Her boredom had grown nearly unbearable today, and resulted in her slipping down to the stables. She wasn’t intending to take her horse out, but just the smell of straw and leather was comforting. She’d been there for roughly half an hour when somebody else entered, and without looking, she called out to them. 

“Are you going for a ride? If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to join you. I’m afraid I’d get lost if I go alone.” 

“Have you ever tried this before?” Victoria brandished the bottle a little too enthusiastically, the contents spilling over the rim and darkening her sleeve. She didn’t react - she had hardly even noticed, in truth. Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks coloured with spots of pink, telltale signs she had already been indulging herself in the drink inside. “Rice wine. I’ve never even heard of it before, but it’s good stuff.” She poured some into the cup before them, nudging it in his direction. “It would be rude not to make the most of it, no?” 

Victoria’s Greek was abysmal. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a grasp on languages. She spoke several, and could understand more. But Greek had never been one of them. She found it awkward to the tongue, and had abandoned it before getting further than the basics. Unfortunately, the merchants before her didn’t seem to speak anything but their mother tongue. She wanted to buy, but they kept returning her money with shakes of their head, and she was becoming so infuriated, she almost stomped her foot in frustration. She whirled on her heel, eyes scanning for help, before settling on the nearest person to her. She raised her hand, beckoning her over impatiently. “Excuse me?” She called out, in tentative English, watching for any sign of recognition. “Can you help me? It seems my friends and I here are unable to understand each other.”

Victoria had never been a shrinking violet. She was happiest when the attention was on her, for better or for worse. There was a certain arrogance to the way she carried herself, the way she demanded all eyes be on her, but she would only laugh at anybody who pointed it out. She cared little for what others thought of her. At least they were thinking about her at all.

With this in mind, one would have thought that she would have revelled in the opportunity to play the social butterfly, flexing her wings and fluttering from one potential new acquaintance to the other. It was what she had expected for herself, after all. However, Victoria had dramatically misjudged the power of her own curiosity. She couldn’t curb the instincts that commanded she explore. After venturing through the halls for longer than she would care to admit, she was forced to conclude that she didn’t know where exactly she had found herself. She wasn’t lost exactly, but in that moment, she couldn’t have told you the way out. Nevertheless, she was content to poke around a little more, peering through open doors where she could, peeking through keyholes where she couldn’t. After all, nobody was stopping her.

She became suddenly aware that, for the first time in a few hours, she wasn’t alone.  “Have you taken a wrong turn, too?” She called out. There was no formality to it- in fact, her tone was close to teasing the other. “At least I know I haven’t wandered too far from civilisation.”

Victoria knew so little of the world. 

She had tried to rectify that in her adult life. For the most part, she didn’t think she’d done a bad job. Her travels throughout England, her insistence on mixing with those who weren’t like herself, and her involvement in charitable endeavours had seen to that. Still, it was one tiny island in one small corner of the world. There was much she didn’t know, and she was not arrogant enough to believe otherwise. 

The woman before her clearly spoke of another part of the world entirely. Nothing about her, from the way she was dressed to the way she carried herself, was at all similar to Victoria, or even much like anybody she had ever known. The princess’ awe was reflected in her face, and as she leaned forward to speak, her sincerity was all too obvious. 

“I’m sorry, but may I say that your clothes are absolutely gorgeous?” Victoria blurted out, earnestly. “And your hair! Does it take awfully long to do?” 

Victoria’s curiosity would be the death of her. She had never been able to keep her nose out of other people’s business, even when she knew it wasn’t the best of ideas. In fact, that made the prospect of asking questions, poking around where she didn’t belong, all the more exciting. It was to the dismay of most who knew her, but since she was a child, she had delighted in being a nuisance. The more she irritated her mother, her siblings, her tutors and nurses, the happier she was. She had grown marginally less annoying as she grew older, but that innate desire had never gone away. 

It was there now, burning fiercely as she regarded the man. A thousand comments sat at the tip of her tongue, but she settled for something innocuous - as a warm up exercise, she supposed. 

“What are you looking at?”