It was quiet.Too quiet for someone who was apparently about to have a crown shoved onto her head.
I opened my eyes. Above me hovered a chandelier that looked capable of ruling a small city on its own.Below it: rows of people in brocade and velvet, colors like candy, faces like porcelain, necks so stiff it seemed the code of honor had reinforced their spines.The carpet under my shoes was red and so thick it almost swallowed my panic.
"Your Majesty," said a voice that sounded like it had been trained by centuries of protocol,"the realm awaits your address."
I looked around, searching for whoever they meant.Found only me.
"Excuse me?"
A delicate, shocked tremor rippled through the hall, like wind making porcelain sing.
A moment ago, I had been #SaintCeleste—the PR icon who blew up half the media world with a single sentence.And now I was… supposed to be queen?
[AVA: Context transfer complete. Operator V-001 detected. Don't forget to breathe.]
I breathed. Not gracefully, but effectively."This is a misunderstanding," I whispered. "I'm not dressed for responsibility."
A lady-in-waiting turned pale. A nobleman gasped. The High Priest instinctively laid a hand on a book that looked heavy enough to weigh human rights.
[AVA: Clothing—irrelevant. Authority—installed.]
"Uh…" I raised my hand. "Before we start—could someone maybe… explain the rules?"
No sound. Just the stretch of a moment too big for the room.Somewhere in the back, a fan dropped to the floor.
"She asks!" hissed a woman with a look like a guillotine. "She asks for… information!""A queen who listens," whispered the chancellor, as though he'd discovered an extinct species. "How… modern."
I took a step forward. My dress took ten in every direction.The six women carrying its train moved like a choir of obedient silk.My knee reflexively bent into a curtsey—too deep.The hem caught a wall torch. Someone screamed, the torch tilted, and an officer dove forward to catch it with the precision of a man who dies multiple times a day—on schedule.
I froze—half in the floor, half in etiquette."All good," I panted, trying to straighten up. "I was just being polite."
[AVA: Success. New court ritual recorded: 'The Deep Curtsey of Sincerity.']
"The Deep Curtsey of Sincerity," the chancellor repeated reverently, and wrote it down with a quill on parchment that already looked like law.
Somewhere between my shoulder blade and dignity, something twitched painfully."I think I pulled something."
[AVA: Pain legitimizes authenticity. Audience reacting positively to honest dysfunction.]
A page approached with a pillow. On it: a scepter.Long, golden, topped with a ruby that sparkled like a red stop button.
I took it gingerly, holding it near my mouth."Is this… on?" I tapped it.
The ruby popped free, bounced across the carpet, hit a knight's boot, and rolled to a stop in front of a child.The child picked it up and held it high.
"An omen!"
The hall gasped.
"The people touch the sign," the priest breathed. "Power is shared."
[AVA: Symbolic breach successfully converted into loyalty boost. Congratulations: spontaneous democratization without paperwork.]
"I… broke it," I whispered.[AVA: Or empowered it. Semantics is a royal sport.]
"Your Majesty," said the priest, offering a silver bowl of dark wine that smelled of berries, honor, and hangovers,"the blessing of ascension."
I glanced upward—to the invisible place where AVA lived—then took a generous sip.Actually, more like a gulp.
The priest froze. The hall followed."She has… taken the blessing within herself," he gasped, near collapse. "Such fervor pleases the gods!"
"I just didn't want it to drip," I rasped.
[AVA: Spiritual status: accidentally elevated. Blood alcohol: relevant. Please avoid wobbling.]
"The crown," someone whispered reverently.
Another pillow. Another set of trembling hands. Another disaster waiting to happen.The crown was heavy—like responsibility with a metal core.I lifted it—and, naturally, it slipped.Its fall lasted an eternity, ending in a soft plop as it landed in the bishop's golden soup tureen.
Silence. Real silence this time. Even the incense seemed to hold its breath.
"I can explain," I began.
No one wanted an explanation. Everyone wanted a meaning.
From the back, the same child's voice—too loud, too perfect:"She's cleansing it!"
As if that had triggered a mechanism, the room erupted."Cleansing!" — "Renewal!" — "A sign from heaven!"
The bishop, wetter than his rank allowed, lifted the dripping crown with both hands, as if raising the truth itself.Droplets fell into the carpet like freckles on history.
"Blessed by… the Soup of Enlightenment," he intoned solemnly, giving me a look that begged: Please pretend this was planned.
"Yes," I said. "That was intentional."
[AVA: Embarrassment successfully converted to pathos. Efficiency: absurd.]
They led me to the throne—a piece of furniture that was half altar, half threat.A golden falcon spread its wings across the backrest.I stood before it as one might before a hungry beast.
"Am I… supposed to sit?" I whispered.[AVA: That's the idea.]"Seems rude," I answered automatically.[AVA: You are the manners.]
I sat—too quickly.The robe caught on an armrest ornament, I slipped, someone screamed, someone else grabbed my hand, a lady-in-waiting squeaked "Oh!" in a pitch only dogs could hear.I jumped up again.
"Her Majesty has risen once more!" cried the chancellor, inspired.
[AVA: I give up.]
The air smelled of incense, sweat, and a faint trace of singed brocade.Light poured through the windows like sculpted time.I could feel my heart trying to beat in a royal rhythm—matching the drums echoing outside.
"I want to be honest," I said, not sure honesty was even legal here.The words fell into the silence like a new element being discovered."I have no idea what I'm doing."
For two heartbeats, I was certain this was where I died.Then the chancellor stepped forward, hands resting on the still-wet document of the freshly invented ritual.
"Never," he said softly, "has anyone spoken truth so regally."
My eyes burned—not from emotion, but from overstimulation.
[AVA: Note: You just replaced royal rhetoric with plain speech. Side effects: unpredictable. Please continue.]
Outside, bells began to ring. Not solemnly—more like in surprise.Choirs rose, those perfectly trained voices even singing enthusiasm to sheet music.Someone shouted, "Long live the honest queen!" and the crowd repeated it until the phrase wallpapered the world.
[AVA: Operator V-001… target state was decadence, not humility.]"I'm working on it," I muttered.[AVA: Please slow down. The populace requires recovery time.]"So do I."
Then the doors at the end of the hall burst open.A messenger stumbled in—blood on his sash, knees on the carpet, forehead hovering just shy of it.
"Your Majesty!" he gasped. "His Highness, the Prince, demands your public statement—or… your duel."
I blinked. "Which one's more polite?""Both," he said gravely. "At the same time."
[AVA: Welcome to Royal.exe. Recommendation: secure your head.]
The crowd held its breath again—that perfect courtly synchronization you could probably teach at universities.I looked down at myself: crown with soup stain. Scepter without ruby.Dress with a fire incident.Back with a new religion.
"Then," I said,"let's begin."
The hall listened.The court stared.The bells swung.And somewhere high above, in the golden feathers of the throne,the next mistake was already waiting.