Post by Toph Bei Fong on Jan 29, 2010 20:02:34 GMT -5
(YuriChampion's Anactoria Audition Post)
It was positively scandalous, running about the castle in nothing more than her sleeping gown and a robe. But Lady Chloe's had decided she was long past caring what was “right” or “proper”. No one seemed to care what she thought or wanted. So why extend them the such a courtesy?
If any one had bothered to ask what Chloe wanted, she would have said “Peace, quiet, and time to nurse a broken heart.” Then again, maybe it was just as well that no one had though to ask. If she told anyone she sought quiet, here in Sapphis Castle, they would have laughed at her. The palace was filled to the turrets with women such as herself, and all of them there for the same reason as she. And it was bedlam. For every suitor there was an army of maids, cooks, guards, attendants, hairdressers, and general hangers-on. And that was just the highborn guest. The commoners were worse, bringing every one they had ever known back to their rooms in the castle, treating it like lavish inn. Conversation and arguments filled the stone halls well into the night. Chloe could not escape the noise, not even in her room.
That night, it all became too much. There was a gnawing emptiness in her chest that pained her as much as the constant din in her ears. Each jagged lance of pain beat in time with her heartbeat, and before she knew it, she was running. Out of her room. Down the spiraling steps two at a time, out the front door. Chloe didn't not stop until she found herself on the Path of Heroes. Even then her sudden scrambling stop was not an act born of conscious choice, but of surprise and sudden necessity.
Surprise, because she had at last found a place that was quiet.
Necessity, because she had nearly bowled another woman over in her haste.
Chloe saw her as she came barreling out the door leading to the Path. She was standing in front of a statue of a regal looking beauty. Some past Empresses, she supposed. Her back was to Chloe, and she was wearing a long purple traveling cloak with the hood pulled up, and stood with her head bowed, as if in prayer. The cloak was travel-worn, but not dirty; a fact that somehow enhanced it's elegance rather than reduced it. All this Chloe saw in flash, as she stumbled to a sudden halt with a gasp. The sound was enough to catch the other woman's attention, and she lifted her head, and turned around, cloak flaring about her like the gown of a dancer. Bright, sky-blue eyes flecked with gold opened and fixed on Chloe They lit up her face, seeming to smile at her even before her lips got into the act. But when the corners of her her mouth did finally did join in on the act, Chloe felt as though she had never seen a more serene expression.
“Hello,” the woman said, and her voice was a song. Eyes swept down and up again, an appraisal, not a leer. “Are you not cold?” she asked, head titling just slight to one side, a lock of dark hair spilling from her her hood.
For a moment Chloe forgot how to speak. And where she remembered, her words sound thick as clumsy in her mouth. “N-no,” she said stupidity. Pulling herself together, she manged to wipe the look of awe on that she was positive was there off her face. “I mean, I hope I haven't disturbed you, my lady.”
The smile on the other woman's face faltered for just a second, but seemed to to regain its radiance a moment later. “Not at all. I was just about to leave, in fact. A prior engagement, of sorts, calls me away. Even if that were not so... something tells me that you seek solitude this evening.”
Chloe blinked once in surprise. “You are very perceptive, my lady,” she said. “But I don't mean to chase you out...”
The woman waved the apology away, and even the dismissive gesture was preformed with an air of grace. “I said I was just leaving, did I not? But I'll admit, I am curious as to what would send one of Her Highness' honored guests feeling from the castle in the middle of the night. I also wonder, my lady, if it is something that could be resolved by a sympathetic ear.” The woman gestured toward a stone bench not far from where she stood.
Chloe mouth opened, the shut again. Was someone finally offering to listen to her? And some one she had just met at that. She had no idea who this woman was, but maybe that was preferable. It is, she reflected, easier at times to share a secret with a stranger than a friend.
She found herself walking across the path with the cloaked woman, and taking a seat next to her. A palace guard happened by then, nodding at both of them in turn. Suddenly self-conscious Chloe lowered her her head to ensure her robe was in fact closed. When she raised her head again, the guard was all but sprinting to the inner door deeper into the castle. “What just --” she began.
“Doubtless something important has come up,” her incidental friend posited “But come,” she went on. “Tell me of your woes.”
Chloe took a deep breath, and in rush of exhalation declared, perhaps louder than she intended. “I hate it here!”
The woman in the cloaked jumped in surprise. Now her smile had drained away in earnest, and it seemed somehow just a little darker that night. “Are you be being mistreated?” she asked quietly, yet with an edge of steel in her voice.
Puzzled by this change in her demeanor, Chloe reply was hesitant. “N-no. The staff and servant of the castle have truly gone beyond the call in their efforts. Its just that...”
Her new friend seemed to relax at that, but the smile did not return. “What?” she asked patiently.
“No one listens,” Chloe said m her head dropping. She stared at her own lap as she went on, her words coming out in a rush. “I left Crescent Lake, my home all my life, on the command of my lord father to seek the hand of the princess. He sent my servants, my horse, by valuables... but none of my friends. None of them listen to to what I want to do, or see, or feel here. I feel... I feel as though I am a store mannequin, dressed up everyday and sat in a window in the hopes that Her Highness will return, happen by my shop and decide she would like to take me home. No one has ever even asked if I wanted Her Highness Not my maids, not my servants... not even my father.”
She sighed wearily, yet felt somehow lighter for actually saying all this aloud. But the silence was beginning to stretch on to long, and she looked up. Was that the promise of tears she saw in the other woman's eyes? No, surely it was a trick of the moonlight.
“And do you?” she asked, her voice soft as a whisper.
Puzzled by this change in tone again, the second in as many minutes, Chloe lost her train of thought. “My lady?”
“Do you want to vie for the hand of Her Highness?” she asked, her voice just as soft as before.
Chloe shrugged. “Does it matter?” she asked.
“It matters to me,” said the other, her tone more sure.
“Arranged marriages are par for the course for the nobles of Crescent Lake, my lady,” said Chloe “I knew this day would come, and I dreaded it. But I accept it, as my mother did before me, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. And as they leaned to love their lord husbands. I too... I too can learn to love.. to love... Her Highness.” Chloe felt her voice begging to break and wisely deiced to shut up.
The other woman was peering at her intensely before she said simply, “Who is he?”
Chloe suddenly felt as though she had forgotten to wear her robe. “My lady?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“The boy you left behind in Crescent Lake. The one you love. The love you'll give up if you indeed catch Her Highness eyes and heart.”
Chloe was speechless. Was she so transparent? If word got out that her choice in lovers did not mirror that of Princess Anactoria, she'd be ruined! Sent right back to Crescent Lake as a failure! There was a part of her... a dark, selfish part... of her that wanted just this. Then she could be with him again.
“Will,” she breathed.
The other woman's smile came back as she nodded. “Tell me about him.”
Chloe did. He was a common man, a blacksmith in Crescent Lake whose works was without peer. But more than that, he was kinda gentle man, even though his trade made him physically strong, and reasonably wealthy, he did not lord his strength or his gold over others, and would only fight to defend those who could not defend them selves. Their love had been secret, but so fulfilling. But they had both known that their time was limited. Chloe would be married off sooner or later... but that only served to make the time they had together even more special.
When Chloe finished speaking she was surprised to find her face wet with happy tears, and a pair of hands clasped over her own. They were the smoothness, softness hands she had never felt, yet they gripped with a strength that could not be denied.
“You must go back to him,” she said. She lifted Chloe's hands to her lips and kissed them gently, and Chloe was even more surprised to see a mirroring wetness rolling down the soft cheeks of her confidant.
Chloe shook her head. “I couldn't possibly. --”
“Do you know why the castle is full with female suitors right now? Do you know what its is Her Highness seeks?” she asked. “Love, my lady. Love. And if you forsake your love in favor of whatever duty you think you have to your family, if you remain here, succeed or fail with Her Highness, you dishonor that goal. So go back to your Will, and love him. And by loving him, prove to the imperial princess that such a bond can exist after all. It is an example she will always be grateful for.”
“But my maids and servants!” Chloe protested, trying to push down the seed of hope she felt taking root within her. “They would never allow...”
The smile on the other woman's face grew shrewd, and perhaps a touch mischievous.. “Who is the Lady here, and who is the servant?” she challenged. She stood up and, still holding Chile's hands, pulled her to her feet as well. “Do not ask. Command. Do not let excuses come between you and love. Others search for it vain, you have found yours. Do not let go of it!”
The seed of hope took root in Chloe and she felt it growing. “You're right my lady!” she said, and felt the truth of the sentence fill her up. “That;s what I'll do! I'll --”
Chloe was interrupted by the front door leading into the castle suddenly being thrown open –along with every other door along the courtyard. Armored men poured in by the tens, though their swords remains sheathed. Chloe gasped in alarm, her friend only sighed in resignation and let Chloe's hands drop.
One of the men removed his helmet and approached them. But just before reaching them, he fell to one knee. “Welcome home, your highness. “Your father has requested that we bring you to him the moment you returned.”
Chloe was puzzled by this turn of events, and looked over at he cloaked woman... and suddenly understood.
She lowered her hood, and a mane of dark hair fell down her back, smooth and luxurious despite being tucked into a garment a moment before. Her jaw dropped as Princess Anactoria IV looked back over at her, closed then opened one blue-gold eye in a wink. “Remember what I have said, my lady, she said. “Disappointment and cross words are temporary. Love... love is forever.”
The knight hand regained his feet. “Your Highness, I'm afraid I must insist.”
“I am coming,” Anactoria promised. The other knights feel into an escort around her as she was lead back inside the castle.
Chloe was left behind at the path of heroes. After a moment, she squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Her walk aback inside was more of a march, the opposite of the panicked scrambling she had arrived in.
She hopped that Anactoria found what she was looking for... but she had already given Chloe everything she needed. As she passed the statue Anactoria had been standing at before, she looked up at, then shook her head. Of course, it was right there all long. She should have figured it out long before now. She then headed inside.
Alone in the courtyard wit nothing but her fellow statues for company, the statue of the consort of Anactoria I stood tall proud and beautiful... as if waiting.