Quoted By:
Amongst the suits and vests and jackets, uniform in shape if not color and style, and the gorgets and flowers and sashes, those who wore differently stood out. The wives of dignitaries were not dressed particularly flashily, so when there was the splash of vivid color and the glint of gold and glitter of gems, there was assuredly a noble- yet none of them could hope to compare to who must have been the young star of this gala, even if her garb was more modest than her high house brethren.
Pale, fair, and tall- taller than most women, or men for that matter, perhaps a little taller than you even. She was a woman who couldn’t help but stand out in several ways, from her height to her red hair, to a quality that would be immensely rude to point out, but immense was the proper word for them. Most of all, it was her eyes, though. Glinting gold in a way no human eye could have been imagined to, the mark of the Halmeggian Royal Family, undoubtedly Edelina Von Halm-Auric- Her Majesty, the Queen, though when you met her she was Crown-Princess.
It seemed, somehow, she had noticed you before you her- something you believed should be impossible, yet she walked forward with delicate clicking of small heels, as her prodigious height make more than the minimum unnecessary- and another prodigious size meant that even a wintry coat that would not flatter any other figure struggled to contain her, even though you were familiar enough with her to know she was a modest young prude.
“Honorable Lieutenant-Colonel,” Edelina addressed you. There was a shiver in her shoulders- like she had to remind herself that a Queen did not bow, nor even make the implication of such a thing. “I am glad to see you attend. Pardon my anonymity in my summons, but I had thought that you may not come here were it known I wished it be so.”
…Yet. In her innocence, her optimistic, generous and soft naïveté, she had informed the Revolutionaries whom would ruin her country of the plans to counteract them, thinking that bloodshed might be minimized in the case of a battle presumed, that would not need to happen. She had not accounted that her presumption would be taken advantage of. She had underestimated the bitterness of the Revolution, and the cruelty of a sore victor. That action and its consequences were unknown to any but you two.
It had been a difficult lesson for her to learn. Yet then, she had been princess, and now, she was Queen.
>Surely she was tired of formality. Greet her in a casual fashion- ungentlemanly, even, just to be funny.
>Give a stern salute. You were not friends, you would suppose. Professionalism was expected- though not your cup of tea, to be frank.
>Bow and scrape, perhaps kneel. You spoke with a Queen- and you should treat her near as though you spoke with the Kaiser.
>Other?
