Buttercup's Interlude 😈🖤✖️☠️🕷⛧🕸🔗🥀⚰️

Chapter 3 👑

Buttercup had spent hours thinking of how to redress her situation with Westley. He was nowhere to be found, and therefore she could not coerce him sweetly back into her arms. She wouldn't sojourn to him and Montoya, for she knew not where they were staying. The longer she thought about losing him, the more aware she became of her memories slipping. She tried to keep his voice, his touch, his scent alive in her mind - a futile task, over time.

"So, darling, your plan is to harass him away from... the sword boy?"

Buttercup's eyes stung into Prince Humperdinck like the stab of a knife. While she had been plotting and planning every detail of her artifice meticulously, he had been nothing but a bother. He lazed about, humming, sighing, and drumming his fingers nonstop. He peppered her with questions and flicked her hair, but she could withstand it. Prince Humperdinck thought of her as negligible, and perhaps he would grow tired of her. He could finally kill her, now that she was back in his castle, practically begging for her own demise. She needed him to muse on her ideas for as long as possible.

"Hear this, and hear it well, Humperdinck," she scoffed, patience growing thin. "Your greatest adversary, Guilder, is threatening us. They want to overthrow us, and they tried to kill your wife. Their greatest criminal, the Dread Pirate Roberts, is still out. Any day, he could choke me from the shadows, slit my throat! This is a call to action! This is an outrage!"

The usually more punitive Humperdinck yawned. "Okay, but why would Roberts fall for any of this?"

Buttercup raised up her chin and huffed, "Because he's not a craven shell of a man like yourself. My Westley is braver, kinder, smarter, faster, and stronger than any other man. He will do whatever he pleases, and his happiness is with me."

Humperdinck snorted, as it was apparent that Westley was happily somewhere else.

"This is important! You're setting a new precedent for criminals and foreign affairs!"

The next morning, Buttercup awoke for the first time as queen. She readied herself to spill her emotional encounter of attempted murder, and to perpetuate fear, distrust, and hate between Florin and Guilder. This could result in a war, or cutoff, or some horrible political nightmare, but she decided not to trouble herself with it. What mattered most in the world was not Florin or Guilder, but her and Westley, and their unification.

The past days had been inclement, so when Buttercup awoke, she rested her mind further to calm from the chaos. Everything had all happened so fast, every decision and every word had been chosen rashly. It wouldn't do her well to regret anything that recently happened, other than the loss of her Westley. She could sort of the mess she created later.

She dressed and practiced an urbane matter, perfecting her act. A woman such as herself would be believed by how she carried herself and presented. Prince Humperdinck's words would back her own. War would be declared on Guilder, most likely.

If war was to come, Buttercup would watch the world be razed and brought up a thousand times over, she would watch the wheat fields burn their harvest, and the oceans dry themselves, all until her love returned to her.