Reign of love and war

III. Meeting

Today was the day she will finally meet her betrothed, the day she will meet the person she will spend the rest of her life with, and for the first time in a long time, she admitted to herself that she was scared of the future. Sure she had been scared before but she never liked to admit it, she will always find an excuse for her fears but today was different. She couldn't ignore this feeling inside of her that told her to run away but that's not what a true queen would do, she had to stand up with her chin up and hide whatever battle she was fighting inside of her.

The maids had been trying all morning to make her look presentable for the important occasion but with only four hours of sleep, a tired face was hard to hide.

"Have you seen him yet, Gianna?" Elaine said as she looked at the maid through the mirror's reflection.

"I have," the maid said with a smile on her face as she tried to fix Elain's long dark curls.

"Answers that have more than two words would be great Ginna." She tried to hide the smirk on her face letting the comforting feeling of momentary happiness sink in, anything to keep her sane for a moment.

Gianna had been Elaine's maid since she was very little, and the Queen almost considered her a mother figure when her "real" mother was too busy finding a new reason to fight with her father.

They always had a strong relationship and Ginna had been the one that would distract her when the screams and the arguments became too unbearable, she would take her to walk around the gardens even if it was too late, and then she would usually stay in Elaine's chambers singing silly songs to stop the tears that fell down her cheeks. Her parents never noticed how much it affected her not having her mother's love but Ginna did, and she was there to keep her timid smile from fading away.

"I don't want to do this," Elaine tried to sound confident like she would usually appear, but her mask of fake confidence was long lost now. Her voice was shaky and her hands could not stop moving, she tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible as a single tear fell down her cheek.

Silent tears, that's the name Elaine used to describe the steady drop of tears that quietly fell down her cheeks. They are the ones that only fall when you try to hide them the most when you're using all of your strength and all of your might to stop crying, but they still fall, they betray you when you want to be strong, they sting with the pain that crushes you piece by piece tear by tear.

She felt like a child again as Gianna hugged her and brushed the hair out of her face, just like the old times Gianna was always there to keep her strong.

She had always hated crying, she didn't even understand the reason for her sudden burst of sadness and she hated that the most. It's just a stupid boy for goodness sake, she thought, but it was more than meeting her betrothed, there was something else that bothered her and she still couldn't figure out what it was.

~☆~☆~

Getting to the throne room where the first encounter would happen was the worst part, Elaine was running late but she couldn't care less. She was slowly walking down the hallways in an effort to calm herself, inhale, exhale, repeat, that was the only thing going through her mind as she finally approached the doors in front of her, the doors that separated her from meeting the person she will share the rest of her life with.

The guards opened the doors and announced her arrival, her chin was up, her back relaxed, and she used her fake calm face again. First appearances are what give you the most important impressions of a person, but they can easily be manipulated, the queen was an expert at the art of changing appearances, but she easily forgot that other people can master that skill too.