Apologies for deleting one of the chapters, I've uploaded the wrong one.
Thank you for reading :)
The princess is in love.
A noble scion perhaps? Or better, her half- brother Godwyn?
As if! The prince is too smitten with Fortissax to care for any courtly influence.
Little Miquella?
Bite your tongue!
There's a series of laughs she can still hear from where she sat, surrounded by tall oak shelves, packed with ancient tomes and scrolls. Even in the far reaches of the library of Raya Lucaria, there are still rumors milling about.
Ranni yawns tiredly. Truly she tried sleep.
There's a creek on her neck that makes itself known when she stands and an ache in her legs that she knows all too well. She puts the leatherbound on the shelf beside her and wipes off dust on her robes.
That's not what I heard.
A Golden Knight from Leyndell swept her off her feet.
How tasteless!
It's Queen Marika's personal guard!
Scandalous!
She almost hit herself on the tall pile of books in front of her, steps faltering. That was accurate.
You mean Maliketh?
No! No! The rugged one!
Oh! I know! It's hard to tell. That guard often wears an ugly helmet, dark armor and cloak, barely recognizable.
Well, I've seen him without the horrid helmet. Let me tell you, I liked what I saw.
A series of ghastly screams filled the library as several students ran away, their robes tattered and hexed with frostbite.
"Facinating." Iji says as he picks up a sketch from a small table beside his forge.
His forge is just outside the Carian Manor, the wilds surrounding him. A lost parchment is not unheard of, he has gathered several morsels, tools, and weapons that was knocked over from merchant and military carriages.
What was riveting in the sketch was its design and familiarity. Years ago, he has seen an inspired schematic like this, a splash of gold and outline with the Golden Order's sigil. Rennala has never looked so besotted with another before that Iji could not believe it at that time.
"Is it alright to ask of you this, Iji?" The Carian princess looks up at him, almost with beseeching eyes. Truly a familiar sight, "I've saved coin for this commission."
Bless her heart, The blacksmith thinks.
He can see it all over again. The dark haired queen perusing his wares. Shyly inquiring him of the prices for forging a greatsword and where she could procure the best materials for its creation.
"What say you, Iji?" She squeezes the front of her robes like she doesn't know what to do with them. Her usual confidence, gone.
"I say," There's a tightness in his throat that he can't describe, "When do you want it ready?"
This gentle giant only wishes for their princess to be happy, and let the fates deem it so.
His time for idling starts with duels, from common soldiers to nobles. They follow him like he's a spectacle to behold. When in fact he's a just a man with nothing to his name. A backwater rat, as Lord Radagon described him.
It's a bother that he's challenged whenever he gets an iota of time for himself but it's also getting ridiculous. A part of him won't say he doesn't enjoy the rush a fight provides him, it rouses a peculiarity in him that he buried long ago.
He feels more suffocated. Not that he'd show it. They watch him like a caged animal, something that needs to be put in its place.
So it was an odd feeling to enjoy his time within the palace walls, the twins cling to him like imps. They're but wee babes but he knows that in the distant future they will be a force to be reckoned with like their mother and father. Maybe even more.
Miquella has started making trinkets, it floods the twins' room and the servants are getting tired on moving all of it. His father has been most adamant on keeping a watchful eye on him. At an early age, the prince writes like a scholar from the Academy about theories and dissertations of the power of incantations and its usefulness.
While Malenia, acts like her age, she draws doodles all over the walls of the castle, she makes a mess out of her meals, and drives her handmaids mad. But he sees a fluidness in the child's movements, coordinated and well thought out, especially when escaping her nannies and guards to watch the knights in training. An innate ability, something that can't be easily taught.
"I heard you dabble in heresy, Ser Vaughn. I would love to see one incantation."
"Well, I… Can't actually show.. I mean, I don't know."
"Oh! Oh! Do the trick where you skewer your enemies after throwing them in the air, Ser Vaughn." Malenia points at the innocent training dummy.
"I-I don't think that's appropriate. If… If I show you, will you not demonstrate it to your nannies with one of your dolls?"
Malenia gives him a toothy smile, which he reciprocates with his nervous one.
Huh. Vaughn notices a small red patch of skin beneath Malenia's right eye. It was never there yesterday. And it was no blemish he has seen before.
"Run along now," They were hanging off of his bicep, "Malenia, have that little speck looked into." He uses his other hand to point at his cheek. She let's go and touches the side of her face.
Her brother looks at her, brows knitting in worry, "Ah, let's. And mother would want us to join her for dinner."
"Oh, okay, brother." Malenia says dutifully.
Vaughn sighs in relief, Finally.
Miquella leads his sister inside the great hall, guards on standby usher them further inside. Both him and Malenia wave back at Vaughn leaving him alone at the small part of the bailey.
"You can come out of there."
No one replies but he recognizes this presence, it was the same one that follows him when he escorts the twins outside the palace.
He walks over to the bundle of food and supplies.
Vaughn lets one of the barrels roll on the ground.
He hears a yelp, then a child scrambles out of the said barrel.
"Hey there." The child has sun- kissed skin and short mousy hair. She's unkempt, filthy and has no business here.
"I meant no offense, Ser. I just wanted to see Princess Malenia." The child replies truthfully. "I've never seen someone so pretty and graceful."
"I beg to differ. Lunar Princess Ra-" he stops himself. Really? Arguing with a child?
"Look here… Uh, what's your name?" He helps the child stand up.
"F-Finlay!"
"Alright, Finlay. You need to go home the sun's about to set. You're not supposed to be here."
"Not if no one knows I'm here."
"I would." He crosses his arms infront of his chest, disapproving.
"But you won't tell on me, right?" Cheeky kid. "You like a princess too." Very cheeky.
"Fun's over. Head on home."
"But..!" the child turns to him, cheeks red in anger.
"Relax, Finlay. The princess will still be here tomorrow and I won't tell." He signs a cross on the front of his chest plate and hold up his right hand.
This seems to placate the street urchin and she walks away but not before shouting, "Princess Malenia is prettier than the Moon Princess."
Blasphemy! If he wasn't a grown man, he'd have run after the kid and gave her an earful of how radiant and wonderful Ranni is.