Title: Queen
Fandom: Kingsman
Rating: Teen
Length: 765 words
Content notes: referenced character death, grief/mourning, movie spoilers
Summary: The day after V-day, the world doesn't sleep. Tilde-centric, some Roxy/Tilde and past Eggsy/Tilde.


The day after V-Day, the world doesn't sleep. There isn't a single hospital that isn't full to capacity, or a person who doesn't grieve, or a child too young to know what their hands look like, when covered in blood. Tilde lets herself have one night, one beautiful night where she's a woman instead of a princess, and then she gets to work.

The royal palace has already been cleaned when she arrives, its remaining staff dutiful in their mourning. She kneels before the silver throne, first on one leg, then on two, and she shakes and she cries and she knows in her heart she isn't meant for this. She's popular and charismatic, but a day ago, she was sixth in line for the throne. She would've spent her life a sportswoman and a politician, gladly.

But the king is dead, and the queen is dead, and her family is gone. The line of succession is utterly ruined. But more than that: she'll never hear her grandfather's chiding tone, she'll never cry in her mother's arms when a boy or a girl breaks her heart (because they always find a way; she's never quite been able to learn to keep herself from falling in love), she'll never kiss her niece's brow, nor shriek as her nephew plants a frog in her slippers. She's alone in this room. The silver throne casts a shadow over the room, and doesn't call to her. She remembers falling into it in tiredness as a teenager and jumping into it as a girl. Her father had told her never to hope she becomes queen.

"Long live the queen," her new right hand says, when she calls him in. Tilde doesn't know his name.

"Prepare for a coronation," she tells him, and her cheeks are finally dry.

"Yes, your majesty."

He tells her things she doesn't want to know, though she never stops him: her family is being prepared for burial—closed casket, her closest living relative is a cousin whose relation to her she doesn't even remember. With so many dead, the time of royal families might just be over. But no one's come to take her crown, so she'll put it on and rally her country and try to turn this new world into something she can bare to live with.

She's been awake for almost two days when she finally finds a room to sleep in, one without the stench of blood or cleaning supplies. There are more guards outside her door and patrolling the grounds than she's ever had need for, but it quiets something in her to hear their occasional voices and footsteps.

The quiet fades as she hears a click on her window, then two, then a thump as the pane hits the wall. Tilde smiles just a little when she hears an annoyed, muffled, "Shit!"

Her amusement doesn't stop her from picking up her gun from her bedside.

"Can I help you?" Tilde asks, instead of calling for her guards.

The intruder finishes climbing through the window, doing a backflip to land on her feet. She's completely silent as she hits the ground. Once she's upright and her long hair is settled in place, Tilde notes that her intruder is a very pretty woman, despite half her face being one big bruise, and her clothes bearing marks of mud and tears.

Tilde can almost feel her glare as the intruder says, "Princess Tilde?"

Her intruder is pretty, despite her annoyance and her messiness. But Tilde's almost a queen, and she's too tired for the attraction that flickers inside her.

"That is me," Tilde replies.

The intruder nods. "Eggsy asked me to make sure you got home alright."

It's very sweet. A bit too sweet, because despite some fabulous sex and an even better rescue, Tilde hasn't actually known Eggsy for very long. Still, it's a better reason than an assassination attempt to have an intruder in her room, so she just says, "Tell him to come himself next time; it'll be much more fun."

"I'll tell him to bugger off, next time," the woman says, huffing a breath. "I'm not a messenger girl, even if I had a mission nearby."

"Too pretty to be a messenger girl," Tilde agrees, because really, when has her libido ever actually listened to her brain? "Are you a spy like Eggsy?"

"Yes, though I have to say, we're not all as pretty as I am." The woman's smiling. "I'm Lancelot."

Lancelot. For a pseudonym, it's quite nice.

She can go a little more without sleep, Tilde decides.