The entourage came to a halt in the clearing just beyond the front gate of the cottage, a wide circle of ferns and snowy earth at the end of the white crystal road.

Penelope opened the gate with trembling hands and ducked a short curtsy. The flowers of her dress flared livid red.

The banner-bearing guard leading the company appraised Penelope with wary shock before his features settled into a neutral expression.

“Greetings,” he began. “As representatives of Royal House Grimwood, we have come to escort Princess Penelope of Royal House Starwood and her companions—”

“Oi! Tell them to clear off!” Sister Rosin called in a half whisper that carried through the winter air.

Penelope held her breath, spine stiff with trepidation, as the guard bristled and Sister Heely admonished her wife in hissing tones.

Penelope swallowed down a laugh of panic at the situation. She clenched her hands into fists behind her back and drew her shoulders straighter to mask her horror.

“Apologies, herald of Royal House Grimwood.” Penelope forced the words past the tightness in her throat. “I am Princess Penelope of Royal House Starwood. Please, continue.” Penelope offered another curtsy, eyeing the nearest horse warily as it stamped the frozen ground.

“Escort… Princess Penelope… and her companions, yes, to the Dark Moon Ball at Grimwood Fort this night,” the herald recovered, shooting wary looks at the Sisters. Sister Heely appeared to be holding a scowling Sister Rosin back by the folds of her gown.

“We don’t need an escort, thank you very much, we have our own carriage, as you can see,” Sister Rosin waved an arm towards the wooden box blinking yellow, pink, and purple in the yard outside the shed.

Penelope closed her eyes and took a steadying breath as the Sisters continued to squabble.

Penelope’s flowers began to glow a violent dark red.

“I… see,” the herald uttered, looking at a loss and leaning away from Penelope’s gown as the flowers began to open and close like pincers.

“Please pay my companions no mind, good harbinger, we have had a rather… trying time in recent weeks, and—”

“Are those flowers alive, then?” An incredulous exclaim sounded from a Ranger behind the herald guard, who was leaning in his saddle to peer down at Penelope, mouth open in shock.

“Ranger Callum, you will step back into rank—”

“Oh, yes, I named this one Agatha,” Penelope gestured rather stupidly at a large blossom resting on her right hip, which promptly faded from leery red to a bashful pink at the attention.

Penelope’s whole body was beginning to shiver from the cold and the unreality of the situation.

“I can see that, she looks like an Agatha,” Ranger Callum replied with a serious nod.

“Ranger Callum, I swear—”

“Oh, no, he’s fine—”

“—clear off, we said—”

The trees around the clearing began to rattle, boughs trembling with threat, as Penelope’s tension ratcheted. The Grimwood entourage peered about the circle with wide eyes, the Rangers’ hands poised on the hilts of their clubs as the horses stamped their iron shod hooves into the gravel.

“PERHAPS,” thundered Sister Heely, “WE MIGHT ALL STEP INSIDE FOR A SPOT OF TEA AND SORT THIS OUT. Hm?”

✧✧✧

The cottage didn’t quite fit a dozen guards, a carriage driver, and two attendants, yet Penelope and the Sisters made do. Between them, they promptly set tea and pastries across the kitchen table, the small table by the sitting room hearth, and Penelope’s hastily cleared haberdashery bench, Sister Rosin muttering all the while about unwelcome intrusions.

Distantly, Penelope was aware of feeling a deep mortification at Sister Rosin’s behaviour towards representatives of a Royal House—a House offering an unexpected courtesy and hosting their presence later that evening no less.

Yet she could only watch the rather awkward proceedings through a numb haze, unable to fully reconcile the mannered etiquette of this diplomatic assembly with the ruthlessness she had witnessed of the Grimwood Rangers in the woods.

She felt apart from herself, moving through the motions of tending a house full of guests, however incongruous, all the while anticipating the violence of a drawn knife.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Sensing the ever-present frisson of Penelope’s anxiety, the trees outside continued to creak.

Sister Rosin’s aggressive commentary continued even as she served sliced cake, tempered only by Sister Heely’s efforts at political tact.

The Rangers gathered by the fire exchanged bemused looks as they sipped tea from an eclectic assortment of mugs unearthed from the far corners of the kitchen cupboard.

“If you eat that quickly, you can make a quicker return in that fancy wagon of yours,” Sister Rosin griped as she thrust a small plate into the hands of a discomfited carriage attendant.

“Perhaps, our esteemed guests, would like to enjoy our hospitality at a more comfortable pace,” Sister Heely hissed as she passed the attendant a napkin, who muttered a feeble thank you before retreating to the other side of the room.

“Perhaps, our guests would like to enjoy the hospitality of the cold hard ground—”

The Rangers immediately moved their grasps to the hilts of their clubs, a manoeuvre that seemed slightly absurd as they all still clutched steaming mugs of tea or handfuls of cake.

Sister Rosin sucked a sharp breath in, aware her hostility had gone too far. Yet the next moment she squared her stance with a grimace of rage.

Penelope opened her mouth but the herald guard spoke first.

“Was that a threat, Sister?”

“Of course not, our sincerest apologies for the misunderstanding, she only meant—”

“Don’t tell them what I meant—”

“Because that sounded like a threat.”

“No! We—”

“Enough,” Penelope rasped, her heart in her throat and limbs frozen as she watched the scene escalate. Most of the Rangers were setting down their cups and plates, shifting their own stances for combat.

“Easy, let’s all just take a moment here,” Ranger Callum held up a placating hand as he tried to diffuse the rising aggression.

“Rosin, stop—”

“But they—”

“ENOUGH!” Penelope startled herself with the outburst. Sister Rosin looked as though she had been slapped while Sister Heely looked close to tears. All eyes turned to Penelope.

“THEY’RE HERE TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM US, PENELOPE!” Sister Rosin bellowed, her voice cracking.

A painful silence followed, broken only by the sounds of ragged breathing and the slow sheathing of weapons.

Sister Rosin clenched and unclenched her fists, the fight melting from her shoulders as she bowed her head.

“Rosin...” Penelope spoke softly, her heart aching as she stepped forward, keeping her movements slow despite the frantic beat of her heart. She glanced warily at the Rangers as they jostled to make room. “Rosin, we were already attending the Dark Moon Ball tonight...”

“I know, I know,” Sister Rosin sniffed, her voice low and gruff with emotion. “I just... We don’t know what might... what might come of tonight and—and remember those little pull wagons I used to make for you? I just wanted to send us off in, in something I made—” Sister Rosin’s voice failed as tears crested her cheeks and she pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle sobs. “I thought we’d have, have more time... just us.”

Penelope’s breath stuttered as she paced forward, pressing her brow to Sister Rosin’s hair. She swallowed back her own sobs, cursing every wretched, ungrateful thought she’d had about the wagon in the yard.

Sister Rosin’s hands were tight where they gripped Penelope’s arms. With visible effort, she recollected herself.

A sniffle to Penelope’s right reminded her of their audience.

Penelope looked up as Ranger Callum tilted his mask away from his face to wipe at his eyes.

“It’s a lovely carriage, Sister Rosin,” he said. “Really vibrant.”

A long suffering curse from the herald guard about the impertinence of youth broke the tension and Sister Rosin chuckled. “Thanks, lad.”

Sister Rosin released Penelope, wringing out her hands. She cast an assessing gaze around the room, seeming truly cognizant of the danger for the first time. “I’m— I apologise. I mean no harm.” Her eyes followed the Rangers’ movements as they made a show of relaxing their postures, reclaiming discarded plates and mugs. Sister Rosin gave a shaky nod. “I’ll just... I’ll go unhitch Cynthia.”

The room released a collective breath as the door swung closed and Sister Rosin’s red-clad figure retreated towards the shed.

Penelope caught Sister Heely’s watery gaze. The woman seemed torn, clearly desperate to follow her wife outside, yet unwilling to step from Penelope’s side in a room full of armed soldiers.

Before Penelope could begin think through the appropriate etiquette to address the fraught situation, Ranger Callum spoke up again.

“I can see why Steph likes you all so much,” he said with a wide smile.

The herald groaned and shook his head, tugging off his helmet to muss at his feathery brown hair. “Why did I even allow you to come?”

Ranger Callum grinned and turned to address Penelope. “I’m Callum, Steph’s best friend since we were old enough to know the words.”

Despite herself, Penelope found herself smiling in return. “Pleased to meet you.” She allowed Callum to place a kiss on her gloved knuckles.

“He sent me here to smooth the road, so to speak. He mentioned we might be... a little unwelcome. He asked me to come and say nice things about him so you won’t smack his teeth in when we get to the Fort.”

Penelope puffed out her cheeks, unsure how to answer. “...did he, now?”

“Oh, no,” Callum’s eyes danced with mirth as the herald sputtered and pulled his helmet back on with a clamour. “He’d wrangle me into the grave if he knew I told you that. But the lad’s right anxious about seeing you again, Princess, that’s for certain. It’s very sad, he’s been banging about the halls, making those lovely, pathetic puppy eyes for weeks, you know the look, I’m sure—”

“Callum, you nit. Forget a wrangling, mate, I’d expect a knife through the back of your glitterbug nightshirt.” A Ranger next to Callum with a mask carved like a wild cat bumped at his shoulder.

Callum danced out of the way and the Ranger stumbled with a grunt.

“Steady on, Marni! He wouldn’t, that’s my favourite one. Anyway, any more pining and I’m sure the poor ponce’ll melt right through the rugs, so—”

“That’s not exactly talking him up, is it, Callum,” the Ranger called Marni cut in, smacking a hand upside his head of copper-blonde hair.

“Ay, easy. I’m making an appeal to sympathy—” The two Rangers continued to tussle as the herald muttered a stream of expletives under his breath, every fourth word an apology for his language, and something in Penelope snapped.

All the fear, heartache, and pounding tension bubbled up from her gut until Penelope was folded over herself in a fit of uncontainable laughter.

The two grappling Rangers, who seemed much younger than the rest of the cohort, joined in, and they all pretended not to notice as Sister Heely slipped out the front door.