Archive of Our Own

A doll’s face was meant to be one of the hardest parts of it to create. Make the expression pleasing, but not unnerving. Never let it betray suffering at cruel treatment. Smile.

Clown was grateful, in a way, that he was given a mask. He could hide behind that, at the least, and let it hide any trace of his displeasure.

That was a lie.

His displeasure was perfectly obvious, to any of the servants dressing him.

It was in his posture, in his stubborn manner, in the terse voice he was giving as few answers in as possible. He was sitting perfectly still, being their perfect doll, and the anger inside him perfectly filled the space that grief should have flooded, the moment his parents told him he was a sacrifice.

Sacrifice was too nice a word for it, actually. Clown would say sex slave, then he’d be sent out of the castle for being crude about it. Kaboodle might be nice enough to call it arranged marriage, which hit a nice middle ground of being technically accurate while entirely unrepresentative.

Whatever it was, it was going to suck like shit, and Clown didn’t want any part of it.

It was so nice of his parents, then, to not give a fuck what he wanted.

Clown truly felt honoured, as the servants dug out fabrics he didn’t know their kingdom had, and he was draped in scarlet velvet cloaks and black lace. His colours, just to give him a little morale boost.

Nothing was boosting his morale, as a servant’s fingers tilted his chin up, and Clown met his own dead, furious eyes in the mirror. He got to watch, himself draped in furs and finery, as yet more bodiless hands tied a thick purple ribbon neatly around his throat.

That was in case the Fae King missed the purpose of his gift.

Clown nearly punched something, right there. He’d have slaughtered someone involved in this a long time ago, if part of the reason he was being dressed head to toe by servants wasn’t to guarantee he had no way of fighting back on his person. It was itching, not to have a single blade on him. It was humiliating, moreover, to have been searched like a common criminal for all of them.

Humiliating, and undeniably effective. Clown almost hated Ferre, for some of the hiding places he’d recommended. None of them had worked.

Now, though, he wasn’t bothering with blame. He couldn’t even quite find it in himself to blame his parents, even if he despised them. It was a trade, fair and simple. Something valued by the kingdom, in return for a calm winter and the population not losing their minds.

It was nice to know he was valued. More than that, if the whispers were to be believed. Clown didn’t, but servants told stories too, and rumour would have it that he’d been specially requested.

How much nicer, then, to be of equivalent value to the well-bred herd of horses that had been given last year.

Clown was going to be sick. His parents had tried to make him stop doing that, after he spent a year or so, as a child, terrified of eating fae food. It had been paranoia, when that had just been starting to creep in. The all-consuming terror of being tied somewhere he didn’t want to be.

Then, he’d grown up, and he’d realised even faeries didn’t offer random princes their food around the royal residence. After that, it had been the castle itself that had made him sick.

His parents had never let him outside much. To protect him, allegedly, and that was probably their priority, but it was to protect the people, too. After Clown had killed the castle cat, almost before he’d had ten years to his name, and presented its body with a spiteful satisfaction to Kaboodle that it would no longer scratch at their doors in the dead of night. He’d fancied himself something of a rat-catcher.

Kaboodle had screamed, and she’d apologised later, then again, three years after and three years before now, in a quieter, more regretful voice. She knew what that had done. She knew how little Clown had been allowed to train, after that, for fear of encouraging his urges.

Not that he didn’t train. But he had to do it in secret, with Ferre. And it meant he had to hide. Even as he’d improved, he’d spent more time sick, more time avoiding his family, and more time resenting the walls that kept him safe.

His parents had never found out, at least. Ferre should escape the whole ordeal of Clown’s upbringing unscathed, so long as the only evidence of his flagrant treason was spirited away with the fae realm to appease an unseen king. Clown could do him that favour, as the smallest repayment of all his guard had done for him.

It was strange to think, that this was the last mark he’d leave on the only place he’d ever lived. No more running past tapestries with Kaboodle, no more climbing into rafters to startle passing servants. No more sneaking out of his window into the gardens to find Ferre, and spar until the moonlight turned to sun.

This was where his life ended, in effect.

Clown lowered his head, a little, feeling servants move around him like ghosts. He was framed, perfectly, by the brass intricacies hemming in the mirror, reflecting back at him his own hateful eyes, the mask held comfortingly in his lap, the cloak to fend off the cold of the fae realm and the ribbon tied around his neck as a calling card.

He looked his age. Sixteen years and going on it, scarred yet youthful. There was little plumpness in his cheeks, but it shone through in his stature, cagey as the teenager he’d stopped wanting to be years ago. There was inexperience, in his eyes, which he tried to smother with rage.

A fae would see through it.

Clown expected the worst, of his future captors. He saw it as moving from one cage to another, a different castle, where maybe the eyes would look as strange as his. If this had been bad, what remained of his existence would be nothing short of eternal suffering. That was if the fae didn’t kill him for sport.

If they did, Clown would give them a fight. He wasn’t going down to the monsters that had scared him more than Kaboodle, when they’d both been too young to tell stories from the shadows on their walls. It gave him some satisfaction, even, to find out if the faerie really would bleed gold, if he got his nails under their skin.

It was a child’s dream. But Clown was a child, and would be forever, because there was no life for him, outside these walls. If there was, he wouldn’t be who he’d been raised to be, a contained flame that had consumed itself in impotency. If the fae didn’t kill him, he’d kill himself, running into the boundary between worlds to die as something uncontained.

If they did, then at least he’d die to immortal hands. Clown was sick of fearing dangers he’d never respected. His parents taught him to fear uprising, so he taught himself to speak in a way that made his guards turn a blind eye to his disobediences. His parents taught him to fear assassins, so he slept with his favourite knife clutched in his hand, hidden under his pillow. And still, they would never let him outside.

“Prince. It’s time to go.”

Clown blinked. There was a softness, to the servant’s voice, which he wouldn’t have expected. For the first time, he wondered how he would be remembered, in the only household he’d ever known. He hadn’t treated anyone well. But perhaps that would go down as an egalitarianism, treating the servants that fed him the same as his parents and regents. Maybe he’d be remembered as just.

Maybe it didn’t matter a single bit, because he’d never see any of them again.

Nodding, Clown straightened, knowing without thinking what was missing. His crown was a part of him, in a way, permission to go outside. He’d never been seen without it.

It settled on his hair like the collar around his neck, gold shining in the candlelight, elegant curls of metal set with shining rubies. That, at least, was devoid of purple.

Clown put on his own mask, a thick figure of eight rotated to sit across his eyes, one side with a swoop like an upside-down teardrop sweeping across his cheek. Like the liliripes of the jester’s hats he’d been told it would be ridiculous to wear, but had always craved, with a certain childish curiosity. That side was crimson, thin black lines hatching across it to create a slight feeling of depth, while the other was a pearly white, twirling swipes of gold painted across in just-barely raised swoops.

It didn’t cover his whole face. That would be unsuitable, he’d been told, and while the words had fallen on deaf ears, Clown knew better than to flout his parents’ advice so visibly. This was more subtle, in a way, yet still hid enough of his face for him to feel safe.

It would be good enough, to leave his home behind forever while wearing.

Clown stood, and tore his eyes away from the mirror. He moved his hands down what little of his body he was allowed to disturb, and wondered, not for the first time in his life, what he would have to trade or conceal just to feel like he was surviving.

He wasn’t a child anymore, apparently.

——————

He hadn’t gotten to see Kaboodle.

Ferre, fine, he hadn’t been expecting to see a random guard his parents should never have known his connection to.

But Kab.

Clown hadn’t realised he was going to miss her so much. loud, Annoying Kab, who’d taught him to swim, and raced him across the kitchen gardens. Silly, sweet Kab, who’d blamed him for a broken painting, and had grown into the princess she was as Clown retreated into his own world.

There was no one left to teach him things, anymore. No one left to be compared to. For better or worse, he was alone.

And he felt every inch of it.

The furs, it turned out, had been far from a stupid idea. Like everything else his parents seemed to do, they drowned him, but Clown came to be bitterly grateful, over the course of the bumpy carriage ride. It provided some padding, at least, because his parents seemed to think that making him look pretty and perfect would make up for sending one of their shittiest carriages.

Clown had seen them. He was putting the thought out of his mind, tossing the whole memory out with the hope the life he was already missing like a fallen comrade went with it. He didn’t need their cooing touches, their saccharine assurances that he was serving his kingdom so, so well. He didn’t want any of it.

He didn’t want to hear their voices. He didn’t want to let in the thought, even for a moment, that this would be the last time in his whole life he’d hear them, that he couldn’t remember the last words his sister had ever said to him, that he couldn’t remember and he didn’t want to, because the banal, horrible, mind-numbing experience of the past sixteen years of his life might suddenly look like the best thing that would ever happen to him, and he’d hated every second.

He’d wasted so much time with Kab. With Ferre. With everyone.

“I’m going to be sick.”

The driver didn’t seem to hear. Maybe it was the roaring, icy winds outside, maybe it was instructions to ignore anything he said in case he made a run for it, but Clown felt so, so alone, and it wasn’t helping anything.

“I’m going to be sick!” Trying again, Clown heard his voice slip, almost cracking like a sheet of ice before he caught it, and swallowed. “Hey! Stop!”

There was a pressure in his ears, and at the bottom of his throat, and he was suddenly breathing so, so carefully, because he’d never eat food from home again. That made it worse. Everything was making it worse, and he’d never even have Kab again, to sit with him as he shivered.

When the driver said nothing, Clown took matters into his own hands. Story of his life. He scrambled to the side of the carriage, forcing the window down, and fumbling with the latch. They’d locked it from the outside, because of course they had, but he wasn’t even trying to run. He was dealing with acceptance, he wouldn’t waste this energy dashing his skull on whatever terrain they were riding over.

He got the door open, and promptly threw up. Clown could taste pastries on the back of his tongue, bitter and sour and disgusting, and that made him retch again, because the cook had slipped him his favourite cakes after dinners when his parents told him he couldn’t take up archery, or anything, ever, and he’d never get to thank her.

He’d never get to do anything. His life ended here, out here somewhere he’d never been before. And it should make him happy, to have finally escaped the castle, but Clown hated it. He hated that he hadn’t asked for this, had said he didn’t want this, and now he felt like nothing, and he felt like shit because of it.

The driver didn’t look back once, until Clown had finished throwing up what felt like his entire stomach lining, and he was just panting. The cold was setting in. He had the door open, and he didn’t even have food from home inside him anymore, and he shivered, once, before cutting his losses, and pulling himself back inside.

There, Clown didn’t bother to sit back on the bench. There was no one to present himself to, no one he had to look proper for.

He just curled up on the floor, huddled against the footboard, a slighted prince glaring across his opulent hearse as the wind whipped at his exposed skin. It wasn’t much. They’d given him gloves, but those were made of silk, and the exposed parts of his cheeks stung.

Clown pulled his cloak a little tighter, and tried to rid himself of the taste of bile. He didn’t know how long it would be before he ate again. He wouldn’t eat fae food, so chances were he’d starve to death first. Or they’d get into his head, and he might as well be dead, before he let a faerie control him.

It was cold, the rest of the way to where he’d be abandoned.

——————

“You don’t have to do this.”

It was a weak argument, made weaker still by his teeth chattering. The driver was wrapped up even more than he was, a black blur through the snow coming down so thick and heavy Clown was surprised he could see more than a metre in front of his face.

None of it settled on the ground, though. Not inside a fae circle. Outside, it built up, in eddies and drifts, and the driver had kicked himself clear somewhere to stand, as he tied one of Clown’s hands to the pole hammered into the very boundary, dictated by lavender and unnaturally blooming adder’s tongue leaves, pushing up through the cold ground to intertwine into a wreath that felt more like a binding circle.

“You could let me go.”

His mother would never have to know. Clown didn’t even bother to say as much, because constructing an argument would be more useless than the energy he was wasting on speaking. It was cold, even inside the fae circle. And he wasn’t really trying.

He wasn’t even looking at the driver, turned his executioner. Clown was just staring at his own hand, being wrapped in stiff rope and twisted against the splintering post, like it belonged to someone else. His other was still free, for now, resting uselessly by his side.

Clown wondered how long he’d be left here. The thought had occurred to him, as he was dragged, unprotesting, out of the carriage, that the fae might not even come. Rumours are rumours, and superstition might be just that. He might simply freeze to death out here, and be dragged off or devoured where he keeled over by a winter fox or bear.

It didn’t really matter to him. He didn’t care. His parents had killed him, his sister hadn’t said goodbye, there was one other person in the whole world Clown gave a fuck about and his family didn’t even know it.

There wasn’t much he’d been living for, anyway.

“Or give me a knife, at least.”

He wanted his weapons back. They had been his only chosen companion, and Clown felt vulnerable. He felt like shit anyway, but weaponry seemed an immediate, fixable issue. Not that he had a hope in hell of fixing it.

The driver finished with his left hand, and moved, walking carefully around the ring of flowers to the other side. Clown held out his own hand, staring up in disbelieving anger, anonymised by his mask and preventing any bloodstains thanks to his gloves. The driver could walk away, without an ounce of guilt. No one had to come out of this feeling any kind of guilt at all, because this was what was right for the kingdom.

“Hey.”

Their eyes flickered, for a moment. Not enough to actually acknowledge him, but Clown felt the thin, tentative strands of the last human attention he might ever feel. It felt important. He swallowed, and hoped the driver had family of their own.

“Tell my sister I’ll miss her. And that…”

What? These might be his last words, and for the first time, Clown struggled for them. He was struggling. There was snow in his eyes, and frost creeping up from his knees, and his life ended, here, so what could he possibly tell Kab that would make her feel better?

“She’s going to be a wonderful aueen.”

There should be more. He should say how much he loved her, how he never blamed her, how he owed her his sanity and his sympathy and his frustrations.

There was nothing more, that Clown could find it in himself to say. He hadn’t been raised to have emotions. He hadn’t been raised to do much of anything at all.

But, at least the driver gave him a nod. And stood up, and Clown could feel it, could feel finality weighing in his throat and on his hands, and he looked down, like the perfect rendering of a perfect sacrifice, a doll in perfect clothes against the snow.

He felt it, when he was alone. He heard a horse’s bray, somewhere a little way off, and smiled, in a teary, bitter kind of shakiness.

That was it, then. That was all he got.

He felt stupid. Hands tied out to each of his sides, keeping him firmly on his knees, in the portal between his world and the next. Clown was glad his face was hidden. He looks like a damsel in fucking distress.

He looked like a whore.

There were rumours, again, rumours that felt like they were circling closer, as Clown knelt here. Fae had little use, for humans. Dolls, toys, cheap entertainment to be discarded. None of it was good. At best he’d be a pet, a lower being granted even less freedom than he’d had before. At best, they’d kill him, on purpose or by accident. At best, Clown would freeze to death out here, and never have to think about what a fae could do to him, with free rein.

Anything.

Clown swallowed, dryly, and shifted his legs, damp around the knees where snow had melted against his body heat. That was his answer. They could do anything to him.

Despite what his parents had thought, the first time they caught him trying to sneak out, he was a virgin. And he hadn’t even thought about it, not until his mother had crouched down, and told him in no uncertain terms that no son of hers was disgracing himself with common folk.

Kaboodle had explained to him, afterwards. She’d told him what he couldn’t do, what he shouldn’t be caught dead doing with his family’s name. What would be forgiven, if he ever married, what he could do and she couldn’t.

Ferre had told him he was sexy, before.

Clown had never paid any of it much thought. Ferre liked touching him, and he didn’t get much other physical contact, so he allowed it, trading it for surprise attacks and muttered barbs when Ferre got especially touchy.

In hindsight… Clown wondered what had been said. About him, and his reclusiveness, and if he was doing anything, with all his time in private. Maybe Ferre would find himself in trouble after all. Not that he deserved to.

Maybe it would have paid, to have a little more sexual experience, before this. His father had mentioned, in a low voice, just once, what the sacrifice could mean. Clown was a toy to pay for his kingdom’s survival, without ever once getting to truly see it. Fae didn’t see humans as anything to be respected. Princes meant nothing to them.

Head held low as his cheeks glowed, Clown shifted again, bringing his knees closer together. He hoped the Fae King didn’t make him wait long. Or the wolves might get their go, and he wasn’t even sure which he’d prefer.

The wolves came, before the faerie.

Or, first, their quarry. The brown coat of a rabbit caught in Clown’s eye, dusted with snow like the icing on the cakes he and Kab were served at special occasions. It darted across the clearing, just outside the looming woods behind him, making a mad dash across his field of vision. Its tiny feet left indents in the snow, almost too small to be called paw prints.

Clown watched it go, almost to the track down which his carriage had descended.

Before one of those tiny, snow-damp feet pressed into the tracks he’d left, he saw the fox, giving chase.

It looked like when he tackled Kab to one of their beds, in one of the games they played that made him feel alive, only there was blood. Red seeped into the snow, and Clown felt his stomach drop. There was no one to protect Kab, back home. He was powerless to save the rabbit, as it twitched and fell still, sharpened teeth buried in its neck.

The fox turned to him, red-stained snout and panting like a dog with the satisfaction of its kill. Clown wondered if it would have him, next. He’d killed that cat, and maybe it haunted him. Maybe he, too, was prey, out here.

“…Go on.” Voice barely a murmur, Clown hardly raised his head, a smile pulling at his frostbitten lips. “Do it. Coward.”

The fox didn’t seem to hear him. Clown cursed, just softly enough to be almost fond, as it scooped up the rabbit in its jaws, and scampered off, its own feet taking up the trail back into the forest.

After that, it was quiet for a while. A long while. Clown might be going deaf, his bodily functions shutting down as cold and stagnation set in, but it felt too long. He felt wary.

His arms had started aching. It hurt, it turned out, to have them tied not-quite-outstretched, with rough rope that rubbed straight through his thin, useless gloves. Clown was strong, but there was a limit. He was human, and a human child at that.

That, and his head had started to ache. Hunger didn’t always register for him, but he could tell when he was lacking something. And it was warmth, the warmth Clown decided to attribute to a lack of sustenance to keep him functioning. The biting cold that had long since turned his lips numb and the craving inside him combined were making his skull pound like Ferre had thrown him into a wall.

Anywhere but here, he decided. That was all he wanted. Anywhere but here, and after a while, with only the rabbit’s bloodstains to provide him some grounding in a world awash with white, Clown would have even taken a faerie Court in relief. He needed to move.

His tears froze in his eyes, when they began to come, and Clown hardly noticed. He still didn’t, when they slipped down his mask. It wasn’t until he tasted salt, and wondered if he was hallucinating food, that he realised.

He normally spent about half an hour at a time crying, so it gave him some idea of time. He let himself, too, which might have messed with it. But it was cathartic. Clown was crying for himself, for Kab, who might not even miss him, for the life his parents hadn’t let him have and the life he’d been denied, after being forced into it so painfully.

His tears vanished, into the snow beneath him. He couldn’t even wipe his face, when it started to sting.

Not that it mattered. Clown kept crying for a long time. It felt wrong, and right, and pathetic.

It felt right, at least, for that to be when he was finally interrupted.

Faint, crystalline sparks began to gather above the plant life keeping him trapped, but Clown barely noticed. Even when the lavender straightened, and he could taste smoke, in the back of his mouth.

He noticed, when the white snow was interrupted by a soft footfall.

Clown pulled himself together quickly. He had to. He took a single breath, trying not to let it sound startled, accepted there was nothing to be done about the redness in his eyes, and looked up, glaring with all the anger of a very cold, miserable, unwilling prince left as his own kingdom’s sacrifice.

“Hey, don’t- don’t let me interrupt. You looked busy.”

The fae grinned, and crouched, quickly, pushing back a hood that looked black, on first glance, but in catching the winter sun, turned out to be a dark violet velvet, almost like Clown’s own drapes. It was fastened with a silver chain, lighter than human silver, like the fae’s hair, looking like the white ash that remained after a bonfire.

It wore loose clothes of a lighter, yet dark purple, fastened with a pure white belt that appeared made of dragon scale, with the same scaled material running where embroidery looked like it should over the shoulders. Soft black boots looked almost human, aside from the scaly wings protruding from the backs, matching the strange gloves that stretched out from under the fae’s cloak and hooked over its middle fingers, leaving a triangle of dark, textured fabric stretched across the backs of its hands.

It was the work of a few moments’ silent staring, yet Clown decided it was enough. He’d seen enough. It could have him, and he was tired, and so, so cold. It seemed to have no body heat to speak of, but was reminding him to shiver, so much that he gritted his teeth and reminded to vow himself to silence.

“Can you… lift your head, please, little human?” The fae giggled, carrying like wind chimes on an icy wind, and Clown closed his eyes and bared his throat, hating himself and the world with a burning passion that almost reached his goosefleshed skin. “M- mhm. Perfect.”

Cold, freezing fingers brushed against his neck, kept away solely by the ribbon, and Clown flinched. He didn’t think to, honestly, hadn’t even meant too, but any attempt to offer that as an excuse died in his throat as nausea welled again, alongside the possibility of tears, and his hands caught painfully in the ropes holding him in place and on his knees.

The fae looked abashed, to give it credit. But Clown felt like the thin ice on a lake that had been tapped too hard, and crying earlier had been nothing compared to what he now felt, growing beneath the surface.

He was so cold. He wanted to be by a fire, with Kab, and ease his wrists back to movement, and he didn’t want to have spent hours of his life wondering how best to have sex with a creature he’d never seen before, and he wanted home. The idealised home, or even the one he’d been given, he’d give anything to have it back.

Like a child, Clown went limp, and sobbed, just once, before he bit it back. The next pang of cold brought the return of a little of his sense. He didn’t want to go back there, not really. He wanted away from all of this, and maybe, just maybe, this fae would be an unknown, yet lesser evil.

Not daring to meet the fae’s indecipherable, watchful eyes, Clown breathed out, again, exhaling warmth and inhaling ice, and tried to force himself forward. To accept.

His knees wouldn’t move.

What use was a doll, if it couldn’t even bend to fit the right shape?

“Oh- are you hurt?”

No, he was fucking sobbing. But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say anything, even as his tears stopped coming, and his breath stopped moving at all, and he was just staring, gasping, every few beats, feeling feelings well inside him until they burst and left him aching and came again.

“I- I can wait.” The fae spoke nervously, not like something eldritch, not like a monster, but like… something not-quite-human. A few shades shy. “If you- need a moment.”

It settled, knees folded against the pillow of snow, supporting it like it weighed nothing. Clown wished. He was always too human, intruding on existence and his parents’ time, running through abandoned corridors and climbing walls to escape the feeling of existing too loudly in somewhere he wasn’t meant to be.

No, he didn’t want to go home. No, he didn’t want to be crying. He didn’t know what was happening to him.

Maybe, maybe, he should give the fae a chance. He’d barely even seen it.

Clown took the offer, taking a moment, then two, then several, to calm himself, in a silent way he’d taught himself years ago. Finally, after far too long, he could look up, and freeze dead in place again, a sudden return of blood to his face making his head spin.

There were a few things he’d missed, about the fae. Violet eyes. Curled horns, from the sides of its head, rendered in ashy white only a little lighter than its hair. Black lips. Cheeks flushed with gold, nails stained pure black curling anxiously into the snow that seemed to support it like a royal carpet.

It occurred to him, belatedly, that this was a fellow royal. To whom he should probably pay respects, even if everything was strange, and he was lightheaded.

Clown dipped his head, in something of a dizzying instinct, as his body abruptly switched to autopilot.

“Pleased to meet you.”

His voice came out a little wrong, but it was passable. Hoarse, for so long unused, but that might work to his advantage. The fae gave off no emotions, so Clown had to look up, to see those strange eyes widened, and black-tinted lips open, slightly.

“…well, hello. That… was quick.”

Clown would have shifted, if any movement wouldn’t have reminded him of the burning in his entire body to move, to do something. He settled for fidgeting, slightly, and tugging at his restraints.

“Thank you.”

Best to get it done quick. It might not want to hear him speak at all. It might want him to act like the animal it surely saw him as, tied up and panting in fear.

In that interest, Clown left it there, remembering his mask could hide him, a little, and he might look as strange to the fae as it was to him.

“Mhm?” The fae smiled, a gentle prompt, but Clown stayed stubborn, under the guise of respect. And his draining energy, which he was wary of betraying. “…I- I’d do the same, but I- don’t think I know what to call you?”

Clown’s eyes narrowed, in an instant, and he hissed. Teeth bared, acting like a child, before his parents told him not to be so aggressive. He was aggressive.

Again, the fae just laughed, and held up a hand, as if to keep Clown at bay.

“O- okay. I get points for trying.”

Glaring, Clown drew back, doubting that severely.

But the fae just leaned forward, and ruffled his hair, making a noise of satisfaction, even as Clown startled. It dislodged his crown, a little, but it was…

Strange. It was something. Clown swallowed, hard, and considered. He had mere moments, but he could think fast. He could think about how he wasn’t getting out of here, and the fae hadn’t touched him yet apart from that, and maybe it wouldn’t again, and all the while he’d been thinking about sex, there had been an undercurrent, the faintest, most shameful idea, that maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

A little late, but a little over-aggressive to make up for it, Clown pressed forward again, leaning his head willingly into the fae’s hand.

It felt wonderful. Not warm, but Clown didn’t need warm. Just alive. And faerie were so alive, and this one felt human in so many of the ways that mattered, its little, tittering gasp of surprise trailing into affection.

“Oh… you- you’re just lonely, aren’t you? Little human, it- it’s ok.”

The fae’s hand moved, those cold, flawless fingertips never losing contact with him, until they were scratching at his chin. Clown whined, softly, softly, for fear he could still be heard, but that was gone. He could have what he wanted, and he wanted this, right now. He wanted anything. He didn’t know what he wanted, really, apart from out of this circle, and this fae was his best chance at it.

“M’kay, you’re good… I- I thought I was getting a prince, this season, actually…”

“‘M a prince.”

It came out wrong, because parts of his head kept switching off, but Clown muddled through, enough to open his eyes. He regretted it, but didn’t want to back down, even when he knew how weak he must look already.

“Oh? Because… you know- I’ve seen humans. And- princes don’t act like-“

“Don’t. Don’t… even.”

“Difficult subject?”

Clown gritted his teeth, letting the fae toy with his hair, where it fell over his mask. He didn’t know how much to say. Maybe as much as possible, now, to save it being dragged out of him later. Or nothing at all, so the fae might not be too interested in him. But that would just end with him dead, or worse. Better a pet than dead, surely.

“My parents. I’m a prince, but not… their kind of prince.”

“Aw. I can get that. What… kind of prince are you?”

“Aggressive.”

It was strange, how easily the fae pulled answers out of him. Unnerving. Clown hadn’t spoken this much about himself with anyone, ever.

“Mhm?” The fae smiled, and now, it had sharpened teeth, and Clown froze. “I like aggressive. What- else don’t your parents let you do?”

“Hunt.” Clown was almost enjoying the conversation, tugging on his wrists again in an increasingly desperate need to move. “Fight, and- run away. Not... be here.”

The enjoyment drained, in an instant, and the fae’s face fell. Clown slumped, because that had probably done it. There was a reason his parents said his habits weren’t presentable.

“You- don’t want to be here?”

“Its… for my kingdom, and-“

“Not what I asked.” The fae shook its head, eyeing Clown carefully. Clown, who felt almost panicked, grieving the easy conversation he’d nearly had, before he fucked it up. “Is that- why your hands are…?”

“…Yes.”

“Would- would you have run? I know I- I kept you waiting-“

Clown could hear his ears ringing. Would he have run? Yes, into the forest, to be hunted like prey. Yes, after how long he’d been trapped here, debating his own torment. Yes, if only to be away from the idea that he was pleasing his parents, pleasing a kingdom he’d never met.

“Of- of course.”

His voice cracked, and something else did, too. Clown was pleading, as he yanked at his hands, and shook his head, and tried to right his own head with how he was meant to see the world. Of course he wanted freedom. Wasn’t that human? Shouldn’t he be allowed to have that, without fighting for it, without crying himself to sleep?

But if he wanted the fae more, wanted possibility, more than death on his own terms, he should just accept. He’d never been good, at knowing when to lie.

“G- give me your name.” Both of the fae’s hands found his face, forcing his head upwards, until Clown was meeting hypnotic, violet eyes. “Right now. I’m- not going to let you go until you do anyway. So name, now, please.”

Clown didn’t know why he was fighting.

Eyes closed, pretending the cold was the fae hugging him, like Kab used to, before they outgrew games, Clown let out a small, brief whine, and gathered himself enough to whisper.

“….Clown.”

It felt like breathing out. It felt like a lot, all at once, leaving him, and Clown went entirely limp. Slumping forward, trying to remember to breathe, his shoulder screaming but unable to move, even to breathe, really, beyond shallow, restrained panic. His control moved outside, into the hands of another, leaving him truly a doll, for the fae’s whims.

“Clown? Am I- is that right?”

A quick nod. If the fae could do something, anything, Clown would take it.

“Breathe with me, Clown. Breathing… is…”

The fae seemed to spend a few moments in thought, before inhaling carefully, and, when Clown copied, going out again. The rhythm wasn’t right, for a little while, but Clown carried on mimicking anyway, like a marionette tied to the fae.

It helped. It helped because he didn’t have to think about it. As oxygen found its way back to his head, Clown felt true panic set in, but it was muted. Muted, and all the more terrifying for it.

He should say something. Protest, plead, except he wanted as much goodwill as possible. He should have said something, before the fae sighed, softly, and Clown felt its eyes settle on him.

“Don’t speak, Clown. You’re good. Thank- thank you for the name, by the way. Makes this… a lot easier.”

Clown opened his eyes, mute and still breathing to time, feeling strangely detached, as the fae got to its feet. He mourned the loss of contact, but no more than his own agency, which suddenly seemed a long-forgotten memory.

“Stay still, now, Clown.”

The fae was untying him. Muted relief washed over him, and Clown would have relaxed, without the instruction keeping a gentle hold on the back of his mind. He still watched, hoping the fae felt his gratitude, feeling a rising wave of fear.

It had his name. That meant… something. Maybe it meant fondness. Maybe it meant he’d already been annoying. Clown was so bad at knowing. And he’d need to know, to know if he was playing for survival, or likability.

He couldn’t speak. Or move. It began to feel like claustrophobia, after mere moments, and Clown felt his chest tighten in panic.

Somehow, the fae noticed. Clown hadn’t really meant it to, but the guiding touch to his cheek was welcome, in some mostly-meaningless way.

“You want something?”

Yes. He wanted to speak, and to get up and walk around, just a few paces, it would make him feel so much better.

“…you can speak, Clown. Be careful with it.”

The fae tapped his nose, and Clown inhaled, sharply. He’d been able to breathe, but he’d begun to feel like he was drowning, and gave the appropriate glare to meet its worried gaze.

“Let me move.”

“Ask nicely.”

Again, Clown hissed, and it was scary, how natural it felt. He was losing everything he’d been taught, everything that made him act like a respectable prince.

“Ask.” The fae smiled pleasantly, hands clasped in its lap. “Unless you- want to be my kitty?”

That was what he must look like. The realisation caught him off guard, and Clown faltered, blinking in confusion. His arms were lowered, and now he was just kneeling, hissing wordlessly at an undefinably higher being like a feral cat.

Clown tested his voice again, switching from indistinct animal noises to words, and sounding them out all the more carefully.

“I… need to move. Please.”

He was actually desperate. Something inside him was going to snap, if he carried on being tortured like this.

“Aw…”

“Please.”

He was faltering. He didn’t often have to beg, and he wasn’t sure where to go with it from here.

Thankfully, that seemed to be all it took. This time, at least.

“…Alright. You asked nicely, I- I’ll let you have it. Stand up, Clown, and stay.”

It was something. It was scary, really, how easily Clown switched to being grateful for the crumbs he was thrown. He still got to his feet, eyes squeezing closed as his shoulder and wrists screamed in protest, and he was far too cold and hungry to deal with sight and pain.

“What hurts?”

“Arms.”

Clown froze, not on command, but instinct, as the fae moved forward like a shadow in a snowstorm. It touched his shoulders, touched his hands, leeching cold and still making Clown shiver as some warmth returned to beneath his skin.

“Better?” It looked up at him, hands wrapped around his, eyebrows raised. “I- will find you blankets. It won’t be warmer in my Court.”

That was wonderful. Clown felt a lump in his throat, taunting him, as he realised he’d be spending the rest of his life there.

“Better.”

The warmth was easing his joints, too. It might be a while before his wrists felt normal again, like when he’d spent too long holding a sword, only far, far worse, made even more so by the cold. Clown pulled them back, casting a deeply suspicious look up at the fae, and rubbed them, through the frayed silk he wanted to be rid of, if they weren’t providing the slightest protective barrier.

A hand was offered to him, unmarred, pale skin extended, palm up and welcoming.

“Ready?”

Clown looked up, and shook his head, and took the fae’s offered hand. Never ready. But he wanted something, something that felt different. Something that might just feel real.

——————

“Clown…”

“Hm?”

“You recognise my voice?”

“…no?”

As that clicked into place, Clown finally flinched. That was strange, who knew his name. It was far, far too early, but everything about this was wrong.

“Calm. Just- just seeing how much you remember.” Cold fingers pressed over his heart, and as Clown realised he was sitting upright, he realised how much colder it was, outside of whatever he’d been sleeping in. “You should have a name for me, shouldn’t you?”

Clown finally found the coherence to look around, finding white, light grey, grey, dark grey, purple… they were pillows. The walls were rendered in some stained white stone, forming arches around the edges of the circular room, white walls with purple drapes. He was sitting in a nest, almost-straddling something with horns and violet eyes and dragon scales for clothes.

Looking back down, Clown frowned, and nodded.

“Star.” It smiled, reading one hand to dance fingers down his chest, still in the same clothes he’d been dressed up in. “Call me Star.”

Hardly a name. Clown must have pulled a face, because it laughed, and hooked cold fingers around the back of his neck, yanking him back down with shocking strength.

“Don’t give me that look. Needs to be- something your little human mind can understand.” Star ruffled his hair, cuddling him in a way that worked out to feel warm, even if every point of contact felt like touching solid snow. “And- male. For your purposes.”

“Same.”

“Aw, Clown… I have literally no purpose for that stuff. But it’s nice! Humans are- are cute like that.”

“…weird.”

Genderless fuckers. Clown scowled, snuggling back against Star as his best source of warmth. And he was good at hugs, not that Clown had many reference points.

“Good boy…”

Star giggled, softly enough to know exactly what he was doing, as Clown let out a warning growl. Fae didn’t have heartbeats, apparently.

“O…kay… do- you want to be something else?” Star found a soft grip on the back of his collar, and moved him like he was nothing, pressing Clown into the cushions and holding him easily in place. “Did- did you want to be a cat?”

It was a strange question, which Clown forgot to understand, for a few, long moments. He felt stupid, after so little time in the fae realm, simply because of how inferior he was in comparison to anything. The trees that hemmed in Star’s court had seen four times the winter he had, and most of the residents were older still. It was dizzying, to mean so little.

Star asked him if he wanted to be a cat. Like that was an option. Like outside of the castle, he didn’t even have to be human.

Clown tilted his head, and reached up, making sure his mask was still sitting correctly over his eyes. He wasn’t sure where to start, with the answer. Of course he didn’t want to be human, not since he’d been allowed to see his father’s hunting dogs, and imagined having teeth that could fell a deer. Not since he’d felt that poor cat haunt his movements, giving him the spring to climb drapes and tapestries and lurk in rafters.

“…yes?”

Obviously, he’d take anything, over being human. Humans were worthless, and he’d never made much of himself.

“Mhm?” Star was grinning, like it knew something he didn’t, dragging one black fingernail down Clown’s half-exposed cheek. “Or something else? A dog, a dragon, a- anything?”

Clown wasn’t sure what Star was offering, here. He’d rather be wary. If Star had full control over him, he could at least try to keep his own desires private.

But Star was… kind. A little deranged, and Clown wasn’t sure he’d gotten a single fully truthful word out of him, but there was a sweetness. Clown didn’t hate it. Interesting and untrustworthy was better than banal and restrictive.

“Cat.” Just barely hiding his own smile, Clown pushed Star’s hand away, not betraying how it felt like pressing his fingers against a block of ice. “Or a… doll, I guess, but…”

“That one’s interesting.” Star didn’t let up, just pressing a little closer to Clown, if targeted touching wasn’t on the table. “Why- why a doll, Clown?”

That was an awkward question. A very awkward one. Clown regretted having said anything, because he couldn’t not answer, now, and it was making him desperately uncomfortable in his own skin all over again.

He settled for rolling over, just for the sake of something to hide in, painfully aware that he looked defenceless.

“I just… am. It’s these clothes, and… other stuff…”

“Do you like it?”

Another answer he felt like he had to ask permission to give. In a way, he hated it, because it was just another thing taking away his control. In another, it was nice. Not very nice. But a little bit, to feel at ease in the knowledge that he was fulfilling someone’s wishes for him, at least.

“No.”

Forgetting Star entirely, Clown grabbed one of the larger pillows, hugging it as he curled into a ball. It was familiar. When he and Kab had started sleeping in separate rooms, it had helped him sleep, until he gave it up entirely, and spent his midnights pacing.

“So… just a cat, then, Clown?”

Star only used his name when he was doing something. Clown didn’t know quite what, yet, but he brought himself to answer, feeling like he might just be standing on the edge of a cliff.

“Yeah.”

That would be nice.

“You sound tired.”

Somehow, he was. Clown frowned, pushing himself back into his back, looking up at Star in outright suspicion.

“No sex.”

Star stared at him, blinked, and nodded, slowly. It was a relief, but humiliation was nearly as cold, like a bucket of ice water through his veins.

“No- no sex. Sure. That was- not what I was thinking about.”

“You can give me fucking cat ears.” Clown returned to his former position, looking nowhere near the fae sitting over him, feeling strangely unthreatening. It didn’t make him drop the muffled bite from his voice. “See if I care.”

“Aw, you’re smart!”

“Shut up. Make me go to sleep.”

He’d rather be asleep, if Star wanted to mess with him. He was pretty sick of thinking about all of this, actually. The worst had come to pass, and somehow he was still alive, and that warranted a break. Ferre always told him to have a nap, after he’d learnt a new skill. Make sure everything stuck in his head.

“As- as you wish, my prince.”

With a small giggle, Star pressed two fingers to each of Clown’s temples. He wondered if it would stop there, if fae magic really turned out to be as hand-wavy as the stories he was told, but no. Apparently, Star was just looking for an excuse.

Clown flinched, when Star kissed his forehead, so gently it almost seemed reverent, and glared up, accusing eyes softening at the fae’s delight.

“I- I don’t need to touch you.” Star’s voice was a murmur, lips ghosting over the edge of Clown’s mask again. “This- this is just for fun. Go to sleep, Clown. Sleep well.”