I didn't think it was a big deal, the night I left. As the youngest of 7 siblings, with 6 heirs, plus THEIR heirs, in line ahead of me, I assumed I could slip away with little fanfare and go live out somewhere in the dense forests with my fiancée. After all, I was noticed little at court or by my family. My parents had many children, and I was the least of them, in their eyes. I had not even heard a word of a noble match for me, let alone a royal one, despite my other siblings all being arranged by the time they turned 20. Yet here I was, 22, and not a suitor in sight! I was not talented in any impressive field my siblings had not already claimed. My eldest brother was a skilled strategist and leader. My 2nd eldest sister, a bowman and hunter. Her twin sister, a skilled singer and musician. My older brother a fantastic writer and scholar of the highest intelligence. The last two, both sisters, both seamstresses skilled with rare, delicate fabrics and detailing. I, quiet and only minorly talented in any of my sibling's fields, had not a skill to claim as my own, and not even could I claim to be the most beautiful, as I was above average but not more than any of my sisters were. So when I met and fell in love with a girl of minor nobility, i gathered as many resources as I could to get us to the far woods, at the border between our kingdom and the next, where the trees grow taller than a peasant's home and the sun reaches the forest floor dappled and spotted. It is there I had our sanctuary built, a small cottage deep inside, for us to hide away in. Small, but comfortable and our own, and where we will learn together how to live on our own, without our families and heritage breathing down our necks.
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We had been here but 6 months when there comes the knock. Our garden is barely started, ready to bloom next season, and we have only just been married in the church of the nearest town. So when I open the door and see my father's enraged face, the color of an over-ripe strawberry, my stomach drops. It continues to plummet into hell as I glance over his shoulder to find my mother and every one of my siblings is here, all staring at me with either anger or devastation. Maria, my dearest wife, looks over my shoulder and begins to cry. We had hoped, against all odds, my family would not notice or care enough to come fetch me. That if they did find us, they would not find Maria there with me. I grab her hand, tears prickling my eyes as well; we know if we were caught, that we would be imprisoned or worse. Royalty, no matter how far in the line, does not marry minor nobility, and especially not minor nobility already promised to another kingdom. I stare into my father's face, and feel the cold clarity of impending death fill me, though whether physical death or the death of my freedom, I don't know yet. And then his face falls, and he begins to cry, and I can only stare. My father does not cry. Not once, in my now 23 years, have I seen him cry. And here he is, weeping like a babe at the threshold of my home built to escape him. I look past him, and my heart almost stops. All my brothers and sisters are crying, too, and my mother looks as if she's heading that way. I glance at Maria, and she looks as disturbed as I am. What happened while we were gone!?
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
amandla
baratheonpilled
