The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

The Royal Tower

Kasey slunk through the luxuriously carpeted corridor, looking around grimly. The Royal Tower, the safely cocooned part of the castle where the royal family made residence, was a dark, luxurious place. She imagined years ago it had had more life and cheer, but now the place was a study in stark loneliness.

Large doors led to unoccupied chambers on either side of the corridor that was decorated with endless portraits of royal descendants looking benevolently thoughtful. The place had been kept in in a state of gleaming perfection, as if waiting for occupants that would never return. A looming hall where the royals must have congregated held a handsome hearth always blazing with fire, and large sofas with careworn books waiting to be read piled up on the table. It was as if the occupants were out for a quick walk, instead if having been massacred.

Her eyes trailed over the portraits. A few times in her life she had been tiptoed into the halls, intimidated by the large mysterious spaces but intent on the mission to find the King for something or the other. She had been too young to realize she wasn't supposed to seek him out in the place of his residence. Before being caught by maids and rushed out with alarmed shushes, she had stared with blatant fascination at the various portraits, spotting the king's nose in one and his eyes in the other, as if it were a game.

There was nothing that spoke of Joshua in these looming ancestors, except for the predominant black hair of the Kohls. She stopped in front of Princess Lily, barely an adolescent girl in the portrait, trying to see something of her son in her sweet little smile, her pale blue eyes. 

"Searching for resemblance?"

She started, turning to find Shrader emerging from the door of a bedchamber, his sword strapped to his side. He leaned against it in a relaxed posture, and she tried not to stare at him. His face resembled Joshua so much it boggled the mind, and yet she had been around him since her childhood and hadn't even pinpointed the resemblance until the two had appeared together. Were they really so blinded by magic and essences like he had said?

She suddenly realized something. "Tony and Dick don't look at all like you. How is it that he..."

"They take after my father," Shrader studied his nails with  deceptive ease, "who I never looked like. Ironic how these things work, isn't it?" He looked up to catch her musing frown, "He died when I was four, child. He couldn't have sired either of them." he said gently, and she flushed at having been caught thinking exactly that.

"It's just difficult to imagine...I grew up with Dick and Tony so I was inured to their situation, but to think that he has a thirty year old father..." she shook her head.

"Thirty four." he corrected with friendly mockery before straightening and making to leave, "Would you like to visit him?"

She flushed, hesitating, "It won't be proper." she muttered.

Shrader gave her a searching glance. "I do not care much for propriety. Neither did you, if I recall correctly." he started to walk away, pausing the way out, "Will we see you on the fields soon?"

She had grown up elbowing her way into the training for soldiers, until she had been taught how to fight. "You won't be able to stop me."

"Good." he smiled before walking away.

She looked at the door he had exited. It had once belong to the crown prince of the country which, she realized with a sick churn in her stomach, was what Joshua was now. It was impossible to reconcile him with the image she had always held of the Prince in her mind--fair, slightly foppish like a shiny conquering knight, and his worth tied to the crown he wore. But this was Joshua, living, breathing...and for a few short blindingly happy days, he had been hers.