The Lady Knight

Felicity Flores fell on her bean bag chair, she always sort of gave up halfway through sitting down, letting the beans absorb the impact. The wind got knocked out of her, like the sigh of a matronly nun lamenting the state of today’s youth. She leaned back, letting her fiery red hair spread, it contrasted wonderfully with her all-black ensemble, she’d opted for an oversized T-shirt & fishnet stockings under a gothic style skirt. 

Her choice in clothing was the last line of rebellion against the onslaught of responsibility. She was tired of hearing how women are “supposed” to dress. Her refusal to “dress-like-an-adult”, as her stop-mom put it, was the only reason she was relegated to the backroom of her Dad’s company. Felicity liked it there, reading and listening to music undisturbed, if an employee came in to ask her anything, she glowered at them with heavily made-up eyes till they gave up and went away.   

Looking at her clothes, you’d never be able to guess what the inside of Felicity’s room looked like. One got a jarring sense of being dissociated from reality, it was almost like stepping into another world. Her room was adorned with tapestries, yes actual tapestries made out of cloth. 

A heavy suit of armour stood in one corner, a fireplace glowed gently with embers (she’d stopped eating till her parents let her move into the attic so her fireplace would work). Above the fireplace stood an authentic 13th Century Knight’s shield as well as two broadswords crossed against each other. 

The only indication that this room belonged to a woman in her early 20’s were the beanbag chair and laptop nestled in the corner, almost trying to shrink away from view. The other peculiar thing about her room was the way the furniture was arranged. Unlike most rooms where everything faces the TV (which obviously Felicity did not have), in her room everything faced the closet. 

She was looking at the large grandfather clock, placed beside the tapestry of a lady-knight slaughtering a sphinx, when her closet door opened and Nicky came in. She could usually gauge his mood by the location of the crown that should in theory be on his head but it never was, today he had it dangling from a pinky. 

“Oh boy” thought Felicity.

If he had worn a T-shirt and jeans, Nicky would be no different from an ordinary obese man found wandering the food courts of North American Malls, but he was garlanded from head-to-toe in royal finery. His magnificent moustache drooped downwards as he came and sat on Felicity’s bed. 

“Greetings Lady Flores”, he intoned deeply, 

“You can call me Felicity”, she reminded him for the umpteenth time,

“Today is one of those days where it feels like you’re the only ally I have left in all of Cadenzia”, Nicky sighed deeply.

“You wanna talk?”, Felicity goaded him by handing him a candy bar

Nicky took the candy sheepishly, you’d think a “Tsar” would be used to people handing him things but perhaps he saw Felicity as an equal which resulted in this display of modesty. 

The first time Felicity met him was on a backpacking trip through Europe. She’d decided to camp out in an abandoned Castle on the coast of Romania. All her friends told her she was being crazy but she wanted to be haunted by the ghosts of old Romanian nobles for the rest of her life. When nothing happened till dawn, she had wandered the halls, stumbling upon a cracked ruby in an alcove she’d decided to bring it home. The ruby was chucked in a closet and forgotten, till one day she opened the closet door to find herself face-to-face with Tsar Nicholos Domeil. Their friendship had blossomed from there, Nicky was the one who mostly visited her. Since Felicity had scared half a dozen chambermaids to death by bursting out of the Royal Closet. 

When Nicky did start talking he told Felicity about the troubles he was having at court, how the other nobles kept asking him to raise or lower taxes, how the ministers were egging him on to start invading neighbouring territories, how there were dragons terrorizing the common folk and finally, how his nanny kept nagging him to lose weight. 

“Well the last part is easy, stop eating sugar dude, it’s super bad for you”, Felicity told him matter-of-factly. 

“But the Royal Baker gets up at dawn to make special cupcakes for me”, Nicky whined like a schoolboy. 

It took some time, but she was finally able to convince him to quit cupcakes. 

Nicky didn’t show up for three weeks after that, Felicity had started getting worried. She often peeked in her closet but always found Nicky’s room empty. Finally gathering the courage she’d donned the suit of armour, hefted the claymore, buckled up the shield and entered Cadenzia. 

When she snuck out of the castle, she could see signs of recent violence, broken windows, blood in the streets and smoke rising in the horizon. She saw a knight riding by and stopped him to ask what was happening. 

“Don’t you know?! The Bloody commoners are trying to overthrow the Tsar!”, he bellowed from behind his face-plate. 

“I just got here from Errr… a neighbouring Kingdom” Felicity replied

“They’re calling it the “Cupcake Rebellion”, the whole thing started when the Tsar outlawed cupcakes three weeks ago. It’s strange, all other forms of confections were still legal, but somehow the cupcake fiasco brought people to the streets” 

Felicity kicked herself mentally, this was all on her, but how was she to know Nicky would end up outlawing cupcakes. 

Well as long as she was here. 

“Take me to the Tsar” Felicity commanded, hoisting the sword on her shoulder

She’d already left a note in her room about how she’d be away for a couple weeks. All her childhood dreams were about to be realized. Felicity Flores would become a real Knight. A Lady Knight.