Prologue
549 Words
I sighed, drearily walking out into the balcony as the sun warmly enveloped my skin. I didn't want to think of the day that was to come.
Usually, I spent my days wandering the garden, reading my works of fiction from the latest authors, and even playing silly games with father or my ladies in waiting. Yet today was to be different, for today I was to finally choose a suitor.
All the princes and kings who desired my hand deeply bored me. I couldn't think of one who would take me seriously with all the flowers in my blonde hair, one who could also play the games I wished to engage in, to love me for who I am despite the advantages they seek to gain from our union, as well as defend my kingdom valiantly. For every consideration to marry one, there was another fact that deterred against it. I wanted everything a prince should be, was that my flaw?
My four ladies in waiting scurried through the door on time, precisely twenty minutes after dawn in order to prepare me for the day. As I sat and allowed them to do a Dutch crown braid, letting the rest of my waist-length hair to be free, I read a leather-clad novel in silence. It was imported by boat from a nearby country, therefore the pages were very fragile, and I couldn't help it but to be enamored with the story it told. A faraway land of wizards, fighting to gain the hand of a powerful queen who also happened to be a witch. Detailed from her perspective, it was essentially a masterpiece.
I gasped loudly as an idea came to mind.
One of my ladies in waiting, named Charlotte, paused as she gently placed flowers in my hair's crowned braid, and gently grasped my shoulder and she looked at me through the mirror. "Is everything alright, milady?"
I stood, causing my three other ladies, Lorena, Vera, Jewel, and Charlotte to gasp and step back from my polished marble stool as it scoot backwards. I turned to them with a large grin, "I've found the most magnificent solution to my dilemma!"
I immediately ran to the wooden door, lugging it open by the door's iron cold handle.
"Milady! You're still dressed in your night attire-"
I ran into the hall before they could stop me, my feet gently hitting the red carpet that covered the marble floor, turning until I made it to the room my father was in. I opened both doors despite my ladies protests behind me and huffed as I entered.
"Father, I have come to a decision."
My father, King Leopold, turned with widened eyes, as his respective and esteemed knights around the square table turned around in embarrassment.
"My dear- You're not even dressed! You're still in your nightgown- Charlotte!-"
"Never mind that, father." I waved nonchalantly, "I've come to a solution to our suitor problem."
My father sighed as he gripped the bridge of his nose in frustration, "And what, pray tell, might the solution be?"
"There is to be a tournament instead-" I straightened up, prideful to my idea before he interrupted with an appalled expression.
"A tournament? Whatever for?"
I smirked with a raised brow, "For my hand, of course."
- Writer
