Their Royal Highnesses (IC|TG to Enter)

[Great Hyruke]

Lady Alice smile as she listened to the little girl speak. She was delighted by the little girl’s mastery of speech, for while it was not a lot that was spoken, it was all articulated in a cute way in which a way that was only capable for children. Alice graciously accepted the bouquet of bluebells from the little Gosataborgian girl.

“Well thank you,” said Alice, looking over the bluebells fondly. Bluebells grew, as far as Alice knew, not only here in Gosataborg, but also in the highlands of Great Hyruke tat Garmouth was surround by. Alice was familiar with the flowers for that had ground around in the hills around her family’s home. Another beautiful coincidence to befall Alice, and she could not tell if it was a sign or not. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” Alice said softly, looking around at the crowds with the playful glances of a conspirator. “These are my favorite as well.”

Alice let out a small laugh, and started to commit a further inspection of the bouquet of bluebells. After a moment they rifled gently through them with her delicately gloved hands before settling on one of the flowers and plucking it out. It had a shorter stem and she carefully freed two of the small bell shaped flowers and resettled it. She then gracefully slid one of the flowers behold her ear and then did so with the little girl’s.

“Now we are twins,” said Lady Alice. “Do tell me, what’s your name?”

[Gosataborg]

The little girlfriend giggled as the young noblewoman put the flower behind her ear. She put her hands together and swayed back and forth on her heels and the balls of her feet. Behind the pair there was a sound of awes as they watched the sweet scene unfold between Lady Alice and the little girl.

“Ingrid,” said the little girl. She swayed back and forth some more as she stared at Lady Alice’s dress. It was so beautiful. “Are you really a Princess?” asked Ingrid. She certainly looked like the princesses from the fairytales.

Cameras continued to flash again and again, capturing the scene. The reporters were going absolutely mad with the content that they were witnessing. Their readers were going to go just as mad, they were all certain, Lady Alice was shaping herself up to be not just any old Princess, haughty and regal, and only ever seen from affair, if ever seen at all, stuck it seemed forever behind palace walls. No, this Lady Alice was a people’s princess, the people’s princess, loved by men, women and children alike.

Prince Ragnar too was starting to see this. And, not for the first time, he was amazed by Lady Alice.

[Great Hyruke]

Alice’s smiled turned into more of a playful grin as she winked at Ingrid. “Not yet.”

Alice gave the little a quick embrace, hugging her tightly before releasing her. She rose from her crouch at eye level with Ingrid, the dear little girl. She pressed the bouquet to her chest and swayed a bit, letting her skirts twisting about around her. “But there is always the future.” And Alice’s future had the title, the role of princess in it quite bear if everything went perfectly, which she was sure it would. She spotted what must have been her, that is, Ingrid’s father the flower shopkeeper.

“Thank you Ingrid, I’ll be sure to put these in a vase,” said Lady Alice. “Now, I do think it’s time for you to go back to your father. Go on,” Alice said with a gesture of her hand towards the edge of the crowd.

Meanwhile the Duke of Garmouth found himself bouncing on the balls of his feet as well. He hissed under his breath to his wife. “I love the lass, I truly do, but must she kiss and hug and charm every babe in this freezing country? Or if she must, can’t she do so inside. The highest frost covered mount back home is still somehow warmer than their bloody palace steps.”

[Gosataborg]

Ingrid nodded her head and did something that was in the rough approximation of a curtsy and turned around and dashed away into the crowd and back into the arms of her father while there where cheers and adoring sounds of admiration, each and all mixing together at the sight. As the girl as lifted up into her father’s arms, Prince Ragnar made his way over to Lady Alice and looped his around hers.

“Let’s ahead inside. We don’t want to keep Mother and Father waiting,” Prince Ragnar said softly before going head and leading Alice back towards the palace. As they passed by Captain Moller, the guard let out a small sigh of relief, and an even smaller one once the rest of the Barbons followed in the steps of the royal couple.

The Hereditary Prince of Gosataborg lead Alice and her family inside of the Ragnargata Palace. Inside it was far warmer, the doors sitting behind the Barbons, and far quietist, only the most muffled of sound of the crowds made it through the thick walls and high windows of the palace as they entered an anteroom.

Grand Duke Sakarias and Grand Duchess Mathilde, sovereign and consort of Gosataborg stood waiting for them. Grand Duke Sakarias, talk and dark haired, he had a long face with sharp angles. His moustache was curled at the ends and his goatee was short and sharp like a tip of a dagger. He wore a white tie suit with a red and white sash reminiscent of the nation’s flag across his chest. Grand Duchess Mathilde, petite and pale as porcelain with beautiful golden coloring like her son wore a simple high waisted dress that was a soft pink with short sleeves paired with long white evening gloves. A tiara of overlapping circles of diamonds rested on her head.

The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess were the further one could get from cheering crowds. It was not that they looked displeased, though they certainly didn’t look pleased, more so, it looked as if they felt nothing. A great cold neutrality. Ragnar stopped before his parents and let go of Alice, taking the bouquet for her.

[Great Hyruke]

Lady Alice’s smile finally disappeared as they felt the world of cameras and cheering crowds and were swallowed while by the quiet, or at least relative quiet, of the palace. It was like jumping from a sauna into a frozen lake. A small bit of nerve snipped at Alice as she saw the Grand Duke and his wife. On paper it made perfect sense for Ragnar’s parents to like her. She was the long awaited daughter-in-law that had won their son’s heart that they had been waiting for, for nearly a decade. But what should be and what was were not always one and the same. For while Alice was what they had wanted, she was not all that they wanted in a bride for their son and heir. She was no princess, she came with no alliance, she was not a northerner, and half a dozen other little things that the pair doubtlessly had drafted upon her selection.

Lady Alice felt Prince Ragnar let go of her and continued forward towards the pair. She looked to the Grand Duke first and then to his wife and with extensively practiced determination lowered herself into a deep curtsy, reach so long that the hem of her taffeta skirts touched the ground and flared out around her like the petals of a morning glory at the break of dawn. Alice remained silent, her face adopting a mask of somber stoicism, as if she were performing a great ritual before an altar. Behind her, the Duke and Duchess and Lord Kit remained silent, though the Duke was pleased to finally have some true warmth back in his old bones.

[Gosataborg]

Grand Duke Sakarias watched Lady Alice curtsy. The Grand Duke was a man rarely impressed. He’d always found the trappings of majesty somewhat vexing. He was a military man, born in a military house hold and raised in the ever shifting terrain of military campaign, taking orders from his general officer, first his father and then his mother. Sakarias had always excelled at that role of supreme commander. Of making decisions and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. But as he had grown older he saw that his mother had known a thing or too in how she cultivated a court and image of the royal family. She was many years dead, however, and though Mathilde was a good wife of the Grand Duke’s liking, quiet and soft and obedient, she didn’t have the love of the people.

This highlander girl on the other hand did. She was not the great match of rank and alliance and prestige that the Grand Duke had hoped for his son. But she did have beauty and fertility and so it seemed the heart of his own people. She would be of great service to the grand duchy and the future of his dynasty.

“Lady Alice,” said the Grand Duke, “welcome to Ragnargata Palace.”

Grand Duchess Mathilde, less convinced of the utter perfect of her daughter-in-law to be, merely scanned her eyes over Lady Alice before saying. “You’ve been practicing I see.” She recalled when they had first met and the lady couldn’t curtsy work a pound and had dared to address them first, a complete breech of etiquette.

[Great Hyruke]

Lady Alice felt her lips curl ever so slightly at the ends as she put her hands together and rose up from the curtsy, bowing her head the Grand Duke and Duchess.

“It is a honor and a pleasure to be her Your Royal Highnesses. I am so happy to be joining your family,” Alice said, her eyes then darting to the Grand Duchess. “Oh yes, you are right Ma’am. I do hope to one day be as well informed of royal protocol as you are.”

With that, Alice did another curtsy and took a step back to Ragnar’s side, putting her around around his. “Oh thank you darling, can we have these flowers put into a vase, and set them somewhere on display. Little Ingrid and her sweet papa, I do believe, put so much effort into selecting them. I hope to keep them as fresh and beautiful for as long as possible.”

As Alice spoke to Ragnar, her brother and her father and mother approached the Grand Duke and Duchess, bowing and curtsy respectively to the royals. Mary, the only one in the room expect for her son-in-law to be to have actually been born a royal was by far the most graceful in her curtsy, outshining even her daughter’s grace and skill, but only ever so slightly. After all, Alice had studied her mother’s mannerisms carefully in the forms of etiquette.

[Gosataborg]

Grand Duchess Mathilde narrowed her eyes at Lady Alice. She was almost certain that there was an insult hidden in Alice’s words, but she couldn’t quite find where it was. She placed her her hands together and simply let it a huff, not necessarily of anger but certainly not one of approval. It did not truly matter. It had been decided that this was to be her daughter-in-law by her husband and so it would be. It was not her right to decide that. It was only her right to determined how she treated Alice, if she wished to deal with the Highlander girl at all. Which she had no strong inclination to do so:

“Ragnar,” Grand Duke Sakarias said, completely ignoring, or more likely, not noticing, the unspoken tension between Lady Alice and Grand Duchess Mathilde, “you heard the lady, go find a vase.”

Ragnar clinched his jaw and his lips formed a hard line as he bowed his head to his father, nodded to Alice and left with the bouquet. The Grand Duke looked to the Barbon Family. “I know your journey has been a long one, but I hope it has not been too tiring. We are hosting a ball to celebrate your arrival and the upcoming nuptials. It shall be held in the Great Hall at sunset, so you have just enough time to retire and dress for the evening before it begins.”

The Grand Duke waved his hand and a pair, a male and female attendant in palace uniform stepped forwards, seeming to materialized out of nowhere. “ Our other guests will soon be arriving, so we must be punctual. Miss Lundell Her Grace and the Lady Alice to the female dressing rooms upstairs. Mr. Harland, His Grace and His Lordship to the male one.” The Grand Duke offered his arm to his wife, who accepted it. They turned and left, head down the far ends of the vestibule to the corridor that lead to the great hall.

Miss. Lundell and Mr. Hagkand bowed their head as they offered to escort the Barbons.

[Great Hyruke]

The Duke and Duchess looked at one another. Neither figured that they would ever like their Gosataborgian counterparts. Mary had never been one to play the princess card, she was at piece with her somewhat diminished status following the dissolution of her father’s, her sister’s empire but whenever she was around the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, she just wanted to remind them of that status of her, however no longer present.

“Shall we?” Mary asked looking to her daughter and gesturing to the Gosataborgian woman.

Alice merely smiled and nodded and followed after Miss Lundell. Meanwhile the Duke, grunting in his own personal disapproval and annoyance at the conduct of their host. The Duke however was just happy to be warm and thus decided that he could relent enough to be satisfied with that. He huffed and walked after Mr. Hagland. Lord Kit put his hands in his pockets and trailed after his father and the servant.

The Barbons had come more than prepared for the glamorous series of events that would take place before the wedding, and Lady Alice had carefully organized the different outfits that they would need.

[Dasorres]

A glossy black Rolls-Royce silver cloud made its way through the streets and over the bridges and canals of Bylina as it drove northwards towards the Ragnargata Palace. The crowds were an annoying thing, they were choking the entire city and turning traffic into a complete nightmare fir even those with the funds and stations to usually enjoy ease in all that they did. The driver however made do, studying the map of the city till he found himself turning into Main Street. Witnessing the remains of crowds who had greeted Lady Alice Barbon was quite the sight to see in the fading light and through the light snow. The driver carefully lead the luxury car around the square before stopping at the palace. He parked, stepped out of the car and made his way around the rear door, opening it for his boss.

A glossy back heel with blood red bottoms stepped out of the car and onto the flurry covered red carpet. A second heel followed. The heels were connected to a pair of long tanned legs, crossed at the ankles. With a flourished the rest of the woman they belonged to rose out of the car and into the light long black skirts swirling around her. Donna Mathilde Silvestre, eldest surviving daughter of Dom Américo Silvestre, had arrived at the Ragnargata Palace.

Donna Mathilde, twenty-seven, was a raven haired beauty, her long dark tresses were styled in a glamour series of curls in a shoulder-bob. A vision of Dasorresan beauty, she had tawny skin, sharp brilliant green eyes, a graceful jawline and doll like cheek bones paired with a small nose. Mascara gave her long and full lashes while a bit of eyeshadow with scarlet lipstick on her full gave her the look of a vixen. A collar like diamond statement necklace hung around her neck while large silver rhombuses studded with small diamonds dangled from her ears. Donna Mathilde wore a breathtaking glossy black dress that hugged her bosom and whose thin stripes fell into a pluming swooping round neckline. A black belt made her waist look tiny while her skirt flared amour around her, coming to a stop just above her ankles, hints of her red underskirt peaking through as she walked, a small red clutch in her hand, both of which were in white evening gloves that went up to elbows.

A mischievous smirk pulled at Donna Mathilde’s blood red lips, as if she knew precisely when the world was going to end and delighted in no one else knowing, as she strode towards the palace steps with practiced and genuine confidence, her beautiful red clutch in one hand and her other place powerfully in her hip.

[Gosataborg]

Outside of the Ragnargata Palace the crowds had indeed started to thin out, but of those who remained, at the forefront were the reporters, journalists and camera crews who watched to record all who were in attendance. The Royal Family was not known for throwing balls and this promised to be a social event that would only be the beginning of the most fabulous series of events the nations of the Northern Sea had ever seen.

A series of footmen waited for Donna Mathilde as she stepped into the vestibule of the palace. They gestured the Dasorresan noblewoman across it, through to the corridor lined with paintings of battlefields, romantic depictions of the various battles across the icy lake-riddled landscape of the Gosataborgian countryside. The Military Anarchy had been a defining time in Gosataborg and in the life of Grand Duke Sakarias. The painting commemorated that time. They were, of course, only of the battles that Sakarias’s side of the conflict had won.

The far end of the corridor more footmen flanked the open doors to the Great Hall, a neoclassical ballroom lined with columns on the far end with inset large windows and sills that are big enough for people to sit in. The windows looked out over the Leirande River the wove through the city. Glittering chandeliers hung from the high vaulted ceiling which had a painting of the establishment of the nation, depicting Grand Duke Ragnar and Grand Duchess Augusta in heaven gifting the national flag to the people below.

Below milled the elites, the crême de la creme of Gosataborg. As a young nation, there was no deeply entrenched aristocracy, but those who had supported Sakarias, the loyal who had fought under Grand Duchess Augusta, had found themselves and their families hurled into the upper echelons of society. Men in uniforms, and in white tie suits, women in ball gowns, the unlanded, untitled gentry of the nation milled around, shining and beautiful.

[Dasorres]

Donna Mathilde entered the ballroom of the Gosataborgian royal family with her pleased smile still on her lips. She couldn’t help but look around and admire the glamour that had been created by her host. Monarchy existed in a very different sort if context across the nations of the Northern Sea, and was often a bit starker and harsher than the rich glittering courts of the Southern Sea empires and kingdoms.

It seemed that despite their small size, the Vasta had stumbled upon an uncomfortable fact, they, in comparison to their neighboring monarchies were rich. The Patuanians were icy creatures that were a mere step above barbarians. Imarati was a shambles of a state, not worth mentioning. The Calalonians were largely a snowy backwater. The Dasorresans had no particular love for the royals who never left the high walls of the As Fontes.

Mathilde looked around. The Northern Sea had never seen a social event like this before and Mathilde couldn’t help but love being near the center of it. It was almost perfect. Now all she needed was to find a drink.

[Gosataborg]

Grand Duke Sakarias spotted Donna Mathilde from across the room and smiled, and crossed the ballroom and walked up to her. He was pleased to see the daughter of the Dasorresan foreign minister. He had gotten along so well with him and he had heard good things about his daughter. Mathilde had been, albeit briefly on the list of candidates that the grand duke had approved for his son to consider for brides. She had not gotten the chance to be invited to Gosataborg before Lady Alice Barbon had been selected.

The Grand Duchess had considered such a match to have only been valuable in the short term, and to been one in which the disparity in rank was too high, and the wealth too small for their liking. Not that any of that mattered now.

“You must be Dom Américo Silvestre’s daughter. I’d recognize the air of a Silvestre anywhere.”

[The Islamic Caliphate of the Balkans]

The Sultan Caliph Qadir will like to attend the event. She wants to bring his pregnant wife, Khalilah, which is 18 years old to the event so she becomes learned in society and relationships. We also ask if you mind that she wears a hijab. As she is pregnant, there should be a medical team ready for any urgence she may need to be attended for, given that she is 8 months pregnant.