The Princess' Pawn. (Mabelle, AU, genderswitch, drabble.)
The first in a series a series I call: "The Camping Drabbles", as all the drabbles I've written recently were camping. Let the first post commence, there will be more! The basic idea of this is OC and some DN characters are in medival times, Mello as the King, Matt as his closest friend and advisror, and the like. Any questions, feel free to ask.
Title: Princess's Pawn, Knight's Tale.
Summary: This is what happens when I get bored: AU, genderswitch and Maybelle, of course. Princess Abelle will grown to be Queen; but what is a princess without her knight in the mean time? Poor, Poor Max. (First.)
Abelle sat with the knights and squires as they broke for their noonday meal. Booted feet splayed on the table, she rocked her chair back on two legs, a pipe between her lips. All around, burly, stinking men and stinking, lithe boys talked, played cards, or rested until training was to commence.
Occasionally, she'd laugh at the bawdy jokes being cracked around her, but mostly she just smoked the good tobacco in silence, short hair falling around her eyes.
She looked up, however -slim briar wood stem between parted pink lips (God, Max wants her)- when the stable door is thrown open to reveal Princess Blythe, her dark hair all pinned up, skirts swirling, a particularly nasty smile on her face.
"I knew I'd find you here, sister dear," she cooed and bee lined for her shrew on an elder sister.
"Guess what I just heard," she gushed, perched delicately on the table's edge, oblivious to the bowing and shuffling going on around her. Max watched partly- the two eldest Kheel sister's made marvelous entertainment, after all- as Abelle blew a lungful of cherry-smoke into her sister's eyes with an aura of airy indifference. "I'm sure you'll tell me," she said as BB wiped her watering eyes.
"Well," she started with a delicately wrinkled nose at her sister's obvious mannishness. "I just heard from Mother telling the cook to make a feast for tonight."
'Belle blinked, blankly. "….So?"
"A feast in Prince Cain's honour," Blythe said with impatience.
Abelle rolled her eyes, "So he's moved on to wooing you, has he? Well, good-"
"Oh no," Blythe grinned maliciously. "Not me sister. You."
The effect was immediate; Abelle choked on a mouthful of smoke, her feet banged to the floor as she hacked and coughed.
Finally, the eldest daughter of Mihael Kheel slammed her pipe down and stood.
"You brazen witch, you lie!" She snarled, teeth bared.
BB danced out of her reached, smiling.
"I don't, sister. He wrote this very morning to say how he had planned to drop in, in passing, to inquire upon your health." She cackled, backing toward the door, her message delivered. The rest was just twisting the knife, "He wrote that your hair was like spun gold and sunlight, your eyes akin to sapphires and summer skies." She sing songed, "He said he found your blunt nature charming and your banter- nay, insults, more like- refreshing and witty! What a lucky girl you are, sister, to find a man of such high standing who doesn't find you repulsive beyond measure!" Her laughter pealed like church bells, the last barb drifting back on a snatch of breeze, " Princess Abelle Kale has the loveliest ring, doesn't it?"
Abelle's knuckles had whitened on the dark grained table, her heart shaped face an unattractive green.
Max pushed her chair forward the instant before her legs gave way. "Looks like its 18, now, Princess," he said lightly, carefully correcting Her Highness' math and suitor record. It's one of the few thinks she's proud of.
To date, 19 would-be beaus had shown an interest in the princess prior to meeting her, and 19 had retracted said interest after spending only an hour or two in her company. Her crude, scathing, clever company. She did it on purpose, to scare them off. I have no interest in marriage, she had said time and time again. I will be a solitary Queen after my father dies.
Nineteen men scared off, until today. Stupid Cain, breaking her record.
"Oh God," Abelle muttered, her head in her hands. "Oh God, what do I do? I can't deal with this- this- freak! Who enjoys being cleverly insulted for two hours?"
She tugged at her chin length hair, spun gold looking more like straw, biting her lower lip with her teeth.
"Oh, I don't know," sighed Max, draping an arm around her shoulders. "There's a certain charm to it when the witty one is a pretty girl with a powerful father."
"Shut up, Max." Abelle snarled and elbowed him in the ribs. "This is serious!"
At this point, Max couldn't help it -thoughts of suitors and competition (and begging her not to, please 'Belle, I was here first, wasn't I?) aside- he laughed. May have pointed a little, to mask the nausea. He gasped for breath, "I- I don't believe it! You, Princess 'I-don't-give-a-fuck' Kheel, worrying over some suitor! Hah!" He dissolved again into laughter that sounded a touch like sobbing. "P-Perhaps there's hope for you yet, milady."
It's near silent in that stable, if only for the fact that Princess I-don't-give-a-fuck was angry.
Max- still a squire, nearly 17, waiting for a chance to prove himself- was startled out of his laughter when Her Highness slammed both palms flat on the table, effectively boxing Max in. She leaned close, blue eyes hard as glaciers. Max swallowed thickly, and watched as her full mouth thinned and pulled taut in her ire. He couldn't even blink. But his eyes flicked from her mouth to her eyes in that split-second eternity.
Then she yelled at him, and he cringed back as far as the table would allow.
"I thought I told you to be silent, you worthless bastard! I may wear trousers and boots, smoke a pipe instead of sew but I will not have you mocking my authority. I am still heir to the throne and you will do as I say, or God as my witness, I'll string you up by your balls from the North Tower and let the birds have a go- am I clear?"
"Yes, your majesty. Clear as crystal," Max managed through his dry mouth, and wondered if it were normal to be so turned on by threats of castration, torture and her anger up close.
There was a mean little smile curling the edges of Abelle's lips when she pushed off and stepped away. She pocketed her pipe, noticeably calmer, and turned to leave after a brisk nod to the head guard. "Gentlemen," she said. "As you were."
And she swept out, boots thumping.
Max sunk into a chair and watched her go, trying to catch his breath and reign in his less than pure thoughts.