Upon A Red Rose Thorn

A Spring Like No Other

"Your highness, you can not go onto the battlefield in your condition."

"You mean pregnant."

"Well... yes, Your Highness."

"Try to stop me, and I'll cut off your head with my husband's sword myself."

The doctor and general who stood watching the expecting queen stuttered as she pushed past them, the round curve of her stomach protected in silver armor with intricate flowers decorating it. She pulled daggers from her table and put them in the loops on her belt. Then pulled a glass vial from her cabinet that contained a dark liquid. She popped off the cork and down it, knocking her head back as it traveled down her throat.

When the Queen had first arrived in the kingdom she now ruled with her husband, she was a pawn for peace given to the king by her brother, the king of the neighboring kingdom where she was raised. He had never imagined the marriage would work out favorably for his sister. But her bastard of a brother decided he no longer wanted the peace he had once set out for and had begun attacking her kingdom and it's people. Salting their crops, killing their livestock, and burning villages with their people still inside of them. She was not going to sit back and watch her kingdom die slowly and painfully.

Unlike what her brother thought would happen to the younger sister he had given to the king and disowned in the kingdom, the king had fallen in love with his new queen after seeing how much she loved the kingdom she was given to and it's people. So instead of killing her or imprisoning her like most kingdoms when theyre kingdoms attack, he gave her a choice. Stay and rule beside him still, or leave and go back to her brother's side. The Queen simply put her husband's hand on her belly and told him there was no choice. She was pregant with his child and staying in their kingdom where she belonged.

"If my child is to die, it should be with me dying with them and it should be for a cause worth fighting for. Our people." The Queen said as she marched out of her rooms. The general nodded his head as she passed and followed her out, leaving the stuttering doctor alone in her chambers grasping for words she could not find to stop her pregnant queen from fighting.

The battle lasted a mere few hours before the expecting Queen and her husband slaughtered the opposing side. Soldiers carried bodies back to the kingdom to return them to their families. The queen nursed a cut on her arm, cleaning and sewing it closed with one hand as her husband approached her.

"A battle well won, my beloved." A white rose soaked in blood sat delicately in his hand, outstretched to her. A gift.

"A rose, how sweet." The queen spoke gently taking it, being wary of the thorns. "You know our child will be born in spring when they next bloom." She grabbed her husband's hand and he stabilized her, helping her stand from where she was sitting.

"I shall order roses planted across the kingdom, in every field, and along every road, so that they may be in full bloom when our child is born and the smell of fresh roses reminds everyone throughout history of the birth of a new princess or prince. A new heir to their kingdom." And so, the very spring, the king kept his word.

When the baby was born, a healthy baby girl, the roses across the kingdom were in full and perfect bloom. They named her Rose after the one given on the battlefield to her mother when she choose to fight for the kingdom and man she loved. But even though she was named from the beauty of the flower, the kingdom would one day be reminded that every rose has it's thorns. And those thorns will draw blood when mishandled.

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If you checked out the link for the video, you notice the video and the chapter are vastly different. This is because I wanted the first chapter to go more into depth of the meaning of Rose's name and how her character grows in the story, while still including the first video ever made of her from the TikTok storyline she first came from.