Chapter Eight: The Public Introduction
Haru wasn't looking forward to her public introduction to the people of the capital. The overly fancy yellow dress she had been forced into by the three ladies in waiting the king had assigned to care for her needs was itchy beyond anyone's business. She leaned unceremoniously against the wall of the hallway that led out to the throng of people, where the king was pompously informing his people that he would marry a lady who was once a commoner like themselves, the same day his son would marry on the eight hundredth anniversary of their kingdom's founding. She sighed, wishing to return to her room and choose more comfortable attire.
"It's not so bad," Yuki comforted her with a nervous smile, looking out the entrance. "You walk out there regally, and let people look at you for a few minutes while they bow to you. It'll be over within ten minutes."
"Except I hate being stared at," Haru confessed to her new friend, holding her hand in a vice-like grip for comfort.
"I'm afraid that's something you'll have to get used to," the white blonde apologized, gently guiding the brunette to the center of the red carpet as the king demanded to know if his subjects would like to meet his intended.
Haru found the following silence a little foreboding. There had been nothing to hint that the people even cared whether the king married or not.
But a devilish thought still crept into her mind. "I wonder what the people would think if I swaggered out there like a drunkard," she mused out loud, making Yuki giggle in horror as the guards also in the hallway struggled to stifle their laughter.
"Please don't do it, Haru," the prince's bride begged. "It would be hilarious, but the king might just punish you even worse."
"What could he possibly do to me that he hasn't already done?" Haru demanded in irritation.
"He could throw you in the dungeon until the wedding day," Yuki pointed out sadly.
"My people… my future queen… Haru!" the king proclaimed grandly, his words followed by a suitably regal fanfare.
The slim brunette sighed, squared her shoulders, and slowly stepped away from her friend and into the light.
The people stared at her sadly, as she made her way to the end of the long red carpet. She looked right back at them, making no attempt to hide the melancholy that surrounded her like an aura. She saw no reason to hide her sadness from them, especially since Lune had assured her that the common people already knew she had no reason to smile.
But what happened next startled her. With tears in their eyes, every single commoner that caught sight of her didn't just bow, but got down on their knees and touch their foreheads to the cold stones underneath them in the ultimate gesture of submission and respect. From above, she could even hear the king and prince gasp in surprise, since no one ever showed them such honor, except on very special occasions.
"You don't have to bow so low," Haru whispered to the people bowing closest to her. "Please, it's not needed."
"We think it is," an old man with snow white hair whispered back, looking up at her with tearing eyes. "If your father were alive to see this, his heart would surely break from grief."
Haru smiled wanly. "More like he would storm the castle and take me home after killing the king. He was never all that fond of him, anyway."
Those close enough to hear her laughed lightly, but did not get up.
"This is outrageous," the king muttered angrily under his breath as Natori struggled to soothe him.
"They're taken with her already, my king," the old advisor pointed out gently, although he was privately as shocked as the king was. "This bodes well for the marriage, I think."
Lune struggled not to scoff out loud, running one hand through his dark, almost pearl grey hair as he struggled not to let his true emotions show.
But even the prince was shocked as the girl everyone believed would become his stepmother bowed low from the waist to the people, silently thanking them for the gesture of respect.
'Please don't worry about me, everyone,' Haru silently told them, smiling softly. 'Lune's mercenaries should come for me the day after tomorrow, and I'll never see the king's ugly face again. I'll be free soon enough.'
ooOoo
"What were you thinking?!" the king demanded as he grabbed his betrothed's arm after the public introduction. "Royalty never bow like that to commoners!"
"I'm not a royal yet," Haru said disinterestedly, pinching his arm to make him let go of her. "Besides, it didn't hurt anything."
"Except my reputation!" he bellowed at her, raising one fist angrily.
Yuki gasped as Lune took a mutinous step forward to help her.
Haru watched the fist with a calm detachment. "Go right ahead," she said calmly. "Hit me. You know I can hit back, and I won't be gentle about it."
The fist faltered, and the king glared at her as he lowered his arm.
"Remember, it was your idea to bring a peasant girl inside the castle," Haru taunted him, her rage barely kept in check. "How is a commoner like me supposed to know how royalty behave?"
He grunted at her, and began stomping down the hallway. "Natori!" he roared over one shoulder. "Get her a tutor so she won't humiliate me in public anymore!"
"Yes, Your majesty," the advisor said automatically, looking at the slim brunette like he couldn't believe that she had defied the king, despite the fact that it wasn't the first time she had done so.
She looked back at him coldly, and turned to walk down the opposite end of the hall, Lune and Yuki quickly joining her.
"You shouldn't play these games, Haru," Yuki scolded her softly, hugging her tenderly from the left side of the king's intended. "He could have hurt you."
"But he knows I can hurt him right back," she answered grimly, patting the blonde's hands tenderly. "Don't worry; I know what I'm doing."
"Haru," Lune struggled to whisper as they made their way back to her room. "Please don't antagonize my father for a while."
"But it's so much fun!" Haru protested like an ill-bred child, although she was smiling impishly. "It's not like I have any duties to keep me busy besides standing around and looking pretty."
"Just hang in there," the prince told her, trying to say more than that with his eyes. He sighed, and opened the door for her. "Are you sure you don't want to come visit the lake for a picnic with us today?"
"Pretty sure, but I appreciate the gesture," she said sincerely, pulling at the collar of the overly fancy dress. "Right now, all I want is to get out of this torture."
"All of us do," Yuki giggled, her hand unconsciously straying to the neck of her fancy light pink gown. "Please, Haru? Come with us?"
"Pretty please?" Lune added, a childish smile on his own lips.
"You overgrown children," Haru laughed, throwing her hands up in defeat. "So, we'll meet in the main hall in half an hour?"
"Sounds good to me," Yuki said, impulsively hugging the brunette's neck before walking away with her prince, who was still smiling.
Haru shook her head good-naturedly at the guard helplessly as he struggled not to laugh, and walked into her room, where the ladies in waiting were, well… waiting for her.
"What did the people think of you, my lady?" Risa asked, pulling back the long sleeves of her purple dress so that she could work Haru's fancy collar loose from her yellow dress, and then unweave the amber gems from the girl's long dark hair.
"Unless I've missed my guess," the brunette said dryly, moving behind the screen so that the three ladies in waiting could help her out of the dress, "The people like me more than the king, and it's driving him crazy."
Riya giggled mutinously, throwing a rebellious lock of golden hair over the shoulder of her pink dress as she rifled through Haru's impressively large wardrobe for a change of attire. "What would you like to wear now, my lady?"
The slim woman thought about it. What was appropriate for a picnic by the lake, if the king allowed her to go, even if it was with a heavy guard? She shook those thoughts aside as her eyes became drawn to a particular sleeve peeking out from between the other dresses crammed into the wardrobe. "Let me see the green one."
"There are five of them," Riya reminded her with another giggle. "Which one do you want?"
"The one the color of spring grass," she said poetically, watching the lady in waiting fish out the right dress while Risa and Rima helped her out of the huge yellow gown.
The green dress was a simple design that almost resembled a kimono in the front with long sleeves and a severely modest neckline, except that the skirt flowed a little too much at the bottom, and the hem was high enough to expose her ankles and a few inches of her leg.
"That's a riding dress," the blue-clad Rima informed her. "Surely you'll want something different?"
"No, this one's perfect for the outing with the prince and princess," Haru declared, although she could care less about the design. It was the color that made her heart thump with memories. "Would you mind picking out a pair of leather boots that will match, Riya?"
"Of course not," the pink-clad lady in waiting said as she handed the dress to her big sisters, and ran back to the wardrobe to start sifting through her shoes.
It was ridiculous, Haru decided as she allowed the two ladies in waiting to wrap the dress around her slender form, and secure it fast with tiny buttons. She had been fine with having only two or three dresses at any given point in her entire life, and now she had more clothes then she could hope to wear in a month! Where she had once only worn shoes during the winter, she was now required to wear them everywhere, even in the privacy of her own room. Miserably, she wondered if she would ever just get the chance to run barefoot through the dew-drenched morning grass again. Or even be able to dress herself without unneeded help again.
"How are these, my lady?" Riya asked, holding up a pair of knee-high leather boots a lovely tan color.
"Those will work just fine," Rima assured her little sister, speaking for Haru as the brunette was forced to take a seat at the open window, so that her delicate feet could be slipped out of the little golden slippers they were currently in and into the boots that hugged her legs gracefully.
"And for a final touch," Risa said dramatically, running a bristled brush through Haru's long dark brown hair a few times before wrapping it into a simple low ponytail with a small green ribbon that matched the girl's dress.
The three sisters stood back, and beheld their work. Haru smiled a little at them, and got out of her chair in order to look at herself in the large mirror on the other side of the screen.
The dress fit her like a glove, and suited her far better than the yellow monstrosity she had been forced into earlier. This kind of dress, she could handle.
"Thank you," Haru said simply, bowing to the ladies in waiting.
"My lady," Risa scolded her. "You're not supposed to bow to servants."
"That's what the king said," Haru said impishly. "I'm adding it to the list of things I can do to annoy him for the rest of his life."
As the sisters did their best to smother their giggles, the soldier that customarily stood watch outside of her door poked his head in.
"My lady?" he asked politely, making the brunette turn around to face him.
"Yes?" she asked, just as politely, secretly amused as the poor guard's face turned a slightly darker shade of red as he looked at her.
"There are two emissaries from King Unmar of Figlash that request a moment of your time. They have a wedding gift for you."
Her heart sank. "Tell them to send it to wherever the king is keeping the gifts, please," she said disinterestedly.
"They insist that this gift is solely for you, my lady. Apparently there's a separate gift for the king," the guard said dubiously.
Haru looked over at her ladies in waiting. "Has it been half an hour since I came in?" she asked curiously.
"No, My lady," Rima assured her, her eyes sparkling. "You have plenty of time to open an early wedding present."
The slim brunette sighed, not wanting to be reminded of the wedding. "Let them in, I guess."
The guard nodded first to her, and then opened the door as wide as it would go.
The reason for this became clear as two men walked into her chambers, each of them holding a side of a large intricately carved wooden chest. But Haru barely even noticed the chest, as she stared at the bigger man.
He was a giant! Or quite nearly, at least. He had a mop of medium brown hair that fell over his eyes in a disheveled manner, despite the fact that he had clearly taken some pains to comb it recently. His clothes, although clean, were rather simple, but did little to hide how his muscles bulged underneath the sturdy fabric.
The other man wasn't half as remarkable, although his black hair was just as messy as his companion's, but he, at least, was dressed in a black uniform with gold braids streaming from it. For some reason, the uniform looked familiar to her.
About the only thing that the two had in common, though, was the white lily pinned to their jackets, almost directly underneath their chins. Was the lily a badge of office in Figlash?
The ladies in waiting gasped at the sight of the giant, and trembled against each other fearfully.
"Stop that," Haru chided them before looking at the two emissaries again. "Gentlemen," she acknowledged with a nod.
The giant humphed. "Where do you want the chest, Chicky?"
Haru's jaw fell open in shock as the darker man suddenly dropped his side of the trunk, and walked around it in order to punch the giant's arm angrily.
"Dang it, Muta! You can't go around calling royalty 'Chicky'!" the black-clad messenger yelled in frustration.
"She's not a royal yet!" the giant defended, looking at the green-clad girl pleadingly. "Are you?"
She slowly shook her head, and took a breath to regain her composure as the guard also stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him. Haru guessed that was standard protocol with letting strangers into her room. "Right there's fine," she said calmly, making the giant shrug and set his side of the chest down with a smirk to his dark friend as they both stepped away from the carved present.
"You see, Bird Brain? She didn't even ask me to apologize."
"I've been called worse things than Chicky," Haru assured him as the slimmer man glared at his much bigger companion, slowly walking around the huge chest in order to reach the front. "But why would a king I've never met send me such a big present?" she asked herself more than anyone present.
"How should I know?" the giant, Muta, grunted at her. "Kings don't usually bother to explain things to the likes of us."
Haru bit back a giggle of her own. "I bet they don't. Well, it's very lovely. I bet I could store one or two bodies in it, in a pinch." 'Like maybe the king's?' she thought evilly.
"There's something inside it," the darker messenger prodded her, making the girl look at him curiously.
"How would you know if your king didn't bother to explain any details?" she asked him.
"We've been hauling that thing over three kingdoms, plus this castle. Just trust me, Chicky; there's something in it," Muta assured her, messing with the lily on his jacket casually.
Haru sighed in irritation, and leaned over the masterpiece to start unlatching it. "Probably more clothes or jewels. For crying out loud, don't I already have more than enough?"
"Not by half," Risa said as she and her sisters crowded around her, both of the messengers now fumbling with their lilies. "After you're married to the king, you'll need-"
What else Haru would need, she never did find out.
Because at that exact second, she lifted the trunk's lid wide open. Her eyes were barely able to follow the snapping string inside as it fell against what looked like a bulging bag that burst as the string released the top.
The explosion, although noiseless and almost completely un-seeable, filled the entire room in what appeared to be mist or a cloud, and all the doors and windows were shut to prevent any of it to escape. Even as the four girls in the room gasped in surprise, the mist sank into their lungs, and began rushing through their blood until reaching the brain.
The two messengers watched with amusement as the three ladies in waiting fell unceremoniously to the ground, the guard quickly following them, even as he struggled to open the door and call for help. None of them were truly harmed, but snores were soon heard from the guard.
The darker messenger laughed merrily, stepping over a sleeping Riya so that he could try to lift Haru's legs into the chest, where the top of her body was already lying, always keeping the lily to his face to ward off the mist's effects. "What do you know? The plan worked."
Muta grunted his agreement, nearly dancing around the comatose girls so that he could help his friend ease the would-be-queen into a comfortable fetal position inside the trunk, which was lined with soft blankets like a nest as he tossed the empty bag hanging from the trunk's lid over one shoulder, now that it had served its purpose. He also kept his lily firmly to his face as he gently set a small pillow from the large canopy bed underneath the sleeping brunette's head. "Of course it worked. I haven't met a girl yet that can resist opening a present with her name on it."
"Too bad we have to take her back to him," the leaner man said regretfully as he opened a few prepared air holes so that the girl could breathe before latching the top shut. "She seems like a fun person to talk to."
"That's not our problem, Toto," the giant reminded him, taking up his side of the trunk again, despite the fact that he could have carried it himself both ways, but they had needed an excuse to visit the girl together. "Let's just get out of here while we still can. Natoru's waiting, and if I have to listen to him yell about another useless detail, I just might strangle the closest person handy. And that's usually you."
"Like you could ever catch me," Toto taunted as they stepped over the comatose guard, and let themselves out of the room, still holding the lilies firmly to their faces until they could close the large door to Haru's room behind them. They insulted each other as they walked through the castle, right past a waiting Lune and Yuki, and to a humble one-horse wagon with a heavily cloaked man at the front, close to the servants' entrance.
As the two mismatched men loaded the trunk into the back of the wagon, Natoru smiled wickedly, waited for his underlings to climb on, and urged his horse into a steady trot that became slowly faster, as the castle fell behind them.