Invictus || Book 1

C.05 - Francis

Francis is fuming.

First, she spends an entire day arguing with her siblings -she can't remember what about, but it has to have been about something important to make a whole day of it- then she gets sucked into a fantasy world like she's some dumb character from the shows Hestia likes to watch.

Now she's being shoved into a tight circle alongside her siblings as they stand in what Francis assumes a throne room would resemble if she'd ever been lucky enough to see one, while a woman with an imposing glare looks down at them. 

Francis isn't sure how an expression like that can be made, she isn't even sure if imposing is the right word, but that's how it feels, so that is what she'll call it.

"Kiron?"

The woman oozes confidence as she turns her sharp gaze to the man Nakoa had spent most of the journey geeking out over swords with. Francis finds herself envious of the woman as she purses a set of plump burgundy lips, her cheekbones as sharp as her expression yet, despite all of this, despite the raw power, the strength, the woman still manages to appear elegant, beautiful even.

Oh yeah, Francis is super jealous.

"Forgive me for the late arrival my Queen, we ran into a rogue group of kaleku on one of the beaches just south of Port Estev." Kiron steps to the left of the woman -wait, Queen? Where the hell are they?- and relays the events of the beach with a solemn lilt to his voice. Francis quietly thinks that he has a certain roguish charm to his features that would look nice beside the Queen. Still, she can't see any hint of a spark between the pair as they converse and immediately redirects her attention to judging the people that fill the room in hopes she'll find something more entertaining.

Apart from the significantly reduced crowd Francis and her siblings arrived with, the only other people in an otherwise colossal throne room are soldiers -some of whom Francis had already scrutinised back on the beach- and a handful of women dressed in calf-length linen dresses cinched at the hips by tan corsets, the top half of their bodies wrapped in a soft grey material that crisscrosses over their torsos, wraps around their shoulders and flows out over their arms. 

Francis can't tell if they're supposed to be servants or personal staff of the Queen, but their status doesn't matter much to her; what she does mind is the looks they give her. The upturn of their noses, the little judgmental stares.

If Francis' parents were here -hell, if Hestia were here- she'd tell Francis to stop thinking everyone and anyone is judging her. Hestia isn't here though, and neither are her parents, so Francis is free to scowl and judge right back.

One of the women bristles and Francis offers a small smirk. Good.

The sharp sting of a pinch flares across the skin above her elbow but before Francis can register who pinched her, let alone snap at them for doing it, she meets Nakoa's blank face as he juts his chin towards the Queen. Francis takes the hint and drops her scowl in favour of tuning back into the conversation just a few steps ahead.

"-The kaleku seemed to have been expecting them. We believe they may have been in contact with the chochoku responsible for the energy surge earlier this morning, and were told to find them there."

The Queen raises a perfectly arched eyebrow, dark eyes moving across the room as she assesses the crowd. 

Francis is suddenly very aware of how she looks, and while she usually fixates on the smallest details about herself -to the point where some would call it obsessive- she did take on an ocean not even an hour ago, so she figures she deserves a pass for that alone.