Chapter Text
As long as anyone could remember, Prince Gabriel and Princess Adele had agreed on exactly one thing: Their betrothal was the worst.
It really had seemed like a good idea when they were born; their kingdoms had enjoyed a strong alliance for over three hundred years, open trade had made both nations wealthy, and for several generations both royal families had been slowly preparing for the day the two kingdoms might officially become one. When Adele and Gabriel, heirs to their respective thrones, were born on the same day, mere hours apart, everyone agreed that it was Fate.
When they were six, they finally met. King William held his daughter on the deck of his Royal Navy’s finest ship, and pointed to the shore. “You see, princess? That little boy down there is your future husband! You’re going to spend every summer here getting to know him until your wedding. Aren’t you excited to meet him?” In response, Adele stuck her tongue out.
“I’m not marrying him. I’m not marrying anyone! I’m going to be a pirate!” Adele wriggled out of her father’s arms and in the blink of an eye had begun to climb the mast. The king sighed.
“You can’t be Queen if you’re a pirate!” he called up to her. She stuck her tongue out again, and then continued climbing.
An hour later, the ship had properly docked, and Queen Uberta had boarded, along with her son. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, your highness,” Prince Gabriel said, so stiffly and formally that William had to suppress a laugh. He took the young Prince’s hand and shook it.
“It’s an honor to meet you as well, my boy. My daughter...I’m afraid you might have to wait a few more minutes to meet her.” He gestured upward apologetically. Uberta and Gabriel looked up to see the tiny form of the princess waving from the very top of the mast. She waved.
“I’m going to be a pirate!” she shouted down at them. Before either adult could respond, Gabriel had taken a deep breath.
“That’s STUPID,” he shouted back at her, louder than his mother had known was possible.
“YOU’RE stupid!”
“Pirates get EXECUTED, you know! Anyway, girls can’t be pirates!”
There was a moment of silence as Adele digested this new information. Then, from seemingly out of nowhere, a pebble dropped out of the sky and hit Prince Gabriel square between the eyes. “Ow!”
King William and Queen Uberta exchanged a nervous glance.
~~~
By her third summer in Gabriel’s kingdom, Adele had made friends with the entire staff of the castle, which was no small feat even for her. The palace and its staff were much bigger than at home, but kitchen maid and lady-in-waiting alike fell to her charm, and found themselves drawn into all kinds of little schemes and adventures. She could find a million different ways to entertain herself, none of which, to their parents’ chagrin, ever seemed to include Gabriel.
“You should make more of an effort to include Gabriel in all your fun, darling,” her father had finally said to her about two weeks in. Adele decided that this advice was open rather widely to interpretation, and responded by putting toads in Gabriel’s bed. This was the kind of scheme that the maids wouldn’t help with, exactly, because they actually did like the prince quite a bit, but they would turn a blind eye to Adele’s not-so-sneaky theft of the bedroom key. Adele carefully placed each toad beneath the heavy quilt of the bed, mere minutes before she knew Gabriel would be returning, then ran back to her quarters giggling madly. She waited eagerly to hear Gabriel’s screams, but ten minutes later they still hadn’t come. Five minutes after that, she began to feel discouraged. Another five, and there was a polite knock at her door.
Confused, Adele opened it to find Gabriel standing there, quite calmly, holding all five toads. “I believe these are yours,” he said. Adele frowned.
“They didn’t scare you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t hate them?”
“No.”
“So…you like toads?” Adele asked hopefully.
“No. I nothing toads.” Gabriel bent down and placed them calmly at Adele’s feet. She stared at him.
“You are boring ,” she said. “You’re so boring it’s almost interesting.” Gabriel raised an eyebrow in response, then bowed formally.
“Goodnight, Princess,” he said.
~~~
When Gabriel and Adele were 12, their parents began to feel hopeful again. True, Adele still thought Gabriel was boring, and Gabriel remained stubbornly uninterested in anything or anyone outside the castle library. But they were growing up, and starting to notice members of the opposite sex. “Surely they’ll be eager to start courting one another, knowing how much it means to us,” Uberta said to William, possibly because like most adults she had completely forgotten what it was to be twelve.
Adele and Gabriel mostly avoided each other that summer, no different from any summer that had come before, until one day in late August when the horse master whipped one of his stable boys for not putting Princess Adele’s horse away quickly enough after she was done riding. Adele heard about it a few hours later, and she instantly marched down to give the man a piece of her mind. Half the castle could hear her shouting from across the grounds, uttering language so unbecoming to a princess her father nearly had a stroke. She emerged from the stable fifteen minutes after entering, holding the switch. She marched to the lake, threw it in with all the force she could muster, and then calmly walked back to the castle. That night, she folded her arms stubbornly through three lectures on the proper behavior which befit her station; first, an apoplectic one from her father, then a gentler just-us-girls chat with Uberta, then another one from her father when Uberta failed to get through. It was rather late when they both gave up and decided to go to bed, so Adele was surprised when she heard a light knock at her door ten minutes later.
“Adele?” a voice whispered. She opened the door.
“Gabriel?”
“May I come in for a moment?” Surprised, Adele stepped aside, then closed the door after him. There was an awkward pause.
“Well?”
“That was…” Gabriel seemed to be struggling with picking the exact right words, “that was very brave, what you did today.”
“Oh.” Adele had not expected this response from her straight-laced betrothed, of all people. “Thank you.”
“I would like to propose an alliance.”
“An alliance? Gabriel, we’re already-”
“I know, and I know that you’d rather not be. I think, between your courage and my intellect, you and I could probably accomplish a lot if we were allies. Including...including finding a way out of this betrothal, if you’d like.” Gabriel held his hand out. “What do you think?” After a moment, Adele took his hand and shook it. “Allies, then,” Gabriel said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile. Adele grinned widely.
“Friends,” she corrected.
~~~
On the surface, little about their relationship changed. They still ignored each other for 95% of each summer, and they were still as alike as night and day. Gabriel still spent most of his time studying, and Adele spent most of hers sneaking away from the palace to go on adventures in nearby towns. But occasionally...
One time when they were thirteen, Adele returned with a rare book from a small antiques shop, and left it on Gabriel’s table in the library.
The next year, Gabriel dug up some overlooked business on the other side of the kingdom, and Adele got to accompany him, travelling farther than she ever had before, making dozens of new friends along the way.
The summer after that, Adele made it her mission to see Gabriel laugh, just once. Pretty soon, the entire castle had a betting pool for when she’d finally succeed, which only strengthened Gabriel’s resolve to resist such nonsense. He sat stone-faced through every jester, fool and comedy troupe she threw at him, and rolled his eyes at every prank.
Finally, it seemed like she’d given up. A week went by with no noticeable attempts made, and Adele had disappeared for the day, when a servant approached Gabriel with an urgent summons to see his mother in her throne room. Gabriel hurried down the hallways and entered the chamber. There, upon his mother’s throne, sat a dignified pug wearing a perfect replica of his mother’s favorite gown-and a perfect replica of her towering wig.
Ten minutes later, Gabriel was still rolling on the floor in hysterics, and that night the head gardener went home with a good three months’ salary.
On their sixteenth birthday, Gabriel sent Adele the autobiography of Alfhild the Pirate Queen.
~~~
One year later, King William became ill. The doctors predicted a full recovery after a few months of bedrest, but Adele was all nerves that summer. She barely left her room, and wouldn’t respond to any invitations to all her usual favorite activities. After about a month, Gabriel finally looked in on her personally.
To his surprise, she was surrounded by books, reading a particularly thick tome and chewing her nails. She didn’t look up as he entered her room.
“What on earth are you doing, Princess?” he asked.
“How do you do it?” she asked. “I...I thought I was prepared to run a kingdom, Gabriel, I really did, I know I goof off a lot but in lessons I’m actually quite good! But then Father became ill, and I had to run so many meetings and make so many decisions without him, and it’s not that anything went wrong exactly but it was just so overwhelming, there’s just so much I still don’t know -”
“You’re babbling,” Gabriel said, but Adele continued on as though he hadn’t interrupted her.
“And I thought, I thought I could use this summer to study up, you know? But the more I read the more confused I get, the more I’m sure I don’t know anything, and…” she trailed off as Gabriel abruptly left her room. Adele sighed, disappointed, and returned to her tome. She'd always suspected that Gabriel looked down on her, but it still stung to have it confirmed so definitively.
Half an hour later, Gabriel returned with a precariously balanced stack of books about three feet high. He dumped them on her bed and turned to face her. Adele stared, dumbfounded.
“The books you are reading are archaic,” Gabriel informed her. “They have no place in modern education. Here.” Gabriel picked up one of the books he’d brought in and threw it to her. “That’s a very sensible introduction to governing. It’s written with stewards in mind, so it should be a good fit for what you’re currently doing. After that you can move on to more specific topics, but don’t touch another book until you finish that one, and don’t rush through it either.”
Adele thumbed through the text. From the first glance, she could tell this would be much easier to read, and a weight she’d stopped noticing lifted suddenly from her chest. Adele got up to look at the rest of the books on her bed. “I...I don't know what to say, Gabriel. This is all so-hang on, did you write this one?” she asked, picking up a volume on trade negotiations that bore his name.
“Oh no, I merely edited an existing work,” Gabriel said. “Even modern authors fall into the trap of thinking that being intelligent and being confusing are the same thing, but a truly smart text makes itself understandable to any audience, don’t you agree?”
In response, Adele dropped the books in her hands and flung her arms around Gabriel.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Hesitantly, Gabriel hugged her back.
~~~
A year later, when Adele was eighteen, she became a mother.
Technically, she acquired a ward, which was a common enough occurrence in noble families. Her second cousin and his wife had been lost at sea, orphaning their three year old son Adrien. Adele hadn’t been particularly close to her cousin, but he’d been her heir, which meant that now Adrien was her heir. Everyone agreed that sending Adrien to live with the royal family was the most sensible thing to do, and nobody was surprised when he arrived that spring.
What did surprise everyone was how quickly Adele took to her new role.
Oh, she’d always been good with children, or really anything that needed looking after. The castle grounds were filled with one-eyed cats and three-legged dogs that she’d rescued over the years, and she knew every servant’s child by name and remembered their birthdays more often than not. Other royals, more practical ones who would keep in mind that a second-cousin-once-removed was only an heir until one produced a child of one’s own, might have been more distant and left the day-to-day rearing to nannies and tutors, but never Adele. Adele was a very hands-on guardian from the start, as everyone expected she would be.
No, what was surprising to everyone, no one more than her own father, was how responsible she suddenly became. Seemingly overnight, the daredevil princess who would ride unbroken horses on a dare and once jumped four stories into a lake, suddenly started worrying about safety, and nutrition, and sensible bedtimes.
Adele briefly considered delaying or cancelling her annual voyage to Uberta’s kingdom a few months later; she wasn’t sure how much Adrien actually understood about what had happened to his parents, but she worried it might be traumatic if his new guardian also left him to board a ship.
In the end, she brought Adrien with her. She worried about that being traumatic as well, but she figured any lingering fears Adrien might have should be met head-on as early as possible. As it turned out, she needn’t have worried; Adrien spent the entire three-day voyage pestering the captain and shouting at seagulls. Normally he was much quieter than she’d been as a child, but new things excited him. This was lucky, because Uberta’s castle was filled with more new things than he’d ever seen in his life. Adele spent the first week there simply following him around from one attraction to the next, never tiring of the many gardens, or the stables, or the falconry mews, or the endless woods the castle bordered.
Gabriel and Adrien didn’t interact much, but one afternoon Adrien happened to drag Adele to the practice rings during Gabriel’s fencing lesson. Adele had actually joined Gabriel for his first lessons about eight years ago, but after a week of exceedingly dull form drills in which exactly no one lost an eye, Adele had grown bored and quit. She hadn’t seen Gabriel fence since.
He was... good. Really, really good. Disciplined, quick, and extremely precise. He defended himself against two assistants with ease, then three, with only the occasional instruction shouted by his master. Finally, the ring was cleared and Gabriel faced off against his master directly. The sparring match lasted a good fifteen minutes before the master finally got a hit. It was clear, even to Adele’s untrained eye, that the two were practically evenly matched-and this fencing master was widely regarded to be the best in Uberta’s kingdom, maybe even the best on the continent.
When they finished and bowed to one another, Adrien started clapping excitedly. Gabriel looked over and waved. Adrien took this as invitation to duck under the fence into the ring and run over before Adele could stop him.
When Adele finally managed to join them (climbing the fence was a slightly more difficult task for a full-grown woman in an ankle-length dress), Gabriel was explaining the basics to a wide-eyed Adrien. “And it’s very important to keep your back foot perpendicular, see? Now you do it. Right, and bend your knees. Good. Now practice advancing and retreating like that.” Adrien moved forward and backward, an imaginary sword clutched in his hand.
“Thanks, Gabriel,” Adele said, smiling. They watched Adrien in comfortable silence for a few minutes as he advanced and retreated his way around the ring, lunging and falling and laughing.
“You’re better with kids than I thought you’d be,” Adele said finally. Gabriel shrugged.
“They like it when you treat them like adults,” he replied. From the edge of the ring, Adrien fell down again, laughing gleefully.
“Mama, I’m ready for a real sword!” Adrien called to her.
“No you’re not,” Adele shouted back. “Go find a stick outside to practice with instead. Groaning dramatically, Adrien ran for the door. Gabriel looked at Adele, one eyebrow raised.
“Mama?” he asked. She looked down.
“I thought about correcting him, but I didn’t have the heart. Anyway, I...I’ve been thinking about adopting him formally,” she confessed nervously. “As my legal son.”
“Ah.” A pause. “I suppose I’m meant to be offended by that.”
“Well, everyone I suggested it to certainly seemed to think you would be. I know it’ll make things messy when we unite our kingdoms and get-that is, I mean, if we get-and if we were to have-”
“Adele,” Gabriel interrupted her. “You should do it.” Adele stared at him, surprised.
“Really?” she asked.
“If it were me, I would probably spend half a year or more figuring out all the legal implications in a dozen different political scenarios, weighing the odds of each, but then you and I are very different people. You are quite good at following your heart, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it lead you astray. If adopting Adrien feels right to you, it probably is. We can figure out the inheritance details later.”
Adele smiled. “That’s very good advice, Gabriel, thank you.” There was another silence.
“He looks more like you than I expected,” Gabriel finally said. “For a second cousin once removed.”
“Oh,” Adele said. “It’s the eyes. Everyone in my family seems to have them.”
“Actually, I was referring to the smile.”
Adrien ran back in just then, preventing them from discussing the topic further, but Adele couldn’t quite hide her blush before leaving.
~~~
The wedding was set for their 20th birthday, the traditional age of regent majority in their lands. Preparations had technically begun years ago, but it was the next summer that they really began in earnest.
“About our alliance,” Gabriel started, after tracking Adele down in a garden one afternoon. She looked up, eager.
“You finally have a plan?” she asked. Gabriel paused a moment.
“Yes...yes, I think I have something. You see, we’ve been having some difficulties at the northern border, some land disputes, little skirmishes. It’s always been a problem area, but it’s grown more serious lately and it will require a lot of attention.”
Adele frowned. “I don’t think that’s going to be a good enough excuse to delay the wedding.”
“It will be,” Gabriel assured her, “If you’re the diplomat I send to handle it.”
Adele took a minute to absorb this. “You want me to be your diplomat? I’m not even a citizen of this kingdom.”
“Not yet,” said Gabriel, “But as far as anyone knows, you will be soon enough. You’ll be co-regent, in fact. Besides, you were born to be a diplomat, making friends is like breathing for you.”
“Well-”
“Besides, wasn’t Adrien’s mother from the north? They’ll like that you made him your heir, I’m sure.”
“Gabriel, I don’t want you making major foreign policy decisions just to-”
“Please,” he interrupted her. “Please, Adele, I would have asked you anyway. I think you will be an amazing peacemaker. Please say you’ll do this for me.” It was the first time Adele could ever remember seeing Gabriel actually look nervous. She took his hand and squeezed it.
“Of course, of course I’ll do it.”
~~~
Their parents weren’t happy, of course, although Queen Uberta agreed that it was probably in the best interests of her kingdom to delay the wedding if it meant an end to the fighting in the north.King William, whose kingdom was getting much less out of the arrangement, was more skeptical, but he agreed as well, so the next year instead of getting married, Adele prepared to depart for the north with a diplomatic commission.
“It will only be a few years at the most,” Adele assured him. Her father sighed.
“I don’t know why you continue to fight this. I know you two didn’t get along when you were younger, but you’re good friends now.”
“Yes,” agreed Adele, “And that isn’t going to change, and it didn’t require anyone being forced into a loveless marriage, either.”
“You would learn to love each other,” her father insisted. “Your mother and I did, after all.”
“Just because arranged marriages have worked in the past,” Adele said, “doesn’t mean they’re best.”
There was a silence. This was an argument they’d had many, many times before, ground that had been covered over and over, and neither of them really wanted to cover it again right before Adele officially left.
“I shall miss your guidance,” William finally said. “I’d just gotten used to letting you run half the place.”
“I’ll write,” Adele promised, “And I’ll return if there’s need.” She hugged her father, and kissed him goodbye.
~~~
Gabriel was right; Adele was a born diplomat. She quickly befriended the leaders of both sides, and settled into her new life. It was strange to live year-round on the border of two foreign kingdoms, but it began to feel like home sooner than Adele had expected. And bringing Adrien north had worked out beautifully; Adele was grateful for the opportunity to introduce him to part of his heritage, and the northerners loved that she’d adopted him as heir to her kingdom.
However, while relations were immediately friendly, and hostilities all but ceased within the first year, actually hammering out the official alliance was more complicated than Adele had expected. The problem was, the northern tribes weren’t really united under any leadership with real negotiating power-so instead of one border, Adele found she had to negotiate practically a dozen. And it was very clear that whichever of Gabriel’s ancestors had originally set the borders, he had very little understanding of the actual geography of the region. “A few years at most” quickly turned into three, then four.
Adele had to answer angry letters from her father at least once a month, but as things were relatively uneventful back home, she remained where she was. Letters from Gabriel were less urgent, but more frequent-Adele kept him current on everything, and he often had advice whenever talks stalled. If she wrote that she needed a more experienced cartographer, Gabriel would have one sent within the month. And if Gabriel was struggling with politics in his own court, he’d write to Adele and she’d have some solution more often than not.
Adele was surprised at how much she missed Gabriel, when the first summer rolled around and she didn’t make her annual trip to his castle, even though they were probably communicating more now than they ever had before.
Time seemed to pass differently on the border, or perhaps it was just that Adrien was growing up and to mothers everywhere this seems to happen in the blink of an eye. In any case, time did pass, and negotiation after negotiation was made, and finally, almost five years after they’d arrived, Adele realized the day had come to prepare the trip back home.
Her official engagement was at hand.