Changing history

Chapter 5

December 24

It had almost been a half year since the princess of Sweden arrived at France. She stared outside the window at the snowing sky. It seemed that the snowflakes would continue to fall down endlessly.

Her maids were fixing her ball gown which she would wear to the grand ball, his highness The King would hold. It was a red dress consisting of two layers. The first layer was bright red and made of silken cloth. The layer above was made of velvet and had a much darker colour of red. It was decorated with embroidiries of gold yarn. On the layers edges were festoons of white fur. On her bed layed a hat similar to the ones you would wear at christmas in the future.

Sophia looked at her dress and was proud over herself. She would look like a female version of Father Christmas, minus the beard and white hair he had.

– Princess Sofia is time, Kristina said.

Sofia nodded and got up from her little swing.

Francis was staring at the huge christmas tree that stood in the middle of the ballroom. It was dressed in lights and many fine decorations. He smiled at the memory from a week ago.

He was talking with some of the ministers when he reached the ballroom and heard a familiar voice say, "That's right put it there". Curiously he went inside with the ministers following and saw a huge fir tree that almost seemed to all the way to the roof.

"Sofia, what is this?" he had asked the princess with a worrisome face.

"A christmas tree of course. Don't you remember how I told you about them?"

He did have a vague memory of that.

"But what I mean is, what is it doing here?"

"It's for the ball. For people to dance around. Besides it's a tradition in Sweden during Christmas" she answered with twinkling eyes. God, how he loved when her eyes shining like stars in the night sky. And all he could do was staring at her face, bright with happiness. He knew she was asking him something but all he couldn't hear her since he was too focused on watching her.

"Sorry?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Do you want to help me decorate the tree?".

"Sure" he said without thinking.

"You gentlemen can help out too" she turned towards the ministers who nodded and gladly helped putting on colourful small balls that would hang and sometimes shimmer in the candle lights. It became a much happier than expected. But that's what you had to expect when you were in the precense of this Swedish princess. She always made people laugh and feel happiness.

Francis woke up from the flashback by the sound of a name getting yelled out.

"Princess Sofia of Sweden!"

He looked towards the stairs and saw the most prettiest girl in the world. She wore the most beautiful gown in ball. It was colourful and fit her perfectly. She looked like a queen as she walked towards him.

"Merry Christmas, Francis!" she gave him a warm hug. "Merry Christmas to everyone here too!" she shouted out as they answered back with a happy laugh, "Merry Cristmas!" as the music started.

People began to dance and Sofia swayed to the motion of music. Francis couldn't help but chuckle.

"You really are eager to dance aren't you. Very well, may I have this dance then?" he said as he bowed holding out his hand. She accepted him and not a second later did they start spinning around The Christmas tree. Everyone was watching them like always. And although the young nobles were jealous of the prince they already realized that they had no chance with the princess at all. These two were meant to be with each other, everyone knew so there was no point in trying to court either of them.