- Waiting

The queen was sitting, looking like she was reading a book, but she wasn't.

There was another false princess being tested right now on the other side of the palace. After the seventh false princess she had given up on the embroidery, she had looked at it after they had gotten the head shake from the guard, it looked like the work of a drunken spider. She just couldn't concentrate, the fear and worry got in the way.

The past few days had been incredibly hard. The depression that came with the preparations of the Anniversary (there was no way to call it celebration) of the Lost Princess' birthday was awful. She knew in her heart that her baby still lived out there somewhere, she knew that! But if that feeling ever went away...

Then her baby's crown was stolen by Flynn Rider. She had been strong while they were told, they had seen the empty pedestal in the throne room. Her husband had shed a tear and had simply ordered the death of the perpetrators, by any means necessary, no questions asked, just bring back their heads. No one had argued. It was wrong to do that, but she hadn't cared either and hadn't checked her husband on that. She just wanted Flynn Rider dead, dead, dead!

She had gone to her private library and raged and screamed herself hoarse. She had eventually crumpled to the shattered-porcelain covered floor, hating Flynn Rider, hating the Kidnapper, hating herself for not being a good enough mother to protect her miracle baby. She had taken the vial with the Lock of Hair out of her bodice and held it close to her cheek, kissed it, the last evidence that her baby had existed and prayed that her baby was okay, was good and would come home soon.

It had been her daughter's eighteenth birthday yesterday and now another worry was that she would be a woman now and was she good? Could she have any influence on the life of her baby now that she is all grown up? She prayed all the time for her miracle daughter to come home and be a good person. If her baby wasn't good everything would fall apart, everything.

She flipped the pages of her leather-bound book regularly, but she couldn't see the words any more. That had left her after the eleventh false princess. She vaguely wondered what book it was she was supposed to be reading.

The agonizing hours of waiting took their toll. The wild mood swings from hope to despair were something she could not control. She rode them like a ship in a storm. Her husband, her love, nearby, was her anchor, but she knew he suffered too. By the fourth false princess they had stopped trying to talk to each other about their daughter, it was easier to just wait quietly.

They had tried waiting separately once, but she had devolved into screaming and weeping, somehow being together was easier, like two boats tied together are more stable.

She was glad that the maids always remembered the extra pillow after false princess days, she generally cried longer on nights after a false princess had been sent away, sleeping on a soggy pillow wasn't very nice, except in the worst of the summer heat.

Today was a nice day though, sunny but not too hot, the roses were nice this time of year. She wondered if there was flounder available, oil-poached flounder with herbs sounded nice for dinner, but she wasn't hungry. The theatre always did something special this time of year. Maybe a play to take their minds off of the false princess. She turned the blurry page.

A guard slid through the doors and nodded.

A nod.

The guard had nodded.

That was ...different.

It had always been a shake before.

Why would the guard nod?

They never gave a nod before.

A nod meant ...something, something important.

Her heart began to slam against her chest.

The queen stood and moved near the king, the book in her hands forgotten.

A nod would mean...

She looked at her husband and he at her and then back to the guard with the crossed white sashes.

A nod...

...would

mean...

The mother found herself running, alongside the father for the plaza balcony, as the guard dove out of the way, his fez flying.