Scowling, Duris looked around the hall, and let her eyes rest on a beautiful woman. She was wearing an emerald green dress with a waistline that made her look like an hourglass. Her blonde curls were extremely long, they completely covered her ass and crowned her face like a goddamn halo. As their eyes met Duris felt a blush creep up her cheeks. Holy shit I’ve found an actual fucking valkyrie.

Duris made her way over to the woman, ignoring several people starting a conversation with her mid-stride. “Hi,” Duris greeted the angelic beauty with a smile that went all the way up to her eyes. “Hello princess Duris,” the woman curtsied. From up close Duris saw that she had hazel coloured eyes that shone brightly, and her perfect plump lips formed an enchanting smile. Duris almost melted on the spot. “I am Ivlia and I hope to become your sister soon.”

“Hey there beautiful”, a male voice said beside her. As Duris turned the looked straight into the face of the gold-haired peacock. He took her hand and kissed it as he bowed slightly. He had the same hazel eyes as the valkyrie. “I see you’ve met my sister.” He said. Figures.

“Yeah, can I marry her instead?” Duris said with a straight face. She meant it too. She’d marry that woman in an instant, even if it meant having an annoying peacock for a brother-in-law.

Both the siblings laughed at what they probably perceived to be a joke. “Alas, you’ll have to make do with me.” Ingvar said, sticking out his chest. “If you bestow upon me your favour, I will definitely be invincible tomorrow.”

“If you’re still here come tomorrow.” Duris sneered.

“Ah well, if you don’t like the package, you can send me away. But allow me to do my best to convince you otherwise. Shall we dance?” he held out his hand invitingly.

Duris let out a sigh and turned around to walk away, but looked straight in the eyes of her mother, who’s face was signalling ‘play nice or else…’

“Fine.” Duris said as she turned back to peacock-dude. “But only if I can dance with you too.” She added, winking at the peacock’s sister. Ivlia looked a bit flustered and raised her eyebrows. “Ehm, okay well sure!” she replied carefully, then threw a questioning look at her brother.

Ingvar took Duris’ hand and led her to the dancefloor. He was a good dancer. That probably meant that his sister was too. Duris was looking forward to dancing with her. As Ingvar spun her around, she glimpsed the king giving her an actual thumbs-up with both hands. What a moron.

“You look absolutely stunning tonight, princess.” Ingvar said softly, bringing his mouth close to her ear. Duris rolled her eyes. Smooth fucker.

As the music ended Ingvar bowed to her and sent her a cheeky smile. As he came up from the bow an elbow caught his shoulder. Hard. Cocky asshole number six kept Ingvar a second from returning to a full upright position flexing his biceps. Bejewelled miniature ceremonial axes hung from the guys ears, sparkling between his brown curls. The things must have cost a fortune.

“Can I have this dance, dear princess?” he said.

“Gimme your earrings and I’ll dance with you.” Duris replied.

Number six, what was his name again? Something with a D… ah well whatever. He raised his brow, but complied and handed the earrings over to Duris. Then, realising she was already wearing earrings and didn’t have a pouch on her, she tucked them into her cleavage.

“Is it bad if I wished I was those earrings?” D-man said, smiling.

“Eyes up here.” Duris snapped. The man complied and looked her straight in the eye, taking her hand in the process. He was blushing a little, that was odd for such an overconfident fucker. His cheeks slowly returned to their normal complexion as he moved to the music, dragging Duris along with him. She caught him glimpsing her cleavage two more times, the second time Duris leaned closer and whispered: “if you take one more look at my tits, I’m sending you home, got that?” He nodded upward, afraid of lowering his gaze and behaved himself for the rest of the dance. Because of that, and the earrings, Duris decided to let him stay for now.

The other suitors followed D-man’s example and proceeded to ask her to dance one after the other. Duris, under the gaze of her mother, complied grudgingly. After seven bouts of dancing she’d sent home two of the men. The tall guy for stepping on her feet and cocky jerk number seven for uttering the words ‘wedding night’ at some point in their conversation. It turned out to be the last point of their conversation. Ever.

The queen had complied by immediately having the two men and their families removed from the festivities and giving Duris the ‘see-I’m-holding-up-my-part-of-the-bargain’-look. A few minutes later the king joined his daughter on the dancefloor. “May I dance with my beautiful little girl once more before she gets engaged?” he stared, offering his hand.

“Sure dad.” Duris said, she had danced with seven men already, one more wouldn’t make a difference and at least this one wasn’t a threat.

“I’m proud of you tonight, Duris.” He said. Duris wondered if his wife had put him up to saying that. She probably had, but it was kind of nice to hear anyway. Although he was dumb as a goblin, she did love her father. Making him proud was nice. It was just too bad he was only proud if she acted like someone not-herself. “Thanks dad.” She answered.

“You did good sending the tall dude away, whatsisname Gligi or something?”

“Fuck if I know dad, I wasn’t really interested in his name.”

“Yeah, well. Looking at the bunch of them, he might’ve won tomorrow, and you shouldn’t have to marry a man who can’t dance. So well done.”

“Thanks.”

“Who’s your favourite so far?”

“Ivlia Ironsomethingsomething”

“The blonde? Yeah, his name was something with Iron… Iron… hm. Can’t be a good king if people keep forgetting his last name, though.”

“Oh, that won’t be an issue, she’ll do nicely as a queen.” Duris smiled.

“Yeah, uh, what?” the king looked a little confused.

“Nevermind.”

“You know, if you really want a special someone to win tomorrow, we can fix that… The intention of this whole thing was to make sure you got yourself a good husband, but if you’ve already made your choice…”

“Wait, would you really accept my choice if I made it tonight?”

“Yeah darling, I would.”

Duris thought about this for the rest of the dance and decided no guts no glory. When the music stopped, she walked straight up to Ivlia and took her hand.

“You still owe me a dance.” Duris said, pulling her towards the dancefloor.

Ivlia smiled and walked along. “Of course dear princess, it’s my pleasure.” The word pleasure coming from that beautiful mouth made Duris think of all kinds of interesting things she wanted to do to this woman. She smiled widely and proceeded to start out by dancing. The two of them twirled the dancefloor together, pulling close, then spinning apart. Duris thought it was a thousand times more fun than dancing the normal one-leads-the-other boring stuff. Ivlia seemed to be having fun as well. Her hazel eyes sparkled with joy in the light of the many candles and every time their breasts collided, she giggled. It was extremely sexy. Three songs had passed before Ivlia signalled that she should be getting back to her family and stopped dancing. Duris didn’t wait a second, pulled Ivlia close and kissed her.

Gasps came from the other guests, which had apparently gathered themselves into a crowd of spectators while Duris and Ivlia were dancing. Ivlia herself just stood there, completely frozen with a look of panic on her face. Within seconds her brother pulled her away. “Sister, we’re going. This bitch is clearly insane. No fucking crown is going to convince me to marry THAT.”

He had said it loudly, which drew more gasps from the audience. An older man, with the same blonde hair ran up to Ingvar and his sister and started an argument in low hushed tones. Scolded by his dad for ditching… it almost made Duris laugh, but a hand on her shoulder spun her around and she looked straight into the ‘what-in-the-seven-ores-have-you-done-now?’-face of the Queen.

Meanwhile the King had found his voice and started laughing loudly. Being the King, others followed suit. “Ha, ha, ha, what a joker my Duris! Good trick to send away the last contender. If he can’t take a joke, he ain’t worth my daughter! Ha, ha, ha!”

The announcer took this as a cue to call out the final line-up for tomorrow and put an end to the party. The queen was still staring at Duris, eyes prompting her daughter to please explain herself because she clearly knew that this had not been a joke to get Ingvar to acquit himself. As did probably most people who had seen the women dancing together.

“Dad said that if I chose someone tonight, I could marry that person…” Duris stammered. It was answered by the ‘did-you-really-think-you-would-get-away-with-this-explanation?’-face.

Duris tried again: “Mum I don’t want to marry a man, I want a woman. I can’t help it! Can’t I please have her? You vetted the family, so that’s good… right?” The ‘are-you-fucking-kidding-me?’-face in front of her made her last wisp of hope fly out of the hall. Then her mother moved her face to Duris’ ear and softly and calmly said every word Duris didn’t want to hear.

Duris turned on her heel and ran. She weaved a way through the crowd that was making it’s way to the exit of the underground palace and kept going until she was outside. Then she ran some more. Finally, when her legs were tired and the sounds of people had long did out, Duris lifted her skirt, climbed the highest tree she could find, picked out a thick branch and used her stockings to secure herself to it. Breathing in the freedom in the air, she fell asleep.