𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄 ▹ the originals & reign

v. thistle ⇝ 1.03

— 𝗢 𝗡 𝗘 —
Σ(❛ violet thistle ❛✿)
CHAPTER III

LONG AGO, WHEN THEY WERE BUT SMALL CHILDREN, Mary always thought herself to be the embodiment of royalty. Kind. Careful. Beautiful. Graceful. Most of all; Majestic. These were the characteristics she was famed for. With reports of her beauty and intellect at such a prestige age of twelve, many vied for her hand. Kingdoms disregarded her engagement with the French as they saw Mary as a trophy with ability to lead a country. But her French mother recognized that she was far better off marrying the weak heir of Catherine de' Medici than marrying some other prince that would only parade her daughter. Marie de Guise also saw that her daughter was far happier in France with the other royal. Bustling about like small children, fleeing from their tutors and governesses.

Mary, Marguerite, Claude, and Elisabeth would often tromp about the garden to play a game of hide-and-seek. While Charles and Henri played with their wooden swords, as the sickly Francis bathed under the cool shade of the umbrella watching envious of his siblings. But after sometime, Mary would always run up to Francis with a bouquet of freshly picked flowers, beaming a jeering cheer.

And the small gesture always served its purpose to innocently bloom and hoe a seed of puppy love. When they went back inside, Francis always begged to play a game of tag despite Catherine's objection, as she occupied Mary with embroidery and etiquette. But Mary always happily complied with the boy. And so, every week, the Prince's room or whichever room the children used, were plaited with dusts of feathers.

Once, as they played through and about with their feathers and pillows, Mary fell off the bed, landing on a dull and blunt blade. The blade was oxidized, edges unevenly sanded. Her left calve was sliced open, blood staining her white satin nightdress. The young queen wailed in pain, while the heir stood astonished, unsure of what to do.

"Mary... there's blood on your clothes!" a young Francis exclaimed. The young queen continued to wail and weep from the sharp pain, before the nursemaids came and bandaged her bloodied leg.

A young Claude, Marguerite, and Elisabeth smacked the poor boy, scolding him for causing such an accident to befall his fiancée. Francis wept. Simpering a gloomy apology, confined within his snot and tears. He continued to cry beside his three sisters while Mary composed herself. The girl winced as she carefully glided across the bed closer to the French royals.

"Francis, it's all by the way. It's alright," she reassured. "I'm fine. You see?" She beamed at him with happy eyes. Her gesture worked, and the prince sniffled. "Apologies, Mary."

Soon after that incident, she was whisked away to convent, due to another poisoning attempt an hour after Francis stopped moping in guilt. They parted ways, and for five years, they had no contact. The next time they met, they were mere strangers to each other.

Francis had become handsome, fine man. Who was tall in stature, exuding a trembling strike-ness of his parents', especially Catherine's, valour. And she, a beautiful, elegant woman. Frame in depicting the silent regal quality of a queen.

They both had changed tremendously. One had experience lovers and had grown up spoiled, bathing in the spoils of the opulent French Court; While the other hid and shied away, straying from true relationships, tormented by the constant danger she posed to her fellow nuns and sisters.

Their reconciliation was anything but smooth sailing via gleeful winds, but rather one of misunderstandings and respectful resentment for the other. Who would've thought that the two royals would fall in love and live happily?