Fion

All the cheering and bluster in the camp dies down quickly after Sebastian’s departure, and a nervous sort of tension fills the air. Though they wish to remain optimistic about the battle, this is still war— anything might happen.

If I pull the wind just so and listen carefully, I can hear the faintest sounds of distant conflict, but it’s impossible to surmise which way the battle goes.

Reports come in every twenty minutes or so, or rumors, perhaps. Scouts are kept running, and from the sound of things, all is going well— for Boyd’s side.

As I allow Ruth’s ladies in waiting to bathe me and prepare to greet the returning heroes, I cannot help but think of Victor, and I feel a surge of unfamiliar emotions, painfully deep.

Victor was the one that defeated my guardian. He woke me from my slumber and so he should have been my one true love. He had his rough edges, but I had been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt— at least until he proved me wrong completely. But he did not prove me wrong. If anything, he’d been proving himself to be a better man, little by little. Someone I really wanted to believe in. And then—

 Sebastian Shrike.  

I get the gossip from all the ladies, what a fantastic and handsome knight he is, what a shame it’s been all these years that he kept himself for some fairytale maiden no one even believed existed. But now he’s found me, they speak of us as though we were a couple already, destined to be together.

I consider this very seriously. Consider what I know of the man.

From our brief encounter I determined him to be a decent person, well mannered and considerate. His noble and gallant personality certainly seems to be more what I had in mind when I pictured my future beloved. And these people tell me he searched for my sleeping form these last seven years of his own volition, not at some witch’s order. What’s more, he is a dragon. Just as Azariah said my true love would be…

Isn’t it too much to be a coincidence? Victor battled Azariah so he could make me Mirantha’s captive, but Sebastian saved me from that fate. While it’s true I did not need saving, technically, it’s the sentiment that I am forced to consider. The weight of his own feelings…

Just how great are they? I wonder. Everyone here tells me how well he has loved me over the years, but is that really true? And if it is… how am I to answer him?

With these thoughts weighing heavily, I take the time to observe my reflection in the glass. I have been gowned in the princess’ own dress of copper colored fabric. The hems are embroidered with leaves in ochre, crimson and dark sienna.

The style of this era’s clothing is altered somewhat from what I am familiar with. This gown has a fitted bodice with a low waist on which I wear a fine chain link belt of copper and gold. The neckline is scooped deep and wide, so my shoulders are almost completely bare. My hair is styled in long, loose waves, secured by a thin copper circlet that rests low, just above my ears.

The ladies are insistent on touching the inner part of my lip with deep red dye and blending it outward, and they line my eyes with a dark cosmetic that makes them stand out beautifully in my face.

In all, I hardly recognize myself, though it’s not a bad look. I suppose I could get used to the style of this era, just as I’ve been slowly getting used to their speech patterns. I must do my best this evening, I remind myself, to speak as they do.

All dressed and made up, there is nothing more for me to do but await the soldiers’ return. I do so in a comfortable sofa in Lady Ruth’s own tent, joined by the lord’s mother and his daughter Princess Katalin.

They are both beauties with pale skin and proud, noble features. Their jaw lines are strong and both of their eyes are clear, liquid gray. Though Ruth must be approaching age sixty, she has aged with grace and dignity, and in her eyes I sense a spark of good humor. The same cannot be said for Katalin. The young lady is moody and sour, and makes no efforts to make me feel welcome. Not that I mind, particularly. I prefer people who wear their dislike for me openly to the ones that pretend to be my friends.

“I received word forty minutes ago of our force’s definite victory over Mirantha’s. They breached the castle around noon; those that did not fall by the blade scattered south where we must assume they mean to meet up with Mirantha. While the bulk of our force has remained at the castle to prepare for the witch’s retaliation and the arrival of fresh northern troops, a handful of our soldiers are returning to attend the victory banquet we have prepared for them. Headed by none other than our Sebastian, I needn’t add.”

“Sir Shrike will be exhausted after a long battle,” Katalin puts in grumpily. “I doubt he will be in the mood for such festivities. He’ll prefer to retire early after a hot bath, I’m sure. Alone,” she adds for good measure, sending me a cutting glare.

I allow my lips to curl faintly with a smile. “I see you care for Sir Shrike a good deal, Lady Katalin.”

“What?” she colors. “No, I— that is, of course I do. He is Boyd’s first knight, beloved of all. He and I have no special… relationship…”

“As I mentioned before,” Ruth gives me a knowing look, “our Sebastian has left no small number of broken hearts in his wake. He ignores all his suitors, although growing up in his vicinity, Katalin at least has been able to enjoy being treated as a beloved younger sister. But perhaps that favor has given her false hopes.”

“Be quiet, Grandmother.”

“You are jealous of me,” I address her plainly, and the girl’s eyes snap to me defensively. Her jaw works, her lips purse, though she says nothing.

“It is too soon for this emotion,” I assure her.  

Katalin’s honest face vacillates between hope and suspicion.  

“Perhaps as you have said, Lady Ruth, he has searched for me unfailingly all this time. But to me, Sebastian is still a stranger. I have not even seen his face. From all I know of him, he appears to be a man of excellent character and perhaps fond of me, but that does not change the fact that he was not the one to fulfill the prophecy. It is far too hasty for me to assume he is my true love based solely on these one-sided feelings of his.”

“Well said, Lady Fion,” Ruth twinkles at me mischievously. “Though I wonder if these sentiments of yours will change when you see him in human form for the first time.”

“Who did fulfill the prophecy?” Forgetting for the moment her dislike of me, the princess changes easily to a dreamy maiden herself at the idea of me being awakened by my one true love. “Tell me it wasn’t that devil Crusoe.”

“It was Victor, yes.”

The women exchange awkward glances, but I am not offended by their rude comments. I understand very well the kind of man Victor is.

“Will it be very hard for you to learn he’s fallen in battle?” Ruth asks me. I feel a chill at her question.

“Has he fallen?”

“I speak hypothetically.”

I feel my body relax slightly. “I do not think Victor would have fallen in battle, though perhaps I am wrong. Him too, I have known only for a short time. But if he is my one true love, he would not die so easily. He would fight with all of his strength to return to my side.”

Katalin gets a dreamy look once again, while Ruth’s good humor is traded for somberness.

“My child,” she addresses me, and I recognize suddenly why I feel so comfortable around this woman. Since waking, she may be the first person that’s treated me as though I were an ordinary twenty-year-old woman, and not an ageless demigod. It is refreshing, I think, and comforting, though her address remains somber.

“My child, you have only just awakened to this world, so you do not know the way of things. You cannot imagine the cruel grip of terror Mirantha has held over this island for the last fifty years. And you cannot imagine the atrocities she has ordered Victor Crusoe to commit since he came into her service. Whether he came into it willingly or not is no excuse for the lives he has taken.”

“I realize that.”

“But you do not, Child, or you would not consider such a man. You are very good, Fion, I can see that plainly. But Victor, even his own people, he—”

The brass blare of a trumpet cuts her off, and a shout goes up from the camp without the tent. Katalin springs up with unmasked delight.

“Bast has returned!”