1. The ideal daughter easily transitions into the ideal queen. Well-loved, well-trusted. This birthright rarely seems like so much of a natural born role as it does for Queen Natasha.
2. Still, nobody knows where the missing Princess has gone. In a stroke of brilliance, she manages to cause trouble even without being there. Her room is left untouched. The fool did it for love, this the elder knew even before the girl herself was willing to acknowledge such an emotion.
3. Loneliness is a terrible burden. Even a troublemaking Princess might provide welcome distractions to the difficulty of ruling. Even so, she is loathe to consider any marriage matches being proposed by lords at hand and princes and kings from abroad. She is not the only sister to have a mind for love.
4. It is not altogether surprising that hopeful fiances just one day earlier become bitter enemies upon sunrise. War is upon them all once more, and even as she wonders if the Princess is hidden away in a forest cottage soothing a child in her lap, she knows the war drums propel them both in the same direction.
5. So much her father’s daughter, she still donned armor and led her troops to battle in a way he was never able to. There is everything to lose, and that maternal affection she holds for her soldiers is the very least she can show as she dips her hands in their blood.
6. His father also has a preference for machinations over swordfighting. The Prince is no longer so smug when she unhorses him, but the swirl of battle closes in on him before she can unhinge his jaw to ensure his attitude is permanently readjusted.
7. They have met before, without bristling armies at their backs. Even then, she was just as ready to tear his over-inflated head off his shoulders, pleasing as it was to the eye. Only the demands of decorum and the watchful eyes of a royal couple assessing the potential of a marriage match keeps her civil as they dance before the court. Only her sister could have looked more miserable, sulking alone without the decency to at least appreciate the effort put into her ballgown.
8. Combat is not so different from their dance. The steps must be carefully timed, and the swings, thrusts, and slashes have their own rhythm. The elaborate engraved armor adorns just as well as a gown would, and offers more freedom of movement besides. War is not elegant. Killing will always remain just as brutal.
9. They injure one another, as they must, as they aim to do. But the dance always ends with both partners remaining, just one step shy of meeting the kiss of metal they keep threatening one another with. It is only to be expected of such evenly matched opponents. But the reluctance to put an end to these waltzes must be mutual, however much they refuse to acknowledge this.
10. She does not know it, but she rides past the Princess the morning of a battle. She is also oblivious to the brother-in-law horsed beside the short haired blonde. The Queen could be forgiven for these oversights; it is crucial that they claim victory today.
11. The Queen demands, and with love, her army complies. They seem to draw victory, and in a last minute confusion, the Queen is captured by her dancing partner. Unexpected as it is, the Prince now finally has her, yet he feels unclean in treating her as the spoils of war.
12. She offers only obligatory gratitude, curt in delivery, for any of the luxuries he gives her. Of course a Queen prisoner should be allowed warm baths, hot meals, and a wardrobe more substantial than flea-ridden rags. He thinks to give her company, out of respect for a warrior of her caliber, but her cold hostility quickly quashes the notion. Loneliness is her pride as the Queen to bear.
13. Regardless, he continues to try to make polite conversation. She sees a puppy dog in him, and is perplexed by this strange need for her acknowledgement from someone who had been so obnoxiously convinced of his own charms. He has a fool’s humor that belies the suave that he otherwise carries himself with, and the more he tries, the harder it is to deny that he seems to be doing it just to wheedle out at least one more complete sentence from her.
1. Parents are always the most strict on the eldest, but it seems that any amount of pressure on the younger princess will only result in contrary behaviors being taken to the extreme.
2. The sisters get along well enough despite the obvious differences in how the court perceives them. The younger might be convinced to leave on the elaborate gowns and keep them clean, only if the elder asks it. There is something to her sister’s calm maturity that strikes awe in her, even if she vehemently denies the desire to receive the same praise.
3. Their martial talents are considerable. The King himself has famously avoided the battlefield, having been a far superior strategist instead. The kingdom are often embroiled in warfare; there is no such thing as girls being too weak for the battlefield.
4. He is the son of a seamstress. His father died in service to hers. In a few years, just the span of a heartbeat to the devoted, he will pledge the same for her. But of course he should, anybody would do that for their Princess, wouldn’t they? The younger had always thought of everything as hers, yet she hadn’t counted his heart on being a tribute gift.
5. He does not tell her, and she is oblivious that his dedication goes beyond more loyalty to the crown. It is time for the King to rein her in. The freedom that she has been given has made her dangerously confused to the differences that remain between commoner and royal.
6. It is difficult for a seamstress widow to support the family. He has been stealing his food for a while, but it isn’t until he is convinced to go hunting in the Kingswood that he is finally caught. She, of course, can’t be whipped and pilloried the way he is, in a public square with his crime made known to all. The castle whispers that if he hadn’t been found in the company of the Princess, his desperate hunger might have been overlooked.
7. She was too stubborn to be broken. Solitary confinement did nothing to produce a more rational state of mind. She told only her sister, the very night she fled a feather bed and the certainty of warm meals.
8. With her hair horn, her face free of cosmetics, and the elaborate gowns traded for rough soldier’s wear, she does not look like a missing Princess. He is not fooled, however, when he finds her assigned to the same platoon as he is. He had been drafted into the army to keep him useful and away from the Princess, and yet here she was.
9. Her manners are still prissy; it is difficult to forget the years of etiquette training, and he is quick to remind her of how strange that delicacy looks, especially now. It feels easier to be friends now, until the familiarity of equal rank makes him more bold than he’d ever dared.
10. To her credit, it is not the sense of the illicit that makes her open-minded towards his affection, strange and new as it seems. There are no politics involved, no economic game to be waged.
11. Hearts entwined, and bodies followed. He has already been sentenced for the mere crime of friendship and hopeless pining. War rages and daily they jump in the jaws of death. In between heartbeats and sword clashes, he holds her and will not let go.
12. It’s not that either of them care for the propriety of coupling while married. But the officiated ceremony and the signed document is both a private triumph and a joke reserved for just the two of them.
13. Visions of this mate and the laughter of children have been populating his dreams for years. Now, they no longer seem to be so much like vicious jokes being played on him. The fighting has yet to cease and merely remaining alive as husband and wife is uncertain enough, but both are stubborn enough to forge their own fates.
