Milk and Honey #10 Passing Notes
Author: LadyHamPie
Challenge: Milk and Honey #10 Passing Notes
Title: Try not to fall asleep...
Story: Poison for Cupid
Wordcount: 739
Rating: G
Summary: During a council meeting Seralye and Lord Darrelson try to stay awake by passing notes, however King Aeros is not pleased.
Note: The occurs long before 'The Door' and after 'Letters'. It is a clip from a scene mid-way thorugh the first story-line.
'Try not to fall asleep…' The crumpled up piece pf parchment read that a servant had slyly dropped onto her lap.
Seralye frowned, reading it over once more, and glancing around the room from where she sat. She was in the large, great hall that served as both the castle's house of court and the dining hall. The room had been re-outfitted for the occassion, the long running tables pushed out of the middle of the room and disguised in the far corner. King Aero's heavy gold crown had been brought out from storage, dusted off, and placed at the center of a raised dais. Banners hung from the rafters far above them, how ther servatns had gotten them up there safely, she would never know.
The reason for all the magnificence was the quarterly gathering of the village heads and leaders. The leaders of each of the villages would come before the king to petition for him to alter a law, provide them with troops for portection, or to make a general complaint about their standard of living. Seralye had bee nadvised greatly by King Aeros' younger lords, but she knew that as the king's potential bride, it was necessary for her to stay there.
She tore a portion off of her own parchment that she was using to make notes. She scribbled the tiniest of responses onto it, a simple 'Speak for yourself', and she motinoed the same servant forward.
Pretending to ask for the servant to pour her some more water, she slipped the servant the crumbled up piece of parchment, nodding to the young man softly to continue on as he was doing. She then watched out of the corner of her eye as the servant went on to refill a few glasses of the other lords, dropping one such note into the lap of Lord Darrelsons’. A huge smile curled across her face when she realized her close friend had been the one to send the note. She watched as he quickly squiggled his own response on the back of her parchment, and glanced up at her with a mischievous smile.
The servant returned once again with the note, this one saying, 'You caught me'.
Seralye hastily wrote her own reply, asking 'Are the meetings always this boring?', and waited for the servant to come by and pick it up, which he did a moment later when she inconspicuously tossed it over her shoulder. She continued to watch him, rather then pay attention to the village leader who had the floor and just when he was about to go to Lord Darrelson's when he turned quickly towards the dias.
Seralye's heart raced in her stomach as she saw the servant boy approach the king, bow deeply before him before refilling his drink. The king murmured something to the servant which Seralye was unable to make out from her distance, but a heart beat later, she saw her note quickly pass between the hands of the servant and into those of the king.
King Aeros smiled to the servant and thanked him before taking a small sip of his drink. His hands made tiny movements that she could barely make out, as he opened up her note and discreetly read it. It turned the paper over, scribbled on it with his old fashioned feather quill and gestured for the servant to take the note. The servant did so obediently, and moments later he had returned to Seralye's side and dropped it into her lap.
"Is he mad?" Seralye inquired of the servant softly sipping her water to mask her lips.
"I do not believe so, princess," the young boy, hardly nine murmured to her before turning away.
Seralye glanced across the room to Lord Darrelson, whom made a worried a look, but gestured her to get on with it. Seralye gulped and opened up the crumpled piece of paper.
'Princess Seralye' the note read, her able to picture the King's stern voice when he said it, 'It is extremely rude to pass notes when another person is talking, further what these common people tell us could be the different between a year of famine or one of plentiful harvest. Now, both of you stop it.'
Seralye felt her face tinge blush and she sunk lower into her chair, back slouched in embarrassment. That was not the impression she had wanted to give her future groom…