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It's a beautiful day.
The Queen sits on a bench in her gardens, shaded by an ornate parasol. Listens to the sounds of birdsong, watches the butterflies flit through the air.
"Won't you sit with me, my knight?" She asks, and the Knight hesitates.
"A bodyguard does not sit, Highness." She says, and the Queen looks up at her with a soft smile.
"Just for a moment, afore we head inside?"
The Knight sits, gingerly. "Only a moment."
The two admire the scenery, bathed in the summer sun. And as they do, the Queen inches her hand to the side until her pinky finger just barely brushes the Knight's. A tiny, nigh imperceptible gesture of love.
She doesn't know how long she's loved her knight.
Always, perhaps.
Theirs is an unbreakable bond, an ancient tradition of the kingdom. A royal is born, and somewhere in the kingdom another is born at the same moment, and that is their knight; their family moved to the capital and the child trained from the day they can stand.
The Knight was her only companion for so much of her life, meek and frail child she was. She's not meant to love her protector, but to know someone so deeply, be bound together so intimately-
Well, crushes aren't unheard of, in the history of the practice. Frowned upon, certainly. Definitely expected to be grown out of. Tutted at, quite severely, should they be made known.
Should anyone remain to tut, that is.
But now there is only her on the throne, and the Knight by her side, and the inescapable crushing feeling that they are both somehow betraying eachother and themselves.
The Fool was meant to alleviate this, once upon a time. She'd met her before, on one of the childish flights to live amongst the people that young royals so often take. Been approached by her in the tavern, found her roguishly charming and witty. Had her first kiss, though she doubts now the Fool remembers.
The plan was simple enough. Continue to be charmed by the Fool, let her crush fizzle out and be overtaken by another, present her as her suitor minus the clown's attire, get a new jester, and none would be any the wiser.
Would that the Fool remembered her affections.
Would that she had not room in her heart for both of them.
A joyous thing, truly, to be so filled with love. It just brought with it such difficulties.
She yawns, sleepy from the summer heat.
"Shall we-" She starts, and the Knight is already up and offering her hand to help her from her seat.
Inside, the castle's halls are kept comfortably cool by runes of ice etched into the stone, and the Fool is splayed out on the ground, her cheek pressed against one for relief.
"Ye gods, have you no dignity?" The Knight asks, aghast.
"Not a shred, fair knight." Sighs the Fool, blissful.
"Would it kill you to- My lady, my lady I beg you not-" The Knight stammers, as the Fool finds herself face to face with the Queen.
"Afternoon, Your Majesty." She says, with a halfhearted smile.
"Good afternoon, my wonderful fool."
"Your Majesty please get off the floor, this position does not befit one of your station."
"It's fiiine, there's no one around. It's refreshing!" The Queen says, while the Fool squints her eyes and thinks.
"There's a joke to be made; of positions you think befit her, or perhaps you fitting something in her station?" She says, half shrugging. "I can't be assed in this heat."
"You see, you see where 'there's no one around' has gotten us?" The Knight asks her giggling charge.
