One Day I'll Fly Away (Bell)

[Grand Duke Alexander Redwood]

The grand duke had just returned from a morning’s drill with his regiment when a palace page knocked on his door. “Her royal highness requests your presence, m’lord,” the boy said, puffing out his chest with pride. It wasn’t every day that a page got to deliver a message in person to the Grand Duke Redwood himself.

Alex, still sweaty from the morning’s exercise, nodded. “I shall be along presently,” he said, his standard answer that meant he’d be there within an hour or so, Runnori willing. He gave the boy a small smile that made the page’s eyes light up before shutting the door. Shucking his clothes into a pile of sorts on the floor, he washed up and shaved before rummaging around for appropriate attire. He settled on a white shirt, black breeches and tall black riding boots, with an emerald green doublet embroidered with his personal crest (a sword piercing a crown, representing the union of Redwood and royal blood in his person) in gold thread.

He left the dagger he often wore at his waist in his rooms. Not even the princess’s cousin was permitted to carry weapons in her chambers. Alex had to confess curiousity as to his cousin’s request. He’d been fond of his cousin when he’d come to live at court ten years before, but as the years wore on and his duties piled on, Alex had formed a less favorable opinion of his sometimes wild young cousin. Personally he thought she had a ways to go before becoming the queen Lamora needed.

The guard posted outside the princess’s chambers (a new addition since the kidnapping incident) nodded to him and opened the door. “His grace, the Grand Duke Redwood,” the man announced formally. Not for the first time did Alex appreciate the relative privacy he enjoyed compared to his fully royal cousin.

[lili]

Christabel chewed her lip. Her chambers were filled with the mindless chatter of a few of her ladies-in-waiting, Christabel's thoughts were a million miles away, torn between fretting over Celvi - who was surely rotting away in a cell in Mar'vol - and something else, something that had always been lurking in the back of her mind and had chosen to surface now, when she had lost so much faith in herself.

"Lady Thomas, would you kindly fetch a page to send my cousin my request that he join us?"

The ladies let out a giggle in near perfect unison, and Christabel did not waste any energy in suppressing an exaggerated roll of her eyes. For another hour or so, Christabel enduring the mindless chatter that made her needlework simply riveting in comparison. It was always nothing but the weather, what fabrics were in style that season, who was rumored to be sleeping with who around court.

Out of the corner of her eye, Christabel caught a glimpse of the golden hair that mirrored her own. And sure enough, the guard her door announced - with an air of self-importance - that her cousin was at the door.

"Please leave us. I would like to speak to my cousin alone."

With a collective sigh and a pout, the four women rose and left her chambers, though they were sure to pass by the Grand Duke on the way out, and Christabel was sure she one or two of them wink in his direction.

"Alex. Please, have a seat." Christabel welcomed him with a small smile, perhaps one of the warmer exchanges the two had had in years. For a moment, Christabel allowed a silence to stretch between them in which she chewed her lip and wondered where to begin.

"I trust that training is going well?" Christabel intoned, deciding to begin with the customary - and rather tedious, in her own opinion - pleasantries rather than rush into a full interrogation. Surely, he was wondering why she had sent for him - the two cousins had not been friends in many years.

[Grand Duke Alexander Redwood]

A muscle in Alex’s jaw tightened at the titters that arose at his entrance from Bell’s ladies-in-waiting. This knee-jerk response was concealed by the charming smile that accompanied it, naturally, but any of the men in his regiment would have noticed his annoyance. “Your highness,” he said, bowing formally. For all that they were cousins, court etiquette had to be observed, and the princess did outrank him. For all that in any other country he would have inherited the throne. He didn’t like to think that way – it was treasonous – but more and more lately he was beginning to consider a future in which Bell was queen and war waged with Mar’vol. It didn’t look hopeful.

Alex’s ego couldn’t help but be pleased by the lavicious looks the ladies gave him as they passed by. He could have any one of them if he wished – and somehow this knowledge made him desire them less and regard them with disdain. “As you wish,” he replied, taking a seat on one of the recently vacated chairs across from her. He gave her a slightly quizzical look, but waited for her to speak as politely as he could.

“Well enough,” Alex said with a slight shrug. He shifted in his seat – too delicate for the likes him – and finally settled for leaning back, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair with his hands loosely linked in front of him. Was this all she wanted, an exchange of pleasantries? “We lost several men in the last border skirmish, but the new recruits are coming along as well as can be expected.” Which was to say, it would take years for the new men to have as much experience as the men they replaced, but there was no help for that.

He groped for a subject that would avoid the one he really wished to broach – her close brush with kidnapping. It would only turn into a lecture and he was sure his aunt would not appreciate his criticism of her only child and heir. “How is your… embroidery?” the grand duke asked at last. Unbidden, the memory of a certain lady-in-waiting’s lecture on how embroidery wasn’t the only thing ladies did sprang to his mind. If he’d heard the news rightly, that same lady was the one in the clutches of Mar’vol. It was too bad, really, but if any of his cousin’s ladies could emerge unscathed, it would be that one.

[lili]

Christabel fiddled with the needlework in her hands and then tossed it aside. She scoffed. "Yes, embroidery. Clearly the female form of military training. Our swords are a bit shorter than yours are, aren't they?" With her hand, she motioned towards the needle. Her words dripped with sarcasm, making it quite clear that she loathed being confined to this - all because she was a woman. She could rule in her own right as every woman in her family before her, but until then she was expected to confine herself to needlework and gossip.
Christabel let her hand fall to her lap, suddenly feeling guilty. He had replied to her question pleasantly enough, and when he returned the pleasantry she had snapped. "I'm sorry," she said, with a heavy sigh. Ever since the kidnapping, she had felt less like she belonged here with every passing hour. She had become accustomed to feeling out of place at court, but this - this was worse than her usual feelings of rebellion and frustration. And worst of all, every emotion she had was laced with guilt. Guilt that she had gone free and Celvi was in Mar'vol.

And there was always a disturbing thought lurking in the back of her mind - Christabel knew she was the same age her mother had been when her reign as queen had begun. And yet she felt so unprepared to take the throne. Her mother was in good health as always - thank Runnori - but Christabel knew that sooner or later, the crown would be thrust upon her. Perhaps without warning. When she was a child, Christabel had been so sure that her reign would see Lamora at peace - that she would end the war. But as she grew older, the future of Lamora under her reign looked bleaker and bleaker in her eyes. And lately, the mere thought of ruling had her terrified nearly to tears.

"Have you ever thought of how things would be different if you had been born a girl? I mean - " Christabel paused, thinking of a way to phrase her question, "I mean, if you were next in line to rule in my stead." Christabel fiddled with the fabric of her dress, avoiding her cousin's eyes. Surely, he would guess her meaning. The last thing she needed was for him to know what she was considering - or even worse, to have him mention it to her mother. She was unsure if he would do such a thing, but Christabel was taking no risks. This was the first decision she needed to make entirely on her own, without any input from her mother – or anyone else, for that matter. Save these inquiries, of course – though she hardly thought it counted as input since she had no intention of telling her cousin what these questions were about.

(ooc: sorry if that last bit didn't make sense, I'm a bit tired. xD)

[Grand Duke Alexander Redwood]

Alex suppressed an eye roll at his cousin’s acid retort. There really was no winning with women, was there? Take an interest in whatever it was they did all day and they snapped like you’d given them the gravest insult. He didn’t mean to equate military training with embroidery, but good luck convincing his stubborn cousin of that. Rather than reply, however, he merely looked past her at the window where another snow was falling. With Lady Celvi he’d let his tongue lash as he willed, but he had to pick his battles with Bell wisely. He didn’t want an insurmountable enmity to grow up between them, particularly considering that once Bell became queen, he would be the only other royal and someone she ought to be able to rely on. Especially with the specter of war ever present…

His attention returned to her face with her sudden – and out of character, at least in his experience – apology. This wasn’t like his defiant cousin at all. Perhaps the loss of her lady-in-waiting weighed on her more than he had reckoned. Alex had never thought Bell capable of the kind of guilt that burdened a soul from the loss of someone under his command, but well… the ladies-in-waiting were under Bell’s command, in a way. Maybe this was why she’d summoned him. More good would have been done to summon a priestess of Runnori, he thought. The grand duke was not in the habit of revealing what went on beneath the façade. While he chewed over exactly what to say, she spoke again.

He knit his brows as he considered his words. Of course he’d considered what life would be like if he’d been part of the succession. His mother had been a good ruler, until her last days, at least, and he liked to think that he would have acquitted himself well were he her successor. But the laws of Lamora were clear: only females could ascend the throne. And he couldn’t imagine being born female. It was so foreign to every fiber of his being. But he could imagine ruling, treasonous though it was, and he’d thought (in some of his darker hours) that he might make a better king than Bell a queen. Or even his aunt… But he’d never followed these thoughts to any sort of solid conclusion. Women ruled in Lamora and men fought the wars their queens commanded.

Alex shifted again in his seat, uncomfortable in the dainty chair, and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees, looking at the intricate whorls of the carpet as he formed his – oh so careful – reply. “I have wondered sometimes what Lamora would be like if my mother had survived,” he said. “If I had succeeded her, eventually. If matters had turned out… differently.” He had the same vision as always: his mother wreathed in white silk, taking that fatal step off the edge of the balcony. He hadn’t been present for his mother’s suicide, of course, and didn’t remember anything except the acute sense of loss he’d felt at four years old, but that didn’t keep him from imagining it. His jaw tightened at the thought.

He glanced up at his cousin through his blond lashes. ”But Runnori willed otherwise.” Unspoken was the idea that to think otherwise was high treason. Did his cousin seek to lure him into uttering treasonous words in the service of some conspiracy? He didn’t think she had the wile and anyway he couldn’t imagine the ends that would serve.

[lili]

The tension in her cousin's jaw was not entirely lost on Christabel, nor was his carefully worded answer. As if either of them could forget that this conversation was bordering on treasonous, even for a moment.

Still, this answer was hardly satisfactory. At this rate, she would have no choice but to tell him. She knew she would need to take a different approach. She bit her lip, letting a silence stretch between them as she chewed over how to pry from him the answer she needed to hear - without scaring him with treasonous words.

"That's not exactly what I meant. You know as well as I do - maybe better - that in times like these, the security of Lamora is so often at stake. What if - what if something were to happen to me? I need to know that if I were gone, Lamora would not fall to civil war when my mother's reign ends. I've given it a lot of thought since Lady Gray's abduction, and I need your word that if it were left up to you, you would not allow Lamora to fall to chaos. It will help me sleep easier at night." She spoke slowly, watching his face for any signs of his reaction.

Truth be told, Christabel had felt rather like a coward lately - she feared the idea of ruling. But was abdication in itself a cowardly act? She had run through the arguments for and against it too many times to count. On the one hand, there was not much she loathed more than court life. She could not imagine living out her life this way, raising her children the same way she had been raised - with nursemaids and governesses in the place of the care of a mother. And there was her sudden lack of self-confidence to contend with, as well.

And then there was the way that Christabel felt so torn between being the dutiful daughter her mother always wanted and her kingdom needed - and being true to herself and making the choices that would shape her own life into something she could happily live in. But was it selfish to want that when there was a kingdom full of people ready to put their trust in her as their future queen? She had always been taught to believe that as a royal, she was a separate breed - born to rule, not to live a life of selfish happiness, but born to serve her country. As much as Christabel had a habit of shirking her duties as princess, this last step was much larger than her usual rebelliousness. It was a step she was not sure she was prepared to make, whether it be right or wrong.