By the time the light manages to get through the thin curtains it's already far into late morning. Three suns well above the horizon line, drawing the prismatic colors deep into the room and onto the drooling face of Princess Sophia Elise the Eighth.
Wake up. Some part of her insists.
“Ugh…” Sophia moans to herself, sprawled out on this haphazard floor bed. “Why is it so hot this morning…”
It’s because you’re about a couple thousand miles away from your actual bedroom. Her internal monologue, still spooling to consciousness, begins. You’re in Port Azuru, Tianci. About a thousand miles closer to the equatorial belt, a country away, and sleeping on the floor in the vacation home of your husband’s family.
She shoots awake, a body dumping adrenaline to emergency start the young woman in mere seconds. “AUGH!”
A panic as she tries to find the nearest clock; such an item of furniture immaculately absent within this actually quite well furnished room. Bookshelves filled with encyclopedic volumes of text, pleasure readings, and even a handful of small bookstops (all in that esoteric Tiancin alphabet); another side a cupboard filled with small sets of decorative, unused candles and small trinkets from the port town right next to a tea table with two chairs; all closed off by a wall of closets currently filled with quite an interesting number of dresses and various other more practical articles of clothing.
First day, and you’ve already slept to noon. Great impression you’ve made to your husband.
“Not if I can help it.” She bites back at that thought, already stripping off her bed clothes and salvaging through the provided sets of clothing currently in a predetermined wardrobe.
A scent of must and decaying perfume hits her, these articles probably sitting within this sealed space for at least two decades before being unleashed once more by the greedy and desperate hands of a foreign princess.
Grabbing on a pair of brown trousers that were just about a size too large for her and a shirt that placed itself snuggly onto her body with just a bit of compression on her chest, the Fourth Princess just manages to put some clothing onto her body before moving onto the more pressing issue. From the back Sophia’s hair looked like she had witnessed an explosion from within minimum safe distance, blonde strands hanging out in a puffed mess of knots and disorganization expanding outward from her scalp.
No time to waste, get to it.
A polished glass mirror atop the dressing table gives her the opportunity to witness this horror first hand, already moving with a somewhat panicked vibe towards this mess that was completely unbecoming of a newlywed noble. Images immediately flash through her imagination; of complex braids and hair styles worn both by her and Beatrice (though the sister did around a year ago cut it down to a shorter length for convenience).
You don’t have four hours or the maids to help, this is a wartime hair styling you’ll have to do here and now.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
She stops her imaginary slideshow at the apex of the efficient frontier between style and time investment, already in movement to sweep the long golden strands over one shoulder and twisting them into a loose, lopsided braid.
It wasn’t even a particularly good braid either. With parts strung tighter than others, and uncountable loose strands slipping free every other chain or two, the entire thing looked about a small jog away from a catastrophic unwinding.
No, it's not catastrophic. The Central Consciousness Council happily justifies like some dictator speaking of a false plea of peace. This hairstyle makes you look more… “romantic.” Collected and content, at ease with your place in the world.
That was some stretch, but it will have to do as an explanation. A style ever so bohemian, and if anyone asked she would say it was deliberately styled in a charming, effortless sort of way.
…A Hautwarden way, a style from her father’s home provinces. Sophia would style herself like how the young women within the middle and lower classes of the northern provinces would; unabashedly practical yet ultimately pretty in their own way (this hairstyle was, as she lied to herself, not even close to anything remotely popular in Hautwarden).
She fumbles for a ribbon, opening several redwood drawers to find an old band of silk colored in crimson red, probably meant for wrapping letters -- looping it around the end of her trailing mess of blonde hair. Some distant sailing ancestor on her mother’s side screams in horror as she fumbles out the world’s laziest knot to finish what could be considered…
Passable? She thinks to herself as she stares at this mirrored reflection of herself.
If an imperial citizen passed by this creature on the street, it would take a side by side comparison and legal identification to actually convince them of her noble heritage, much less that of an heir of the Imperium.
No this is perfect! Sophia snaps victoriously as she remembers her cover story. I need to pretend to be… Silvia Danal, or whatever that cover name was! Can’t just be walking out as a perfectly dressed princess, then everyone would know that I was some hideout noble in a heartbeat.
There’s a small agreement, before her self-image is shattered once more by the internal monologue. Wash your face, you have puffy eyes. You also need to brush your teeth, you can taste the smell right now. Oh and you may or may not need to bathe yourself, you were basically sleeping in sweat for the first half of…
“No time.” She interrupts her own thought, rising from the chair with incredible grace.
Already late for some arbitrary event, in a desperate rush for a nonexistent time limit of living. Less than ten minutes from bed and she’s already on her way out with a swift grab of the knob.
Sophia Elise is ready to face the world, immediately stopped as she tries to pull on the beautifully engraved redwood door.
Locked?
She searches for a mechanism, concluding that the small spring loaded deadbolt was quite open. She once again puts more pressure on the pull, heavy, dense wood rattling on its stainless steel hinges without any progress.
This is the end. The thought process begins to panic. They’ll lock you in here to die. A slow death by starvation, a vector of assassination easily attributed to an awful, unavoidable accident. They would take your dead, emaciated body out of here, place it in the woods and claim that the Fourth Princess wandered, lost and delirious before dying of…
Oh, it's a push door.
Sophia Elise the Eighth easily pushes the door to her room open, ready to face the world.
Followers: 376/375 (See you tomorrow for 2 chapters)
Favorites: 75/75 (Today's goal)
Reviews: 9/10
I'll probably put up more goals later, since I have (a lot) of chapters waiting.
4th Princess Discord?
