Isolde

Chapter 1 - The Balcony View

The lights of dusk bounced off the great copper tub, turning its waters into a lagoon of deep crimsons, gentle pinks and calming oranges. A breeze stirred its unoccupied waters and whistled around the low pillars of the balcony, beckoning a bather to indulge themselves in the warm waters.

A woman responded to the call, she carefully opened the glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony allowing its drapery to wave in the wind, mirroring the nearby ocean. Glancing around, she dropped her satin robe and stepped into the tub, allowing the water to engulf her. By the time she'd once again returned to the surface, another woman, this one shorter, joined her on the balcony. She picked up the robe, setting it down upon the marble ledge that shielded them from the world then disappeared back inside, almost immediately returning with an a myriad of potions balanced atop a wooden chair which she then transferred to the marble ledge beside the robe, she then placed the chair down and sank into it with a sigh of relief.

The woman in the bath spun herself around to survey the recent disturbance, she beamed a great white smile.

"Good evening your highness" the woman on the chair politely nodded "it appears I am to be your attendee this evening".

"I'm glad" smiled the bather "For I have much to tell you."

The woman in the bath carefully selected a bottle from the ledge and pulled out the cork with a satisfying pop, she took a deep inhale before deciding "lavender?"

"Elderberry" her companion laughed, reaching forward to take the other bottle from the ledge, she smelt it then handed it to her mistress in the tub who repeated the process.

"I don't recognise this smell, is it something Guillen? Quarine?" she summarised before reading the bottle to quash her curiosity "Pomegranate?"

"A gift from the Rilian perhaps, I hear they're in town".

"Goodness, whyever might that be?"

"I don't know princess, perhaps maybe to offer you a proposal of marriage."

She frowned "well I'm not going to marry a Rillian, I know who i'm marrying"

"Who" she pried

the princess confidently replied: "king Callan of Inovine"

"Whatever makes you think that?" she questioned.

The princess' face grew into a serious but brimming grin "May I speak plainly Lady Isolde, as your friend rather than your mistress. As if we were two normal girls"

"Of course princess" she smiled "but in that case you ought to call me just Isolde"

"And you call me just Alouette".

They both agreed.

Alouette began to explain her afternoon with Callan of Inovine. How they'd walked through the forest and talked of the mountains and the winter evening lights. She'd told him of her childhood in Harenny and he spoke of his in the deep snows and how the Inovine winters were unlike anything else in the world.

"It sounds like a lovely conversation Alouette but I don't see how marriage comes into it."

"That's because I haven't got to the best part yet."

Isolde leaned forward in her chair.

"I expressed an interest in these icy winters and mountains and Callan suggested he should show them to me one day. He said that I was the first princess he'd met who'd been as enchanted by the mountains as he'd been and that he'd like to marry me and make me queen of those mountains." Alouette could hardly get to the end of her sentence before erupting into excitable giggles "You hear that, I'd be the queen of Inovine"