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Light from the candle between us flickered over Elías' sharp features. The night had seemed to have taken its time falling the closer we got to Chalke, and though it was likely just the bumps and thrashing of the road we took, three days in a coach had killed the romantic lure of travel for me. Maybe forever. Josie slept peacefully, leaned against the side while my stomach did somersaults.
"What should I expect on my wedding night?" I asked him.
The question startled him out of his reverie, disrupting whatever dark peace he'd found outside the carriage's window. He went through possibly every emotion before settling on, "I beg your pardon, Princess?"
"My wedding night," I said slower.
Willoughby stirred uncomfortably from his bench, gripping the group of strips and fabrics I had forced him to carry since I'd purchased them in town that morning.
"Why must you ask me that?" Elías sighed. "Willoughby is awake. Terrorize him. Or wake Josie. She will be happy to explain the-"
"I don't want a woman's answer recited to me. I want a man's. An honest man's. And Josie... she's barely older than I am and unmarried. She is not qualified to answer this."
The younger knight shook his head violently, clearly disrupted by the idea.
"Quiet, Ser Willoughby," I spat.
"I did not speak, Your Highness," he said.
"Elías," I waited. "Will you not tell me?" The two men shifted. "We've been in this box for days on and off, I'm going mad. The closer we get to Rothingham, the more frightened I become. I've sat quietly in here while you two pissed in the wilderness. And I did not draw attention to it when I did and you stood awkwardly to the side. Spare me some embarrassment, I beg you."
"Embarrassment? Forgive me if I do not follow where the worry connects," he said.
"I worry I will appear naïve to the Prince. And that will lead to the failure in meeting his expectations. Of a husbandly nature." One of them choked and the other frowned crassly. "You're the only person I trust to ask."
When Elías relented, he looked at Willoughby in a way that forced his hands up over his ears for our privacy.
"Great!" I said excitedly. "What does sex feel like-?"
"That, I will refrain from, and you can discover for yourself. On your wedding night. But... expectations, I can shed some light on."
"Well. Whatever I can rustle out of you, I suppose."
He made quite a few sounds before, "When a man-"
"-Ew. Are you giving me the Birds & the Bees?"
We both moved on our benches, uncomfortable and avoiding each other's eyes, until he said; "He will expect you to respect him. And to be honest, I would think."
