Raise Your Glasses to the King!

I ~ THE QUEEN

Sundays were Queen Eliza's one day off. Most people thought she spent her days looking pretty and acting petty, but she actually was busy dawn to dusk making sure the castle didn't fall apart all week long while her husband waffled on and on about useless laws. Laws didn't matter when the servants didn't know what to do, when the kids' tutors had all run off to plan a coup, when the floor of the throne room was unstable and anyone trying to petition the king could fall through at any moment. The kingdom had an image to maintain, and laws weren't the only thing that mattered.

On Sundays, she let herself rest. She'd spend the mornings reading, writing letters, and helping in the gardens. And in the evening, when the sun dipped below the horizon, she'd cover her face with a pretty scarf and slip down to the village to her favorite bar.

Eliza was a very exact person. She had her way of doing things, and that was how they always were done. It made other people think she was irritatingly precise, petty about the smallest matters, that she cared too much. Her Sundays were no exception, from her structured mornings to her careful bedtime routine. The most she ever let herself go was at the bar.

That isn't to say, of course, that she ordered brightly colored, intoxicating fruity drinks, different every time, and drank herself silly. She always got an ice water, and then two glasses of red wine -- whatever people would say about Queen Eliza, no one could say that she didn't know what she liked -- but chose a different variety every time (this was the extent of "letting herself go"), and then she would joke with the bartender all night.

Joke? It could have been flirting. Who is to say, after all, since they both knew it would never go anywhere, whether there was anything deeper between them or not. Sometimes the bartender would try to push Eliza to try something else -- even just a white wine this time, your highness, she'd say -- but it never worked.

It didn't need to.

II ~ THE YOUNGER PRINCE

(and his brigade of followers.)

Prince Jules was the family disappointment. It wasn't rude to say that, because everyone knew it was true. He spent most nights out on the town, parading rowdily through the streets with what seemed like half the city's population between the ages of seventeen and twenty-six.

His family tried to rein him in, to fill his days with busy classes he couldn't miss, to promise him exciting hunts if only he could behave himself for a week. No matter what, he always made room to escape the palace on Mondays and make it to the bar. It was a tradition known well throughout the kingdom, a fun way to start off the week. Most people regretted it come Tuesday morning, but they'd almost always return.

Jules would order up a city's worth of the cheapest beer in stock, and then the next cheapest when that ran out. His group was loud as all get out, and the bartender told people she hated it, never letting it slip that secretly, she craved those Monday nights. Their party filled her bar with life until the wee hours of the morning, and even when they left, they poured a certain sort of energy into the streets. Sure, it woke sleeping babies and angry elders, but that wasn't really the point.

III ~ THE OLDEST PRINCESS

Princess Amelia grew up too fast. When she was two years old, her brother had been born and named crown prince, and though she couldn't actually remember her chance at the throne pulled away from her, it left its mark on her anyway. She kept herself mired in tragic news stories, because she was the sort of person who thought that good news and happy endings were worthless. When she looked at the city around her (especially on those party-filled Monday nights), she felt that the world was falling apart.

This had originally stemmed from a genuine concern, of course: a newspaper, fourteen years ago, from the kingdom's then-war-torn northern border, detailing casualties and grim trajectories no one needed to know, especially not a twelve-year-old who was swiftly developing anxiety from watching her reckless younger brother who was supposed to run this country one day. That didn't mean that it was in any way reasonable.

Tuesdays were her day. She cared enough for her mental health to set the papers aside once a week, when she indulged in grim crime novels, and in the evening went to the bar in town. She would sit down at the same stool every evening (two to the right of her mother's preferred seat, not that she knew) and order a gin and tonic. (Need I remind you that she grew up too fast.)

Sometimes Amelia would moan to the bartender, who usually stayed quiet. This wasn't the sort of discussion she liked to mire herself in. Usually, though, Amelia would be silent as well, staring at the wall and slowly downing her drink, and then her second, and then her third. On the worst days, she knew enough to cap it at five, which the bartender was thankful for. Of course, maybe she was too quick to curse the princess's worries. They weren't reasonable, not really, but they were fair.

IV ~ THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS

Most people saw Princess Rosemary's Wednesday nights only one way. She'd go down to the bar, even though she really was too young to drink, and she'd spend hours chatting with noblemen, picking at popcorn and peanuts as they worked their way through higher-end ales. There's only one way things could go from there, concerned nobles would say. She's ripe to be taken advantage of, they'd cry -- shouldn't her father do something about this? Why is he letting her spend her nights with men? Others said this is how it's meant to be, that she is just looking for a husband so her mother won't have to. She was planning ahead, that's all.

Neither were right.

In truth, Rosemary liked politics as much as her older sister. Possibly more. She was interested in theory, not current events, and cared more for witty and insightful debate than moaning about the state of the kingdom. She spent her Wednesdays picking noblemen's and visiting dignitaries' political arguments to shreds. No one knew this, of course.

Rosemary didn't care for rumors, and so for the most part didn't know what people were saying. Maybe it would have bothered her, maybe it wouldn't. The bartender didn't know. They'd never had a chance to speak. Which was probably for the better, on the bartender's side, at least. She didn't care one bit for politics.

V ~ THE CROWN PRINCE

Thursdays were the bartender's favorite night of the week. They were when Prince Sebastian came to the bar to order bizarre, strong drinks -- the bartender made a game out of finding the strangest one she could to surprise him with -- and fill them with brightly colored powders that made his pupils dilate and his hair stick out. He could spend hours explaining the inner workings of the universe, though they wouldn't make any sense come Friday morning.

Sebastian was a different kind of disappointment than his brother. He wasn't known for debauchery and annoyances. He was known for the brilliance that he squandered away on useless experiments, cursed for having the brain of an alchemist rather than a politician. He didn't care much. Maybe he would if his parents bothered him about it more, but their hands were mostly full with Jules, and besides, he'd been planning to abdicate to Amelia on the day of his coronation since he was old enough to know the meaning of being crown prince.

He could settle himself with his Thursdays, for now. He spent his free time throughout the week creating new substances to think on, scribbling notes that would make no sense when he came down. Maybe he'd fried his brain beyond recognition years ago -- and to be fair, he was much more paranoid than he'd been as a child, but maybe that was just part of growing up knowing you'd likely die at an assassin's hand -- but it was worth it, he thought, if he could ever decipher his notes. There were countless scientific discoveries somewhere in there, but in the rare case that he could understand the things he'd written under the influence, he could never quite figure out how to translate them back into ordinary language.

The bartender wished she could help. She knew that the things Sebastian said were brilliant, but if she was honest she didn't understand them one bit.

VI ~ THE MIDDLE PRINCESS

Princess Judith was yet another kind of family disappointment. Not the kind who was punished, or the kind whose wasted potential you mourned, but the kind that you shunned.

She was too friendly with the peasants, that was the problem. Maybe it was more of a big deal because she was a woman, maybe it was because she was actually close to them rather than having a distant following like Jules did, but all the nobility hated her. This isn't rude, either -- she knew it.

Friday nights belonged to her, at least. After each feast, she had her chance to slip away to town, where she could pretend that people didn't know her face. They all did, of course, but they didn't hate her like most of the nobles did. (Her siblings were on her side, of course, except for maybe Amelia, who was too busy self-pitying, and Sebastian, who didn't notice many real things anymore.)

When Judith made it to the bar, she would order the brightest, loudest fruity cocktail she could. Something weird and probably gross, but a bit flirty and a total conversation starter, and it was fun to try new things, anyhow. She'd meet someone different every time (though she'd spent weeks with the same person a few times), and they'd complain about the kingdom together. Not the sort of dreadful news Amelia cared for, or the complex theory Rosemary adored, but the sort of everyday problems the kingdom actually faced. The potholes that hadn't been fixed for years, the worrying fungus that was encroaching on some fields, the fact that most of the nobility cared about their image more than their subjects.

Judith could get behind that last one any day.

The bartender sometimes worried that this was all a maladaptive coping mechanism, but it wasn't her business. If only the king and queen would see it the same way.

VII ~ THE KING

Saturdays belonged to King Nicholas. The long week of ruling exhausted him, as it would everyone. He knew his wife thought he spent his days prattling on and creating useless laws, but there was genuine work in it, and -- no. The bar was where he went to get away from these things, he reminded himself. He sat down at the same worn stool he always did (between where Eliza and Amelia sat, not that he knew), ordered a whiskey, sighed, and began to complain about his family.

His wife, who was petty and precise, annoyingly so. His debaucherous son, who only cared for parties and drinks, and maybe girls. Maybe boys. His melancholy daughter, God was she a bore to be around! Always complaining. And his youngest daughter, flirtatious and ripe to be taken advantage of -- she's sixteen! she's much too young to go to the bar, who cares why she's here! And oh, his son is so careless, he's supposed to run this country but he's locked in his room all the time, frying his brain and God only knows what things he's cooking up in there, wasn't he meant to be smart? And oh, you can't forget the family disappointment! His daughter who is practically a whore! Well, wait, no, he doesn't mean that, she's just a bit forward is all, but that's not what everyone else says, and if they haven't already called her a whore they certainly will soon enough.

"Who will be fit to rule this country when I'm gone?" Nicholas moaned.

"That's not quite fair," the bartender said, topping off his whiskey. She placed her hands on the counter as the king rolled his eyes.

"Everyone knows what they're like. We're the worst royal family on the continent, and hell only knows how we've all lasted this long without being assassinated."

"Your wife is irritatingly precise, I'll give you that," the bartender started, "but it's because she cares. She runs so much of the castle behind your back, where you don't have time to focus -- you know, years ago she said that all the tutors you'd hired were planning to use Prince Jules to start a coup? The Queen took care of all that. You never even knew."

"I must have known -- you must be making that up!"

Do you think so lowly of your own wife? the bartender wondered. "I'm not saying you're not observant," she corrected. "Just that Eliza -- Queen Eliza, sorry! -- is spectacular at order and organization. And while we're at it, everyone loves Prince Jules. You know, every week at those parties of his, there's an injury or two, but they all come back the next week for more fun, even with their arms or legs in casts? And --" she leaned in close to whisper the next part "-- even I enjoy the life they bring here.

"Princess Amelia isn't melancholy. Well, she is, but she isn't a drag -- well, not that much of a drag to be around. She's just... she's worried, like you are. And also she reads the news too much. Princess Rosemary isn't flirting with those noblemen, did you know that? No one seems to. I've overheard their conversations and she's talking their flawed political ideas in circles as skillfully as I'm sure you can. She'd do wonders on the throne."

Nicholas looked into his glass. "It isn't that -- no, that's not right -- it's about what everyone else sees -- no, that sounds callous -- it's the fact that none of them care."

"Amelia cares too much." The bartender wanted to shout it, but she settled for a hiss. "And I know you and everyone else think Prince Sebastian is the most careless of them all, but he's truly brilliant. Maybe the smartest person I've ever met. He just doesn't have the mind for politics that his sisters do. And Princess Judith -- who cares what she does with herself! She knows the people of your kingdom better than you do, I'm sure, and I mean no offense, but it's true. Maybe if all of you spent less time mocking her for it, she'd spend more time with the nobles and have more committed relationships, but complaining about her and calling her names will never get her to do what you want.

"That isn't the point, though," the bartender reminded herself, smoothing her apron. "They could all rule this country, if you learned to see it."

She poured the king another glass or two, and by the time he stumbled back to the castle, their conversation was forgotten. He'd return the next week, and they'd have it again, and again, and again, and again, and again.