The White Dress ✅

Napoleon

"I name you a champion. You will bring your armies to victory, your kingdom to riches and your people to prosperity. By your side, I shall stand, and, should you require it, my life is yours for the taking, my talents for you alone and my soul a gift. On this day, with these men to vouch for it, I pledge my allegiance to you, my future emperor, and kneel humble in your presence."

The boy in front of them was too young to understand the weight of the words offered but the various people in the room had heard the swearing of fealty to him and it would not be something they could ever forget. They knew, as well as the thing kneeling on the floor did, that its next few decades would be dedicated to shaping him to be a ruler, a leader and a living legend.

Today, as it knelt in chains, was the beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's story.

-

The Napoleon Empire was truly a sight to behold.

The cities were hubs of intelligence, giant beautiful things that contained the true advancement of science and held the world's most brilliant minds, constantly working to a better, more sustainable future. Crime was non-existent, the people were happy and living well, and children played in the streets, each vying for the role of their beatific leader.

Nowhere was this more true than in Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon and the city in which he'd chosen to call his home when he wasn't campaigning to expand his land once more. It was the meeting place of the very elite in his empire, raised up on two magnificent platforms, far up from the levels of society and with only one way in and out of the city, heavily guarded and nigh impenetrable. No attack had ever succeeded, few had even made it far enough to touch the smooth stone walls, and it had a fearsome reputation.

But even more terrifying than the city was the Rose of Corsica.

"Napoleon!" his mother caught him as he left the stables. "You must talk with it today, we must reach a decision before sundown."

"But, mother, it's unnatural!"

"Yet it is yours and it shall do your bidding. Go now."

He was set to argue, determined to put off visiting it for another day, but from the pursing of his mother's lips, a small telltale sign that she was losing patience, he knew it would be a waste of time. The least he could do was delay it for later in the day, maybe just before he was set to sit with the council, and, with heavy resignation, he agreed to see it.

If there was something that was even more depressing than having to listen to some disgruntled citizen – and why were they even upset in the first place considering all he'd done to make his empire perfect – it was having to go down to see it every other week. He was the only one with the duty, being the one who owned its fealty and, technically, it was just another possession but it wasn't that easy.

For one thing, he still remembered the long nights in which it'd pushed him further and further past his limits so he could be faster, stronger, better. It didn't care that he had no appetite for social accomplishments, didn't understand that he was only a boy and not fully prepared for the tasks set for him and didn't bow to his obstinacy when anyone else would.

The memories hadn't faded over time.

"Napoleon." A sweet soft voice broke him out of his thoughts. "Won't you come to bed with me?"

Ah, Marie Louise, wasn't that a sight for sore eyes?

Maybe it was because she was his wife but, truly, he couldn't think of anyone more enticingly sweet and elegant than his beautiful Duchess of Parma. With her luscious brown curls, soft sloe eyes and gentle demeanour, she was everything he could want for a lover. And, more than that, she was eager to please, bowing to his every whim in a way his first wife had never done, and that was something he could very easily love in any man or woman.