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[h2]Stonehaven Citadel[/h2][/center]

Princess Anna Helvetii watched her step-mother quietly out of the corner of her eye. The two of them were seated in main visiting room of the Queens Tower, a three tiered structure on the southwest corner of the main Citadel. The two women rarely spent any time near each other and Anna widely wondered if this was how all Step-mothers interacted with their adopted offspring. Her fingers were busy fletching an arrow with green dyed goose feathers. A pile of similarly done arrows lay nearby, the heads expertly tied down, all the feathers straight and correct. 

The silence might have made it feel as if they were alone but at least a half dozen ladies in waiting hovered just out of sight behind a door, waiting at the beck and call of either Royal person. Some people seemed to think it was nice to have someone waiting on you hand and foot, Anna found it frustrating as it made it quite impossible to do anything in private. At least her personal guard was female. Small mercies she supposed.

"Your brothers seem to be getting along well enough." The Queens voice almost made Anna jump, the silence had been so complete for quite some time now. She glanced out the window, craning her neck to see the two Princes battling each other with blunted weapons as their instructors looked on. 

"Yes, if hitting each other in the head constitutes "getting along"." Anna replied with a hint of sarcasm. The two women were not fond of each other. Queen Gisela, Anna's mother, had died some fifteen years previously and though Queen Adelaide had done her best to be a mother to Anna and Conrad, they had never truly bonded with her as a mother figure. Young Frederick, their younger half-brother, on the other hand got along with both of them famously and they loved him as the blood relation he was. It made for an odd family dynamic.

It wasn't as if Anna tried to make life difficult for the Queen. They just had nothing to talk about, or anything in common at all. Anna had been raised as a lady who could fight, in the traditional Rhaetian style. The Queen was the eldest daughter of Lord William of House Cotini. Lord William and his kin had been given the lands bordering Edontas to rule, and make sure the cave dwellers stayed on their side of the wall. It strengthened the bond between North and South in Rhaetia. It had been a smart match but the Queen, like many of those in the North, showed the influence of countless years of skirmishes and marriages with the savages beyond the Wall in their darker hair. There was no denying that she was beautiful. But she just didn't quite match what Anna had imagined her mother would look like.

"Well this has been fun but I am going to go find something to eat." Anna stated abruptly, standing and picking up her quiver of completed arrows. "Do you want anything?" She asked grudgingly.

"No." The Queen's answer was curt but Anna thought she detected more sorrow than anger in the word. It made her angry, angry at herself. She could only imagine how it must have been to leave your own home, travel all the way to the south, and live with complete strangers. She opened her mouth as if to say something more and then turn abruptly away and left the room.

Her barefoot made virtually no noise as she descended the long stairs down from the tower. Her bodyguards, two of them, moved quietly behind her. They wore simple leather armour inside the Citadel and carried only short swords and daggers. They stepped quickly and quietly as well, eyes always watchful. For what, Anna had no idea.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and passed the quiver off to a waiting huntsman who bowed and hurried them away to be carefully stored in the Royal Armoury. Then, her stomach grumbling, she made for the kitchens.