what if tessa was a princess and rhett was the knight she fell in love with...
The summer castle was under siege. Enemy forces were just outside the gates, amassed to plunder and pillage and take Princess Tessa captive. She was not the heir to the throne, but she was an excellent bargaining chip in gaining the power they so desperately thought they wanted.
She raced from her chambers, holding her skirts in one hand and her prayer beads in the other. One bead for each of the Four Faiths that she prayed to for protection.
"Come, Your Highness! We must get you away from here!" her Crownsguard shouted as the castle delved into chaos, terrified screams and the distant rumble of catapults hitting their marks.
He pointed down a hall she knew led to a back entrance outside the castle gate. She could escape what she knew their evil plots to be. But as she looked around at the huddled servants, the crying commoners stuffed into the banquette hall...And thought of that lowly knight she knew would be stationed in the southern parapet, she couldn't do it.
"What about them?" Princess Tessa asked, gesturing to her people.
The people who trusted her to protect them.
"What of them?" her Crownsguard replied.
"They will be slaughtered! I cannot leave them to perish!"
She could not leave him. That lowly knight who called her by her first name and first name only. Who walked with her through the gardens under the guise of her protection. Who came to her chambers at night and removed his armor just for her. Who spoke to her so tenderly. Who loved her as herself - not a princess.
"There is nothing that you can do, Your Highness." Her Crownsguard gestured down the hall more fervently. "Please. Let us away before it is too late."
But it was too late. Another loud boom resounded through the castle. It made the very earth shake. Princess Tessa regained her balance as she clutched her prayer beads with new vigor. Then she ran to the window...
Only to see the outer wall crumbled, and the southern parapet half-standing.
Please, please, please.
Princess Tessa ran from the banquette hall, her Crownsguard screaming after her and trying his best to catch up in his full armor. But she was faster. Always had been. There were soldiers standing in ranks in the lower bailey - terrified men fifteen and older with spears or swords shoved into their hands. Trembling in suits of armor that didn't really fit. The enemy was fast approaching from the hole they had made in the outer wall. Tall men in dark armor ran at those inexperienced farmers with all that they had.
Only none of them expected for the princess they were fighting for to be running through the battle itself.
A few of the enemy soldiers watched as she ran through the lower bailey. Her silken skirts billowed in the breeze and her hair flowed in ringlets behind her - her tiara lost somewhere and she didn't even care. Princess Tessa ran right into the enemy, but none of them stopped her. They were just soldiers, they didn't know what the princess looked like. All of them, including their leader, expected her to be under lock and key in the holdfast.
She ran through rubble and dead bodies and her sworn enemy until she made it to what remained of the southern parapet.
Men in dark armor ran around her, towards the fight, but all she could see were the knights in the light gold armor of her people lying dead amongst the ancient, fallen stones. She rubbed her thumb over her prayer beads and began to look for her lowly knight.
Please, please, please prove I'm right.
Bloodied faces. Broken bones. None of them were her lowly knight. Maybe he wasn't stationed at the southern parapet after all. But there, on top of that pile of rubble, was a golden-clad form with her favor tied around his wrist. Sickly green arrows stuck out of his chest. He lay completely still.
And please, please, please don't bring me to tears when I just did my makeup so nice.
Princess Tessa climbed the pile of rubble. Dust still hung in the air. Her dress ripped and she didn't even notice. His helmet had come off at some point, beautiful brown hair hanging just below his ears. His eyes were closed. A bit of blood clung to the corner of his mouth. His sword was still clutched in his hand.
"Rhett," she gasped his name as she collapsed to her knees at his side.
Cradling him like she had so many times before, she drew him to lay in her lap. But his chest didn't move with each of his steady breaths. That small, kind smile did not grace his face. Her hands, dirtied and bleeding from moving rubble, clutched at him wherever she could reach. Her lowly knight. The man who saw her. Her tears made a small noise as they dropped against his armor. The man she loved.
Her prayer beads were nowhere to be found - and she didn't need them to pray to the gods.
"H-Heartbreak is one thing..." she tried to start, but stuttered on her tears. With a breath, she started again: "My ego's another...I beg you, don't embarrass me, motherfuckers...Please, please...Please! Please, please, please prove I'm right! Don't...!"
She could not speak anymore. Her tears choked the rest of the words from her throat. All she could do was hold her love as tight as her strength would let her and bury her face into his neck. Her tears wetted his skin, her rasping wails like that of the damned echoed against what was left of the stone over the din of battle. She knew her unspoken prayers would reach the gods she had always been so faithful to.
They wouldn't abandon her now.
Sir Rhett took a gasping breath. He jerked up into her as he took in great lungfuls of air. Princess Tessa pulled away from him to look into his dirty, blood-stained face. Blue eyes like a stormy sea stared back at her as he began to hold her back. Gauntleted hands clutching her waist as confusion filled his face. There were still arrows sticking out of his torso but it didn't even matter. He was alive. He was alive.
The gods had listened. Her prayers had been answered.
"Rhett," she whispered his name as tears and a smile fought on her countenance, hands cupping his stubbled cheeks like something holy.
"Tessa," he whispered back, glancing around at the scene, "Where...?"
But it was too late. A pair of hands grabbed the princess around the shoulders and lifted her from her love. She fought and screamed but it was no use against their strength. Rhett tried to get up, tried to save her, but his body felt foreign to him, like he was just waking up from a sleep too deep. Like he was paralyzed. But then an armored foot was planted on his chest and he couldn't have gotten up if he tried.
"Thank you, for making the princess so easy to capture," a dark, malicious voice rasped before Tessa was carried away, thrashing and shouting his name all the while.
And it wasn't until the fighting was done and silence filled the castle that Rhett was finally able to stand. That he was able to tighten the blue favor around his wrist. That he was able to take his sword and break the rods of every arrow lodged in his chest with one fell swoop.
The gods answered Princess Tessa's prayer - and he was going to make it worth their while.
