a/n: no copyright infringement intended, all recognisable characters belong to S. Meyer.
This is my first foray into fanfiction after not writing for nearly a decade, so I'm seeing this as a practice ground. The story is fully written, eighteen short chapters in total, making up just over 30,000 words. I'll be posting in quick succession, only allowing for editing.
Painting Peace
by BixieRosen
1
"There are precious few days that are truly deserving of the word 'monumental'."
Bella listens to the speech she knows by heart, having helped written it, as if she is hearing it for the first time.
"Today, we are taking the first steps toward a future in which our children can look up at the sky and see nothing but freedom. See nothing but opportunity."
Lifting her gaze upward, she watches the azure heavens, her lips moving silently to the words being spoken.
"Today, we take the first steps toward peace."
Peace. She mouths the word a second time in the silence. The word feels heavy on her lips, as if forming the word is somehow unnatural. Forbidden. Taboo. And yet, isn't it the greatest wish she has ever had? When the drone strikes killed her mother when she was four, she vividly remembers screaming at her father, wailing; it's not fair! She'd had a playmate, an orphan from the neighbouring moon, and after the death of the Queen, Bella had slowly watched how those supposedly there to care for him ostracised him. Peter, his name had been. Four months after her mother's death, Peter disappeared.
Many years later, she found out her own people had killed Peter. To send a message. A message that went unheard as the neighbouring moon would care little about the child of a traitor. He belonged nowhere. Not on his home planet, not on the planet that reluctantly took him in. To this day it made her want to heave, bile rising unbidden every time Peter's small face surfaced in her mind.
Edging her mind away from bitter memories, Bella closes her eyes, memorising the warmth of the sun on her cheek, feeling the weight of her clasped hands in her lap. She feels alone, as if they are back in her father's study with no one else to hear his words.
"The past year has been uncertain as we worked to form a peace settlement with the Xepheryans, but today I stand before you, fully believing that the peace settlement which we have agreed to is in our best interest. There is not a soul alive that remembers what it is like to live in a universe where we can call the Xepheryans brothers, but I hope, one day, that will once more be possible. This war has gone on for too long and claimed too many lives. There is not a family on this moon who has not been personally affected by this tragedy. That belief is so strong that my own daughter, Princess Isabella, Heir Apparent to Mongrovia, is choosing to embrace this peace settlement with her whole being, and has such decided to agree to the Xepheryan proposal of marriage to their eldest Prince and Heir to the Xepheryan throne, Prince Edward."
Bella barely hears the murmurs that go through the crowd. Hardly feels the stares, eyes boring into the back of her head.
So much time had been spent agonizing over that one line. Her father had wanted to call it a 'sacrifice'. Bella had been adamant that it would send the wrong message. After all, she is not being forced. She is of age. She knows full well what she is agreeing to. Her own happiness pales in comparison to the possibility of ending a war more than century long.
Bella is liked by the people, she would be a fool not to recognise that. Naturally inclined toward action, she refused to sit idly in gilded chairs as the people suffered. The death of her mother and the stoic belief in the fair treatment of all carried over to her by her father had left her pragmatic. The princess had often been deemed lost in her youth, only to turn up reading stories to orphans, or covered in grime having helped the soup-kitchens. Much to her father's dismay, inaction was not her strength.
So when the Xepheryan king, King Edward II, proposed the marriage between his eldest and Bella herself, there was little debate on her part. She was in a unique position of being able to encourage her people to see the Xepheryans not as monsters, but as people, worthy of personhood, not by making speeches, but by taking action. Leading by example.
The reason for the marriage is pragmatic enough. Xepheryans had experienced a sweeping viral outbreak almost three decades ago, heavily affecting birth-rates. Fewer children were being born with each passing year and no one knew quite why, or how to fix it. Although her father, Charlie, had never admitted it outright, Bella had heard rumours among the older royal advisors that indicated that the virus that killed more than half the population of Xepherya and was still wreaking havoc was in fact Mongrovia-made, a hushed up project from Bella's own grandfather. Is it then so wrong that a member of the Mongrovian royal family should fix this wrong? Bella sees some form of poetic retribution in it. A way to selfishly calm her inner guilt for the genocide her family has potentially caused.
"This is not an act of subjugation, or oppression. When the throne passes to Princess Isabella, she alone will have the right to rule Mongrovia. Prince Edward will have no more than an advisory position on this moon, and the same goes for Princess Isabella on Xepherya. Whatever children they have will be the first to be the rightful and equal rulers of both moons."
This too Charlie had struggled with putting in the speech. The idea that Bella would be required to produce off-spring with a Xepheryan. All for a peace treaty. Bella tries not to think so much about that part. She has her duty. And her duty requires everything she can give if it yields peace.
She tunes out the rest of the speech. Words advisors insisted needed to be said, words about strength, or retaining their Mongrovian identity. Everyone knows peace is the only option. Just as the Xepheryans are slowly dying out, so are the Mongrovians, just for other reasons. Food supplies are short. The Mongrovian moon had had several bad yields four years in a row. People are starving, and the Xepheryans have the technology that will help stabilise the atmosphere.
Peace is the only option. They all know this. Platitudes are pointless.
Toward the end of her father's speech, Bella recognises her cue to get up and stand by his side. It is a short walk, from the front row to the podium. Four steps and there she is, staring out at a sea of people, the inhabitants of the capital, many of those she knows by name and even more cameras pointed her way. To many, it is their first time seeing her in ceremonial garb. The garment is an odd looking thing in Bella's own opinion, a large train billowing along her legs that is attached to an embroidered t-shirt shaped top with stiff short sleeves, leaving tailored trousers exposed in the front. It is meant to symbolise that women are also part of the working force, not just there to be on display, but Bella thinks getting rid of the train entirely would be wholly sufficient. Her arms are left bare, as per tradition, and her dark hair is pillowed on top of her head, the crown she wears having belonged to her late mother. It is platinum, inlaid with the gems that grow naturally on the Mongrovian moon, a pale ochre colour that glows in the dark. The embroidery matches the stones, terracotta and red, the colours of the royal house, and idly she wonders if she will ever have a chance to wear it again. Will that be too inflammatory? Will her heritage always be a point of contestation?
And yet, dressed to the nines as per her station in life, she is sure everyone who gazes upon her see a stranger. She recognises almost all of them. Seth, the engineer assistant. Leah, his sister, the pilot that had allowed Bella to sneak on-board a supply ship when she was sixteen. There is Sam, the leader of the orphanage and his wife Emily who runs a bakery. Billy, who needs no attribute. Countless others. Jacob.
Jake.
Her heart clenches when her eyes meet his. Dark pools of kindness and warmth, and for a split second she wonders what he thinks of her in that moment. Is she a stranger to him now? She wonders if he can see past the makeup. If he can tell that the coal-dark smudgings over her eyebrows make her feel like she is getting coal into her eyes with the faintest blink. If he can tell that wearing the war-paint makes her uncomfortable because it only enhances her natural paleness. If he knows that she doubts she will ever again be happy unless she is wrapped in his arms.
They have already made their goodbyes. Wrapped in twisted sheets, hidden in their secret place, pretending the world didn't exist. She had fallen asleep naked with his bare chest pressed up against her back not twelve hours ago.
Never again. This is your choice. The thought is heavy in her mind. Not enough to change her mind, never enough to change her mind, just enough to ensure that personal happiness would be hard-fought.
Just as Bella is sure she is about to faint from lack of oxygen, Jake's mouth turns into the barest ghost of a smile. One faint wink, and she can breathe again. Jake understands. Understands that protecting their people needs to come first. Even if it kills them in the process.
Dragging her eyes away from the man she is sure she will always love, she realises her father has gone silent next to her. Her father was not in the habit of missing much, including the romance of his daughter and the son of his Defence minister. Had things turned out differently, they would have been a good match. Jacob would have made his daughter happy. If only.
"When I look at you, the citizens of Mongrovia, I have never felt so out of place dressed up in fancy jewellery." Bella's voice is sure, even from practice and conviction. She has to put Jake out of her mind, hide him away in the deepest recesses of her heart. "I hope, to most of you, you will remember me for my actions. For all the times I worked alongside you, and for the times I disregarded my poor father's health and acted without my own safety in mind." As expected, a quiet rumbling laugh goes through the crowd and some tension seeps out of them. Even the hover-crafts stationed over the gathering stop their fly-overs and maintain position, leaving the square eerily still.
"I am agreeing to marry Prince Edward of my own free will, and I am doing so knowing that peace is our only alternative. Our only hope of survival. Having said that, I hope to impart on you that from this moment forward, I will not be so reckless with my own well-being as I have been in my youth. From this moment forward, I am representing all of us, and the Xepheryans are very aware that to us, you and I are the same. A threat against me is a threat against us all. If I, someone whose mother was taken from her by a Xepheryan drone strike, can marry a Xepheryan, then I believe we can all agree to put our differences aside and see each other as one. Not three-hundred years ago, we were one people. We were the explorers, leaving our home-world of Xepherya to explore our neighbouring moon, which we named Mongrovia."
Bella takes a deep breath, attempting to take it all in. It will be years before she can return, and that is if everything goes according to plan. If either hers or Prince Edward's safety is compromised at any point she is sure it will only escalate the violence. She fears if that happens neither race will survive.
"When we sign the peace treaty later on today, peace is not achieved." Glancing toward the ministers she knows are most adamantly against this peace treaty, Bella hardens her gaze. "Peace is a long-term process, one we are only starting today. It is up to us and our children to promise to never again resort to violence. We need to allow diplomacy to play it course, to trust the system my father and I are trying to build. One day, our moons will have only one royal house and with that one governing system. Together we can ensure the safety of our home. Security is within our grasp. All we have to do is reach out and grasp it."
Placing both hands over her heart, Bella bows, to the applause and wailing of the crowd. She is dangerously close to being overcome with emotion, but her father's steady hand on her shoulder is enough for her to hold it together.
She cannot appear weak. She is the Princess.
