You Are My Light Part II

237 - Mishief

"Papa!" 

The King of France jumps in a way that is rather unkingly, sucking in a breath as he turned around from his observation of the European map in his study. From underneath the large table came two blonde heads, bright blue eyes shining at him brightly. He raised a brow at them.

"You're like minions, you're everywhere." he mutters, but he chuckles at the twins anyway. While Isabella and Tobias took after him completley in looks, they had his wife's mischievous spirit and heart. The two four year olds smile at their father widely.

"What are you two doing there?" the King asks his sixth and seventh born. It seems like a lifetime ago that he and Mary struggled to have a child, now they parented a brood so large that they had to take two separate carriages to travel anywhere. First was James, just after a year of marriage, just after James' first birthday, Mary gave birth to Anne and a eighteen months later, came Francis. Then the first set of twins, Edward and Henry, and Aylee followed soon after. Next, Genevieve, and then Isabella and Tobias. Zachary came next, then Vivienne, then Madeline, and Mary was being churched for the birth of Aiden a month and a half ago. Not to mention Jean-Philippe, his bastard born son who would be twelve in the summer. He did love Jean-Philippe, but it was Mary's children who brought him true, unbridled joy in this world. 

Isabella sent a guilty look to her brother. "Well, Papa, I-"

"Where are they?!" came the shrill scream of the Queen Mother of France. Francis blinks in astoundment as Tobias and Isabella quickly shrink back underneath the table and the door slams open, revealing a furious Medici Queen, who positively seethed in anger.

"You!" she snaps, rushing towards her son. Francis raises his eyebrows in shock. "Where are those two little gremlins?! Tell me where they are now!"

"Mother? What on earth is going on?" Francis questions, genuinely confused as he looked at his furious mother. Catherine all but seethed, and yanks down the red and gold pointed hat she wears and points to a crooked streak of red-purple near her temple. 

Francis' jaw fell in shock at the sight, but his lips remain clenched together, appearing to hold in a boisterous laughter. His humour is evident in his eyes, and it obviously angers the former Queen of France, for she begins to shriek and swipe at his biceps. 

Francis gasped.

"Mother, enough!" he tries his very best not to laugh -he really does- but a slight chuckle leaves his lips, and they are soon slapped by the back of Catherine de Medici's hand. He laughs openly now, much to the chagrin of his mother.

"Where are those little monsters?! I swear they're worse than the others, and that's saying something!" Catherine's furious, seething. 

"Mother, I don't know who you're talking about, let alone where they are." Francis chuckles. "However, that is not your colour." he chuckles again.

"You know full well who I'm talking about! Those little twins you have, that's who I'm talking about!" she snaps. "Where are they?!"

"The governess? Perhaps the orchid? I don't know." he grins.

"Ugh!" Catherine storms out towards the door again.

"Thank you, Papa." Isabella whispers, popping her little blonde head above the table, Tobias following slowly, looking from right to left to make sure Catherine had left.

Francis chuckled. "What did you do?"

When the two children pop up from the table, their father inspects their hands. From the smell and the lightly purple color on their otherwise pale skin, he knows what it is quite quickly.

"Beetroot." the King identifies. Isabella flushes. "And, pray tell, why did you stain your grandmere's hair with beetroot?"

"We just put it on her pillow, teach her a lesson about being mean to Aylee when she couldn't keep her head up with the heavy book on top of her head!" Tobias cries out. "Papa, it really wasn't our fault, if grandmere hadn't been mean, we wouldn't have had to-"

Francis ducks his head in an attempt not to laugh. Mary's scolding was not worth the crime, she proved that when Zachary had been hiding in her skirts to get away from Margret's constant coddling, he had laughed when the little, dark haired boy had scared the living daylights out of his father's' sister so much so that the poor girl ended up on the floor. Francis had laughed and, well, let it be said, the King slept alone that night.

"You can't pull little mischievous plots on your grandmother," he chuckles. "now, I'd choose a less obvious hiding spot if I was you, you never know when she might pop up and scare you like  you did me." he chuckles.

Isabella giggles with delight, before she grabs Tobias' hand, and the two of them run off to hide from the Medici Queen.