Chapter Text
Her Majesty Queen Lucretia looked down at the treaty in front of her. She drummed her fingers on the desk beside it, reading and re-reading the parchment, its neat writing holding the fates of two separate nations in every line. It was more than a little nerve-wracking to have this decision on her desk at last, and to finally have to make it. Granted, there had already been months of negotiation (and many near-eruptions of tempers) put into it, and she doubted what was written on these papers was any different than the terms she’d essentially accepted already. Still, she didn’t dare sign without scrutinizing every word and phrase and period. You could never be too careful, not when war threatened.
A war between Statera and Fames would be disastrous for both sides. Pride could only take you so far when you were facing destruction no matter who won, and both sides knew that. So with that in mind, she’d sat through interminable meetings and negotiations and sessions of shoveling as much advice as could possibly fit into her mind, struggling to maintain a serious, thoughtful expression when all she wanted was to bury herself in absolutely anything else. At least her painting had improved, though, since she’d been pouring every minute of her limited free time into it. It helped to soothe her nerves.
But the months had passed, however slowly, and the treaty had taken shape, and at long last it was here. It would only be a day or so before the delegation from Fames arrived for the official signing - with the person central to the last part of the agreement. There were few better ways to cement a peace than by connecting both sides, and few better ways to do that then through a marriage. In less than two days’ time, Her Grace the Grand Duchess Lydia would arrive and preparations would begin for her to become Her Majesty Queen Lydia.
Lucretia’s eyes trailed over the final paragraphs of the treaty again. Well, it was already as good as settled. She might not have expected to marry a noble from Fames, but stranger things had happened. Besides, there were worse people to be betrothed to. She’d thanked every lucky star in existence that nobody had suggested she marry King John. With all the respect due to him, no thank you . At least the duchess was - well, a duchess . And it did take her eventual marriage off the table as far as “things to be solved in the future” went. Even if she knew almost nothing about the duchess, outside of some extremely outlandish rumors that were more suited to a childish fairy tale than reality. Lucretia was fairly certain the duchess didn’t actually have any kind of dark and glamourous magics at her disposal.
Everything was as she’d expected in the document before her, each compromise and concession in place exactly where it should be, and she relaxed a little. Having to refuse it now would be a problem. One she very much didn’t need to deal with right now. So there was that, at least. She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. One less thing to go wrong, still a thousand others that could.
“Something wrong?” Magnus, sitting in the window seat with one foot propped up on the sill, glanced up from his woodcarving.
Lucretia shook her head, looking over at him - how he managed to make himself so comfortable in full armor never ceased to amaze her. “No, everything’s fine. Just thinking.”
“That’s Luc for ‘I’m freaking out but I don’t want anyone to know about it.’” Magnus twisted the knife, carving out another curve in the block.
“Do you have to leave wood shavings all over my floor?”
“Well, I mean, you own the place. Everywhere in the castle is your floor. The grounds outside are your floor too. Where am I supposed to carve?” Magnus grinned at her, and despite herself, a smile tugged at the corner of Lucretia’s mouth. “Seriously. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just being romantic again.”
“Ohhh. The marriage thing.”
“Yes. The ‘marriage thing.’” Lucretia shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m sure everything will be fine. Both of us want this to work - I don’t want to go to war, and I can’t imagine she does, so we have good reason to get along. Or at least not kill each other.”
“I feel like this is setting the bar really low.”
“Good. The bar needs to be cleared. You’re supposed to keep me from being kidnapped or assassinated, not manage my marriage for me.”
“I can multitask. I’m ambidextrous.”
“That’s not what that word means, and also no you aren’t, but whatever you say.” Smiling, Lucretia shook her head and set the treaty aside. The hardest part was over. After hashing out this agreement, she couldn’t imagine meeting her future wife would present any real challenge.
Lucretia was definitely not sweating, and she definitely hadn’t gone through half the palace’s stock of her favorite tea trying to calm her nerves. She would maintain that to her grave. The worst part, of course, was that it hadn’t seemed to work . Her heart was still pounding, and her stomach still ached with anxiety, fingers twitching in her lap. The dress she’d been laced into for the event was beautiful, flattering, and heavy. Everything was mixing into a thick sludge of undefinable mood stewing behind her face - though at least that never wavered. There was a reason Magnus had refused to play cards with her since she was fourteen.
The worst of it, she reflected as she sat in the throne room, was that she’d gotten word that the delegation was finally too close for her to do anything useful, or at least interesting, while waiting, but apparently distant enough she still had to wait. They should have gotten here earlier, but something must have happened.
“You’d think they’d be more in a hurry to get to the palace,” she murmured to Magnus, trying to focus on the bustle below the dais and not everything that could possibly go wrong.
“I don’t know. It’s nice out. The trees are pretty, maybe they want to see more of them.” He leaned against the throne, and she cleared her throat pointedly to nudge him upright again. Not that she really minded - growing up alongside Magnus’ comfortable disregard for formality had actually been kind of nice - but appearances were important, especially for this. She had to make a good first impression, a regal impression, and dammit she was going to look the part, personal guard included.
Finally, though, the doors opened to admit a herald, and Lucretia sat ramrod-straight, fingers curled so tight around the armrests of the throne she half expected to leave fingerprints in the gold. As each dignitary entered and was announced, her eyes darted to them and just as quickly moved to the next, searching. It was an irritatingly large party - with one notable exception, they were only going to be here for a few weeks, and the delay was doing nothing to settle her nerves. Why weren’t they the first introduced? Fames didn’t do things that differently.
“-His Grace Grand Duke Edward-”oh thank god , that was the brother, which meant-“and Her Grace Grand Duchess Lydia.”
The first thought that came to Lucretia was that she was beautiful. She would have been breathtaking even in a peasant dress, that much was clear, but in the exquisite green gown she wore as she swept into the hall? It was hard to look away. Lucretia rose from the throne smoothly, not letting her fluttering stomach show on her face, and descended from the dais to greet the delegation formally. In the back of her mind, she filed each of their names and their responses to her away. It might be useful later, when she was sorting out which of them she might be able to expect difficulties from, but for now...
Finally she came to Lydia, and allowed herself to relax enough for a small smile as she stepped forward to greet her betrothed. She had to tilt her head back to look her in the eye - she was tall , at least a head taller than Lucretia.
“Your Grace. It is my pleasure to welcome you to my castle. I trust your trip was uneventful?”
Lydia’s eyes, dark and intense, focused on Lucretia for a moment, and as she did Lucretia noted the carnations embroidered into the dress - purple, in thread that seemed to glitter. Lydia looked her up and down not quite subtly enough to go completely unnoticed, but certainly subtly enough that Lucretia wouldn’t dream of commenting. Then she gave just the barest hint of a laugh, more a sharp exhalation than anything else, but Lucretia knew what it was regardless. Her gaze returned abruptly to Lucretia’s face as she returned the smile with something that was just barely the right side of a smirk.
“Entirely. Absolutely nothing of note happened.”
Oh.
Well.
Lucretia could recognize a hint when it was dropped on her head like a bucket of ice water. Charming indeed. Suddenly she had her suspicions about their late arrival.
“It’s quite a relief you’ve arrived at last, we were beginning to worry.”
“Oh, I’m sure you know how it is, your majesty. The horses spooked and our carriage was damaged. Of course once we’d fallen behind, we couldn’t make you wait any longer for our little group to sort itself out, so here we are.” Duchess Lydia smiled, guileless and unrepentant.
Bringing up the rear couldn’t have been a problem that took long to sort out, delays or no. Still, this had to work, and she wasn’t going to make a good impression by immediately calling the duchess’ manners - or honesty - into question. She’d just have to also rise above the petty urge to comment on how terribly embarrassing it must be to have such ill-trained animals pulling their carriage. No matter how tempting it was to call her bluff.
“How terrible,” she said instead, studiously maintaining her expression. “I am glad you’ve finally graced us with your presence.” It was supposed to be gracious, but Lucretia was pretty sure it came out more strained than she wanted, and she decided in a hurry that a change of subject was necessary. “Well, surely you must be hungry after the journey here, and fortunately with your timing as it was, dinner should be ready.” Suddenly she glad they’d arrived so late. The excuse to reset this whole situation was more than welcome. “The servants will bring your belongings to your rooms. Please, do come and sit.” She turned on her heel and glided away to the dining hall, making brief, pointed eye contact with Magnus as she turned away. He winced sympathetically in response. Maybe this was just an awkward first encounter, though, and dinner would clear it up.
The seating arrangements had, of course, put Duchess Lydia next to Lucretia, at her right hand. She’d hoped to have an opportunity to - well, talk to her, learn about her, maybe find something they had in common to at least begin to build a cordial relationship on. Unfortunately, the arrangements also put Duke Edward on Lydia’s other side, and the two of them seemed perfectly happy to chat away without a pause. Lucretia could understand that, of course, but she still had to bite down on the frustrated groan that rose in her throat. For the sake of manners, she tried not to eavesdrop, with minimal success.
They were discussing the duchy, which apparently had been having a good year. “The weather of course has been better than usual, I’m sure the harvest will improve-”
“Oh, of course, but you know how collecting it is.” Edward waved dismissively.
Lucretia opened her mouth to ask about their practices in the Duchy of Felicity, but Lydia was already talking again. “Well, you know how the Marquess is, maybe he’ll give you some advice-”
“It happened one time -” Edward grumbled, as Lucretia gave up and shut her mouth. This wasn’t working at all like she’d planned. Turning her face away, she scanned the hall. If she couldn’t get a word in with her own betrothed, she could at least try to focus on something else - like, for instance, the fact that across the room, a servant had just stumbled and spilled half a jug of wine onto a knight. Lucretia watched anxiously as the knight mopped up wine from her tunic, waving the servant away - no shouting, good, thank god, the last thing she needed right now was a scene-
“-esty?” A slight nudge brought her attention back to the table, and she turned her head to realize that Lydia and Edward were both looking at her with unnervingly identical expressions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Magnus lean back again, just a little - of course. At least one of them had been paying attention - she mentally promised not to tease him at all the next time a spider scared him.
“I beg your pardon, I don’t believe I heard you?” Lucretia smiled politely. Royalty or not, she was only just well-brought-up enough not to kick herself under the table. I look away for thirty seconds and this happens, absolutely unbelievable-
“I was asking your opinion, your majesty,” Lydia smiled sweetly and Lucretia felt her face heat up, barely managing to maintain eye contact. “Surely you’ve considered the question yourself?”
Lucretia wished she’d taken a bite to give herself a second to think. They’d been talking about their duchy, so the question had probably been about some sort of governing practice? Possibly? “Ah - well, I’m - afraid you’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been a bit...preoccupied lately, as you can imagine, and I haven’t had much time for considering.” It was a precarious way to escape and she knew it, but she swayed on the edge of the unexpected conversation and struggled to keep her balance, hoping her fixed smile would help her back to solid ground.
“Oh, of course.” Lydia’s smile widened. “I’m sure you have all kinds of important things to think about the rest of us wouldn’t dream of.”
“I - suppose?” Lucretia didn’t know how to answer that. Bad enough to have lost track of the conversation like she did, she couldn’t compound it by saying the wrong thing now, and she had no idea what the wrong thing was . “I hope dinner is to your liking?” There. That was always a safe topic.
Lydia tilted her head, studying Lucretia, smile unwavering. “To tell you the truth, your majesty,” she said, lacing her fingers together, “we’re not so fond of pheasant.”
Or not. “Oh.” Lucretia cleared her throat. “Well, we can - accommodate that, I imagine, I’ll - pass the information along.” She really wanted this to end, she wanted solitude and quiet and the chance to think everything over in peace .
“Of course. How kind of you.” Lydia sat back, looking obscurely amused, and Lucretia had the feeling she’d lost a game she hadn’t known she was playing. If this was how things were going to go after the wedding, she wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to tolerate it. Something was going to have to give, and she was going to have to find out what.
At least someone had been smart enough to give Lydia and Edward neighboring rooms. After dinner, they almost immediately disappeared together into Lydia’s, where Lydia plopped down on the bed with a huff, immediately crossing her legs and lying back. Edward leaned against the bedpost, looking down at her. “So, that went well.”
“Can you believe her?”
“I didn’t know royalty came that small,” Edward said thoughtfully.
“Not that - well, that too, it’s pretty funny, but also, she thinks she’s better than me, did you hear her? ‘ I’m glad you’ve finally graced us with your presence ’, fantastic. Not even subtle . I can’t even do witty back-and-forth sniping with someone whose idea of a clever response is... that .” Lydia kicked her feet up onto the bed, scowling. “ And she wasn’t even paying attention to me at dinner - and did you see her smirk when I caught her doing it? You could barely pry two sentences out of her.” Edward nodded, humming agreement. “Why did I agree to this in the first place?”
Edward immediately rattled off “Because two reigning royals getting married is a recipe for disaster, everyone knew the queen prefers women anyway, the title Queen Lydia has an excellent ring to it, and if there’s a war we and Keetz would’ve had to go fight in it, and talk about a waste. Imagine the scars.” He put a hand to his forehead with an exaggerated shudder.
“...right. I remember. Fine.” Lydia sat up, narrowing her eyes. “Fine. I’m not breaking off the engagement now and starting the war, but I’m her fiance , she doesn’t get to treat me like just another noble. Asking about my trip? The dinner? What small-talk bullshit is this? And she has the nerve to pretend she’s not even bothered by anything I say? I’m going to make her crack if it kills me.”
“You know you have to spend the rest of your life here, right?”
“Exactly. If she’s going to be like that the whole time, then either I needle her or I stab her.” She smirked. “Besides, it might even be fun, figuring out how to get a rise out of her.”
Lucretia sat down heavily, pressing her face into her hands. “ Shit . Magnus, this is a nightmare.”
Magnus patted her shoulder. “Maybe you’ll get to like her.”
“It’s not going to matter if she doesn’t like me ,” Lucretia groaned. “And I want to like her! I don’t want to be married to someone I don’t even want to be around! Dinner was awful and I feel like I just got out of the lion’s den and is that what I’ll have to deal with for life ?”
Magnus sat down next to her. “Well - it’s just the first day-”
“First impressions are important , Magnus, you know this, I know you sat through all those diplomacy lessons with me.”
“I was usually thinking about lunch.”
“ Magnus .”
He waved his hands. “No, seriously, though, maybe give it time? Try to, I don’t know, impress her. Maybe that’ll help fix it?”
“Impress her…” Lucretia leaned back against the wall, tilting her head back thoughtfully. “Maybe. I mean, she gives off this air like she doesn’t think I’m - I don’t know, good enough. Like she’s just not impressed. Maybe if I can show her that I am , and that I’m a good queen and I can be properly regal, we can at least be friends, if nothing else?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Magnus grinned at her, and Lucretia smiled back, relaxing a little. “Unless…”
“Unless?” Lucretia tilted her head quizzically.
“ Unless you fall in love instead-”
“You are such a romantic , Magnus, go tell it to Julia,” Lucretia laughed, pushing him away and shaking her head. “Friends will do. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”