This scene takes place about three and a half years before the Hesan invasion. Theodor the Dreamer is still king, and Princess Elara is being chaperoned by nobleman Isandros Atrias to an amphitheater to see a comedy.
The amphitheater of the Laurel and the Lyre was alive with laughter, its stone tiers crowded with young voices eager for comedy. Lanterns flickered against the carved walls, throwing warm light across the stage where actors in bright masks sang and mocked one another. @Princess Elara of Alendria , only fifteen at that time, and restless with delight at being out among the people, leaned forward in her seat. She was amused not only by the play but by her companion—@Isandros Atrias, ten years her elder, who had agreed to chaperone her here. She had not expected him to join her for such frivolity.
“You surprise me,” she said, smiling at him. “Agreeable enough to sit through a comedy? I thought you preferred the tragedies with too many speeches.”
Isandros’ expression was solemn, his eyes distant, but he allowed himself a faint smile. “Too much vinegar ruins the palette,” he murmured. “Even a steward must taste sweetness now and then.” Yet the heaviness in his face betrayed deeper thoughts, and Elara, perceptive even in her youth, sensed them.
She tilted her head, trying to pry with the fanciful boldness of a girl steeped in stories. “So now that your engagement is off, have you vowed never to marry anyone? Not even for poetry, or vengeance on Fortuna herself?”
“Never is a long thread,” Isandros replied quietly. “And I’ve learned long threads turn into snakes that bite their master.”
Elara frowned, uncertain. “I’m sorry. I only knew your fiancée as someone who talked about being a bride and having a wedding. I didn’t know there was discord between you.”
His voice softened, poetic but practical. “Marriage is everything after the wedding, princess. She and I had different images of the future. So we ended the engagement.”
Elara thought for a long moment, her gaze drifting to the stage where the actors laughed and sang. “I don't think I will get married,” she said at last, her voice low.
Isandros turned to her, surprised. “Not ever, your highness?”
Elara hesitated, the weight of her future pressing down. “Fortuna might pick,” she said, half-serious. “Does she not anyway?” Then, with sudden earnestness, she added, “If I marry you, I don’t have to figure it out. And you don’t have to plot any long threads. You and Father are friends as it is, and everything can stay the same.”
Her words startled him. He looked at her with concern, as though she had touched something deep. “Is there some peril you are in, to speak of marriage in such dire tones with too young a voice? Put off such matters. There is time yet. More than you know.” He paused, then softened, letting a wry smile break through. “But since you press me, I’ll give you courtly advice to tuck away for later: if ever you must hurl yourself at a man for survival, by the gods, nothing could be more un-Alendrian than to do so for convenience and practicality.” He paused, weighing himself in those words, before adding, “No—let him be a fool, with a narratively inconvenient jawline and lineage that makes his rivals squirm.” He gestured toward the stage, where the Thalos had arrived in Vexor's lair too soon.
Elara laughed, leaning into the jest. “So, not the polished prince with perfect speeches, but the one Fortuna herself laughs at?” She grew thoughtful, her voice softening. “Then perhaps that is the kind of man I should wait for. Someone who makes the story worth telling.”
Isandros said little in reply, but his silence carried weight. He watched her with a mixture of fraternal protectiveness and something deeper, a concern that lingered even as the laughter of the amphitheater swelled around them.
By @Princess Elara of Alendria of @House Landon, written when she was approximately 17, a year or so before the Hesan invasion.
I saw a bird of gold and flame
Alight upon the fountain’s rim.
It did not speak, nor call my name,
But watched me as the light grew dim.
I asked it, “Do you come from sky,
Or from the sea’s forgotten tune?”
It blinked, and in its silent eye
I saw the shadow of the moon.
The garden held its breath awhile,
The marble trees stood still and tall.
I curtsied with a practiced smile—
The kind they teach in father’s hall.
But in my chest, a chord was stirred,
A note I’d never sung before.
Not fit for court, nor fit for word—
But something deeper, something more.
The bird took flight, the stars grew bold.
I stayed behind, with ink and scroll.
And wrote this down, as I was told—
To catch the shape of what I hold.