A/N: One of my very favorite couples! As always, please leave a review and tell me what you think! The FE fandom is so dry lately. ;_; Personally, I'm very proud of this piece; it just seemed to come together really well even with some excessive descriptions and run-on sentences! Gotta love being extravagant. Recently posted for LJ's fe_contest community. Prompt: Vanity. Doesn't really apply...

Words: 2027
Characters: Geoffrey, Elincia, Lucia, Bastian
Time: Between Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn
Genre: Friendship

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Nintendo, not me.

Regal fanfare, the echoing blasts of trumpets and the fluttering whistles of flutes, trailed through the courtyard of Castle Crimea. The sound danced on the wind, those gentle breezes carrying it in loving wisps throughout the whole castle city, every citizen catching the faintest whisper of a note or two, perhaps even a whole measure of the miraculous music. Such glory had not graced this air for far too long. It was like Ashera's own chorus was singing loud throughout their mortal land at Elincia's coronation, the one ray of hope for her deteriorating creation.

Geoffrey heard it all with discerning ears. He could not afford to be struck witless with awe. Not when her safety rested in his hands. Of all her knights and retainers, she had chosen only three to stand with her – behind her, but nevertheless close – when the crown was to be placed upon her head. Only Geoffrey, Lucia, and Bastian were right there with her. Geoffrey had, of course, lined the castle's walls with his best archers, mixed trained soldiers in peasant's clothes in with the crowd, posted his heaviest guards at every entrance to the castle's grounds. He would take no chances. But none of that compared to being her first and most direct, most trusted, line of defense, and he would not betray that trust for the world. Certainly not for music, albeit it music that heralded the advent of a extraordinary era. Elincia's era.

Not only a crown was being given to her this day. While the circlet of gold and silver would come to rest upon her head, a far less brilliant burden would soon be thrust upon her tiny shoulders, and no one seemed to know if she – a lost princess, a beautiful enigma – would be able to bear it.

He, however, believed. His friend and his sister believed as well, he knew. They three alone trusted and believed in Elincia, in her goodness and determination that could never falter no matter how difficult the task at hand became.

A faceless priest in golden robes bore the crown, the emblem of their nation, in his wrinkly little hands. It sat pristine and lifeless on a red cushion.

All Geoffrey could see of his princess was her straight back. She stood proudly before her people, head raised, shimmering hair flowing like a river down her back. Tiny braids ran through the lengths of it. Lucia had done them herself, and Geoffrey recalled vividly watching his sister's pale hands twist and turn deftly through his princess's hair, until she finally finished and turned her around and asked him how she looked. Geoffrey was speechless.

"Well? Did she do a good job?" Elincia said, turning her face this way and that. Her bangs were pulled away from her elegant face now, gracefully woven and pinned with white gemstones. A few loose strands of hair touched her creamy cheek.

"You be the judge, Geoffrey," said Lucia.

Without thinking, Geoffrey stepped forward and brushed the loose pieces to the side, lifting a clip and fixing them in place. Elincia was silent as his fingers touched her skin ever so lightly.

"It is perfect, Your Highness," said Geoffrey as he withdrew his hand stepped back into his place.

Her eyes followed his every movement. Finally, she smiled sweetly and nodded to Lucia, who sent Geoffrey away to call for the dressmaker and her maids.

He had not seen her again until just before the ceremony. There was no time for them to speak. The sight of her, resplendent and striking, stole his breath away, but she was whisked away, and he was walking behind her under the hot gazes of their nation long before his breath and his voice returned.

Now he could study her to his heart's content. Her dress was white and silver, as if she were to be wed. She was the bride to the groom of her country. The dress rested wide across her shoulders and dipped low in the back, shining white silk outlined with silver embroidery and clasped with silver fixings. Silver ribbons crisscrossed tightly down to her waist, where a white band tied in a bow with a long sheer trail separated the bodice from the skirt. The skirt was layers of white silk, the color of snow, but the consistency of water, smooth and flowing. The hem of the dress covered her feet and skimmed the ground, silver-lined and clean.

Geoffrey had never in his life seen anything more splendid than her at that moment.

Though the crowd would be too far away to notice, Geoffrey saw her shoulders quivering as the priest approached her. Elinica slowly sank to her knees, and so did Geoffrey, and so did hundreds of citizens across their nation.

Words were spoken. Formalities. Geoffrey understood nothing but Elincia's shivering. The nearly imperceptible movement told him more than all the acclamations in the world. Silence fell in a rush across the crowd as the crown was lowered slowly onto Elincia's head. It rested lightly there for a moment, its sheer magnificence melding gloriously with Elincia's royal figure, and then Her Majesty rose to her feet, no longer trembling, and the crowd roared with instinctive fervor.

Those echoes lingered in his ears far longer than the fanfare.

It was hours, hours that felt as long as years, before they were able to speak together. They were alone in one of Castle Crimea's lesser known gardens. Lucia and Bastian promised to distract the aristocrats if Geoffrey would take Elincia out for some air, lest she suffocate in the stifling rituals of the nobility.

"We can keep them occupied for perhaps half an hour," promised Lucia, glancing over her shoulder. "Right, Bastian?"

"Ah, fair-thorned rose, do not think so disparagingly of the most favorable of my skills! My honeyed tongue, my glorious wit, will captivate not only the minds of every noble o'er the land, but possibly too the heart of my dearest, my beloved, my - "

"An hour, then," said Lucia, stepping on Bastian's foot. Geoffrey nodded.

After a few whispered orders to his guards, a few messengers sent scampering down the halls, and a loud exclamation from Bastian to draw the nobles' attention, Geoffrey murmured in his queen's ear and led her through a quiet, hidden corridor. At the end was a simple wooden door that he opened for her. He followed her out into the garden. He felt noisily and desperately out of place in his armor, every step a series of annoying chinks and clangs, whereas hers were light and free. He watched her as she took a deep breath, drank in the cool night air, spread her arms, and spun in a circle. Her gown flowed out around her legs in a smooth spiral. The vivid flowers, curving mossy branches, and sparkling ponds that surrounded them paled into insignificance in comparison to her radiance.

"Finally!" she breathed, opening her eyes wide. Stars reflected in her happy gaze. "Oh, Geoffrey, I am so glad to be free of that awful room. Even if just for now. Thank you."

"It was nothing, Your Majesty," Geoffrey said.

She dropped her elegant arms and turned her head to him. "I do wish you wouldn't call me that."

"I am your knight, Your Majesty. It is my duty and my place to show you the proper respect."

"But, Geoffrey, don't you understand?" she said, stepping closer to him. "I hear those words from everyone's lips. I am reminded of my station at every meeting. Every person I will ever speak with – they will say that, they will say 'Your Majesty,' and remind me yet again of this burden that I already know all too well I must somehow learn to bear. How am I to remember who I truly am, if I never again hear my name cross another's lips? How am I to remember I am more than just 'Your Majesty?' I am a queen, I am Queen Elincia, but I am also, always, merely Elincia."

"No," said Geoffrey suddenly, and she looked up in obvious surprise.

"Geoffrey?"

"Not merely," he explained. "You are not… merely Elincia. You are Your Majesty, you are Queen Elincia… and you are wonderful, Elincia. Lucia, I'm sure, will always call you just that. Bastian, of course, has all manner of silly names and titles for you."

She giggled, a delicate hand pressed against her painted lips. The sight made Geoffrey smile, too. But her featured softened again after a moment, and she looked up at him again with those eyes that had seen so much in so little time. Doubt, danger, and death, all things that he, her knight, was meant to bear for her, things that no young princess should experience. And yet she had seen it all, bore it on her own, and somehow those same eyes now could be filled with nothing but hope and affection.

"And you, Geoffrey?" she asked quietly. "What will you call me?"

He noticed that her hair had begun to escape from Lucia's careful arrangement. A few free strands danced in the wind, and one braid had fallen from its pin, the ends loosening and disappearing into the rest of her silken hair. She did not seem to notice, so focused was she upon him.

"Come here," said Geoffrey at last, and willingly, curiously, she stepped forward. They were so close that he could feel her breath faintly against his neck. With careful hands, Geoffrey untangled the freed braid, brushed the stray strands away from her face, and tucked her hair safely back into its pins. He made sure not to dislodge her crown, which seemed so precariously balanced. In the end, though his ministrations did not look as elegant as Lucia's, Elincia still seemed a veritable goddess in this little moonlit garden. As he dropped his hands, his fingers lingered on her pink cheeks, and only guiltily, reluctantly, did he let them fall away. He had no right to stand so wonderfully close to her. To her majesty.

"Please, Geoffrey?" she said.

Her words were so simple and yet so full of hope and meaning and trust. Two words that opened the door to her heart, her soul. Just as two words, "Your Majesty," threatened that same precious heart and cherished soul. But it was in her eyes that Geoffrey finally found his answer. It was her majesty – not in her title, but in her spirit. The majesty of her bearing, her beauty, was enchanting, and he was defenseless.

"Perhaps… when we are alone, I can call you Elincia again," Geoffrey said at last. "Like when we were young. But when we are in company, I must address you by title. Do you understand?"

A smile finally graced her breathtaking features. "Yes," she said. "I understand. As long as… sometimes… I can hear you say my name, then I will be happy."

"I would do anything to make you happy, Elincia," Geoffrey said with a smile.

She laughed, the sound echoing as clearly and prettily as a fine silver bell. Regardless of his armor, Elincia embraced him quite suddenly, her face touching the exposed skin of his neck and sending a shiver down his spine. Gently he placed his arms around her small figure. She whispered against his skin, the soft words almost indiscernible in the night and the distraction of her palpable breathing.

"It is a strange burden I must now bear," she said. "It is heavy, and yet… I feel as if it is one I was born to carry, so it is not painful. I think it is possible to carry because I have you, Lucia, Bastian… I have your shoulders to lean on, your hands to hold, your strength to rely on if ever the burden grows to be too much, don't I?"

"Always," said Geoffrey. "We will always be there, Your Majesty… Elincia."