A crown is a dangerous thing - all rulers come to know this. Old king Hrothgar knew it, when a nightmare reached out an arm from the Fen and into the heart of his hall. The old king knew it when a younger hero from another land won love and fame among the Danes. King Beowulf knew it when a four-year-old boy - his closest male kin and heir apparent - had been slain by assassins.
His daughter would come to know it too.
Hair pins clicked like skeleton fingers as a hand selected one off the table. A young woman's voice sang softly, the barely furnished room carrying the melody.
"Lips, full as the berries in June, red the rose, red the rose. Skin, pale as the light of the moon, gently as she goes. Eyes, blue as the sea and the sky, water flows, water flows. Heart running like fire in the night, gently as she goes." The woman looked at herself in the mirror as if judging her worth. The song she sung could have been about her - with once-pale skin burnished tan by life at sea, bright eyes, and black-brown hair that had been braided like a crown around her head. Her features were sharp, and her pink lips were tilted just slightly, as if she'd been born with a smirk.
Minutes later, after trekking through the dirt streets of Lejre with people shaking bells from the sidelines, she was in a spacious hall, cramped with people. Still more onlookers were piling up outside to get a glimpse of the soot-faced girl they'd known, who'd so very suddenly become a woman. Her red gown flowed across the floor like liquid roses, and she embodied all the power and grace of the wolf whose pelt she wore as she walked to the throne at one end of the room. In her right hand, she gripped the hilt of an ancient sword, and in her left she held its scabbard. This sword had been held by every king and queen of the Danes since the very first - King Dan. She knelt a few feet before the throne, and lowered her head.
A man neither old nor young held a magnificent crown in his hands. It was gold, intricately carved and inlaid with stones of red and green. It had been stolen from the realm of Francia on a raid several years prior. The man placed it ceremoniously on the young woman's head, and she stood.
"I, Lady Braith Britta, daughter of Jarl Beowulf, swear to lead the kingdom of Dane and the united Götaland into a new age of prosperity, peace, and justice!" she announced, passion glowing in her voice. The Dane girl was met with a terrifying peal of applause as she tore the Sword of Kings from its sheath. Cries of "hail, Jarl Britta - hail Beowulf's heir," swelled throughout the room. Braith smiled in relief - her first impression as ruler had been a good one.
No more golden drinking horns. No more Fen-things to kill. This was the start of her new life, as the strong, wise, and loyal Queen of Danes.
Four years hence, however, she would find herself drawn out of her own kingdom, into a war that was barely hers - and, most importantly, back in the halls of Camelot.
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Merlin's Choice (Stand Tall 2)
Fanfiction"You have your destiny... and I have mine." --- Four long years after Braith killed the She creature, fate leads the young Queen right back to the place her adventure began. In the halls of Camelot. Four long years after he parted ways with one of t...
