Agatha doesn't receive as friendly a reception inside the castle as she had outside.
Whilst Beatrix and Dot had been perfectly enthusiastic, they seem to be the exception, not the rule. The corridors are busy and bustling, and as Agatha hurries after her mother-- Vanessa does not seem to care if Agatha can keep up or not-- almost every person they encounter stops to stare, or whisper to their companion, or point, or do all three. They aren't smiling. Expressions vary from confusion to suspicion to outright hostility, but no one smiles.
Agatha bites her cheek and tries to distract herself by staring at other things.
The guards escorting them are lightly armoured, dressed in red livery with that coiled dragon emblem on the chest. Agatha would guess, from the shimmering gold band embroidered around their necklines, that they're some kind of specially trained and vetted royal guard. They're completely po-faced as they walk, and clearly perfectly trained. Every one of them stares straight ahead, too, flanking them in a perfect formation. Agatha, who is used to slightly slapdash guards cracking jokes, feels oddly oppressed, and looks quickly away from their blank faces.
The palace itself is, as she'd guessed, far superior to Vanessa's. Richly embroidered tapestries, golden gilding on wood and glass, staircases that swoop and dive out of sight. Stained glass windows of ancient kings on noble quests. Burning torches adorn the walls at frequent intervals, and Agatha, tired and stressed, tries to stop and draw some power from the flames, forgetting the presence of the guards. Vanessa grabs her and yanks her on.
Huge paintings and elaborate marble statues fill the gaps between them… it goes on. Agatha could have spent all day in just two or three of these corridors, examining every piece of art, but she's marched stoically onwards. Scowling, she stares at her feet, and realises as she does so, that they hadn't given her any new shoes. She's still wearing her boots, exact replica's of Callis and the other servant's. She'd insisted on wearing them when she was younger, to match Callis, and had never seen the point of different shoes. These were far more practical.
They were not, however, approved of by Vanessa.
Hurriedly, Agatha takes smaller steps, letting her gown cover her feet properly. Given she usually strides, this takes some concentration, and as a result, she doesn't notice that Vanessa has stopped until she nearly walks into her.
Confused, she looks up--
And is greeted with a huge pair of gilded double doors.
They’re here.
Panic spikes so hard and fast in her gut that she doubles over, but Vanessa turns to her, sweet and smiling in the presence of the guards.
“Stand up straight, sweetheart. Don’t be nervous.”
Agatha jerks back upright, furious. So. She wanted to take Callis’s favoured pet name for Agatha, did she? Wanted to be an adoring mother when it was convenient?
Glaring under her veil, Agatha mumbles assent and grabs onto Vanessa’s arm. It seems perfectly innocent to anyone watching-- distressed daughter looking for comfort-- but she feels Vanessa flinch.
Agatha knows she won’t burn her. The gloves do their job. But close proximity to her becomes uncomfortable after a while, and Vanessa knows she can’t shake her off without looking callous.
She can’t scowl, but Agatha knows she wants to. She can see her mouth pinching, slightly--
Which rearranges into an accommodating smile as a tall young man in white gloves steps smartly out of a side door.
“The King will see you now.” he says brisky, and indicates the boys on the doors in front of them, who scurry to push the great oak doors open. Someone shouts from within;
“Her Majesty Queen Vanessa of Gavaldon, and her daughter, Her Royal Highness Princess Agatha!”
And Agatha is paraded into the throne room on Vanessa’s arm, wishing desperately that it was Callis with her instead.
---
She’s almost immediately distracted by more decor.
She's not supposed to look anywhere but straight ahead-- she knows that much-- but she has the advantage of a covered face. So while Vanessa marches along with her eyes straight, Agatha is stealing glances at carved pillars, half a dozen elaborate chandeliers, ceilings painted with sweeping murals, intricate engravings…
The floor is smooth and equally elaborately decorated, to the extent where she feels as if it’s wrong to walk on it, let alone in her old boots. It’s so polished that falling over on it is a significant worry. She’s glad they didn’t give her heels.
Scattered around the room, clusters of finely-dressed courtiers watch their approach. They are in the presence of the King, so they can’t whisper-- not about his betrothed-- but Agatha can tell they desperately want to. Vanessa gets a cursory glance at the most. All eyes are tracking the black veil.
Trying not to hunch over, as she usually does when she’s embarrassed, Agatha casts around for something else to focus on, and finds herself staring back at the courtiers. Beatrix hadn’t been wrong when she’d mentioned that the makeup trends were interesting, here. One woman is sporting tiny golden stars painted all over her cheeks and nose, like freckles. Another has shining gems plated across her eyelids, like armour, so she shimmers and winks as she blinks. The man stood with her has green vines painted down the side of his face, sprouting the smallest of ruby flowers, with lipstick to match the blooms. It’s fascinating. At home, people would only wear these sorts of things as parts of costumes. Looking as if you're wearing no makeup at all is far more popular--
Vanessa stops, suddenly, and shakes her off her arm. Agatha stumbles to a halt, caught off guard--
Then spies the steps in front of her.
Vanessa curtsies deeply, eyes lowered to the bottom of the dais. Clumsily, Agatha copies her.
Vanessa never took her on trips abroad, so she’d never encountered another royal in their home court. The most she’d ever had to deal with was the bumbling Prince of Hamelin at their New Year’s Ball.
Now, she’s beginning to realise that she has basically no grasp of a huge swathe of necessary etiquette.
Cursing Vanessa (and herself) for neglecting it, she straightens back up as her mother does, and her mother beams.
“Your majesty,” she coos in her special I’m trying so hard to look like a good person voice. “What an honour it is to meet you at last! May I present my daughter, Princess Agatha?”
Slowly, Agatha raises her eyes.
---
His Majesty King Tedros of Camelot looks, Agatha thinks, like a china doll.
Dressed in a set of scarlet silks bound at the throat and wrists and waist by delicate gold and ruby links, he sits stiffly in his throne, as if he’s been carefully positioned there, white-gloved hands set lightly on the armrests. He looks ready to snatch them away at any second.
His face is handsome in that it’s unsettlingly perfect. It could have been painted on, Agatha thinks. A romanticist’s fantasy. Big, blue eyes with long lashes. Straight nose. Full pink lips and high, sharp cheekbones. Completely unblemished skin, perfectly shaped eyebrows. His hair is thick and gold, loosely curled and falling effortlessly in the right places. An elaborate golden crown drips gems and tiny gold chains across his marble forehead. He even has perfect circles of pink in his cheeks, like dolls do. Mimicking life.
Uncomfortable-- for there is something about the flawless face and the feeling she gets from it, that’s odd-- Agatha stares silently at Tedros on the dais, feeling as if she's admiring a prized collectors item sat on a shelf. He stares back.
Yes, he probably had hundreds of portraits. How wonderful it would be to paint a face like that. He must have every painter in the west of the Woods clamouring to even get to sketch it.
For a second, no one says a word, and Agatha is just starting to wonder if she ought to say something, picking through her vague memory of protocol--
When Tedros smiles.
Agatha can’t help but sag a little in relief. At least he’ll tolerate her presence. His smile is slightly forced, and tinged with confusion, but it makes him look a thousand times more animated, and is a lot less insincere than she’d expected.
Maybe he knew as little as I did, she thinks.
“I’m honoured, your highness.” he says. Agatha thinks back to the letter and wonders if he always talks like that. She hopes he doesn’t. The formality would be stifling. Tedros’s eyes dart to her face and away again, then back. He leans forward a little. “Er, may I ask--”
Good, decorum slipping.
Wait, what was he going to--
“She prefers to remain veiled at all times.” interrupts Vanessa immediately, anticipating the question. “It is no insult, I promise you. It has always been the case. It is merely a preference due to… ah, specific circumstances.”
“...I see.” Tedros seems unsettled, still, and Agatha cringes internally, wondering what type of conclusions he’s coming to--
“Why doesn’t the Princess speak for herself?” demands someone from behind Tedros. Agatha follows the voice to see a spindly, weasel-faced boy, barely older than Tedros, lurking behind Tedros’s throne. He’s glancing suspiciously between Agatha and Vanessa.
“Peace, Lord Scourie.” murmurs Tedros, and Scourie does as he’s told, but Tedros doesn’t actually contradict the question.
Vanessa is thrown, for a second.
Then she smiles indulgently at them, and looks expectantly at Agatha.
Agatha doesn’t say anything for a moment, staring unseeingly at Tedros. For a crazed second, she considers yanking off her veil and throwing it in Vanessa’s face.
Slowly, she turns to face her mother.
“I believe you’ve said all there is to say on the topic, mother.” she says, as blandly as she can manage. “I have nothing to add.”
Vanessa’s eyes narrow slightly, clearly catching the jab Agatha had angled in the statement. Then she turns expectantly back to a bewildered Tedros. Agatha can’t believe they didn’t brief him about her, but he seems genuinely taken aback. He really didn’t know about the veil? None of his courtiers had seemed surprised, just suspicious.
Maybe they had more in common than she’d expected.
Or, she thinks, eyeing his perfect face, maybe not.
“In time, you’ll find out, of course.” Vanessa says brightly. “But first, I think we all look forward to getting to know each other better.”
That’s a generalisation, thinks Agatha grimly.
“Of course.” says Tedros vaguely, still staring at Agatha. Agatha wonders how much is actually going on in that pretty head. Probably not a whole lot. Might explain why he’s surrounded by courtiers. To do all the thinking for him.
But then he seems to recover himself, a little.
"Ah-- I hope your journey wasn't too tedious?"
Asking after their journey? Really. Groundbreaking.
“It was quite pleasant.” says Vanessa, at the same time that Agatha says; “It was dire.”
Vanessa and Tedros look at Agatha.
“I’m seasick.” Agatha say. “I spent much of the journey throwing up. I believe it was quite pleasant for my mother, though I didn’t see much of her.”
Tedros frowns. Agatha wonders if he’s caught the Vanessa ignored me when I was puking can you tell she’s a horrible mother, yet? Implications.
“I’m sorry to hear that, but-- forgive me-- why didn’t you travel by carriage?”
“Security, apparently.” mutters Agatha. “Even though it’s far easier to take potshots at a ship.”
There’s an awkward pause, a few seconds long.
Then Vanessa forces a high, reedy laugh.
“Oh, you’re so witty, Agatha! Yes, for security, though not quite as she described it. Carriages on the Gillikin Pass tend to be at risk, you see. It’s high and cold and full of bandits. We couldn’t have your bride kidnapped before she gets to you!”
She laughs again. Agatha rolls her eyes. The Gillikin Pass is cold, but it’s not particularly high, nor is it full of bandits. Vanessa had just wanted to take the ships for a more dramatic entrance, and to keep Agatha from bothering her, given she’d be busy throwing up.
Apparently Lord Scourie behind Tedros’s throne is aware of this, too, because he frowns. But Tedros himself doesn’t seem to realise it’s not true. He blinks his big doll eyes and smiles his charming smile and looks at something of a loss of what to say. Agatha thinks he might have been jarred by the reminder that he had to marry Agatha.
Poor baby, thinks Agatha dispassionately. Well, he’d either get over it, or find some noblewoman just as beautiful as him to have an affair with. Provided he doesn’t try to dispose of her, she doesn’t much care.
The white-gloved attendant who’d shown them in saves Tedros from causing (another) awkward silence.
“Dinner will be served at seven, your majesty."
Agatha wilts in relief. That's not too long. A few hours. She’s starving.
"Hm?" Tedros glances at him, seeming to only just realise that he's there. "Oh-- yes. Of course."
He gets up-- he's tall, taller than Vanessa, but maybe not taller than Agatha. Hah.
"I'll have you shown to your quarters." he says as he descends from the dais, still eyeing Agatha. "You can rest before dinner, get to know the castle a little. I hope the rooms are to your tastes.”
As he draws near, Agatha deploys her most common judge of character.
She makes eye contact from under the veil.
Most people don’t notice. There’s no real way of telling. But those that do-- usually the paranoid or the vain-- either react in one of two ways; smiling, typically awkwardly, or shuddering, and looking away quickly.
Tedros does neither.
He blinks slowly, raises an eyebrow slightly. The tiniest hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
Then he bows, takes her hand, and briefly presses his lips to her glove.
"Until dinner." He says.
----
"What was he like?" demands Callis, the second Agatha enters her sitting room.
"Symmetrical." Says Agatha.
Callis and Sophie stare at her. Agatha scowls.
"He was handsome and he was polite and he seemed very confused by the veil thing. Also, he's shorter than me."
Sophie beams.
"You love him!"
"I most certainly do not." Sneers Agatha, snatching off her veil and slamming it down on the side table. "We exchanged less than a dozen sentences and it's clear he's a peacock. Have you seen him?"
She says the last part slightly more bitterly than she'd intended.
She gets no response.
Agatha leans against the table, sighing.
“Well, you can meet him and his symmetrical face at seven, I’m taking you to dinner.”
“Yes!” Sophie leaps up, eager-- then seems to look at Agatha properly for the first time. “Where did that dress come from? That can’t be yours. You don’t own anything that tasteful.”
“Got prepped by some maids.” says Agatha vaguely, dropping into a chair and ignoring how the pearls on the skirt dig into her legs. “Could have been worse, the choice in dress. I have not a single hair left on my body, though.”
“I’ll do you one better,” says Callis dryly, as Sophie rushes over to examine Agatha’s dress. “What happened to your hair?”
Agatha’s hand flies to the back of her neck. She’d completely forgotten about her haircut until now.
“Oh. Asked for it shorter.” she says.
Sophie looks disapproving.
“Agatha. That’s not a Queen’s hairstyle.”
“No one can even see my hair.” says Agatha. “Who cares?”
“What about the wedding?”
“Burn that bridge when I get to it.” mutters Agatha. “Can we focus on one thing at a time, please?”
“Right!” Sophie springs to her feet, grinning again. “The dinner-- ooh, is it formal? If so, I need to get changed, do my hair, I’m practically withering away from my time on that ghastly ship…”
“It’s dinner with the King. What do you think?” gripes Agatha. But Sophie is already hustling towards the door, no longer paying attention. It’s probably a good thing. It takes her hours to get ready.
“Bye.” sighs Agatha as the door slams shut. She loves Sophie, but she reminds her far too much of Vanessa at times.
She looks over at Callis, who is looking at her.
“What was he actually like?” says Callis.
Agatha leans back, groaning.
“Honestly? I don’t really know. He’s polite, I suppose. He seems very taken aback, though. I don’t think he knows what to make of me.” she considers this. “I don’t know what to make of him. He’s very… stiff.”
She’s silent for a moment.
“He is handsome. But he doesn’t look right, close up. He looks artificial. Gives me an odd feeling.”
Callis leans forwards.
“Like Vanessa?”
Agatha frowns.
She knew the odd, slightly too perfect feeling was familiar.
“Yes.” she says slowly. “Like her. I could sense… something. On him. Some kind of magic trace.”
Being magical herself, Agatha is rather good at sensing magic on others. It practically seethes off Vanessa, given all the magic beauty treatments she employs. They’re weak magic, but they’re very surface-level, so they feel obvious, to Agatha. Tedros hadn’t felt the same.
“If it is the same thing, it’s sloppily done, on him. Mother looks a little stretched, but she doesn’t look painted on.” she says slowly. “And it feels repressed, somehow. Like something’s restricting it.”
Callis considers this for a minute.
“Maybe it’s an old one.” she says. “One of those dangerous ones. That are supposed to be permanent.”
Agatha knows the ones. Vanessa had refused to use them, preferring short-term ones at frequent intervals (though they’re getting increasingly more potent as she ages) but one of the court ladies used one. She looks ethereal at certain angles and grotesque from others, but, again, the magic is very obvious.
“Maybe.” she says. “Could be a slightly different enchantment.”
But, if that is the case, then that means she might have less to worry about.
Callis seems to have followed her train of thought.
“King Arthur never struck me as the type to enchant his son for not being handsome enough, though.” she admits.
“Maybe he did it himself?” offers Agatha. Callis frowns.
“As far as I know, he’s always been good-looking. Ever since he was a boy, I’ve been hearing people jabbering away about how handsome he’ll be and how lucky his wife will be. But I don’t see what else it could be.”
“Well,” Agatha says, with an attempt at humour. “I don’t think it was loathing at first sight, so I consider it a win. He just seems very pretty and mildly stupid. Lets go and see if he’ll tolerate the fact that I eat enough for two people.”