She is not much of a queen, she thinks. When she thinks. Which is not all that much, as current circumstances would have it. Ovelia always thought of herself as a good child, a good girl, a good woman. One who listened carefully and waited patiently and minded what she was taught, which was never anything like this—never anything at all. Good children had not cause for complaint. Good girls did not spend long hours pondering the removal of one’s gloves. Good women lay still and thought of Ivalice. Real queen’s, Ovelia imagined, spent no such hours as she did: listening to sweet conspiracy on treasonous tongues and in treasonous beds with treasonous fingers sliding up their thighs and between their legs with the utmost care and oh--

She imagines they did not cry for it as she does.

And when her face is pressed against her knight—who is not really anyone’s knight, she thinks, whatever he might say—she shakes, and shakes and feels his bare hands trace up her back. Telling her she is most lovely and most pure stay just like that, highness, if you’d like she knows, she knows the truth of it. It is not for safety that she kisses his shoulder and huddles near. It is out of protest: for she is not much of a queen, she thinks, she is not. She is not. She is not.