“Y-You look beautiful...” Queen breathed, with a dopey, lovestruck grin. The prospect of their imminent wedding had him over the moon.
Fielle, who for some reason had insisted on coming along to pick out the wedding dress, likewise happily chimed in with, “Fie, you look magnificent!” Fielle now lived in Orstoll as an honored guest, and Tomas’s condition continued to improve by the day.
With the wedding dress shopping complete, Queen returned to his dorm to find the other boys awaiting his arrival with respectful bows.
“It is a pleasure to receive you in our humble home, lord hero,” said one squire.
“We of the squirehood have awaited your return most anxiously, Sir Queen.”
“Do please let us relieve you of your things. A great hero who did so much for us in the war efforts mustn’t carry his own bags.”
Oh, great—the squires had gotten wind of the story Fie had made up to let Queen marry her. Of course, all the boys, having been with Queen during the war, knew it was a load of hogwash. He had tried to explain it all to them, but the boys—knowing Queen had gone overnight from a simple boyfriend to a fiancé of a girl who was, admittedly, rather cute (never mind the issue of her personality)—refused to hear a word of it. Of course, they wholeheartedly supported their friend’s love, but there was no room in their hearts for simple joy when none of them had even had their first girlfriend yet, dammit! Naturally, the only reasonable action was to support their boy while mercilessly teasing the everlasting life out of him.
“Come on, guys, cut it out...” Gormus said, the only one refraining from this tomfoolery.
Queen, meanwhile, looked miserable. Despite his considerable strength, Queen was a fairly naive young man, still oblivious to the ways of the world, and one who dearly yearned for the day he could perform brave deeds like the knights in his favorite fairy tales. Being teased for a made-up tale of heroic deeds hurt as badly as a pack of wild animals ripping out his guts.
“Come, brave hero!” a squire cried as he stepped up to Queen’s side. “What noble deeds will you perform this fine eveni—?”
Frustrated, Queen grabbed the boy’s arm and bit it as hard as he could. The boy screeched in surprise and pain.
The other boys cried out in fear. They had never seen Queen this angry before!
“Aaah!” one yelled. “Queen’s gone feral!”
“Wait a minute! I’m not the one who planned this!” screamed the bitten boy. “You gotta believe me, this was his idea!”
“Wait, you filthy liar! Weren’t you the one who suggested this idea at the last meeting of the Forever Alone Alliance?”
Now presented for the first time ever with an angry Queen, the north dorm descended into chaos. (Later, this went down in squire history as the queen and Queen’s marriage incident.) From then on, the squires switched their policy to support Queen’s love without any of their former jealousy.
In the midst of this and other misadventures, Queen and Fie went into town incognito to look at wedding rings. Every other aspect of the wedding was being paid for by the royal family, but Queen wanted to buy at least the wedding ring with his own money. It was a symbol of their marriage, something Fie would have on her for life.
Now that they looked, they both realized that wedding rings were awfully expensive to purchase on a squire’s allowance. Fie, fully aware of the limits of Queen’s wallet, said, “I’m okay with a cheap one. Besides, I don’t really feel like jewelry looks all that good on me, you know?”
Nonsense, Queen thought. A beautiful ring on a beautiful girl—what’s not to like?
This was Queen’s chance to demonstrate his ability to provide for her. “It’s fine,” he said. “I’ll make it work.” The time had come, he decided, to use the card up his sleeve—the inheritance he had received from his parents. They had both passed away when he was quite young, but they had left him all the assets of their noble family. He normally saved the money to be used for his future or to manage his family’s lands, but spending it on the young woman who was soon to be a part of that family did not seem out of line.
He silently thanked his parents as he carefully scrutinized the array of gemstones. He then chose a pair of rings whose jewels matched the sapphire blue of Fie’s eyes. “What do you think about these?” he asked.
They were quite expensive, and Fie was about to balk at the cost, but the look on Queen’s face made the words die in her throat. He looked so gravely earnest that Fie, even without much of an interest in jewels, decided that she would treasure this ring for life.
While the shopkeeper retrieved the rings from their shelf, Fie spotted another pair of rings that she thought she could afford with the money she had on her. “Excuse me,” she said to the clerk. “I’d like to get these too.”
“Fie?” Queen asked, startled.
She grinned at him. “These can be our engagement rings. We can’t wear our wedding rings yet, and we don’t have anything else to wear in the meantime, right?”
Granted, Fie and Queen made for a rather unusual pair of fiancés, but they had indeed sworn to marry one another and yet did not have anything to show for it. Buying engagement rings would remedy that issue.
“I-In that case,” Queen said, ever eager to bear the financial burden, “let me pay!”
Fie waved him away with a “It’s fine. I’ve got this.”
She placed their wedding rings in a little box to be worn later, but took the engagement rings and gave one to Queen. Then, she put the other on the ring finger of her left hand.
“Look,” she said. “We’re matching.”
Seeing the ring on her finger, Queen hurried and put his on as well. The two matching rings gleamed on their hands.
“They look wonderful on you both,” the shopkeeper gushed, watching the young, innocent couple.
Then, with Queen carefully cradling the wedding ring box, the two left the shop, a perfect matching pair.
✦ ✦ ✦
Fie left Orstoll and paid a visit to a small yet culturally rich kingdom known as Themis. Like Daeman, Themis was a country with a long history but little national power; however, unlike Daeman with its lazy decline into degeneracy, Themis still maintained a strong influence on other nations, thanks to its king’s impressive diplomatic ability.
The major powers of the world met in Themis once every three years for a conference. There was an encroaching war with the people from the adjoining continent to the east, a matter in need of addressing along with how to protect any presently untouched lands from invasion, and what contributions could be made for the stability of each respective kingdom.
Fie sat at Roy’s side at the round conference table as she was, of course, his queen consort. The conference had already begun. Roy participated in the discussions seriously, and Fie likewise responded with clever replies whenever the conversation came her way.
There was another man sitting at their table who kept making intermittent glances at them. He was King Geras of Divine Luciana, the culprit behind the duke’s rebellion and the attempts on Fielle and Tomas’s lives. Now that she saw him up close, she realized with a sigh that he was truly a pathetic sort of man. Even when the conversation was directed at him, he ignored the other conference participants and remained fixated on Fie and Roy. This odd behavior did not go unnoticed by the other attendees, particularly in light of Roy’s open participation in the discussion. Clearly, he did not have many thoughts to share in the first place, which was evident by the foolish actions on his part that had started this entire feud. Unfortunately, these actions had hurt many other people, including Fielle. Fie wanted to slap him silly, but she feigned composure and continued to participate in the conference.
When the conference ended and he knew she could do nothing to him, Geras looked blatantly relieved, turning to Fie with a triumphant smirk. Other kingdoms were aware of the duke’s insurrection in Orstoll, and it had been discussed at today’s conference. Roy reported that he successfully suppressed the uprising without needless casualties and that his kingdom was now in good, stable hands once more. Geras had wondered if Roy would blame him for starting the conflict, but, mercifully, neither Fie nor Roy mentioned any such thing. Fie and Roy had more than enough evidence to indict him for his crimes, but their failure to do so was Geras’s saving grace. Or maybe, he wondered, did Roy simply wish to avoid all-out war with such a major power as Divine Luciana? Either way, it came out to be a win for Geras.
Yet little did Geras know that he completely misunderstood Roy’s so-called failure. He would only realize his mistake on the way home, and by that point, it would be too late. After chiding his adjutant, who had left partway through the conference without saying a word, he set off for home in high spirits.