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"Hey you," someone poked her shoulders, "Wake up!"
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Daisy whined as the incessant poking got harsher by the second, urging her mind to wake up. Consequently, her neurons fired the memories of moments before darkness had engulfed her being. Her eyes flung open and the very first thing she noticed was the stillness of her surroundings and the contents of her bag spread out on a dusty carpet in front.
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"Sit up," a voice ordered.
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Daisy frowned at its familiarity as her hands helped her body up. She was quick to register her surroundings — the sharp arches of the cobwebbed ceilings, the dusty yet overwhelming windows subtly sneaking the sun in and the woman in black sitting on her throne as the centre of her small universe.
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"Good Morning," the woman greeted softly, yet the distinct movement of her lips and the unwavering attention of her piercing green eyes brought shivers down Daisy's spine.
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"M-morning, Your Highness," Daisy whispered. The striking structure of the Queen Dowager's castle wasn't too hard to recognise even if Daisy had only ever seen it under the veil of the night.
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"How are you doing?" She asked, eyes sharp but stance relaxed.
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Daisy stood out like a sore thumb against the grimness of her forced surroundings. Her yellowing red dress caught the sun which magnified her presence greater than it should have ever been with her miniscule body.
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"I was better before I was so rudely kidnapped, with all respect," she replied, her fingers clenched against the fabric of her dress.
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"This is merely one of my gestures of gratitude," the Queen Dowager informed with the driest look in her eye.
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Daisy stared at her face, unknowing of the social norms of never looking royalty in the eye.
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A thwack on her head brought her back to reality.
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"Thank her," a hoarse voice ordered from beside her.
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"I am honoured and most grateful," Daisy bent all the way, resting her forehead on the dusty carpets to show curtsey.
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"So, Daisy — considering your current levels of intellect, I believe you have figured out that there's more to the purpose of your presence here?"
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Daisy dared not nod so she merely stared at the ground. Was she going to be rewarded with Gardenias? Or would she find her head in a pillory?!
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"Use words," another thwack on her head ordered.
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"I-uh, I believe you want me dea—" no, no, she couldn't say that. It would imply that she does not consider the Queen Dowager to be bountiful and a good ruler and even if she hadn't planned to kill her...maybe suggesting it would manifest doom. No. Daisy shook her head agressively, "I, uh, think that you have investigated me...uh, because," she looked around the dreary place, "You want someone trustworthy to work for you."
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Queen Dowager raised a curious brow and her lower lip perked up in the subtlest of smiles. It wasn't everyday one could meet a child so smart yet compliant, putty in her hands, greatness in the making.
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"I want you."
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Daisy clenched her jaw as something warm swelled in her chest, getting bigger and heavier by the moment, making it hard for her to breath. Her clammy hands left wet patches on her dress as her eyes meandered for something to focus on.
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The Queen Dowager of the Empire of Zinnia wanted her. Wants. Her. Of all people, of all riches, of all resources she could have at her dispense in a heartbeat — she wanted Daisy.
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A daylight dishwashing and nighttime flower thief, above all.
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Daisy did not know if she wants to cringe, retract and internally convulse or swell up with pride and bounce forward to help. To fullfill all expectations and make the stranger who uttered three words of affirmation on their second meeting — which could also be termed as a kidnapping, quite literally — with her: proud.
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"I want to make you Queen."
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Huh.
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"Huah?!" Daisy all but wheezed out, physically taken aback with scandalized eyes.
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"Decorum!" She received another thwack on the back of her head.
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"My apologies, I misheard," Daisy sniffled.
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"I do not believe so. Daisy...you have no name. It took us quite a while to track you without specific identifications, little girl," the Queen Dowager wondered out loud.
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Daisy let her head down. She was caught in a lie.
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"Found at the Thomas' Bee Farm in the year of the Great War, sold to the castle as compensation for withdrawing from participation in War," The Queen Dowager tsked, "You've slaved away for the castle as well as those townsmen with no monetary gains in sight."
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Daisy pushed her shoulders in, conscious of her battered state, she tried to occupy as little space as she could.
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"Do you consider the Thomas' your family? If you were to be caught stealing flowers would they stand up for you...or would they watch you get punished at the Town's Square, pity you and compensate their cowardice with a plate of rice?"
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Daisy bit her lip.
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"Would they reciprocate their love even when you're useles—"
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"I know Bran, I know auntie Aldith— they would never, ever, abandon me. They do not have power enough to stand up for me and— and I do not expect it." Daisy snapped.
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Cassie had her beating hand ready to thwack the little girl for her impudent interruption but the Queen Dowager gestured her to halt.
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"And...and, what about you? You said you want me— surely it is because you want to use me to serve a purpose for you. There is no love where one person cannot be useful to the other. Everyone knows it," Daisy gasped out her words in an unhindered breath, for if she waited to take a pause the harsh pain in her throat would choke her up and tears would well out of her sunken eyes, leaving her vulnerable to sight.
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She had not much to lose but herself with her impudence.
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"You are conceptually misunderstood but I shan't hold it against you," the Queen Dowager stood up from her throne and stepped down the stairway, toward Daisy. Every step she took spread out her black gown more than the one before, until eventually the sewed in crystals caught light and reflected overarching rainbows all over the dreary walls.
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The little kid witnessed a halo of rainbows following the greatest woman in the land as she walked closer to her, like magic, and held out her the palest most dainty hand to grab Daisy's peasant chin.
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"My name is Seraphina Awryn and merely I want you to be the greatest queen Zinnia has ever seen. I even have the power to stand up for you. Would you help me?"
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And Daisy couldn't help the whispered, "yes," which escaped her enchanted lips.
Find more chapters here: http://rinnewrites.blogspot.com/2025/06/queen-for-all-4.html
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