"It was horrible, Mary! Really, really bad!" the little Dauphin of France sniffles loudly to the six year old Queen of Scotland. He holds his bedsheets close to his face, mopping the tears from his face as he continues to cry. It's dark outside, there's hardly any light coming into the room, for the fire is quickly dying and the candles aren't of great amount. But, there's light enough in the shared lodgings of the Queen of Scotland and Dauphin of France (it should house little Princess Elisabeth and tiny little Claude, but they're on a trip to Chambord with the Queen of France. God forbid Queen Catherine treat the Queen of Scotland like her own child. Everybody knows how much Queen Catherine hates Queen Mary) for the tall ravenette to see her pretty little companion as he holds his knees to his chest and sniffles his distress. Mary wasn't exactly sure what had happened to disturb her friend from his sleep, but she felt the need to run her fingers through his hair and comfort him. What an odd thought. Mary had never felt the need to touch somebody's hair before.
"What happened?" the tired child asks, rolling her neck in a circle until the satisfying cracks leave her feeling a little more comfortable, barely having any personal space in Francis' little bed. "Why are you distressed?" she asks, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fists. God help her, how Marie de Guise and Catherine de Medici would shriek and swat at her if they saw her acting so unladylike, she thinks with a small smirk.
"I-I had a rêve horrible." he sniffles.
"A what?" she asks, never one for French speaking first thing after being woken up, especially when the thing that awoke her from a deep slumber was a loud shriek. "Oh, horrid dream." she says, nodding at her own cloudy translation. Good God, the French language was an odd one to remember, far too many words for the same thing. Couldn't everybody just speak one language? it would make everything easier. "Want to tell me about it?" she remembers Kenna making Lola tell her about her horrid dream when they were on the boat to France. Not that there was ever much conversation on the ship, her little ladies spent most of it violently regurgitating. And yes, Mary did take every opportunity to mock them for their weakness of the rocking motion.
"O-okay." he sniffles. "There was fire everywhere, and I-I couldn't see you anywhere. Horrid men in their horrid suits of metal were everywhere and they were yelling and chanting and breaking things and pushing swords into everybody! Father calls one of those an attaque."
"You dreamed of an attack on the castle." Mary mutters tiredly, running a hand through her silky black hair. He nods.
"It was so scary, Mary!"
"It's okay, prionnsa beag." Mary mutters, stretching an arm over his small shoulders. "It was not real, just a dream. It can't torment you now." she says. He curls his small head into her shoulder. How odd this all is, she remembers when the roles they now played were reversed. Where she would hug him every chance she got, being scared that he may be taken from her too. And he was rather irritated by her clinginess, and couldn't understand her native tounge. But, here they were, with Mary being the less clingy one and Francis being the emotional child who wanted to be held.
"Mary?" he questions with his little voice after a few moments.
Mary hummed, looking at him as he pulled away.
"Do Queens have bad dreams, too? Not just Princes?"
"Of course." Mary remembers being tormented in her slumber as she was in her daytime hours back home by England quite vividly.
"What about?"
"My enemy, my cousins." she says. "Them harming my people, killing them, burning their homes, hurting their families. England coming to get me, ready and willing to spill my blood and take my life just because I come from the bloodline of the Tudors and the Yorks. My ladies being harmed, while I am powerless to stop them. I have bad dreams, too."
"When we get bigger, I'll protect you from those dreams." he says, his little chest puffing up. Mary chuckles.
"Oh?"
"Yes. I will. England can't hurt Scotland now that France is here, and Edward or Mary can't hurt you, because I'm here." he gives her a pretty smile, one that she finds rather endearing, even with the tear tracks and reddish eyes. And she finds, surprisingly, that she believes him.
/
Baby Frary is the best!
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You Are My Light Part II
Historical Fiction-Reign Oneshots/Taking Requests- The world can be dark, Mary, and uncertain and cruel. The only thing that matters is that we face it together. No matter what happens, you are my light. Part 2! -Read TEML first!-
