A/N: This if my first fic, so please be gentle. I won't ignore flames, just don't be brutal. I'm fragile. ;; And I'm writing in first person, something I'm new too, so cut me some slack. If I still suck in a few chapters, let me know. I write novel-style, so it's long and descriptive. If all you want is action, smut and dialogue, I am not for you. There will be action, dialogue and hell even smut, but the extended version. And I'll be switching the view-point from person to person. Mostly Melisande, but also a few other main characters. Chapter 3 will be all from her dad's perspective. Review, please, I'd like to hear opinions on my writing from people who aren't my friends and obligated to be nice!
–Kitten of Evil
My father married for love, breaking the rules of society, class and protocol for the sake of his heart. The third and last son of King Roald and Queen Shinkokami, by the time he was old enough to marry his brothers already had children and heirs of their own, putting my father virtually at the end of the line of succession. His eldest brother, my Uncle Jonathan, was the Crown Prince. The second brother, Uncle Connor, became the Duke of Conté, taking over the estate our family has held since before Tortal was a country. And there were my aunts, Helena and Sophie, who married into the Royal families of other countries; Aunt Helena to the Crown Prince of Galla, and Aunt Sophie to Khurda, grandson of Emperor Khaddar of Carthak, second in line for the Carthaki throne. My father, the youngest, was left with only his title, the royal blood in his veins, and a small manse on the edge of Conté. He was forced to make a name for himself, carving out a place for himself in the world with nothing but his skill and wit. And he flourished, first in his years as a page in the Palace, and then as squire to the Commander of the King's Own. By twenty-five, he was the Commander of the Second Company of the King's Own, and courting my mother, Nicola Salmalin.
Children of smaller, weaker families with less nobility than my smallest finger, ridiculed me for being born to a common mother with a royal father. The common children envied me, and the noble children looked down on me. But I was happy. My parents loved each other, and raised me well. I was so proud of them, living their dream and spitting in the face of the world that condemned them for it. It was that pride that let me keep my head high against the whispers of the other children, and at times, adults I met in my annual visits to Corus.
Of what my grandfather Roald thought of my father's choice, I never knew. They were cordial enough with one another, but there was a distance that I noticed, even as a toddler. Whatever it was, Grandfather did not hold it against me. On my visits to Corus, the first place we visited was the Palace, to meet our Royal family. And each time, the first thing I did upon seeing my grandfather was to crawl into his lap, wrap my arms around his neck, and demand a story of his adventures when he was young, or one of his parents, King Jonathon and Queen Thayet. Every time, without fail, he would laugh and return my embrace, and then proceed to tell me the stories I loved and knew by heart. Grandfather was never too busy for me, no matter what time of the year we came, no matter the importance of his business, he always took the time to tell me a story, even if it was only a short recollection of some small event of his childhood. I daresay I was his favorite, even though I only saw him a few times every year. For I, out of all of his children and grandchildren, looked the most like his mother, my great-grandmother, Queen Thayet.
I have never been a vain person; I was not raised to see myself thus. But I was not stupid enough, nor blind enough to ignore the comments and opinions of the people around me. I heard their whispered comments, and I recognized the admiring glint in their eyes. So I knew I was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman to ever wear a crown of royalty. I had inherited Thayet's porcelain-like complexion and the soft texture of her skin. The nose she inherited from her father kept her own beauty human, down to earth. That nose, passed on to her own children and Aunt Sophie and Uncle Jonathan, was not passed on to my father nor myself. Instead I had the smaller, smoother Yamani nose from my Grandmother Shinko, setting my face in a more delicate mold than Thayet's. My eyes, large and slightly slanted, were a deep twilight version of the Conté blue. My lips, I also inherited from Thayet, carved with diamond cutter's precision and set at a natural crimson hue. My hair was a mix of the many different bloodlines I carried. Blue-black from Conté, silken texture from Yamani, and wide, wavy curls from Veralidaine Sarrasri, my maternal grandmother.
Despite my best efforts to hide it, my body was well made, with long, graceful limbs, shapely hips, and full, firm breasts. The shape I credit to Thayet, for both Veralidaine and Shinkokami were rather modestly accommodated in that way. But unlike any of my grandmothers, I had height. It was the one physical thing that I could link to my mother's father, Numair Salmalin, the greatest mage in the Eastern Lands. My father himself was an inch over six feet tall, the average height for Conté men. But Numair was six and a half feet tall. His height passed to me through my mother. While she was three inches shorter than my father, when I reached my full height I was six feet even, eye to eye with my father and taller than many noblemen. It was just one more thing to add to the list of what set me apart from others not only as a child, but as an adult as well.
At play as a child, I was often mistaken for a boy, up until I entered puberty and my body began to curve into a woman's shape. My long, slender limbs and height made me the tallest of any of my playmates, and my hair was always cut short, never growing past my shoulders. This was at my own behest, despite my mother's dismay. If I had had my own way, it would've been close cropped to my skull, like a boy. I never enjoyed the docile, indoor activities girls my age played at. I spent my days running in the fields outside our manse in Conté, wrestling with my father's two great wolf hounds and trying to catch frogs in streams. The few friends I had that were my age were boys, just as rough and tumble as I. More often than not, I came home covered in dirt and muck, my short hair a tangled mess, my clothes ripped and torn and stained with all sorts of nameless filth.
If the matter had been up to my mother, I would have been locked indoors and stuffed into a dress befitting my status as the daughter of a prince. She was a commoner, and proud of it, but she had strong ideas of how each class should act, something she inherited from her mother. As the daughter of a noble, I should act like a proper young lady, learning the intricate niceties of court, the elegant dances, the dull history of law and art. But my father, having already ignored protocol by marrying a commoner, ignored it further by allowing me to grow up as I wished. He struck a bargain with my mother; I could run and wrestle and ruin my clothes all I wanted, but only after noon. The mornings belonged to my mother, for tutoring in the scholarly pursuits, etiquette, and learning to control my Gift. As much as I hated to waste so much of my day indoors, but I knew my mother would not cede further on the matter.
So was my childhood, remote and rustic, my world centered around a small, select group of people. Raenef, my father, Nicola, my mother, Miwako, my nursemaid, Adish and Namir, my Bazhir body guards, and Donovan, the Shang Gryphon, my personal master at arms, who taught me everything I know of the fighting arts. To this day, I cannot say whether my upbringing aided or hindered me in my adult life. If the things that set me so far apart from commoner and noble, the things that kept me from being labeled either one, better prepared me for the sudden, vicious twist of fate that struck the realm in the year of my thirteenth birthday. The twist of fate the pulled me from the end of the line of succession of the Tortallan crown and placed me at its forefront, making me the only child of the king, the first true Queen of Tortall.