forum || A Fatal Mistake | private rp with gracehustle | stalkers might be concerned ||

Started March 11, 2021 by @PrettyLittlePyro

tune

Ollie chuckled and nodded as the Duchess stood, smiling softly at the person who was almost a mother to him, "It was nice seeing you too, Mrs. Carroway."

Then he was drug to his feet by Lilli and pulled along. He took a final bite of the cookie he had taken before following after her, brushing the crumbs off of his hands. "Where are we going?" He asked with a bigger smile, sparing a long glance back at his new books. He would have to go get them before leaving, but Lilli was clearly in a hurry, and he didn't want to make her wait. Not that he could make her wait anyway. "Off to cause trouble I suppose?"

Wherever they went, he was good with it. It was nice just to be back spending time with Lilli instead of spending his free time holed up in his room, though that was nice as well.

"Of course not," Lilli scoffed, glancing back and noticing that the Prince had a smear of cookie crumbs around his mouth. Without a second thought, she pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped it away. "I would never cause trouble."

She pulled him into the drawing room, where a stack of games, most of them dull and dusty ones like chess, were stacked in neat little boxes. "I need help hiding these around the castle," she said. "Grae loves playing with them, and I want him to have to search desperately for the pieces and not be able to find all of them anyway." Was it mean to do so? Probably. Did she care? No. Did he deserve it? Absolutely.

She was pulling down the boxes when yet another white-haired man burst into the room, panting slightly. He was only a few years older than Lilli and had the typical bright blue Carroway eyes and walked so quietly it was like he was a cat. "Lilli, what are you doing?" He asked suspiciously.

"Out, out!" She called, reaching out with her hand, the shadows following her command to lift a pillow on a nearby chair and smack him with it. "Leave now, before Mom comes! I thought you said you'd distract her!"

"That was until I knew you were going to bother Grae! Why didn't you invite me?"

"Go away, Masin!" She caught an idea, and summoned her power, overwhelming his shadows with her own and forcefully moving him out of the room, walking to the door and slamming it shut. She then turned to Ollie and grinned. "Now, where were we?"

Ollie paused at the suddenness of her action, blinking as he realized she had wiped crumbs from his mouth. Faintly, he felt himself blush, but there was no time for him to process the moment as she pulled him into the drawing room to cause trouble.

He smiled eagerly at the idea of hiding all of the pieces to the games, even if he knew that it would frustrate him to no end to be the one trying to find all of them. Something about causing trouble with Lilli was always enough for him to put aside his opinions to help her. Plus, the trouble would be nothing more than annoyance, not enough to hurt anyone or anything.

As he pulled down a few of the boxes, he heard the door fly open. Though instead of being surprised, he simply turned with wide eyes to check who it was before he went back to pulling down the boxes as Lilli dealt with her brother.

"He's not going to tell Grae what we're doing, will he?" The prince asked as he pulled down the last of the boxes, rubbing the dust from his hands as a light mischievous but slightly nervous smile passed over his face.

"Nah, he wouldn't," she said dismissively, heaving a stack of boxes into her arms, so that her face could barely be seen by the stack. "Masin hates Grae just as much as I do, if not more. Bothering him is the one piece of joy in our lives." She pitched her voice high at the end, filling it with tearful emotion, although when her face peeked out from behind the boxes, she was grinning.

"Come on," she said. "Grab the games. We need to go before he gets back, or Mom finds out."

When she opened the door with a little bit of shadow magic, Masin was gone. She already knew that of course, but it was still a relief. "Do you still remember the layout of the mansion?" She asked Ollie.

"He seems about as lovely as my sister," Ollie joked back, cracking a grin and making a face at the thought of his older sister. Technically, she was going to be the Queen eventually, but to him she was nothing more than an annoying older sister who he enjoyed bothering.

Obediently, he picked up his stack of games, rolling his eyes at her question. It may have been years since he had last been at the mansion, but he had spent more than enough time in it as a child; the map of the place was practically burned into his memory. "I do, don't worry. It's been a while but it hasn't been that long."

Following her out of the room, he kept a close watch every direction, looking back and forth almost worriedly whenever there was a noise that sounded even vaguely like one of her brothers. It didn't take him long to find the first place to stash game pieces, inside a container that looked vaguely vase-like sitting in one of the many hallways. The pieces were small and weren't visible in the slightest in the container. A success for the start.

"It's been like half your life," Lilli joked, although it had felt that long. She was feeling immensely happy; she was with her best friend again, she was home, she was doing something Grae would hate, and she was back to her old tricks. It was just like old times, and she felt like nothing had changed.

Except for the fact that Ollie was taller than her, now. Which wasn't fair.

And the shadows, came the whisper from her mind, that she ignored.

She ran through the hallways, her slippered feet making no noise on the floors. She danced over the creaky section of one of the older staircases, spilling pieces from her brother's games all over, hiding them behind suits of armor and in flowerpots and under draperies. She barely restrained a giggle as a guard passed, looking warily at her. He couldn't prove she was doing anything wrong, but he knew of her previous reputation.

She had emptied the boxes, and was heading back to the game room, when Masin ran into her, looking panicked. "Dad is here," he whispered, eyes wide.

She swore, in a very unladylike way, and hurried to put the boxes away. Everything needed to be perfect, or else she would be in soooo much trouble, before she had even seen him longer than thirty seconds.

(Thank you!!)

Ollie hurried through the hallways, arms full of pieces that he hid throughout the home in any place he could find. It didn't take long before he was on his way back to the game room as well, arms full of empty boxes. A half-grin sat on his face as he neared the door, completely oblivious to the panic of his best friend.

Nudging the door open with his hip, he opened his mouth to speak, only to pause in his step when he saw Lilli frantically putting the boxes back. "What's going on?" He questioned, following her lead without waiting for much of a response. It had been too long for him to remember exactly where all of the boxes went but he did his best to put them back, even if it required some of the boxes to be tipped or shoved in completely wrong spots.