━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter four! 004. knight valiant
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
SHE LIKEDpicking flowers. Her mother liked picking flowers, and so Odette naturally found herself similar. Everything her mother had been, she strived to be exactly like: kind, compassionate, brave and caring▬thoughtful, gentle, humble; she wanted to become the woman that would see a child dying in the cold and take her into her arms. She wanted to be that brave and that loving, though no one could quite compare to that of Ivette Mason, even if she wanted to.
Odette shuffled through pink hyacinth flowers, smiling to herself as she picked her favourites on her way to the castle for her day of work. She travelled down through the drawbridge towards the citadel, giving the petals a quick smell. Camelot in a mere day had already recovered from the near death of their beloved, handsome prince. Looking back up, she could see the banners being pushed down over the parapets in bright yellow and red, the Pendragon crest flashing in the morning sunlight. Servants tied the string as tight as they could manage to make sure the banners weren't lost in the wind as the infamous tournament was just a few hours away. A tournament where the best knights across the entire lands and even across the sea fought to be named the greatest and the most noble.
The tournament took place each year upon the same day in the same season▬where it was not too cold and not too hot, and the fields were bright with beautiful flowers. Odette remembered it last year, and she remembered it the year before▬she remembered watching Arthur win again and again from Morgana's side in the stands. Even when she was little, she was permitted to sit with her mother near the Vecentia family, though Ronyn would always sneak off, annoyed with Adelynn's crying▬and naturally, Odette would follow him. They'd sneak off to watch from the sides with their own wooden swords (and Odette would smack Arthur with hers). That was when she was very young, though. She wasn't young anymore.
She could see the arrival of many knights. Some from the four kingdoms scattered around the land, others from vast kingdoms north past the border▬towards places like Essex and Kent, and even into the gruff lands of Scotland and across the waters to Ireland. Every knight who had a breath of dignity found themselves South, here in Camelot to try and win the prize of gold and glory. Odette was excited to watch them attempt an almost impossible feat against the greatest warrior of their time (an arrogant warrior, nonetheless...).
Twisting the stems, she made her way further into the citadel▬up the steps towards the main entrance of the castle, slipping through when a guard opened it for a lady of the court. Odette bowed her head in passing before rushing across the stone, her skirts billowing around her slippers. She tried not to let any petals fall as she bypassed servants, guards and knights▬everyone was hurriedly getting ready for the continuous arrival of many and many knights, the festivities that would follow, and the tournament itself.
