Remnants of Empires (Meillur|IC)

[Great Hyruke]

Loris looked around at the assembled group of people he’s flown onto to a ‘mysterious’ location for a simple picnic. Privately hired caterers waited on them, whilst they lounged on soft silk cushions on a push square of fabric the size of a average family home’s living room. He had invited his mother, the Dowager Princess Stephanie, his brother and nephew, Prince Lorian and Prince Raphael, and the Deritain Empress Dowager and Princess Mamela and of course Princess Amélie. The gathered royals were being served cheesecake with a rich chocolate sauce when Loris got up and made his way to Amélie’s side.

[Kingdom of Derita]

The Empress Dowager smiled as she enjoyed the sweets provided by the hired help of Prince Loris. After being shuffled around the continent and having a trickle of her staff members disappear, determining that it would be better to throw themselves on the mercy of the Emperor than risk further anger and squalor tying themselves to the Empress Dowager. The widowed consort sat with her fellow widow, the Dowager Princess, though her eyes watched her daughter and Stephanie’s son with great interest.

Princess Mamela meanwhile sat next to Prince Raphael, picking at a piece of her cheesecake as she smiled knowingly at her fellow royal. Where Alara had spent her time in Great Hyruke playing out the plot of a romantic comedy, falling in love with the Prince Royal, Mamela had spent her time getting her bearings in the world. The princess had taken to sampling everything and everyone at Wattingham Palace’s court that she could. The handsome Raphael had been one such sampling she had taken.

Princess Amélie meanwhile was looking off over the landscape around them. The former Princess Imperial had left her ladies behind at De Leans Villa, but she say that she found that she enjoyed this semblance of family time. She and Loris had been exchanging letters with one another for sometime, and had met together on a few quiet occasions. This trip was something that struck her as a bit out of the ordinary, not that she was complaining. She looked over her shoulder as Loris came up next to her, an eyebrow raised.

“Well hello,” Amélie said. “Come to discuss why you’ve whisked us away up here?”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris grinned as he gently took the plate out of Amélie’s hand and set it aside along with that of his own plate and glass of wine. He took her by the wrist, his long fingers curling around the slender appendage of the lovely woman. It was a small gesture, but one that become something of a genetic marker of the Pearsons. They didn’t hold hands. They were the type to lead a person somewhere. They always had been. They took someone they loved by the wrist and took them somewhere.

“Actually, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Loris pulled Amélie up out of her seat and glanced back at their relatives, and pulled her towards a meadow out of earshot.

Prince Raphael grinned back at Princess Mamela. Raphael, named after his late granduncle, the Duke of Lausanne, was a handsome young man of twenty, a few years younger than Mamela, but he had never been one to shy away from older women. He had tanned sun kissed skin and a splash of freckles across his nose. His eyes were a crystal clear blue, like the waters of the Southern Sea near the equator. His hair was the same silver blond hair that had been so famous on his grandfather.

“I know something sweeter that we can indulge in.” Raphael whispered to Mamela.

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie let out a small laugh as she left herself be pulled up from her seat by Loris. She found that she was always swift to laugh when it came to Loris. He was a light and easy going man who helped her forget the many, many worries of the world that circled her. She suspected it was because he was a man who’d never lived at court, with all its intrigue and its tangled web of secrets and schemes. He had only the honesty of domestic life and the straightforwardness of business.

“Okay…” said Amélie, sparring only a glance behind her as she followed after Loris.

Mamela meanwhile surpressed a giggle of her own. She leaned closer to the younger royal, looking at him through her eyelashes. “Do you now?”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris grinned as he led Amélie up a small hill, not stopping till they had reached the crest of the hill. Spread out below them was a vast spread of grass and hills, a stream cutting through it and forested beginnings of mountains that rose up high in the distance, acres upon acres of relatively untouched land seeming to stretch as far as the eye could see. Loris let go of Amélie and put his hands in his pocket.

"I know we haven't known each other for a long time Amélie, but I do say, I am glad to have met you."

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie turned her head towards Loris with a small tilt. The landscape that was spread out around them was beautiful, but his words caught her attention. She felt her chest tighten at the words.

“I am glad to have met you as well.”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris’ smile only grew at that. He turned to Amélie and pulled from his pocket a small red box and, despite his older bones dropped to his knees and held up the box, opening it to reveal a glittering diamond ring. It was a truly stunning piece of jewelry, with a platinum band enriched with a pair of baguette diamonds with the grand centerpiece being an emerald cut 10.29 carat diamond.

“Well then. Amélie, will you marry me?”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie felt her heart skip a beat as she looked down at Loris. A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she looked away. She shook her head, her eyes darting around, but there was nothing that she could focus on. Her gaze drifted, despite herself, back to Loris.

“You can’t be serious”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris rose to his feet, though keep holding the box and the great engagement ring aloft. The middle age prince’s face dropped the smile that had been carved into his face, leaving behind a serious and placid expression. However still there was light in the man’s blue eyes, a light that focused purely on Amélie.

“I have never been more serious in my life Amélie,” said Loris, his voice still light and edged with excitement. “Life is a thing that is full of unexpected turns and I believe that this turn is one that we should go down. Together.”

Loris took Amélie’s hand and held up the ring to her. “This belonged to my grandmother. It was given to her by my grandfather. When she died, it went to by cousin Adela, and then to my father. When my father died, he told me to give it to someone who was worthy of it. Not such anyone. Someone worthy of bearing it. And in you I think I have found that.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t pull away from him, leaving her hand in Loris’s grasp. She couldn’t help but response, her tongue made of steel and sharp as ever.

“Usually when a man proposes, it’s full of declarations of love and passion. Not the analysis of if one is worthy of a ring.”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris let out a small chuckle at Amélie’s words.

“Amélie, I have not been singular all these years for no reason. I know my nature and as I have said before, I am well and truly settled into my ways. Know that I am not a romantic, or a man of passion. Those genes afraid skipped me. I do not wish to win your heart Amélie, I am far more interested in your mind.”

Loris took the ring out of box and offered to slip it onto her finger.

“Amélie, you are brilliant. You are the smartest, cleverest and most thoughtful woman I have ever met. If not for the error of birth, you’d have the rightful role in life. You are destined for greater things. You should have been an empress. But alas. So you are at least worthy of the ring of one. You are worthy of a entire kingdom of your own.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie intertwined her fingers with Loris’s. She had never been a woman to be lead by her heart. And a not so small part of her was charmed by the fact that he had so swiftly picked up on it. Why Amélie didn’t care much for the ways that the heart lead one way or another, she had never cared to really know. She had studied it, when she was younger and come to a satisfactory conclusion, and from there had never again considered it.

“Those are sweet words Loris, but I have no kingdom of my own. I have nothing of my own save what I took with me from my home and even then that is not what you truly mean.”

[Great Hyruke]

“But you do,” said Loris, spreading his arms wide, gesturing to the landscape around them. “This, this is all yours, even if you say no, it’s a gift, from me to you. A place to build your own court, where no one outranks you, and create the kind of society that you want, at your design. I know you can make the world a better place Amélie, so that is my gift to you. Just a slice where you may do as you please.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie gasped as she looked around her, her eyes viewing the landscape under a new light. She spun, staggering as she took it in. She whirled back towards Loris, looking at him with an incredulous look.

“Oh you can’t be serious! This is too much! How could I possibly accept this?”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris laughed and retook Amélie’s hand as she whirled on him and he again offered her Grand diamond ring that had passed through several hands, but had only ever been worn on the finger of an empress.

“You could, if you wish, accept it as a my wife, as a wedding gift. Let me create a realm for you to rule and your brain to run free through. Let our hearts wander as they do, I only ask that I may be at your side. Let me be apart of it all. And let our union be one of minds, of partners and a friends so that I may have someone to settle in at my side.”

Loris kneel once more.

“Amélie, marry me.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie took a deep breath and took another looked around the hills, the trees and creeks, a land left untouched, reclaimed by nature as so much of the world had been after the Great Collapse. Duty and personal wants danced together with one another beneath her bosom as she considered the offer. And she found that, perhaps for the first time since she could remember after her father had ascended the throne, they danced in unison.

“Yes.” Amélie said. “I will marry you.”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris grinned like a child as he slid the massive diamond ring onto Amélie’s finger and jumped to his feet, kissing Amélie’s cheek, with gentle but quite true desire, delight and discovery that sent a wave of warmth through his old bones.

“You have made me the happiest man in the world,” said Loris in delight. “We should be married at once.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie’s cheeks burned with heat at the touch of Loris’ lips. It was hardly the first time she had been kissed, but now that was a kiss from her fiancé, from the man who would be her husband and that fact made her blush.

“I see no reason to wait,” agreed Amélie, adding, “save to perhaps to inform my mother and sister. The former will certainly wish to know.”

[Great Hyruke]

Loris nodded his head in agreement.

“We can have a swift civil marriage, we need only two witnesses, your sister and my brother can serve as such. We can leave the great fanfare, which I don’t doubt our mothers will demand, later.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie smiled and took Loris by the hand and lead him back to the group of royals having their picnic, her glistening white teeth on full display as she pulledLoris over to their family members. Mamela was feeding Raphael a piece of cheesecake whilst the Empress Dowager looked up from her glass and smiled knowingly at the pair.

[Great Hyruke]

The Dowager Princess grinned as she saw Loris and Amélie arrive. She had always loved her children fiercely. What mother didn’t. But she had always been a bit concerned about Loris. Though his had showed interest in various playmates, he had held both men and women at such an arms length she had begun to worry that he would never find someone, as his brother and sisters had, as she had. But the smile in the pair’s eyes dashed all such fears.

“We have some news.” Loris declared. Lorian and Raphael turned towards him in unison, the son ever so much like the father. “We are getting married!”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Mamela jumped up to her feet and clapped her hands as she rushed over to her sister, pulling her into a tightly squeezed hug, before pulling away and looking at the Great rock that now rested on her elder sister’s finger. It was beautiful and Grand. It fitted in well with the over all aesthetic of Amélie.

“I’m so happy for you!” Mamela declared.

“Thank you!”

“This is wonderful news!” Declared the Empress Dowager from the comfort of her chair. “A dynastic Union between the Volontés and the Pearsons, truly a worthy match of imperials.”

[Great Hyruke]

The Dowager Princess straightened a bit in her seat, pride swelling in her chest at the Empress Dowager’s words. Stephanie had risen high in the ranks of royalty, from a mere heiress of a tycoon and a gentlewoman, to a princess, and now her eldest son would be married to the most eligible bachelorette of the continent in a great dynastic union.

“Indeed.”

[Kingdom of Derita]

Amélie rolled her eyes at her mother and her soon-to-be mother-in-law and put her hands over Loris’s and kissed him, this time, not a mere kiss on the cheek, but rather one on the lips, one that would seal their promise.

[Great Hyruke]

Loris’s face turned red, but only with delight as he kissed Amélie back. He too would be quickly to see the kiss, so intimate and still knew to their relationship, a seal of their promise to wed. A promise he intended on keeping to his dying day.