The Courtship Of A LifeTime

In The Flesh

The palace gates were open, as they always were, but today they had been flung open with a purpose no one could foresee, a certain song in the breeze that morning. Singh said it sounded like fertility and the Queen fired him again.

Guards, knights, messengers, cooks, servers, waiters, receptionists, cleaners, royal medics, scholars and correspondents—all gathered in one of the vast halls of the palace just after dawn had broken. No one knew why they had been called in, not even the royal advisors. There were actually two advisors—a senior royal advisor, Mr. Singh, and a junior royal advisor, who had been out for the past two days attempting to fix a specific media issue. His presence was sourly missed by Mr. Singh who was left to speculate about the sudden meeting with the blind, ugly, useless, hunchbacked, yellow-toothed, sausage-fingered, rubber-skinned, beyond wrinkled hag of a servant—Maid Holden.

The hall had been cleared of chairs and tables, spare the old paintings handing from the brown bricked walls of people long forgotten, the room was sparsely decorated, windows covering the upper half of the room where balconies usually lay, arching with intricate white, blue and gold intricacies while the sun beamed in like a spotlight on the small stage before them. Such an under furnished room made for every thought to be turned to a certain blue jewel, when she walked in every pair of eyes landed on her, no turn or fold of her skirt left unwatched, no slight shift of her hijab was unnoticed and no nervous jitter of her hand went unpitied.

For all her greatness, for all the goodness and all the beauty in the world, she still couldn't stand a crowd—even of faces she had known her whole life. This only added to the unusualness of her calling the meeting.

Sunlight illuminating her outline, a heavenly glow following each slight of her hand and every tussle of azure. It took a moment for the Queen to remember how to speak, her mouth had gone dry at the amount of expecting faces looking at her, she mentally cursed at having such a large staff.

"You are gathered here today to heed my announcement I have chosen to tell you all first about the decision I am about to make so that we can all being to make the necessary preparations together."

They listened eagerly, watching the words fall from her mouth both refined and agitated.

"I am to be married."

Jaws dropped. Someone fainted. No one knew what to say, they all stood there, astounded. They had all read the paper that had been published just the week before, they knew what they had said and still, though they anticipated her next move, no one would have guessed she would take such actions out of the relative blue.

Seeing their faces, the Queen couldn't quite make out what they were all feeling—Excitement? Worry? Fear? Horror? In her own mixture of said emotions, she began to pace across the small stage, beginning of sentences falling from her lips as she lost control of her nerves, unable to look at the crowd for a moment.

"No-- not now, I mean, sometime soon, obviously, I—hopefully. I want to-- I just got the idea a while ago, I mean I've thought it out and..."

She didn't hear the door open. She didn't hear the shuffling of feet as people moved, as the crowd dispersed. She didn't, amongst all her rambling, feel the pair of advancing eyes on her until it was too late. Rihab turned to face the crowd once more but found just one person in their place, two cold and stern eyes staring right back at her.

Turker Yayan.

"So, you're back."

Once the meeting had been wrapped up, the two of them found themselves alone in the shadows of the upper balcony of the main dining room. Behind the silhouette of the velvet curtains, they watched the servants fix up the room, gossiping furiously to their counterparts. The Queen's voice was quiet, warn from the earlier meeting and slightly embarrassed by her ramblings, but he heard her. He always did.

"In the flesh."

Turker Yayan, the junior royal advisor, stood beside her, dressed in a white button up shirt, black trousers fit against his rigid stance, gloved hands clasped behind his back peeking out behind the blue blazer with golden lacing draped over his shoulders. He was tall, twice as tall as the Queen, her head reaching his chest, permanently looking down at everyone both physically and personally. Sepia skin taut against his sharp nose and jaw, a sculpted face unmoved by the world around him, calculative iron eyes low-lidded as he watched the chandelier hanging peacefully above them all, glistening in the sun.

"Where were you?" She asked.

"I was taking care of a certain newspaper-- I think the better question is what do you think you're doing?"

"The right thing."

"Marrying? I've never heard you talk about marriage before." She did not look at him, just as he did not look at her, but if she had she would've seen the twitch in his brow when he said this, of either amusement or annoyance. No one could ever tell with him.

"Well, apparently everyone but me has been talking about it." She huffed, watching two of the servants specifically.

They were fixing the table, or at least attempting to, while holding the others hand. Obviously, the attempt was unsuccessful but with the bouts of laughter that followed one would assume they had struck gold. How they looked at each other, most earnestly, how they held each other, with the last warmth of a long summer, was the best triumph they could ever have and it was the only one they wanted. She averted her gaze to the pool of her palms and he sighed, shifting his shoulders.

"But is it what you want? To marry, that is."

"Name one queen who stood alone and ruled well." She countered, turning to face him finally. He did not face her, still staring coldly at the chandelier as though trying to snap its strings telepathically.

"You."

It was only when the queen guffawed at what he said that he looked at her, or rather down at her, watching her drop her head in a snicker. She refined herself too late, the humour on his face was gone once more, lip taut back into a line again, though she was still smiling.

"I mean it though. Look at how far the kingdom has come. We were children then but we both remember the turmoil, the tension, the hunger stalking the land. But the minute that crown touched your head, we became a new nation. No king was there to hold your hand—it was you alone who saved us."

His eyes never left the chandelier, he didn't dare look at her. He couldn't bare her smile, so he clenched his jaw and stood as still as he could, following every glimpse of sunlight dancing across the room, knowing she who stood next to him was twice as bright.

"Don't get all sappy with me now—I'm basically a married woman." The Queen said, shimmering with mirth, unapologetically bright next to his cold form.

"Already? At least give me a week warning." His humour always sounded sharp, his tone too dull for most to pick up on, but she always snickers, snorted or sneer at his jokes and it took an uncompromising amount of self-control to contain his own.

"I've decided to get married; all I need now is the partner."

From the corner of his eyes, he looked at her, unreadable and conscientiously. She was smiling, sure, but she was serious.

"You're really doing this, huh?"

"Find me someone good, alright?" And she left him there, staring at the chandelier in the shadows, following slivers of sunlight with more of a grimace now. The hands behind his back tightened.