The Royal Gambit (Alice x Ryo)
Once upon a time there was a mountain—tall and lush and shrouded in mist and moonlight. And a man stood atop this mountain and saw that it was good. The man, who was the patriarch of a clan called Nakiri, declared that there he would build his kingdom. And from this mountain, a most prosperous dominion was born.
Hundreds of years later, Tōtsuki, the kingdom of the Nakiri, nearly crumbled under a famine brought on by dark sorcery. At the time of the harvest the crops withered, and for a hundred days not a single drop of rain fell from the sky. But on the morning when the reigning queen of Tōtsuki gave birth to her sole heir, a daughter with hair the color of golden wheat, all of the crops were restored and rain plummeted down from the heavens.
The Princess Erina—endowed with powerful magic, unmatched beauty, and great political shrewdness—possessed perhaps only one defect, an unyielding apathy towards the issue of her marriage.
As she neared her eighteenth birthday all the lords and ladies of the great kingdoms of this world, drawn by her apparent wealth and fabled beauty, implored King Senzaemon—who reclaimed throne after his daughter's most untimely death—to grant their sons Princess Erina in matrimony.
One day, the princess called her closest confidants—all the daughters of great lords of Tōtsuki—to her chambers to reveal a plan.
"I will send each of you to a powerful kingdom in my place," she said. "Pretending to be me, you will survey the lands and their princes and determine whether they are truly worthy of my consideration." She turned to her first cousin. "Alice, you will go to the court of King Saiba-"
"I refuse," the pale haired woman immediately said.
"What? Why?" The princess questioned, momentarily losing her regal countenance.
"Because as a member of the royal household I'm not obliged to do your bidding, Erina," she stated. "I will go to the northern continent, where my mother was born, and see for myself the warrior king who now rules there."
It was the tradition in those lands for a melee to be held upon the death of a king, and the champion of the fray would be named his successor. The rumor was that the current northern king had won his seat when he was only a boy of ten.
"I have no interest in a man who won his crown through bloodshed."
"But I do," Alice sang, dragging her index finger around the rim of her gilded wine chalice. "Some say that those are the only true kings, and the rest stay forever spoilt princes. Will you give me leave?"
"You will take it even if I don't," Erina sighed. It would be better to let her do as she wished and avoid worrying their grandfather.
"You know me so well, Erina," Alice mused, looking quite pleased with herself. "Now, do excuse me. I must go and pack."
Rolling her eyes, Erina turned to the rest of her ladies. "Fine. In that case I will send Lady Megumi to the court of King Saiba. That will probably be entirely more pleasant for the people there."
"M-me your highness?" The girl squeaked.
"Of course." Despite her shyness, she was one of the most formidable ladies in the kingdom. "Also, I'll send Lady Hisako to the court of King Hayama."
"But my princess, I thought he had no male heir," the pink haired woman confessed.
"He has an adopted son," Erina explained. "Apparently a skilled sorcerer." And the princess did not miss how her closest friend, a lifelong student of alchemy, brightened at the news.
"I'll leave right away."
She then sent her other companions, Ikumi, Ryouko and Yuki, on their own missions and retired to her rooms. If the plan worked as she hoped, she'd have an abundance of allies and no royal husband to encumber her.
Not long after King Ryo returned from his latest hunt, a flustered herald saw fit to disturb him.
"Pardon my intrusion, your majesty-"
"The hell do you want?" he snapped.
"The Princess Alice of Tōtsuki demands an audience."
"Princess what of who?"
"It is a prosperous kingdom to the southeast of us, your majesty," the herald explained.
Ryo considered this for a moment. "Who told her to come here?"
"No one, your majesty, but she is quite impatient."
When Ryo entered the dark throne room he was met with the sight of a slight, well dressed thing with hair the pale color of moonlight.
"That was quite long to keep a lady waiting," she quipped, her arms crossed. "Will you not even offer me a chair?"
"You see any chairs in here?" the warrior king questioned.
Then, without preamble, the young woman climbed the stone steps leading up to the only seat in the room—the throne—and settled into it. "Ahh, that's much better," she sighed.
The palace guards all reached for their halberts and the young king's dark eyes narrowed at her insolence. "I'm not sure what kind of place Tōtsuki is, princess, but that kind of thing will get you killed up here."
She crossed one leg over the other, and deliberately pulled out her wineskin. "And yet I still breathe." She took a languid sip of the spiced wine she brought with her.
Ryo sighed. Here in his kingdom, where even the most seasoned warriors trembled before him, this woman stared him in the face without an ounce of fear. "What is it that you want?"
"I want you to help me find and tame an ice dragon," she explained.
Ryo scoffed. He should have expected as much. "All you southern girls think those things are pets. They're deadly."
Alice gave a disarming laugh. "I don't want it for my menagerie," she explained. "There is a man I need dead as soon as possible. He wields magic, and I require a greater magic to vanquish him."
"Who?" the king asked, suddenly intrigued by the sadistic fire in her blood red eyes.
"My uncle."
"Why should I involve myself in your familial disputes?"
"Because you are powerful and you are bored," she revealed. "And I know well the old northern law. If I defeat you in a contest, you will be obliged to help me."
"What could you possible best me at? Cooking?"
"Oh, I'd destroy you in a shokugeki," she declared.
"A what?"
"Oh my, for a king you are quite ignorant of foreign customs," Alice mused. "But I had something else in mind."
The king considered this. "I'm listening."
Alice arrived on the training field wearing light, leather armor and a long cloak of purple velvet. Many of the courtiers had gathered, curious of the foreign maiden who thought she could best their king in an archery contest.
The target was set one hundred and fifty meters ahead of them, and with the winter fog that shrouded the grounds it was nearly impossible to see. King Ryo shot first and managed to hit the ninth ring, only a matter of centimeters from the center.
Alice smirked. "That was better than I expected," she noted, giggling. "Truly. You might actually beat me in a fair fight."
"You can talk after you've gone," he replied, beginning to grow used to her attitude.
"I suppose you're right." Then Alice brandished her bow, one in the most modern design available in the known world. She whispered an incantation that neither Ryo nor the members of his court had ever heard before, and her arrow began to glow silver.
The arrow hit the center of the target with resounding thump, and spectators fell silent.
Alice turned to King Ryo, smirking. "Did I forget to mention it? That I'm the best marksman in all of Tōtsuki Kingdom, even without my magic."
"I'm surprised someone like you can even nock a bow."
"How rude," she sang. "Although I can see why. My cousin Erina is completely useless when it comes to fighting, and most other things, to be honest."
Ryo sighed. A promise was a promise. "So when do you want this dragon?"
"As soon as possible."
"Alright. We leave at dawn."
"So, what do you think?" Alice questioned, looking up from her laptop eagerly. This was the first time she'd read anyone her draft.
"Who's useless at everything?" The second seat barked.
"It's just fiction, Erina," her cousin giggled. "I'm so glad I chose the creative writing class as my non-cooking elective."
"If it's fiction then at least change the names! And also, this is going to be a fantasy romance story, right?"
"Obviously."
"Then why'd you send Hisako to Hayama's kingdom?"
"That's the part you care about?" Alice groaned. "Not my heroism?"
"A mean, the self-aggrandizement was a bit much-"
"Nobody asked you, Erina!" the fourth seat huffed.
"You literally said listen to my short story and tell me what you think."
"You were supposed to say good things," she grumbled. "But I guess a mean person like you could never do that."
Erina sighed, rolling her eyes. "It was a bit cute, though, that you made Kurokiba-kun a king."
This put a smile on Alice's face. "That part wasn't fiction."
Author's Notes: Happy New Year, dear readers! So, in my real life I'm trying to write a medieval fantasy novel. I was working on it over the weekend and then this just kind of happened. What do you think about the story within a story thing? If you guys like it, I could put a few other characters in this creative writing elective and throw an AU chapter in every now and then. Please keep letting me know what you're interested in reading. Thanks for your time, everyone, and have a great first week of 2017!