A young Mary Stuart looks out of the window of her carriage as it slowly maneuvers through the beautiful hills of the small, secluded French island. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly upon the grounds. The grass was greener and brighter than green ever could hope to be, and the hills rolled in every colour of the rainbow. A peaceful, tiny island just off the coast of France where she had spent so many years of her childhood, yet it seemed to be stuck a hundred years of the past, additionally somehow still haunted by the events of not even several years ago.
The small island of Île d'Yeu had been something of a safe heaven for her. Her home, her beautiful childhood home in Scotland, had been one of the major points of attack for the German bombers. She had endured it for several months, her brothers and sisters and her. The bombing, the frantic running outside to the shelter with many children in the middle of the night. Swapping schooling lessons for sweeping up broken glass and bricks with her brothers and sisters. It was a horrid way for the then twelve year old heiress to live her life. The eldest child and heiress of James Stuart's fortune had gotten the news that she, her brothers and sisters, and her four closest friends would be getting evacuated to a little French island not long after their mothers' death. She had been caught in the bombs trying to get the newborn little boy some milk from the cows after her own milk had dried up.
The eleven Stuart-de Guise siblings, along with the four young girls who lived with the Stuart household, could stay in the Stuart estate no longer. With their nannies fleeing for safety, the remaining staff had packed up the children late at night and sent them away on a train to Dover early the next morning with no sleep and little food. Somehow, they escaped through the channel unscathed, but the bombs and the gunshots from both land and water would forever ring in Mary Stuart's ears. The eldest of all of them, closely followed by her friends -two being her cousins, the others being god-siblings- and then her siblings, she had to be responsible for all of them. To be the makeshift mother who comforted the little children when the bombs scared them.
They had spent days on another train to take them from the north of France to the south, then another few hours on a boat to take them to the small island of Île d'Yeu where the only family with a house big enough to take in such a load were waiting. Hours on a small wagon from the docks to the Valois family estate had exhausted the children so much that they barely had the energy to greet the matriarch and patriarch of the family, before falling asleep in beds.
The next morning was the day they properly met for the first time, and from then on, all of their lives were different.
A family of over twenty children lived contently through the war in relative peace, post the trauma of being in such an epicentre of German bombs being overcome by the Scottish children. Mary had many fond memories of running all along the Valois mansion with her dearest Francis, playing sports with the other children. It had been a blissful adolescence. Without the worry of death at the hands of a German bomber and with her brothers and sisters safe, and the firm adoration of the Valois family and all of their children. But nobody loved her and was more protective over her than her dearest Francis. He had become so important to her over their years together. Yet some things couldn't stay the way they were forever.
When the telegram came through that James Stuart had been killed in action just before the end of the war, the Stuart children had been devastated. They had lost not only their father, but their eldest sister, too. For the heiress had been sent summons back to Edinburgh to proclaim the business and keep it from falling into untrustworthy hands. The Stuarts were directly connected to the Tudors, who were known as vipers for power. World war or not.
By then, both Francis and Sebastian had been commissioned for their national service, both being older than Mary. It had been months until they had seen each other again, but that was the very reason why Mary had returned to the beautiful island once more. The war may be years past, and all the Stuart children firmly settled back into Scotland, and the girl may no longer be seventeen, she may be twenty three years old, and she may be in the finest London fashion that money could be, but there was one reason for her return, one far finer than a simple visit from an old friend. Well, two. Three if one could count the handsome blonde man at her side.
The large rock upon her finger and the small bulge underneath her gown was reason enough for a visit, was it not?
~~
Expect more ww2 based Frary pieces soon!
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Tu Es Ma Lumière
Historical Fiction~Reign AU/Collection of Oneshots~ The world can be dark, Mary, and uncertain and cruel. The only thing that matters is that we face it together. No matter what happens, you are my light ~Frary Oneshots/Taking Requests~ Book reached it's chapter limi...
