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Let the lady-in-waiting tear the covers off of you. Let her drag you from the arms of your husband. Your husband. Remember how lovely it is.Remember, Sumia, that there’s no time for it to be lovely.The lady presses a cup of tea into your hands. Drink it. Don’t worry if it drips from the corners of your mouth. Scrub the sleep from your eyes.Stand, stretch, groan. It’s an old habit. Reach for your agenda, then catch yourself. You know what’s coming today.Follow the lady to the dressing room. There’s a tray waiting, a small fleet of maids. Smile when they bow to you, as calmly as you can. Sit. Eat your breakfast, even though your stomach simmers from last night’s champagne.Last night’s... everything.Stop blushing, these people barely know you. And even though they know, as well as everybody in the kingdom knows, that there was a wedding and a wedding night, and what tends to happen on wedding nights... well. Stop blushing. Your personal life is your own.Only, it’s not, because you’re the queen.Stop thinking about it. Finish your breakfast. Don’t worry about what it is, how it tastes. Could be croque monsieur, could be splintered-supply-line gruel. Doesn’t matter.Finish. Stand. Watch a maid break away from the flock. Wonder, again, how they decide whose job it is to do what.Return her apologetic smile, let her lift your white nightdress over your head. Don’t cover yourself. You’ve done this before, just yesterday. You let them strip you, wash you, paint your face. Dress you, in clothes that used to belong to somebody else. Will belong to somebody else, after you. As much as something like that can belong to anyone.It’s different from yesterday. You’ve a reason, now, to flinch. You feel acutely that you should have checked your skin last night, should have torn yourself from your wedding bed. Should have stood before the mirror with his sweat still drying on your chest, looking for marks. Should have told him, in the first place, to be careful.He was careful anyway.You look down yourself, see nothing. Your skin is pale and soft and even, though you wondered last night if your blush would ever fade. If his fingerprints would form tattoos on your body. If you’d changed.Let that breath out. Let the maids help you into a scented bath, let them wash your back. Wish they wouldn’t be so silent.Drag your fingers through your hair, salty and snarled. Get your heirloom diamond ring caught in a tangle.Smile, now, for real.Let the ladies, with their gentle naked fingers, wash your hair. Wonder what to do with your hands. Don’t crack your knuckles, it’s unladylike. An unseemly habit, from soldiering days that already seem the stuff of ancient rhyme. Grip the edges of the tub instead.Let it be over when it’s over. The gods only know how much time has passed. Allow yourself to be helped out of the tub, to be wrapped in a pristine towel. Almost laugh, thinking of the cramped, rusting tin basins in the campaign bathing tent. The cold filmy water, tinted green. The soap, black and sandy, and the single-minded speed of it all. Five minutes to bathe after battle, to groan, to fold aching muscles into a position that would fit. To listen to the splashing, the hissing oaths of the others all as naked, as cold, as ornery as you.Almost laugh, thinking how relaxing that was, compared to this. Revitalizing, after a day’s work. Today, your muscles have never been tenser.Dry yourself. At least you can do that on your own. Be conscious, take it slow. Don’t towel off like you’ve still got to run and debrief. Be gentle over the thin skin of your hips, and don’t wince when you grate the sore spot between your legs.The maids wrap you in a gossamer robe, seat you at a vanity. One spells your hair dry with a tome the size of your devotional. A pair of them take combs, and they turn your frizzy hair to silk with practiced ease. It takes time. Close your eyes, don’t think about last night. Ask for your speech again. Hold the parchment taut in your hands, repeat the lines under your breath.Realize that you’ve never given a speech before.Unless your wedding vows count--but those you just repeated to the hierophant. And they were promises to just one person, someone you knew. Someone you’d kissed and slapped, someone you’d gone to war for. You had already sworn your life to Chrom, wedding vows were just... an addition.But it wasn’t as if you hadn’t known about these obligations. Just... in the time of your infatuation, of your courtship, such as it was... they seemed incidental. Nothing you couldn’t handle. Something you might be better suited to than swinging lances, kicking spurs.Laugh aloud at how wrong you’d been. Blush, assure the maids that you’re alright. Say, with anxious lilting, ‘never better!’Know they don’t believe you.One turns you in your chair, kneels before you the way Chrom knelt when he proposed. She dips a brush into a compact, powders your cheeks. Paints your lips soft seashell pink, lines you eyes with earthen brown.Another maid slips in behind you, braids your hair into a crown around your brow. They make much of your great beauty, the most they’ve spoken since you got there. Thank them.Wonder how you will do this every day for the rest of your life. Be scrutinized. Seen.There is a crowd of people outside, chanting your name. They outnumber these maids a thousand-fold.They will not all declaim your beauty.Untie the knot that twists deep in your stomach. You will impress them anyway. There is no other choice.Your porcelain face passes muster. You are naked again, and after the hot bath the open air gives you gooseflesh. A maid sweeps you over with her eyes, nods.Know you are allowed to ask her not to do that, but refrain. Know you are allowed to order blood and thunder. Know that you’d rather not.The maids present you with a corset, and you grit your teeth. Corsetry had gone to the wayside, in the war. Your waist is trimmer now than the last time you wore one, your body harder, but you’re green as a little girl all the same. You’d had to lace up yesterday, for the ceremony and all the dancing after, and your belly still feels tender. Chrom hadn’t left any marks on you, but the whalebone certainly had.Still, let them lace you in it tight. Let them tie petticoats about your waist. Light, translucent things. Just two, for this dress. Be relieved--your wedding gown required six and a crinoline, and you were certain you would fall.This morning, you had better not fall. Yesterday, you were a virgin bride--a delicate thing. Fresh, maidenly. To be adored. Today you are a veteran, a war hero, a queen. Yesterday they did not care that you dealt Gangrel his killing blow. Today, they do.The dress is carried out from a closet. Do not be too obvious about the hitch in your breath.You’ve seen it before. Even before it was presented to you, before you tried it on and almost tore the seams. You know this dress.You know that it used to be Emmeryn’s, you’ve seen her in it. Years ago, when you stood guard at a banquet. She wore it with the grace that was her constant, her small steps floating across the floor. Her hands were always neatly folded, her conversation fluid and gracious. You had curtsied to her that night, and nearly tripped over yourself.It is composed almost entirely of lace, tatted by some master artisan half a century ago. Long sleeved, with a neckline so high that you know it will constrict you. Its pinks and golds are dyed so delicately that you almost wonder if the spectators will see anything but warm white.It’s been altered for you, let out in the sleeves, shoulders, waist. The hem has been brought up. Step into it. Feel as if you are splattering paint across a masterpiece.When you see yourself in the gilded mirror, wonder if Chrom would call you beautiful, or if he would just turn away.Wonder if all of those people out there--you can hear them, chattering and laughing and calling out for you--would do the same.Know that there is only one way to find out. Know that the time for this is now. That you might even be late.Take a breath. Let a maid link arms with you, lead you out of the room. Make your steps small, let them float. Don’t wait.Bedroom, corridor, solar, balcony.Look down at them, congregated in droves. Be reminded of drear mornings, running on adrenaline and scant sleep, your pegasus the only thing holding you up. Remember the sight of Plegian forces, crowded over massive swathes of land.Chastise yourself for this. Demand of yourself that you do not fear them.Fear them anyway, a little.Breathe. Open your mouth. Speak.Make yourself their queen.