To Ignite

16

Emma walked down the hall thinking of a way to show the Queen that she cared about her.

But she didn't know how. How do you show a woman who could have anything in the world at the drop of a hat that you care?

Lost in thought she didn't see the black knight  walking in the direction she was coming from and bumped into him, hitting her head on his armor.

"Ah, fuck me!" The blonde called out.

"Sorry, I wasn't seeing where I was going," an Irish accent called out.

"Shit. Fuck," the 'proper' Princess said, still lost in her pain.

"Excuse me, love," the knight said trying not to laugh and maintain his composure as a black knight.

"Little too late for that isn't it?" Emma mumbled out taking a step back from the soldier.

The knight's eyebrows rose at the blonde's words. Then he let out a little chuckle, "you're a feisty one, aren't ya love? I'm Sir Jones, one of Reggie's knights," he said taking off his helmet, revealing a fairly handsome man with dark brown hair and crystal blue eyes.

The princess recognized him as one of the men who brought her to this castle after being attacked by a drunken bastard. If you could even call that an attack.

The blonde raised her own eyebrow at this knight. "Reggie?"

"Sorry, the Queen. A few of us knights call her that to get under her skin a little bit, but don't tell her that or she may have our heads," he stood straighter and placed his helmet back onto his head. "It was nice to meet you, Miss...."

"Swan." She mumbled.

"Miss Swan," he said with a hint of a smile in his voice and a nod.

Reggie? Who the hell he thinks he is calling her Reggie? Last time I check she isn't his.

"But she isn't mines either, is she?" Emma sighed.

The blonde continued her journey down the hall contemplating on how she could in fact make the Queen hers.

Her stomach growled interrupting her musings, and so she made her way into the kitchen.

"Hey, Ms. Ida. Do you have something for me?" The young beauty asked the elderly woman.

The dark skinned woman smiled motherly at the young princess, "only if you help me lug those bags of apples and flour, Little Swan."

——-SQ——

After carrying the 3 big bags into the pantry, Emma sat down at the small table in the kitchen. "What's all those bags for anyway?"

The chef answered not looking up from the simmering pot of soup, "the Queen's birthday is approaching soon, and I wanted to make her an apple dessert. I don't know what kind though."

"You wanted to make her a dessert?" Emma asked.

Ida looked up from the dinner, having her warm hazel eyes meet green ones. "I keep forgetting you're new here. Yes, I did wanted to make the Queen a dessert she's very kind to all of us here."

It wasn't that Emma believed that the royal was cruel, quiet the opposite in fact. She just forgot that she wasn't the only one who thought she was kind either, growing up in the kingdom that only spoke ill of someone would have you think that the whole world thought that way.

"Why apples though? Not chocolate or vanilla?" She questioned again crinkling her nose at the fruit that her mother associated with poison itself.

Ida turned off the soup and began placing it into a ceramic white bowl, "since she was young thing around 18 or so, the little Queen has been obsessed with the fruit. Some days that would be all she would eat."

The graying woman placed the food in front of an gluttonous blonde, "so I learned and tested different recipes that had apples as the main ingredient so she would eat more and make original desserts for her birthday."

A fond smile crossed the older woman's face that made the blonde stop eating and smile as well.

The dark woman snapped out of her musings, "keep eating Little Swan, I don't want to be up all night."