To begin with, King Roy’s proposal was frankly a bolt out of the blue for the people of Déman.
Certainly, Fiiru was popular. She was cute, her personality was great, her head was good, so well, of course she would be popular. The princes from the surrounding countries were all head over heels for her.
But even so, she was just the princess of a weak rural nation. Putting it kindly, the people of Déman thought that if she did well for herself, she might be able to marry into one of the more powerful nations in the region. But the truth was that these were nothing more than needlessly large frontier nations with nothing else to boast of.
In contrast, the Kingdom of Orstoll was in the dead centre of world politics. To win over its King was just incredible.
“By all means, I would like Fiiru as my Queen.”
When the letter came, their father the King got incredibly carried away. Of all things, he made demands of a King from a much greater nation.
“We feel great joy and honour that you would have Fiiru as your Queen. However, Fiiru is incredibly popular, you see. Honestly, there are just so many marriage applications that we don’t know what to do with them! And so, you see, marrying her to you doesn’t present us with, well, many merits. You see?”
An example of the worst stereotypes of a tiny King from a tiny country, their father demanded mining rights and jewels, and not only that, he even outright demanded money.
“Insolent!” is what anybody would have expected King Roy to say, but instead he readily agreed.
And unlike everybody else who felt relief, the father of the twins was flustered instead.
‘Couldn’t I have demanded even more?’ he wondered. An idea truly befitting of trash.
But now that he had already made demands once, there was no pretext for a second demand. Even he lacked the gall to make baseless demands. After all, Orstoll was so great a nation that it could crush Déman with a single glare.
And so, the excuse he came up with was…
“If Fiiru is to become a bride, you must take Fii as well.”
Certainly, amongst political marriages, it wouldn’t be strange for one nation to present two brides for the sake of strengthening bonds. To put it crudely, one was a spare in-case something went wrong with the other.
But it was a custom that very rarely saw practice.
Why then would the King bring it up now?
The first reason was that Fii was devastatingly unpopular.
She was a princess of a tiny nation, which meant that very few benefits came with her marriage. As long as some prince didn’t fall for her charms as a woman, a marriage proposal would never come.
(In other words, my value as a princess is about as much as a Zimbabwean dollar…)
And as for what the King’s aim in all this was…
“You will be marrying our nation’s few, precious princesses. If possible, a little bit of betrothal money would be much appreciated.”
While forcing another bride onto the groom, the Déman King shamelessly asked for more things. And yet King Roy readily assented.
Just how madly in love was he?
With 10 times the market price for each princess, plus some extra as well, the Déman King was finally satisfied, holding his nose his in pride.
Just the very next day though, Fii had snapped and kneed the King in that exact nose.
The guards and rural knights held her down, bound her, and ended up sending her straight to Orstoll.
And when she had arrived, she was treated exactly as one would treat luggage. After being thrown into some corner of the royal palace, she spent every single day up until her marriage there. Which leads us to this moment.
Incidentally, you may perhaps be thinking that Fii and Fiiru’s names are confusing and easily mistaken, so let us talk about that.
It all began while the twins were still sleeping within their mother.
When the King of Déman realised that they were twins, he decided on two names beforehand.
Eventually the time of their birth had arrived.
At first, a crying baby girl came out. When the midwife handed the infant to the King, with a solemn expression, he spoke thusly:
“Though we are a small, rural nation, you are still a proper lady, as well as the first princess of Déman. I bestow upon you a name worthy of that station. Your name shall be Fii――”
It was at that moment that the second infant appeared.
Unlike the first girl, she was silent upon her birth, and yet mysteriously, all eyes in the room were drawn to her.
“Oh… OHHH! This child…”
Upon seeing her, a cry of wonder escaped his lips.
“Never before have I seen such a beautiful baby child! And what is this wondrous light that envelops her. She must be a miracle child! There is no mistake! I must bestow on you a name worthy of your station. It is decided. Your name shall be Fiiru! It is a name passed down in our family history, reserved only for the most noble of women!”
After that, both the King and Queen were entranced by Fiiru’s beauty, her wisdom despite her age, and the noble atmosphere that enveloped her. Because of that, they completely forgot about the first girl for almost six months. The maids took proper care of her of course, so there was no risk to her life, but it was far too late for the King to give her a proper name.
At any rate, the secretary present at her birth decided on the King’s half-uttered name as a stopgap name for the record book, and so the older girl’s name became Fii.
Incidentally, there was originally another name prepared for the Second Princess, but because of how moved the King was at Fiiru’s birth, he had completely forgotten it.