Imperfect Queen

The day before the wedding

Sometimes, Agatha would wake up to the "beautiful morning sunshine" and not know what day it was. It could be any day of the week, but she wouldn't know until someone told her. Well, in her case, people didn't tell her 'It's Tuesday' or 'Remember it is Friday": They would use the amount of days left to the wedding. The word for it was annoying, like she would hear the words 'Two days to the wedding!' with some extra cheer and jumping before actually knowing what day it was. Unfortunate as the wedding was, it did guide her though, and she sort of oriented herself by counting.
She had woken up after hearing Arietta and Nerida talking, then they went on the usual morning routine: greeting her, asking how she had slept, one of them bringing her breakfast tray and Agatha eating (Professor Anemone praised her on her 'improving eating skills') while she sat at her bed and Arietta and Nerida would look for clothes for her in her closet. Agatha hadn't really been listening to what they were saying because she was still half asleep and to be honest, she didn't really care.
Until one sentence just happened to catch her attention.
"Yeah well, you know, they're saying tomorrow's wedding will be the 'wedding of the century'. People really have nothing to say," Arietta had said this in a nonchalant tone while she got out a dress out of the closet. Agatha nearly choked on her breakfast. The wedding was tomorrow? There was no way, there was no way today was Friday, and there was no way that tomorrow would be Saturday, April 19th. She could have sworn it was at least Wednesday, maybe Thursday at the latest, but definitely not Friday.
Suddenly, her choking became more violent, though Agatha couldn't tell whether it was because she was so scared out of her wits or if it was because she was actually in mortal danger of choking on her food. Most likely not the latter, as much as she would want to die on the spot to avoid the wedding.
"Though, Tedros really isn't too bad..."Agatha thought before she realized she thought that, her choking immediately stopping as she stared at her hands in horror. "I didn't think that! What I meant was: 'Tedros isn't really mean and snobbish anymore, at least."
Agatha was satisfied that. "Though I still wouldn't want to marry him. Maybe we might've became friends after a life-time... But no marriage." Agatha added to her train of thought.
There really was more important things to talk about though, other than correcting her own sentences and thinking about whether Tedros is a jerk or not.
"What do you mean tomorrow's the wedding?" Agatha asked, startled. Both maids spun around as if in disbelief while Agatha stood up and started pacing around the room.
'And what do they mean by 'wedding of the century'?" Agatha inquired, louder this time.
"Agatha, don't tell me you forgot your wedding is tomorrow," Nerida deadpanned.
This was not funny. This was definitely not amusing at all. It was drop dead serious. Maybe with the dead part ringing a bit of truth.
"Oh, and they're saying that because you're the first peasant to marry into royalty. Ever. At least in Camelot's lineage," Arietta replied matter-of-factly.
"No I did not forget! I...I just didn't realize today was Friday, are you completely sure today is the 18th?" Agatha checked again, both maids nodded, starting to get worried for their patroness.
Agatha felt a rush of nausea. She was so not prepared with this. She might as well go and pack up her things to go back to Gavaldon... Might as well.
Agatha threw out everything she learned at that moment in her state of panic. What would be the point anyways? How disappointed will the crowd be when they see her? Would they sneer and jeer at her behind her back? Oh no... She was not ready. In fact, Agatha felt like locking the door and crawling under her bed to hide.
"Are you alright?" Nerida asked, shaking Agatha out of her thoughts.
"I was, until I realized what day it was," Agatha replied, getting more stressed by every passing second. How much of a klutz she had been! Of course it was the 18th! They were actually one day away from the wedding. Then it hit Agatha. Her mother and Sophie weren't here yet. What if they didn't make it? What if they weren't there? What if this was no mistake? What if they had done it on purpose? What if they sent her away to abandon her, and never expected her to actually make it to the role of queen?
"Stop stressing," Her self-conscious ordered her. "Calm down. Calm down."
"I need to sit," She said to herself. She couldn't calm down! She felt stressed, then angry, then sad, then nervous, and the cycle kept going on like this for a while.
"Would you like me to get you something like tea or hot chocolate?" Arietta asked, trying to help out in her own way.
"Get me the biggest cup of hot chocolate you find. And cake. Or a cupcake." Agatha requested, and Arietta exited the room quickly.
"Look, I understand is very normal for a girl to be worried about her wedding day, but you need to calm down!" Nerida said, walking over to where Agatha was sitting, Agatha looked at her, Nerida's eyes filled with preoccupation.
"You don't understand, it is not the wedding itself," Agatha began, "It is the huge crowd, looking at me, every single second, the fact that my mother and my best friend are not here yet, and the fact that I'm going to be a princess, and I going to be a wife for crying out loud!" Agatha paused, her whole face feeling like it's melting as she went through everything she had to stess about.
"The whole kingdom will expect so much of me. I was not made to be a princess, look at me! Princesses are proper, and beautiful and they walk gracefully...they're everything I am not." Nerida raised an eyebrow at this, but Agatha ignored her.
"And what about Tedros? He is losing in this situation too. Marrying me probably is one of the worse things that have happened to him! We don't like the other, yet they expect us to adore the other! Not necessarily now, but after what happened with his mother, if they don't see any spark, something will go wrong, for all that we know, I could end up like Guinevere." When Agatha finished, there were tears in her eyes. She had been holding so much tension, she had just exploded.
Agatha felt so weak at that moment as she burst into uncontrollable sobs, like the crying was preventing her from talking like a dam preventing a river from flowing. This marriage was her river's block. Without it, she could return to her normal life without anything to worry about, but the marriage just had to block her path. And now, now the tears and stress and everything she's been holding back by her dam was now broken, and the water and tears were rushing out, and she couldn't stop it.
She was never meant to be a part of this...
Nerida hurried and hugged her, murmuring comforting words to her and rubbing her back while Agatha kept sobbing uncontrollably.
"Agatha, you're going to be alright! I know you don't believe me, but you will. I know you think you don't act like a princess because you have no manners, but lately, your posture has been rather great, you barely even slouch. You don't roll your eyes as much, and you don't snort that much either. What I'm trying to say is that you've been acting...classier lately." Agatha looked up at Nerida, surprise written all over her face.
"And trust me, all arranged marriages start out awkward, but many of them end up actually liking each other, even if they're only friends. I know you think it'll probably won't happen with you and Tedros, but who knows? And don't say you could end up like Guinevere! Just because there are similarities between the two of you doesn't mean anything. Again, I know marriage is a really big deal, but you are bound to at least tolerate the other, and don't you do that already?" Nerida finished, still hugging Agatha, the latter pondered for a second. She still didn't really like Tedros that much, but after nearly a month of seeing him and having to dance with him, she is sort of used to him now.
It took awhile for all her last tears to flow out of her eyes and drip down onto her slightly damp dress where tears had fallen, and it had took some time for Agatha's dam to rebuild and for her walls to be put up again. It took some time for her to be strong oncemore.
"I...I could do this, couldn't I?" Agatha asked, her voice breaking at the last word, though no more tears leaked out.
Nerida nodded. "I have all my faith in you, Agatha."
They were like that for a moment, Agatha wrapped up tight in Nerida's comforting arms, the two of them staring at the walls wordlessly and motionlessly, thinking about all that happened in just one single month. For Nerida, she was thinking about how much Agatha managed to change, and how this really wasn't the end of the world, and how much faith and love she felt towards Agatha. Meanwhile, Agatha was thinking about how great and comforting Nerida really was.
"It is hard to say, really," Agatha finally said. "But I guess it really just dawned on us that we're actually doing this." Agatha thought about the other day, when she had to dance with Tedros and she didn't flinch at his contact. The memory of it still bugged Agatha.
"See? In a year you'll probably be sort of friends, at least, maybe you guys could work. We don't really know," Nerida offered, shrugging her shoulders. Agatha usually trusted what Nerida said, but not even Nerida could convince Agatha on this subject.
"I doubt it, Nerida," Agatha said gloomily, looking out of the window. Rain was pouring out from the grey clouds today, pittering and pattering their usual pattern as they contacted the ground. The dark grey clouds loomed over Camelot, as if threatening to strike the whole kingdom down. Agatha shivered. Rain was usually a light shower in Camelot. Today just wasn't a normal day then.
"I mean, I know they chose you as a joke, but I think you guys could..." Nerida gesticulated, but she remained quiet, as if looking for the perfect word. Agatha raised her eyebrow.
"We could what?" Agatha asked Nerida.
Nerida was silent for a moment, as if pondering whether she actually wanted to tell Agatha whatever she was thinking.
"...like the other, as in, you know, like each other," Nerida explained awkwardly, Agatha glared at her, as if to say 'yeah right'.
Out of all the things in the world, how could she and Tedros like each other?
"Where did you even get the idea? Arietta?" Agatha asked sarcastically. Nerida rarely spoke about her and Tedros getting along, that was more of Arietta's thing, and Nerida would usually shut her up. Nerida looked away awkwardly.
"Well..." Agatha gestured her to continue, for the first time, Nerida fidgeted in her spot.
"Do you really want to know?"
Agatha nodded.
Though sometimes not knowing things were better than knowing the truth, she needed to know this.
"One day, before you woke up, Arietta and I were talking about how Tedros had never found someone who pleased him, because you know, they just liked his looks and all that stuff, so Arietta argued he should love you already because you weren't like that, I had to agree of course, his attitude towards you was pretty ungrateful, then Arietta, in her teenage delirium, blurted out of nowhere 'they would look cute together' and I was mildly confused as to why and then she explained me why you could work...then I sort of agreed with her, but I'm not trying to convince you or anything!" Nerida threw her hands up in the air, as if saying 'let me explain the rest first!'.
"I was just saying it doesn't have to be as bad as it may look," Nerida explained, mildly embarrassed of admitting said things. Agatha just gave a shrug.
"You know Arietta, she's got her head on the clouds, and I was surprised she hadn't hinted any of that yet," Agatha said, a certain undertone of annoyance to her voice. She really liked Arietta, but sometimes she annoyed her with her optimism.
Maybe it was because she was stuck in a graveyard for 17 years of her life. Maybe it was because she stayed in her little cramped house, hiding under the dark, writing poems about depression and darkness while she fed her cat Reaper... What would Reaper be doing now? Where was Callis and Sophie?
"Yeah well, at least she's a good person, and a really good tailor too," Nerida observed, back to her usual, passive tone.
Arietta coincidentally entered the room at that moment. She had a cup in her hand, and in her other hand she had a piece of cake in a plate.
"I thought you would like their chocolate cake, it tastes like heaven!" Arietta said, handing both things to Agatha. The cup of chocolate had whipped cream and had a cherry on top, and the cake had so much chocolate it looked magnificent.
Agatha tasted the cake first. It did taste like heaven, and it was the best cake she'd ever had. She rarely got any dessert, and she didn't exactly know why, but if it always was this good, she was missing on some good food.
She ate it ravenously, lately, Agatha was hungrier than usual. She didn't know if it was the stress, or if it was because she walked so much it made her extra tired and therefore hungrier. She then drank the hot chocolate, she drank it slowly, apparently, they were hiding the best from her, because this was also the best thing she had ever drank.
"Thanks Arietta, I have a tendency to eat more when I'm stressed," Agatha confessed, the more stress, the more she ate, especially sweets.
"So, what did you talk about when I wasn't here?" Arietta continued, moving onto a new subject. Agatha and Nerida shared a look, then they explained Arietta, about Agatha's concerns and all.
"Oh! Do not fret Agatha! Everything will be fine tomorrow, we'll make sure to help everything goes accordingly, trust me, I know weddings are super stressful, but I do think you will survive," Arietta offered, Agatha smiled.
She would be lost without them.