I'm so glad I got to participate in this gift exchange! I've been reading Queen's Thief fanfic for years, but this got me to actually write a story for this fandom.
This piece was written for scrapsofdignity over on AO3, and I had a lot of fun figuring out how to use her prompt.
"If he thinks he can just march in here and steal our queen, he's very much mistaken," Ileia declared, stabbing her needle aggressively through the embroidery in her hands.
"He did, though," Aglaia pointed out, "literally. And now he's to be king if we ever want the war to end." Despite her pragmatic words, Aglaia looked as distraught as Ileia felt.
"But no one's ever pinned the queen down before. How can he?" Chloe's anger had a desperate edge to it.
"No one had ever outplayed the Thief of Eddis before she cut off his hand," Luria countered gloomily. "The gods don't give anyone unlimited abilities."
Elia sighed. "Whether destiny or diplomacy is to blame hardly matters. The question is: what are we going to do?"
At that, the rest of the women looked up sharply. Only Phresine placidly continued her task, repairing a small hole in the hem of the queen's travelling cloak.
"Exactly right," Imenia chimed in. "She may have to marry him, but there's no need for him to monopolize her time."
"Indeed he won't," Ileia said. She let a threatening hint rise in her voice, one that she would never display in public. This room, however, was tucked away in the queen's apartments and only ever occupied by Attolia's attendants as they worked. That made it a safe place to rage, and to plan.
"We'll have to be precise," Aglaia warned. "If it looks like even slightly like we're mocking the queen, you know Erondites and his gang won't hesitate to use it."
"If we didn't know how to be precise we wouldn't still be here," Iolanthe said, speaking up for the first time. "I'm sure we can show our loyalty to the queen and keep Eugenides from bothering her at the same time. The only risk is if he realizes we're doing it intentionally."
"Do we care if he knows?" Ileia asked. "I for one would be quiet happy if he would realize how unwanted he is here. Maybe then he'd go away."
"We can't give him any single targets," Imenia said. "It's fine if he knows he's unwanted, but it has to come from us as a group. He may be Eddisian, but he'll learn to play Attolian court politics soon enough. He can't attack all of us, but if any one person stands out, they'll be in danger."
Though Imenia wasn't quite as old as Phresine, she did have a habit of trying to impart the wisdom of her years to the others. This particular nugget was accompanied with a pointed look at Ileia. That was fair, Ileia acknowledged to herself.
"So," Elia declared, "we'll work as a precise, united front, officially unobjectionable but constant buffers between the goat foot and the queen."
"I hope it works," Luria said, in a tone that indicated she didn't think it would.
"Of course it will," Aglaia said, fully on board now that a practicable plan was in place.
"We won't fail our queen," Ileia said firmly. She'd seen the work her queen put into serving her country. The least they could do was protect her in return.
"Of course not," Phresine said, speaking for the first time as she rose to put away her mending. "We'll watch them well, and see that he treats her right."
She smiled slightly as she spoke, as if she knew something the rest didn't, but there was no time to ask what. The bells were chiming; it was time to go and dress the queen for dinner and put their plan into action.