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Prompt: Lion in Winter/Medieval History, Henry/Eleanor, a mind like Aristotle and a form like mortal sin.
The way that man moves ought to be a crime is her first thought on seeing him, the way he prowls about with endless energy, the restrained strength of him coiled just beneath the skin, so close to leaping out she feels scorched by his touch each time his eyes so much as glance upon her.But it is at the banquet when she truly falls in love, when she listens to him argue theology with the bishop at his side before turning to her and asking, “Well, Your Highness, let us hear your opinion on the matter, for I know you possess one,” and her mind catches up to what her body already knows. This is a man who will demand everything, and appreciate it in turn.
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Prompt: Medieval History, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Berengaria of Navarre, I think we shall get along quite well
“Well, my dear,” Eleanor says, crisp as the winter air that seems to have followed her, “I have journeyed all the way over the mountains to retrieve you, and you had best prove worth the effort.”Berengaria studies her, this fine old Queen, still proud, still with a steel-stiff spine, lively eyes, and red in her cheeks, and says, “But Your Grace, I am certain I could never provide half so much entertainment as your trip has so clearly already given you, nor cause for such excellent stories.”Eleanor studies her sidelong for a moment, and she is glad for the concealment of her skirts to hide her shaking hands, but just as she is about to break, a miracle – her mother-in-law to be smiles, and says, “Oh, there will be time yet to see about that, my girl,” and Berengaria breathes once more, and sends up a little prayer of thanks to an especially benevolent God.
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Prompt: Historical RPF, Anne Neville & Margaret of Anjou, we all bleed red in the end.
"I know what you think of my son," the Queen says, dry and brittle, "what you think of us all in your pure little Yorkist heart."Anne starts at that - try as she might, she isn't made for intrigues, for keeping secrets and dissembling - the sharp end of her needle slipping along her skin, her delicate embroidery saved by fractions of an inch from bloodstains."You see," Margaret says, with a smile as sharp and wicked as the needle's point, "we all bleed red in the end, little princess."
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Prompt: Historical RPF, Anne Neville, she eclipses all before her, she overshadows eternity
When he confesses to the priest, it is with simple words, a mere declaration of fact: that he has lusted after a married woman, coveting the wife of another.He leaves the rest unsaid: the longing that holds sway over his every unoccupied moment, the murderous rage that rises at each mention of her wretched husband’s name, at every thought of his vile hands upon her.Jealousy is a sin, he knows; and wrath, and possessiveness besides - but beside the thought of Anne, his Anne, even eternity pales.
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Prompt: History RPF, Anne Neville, let it always be known/that I was who I am
“They will know you've betrayed them,” Edward says spitefully, when he can coax no other reaction from her, “your precious York cousins. I wonder, will they think you sold yourself gratefully for a crown?”No, she wants to say (well, truly she wants to shove her sewing needle through his eye, but that is an impulse she will resist), no, they will not, although really, in her head, it is he will not, because only one of them really matters; only Richard truly knows who she once was, and remains still.
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Prompt: English History, Anne Neville (/Richard III), a beautiful fiction/I invented to keep out the cold
She wonders, when she sees him again (finally, finally) how she never noticed when they were young the way that his shoulders twist so, obvious even through the muscle he’s built (swinging swords, she thinks, like the one he used in killing her husband, breaking her chains), even through the pains he takes with posture and position to hide it.“Anne,” is all he says, quiet - and his voice is not as deep as she’s imagined it would have grown either, and his smile thinner, his hair all plastered to his head with sweat from his helmet.And yet - “Anne,” he says again, and the look he gives her; oh, that she remembers well, and treasures, knowing he is her Richard still.
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Prompt: English History, Richard III/Anne Neville, I’ll be home before you know it/I’ll be home before you know I’m gone
“It is nothing, Anne,” he says, smiling, the first time they are parted after being wed. “I will be back before you've had so much as a chance to miss me, I swear it.”She lets him go, with a scandalous kiss before the entire household and a tremulous smile of her own, but something twists painfully inside her, making it difficult to breathe; something that says, already we have been parted too long, and all the days of our lives remaining spent together would fail to make up for it, but she is a good wife, and a lady besides, so she stills the unrest within her and instead retreats, to wait.
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Prompt: Historical RPF, Henry VIII, Got a long list of ex-lovers/They'll tell you I'm insane/But I've got a blank space, baby/And I'll write your name
"You are ill-suited to this," some tiny, practical part of her mind warns. "And don't you recall what happened to the rest - discarded mistresses, discarded wives left to rot and die, a headless corpse on the Tower green - there can be no profit in that."That all of this is undeniably true, Katherine knows, and yet - "Yes, but he is the king, and I will be queen," she whispers aloud, for the practical part of her mind had always been rather inconsequential, unfortunately easy to ignore.
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Prompt: Medieval/Modern History, Queen Anne (of Bohemia, Neville, Boleyn, Stuart, or any other) lives; things change.
“You would have made a fine Queen, my love,” Anne whispers, squeezing her daughter's arm, as the coronation revels of King Henry IX spin on around them. “I know it would be so.”“Why, I will be a fine Queen yet, mother,” Elizabeth says, smiling and narrowing her lively eyes at the cluster of ambassadors across the floor, “just as fine a Queen as you.”