The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

A Prince's Word

He had been fourteen when he had found himself betrothed.

Although loosely under the united realm, Farasia had enough wealth and power to be unanswerable to the King, and a mysterious agreement with the faeries that kept their hostility off their lands. Lady Gwyneth of Farasia had arrived to offer them military their realm could desperately use, but with a caveat: the then thirty year old woman had boldly proposed alliance by marriage in exchange, but not to the King. No, she had thought far ahead into the future.

Widely rumoured to be a product an illegitimate relationship between the Lord's wife and a minister, she would have stood to benefit from the inclusion into the royal family, while they benefited from her money and her power...for years to come, she had suggested. King Sebastian had responded with the appropriate baffled fury a grandfather was supposed to display at having a woman preposition for the hand of his fourteen year old grandson, and firmly refused.

The young Joshua had watched in confused dismay when King Sebastian had stoically announced to painfully hopeful audience that the alliance they were hoping for with the Lady of Farasia hadn't come to fruition. The hope disappearing from the people's faces at the prospect of continued death and destruction, the wails of a woman who had sent the last of her sons to battle.

He had ridden off by himself, intercepting Lady Gwyneth's procession back to Farasia to demand reason for her refusal of the help she had promised. Delighted, the Lady had been happy to discuss the matter with him in explicit detail.

He had returned betrothed.

Shrader had dissolved in a killing rage when he found out, but the King, grim and pale faced, had stared into Joshua's face, finally pronouncing that he had taken a decision as a Prince. "And a Prince stands by his word."

"A Prince stands by his word." Joshua muttered now, walking out of his bedchamber while his brothers followed observantly, thinking of ways he could make it so that he didn't have to back out of his word. "If she changes her mind..."

Years of continued battle, despite Farasia's support, had made Joshua realiz what an error in judgement he had made. The deal with Farasia, although beneficial, had also come with conditions and demands. Like the fact that Lady Gwyneth had declared upon the initial agreement that she could marry Joshua whenever she desired. And he had realized, after getting deeper into the truth about this betrothed, that giving her control of the realm by marriage was not a good idea.

But a Prince stood by his word.

So stand by it, he would. That didn't mean he had to make her happy about it.

"Are you hungry?" Tony asked, and Joshua glanced up to realize he had made his way to the breakfast hall.

As a Prince he was sent steaming meals to his bedchamber three times a day, to have at his comfort, if he so desired. He didn't desire.

"Didn't have breakfast." Joshua murmured, pushing into the large hall where soldiers and various lower ranking officials of the castle dined. None of them reacted to find their Crown Prince walking easily within their ranks: this, they were used to. He almost always ate at the commons.

Joshua's gaze moved over the crowd just as familiar figure strode towards them.

"There you are," Shrader caught them, his voice low, "I spoke to Sebastian." he stared, focusing intently on Dick and Tony, "It was what I suspected. A curse. We escaped it due to a loophole--a silver lining..."

Joshua had spotted what his gaze sought, and he pulled away from the brothers, knowing they would let him know whatever it was that Shrader was informing them with those grim tones. He went to get a plate, quietly piling fat sausages without really thinking about them, when the hair at the back of his neck prickled. He was right--she had come up to him, bristly as a hedgehog. He felt a smile curling at his lips and stemmed it, donning an mild expression.