Rogue Royals
Summary: A mysterious magic wielder has escaped from prison and, due to a long-standing grudge against Enchancia, takes out his revenge on the royal children by turning them into toddlers. Now it's up to Roland, Baileywick, and Cedric to stop the magic wielder and also figure out how to get the kids back to normal. (Requested by MarionetteJ2X)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: Well, thanks to MarionetteJ2X, it's time to revisit the toddler scene! :D Of course this time, there's malicious intent behind it, so who knows what's going to happen? …Me, I know. ;p And you? You'll find out! Enjoy!
Warning: Fluff alert! Oh, and don't take the "bad guy" scenario too seriously here. :p To me, this was almost like an episode of Scooby Doo. Haha. Hope you enjoy!
*Story*
"We're gone, Rollie," Miranda told her husband as she kissed his cheek. She glanced back toward Cordelia and an excited Calista, who were accompanying her to the Kingdom of Tangu for an event. "You sure you don't want to come with us?"
"Wish I could, Miranda, but I have a lot to do here," he answered with a smile. "But I hope you girls have fun."
"We certainly will, Your Majesty!" Calista enthused happily. "It's my first time to Tangu!"
"I promised her she could ride a flying carpet," Cordelia lamented playfully. "What on earth have I done?"
"We'll be back tomorrow afternoon," the queen added. "Make sure the kids get to bed early enough, okay?"
Roland grinned. "Yes, dear." He kissed her once before the trio headed out. He then sighed.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty," Baileywick encouraged as he walked up next to the king. "Even with Queen Miranda gone, things will remain in order. I'll see to it."
Roland chuckled. "It's almost as if you think the moment Miranda leaves, all chaos will break out."
The steward shrugged. "Not in so many words, but she does provide a level of reliability."
"Oh, please, Baileywick. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Hmm," a cloaked figure murmured as he magically produced a pair of binoculars to peer through the castle windows. "Ah, Enchancia… The land I refuse to call home." He gripped the binoculars tighter. "Imprisonment for a mere conspiracy against the king. Like I'm the only one who despises him?" He scoffed before catching a glimpse of three children walking along one of the hallways. "Hmm, King Roland's children." He smirked. "Perhaps I can get my revenge after all, starting with those little brats." He pocketed the binoculars and slithered down from the tree he was currently occupying, landing on his feet. "This should be fun." With a laugh, he vanished in a puff of blue smoke.
"…And so I told Ms. Flora that Desmond volunteered to be my partner," Amber told her siblings as they were walking toward the dining room. "That way, Hildegard can work with Zandar."
"I bet I know why he 'volunteered,'" James whispered playfully to Sofia, who giggled. Their poor sister still had no clue of the fair-haired boy's obvious crush on her.
"I think it was nice of you to let Hildegard work with Zandar, Amber," Sofia acknowledged. "It's good to get a new partner every now and then. At this point, I've worked with just about everyone on different things, and it's always interesting to get new perspectives."
"Enough about school for now," Amber insisted as she stopped and turned to her siblings with a grin. "We need to talk about some new constellations I found."
James groaned, earning a glare from his twin. "Do we have to? Amber, I know you think the stars are awesome and all, but it just sounds like a bunch of boring astronomy stuff to the rest of us."
"Astronomy is awesome, James," the older princess scoffed. "What do you know? You're uncultured. You think cannons are fun."
"They are!"
"Okay, relax, you two," Sofia suggested as she intervened yet again, physically having to separate the twins so they wouldn't go after each other. "Stars and cannons are fun. And hey, eventually, one day the stars will 'go boom,' so there's a nice mixture." She laughed uncertainly, seeing the blondes giving her dubious looks. "…Okay, so that was a lame example. My point is, maybe there's something we can all do for fun?"
"So it's fun you want, is it?"
The kids turned as they heard a strange voice they didn't recognize. From a puff of smoke appeared the cloaked man who chuckled lowly and lifted one gloved hand toward them. "Allow me to assist you, little royals. Renovatio!"
"Huh?" Sofia coughed as she felt a stream of magic surrounding them. "What's going on?!"
"Ahh!" the twins yelled as they clung to each other.
The man chuckled and vanished before anyone could spot him.
When the smoke cleared, three miniature versions of the prince and princess stood in their place. James looked exactly as he had the last time he'd been turned into a toddler. Amber was close to his height with her hair braided down her back and a simple gold dress with matching shoes making up her ensemble. Sofia's hair was now in twin ponytails on either side of her head, the ends curly and bouncing each time she moved. Her clothing, amulet, and Enchantlet seemed to shrink in size to match her current state.
"What happened?" Amber asked in a higher pitched voice, which startled her. "Ahh! Me little!"
"You little?!" James wailed. "Me little! Again!" He whined.
"It's okay," Sofia soothed, still trying to be a voice of reason to them. "Don't cry! Be strong. Be brave!" She grew rather determined as a look of realization passed on her face. "We need help. Where are grownups?"
"Um…" James scratched his head. "Doing grownup stuffs?"
Amber scoffed and folded her arms. "In throne room. Duh. Find Daddy!" She grabbed their hands and took off running down the hallway toward the throne room. "Daddy!"
Seeing Amber probably had the right idea if they wanted to get help, the other two children began calling Roland's name as well.
"What on earth is that sound, Wormy?" Cedric asked as he descended the steps from his tower and walked into the castle again.
The raven shuddered. "It sounds like children," he suggested in disdain. "It's not enough to deal with preteens in this castle; now there are little children running around?"
"That's impossible. Aside from the royal children, the only other one here is Calista, and she went on that journey with Queen Miranda and Cordelia." He frowned. "And none of the staff here brings children to the castle…"
"Well, quit speculating on it. The last thing we need is to get involved with anything else. We must simply mind our own business and pretend we didn't hear anything."
"Daddy!"
Cedric yelped when the trio of children nearly ran him over, each yelling for their father. His eyes widened when he made a startling realization. "Sofia?"
Sofia stopped, though the twins didn't and continued hurrying along and looking for their father. "Mr. Cedric?" she asked in awe, her voice much higher than usual. She seemed to forget her original plan and beamed happily. "Mr. Cedric!" She hugged his legs happily, much to his confusion. "You found me!"
Cedric frowned and pried the little girl off of his legs before kneeling down to her current height. "Sofia, what happened to you and your siblings? Why are you toddlers now?"
The girl pondered his words before sighing dramatically. "Blue smoke," she responded, as if that were the answer to everything.
The sorcerer's eye twitched at the simplicity of the girl's words. "You don't say…"
"Scary man," she added with a shiver, her eyes downcast.
This addition set Cedric on edge. It wasn't entirely hard to piece together what she was trying to say now. Someone had obviously put a spell on the kids, and he needed to figure out how to reverse it, not to mention who had done this. He then looked around. "What happened to your brother and sister?"
Sofia shrugged before putting her thumb in her mouth and staring at him with wide, innocent eyes.
Cedric sighed as Wormwood grumbled. This was going to be interesting.
Amber and James were still running along the castle and finally entered the throne room. To their dismay, their father wasn't there.
Amber broke down in tears. "Where's Daddy?!" she wailed, collapsing to the floor in a pitiful heap, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I go find him, Amber," James told her as he gently patted her cheeks to make her feel better. "I promise. Stay here." With that, he left the throne room.
The little blonde sniffled a bit and wiped at her eyes, trying to calm herself down. She blinked and looked up when she heard a sharp intake of air.
"Princess Amber?" Baileywick asked in surprise as he set aside a tray he'd been carrying to see to the little girl. "What happened to you? Are you all right?"
Amber's eyes welled up with tears again as she jumped up and hugged the steward for comfort. "Baileywi-i-i-i-ck!" she sobbed, each intake and exhale of breath emphasized on the ending of his name.
Not entirely used to little children anymore, he was sort of at a loss of what to do before some of his old instincts kicked in. He pulled the little girl closer and hugged her as he stood straight, rocking gently to sooth her crying. "Shh, it's all right, Princess Amber. We'll figure out what's going on." That said, he left the room with the blonde girl.
James skidded to a halt in the hallway when he finally located his father. "Daddy!"
Roland blinked and turned around, seeing his son looking a bit less like himself than normal. "James?" He gasped in surprise when the boy ran and jumped into his arms, startling him. "James, what happened to you? Why are you so…tiny?"
"Scary man go poof! Me little. Oh, and Sofia and Amber little too." He grinned.
"I…see…" He rubbed his temple as he noticed Baileywick approaching with… "Amber?" He frowned. "Baileywick?"
"I was going to ask if you knew what happened, Your Majesty," the steward admitted. "And now I see that Prince James is facing the same problem."
"And Sofia," James reminded them with a giggle.
"Where is Sofia?"
"Right here, Your Majesty," Cedric responded as he walked over with the pigtailed girl holding onto his hand. He blinked when he saw the other children in their current youthful states. "Oh, Merlin…"
"You can say that again," Baileywick mumbled as he placed Amber onto the floor beside Sofia, who hugged her sister before drying her tears.
Roland followed suit and put James onto the floor, and he watched as his son also went to comfort his daughter, which caused him to smile. He then replaced it with a frown as he glanced at his two workers. "Any idea what happened?"
"I'm afraid I didn't get much out of Princess Amber," Baileywick lamented. "She was a bit of an emotional wreck."
"Princess Sofia mentioned blue smoke and a scary man," Cedric offered with a pensive look. "I can only speculate someone placed the children under a spell, King Roland."
"Can this be undone?"
"Of course! I just have to determine which spell was used, and then I can state the counter spell and turn the children back to normal."
While the adults were discussing the dilemma, the kids were having a chat of their own…
"Let's play a game," James suggested with a large smile. "We play hide and seek! We hide—they seek!"
Amber smiled as she finally calmed herself from crying. Maybe a game would be a great distraction right now. "Good idea!"
"Where we hide?" Sofia asked.
"Wherever!" the boy responded. He grinned as the adults continued chatting, oblivious to their plan. "Ready?"
Sofia nodded and turned to the men. "We play hide and seek," she announced, causing them to cease their discussion. "Come find us!" She giggled and grabbed her siblings' hands as they took off running.
"Oh, really?!" Roland groaned as he hurried after them, the other two following him.
"Should have seen that coming," Wormwood muttered to Cedric, who shushed him.
When they realized the kids were no longer in sight, the guys paused and decided on a new tactic.
"Let's split up," Roland suggested. "We'll probably get more ground covered that way. If you find one or all of the kids, hold onto them."
"Right," Cedric agreed as he turned and decided to start somewhere familiar: his tower.
"Oh, this is putting us off schedule," Baileywick sighed as he took off toward the kitchen.
Roland shook his head and decided to try the bedrooms first.
The cloaked man chuckled as he observed the confusion from his hiding spot. He enjoyed the chaos, even though it might have seemed rather juvenile (pun intended) to place a rejuvenation spell on the royal children. Was it counterproductive? Probably. Was it entertaining? Absolutely. He grinned and vanished again.
"Princess Amber?" Baileywick called as he checked the kitchen, turning up with no results. "Princess Sofia? Prince James?" He sighed and left, deciding to check elsewhere. "If I were these children, where would I hide?" As if on cue, he had an epiphany. "Of course!" He quickly hurried toward the jewel room, where the finest jewels were stored and monitored by the griffins. Peering into the room, he sighed in relief as he saw the little blonde girl sitting with two too-large necklaces draped around her neck and a ring on every finger.
He had to laugh at how incredibly adorable yet ridiculous she looked. "Princess Amber," he stated calmly, garnering her attention.
Amber laughed softly, realizing she'd been found. "No more hide and seek?" she asked sweetly.
"Not for you, I'm afraid." He relieved her of the jewelry before picking her up and heading out. "Let's see if we can now find your brother and sister."
"James?" Roland called as he walked through the castle. "Amber? Sofia! Come on out, now! Play time is over!" He paused when he heard an excited squeal and laugh echoing off the walls. "Hmm…" He changed his direction and made his way toward the armory, where—as luck would have it—he found James bouncing on top of a cannon as if it were a horse or something. "James!"
"Giddy up!" the boy giggled. "Aww!" He pouted when his father grabbed him and held him against his side. "No more fun for James."
"Stop being melodramatic," the king declared. "You're becoming more like your sister every day."
"Where Amber and Sofia?"
"Excellent question. You three took off running and split up."
James snickered and gave his father a toothy grin. "It hide and seek, Daddy."
"I prefer the time-out game." He smirked as his son whined.
"No time out! No!"
"Would you rather have a nap?"
"…Time out good." He smiled sweetly, causing his father to roll his eyes as he left with his son hanging on to him.
"Children!" Cedric called out as he looked around the base of his stairwell, seeing nothing. He then climbed up the usual trek of stairs, wondering how on earth little legs would even make it up to the top. Even he, as used to it as he was, found the spiral staircase somewhat intimidating at times. "Oh, Wormy, why are little children so fast?" he asked with a grumble as he made it to the top, right outside his workshop.
"Because they're fluffy little bags of energy," the raven quipped with a sneer.
"Oh, Wormwood." He opened the door to his workshop and walked in, only to pause when he saw what could only be described as the most adorable sight ever.
Sofia was standing in the middle of the room with one of Cedric's spare robes practically drowning her and spanning along the floor behind her. Her ponytails were a bit disheveled from all the activities she'd been doing recently. She'd also apparently found one of the practice wands and was waving it around happily, imitating her friend. At the mere sight of her mentor, she beamed happily. "Mr. Cedric! You found me!"
Cedric felt his heart melting at the sweet moment and just smiled as she hurried over to him, holding out her arms to him. "Oh, Sofia…" He gathered her into his arms and chuckled as she cuddled against him. "Dear child, wherever did you find my spare robe?"
"Not telling," she replied with a secretive grin. "It's a secret."
"Hmm… Well, we must get you back downstairs. Your father wants everyone to stay together."
The little girl whined. "I want stay with Mr. Cedric…"
"You are with me, Sofia…"
"In here! It nice in here!"
"She sure is stubborn for a toddler," Wormwood acknowledged with a roll of his eyes.
Cedric smirked. "Tell you what. If you go with me, I'll give you a surprise."
Her blue eyes lit up. "Ooh… Okay!"
Keeping his word, Cedric took the wand from her and summoned up a stuffed bunny, which resembled Clover quite a bit. He smiled as she gasped in awe and held onto it as if her life depended on it. "How's that?"
Sofia grinned and kissed his cheek happily. "Thank you, Mr. Cedric!"
He sputtered in surprise but laughed softly and nodded. "You're… You're welcome, Sofia." With that, he carried her back downstairs.
Pretty soon, they all met up in the throne room after some missteps, the main one being James's constant escaping to steal cookies from the kitchen, much to Chef Andre's dismay. Once they had all of the kids together again, the adults discussed their plan.
"We must find the one responsible for this," Baileywick urged. "Cedric, you said it yourself. The spell requires a counter spell. The only way to do that is to find out which one was used on them, right?"
"Well, quite true," the sorcerer responded. "But even so, it's improbable that we'll locate the one who did this so soon."
"King Roland!" one of the guards announced as he entered the throne room and bowed lowly before standing up again. "The guards have captured an intruder."
Cedric blinked. "I stand corrected."
Roland frowned. "Bring him to me."
The guard bowed again. "Yes, sir!" He left to retrieve the intruder.
They waited a few minutes before the guards walked in with the cloaked man from earlier, causing the kids to gasp.
"Bad man!" James yelled, pointing accusingly at him. "He made us little!"
"Yeah!" Amber echoed with her hands on her hips. "Bad guy!"
Roland approached the cloaked man and lowered his hood, frowning. "I recognize you… Ethelbert Erikson, the wayward wizard who was sent to prison for treason against the royal family—my family."
Ethelbert, formerly the 'cloaked man,' was in his late twenties with shaggy black hair and sea green eyes. His brows were furrowed into a frown as he glared at the king. "So his highness knows me," he scoffed with a shrug. "So what?"
"So you can change my children back to their normal ages."
"And why should I do that?"
"Because if you don't, I will hex you until you can't stand it," Cedric threatened, not realizing Sofia was gently hugging his leg to keep him from hurting the other man. He held his wand toward the wizard, a dark look on his features now. "Tell us the counter spell to return these children to normal."
Ethelbert pressed his lips together firmly, obviously refusing to respond.
The sorcerer smirked. "Fine. Have it your way." He flicked the wand once, which sent a magic spark straight through to the end, its energy coursing right before the intruder's eyes.
"Fine! It's ad aetatem, all right? Now get that thing away from me!"
Cedric glared at him. "For your sake, you better hope you're right." He turned and pointed his wand at the kids. "Ad aetatem!"
Baileywick and Roland watched as the children returned to their normal ages with sighs of relief. Though the trio seemed a bit confused, they appeared to be all right.
"Guards, lock him away under tighter security," Roland ordered. "We can't have him escaping again."
"Yes, sir!" They bowed and carried out their duties, dragging Ethelbert Erikson away.
"…I have a strange craving for cookies all of a sudden," James announced, calming the tension in the room as they laughed.
"Nice job, Cedric," Roland said with a grateful smile.
"Thank you, King Roland."
The kids finally decided on playing a game of Dazzle Ball to keep themselves entertained. Baileywick went back to work, as did Roland. Sofia told her siblings she'd catch up with them as she approached Cedric.
"Um, Mr. Cedric…" She smiled sheepishly as she slid his robe off of her shoulders and passed it back to him. "Here you go… I guess little me liked your robe."
He chuckled and accepted it, draping the fabric over his arm. "Well, it's no trouble at all. In fact, if I'm being quite frank, the sight alone was rather charming: a tiny little princess nearly overwhelmed by a sorcerer's robe. It's not exactly something one sees every day." He smiled as she giggled.
"Yeah…" She nodded toward the stuffed bunny in her arms. "Thanks for this too. You didn't have to do that, you know."
"You try reasoning with a toddler version of yourself," he joked with a grin. "It's not easy."
She smiled. "I guess not!" She hugged him happily, pleased when he returned the hug without hesitation. "Thank you, Mr. Cedric. I'll see you later." With that, she skipped off with her bunny in tow as she left to play a new game with her siblings.
Cedric smiled and shook his head before glancing toward the raven on his shoulder, who looked less than amused. "What?"
"I take back what I said earlier. The children aren't the mushy little bags—you are." He scoffed as Cedric rolled his eyes. "I'm perfectly fine with your new status as 'good guy,' Cedric, but for goodness sake—have at least some edge."
"You are my edge, Wormy," he announced proudly. "Every truly grand sorcerer needs an intimidating sidekick, and no one is more intimidating than a cranky raven."
Wormwood cheered sarcastically. "Hooray for me."
The end