A/N: Meep! My first story on here! Hope people like it! I'll probably do the same thing here though… start a story, and not finish it… Well, time to try!

A slight altercation. Tomodachi is next to the cat kingdom, Ishi estate is the closest to the kingdom.


Prologue

One cold, November night in the Tomodachi Kingdom, Count Kōrudo paced back and forth from his cold canopy bed to a cold window, not taking much note of the early winter blizzard that rattled the shutters on the Ishi estate.

'Why am I alone, without a wife to warm my bed?' he questioned himself, running his fingers through his midnight-black hair. 'And I need an heir. I cannot leave all my assets to meager peasants!"

The count paused in his pacing, struck by a thought.

'All I really need to do is marry the most beautiful of my maids and say she is a younger daughter of a lord from another kingdom. And who among my servants is more beautiful than the maid Naoko?'He walked over to a black, velvet rope and pulled it until a sleepy-eyed man servant appeared.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, smothering a yawn.

"Wake all the maids, and have them prepare Miss Naoko for her wedding. Send a couple of valets to attend to me, and send someone to wake the priest." The man servant looked at his master in astonishment.

"Is there a problem?" Count Kōrudo snapped at the man.

"N- No sir!" He stuttered, then, after a slight hesitation said "But she was married last week to her sweetheart, Re-"The count grabbed the man by the front of his shirt.

"Does it look like I care? I will marry her before the next sunrise. Follow my instructions, or you will be tossed outside before then." Letting go of the servant he gestured to the door with one hand as he wiped his other on his night robe, slightly disgusted that he'd had to touch one that was beneath his station to make him see the counts point.

"Go."

The man left as fast as he could without running. 'I hate to think how Naoko will take this! Poor girl…'


The wedding took place quickly in the small chapel in his cold fortress, for the priest was ordered to marry the two without the need for either the groom or bride to say 'I do' to eliminate the change the bride would say 'I don't'. As Naoko was kissed by the count's cold lips she cried, knowing that her previous week of happiness had been her last, and that she would never smile in her life with the stone count.

Nine months later, Naoko's dismal life was fragmentally brightened with the birth of a beautiful child. When the count looked at the child, however, he was filled with disgust, for it was a dark-eyed girl. Although he wanted a boy, his wish would never be granted, for Naoko died six years later, leaving behind the little dark-eyed, brunette child with her stone hearted father.

Not wanting to marry again, the count ordered for her to be raised as fitted her position so that when married her off, her husband would have a perfect wife. Slowly, the small girl turned in to a silent beauty, catching the king's eyes when she was fifteen, even though he was old enough to be her grandfather.

Her life would soon change from her potential dark future, however…