Emilia couldn’t trust a single damn sole in this castle. First the obvious opposer of the Lord and Lady of Impetus, then the upcoming Lord and Lady of Mercia with their clear distrust of the crown, and now both the Lord of Larson and basically all of his associates. She’d have to be stupid not to recognize the clear fronts Lady Isabeau was putting up, just showing how deeply rooted mistrust is in every little branch of the crowns subjects. What’s more surprising is the fact that Emilia had left out her notes and records like an absolute fool. Landervik would have it out for her ass in the morning.
Now she was forced to attend a stupid dinner and play the act of a sweet princess. If they were going to force her into a role then they may as well be consistent. Being a spy and soldier meant she was essentially cast away from the crown, her only duties aligning with what Landervik had in mind. It was how she dealt with her hatred and pain, she buried it into the role and let it out with every cut, bruise, and scar. She could let a little bit of herself out, not exactly her good traits but at this point did she have good traits? She had her cockiness, she had her anger, she had her barriers and beneath that was nothing else. Now she was sitting beside her Royal Majesty eating with a goddamned tiny spoon under the stares of virtually all of their guests.
Her Royal Majesty would pinch her thigh under the table when her irritation would show, since irritation was all she could feel right now. Shit hasn’t gone right ever since the vikings attacked and shit wasn’t even right before. Emilia placed her spoon down, admittedly it was a little aggressive, causing a few more people to look at the noise. Jesus fucking-
“Ah that is my bad,” Emilia said trying to push some hair back so she didn’t look like a wraith, “I underestimated how little this spoon was.”
A few nobles chuckled in agreeance and Her Royal Majesty loosened her hand off of Emilia's arm that was under the table. Emilia peeked down to see just where the skin had broken in half moon shapes. Nobles were talking and things were happening but Emilia was too tired to focus, too tired to do her job. She got in these moods sometimes but normally she just snuck out and fucked around in town, with that still not being an option she would soon turn to alcohol. Begrudgingly, she picked her head up and tuned back into the supper.
While there were a few side conversations going on between a few of the heirs, the main focus seemed to be on the silence of the vikings since their initial attack. Lords discussed their theories of the newfound silence in contrast to the vikings typical route of utter chaos, why were they given time to organize as they were? The continent could, when forces are aligned, defend themselves plenty; but when the courts are divided, they’d have stood no chance. The Lord of Impetus was very passionate about the matter though.
“You see, I believe that they wanted to fight the united force so that they didn’t have to individually swipe out the Lords that hold the actual power one by one,” The king snarled, not too content with the Lord’s statement of the castles arsenal, “I-I mean your forces divided under the Lords would be able to fight in different fronts.”
“That is plausible… but it doesn’t explain their methods of attacking,” The Lord of Mercia began cautiously, “an attack on a monastery is only intended to strike fear and show superiority.”
“Therefore,” The Lord of Larson said, cutting off a very annoyed Lord, “this isn’t an all out war.”
The Lord of Mercia waited, looking not very pleased, for him to finish speaking before he spoke up again. “That’s not what I meant, the vikings would only attack if they had something more powerful driving their force.”
The King’s war advisor nodded, “While it seems in character for vikings, they wouldn’t go… dicking around to annoy a global superpower.”
“Who would back them…” Many others at the table might not have heard her, but Emilia listened in for the murmurs of the Lady of Mercia who seemed to be awfully up to date in the conversation. She surveyed the Ladies listening in, her bets recently were on a woman snaking her way in under the vikings thumb. The vikings were known for their very… different societal structure and beliefs, if a woman were in power there would be no lens over her people's judgement of her decisions. It wasn’t confirmed in any way that a spy resided in the castle, but it was Emilia’s job to be suspicious; to lay traps and lure out any and all forces that would hinder uniting the lands into one force under the crown.
Almost all of the Lords and Ladies were here, excluding the Lord of Dent and the Lady of Wexen. Emilia would be suspicious of them however Dent was a tattered territory, subject to poor rule and ridden in crime, and the Lady of Wexen was Her Royal Majesty’s sister, they would never endorse the type of chaos the vikings would enact. Emilia’s chosen suspects now were the Lord and Lady of Mercia, the daughter of the Lord of Larson, and the Lady of Impetus. Jesus Christ that’s a lot, she already had a migraine imagining trying to get anything out of them without violating Landervik’s terms of “no seducing, torture, or outright admitance of your role”. She was pretty sure a lot of the nobles have already formed a broad assumption about her role based on, well, the scars and their limited conversations that included a lot of ambiguity and prodding on her part.
Emilia stopped aimlessly stirring the remains of her soup (she’d been doing this unconsciously while contemplating) only to see that a few nobles had begun getting up and slowly wandering back to their quarters. She looked to Her Royal Majesty for approval and, after a smitten flick of the wrist, she was off to find the Lady of Mercia who’d gone off in the opposite direction from her room.
Emilia quietly trailed behind her as the Lady ventured through various twists and turns of the castles halls. She got suspicious after the first three turns, but knew what was really going on when the Lady stopped at a dead end.
“Following me?” The Lady exhaled searching the dark corners for a presence. Emilia remained still behind the corner of the previous turn.
“Unless you’re not here and I sound really stupid talking to myself…” The Lady waited another beat for a reveal, and Emilia decided to humor her request.
Emilia stepped into the light, taking note on how tense the Lady’s shoulders went as she came into her view. The Lady was obviously nervous, but she seemed determined to not let it show.
“My princess…” Shock clouded her face.
“Funny you’re shocked when you were the one planning to lure me out here.”
The Lady paused, trying to make any connections. “I mean I suspected it when you burned a hole in my face with your staring at supper, and all that prodding made it obvious you weren’t exactly filling in the role of a trophy princess,” The Lady inhaled, “that and your scars.”
“Bold,” Emilia puffed out a breath in amusement at the Lady’s straightforward manner, “what are your intentions here?”
“That’s what I want to know about you,” The Lady retorted, “why is the princess acting like a spy? Why do you have those scars? Are you really the intended heir for the throne?”
“You think I trust you enough to answer your questions.”
“They’re simply questions, you don’t have to answer, but why do they aggravate you? If there’s nothing to hide why do you fear being found out?”
Emilia paused, calculating where this conversation was going in her silence. The Lady seemed to take this as a conversation-ender and hurriedly started talking again.
“I’m not with the vikings, we really are here to assist the crown… the same as you,” Her last words came off as an accusation of her assistance in a much different way than public authority. Emilia didn’t know why… but she wanted to keep going.
“Yes…” She spoke slowly, avoiding miss-steps, “prove that I can trust you, before we continue…”
The Lady’s eyes widened as she scooped up the opportunity, “You know of our dedication to the people, my husband has proved again and again that we care for the people and have no time for political games of chess. We only play whatever games that will help us ensure peace and security, uprooting the Royal family would only cause chaos and war; which is way worse for the people than us...” She rambled about examples of their humanitarian acts and anti-war sentiments in their short ruling time, Emilia cut her off.
“Ok, that’s enough,” The Lady fell silent under Emilia’s now impatient glare, this conversation was going in all sorts of directions, “did you bring me here for satisfaction, to quench your curiosity about my ambiguity in the role of a princess?”
The Lady bit her lip guiltily, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious… but believe me we want the same thing... and I need your help to get it.”
Now Emilia understood. “You and your husband do want a new ruler, you just want it to be me. Bold of you to assume I want to rule, even bolder to come to me like this under the rule of His Royal Majesty.”
“You don’t? You know… we did some digging about your parents intentions, they’d rather have a Lord and Lady of some land be their successor instead of you, why is that?”
“Awfully bold,” Emilia gritted out defensively, “to bring up something like that with me. Are you too stupid to know how they feel about women ruling? Or have you been coddled under a man who gives you little breaths of freedom, deluding you to think you’ve experienced power.”
The Lady was clearly hurt by the last statement, shown in her tiny step back, but she continued regardless. “You can rule, you know we need a ruler who cares about their people instead of flaunting the wealth and power of generations before,” Noticing the anger that flooded all of Emilia's features, the Lady backtracked a little, “I won’t pretend to know what living under their jurisdiction has done to you, but I know you don’t have to live like that anymore if you let us help you.”
Emilia couldn’t deny that this was what she wanted. That all the pain she endured could become her power, that she wouldn’t have to endure this pain anymore. She knew this was wrong, treason, against everything she has grown up to listen to. But that didn’t cease her craving, all she had to do was say yes.
“I’m going to do you a favor and act like this conversation never happened,” Emilia peeked the dagger she’d been holding into the Lady’s eyesight, “and so are you for many reasons. Do not tell a single soul of what has gone down in this hall tonight, if I find out that even your Lord knows of this I will disembowel you and force feed your insides to your Lord you hold so dearly.” She sneered at the last word.
True fear flooded the Lady’s eyes, she’d clearly underestimated whatever she thought Emilia to be.
“Do you understand?” The smile that plastered Emilia’s face was purely antagonistic, blood began to drip off of the dagger from her tight grip on the blade.
“Y-yes, I-I am so sorry my princess,” She said each word slowly, scared of enacting any more of Emilia’s wrath, “I-I’ll be on my way then.”
She waited for Emilia to step out of the way before stiffly walking past her. Emilia watched her pace pick up as she gained more distance. She snapped back into it when she noticed the mess she’d made of blood on her dress. She hadn’t cut her hand that deep, only really doing it for theatrics, but the blood had smeared on the side of her light blue gown. Emilia groaned at the inconvenience and headed back to her room, eyebrows still furrowed in anger. If she thought about the Lady’s request anymore she’d be tempted to reconsider which side she’d chosen. But she hadn’t really chosen anything, the King, the Queen, and Landervik had chosen for her long ago. A coup wasn’t exactly something her and a young Lady and Lord could attain with hope! And perseverance! Resistance with limited calculation had repercussions, repercussions she’d felt before. She wouldn’t go through that again.
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