[A/N: our dear sweet Dame Julie (who I'm almost certain would laugh very hard at that particular description of her) sang a word in this that I tend to leave out of my personal vocabulary. Intriguingly, it seems many artists have sung this song and when I look at the lyrics for anyone else's version, it doesn't include that word at all. Yet Dame Julie all but shouts it in the song. (This honestly makes me laugh really hard, mostly because it always reminds me of an interview in which she said the way she most embarrassed her daughter while raising her was by swearing too much.) So I'm including it in the lyrics the way she sings it, but with the word starred out. Now, will the prim and proper Queen Clarisse dare use such a word? Well, I suppose you'll have to read and find out!]
Queen Clarisse Renaldi, widow of the late King Rupert, was finally starting to feel a bit better.
Her husband and best friend had passed several months ago, but she had mourned and, though she missed him every day, life was moving on. Her younger son was studying all he needed to know to take the throne a year after the previous monarch's death, as was customary if a guardian (in this case, the widow queen herself) was available to keep things running. All was well in Genovia.
So, with such good spirits, was it any wonder that the conversation between the still-black-clad queen and her always-black-clad head of security devolved the way it did?
It started innocently enough. It was a basic over-tea meeting between them about security, and changes therein with the queen's temporary rule and impending new king's rule. They happened to be joking around more than usual, enjoying the peace and one another's company. Joseph briefly mentioned the moment when all employees would swear fealty to the new king, to which Clarisse responded in mock offense. "I mean, honestly, Joseph, you never swore the full oath of fealty to me, just to my husband, and now you speak of the same soon to my son? How did I get so passed over?"
Joseph affected the same tone of faux seriousness. "Now, I'm sure that can't be true. I've never been so devoted to anyone but you, so I must have sworn it at some point."
"No, no, I'm quite sure you never have." She held her hand out toward him for him to bow over as she placed the other dramatically against her forehead and cried, "Come to me! Bend to me! Swear thine fealty!"
Immediately, Joseph was out of his seat and kneeling before her kissing her hand, happy to respond to this rare playful mood. "Oh, my queen," he said, punctuating his phrases with kisses, "I do swear my allegiance to you, your majesty. I promise on my faith that I will in the future be faithful to my queen, never cause her harm, and will observe my homage to her completely against all persons in good faith and without deceit." The standard oath (minus the perpetual hand-kissing and the dramatic "oh my queen" at the start) stopped there, but Joseph continued. "To honor and cherish her, and always to scold her soundly should she try to disregard my recommendations for her safety, forever and ever, until death do us part."
The chuckle emitted from her majesty might have been called a giggle in anyone less queen-like. "You forgot love."
He stopped his kissing to look up and catch her eye. "Pardon?"
At the sudden shift and realization of what she'd said, she tried to regain the humor of a moment earlier with her tone of voice as she said, "Love, honor, and cherish. That's how it goes, right?"
Alas, her voice that could land on just the right tone to calm a distressed countryman kneeling before her throne, tame a diplomat, or leave a parliamentarian shaking in his wig, betrayed her this time. If anything, the air between them was more charged than ever as he whispered, "That too."
As soon as she could persuade her body to move, she reclaimed her hand and shifted sideways to rise out of her chair without bumping his kneeling form, not ready to let the subject drop but needing some space between them for it to continue. She turned away from him and spoke her comments to the wall she was now nearly face-to-face with. "Of course, there are many kinds of love."
"Of course." He rose but wisely kept his distance, addressing her back as she looked studiously at anything and nothing, so long as it was 180 degrees from him. "As we've discussed numerous times. Friendship love, familial love, all kinds," he offered, giving her an out from what she'd just said.
But she didn't want an out this time. "Even within romantic love, there are different kinds." She turned, revealing her still-playful face, and watched his concern at having taken things too far melt away into wonder that she was forging ahead. "You know, sometimes it's just a moment's madness. Sometimes it's painful. But others, it's beautiful, a summer shower followed by sunshine, allowing hearts to flower together as one."
"How poetic," he complimented before adding his own thoughts. "And you're right. It can be an open flame or a dying ember."
She leaned back against the wall, hands tucked behind her back, bending one leg to plant a foot against her support, and regarded him across the room. "It can be pledged whole-heartedly, dead and forgotten only months later."
"Or it can be fine and free." He was advancing toward her slowly now, though she wasn't sure he was even aware of it.
"True, but that kind doesn't always happen."
"No kind always happens."
"Also true. It seems it's almost never the same. For instance," she added, a mischievous smirk playing at the corners of her mouth, "it can be absolute ecstasy." She heard his breath catch, and her eyes danced as she added, "But that kind isn't around very long, and finding it can be an absolute bi-"
"Your majesty!" he interrupted, shocked at the language he'd known she was about to use.
"Oh, really, Joseph, I've heard you say plenty of similar things."
"But I'm not queen."
She smiled. "No. No, you're most certainly not." They stayed looking at one another a few moments longer, her expression declaring, as her words could not, that she was very appreciative indeed that he was not a queen. Finally, she picked up where they'd left off. "Love can start out wild and then suddenly become tame. But you know, any one kind of love ending doesn't necessarily mean the love itself is all gone."
"Doesn't it?"
"It could, of course. But not always. Sometimes it drops off only to be replaced by another kind."
"Like that ecstasy can be replaced by something else?" He could no longer approach her any closer without pressing their fronts together. Which was not to say she wanted him to stop advancing.
"Oh, absolutely. Should one be lucky enough to find ecstasy, it may not be around long, but it can give way to sunshine, then to… to a forever joy. For instance. It's almost never the same, even over time within one relationship."
"Your majesty?" he whispered, nothing louder necessary with their current proximity.
"Clarisse," she whispered back.
"Clarisse," he breathed with a greater reverence than any oath of fealty had ever been given. "May I -"
A knock sounded on her office door. "Your majesty?" called her assistant Charlotte, replacement for Margaret who had somewhat unexpectedly retired at the same time as David. No, not just at the same time - with. They had a lovely cottage on a beach together now, though until she'd announced she was leaving with him, nobody had known they had a romantic relationship at all, not even Clarisse.
"Yes, Charlotte, you may enter," she called, her voice thankfully obeying her this time. As she spoke, Joseph sprang away from her and stood respectfully, and she moved to stand by her desk, resting her hand on a stack of papers as though she'd just set them down.
Charlotte opened the door, and if she spotted anything unusual she didn't show it. "I'm sorry to interrupt your meeting, but I've just received word the prime minister has arrived at the palace and will be here shortly for your 4:00."
"Yes, of course, Charlotte, we were just wrapping up anyway. Thank you."
Charlotte nodded with a quick but slightly distracted smile and retreated, checking something or other on her ever-present clipboard.
Clarisse and Joseph looked at each other another moment, not awkwardly, but more apologetically than anything. After a few beats, she spoke. "I'm afraid there isn't time right now, but someday soon I would love -" she paused to let the effect of the repeated word sink in - "to hear the end of that sentence."
"Someday soon, I would love to say it, but perhaps it's best left until his highness has taken the throne. Until then," he added with a playful yet stately bow, "my fealty always, your majesty." He looked into her eyes, growing serious once more, and said again, "Always."
Then he was gone.
Love
Love can be a moment's madness
Love can be insane
Love can be a life of sadness and pain
Love can be a summer shower
Love can be the sun
Love can be two hearts that flower as one
It can be
Fine and free
But it's true
It doesn't always happen to you
Love can be a dying ember
Love can be a flame
Love pledged in September
Can be dead in December
You may not even remember it came
Oh, love can be a joy forever
Or an empty name
Love is almost never ever the same
Love can be a cup of sorrow
Love can be a lie
Love can make you wake tomorrow and sigh
Love can be a snow-capped mountain
Love can be the truth
Love can be an endless fountain of youth
It can be ecstasy
But that kind
Isn't around very long, and it's an absolute b**** to find it
Love can be the force for failure
Love can bring you fame
Love fresh as the morning
Can be wild when it's 'borning
And then without any warning, it's tame
Oh love can be a sweet endeavor
Or a losing game
Love is almost never the same!