alright you've convinced me. seelie fae in an unseelie court part one let's do this.
for what should be such a monumental occasion, a unity to bring peace between kingdoms entrenched in a cold war, his princess arrives without the typical pomp and circumstance. he expects a show, a caravan of several dozens carriages lining up neatly at the front of his castle, stuffed to the brim with family and nobility. he expects nothing more than the finest for a young lady who was, two weeks ago, the heir apparent to an entire kingdom.
it is strange to him, that the treaty was considered at all, given what was demanded - not just a princess, but the princess.
there is a stillness to his court that john has never felt during his reign. every lord and lady holds their breath, expecting chaos, expecting a crowd – and yet the tension seems to pull taut as the door opens, and the only two who step into the cathedral are his young bride and her father.
you wear no wedding dress. the silk of your dress, loose sleeves draping over your hands, is the shade of a winter orchid. a lemon yellow bonnet is tied over your hair, and the only white in your attire is the fleece-knit shawl draped over your shoulders. you look more like a flower than you do a bride.
despite your standing, there are no guards that flank your sides. john can't help but think just how vulnerable you are in this moment, not yet bound to him and his protection.
"i expected more than this," john remarks, looking from the princess, who has yet to bring her eyes up from the ground, back to her father, "where is her bridal party?"
the king, as noble as he might have thought himself to come all this way, does not have the decency to look ashamed or even guilty. "the queen thought it best for everyone that the celebrations be kept contained," he says, "i merely came to give my daughter away, and to be a witness to her union."
the wedding he believed would take hours, between seelie customs and the cultural divide, is over before the hour is up. he expected to wait a fortnight for your ladies to draw the appropriate glyphs onto your skin, to dress you in layers upon layers of silk, embroidered with charms of luck and protection. he expects the brocaded cloak of your house to sit over your wedding dress like armor, only for him to remove it and replace it with his own, bringing you into the fold of his house as his wedded wife. instead, what he removes is your fleece shawl, handing it off gently to be replaced with the heavily embroidered cloak. a few words from an anointed priestess, and john turns your head with two of his fingers to press a dry kiss to the corner of your lips. he hadn’t the foresight to take your bonnet off before the ceremony began.
your father stays long enough to see you married, but disappears before the cacophony of polite clapping from the court can subside. john sees you searching for him more than once, eyes drifting through the crowd like you expect him to show up at any moment. he does not. john turns away before he can witness the crescentfallen expression that crosses your sweet face. he doesn’t want to know if you cry.
to be seelie is to be weak – john knows this for a fact. he’s trained squires and met children less craven than some seelie knights. and yet he foolishly expected more from your father, a king of thousands of years who had threatened his kingdom with war mere moons ago. he expected your bridal party to be giant and glamorous and all proclivities expected of a seelie wedding. seelie children are rare and cherished; his bride was already a young woman, but he expected that the sentiment would stand, given the title she held.
when you disappear to your bedchambers before dinner has been served, he doesn’t stop you.
