To Wear The Crown

28

It's a dozen days till the prince's birthday and the castle has already started to get busier with preparations. Prince Nicholas isn't just celebrating his birthday, he's going to be selecting a female to be his potential wife.

On Charlie's way back from attempting to visit his friend, Isaac—who he wasn't able to see because he was at school, so he left the letter in Isaac's room—he decided to collect the prince's mail. Highly urgent and important mail is given to the prince as soon as it arrives, however, the more leisurely or non-urgent mail is taken to a separate mail room in the castle to be retrieved when desired. What Charlie wasn't expecting to see as he walked in was a pile of letters and parcels that were mostly addressed to the prince and a few to the king. Taking one of the mail sacs hooked to the wall by the door, Charlie starts to gather all the letters for the prince. He contemplates if he wants to also take the parcels as they all seem to have a bit of weight to them. Instead, he takes just one that he recognises the handwriting to belong to princess Imogen.

Princess Imogen doesn't usually send gifts, but the numerous letters Charlie has handed the prince make it easy to distinguish her handwriting.

And the fact that princess Imogen always dots the I in Nicholas with a heart.

With the sac over his shoulder and the one parcel in his hand, Charlie can hear another voice echoing from the prince's private study. As he steps closer he can't make out what they're saying, but the other sounds significantly older so Charlie presumes it's counsellor Ajayi.
Knocking as he pushes the door open, Charlie waits in the doorway to be acknowledged.

The prince does so immediately as he stands facing the door. "Come in." He beckons before continuing his conversation (more of an argument considering the tone of their voices) with the individual with their back to the door.

Charlie doesn't make a sound, as to not disturb the two, more than he already has. Carefully, placing the mail on the prince's desk when he notices the letter he put in the counsellor's room.

Slightly surprised he noticed it on the mess of the other letters it was placed on.

"You're behaving like a child." Mr Ayuji finally shouts with his hands thrown up.

Charlie's neck snaps to have the counsellor in his view. He was trying not to listen. But how can he not after that an accusation like that is made?

Towards the prince as well.

The prince scoffs, disgusted. "You're the one that asked for my help. You wanted me to intervene and now I have you saying I'm 'behaving like a child."

Growing up as royalty, the prince is used to getting what he wants. It's just that way. He even got out of going to his lessons without any punishment. Whether that was because of his position or because his father—who already didn't give him full attention—didn't want the time they spent together to be negative. The prince will admit that he used to behave like a child, but so did everyone else when they were young. Why should a child have to act like an adult? The prince isn't even eighteen yet, he still is a child. Though he's come to a point in his life where he realises he needs to start being like an adult.

It's not been long since he's been diligently attending all his lessons and paying attention to this before he wasn't even aware of it. He never understood all the struggles his brother went through to have to be king. The prince thought the world was simple, but he's come to learn that it isn't.

On top of everything, he is still grieving the loss of his father.