This chapter will be in Prince Noah's POV. It will give you an idea of him, and answer some of the questions I have been asked.
The next chapter will introduce Riley, and then the intro chapters will be over. I NEED MORE CHARACTERS!
Noah's POV
Noah looked around. The girls hadn't even been chosen yet, and there was work being done around the palace to prepare for them, even though there was still a fair amount of time left.
He had a hard time getting his head around the fact that 35 girls would be coming to the palace to become his wife and the future queen. Because it shouldn't have been him. He was the third child, after his oldest sister, Annabelle, and his older brother, Ethan. Annabelle would have inherited, but she and the Prince of Russia had fallen in love, so she was living happily in Russia, ruling there. Russia and Illea were close allies, and the marriage wasn't arranged. Then Ethan would have inherited, as he was next in line, but he, too, fell in love with the royalty of another country-New Asia's, in fact. His marriage helped cement the ties between the two countries who had a very fragile relationship. And so it fell to him to rule. Even if he had, he would have to rule Illea, because his younger sister, Emmaline, had cancer.
He looked at his watch and started. More time had passed than he'd thought, and he had to head down to dinner with his family. As much as possible, his family tried to have dinner together, and even once his selection started, they'd decided to set aside one night a week to have dinner together-probably Saturday, when they had movie night.
He skidded to a halt outside the dining hall, taking a five seconds to catch his breath. The guards ignored him-members of the royal family running to the dining hall because they were late was quite commonplace.
He took a breath and opened the door. His parents and his sister, Emmaline were all already seated at the table, laughing and chatting. They all looked up when they saw him, and then went back to chatting.
"Hi guys." He said when he got closer to the table.
"Hi!" Emmaline said brightly, beating his parents to the reply. He mentally thanked her for getting him out of the punctuality for dinner lecture by his parents. They were pretty cool, but they hated it when he was late for dinner.
"Guess what?" Emmaline said, clearly happy.
"What?" He said.
"I got new hair today!" She exclaimed. She pointed at her shorter than usual blonde hair.. Out of context, it sounded weird, but it wasn't. Emmaline had cancer, and so for her getting a new wig was a big deal. Her other one was longer, and this one shorter.
"I like it." He said. As he spoke, staff appeared with four plates. Tonight it appeared that they would be having pasta with a bolongese sauce. Queen Nicoletta had had her staff share their recipe with the Illean chefs, and the result was amazing.
They laughed and chatted through dinner, like they were a normal family and not the royal family of Illea. Towards the end, things started to go more towards the talk people probably imagined as being what they talked about. The selection. Of course.
Their parents talked about theirs all the time, retelling the same stories over and over, seeming to forget they'd already told them that story a thousand times.
"And then there was that time when you kneed me in the balls, don't forget that."
"You kneed dad in the balls?" Emmaline asked, incredulous. Noah's reaction was about the same. They definitely hadn't heard that story, and it was certainly more interesting than the ones he had heard.
He zoned out as they went into detail about it. He saw his sister's eyes get a little glazed over too as they got into the stories they'd told a thousand times.
He discreetly looked at the watch on his wrist. Thank god. Enough time had passed that he could leave. His parents were just talking about the country and their meetings, and he could see the glaze on Emmaline's eyes. He looked at her, and they had one of those silent sibling conversations.
"Mom, dad, I gotta go." He said. They nodded absently, and he walked over to his sister's place. He rolled her wheelchair back slowly, and turned it. He didn't have to, but otherwise she'd just have to sit in here listening to their parents talk about meetings, which he knew was no fun.
He started to automatically head up to the third floor before he saw his sister looking at him and rolling her eyes.
"It's a Monday smart one." She said, sarcasm in her voice. She laughed at his reaction.
"Oh yeah. It is, isn't it."She kept laughing. He wheeled her to the palace hospital and walked back up to his room. He got ready for bed, and ticked another day off the calendar he had in his room before going to bed. Four more days. Four more days until the girls were announced.
I know. I'm a horrible person. I haven't updated in forever, and this chapter was really bad. I'm having writer's block, and I was doing nanowrimo. I finished 50k words yesterday, and moved straight on to this. So yeah.
RQOTD-Do you play any instruments, and if you do, what? I play violin and cello.
Parisismydream-Me too!
Lorelai Sofia Petrova-Thanks!