Continued from {here} w. @exaltatixn
Marie Dawk, Empress of Stohess, adjusted the decorative pins in her hair, admiring her own face in the mirror held by one of her maids.
“What is this stone again?” she asked, pressing the stick, adorned with a shining deep red stone far into her curls.
“Carnelian,” came the response, “they say it’s also called Sard.”
Her grey eyes lit up as she turned this way and that, watching the stones catch the light. They paired magnificently with the gems of her headpiece, the golden strands twisted and molded to cage her shimmering blonde curls up and out of her face.
“He’ll be pleased to see me in these gifts,” she told her servants, though none of them doubted for a second their Emperor would be displeased to see her in anything at all.
The sound of heavy footfall echoed behind the doors that separated the throne room from the grand halls of the palace and Marie shooed the mirror away, sitting up straight, chin raised and a placid smile on her face, ready to tell her husband how proud she was of his conquest.
It wasn’t Nile that strode through the doors, but a small number of guards, pushing along a dirty, tired looking girl, shoving her to her knees.
“Who is this?” she whispered to a guard at her right.
“A gift, your majesty,” he muttered in response, “his majesty has no use for such persons.”
Marie nodded. Right, right of course. Her husband was a faithful man and had no use for slave girls. But to send this. . .this poor creature to her? What was she supposed to do with her?
She stood, lifting the deep turquoise skirts of her silken gown, and with her fingers held lightly in the guard’s, descended the marble steps to the floor where the girl knelt.
“What do I want?” she wondered, repeating the question the girl had all but demanded, “I don’t believe you’re in a position to be asking such things, do you?”
There was fire in the young woman’s eye that Marie found interesting. It wasn’t easy to be taken captive and remain so strong. With both her husband and brother off conquering the world, Marie knew a thing or two about captives.
“Though I suppose to start I will settle for you name.”