[Mousen]

What was it with museums and columns?

Come to think of it, he'd never seen a museum that was without at least a couple of columns. Was it standard? For instance, when designing a new museum were architects given guidelines for how many columns there had to be? Was it some sort of unspoken law that museums had to have columns? Would they be shunned by other museums for a lack of columns?

Oh good lord, he knew it had been a bad idea to get there fifteen minutes early. Sure, casually leaning against one of the museum many, many columns was looked good, but Kingsley James had clearly overestimated the amount of patience he had. The dark-haired man was currently sat on the steps of the impressive building, looking a little bored. This was far too much effort for a woman he'd never met, though this Mikayla girl he was meeting was actually supposed to be royalty. ...How did you address princesses when you were going on blind-dates with them? Kingsley supposed he was just going to have to cross that bridge when he came to it, he just hoped that she had at least a vague interest in history, or the both of them would bored stiff. It wasn't that Kingsley didn't like history, far from it, he rather enjoyed looking up stories about old dukes and that sort of thing. It was just that he didn't particularly see the need to spend hours looking at fragments of old plates.

Coming from Kingsley's household you didn't have much of a choice when it came to history. You had to live history, speak about history, dig it up from out of the attic while looking old kitchen gadgets and most importantly stop history from falling apart around your ears, well, you did when you could be bothered. The James family had built a regency manor house a good two-hundred years ago. Now, there was more leaks than roof and someone had stolen half of their fireplace. (The reason why someone would steal half a fireplace was beyond all of them though one of the Great Aunts had eventually suggested it was something to do with the economy.)  Still, he was looking forward to the day, he was interested in the person he was set to meet and it wasn't often that Kingsley found people interesting. Quite often he found them irritating or inconceivably stupid  or weak-minded or just plain boring, but interesting was a rarity.

((Apologies for the wait, I'm not entirely happy with my post but hopefully it's okay. ))

[Jaykobell]

She was not sure what was worse. Being stuck on a boring terrace of a café, or being stuck in a boring museum that held absolutely no interest to her. She figured the latter; in a café, she could order drinks and food, at the very least. Here, there would be nothing to keep her entertained in the slightest.

Oh, but wait, how silly of her. She was here to meet a man. How foolish to think this meeting could be anything but boring, uninteresting, and most of all, a complete disaster. She had to admit she wasn't feeling up to it today; the idea to be an unbearable brat again was really getting old. But how else was she supposed to turn them all away? All she could hope was for her pest-like reputation to go around enough so that men stopped trying. Regardless of her reputation, however, the princess knew quite well that her mother the queen would never run out of ideas. Oh, how she would never give up on trying to find the perfect white knight in shining armor for her little heir.

Ridiculous. Where was she? Ah, yes; the museum, where she had to find this supposed man. She took a look around the place; she had a very vague description of the man, but after scanning the area, she eventually caught a glimpse of one man who seemed to match the description she had been provided. Of course, there was no way to ever be certain; and of course, she didn't want to be the one to start the conversation.

An idea came to her; despite noticing the man who seemed to be her blind date, she ignored him entirely and made her way towards the first exhibit she could find. Some uninteresting artifact from some boring ancient civilization: perfect. It would fool anyone into thinking she was a boring, air-headed geek. With some luck, the man would not notice her, would lose his patience, and then she could go back home and say that the guy never showed up.

She only had to cross her fingers that it would go that way.

[Mousen]

At one point, Kingsley could have sworn that he saw someone who resembled the woman he was supposed to meet. He stood up and looked around to see if he could catch sight of her again in the relatively small crowd that walked around the square the museum was situated on, but no such luck. He waited a further five minutes, and part of him wondered if he'd missed her and another was resolutely refusing to accept the possibility that he might have been stood up. Kinglsey James was not the sort of person that got stood up, he stood people up, that was how it worked. Eventually, he slipped inside the museum doors and spoke to the bored-looking woman at the front desk. "Hello," he began, "Now, do bare with me a second, but I don't suppose you've seen a young woman, have you? I'm supposed to be meeting her here..."

And so a few moments later, Kingsley found himself by the very fragments of pottery he wasn't interested in, mere feet away from someone who looked suspiciously like the girl he was supposed to be meeting for the blind date. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you are Mikayla, aren't you? And if you aren't, are you aware that you may have a doppelgänger, or be one of a set of twins that were separated at birth. If it's the latter, you're probably royalty and does this mean that I get half of the kingdom?" He asked with a slight smile. Kingsley was being horribly cheesy, whether or not fact that he was completely aware of how he sounded made it worse, it was impossible to say.

[Jaykobell]

So far, everything was working according to plan. She sometimes glanced over her shoulder to make sure the man she'd seen hadn't found his way inside. Unfortunately for her, her hairstyle was fairly uncommon and so, it was easy to spot her, even in a big crowd. Sure, people could have curly hair, but people with straight hair that was also so distinctively curly? Unlikely.

And sadly, she soon found herself face to face with the man she was supposed to meet. He knew her name, and so, Mikayla figured that she would have no choice but to interact with him and play along with this blind date. Time to get all the subtle brat clues going.

Immediately she turned to him, eyes cold, and she turned her attention to a pocket watch that she slipped out of her pocket. A gimmick she always did when first meeting the man. It wasn't about him being late — it was solely to give him the impression that he was late. It always enough to make them doubt themselves about the time they'd been given. Mikayla often got to the meeting place way too early just so she could afford to pull off that gimmick every single time. No charming princess liked a man who wasn't punctual.

She was about to tell Kingsley how he had kept her waiting, but his words burned her nerves and patience faster than a raging forest fire. She honestly wasn't surprised that he was after the kingdom, but she had to admit none of them had ever been that straightforward about it. Her brown eyes narrowed and shot daggers at the man in front of them. "And I suppose that you are... sir Idiocy?" she answered harshly, looking clearly irritated, but her voice spiting those words harder than some blunt object to the face, blunt and stern. "If you are so foolish as to think I would give even one inch of my kingdom to someone as ridiculous as yourself, I believe this meeting was already over yesterday." Kidding or not, Kingsley had given Mikayla the perfect opportunity to be unbearable pest right from the start. Some of them really made the job easier.

[Mousen]

Well, that hadn't gone to plan at all. If Kingsley was being honest with himself, he'd been expecting a giggle or a sort of look that was half disapproval and half amusement. Still, he didn't seem put off in the least with the snub. "Deepest apologies, shall I start again? I'm Kingsley James and it's lovely to meet you." He was being sincere, or he looked sincere, returning a biting comment wouldn't lead anywhere, besides, it wouldn't do anything for his reputation. If he had a reputation, Kingsley had never really thought about that, he'd just always assumed he had.

"So," he said, hoping to start up some sort of conversation. Judging by her attitude, a second date was a lost cause, but still, it was worth a shot. "Are you a fan of history? Old battles or wars perhaps? They can be quite interesting, horrible naturally, but fascinating if you like that sort of thing."

He could already hear his cousin mocking him. Kingsley wouldn't have put it past her to be hiding behind one of those dammed columns. If this turned out really badly and she found out, he'd never live it down.

[Jaykobell]

The first blow had been hard enough to make the man make a complete turn-around. Mikayla cared not whether he had been kidding or not earlier, even if the former. The idea was to turn these guys away from her, and being unable to catch on to even simplistic humor was a wonderful way to make them reconsider talking to her.

At Kingsley's introduction, the princess was still unimpressed, as she usually was. However, she had to admit that when he went on to ask about if she liked history or battles, that he'd recovered from her harsh comments fairly well. Many called her out on her nasty character, while others just flat-out left and gave up. She liked the latter a lot more than the former, or those like Kingsley who were somehow hopeful enough that they wanted to keep trying with her.

"Considering history made it that I should've married a man as part of my fourteenth birthday and started bearing all of his children until my mid-thirties, I'm not sure I would call myself a 'fan' of history," she retorted, using multiple aspects here. For one thing, even among the royal families, this sort of thing didn't happen anymore. While they did pressure the kids to get married as soon as possible, the girls still got to pick their husband and they didn't have to bear over ten kids for him. Second, it just showed a lack of knowledge to assume that things hadn't changed since those times. Mikayla wasn't in this sort of situation, so going on about how history had made it so was just being ignorant. "Same thing could be said of battles and wars. I'm not sure I would call myself a fan considering history dictated that I should stay back home and bear more children to send off to their deaths for ridiculous reasons such as more territory or some sort of product." Yet more ignorance that was uncalled for, but if this guy couldn't bear historical ignorance, perhaps this would be enough to turn him off? She could only hope.

[Mousen]

((Bugger, I could have sworn that I'd replied to this. So sorry. ))

Okay, was there something wrong with his face? Had he got a zit and not realized or something? It could be her, it was more likely to be her, Kingsley couldn't think of a single thing wrong with himself, which in his mind just proved his point. "Okay, not a history fan then. Though, there were many remarkable women throughout history, and they were perhaps made even more remarkable for their hardship of being a woman in the past...?" He hazarded, hoping that wouldn't set off another of her rants.

"Well, one could look at it that way. If they were so inclined... Which you obviously are. It's a often very... enlightening to look at history from that perspective. It makes things so much more... enlightening." Okay, that probably wasn't the best choice of words. Definitely not. Kingsley was rather fond of history, but when faced with a choice between listening to the tiny historian that was currently screaming somewhere at the back of his mind and the slightly more pressing matter of the blind date... The only way was up, right?

"History clearly isn't your thing, so perhaps we should just forget about dusty old relics for now and head somewhere else? I'd suggest the museum cafe, but I've seen that place and it looks like my old school dining hall, though admittedly it has more dinosauts, but nevertheless. There's supposed to be a quirky independently-owned place just behind here, but I'm just brainstorming here. I'm more than happy to go along with whatever you feel like."