Sofia the First

Sofia x Cedric

By Gabihime at gmail dot com

Confessions of a Teenaged Princess 1/3

(Formerly Strange Bedfellows)

Summary: Confessions of a Teenaged Princess is a story in three parts, this being the first. Sofia attempts to confess her feelings to Cedric with very mixed results. Fortunately, she's not known for giving up easily, even if she has to resort to breaking and entering.

First Things First is a collection of the Cedfia Sofia the First stories all in the same timeline that are all related to one another. I thought putting them all together for easy perusal would be the best thing for everyone. You can see how many parts a story is by checking the chapter title. This also lets you check and see if a story is finished. I'll probably be writing the individual stories all out of order, but I will try and arrange them chronologically in chapter listings. Please do enjoy.

Their first kiss lasted twelve seconds.

This is rather long for a first kiss, because twelve seconds is actually quite a considerable amount of time if one counts it out. The length of the kiss alone might have suggested a positive reception, especially considering the fingertips that brushed inadvertently at the warm silk near the base of a certain princess's spine.

However -

They were in the tower workshop, which she had invaded, as had become quite customary. Sofia clearly hadn't had any particular agenda when she had come knocking. These days it was not always perils and troubles that sent her to the sorcerer's tower, looking for a helping hand, a willing listener, or a serviceable wand arm. In fact, the girl had become so comfortable in the tower that she had left off knocking at all for a while, and had simply let herself in unannounced on more than one occasion. After she had surprised him while he was either dressing or undressing three separate times he had demanded that princess or not, she had the decency to knock before barging into his rooms.

Now she always knocked, although really, it was just a formality. He always let her in.

It wasn't as if he were (obviously) overjoyed to see her whenever he opened the door to her familiar knock. Sometimes he met her with a half-lidded stare and a voluminous shrug, or he waved her in distractedly, his attention focused on something else. Other times he was impatient as he nearly yanked her inside, his excitement burning up as he animately explained a spell he had just completed, or some other unusual thing he had recently discovered. He often found himself starved for conversation when she appeared, as his only other companion was Wormwood, and while the bird was a good listener, he was not particularly talkative.

Generally, Cedric found talking with the denizens of Enchancia castle to be tedious and a dreadful waste of his valuable time. It was the absolute opposite of pleasurable. As royal sorcerer he was required to attend the king, and so he did, but attending the king did not mean he had to enjoy spending time with the king. He had far more important things to do with himself. Things had gotten better on that score over the years, as a helpful sprite had worked her unfathomable magic of goodwill, but it wasn't as if he ever looked forward to a day with Roland II, or the 'responsibility' of entertaining Prince James or Princess Amber.

Of course, in the beginning, he had similarly dreaded talking with Sofia. She was so bright and cheerful, with a basket full of charity, a heart bursting with kindness and goodwill, and a voice like a little songbird: and therefore, she was the most excruciating trial of his life. At school he would have never imagined that any single person might ever surpass Greylock the Galling in terms of sheer annoyance, but Sofia was far more determined, far more intelligent, and far more underfoot than Greylock had ever been.

And she didn't take hints well at all. No matter how unwelcome he made her feel in those early days, she had always been there to tug at his sleeve when she got herself into trouble (or, embarrassingly, when she got him out of trouble. It did not do much for one's dignity to be continually rescued by a nine year old.)

But then, that was the reason she was welcome in the tower now. She was intelligent enough to be worth talking to, she was determined enough to have not given up trying to befriend him, and she had been under his feet for so many years that he was simply accustomed to her. For years he had pushed her away only to find her immediately right back in the spot from which she had been so recently removed. She was like a cat who always finds its way into a forbidden space, no matter the obstacles or consequences. If she found a closed door, she opened it, even without permission. She was always there to help him before he even thought of asking. She smiled and it had a genuine warmth to it. When she laughed he did not find it grating, most particularly because she never laughed at him. She always had interesting things to say, and beyond that she was always willing to listen to what he had to say, to give him her honest opinions, to encourage him when he had a difficult time with things, and to congratulate him when he succeeded.

And she brought him sandwiches.

It wasn't always sandwiches. Sometimes it was a bowl of wiggly pudding, or some slices of apple pie. Sometimes it was a book from the library. Occasionally it was her homework, but she never came empty-handed.

And once she came through the door of the workshop, she was sure to stay for hours, as if she had come through a magic gate into her own private kingdom. Sometimes she stayed so long that she fell asleep in the chair, or on the rug. It was as if she really could think of nothing better to do with her time than to spend it with him. More than once in the early hours of the morning he had looked up from a book and realized with a start that she was still sound asleep on the rug with his robe thrown over her. In those cases he had to fetch the royal guard at once to remove her to her own rooms. He did not dare touch her himself, although he commonly touched her in other situations, and had touched her for years, she was such a regular fixture of his life. He had pulled her out of harm's way half a hundred times, and she really always seemed to be hanging on his arm for some reason or another.

But realizing she was asleep on the floor at two in the morning always caused him to break out into a cold sweat, although he was not altogether sure why. Surely it was not because he was afraid of the sleeping Sofia, whose rosy bare feet sometimes peeked out from under the bottom of her skirts when she was curled up on the rug.

That was absurd.

It was really so absurd that he had stopped moving away from her so quickly when she inevitably stepped close to him in the sometimes cramped confines of the tower. There was no reason to retreat from her. It wasn't as if she was an advancing army. She was just one girl with slender arms and round shoulders and hands like small, live birds. Her warmth moved with her, and sometimes when her hand was on his arm he had a curious desire for her to leave it there.

She was comforting and comfortable, and he honestly enjoyed spending time with her.

And somehow she was also incredibly alarming. He could not say why or how. It was an instinctual fear response that made him want to press himself so hard against the wall that he sank into it, retreating into the old stone. There was something about her that he did not quite have the shape of, and it was terrifying.

And yet he knew It was ridiculous to be afraid of a sixteen year old princess who carried on long conversations with her pet rabbit, although he was well aware of exactly how formidable that princess could be as an adversary. In her years as Second Princess of Enchancia she had saved the kingdom dozens of times and defeated scads of ne'er-do-wells (some of them repeatedly). He considered it generally fortunate on all counts that Sofia had made an ally of him despite his best efforts to dissuade her. While she had the Amulet of Avalor he could be certain of where it was and how it was being used. She really was the perfect safe-deposit box.

He hadn't given up on acquiring the amulet entirely, but years of disappointments on that score had made him somewhat less keen to acquire it. Barring divine intervention, the amulet seemed destined to stay on a certain slender royal neck, unless she up and decided to give it to him one day.

- which was always possible, if unlikely. She was extremely generous, but she wasn't stupid.

While a stupid princess would have likely been easier to deal with, at this point Cedric was strangely glad it had been the troublesome redhead who had become Enchancia's unexpected Second Princess. Although a never-ending source of trouble in his life, she had also become a bewildering source of satisfaction and happiness.

After all, he had no illusions that his family's wand, which was carefully laid away in a painstakingly decorated handmade wandbox until he had need of it, would have ever come into his hands without the direct intervention of the buttercup princess. He simply could not reason with his father, but Sofia seemed to have this miraculous power. She had saved his job and his life countless times, and whenever he wondered why, she was always quick to answer, "Well, of course, Mr. Cedric. We're friends. That's just something that friends do."

Of course, he had very little experience with friends, so it was difficult for him to disagree with her assessment, being that it was not his area of expertise, but as far as he could tell most people who referred to themselves as friends had not shared quite so many harrowing experiences with one another. He did not really doubt that she was his friend, and by virtue of the fact that he really had no others she was certainly his best friend, but he was not always sure that this was all there was to it. She spent more time with him than with anyone else. Anybody who did a simple accounting of time could figure that much out. Surely a girl like Sofia had dozens and dozens of friends, plenty of people both excited and willing to devote their afternoons and evenings to her.

And yet it was always to the workshop that she came, with a plate of sandwiches, a stack of books, or sometimes a new pair of socks.

And he was glad to let her in.

This particular evening she was sitting on a stool, her chin propped on her hands, as she watched him at his work table, fussing with beakers and distillation equipment. He was fiddling with a potion he had recently discovered in a dusty alchemy book in the palace library. The name of the formula was Abscondit Corculilum, and it was giving him no end of trouble.

"If I have understood the notes correctly, it is a concoction to make invisible things visible," Cedric explained to Sofia, who was listening intently. "Which is very convenient if think about it. It's very annoying to have someone sneaking about when you can't see them, and just imagine if you accidentally misplace something important with an invisibility spell. This will reveal it!"

"That does sound awfully useful," Sofia agreed.

Cedric held the vial of teal liquid above his head and let out a great moan, "But it doesn't seem to work no matter what I do," he lamented. "I don't know if I've mixed it wrong or what. The instructions are a bit strange. But watch this, " he said, and pointed at an apparently blank spot on the table, "There's an apple up there that I've already turned invisible with a spell." He carefully let half a dozen drops of the concoction fall on the invisible apple. Sofia saw them strike it, and run down the sides ineffectually, as the potion was visible, even if the apple was not. The potion had not really had its intended effect, she thought. "See?" he grumbled. "Absolutely nothing but a mess."

At this, Sofia got up from her chair and moved around to the alchemy book that lay open on the table.

"Well, let's look at it together," she suggested. "Maybe we can figure out what went wrong."

That wasn't a terrible idea. Sofia was uncommonly clever with both potions and spells, and she often had something helpful to had. Beyond that, she was difficult to discourage. Around the time he was ready to give up, she was just getting started, and obligingly grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind her.

She was already bent over the alchemy book, letting one finger slowly run across the page as she thought about things. He came up behind her and leaned over the book himself.

"This word," she said after a minute, letting her finger rest over a particularly abstruse word in the description of the spell. "What does it mean, exactly?"

Cedric leaned forward to look at it closely and then shrugged. "It means invisible," he answered shortly.

Sofia bit her lip and tilted her head to the side. "Is that all it means?" she asked. "I feel like it's not. Maybe the reason the potion isn't working isn't because you made a mistake and mixed it wrong, but because we don't really understand what it does."

Cedric eyed her dubiously, "I'm not certain of that, Princess. The potion's effect seems straightforward. It makes invisible things visible. There isn't much room for nuance in that."

"Well," said Sofia, shrugging her own shoulders, "Maybe there is. We won't know until we look."

She left him at the table and moved to the shelf where she found a huge dictionary of arcane terms. She staggered a little as she dragged it off the shelf and Cedric had to scramble to assist her before she and the book ended up on the ground. They got the book over to the work table with a little difficulty and soon Sofia was rapidly flipping through the closely written pages.

"Oh look, here it is!" she cried in triumph, letting her finger come to rest on the page. "It says 'something hidden, something ever-present, but kept from view.' That doesn't really sound like something invisible. Maybe like something obscured, but not really invisible. You know when you're underneath some kinds of light, your shadow disappears? It's not really invisible, even though you can't see it. Maybe it's something like that."

Cedric, who had crowded behind her at the book to read the definition of the word that she'd found, was suddenly struck by her idea.

"You know, Princess Sofia, I think you may be right," he said with building excitement. "I hadn't really considered it, but it's possible that this potion does something far more interesting than just reveal run-of-the-mill invisible things. There are other potions for that, after all."

He was leaning over the book again, bracing himself against the table. Sofia was at his elbow, as she ever was, and so quite accidentally one of his arms found its way around her shoulders. He felt her warmth as she moved against him, leaning forward herself, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the words on the page.

"This part," she said with enthusiasm, having put her hands on another mystery, "I think this part might mean 'sense.'"

"Perhaps it's a potion to reveal hidden senses!" Cedric cried in triumph, giving her shoulders a squeeze.

"It could be!" Sofia agreed, turning slightly to tug on the front of his robe. "If it is, then that sounds really amazing. Maybe we'll be able to taste colors, or see music. That would be incredible."

"It would be," Cedric agreed, smiling wistfully, "Thank you, princess." Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he had caught it.

And that's when the twelve seconds began.

The girl already had ahold of the front of his robe, and so she had simply pulled on him gently and risen on her toes -

And she had kissed him.

The brush of her lips was as soft as the silk-velvet feeling of orchid petals against his fingertips, but then it was not so much like holding a flower, but like feeling a crystal decanter shatter into thousands of fragments on the stone floor, because she had the advantage of him. She had caught him with his mouth open slightly and had pressed her luck. Her tongue was warm and curious, gentle but insistent, and the moment it had slipped into his mouth to brush against his own tongue he had lost track of absolutely everything else.

This is how fourteen seconds passed in an exquisitely confused kiss. It was not a magnificently perfect kiss, not the sort that happened right before the curtain fell, to the rise of exultant music. It was a little silly and a little messy, but very involved and deliberate, particularly on the part of the Second Princess.

Cedric, at last finding his feet after extreme euphoria, was beginning to feel very good about absolutely everything in the world, one of his hands coming to settle against the small of her back as she smiled up at him, her face flushed and rosy.

But then there was raucous cawing from a corner of the workshop as Wormwood beat against the bars of his cage and in one moment of pure, horrified realization, did Cedric understand what he had done.

He shrieked like he had see a spider the size of a cat crawling up the wall and shoved Sofia as far away from him as he could, backpedaling rapidly.

"I kissed you!" he yelped in horror.

Sofia shook her head as she took a hesitant step toward him again.

"Actually," she said, "I kissed you."

"Do you think that's going to matter to anyone who finds out about this?" Cedric asked, his hysteria building as he again retreated from her advance, knocking over a stack of spellbooks as he did. "I'm the court sorcerer. I can't go around kissing teenaged princesses! King Roland will have me thrown in the deepest well he can find!"

"You didn't like it?" Sofia asked anxiously, biting her lip even as she continued to slowly advance.

"I don't like being banished from the kingdom!" Cedric asserted with a howl of distress. "And I've worked so hard for so long. I'm going to be thrown out, and then I'll be the laughing stock of the magic academy: a court sorcerer with no court." Suddenly his hands flew to his throat. "What if the king isn't lenient? What if he decides to behead me?! Oh Cedric," he moaned, "You died so young, so full of promise."

"Mr. Cedric, no one's going to behead you," Sofia insisted, "I don't think anybody's ever been beheaded in the history of Enchancia, and you haven't even done anything. I told you," she said, "I kissed you. I didn't just kiss you just because I felt like it, although I did feel like it. I kissed you for a reason. It just seemed like the right time. I've been waiting to do it for a while, because there's something I want to tell you."

Cedric let out another yelp of distress as Sofia again approached him and he scuttled up on the worktable, this time knocking a bottle of violently green fluid on the floor as he attempted to put distance between himself and the slowly advancing princess.

"Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it," insisted Cedric, his voice shrill. "Whatever it is you're going to say, don't say it. I don't want to know. I'm more than twenty years older than you are, princess, please be reasonable."

"That doesn't matter to me, Mr. Cedric," Sofia said resolutely. "After all, 'Age is just a number,' right? That's what I think, anyway."

"Age may just be a number, Princess Sofia," Cedric began in panicked despair, "But in my case it is a very large number, much larger than your number, do you understand me? This is a thing that concerns people, particularly parents. Most particularly royal parents. No one's going to believe that you kissed me, and it doesn't matter anyway. I'll still be excommunicated from the country, the place where my family has lived and served for generations. In the best case scenario I'll be disgraced. In the worst, I'll be burned at the stake for being a philandering cad of a sorcerer who sullied your virtue."

He was on the edge of a loud, prolonged crying jag.

Meanwhile, the green liquid had turned out to be extremely corrosive and was rapidly eating a sizeable hole in the stone floor. While Cedric curled up on the work table sobbing, Sofia rapidly sorted through the other potions on the desk until she found one to neutralize the acid in the smoking hole.

"Mr. Cedric," she said nervously, wringing her hands even as she knelt to pour chemicals into the fizzing void, "I understand that you're upset, and I didn't mean to make you cry. I just want to tell you that I - "

And this at last spurred Cedric to action as if someone had set his robe on fire. He leaped off the work table and grabbed Sofia by the shoulders, causing her to drop the beakers she had been holding into the yawning hole, where they shattered as they struck stone.

"That's it!" he declared, "Get out! Get out get out get out!"

And with no further ceremony or explanation, he shoved her right out the door and locked and barred it behind her, before sliding down it weakly and collapsing into a boneless lump against against the floor, where he lay prone and terrified.