guys to buy the baskets so they would know which baskets were theirs. After getting the baskets and making sure that the guys would recognise them, the girls ventured out on their own to get the ingredients for their baskets. Julia opted to get everything pre-made saying that she didn’t want to poison Christopher while Ella bought ingredients to make cakes and biscuits to put in hers, as well as getting a cheese platter and some jam along with some ciders for them to drink. When the girls came back to the dorm Ella asked Christian if he could help her get access to a kitchen so she would be able to make the basket. Christian told her to wait a moment, took up his phone and called his mom to get her help. Christians mom told him to bring her to their house and she would let Ella use their kitchen. When Christian was hesitant she asked him why and he admitted that he still hadn’t found a way to tell Ella about them, he was afraid she would find it suspicious that they lived in this huge house that looked like a castle. His mom told him not to worry, Ella knew they were wealthy and would not suspect anything.

    Going back to Ella he told her that his mom had offered her own kitchen up for Ella to use. Ella got extremely nervous but thanked him for the help. Since it was Friday and the festival opened on Saturday, they headed straight to Christians home. When they were driving up to the house, Ella just looked at it in awe, telling Christian it was bigger than the whole apartment building she lived in with her mom and 14 other families. Christian just giggled saying it was big, but he was used to it, but added that it was more than just his family that lived there. Christopher's parents had an apartment in the house as well and a lot of it was a common area for them all.

    Once they had entered the house, some servants came to take their coats and told them that Christian’s parents were in the living room waiting for them. Ella looked at Christian and asked if he really had grown up with servants and everything like some royalty. Christian didn’t know how to answer that since she so bluntly pointed out the thing he was afraid would make her reject him, so he just smiled. When they came into the living room his mom stood up and told Ella she would accompany her in the kitchen since she needed to make her basket as well and it would give them a good chance to get to know each other. Ella just smiled but Christian told his mom to go easy on her, to which his mom just smiled and told him not to worry, she would only take out the baby pictures without the ones with him in a bath. Before Christian had a chance to say something, his mom took Ella’s hand and led her to the kitchen.

   When they got to the kitchen Ella once again was in awe of the magnitude of the size of it all, it had 4 baking ovens and 3 stovetops as well as a pantry, counterspace for miles and cupboard space as well. Looking at Ella’s face, Christian’s mom told her that it was indeed something to get used to, she hadn’t gotten used to this until her 4th year of marriage to Christian’s father. She also told her that she was still humbled by the lifestyle he had given her and hoped that Ella would get used to this and appreciate what Christian wanted to give her. Ella just looked at her like she had no idea what Trish was referring to and told her as much. ‘I have to admit that I don’t know what you’re referring to since Christian and I are just friends and I don’t think he wants anything more than that’ Ella said. Trish just smiled and told her not to worry, her son had always been shy and wary of people he wasn’t related to but she had seen how he looked at Ella and from the excessive about of stories about her and what they did together Trish promised Ella that it was something more than a friendship for Christian, she would just have to give him time.

    The baking and cooking took the entire afternoon and before Ella knew, there were some chefs arriving in the kitchen. Ella looked at Trish and asked if they would need to leave because she wasn’t completely finished. Trish just told her that they would take a break, let the cakes cool down while they were having dinner with Mr. Beck and Christian and then they would finish up. Ella felt bad that the chefs got the kitchen all messy but Trish told her not to worry about it, they were used to it on this day since it was one of the few days she was allowed to make something herself.

    When they had had dinner, and the women had finished their baskets it was already half past 11 in the night. Christian’s parents suggested that they would just spend the night there since they didn’t want them out on the streets so late. Christian told Ella just to let Julia know that she wouldn’t be coming back that night and that Christian and her would meet up with Julia and Christopher just after lunch on the lawn where the basket auction would take place. 

    When she had sent Julia a message she went back to Christian and told him that she didn’t have anything with her in order to spend the night, to which he replied that she didn’t need to worry. All she needed was herself, they would provide everything else she wanted. Now he just needed to know if she wanted to stay in the guestroom or if she would prefer to stay in his room, he had everything there and they would be able to talk before they went to bed. For some reason Ella, who had never even thought of spending the night with someone other than her mom or Julia, surprised herself by saying she would want to spend the night in his room.

    Seeing as they were both extremely shy, it was all very civilized that night and they stayed up late talking about everything and nothing until they fell asleep holding hands.