A/N: Hello readers! Thank you for deciding to read this story!
Oh, and I am basing this story on the books. There will be differences of course, because this is set in an alternate universe or AU. No use of magic here! And please expect the characters to be a bit OOC for them to fit in the story.
Please tell me what you think by reviewing (whether it will criticizing or praising, I don't care. Reviews help me write better.) Favorite and Follow if you want, as well! Enjoy reading!
Mr. Hatter lives up to his name. He and his family live in a small town in Strangia, where he is known to sell and make the loveliest hats. He sends his daughters to the best school in the next town. He and his family lived a fairly normal, that it is very much a pity when he died.
A young lady with hair the color of sunset sits in front of a table, doing her work quietly but steadily. Sophie is her name.
She looks at the stacks of plain hats she still has to sew decorations on. She sighs. As the eldest daughter of Mr. Hatter, she inherited the shop and the business. She even inherited the talent of her father and turned out to be as good as, no, actually, better in making hats than her father. She loves her work, she really does, but she sometimes finds the work making her life boring and dull.
She sighs again as she adds the finished hat to the stack of ready-to-sell hats. I could be at school today, she thinks, if only Fanny is here to substitute for me for the few school hours. She is the most studious out of her sisters, but also the only one who can manage the hat shop while her stepmother is gone. Her sisters have absolutely no talent in creating hats.
Fanny, her stepmother, is away to see her suitors. She's just like Mr. Hatter. Sophie's mother died when her daughters are still in a very young age, and a few months after, her father married Fanny to be their mother. She is a good motherly figure to them, treating them all with kindness.
Fanny told her this morning that one of her suitors is very handsome and very rich. She also said that she's hoping that that man would propose marriage to her, so that they could all live a good and prosperous life once again. Fanny's still young, Sophie thinks as she picks up a new hat to decorate, it is understandable that she would want a husband and a good house. But I also hope she could also help more in the business.
The door suddenly burst open. "Sophie! Sophie!"
She gasps and jumps in her seat. She puts a hand in her chest and tries to calm down her fast-beating heart. "Lettie, Martha, you frightened me!"
"It is the time to be frightened!" Lettie sits down in a chair in the living room. Lettie is a year younger than her, and her only sister in both parents. Though, she inherited the dark hair of their father, while Sophie inherited the reddish gold hair of their mother. She is said to be the prettiest of the three sisters, although all of them grew up to be very pretty.
"What happened?" Sophie puts down the unfinished hat and goes to sit beside Lettie.
"War has come!" Martha sits down in the chair opposite her sisters after she locked the door and hung a 'closed' sign. She has fair hair, which she inherited from her mother, Fanny. She is the youngest and also the brightest of them three.
"War? Between Strangia and Ingary?" Sophie cannot hide the shock from her voice. She always thinks that the royal family of Strangia would never resort to violence against the Ingary, which larger and more powerful than Strangia.
"Yes! A messenger came to town and shouted the news that the king has accepted the challenge of war from Ingary. There was chaos and screaming in the school." Lettie explains.
"Mrs. Fairfax sent all the students home." Martha continues, before fixing her gray eyes to Sophie's blue-green orbs. "She also asked why you are not in school."
"You know the answer to that, Martha. There are lots of work to do and lots of debts to pay." Sophie's father cannot cover all the expenses the school he sent his daughters to with just his salary. And after he died, he left his debts in the hands of his family.
"Where is mother, by the way?" Martha asks, looking around the shop.
"Let me guess. She left you here alone while she's looking for men who are rich and who will want to marry her," Lettie deadpans.
"What? Oh, that mother of mine," Martha exclaims when Sophie nods. "She is exploiting you, Sophie! It is her responsibility to make money and pay the debts, since she's now the head of the family. You should be at school!"
"When Fanny marries a rich suitor, she says that one of her suitors is that kind of man, then all our debts would be paid, and then I can go to school," Sophie reasons.
"Yes, but when would that be? You could be too old for school when she marries the man, for all we know! And you would be stuck in this shop forever." Lettie holds her older sister's hands, and soon after, Martha places her hands on the top as well. "We all know you love studying and we all know you would have a good life after you finish school. But you have too soft a heart, that you let many things hinder your dreams and opportunities!"
Sophie looks down at their clasped hands, since she cannot hold the concerned gazes of her sisters anymore. Her heart is deeply moved, though. "Lettie, Martha, thank you. While both of you think about my future, I am also thinking about yours. Both of you deserve a better life than this, that's why if I have to sacrifice my future for yours, then so be it. I would love to send you two to Filbert and Hazel School we went before, but it is far too expensive. Mrs. Fairfax's school is not the same as that, but education is education, and it will certainly lead you both to better lives."
The three of them hold each other, wondering and worrying about their lives during the war and after the war.
War indeed has come. It happens at the border of the two countries, and does not spread to other places, which means lives of other people are not disrupted. Sophie, Lettie, and Martha goes back to school, while Fanny is home, doing the work.
The war does not last more than 2 weeks, for the Ingarian soldiers are too strong for the Strangian ones. After a huge loss in the battlefield, Strangia's royal family sends a message of surrender to the royalty of Ingary, saying that they are afraid of losing more lives. It is then known that Strangia is conquered by Ingary.
"Did you hear, girls?" Fanny asks them during dinner a few months after the war. By this time, Sophie has already finished her studies and is now working full-time at the hat shop, much to her sisters' disappointments. They know their eldest sister could be somewhere better, but Sophie told them that she needs to help pay the debts first.
"What happened, mother?" Martha answers while chewing, which earns her a hard look from her mother.
"Where are your manners, Martha? Do not talk while eating." Then Fanny's face softens as she turns from her daughter. "The king offered all the ladies of marriageable age to the soldiers of Ingary!" This is followed by a lot of disbelieving exclamations and questions from the three beautiful ladies.
"Haven't the king already offered the hand of his daughter, our Princess Beatrice, to the Ingary's prince as a sign of peace?" Lettie throws down her utensils to the floor, obviously not caring whether they break or not.
"We have already lost a lot of lives because of the war. We have surrendered. We have been declared a conquered city of Ingary. And now we, all ladies, for goodness's sake, have been given as some kind of gifts to the enemies!" Sophie stands up and walks back and forth.
"It is not fair for us! What if we are engaged? What if we do not abide by the king's order? What if we do not want to marry the soldiers? Do we not have a choice?" Martha slams her hands at the table.
"Girls, clam down. Shush. Girls, please. Lower your tone and volume. Girls! Girls!" Only when Fanny raises her voice and slams the table with such force the plates rattle, do the ladies quiet down and look at her. Fanny composes herself and folds her aching hands at her lap. "Sophie, please sit down. Lettie, please pick up the utensils. And Martha, you are not yet in the marriageable age. What are you getting angry for?"
Martha flushes with embarrassment, but holds her mother's gaze stubbornly. "I am getting angry for my sisters. Oh, and you too! You are still in the marriageable age, yes, mother?"
"Yes, what about your suitor? He has not yet proposed to you, as far as we know. Aren't you worried?" Lettie asks, her sarcasm drips a little bit in her words that Sophie purses her lips in a thin line.
Fanny ignores the sarcasm, or perhaps she doesn't catch it. "Oh, yes. I am terribly worried. I do not want to marry a soldier. How can they pay our debts with their small earnings? That is why I am going to see Mr. Sacheverell Smith tomorrow. I certainly hope he heard the news and would propose to me already."
"Is marrying Ingary's soldiers really an order? Do we really not have a choice?" Sophie asks, wishing quietly for her stepmother to disagree.
Fanny sighs. "Yes. I suppose tomorrow a messenger will announce it here. But yes, I heard from Mrs. Fairfax that it really is an order."
The next day, a messenger arrives and confirms what Fanny told them. The messenger stands in the center of the town square and shouts, "All ladies of marriageable age, please prepare to be at the capital of Ingary, Kingsbury, at the end of the month! A cotillion will be held for a week, where the ladies will be presented to their possible husbands. At the last day of that week, all ladies must have chosen one from their suitors."
"This is absurd," Sophie says. She is standing with her dark-haired sister among the crowd that formed around the messenger. Fanny is dealing with Mr. Smith at the moment, and Martha is left at home to oversee the hat shop.
"It really is! We are only given three weeks before the end of the month. And the trip to the border from here would take three days! And we do not know how far Kingsbury is from there," Lettie exclaims.
"Not only that," Sophie reminds her sister. "We are also given only a week to find and choose a husband."
"The kings of Strangia and Ingary both says that they do not want to handle too many divorce papers at once," the messenger continues. "Thus, they ordered that the lady will live in with her chosen suitor for a month. A marriage will only occur when both parties agree to marry each other by the end of 4 weeks of living together!"
"Alright, it is not that absurd, but it is still absurd," Lettie says, as the messenger is finishing his speech. The crowd is getting into frenzy with protests and questions. "What will happen if they do not agree to marry each other?"
The two sisters have to push and squirm their way out of the angry and shouting mass of people to start their way back home. Sophie answers, once they are outside the crowd, "I guess we shall find out in a few weeks."
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