Zidane first catches her in the courtyard.
It's in passing, when her highness is off in feathered furs and pleated gowns, twirling ink over fresh-woven parchment. He snarls at the paperwork and takes his leave at a run, the princess left isolated and laughing down his flicking tail.
Beatrix has no such duties.
Silver cleaves at the air in bold, stilted strokes. One heel crosses over the other, twisting into wide crowd-control blows, expressions of the shoulders turned wild and untamed. The maneuvers would never show before her own knights, clumsy, awkward and inarticulate cuts. Parries drawn in imaginatively useless concentrics, playtime for a paladin's silent thoughts. Her soldiers do not see her shoulders come slack, or her knees give way—but Zidane watches her hilt twist under aging foliage, tripping into each new stance the tree roots provide.
Noon pours upon them like boiling water, lapping over the soil as tea leaves tint the sky to marigold shades. The courtyard is still, blade drawing excited rivets in the air.
"Didn't know you smoked." She startles, hands stiffening over the oak reed. Tobacco spills out in sandy needles, Beatrix rapidly rebalancing her grip.
"I don't." And for a moment Zidane has to wonder where such a vulgar little tool made its way to the castle from, and how he can find the establishment. The cylinder is rudimentary and reeks of substance color, the sweaty sentiments of an opium den. "I was just...curious."
"Well for one," At some point they had shifted to the stairs, the brigand leaning well out of his own personal space and into hers. "You're holding it the wrong way."
Beatrix's rigid motions have returned, chaining down her movement. The paladin accepts his hands gingerly, picking her words carefully and without contraction.
"Perhaps it is best that I avoid starting habits." A weighted breath carries the tube back down, its side rattling on the marble. Zidane's hand is caught reaching, a sharp flare sending his fingers in retreat.
"Hey!" One palm comes to soothe the other, hands knitting fearfully at the slap. "I'm prince you know!"
"I was not informed." Her words are pointed and with direction. Zidane ignores their attributes, eying the general's words and then letting his gaze wander lazily. "Does the prince have duties to attend to?"
"Nope! That's what queens are for." His grin casts the light a little too brightly, or turns his mouth too sharp at the corners. Beatrix's glare is palpable, and the lack of an eye only stresses it further.
There are things queens are for. Garnet's predecessor testified to that; just as kingdoms are for ruling, so queens are for kneeling to. Queens are for groveling beneath, and offering sacrifice to. Queens are for gods, and if there is no god to rule them, the queen rules herself.
Brahne's predecessor saw to those rules as well, but Beatrix only knows from what that woman's retainer wrote. Alexandria wants dearly for gods, so beleaguered on and off by tyrant goddesses. She can only guess what Garnet will one day become.
"Do you think I'm abandoning her?"
"I think nothing, highness. I only serve."
Zidane will never be king. He is the queen's husband, and that is all he ever can be. Like Brahne, and the queen before Brahne, and the queen before her. Doctor Tot had to wade quite a ways back in history before he could find a true king of Alexandria. In the days to come, Zidane will be an ambassador, or party dressing, or that thing so obliviously hung on the queen's arm. He will not be in charge.
"It must be quite a change."
"Well that's an understatement if I ever agreed with one."
Still, his smile could win nations.