It was your wedding. The wedding hall was beautiful, white flowers on every surface, guards at every door, maids bustling about. Everything was perfectly set up, meticulously planned. It was the most glorious place.

If you were the queen and king, that is. But you're not. You're the heir to the throne and you are being married off to a man you know nothing of.

"You must go out there, your grace!" Your personal maid, Estella, urged you as she pretended to make last minute fixes to your attire, "Be it a stranger or your love, you must!"

But you were stubborn. "They want me to marry someone I know nothing of. A man who could be older than my father."

Estella grabbed your hands, "Please, your grace, this is your duty!"

Duty. Of course. Another marriage to bond kingdoms with little care to anyone's feelings. Estella was smart, but she was too dutiful.

The paino began to sing its elegant tune, the door in front of you opening wide. Up at the altar stood the preist, and the man you were to marry. A man who seemed to match your father in age.

He wasn't your lover. He wasn't Simon, your father's commanding knight who had a nasty habit of sneaking to your chambers long into the night. Because Simon stood off next to where your parents sat, seething under his stoicism.

It was time.