There were, Regina realized as she crammed herself on top of Prince Artem in an ornamental bush, a lot of ways two bodies could fit together… and all of them seemed to be very uncomfortable.


    Regina had not been this close to another person since her sister’s death, but she was discovering that trying to find a way to stay within a hedge and not get jabbed by one of Prince Artem’s sharp body parts was a more challenging exercise than she had expected.


    “I am honored, my lady,” said Prince Artem, now a very becoming shade of pink, “but even if I am also too enchanted by you to care about the consequences, perhaps we could join together somewhere other than a bush-”


    “Be quiet,” said Regina.


    Prince Artem was instantly quiet.


    Regina precariously balanced herself above his surprisingly firm chest, barely daring to breathe as the footsteps grew louder and louder…


    …and suddenly stopped.


    Through the very thin veil of the neatly manicured bush, Regina could see some very expensive shoes, clustered mere feet from her face.


    “Where is she?” said a very distinct whine that Regina recognized as the watery blond who had been trying to lure her out to the garden in the first place.


    An annoyed low voice replied, “Well you were the one who said that someone told you they had seen the country miss leave and you claimed she had fallen for your charms and obeyed you, even if belatedly. It appears Lady Regina obeys you just as well as your horse and dog.”


    “You leave Honeypuff alone!” cried the watery blond. “My valet was specifically marking the back exit and he knows better than to lie to me!”


    “That is even worse for you,” said the low voice. “We could have sent out Cousin Enid who would have done exactly what we needed if she knew what was good for her. You were the one who insisted that the stupid country girl would be fool enough to go smell the flowers near Artem and it was worth the risk to have him ‘compromise’ his brother’s intended.”


    “She was that foolish,” said the watery blond in distinct irritation. “She did not even know how to enter a door! The only reason she was slow to exit was because she was too stupid to find the back entrance!”


    Even in the midst of her dawning horror, Regina was rather impressed by the watery blond’s level of self-confidence. She wished she could have spent her life convinced that everyone else in the world was too stupid to breathe. It would have saved her a great deal of stress.


    Before she could process that thought, Regina involuntarily swallowed a gasp as the steps somehow drew even closer to the bush.


    “Look you fool,” said the lower voice menacingly. “Either this country idiot has vanished into thin air or she somehow warned that greater fool, Artem, and the two of them managed to escape past the sixteen servants we have stationed around every possible exit. Neither of which is possible!”


    “However,” the voice continued, as the hairs on the back of Regina’s neck started to stand on end, “do you know what is possible?”


    The man took another step and Regina realized that if she moved even slightly she would roll right onto his shoe.


    “There is no unmarked exit,” the man continued slowly, almost musingly, “but there are a lot of obscure… corners in this garden where two fools might attempt to hide… and if dear Cousin Artem has found a little nook to conceal himself and a very foolish lady… Well, that is exactly the kind of compromise we are looking for anyway, is it not?”


    While Regina knew she was an inbred shut-in with little knowledge of the wider world, she was unfortunately well acquainted with the notion of family that would murder you as soon as it became expedient.


    As she carefully looked down at Prince Artem, the resigned look on his face showed that he seemed to know it also.


    ‘I suspect,’ Regina grimly realized, ‘that these ‘cousins’ of Prince Artem are the non-royal Alpins who wish to disgrace him for political reasons… and want me to be their tool. Yet I will be damned if I let that happen, especially when my own family will destroy me for getting caught up in an Alpin conspiracy!


    ‘Yet what am I supposed to do?’ Regina frantically wondered as she heard more probable Alpin ‘cousins’ begin to enter the clearing, bickering with one another as they began to investigate the garden. ‘Neither the prince nor I can defeat all these people and the exits are all guarded. Yet if all we do is sit in this hedge, they will find us eventually. How can I get out of this mess?!’


    That was Prince Artem minutely shifted and one of the glittering brooches on his chest caught the sparse light… and gave Regina an idea.


    After all, even Regina knew that the royal Alpin family were renowned for their ability to use metallurgic magic to shape and even create metal as they liked. In other words, they could move and summon metal at will.


    So what if Regina could use Artem’s ability to create and manipulate jewelry to save their hides…?


    Since Regina knew she could not speak without alerting all the lesser Alpins who might be near, she instead grabbed at the shiny brooch on Artem’s chest, biting back a hiss as she felt it slightly tear into her skin.


    Prince Artem’s eyes went wide and then, to her confusion, he puckered his lips up as if he were anticipating a slice of lemon cake.


    Though she sympathized with his hunger pangs - after all, Regina had spent the day fueled by nothing more than the white of an egg and sheer fear, Regina responded by yanking off his strangely sharp brooch…


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Then as carefully as she could, Regina began to mime what she wanted him to do while mouthing her words to him.


    ‘I want you,’ she told him through exaggerated lip movements and much smaller hand gestures, ‘to send your brooches over to some of our pursuers so that they seem to have caught you. If your other ‘relatives’ believe that you are already caught but their ‘cousins’ will not share you with them…’


    There was something that seemed almost to burn in Prince Artem’s eyes as Regina drew a line across her neck.


    ‘They will turn on each other… leaving us to make our escape.’


    Regina had never previously tried to explain something to someone by mouthing and wiggling her fingers, so she was a little concerned that Prince Artem would misinterpret her and do something that would get them both in trouble.


    In fact, even with what she had asked for, a brooch flying through the air would be instantly visible to the mass of apparent Alpins outside, who all seemed to be muttering darkly about ‘Cousin Artem’.


    Regina had never previously wondered if someone else could have as bad a relationship with their family as she did, but before she could feel too much sympathy for Prince Artem, he flicked his wrist in a surprisingly confident gesture and the brooch started to… scuttle across the ground, slowly and almost imperceptibly.


    He even appeared to have done something to keep it from shining in the already lowered evening light and Regina watched with bated breath as it reached a pair of shoes and then started nimbly proceeding up the leg.


    It was soon out of sight, but less than a handful of seconds later a familiar deeper, menacing voice said “Ouch! Which of you fools tried to prick me?”


    “Prick you?” said the watery blond, “What are you-”


    There was a sudden ominous silence.


    “Oh I see,” said the watery blond, suddenly sounding less whiny and more menacing. “I see!”


    “You see what?” said the deeper voice, still sounding annoyed.


    “You think I am too great a fool to realize your game?” said the watery blond. “To not realize that you plan to take the credit for discrediting Cousin Artem and thus put yourself as the best candidate to move into the direct line for the throne?”


    “How-” said the deeper voice in what seemed like genuine shock, as a murmur of Alpins rose around him.


    “You did not conceal Artem’s brooch in your pocket well enough, cousin,” said the watery blond. “I do not know where you have stored him with that girl to ‘discover’ them yourself once you have sent the rest of us on a wild goose chase, but I at least will no longer be fooled!”


    Regina’s eyes widened as she realized that Prince Artem had not only implemented her plan, but done it in the most effective way possible.


    “What?” said the lower-voiced man, interrupting Regina’s thoughts. “What are you talking about?”


    There was a brief rustling noise and a sudden savage yell.


    “You fools,” said the lower-voiced man. “I have never touched one of Artem’s brooches. This means that Artem is close by, watching us. He is trying to make us fight one another so he can escape! If we move now, we might quickly surround him and the girl!”


    To Regina’s horror, she started to see a distinct body shape start to loom over the bush, almost within sight range of the face and she started to pull even closer to Artem, prepared to scratch out that Alpin monster’s eyes if necessary when-


    -the body suddenly disappeared.


    “Do you think,” said the watery blond, a strange menace added to his whine, “that we will let you fool us once more?”


    There was a muttering of agreement around him and Regina held her breath as the feet started moving.


    “Come cousins,” said the watery blond, “let us take our dear cousin away from this place and see what other ways he has betrayed us. Cousin Artem can wait for another night.”


    Just as Regina thought she could breathe again, suddenly the dark shape was right over top of the bush once more, looking directly down at her.


    “I will not be held back by you fools,” said the wild-eyed face above her, so close that Regina knew he would notice her within seconds. “We have spent months looking for an opportunity and I will not let you destroy it.”


    As he started to reach into the bush, Regina braced herself --


    Only to be shocked when there was a brief flash of light and the man above her stiffened and fell backwards.


    “Another brooch,” said the sneering watery-eyed blond. “You cannot even make your own, so your greed meant that you could not hide your treachery. Now, you even pretend to have fainted, you traitor. You just spared us the effort of trying to determine how to sneak you out of the party. We will just tell them that you were in your cups… Let us see if you ever get out of them again!”


    With that, there was the sound of people hoisting the body and the footsteps retreated from the garden.


    ~?<big>?</big>?~


    For quite a while after the Alpin ''cousins'' left, Regina lay in the bushes, still dazed.


    “Er…,” said a very soft, hesitant voice below her. “Perhaps we could, um… find a place to embrace where there is not a large stick poking in my back?”


    “Oh you have one poking you too?” said Regina absentmindedly, only to be surprised by the fact that Prince Artem could somehow turn even more pink. “Well, I suppose that is better than the other things I could be poked with… although I do wonder how you managed to get a stick on top of you that could poke me .”


    Prince Artem’s blush was suddenly incandescent, so much so that Regina was halfway afraid he would become like his scapegoat ‘cousin’ and ‘faint.’


    Deciding she had had enough trouble for the night and deciding that the gardens were finally Alpin-cousin-free, Regina sighed and began creeping out of the hedges carefully.


    By the time she was done, her beautiful white dress was covered in enough dirt to disgrace the expensive lace that her father must have agonized over purchasing.


    “I wonder,” Regina dryly said after she poked her fingers through a gaping hole in her dress, “if I can send that watery-eyed cousin of yours a notice that he needs to repay me for my trauma and pain, as well as my poor sleeves.”


    Yet even as Regina sat covered in leaves, dirt, and small things that she did not want to examine too closely, she realized something.


    She realized she did not want to die, even if it meant crawling into hedges for the rest of her life.


    Yet before Regina could formulate any sort of plan for survival... she found the prince kneeling before her and clasping her hands in his own.


    "You are my savior!" said Prince Artem, showing an... understanding of the situation that Regina was not expecting without a several hour explanation, probably with diagrams.


    “Uhm,” Regina said before she snapped to her senses and added, “I mean – yes! Obviously!”


    “Yes,” Prince Artem joyously cried, “for you have helped me escape yet another of Cousin Randolph’s boring entrapments! In fact, this is the first time someone has ever tried to entangle their body with mine to avoid entrapping me!"


    Before Regina could even begin to make sense of his words, Prince Artem continued with a presence that somehow sparkled even more than it had been before the attempted entrapment.


    "Your rescue was just like when Mother saved Father, minus the snake and the knives and with many added leaves! This… this means you truly do love me!”


    Unsure of what to do, Regina just shuffled awkwardly.


    “You need say no more,” Prince Artem responded. “I know it is difficult to speak openly of such passionate feelings. But my lady…”


    Prince Artem pressed a tender kiss to Regina’s fingers that sent a spark through the rest of body.


    “You are brilliant and amazing and I have never been wooed before but it is just as amazing as Father said it would be and I cannot possibly begin to repay you unless-"


    That was when Regina discovered the answer to all her problems.


    "Unless," said Regina, slowly smiling at the man gazing soulfully at her, "I tell you just what kind of payment I need."