PENUMBRA // Tamaki Amajiki x Reader Royal AU

Chapter 5

Upon entering the room, I curtseyed and scanned the area, it did look like the bedroom of a prince with its four-poster bed and sloping ceiling, however, it was very dark due to the one tiny window sealed with iron bars instead of glass which would definitely make it freezing in winter. Adjacent to the window sat a chair and in the said chair sat prince Amijiki himself, slumped over in his pajamas, peering at me out of his hair. 

"Hello, your highness, I assume you know why I am here." Eyeing him warily, I kept my distance, albeit I was not afraid of him hurting me, the king, and I probably had a different definition of 'dangerous' but I always had to be ready for some kind of surprise attack. "Are you ready for me to rid of this curse that has been plaguing you?" 

There was no response. He turned away from me and rested his head on the windowsill. I huffed, "If I am being honest, I expected a more enthusiastic response. Apparently, you have been suffering with this your whole life, I personally would be over the moon and kissing the feet of whoever was going to fix me." It dawned upon me that his bed was very messy therefore his whole room would probably be messy if it were not for the fact that there was nothing in the room to mess up, besides the dust that lined a lot of it. "If you want me to fix you, you must comply." 

His breathing sounded bumpy... as if he was trying to force himself to breathe slower and quieter but otherwise there was still no response. "Okay then," I began to pace the front of the room, "Your father did not give explicit details on your curse, mainly stating that you had one and seemingly refusing to elaborate, so you will have to tell me what your curse is, or if you do not know what it is then tell me what happens to you that deems it a curse." 

As expected, he remained silent. "Oh!" I covered my mouth, taken back by my revelation, "Are you unable to speak, is that your curse? If so I am dreadfully sorry for acting somewhat rude to you, you have to understand my actions were justified." I caught the slight raise of his head in response to my question, before he laid it back down. So I must have been right. "Do not worry, a mute curse can easily be undone, you father needed not to request the most powerful sorceress, one of the lowest level sorcerers would do just fine." 

With a swish of my hand and an uttering of some words his curse was lifted. Eagerly I waited for him to talk before smacking myself in the head creating a reverberation which nearly shook the tower. He told me the door was open. "Oh my gosh, I am such an idiot." I muttered to myself while screaming internally, then I pointed my frustrated gaze at the prince, "What is wrong with you?"

Kicking the door shut, I changed the fancy dress into my usual black poncho and tights. Who did this guy think he is? Some snobby prince who had been sheltered all his life? No one seemed to care about him so I definitely would not either. "You will never meet a more powerful person than me, I can solve all your problems and you choose to ignore me? Do you just not care? I know you are not asleep because I can hear your breathing patterns."

"Please leave me alone."

It was ridiculously quite but I picked it up and it made me even more frustrated, "Hah, leave you alone? Look, I have a job to do and whether you cooperate or not, is not my problem so like it or not, I am breaking your curse even if I have to force you in the most violent way possible." My annoyance from the past couple of days was seeping into my words and I took it out on the prince but he seemed like a great punching bag, someone who would never stand up for themselves. I would never stoop so low as to becoming a bully but if everyone thought this man was pathetic then he must be a loser and it would not hurt to take my anger out on him. 

"Well for now I suppose I can leave you be. If you will not cooperate then I shall figure this out myself." I resumed my pacing and spoke mostly to myself, "The King did not disclose much about you but he did say something about starving you and locking you away. Hm, locking you away, so does that mean this curse has a large radius? Could it be a curse which affects a person as soon as they enter the vicinity and it is having a minimal effect on me due to my magical ability? Maybe it kills humans on site, but then why would he need to be starved? I suppose someone must die every time he is fed since they have to go near him, so feeding him as infrequently as possible would minimize the death toll. His eating habits are probably irrelevant." 

A muffled sob disguised as a sigh escaped from the prince by the window. He holding his arm rather intensely, "Why do you care?" his voice was almost a whisper. "Care? I do not care, I have a duty to complete my request, you are a mere obstacle in my path to completing it." The intense arm holding got worse, "Please, get it over with." 

My face brightened at what I thought was a change of character, "See! You want the curse gone, I want the curse gone; we both want the same thing. It will not hurt to just do what I tell you, maybe you are not used to it being an esteemed prince and all but it is not that hard." placing my hands on my hips, I grinned eagerly at him, "Just describe this curse to me."

"I..." the prince lifted his head up for just a moment before dropping it and stiffening his shoulders. "Ookay, I am going to assume you are throwing a royal temper tantrum and this will all boil over after a few hours. I do not love it but I can not stop it so I will go talk to the king, he can probably disclose more information than you right now so my time will be better spent with him."

Swapping my clothes back to the original royal blue dress, I exited the room after saying, "When I return you had better be in a more compliant mood." to the prince. I teleported to the ground floor and expected to be greeted by the same servant when I exited the tower but I made the same mistake twice and was mildly surprised when there was a maid waiting for me.

"Follow me." Without hesitation the maid set off in the direction of the king's office, not even bothering to check if I was following behind.

-

Ghosts of fires once great and roaring or smaller and more cozy both licking at the air, haunted the room. The maid left me to wait in a small library near the king's office while he was busy with his royal duties - naturally they were surprised I had left so soon, I was not surprised but still annoyed that I had not yet fulfilled the king's request, which prolonged my stay. 

Waiting in the room was not all bad, for the room had a nice selection of books and the absence of a fire made the room feel more homely in my eyes. I picked out a relevant book which I thought might help me understand my situation: Tales of the Great King Amijiki. The title gave the impression that one should read this book with a hint of skepticism as not to fall for the king's self-righteousness. It was doubtful that this book was written by the king himself but I am sure he had some say in it, or money had some say in it, or fear. 

I had just finished the synopsis of his life and reached the chapter on his interactions with witches, when the King walked into the room, unannounced, "That is a good choice, though I would prefer it if you did not touch my books, miss Y/N." he eyed me as I put the book back then averted his line of sight as I turned to look at him, "My apologies your highness," I curtseyed.

"You are back from your meeting with the prince so soon, I trust you have results to show for yourself." The king sat on the brown sofa by the fire, opposite to the chair of same design, of which I placed myself. "Once again, my sincerest apologies your highness but I did not return with results." I bowed my head in shame, the King's tone made me feel this way even though I was completely justified. "And I suppose you have some excuse as to why you have failed this task." His highness did not even bother to try appear like he was making eye contact, only gazing into the powdery darkness of the ashes strewn across the fireplace.

"Of course, your majesty, I would never interrupt your work without good meaning. Your son does not wish to speak with me at present, therefore my only other option was to come to you, I need to know the details of this curse before I can undo it." I glanced at him hopefully, he was still peering into the ash, "Alright," he sighed, "I shall tell you about the prince's curse."