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Hers is a prosperous kingdom.
They are friends to all their neighbors, plentiful trade meets all the people's needs, they have been at peace as long as anyone remembers.
In such kingdoms, threats often come from within.
It's no secret that her parents were assassinated for want of the throne, nor is it one that she is seen by many as a... temporary figurehead. It's a bad look, to make a grab for power right after the current monarchs die suspiciously; but if those monarchs happen to have a sickly daughter with no heir who can sit on the throne and be well liked for a few years before croaking of her own accord, well, that's nobody's fault, grab away.
She has sat on the throne and been well liked for a few years, and proven less prone to suddenly expiring from a bad cough than anyone had really expected. Her councillors, all those aunts and uncles and cousins and in-laws who are one degree removed from her own royalty and so would love to have a hand in her affairs, to shape them for when that's as close to royal as anyone alive is, grow antsy.
It's more important than ever, her knight tells her in hushed tones, that certain things be kept hidden. Scheming eyes should be assumed to watch her at all times. If anyone were to think they could impugn her suitability to rule, to think she might be wed, to think she might produce an heir, any of these things could signal to her vulture relatives that it might be in their best interests to hasten the arrival of her natural end.
So she continues to love the Knight in hidden, almost nonexistent touches. She courts the Fool in the flowery, plausibly deniable way one speaks with jesters. These things are enough for her, for now.
Her loves, though, they bristle under the circumstances foisted upon them. The Fool's jabs become venomous, the Knight's patience grows thinner and thinner. They clash, over and over, splintering against eachother so violently she feels they might break.
One day, she won't have to hide like this. She won't have to only wish she could speak plainly with them, could hear their worries and do her best to assuage them. She'll hold their hands and kiss them and show them off proudly, her wonderful suitors.
This future is possible, it must be. Her family cannot all be snakes, she will root out the one who killed her parents, any others emboldened by their treachery. She will have her heart's desires.
But for now, she watches them both sour. Prays that she can hold them all together long enough to weather this storm.
