On the 30th of the month of April, Princess Diana of House Cavendish was to be crowned Queen of her mother's kingdom. She endured the council meetings, the lessons, the final checks for preparations, and the requests from the public. She endured her Aunt lurking in the background, her governess bumbling through life rather clumsily, the staff getting a bit overly nosy. She endured the dress fitting she was currently stuck in, and she endured the conversation as she stared disinterestedly out the large paned windows, giving way to rolling fields and forest.
"Lady Ursula?"
"Hm?" Her governess snapped to attention, the poor woman almost tripping over her dark blue gown. "Yes, Diana?" She asked, adjusting her spectacles.
"Do you believe in True Love?" Diana asked, staring almost longingly out the window. Ursula flushed more red than the accents to her dress, which were a deep crimson. She fanned herself with her hand. "O-oh my, y-yes I do, your highness. I believe we all have our perfect person in life, we just have to be lucky enough to meet them.." she said with a small nervous smile. "Why do you ask?"
Diana pursed her lips, a forelorn look crossing her features. "Is it Lord Andrew's proposal that's gotten you thinking so, your highness?" Ursula put a hand on her ward's shoulder.
Diana sighed and cleared her head of thoughts, turning and shaking her head. The dressmaker chided her on keeping still, and Diana apologized, before looking back at her governess. "You could say that..."
"I'm sure everything will work out, Diana." Lady Ursula said sympathetically. She had noticed the Princess's waning interest in the crown and in her engagement. The girl almost never smiled anymore inside the castle, where she had stayed for the past month with almost no outside interaction as they prepared for her coronation.
That wasn't to say Diana didn't sneak away ever once in a few weeks, slipping past the guards in the corridors of the castle and down to the gardens, a vast area of land enclosed in hedges of flowers that bloomed in the moonlight only, and fountains that flowed through the grass, glowing like fireflies.
But the most beautiful thing in the garden was the silhouette of her lover sitting up in the branches of the willow tree, behind a large, pale moon lighting up the night with it's soft glow. Everytime she saw this, the breath would leave her lungs, and a smile like a thousand sun's would grace her lips.
Akko, Chief of the village Blystonbury, would grin and hop down from the tree's branches, traditional cape billowing in the night wind as she took the Princess's hands in her own.
Diana would reach across the divide and cup Akko's cheek in her hand, her ungloved fingers brushing the smooth skin of the girl's face. Akko would smile and lean in towards her, the two sharing a delicate kiss.
However, every meeting, as the sun began to rise, Akko would say to her, "Come away with me." And every meeting, Diana would refuse.
Akko would frown, but kiss Diana's cheek, and be off as Diana turned and made her way back inside the castle.
Diana's dress fitting came to an end, and she excused herself to her chambers to rest. Ursula frowned worriedly, but did not push the girl. With a sigh, the governess left her princess to wallow.
Diana sat at her nightstand in her room, brushing out her hair and gazing into the mirror as she thought. It wasn't that she didn't want to run off with Akko. She most certainly did, except... Her mother's kingdom needed a Queen... If she ran off, it would be left in the hands of her aunt, and while Diana loved her aunt, Daryl of the House of Cavendish was not a fit queen. She would bankrupt the kingdom within a week, or turn it into some sort of dictatorship.
Diana would not have that.
Her people needed her. Her mother had wanted her to be queen. This was all for the best. Akko was the village chief, and she was to be queen. There was no way they could ever be anything but.. friends. Diana bit her lip, setting her hairbrush down.
Friends.. friends didn't kiss one another. Friends didn't do more than.. kiss each other. Friends didn't meet in secret in the night, or write letters of intimacy sent on the wings of carrier fowl. Diana scowled down at her brush. Friends didn't think about things like true love.
Diana gripped the hairbrush, standing up and chucking it across the room, her fist clenched. She bit back a bitter laugh. Friends. They couldn't even be that much, after her coronation. She doubted her new husband would be fond of that arrangement.
She doubted she could handle being just friends with her one true love.
