Chapter 1 | Dolling Up
Although her coronation wasn't until the late afternoon, Queen Primavera had ordered that her daughter wasn't allowed to leave the boutique until she was the object of prim and proper – if she didn't look like the pinnacle of spring, she would receive a most severe tongue lashing. It'd been twenty minutes since then. Two ten minute intervals, four five minute pockets that seemed to stretch on endlessly despite her servants tending to her with the speed of leaping grasshoppers. Her dress was already picked for the big occasion, a tulle sage green gown that matched the hazel of her eyes and sleeves that sprouted just below her shoulders. Her bodice was a slightly darker green, reminding her of summer leaves in the shade. It probably reminded her mother of the same, given that there were golden embroidered leaves that looked to be in bloom, some small pink flowers also bloomed from the long curled stems.
The transparent layers of the fabric were gently pulled back, both to accentuate the slip in the middle of the dress so she could walk freely and to create the illusion of a flower awakening in the new season. All there was left was for her to step into her sandals. Her servants dutifully strapped them on, pulling the ornate gold up over her calf, jade emeralds glinting off her ankles. With a tad bit more fussing on the part of her helpers wishing to please the Queen, she hesitated on laying eyes on herself.
She stepped a sun-kissed leg forward and felt her throat clench and dry up, the mirror's presence feeling overwhelming. Mother knew how to pick pretty dresses. She knew how to pick gorgeous dresses, she never doubted that, it wasn't really the gown so much as it was the girl. Calanthia wasn't entirely sure what she'd see and then when she'd see it, who it would be looking back at her. Either side of the coin filled her with displeasure and discontent, each side equally dreadful. Maybe she could sit here and ponder it forever, leave the princess riddle to someone else.
“Calanthia!” The mature command was so familiarly stern that her heart hammered and she sprang right up, her dress following in wild wisps. That reaction got a croaky, timeless laughter out of her Nona, making her feel small and blushing all over again.
“Nona!” She groaned, one hand clasping over her stressed heart. “Have a care, would you?”
“Oh,” Nona had stopped for a lingering moment, matching her granddaughter's face and more specifically that pout of her bottom lip to a memory that was long but fleeting now. “I cannot help that when the General stops by your door that it miraculously opens, grandbabe. Better me than anyone else, I would say.”
She was right, though she couldn't forgive the way her intruding caused the clammy, cold and pale feeling that absorbed her inside to disperse outside. Her Nona came around with a small hand on her waist that guided her back to the tall mirror center to them. Calanthia begrudgingly followed and spoke quickly, “Who knew someone as plated up as you are could have such quiet feet…”
“Much, much practice and patience, grandbabe.” Nona warmly chuckled, looking up to the mirror first. Her sigh was almost instantaneous. “Look at that.”
Her sharp breath came almost as quickly, “What?”
“What else?” Her index finger had come under her soft chin and as much as Calanthia would like to resist, she knew behind her worries that it was inevitable for her to meet her reflection.
Her eyes automatically flickered to her grandmother first, mainly to avoid facing whoever had her place on the other side. Unlike a frail old lady, her Nona kept her toned and abroad physique well into her sixties, near seventies. She was brandishing their ceremonial armor for the occasion; bronze sat underneath the expansive pattern of russet branches which sprear out and became a massive, grandfatherly tree over her chest plate. The roots and branches spread almost endlessly, tracing intricately over her sharp shoulder plates and down her scale bracelets and abdomen down to her greaves, symbolizing the birth of life that spring brought on. A rose gold shawl was draped around her neck, adorning her shoulders, contrasting her naturally angular face and frosty peaks in her buzzed hair. Despite how naturally pinched and admittedly scary she came off, her smile was anything but visous, especially when gazing upon her only granddaughter.
“My princess.” She said warmly, squeezing her shoulder.
Picking at her fingers, Calanthia finally brought herself to look up. When she did, she was taken aback at herself. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, a soft faced childish spirit or the accepting face of a born leader. If anything it was an odd mix of the two. She had the awkward stance of a kid being dolled up, her shoulders a bit slant, her face heartshaped and soft around her neck. The more she lingered on it, the more the tulle dress stood out to her as if carrying the royal essence she wished to exude, but couldn't quite fulfill. Even though she maybe seen the beginnings of a new dawn, she couldn't fully realize it.
She tried imagning her face with strokes of oil paint, standing over her mother with her dainty hand on her shoulder, her eyes captured in a promising gaze suited for the Queen ontje Spring Court. However, the pieces didn't match up and the canvas melted away from her mind before it could ever form. She sighed, stepping off of the pedestal.
“Come, let Nona do your hair for you.” Calanthia perked up, raising a brow but Nona just grinned, pinching her cheek, always with more tightness than she meant to. “You must give me this much, given I won't be able to do this until your wedding."
“If you live long enough to see it.” Calanthia told her, following her helping hand to the pearly pink vanity resting right by the boutique's balcony. The spring sun cascaded over the room, casting a colorful aura akin to a prism breaking the rainbow down, also cutting across her cheek.
Nona barked a laugh, hand on her hip as she reached for several ties and snatched her by her lowest curls. Her head felt like it tumbled down a well, making Calanthia squeal and give. She let go when she thought her lesson was learned, now weaving carefully through it. “Serves you right.”
Calanthia's airy laugh eased the thick tension for the moment and in that flitting second, before it could pass and be forgotten, was when her grandmother spoke up, collecting the flowing pink curls by her temples, drawing them behind her head. “It’s understandable to be nervous, grandbabe, but you shouldn't be–” She continued before Calanthia's gawking expression staring back at her, smiling, making one braid and tucking it into a tie, pulling it through a sector of green hair shimmering like newly grown leaves. “–You’ve had much time to prepare. You've grown into a fine young lady, and all without our help.”
Calanthia begrudgingly slumped her back against the cushion, frowning, looking back at herself. “So you say.”
“I do say.” Nona chuckled. “But what matters most is that you believe it also, dear. The entire kingdom looks up to us. They looked to your father, to your mother and now to you.”
Calanthia didn't know much of her father. While she had a few spare flickers from a warmer time when her mother smiled down at her, doting on her with pure-hearted concern instead of embarrassment and shame, she couldn't remember what he was truly like. Her mother curtly praised him as a king, sure, but as a father? That information was apparently sacred to her and her alone. Her grandmother was more open but again, the loop was neatly tied back to him being a good man. Calanthia didn't even know what he looked like and the paintings were the closest thing. Summer-kissed skin and freckled like hers, with a broader nose and softer eyes, his sage green hair respectfully back and out of his face. In all of his royal paintings in their great hall and the one in her mothers qaurters, he was always smiling. He seemed kind at a glance but the man behind the art was one she didn't know him at all.
“I wish I could've been a general,” Calanthia said through the bitterness of the past, huffing a laugh. “Had a son to give the throne to, like you did.”
For once, her Nona’s face fell, paling and rendering her quiet. Immediate regret immediately hit her, but her grandmother recuperated before she could say anything. “You say that now but the passage of time can fly right by us, all without us ever stopping to admire its wings, let alone their feathers. You'll only ever see its beauty when you become older and get as wrinkly as I am.” She smiled down at the pull through braid she's created, her thumb stroking it in slow turns. “Believe me, as much as your mother and I have our differences, we both wish you would've stayed a child forever. Putting you on the throne jerks both our hearts…but it's inevitable nevertheless.”
She believed it when it came to her grandmother who never ceased to lavish her in praises, hugs and kisses, but her mother was brittle, about as easy to talk to as walking on glass. Often she left her with glass like shards in her heart, making her feel the size of a thimble and often keep her head low, only allowing her true self where it was wanted. With her grandmother and with her childhood friend, Ciro.
She fell silent, because there was nothing she could say that wouldn't leave them both feeling scathed and bitter. Thankfully, her braid was all done, her Nona pulling back with a satisfied smile and a pleased sigh.
“Ah, there it is!” She exclaimed, as if she made a miracle out of her hair. Pulling back, she rested one plated hand on the curved armrest and leaned, looking to the vanity with a hand on her cocked hip. She nodded and brought the thick braid over Calanthia's shoulder. “Perfect for our spring princess. Look at you.”
Looking into the mirror now, she sat with widened eyes, turning her head where the braid, falling in pink intertwined with threads of sage green, fell in loops over her shoulder. Her Nona plucked some of her stray bangs over her face, framing it in a noble way over her round cheeks, actually making her look the part of a princess. Along her curly head would be where the crown would dutifully sit and instead of filling her with the purpose that she needed in that moment, it grew large and dark, heavy as a storm cloud. Her breath picked up in her throat and Calanthia stared into her own eyes.
“It's…lovely, Nona.” She said, because it was. It was lovely and charming, just not for her. Not right now. Promptly, she turned to her and stood up, causing her chair to skid back but she paid no mind, simply smoothing the sides and back of her dress restlessly. She was already turning to the door, her petal like frills bobbing behind her. “I think we're forgetting something. Flowers…the servants have had yet to pick the flowers for my headdress, haven't they? I think I'll take a stroll through the gardens. Mother will be devastated if we aren't prepared to the utmost degree. I'll go get some.”
“Calanthia?” Her grandmother started, and Calanthia stopped but just barely, her fingers tapping on the doorframe and eyes pleading upon turning back. Seeing her plight, she smirked and raised a hand, dismissing her. “So long as you're here on time. You're dismissed.”
“Thank you, Nona.” Calanthia breathed a sigh of relief and truly smiled, then skipped down the great hall, disappearing around an arch and missing the gardens entirely.
