Chapter Text
Walls of neatly stacked stone glimmering in the warm glow of the candelabras.
Girlish giggles as kind older ladies tended to her hair.
The shimmer in the daylight of the King’s and Queen’s jeweled crowns, the shine mesmerizing.
Women of the court dazzling the ballroom with their graceful steps and swirling gowns.
“I want her to have some time at home, Topanga. She’s been living on these grounds ever since she was a little girl. With all of these plans, I don’t want her to feel trapped here forever.”
A golden haired child bumping into her as their family went shopping in the square for fabrics and paper.
Clumsily slouching in her seat when keeping good posture seemed unbearable anymore.
“Honey, there’s something your mother and I would like to discuss with you. How would you like to be a princess?”
A young boy with bangs taking her hand and bowing in front of her, a proud puff in his chest.
The sudden gaze of everyone she passed in the hallways, their looks reeking of curiosity.
“You’ll be staying with the rest of our family for a little while.”
“Yes, darling, of course we’ll be visiting you as often as we can.”
“Oh, don’t cry, sweetheart. The time will fly by, you’ll see. Now show me that smile! There you are. Remember, you’re a Matthews, you have to be strong.”
“You have a lot to learn while you’re away, and when you come back you’ll really be a princess, just like you wanted.”
“We love you so much, Riley. So, so much.”
As she stared down at the tops of the trees, silently dancing in the spring wind, she tapped the fingers of one hand on the other hand’s knuckles, the only hint in her otherwise perfect posture that a million memories were shouting at her in her mind.
Maya sat by her side on the velvet chaise, as she always did when Riley got thoughtful, and waited in comfortable silence for the brunette to think of something to say. On her lap rested a thick piece of parchment full of messy scribbles of charcoal that would undoubtedly become something spectacular. Maya’s art always did.
The blonde’s hands were dusted with the black powder, almost as if she had plunged them into the soot by the fireplace. “Cinderella,” the other handmaidens would call her in jest, and she in a playful manner would chase them, her dirty hands reaching for their dresses, laughing once they had run out of her sight.
Riley, in theory, should discourage this behavior. “That is no way for a handmaiden to act, especially one so close to you,” her grandmother said. “What if she forgets to wash her hands and covers your dresses in dust?”
Riley would smile. “Why, then my dress would increase in value. I’d be wearing an original piece of Maya Hart’s artwork,” was her response every time.
Riley blinked, trying to force her mind to stop racing.
“Peaches?”
“Yes, Riles?”
Any other house would have their servants severely punished for speaking so informally. But this wasn’t any other house.
“I’m freaking out.”
“What else is new?”
Riley scrunched her eyebrows and glanced over to her friend, who had still not looked up from her drawing. Had she not heard the distress in her voice?
“Aren’t you freaking out?”
“I do my best not to dread the inevitable.”
“But this isn’t just ‘the inevitable’, Maya. This is Krowen. The capitol, Krowen. As in, over a hundred miles away Krowen.”
Now Maya looked up. “You’ve made the journey before. And besides, you’ve spent way more of your life in Krowen than in Philia. What’s there to freak out about?”
“You know what there is to freak out about.”
The smallness in her voice gave Maya pause.
“Riley, listen to me. You’ve been preparing for this for five years, and you’ve known about it for eight. You’re ready. Everything will be okay.”
Eight years ago. Age ten. When she stopped being “Lady Riley of House Matthews” and became “Lady Riley of House Matthews, future Crown Princess of Krowen.”
The engagement ceremony had been simple enough. She wore a pretty purple dress. They gave each other sparkly rings. They held hands. Their wrists were tied together with a red ribbon. He gave her the sloppiest chin kiss in the history of the universe. The crowd cheered.
It all seemed so simple at ten years old. She’d be a princess, then she’d be Queen. Riley’s little heart had leaped at the idea of how many tiaras she would get to wear in her lifetime. Her eighteen-year-old heart still skipped, just a little, at the thought.
“Besides,” Maya tore her from her memories. “Your parents are back there. And you’ll get to live in a big fancy palace again and be a part of court, with all the balls and the pretty dresses. The center of the kingdom, where everything that’s anything happens. Not gonna lie, Riles, I kinda thought you’d be more excited to go back.”
Riley beamed. “You think I’m not excited about the palace, do you not know me at all?!” Maya giggled at her seriousness. “It gets too quiet in Philia. But the Royal Palace at Krowen? Do you remember how long the hallways were? The three of us would run down them all the time and play hide-and-seek behind the tapestries. And the jewels in the candleholders, Maya, they were so sparkly.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Maya countered.
“The problem…the problem is…”
Maya sighed. “The problem is Farkle, isn’t it?”
Farkle. His Royal Highness Farkle Minkus, Crown Prince of Krowen. Heir to the throne.
When they were little, it had been the three of them against the world: the Prince Farkle, the Lady Riley, and the handmaiden Maya who went everywhere her best friend did. They were inseparable up until their thirteenth year, when Riley and Maya left the capital city of Krowen for the, as Maya put it, “oh-so-important princess training” that had to be done. Riley automatically reached for a locket that no longer hung around her neck response to hearing the strange name again. The piece of jewelry had been a planet, the farthest from the sun, and it opened up to a tiny portrait of the Crown Prince. He had given it to her as a parting gift, insisting she look at it and “hear him laughing in her face from miles away.” She used to wear it almost daily, before she lost it.
“It’s not that Farkle’s a problem, per say.”
But in a way, he was. Because as dear as Farkle had been to her, he was nothing like the Princes in the stories. The handsome, strong, brave men who rescued their princesses from towers and whisked them away to their happily-ever-afters. He was Farkle. Geeky, short, awkward Farkle. Even his carving in her locket had those signature bangs that were too long for him. And as much as she absolutely loved him for everything he was, she didn’t. At least, not the way a Princess is supposed to love her Prince. What should be her grandest fantasies come to life, thrown out the window by an underwhelming match and a dissatisfying marriage.
And this was the thought that terrified her. The thought that after everything, the years of betrothal, the countless etiquette lessons, all the planning that had gone into this marriage, it would fail because she just didn’t think of her husband in that way. And there was too much riding on this arrangement for it to fail.
The history of House Matthews was a unique one, to say the least. It had only truly begun with Riley’s grandfather, a poor merchant who, by some strange miracle, rose in prominence until he oversaw the proceedings of the marketplace itself. After marrying, he had amassed enough wealth to buy titles. It was only on the request of Prince Stuart to his father that House Matthews was officially granted nobility and given Philia, at the time a large but neglected territory whose last standing lords died out a few generations prior. Its people were suffering, being governed only in name by various nobles with their own homelands to worry about, and Prince Stuart argued that a lord who had built up himself from little would be the best choice to rebuild and revive Philia.
Prince at the time had been sharing tutoring sessions with Riley’s father, along with princess-to-be Lady Topanga Lawrence. The engagement between Prince Stuart and Lady Topanga had been long lasting, but it ended when the newly lorded Cory Matthews begged for her hand. With their marriage, House Matthews was solidified as a noble house with a bright future.
Everything looked perfect. The High Lord Eric Matthews held the family seat in Philia after his father stepped down, looking after his younger brother through his studies. Lord Cory and Lady Topanga both secured seats on the King’s Council as the Advisor of Education and the Advisor of Justice, respectively, propelling the House to new levels of wealth and power. Not only were they respected, they were adored.
But that was the problem. The people loved the rags-to-riches story of House Matthews. Their compassion and dedication were seen as superior to House Minkus, who ages ago had been entrusted with the monarchy after a brutal revolution due to their wisdom and intellect, traits that over time became synonymous with “cold” and “distant”. Suddenly, almost every common person was vying for a House Matthews reign, ceasing support of the young King Stuart or demanding he step down. Some thought the High Lord Eric would be best suited to rule, given his age. Others thought Lord Cory and Lady Topanga would make the finest King and Queen the world had seen. A few talked about the powerful Lady Morgan, who could propel the kingdom to greatness. And then there were those who felt the passion and youth in Lord Joshua made him an ideal usurper.
Petitions, riots, protests. What had begun as but a raindrop of an idea grew into a downpour by the time Riley was getting older. And that’s when the idea was born. House Minkus could not step down, but they could give the people the Matthews Queen they’d been begging for. After all, Riley and Farkle were already the closest of companions. What could be a better match?
A match not made at all, was the solemn thought that often crossed her mind. Or perhaps a match would have been fine, were it a match with a more valiant type of prince. But it didn’t matter what she wanted or didn’t want –dreams of passionate romance and true love were the only luxuries noble families couldn’t afford.
Maya stood up, putting her work-in-progress, along with her charcoals, in a chest against the wall. Riley insisted on getting it simply so Maya could have a place for her artwork, since she had no room in her quarters. “Of course Farkle isn’t a problem. But it’s him that’s making you nervous, right?” She took the damp cloth from on top of the dresser and wiped down her hands as she continued with stunning accuracy, “because after all, you can train to be queen all you want, but at the end of the day you’re just getting married, and you don’t want to marry Farkle, but you don’t have any choice in the matter.”
“How do you do that, Peaches?” Riley gazed up at her handmaiden as she walked towards her, gesturing for her Lady to stand up. “Can you read my mind?”
“No,” she smiled, pivoting around the now standing Riley and fixing the pillows on the chaise. “I just know you Riles. And I know that the only thing your wittle heawt wants is to be swept off your feet by prince charming, but the prince charming you got is a nerdy pigeon who couldn’t carry you if he tried and would rather laugh in your face than hold it.” Finishing up with the chaise, Maya turned back to Riley, fixing the strands of hair that had come loose on her way back from breakfast. “It’s been five years. God knows you’ve changed a lot, who’s to say Farkle hasn’t too? From what I hear he’s really tall now. Maybe he’s suave, and romantic, and can carry, like, four horses at once.”
Riley stood still as Maya finished her hair and took a step back.
“But that’s not Farkle.”
“Prince charming, Prince Farkle, you can’t marry both. So just stick with what you got and do what you’ve been preparing to do all this time. Be a princess, then be a queen, and if later you find someone I approve of then do what you like with him. Who can tell you otherwise when Farkle by that time might have gone through three mistresses?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“He’d be the first King not to.”
“Not the first.”
“Okay, hey, I don’t know history that well, maybe not the first. But definitely one of the few.”
Riley shook her head, gazing back out the window at the orange trees below.
“Why would that even matter to you?” Maya asked. “It’s not like you love him anyways or anything.”
“No, of course not, it’s just…Farkle’s faithful, and honest, and loyal. That’s who he is. He said when we got engaged that he would always respect me as his wife.”
“Hate to break it to you, m’lady, but society doesn’t care about a married man sleeping with someone who isn’t his wife, especially if it’s a Minkus. Besides, you’re not even married yet. It’s not like the engagement period counts. That’s why I said you should use this time away from the public eye to just…experiment a little. Get a little more experienced. Like with Charlie, sure he was a bit over-the-top but he was the perfect opportunity for a little fun. Then you could go back to the idea of your marriage and feel a little more satisfied, at least.”
“I told you a million times, Maya, I’m not doing it. It’s not fair to Farkle. And you can’t talk to me about being satisfied with this arrangement. You had a passionate romance, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. Remember how it ended?”
Riley was silent for a moment as her friend finished retightening the laces on her dress.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Maya replied, putting on one of those smiles she donned for show. “Josh- Lord Joshua was a fantasy, an escape from reality for a while. But everyone who escapes reality…at some point is forced to return to it.”
“We’ve only been noble for a few decades. We’ve defied every rule of society thus far, who’s to say it’s impossible that he’ll sweep you off your feet and-”
“Your uncle is a lord, Riley. He has titles, and land, and education, credentials I can’t match. They’re already making arrangements for his betrothal to someone else, someone more qualified to be with him. I’m a handmaiden, a nothing to society. It’s never going to happen.”
“You’re not a nothing to me.”
And there it is, Riley thought. That’s a true Maya Hart smile. “I know, honey. Now let’s get you to the great hall, it’s almost time for the noon meal and then your lessons.”
-
“House Gardner.”
“Chances Worth Taking.”
“House Smackle.”
“Mind over Matter.”
“House Minkus.”
“Knowledge is Power.”
Riley’s grandmother beamed at her, having gotten all the House’s sayings correct. She must be really nervous about my leaving tomorrow, if she is testing me on such simple material.
“Ah, don’t forget the most important one!” Came a loud, screeching voice from the door into the library. Standing with his chest puffed so intensely it was comical, his pointer finger waving in midair, was her Uncle Eric, the High Lord of House Matthews.
“Dream. Try. Do Good.” She replied after a giggle.
“Very good, my niche.”
Eric walked into the room, his black boots clanking against the stone floor. Against the grey walls, the way the red satin of his doublet glimmered in the sunlight made him truly look lordly, despite the grin on his face that seemed too wide to be humanly possible.
Amy rolled her eyes at her son and stood, patting Riley on the shoulder. “I think we’ve reviewed everything we need to for now. I’ll be taking my leave.”
She gave the smallest of head nods towards her son, beaming a smile, before exiting the room, the doors closing behind her. Swishing his cape dramatically behind him, Eric took a seat where his mother had sat beside Riley, examining her with furrowed brows.
“What seems to have my niche in such an unsunny mood this afternoon?”
Riley smiled, shaking her head. “It’s nothing,” she insisted. Her Uncle’s pointed look as he sat next to her made loud and clear that he didn’t believe a word she said.
She sighed, dropping her act. “Uncle Eric, why did you never get married?”
He leaned back against his chair. “Why do you ask, all of a sudden?”
“House Matthews became nobility just around the time you would be old enough to wed. You would have been the most desirable prospect on the market, you would have had any wife you wanted.”
He gave her a breathy laugh, shaking his head. “I think you severely misjudge how many noble families were excited by us joining in. Sure, now we’re so popular the King got you to be his daughter-in-law, but back then there was a lot of speculation on whether or not House Minkus made the right choice. It took a lot of time to get to the level of respect we’re at now.”
“But still, even if that’s true…”
He looked for a moment at her inquisitive expression, pausing as if contemplating whether or not to tell her something. Finally he sighed, leaning his forearms on the table in front of him.
“To tell the truth, I did love this girl. She was noble, and strong, and more beautiful than you can imagine.”
“Why didn’t you marry her?”
The smile he offered her was close-lipped, a somber expression hiding in his eyes.
“She was already married.”
Riley gaped for a moment, letting the information sink in, before settling further back in her seat. Looking down at her lap, she struggled to find a response.
“I…I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
Eric threw his hands forward carelessly, an expression of it’s fine. “Meh, it’s in the past now. I guess I just never really thought about marrying anyone else. Yeah, it would have helped a great deal, but the reality was that everyone eligible was already promised to someone else, one way or another. A consequence of joining the game late, I’m afraid.”
“Even later? Didn’t you want an heir for Philia? Some kids to raise as your own?”
After another flicker of that familiar sadness passed his brows, his smile became brighter. “I got to help raise you, didn’t I?”
Just then, a servant appeared in the doorway.
“High Lord, there is a message arrived from your brother in Krowen.”
Straightening, he called back, “Ah yes, thank you, I’m coming right away.” Rising to his feet in a single swooping motion, he sauntered across the room, taking the letter from the servant. His animated expression settled into a soft smile as he turned the scroll in his hand, stopping to rest on the wax seal that Riley knew bore the impression of shooting stars. He stood like that in the doorway for a moment before looking back to her.
“I will tell you one thing,” his voice was softer than his usual yell, a clear indication that his words held gravity. “You’re really lucky.”
Riley perked up at this, correcting the poor posture she had gradually sunken into throughout their casual conversation.
“I know it’s hard for you, having all of this pressure on you, and I know you’re scared to go off and get married just like that.” He continued, and Riley thought that like this, framed by wooden double doors and backlit by the light of a window, she could truly see why a goofball like him was known as one of the greatest Lords in the kingdom. “But life can get really long when you don’t have anyone to share it with. So even if you don’t grow to love the Crown Prince, don’t ever stop being his friend. Having people you trust in all the craziness that is court life, that’s what gets you through. People like them, the people who care about you, they’re too important to let go.”
With that, he was gone in a flash of velvet, leaving Riley alone in the library and, for the first time in a long time, softly smiling at the thought of the friend she left behind.