You Are My Light Part II

297 - Rocking Ships

"You are a mad girl!" The Dauphin of France cries out, pulling his hair out of his face as the boat rocks from side to side. He stumbles with each rock, nearly running on the edges of his feet in an effort to keep balance. "A mad, mad girl!" He yells again, his little face flushed in his fury and indignance. "I am to be married to a mad girl!" He yells, blonde curls dyed a murky brown with how wet they are, the heavy rain falling in every direction as the boat rocks horrifically.

The Queen of Scots is perched on a wet wooden trunk, her knees pulled up and leaning to the side, balanced perfectly well, and having a good laugh at his expense as the poor Dauphin is exposed to horrificness for thr first time in his life. She, too, is soaked, ans she feels the cold air around them, but she is exuberant and delighted to be heading north that it doesn't even bother her. She is so happy, and not even Francis' yells can change it.

"Calm down, you! You're fine!" She yells over the crashing waves and loud rain. "Why don't you see the fun in all this?!"

"Fun?! Fun?! We could die!"

"Don't be so dramatic, we're fine! Do you not see what position we're in?! No governess or icy Queen's to enable, we're free, Francis! Free as any bird, and we're going home!" Mary cries out, her eyes wide and delighted, cheeks wet and rosy, but she's so happy to be able to be in the little bit of discomfort that the discomfort doesn't matter at all. "Gone are the stuffy rules and regulations, no bowing or scraping or stuffy lace and stiff embroidery! No scoldings about manners of which fork to use, no whippings for how many sweets one can eat in a way. At home, we sing! We dance! We drink! We don't bow and scrape or dress up, we are fighters, not paintings! Do you not see, Francis?! We're going to be free! Your father isnt here ro roar ar us, your mother isnt here to scold and spit and coddle, there are no scheming whores or prissines, we're going to be happy!"

"I rest my case, you are absolutely mad!" Francis yells, looking over at young Lady Seton, who, just like all the other of Mary's ladies, apart from the Queen herself, cannot handle the waves in her stomach. The poor girls hold tightly for dear life to the boat as they continue to get sick in the water. "Look at them, in what way is this fun?!"

"They'll be fine, we've done this once before!" Mary bats the concern away. "Come, stand with me, maybe then you'll know what I mean!" Mary means to get up and grab the Prince and drag him to the very point of the ship, just above the bust, and he is very much not keen for that to happen.

"No, no!" Francis squeals. "Mary, we will die!"

She pulls him closer.

"Don't be stupid." She whispers. "I won't let you fall."

Francis blinks slowly, clenching tight to Mary's hands, and she has remarkable balance to hold them both steady. The Dauphin does he best to copy her stance, pushing the arches of his feet tightly against the wooden floor of the boat. His balance does get better, but he is still unsteady as his future wife leads him to where she had been sitting, standing on top of the box.

She climbs with such ease that it makes Francis gasp, and he inadvertently gets water in his mouth. She almost picks him up in her effort to get him to be with her, and he wobbles precariously and holds her body so tight that he thinks he bruises her skin as the two children stand just over the bust of the ship. He feels very irresponsible, like he waits for his Medici mother to come upstairs and shriek at them both. But she will not, she's still in France, being churches after the birth of Prince Hercules, and his father is beside her, ready to drink the night away in honour of his next legitimate son.

He is here, with Mary, on the way to Scotland to summer there and visit what will be his country if they make it down the isle. They are in the dark of night, the rain is pouring and the waves are horrific, but they move with the rocking of the boat so they're balance is steady. The two of them are free, wild, unchained and unrepentant.

And even the fact that he is breaking all the rules he has ever been taught, standing here, as if he is a bird flying in the sky, taking his life in his hands as he stands with this mad girl who has driven him from his sickbed to her homeland of rugged beauty and strong, stocky, burly men.

And that girl, who's just as wet as he is, she stands, gripping him tightly and howling into the wind as if she is a wolf. She laughs her glee, wet hair whipping against her face, she sings with the wind and stares at the stars, her cheeks red and stinging. She yells and calls words he's only ever heard she and her ladies say, chants those strange words and yells at the sky.

And he can't help but smile with her.