Co-written with miss mika namariya! We own nothing!
The story of the wedding parade for Prince Kuon and Princess Kyoko would go down in history as the most lavish and well-attended royal celebration for a thousand years, largely
because Duke Takarada commissioned a 230 foot-long tapestry to record the event in excruciating detail. He insisted that it would be handed down as the most precious heirloom of the Takarada estate, to preserve history for generations to come and 'to inspire the hopeless and romantically-inept young men of the nation to speak the true feelings of their hearts in a straightforward and timely manner,' as the Duke had proclaimed, while pointedly staring at Prince Kuon. In future years, anthropologists would bless the Duke's name in the way the prince never would.
Kuon said nothing in response, since he had very little to say in his defense that the Duke hadn't already heard (and dismissed), and frankly, the Prince didn't really care. Kyoko was at his side. He had married his True Love, and the laws of the universe decreed that he and Kyoko would live Happily Ever After.
And so they would. But, it must be noted, that happily is not the same thing as peacefully. On their honeymoon—which was supposed to have been a relaxing trip to the seaside— Kuon and Kyoko had encountered carriage trouble, a truly unseasonable thunderstorm, two separate incidents of lost luggage, talking goats, and a remote village in the mountains that was beset by an incredibly pesky goose, to name only a few things.
And then they returned back to the palace and Kyoko settled into her new role as Princess. That was where the real trouble began.
LINE BREAK
The first piece of trouble was — at least in the minds of the older folks of the court — that Kyoko was not, in fact, pregnant. The nipped waist of her wedding dress had proved as much.
"It's such a shame," Lady Shino said over tea one day, in Julie's salon. "I was looking forward to seeing the babe."
Julie stopped mid-bite to nod emphatically. "I could have strangled Lory for interrupting their wedding night with that parade! It was wonderful, of course —" the other ladies made noises of agreement, "— but really! It couldn't have waited a few hours? They were busy working on my grandbaby!"
No one argued with the queen. After all, she was right — as the heirs to the throne, the newlyweds were responsible for carrying on the family line. Besides, as Julie would go on to wax poetic about for the next three hours, it was impossible for the two of them to produce anything but the cutest, most wonderful baby ever known to man.
LINE BREAK
The other bit of trouble came from Kyoko's less… shall we say… less exciting duties to the throne. Namely, that she was now invited to policy meetings. Not that she hadn't been to them before — whenever she'd been on duty, she'd been present, just in case things went awry. But now, she was expected to participate.
Except no one thought to explain that to her. So when her first one came around, she posted up on the wall behind Kuon, looking around with a shrewd eye.
The other attendees, all seated at the table, stared at her blankly. Kuon was the first to understand (he is her True Love, after all). He pulled out the chair next to him and patted it invitingly. "There's a chair here, love."
"Oh, okay." She sat down, making menacing eye contact with each member of the table (save Kuon), and withdrew a very large knife. She set it on the table in front of her, her hand resting casually on the hilt. Kuon tried not to think about how good her fingers looked against the hilt.
The merchants exchanged nervous looks. Eventually, one of them squeaked out, "This is a meeting about the merchant guild's annual picnic."
Kyoko nodded. "Will they be armed?"
"...No? We sell stamps and stationery?"
Kyoko simply stared at them. They stared back, bewildered, and eventually turned to look pleadingly at Kuon. The prince in question wasn't sure if he should laugh or not. Eventually, he tugged Kyoko up by her elbow. "Please give us just a moment."
She allowed him to pull her out of the room, her confusion clearly visible on her face.
"Darling, I love you. You know that, right?"
"Of course."
His heart may have skipped a couple beats at the certainty in her voice. If the me of half a year ago could hear that, he thought. He gave himself an internal shake, focusing back on the task at hand. "And you're aware that this is just… a silly little policy meeting, right?"
"...yeah?"
"So you don't need to put a knife on the table."
"Would a dagger have been better? I wasn't quite sure of the etiquette."
Don't laugh. "Um. Probably not. I was thinking more like, no weapons. No visible weapons," he quickly amended, when she opened her mouth to argue. "I don't think there's any need for it. It's just a meeting, after all."
"You don't know how lethal someone can be with a piece of paper." She placed one hand on her hip.
"I'm sure you would surprise me." He glanced at the door to the meeting room, aware that there were many straining ears behind it. "But I'm not worried about anyone else but you, really, though, when it comes to that. None of them are trained assassins."
"That you know of," she countered.
He had to crack a smile at that. "Fair. But seriously, if you find this meeting boring, you can go and I'll let you know when the blacksmith guild shows up."
"It's not boring! I'm just concerned for your safety. As your guard—"
"Wait— wait, wait, wait. Stop." He held up his hands.
"What?"
"Kyoko." He lowered his hands to her shoulders, looking her directly in the eye. "You're my wife."
"Yeah…?" And?
"You don't have to be my guard anymore."
She stared at him for a moment, feeling like the ground was crumbling away beneath her feet. After a moment, she managed to choke out, tears shimmering in her eyes, "Are— are you firing me?"
"What? No!" Please don't cry. "If — if anything, isn't it a promotion?"
"Oh." She took a steadying breath, and, to his immense relief, dried her eyes. "Good. Because I have some improvements I'd like to implement. In particular, your chambers—"
"OUR chambers," he interrupted.
"Our chambers," she acknowledged, "are on the fifth floor. They're pretty high, but between the creeping wisteria at the base and the footholds, the walls beneath are really too easy to scale."
Add that to the list of things Kuon had never considered once in his life. "Please tell me this is hypothetical."
She just looked at him. "Why would it be hypothetical?"
"You're not actually scaling five floors, right?"
She didn't dignify a question that stupid with an answer. "And the window locks! They're far too easy to pick. I didn't even need anything specialized, just some hair pins. Plus, the glass isn't reinforced, so someone could smash through."
He had to scoop her towards him and drop his head on top of hers. "Again. Fifth floor." He took a deep breath, and remembered something. "I did think it had gotten breezier."
"Oh! Yes, please remind me to let the steward know that the window needs a patch."
"...Okay." He cleared his throat. "So, uh. About the meeting."
"Yes!" She pulled back enough to smile up at him, ready to pay attention to any instruction.
"You're not there to guard me. You're there to provide ideas and be aware of… like, policy and plans."
She nodded. "So you need a security person. Got it!"
She did not get it.
LINE BREAK
During their third meeting of the day, Kuon leaned over to Kyoko and murmured, "You've been pretty quiet. Did you have anything you wanted to add?"
She nodded, and returned in a whisper, "Yes. I need to expand the tunnel network. In the event of a siege, there's nothing to barricade the door with in here, and there's no secondary exit. We also need to enlarge that window— I don't think you'd fit through."
He glanced through the window in question to the uninterrupted view of the sky. "This is the eighth floor."
"True. We need to get you up to speed with a grappling hook. Just in case of emergencies. I'm not sure that my silks can hold both of us."
Kuon, thinking that it didn't sound at all necessary but that grappling hook lessons with Kyoko sounded fun, said, "Sure thing, love."
Grappling hook lessons with Kyoko turned out to be one of the most terrifying experiences of his life — second only to a speed-dating event Lory had looped him into once upon a time.
LINE BREAK
When she first came to the palace, Kyoko was aware that she had attracted a certain amount of attention. The first few weeks it had been because she was a novelty, and the court gossips entertained themselves with speculating on who exactly the mysterious new bodyguard was and how she had come to position. Then, after a few more weeks when it became apparent to everyone at court that Prince Kuon was besotted, the focus was mainly on placing bets as to when the oblivious guard would realize her charge's feelings. And now that she was Kuon's wife, princess, and future Queen, well… it turned out, people were really paying attention now, and Kyoko inadvertently caused several things to happen, to the amusement and aggravation of various factions around the palace.
The first thing was a notable uptick in swordsmanship interest in young girls after seeing Kyoko juggling her daggers during the wedding parade. Even some nobles with young daughters had steeled themselves and approached Duke Takarada to tentatively inquire about possible open spots at the formerly-laughable-now-turned-prestigious LME Academy.
This interest in swordsmanship and all sorts of blades made the blacksmiths of the castle town incredibly happy. And the silk merchants were also doing quite well, as several ladies in waiting at court had taken to copying the Princess's habit of sometimes wearing a length of silk wrapped around her waist (although none of them attempted to copy Kyoko's use of the silks to climb the columns in the grand ballroom).
Secondly, Kyoko's habit of wearing leggings became quite fashionable after more of the noblewomen took to visiting the training grounds. Since Kyoko did not often hold salons or afternoon tea parties, several more astute members of the court realized that if one wanted to speak to the princess, she could be pretty reliably found at ungodly hours of the morning running laps around the jousting field.
Most fine ladies stopped by only once to introduce themselves, but a few actually found the morning air quite invigorating and asked Kyoko for a few lessons in hand to hand combat, which the guard was more than happy to provide. As the daughter of a baronet put it, in the event of a dragon or giants or mountain trolls or rampaging bears or any other dangerous predicament that young maidens often found themselves in, it was nice to have another option besides 'scream as loud as possible for the nearest knight or plucky village youth' in hope of a rescue.
Kyoko thoroughly agreed. Unfortunately, the sudden increase in demand for custom-fit leggings and the decrease in orders for the fashionable court dresses of the season irritated seamstresses to no end.
There was also the matter of her additional duties. Kyoko mostly got the hang of the many routine meetings to which she was now invited. The guard quickly observed that if she and the prince were running behind schedule, the casual spinning of a blade in her hands usually made whatever long-winded bureaucrat or councilor finish their talking points quite succinctly. But there were other things expected of her as princess as well. Juli informed Kyoko that as a princess, she was supposed to support a few charitable causes. And no, they could not all be frog-related.
The royal scholars, who attended the monthly T.O.A.D.S. meetings at the palace, at first vehemently disagreed, until they learned that none of their funding would be diminished. Once assured their research was not in jeopardy, the scholars were happy to concede that there could, possibly, be some other areas of research worthy of investigation.
Juli advised Kyoko to pick causes that were important to her, and so Princess Kyoko, in addition to her generous support of the royal scholars, also became a patron of the royal library and funded the acquisition of new and rare volumes. She also became an advocate for preserving the wild and remote forests across the kingdom, for the health and safety both of the forest-dwellers and the villages around them (the racoons returned to their home after the wedding, but there was more than one story of an innkeeper who found that their finest vintages had vanished from the cellar overnight, with nothing left of the thieves but a smattering of pawprints).