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“You know,” the King says, arms pinned behind his back as Lady Palace secures the rope- or, rather, the laces of her corset- around his wrists, “If you’d just told me that you wanted this, I would have been down. I know all too well that uptight girls like a little bit of rough play-”
He can hear the roll in her eyes as she says, “I’m far less uptight than you fucking think, Your Highness.”
She spits his title- not even his title, truly, considering the fact that he is a King and Your Highness is reserved for princes and princesses, not the one wearing the golden crown but rather the goddamn tiara- like it’s a slur, all mockery, all edge.
And the King would almost be amused by her attempt at being a fly in his ear- he has weathered far more creative kidnapping attempts than this- if it weren’t for the knife that presses to his neck. Things get a little bit more intense as the tip of the blade presses tight to his throat, drawing a single drop of blood from right underneath the outermost layer of skin.
“Some might call this treason,” the King says, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He is powerful. He is not going to go down because some girl decided that she wanted to intimidate some royalty.
“And some might call it justice,” the girl spits back at him, “You’re the one who is kidnapping citizens out of their homes and stealing our taxes-”
Wait a minute. The King has only kidnapped one citizen out of their home recently, thank you very much.
And as for taxes-
Okay, the King knows that his father was more than the greedy sort, but he’s been working on it, okay?
It’s not his fault if the nobility- and okay, him a bit, too- happens to like a bit of partying. Sue him. (Or, rather, since people cannot legally sue the king in this kingdom, fight him. Levy a war against him. He’d dare you to even try.)
The King tries to move from beneath Lady Palace’s heeled boot- surely smearing some of his makeup, a dear pity, he just acquired the perfect golden shade to paint on his eyelids last week- but cannot help but let out a hiss. Fuck, that has got to be bruising down there on his ribs, doesn’t it? He got way too much experience with that when his regents made the mistake of thinking that he was going to rule through violence instead of by the quick crook of his finger and the silver-tongued edge of a bargain well made. No thanks, he’ll stick to a negotiation and a back-handed bargain than a war, thank you very much.
“What?” Lady Palace bites out, “Uncomfortable? Well, I’ll have you know that you deserve it, after what you’ve done to so many others-”
The King rolls his eyes. Fucking bullshit. “What? Like Lord Payne? The only reason he was ‘kidnapped out of his home,’ so to say, was because he kidnapped and interrogated one of my servants. A nice little fella called Meatball, by the way, a cook who knew nothing about my greater plans, and yet your bestie decided that the best thing to do was to pull him from his horse and keep him from getting home to his little wife. I don’t care if the Lord is oddly handsome or not, he doesn’t get to rope civilians into his little investigations.”
There is a beat of hesitation, and for a moment, the King thinks that he’s almost gotten through to her. That she is actually listening to the fact that he didn’t deserve to get yanked from his carriage and pressed into the dirt and threatened within an inch of his life and, worst of all, humiliated like this.
Then, thankfully, she yanks him up, her knife moving only just in time to avoid drawing more than a couple of drops of blood from his throat. “Alright, Your Highness,” Lady Palace says, “You are about to prove yourself. Let’s see what you’re really made of.”
The King can’t help a smug smile. There we go. Finally, someone with a head of rational thought on their shoulders, someone who is willing to actually think through the fact that people can have nuance.
“Might we loosen the binds on my wrists?” The King asks, because he can’t help himself but prod and poke where he shouldn’t press. It’s in his nature. He can’t help but be a nuisance, because once upon a time, no one ever paid attention to him, because he was his parents’ spare, because he was never the son that his parents wanted, because he was always too much and not enough for what they wanted out of a future ruler.
“You’ll have to prove yourself first, Your Highness,” Lady Palace replies, and he has to wonder, from the way that she says the honorific, if she knows exactly what she’s doing. If she knows exactly what social faux pas she’s committing against the King of the country.
(And there’s something in the King that only finds her even more intriguing if she does know what she’s doing and yet continues to do it.)
Lady Palace nudges the King in the back, and something in his stomach roils at the touch, pain radiating out like a thunderclap, like a lightning strike. He can’t help the gasp that echoes from his throat, the automatic reaction to the agony that rips through him.
The King knows that he’s soft. He knows that he’s pampered in the sort of way that the palace cats are.
But knowing that doesn’t stop the physical reaction of his body doubling over, vomit etching its way out of his throat as his vision blurs. “How hard did you hit me?” The King hisses as the world around him sways, the edges blackening like bread burning in the oven when he snuck down to get away from his father’s expectations of him heading to the sparring grounds.
“Just hard enough,” Lady Palace says, sounding almost offended, but the King thinks that if anyone should be offended here, it should be him, the subject of absolutely rude assumptions, judged for something that he didn’t start, forced to be someone that he has always tried to avoid.
But it is the nature of kings to be disappointments, the King supposes. It is the nature of kings to do things that they shouldn’t and to have to bear the consequences.
And it seems to be the nature of kings to fall, the King’s knees buckling beneath him, sending him toppling forward, Lady Palace’s hands scrambling to yank on him, to catch him, to prevent his face from hitting the ground again.
The muscles in the King’s arms burn as Lady Palace desperately yanks, as the world shutters to a close, as the curtains fall, but at least she seems to be nice enough to catch him before he lands in a pool of his own vomit.