Coronation Party [Open]

[commandsthewind]

Who: Elizabeth Tudor, Arthur Pendragon and you!
What: Coronation Party Times!
When: 17th of November, evening. backdated shhh~
Where: The Ballroom.
Rating: PG.

[The ballroom has been briefly transformed, or something like that. At least enough to Elizabeth's tastes and she had no issue at all using the ghosts if it got her what she wanted, in red and gold. A table of food and drink has been set up on one side of the room, wine aplenty of course, and in the middle of the table is the cake made by Ino. There's tables and chairs around the room, and the doors are open to the balcony, so guests can go out there for air as well. Somewhere softly behind all that, there is music playing. It's a light heart-ed celebration, but that is all that is really wanted.]

[ The Balcony | Tables & Chairs | Other places around the room ]

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[commandsthewind]

[She ducked her head a little bit as she spun in turn, smiling.]

They are of every kind -- young boys sent by their rich Papa's, who are so nervous they can hardly speak. The aging old Dukes that think their trinkets and false French will impress a Queen who spoke it fluently by the time she was nine. Of course there is the odd arrogant young so and so that thinks I have to care for him just because he's whoever he is.

[there's a short skip of a step that leaves her just a little bit breathless, enough for her favourite of all, and it makes her voice warm just thinking of them -- ] Then there are my explorers. They know what impresses me. My jolly sailors bold, all of them. The come in off the wind from the East Indies, the bring me gold and silks, they bring me spices, they bring me things I have never seen -- they give me unknown worlds and the days at sea. They give you immensities, and they spin you about -- [as if just to make the tale grander, she timed it to the dance, to take Lucrezia's hand once more and spin her under her arm all a little too fast to the whirl of music, almost enough to make one dizzy.] -- and then back into that immensity they go. [her laugh was brilliant then, still as light as the dance was -- for she loved to dance she realised, in the way she loved explorers. The thrill of it, of the unknown, and the light headed feeling that followed it.]

[heloise]

[ The joy has her as lightheaded. It may be the spinning, too, but she prefers to think it was the way even a Queen can seem like a little laughing child when she dances. Or the way fondness shows through one's voice even should Elizabeth try to hide it.

Lucrezia mimics her laughter, spinning fast and with flourish, a flick of her wrist. Dancing is like flying when done with the right partner. ]

Conquistadors, Elizabeth? [ She slows her steps and circles her, round and round, stealing glances over her shoulder. ] They would conquer you lands, would they not? Build this nation you so love. And so, [ she grins, almost devious ] they are as much your country. It is no wrong to love them.

[commandsthewind]

[This Elizabeth missed, the laughter, the lightness court -- in its webs, it's intrigues -- could have. Though surface level, it was as much worth it. Young women laughing and bold men watching.

And Lucrezia flourished in it, so bold too. As bold as Elizabeth had ever been.]

I never thought it was wrong to love them. For I found it much the same, who could not love that which makes them powerful. As love ought to. Makes you bold, makes you free and rise above the mundane. [Where reality had only offered poor offerings in that regard, love had no lifted her in a long age.]

[heloise]

[ Lucrezia may thrive better in a court of women, where it is validated for women to have power and not punished for aspiring to be more than pawns. She thinks Elizabeth, above all, understands that. ]

Should love make one feel most powerful of all, Elizabeth, or should it make one feel insignificant, in the face of our most beloved? [ She holds up her palm so the both of them can circle around each other. ]

And is that power which loves gives a foolish thing?

[commandsthewind]

[As always, Lucrezia posed such interesting questions. So it took her a moment to think that through. It had been such a long time since she'd thought on love and its definitions.]

I think that love should be both. For if it were so easily defined, it would not be love. Or at least I do not think it would. It binds as it gives freedom. It diminishes you even as you feel a fullness in yourself. [Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.]

I think yes that is why it makes us so foolish, for it transmutes and changes.

[heloise]

[ The touch of fingers can be more intimate than kisses. There are some she would feel more comfortable admitting that too, but figures Elizabeth is more distant than most, though not so much at this moment. ]

Would you be glad, Your Majesty, to be a fool for love?

[commandsthewind]

[It can be, but then court was all about slight gestures that meant more than they showed, and to Elizabeth they were something in her own way, treasured.]

I was more than glad to be, at one point, I was greater than any. For my family have a great habit of becoming so ensnared by it, and it burns us through.

[heloise]

We are more similar than I thought.

[ Lucrezia grins, all summer and sunshine, at the admission. It is more surprising, more significant, because of the speaker. She turns the other way and places her other palm against Elizabeth's. ]

Perhaps a family's greatness is measured only by how high a flame we burn when set alight by love.

[commandsthewind]

Perhaps so, my lady. [She couldn't pretend to be different. She remembered how it was with Dudley, when she loved truly, she had felt so free in herself, no matter the burdens on her shoulders.]

If that is the case, my family will never be forgotten. My father changed England for my mother, for her love.

[heloise]

[ Lucrezia keeps her attention on Elizabeth's hand, as if seeing some secret runes there that only she can read. ]

Can love be earned, Elizabeth?

[commandsthewind]

[There is much written there, woman and country, in rings on her long fingers, that were aged as much as the rest of her, and without completely meaning to, her fingertips touching Lucrezia's.]

In time, it can, once trust has been made and kept. With it, you have the tools to forge a great love. Without it, well -- you'd be as useful as a blacksmith without a fire to heat the metal of love.

[heloise]

[ Age shows most clearly on one's hands. She has seen the same in her mother. A woman's face is her mask. ]

Do you still hold out hope for a husband you could learn to love, Elizabeth?