Chapter Text

Once upon a time, there were two siblings. Two became one, and the one did not know how to carry life’s burden without their other half. In lieu of laying with their sorrows, they turned to plays and poems to ease their heavy heart, let it warm their soul where their other half should have been. 

Then they came upon a curious thing. 12 things. A miracle in a jar gathered over many sleepless nights. They wished to be reunited with their sibling in a new world of their own creation, where the strives of life could never separate them again. The sibling wished that in their new world, they would be forever free of the memories that haunted them.

Things were good for a time. The sun shined on their land and the siblings’ cheeks were warm from smiling. 

They lived happily ever after.

And so, a new story began.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

When Chase opens his eyes, he is looking at a banquet. A table full of pastries, fruits and layered cakes, ready to be consumed by the first onlooker. He’s standing under the shade of a large round white outdoor building, where the green grass and hedges of a garden fill the surrounding area, as far as he can see. The midday sun shines on the treats in a flattering light.

Chase immediately digs in. Neatly arranged treats get knocked about, as he stuffs his face and pockets full of all the delicious gluten that his real body has gatekept him from. This lunch might as well have been personally handpicked for him, as he spots some sunburnt bread rolls and those fancy French cookies his mom once bought for him, just out of his reach. He starts searching his person for more pockets.

Someone clears their throat.

Silver seems to have designed something extra classy for him today. Chase was dressed in a loose white shirt with long, puffy sleeves, tucked neatly into high-waisted pants with wonderfully deep pockets. A sun yellow vest sat snugly overtop, detailed with cute flowery embroidery in golden thread. Two small earrings tugged lightly at his ears.

“Uhm, Princess Diana?”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m here.” Chase nodded, quickly wiping his hands on his pants.

He looks up - only to be met with the collective open stare of an entire table's worth of people. It looked like he had barged in on a royal tea party. Every noble at the table wore an expression snootier than the last, their eyes holding an oddly real judgement, as Chase sat in the hot seat with a bit of cheese puff slowly sliding down his cheek.  

Had he… put a bookmark in and forgotten? Was this really how the author decided this book would start? A long table, a princess and a circle of nobles with weighted stares like a jury set to judge her guilty. His gaze flicked around for support, but he couldn’t spot any black hair among the guests.

“…Have any of you seen a tall brooding mall goth or an evil-looking lady slipping poison into anyone’s drinks?” He says with an awkward smile, a joke and plead for a quick rescue, guiding the first words he can string together.

One of the nobles actually spits out their tea.

There’s a quiet snort from closely behind Chase. His heart warms and he grins, quickly spinning in his seat. “You know I’m right, Buddy– “

He pauses, as his eyes only meet a lone hand maiden. She freezes with a small ‘eep’, like a mouse, before coughing indiscreetly into her hand.

As he’s trying to process how in the world she heard his joke, what part of it exactly– some dude shoves his chair back with a scrape. He pushes himself up, grave offense in his voice. “Your Grace, how could you humor such a thing at a time like this!?“

Around the table, a dozen murmurs begin to buzz—the air shifting with the anticipation of a verbal spar, for an audience of nobles who smell drama and are, without a doubt, supremely bored. Chase blinks for a moment, feeling like he’d missed a step on the stairs this morning. He’s still stuck on the fact that the characters might have heard his dumb mall goth comment.

“Cool,” He says, his voice definitely calm. “Cool, cool, cool. I’ll just find him myself, thanks.”

He swipes a couple extra bread rolls on his way, as he escapes the scene. Skipping down the steps of the outdoor building, he throws a wave behind him at the gaping crowd.

Buddy will know what’s going on with the story book vision.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

The first thing Chase learns is that the castle in this story is big. From the garden a neatly kept gravel road leads up to the spearing heights of a castle, nestled on a grassy coastal cliff. The second thing is that, with no notes in his pocket, he enters and ends up wandering its halls aimlessly – finishing his bread roll and drifting for maybe a solid half hour after that.

He rounds yet another fancily decorated hall and cups his mouth.

“Buddy?!”

As the first thing, Chase manages to track down the kitchen on the lower levels. He peaks his head in and sees it’s buzzing with activity – servants weave between each other, vegetables get pulled down from where they hang in the ceiling and air is thick with rosemary and oven heat. His gaze searches the room, scanning for any familiar mops of black hair buried in a plate of brownies or something, but he comes up empty.

One of the servants spots him and gasps, which sends the rest of them into a panic and the whole kitchen scatters like the rats in Ratatouille. Apparently, his character didn’t come here often. A waste, honestly, because a few minutes later, Chase is bouncing down the next hallway with his arms full of gifts in the form of bagels and croissants stuffed with some pudding-like filling. He shoves a brownie down his pocket to gift later and gets back to search. 

“Buddy?!”

Chase combs through the lower levels with all the meticulousness and grace of a dolphin released in a shopping mall. He sticks his head through random doors, spooking chatting servants and unprepared aristocrats, as he loudly calls out for Buddy. He finds a small cozy library on the second floor, but the nervous librarian just shrugs helplessly at his question. There’s an eating hall on the third floor, that’s devoid of people entirely. The fourth floor leads out on the roof, and offers a beautiful view of the coast, which Chase barely glances at before hopping straight back down the stairs.

On his way past some open rooms on the second floor, Chase’s eyes catch on an old, full-length mirror, tugged halfway behind a set of curtains. Curious, he goes to it.

He pulls aside the fabric and finds his reflection, a young woman he assumes to be Princess Diana blinks back at him – tall, with ocean blue eyes and golden curly hair partly pulled back with a ribbon. She wears an outfit a bit like his own, classy and cute, ending in a long flowy skirt instead of pants. She has pearls for earrings. The princess character looks like she could be his sister, honestly. He hums, a little appreciative. Sure, by now he’s gotten used to seeing the face of a stranger when he sees himself, but still, anything that makes his reflection a little less jarring to pass by is a golden sticker in his book.

The passersby don’t question his lingering beyond a few glances, and Chase rubs his neck in thought. “Where to now…” He mutters to his reflection. “Any more kitchens or danky libraries, where someone could hide a villainess?”

He spins on his heel, picking a random direction and continues his search.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Eventually Chase grows bored and finds his way outside. He passes through a large courtyard, his legs starting to feel tired. The sun is beginning to fade behind the walls surrounding the castle and garden grounds, and he sees out the corner of his eye, lights being lit in distant watchtowers. Even while Chase had been blatantly ignoring whatever his role should be doing in this book, it seemed like he hadn’t derailed things so much yet, that time didn’t pass in the story – it was probably still just in the setup stage.

Pushing his steps, he heads for what looks to be the horse stables as a last-ditch effort.

As Chase ducks through the door, he calls out a halfhearted, “Buddy?”

Nothing answers him. The stables are quiet, save for a few curious horses peeking from their stalls and a lone stable boy who freezes like a deer in headlights at the sight of the princess—then quickly gets back to racking hay.

It’s not exactly disappointment, just a low worry that settles in his chest.

“Buddy’s strong.” He mutters to himself. “He’s fine. Probably just got held up again.”

It was fine. This didn’t have to mean Ex Libris had gotten on his case. Or, he thought sardonically, not like Case could do anything about it if that was the case.

Maybe, this could just be a solo Chase adventure. An exclusive edition, back in action.

One of the horses stomps in its stall, making a bit of a ruckus, as it shakes its head irritably, from probably the flies that flock to anything horsey. Chase smiles softly and ambles a bit closer. Something crunches lightly under his feet, and he pauses, looking down to see a few downy feathers littering the ground, among the hay and dirt. The horse huffs again, a shake runs through its entire frame and a few feathers are cast off, falling gently.

Chase rounds the wooden supports in two quick steps the stalls are revealed in full. A pegasus stands in each of the stalls, with beautiful flowing manes in a different adorable pastel color that looked straight out of an old-school Barbie movie. They have wings tucked in by their side for the night, and the closest huffy one, who is indeed has a swarm of flies hanging over it, sneezes loudly.  

Chase steps closer, waving the flies away. The pegasus looks up with curious eyes that might actually have tiny sparkles in them. God, he loves fairy tales.

“Oh my god, oh my god, this is actually the coolest.” Chase says awed. He turns to the stable boy, who does a great impression of Deacon being faced with a girl. This book has seemed fairly grounded up until now, but it just got so much more fun. “Can humans fly too in this book? Is there a– a magic drink or kites or– Oh, do I press my shoulders together and get Barbie wings!?” He tries to look himself over his shoulders, like magic wings could sprout out at any moment.

“Well, uhm– yes, Ma’am– Your Highness. Though is it not a little… late for flying?”

Chase blows a raspberry. “I have like, all the time, bud. Gimme some fairy wings.”

Evidently those are not the words the stable boy hears. He stammers. “Echo will be thrilled to see you, Ma’am– Highness.”

With a nervous escort and Chase bouncing along, he gets lead deeper into the stable.

Echo turns out to be a white pony - fun-sized with something frosted glittering in her mane and fur that’s neatly combed. He couldn’t help but think that Snowflake would be a much more fitting name for her.

She’s dwarfed by the other pegasi but housed in a large luxurious stall, where the height of the feeding station and water basin seem almost custom made for her. She trots up to them with the air of someone who knows she’s important and immediately demands his attention with a huffy whine.

Chase carefully rests a hand on Echo’s mane, strands slipping between his fingers, as he lets out a soft gasp. She pushes into his hand, with the familiarity of an old friend.

“Hiiii,” he says in a low voice. “Sucks for Deacon. He’d actually kill to meet you.”

He glances over his shoulder, then leans in conspiratorially.

“He’s catching Z’s at home. I miiiiiight've gotten a jumpstart without him.” A strained chuckle escapes him. “I’ll be back before he even notices– don’t give me that. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Echo huffs at him.

“Yeah, yeah, jinx,” he mutters lightly. “My life is totally ruined forever and ever.”

He keeps stroking her mane, voice quieting. “It’s just… one of those nights, y’know? Couldn’t sleep. Head full of cotton. So, juicy narratonin time instead.” He pauses, then wrinkles his nose. “Eww, forget I said that. Gross.”

He spends a few minutes more, just petting Echo, who seems to be taking to the attention like a starving dog. She pushes past his hand and aggressively rubs her snout against his cheek. A tired laugh escapes him, as he imagines a world where Boris demanded attention like this, instead of invading Grandpa’s kitchen – he’s not sure the author of this book understands ponies, but he’s sure not complaining. Exhaustion is pulling on his limbs pleadingly; low worry still lingers in his mind and Chase welcomes the distraction for all it’s giving him.

Eventually though, Chase seems to have rested in one place for long enough, that the book’s plot finally catches up to him.

Sounds of footsteps hesitantly approach, a second pair from the one that had been trailing him all day. Someone clears their throat.

Chase sighs loudly. “I’m really not in the mood, pal.”

“Your mother wishes to see you.” A polite probably-servant responds.

He nuzzles Echo’s snout distractedly and mentally gearing up to fight whatever plot point that wants him to drag him away from his newfound bestie. “Can she hold it till tomorrow? I really don’t think it’s gonna kill the Queen to like just respect people’s beauty sleep.”

The next thing said, freezes the words on his tongue.

“The doctor said she was cleared for visits.”

 A pause stills the air around him, heavy and cold.

“As I’m understood, you wanted to be informed first thing?”

He doesn’t fully register when or how quickly he turns around - he just knows that in the next breath, he’s facing the servant, arms slack by his side. Words- far, far too familiar words - spill from his mouth before he even feels them forming. He doesn’t know what expression he’d see on his face. Echo nudges his slack hand with a small whine.

“Right, thanks.” He breathes. “What’s her room?”

If the servant finds the question odd, Chase can’t see it for the pity in his eyes. That damn familiar pity, that says, I’m sorry. May God be with you. There’s the silhouette of someone lingering by the door, but Chase doesn’t see anything else.

“Where’s her room?” He repeats, more firmly this time. “That’s all I need to know.”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

The moonlit castle is just as big as it’d been when he wandered its halls a few in-story hours ago, but it carries a different weight now. He’s led through cold corridors and up staircases with hurried steps, into an eastern wing that he hadn’t given much thought to earlier. They don’t pass any people on the way, most the castle residents seem to have gone to sleep, and he can’t help but be glad for that.

His movement feels robotic, his hands clenched by his side. He feels one bad conversation away from quitting this book, tail tucked between his legs. The servant doesn’t try to make conversation or challenge the thin barrier between the princess’ script and Chase’s words that would be far too honest. The silence is frozen and tense with growing dread, which is probably for the best.

Far too soon, they reach the Queen’s door. Gentle light spills from the crack beneath it, casting a dim glow across the cold floor at his feet. The door knocker looks ancient and clearly handcrafted - some metal royal crest shaped like a flower, delicately tucked into the wood.

Chase hesitates for a long moment before lifting the cold metal ring. He knocks once, twice, and waits, unsure what emotion swirls in his chest.

For a moment it is simply quiet.

Then a thin, raspy, “Come in.” answers him.

Chase takes a calming breath, in and out. He pushes the door open and lets the soft wash of warm light carry him in.

The Queen is resting in bed, surrounded by shadows, with only the light of a small lamp hanging above her head. It casts her in gentle spotlight, like a lantern sunk in a deep ocean. When she sees him, her eyes widen slightly and her mouth parts.

“Hello darling.”

She pulls herself up a little against the pillows, then slowly, pats the seat beside her bed. It’s nestled between the bed and the window, offering a soft night-time view of the distant gardens. The caution in the gesture tells Chase more about this princess character than he would’ve liked to know.

He doesn’t have the heart to refuse her. Quietly, he joins her, settling into the chair with his hands folded in his lap.

“Uhm, hi.” He says and waves his fingers slightly. The fairy tale books usually didn’t have sick parents, or well, Deacon usually wouldn’t put something like this on his list of dork books. Books really should come with trigger warnings - it’s post-modern, get with the times, right?

The Queen leans forward a little. “How are you? Feels like an eternity.”

It probably has been. The princess doesn’t seem like she gets out much, but he’s not about to point that out. His mouth opens, hangs for an awkward moment, then closes again.

He blinks in surprise, when the Queen gives a dry huff at his speechlessness.

“Whichever quarrels the houses are having, let them just have them for one night.” She reassures him, assuming wrongly, but with an ease that speaks of too much experience. “Are you eating enough? Are the lessons with Magister Harald going well?”

He shrugs, his throat feeling dry. “Uhm, yeah.”

A moment passes and he can physically feel the lull in the air, as the conversation peters out. The Queen looks at him, searching and curious, and Chase knows with a sinking feeling that this book won’t translate his words beyond the bare minimum. No mumbled responses translated into poetic speeches for him today. She looks at him and waits for her little girl to tell her what’s happening beyond the barren walls of the hospital wing, but he… he’s just Chase. He hasn’t paid attention to any of it.

So, he settles down, takes her hand in his and tells the bedridden mother about his day.

His story stumbles over names that she wouldn’t know, inventions and places that reached far beyond this medieval setting. Earlier today, Silver had gotten a taste of the rebel spirit and teamed up with Prunella to raid the kitchen downstairs for crackers. Luckily, only Chase had been there to hack up his cereals, when he heard Silver’s melodic voice drifting out of the kitchen cabinets. After that, he’d gone to dance practice, where he got stood up again. A bit after dinner, he, Deacon and Prunella dove into a fairy tale and cashed in their daily narration. Then- then the others went to bed and here Chase is now.

In his retelling, the little key people became mice in the kitchen, and the fairy tale book was just from the princess’ bookshelf – hopefully she was dorky enough to have one of those. He stumbles over some details, watching the Queen for any suspicion to pop up, when a k-pop reference slips out. She says that the court jester must be feeling particularly political these days.

Slowly a picture forms – the story vision does exist, but it seems to only censor the most overt references and fourth-wall breaks. A subtle nod or just plain simple words slip through unchanged. He’s played the part of a hundred different heroines in a hundred different stories, but Chase can’t remember ever being this close to playing himself.

Whatever role the heroine has in this story, at least he gets to keep one person company.

Finally, The Queen squeezes his hand and says softly, “I’m sorry I missed your speech at the feudal games.”

I’m sorry I missed your dance performance.

“It’s fine.” Chase croaks. “Seriously, it’s fine, just focus on yourself. It was doctor’s order. I shouldn’t– she shouldn’t be mad about that. That would be stupid. It’s not like you can tell an illness to not be an illness.”

“If sheer willpower was magic, I would have had my behind on that bench, yesterday.” She smiles lightly.

Chase snorts.

“Ooooh and wouldn’t that have shown it to those Valeclairs.” She narrows her eyes, glaring off at some nowhere point and doing a great impression of Grandpa when anyone mentions his bakery nemesis.

“Who are they?”

He mentally kicks himself, the moment those words leave his mouth. What exactly would happen if Chase blew his cover? Could a key user blow their cover? Would that break the characters’ brains? The fabric of this lazy book’s reality?

A less than great image floats to his mind of a stormy grey sky and water leaking from the ground itself. He decides then and there that it’s a mystery best left to never be unpacked.

Fortunately, she just hums in thought, “Ah yes, good you remind me.”

She releases his hand, and leans carefully over to the bedside nightstand, where she picks up a worn notebook. It’s wrapped in a leather string and little pieces of old-timey paper sticks messily out of it.

“You’ve always had a mind for these things, but I… I believe a little nudge in the right direction wouldn’t harm.” She hands the book to Chase, a frail hand placed over the cover. “Keep it, for my own peace of mind at least. Or let it dissolve in the lake, if you truly come to hate it.”

Chase takes it carefully and flips through the pages, seeing world-building notes, little pieces of advice for the different noble houses and ways to govern… or something like that. The Princess should already know most of these things from her childhood, so it was probably a handy guide meant for the reader and an excuse to infodump for the author. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was going to skim, at most, through her lovingly handwritten notes for her daughter.

Their conversation carries on for a little while after that. It’s always tricky to track the time bleeding away inside these stories, but eventually he can feel the stiffness in his shoulders and see the droopiness in the Queen’s eyes. The moon has risen high outside the windows, and he’s going to actually steal her bed, blasted illness or not, if he doesn’t get to his own soon.

Also, through a bit of fibbing, he had learned the Queen’s name. Her name is Angela.

He says goodbye, and she replies with a quiet “See you soon.” as Chase groggily gets up and goes to leave.

“Darling?”

A hand on the door, Chase looks back over his shoulder.

Angela smiles at him, the light of the lamp making her face look ghostly hollow. “The world is beautiful, but it is not always kind. The Houses have a habit of eating alive those of softs hearts. Please know, you can bite back if you need to.”

“Right.” Chase murmurs, nodding slightly. “Thanks.”

With that, he steps out and closes the door heavily behind him. A sigh releases in the quiet, cold corridor, as he leans against the door and regains his bearings.

Okay, one scene down. That wasn’t too bad, all considered. He wasn’t sure whether to feel happy or miserable that the queen seemed nice.

He opens his eyes and nearly lets out a yelp, as his gaze meets another person standing discretely against the wall on the other side of the corridor.

Right. He’d forgotten about her for a moment.

Ever since he entered the story, there’d been a little maiden chasing pretty closely behind him. Not saying a word or stopping his path, just politely following. He’d assumed it was some sort of plot-point and had ignored the hovering shadow.

Now though, Chase gives her a look and smiles tired. “Can I… help you?”

The maid is a short and plump woman, with a tooth-gap in her teeth and warm brown eyes. She wears a simple brown dress, like many of the other servants, but the cuts are lined with embroidered flowers like the crest on Angela’s door. Her puffy sleeves are white, and she has a thin robe around her waist. She looks a little like a polite mouse, crowned with a flower ring of posies.

She gives a small bow and trails over to his side, like his responds was a command calling on her. He blinks at her earnestly, and she stills with pause.

“Oh, you’re serious.”

The maid seems to weigh something for a moment. Then glancing back at Angela’s room, she asks. “Forgive my bluntness, my lady, but… are you quite alright today?”

“Yeah I’m great.” Chase smiles.

If anything, she looks more confused. “Naturally…”

After a moment, she hesitantly puts a hand on her chest and speaks with emphasis. “I’m your lady-in-waiting, Margrete? I stay by your side and assist your duties… We picked flowers just yesterday for your cousin’s visit?”

Something clicks in Chase’s head. Okay, officially, hands on all deck and votes cast. This really is one of Dorkin’s dork books. Political worldbuilding, no male love interest in sight and a dedication to the old timey setting that goes way beyond the fairy tales usual Sir’s and Thou’s. No self-respecting fairy tale would ever give the princess a babysitter. Deacon had probably left it on the narratonin pile while distracted with something boring. He never intended for Chase to go into it.

Margrete looks at him with open confusion painted on her features, but he could practically see the moment when the story remembered that it wasn’t supposed to make Chase do all the heavy lifting. It came in with a smoothing hand, easing out the tension in her shoulders. Instead, she hums in thought. “Maybe, you’d like to retire to your chambers. Wake with a fresher mind?”

“Yup.” Chase agrees immediately, his voice bright. His eyes catch on Angela’s door a final time, and he holds himself as he starts walking. “Let’s do it, to it.”

“Uhm, wrong way, my lady,”

“Right.” He spins around on his heel, flinging an arm the other way. “I knew that, because I. Am. The princess.”

This time, it only takes a few minutes before Chase steps into a moonlit bedroom. He doesn’t bother with the lights, just lets his tired legs carry him across the room to a soft pillowy bed. He collapses on it and is asleep within barely a few moments.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

It’s a nice morning and Chase is woken up by soft light shining in from the dew-covered windows. He hides his face underneath the abundant pillows to catch a last bit of sleep, as he’s slowly poked back to the land of the living. Well, in a sense. Not much is real in these storybooks. The morning sun is dreamingly fabricated, even though the way it massages warmth into his sleepy limbs feels real.

With tousled bedhair and stifling a yawn, Chase gets up.

Now in the light of the morning, he can actually see the princess’ room. It’s on the smaller side for a monarch. The walls are built with layers of stone like the rest of the castle and the floor is well treaded dark oak – he can almost glance the faint hint of footsteps, where someone has paced back and forth. There’s the basic necessities of a room - a bed slightly lifted on a wooden platform, a worn wardrobe, a small reading nook with a desk and a side passage that likely leads to the medieval version of a bathroom. A few banners hang from the wall with the same crest he’s seen on the Queen’s door. A large family painting fills the wall above the fireplace. The room isn’t barren, it’s just… depressingly practical and a little too close to Auntie Beth’s preference for minimalist home design magazines. Chase wrinkles his nose – if he was a rich fancy princess, he would take advantage of his infinite wealth to get like, a cute medieval hammock and four times the number of wardrobes.

He gets up with a groan and goes to the writing desk – the only piece of furniture in this room where he can tell someone has been living here. He can barely see the desk surface for scattered papers, inkwells and a half-eaten apple. At his feet, there's some untouched paper stacks pushed underneath the desk to gather dust.

He picks up a couple of the scattered papers, fiddling with the quill in his other, as he tries to figure out what he’s looking at. Emphasis on tries – the letters are all written in cursive.

May this letter find you in good health-

Bla bla bla.

It is doubtless owing to a dispensation of the Isle Guardian-

Religious talk.

On behalf of my establishment, I humbly request a moment of Her Highness-

Please don’t be a love interest, he actually has a sort-of boyfriend now, please don’t… oh never mind, it’s not a dude.

He skims a couple similar letters, finding an ongoing theme of trade deals, auction catalogues and merchants bragging about their most expensive wares and promising miracles. There’s also a few that look like shipment lists and down payments.

Taking a glance at the dusty, abandoned stacks of letters underneath the desk, he finds an even more boring theme of nobles wanting to hang out with the princess or arguing border disputes.

Man, this was a story with giant beach castles, pegasus with beautiful flowing manes and tiny cute saddles that looked straight out of My Little Pony. And the princess had to do this? He’s definitely confident he spotted some blossoming elderflower bushes when he passed through the garden. It was like a candy crush commercial had thrown up on a medieval painting, in the best way.

Chase leans over the chair with a sigh, tipping its legs. It doesn’t seem like his character has much of an actual role. From what he can guess, he’s supposed to sit in meetings or in her room, like he’s doing now, and sign a bunch of papers in the bedridden Queen’s stead, telling other kingdoms to not go to war and stuff. Even the princess seemed bored of it, since her private shopping list was taking priority. He taps the quill against the letter to merchant #5, which results in a bunch of ink spilling on the papers.

“Oh.” He lifts the quill.

A feeling of deja vu comes over him - he’s pretty sure Deacon brought him into a book like this once before. The memory was overlaid with a hazy cloud of sickness, but yeah… Chase’s character is definitely supposed to be in her room writing letters and huffing her bajillion makeup bottles or something, while her buddies outside can fight trolls and monsters for her. All while she sits protected and unhelpful in her tower.

He’s really starting to hope this book is short. Deacon had mentioned the vampire book had been pretty thick, but because most of it was just the heroine moodily walking around the mansion and staring out at the planet-sized full moon, they’d flown through it pretty quickly.

After a long moment, Chase pulls out his key, fiddling with it considering. It’s been a while since he had quit a book, and the princess doesn’t seem great from the little clues he’s gathered. He would be leaving Queen Angela alone with a hermit.

He stands there in stasis for a couple minutes, leaning against the chair and rolling the word for home around on his tongue.

Out the corner of his vision, his eyes catch on the family painting. It looks old, but the frame is clean, well-kept, and hung carefully where the sun won’t damage the oil. The faces of the royal family stare back at him. A very young Diana wearing a cute little blue dress sits on her father’s lap with a pouty expression. Chase snickers, remembering that people back then had to sit still for stupid amounts of time to get their image captured. The father’s face is mostly hidden under a large military helmet and larger mustache, but there’s a subtle smile as he looks down at his daughter. Chase’s eyes drift to the last figure, who stands behind her husband’s chair. Queen Angela is standing tall, with a healthy color to her cheeks and warm eyes that aren’t sunken from illness, and yet still feel so much like the ones he met last night. The key feels cold in his grip, as he looks up at her.

A sigh releases and he tucks the key back under his blouse. Buddy would be proud of him, wherever and whatever he’s caught up in.

Chase tugs a dusty letter out from the stack underneath the desk – its from some Duchess whose handwriting is halfway readable, thanks to her cooling down on the cursive. He lowers himself onto the chair, and after a pause, he picks up the quill. It fits snuggly in his hand and the feather feels soft to the touch. His hand hovers over the page for several blank seconds, long enough for the quill to begin dripping ink on the page in silent protest.

Okay. He’s gone to school for twelve years, he knows how to write essays. He hated it, but he still got C+.

Angela’s notebook finds its way onto the table at some point, page open to the section where the royal titles for hers and hes were lined out. He lets it guide his hand, as he painstakingly bullies his brain into following along. In the other, he snacks on the smushed brownie from earlier.

Chase envisions her voice in his ears, her tone in the words on the page and it gets a little easier. Mom used to help him with his homework, and if he simply imagines the little crowded desk as the dinner table back at home, filled with school pencils and several glasses of half-drinked apple juice, it gets a little easier. She points at his writing and reminds him to use commas. There’s a bit of music in his ear of a guitar gently strum, coming in with smoothing hand to ease out the tension in his shoulders. He compares his schoolbook and the paper in front of him, hoping his effort will be enough this time.

Finally, his hand comes to rest.

Chase blinks and lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He sits back and admires his handiwork, “Damn, look at that! How does he do it?”

The letter was written in his usual authentic chicken scratch, but the book characters could suck it up and fix that on their own, for all Chase cared. He deserved a gold medal for even picking up the quill in the first place. A plan quietly brewed in the back of his mind for how he could continue his role without needing to write another mind-numbing letter.

Countess Drusilla Joan Bellmount, first of her name, Count of Yurst Isle of Datura, greetings and divine benediction.

Sorry to hear about your dead dog. (That’s what dawes dogged means, right?) Also, if you think your payout isn’t high enough and we’re not taxing the local peasants enough, h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶ y̶o̶u̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶k̶?̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶i̶r̶ ̶l̶a̶d̶y̶-̶i̶n̶-̶w̶a̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶“̶m̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶a̶u̶g̶u̶r̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶p̶e̶s̶t̶?̶”̶ ̶T̶h̶a̶t̶’s̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶x̶i̶c̶. I think we can talk about it and find a solution we’re both happy with. You swing by next month for tea party? :) 

Signed Diana Solhildur Ingrid Valdemarsdaughter, Princess of Datura Isles.

“Yeah,” he stretches his arms above his head, feeling slightly stiff from sitting. “I’m like amazing or something.”

A small sliver of pride flits through him. Yeah, it’s just one letter, yeah the Queen’s notebook definitely admittedly helped him with the formalities, but he actually sat his butt down and wrote something.

He wanted to shove it in Buddy’s face the next time he called him stupid. Or the several high school teachers who had also called him stupid. He could do this. He could show them all. Diana was a force to be reckoned with.

Chapter Text

There’s a few firm knocks on the door to the princess’ bedroom. Chase is startled out of his focus, his head snapping up to the sound.

Checking himself quickly, he winces at the state of his outfit – it’s rumpled from sleep and probably reeks of sweat. Eww, he hasn’t even showered yet. Nobody outside his family should witness Chase-pre-morning-routine. Buddy fell… somewhere on that category– what did book boyfriend count as?

He tries to smooth the wrinkles and runs a hand through his hair, scrambling up from his seat. As he crosses the room to send off whoever's at the door, he calls out, “This better be super plot-important–”

The door opens, and two maids cross the threshold.

“Good morning, your highness.” says the tall one.

The one with glasses yawns. “Good morning, your highness.”

With practiced ease, they weave around Chase. One heads to the wardrobe, already opening the doors and drawers, while Chase is still lagging. Several fabrics in cool tones are picked out.

“Good… morning?”

Then he’s being taken by hand and guided over to the middle of the room. His feet follow along, too confused to dig his heels in. His gaze just tries to catch up as the two maids buzz around him, like worker bees around a sad, unwatered flower.

They bemoan the state of his outfit, something he’d defend if it wasn’t painfully true. As they chatter on, it becomes quickly clear they’ve taken it upon themselves to pick out Chase’s outfit for the day. The one with glasses hops back to them, arms full of clothing.

“Look,” he says, a little peeved, holding out his arms for the outfit. “This is the Chase you get at 7am, buds. I haven’t even had time to get dressss–“

The other one starts undoing the buckles on his vest and tugs his shirt loose in a series of small, practiced yanks, straight-faced and efficient, like a worker on an assembly line.

“Chandler, do you have the laundry basket? This is filthy.” She throws a call over her shoulder, the other nods. She tuts. “My lady, can you lift your arms a pinch more?”

“AAAAAAARGH!”

The door explodes open, and two ladies-in-waiting run out like they have Satan nipping at their heels. Several pillows fly over their heads like projectiles, colliding with the wall in the hall and they hastily make their escape, while a voice screeches, “GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”

A frazzled Chase stands behind, wild hair falling in his face and chest heaving.

Oh God and hot biscuits on toasty bread, this princess didn’t just have one babysitter hanging off her arm. She had three and they didn’t think Chase could get freaking dressed by himself!?

Several episodes of Downtown Abbey flash through his mind from the times he had passed by Grandpa watching it in the living room. The tv filtered snooty laughter and well, tickle me pink plays on loop like a haunting cassette tape in his ear.

He was so going to kill Deacon for putting this book on the narratonin pile.

Chase slams the door shut behind him.

With a big huff, he goes for a shower - it’s cold but refreshing and he’s used to how the medieval bathrooms work by now.

Chase dries himself off, shaking his hair puffy in lieu of conditioners, and gathers up his loot. He gets dressed just fine, until he is hit by the fancily decorated wall called ‘a vest’.

The outfit that the maids had picked was mostly like the one he’d worn yesterday, only this time in light blue and silver, the vest layered over a loose, comfortable white blouse. The vest had also been cut in a sharp angle, revealing some of the shirt underneath, and the buckles had to be fastened on his side. The material for the vest was cute as hell, but stiffer and less cooperative. The nice thing about spawning in with an outfit is that Chase usually didn’t have to figure out how the jigsaw jigsawed. The buckles weren’t fashioned like normal belts. He could feel some kind of metal hidden inside the lining and– okay what was he looking at here?

Well. It… obviously it went that way– no, if he just pulled it under the lining and pushed hard, then it would… fall out. Okay.

Chase tries to get a good look past his own arms, scrounging his nose. “Silver, I love the vibe, but why’d you make this so complicated?”

 “It’s fine,” he tells himself, with a single tear of pain. “It’s fine, the book characters can’t see it anyway. It’s just me who gotta suffer for being a fashion disaster.”

If Buddy was here, he would laugh at the state of him. The silly adorable laugh, where his breathless giggles are interspersed with snorts, like he’s forgotten to pause for air, and his face gets all scrunches up, pomp and goth shtick be damned. Chase had recently discovered that one.

While Chase is sumo wrestling with Silver’s adorable attempt at a fancier style for him, and totally winning, a sound breaks his mumbled curses.

Knock.

In a split second, Chase has grabbed a pillow and pointed it at the door, like a veteran would point a gun.

A second knock, then slowly, like the door could fall off its hinges, it’s opened ajar. Margrete’s mouse brown hair peaks through a crack in the door.

Chase lifts the pillow in warning, daring her to step a toe inside.

“I’m just, leaving your breakfast out here, my lady. Uhm, apples and cream puffs, just as you like them.” Her voice squeaks, words spilling like she’s speedreading a card. “You overslept– uh, well, it matters not. Your presence is expected in the throne room. Magister Harald also wanted to hear if you were ill yesterday and will not attend this evening’s lesson either.”

“Sure, I’ll be there.” Chase replies, after processing about half of that. “Just, tell your pals not to go into my room again.”

“I think they got the message, my lady.”

A moment passes in standstill, until he lowers his pillow.

“Thanks for breakfast.”

There’s a noticeable pause, then a tiny, “You’re welcome?”

The maid ducks out, closing the door and leaving Chase to his privacy.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

The throne room buzzes with questions and low conversation. As far as these rooms go, this one is darkly lit and has far less pomp and patterned carpets than Chase is used to. The walls are lined with carved oak wood and unlit torches – the upper half spans a story of mural paintings like a church. A single golden skylight shines from above on the throne, casting the rest of the room in irrelevance.

The throne is the poster child for style over comfort. Cool at first, but after a while, Chase is pretty sure the author didn’t make the design with key-user accessibility in mind. The chair’s back is built with layers of iron forming a blooming flower, so Chase is stuck awkwardly resting on his elbows to avoid getting poked. He squirms a bit in his seat, as he tries to pay attention.

“So, how can I help you?”

A townsperson stands at the foot of the throne’s podium. He rings his hands, looking up with nervous adoring eyes. “My daughter has always had a wish, Your Highness. All she wants is to ride in the clouds on horseback. I– I come here to offer myself tirelessly to you, if that wish may be granted.”

His hopeful expression is met with an easy grin.

“Oh yeah, sure dude! Just bring her here, we have like twenty bored pegasuses just waiting in the stables.”

The man’s face lights up. He nods his thanks at least twenty times and leaves with a skip in his step.

Turns out the heroine’s role was to… well, rule in the Queen’s absence. The scene is one of those open royal hearings, where the King or Queen sits wisely on their throne and the bunch of townspeople line up to ask for stuff.

In all his adventures, Chase hasn’t played an actual ruler before. This is sick, Deacon never lets him have power.

So far, Chase has sent a dozen townsfolk off to the kitchen to go home with doggie bags, has totally saved a guy’s failing marriage, has agreed to invest in an enthusiastic 6-year-old’s dream to invent air balloons, and has ignored the press of eyes from a few fancily dressed nobles lurking off to the side. They’re glancing at Chase like he’d grown a second head or was about to reveal himself from underneath a paper bag with the princess’ face doodled on it.

He can also spot Margrete out of the corner of his eyes, whispering with the two other maids. One of them gestures wildly at Chase and is about to go up to him, but Margrete blocks her path. Chase has maybe, slightly, derailed the scene. 

It only takes a few more minutes, before something happens.  

The doors to the throne room slam open dramatically, the sound drowning out every other voice in the room. A few people gasp. Chase jolts in his chair, torn from a chat with a couple excited teens about building a mini castle for cats.

“Why, what a spectacle I have stumbled onto!” booms a voice, revealing the dude from yesterday. He strides into the room, arms behind his back and lights glittering off the many, many golden buckles on his vest. Striking a towering height, he holds himself like he's a christmas gift for every eye in the room, wrapped with short neatly trimmed hair and full beard. Some advisor-looking noble hurries to catch up behind him. “I be most joyous to lay mine eyes upon thee, cousin! You were a-buzzin' like a merry bee yestermorn, it was nigh impossible to seek your hide.”

Oh thank god, Chase thinks. Something else, please get me off this stupid throne.

“Hey, man.” Chase salutes with two fingers, “How can I help you?”

Who is this goober?

Said goober skips right in front of the waiting line of townsfolk, walking up the throne podium, as he launches into a monologue. It’s longwinded, has many words that Chase is pretty sure isn’t even in the medieval dictionary, like ungarnyst, hither and mayhap. Long story short, that is apparently the Princess' older cousin, the self-tagged Esteemed Duke Rasmus.

“–Such, I took to the stalls, steadfast steed in my mind, when I rounded the corner and behold, it was gone!  By all the spirits, I inquired and soon discovered my kin, my cousin dear, had bestowed it upon another! To a commoner, no less.” Rasmus says, standing about five feet away from said commoners. “My soul was crushed, and I swiftly hastened here!”

“Was it actually your horse?” Chase tilts his head, running on a hunch. 

“Does it need to be, when I had my thoughts on it this morn?”

He groans, “Oh my god.” 

He’s actually serious, Chase thinks. Please god no, don’t let the heroine’s role in this book be a medieval middle manager. He doesn’t want power, actually. Power is overrated and corrupt and totally lame.

When the demand for an issue the story had probably made up on the spot isn’t met, Rasmus’ eye twitches.

“Indeed, this is a grievous matter, that such a thing could even befall. Will my chamber, granted for my gracious visit to our home isle, be gone by tomorrow? This very hall lended off to the first beggar?”

 “Dukey.“ Chase says loudly, cutting off the incoming rant. “I’m nailing this, every single person who walked out of here was happy. You’ll get your dumb horse later, relax.”

“I will not take ease!”

Chase winces. Right, the magic is about as thin as a coffee filter. He falters for just a second, which is all the cousin seems to need.

“In fact,” Rasmus’ voice raises. “If I may borrow a leaf from the lady's hand to speak a word amiss and voice the woes of this hall. I've heard tell that Her Grace has treated this formal hearing like a mere trifle. No pronouncements, no due greetings for the houses, no proper order to things.”

“Dressed like she rolled out of bed.” He gestures at Chase, who crosses his arms a bit self-consciously. “She simply sat down on my uncle’s throne with naught a word, like a starving dame before dinner.”

Rasmus glances at his advisor. “Am I not correct?”

“Wise words, my lord.” The advisor nods solemnly.

Chase swallows. Okay, how badly would it break the plot if the princess just... stepped down and said adios to everyone here? Chase could take the Queen and move to a fancy summer cottage the family probably owned somewhere. Sounded like a decent ending to him.

The cousin chose now to make a scene. A public setting, a throne, and an inexperienced princess. Chase had caught how his gaze kept darting to the curious background characters, who pretended to be disinterested, but looked over handheld fans and nose tips, like fish circling bait in the water. There’s hunger in Rasmus’ eyes, when he looks at the throne. Very obvious, badly hidden hunger.

“Why, you see–“

The cousin’s words blurs into background noise, as Chase flips the switch in his brain called “skip princey cutscene”. So… pros and cons of free styling and living the royal cottage-core life. The pros are Buddy isn’t here to yell at him for going off-script. The cons are wildly apparent in the potential new ruler, who’s currently reciting Shakespeare next to his ear.

He's improvised an ending with worse odds. Literally all that matters is getting to the end for another drop to mom’s wish. Not how he gets there. 

“It’s mystifying, is it not?”

The softer tone slips through to Chase, and a cold feeling rises in his chest, that lifts his eyes to meet the cousin’s. “Our beloved king passed away, mere leagues from our coast. Now, our queen lie a'bed with the fever, towards an early grave or the healer’s keep. A mere daughter remains, a single surviving heir in scant two decades.”

Chase's grip tightens around his arm.

“Of course, you’ll find my heirs are of strong health and minds.” Rasmus chuckles low. “Can the same be said of my late uncle’s heir? If he looked upon how the princess conducts his legacy? She spouts wild fantasies and shuts herself in her chamber, not a thought to her future.”

I just want you to think of your future.

“You could fear she has lost their favor with the Guardian. What else could have brought this… this curse upon them?”

In the next moment, Chase has pushed to his feet. 

“Hey!” He snaps, a warning breaking through his voice. “My family isn’t cursed, pal! It isn’t– sickness just happens. You don’t decide when or how. It just comes– and it stays– and it takes.”

He pokes Rasmus hard in the chest. “The Queen– my mom is NICE, so don’t you talk about her that way!”

He glares the other down. A lingering pause is held, giving room for an apology to be offered.

“I speak no ill of my aunt or our House,” Rasmus says, then pitching in a childish tone. “only her witless daughter, who cannot tell cloud from foam, when she filched my stead–“

Chase throws the tone right back. “What does that even mean?" 

Rasmus spins to the room, dramatically gesturing at Chase, as if a point has just been proven.

Chase’s shoulders hike up to his ears. He feels like someone has yanked the training wheel out from under him and his car is swerving rapidly toward a cliff. The queen’s notebook is tucked away upstairs, when he could really use her advice to guide the wheel right now.

Rasmus looks unbearably smug. 

“Well, I see I have spoken my piece.” Rasmus says snidely. Then a little louder. “May your proceedings go well, your grace.”

The only proceeding that happens is a vein proceeding to pop in Chase's forehead. He’s not about to tackle a character in front of an entire throne room of onlookers, but as Rasmus saunters off the podium, Chase sticks his tongue out and the offended look on the other’s face is so worth it. 

The murmurs in the background grow and something prickles at his skin, but Chase crosses his arms and makes his opinion louder, until the other has left the room entirely.

Then, Chase sits back on the throne, energy leaving him. Leaning back against it, he ignores the small points digging into his back. He looks down at the next townsperson in line, an older man with wide eyes.

He breathes out.

“Sorry about that, bud. How can I help you?”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

When Chase finally gets a chance to release his frustration, he does it in the same way one would deflate a balloon – loudly and lasting about five seconds, as the tension inside him flattens out.

Chase lets himself faceplant between his arms on the bed. It makes for an awkward bend position, as he’s still sitting in the bedside chair - but a whole morning of doing aristocratic plot stuff will knock a guy out.

“Deacon’s my favorite cousin,” Chase announces sagely. “Put it on a postcard and stamp it to him, he can hang it on the fridge and smile every morning over his sad cup noodles thinking ‘wow, I’m my cousin’s favorite cousin.’ Cause he dorkin is, and all other cousins suck.”

“If you had another cousin, I’m sure he would appreciate hearing that.”

Angela is sitting next to Chase, her back supported against the headboard by several pillows. She’s listened from the moment Chase stormed in and all throughout his recount of the morning’s events, just a hum or silent nod interspersed. Now, she looks down on him with amused pity.

“The houses are simply sorting out their pecking order,” she tells him. “It’s petty and messy, like a school of piranhas swarming over breadcrumbs, but only a rare few truly want the throne. There’s certain power in the hand that guides just above the water, though dear Rasmus is always too blinded by the filtered sunlight to see that.”

“He likes attention.” Chase surmises.

Angela nods sagely. “Like air. I think he would die without it.”

Chase blows a raspberry. “Dude, I don’t even care. He’s not getting that throne now.”

He’s not entirely sure what Angela hears, but she breaks into a quiet laugh. But then the laugh thins out, as a raspy series of coughs overtakes it. Her shoulders shake from the force of them and she begins to curl in on herself.

“Oh shoot.” Chase quickly gets up. He lays a supporting hand on her arm, as he glances around for a glass or just something to drink- there. Among several bundles of herbs, there’s a pitcher of water on the nightstand and a few dark bottles tugged away underneath it. He rounds the bed, snatching a cup and pouring into it within just a few efficient moments.

The coughing has died down slightly, and he hold the cup out to her.

“Mom, drink.” Chase says softly, rubbing a hand on her back without really thinking of it.

She sighs with the weariness of someone’s who’s been turned inside out in the same washer ten times today. “Thank you darling.”

The room falls quiet for a little while.

His own throat feels dry. After a moment, Chase crouches down to grab one of the dark bottles of water. He doesn’t have his own cup, so he thinks that after pouring another cup for her, he’ll just chuck it straight.

The bottle’s liquid comes out thick and red. He freezes for a solid second, before realizing what he’s actually staring at.

Chase gapes, as he turns to Angela in horror. “You have a foot in your grave and you’re drinking wine!?”

“…Yes? Three glasses a day, it’s the doctor’s advice. Is there an issue with such?” Angela says in confusion.

“Uuuurgh,” Chase throws his head back, groaning loudly. “Oh my god Middle Ages!”

“It’s quite exquisite,” She continues in blissful ignorance. “I admit the import may have cost a fair penny, but the wildberry’s from Burdan Isle have a surprisingly heavy tinge. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, darling.”

Chase would like to know what ‘heavy tinge’ meant in percentages. He lifts the bottle and sniffs. It smells like sweet berries and spirits, with an undertone of damp, old hay.

Don’t tussle me while I work! Do you know how hard this stuff is to get out of clothes?

His limbs lock up. He’s stood there, frozen, for long enough, that eventually he feels Angela reaching out to gently tug the wine out of his vice grip.

Chase yanks it back violently, holding the bottle far out of reach. His head spins, as puzzle pieces begin to swift into place in his mind. Falling back a few steps, his eyes dart between the wine bottles with a familiar rotten smell and the bedridden Queen.

“Diana?”

“Don’t.” He says, words tumbling from his mouth. “Don’t drink the wine. It’s… bad. It’s gone bad, it’s real bad.” He bats the air in front of his nose for emphasis. “Ooof, this stinks.”

“It tastes exactly as it usually does, what do you mean– “

Chase is already haphazardly gathering all the bottles in his arms, deaf to her words. In a few moments, he’s across the room and at the door. He throws a quick glance over his shoulders, catching Angela’s confused stare and says earnestly, desperately.

“I am begging you. Don’t drink this.”

Then he runs.

The bottles get poured out in the first big flowerpot Chase finds. The random hall he found it in is luckily empty, though Chase casts a glance over his shoulder ever so often. It probably wouldn’t be very covert if the princess came running out into the courtyard with her hands full of the queen’s beverage. Or most importantly, who might see her.

The memory runs through his mind.

“What is that?” Chase asked, leaning on the rickety table with his face in his hands. He nodded at the potion. “That stuff you always put in?”

“It’s poison.”

“No duh.”

Buddy looked up from where he was mixing a potion. The movement was practiced, he barely glanced at each measure of powder that he tilted into the tiny cauldron, his attention on Chase instead. The witch’s hat cast his eyes in shadow, before he pushed it up irritably. “It’s different for every story. Not all authors think of such details, most don’t even need to. Simply ‘poison’ will suffice.”  

“But…”

“But for the sake of your question, the witch is brewing a potion of hemlock.” Buddy pushed the hat up again as it had slowly tipped forward. “Hemlock is a flower with medicinal properties in small amount, but only if the person is certain of what they’re doing. Larger doses will cause emesis, respiratory problems… it will make you cough badly and vomit, etc. It’s an old poison, so it turns up in some fairy tales. It’s colorless and hard to trace. The smell is horrid, but subtle enough that if mixed in something else, it will fool most. Like, the dear village girl.”

With a dramatic flourish, Buddy scooped up the last spoonful of poison and tipped it into a flask.

Chase lacily watched his profile. “You could also just– not. Y’know? What if the witch and Egnifia talked it out?”

 “It’s quite literally my role, Chase.” Buddy said. “No villainess, no story. Pick a better book if you don’t want that.”

“Sounds like a you issue, actually.”

He grinned, until Buddy stuck the flask under his nose and a disgusting stench of old socks and damp hay hit him.

“Euuugh– Buddy, you jerk!”

“I’ve been standing over this cauldron all evening,” Buddy snickered, before Chase decided to make the heroine a bigger problem. “Sounds like a you issue– don’t jostle me, do you know how hard that smell is to get out of clothes– Hey, come back with that flask, you brat!”

He knew it, he knew it. The family isn’t cursed, Angela is just slowly and painfully dying of poisoning!

Chase pumps a fist in the air.

This is the book’s actual plot. The heroine isn’t just here to write boring letters and be a medieval middle manager, yes. After treading water for over a day, Chase finally knows where to dive down. He knows what the heroine is supposed to do. Someone was poisoning her mom. He had a murder mystery on his hands. He could save her.

But who would want to kill the Queen…

A lightbulb goes off and Chase smacks his forehead, “Oh my god, it’s the stupid cousin.”

Okay, easy peasy mystery. He just needs like, a suspicious bottle of poison with a skull symbol or a convenient signed letter from Rasmus to prove it.

The princess probably wouldn’t suspect her cousin so quickly – explaining the book’s long length. She wouldn’t have acted suspicious like Chase did and caused the whole scene in the throne room. She was too busy being a hermit and writing a twenty foot shopping list, if she ever even found out about the poison.

Well, luckily Chase isn’t the princess and he will gleefully steer this plot off the cliffside.

Chase feels something giddy rise in his chest, a warm feeling taking hold. He just needs the evidence to prove it, present it to the court like a hot popstar Sherlock Holmes–  no Hemlock Hollow, and then badabim bada bam, mom saved, book done.

Time to bust a duke.

Chapter Text

As common knowledge says, any good murder mystery can be broken down into three parts: a place, a motive and a weapon. Chase would know – he played enough Cluedo with his family as a kid to get the gist.

First off, he checks the place.

It takes a little while to track down, but Chase manages to find his way into the royal wine cellar.

It’s hidden just beneath the castle kitchen. The kitchen servants’ attention seems more curious than the last time Chase peaked his head in. He catches a few of them whispering excitedly to each other as he scans for a cellar-shaped door. He’s even stopped in his path by one of them, who bows her head and thanks him for the Guardian’s gracious offer to her family.

He smiles back, surprised and happy to help and with absolutely zero clue what she’s talking about.

It must’ve shown behind his smile, because the answer comes from the kitchen chef. A large man with a thick beard who’s busy stirring a massive pot, but still glances up to smile kindly at Chase.

“If you’re sending the common folk through here again,” he says, “could I humbly ask for a smidge of warning? We’re all out of rosemary now, you see.”  

“Oh, right.” Chase rubs his neck. “Sorry.”

The chef shrugs, “You’re Her Highness; no need for apologizing.”

He nods stiffly. Despite the crummy story vision, Chase had sort of assumed it would fill in for all the non-scripted princess stuff he had go-aheaded yesterday. Tugging the information away, an uncomfortable new anxiety nestles deeper in his chest, like he’s walking on a tightrope getting more and more narrow.

”I’ll remember that next time for sure.“ He says, “Oh, and can we get the person who makes the breadrolls in on it? They are amazing, I gotta learn that recipe-“

He spends a little while chatting with the chef, who responds in kind, until he eventually eases himself out of the conversation and returns to task.

As Chase climbs down into the cellar, he tosses an excuse over his shoulder about the queen’s wine supply running low.

Cold and dew clings to the stone walls. Chase searches around, eventually tracking down the row of dark-red wines that belong to the queen. She wasn’t kidding about import, as Chase can count maybe about twenty bottles and a little written sign saying, Burdan Isle, wildberries, Her Majesty Only.

Quietly apologizing to her, it’s a quick enough process to make sure she never drinks that stuff again. He pours it down the corner drain and apologizes to any fictional ducks on the other end too. The bottles are put back where he took them. He makes sure to nod to the chef as he leaves, with two seemingly full bottles tucked under his arms.

The second part is the motive of the would-be killer.

Dukey’s smug expression as he hungrily looked at the throne floats to Chase’s mind. His eye twitches.

Motive solved, moving on.

Third part, the weapon.

The easiest point on his crime solving list is the evidence he’d found right by the queen’s bed. Chase already has the murder-weapon, he just needs a way to connect it to Dukey. A witness, an open confession, a fingerprint invented four hundred years before its time, there’s about as many options as there are crime thrillers to pick between.

He–

Wait.

Chase stops in his tracks. After running around all evening, he finally slows in a lone corridor.

He looks down at the empty bottle still in his grip. There’s no poison to be found except in the soil of a bystander flowerpot and diluted into whatever passed for the castle sewer system. Chase blinks, his thoughts finally catching up from where they’d been lagging three feet behind him.

“Charlie Hollow, you–” He drops his stupid head in his hands. “Uurgh! Why didn’t I save one!?”

Fourth part, open confession of guilt.

It’s fine. He only really needs part four.

Chase spends the rest of the day wandering up and down the halls, trying to figure out how to sneak into Rasmus’ room to find a clue, and where it even is to begin with.

By late evening, he finally narrows it down to a guest room on the second floor, apparently made for long-stay visitors. Chase could’ve sworn there weren’t this many people around yesterday, as he gets cornered by several different nobles and has to pretend he knows who this and that house is. He ends up fleeing a mustached fellow the moment the man starts needling for the princess’ opinion on flower taxes. So, sneaking into Rasmus’ guest room the basic way? Absolutely not happening.

The garden wrapped around the castle could be a nice cover. He heads outside and kills a bit of time pretending to enjoy the garden scenery, then lets his eyes drift toward the castle windows. Chase squints up at the walls, wondering if three months of rock climbing can help him step into the shoes of a burglar.

He pauses, his gaze following the root of a tree and up, where thick branches lean against the castle stone. He’s about ninety percent sure that’s near the window he’s after.

Chase grins as a plan forms, and Mission Impossible begins jamming in the back of his mind.

Once the sun goes down, Chase stays in his room and sends Margrete to cover for him at dinner, telling whatever-their-faces that the princess is having crazy stomach pain and totally can’t make it, because she’s too busy puking her glittery guts out.

Chase grabs a cloak and uses the darkening sunset to slip out his window. Mostly thanks to his six months of rock-climbing, he manages to climb down in a white knuckled grip without falling to his death. His legs shake a little as he runs through the inner skirts of the garden. Lights from the castle glow faintly overhead, and he pulls his hood a little tighter.

By some miracle, he doesn’t run into anyone out on a late-evening stroll, or at least he stays just out of sight. He climbs the tree and finally reaches his target. The scene of the criminal. Duke Rasmus’ room.

He creaks the window open, and – with some effort– gets inside, falling flat on his face on the wooden floor. Then he rolls over and does a silent woop.

“I am awesome.” He whisper-yells to himself, “Smoothless, big-brained, boom. Dukey, you won’t even know what’s gonna hit you.”

From there it’s just a matter of finding the thing. Chase searches the guest room as quickly as he can, as he feels the metaphorical clock hanging over his head. He tosses pillows aside, looks under the carpet, rifles through the several cabinets lining the wall and searches the dusty writing desk.

It’s only when he’s yanking out drawers that his eyes catch on something weird. Underneath the silk gloves and handkerchiefs, the bottom of one of the drawers isn’t made of the same wood as the others. It’s really close, sure, but Chase follows his hunch and thumbs the outline of it – and when his nail catches on an indent, excitement bubbles up in him.

With a bit of work, he manages to wiggle out the fake bottom to the drawer. Hidden underneath it, there is a letter. Chase bounces on his feet, a small gleeful noise escaping him.

Ramus’ letter is neatly sealed with a vax emblem. Cracking it in half, Chase unfolds the letter, throwing a last quick glance over his shoulder at the door, before he reads.

As the dim candlelight plays across the paper, Chase squints at the writing.

He pauses, tilting his head one way and the other.

Then he squints again.

Bold strokes of ink melt the cursive letters together, fine swirls connect the gap between words and like a famous person dancing around a controversial topic, the lines are so compact that a monologue can be fitted into a space where most would just write hello. Is that squiggly dot supposed to be ‘a’ or ‘e’? Okay that looks like ‘bursue’– no wait, maybe it’s ‘versus’.

Chase wishes that he couldn’t possibly be getting curb stomped by a font, but he stares at Rasmus’ horribly written cursive and realizes with a sinking feeling – he can’t read this. He actually can’t read the flippin’ story clue.

Okay, new plan.

Chase hastily folds the letter up and shoves it in his pocket.

Snapping the cabinet closed, he shoves the pens and papers and everything else more or less back to where he found them. He sweeps all signs of someone snooping away with the meticulousness of a hurricane.

Then, Chase escapes back into the night from where he came. He leaves the crime scene with an unreadable clue in his pocket and a window just slightly ajar.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Chase takes the scenic route back, closely following the foot of the castle as he tries to avoid the trained eyes and glowing torches of the guards in the watchtowers. He pulls the hood closer over his head and winces for every branch he steps on, despite the far distance between him and the guards up high.

By the time he's sneaked through the castle entrance and tiptoed up the eastern stairwell towards his room, the beginning of sunrise shines through the small windows he passes.

His heart is pumping in his chest for a reason he can’t quite place. The first rest he feels is when he finally makes it into his room and pushes the door closed behind him. Leaning back against it, he pulls the hood down and lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Duke Rasmus didn’t see him. Nobody who could favor the duke over the ruling princess or her mother saw him. Nobody knew that Chase held the clue to this whole conspiracy in his grasp.

He stumbles over the writing desk, swipes a few letters to who-cares-who aside and lays his hard earned finding out in the better light of the oil lamp.

His expression pulls into a grimace, when the cursed cursive is just as predictably illegible as it was an hour ago. Thoughts swim halfheartedly in his mind on how to fix the issue, between a mixture of asking the first nice person who shows their face and ramming his skull against the paper-wall until it cracks. The first one sounded far more appealing. He needed to tell Angela about the poison anyway.

Hey Mom, I nicked a letter from Cousin Rasmus. I swear it’s for a good reason, please don’t disown me.

Chase snickers sleepily.

But for now, the bed is very far away, and the warm glow of the oil lamp dances pleasantly against his eyelids. Chase tucks his head between his arms and falls asleep at his desk.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Chase is woken up by a small knock at the door. It’s early, and he groggily lifts his head, a bit of paper briefly clinging to his cheek. He rubs his face. After a moment, a mousey voice drifts through the door.

“Would you like your breakfast left out here again, my lady?”

Chase nods sleepily, about to just mumble thanks. Then he pauses, as his thoughts begin to stir awake.

The lady-in-waiting clearly seems to be serving the role of the princess’ loyal companion. Ever since he got here, she’s always been right within reach, for better and worse, shielding him from the other two maids and accepting his fake cough with nothing more than a tight smile and a nod.

His gaze drifts to the unreadable letter on his desk, then over to the door.

“You can come in.” He calls.

After a beat, the door is opened and Margrete peaks in. Carefully balancing a tray of food like the one yesterday, she comes inside and brings it over to his bedside table.

“The servant’s quarters were all in a tiffy, I heard.” She says conversationally, “The dear Duke of Boegen has been barging around like someone nicked an egg from his bird’s nest. He’s naught say a word, but y’know how rumors go. It’s all the talk this mornin’.”

Chase starts picking at a very interesting stain on his desk.

Her voice is cheerful, like a bunny jumping over potholes, “There were questions for your absence yesterday, but with your mother ill, I think they’ll understand. The good folk will, don’t you think-“ She slows to a pause, as his silence becomes apparent. “Your Highness?”

He exhales, pressing his hand flat against the desk to steady himself.

“I need a favour… you don’t have to help me, but I really, really need you to not tell anyone.” He says, “Please?”

“Of course?”

He pushes the letter toward her and waits suspended as she reads.

Only then, does Margrete’s eyes steadily become wide as saucers, “Wha– “

“I swear it’s for a good reason, please just read it for me!” Chase rushes in, “I found poison in the Queen’s wine, and I think– I know this guy did it!”

She has read the letter and doesn’t look like she believes him for a second.

“Well…” Her tone crawls along. “If Your Highness is certain…”

Chase leans forward and catches her gaze, his own eyes wide and pleading.

“Just read it aloud for me. Please?”

He sees in her face the exact moment that her resolve folds and crumbles like paper. Helplessly, she begins to read.

To whom this letter concerns.

Know that I shall speak to you as a noble man whose steps have returned to the beating heart of our guardian’s cradle, where communion of charity and commitment of man flourishes. It is believed that whoever brings wishes to pass will be enriched, and the one who waters will himself be watered.

So, I thank the clouds and spirits, while I was harboring this wish and eagerly looking for a way of executing it, a whisper on my shoulder, our mutual acquaintance and message bearer, informed me that your grace of once denounce, with sentiments not unlike my own, was looking for a similar opportunity in my regard.

I must confess this case is not moving towards settlement as we desire, a string of your gifts have only aided my sorrows. They turn to smoke as I lay them on the burning coal, naught a mixture nor prayer summons that which you incessantly spun wheels about. There is however some remedy to my troubles in this, I have heard tell that the moon shines brightly on Yurst Isle in the months to Everlight Eve, and what sad merchant's wiles cannot fulfil, merciful worthiness of an honored man wishes to pardon.

May I instead lend out an invitation and know it will be honoured, for you and your familiars to denounce your solitary and cordially attend the Everlight Ball. You will be welcomed and behold the sight of a gathering so fair, it is said by fathers to their daughters that no equal be found in all the land.

Consider I beseech thee, what you ownst me, pay heed to what I demand; and you will have repaid worthwhile and yet have regained your auld liberties. Hold faith in your heart as I hold in mine for a spirited dawn of bliss.

Fare thee as well as I fare.

Signed, Rasmus Gunnar Einar Aronson, Esteemed Duke of the Boegen Isles of Datura.

A long pause settles over the room once the letter finishes.

Chase tries to scrape any thoughts together in his mind that haven’t packed their bags and fled the premises several minutes ago. He folds his arms in thought, before feeling trapped and dropping it. “So… did any of that make sense to you?”

“Shouldn’t it to you?”

He just barely hears it, under breath and maybe not even meant for his ears. Looking up, he finds that Margrete’s gaze is not in the letter but instead fixed on Chase.

“Margrete?” He tries, a cold unease washing over him.

Slowly she shakes her head, backing away from Chase, as she clutches her hands like a shield in front of her. “The Queen? This… guy?” She echoes in disbelief.

Chase winces but gets no words in before something frantic enters her voice.

“Why can you hardly hold your tone?” She demands. “You speak of important matters like they’re trifle, a joke to toss around, like she would ever–” Margrete falters, and her next words sound like an open confession of guilt. “You say please like it’s the air you breathe.”

Chase feels his stomach drop somewhere ten feet below him. The storybook character stares at him, like he’s a monster who will grow fangs and fins, the moment he stops pretending to own the skin of her lady.

“Who are you?”

Chapter Text

Chase thinks it should be pretty obvious by now that he isn’t exactly the picture of cool under fire. Rather, his method of choice would usually be to find the nearest bucket, put that bucket over the fire and smile awkwardly at the camera as he pretends like the bucket he’s sitting on isn’t steadily turning a smoldering painful red.

In his defense there aren’t all that many things that can throw Chase into enough of a panic that the bucket method becomes necessary - usually because he doesn’t sweat it too much if the world a bit on fire here and there. Bad days can happen without reason and the saying ‘live and let live’ has a comforting rent-free home in Chase’s soul that has saved many a’ buckets.

Even then, it’s not the first time in his life that Chase feels like the world itself has lit a fire underneath him with the sole intention of making him boil.

The maid stares at Chase. She looks small and terrified, her posture drawn and frame shaking. Her accusation hangs waiting in the air.

“Uh,” Chase says, “Uhm…”

Near instinctively, his hand flies to his key.

Think, Chase. Think.

Several excuses tumble out as he gestures wildly, trying to scramble for anything that sounds like a good explanation, while scanning for even the smallest sign of the story-world unravelling. His head spins, she knows she knows she knows.

“Who are you?” The maid says. “Why do you act like you can hardly remember a thing?”

“Because, uh, because…”

He pauses. That question, that little rephrase lights an idea above Chase’s head, a little glowing lamp. Anchoring his thoughts, his eyes widen. He remembers to breathe.

After all, his room is still intact, nothing is leaking from his ceiling, and the vibrant color of Silver’s key still peaks out from underneath his blouse. All there is in front of him is a scared lady-in-waiting who just wants answers after he dragged her into a plot that she wasn’t supposed to be part of.

Chase prepares for the sting of a lie, a half-baked truth that he pushes out.

“Because,” he says, his voice less steady than he’d prefer, “you’re right.”

It’s enough to make her pause.

“I am?” She asks. “Well yes, but you… agree?”

“Yeah. Yeaaaah. You caught me.” Chase rubs his neck, playing up his very real grimace. Two weeks of theatre practice save him, he needed to protect the sanity of a book character here. “I just- it’s stressful time y’know, I didn’t wanna worry Ang-” He coughs. “My mother and our kingdom and you.”

Chase spreads his arm out like an underprepared magician revealing his grand trick.

“I have amnesia.”

What follows is a very long, painful beat of stunned silence.

“I’m definitely supposed to be here.” He says, “I just... I tripped over a cat and hit my head. Totally on me, I was probably like super clumsy that day… uh, yesterday. Cause I didn’t see it and I tripped and blacked out like the- like in books, lots of books do that. Then I woke up and couldn’t remember dirt.” His voice strains. “I didn’t tell you because, I just… I didn’t want anyone to get weird about it. Like, honestly, I don’t know what I’m being told half the time. I don’t know how to act my role- I couldn’t even read the dumb letter. So, I needed your help.”

Chase’s grip tightens around his key, as he looks at her pleadingly.

“I’m sorry, but please, Margrete. Don’t tell anyone.”

He knows he should go home. There’s something that’s gone sideways with the story book vision and it’s dragging him far too close to the surface. Like a badly wired printer, book magic could apparently come in faulty models. Even if he’s steadily turning the story in a better direction and the magic seems stable even for as barebones as it is, it’s still a stupid risk to take.

He should go home.

But the eyes of a once whole family burns into his back.

Angela needs him.

So, he waits with his ticket home on a hair line trigger.

Margrete’s eyes have gone wide during his story, and as he finishes, her hands rise to cover her mouth. “Oh… oooh.”

Her expression crumbles.

“You’ve been dealing with that on your own? No wonder you’ve been so odd–” She cuts herself off, hands flying in front of her, “Her Highness may speak to her servants however she wishes, of course, but– I– oh I am so terribly, terribly sorry for accusing you–”

Chase releases a breath, as Margrete makes a monologue out of her frantic apology. His shoulders sink in relief and his grip on his key loosens.

Screw you, magic, he thinks, screw you and thank you.

“Margrete,” he says, voice softening, though it still calls her to quiet. “When and where is the ball? That fancy one that Duke– my cousin talked about. He wants to invite his black-market buddies. Can we just start there?”

Her eyes go wide. “Oh biscuits– the Everlight ball!”

“Margrete.”

“Sorry, yes,” She says, “It’s uhm, dear, it’s the day of summer solstice, that’s a few months from now. Which is not ideal, no, very much not ideal…”

No, Chase thinks faintly, it’s really, really not.

A nice thing about the little kiddie fairy tales that Chase usually visits is that they have a loose, noncommitted relationship with time that works well for both parties. A day, a month or a year can pass in the span of Chase picking some greenery out of his teeth. They don’t have a lot of pages, so he guesses they have to cover a lot of time in few words... or scenes.

This book meanwhile had more pages, more worldbuilding to fill in-between scenes, more side characters and plotlines to thread in the seams of this story. Each day has felt like maybe a couple of hours long – still sped up, but in a way like the books where the entire plot takes place over one day. Yeah, like one day books, except someone glued them together into one big book with multiple days… or months.

“Nope,” Chase says, “Nope, nope, nope.”

He’d been here two days and had already blown his cover. Angela can kiss her somewhat-functioning lungs and life goodbye if she has to wait that long for him to Sherlock Holmes the murder mystery.

Chase grabs the letter off the desk, trying to skim it – before remembering that he can’t, because the cousin is a dollar store himbo who spells ‘d’ with two circles. “Okay, that’s fine. I still got this. There’s gotta be something in this letter, something super incrimidating we can use right now. Maybe… moon is slang for hemlock? Oh, or the coal.”

He sees Margrete fidget with her sleeve out the corner of his vision.

“My lady, do you truly believe your cousin did this? Poisoned our Majesty?”

“You’ve seen how he looks at the throne, Margrete.” Chase says quietly. “I’m amnesiac, but I’m not blind.”

A pause settles between them, his words hanging in the air.

Then, they seem to have found their mark.

“I’m sure there must be books in the library that can help you, my lady.”

The simple offer and outreach of a hand is enough to make Chase perk up. It breaks through gloom and worries of playing a role that asks so much of him, gifting him a fresh gulp of air.

“Yeah!” He agrees, then registers what she actually said. “…Wait, what?”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

“Noooooo…” Chase presses his face flat against the library table.

In front of him spans a buffet of stacked books. Their height increases every other minute as Margrete hastily returns with a new one that looks vaguely relevant to the topic. It started as just one book picked out from the botanic shelf, then a few extras for the sake of discretion and then a few others from a shelf that is so high up Chase couldn’t even read the tagline. Each one looks dustier and thicker than the last, like she is slowly emptying out the local nature museum. He watches in numb horror as another one is added to the tallest reading stack.

This story is made to torture me, he thinks faintly, specifically bio-built to give me stress wrinkles before I turn twenty.

Out loud he says, “Dude, I’m… I’m just gonna go get the librarian’s help.”

They could probably point at exactly which one of these nerd books would help him expose the duke. He was not doing homework in the trenches of medieval academics.

Then, a voice sounding suspiciously like Deacon, rises up from the depths of his mind and does the psychic equivalent of slapping him on the back of the head, as the realization of how much of a bad idea it would be for the princess to publicly ask where one might learn about useful poisons.

He plops defeated back in his seat.

“Sorry, did you say something, my lady?”

“Nothing…” he moans lowly.

“Do you…” she says, “wish to bring Helena and Chandler in on your affliction? It would be them an honor to help.”

Chase considers for moment. “Nah.” He shakes his head, making a solid guess at which two colleagues she means. “Probably better to be lowkey.”

Once the stacks of books have gotten absurdly high enough, they basically shield him and Margrete from the other visitors wandering the library. They end up having this little paper fort to themselves, hugged by the stone walls and window behind them in the illusion of privacy.  

Margrete returns to his side, sitting down. He feels her gaze on him from the corner of his vision, though she’s polite enough not to say anything. Even as a rain cloud practically hangs over him.

“I don’t like reading,” Chase says softly, “I’m not stupid, I’m not. I just, don’t like it.”

There’s a brief pause, a silence only broken by the ambience of the library.

Margrete’s voice lowers, “…Do you think it’s your memory troubles plaguing you?”

“Mmhm.” Chase agrees immediately.

She briefly glances to check for anyone nearby, before she ducks her head back down.

“Okay, that’s no issue, that can happen to the best of us in periods of stress.” She says in a hushed voice, “Why, I had an uncle who quite liked a side of whiskey with his lunch, a little too much perhaps. One day, he woke up tussled in his bed sheets and couldn’t remember his own title. He went down to the stables to work as a hand, like he did as a young master.”  

Chase leans in, like they’re two school kids quietly gossiping behind their textbooks. 

“Yikes, I’ve heard something like that too. There was this teacher from my… my royal lessons who, I swear she hadn’t slept in like a week, and then after she slipped on a milk carton in the cafeteria- it was the same thing, it was crazy.”

“How horrible. It’s daunting to think how fragile our minds-” She pauses. “No. No! We are focusing. We are focused!”

“The most focused!” Chase nods strongly, nearly on instinct.

He grabs the nearest book and cracks the thing open to find the table of content. It has a very cute illustration of a pumpkin on the title page, followed by a ten-page introduction, but also a very glaring lack of content table.

He drops his head onto the table with a long, suffering groan.

They spent the next few hours combing through the botany books in search of hemlock and its word metaphors. Well, Margrete does most of the reading and Chase lays slumped over, watching with his head buried in his arms. He got about as far as the first few paragraphs, before the words started making his vision swim and he assigned himself to emotional support duty instead – which mostly consisted of occasionally passing over a vaguely relevant title, so she could skim through it. It’s slow-going to say the least, as it becomes painfully clear that neither of them, even with their braincells combined, are much good at this.

They find information that mostly confirms what Chase already knows; hemlock is a medicinal flower and the apple in the queen-killers’ eyes, because of its subtle color and smell when mixed in something else. It’s most importantly, just a normal wildflower that anyone could stuff into a bag. In this story, the plant has gone nearly extinct, after a few too many kings apparently got sick of finding it in their drinks – how ever they might have managed to push a weed into extinction. It seems to originate from Yurst, a distant island in the outer reaches of the kingdom.

The name feels vaguely familiar to Chase and sharing a look with Margrete, they realize the same thing: Rasmus has mentioned that exact island. Finally, they have their first real lead.

At this point, Chase realizes he’s also pushed back another thing in the haze of following the lead’s trail and everything else that had suddenly happened in rapid succession.

“Shoot-” He says, hastily getting up from his seat, “Angela. She needs to know. I- you’re doing great, keep doing this thing. I’ll be back!”

With a quick wave thrown over his shoulder, he leaves for the private royal quarters.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Angela takes the news with the same amount of mild despair one would have when hearing about a bad weather forecast. She seems to take Chase’s rambling explanation, pack up her own feelings on the matter neatly in a box and lay it off to the side.

“So… I have been poisoned?”

“Yeah.”

“That is why you ran off like ten infernal spirits were burning your behind?” She raises an eyebrow, “Someone has been sneaking a flower past our walls, our guards and our food tasters. Until you caught it.”  

“Yeah… someone has, yup.”

“Have you told anyone else? Did someone question your visit to the cellar?”

Chase shakes his head, “No, just Margrete. Uhm, my maid. She’s cool, though.”

“Good.” Angela hums with quiet steel. The rasp of her voice makes each word come out faint, though she leans back on the bedframe as though it was a throne, “If the culprits plan to cook me slowly, then let them fatten themselves on the belief that their farce is working. A heedless creature is easier to outsmart than a paranoid one.”

Chase nods, squirming a bit in his seat as the letter burns in his pocket.

Angela gaze softens a bit. “Thank you.”

Leaning forward, she catches his hand where it fidgets in his lap. The touch is grounding and warm, despite the bony grip and the paper-thin skin, pale from possibly months of spending indoors.

“It was well observed.” She says, her expression tense as her gaze falls to her frail arms. “I am sorry you must bear the burden of my mistake now. I should not have been so blind to the poison seeping into my veins.”

“It’s not your fault.” Chase shrugs.

She huffs, “Mothers will always blame themselves, darling. I brought you into this world, therefore you are my responsibility.” Proving her age, she tilts her head slightly. “You will understand when you are older.”

Chase wrinkles his nose in mock disgust, sneaking a light laugh from her lips.  

“So… do you have any suspects?”

Angela leans back with a contemplative look. “A handful of folks come to mind. With luck, we will find the culprit is someone so boorish that it will be a joy to toss them in the dark holes. I will speak with Sir Becker and strengthen our watch with discretion, then look into the affairs...” She trails off, looking lost in thought.

“Okay, cool. While they do that, I’ll be your undercover agent, grilling him for information until he cracks under his guilt like a cheese bread.” Chase sits a little taller, lifting his chin. “I can be very persuasive.”

“I know, darling,” she smiles, “I will ask you if we are in need. But I’d rather you didn’t wander from your duties over this, so much remains to be done for the Everlight ball and I am hardly in a state to attend. Focus your efforts there.”

Chase blinks stupefied for a moment. “What?”

“Focus your-”

“Who cares about that?” Chase gestures wildly, “Someone in the castle is trying to kill you, Mom! And you want me to make seating placements? No, that’s dumb, that literally doesn’t matter. I’m in this too, I found this!”

“Diana.”

The princess’ name cuts through the air, foreign yet aimed so clearly that his mouth falls shut, as if the name is his own.

“The Everlight is not dumb, don’t ever let me hear you speak that way in our halls.” Angela’s voice dips into a sharp tone. “We must show the strength of our house and our Guardian to all who visit. Her protection only shines as bright as the gifts you grant her, and others know that well. Young lady, you let your fear rule your judgement, and a little flower in my wine will be the least of our worries.”

Silence falls over the room for a long moment, cold and heavy.

“I know who did it, though.”  

He thumbs the letter in his pocket, considering if he could risk it. There had already been one close call, but what use could he be, if she didn’t believe him?

“It’s Duke Rasmus. I know it.” Chase says, pushing conviction into his voice.

“I… overheard him talking with some other guy. I didn’t see their face, but he’s been getting stuff from Yurst Isle, and that’s the same place the poison comes from. He said he’s brewing something, and like, that’s obviously not a coincidence. It can’t be. He also wants the person to attend the ball, like a thank you for helping him, I think. It’s so sus.” Chase crosses his arms as he grasps for the most damning evidence. “And- he was really on my butt the other day!”

Angela doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Eventually, she speaks softly. “That is a heavy accusation.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Chase sighs. “He’s a duke, so he’s rich and important. But like-”

“We’re a small family, dear.” She cuts in, something heavy in her tone. “Whether you like him or not, your cousin brings the crown’s presence to reaches of Datura where you have never stepped foot. Your tutors may disagree, but there is more to sovereignty than giving orders from a castle. More than you and I can do from within its walls.”

“But…” Chase fumbles a little helpless. “I really think it’s him, Mom.”

He holds her gaze for a long moment.

“Okay,” She nods, “I do hear you. I will remember it.”

Chase's frown deepens and he glances aside. After a moment, he feels a hand cup his ear. Gently, his face is guided over and he gets a motherly kiss on the cheek. It feels like a polite but firm end to the conversation, and Chase huffs through his nose.

“Kindness bleeds from your frame, my darling,” she tells him with an almost sad smile, “But please, don’t split yourself in half over me. Go dedicate your attention to our house’s presence. I may not look the part, but I can still take care of our troubles behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, okay.” He lies.

While Angela may have several guards, years of experience and is a character actually living in this storybook, Chase has something she doesn’t: meta knowledge, optimism and a very strong hunch.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

On his way back to the library, Chase runs into a few different faces, both new ones – nervous servants that bow politely and snooty nobles that are very eager for a moment of his time. He dodges past those, shielding himself with his best princess impression of, “Oh sorry, I am very quite busy. Maybe later.” that’ll hopefully keep them happy.

But also, ones that have slowly grown familiar. Despite the library calling him – and oof, wasn’t that a sentence, Chase pauses for a few of them and hears them out.

The house’s presence hangs over Chase’s shoulder, like a ghost just intangible enough that he can’t swipe it away. Each time, he almost spouts the first thing that comes to mind, then pauses and panics internally and spouts the first thing anyway.

Promote that bread roll baker, you’re not gonna regret it. We can make a bread-based economy here. First off, we create a strong brand name. Then we start selling it in small little packages to other kingdoms and get them hocked. Obviously, we need a catchphrase, I’m thinking… this isn’t gonna stress out the chef, is it?

That prototype looks great! The little Pegasus designs are so adorable, oh my gosh. Do you have an engineer deg- dumb question, forget it. Why would you say that, haha.

Super glad we had this conversation, bud. Can I get past… oh, no, no, no. That was a compliment. Yesss, I do wanna hear all about your great niece.

What are… I mean- thanks, I totally know what to do with these.

Some people ask for Diana’s advice and instructions on things Chase hasn’t heard of, of places he hasn’t visited and names he doesn’t recognize. It’s enough to make his head slightly swim.

In comparison, the library is practically a safe heaven, where even Diana’s duties don’t seem to reach – or are simply blocked from view behind the tower of books that still decorate the secluded table.

Chase plops down with a world-weary sigh, tossing some papers he’d been handed by a servant on the table where they scatter haphazardly.

“Any luck?”

Margrete’s mouth half-parts before closing again as she wilts.

Chase resists the urge to sink into formless slurry, settling with rubbing his forehead in thought.

“Okay,” He mutters, “I can feel you sulking from over here, Margrete, it's really not that hard. Just man up and eat the stupid dictorinary.”

After a quiet beat, he slips into his pocket, where the weight of Angela’s notebook comfortably lays. He’d taken it with him this morning, forgetting about it as it’s small and compact enough to carry around easily. Her handwriting is nicer than the cousin’s, that’s for certain, and the worldbuilding notes are extensive from the few pages he glanced at, as he wrote that letter the first night. Even if he’s going to surprise the snot out of her when he and Margrete solves this whole thing, maybe her help could still be sitting in his hands. Her words ring in his ear, as he thumbs the cover.

“Permission to speak bluntly, my lady?”

Chase glances up, “Bud, you don’t need permission for that.”

She takes several moments before she speaks, looking like she’s mentally psyching herself up for a parachute jump. Then, her words are pushed out in rapid succession.

“All of this is a lot, and with your memory forsaking you,” she speaks hushed, “maybe your evening etiquette lessons with Magister Harald could help buy us time- you said you didn’t want anyone to look at you strangely- so, so to at least keep up appearances-”

His nose wrinkles. “Hard pass.”

“But-”

“Nuh uh, no butts. It’s fine, you’re fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine and great and we can just stay in the library forever. Nice staff, super zen, lotsa convenient hiding spots. Ten outta ten, would buy a sleeping nook.”

Chase sacks forward, arms coming to rest on the table as he buries his face. He had felt less suffocated when the literal ground was bleeding water than now.

After a moment, the quiet ambience of dusty old pages being flipped returns. They settle into the routine again, where Chase watches in boredom, while Margrete reads the old timey books for the clue that’s gotta be here somewhere. Fairy tales don’t give random clues like that without it paying off somewhere, either in the letter or in the conversation with a character. Maybe he should sneak out again tonight, do some snooping in… he tries to think of some other noble’s name and comes up short. His usual method in storybooks is simple: sneak around until he catches a whispered exchange between mysterious hooded figures, where he hides behind a convenient nearby pillar and listens with one ear.

Chase hums underneath his breath, lyrics floating in and out of his mind. They’re distracting and pleasant, so he chases them while waiting for the sunlight to pass outside the windows.  

In the time it takes for him to make up the next top trender on spotify and the many interviews he’s gonna nail, Margrete has made a small dent in their stack, with many more to go.

Chase is brought out of his daydream, when he senses something out of the corner of his vision. He groggily lifts his head from his arms and looks.

A small boy is standing very close to him. He’s light blonde, dressed in scruffy nobility clothing and no higher than the table, meeting Chase’s eyes with a bug-eyed stare, the likes that only young children can manage.

“Argh!”

Chase nearly jumps out of his seat, which earns him a very pouty expression from the boy, like getting startled was a skill issue on Chase’s end.

The strange boy lives up to his name, as he plops down on all fours and the next moment, he is crawling under the cover of the library table and making himself small, like a fish burrowing itself into a sand pile. Chase’s legs are unceremoniously shoved aside to make room.

Leaning down, he peeks underneath. “Hi?”

Chase gets a very small hand stuffed in his face that pushes him back.

“Shhhhhh!”

About two seconds later.

“I’m hungry.”

At this point, Chase tries to share a look with Margrete, but she’s busy suppressing a smile as she watches the scene.

He sighs and pokes around blindly with his shoe, nudging the boy in his side. “Kid, where’re your parents? Go ask them for stuff.”

“Father’s busy.”

“Big deal, go be a bridge troll underneath his table. Shouldn’t you have a babysitter, or is that too expensive for the child economy?”

“Auntieeee,” the boy whispers loudly, and Chase stills. “Stop poking me! Your feet smell like socks. Weird barn socks.”

He mouths to Margrete, I have a nephew?

She nods, crinkling eyes. Her mouth opens, before pausing and looking slightly constipated for a moment, before she grabs a loose charcoal pen and paper.

He’s handed a little note where there’s written Young Master Villum, and an arrow pointing down. Beneath that there’s also written Young Miss Klara, and arrows in all directions with a question mark.

“Right.” Chase nods in thanks.

He immediately feels a sneaking suspicion and tries to confirm through a hushed and hurried game of charades. Mostly consisting of pointing down at Villum and at the books and at his own pocket with the letter, until she catches on. She nods.

The little gremlin moping underneath their table was Rasmus’ kid.

After a moment’s pause, he mentally fits into the family tree that someone apparently married and had children with that dude. Hopefully he was a better husband and father than cousin.

Chase nudges Villum in the side again, though a bit more carefully.

“Do you know what your father is super busy with?”

“No!” Villum’s muffled voice says immediately. “And I won’t tell anyone!”

Chase slides off his chair, crouching down on the floor. He comes to eye level with Villum, who’s bundled together with his arms tight around his knees. The shade of the table casts them both in a small bubble of privacy.

Chase whispers. “Not even your Auntie?”

Villum peeks over his knees. Chase gives a smile, small and conspiratorial, like they’re just two children hiding the cookie jar. The kid had come to him, which he could only hope said something about Diana's relationship with her nibling.

He fidgets with his pants sleeve, lasting about two moments before he cracks.

“Father’s mad at you.” he admits in hushed tone, like it’s a secret brought to the grave. “Cause there’s people coming next week and he can’t find you, so he’s doing everything himself. And he keeps telling us to lock the windows.”

“What people?”

Villum stares hard at the floor like it could answer the world’s greatest riddles. “…The sweet tea people. The head of house is really mean, he always says my shirt is wrinkled.”

Chase’s shoulders fall, though he tries to hide it behind a careful smile.

“…Father’s mad at me too.” Villum leans in with a whisper. “Cause the martial skill lessons are stupid and I didn’t do them. Sir Becker wanted me to do three runs. I think he’s making me do it because his knees are old and he can’t do it himself and he’s mad about it.”

He buries his head in his arms. “I don’t like running! Klara likes running- why isn’t she running?”

“Maybe you could switch clothing and pretend to be each other.” Chase offers. “I did that all the time with my cousin and only got send home with a notice half the time.”

He catches his slip a moment late, but luckily Villum doesn’t react to it, probably too young to question how his dad could get ‘send home.’

Villum seems perfectly content in the little space under the covers, hiding from the big scary world and the hard scary things in it. After all, he’s a child and that’s what a child would do.

Please, don’t split yourself in half over me.

A weight settles on Chase’s shoulders, heavy and cold in its silent judgement. He chuckles low to himself. “The library is a nice place to hide, isn’t it?”

Leaning over, he ruffles Villum’s hair. “You can stay here if you want, kid. I got some… yeah, I got some things.”

Chase eases himself out of the small space, fishing up Angela’s notebook from his pocket and exhaling a weary sigh.

Then he does the thing that he’d sworn to himself he would never need to do again, since the day that he finished high school. Chase cracks open a book, leans on his cheek and begins to read.

He pushes aside the part of his brain that immediately sets itself dramatically on fire and tries to imagine a soothing rain instead. He remembers her warm smile as she gifted this to him, and it gets a little easier.

Getting past the first section feels like trudging through muddy waters, each word dragging his feet.

The second section feels like an overdue chore forged in slow progress.

The first chapter passes him by.

The words swimming on the page slowly settles in their place, the waves clearing and the road laid bare, as Chase pushes past a block that he hadn’t realized was even there. With growing confusion, he takes in the information on the page, not enjoying or hating it, just with a simple passage from eyes to mind. The section he had paged to is about the noble houses and Chase… he thinks he might have an idea now who Villum was talking about.

“Huh.” He says, after a few minutes have passed.

His brows furrow and he turns the notebook side to side, like it will reveal some magic spell.

“Do you think this is like Snow White?” He says, “Just, instead of chatting with animals, I can beam my brain waves at books-” This time he does catch himself, “Cause uh, Diana- me, likes books.”

Whatever Margrete might have heard from that has her nodding. “Oh, that’s a good sign isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Chase mutters.

His finger thumbs the page, and he frowns. “But why can I now and not… eeh whatever.”

He isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s hardly the first time in the last few days that the benefits of being Princess Diana have passed Chase by, and if he has to take the initiative to make the magic work for him, then so be it.

They don’t manage to make more than a large dent in the bookstack that day, especially with Chase mostly focused on the notebook, but by the time that the evening shines through windows and light are lit along the walls, they’ve made sizeable progress. Two pairs of eyes and a small boy send off to get them food, make for much better detectives than just one pair.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

So, begins the most mind-numbing series of days that Chase has ever been put through. What makes it worse is that no one is forcing Chase through it. No, he is putting himself through it.

A few nights, he sneaks out through his window. The climb has become almost familiar, each handhold and indent in the castle wall forming a practiced rhythm. The gardens are usually quiet, a safe passage while he searches the grounds for a caught conversation or a scene useful for their research.

Well, the garden is usually quiet. The night before, he caught muffled noises drifting from a large bush. For a moment, he wonders if he has found something - until he realizes exactly what he’s hearing. It takes all his restraint not to snort and give away to the couple that there’s someone in hearing range. He flees, spending the rest of the night-hours in the stables, sneaking in a reunion with a very disgruntled Echo. The pony is just as cute as the last time he saw her, glittery eyes and wings, though the effect is slightly undercut when she tries to nibble on his hair. It pulls a tired chuckle from him.

Each morning is unceremoniously kicked off with another round of choosing his outfit and then wrestling with it, like someone trying to stuff a ferret into a suit.

This morning, he finds himself startled by something he thought he’d grown used to. After a few minutes of struggling, he tosses aside the vest he was supposed to wear and replaces it with a light blue cloth tied around his waist, pulled from a random drawer. It’s not much, but the little splash of color is something he remembers getting told could elevate an outfit. To make what is essentially casual wear feel a little more put-together. 

He looks up and catches his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Diana stares back at him. She wears an outfit just like his own, a wrinkled white blouse and makeshift accessories. Her eyes have bruises and her posture is slouched - her expression winces in tandem with his. For once, the mirrors sort of worked. He really did look like he had just rolled out of bed.

Smoothing out the wrinkles and combing his hair, he manages to look significantly nicer and splashes some cool water on his face. While he’s doing that, he hears a faint knock on the door to his room. Mourning the Middle Ages’ lack of appreciation for skin care routines, he finishes up.

He yawns good morning to Margrete and heads for the library.

Later that day, as the evening begins dragging shadows across the bookshelves, it feels like real hours have fruitlessly passed them by. Chase pushes away his current read, some older title about the medicinal uses of wildflowers that seems promising. He rises and stretches his arms above his head, pulling a warm strain from his limbs and a crack in his neck. His thoughts feel wavy and unfocused, like back when he’d been cramming for mid-term exams.

The title of the book nudges a curiosity in Chase, packaged in a welcome distraction.

“Hey,” He hums. “What is the guardian actually? Is it a god?”

Margrete’s face gets that look of concealed pity and horror that she gets every time Chase reveals another layer to how deeply out of the loop he is. He shrugs with one shoulder.

“Well…” She says, “Oh dear how do I tell… she’s our kingdom’s protection. We walk on her ground and plant her roots and drink her water.”

Chase wrinkles his nose.

“Not - not like that.” She flounders.

“I got potato mush brain right now, dude. Ignore me- well don’t.” He waves a hand. “So, God is a lady?”

“Yes. Every kingdom is the domain of a different guardian. The royal families have lived on their Guardian’s home isle for generations. It’s how it’s always been.” She tilts her head slightly, giving a small smile to Chase. “Your kingdom is under Datura’s domain and your family her voice to the people.”

Chase tries to picture it as she speaks, but the image floats away before he can grasp it.

“Why isn’t my last name just Datura? Gotta be way easier to remember than all this…” He falters. “No offense.”

Unfortunately, offense does seem to be taken, as Margrete gasps horrified. Her voice lowers like someone could suddenly pop out behind the nearest bookshelf with a recorder and get them cancelled.

“My lady- your family is blessed by her, you’re not- not literally her. Dear spirits, has she truly abandoned you?” She pales the second those words slip out. “Sorry- sorry, sorry.”

What is with these people and calling his storybook-family cursed?

He smiles a little tightly, “It’s fine. You’re gonna try harder than that if you wanna steal Rasmus’ place as top douche.”

When she does a poor job trying to cover over her upset, he leans over and nudges her shoulder.

“Really, I know I’m being weird. Thanks a lot for helping me.” Leaning back, he stretches his arms over his head. “Anyway, I’m hungry, you wanna go raid the kitchen with me?”

The tension eases out of her shoulders at the light tone in his voice. After a moment her expression turns considerate.

“Per chance,” She says, “Your memories may come easier if I show you.”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

After several nights of sneaking around, it’s almost a little strange to walk through the courtyard in broad daylight. There are people milling about and out the corner of his eye, Chase spots the dude with the mustache that always wants to talk to him about taxes. Speeding up his steps, he urges Margrete to get them wherever they’re going.

She leads him to the gates beyond the courtyard.

Before they can go through, Chase annoyingly finds he doesn’t have the same freedom he enjoys in the late hours - he and Margrete get assigned an escort, since apparently a maid isn’t enough protection for Princess Diana outside the safety of the castle. He tries to argue, but the guards tell him that it’s the Queen’s orders, both recent and outranking his own, so he can only grumble frustrated. The knight stays quiet at least and at a polite distance from them, so Chase decides to just toss him out of mind.

“So,” he says, as they walk over the drawbridge. “Where we going to?”

“To our home.”

It takes them a good while of walking, before Chase realizes that they’re heading toward the coast. The gravel road underneath them slowly softens into grass and dirt, while the trees on either side grow sparse.

There’s a distant sound of seagulls. Long dry grass tickles his legs, and the wind of early spring frazzles his hair, as Chase trudges up the hill.

Slowly, the coast comes into view.

His eyes widen, as his breath is stolen away.

Could it be called a coast, if there is no ocean? If the ground just drops off at one point and leads to nothing below it?

The thing he’d mistaken for sea foam is thick clouds lapping at the coast. It isn’t an ocean, but a bright blue sky that stretches out into the horizon.

Chase is standing on a floating island, nestled in the mouth of a cloudscape.

He can see the outline of other islands dotted around the horizon. Now that he’s standing on the coastal cliff, he can even see the underbelly of a neighboring island a few miles out. It looks as natural as a floating island can, no machinery or glittery force fields, just a dirt underbelly that has politely blocked gravity’s number. 

Then, Chase and the grass around him are bathed in shadow, like a cloud passing over him. Confused, he looks up.

A sailor ship is passing far overhead, sails out and a huge wooden belly that eats the sunlight. It heads for somewhere further inland, maybe bound for a town or a costal harbor far away.

Chase gapes. “Woahhh!”

After a moment, he plops down on the grass and crosses his legs. Transfixed, he takes in the view.

“That’s pretty sick.” He breathes.

Feeling Margrete coming up beside him, he pats the grass, waiting until she hesitantly joins him.

“Look at that,” he points, “that cloud looks like a mountain! And that bird over there gotta be massive, I can see its wings! We’re so high up, Maggie, is there an ocean like a bajillion miles below us?”

She pulls out a large scroll from her bag, holding it out for Chase.

“I borrowed it before we left,” she says, “I thought it may be of use, my lady. There’s only so much we can see from here.”

Chase takes the scroll and lays it on the ground, carefully rolling it out.

It’s an illustration of a large map, looking almost similar to the antique, hand drawn maps he’s seen in museums and textbooks, if only he could recognize the countries on it. There are practically no landmasses, instead, clusters of islands decorate the paper like a star map. Realism doesn’t seem to be the priority, as illustrated ships and birds are scattered around the sky – but the placement and direction they point seems intentional and he traces the routes absently. Different parts of the map are wobbly outlined in mat colors, clashing together at the borders. It’s the countries, he realizes, not bound by landmass but simply decided that an arbitrary amount of the sky belongs to them. Some countries fill more than others, over in the east there’s an island big enough to almost qualify for a landmass and it’s surrounded by smaller isles like a swirling pool.

“Dude, I cannot see where we are.” He says.

She directs his gaze a little further north, where a decently sized cluster of very small isles is outlined in red. The isles lay in tandem with each other, forming a long chain that wraps around itself. He glances at the rest of the map – he’s not in the biggest country, but not the smallest either.

Margrete pulls out a second map, much smaller than the other, and lays it out. It shows a single landmass, where roads, forest and a town are outlined, including a little castle on the western coast.

“We live on the isle of Datura and Malla.” She points around the map, as she explains. Her fingers pass over a tiny island off the coast, that Chase had nearly missed.

“Everything in your kingdom is part of her domain, my lady.” She says. “Naturally every island has its own spirit, but they exist under her protection. Just, as we the people live under the royal family’s rule. This isle is her home, as it is yours.”

“So, the swirly pool has a different guardian?”

“The what?”

He points.

“Oh. Yes- yes that is right.” She says. “That’s the kingdom of North Fanaco. One of its houses is coming for a diplomatic visit quite soon, I believe?”

Chase is not sure why she looks to him, because he shrugs.

“If that’s one’s north, where’s South Fanta?”

It becomes her turn to helplessly shrug and he snorts.

Seeing it all laid out in front of him allows for understanding to sink below just skin level and take root in his mind. Maybe this is why some people enjoy stories with richer lore. The world and weight of his choices feel startingly real, in a way Chase can’t remember feeling before. He curls his fist in the grass, straws slipping between his fingers in a grounding way, as he thinks.

All throughout their research, they haven’t been able to ask a librarian for help. But sitting here, he starts to feel the gravity of Angela’s words when she told him that this world stretches far beyond the castle. Towns and forests and people weaving together an existence, where a normal fairy tale would simply crumble when he pokes at its cracks. Just how far can he go off script and still have the story withstand it? Surely, he has to be pretty off by now, but events are still coming and going without a care in the world. He’d thought the castle was the story’s setting, but just how much is waiting for him out there?

“Is that far away?” He points at a town.

“Oh no, only a few hours travel at most.”

“Do I go there often? Like, would someone know my face?”

“No?”

“Can I call you Maggie?”

“Yes?”

Chase casts a glance over his shoulder. The guard is sitting little away, as he seems busy with polishing his already shiny sword. Chase lowers his voice, leaning closer to Margrete like he’s about to share the world’s secrets.

Chase gets a devious smile. “I have an amazing plan, Maggie.”

There are other places to look, and Diana’s homeschooling had just served them a solution on a silver platter.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

As everyone suspected, Chase is basically an expert at rock climbing. Under the cover of the early morning and cloaked in a dirty brown cape, Chase scales the wall beyond the courtyard. At the top, he glances one way and the other for guards, smiling when he finds the coast clear. Guess who had learned which watch tower had the laziest guards?

Leaning back over the wall, he reaches a hand down. After a moment, it’s grasped tightly, and he helps pull the other up.

“Kind Spirits, kind spirits, kind spirits.” Margrete mutters like a panicked prayer, looking pale as a ghost.

“Maggie, be stealth like a key.” Chase hushes, as he swings a leg over the other side of the wall and begins scaling down. He’d hoped that he could team up with Echo and fly into the sunrise, but Pegasus and undercover don’t seem to get along for some weird magic horse-related reason.

As soon as their feet hit ground, Chase makes them sprint for the forest line.

They walk along the road for a while, until he hears horse steps and shortly after a man in a wagon comes up behind them. He barely gives them a glance – they’re both disguised in commoner clothes, courtesy of Margrete, who apparently knew which servants to borrow stuff from without inviting questions.

Chase smiles brightly and offers the man a coin, which he gladly takes and allows them to hitchhike in the back of his wagon. The ride is bumpy as all heck, but leftover adrenaline fizzles in Chase’s veins and he bursts into laughter as Margrete jellifies on the wagon’s floor.

Time passes slowly by, as the scenery changes from forest to fields. Chase passes the time by singing a private concert to his travel companions and the horses. He grins when Margrete claps and happily compares him to a bard, hopefully not just because Chase is Her Highness and flattery is written somewhere in her contract. Though her smile turns slightly painful when the man upfront joins in, resulting in him and Chase belting a mismatched duet of songs from completely different time periods.

Chase still can’t completely tell how fast or slow time moves in this world, but some amount has passed, when he finally spots a harbor town out in the distance. The town is surrounded by a stone wall, where brown roofs and faint trails of chimney smoke peak over.

Not long after, the wagon passes through the gates and onto a bustling road.

Chase thanks the man and practically jumps out of their ride, skipping a little in his step. He’s immediately hit by the noise and chatter. It’s all around him, practically electrifying the air and filling his ears after so many days hiding in the quiet library. Shoppers and workers pass Chase by without a second glance. He nearly gets run over by a kart and feels giddy, like a horse let out onto the grass field after a long winter locked inside.

Hopped up on energy, he hooks his arm through Margrete’s and takes off toward the shopping area.

The little bell over the door chimes as they come into a small bookstore. Chase marches straight up to the desk, slamming both hands on it as he leans in.

“Hi,” Chase says brightly, “Do you have any books on literary uses of hemlock?”

Next to him, Margrete gives a great impression of someone being held at gunpoint. She nods furiously. “For very normal reasons!”

The bookseller blinks slowly at them both and then seems to decide he isn’t paid enough to care about whatever hostage situation this is. Some things apparently don’t change in customer service, no matter how medieval the paint job looks.

“Give me a moment,” The bookseller drones and disappears out back.

While they’re waiting, Chase elbows Margrete in the side. “Dude, stop looking like you’re having an anerythm. You’re weirding people out.”

“A what?” She squeaks.

The words fall on deaf ears, because the seller returns that moment with a book in hand.

“We only got this one, I’m afraid.” He says dryly, dropping it on the desk. “Herbs and fables 12^th edition by Erik Erikson. It got a section on poisons, I think. Don’t use it on family or scorned lovers, et cetera, et cetera. Just don’t make it our problem, Miss.”

Chase takes it with a quick thank you and tosses a few golden coins on the desk, not noticing how the seller’s eyes go wide. He hooks the book under his arm and hurries them both back outside.

They find a somewhat secluded alleyway a bit away from the hustle and bustle of marketgoers, where they huddle together over the book.

Chase flips through the pages, skimming the sections until he finds a white bouquet-looking flower drawing next to the name they’ve been looking for. The section is regrettably brief and concise, especially compared to the extensive language that he’s learned these books usually like, but Chase still drinks in every word.

Then he rereads it, and rereads it again.

The energy inside him swirls tighter with each reread, dragging heavily inside his chest.

“Do you need me to…” Margrete says.

He’s not sure what she sees in his expression, but she trails off.

“No,” he says, just as a frustrated growl builds in his throat. “Nothing. This tells us nothing.”

He slaps a hand against the page, “It says hemlock is a symbol of mourning and transformation, that it’s valued for its aesthetic appeal in landscaping, whatever that means. Thanks a lot, book. I was looking for flower metaphors, not a picture book for nerdy architects-”

A warm hand touches his shoulder, pausing his rant in its tracks.

“Not all is lost.” Margrete says, speaking softly as if the wrong word could make him blow up at her.

That alone is enough to shake Chase out of it, releasing a breath along with an unwelcome weight in his chest.

 “We still have the Everlight Eve ball coming up, that’s still a lead.”

“Yeah,” he mutters tightly, “I guess we do.”

Closing the book, Chase imagines going back to the castle and resuming the dull drag of research they’d been doing. Just for the chance that an easy clue might come up and seal the cousin’s fate in stone. There are still more dry, old as dirt books on their pile - they could just keep looking.

After finally getting a bit of fresh air and interaction, the thought makes him recoil.

“…This was a dead end, anyway, wasn’t it?” He admits.

Even if they did find a metaphor for hemlock that mapped perfectly onto the letter, what exactly would that prove? If he stopped speedrunning his mission for a second and weighed the odds, would Angela take it for good enough evidence? Most importantly, was it worth the dust allergy from rotting away for another week in that corner of the old library?

Heeeeck no.

With their mission finished up, they catch another ride on a wagon. Climbing onboard, Chase hands over a few coins to the coachman and finds a comfortable place to sit for the ride back.

They pass through the town gate, as the carriage bumps gently underneath them. He falls into a chat with the coachman, as the rooftops of the town disappear behind the hills.

The ride home is long enough that Margrete begins nodding off, eventually falling asleep against his shoulder with a soft plunk. She’s usually so hesitant to relax around him, usually acting with a nervous politeness, unlike his other two maidens when they’d gotten rudely introduced. Probably because he’s Her Highness and polite distance is how her entire life seems to operate. It’s leagues better than the princes that wouldn’t know personal space if it slapped them in the face with a warrant - but Chase can only handle so many days of nobles looking to him with scrutinizing gazes, before the simple trust of another person sleeping next to him warms his heart gratefully.

He leans on Maggie in turn and feels himself finally draining out that swirling tension in his chest, giving way to a new goal.

The Everlight ball is a while off, early spring still surrounds him. Chase weights it for a moment – it had been night when he left, so someone could just come join him when they wake. Honestly, he should have thought of this long ago, with how little difference there is between living here and there. He can spend the dark hours productively and then come back in the morning, rewarded and rested like a full night’s sleep.

He hesitates for a long moment, before gently shaking Maggie awake. Then spends a few minutes soothing her frantic apologies for using his shoulder as a pillow.

“Hey-” Chase cuts in and utters words he never thought he’d ever utter in life. “Hey, can I… oh god. Are the etiquette lessons still open?”

She blinks slowly, though it might slightly be just from sleep.

“I, uhm.” He rubs his neck. “I don’t really wanna weird people out. But I’m super going to if I don’t know all the fancy-smancy stuff I'm supposed to know. Like how to read cursive or make people not think I’m impostering or how to…” He lets out a sigh, “How to plan a royal ball, so it actually happens. The basic stuff. Just the basic stuff.”

This seems to wake Maggie. She perks up in her seat. “Of course! Yes, yes, all in your own pace, my lady. I’m.. I’m glad to hear that.”

She looks starkly relieved, and Chase feels Angela’s words echoing in his head: Our Guardian’s protection only shines as bright as the gifts you grant her, and others know that well.

For the people here, the ball is a blessing. For Chase it’s the landmark he can now point towards as he collects whatever tools are necessary to safely get there.

“Magister Harald will surely be glad as well, he’s been, well himself, frantic like a dog in a chicken barn asking for your presence-”

“Actually, I was thinking,” Chase turns to her with a small smile. “Maybe you could help me? Between you and Mom’s notebook, I think I’m pretty covered in.”

Maggie’s mouth falls open, surprise painted on her features before she nods.

“That would be an honor, my lady.”

They settle back into companiable rest. Chase hums under his breath, as he absently pages through his notebook and passes the time rereading the first few chapters. The carriage rocks underneath them, golden spring fields passing them by and giving way to the thick cover of a forest. The trail heads towards the castle of Datura Isle.

Chapter Text

“Come on, tell me.”

“Well…”

“Roast me like a marshmallow, I can handle it.”

Maggie tips her head to one side and the other. “Well, your posture could maybe need… a bit of work.”

“Whaaaat, my posture is–” Chase stops, and groans, “fine, what’s wrong with it?”

They’ve shut themselves away in the privacy of his room. Chase stands in the middle of the floor, as the first lesson of Princess Manners School has begun. He gives himself an elevator look, pursuing his lips in thought. Experimentally, he pulls his hands out of his pockets and tries standing still.

He throws a questioning glance at Maggie, who he finds is accessing him with a look of deep puzzlement, like he’s a child’s crayon drawing that has snuck its way into an upscale art museum.

“If I may, my lady…”

After a half-step pause, Maggie reaches out and guides his spine to straighten up. She ghosts a hand under his chin and lifts it. Her movement is slow and carefully telegraphed, giving him a bit of appreciated space, as he follows her directions and allows her to mold his posture like a clay figure.

Stepping back, she grades the result with a hum and gives a nod.

“Yeah?” He smiles.

“Much better.”

Out the corner of his vision, Chase glances at his reflection and is flooded by a huge wave of déjà vu.

He’s never seen himself standing tall in this manner before - or at least a figure as close to himself as this world allows. Head high and shoulders levelled, he stands with elegance like the kings of old looking down at his subjects. His simple white blouse and light blue sash offsets the image ever so slightly, though it feels odd to see this posture in royal colours rather than grey.

“Everything alright, my lady?”

He pulls his gaze away. “Yeah. Yeah, it just felt… familiar.”

She hums. “Imagine you have a string attached to the top of your head. When it pulls-” She straightens her own posture, nearly going up in her tippy toes. “You follow.”

Picturing it, Chase tries, and feels when the posture comes more naturally to him. His shoulders ease back, and his spine straightens with barely a thought. He holds it for a total of five seconds, before deflating back to normal with a smile.

“Okay, what’s next?” He says. “Do I balance books on my head? Do I drink tea with my pinkie? Oh- oh, dance lessons? I’m basically an expert at those.”

Maggie giggles. “Yes, we’ll do whatever you wish to start with.”

Chase chuckles, then feels the poke of a question that's been brewing in the back of his mind. It seems like posture and actions comes through the magic filter basically unchanged, but he still can’t fully tell whether his words have a life of their own.

“Do I sound weird to you?”

Maggie pauses for a noticeable moment, before shrugging. “Well, it’s only to be expected with your- uhm, your condition.”

“No, I mean the way I talk.” Chase says. “Do I sound crazy weird to you?”

She glances at him, pinched brows and something hesitant in her expression that he can’t decipher.

Then, she meets his gaze, and a small smile breaks through. “…You do call people ‘friend’ and ‘pal’ quite often. You have adopted a rather casual manner of speech.”

For a moment, Chase glances over to the mirror again, cold blue eyes meeting his own.

He shrugs. “I like making friends.”

“That you do.” She chuckles.

Over the next few hours, Chase is tutored through a bunch of different little games and rhymes. They’re simplistic and kinda cute, like how he learned to multiply or look before crossing the road as a kid. It feels like the etiquette lessons that a young noble girl might have learned. Maggie splutters a bit when he asks with a grin, but admits with a lowered head that yes, she’s just using what she once learned from her own tutor.

“I’m not complaining.” Chase says, as they play a naming game. They’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, several handwritten clue cards scattered between them. He picks one of them up. “I thought this would be crazy boring- that’s a chamber. But this is like being a first grader again, you just play all day. That’s… appendage?”

“Appanage.”

“Abanache.”

“Appanage. It’s the gift of an estate or other great value to a young prince or child of a high nobility. Like young Master Villum and Klara, they each have a few minor isles to their name.”

Chase squints for a moment at the notes. “I take it back. They didn’t teach this in first grade.”

The games make it easier, but soon enough Chase can feel how the gears in his brain start to creak and moan from worn use. The air in the room is stale and he’s not seen a single other face than Maggie since he came back from their trip to the town. Glancing out the window, he sees the late evening sun beginning to sink beneath the horizon, the quiet hours slowly encroaching on them. Soon enough, the castle residents will go to bed, Maggie included, and leave the steadily growing pile of paperwork on his desk as his only task.

He gets up and stretches. “What’s something Princessy I can do right now?”

“Is there something else you wish to learn?” She looks up, halfway through writing some new clue cards.

He thinks for a moment. “Dinner?”

“Ah yes, we can practice cutlery! I’ll be back shortly-”

“No, like. I’ll eat with everyone else. Real nobility style.” Chase says. “We’ll introduce me back into the game. How hard can it be?”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

In the short time before dinner, Chase gets a speed course in how to hold dinners with proper decorum and appreciation for the attendance. How to hold his fork, where to sit and what greetings to begin the feast with.

Chase’s expression gets a slightly pinched look to it.

Though the royal family usually hold their dinners privately, they sometimes open for the general guests of the castle, welcoming them in for a small feast should the occasion call for it. With the Everlight Ball only a few months from now, many took the opportunity to voyage from their faraway isles ahead of time and discuss political matters with other noble houses of the kingdom, while they had the rare chance to be together in the same place. In recent days, a few noble families had arrived at the harbor, curious to meet the reclusive Crown Princess. Only to find her absent, of course.

Chase’s expression took a dip for downright pained.

“And so,” Rasmus says boldly, waving a fork as he gestures. “I took it upon mine self to alleviate their troubles and take the greetings. They were of course dazzled by–”

He speaks loudly, though not loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the Great Hall – people chatting, chairs scrapping and servants flowing in and out of the doors, as food is brought in. The royal family sits at a long table, a few stone steps lifted above the rest of the guests. With only five people, Chase himself and Rasmus’ small side of the family, the table feels almost comically wide.

Chase fiddles with his napkin. “Mhmm, fantastic.”

He throws a glance over his shoulder, half boredom, half desperate plea for backup. Maggie stands politely a few feet behind him, leaning against the stone wall as she’s caught in conversation with Rasmus’ advisor. Chase catches her gaze, silently asking for her to drop an anvil on his head, but she just gives him two tiny thumbs up. 

He gives a pained thumbs up back.

At that moment, Rasmus starts to rise from his chair, looking like he’s about to call for attention.

Chase quickly snatches his sleeve, yanking him back down.

“Hey, it’s my job to greet everyone.” Chase leans in with a hushed voice. He throws a glance at the room, but doesn’t spot anyone paying much attention to the scene, even Villum sitting on the other side of his dad, is far more invested in folding napkins.

Rasmus’ expression sours. “Oh, how gracious of you.”

“Dude, I need to do this.”

“Pray tell why not– did you just call me pal?”

“Literally not important, just sit your butt down. I don’t wanna argue.”

“That’s a first.”

There’s a question in Rasmus’ glare, but Chase meets it with his own for a solid minute. Eventually, Rasmus flops back in his seat, defeated.  

“Well go on, young Lady-King. Take it away.” He says with a childish sneer, that Chase doesn't have the time or energy for.

Chase stands up, taking the moment before the cousin decides to change his mind.

He breathes in and out, then calls the room to attention, just as he and Maggie had practiced. Cool and professional and all that jazz.

“Hey, everyone!” He yells, cupping his mouth.

It works on the third try.

The curious and hungry eyes of the entire Great Hall jumps to him, and Chase puts on his warmest smile. Right under the table, he fiddles with a couple of notes, uncomfortably hyperaware of every time he glances down to recall his next line.

“Come and be welcome,” Chase says, his voice robotic even to his own ears. “For those of far travels and those of our neighbors. May our warm wishes keep the fire lit and your bellies full tonight. Enjoy the feast and commence in this gathering.”

Chase welcomes each house with the laundry list of formalities that he flows through with all the enthusiasm of a badly paid servant. Trying to remember each name is a losing battle that Chase quickly gives up, simply letting what he reads pass from eyes to mouth unfiltered.

Then, Chase reaches the last card and his breath stutters. This part was his own suggestion - a plaster on a wound really, but a start, nonetheless. The wording has been tweaked by Maggie, letting his idea come across without the guess work of the magic filter potentially ruining it.

He knows with absolute certainty that this will stay the same.

Conviction leaks into his voice and he lifts his chin, as he looks upon the audience.

“We stand here in trying times. As my cousin has frequently noted, I have been absent from the public in the aftermath of my mother’s illness. This was not by plan or ill intent, but rather by a simple thing that every esteemed guest in this room will know.” He glances to the side for just a moment, catching the cousin’s gaze, who stiffens in turn. “Grief.”

“The strongest of men have drowned under it, and I barely-” He stutters, recovering just a breath later. “I barely had said my farewells to my Father, our King Regent, before another tragedy befell. I believe few men in this world would not fall and struggle for air under this tidal wave. I hope you can find it in your hearts to understand, to have patience, and know I will soon be returning to my duties. Whichever grievances my absence has caused will be taken care of, I swear solemnly on Datura’s name.”

Honesty is a powerful weapon when wielded carefully, and it is quiet enough in the Great Hall that one could hear a pin-drop fall. He’s not sure where he’s heard that phrase before, but it rings as true as the hushed silence in his ears.

“May our Guardian’s light shine on our crops and her wind blow in our favor for a better tomorrow.”

He sweeps his arms wide and holds the entire room within it. His thoughts follow half a step behind, and he feels his heart pumping in his throat.

“You may feast.”

A moment passes, like a collective breath held in suspension, before it’s released and sound returns to the room. He wishes he could tell whether the faces looking up to him were of understanding or annoyance, but there were far too many of them. He holds his head high and waits until most have turned to their food and hushed conversations.

Only then does Chase sit down. He stifles the urge to bounce his leg under the table and instead picks a good heaping of bread rolls and potato mash onto his plate. He deserves it.

Rasmus has yet to say anything, and Chase chances a curious side glance.

Rasmus stabs his steak, seeming to pointedly not be looking at Chase. “Not even my daughter has need of talkin' cards.”

“Could you say that with a little less disdain, dukey?” Chase says, wrinkling his nose and casting a glance further down the table, where the daughter is literally sitting within earshot.

Rasmus doesn’t answer, for a moment Chase thinks he’ll stay weirdly quiet, but then he leans back in his seat and launches into whatever social meeting he’d been bragging about before dinner started. He speaks in the type of tone and volume that would make bank as a get-rich life coach for Shakespearean men. Chase huffs and tunes out – maybe he could talk with the daughter later and they could bond over their crappy Queen-poisoning relative.

He shoves a mouthful of potato mash on board and feels his eyes light up.

Food tastes like heaven, and he faintly realizes he hasn’t eaten like all day, too caught up in sneaking behind Angela’s back, travelling to town and doing lessons. So, he shovels in and at some point, his new found attempt at holding a princess mask slips off in favor of shoving as many calories down his cakehole as possible.

But then, Chase catches the coat tail of a story about some meeting, and he pauses. Because apparently an absent princess meant the cousin duke could ask the post office for a couple of changes. Just how comfortable has the cousin already gotten on the throne, just because Chase spent a couple of days absent from it?

Chase frowns. “You’ve been taking letters meant for me?”

“Yes, thus have I said.” Rasmus dismisses. “Verily, you must see that I understand these matters better than most-” 

“How long?” Chase says, bite seeping into his tone.

Rasmus bites back. “How long do you suppose?”

He doesn’t get to say anything else, as movement beside them draws their attention. Rasmus turns aside with the same frustrated tone he’s been using on Chase. “Villum, no- what did Mother say about you sticking the knife in your mouth?”

While he's distracted, Chase twists around in his chair and gestures for Maggie to come over. Caught in her own conversation, it takes her a second to notice, but then she hurries discretely to his side.

 "Yes, Your Highness?"

He leans in with a whisper, glancing back where Rasmus is busy scolding a sulking Villum. "Can you ask the important paper person to bring me all the junk Rasmus has been doing since, uh- since my accident?"

"The Accountant?"

"Yeah sure, that one."

"I- yes, with your signature easily enough, but that's quite a lot, my lady."

Chase shrugs. "I'll skim."

It definitely couldn't be worse than the medieval exam cramming he'd been putting himself through. This is the kind of clue that Diana would probably be more likely to notice than the poisoned wine, and though not likely, he'd kick himself to last Sunday if another clue for them had been there all along.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Good news, Chase's gut instinct succeeds once again and he finds the meeting briefings far easier to skim through than the old biology books in the library, that are surely made by people who want vibrant mother nature to seem as dry and taxidermied as humanly possible.

Bad news, the stack is at least two wine bottles tall. Chase had to relocate the already existing paper stacks from his desk onto the floor just to make room. Around his feet, a paper monster slowly grows with letters and other such things that Diana is supposed to arrange the ball with. Chase had gone and promised to fix his absence, so now her duties lay in his hands. There’s probably a couple tax papers or something that need nothing more than a signature, right? Or a prince who just wants his pen pal to tell him how right he is?

He’d look at those later.

It's late in the evening and Chase should probably go to sleep, but after the day he's had, his skin practically itches for something to show for it.

The papers from Rasmus’ meetings look practically the same as the paper monster. In Chase’s incredibly super experienced expert opinion, Rasmus has a very boring signature, no hearts or swirls or nothing. Especially for a guy who would probably humble-brag about his five summerhouses, if he’d lived in another time.

Chase poorly stifles a yawn, as he flips through his notebook for royal meeting jargon. Sometimes he finds a word that he's heard a hundred times out the mouth of snooty princes with a bizarre love of ships or fencing, but most of it is only now dripping into the cold crevices of his mind.

“Come on, magic reading skills.” Chase mutters, lightly knocking the side of his head. “English high school classes… hnnngh.”

Chase finds nothing of note for a while, or at least nothing as far as he can tell. He’s been in more courts than anyone here, so that should objectively make him the courtly expert. Bow before him.

Then something catches his eye: a sign-off for a large shipment to a house in North Fanaco. It looks normal, but the name itches at the back of his tired mind. He squints for a moment, before remembering the big swirly, kinda cool looking country on the map. Right, that one. Why did the house name sound familiar though?

He switches over to his notebook, finger trailing down the page until he finds the house name in question.

The House of Valeclair: Gentry family of noble descend, our neighbours to the southern border. Like the footfall of a giant, their name calls far and wide and they look not with gentle eyes upon those who give them no heed. So, do try to act befitting, dear…

"Okay Mom." He mumbles into his palm.

If his gut feeling is right, these are the nobles who will visit a week from now. He must have heard that at some point. He should probably… he should…

His sleep schedule has been pretty much shot to hell ever since he stepped a foot in these halls, but Chase lasts for a little while longer, before sleep gently drags him under.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

He wakes up in his other bed.

The bed is small, cheaply bought once upon a time, his toes poke over the edge when he stretches. The room is cold and the prints on walls waver in and out of focus in a nauseating way. He looks away.

He blinks, he's at the foot of the staircase.

The living room is empty. Muted light of cold blue and white shine from the windows, washing the room in pale colours.

He sits down, he sinks into the sofa.

On the table, there’s a plate of brownies made for two. Hunger gnaws at him, but he only takes the half.

The television sits in front of him. He turns it on, letting the static and rush of voices wash over him. He bites into the brownie.

There’s the impression of a person in the doorway and he looks over.

His dad is there, so tall he could reach the ceiling and so big that his hugs are a shelter which pushes out the world.

Hi. He says.

His dad’s mouth does not move. Hi.

Come sit? He pats the sofa. Mom is coming soon.

His dad does not move. Instead, he stares at him without eyes. Art thou well enow?

Chase wakes up with a scream caught in his throat.

For a moment, he just catches his breath, chest rising and falling rapidly without his permission. He stares up at the velvet covering suspended over his bed, blinking wavey figments out of his vision. Slowly he returns to reality.

“Urrrgh, that’s enough work for you Chasey.” He groans, turning over to mush his face into the pillows. The moon shines a cold light, casting across the floor to reach him, like an eerie imitation of the dream or simply the source of it for his sleepy mind.

Chase groggily fumbles with a nightside candle. Once lit, it casts a warm glow and allows his eyelids to grow heavy once more and he sighs.

He falls back asleep, the dream forgotten by the time that morning nudges him awake.

Chapter Text

Chase rushes down the stairs, notebook in hand and Maggie barely keeping up behind him.

"Hurry, hurry." He waves at her. "If we're late, Rasmus gonna hold it over me until the big boom of the universe."

The Valeclairs are one of the larger houses from North Fanaco, people of old tradition whose isles hug the southern border of this kingdom. The important part for Chase is that any kind of trade and foreign import coming from the south goes through their docks before it can reach this coast. Fancy food and wares are apparently not things that can easily be bought on short notice.

Meaning if the Valeclairs decided to be numb-nuts and delay shipping with a couple weeks, it was bye-bye to the Everlight Ball and Chase’s only lead on the “How I Murdered Your Mother” plot. He's just gonna nail his first impression as Crown Princess and win the hearts of the same stuffy nobles who insulted an 8-year-old’s fashion choices. Easy lemon squeezy.

They make it outside just in time for a large carriage to pass through the gates. Closely behind follows an escort of men on horseback, likely made up of minor nobles and knights.

Catching his breath, Chase smoothes out his pants and makeshift blouse. As the carriage comes to a stop in front of him, he straightens his back.

The noble that steps out is a broad shouldered man with black greying hair and a smile that shows off his very white teeth.

The nobleman bows with a hand on his own chest. “Her Highness.”

“Happy to have you here. His Grace.” Chase says and tries not to throw a glance at Maggie to see if he did that right. Then he remembers that he also has to bow and all that, a little bop of the head like he’s been taught.

Okay, Chasey, you practiced this. You got it.

“With your long journey behind you, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that our kitchen has cooked up a filling dinner for this evening. I assume you and your family wishes to settle into your chambers first?”

“Ah.” He says. “I’m afraid my children and Goodwife are not with us for this travel, tis simply me and my beautiful mistress.”

“Your what-”

Chase runs ‘mistress’ through his brain a couple of times, before it returns a swagtime melody and he has to clamb his jaws shut not to gape.

A woman steps down from the carriage. Her long black hair and sharp blue eyes are drowned in a big puffy pink dress and frills, that looks like it could be stuck in the ground and used as a landmark. As she looks up at him, her smile fades to something almost sugary and serene.

“Countess Bellmount.” The nobleman introduces her, and the Countess bows politely.

Chase bows back, tossing the name into his memory for later.

“Uh, hey,” He says. “Happy to have you too.”

Putting on his best hostess voice, Chase welcomes them into the castle. While the servants stream around them and relocate the guests’ belongings to their rooms, Chase takes the chance to spend a little time showing them around. The castle halls have become such familiar ground to him that he barely has to pay attention to where his feet take him.

As they stroll through the garden, Chase is pelted with barrages of humble brags and navel-gazing interests, as is the long standing tradition of all snobby Princes and Dukes.

Giving a hum here and there, he puts on a hostess smile and mentally tunes out.

At one point, he glances back at the Countess, who trails so far behind them that she’s almost walking shoulder to shoulder with Maggie. She’s glancing around the garden with flittery eyes, but stops the second that she seems to feel Chase’s gaze on her, like she’d been caught with her fingers in the cookie jar.

Chase catches Maggie’s eyes and throws a small glance at the Countess.

Keep an eye on her. He mouthes. Maybe she’s planning on stealing all the flower vases or something.

Maggie gives a tiny nod.

Then he turns back to nobleman-what’s-his-title. He’d known this morning, but as the one-sided conversation had dragged on, so had Chase’s ability to retain the information plummeted.

“-For even a man of fine status who spend his life travelling hither and thither will hardly find a cuisine that matches the refined taste of home.“

“Uhuh.”

“Now, in my opinion the dish is only half the experience of the meal. There’s the presentation, the auroma, the seating and the fair maidens who brings the plates fourth to wake the appetite. Any chef worth his salt should know a man’s hunger is satiated in his belly and his eyes.”

Chase makes a face. “Our chef is a nice dude- an honest man. He keeps good staff and wares, I assure you.”

The nobleman’s voice is coated in saccharine sweetness. “Ah yes, a workman of the kingdom of Lady-Kings. Small in might, yet vicious and beautiful.” He says like it’s a compliment. “Will I have the fortune to lay mine eyes upon the Queen fair?”

Chase returns the tone, like one would throw a bees-nest at a bear. “My Mother is terribly sick and bedridden. I’m afraid she’s not able to be gawked at today.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Chase says. “Don’t you have enough of that already in your Mistress? If your wife was able to have a couple of side pieces too, then cool, you do you. But given,” He distainfully gestures at all of Sir Douchebag, “I don’t feel like your relationship swings that way.”

Sir Douche looks genuinely speechless for a satisfying moment, tugging at his own jacket like Chase had slapped him.

“I see you've inherented your Mother’s looks, but none of her charity.” he says coldly, the sugary sweetness gone, which just makes Chase scowl harder. “though it is wonderous to know how our northern allies truly speaks of us now.”

With a shrivel on his feet and nose turned upwards, Sir Douche takes his leave and marches off.

Chase crosses his arms and glares a hole at his retreating back.

Maggie looks like someone who's just witnessed a carriage of treasures fall of the isle’s cliff-edge, she stands wide eyed with hands over her mouth.

“Serves him right.” Chase huffs.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

People talked.

Sir Douche had allegedly packed his bags that evening and almost left in a big huff, had it not been for Rasmus, of all people, stepping in and calming the other man’s butt-hurt feelings over a hunting trip to the woods.

Then yelled at Chase about it.

At least they'd been in a private chamber this time, when Rasmus had called him an incomprehensible blemish on the House and Chase had told him to go choke on his inflated ego.

Not soon after, Maggie lets him know that gossip is circling about a verbal dispute with their closest ally, reaching from the aristocrats and down to the floor-scrubbers in the kitchen.

Only few seem to be jerring at their princess, but in the corners of the castle, they’ve taken his word as permission to make a joke of the Valeclairs. Hopefully Rasmus wouldn't hear it, so he found more excuses to lord his “far superior competences” over Chase.

It isn’t regret that washes through Chase, because he totally owned that dude, but just… well… He might have slightly torched an important bridge for the entire kingdom’s economy. Slightly, just like a vague burn mark on the ropes. God, this is unfair, why does he have to be the bigger person?

“It’s fine.” He mutters to himself, while pacing his room. “It’s gonna be old news by next week. I can fix it… I can… fix it…”

Chase’s gaze trails off.

Piles and piles of letters bury his desk, work he’d kept putting off during the rush of etiquette lessons, never quite getting to it as days slipped by. Ink sits waiting in its jar and unfilled papers laid scattered across his desk, except-

Picking it up, he finds his own chickenscratch, written with quill by inexperienced hands. Some easy letter he’d done the first night he came here. He huffs a laugh. So much for writing it, he hadn’t even thought to hand it over to Maggie or a servant. Now it’s just laying here gathering dust, the postman none the wiser.

Chase skims through it and well, he can touch up on some of the phrasing. Writing probably translates just as badly as words. He grabs a fresh paper and pulls his chair in. Carefully, he balances his notebook on the needed page.

Chase could do this. If he couldn’t watch his big mouth yet, then he could watch what he puts down on paper. He isn’t doing this princess bit for the glittery crown and he isn’t doing it to fix Sir Douche’s overseas marriage or this world’s far too complicated geopolitics run by gossip and oversensitive jerks. Diana is doing this for her mother. He’s doing this for her.

He's doing it for her. His leg bounces with unspent energy, his thoughts swarm like unhappy bees in his head. He's doing it for her. With each repetition, each attempt to focus on completing as much work as he can, his brain strains and complains under the abuse.

Somewhere in the noise, he recalls a conversation he’d had with Angela the other day.

Take it in bite sized pieces. She’d told him. Maybe she had noticed the frown tugging at his lips or maybe he was just that easy to read. When the world tries to drown you, focus on what you have right here, right in front of you. Not yesterday or tomorrow, only the present, for that is where your mind is needed.

“Bite sized pieces.” He mutters.

What is most important right now?

Shipments. Winning back enough of the Valeclair’s favor. Keeping Rasmus’ snooty mug off the throne until the ball.

How can you achieve it?

Find out what shipments are needed and approve them. Challenge Sir Douche to a duel, no- punch his white teeth in, no- he’d promised not to threaten their neighbours. Promise… broken.

Chase groans, dragging his hands down his face.

Okay, forget the Valeclairs, forget the music playing in his ear as his duties demand a perfected waltz, and forget what came before the now.

He breathes in and out. Slowly but surely, a calm settles over him, drizzling through his frame and allowing him to dampen the noise in his head.

Finish what you started.

The weeks-old letter in his hand is unremarkable, just a half-done reply to a vain complaint from some minor noblewoman. But just as he’s about to dismiss it for other more pressing matters, Chase pauses and does a double take.

Countess Drusilla Joan Bellmount, Countess of Yurst Isle of Datura.

“Holy shit.” He says, a smile spreading on his lips. “Okay, hold your feathers, we have a resident of Poison Isle in the house.”

Change the to-do-list to four things. Now, he has to win enough of Sir Douche’s favor and spy on his Mistress. While the ball preperations have officially started rolling, he would never say no for a chance to potentially cut the mystery behind Rasmus’ supplier short.

He glances at the overflowing table desk and winces.

“Okay homework tonight, spy tomorrow.”

Fuelled by calming focus, he spends the evening writing up shipments for the ball, sorting the invitations into piles and maybe making a letter to Sir Douche’s wife that she's very welcome to come by for a cake picnic if she ever has the time.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

Unfortunately, Chase doesn’t get the chance to play spy in the immediate time following. Soon after, while him and Maggie are chatting on the way to Angela’s room for his morning visit, he gets jumped by several aristocrats. They turn out to be Diana’s legion of royal advisors, who are none too pleased about their lack of recent advising - much unlike Rasmus who seems to have gotten away with just one advisor. Chase is practically whisked away by buzzing chatter and “Your Highness” and “the treasury says so and so” into a roundtable room.

On the good side, they take like half the workload off his shoulders, even if the trade off is an entire morning of mind numbing monologues over border disputes and what-not. Chase haggles their demands to kill his ears down to a meeting twice a week, neither party really happy, which is the true sign of a fair deal.

Chase puts out a dinner invite to his fraud relations, which turns out to be about as interesting of an affair as one could imagine. Sir Douche spends the entire time complaining about the food, even his thinly veiled flattery has been stripped back, while the Countess laughs at every one of his unfunny jokes.

With the beginnings of a plan, Chase agrees with him and tries to complain about how difficult good food is to get imported, but oh how he would love to introduce foreign flavors if the opportunity arose. The insincere words feel awkward on his tongue and wither before he can push out a full performance. Instead, he's just given a funny look from them both and he blushes beet-red.

The time after that only gets worse, as Rasmus decides to butt in on the social event, where the combined power of his and Sir Douche’s monologuing could feed an entire family of twelve. Chase keeps his mouth shut, lest he gives the rumour mill more steam to run on.

After their argument, Chase and Rasmus have entered a somewhat silent agreement to avoid each other, only meeting at the long table during dinners and public speakings. Unfortunately that agreement did not include, when Rasmus saw fit to muck up Chase’s day.

He’d tried trailing after Countess Bellmount, but gotten blocked by Rasmus’ advisor who wanted his thoughts on whatever-the-heck.

He'd fallen asleep while watching out his window for anyone sneaking in the garden, exchausted because Rasmus decided to let him babysit Villum for the day and the kid got that really sad look in his eyes when Chase even just thought about saying no. They'd played with marbles, it was kinda nice.

He's gotten absolutely no spying done and it’s all Rasmus’ fault. Between his bragging and and “blah blah blah do your duties, cousin,” Chase learns the art of avoiding any signs of an overly decorated jerk vest.

One day, Chase knocks on Angela’s door and peeks his head in.

“Can I work in here?”

He ends up spending the afternoon at her bedside, the two of them simply existing next to each other. Angela leisurely reads a novel, while Chase gruels through an exciting pile of last week’s invitation letters.

Words flow steadily from Chase, as he nudges her for advice. He points out passages from a stuck-up nobleman determined to overprice his stock, and a tradesman convinced the ball’s success hinges on whether the curtains are ocean blue or lake blue. Angela answers with her own stories of strange exchanges, comfortably circling gossip.

Eventually though, she asks him the money question - how his etiquette lessons with the Magister are going.

A small hint of a frown shows itself, when Chase waves her off.

“Diana, have you been going?”

Chase smiles, and she gives him a stern look.

He deflates. “Do I have to? The magister is… mmhm.” He has a few choice words to say, none of which are diplomatic, so he holds back. “Anyway, Maggie's been teaching me the stuff. I'm basically nailing it.”

“It’s- it's not always as bad as I thought.” He admits. “It's kinda like doing improv theatre. Except there's no singing in the eating hall- we should really fix that, maybe all these sad sacks just need a musical in their life like that grumpy dude who met three spirits. Oh, actually for the ball, I was thinking we make a big stage and I welcome everyone with the Chase-Choice-Awards starring my new hit song to really soften them up. I have a sketch-”

Angela raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been taken lessons from your lady-in-waiting?”

“Yes?” Chase looks up, “I- sorry, I thought I’d told you.”

Angela softens. “Well if you’re learning what you need, I will appease the Magister for you. Have you at least spoken with your advisors?”

“Yeees.” Chase groans. “They're like if a bookclub ate the treasury, but instead of turning into a cool dragon, they just grew white beards and opinions on tax margins.”

Angela chuckles. She leans over and lightly ruffles his hair, bony fingers slipping through strands and messing up his styling. “Hmm, your hair is growing quite wild, dear.”

“Mooom.” Chase says, but doesn’t move away.

A warm feeling bubbles in his chest, as he looks at her. She’s been looking better lately, still a bit green around the gills, but color is steadily returning to her ashen frame. Her voice just a bit stronger, as the poison clears from her veins.

With her advice and presence enveloping him, the cruelling work of his position doesn’t feel quite as mind numbing. He’d trade a stable of pegasus in a heartbeat for these things to have just a drawing or two, though.

“I’m not saying these things to hurt you, only to prepare you.” Angela says, tucking a strand behind his ear. “I only wish I could be with you tomorrow at the ceremony.”

Chase stills.

Angela pauses, then raises an eyebrow. “Diana?”

“Whaaat- I haven’t forgotten anything.” Chase says. “You’ve forgotten anything, I’m totally fine and up to date with everything that happened before… uhm, you know like. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Your coronation, dear. To rule in my stead as Princess Regent. That coronation.”

“Oh yeah, that one.”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“Sure is, yup.”

She frowns, but thankfully only says, “I’ve made sure it is nothing extravagant, spirits knows you have enough formalities on your plate. It’ll be a small affair- a formality at most. You have already fitted the shoes I left behind, but-” Her expression turns grave. “I do not think your absence would be a wise choice.”

It would also be like tossing gold into a river, Chase thinks, as he mentally checks off one of the points on his to-do list. After all, it’s gonna be hard for cousin Rasmus’ behind to fit on the throne, if it’s been carved for Chase.

“Oh… oh.” He says in an airy tone. “I’ll be a monarch for real.”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

On the morning of his coronation, Chase wakes from a night of restless sleep. He sits for a moment on the edge of his bed, with an odd mix of fluttery butterflies and nausea churning in his guts.

“Okay, okay, cool Chasey. You’ve done stuff like this before.” He says, his fingers digging into the mattress. “It’ll be a formality at most.”

He isn’t sure yet what he’s supposed to say or do, but he’ll just wing it. It’s been awhile since he wung something, he can wung this, as a treat. It’ll just be like his royal birthday.

Chase pulls himself up and goes through his morning routine, until the point when he takes out his usual outfit of comfortable pants and white blouse. He pauses, weighing the makeshift decoration in his hands and slightly worn down fabric from weeks of washing and reuse.

The thought of walking up the aisle in what’s essensially become his work clothes, presses on Chase’s mind. He clicks his tongue and shoves it back in his drawer. Instead, he grabs whatever clothing looks the fanciest and assembles a makeshift costume of his own design.

Then the fight begins.

“I swear I will have a word with Mrs. Seamstress.” Chase mutters, aggresively pulling on his sleeve. “Fabric, I am going to make you obey me.”

He fumbles at the strings on the back that he can’t quite reach, shooting a look at the standing mirror to get a good angle. His reflection looks back at him, messy bed hair curtaining his face and the shirt decent enough, but not as decent as it would be with the loops pulled snug.

He runs a hand through his haystack, doing it a couple of times before it gets somewhat under control. Ugh, Angela was right, he really did need a haircut.

He's pulled from his thoughts by a knock on the door. Distractedly, he calls back and a moment later, he hears Maggie enter his chamber.

“The coronation will commence soon, my lady.” She greets.

“Yeah yeah, I’m just on the stairs. Tell ‘em to hold their napkins.”

His attempts drag on for a few more minutes, where eventually Maggie approaches him.

“Do you wish for assistance?” She asks.

“Nah, I got it.”

He’s got one of the loops to work right, now just onto the five others. He fliddles with it, tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration.

“Permission to speak bluntly?”

Chase sighs. “Maggie, you don’t need permission for that.”

“Okay.” She nods, then after a brief moment, she steps closer. “I understand with your Coronation… and Her Majesty’s duties now yours, that you wish to carry everything on your own shoulders. I admire that, my lady, truly, but-“ She tightens a loop with a sudden yank and gives him a flat look. “But I’ll be out of a work if you act as ringmaster, trapezer and carpenter all at once, so please shut your yap and let me dress you.”

Chase’s jaw drops. “Maggie!”

Maggie immediately backpedals, letting the string go. “Was that too much? Please don’t take it ill, Your Highness, I was just- you simply looked so dour-“

A moment passes. Chase doesn’t say anything, instead he just lifts his other arm for easier access with a small smile.

“Shutting up.” Maggie whispers and gets to work.

She continues having a slightly funny look on her face and Chase manages to wring out of her that there is actually an outfit specifically made for the occassion.

Luckily with a maid on hand, it doesn’t take very long to switch. She’s a bit confused when he asks her to turn away while he changes pants, but thankfully doesn’t question her lady’s modesty - maybe she blames it on the amnesia or maybe she’s just a good friend.

Chase gets up on the little stool and Maggie buzzes around him like a worker bee, pulling a blouse over his head, connecting little silver chains and handing him new earrings. He feels a bit like an actor being prepared for a big performance.

“Maggie?” Chase says hesitantly. “…Was I supposed to know I'm getting coronated today?”

She pauses, looking up at him. His arms circle himself. She frowns.

“I… I'm not sure, it may have been decided before… your time. But I don't believe you've heard its mention. It's a small affair, my lady, you do not need to fret. I can understand why the due date may have been lost in the frazzle of your amnesia.”

“I'm not fretting.” Chase mutters.

“I should have mentioned it, I'm the one who knows your condition. I- I forgot it as well, I'm so sorry my lady-”

“It's fine, Maggie. No harm done.”

She doesn’t reply, just gives a small nod that looks like a bow.

Eventually, she steps back and he’s all ready to go.

Chase looks himself in the mirror. Dressed in a light, sky blue vest, it’s neatly held together with a belt around his midsection that bears the isle’s emblem. On his shoulders hangs a night blue cloak to frame his sillohuet, so long that it ghosts the floor. It’s embroidered in silver swirling patterns that matched his earrings and makes him look like a water fairy walking the earth. He… looks really nice actually, the clothes layered in flowing fabrics and silver rims, comfortably sewn just for him and befitting of a Princess Regent.

He steps down from the stoll and does a little spin, gesturing up and down at himself, like he’s trying to impress the snootiest of fine gentlemen. Though, they’d be lucky to have a star like him for even an evening.

“Well.” He says. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

The ceremony is held outside of the castle walls.

Near the cliffside where one can freely gaze out on the horizon, sits an old, small pavilion. The base of its stone melts into the earth and ivy snakes up its open frame. It does not look decrepit, but rather like it is intentionally one with the green scenery around it. Chase wonders if pulling out a weed here would be seen as blasphemous.

A small group of people have joined in the gathering, mostly faces he recognises - higher born nobles, the Valeclairs and Rasmus’ family. No chairs have been brought, instead everyone sits on decorated blankets laid out in the grass outside the pavillion. Villum and Klara waves at Chase with toothy grins, as he passes them by, before their Mother can hush them.

Sharp wind blows through his hair and he faintly hears the rush of a river somewhere nearby. With only way forward, he steps up to the pavillion.

Chase expects a priest or flowers or a red carpet, but only finds a silver crown sitting on a podium underneath an overgrown statue. It depicts a humanoid carved in black stone, with large wispy hair like a gathering of clouds and an open ribcage, where a miniature family sits inside. Her eyes are closed in sleep.

Datura, he thinks faintly.

He’d only learned about this Coronation yesterday. Honestly, he’d assumed he was already Regent to begin with. This is only a formality. And yet, his heart thunders in his throat, as he steps up to the alter.

He finds Rasmus standing up there as well, off the side and hands behind his back as his eyes follow Chase. Chase throws a small wiggle of his eyebrows back at him, hidden from the audience. Rasmus just stands with a solemn expression, and the mirth fades from Chase.

Rasmus picks up the crown, like a servant would precious gold, and holds it out for him.

“For her presence is absent from today’s gathering, I stand before you in place of Queen Angela Marcusdaughter. By her blessing and by Our Guardian’s will, until Her Majesty finds herself in better health and spirit, may her daughter Diana Valdemarsdaughter, cousin mine, be the Blessed Guide of our people. May it be, that her responsibility lasts a lifetime, she will dedicate her spirit to our home with grace and dignity.”

A weight lingers in the air, where breath is held in suspension. It calls and he answers.

“I, Diana Solhildur,” he murmurs, “daughter of Valdemar and Angela, Crown Princess of Datura Isles, accept in heart and spirit, the duty of Regent gifted by our Guardian.”

With empty lungs and no words left to give, he lowers his head and lets the crown settle heavy onto him.

“Long Live Her Majesty, Blessed Guide and Kin of Our Earth. Long May She Live.”

He straightens to his full height, turning to face the gathered assembly. A vicious pull tightens in his chest and he wishes Mom could be here to see him. All he can do is promise himself that he’ll visit her later.

“Now.” He says. “Now, we may go home and feast.”

Chapter Text

True to his word, once the late evening invites an end to the festivities and Chase finally finds a moment to breathe, he excuses himself and slips upstairs.

He knocks on the door, a moment before he peaks in.

“Hey Mom.” Chase says. “Guess who just got coronated? This lady— Mom?”

Where he expects to find her, he instead sees her bed empty and forgotten, the covers haphazardly thrown to the side. She’s standing upright, wobbly attempting to support her herself on the chair that’s usually for him during visits.

“Evening, darling.” She looks up, her voice thin from strain. “That’s— urgh, that’s wonderful to hear. Tell me all about it.”

“You’re up!” He gasps, closing the door behind him.

In a few quick steps, Chase is right beside her. He steadies the wobbly chair with a quick hand and offers the other to her. She’s tall, he realises, as her thin frame casts a shadow over him.

With a sigh, she waves him off. “Yes, and I am never touching a wine bottle again.”

She braves a daring step, but her legs shake like branches in the wind. They hold for about two steps, before they give out and Chase catches her mid-stumble. Her entire shaky weight presses down on his arms, and he stumbles a bit in turn. The grip feels clammy and feverish.

Chase frowns. “Mom, stop being stubborn.”

“Hah! Never.” She says.

With his insistence and a bit of puppy eyes thrown in, she does however soon cave and allow him to guide her back to the bed.

She sighs, “I had foolishly hoped that went better.”

“Recovery’s usually not zero to a hundred.” Chase pokes her. "You gotta ride a horse, before you run like one.”

“Like a horse?”

“Yup, you can’t run like it, if you can’t even get up on it. Basic facts. Same with you and walking.”

She huffs a laugh. “That does sort of remind me. I’m having the doctor come over soon, do you wish to stay?”

“Oh.” He pauses a moment. “… Do you need me to stay?”

Something guilty passes her expression. “You shouldn’t have to. I’ve been fine on my own before.”

“I’m staying.” Chase says, packing up whatever feelings he has on doctors and medical visits into a nice little ball that gets thrown into the back of his mind.

Once the doctor arrives, he enters the room with a short, clipped greeting and gets swiftly to work. He runs a handful of exercises and questions with the ease of routine, that she answers in kind. Chase watches quietly, hands tightly held in his lap.

Eventually, doctor lets her arm rest on the bed.

“It’s too early to say for certain…” the doctor says and his expression turns solemn, “but it’s unlikely you’ll make a full recovery. You should be glad that the cause was stopped in time. If I may be so blunt, it's nothing short of a miracle that you're breathing as is.”

The room falls quiet, as the news sink in.

It takes Chase a moment to find his words. “Well, that’s better than dead,” his voice raises. “We can— we can work with unlikely. That’s fine. We can work with that.”

He turns to her hopeful, and sees as she exhales softly.

“It's alright.” She says, her tone entirely unreadable. “I think, I knew there was no saving me. The damage has already been done.” Then, she meets Chase’s eyes and her expression bleeds into a smile built on age and stone. “Keep that chin raised, young lady, I am not done with this world yet. My reach is laughable, but I will be by your side for as long as you need me.”

That’s what makes Chase’s face fall. He scoots over, wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a tight side hug. She stiffens in surprise for a heartbeat, before her posture softens and she squeezes his arm back.

“You’ll be okay.” He pushes into the world. “I swear it.”

The silence after his words hangs over the room. He hugs her like how he would hold a shield.

The doctor clears his throat. “I recommend plenty of bed rest, your Grace.”

“Thank you, doctor.” She says absently.

Chase leans back. “And walks outside. Uhm, walks are good.” he croaks.

Both of them look to him with puzzled expressions.

The doctor turns back to her. “Naturally, your body’s humours are unbalanced, so expect the dizzy spells to continue for some time yet. Eat plenty of broth until the next full moon. Once it rises, I’ll come by with the leeches—”

“Okay.” Chase breaks in, a strained chuckle in his voice. He gets up. “that’s— I think that’s fine, Sir Doctor. Thank you.” He claps the man’s back and starts unceremoniously guiding him towards the door. “My Mother’s humour is plenty balanced— she cracked a joke at me just last morn’. Don’t worry a leech about it.”

Giving the doctor the final push out the door, Chase all but slams it shut. He shudders.

“Mom, if he starts letting leeches get their grubby little teeth near you, then you eat them first. Circle of life, or something. Got it?”

“Agree… I’ve never quite understood that practice.”

Chase nods emphatically, before a full-body shudder runs through him again.

“Now… with such out of the way.” She says. Slowly, she lifts an hand out to Chase. “You mentioned a stroll may be good for the soul?”

He’s already taken her hand and is helping her up, before he says. “"Wait, now?”

“I was attempting to do as much myself, anyway.” She says, leaning on him. “But maybe two is better than one in this case.”

“Do you have, maybe, some crutches we can use?”

“Some, what?”

“So, that’s a no.” He says, catching her when she almost trips again. “...We can always wait and figure out a better way tomorrow.”

“No, you said it was a good idea. There's no time like today.” She bites out, holding onto his arm like a lifeline.

“I…” He trails off, faced with the wall of saying no to her. “Okay, Mom.”

With some trail and error, they make a functional operation, where she has her arm around his shoulder and she clutches his hand in support. All the while, Chase continues talking.

“How is that a ‘no’ to crutches?” He says. “That should definitely not be a ‘no’, we’re living in like the 12th hundreds, not the stone age. Are they too busy catching leeches? Stone age people were smart, they probably had stone crutches when they hurt their feetsies. It’s not magic, you just take two sticks and stick them together, like come on people—”

She hums conversationally, as Chase fills the air with chatter.

They get out in the hall and carefully make their way down. It’s a slow, but steady journey as they brave the stairs together and make it down towards the lower levels of the castle.

The few people they pass turn their heads in a double take at the wobbly Queen and Princess, before Chase gives them a sharp glare, and they hurry off to wherever they were going. She hardly reacts, as if their stares were little more than air to her.

It works well enough, until they come across a servant on the lowest floor. The servant gasps, and quickly runs to their side.

“Your Majesty!” He exclaims. “The doctor said she needed bed rest, h— how in the world is that poor thing down here?”

Dang, word travels fast, Chase notes.

“The halls will be swimming with guests soon, do you need a room to be arranged, or—”

Chase feels her grip on his arm tighten every so slightly.

“No thank you, that won't be needed.” He cuts through with the most prissy princess tone he can manage. He bulldozes past the servant, pulling her with him. “Mother-daughter celebration of my coronation, trumpets and crumpets, you know how it is.”

“Oh— uhm, my apologies, Your Majesty.”

“And kindly make sure my cousin doesn’t disturb us in the gardens.” He calls over his shoulder.

He doesn't hear the distant reply, not does he care to hear it, as he's already taken them much further down the hall. He turns back to her, who blinks at him a little owlishly.

Chase squeezes her arm. “Quick snack stop on the way?”

Underneath the privacy of a tree, where the afternoon sun gently shines through the leaves, they set up a little picnic. Snacks in the form of the first things Chase could snatch from the kitchen fills up a little basket — today’s leftover menu is made of bread and berries apparently.

“So, was this totally the best idea or what?” Chase says, leaning back on his hands.

She doesn’t reply immediately, her eyes are shut and she lays on her back in the yellow grass and flowers. After a few moments delay, she makes a happy noise, like an indoor cat gifted with a sunbeam.

“That doc is a hack.” Chase plops down next to her. He makes a disdainful gesture. “If he thinks the moon clears out poison, then he's already down in bye bye land. I totally would have smooched the moon ages ago and gotten like, the clearest pores in the history of all history.”

“I mean—” He gestures around them. “You’re outside! You’re recovering! Yeah, you’re not great, great, but you’re okay. We’re okay!” He smiles brightly. “I actually helped.”

She hums in reply.

A quiet, peaceful air settles over them. For a few minutes neither speaks, as they simply sit and enjoy the breezy afternoon together. It feels hard to believe that just this morning, he was coronated. The crown now lays on a pillow in his chamber, silver, shining and heavy, instead of with the person it used to belong to.

“Thank you for this, darling. I… needed this.” She murmurs, her voice so very warm, even while tinged with quiet melancholy.

“Just happy I could help.” Chase leans against her. “You get all cooked in the brain when you hide inside all day.”

Mom leans back. “That’s a lesson we both can learn, I think.”

Chase considers for a brief moment.

“Nope.” He says, threading something lighter into his tone. “I’ve already learned every lesson left to learn. That’s why I'll be known as The Goodest and Wisest Regent.”

It makes Mom let out a quiet huff, almost a chuckle if she permitted it so, and she pulls him a little closer. Her hold is bony, but real and bathed in sunlight. “I wish that was so.”

“"Wha— hey, you were supposed to agree, Mom!”

“I try not to be a liar.”

“Well, lie more often.” Chase leans against his mom and lets his eyes fall shut. “Lie to me.”

“Oh darling... I have no wish to.”

A few more minutes pass, the peaceful air settling back over them like a blanket they’re sharing. Chase makes himself comfortable and begins to drift off. He almost misses it, when she quietly says, “Sir Becker gave me interesting news yesterday.”

Chase straightens up. “Wait— you, really?!”

He looks at her. Mom is pressing her knuckles against her lips, seeming almost startled by herself. They lower and she sighs. “Yes, really.”

“He’s been looking at which merchants could have sold us the poisoned bottles. We know the isle, but they don’t live in a climate where the poison should be grown. Our taste testers are strict about new wares, so it would have to mixed after passing the tests. So, he claims that our culprit likely came from within these walls.”

Chase perks up. “So—”

“That is not proof, Diana.” She cuts him off. “There are many who walk the halls of this castle, your cousin is not the only one with a story to tell.”

“Well, I can always go investigate!” He starts getting up, ideas forming and getting discarded, as quickly as he rises to his feet—

Mom catches him by the wrist. “Wait!”

Both of them go still.

Her expressions softens. “What if we just stay here a little bit? The culprit is hardly going to run anywhere tonight. What did I tell you about splitting yourself in half?” She pauses, brows furrowing. “You look tired, darling.”

Chase sits back down. Right, she'll need help getting back to her room, so they can only stay here for as long as he staying here. He almost cut that short.

“Well I did get crowned today, that takes a bite out of a gal.” He says, apology in his tone.

She hums, “Yes, how was that?”

“Well, Maggie helped me into this really nice outfit and I totally wasn’t sweating bullets, when I walked down the aisle. Everyone, I mean literally, everyone was staring, and not in the nice way where you’re obviously the hottest person in the room, but in the way where you’re thinking like, ‘man, do I have something stuck in my teeth?’ Anyway, I handled that super chill and princessy, I didn’t have anything stuck in my teeth, thank you for asking—”

In more or less a coherent manner, he retells the events of the morning. A nice breeze flows through the grass and carries his voice, as they spend their time outside together, until the sun dips underneath the curtain walls of the castle.

≻────────── ・☆・ ──────────≺

In the time following his coronation and between his private lessons, Chase makes an effort to spend time outside his chamber, where he enjoys existing in the going-ons of the castle. When servants nervously approach him with a question or the carpenter would like a third round of “yes, the carpets are going to sparkle. No, no, we’re not using pixie dust.” it’s undeniably quicker to be approached in person, than hearing it through the servant-to-Housekeeper pipeline three days late.

The pavilion in the garden becomes a favorite of his. The sun baking down on his skin and the easy breeze in his hair makes it slightly more tolerable to sit down with homework for several hours a day. His current project is still to get Sir Douche on board with the stupid trade agreement and well… that project is certainly coming along. Or it will, sometime soon, definitely.

On other days, when hard winds or rainy clouds disagree with him, he’s forced to look indoors for a private enough place to spend his time. Maybe he should order Mom’s old cabinet cleaned up, so he could move in there, but there’s a giant, gross, deer head hanging over the desk that Chase is pretty sure will come to life if someone touches it.

So, he begrudgingly shakes hands with his old enemy — the library.

During one such rainy afternoon, Chase and Maggie are huddled away in a familiar nook of the library.

Chase feels a thump against his leg.

Pointedly, he continues his reading, head resting on his chin, as he stifles a yawn. Some loose hair falls in his face and he tucks it behind his ear.

A lesser known side effect of sitting at the tables in the library is that small bridge trolls tend to hide underneath them.

“Auntie Ana?”

“Yes?”

“Auntieeeee.”

“Yes?”

The small bridge troll, joined by his troll sister, giggle underneath his table, like they’re playing some great prank on Chase and he's falling for it, hook, line and sinker.

Chase retaliates the same way he has in every encounter with the little table dwellers — by repeatedly poking them in the side with his foot. A minor battle erupts at once, the two trolls start viciously clawing and punching at his leg as he herds them toward the daylight. Not soon after, two children crawl out. 

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. For each time they've tried, it's been just a little easier for his legs to reach them, even if they try to hide all the way in the back.

“Villum. Klara. I said you could sit with me, but you have to sit. This space under here—” He points. “That’s Auntie Ana’s leg space. It’s exclusive, only for legs. No upper bodies or heads allowed.”

“I don’t have a head.” Klara says with dead conviction, as she crawls up on her knees.

Villum crosses his arms. “I don’t have a upper body.”

“Congrats, you’re dead, kids.” Chase deadpans.    

Undeterred by his undead status, Villum pouts with a look that’s far too familiar. If given any leeway that look will grow sparkles and the powers of a puppy.

Chase tries to look away. “Nooo, no playing with me today. I’m busy with super complicated, boring, adult stuff.”

“Please—”

“No. And, Klara, don’t you dare—”

“If I may…” Maggie hops in quietly, then immediately trails off the second that all eyes snap to her. “Uhm…”

“Yeah?”

She stares down at the papers spread across the table like they hold the secrets to the universe.

“Maggie?”

“I can just say it another time.”

“Maggie.” He says with all the love and kindness of someone pulling a shy fish out from its burrow by the tail. “Spill.”

“You’re really quiet.” Klara ruthlessly piles on, like a good little accomplice.

That seems to do the trick. The collective judgment of Her Lady and the devastating words of an eight year old proves enough that Maggie stops clamming up.

“Well…” She says, giving him a brief glance. “You’ve been working since sunrise, Your Majesty, so— so perhaps, a little leisure for the evening with the Young Master and Lady wouldn’t be remiss.”

Now it’s Chase’s turn to imitate a clam. He turns back to his work. “Nah, maybe some other time. I’m not done with this.”

But then, Klara, the traitor, ruthlessly piles on. “You’re gonna get wrinkles like an old lady. My Mother has them.”

Maggie nods sagely. “Mine too.”

Villum finally achieves puppy eyes and looks up at him pleadingly.

For all of Chase’s strength, every man has a weakness and that does the trick.

“I—” Chase ghosts his non-wrinkled cheeks self-consciously. “That’s… come on, that’s not fair.”

Villum smiles victoriously.“I wanna play in the room.”

Klara immediately blows a raspberry, which earns her a shove from her brother.

“The room is dumb and full of dust mites.” She turns to Chase. “Auntie Ana says I'm right.”

The two siblings look up at him with a respective expressions of excitement and annoyance like Chase should definitely know and have an opinion on The Room.

Ah yes, The Room.

Obviously he knows what The Room is.

It's really a credit to his many weeks of princess practice, that he doesn't blurt out something like, ‘Pft, yeah, obviously, duh, it's that room with the. door. And the hallway. Clearly.’

Instead, Chase pursues his lips. “I don't know… it's been a while since I was there.”

He leans down, like the three of them are covertly sticking their heads together. “Why don't you… check if the coast is clear?” He gives a serious expression. “Your Father could already be using it and then he'd get all sulky when we throw his butt out.”

This air of stealth and secrecy makes Klara perk up. Which in turn makes Villum perk up an extra inch, like he's a chipmunk who’s been given a big fat acorn.

Chase smiles and hopes he's not about to allow children into the armory.

The two siblings share a look.

“Bet I can get there first.”

“Bet you can’t, Master Wheat-straws-for-legs.”

Then they both turn on their heels and leave behind a dust cloud, as they race for the library exit in a flurry of shoving and leg tripping. Chase and Maggie sit left behind, clearly already forgotten.

“Mind taking this back upstairs?” He asks, patting the papers.

“Of course, my lady.” Maggie says, and then lowers her own voice almost conspiratorially. “Have fun.”

He gives her a mock grimace, then hurries to catch up with the siblings.

Figuring out where they went turns out to be a small challenge — Chase catches the eye of a librarian tiredly picking up several books from the floor, who simply and silently points in the direction of the western wing.

From there it isn’t harder than following their trail of destruction, until he finds its source. A double door at the end of a hall is pushed slightly ajar, where the mingle of two voices seep outside. Something makes a rickety scraping noise, before it shatters all over the floor.

“I bet they get it from their dad.” Chase huffs and slips inside.

The two kids stiffen as their heads snap up, and Chase isn’t sure whether its a good or bad thing for the castle that they immediately relax upon seeing it’s just him.

“Auntie Ana, the bookshelf isn’t doing the thing—”

“—I told him we can climb in the window.”

“—Klara wanted to climb the window but she just breaks her leg again—”

“—and Villum’s being a big fat chicken and he broke the ink pot, which is bad cause pots don’t heal like legs!”

There is ink, all over the floor. Close to a large bookshelf, a pool of ink happily seeps down into the wood work.

“One at a time, muffins.” Chase pushes past them, falling to one knee as he assesses the damage. He can feel them glaring at each other behind his back.

The old wood has a thick layer of dust over it, like a sponge clumping the worst of the liquid. Glancing around for a cloth, he absently pats his person. He supposes the sash could do, but that’s his sash, not a basic wash cloth. Also, eww.

Chase slumps. “Eh, a servant can take care of it.”

He dusts off his pants, before losing to a sneeze. There’s so much dust in the still air that it practically hangs like clouds.

“Gods, couldn’t you have broken a window instead?” He coughs.

Villum’s voice goes quiet. “…I didn’t mean to. Honest.”

“Yes, he didn’t mean to. He’s just dumb.”

Neither of them meet his eyes. Instead, his eyes trail around the room, it feels like the centerpiece of a historical display. The plates on the desk, the chair half pulled in and stone fireplace with firewood laying ready makes it look like a memory sunk into stasis.

His brows furrow as an odd feeling gnaws in his chest. “What— whose room was this?”

A moment of quiet passes, heavy and lingering.

Villum is the first to speak up. “It’s Uncle’s cabinet.”

“The late King?” Chase asks. His arms go up to hold himself, as his voice grows small. “Right… uhm, could we… maybe go somewhere else?”

“No.” Klara frowns. “The room is in here.”

“We’re in a room.”

“It’s not the room.”

“Kid, I don’t have the patience for tiny-sized riddles.”

She huffs and takes him by the arm, dragging him over to the large bookshelf, that lines the wall from floor to ceiling. There’s a small splat underneath his feet as he steps on the pool, black liquid soaking into his shoes. He barely notices, as he’d rather focus as little on the room as possible.

She points at a tall shelf. “You said we could go into the room and then Villum tried and then he hit the ink pot and then he splatted.”

“It splatted.” Chase corrects absently, his eyes trailing over the bookshelf. “Is this one of those ‘you press the right book and the whole shelf moves to the side’ thingies?”

She doesn’t answer, just looks at him expectantly. 

Lifting his hand to the highest shelf, he presses the first book that calls to him — a slim book in the colour of the night sky with a star-shaped flower decorating its cover.

It is indeed one of those ‘press the correct book and the whole shelf moves to the side’ thingies. The entire wood work creaks and moans under the abuse of awakening from peaceful slumber, until a faint white glow surrounds it. He feels it move against his hand, as it levitates just a few inches off the floor and begins floating to the side.

Behind it opens up a doorway. It leads to a chamber filled with dark greenery, dimly lit in daylight.

The two kids slip around his legs, excitedly spreading out in the space.

Chase steps in behind them and his head quickly tilts upwards. The chamber is an open space built in several stories, as part of a round tower. The ceiling is a ornate dome, where the grey sky dimly shines in and rain slides down the glass. Even just on the first floor, he can see the room is compactly fitted with the interior design of the lovechild between a botanic garden and a stone bunker.

It looks like several people could live in here for a very long time if they needed to.

He feels the walls, finding trails that are oddly damp, probably from the weather seeping in through old, unattended cracks. The room feels alive, like a breath of fresh air freeing them from the tranquil morgue they had just left.

“Come on, Auntie!” Klara calls from up above him.

It is a space entirely created for the royal family, where neither the stuffy enclosing bookshelves of the library or weather can bother him. Even if the leakage problems need a smoothing touch, a glow warms in chest at the thought of knowing the corners of this castle just a little better.

A small grin spreads on Chase’s face.

“Coming!” He shouts.

After that, the afternoon blurs together and time passes in a whirlwind of Chase attempting to command the respect of two eight year olds, who find great enjoyment in sitting down when he says ‘jump’. They play a couple of games, simple and fun in the way where Chase feels like he might have played them too as a kid.

Neither of the kids care for etiquette, which means he gets to actually be human around them, like with Mom and Maggie. No more fancy-smancy talk needed. Chase laughs for what might be the first time in a couple of days, and then just as quickly buries the thought.

They end up sitting on a couple of abandoned beds on the second floor. Chase repeatedly dusts off his pants every other minute, even when Klara hops behind him and kicks up a cloud of dust.

Then, a small hand finds his hair— and yanks.

“OUCH— Hey, what gives!?” He pouts.

“Your hair is a hair stack.” She announces and yanks on his poor scalp again.

“It's a priceless haystack, you little goblin. Hands off the treasure.”

Klara holds back from touching the haystack in an impressive display of impulse control that lasts about the length of Chase’s sentence.

She pouts heartbroken, when he chases off her hands again.

Then, Villum joins in. “What’s happening?”

“Auntie’s hair is bad and I can make it better, but she doesn’t want it better.”

Chase holds strong, fighting off her continued assault. Someone has to teach her boundaries. In the midst of this, Villum runs off, coming back moments later.

“I found it!” Villum announces, and pushes a deep blue ribbon in Chase’s face.

He blinks, taking the ribbon. It’s very soft to the touch, made of good material. A question lays on his tongue that he can’t speak. He feels Klara’s hands dig into his scalp from his momentary distraction, which he ignores.

“Oh cool, thanks.” Is all he can come up with.

Villum looks up at Chase, anticipation in his shining eyes. For a brief moment, his eyes flicker behind Chase.

Chase sighs. He takes the hint and hands the ribbon over his shoulder to Klara. Then she gets to work, while Villum crawls up on the bed to join.

“Be— ouch, be careful!” Chase winces, as Klara messily start dividing his hair into sections. With insistent guidance, he eventually manages to tune the torture method down a little and the yanking mellows into gentler tugs.

“Where’d you even find that ribbon?” He asks.

“It’s yours.” Villum says. “I think. I found it in your bed.”

He points at a child sized bed tugged against the other side of the room, where the bedside drawer is open ajar. Chase’s eyes lingers on young Diana’s bed for a long moment. It looks comfortable and tugged in, like there’s a kid underneath there peacefully asleep.

“Uhuh, Uncle Valde used to do it.” Klara says, “It was really pretty on you. Whenever he did it, I asked “how” and then he showed me. Once he made it in front of me, but I didn’t understand. I was soo confusing for me. And each day I go out and see him make a braid and I got better. And I tried and tried, until one day I gathered up all your hair and just made bread shape and I had made a braid! I was so good at it. And then I got some leaves and I put them on and I screamed to my Mother and said ‘I MADE A BRAID!’ because she wasn’t watching me and she said it was nice.”

Villum is quiet for a moment. “I don’t remember that.”

“It happened. Mother told me and I remember she told me.”

Chase chuckles. “The king did braids?”

“Yes.” Klara says, like it’s simple fact.

He can almost imagine it: young Diana sitting cross legged on her bed, as gentle hands weave through her hair and her father’s melodic voice spins tales of mundane, boring matters into grand adventures. Maybe she had a hard time sitting still and messed up the gift he was weaving for her.

“Well,” Chase says, his voice trailing off to something softer, “show me how a king does it.”

Time passes slowly after that. He falls into the easy conversation of three people who all enjoy following the tangents of whichever things first cross their minds. The feeling of fingers and nails combing through his hair is soothing, as the braid is redone over and over again. Gathered into three parts, then four, then back to three, as he slowly looses track of whichever pattern is being tried out this time. Gently, he floats under peaceful waves of calm, as his thoughts drag like molasses.

No worries of tomorrow are granted existence inside this bubble, where the past lives in the present. The pattering of rain on the ceiling plays a pleasant buzzing in his mind, as this little moment drags into a small eternity.

Then eventually, Chase feels a pat on the back and his eyes flutter open.

“Done!” Klara says proudly.

Chase slowly reaches behind himself and ghosts the trail of the braid. When he shakes his head to clear his stupor, no annoying strands fall in his face, just a thump of the braid against his upper back. It’s neat and simple, where the ribbon is woven in between the gaps and ties in a small bow.

Chase clicks his tongue performatively. “Dear, I really need to get that haircut—“

He’s cut off by both of the kids’ loud heartbroken protests.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He chuckles, as his mask breaks. “It’s really great, I could get used to this.” Ghosting the braid’s trail, Chase continues. “It’s just like how he used to do it.”

Klara beams.

Honestly, it’s impressive she was even able to weave the entire ribbon in. She must have a knack for this, once she gets past all the hair-yanking. He reaches over and ruffles her head, which draws an offended noise from her, though the smile sticks.

Faintly, he considers whether he should find a mirror and take a gander at himself. It’s not fully the same, but... he frowns, how accurately would a mirror even show this?

His thoughts trail off, when he feels a drip on his nose.

“Uhm, Auntie Ana?” Villum’s head is tilted upwards. Slowly, he points.

Chase follows his gaze, searching for a moment in confusion, before his eyes widen.

Above them, the old, withered glass dome has been shielding them from the onslaught of rain, not counting the little leaks creeping down the walls. As Chase looks up and squints in confusion, he spots something — there, right in its center, a crack spreading.

“Okay,” he murmurs, “that’s okay, it’s probably been doing that for…”

Then it’s not a crack, but a spiderweb, growing larger and larger—

“Shit!”

CRACK.

Chase only has time to hastily pull the kids in under him, shielding them, before the ceiling breaks and comes crashing down. He doesn’t see it, as much as he hears it, a torrent of water like the sky broke open.

Within a split moment, a massive cascade of heavy, icy rainwater drenches them. Chase’s clothes turn to lead on his shoulders, chasing away every coherent thought he’s ever had, as a sharp, silent gasp escapes him.

By sheer miracle, they avoid the worst and the glass falls in large chunks that shatters against the floor, rather than falling on their heads. It takes what feels like several minutes after that, before Chase dares to release his hug around the kids. He can feel Villum holding onto his blouse in a death grip.

Chase is absolutely soaked, and so very happy to be the world’s favorite person.

Then, Klara, the little goblin of a niece, dares to laugh. Like they’d just taken a fun ride down a waterfall. She’s not joined by her brother, who smacks her like she’s personally responsible for what just occurred.

“Whoever the ceiling builder is, they're not anymore.” Chase says faintly. “They're so fired.”

There’s a beat of quiet. Klara yells “Again!” and predictably gets smacked.

────────── ・☆・ ──────────

Later in day, when Chase sends the kids off and returns to his own quarters, he feels nothing short of a drowned mouse in need of a hot bath — and towels, lots of towels.

Maggie helps pick out some stray glass shards, taking care under his insistence to leave the braid intact. She compliments it and Chase manages a sleepy smile. They get him into some fresh clothing, and soon he’s sat down, allowing his hair to be carefully dried.

With a drowsy mind, he watches the rain pelt against the window and his faint reflection in the dark night. Yup, drowned mouse.

Chapter Text

It is during another of those rainy days, that Chase hears the little whisper of a bird in his ear; of a rumour most interesting.

When new people arrive at the castle, it inevitably leads to gossip, to stories spun from that gossip and stories believed as truth to the eager listener. If one listens carefully, there may be a grain of truth sunk somewhere deep down in the ocean of fiction, or it simply provides a finger on the pulse that flows through the castle.

Most recently, the rumours have decided that Mistress of Duke Valeclair, Sir Douche himself, is not who she seems. She’s too pale they say, she’s too sweet they say and she’s rarely seen two feet apart from her lover, they say, as if it’s a worthwhile accusation. Dressed in pink and cold blue eyes, she hardly steps a foot outside if she can avoid it. No good man would pick a Mistress who dresses in deceit. She must have made him pick her. There’s only one explanation, a few servants whisper to each other, as their colleagues rolls their eyes at them. The Countess of Yurst must be a blood sucker, siphoning the life force from the poor bed-ridden Madam Valeclair.

“—But you didn't hear that from me.” Maggie finishes.

“Of course not.” Chase says, pushing himself back from his desk. He frowns. “I didn't know his wife was sick. Maybe she'd appreciate a ‘get well soon card?’”

“I’m sure she would, my lady.”

He hums. “What's she come down with, anyway?”

Maggie thinks for a moment, tapping her chin. “Consumption, I think? Sudden faint spells, coughing, vomiting, she's been pale as a ghost for months despite every attempt to cure her. It’s quite terrible, I heard she wastes away by the day.”

As she’s talking, Chase grabs a paper and starts writing. Practised pleasantries flow onto the page, where he adds a bit of sincerity underneath the cloak of formalities. He listens to Maggie with half an ear.

“I can only hope those sort of nasty rumours don’t reach Countess Bellmount’s ears. Family reunions should be happy affairs I believe, not help up by such frivolity. I heard this is the first time she reunites with her brother in months and they’ve had a testy relationship ever since he was accepted as Duke Rasmus’ advisor. It’s— jealousy is such an ugly thing, I don’t see why people need add fire to the flames.”

His pen pauses on the page.

“Say that again?” He slowly looks up.

“Add fire to the flames?”

“No. Way before that. Her brother is, what?”

“Her brother is Duke Rasmus’ advisor?”

He stares. Less a thought and more a feeling carves roots inside of him for each passing second.

Maggie begins fidgeting. “…Your Majesty?”

“For months… Came out of the blue. She grows weaker by the day despite every attempt to cure her. She coughs her lungs out on the daily. She’s pale as a ghost, like something is siphoning her very life force— Maggie!”

“Uhm…” Maggie blinks at him.

Chase groans loudly. “Okay, lemme just—” He leans down and rips a drawer in his desk open, quickly riffling through it, until he can gets his nails in under its fake bottom. He pulls it out haphazardly, making the other papers fly all over the floor, and gets to the secret inside he needs — Rasmus’ letter, hidden there practically since the day Chase discovered the hidden compartments in his own desk.

He holds up the letter demonstratively, giving Maggie a look. She’s confused for a moment, before the bell seems to ring for her. Her eyes grow large as plates.

“But, that—” She stammers. “But, but, she’s not even from Daltura, that’s— why would he…”

“Cause he’s a butt head, that’s why.” Chase answers simply. “And why would she, is the real question.”

“What?”

“It’s just a hunch, but hear me out. Like, you’ve seen the clothes Countess Bellmount wears, right, they’re basically the super sized version of those purses made to look way more expensive than they actually are.” He says. “She’s the Mistress of a high born Duke, but yet she wears clothes barely over the price tag of a commoner. Clearly the House’s money isn’t going to her.”

He points his hands sharply at Maggie. “When did Madam Valeclair get sick?”

“Uhm…” She trails off, her words dragging slowly. “I… well it could have been in spring, I believe. But maybe, it was slightly closer to now than that…”

“Just one answer, Mag.”

“…The rumours are recent, I only overheard Dave this morn, but maybe the news simply took longer than normal to travel…”

He snaps. “Maggie, I need specifics.”

She flinches. Not a lot, but enough to make him pause. He mentally runs that back and winces.

“Sorry.” He says, tone softer. “Specifics, please.”

She looks down at the floor. “In spring.”

“Thank you.”

He turns back to his desk. Its in moments like this, that a small part of his mind wishes it had the foresight to sort out the paper monster that has swallowed up the entire table surface, but that part of his mind is small. It just takes him a little longer than he’d prefer to admit, before he digs up a handful of papers on trades, correspondence or other such matters, with the Countess’ grubby fingers on them. He’d found it a bit odd at the time, but was mostly too busy to be concerned that Sir Douche was handing off his paperwork to the nearest victim.

He flits through them in silence, zeroing in on dates in spring and discarding them just as quickly. Minutes upon minutes pass by. He quietly chants to himself that he definitely hasn’t counted his eggs before they hatch. His hunch is right, if only he can prove it—

There.

Scrawled in the margin of a shipment paper, it says in the Countess’ handwriting. "Make sure the moon shines brightly on Yurst Isle".

Chase holds up the shipment paper with careful hands. Moon and Yurst, those aren’t two things heard very often together. He barely has to do more than glance at Rasmus’ letter, in order to find that very same phrasing written in-between vague threats.

The date matches with early spring. He remembers too, why he had kept this paper. It was a shipment made in Duke “Sir Douche” Valeclair’s name, but the route it took was odd, it hardly ever went home to his shores. One of Chase’s advisors’ had told him the numbers didn’t add up either, that the man power and length of travel didn’t match what it claimed to carry, not by a long margin, as if a few trades had been removed. Chase had smiled and nodded, simply happy that he didn’t have to needlessly torture his brain with math.

It's the kind of fudging that he's seen plenty of times since — many nobles do it and it's the sort of the under-the-table deal that Mom very quickly taught him is rarely worth making a fuzz about. Not unless there’s a good reason for bringing it out into the light. Chase had protested at the time: whether he liked the dude or not, he deserved to know, right? Then things got busy again and it fell down the to-do-list.

“Huh.” He says. “Would you look at that…”

Poison may be hard to prove. But the dates aligned, and Chase wonders whether Sir Douche will live up to his name, if he knew what exchanges his Mistress has been spending behind his back. Spirits, maybe simply bringing the superstitious rumors to light would be enough to put a stop to her plans.

The right thing would be to bring the dealings to the Valeclairs’ attention.

It would be the right thing to do.

But, a little idea — a terrible, terrible idea worms its way into his mind. The longer he looks at the paper, thoughts swirling in his mind around it, the more his idea takes hold.

The Countess is on much thinner ice than she realizes and below her a gaping black ocean awaits. She is trapped, whether she knows it or not. One word from Chase and the ice will crack underneath her.

He could use this.

“Your Majesty?”

Chase hums, picking the pen up from where he dropped it.

“Mother got sick from the poison of a really rare plant…” He says, his words slow as his hand follows the forming of his thoughts. “Which pretty much only my cousin got his fingers in. So, if this other lady in this other country suddenly gets sick in the exact same way, then—” He looks up at her, the idea swirling warm in his chest and a grin spreading on his lips. “It’s real sus that Duke Valeclair’s Mistress has a direct line to the brother of my poison plant enthusiastic cousin, right?”

Maggie looks like he just tried to badly explain why the piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. He gestures enthusiastically like, ‘you get it right?’

“I mean…” She trails off. “What?”

“I think Countess Bellmount totally teamed up with Rasmus. She’s poisoning Duke Valeclair’s wife, so he’ll marry her instead or something.”

“Oh… couldn’t that be a coincidence?”

“I’ll eat my non-existent hat, if it is.” Chase says. “So… how about we send out a dinner invitation to our dear Countess? Bread rolls, cheese puffs,” Chase grins, “maybe a glass of wine even. We’ll have a good, nice little chat.”

Maggie stares at him for a moment, before she gives a polite nod. “As you wish, Your Majesty. I’ll see to it.”

“Is there a problem?” He frowns. Absently, he fiddles with his quill. It drip-drips onto the page, a steady pool of black ink bleeding out on its surface.

“No.” She says quickly. “I… well, uhm…” Her eyes flit across the room, hardly meeting Chase’s, before she breathes out and eases. “I was merely thinking, does the occasion not call for a Regent in her finest form?”

Chase looks down at himself, dressed in his worn-down work clothes as he is.

Maggie gives a small hopeful smile.

“I…” He huffs. “Yeah, okay, fair.”

It seems only fitting that he should dress the part for the role he’s about to play.

────────── ・☆・ ──────────

The invitation is accepted the very next morning. A table is dressed for two in the pavilion. The sun is shining and the midsummer is welcomed by a colorful tapestry of blooming flowers and bushes. It’s a beautiful day and under any other circumstance, Chase would be tempted to finally go for a flight.

Sitting under the pavilion, Chase waits for his guest to arrive. His leg bounces underneath the table ever so often, before he muffles it with a sweaty hand. He wishes he had dressed a little better for the weather. He’s wearing a neat and tidy outfit seeped in the colours of a summer lake. A light blue blouse flows into decorative cuffs on his wrists. Pearl earrings tug at his ear. His long coat atop is made of a deep green, sturdy material that reaches so far down, he has to be mindful not to sit on its folds — he looks like a hunter meant for cold shadows, redressed for royalty.

He’s long since rolled up his sleeves and now simply waits, as he enjoys the occasional shade that the pavilion grants him. A breeze wanders through the emptied garden and taking a deep breath, Chase puffs up his chest.

“Okay.” He says, slapping his cheeks. “Game face, Chasey. You can do this.”

He had been practising the night before, for just a few lines or an opener he could pull on — well, he’d practised in the sense that he’d thought about it and decided what he wanted out of the conversation, and then he’d fallen asleep. It’s fine, he can wing it.

He breathes out. It’s fine, he knows what he needs done.

Maggie discretely clears her throat, getting his attention. She nods at behind him, and Chase gives a subtle nod in return. He takes the moment’s warning to rise in his seat, his posture straightens and a pleasant, polite smile finds its place.

He turns around and sees the guest of honour approaching.

“Your Grace, I hope your morning has been treating you well.” He greets.

At his words, the Countess bows. “Most certainly, thank you. I apologise for any waiting.” If Chase had a way to measure time, he’d be sure she had arrived on the minute.

Countess Bellmount's dress is a pink art piece on excess. Like a birthday cake threw up on a blank canvas and then swirled the pinks and whites around with a spoon, the patterns of laces, frills and bows fight for space. A fur belt hangs around her shoulders interestingly enough. Her skirt has so many layers that the end-result looks like a puffy wedding dress, where half could have done a better job.

They take their seats and the food lays invitingly before them. As a glass of wine is poured for them, Chase leans forward and tries out a casual air. “Once again, thank you for agreeing on such short notice.”

“No need, I’m flattered her Majesty found an interest in my company. Imagine my surprise when I heard the person of address.” the Countess giggles. “Your message was intriguing.”

‘Vague’ is more likely the word.

“Yes,” He says. “It’s something I doubted the good Duke Valeclair would want to be disturbed with. He’s been very busy catching game in our forests, as of recent, correct?”

The Countess nods, “And he's excellent as well. He had this very coat specifically made for me just the other day.” She allows a tasteful pause, as she flaunts the fur like a trophy. “I am happy to brighten his day in however ways I can myself. Sometimes that may include dappling in the upper echelons of politics.”

“Good, then I'll get right to it.” Chase pushes over a handful of papers, his own handwriting circling different sections. “I’m afraid there’s been a slight mess up with a few of his House’s travel payments. I was hoping you could lend a hand.”

The Countess glances at the papers for a polite amount of time, then lays them aside. If she had been expecting something more exciting than an accounting error, then she does a good job hiding it. “You have an eye for detail, Your Majesty. Most would have waited till after such a busy time.”

“And I do apologise. Unfortunately, the shipment is of a personal and time sensitive matter.”

She gives a close-lipped smile. “I’ll have it looked over first thing tonight.”

“No, no, you’re right, I’ve already taken up far enough of your time.” Chase returns the smile, like one would return a bottle of poison. He gives a nod. “Read it now.”

The Countess pauses, faltering just the slightest bit. Finally, he finds a flicker of actual human emotions behind her sugar sweet smile.

“I insist.” He says.

Under his watchful eyes, she looks at the content— actually, looks at it. As her gaze trails down, her mouth steadily turns into a thin line and her eye does that thing some people do when they're fighting to keep a poker face. Chase notes it quietly. At the very least he's right about the smuggling, that's good to know.

“You’re from Yurst, yes?” Chase says conversationally.

It seems to take her a moment to find her tongue. “Yes, though it’s more of a childhood memory. I’ve spend much my time abroad, living harbour to harbour, until I found an isle worth staying at. But it was a joy when my Lord decided to bring me for Your Majesty's coronation and our Everlight. I swiftly packed up my other duties to be by his side.” Her voice is sweet and melodic, woven with as fine material as her bargain-bin dress. She smiles politely, before adding. “Your gardens have been growing beautifully, I've been very honoured to spend my days on our Guardian’s ground.”

He acknowledges the flattery with a hum. “Living harbour to harbour? I can hardly imagine such, I’m…” he has to mentally slap himself to force the next words out, “I’m terribly scared of boats. You’d have to tie me to the mast and sail course, even then I’m just as likely to barf on the unlucky passerby.”

The Countess lets out a small surprised laugh. Her frame eases slightly, her voice eager to change the subject. “H- have you ever traveled off Datura Isle, Your Majesty?”

“Of course I have. I’ve been to many other places.”

“Oh, where may I ask?”

“I’ve been to all of the places, in fact. Far more than most. Like… I’ve been at a farm.” He pauses to think. “Yes, and a town… Oh, and a library. I’ve been to several of those, if you can believe it.”

“You’re hardly seen outside of one, your Majesty.” The Countess says. “I would believe you, if you said you wanted to marry one.”

Chase pauses. Something almost like a cold stone drops in his stomach and it takes him a moment to regain himself. He forgets to control his voice. “I… yeah, I guess that's easy to think.”

“Is that not accurate?”

“It— yes.” He says more firmly.

The Countess nods blissfully unaware. She leans her arms on top the papers almost absently, captured in derailing their conversation. He’ll hardly get a better chance than this.

“Tell me about your travels.” Chase pushes on. “I mean, you're born in Datura, but you’ve settled in North Fanaco. You’ve traveled so much— Tell me, are the ships of West isles as luxurious as they say?” Going a bit risky, he pokes her with, “I’ve heard only a lucky few get to see them up close.”

The Countess puffs up like a ruffled bird, “Luck is hardly the decider. I spent much time becoming the kind of prolific acquaintance they'd be honoured to have on those ships.” She says, then adds as an afterthought, “Which were beautiful.”

“I suppose the inside of a book doesn’t measure up to the real thing.” Chase notes. “Excuse me for assuming luck.”

Now firmly in her own wheelhouse, words flow easily from the Countess. “I have traveled to many places and you do not get into those by luck. I learned how to handle the crowds in the busy auction houses of Detrinae under the tutelage of my father. In the east isles, I ran a lucrative sales house for the exclusive and well-endowed, selling the sort of foreign wares that dukes would be awed to lay their eyes upon.”

And there, the opening he was looking for.

“You’d have to be well versed in many skills to get that far ahead.”

She tuts a little at the praise. “You certainly do.”

Then, just like that, Chase taps on the papers, like one would tap on a mouse trap to set it off. “Then how did this happen?”

Her eyes fall to it, like she had entirely forgotten its presence.

“I only ask,” he continues, “Because one of my advisors brought it my attention. He was concerned, besides himself really with, but simply looking out for our kingdom’s wellbeing. I promised to look into it, even just to ease his heart and wild fantasy. He was saying that the numbers on these papers were implying a cargo much more precious than what was written on the page. By a far margin.”

“I can assure you that is just a wild fantasy.”

“In what way?”

“It’s a simple error.”

“By a far margin.” He notes, disappointment on his tongue. “I thought you were well versed in many skills. You’ve had all the time since spring to notice it.”

At this point, the Countess has something close to annoyance running through her frame. Many nobles do this sort of thing, and yet Chase is grilling her for smuggling some illicit cargo back to her homestead. He could tattle to Duke Valeclair, but with the price of creating an enemy in the Bellmounts. A high price for a seemingly innocuous trade.

“How is Madam Valeclair, by the way? I heard she fell terribly ill in spring. No one can find the cause, as far as I know. My Mother has dealt with a similar ailment, so you may forgive my bleeding heart. Though thankfully, the symptoms have been lessening since we took her off the wine.”

There's no real reason for him to bring that up, no sequencer or thing in the conversation that should have reminded him — unless, of course, his hunch is right. Unless, there is a very specific thing that reminds him.

It's not his finest work if he's being honest. But — Countess Bellmount stiffens and her expression becomes nothing short of a deer caught in an arrow’s path — it does the job.

He was right.

Reaching over, he takes the papers back. To her stare, he gives a pleasant smile.

“It is fine,” he says lightly, “errors happen for the best of us. Except me, I am the best of us.”

The Countess gives a polite smile. It seems to be her go-to expression for when she feels unsure where to step.

“That’s a joke,” he waves off, “feel free to joke as well. I don’t mean to make this meeting feel oppressive.” he says, as he lays a testing touch on the ice. “We’re simply two ladies having a chat, there’s no need to make it anything more.”

“…what do you want.” Countess Bellmount says slowly. “From this meeting?”

Chase pretends to think. “Well, since you’re asking, I’ve been having this issue for a while. Unfortunately, me and the good Duke Valeclair came off on a terrible foot and it’s been gnawing at me ever since. Especially with the Everlight Ball coming closer, I’d love nothing more than for our relation to fly smoothly, but I’m afraid my efforts have been in vain.” Then, he pins the Countess with a look. “I was hoping that you could perhaps lend a kind word for me.”

As what could seem to be absently, he taps the papers. Tugged between them is a delay notice on the shipments from Fanaco that he’s been desperately needing.

The Countess looks at him with a narrowed expression, before then slowly, her eyes widen as she seems to realise what he’s asking of her.

“It’s just a small favour.” Chase says casually, adding a shrug to his performance. “You do this for me, I’ll… let’s say, hold the door open for you.”

The Countess huffs, hiding behind her fan. “He won't listen to me.”

Chase waits for her to elaborate. When a second and third moment pass in silence, he sighs. Hopping off his seat, he regards her much shorter stature in all of her pomp and frills and bitter eyes.

He gives a closed lip smile. “I don't need him to listen to you. I just need you to give him an idea that he believes is his own.” He plugs the fan out of her hand and taps her nose with it. “You think you can do that?”

A long moment passes before she bites out. “I can give it an attempt.”

Chase can't help the grin that spreads across his face. “Thank you. That wasn't so hard now, was it?”

Countess Bellmount glares up at him with all the venom of a fish inside the maw of a shark.

“I believe this is the start of a beautiful partnership.” He grins back. “You will be staying here until the Everlight ball, will you not?” He leaves a tasteful pause, and tries not to show too much giddiness. But he can see the finish line and it’s getting hard to hold back.

She almost speaks, but seem to reconsider. Her grip tightens on her arms, and she grits out. “Yes.”

“Good. I'll do you a favour even for the time I'm asking of you. Out of anyone you should know that letters take an awful long time to travel by ordinary channels. I'll let the guards know my House’s private channels are open for your duties. All the price I ask is to skim whichever letters you send first.“ He glances at the fraud papers. “For safety reasons, naturally.”

It's a nice offer. A little overbearing, like a parent slapping their child on the wrist for putting bugs in another kid’s oatmeals, but an offer she would be unwise to refuse. She could certainly try.

“T- that is very generous,” she says, “but would it not raise questions? My house is well esteemed, I have many channels at my disposal even here. I'm flattered, truly, but could you even do such?”

Chase rests on his hand, like he was taking in ever word she said. With the other, he invites her gaze to look out upon his garden. “I am Regent of this kingdom. I think you'll find there are few things I cannot do.”

The Countess falls very quiet.

Then, she says with a low, almost dead voice. “Thank you. I'll look forward to our partnership as well.”

His grin returns, and it takes all the restraint Chase has shown in his entire life to not say, ‘Great, now go to your room and think about what you did.’

Instead, he does the next best thing. He picks up his wine glass and makes a toast. “To a kind tomorrow.”

Swept away by the moment, he regrets it the second that the wine hits his tongue. Urgh, that taste is far too bitter. He finishes it anyway and tries not to wince, though he’s not sure he entirely succeeds.

Countess Bellmount hardly notices, instead she stiffly lifts her glass to him, like he’ll have her head if she doesn’t. It leaves a strange foreign aftertaste in his mouth, Chase isn’t sure he’s ever been looked at with fear before. He smiles, as he hides a cough.

────────── ・☆・ ──────────

With dinner wrapped up and a sulking Countess send off to her house arrest, Chase can finally go back to his chamber and relax with some simple paperwork.

Chase pauses, oh god what is happening to him, he tolerates administrative work now. This is truly the end times, the worst thing his position has ever done to him, eww.

Okay, but seriously, the invite to the Count of West Isle isn’t gonna write itself, he’s already put it off for a week. Tomorrow, the ball room decorations should be finishing enough for showing and he’ll be too busy with supervising that, to attend other matters.

He closes his chamber door behind him with a soft click. Stiffling a yawn, he pads across the room. Mechanically, he dresses down into more comfortable wear, plugging out his earrings and stripping himself of the several fanciful garments adorning his frame. They’re tossed on the dresser, along with his proper posture.

He stretches with a satisfying strain in his spine. Dots blink in his vision as he does so.

It’s not dark outside yet, only shy of afternoon. Chase considers telling Maggie to simply bring some food up for him later — after all he’s accomplished this morning he deserves to vegetate for the rest of the day.

The dark shadows under Chase’s eyes and sting in his temple has become an unfortunate companion to his duties. But despite his mom’s words, they’re not there by choice.

He tries to get enough rest, he truly does, but the habit continues to escape him. It doesn’t help that the sunset outside is not a particularly accurate measure of time and he tends to get too absorbed in his work to notice the arrival of night. No matter his attempts, he’s always woken up by the morning glow after far less time than he’d prefer.

Adding to the drowsiness hanging over him, bread hasn't been agreeing with his stomach today — probably too much of a good thing — so he picks a table side fruit instead and nibbles on it, as he plumbs down in the armchair, papers in his other hand.

The image of a middle-aged father sinking down into his favorite armchair, legs up and snapping open a paper with a practised flick, crosses Chase’s mind. He snorts.

Unbidden, his eyes drift to the family painting. The father looks down at the young Diana with a warm gaze forever captured in time. Chase can't help but wonder how he passed. Has he been told that yet? For a former king of the Isle, his name is rarely brought up in common conversation, even Mom he struggles to remember when she has mentioned him, maybe the memory still stings too deeply to be spoken aloud.

He looks at the painting for a little longer than he'd like to admit.

An unpleasant lump forms in his throat. It tears his eyes from the painting, as he coughs. 

But as he does, he finds the irritation refuses to dislodge.

He coughs again, then again.

What was supposed to be a simple clearing of his throat grows teeth and fangs, digging into his throat with all its might. A ragged coughing fit overtakes him, with a strong push of nausea riding its tail.

Chase feels it building before it comes. With barely a moment to spare, he empties the fruit bowl, apples and pears tumbling to the floor, as dizzying nausea tightens its grip. His chest constricts and then—

He throws up, all coming out in one big fell swoop. Heaving, he feels better for a second, his air way clearing out, but then the nausea builds for a round two. He throws up again.

When he was younger, Chase had once eaten four tubs worth of cyan cotton candy at a state fair. He'd been warned not to, but by the power of rollercoasters and a sticky dollar bill in his pocket, he was Mr. Invincible in neon baseball cap and braces. One loop later on the Cyclone, his body had violently painted the insides of a trash bucket, as Mom fretted and called for Dad to piggy-back him somewhere with fresher air. In this moment, he feels a blast of deja-vu so strong that he sways from the sheer force of it, like the flash of a camera blinding him.

He blinks, spots playing in his hazy vision, as his surroundings fade in and out of focus. Dazed, he feels water dripping off his lips.

“Oh, shoot.” Chase breathes.

Chapter Text

Chase thinks he might be a little sick.

“Okay, focus, Chasey.” He mutters. “Just go to bathroom, vomit your glittery guts out and get back to work. Easy.”

With some effort, he pulls himself onto unsteady feet. In response, his room tilts violently and his stomach lurches — he catches himself on his chair, like he’s on a ship deck in unsteady waters.

He blearily remembers there was a boat attraction, those little ones with foot peddles. Him and some older kid had gotten stuck out in the middle of the lake for literally forever, at least fifteen minutes, while they waited for their nanny. He remembers looking out at the murky green, poluted surface and wondering whether someone could be saved before they sank to the bottom.

The ship deck sways again.

“Stop, stop that.” He waves at the air. “Chill.”

The further loss of stability makes him stumble and he grabs back onto the mast. With his other arm, he craddles the bowl and some sea water slouches onto his shirt. He wrinkles his nose, too distracted to mourn it.

Chase squints against his blurry vision, willing the nauseating waves to settle down, groaning when the deck tilts again as an answer.

Tenatively, he releases his hold on the mast and braves a step. It takes longer than it should need to, he knows it takes longer, but slowly he makes it across the deck, bumping painfully into the desk and wall, when an insistent pull of nausea yanks at him. He fights the urge to throw up again with the mental equivalent of beating it down with a stick.

At least for long enough, that he stumbles into the bathroom, grabbing hold of the stone sink, before he loses the fight. Hacking and coughing, it feels like his body is ringing itself into a twizzler.

Blearily, he looks down and sees he hasn’t lost his breakfast at least, small mercies. All he’s thrown up is a lot of water. His lips taste salty. Mostly, he feels like he’s stuck in a gross, hot sweater and he’s thankful he let the kids braid his hair this morning. His entire skin burns feverish, while he greedily gulps in air.

He leans over the stone sink, a distant clink accompanying his swaying motion.

There's a quiet, tentative knock on the door to the bathroom.

“My lady? Are… you quite alright?”

For a moment, Chase just blinks sluggishly. His brows furrow, his mind stalling for a long, painful while to place the voice and title, until understanding finally washes over him.

“Yes, I'm fine.” He manages, before his chest spasms and he throws up again.

“What was that?!”

Chase doesn’t answer, he’s kind of busy at the moment.

The door tenatively creaks open. A beat hangs in the air for a little too long, allowing Chase to really feel aware of his current ‘disheveled, but not in a hot, tragic way’ appearance. Then short footsteps follow and Maggie crouches down, hovering right at his side. Her hand ghosts his shoulder, as he empties his glittery guts in the sink.

“Oh spirits, oh, that— uhm, there, there.” She pats his back and her voice sounds so painfully strained that he lifts his head just to shoot her a look. Wisely, she stops.

On the list of most embarrasing moments in his life, sitting on a cold stone floor with an audience of one and his face down in a sink that doesn’t even have a drain, ranks a solid third place. Just below the time he thought his last name could work as a pickup line.

He couldn’t guess how long he sits there, maybe minutes or maybe the entire night, things like time has long lost any sense to him. But after sometime, the rushing noise in his ears and the tilting floor chills out a little.

“My lady?”

The cool stone feels so nice against his feverish forehead, and his weight has leaned into it without his awareness. Someone’s humming, low and raspy in his ear… oh wait, that’s him. It could almost be a peppy tune, just a little left of something familiar. It’s just on the tip of his tongue.

“…My lady.”

What even was the pick up line? Maybe he could workshop it again.

A hand touches his shoulder, hesitant at first, then achoring him.

“Diana?”

He hums. “Hmm?”

“Shall I help guide you back to your bed? Maybe you should rest...”

Her words are soft and low spoken, so filed down of any edges, that they easily float in one ear and out the other. Only ‘rest’ catches a corner of his mind.

“Nah.” Chase rasps. “I’m good, Imma stay.”

“Here?”

“Mmm’yeah.”

“On the floor?”

“Comfy. Live here now.”

There’s a weary sigh, close to his side and pained like he was suggesting a braniac IQ puzzle instead of a very simple life hack. Comfortable, shapeless comebacks lays on his tongue, woven from so many other moments like this. They dissolve, as soon as the touch on his arms tighten and he’s guided to stand.

The floor wobbles in protest and a very cool, not undignified, noise leaves Chase, as he grips onto Maggie to keep himself steady.

“Slow down, slooooow down.” He groans.

With the pace of a wobbly ship being eased back into its harbour, she guides him back into his chamber, Chase muttering and grumbling the whole way.

Eventually he’s eased down into the softer armchair. He hears a small intake of breath, then nothing, through his haze he can feel Maggie mentally flipping through some notebook of correct replies she probably has rattling around in there.

“I’m fine, you dork.” Chase waves her off sluggishly. “God, sometimes you're just like, like…” a wave of nausea overtakes him and he drops his head between his arms with a groan. Any and all thoughts dissolve into soup and he resigns himself to admire the wobbly carvings in the floor.

“My lady, do you know if—” Maggie starts. Her voice hides behind that familiar overly polite tone, like a shield boasting normality made of transparent sugar glass and glimmer that pokes right at his nausea.

Chase cuts her off. “No titles.”

“But—”

“No. No titles.”

A pause.

“Alright… as you wish, my la— uhm, your...”

He snickers as he feels Maggie become genuinely constipated for a solid couple seconds.

“Just use my name,” he says, “I’m too puky to be your Majesty right now.”

“…As you wish, Diana,” she says, her tone softening, and the tension in his heart eases immediately, “Have you felt feverish as of late? Faint spells? Any of that sort?”

He scrounches his nose, “Nah, I don’t think so.”

Then, he tries to think. Most his days kinda blur together; going here, going there, speaking with this and that person, creating the currents of which his entire plan will come into motion. Where he can stand in the middle and see it all unfold as it should. He’s strong enough not to feel sick in the face of that.

“I’ve been fine.” He says more firmly. “I guess I had a sniffle the other week after the kids wanted to show me Father’s dust museum.” His nose itches just at the thought of it, humid air and hard rain crashing down on his memory, even as a smile tugs at his lip.

“I suppose these things can sneak up on you.” She says. “I had an uncle who liked a side of whiskey with his lunch, even if a little too much perhaps. One day it all caught up with him, I’m afraid, his body was so sick of the poison that he was throwing up enough to fill a cloud—”

“I know Maggie, you told me, like ages ago.” He huffs. “No need to waste your breath.”

“Do you know if… you ate something bad?”

“No, just like…” He thinks very hard. “An apple, some bread and wine. Whinning and dining. Like the Countess, maaaan, she whined. You should have seen her face, she whined so loudly in glares. Like a grumpy cat who murders people.” It doesn’t sound right as he says it, but it takes him a long second to parce out why. “Oh yeah, you were there. You did see that.”

His thoughts drip slow as molasses as he speaks and a little thought polls at the bottom of his mind. He feels it for what it is, a hunch. It swirls without shape, gathering and draining, too slow, too murky for him to understand its meaning. His brows furrow.

Maggie blissfully keeps talking. “Have you had any trouble with nausea recently?”

“Just today.” He says absently.

“Do you have any allergies? Summer asthma?”

“Mmh… no.”

“Well, that’s quite alright, per— perhaps, and do forgive me if I’m presumptuous, perhaps a day or two of rest could ease whichever spell has befallen—”

“Maggie.” He says, barely lifting a hand. “Be quiet for a moment.”

A beat of silence passes. Then another. There, that was better.

Given a bit of peace, he sieves through his murky thoughts. He stays sitting, cheek buried in his palm. Maggie fusses around the room instead, spending a few minutes starting the fireplace, until its glow gently envelopes the chamber and pushes back shadows to their corners. The light plays against his eyes, swirling and holding his attention as his wavering focus slowly settles back to somewhat normal.

Eventually a chill runs through him, freezing over his trail of thought. He scootches his chair a little close to the fireplace and tries to rub warmth back into his arms. His blouse, short sleeved and clammy from fever, hardly helps. He glances down at it with a wrinkle of his nose. Something else to fix, he supposes, once the idea of getting up seems more appealing.

It would be soon enough. For as annoying of an end to his day this is, well, better now than sooner. At worst he could just sit here, leaning back, the glow of the fireplace warming his face and soak in the feeling of knowing he somehow succeded today. If a fever thought it could trip him up, then it has sorely mistaken who he is. Maybe it had gotten the wrong date or expected a different face to greet it. Jokes on the fever, he already knows what he’ll do tomorrow and it does not include feeling gross and dumb and babysat in his own chamber.

A frown flickers across his face, as a heavy weight pulls at his chest that even the comfortable embrace of the fireplace cannot dissolve. A self pitying weight that demands a space it does not need. He’s stronger than that though, he is able to pick up that weight like a well practiced exercise, pull loose its roots and wrap it into a compact little clumb that he can drop back into the depths of which it came.

At least he can feel the illness slowly easing, at least he’s not stuck feeling this way day in and out. He can move around freely as soon as his heavy body gets the memo. At least nobody has been so jealous of his disposition that they chained him to a bed.

The realisation doesn’t come in a big moment, just a quiet “Oh.” leaving his lips.

“I got poisoned like Mother.” He says, staring into the fireplace.

“Are you certain?”

He glances at Maggie. “Do you have any better suggestions?” He leaves a lingering pause that she uses to stare a hole in the floor. “No?”

Still no suggestion.

He looks back at the fireplace, his lip quirking up. “Maybe I tripped on another cat.”

Now there’s the question of the culprit, the Countess herself being the obvious suspect. Poured it in his wine perhaps with a quick slip of her wrist, the irony would certainly be tempting for someone as nauseatingly two-faced as her.

And yet, for that entire meeting, he did not let her out of his sight even once, he’s certain of it. He’s not a fool, he had the seating arranged and the refreshments tested beforehand. If she did poison him as such, she would need a servant under her thumb and then he may as well be back to square one. It could just as easily have been Rasmus switching target to the princess regent and using an apt opportunity. Moreover, he thinks, almost unsettled by the ease of which the thought passes him, is throwing her in the dark pits truly worth the effort of losing the puppet he had only just strung up or getting swarmed by the mess her absense would leave?

He answers his own question, before his thoughts can reach their conclusion.

“I know the cause. I’ll find my culprit, just the same as I will find Mother’s.” he says with finality, “I’ll simply refrain from eating anything ever again and then it’s smooth sailing.”

“Would… that be doable?”

He holds back a tired groan. “Do you question everything I say for the sake of it or do you actually have something to add?”

Out the corner of his vision, Maggie stiffens. “I— I’m sorry—”

“Save it.” He cuts her off, before she’ll surely work herself into a tizzy. “Go open a window if you wish to be such a good helper, it’s stuffed in here. You literally can’t overthink that, so knock yourself out.”

His words, painted in sharp strokes of a mask half-worn, leaves him as easily as his victorious grin had that morning, when he’d felt the heated thrill of a breakthrough right at his fingertips. He still feels it, his mind swirling and swirling around it, but now a lump forms in his throat that keeps him from reaching out. Exchaustion stubbornly grounding him.

Behind him, Maggie tugs the windows open, letting the chill breeze of the afternoon drift inside. A minute or two passes in silence, and with it comes a sinking feeling in his gut.

“That… came out bad.” Chase admits.

There’s no reply for a long moment, which allows the feeling in his gut to turn into a nice little pit. He turns in the chair, begging the room under his breath to stop being hazy for a second.

Maggie startles a bit when his gaze finds her, like a lonely fish spotted by a shark.

“Ah.” She says. “It’s no trouble, Your Majesty, I ought not to have— I did see you were lost in thoughts, I merely thought that— I meant not to intrude…” Her hands ring themselves furiously, before her ramblings shut themselves down. “I will be here if you call on me.”

Chase's face falls.

“Wait, wait—” he says, and winces at how sharp his voice comes out. “No, Maggie, don’t say that.”

He pushes himself up, but his stupid vision sharply sways in warning, and he plops back down in the chair with a choked groan. Okay, couch talk it is then — that’s fine, couch talks are great.

Luckily, his sad display brings Maggie over to where he needs her. She hovers by his side, as if touching him could have poison her.

“Hey… it’s okay.” Chase reaches over and pats her hand, almost drunkenly. “You can say it.”

“Say what?”

He puts on a very serious expression. “That I was a butt-face.”

Maggie blinks, her eyes going wide. Then, seemingly despite herself, a small snort sneaks out.

It’s a small glimpse of light, before quietness settles again between them, cold and heavy.

Chase swallows around the lump in his throat and then says in a low voice.

“I know it’s hard to speak up against the people you care about. But… it’s okay to tell them how you feel, even if it’s just for yourself in the end. Those people were maybe just… too caught up to notice.” Chase winces, a rotten taste burning on his tongue. He meets her eyes. “It might make you feel better.”

Maggie looks at him, her mouth wobbles a little bit at the corners. Whatever she’s looking for, he hopes there’s enough of it in him for her to find it.

Eventually, she releases a breath. “…Can I say something quite terrible?”

Chase shrugs, giving a sardonic grin. “Yeah, join the butt-face club.”

Maggie doesn't smile at that, her eyes fall to the floor in something bordering on guilt. “I’m glad you lost your memory.” She admits, a sad smile plays on her lips. “I’m glad I’ve… gotten to spend this time with you.”

"Maggie, can you promise me something?” Carefully, he reaches over and picks up her hands in his, holding her gaze as steady as he can.

“If anyone, even me, is rude to you… you don’t have to sit there and take it.” Chase says, pressing his words. “I— my family will always come first to me. No matter what. You’ve helped me so much with that, but you need to look out for yourself in all this too.”

Maggie’s mouth is pinched into a thin line, she looks like he may as well be speaking latin.

“Can you promise me that?” He says and his voice wavers. “Please?”

Just like that, her resolve collapses like a house of cards. Slowly, she nods, giving his hands a squeeze.

He releases her hands and a quiet falls over the chamber. The silence holds for a fragile few moments, before Chase goes to fill it.

“I’m sorry I said that stuff,” he says, “and that I’ve been snippy all day and that I haven’t even said your flower crown looks nice, cause it does. It’s not you, I promise. You’ve been a like mega big help. I would probably still be crying over dusty botany books without you. And then what use would I be to my family?”

Chase shrugs off the tension clinging to him. “I know I haven’t been doing a good enough job at… a lot of things,” he lingers for a little, before a more hopeful smile peaks out, “but it’s looking up. Today was good, wasn’t it?”

He looks to Maggie, who stiffens a bit under the attention, but gives him a nod after a moment.

“Yeah.” Chase perks up, his hoarse voice cracking. “Yeah. I totally owned her, oh my spirits, she lives in my pocket now. She’s a pocket sized person. A mini-dude. I did that, I am actually the best diplomer!” He pauses. “Well… she might have like poisoned me as revenge, but that’s still totally a sum success.” He says, gasping when a thought strikes him. “Maybe I should sicc her on Rasmus and see how that goes. If she tries to double-cross me, then it’s better to cut down the weed early, right?”

The idea is tempting enough that he trails off. His knuckles come up to press against his mouth, as his gaze grows distant.

Maggie pulls him out his thoughts, as she shuffles over to sit better in front of him.

“I promise I will uphold your wish.” She says and meets his eyes steadily for maybe the first time in his memory. “I will uphold it and do my best to honour it. As—” she stumbles, “as your friend, I know you would want me to look out for myself.”

Chase bites down the urge to shake Maggie by her shoulders, instead listening closely.

“Although, I—” she continues, “I’m not of… a high born family.”

Out of everything Chase thought she was about to say, well, that wasn’t it. His brows furrow, sifting through old lessons as he says, “That’s… unsual, right? For a lady-in-waiting?”

Her eyes dart away. “My family tends a decent land on the northern coast of Her isle, we aren’t… badly off and I was taught etiquette as a child, but I suppose I do not have the weight to my name that Helena and Chandeler do. My father found favour with the late king many years back when a famine swept the isle. When you came of age to have your own companions, your father saw it fit to repay the favour to mine. I was appointed the role and granted the rank that— that is usually to be expected of a personal assistant. I’ve been a Lady since the day I stepped foot in this castle.” She trails off. “It’s been very good for my family.”

He can almost see it before him, a young Margrete cautiously stepping into a sunlit throne room, as the king sees her, smiles and holds out his hand to beckon her fourth. Maybe Diana had been there as well, curious and eager to meet her new companion, not even batting an eye at the other’s dress, though it scarce looked fit for nobility.

“That was very kind of him.” Chase says. “I— I never knew.”

Maggie's gives a sad smile. “Do not worry, my lady. Your memory will return with time. I’m certain as much.”

Chase feels his heart squeeze tightly in chest, something cold ensnaring it for just a moment.

“Well, that’s good,” he says, and dawning a coat of elegance, he frames his chin, “I’m a star in living flesh, anyone would be lucky to bathe in my full limelight. When, uh, when I’m not sick and gross from my head to toes.”

He makes the mistake of glancing down at his damp blouse, his nose wrinkling. It’s his work blouse even, the white one that’s stayed with him through thick and thin since spring. Pretty much his go-to presentable attire in his wardrope that he can adorn himself with ease.

Though, he thinks looking up, is that really an obstacle worth crying over?

“Hey, uhm, would you mind being my full time dresser starting now?”

“Huh?” Maggie blinks, then seems to catch on. “Oh, of course!”

She perks up like a worker bee gifted with a big fat flower and quickly buzzes over to his wardrope. Then comes back, clothing in hand.

With her assistance, he changes into a fresh blouse in a deep shade of teal and allows her to tie the string on his back. The material is airy and settles kinder on his feverish skin. The breeze coming in from the window feels heavenly and for a moment, he feels the strongest urge to climb out the window, like he did once upon a time. He suppresses a yawn.

“Better?”

“Yeah, thank you.” He says, a note of finality creeping into his tone. “I’m all good now. Just a small scare, thankfully.”

Politely and not quite an dismissal, he nods towards the door. “I think I’d like to rest by myself for a bit. You’ve had a day as well, take the evening to yourself.”

Maggie gives a valiant attempt at voicing her protest through quiet facial expression alone.

He smiles weakly. “I insist, please.”

After a moment, Maggie steps back with a bow. She goes to leave and that seems to be the end of it, but then she lingers for a moment in the doorway. “Should I call the doctor?”

“Spirits, no.” He grimaces. “I’d rather be tended by a dungbettle than that hack.”

She gives him a final bow and then leaves, clicking the door softly closed behind her.

Chase sits for a moment, staring at the floor, as remnants of nauseau flow slowly in and out of him. The evening sun shines in through the windows and it’s not many hours before the lights are lit in the watchtowers and the moon will rise to welcome the night.

He pulls himself up and leaves too.

────────── ・𓇼・──────────

Fresh air, is the only thought that passes through his mind.

He drifts towards the lower floors, so familiar with their layout that he distantly trusts his mind to know which corners to turn and where to walk quicker when curious residents wander the halls as well. Dizzying twillight passes him by in each window, nausea nips at his heels with stronger bites for each passing moment. His steps carry him, quickening thumps against polished stone, a doorframe against his palm, when he momentarily loses his balance. Heavy breaths, letting go, continuing on, pushing his steps.

Stale air gives way to a blessed breeze, his feet thumps against gravel. It’s better, but not enough, not enough to quell the feeling that he could be doing more, could be getting better faster. He needs fresher air.

He follows the pull in his chest, the gust of the wind, as a thought from that same morning idly passes him by. It’s a beautiful day to finally go for a flight, isn’t it?

And just as well, he hears the sound of horses whinning, the shuffling of hooves in stalls and feels a soft wash of light come over him. He finally looks up, his hand finding the beaten down doorframe.

His feet have carried him to the stables.

There’s a person in there, a brown haired guy dressed in a worn down vest and working gloves. He’s raking hay from an empty stall and muttering curses under his breath. A horse tries to snap at him and he jumps away from it.

Chase stares, a steady pressure rising in his throat. Soon, it’s nearly enough to strangle him and his voice comes out faint.

“Deacon?” He asks.

The person startles, whipping around to face him and— no, no that’s not him at all. It’s just the stable boy. Covered in dirt and muck, he goes ram-rod straight when he notices who has entered the stable. He’s a short little thing as well, probably dwarfed by Chase by several inches.

Speaking was a mistake, that little bit of leeway allows his nausea to brutally slam into him, like a gateway slammed open. Incomprehensible white flashes blinds his vision and he has to fight against urge to throw up again.

“Your Majesty—” The stable boy stammers.

Chase slurs under his breath. “Go away, you’re not him.”

How long has it been anyway? The ball is inching closer and he's worked so hard on it, the least that dork can do is show some respect for Chase after all the headaches he's caused with his know-it-all attitude. He could at least spare him the time of day.

There’s a voice speaking, but it’s lost underneath the rushing in his ears.

“Huh?” Chase’s eyes slip open, and— oh, he’s crouched on the floor. His legs feel like brittle sticks underneath him, fully bought into the fantasy that Chase can’t simply force them to work as they should. Then he tries and finds they are very bought into the fantasy indeed.

It takes a few minutes, before the bruising punch of nausea fades into something more manageable and he can push a bit of weight into his voice.

Chase rubs his face. “Go fetch my steed.”

When no reply nor sound heeds his simple request, he glances over his hand and pins the stable boy with a piercing glare. “Now.”

That seems to get the wheels turning and the boy runs off. Chase slumps back, soothing his insistent headache. Once it gets enough under control, he pulls himself up, using the wooden poll behind him to combat his unsteady feet.

The stable boy comes over with a horse, a large white and regal steed that Chase’s churning mind takes a moment to recognise as Echo. The pegasus shakes her wings, just as eager as him to feel the fresh winds above the clouds.

“Your Majesty, are you feeling well-”

“Yes!” Chase snaps, pushing past him. “Should I show a physician’s note to the whole castle as well? Move along.”

Using sheer willpower, he swings up on Echo, and hiyas her to move. The stable boy barely manages to scramble out of his way, as he gallops out the door.

Her wings beat around him, churning up wind faster and faster as Echo flies across the court yard. He holds onto the reigns and leans forwards, urging her on.

Then, he feels a swoop in his stomach as a last moments warning, before the ground start to disappear underneath him.

────────── ・𓇼・──────────

Flying feels like pure terrifying release. It feels like falling in reverse, only the beating heart underneath him telling him that there is nothing to be afraid of.

He can hear nothing, scarcely see nothing, as he presses himself close to Echo’s mane and holds on in a death grip. He’s ascending, he can feel it in his stomach and the wind rushing past his ears. The saddle is tilted slightly downwards, his legs pressed against the pegasus’ side to hold on. Wild energy rushes through him, like swimming against a waterfall and a bubbling laugh escapes him.

How long the ascend lasts, he couldn’t possibly tell, maybe it’s minutes or a few breathtaking seconds or far longer than he thinks.

He feels waterdrops against his cheeks, sliding away in moments later. He feels the air grow a little thin, as the ride reaches its peak.

The flap of wings slows to a calm dift, his saddle evens out and his balance no longer hangs on the mercy of a rope.

Slowly, he dares to ease back. He allows himself to look.

His eyes grow wide as crystal lakes.

It's a beautiful view, the fields and forests of his isle stretches out all below him. His castle is so far below, that it seems like a dot on the map he saw so many months ago. The view captures his eye, holding him still, as he looks down in awe from his stallion podium.

Steadily drifting, he allows his grip in the reins to grow slack. He leans back, gaze drifting up and upwards, until he finds the deep blue starry sky and soft pink twillight horizon that lays at the edge of everything. Echo’s hooves cuts through thin clouds, sinking in and out of them with each wing beat. The rhythmic swaying makes it so very tempting for his eyes to sink closed. And there’s no reason not to, so he lets it.

He feels better. Floating above it all brings him a wave of ease and calm, as he knew it would. He would float among the clouds for eternity to bathe in its view if he could.

Like a smoothing hand over turbulent water, ever-present and warm, it settles his unease into serenity. His nausea fades, the surface falls still.

For the briefest moment, no more than a simple line in a storybook so easily passed, a single truth drowns out every other.

She feels at home.

For the kingdom of old, its vastness curves and curves around the corner of her vision, welcoming and warm. The endless sky lovingly reaching, clouds circling and horizon smiling, wrapping and wrapping around her like the beginnings of an wishful embrace—

Chase takes a sharp inhale.

He blinks rapidly and he's once again flying at the top of the world, no longer craddled in its valley.

Oh, that's far down. That's really, super far down. Why the sweet buttery bread did he decide this was a great idea? This is bone breaking height, flat pancake meet ground height. Feverish nausea slams into him like a mace, his heart pounds like it had forgotten how to.

He leans his head against Echo and breathes out.

A wet cough leaves him, followed by more as they claw for escape. They wrack through him, like he’s being shaken by his shoulders with all their might. He forces them down, holding his breath, despite how his lungs cry out.

Eventually, finally, the grip slackens and he eases the restless part of his mind back to its slumber. Warm wind carasses his cheeks, like the touch of a mother.

His eyes flutter open, calm certainty fills him that lest he lost his grip, then the murky clouds below would save his fall.

If Chase could see himself in this moment, he would see a serene expression unlike anything he’s ever passed in a mirror. Relaxed, like he’s greeting an old friend. The last sunlight dances against the light freckles on his cheeks and specks of blue swirl in his gaze.

“Why, isn’t that a sight for sore eye.” He chuckles to the open sky. Pulling on the reigns, he leans to the side and plummets into a dive like it's the most natural thing in the world.

𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃 ｡𓇼｡ 𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃