I figure it's a good time to remind people that perpetuating racism doesn't require racist intentions. Just because your heart is full of love and light and all kinds of beautiful positivity, doesn't mean you aren't promoting harmful beliefs somehow (like for example, the ancient astronaut hypothesis or some form of blood libel).
Always remember, "the path to hell is paved with good intentions" is a warning that exist for a reason.
Many in your environment won't get it. They won't understand why you're dedicating your time and effort to yourself and investing in your work, both personal and professional.
They won't get why you have to abandon certain paths and go down new routes. They may criticize you but don't allow that to get under your skin. You know what you know and it's not your responsibility to try to get them to understand.
While they are riding the waves of every little shift in their mindset, environment, or otherwise, you're continuing to build and strengthen your foundation. Keep going.
The princess came soaring into her room, a fit of tears in her fine delicate dress. She threw herself onto the bed, covering the back of her head with her hands. A scuttle of maids trailed in behind her, a few asking if she was well, panic set on their faces.
"Out! Out! Every last one of you be gone!" She cried, both aloud, and in tears.
She rounded on the last one leaving, as the maid was drawing away slowly, and grabbed her arm.
"My knight, fetch her. Fetch Syr immediately and have her come here with the greatest of speed her feet will carry." As she finished the thought, a large armoured form appeared in the doorway. A helmet held tight at her side.
The maid trembled a moment, waivering even as the princess held her arm. She cleared her throat, "Her highness seeks you." She said to the knight, whose eyes burned with such intensity as to set stone to running.
The princess let go of the maid, and spoke up, "Enter Syr-" before she could finish the thought, the knight had taken a few long strides and was on one knee at her feet. The maid, for her part, had darted past and was already out the door, having closed it behind her.
The princess placed a hand on the head of her knight, seeming so diminuitive on her knees, and spoke up, "Rise, I have much to discuss with you, and I would not look down on you the whole time."
The knight stood, an imposing presence that loomed over the princess now, eyes still fixed in a blaze. Her voice was harsh, deep and frightening to more than a good number of lords who had spoken to her, but the princess found it endearing. She opened her mouth just a touch, tight lipped, saying, "Has anyone hurt you, your highness?"
The princess laughed a quiet chuckle, and wiped tears from her face, "No! They have not and please, not so formal. Not here while we're alone." She said, clearly a request, rather than an order. Her knight was insistent, much of the time, that formality must be practiced, lest it slip at the worst time.
The knights stormy eyes closed, for only a moment, and when they opened again they were calm and clear. She nodded in affirmation of what the princess had said. The princess breathed a sigh of relief, and reached a hand up to smooth the tears from her face.
Before she could, however, gauntlets were thudding against the floor, and rough calloused hands were gently cupping her cheeks, thumbs wiping tears away with all of the delicate efforts one would put towards something delicate and expensive.
The princess flushed intensely, her cheeks burning with heat. For a moment she only stared at her knight, wishing for less of the armour to be present than was. That thought only made her blush harder. Her knight seemed oblivious to all of this, only focused on wiping the tears off of her face.
The princess put her hands over her knights, and held them tightly to her cheeks, puffing out her lips a little. After a brief moment like this she let them sag, and slumped backwards into bed again, sighing heavily. Her knight stood above, looking down at her with those watchful, blazing eyes.
"The suitors were all awful." She started, "One of them did not seem to notice I was even there when a maid with even a slim rump went by. One of them spent the whole time telling me about some sport he plays, not even one of the interesting ones. And the one lady they brought, which was a surprise in and of itself, seemed more interested in broad muscular women, like the guards." She flopped over onto her chest, and kicked her legs in a fury, screaming into a pillow.
Her knight took a careful seat on the edge of the bed, and stroked her back. The soft touch of her dress against the strong fingers made them feel almost smooth on her skin. She rolled back over, towards her knight, nearly onto her lap. She looked up with pleading eyes, "Do you have anything to say, Syr?"
The knight stroked her forehead, and brushed some of her hair back, looking down into her eyes, "You are as beautiful and radiant as the sunrise over a clean field, the light scattering off of the morning dew, granting a haze to the air that further reminds me of you, and the way my mind clouds in your presence."
The princess blushed hard, hot, fast. She shivered from tip to tail and sat up, staring straight at her knight, "Do you mean that?" She nearly stammered. Clearly taken by surprise.
Her knight began to undo a number of tight ties, and snaps, that held her armour in place. Clearly unused to doing it herself. Nodding, she reaffirmed, "I mean every word, and more. I have seen the way you look at me, and were I feeling any less foolish today, I would continue to keep my feelings to myself, as I have been. But with all this talk of suitors, of people come to see you, I cannot hold myself up any longer. If you take affront to what I say, call guards, have me executed, I will not fight." Her eyes were fixed with a determination, one the princess had only seen when she was fencing.
The princess covered her mouth with a gloved hand and began crying, she shook her head vehemently, "No, no, no!" She sobbed, "I will not have you executed." She threw herself onto her knight, who was still largely armoured. Her dress pinching in the fittings of the plates, she practically toppled her knight over.
Their embrace was long, and hot, she pressed her lips to the neck of her knight, peppering kisses all along the womans strong form. She continued to sob, burying herself more and more into the knights embrace, babbling words about needing her to stay, never wanting to be apart again.
Before long, she was on her back, on the bed. Her knight continuing to undo clasps and ties, while she watched in amazement as so much bulk was peeled off from the woman like it was nothing. She giggled to see that underneath the plates, was more armour, thick cloth that her knight quickly peeled off, "So even knights dress in so many layers, is it true, beloved?" Her knight nodded, pulling a heavy cloth over her head to reveal her small clothes.
She blushed to see the woman in so little, she had never seen her knight out of armour, let alone near nudity like this. A moment later, she was pulled up to her feet and hands were searching for the clasps and ties that would bring the princess' dress down, the same way.
She spoke idly while the knight pulled apart the dress, preserving it, even with such rough hands, "So does this mean we must run away to wed? Must I give up everything to have what I want with you?" She said it as if it were the least of her worries, her knight replied quickly, "No, your highness, I am a landed lady, and quite wealthy. You need only convince your father that his son, your younger brother the prince, will be wed off for political gain instead of you. Which, given his willingness to make you miserable by wedding you to some foreign lout from the time you were but a child, I'm sure he won't hesitate to pivot who he seeks to find a suitor for." The princess giggled as she stepped out of the dress.
Both down to their small clothes, layers of armour and finery mingled on the floor the princess pressed herself into her knight again, and sent them both toppling into the bed. Their kisses were sweet, longing, loving, as they should've been for years since, given their prolonged mutual interest in eachother. The heat of their bodies gave rise to more than just kisses.
The small clothes lay strewn across the bed, torn off their bodies in haste. The princess with her legs wrapped tightly around her knight, the solid bed shivering with each thrust. The whole room shook with her moans of ecstacy, and the back of her knight, her lover, was bloodied with the trails her sharp nails had left. She screamed in pleasure for what felt like the dozeneth time, though in her mind she was certain she must be exaggerating.
Her neck was covered in marks, kisses, bites, hickies from her lover. The kinds of things that would be challenging to cover up, when she wished to speak to her father tomorrow. But the bed, soaked in sweat and other things, had never felt as right as it did now, with her knight barreling strong bodied presses into her own.
When they were finally satisfied, both of them, as much as could be, it felt like they had made up for years of love that was unable to be shared. And more, she felt full and complete in a new way. She was panting, and her heart was racing.
On the other side of the door out of her room, a maid, flush and red stood. She had come to ask the princess if she wished to bathe that night, and to fetch water for her if she did. She made a bold, and correct, assumption that they both would, and left to fetch water without knocking.
