{UNEDITED: For context, the writing lacks emotions. That's what I mean. I'll touch that in soon enough. Thanks for making it this far. Here's a🌹for you sweetheart.}
...62...
SISIKEL BANE
She was told by Vura that the emperor sought her presence in the receiving area.
She had thought that something had happened and had asked her aides.
Xiera had then proceeded to assure her that there was actually no problem and it was only the empress dowager who had come to the royal manor and was raising dust, determined to see the lady that the emperor had married, rendering the atmosphere tense.
The maid, Hyeera had went on to prepare her for the meeting in a blaze, putting her oxblood hair into thin curls, frounces and applying cosmetics to her neck and face.
She helped her into a a puce lucent dress that she herself had chosen the night before.
And when she was all done, her escorts led her to their destination with Xiera leading the way and Vura pulling up the rear.
They journeyed out of his quarters and to the stairs. She saw him then, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.
'Come Mine,' he urged her.
'I am coming,' she told him as she descended the stairs and went to him. The emperor received her at the end of the stairs with a radiant smile and took her hand, leading her into the receiving area.
'Just imagine that she is mad,' he whispered to her as they approached the empress dowager. It took everything within her not to giggle at his comment.
'I shall,' she assured him. 'How shall I address her?' she mock whispered to him. He stared at her in amusement.
'Your highness?' he told her with a nonchalant shrug.
'Ah I see, your highness,' she said with only a slight dip of her head.
The emperor dowager stared at her as if she were a gloze.
It was then evident to her exactly why the emperor did not like this woman.
She was the one he had told her about once before.
She too didn't like the woman on sight.
She stared at the ornate woman till it would be considered rude.
Her froufrou was corpulent, just so dandiacal.
She humped.
'You say that she is your wife?' she asked with snobbish upturned nose.
The emperor nodded.
'And who may she be?'
'That is something that you need not know for you are not the one who wed her,' he told her in a quiet voice, irritating her and earning himself a death glare.
'How could you wed a woman without informing me?!' she screamed at him. 'If you wanted her so much, you should have waited until you at least got an empress!'
'I do not need an empress. I have got her by my side.'
'You dare say! Nothing is known of this lady that you have chosen to harbour in your royal manor. She could be some kind of spy. She could have been sent, any sort of assassin. She could actually murder you in your sleep, in the royal bed chamber, on the bed that you both share!'
'Why do you like to bear the burden of others martyr? And of course you would definitely know much about that, would you not?' he asked her, coming to stand face to face with her in vie.
'First,' the little prince's voice came, breaking the staredown. 'Please, please leave her be.'
'Come on Little, allow me to spoon feed her some of her medicine,' he grumbled as the Little Prince came up to them with a small sigh.
'It has been so long First. Do not bring that up now, for my sake.'
'Alright,' the emperor said after a moment in resignation.
'Thank you,' the little prince expressed his gratitude. 'Well, I came as soon as your message reached me,' he informed him.
'I see.'
'So he told you that I was in his manor and asked you to come and chase me away, right? I am right, right?' the empress dowager snapped at him. He shook his head at her.
'No it's-' he began to speak, but the emperor cut him off.
'Little, please assure the empress dowager that my wife-,' he stressed the last two words, '-is nothing like her and will never be anything like her in this world and any to come,' he ground out through gritted teeth.
The little prince made to speak.
'Iwis!' the lady ascertained, beating the little prince to it. 'I am definitely nothing like her and will never be anything like her.'
The eyes if all present fell into her.
She returned only one gaze in particular, with defiance.
It was the one of the empress dowager.
'You say?' the empress dowager asked in surprise at the indirect smear.
'You are high-handed,' she simply told her in a direct way. 'I do not usually judge people on sight, just like you did me, but I just did so because you absolutely deserve that. And you know what, I am sure, extremely sure that I am right.'
'How dare you woman?! You do not talk to me like that!' The lady laughed at the woman.
'Then who does?' she snapped back as rudely as the woman had been since the offset, completely infuriating the empress dowager.
'This is what you wed?!' she asked the emperor meeting his eyes. 'Look how saucy, how outrageous, how mannerless she is! How dare she talk to me in that de haute en bas way?' she demanded furiously.
'She speaks her mind to you,' he began. 'And just as she said, you are indeed high-handed. I ought to tell you that because noone else would do so, not even Little.'
'You corroborate her?' she asked with wide angry eyes.
'I wouldn't put it that way if I were you. But yes, what else would you have me do when you say that the woman that I chose and then we'd is not worthy?'
The empress dowager only stared at him, breathing hard in anger.
'Mayhap you do not realize, but you insult me. You mean to say that I am not capable of making a good choice. You mean to say how dare I who runs an empire and make good decisions for it chose a wife for myself. Can you see it now?'
'The empress contest will proceed for I do not recognize your unworthy bride,' she informed him.
'Well well, now please colour me amazed,' he said sarcastically. 'But that is your own cup of tea, served cold.'
The little prince sighed rather audibly at his statement.
'Sisikel Bane is in no way an unworthy bride,' the little prince defended, bolstering the emperor's words. 'She is beautiful, nifty and an extremely good warrior. She has all it takes to be my brother's bride your highness.'
The empress dowager gave him a you too look.
'All these gloze and hearsay. I would rather see all of it. Despite that, Hera-Mera Dracon or Zoë Xing whom you imprisoned on her account,' she said gesturing to the lady, 'would have been a better option. They are citizens of Linamine unlike her who is some unknown stranger.'
'They tried to murder her! That makes them criminals! I might as well have had them burned!'
'Hey! You can't do that!' the lady screamed just as the empress dowager spoke.
'You would not do such!'
'Watch and see!' he remarked. They all stared at him now.
'You are not fit to be emperor!' the empress dowager ground out.
'And you are not fit to be empress dowager!' was his retort.
Tension hung thickly in the air like a huge slice of stale bread.
'You dare to criticize others?! Have you forgotten so quickly how you became what you are now?!'
'First,' the little prince tried to stop him but he didn't listen.
'Have you forgotten so quickly that you are also not of royal blood? A foreign blood runs in your veil, the blood marred by slavery!'
'Nark it!'
'You have certes forgotten that you are a chosen slave. Yet, you stand in my mother's place and vomit every gibberish that comes to your mind!'
'I am not the one who asked your mother to die! I am not the one who asked her to abandon you and your brothers and go to the afterlife! I am not the one who asked your late father to choose me, to love me and put me in her position! He deemed me for enough to replace your mother!' she told him in a very high voice.
He stared at her for a moment before bringing on his repartee.
'Then you killed him, not realizing that you were only just a hurried replacement, didn't you?' he accused her with angry eyes.
'He loved me!' she began. 'It was not my fault that he chose to love me over your mother! It was no-'
He caught her before she executed her mind's desire, capturing and caging her in his strong arms.
'Let me go! Let me go!' she yelled as she struggled to be free of him. 'How dare you speak such things to him?! How dare you, you slave?!' she hurled at the empress dowager still fighting to be free of the emperor's arms. 'Let go of me so I can fix her head with a down to earth slap!'
She needed to hit some sense into the stupid woman because everything she had been saying from the outset had been rather vexing to her.
'Well he deserves them!' the woman still dared to speak.
'No one deserves such brutal words you swine! You think that it is easy to live without a mother?! You think?! You do not know such a pain do you? And can never know such pain just because you were born a slave, bound to your parents in slavery! A slave empress dowager!'
The insult hit home.
The empress dowager stepped back as she received the emotional blow.
'You are what you are because you were chosen, a chosen slave, just a chosen slave empress, a bland hurried replacement! Despite that, you will never be half of a quarter of what the initial empress could have been! It's indubitable!'
She was panting like chased prey when she was done with her oxblood frounces bouncing up and down with her breathing motion.
The empress dowager glared at her in anger and embarrassment, internally acknowledging that the lady was in no way a chased prey but only a restrained predator.
'You will pay for this! You will pay for this you wench!' she promised her.
The lady sneered.
'When he lets go of me,' she said referring to the emperor, 'then say that again and see if I do not tear off every hair on your head for being a rude ass obnoxious bitch.'
There was a small ohh of humorous astonishment.
It was neither from the emperor or his brother, it had come from ever unserious Vura who cackled openly.
'Oh Cora! Oh Cora did you hear that? It was too much, the insults are too much for even me, a spectator to bear,' she said in a mock concerned voice that had Xiera joining her in her laughter.
'Have some respect,' Cora said with a stolid face.
'Oh I forgot my manners,' Vura continued with her joke.
'Forget it!' Cora snapped in a loud whisper that had her twin laughing once again.
The empress dowager -being overwhelmed with embarrassment- turned and matched out of the royal manor.
'Good riddance!' the lady screamed after her leaving figure.
'Oh my Lady,' Vura said bursting into fresh laughter.
She laughed till they were tears in her eyes, holding onto an equally cackling Xiera.
'Now, that was fiery,' the little prince said to her with a heart warming smile. 'None had yet to actually tell the woman that she is being insolent and presumptuous. You are indeed a worthy bride.'
Her face encrimsoned at his favourable words.
'She speaks without thinking and I detested her choice of words,' she managed to say in spite of her embarrassment, realizing then that she didn't really have any other reason for defending the emperor.
Oh yes, she had come to his defense, but why?
Was it because of the empress dowager's outright rudeness?
Or was it because she had insulted the emperor?
Or was it because she had called her an unworthy bride?
Whichever it was, she chose not to dwell on that at that moment.
'I know that,' the little prince said as the emperor released her from the confines of his arms.
She stepped away and turned to him.
'You should have done this when that woman was here speaking with such foolhardy bogusness, and allowed me to therefore teach her the manners that I myself do not have!' she snapped at him.
It was clear that she was upset with him for stopping her from facing the empress dowager squarely.
He smiled the moment she crossed her arms over her chest -the gesture causing her full breast to seem more full- only to lower her eyes to the ground, pouting.
'Sweet Rose, thank you,' he said to her.
It was the tone of his voice, tender and drawing that caused her to behold him.
She looked up at him then and into his dark eyes, instantly being entranced by those deep melanous orbs, falling and falling into their hollow depth.
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...OmaPhinaPhire