Chapter Text
Pulling aside the curtains and letting the sunbeams spill in and onto the maroon satin covers, Combeferre smiled at the epic groan coming from the lump under the duvet. “It’s half past ten, m’lady. The tutor has been waiting for you in the library for half an hour. Time to get up.”
“Make me,” said a muffled voice from under the blankets.
Jeanne Combeferre shook her head, feeling her dark brown braid swing across her back. “Now, Antoinette-”
“Go away,” the princess said. “It’s my birthday.”
“And that is why your mother allowed you to sleep in as late as you did,” Combeferre said, walking to the bed. “You have to get up now, m’lady.”
“Make me,” she said again.
Combeferre sighed, and then pulled the blanket off of the bed in one swift motion to reveal Princess Antoinette Courfeyrac, heir to the French throne, curled into a ball under the covers with a pillow over her head, only her body showing, clad in Superman footie pajamas. She sat straight up when Combeferre removed her blankets, pouting at her in a half-serious way that the lady’s maid was well acquainted with. “That was rude,” Courfeyrac said. “What if I had been naked?”
Combeferre knew that her colleagues would be scandalized by Courfeyrac’s question, but she was unperturbed. Maybe that was why Courfeyrac had requested that Combeferre be her personal servant, rather than switching out daily like the maids usually did. “Nothing that I haven’t seen before,” she said.
Courfeyrac thought about it again, then smiled at her. “Very true. Now give me back my blanket.”
She reached out for it but Combeferre held the blanket out of Courfeyrac’s reach. Seeing as she was a foot and a half taller than the petite princess, it was easy. “Go take your bath. I’ve drawn it already.” Courfeyrac crossed her arms across her chest, glaring up at Combeferre.
Combeferre raised her eyebrow. “Antoinette.”
Courfeyrac raised her own eyebrow. “Jeanne.”
“You need to be bathed for the party tonight, m’lady. Do it now.” They stared at each other for another long minute before Courfeyrac heaved herself up and out of bed.
“Sometimes I think that Maman is right, that I give you too much power over me.”
“Right,” Combeferre said, going to the closet. “But where would you be without me?”
“In bed,” Courfeyrac said with a rakish grin before she disappeared into the bathroom. Combeferre heard her unzipping her pajamas, heard them drop to the floor before the splash of water that came when Courfeyrac slipped into the tub. She smiled to herself as she heard Courfeyrac begin to hum out of tune.
“Would you like me to turn on the radio, m’lady?”
“I’d think you don’t like my voice,” Courfeyrac said, and Combeferre knew exactly what her face looked like without looking. “Go ahead, if you must.”
“I like your voice,” Combeferre said, speaking in a subdued tone as if the princess was right in front of her.
“Awwwww,” Courfeyrac said. “So sweet.”
“That’s me,” Combeferre said, her eyes on the open door into the bathroom.
She rubbed at her upper left arm, where her soulmate tattoo had been branded for eleven months and two weeks now. Almost an entire year before she could confirm what she first suspected when she saw the symbol. Combeferre remembered the burn that had woken her from a deep sleep, the feeling like an iron against her bicep. She had sat up and fumbled with the light, lifting up her sleeve to see a delicately sketched moth in black ink, backlit by the orange and red and yellow rays of a bold sun. Smiling with drowsy eyes, she had traced around the edges of it as the pain began to ebb, and she fell asleep with her fingers still grazing over the skin.
That night, the woman that Combeferre suspected of being her soulmate would get her tattoo. Combeferre’s princess – the beautiful umber woman in the granite bathtub who had began to sing one of her favorite meaningless pop songs – would get her soulmate tattoo, and would begin the search for the love of her life. That night, the best part of Combeferre's life could begin, or end.
Courfeyrac stifled a yawn, hiding her mouth behind her hand. Madame Valjean was the best tutor in the kingdom and always managed to make her history lessons interesting. But the sun was streaming in through the windows and making the wood of the library shelves shine, warming Courfeyrac’s skin and making her blink slowly and encouraging her mind to wander.
Tonight, she would get her tattoo. She would find out who she was meant to be with, the person that she was supposed to live with forever. What kind of image would be engraved on her skin? Who would that image lead her to? How long would it take Courfeyrac to find them?
Madame Valjean had never told Courfeyrac how the tattoos had begun, but she had discussed the societal importance of the soulmate tattoos: they helped people know for sure who they were meant to be with, lowering divorce rates and increasing marriage stability. The symbols took the place of wedding rings, and gave members of the bond a permanent reminder of their love.
Even though soulmates and tattoos were all that were on Courfeyrac’s mind today, instead Valjean was talking to her about the different countries of the people coming to Courfeyrac’s birthday party that night. “Your mother invited people from all of our allied countries,” Madame Valjean said. “She wants to make sure that you can meet your soulmate as soon as possible after your tattoo arrives.”
“Why is she sure that my soulmate is a royal, anyways?” Courfeyrac said, pushing back her cuticles.
Madame Valjean shook her head. “For as long anyone can remember, all soulmates have been other royals. It is the will of whatever universal force has created this phenomenon.”
Courfeyrac hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay. I guess that makes sense.” She bit the back of her lip, thinking about spending the rest of her life with one of the boring princes or princesses she was forced to eat with during formal functions. She’d much rather have a soulmate who had fun with her, somebody who understood her and took care of her. Somebody more like… Combeferre, actually.
Madame Valjean continued to show Courfeyrac the different homes of the foreign dignitaries on the enormous world map, but Courfeyrac was unable to concentrate on the lesson. Instead, she thought about her soulmate, what they could be like, what they could sound like, what their tattoo might look like. But every time Courfeyrac imagined her soulmate, the love of her life had light brown skin, a dark braid thrown over the shoulder of her palace servant’s uniform, and a half smile reaching her warm eyes that watched Courfeyrac with a familiarly affectionate gaze.
This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good, at all. Courfeyrac only hoped that when she met her real soulmate, Combeferre’s face would all but disappear from her mind.