Josephine

𝓔𝓹𝓲𝓼𝓸𝓭𝓮 22: 𝓙𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓹𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓮, 𝓠𝓾𝓮𝓮𝓷 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓘𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓪𝓷𝓼

November 9, 1970

Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily, Italian Confederation

"Prince Vittorio of Sicily, do you accept this god blessed opportunity to rule over Italia as its king?" The priest asked, staring into my husband's soul.

"I do, I stand by God to lead my people to a brighter future," Vittorio replied.

"Empress Josephine of America, do you accept this opportunity to join your husband as Queen of Italia?" He then asked me.

I nodded slowly.

"I accept this humble honor to help lead my husband's people to a better future," I said.

The priest nodded and an altar server came forward with two matching golden crowns. I'll be real, mine was more elegant, but... then again... mine cost well over 50,000 dollars. He placed one atop Vittorio's head and one atop mine. We turned as the priest exclaimed loudly:

"I present to you King Vittorio and Queen Josephine of Italia!"

The church erupted in applause as they cheered our names. Vittorio grasped my hand with his and held them up high.

And I was hiding my worry well...

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Later that night, we were at a ball thrown by the Giovane Italia or 'Young Italy' faction in Vittorio's honor. Vittorio and I sat alone while like my own coronation ball, world leaders and other invitees were conversing and discussing things like global politics and whatnot.

"Josephine... you look worried... is something wrong?" Vittorio asked as I sipped my glass of red wine.

Okay, scratch that. American wine is awful compared to Italian wine. I had been drinking a lot of wine recently. The war had been horribly stressful, and wine was a good way to numb the stress. 

"Of course not-" I began before he cut me off.

"You are a terrible liar- did you know when you lie your left eye shoots closer to your nose?" He asked.

"How could you possibly know that!?" I hissed, unsure of how he did come to such a ludicrous conclusion.

Ludicrous, but true... He cocked his eyebrow up into an arch which gave me his answer. We had been in a two year courtship and had been married for at this point five months, of course he knew that.

"Ahhh... right,"

"So explain to me why you're concerned," He pushed forward, subtly demanding to know why I was upset on such a grand and joyous occasion.

"Well... I just worry how much I can achieve as Italy's queen when I still have America, and a brutal war to deal with," I explained.

He nodded.

"I completely understand Josephine, in fact I expected you to only hold a ceremonial position in Italian politics! I cannot expect you to lead both America and Italy, besides that will make me look weak, and appear as a puppet state... just like Rome..."

I cringed at the thought of the Roman Republic. They were a de facto puppet regime, like the old Republic. I knew many Italians wanted to unite with Rome, in case Konrad ever decides to invade further than Venetia. Except the Romans, which is what they preferred to call themselves before, really didn't like the idea of being a part of a properly unified Italy, in fact, they were bloody terrified of it.

I nodded quickly.

"Good, I just didn't want to disappoint you or your people,"

"You could never do that! Unless of course you supported that imperialist rat of a half-brother,"