AND I thought I could do it. I really did. I told myself that the key to a happy Sam would be to handle my problems the way they should be handled. Maturely and responsibly.
So the solution was obvious.
Avoidance. Lots and lots of avoidance.
Now, let it not be said that I never faced certain… complications… head on. Many parties can probably attest that I often found myself in the thick of things, with no real idea as to how I got there (see gay fairy marriages and how every Dark wizard in existence seemed to want me dead). If someone I cared about was in danger, I’d fight my hardest. If I saw injustice, I tried to correct it. I spoke for those who could not, I helped those who could not help themselves, and I tried to be an all-around good person on top of it, regardless of the minor slipups I had where I ventured into morally gray territory.
However, when things got personal?
Well. That changed everything.
I offer the following evidence:
Five-year-old Sam said, “Hi, Mary. Why are you looking at me weird?”
Seven-year-o
ld Mary said, “We should get married when we get older because I love you and you can stay at home and bake pie while I go to work at the mill, and I will have babies and you can raise them because my mom says that we don’t have to follow normal gender constructs.”
Five-year-old Sam said, “My mom is calling. I have to go. Bye. Oh, and I am moving to another country and if you see someone who looks like me after today, it’s not me, just someone who looks like me and is not really me and is probably my evil twin so just ignore him forever.”
And:
Nine-year-old Sam said, “We could be friends. I’ve always wanted to have friends.”
Ten-year-old Monique said, “We can start as friends, I guess. And then you can be my boyfriend. You must tell me I am pretty every day and kiss me on the lips and say things about how you like my eyes.”
Nine-year-old Sam said, “I don’t want friends that bad. My mom is calling. I am moving. Boy who looks like me is evil. Avoid at all costs.”
And:
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Who is that? Is that a new knight? What’s his name? Why does he look like my dreams?”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Oh, girl, you’ve got a good eye. That’s Ryan Foxheart. Pulled up from the King’s Army.”
Fifteen-year-old Sam breathed, “I want to put my face on his face.”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Um. What did you say?”
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Nothing! Nothing. Um. I have to go. Upstairs. To… touch. The walls.”
The hornless gay unicorn named Gary said, “Why don’t you just go introduce yourself?”
Fifteen-year-old Sam said, “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Good-bye.”
So. There’s a history there.
Granted, I’d never been in as deep as I was now.
Which made the avoidance that much more necessary.
And that much more ridiculously difficult.
Because it had been a very long time since there’d been a royal wedding. The King and the Queen had been twenty and seventeen, respectively, so the decades that had passed since then were a long drought for those that lived for such things.
And unfortunately, it seemed most lived for it.
The City of Lockes was transformed into the City of Rainbow Fucking Sunshine Because Everyone Is Celebrating Team Rystin. Banners were hung around the City, the profiles of Justin and Ryan flapping in the wind. Blooms of flowers were placed at almost every corner. Garland wrapped around the streetlights. Vendors set up carts on the roads, selling Completely Authentic Rystin Merchandise (which, shockingly, was not authentic at all and was most likely made in Meridian City by an aging factory worker and was in no way, shape, or form endorsed by anyone from the castle). All the hotels sold out within a day. I hoped Todd and his father were pleased. I spared a brief moment to appreciate the memory of Todd’s ears.