𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘 - Cinderella AU

XII - beneath it all you're golden

xii.

THE DARK FOREIGN KING LED her out of the throne room in a manner that was beyond anything Isadora Tremaine could've ever imagined.

He had gestured to her, his arm extending as he motioned for her to walk ahead, and then instead of picking up his own pace and begin walking in front of her, he had fallen in place beside her. His pace matched deliberately up to hers, even though she knew he could go much faster.

Isadora held onto the skirts of her dress slightly, and that slowed her, but the king didn't seem to mind. It appeared to Isa, that he would go however slow she wanted go.

They exited the throne room, walking beside each other like equals, but Isa knew they were far from that. This was merely King Alexander Casimir's courtesy-this beautiful moral courtesy that he carried inside him like a jewel.

But Isadora knew that it didn't do well to get attached to jewels, because they never stuck around. She knew that better than anyone, for she had been there when her mother had bathed in jewels when her father was still alive. But then he had gone, and in his death he had taken all the jewels with him, leaving Lady Tremaine bare and reeling.

"Tell me, Miss Tremaine, do you like horses?"

The dark king's words were stones and marbles, hard and solid, rolling off of his tongue in his deep baritone, full of intention and meaning.

Isadora kept her eyes fixed ahead and low, already hyper aware of him walking beside her like this-inciting her own inferiority. Nothing hit harder than your own faults, when you stood beside someone who's faults you could not really see.

"I do, your majesty," She spoke then, keeping her voice soft as they walked down the hallway the grand duke had led her, Archie and Cinderella through, just an hour and a half before.

There were portraits adorned on the dark walls-ones that Isa hadn't noticed before, golden frames gleaming in contrast with the crimson carpet on the floor.

"Though I don't frequent their company anymore," She continued.

The foreign king looked at the side of her face as she kept her sight fixed ahead. She felt the gaze of his melting brown eyes like gentle warmth hitting her face.

"And why is that?"

His questions, Isa had noticed, were rarely ever asked like he was owed the answers. There was a gentle nudge in the way he asked, it made Isadora always want to answer. It made her want him to keep asking, though never before had Isa found questions anything less than infuriating.

"My father used to have horses. I loved them for the first six years of my life," Isa began, briefly glancing at him before she fixed her eyes ahead again. Even the merest eye contact with him set her soul on fire.

"He encouraged us-me and my younger sister Lucinda-to learn to ride," She blinked, reflecting on memories she had never spoken of.

"I remember it took us such a while."

Then, Isa giggled, a small laugh like a sparkle burst from between her lips as she saw a scene from her past play out in her head. An excited horse galloping on her late father's manor grounds, while a screaming five year old Lucinda held her thick arms tight around the creature's mustard neck, almost strangling the beast.

"But when father died, we had to leave," Isadora swallowed then, reaffirming her composure.

"The baron-Cinderella's father-kept a horse, but mother didn't approve of us learning to ride anymore. Our circumstances had changed," Isa shrugged gently then. "So I never approached a horse again."