I noted from your Yuletide letter you like vampire AUs, so I wrote you some princess/knight fic in that vein (pun semi-intentional). :)=
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Ariadne had never been a knight, and by rights and writs, she never would be. Noblewomen who watch their brothers joust and spar all day did not become knights themselves; far less did peasant girls plucked from the countryside to be a bauble for the royal heir.
And yet, if a princess knighted her, was that not being a knight, even if the proclamation was in the jest of childhood games? If Celeste decided she was to wear her scarf tight around her naked arm beneath her kirtle and her smock, was that not as much a favor as worn by men tilting at one another? She made her own determinations. In the dark of the night, she stalked about the courtyards, practicing the poses men did by day with a rattan sword. When she “accidentally” caught the tail of her braid in the great kitchen fire, she wept but little that their keepers clipped her like a spring lamb, leaving her to swagger about the palace looking like a page boy in skirts.
Celeste never gave her explicit approval for such endeavors, but she smiled to run her hands over the taut newly muscled shoulders of her companion, her light fingers coming to rest on the knot of her token. While their kisses bore all the chastity of youthful friendship, Ariadne gripped Celeste tight enough to bruise her white arm when she said suddenly one evening that the most dolorous day of her life would be when she would marry.
Perhaps Fate thought it some black humored kindness that the day never came. The contagion came, and Ariadne found herself no knight with no princess. She was told to return to her village, taking two crowns and a smock as payment for her childhood.
Ariadne, however, made her own determinations.
There are things peasant girls know that princesses do not. There are secrets that two coins can buy from the poor cunning woman on the hill. There are charms and pacts and cures for all ailments, even--for the truly brave--an ailment already past.
Celeste, in her latter years, looked all the blossoming girl of sixteen midsummers who should have been a some foreign king’s new made queen, although her skin never regained the rosy flush of her childhood days. Those who saw her ride said often that the pale lady looked to be a spirit or a statue, her skin like the white marble of temples and tombstones.
They did not question, however, that she should be a living princess, and in similar fashion they did not question that steel-eyed woman in mail who rode alongside her should be a knight. She bore herself with all the solemnity of any man who had seen battle and carried herself in such fashion that none were wont to question her rank.
There were whispers, of course: as to who they were, as to where they were headed, as to why they would not tarry. Ever so occasionally, some fool would speculate as to what the scarf around the lady knight’s arm signified, tattered and yellow as it was with age.
None asked Ariadne, however, and she certainly never volunteered the tale.
no subject
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Ariadne had never been a knight, and by rights and writs, she never would be. Noblewomen who watch their brothers joust and spar all day did not become knights themselves; far less did peasant girls plucked from the countryside to be a bauble for the royal heir.
And yet, if a princess knighted her, was that not being a knight, even if the proclamation was in the jest of childhood games? If Celeste decided she was to wear her scarf tight around her naked arm beneath her kirtle and her smock, was that not as much a favor as worn by men tilting at one another? She made her own determinations. In the dark of the night, she stalked about the courtyards, practicing the poses men did by day with a rattan sword. When she “accidentally” caught the tail of her braid in the great kitchen fire, she wept but little that their keepers clipped her like a spring lamb, leaving her to swagger about the palace looking like a page boy in skirts.
Celeste never gave her explicit approval for such endeavors, but she smiled to run her hands over the taut newly muscled shoulders of her companion, her light fingers coming to rest on the knot of her token. While their kisses bore all the chastity of youthful friendship, Ariadne gripped Celeste tight enough to bruise her white arm when she said suddenly one evening that the most dolorous day of her life would be when she would marry.
Perhaps Fate thought it some black humored kindness that the day never came. The contagion came, and Ariadne found herself no knight with no princess. She was told to return to her village, taking two crowns and a smock as payment for her childhood.
Ariadne, however, made her own determinations.
There are things peasant girls know that princesses do not. There are secrets that two coins can buy from the poor cunning woman on the hill. There are charms and pacts and cures for all ailments, even--for the truly brave--an ailment already past.
Celeste, in her latter years, looked all the blossoming girl of sixteen midsummers who should have been a some foreign king’s new made queen, although her skin never regained the rosy flush of her childhood days. Those who saw her ride said often that the pale lady looked to be a spirit or a statue, her skin like the white marble of temples and tombstones.
They did not question, however, that she should be a living princess, and in similar fashion they did not question that steel-eyed woman in mail who rode alongside her should be a knight. She bore herself with all the solemnity of any man who had seen battle and carried herself in such fashion that none were wont to question her rank.
There were whispers, of course: as to who they were, as to where they were headed, as to why they would not tarry. Ever so occasionally, some fool would speculate as to what the scarf around the lady knight’s arm signified, tattered and yellow as it was with age.
None asked Ariadne, however, and she certainly never volunteered the tale.