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As much as she tried to steel herself before she fell asleep the night before, Azura was not prepared for the day’s dizzying blur of seemingly endless activity that all started with being woken up by Agatha and Phaedra at the crack of dawn.
With so much to be done and so little time to do it with, the Vallite princess hardly had a moment to think. In one fluid motion, she went from being barely awake to being in the bath with Agatha shampooing her hair with as much care as one could have when in such a rush. The water around her was so warm and she was so tired but every time Azura almost fell back asleep, her mauve-haired retainer would remind her that they were on a schedule. “Today’s your big day and you need to look the part so keep scrubbing!” With each reminder, she would go back to groggily washing herself but she could just barely keep her eyes open.
The risk of falling asleep in the bath was eliminated the moment Agatha was through with rinsing her hair. The blue-haired maiden let out a yelp when she found herself being practically dragged out of the now soapy water and started to shiver from the rough transition. Agatha sped up the drying process by wringing out the princess’s hair as she toweled off, the brown-eyed woman deflecting her liege’s requests to not tug so hard with a frustrated “We don’t have time to be gentle!”
From there, Azura found herself back in her bedroom; partly dressing herself, partly being dressed by Phaedra, who apologized endlessly for her partner’s impatience. After she was dressed, her gentler retainer began to braid her hair. The style was simple yet elegant; a crown braid that looped around the front and then wove into the waterfall down her back. While she didn’t dislike this look, she preferred to let her light blue locks flow freely and naturally split off like a series of river deltas.
It wasn’t until she moved to one of the royal tea rooms to have breakfast with her mother and father that her day finally slowed to a point that allowed her to think. Overwhelmed didn’t even begin to describe what Azura was feeling as she sat at the small round table, right across from her father.
“Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Father.” Azura greeted calmly in spite of how close she was to entirely losing her composure. When a maid set a plate of scrambled eggs, grilled fish, boiled rice, and fresh strawberries in front of her, her composure was tested even further as having a moment to think made her realize how hungry she was.
“Good morning, my girl! Happy birthday!” King Telyrus greeted with a beaming smile, one reflected in his shining silver eyes. “Eighteen years old already. My, how time flies.”
“I can hardly believe it.” Queen Arete agreed. “It seems like only yesterday that I was singing lullabies to you in the nursery.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? A formal invitation?” The mint-haired man gestured to his daughter’s untouched breakfast. “Dig in! You’ve got a big day today and you’ll need your strength so eat up.”
You don’t know the half of it. Azura thought as she tore a bite of fish off with the side of her fork. In truth, she’d been dreading this day for months. She’d always been so terrible with people and the thought of leading her kingdom terrified her. How could she tell her parents, though? Her mother had a gaze that could probably cause even a raging dragon to balk – or, at the very least, it could stop a certain particularly stubborn revenant wyvern – and her father radiated a calm yet irresistible charisma so she doubted that they would understand her worries. Even if they did, she was an only child so there was no one else to take her place as heir apparent. No, she had decided months ago that bringing it up was pointless as the only thing that would arise from it would be more strife.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Azura engaged in light chatter with her parents but mostly just listened and concentrated on her food, savoring each flavorful bite. Most of what was being talked about wasn’t too interesting – Arete rattled off a list of all the various nobles from across the country that would be attending the ceremony and afterparty, apparently Argorok scared a stablehand enough for her to resign, Telyrus brought up something that happened when he was courting Arete and they both laughed – but there was one thing that caused her to perk up and pay proper attention.
“I wonder if Anankos and his family will be attending?” The king thought aloud, a wistful undertone to his voice. “Anankos hasn’t visited for a few years and it’s been over a decade since I saw Mikoto or their children at all. In fact, Kamui’s only visited once and that was three days shy of eighteen years ago. Lilith hasn’t visited at all, with how overprotective Anankos became after I talked some sense into him.”
Anankos, Mikoto, Kamui, and Lilith. These were names that Azura had heard many times but, no matter how many times they were brought up, they all felt unfamiliar, alien. Just as Anankos was apparently overprotective of his children, so too were her parents overprotective of her. They had journeyed into the mountains to meet with Valla’s guardian deity and his family occasionally throughout her life but, each time, they had ruled it too uncertain for her to join them. She was nine when her parents last visited the Silent Dragons, twelve when Anankos last visited Castle Gyges.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t miss as momentous an occasion as the coronation of the heir apparent.” Arete assured him, her normally sharp, golden-eyes now soft and less hawk-like than they usually were.
The princess of Valla had endeavored to calm herself and gather her thoughts over the course of her breakfast but after learning that the Silent Dragon, his mate, and their children might be in attendance, she slid back into barely maintaining composure. She was nervous enough about the speech she was supposed to deliver as it stood but if Anankos and his family were there, that would add that much more weight to the situation.
With the need to practice her speech as justification, Azura quietly excused herself and retreated back to her chambers. She was flanked by her retainers the moment she left the parlor.
“How was breakfast with the Queen and King Consort, milady?” Phaedra asked. The blue-haired princess knew if she were to open her mouth right now, all that would come out would be a violent scream, so she dared not and silently shook her head instead.
“That good, huh?” Agatha let out an amused huff.
Though she may have used it as a reason to excuse herself, Azura did actually feel like she should practice her speech, as if previous night’s hour and a half of reciting the same five-minute speech over and over again wasn’t enough. She didn’t have long, though. Before she knew it, she was being ushered to the grand dining hall to have lunch with a large group of visiting nobles, all who brought sons around her age, all vying for the throne, the conquest of a princess, or both. Hide it as these young men tried, their intentions were visible in their eyes and ranged from decadence to greed, bloodlust to lechery, while few had such apathy and indifference in their eyes that she wondered if they were even here of their own accord.
Even with the speech she was to give to her people, this was one of the parts of the day she was dreading the most. She was now of legal marrying age so all young men with even a drop of noble blood in their veins sought to court her and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were all doing it with selfish self-interest in mind and that none of them actually gave a damn about her as a person.
“Tell me, your highness, how does the princess of Valla spend her days?” A rather rotund young duke asked her.
“When I am not studying the history of the land, discussing matters of politics with my mother and father, or writing letters to the noble houses of the kingdom, I like to spend my time reading or singing.” She replied coolly, trying to look the auburn-haired man in the eyes instead of staring at his rather lacking court manners.
“I’m sure you have a lovely voice, milady! It would be perfect for singing to a young prince or princess of your own!” Another replied. Azura had to fight back against the grimace that tried to take her face. She could hardly tolerate having lunch with these young men, bearing their children was out of the question.
“What a shame that one as beautiful as you grew to be a bookworm more concerned with politics than with being a traditional woman.” A graying baron towards the end of the table commented. Such a comment did not go unnoticed by the queen, who shot him a cold glare over the rim of her teacup.
The rest of her lunch passed quickly, thankfully; the graying baron, who was Baron Nicolai of the Auragia Province, talked about trade routes to alleviate the drought in one of the southern fiefs of the province. Nicolai’s son, Orpheus, tried to claim that it was the people’s own fault for continuing to reject Anankos and that the Silent Dragon had acted against them out of anger but was shouted down by King Telyrus and his elder sister, Baroness Diantha of Taderin Province, almost immediately.
After lunch, Azura found a few empty minutes in her schedule to herself and used them to retreat to one of the castle water gardens. Said garden was more sand and water than it was a proper garden but what plants were to be found were well-nurtured. A T-shaped bridge crossed over the small pond, one path connecting from in front of the garden door to the back of the garden with the other path branching off to the right when viewed from within the castle halls.
Given that she was going to need to change into an evening gown before the night’s main event anyway, so the princess found nothing wrong with prying off her shoes and sitting on the sand-dusted bridge to dangle her legs into the water. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and began to sing. Given what day it was and what waited for her mere hours from now whether she wanted it or not, there was only one song she felt appropriate.
“You are the ocean’s gray waves, destined to seek life beyond the shore just out of reach…”
“People of Valla, thank you for joining us on this joyous and momentous occasion!”
Azura stood in the shadows of the castle during her mother’s speech, waiting in the wings for her cue to join her parents on the balcony overlooking the city of Lydeus. She fidgeted nervously; shifted her weight from her left foot to her right foot and then back again. With a grimace, she looked back to her retainers, who smiled sympathetically.
“You have nothing to worry about, milady.” Phaedra reassured. “The people love you.”
“What if I stutter when giving my speech? Could the people love a future queen as nervous as I?” The princess asked, her mind beginning to fray and her composition coming close to collapse for what could have been the one-hundredth time that day.
“There’s no more time for worry about that!” Agatha flashed a confident grin. “Your people are waiting for you!”
“And now, without further ado, the moment we have all been waiting for is at hand! Princess Azura, please stop forward!”
With one last deep breath, the blue-haired maiden stepped out of the shadows and into the evening light to accept her title as the Crown Princess of Valla.