Chapter Text
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Metalwork wasn't easy, but it came easily. It was soothing, relaxing, a physical balm on any and all wounds whether they can be fixed or not. Each strike of her hammer against red hot metal felt like one step closer to a mind free of thought, until nothing was left in her skull to hammer out of it.
Alas, the thoughts she drowns in her slack tub are never quenched as quickly as the heat of her metal is. They come and go at nearly the same pace, never one without high-fiving the other on the way out.
Still, smithing is her home. Her peace and quiet, and she has the luxury of working it alone. Most blacksmiths have a master and an apprentice, but she doesn't work for an army or contractor or anyone important enough to need the hands. An empty shop means a happy smithy.
Sweat drips down her brow and sizzles on the molten tip. The hammer comes down one more time before she examines it and nods to herself. The water in the slack tub hisses with an offended smokescreen and, when she pulls it out, she sighs.
A few more cycles oughta do it.
She's been working on this sword for weeks—only in the little free time she gets—and needs to ensure it's perfect. It's the only thing she's ever made for herself. Clients typically want the odd job here and there: a hinge for their broken door, nails for their boards, fasteners for their belts. Occasionally, jewelry for her parents to sell to some sucker that believes it’s real gold.
She tries to not do the last one as often as they'd like her to. Morality tends to be a hindrance when your parents are merchants.
The sun is setting by the time that she's satisfied with the shape of the sword. It's a gorgeous arming sword, meant to be wielded with one hand by someone of her strength and stature. She can do the rest tomorrow as long as she's left alone.
She's been left alone for nearly a week. The kingdom is in a worse condition than it usually is and that's saying something. Astra isn't necessarily thriving and hasn't been since the royal lineage had been assassinated, but it's never been this bad. People aren't even leaving their houses anymore. Her family is starving more often than not as of late.
Twenty years ago, the royal family of Astra was slaughtered in their own home. Fires had razed the upper echelon like a blaze of vengeance, ruthlessly devouring anything it could find, while assassins had snuck in and slit their throats amidst the chaos. The kingdom was upturned over the course of a single night—and it’s only progressively gone downhill ever since. Thieves sprung from the sewers, merchants dyed the black market white, and blood was a common backdrop for daily life.
Most say it was the resistance that did it. Others blame it on the neighboring kingdom of Khrysal, claiming that they were jealous of Astra’s power, of their wealth, so they sent the assassins to claim it as their own. Some don't believe the assassin story at all and blame it on an envious maid that had set the curtains in the children’s bedroom alight; the most venomous of them all.
Whatever it was, happened. There isn't a point in speculating outside of wondering if the children are still alive somewhere. The king and queen’s bodies were strung up in the streets as a message—but the children, twins, were never found. Snatched from their cradles and into the night. Not many believe they survived it, and even fewer are still searching.
“Stelle!”
So much for being alone.
Stelle pauses mid-air and drags her amber eyes up to look at her brother. He's dressed fancier than usual—he must have been sneaking around the middle ring. “Are you here to slack off again?”
“And suffer with the rest of you? No.”
“We suffer without you, too, Caelus.”
Caelus shrugs and waves his hand around. “Exactly! So there's no loss.”
Despite this, Stelle still smiles. She puts her hammer down, sets the half-cooled sword on her anvil to where it won't slip, and crosses her bare arms. Soot-stained and slick with both new and dry sweat, she doesn't care how she looks. Never really has. Caelus might prance around with his friends in the middle and upper rings, pretending to be one of them in his stolen shoulder capes and wool pants, but the mud that stains his boots is the same as Stelle’s. The charcoal stuck beneath his nails is the same as the charcoal that leaves streaks on her apron.
Twins, one and the same.
“What do you want?” It's tired, but not malicious. His information has led them to one too many lucrative deals for Stelle to actually dislike his company. He helps in his own ways.
Caelus’s expression turns sour as he approaches like a shadow. “I might have found a way to get money. Enough to have us all out of here permanently.”
Stelle’s brows furrow as she mulls it over, unsure if it's another scam or not. Everything in this gods forsaken kingdom is a scam.
“If it's another Cosmicon tournament, no. Card games are always rigged,” Stelle scolds. Caelus has the world’s worst poker face and had enlisted Stelle’s help. She was always the better player anyway, but the bruises she got from allegedly cheating when the tournament was rigged from the start took a week to heal. Rich folk and their counting cards and all.
“It's not, I promise,” Caelus assures. He clears his throat and fishes out a paper from his pocket. His knife tucked into his waistband flashes the slightest at her and she nearly smiles. At least he still carries it. The middle and upper rings haven't gotten to him entirely.
“What is this?” Stelle murmurs, taking the folded paper and thumbing it open. A logo, red and yellow and purple and green with two jousters facing one another, sits at the top. At the very bottom, Khrysal’s seal.
“A different kind of tournament.” Caelus puts a finger up when he sees his sister open her mouth. “Fighting. Dueling, actually. And fencing. It's all the things you’re good at.”
“It's in Khrysal,” Stelle deadpans.
She still remembers the day she was exiled.
—
Khrysal had always been gorgeous.
Pinks and blues in every garden, white-stained stones, healthy grass and towering trees that offered generous shade to each inch of pavement they guarded. Every storefront was open, every merchant was kind, and every ware was ethically sourced and affordable.
The only downfall was how cold it was in the winters. The castle was carved into the side of a mountain—the Stiria Range—from the dazzling Carrara marble that stuck to it like white mosquitos. Legend has it that there are hidden underground tunnels that run through the castle and to the city and outside the gates, but were sealed off after they had entered an era of peace four hundred years ago.
The rest of the city lies beneath it. A grandiose staircase is all that separates the royalty from the nobility, and then the nobility from the army, and the army from merchants. Only those who choose to live outside the walls do. Over the years, previous monarchs had begun constructing walls even around their farmlands to ensure everyone, not just the fortunate ones, were safe.
Khrysal has always been safe, especially to Stelle. It's her home. The only place she's had memories of. For the last eight years, she's never known anywhere or anything or anyone else.
Well, except for one little girl.
She's incredible. Her clothes aren't as worn, so Stelle is pretty sure she's from one of the other parts of the city, and her hair is always combed. Pink hair actually—a color all too rare in their society that's praised for its eternal youthfulness. The Genius Society, an organization of the most masterful minds in the world, said it themselves and so it has to be true.
March is one of a kind. And her eyes—don't get Stelle started on her eyes. Wide and innocent, always searching for a new adventure. There's never any dirt caked under her trimmed nails or sweat streaking her cheeks. Even if they met on the very streets that Stelle lives on, it's always felt as if they're from completely different worlds.
Stelle never really had a friend. Her parents wanted to teach her the trade and so she usually spent her free time reading business contracts or sorting through the bangles again and again. It wasn't shunned, of course, but it felt oddly similar to fate when March had bungled right smack into her when she was returning from a delivery.
“Ow! Watch—I mean—s-sorry.”
“It's okay. Are you lost?”
March had all but hissed at Stelle when Stelle reached out to check if she was fine. Her hood was pulled up, but Stelle could see tendrils of pink attempting to escape from beneath it. From what she could see, there wasn't a weapon beneath her cloak either. She can't possibly be in the merchant’s quarter on purpose.
“No.” The girl looked around and pulled the sides of her hood even further around her. “Yes.”
Stelle had smiled, all teeth and goofiness. It was nice talking to someone her age for once rather than adults she had to haggle with to ‘build character’.
“Where are you trying to go? I can take you.”
“...The square.”
That's perfect! Stelle snuck onto the rooftops all the time to watch her parents work when she wasn't needed. She knew the square like the back of her hand.
“Come on! I can take you.”
“Wha-!”
She had taken March’s wrist, gently so that she may choose to rip it away because Stelle knew that life is not always kind, and began leading her away from the living quarters and through the workshops and to the church that had a roof akin to a guard tower that no one ever used. They had ducked through a smithy with a hurried hey, Chartonus! and took a shortcut through a tavern where the barkeep with stubble spared a heavy sigh to them and pointed at the door only children can fit through.
Ten minutes was an adventure. Stelle finally let go of March’s wrist when they came to the spiral staircase leading to the roof of the church and went first to show that it wasn't dangerous. Not to mention that a lot of people didn’t pray down there. The actual building didn’t get much foot traffic and made it perfect for hiding.
“Isn't this great? You can see everything! Are you looking for your parents?”
Stelle couldn't help the smile that attacked her whole face when she saw the girl light up. Her lips were parted in what Stelle could only describe as wonderment and she decided right then and there that she'd have to give herself a pat on the back for doing such a terrific job of playing tour guide.
“You can see the castle from here too!” Stelle told her, but the girl didn't look toward it. So, she waited until she was ready to talk.
The girl finally looked at her. “My parents are…a bit further up. I don't need to be back soon. Can I stay?”
Stelle had lit up impossibly more. She ushered her to the edge of the parapet so that their legs could dangle as they people watched and talked the day away. It wasn't a far drop to the next rooftop and that was the only way she had convinced March to settle beside her in the first place.
“My name is Stelle, by the way.”
“...March.”
“Like the month? That's cool. Is that when you were born?”
“Yeah. The seventh.”
“March seventh…March…seventh. I like it. It’s unique.”
She was tempted to say just like your hair, but she figured that was up to March to take her hood down. March also mentioned that her parents were higher up, whatever that meant, so maybe she had her secrets for a reason. Just because Stelle was an open book didn't mean everyone was.
They were up there for at least two hours with Stelle telling her the names of every merchant and retired veteran and even the names of the oxen that manned the traveling carts. That one was from Arcadia, that one was selling fake rubies and that one was selling real rubies, and that ox is named Tribbie after the messenger goddess of old.
March barely spoke. She didn't have to with how easily Stelle filled the silence.
By the time the sun was beginning to go down from high noon, March stood and adjusted her cloak.
“Gotta go?”
Kind. Charming. Forgiving. Stelle didn't ask with an intention to be reciprocated. She never did. Only a lilt of understanding.
“They'll be looking for me if I stay too long. M-my parents, I mean. I should—”
“You don't have to explain. If you ever wanna find me, I live right by where you ran into me. And I'm up here sometimes too. We’re friends now.”
Friends.
When March climbed back down the stairs and started tracing her steps through the streets, Stelle watched until she disappeared into the upper level of the merchant's level. She turned back to the square, leaned against the raised parapet, and smiled.
She had a friend.
—
“I'm not going to Khrysal,” Stelle grumbles, shaking the memory away. “I'll be killed on sight.”
“When has that ever stopped you?” Caelus asks, offended that she crumpled his nicely folded pamphlet. “You used to look danger in the face and smile.”
“I grew up.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Caelus huffs. “It's a tournament for knights from all over. No one will recognize you. You can keep your helmet on the whole time. When you win, you walk away with twenty-five thousand gold.”
Twenty-five…thousand? Holy shit.
“It's been ten years, Stelle. You were a child. No one would recognize you anymore.”
One person would, if she's still there. Stelle hopes with her entire being that March managed to escape somehow, or at the very least was living a decent, safe life.
She never meant to leave or hurt March. She didn't have a choice. The order came from the king himself. Who was she to disobey?
Twenty-five thousand was enough for her parents to retire, her to start a new life on a different continent, and for Caelus to become nobility if he wanted to. And all of that would barely be putting a dent in it. They'd be set for the rest of their collective lives and then some.
Fuck. Maybe this isn't a choice she can make. Maybe there is no choice. Twenty-five thousand…they wouldn't have to struggle day to day anymore. They could escape Astra once and for all, pay off their debts, eat an actual meal for the first time in years.
With one problem.
“I'm not a knight,” Stelle says. She takes her gloves off and rubs at her neck, a satisfying few pops sounding over the rough grilling of coal.
“But what if you pretended to be one?” Caelus gestures all around him. To the wall of weaponry, to the unused iron in the corner, to the wooden table that housed leather and pommel molds.
“You know how to use a sword,” he says.
“Not like they do.”
“Which is why Dan Heng can teach you.”
“Dan Heng? You're dragging him into this? Caelus.”
“Live a little, sis.” Caelus swipes a finger over one of the sabers on the wall and shudders at the coolness. “He’s a trainer for a reason.”
“It takes two weeks to get to Khrysal and it's the dead of winter.”
“The tournament starts on March first. Ends on the seventh. We’ll have plenty of time to get you in shape.”
Stelle has half a mind to flex then and there, what with being incredibly in shape, but she decides against it. She knows what he means. The muscle is already there—or else she wouldn't be a blacksmith to begin with—and now she just needs the finesse.
It ends on March seventh, because of course it does. What a sardonic twist of fate that she has been presented with; the girl she left behind, and now she's returning for her birthday.
“That's less than three weeks away,” Stelle groans. “I need to learn how to joust in three weeks?”
“Look, just think about it. You don't even have to win. Runner-ups get prizes too.” Stelle doesn't remember seeing that, but okay. “It's not like you have other options right now. Astra’s being raided like crazy lately.”
Yeah. No clients means no money, and no money means no food. She snatches the paper from him and reads it again.
All eligible applicants will receive two meals a day for them and their sponsors or mentors. Application fee is two-fifty, equipment will be provided but—wait, two-fifty?
“Where the hell am I getting that much for the entry fee?”
“I got that covered,” Caelus grimaces. A nervous chuckle falls from his lips and is met with a glare. Right. Sister can always tell.
“How much do you owe them?”
“Five…thousand or so.”
“Caelus.”
“If you win, it won't matter!”
Stelle groans as she paces around her workshop. Even if he has a point, which he unfortunately does most of the time he approaches with a business proposition, there's a chance they're killed before ever making it to Khrysal, let alone out of Astra. The roads around the kingdom are riddled with bandits and ex-soldiers waiting for poor sods to get close enough to ambush. If they can make it through those, getting to Khrysal is an entirely different beast. This time of year, there's snow up to their knees. Plus, it'll be melting, meaning a slippery uphill journey. Whose idea was it to hold this tournament in March?
Twenty-five thousand. She's never seen that much in one room. She's never even seen that much in her entire life combined. There's so many things they could do with that much gold.
Dammit.
Equipment is provided, but it'd be wise to have a decorated set of her own in order to gain renown. A made-up crest, perhaps. Or enter with nothing but the provided, worn, chain mail and plated chest a size too big for her and get her shit rocked.
She already has a sword, almost. There's a full set of armor she had made custom for a client that managed to kick the bucket before ever picking it up she could use. It all seems too convenient, though. Like fate is nudging her back. It unsettles her in the best ways.
Short sword for dueling. Armor for trying not to die. Where is she getting a horse and a lance?
A murmured curse slips into the thick air of the shop as Stelle rubs at her soot covered cheeks. “When do we leave?” she asks, exhausted. Her feet are quick to stamp out any sparks of excitement at the thought of returning to the only place she ever called home.
Caelus lights up like a firecracker. “Two days. First light.”
The door cracks as he leaves Stelle on her own. She can't believe what she just agreed to. Years of living in Astra have hardened her, have forced her to push that jubilant child into a box to keep her safe and protected from the unkindness of the world.
Going back to Khrysal is like letting that child back out and she's terrified of her getting wounded again. Not after the first time. Not after she left Khrysal behind at someone else's behest because of something she didn't know was wrong. She was just a kid.
The steel plate armor stares at her from beneath its layer of dust. A bolt lies on the upper left arm—the lower half of the pauldron—for a scrap of leather to be secured. Her imaginary crest.
She has just the thing in mind.
—
Ting! Ting! Ting!
Fencing wasn't easy, but it came easily. It was her balm, her way of relaxing after the torrential downpours of days she has. Something to make her muscles scream and beg to drown out the voices that nagged at her from the shadows and the sounds of hands shaking behind her back when they think they can't be heard.
Truthfully, she was never meant to learn to fence, but Himeko didn't care. Himeko knew she couldn't be replaced and so did everyone else. She never treated March any differently than she would a regular person and for that, March was beyond grateful for her.
Fencing is her happy place. Or, at least, it's supposed to be. March isn't very happy right now.
Blood drips from the cut on her bicep and stains the sleeve of her blouse. There's a shallow nick just shy of her knee from not dodging a particularly swift jab too, but that one stopped bleeding an hour ago. The only reason she remembers it's there is because of the faint air she feels slipping through the leather of her pants.
Men’s clothing. If only her father saw her in her patinated riding boots and her beyond broken in sword belt. Heavens forbid he ever lay eyes on her handcrafted rapier Himeko had gifted her for her tenth birthday. He'd have a heart attack.
March wipes with the back of her sleeve at the sweat staining her forehead. Her entire arm is shaking and struggling to keep up with her instructor that's barely broken a sweat, but she soldiers on. There is still anger left inside of her and that is enough.
Himeko doesn't ask if she's had enough. She stopped doing that years ago, just accepted that March knew her limits and would stop when she hit them. Sometimes she goes beyond them. She understands, in the end, even if March had never explained. That's what she likes about Himeko—she's like a second mother to her, a shoulder to always lean on if she needed one. Two, if she asked.
The queen of Khrysal had died when March was barely old enough to walk. March never really knew her mother and welcomed Himeko into that space in her stead; Himeko was her mentor, instructor, and educator. That also meant in things only boys were meant to learn, such as fencing, archery, and so on.
Which is why she's so goddamn irritated.
Her father, the king, has never exactly been the understanding type. The only reason March is still unwed at twenty is because of her own doing—she's managed to ward off every suitor he's thrown at her with practiced expertise. She doesn't want to marry someone she doesn't know, even less be married to a man, and has a thousand and one precautions set up to combat the wedding scenario from ever becoming reality.
The first suitor was barely a challenge. He boasted of hunts, in which she embarrassed him by accepting his dangerous game of retrieving deadly prey in the surrounding forests. He returned with two rabbits. She returned with a buck.
The second suitor had heard tales of the previous failure and laughed with her over a pitcher of wine beneath the midnight sky to avoid the ocean of people in the ballroom. With a flushed face and a smile on his lips, he had admitted to being in love with a princess in a much closer kingdom. He went home the next day with the confidence she had instilled in him to ask her. March was invited to the wedding months later.
The slurry thereafter had trickled from princes from faraway nations to princes from distant nations to princes from barely neighboring kingdoms. Khrysal isn't exactly remote, but it doesn't have many surrounding major keeps that she can continue cycling through. It's to the point where she's being introduced to nameless dukes in a hopeless effort to get her to marry someone.
That being said, the king has become desperate. Ruthlessly so.
He's offered up his own daughter as a prize in a tournament.
Not a prince or a duke or a faceless suitor in a crowd of people hounding her for answers to questions she can hardly repeat, but a knight.
A fucking knight.
Desperate.
“He never listens—” March lunges and Himeko masterfully sidesteps, but refuses to take advantage of the clumsy attack—”he always argues—” schhhing!—”and never lets me decide what I want.”
With a thoughtful nod, Himeko parries and waits for the next attack. The more exhausted March is, which is almost entirely right now, the sloppier her moves become. It's practically choreographed.
“He married for love. Why can't I?” March grumbles, missing again. She knows she nicked her instructor at some point, but she's been convinced that the woman is indestructible for years.
“Who would you marry for love?” Himeko asks as food for thought. “When?”
“I don't know! Someone!” March thrusts and ends up on the ground when she hits nothing but air. The flat end of Himeko’s rapier smacks March’s backside to give her the nudge she needed to fall completely.
“In your father’s eyes, you're wasting time. As the only royalty in line, he wants you to get married to secure the bloodline.”
“If he cared so much, he'd let me choose someone I actually want to have kids with.” March lays on the marbled floor completely, splatting like a pancake with her noodled muscles. Her rapier clatters the half-inch to the ground as her hand releases it. She nearly moans at how chilly the floor is.
“Which—”
“—isn’t just a man,” Himeko finishes for her. With as many times as March has brought it up, it'd be a shock if she couldn't. March has grumbled again and again about how she should be matched with princesses, too. Magic has been utilized by countless couples for pregnancies. Why is her father so hellbent on a prince?
“But now it's like I'm being auctioned off and I don't even get a say in it. Some knight is going to sweep me off my feet without even asking if I need to be swept off my feet.” March huffs after she thinks about it. “I'd love to be swept off my feet, but not like this. What if he's ugly?”
A short chuckle leaves Himeko as she sheaths her rapier in its frog, props it against the mosaiced wall, and carefully sits beside the splattered princess.
“What if she’s gorgeous?” she offers.
“Whose side are you on?” March whines, but she gets the point. No use spending energy wondering what the knight will look like when they'll all be here in three weeks to compete anyway.
They don't even know she's part of the prize. Her father said it was a surprise invokement, whatever that meant, and that it would be fought over by every participant, turning the entertainment of the tournament up to a ten from a five. Watching sweaty rust buckets hit each other with sharp and blunt objects for a week straight seemed entertaining enough, but to offer up the princess’s hand as an extra prize? Twenty-five thousand won’t mean a thing once they learn that.
Which is sort of a tactic, she supposes. It's a way to attract renowned knights, put on a show to attract foot traffic, meaning money, pretend to give out that money to the winner, and then give them something more enticing than gold as an excuse to withhold the payout. Who would want twenty-five thousand gold if they could marry the princess instead? The king is a scoundrel.
Granted, it's her own father, but he's never been a stand-up dad to begin with. The first time he was ever truly involved in his daughter’s affairs was the summer after her ninth birthday, and then dusted his hands after he'd exiled the only friend she's ever known. That doesn't build the strongest foundation for familial affections.
It doesn't help that March barely remembers anything from childhood either. If that girl was truly her friend, it's a shame she doesn't remember much outside of fragmented memories she can't confirm aren't fabricated by the loneliness in her heart. It's bits and pieces of moments of warmth, a flash of…amber, she thinks, and the scent of hydrangea if she ponders long enough.
She's always wished she remembered more. She threw herself into being the perfect princess after that and trained herself to not look back for someone she’ll never be allowed to have.
Recitals. Learning the steps of every gods forsaken waltz in existence to please partygoers when she was old enough. Until she heard music taunting her in bed at night.
Fencing. Sneaking out after hours of lessons because Himeko knew what she needed without ever saying it. An outlet for her anger, her growing resentment toward a lifestyle she didn't get to choose, and the constant ignorance her father would display.
Literacy. Teaching March how to read was probably a mistake considering what she's done with that knowledge. She yearns for the lives she's read about. The lives she can't escape to.
Escape. That's what Himeko helped her with, once. Twice, ten, a hundred times. Before life was hectic, before her father had a watchful eye on her.
Stelle. That was her name.
—
Longing for the outside world was never something March was supposed to do, but she did it anyway. She would sit by the windows for hours, mesmerized by the flocks flying overhead, the setting sun dipping below the horizon, and the tiny blots of ink thrumming across the pages of the kingdom. Merchants from all over peddling their wares, soldiers returning from reconnaissance missions, nobility sponsoring yet another feast for the locals.
Khrysal was thriving, always had been.
Everyone worked together. Farmers would pass off to delivery boys would pass off to stalls would pass off to hungry passersby. It was a hard earned cycle that had been going round like a water wheel for centuries and March could rarely tear her eyes away from it while perched on her balcony. She could see most of the kingdom from it and she yearned, more than anything, to be a part of it rather than on top of it.
She loved being a princess. She just didn't like what it meant.
Being a princess was chores and paperwork and not being able to talk to people just because they're not from the same station as her. It meant molding herself into someone worthy of a suitor later down the road. Not someone who can ride a horse or fall in love or solve the crimes down in the sewers like that expert detective she's read three books about.
The pinks and blues woven into silk dresses were always a plus. Being fed and having a place to live and sleep and come home to no matter what was going on in the outside world was a boon she never took for granted either. Those things, as a princess, she rather enjoyed. The things that everyone sees.
She hated the status. She couldn't make friends. Everyone bowed or gave her a wide berth when she went out with her father. They always believed she was a prophetic gift because of her pink hair and made sure to treat her as such, which left zero room for her to ever be a regular person.
What if she cut it? Dyed it? Always wore a shawl to hide it?
Pink hair was mythical. It was a symbol of wealth, eternal youthfulness, and the purest form of love. The type of love her parents had for one another.
Apparently no one thought that she had pink hair because her father’s was red and her mother’s was white. No, they always wanted to go the magic route to explain the easily explainable of the world.
So, a princess with an eminent hair color couldn't make friends, until Himeko asked one day out of the blue if she wanted to sneak out.
Startled, little eight-year-old March had asked, “Won't I get caught?”
Himeko had only smiled at March and ushered her to her room.
A few dodged servants and peeking around corners later, March’s eyes glinted with wonder when Himeko had laid out clothing for her to sneak out in. It was unlike anything she'd ever worn before, let alone seen. It wasn't silk or even wool or leather. She didn't know what it was, but it was rough. Heavy. It scratched at her skin and fit in uncomfortable ways and she couldn't have loved it more.
It was linen, Himeko had told her. Durability was important to the common folk because they had to work in it and make the clothing last. It had to be breathable and flexible while maintaining its state. March had never heard of linen before and it fascinated her, especially when she got to try it on.
A simple russet colored tunic, a pair of dark brown pants, and a worn, emerald green cloak that Himeko had clasped with a gentleness she forsook with the rest of the outfit. March anxiously fiddled with the belt around her midsection what with not being used to men’s clothing, but Himeko had assured her that it was better if people assumed she was a boy. Safer, she told her. March didn't question why.
“I'll be right behind you,” Himeko had said when she opened a false painting. It slid so fluidly to the side that March thought that it was magic.
Tunnels. Himeko taught March about them in her lessons, but she thought they were sealed centuries prior. Are those how Himeko knew everything? Was she the eyes and ears in the walls?
March could feel the confines of the castle walls slip from her shoulders with every step through the dank tunnel and closer to the light at the end of it. She suppressed more than one urge to shudder at the sight of spiders scurrying across the marble, rather keen on forcing herself to remember that they're important to the ecosystem and wouldn’t bother her if she didn't bother them.
It…smelled, too. Not like anything specific, but what March assumed going too far underground would smell like. Darkness and dreariness, the scent of someone who is lost without a torch. She wasn't allowed anywhere near the catacombs but she had a hunch it had the same musty scent.
The mid-morning sun caused her eyes to squint as she held up a hand to block it until she adjusted. The tunnel spat them out by the gardens, if she had to guess. She'd never been to them, but she usually saw tea parties being held there amidst the lush greeneries and the one old maple tree that had somehow survived centuries of harsh winters. The chairs and tables were nowhere to be seen, but the ambience was still present despite that.
Himeko nudged her from behind and March broke from her trance. The tunnel’s exit was imperceptible to the naked eye, hidden by vines and shrubbery in desperate need of a clipping. In a way, the uncut leaves added a charm to the garden. In another way, it was a perfect cover.
The further March stepped from the castle, the freer she felt. It was as if she had all the potential in the world to become the girl she wanted to be—fearless, brave, charging headfirst into battle to protect those she cares about—or! or she could be that detective solving cases and battling crime before it had a chance to begin. She could be anyone she wanted, even—! even someone who bumped into people.
“Ow! Watch—” March’s mouth gaped as she stopped herself. A stranger with unknown intentions that she'd better be kind to, because that's what she was taught to do. “—I mean, s-sorry.”
The girl had simply smiled at her “It's okay,” she said. “Are you lost?”
No, so please go away. Pay me no mind. I'm not important down here, please don't recognize me.
March all but hissed when the girl reached out a hand to presumably check if she was telling the truth about her wellbeing. She pulled her hood tighter around her hair and begged to the gods above and below and in the winds she prayed to reach them that this girl couldn't see her hair. Her cursed, pink hair she could never get rid of.
“No,” March said and secured her hood. She knew Himeko was still trailing her just in case, but—ah. “Yes,” she backtracked.
The girl simply smiled with all her teeth and a joy written in the crinkles of her eyes. March had never seen someone smile like that, so full of energy and life. It made her want to melt beneath its warmth.
“Where are you trying to go? I can take you.”
March pondered for a moment. “...The square,” she said, because she was always enamored by the shaking of hands and how so many feet can fall upon the same stones in just one day.
The girl didn't wait to answer.
“Come on! I can take you.”
“Wha-!”
March’s wrist had been seized, gently, gentler than she had ever been handled before, and was led through streets she had never seen from her balcony before. The living quarters she was stumbling through, the workshops of artisans and a blacksmith named Chartonus, a tavern with a tiny door and a stubbled barkeep that went by Gally…Gallagher?
And then they stopped by a church and March had to keep her groan to herself. She was forced enough to drop to her knees and pray to entities she can't see, feel, or hear for hours at a time every week. At least the stained glass was pretty.
March’s thighs screamed by the time they reached the top of the church and she finally understood why she'd been led up there. It was shaped similarly to a watchtower than a church—there was no bell, only a crumpled brazier and a parapet. She wondered what the original building was for, especially since she didn't see anyone praying downstairs.
“Isn't this great? You can see everything! Are you looking for your parents?”
March’s lips were parted with a muted astonishment. She'd never seen the merchant's quarter like this—the white marble square stained with pale pink and bright blue to create the crest in the middle of it, the flags of different merchant guilds fluttering in the gentle breeze, or even the nondescript chattering of every person down there that couldn't be bothered to look up and see them instead.
“You can see the castle from here too.”
March didn’t look behind her. She didn’t care about the castle. She cared about the tiny footsteps scurrying through the court. She cared about the traveling merchants spilling from the oxcarts and immediately heading to Gallagher’s tavern. She cared about the little grey-haired girl standing next to her like a beam of sunshine ready to allow anyone to bask in her glow.
Khrysal was always cold.
With this girl, March felt warm for once.
“My parents are…a bit further up,” March embellished. This girl didn't need to know she meant the king. “I don't need to be back soon. Can I stay?”
March didn't think it was possible for someone's expression to light up anymore than it already was—like going from the bright light of a lantern in the middle of the night to the sun at high noon. She was ushered to the edge of the parapet and was only convinced to dangle her legs when she was assured and reassured four times that the next rooftop wasn't a far drop.
“My name is Stelle, by the way.”
Stelle. Like the stars. No wonder she was so bright.
“...March.”
“Like the month? That's cool. Is that when you were born?”
March could feel herself slipping into comfort around Stelle with each passing second. “Yeah. The seventh.”
“March seventh…March…seventh. I like it. It’s unique.”
March wished she could say more, but she couldn't be an open book regardless of how desperately she wanted to be. The best she could do was fabricate a backstory or steal one from one of her books—in which case she would be an open book, just not a real one.
She learned the names of every merchant and retired veteran and oxen that trolleyed the oxcarts that ran between villages. She vaguely remembered Arcadia, fake rubies versus real ones (though she didn't ask how Stelle knew and she should've), and how one of the oxen was named after Tribbie, one of the goddesses she learned about from Himeko’s books. Two hours slipped through her fingers like sand in a bottle.
March barely spoke. She didn't have to. She wasn't necessarily used to speaking unless spoken to in the first place. The fact that she could just listen to something so inane for hours was…nice, compared to what she usually listened to.
By the time the sun was beginning to go down from high noon, March stood and adjusted her cloak.
“Gotta go?”
Kind. Charming. Forgiving. Stelle didn't ask with an intention to be reciprocated. She never did. Only a lilt of understanding.
March didn't deserve any of it, but there they were.
“They'll be looking for me if I stay too long. M-my parents, I mean. I should—”
“You don't have to explain. If you ever wanna find me, I live right by where you ran into me. And I'm up here sometimes too. We’re friends now.”
Friends.
When March climbed back down the stairs and started tracing her steps through the streets with Himeko following close behind, she could feel Stelle’s eyes on her all the while. It felt like the force of the sun sinking into her skin on a spring afternoon. It made her smile uncontainable.
She had a friend.
—
Stelle was always her escape, at least, for a time. Until her father caught wind of it and exiled a child. Not her family, not her brother, only her. A nine-year-old child for the simple act of being friends with March.
Ridiculous and unfair.
“What if I enter the tournament?” March interjects, squeaking with the idea of entering the tournament and winning her own hand in marriage.
“I admire the dedication, but your father will be personally meeting with every contestant to ensure they meet his standards,” Himeko hums with disappointment.
A thunk is swallowed by the cold floor as March’s skull bashes against it with a muffled ow. She grips and releases the air in her fists and groans again.
“What if—I sponsor one of the knights and rig the tournament so they win? And then they can take the gold instead and we both live happily ever after?”
Himeko is quiet for once. Shit, was that actually a decent idea?
March stirs as she attempts to see what’s written on Himeko’s face, to no avail. Even if she could move enough to see it, she doubts she'd be able to decipher this woman. Always shrouded in mystery, she is.
“You would have to choose wisely,” Himeko starts, her speech honeyed and slow as she audibly thinks it through. “It would need to be someone you can trust.”
“So, what? Do I wait for the tournament to start and then go through the knights until I find one I like?”
“You may want to begin before that. Find someone struggling to get their papers in order, or who doesn't meet the entry criteria and assist them. That will build trust.”
“What if they're all ugly?” March whines a second time. Himeko actually laughs at it.
“There's bound to be at least one who catches your eye. The world is a big place and your father sent the announcement to every corner of it. Corners with people you've never met before.”
March exhales a long while before she lets her eyes drift shut. The chalk painting on the ceiling is gorgeous yet so useless and such a waste of money. Who looks up in a room?
Once upon a time, March wanted nothing more than for a charming suitor to glide into her line of sight and pepper her knuckles with kisses as they bowed and smiled with a perfect smile and swept her onto the dance floor for a dance she could barely keep up with. She wished, more than anything, to be the princess she read about in books: patient, kind, and, if she could choose a word, ditzy.
Alas, fate is cruel and the gods gave her a brain. Himeko’s fault, probably, for teaching her things those fictional royals couldn't dream of, and March’s own fault for possessing the curiosity of an alleycat. Her claws are sharp, but she can't always see the dangers around her.
The current predicament? A nightmare. At least, she hopes it is. She's still waiting to wake up and for everything to be back to normal with another lame suitor lined up for her to freak out with her talents or otherwise.
Maybe one of these knights will finally be her match. Someone that won't shy away from her brashness, can keep pace with her tongue, and slake her curiosity at every turn. Someone with eyes that soften at the edges when they see her and have hands that just mold right into hers.
A knight, charming and forgiving, just like in her stories.
Gods, is she really considering this?
“I could bribe the winner.”
“March,” Himeko admonishes, though a tinge of humor is still present in her tone.
“Okaaaay, fine,” March huffs. If she puffed as much as she huffed, she'd have to change her animal companion from a bunny to a wolf. “The second that people start arriving, I'll make a list and go from there.”
“Good,” her mentor purrs. “You know I'm on your side when it comes to marriage, but I'd rather you marry a knight than one of those princes.”
March snorts and opens her eyes to catch the crooked tail of Himeko’s smile. “Prince Dukeston of Duketown,” she mocked, “could you believe that guy? He acted the way he did with a name like that.”
“Many of them were too bold, and not in a good way.” Himeko spins to fully face the supine princess. March has always found it as refreshing as a cup of cold milk tea that Himeko talks about royalty without a care in the world as to whether she’ll be hanged for her curses and insults or not. She’s always said it like it is.
“A knight may be bold in the way that you need,” she continues. Her knuckles brush the baby hairs from March’s face and her mischievous grin softens into something closer to being dubbed motherly.
“Instead of being full of themselves, it's..? Pulling my chair out for me?”
It's Himeko’s turn to snort. “Bold enough to accept that you're more than capable of doing everything yourself. You need a partner, not an owner. A knight would understand that more than royalty or nobility would.”
March ponders the possibilities and past experiences. A majority of the princes did act like that—as if they wanted to chain her to the throne and have her be queen only in name; she wouldn't be a ruler, only a wife. Princes wanted a prize, dukes wanted a slave, but a knight…a knight would want a companion. Someone to come home to after a grueling expedition. Someone they could rely on and trust.
They would be bold enough to love her, despite all of her difficulties she puts up. She's shown her thorns for so long that she's forgotten about the petals. A knight would be fearless enough to pick her from the garden even if the green was all they saw.
“They better be pretty,” March concludes.
She’ll just pick the crest she likes the most.