Her hand comes up and, gently, grazes the edge of his cheek. Her smile is soft, but her eyes cannot lie. They are clear with exception to a single tear drifting down her fair cheek. "My dear... I missed you."
THE SURPRISE IS EVIDENT across Louis’s face; in the whitewashed halls of the facility, both husband and wife found a moment to themselves when he was finally summoned as that insufferable person’s (a person, not a Master! He would be a servant to none!) indentured lower. It was as if he was taken back into the past with the exact same scenario — her accent, her voluminous silver hair, her deep blue eyes looking up at him with that very same smile that embodied every aspect of serenity and her ethereal beauty. He thinks about the forest of Compiègne, with the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa meeting him with the sole mission and intention to be none other than his lawfully wedded wife.
But he didn’t expect to meet her here.
In her clearest intonations, Louis realizes that she hasn’t changed; her French was still very much shaky, but it could have been a result of a combination of her shock over seeing him. From the corner of her eye, a tear falls, and Louis swiftly places his hand, cold over the air-conditioning, on hers in a feeble attempt to calm her. He was never good with women or with anyone in general, with him taking comfort and solace in the written word and enthusiastic hunts, but this is his beautiful, outgoing, teary wife right before him.
“A-Antoinette...!” comes excited tones, before Louis sweeps her into an embrace. “Mon Dieu, no, don’t cry, there’s no reason to....! Ah....!”
For there was no mistaking that he indeed missed her dearly too; entangled in his fingers are the strands of her hair and in his arms is her shivering frame. For years, they had been distant, and similarly, for years, they were the only ones for each other as the Most High had ordained them to be.
“Don’t cry, ma Reine,” he whispers, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Don’t cry. I’m here.”
@crownedqueen || unprompted .