Manon's Ascension

Divine Corruption

But also the most fun she had enjoyed in years.

It seemed like, ever since she had followed Nina into Gascony on a mission to rescue her captured brother, she had been doing nothing but studying and training and learning. She hadn't known what for when she began, but when she decided to take over as queen, her goal became clear. And she thought that would be it. Her fate was decided and there was no more fun to be had.

But now Jacques was surreptitiously tickling her as they stood at the rail of their ship and waved goodbye to the servants and nobles that were excited to see them off. This wasn't a big event, and they had done this many times already, but, for some reason, the people wanted to celebrate the flight. Especially today when their target was Isaie.

She barely managed to hold herself together as they waved goodbye, the captain gave his report - that she didn't hear - then Jacques excused them to their room. His excuse being that his queen was just so tired from staying up late working so hard.

She was so putting something in his tea.

They retired to their rooms and the moment the door shut behind them, Manon gasped for the breath she had been holding and her knees collapsed. Jacques threw back his head, laughing as she panted, chills and shivers dancing over her body. Like every reaction she had been forcing down was trying to hit her all at the same time.

"You... are... evil," she gasped, her legs shaking weakly.

Jacques kneeled down beside her, smugly smirking. "Surrender already, my dear?"

"Revenge... will be mine... and... it will be... sweet," she promised, giving him as ferocious a gaze as she could manage with her body so weak.

Jacques grinned and booped her nose before standing and crossing the room to the tea tray that was already waiting for them.

The suite of rooms was the same as it had been when she had traveled alone before. Only this time, two rooms had been prepared. If the servants thought anything of their king and queen not sharing a room or a bed, they made no comment on it. Jacques assured her that it was fine and that, in Gascony, it wasn't uncommon for married couples to have separate rooms their entire marriage. None more so than the king and queen since the king was typically involved in running the kingdom and so kept late hours while the queen reared her children and thus kept odd hours.

Of course, Jacques and Manon ran the kingdom together and had no children to rear - yet - but they still had odd, late hours and still kept separate rooms.

Manon found the strength to get back to her feet while Jacques was pretending to innocently read over reports from the northern territories while sipping tea. She gave him a dark glare as she sat beside him to find that he had already poured her tea as well.

"You should sleep with one eye open," she threatened, delicately adding cream.

Jacques grinned at her. "If you are threatening to sneak into my room at night and expect me to be put out, you will be the one disappointed, pretty wife."

Manon's face heated. Jacques smirked as he sipped at his tea again. Damnably handsome idiot.

She tasted her own tea, reaching for her own stack of reports - these on the overfishing in the bay that had occurred as a result of fishermen struggling to keep up with wartime demand. There needed be some rules and regulations in place now to allow the fish to replenish their numbers as well as going forward so this problem didn't occur again.

And it was up to Manon to go over recommendations from experts, help put together a plan, then put the royal seal on that plan. Regulating fishing lanes was, admittedly, not one of the glamorous parts of the job, but it was necessary.