(Log) A promise to promise
Who: King Varvenis Westerveldt and Princess Maricosa Westerveldt
When: Saturday morning
Where: Throne Hall, Pentacleon Castle
What: Mari bends her father's ear

King Varvenis had been having this argument with his daughter Maricosa for three years now, and she was most definitely wearing down his patience.

“Daddy!” She stamped her foot impatiently. “You must let me debut this year!”

“Mari,” he said evenly. “You are only fifteen.”

“I am fifteen,” she continued, her voice pitching to a whine. “I will be an old spinster soon!”

The King sighed, and patted the arm of his chair. Mari threw herself onto it and continued begging. “Please Daddy. I should like to have a suitor before it is too late! Finny will never marry, and Ebi’s for Temperance now. Don’t you want any ancestors?”

“Descendants,” he corrected her absent-mindedly, and she took that as affirmation that yes, he did want them.

“I will make such an excellent bride, and you keep me from it! Why won’t you let me marry?”

He tried a different tact. “My dear, you are a princess. To whom could we wed you with any guarantee they would provide for you?” His wife had suggested some of the nobleman warriors of the kingdom as potential suitors. He did not dislike them, but they were far too old for Maricosa, and furthermore, not at all accustomed to indulging a princess. “The noblemen of this kingdom are far beyond your age.”

Mari buried her face in his thick, ermine mantle and whimpered. “Then look to the other kingdoms,” she pleaded. She had heard that men of the other kingdoms were far more modern than those of the Pentacleon territory anyway. They allowed such things as dancing and drinking, and all that was forbidden to her as an unmarried Temperant in Pentacles. “You are wise, Daddy, I will marry any man you choose for me.”

Though she did not know it, therein lay the problem. Queen Bariah was more than happy to marry her off to any commoner come calling, simply to be rid of her constant mooning of her ‘spinster’ status. King Varvenis would have none of that. His daughter was a princess, and a beautiful one at that. She would marry well, to a man of high social standing. None less than a Duke, certainly; or whatever passed for such title in his brothers’ kingdoms.

“I will think on it,” he said finally begrudgingly. This was, to Princess Maricosa, a world of improvement over the simple rebuffs she had been dealt previously. Her father was a man of his word—if there was a gentleman out there he deemed a suitable match, he would arrange a marriage. She pressed a delighted kiss to his stubbly cheek, and made haste to her bedchamber to prepare the cat for a wedding.