Writing Prompt: The sight of her took his breath away.

Happy Monday and welcome to the last day of June. It seems strange to say as the heat finally broke and it always feels like July should be hotter than June. I’m sure it will be. Given the recent heat wave I am a little terrified of what the dog days will be like in August. Still we are not there yet so I am going to enjoy the slight reprieve while I can. For now, timers set and lets kick off the last of the June Prompts.

It took me a while the realize where I was going so there was a bit of floundering.

Monday, June 30^th: The sight of her took his breath away.

The sight of her took his breath away.  She was transformed.  The girl he spent time with, hiking, camping, arguing with and studying for tests was nowhere in evidence.  He knew things would change when they reached their majority.  He knew they came from different worlds.  She was in his because it was safer there. 

She was sent to stay with a guardian, hidden from the rest of the world while threats to her family were neutralized.  He knew that from her first arrival.  He was told that some day she would have to go back.

Somehow it never fully sunk in.  She was his friend and they always communicated as equals.  She never thought she was better than him or showed that she even knew of her family.  Part of that he understood was concealment.  She would hardly be hidden if she demanded the same privileges in hiding that her rank allowed her. 

It was one thing to know.  It was quite another to see.  He stood with the rest of his guild.  His place known and assured. His guild had a higher standing than many, precisely because they had helped to keep the princess safe in hiding. But they were still a guildsmen.

‘Princess,’ he thought.  She was no longer El who argued with him and took lessons with him.  She was no longer Ell who held up the shield to cover both of them while he hurled snowballs at their attackers in the winter snowball fights. 

She was Princess Elantra apGardrisil. She was not only a blood royal but after the attacks she was the only blood royal left.  Those who would kill her were gone and the Regent who stood for the family while she was raised in security was more than ready to step down.  Not only was she a princess, but soon she would be queen. 

He watched, awestruck as she climbed the to the top of the platform.  Her dress, the deepest of royal purples was overlaid by a fine silver filigree set with diamonds.  It glinted in the sun and while he knew she would have been told to take small, slow steps, as an apprentice silversmith in the Guild he knew the delicate looking tracery and the stones would be heavy.  Tere was simply too much of it for it not to be.

He wondered at it earlier but then his father tapped his nose and winked at him.  ‘As good as armor that,’ he had said.  Looking at El now, he could see that his father was right.  She couldn’t wear battle armor for the ceremony as it would be out of place.  Yet there was still the possibility of attack.  The slim chance one of the conspirators would have escaped detection.  The closeness of the stones and the intricacy of the metal netting was as defensive as it was beautiful.

 He still suspected El would be more than happy to set it aside when the ceremony was done.  More than the weight she would regret the slowness.  Her movements tended to be lightning quick and she always seemed to be racing somewhere.