Chapter Text
When the plague broke out in France, Father had to run.
He wanted to stay, for the house he had grown up in, for the husband who was too weak to leave with him, but he couldn't.
Darrell couldn't stay there, that's why Father ran. His husband... it was too late for him. But for their son, it wasn't.
So he left. He took what possessions he knew were uninfected, said what goodbye he could to his husband, and left with Darrell tucked securely in the basket he ran away with.
They found a tiny town, far from the main cities where the infection spread like gossip, and they built themselves a new life there.
A little cottage on the edge of a little town.
And as Father settled down into the life as an inventor, with little Darrell watching everything he did like it was magic from the age of one to the age of twenty, he was sure that here they'd be safe. Here they'd be happy. Here, they could live happily without the ever-present fear of separation.
But even small towns have their secrets, hidden just out of sight…
~~
Roman sighed and rubbed at his eyes. It was so awfully late. Who was knocking at his door at such a dead hour?
He glanced down the hallways he passed in the castle with seemingly no end in sight. Where were his servants? How heavily sleeping were they that they didn't hear the rude visitor?
Normally Roman would have fetched them, made them get the door as they were paid to do, but late night wanderings found him close enough to the door the walk to get servants would have been the bigger bother anyways.
Approaching the huge wooden doors with golden handles that cost more than most houses in the nearest village underneath his rule, Roman pulled one open with no little effort (how heavy were these things?) and came face-to-face with the late night visitor.
It was a beggar.
The gnarled man looked up at Roman, his ragged cloak dirty and torn covering most of his body. His face was wrinkled and old, covered in hardened mud and scratches. His twisted hands rested upon a splintering staff.
Roman didn't bother to hold back the groan that instantly came to his lips. This? Really? He understood beggars existed, he understood in such harsh weather as this they might seek shelter, but at a castle? That was equally bold and sad.
"Good sir," The beggar began, voice rough yet his tone formal, "I have come to seek shelter from the storm."
Roman pulled back slightly, a gust of wind blowing water into his face and speckling his expensive pjs. "I'm not surprised."
"May I-"
Roman interrupted him. "I'm afraid not. This is a castle, peasant, you can't just wander in at any time."
"Ah, but I can pay." The beggar said, reaching into his rags. Roman expected him to pull out a bag of gold, something that might have been impressive to someone who wasn't a Prince, but instead it was a rose. Despite the storm and the one carrying it, the rose's stem was unbroken and its petals were practically glowing a bright red.
"A... rose?" Roman said, bewildered. This beggar wanted shelter in the kingdom in exchange for a rose, one that could be found in any properly kept garden?
"I only ask to stay a night, good sir." The beggar said, offering the rose closer to Roman.
The beggar hadn't even figured out he was the Prince! Roman realized he wasn't wearing his crown- it was much too late for that weighty thing- but still! He had a regal figure.
"You'll have to go." Roman said curtly. "This is a castle, not a charity. We have a garden of roses; it isn't a form of payment."
"I'd advise you to reconsider." The beggar said much too presumptuously for Roman's taste. "It is worth more than it seems."
Roman rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It cannot be avoided- peasant, this, I repeat, is a castle. Its halls are roamed by the highest of the high and I simply cannot have a common beggar dirtying it. Leave, before I wake my staff."
The beggar's eyebrows rose briefly before his face returned to one of no emotion. "So be it." He said simply. Roman began to close the door.
But the beggar didn't turn and leave.
Instead, he gripped his staff tighter and stood up straight. His dirty rags fell from his shoulders and turned to a dark fog as they did, surrounding him even as the storm raged on.
As Roman watched, around the man and around him alone the rain stopped falling as the fog swirled and lifted, leaving behind, to Roman, a complete stranger.
The stranger's new cloak was long and fine, made of a dark blue material covered with silver dots that glowed like real stars. Matching eyeshadow stood starkly beneath boring grey eyes that seemed to hold universes within them. The old staff was now smooth, the only cracks that ran through it filled with an energy that glowed dangerously against the dark night.
"Prince Roman Amare, you have shown me your heart is as cold as the night you would leave one of your subjects to fend for themselves within."
The stranger's voice echoed through the night and into Roman's bones.
"For that, you will bear my curse."
Roman fell to his knees. "Please." He muttered, suddenly aware of the true situation. "Don't."
The stranger raised his arms. His staff glowed brighter and Roman could feel in a way he couldn't put into words that he was changing. His skin was beginning to itch.
"Please." He said again, wincing at the way his voice crack sounded like a snarl. A snarl? Why was he snarling?
The stranger looked down upon Roman, no forgiveness in his eyes. "My pleas fell deaf upon your ears. Why should I hear yours now?"
Because I'm a Prince. Roman thought immediately, but he couldn't force the words out. Was it because he realized how silly it was? How lame it sounded now, before this sorcerer? Or was it because of what was happening to him now? Would he never speak again?
It didn't matter. The sorcerer clearly didn't care what his answer would come out to be, the fog around him continuing to spread out and past him, into his castle.
What would it do to his home? To the servants within?
With a nod at the fog and the Prince, the sorcerer slipped his staff back within his cloak, pulling back out the rose from before. It was just as it had been, magically beautiful.
"This rose, with every day that passes, will wilt." The sorcerer said, his voice monotone as he dropped the flower before Roman. "And upon your twenty-first birthday, it will die. With its death, my curse and all its repercussions shall become permanent."
"Is there-" Roman stopped to cough. What was wrong with his voice? When did it become so gruff? "Is there anything I can do?"
The sorcerer crouched before Roman, his expression a mix of cruelty and sorrow. "Fall in love." He said simply. "And be loved back in return."
And with that, the sorcerer straightened up once more, turned, and walked away. He faded away into the night, leaving the storm raging behind him.
"Fall in love? Be loved back in return?" Roman repeated in the silence, pushing himself to his feet. He was a Prince. Men (and women too, he supposed) fell at his feet before him. What trouble could it be to fall in love with one of them?
Roman laughed. The sorcerer was a fool. All for the better.
Now to find out what this curse was about. His skin still felt odd- was it itchy skin? Was this a prankster sorcerer? Figures.
That would explain the odd gait he had now, Roman figured as he headed down the hallway, feeling as if all his weight was focused on the front of his feet. But it didn't matter, they were all little things, little things- aha! There was a mirror! A quick glance to see if he, perhaps, now had green skin and he would be-
He stopped before the mirror.
No.
Roman reached a hand to his face, hoping to find he was tricking himself, but the surface bristled as he brushed it.
No.
He looked down, at the now ripped pjs over his new- his new what? Form?
No!
"Do you see now?" Roman's gaze was torn from his self to the corner of the mirror. The sorcerer was there, a smug grin on his face.
"What have you done?!" Roman demanded, wishing he could claw at that face.
"You judged me based on my appearance." Came the response, too calm for Roman's liking. "Now everyone else will do the same for you."
"You're a monster."
The sorcerer's grin grew a degree. "Have you looked in the mirror?"
Roman roared, a sound he could now literally make, and smashed the mirror. Glass flew across the foyer, the pieces that hit Roman bouncing harmlessly off his thick hide.
"And if you're unhappy about that," Roman looked down, and the sorcerer was still there, his face reflected in every shard, a slight laugh already rolling off his tongue, "just wait til you see how you've doomed the rest of them."
As if on cue, Roman heard screams from down the hall, all in the direction of the servants' quarters. He glanced back at the mirror, but the sorcerer was no longer there.
Roman forced himself away from the shards and towards the screams. It didn't matter how he had treated them in the past, Roman didn't want his servants hurt. And besides that, he had to know:
Were they monsters now, too?