Erzsébet sat in the small private lounge of her royal quarters on a couch, the window open behind her to allow a gentle breeze, as she waited for her handsome guest to arrive.
After yesterday's series of unfortunate events, Ludwig had kept his distance from her as much as possible. He even took all of today's meals in his own guest quarters, instead of joining Erzsébet in the dining room. Annoyed at his lack of interest in speaking to her, and ready to do something about it, Erzsébet had sent Yao to insist on Ludwig visiting her this evening for a little chat.
She glanced at the small side table beside her where three items were waiting: a nice bottle of red wine, a silver wine glass and a golden wine glass. Knowing that Ludwig should be here any moment, she took the bottle of wine and poured some into both glasses. She sipped at her own golden glass, and quickly topped it off, before placing everything back on the table.
Next, she reached into the small pocket of her lounging dress and removed the small vial. While Francis was suffering under that strange magical trance last night, Erzsébet pocketed the vial of love potion before checking on him. Luckily for her, he was sufficiently distressed by his frozen fingertips to forget she was trying to swipe one of his potions.
She popped open the vial, and leaned forward to pour the contents into the silver glass of wine. Francis had told her long ago that a few drops were sufficient, but Erzsébet found with Ivan that the whole bottle was needed for the full effect she needed. As such, she did not hesitate to dump the full contents of this new vial into the silver glass.
Once it was fully emptied, she popped the lid back on the vial and put it back in her pocket, just in time for someone to knock on the door.
"Come in," she called.
The door opened, and Prince Ludwig entered the room, closing the door behind him.
"Your Majesty," he greeted, "Yao said you wished to speak to me."
"Yes, I do," Erzsébet confirmed, gesturing at the wine beside her, "Given the strange circumstances from yesterday, and the distance between us since then, I wish to make a peace offering."
"That is very kind," Ludwig acknowledged, "I don't feel like drinking at the moment."
"Then at least take a seat and speak to me," Erzsébet insisted, "I can see you are greatly troubled, and that you need to unburden yourself of your stresses."
Ludwig hesitated to move, before sighing and walking over to sit on the loveseat across from her.
"I just don't understand, Your Majesty," Ludwig confessed, "I met Natalya in the forest, and she seemed so kind. Then at the dance, she was lovely and charming, and - well - perfection, really. But then, yesterday in the forest..."
"Her true colours were revealed?" Erzsébet finished for him as he lost his words.
He only responded by nodding in his dismay.
"Natalya has always been a very erratic girl," Erzsébet explained, "Some would even call her high maintenance."
"Love can be so difficult," Ludwig groaned, making Erzsébet frown as she realized a distraction was needed immediately.
"Love always is," she sympathized, "I thought I had found my ideal man, until he was struck down in his prime."
Erzsébet feigned a sniffle as she reminisced about Ivan's death, successfully getting Ludwig to look at her with a determined look.
"You're right," Ludwig stated as he rose from his seat, "We must honour the late King."
"We must," she concurred as he crossed over to the side table.
"A fallen hero must be remembered," Ludwig added as he picked up the wine glasses, offering her the silver one.
"Gold, please," she gently requested, "It's my lucky colour."
"Of course," Ludwig complied, withdrawing his hand with the silver glass and holding out the golden glass instead.
Erzsébet accepted the golden glass, and rose it in tandem with Ludwig's in salute to Ivan. As she brought it to her lips to sip at, she closely watched as Ludwig drank from the silver glass. She tried to make her gaze inconspicuous as Ludwig's face contorted in reaction to the strange taste of the tampered wine. The potion's effects kicked in a moment later, making him faint and collapse to the ground.
While the potion worked its magic on Ludwig's unconscious mind, Erzsébet kicked her shoes off her feet, then stretched her legs out on the couch. She posed herself partially on her side, lying seductively on the couch to tempt the young prince when he woke up. She pushed her hair to her right shoulder, and slightly opened the collar of her lounging dress, before finally perfecting her facial expression.
Erzsébet dared to break her perfected pose to glance at the man on the ground below her, finally noticing that his leg was twitching at a significant rate. He then started making quiet moans and whines, which she knew was not an intended side effect of the love potion. She broke her pose and leaned forward to watch, as he rolled to his side and rubbed his face against the shaggy carpet.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Ludwig immediately sat straight up and looked at her in alert, prompting her to back up and sit straight as well watching him.
"Master!"
As he jubilantly called that out, Ludwig crawled onto the balls of his feet and leapt up into the air, pouncing directly at her. Erzsébet gave a small yelp as he tackled her and pinned her against the couch. Before she could gain her bearings, Ludwig was excitedly licking all over her face and neck in a sloppy fashion, not even trying to kiss her properly as he was supposed to do.
"Get off," Erzsébet ordered, pushing him off of her, "Sit!"
Ludwig fell off the couch as she pushed him, and immediately sat on his knees in front of her lap. Erzsébet sat back up and observed him as he struggled to sit still, even though he was too twitchy and hyperactive to do so properly. When she had used the potion on Ivan, he immediately wanted to kiss her and make passionate love, so why was Ludwig acting so differently?
Erzsébet rolled her eyes skyward as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the vial to inspect it. There was indeed a heart symbol on the front, indicating that it was meant to be one of Francis's specially concocted love potions. As she looked at it, Erzsébet felt a second heart imprint on the back of the vial, and spun it around to look. On the back of the vial, cut in the shape of a matching heart symbol, was the image of a golden retriever puppy.
"Puppy love?" Erzsébet groaned, "For goodness sake, Francis, label your vials more clearly. What am I supposed to do with a puppy?"
"We're going to have so much fun," Ludwig chattered, responding to her rhetorical question, "You can take me on walks and throw sticks, I'll retrieve them! You can even rub my tummy!"
"All off topic," Erzsébet told him, "What I need you to do is marry me."
"Yes, I will," Ludwig immediately replied, making her freeze, "I will marry you."
"You will?" she checked in surprise.
"I will marry you, because I love you," Ludwig answered, getting more excited, "I love you to the edge of the four corners of the earth, to the edge of the seas!"
"Really?" Erzsébet cooed at him.
"I do, I do," Ludwig insisted as he jumped up to her again, "You're my master!"
Erzsébet yelped as Ludwig landed on top of her, pinning her down and licking at her face once again. This puppy love potion had given Ludwig a lot more energy than she was ready to handle at the moment, so Erzsébet knew she needed to do something fast. Feeling the couch pillow shift below her, just as a breeze entered from the window, Erzsébet quickly reached behind her and grabbed the pillow.
"Fetch!" she called out as she tossed the pillow behind her, letting it fly out the window into the gardens three stories below.
Ludwig was immediately distracted, climbing off her to look out the window at the tossed pillow. He whined as he glanced between her and it, unsure of whether or not to leave her to get it.
"Go on, fetch!" Erzsébet encouraged, "Go fetch the pillow!"
Ludwig immediately bolted away from the window, still twitching in awkward excitement, as he rushed out of the room like an excited little puppy dog. Once she was alone again, Erzsébet leaned back against the couch and took a few deep breaths.
"There are pros and cons to this," Erzsébet assessed, "For one thing, he's definitely going to have a lot of stamina."