Duskfire Glacier She hides like a child but she’s always a woman to me

delicate earlobes pirouetted. soft surprise made her lips into an "o".

le glacier?

the royal head rose, surveyed the land, briefly concerned - then was made to feel silly. loups had been gone for months.

she looked down again. la petite princesse. what was her claim to royalty? a trick? someone's attempt at comedy? and yet just as the supple, royal lips curled for a joke, something caught the queen's eye.

a glint. vanishingly brief. the exact way the light breaks off of a well-cut gem.

did she imagine it?

it was known that in kings, with all the confidence and self-assuredness removed, there remained a pea beneath the mattresses and eider-down beds, a small thing that only a true royal might notice.

she must've seen it-

with a blink, she realized that in thinking of the girl, she had ignored the girl.

"...je suis la reine de la montagne." her majesty said, without the grandeur with which one would impress a peasant. "you may call me zhe mo'n'ta'n queen, until you've learned zhe royal lang'uage, of coh'se."

gracefully, the queen rose to her full height, seemingly invigorated, expression warm and amused. "boot i zee yoh're in une situation difficile, zeeing as ah've annexed your kinghdom! most dramatique, oui."