Chapter Text
It is her first long journey on horseback. They are going to have a picnic, her and Leo and Daddy. She squirms as her daddy helps her onto her saddle. Leo grins from his own horse, teeth gleaming white and his golden hair shining in the sunlight. “Looking good, sis,” he says and she beams. Leo’s eighteen, seven years older than her, and he is pretty much the most wonderful person in all the realms.
And then her horse bolts. She’s screaming and her arms grip the horse’s mane and he’s not stopping and she can feel herself slipping, slipping from the saddle.
But there is another horse beside her now and someone grabs her arms and pulls her off her horse and onto their own and she’s clasped to a soft body as the horse slows and she’s pulled back to solid ground.
“Are you all right?” Her rescuer is a girl. She’s beautiful, Emma thinks. Her smile is wide, eyes warm and golden, and Emma smiles back at her, a smile born of equal parts relief and adoration.
“I thought I was going to die,” she says, breathless.
“Oh, honey,” the girl says. “I would never let that happen. Where are your parents?”
She sees her daddy’s horse in the distance, getting closer every second. “There,” she says, pointing.
Her daddy leaps from his horse and sweeps her into a hug, one hand clasped to the back of her head, holding her tight to his. He spins her around until she feels sick and dizzy. “My Emma Bear,” he says and she can feel his hands shaking. Daddy turns to the girl. “You saved her. I can never repay you.”
“It was nothing, really,” the girl says. She’s anxious now, fussing with her riding clothes and attempting a curtsey, and Emma wants to tell her that it’s okay because Daddy doesn't care about ceremony. He cares about people and the girl has just saved Emma’s life so Daddy will forgive her anything.
The next day, Daddy and Mama and Leo pay the girl and her family a visit and they come back and Leo is engaged to her. Emma is furious. “She’s my saviour,” she says, resisting a childish urge to stomp her foot (and she hasn't thrown a tantrum since she was three). “Why does Leo get to marry her?”
“Sweetie,” Ma says, her slim fingers running through Emma’s hair. “Soon she’ll be your sister. Won’t that be wonderful?”
Emma scowls and runs to her room, burying her nose in a book of stories. When she grows up she’s going to be the brave knight rescuing princesses and damsels in distress and no one will be able to stop her.