He remembers the smell of her perfume, the way the scent of lavender wafted through her room. The way she loved pastel pink so much that she wore the color all the time. The color of her hazel eyes, the way her eyes just had enough green to remind him of the flower fields he took her to. Zam, she was a florist from Atlin, and the girl he was about to propose to among the remaining three selected girls left.
He dreams of her smile, she was so liked by the two other girls. He dreams of the day he realized he was in love with her after she began singing a tune from an ancient movie. Her tune cut off by the sound of the windows breaking. The smell of gun fire urging them to escape to one of the panic rooms. The events of the day all remembered like the color of the water he used to clean his brushes, dark and mucky. He sees a glimpse of a rebel with a gun in one of the hidden passages, aiming at him. Luckily his aim was bad and only shot him somewhere above his shoulder as he shielded her and took out the pistol he always carried around in case of attacks like these and shot the rebel.
Zam proceeded to take out the standardized survival knife from it's hilt on her thigh. All the Selected were given those knives and trained to protect themselves during their stay in the palace, all for situations like these. He remembers taking her free hand with his as they ran down to the safe room beside the kitchens when he opened the secret passage just enough to look, all he heard was gun fire and screaming and the sight of blood on the kitchen floor. He closed the passage's door right away as he dragged Zam upwards to the door of his room's secret passage. As they reached his room with not a person invading his room, he took her through the room and into the connecting princess suite and into another secret passage and headed into one of the smaller safe rooms in the palace. A bullet then grazes Zam's arm as she shrieks, five rebels several hundred feet behind them shooting at the perpendicular hallway.
He shields Zam yet again as he shoots at the rebels behind them as he urges Zam ahead towards the safe room, taking a look behind them every moment or so to shoot the rebels. One, goes down along with two others as some of the guards staged on the floor shoot at them. They reach the safe room and he's using his code on the door while he's shooting at the two remaining rebels also shooting at them. The door opens and he's bringing Zam inside as he closes the door and locks it from his side. He looks for the first aid kit and applies some antiseptic on the bullet wound Zam sustained on her arm and wraps it with a gauge, and she leans against him and she sings and he hums along for hours as he leans against her as well, still smelling the scent of lavender in her hair. They stay there in the room for God knows how long until the door is opened by two guards with their override codes and they escort him and Zam into the hallway.
The guards are in a formation around them as the two of them walk side by side until they reach the front of the palace's service elevator and that's when he hears the click of a gun behind him and the words "Kingdom Come Razed" and it fires and he closes his eyes only to realize he was unscathed. He looked beside him and saw Zam, her hand bloodied as she holds her side, red blooming on her blush pink dress. She took the bullet for him. The assailant brought to the ground by the other guards as Zam falls to the ground and he rushes to her, cradling her as her breathing begins to get shallow.
"Civ, Remember what I always sing?" she said. He nodded, understanding the message. The greatest you'll ever learn is to love and to be loved in return.
"Zam, rip my heart out why don't you?" he replied as she smiled back understanding his message. I love you.
"I know." she breathes back and she closes her eyes, smiling.
His dreams are haunted by his last moments with her and he awakens with a jolt every time as one of his butlers shakes him out of it. He looks around his room and it's the middle of the day. His mother stands on the side of his bed in her full regalia looking down at him with an expression that's a mix of sympathy and anguish.
"Percival, I want you downstairs by my study so we can discuss some things." her royal highness, Queen Hanna Beth says, her dark eyes rimmed with sharp eye liner contrasting her alabaster skin. She turns her back to him and heads for the door "It's been a year and a half, Percival., we must move on." she adds as she leaves the room.
Percival looked up at the ceiling, staring at it. A year and a half after the devastating rebel attack. After half the palace was destroyed by a bomb and they had moved to one of their smaller estates for a year. After he buried Zam back in Atlin, making sure her grave site was filled with thousands of flowers. She was declared as a national hero for saving his life, but what could that do for a girl buried six feet below the ground.
After he buried his father and younger brother and the two other remaining Selected in the palace: Linda, a beautiful five who loved to paint, and Christine, a two whose father was one of the Queen's advisers. All of them victims of the bomb that killed them when they were rushing to the biggest panic room.
He sat up and told his butler to prepare his bath, knowing that his mother was right. Zamantha Rene Normandy was long gone, and she was never coming back.
"Percival, since the events last year, our country's morale has been low." his mother stated, her desk full of paperwork. "You're already 21 years old and supposed to assume my throne." she continued, her eyes leaving the paper she was reading and looking right at Percy. "And since your Selection was never completed, I believe it's time that you will fulfill your duty as prince and future king of this country yet again, and have another Selection."
It's funny how he wasn't even surprised at his mother's notion. He could lie and put on a face of defiance, proclaiming that he would not but Percival is tired of the fight, and he nodded his head, his lips pressed together in a line. "I accept that notion, and am willing to hold another Selection, mother." his cognac colored eyes steeling with a look of determination. He was going to be king, a king that Zam would have wanted him to be, and if it took marrying another girl, so be it.
"We will ensure the safety of the girls and push our security further." Queen Hanna Beth declared.
"And how will that be done, mother?" Percival said, an eyebrow raised.
"We will not only train them to be your future wife. We are going to train them to be weapons. We will not only choose a girl that will bring the next generation of Schreave-Lombards but the one that can protect you. A weapon to protect our crown."
A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first Selection SYOC fanfiction and am extremely excited to be writing one as I've seen a lot of them in the fandom. Anyway, I am quite elated to be presenting to you my characters and my story. Please forgive me as I haven't written in quite a while, so yeah.
I'm pleased to introduce to you, two of the main characters : Queen Hanna Beth Schreave and Prince Percival Finnley Lombard. However they aren't the only members of the Royal Court I'll be featuring but we will meet several interesting characters along the way.
Anyway, these are the rules for this Selection:
1. Mary Sues and America Copies are really not allowed, I know the people here in this fandom are really creative so let's see those amazing girls you got there!
2. I don't mind if you send in a girl you've sent to another SYOC, but please change some parts of her.
3. D-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y ! I cannot stress this enough. I've noticed that most SYOCs usually featured a lot of white girls and frankly, let's not make this story like a Starbucks. Illea is based on the US of A, it's a melting pot of cultures and not only of culture but also of personality. Let me see girls who have come from Filipino families who misses home and constantly loves to cook Pinoy cuisine! Or a girl from a Arabic family that wants her to follow their tradition and she covers herself from head to toe! I'd love to have girls like that!
4. I'll only be Selecting 6 girls to have a main POV however, I'll be accepting another six to be supporting and be occasionally featured.
5. Please send your girls to me through PM, however reviews will be counted depending on the strength of the form.
6. Please title your PMs like "The Queenstrial SYOC (Full Name of Character,Age, Caste, Occupation,Province)" in that format. Ex. "The Queenstrial SYOC (Zamantha Rene Normandy, 19, Caste 6, Florist, Atlin)"
The Form is posted in my profile :), Have fun submitting!