Tu Es Ma Lumière

144 - Funeral *Modern*

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Prompt - Little Francis supporting Mary  after her father's death!

Side Note - Inspired by the events of Princess Diana's death and funeral.

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The cream leather is pungent. It's combined with the damp smell of the heater that blared warmth from the vents in the front of the car. She can smell the stiflingly aromatic smell of Timothy's perfume. It smells of limes and iced seawater and grass. She can smell the heat of the people and the scent of various perfumes, sprays and sweat from the thousands upon thousands of people that have gathered around what was her home nine months out of the year. She can inhale the aroma of the various flowers littered around the palace's gates, the salty plasticy smell of the plastic that they were wrapped in. It all blends into one strange, poignant smell that she -at the tender age of twelve days past six years- knows full well she will never, ever forget.

Her head hurts from the tears, the back of her eyes ache with the events of the last six days. Her body aches from sitting down for so long. Her neck burns from the seat belt being forced into the delicate, pale skin. Her chest aches. Her throat burns, her stomach is empty, she's too warm in this cramped car. She's exhausted, from the physical tiredness, from the emotional strain, from the scrutiny and pity and amount of people she's had to see since that night. Her ear lobes ache from the heavy pearls and diamonds, the golden clasp of her pearl necklace is cold. Her new ring feels both new and old, wrong and right, left and right, up and down all at once. It clings to her small, thin finger, glinting in the winters' sunlight. It's cold and warm, the only thing she really has left.

His hand in hers is small and sweaty. He's been with her ever since word reached France and Scotland about the accident in England. He and his father and his mother and his sisters and his brothers and his half siblings all made the trip not even four hours after the crash. And here he was now, seated and buckled next to her as if this is some ordinary trip that they had exclusivity transport for, as the future of France and Scotland. She's too numb to even look at him, but she knows what he's doing. He's been staring out of the window ever since they reached human civilisation from the beautiful highlanded seclusion to bustling Edinburgh with its population and pollution and sympathetic eyes and the future that she never thought would happen so soon. In her case, it has. In his case, God willing, it wouldn't happen for decades to pass.

Like him, she'd been staring out the window ever since the Bentley had removed itself from the beautiful Manor house that had held the Scottish and French royal families, apart from the former Queen of Scots. Before that, the two children had stared into space, but think not that either the small French Dauphin and the barely younger Scottish senior royal spoke a word. They hadn't been conversing verbally for three days, however the two of them didn't really have to. They did exactly as they did now, clothed in dark attire with the finest accessories, simply being with each other. At the same time, things had changed between them, but things couldn't stay more the same. A strange, but understandable adjective for this scene that was just a few inches too small to seem really real. But it was, cold hard reality.

The dark, musky scent of engine fuel and fumes burn her nostrils. Her fingers twitch in his hand, and he steals himself a glance. The crowds stare at them, the cameras and the helicopters and the reporters grow louder as they notice who the two children actually were and who they were to become. Their hair is long, his glints in the sunlight and the camera flashes, whilst hers acts as another veil. She can barely see out of it, but the flashes of the cameras hurt her eyes and catch upon her glasses. She wants to wince and turn her head, to hide from the world as they had somehow found a way to do for the past six days, but now it is impossible. She cannot, she is no longer who she was a week ago. She is who she was to become in a decade and a half's time. It's unfathomable, it's frightening, but it was the reality of her new position.

The car in front of her stops slowly. It catches her attention. She looks over as the young brunette man in the passengers' seat opens the door, and extends a white cotton covered hand inside the backseat. The ravenette blinks in confusion, but she realises soon after. It was customary for one of the royal family to greet the crowds as they all mourned. But it appeared her mother could not do the duty meant for her daughter, since the blackened widow in mourning shrinks in her seat again. The door closes, whilst the man speaks to a guard. The car begins to drive once more. She blinks slowly, conflict and nerves and pain slicing her precious insides. She knows now what she has always known in some way. Duty must always come first. First the Queen, then the woman who wore it.

The car is too hot in comparison to the coldness of the Scottish winter. She begins to sweat, biting the corner of her cheek to keep the tension and anxiety inside. There's too many people outside, there's too many of them talking. Too many are weeping, too many are placing flowers on the grounds. Too many. Too many. She cannot possibly go out there, can she? What if her physical body looses itself in the mealy of grief and pain and confusion and uncertainty and anger? Her fathers' people, who are now her own, they cry out and reach towards her. How can she take their hands and tell them that she'll lead them through the period of grief and into a new age, with a French-Italian King by her side and an age of prosperity in their future? How can she -a six year old child who has just been granted her fathers' crown and country after his earthly passing- do such a thing?

Her betrothed perks as they hear his fathers' voice. He's been uncomfortable and confused, not liking to see his future bride and best friend in such a state of bereftment and confusion and pain. But the King of France is not with them, he and his wife are seated in the car behind them, as the mother and father of the future King and bereft, most dearest and treasured friends of the late King James of Scots. He speaks urgently into the radio. Timothy responds in kind. Henry tells him that Marie cannot find the strength to go to the crowds, however her daughter -the new Queen of Scots, King Henry's equal, the new scourge of the English King Henry- holding the hands of her bereft people and sharing in their grief was out of the question. The new Queen, gifted and entitled to the same luxuries and pageantry and respect as Henry himself -a grown man- continues to listen. She knows the reasons why she cannot. She's barely six years old, a half orphan with the weight of a country upon her shoulders. It could be dangerous, they held barely any details of her fathers' death. Putting his only legitimate child at risk was unfathomable.

But it is her duty. She cannot disappoint, fall at this first hurdle that could distinguish the course of her life, her rule, her marriage, her standing upon the words' stage. She is now no Princess, she is now no longer the Duchess of Rothsay and Edinburgh. Now, and until her heart beat its final beat, she was Queen Mary Elizabeth Catherine Matilda Charlotte, Queen Regnant of Scotland and its isles. Duty must win. It must always win.

So, the child breaks her silence and instructs the door to be opened. She ceases the tether between she and Francis and raises her veil, walking confidently towards the crowds behind the barrier. She must share her grief with her people.

Because, she was, after all, a Queen.