"For Tarnishing the duties of a Crown prince and for Opressing the voice of the people you serve, Ardrieal Fintan Kanaline the 3rd of the Kanaline kingdom, You will be executed."
The predictable declaration traveled through the crowd of the citizens of the Kanaline Kingdom, ready to watch the head of their once-crown prince fall. There in the crowd stood someone with entranced fascination and slow realization. He couldn't take his eyes off the prince, his gaze one of astonishment at the bent and kneeling body unlike those around him who watched with a contemptuous satisfaction.
"This is what he deserves," he heard someone whisper, safe in the mob. Each of the citizens of the Kanaline kingdom had their reasons and self-justifications for preying on the prince's downfall.
At the start of the evening, when the sun descended like the wistful seed of a dandelion, Ardrieal's hair caught the light, a copper blonde, reminding the youth of the slum who continued to stare, stand in unveiled shock. The prince's appearance on the scaffold reminded him of the beginning of his life, who he had been with at the start of his slumrat ways, his only family.
"Fin!" his voice scratched and yelled out and the prince's head on the scaffold twitched. "FABEL!" He shouted louder through the excited crowd.
They were both surrounded by an incomprehensible audience never to appreciate the tragedy. He in his harem pants and bandana-covered hair, after all these years had found something he unknowingly lost. The Crown Prince of the Kanaline kingdom heavily shifted their head up with a grunt and through their straw hair, their single blazing green eye latched onto a pair of similar matching ones. From down here on the cobbled street, in the locked gaze, he saw a blooming contentedness matched with renewed resignation replace one of indignance and vengeance. The weight of Ardrieal's stare, obstinate, like a stone wall of knowing fate and trusting destiny.
"Why?" The young man in the crowd asked in helplessness.
And the wide blade from the guillotine fell in inertia, the head dropping with a dull thud. There was no bounce, no slow motion, just a headless body accompanied by a cheering crowd.
16 years and he realizes what happened then. What had happened to Fabel, and how he watched them die. He steps back with no real meaning. A step that stutters and a body that he is unsure what to do with next. Under his wine-dyed bandana is the hair of pristine gold, soft and warm, like caught sunlight. His facial features are delicate but austere enough to demand attention, from his clean eyebrows, and aquiline bridge to his thin lips on a diamond face. His whole being could almost pass off as the last Crown Prince of a minute, no, With his eyes he could replace the dead Crown Prince entirely. Fidelis reaches for his mauve bandana and gives it a useless tug. He needs to get out of here. His always hooded eyes filled with shock, like he is seeing the world for the first time.
— - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It is not the first time his body is dragged through the hinging doors and thrown out into the muggy back streets of the imperial capital. It could be worse, they could take a blade to his face, take his eyes, or sell him into the black market. But Fidelis is always lucky.
He groans and slowly shifts and leans on his forearms and then hands to get some stability. The hard dirt road brushing his skin and catching on his thin scrapes. The night air burning them with a sting but it's something that will pass or be ignored. Fidelis wipes his face with a backhand feeling irritating. He thinks he still can feel the spittle on his cheek and doesn't even want to imagine the thick breath of the man he was just talking to. Fidelis is a pisspoor debt collector. Why is he even here? He stumbles up onto his feet like a broken animal. It's not that extreme but the world is still alive and it's been three months since the execution of the imperial traitor.
For Fidelis it is extreme, so here he is still doing the same thing he did before he realized anything but instead of wishing for some sod to come and take him away from this pitiful life, he wishes he could forget. He wishes he wasn't in that crowd of watchers before Fidelis is filled with the awareness of a coward, then guilt. The cycle starting all over again. Nothing in his life has changed, there was no reason for it to change and the world is still alive. He can't forgive it.
What did the death of Ardrieal, the once-crown prince serve to its citizens? People merely shifted into place, stepped higher on the rung, and kept doing what they were doing. Fidelis wasn't one for politics but when he tried, he knew not everything was as clear-cut. A scapegoat? How much was it truth mixed with fiction? 16 years, 16 fucking years and he realizes his twin is the dead crown prince? Fidelis knows there is not even a drop of royal blood in him. He doubts it, it's not rare to see someone with blond hair and green eyes. Hell, he can use all his fingers to count all the people he's seen in all his life with the same characteristics. He thinks distantly he's missing something, a memory too elusive and waned by age.
It was raining globs. Water streamed into the tiny graters that led to the sewers. Puddles piling up to be turned into mosquito incubators another day. The smell of iron and the fearful rush of being chased. Two soggy kids holding hands only to be ripped from each other like a vacuum.
A dark leathered hand. Fidelis doesn't remember what he did after, how he lived his life. Time passed and he blinked and he grew. Now he's fucking here.
a/n: I'm angry 😾 I think it's the weather and the existentialism of being a teenager, but eh, or maybe because food isn't doing it for me. It's so hot here. I'd rather be hangry. maybe I am.
ignore the present and passed mixed-up wording. wrote this fast, needs like more detail, and exposition.
also, I'm capping stories to around three chapters in this book, unless I'm sure people actually want to read more of a certain story. I only have myself as a sound board when it comes to wanting to read my stories so that's why I have a hard time sticking to one story.
Thank you for reading! and if you want more of a certain story don't be scared to reach out! 🥰 I'll either make another chapter or make a whole new Wattpad book for it. yuh. I just struggle with thumbnails.
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Isekai dump
Fantasycrappy isekai MC's that don't have progress, so, I call them one-shots, despite having an outline and plot that I don't want to write out. "What up. It's me, truck-(put honorific here), the god. it was never about how many people I crashed into, i...
