The Princess's Guard

♤6♤

It had been about a week since I had heard about what had happened to Edna. I was attending lunch time with the princess, and guarding her quarters various times of the day like I was assigned to; though she never tended to speak to me. She would only make utterances and small talk and urge us guards not to watch her as she ate. I would sometimes try to approach her and try to talk about the arranged trip she was to go to as that was the job I was given by the king, but she would mostly be unresponsive. I had been feeling out of sorts and desperate, running around in circles in my head trying to find a way to make her talk to me without breaking any palace rules.

"Sir Theresa, a second please." A knight approached me with some sort of notebook in his hand. I had been grabbing breakfast and filling up my plate with more than I would usually eat as always because I knew I couldn't eat until the afternoon or evening. He was looking at me with his deep-set green eyes that were being concealed with his dark, bushy eyebrows. The outfit he was wearing indicated that he was a knight ranking higher than I was, and that he could even be working directly with the king. "I need to talk to you in private. A minute please?" He asked politely yet emotionlessly.

"Of course." I answered him, trying my best to remain calm and collected. "Is something to matter?" I questioned to get a better answer on what was going on.

"Please leave the discussion to when we get to our location." He sounded so soulless, almost as if he wasn't human.

He sat me down in what looked like an office for a very high-ranking knight, and sat down behind the main desk. "So, Sir Theresa..." He said breathily while tapping his nails on the wooden table. "The king wanted me to deliver this message to you... so I am here." He said. "Basically what he told me to tell you is... you need to get the princess to talk, but since she is a handful, he has arranged you a few opportunities to build a closer relationship with her." He sighed. "Her twentieth birthday is approaching, and they need to marry her off as soon as possible; and the king doesn't want to do it if the princess doesn't want it. I don't know if it's because he cares about her, or if it's because he knows she will wreak havoc if she doesn't get her way..." He had clearly worked with the princess before, and was visibly upset about what he had to put up with. "Today afternoon the princess will have her weapon practice, and you are to escort her there and take care off her weaponry errands. I will hand you this paper that lays out your schedule of extra things you will have to do to get an opportunity to talk to her. Oh, and also the king said that it was too much on your plate, so to compensate, he will be sending more money to your family, since you are here to support them." he added.

I took a thorough look at the paper. The princess was a busier person than I thought, but she was an heir to the throne, wasn't she? After reading everything, the task at the end of the list got my attention. "So I'm also going to accompany her full-time for the four days before her to the neighboring nation aswell?" I asked him.

"Precisely." he answered, in his usual tone, devoid of any feeling. "They want to try until the final moment, since they do not want another Hortus incident with another neighboring nation. This marriage may be the perfect opportunity to form an alliance between the two nations."

"I understand. Tell the king that I'll try my best, for the future of the kingdom of the nation." I said, despite being unsure of myself and everything that was going on. This woman was not even interested in talking to her own knights, how could she ever be married off to the prince of another nation?

"You should go now. You will have a quite busy day today, so prepare yourself." Said the knight while showing me the door.

I got into the food court and started thinking about how I would build a closer yet professional relationship with the princess. Would putting up a false pretense that I didn't care about the king's rules be the right thing? I didn't know. That kind of thing could get me in trouble if the princess found out it's just an act , I thought; though I couldn't think of any other way to grow close to her.