The Last Great Battle (NaNoWriMo story, on hold)

Chapter 2

            “I’m what!” Reanne screamed at her father and stepmother.

            “We have made a contract with the Duke of Montara. He is in need of a wife and you are in need of a husband. Also he made us many concessions for use of the water in the disputed lands between our countries and a gem mine to help with our economy. Saharen is not what it once was with this decade-long drought. We need this contract. All he asked in return was free exchange of horses and other pack animals we breed but Montara does not have access to. A handsome exchange, I say.”

            “So,” Reanne placed her hands on her hips, “I, the true Queen of Saharen, am to be sold for horses and a few diamonds? Do not make this seem like you are doing this for Saharen, either, why do you think we are in a drought anyway?”

            “Now, daughter—“ her father began but was quickly interrupted by his wife.

            Diane reached out her right hand to stop the King from whatever he was going to say next. “How dare you speak to me like that? Who do you think you are?” She bellowed.

            “Who am I? Who am I?!” Reanne screamed back. “I believe I am the person whose throne on which you now sit!”

            “Now, we shall move into a separate room.” King Richard stood up, adjusted his robes, turned, and walked to the doorway leading to the royal private chambers. He continued to stand there, next to the doorway, while both women sputtered with chests heaving in anger.

            Finally Diane sighed, adjusted her robes back into place, and said, “Fine. The throne room is not the place for such family squabbles. We shall move into my private receiving room.” With that she sauntered past everyone with her head held high, her highly piled blond curls bouncing, and went through the door into the hallway beyond. Reanne followed, muttering curses under her breath.

            An hour later, after much screaming and little discussion, Reanne was back in her own room, alternately screaming and crying into her pillow. Pelot did his best to console her but there was little either of them could do, Diane was Queen Protectorate of Saharen until Reanne came into her majority in one more year.

***

            One week later, Pelot was again in Reanne’s chambers, this time helping her pack for her wedding trip to Montara.

            Pelot held up a wool lined cloak, “Do you think it will be cold there, high up in the mountains? I have never been outside of the Royal Valley in my entire life!” He continued to inspect the cloak, shrugged, and placed it inside the travel trunk in a carefully folded bundle.

            “I think it will be hell,” Reanne said softly from her perch on the window seat. “Absolute hell. On another note,” she got up, and walked over to Pelot, “I do not care what you pack because I am not going!” Reanne, throwing pieces of clothing out of the trunk, punctuated each word.

            Pelot sighed and began to pick everything back up. “You know very well that you must go and your temper tantrum has just made more work for me—Reanne!” While he was speaking, she continued throwing clothes out of the trunk. “Stop being such a child!”

            In response, Reanne stuck out her tongue and ran into the dressing room to mess up all of those clothes. What succeeded was an hour-long clothes fight that left them both lying in exhausted, laughing heaps and clothes covering every inch of the dressing room and most of the bedroom.

            After a few minutes, when Reanne could finally breathe normally and speak again, she turned her head to look at Pelot. “Will you stay in Montara with me?”

            Pelot turned his head toward hers, “What?”

            “Pelot, don’t leave me in Montara. I do not know what I would do without someone I know there. Will you stay with me?”

            Pelot scoffed, “Of course! That is my job, is it not?”

            Reanne reached out and took Pelot’s fur covered hand, “You’re my best friend who just happens to get paid to deal with me, not the other way around.”

            He winked at her and squeezed her hand in his own, “Got it.”

            “Ugh,” Reanne groaned, “Now I just actually have to go through with it.”

            “And I have to clean up this mess,” Pelot groaned next to her.

            They both fell in new fits of laughter that lasted for several more minutes.

***

            On the other side of the continent a solitary young woman sat in the middle of a grand music room, playing a melancholy song on the piano. She sat straight upright at the piano but her head and neck drooped with the music.

            “Harmony!” A woman, the young girl’s mother, came sashaying into the room, the sound of her silk and taffeta skirts giving her away before she entered the room.

            “Yes, Mother?” Harmony stood up and walked around the piano to greet her mother with her eyes downcast and her hands clasped in front of her.

            “My Lord and King, Stephen, has agreed to send you as the ambassador from Glenece to the wedding of the Princess of Saharen and My Lord Duke of Montara! Is that not wonderful?”

            Harmony looked up with her eyes wide in surprise. “Really? My Lord and King said I could go?”

            “Yes, dearest!” The Queen of Glenece hugged her daughter to her in a strong embrace. “You see, My Lord Husband does love you! He listens when it is something you truly want.”

            Harmony tried to smile for her mother but intense alarm sprang up within her stomach. She had never been outside of Glenn Cove, the capital city of Glenece, and was wary of traveling not only so far and so long but also outside of everything she knew. Plus, what did the King expect from her as Royal Ambassador? She knew nothing of the international politics on Meltoa even though she would one day be queen. Harmony knew how to play the piano, sing, embroider, and smile for her loving subjects because Glenece was a strictly male-dominated society and no one had expected anything else of her until now. What was she going to do?