Once Upon a Moonlit Garden

Serine shook herself out of her thoughts then continued: "But anyway! When my father died suddenly from natural causes, many people felt that my mother should take over ruling instead - since she was still alive..." She paused again for effect; this time waiting for my reaction...

I could see where this was going now - apparently Serine's mother had also been murdered soon after taking over as queen! But by who?! And why?! Her grandfather hadn't even taken over yet! He'd already planned to have Serine killed off! Maybe... maybe he knew something bad about Serine being Queen? Or maybe he wanted his son Lucian III to take over instead? Either way, it sounded like poor Serine had more enemies than friends... which is probably why she wanted my help in protecting her tonight (and every night). But how could anyone think she might be better off dead than married into House Ravener?! Not even House Ravener would do something so cruel!

So I guess it didn't matter either way anymore; regardless of who Serine married this week, someone was bound to try and kill both of them eventually anyway. The only question would be how long they could last together without being discovered. but from what Serine had told me so far about their engagement and how long they'd been sneaking around behind everyone else's back already (along with their adorable sneakiness), hopefully long enough for us all to realize how foolish it would be for anyone to want their marriage annulled.

Especially if we could keep them together long enough for them to produce an heir to carry on both their houses instead!! That would make them untouchable!! Everyone knew that an heir couldn't be disowned unless they were caught doing something unforgivable themselves (like killing their parents or hundreds of innocent civilians), since otherwise there was nowhere else for their bloodline to go!

And yeah okay fine maybe there were some exceptions like Queen Hilda (who may have been mentally ill), but those kinds of cases were so rare that they hardly counted anyway! And besides, there could always be an accident later on if things got out of hand with one of them. which wouldn't be hard when they were fighting each other ;) ...Well, maybe not THAT hard, but still!! It should be easy enough!!

And what better way for our kingdom's rivals to lose hope than by having such strong heirs standing together?! They'd never stand a chance!!! This plan is perfect!!! Now we need to stay focused and focus on protecting Serine and ensuring their marriage remains intact. Let's continue working together to keep them safe, so that they can eventually bring peace and stability to the realm.