Relent that it’s true, your family favors the sword and bow instead, but show her a restricted shelf stacked with werewolf legends from your lands.

The shelf’s books are bound and secured by hand-linked chains. Lyra crosses her arms at them -- at you -- but as you pull the weighty iron key from your pocket her eyes can’t help but pop. She bites her lip in anticipation as you undo the lock on one of your favorite tomes, and hand it to her. She splits the pages with restrained interest, tonguing her cheek at the ancient writing inside.

“My ancestors wrote at length about werewolves,” you explain. “As I’m sure a scholar of your tenure knows, it is largely accepted throughout the Kingdom that their ilk first spawned here, in the northern forests.”

“I’ll admit that werewolves are a curiosity” -- she turns a page, eyes widening at a detailed illustration -- “but not an expertise. Did your family hunt them?”

You smile coyly. “Hunt them? No.”

Her sharp little eyes dart to yours, charged suddenly with nervousness, or perhaps excitement. But the fire quells in an instant, replaced by the cool, calm, in-charge demeanor she demonstrated before. “And should I choose to stay with you, Lord Dragoon, will I have to worry, come full moons?”

“I suppose you’d have to stay to find out, my Lady.”

She graces you with an even-keeled smirk, the look of a rival toward a worthy opponent. “May I?” she asks, and you help satisfy her curiosity by pulling sacred volumes from the shelves.

She’s cute, you think. She does this thing with her mouth when she focuses, bunching it up into a studious little grimace. Her eyes narrow, and her cool disposition gives way to the truth that she’s a scholar, and perhaps a bit of a nerd. She asks you questions about passages, then gasps delightedly when you give her secondhand accounts passed on by your late mother. She slaps her hands over her mouth to stifle the noise and the embarrassment before pretending none of it happened at all.

You shoot her knowing glances the rest of the research session, being the perfect, honor-bound royal by not teasing her about it. At least, not too obviously. She tells you about an encounter she had with a mermaid once, back home in her coastal lands, and you gasp delightedly, mimicking her tone from before. She slaps your arm, and -- after a fierce grimace -- grins. You hold each other’s stare. Her eyes are intense, irises so dark they’re barely distinguishable from her pupils in the dim.

“Well,” she says, a little awkwardly. She averts her eyes, and you see a blush creep into her cheeks before she covers it expertly with a hand playing through her hair. “Thank you for the tour. I suppose...I can see this. Working, that is.”

You smile widely at her, and she has to cover her face with both hands.

“Go,” she squeaks. “You brute. I’m sure you have things to take care of before the fete tonight.”

“Sadly yes,” you admit. You wonder if you’ll visit any of the other suitors before retiring to your offices. “But I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, Lyra.”

She peers at you between long, slender fingers, then lowers her hands. Some of her embarrassment remains in the color in her cheeks, but a little of that initial coolness is back, settling into her eyes as she sizes you up with a smile. “And I you, Samantha.”