A Marriage of Convenience

Prompt: A knight rescues a princess from a dragon and wins her hand in marriage... The problem being that they're both gay and the king is wholly oblivious.

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“Oh, happy day!” King Callix cries, leaping forward to embrace his son. “I never thought this day would come!”

“Father, please,” Prince Liam replies, blushing at Kira over his father’s shoulder. “We both knew it was going to happen someday.”

The king releases his son and turns to the beautiful girl beside him, sweeping her into a firm embrace before she can protest.

“And what a wonderful story – rescuing her from a dragon! You’ll be telling your grandchildren that one, mark my words!”

Callix holds Kira at arm’s length, beaming as he takes her in – her thick, curly hair; her dark skin; her soft hands.

“Well, when shall we schedule the wedding?” he asks. “Are you a lily kind of girl, or a rose kind of girl?”

“Father,” Liam groans. “Enough, please! I’m sure Kira would like a chance to get cleaned up.”

“Oh, but of course,” Callix replies, snapping his fingers. “I’ll have the servants draw up a bath at once in the guest room near your suite, my son.”

Kira diplomatically extricates herself from Callix’s grip and takes Liam’s hand as they exit the Great Hall to the king’s continued joyful rantings about the wedding. Once the door closes behind them with a resounding thud, Liam releases her hand.

“You think he could tell?” Kira mutters to him in her harsh Cysean accent as a servant leads them toward her new chambers.

“Were we in the same room?” Liam whispered back. “He’s completely oblivious. We’re totally going to pull this off.”

“I sure hope so.”

The servant bows them into Kira’s chambers, where a steaming bath waits. Liam turns away as she disrobes and sinks into the lavender-scented water.

“So how soon are you bringing Nathan to the castle?” Kira asks, scrubbing at the dirt under her fingernails.

“As soon as possible. I miss him.”

“And you sent a missive to Aliceson, right?”

“Yes, this morning. She’ll be here in a few days under the guise of a lady-in-waiting from Cysea.”

Kira sighs as she remembers her lover’s callused hands, the way the other girl’s braids always brushed against her face when they kissed. Never one to spend too long in the bath, and conscious of Liam’s presence in the room, she quickly finishes her bath and ducks behind a screen to dress. Clad in a fresh autumn gown, Kira rounds the screen to fix her hair before the grand mirror on the wall.

“I must say, I’m glad it was you out of all the men who tried to rescue me who succeeded,” she tells Liam, glancing at his reflection in the mirror. “At least we can be honest with one another.”

“You have no idea how much I didn’t want to go,” Liam laughed as he perched on the armrest of an embroidered couch. “I was so afraid that you would be some helpless waif of a thing, a golden – what’s the phrase you have in Cysea?”

“Szin heczua. Loosely translated, I believe you’d call it a gold digger.”

“Yes, that.”

Kira places the finishing touches on her hair and turns back to Liam. He is pleasant to look at, for certain, like a painting by one of the Cysean masters. But as for the love that they pretend is there, she feels nothing for him, the opposite of what she feels for Aliceson. What he feels for Nathan.

“Well, then, Liam Callixson. Let’s get married.”