(1) Golden Eyes

Morning light streamed down from the heavens as the crisp air hung around the marble courtyard, enveloping the surrounding area in an aura of absolute bliss. The little bluebirds sang their usual songs as they rested on the ivy-laden canopies above the courtyard.

On this bright and early morning, the priests and priestesses of the temple could be seen roaming out and about the courtyard, smiling while clad in their luminescent white attire, a symbol of their devotion to their divine deity.

Roxane couldn't care less about their divine or the jovial atmosphere that hung about her. She sat at the edge of the water fountain in the middle of the temple's courtyard. Like the others, she too wore the symbolic white garb of the divine celestial being known as Kara. Unlike the others, she felt no connection to the being the whole temple revered despite being a priestess herself.

She glared off into the distance while lost in thought as she rested her head on top of her bent knee, not caring for the small droplets of water that would occasionally land on her exposed skin where her thin white dress doesn't bother to cover.

Marriage? She mused as she stared off into the distance with an ever-present frown pasted on her lips.

She shook her head again. Then she glared with even more passion as the oblivious people went about their day around the temple. To them, it probably was not unusual to see the fiery Roxane this way, fuming and donning a murderous expression on her face. They could only hope and pray that they were not the target of such hatred.

Marriage? And to a prince? The words she had exchanged with her friend keep swimming inside her head, begging to be somehow made sense of. Why on earth would a peace-loving priestess from the Temple of Kara be forced to marry into the Solstine Royal Family? It just didn't make a lick of sense to her.

"What did you say?" Roxane recalled the sickening feeling she felt when her childhood friend told her the news. Her voice came out a little more vicious than she intended but she could not help it. Her blood ran cold at the thought of her friend being someone's bride.

"It has been decided." Diana said somberly as she refused to meet Roxane's eyes and instead focused all her attention on the vanity mirror before her sitting figure. Her pale hand carried her hairbrush as it hovered by the side of her head, momentarily she forgot she was supposed to be brushing her silver colored hair. "Come a fortnight I will be wed to the Crown Prince and immediately thereafter he will take me back to the capital where I will commence my training in order to become this kingdom's queen."

Roxane began to feel dizzy. She placed her hand on her creased forehead as she began to sort through her tumultuous thoughts wreaking havoc inside her mind.

"And, do you," she finally opened her mouth to begin to speak again after a brief period of silence, "do you even know who he is?" She asked fruitlessly as she already knew the answer.

Diana put down her hairbrush with a shaky hand. She shook her head as she looked down at her own clasped hands, perhaps willing them to stop trembling.

"You don't know his name? Or his age? What about how he looks like?" With every question, Roxane could feel herself getting more worked up. Her blood began to boil, a stark contrast to how she was mere moments ago.

"All I know of is his nighttime activities," she said with a sour look on her face. "It seems that my husband to be is known for the endless streams of ladies who exit his room come dawn."

She rushed over to stand beside her friend, peering into Diana's direction to force answers out of her thin and tiny friend. She caught a look of her own flushed face in the mirror. Her golden eyes burned with life and of unbridled anger.

"Were you even given a choice?" She hissed through clenched teeth.

Diana gulped, her green eyes framed by white eyelashes widened with fear as she realized her answer could really well spell the destruction of the temple and all of its people.

"Diana, please, answer me."

Diana finally turned her body to look directly into her seething friend's golden eyes, she had never failed to remind Roxane how they looked like endless pools of warm honey.

"I was given permission to bring you along with me. You'll be given a title and place at court as my handmaiden." Diana said with a half-hearted smile on her thin rosy lips.

She balked at her friend's response. Out of all the things she had expected to come from her mouth, she had never expected Diana to try to calm her down with such a sorry excuse of a compromise.

"The prince, along with a small band of escorts, are set to arrive by nightfall." She added and brought her hand up to touch Roxane on her arm, pleading with her emerald like eyes. "Please don't try to do anything. Please? For me?"

That was the extent to which Roxane could hold her fury in. Before she could crack and say anything that she would regret, she gently shook off her friend's slender hand and stormed out of the room. Thus, that is how she found herself at the courtyard, stewing in her thoughts and planning how she could somehow change her friend's dire fate.

Her mind went to thinking about the High Priest. She could try to speak to him, but just as that thought came to her she immediately knew that old man despised Roxane with every fiber of his old withered body. The reason? Everyone knew of Roxane as being rambunctious in nature. And although the High Priestesses found Roxane's personality somewhat charming, the old man did not. Even if Roxane were to get on her knees and beg with all her might, the decision to go forward with the planned marriage ceremony would ultimately be the High Priest's.

She gnashed her teeth at no one in particular.

Please don't do anything. Diana had pleaded. Please? For me?

Those words cut through Roxane deeply. Her childhood friend always knew how to play her to her advantage, but no matter how much Diana begged she could not just stand by and let her precious friend be sacrificed like a rabbit to a wolf. No, she would not let her friend fall prey to whatever political antics the Solstine royalty were currently trying to pull.

If only the priests and priestesses of the temple were paying attention they would have noticed the burning intensity of Roxane's golden eyes, as well as the way her black pupils curiously thinned before quickly returning back to normal.