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Chapter Text

Signy opened her eyes. She threw herself gracefully out of bed, like just one of the hundreds of pieces of silk she would need to craft anything in this game fluttering in the breeze, and tiptoed over to her full-length mirror. She stood up very straight and began to sing her scales, landing gracefully on each note like a tapped paint brush, until she reached her passaggio, where this became more difficult. Then she stopped.

Okay, Signy. Here goes nothing. She closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose, trying to center herself. It would be today. It had to be today. It did not feel like today -- her voice felt a little wobbly and rough, and she figured the day it finally happened, when she finally achieved that perfect singing voice, there would be something physically different about her. More eyelashes, a new sense of poise.

It might not be today, but she still had to try.

Signy opened her eyes and threw her arms out along with her best belted D5, with about as much finesse as one would have swinging a baseball bat into a China cabinet. The horrendous voice crack that ensued did shatter most of the glass in her room and also sent several birds flying, she noticed out the window.

Signy sighed. "The cold never bothered me anyway," she finished the phrase sadly.

🐦

"To be a good queen, it is not necessary for one to sing like-- who was it?" Ms. Roslin told her over their breakfast of rolls and marmalade.

"Elsa," Signy moped. She stared at her food but didn't touch anything. "Well actually it's Idina Menzel, that's her singer-slash-voice-actress, but TBH she's not as pretty as Elsa."

"Mmmyes, that."

"And I know I don't have to be her, Ms. Roslin, but she's my role model! You know how much time I spent sewing my Frozen dresses."

"I sewed those dresses," Ms. Roslin said.

"Okay yeah, but I like, printed out some reference pics for you to use and cheered you on and stuff." Signy pushed her Danish around her plate with a fork. "It's just gonna seem so stupid that I'm not really like Elsa when my first decree as queen is to rename the kingdom Arendelle."

Ms. Roslin set down her roll and took a sip of tea. She tried to give Signy a reassuring smile. "Oh, child. That's going to seem stupid either way." She set down the tea and dabbed the corners of her lips with a napkin, and also just dabbed in general. "Now eat up! You'll need plenty of energy for tonight's reception."

Signy groaned. Of course. The reception tonight. Her birthday was tomorrow and Signy was turning-- Hold up. She's only 16? The main character looks identical in all the stories! Oh my God. Please tell me Gina is an adult or I'm going to have so much explaining to do when the FBI finds this account.

So I guess Signy was turning the dreaded 16, okay, which meant she was to have a coming-of-age ceremony, where she would welcome and get to know a number of suitors, choose one to her liking, get married, and inherit the kingdom from her father. Signy worried about this. She could probably foist most of her royal administrative duties onto her uncle, the Prime Minister, but the prospect of "coming of age" was unappealing all the same. It meant her carefree childhood days would soon be over, and that she would have to actually get married to someone. And marriage, as Ms. Roslin had taught her, meant things like sex, lifelong commitment, and shopping together on Walgreens senior discount day (the first Tuesday of the month), all of which sounded terrible. She did not want to marry any of the boys from this area. The only boys Signy liked were the ones in BTS.

"Ms. Roslin," she said, getting an idea and perking up a bit, "can I please go visit the animals before the reception this evening? I think it would really cheer me up."

Ms. Roslin looked at her, trying her best to seem like a stern parent figure, but she actually was kind of a doormat. "Well... alright. But be back before six. You'll need enough time to get changed before the reception starts at seven."

"Yay!" cried Signy, jumping up out of her chair. She grabbed about eight rolls from the bread basket, which she stuffed into her pockets, and ran out the door. She had not touched her Danish.

🐦

For reasons that mostly boiled down to "being secretive is sort of fun," because really no one actually gave a shit, Signy changed into her undercover clothes so that she could leave the castle without drawing attention. She wore her large red sunglasses, an authentic 1785 French replica courtesan dress with pannier hoop skirt, an enormous black braided wig that nearly doubled her head in diameter, a white clip-on rose bridal hairpiece, striped socks, a couple of ankle bracelets, and a conch, just to hold. She just felt like holding a conch for some reason.

"What on Earth," muttered the Prime Minister as Signy waddled past him down the hallway.

No one but Ms. Roslin and half the waitstaff and the animals and pretty much everyone actually knew about Signy's secret trips to the forest, where she liked to play with the friendly animals. It was more like everybody knew and just agreed not to say anything about it, because it was kind of weird. As she passed the castle gates, Signy tossed the one, singular guard a bread roll. This was not necessarily to buy his silence; it's just that, growing up with swans as her primary companions, she developed a habit of tossing pieces of bread at people.

She did this every time she went out. Castiel still hadn't learned to catch it, so the roll once again pelted him in the face and then splashed into the mud uselessly.

"Oh, okay," said Castiel in response. His name was Castiel, and his last name was Guard. It was customary in the Far-Off Kingdom to name children something befitting their future trade. Signy herself was actually supposed to be a singer but for an unfortunate typo, and now she had to be the princess because a "signy" wasn't a job.

Accordingly, the castle had only one guard, Castiel, because only one person had that name. However, this may also have just been an excuse for the king to redirect royal security funds, that would otherwise have gone towards more guards' salaries, into something more exciting, like the Slip 'N Slide he promised Signy for her upcoming birthday.

The forest was full of trees and peaceful and shit. I don't know. I'm just a temp, and they really aren't paying me enough to write this.

As she skipped along, Signy called out for her favorite woodland critters to join her. "Furball! Brushtail! Softpaw! Pikachu!" she hollered. A few animals poked their heads out from the brush in response, scurrying over to greet her.

She waved at all the animals. "Hello, everyone! I have snacks for you!"

Accompanied by her animals and some nearby songbirds, Signy trolled all the way to the lake shore, where the swans lived. The swan leader, a sizable white waterbird whom she appropriately and uncreatively called Snowy, was her best friend in the whole wide world, except for Ms. Roslin, Castiel Guard, this one girl Eliana she knew in seventh grade, and a spider in her room named Jimmy. (Jimmy was his actual name, though. He had rejected her suggestion of "Big Daddy Leggo," she just now remembered, so maybe she didn't like him that much. The forest animals accepted their godawful names without question.)

Signy reached into her pockets-- actually, hmm. That courtesan dress probably didn't have pockets. One time I saw an old French live-action film version of Beauty and the Beast, though, and Belle just ended up storing a key in her boobcrack, and was able to pull it out later rather reliably, which is sort of impressive, so lets say Signy stuffed them all down her shirt. She pulled out one of these now-slightly-sweaty rolls and crumbled it to throw to her friends. The swans snapped these crumbles up eagerly in their beaks, while the animals on the shore watched and wondered why they were apparently second-class citizens.

"Enjoy, everyone! I know bread is your favorite!"

(Bread is not what you are supposed to feed to swans. An early bad ending where all the birds died said something like "A balanced diet is important. Even in a tough spot, protein and courage will shine through. Try feeding the birds aquatic plants instead," but Signy had ignored this because she was Princess Signy, not PetSmarty McVetface.)

Signy sat down on a rock close to the water's edge and continued tossing her garbage carbohydrates to the forest animals. She said nothing for a while, absorbed in thought as she was about her impending marriage to Mr. So-and-So. Would he be handsome? Friendly? Willing to at least learn some BTS choreos?

Then she looked down and noticed some of the animals were distracted by something that was not the act of enjoying delicious sweaty bread crumbles. Perhaps there was a bear or something else scary nearby. Signy screamed preemptively, like, just in case. However, this turned out to be unnecessary, as when she looked up, she realized it was only a man in an owl costume made out of a burlap sack that they were afraid of, and not some more menacing thing. The burlap sack owl man was watching them silently from about ten feet away, unmoving.

"Um..." Signy started. She stared at him, hoping the burlap sack owl would offer an explanation for his presence, like maybe that he was a weird serial killer and she was about to be his next victim. That would be exciting.

Instead he answered, "hoot," and seemed to be expecting to receive some breadcrumbs for this.

Snowy raised his hackles and began paddling towards the intruder. He stepped out onto the shore and waddled towards the owl, snapping at him and flapping his wings.

"Hoot, hoot," said the owl, fending off the angry swan with his foot. "Hoot! Dude, back off! ...Hoot, hoot."

Signy watched these two majestic creatures have at it, feeling a strange sense of relief wash over her. She may have to get married soon, but at least -- and this was a sort of ridiculous, random thought, but comforting nevertheless -- she wouldn't be stuck with one of these two birds. That would be awful. Signy smiled. No matter whom she ended up marrying, she knew as long as they weren't one of these silly birds, things wouldn't be so unbearable after all.

Chapter Text

Though Ms. Signytutor Roslin was Signy's tutor, most of her job consisted of sheepishly agreeing Signy could go to the woods and shirk her princess duties and then lying in bed pretending to be Signy while the real Signy was outside. It was unclear why she would need to do this, or why, especially, she would need to do this until 4pm, but the woman was exceptionally thorough, so there she was when Signy returned to the castle.

"I'm back!" announced Signy.

"Oh, good." Ms. Roslin pushed off the covers and rolled over to the side of the bed. She placed her feet on the floor and stood up, her joints clattering like an elderly set of car keys. "I can't keep doing this much longer. You know laying in bed like that is bad for my spine."

Ms. Roslin always slept standing upright, like a horse.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Roslin," the princess said.

"Yes, well, you'd better wash up. The suitors have already arrived and been taken to the guest quarters. We must get you ready for the ball tonight!"

Signy gulped. You can do this, she told herself. She wasn't sure she believed it.

👑

As one by one the princes and other, somehow-still-eligible suitors were introduced at that night's reception, it dawned on Signy that she would not be spoiled for choice. First was Prince Ferdinand from the Kingdom of Glorion. Ferdinand insisted on being first, and probably not just for introductions either. He had, according to Ms. Roslin, arrived earlier in the day on a white horse with a whole royal entourage, likely meant to impress, and thus wasted on, Princess Signy, who was instead out at the moment throwing bread at some animals.

Prince Ferdinand looked enormously smug and dressed in the color of Glorion's number one export, jaundice. Unlike the other suitors, who always remained just slightly out of Signy's field of view and whose appearance was thus more like a memory, or a ghost, Ferdinand had an on-screen model, and it was not great. He looked like he came from a different app, or perhaps he was a college football captain from an 80s comedy, transported through time and forced to blend in with whatever plot this was.

The other suitors had less grand introductions. Raymond was a traveling salesman swordsman who was not the Animal Crossing character and thus had nothing to offer of value. Hermann was supposedly a prince from Florana, though the royal page who was supposed to read off each guest's name and curriculum vitae from a scroll had instead been handed a blank piece of paper, so he merely repeated Hermann's name twice and shrugged as the prince descended the ballroom staircase to polite applause.

Then there was Ambrose, who was also a prince, but only on his mother's side. His father owned a fruit salad factory, and since he was only half-prince, he had to spend most of his days working there. He definitely had the build of someone who made fruit salad for a living.

Finally there was Honore, the eldest son of a state minister. Wow. Apparently they let just about anyone qualify for royal marriage these days, Father? Care to explain who let this guy in? And don't get me started on non-Animal Crossing Raymond. Why not invite "local man who once saw a prince on the way to the grocery store" or "guy who can spell the word 'crown'" while we're at it?

After the last of the introductions, the coming-of-age ball began, giving Signy a chance to get to know these boys better and hopefully wash down some of the pessimism she felt just from their first impressions. Unfortunately getting just their names and faces and not actually talking to them would prove to have been the highlight of the evening.

The first prince she spoke with was Ambrose, who seemed physically incapable of standing still.

"Ambrose," he said, shaking her hand, you know how they do in monarchies. He then offered her a small gift tied with a silver ribbon.

"What's this?" asked the princess, accepting the present.

Ambrose looked at it for a moment, scrunching his face up, as though he were trying to guess. ("That's okay. Take your time," said Signy.) "I don't know, my mom picked it out," he admitted.

Signy undid the nice ribbon and popped the box open. A beautiful, elaborate necklace made from hundreds of diamonds winked up at her. The princess shrieked as though the necklace were made of spiders and chucked the box, and its contents, into the nearest punch bowl.

"Oh, okay," said Ambrose, watching his thousand-dollar present sail over the head of another suitor and land with a red, sugary splash.

Signy looked at him and felt a little embarrassed. Oops. She was really screwing up this whole "act like an adult at the royal reception" thing.

"I-I'm sorry," she explained. "It's just that, expensive diamond necklaces gifted to royalty are a trigger for me."

"Hmmph!" humphed a voice. 'Twas the sour kangaroo Hermann, "You fool. You should have put a trigger warning on the box." He turned to Signy and his disapproving grimace became a sort of ugly toothy grin he must have believed was charming. "I am called Hermann. But I could be your mann if you choose to be my wife."

Signy stared at him dumbly. "No," she answered outright. It might have been a "no" to this casual proposal or just a "no" to his existence entirely, but it came from the deepest part of her soul before she could even stop it, like an instinct.

"Can't you see the princess isn't interested?" Ambrose added. "You're creeping her out."

Hermann's face turned bright red. "Oh yeah? Well then, why don't we settle this with a duel?"

"Sure, but outside, where Signy can't see you lose."

"Yes, please go somewhere far away," agreed Signy.

The two princes left to go have their pointless duel. Signy rolled her eyes. Tonight was going to be an absolute letdown, and no doubt was the work of her uncle. Only the Prime Minister was dry enough to assemble such a veritable Who's Not guest list of local teenage heartthrobs. Her father would have at least invited a clown or something. This coming-of-age ceremony was an insult to everything her ovaries stood for!

Before she could ruminate further and come up with some better insults, she heard someone else calling for her. Here we go, thought Signy, turning to see a young man with messy brown hair hurrying towards her, the one who was the state minister's son and no second thing. "Signy! Signy!" he squawked.

"Hi."

"It's me, Honore! Remember?"

"Uh... Sure." She didn't. A pause. "Is that like 'honor' with--"

"--like 'honor' with an e on the end of it, yeah."

Honore explained he was her childhood friend, and though Signy didn't remember this, he seemed to really, really want it to be true, so she played along anyway. He rambled about what he had been up to since they last saw each other as kids, all sorts of adventures and stuff. He asked if she'd like him to get up on stage and play the song he wrote for her back then, for old times' sake.

(She didn't remember this either.)

"Okay, so it's technically not a song I wrote," he clarified. "It's actually Wonderwall, but my interpretation of it is like, so soulful and intense that it's like I wrote my own song." He grinned. "You're really gonna like it. Plus I got this guy to play backup tambourine."

Raymond materialized next to him holding the accursed instrument and smiled proudly.

"That's nice." Signy yawned. "Can you two go be throwaway characters somewhere else?" The two of them nodded, seeming to ignore what she actually just said to them, and went to go play their song.

The Princess noticed her shoulders were starting to slump as the hopelessness of the evening began to slowly crush her. She gave them a good stretch, rolling them back and cracking a few bones in her neck before toddling over to stand next to her father, by his throne, where he was drinking a goblet of wine alone and watching over the precedings.

King Clash Royale clapped her on the back cheerfully, the palm of his meaty oven mitt hand nearly knocking her onto the floor. "How's it going, my sweet? Any lucky young man catch your eye yet?"

Signy swallowed. Not great and no, she wanted to say. "Dad, is maybe like, Castiel Guard secretly a prince, maybe? Or like is it legal to marry a castle guard because he's way more charismatic and handsome?"

"Whohohoho!" her father laughed, thinking this was a joke and not a desperate cry for help.

She looked over the crowd on the ballroom floor. After her introduction, she realized, she had not seen any sign of Prince Ferdinand. His presence was about as noticeable as his absence, which could best be described as a profound sense of tranquility that floated around the room.

This tranquility shattered as the ballroom doors thrust open to herald Ferdinand's apparent return.

"I have killed all the animals in the forest!" he announced, holding a large, dead badger aloft by its hind legs. "FOR SIGNY!!!!"

Signy's face went white. "What?! No!" she cried. The princess hurried down the steps and across the ballroom on her little high heels ("Ow. Ow. Ow,") to assess the damage. She poked him in his huge barrel chest and snarled. "What have you done, you monster?!"

"I have killed all the animals in the forest!" Ferdinand repeated, mistaking this rhetorical question for her genuinely being hard of hearing.

Tears spilling down her face, she shoved him aside, or attempted to since he was like 240 pounds, and ran past him, out the door, hoping Snowy was still alive. And maybe some of the other ones, but not as much, because if their lives were important, then the story would have been called Entire Forest Ecosystem, not Swan Lake.

👑

"Snowy?! Snowy! Please be alive, Snowy!"

The lake was empty and dead quiet. Signy fell to her knees in the damp sand and desperately felt around for any trace of her beloved swan. There were a few white feather tufts, but any webbed footprints or traces of blood in the sand had long been washed away.

He was truly gone. Her only friend in the world, except for all the other animals but who cares about them, was gone.

And then she heard someone, or something, say her name.

Chapter Text

"Signy?"

Signy gasped. She turned to look, but no swan was standing there. Also Snowy couldn't talk, so that was kind of a giveaway even before the start of this chapter. Instead she saw a nose, and standing behind that nose was some punchable-looking school boy fellow who waved at her shyly.

"Hello, Signy," he said.

Signy stared at him. Another suitor? Really? He must have been late to the ball and followed her out here. Ugh. She had sort of lost her patience with this whole marriage deal the moment Ferdinand slaughtered everything she loved, and didn't have time to deal with more ugly princess. When was the real love interest going to show up, anyway?

The princess thus knew better than to answer him. Ms. Roslin taught her a lot of tricks for dealing with strangers, so she knew, of course, that all men's vision is movement-based. If you're lucky, by resembling an unmoving statue, you can usually make them give up and go away.

Signy remained still for a moment, completely silent.

The man furrowed his brow. Then he looked worried. He turned his head left and right and scanned the lake. "Signy? Where did you go? Hello? Signy?"

Only a few nighttime insects answered him. Signy didn't move.

"Oh no," said the sad noseman, "I've lost her. There goes my only chance at happiness." He looked at his shoes. "I guess she must have gone off looking for 'Snowy.'"

Wait, thought Signy. Maybe this guy is so late to the reception because he came through the forest. He might have been here when Ferdinand attacked Snowy! "Do you know where Snowy is?" she asked aloud.

The man's head snapped towards her and he jumped about a foot in the air. "Jesus Christ!" he screamed. "Where did you come from?!" It occurred to him that this was not at all dignified behavior in the presence of a princess he was trying to date, so he stood up straight and cleared his throat. "I mean, uh, hi."

"Hi. Have you seen my swan Snowy?"

"Yes, I have," he nodded.

"Well where is he?!" The princess rose to her feet and went over to him, or at least as close to him as his Nigel Thornberry nose would allow.

"You know, it's shallow and rude to make fun of people for their appearance!" the man screamed. He seemed to be addressing someone who wasn't there. :)

Signy politely ignored this weird outburst. "Please, I need to find Snowy," she repeated, wringing her hands with worry. "Can you tell me where he is?"

The man looked at her. "I can, but... You see, Signy, Snowy isn't really a swan."

"I know... He's an angel." Signy wiped her nose.

"No, Princess, what I mean is that Snowy is..." He searched for the words. "Is... me."

The man batted his eyelashes and shrugged his shoulders, as though in apology, as he knew what he was presenting to her would never be enough. "I'm... Snowy. This is the real me."

The princess looked at him with a sort of tragic wonder. She reached out to touch his cheek.

Snowy(?) smiled. He stretched his arms out and moved them in a sad imitation of his former wings. "Cacaw!" he cried. "Swan noise!"

"Oh, Snowy..." Signy looked at this pathetic display. She had no idea he had been carrying such a burden. "What happened to you?" All this time he had been ushering her out of the forest before dark to protect her from whatever nightly curse turned him into some sort of goblin!

"I was cursed."

"Will you ever turn into a swan again?"

"Yes, the daytime is when I turn into a swan."

Signy breathed a sigh of relief. "Well that's good at least, right?" she grinned.

"No, that's--" Snowy(??) looked at her strangely. He appeared to be sorting some things out in his head before he was ready to speak. "I'm... Okay. I'm supposed to be a person," he said carefully, "but I was turned into a swan. Not the other way around. My real name is Aldous." He beamed at her. Now that that was settled, it was time for them to kiss!

"Al...dous," she echoed. Signy pronounced his name like it was something carcinogenic in the ingredients list on the back of her cereal box. This was not how Aldous imagined it would sound at all coming from her sweet, 16-year-old lips. It was way better in his Swan Lake fanfiction, but, ah, the disappointments of real life!

"Okay, now I'm confused," she told him. "I thought this was supposed to be Snow White, but you're like... Fiona from Shrek? Or... no, wait..." She puzzled over this for a bit, muttering to herself, and then pointed decisively. "The Ugly Duckling! Wait, no, that would have you turning into the the swan..."

"Signy. It's Swan Lake."

"I know, but like, what's the real name?"

When he didn't answer, instead just staring at her patiently, the realization hit her like a wet fish. "Wait... Is Swan Lake, like, a thing?!" Signy asked, horrified. Oh no! But that meant she wasn't in a Disney story after all! The best she could hope for now was a Barbie movie!

Signy quickly googled the plot of Swan Lake, whatever that was. She found some results that seemed to upset her. She looked up at Aldous to verify what she was seeing. She looked down at her phone screen. She looked up at Aldous again and squinted.

"You don't even look like Mila Kunis!" she said.

"No, Signy. It's a ballet."

They blinked at each other. "Oh." She returned to her results and scrolled down a little further. "Ohhh. Okay. Wait, ew. We're in Russia?"

"Germany," Aldous corrected.

"Germany!" Signy threw up her hands in annoyance. "Well great. What am I going to do with this?!" She gestured at her Elsa cosplay.

"I know this all is a shock to you, Signy. It is shocking to me as well." Aldous turned so that his nose would catch some of the moonlight. "For you see," he said dramatically, "I was once a prince." Indeed, in the moonlight, it was easier to see his full regal wear, which included a cape, striped epaulettes, and silly ruffled gloves which were all ill-suited for a gross muddy forest. That is ridiculous, thought Signy, a person who owned a decorative conch just for holding.

She wasn't too impressed to hear he was a prince at this point, either, understandably, but she asked where he was from, just to be polite.

"Oh, y'know. Just like, around," Aldous lied. "The kingdom name is hard to pronounce. You wouldn't have heard of it."

"Okay," said Signy, who was dumb and 16, 16 years old my gosh! Anyway.

Aldous continued: "I had such a tremendous life... but then, I was cursed." He clutched the hilt of his sword and stared up at the heavens. "Now I am a swan by daylight, and only at night do I assume my human form." The swan man drooped. He looked down at his feet, then bent over to pick up a flat rock he noticed was wedged in the sand. He slung it with a delicate movement of his wrist to skip it on the water, where it slapped against the surface and sank immediately.

He sighed. "The only way to break the spell is by getting married."

"OMG I need to get married too let's kiss!" said the Signy in his mind. The real Signy was hunched over and looking at her phone. Probably she was searching for other ways to break an evil swan curse, Aldous supposed, which was very thoughtful, but left him without an active listener.

"So! That's my story!" he announced, putting his hands on his hips and shifting his weight around awkwardly. "Have to get married and all that. Yep."

Signy still didn't look up, but at least realized she was being prompted. "Oh. Haha, wow, that's crazy," she managed. She had just run out of gift attempts on Lafayette.

"Yes," Aldous nodded, eager to continue, "and the craziest part of all is that I am also in love with someone at the same time!"

No answer. He watched the light of her phone screen change colors on her face as she fiddled with it.

"It is very crazy," he cued her.

Still crickets. Now Chapur was out of gift attempts too. Damn.

"Who is it, you ask?" he said loudly. "Well--"

"Oh, haha, wow, that's crazy," Signy answered, a few beats too late. She glanced up and blinked at her mistake. "Oh. Sorry. Continue." Whatever his speech was about, her plan was just to keep saying the same thing until he ended it and went away. It had occurred to her that she didn't often have opportunities in the castle to practice Ms. Roslin's techniques for dispelling unsavory boys, and Aldous was perfect for that!

The prince was a little discouraged. His true love was clearly distracted looking up new ways to save him from his swan curse. This would be a bad time to profess his undying love. Perhaps, since she was so distracted, they could just use this time to get to know each other a bit. "My favorite color is purple," Aldous stated.

It occurred to Signy that she should probably put her phone away and go check on the rest of the animals. They were likely all dead by now, as Ferdinand had said, but it would at least give her an excuse to get away from this new, worse version of Snowy, since clearly the the Roslin technique wasn't working. "Um. Do you know where the other animals went?" she asked.

Aldous blinked. "Uh, no," he said.

"Well, I guess I'll go look then." She slipped her phone in her boobcrack. Aldous's eyes bulged as they followed it down. That's one lucky cell phone, he thought illegally (16).

Signy caught him staring at her boobpocket and vomited a little in her mouth.

"Oh, right. The animals!" His attention snapped back to her. "Why don't we look for them together, Signy?" He started to walk towards her.

"No thanks!" cried Signy, brushing past him. She began trotting back down the path she came as fast as her high heels and now tattered dress would allow, leaving Aldous alone on the lake shore in the encroaching darkness.

Aldous turned and watched her retreating figure until it disappeared into the shadows. He put his hands on his hips and whistled.

"Well that went well," he said.

Chapter Text

Signy walked along in darkness. Though the moonlight could be seen clearly on the lake, here it barely made its way through the treetops, and she was ensconced in shadow. "Cubby! Pincher! Mynci! Hello?" she called out. Other than the occasional cricket chirp, the forest was unnaturally quiet, devoid of even the usual ambience of like, foxes screaming or late summer construction on the I-89 or whatever sounds happened in a forest.

She did hear a sudden rustling of leaves, though.

"Hello?" Signy repeated.

But it stopped.

Oh... it was probably just my imagination, she thought hopelessly. Signy didn't want to return to the castle just yet -- or ever, really -- so she stopped walking, put her back against a sturdy oak tree, and slid down until she was sitting at its base with her knees drawn to her chest. This likely created several new tears down her already sort-of-ruined dress, but you know what? That was Ms. Roslin's problem.

The princess groaned in exhaustion and rubbed her temples. Hours earlier, she had dared to believe things would turn out okay, and this was how her optimism was rewarded. All her animal friends were either missing or dead, except for Snowy, her favorite one, who was worse than dead: he was secretly a person who sucked.

Just then, the rustling above her returned. It wasn't a breeze, since the trees didn't seem to be moving.

"Hello?!" she called. "Mynci? Is that you?" Mynci was the monkey, so if it were anyone in those treetops, she'd have to bet it was him. The other two were fish.

An ominous voice laughed down at her in response. That was not Mynci, unless he had some dark villainous streak Signy didn't know about. She looked up into the canopy for its source, but she was nearsighted, and it was the Old Times, before they had glasses, so this was more a symbolic gesture than anything else. In that near-total darkness, the voice seemed to emanate from the air itself, but although it sounded sinister, it was also young and masculine(-ish), so she wasn't too worried. Such voices only threatened young women when they was attached to someone hot. I mean, probably, Signy thought. That wasn't really something you could afford to be wrong about, but it was a good way to die, at least.

"You're a long way from home, little girl..." the probably sexy voice answered.

A figure dropped down in front of her, landing in a half-crouch. Though his voice had sounded omnipresent just moments earlier, the way he appeared almost certainly suggested he had been sitting in one specific tree and waiting for her to walk by.

"Who are you?" Signy asked, now a little less impressed. She knew he couldn't be another prince, though, at least; it was an unspoken rule of princes not to climb trees, lest they get tree-cooties.

The boy laughed again, standing to his full height. "Name's Audwin, kid," he replied, leering at her. "I'm the owl sorcerer. Heard of it? Pretty dangerous stuff." He shifted his weight around, as though getting a feel for this world's gravity, then spread his fingers out in front of his face and studied his nails in a way no person ever naturally does unless they are trying to seem nonchalant. "But... you would probably know me by my DeviantArt handle, x_ShadowMan_72."

Audwin flicked his outstretched wrist around and snapped his fingers, emitting a magical burst of green light that lingered in the air, allowing him to be seen well enough for a narrator stuck in the dark to feasibly describe him, and for good reason! Alex Auldwin was like Aldous, except cooler because he's my OC. Instead of a white outfit he had a dark one. Instead of a big nose he had a less big one. Instead of dark hair he had also dark hair. He was the best, summarily.

Signy's eyes widened. "Wait... I do know you!"

"Really?!" beamed Audi Allroad Quattro. In that moment, his cool guy facade fell from him like a flimsy blanket fort hiding a golden retriever, and his eyes sparkled with the genuine excitement of someone finally being recognized for his online Invader Zim fanfiction. No longer would he be have to be embarrassed that 71 other people had beaten him to his preferred username!

"Yeah, you're that guy who was dressed as the owl earlier today! You have the same voice! And build! And distinctly not-owl quality!"

ALDI's second face dropped, and between losing that one and his earlier facade he didn't have many layers left before he was just a skeleton. "That wasn't me," he countered weakly.

"Yeah it was, and then Snowy snapped at you! I asked you who you were and why you were just standing there in an owl costume and you hooted at me and it was super weird? Remember?"

"UM, okay, NO, that was a REAL OWL," said Alucard, voice cracking mid-sentence. "And it's obvious you know NOTHING about them. Also, now that you reminded me, yeah, that owl? Said you didn't give him ANY snacks when you visited earlier today. You didn't even say he was handsome. Or like, would be handsome if he were a guy instead of an owl."

He held up a finger to stop Signy before she could argue. "That's not why I came to talk to you though," he said.

"I don't have any bread, if that's what you want."

Audwin crossed his arms and glowered at her. "Look: I don't know if you know this, but... this forest? Sort of my domain. And I think one of your little prince friends must have forgotten that when he came here to poach a bunch of animals."

Signy gasped in horror and jumped up from where she was sitting. "Ferdinand! Oh, I knew he was no good from the first moment I saw him. I was hoping he was exaggerating. Did he really kill everyone except Snowy?"

The owl sorcerer shrugged. "I didn't say 'everyone,' I just said a bunch of them, like three or seven or some shit. Point is: while I can respect that a bloodbath is extremely awesome and metal, we have this sacred covenant, the surrounding kingdoms and me, that says I don't touch them as long as they leave me alone in my forest. Now, obviously, that didn't happen, which means I get to destroy them."

"Oh. Okay," Signy said, happily accepting this fate.

Audwin didn't quite notice, and rolled right along with his mental script. "Alright, alright!" he decreed. "I'll grant you leniency just this once, little girl, but if--"

He paused when her actual words registered with him. "Wait, what do you mean, 'oh, okay?'"

"Well, everyone here sucks!" Signy replied. "Oh. Except Ms. Roslin. And my spider friend Jimmy. And Castiel the guard. Also, does this only extend to kingdoms in the area? Or are we talking like globally? Because Jungkook--"

"Shhh," said Audwin. "Stop outdoing me in my thirst for innocent blood."

"Oh, sorry."

"Right. So, if you or your, what was it... Fernando? ...ever come into my woods again, I'm not gonna like it. And when I'm not gonna like it, you're not gonna like it. We clear?" He paused, then leaned towards her to whisper, as though the trees might overhear. "Is his name really Fernando? I'm sort of a huge ABBA fan."

"It's Ferdinand," corrected Signy.

"Oh." Audwin stood upright. "Yeah. Well in that case, he's dead."

Signy wanted to ask him what was up with his weird outfit or if he knew where any of the maybe-dead animals were, but the owl sorcerer had already said his piece. He snapped his wrist again.

"Hoot hoot, bitches," he said as he disappeared in a cloud of evil smoke.

Signy had to admit that, at least, was pretty cool.

Chapter Text

So she had gone out into the woods and didn't have much to show for it, except for perhaps the quiet devastation of learning her best friend was secretly some pervert pretending to be a swan. It was early morning by the time Signy got back, and as she entered through the castle doors, servants were bustling around to clean up the strewn streamers and discarded plastic goblets left over from last night's reception.

There was a squawk of surprise as Ms Roslin spied her from the top of the central staircase.

"Signy! There you are!" she cried, hurrying down the steps like a worried chicken. The woman was clearly much more advanced in the dark arts of moving swiftly in heels. When she reached Signy, she began brushing invisible dirt off the girl's shoulders and circling her, checking for any signs of injury. "We were all so worried when you ran off yesterday. I myself didn't sleep a wink." When she finished her circle and was again facing Signy, the bags under her eyes became more apparent. "You know they say the Evil Sorcerer walks those woods at night, my child. You could have died!"

"Why did no one come looking for me?" Signy asked flatly.

"Hush hush. His Majesty and the Prime Minister want to discuss something with you. There's no time to waste." She put a hand on Signy's shoulder and ushered her up the stairs. As they walked, Ms. Roslin muttered to herself about the pitiful state of Signy's dress, but you know what? That was Ms. Roslin's problem.

Signy thought they were going to the Prime Minister's study, where Uncle and Father usually discussed administrative bullshit, right away, but Ms. Roslin had other plans, and instead brought her back to her room. "It won't do to be dressed in such tatters. Get changed before going to see His Majesty."

The princess removed her ruined Elsa dress and tossed it on the floor. She tried to brush some of the bits of dead leaves and dirt out of her hair with her fingers, and then perused her wardrobe for something more fitting for serious business-talk. What to wear, what to wear...

"This meeting is important. Since you were out all night in the forest, you should wear something Warm and comfortable, but make sure it's Formal, too," Ms. Roslin suggested.

She didn't have much fitting that description, so Signy chose that hideous purple dress that looks like Grandma's box of craft supplies had a one night stand with a mink stole and a lampshade, and draped it over herself like a poncho. She felt warm enough in this bulky thing, and after all she'd been through, she didn't have the energy to put on a bunch of makeup and accessories just to talk to her dad.

However, when she stepped out to show Ms. Roslin, the little dress-up score jingle that accompanied her wasn't the right one that plays when your score is perfect, so she knew right away that something was terribly wrong. Instead of giving a confident wink and twirling around to show off her clothes, Signy sort of just stumbled forward and apologized for existing, then waited for her devastating score. It's kind of like when you get a puzzle answer wrong in Professor Layton and you know it immediately because there's a different animation, but you're basically strapped to a chair at that point and forced to watch as Layton is torn apart by buzz saws to pay for your mistake, and it sucks too, because once The Professor is gone he is truly gone from your file and you can never get him back. Was that worth 50 Picarats?

Anyway, Ms. Roslin read off her score. "1642," she said, holding up a card with the number printed on it and shaking her head.

"Bummer. I guess I can't go to the meeting now," said Signy. And she didn't.

👗

In the days that followed, Signy foraged for fabric scraps and Ms. Roslin discovered a notice that had been posted on the royal study door. It was titled, "Recommended Clothes," and included some childish captioned pencil drawings of clothes the King liked: "1. Cool baseball hat. 2. Dress with fish on it. 3. Weird pink makeup." It took about five days in total for Signy to find all the right supplies and for Ms. Roslin to sew them together according to these crude specifications.

"I'm here!" Signy shouted, barging into the study in her makeup, hat and fish dress. Her father and uncle, who were also wearing makeup, hats, and fish dresses, looked up from their discussion at the round table.

"Signy!" the king cried in relief. "Oh, Signy!"

"We've been waiting here for nearly a week," her uncle said pointedly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't have the right clothes," said Signy.

In front of her father was a box of tissues that was nearly destroyed from constant, frantic use. Whenever he was feeling emotional, King Clash Royale had a tendency to grab tissues by the dozen and stuff them all into his face like it was going out of style, or as though at any moment the tissue box might remember this setting predates its invention by about 300 years and disappear in a cloud of anachronistic confetti.

"We thought you had died!" Tears spilled down her father's face and onto Schrodinger's tissue box.

"Yes, yes. Take a seat, Princess; there is news we must share with you."

"News?" "News" could be anything. Did the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup while she was gone? Were they finally getting rid of that godawful world chat feature? Did the kingdom decide to take pity on her over the death of the animals and call the wedding off? Any one of these would have been good news, so she knew not to expect any of them.

Signy approached and nervously took a seat beside her father. He continued to blubber into his tissue wad, but didn't look at or say anything more to her. Realizing she would get no indication from him of what this news was, she folded her hands on her lap and stared at her uncle expectantly.

"Am I in trouble?" she blurted out after two seconds.

Uncle scratched his nose. "No, but you must know the Kingdom's rules. Per the Far-Off Marriage Act § 14," he said, producing the indicated document from which he now read: "'If the incumbent ruler is not present for their coming-of-age ceremony ball or reception, then they forfeit the right to choose their future partner. The partner must then be chosen via contest. The type of contest varies yearly, according to our proprietary Contest Calendar System.'"

"We decided it'd be too dangerous to search for you in the scary forest," King Clash Royale said wearily, "so we held the contest while you were gone instead. We thought it would be nice to have a husband chosen for you if you managed to come back."

That was all fine, supposed Signy. As long as the winner hadn't been Ferdinand, who was decidedly the worst of the applicant pool, given his killing all her animals, she could accept her elders' choice. "Well that's fine. What sort of contest was it? Like a singing contest?"

"Well no," answered Dad. "This year it was wrestling."

"You can imagine how that went." Uncle rolled his eyes.

Signy's face turned white -- I mean like, whiter than at already was. "Oh no... Then does that mean--"

"Yes, Signy, your future husband will be Prince Ferdinand."

"Also all the other suitors are dead." Just an aside.

Signy stood up and leaned forward, slamming her fists into the table. She suppressed a wince, because it was solid mahogany, and her wrists were slight, and it really sort of hurt more than she was expecting. "Father, I don't want to marry Ferdinand!" she shouted.

Her father grabbed another small village's worth of tissues and blew his nose. "I'm sorry Signy!" he wailed. "Women's rights haven't been invented yet!"

"The engagement ball is tomorrow night," her uncle announced.

"What?! You can't have two balls in a row!" cried Signy, like this was worse.

"It's already been decided."

This was definitely shaping up to be the worst 24 hours of Signy's life. She stormed out of the study and all the way to her room, pushed Ms. Roslin out of her bed, and cried into her pillows.

"Oh, okay," said Ms. Roslin, tumbling onto the floor and breaking three bones. Jimmy the spider scuttled over to see what was the matter, but Ms. Roslin was afraid of spiders, and without thinking, panicked and smashed him with a nearby hardcover book, so I'm really sorry I didn't add "major character death" to the archive warnings.

Fortunately, Signy was too preoccupied in the throes of despair to even notice. "I have the worst life ever!" she sobbed.

"That's objectively false," said Ms. Roslin, still lying on the ground and scraping bits of Jimmy off her book.

"No it's not! I lost all my animals, I got catfished by a swan, and now I have to marry some... jaundice-looking football player! No one has a worse life than me, and I'm fed up with it!"

Signy sat up abruptly and hopped out of bed. She began tearing off some of the weird miniature fish attachments that were supposed to make her dress look like it was underwater, since they mostly just got in the way of things and she was downright annoyed with them. Ms. Roslin watched as her hard work was carelessly shredded and fell to the ground piece after piece, but having your efforts constantly destroyed by a moody BTS fan was just part of the job description, and she was mostly dead inside by this point.

Signy tossed the last of the fabric fish onto the floor and looked out the window to where the sun was setting with a new fire in her eyes. "I've decided I'm running away from home."

Chapter Text

Signy marched angrily out of the castle, paying no mind to the servants' stares as she trumped past them in her disfigured seafood dress and backwards hat. Her rolls were in a picnic basket today because, while she didn't mind stuffing them down her shirt at the best of times, she could no longer risk it around Snowy's wandering gaze. (Bad Snowy! Go to jail!)

She pelted a bread roll at Castiel, as per tradition, but he actually managed to catch it today. While Signy was running around with her many not-boyfriends, Castiel had gone through an off-screen training arc and was now the ultimate breadcatcher, not that this would amount to anything plot-relevant. The princess stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him in all his inexplicable handsomeness.

"Oh, Castiel," she said in a dreary sing-song voice, "why couldn't you be my future husband instead?"

Castiel had the good grace to blush at this. "Your Highness, it wouldn't be possible," he answered politely. "The only suitors worthy of your hand in marriage are princes and state ministers' sons and random sword guys and fruit salad makers. Not humble castle guards such as myself." He took a manly bite of the roll, and Signy quietly swooned.

Anyway he's not dateable or even a companion, so, moving on.

The forest was still quiet today, since she had never really verified whether or not her animal friends were alive, and apparently five days wasn't enough to return to pre-Ferdinand population levels. The atmosphere stood in stark contrast to her visit just days earlier, when the forest had been sunny and full of life. Today it was empty and silent, and the sky was cloudy, and the sun was setting, and the air was cold. Signy began to wish she had worn that ugly purple lampshade thing, as this fish rag didn't offer much by way of insulation. "Warm" tag, Signy's ass.**

(*AN: My editor has informed me that the "Deep Sea Legend" dress being humorously referenced here actually bears the "Grand" and "Charming" tags, not "Warm" and "Formal," as suggested in the previous chapter. I hope you will still graciously permit the above joke even at the expense of in-game accuracy, as this fic has otherwise been 100% true to the events of Swan Lake.)

It wasn't long before she felt someone walking alongside her on the forest trail. The burlap sack owl shuffled along and soon matched her pace.

He seemed to be waiting for her to explain herself, which she did not do. They walked the trail to Swan Lake (or whatever it was actually called) in silence, the unspoken tension snowballing for several minutes until at last it exploded:

"Um, so like, do you remember when I said not to come back to this forest?" Audwin voice-cracked from underneath the burlap sack.

"I'm running away from home!" Signy replied, like he had asked her that question.

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna have to turn you into like a toad now, or else it'll look like I don't follow through on my threats and then Aldous will get ideas."

Signy abruptly turned to him and stamped her foot. "Well that's fine!" she shouted. "I'd rather be a toad, because at least then I wouldn't have to marry Prince Ferdinand!"

"Ferdinand as in that poacher?" said the owl.

"Yes! That's why I'm running away from home, obviously!" Signy made a wordless sound of frustration, and then all her energy left as the realization dawned on her. Her face fell. "Except... I came out here thinking I would go see Snowy, but I just remembered he's actually that creepy prince. I don't even have anywhere left to turn." She began to cry.

Audwin snorted, the way you do when you're trying to comfort someone and not at all seem mocking or derisive. "I'm sorry, 'prince?' Did he give you the whole 'I'm a prince' story, 'but my kingdom is in Canada?' Hahaha, Aldous sucks."

As if on cue, and as a testament to Signy's horrific timing, an unwelcome voice hollered from up ahead on the trail: "Get away from her, you fiend!"

Signy looked up and gasped. There was Snowy's abominable human form, drawing his sword and pointing it at the owl menacingly. "Or I, Prince Audw--no wait I'm Aldous, will destroy you!"

Aldo-- I mean Audwin -- why are their names so similar oh my God.-- threw his hands up halfway in mock-surrender. "Speak of the devil," he muttered to Signy.

The white swan prince-or-prince-impersonator (it was unclear) jogged up to them, sword in hand. He took a moment to catch his breath, as that light jog of 30 meters or so really winded him. Then he looked up. "Signy, you must not trust that man! He is evil!" cried Aldous's nose.

Signy shrugged. "Yeah, he already said as much."

In the glassy reflection of his eyes, a small image flashed in which Aldous's mind could be seen detonating in a nuclear explosion. The sounds of a dial-up modem emanated from his brain as he tried to process this information. "Then why are you still standing with him?" he managed dumbly. "Evil things are bad!"

"He followed me."

"I'm monitoring you," corrected Audwin, who was now removing his owl costume as the sun had already set, "because you're an intruder."

"You shut your foul magic-casting mouth right now!" Aldous cried. "Signy is a welcome guest here, because I welcome her. This was Father's forest! It belongs to you as much as it does to me!" He returned his enormous, purely decorative, purely compensational broadsword to its sheath on the side of his belt and approached the princess, taking her hand in his own.

Signy blinked and recoiled a little bit.

"You see, Signy," said Aldous in a low voice, "before I was turned into a swan, I was no ordinary prince."

"Oh my God," groaned Audwin.

"Yes, I was born with a good half and an evil half -- a prince who was half-angel, half-demon!"

Signy continued blinking and recoiling a little bit.

Aldous looked at her seriously. "The good half likes good things, like standing up to bullies and singing holiday songs for the elderly. The evil half likes evil things, like Takis. So you can see why it might have been dangerous for the two halves to stay together."

"O...kay." She could see that, she guessed. Aldous and Audwin were sort of like that one mobile game where for half the day your love interest is a demon man and for the other half he's an angel. She did not tell Aldous she liked the demon half better.

"That's why my father, who was the king because I am a prince by the way just saying, asked the castle mage to exorcise my evil half and banish him to a tower in the woods." Aldous carefully grabbed Signy by the shoulders and steered her a few feet away so that she was facing Audwin. He pointed at the sorcerer accusingly. "The banished evil half... That's Aldwin's true identity!"

"Audwin*," said Aldwin. He finished the bag of Takis he was eating and tossed it behind him into the forest.

"You see! You see!" Aldous's extended finger trembled in righteous excitement. "Look now! Witness how carelessly he litters!"

Signy put her hands on her hips and pulled her mouth to one side in disapproval. "I hate to say it, but he has a point, Audwin. You really shouldn't litter."

"Oh, okay," said Aldwin. He didn't look like he meant it at all. Audwin was truly a bad guy, but she had to admit that the way he was licking Takis dust off his fingers was pretty sexy. She'd like a CG of that in her album, if you know what I mean.

Then, as though the gods themselves also wanted to lick the Takis dust off Audwin's fingers, the sky opened up and the trio was soon sprinkled with rain.

Audwin slipped the owl sack back over his head almost immediately, with the reaction time of someone who had, on multiple past occasions, witnessed just how quickly humidity could mess up his superbly coiffed bangs. "Welp, have fun you two." he said.

"Wait, you're leaving?" This made Signy feel surprisingly empty. It occurred to her she didn't have any other friends now.

"That's okay." Aldous gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze. "We don't want him in our club anyway."

"But he was the only one I wanted in my club..." Signy said sadly.

The owl man stared back at them. It was impossible to make out his expression behind the neutral eyes and beak drawn on his sack with black Sharpie, but her words seemed to give him pause, like maybe, for the first time, a cute girl wanted to hang out with him instead of just making fun of his owl fetish and Invader Zim fanfiction.

As the slow trickle of rain quickly became a downpour, so too was the princess washed over with the realization that there was no longer a place for her here, in this forest, now that Audwin didn't want her around and Aldous sucked and the animals were gone. Maybe... it was finally time for Signy to grow up.

She turned to leave, and also to low-key shake Aldous's arm off.

"I think I'm going to go back now and deal with my wedding after all," she decided, a rueful smile touching her lips. "I've been running away from growing up all this time, but... maybe I shouldn't be. I'm going to be a queen soon. My job isn't to stan BTS... or even to be a real life version of Elsa. It's to get married to someone I hate, be forced to have kids, and then die a slow spiritual death because women's rights haven't been invented yet."

Audwin said nothing, because he had missed his cue about thirty seconds ago to say "hoot, hoot, bitches" and leave, and saying it in the middle of Signy's character development like this would be a little rude. Aldous said nothing because he had just enough tact not to suggest abandoning her royal station and taking up prostitution instead which was historically, like, one of the only ways for women to stay single and earn a living of their own back in the Old Times, and Aldous loves history!

"Thanks for listening to my problems anyway, Audwin," she said.

The princess turned and began walking away. The swan brothers(?) watched her go.

"But my name is Aldous!" the white swan called after.

Chapter Text

Signy walked home in the pouring rain. She approached the castle gates and waved wearily to Castiel, though he didn't wave back. When she got close enough that they could decipher each other as anything more than vague figures in sheets of white rain, he jumped back in shock, suddenly terrified of her.

"NOOO!! I COPIED THAT VIDEO TAPE!!! I MADE A COPY!" he shouted, signing a cross with his fingers to ward off the damp little girl with long matted hair and a filthy dress who was now shambling towards him. To think he would die so soon after his training arc!

"Castiel, it's me. Signy."

"Oh." Castiel immediately calmed down. "Well, my word, Signy. You look dreadful," he eloquated like some sort of old-timey person and not a hip youngster who um like uses filler words and um stuff. "You ought to get inside and dry off immediately."

"Yeah, yeah," said Signy.

Excepting Ms. Roslin, who was likely still lying on Signy's bedroom floor and would probably die there, none of the castle staff had noticed Signy's earlier tantrum or dramatic exit. It really took the wind out of her sails, and solidified her soul-crushing commitment to a boring life as Ferdinand's trophy wife and the Queen of Swanfuck or whatever this nation was called. Such a fate would be unfortunate, but at least a mild upgrade from that of the last story she read, in which she had also ended up married to an incumbent royal bread stick but which had taken place in an Islamic society and in which, therefore, she had likely been posthumously relegated to the bread stick's side piece.

Signy stepped over Ms. Roslin and discarded her wet rags in favor of something fresh from her enormous princess wardrobe. Despite the inordinate efforts it took to create each of her pieces, Signy tended to treat her outfits like toilet paper and needed a brand-new one every single day. For the ball tomorrow, she chose the uniform of a belly dancer, which was not at all appropriate for a time period in which men were still rendered helpless by even the suggestion of a bare ankle, and a little hat that might be worn by a 1920s lady or stenographer. She descended the ballroom stairs in this ensemble, where the celebration was to be held, in one day, before she was married, and stood completely still for the next 24 hours.

🎊

It was the ball now!

While her fiancé, Prince Ferdinand, was having a merry time boasting to guests, draining the castle's supply of Miller Lite on tap, and spilling most of this beverage, through impromptu drinking contests, onto the floor, Signy remained still in order to avoid detection by Ferdinand and any other unfortunates she dreaded a conversation with in this room.

However, she saw something that nearly made her lunch crawl back up her throat and make a desperate escape into one of Ferdinand's puddles on the floor, and would force her to break out of her invisibility spell. There, standing in the middle of the ballroom like a dumb ivory traffic cone, was none other than Prince(?) Aldous, forcing several dancing couples, in the fashion of a dumb ivory traffic cone, to redirect their patterns in order to work around him.

"This is exciting!" said Aldous as Signy stomped up to him, to demand an explanation. He was sipping at some sort of fruit drink he must have gotten from the cash liquor bar, and which was presumably the only thing they still had left after most of their offerings were wrung out by Prince Ferdinand. "I've never been in a real life castle before! Also why is this drink so bitter?"

Signy grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down to her eye level. "Why are you here?!" she growled.

"Well Signy," Aldous said, unfazed because knowing how to recognize that which was hostile towards him would cause him to never stop screaming, "I remember you mentioned getting married, and then I remembered that I never actually said who I secretly have a crush on. Can you guess who it is, Signy?"

"Guards," Signy called, before realizing there was only one castle guard, the handsome one, and he was inexplicably posted outside at all hours, well out of earshot, by the castle door.

Exasperated, and with her cover blown, the princess gave up on this and trumped over to one of the many ballroom benches, as it is well established that ballrooms are furnished rather like train stations, threw herself upon it, and slumped forward, head in her hands.

Aldous predictably plopped down next to her unbidden, though he said nothing, and seemed to be deep in thought. He scratched his chin ponderously. This was not going as well for him as he would have hoped. If he wanted to win the princess's heart and get her away from Prince Ferdinand, the swan man was going to have to turn on his maximum charm mode like right now. Unfortunately his only idea of game -- the kind required when talking to girls, not the kind Ferdinand might turn all of Signy's animals into -- was reciting Greco-Roman trivia.

He slid this sexy Snapple cap fact into her ear: "Cygnus is the Latin word for Swan. That's probably why you're named Signy."

The bench shifted as someone else took the seat opposite Aldous.

Signy and the unwanted swan both turned to see their least favorite mall goth, dressed in his usual attire plus a fancy black mask. "In Spanish it's cisne," said Audwin by way of greeting, and snaked his arm around her shoulders with more casual finesse than Aldous would have even if he traded his bones and teeth to a casual finesse fairy.

"Oh good. You're both here," said Signy. Though she was secretly glad to see Audwin, at least, she couldn't help but wonder if there was a dimensional leak in one of the castle walls that caused unwanted guests to trickle out into any given social gathering.

Aldous saw how his brother had put his arm around Signy and decided he wanted to do something similar. The white swan, who was of course meant to be a white version of the black swan, was no mere imitator, so he couldn't do the exact same thing. Instead he settled for resting a hand on Signy's leg, which she swatted away in an immediate, choreographed motion.

"Yeah," Audwin was saying, doing that thing with his nails, "I might have picked up some Español from the back of the Takis bag."

"Those are manufactured in the United States!" Aldous said Aldously. He nursed his hand since Signy's slap actually kind of hurt?

"Dude, it says fuego on them. That means they're Spanish." He crossed his leg at the knee and directed his contemptuous attention now instead to the people going by on the dance floor.

Aldous leaned in towards Signy to whisper like they were friends who might exchange fun gossip and secrets. "Listen, Signy," he said, trying to exclude Audwin, "I've been thinking."

Audwin overheard this anyway. "Oh, good. That always leads to something cool and not annoying at all," he scoffed. "Do go on, old sport." Signy was secretly grateful that Audwin was here to give voice to her more scathing thoughts. Signy herself couldn't say these thoughts out loud because women's rights hadn't been invented yet, and Signy was a woman, which meant she was of course raised to minimize conflict and always say the nice, right thing, as women live in constant fear that we might anger the wrong person and then get murdered. Also, "old sport" was something Gatsby might say, and as everyone knows, Signy loved the 1920s, as well as The Great Gatsby, the only work of literature anyone can name from the 1920s.

Aldous looked at his evil half and faced a small internal debate as to whether and how to respond, but decided to give up on it. "I was thinking," he resumed, "that maybe instead of marrying Prince Ferdinand, you could marry one of us."

"I don't think I can just do that," said Signy. Also I don't want to, she mentally added, though this was a given.

"Who cares? You're the princess," Audwin replied. "You can just murder anyone who says no." He had to admit that this time his soul-brother hadn't come up with the worst possible idea. It was only the half-worst possible idea, since one of its possible outcomes involved Signy marrying Aldous.

"And it's not without reason, anyway," Aldous said brightly. "If you marry me, then you can break Aldwin's evil spell, and I will be free!"

Audwin was studying his nails again. "And if you marry me, then we're married."

"But I don't want to pressure you," said Aldous, producing a wedding ring on the spot.

Signy was absolutely trapped on that bench in a swan-loser sandwich, and for the first and only time, then, was glad to see Prince Ferdinand march towards them in his usual rude and careless fashion.

"Where have you been all my life, wife?" her fiancé thundered, trying out some pick-up line that sounded like it had been whispered to him by a Laffy Taffy. He slopped some beer out of his glass, which was apparently now his only consistent trait, and strode towards the trio on that bench with an expression like he wanted to introduce them to each of his teeth. "...And hello, uh... other dudes. Who are these?" "These," like they were pieces of silverware.

"These are some boys who have been following me," Signy answered truthfully.

Audwin gave a laugh from somewhere in his throat. "Haha hoooold on, if anything, it's more like you've been following me. You're the one who showed up in my forest to bother me twice."

"And you showed up to my wedding ball uninvited, and tried to stalk me dressed as an owl."

"Okay, one, that was my owl alter-ego Rothbart, and two, daylight burns me, so I dress up in a sack during the day to hide my smooth alabaster skin. You wouldn't want to ruin this skin, would you? It's a crime."

Ferdinand laughed at all this nervously. "Oh, okay. Uhhhh. I don't understand most of these words you're all saying, so let's maybe bring the conversation back to m-- Hullo, what's this?" He spied the engagement ring still in Aldous's hand.

Aldous blinked, then closed his hand over the offending jewelry box and stuffed it back into his pocket. "I dunno!" he squawked, scratching the back of his head like an awkward boy at the science fair trying to explain to an audience of confused grandparents why his poster board says "SCATTER PLOT OF LAST WEEK'S FARTS."

"Aldous wants to marry me," Signy clarified. Hopefully Ferdinand would get mad and kill him. Indeed, at this her future husband's cheeky grin flip-flopped into a frowny face, and under his angry football stare, Aldous blanched and began shaking like a leaf.

"Yeah, one of us might steal your wife," Audwin smirked, also hoping to contribute to the imminent death of the white swan. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"What am I gonna do?" Ferdinand roared back. "I'm gonna deal with you the way I did with all those other posers and chumps trying to steal Princess Signy."

He looked at the swan brothers and his eyes flashed in a football-like fashion. "We're gonna settle this with a contest."

Chapter Text

Notice:

The required item for the following episode is the Owl Sack (110 Wool, 1000 Diamonds, and 6 Audwin Relic Fragments), which must be crafted, and the proof of such crafting thereof sent to our address at P.O. Box 7063 Columbia, SC 29202, in order to continue the story.

Failing to meet these conditions before continuing is considered stealing, which is illegal, and will result in your Dress-Up! Time Princess account being permanently suspended and Discord server access revoked, with extreme prejudice.

Hoot, hoot, bitches,

— IGG

(DO NOT read after this point unless given express permission)

"P-Perhaps a contest of wisdom or chivalry, then?" Aldous was stammering, not knowing he was screwed in wisdom and chivalry but knowing he was screwed in just about everything else. (He could probably win a fart scatter graphing contest, but not in front of Signy.)

"Nah, dude. Wrestling!" Ferdinand bellowed. And without warning, he let out a battle cry and leapt towards the three of them, hip-checking straight into the one of them nobody liked. Audwin leapt and Signy arose more or less gracefully from the wreckage.

Ferdinand high-fived himself as he also got up from the bench, looking down triumphantly at the pedophile pancake created by his labors.

"Oh, okay," croaked Aldous, who had little swans circling over his head to humorously indicate a mild concussion.

"Huhuh, can't stand the heat, bruh? Then stay out of my castle." Ferdinand blinked. "Or like, Signy's castle, I guess. Wait, why are we here? Am I coming to live here or are you coming to live with me? How does this whole thing work?"

"I guess I go live with you and then my own lineage just dies?" answered Signy.

"Cool, cool," said Ferdinand.

Aldous made a sad groaning sound and tried to get up. He staggered a bit, somehow less steady than even a man who had just hoovered up half a castle's worth of Miller Lite, though for whom admittedly such was more of a bar appetizer with the main liquor course being straight isopropyl and a bucket of Tylenol.

Speaking of Tylenol, Aldous's bones. They were not great. Well accustomed by now to the regular maintenance sounds of the elderly, Signy couldn't help but notice the clatter of those things as he stumbled towards her. She said, "ew, you sound like Ms. Roslin," who by now had almost certainly perished.

Aldous attempted to draw his sword on Ferdinand. "En garde...!" he bleated, but because Aldous sucks he somehow managed to pull it out backwards, so that the hilt was facing Ferdinand and the blade of the sword facing him. Also, he was holding it by the sword part. "Oh no," said Aldous, hand furiously bleeding.

He decided to lay on the ground and give up. Go-Go Gadget Dying Sheep, he said to himself, hoping maybe Signy would like him better this way. All girls liked baby animals, so clearly they would also like grown men pretending to be baby animals while facing a predator.

Signy wasn't impressed, though, and Audwin wasn't either. He stared at his pathetic angel half with one brow raised. "Well, you tried, bud," he said.

Prince Ferdinand, who had spent the past minute and half wordlessly flexing, suddenly turned at these words and squinted at the man who had said them. Like Signy, Ferdinand needed glasses, though even in a century more accommodating of such impairements he likely would have still ignored this need out of his own hubris. "Wait... there's another one... Why are there two of you?"

"Excuse me? Two of us?" Audwin repeated.

"Yeah, you look like that other guy's clone. Are you guys, like, bros?"

Audwin vibrated with barely concealed rage. "Alright. I was going to just walk away, but, um, I'm pretty sure you just suggested I look like Aldous in terms of facial bone structure." The sorcerer held out his hand, now glowing with a sinister green energy. "So, uh, nothin' personnel, kid, but it looks like I'll have to make good on my plans to kill you." It was unclear in his Audwin-ness whether he was quoting Coldsteel ironically, but Signy hoped so.

"Wait, that's not wrestling," said Ferdinand. He couldn't actually see what was in the guy's hand, and between his nearsightedness and near-drunkenness, it very well could have been a bushel of broccoli.

"Yeah, it's murder," said Audwin. Then he blasted him.

Ferdinand went hurtling across the room like a brilliant starfish, crashing into the far wall and knocking down several framed grade school portraits of Signy. (For the last few years, Signy had been homeschooled by the late Ms. Roslin, but she remembered school picture day in the Old Times was terrible. You had to sit and wait for your picture to be painted for like, two hours.)

Ferdinand could probably get up at this point, but I kind of want to go to bed, so it looks like Audwin won! Wow! What a battle!

The victor dusted himself off in his constant, neverending, all-consuming efforts to look like he didn't care about anything when in fact he was a deeply passionate and emotional boy. "Heh. Looks like this victory goes to me," he said, heart aflutter with secret, barely-concealed passion. "Which means I get to marry Signy."

Aldous held up his index finger. "Since we're two halves of the same person, technically that means we BOTH won!" he Aldoused. "Signy should get to choose between us!"

Audwin glanced at his not-brother. He was actually only like level two at owl sorcery which meant he was almost out of mana. Was it worth wasting more magic to set Aldous on fire? Nah, he decided, he could always do it later. "Sure. Whatever." He shrugged. "We both won. Take your pick, Signy." He said this knowing, of course, that there was no known universe in which the princess would choose Aldous, unless she had made earlier decisions which would unknowingly rule her out of the Audwin route -- shout-out to all you unfortunate Signys out there -- or was perhaps trying to 100% the game.

This apparently wasn't the case. The princess hummed and studied the two of them, Audwin looking impatient with one hand on his jutted-out hip and Aldous bleeding out on the ground like roadkill (who would absolutely not be tended to, and in fact Signy prohibited it when a concerned medic came by and offered to tend to him), and thought about which of these brave warriors truly merited the role of her future husband.

(Not marrying anyone wasn't a choice because women's rights hadn't been invented yet.)

Obviously Aldous sucked, so he was out, but it wasn't a full slam dunk for Audwin either. He had that smooth, easy confidence, and wasn't too bad to look at either (if you liked vampires), but was about an arm and head short of what might be called "attractive." Perhaps he was manufactured in a bad-boy experiment gone awry, like an intern tripped and accidentally dropped her Hot Topic Rewards card into an otherwise perfect vat of bad-boy juice. Or maybe Audwin just didn't want to try to be attractive, didn't see the value in it.

There definitely had to be a reason. Boys didn't exist without trying to be attractive for her specifically. I mean, look at Castiel. Being a handsome fella was totally irrelevant to his position, and yet he was doing a great job at it.

But, Signy considered, they still had the rest of their short, Old Timey lifespans to live together, and she could surely make use of the two-score-and-ten they likely had left to live before being inevitably killed by the plague or something to give Audwin a few pointers in cool-and-attractiveness. A little less internet time here, a few wardrobe adjustments there, and he might be a worthy discount budget C-tier alternative to BTS.

"Okay, I choose Audwin," she decided.

"What hold on," said Aldous.

Audwin nodded knowingly. "You made the right choice, princess," he smiled. With a flip of his magnificent black cape, the owl sorcerer swept towards Signy and took her pale, delicate hand in his own, bending down as though to give it a tender kiss.

Then he let it fall. Audwin looked up at her. "Unfortunately for you," he winked, "I've already pledged myself to my OC."

Signy's jaw dropped. "You what?!" That couldn't be possible. Signy was supposed to be the prettiest, smartest, strongest, prettiest, cutest, prettiest most uniquest girl in the Far-Off Kingdom. How could an OC be better than her, when she was already like the blandest self-insert OC?

Audwin stepped backwards, putting some distance between them. "Yeah, she's sort of based on Gaz from Invader Zim," he shrugged, "but I aged her up and gave her tits. Also," -- and here his eyes began to sparkle -- "she can shapeshift into an owl. She is the best, summarily."

"Does she eat Takis too?" Aldous said with an eye roll. Then he sneezed, because snarking was so unusual to him that it tickled his nose a bit; he might have been allergic to it.

"No, dumbass, that's my self-insert's tragic character flaw." He returned his attention to the distraught princess. "Anyway, I guess that means you're on your own now, little girl. Enjoy your life."

"But you can't leave!" cried Signy. It figured that the one time she actually wanted to marry someone he wouldn't be interested in her. She understood, a little, how Aldous felt now. What it was to be disliked.

Something lit up and began to vibrate in Audwin's left pocket, followed by a tinny version of some dancehall tune ("Báilame como si fuera la última vez," doot-dooted the little cellphone). Audwin pulled it out and glanced down at the caller ID.

"Shh," he said, flipping the phone up to his ear. "My crow is calling me."

He listened to the crow for a long minute. The crow seemed to have a lot to say. Signy and Aldous were very patient, and/or still on the floor unable to move, which reminds me, RIP Ms. Roslin.

After some lengthy summarizing of events on the crow's part, Audwin hung up and looked at them. "Yeah, I gotta go, nerds. Crow tried to read some story without the required items and now I gotta pick him up from the police station." He shrugged. "Kids, right? Anyway, I'm outta here. Hoot, hoot, bitches."

Audwin disappeared in a dark cloud of smoke.

Aldous and Signy stared at the empty spot where he had just been. The rest of the ballroom was silent.

Audwin suddenly reappeared.

"And don't come back to my forest," he warned.

Audwin disappeared in a dark cloud of smoke.

In the coming days, Signy explained everything to King Clash Royale and the Prime Minister, who had been there, but like, talking about boring dad stuff and not paying attention. They agreed, and had to respect, that Audwin had won the challenge fair and square, and that since he had then decided to dump Signy, she was now free to do as she pleased. Because the owl sorcerer was nowhere to be found, and someone had to be blamed for Ferdinand's assault-if-not-death (you decide!), the blame was pinned on Aldous, who was promptly thrown in jail for ten days and then released on probation not for good behavior, but because the castle staff could not stand him.

Signy, in her newfound freedom, proposed to and married Castiel, who had always been the prettiest and best boy, and they spent their long and happy (though actually plagueful and limited) days tossing bread to each other and sometimes even catching it. Thus ends the story of how Audwin invented women's rights.