Father always said to fear a woman with a sword.

Aelfrun had gotten really tired of father today. He came at her with this ridiculous idea of her becoming some broodmare for his dynasty. She thought for years she had been building herself up, proving herself. How could he be so willfully blind?!

She paced angrily across the black bear furs of her carpet, knuckles white at her sides as she shook in her white night gown. "How DARE he..." She hissed, glaring angrily into the mirror as every feature they shared briefly sparked fire inside. She felt heat rise in her cheeks, and for a split moment, she swore that her eyes almost seemed like they were burning before her old wood door was flung open. Its brass handle banging loudly against the stone wall, barely missing the edge of her long dresser that circled one section of her circular room.

"Cunt." Spat the venomous tone of the taller, broad chested woman. The head of the navy, Admiral Frida, had been Aelfrun's rival for nearly a decade. She was twice her size in muscle and half as in height. She had a somewhat lovely face, framed by her almost trench deep navy blue hair that sat only to her shoulders. It was heavily scarred along the jaw and neck. She was famed for her breathing magic, so it had become a frequent target in battle. The mouth guard She wore most days, metal with a screen that let her shark like teeth show through.

She had pale blue skin along her otherwise human jaw and stomach, with blacker grey skin from the nose up and along her back and arms. She had a larger, pointed nose and large black eyes that reminded one of a doll. It went well with the steely color of her naval uniform, specially made for her in offense to color tradition. Its chest was covered in medals over her small in fat but heavy in muscle chest, with the slight sheet of its water-resistant oil treatment over the canvas fabric. Her boots were black, but more a formality to calm those who found her webbed and clawed toes offensive. Aelfrun had always found her to be the most beautiful woman in the world, which made their shared headstrong nature all the worse.

"Not... Not now you fucking Fish." She couldn't look at her. She couldn't admit how suddenly she had lost all chance at their continued ambitions, their rivalry, their conquests...

She felt the powerful, rough hand of the larger woman rest gently on her shoulder. Aelfrun turned to swing and was treated with a warm embrace. She struggled only for a minute, far less than she expected out of herself, before crying against the broader woman silently with her hands tightly clutched into her uniform. "It isn't fair..."

"It isn't." Her raw voice said gently.

"You... you w-"

"Temporary truce."

"..."

"..."

"Excuse me?" Aelfrun looked through tear strained eyes at the larger black orbs she always felt on her, even when there was no way to tell.

"Truce. I won't have this be how I beat your ass." She turned, hands held behind her back as Aelfrun blinked a little. She knew Frida to be deeply honorable, but this did shock her to the level for which that went.

"There.. is no defying the king."

"Then we change his mind." She declared, turning to Aelfrun and leaning against the dresser. She paused for a moment, noticing how relatively bare the princess's room was. A warm and large but otherwise normal bed, black bear fur carpets, and a long dresser. "There's no way this is actually your room."

She turned near as red as her hair then, turning away from Frida. "I... I am just not one for materialism."

"I fought with you for four months over a sword in the Caribbean." This had her sweating a bit more extensively.

Aelfrun was a proud woman, even to her detriment at times. She considered if this was one of those times or if Frida was right and her father was in error. He had such a tendency to arrogance at times. She also considered how Frida was the first to really come to her. Would she...?

"My room is bare because I spend little of my time here." No. Not yet. "I am more busy in the libraries anyway."

"Always reading." Her voice was too low. It made Aelfrun's spine tingle deliciously.

"The pen is mightier."

"Oh, I disagree." Frida stepped closer, and Aelfrun felt a quiet rush inside. Not of fear. Something else.

"Stay." She said, louder but just as firm as she meant to. Frida stilled like a frozen pole, then blushed a deep and blackish grey along her cheeks at how easily she had been ordered. Aelfrun's stretching smile did not ease that blush. Instead, it was like throwing oil on a dirty mess you were trying to clean, and it made Aelfrun's eyes start to spark.

"I..." Aelfrun opened her mouth, but Frida finished before she could interject. "Should go talk with the king. All of this marriage talk, maybe there is a way we can make it easier to convince him."

"What are you proposing?"

"A naval expedition."

"With a princess and prince on board??"

"Two princes and a princess." Aelfrun quirked a brow as the heat in her mind had cooled. Frida was just at good at igniting her as she was cooling her down. Curiosity hit her hardest.

"You suggest taking Edan?"

"I suggest taking Edan and Prince Nuru." She leaned in softly, her dark hair lightly falling onto the princess's shoulder as she started to turn away. She whispered softly in a tone Aelfrun had never heard but had hoped to. "Word has it that they already fancy one another."

Aelfrun let out a heavy laugh after a moment, masking the rapid redding of her cheeks. "My brother?! In love?!" She scoffed openly as she walked back toward her bed. "That man is smart, but he has no time for.... Maidens..." Aelfrun felt a twitch at the corner of her lips. Her brother was goddessborn, as the phrase had so been named. Not of the churches God, but another, a more feminine goddess that gave warmth to men's cheeks and grit to women's teeth. Who filled the hearts of a lucky few with a special kind of love. It was fitting, given his deep attachment to the goddess taught to him by Kore and Aida.

A selfless maiden goddess who seeks no romantics but instead offers a motherly warmth. A thing Edan desperately needed from a young age but could not be found in their mother. Aelfrun was much like their mother. For her, this had been a blessing. For Edan...

'I wonder if he even realizes how cruel she has been.' She did not understand her mother's ways, but Edan had never seemed too displeased. She had never set him with regalities like the rest of them. He mostly stayed with those nobles who would call the senseless rabble. She let him dirty himself, and I bulge eagerly in the muck of the commoner. It troubled the loving sister, even though it seemed to be a natural state for Edan. He looked happy among them. He was someone of import, though. They were just uneducated peasantry. Soldiers and sellswords. She couldn't fathom the reason her mother would allow Edan to wallow like that aside from sheer cruelty.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a pat on the back by the powerful woman. "Perhaps he is. Perhaps that is a blessing of the great lord below that his eyes found hold only where you needed them to. A useful pa -" She never even saw where Aelfrun had hidden it. In an instant, she was yanked down by the collar of her uniform and had a freshly polished longsword to her throat.

"Ever. Ever." She pressed the blade tighter against the larger woman's thicker skinned throat. Even still, the metal bit slightly just as well. "Call Edan a Pawn. A peon. A serf. And I shall send you to your god." This made the shark woman let out a slow, confused gulp. She suddenly needed to go swimming.

Not to say she was shocked that Aelfrun was protective of her kin. She had always been a deathly loyal person, and Edan, for all his antics, was a good brother to Aelfrun. She never had any reason to hate him. Maybe annoyed, but never hate. Well. Her father may have just given her a small reason, though only that Edan lacked a pair of breasts.

"Ok. Ok." Her hands raised in surrender.

"Good." Aelfrun lowered the blade and turned. Frida never even saw where she hid it again as she was too dazed to focus. She shook her head after a moment, clearing it. "So we are in agreement then. Should this rumor be true, we shall be convincing Father to marry Edan off to Nuru. There's just one teeny tiny itsy bitsy issue with these plans."

"And what is that?"

"MY FATHER WANTS HEIRS!!"

The glass windows in the servants' quarters, stationed only across the yard from Aelfrun's spire, were replaced the next day.

...

Edan settled on the wall of the training ground, a trouser covered leg dangling over as he watched the great vastness of it all. The daylight illuminated the countryside so beautiful in glows of emerald and topaz from the fruits and fields and endless forests that lined their eastern border. It was so beautiful, and he couldn't imagine any place better to call home.

Theirs was a smaller kingdom in scope but had a vast reach that was steadily expanding and stretching across the world to bring their serenity to everyone. He had fought in France and on the high seas in Asia. He had crossed blades with the proud Muslim warriors in Turkey and traded blows with the refined and noble men of the far, far east, for a brief time had his father tried to bring serenity there. It seemed they had their own kind of peace, and Edan deeply respected the care for their arms they had, even if the treatment of their common man troubled him deeply. Few places treated the people so kindly as Infern.

He picked up a small rock and smiled just a little more as his eyes briefly closed and he backed in the radiant sunshine. Too many days grew cloudy here for him, not to savor the blissful beauty of its shining light. It reminded him so much of his goddess, yet it had also begun to make him think of another.

'I wonder if he likes Lamb..?'