Crown Princess Leonore, heir to the queendom of Dranath, likes women, obviously. The Queen Mother Carmilla marries her off to Sir Gabriel, obviously.
So when she finds out Sir Gabriel is a woman...
Dranath; queendom of mystique, bordered by jealous...
Trouble came in the form of Albert—unwitting, unwilling harbinger of doom—pulling her aside as soon as she arrived home.
"What now," Leonore snarled. Albert frowned, disapproving and more than a little hurt. She said, "I didn't mean that."
"You'd best see for yourself, my Lady."
She was led far away from tumult, which meant far away from the Aurunian contingent. They stopped in front of a room that usually held spare crates of miscellaneous things, which Leonore rarely went into.
The door opened to reveal a starving, ragged young man dressed in piteous rags picking over scraps of a meal, of which he had already ravished. Leonore thought he looked familiar.
"Leo," breathed Frank, and stood. She took some steps forward and stopped.
"Frank," hissed Leonore, and launched herself at her.
"No, I've been on the road—" said Frank, trying to hold her off, but Leonore crushed her in a bear hug.
"I don't care." Leonore held her, and Frances grasped at her in turn.
Between Frank's gasping—she had begun to cry—and Leonore trying to console her as one shushes a spooked horse, they managed to get words across.
Frances was trying to tell her something. "I came from the Queen City, they—"
"Later," said Leonore, pulling away to clutch at the other woman's face. "Later, when you're well."
Together they found spare clothing in the storage crates, which Frank changed into. Regardless, she still had an awful haircut, so Leonore slipped a cap onto her head.
"Don't talk to anyone. Follow me to my chambers and I'll have everything sent there. We have a dignitary visiting and I don't want them seeing you."
Brow low, Frank followed her out at a brisk pace. No one saw, but when Leonore knocked on her bedroom door, she pushed past Gabriel with Frances in tow.
"What? Who is that?" said the knight, who had her wits about her enough to close the door.
"My apologies, Sir Gabriel, for intruding in your chambers," said Frank. She hissed, "Leo, you didn't say he was going to be here—"
"It's fine," said Leonore, to both of them, but fixed Gabriel with a pleading look of demand.
Gabriel threw her hands up and said, in the pitched down voice she hadn't used around Leonore for so long that it startled her to hear it now, "What do you need? I'll go fetch everything."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Frank's first order of business was to lock herself in the bathroom for a long while, long enough for Leonore to wonder if she'd drowned in there, but eventually her friend called for her, asking for someone who knew how to cut hair.
