Chapter Text
When Olivier De La Cour crashed into the carriage and went under the horses' hooves, it was on purpose.
He'd thought about it for a long time and ultimately decided that, based on all accounts, he did not need to exist.
It wasn't a reward, or the opposite of. It wasn't that Olivier thought he didn't deserve to exist. He just didn't need to, meaning that no one could benefit from his existence, least of all Olivier himself.
"I'm pissed off," Olivier commented to his steward three hours later, arm in a cast.
"Why?"
"Because it didn't work. And because now, I'm less pissed off than before. I ask you, Henri, is my rage inconsequential as well?"
"N-no, milord," Henri replied.
Henri was the only person who was precisely instructed by Olivier himself to call him milord. He wasn't sure there was anybody who remembered his condition, except for his father.
His father, who was convinced that titles such as 'prince' or 'milord' were not fitting for Olivier's present situation, so the only person who called him like he wanted to was Henri.
"Well, that hardly matters," Olivier grinned, because the only thing wilder than his hair in the morning was his mood swings. "I suppose it wasn't my time."
"It's hard to tell when your time comes, but when it will, you will milord," Henri, who was very faithful, replied.
It wasn't that Olivier wasn't faithful. He supposed he had faith somewhere deep in his soul, but he'd just forgotten exactly where it was he left it. Sometimes he came back to it, asked God for an answer, other times he didn't even know where to start.
He had so many questions. And either way, God never answered.
But Olivier, like many men at court, still believed in the existence of a higher power and was of the idea that keeping Henri around was a good influence.
"Your father will want to know about this," Henri said, his steely grey eyes fixed on the prince. He did not add 'sir' or any honorific. He knew when it was time to speak as a steward, and when it was time to speak as a friend.
"I suppose so," Olivier mused. "My father is King, but I've never felt much like a Prince. Ironic, isn't it?"
"Perhaps," a steely voice behind the young men said. "You feel like a Princess, don't you, milady?"
Every nerve in Olivier's body tensed. The voice belonged to his father. The only person who knew.
And the only one who didn't give a damn about knowing. Ever since his childhood, Olivier had been a girl for his father. He'd played pretend he forgotten everything that happened before because...
Well, because it was easier that way, wasn't it? In a way, Olivier supposed. Lies were never easy. Lies were never comfortable.
Henri looked horrified. Since Henri did not even know the truth, Olivier smiled fondly at that expression, for it was a good testament of his friend's character.
"You know I never have," Olivier replied, and his voice, to which he didn't mind about a minute ago, suddenly felt out of place. Too delicate. Stern, but not enough.
It would never be deep enough.
"I suggest you take a liking to your condition," the King said. "And if you can't... you should try to get used to it at the very least. You know your words wouldn't be believed."
Olivier knew what his father was talking about. The witch who came to visit the castle when he was one year old. The witch who turned a one year old boy into a little girl, and then disappeared. And only a few months after Olivier's own mother had disappeared.
But there was something else his father had in mind. Even if he hadn't been born a boy, and honestly, most days Olivier found that hard to believe, he had no recollection of having ever been a real boy, he would know he was a man and not a woman.
But his father was right. Nobody would have ever believed his words.
"Today," the King said. "The King's Guards are coming to court, to tell news of the upcoming war that's raging on the border. You know, what to do, don't you, Olivier?"
There was nothing but mock politeness in the way his father said his name. And lately, even the politeness was wearing away, and the O of Olivier was almost spat out of the King's mouth.
Henri, who was a sensible young man on all accounts, couldn't help but recoil at the sight of the spit, that landed on the ground.
"I'll stay in my room, and you'll pretend that I'm away, discussing marriage with some strapping young lad," Olivier replied, and Henri couldn't help but notice he was not above mock politeness himself.
The King's eye twitched. "As usual," he had to give in.
At first, Olivier had been presented to various people as the Princess. But, and that was one thing even his father had to agree on, however much he tried to make his son look lady-like, Olivier just couldn't.
He had fair hair and graceful limbs, he was even a little curvy and in his appearance there was not a detail that wouldn't give him away as a woman. But once he had make-up on his face and a tight corset, there was something unsettling in the way he set his jaw. There was an unmistakably manly look in his eyes, a displeasing sternness in his voice. A shadow, perhaps just a very well hidden sign, that it was an uncomfortable disguise.
As much as Olivier looked like a woman, you couldn't help but see the man inside.
It was not like people at court understood what the issue was. Nobody went around saying that the Princess was really a Prince. But every time they met Princess De La Cour, they knew something was very wrong. They just couldn't put their finger on it.
Olivier knew that with his disheveled hair, broken arm set in a cast and ill-fitting man clothes he looked nothing like a Princess should look, and that his father resented any detail of his appearance. But there was nothing uncomfortable about the way he looked.
Olivier had never planned to stay in his rooms. After talking it through to Henri, he decided he could pass quite decently as a real man, even though Henri did not know a thing about the witch, and about the spell, and even though Olivier was convinced that even with make-up and tight dresses he still was a real man, while Henri entertained the notion that Olivier wasn't a man at all.
However, the Prince had found out he could move more freely in and out of the castle since his change of attire and hair. Only his father knew what he looked like now, and he didn't intend for anybody else to figure it out.
Olivier had a penchant for alcohol ever since he turned sixteen, and so left his rooms early that night to go to the kitchens. He'd been there many times in the past five years, and nobody commented on his presence. They probably thought he was a twelve year old steward, for Olivier did not look much older than that as a man.
He was about to uncork the bottle, when he heard a weird sound behind him. Footsteps. They clinked like the man who was wearing them had boots with heels.
The captain of the King's Guards?
When Olivier turned around, startled, the person was a boy a little younger than himself, with unruly dark hair and a skin-tone that made him look like he was from the East. Dark. Golden-like.
Olivier did not look older than a child, and barely looked like a man at all. But if there was something he'd always had, was charm. He hated it - it was inherited from his father, after all. But Olivier had a way of making people only see what they wanted to see.
He stretched into his height, which wasn't much. At five feet two, Olivier probably was the shortest man in the kingdom. But the stranger, he realized, wasn't that much taller than him. Men in that part of the continent weren't tall, and so the stranger had to have at least a little of French blood in his veins.
Ever since he had asked Henri for help to wear some kind of tight-fitting garments that concealed his chest, Olivier was able to move more freely and stand up in all his height, which wasn't much, but it was more decent that going around with his back curved, which was also something that wasn't very fit for a king.
"And you would be..." the stranger said.
"Why don't you introduce yourself first?" Olivier looked at him, trying to muster an icy cool gaze in his blue eyes.
"You tell me, you're the only who's trying to steal a bottle of wine from the King's canteen."
"Oh," Olivier paused. "Is that what it looks like? I'm terribly sorry. No, the King and I have... an agreement. He lets me drink his wine, and I protect the rooms of the Princess."
"You're a drunk," the stranger said. His eyes narrowed. Olivier had never been called a drunk, and he intended to fight the first person who did so. He unleashed his sword.
"My name is Olivier," he told the stranger. "And by offending me, you have also offended the Princess."
He was trying to keep his voice steady. He told himself that if he didn't falter when he spoke, if he tried very hard not to sound sheepish, then nobody would notice.
"Name's Charles," the other man replied. "And you're the one who accepts payment in wine instead than in gold, and you don't want me to call you a drunk?" he shrugged. "Okay. I'll fight you then."
Dammit. Olivier was good with a sword, but he'd never entered fencing tournaments. How would he sign up as? Princess de La Cour? Not a chance.
"I've broken my right arm today," he simply stalled for time. "It wasn't a good day. I was ran over by a carriage on purpose."
"Did they run over you on purpose?" Charles looked at him quizzically.
Olivier had the weirdest impression that the one he would have considered the first option was indeed very far from Charles' mind.
"The other way around," he replied. "I went under the horses on purpose. But I can fight you with my left hand, if a duel is what you desire."
"Then I will fight you with my left hand also," Charles decided. There was a mischievous gleam in his green eyes, inherited from his French side of the family.
"No, I'll save you the trouble," Olivier decided. He drank half the bottle. "The King won't be happy to know you fought me, so please, don't. I was wrong to ask you to a duel in the first place. The Princess wouldn't mind very much to know you called me a drunk."
The Princess did not, in fact, exist.
"And the King might even tell you you're right," Olivier mused, only a little drunk, but changing his mood quickly. He was back to his dark humour Henri could never stand.
"Who are you really?" Charles asked, shifting from one foot to another. Maybe he wasn't that much younger than him, the Prince realized, but he was definitely immature.
"No one," Olivier replied, for it wasn't a lie. He'd thought about it, and decided that it was what he was. It gave him a weird feeling, to be able to say it to someone else out loud.
"I'm Achart's son," Charles said. "Do you know him? He's the..."
"Captain of the King's Guards," Olivier finished under his breath.
Olivier put his head in his hands. If there was a single person who didn't have to know anything about his nightly mischief, it was Achart.
The second most important person from whom the secret must be protected was Achart's son. Because Charles would undoubtedly tell his father, who would tell the King. And the King would punish him like he'd already done all the times he misbehaved in front of guests.
How was he to explain, he told him once, the existence of a stable boy who looked so much like the Princess, who hadn't been back to court since her sixteenth birthday?
"You don't look like a stable boy, or a steward," Achart's son said. It sounded absurd to Olivier - Henri looked a lot like him. They had the same set of stubborn, cold eyes and a similar shaped jaw.
Of course, perhaps there must have been something in Olivier's appearance that gave away what he really was. A royal.
The clothes had given it away, if anything.
There really was no tip-toeing around it, so Olivier had to ask. "Just to be sure, will you inform somebody of my being here?"
Charles, whom Olivier started calling Achart in his head, not to get attached, looked startled.
Shit. Olivier put his hands to his temples. The hardest thing about being pathetic is that people weren't supposed to know he was. But he kept forgetting it. He lashed out, acted weirdly, as if other people could possibly know about the lack of freedom that was choking him.
"Forget it," he said abruptly. "I just drank too much."
Achart arched an eyebrow. "Ah. I see. You think me more foolish than I actually am. Well, I might be a simpleton from the country, but I know a thing or two. You're wearing very expensive clothes. You can't possibly be the King's bodyguard, because you lack height and mass muscle."
"Flattering," Olivier commented drily.
"Let me finish. You drink a lot, which caused you to betray yourself. You are hiding, which I would have known even if you hadn't betrayed yourself, because it's clear in your actions. So, who are you really?"
Olivier was genuinely impressed. "I can play this game too," he stalled for time. "My dear Achart, you're not the only one who's intuitive. I'd like to tell you what I think about you another time, that is, if we ever meet again. You see, I really can't do this right now."
He showed the son of the King's guard his broken arm. "It's been a lousy day."
"Oh yes..." Achart narrowed his ocean green eyes. "You were trampled by the horses on purpose. I remember. But don't think me a foolish young boy. I won't go away until you reply what I asked you two times already. Who-are-you-really?"
Olivier exhaled. Maybe it was the booze speaking, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be so bad to tell the truth.
It would be the first time he spoke the words out loud.
"I'm the Prince," he said.
Achart looked stunned, but only for a second. "You can't be," he said. "The King looks nothing like you. Besides, he only has one heir. A girl."
Olivier was not stupid, though in that moment he wasn't feeling very bright either. Until Achart, he often entertained himself with the notion that he was the smartest person in the room.
Of course back then he was younger and sober.
"Does he?" Olivier asked, a certain satisfaction in knowing he was telling the truth.
Until he had to tell a lie. "You see, you can't tell anyone he keeps me in the castle, I'm the bastard son. He's training to see if I can take over once he's dead, but, between the two of us? I'm afraid I'm not fit for the role."
Olivier was talking too much, and it wasn't easy to remember he had to keep his voice low and make it sound rough. He often had the impression that it came out as softer and higher than he had intended, but Achart thought he was a real boy. And he wasn't about to question him just because of his voice.
"Huh," Achart snorted. And then, he started to laugh. First, softly, then a little offensively, with his head thrown back.
Olivier was horrified. In an egoistic action, he'd told nothing but the truth, well, except for the bastard part, and was that how the truth was received?
"Wait until I tell my father of all... this," Achart gestured at all of Olivier when he said this. The Prince felt hurt. "He's never going to believe it."
If Achart was going to tell his father, his father was going to tell the King. Olivier savored a minute of self pity for having acted so brashly in front of a stranger. He was going to pay for his drunken honesty, he knew.
Not until he took precautions first. De La Cour had always been a man of action first and a man of words second. That was why it bothered him, but only a little, to hit Achart on the head with the hilt of his sword.
A few hours later, he was knocking on the door of Henri's house.
When his friend came out, he took one long look at the Prince, clothes ragged and torn, and at the sack he was bringing along.
"What's in there?" he asked.
"The son of the captain of the King's guards," was the mellow reply.
"Good heavens, have you killed him?" Henri became very pale, and started reciting Hail Marys.
"No, don't get overexcited, I merely kidnapped him," Olivier said soberly. It wasn't starting to sound as the best idea.
"Let him free," Henri pleaded. "You don't have to carry him around in that... thing."
"Oh, I will," the Prince agreed. "But when we're in the woods, far away from here. I've been thinking about running away for a long time, and now I found somebody to protect me. Why do you look at me like that? The kid himself said I lacked height and mass muscle."
Henri made a strangled sound. "Has he displeased you that much?"
Olivier looked at the sack, in a way Henri thought could only be described as fondly. He was having a hard time understanding what was going on in his Prince's head.
"The only question, dear Henri, is," Olivier smiled viciously. "Are you coming with?"