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Once upon a time, there was a princess named Fleur. Her exquisite beauty was so renowned throughout the realm that she was always called “Her Royal Highness, the lovely Princess Fleur,” even when being introduced at court functions and in the annals chronicling her father’s reign. Her allure surpassed mere comeliness and verged on the supernatural. Men could be lovestruck after catching a mere glimpse of her across a crowded room. On more than one occasion, a gentleman fell to his knees and proposed marriage to the lovely Princess Fleur before nary a word of introduction or conversation had passed between them.
After a lifetime of warding off unsolicited proposals, Fleur received one from a man she had never met before. He was a prince from a neighboring kingdom which had long been at war with Fleur’s homeland. A marriage could seal the tenuous new peace between their countries and also secure lucrative trade deals for her father, whose coffers were drained from the war. Upon much reflection, Fleur decided that it was her duty to accept the prince’s proposal. Why should the people suffer from war and famine because their lovely princess insisted on a love match? Dozens of men had proposed to Fleur, yet her heart had never stirred, not even once. Perhaps it never would.
Sometimes Fleur wondered whether she was too beautiful to fall in love. To love was to know, to embrace, to accept another person completely, and to be known, embraced, and accepted in return. She was an object of desire, certainly, though idolized from afar in a way that did not require knowing. Indeed, she suspected that her admirers would grow less entranced with the lovely Princess Fleur when they began to view her simply as Fleur, a young lady who had a hairbrush for each day of the week and who was bad-tempered for at least an hour after waking each morning.
It was a lonely existence. Gentlemen were too flustered in Fleur’s presence to converse in a normal manner, and ladies tended to be threatened or intimidated by her beauty. Her younger sister Gabrielle was Fleur’s only true friend, which led the court gossips to proclaim that the two princesses were cold and haughty, too proud to befriend anyone who had not been blessed with an angelic countenance as they had. Was it haughty to refuse to throw herself off a pedestal she had been thrust upon against her will?
Both kingdoms rejoiced at the news of the engagement. The prince wrote Fleur eloquent love letters extolling her stunning features, fair complexion, and pleasing figure. Evidently, her reputation as a beauty preceded her. Once the betrothal contract was officially signed, Fleur’s intended dispatched his court painter to capture her likeness. By all accounts, he was taken with the portrait. His letters grew longer and more impassioned, which confirmed Fleur’s suspicions that his advisers had composed the earlier, more formulaic missives.
The prince did not send a portrait of himself in return. His letters divulged very little about his character and interests, nor did he ask Fleur many questions about herself. She had a particular talent for Charms, spoke three languages fluently, could embroider complex patterns with thread as thin as gossamer, and was a masterful equestrienne. It mattered not. None of her accomplishments interested him in the slightest. Even to her future husband, she was nothing more than the lovely Princess Fleur: a feather in his cap, beautiful and useless.
The prince continued holding himself aloof as the courtship progressed. Fleur felt she was marrying a stranger. Over the course of their correspondence, she only became more convinced that she could never fall in love with him. By then, her mother had commissioned a wedding gown and her father’s stewards were assembling the dowry. The entire court bustled with preparations for her fiance’s arrival. The prince and his parents were to make a formal state visit before escorting Fleur to her new home. There was nothing left to do but step into her costume, pick up her props, and play her role. Yet still the bride felt restless and uneasy.
A week before the royal entourage was due to arrive, Fleur donned one of her old riding habits which her mother had deemed too shabby for her trousseau and trekked to the stables at the edge of the palace grounds. The sweet, slightly earthy smell of hay and horses calmed her like nothing else.
“Hello, Praline! I’ve missed you. It’s been far too long since I came to see you, you poor thing.” Fleur offered a sugar cube to her favorite horse, a striking golden palomino with a cream-colored mane and tail. Praline snorted indignantly but accepted the treat nevertheless.
“I know I’ve neglected you terribly. I’m sorry, darling.” Fleur stroked Praline’s muzzle.
“It’s not only Praline you’ve been neglecting!” called a voice from behind a hefty sack of oats. It fell to the floor with a soft thump, revealing Tonks the stable girl. Her hair was cropped short, and she wore a loose tunic, men’s britches, and well-worn work boots.
“And it’s not just Praline I’ve missed! Shall I give you some sugar, too?” Fleur quipped. She produced another cube from her pocket. Tonks’s skin took on a peculiar elastic quality, stretching and morphing until she looked remarkably like a horse. Her features remained fundamentally human, but her nose became wider and longer, her eyes grew larger and farther apart, and her hair lengthened until it resembled a mane. Her tongue felt velvety and fleshy against Fleur’s palm. The princess shivered and giggled before pulling her hand away.
“Mm. That was very pleasant, but I don’t forgive as easily as Praline the sweet tooth here. I reckon you owe us both a nice long ride,” Tonks declared once she had returned to her usual appearance.
“That sounds like just the tonic I need,” Fleur admitted as she rubbed the deep furrow that appeared between her eyebrows in times of anxiety and discord. She usually enjoyed her long volleys of witty banter with Tonks, but the engagement had made her weary of all artifice, even the agreeable sort. She merely longed for fresh air, invigorating exercise, and pleasant companionship.
Tonks tilted her head, her dark eyes searching the princess’s face. However, she let the sudden change in mood pass without comment.
Instead, she picked up the oats. “Right, a healthy dose of tonic coming right up. The weather ought to stay fair for the rest of the afternoon. I just need to feed the carriage horses and then we can set off.”
While Tonks was in another stall, Fleur removed her stylish hat, loosened her neck cloth, tied her silver-blonde hair into a loose braid, and washed the rouge from her cheeks with water from Praline’s trough. Praline regarded the princess’s rustic appearance with uncritical devotion as the palomino nuzzled closer and demanded strokes. This was why Fleur often preferred the company of horses to people; horses did not care about appearances. And neither did Tonks, for that matter. The stable girl was a metamorphmagus, and the rare gift had the effect of demystifying Fleur and her bewitching allure. Tonks was not cowed by the princess because she could make herself more beautiful than Fleur with a mere snap of her fingers. But she never did. Fleur liked that about her. Like Fleur, Tonks understood that beauty was only a fortuitous arrangement of features, nothing more and nothing less. It did not automatically denote virtue any more than it did arrogance, deceit, or stupidity.
Tonks returned with a pile of tack and Croquette, an older jennet the servants often rode when running errands or accompanying the royal family. She began preparing both horses for a long, leisurely ride. Once or twice, Fleur had offered to help Tonks with various chores around the stables, but Tonks always refused. Amicable though their rapport was, there were some lines that could never be crossed between mistress and servant. Fleur’s mother always said that it was only natural to feel an affinity for the people who attended to one’s most intimate needs; that was why it was of utmost importance to maintain a proper distance. To breach that distance would only be confusing for all involved. So Fleur let Tonks go about her work in peace and always addressed her by her surname, as court etiquette dictated. The endless adoring cries of “Your Royal Highness” grated on Fleur and a stable girl calling a princess by her given name would be scandalous, so Tonks tactfully avoided calling Fleur anything at all.
Besides, Fleur enjoyed watching Tonks work. The stable girl had a notorious reputation among the servants for her clumsiness. As a young girl, Tonks had been assigned to work in the kitchens with her mother. Dozens of broken dishes and an utterly ruined croquembouche brought an end to that plan. But with animals, and horses in particular, Tonks was as graceful as a prima ballerina. She moved about the barn with a practical, surefooted agility which was the complete opposite of Fleur’s self-consciously elegant gait.
Fleur reveled in the smell of leather and the clink of metal as Tonks’s dextrous fingers fastened the bridle and reins. There was a comforting familiarity to these rituals, like brushing Gabrielle’s hair or the industrious hum of the house elves lulling her back to sleep after she stirred in the middle of the night. But there was also something aesthetically pleasing about the tableau, about the way Tonks’s billowing shirt lifted to reveal a thin sliver of her midriff as she reached to place the blanket and slid the saddle into place. On that particular day, the metamorphmagus’s hair matched the burnished chestnut of the saddle perfectly. And when Tonks turned so Fleur was viewing her in profile, the planes of her face aligned with the gentle curve of the saddle in a pleasing sort of way. Finally, Tonks placed the mounting block and offered a hand to Fleur. Fleur took it, climbed up, settled into her seat, gave Praline an affectionate pat. They had done this hundreds of times before and now there were only a few more days when Tonks would help Fleur into this saddle, atop this horse, in this barn.
Praline and Croquette settled into an easy canter through the fields, and the riders pushed them to a gallop as they passed through the outer villages and then a smattering of cottages and hovels. Fleur kept her cloak clutched tightly around her face, for it was wearisome to be recognized by the commoners everywhere she went. Tonks led the way up a winding mountain trail. She knew where Fleur wanted to go without having to ask. The last remaining signs of human habitation disappeared as the incline grew steeper and the earth became craggy and inhospitable.
Finally, they arrived in a small, sun-dappled clearing with a stream and thickets of wild berries. Fleur removed her hood, savoring the sensation of the warm sun and cool breeze on her skin. She picked berries and collected water from the stream while Tonks went foraging for mushrooms. They shared their meal on a carpet of clover, which the horses sniffed with interest. Tonks lay on her back and repaired a frayed lead rope while humming tunelessly.
Fleur shut her eyes, inhaled the fresh mountain air, and exhaled contentment. “It feels as if we’re in a different world up here. I will miss this, once I’ve gone away.”
Tonks rolled onto her side and glanced at Fleur. “I heard that when your cousin married the grand duke, she made him build a new greenhouse for her collection of exotic Venomous Tentaculas.” She twirled the rope in her fingers as she spoke.
“Mm? So?” Fleur opened her eyes to frown at her servant.
“It sounds as if the prince is very eager indeed. Why shouldn’t you make a few requests so you feel more at home there? You might ask about bringing Praline. They must be able to spare one stall in their stables for their new princess.”
Fleur considered this. She had assumed she had no power in the marriage negotiations. It had never occurred to her that she could make demands of her betrothed the same way the prince was constantly demanding things from her: portraits, locks of her hair, more frequent letters. She gazed at her beloved horse, imagined feeling the warm solidity of her presence in an unfamiliar place far from home. The idea was comforting, but incomplete. “It’s not just Praline I’ll miss.”
“And that Praline, she’s a temperamental one. You shall need just the right sort of person to manage her.” Tonks tied and untied the rope, averting her eyes from Fleur’s. “New brides often bring a few of their most trusted servants to their new households, you know. I’d wager they have servants’ quarters to spare as well as horses’ stalls.”
“Oh, Dora!” Fleur exclaimed, “Would you really come with me? What about your mother?”
The rope fell from Tonks’s hands. There was a long, still silence as they both comprehended what the princess had just done.
“Tonks, I apologize. I never should have... My mother warned me. This is precisely why we have so many rules, otherwise it becomes much too confusing. I’m such a fool!”
“No, don’t say that,” Tonks whispered. She reached to smooth the crease on Fleur’s forehead. Fleur’s heart stirred.
“Do you mean…?” Fleur stammered. She could feel her pulse fluttering and her breasts trembling, straining against the stays of her corset. After a lifetime of being courted, Tonks had turned Fleur’s entire world upside down with a single touch.
But Tonks misunderstood and began to pull away. “Your Highness, now it’s my turn to apologize. I forgot myself.”
“No, come back,” Fleur begged. She caught Tonks’s hand and guided it to her cheek, then turned and kissed the muscular wrist peeking out from the frayed sleeve. Tonks was still watching her nervously, doubtless worried that she would be punished for her impertinence. Fleur understood that Tonks could do no more than hint at her feelings. It was up to Fleur to make the leap, to plunge them both past the point of return.
She knelt before Tonks. Their lips grazed, collided clumsily, and then softened into a long, whimpering kiss. Fleur trembled and gripped the short hair at the nape of Tonks’s neck. Soon they were both laid on the ground, pressed close together and yet still too far apart. Fleur’s fingers fumbled beneath Tonks’s tunic and explored the constellation of scars from a lifetime of being thrown from horses. Tonks traced the curves of Fleur’s body with a delicious hunger. In between kisses, she murmured the princess’s name into the soft flesh of her neck, without title or epithet. “Fleur, Fleur…”
They surfaced to catch their breath. The sun had nearly set without their noticing, painting the sky in the colors of endings and beginnings. Fleur touched her lips in disbelief. They felt flushed and puffy. Then she noticed that her hair was mussed and her dress was stained with mud.
“Oh, I must look awful!” she cried.
“You never look awful, you know that. But I think this is the most ravishing you’ve ever been.” Tonks ran a hand through Fleur’s tangle of silky hair. This was it, Fleur realized, this was what all the ballads and the prince’s love letters were about.
Fleur’s shy smile withered. “Oh, what am I going to do? The marriage contract is already signed, and if I broke it there would be another war.”
“So don’t break it. You’ll have to marry someone eventually, and unfortunately it cannot be me. I meant what I said. I want to come with you.” Tonks squeezed her hand.
“We would still be able to see each other sometimes, I suppose. That is better than nothing. But Dora, I want to be with you every day, every moment of every day.”
“I know.” Tonks pulled Fleur onto her chest. They lay like that for a while, listening to the gurgling of the brook and the huffing of the horses. Fleur could still sense a hesitant tension in Tonks’s body, as if she was nerving herself up to speak.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Fleur. Even before I knew that you…you wanted me to come with you. There might be some advantages to this arrangement. We could have more freedom in a new household where nobody knows us. I need not tell anyone that I’m a metamorphmagus at all. I could have a new face every day if I wanted to. And there’s a lot of people in a princess’s retinue. A lot of different people who have a lot of different reasons they might need to be alone with their mistress. Maids and hairdressers and secretaries, and Morgana knows what else.”
Fleur buried her face in the crook of Tonks’s collarbone and wept with relief. Then she laughed, because a few short hours ago she had been dreading her wedding. Now it could not come soon enough: the beginning of her own bizarre, miraculous happily ever after.
They galloped back in the long shadow of the mountain. It was dark enough that Fleur could ride with her hood down and her hair flying loose. For the first time in her life, she felt free.