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English
Series:
Part 2 of JayTim Week 2019
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JayTimWeek
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Published:
2019-08-11
Completed:
2019-08-17
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19,005
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7/7
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Shelter

Summary:

Tim walked down the aisle in measured steps. No one accompanied him—soulmates were supposed to find each other freely. The man waiting for him turned, and they looked at each other for the first time.

Prince Jason was… disappointing.

Notes:

For JayTim Bingo 2019, Week Two: Soulmate, line: I’ll protect you, Innocence, Arranged Marriage, Royalty, and 'Soulbond' for the free square.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

“Your Highness, I have finished the prediction for your son,” the court astronomer said.

“And I, a list of possible matches,” their first minister added.

They both bowed and presented the king and queen with the scrolls, the astronomer telling them: “Born under Mercury in the house of Neptune, with a strong influence by Venus and Uranus. He will need a strong match.”

The royal couple nodded and dismissed the two attendants. Neither of them was concerned about the infant in his cradle, which was attended to by a wet nurse in another room. This was more important.

“So few royal names,” the queen sighed as she read. “He seems intent on not making it easy for us.”

“How about Garth of Atlanta?”

“His father will never ally with us. They would swallow us whole, at best, and we’d be lucky if he won’t spit us out.”

“True. We need a strong alliance, but one of equals.”

“That eliminates most of the candidates.”

“Too true.”

The queen’s finger moved to the top of the list again, tapping on a name. “What about him? It’s a weak bond, to be sure, but Bergland would be a good ally to have in the field, even if they aren’t much use anywhere else.”

The king looked at his wife. “They say the prince is cursed.”

“I dare say he is. Does that matter?”

For their son’s happiness, it certainly would. However, these weren’t the kind of terms the couple was accustomed to thinking in. After all, they themselves had been deemed a perfect match by the astronomers, but no love had ever blossomed in their marriage (though they had to pretend otherwise to the public.)

And the next decade would be crucial, the king knew. Dark forces were rising. He did not wish for his kingdom to stand alone when the time came to defend themselves and who they were.

So what if his son’s engagement broke because of his fiancé’s curse? Rumor had it that the queen of Bergland would have no more children. The same, it had to be acknowledged, might be true of his own wife, whose labor had been exceedingly difficult. Bergland, however, having still not secured a marriage for their prince at age four, would be thankful for the hand they reached out. They would do anything to make the engagement last, and perhaps even remember their alliance should it fail.

“No,” the king said slowly, “it doesn’t.”

Their son would know his duty. Their kingdom would be secure.

 

The boy that was cursed was told of his engagement to the newborn prince of Drachenlicht. As he was four years old, he didn’t care much. The future was very far away, and ‘you will marry your soulmate’ meant nothing to him yet.

He was, however, devastated when his parents sent him away. He didn’t understand. They said things like ‘a curse’ and ‘protect you’ and ‘return when you reach majority,’ but all he knew was that they had given him away.

The woman who took him in was not quite a fairy godmother.

She taught him magic, but not the kind that could destroy. A prince, perhaps, would learn how to destroy armies and wreak havoc upon his enemies. A boy in the woods learned how to encourage herbs to grow and how to track a deer through dense woodlands. A man who would one day rule two kingdoms should learn the art of diplomacy and of lying. The man she raised knew how to make a home.

She was not a fairy godmother, but she was a mother.

Still she could not save him from his curse. It was foolish to think anyone could. Curses didn’t work like that. True love, they always said, would always win against dark magic. Her love for her son had been true—and yet she died, and yet he had to face the one who cursed him. His parents love for him had been true, and still their sacrifice could only buy him time, not protection.

True love, the prince who was raised in the woods had long ago decided, was not going to protect him.

Evil found him, of course. Once evil touched you, it will always find you, in the woods, in the castle, on the battlefield. It found his mother and she died. He ran to the city, lived as a beggar, and it found him. He ran to another country, found a protector, someone else to love him, a father—and it found him.

Evil found him, but the boy came back from it. Perhaps all that love had not been in vain, after all.

In the end, the man who had been raised in the woods did return to his parents. The guards turned him away at the gates—who was he to demand to see their king and queen—but he persisted. Finally, when he entered the throne room, his parents saw their son for the first time in seventeen years. They were little more than strangers to him, but they would recognize the marks of the curse that he bore everywhere—a white stripe of hair, carefully covered by a cap during his travels, and a sigil in the shape of a smiling face on his wrist.

The kingdom rejoiced. Then it prepared for a wedding.