Shut Up, Cinderella

I'm Not Wrong

"So we meet again, Gemstone Crystalline."

King Emerald rose from his desk chair, regarding the figure that had just been brought into his office. "Someone's taken his precious time," he said mockingly, "haven't we, young man?"

Gem tried to square his shoulders, but his chest was tight. Sir Hector was behind him, guards flanking him to the right and left, and in front of him was his father. There was nowhere to run for him, nowhere to hide.

"Father," he ventured without knowing what else he should say.

King Emerald looked around the room, his eyes resting on the soldiers and knights. "Thank you, Hector," he said. "I'll take it from here. You and your men can leave."

Behind his back Gem could sense Sir Hector straighten. "You plan to deal with His Highness yourself, my lord?"

"Yes, indeed."

King Emerald strode closer, his movements grave and calm. "I'm still the king," he said. "What kind of ruler am I if I don't even have power over my own flesh and blood?"

Sir Hector bowed, then he and his men left the office. Gem remained alone with his father and mother.

"What's all this about, Father?" he asked, feeling slightly safer now that Sir Hector was gone. "I never did anything forbidden!"

"Perhaps not," the king answered, his dark eyes hardening as they met with Gem's own. "But is it not a father's responsibility to step in when his son is acting disgraceful?"

Gem gave a start. "I wasn't—"

"Dallying about with the servants and peasants."

Expression still unchanging, King Emerald began to pace the room, counting off his points on his fingers as he went. "Treating them as equals," he continued. "Running after a stranger of unknown identity and lineage under the foolish pretense of love." His eyes flitted to Gem, as if daring him to protest, but Gem couldn't get a word out. "Befriending a commoner—a shoemaker—and allowing him to treat you with the utmost disrespect, including making you fall ill." The king looked ahead again. "Refusing your father's summons back to the palace. Disguising yourself as a peasant to go into hiding and staying away from the Midwinter's celebration."

He stopped walking, turning back to face Gem once more. "Are you even aware of the consequences of all your actions?"

Gem instinctively backed away. "What consequences?" he asked. "Everything's fine, isn't it?"

"Fool of a child."

Anger flashed in his father's calm, stoic eyes. "The way you behaved was utterly disgraceful," he said. "Do you not know what happens to a prince—a future king—who respects his rank so little?"

"People trust him!" Gem burst out.

"People disrespect him!" his father shot back. "Not only have you recklessly put yourself in utmost danger by running off like that, apparently forgetting that you are the only heir to the throne"—his eyes flashed again—"you have weakened the kingdom, our kingdom that we are tasked with keeping together! Do you want to be a ruler without power, Gemstone?" He strode towards him. "Do you want to be weak?"

"I want to make a change!"

Now it was Gem's turn to get angry. All the things he had seen, the stories he had learned, flashed back before his mind. The old lady with the little grandkids and her dying daughter. Cotton with the countless younger siblings and the pregnant mother. Rowan with his sick mother who couldn't afford medicine. The children with the fever going around at the orphanage. Cinder losing his father at fifteen.