Lily is thirteen when her father finds a husband for her.
Severus is tall. To her eyes he is almost handsome. He is kind to her, and one of the best warriors in the land, or so her father knows. He has glittering jewels, and long robes. His voice may shake when he recites, but to her, it is enchanting.
What she doesn't know is she is enchanting herself.
At barely over five feet, Lily should make no impact in the world. She is little more than a teenage girl.
And yet she is the Sultan's daughter. While the other women around her dress in blacks and navy's and greys, she has already become famous through the kingdom, for her bright hijab of red.
In the stories she is beautiful, and charming and a Gift of God.
It's hard to imagine she is young, and she gets butterflies around Severus.
When she is fourteen, the Sultan invites the neighbouring kingdoms to a grand ceremony, for the marriage of her older sister.
Petunia looks beautiful, gold jewellery glittering around her as she holds the hand of her husband, black eye make up deep and lips deeper.
Lily looks at Severus, standing by her father, watching, and thinks that she will one day look like that.
And then she bumps into him. And he spills milk all over her red hijab.
She shrieks.
The boy steps back.
"What the hell was that for?" Lily shrieks, swiping milk off her hijab, as one of the servant girls shakes her head and murmurs astigfirallah.
"My mistake," the boy is smirking at her. He's smirking at her.
"Oh, no it was all mine," Lily rolls her eyes sarcastically. "And you might you be?"
"The future Nawab of Kashmir," he makes a gesture similar to bow, and Lily observes.
He's older than her. Easily sixteen. He's got dark, dark hair, unruly, honestly. He's dressed traditionally, in a pheran, and a cap. He's darker than she is, but no darker than her nurse was. He's . . . he's almost pretty, and her mind makes a comparison to Severus, unwillingly it seems.
So she draws back. "I am Lily, the daughter of the Sultan. This is my home."
"Of course," James is still grinning. "The infamous, beautiful daughter of the Sultan. How could I forget?"
She humphs, and turns on her heel.
The future Nawab James, and his accompaniment spend the rest of the year inside her home.
When she is in her lessons, they are there also. When she is in the gardens, they are there also. When she is in the mosque constructed in her name, they are there also. When she is reciting, they are there, listening. When she is dressing in her rooms, in the women's wing, she can hear them outside the window.
They etch themselves into every cell in her body, until all she can think of is them, all she can smell is them.
When regular girls are angry over some boy, they do peasant work.
When Sultan's daughters are angry, they ride horses.
Lily has the twenty most beautiful horses in the whole wide world.
Out in the desert, with her fathers guards far behind, and no one by her side except her knife and her horses limbs moving under her.
Out in the desert, she can scream the words of the Qur'an, can call on Allah to ease every ill. More than that, she can live. She does no longer have to be the Sultan's famous daughter. No longer has the pressure to be beautiful and shy and cheeky and knowledgable.
She is simply one child of God amoungst one hundred and one.
Of course, things cannot go on forever.
Lily turns sixteen, and she is as beautiful as ever.
The world loves her. Her teachers tell her that the men and the women in the south, the north, the east and the west all sing her name. That her prostration to Mecca means a thousand of others prostrations.
She is the daughter who learns how to recite the whole Qur'an by the time she is twelve. She is the daughter who has been engaged, and loved her fiancé by the time she was fourteen. She is the daughter who has turned sixteen, and mesmerises all around her.
Except for the Nawab James.
He is not mesmerised.
He disrupts her books. He does not let her pray in peace. He does not give her peace.
In Ramadan it seems he tries to aggravate her.
It is in Eid, however, when a joyous occasion is announced.
Lily is sixteen. Lily is old enough to marry. Lily is to marry the warrior Severus.
She smiles, and walks through life like the floor does not touch her feet.
On the night before her wedding, Lily stands in front of an entirely filled mosque, in a star jewel encrusted abaya, her eyes painted with black, and her red scarf for once abandoned, and she opens her mouth.
She recites, and no child cries. And it is almost like she is amazing, in that one moment.
And then it ends. So she goes to pray privately.
That's when it happens.
She's grabbed from behind, a hand over her mouth. And she's screaming and screaming and screaming and then-
Nothing.
When she wakes, she wakes on the back of her own horse.
She would shriek, only, she is no longer fourteen. And her mouth is gagged.
And she looks behind, and she sees him. And her blood runs cold.
Severus is riding on Noor, her black horse behind her.
Lily nearly cries.
She doesn't though. She hears the grunts of the men around her, and realises, that she is a ransom. She is the thing her father desires most in the world, so they will ransom her.
They take her to a cave. It is cold and dark, and no one gives her a cloak or a blanket.
"Sev?" She asks of the man who betrayed her. "Why?"
"Why what?" He sighs, unlike the man she had once liked, hell, even been in love with. He sounds impatient. He sounds angry.
"Why would you do this to me?"
"It's not to you," Severus hisses. "My father was killed by yours years ago. So I made myself into someone appropriate for you. I was going to go after your older sister, but you seemed interested, and I wasn't going to shove that to the side."
Lily bites her lip and tries to stop the welling of her tears.
It doesn't work.
No one is coming to rescue her.
That's what she thinks.
She's the secound daughter of the Sultan. She's no son, no first child. Why would they look for her?
She's dozing against the rocks of the wall, when it hits her. No one has given her food, water, a blanket. But underneath her abaya, she has a knife strapped to her leg. "So stupid," she mutters to herself when she realises that she forgot.
It's almost too easy. Too easy to cry out. Pretend she needs to go to the toilet. And then stab the man with a murmur of Allah Akbar, and pray for forgiveness.
And it is too easy. Because with the body of the man on the floor beneath her feet, she is suddenly surrounded, by all these strange men.
Then the lamps go out.
All of them. At once.
And Lily panics.
There's a hand pressed to her lips, and then she's outside, under the moon, and facing the Nawab James.
"Lily," he murmurs, looking at her face, and hugs her tightly.
She forgets to be embarrassed, and remind him of rules against this type of contact and hugs him back.
"What were you thinking?" He stands up, yelling at her as sounds enter the night from inside the cave. "Were you going to try and take them all on by yourself?"
Lily juts her chin out. "What if I was?"
"You're so stupid," James shakes his head, looking worried and anxious and relieved. "So stupid. You are the Sultan's daughter. His favourite daughter. The kingdoms favourite woman. You think he wouldn't send someone for you? You think I wouldn't come after you?"
"Are you saying you would come after me if I wasn't the Sultans daughter?"
When they ride back into the city, Lily's hijab has come unpinned, and her arms are wound tightly around James. It is far from appropriate, but no one makes a comment.
Once they get into the palace, she runs to her father and hugs him tightly.
She spends the rest of the night in prayer.
The following Eid, Nawab James and the Sultan's daughter are married.
It is no white wedding. Delicate silks are not abound.
It is a red wedding.
Lily is coated in red silk from head to toe, gold decorating every part of her body.
When James first sees her, he says MashAllah, just like Lily's husband always did in her dreams.
And when she dances, she can forget the fact that her sister is in another kingdom, ignoring her. When she dances, so beautiful and bright and charming, it is easy for the world to think that she will never die, she will be young forever.
And she is young forever. When Nawab James and his wife Lily are murdered, and their only legacy is their son, she is but twenty one.
And the villages sing and the Sultan mourns, but, by Allah, does Lily sound beautiful in the stories.
Salaam Alaykum!
This was written rapidly on five hours of sleep and a day of fasting.
It is by no means historically accurate, but was produced in response to the jily royalty au, and history and royalty are some of my favourite things in the world, so expect a couple more in the future!
This is all thanks to fetchalgernon for organising and prongsvssquid was discussing South Asian!James, and can I resist?
So sorry for those who tried to read before!
Forgive me for giving up my Irish!Lily, but Arab!Lily would be charming also, right?
Hope this is okay, and now notes:
hijab - the veil Muslim women wear for a variety of reasons, but mostly to identify as Muslim adn for Allah.
astigfirAllah - asking God for forgiveness in Arabic.
Nawab - A title of royalty for those in the south of Asia
Pheran - a traditional Kasmiri style of clothing
Mosque - a place of worship for Muslims. Much like Church's, it is a House of God.
Qur'an - religious text of Islam.
Mecca - the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings upon him)
Ramadan - the ninth month of the Arabic calendar, when the Qur'an was revealed. Muslims fast during this time.
Eid - a 'feast' or celebratory day sat the end of Eid.
abaya - a type of clothing Arabic women wear
Noor - a bit of a joke, as it means light in Arabic
Allah Akbar - God is Great
MashAllah - 'God has willed it' or something/ one is like well done, or 'wow beautiful' in James' case