The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

The Prince

A lion.

That's what came to Kasey's mind, as she watched their Prince make his way up the platform, his face smoothed of emotion. A deep fury was taking root in his eyes, lighting their depths to a golden brown that had the hair at the back of hair neck prickling. But his face--that remained calm as he flicked his gaze up and down, eyeing his challenge. Lazy...but deadly.

He didn't look at her again. It was just as well--it won't do to brew gossip among the crowds that the Prince had any interest in the King's ward. Her being under the protection of the King, no one dared to look at her as a woman and only some who knew her saw her as a worthy opponent. To the rest, she was but a fixture, to be respected but ignored. They wouldn't know what to make of the Prince studying her.

She wondered how they saw him. What did he appear like to someone who only knew him as a product of his birthright? They certainly regarded him with deep, awed respect. It was not difficult to cast him in the role of the heroic prince, with how he looked. She wondered how she would have felt, had this been the first time she had seen him. The Prince presented to them in a fight for his honour. The young, painfully handsome royal who's gaze seared across the room the few moments he had glanced at her.

Not knowing him, would she have felt so viscerally affected? Or would she have written him off and have been able to go about with her day to day life, not wondering for even a moment what he felt, what he thought? Never discovering that this Prince, while being the very picture of haughty power, had built and owned a bookstore? Or worse--and this caused her gut to churn--would she have fawned over him, idolizing him as trophy, sighing over his noble good looks with not a care as to who he was really underneath?

She could imagine the women that would be throwing themselves at him, once they got scent of him. Would any of them discover that, underneath carefully constructed facade, he was really just a gentle man who always seemed touched and slightly caught off guard by a mere smile, as if he hadn't seen that expression often enough?

She swallowed, suppressing her thoughts, and looked back towards the platform.

The man that faced the Prince--aptly named Boulder--was twice his size, and he tensed his frame, rolling his shoulders so that his muscles flexed in an impressive display of strength. He flexed his arms before making two brutal fists, pressing them together. A cheer went up, and then everyone eagerly turned to the Prince for a response.

His answer was a crook a his brow and an incline of his head before he lowered in a fighting stance with minimum fuss.

The crowd loved him.

Boulder attacked, and the Prince blocked his blow before twisting with impressive speed, slamming a fist into his face. Kasey let out her breath, the pressure she hadn't realized had built in her insides releasing slightly. Having expected no magical training, the King had ordered the fights to be purely physical. Even so it had been beyond reasonable to expect an unsuspecting person grown as a human to have had the ability to hold his own for extended lengths of time against the brutal training of the King's soldiers. To see the Prince doing so--at least in this first fight, made her feel lightheaded with relief she didn't wish to acknowledge.

She wasn't the only one, she realized, as the lamps surrounding the stage momentarily flared higher for a few seconds before returning to their regular intensity. The King might not display his emotions in public, but this was every bit as personal to him as well. He sat in his throne, his nails gauging into the sides, but when the Prince landed a blow--and then another--he let out a soft laugh despite himself.

Boulder landed a blow in the Prince's abdomen then, sending him staggering back--the crowd groaned. The Prince coughed, wincing, but was back on his feet the next instant. He was fast, she observed once more. While he was in no way as well built as most of the soldiers in the King's army, his speed put him at an advantage. With training, he could be a formidable fighter.