Chapter Text
It was the new year. But a new year meant nothing now, after all this time. Everyone knew that nothing would change. There were no more speculations, no more “Next year can’t be worse than the last!” because everyone knew it would be. More lives lost, more blood shed, and for what? More war.
And, sure, Alex was obviously sick of it. But he had to keep fighting, because the queen was the one in charge, and the queen was his mom. Yeah, it was unfortunate. But at least he had his sister, June, and his girlfriend. Nora.
Just as the thought of her crossed his mind, Alex heard a door swing shut and turned to see Nora behind him. She threw him a small smile and came to stand beside him, one hand on the balcony railing, another on his shoulder.
“Ready for the fireworks, babe?” she asked. Alex grinned and nodded. The fireworks were the only passable part of the night for him, the only thing that was pure fun and didn’t require any thought. Well, the drinking and partying, too, but. You know.
Nora turned her head to the sky, her brown curls cascading down her back, making little ripples in the blue silk of her dress. The wind picked up a little, and she looked more like a princess than ever. Alex supposed she would be, someday, when they were married. Wouldn’t stay just the duke’s daughter forever.
He let out a sigh and looked to the sky, too. Brilliant fires began to erupt, so loud that they drowned out all his thoughts. Nothing could distract him from this, what he was seeing right now, a fiery rainbow across the night sky, his future wife beside him. He let his thoughts go and sunk into the night.
He woke up the next morning with a splitting headache.
“Unnngghhhhhh,” he said, and put his pillow over his face to block out the sun.
“Nice to see you too,” said a voice, which he recognized as Nora’s.
“Go away,” Alex groaned.
“Mkay.” There was a pause, some footsteps, and then nothing. Alex peeked his head out from under his pillow and, sure enough, Nora was gone. He wondered briefly if she would be mad at him, but then remembered that of course she wouldn’t be—he was always like this. If she had a problem with it, she would’ve said something by now. Or just… stopped talking to him altogether, because Nora didn’t take anything from anyone.
Anyway. Point was, it was fine.
He tried to go back to sleep, but his head hurt too damn much. So he got up, got dressed, a boring frilly white top with black pants and some boots. He looked hot, yeah, but he could’ve looked hotter. If only his mom let him have any creativity when it came to dressing for strategy meetings.
He went straight there and was able to take a short nap before it started, since he was the first one in the room. But when he awoke and raised his head to see who had arrived, literally everyone was there, staring at him disapprovingly. His sister simply raised an eyebrow, but he knew she would have things to say later.
“Everyone ready to start?” asked the queen as soon as she’d pried her eyes away from her disappointment of a son. A series of affirmative mumbles coursed from the room, as well as one “Of course, love,” from Leo, the prince consort, along with a kiss on the queen’s cheek. It was far too early for this, Alex thought. He and June shared an exasperated look.
“Alright.” The queen folded her hands together on the table and leaned forward. “I’ll just say it outright: we need to do something different. We’re not making any progress, and every day, more of our people are lost. We need to find some way to defeat them, once and for all.”
Well, yeah, Alex almost said out loud, but was thankfully able to stop himself. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Maybe we could do something less violent and try to, I don’t know, talk to them. No, that’s crazy, right? Never been done?”
Yeah, that was actually worse. The whole room had turned to stare at him, except his mom, who was busy pretending he didn’t exist.
“We need to find a weak spot,” said the queen, resuming her speech.
“We’ve been trying for years,” protested one of the kingdom’s best spies.
“Yes, well, try harder!” the queen snapped. She sighed and put her head in her hands. “Sorry. I just. The pressure is really getting to me. I don’t want any more of our people dying, obviously.”
Leo put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. We all know you’re trying.”
The rest of the meeting went on similarly, with the queen deciding to send out more spies and no other decisions being made. Most of the time was spent arguing or apologizing, and Alex was just thinking. About… whatever. He didn’t even know. He just didn’t want to be here. No one ever listened to what he had to say, anyway, even when he knew it’d help.
Finally, he was let out. Nora was waiting by the door, and June whispered “Go get ‘em” in his ear as they walked out. Alex rolled his eyes. He was a bit worried, actually; Nora looked almost… uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen her like this before; she was always either sure of herself or just didn’t give a shit.
She took ahold of Alex’s hand and started to lead him to his room. “What’s happening? Don’t tell me you wanna have sex right now, I have plans this afternoon,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood. Nora just threw him a glare. …Not the best idea, then. Alex was the king of bad ideas this morning, it seemed.
She sat on his bed and he followed suit. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You okay?”
Nora blinked. “I’m fine. It’s just that I, uh, met someone? Just now, actually, like, during your meeting.”
Alex stared. “What the fuck, Nora, it’s been two hours.”
She waved him off. “Yeah, whatever, time is irrelevant. I know something’s gonna happen with them, so I didn’t want to wait and end up cheating on you or something. Telling you now was the only logical choice.”
“Um.” Alex was still staring. He supposed he wasn’t that surprised—or even sad about it, really—Nora had always just been his default option. If she’d met someone who she liked more, he couldn’t really be upset about it. He just felt blank, confused.
“We’re still going to be friends,” said Nora, as if it was obvious.
“Well, yeah,” Alex agreed. “Not gonna let a lifelong friendship go to waste just because of a lover’s quarrel. If you could even call it that.”
This did change some things, though. Nora left the room, giving him some excuse about needing to eat breakfast, and Alex sat with his thoughts.
He was less upset about this as he’d always assumed he would be. Breakups were supposed to hurt, right? But maybe he mostly just cared about Nora as a friend, and had only ever dated her because she was there, because they were close and he knew he needed to marry and produce an heir someday. They got along well and didn’t have any problems; well, until now. But this didn’t even feel like a problem, it felt fine.
Weird.
But the point stood that he had to find someone else. Maybe not yet—June was older than him, first in line, and she’d yet to find someone—but someday.
He dreaded the thought. It was so much more fun to just hook up with pretty girls at balls.
Oh well; that was for future Alex to worry about. He glanced out his window, and it seemed like a good day to go riding—clear sky; probably relatively cool, it being autumn and all; and that was all the encouragement he needed. He did not want to work on more war plans today. Any excuse to get out of that was a good one.
He changed into a more fitting outfit—brown trousers, riding boots, an overcoat for the cold—and walked out to the stables. A stable boy greeted him when he arrived, and he let him know that he’d be out riding, and to tell his mom so she wouldn’t worry. Then he mounted his horse, Valentine, and started on his way.
There was a forest nearby that he always liked to wander through. The leaves were dense, and it was slightly closer to neutral land than perhaps was safe during wartime, but he was always careful. He made sure to keep an eye out for anything… off, brought his sword with him in the case of a fight. He knew how to defend himself just fine, thank you very much.
It was darker than usual in the woods today, and after looking to the sky, he realized it had become much cloudier since he’d left the castle. It had been an hour or so, so it made sense that the weather could have changed. But it was… slightly concerning, considering Alex was trying to pay attention to his surroundings.
But it was such a nice day, really, the wind blowing through his curls and making his overcoat fly out behind him. It was almost like he was the one flying, in a way. He could hear the crunch of autumn leaves below Valentine’s hooves, see the forest grow denser as they went on. He wasn’t even sure if he recognized where he was anymore.
Wait, stop. This was bad, like, actually a problem. Alex stopped Valentine in her tracks and dismounted, surveying his surroundings for anything that might be at all familiar.
But there was nothing. The trunks of the trees were all wide, wider than they were close to home, and there were no scrawled markings or anything that might make them stand out to an untrained eye. The sky was still clouded, but the clouds were growing darker, and with the dense brush, he could barely see anything. He held one hand to Valentine’s side to make sure he could find her if he needed to leave quickly, to get away from something. Or someone.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a rustling in the bushes and stiffened. It could just be an animal, he reminded himself. But… to be safe…
He mounted Valentine, took ahold of her mane and put his feet in the stirrups to make sure there was no chance of him falling, even though he would probably dismount again right after checking in these bushes. He still had to figure out where he was, after all.
He made his way over to the bushes, knowing there was no way of him going unnoticed after Valentine had galloped all the way here. He drew his sword, trying to glance behind the bushes but finding that they were too dark, too dense to really see, but was that maybe something bright behind all the leaves?
Something grabbed him around the waist and pulled him down. He tried to stab whatever it was with his sword, but it was gone from his hand before he could hit anything. He found himself lying on his back in the underbrush, thorns poking his skin, and his own sword held to his throat. And glaring down at him… was the face of Henry, the prince of the neighboring kingdom. The very kingdom with which he was at war.
Well, fuck.