To Love, Once Again

"No!"

"Kyaaaa!!"

Screams sound out as Icaros crouches, ready to pull his sword at them. Gone was his flirtatious manner, to be replaced by a warning look, the face of a true guard.

"Captain, you misunderstand!" Lady Damar raises her voice for the first time, body frozen in shock at Icaros' change.

"I'd like to understand your intentions then, M'lady. Bringing a weapon like that here is reason enough to be wary." He nods to the small dagger, perhaps a letter opener? in Lady Damar's hand. It wasn't just Lady Damar. In the hands of each noblewoman there, they'd drawn out a small knife. Fruit knives, letter openers, some even with a larger steak knife that they'd wrapped in a cloth.

Icaros whispers to Sera, who'd stood out of her seat. "Your Majesty, step slowly towards the door."

But Sera ignored him. These women didn't give off any sense of insanity or crazed thirst for blood. Yet, their desperation for something was clear in their wavering gazes; Sera remembered Lady Damar's words before she'd withdrawn the knife.

Something about paying penance, and returning?

"Icaros, stand down."

"My Queen?"

"I said stand down." Sera doesn't let up, keeping the firmness in her voice. It makes Icaros reluctantly release his grip on his sword.

And he steps back when Sera taps him on the shoulder and waves him back with a smile. 

"This was the only way we could think of to prove our sincerity, my Queen." Lady Damar's voice trembles. Tears well in her eyes as she brings the knife up, the other women following her.

"What!" Shocked, Icaros straightens his back.

Swish.

On cue with Lady Damar's movements, the other noblewomen slice a lock of their hair off. Sera watches as a younger girl with black hair cries as she silently cuts her hair off. Just one lock, but these women acted as if they were shaving their entire heads for her.

"My ladies, your hair.. " Lady Damar bites her quavering lip at Icaros' murmur.

Sera slowly leans her head towards Icaros, not taking her eyes off the resigned expressions of the women. "Icaros, what are they doing...?"

The room is quiet as the women go about cleanly cutting off the one lock, with all the heaviness of a holy ceremony. "My lady, remember when you first arrived at the border camps, many recognized you as the Summoned One?" Icaros asks.

"Yes, I remember the soldiers staring at me all.the time. What does that have to do with this?" Sera tilts her head, fingering a strand of her own long brown hair. Sera's hair had been short when she first arrived, cut into a sharp chin-length bob. She'd been the only woman in the entire camp to have short hair at that length. Everyone else had long, waist length hair wound up into simple buns. As the war continued, her hair grew since she was too lazy to cut it. By the time she went back with Lucien to the capital and held the wedding, her hair had grown long, long enough that she never thought to find out just why long hair was so important.

"My Queen, we show our sincerity to you." Lady Damar kneels and lays the lock of hair at Sera's feet, right before the tops of her slippers.

Each woman steps forward, setting down the knives and tenderly cradling their hair in their palms. Bowing, they set the strands before Sera's feet, then let another woman take their place in turns.

They side-step the overturned table, lining up at the sides of the room as each woman draws before the Queen.

While she whispers with Icaros, Sera sees the completely flabbergasted expressions on Hilda and the maids faces. What the nobles had done here must be unheard of.

"I've never seen a woman, especially a noblewoman cut their hair..."

Icaros shrugs. He was a man. He didn't care to talk about womanly things like hair with women when he flirted with them. All his encounters with women were short anyways. He liked women that were willing and free. It was usually the husband-hunters that discussed mundane details like the sort, and Icaros always fled from them.

"My Queen, we beg of you. Please, have mercy on us." With that final plea, they grow silent, waiting for Sera's response.

Their eyes were desperate, searching Sera's expression for any hint that she'd given in to their pleadings.

Sera glances down at the scroll in her hand. From what she could see, most of the women who stayed behind here were of the lower Houses. They weren't the ones deeply involved in the main workings of the theft and profiteering that ate Thornmere from the inside out...But they did have some part to play in the machine. It was better for everyone if Sera was able to protect these women, and gain loyal nobles that would work for the nation.

".....I see your sincerity. But I'd like you all to promise me this. King Lucien wants to create a better Thornmere for all of us." Sera meets the eyes of every woman there. "All of us, not just the nobles. I'm sure things are going to start changing quickly, and drastically as we go forward. Be aware, be smart, and keep an open mind.. Watch what your fathers and brothers do, and make sure your Houses don't make any more mistakes."

Nodding, they take in her every word, eyes gradually brightening as Sera speaks.

"I'll talk to Lucien. But I will not help you again if your Houses continue in the ways of destruction from before."

"""Thank you, Your Majesty!!""" A chorus of relieved calls ring out as the tense atmosphere in the room finally relaxes.

Sera brings herself up to stand tall, keeping her face blank. She was Lucien's Queen. Sera would do her best to be fair and impartial, but she'd understood one thing from her days observing people in the castle and out in the capital, as well as in the orphanage.

Being fair and impartial was good and well, but you also needed heart. The world wasn't as simple as dividing into profits and losses for oneself. People wanted to be happy. 

Like Sera. Even if she had all her needs provided for, she hadn't been happy being torn away from her family and friends; the only world she ever knew. But it helped the sadness to have new friends here...and a new love.

The nobles had all told her in the beginning that she needed to be a proper, beautiful Queen, a model citizen for the people to emulate. But Sera's experience now told her. As Queen, she could make it her job to care for the needs of the people of Thornmere, make sure they were happy.

Even if she couldn't make everyone happy, she would still try her best. That was what a Queen should be, more than someone who was just a womb to pop out heirs. And the expressions of the women before her told her these women were desperate for a way out. They wanted a change too. If Sera didn't speak up for them, they would wither away, gone in the winds of changing times.

Long, even strides take her out of the room, the maids and Icaros trailing behind her swirling warm yellow skirts.

'Her departing figure is almost too bright to look at', one of the women thought as she watched the Queen go.

Wrapping her thick robe around herself, an elderly noblewoman shivers, asking Lady Damar.

"Will she really talk to His Majesty? The lives of our families depend on it."

Nodding, Lady Damar softly murmurs to the women as they watch Sera's back exiting the Blue Room.

"Lady Sera is a true Queen. I saw it, and you saw it in the gardens when Lady Amelia attacked her. We've shown our sincerity and she has made us a promise. She will not forsake us."

Lady Damar bites her forefinger, remembering how the Queen had stood tall, unruffled though tea dripped down her head and her clothes, torn. Lady Amelia's harsh words that had made many a woman cry seemed to practically bounce off her. Those words had beaten Lady Damar herself into a heap of self-hate. She'd hated herself for being so weak, for being unable to fight back. She'd hated the girl that bit her lip and clenched her fists as her friends got bullied by the more powerful Houses.

But Lady Sera Duncan was different. Maybe it was because she was a Summoned One. That woman was stronger than she let on. Folding her hands into a praying gesture, Lady Damar could feel her heart grow lighter for the first time in what felt like forever.

Lady Sera was a true Queen. Lady Damar would rather get on her side than be in the party that wronged her.