Disclaimer: (Oops, forgot this on the first two chapters!) I don't own any of the sleeping beauty elements that appear throughout my story.
As Aleia walked down the corridor with the king and several spies, around the corner came the queen, followed by a multitude of court ladies all dressed very finely. Queen Lydia was a lovely lady with golden hair and clear, blue eyes.
"Oh, my baby!" she exclaimed and burst into tears, nearly the moment she saw Aleia with the king.
She came running over and tightly embraced Aleia. Aleia awkwardly patted her back.
"Oh, you're so grown-up and so pretty! Here, let me look at you," she said, putting Aleia an arm's length away.
"Oh, you have your father's hair. And you have such blue eyes! Look at all those freckles! I always did like to be out in the sunshine as well, though I did wear my sunbonnet, there's no reason that you would have though. Oh, my dear, we shall have to get to know each other. I made sure you would have quite lovely chambers, but they aren't completely furnished yet, because I didn't know what colors you would like. At first I wanted to do them in pink, but then your father told me that you were a spy and I realized that you might not like it so I decided that I'd just wait for you to come and tell me what you would like," she seemed to say this all in one breath and so fast that it was all Aleia could to do to try and understand her.
When the queen had first burst out crying Aleia had thought that her mother must be a very silly child-like woman, but as she had gone on to talk, without noting that a princess shouldn't have freckles, or be a spy, or be wearing trousers, Aleia had felt a strange, growing fondness for her mother.
"Now, darling, you must have a bath and a new change of clothes, for you will be dining with your father and me tonight. Then after dinner we can have a nice chit-chat in one of the libraries and in the morning we can go over furnishings for your private chambers. Oh, I'm so glad to have a daughter again!"
"It sounds—lovely, your highness," Aleia managed to get out, before the queen said anything else.
"Oh, don't call me your highness. Just 'mother'. We are family after all."
"Alright—mother."
The queen smiled, quite charmingly.
A few maids appeared then, seemingly out of nowhere, and tried to whisk Aleia away somewhere.
"Wait, stop!" she turned to Captain Garse. "Sir, I wanted to be there for the questioning of the assassin. I am the one who stopped him."
"Assassin!" the queen uttered, turning white.
"Aleia," said King Ardahn.
"Please?" she asked Captain Garse.
"Ahem—a princess should not be questioning assassins," he said. Aleia, being a spy, was good at reading people and could tell he wanted to say more, but didn't think he should in front of the king.
"Assassins?" the queen asked again.
"It's nothing you need to be worrying about, my dear," the king comforted her. "Nor you, Aleia," he said shooting her a glance.
"Fine," she said, but she already decided in her mind it wouldn't be the end of this. She wondered if it would be entirely impossible for her to stay in the League of Spies even though she was a princess. Probably. But when she was queen that would be the first thing to go. That is, if she ever got to be queen.
She let the maids lead her down the halls to a room with white curtains, which opened to expose a large bathtub with a golden faucet that the water came out from. Aleia stared at it. She'd never used such a fine bathtub before! There were also many large, white, fluffy towels, finer than any Aleia had ever had.
"Well, don't just stand there gawking at it!" one of the maids said. "We've got to get you washed and dressed in time for dinner."
"Oh. Alright," Aleia said. She felt rather awkward with all of them staring at her; she was used to bathing in private. Eventually, she got her clothes off and quickly hopped into the bath. It was very warm and bubbly and Aleia felt that she could have sat in it for at least an hour.
The maids proceeded to scrub her all over. One of them washed her hair, with fragrant soaps, while others scrubbed the dirt out of her nails. Aleia would have rather just soaked in the bath, she felt like the maids were going to rub her skin raw. It was soon over, though, and they gave her one of the fluffy, white towels to wrap herself in, before rushing her to another room.
This one had a large four poster bed with a canopy. "Is this my room?" Aleia asked the maids.
"Heavens, no! You're just staying here until yours is finished with the furnishings. The queen's not very happy about it though. She doesn't think it's good enough for you."
Aleia wondered what hers must be like, if this one wasn't good enough. It had soft carpet, a plush sofa, a small bookshelf, it was all she needed and much nicer than the one she had in the spy quarters.
The maids opened the closet and started to thumb through all of the dresses there, commenting on the color and shape of each one. Finally they chose a sapphire blue one, saying it would look lovely with her eyes. First, though, they gave her a chemise of fine, smooth linen. Then they brought out the corset. The wrapped it around her waist and made her hold onto one of the bed posters while they pulled and pulled and finally laced it up. Aleia felt like she couldn't breathe, and it was pushing up on her chest, so that she felt she would pop out of the top of it.
The maids brought a measuring tape and wrapped it around her waist. "Sixteen inches," they said cheerily.
Aleia just focused on breathing. Then they brought the dress and put it over head and buttoned the back of it all the way down. Another made came then, with a sewing kit. She took the dress in and out in all the right places to best accentuate Aleia's figure.
Aleia hadn't even seen what she looked like when yet another maid came in to do her hair. She parted Aleia's hair in the center, then arranged it in rolls at the back of her head. She let some long, loose curls hang down nape of her neck. Then they brought Aleia a silver necklace to wear, and finally a full length mirror.
Aleia had to admit she looked pretty, even with the corset still feeling like it was crushing all of her organs. The dress had a slightly low neckline, with a triangle of lace on the bodice, then a large strip of it down the front of the skirt. The sleeves were tight to the elbows, then billowed out with lace trim on the ends. The light blue went very well with her eyes.
"My lady, the king and queen are waiting for you," one of the maids.
"Alright, I'm ready," Aleia said feeling quite nervous. She didn't know proper court etiquette and was almost sure she would make a fool of herself.
She walked to the door where a butler
was waiting for her. He led her down a few hallways to a dining
room. It was fairly small, not like the one that was used for balls
with lots of guests. King Ardahn and
Queen Lydia both smiled and
stood up when Aleia came in.
"Darling, that dress looks just lovely with your eyes," the queen said.
"Thank you," Aleia said, smiling as she sat down at the empty spot. The king and queen also returned to a sitting position.
Some servants brought out some delicious looking food and served it to them. Aleia looked at the silverware, wondering why there couldn't be just one fork. She looked at the queen, who had picked up the fork closest to her; Aleia followed suit.
The rest of the meal went much the same. Nobody said very much, and Aleia was too busy watching the queen and following her example to really notice. The meal had five courses and the food was delicious, unfortunately Aleia couldn't eat very much because of her tight corset. If she ate too fast, she had to stop for a minute and catch her breath. When it was over the queen took Aleia to one of the libraries to talk.
"So, darling, tell me about yourself," the queen said.
Aleia didn't know what to say. "Umm—I'm a spy."
"Yes, you're father said that. It must be very exciting, but rather frightening, I would think."
"I like it," Aleia said.
"Well, that's good. What do you think of this part of the palace?" the queen asked.
"It's very nice. It's much grander than my apartments were."
"Yes, I'm sure it is. That reminds me, we meet tomorrow at nine-thirty to discuss furnishings for your new chambers."
Aleia nodded.
The queen sighed. "I do feel so sorry about sending you away for so many years. We meant to make sure you had a good family, but they died so suddenly and you were sent to that orphanage..."
"That's alright, Mother. Actually, as far as I'm concerned I did have a good family. Captain Garse was almost like a father to me and the other spies were the best friends I could have had. I'm curious, though, about my birth and the curse," Aleia said.
The queen frowned. "There's not really much to say. You were born and you were a lovely child. When you had your naming celebration, we invited several fairies to bless your life. They said that instead of blessing you with beauty and other such skin deep virtues, their gifts to you would be loyal friends, happiness, and luck. They said that they did it because you wouldn't have liked them controlling who you are and how you live your life. Then another fairy came. She wore black and had tangled, stringy black hair. She said a lot, but her voice was high-pitched and she said it very fast. I think the gist of it was just that she hated us all. Then she said loud and clear that she cursed you to die by pricking your finger on a spinning wheel on your twenty-first birthday," the queen said.
"But why? And who is she anyways?" Aleia asked.
"The other fairies told us that her name was Morwenna. They didn't offer much other information. I don't think they wanted to talk about it. I got the idea that she had been good once, but turned bad and maybe even a little crazy."
Aleia frowned. She would figure out Morwenna's purpose, somehow.
"But don't lets think about that," the queen said, with an, if we ignore maybe it will go away, attitude.
"Of course," Aleia said, not wanting to upset her mother.
"Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow, we'll make your room beautiful!"
Aleia smiled. "Just one more thing, Mother. How come I haven't seen or even heard of any fairies?"
"They were banished from Tressar, after the incident with Morwenna."
"I see," Aleia said, though secretly she was wondering if it would really be possible to make the fairies leave. They controlled magic after all, if they wanted to stay here, there wasn't really any stopping them. "Well, goodnight," she said, and they both started back to their rooms.
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Was that chapter boring? I hope it wasn't too bad. In the next chapter or two some interesting things will start to happen. Reviews are appreciated.
