Kiki was well used to the small talks and the balls and the extravagant clothes and the responsibilities that came to her from her own position and her own birth into it. She's a princess and the only living heir to the throne. She has no close kin to take that possibility from her, and her father does expect great things from her, like any good king would.
So, she's balancing on this position, and part of upholding it as always been to prove her own self, to show that she could rightfully receive the throne from her father, and also handle it with the care it deserves. Most of the time, it meant an endless parade of suitors, strictly after the throne, and not there for the princess who will be receiving it one day.
She knows this, knows it perfectly well, and if not for her father's gentle encouragement on finding a spectacular husband, she would attempt to become queen with no husband to rule beside her. Her father's made sure that the main role and that of leading falls on her, though it isn't common knowledge among most people.
Kiki's been trained to be queen as if she would be king one day. Her father's taken to her education to be that fit for princes. And she knows her royal status will cancel out whatever prestige her future husband will hold. Their children will be Seirans, be princes and princesses, fit to one day take the throne.
She's just trying to maintain that level of knowledge and handle everything with care. She figures that her father's probably eager to have a son-in-law, just as an extra measure of precaution, just to keep her safe and allow things to go well. Otherwise, it would be easy for a king to fear his daughter marries strictly from easily won over emotion and not a level of practicality that very carefully can be fit into it.
Of course, Kiki as her father's daughter is well aware of her role and task in picking out a husband. She understands the practicality as if it had been glued to her, tattooed somewhere on her wrist where she can see it with ease, like a steady reminder that won't simply wash away with time.
Of course, she gets along well with nobleman Zen, who would have something to gain from marrying the princess, a special role, and a step up from being the second son. And yet while their friendship is strong, his ambition is much weaker, and something feels rightly off from pursuing such a relationship. It's the backup plan if nothing better presents itself, and she's all forced smiles and pleasantries right now anyway.
And right at the outskirts of the ball, another attempt to find her a husband and a suitable king, there is a waiter. He's steady on his feet, and he handles the conversations with a politeness and a steady batch of cheer. He's not over the top, and in fact, easily blends into the background, and Kiki's eyes follow him of her own accord.
When another nobleman is beside himself with distraction built of his ambition and his family's ambitions, she slips away and right near the waiter that caught her eye earlier. He's more caught up with his job than with her, and Kiki wonders if he even recognizes who approaches him.
"Sir?" She asks, as she finally makes it completely before him, and he turns to her, brown eyes looking at her, surprised to even be called out. "Do you often work at balls?"
"No?" He asks more than answers, and then he grins, a hint of a chuckle on his lips, "I'm a knight, mostly."
"A knight?" She asked as she relaxed by his side.
"Am I doing a poor job?" He asks instead of really affirming what he says, and she wonders just how new he is to waiting for the first time ever. The fact that she hadn't seen him at one of her balls before was irrelevant.
"No, you're doing fine." She tells him, watching as his worry and potential embarrassment fades to a brilliant smile, and he looks back up at her as if she just sent the ballroom aglow, lit it up with the brightness of a thousand stars.
"That's a relief." He tells her, and is grin is so contagious and so beautiful that she can't help but smile back.
"How long have you been a waiter?" She asks instead.
"Just a few months." He answers, "This is one of my first places. Just it's a bit hard to find a job as a knight right now."
"Ah." Kiki smiles, caught between politeness and actual interest, "How good are you, Mr. Knight?" She asks instead, catching him completely by surprise.
"I did well in training." He says instead, "I'm good, but probably nowhere near the best." His honesty feels her chest up with warmth and light, and she decides to take a chance on a little knight to be.
"Would you be able to be here around eight in the morning near the knights' training grounds? I'll get you a pass into the palace." She wants to test out his skills as a knight, and perhaps hire him and get to know him better if he's as good as she's suddenly hopeful for.
"Sure." He answers, "I have nothing else going on? Do you know the royal family or something?" His brown eyes are wide, but he sees an opportunity and rises to the occasion just the same.
"Yeah, we're close." Kiki smiles, and she realizes he definitely doesn't know who he talks to. She doesn't want to say anything yet, just in case that gets her in trouble in the long run. "I'll see you tomorrow." She waves and disappears into the crowd, suddenly seeing an opportunity lit up nice and neatly, so bright that she could practically taste it somehow. Perhaps this will fail her, but maybe it won't.
And eight in the morning feels like it's dragging its feet, she's up by five, and hurrying into her more active wear. A knight's dress or uniform rather, and definitely not her princess attire. She isn't here to make an impression as the princess seeking a king, but as a woman seeking a qualified knight or perhaps as a woman skilled enough to be a knight in her own right, one of the other benefits of her childhood education from her father, and as a princess seeking a knight.
She's practically restless with the possibility of all that could happen in a few short hours, but she sneaks her way downstairs, tells the guards exactly who is allowed entrance, "Possibly only for today." And hurries back over to the training grounds.
She's not an unfamiliar sight here, but it had been a while since she'd been out while some of the knights are practicing and others are blowing off steam from the restlessness of constantly being on guard and having nothing to throw their energy into, because things had been pretty safe around here lately.
And so, they are sparring, practice sword drawn against practice sword, like a steady and all too familiar dance, and she watches as the knights work to best each other and prove themselves very skilled. The better a knight is, the better the benefit. She isn't unwilling to promote the strongest and most skilled fighters up to higher positions.
They must prove trustworthy and not just skilled with a sword. They need to be both, and Kiki is extremely picky in that regard, just like her father had always been before her. She's allowed to discern who would handle a higher position with the grace and dependability needed.
She's never picked poorly before, and knights are eager to grow in their field and really improve anyway. Kiki's watched many a poor fighter become highly skilled. She's seen their abilities grow with each passing year, especially as she's been given better chances to work with them and watch them flourish.
She can be as tough and as strict as their instructors if not more so. She mentors them as best as she can, and hopes for their best success.
"Princess!" One of the knights greets her as soon as his sparring match comes to a close, "It's been a while."
She smiles back over at him, "I'm in disguise." She means it and yet it's a relaxed sort of thing. Kiki knows she'll tell the waiter knight eventually who she is or that she likely will, but that's once she determines whether he'd make as great a knight as she hopes for.
"Oh, okay." He smiles, and the other knights bow their heads in both greeting and understanding. Her identity among them is often hidden from newcomers, because it helps to hide her own identity and be secure even amid the threats that sometimes arise up.
"Is this the training grounds?" And she looks up at the familiar voice, sounding half like it's from a dream rather than originally from last night.
The waiter's traded his suit for more comfortable clothes, ones a knight can fight in.
"Yes." She tells him, "Come over here. There are the wooden swords." Kiki moves closer to grab one herself, as the potential knight steps a little closer, looking a bit nervous now, though whether he recognizes her voice or even recalls what she looks like when she's dressed less extravagantly is anyone's guess.
"Thank you." He smiles in gratitude, "Who am I challenging?"
"That will be me." She tells him with ease, and her knights step back and out of the way, even without her needing to ask them to.
"Okay." He tells her, with a smile.
"She's better than the rest of us!" Warns the knight she was talking to earlier, and Kiki almost wants to laugh; he doesn't need to pay her the compliment, though she's been training alongside knights her whole life long.
She needed to be safe, especially if she didn't have a guard around or if someone thought to be trustworthy turned on her. She was a force to be reckoned with, like a storm, and the knights respected her mainly because of this.
She'd proved that she wasn't just to be a princess to them, but someone they could admire and learn from, and as an effect, they trusted her authority in a way that she knows will definitely carry over to her queenship one day.
"She?" He blinks, and Kiki nearly laughs at his confusion. Clearly his recognition of her was non-existent. That's okay though.
"Come on, man." Grumbled the knight that warned him as some of the others laughed, and Kiki continued to stand tall, not laughing and not showing any frustration at any of this.
"Sorry, Miss." He told her, apologizing quickly, looking definitely sincere.
"It's fine. You aren't likely going to win though." She told him, letting her lips stretch into a gentle and yet meaningful smile, just a slight upturning of her lips and not even of or from amusement.
"Okay." He tells her, not arguing, not complaining, and then they move.
And this familiar dance is easy, and yet he doesn't make the fight easy in the least. As she moves on the offensive, he puts up a steady defense, and when she backs away, his offense is just as smooth as hers was.
Wooden sword lands against wooden sword with harsh and yet steady blows, and she wonders briefly how much force and effort it would take to cut their swords clean in half and just how close they are to that, as around and around they go, one attacking to be perfectly blocked by the other, and then the repeat from the opposite side.
And finally after a long match, Kiki does get in a good and possibly lucky blow, and his sword flies far away, landing several feet away and nicely on the ground in front of the feet of her knights that watched them spar.
"What's your name?" She finally asks, feeling a little tired and worn out, but eager to hire him nonetheless.
"Mitsuhide." He pauses and blinks up at her as if realizing that he can say more, "Rouen."
"Consider yourself hired." She smiled, "You no longer have to wait at balls. You're a new knight for the Seiran family."
"You hired me?" He stared up at her in obvious surprise, "You can do that?"
"She's the princess; why are you surprised?" Laughed one of her knights who tapped him on the shoulder, as if to let him in on a secret that wasn't meant to entirely be kept as one.
"She's the princess?" Mitsuhide swallows; his surprise very evident across his face, "Princess Kiki?"
"Who else would she be?" One of her other knights asked, surprised that Mitsuhide would even struggle with this.
"I'm Kiki Seiran." She told him finally, "Your new boss, and if you prove trustworthy, someone you'll get to know very well."
"You're an accomplished knight," He finally told her, still shocked, "Like an amazing one."
"So are you." Kiki answered him, and already, she wondered if he was well on his way to becoming her aide, and as she looked over at him, she felt that feeling once again. And perhaps later on, maybe he'll even be King of Clarines as well.