01: A Meeting Between Mother and Daughter

Black gems glistened from where they were set in deep red hair, autumn light leaking upon them from where a woman was set by the sill. Her hands were laced together, a dark veil tracing along her cloathed shoulders. Mourning attire.

When a woman's husband was dead, she was to mourn for three years.

King Addicus Bonaventura was beloved by the people, cutthroat in court, unchallenged among his peers. Yet, he died suddenly, suspected to be murdered. Foul play was, of course, looked into, but that led nowhere. As did all other investigations.

Left behind was his mysterious wife, the once heiress of the militaristic Drusus family. Lore Bonaventura was rumored to be incredibly beautiful, and the whirlwind romance between her and the late King was gossiped about in both commoner and noble circles. Her mother, Marina Luciana Drusus, was married to the second son of the Desrosiers family, only increasing the power of the marriage. Despite this, the now Queen Regent had never before appeared in public. She was to lead the Kingdom, and yet almost nothing was known of her. Mistrust was spoken of in rumor.

Addicus' brother, Andonis, was just as respected and renowned as his older brother. It would be best if he took the throne, the people said.

But Lore Bonaventura was to take the throne and lead the people as foreign relations began to weaken in the King's absence. There was nothing the people could do. The question was: where was she? Rather, who was she?

It had only been two weeks since the death of the King, and the annual ball was to soon begin. The perfect time for the entry of the King's widow.

"My Queen," demured an aged voice, "won't you get out of bed?"

Pale, almost too pale, hands clutched at the thick woolen hem of a bed's comforter. There was a tremor to those thin hands, a shiver. Lore Bonaventura looked to the woman who had been her wet nurse as a child. Emotion blackened her gaze, and made the deep bags around her eyes all the more striking.

She slowly sat up, moving a hand to cup her swollen belly. Lore was with child, or so it seemed.

"Camila. Do you think I will be a good mother to this child?"

As she glanced to her personal maid, the aged woman smiled. It was a soft, loving thing that pulled out her dimples and stretched the laugh lines in her pocked skin. "The very best."

Lore breathed outward, the breath seeming to take something of her with it. "I hope so."

Camila took her by the hand, easing her out of bed and into the dressing room. The layers of her daywear, dark as pitch, slowly came to encompass her.

"The ball is this coming Friday. You've already confirmed the details?"

A dainty hand continued to fiddle with the sleeves, now of stiffer material rather than the soft cotton of her nightclothes. The marks left behind by old calluses were faint and easily hidden by the makeup applied by expert hands.

"Yes. I'm having the gardeners get the yard ready too, in conjunction with Fiore."

A chuckle, a hefty thing that built in her gut, chiffed out of Camila. "Ah, you do the Drusus name proud. I know Marina mourned you when Addicus stared the courting." She tightened the pregnancy corset carefully, with a steady hand. "But Cassion's as good an heir as any."

"I do miss my brother," Lore remarked softly, "you did send the invite for tea in two day's time?"

Behind her there was a grumble. "Yes, but Prince Andonis insisted upon joining you."

"Oh." Lore uttered in a mere whisper. Another of Andonis' power plays. She bent her arms as Camila pulled the next layer on, the fabric pinching somewhat until worn hands with thick, knobby fingers adjusted it.

Finally they were onto the parts of her gown, a heavy thing that swamped her, made her look more of a doll than a woman. It hid the musculature beneath smooth skin at the least. Camila gave her an ebony hat with a rose and a thin layer of lace attached to it it, and Lore carefully set it on her hair that was put down in two braids. Her marriage band glistened from where it was dangling on a necklace of dull iron chain.

"What of today?"

Camila paused from where she was putting Lore's nightclothes in a basket for the wash. "I'd almost forgotten. You have dinner with the Lady Drusus today. I know it's sudden, but she has something to speak to you about."

Lore's thoughts spun together swift as the wind, yet there was a certain weight to them. "That's fine. I've been meaning to speak to her anyway."

Marina Luciana Drusus, head of the Drusus family and a notoriously strong-willed woman. Over several centuries, the Drusus family had been offered countless royal positions and had always refused. The Lady Drusus was only one of many, and she was Lore's mother.

In their exchange of letters, Marina had spoken of her concern for Lore. Since marrying Addicus she was quieter, less prone to speak her opinions. When giving answers, she toed the narrow line to avoid offending any certain viewpoint. Lore had changed, plain and simple. Whether for the better was of Marina's concern.

This wasn't the first time she had visited Moonlight Palace on short notice, this time barging into Lore's study with her typical reckless abandon.

"So," Marina began brashly, "Addicus finally kicked the bucket, ey?"

Lore frowned. "Please do not speak of my late beloved so brashly. Not only is he dead, but I am left with his child. It is best to share only positive sentiments."

There was a loud splash as Marina dropped her wine glass onto the table, accompanied by the splintered sound of breaking glass. But this was not so much cause for surprise as was the irreverent shriek of Marina, one so loud as to echo. "You're pregant!?"

Lore nodded shortly, resisting the sigh that built in her throat as she eyed the spilt wine staining the tablecloth. "Indeed."

Far more careful than her mother, she set down her cutlery and thumbed the rim of her plate. "I was planning on writing you soon, it's just... a lot's happened recently. Or I'd have told Cassion so he could tell you."

"That's not the point," Marina hissed, "my dear daughter is having the child of that rat!"

She thought back momentarily to the days of her childhood, what made her a mother's dear daughter. Horseback riding together with hair whipping in the wind, cheering as Lore downed men twice her size with fist and blade, watching approvingly as she spoke to her baby brother in whispers. A fulfilling childhood, in a mother's eyes. Until a so-called rat swindled her away and changed her. To Lore, that didn't matter much. Lore was still Lore. Changed or not.

"Mother," Lore demured, "let's go riding."

Marina softened in an instant. Perhaps it was the faint sorrow to Lore's carefully neutral words, or the very memory Lore had just been thinking of. "Okay," Marina said, "and you'll be okay."

For once, Marina didn't seem to believe her own words.